#chris the romantic
CW: Ableism, abusive relative, abuse of a minor, pet whump references, BBU, some brief vague noncon references, blood, drowning kinda, death threats, just general ‘it’s gonna get bloody’ below the cut…
Sean Malley previously appeared in the the pieces Sean Malley,Learn to Fly, and Paul Higgs: Baby Daze.
-
“What’s wrong with him?”
Jo looked over at her older sister, eyebrows raised in perfect arches. She’d lined them herself this morning - the whole eyebrow plucking thing had been a fucking disaster, and now she had to draw them on every day.
“What?” Ronnie looked up. Her sister, not even quite twenty yet, was hovering over a pot of water that would hopefully eventually boil for pasta. She looked older, and tired, and Jo picked at her own fingernails every time she visited to avoid bringing it up.
Two years ago, Ronnie had been seventeen and beautiful - now she was nineteen, nearly twenty, and she hadn’t slept well since before Paul’s stupid baby was even born, and it showed. Ronnie did smile more, Jo thought, a little grudgingly. Since she’d been kicked out of their parents’ house for refusing to give up Paul’s baby, she’d moved in with his parents during the pregnancy and now the two of them had an apartment and a stupid marriage, and Jo had to admit Ronnie smiled so much more.
Their parents hadn’t gone to Ronnie’s high school graduation, but Jo did. Ronnie had hugged her so tightly it hurt, having to sort of awkwardly shift her hips back so her huge pregnant belly could fit between them.
He wasn’t even born yet and the stupid shit was already ruining things.
There had been photos, a million of them. Jo had gone home that night and told her parents, “Ronnie looks amazing,” and they had turned to each other and kept talking like Ronnie - and anything Jo said about her - didn’t exist.
Because of Paul’s stupid. fucking. baby.
But now, two years later, the stupid fucking baby was a stupid fucking toddler, and Ronnie and Jo together watched him - wispy red hair floating like feathers around his head - as he made a low hum, again and again, holding a small plastic dinosaur and repeatedly opening and closing its mouth, staring fixedly at the sharply-formed plastic teeth inside.
“Oh,” Ronnie said, as if it was totally normal, nothing to worry about. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“You don’t know? I’ve never seen a baby just stare at something that long. Aren’t they supposed to have, like, no attention span? Or pretend it’s biting him or something? I don’t think I have ever seen that kid play pretend.”
Ronnie took in a deep breath. “They are,” She said, hesitantly. “Supposed to. But Tris… I don’t know. He does pretend play sometimes, he really does. Not when-… when it’s just us, or just the three of us, he does, he just… doesn’t, so much, when other people are around. His doctor says it’s nothing to worry about yet.”
“… yet?”
Ronnie dumped the pasta from the box into the water, and they talked about something else.
Joanne Botham comes home - to her sweet little bungalow, snapped up for a pretty penny in a good neighborhood around the outskirts of Berras, perfect for commuting into work at WRU - and dumps her purse on the floor, exhaling in a rush. She kicks off her sensible work heels into the little shoe tray she bought at some home goods store where everything cost about fifty dollars more than it should, but she’s got money to burn, these days.
Or she used to.
In any case, it could be worse.
Luckily, this is more or less a WRU company town, and things aren’t so bad here. The Olympics had aired while she was relaxing in the pool at a hotel in Sao Paulo, and she honestly hadn’t paid them any attention. She’d been vaguely aware of a commotion, a sudden rush of Portuguese from the staff and just about every language on earth from the hotel guests, but when someone said it was a press conference at the Olympics, she’d lost interest.
It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything important - so she didn’t care. She was on vacation, and nothing was going to ruin her visit to Brazil. She had been taking a guided tour while some pet libbers tried to torch the WRU daycare and “free” the workers, leaving the poor things terrified and clinging to each other, running to the handlers who came to help them.
One of them was still missing, and probably had wandered off and died somewhere, and wouldn’t that be just what those fucking libbers deserved. To be responsible for that.
A handler had gone missing, too. There were rumors the daycare worker had offed him and he just hadn’t been found, but Joanne found that hard to believe. She’s worked on the copy for commercials with those placid little cow-people for years. None of them have a single brain cell not dedicated to childcare. None of them could swat a fly, let alone murder the handlers who keep them safe.
In any case, all of that had happened while she was still gone, had her work phone off, and ignored anything and everything sent her way.
When her plane touched down, though… that’s when Joanne realized the absolute pile of epic shit WRU had just been thrown into.
Two former pets - two people who should be current pets, actually - had spoken at a surprise press conference, and more than twenty Olympics athletes from fifteen countries had shown photos of people they claimed had been coerced, abducted, or otherwise forced into the pet system.
