Categories > Original > Drama > Beat of Their Own Drums
Easier To Be
0 reviewsIt's hard to know why the people we love leave us. Mac wonders if his dad isn't around because of him, but Paige knows better. Song used: Lifehouse's "Easier To Be"
0Unrated
A/N: Once again, this one is a bit late...had I been keeping up with my handmade little 'schedule', this would've been put up two days ago. -growl- It's really not that much fun playing catch up...
Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics to "Easier To Be".
Song Used: Lifehouse's "Easier To Be".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen: Easier To Be
Puppet: Cormac O'Kane
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chasing fireflies,
Elusive dreams,
This pre-life crisis,
Is killing me,
Beautiful tragedy,
Who I was,
Wasn't me...
Study night at the O'Kane home.
The basement was cold and eerily quiet, but at least it was a relatively safe place for us to do our work. My step-dad wouldn't come down here if he was drunk; he knew better than to try and use stairs, and if he wasn't, he'd probably just end up flat on his face and my mom, Keefe and I would have one less problem to worry about.
I stared blankly at the open book sitting in my lap, vaguely aware of the second presence next across from me. I could see the words, but none of them made much sense to me. It was almost as if they'd been rewritten in a different language in just a matter of seconds and I had no hope of deciphering it. I squinted at them, and suddenly a few of them made sense...
Blood...disease...died...
I shivered. Keefe was sick with a cough upstairs. I was suddenly aware of a bit of dried blood causing an itch just above my eye. Wasn't there anything good to read?
They say that one of the greatest tragedies in this world is when a father outlives his son. I disagreed.
After losing my dad to cancer at the tender age of three and being forced to live with a drunken madman as a father figure, I couldn't think of anything I wouldn't give up just to remember what my real dad looked like. I wouldn't have cared if I died in the most violent, painful, slow way imaginable, if only that it meant that I could recall a moment in my life when a firm, gentle hand ruffled my hair and a doting male voice told me, “you did a good job, son.”
Son. Mac. That's what my nickname meant in Gaelic.
But my real name...Cormac...destroying son...
“Mac? It's your line.”
“Huh?”
I tore my eyes away from the book and looked dumbly up at the speaker. She was looking right back at me, one eyebrow cocked analytically.
I'd been so caught up in my own thoughts and the effort of trying to make sense of the words printed on the page that I'd almost forgotten that she was even there at all.
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
It's hard to believe,
You make it easy...
“It's your line,” she repeated patiently, leaning over and pointing to one of the foreign symbols, “see, right here. I said, 'he cannot come out on his grave', and then you say...?”
“Um...” I focused hard on the symbol, my brow furrowed in desperate concentration. It was then I realized that I knew the two words she was pointing at. They were simple enough: even so?
But they didn't make sense to me. Coming out on one's grave? Was she talking about a ghost? What was supposed to be going on? What was I asking? Why was I asking it? Who was I talking to? What time was it? The words reverberated inside my head, and though I knew how to say them, they caught up in my throat when I tried to use my voice. I shook my head and shrugged helplessly at her.
She peered closely at me. “What's the matter with you?” She asked gently, though there was a definite hint of irritation, “You've been miles away since I got here.”
I sighed. It was so hard to keep quiet when she used that tone of voice. It was almost as if she had some sort of power or magic spell that made it impossible to hide out in my self-pitying rut. I wasn't sure if I liked it or if it was annoying. I pressed my lips together, stubbornly refusing her offer. I wanted to see how long I could hold out.
She sensed my vow of silence with a soft frown. “C'mon, Mac...you and I both know this isn't really you. Talk to me.”
She was right. I was the hard worker, not the daydreamer. I needed to speak up. “Do you ever wonder why people die?” I burst out suddenly, sitting up straight and tilting my head to one side.
She blinked, obviously not expecting to break through that easily. “Um...because they get sick, or hurt...o-or someone kills them...”
I shook my head. “Not like that,” I answered, “I mean why. Coach Finley was talking about the 'will to live' in health class today and he said that they have been a lot of people who've pulled through something fatal just because they refused to die...”
“I've heard of that,” Paige admonished thoughtfully, “but what's that got to do with Macbeth?”
