A/N: So...this is not You Know, Blaise, indeed. I apologize for that, if you wish it would be. But this wanted out of my head! So I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.
Anything you recognize is, of course, not mine at all.
It's getting bad again.
He is six years old and he knows what Death looks like. Death is no tall, black-cloaked figure carrying a scythe; Death is an angel, devastatingly beautiful.
He realizes that not many people have the benefit of knowing that Death is the angel, but as he sits against the cool glass he thinks that this man is being unnecessarily foolish. Almost as if the man knows and is taunting her.
"It's a slow death, being married to you," the man snarls at her.
Behind him, the night taps one long fingernail against the window. No one pays any attention to it; he doubts the other two even notice. He sits still, half hidden by the long white curtains, peeking out at them. He stares at the crimson drops scattered on the carpet at her feet, imagining they're blood. More petals are clutched in one small mocha fist and she glares across the room to where the man stands, holding the thorny stem.
"Would you prefer it be fast, then?" she asks mockingly.
The man thinks it's a rhetorical question, obviously. "You know, I reckon it would be less painful that way!"
"Well, I'll see what I can do to arrange that." Her tone is bitingly sarcastic and no one but him can hear the actual sincerity of the statement.
It's getting bad again.
He is seven years old and the bruises on his body are a death sentence and he knows it. It's the first time he sees his mother truly angry.
It's also the first time he feels something that might be guilt as he sits quiet, watching the lights twinkle off the silver.
It was okay, until now. The man was nice to her and she was nice to the man, for the most part. Not until she saw the bruises on her son did it go wrong. So this time, it's his fault.
The words thrown like red-hot knives across the table are worse than he's ever heard, because in her protective fury his mother is taking all she knows about how to make a man feel good about himself and turning it inside out.
He's never seen her be so cruel.
He's made her do this.
It's getting bad again.
He is ten years old and the ancient tome he holds in his hands is heavy, but he relishes that almost as much as the words he reads aloud, so softly.
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;"
On the other side of the wall a voice is raised in anger. The man, of course; his mother would never stoop to shouting. He ignores the insults pounding into the room in favour of the letters printed on the pages in front of him.
"No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;"
He loves poetry.
It's getting bad again.
"Here, drink this."
He is thirteen and is learning to know, firsthand, what the other sort of death looks like, the kind the comes slowly and lets the man know that it's inevitable for a long time before it actually takes him. The type poison can bring, if administered slowly.
She hovers over the man solicitously, apparently wanting nothing more to ease his pain with her potions. He knows better, but the man accepts the goblet gratefully.
"You are so good to me. Once I'm better…" The man trails off, already exhausted from the effort of speaking. It's a lie; they all know he will never be better.
His fingers move over the black and white keys, creating a swirling harmony around them. He wonders if it sounds like a funeral dirge to them, too.
It's getting bad again.
He is fifteen and surrounded by silence.
In one part of the manor, he knows, is his mother; in another part is the man. But for all the noise they are making they might be dead.
He deals another row of cards.
This is unusual. This is unsettling. He can, and yet cannot, see where this is going. Can, because it has gone wrong now so it must follow the path that the others have. Cannot, because how can it when she is refusing to even see the man?
It has been a week now.
He hates this silence, this tomblike atmosphere. It's a restless tomb and it's the waiting he can't bear. He always hates this part, where it's all waiting, but it's not usually this bad. Usually he can tell that she is not going to let it go on for very long. This time she is giving no sign of having any intention of doing anything at all. He half considers doing it himself just to get it over with.
But he knows he won't.
He's sworn to himself he is never going to do that.