Chapter Fifteen

Buzz smiled to himself as he noted how different Tank’s room was to Ripp’s; the lack of used dinnerware, the nature of the posters adorning the walls… the piece of paper laid upon the bedside cabinet?

Frowning, Buzz approached the sheet of paper and picked it up to investigate further, recognising the handwriting of his eldest even in its scrawled form – rough notes for his school-work? He often wrote drafts in this way, although he didn’t usually leave them lying around. The title of ‘Jack-in-the-box’ was different, Buzz pondered, not like him to write about toys. It was curiosity that pulled him further into the work, each line at first serving to spark more intrigue than the last.

“You okay?” Johnny asked, watching Ripp slump against the back of the sofa.

“I need a cigarette,” came the plaintive reply.

Tank straightened up in his seat as his steely gaze bored into his younger brother.

“I beg your pardon?!” he checked slowly.

Ripp was brought back to earth with a bang as he sheepishly eyed the muscular form in the chair.

“Oops,” he uttered, quickly lowering his gaze to the carpet. Johnny smiled awkwardly as he looked across at Tank, coughing apprehensively.

“Anythin’ else you wanna tell me?!” Tank prompted bitterly.

“Go easy Tank,” Johnny urged him, “It ain’t like he could even trust ya ‘til recently.”

Tank nursed his forehead for a moment, before looking back at Ripp.

“Don’t lecture me about it,” Ripp groaned, “Things just got worse an’ worse, to the point where drums were no longer enough.”

“How’d you manage to keep somethin’ like that quiet?” Tank asked, “How’d you get hold of them?”

“Oh, a friend of mine at school,” Ripp explained, “Straight before you ask, but he’d tuck us away in one of the cubicles. Dunno how he got them, didn’t care. I was just at that point by then, where I’d asked to try one,” he continued with a shrug, “He’d offer me these strong mints too, to get rid of the smell on my breath.”

“When was this?”

“Not ‘til about, ooh, six months ago I think.”

“I weren’t too happy about it either,” Johnny offered, “But what can you do? It ain’t like keepin’ candy from a baby, he’s too old for that.”

“Better than sleeping around, right?” Ripp reminded.

Tank gave a resigned shrug, before a random thought caused him to groan.

“Shit,” he muttered, looking back at Ripp, “Just remembered – you know what else I left back home?”

Ripp merely shrugged in reply.

“My school books!” Tank explained, “They got all my work in ‘em… can’t pick up fresh copies of that at the store!”

“We gotta go back home, in other words…?” Ripp uttered meekly.

“Come on,” Johnny offered, slapping Ripp’s knee, “We’ll all go, back each other up.”

“Nice idea,” Ripp agreed, “Maybe I can get those packs I left at home too… if Dad hasn’t found them, that is!”

Buzz’s head turned in fascination at the sound of a key turning in the lock, and leaned over the banister on the landing to peer down at the door as it opened. His heart skipped a beat on the sight of his eldest children, noting dryly their tentative entry into what was still their home, and slunk down the stairs just in time to notice the owner of the green hand clutching that of Ripp’s. Buzz’s reaction, however, surprised even himself – he no longer cared, suppressing only the mild disgust at the sight of two males holding hands.

“Hi guys,” he greeted weakly, causing the two former residents to turn with a start at the sound of his voice.

Ripp’s grip tightened on Johnny’s hand as he fought against the memories of their last encounter, and Tank was engaged in a similar battle as he swallowed the forming lump in his throat.

“Hey Dad,” the sixteen year old replied as he struggled to regain control of the situation, “Look, I just came for my school books, I don’t want a war.”

“Neither do I,” came the sullen reply, and movement of his hand pulled Tank’s eyes to a scrap of paper he was holding. The boy’s heart plunged into a pit of dread as he once more gazed at his father, guessing before any other word was spoken what that paper contained.

“Is this how you’ve really felt all these years?” Buzz questioned with sadness in his eyes, “Like the jack-in-a-box doll?”

“Oh, that one,” Tank muttered evasively. He nursed the back of his head uncomfortably as his next remark slipped from his mouth before he had a chance to stop it.

