Categories > Original > Drama > Separation
September 17, 1979
“Charles!”
If they hadn’t told him he’d be interviewing Ray, he never would have associated the guy seated awkwardly in the padded wooden chair with the crutches across his lap as his former teammate. ‘Friend’ felt like a bit of a stretch right now. The last time he’d seen Ray was before he’d been packed off to the East Coast with his crazy, Fundie parents. A lot of him had still been wrapped up in slings and bandages, his jaw wired shut so that even talking was difficult. Evidently he was mobile again, even if that movement was limited. The sports-car-red aluminum crutches indicated that much. However, it wasn’t the NSA provided medical equipment so much as the person that made it hard not to stare.
This wasn’t Ray. This couldn’t be Ray. Between the accident and time with his parents, two years seemed to have become twenty on his face. No one would dare try to card him now. The boyish features had wasted into lines and hollows, making him look ten years older than he really was instead of the other way around. The wardrobe was the same (now two sizes too large), the voice, the eyes (though one was glass), the smile (if slightly more crooked due to shattered bone and heavy scarring), but this was hardly the young man he remembered. If Ray had had an older brother, he might have looked something like this.
Not even five minutes and already Charles was finding it difficult to hold on to his anger.
Ray was struggling to stand, to shove his weight forward and get his crutches and legs under him. This was wasted strength and effort in Charles opinion, especially if Doctors’ Pop and Straussen wanted him to mentally examine the guy.
“Don’t get up,” he told him, taking a seat for himself.
“Good to see you, man.” Ray was smiling ear to ear, though his lips remained closed. His happiness seemed so earnest, so genuine, and Charles couldn’t decide if he was annoyed or not. Hadn’t Alex chosen Ray over him?
“You too.” Oddly, the words came out tasting half-true; not quite as bitter as a complete lie. “Dr. Xerxes said you’d noticed my absence.”
“Yeah…” There was a guardedness in his voice and remaining eye, prompting the hardness to creep back into Charles’ heart.
“You know how things go. Sometimes you just need your space, right?”
Ray only nodded. “I…you probably don’t want to talk about that. They, um…” An awkward pause. If he didn’t know, he suspected. He also suspected the reason for his friend’s leaving was his fault. His guilt brought a cold sense of grim satisfaction to Charles’ heart.
“Dr. Karl said you might be able to help.”
“Yeah. Anything specific?”
Ray shrugged. “I…mainly just wanted to see you. I doubt there’s really anything to be done.”
He believed the Burnout ruling, then. Charles silently agreed with him, but offered his hand anyway. A distant part of him was going to take malicious pleasure in this. Ray eyed the extended palm and hesitantly placed his own on top of it.
There had always been mental sparks whenever their fingers met, but this time there was nothing. As Charles stretched and eyed his friend’s spirit, Ray’s being registered as eerily dim and silent. At one time Ray’s psyche had been a warm cranberry red, bright and glowing like a holiday candle, the hum of his thoughts a soft, light note like the final strains of a violin solo that never completely faded away. The mangled phantom before him reminded him more of the crazy straw he’d accidentally put through the dishwasher: bleached to an ashen color and melted completely out of shape. The once brilliant light of his soul was little more than a flickering spark, the dizzying twists of spiritual chord that made up his being hung limp and tattered, the frayed threads hanging broken where they should have been knotted tight. There should have been a little string of Christmas lights going up his spine, but at the moment Ray’s chain of energy was more reminiscent of a motel marquis with half the bulbs missing; the remaining few stuttering weakly at best.
“Jesus…” Charles muttered.
“What do you want Him for?” Ray quipped, resurrecting the old joke. Charles didn’t quite manage to squelch the half-smile that followed.
“Don’t they have an army of healers assigned to you?”
“More like a platoon.”
At least he hadn’t injured his sense of humor. “Then you need more. You’re a hell of a mess inside.”
“…they only handle the physical end. Not like I need anything more these days.”
