Roads     

Pairing: B/K, AU
 Posted to: OZ Lyric Wheel (OZLW)
 Song Title and Artist: "Untitled" by The Cure
 Lyrics provided by: Pirl
 Feedback: Yeah! 
 Notes: Turns out, AU Beecher is just as yappy and persistent as canon
Beecher. This is a reinvention and expansion of a drabble done for the
Hard Time 100 group. I had to slightly alter the song lines from 1st to
3rd person to fitI hope that won't get me sent to the cage. *g* Unbeta'd,
per rules.  

We're all canon up to and including the phone call Sr. Pete arranges for
Toby to have with Chris at Cedar Junction in "Orpheus Descending." Then...
Roads 

The surreal drone of the dial tone continued to ring in his ears as he
slumped dumbly in the chair by Sr. Pete's desk, struggling to process the
sudden void that sound represented.  

...stay away from me...  

He barely noticed Pete's shadow cross him as she switched off the phone
speaker. Barely felt the gentle weight of her hand coming to rest on his
shoulder. Chris' words kept replaying in his brain, over and over, as
though if he ran them enough timesonce, just once, the outcome might be
different.  

...turn your back on all this shit...run for your fucking life...stay away
from me...  

"He's trying to do the right thing, Tobias. For you."  

The right thing? What the hell?!  

He knew he was wearing his incredulity plainly, because Sr. Pete was
slipping into shrink mode now, perching on the edge of her desk, glasses
folded in her hands. All ready to explain it to him. Why Chris cutting him
off was for the best.  

"I understand that you're feeling hurt and disappointed right now. But I
think you'll come to see, in time, that what Chris just did took a great
deal of courage."  

Oh, no, Sister. Not now. Just...no.  

"Yeah, well he picked a fine time to discover the high road."  

"Tobias"  

But he couldn't sit there any longer. Couldn't deal with another moment of
Sr. Pete's luminous sympathy and barely concealed righteousness
masquerading as concern.  

"Look, I'll see you for work tomorrow, okay? Right now, I just need some
time to wallow in my misery."  

Toby pushed himself up out of the chair with effort, still feeling the
suckerpunch aftereffects of the phone call to Massachusetts. He wandered
numbly back to Em City and sank onto the stairs.  

For that? He'd been waiting all day for that? Chewing his nails? Pacing,
sweating, beating off furiously to dimming memories of restored warmth?
Chris couldn't do this, could he? Couldn't just vanish off the horizon by
hanging up a phone.  

He was the constant, damn it.  

Ever since he'd entered Toby's life, Chris had been the reckoning point.
He couldn't just disconnect! Loving Chris, hating him, missing him,
defending him, Chris was always there. His physical absence had been hard
enough, leaving Toby fighting to find equilibrium in the eyes of a ghost.
But now...even that much was gone.  

"For a man on the verge of rediscovering his freedom, that's an awfully
long face, my friend. Anything you want to talk about?"  

Toby looked up and managed to summon a weak smile as he slid over so Said
could join him on the stairs.  

"I don't know. Just feeling a little disoriented at the prospect of
getting out. All this" Toby sniffed, and waved his hands around them, "has
become weirdly safe. I guess Sr. Pete would call it diminished boundaries,
or something."	

Said nodded his understanding. "And you fear that once set free, you will
founder?"  

"Yeah. In here, after four years, I kind of finally got it figured out.
But out there? I'm not so sure."  

"You must have confidence in yourself, Beecher. Trust yourself. To know.
Listen to the voice inside."  

"Well, what do you do if you can't hear it?"  

"I pray."  

Of course.  

Toby felt a little bit like laughing at the predictability of the
response, but he didn't want to insult his friend. Said meant well. He
always meant well. Had always tried to help, in his way.  

"I know we haven't done it in a while, Kareem, but... would you pray with
me? I'm afraid I've forgotten how."  

Small thanks, Toby knew, but Said's answer was a radiant smile.  

###  

It was too bright. Even with the tinted windows. Had it always been this
bright? Toby shielded his eyes with his hand and slouched lower, silently
overwhelmed by the enormity of the world, in the supple black leather
passenger seat of Harrison Beecher's leased Mercedes.  

