Pumpkin Pie 10
Author: Casey
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, Pre-NIEE: Real World AU
Challenges: Pumpkin Pie 10 (torture), Papaya 12 (you don’t know what you’re missing), Green Tea 28 (it’s about time)
Toppings & Extras: Whipped Cream, Chopped Nuts (RWAU), Sprinkles (Mick), Pocky Chain
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG-13 (language, spousal abuse and child neglect)
Summary: Some things just shouldn’t happen.
Notes: 1992 through 1998. Mick’s life before he’s adopted by the Highcastles.
For the first two years, things are almost normal. He is fed, clothed, diaper changed. He gets snuggles and toys and read to before bed. Mick, short for Michael although he will never answer to that, vaguely remembers these things, vaguely remembers the feelings of love and family before it all goes wrong.
He’s fairly certain, even years later, that the absence of love was his fault, even if it took two years to manifest as badly as it did.
His birth was a last ditch attempt to salvage a marriage that never should have been. He knows he failed.
*
One of his first distinct memories is of screaming and the tinkling of smashed glass and of pain, as the glass shoots across the room, cutting him. He’s somewhere between three and four. He tries not to cry because he doesn’t want things to be worse, but as his mother stomps away, she spots him. “Goddamn it, Mick, what’s the rule?” she demands.
“No crying,” he says, sniffing.
She takes in the blood. “Well, fuck. Mark, get him a bandaid.”
“You get him a bandaid, bitch.”
He is instantly forgotten as they go at it again. He gets his own.
*
At that point, he is already remarkably self-sufficient. He teaches himself how to use the toilet, because no one can be bothered to teach him, or to remember to change his diaper. He has moved the bandaids where he can reach them. He can make cereal - which means it’s what he eats most of the time.
He has little contact with the outside world. When he does - someone comes to visit or his mother actually decides to go grocery shopping and decides to take him (he can buckle his own car seat too) - he loves it. Normalcy for a while.
*
By the time he’s four, it has gotten even worse. Some days, there isn’t any food in the house (fight) or the bills have gone unpaid (another fight) or his father has lost yet another job for whatever reason (three fights at least). His father starts ‘forgetting’ to come home. His mother screams and rants and throws things, both before and after he eventually returns.
What money does come in goes straight to buy the largest, cheapest types of alcohol possible. The boy becomes proficient at dragging half-full bottles to the sink and pouring them out.
Nothing seems to help.
*
Eventually, even the visitors stop. His father comes home about twice a week. Somehow there is always enough money for booze, but Mick’s wearing hand-me-downs that are at least three sizes too big. He’s not even sure where they come from, except that one day they’re in the laundry room.
He turns five that summer and knows, from the TV, that he should go to school in the fall, but his parents make no move to do anything. He is a silent wraith in his own house, though. He goes weeks at a time without speaking. Longer between being heard.
*
The woman shows up two weeks after school’s supposed to start. He’s never sure who made the call, although he suspects the nice older lady across the street who always offered him snacks when he was outside. She probably sees him home when he should be in school one too many times those weeks.
His mother is passed out, as usual, so Mick answers the door, expecting the postman.
“Hello, are you Michael?”
He stares at her, not sure how to respond.
“May I speak to your parents?”
He glances back inside a house in shambles and shakes his head.
*
His parents are not given a second chance, even though Mick tells them little. His parents beg and plead like they care. Mick only cares because the orphanage where he is placed - at that moment a temporary ward of the state - is loud and noisy and he’s drowning. At least at home he knows where he stands.
It takes ages of back and forth before his parents are formally declared incompetent of caring for him. By then, Mick’s gone mute. There’s no point in trying to talk. This is no different from home - no one cares about him here either.
*
After eight months, his father does the only good thing he ever manages to do for his son. He calls his old college friends, Patrick and Elizabeth Highcastle. Mick vaguely remembers them. They’d come to visit when things were more normal.
Within a week, Patrick is sitting across from him, explaining that he and his wife have two sons of their own.
Mick studies him silently.
“We want you to come live with us.”
He can’t recognize the new emotion as hope. “Why?” he says, his first word in months.
“Everyone deserves a safe home.”
