ᴠɪᴋᴛᴏʀ (mobdog) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-09-28 23:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [09] september, sasha whittaker, viktor scherbatsky |
Who: Vic Scherbatsky and Sasha Whittaker
When: 9/10, 1PM
Where: Their house in the Greenbelt
What: Vic and Sasha have a lot to get off their chests. Warning for feels!
It felt like everything echoed off the walls of a house that felt emptier than it ever had before. Two less people were inside of it and as much as Sasha tried (and failed) not to notice that fact, it was like a glaring neon sign each time he entered a room expecting to see Max or Marina and then was struck with the very painful reminder that they were both waiting out their fates in the quarantine center. It sucked. What sucked even more was that with Max gone it was harder to ignore the tension between himself and his Dad. Sasha would have liked to have said that it had only just begun when everyone had found themselves in quarantine. But he knew that wasn’t true. This tension had been building up for months -- probably since that first incident where he was attacked by that ghoul, or maybe even before that. It made the house feel even emptier to him, because while Vic was here, he wasn’t necessarily here because of the weird wall of tension that had built up. “Hey,” Sasha had entered the kitchen expecting to find it empty, but his Dad was there. It’s not that the two of them had been avoiding each other -- that would have been impossible, especially with Sasha on lockdown -- but he also definitely wasn’t going out of his way to search his dad out. It hurt to much to acknowledge there was tension there and not know what exactly he had done to earn it. “Have you talked to Marina today?” Small talk, hopefully a topic of conversation that wouldn't lead to stirring up tensions. "Yeah, this morning. I was thinking we could call her again together if you wanted." Vic took some sandwich supplies out of the fridge, setting them on the counter, and started to make himself a sandwich. He hadn't been oblivious to the tension between the two of them either, but Sasha didn't look like he was whining or bitching about being shut up in the house just then. Vic was trying to keep an open mind about this particular interaction, hoping it wouldn't blow up in his face like so many others had over the last few days -- even on the anniversary of Zhenya's passing. Especially since Sasha's birthday was coming up soon, too. "You want a sandwich?" It would have been a lie if Sasha said that calling Marina would be easy. It wasn’t. Every single time they called he worried it might be the last time they spoke with her, or worse, he was plagued with guilt over the fact that he hadn’t been strong enough emotionally to do any of this stuff for his own mom while she had been in quarantine. “Ah, yeah, sure. I mean if she’s up for talking again,” Sasha answered, unsure how much was too much to be calling Marina while she was locked up in the quarantine center. “And if you’re offering, yeah, I’ll take a sandwich.” He added as he took up a spot on one of the stools at the counter in the kitchen. Sasha thought that so far they hadn’t struck on something that might stir up the tension between them, he was only hoping he didn’t misstep and set his dad off. It seemed he was prone to doing that lately. "I got roast beef and a little pastrami left over," Vic said, sticking to neutral, boring topics while he was still struggling to read his son. He busied himself with laying out four pieces of bread, then some shredded lettuce on the two closest to him. Then tomato, then the meat. "Kinda reminds me of New York when we can get it. Makes that shitshow of a grocery store worth it when they have it in stock." He topped both sandwiches with some mayonnaise, covered them both, and passed one over to Sasha. They made eye contact as he did, but he didn't say anything else besides: "Let me know if it sucks, but I think it's pretty good." Sasha found himself smiling slightly at the mention of New York. Of all the places they had lived when he was younger, New York remained his favorite. When the sandwich was passed to him he gave his dad a quick “Thank you,” before he took a bite. It didn’t suck, actually, he had to agree with Vic in that it was closest to New York they would probably ever get again. “It’s good,” he said around a mouthful of sandwich, practically able to hear his mom’s voice admonishing him for talking with food in his mouth. That thought sent a jolt of sadness through him and just like that Sasha felt like he was plunged back into reality. A reality where he didn’t know why or what it was, but lately it didn’t take much for him to set Vic off. “Probably the closest we’ll get to a proper New York deli sandwich.” Sasha added as he tried to shake off the moment of sadness he had felt. “Do you remember the name of the