Work Text:
The day that Clara was born, a baby-frail whisper crawled into his mind:
Maybe I should go to therapy.
He thinks you’re not supposed to remember it. When the trauma is that bad, you’re supposed to shove it down, banish it to the darkened corners of the brain, the places where the dust builds up and the memories remain uncovered, strapped down soldered to the floor. Untouchable, entirely untouchable, but Cliff knows touch too well. He cannot repress anything.
Therapy would have hurt too much. Looking back on it now -
He can’t look back on it now. He can’t. That is a life he will never have again. Looking back on it now -
In hindsight -
He should have gone. Maybe if he had gone to therapy, he’d be a better father. Maybe he would’ve been a better husband. Maybe, if he had worked through his issues, he would be a better person now; something other than - nothing. He’s nothing.
He doesn’t even have a body. If he doesn’t have a body, cannot be used for the satisfaction of others, what is he? What is Cliff Steele without the influence of another person?
You’re not supposed to remember it. Cliff does. His father, and his father’s fists. His father and the bedroom door. I’m gonna be better. I’m gonna be better. I’m gonna be better. As a kid he dreamed about it - nightmares, the hands, the pulling and the tugging and the pulling and the tugging and the pulling. Waking up in the middle of the night. Knowing that something was wrong about it - something, something - but not having the vocabulary to understand what. The violation. The pain, the fear, the pain. When you’re young, you don’t understand why people won’t
listen to you
when
you say
I don’t want to. The world is supposed to be a good place, full of joy. Why did it have to be him? What did he do to deserve it?
As a kid he felt afraid. It stopped around the time he became a teenager. As an adult, he still felt traces of skin against his on bad days. Flashbacks to the feeling of touch and grip. It’s why he poured his soul into racing; racing is just another word for escaping, to see who can get away the quickest. It’s why he fucked Giselle; because he was just a body, just a body, just something to be used. It’s why he misses Clara so much; she got the life he didn’t, she got to remain innocent. He messed up as a father, but he didn’t mess up like his own father did. He vowed to be a good person. He told himself that he would take his suffering and turn it into making his chance at parenthood golden.
He never got that chance. It was stolen from him, just like everything else.
That’s the sole silver lining of not being able to feel anymore. You can no longer feel the phantom touches of trauma. It’s gone, forever.
He looks at Jane, at Larry, at Rita, at Vic. Calls a therapy session. Thinks: they have been traumatized, they have been through just as much as I have. They made it out. I can, too.
I can fix myself.