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Ruby was pregnant. And Weiss was getting close to her due date. So I was a little stressed out. Not going to lie. There were going to be four people for me to look after. That was a big deal. Especially in the context of Salem. She loomed over my life.
Ruby wanted to be further along than she currently was. That was true five minutes ago and it was true five minutes from now. She just wanted to already be nuzzling her little baby's face with her own cheek. She was adorable like that. She wanted to kiss her baby's face but she still had six months to wait. We had her first ultrasound and confirmed the baby's heartbeat and development in late November.
It looked like another healthy baby. Which is better than the alternative: an unhealthy baby. But it was still terrifying. Just for its own reasons. Totally separate and unique. But hey, the baby could be developing poorly. And that would have been horrific for a slew of other reasons. Imagine the toll.
So those were my options. Terror and horror. I felt mindless and numb as I was dragged along. I didn't think that I should have kids. For many, many reasons. I thought I wasn't cut out to a parent. But I also knew Weiss and Ruby were better judges of character than I was. I wasn't sure it was possible to do a good enough job with your kids. I'm not sure it mattered who you were. But I thought if it were possible, then Ruby and Weiss were capable of it. Even dragging me along. So… that's sort of where I lived. I was uncomfortable with the notion of my own fatherhood. I mean… for the longest time I believed no one would ever want me. That turned out to be false. Weiss and Ruby and Pyrrha and Rosé wanted me. So maybe I could do this 'kids' thing. Maybe I could pull it off. But if I was going to pull it off, and I'm not saying I was, but if I could do it, then it would be with several checks and balances on me. I'd do it by second guessing myself at every turn until I found a good answer to a problem.
I wouldn't settle for an answer I knew was bad just because I had to settle for an answer. I'd have to make the right call and fast. And I'd have to do it virtually every time. I'd need to get an A+ with very little studying and I'd never been a good student like that. Weiss and Pyrrha could pull that bullshit off but not me. No siree. I was bitch made in that regard. I had a sharp mind for philosophy, strategy and science. My father hadn't wanted a neanderthal. He'd wanted a bleedin' edge mind. And that's what he got. Then he tossed me aside. And you know what? That was his loss and we also take those. I was better off for losing him in my life.
I wanted my kids to have the opposite relationship with me. I wanted them to be better for having me in their lives.
And that was some hard bullshit.
Because I wasn't their friend. I was their father. The two weren't to be confused at all. I owed it to them to be transcendental. I needed to be nearly perfect in taking a stern hand to raising them. But I also needed them to be able to count on me like no one else. I needed to love on them and help them grow and be better than me. I needed their minds to be healthier than mine. I needed their little souls to be less twisted and mangled than mine. I had to help their hearts blossom. And you know what?
Maybe Ruby was right and she was asking too much of me. But I had to try. Because I loved her to death. I loved her so much I would take Barret's advice and try and make something. I would try and build something terrific and terrible. I loved her so much that I had to try my hardest.
So when she told me to tell her when she was crossing the line and was asking me for too much, then I don't know where the fuck that line was. Come on, Rubes. You think I know when you go too far? I have no idea. And Weiss was no help. She had no idea either. It was one of those things we didn't have to answer for now. But we would have to answer it eventually for our kids. Wouldn't we? Maybe not. But we'd have to answer questions like that when our kids were born. There would be situations where there would be no right answer and as parents that was our fault. That's what I mean when I say no one can be a good enough parent. I'm sure there are good parents out there. But that's just abuse in another set of clothes.
So… there's that?
The fact I knew going in that I was bound to fail and reach my own standards of parenthood. I was doomed. But here I was doing it anyway but it wouldn't be me that got hurt in the process. It would be my kids. My son Nebel would pay the price when I met him and I faltered. I'd be fine. I may not even notice I was abusing him. But that didn't make it not abuse. It just made me blind. Which would be fine if I were attempting anything else but I was doing brain surgery on my kids over here. And that's permanent damage. I raise my voice at them wrong and I cause permanent brain damage. That was verbal abuse. But surely I would have to raise my voice at them at some point. Right? I couldn't reason with a toddler. Or a baby. Or even most kids. If they took after Weiss it could be different because I bet she was pretty rational as a child. Which was easier and harder. Why couldn't anything just be easier? Was that too much to ask for?
I hoped my son had a mind like his mother's and less like mine. I got stuck. I trapped myself in my own feedback loops and I got negative and I made myself fucking miserable most of the time. So I prayed that my son wouldn't have that. I was a depressing son of a bitch. Son of an alien bitch. And don't get me wrong, Weiss was a total bitch in her own way. In a way which made me hate how much I loved her but she was a little. I could see it. With her pristine words and all the elegance. If I was a girl and I had to put up with her being better than me in every way, then I would hate her guts.
But I wanted her clear and crystal brain for my child. I was smart if I could be so bold. But I didn't have options. I pretty much had had to be a hunter. What else was I going to do? Weiss could pretty much do whatever she wanted if she hadn't wanted to hunt. That. I wanted that for my son. I wanted him to have options even if he chose to hunt. I wanted him to be able to choose to do other things if it pleased him. Options. I think, if I could do nothing else, I should give my children options. If he wanted to be a writer or a scientist or whatever else the fuck he wanted to be, then I wanted him to have the option. I never really got that option. I was going to be a hunter and that was that. And yeah I probably shouldn't choose to do anything else. This probably worked out for the best. But it worked out by accident mostly. I could have been an abysmal failure. But that would have just left me as that with no other options. I would have been a schizophrenic loser. Instead of the most powerful man alive. I was still a schizophrenic loser. Don't get me wrong.
