Family Relations (Part Twenty Two)
Saturday, July 5th, 2014 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveLink to Part Twenty One- http://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/684325.html#cutid1
Dinnerbone eat silently, trying to process what he had just been told. And Pyro had said, while they were walking to the dining room, he had wanted to talk more after dinner. More? What more could there be? That was just…he wasn’t sure what more there could be, but that it probably wasn’t good.
However, if this helped him…well then…he’d just learn to deal with it. It was only for another two weeks, after all. And maybe they’d get to visit with him more now that they had done so once, that would be nice.
-----
Pyro stared up at the ceiling of the bedroom for the second time that day. He and Dinnerbone had gone back to the guest bedroom after dinner to talk some more. He felt kind of bad, talking this much to Dinnerbone, but it did seem to help, at least a little, and Dinnerbone himself seemed well, if not okay then at least willing to listen.
“Dinnerbooooone?”
He thought that Dinnerbone’s name sounded far more amusing when said that way. That and it made it sound like Deadbones’ name, almost. That made him wonder, how was Deadbones doing, anyways? Eh, he could message him tomorrow.
“What?”
“I really don’t want to be annoying you by talking so much, you know?”
“Pyro…I said like, three times now, that you’re not annoying me, its fine. You wanna talk, talk. You don’t wanna talk, don’t talk; I’ll just…sit here and play with my phone or something until you decide what you wanna do. It’s fine!”
Pyro blinked at that and mumbled softly to himself.
“Not talking is…easier. Or makes more sense, rather. You don’t talk to outsiders…but, well. You aren’t…I mean, you are…but you aren’t…you’re family. Which makes you not an outsider, even though you are, I mean, you’re…yeah. But not talking…that doesn’t seem to have helped me, at least not here. And you’ll listen, so…and besides, I’ll go home in what, two weeks? And then you can forget about what I’ve said, and I can find a proper therapist, and yeah.”
He sighed again. Talking might be good, but that didn’t make it easy. And learning to not talk around something was even more difficult.
“Right. So. Let’s talk about something different, then. Erm. Hey, you don’t really know much about my ma’s side of the family, right?” Pyro looked up expectantly at Dinnerbone, awaiting the answer.
“Um…yeah. I mean, honestly, we didn’t even know much about you until you showed up, just that you existed from Tom, etc etc.”
“Oh…huh. Da would talk about Baj sometimes, he mentioned he had two kids, but not that often. He seemed…amused…about it, for some reason.”
“Oh, weird.”
“Yeah. But in any case, you’re my only cousins on Tom’s side, right? But I have a bunch of cousins from ma. I mean, well…she’s one of eleven kids…so. I think most of them have, like, three or four kids themselves, not anywhere near eleven, but still. Hell, I only met them all once, and I think a few might have had more kids since then…” He shrugged slightly before continuing to talk.
“Which makes it slightly strange to be an only kid. Mind you, da probably shouldn’t have, ummmm, slept…with her…in the first place, but still. Course, that whole thing is just…bleh. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t meant to hear what I’ve heard, though.” Pyro laughed slightly at that, he found it amusing. Pausing a moment to compose himself, he continued.
“See, da’s military, you know that. But they’re all taught to never, eh…sleep…with the locals, you know, since you can’t tell if the locals are nationalist or not, you know, if they’re a honeytrap, basically. Which, um, apparently ma was. At least according to two of her brothers.”
Dinnerbone interjected for a brief moment.
“Your mom was a…honeytrap…what? What the what? The hell? What? How? Why? How are they even still married? What? Just…what?”
“I was getting to that, damn it! According to my uncles, she was out, scouting. She and her partner, spotter, actually, they’d been out shooting earlier, but they had stopped by a mixed bar, after they had dropped off the rifles, and were there taking a break, and scouting more for info, rather than, you know, places to shoot from. And…da was there, fresh from the base. He wasn’t really with the other soldiers, just kinda, off by himself. But he was rather obviously military, apparently. I don’t know what that means, though. And she…got him alone, and…yeah. My uncles are of the opinion that him ‘sleeping’ with her was one thing, but apparently, he talked, pillow talk? Yeah. About his unit, etc etc, the type of things they, um, the volunteers, I mean, the type of stuff they look for. And boom, lost most of his clearance, and so on. And then the supreme unluckiness, that that night resulted in me.”
