blake thorne doesn't believe in (anatkh) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-22 23:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | aragorn, quasimodo |
Who: Blake and Jack
What: Therapy!
Where: Jack's office.
When: Backdated to before the party, and before Blake's alter switch.
Warnings/Rating: None!
Blake came to his second meeting with Jack ready for war. Jack had started to score away that hard, outer shell of him with far too much ease the last time they met. He wouldn’t allow it to repeat itself. No, this time, he would hold fast. He’d been able to drive one shrink off - why not two, right? It couldn’t be all that difficult. The first one had held out for a year of derision and uncooperative behavior before finally throwing in the towel. He wondered if Jack would last even that long, if Blake really put the pressure on.
Maybe. The man was irritatingly good at his job, which was something of a problem. Jack was a prier, and Blake didn’t want to be pried open. All he wanted was to keep his dad from having an early heart attack due to stress. Was that such a bad thing to ask for? He breezed past the receptionist as she called back to Jack, informing him his patient was in. She gave him the eye as he went by, and Blake tossed off an easy smirk. Yeah, maybe one more session’s worth of flirtation, and the cute receptionist would be on his side too.
He rapped once on the door to the room they’d met in the week before (never let it be said that he was not considerate) and sidled inside. “I hope you know,” Blake said, pausing a few steps inside, “How much you mean to me, when I tell you I actually resisted the urge to ask, ‘What’s up, Doc’?”
Jack laughed at the comment. "It only counts if you're chewing on a carrot when you ask, otherwise," he shook his head, smiling as he gestured for Blake to go ahead and take a seat. It wasn't as if he hadn't been asked before and he'd even had one patient go so far as to do the Bugs voice with him. He probably should have recorded that, looking back on it now. He could have turned it into the chime to let him know that a patient was here.
Dressed casually in a pair of khaki slacks and a navy blue button down tucked into the waist and the long sleeves rolled up his forearms, Jack didn't look at all perturbed by his reportedly difficult patient. It was going to take a lot more than what Blake had shown on their previous session to get him to give up. "How have you been Blake? Any big plans for the holiday season?"
Blake settled into the chair he'd occupied during their last session, that clearly-meant-for-doctor-and-not-patient chair. He liked it. It was comfortable. And the idea of laying back while someone preached over him and tried to pick him apart didn't exactly appeal. He didn't sling his legs over the arm this time, just settled in comfortably and leaned against the side, slumped back and legs crossed at the ankle.
He fished through one of his inner pockets. "Big plans?" He removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and pushed back the top, which didn't quite close right. No cigarette case here. He'd already packed the thing outside, so he just plucked it from its home and tucked the cigarettes back into his jacket, producing a lighter from his pocket. "Not really." He planted the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, but maintained eye contact with Jack, daring him to tell him he couldn't smoke inside, like a naughty schoolboy in the boys' bathroom. "Might go back home to get drunk and swap Christmas presents, might stay here and do the same thing, but with more drugs and more strippers. It's kind of fifty fifty right now."
If Blake thought that Jack wouldn't tell him he couldn't smoke in here, he was wrong. "No smoking, Blake. If you feel the need, we can step outside, but not in here." As much as he loved his chair, Jack was just as comfortable sitting on the traditional couch.
Once more, he didn't have a notebook, but instead focused his attention on Blake, noting the slouch in his chair and that daring look in his eye. Maybe he was going to try harder today to push Jack away, but he wasn't at all daunted by the prospect. Like he'd told his patient before, he knew what he was getting into before Blake stepped in the door. He wanted to help, even if by all accounts Blake was an unruly patient.
"The way you continue to mention drugs makes me wonder if I need to refer you to a rehab center," he remarked. Jack didn't honestly believe that Blake was addicted, but there wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind that Blake did use and that he used them to escape the thing that he didn't like to talk about.
"But I've got an oral fixation," Blake insisted. The cigarette was still resting in the corner of his mouth, but he plucked it out from between two fingers. "You're telling me none of your patients like carcinogens and nicotine? What the fuck is wrong with these people? They must be crazy." A bright flash of a smile.
Blake froze for a moment in surprise, and then broke into an incredulous laugh. "Seriously? You wouldn't dare, doc. You don’t have the balls." There had, for a second, been something like panic in that space between recognition of what Jack was suggesting and the realization that it was unlikely at best. Even if Jack managed it, Blake had enough money that rehab would be cushy, comfortable, and quick. It wasn't the separation from drugs that had called up that momentary interlude of fear. It was the thought of being locked up with all those sober people, depressed and shaking with the DTs, wolfing down their methadone like candy, hospital smell and group therapy sessions where they'd want him to talk his feelings out, constant one on ones with shrinks, and no escape valve to hide down from any of it. It sounded like a nightmare, one short step up from a mental hospital. No fucking way.
