`and it breaks my heart. [tristan]

[penn justice prescott]

The big oak tree in the front yard was the same. So were the hydrangeas that sat under the lip of the big bay windows. Perhaps the grass was untidily managed and the shrubbery along the walk a little wilder than he'd remembered, but still the yard and house it was married to were very much as they had been; humble and quaint. It was eerie in a way. Revisiting a place you associate with perhaps one of the greatest most traumatic incidents of your life, yet still feeling that sense of 'home' that lingers can really do a number on you.

For Penn, the experiance was nauseating. There had been at least two times in the cab ride over where Penn, in a fit of hysterics, had asked the poor driver to pull over for a breif moment so that he could collect himself and steady the churning of his stomach and the pounding of his heart. Each time the driver had obliged him, Penn had half a mind to just tell the man to turn back around and drop him at the train station. It would have been so easy; a ticket to London, a shuttle to the airport, and a red eye flight to Newark. He wouldn't have to endure this utterly crippling ache in his bones if he could just let himself slip away again. However, as the beautiful homes, many of which had been designed by Alex, reared in front of the cab as they drove deeper into the heart of the Audrey Estates, it slowly dawned on Penn that an escape attempt was futile and inexcusable. He owed this, if not to himself, then to his son. If he left now, what little chance at forgiveness that he had would be lost.

So here he was; standing at the edge of the property that he'd paid for in his own name, married his beautiful wife, raised his only son, and lived in for 25 years. His mouth felt dry; chalky even as he watched the whitewashed walls loom over him in an imposing, almost unwelcoming manner. He silently wondered if his family was home. Was his former wife sitting on the back porch watching what was left of the sun sink low behind the Jones's roof next door? Was she perhaps tucking into a bowel of cereal while watching Britain's Got Talent with detached amusement? Was Tristan upstairs throwing that damned tennis ball against the wall in that way that used to drive Penn nets? He was desperately curious, yet at the same time fearful of finding out. Though the desire to see his son was extreme to an almost unfathomable degree, he silently wished that neither would be home and that he could be spared the torment of their uncomfortable reunion.

He made his way up the brick path, the sound of his footsteps pounding in his ears till he reached the door with the large brass knocker. He stared at it, unable to bring himself to grab hold of the thing and just knock. A shiver raked his spine and he retreated back to the path, breathing deliberately slow so that he could stall the impending anxiety attack that was sure to take hold of him any minute. Readying himself once again, he returned to the door, and with a certain amount of determination, reared his fist to so that he might knock on the thick mahogany this time. However he just stood there, unable to bring himself to make any sort of noise that might indicate his arrival. He dissolved into a fit of restless pacing that extended from the front stoop to the end of the path. How was he going to do this? What would he say? Unable to answer these question he turned his back on the house, ready to make a dash for it down the street until he heard the fateful click of the door opening behind him...

[tristan bennett prescott]

Click. Tristan could barely believe it. His dad was back in Lampton. His dad. The man for whom he’d been waiting for five damn years. He was home. A part of him was surprised that the universe hadn’t completely changed from a few moments ago. He was still in his room, phone in hand. His mother was still napping in front of the television. The world hadn’t split in two. But, God, everything was different now, wasn’t it? Why on Earth was he just hearing about this now? From his damn sister? His father had gone and had dinner with her instead of talking to his own son. What kind of priorities did the man have? Jesus Christ, he had raised him for eighteen years; he didn’t even bother to call or write or do anything to let him know he’d be coming back. Of all the stupid niceties they kept exchanging, this was the one important thing he should’ve mentioned.

The room suddenly became unbearably warm. The air got stale, and it was getting hard to breathe. Tristan ran to the window, but just as he was about to throw open the shutters, he saw him. Penn. There he was, at the door, just standing, as if he was expecting his son to invite him in. The color drained from the boy’s face. Everything was entirely too real. That all-too-familiar feeling of shame and guilt started bubbling in his stomach. He couldn’t let his father stand outside like that. No, no, that wasn’t how he was raised. Almost automatically, he rushed down the stairs, but stopped dead at the door. What on Earth was he doing? Less than a minute ago, he was angry at the man. Was he really about to invite him in?

The bile began to rise in his throat as he tried to choke back tears. God damn it. This always happened. Ever since Tristan was a child. His father could always make him cry. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even need to say a word. Just a simple look, not angry, just stern, could break his little self down. God, he hadn’t even seen the man yet, and he could still make the boy cry. Whenever he saw the tears, Penn would tell him to stop being such a sissy. How was he ever going to be a proper man if he kept bawling at every little thing? Sometimes, he’d get frustrated and just walk away. Then, Tristan would only cry harder and his mother would have to come to the rescue. She’d hold him and tell him that it was okay to cry, that he wasn’t worthless, that he would grow up to be a wonderful person. She could always take care of him.

