Chapter Text
“I’m tired of how fucking lazy you are. No man in this family gets the same treatment that you do. No man in this family is allowed to waltz around and act the way that you do. Do you think that I wanted your mother to allow you to do so much shit that makes you look like a little girl? She made you soft, she made you weak. Do you think that I want a son that disappoints me? I knew that when your mother got pregnant, we should have gotten rid of you. But we didn’t. Do you know why?”
Steve shook his head, lips clamped shut. Don’t do anything, don’t show any sort of emotion. It was a complicated ritual, this one between Steve and his father. Complicated enough that he never knew what all the lines should be or what exactly his father had honed in on this time. He was so laser focused on Steve’s shortcomings that it was hard to tell what exactly made him angry at any given time. Steve wasn’t good enough, he knew that much. He was an only child and being male didn’t save him from his father’s scrutiny. If anything, Steve’s complete lack of iron will and toughness made him an even worse candidate for the line of Harrington succession. He wasn’t built for it, wasn’t made of steel and iron and stone like his father was. His father before him was even worse, a terrible old man that gave Steve the creeps when he was a child. Back then, Steve’s mother had tried her best to keep Steve away from Grandpa Harrington. She must have known something, must have sensed that there was something wrong with the old man. He was cruel in a silent way and Steve had never seen his own father act so subservient to another person. As if he owed it to his father to grovel and now so did Steve.
Steve’s father had no one else to level his anger at, no one besides Steve and his mother. Even then, they were completely different types of rage and disappointment. Steve himself had no place to go, nowhere but a pillow to scream into at night and a steering wheel to hit when it became too much. He needed an outlet, something to let his anger out on. Steve wasn’t allowed to get angry at his parents, not even at eighteen years of age.
There was no outlet to be had when his father used him as a metaphorical punching bag. Sometimes a literal one too, if he felt like it.
Eighteen.
He was supposed to get out. He was supposed to run off with Robin. But that was before and this was now. Steve had been cut off from everyone else, from the rest of the world.
This was his reality now.
“Because we didn’t know if we would ever have another chance.” Right. Another chance to have a child. His parent’s never spoke about his mom’s infertility issues but Steve suspected there was something wrong from the way it triggered her so badly. It probably didn’t make Steve look any better to them either. Here they were, wishing and hoping for the perfect child and they got Steve instead. Just Steve. He didn’t even look ole his parents. Perhaps that angered Steve’s father even more, having a son that looked nothing like him. Steve’s father looked like a cartoon character, his skin overly tan and unnatural in tone. Not like Steve’s natural tan. His teeth were whiter than they needed to be, a straight row of tic tacs, no imperfections to be found. His eyes were dark and beady and soulless. Steve wondered if his father had ever felt anything other than annoyance and rage. He wondered if his father was ever kind to anyone anymore. Even in passing. He was short with people at work, an imposing presence that inspired fear.
He wasn’t even kind to Steve’s mom now.
Not that Steve-
He cared, he did. It was harder to care when his mom turned around and took her sorrow out on him.
Steve felt pathetic and trapped. Stuck here in his father’s office, the floors a haunting reminder of his childhood. The people in this office didn’t like Steve, he knew they didn’t. Why should they? His father had gotten him this job. And that shouldn’t have mattered. It wasn’t like Steve was high up on the food chain. He was basically a grunt for his father. He paid Steve, sure. Because he had to, because he was rich enough that stealing money from Steve didn’t seem to occur to him as an option. Steve was under his thumb enough that no amount of money seemed to matter. That didn’t account for the constant fear Steve lived under, the threats he lived through day by day. His father’s favorite one was threatening to ruin Steve’s life so that he might be forced into homelessness. Though Steve wasn’t sure what that entailed and he thought that his father just liked to hurl out whatever sickening thought was on the tip of his tongue at any given time. He was good at that, belittling Steve until he was shaking and weak.
Or threatening to do things to Steve’s mother, who was cruel to Steve in a different way but to whom he still felt empathy toward. There was no reason for it. Steve couldn’t even explain why he still held any good feelings toward his mother.
Steve had squirreled away money for years now. Gift money, money from family members. His paychecks. He had enough. He could leave.
He could leave.
But would he?
Steve doubted it. Leaving would require a lot out of him. He would have to collect all his money and figure out a way to get far enough where his father wouldn’t be able to find him. Steve knew he had ties, people who could follow Steve if he wanted them to. He wasn’t a good person. Steve had enough unfortunate experiences with his father to know that much. Steve couldn’t just- Robin had tried to help him, had tried to convince him time and time again. But now Robin was gone.
She wasn’t actually gone.
She might as well be. She thought Steve was the scum of the earth, probably. He was weak, it was obvious to anyone willing to look at him for more than five seconds. Too weak to do anything about his situation or his parents. Existing in their house, under their roof, but only just barely. Was he really existing? He woke every morning and felt like shit, as if he hadn’t slept at all the night before. He kept losing more weight, unable to exercise like he had back in school. He didn’t want to eat. Not when his mother spent most of her time staring down at him, counting calories and attempting to teach Steve how to eat correctly. Years of this, years and years of this and yet.