one we used to go to?” He asked out of the blue, hoping that maybe a walk down memory lane would go better than half their other conversations had over the last few days. "David's," Vic said without missing a beat. "That place that was kinda out of the way but had the best fucking sandwiches in the world." Sasha had just been a kid when they'd gone there as a family, but Vic could still remember walking with him and his mother out of the subway stop and down the street to the restaurant. New York was probably some kind of hellhole these days, considering what had happened to the coasts. Vic thought it was a god damned shame. Sasha nods. “Right, David’s,” a ghost of a smile flickered across his features. “I think we went there so much they had our order memorized.” It had been nearly ten years now since they lived in New York, and yet somehow that place still felt way more like home than Texas ever truly had. Sasha felt like in a lot of ways New York was where he, Vic and his mom had become a family so a lot of those early memories are tied up in that place. “Mom even grounded me from there once, I think.” He frowns then, finding it that much more difficult to talk about Zhenya while Marina awaited her fate in quarantine. What if a year from now, or two years from now, they wound up having the same kind of conversation? Except this time about Marina. “Do you think Marina was serious about grounding me if we don’t call her?” It was an out of a the blue kind of question, but one Sasha had been wondering about since their phone call on the 7th. Vic set his sandwich down and reached for his bottle of beer, taking a sip as he considered this. Marina ran her mouth with such frequency, it was hard to know most of the time what was serious and what wasn't. He couldn't blame Sasha for it, even if the question was kinda random. "Don't think you'd get grounded in particular but I'm thinking she wouldn't be happy if we didn't call her." And he planned to keep in constant contact, as much as Marina could stand even if half the time it ended up with one or both of them getting weepy. "Why? You don't want to call her?" Almost instantly Sasha regretted having changed the subject so randomly. It might have been weighing on his mind, but no matter how hard he tried not to compare the two he could get past the fact that calling would be something he never did for his mom. “No, I mean it's not that,” he sighed and took another bite of his sandwich. Taking his time to chew and swallow before he added. “It’s just, I,” Sasha felt like each word was getting caught in his throat. “I never did that for mom,” the words finally come out in a rush and Sasha is practically boring holes in the counter with how seriously he's looking at it. “I never did any of this for her,” he glanced up at his dad then. “I didn't even say goodbye.” Vic swallowed hard, his jaw setting obviously as he glanced over at his son. It had been tough for him and Zhenya, knowing that they hadn't been able to get ahold of Sasha right before the end, and Vic had made his peace with it simply because he had to, not because he liked it. "Ain't nothing gonna change that," he said, though his voice wasn't raised above its normal volume. "It happened and you just have to make sure that if you didn't like the way it turned out then, you don't do the same thing now." Talking about his mom, about the day they had lost her. It was something Sasha never did. He would like to say it was entirely because of the pain he felt over losing her, but some of it was because of guilt. Even now as he talked about it, Sasha couldn’t ignore the heavy weight that had settled in the pit of his stomach, or the way he wished he could go back and rewind time. “No, I know,” he murmured, fighting the words out around the lump in his throat and the tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “It just…” Sasha paused as he struggled to put into words how he felt. “Just feels shitty. I thought somehow if I didn’t acknowledge what was happening with mom, it wouldn’t happen…” It’s the first time he has admitted this feeling aloud to someone else. Sure, he had muttered it to himself numerous times when he was alone and angry about it. But never, not even once had Sasha said those same words out loud in the presence of another human being. He felt stupid or silly for being so naive to think if he stuck his head in the sand like an ostrich something terrible wouldn’t happen. Even more, Sasha worried that his dad might say just that -- that he had been stupid, silly and selfish. Vic was silent for a long time, his attention firmly on his son whether he was comfortable with the focus or not. If he was being honest, he'd thought those words before in some of his worse moments, especially right after Zhenya had passed. But it wasn't gonna do either of them any good for him to come right out and say that, especially when