Work Text:
You’re young and you’re in your father’s office, waiting for something. He’s doing paperwork, typing at the computer, drinking coffee, half-focused on it all, half making small talk with you.
You don’t know why he tries. You don’t feel very interesting. Especially not compared to the weird people and not-people walking down the hallways of this building: bigfoots, lizardmen, and tall, big-eyed aliens - all rushing around with phones and briefcases to meetings and grown-up stuff like that.
Your father isn’t really like your father. Bearo is your real dad, you sometimes think, the robot that your father made to hug you and take care of you when he’s too busy. Bearo treats you like the child you are, makes you eat your vegetables and go to sleep early. He doesn’t take the cigarette out of his mouth to put into yours so you cough for his enjoyment or ask if you want to try whatever he’s drinking.
You don’t understand why the robot your father made is more responsible than he is. Or how that’s even possible. Can a thing someone makes know things that its creator doesn't know?
Your father is like the neighbor waving at you in the morning as you go to school. Your father is like the drunken homeless man you pass on the street. Your father is like the boys at school that the other girls have crushes on.
He’s mean and makes your face turn red and sometimes when you turn around, you catch him staring at you with a smile on his face. It’s not a smile like the ones you see on other adults who go, “aw, my kid’s so cute, have you seen these baby pictures of her?”
It’s different.
It’s the same face the boy who liked you in 2nd grade made when he saw you crying because he pulled on your hair. Pleased because you’re looking at him, only him, even if it’s in confusion and terror. You only found out he liked you much later when you overheard some girls on the playground gossiping about you. At the time, all you knew was that you hated that boy.
You don't hate your father though - you think. Maybe. It’s hard to, because he’s the only one who really pays attention to you. He goes to see your science fair demonstrations and he plays with you at your birthday parties and he builds things for you sometimes. That’s more than you can say about most people; for all the prizes and awards you’ve won, you get very little notice.
Even your mother looks bored, reading a magazine in silence, when you turn another year older. At least he watches you blow out the candles.
You wonder if your mother still cares for you sometimes. What's obvious is that she doesn’t want your father. Hasn’t for a very long time. You think you remember them kissing and gazing at each other fondly once when you were still in the crib, but it’s hazy. Since then, she doesn’t even touch him. Doesn’t say “bye” or “love you” before he comes to work.
You haven’t told anyone yet, but you think that this is okay. There’s an easy solution; it’s like re-gifting something you don’t want anymore. She can give him to you. And then you and him can get married and live happily ever after just like the storybooks you read in your classroom’s bookshelf. Maybe then your mother will be happy again and treat you, at the very least, like a friend.
You know your father better than to ever think he’d act like a prince or something like that. You’ve seen him use a straw to try and drink beer he spilled off the floor. It’s never going to happen.
But maybe he could hold your hand. Say he loves you. Take you somewhere nice for once.
Maybe he could kiss you like he used to do with your mother.
You’re not used to it, so he'd have to go slow. He’d start with your cheek and you’d be able to feel his 5 o’clock shadow scratch against it. Then he’d move to your forehead. And then. Then, maybe, your mouth.
You sweat a little thinking about this.
Your father has soft hair that likes to flick upwards at the front, but doesn’t anymore after he combs it, leaving you feeling disappointed when you watch. He has hair on his chest and arms that you think he must like to show off when he wears his shirt open, his tie undone. He has an angular face and a sharp jaw and a pointed nose and everyone says you look a lot like him and it’s true. You have the same improbably blue eyes that he does. You’ve noticed all of these things.
He’s handsome.
If you liked one of the boys at school, like your friend Orrin, then you could talk about it. You might try to scream it off a rooftop. But even bursting with this as you are, you find you can’t say a word about it to anyone. Least of all, him. Something stops you.
You watch your father, drinking from his mug of already cold coffee, and he sticks his tongue out to lick at a drop of it gliding down the side, dangerously close to his paperwork. It’s just a flash of pink before it’s gone, but it leaves you hot in the face, heart beating fast.
He looks over and your eyes meet. You can’t help but shake a little and he sneers. There’s something about the way he shows his teeth that makes it seem like he wants something, but he doesn’t say what it is. He only stares at you.
You burn under that gaze. It feels like he’s looking inside of you. What is he seeing? Does he like it? It’s scary but you wish it would never end.
He’s still smirking when he turns back to the computer screen. You don’t know if you feel relief that the moment is over or longing for him to look at you again.
You’re waiting for something. The clock ticks, the sky turns dark, and the room goes cloudy, blueish, soft, warm, like a weight on your chest, like arms around you, and you, bored of waiting, fall asleep in your chair. Even still, in your dream, he’s there. You’re not surprised at all.
Dreaming and waking, it’s just the same. The sky full of stars stretches out endlessly, so familiar that it’s like a part of you, and you point to it. You’ve heard him talk about the stars before and you always want to hear it again.
He doesn’t say it, but he wants to be there with you. In the dream, it’s simple. You can just tell.