It was all fucking bullshit, but…
Well, it wasn’t allbullshit.
One of the speakers, turns out, had been none other than Paul’s stupid fucking baby, all grown up. He’d given out his real name, which the dumbass wasn’t even supposed to remember any longer, and it had been enough information for journalists to dig up who he was, what had happened to him, and most importantly, who his living relatives are.
There was an article in TIME magazine. Unlikely Voices - how two runaway human pets from WRU became the face of a movement and the cry for justice from a lost generation.
They’d done their research, all right. Tristan’s entire life had been laid bare in that article, in excruciating detail, up until… until he’d disappeared into WRU.
Which meant there had been a mini-profile in a little sidebar. Who is Joanne Botham? A shadowy figure from Tristan Higgs’ past… There’d been a photo of her, taken without her consent, but her attempt to sue had been dismissed.
His little stunt had been making Joanne’s job - and life - hell. She can’t even go into work in her own car any longer, there are reporters camped out who know her make, model, and license plate. She has to catch rides with different coworkers. She can’t go out to a simple restaurant without someone yelling at her, without discovering protesters at her car when she tries to go home. She can’t get her haircut without her stylist - someone she’s been going to for years! - suddenly refusing to cut her hair any longer.
Mysonis autistic, her stylist had said, voice cold. You’ve listened to me talk about Gabe all this time, how could you do that when you did what you did?
It’s not the same-
It’s exactly the same! Get out of my salon!
No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.
Not that anyone ever has. Everyone’s always blindsided by Ronnie being obsessed with her kid or Tristan being pretty adorable when he wasn’t being terrible. Everyone’s always got wool pulled over their eyes, and only Jo has ever seen it for what it really is.
Tonight didn’t go any better than the last few weeks had. She’d been recognized while picking up takeout Thai food for dinner. The pet lib assholes had to be breeding like fucking bunnies, they seemed to be everywhere now. One of them had followed her from the restaurant to her car, asking her if she had any regrets.
“Yeah,” She’d said, her voice rough and harsh. “Talking to you, that’s my biggest regret.”
He was probably recording that. They’re always recording her, now.
At least her house is paid off, this little bungalow bought with cash from her finder’s fee after Tristan’s application had been accepted by WRU. Her car’s paid off, her house is paid off, her 401k looks amazing…
Maybe she should just retire now, and disappear.
How long would it take the pet libbers to pick some new target, if Joanne Botham wasn’t an easy enemy to find?
She drops the takeout container on the kitchen counter, the smell of cilantro, fish sauce, and chicken rising through the air, making her mouth water. She can’t even remember what she ordered, but it doesn’t really matter. She’ll barely taste it, anyway.
She grabs the remote and turns on the TV, checking the news channels with a nervous new habit. Nothing new, though, it looks like. Nothing too big.
Nothing to worry about.
She pulls down a bowl, dumping the takeout into it, looking at the chicken and shrimp swimming in noodles, sauce, and sauteed vegetables. They left the mushrooms in, she realizes. She had specificallyasked for no mushrooms-
“What a lovely little home you have, Miss Joanne,” says an older man’s voice from behind her, slightly creaky with age.
“No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.”
No, you bitch, no one fucking does!
“Correction,” Sean Malley says, that twinkle back in his eyes. “You worked for WRU. As of five o’clock, Miss Joanne, you are no longer employed by that illustrious institution.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
How is it that you always make me hate Joanne more?! I never think it’s possible but then there you go…
“The man holding her slaps a wet washcloth over her nose and taped-up mouth and the one with the bucket starts to pour.”
Remember when you wrote the piece of Oliver dying and I commented that only your writing could possibly make me feel bad for that scumbag even for a second? Well, guess nothing can make me feel bad for Joanne, I am delighted by this
“It took longer to shake the knowledge that Tristan was down there with him.”
She fucking knew… Not that it made it any better if she didn’t, but the bitch has been acting like she didn’t know this whole time and she did!
“Give Tristan Higgs the last ten years of his life back. Undo what you’ve done, all you’ve taken, all the money you stole.“
Ooooooooohohoho. Can’t do that, can you, Joanne?!
"She breaks down into sobs, realizing that the photos could have made the difference.”
Elation is what I feel
“What is wrong with me?”
Right now, it’s the fact that you’re dead. Sayonara, bitch.
CW: Not much. Just grief, mostly, and only in the second half. If you just don’t read after the time jump it’s like I wrote something happy!
Second half takes place during Chris’s early days at the safehouse
-
Ronnie likes to sing while she cleans, and the little house is full of music blasting from the computer speakers while she sweeps the living room floor, dust bunnies and the debris of living caught under the broom.