they were going through the exact same thing. As much as they had been fighting lately, he didn't want to set off another one. "Look. It happened," he said again, breaking the silence that had settled between them, but the words still lacked any real anger or disappointment. "You don't have to explain it to me if you don't want to, 'cause I get it and I ain't holding it against you. It feels shitty and it sucks but you have to be able to come to terms with it and forgive yourself about it otherwise you're just gonna keep being in this place where you can't move on." Vic paused, resting his hands on the counter's edge, before adding: "I'm not gonna pretend it wasn't a mistake, 'cause you and I both know it was, but I’m not gonna let you make the same mistake again 'cause you keep getting hung up about what happened before." The longer the silence drug in the more Sasha worried that his dad was winding up to yell at him for his behavior back then, possibly say all the things he’d never said since that moment. Surprise flickered over his features instead as Vic finally spoke. He was right, Sasha knew it was a mistake and he knew he was getting hung up on it. Two years had passed, he should have worked through some of this long ago. “I'm sorry,” the apology comes out before Sasha has fully formed the reason for it. “I can't tell mom that, it's too late. But it wasn't just mom who had to deal with my decision…” Sasha studied his dad now as he tried to read every twitch of a muscle or look in his eyes for some kind of sign as to what his response might be. “And not just for that, but everything I seem to be doing that has led to a fight lately,” Sasha shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich, unsure if he was opening a can of worms here or not. Vic's throat felt all tight with emotion as he listened to Sasha, a feeling that was all too familiar these days. Ever since Marina had gone into quarantine four days ago, followed by Max two days ago, the two of them had been walking on eggshells around each other, but it was all too easy for them to start screaming at each other. In some ways, it was worse than right after Zhenya had died, when Vic had actually had all that resentment towards the son who'd been absent. "It's all right," he said, though it wasn't a brush off by any means. Vic knew it was good for them to talk about what had happened two years ago, and now he could look back on that and know for sure -- instead of just guessing and hoping -- that Sasha did regret how it had gone down. But they had so much shit to work through that was happening in the here and now, the thought of adding all the baggage from before sounded tough as fuck. He just didn't really know what else to say, so he reached out and clasped a hand on Sasha's shoulder. "We're gonna get through this." Sasha could admit that as much as he fought against being considered a kid -- because he really wasn’t -- right now that was exactly what he felt like when his dad assured them they would get through this. “Are we going to?” He asked quietly, his need to seek out assurance stronger than his need to look tough. “We barely survived losing mom,” Sasha paused. “I--i don’t know if I’ll survive another loss like that.” Did that make him weak? Still, the idea of losing Max or Marina made his stomach flip-flop and his blood run cold. “It’s fucking selfish I know, but haven’t I already lost enough?” Sasha looked at his dad with pleading eyes. “Haven’t we lost enough?" He knew that loss was still a part of the world they lived in, but couldn’t fate spare them? He had already lost both biological parents by the time he was seventeen, wouldn’t it be cruel to take another parent from him or his brother? Did fate care? Vic nodded firmly, getting up from his chair and crossing over swiftly, bending down a bit so he and Sasha were face to face. He moved his other hand up onto Sasha's shoulder. "Listen to me," he said, voice heavy with emotion. "This shit's hard, and it ain't gonna get easier even if they do get out alive, God willing. Once we get 'em back, if you're anything like me it's just gonna remind you of what this feels like to almost lose them, and you're gonna think about it every time they go out to work or school. You're gonna think about it until they come home safe and sound, and even though that's gonna make it a little better it's still not gonna make it any god damned easier. Whenever you care about someone like you care about your mom, or Marina, or Max, this is the risk we take in a world like this." Fuck, Vic was terrified of losing both of them, too. But if it happened -- and he couldn't just pretend it wasn't a possibility -- he needed to make it through that for Sasha, and for everyone else who depended on him. "As long as you're alive you're not gonna give up. I didn't raise you to not make it through whatever life throws at you, all