Steve hadn’t left.
Not yet.
He was going to someday.
When it became too much, when he could no longer take it anymore. He would leave then. He just needed more time.
“Steve!”
His father slammed his hands down onto his desk, a loud shock that had Steve thankful that this room was soundproofed. Thank god. Otherwise people would have to see how their CEO treated his only son.
Not that they would care. They would probably just assume Steve was the issue. The problem.
He was always kind of the problem.
“Are you even listening to me? Or are you in fucking la la land again?” Stevie didn’t even have time to answer. “Do I need to get you checked out like your mother?”
Stevie felt his stomach dip to the pits of the ocean. Absolutely not, not this again. This implication that Steve was- there was nothing wrong with him. He was half convinced that there had never been anything wrong with his mother either. But that didn’t matter now, not when his father had an iron grip on her too. She wasn’t the same now, not with all the shit she was on. She was addicted, probably. Steve wouldn’t doubt it. She had to be.
Steve bit his tongue and tried not to smart off.
“Because it runs in her family,” Steve’s father hissed his words, a snake in the grass. He was always like this, always seconds away from striking. Steve both feared and hated him. He didn’t pity him, not anymore. “And if I have to start drugging you to get you to act normal-“
“You won’t need to do that, sir.”
Steve was ashamed of himself. Of his voice, of the squeaky noise it made when he choked on his words like raw chicken bones. He was ashamed of his thin skin and his mean thoughts. He was ashamed of how he carried himself and this dire need to break free.
Shame.
Did his father even know what shame felt like?
He’d probably never been ashamed of anything.
Maybe he was ashamed of Steve. That wasn’t the word he would typically used. It was usually just disappointed or disgusted or-
“I can behave,” Steve said, monotone as he stared straight through his father. He had anxiety medication in his bag, the only thing that Steve allowed himself to take. Stolen from the medicine cabinet ages ago. His mom hadn’t even noticed. They probably weren’t here preferred pill. Steve was good without whatever she took these days. He’d seen his mom on enough benders. He’d seen her gurgling on the floor of her closet, eyes staring wide up at the ceiling. He’d seen- “I promise. Just give me the chance.”
Steve could have all the chances in the world and none of them would ever matter. He was going to die like this if something didn’t change. He would die in this office or in the kitchen in their house, on the gleaming tiles. Tiles his parents never cleaned themselves, tiles that had already been given the sacrifice of human blood before. Or maybe he would finally give up and do it himself. Maybe he’d prop a picture of Robin up next to him and tell her he loved her one more time. Not like he could call her. She wouldn’t answer. He was barely allowed to use a phone anyway.
Steve didn’t need to be saved. He couldn’t even save himself, not from this. Not from his family. They were the only people who really knew him anyway. And what was he supposed to do? Live his life on the streets? Have nothing? Leave his mother to the wolves?
A small voice whispered to him that he already had plenty. Steve ignored it. Fear can keep you caged, wasn’t that a thing people said? It had to be. Fear makes a fine cage or some shit. His father had made Steve’s entire life a cage. From preschool til graduation. Eat, work out, join the football team, do good in school, come home, sleep. No time for a social life, not unless you can make connections. No time for anything.
And Steve hadn’t even gotten to complete school.
Not after The Incident that led to his parents pulling him out of all of his classes. Homeschooling, that was what they called it. But by then, Steve was a touch too far gone. Withdrawn into himself, subtle with his reactions. He barely flinched these days, let alone cried. He couldn’t connect with his tutors. He could barely pay attention.
He remembered the first time he failed a test while taking classes under his parents roof.
His tutor had quickly found out two important things: One, never tell Steve’s parents when he’d done bad. And two, why she’d had to sign an NDA weeks prior.
Steve wobbled back into the kitchen with hastily wiped tear tracks and a limp in his step. The marks took weeks to go away, fresh scars imprinted into the backs of his thighs from a belt that Steve knew all too well. The poor woman had looked horrified but it was just another Wednesday for Steve. He’d thought that before, as his father screamed until his lungs nearly collapsed. It’s the end of the world for me but just another week day for you, isn’t it?
Steve got used to being corrected.
He needed it. It snuffed out what little attitude he had left in him, kept him docile and sweet. Or at the very least, it kept him quiet. Steve didn’t even know what it was like to laugh with another person anymore. Had no clue what it was like for someone to rib him and for him to give just as good back. He couldn’t do that now.
He didn’t want to.
“Why were you outside that club?” His father finally asked, getting to the crux of the matter. Steve knew he had sniffed something out, knew that his father was onto something this entire time. He schooled his face into neutrality and tried not to freak out too much. What exactly did his father know? “I wouldn’t have found out if Tommy hadn’t told me.”
Oh. So that’s how it was.
Tommy Hagan, his father’s little lackey. He hadn’t followed Steve around in the past. Or at least Steve was pretty sure he hadn’t. But clearly Steve was wrong.
It was just another stab in Steve’s back, just another notch on his stupid fucking list of ‘Things You Can’t Do’. Because Steve couldn’t even sneak out at night without someone tailing him.
A hint of malice managed to creep its way out.
