Chapter Text
Nathaniel didn’t know what he had done wrong for his mum to hurt him like this.
He had spent his life avoiding his father, or doing everything he could to at least not make him any angrier if Nathaniel couldn’t get away from the large man. He had spent many hours finding his mum and spending time with her instead. Sometimes she stroked his hair and murmured gentle words to him.
He didn’t know what he did wrong to be punished like this though.
His mum held Nathaniel down as she let the chemicals soak into his eyes.
It burned, different to how his shoulder did when father pressed the iron to it years ago. His shoulder had burnt with a searing heat that he could not escape; bright and all encompassing. Afterwards it felt like pulsing coals against his skin; a never-ending throb of burning pain that pulled and demanded his attention. Nathaniel had grown used to pain over the years. He was able to keep quiet when his father or one of his friends put their blades to his skin. Nathaniel had gotten used to preparing himself for pain whenever he saw his father or Lola in particular.
Maybe that was why the pain felt so much worse this time.
This time, his eyes burnt like knives were being pressed into them, even if Nathaniel knew that that wasn’t true. It just felt like it. His mum’s hand squeezed around his wrists, larger than his and stronger than Nathaniel thought he would ever be. Her other hand clamped over his mouth to not only keep him quiet but to also keep his head still. She pressed down hard to keep him pinned to the floor, and her leg was thrown over his thighs in an attempt to keep him from thrashing.
Nathaniel thrashed anyway. His body convulsed without his permission, a whimper escaping his throat as he tried to get away.
What had he done to deserve this?
“Be quiet, Nathaniel,” his mum hissed. Nathaniel felt his body jerk at the sound of that name from his mum’s mouth. She called him Abram when they were alone. He is meant to be Abram with his mum. Nathaniel is for his father. He felt another whimper fall from his mouth, even as he pressed his lips together. His eyes felt like they were being stabbed still, and he would know what being stabbed felt like. Tears streamed down his face to mix with whatever his mum had splashed in his eyes. NathanielAbramJunior squirmed harder as panic overwhelmed him.
Just earlier that day he had been playing with the ‘sons of exy’. He thought that he had made a couple of new friends, even if Riko was a bit of an ass. His father’s party had been large and Nathaniel had been told to behave, like always. So when a stocky man arrived with two boys roughly Nathaniel’s age, he had been curious. There were rarely any other children at his father’s parties. He had recognised the pair straight away, having heard about them from the other kids in his exy little league. The pair had 1 and 2 on their faces with permanent marker, even if Nathaniel thought that the numbers were the wrong way around; Kevin was the better player.
They had played a rough scrimmage with backyard rules, which meant they had no gear other than a single exy ball. Riko had sulked whenever he didn’t get a goal, or if Kevin overtook him in goals, which made Nathaniel’s brows furrow - he was never allowed to sulk, father or mum would tell him off. Kevin had been fun, showing him some different footwork and moves to help defend against strikers. Nathaniel had enjoyed running circles around the older boys.
The happiness he had felt during the day was lost now. His body jerked and eyes streamed with tears, even as Mary let go of his wrists to splash more liquid onto his eyelids. Nathaniel bucked and tried to push her off of him, but it was no use.
Everyone was always stronger than him. No matter how fast he was, he would always be caught, and no strength could pull him out. Nathaniel heard his mum suck in a breath when he scratched up her arm, but he couldn’t make sense of what she said. The pain blotted out everything else to make itself known. Nathaniel wanted to scream.
He felt his body be lifted from the ground and his face was shoved into his mum’s shoulder as she carried him out of the cleaners closet. She pressed a hand to the back of his head to keep him there, despite it making it hard to breathe. It wasn’t a hug - Nathaniel felt her hands like steel bands over his body, pressing his face down to keep him still and quiet. He tried to pull his face up and gasped a desperate breath, even as his mum muttered things he didn’t understand.
The feel of his bed made a breath stutter out of him, now that his mum had let him pull away from her. There was a hazy light from where his bedside table was, although Nathaniel thought it was dimmer than usual. He blinked repeatedly to try and clear his vision with no success. “Go back to sleep. Everything will be alright,” his mum promised as she stroked his hair. Nathaniel flinched away from her and thought that she sounded strange, too intense and happy for what she had just done, but the pain in his eyes held most of his attention. It felt like there were tracks down his face that burnt also, but Nathaniel tried not to think about anything at all. He didn’t know what he had done wrong in the first place, and he didn’t know why his mum would do this. Nathaniel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop how his chin wobbled. He pressed his face into his pillow and heard his mother leave his bedroom.