Nowadays, it was the same. Tristan always pretended that he’d stayed in Lampton for the sake of his mother, but everyone knew it was the other way around. It would’ve probably been healthier for everyone if he just left and moved on, but the boy was stupid. He couldn’t let go of what little hope there might be that he might ever get his family back. He kept every single postcard, hiding them from his mother as well as he could. God knows what might happen if she ever found them. She’d probably laugh until she cried. Well, his stupid hope paid off. The boy was less than ten feet from his father. He stared at the oak door.

Thump, thump, thump. His heartbeat seemed unbearably loud. It filled the room and seeped into the walls until the entire house seemed to pound in time with his quickening pulse. Surely, it would wake his mother, and she’d make his father leave. No, no. He couldn’t do this. Tristan could not let himself get so damn close and breaking down. Breathing in, he reached out, but could only touch the cool brass for a moment before retracting his hand as if he’d been burned. He reached for the doorknob, but pulled his hands back even sooner this time. It was as if he was repelled by the thing. Brouhaha raged in his mind as he wrestled with the idea of opening the door. What would he say? What would he do? What did it matter? His father was on the other side of that door and he was about to let him walk away. Again. God damn it, why wouldn’t he just open the door?

Suddenly, something snapped and the door flew open.

“Hi, Penn.”

[penn justice prescott]

His heart seemed to stop. All sense of direction and blood became discombobulated and he suddenly felt as if he might keel over. His spine seized in place, rendering him imobile, though his feet were aching to take him elsewhere; somewhere safe. His stomach felt warm, but not the way you typically associate with hugs, contentedness, or good scotch. No, this was uncomfortable; nausiating even. Penn gasped suddenly, realizing that he had not once stopped to take a breath since he’d turned his back on the house. He sucked in the warm air hungrily, hopeing that somehow this momtary bout of axiety would pass, but he knew it wouldn’t. Not with those eyes on the back of his neck. Though he had a desperate desire to turn around and see who had opened the door, a part of him was frightened beyond all reason.

His stomach gave into a rather heavy lurch as he heard the voice behind him. He shut his eyes, breathing through the palet of emotions he was experiancing and trying to collect what little self control he had so that he might appear somewhat together. He couldn’t really explain way, but the greeting stung him a little. Perhaps it was the tone with which it was spoken, or perhaps the word choice. Tristan had never called him by his first name. It had always been “dad” or in rare cases “sir”, but never “Penn”. This is what he had been afraid of; that his son, after everything was said and done, wouldn’t even identify with being related to Penn.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Penn managed to muster enough will to turn around and face his boy. His eyes fell upon the image of Tristan framed in the doorway. He was taller than Penn had remembered; brawnier even, with perhaps a lighter hue to his hair. He’d forgotten how Tristan’s hair used to do that; how it used to change with the coming of summer. He noted Tristan’s features, drinking in every part of him that he could. He ackowleged the familiar blue eyes that the boy shared with his mother, the strong brow that belonged to his grandather, and the prominent jawline that Penn had always thought he’d given Tristan. Looking at him now, Penn began to see just how much they did not look alike, and it quite simply broke his heart.

Though Penn was a man known for his strength of character and seeming inability to show any sort of venurability, right now he could have easily fell to the ground and wept.

He took a tentitive step towards Tristan, unsure of what the proper thing to do was. He knew what he wanted, which was to throw his arms around his son and hold him till he had no more strength left in his arms to hang on any longer, but he didn’t know if Tristan would allow it. Had too much time passed between them to warrant such affection? He felt his throat begin to clench and his blue eyes well up with painful uninvited tears. "Tristan..." he breathed softly, hiccuping slightly as he tried to steady the shaking in his hands. He wanted to say somthing; anything that would break the tension. "You've gotten so tall," he said, offering a watery smile as a loose tear escaped from his lashes, clinging to the hallow of his cheek. He felt stupid. He didn't know what to say or how to act, and the fact that he couldn't get control over his emotions was unbarable. No child should have to see their father cry.

[tristan bennett prescott]

It was three minutes before it hit Tristan. The first minute was okay. The man’s back was turned; a part of the boy could pretend it was someone else. Just some from next door coming over to borrow a cup of sugar. He could handle that. The next minute was alright, too. As he turned around, the boy’s mind scrambled to shut itself down before he could process anything. He couldn’t deal with the realness of reality yet. Tristan’s eyes remained empty, looking through the man as if he didn’t exist. He was somewhere else, floating between consciousness and dream. It wasn’t until he spoke that the gears in his mind were forced to click together and reluctantly brought forth the image.

The sight of his father face almost broke Tristan. He had tried to brace himself, tried to cushion the blow with whatever strength he could draw, but it didn’t mean shit when the moment actually came. In less than a second, he felt as someone had just punched him in the stomach and let all the air out of his lungs. A dizziness came over him, and the boy was quite certain that he must’ve been trembling though he stood completely still. It was only the shock that kept him in place. In a few moments, all that emotion would burst forth, and there was no doubt that whatever steely composure he could feign for the moment would collapse under the pressure.

