Chapter 1: Demands
Summary:
Jake is wrong about many things in his gloomy musings, of course. One of these horrible falsehoods could have been disproved if only he'd been willing to use the phone. Because his boyfriend isn't too busy to talk to him from across the country. In fact, Brigham Lennox wishes with all his heart that a call or text would give him an excuse to escape the office for a few minutes, to breathe air untainted by the tense interaction he finds himself in.
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Part 6 of: The Lies We Told Each Other
Fandoms: Top Gun (Movies), Thunderheart (1992), Suits (US TV 2011)
Relationships: Brigham "Harvard" Lennox/Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Sarah Kazansky/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Rick "Hollywood" Neven/Leonard "Wolfman" Wolfe
Characters: Brigham "Harvard" Lennox, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Sarah Kazansky, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Leonard "Wolfman" Wolfe, Rick "Hollywood" Neven, Ray Levoi, Harvey Specter, Mike Ross, Original Adult Character(s), Original Child Character(s)
Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Trans Male Character, Asexual Character, Transphobia, Polyamory, Phone Sex, Adoption
INDEX: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/i-have-right-to-this-lies-we-told-each.html-----------------------------------
Demands
Monday, March 30, 2020
Jake stopped hearing her after "sperm donation." He only sees his sister's lips moving but can't hear anything. A high-pitched whine rings inside his skull, isolating him from panic.
This is his fault.
It's a big, complex thing, and he didn't want to tell one part of the family first and then another, so he waited for the next time everyone was under the same roof. Besides, everyone was so busy.
His dad is preparing for retirement and taking preemptive measures to protect the Navy if the Republicans win the White House. He spends a lot of time with other admirals and generals from other branches of the Department of Defense. Many people at the Pentagon are concerned about the Republican candidate's anti-diversity and anti-immigrant rhetoric, his ignorance of the art of war, and his clear disdain for personnel in combat zones. They fear that his proposed budget cuts will affect the living conditions of military families and veteran services and that his ridiculous xenophobia will make recruiting even more difficult. Her father, of course, is especially concerned about transgender people serving, who are more vulnerable to policy changes.
His father was placed in charge of the Navy's newest fighter squadron, VFA-111, the Daggers. A secret special operations project. It is so secret that its headquarters will not be at NAS Lemoore or NAS Oceana but at MCAS Miramar. Maverick has spent these months teaching them to work together without the pressure of death a week away and reviewing files to fill the gap left by Bradley's departure. That's how Emily "Hawking" Shilling joined their ranks. Now he's engaged in a strange battle of memos and draft regulations with Cyclone because the Daggers belong to Mitchell, but Miramar belongs to Simpson. No one imagined that Maverick could be as good at low-flying as he was at bureaucratic trench warfare.
His older brother returned to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, to complete his final season as an aviator with the VFA-102 Diamondbacks. His little free time is spent in White Pearl, where the news that His Majesty was (finally!) getting married was greeted with absolute joy by the population and a sigh of relief by the ruling class. But it seems that even when you have an entire chancellery to plan your wedding, you must participate in momentous decisions, like the type of flowers on the tables and the color of the smoke from the public offerings.
Iná is equally busy with the other upcoming wedding of his dad and father. This one, moreover, has the added burden of being kept secret. His dad rightly doesn't want his personal life to overshadow or interfere with his latest efforts at reform and innovation in the Navy, much less with his confirmation as Secretary of the Navy if Elizabeth McCord is reelected. So the happy news of his future marriage to his first husband—language really doesn't help to describe the unique structure of this family—is kept within the close circle of the 86th Squadron and the Daggers. Samantha and Elia were recruited as attendants.
His cekpápi and sister-in-law added the wedding to the myriad of tasks required to be part of the medical team on Native American reservations in the San Diego region, where chronic health problems, depression, teenage pregnancies, and suicides are rife. Still, medications, diagnostic equipment, and even ambulances are lacking.
Finally, Second Lieutenant Sean "Knife" Kazansky finished Top Gun (he was top of his class but couldn't beat Jake's record) and returned to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, where he flies in his older brother's first squadron: VFA-32, the Swordsmen. Of course, since Sean is straight and the admiral's legitimate son, he has a much better time than Jake did seven years ago.
So, even though Jake had been preparing his speech for months, it didn't seem urgent. He used his family's busy schedule as an excuse (he can admit it to himself; they are excuses) for not telling his family.
It didn't matter... until now.
Sam knows nothing of his brother's inner turmoil. She's taken his silence as acquiescence and now shows him a printed pamphlet with tables and a brightly colored infographic. She circles a few lines with a pen.
What's she talking about? Jake blinks a few times, swallows, and, with sheer willpower, smothers the ringing inside his head so he can hear the sounds coming out of his cekpápi's mouth.
"So, as you can see, for Elia to recover from childbirth for Icepop and Mavdad's wedding, the baby needs to be on the way between June and August of this year. When can you make the jump to Pine Ridge? They told us three samples should be enough. That's a day's work for you, isn't it?"
