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“Are you absolutely sure your parents are alright with you just…ditching their whole Easter celebration?” Argent asked as he held the door open for Nolan to step into his quaint apartment. “Especially to hang out in a single old man’s bachelor pad?” he chuckled without even fully cracking a smile.
Nolan took in his surroundings and stammered out, “Not…really, I don’t think. I’ve slipped away before and they never seem to notice or care. And this time I even asked permission if I could spend a good part of Easter at a friend’s house, and they just…allowed it.”
“And you never specified to them that your friend is over twice your age?” Argent raised an eyebrow.
“They don’t tend to press for details,” Nolan shrugged, “and I can’t say I really care about their opinions anymore…” he trailed off.
Chris stood in front of the door for a second, “I get the feeling there’s a longer story there, but why don’t you set your bag down while I get us some drinks.”
“Drinks?” Nolan said quickly, “you don’t mean–”
Chris turned around with two glasses of water in his hands, “No, Nolan, I’m not going to offer alcohol to a teenager, although technically you’d be able to drink pretty soon if we were back in France.” An awkward pause followed before Chris cleared his throat, “But ah, that’s not…important, right now. Just…sit down. The chairs aren’t armed. Most of them anyway.” Nolan could never tell when Argent was joking or not.
They sat for a solid minute in relative silence, just sipping water, before Argent spoke again, “Was…there something in particular you wanted to talk about or do today? You asked to come here, but I suppose I never really checked if there was something in particular you wanted to practice?”
Nolan traced a finger around the rim of his glass. “I…don’t know if I even really wanted to train. I just…couldn’t stand to be in that house on days like this.”
“So you’d rather be in my dreary little home?” Argent asked with raised eyebrows, “Is your house really that bad?”
Nolan grimaced and clenched his jaw, “It shouldn’t be. On paper we’re a perfectly functional family. Dad’s a devout man and a great prosecutor, Mom’s the perfect housewife, my older sister is already preparing to go into pre-law and follow in my dad’s footsteps, and my younger brother…well he’s already about to be confirmed despite being only 11. People always talk about how he’ll make a great pastor one day, just like his grandfather. Everyone else slots perfectly into their roles, and then there’s just…me. I don’t have any plan for after graduation, I’m not the perfect little Christian boy anymore, I’m just…there. I don’t fit into the perfect vision, but I’m not offensive to it either, at least not yet.”
“But you think you might become…”
“Something they’ll despise? Probably,” Nolan ran his hand through his hair nervously, “How am I supposed to tell them their already disappointing son probably likes boys? Or do they already know and that’s why they just…ignore me so often? They’ve already given up on me because I’m not the perfect Holloway?”
“Well, take it from someone who is a massive disappointment to his family’s values…or at least the previous few generations’ values, being the perfect member of your family is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Argent took a long slow sip.
“This might come off as a rude question,” Nolan started, stumbling over the words for a moment and hoping Argent wouldn’t pull a gun on him, “but aren’t most of your family members…dead?”
Chris thought for a moment and then sighed, “Maybe, but I think you’re missing the point, kid. The Argent family isn’t defined by my choices, but it isn’t defined by Gerard or Kate’s choices either. We get to choose what our last name means to us, whether we hold onto it or not, whether we want it to mean anything, even. If you don’t want to be associated with the name Holloway, you don’t have to be. But if you want that name to mean something other than the devout family of lawyers and pastors you’ve been describing, you can redefine it however you choose. Carve it into the stones of history by doing something completely different.”
“You say that, but to make a mark on history I need to be special in some way,” Nolan rested his chin on his hands, “and that…that just isn’t a reality right now. Maybe someday, if I can stop messing up on every lesson you teach me…”
“Or maybe if you stop lying to yourself that you’re worthless and acknowledge how far you’ve already come,” Argent interrupted, setting his glass down and rustling around in the kitchen drawers, getting out utensils for…something.
“What have I possibly accomplished?” Nolan asked,sliding his head down so his forehead was resting on his hands instead, “I joined a crazed cult aiming to wipe out a bunch of innocent teenagers and watched my only ‘friend’ die along the way. If I’m remembered for anything it’ll be because I’m a disappointment and a coward.”
A loud clatter caused Nolan to bolt up in his seat as Argent had dropped a kitchen knife onto the table from a sizeable height, the look in his eyes a mixture of concern and irritation. “I hope you don’t actually believe that, Nolan,” he said sternly, the slightest of growls peeking through, “because from where I’ve standing you’ve accomplished a lot more than most of the people in this town.”