"I'm sure they do," Jack responded easily. "But they take care of that outside, not in here. Doctor's office, remember?" Standing up, he went to one of his bookshelves and pulled down a jar filled with gold wrapped candies. They were his favorite, but at the bottom he had several peppermint swirls. "Butterscotch or peppermint?" He asked, taking out two of each. Whatever Blake didn't want, he'd keep.
The laugh was a bit of a surprise, the panic less so. Jack knew that people had fears about being locked up, whether they were well founded or not. "If I thought you needed it, I absolutely would," he said quietly. It wasn't a threat but it had all the weight of a promise. It wasn't something he ever wanted to do, but that didn't change the fact that he would if his patient needed it. Maybe Blake's old therapist would have let it go and passed it off for someone else to deal with, but it wasn't in Jack's nature to sit back while someone destroyed themselves and their life.
Blake grinned from ear to ear. “Peppermint,” he said. And he didn’t light up the cigarette, after all, just took the denial as something to keep to heart against him. Instead, he kept the cigarette between his fingers, and flipped the lighter open and closed, open and closed. That had to get annoying after a while.
Blake’s smile went nasty indeed, and entirely shut down. “If you think you could get away with that, you’ve got another thing coming to you. You live in Vegas, man. You ought to know not to fuck with people with money.” It was an ugly threat, and a promise, too, and it caught in his throat like a bone. He would do it, he knew he would, because he knew he was a shit, and a selfish asshole. Whatever it took to stay out of rehab, whoever he needed to pay to discredit his shrink, he’d do it. They weren’t going to get to lock him up somewhere. He was just doing this as a favor for his dad, after all. It wasn’t supposed to really mean anything.
Blake paused, collecting himself, and the anger and fear drained from his face. “Besides, I don’t have a problem. You can like to get fucked up and not have a problem. I’m not even a shrink and I know that.”
Jack handed both the peppermints to Blake while the younger man smiled that vicious little smile. He'd cut his teeth on murders and rapists, the dregs of society locked up and kept away from the rest. Even now, there were times when he treated the mob wives and knew what they were doing. Some would threaten to kill him, others to break his legs, but he didn't take Blake's words as one.
Blake might have wanted him to, but being afraid of someone, of what they could do only gave them power over you. "I've lived in Vegas most of my life," he said calmly. "Enough to know that money doesn't fix everything." Blake's father could have found someone that would have taken the money and pronounced his son completely fit, but that wasn't Jack. Those words wouldn't pass his lips until they were true.
"I'm here to help you Blake, not just throw you into some place." His smile turned soft as he unwrapped the butterscotch and tossed it into his mouth.
Blake watched Jack, closer and sharper than he had before. "...what's your game, man?" he asked. He was officially at a loss. "You're a fucking mystery wrapped up in an enigma. Nothing gets past you, or you're at least good at acting like it doesn't. You could have been a secret agent with that poker face." He accepted the peppermints, and noisily opened the wrappers. "I get this feeling that if somebody knocked you clean out, you'd just pat them on the fucking shoulder or something. What gives?"
Blake dropped the cigarette and lighter into his lap to busy himself with the peppermint. He took the piece of candy, and, getting a good/bad idea, pressed it to his lips, and sucked on it lightly. It was a lascivious little maneuver, eyelids dropping centimeter by centimeter. He ran his tongue over the little red stripes before letting the sweet disc roll into his mouth, a smooth show of tongue past his open lips. Then, he winked.
It was the bipolar show - anger and fear to sultry seduction in a blink. It cheered Blake up, which was what mattered. Seduction, even seduction as a joke, or a knowing play on someone who would essentially operate as a wall to sexual impulses, put him firmly back in charge of this uncomfortably fluid situation, which was beginning to feel more and more like quick sand beneath his feet. “But you’d throw me in some place if you thought it’d help me,” Blake pointed out, as if nothing had happened, smirking a knowing smirk.
Jack watched Blake's mouth and tongue working around the candy, but with all the bland mildness of a bowl of oatmeal. Plain oatmeal. Since as long as he could remember, he didn't see his patients as sexual. He could note if they were male or female, pretty or handsome, if they took care of themselves or not, if they were fit, slim, underweight, overweight, if they brushed their hair or used 10 different styling products to make it look artfully messy.