“Uh, that’s soooo not the type of stuff you should have been hearing…”
“I think I got lost in the noise, at least partly. And they thought I was asleep. But yeah. As to why they’re still married? No idea, but I know ma won’t get divorced, and I don’t know if they’d qualify for an, an…an annulment? Yeah. Course, it doesn’t help that when seanathair…ah, grandfather, I mean…when he apparently called da over to his house and pulled an armalite1 on him, demanded that he marry ma, since he had, you know, and me, yeah. So, I don’t know, maybe he’s afraid of what grandfather would do if he tried to get divorced or what have you.”
“Uh…your family sounds…interesting…you sure they never taught you how to make bombs, eh?”
Pyro blinked at that and sat up and laughed before flopping back down again.
“Naw. I can make petrol bombs, but I think pretty much anyone can do that. Or anyone living at home, I mean. Other than that, no. There was something about fertilizer and coffee grinders2 but…no idea how that works. I know you can get arrested for having fertilizer if you don’t have documents saying it’s for your work, though. Which is amusing. I mean, I’ve carried ammo around before without an issue. Course, I was going to a shooting range at the time…that was a lot of fun, but then…grandmother…told grandfather he wasn’t supposed to take me there, and that ma would be right sore with him if he kept that up. Made me sad, it was fun, I wanted to go back, damn it!”
“Heh, yeah, shooting ranges can be fun, went to one when I was working on some computer stuff that I needed to see the physics for the guns first-hand for, it was pretty cool. I bought the ammo there, though, and rented a gun.”
“Ah, we brought our own stuff; don’t know where the rifle came from, actually.” He laughed softly before continuing to talk.
“I mean, it would be kinda odd to walk around carrying a rifle, after all. Well, for a kid to carrying one, yeah. But, so, no. I don’t know how to make bombs or anything like that. I stick to protests and stuff like that. I don’t want to…the thought of hurting or killing people is just…stupid, and besides on a more selfish note, I run the risk of hurting da, and that’s just…” He sighed. He wasn’t really certain where he lay on nationalism verse unionism.
“It’s just…my family wants Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic. I just want it to be peaceful, though. But I have this…thought…that if I said that, that they’d consider me to be either a unionist, which isn’t the case, a traitor which is also not really what I want, or an idiotic pacifist, which is, I suppose, possible.”
“Can’t you just be…neutral?”
“I’d like to be! At least until I’ve learned more so I can make a decision, but nooooo, can’t be neutral, not at home.”
“Why not?”
“Cause…everything is us vs them. I don’t know why, it’s just how it is.” He sighed before continuing.
“I mean, if it was possible to be peaceful and part of the Republic, that would be ideal. But we’d have to; somehow, convince the unionists that it would be in their best interests. And I’m not sure how to do that!” Pyro yawned, it was starting to get late. Maybe he oughta change the topic to something less depressing before he went to slept, hm.
“Hey, Dinnerbone?”
“What?”
“Did you know, your name sounds like Deadbones?”
“Who or what is that, and why are you even…?”
“Tired. Subject change. I can do that, right? Right. But yeah. He’s someone I know from home. I’d been trying to remember why your name was so familiar, and I remember now.”
“So, uh, what’s he like, then?”
“He’s a pretty cool guy. His family was from the Republic, but he was born in Belfast. Goes to school with me, but does a lot of stuff on-line. Gets to fly to cool places.”
“Oh, sounds neat.” Dinnerbone yawned heavily.
“Um, look, we can talk more tomorrow, if you want?”
“Sure. Goodnight, Dinnerbone.”