Nathaniel cried silently for many hours before he finally fell asleep.
In the morning, Nathaniel stayed in his bed. His eyes still hurt, dry and scratchy, although not as bad as hours before. He knew that he usually woke up with the sun, but this morning his bedroom remained dark. Nathaniel wondered if his mum had closed his blinds when she left last night. He blinked harshly a few times to try and force his eyes to work, and kept his mind purposely blank. Nathaniel felt his stomach sink and more tears well up, but he refused to even think anything about his eyesight. Instead, Nathaniel ran through different math problems that he was learning that week with Miss Trinity, his tutor.
Being homeschooled was something that Nathaniel was used to, and he wondered again if the nice lady was aware of who his father was, or what he did. Miss Trinity was nice to Nathaniel, even if he got an answer wrong. She told him to take a deep breath and try again, and she never put a blade to his skin, or pinched him like mum sometimes did.
The door to his room opened and Nathaniel turned to face them. He blinked and pressed his lips together when the pervasive darkness remained.
“Hello, Nathaniel,” an unknown man said. Nathaniel flinched, having expected it to be his mum. “Sorry for startling you. I’m Doctor Martin and I’ve come to look at your eyes. I was told you had an accident last night?” the man continued. Nathaniel thought that his voice sounded odd, a questioning lilt that did not quite align with his words entirely, but didn’t comment. Mum always said that he should keep his smart mouth shut. He nodded his head. There were a few beats of quiet that Nathaniel didn’t understand before the doctor spoke again. “Well, this shouldn’t take long.”
Nathaniel kept quiet as the man did his tests, and asked a few questions that Nathaniel refused to answer. ‘What happened?’ ‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’ ‘Has something like this happened before?’
‘Are you safe here, Nathaniel?’
Nathaniel refused to answer most of his questions, only speaking up to tell him that he could only see a dim light from whatever torch he was waving in front of his face. Nathaniel couldn’t help but flinch and start to shake when the doctor put eye drops in his eyes. Even though it made his eyes feel better, his breathing quickened and he had to turn away from the man. Nathaniel heard the doctor sigh and pack up his things, before bidding farewell to him and leaving. The door must not have closed all the way, because Nathaniel could hear the conversation that the doctor was having down the hall, relaying the information back. He kept his mind blank as the words left the doctor’s mouth. Damaged. Too late to recover eyesight. Blind.
Blind.
Nathaniel kept his eyes trained on the little light he could see from where his window was, even as tears ran down his face. He wished he had taken a moment to look at the sunrise yesterday.
The doctor left a short while later after being told by mum to not speak a word of today to anyone, and Nathaniel wiped his tears away as he listened to his mum enter the room. He heard her pull something out of the cupboard and the sound of hangers being pulled down, her movements rough. Nathaniel could just make out the dark blob that moved over the light from his window.
His mum sounded odd again, her voice a strained cheerfulness. “Abram. Get up and get dressed. Your father is busy today, we are leaving.” He hesitated for a moment, confused on how he was meant to manage such a simple task now. Something soft landed on his bed next to him a moment later, and Abram reached a hand out to find his clothes.
It took him longer than usual to finally get dressed. He had started out by bringing everything close to his face in search of the tags, only to find that his hands were the best way to figure out what he was doing.
Abram felt his voice wobble even as he tried to keep it steady, his mum’s British accent coming through now that they were alone. “Mum, where are we going?” Abram still slept with a nightlight, the darkness sometimes played tricks on him to make it look like his father or Lola had snuck into his room. Listening to the faint sounds of other people’s screams at night had his mind working in overdrive most nights - nightmares that he could only escape with the light. The perpetual darkness played on his mind now, shifting lights from the corner of his sight that looked like someone walking closer to him. Abram could feel his body tremble, even as he clenched his fists in his lap.
Two thuds landed by his feet. His mum spoke in a firm voice that he knew meant pain if he didn’t obey fast enough. “Be quiet and put your shoes on.” ‘Children should be seen and not heard,’ had been a saying that he heard often enough. He leant down and felt around for his shoes, the laces still done up from when he had last slipped them off. Thankfully he was able to pull on one lace to undo the entire knot, but his first attempt had him putting his foot in the wrong shoe. He adjusted quickly before his mum saw his mistake.
