Uncharted - Z, PG-13

[serai]

.
Uncharted
by Serai


“I think about you sometimes,” she says, leaning her head against one hand.

He smirks. “That’s nice to know.”

She laughs gently. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“You taught me well,” he replies, and his eyes are as much resigned as amused.

“I did, didn’t I?” She takes a drag off her cigarette and studies him. He’s tipped his chair back, balancing with his long legs against the table. “I’m sorry about that.”

He shrugs. “It has its uses.” At her look he sighs. “It’s too late for sorry, Mom. Let it go.” He drops his chair back to the floor and leans towards her. “I’m alright. Really.”

She doesn’t believe him. There are old shadows under his eyes, and his face has become harsher in some subtle way. She doesn’t think he’s lost weight, but he’s always been so slender, it’s hard to tell. Who did this to you?

“How’s the weather over there?” he asks.

She thinks of miles of air clear as a diamond, under a sky as hard as granite and blue like nothing else she’s ever seen. She feels like she’s wrapped in cotton wool here, buffered against a freezing landscape. “It’s never gotten below seventy-five yet.”

He looks out through the window at the snowed-in road. “Must be nice.”

“It’s convenient,” she replies, stubbing out her cigarette. “But it’s…” Flattening, she wants to say, but doesn’t know if that would make sense. No, what she wants to say she can’t say, because he won’t hear it. He looks back at her, and the wall is clear in his eyes. Even so, she tries. “Zeke.”

“Don't,” he says, with no rancor but no leeway either. He means it. The tinge of a smile is gone, and she sees the thing she used to fear has happened after all. Come back, she thinks, Not that road. There are monsters down there. But the thought is sad instead of desperate, and she knows he’s long past hearing it. He’s right. His heart has hardened, and it’s too late.

She looks out at the untouched snow and lowering, steely sky, and thinks it'll snow again soon. She’s not a tearful woman, thank god, because if she were, she doubts she could ever stop crying after today.

---

Chapter 19 of High Contrast
Chapter 20

Comments

[gabi-fics.livejournal.com]

There are few things worse than seeing your child broken-hearted. And it's even worse to see that the damage may be permanent. There's a helplessness to it and if I didn't want to kick her for abandoning him, I'd feel sorry for her. My heart breaks for this boy.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

See my reply to mews1945 below. He's not as innocent as he may seem. And she's not anywhere near as cold-hearted as she's been portrayed in other fics. I think that's the most important thing to remember when reading this series - please forget the way these characters have been portrayed by others. She's a different woman in my story, and he's a different guy. I'm exploring a dynamic I haven't seen in other stories, especially between these two. She didn't leave him - the world tore her away. She's not the villain she's been portrayed as, at least not in my story. Definitely not in my story.

[gabi-fics.livejournal.com]

I totally get that there are different takes on a character and I'm not seeing her in the same way I do in my own fic, but the abandonment still happened and it's still hard to understand how a mother could choose anything over her child. This is why I find it hard to sympathise with her. Please don't think I'm treating her as a villain. But until a mother hears a viable reason for a mother to leave her child alone, she'll never understand.

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

So much under this dark water, so much history and misunderstanding. The tragedy is when people love each other but can't give what the other needs. I feel this here. How much of what he's doing is acting out against her or how much is an essential journey into his own deep nature is too early to know. But what she feels is just an early harbinger of his manhood. Whatever he might hear she would lose him by degrees. If there is comfort, it might be that this early hardening is actually what will save him in the end. Or destroy him. *shivers*

[serai1.livejournal.com]

She's scared at what's happened to him, and she's also heartbroken that she wasn't there to stop it. If she could have stopped it, but of course she couldn't, and she knows that just as much as he does. Life did a number on this family, and regret lies like a veil over everything that happens between mother and son.

Yeah, there is a great deal of history between these two. I don't know if it'll shake out in any of the pieces I'm writing, but it was Zeke himself who gave me the seed of this backstory, when I watched the movie and realized that he didn't show any bitterness or anger when he mentioned his parents, just kind of amused resignation. That made me curious and interested me. When his mom showed up in that earlier piece, I realized they don't resent each other at all, but love each other in a sad, regretful kind of way. If only... seems to be their basic mood whenever they're together, and define their whole relationship.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

My heart aches for Zeke,, but not for the woman who abandoned him. She'd like to change things, but she helped to form this nature a long time ago.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Years ago, an acting teacher gave me probably the most invaluable piece of advice I've ever had. She said, "Never assume your character is telling the truth." It shocked me, and opened my brain up like a can of sardines.

Never assume your character is telling the truth.
Never assume your character is saying everything there is to say.
Never assume you know what's going on in a scene, because the characters involved always know more than you.

I've learned that the hard way, over and over, when I'm writing. Things I think are one thing turn out to be completely different, sometimes even the opposite of what I thought. There's a great deal more here than just abandonment. It wasn't a one-way street. I had thought that was clear from the last piece I wrote about these two, but I guess it wasn't. Zeke's mother is not some heartless harpy who couldn't be bothered with her son. She's a woman who had to make hard choices, and she made the choice she had to. He's a wounded boy who lashed out and rejected her at the moment when he could have had his mother again. Zeke is not completely innocent here - he almost never is. Life is rarely cut and dried, and family relations are the most complex of all.