“You had him trail me?” Steve asked, voice dropping low despite the hatred he felt boiling up. Don’t do this, calm down. You have to calm down or else.
“Yes, I did.” His father didn’t even sound guilty. Not that Steve expected him too. He’d probably never been guilty a day in his life. His job was quite literally to prove people were guilty. Or at the very least, he now oversaw a team of people who did exactly that. “And I’ll do it again if you can’t clean up your act. You’re grown now. I shouldn’t have to use discipline to get you to act right.”
Act right.
He would say that.
In this case, acting right meant that Steve needed to repress everything about himself. In his father’s eyes, Steve’s childhood had been darling. Semesters spent in dance classes, gymnastics, piano recitals. Anything Steve’s mom could thrust him into, anything she could use as a distraction. He had weekends at the lake house and time spent in foreign countries.
But Steve’s father never remembered the small details.
Like how one weekend at the lake house, Steve had nearly drowned. His father had yelled himself hoarse because Steve had upset his mom into a nervous breakdown. His lungs still hurt hours later as he lay in bed, dizzy from losing oxygen. No one checked on him.
There was a summer where Steve got locked into his hotel room in Switzerland after he embarrassed his parents at dinner. He was allowed room service once a day but only under his mother’s watchful eye. She wasn’t in the room with him, absolutely not. But she oversaw his orders. Steve ended up losing ten pounds by the end of their vacation.
And he saw none of Switzerland. Maybe one day he would go back. Maybe. If the idea didn’t give him a rash and a yearning to jump out of a hotel room window. The window had been locked anyway.
Steve had already thought about that.
If none of this worked, if it was all for naught…
Robin would be so disappointed in him.
It wasn’t hard for Steve to suck up his pride and face his father with no emotion in his gaze. His father could sense blood in the water and he would dive right in if Steve so much as teared up. And again, he didn’t do much crying these days.
“You should think about seeing that girl I told you about.” A tale as old as time. And Steve wondered, once again, if maybe that was the answer. Maybe he needed to give in, date and marry a woman his parents approved of so that he might gain back some form of freedom. “I vetted her and she would make a great wife.”
The way his father spoke about actual human beings was reprehensible. Disgusting to a different degree. Steve didn’t want a wife and he certainly didn’t want a housewife.
He would probably make an excellent housewife. The irony was stunning.
If only Steve wasn’t so allergic to being locked in his own home, forced to sneak out when he wanted to go anywhere. God, maybe that really was the solution. Maybe he needed to find a girl and give it a try.
“I promise I’ll do better,” Steve said, his voice that of a robot. Surely that was exactly what he was. Just a robot, his heart and lungs and other organs all replaced with mechanical parts. Surely he had no blood to spill anymore, nothing left to give. The world was so numb around him, a painting made of the dullest colors. He didn’t exist, not really. He was just living to live. “I can do better.”
His father gave him a rare smile, a sick twist of his lips that Steve almost couldn’t see beyond his mustache. The corners of his eyes crinkled as if he had the ghost of happiness inside of him. Steve was sure his own father had strangled what ever happiness lingered there years ago.
—
Steve didn’t want to run into Hagan.
It wasn’t intentional and certainly not something that he would have done on purpose. But Tommy seemed to pop up where Steve wanted him least. Maybe he should have noticed the pattern before and chalked it up to his father being an invasive psychopath.
Steve had been sent to do grunt work.
It wasn’t like anyone was jealous of Steve these days, even if they pretty much avoided him in the office. The hatred in their body language was clear. Steve was not wanted at this law firm. He had no credentials, no time spent in college. He wasn’t the type of person that inspired confidence or trust. He looked dumb, a fact that his father liked to repeat constantly. You look dumb, Steve. You act like an airhead. You can barely dress yourself in the morning. Are you sure you’re not catatonic? Do you need to see a doctor? I can set you up an appointment or two.
It was a threat, plain and simple.
Steve would not be medicated like his mother.
He had other ways of dealing with his problems. Better ways.
Tommy Hagan could have been one of those ways but Steve wasn’t quite that self destructive. That didn’t stop Tommy from trying. And hey, wasn’t that a novel concept? Tommy was all the things Steve’s father didn’t want his own son to be. He was conniving and secretive and worst of all, Tommy definitely liked men.
“I saw you come out of Robert’s office.” Steve just wanted to drink some coffee and stave off his hunger pangs. He would eat later before he went home. But of course, Tommy could never leave him alone. “Are you in trouble?”
Steve reached into the cabinet above him and struggled to grab a mug, cursing the length of his legs. He was supposed to grow more, he knew that. All the malnutrition probably didn’t help. Steve hadn’t been to see a doctor in years.
“What? Of course not,” Steve murmured, finally grasping a mug. Tommy was too close to him, leaning against the counter and leveling Steve with a shrewd gaze. He knew. Steve knew that he knew. Tommy was a little rat. “He just wanted to talk about the file room.”
It wasn’t far from the truth. Sure, Steve’s father had just tried to instill the fear of God in him in a space shared with dozens of employees. But even Robert was slowly discovering that he couldn’t behave the same in the office as he did at home. Even with the soundproof room. He especially could not behave the way he had when Steve was younger. He wouldn’t get away with visible bruises and limps now. Steve was almost counting the days from another outburst, waiting for his father’s rage to boil over. It had been too long.