Jake looks at her and looks at the sheet of paper in her hand, which he now understands is an informational pamphlet for sexual and reproductive health services at Pine Ridge Hospital.
The mere thought of what she's asking him makes bile rise in his mouth. The house's solarium had never seemed claustrophobic before.
"I can't."
Where is the door?
He ignores the look of surprise that turns into incomprehension, then curiosity. He has to get out of here. He gets up with clumsy but quick movements. By the time Sam reacts and calls him, demanding an explanation, he's already at the door of his room.
"What do you mean you can't? You're a biological male! That doesn't make sense. What's going on, Jake?"
"I can't," he repeats over his shoulder.
Desperate to escape, he slams the door in her face, locks it, and falls onto the bed.
He can't. He knows he can't. For Sam, as a doctor, it's no big deal. For his brothers and father, it's probably even primal: to drop a few milliliters of semen in a small flask. Jake is the freak who gags at the mere thought.
He hasn't felt this inadequate in years. He considers calling Brig but stops himself before he even takes his phone out of his pocket. His boyfriend has his own problems right now; there's no need to remind him that their relationship is ... let's just say... atypical. Jake fears any discussion may upset him and even lead Brig to rethink their relationship. After all, there are plenty of beautiful, sexually active blondes out there. Some are even legitimate children.
His gaze goes to the numerous photos on his desk, carefully aligned so they are visible from his bed. He spent almost eleven years with no reminders of his family other than two pictures: one of his parents in the meadow, his dad eight months pregnant, his face invisible behind his flowing blond hair, the second one depicting him less than a day old, asleep on his tattooed chest. He kept the images carefully hidden. Because Maverick is the second protagonist in the meadow photo, but their filial relationship was a secret. While Iceman's tattooed and scarred chest (he then thought his name was Rachel) is so unique that he didn't want to risk anyone recognizing it. He's been trying to compensate for it these months. Now, his room, phone, and locker at the Miramar base are overflowing with images. His dad is in a significant number of them.
Will he understand, or will he look at him with pity? Worse still, he might think it's his fault that all his sacrifices were in vain.
His dad gave him up to give him a chance at a normal life, he thinks bitterly. He returned to active duty just three weeks after giving birth to him. He allowed the ghost of Rachel Seresin to haunt him in his own home. He endured him calling him a child stealer, spitting all his love in his face. He watched him become the greatest aviator of his generation without being able to congratulate him. He knew of his suffering, knowing that his comfort would be brutally rejected. He waited for Jake for a decade. All so that his firstborn would have the chance to achieve the normalcy he wished for and could never achieve because...
Because freakiness is in his blood.
Will Iceman Kazansky understand? Jake asks himself again.
He doesn't know. No matter what Brig says, his family is queer, yes, but also intensely sexual. Asexuality is absolutely outside their imagined universe.
The crying comes as a mixture of rage and helplessness.
Sleep is not a sign of relief but of exhaustion.
Jake is wrong about many things in his gloomy musings, of course. One of these horrible falsehoods could have been disproved if only he'd been willing to use the phone. Because his boyfriend isn't too busy to talk to him from across the country. In fact, Brigham Lennox wishes with all his heart that a call or text would give him an excuse to escape the office for a few minutes, to breathe air untainted by the tense interaction he finds himself in.
But no phone rings, no one comes in to say they're needed for an emergency. Brig remains seated in the same uncomfortable chair he's been in for less than an hour—though for him, it's been two, three, maybe five—in his older brother's drab office in one of Salt Lake City's most exclusive buildings. He knew the meeting wouldn't be pleasant, but the looks Christian and his wife, Constanza, give him and his uncle are frankly unexpected. Looks that oscillate between disapproval and hope.
By the time he was sent to Nevada at age 10 because he was obsessed with flying, Brig had little in common with the rest of his family. He returned in the summers, first for three weeks, then for two. The visits became shorter each year. By the time he was in high school, he had only been going to Salt Lake City for five days at the end of July, which seemed endless. His mother was the only one in Annapolis for the Naval Academy graduation ceremony, even though Leonard had offered to get tickets for everyone and even help with travel expenses.
He'd never been to his brother's office. On his annual visits to Utah, he always slept in his same childhood´s room, helped with the garden, and went to church. To the other children, he was like an exotic animal, and they asked him curious, contradictory questions about life among Gentiles. As the years passed, those children who questioned him at church became adults—by the community's standards—and no longer stopped to ask him about the outside world—although he could feel their fascinated stares on his back. The house also gradually emptied: his sisters married, and then his brothers. Significantly, he was never invited to weddings. His parents hosted a large family meal during each visit. There, he would catch up with brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and the new generation of Lennox residents who were growing up faithful to the faith of their elders.
He never knew if they did it to show him how well they were doing without his disruptive presence, to tempt him to return, or to use him as a "bogeyman" for their nephews and nieces.
His mother died shortly after he graduated from flight school. No one bothered to consider her needs when arranging the funeral. Nor did they two years later, when his father followed her. His brother Christian takes the role of Lennox patriarch seriously, so instead of inviting him on awkward visits, he sends him a card for his birthday and another for Christmas.