“Goodnight, Pyro.” Dinnerbone got up at that point and left the room, making sure to close the door behind him.
-----
BTC sighed softly.
“Look. You’re the liaison between the base and the locals, right? Particularly with the local school?”
“BTC…you know that already, I was the one who approached you about speaking at the school. Which could have gone better, but what-ever. You good, or do you serious not remember, man?”
“I…been a bit distracted. Like, you’d know how to talk to kids, right? Like, ummm, better than how it went with the school when I did, yeah?” He cringed at that, but there was no avoiding it. That had just been entirely bad.
The Captain just looked at him for a long moment before answering.
“Yes. I’ve worked with the schools here and in the province. And given what happened, I suspect you’re asking about the kid who’s over here from there, yes?”
Well, no-one ever said that Captains couldn’t be perceptive, after all. Given that that little story had gone all over the base when it got brought home by one of the squaddies kids, after all.
He fought back the urge to scowl at the correct guess. Wouldn’t win any points to be pissy at the person who was willing to help you.
“Yes. Yes I am.”
“Okay then. Look, he grew up in…well. Due to lack of better…terminology…he grew up in a war zone. Be glad that his first reaction was to run away from you, rather than start screaming or trying to throw anything at you, those are among the more common reactions.”
“Throwing…?”
“Yes…he was at school, it’s not like the classroom had rocks in it, you know.”
Oh, oh!
“Oooo, right.”
“Right. So, he fairly obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. If you insist on continuing to try to do so, I’d suggest you’d only approach him if one of his…cousins, did you say? If one of them is with him. He’ll probably, probably mind you, react better with them there.”
“Better how?”
“His reaction is to run, right? So if he thinks you’re going to prevent him from running, well, he’ll fall back to the other two options of throwing things or screaming.”
Based on what he’d heard the next day at the school after the kid had ran, he thought he might be more the type to start screaming hysterically, actually. That combined with the fact that the kid has spoken even less than he normally did seemed to support that conclusion, but he was no detective.
“Well, I mean, we’ve managed to have well, a single “civil” conversation, so…” BTC said, miming quote marks as he spoke.
“You did? That’s great. No, really! I looked him up after you said what happened the day you went and spoke to the classes, it’s actually pretty damn good he was even willing to speak to you!”
Now that…that surprised him.
“What? I mean, I know the kid is was at a civil rights protest on the side of the protesters, and calls himself an Irish nationalist, but, um…not much else.”
The Captain blinked at him for a moment.
“Right. Riiiight. Uh-huh. His mother is a nationalist, obviously enough, but his dad is military. Our military, don’t even ask that. But more to it than that, I mean. Apparently, or so my sources tell me, he was temporarily interned when he was twelve. For about a week, before someone over there was arsed to check his age and who his parents were. Sooo…kinda surprised he talked to you, the sources also said he pretty much lost all willingness to speak to soldiers other than his dad at that point. Well, speak to them any more than absolutely necessary, I mean.”
“That’s…that’s understandable, I suppose.”
“Very. So, really now. Be careful with what you do. And seriously. If he looks like he’ll freak out again, try to…not push the issue, I don’t want to be getting any more calls from concerned class-mates of his, really.”
“Of course, sir. That would be…bad.”
“Don’t mess with him. Really.”
“I…yes, sir. I’ll remember that.”
“Mhm.” With that, the Captain turned and left to go do whatever it was that Captains around here did, BTC thought to himself. What did they do? Well, currently, apparently field calls from people pissed about BTC, which just sucked. He had never had anyone pissed about his behavior when he was in the province, or rather, anyone who wasn’t already pissed at the world.
He wondered what tomorrow would bring.
Notes, Translations, etc.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLite A type of gun.
2 Yes, apparently, some ‘recipes’ call for fertilizer and a coffee grinder. You grind up the fertilizer…beyond that, no idea. It gets mentioned in some songs.