“The file room?” Tommy narrowed his eyes like Steve was sharing valuable, secret information. He wasn’t. Even if Steve was privy to anything confidential, he was pretty sure a run of the mill law firm wouldn’t have too many dastardly secrets. Then again, they were highly successful and catered toward taking down some of the worst criminals Steve had ever read about. “Why does he want you in there?”
Steve shrugged as he poured his coffee, knowing that the gesture would only annoy Tommy. And maybe Steve shouldn’t do that, maybe he shouldn’t annoy someone who had more ties to his father than he realized. But it felt good.
“I guess he just wants me to clean up in there,” Steve said, smiling woodenly at Tommy. The smile did not reach his eyes but Steve knew that a man like Tommy would never notice. He only cared about himself, only catered to himself. He was self indulgent to a terrifying degree. He thought he could squeeze into Steve’s space and- and he did, standing far too close, peering down at Steve. “What?”
Tommy smirked meanly at Steve.
“He probably just doesn’t want you mucking up the office floor with all your…..sad.”
Tommy wasn’t good at being a dick, not really. He had the role of creep down pat. But his insults never hit and Steve had wounds that were likely bigger than Tommy could even imagine. Tommy couldn’t poke at them, couldn’t pour salt on them.
“My sad?” Steve sipped his black coffee with a disinterested face. It was the dead type of look he’d gotten into trouble for before. He stared at Tommy as if he wasn’t there at all, as if Steve could see right through him. And if Steve did it for too long, he would begin to disassociate. It had happened before.
“Yeah, what- what kind of person drinks black coffee? What kind of person drags themselves around like they’re gonna hang themselves in the break room?”
What a novel idea.
“I don’t think the ceiling tiles are strong enough for that,” Steve replied, pretending to consider. His eyes widened as he stared at Tommy, just an edge of mania creeping in. It was enough to make Tommy shift back, clearly unnerved. It tasted good, having the upper hand for a second. Even if Steve would regret it later. “I would probably just do it over your desk. Hang up some rope and let myself swing. I could be a pretty little desk decoration.”
Tommy looked so confused and it only made Steve’s heart beat harder, more excited. Because Tommy had tailed Steve to that club and he’d probably been doing it for ages too. He wasn’t a good guy. He was a manipulative fuck who thought he could get away with whatever he wanted.
And at the end of the day, he could.
That didn’t mean Steve couldn’t mess with him. It was the only respite Steve ever got from his family.
“You’re sick,” Tommy said, swallowing roughly as he frowned at Steve. Aw, so suicide was a tough subject for Tommy. Noted. Or perhaps it was death in general. The subject didn’t bother Steve much. He’d been waiting for years now. “Like, actually. You’re fucking-“
“Are you bothering Steve again, Tom?”
Ah.
Steve went rigid, straightening his act up quickly as Nancy Wheeler stepped into the lounge, her red lips quirked into the ghost of a smile. It wasn’t friendly. Or Steve was pretty sure it wasn’t. Nancy was hard to read and even closer to his father, so he wasn’t sure-
How could Steve know if she was one of his lackeys or not?
“What?” Tommy seemed distracted and agitated. Steve wondered if he’d only approached him to start something or if he had any real reason. “No, I- why would-?”
“Just joking,” Nancy teased, already grabbing a mug of her own and pouring out some coffee. Steve watched as she put one sugar and a splash of cream in hers. “But hey, I think you have a will to look over, don’t you? You might want to get to that.”
Steve watched as Tommy grimaced, looking Steve up and down and chewing on words that he clearly wanted to spit at him. He didn’t. Steve wasn’t sure why.
He turned and left then, a stomp to his step like an unhappy child.
Steve had no clue what power Nancy possessed but her grin wasn’t nearly as menacing now.
“Is he hitting on you?” She asked, cutting right to the chase as soon as the door closed behind Tommy. She genuinely looked concerned and it was throwing Steve off. Why? She shouldn’t be concerned at all, no one else was. “Because I know Tommy can be kind of a lot and I’m sure he means well-“ He definitely did not mean well. Nancy seemed sincere and Steve wondered if she was actually just this nice to everyone beneath the thin veneer of ice. “But he has a track record of trying to flirt with new hires. I would know.”
Oh.
Well, that definitely made Steve’s skin crawl.
“It’s fine,” Steve said with a shrug, his coffee slowly going cold. It didn’t even taste good. “He- he hasn’t done anything alarming yet.”
I’m used to it. People disrespect my boundaries all the time. This wasn’t even new.
“Not yet?” Nancy frowned as if she could solve every single problem in the world. She probably could. She as the only person who stayed late at work almost every single day. Steve knew she was a hard worker. “You sure? Because I can see if I can get him to leave you-“
Absolutely not. That was the last thing Steve needed. He knew Nancy was just trying to be helpful, could tell by the genuine worry on her face, but he didn’t need that type of help. It would only alert his father and cause more problems. Steve felt like a child in this office and it wouldn’t help for Nancy to attempt to mother bear him all of sudden.