“It doesn't,” I replied softly, my gaze straying up toward the ceiling as if it could somehow soothe my mind, “I was just thinking.”
She had always been a curious sort, but she knew better than to try and force me into talking. Gently coaxing, softly prodding, she asked another question. “What about?”
I looked back at her. My book, long since forgotten, finally closed, my place lost among a sea of fancy words and flowery phrases. “I was just wondering if my dad thought about Keefe and I before he...”
We speak in silence,
Words can't break,
It feels like we are,
Falling awake in a place,
In a time of our own...
I didn't need to finish my sentence for her to know what I was going to say. She didn't need to say anything for me to understand her. Her face, hands, and body told me all I needed to know.
The muscles in her face instantaneously relaxed; she was calm. Her eyes quickly softened; she knew what it was like, having lost her own mother and eldest brother in a car accident when she was a bit younger. Her eyebrows tilted upward; she was worried about me. Her mouth twitched upward in a sad smile; she wasn't sure how to answer.
I said nothing more. Once again, words had failed to make much sense to me as I tried to put them together in my head.
The silence that stretched between us was not one of tense anxiety or brooding anger, as silences often were. Rather, it was nothing more than a comfortable, thoughtful pause in our conversation. We weren't trying to tiptoe around the other or trying desperately to locate the weakest point. We were simply mulling over the thought in our own heads, speaking without the empty words that had become such a nuisance now that we understood the other.
She stood up.
I tensed. I wasn't quite sure how to interpret that. Was she going to abandon me? Had I stepped over some faint boundary? Was she angry? Did she feel overwhelmed? What had I done?
Nothing.
I hadn't done anything.
She made her way around the table, bending her knees so her eyes were level with mine. Our eyes, hers the absolute of pale and mine the epitome of dark, bore into the other. The voice of logic was unable to hear the the silence of dreams, too busy listening to the sound of its own voice to realize that there was something more to this than just the tangible, visible things.
“Aw, Mac...” her voice barely even registered in my ears, much less her words. All I was aware of was the sudden warmth I received when her arms encircled my neck and she gave me a hug. Her hands, despite the frigid air, were warm against my shoulder blades and her long raven hair brushed against my face. I didn't recall sending the signal to my brain for it, but I knew that I'd responded with a grip of my own, slowly standing up for a more comfortable position. Her touch was so soothing, so reassuring, so gentle...
Her yang suddenly met my yin, and for a rare moment in my life I felt balanced.
I'd lost something very important to me when I lost my father and the scales had tipped against me. But then she came along, and I felt whole again.
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
Hard to believe...
“I-I just can't help but wonder if there was something we did to make him not want to stay.” I murmured after a long moment, closing my eyes. No longer was I befuddled by the strange symbols in my head. I'd found my senses. I'd rediscovered my voice. I'd uncovered the truth, both to myself and to her.
I'd regained myself.
Her words were soft as the down of a bold eagle chick when she replied. “I'm sure you didn't. See, sometimes, Mac, things happen and there's nothing we can do to stop them.”
I'd heard that one before, but somehow, it felt a lot better hearing her say it. “Yeah...”
Had it been any other person, I would've been horribly ashamed of the tears that pricked the back of my eyes and throat. Had it been Keefe, I would've been fearing his laughter and scorn for showing weakness. Had it been my mom, I would've been discouraged by the idea that I was adding to her already ridiculously high stack of troubles.
Had it been my father, I would've been clueless. Would he have scoffed at me, like Keefe would? Would he want me to feel better, like my mom would? I didn't know. I never would know. Death had taken care to keep the answer to that burning question from me with cruel certainty.
But she wasn't any of those people. She was Paige Waters. She was my best friend, my savior, my support system...I could tell her anything and she would listen. I could cry and snivel like the wuss I knew I was on the inside, but somehow, she'd always see me as the big, strong guy that I was on the outside.
“There's something you can do, though.”
I sniffed and pulled back, blinking a few times in an attempt to clear away the tears that had been threatening to spill down either side of my face. “Yeah?” I repeated, this time in question form, “And what's that?”