He has no regrets. He has Leonard and Rick, who became his real parents, Jake, the Kazansky-Mitchell family, and the Daggers. However, what he has doesn't make him forget what he lost, especially on days like today. It seems that today, the fiction that he was sent to Nevada because he wanted to fly will go to hell.
A week ago, his brother called Leonard to ask him to come to Salt Lake City as soon as possible. When his adoptive father wanted to know why, Christian said it was time for Brig to help the family. The reason was as vague as it was ominous. Leonard, who hasn't forgotten, took advantage of the fact that Brig is now practically the son-in-law (he is the son-in-law, but he doesn't know it) of one of the most powerful men in the Navy to get him five days off.
They sit in this beige and gray office with less personality than a cell at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. His brother and sister-in-law have been explaining for almost an hour how successful their real estate business is and how they can provide everything they need for their six children. What's unusual is that they've also asked questions. Not polite, superficial ones like, "What country were you in?" But specific ones about his life in the Navy, from his salary to the quality of the sidewalks on the military bases where he's lived. They even asked Leonard how Rick is. Without betraying his surprise, his uncle replied that his husband was fine, thank you, organizing an exhibition in DC. Christian and Constanza barely grimaced. That was a definitive red flag for Brig.
No one ever mentioned homosexuality as a reason for their tacit exclusion from the family. Leonard Wolfe had gone off to join the Navy and simply never returned. Brigham Lennox was sent to Nevada because he wanted to fly. That's the version his parents clung to until their dying days, and no one in the family or the community had the bad taste to question this half-truth, which is, like all half-truths, a complete lie.
"So, you'll be on land for a while, Jake?" his brother tries to clarify with a forced smile.
"Well, yes. More or less. It's classified," Christian and Constanza nod very seriously, "but the base of operations will be on the Pacific coast, yes."
"And you'll stay there if you're disciplined if you serve well," his sister-in-law insists with a note of anxiety because she seems to find it hard to believe that Brig can be disciplined.
Brig can't tell them he's staying in California because there's no way Kazansky is going to lose sight of Jake now that he's got him back. He even suspects that if the admiral becomes Secretary of the Navy, the Daggers will soon and quietly be transferred to NAS Oceana. No one will say anything because Maverick goes where Iceman goes, and in the DoD, as in the Lennox family, some things aren't discussed. So, he opts for the half-truth that's common knowledge.
"I was chosen for that squad because I'm one of the best. I won't fail."
"Excellent, excellent," his brother agrees with something resembling pride in his voice.
Christian checks his wristwatch, his face tense. He looks at his wife, who returns a bitter but determined expression. His older brother clears his throat but doesn't open his mouth. He seems to be trying to find the right words.
Leonard snorts and cuts through the awkward silence with an exasperated tone.
"Just tell us who do you want to get rid of this time."
"Uncle!"
"Mr. Wolfe!"
"At least my late brother-in-law had the excuse that you were too many mouths to feed, and this one's hobby," he gestures toward Brig with his chin, "was expensive. You're doing well, nephew, although I think you could invest in a decorator. So, come on! Let's get over this quickly."
Something snaps in that moment. Christian flinches a little, but his wife pushes out her chest, and her docile appearance disappears. Constanza is frustrated and annoyed but won't let Leonard Wolfe corner her.
"It's Dunia, our fifth. She's seven years old, and she keeps saying... absurd things! We don't know where she got those ideas. With the new policies the Department of Education imposed on school districts, the school was forced to inform Social Services. They inspected us!" Her voice rises several decibels, outraged.
It's clear that Constanza was more bothered by the embarrassment of having her house inspected than by the possibility of someone in her family being unhappy.
Her husband puts a hand on her arm, trying to calm her, and finally speaks.
"Brigham, you're the only childless Lennox, and you have a responsibility with the family. When can you take her?"
Brig blinks several times, unable to process the idea for a moment. Responsibility? Is that really the argument? Won't he say something about family solidarity? Or that Dunia doesn't have the spirit to be a good Mormon? A line about more liberal lifestyles, even if it's a false and outdated argument? Was it like that twenty years ago, between his father and Leonard? We can't have a homosexual child because we're Mormons: take him away. He looks at his... his real father. Leonard's face is impassive, his eyes half-closed and lost in the vast blue sky outside the window of this horrible office. Yes, he understands. It was exactly like that.
They sugarcoated the pill for him. They told him he'd be going to Uncle Leonard's house for the summer and that he had airplanes, just like he wanted. He was a kid; of course, he believed it. Now, he suspects that the story about it being a test was the way Leonard and Rick used to hide the fact that his family wanted to discard him like a defective model. They spent the summer convincing him that staying in Nevada would be the best decision of his life.
It was.
It was also a decision without real consequences because he had nowhere to return to.
I can't, he thinks. I can't adopt a girl without talking to Jake.
INDEX: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/i-have-right-to-this-lies-we-told-each.html
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