To this Charles said nothing, too intent on examining the metaphysical damage- of which there was plenty. Someone had made an attempt at cleaning him up, but the fixes were old, probably dating from the original accident. The patches and cauterizations were little more than battle dressings, field triage, and Charles wasn’t convinced that the metaphysical medic had truly understood what he or she was doing. No other work had been done that he could see. However, if Ray had been ruled a Burnout, that might explain the lack of any further psychic care. Everyone had probably assumed there was nothing left to care for. Without his powers, Ray was just another average human being, and the mental and spiritual realms therefore became the territory of psychologists and religious leaders. Maybe that crazy faith of his was good for something after all? There certainly wasn’t anything else holding him together.
“Mind if I come in?”
Again, Ray hesitated, but eventually nodded, lowering his head and closing his eyes. Charles allowed himself to ghost forward, reaching and stepping into his friend’s mind.
Holy shit, Ray.
Ordinarily Ray’s common space resembled a cozy cross of office and library. Books, folders, and filing cabinets lined the walls. Wingback chairs and a large sofa were arranged around an inviting fireplace stacked with roaring logs in the grate, and pictures on the glossy wood mantel. Lamps stood nearby on convenient end tables, and a desk piled with papers and memos took up the rear of the room. Now, however, his mindscape looked as if it had been hit by the proverbial tornado.
At least, what was visible looked tornado-ravaged. It was nearly pitch dark, the only ambience coming from a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, its meager light almost smothered by the broken shade. He watched for a moment as the light surged briefly bright and yellow, and then faded to orange and then red and nearly died out only to rev back up again as if powered by an old-fashioned generator.
Furniture lay upended and broken, lamps smashed, glass and china fragments embedded in the rug. Books and papers lay everywhere, gaps in the shelves indicating the spaces they’d once occupied. Stooping, he gingerly lifted one of the photos from where it had fallen face-down on the stone heath. It was a large one, the little brass plaque attached to the wood frame read “Best Friends”. There were almost too many people to count crammed into the huge group photo. At the front, however, two people remained seated and perfectly still: Alex, and, oddly, himself. Scowling, Charles let the picture drop on its face again and reached for a smaller frame. This one was silver, done in an elegant Art Nouveau style. Unsurprisingly, a female face smiled back at him. Misty? Confused, Charles scanned the frame for the accompanying label: Girlfriend.
Fuck.
No thanks. Ray’s phantom had ambled up to him. Sorry about the mess. Been trying to clean it up.
Charles whipped the photo behind his back before Ray could see it. Right...
He needn’t have worried. In the near-total darkness it was difficult to see a distance of more than arm’s length. He almost wished he couldn’t see what was left of his friend. Ray’s mental image of himself wasn’t much better than the imagined library. It looked flat and two-dimensional; pieces had either been sliced off or gouged out so that it resembled an inexpertly cut out paper doll. Charles himself was beginning to feel as if he were missing a few integral pieces.
Ray’s ghostly paper doll went about rummaging in the darkness, attempting to gather shards of glass from the braided rug, but succeeding only in getting his fingers further shredded on the razor edges.
Don’t worry about that now, he told him, gingerly reaching and taking Ray by one tissue-flimsy wrist. How long has it been like this?
Paper-Ray shrugged. I dunno. Since the accident.
Charles peered at the flickering light bulb, its glow briefly illuminating its brass fixture and darkened fellows before fading again.
How come that one’s still on?
No clue. Emergency back-up, I guess.
Emergency back-up? Charles fought for focus as his thoughts whirled frantically. Giving up, he allowed himself to remanifest in his own mind, leaving Ray alone in his ruins.
“Well?”
Charles took a moment to arrange his thoughts into words. He owed him this much and more.
“The Doc’s are right,” he said, watching Ray’s eyes widen to the proportions of an anime character, “and I think I can help.”
The glomp wasn’t entirely unexpected, but his breath still caught in his throat as he put his arms around the smaller man to return the hug. The lightly-trembling shoulders told him Ray was crying, quietly and to himself, hoping that Charles wouldn’t notice. He did, of course, but Charles, tears streaming down his cheeks, had macho points of his own to worry about.
God save us all from our fucking male stupidity. Ray, I swear I’ll make this up to you. I will. I promise.