Abram could hear his mum muttering to herself, her voice that same tone that he heard from her on occasion. He didn’t know what made his mum act certain ways, but he didn’t like it when she did. “Abram, hurry up. Carry this.” Something landed beside him and he was startled. He finished tying his laces and made sure they were tight before he reached over and found a bag beside him. His sports bag he took to exy - he knew the feeling of the slightly frayed strap and how it nestled beside his hip as he stood up.
He knew that his mum had told him to be quiet, but the question was burning inside him. The feeling of his exy bag against his side felt both calming and tumultuous. He had to ask, he had to know. “Mum, is the doctor right? Is there any way I can get my vision back?” His voice trembled and he gasped as he kept a sob tucked in his chest. “I won’t be able to play exy if I can’t see.”
The slap seemed like it came from nowhere. His tooth cut on his bottom lip even as his cheek stung and burned bright. Abram stumbled, almost falling over if not for his dresser as it slammed into his side. “No more exy,” she snarled at him. “I had to make sure- you are my son.” The rest of her words were lost to her mutterings and frenzied movements. Although Abram didn’t hear her. He felt tears well in his eyes as he leant on the dresser, one hand knuckled in the strap of his bag and the other clenched around the wood.
Mum had said that everything would be alright, but Nathaniel thought that sometimes even she was wrong.
The car hit a pothole and Abram tightened his hands on the handle and seatbelt, the loop of his duffle tight within his fist as well as it rested on his lap.
It had been a few months since they had left, that same day after the doctor visit. His mum had grown increasingly frantic as they moved, switched cars and drove again. She muttered to herself about driving across the country to get a new ID and board a plane to Europe, somewhere his father wouldn’t be able to reach them, where she can get into contact with some old friends of her family. She forced him to learn French, their only conversations were spoken in the foreign language, his words unsure and stilted. Abram didn’t understand half the things she spoke about, no matter the language she used.
His mum tried to get him to read a map, to buy snacks, to pack his own duffle - always pushing him to live as if he could see clearly. He tried. He held the map close to his face to try and make out the lines, he ran a hand along the shelf and tapped around for bags of chips and bottles of drink, he folded his clothes as neatly as he could and packed as fast as possible. It was never enough. His mum pinched, slapped and pulled his hair when he inevitably made a mistake.
Abram didn’t know how to do any better though. He was trying his best, but the darkness was near absolute. Only during a bright day did he see a faint shimmer of light, or headlights of a passing car at night could pierce the everlasting dark. He didn’t have the words for it, but Abram sometimes thought about simply closing his eyes and never opening them again.
The car came to a stop a short time later, and Abram tried not to flinch when his mum grabbed ahold of his arm. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
“Yes, mum,” he said immediately. He didn’t bother trying to explain to her that he never wanted attention lately. He had heard the whispers from strangers. ‘Eerie.’ ‘Unsettling.’ ‘Strange boy.’
‘Blind.’
Abram did his best to ignore them, as well as the thoughts that floated in his mind.
His mum held onto his wrist as she dragged him into the store. Abram idly thought that if he was bigger and stronger, that he would never have ended up like this. He didn’t know why, but he never grew as much as other kids. At ten and a half years old, he looked closer to seven or eight instead. It made it easier for his mum to drag him around and pretend that he was still just a large seven year old who was shy and quiet. It made it easier for her to punish him if he could not fight back. Easier for her to hit him, easier to hold him down and splash burning liquid in his eyes-
Abram took a subtle breath in and focused on keeping his mind blank. One time he had let those thoughts run wild and it made him inconsolable. Mum had not been impressed with her child acting like that, and she punished him for it.
The sounds of the store around him were loud and confusing. Voices, a baby crying, footsteps clacking and squeaky shoes, hangers clicking on the metal poles, beeping from the register, coughing, children squealing, his own slightly panicked breaths.
Abram followed after his mum, finding the hem of her shirt and scrunching it in a white knuckled grip despite her own grip around his wrist. He did not want to be lost any more than he already was.