“You weren’t meant to see that…”

“Pretty hard to miss when it’s layin’ on your end table,” Buzz explained, smiling sadly as he glanced at the paper in his hand, “Yeah, wouldn’t want my dad seeing something like that either, if I could even write something like this.”

Tank gazed back at his father, not hiding the tears beginning to gather at his eyes, but letting him speak as he sensed there was more to follow.

“Maybe there’s more of your mom there than I thought,” Buzz pondered, “That’s some talent you have there...”

“Thanks,” Tank accepted in a dismissive tone, “Look, I just came for my school bag…”

“Sure,” Buzz nodded, “Doubt any of us are thinking straight enough for anything more.”

Tank briefly frowned at his father’s quick agreement, before deciding flight was the best course of action for all three of them at this moment in time. Too much had happened for them to now engage in an ugly confrontation.

“Come on Ripp,” Tank offered, pulling the quiet teenager away and up the stairs.

Johnny watched them go, keeping an eye and ear open for the closing of a bedroom door before looking back at his boyfriend’s father.

“You’re gonna like this even less,” Johnny began, “But that incident with Ripp needed to get reported. You all need serious help…”

“I know.”

Johnny stared in surprise at Buzz as he spoke, and the man returned his gaze as their green eyes locked onto each other.

“Oh, it’s easy for people to think that I haven’t noticed,” Buzz told him, “But I have. Sure, it took me long enough, but little things like spotting your son’s plastered wrist and knowing you’re the one who caused it…”

“Three guesses who’s payin’ for it,” Johnny hinted, crossing his arms.

“Tricare will,” Buzz told him, a knowing smile playing upon his mouth at noticing Johnny’s puzzled expression. “Government funded insurance firm, they look after us army boys.”

“Oh, right,” Johnny acknowledged with a shrug, “I dunno much about that kinda thing.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Buzz concurred, “Even if they don’t cover it all, it’ll take most of the weight off my wallet. Not that it matters; I wouldn’t expect anyone else to pay for my mistakes.”

Johnny scoffed at his remark, before speaking.

“Ripp did,” he told him, “He’d sooner have put himself into debt than see you faced with the bill. He even begged me not to say anythin’ about how he got in that state.”

Buzz smiled sadly as his head lowered, his gaze upon the floorboards as he allowed himself to drift.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” he mused, “I was the same. Didn’t wanna go to school the following day, knowing the questions I’d get about the bruises. I’d even get into fights just to prove that’s how I got them.”

Johnny slowly rubbed at his arms as he watched the general in his reverie. Words from the doctor rang in his mind, about the abused becoming the abuser. Everything about his behaviour suddenly slotted into place – well, nearly everything.

“What about Tank?” Johnny challenged, “What’d he do to piss you off?”

“He didn’t,” Buzz admitted, “Just… something came back, something about a knife…”

“Knife?” Johnny checked, now thoroughly puzzled. His confusion only grew when Buzz’s hand travelled to the site of his scar.

“Why they’re coming back now I don’t know,” Buzz pondered, “But I’ve been getting these strange dreams lately, and there’s always a knife involved. That episode with Tank triggered some kinda flashback, it’s all gotten worse since then.”

“Sounds like repressed memories to me,” Johnny suggested, continuing when Buzz looked sharply back at him, “Somethin’ so bad happened, your mind’s response is to block out those memories. Now it seems they’re fightin’ back.”

“You’re well informed,” Buzz mused.

“You tend to take more interest in medical stuff when your mom works in a hospital,” Johnny said, “An’ you tend to be more fascinated by science and the paranormal, when your uncles are scientists and your dad’s from another world.”

Buzz smiled a little at his remark. In all his hatred for Johnny’s extended as well as immediate family, he’d not bothered to learn anything of what made them all tick.

“True,” he conceded, beginning to wonder if this ‘enemy’ was as fearful as he’d always been led to believe. If aliens really meant ill will towards humans, why would one of them care to talk to him in such a way? It was almost as though he offered the kind of help he’d secretly sought all these years. Buzz decided, after some deliberation, to put that idea to the test.