She smiled encouragingly and allowed her hands to fall to her sides. She seemed confident in the fact that I'd calmed down some, even though I still held her to me in a soft, yielding grip the way a child may hold absently on to a teddy bear when walking across the street. I didn't want to lose her, but I didn't feel the need to clutch on for dear life.
“Stop blaming yourself for everything,” she replied with the tiniest traces of a chuckle in her voice, as if she found that funny yet was smart enough to know that now was certainly not the best time to be laughing, “you've got me worried you're going to do something crazy to yourself.”
Was she implying that I seemed suicidal? Blinking in surprise at the very idea, it took me a moment to find the right words. “I won't.”
Fell at the world,
Fell from my feet,
Gave up on myself,
You didn't give up on me,
Let myself go,
You were still there,
Like coming home,
Like coming up for air...
Her arms were around my neck again, and though I suddenly felt awkward knowing that I had someone else's girl in my arms, I couldn't help but notice her deep intake of breath. If I didn't know any better, I would've said that she was taking in the smell of my clothes just in case she never got the chance to be this close again. “Promise?”
The perfect sentence jumped into my brain and right out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Only if you promise to be there when I start to fade again.”
I could sense the warmth of her smile without even being able to see it. “Of course. That's what friends are for.”
Why would I ever want to kill myself when I know I have someone like you in my life?
“Thanks, Paige,” I said softly, wishing there were better words in the English language for me to use to express my gratitude, “I don't know what I'd do without you.”
She pulled back for the final time and I begrudgingly allowed her to go free, wishing I could've held on just a few seconds longer. Every time I got a chance to hold her, even for a few seconds and with my mind preoccupied with other real, serious things, I just couldn't help but notice how perfectly our bodies fit together, or how comfortingly warm her skin was through her clothes.
She smiled modestly. “I'm pretty sure you'd manage. You're stronger than you think.”
You're stronger than you think. The words vibrated in my head for a moment, though this time it was not because I couldn't make any sense of them.
She believed in me, even when I showed my true self and cried a little. She always had my back and could give me the energy to keep fighting. She loved me, making the hole the absence of a dad just a little bit less hollow. I couldn't manage.
I gazed steadily at her. “But you are my strength.”
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
It's hard to believe,
You make it easy,
Easier to be,
To be me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Yay! More angsty fluff! I hope this didn't kill the few readers I have, 'cause I'm startin' to think all this work isn't really worth it already.
Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics to "Easier To Be".
Song Used: Lifehouse's "Easier To Be".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen: Easier To Be
Puppet: Cormac O'Kane
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chasing fireflies,
Elusive dreams,
This pre-life crisis,
Is killing me,
Beautiful tragedy,
Who I was,
Wasn't me...
Study night at the O'Kane home.
The basement was cold and eerily quiet, but at least it was a relatively safe place for us to do our work. My step-dad wouldn't come down here if he was drunk; he knew better than to try and use stairs, and if he wasn't, he'd probably just end up flat on his face and my mom, Keefe and I would have one less problem to worry about.
I stared blankly at the open book sitting in my lap, vaguely aware of the second presence next across from me. I could see the words, but none of them made much sense to me. It was almost as if they'd been rewritten in a different language in just a matter of seconds and I had no hope of deciphering it. I squinted at them, and suddenly a few of them made sense...
Blood...disease...died...
I shivered. Keefe was sick with a cough upstairs. I was suddenly aware of a bit of dried blood causing an itch just above my eye. Wasn't there anything good to read?
They say that one of the greatest tragedies in this world is when a father outlives his son. I disagreed.
After losing my dad to cancer at the tender age of three and being forced to live with a drunken madman as a father figure, I couldn't think of anything I wouldn't give up just to remember what my real dad looked like. I wouldn't have cared if I died in the most violent, painful, slow way imaginable, if only that it meant that I could recall a moment in my life when a firm, gentle hand ruffled my hair and a doting male voice told me, “you did a good job, son.”
Son. Mac. That's what my nickname meant in Gaelic.
But my real name...Cormac...destroying son...
“Mac? It's your line.”
“Huh?”
I tore my eyes away from the book and looked dumbly up at the speaker. She was looking right back at me, one eyebrow cocked analytically.
I'd been so caught up in my own thoughts and the effort of trying to make sense of the words printed on the page that I'd almost forgotten that she was even there at all.