Link to part twenty-three - http://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/823419.html#cutid1
Dinnerbone eat silently, trying to process what he had just been told. And Pyro had said, while they were walking to the dining room, he had wanted to talk more after dinner. More? What more could there be? That was just…he wasn’t sure what more there could be, but that it probably wasn’t good.
However, if this helped him…well then…he’d just learn to deal with it. It was only for another two weeks, after all. And maybe they’d get to visit with him more now that they had done so once, that would be nice.
-----
Pyro stared up at the ceiling of the bedroom for the second time that day. He and Dinnerbone had gone back to the guest bedroom after dinner to talk some more. He felt kind of bad, talking this much to Dinnerbone, but it did seem to help, at least a little, and Dinnerbone himself seemed well, if not okay then at least willing to listen.
“Dinnerbooooone?”
He thought that Dinnerbone’s name sounded far more amusing when said that way. That and it made it sound like Deadbones’ name, almost. That made him wonder, how was Deadbones doing, anyways? Eh, he could message him tomorrow.
“What?”
“I really don’t want to be annoying you by talking so much, you know?”
“Pyro…I said like, three times now, that you’re not annoying me, its fine. You wanna talk, talk. You don’t wanna talk, don’t talk; I’ll just…sit here and play with my phone or something until you decide what you wanna do. It’s fine!”
Pyro blinked at that and mumbled softly to himself.
“Not talking is…easier. Or makes more sense, rather. You don’t talk to outsiders…but, well. You aren’t…I mean, you are…but you aren’t…you’re family. Which makes you not an outsider, even though you are, I mean, you’re…yeah. But not talking…that doesn’t seem to have helped me, at least not here. And you’ll listen, so…and besides, I’ll go home in what, two weeks? And then you can forget about what I’ve said, and I can find a proper therapist, and yeah.”
He sighed again. Talking might be good, but that didn’t make it easy. And learning to not talk around something was even more difficult.
“Right. So. Let’s talk about something different, then. Erm. Hey, you don’t really know much about my ma’s side of the family, right?” Pyro looked up expectantly at Dinnerbone, awaiting the answer.
“Um…yeah. I mean, honestly, we didn’t even know much about you until you showed up, just that you existed from Tom, etc etc.”
“Oh…huh. Da would talk about Baj sometimes, he mentioned he had two kids, but not that often. He seemed…amused…about it, for some reason.”
“Oh, weird.”
“Yeah. But in any case, you’re my only cousins on Tom’s side, right? But I have a bunch of cousins from ma. I mean, well…she’s one of eleven kids…so. I think most of them have, like, three or four kids themselves, not anywhere near eleven, but still. Hell, I only met them all once, and I think a few might have had more kids since then…” He shrugged slightly before continuing to talk.
“Which makes it slightly strange to be an only kid. Mind you, da probably shouldn’t have, ummmm, slept…with her…in the first place, but still. Course, that whole thing is just…bleh. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t meant to hear what I’ve heard, though.” Pyro laughed slightly at that, he found it amusing. Pausing a moment to compose himself, he continued.
“See, da’s military, you know that. But they’re all taught to never, eh…sleep…with the locals, you know, since you can’t tell if the locals are nationalist or not, you know, if they’re a honeytrap, basically. Which, um, apparently ma was. At least according to two of her brothers.”
Dinnerbone interjected for a brief moment.
“Your mom was a…honeytrap…what? What the what? The hell? What? How? Why? How are they even still married? What? Just…what?”
“I was getting to that, damn it! According to my uncles, she was out, scouting. She and her partner, spotter, actually, they’d been out shooting earlier, but they had stopped by a mixed bar, after they had dropped off the rifles, and were there taking a break, and scouting more for info, rather than, you know, places to shoot from. And…da was there, fresh from the base. He wasn’t really with the other soldiers, just kinda, off by himself. But he was rather obviously military, apparently. I don’t know what that means, though. And she…got him alone, and…yeah. My uncles are of the opinion that him ‘sleeping’ with her was one thing, but apparently, he talked, pillow talk? Yeah. About his unit, etc etc, the type of things they, um, the volunteers, I mean, the type of stuff they look for. And boom, lost most of his clearance, and so on. And then the supreme unluckiness, that that night resulted in me.”
