Chapter Text
Charles is fourteen when he sets off for St. Hilarion's School for Boys.
As luck would have it, it turns out to be remarkably easy for his mother to forge the paperwork that guarantees him a spot. Troublingly so, actually.
Charles Joseph Rowland, the amended documents declare, the typeface smudged slightly in the places where its predecessors had been scrubbed away. Hands plagued by the scent of new paper and stained by fresh ink, Charles is the one given the honor of posting the thing, tender as he tucks its wayward corners into the envelope, less-so as he licks the adhesive and narrowly avoids slicing his tongue open on the pointed edge.
It goes by quickly, his walk across the street to their mailbox. It's warm out, the air humid and heavy with the promise of an approaching storm. The hair on Charles’ arms stands on end as if electrified, and he is, somewhat distantly, grateful for a clouded sky he can pin the sensation on as he slips the letter in and rotates the little flag into place.
It goes by quickly, but it gives Charles a lungful of fresh air and the space to think.
And think he does.
Mostly, he thinks, how the Hell did I get so lucky? He thinks, will the bed frames creak at night? He thinks, having roomate'll be pretty mint. He thinks, please, oh God, tell me this isn't actually happening.
He realizes, absently, as he drags his feet back to the front step of his house, several things.
First, that he has, at some point, worn a hole straight through the sole of his sneakers. There's a slit in the rubber, smiling coyly up at him each time his feet hit the ground. It puckers when he grasps his ankle to get a better look, and Charles barely beats back a grimace at the thought of asking his father to replace the thing for him.
And second, that beneath him, his legs have become terribly–and very abruptly–unsteady, bowing slightly in his now rapidly-tunneling vision. Like somehow they had, inexplicably, escaped out from under the weight of his torso after the modest handful of steps.
Suddenly struggling to stay upright, he picks his way carefully across the pavement, his movements lacking their usual crispness, their coordination. Some athlete he is, a fuzzy part of his brain chirps, that he can't manage a stroll down the street, can't handle posting a goddamn letter. He beats this thought back too, threading his fingers together and then swiping them against his jeans, the repetitive motion ever so slightly soothing the simmering strangeness inside of his chest.
Focuses on making it up to the doorstep, counting the steps it takes for him to cross each crack in the pavement in the vain hope it'll pass quicker, that way. It doesn't get any easier. Some athlete, his brain croons again. He tells it to go fuck itself. As he maybe should have expected, it does not listen very well.
Still sweating beneath the midday sun and shuffling against the concrete walkway that bisects their yard, he seizes his ankle again, wiggling his toes just to see them move through the gap in the rubber. He finds, with no small amount of disquiet, that he struggles to grasp the fact that those extremities do, in fact, belong to him.
He tucks the knowledge away, swallows in two great gulps of not-quite-rain-sodden air, and slams the front door with more force than would be considered strictly necessary.
(It earns him a headache and an open, weeping wound, but that's fine. Really, truly, it's fine. Honest.)
(It's fine. He's fine. He has to be.)
They receive a letter three weeks after Charles mails out the final set of forms, addressed to a Mr. Charles J. Rowland. Tucked into beige cardstock is a formal welcome dictated in impeccable script, the letterhead of the St. Hilarion’s Admissions Wing staring unflinchingly up at its recipient from the right hand margin.
He'll begin next semester, enrolled under a sports scholarship. His mother fixes him with a look equal parts relieved and soul-rendingly saddened, and Charles feels the letter crinkle ever so slightly as he presses it flush against his chest. As if the moment he couldn't read it, it would somehow no longer hold any meaning at all.
His acceptance is simultaneously the most freeing and most frightening news of his life. Charles and his mother burn the letter only hours after having received it. As he watches flames lick up to curl the ends of parchment, something unnameable collapses within his chest. He can’t seem to parse whether or not he’d needed whatever it was, now that it’s gone. He doesn’t know if he really cares to find out.
His mother shifts to drape an arm around him as the letter smolders, resting her head on the crown of his own as she takes his hand gently and begins to rub soft circles across its tendons. He’s almost too tall for it now—his mother is not an especially small woman, but Charles has taken after his paternal lineage with haste, coming up on nearly five foot six now. Reedy, agile, disproportionately strong. And, evidently, ever so slightly too tall for his mother to rest comfortably against the top of his head. It hurts in a way it shouldn’t, not really.
They don’t speak, not one word, though Charles longs to say something, anything at all to alleviate the pervasive silence of their living room. He wouldn’t know where to begin. Mr. Charles J. Rowland sears itself firmly into permanence within his thoughts, looping cursive he later spends days on end just dreaming about, reduced to embers ground into the brick of their fireplace. He’s sure his swallows are audible, competing only with the soft crackle of sparks, as he forces his throat to work and his lungs to expand under the weight of what remains unsaid.
Mere minutes later, Charles’ mother is satisfied, and they part, still wordless, with Charles’ heart still drumming beneath his ribs.