Mick offers a tentative smile.
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, Pre-NIEE: Real World AU
Challenges: Pumpkin Pie 10 (torture), Papaya 12 (you don’t know what you’re missing), Green Tea 28 (it’s about time)
Toppings & Extras: Whipped Cream, Chopped Nuts (RWAU), Sprinkles (Mick), Pocky Chain
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG-13 (language, spousal abuse and child neglect)
Summary: Some things just shouldn’t happen.
Notes: 1992 through 1998. Mick’s life before he’s adopted by the Highcastles.
For the first two years, things are almost normal. He is fed, clothed, diaper changed. He gets snuggles and toys and read to before bed. Mick, short for Michael although he will never answer to that, vaguely remembers these things, vaguely remembers the feelings of love and family before it all goes wrong.
He’s fairly certain, even years later, that the absence of love was his fault, even if it took two years to manifest as badly as it did.
His birth was a last ditch attempt to salvage a marriage that never should have been. He knows he failed.
*
One of his first distinct memories is of screaming and the tinkling of smashed glass and of pain, as the glass shoots across the room, cutting him. He’s somewhere between three and four. He tries not to cry because he doesn’t want things to be worse, but as his mother stomps away, she spots him. “Goddamn it, Mick, what’s the rule?” she demands.
“No crying,” he says, sniffing.
She takes in the blood. “Well, fuck. Mark, get him a bandaid.”
“You get him a bandaid, bitch.”
He is instantly forgotten as they go at it again. He gets his own.
*
At that point, he is already remarkably self-sufficient. He teaches himself how to use the toilet, because no one can be bothered to teach him, or to remember to change his diaper. He has moved the bandaids where he can reach them. He can make cereal - which means it’s what he eats most of the time.
He has little contact with the outside world. When he does - someone comes to visit or his mother actually decides to go grocery shopping and decides to take him (he can buckle his own car seat too) - he loves it. Normalcy for a while.
*
By the time he’s four, it has gotten even worse. Some days, there isn’t any food in the house (fight) or the bills have gone unpaid (another fight) or his father has lost yet another job for whatever reason (three fights at least). His father starts ‘forgetting’ to come home. His mother screams and rants and throws things, both before and after he eventually returns.
What money does come in goes straight to buy the largest, cheapest types of alcohol possible. The boy becomes proficient at dragging half-full bottles to the sink and pouring them out.
Nothing seems to help.
*
Eventually, even the visitors stop. His father comes home about twice a week. Somehow there is always enough money for booze, but Mick’s wearing hand-me-downs that are at least three sizes too big. He’s not even sure where they come from, except that one day they’re in the laundry room.
He turns five that summer and knows, from the TV, that he should go to school in the fall, but his parents make no move to do anything. He is a silent wraith in his own house, though. He goes weeks at a time without speaking. Longer between being heard.
*
The woman shows up two weeks after school’s supposed to start. He’s never sure who made the call, although he suspects the nice older lady across the street who always offered him snacks when he was outside. She probably sees him home when he should be in school one too many times those weeks.
His mother is passed out, as usual, so Mick answers the door, expecting the postman.
“Hello, are you Michael?”
He stares at her, not sure how to respond.
“May I speak to your parents?”
He glances back inside a house in shambles and shakes his head.
*
His parents are not given a second chance, even though Mick tells them little. His parents beg and plead like they care. Mick only cares because the orphanage where he is placed - at that moment a temporary ward of the state - is loud and noisy and he’s drowning. At least at home he knows where he stands.
It takes ages of back and forth before his parents are formally declared incompetent of caring for him. By then, Mick’s gone mute. There’s no point in trying to talk. This is no different from home - no one cares about him here either.
*
After eight months, his father does the only good thing he ever manages to do for his son. He calls his old college friends, Patrick and Elizabeth Highcastle. Mick vaguely remembers them. They’d come to visit when things were more normal.
Within a week, Patrick is sitting across from him, explaining that he and his wife have two sons of their own.
Mick studies him silently.
“We want you to come live with us.”
He can’t recognize the new emotion as hope. “Why?” he says, his first word in months.
“Everyone deserves a safe home.”
Mick offers a tentative smile.