Weiss had a talented fucking brain. She could study and when she woke up she woke up into her reading and exercising her brain. She went to bed relatively early and woke up early and exercised her body. It was fucking insane. She took care of herself. My own sleep schedule was erratic at best. Even with the medications I was on sedating me slightly. I didn't work my brain out. I had my education from Beacon and from before but that was hard learning. I struggled. I struggled to understand where my knowledge came from. Weiss was like a sheet of glass or ice. Pristine and whatnot. I wanted my son to inherit that from her. Better to have her brain than my brain. For sure. One hundred percent. So I hoped desperately that my son would be like that. Able to take care of themselves and high functioning. My children deserved it.
And would it be too much to ask for my son to look like her? Maybe? And this was a selfish ask. I just wanted it. I wanted him to look like his mom and the daughter afterwards to be a little version of Weiss. It was all selfish. I didn't have a good motivation to ask for it. Not like I did for her brain being passed along. I know she wanted her son to be like me, but… why? Literally why? And in what ways? In that they are a schizophrenic loser? Come on Weiss. Weiss come on. What do you really want for our son? Not my brain. Please let him have a better mind than mine. And I didn't want him to look like me and that was selfish. But please for the love of the gods don't let my son be like me. Please. Whoever is listening. Not like this.
So a little Weiss. Smart. Talented. Beautiful. Not outright funny but charming with a little quirk and sass which made me smile. Weiss wasn't funny. She wasn't a jokester. I loved her but she wasn't cracking me up. But sometimes she sassed me and I just lost it. So I don't know. Not traditionally funny. Not funny in a classic or modern sense. But where she still blew me up a little with her humor.
And for Ruby's child… was it so fucking wrong of me to want a little girl exactly like Ruby? Not a drop of me in her? Whatever dominant genes she got from her mom passed to my daughter? So maybe I had a type and it was my wives. Maybe I did. Maybe if I wanted to see any of myself in my kids I wanted it to be the good parts of me. I'm not one hundred percent sure what those things were. Weiss said I was smart and honest but my smart honesty kinda fucked my days. Ruby said I was selfless and brave but that made me suicidal. So no. No Weiss. No Ruby. None of that in my kids. Maybe a bright and smiling little girl like Ruby full of joy and life and talkative. Why not that. Give me some of that. I wanted a cut of that cake.
Ruby wanted a little girl. And I wanted that a little too. A sweet young daughter. Ruby didn't have book smarts but she had a way with feelings that wasn't stupid. It was fucking genius levels. Ruby could read a fucking room and she knew when somebody was lying. That couldn't be taught or read from books like Weiss's smarts but it was still so fucking on point that I didn't know how to handle that at times.
Ideally some of both.
Ideally my kids get some of both their moms and very little out of me. Weiss's books smarts and talents. Ruby's empathy and sweetness. Why not that? Why do I have to be involved? Why can't Weiss and Ruby bang and have a kid without me in the picture? That would be adorable.
So that's what I wanted. I didn't want to see much of myself in my children. I wanted to be like a ghost passing by with Weiss and Ruby's genes and motherhood surpassing my genes and my fatherhood. I didn't want my son to be like me. Weiss was in love with her first son being like his father and I didn't want that. I wanted him to be… I don't know… free? Where I was trapped. And I was smart enough to know that I did it to my fucking self at the best of times. At the worst of times I was doing it to myself plus my Mother. But at my best I was pretty fucking awful. What did she mean by 'I want my son to be like his father?' We must be looking at two different images. When I looked in the mirror I didn't see something to be imitated. I saw something to be abhorred and possibly probably destroyed. And it was a good thing I was doing suicide by Mom. So I didn't burden people with my existence.
So what was she looking to see?
An honest child? Okay. Sure. But why honest the way I was honest because I brutalized myself with my own logic as I over analyzed everything. I didn't want that for him.
I was handsome? So maybe that's what she meant? Maybe she wanted him to be good looking. All right Weiss. Weiss alright.
I was smart but so was she. Why did she want my kind of brains when her's were on the table as an option. My sort of smart was the sort of smart that led to anxiety and delusional disorder. So maybe none of that for my son? Thanks, Weiss. I knew you'd understand.
Where was the good in me that I wanted to see reflected in my son, then? It was nowhere? I was protective but it led to obsession. I wasn't a model for healthy coping mechanisms or grieving. I was a little on the fucked side and I tended to fling myself at my problems until I solved them. I bashed my head against the stone work until it broke. It wasn't pleasant and I didn't want it for my son. I didn't want any of that. So as long as we're choosing from this menu, and I knew we weren't, we'd get what we'd get, so long as we were choosing from this menu, I wanted Weiss a la cart. I wanted what the chef had while she cooked that bun in her oven.
And wasn't that jaw dropping? That she was sitting over there just cookin' up a baby inside of her body? Really? Everyone else thinks that's normal and not mind blowing? I'm the only one who is really caught up in this thing? Okay. Sure. And Ruby was doing it too! She was baking a cake all on her own. Yeah I did little bullshit but all the hard parts of the baby growing process was being done by Weiss and Ruby. I couldn't really help at all. I was just stuck waiting while they made those little joy bundles. Which… I don't know. I was still coming to terms with it.
I thought it was absolutely incredible as Weiss rubbed a hand over her swollen belly where the baby grew so softly and gently and he hardly kicked. Yeah somethings woke him up but he was a quiet passenger in his mommy's tummy. Even getting as old as he was he didn't throw fits. He was patiently waiting for his time to come and breath in this world.
And so I was a little excited to meet him. A little scared too. But also a little excited.
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-WG