Charles spends the next four months trying desperately to soothe the buzzing that has taken full hold beneath his skin. He is not particularly successful in that regard, all things considered. He tries anyway. What else is there to do?
He spends four months trying to drown out the thought that he's really, truly being sent away. It doesn't ever take hold, never quite solidifies, but the threat of it alone has Charles shivering even in the absence of windchill.
It creeps up on him in a way things rarely ever do, anymore. It's a beautiful night, when he packs his bags. Clear, starry despite the city skyline's ever-encroaching smog, gorgeous and entirely undeserving of its beauty. Charles thinks he should feel relief. In truth, all he really feels at the moment is so terribly fucking fragile—frightened and helpless and slightly weak in the knees.
The night that he leaves is the first and only time Charles has ever been called his father’s son.
It’s still dark out, the hauntings of dawn’s light mostly concealed by the glow of street lamps. Charles’ mother kisses him gently on the temple, squeezes his shoulder, and tucks a wayward curl back into place against his forehead. She flicks his earring, nails rattling against the nickel plating of his jewelry. He giggles like he knows he's supposed to–quiet, with an air of playful embarrassment, just like they've done a thousand times before–and he fights against the rigid set of his jaw when he offers her a smile. He knows goodbye will never feel like enough.
Charles has gotten good at knowing things, he reckons. He knows the proper way to fasten suspenders, knows how to find his way—however clumsy it may be with inexperience—around tying a tie. He knows all the many ways in which he can coax a cricket ball into hurdling in the direction he needs it to, all the angles and subtle movements of the wrist required to send it flying over the heads of the fielding team. He knows how to tell when the plod of footsteps might spell trouble, when flinching will leave him worse for wear. When a fight is brewing, often even before the fighters in question have fully solidified the idea of exchanging punches themselves. He knows the scent of his mother’s cooking, still, knows exactly the ways in which her nimble fingers, already ridden with the beginnings of arthritis, dance around a cast iron pan.
She spends the entire day before he heads off drifting about the kitchen. Calling in sick to work, she tangles the phone's cord mindlessly around her knuckles, her ear pressed against their landline while Charles swings himself up onto the granite countertop beside the stove. She sets to work almost immediately. The scent of aromatics lingers in the air as Charles kicks his feet idly, observing her, trying desperately to cement each movement into vivid memory. He passes her the things she can't quite reach, slips extra paprika into the pot as she pretends not to see him do it. He steals from her spoon, she grins and swats weakly at him, he tries not to let his heart leap into his throat when she does. They wait in comfortable silence until the pressure cooker whines. Charles studies the premature wrinkling around his mother’s lips, the uneasy shifting of her eyes, and tries not to let his stomach turn. He watches the curves of her fingers again, now fiddling with the radio. He allows his teeth to buzz in tandem with the static of a signalless broadcast, and then he allows himself to be swept off of his perch and onto the ground, his mother’s hand tugging incessantly at his own until he relents.
They dance together, feet slipping against the tile flooring, and Charles tries to drink in each and every moment, eagerness spilling out and over into full-body vibration and a face-splitting grin with a ferocity he has not yet learned to fully quell. Despite many lessons to encourage the contrary, Charles moves like a dancer dosed with stimulants, joy now telegraphed in a way he rarely allows himself as he swings his mother around their kitchen table. He never was a quick study.
She makes him Dal Makhani for the train ride, short as it will be, packed in a little, blue tupperware container. Says it’ll put some meat on his lanky figure, and tucks a plastic utensil set eagerly into his upturned palms.
Charles knows his mother loves him. She says it, in all the ways that matter. He knows he loves her just as much. Knows that when he tucks himself in tonight, all proper and prim in the ways he will never truly be, he will not be there to soften the blows she might receive. Sometimes, love doesn’t feel like it’s enough. They are both burning—distant stars in twin orbits that are slowly flickering out into obscurity. Charles hates himself for thinking that way, hates the nihilism that creeps in under that star-filled sky as he stands just barely in the threshold of something new and distinctly terrible. Worry, a feeling not new or particularly foreign, curls in his gut, almost overpowering in nature. He will not be able to protect her anymore. He knows this now, too, what was once a distant notion suddenly tangible against his tongue in the phantom sensation of blood slipping down his throat.
She has sent him away, and there are a million thoughts vying for his attention as he resists the urge to keel over at her feet, to throw himself fully into her waiting arms and beg her to keep him, please, just for a little while longer. He isn't sure if it would be more for her sake or his own.
In the end, though, Charles is his mother’s son. He does not beg. He does not grovel at her feet on the shallow, cement stairs framing their door like he so desperately wants to. Instead, he settles for resting his chin against her shoulder and pretending not to shake with unshed tears in her grasp. He extends her the same courtesy when he feels her body begin to shiver against his chest. He is tall enough now that he no longer needs to hoist himself up onto his tiptoes to fully embrace her. Still sock-footed in their entryway, still trying desperately to delay the inevitable, Charles can almost fool himself into thinking he is wanted here. He can almost fool himself into believing that the warmth he is encased in will last them both for as long as they need it to, their incompatible existences separated only by the slatted parallels of track that will dump him at the station three blocks from St. Hilarion’s.