“Uh, that’s soooo not the type of stuff you should have been hearing…”
“I think I got lost in the noise, at least partly. And they thought I was asleep. But yeah. As to why they’re still married? No idea, but I know ma won’t get divorced, and I don’t know if they’d qualify for an, an…an annulment? Yeah. Course, it doesn’t help that when seanathair…ah, grandfather, I mean…when he apparently called da over to his house and pulled an armalite1 on him, demanded that he marry ma, since he had, you know, and me, yeah. So, I don’t know, maybe he’s afraid of what grandfather would do if he tried to get divorced or what have you.”
“Uh…your family sounds…interesting…you sure they never taught you how to make bombs, eh?”
Pyro blinked at that and sat up and laughed before flopping back down again.
“Naw. I can make petrol bombs, but I think pretty much anyone can do that. Or anyone living at home, I mean. Other than that, no. There was something about fertilizer and coffee grinders2 but…no idea how that works. I know you can get arrested for having fertilizer if you don’t have documents saying it’s for your work, though. Which is amusing. I mean, I’ve carried ammo around before without an issue. Course, I was going to a shooting range at the time…that was a lot of fun, but then…grandmother…told grandfather he wasn’t supposed to take me there, and that ma would be right sore with him if he kept that up. Made me sad, it was fun, I wanted to go back, damn it!”
“Heh, yeah, shooting ranges can be fun, went to one when I was working on some computer stuff that I needed to see the physics for the guns first-hand for, it was pretty cool. I bought the ammo there, though, and rented a gun.”
“Ah, we brought our own stuff; don’t know where the rifle came from, actually.” He laughed softly before continuing to talk.
“I mean, it would be kinda odd to walk around carrying a rifle, after all. Well, for a kid to carrying one, yeah. But, so, no. I don’t know how to make bombs or anything like that. I stick to protests and stuff like that. I don’t want to…the thought of hurting or killing people is just…stupid, and besides on a more selfish note, I run the risk of hurting da, and that’s just…” He sighed. He wasn’t really certain where he lay on nationalism verse unionism.
“It’s just…my family wants Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic. I just want it to be peaceful, though. But I have this…thought…that if I said that, that they’d consider me to be either a unionist, which isn’t the case, a traitor which is also not really what I want, or an idiotic pacifist, which is, I suppose, possible.”
“Can’t you just be…neutral?”
“I’d like to be! At least until I’ve learned more so I can make a decision, but nooooo, can’t be neutral, not at home.”
“Why not?”
“Cause…everything is us vs them. I don’t know why, it’s just how it is.” He sighed before continuing.
“I mean, if it was possible to be peaceful and part of the Republic, that would be ideal. But we’d have to; somehow, convince the unionists that it would be in their best interests. And I’m not sure how to do that!” Pyro yawned, it was starting to get late. Maybe he oughta change the topic to something less depressing before he went to slept, hm.
“Hey, Dinnerbone?”
“What?”
“Did you know, your name sounds like Deadbones?”
“Who or what is that, and why are you even…?”
“Tired. Subject change. I can do that, right? Right. But yeah. He’s someone I know from home. I’d been trying to remember why your name was so familiar, and I remember now.”
“So, uh, what’s he like, then?”
“He’s a pretty cool guy. His family was from the Republic, but he was born in Belfast. Goes to school with me, but does a lot of stuff on-line. Gets to fly to cool places.”
“Oh, sounds neat.” Dinnerbone yawned heavily.
“Um, look, we can talk more tomorrow, if you want?”
“Sure. Goodnight, Dinnerbone.”
“Goodnight, Pyro.” Dinnerbone got up at that point and left the room, making sure to close the door behind him.
-----
BTC sighed softly.
“Look. You’re the liaison between the base and the locals, right? Particularly with the local school?”
