Work Text:
Day 3: “I look in people’s windows, transfixed by rose golden glows.”
Isolation | candlelight | found family
Family.
John knew what family was.
Noun, social group.
A group of people who are related to each other, such as a mother, a father and their children.
Family.
Noun, similar things.
A group of things that are related or have similar qualities.
That’s what the Cambridge dictionary said, when he was considering using it in a puzzle. (He changed his mind, pretty quickly.)
So John knew what a family was.
More than that, he knew that he didn’t really have a family, all throughout his life. Oh, his Mum was always there for him, even though she had never understood him, and he had his brother, though James had always seemed in a hurry to forget their relation as soon as anyone else came into the picture.
Lucy was the only person who ever actively sought his company, and even she chose James in the end.
So John had spent his entire life from the outside looking in.
There goes Mr. Brown, with his two little girls, his arm slung around the waist of his beloved wife.
There goes Patricia, holding hands with her boyfriend, taking him to meet her parents, because she had two, and they never argued.
Look at little Luke, who was preparing to fight the boys who were picking on his little brother, instead of just turning away.
See Amanda? She was orphaned at an early age, but she just got adopted by a doting couple, because people actually like her and want her, even though life itself seemingly contrived to keep her alone.
He wasn’t like that.
He never had been.
It always felt like his life was an old Christmas movie. He was that character, outside, shivering in the snow, dying alone while staring in through frosty windows, transfixed by the rosy golden glow of a life he couldn’t imagine. There was always that pane of glass, cold and lonely, that separated him from the happy, loving family he could see, lit by the warm flickering glow of candlelight. He was always on the outside looking in.
And he wasn’t that character from the movies. Not truly.
In the movies, the characters were just misunderstood, the plot of the things were simply out to get them, and they persevered and were rewarded with happiness.
Simple.
And simply unlike him.
He was pathetic, yes, but not in the way of shivering outside in the snow way. (Perhaps if he was, he would have found the human connection he so dreaded and desired by now.)
No, he was pathetic in a wholly uncharming way, and not even a truly sympathetic way, either.
He was simply pathetic.
And, in some ways, pathetically simple.
In the end, all he wanted was to be happy. And that was true of most, yeah, but he honestly felt it might have been a little more overt for him than for others.
He wanted to feel wanted.
All he wanted was to perfect himself, so that he could finally stop being the butt of constant jokes, and to stop humiliating himself, and hurting those around him because he didn’t realize that what he was doing or saying would offend or cause sorrow or-
Either that, or he’d like there to be someone out there who loved him in spite of his… quirks. (Being loved for them was too much to ask, he was sure of that out of anything else he’d learned over the course of his life.)
But in the end, John wasn’t much of a dreamer. (He used to be)
He was practical.
He was smart, and he didn’t have it in him to try being anything else, because when that worked for him it was brilliant, and when it didn’t then that was it, he had no more cards.
So he knew exactly how unrealistic his desires were.
(In a world full of needless libido in seemingly all people, was it such a crime to want to find emotional intimacy, rather than a physical one? Was it truly so impossible to find someone to love that shared his love for things of the mind?)
So he found his connection another way.
The puzzles he created were full of love and a visceral honesty he couldn’t find anywhere else, and he knew there weren’t many who cared for puzzles, but those who did he hoped understood.
How incredible it was to connect to so many people that he would never meet, never embarrass himself in front of, never fail.
It was perfect, not to mention how satisfying it was and how much it ruled his every thought. (Yes, he was obsessed. What of it?)
He would go and talk with his publishers, and they did not understand him but they appreciated the money he brought them, so they let him do as he liked pretty much.
And then it was back to his empty house, haunted by the memories of the family he once had.
That was why, in the end, it had been far less difficult to adjust than he’d expected upon moving into his brother’s home. It was completely different to his house, and that was what endeared it to him so well.
He didn’t expect to run into his Mum every time he turned the corner.
He wasn’t searching for clues left from his father as if it wasn’t a perfectly willing abandonment.
Ironically, he wasn’t even looking for his brother any time anything happened- funny or inconvenient or anything.
No, because he was in a home, and it felt like a home in a way that his house hadn’t felt in decades, absurd modern art on the walls or not.
There was laughter, here. And arguments, and tears, and silences that weren’t lonely even if one was alone.
John…
Well, he liked it.
It felt like he was beginning to belong somewhere, nevermind that it took his brother disappearing for him to get the chance to experience this. Nevermind that he’d be gone as soon as his brother was back. Never mind that he was never supposed to have this, never mind that it wasn’t his, couldn’t and would never be.
Henry was a delight, and Lucy filled up the entire house with her presence, and John kind of adored being able to slide into their family, like the cunning relative of the bowerbird, the cuckoo bird. He didn’t belong, but he had been planted there against his will, and he would make the most of it.
And that held true for his brother’s job, as well.
As usual, it was James’ first, but this time James had worn it out and it had gone to John in its entirety. It was James’, but now it was John’s. James had no place there, not anymore.