Small talk had run out more than a hundred miles before, and now there was
quiet Baroque classical on CD and the steady tha-thump of radials over
steel join belts on a raised section of the Interstate. Toby stared out
the window, watching rural pastureland give way to dreary subdivisions as
they grew closer and closer to the city.  

It still hadn't quite sunk in yet that he was free. Free. Somehow he'd
hoped he'd feel different.  

Another hour later, they pulled into the driveway of his parents' house.
His childhood home. And as they got out of the car, the first thing that
popped into Toby's head was Chris' voice.  

...turn your back on all this shit and run. You understand me? You gotta
fucking run for your life...  

"Son? Something wrong?" Harrison asked, coming around to Toby's side.  

"N-no. No, Dad, just tired from the trip," Toby lied, trying to keep the
odd quaver out of his voice. Crazy. God, he hadn't been out for one day
yet, and he was already going crazy.  

His mother came to the door to greet them. Holly was still out in San
Diego with Jonah and Margaret. It didn't seem likely that Vern was going
to do anything nownow that Chris had taken care of that problem. But they
didn't want to get any hopes up until they knew for sure Toby was actually
going to get parole. And it was good for Holly to be able to spend time
with her other grandparents, and to be reunited with her brother. (Her
remaining brother, but nobody mentioned that.)	

Maybe, hopefully, in a few weeks, after he'd had a little settling and
adjustment time, both Holly and Harry would come home, to be here, with
him. For good.	

For good? Toby wished he could feel more certain of that. Wished he could
feel more certain of anything.	

Dinner was stilted and over-polite. It was obvious his father wanted a
scotch, but was refraining for his sake. Toby supposed his parents had
never figured out that he'd been able to pick the lock on their liquor
cabinet by the age of thirteen.  

Maybe Oz had been his destiny after all.  

###  

The next morning, Toby stood in front of the unscratched, undented, real
glass mirror in the guest bathroom. He stared long and hard at his
reflection, searching for some evidence of the man he was supposed to be. 


In a few days' time, he'd start working at the firm again. Just paralegal
shit now that he'd been disbarred. But employment was a condition of his
parole, and this would be as close as he could get to resuming his former
life.  

The suits Mother had pulled out of storage and hung in the closet here
were all too big on him now. Four years in Oz had burned away the softness
of expense account martini-porterhouse-beer-beer-beer "celebration"
lunches, like the one that'd been sitting heavy in his belly the day he
drove into Kathy Rockwell.  

He supposed he'd have to see about getting the suits altered. Seemed like
there'd been a time that he liked getting dressed up all sharp every
morning, joking with Gen about going out to slay the beasts. But... in the
meantime, he was secretly glad he could get away with an oxford and
chinos. Maybe wool was just an acquired taste he'd forgotten.  

He sat at the kitchen table with Mother, savoring the ordinary decadence
of good coffee, and drawing up the long list of things he had to take care
of in order to reintegrate himself into free society.  

Check in with his Parole Officer, find a local meeting that wasn't held in
his parents' church, look into the process for petitioning to have his
driver's license reinstated. He wondered idly if there was some kind of
critical mass involved, that once he'd checked off item number five on the
list, number seven, that something would automatically click into groove
and he would be reintegrated. That his old life, a normal life, would feel
normal.  

It occurred to him that he ought to want to go outside, but the prospect
seemed more frightening than anything else at the moment. Some kind of
prison-induced agoraphobia. He decided to add 'shrink' to the list.  

Grandmother and Angus came over to visit, and although Toby was genuinely
glad to see them both, he felt exhausted by a second long day of not
talking about prison. He'd understood it on an intuitive level, of course,
but now Toby recognized consciously that his time in Oz was going to be
one of those things that Wasn't Discussed. Defined by avoidance. A
classically orchestrated Beecher family conspiracy of silence.	

Well, wasn't there a kind of comfort in seeing that at least some things
didn't change?	

Getting ready for bed that night, looking in that still bizarrely clear
mirror, Toby was initially startled by his appearance, until he realized
that in spite of staring at himself like a parakeet for nearly an hour
that morning, he'd forgotten to shave.	

Well, tomorrow.  