Nolan could only manage a blank, confused stare, so Argent continued, “Most of the people in this town surrendered to the Anuk-ite’s influence, surrendered to fear. They all joined Monroe’s Army, just like you did. Only unlike them, you didn’t stay a part of Monroe’s forces. You turned on her, you tried to help us, and in doing so, you broke free of the fear holding you back, at least in that moment. And how many other people in this town did the same, exactly?” Nolan still didn’t respond. “Now ever since then, you’ve been showing up to learn things from me consistently…once you got over your own stumbling tongue and asked me to teach you. And no matter how many times you fail, or miss, or think you screwed up, you keep coming back. Don’t you think that means something? Don’t you think that sets you apart from all the other people who were exposed to this wild world of werewolves and monsters and just decided to move on with their lives as though they didn’t try to murder a gang of teenagers just a few months ago?” Argent finally relented and sat down, looking as though he almost regretted going off like that.
At last, Nolan spoke, “Th–thank you, Mr. Argent.”
Argent rubbed his face with his palm, “enough with the formalities, please, you can just call me Chris if I’m going to be calling you Nolan all the time. Or would you prefer I start calling you ‘Mr. Holloway?”
Nolan shook his head, “No, that’s…that’s still my dad’s name, more than mine. Maybe someday…but not yet.”
Chris sighed, “Alright, then let’s start with something simple. Cookies.”
“Cookies?” Nolan asked, confused, before he saw the mixer, baking sheets, and even a batter scoop sitting out on the counter next to the ingredients.
“Chocolate chip. My…and Allison’s favorite,” Chris smiled sadly, “I was going to make some anyway, but since you’re so sure you’re going to disappoint, why don’t we partake in an activity that doesn’t involve ammunition and the potential to kill?” Chris shuffled over to the counter, and Nolan reluctantly followed. “You’re going to measure out the ingredients, and I’ll do the mixing and all that. Easy enough, right?” Chris tapped the recipe with his finger.
“I…guess,” Nolan managed, trying not to spill the flour as he scooped. “Do you–did you–have you done this often?” he stammered.
Chris was checking the mixer almost absent-mindedly, like he didn’t even have to think about it. “I used to, back when Allison was–little, Victoria and I made her cookies all the time, probably too often. She used to love them, until she started “growing out of it,” but she’d still eat them even so,” the sad smile stayed, accompanying Chris’ recollection, “when her mom died, we stopped…and I always regretted that. I didn’t start baking again until…” he trailed off.
Nolan didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound…fake, or generic at this point, so he just kept his mouth shut, prepping ingredients and passing them to Argent, who wordlessly mixed them up and scooped out the individual cookies. He didn’t speak again until they were putting the first sheet in the oven. “Is she the reason you’re training me?” Nolan squeaked out.
Chris wordlessly set the timer and then just stood there in silence for a moment, “Would you believe me if I said I don’t know? I want to believe I’m doing it for the right reasons, but…I don’t want you to feel like you’re a replacement child to me.”
Nolan stood for a moment, thinking, “Would that…be so bad?” he murmured, almost inaudibly.
He had hoped Chris wouldn’t hear him, but evidently he did, “Not exactly…I just mean not like that, Nolan. You’re not Allison, just like you’re not your father, or your mother, or any other family member. You’re you. That’s all I mean.”
“But you don’t mind having a screw-up at your heels?”
Chris groaned, “I had hoped your self-esteem would last long enough for the first batch to come out of the oven, but I guess not. You’re not an actual screw-up, Nolan, you’re just letting your own insecurities convince you that you are.”
“What?”
“Remember when we worked on archery?”
“And I missed the target five times?” Nolan asked sarcastically.
“That’s not the part I remember vividly,” Chris shook his head, “what I remember was you holding the bow with perfect form after only a couple minutes of having it in your hands. What about trap-building?”
“The trap I got myself stuck in hanging upside down by my ankle?”
“Because it was a well-made trap that did its job effectively and kept you from breaking free. You’re emphasizing my point here, Nolan, your brain is so caught up in criticizing itself and recalling all the elements it perceives as failures that it forgets you’ve made remarkable progress for someone so young and new to all this and you shouldn’t judge yourself so harshly. I’ve seen grown people spend months on things you’ve picked up in days.”
“Heaping praise isn’t helping, Mr.–Chris,” Nolan snapped, “You can tell me how awesome I am all day, it’s not doing anything to make me believe it!”
“Then we need you to do something to believe it,” Chris said simply, the timer starting its bells behind him, “go ahead.”
Nolan grumpily shoved on the oven mitt and lifted the now fully formed cookies out of the oven, with Chris scooping them off onto the cooling rack until he reached halfway down the sheet and handed the spatula to Nolan “Your turn.” Nolan did his best, but one of the cookies landed halfway on the cooling rack and ended up bent nearly in half, and another slid off completely and tumbled to the tile floor, which Argent swiftly cleaned off with a paper towel before Nolan could even comment on it.
As Argent prepped the next sheet, he looked over at Nolan with narrowed eyes, “Review your own performance for me.”
“What?”