“Charles!”
If they hadn’t told him he’d be interviewing Ray, he never would have associated the guy seated awkwardly in the padded wooden chair with the crutches across his lap as his former teammate. ‘Friend’ felt like a bit of a stretch right now. The last time he’d seen Ray was before he’d been packed off to the East Coast with his crazy, Fundie parents. A lot of him had still been wrapped up in slings and bandages, his jaw wired shut so that even talking was difficult. Evidently he was mobile again, even if that movement was limited. The sports-car-red aluminum crutches indicated that much. However, it wasn’t the NSA provided medical equipment so much as the person that made it hard not to stare.
This wasn’t Ray. This couldn’t be Ray. Between the accident and time with his parents, two years seemed to have become twenty on his face. No one would dare try to card him now. The boyish features had wasted into lines and hollows, making him look ten years older than he really was instead of the other way around. The wardrobe was the same (now two sizes too large), the voice, the eyes (though one was glass), the smile (if slightly more crooked due to shattered bone and heavy scarring), but this was hardly the young man he remembered. If Ray had had an older brother, he might have looked something like this.
Not even five minutes and already Charles was finding it difficult to hold on to his anger.
Ray was struggling to stand, to shove his weight forward and get his crutches and legs under him. This was wasted strength and effort in Charles opinion, especially if Doctors’ Pop and Straussen wanted him to mentally examine the guy.
“Don’t get up,” he told him, taking a seat for himself.
“Good to see you, man.” Ray was smiling ear to ear, though his lips remained closed. His happiness seemed so earnest, so genuine, and Charles couldn’t decide if he was annoyed or not. Hadn’t Alex chosen Ray over him?
“You too.” Oddly, the words came out tasting half-true; not quite as bitter as a complete lie. “Dr. Xerxes said you’d noticed my absence.”
“Yeah…” There was a guardedness in his voice and remaining eye, prompting the hardness to creep back into Charles’ heart.
“You know how things go. Sometimes you just need your space, right?”
Ray only nodded. “I…you probably don’t want to talk about that. They, um…” An awkward pause. If he didn’t know, he suspected. He also suspected the reason for his friend’s leaving was his fault. His guilt brought a cold sense of grim satisfaction to Charles’ heart.
“Dr. Karl said you might be able to help.”
“Yeah. Anything specific?”
Ray shrugged. “I…mainly just wanted to see you. I doubt there’s really anything to be done.”
He believed the Burnout ruling, then. Charles silently agreed with him, but offered his hand anyway. A distant part of him was going to take malicious pleasure in this. Ray eyed the extended palm and hesitantly placed his own on top of it.
There had always been mental sparks whenever their fingers met, but this time there was nothing. As Charles stretched and eyed his friend’s spirit, Ray’s being registered as eerily dim and silent. At one time Ray’s psyche had been a warm cranberry red, bright and glowing like a holiday candle, the hum of his thoughts a soft, light note like the final strains of a violin solo that never completely faded away. The mangled phantom before him reminded him more of the crazy straw he’d accidentally put through the dishwasher: bleached to an ashen color and melted completely out of shape. The once brilliant light of his soul was little more than a flickering spark, the dizzying twists of spiritual chord that made up his being hung limp and tattered, the frayed threads hanging broken where they should have been knotted tight. There should have been a little string of Christmas lights going up his spine, but at the moment Ray’s chain of energy was more reminiscent of a motel marquis with half the bulbs missing; the remaining few stuttering weakly at best.
“Jesus…” Charles muttered.
“What do you want Him for?” Ray quipped, resurrecting the old joke. Charles didn’t quite manage to squelch the half-smile that followed.
“Don’t they have an army of healers assigned to you?”
“More like a platoon.”
At least he hadn’t injured his sense of humor. “Then you need more. You’re a hell of a mess inside.”
“…they only handle the physical end. Not like I need anything more these days.”