“It’s alright,” Steve assured her, trying to make it seem like it really was alright. It wasn’t. Tommy gave Steve the creeps and knowing now that he was following Steve around certainly didn’t help. But what was he supposed to do? “I can handle it.”
He believed that he could. He wasn’t sure for how long but he would have to handle the situation as best as he could for now. There was no way out right now, which meant Steve would have to keep a close watch on who was around him, who might be following him. The irony was that Steve did nothing in the clubs he went to. He was too much of a coward to do anything. He typically bought an overpriced drink and stood in the corner, sipping at it like he didn’t hate the taste of alcohol ever since his father had forced him to drink wine as a child.
Steve did nothing, said nothing, and watched as his entire life passed by.
“Well, if you’re sure.”
Nancy didn’t look convinced. She had only ever had maybe two conversations with Steve, so he wasn’t sure where the sudden worry was coming from. He was mildly annoyed by her pursuit. He didn’t need help where there was none to be had. He’d figure out what to do with Tommy on his own.
—
Steve was in fact left to his own devices for the rest of the day. His dad couldn’t spend the entire day breathing down his neck, trying to take Steve down peg by peg. It wasn’t possible with his work schedule. Steve also suspected that his father was having another affair, so that likely took up a good amount of his time during the day.
Steve felt a pang when he thought about it for too long. For his mother. She had been a good mom once, he was pretty sure. Or the concept of a good mom. The shadow, the ghost. Before He sucked all of the life out of her like a vampire. Steve still didn’t like it. Was it fair for her to have given Robert Harrington his one child and be given only money in return? It was such a transactional relationship. Steve often wondered if people could actually love, if that was a thing. He would watch romantic comedies as a child and they felt alien to him, this idea of carelessness and vulnerability.
They didn’t fit right. The puzzle pieces were all missing for him.
So, instead, Steve began to delve into things he definitely wasn’t supposed to be watching. Or reading, mostly. Books squirreled away into his bedroom closet, hidden beneath layers of clothing. Stolen from a local library, stuck into his backpack so his parents wouldn’t find them. Even when Steve became homeschooled, he still found a way to steal the books he wanted. He took from libraries mostly but sometimes they didn’t have the books he wanted, so he resorted to book stores. It was nice and easy.
Until he got caught.
Having a shop lifting mark on your record was embarrassing enough. But his father’s reaction was much worse. Robert’s face had been red, blood spreading into every prominent vein like he was going to pop at any second. He hadn’t taken Steve home that night. He’d done something much worse. Steve had known his father was cruel but…leaving him out in the cold seemed like a step too far. He dropped Steve off at the industrial complex side of town, knowing that Steve had never been there before, and forced him to find his way home without a phone. Steve had cried the entire way there, his tears eventually chaffing his freezing skin to the point that he didn’t want to cry anymore. And his feet. The miles and miles he had walked caused his feet to blister horribly, scars added to another part of his body that his father simply did not care about.
He had just wanted a new book.
Thankfully, the store hadn’t told his father what book Steve had tried to steal. Steve couldn’t imagine his straight laced father would be fond of all the books on death and murder and morbid things.
Steve loved them all.
It felt like delving into a different world. This made sense to Steve. He wasn’t allowed on a laptop at the time, could barely use the internet at all. But he could read books. He could shuffle through pages on different mafia members and look at the black and white photos, people in their darkest last moments. He could stare at them until his eyes went dry, until he almost couldn’t see ahead of himself when he looked away. Burnt into his retinas, some poor girl with her brains blown out on the street.
The photos were easy to look at after the shock wore off. Steve knew they were real people who had lived and died and been horribly mistreated. He knew that. But the more he looked at the photos, the less real they seemed. He would make up stories in his head about each, wondering what they had been doing the day before they were mercilessly taken from this world. Sometimes the stories made him want to cry and he felt like dog shit for not being able to make it happen. He owed it to them, didn’t he? Here he was, looking at photos that they probably wouldn’t have ever wanted anyone to see and he- he was just enjoying it, wasn’t he?
Steve was sick.
Not in an interesting way. In a numb way, numb to his bones. He cared, he really did. He just wished he could push himself over that precipice. He wished he could feel something, anything. So he kept stealing books and read more and more about these people, about these killers. He was disgusted by them and fascinated by them and he knew that somewhere along the line, he had stepped well past the point of normal, polite interest. He knew that there was probably something deeply wrong with him.
He felt that he owed it to these people to feel. There was only one way for Steve to truly feel.
He stuck his hand to a burner one time, just the tips of his fingers. It had burnt terribly but Steve hadn’t reacted at the time. Mostly because he had gotten into a fight with his father an hour before. It involved his mother screaming and crying with a red mark on her face. She had soon turned on Steve after that, as she always did.
It wasn’t the same when his father did it. When he hurt Steve. It did nothing. It only made Steve worse, only made his teeth grind into imaginary dust, before he finally settled into that same familiar numbness.