“I’ve been living to see you, dying to see you but it shouldn’t be like this… this was unexpected, what do I do now?”Ronnie’s singing voice is a rasping, deep alto, and the piano and drums seem to drift around it, as though the song were written for her.
Tristan sits on the couch, watching her as she does a little spin and winks at him. His legs are crossed, feet pulled up off the floor so he isn’t in the way. He watches her with bright green eyes in a pale freckled face, smiling with one front tooth slightly crooked.
There’s been talk of braces, but Ronnie just isn’t sure what it would be like, trying to get Tristan through that experience. And he’s only got the little bit of crookedness…
She’s distracted from her thoughts when Tristan sings, too.
“Could we start again, please?” His voice is a soft high tenor, and he sways heavily back and forth, back and forth, moving like a metronome with skin. Ronnie laughs, losing the thread of the song for a second. She’s a bright light, his mother, in ancient blue jeans and a t-shirt knotted at the waist with a hair tie.
She’s not running the vacuum today because he’s home, knowing how he hates the sound of it, the heavy deafening growl overwhelming his thoughts and racing up and down his skin. Instead, she cleans the longer way, by sweeping and sweeping and sweeping until the broom doesn’t pick anything else up, finally, until there’s no more dust left.
She’ll vacuum on days Aimi Nakamura takes Tris to practice, stealing herself a half an hour to use every single item in the house that Tristan can’t stand the sound of.
She’s seen ads in the magazines she reads while she sits in waiting rooms during Tristan’s therapy and doctor appointments for this new generation of Roombas with some kind of weird artificial intelligence, but the price point of those things made her eyes just about pop out of her head. Maybe for their anniversary in a few years. She and Paul will have a big one right after Tris turns sixteen, maybe then.
Four more years isn’t so long to wait. Until then, she can sweep.
“I think you’ve made your point now,” Tris keeps singing, and she slows, watching him. His eyes drift closed, and she watches with joy how he dips his head as he sways, his body moving with perfect freedom here in their house, unfettered by the eyes of anyone who doesn’t understand him. “You’ve even gone a bit too far to get your message home, before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt-”
“Oh, could we start again, please?” Ronnie picks up the next line, and Tristan bites his lower lip with his top teeth, words dropping into a hum, chin tipped up. Back and forth, back and forth, shoulders-first.
She wonders what air feels like over his bare arms to his brain, as he raises his hands a little, his fingers bending and straightening, again and again. He’s tried to explain it, but her own brain just doesn’t work the same way, and it didn’t make much sense to her.
It makes sense to him, and really that’s what matters most. She doesn’t need to understand it. She just needs to see in his face the serenity of music and movement to know enough. It’s the same look he gets during gymnastics, when she watches with some part of her heart still in her throat at the risks her only child takes as he swings from uneven bar to uneven bar. His body knows how to move in the world in ways her own does not, and his mind thrills at the moments he feels like he’s flying.
Some boys, Ronnie thinks, were born for wings.
Her tree-climbing, backflipping, always-moving child was made for discovering the world through the grip of his fingers and the placement of his feet, and it’s a crime he lives in a time and a place where concrete and broken glass demand he wear shoes and snapping adult voices demand he be still.
“I’ve been living to see you,” Ronnie continues, crouching. Her singing voice thins as she sweeps a little pile of dust into the dustpan, goes strong and solid again as she walks over to the trash can to dump it in.
Tristan jumps in, and he can’t quite harmonize and his voice is sharp and slightly off but fuck it, Ronnie loves his singing voice more than she cares about bullshit like that. They sing together, and Ronnie grins at him, pretending the top of the broom is a microphone. She dips to one side, dramatically cradling it, like she’s Adele at a concert. “Dying to see you but it shouldn’t be like this. This was unexpected, what do I do now? Oh, could we start again, please?”
Tristan doesn’t pick up the rest of the melody - instead, he groans and rolls his eyes, putting his hands over them, still swaying heavily, more than he even was before. “Mom, oh my-my-my-my God.”
Before she had a preteen, she’d had no idea just how much disdain a child could put into three simple syllables. She’s not looking forward to ages thirteen through eighteen, that’s not sure.
That’s a lie.
Yes, she is.
Watching him turn into a grown man is going to be the greatest thing she’s ever seen, and Ronnie Higgs knows it.
“What? You don’t like Mom being a pop star?” She laughs, and the sun behind her baby boy’s head turns his hair into a copper halo around him. Paul’s perfect little clone, her son, except for how tightly he hugs her, how he sings with her and sways to the music where Paul would just be puzzled. As confused about what she gets out of it as she is about what Tristan gets out of swaying.
Between the two of them, though, she has everything she needs.
He peers at her from behind his fingers. “Mother, please,”He says, and she knows he’s picked that tone up from Lisa Huang, who would never dare use it to her own mother’s face. But coming from Tristan, it feels silly, not sarcastic.