right? We don't know what's gonna happen, and you better believe I'm praying every day that it ain't gonna turn out like that, but i know you and I know you're tough. You're gonna get through anything that happens as long as you face it head on. And I know you can do it." Sasha soaked in every last thing his dad had to say. It was all true, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was all stuff he had needed to hear. Life wouldn’t just get easier once Max and Marina were out of quarantine (and they had to make it out of quarantine), Sasha still felt panic whenever his dad left for the day, memories of last november and the following months still hung over him. “Things were just getting good again, you know?” he murmured as he reached up to place a hand over his dad’s. “God, it almost felt normal. Maybe,” Sasha paused. “Maybe we should have expected this would happen. Things were too good somehow, life was too normal or some shit like that.” He sighed and met his dad’s gaze. "See, this is what I mean." Despite the words, Vic's tone was only a little bit reminiscent of a lecture. "Times like these, it's impossible to forget what we've been through. There's always a part of me that's gonna be wondering when the next tragedy's gonna happen, but if you let that take over everything it's gonna be the only thing you're living for, waiting for the rest of the shitshow." This was all easier said than done, of course; Vic hadn't been the easiest to be around over the last few days, either. But he was gonna make the most of Marina and Max coming home, God willing. Despite the dread he felt and the fact that he really was waiting for the other shoe to drop, on impulse Sasha leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his dad. Vic returned the gesture readily, pulling him in for a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re not fucking in there too,” Sasha muttered before he pulled back again as a thought struck him. “Do you keep me close because you don’t want one more person to worry about losing?” It wasn’t said with anything but curiosity in his tone. All this time he always thought his dad kept him under lock and key after tragic events because he still viewed him as a child, but maybe it was something else entirely. "Dumb question," Vic said, though he couldn't help but give Sasha a brief smile. They'd been arguing the most over the rules Vic had put into place after shit had hit the fan so hard. It made sense that Sasha would ask about this. "I think you already know the answer to that. At least, you better know by now." Sasha screwed up his face for a moment and gave a shrug. “Like, I know part of it is because you don’t want to lose me,” he paused wondering if he was stepping right onto a land mine with his next words. “But sometimes I wonder if it’s also because you still see me as a kid who can’t take care of himself…” Sasha knew he had been butting up against the rules his dad put in place each time tragedy struck, pressing his limits in ways he hadn’t when he was younger. Maybe it was because he was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Or maybe it's as because there were Hellhounds that were barely older than he was. "Mostly I don't want you to die. Or get beat up by Ghouls when they're tweaking on shit or going somewhere unsafe even when your supervisor knows it's dangerous." Remembering all of Sasha's recent mishaps drew out Vic's irritation again, but he was trying hard to not let it show. Mostly, he was successful. "But if you wanna go somewhere you may get hurt at then be my guest. Since I guess all this shit has proven that nowhere is really safe." The school was supposed to be safe, after all, and look what happened. Zhenya had been with him when she'd been bitten, and he hadn't been able to stop it from happening. He sighed, annoyance leaving him as quickly as it had come, and shook his head. "I can't protect everyone all the time I guess. But that's nothing new." The walk down his mishaps memory lane was difficult, none of those times had Sasha even once thought something bad might happen. “That’s not what I want,” he replied with a sigh, one hand reaching up to rake through his hair. “I’m not looking to get hurt or go places that might lead to that, I just, I want you to have faith in the fact I’m not incapable of looking after myself if I have to…” Sasha trailed off, wondering if it was really that Vic didn’t have faith in him, or was it that his dad thought it was his job -- and his job alone -- to keep everyone safe. "I know you can." The kid could fight, and that had previously been enough to settle any of Vic's worries about his safety, but the last year had been shitshow after shitshow, like some kind of mountain of crap that kept bowling them over. It had only been a couple of months before Sasha's first bit of trouble that Vic himself had been locked up, and only a