To this Charles said nothing, too intent on examining the metaphysical damage- of which there was plenty. Someone had made an attempt at cleaning him up, but the fixes were old, probably dating from the original accident. The patches and cauterizations were little more than battle dressings, field triage, and Charles wasn’t convinced that the metaphysical medic had truly understood what he or she was doing. No other work had been done that he could see. However, if Ray had been ruled a Burnout, that might explain the lack of any further psychic care. Everyone had probably assumed there was nothing left to care for. Without his powers, Ray was just another average human being, and the mental and spiritual realms therefore became the territory of psychologists and religious leaders. Maybe that crazy faith of his was good for something after all? There certainly wasn’t anything else holding him together.
“Mind if I come in?”
Again, Ray hesitated, but eventually nodded, lowering his head and closing his eyes. Charles allowed himself to ghost forward, reaching and stepping into his friend’s mind.
Holy shit, Ray.
Ordinarily Ray’s common space resembled a cozy cross of office and library. Books, folders, and filing cabinets lined the walls. Wingback chairs and a large sofa were arranged around an inviting fireplace stacked with roaring logs in the grate, and pictures on the glossy wood mantel. Lamps stood nearby on convenient end tables, and a desk piled with papers and memos took up the rear of the room. Now, however, his mindscape looked as if it had been hit by the proverbial tornado.
At least, what was visible looked tornado-ravaged. It was nearly pitch dark, the only ambience coming from a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, its meager light almost smothered by the broken shade. He watched for a moment as the light surged briefly bright and yellow, and then faded to orange and then red and nearly died out only to rev back up again as if powered by an old-fashioned generator.
Furniture lay upended and broken, lamps smashed, glass and china fragments embedded in the rug. Books and papers lay everywhere, gaps in the shelves indicating the spaces they’d once occupied. Stooping, he gingerly lifted one of the photos from where it had fallen face-down on the stone heath. It was a large one, the little brass plaque attached to the wood frame read “Best Friends”. There were almost too many people to count crammed into the huge group photo. At the front, however, two people remained seated and perfectly still: Alex, and, oddly, himself. Scowling, Charles let the picture drop on its face again and reached for a smaller frame. This one was silver, done in an elegant Art Nouveau style. Unsurprisingly, a female face smiled back at him. Misty? Confused, Charles scanned the frame for the accompanying label: Girlfriend.
Fuck.
No thanks. Ray’s phantom had ambled up to him. Sorry about the mess. Been trying to clean it up.
Charles whipped the photo behind his back before Ray could see it. Right...
He needn’t have worried. In the near-total darkness it was difficult to see a distance of more than arm’s length. He almost wished he couldn’t see what was left of his friend. Ray’s mental image of himself wasn’t much better than the imagined library. It looked flat and two-dimensional; pieces had either been sliced off or gouged out so that it resembled an inexpertly cut out paper doll. Charles himself was beginning to feel as if he were missing a few integral pieces.
Ray’s ghostly paper doll went about rummaging in the darkness, attempting to gather shards of glass from the braided rug, but succeeding only in getting his fingers further shredded on the razor edges.
Don’t worry about that now, he told him, gingerly reaching and taking Ray by one tissue-flimsy wrist. How long has it been like this?
Paper-Ray shrugged. I dunno. Since the accident.
Charles peered at the flickering light bulb, its glow briefly illuminating its brass fixture and darkened fellows before fading again.
How come that one’s still on?
No clue. Emergency back-up, I guess.
Emergency back-up? Charles fought for focus as his thoughts whirled frantically. Giving up, he allowed himself to remanifest in his own mind, leaving Ray alone in his ruins.
“Well?”
Charles took a moment to arrange his thoughts into words. He owed him this much and more.
“The Doc’s are right,” he said, watching Ray’s eyes widen to the proportions of an anime character, “and I think I can help.”
The glomp wasn’t entirely unexpected, but his breath still caught in his throat as he put his arms around the smaller man to return the hug. The lightly-trembling shoulders told him Ray was crying, quietly and to himself, hoping that Charles wouldn’t notice. He did, of course, but Charles, tears streaming down his cheeks, had macho points of his own to worry about.
God save us all from our fucking male stupidity. Ray, I swear I’ll make this up to you. I will. I promise.
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