But when Steve could control his own pain, then he found true peace. It was terrible, so he didn’t do it often. Only when the world spilled over and became too much. Any place his father couldn’t find, couldn’t dissect. He didn’t need to know that Steve had ruined the canvas his mother had so meticulously honed.
Steve was just a canvas.
Just a canvas with a lighter and a love for fire. Sometimes. Or sometimes he would dig his nails into his thighs until the edge died down and he could breathe again. Sometimes, he would drag the tip of a knife against his skin. Glass. A blade. Anything. It had been a long time since he’d done that though. It didn’t work the same. He had to plan around it, had to go to work. It wasn’t worth it, probably.
It was better when Robin found out. When she talked him through it, got him to calm down. But Robin was gone now and Steve had no one to talk him down from anything anymore.
Just his own thoughts as he sorted through boxes of files, fingers slipping over each folder with tired eyes. He had closed the door behind him, taking in the dusty room. He was told to get rid of anything with certain dates and names. He had a list. Steve figured this was run of the mill work. How was he supposed to know otherwise? His father never said much about his work when Steve was a child, just that he hated it. He hated his job but was endlessly proud of himself. He took pictures with the families of victims, patting himself on the back for being such a good person. Such a good man, fighting for what was right, while torturing his wife and son back at home. It must have been nice to have so many pictures to look back on, so many memories.
Steve had little to no photos of his childhood.
If he did, his mother kept them somewhere.
Steve wasn’t sure he ever wanted to look at his young face again. He’d looked into enough mirrors for a lifetime and he never liked what he saw. Too skinny, too fat. Too tired, eye bags that never went away. He knew why people avoided him now. He was reminded every single day. Steve had alone time, sure. But it was rare. The solace he found in driving alone in his car was only ruined when he remembered that it was simply a gift from his father to save face.
Steve didn’t get real gifts and he was pretty his father would ransack Steve’s car if he ever thought his son was up to something. He’d probably done it in the past without Steve even knowing.
It made him even more paranoid as he thumbed through more and more files.
The list wasn’t very long.
Steve was being to grow suspicious about the content of it. Though, he wasn’t sure that he was the person to dissect anything legal. Did they typically destroy files like this? Was that a normal thing to do? Steve was unsure, his life experience not taking him very far. His father had given Steve the job and he hadn’t seemed too worried about Steve fucking it up, so it obviously wasn’t that important.
The list:
Last name Wooledge
Gregory Wooledge
Aileen Wooledge
Anything mentioning February 3rd, 2008.
Steve’s eyes were burning, just a bit too blurry as he finally picked up one single file. It was a thin folder, worn down over time. Steve wondered why they hadn’t put any of these files into an actual computer by now. 2008 wasn’t exactly an ancient year, surely they could have- then again, it was likely that he was being sent to get rid of the files that had been transferred over, right? And this was probably a dead case, anyway.
Steve stared at the folder, fingertips going numb as he thought about just- just shredding it. Not opening it, just like his father said. Just shred it and move on, that was all he really needed to do.
Steve didn’t do that. He shoved the file into his book bag and covered it with the hoodie he’d worn into work. If his father found it, Steve was toast. But he would be going home alone, so Steve could hide it before then. Report back to his father that he had shredded the folder.
Something compelled him to keep it. He wasn’t sure what.
—
Steve unceremoniously stuffed bread into his mouth, nearly choking on the stale pieces as he drove home. It would have to do for the night. Steve had managed to eat an apple from the break room before his stomach began turning, upset at the thought of eating too much. He wasn’t quite like his mom. He didn’t look into every mirror and see an imaginary extra fifty pounds. But he did see his mother reflected back at him, criticizing every single line of fat on his body. So, it was basically the same.
He would try to eat at work but anytime people looked at him, anytime he could sense eyes on him…that was when Steve would start choking on his food, nervous as they watched him. He realized they probably weren’t actually focused on him but that didn’t seem to matter at all. He would suddenly no longer want to eat, the food tasting burnt in his mouth. They’re watching you and they don’t like what they see. They think you’re disgusting. They think you’re a pig.
Maybe Steve’s dad was right. Maybe there was something badly wrong with him.
Otherwise, why would he constantly be haunted by the ghost of a woman who was still alive?
Steve stole a bag of bread from the break room and shoved it into his bag, alongside the secret folder. He felt bad about both for different reasons. But it tasted good, even if it would probably become moldy soon. He had checked the date and thoroughly checked the slices before he began shoveling it back. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing Steve ever ate when he was trying to fill himself up. He could save a loaf of bread for a few days, hide it in his bedroom. Cram it next to the crackers he’d stolen last week.
It wasn’t like there was no food in the house. There was. But Steve was embarrassingly too scared to go into the kitchen at night, despite his parent’s rooms being far from the downstairs.
Steve didn’t know what he would do if his father ever insisted he move his own room upstairs. There would be no more sneaking out. Steve knew his father knew about the club. But he hadn’t brought up Steve sneaking out yet. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he assumed Steve went after work.
It would be just like Tommy to be dumb enough to leave a few details out. Steve hoped it stayed that way.
He should have stolen some ketchup or jam or butter. Something else to go with the bread. It was bland and dry but at least it would keep him from having hunger pangs during the night.