few months before that he'd gotten shot. "Just sometimes, knowing what to do or how to take care of yourself ain't enough." As much as somewhere deep down Sasha knew that his dad thought he could take care of himself, it helped somehow to actually hear him say it. “You can’t protect against that though, because nobody can see the future,” he paused. “But, I mean, I get why you want to keep us all safe.” Sasha had to wonder if roles were reversed if he might be just as strict or overprotective in order to keep the people he loved safe. “Still, you’ve always looked out for us and kept us as safe as you could in this world….shit happens, right? But that’s not on you.” Sometimes you couldn’t change how things happened, isn’t that what his dad had said to him earlier when he was wallowing in the way he fucked up when his mom was in quarantine? Vic realized that somewhere in the middle of the conversation, he'd been gripping the edge of the counter tightly with both hands. He was tense all of a sudden, still struggling to keep this as calm as he could. It wasn't that he wanted to yell, though -- it was just hard to not stave off all the guilt he was feeling into something else, but the tears kept building in his eyes regardless. "There's always gonna be the what-ifs." He'd just been saying that to Sasha, too. "I dunno if there was anything more I could've really done to save your mom from what happened to her, but I'll be damned if I end up losing you too just because you want to prove to me or you or whoever that you ain't a kid anymore." He tried a smile, but it was hard to keep it up when all he wanted to do was give in to everything he was feeling. "So just don't be stupid." A deep breath, then: "'Cause I can't lose you, too. If this shit goes belly up, you're all I have." “Dad,” Sasha began as he reached out for Vic again, his hand grasping one of his dad’s forearms. “You and I both know you did everything you could have for mom,” Never once had Sasha ever questioned that fact in the two years since they had lost his mom. Vic would lay down his own life for his family. He could feel tears stinging his eyes and instead of trying to wipe them away, Sasha let them fall freely. “I’m not a kid anymore,” Sasha’s voice was thick with emotion. “But, I guess I forget I’m still your kid. You’re not going to lose me though, I mean I don’t try to get into stupid shit when I go out into the city, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He could see the tears rolling down his dad’s cheeks now. God, how had they let things build up to this point? Again Sasha found himself stepping in close to his dad and wrapping his arms around him. “I promise you’re stuck with me for a really long ass time.” It was a promise Vic knew Sasha couldn't keep completely, not when life and the world around them were so unpredictable. But it felt good, knowing that they were on the same page about everything. He was silent for a long while, taking the time to calm himself down and knowing Sasha could likely use the break, too, before he stepped back, dropping his hands from Sasha's shoulders last. "We're gonna be as okay as we can be," he said, once he was sure that he could trust his voice again. Even though he'd just lost control of his emotions a bit, it had been enough to let that out in front of his son instead of holding it all together for his sake. "I ain't ever gonna stop worrying about you, even when you're moved out and have a family of your own. We just gotta get better at managing that." Maybe this had been a long time coming, them getting on the same page, or Sasha straight up asking his dad if he held him so close because he was afraid he couldn't take care of himself. Now that the words had been asked though and Vic had confirmed that was not the case, Sasha felt better. "Mom always did translate for us," he remarked with a faint smile. It wasn't that Sasha and Vic were poor at communicating with each other, but often times Zhenya had known what the other was trying to say, even when words failed or meanings were misunderstood. Like his mom would have known in an instant that Vic wasn't keeping him close because he thought he was a child, but because Sasha was his kid and he didn't want to lose him. His dad's comment about him having a family struck another nerve with him, the fact that for all intents and purposes Sasha could almost swear that Vic would be happy if he stayed single for the rest of his life. As much as he knew they were already emotionally drained, he couldn't stop himself from opening the the can of worms that was their tensions of late, even further. “I think a family will only happen if I can date first," he braved a glance at his dad. “Sometimes I just feel like you think I’m that nine year old kid you met, one who shouldn't be dating or seeing anyone, instead of a practically a grown ass man.” "Don't be dumb. You're