“BTC…you know that already, I was the one who approached you about speaking at the school. Which could have gone better, but what-ever. You good, or do you serious not remember, man?”
“I…been a bit distracted. Like, you’d know how to talk to kids, right? Like, ummm, better than how it went with the school when I did, yeah?” He cringed at that, but there was no avoiding it. That had just been entirely bad.
The Captain just looked at him for a long moment before answering.
“Yes. I’ve worked with the schools here and in the province. And given what happened, I suspect you’re asking about the kid who’s over here from there, yes?”
Well, no-one ever said that Captains couldn’t be perceptive, after all. Given that that little story had gone all over the base when it got brought home by one of the squaddies kids, after all.
He fought back the urge to scowl at the correct guess. Wouldn’t win any points to be pissy at the person who was willing to help you.
“Yes. Yes I am.”
“Okay then. Look, he grew up in…well. Due to lack of better…terminology…he grew up in a war zone. Be glad that his first reaction was to run away from you, rather than start screaming or trying to throw anything at you, those are among the more common reactions.”
“Throwing…?”
“Yes…he was at school, it’s not like the classroom had rocks in it, you know.”
Oh, oh!
“Oooo, right.”
“Right. So, he fairly obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. If you insist on continuing to try to do so, I’d suggest you’d only approach him if one of his…cousins, did you say? If one of them is with him. He’ll probably, probably mind you, react better with them there.”
“Better how?”
“His reaction is to run, right? So if he thinks you’re going to prevent him from running, well, he’ll fall back to the other two options of throwing things or screaming.”
Based on what he’d heard the next day at the school after the kid had ran, he thought he might be more the type to start screaming hysterically, actually. That combined with the fact that the kid has spoken even less than he normally did seemed to support that conclusion, but he was no detective.
“Well, I mean, we’ve managed to have well, a single “civil” conversation, so…” BTC said, miming quote marks as he spoke.
“You did? That’s great. No, really! I looked him up after you said what happened the day you went and spoke to the classes, it’s actually pretty damn good he was even willing to speak to you!”
Now that…that surprised him.
“What? I mean, I know the kid is was at a civil rights protest on the side of the protesters, and calls himself an Irish nationalist, but, um…not much else.”
The Captain blinked at him for a moment.
“Right. Riiiight. Uh-huh. His mother is a nationalist, obviously enough, but his dad is military. Our military, don’t even ask that. But more to it than that, I mean. Apparently, or so my sources tell me, he was temporarily interned when he was twelve. For about a week, before someone over there was arsed to check his age and who his parents were. Sooo…kinda surprised he talked to you, the sources also said he pretty much lost all willingness to speak to soldiers other than his dad at that point. Well, speak to them any more than absolutely necessary, I mean.”
“That’s…that’s understandable, I suppose.”
“Very. So, really now. Be careful with what you do. And seriously. If he looks like he’ll freak out again, try to…not push the issue, I don’t want to be getting any more calls from concerned class-mates of his, really.”
“Of course, sir. That would be…bad.”
“Don’t mess with him. Really.”
“I…yes, sir. I’ll remember that.”
“Mhm.” With that, the Captain turned and left to go do whatever it was that Captains around here did, BTC thought to himself. What did they do? Well, currently, apparently field calls from people pissed about BTC, which just sucked. He had never had anyone pissed about his behavior when he was in the province, or rather, anyone who wasn’t already pissed at the world.
He wondered what tomorrow would bring.
Notes, Translations, etc.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLite A type of gun.
2 Yes, apparently, some ‘recipes’ call for fertilizer and a coffee grinder. You grind up the fertilizer…beyond that, no idea. It gets mentioned in some songs.
Link to part twenty-three - http://mindcracklove.dreamwidth.org/823419.html#cutid1
no subject
Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2014 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2014 02:49 pm (UTC)Yes, he's going to go back to Northern Ireland. Course, now that they know all of them get along, they can actually visit each other now/more often, so, there is that...
no subject
Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2014 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2014 09:34 pm (UTC)