I don't own MR
So I started watching Bate's Motel. After finishing episode 5 this happened. Enjoy!
Stay Majestic
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Mother knew best. She always did. Nicolas loved her for that. He didn't have to think around her, he didn't have to speak or question or ponder anything. He just stood and listened and sometimes he hugged her and she would do everything for him. After his father died that didn't change. Although something had.
She was more strained around him. Her hair was more messy, her eyes more tired, her words sharper, clearer. Nicolas didn't like that his mother had changed without really changing, but he didn't like thinking around her either, so he didn't. She thought for him. That didn't change.
"Nicolas, set the table." Sarah Ride commanded, that firmness he didn't like in her voice present.
"Yes, Mother." He answered like he always did when she commanded. There was nothing else to say, nothing else to question. He set the new table to their new home. She had bought it and moved him so many states away from where his deceased father lay buried. He didn't like it- but he didn't think too much on it.
When he sat alone in his room with nothing to do because he hadn't yet started school, he would think. All kinds of words, sentences, questions would bubble inside of him. Sometimes it scared him- the things he thought about, and he'd usually end up downstairs near his mother where he could forget how to string words together if only for the moment.
"So you start school tomorrow, are you excited?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Nicolas, look at me." He did. Her eyes were exhausted. "Darling, you look so… different. I know losing your father was hard on you, but it was hard on me too. Nicolas, I'm trying so hard could you please try too?"
"Why did we move?" He asked, although he didn't really wonder why. He knew why. His father had mysteriously died.
"I want you to get a fresh start- I want a fresh start." Sarah answered, sighing heavily as she placed a plate of steak on the table.
"What if starting over isn't real?" Again, it wasn't much of a thought. Sometimes he spoke out loud the things he questioned alone in his room. It was rare, but this occasion called for rarity.
"It is, Damnit. Nicolas, let's eat dinner and forget about Arizona and everything, alright?"
"Yes, Mother."
The next day Nicolas sat alone at lunch. He had sat alone at his old school too, but at least then he had felt comfortable. Nobody had bothered to look at him at his old school. They only brushed past him as if he was a piece of trash. He liked it better when they thought of him that way. Nobody looked at trash, nobody laughed at trash, nobody approached trash.
"Hi," It was a girl. The first person to say hi to him was a girl. Her smile was awkward, her eyes were nervous, her fingers tapped against her wrists as she awaited for him to respond.
"Hi," He didn't like conversation much. Nicolas wasn't big on using words besides 'Yes, Mother,' even when he had the freedom of loneliness to do it.
"I'm Max, you're new aren't you?" She took a seat next to him. She was too close. His eyes flickered over her body, and vaguely he imagined his plastic knife delving into her throat.
"Yes," Nicolas answered, refocusing his peripheral vision on his food. It was stale and the ketchup didn't quite taste right, and yet he still put another french fry in his mouth, coated with the crimson red. If he didn't think about it, the french fry was bleeding. He was tasting blood. It tasted good.
"Well you have quite the vocabulary," Max laughed lightly. Nicolas hated the sound. It was too loud, too obnoxious. Her laugh demanded attention while his aura tried to hide from it. He didn't like this girl. Although he still smiled a half-hearted smile before eating another french fry. Now it was her blood. It tasted nice.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to-"
"Trust me, you don't want to eat alone at this school. I'll sit next to you until you find some friends, alright?" Max offered. Nicolas opened his mouth to say no in the politest way he could, but she spoke before he had a chance.
"Hey, one of your canine's is chipped. How'd that happen?" Max asked, her curiosity pouncing on the sophomore as if he was a meal.
"Get away from her, Nicolas."
"Yes, Mother."
"I have to go," Nicolas told her. "Excuse me," he added, careful to keep his manners as he stood up and threw the rest of his lunch away. Except he kept one unopened ketchup packet. He'd think of Max when he used it. Her blood tasted nice.
"Oh come on, I haven't scared you off already, have I?" Max stood and followed Nicolas as he headed for the glass doors that allowed him to exit the cafeteria. He didn't like being followed. It made his heart hammer and his bones quake.
"No, it's not that, I just… I have to find my next class." Nicolas lied weakly. He needed to get away from her. His mother had said so and his mother knew best.
"What is it?" Max pondered, taking the schedule out of Nicolas's hands that he hadn't even known was there. He couldn't remember pulling it out but he could remember it being there seconds before she swiped it.
