Disclaimer: I own nothing…yet.
Just Like His Father
"Mama! Mama-look! I did it!"
The boy watched as his sister's teddy bear leapt off the floor, dancing around her in circles. It wasn't fair. Why was she the special one? What was wrong with him? Why was he so…different?
"See? I told you I'd get it!"
The girl's mother smiled with pride at her only daughter. She never looked at her son like that. Never. He couldn't do the things they could. Every time the little girl mastered a new thing; it was she that got praised. Had he ever done anything to make her look that way at him? The boy couldn't remember.
"I never said you wouldn't." She replied evenly, sneaking a quick glance at the boy in the corner.
The blonde child giggled happily, enthralled with the result of her efforts.
"Honey," The woman tried to include the other child in the room, "Would you like to try?"
"No." Her brunette son scowled in the corner.
"Why not?" His sister gazed up at him with big blue eyes.
"I don't feel like it."
The girl turned back to her toy, paying little mind to her sibling.
"How about we do a different one? Would you like to try a cookie-making spell?" The woman tried again, though she knew what the boy's answer would be. He was always so…so… She didn't really know how to describe it. It was a cycle of constant disappointment for him, where every magical attempt was failed, and far surpassed by the younger, more talented sibling. She couldn't imagine the pain it must have caused him.
"Yeah!" The little girl discarded her stuffed animal, the prospect of sugary food far more appealing.
"No."
"Are you su-"
"Yeah." The sulking boy cut her off.
"Alright; suit yourself." His mother shrugged, tired of catering to moody child, "Now where did I put that spell-book?"
The woman rummaged around the bookshelf, muttering to herself, her younger child waiting patiently at her feet. Why couldn't her boy me more like her little girl? She was a ray of constant sunshine, and the boy; an eternal shade, It shouldn't have been like that.
"Stop it." The little girl ordered her plush animal, who immediately obeyed, dropping to the floor mid-twirl.
The brown-haired one just glared out from his secluded spot, arms folded over his thin chest.
"I could make you do it too, you know." The blonde one informed him.
"Right."
"Really!"
"Uh-huh." He smirked, his bangs casting a foreboding shadow over his eyes.
"I can!" She tried to make him understand, to believe in what little power she had.
"No." He snidely responded, "You can't."
"I can!"
"Ah!" The boy cried, as an unseen force lifted him up, spinning him around and making him flip and twirl in mid-air.
"Tara! Put your brother down right now!" The older woman ordered the triumphant child.
"Yes Mama." The girl obliged, "Stop it!"
The boy was deposited on the floor in a heap of tangled limbs, struggling to rise. How could she do that? She used no effort at all! He had spent months trying to master that skill; and all he had been able to do was make his action figure shake for a second. What had he done wrong? If she could do that; control him, hurt him; why couldn't he? It wasn't fair.
"I hate you!" The boy exploded in a fit of rage and tears, indifferent to his sister's pleas of 'Sorry!' and 'Help!', as he pummeled her mercilessly.
"Donny; stop it!" His mother tried, in vain, to dissuade the boy from his violent action.
"Why can't you be like me?" He delivered a swift kick to the girl's stomach, "Why do you have to be a-a…"
He tried to think of the most hurtful thing he could possibly say; something to express his frustration and jealousy and rage; the feelings of an outcast.
"Freak!" He gave a final punch to the child's jaw, smiling bitterly as it swelled, blood staining her pretty face.
That's all she was, really. She was the outcast; not him. Her and their mother. They deserved each other. So what if they had magic? If they could control him with a wave of their hands and a few weird words; he could hurt them, too; he had proven it. That was all that mattered.
The boy spit on the blonde's mutilated face, the victor over an unending injustice.
"Donny!" The woman could no longer refrain, slapping her child across the face, "Don't you ever do that again! Do you hear me?!"
How had this happened? Where was the adorable baby boy she had raised? That respectful child that smiled at her every motion; what became of him? But she didn't really need to ask. She already knew.
"Yes, Mama." He nodded, somberly staring at the weeping girl while their mother cradled her to her breast.
"My poor baby…" She murmured, kissing her youngest child's rust-colored cheeks.
She could hardly bear to look at the girl's wounds, bruising and welting and oozing. It was too much to take in. Staring at her daughter was like looking into a mirror. How many nights had she spent on the floor, sorely coughing up blood because she didn't have the nerve to call anyone? She was weak; just like the child in her arms. But not Donny; she knew what would become of him; what had.
Then the woman addressed her eldest, not bothering to face him, "Get. Out."
He stood there glumly; unmoving.
"Out!"
The boy obeyed, looking remorseful as he trudged out of the room. But on the inside; he was smiling. He wasn't a freak. They were. He was normal. A completely normal boy.
Just like his father.