But what he couldn't say about any of them was if they were attractive. He could note if other people found them attractive, but he couldn't note that for himself. They weren't his dating pool -- they were his patients. It was his job to help them solve their problems, not to have sex with them.
"Depends on if they were a patient or not," he said, tucking his own candy into his cheek. "If it was a one time thing or not. I'm not a punching bag." The other candy he slid into his right, front pocket. "And yes. If i thought that was the last option to help you, I'd do my best to make sure you went."
Blake didn't pout at the clear rejection, but dropped the seduction completely, as if it had never been attempted. Well, scratch that one for now. It'd take some more wearing down to get Jack there, it looked like. "I'd like to see you get in a fucking fight," he mused. "That would seriously be something. I'd want it on film just to prove you took a swing at somebody." He grinned. "Have you fought anybody? Or did mommy tell you to use your words?"
A narrowed eye trained on Jack. "You'd try," he said, with pursed lips and a small smile. If Jack was looking for a battle of wills, he was sure as hell going to get one.
Jack didn't harp on it once Blake dropped the act. Rejection was hard enough to take without anyone calling attention to it, even if he was sure that his patient was doing it in an attempt to push his buttons. There was the instinct to say no, to deny anything about his mother, but he pushed that back. It wasn't something he was going to talk about to any of his patients, particularly not this one who would likely use it against him. "I'll make sure to ask someone to record it for you," he said easily, smiling, joking almost.
Nothing was said about the contest of wills and words. The fight wasn't needed and he wasn't going to waste energy on it. "How about you? Ever get in a fight?"
Blake noticed that Jack avoided the question, so, naturally, he repeated it. "I bet you did get in fights as a kid," Blake mused. "And then something happened to turn you into a pacifist who forces people to work shit out. Like a karate movie, but in reverse."
Blake shrugged in response to Jack's question. "Fucking of course. I like having sex with guys. That freaks a lot of straight guys out, shockingly, and this," he gestured to his body, "Doesn't look like much. But I'm scrappy, and I'm not a pussy. They don't see that shit coming, generally, and the next thing they know I just knocked their teeth out."
Jack shook his head in regards to the repeated question, but didn't elaborate. There had been no fights in his childhood, mostly because he'd been separated from other children, unable to play or fight with them while he'd been with his mother.
"Have you been in a lot of fights?" He asked mildly, his eyes not following the gesture that Blake made. It invited a full body look, but Jack knew Blake was already lean, perhaps on the edge of thin without being skinny. Or scrappy, as his patient defined himself. However, all this talk about fights was only a distraction from what Jack really wanted to talk about with Blake -- the thing they needed to talk about. "Were you ever charged with anything related to those fights?"
Blake smiled, slowly. It was an 'I know you know what I know' smile. He knew where Jack was trying to veer them, and he wasn't going to make it easy on him. "Nah," he said. "One time they booked me for knocking out a trust fund kid in a bar, about six months back, but the kid decided not to press charges. Turns out he didn't want to look like a pussy and have his daddy go fight his battles for him." He ran a hand through his hair, combing the long mess from his face. "Smart kid. Good thing I knocked some sense into him. Now he knows how much reputation matters, and he knows better than to call me a faggot and think he can get away with it." It hadn’t been that simple, the provocation, but that was another detail that Jack didn’t really need to know. No open chinks in his armor, that was the plan, no exposing weaknesses willingly if he could dodge revealing them or skip neatly over the questions.
It might not have been a detail that Blake wanted Jack to know, but it was one he picked up all the same. There was nothing to show that Blake had such a short fuse which meant the younger man likely wasn't telling him something. He gave another one of those brief, slow smiles. "That's very fortunate for you," Jack said mildly. Blake could keep this one for now, there was another subject that Jack needed to broach with his patient. "Did they ever book you for anything to do with Eric?"
Blake sighed to disguise a spike of anger, and a tensing of muscle under the skin. No one got to say Eric's name. Even Blake didn't say it anymore, because hearing it, hearing those two tight, clicked syllables, that rolling of tongue and collusion with sound, drummed against his chest like a punch. "Shockingly no, until they thought I fucking murdered him." He picked up the lighter and the cigarette again. The cigarette went between his fingers, and the lighter into his hands - the base pinched with the left, the cap with the right - and he began flicking it open and closed again. He pursed his lips, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. "I guess it's my dashing good looks that make people think I like kidnapping people. Like those villains in old movies, you know, with the big mustaches? I'm not really a 'tie them to the train tracks' kind of guy. There's perfectly good beds for that sort of thing."