As is the case with most things, he finds, Charles Rowland is proven wrong before he can even entertain a doubt that he might be.
Charles’ father appears behind his mother almost like an apparition, a sudden storm brewing beneath untidy office wear and an oil-dark hairline deep in the throes of recession. Despite the fact that Charles is the only one facing further into the house, the only one whose line of sight can capture his father’s form, he feels his mother stiffen beneath his touch even as her face remains pressed into his jacket. It’s almost a bit cartoonish, the way his father's figure looms above them both, casting them in shadow as the porch light flickers weakly overhead. Charles finds he can’t quite appreciate the humor of the idea.
The man catches Charles by the arm, sending hands that tote overloaded suitcases trembling wildly. His palms are warm, calloused like Charles’ are, but in all the wrong places. His fingers are thick and his grip is tight. Charles’ mother pulls away at once, smoothing unseen creases from her front as she recedes into their living room with nothing more than a gaze cast downwards.
His father is quiet when he speaks, quiet in the same way that a predator grows in preparation for a pounce. Charles doesn’t make a habit out of feeling small, but pressed under that dark-browed gaze, he feels impossibly little. Young, quivering, with a lip already blooming dark with bruises, Charles knows the feeling of being hunted. Maybe he always has. It isn’t a particularly comforting thought.
“Listen to me, boy, when I say this to you now,” his father’s breath is hot against the shell of Charles’ ear, his whisper low, and it does not feel like it should, no vindication, no deliverance. The affirmation, twisted under his father’s disgust, becomes most comparable to a punch straight to the gut. Charles’d almost prefer this coming to blows, honestly. The pain was invariable, rocky shores to a ship caught in the tide. It was consistent, rhythmic, all he’d ever known. This was, decidedly, very much not. Boy. The word makes Charles’ stomach drop straight into his feet. “They will kill you. They will sniff you out and they will string you up. When the Headmaster comes knocking, it’ll be the best day of my goddamn life. Halle-fucking-lujah. You’ll hear the singin’ from the steps of the Pearly Gates.”
He spits the words Pearly Gates like he doesn’t believe them. Charles finds himself agreeing. He can’t seem to picture himself framed amongst anything other than brimstone, at the moment. His father punctuates the sentiment with a grunt. It pushes the predator metaphor a little too far, breaks the poetry of the comparison with something so close to laughable in its utter strangeness. Charles is too stricken to appreciate the absurdity of the action, his teeth ground so fiercely together that he swears he can almost feel each and every one come loose from the gum, crumbling beneath the weight of his terror.
With a shove, Charles is cast off into the night and swallowed whole by suburban sprawl. The place he had called home for fourteen long, long years becomes just another front door in a sea of identical front doors. It feels final, in a way Charles knows it shouldn’t. His father doesn’t bother to close the door behind him, just stalks away to collapse into the armchair in their living room. Charles scurries in, makes himself as scarce as he can while he slips his shoes on and shoots his mother a smile that brims with a confidence he cannot lay claim to. She smiles back.
She is not as good at pretending as Charles. It falls a little short. Neither of them mention it.
The click of the lock sets something soundly ablaze within Charles’ heart—nameless, abject, gut-wrenching.
Half an hour later, the tupperware remains unopened on his lap, condensation dripping lazily down its lid and sliding off the sides as he shifts in his seat. He pretends the revolt of his insides is merely motion sickness. When the train pulls into the station at last, the container finds its home in a rubbish bin just outside the wiry black iron of St. Hilarion’s gates. Every swallow feels like he’s choking down kerosene. The awful ache inside his chest flares.
Something in the world has been irreparably altered, he thinks, as a clammy, pale hand guides him through the grounds. There is no face attached to the appendage when he looks back on that moment. Just a sort of sinking dread, the idea that nothing will ever be the same and that such a thing is to be feared, to be repented for until his lips are bloodied and his cupped hands have grown gnarled with age. When he’s delivered to the dorms with instructions to consult a secretary in the morning, Charles does not rest easily. He does not rest at all. He stares at the ceiling until he feels halfway to cross-eyed, and he worries. His mother, forty minutes’ train ride from his restless body, feels impossibly far away. Later, he fears that, at some point during that first night, he is consumed alive by the flames nestled soundly in his chest.
The night Charles sets off for St. Hilarion’s School for Boys is the only night his father ever calls him a man. It is potentially the worst thing to ever happen to him—a conviction he maintains, private as it is, well into a future stained with violence, marred by mortality and its ensuing disarray. At least, he imagines, it’s something close to the worst thing. Honestly, it gets a little hard to keep track of it all sometimes. A top-tenner, though, for sure.
Under the watchful light of a rising sun, Charles Rowland is his father’s son at last, and the sickening feeling that thought inspires may very well haunt him for the rest of his days.