Work Text:
The farmhouse was quiet. Empty even. Strangely empty. Eric sat in the living room, swallowed up by the silence around him. He listened to the sounds of the house that broke through the stillness. The low hum of the radiator. The occasional creak of the house settling. His own breath, shallow and slow. The beat of his heart, pounding in his chest.
He was painfully aware of his heartbeat. Harder, quicker. It felt like it was skipping a beat every now and then, like his heart wasn’t sure which rhythm to follow, disrupted by what had happened only a few hours before.
It felt surreal. Like he was stuck in a dream he couldn’t seem to wake from. A dream that had turned into a nightmare. His father. He was gone.
Since he got the phone call, since he arrived at the hospital, since he saw him there in the hospital bed, pale, jaw slacked, eyes hollow and sunken, since he returned to the empty farmhouse… Eric had felt numb. There was a heavy tightness in his chest, radiating outwards, paralyzing him. He didn’t know what to feel. Sadness? Anger? Confusion? Regret? Guilt?
His relationship with his father had always been strained. Derek was distant, had always lacked affection and had never shown care towards Eric. Not since he was a kid. Yet, he had still been his dad and in a way Eric had never really seemed to realize until now just how much he actually loved him. Despite all the fighting, all the harsh words, all the disapproval and let downs, Eric still loved him. He always had.
He still hadn't cried and he felt shame. He should be crying, shouldn't he? He was devastated, struck by a heavy grief that seeped into his heart, yet the tears were absent, refusing to fall. Like he was broken. Like his body hadn’t kept up with his mind and the pain within.
Staring into nothingness, he couldn't help but wonder if he had tried hard enough? Could everything have been different between them if he had given his father the chance? If he had fought and worked harder?
It had never been an easy life for either of them. One by one, loved ones had passed away. His brothers. His mom. His girlfriend. Each loss had broken his heart, but he never considered that they too had broken Derek's heart. As time went by and Eric became older, his father had grown distant, cold, even cruel at times.
As a kid, a teenager, a young adult, Eric didn't understand why. He blamed himself for the lack of affection. He thought he wasn't good enough. He thought he let his father down. It wasn't until now, he could see it. Derek was hurting the entire time. He was grieving the loss of his children, his wife and his possible future daughter-in-law. He clamped shut, afraid of showing love, afraid of getting close. Afraid of losing again.
He had pushed Eric away so he wouldn't get hurt again.
Eric let out a long shuddering sigh. It made sense. It had been Derek’s way of protecting himself. He understood it now, but it didn't make it any less difficult. He still wished it could have been different. He still longed for the kind and loving words of a father, the comfort and warmth of a hug, even just a pat on the shoulder to show he was proud of Eric. Any physical sign of love.
A hitch in his breath caught him off guard, a lump in his throat, a sting in his eyes and then suddenly they fell. The tears he didn't think he would shed, streaming from reddened eyes, leaving wet streaks on his cheeks. He cried. Cried, not just for the father he had lost, but for the father he had never had. The father he knew he could never have now.
He grieved for the memories that would never come. All the things they never did and the things they would never do now. The opportunities taken away from him. Gone, just like his father.
A sob slipped from his lips, one sounding far more lamenting than he had ever expected he would let out for his father. He finally knew what he felt. Sadness, sorrow and pain that he never told his father that he loved him. That he never heard the same words in return. That he never held his hand until he was laying there lifelessly in the bed, surrounded by machines and tubes in a sterile hospital room.
The smell of disinfectant and chemicals still lingered, as if it had followed him back home. Home to an empty house. Lonely. The hallways that his father would never walk again. The couch he would never sit in again. The tools he would never work with again. This was the place Eric grew up. Where he had spent his entire life. With his family. Brothers. Mother. Father. And now they were all gone.
Eric was alone. Alone with nothing but the memories. Both the good ones and the bad ones. But even if the bad ones stuck out in his mind, he wanted to focus on the good memories. The memories that mattered. The ones worth holding on to.
Maybe Derek had never told him, never shown him, but there had been moments. Little glimpses of affection throughout his life. A chuckle when little Eric had tumbled around in the mud one rainy day a long time ago. An attentive gaze when Eric playfully picked up his first toy rake and the hearty laugh that followed when he raked his mother’s flowers by accident. Even the stern expression on his face the day Eric graduated from business school.
They all meant something to Eric. They were all kept within his heart. Treasuring them along with the memories of his mother, his brothers and his girlfriend. Now they were all together again, waiting for the day Eric would be reunited with them.
And some memories were more obvious than others. One particular one that stood out in his mind was when Eric and his brothers were kids, running around in the fields, laughing and playing. His dad had shown up and they thought he was there to scold them, but instead he presented them with fireworks he had obtained from work. He allowed them all to watch as he gleefully set off rocket after rocket, lighting up the evening sky.
It was probably Eric’s most cherished memory of his dad. That evening, all of them had been in awe at the beautiful colors that painted the sky, the sparks and glitter that rained down over the fields. He remembered the smile on his father’s face. How his eyes were lit up just like the fireworks.
That day, Derek had been happy. He was having fun. And he let his children be a part of it, not with words, not with actions, but just by letting them be there with him in his moment of fun. In that moment when he sent rockets up among the stars.
Eric inhaled deeply as the tears slowed. Perhaps he was up there now too? Up there among the stars? Looking down at Eric with his usual critical eyes. Silently complaining that Eric was weak and pathetic for crying. That he looked too much like his mother. That he needed to toughen up and become a man.
He would become a man. He would. He promised his dad. Maybe he couldn't fully keep his promise, but he would do everything he could to honor it. To honor his father and do the best to become who he wanted him to be.
Maybe Derek had never been a good father, but he had been his father nonetheless and that would never change. The bad memories could never be erased, never be forgotten. But neither could the good memories. They would be with him forever. And in a way, he knew his father would too.