“Where do I start?” he asked.

Johnny fought against the smile at the thought of a teenager giving advice to a grown man, replacing it with the noting of his mental age rather than physical. Buzz may have been somewhere in his thirties, but his troubled childhood seemed to keep his inner self at no more than Ripp’s age. He needed to break the chains of his past in order to mature and move on, and his question was a valid one.

“Well, the military seem to look after their soldiers,” Johnny observed, “I’m pretty sure they’d put you onto some kinda therapy…” Upon noticing the disapproving twitch of the man’s eyebrow, the green youth changed his manner.

“What is it about the mention of therapy that gets such a bad reaction from you guys?” he demanded, “Even Ripp yelled at me for darin’ to suggest it, an’ he’s normally so passive!”

Buzz gave a mild shrug as he once more crossed his arms.

“Something about disclosing the details of your sordid past to strangers,” Buzz replied dryly, “I couldn’t even do that with my then wife.”

“Those closest to you are the last ones anyone would trust with that kinda info,” Johnny explained, “Besides, therapists are paid to help, not judge.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe nothin’,” Johnny countered, “There’s a reason Ripp confided in me an’ not you. Apart of course, from the fact that you’d have killed him.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Buzz reminded him.

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed, “When it all came out, what he’d wanted to keep from you. You proved him right, in other words.”

Buzz fidgeted apprehensively on his feet as the hard truths were laid out before him. He’d received harsher beatings for less, and just the fact that he was now talking with an alien, a male that had won the heart of his son, was enough to remind him how different he really was to his father. The cycle was already beginning to break, albeit at a painstakingly slow rate, and with these long forgotten memories now returning to haunt him, Buzz had another reason to speed up the process. Who knows, he questioned quietly, he may even be forced onto such a programme, since his violent episode would surely reach the ears of his superior by the time he left for Nevada the next day. Assuming of course that he would even keep his job; he knew only too well the implications of his actions.

Tank watched with masked disdain as his younger brother replenished his nicotine levels, but knew better than to make his feelings known on the matter. He’d already suffered the wrath of Ripp’s vicious tongue for finally bringing up his promiscuous past, and both of them had been drained by not only that, but also the meeting with their father earlier.

“Better now?” Tank asked sardonically, as Ripp flicked the cigarette butt into the desert sand nearby.

“Oh yeah,” Ripp replied as he ducked back into the room, struggling to pull the window closed. Tank walked over and hooked his fingers over the frame, while Ripp cleared the way and foraged in his drawer for the tube of mints he kept there, popping one into his mouth before stashing the rest of the pack into his pocket. His eyes fell on the remainder of the boxes upon his bed, flitting across to his older brother as he turned to face him.

“Can I ask you a big favour please?”

Tank smiled significantly as he noticed his gaze. Without Ripp speaking another word Tank was upon his school bag, hoisting it onto Ripp’s bed and stowing the cigarette cartons into his backpack.

“Thanks,” Ripp smiled, “Kinda obvious why they got left, huh?”

Tank arched an eyebrow in reply.

“Come on,” he beckoned, “We’d better get goin’.”

Ophelia frowned as they ate in silence. She was in no mood to talk after a combination of renewed bereavement and the fate of her boyfriend’s mother, but she hadn’t expected it all to affect her aunt as well. Unless there was another reason, of course.

“Somethin’ wrong?” she asked innocently.

Olive shrugged in reply, mentally wrestling with the decision of whether or not to explain her own drop in mood.

“Well, guess you’ll know sooner or later,” came the unexpected response.

Ophelia cocked her head in bemusement, but let her continue.

“Just wondering about my son,” Olive confessed, checking her niece’s reaction carefully.

“Son?” Ophelia echoed, taken aback by the news, “What son?”

“The son who got taken away when he was little,” Olive explained, “The social worker wanted to keep his very existence secret. Given who his father is, I suppose that’s understandable.”

“What do you mean?” Ophelia asked, more confused by the minute.

Olive eyed the teenager with a mixture of apology and uncertainty, wondering how best to explain that it was possible to be romantically involved with the master of death.