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
It's hard to believe,
You make it easy...
“It's your line,” she repeated patiently, leaning over and pointing to one of the foreign symbols, “see, right here. I said, 'he cannot come out on his grave', and then you say...?”
“Um...” I focused hard on the symbol, my brow furrowed in desperate concentration. It was then I realized that I knew the two words she was pointing at. They were simple enough: even so?
But they didn't make sense to me. Coming out on one's grave? Was she talking about a ghost? What was supposed to be going on? What was I asking? Why was I asking it? Who was I talking to? What time was it? The words reverberated inside my head, and though I knew how to say them, they caught up in my throat when I tried to use my voice. I shook my head and shrugged helplessly at her.
She peered closely at me. “What's the matter with you?” She asked gently, though there was a definite hint of irritation, “You've been miles away since I got here.”
I sighed. It was so hard to keep quiet when she used that tone of voice. It was almost as if she had some sort of power or magic spell that made it impossible to hide out in my self-pitying rut. I wasn't sure if I liked it or if it was annoying. I pressed my lips together, stubbornly refusing her offer. I wanted to see how long I could hold out.
She sensed my vow of silence with a soft frown. “C'mon, Mac...you and I both know this isn't really you. Talk to me.”
She was right. I was the hard worker, not the daydreamer. I needed to speak up. “Do you ever wonder why people die?” I burst out suddenly, sitting up straight and tilting my head to one side.
She blinked, obviously not expecting to break through that easily. “Um...because they get sick, or hurt...o-or someone kills them...”
I shook my head. “Not like that,” I answered, “I mean why. Coach Finley was talking about the 'will to live' in health class today and he said that they have been a lot of people who've pulled through something fatal just because they refused to die...”
“I've heard of that,” Paige admonished thoughtfully, “but what's that got to do with Macbeth?”
“It doesn't,” I replied softly, my gaze straying up toward the ceiling as if it could somehow soothe my mind, “I was just thinking.”
She had always been a curious sort, but she knew better than to try and force me into talking. Gently coaxing, softly prodding, she asked another question. “What about?”
I looked back at her. My book, long since forgotten, finally closed, my place lost among a sea of fancy words and flowery phrases. “I was just wondering if my dad thought about Keefe and I before he...”
We speak in silence,
Words can't break,
It feels like we are,
Falling awake in a place,
In a time of our own...
I didn't need to finish my sentence for her to know what I was going to say. She didn't need to say anything for me to understand her. Her face, hands, and body told me all I needed to know.
The muscles in her face instantaneously relaxed; she was calm. Her eyes quickly softened; she knew what it was like, having lost her own mother and eldest brother in a car accident when she was a bit younger. Her eyebrows tilted upward; she was worried about me. Her mouth twitched upward in a sad smile; she wasn't sure how to answer.
I said nothing more. Once again, words had failed to make much sense to me as I tried to put them together in my head.
The silence that stretched between us was not one of tense anxiety or brooding anger, as silences often were. Rather, it was nothing more than a comfortable, thoughtful pause in our conversation. We weren't trying to tiptoe around the other or trying desperately to locate the weakest point. We were simply mulling over the thought in our own heads, speaking without the empty words that had become such a nuisance now that we understood the other.
She stood up.
I tensed. I wasn't quite sure how to interpret that. Was she going to abandon me? Had I stepped over some faint boundary? Was she angry? Did she feel overwhelmed? What had I done?
Nothing.
I hadn't done anything.
She made her way around the table, bending her knees so her eyes were level with mine. Our eyes, hers the absolute of pale and mine the epitome of dark, bore into the other. The voice of logic was unable to hear the the silence of dreams, too busy listening to the sound of its own voice to realize that there was something more to this than just the tangible, visible things.
“Aw, Mac...” her voice barely even registered in my ears, much less her words. All I was aware of was the sudden warmth I received when her arms encircled my neck and she gave me a hug. Her hands, despite the frigid air, were warm against my shoulder blades and her long raven hair brushed against my face. I didn't recall sending the signal to my brain for it, but I knew that I'd responded with a grip of my own, slowly standing up for a more comfortable position. Her touch was so soothing, so reassuring, so gentle...