not unallowed." Despite the emotional break the both of them had just had, Vic couldn't manage to hide a long suffering sigh. Him and Bea had never seen eye to eye on the rare occasions they'd tried to talk. He didn't think that would change whether she and Sasha were something more or not. "You can date whoever you want and it has nothing to do with how old you are. If you wanna date that girl fucking date that girl already instead of drawing this out for months by now. She and I just ain't the kind of people who are gonna get along or see eye to eye on the way we look at things. But if you like her it ain't a big deal. As long as you don't do anything stupid, do whatever you want." There wasn't a good way to explain the fact that even though Sasha may have been getting older, that didn't mean his decision making was all the way there yet. Vic had done plenty of stuff he regretted at that age. “Sometimes, I don’t know, it feels like a million hurdles are put in place to stop me,” Sasha admitted, because even though his dad had just said he wasn’t unallowed to date, he couldn’t shake the feeling. "Well, there aren't." Vic didn't see it that way, anyway, and he couldn't help the quick response, but they were already airing out all this other dirty laundry. He could stand to hear about how it felt to his son. “Bea doesn’t really date,” Sasha admitted as if that explained why things had been drug out between them for so long, even if he knew it wouldn’t win any points with his dad either. “So, she and I aren’t probably ever going to be more than whatever it is we are,” he shrugged, in truth Sasha was okay with that. Bea was great, awesome even, but he wasn’t about to try and change her simply because he was more inclined to want to date than she was. “I guess I just don’t know if you’re going to be this hard on every single person I show some sort of interest in or not,” he paused. “You know it’s hard sometimes, you’ve got Marina and Max has Cherry and then it’s like I’m here and I don’t know, I’d like to have something like that someday.” God, he sounded so sappy right now. “But I’d like to know you’d support it, or like even want that for me…” "I do want it for you." Sasha was talking like his life was ending in a year, from Vic's perspective, and maybe Marina and Max being in quarantine made everything seem like it could end any second now, but it all seemed kinda crazy to Vic. "I don't say this to make you feel like you're just a kid, but you got your whole life ahead of you. Just because something ain't working out yet doesn't mean it ain't ever gonna happen." “Yeah, I mean I know it doesn’t have to happen tomorrow,” Sasha began. When it happened wasn’t necessarily the thing he was focused on, although he did want it too happen. His concern had really been in if his dad was against it happening at all or not. So when he had just outright said he did want that for him, to Sasha laid to rest this particular concern. “But, I don’t know, it’s better knowing that you’re not hoping I’ll be a monk or something.” Sasha had a faint smile by this point, relieved that this conversation had happened. Despite the tension of the topic, Vic couldn't help a brief laugh. "Nah. Nothing like that. I just don't --" Vic's jaw set, that hurt from a couple of minutes ago creeping back into his face. "I guess if you wanted to spend the worst day this month with someone else besides your family at least you did it here so you could sort of be around for me and Max." Whatever thoughts he had concerning his dating life were then sidelined by his dad’s final words. Was that why his dad thought he had invited Bea over? “Dad,” Sasha was a loss for words, he hadn’t realized that him inviting Bea over had given that impression. “I, th--that’s not why I invited Bea over,” He couldn’t hide the guilt that flickered across his features. This whole time his dad had thought he hadn’t wanted to be with them? Fuck. “I was freaked out, I watched Marina get bitten and I couldn’t do anything, not a single thing,” Even now it hurt like hell to relive that day. “Look, my reasoning for inviting Bea over made sense that day, I needed a lot of support and she was willing to give it, plus, I don’t know, I thought maybe she’d keep me from shutting you and Max out,” Sasha paused. “I--I’m sorry.” Vic shrugged, rubbing a hand over his face, and looked back at his son. He wished he could've been Sasha's first instinct when it came to support, or enough support for him, but he'd long ago stopped being his only resource in that department. Maybe he was holding onto parts of Sasha's childhood more than he originally thought. It wasn't worth expressing that, though. Not when it was just stuff Vic needed to get over. Things were changing all around, and VIc could change with them too. "It's all right," he said simply, reaching out for Sasha's shoulder once more. "We're gonna be okay." |