Steve didn’t particularly enjoy his mother’s cooking.
There had been a point in time where she was a good cook. Or at least a decent one. There had also been a point in time where Steve’s parents had hired a personal chef. It was a different type of torture, as his mother requested high calorie meals to be cooked, and then lorded over Steve so that he only picked at the meal and pretended to be uninterested in what lay before him.
It was as if his mother knew exactly how to push his buttons. Steve could never figure out why she wanted to though. Had he ever done anything wrong to deserve such treatment? Was it just that she hated her life so much that she needed to project it onto the only person in the house who wouldn’t hit her for disobeying?
The chef would cook Steve’s favorite things. Pasta with red sauce, loaded up with Parmesan. French toast coated in syrup and powdered sugar. Fresh cut cantaloupe and watermelon.
Kate Harrington would watch Steve like a hawk as he ate, sliding in a snide comment every once in awhile. It felt like a show, like Steve was being watched all the time. The Truman Show. But this time, Steve’s dad was part of the audience and he had a front row seat. He would snort and laugh at his wife’s comments, the lowest rung of approval. And she ate it up like the food she so desperately avoided. It was her sustenance, her livelihood.
And Steve still loved her.
“Are you sure you need that much salt? Sodium bloats people, you know.
So Steve stopped seasoning his food, even if he wanted to. There was no need to upset his mom when her eyes narrowed into slits like that.
“You eat so loudly, you snort like a pig.”
So Steve tried his best not to make noise. He ate slowly, keeping to the edges of his plate like it was a game, making sure there was still plenty of food in the middle. He savored every unsalted bite and made sure his fork didn’t clang too loudly against their nicest dinnerware.
“Drink some water, it’ll make you more full. There’s no need for you to eat that much, you’re already full grown.”
That wasn’t true. He knew it wasn’t.
His mother looked like a shadow of her former self. She had been beautiful once, before she allowed her husband to sap the life from her. Steve hoped it was worth it, bleeding out on the kitchen floor anytime she found out that Robert was cheating on her again.
Even the thought made him feel bad.
He was a bad son, constantly wishing and hoping that maybe something would just happen to them. Wishing that he could find the strength to pull away from his mom and pull himself out of this ring of hell he was buried in. Robin had always tried to be gentle with Steve, had tried to guide him away from his family. Even after he was homeschooled and could barely talk to her, she still tried to help him.
Steve wanted his freedom back. He wanted Robin back too.
He would get it back. He had ideas, vague concepts that he didn’t have the guts to put into motion. Who knew if he’d ever have the guts to do anything.
Instead, he simply shoved half a slice of bread into his mouth and wished that he’d thought to steal a bottle of water too.
—
Dinner was always an uncomfortable affair.
Steve sat with his back as straight as possible, his posture impeccable despite how tired he was. The last thing he needed was for his mother to schedule a yoga class or pilates for the weekend. Steve hated going places with her.
Maybe not in the same way he hated going anywhere with his father.
“When do your tags new to be renewed?”
Speaking of.
“On the thirtieth of next month,” Steve said woodenly. But not disrespectfully. He met his fathers gaze and tried to hide any guilt that might remain in his eyes. It was ridiculous to feel guilty at all for the bread he had stuffed into a travel bag he never used in the back of his closet. But that wasn’t what he truly felt bad about. It was the folder, hidden beneath a floorboard near his bed. His parents didn’t know that it had been loose for years now. “I can go-“
“Two weeks from now,” His father interjected, always needing to get the last word and last decision. Steve knew he shouldn’t have made an I statement, Robert hated those. Steve stared down at his plate and avoided his mothers gaze. They were having some sort of vegetable soup for dinner. Steve kept away from the veggies and took little sips of the broth from his spoon. Her eyes were narrowed in on him, a haze to them like maybe she had had wine tonight. She wasn’t supposed to have wine, not with all the medication she was on. “That’s when you’ll go get them.”
Okay.
“Yes, sir.”
Easy. He’d done this a thousand times before. Steve knew the script like the back of his hand when it came to dinner. Work was difficult and new. But this? This was easy.
“How was work?” Steve’s mom asked, her voice a punchy slur. She had a mean look about her as she avoided looking at her food. She probably hadn’t eaten all day.
Steve cleared his throat and finally addressed his mother despite the sinking feeling in his belly.
“It was good,” Steve said, keeping things simple. “I had a good day.”
It was almost as if she was trying to pick his words apart to find something to belittle. Anything to make Steve feel smaller than he already felt. He could tell from her stare alone.
“Kate,” Robert warned, though he didn’t sound like he cared too much. He never did. Steve was pretty sure his dad got off on his wife being rude. Maybe that was the only thing keeping their marriage alive. “Leave the boy alone. He had a long day.”
Then again, sometimes Robert liked to stir the pot. Pit them against one another.
“Did you?” She asked, her voice sliding into the faux sympathetic tone she only used when she was sloshed. Steve gripped his spoon and clenched his jaw at the same time. “Was it a hard day for you? Walking around the office like you belong there? You know, you’re probably taking some kids job who’s actually qualified.”
She wouldn’t be saying this if she was sober.