Her yang suddenly met my yin, and for a rare moment in my life I felt balanced.
I'd lost something very important to me when I lost my father and the scales had tipped against me. But then she came along, and I felt whole again.
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
Hard to believe...
“I-I just can't help but wonder if there was something we did to make him not want to stay.” I murmured after a long moment, closing my eyes. No longer was I befuddled by the strange symbols in my head. I'd found my senses. I'd rediscovered my voice. I'd uncovered the truth, both to myself and to her.
I'd regained myself.
Her words were soft as the down of a bold eagle chick when she replied. “I'm sure you didn't. See, sometimes, Mac, things happen and there's nothing we can do to stop them.”
I'd heard that one before, but somehow, it felt a lot better hearing her say it. “Yeah...”
Had it been any other person, I would've been horribly ashamed of the tears that pricked the back of my eyes and throat. Had it been Keefe, I would've been fearing his laughter and scorn for showing weakness. Had it been my mom, I would've been discouraged by the idea that I was adding to her already ridiculously high stack of troubles.
Had it been my father, I would've been clueless. Would he have scoffed at me, like Keefe would? Would he want me to feel better, like my mom would? I didn't know. I never would know. Death had taken care to keep the answer to that burning question from me with cruel certainty.
But she wasn't any of those people. She was Paige Waters. She was my best friend, my savior, my support system...I could tell her anything and she would listen. I could cry and snivel like the wuss I knew I was on the inside, but somehow, she'd always see me as the big, strong guy that I was on the outside.
“There's something you can do, though.”
I sniffed and pulled back, blinking a few times in an attempt to clear away the tears that had been threatening to spill down either side of my face. “Yeah?” I repeated, this time in question form, “And what's that?”
She smiled encouragingly and allowed her hands to fall to her sides. She seemed confident in the fact that I'd calmed down some, even though I still held her to me in a soft, yielding grip the way a child may hold absently on to a teddy bear when walking across the street. I didn't want to lose her, but I didn't feel the need to clutch on for dear life.
“Stop blaming yourself for everything,” she replied with the tiniest traces of a chuckle in her voice, as if she found that funny yet was smart enough to know that now was certainly not the best time to be laughing, “you've got me worried you're going to do something crazy to yourself.”
Was she implying that I seemed suicidal? Blinking in surprise at the very idea, it took me a moment to find the right words. “I won't.”
Fell at the world,
Fell from my feet,
Gave up on myself,
You didn't give up on me,
Let myself go,
You were still there,
Like coming home,
Like coming up for air...
Her arms were around my neck again, and though I suddenly felt awkward knowing that I had someone else's girl in my arms, I couldn't help but notice her deep intake of breath. If I didn't know any better, I would've said that she was taking in the smell of my clothes just in case she never got the chance to be this close again. “Promise?”
The perfect sentence jumped into my brain and right out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Only if you promise to be there when I start to fade again.”
I could sense the warmth of her smile without even being able to see it. “Of course. That's what friends are for.”
Why would I ever want to kill myself when I know I have someone like you in my life?
“Thanks, Paige,” I said softly, wishing there were better words in the English language for me to use to express my gratitude, “I don't know what I'd do without you.”
She pulled back for the final time and I begrudgingly allowed her to go free, wishing I could've held on just a few seconds longer. Every time I got a chance to hold her, even for a few seconds and with my mind preoccupied with other real, serious things, I just couldn't help but notice how perfectly our bodies fit together, or how comfortingly warm her skin was through her clothes.
She smiled modestly. “I'm pretty sure you'd manage. You're stronger than you think.”
You're stronger than you think. The words vibrated in my head for a moment, though this time it was not because I couldn't make any sense of them.
She believed in me, even when I showed my true self and cried a little. She always had my back and could give me the energy to keep fighting. She loved me, making the hole the absence of a dad just a little bit less hollow. I couldn't manage.
I gazed steadily at her. “But you are my strength.”
Yeah, yeah,
You make it easier to be,
Easier to be me,
It's hard to believe,
You make it easy,
Easier to be,
To be me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Yay! More angsty fluff! I hope this didn't kill the few readers I have, 'cause I'm startin' to think all this work isn't really worth it already.
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