The fidgeting with the lighter, the cigarette between Blake's fingers and the fast turn from Eric without so much as a mention of his name was telling. As was the return to overtly sexual comments. Jack took a moment, simply watching, studying Blake as he framed the next question. "You must have been fairly close for them to look at you as a suspect." There was the possibility that Blake and Eric had been enemies of some sort, but Jack didn't think so. That didn't add up.
Blake shrugged, clicking the lighter again shut, again open. "I don't think he was really fucking anybody else," Blake said. "Far as I know, anyway. They always go for the person they're having sex with, right? Especially when that person's dad owns a multi-national corporation." Another short, sharp click of the lighter top. "I was real fucking convenient for them." Which was true enough. Even if he was coloring things, they’d gone for Blake because of the ease of it. “Somebody gave them some anonymous tip, anyway,” he said. He glanced up. “You really didn’t go read up on it after I saw you last week, huh?” That seemed strange to him. It either showed a peculiar commitment to knowing only what his patients told him, or a weird lack of curiosity.
It was the former, rather than the latter as to why Jack hadn't gone looking. There were things he could learn from the news reports undoubtedly, but he wasn't here to treat those. He was here to treat Blake and as the young man had been involved, there wasn't a better source for what happened to him. There was another slight pause before he asked, "And you? Were you seeing anyone else?" He already knew his answer, but he needed to hear it from Blake. "Is that the only reason they investigated you?"
Blake shot Jack a glance from under half-closed lids. "We going to talk about this all day?" he asked. Under the irritation, there was something distinctly angry that he even needed to have this conversation. "I wasn't seeing anybody else right that second, no. They came after me because I was fucking him, somebody tipped them off, and I paid the ransom money out of my dad's accounts when they called because it seemed like the halfway decent thing to do, keeping them from killing the guy. I'm not a total fucking monster." He flipped the lighter shut again, this time with a vicious cross from his palm. "I didn't fucking do it," he spat. The insinuation, whether it was really there in Jack's words or not, clearly hit a nerve. He turned to look at him. "If I had, I'd be in jail right now. I'm not exactly a master fucking criminal.”
"I didn't think you had," Jack said, as easy and mild as he usually was. "And I didn't think you were." That wasn't his suspicion and even if he had faith in their system of law, he knew it wasn't infallible. Guilty people walked the streets every day. His suspicion, instead, was that there was far more about this situation than what Blake was letting on. "Police often look at the person closest to an individual. Family. Friends. Spouses. Lovers. Enemies." Eric and Blake didn't seem to be in the latter category, nor in the very first one. But, as often as Jack did push, he knew there was a time for it and a time when something else was needed. "If there's something else you'd rather talk about, we can."
Jack pressed, and he pressed, but then, at long last, he backed off. Blake felt a kind of triumph, and jumped on the opportunity to change subjects without hesitation. That insinuation of the 'person closest' had earned Jack a look that was difficult to read, but when he let it go, Blake went into motion again. The stillness of anger, and a steel wall going up, melted into something spontaneous and playful again. He needed to keep Jack on safer topics. "Or fuck buddies," Blake pointed out, and that was the only response he gave Jack's suggestion. It wasn't his best work, a hurried deflection as he ran toward the opening to not talk about this anymore. "Yeah. How about the bitch in my head?" he asked. "You've got one too, right? You're on the journals. She's gone all quiet. I think she might have ditched me for good."
There wasn't a hint of surprise on Jack's face when Blake took the opening and ran with it like he had his feet attached to rockets. A small smile quirked his mouth. The deflection was weak at best, but Jack didn't call him on it, not this time. Given his anger a few minutes ago, Jack wanted him to regain his footing a bit, settle into something else before it became a hostile session instead of one where anything could be accomplished. "If you like." He nodded in response. "I do. Do you not like yours?"
"She's just a bitch," Blake said, dismissive. "But she used to at least talk and try to get me on her side and shit. Now she doesn't talk anymore." He tucked the cigarette behind his ear, since he wasn't going to get to smoke it any time soon, clearly. "I saw some of the people on the journals talking about theirs going away and switching." He shrugged. "Could be alright, I guess, if she's going and somebody else is moving in." He crossed his fingers. "Let's hope it's not a fucked up serial killer or something."