Tristan took a step toward the man, trying to readjust himself with the idea of being in his presence. He grimaced and shuffled backward. It wasn’t as painful as it was odd. Something just wasn’t right anymore. That fact was what hurt most of all. The boy couldn’t bear to think the man who had once been such a fixture in his life could no longer fit anymore, so he stepped forward again and forced himself to stay there. He wasn’t going to let something he’d tried so hard to preserve fall apart that easily. He opened his mouth to speak.

“You look…” he tried to think of a word but everything sounded stupid. It all felt like small talk, like the letters that he had forced himself to write in a stubborn refusal to sever ties with the only father he’d ever known. None of it was appropriate to express everything he felt now that he no longer had the distance to protect him. “You look good,” he said finally. It was a cop-out. Tristan knew that, but he couldn’t think of anything else, and he knew that the silence would become painful if he’d let it drag out any longer. He wasn’t sure if it was true. He could barely recognize the man; His looked too old, too unsteady, too wrong. He couldn’t even see the man who had raised him; all he could see was the man his mother had cheated on, and that image came with an uncomfortable understanding of everything he had done. Somehow, that insight made him feel all kinds of nauseous. He wanted to throw up and cry and yell and hug the man.

Desperate to distract himself, Tristan tried his hardest to concentrate on the tear perched so peculiarly on the man’s cheek. It seemed almost obscene. Such a soft thing didn’t belong on his father’s face, with its angular cheeks and strong, square jaw. Without thinking, he reached out his hand to brush it away but quickly fell back.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he muttered, unable to bear meeting the man’s eyes. He shrunk back into himself and directed his bitterness to the situation. It all felt too wrong. Everything was too tentative, too unsure. After a long minute, he forced himself to ask the question that had been burning on his mind.

“How long will be you staying?”

[penn justice prescott]

He felt an involuntary laugh escape his lips as Tristan commented on his appearance. Though it was a blatant lie, Penn appreciated it none the less. "No I don't. But thanks for saying it anyway," he said, fruitlessly attempting to sniffle back more tears that threatened to escape down the deep contours of his cheeks. He didn’t look terrible per-se; even at forty-seven he’d still managed to maintain a fair amount of lean muscle, but it was clearly evident in the lines of his face and the expression in his eyes that not everything was entirely well with him. He looked tired and hallow; like a man who’d traveled a great distance on little or no sleep. The hunch in his shoulders seemed to suggest that he was carrying some great invisible weight and the sallow coloring around his tragically blue eyes spoke silent tales of restless nights caught in terrifying sweats.

He felt like an idiot. There was so much for them to speak of and yet Penn seemed to have been struck dumb, at least in regards to saying things of importance. He felt fake; like he’d somehow become falsified and irrelevant in the time that had passed between each other in his absence. In the years he’d spent raising his son, Penn had always come across as steadfast and stubborn; strong and always with an opinion to assert or a pearl of wisdom to give. However, now as he stood here in front of his little boy who was no so little anymore, he felt like a sham, like somehow everything he’d been and everything Tristan had come to learn about him had been lies.

He felt his breath catch in his throat as Tristan dismissed the tear. The touch had been brief, but it was just enough to do Penn in. He felt more tears fill up his blue eyes, pushing their way to the surface and clinging to all they could; skin, eyelash, cornea. He hiccupped a little, shaking his head as his son apologized to him and indicating that there was absolutely no cause for him to be sorry about anything. If there was anybody who needed to be apologizing, it was Penn, not just for the embarrassing display of emotions but for everything; for leaving, for the stupid uninformative letters, for not being his real father. Everything.

The expression in his son’s eyes was gut wrenching as he asked how long Penn would be staying in town. He wanted to give his boy an answer; something that would give him comfort and restore faith in his old man, but even Penn didn’t have one. To tell you the truth, Penn had barely even thought about the length of his stay here. He was so surprised that he’d even managed to get himself here that he’d had little time to worry over the duration of his stay. “I’m not sure,” he offered stupidly, hastily wiping at another tear before clearing his hoarse throat a little. “I haven’t exactly worked it out yet,” he said, fully realizing now flakey he sounded, but it was the best he could do for the moment.

Completely and utterly embarrassed, Penn did his best to wipe away the tears that had breached the outer walls of those baby blues. He hated that he couldn’t reign in his flagrant emotions. He hated that his son had to see him for the emotional wreck that he’d become. It was unseemly and made the situation even more uncomfortable than it already was. He battled with the tears for a moment, realizing that no matter now many times he wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve, there were always a million more tears to replace the ones he’d eradicated. “I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing for the tears. “It’s just…” his words caught it in throat. After a moment of just looking at son he managed to choke out the rest of his interrupted sentence. “I missed you,” his voice trembled. “Terribly.”