She sighs and leans on the broom, resting the side of her face on her hands over the top. “You over this one? Should we do a different musical? A singer or something? I still need to dust the fan blades.”
Tristan’s hands drop and he licks at his lips, eyes moving over the room, up to the ceiling fan, bouncing off his mother’s face and down to the floor. His hands tap over his legs, marking rhythm on his thighs, as pale and freckled as his face where they stick out beneath the loose mesh basketball shorts he wears whenever she doesn’t make him wear something else. “Um, what, what, what what what what about-”
“No Katy Perry,” She says, seeing the look in his eyes.
He groans again and flops over onto his side, with all the drama inherent in his age. He rolls onto his back and turns to look in her general direction, glaring without any real anger. “Mom, you, you, you said, you-you-… yousaid…”
“I know what I said. I’m also saying no Katy Perry. We had to listen to her for like an hour on our last drive to practice, and another hour back, so think of something else. I’m all Katy Perry’d out, baby boy. Pick a musical.”
He pouts, but it doesn’t last - it never does. Instead, he gets that smile on his face that means he’s thought of something he imagines is very clever as a comeback. She raises her eyebrows, waiting. His hair falls over his eyes. One of Paul’s coworkers used to call them his Irish eyes.
“Um, what, what, what about… wh, what about… um, um…”
She waits - he knows what he’s trying to say, he just needs time to get his tongue and teeth to cooperate with his racing thoughts, for his mind to slow down enough for the words to find their way out.
“What about Backstreet Boys?” His voice is innocent enough.
She bursts out laughing again. “Oh, you know my weakness, huh? Talk 90’s pop to me and I’m weak. Yeah, yeah. Let me switch up the album.”
She knows which one he wants, too - it’s the one she used to play nonstop while pregnant with him, a weeping seventeen-year-old who still had a CD player with bulky headphones listening to the saddest songs she could find over and over and over while inside her, Tristan’s tiny feet pressed all the air from her lungs and kicked so hard and so much she was half-convinced he’d burst out of her like the guy in Alien. She should’ve known back then he was never going to sleep.
When the incredibly of-its-time synthetics and drums kick in, with carefully orchestrated laughter over the introductory melody, she grabs a dust cloth and drags over a chair, clambering up to run the cloth over the blades of the ceiling fan, one by one.
“I may run and hide when you’re screamin’ my name, all right-… but let me tell you now there are prices to fame, all right-…”
She winks down at Tristan.
“All of our time spent in flashes of li-iiiiight…”
Tristan hums more or less with the music and watches her, his fingers dancing over his stomach, the couch around him, the air itself. He grins when she winks, pretends he’s absolutely embarrassed by her dancing where she stands, bouncing on her feet to the beat the same way he does.
“When you were a baby,” Ronnie says cheerfully, sneezing as dust settles in and up her nose, “I used to play this whenever you wouldn’t stop crying. You’d cheer right up. Used to tell your dad I sure you’d heard it when you were still growing, before you were born, that you knew the music as well as you knew my heartbeat.”
“I, I, I like your heartbeat,” Tristan says, slightly distant. He’s listening to the music more than he is her, but the upside to ADHD, Ronnie thinks, is he can half-pay attention to about twelve things at once, even if he can’t put his whole attention on anything unless that little switch in his brain demands it. And then God help anyone who tries to interrupt.
“I like yours, too,” she says, laughter in her voice, climbing back down and dragging the chair back to the computer desk in the corner of the living room. “Your dad absolutely hates Backstreet Boys, though, so that’s why they’re just for us, huh?”
“Just for us,” He echoes happily. The song switches to the next one, a little slower.
Ronnie hums, looking around, hands on her hips. “Shelves, bookshelves and then the kitchen, okay?”
“Okay.”
She hums along with the music, and halfway through taking the bookshelves from dusty to slightly shining and smelling of the lemon-scented wood polish she uses - the only one Tristan doesn’t hate - she catches herself singing again, too.
Tris sings with her, standing beside her, bumping her occasionally as he sways. She’s not sure what she did to deserve a perfect kid, but there are days like today where she’s sure no mother on earth has ever had a better son than him.
“She’s seen ads […] for this new generation of Roombas with some kind of weird artificial intelligence”
KEIRA!!! /0/
“She and Paul will have a big one right after Tris turns sixteen, maybe then.”
Ash, how dare you?!?!
“She’s not looking forward to ages thirteen through eighteen, that’s for sure. That’s a lie. Yes, she is.”
STOP! D= You said it wouldn’t be sad before the time skip! D=
God damnit! Fuck! Now I’m crying in bed! Shit, that was heartbreaking.