He paced around the graciously, neutrally decorated guest room, wishing he
was tired. Wishing he didn't feel so hopelessly adrift. So alone.  

Finally, he went back into the bathroom and retrieved the long, plush
terry cloth mat from the floor beside the tub. Returning to the guest
bedroom, he cleared aside an overstuffed ottoman and spread out the mat,
facing, near as he could guess, East.  

And he prayed. As Said had taught him. Again, and again. Waiting to hear.
Down on his knees, his hands in the air. Again. But the only voice that
came through, was Chris.  

...I'm on my knees and I'm begging you...  

Shit, Keller. Me too.  

Toby sat up and let out a sigh. Somehow he didn't think this was quite
what Said had in mind.	

###  

In the morning, Toby neglected to shave again. And by the end of the week,
Mother was dropping careful hints that her handsome son was beginning to
look a little grizzled.  

He spent the next few days consuming newspapers, watching television.
Trying to stay distracted. And Sunday evening rolled around surprisingly
quickly, filling him with a twitchy, nervous energy. Returning to work at
the firm the next day was going to be a huge test. He puttered around the
kitchen, drumming his fingers against open cabinet doors, checking the
refrigerator, never knowing what he was looking for. What would satisfy.  

"Toby, dear" Mother's voice stilled him, and he looked up at her. Her
forehead was wrinkled into her 'I'm a little bit concerned' expression.  

"You weren't planning to go in tomorrow like that, were you? I can hardly
even recognize you."  

Toby jammed his hands into the kangaroo pockets of his zippered
sweatshirt. "Uh, yeah, I'll do something with it. You know, I think...I'm
going to go out. For a walk. Would you like anything from the store?"  

"Oh, Toby, I didn't mean to"  

"No, Mother, I know. I'm fine. I just... the air will do me some good."  

Almost the moment he stepped past the front door, Toby felt the oddly
disquieting sensation of the universe expanding around him, stretching off
to infinite distances. He walked quickly to the all night convenience
store on the avenue, breathing deeply with relief once safely inside. He
wandered the aisles aimlessly before finding himself staring into the bank
of sliding glass-doored drink refrigerators, two units of which were
entirely devoted to case upon case of frosty cool oblivion. Imported.
Domestic. So easy.  

Toby turned sharply and returned to the front of the store. After another
lengthy deliberation, he selected a plain green pack of spearmint gum from
the count boxes shelved below the counter and smacked it down decisively.
The clerk, a skatepunk looking kid of about fifteen, gave him a suspicious
lift of the eyebrows.  

For a moment, Toby felt a huff of indignation rising. What, did he have
'ex-con' stamped to his forehead? But... he'd been in the back staring at
the beer for an awfully long time. Especially considering that he wasn't
buying any now. Between that and the beard, maybe it did look like he was
up to no good. Then Toby suppressed a rueful smile. Hell, he had been up
to no good for a moment there.	

"Anything else?"  

Peeking out from a display mounted on the wall, partially hidden behind
the clerk, Toby caught a glimpse of a row of oversized comb-bound volumes,
covers invitingly splashed with international symbols and regional
photographic collages. He tilted his head to get a better view. Autumn
foliage, glittering skylines, saw-toothed mountain crags, desert scrub,
expansion bridges, no, no, no, bronze statue of...Paul Revere?	

Paul Revere.  

...run...  

"You all right, man?"  

"Sorry, yeah. I'll take one of those" Toby pointed, trying to maintain a
calm facade. "Massachusetts."  

The clerk let out a bored sounding sigh and turned to get the road atlas,
while Toby dug for his wallet with trembling hands. 
 
  

FIN 
  

------------------------------------------------------------  

"Untitled"The Cure
 hopelessly adrift in the eyes of the ghost again
 down on my knees and my hands in the air again
 pushing my face in the memory of you again
 but i never know if it's real
 never know how i wanted to feel
 never quite said what i wanted to say to you
 never quite managed the words to explain to you
 never quite knew how to make them believable
 and now the time has gone
 another time undone
 hopelessly fighting the devil futility
 feeling the monster climb deeper inside of me
 feeling him gnawing my heart away hungrily
 i'll never lose this pain
 never dream of you again