It was with a startlingly viscous satisfaction that he realized that.
Even more so when he realized that James had distanced himself from what few colleagues he had ever been friends with in the first place, meaning that he didn’t share a single one of them with his brother.
(He wasn’t sure if it was more depressing or concerning how elated he was by the fact, so he decided not to address it with himself.)
And, in all honesty, it wasn’t long before he’d settled into a routine with them.
Oh, Lucy and Henry came first, always, but they had grown on him. He hardly wanted to admit it, but he was glad he’d come back, and it wasn’t out of pride. (Well, not much out of pride. He wouldn’t pretend that it wasn’t a player in this, just not a major one.) If it was safe for him to be there- and now it was- he was honestly quite pleased to be there.
(And wasn’t that a tale for the books? Him, John “Ludwig” Taylor, pleased to leave the house so he could spend time with people? It sounds like a fantastical tale he’d have left behind with his dreams of unicorns and dragons, once he was old enough. And he’d moved on from believing those very early on- even earlier than James.)
It was… certainly an experience, being on the other side of the window.
It still felt like there was glass there, most days, but in ways he couldn’t explain it was simply different, with these people.
They didn’t understand him, and quite frequently got annoyed at his quirks, but at the same time, they seemed to appreciate them, and him, and them because of him.
(He honestly wasn’t sure he’d ever heard such vicious words in his life, as when a witness made a snide comment behind his back. It was nothing he hadn’t heard a million times before- he was beyond used to it, so that even he with his sensitive heart wasn’t bothered enough to turn around, but between Simon, Alice, and Russel [who’d insisted he continue to call him by his first name, which was very sweet of him. And also likely because it had taken them this long to get on first name basis and Russel certainly wasn’t going to let that effort go to waste], the witness seemed almost near tears. At the time, John had simply pretended he hadn’t noticed, but he wasn’t ashamed to admit that when he had gotten home [James’ home] he had hidden himself away in his room [the tiny spare room] and cried. He’d never had anyone defend him before, not like that. Not even Mr. Todd had, though that likely had more to do with being an authority figure who refused to abuse his station more than anything else.)
John didn’t know what to do, with such honest and open affection.
He’d never really had it before.
He didn’t know how to tell them how grateful he was, but the one time he tried they all seemed to understand. (Or maybe they were just putting him out of his misery before he could manage to humiliate himself somehow more than he already had- which was, naturally, saying something.)
It was… interesting.
Simon followed him around, all the time, and would back up whatever he said, even if he was wrong, with complete and utter blind faith. He looked up to John in ways that even he had noticed, and it felt a little bit like Henry, so John… well, he wasn’t bothered, at least. He wasn’t sure what he felt, but he didn’t want it to stop, necessarily.
Alice was a massive troll, in the words of Henry, and seemed to take immense pleasure (and also take out her aggression) in setting up ‘impossible’ challenges for him to solve, which was really quite fun for him, and entertaining to see what she came up with. She always seemed determined to catch him out, though John wasn’t sure what she thought she was catching. Either way, it was interesting, and fun, and he certainly had no issue there.
Russell…
Russell was the most interesting of all.
When he first met Russell, he could tell that Russell respected him more than anything else. He didn’t know James, certainly didn’t know John, there was little to no connection there, beyond an almost hopeful sort of admiration and loyalty.
Over time, as John’s quirks became more apparent as they became more… well, friendly and less formal, he had picked up on the budding frustration. Because John was different and Russel couldn’t peg as to why, or what he was doing, and from the outside John was aware he probably seemed completely insane. It felt sometimes like he was dragging Russell around, utterly focused and in his zone while Russell simply wanted to go home, which John supposed was fair of the man.
John would have been pleasantly shocked if their friendship had remained there, but it didn’t.
No, it somehow got better.
Russel had seemingly grown an appreciation for his quirks, growing to respect him because of them and not in spite of them. He let John run around and investigate odd things, while he talked up the people and made sure that John didn’t destroy the whole social thing too horribly bad, and then he would help John present it in an other-ears-friendly sort of way, and then they would go home.
“There’s a method to his madness,” John was getting used to hearing the man say, to anyone who even gave John an odd look, which was quite amusing when John thought about how Russell was simultaneously his main doubter and biggest supporter simultaneously.
John wasn’t sure what was happening, at his brothers wo- at his workplace, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was like nothing he had ever experienced, and in only the best of ways.
He had no issue with agreeing with Simon’s astute observation of how they were like a family, almost.
It put him in mind of one definition of the word that he hadn’t let himself think to closely on, while he was in the midst of setting that one puzzle.
Family.
Noun, social group.
A group of people who care about each other because they have a close relationship or shared interests.
Somehow- and he truly couldn’t imagine how- that had become him.
Him, and his new family, which was awkward and messy and genuine and he loved it more than he had imagined possible.
Now, John just had to make sure that it stayed that way. He’d had little things as comparably good as this, and he’d lost them all in the end.
He refused to let this be one of them.