Steve had to tell himself that. He had to, otherwise-
“We have other interns,” Robert said, sounding disinterested as he ate his food. It was always like this, Robert the only one making noise at the table as his wife and son pretended to eat. “Are you saying I don’t know what’s best for my team?”
There was a pause.
Steve could tell his mom hadn’t thought this far ahead. She had been running off of pure hatred and nothing else. She only wanted to belittle Steve. Maybe she had had a long day too, laying around the house, high out of her mind. Steve had no clue what her schedule was like these days. She was dressed for dinner, just like always. But her earrings were crooked and her lipstick messy.
Clearly the drinking had started early.
“Of course not, dear. I would never-“
“Because it sounds like-“ There was a hint of danger edging into Steve’s father’s voice. The edge of it cut like razor blade and Steve fought a full body flinch. “You’re questioning my position as head of this house. Are you, Kate?”
Steve couldn’t look at his mom.
Steve wished he had a spine. He wished that he could throw his plate at his father’s head, watch as it crack against his skull. Surely that would take him out, he was only human. Sometimes he didn’t seem human to Steve. Sometimes he was bigger than life, bigger than any super villain Steve had ever read about in a comic or seen in a movie. An author couldn’t write a man like Robert Harrington unless they had seen the worst the world had to offer.
“Answer me.”
He wasn’t yelling yet but his voice still boomed.
Make this easy. Please, don’t fight him. It never ends well when you-
“No, dear.” There it was. Sarcasm. Dripping from his mother’s mouth, stagnant and rude. “I would never question you.”
There was no pause this time.
“Watch your fucking tone.”
Steve sat with his back rigid, breathing going whack as he tried to not call attention to himself. He didn’t want to be the center of any of this right now, god no. The last time had been bad enough and he had been counting the days down like an incident report at work. He had been hoping maybe they were getting better, maybe things were becoming different. They say you can’t truly remember the feeling of pain, the sensation. But Steve could remember every hole his father had punched into a wall, every broken plate, every single thing thrown at his head. He could remember and all and that was enough.
“I don’t need to-“
The wine glass next to his mother crashed off the table as Robert slammed a palm onto the table. The dishes rattled and Steve nearly sent his spoon flying. His heart raced, ready to jump from his chest as he tried to will himself invisible.
Fuck.
“Look what you’ve done,” Robert spat. Steve finally looked up and saw his mother’s white face, blood draining down her skin. She was already disassociating. Steve couldn’t blame her, he did the same thing. Life became so much easier when you began blocking everything out, when you stopped fighting back. “Steve, clean that up while your mom and I have a talk in the kitchen.”
Oh.
Steve felt his stomach flip, his hands already shaking. His knees weak and wobbly as he went to stand. No hesitation, no waiting. His mother sneered at him and Steve no longer knew what to do. Was she mad because he wouldn’t protect her? Because he couldn’t?
She had never protected him.
Not from anything.
Steve breathed through his nose as Kate bravely stood and followed her husband from the kitchen.
Steve only got two pieces of glass stuck in his palm while cleaning up, so he counted it as a win for the night.
—
The house was silent by the time Steve retired to his bedroom. The kitchen was clean, despite the fact that Steve knew the house cleaner would be coming in two days. He didn’t want to give his father any reason to start something in the meantime.
A part of Steve felt bad for never defending his mother or intervening when his father had his sights set on her. But he had tried in the past and it never ended well. Typically, his mother only tried to twist things so that the focus would be back on Steve. He was tired of being the punching bag between the two of them.
He was exhausted.
Steve locked his bedroom door at night, despite the fact that no one had ever tried to enter his room. He was pretty sure they hadn’t in the past. But really, who knew?
Steve was wrong about a lot of things.
He thought about eating more bread but decided against it. He wished he had a tv in his room or maybe a phone to himself. Anything to stave off the nighttime boredom.
He knew his parents didn’t trust him with technology.
Steve decided to read instead, thumbing through a book he had bought last week while out on a coffee run. He would probably either hide it when he was done or donate it. Better than building up a pile of books, despite how much he wanted to keep each one.
This book was about a spree killer.
Steve thumbed through the pages and read about this random man’s life story, his background, why they think he did what he did.
It took him all of thirty minutes to begin nodding off. Which meant he needed to put his book away, safe beneath his loose floorboard.
Steve dragged himself out of bed, jaw cracking as he yawned too widely. At least this part of his day had been calm, at least he could relax for one day. Though the news about Tommy and his mother taking the brunt of his father’s anger kind of soured everything else.
And the folder. The file room.
Steve was supposed to shred the entire thing.
But why?
He wasn’t supposed to look at any of the files, not really. His father had said so already. Steve was supposed to dispose of them and that was it.
But as he sat there on his knees, staring at the folder, Steve felt something new spike through him. A long dead emotion that he wasn’t sure he could even feel anymore.
Contempt.
It was so different than cool anger or flash-pan rage.
This was insolence and disobedience, wrapped into one. This was years of being hit and belittled and starved, bubbling to the surface. This was Steve looking down at a confidential folder and wondering why he wasn’t allowed to have a life of his own.
So he opened it.