"Oh, Chemistry. That's on the third floor. Look at that, you have Mrs. Chelsea too. We have fifth period together." Max informed, handing the schedule back to Nicolas before grabbing his hand.
She intertwined their fingers and pulled him along. Nicolas stared at their hands clamped together. He could feel her heat as it pushed against his. He didn't like her, but he liked that. He liked how she thought for him; she lead and he followed.
After Max had taken Nicolas to their next class, she dropped her backpack on a desk and patted the one next to hers. "You can sit next to me." He wasn't sure what had made her attach to him, but if she wouldn't make him think too hard, and he didn't have to talk too much, he could put up with her.
Quietly, he set his messenger bag down on the table and took a seat. "Hey, let me see your phone." Max spoke, her voice a chime of brilliance. It bothered him. The sound was too high, too energetic, and although he knew his mother didn't want him to have anything to do with Max, he still handed her his phone.
She held onto it for a moment, typing in numbers and letters, took a picture of herself with his camera, did something else that required the rhythmic click click of the keyboard, and then handed it to him. She had given him her number. The picture she had taken was saved under her contact. There were only three other names in his list.
His mother's, his father's, and his brother's. As he looked at the now four contacts he had, he couldn't help but stare at Max's picture. She was gorgeous. If only her laugh wasn't so annoying, if only her voice wasn't too high.
"So, who's Dylan?" She asked.
"I hate Dylan, David! I don't want him here anymore."
"He's your son, Sarah, not mine. I can't kick him out!"
"My brother, but he doesn't live with us." Nicolas supplied, attempting to keep away from his memories of Dylan. He was always so mean to their mother. She didn't deserve the things he said about her.
"Why is that?" Max questioned, and Nicolas turned to see her eyebrow raised. He liked her face like that. It was funny, it made him smile.
"He um, he moved out when he was eighteen. He's twenty-two now." Nicolas added as if that would justify something although he knew it wouldn't.
"I have a sister. She's adopted. Her name's Nudge and she's a grade below us." Max answered a question Nicolas didn't ask, and although he didn't really care, he still nodded so that it'd seem like he did. The bell rang then, saving him from speaking anymore words, and saving Max from trying to decode all his secrets.
"How was school?" Sarah Ride asked as Nicolas walked into their home. She greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek which he returned automatically.
"It was fine. I made a friend I think." He told her, leading them to the kitchen so he could get a drink and she could finish dinner.
"Well that's great. What's his name? Tell me about him." His mother demanded. Although it sounded casual enough Nicolas knew it wasn't a suggestion.
"She's a her, Mother. Her name is Max." He began, and noticed the way his mother's face scrunched up in disgust. She didn't like that he had met a girl. He didn't need other girls in his life. She was enough. She knew best and what she knew was Nicolas needed a mother and nobody else.
"She's beautiful, but her laugh is noisy, and her voice is too high. She's warm though." He added, more to himself than his mother as his thumb brushed over the palm that had been pressed against hers. He thought her blood would be warm too. It'd be scorching. He'd get burned but he'd like it.
"What is that supposed to mean?" His mother spat, catching him off guard. The boy turned to his mother's disgusted scowl and stuttered for a thought. Although he couldn't find one because he wasn't used to looking for them around her.
"She just- her hand it... We held hands and her hand was warm." Nicolas finally explained.
"Well of course its warm, Nicolas. All hands are warm."
"Yours are cold." He blurted out. It wasn't a thought but a reaction. One that made her turn on him like Max had earlier. He was a meal and she was the beast. Only Max had been smiling, his mother was not.
"Are you trying to say she's better than me?" She sneered. "I raised you, I've put up with you for seventeen years, Nicolas! I gave you life and I put a roof over your head, food in our belly, and a bed to sleep on every night. Is that not enough for you?"
"No Mother, it's just that-"
"You know what? I don't even know why I try. You obviously don't care about me and I'm just going to have to get over that, aren't I?" Sarah snarled.
"Mother don't say that. I love you." Nicolas stepped towards his mother, reaching out to grab her hand. She snatched it away.
"Aren't my hands too cold for you?"
"Please stop," her son pleaded, his voice as frail as the look in his eyes.
"No. You will not guilt me like you always do. Go to your room, Nicolas. You are not to eat dinner tonight." His mother growled, and he had no idea what to say or do. His mother knew best though, so the only thing to do really was to follow her orders.
"Yes, Mother."