"It happens," Jack said quietly. Was it too personal a detail to let Blake know that it had happened to him? There was a marked pause as Jack decided. It was part of the reason why he wanted to help those, especially those with journals: he had one too. "Mine did," he finally said with a short, sharp nod. "It's not bad, but let me know if you end up with a serial killer," he said, lightly, smiling. "I think it's the quiet ones we have to watch out for." He relaxed against the back of the couch, decision made, moving forward. "Who would you want, if you had a choice?"
"I'll keep you up to date," Blake drawled. "Can't have a crazy person in my head interfering with therapy, after all." Spoken with the utmost sarcasm. That was why he was here, wasn't it? Because people thought he was crazy, that he must be. Because his father did. Because no one could conceivably understand recovery without utter devastation first. Some people just moved on. "I'd want someone who left me the fuck alone, honestly," he said. "That, or somebody with a better sense of humor than the spooky bitch. She did not like my jokes one bit."
The sarcasm betrayed Blake, but it was usually his tone, his choice of words that led to the biggest clues about how he was feeling. "You'd need two appointments a week then," Jack teased, the smile coming easily, something lighthearted in the depth of their conversation. "One for you and one for your person. Though you might have to share the general distaste of therapy then." All this talk of others made him think about Aragorn, and Charming, and the one he still didn't know but was glad that he was gone. "I hope you end up with one you do like," he finally said, quietly, honestly. "Or at least one that can appreciate your sense of humor if that's what you want."
"I can spread it around," Blake said with a smirk. "I'm always willing to sprinkle some distaste on anybody who wants some. It won't make you fly, but it will make you act like a bitch." Jack's gentle wish that Blake would end up with someone he liked was more difficult to dismiss. Well, there couldn't be any harm with acknowledging that, even if it did get the bastard's hopes up. "Well...thanks," he said. He shifted in the chair. "Fingers crossed I don't need to bump up to two appointments a week, even though I know how much you’d love seeing my smiling face for an extra hour.”
The quip about seeing Blake for that extra hour was unremarked upon. Sarcasm wasn't Jack's natural route, nor wouldhe say that he didn't want to see the younger man. If he needed help, of course Jack would see him. "I'll keep my fingers crossed," he finally said. "That you get what you wish for." It was a mild, sweet wish and one that Jack honestly hoped did come true for Blake.
However, that wish and this conversation weren't as telling, weren't at the heart of what was wrong. Like before, Jack led gently into it. "While we're on wishes, any big Christmas hopes this year?"
Blake cocked a brow. "Christmas wishes?" He thought on that one for a second. "Peace on Earth? Goodwill towards men? That I win the Miss America pageant?" Those all seemed like pretty good wishes to go with. He snapped his lighter open and shut again. "That you let me crack a window next time and light up so I'm not so cranky? Jonesing for a cigarette is seriously not conducive to proper therapy, I’m pretty sure." He shrugged. "I wish I don't have to go back to the East coast, and that there's some halfway decent tail at the Christmas parties I got invited to."
The mention of the cigarette had Jack's eyebrow raising. He didn't like cigarettes and from a medical standpoint, he knew all the downfalls of them, but tackling that this time around wasn't one of his goals. "We can go outside if you'd rather. Spot could use a trip outside." It might be a good idea anyway, get up, stretch, move around instead of sitting inside this office all the time. "Are you going back East to see your father?"
Blake stood, clicking the lighter again. “Alright,” he said. “We’ve only got like ten left anyway, right? Enough time for me to get a smoke and you to walk the patient and the dog.” He moved toward the doorway. “Maybe, maybe not.” He had the winter before, but the visit had culminated in a battle about Blake attending the company Christmas party. “I went last year, but we got in a fight. He wanted me to go to the company Christmas party, and I said no.” Blake snorted at the memory. There had been, of course, more at stake than a silly party. “He didn’t like that too much.”
Jack didn't point out that only one of them would be on a leash -- it was too easy to take the wrong way and it would be just his luck that Blake might like something like that. Better to stay away from it. Standing, he led the way out of his patient room to his office, summoning Spot with a quiet call and a click of his tongue. One hand found its way to the dog's head, scratching him affectionately as Jack picked the leash up off his desk and snapped it into the ring of Spot's collar. "Why didn't you?" He asked as they walked out of the reception area and towards the door that led outside.