“Humor me for a moment, will you?” Argent asked dryly, putting the sheet in, “rate your own performance with transferring the cookies to the cooling rack.”
“Uh…I mean I dropped one on the floor, and another one barely looks like a cookie anymore, so probably that’s worth deducting several points…so maybe a 5 out of 10…”
“Wrong,” Chris said straightforwardly, “you were in charge of eight cookies. Two of them had incidents happen, but six of them made it to the cooling rack completely fine. That’s a 75% success rate. Much better than a halfway rating would suggest. Ideally, that should be your first thought in any exercise, especially when it’s not a life or death situation, start with what you did RIGHT. Now, what do we do next?”
“…wait for the cookies to bake?” Nolan asked, confused.
“I mean what do we do about the times you did, in fact, mess up?” Chris continued, “should we simply recap them each time you pull a new sheet out of the oven?”
“I–no?” Nolan guessed.
“Exactly. You shouldn’t sit here and repeat to me your laundry list of past mistakes if there’s nothing you can do to try and ensure they don’t happen again. So what went wrong?”
“Well with the one that slid to the floor…I guess the issue was trying to lift the cookie too rapidly from the sheet instead of getting the spatula all the way underneath the cookie?”
“Good, and the bent one?”
“Lower the spatula closer to the cooling rack before attempting to slide off the cookie, so it has a lower chance of missing the target and spilling off to the side?”
“You sound more skilled already,” Chris smiled. “Now, ready to put those ideas to the test?” he smirked as the timer went off once more and he swiftly cleared the first set into a waiting container.
Nolan took a deep breath, and got to work, 1, 2, 3 cookies down, no problems yet, 4, 5, 6, he could feel Argent’s gaze boring into him, but not in a way that felt like pressure, the way he was so used to with Monroe, 7, 8–and cookie number 8 slipped ever so slightly off the rack and bent along the edge. Nolan nudged it back into place with the spatula as best he could and kept going. 9, 10, 11, back on a roll, 12, 13, 14–another flawed one. This one had stuck harder than usual to the pan, and by the time Nolan dislodged it, it flew off the pan instead of staying with the spatula, landing in Argent’s fingers, who winced and quickly set it down to cool. “Keep your focus on the ones on the sheet,” Argent ordered quietly. Nolan took another shaky breath before continuing. 15 and…he almost lifted the spatula too quickly for the final one, but managed to course correct and readjust in time to spare the cookie a trip to the floor.
“Was that…better?” he asked hesitantly, looking at Chris, who was grinning and staring at the rack.
“Of course it was,” Chris laughed a little, “if we’re still doing percentages, that’s a 12.5% improvement over your last attempt, better even, since the one cookie that bent didn’t bend nearly as dramatically, and the other ‘fall’ didn’t even fall.”
“Thanks to you catching it,” Nolan said sheepishly, “do you need to run some water on that by the way?”
Chris shook his head, “I’m fine, I swear, but you should be paying attention to your own success, Nolan. In just your second attempt you’ve already made drastic progress and you can only really get better. Maybe on this third sheet you’ll get them all onto the rack without even having an issue.”
“I…seriously doubt that,” Nolan muttered, “and it still won’t make me a better marksman or anything.”
“No, it might not,” Chris shrugged, “but you can eat this,” he popped a cookie in Nolan’s mouth, which Nolan found surprisingly tasty, and Chris quickly ate one for himself too, “and that’s a solid reward in itself. Even if I think you’ll find today will make you a better marksman.”
“How? Scooping cookies and handling baking sheets is nothing like holding a gun.”
“For someone so bright you can be remarkably slow on the uptake,” Chris chuckled, “your problem isn’t the mechanical skills of whatever weapon you pick up, it’s that you’re too traumatized by your own mistakes to trust yourself to succeed again. Your mental skills are what’s lacking, not anything we could train physically. I could have you shoot a target 200 times and it still wouldn’t change anything, because you’d only be thinking about the ones you missed.”
“So how do I shut out those thoughts? How do I shut up the voices telling me about all the misses?”
Chris just smiled again, “you don’t, really. All you can do is give them less power over you. And if you do that, I think you’ll find your shooting surpassing even mine.”
Nolan stood, unsure how to respond, just awkwardly holding a spatula. “I don’t know…if I can do that. At least not yet.”
“It won’t be overnight, Nolan, but if you don’t start sometime, you’ll never get anywhere.”
The ideas that had stuck with Nolan for so long reverberated to the front of his thoughts again, how he was supposed to feel guilty, look at his mistakes and missteps as failures of his own mind and soul, and somehow they all seemed so pointless now. He took another breath, “alright, I’ll aim for a perfect rating this time…even if it probably won’t happen,” he managed to laugh instead of allowing the sentiment to hang.
“That’s all you can do,” Chris laughed with him.