His mum pulled him along and he heard some low toned muttering of strangers who caught sight of his eyes. Mum had never told him how she felt about his eyes being a crystalline blue like his father’s, but Abram knew. She never looked him directly in the eyes before he was like this, hardly looked at him at all. He knew. He knew that she saw his father in his face. She told him that Nathaniel was his father’s son and Abram was just for her. And he was Abram, he wanted to be Abram. She called him Abram, aside from when father was present or when she held him down and poured-
No.
Abram focused on his own footsteps and kept pace with his mum. She stopped and he diligently stopped beside her, keeping his grip in her shirt. She let go and a moment later, sunglasses were slid onto his face. He tried not to flinch at the unexpected touch, but failed.
“Stop acting like a scared child, Abram,” his mum hissed at him. He didn’t say anything, despite not acting at all. He was scared, Abram didn’t know what else he was meant to be. Every touch startled him, she never warned him of what she was doing and expected him to somehow know what was going on.
Somewhere deep inside Abram, a seed of something dark and sour nestled. He tried to smother it, but it was a stubborn bastard that refused to be suppressed. Instead, he shut the door on it and refused to think about it.
His mum grabbed a hold of his wrist again and pulled him along for a few minutes. He heard as she pulled some clothes off the racks, her movements jerky and breathing forcibly controlled. Abram felt as his brows furrowed. He knew his mum was having a hard time with him; a liability who would get them killed, she would tell him. She had never acted quite like this though.
His mum shoved him forward and ripped his hand away from the hem of her shirt, forcing him to feel where the lock was on the door. “Abram, stay here. I saw some of your father’s people - I will lead them away and come back for you,” his mum explained in a strained voice. Abram froze for a moment before reaching a hand out and trying to grab a hold of her shirt again. He didn’t notice how his chin wobbled and tears filled his sightless eyes. “No. Stay here. Listen for once in your life and don’t fuck it up.”
Abram pulled his hand back slowly, even as his chin continued to wobble. He nodded his head. His mum didn’t say anything more, and Abram listened to her footsteps as she walked away as he closed the door and locked it. He leant his back on the now closed door and closed his eyes as he exhaled a shaky breath.
Minutes passed and Abram wondered if his mother would simply leave him here, continuing on driving until she could get a plane ticket to London, like she had planned. The door in his mind opened and Abram thought about how he wouldn’t even be all that surprised if his mother did leave him alone. She hurt him for things that he could not help. Held him down. She had lied, telling him things would be okay even as she blinded him.
She was no different to father.
The seed inside sprouted and rooted itself deep.
Abram felt his jaw clench and hands fisted at his sides as he opened his eyes and glared at nothing. Months, years, an entire decade of hurt fed the seed.
It flourished.
His mother returned and led him back to the car, hand gripped around his wrist hard enough to leave bruises. He didn’t grab her shirt, and his hands shook in twin fists. She pushed him to the passenger door and he got in, his duffle bag in his lap. He scrunched his hands into the fabric to stop himself from doing something stupid.
His mother either didn’t notice or didn’t care for his silent fury. They sat in silence as his mother drove them further across the country.
“Won’t be long and we will be out of this Godforsaken country,” his mother muttered, mostly to herself. They had been in Seattle for a few days, his mother mostly keeping him locked in their motel room while she went out and got their new ID’s. He spent the time listening to the clock tick away, seeing as his mother demanded that he stay silent and unseen.
They hardly spoke to each other now. Especially after his mother had tried to hit him and he returned the favour. She had snarled at him about being exactly like his father and he glared at her until she demanded that he not look at her. He spoke one sentence before he copped the worst beating from his mother, ever.
‘You did this to me.’
She had yelled at him while she beat him, about how she always knew that he was too much like Nathan, that she wished she had aborted him before Nathan found out she was pregnant, that he should be thankful for all she has done for him.
He had laughed at that. A sharp barking laugh that wheezed on the end, ribs protesting but unable to stop. All she had done for him? He told her that he would never be thankful for all she had done to him. She beat him until his last baby tooth came out. He spat it into his hand with spit and blood, laughing a mean laugh. He thought that sounded about right - of course one of his parents would beat the last of anything ‘childish’ from him. His mother always told him to stop acting like a child, but then despised it when he tried acting like a grown up. Apparently talking back, demanding things, and standing his ground like she did was not acceptable adult behaviour.
He knew it was night time from the different sounds of the city, and the cool breeze that pierced through his jumper. They were walking back to their stolen car, fresh ID’s in hand and about to flee the country, when he felt his mother tense beside him, her fingers crushing his wrist.