Blake smiled faintly at the dog, running his fingers briefly over his head. He did like dogs. He'd thought about getting one, but it didn't really seem fair to keep a pet around, considering how much time he spent outside his apartment. "Didn't feel like dealing with anyone in the company," he said. The moment they were outside, Blake sighed with relief and pulled the cigarette out, lighting it with a practiced flick of his wrist. Then the lighter went away at last, back into his pocket, while he pulled a long drag from the cigarette. The burn was grounding, and he took a second drag before going on, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. "They all thought I had the guy grabbed to get money out of my father, because they're sycophantic idiots to the last fucking man." He took another drag. "I didn't have anything to prove to them, and I wasn't going to go parade in front of them just to prove how well-adjusted I was, and what a good job I was doing pulling my shit together, which is what my father wanted."
The guy. That must have been Eric. Jack deliberately stayed a little upwind of Blake as his patient lit up. He still paused, politely, while they stopped so that Blake could, but as soon as the second inhale was done and they were moving again, Jack let Spot make a beeline for the nearest grassy crop to relieve himself. "Did he ever think so? Your father." It couldn't have been easy going into a situation like that, which was likely why Blake hadn't gone. If he had been in the same situation, people at the hospital thinking that he had done something, he would have avoided it too. But no, he'd been a boy, too little to know anything when his mother took him from home.
“No,” Blake said, mouth set, briefly, into a thin, grim line. No, his father had known better. He had known what Eric meant. He brushed that off, flicking ash onto the sidewalk. “He knew I wouldn’t risk getting thrown in prison for something so fucking dumb. Drugs, sure. Sex, maybe. Kidnapping? Who the fuck gets into kidnapping for the fun of it?”
There was always that rush after Eric was mentioned to cover things back up again, paste on the surly attitude to hide whatever might exist underneath. Jack only had to see it a few times to know it would happen again, but that didn't stop a brief huff of laughter, more like an excited exhale from coming when Blake mentioned getting into kidnapping for fun. "People do it when there's something they want," he said quietly. His mother certainly had. It hadn't been about ransom or getting something out of his father, but she had done it out of the ill belief that Jack was not safe. Jack glanced down at Spot as he squatted down to do his business. "Do you want to see your father for the holiday?" He asked, veering away from the kidnapping and Eric.
Because they wanted something. “Yeah,” Blake said, with a cloud of smoke and a hoarse, choked little laugh. The quick little expiation came without explanation, but with enough underlying bitterness that he had to scramble to cover that up as well. God, it all made him so tired. “I don’t know. I guess. I’ll probably go back. I mean, I think he knows better than to try to drag me to some boring as fuck party again.” Blake rolled his shoulders. Now he was feeling black again. When had that crept up on him? All this talk couldn’t be good for him in the long run. “Christmas is kind of a bad time for him. He tends to get to thinking about mom, if nobody’s around to distract him.” ‘And were Christmases a bad time for Blake?’ came the anticipated question in his head. No, Christmas was fine. It was April when he buried himself in hookers and booze and didn’t come out of a cave of flesh and whiskey and bad stage lights until the 22nd had come and gone.
Jack listened, one eye on Spot as the dog did his business. He suspected that this Christmas was going to be hard on him, with the loss of his aunt there was little to be cheerful about. Oh, they'd still go through the motions, do everything like they'd always done it since Jack left for school. Dinner at a nice restaurant, a single gift. Sometimes a wallet, sometimes a watch, expensive and tasteful, but nearly impersonal. Add to that the introduction of Val, someone he still hadn't spoken to his father about, and Jack wanted to think less about the holidays and what he was going to do after them. "Do you do something that's just the two of you?" He asked quietly as Spot stood and walked back to them, business apparently completed.
“Christmas presents,” Blake said. “When I was a kid, he’d always send the help home with a bonus and do shit for himself for a change on Christmas day. Cook breakfast and everything Christmas morning, you know.” And then there would inevitably be a visit to the relatives late in the day, with more presents, more talking, laughter and punch in silver tureens. Those were good memories, warm ones.
Blake finished off his cigarette and dropped it to the sidewalk, crushing it out under his foot. “We pretty much done?” he asked, abruptly. All this talk about his dad was getting him kind of wigged, and he’d be glad to get away and stop thinking about any of it again.
Jack could imagine it, almost. He wasn't sure if what he thought was anywhere close to the truth, but he hoped for Blake that it was. "Yeah," he said with a nod. "I'll see you after Christmas?" Whenever Blake got back into town -- Jack was planning on staying here this holiday season. "Call me if things get bad and you need to talk."