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rainbowfic2016-11-04 12:00 am
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2016-11-04 12:00 am
Color Party 26, Rain Cloud 9: Helpless
Author: Kat
Title: Helpless
Story: In the Heart - Straight AU
Colors: Color party 26 (Niveous), rain cloud 9 (Rainy day)
Supplies and Materials: Frame (Robbie is an adult), seed beads (Robbie McKean), eraser (Straight AU)
Word Count: 528
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Robbie and Christmas.
Warnings: child and domestic abuse, mostly the aftermath thereof.
Notes: none.
Robbie could just about remember when holidays had been good, back when he was really little and it was just him and Leah. Back then Mom used to laugh, and dot his nose with flour while he helped her bake cookies. Leah would get all tangled up in the tinsel while they decorated the tree, and they'd both sit up as late as Mom would let them, wide-eyed at the windowsill, watching the snow fall and waiting for Santa. Christmas morning they would go to Mass and hear the hymns and see the baby Jesus in his cradle, then come home and tear into their presents and everything would be just glorious.
He didn't think it was a coincidence that his father wasn't in any of those memories.
The Christmas he was five was the first time he remembered his father at all, a sort of hazy shadow looming over everything. Mom still laughed and Leah still got tangled in tinsel, while the new baby Beth gurgled and kicked in her crib, but somehow it rang hollow in his memory. He wasn't sure, even now, if that was hindsight or if he knew at the time that something was wrong.
One more happy-but-tense Christmas, and then Caty was born, and Mom stopped laughing and his father was suddenly everywhere.
Maybe not really. Robbie was pretty sure that his father had actually spent very little time at home after Caty was born. It was just that when he was home he made his presence felt, and over the holidays there weren't any distractions for him; no bars to go to, no work to stay late at. Instead he snarled and snapped his way around the house, calling Leah a brat and cursing at Mom and telling Robbie to shut up. Sometimes Mom had bruises that she covered up. Beth started crying whenever he entered the room.
And Robbie himself--
God, he was so angry back then. He couldn't stand up to his father; of course not. He was eight. How was an eight-year-old supposed to stop a grown man from doing anything? But he wanted to hit his father, punch his lights out like in all the superhero comics and throw him down the stairs. He wanted to protect his terrified sisters and avenge the light that had died in his mother's eyes. He wanted to do something, anything, and he couldn't.
He was still angry, actually. Still in therapy for that, too. Good for him, Mom said. Whatever.
So he'd never had a good Christmas, not really. Even after they left Dad, Christmas was always weird and cold, because Mom felt weird about the church so they didn't go to Mass, and Dad wasn't paying child support so there wasn't a lot of money for presents or decorations or anything, and even if they went to see Grandma and Grampa it was strange, awkward. And then he went to college and stayed over the breaks, and then he moved out, and it never snowed on Christmas anymore, it only rained.
His father was dead now, but still somehow everywhere. Where was the therapy that would get rid of that?
Title: Helpless
Story: In the Heart - Straight AU
Colors: Color party 26 (Niveous), rain cloud 9 (Rainy day)
Supplies and Materials: Frame (Robbie is an adult), seed beads (Robbie McKean), eraser (Straight AU)
Word Count: 528
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Robbie and Christmas.
Warnings: child and domestic abuse, mostly the aftermath thereof.
Notes: none.
Robbie could just about remember when holidays had been good, back when he was really little and it was just him and Leah. Back then Mom used to laugh, and dot his nose with flour while he helped her bake cookies. Leah would get all tangled up in the tinsel while they decorated the tree, and they'd both sit up as late as Mom would let them, wide-eyed at the windowsill, watching the snow fall and waiting for Santa. Christmas morning they would go to Mass and hear the hymns and see the baby Jesus in his cradle, then come home and tear into their presents and everything would be just glorious.
He didn't think it was a coincidence that his father wasn't in any of those memories.
The Christmas he was five was the first time he remembered his father at all, a sort of hazy shadow looming over everything. Mom still laughed and Leah still got tangled in tinsel, while the new baby Beth gurgled and kicked in her crib, but somehow it rang hollow in his memory. He wasn't sure, even now, if that was hindsight or if he knew at the time that something was wrong.
One more happy-but-tense Christmas, and then Caty was born, and Mom stopped laughing and his father was suddenly everywhere.
Maybe not really. Robbie was pretty sure that his father had actually spent very little time at home after Caty was born. It was just that when he was home he made his presence felt, and over the holidays there weren't any distractions for him; no bars to go to, no work to stay late at. Instead he snarled and snapped his way around the house, calling Leah a brat and cursing at Mom and telling Robbie to shut up. Sometimes Mom had bruises that she covered up. Beth started crying whenever he entered the room.
And Robbie himself--
God, he was so angry back then. He couldn't stand up to his father; of course not. He was eight. How was an eight-year-old supposed to stop a grown man from doing anything? But he wanted to hit his father, punch his lights out like in all the superhero comics and throw him down the stairs. He wanted to protect his terrified sisters and avenge the light that had died in his mother's eyes. He wanted to do something, anything, and he couldn't.
He was still angry, actually. Still in therapy for that, too. Good for him, Mom said. Whatever.
So he'd never had a good Christmas, not really. Even after they left Dad, Christmas was always weird and cold, because Mom felt weird about the church so they didn't go to Mass, and Dad wasn't paying child support so there wasn't a lot of money for presents or decorations or anything, and even if they went to see Grandma and Grampa it was strange, awkward. And then he went to college and stayed over the breaks, and then he moved out, and it never snowed on Christmas anymore, it only rained.
His father was dead now, but still somehow everywhere. Where was the therapy that would get rid of that?