The bang of a gun made him flinch, even if it wasn’t the first time he had heard it. The feeling of impact on his shoulder had him crying out in pain though, free hand gripping the bloodied fabric. His feet stumbled as his mother pulled him along, running. More gunshots rang out and he thought that maybe this would be it. He was going to die in a dirty alleyway before his eleventh birthday.
His mother shoved him forward and he cried out again when he collided with the side of their car, bullet wound burning white hot pain. He heard a wet thud followed by a grunt as he scrambled for the door handle. He ripped the door open and climbed inside, slamming it shut again just as he felt someone grab a hold of his jumper. They pulled and he cried out in both pain and anger.
Someone bigger, stronger, trying to hurt him again, pushing him around.
He opened the door a little before he pulled with all his might, slamming it down on the stranger’s arm again.
Again. And again. He heard voices, male, yelling at him and his mother. He turned his head and aimed the best he could, leaning forward and latching onto the man’s wrist. His wound burned but he thought that his anger burnt brighter. Gripping tight, his teeth burrowed down, a baby tooth gap on the side. He vaguely heard a yell of pain and the man’s hand spasmed, releasing his jumper. Blood flooded his mouth as the arm jerked, the car door still closed on the man’s elbow. He thought about clamping down hard enough for his teeth to clack back together again, through the man’s arm. The pained yells outside the car turned into screaming and terror as he clenched his teeth even more. The driver side door opened and he heard his mother tell him to let go, that they’re going to drive away.
He bit down harder. The screaming man yanked his arm back at the same time that his mother put her foot down on the accelerator. His jaw ached and he spat out as much blood as he could before slamming his door shut. His mother muttered to herself about new plans and him being the devil’s child. He glared at her with his blood coated chin and soaked jumper, one hand pressing to the wound on his shoulder as his body began to tremble.
He focused on emptying his mind and tensing his body to stop his shaking as best he could. It hardly worked, but he counted his breaths in and out, avoiding thinking about how much his shoulder hurt. Warmth tracked down his face as it cut paths through the drying blood, but he didn’t bother wiping his tears away. He didn’t bother seeking his mother for help, simply prodded at the wound with gentle fingers.
He kept his mind blank, even as his chest felt like it was caving in and shoulder flared bright hot.
“Abram.”
He turned slightly to acknowledge that he was listening. He was always listening. He heard all the obvious things - the car rumble and tyres on the road, how her breaths were slightly strained. Even the less obvious things, like how her fingers clenched around the leather of the steering wheel, and she avoided moving too much. He also heard all that wasn’t there too - how she hadn’t beaten him or even yelled at him. He knew something was wrong, and braced himself for what his mother said next.
“I need you to wait somewhere.”
Not ‘stay here until I collect you.’ Not ‘listen for once in your life.’ Not even ‘wait somewhere for me.’
No.
‘I need you to wait somewhere.’
He knew then, that his mother was leaving him behind.
His lips quivered even as his fists clenched and he told himself that he knew this was going to happen.
The car pulled to a stop, and his mother pulled his duffle from his lap. He heard her rummage around inside for a minute before she dumped it back in his lap.
“Get out. Walk in a straight line, there’s a bench. Wait there.”
He clenched his fists in the fabric of his duffle. They had driven for many hours, even though his shoulder was still sluggishly bleeding and the bullet was still lodged inside. She never asked if he needed help or even spoke to him for most of the drive.
He shouldn’t have expected anything else of his mother.
The cool night air ruffled his hair as he gingerly stepped out of the car. Closing the door, he shuffled slowly forward with one hand in front of him and the other fisted in the strap of his duffle. It was lighter than before, and knew that his mother had taken back anything that could make him look suspicious; anything that could be of use for surviving his father.
He thought it would have been kinder to kill him herself.
She at least waited until he found the bench and sat down before driving away.
His chin wobbled, and he decided then that he hated Mary Hatford.
If Nathaniel was his father’s son, and Abram his mother’s…
… then he would be neither.
A nameless boy stared sightlessly ahead as his body trembled faintly, either from the cold or from the pain or from the exhaustion. He did not know.
He sat in the dark, using the cleanest part of his collar to gently wipe away the dried blood on his face.
He waited. For what, he did not know.