Recidivism-
habitual or chronic relapse or
tendency to relapse
If Sean (Sean in an affectionate, charitable mood, not the
judgmental Sean who often took over) was asked to put forth a theory,
he’d say
something like, “If something becomes meaningless, it loses its power
to hurt
you.”
It’s a good guess, really.
It would make sense—Christian fucks around because if sex means
nothing,
then what happened to him was really nothing, was just that casual.
Of course, if Christian were trying to do
this, it would never work since it’s a stupid plan, so it’s a good
thing that
Sean is wrong.
If you asked Julia, she’d probably tell you it was a status
thing, that Christian sleeps with as many women as possible because
knowing he
can get them makes him feel good about himself.
This is true on some level, but it’s not the real reason.
Matt wouldn’t answer your question; he’d be
too busy thinking up some other thing wrong with his relatively
pleasant life
to talk to you.
Annie knows nothing of
Christian’s sexual habits.
Kimber thinks
that Christian is afraid of commitment.
Gina thinks he’s just an asshole.
These are both valid points.
The truth of the matter is this—Christian is starving to be
loved.
He isn’t stupid enough to mix up
love and sex, it’s not like that.
It’s
just that sex, seduction, the power of the orgasm is strong enough to
distract
him from the hole inside of him, the ache waiting to be fulfilled.
No one has ever loved Christian the way he
needs.
Not his foster parents,
certainly.
Not Sean, for all of his
claim to love Christian most.
Christian
needs consistent love, and Sean’s depends on a thousand factors, most
of which
Christian has no control over.
Julia’s
love could never be given only to him, and Matt’s love had been tainted
by the
awful mess of paternity.
Wilber had
loved him unconditionally, but Wilbur was gone.
But, you ask, what about Kimber?
She
certainly does love Christian, and it has
taken both of them far too long to realize that it is a genuine sort of
love,
not just a girlish attachment.
No,
Kimber does love him; the problem is that Christian cannot accept it.
Love is a tremendous vulnerability, and that
is something he cannot stand.
He spent
his childhood an open target and he is terrified of going back to that,
especially considering the event he only calls That Thing, the night
that ultimately
brought Kit into his life, digging the hole of his fear and anger that
much
deeper, the night that reunited him with his mother only to have her
reject him
just as all others had.
So Christian ruins love where he can find it, dances a
dangerous dance with Kimber, wondering how far he can push her before
she
leaves him for good.
He has lost
everyone—Matt, Sean (Sean, God, Sean, he had trusted him, told him the
secrets
he could not tell any other, and Sean had decided Christian wasn’t good
enough
and walked away) and he doesn’t want to see how many more he can add to
the
list.
There is a part of him, though, that hopes she can outlast
him, wear him down until the aching overpowers the fear and he can
accept the
love that is freely given, finally fill the void rather than just
finding new
ways to pretend it isn’t there.
In the meantime, though, his door is always open and his bed
never empty.
Timothy McGee has always watched a lot of television.
He has never been the couch potato type, it’s
not just laziness or a need to zone out that leads him to the TV.
It’s just part of the geekiness.
He has to watch his sci-fi and true crime
shows.
It’s who he is.
Sci-fi is by and large a medium dominated by
males, and thus the commercials are usually aimed at young men, trying
to sell
beer and Mountain Dew and cars.
And,
with the current political and economic system, there are a lot of
commercials
trying to sell the military.
McGee never really paid attention to those commercials
before he joined NCIS.
He was slow and
soft and didn’t take well to being yelled at.
What would the Army ever want with him?
It was only after NCIS that he realized what, exactly, the
commercials
were trying to say.
They were stressing
teamwork, companionship, being part of something larger than yourself.
McGee had never felt so alone.
It was like, pardon the metaphor, the cool kids at lunch had
invited him to sit with them, but only on the far end of the table
where you
can’t really hear everyone’s conversations.
Abby has always liked him well enough, and he adores her but she
flusters him, sets him just enough off-balance so that he goes reeling
with the
slightest push.
Abby, though, is not the
problem.
It’s everyone else.
It was Kate while she was alive.
Kate tried to be nice to him, but he was never privy to the
antagonism
between her and Tony.
He stood on the
outside watching them.
Occasionally he
was stuck in the middle, usually to the annoyance of both.
And then there was Tony.
Tony who had never liked him, who had seen him as a threat.
Quite frankly, McGee found the idea
laughable.
There was something special
between Gibbs and Tony, something no one else could really touch.
They fit each other, filled each other’s
needs.
It wasn’t at all that McGee
resented it. It was just that he was so unlike either of them that
their
interactions seemed foreign to him.
He
had eventually gotten provisional acceptance as a teammate, but he
would never
be a friend, and he knew it was work and not high school and he had
never
expected everyone to like him, but mostly NCIS made him altogether too
aware
that he was a computer nerd in a land of profilers and investigators.
Gibbs he didn’t even think about.
He was
never going to gain Gibbs’ approval
because the approval was not there to be given.
Gibbs treated pretty much everyone with the same scorn, but
there was
something in his eyes when he was focused on Tony, something that said
he was
pushing just to see how quickly Tony could climb to the next level.
That look was not there when he talked to
McGee.
When Gibbs looked at McGee, it
was only to see what McGee could do for him in that particular
situation.
He told Ziva once that he was glad she’d joined the team
because it made her the Probie, not him.
But then he saw how quickly she endeared herself to Tony, how
well she
fit with him and Gibbs, and he realized that it didn’t matter how long
he was
there or how many more new people joined the team, he was always going
to be
the Probie.
Schadenfreude- pleasure derived from the misfortunes of
others
“You know what I like to see on a Sunday?”
Casey sighed from his spot next to Dan in Makeup.
“Unless
the answer is my foot kicking your
ass, I would suggest you do not answer that question.”
Dan, as expected, carried on oblivious.
“I
like to see Vikings lowlights. I
especially like to see them when they come at the hands of a team as
woeful as
the Green Bay Packers have been this year.”
Casey got out of his chair and started to walk away.
“I don’t want to hear it.
I
actually watched the game, isn’t that
enough pain for you?”
Dan hurried to catch up.
“No, not really.
Not after I had
to spend last season listening to you crow about the Vikings making it
into the
playoffs with their oh-so-stellar 8-8 record.”
“They made it, and that’s all that matters.”
Casey
shook his head.
“Why are you so excited
about the downfall of
Minnesota
anyway?
Shouldn’t the magnitude of suck
of the NFC North upset you as a sports fan?”
Dan shrugged.
“Not
really.
It gives us something to talk
about in the show.”
He paused.
“Did you say ‘magnitude of suck’?”
Casey straightened a bit.
“Indeed I did.”
“Do you realize that the phrase is both ridiculous and
pretentious?”
They walked into the
studio and Dan took his seat behind the desk.
“You simply cannot use those words together.
It just doesn’t work.”
Casey rolled his eyes.
“In this case?
Considering the
quality of play?
Yes it does.”
Dana leaned forward, turning on her microphone.
“Dan,
stop antagonizing Casey.”
Dan crossed his arms in mock disgust.
“Why
are you taking his side?”
Dana shrugged.
“I
flipped a coin.
It’s his turn
today.”
Casey beamed.
“Thank
you, Dana.”
She returned his smile.
“No problem.
And hey, great games
by the Vikings today.”
Casey could only sigh with disgust.