Cut
Warning: mild references to child abuse. Warnings also for alcohol abuse and language.
Italics for flashbacks and quotes from Cursed (1x13).
Some part of Chase's childhood is more AU than canon.
1. When Mum was around (also known as The Happy Years)
His happiest memories were from when his Mum was alive. Because that was when he felt like he was normal. Or relatively normal when your mother was a famous fashion make-up artist and your father a medical celebrity. It was when everyone thought he was lucky and he thought himself lucky too. Later on in his life people would still think he was lucky but he didn't think he was lucky anymore, more like unlucky enough to appear lucky enough so that people never thought he was unlucky. He never bothered to correct people. He'd rather they hated him for being rich than liking him just because they felt sorry for him. If that made any sense. It was all about appearances. It was a time when he remembers his parents being in the room together and they were happy. They could still tolerate each other. Maybe they still loved each other then – their faults didn't matter so much. They didn't have to separate. It was the closest thing that he had to happy times with his family.
Chase remembers the way his mother used to treat him. He remembers the way she smelt – like fresh frangipani from the garden. He remembers the way she leant over him, her hair tickling his face. He remembers his mother quitting his job for him, dressing him up, reading to him…
"Mummy!"Little Robbie runs his mother as she comes home. "Mummy home! I wanna pway!"
She smiles down at her son, his small arms wrapped around her knees. He presses his cheek to her leg and he peers up at her with his blue-green eyes, half hidden by his light blonde hair. "Miss me did you, princess?"
He pouts. "Yeah!" She ruffles his hair affectionately before picking him up. "I no like Mrs Witchard."
She giggles slightly. "Robbie honey, its Mrs Richard. You should listen to her okay? She's taking care of you when I'm not there. Like Mummy does."
Robbie frowns. "But she's…mean! I like Mummy better."
She lean sin and whispers conspiratorially, "How about I tell you a surprise?"
"Is it a baby? Cos Mrs Writchard said that I was spoilt because I was special and that you couldn't have baby no more."Robbie says all this in one breath and he beamed up at his mother.
She frowns then laughed lightly like a tinkling ornament. "Oh Robbie. No, it's not a baby. You are special. So special that Mummy won't be too busy for much longer."
Robbie claps his hands. "No more Mrs Writchard?"
"Yes, no more Mrs Richard. Mummy will be at home."
His eyes widen in surprise. He clumsily blows her a kiss as she taught him how. "I love you Mummy." She pretends to catch the kiss and blows it back.
His father walks in through the door, disapproving look etched on his face. "You really shouldn't spoil him like that. He's getting too old to be picked up." He picked up the paper and started reading it.
"Rowan, he's still little…" Christina says good-naturedly. She sat down and put Robbie in her lap, starting to play with his hair. It is shoulder length.
"If I didn't know it, you are turning him into the daughter you always wanted. He needs a haircut. Stop making him look like a girl."
She gives Rowan a look and he rolls his eyes before going back to his paper.
"Mummy's home!"Robbie announces happily.
"Yes, yes, go play" Rowan says distractedly. Robbie knows a dismissal from his father when he sees one so he runs off to his room. Rowan seems to remember something so he turns to his wife, "Wait, did you remember to tell Mrs Richard about staying over on the 6th? The Board of Director's dinner is on that night."
"That won't be necessary. I gave in my two weeks notice today. "
There is silence. Rowan sighs before putting down his paper. "You don't have to give up your career to take care of Robert. He'll be fine."
"Robbie doesn't like Mrs Richard. I think it would be better if I stayed with him for a while. Until he goes to school."
"We can hire someone else if Robert doesn't like Mrs Richard. You shouldn't give in so much. He's going to be spoilt rotten. I know he's special to you…"
"To us you mean?" Christina says with a touch of cold anger.
"Of course dear," Rowan says in a placating tone but she hears the condescension poisoning his words. "If it makes you happy, then stay with Robert."
"I don't need your permission."
"Of course not, dear." Rowan agrees easily.
…stroking his hair until he went to sleep. Chase remembered she loved her playing with his hair. Sometimes, she braided it and called him her 'princess'. He supposed he wasn't old enough yet to care about the whole gender thing. He just liked spending time with her then.
"Don't you think it's embarrassing to have everyone ask how pretty our daughter is?" Rowan says with a touch of exasperation. He wound down the dark-tinted windows of the limousine and lit his cigar, puffing his smoke outside.
"Oh don't worry about it so much Rowan. He's just a kid. He likes having his hair plaited. Why not?"
"Because HE is a BOY."
Christina scowls at him and wound down her window as well. "Keep it down, he's sleeping." Robbie was tired and now sprawled across her lap, fast asleep. "You don't think I know that? I think we need to give him some space to be a kid, to grow up. You're pressuring him to do all these things. He can do them later. Right now, what is most important is for him to enjoy his childhood."
"He's not going to be a kid much longer."
"Exactly my point."She brushes a few stray strands of hair from his face that had fallen loose of the plaits.
"Fine, but he's getting a haircut tomorrow." Rowan continues to puff away at his cigar, turning away from her.
She refuses to acknowledge his statement.
The rest of the ride is choked by the silence.
It was wonderful when she was around. Chase doesn't remember his parents fighting much, only the silence that followed. He realized that they must have fought when he was not around, or at least when they thought he wasn't listening. He wonders if he knew what they were fighting over, if it would have made a difference somehow. He doesn't want to dwell on his past. He remembered the day when things started going wrong, the day when his mother first left him. She came back, but she wasn't the same again.
"Robbie honey, schools starting next week. Do you want to go get a haircut?"
Rowan is standing at the door impatiently. "Just tell him to get one", he mutters under his breath. "Or I will."
His wife ignores him, focusing all her attention on her son.
"A hair…cut?" Robbie fiddles with his fringe and blows it out of his face. It's a habit that drives Rowan crazy.
"Like when I cut your hair except its at the salon. I sometimes take you there, remember?"
Robbie furrows his brows in concentration. "But you cut it for me. I like it when you do it," he whines.
"You don't have to if you don't want to-"
"Well you're getting to be a big boy now. Don't you want to be a big boy for Mummy?" Rowan interrupts. "You can go to the salon like Mummy does," he says as sweetly as he can.
Robbie looks at both his smiling parents. He likes it when they're happy – together. "It won't hurt?"
"Not at all," Rowan says reassuringly, giving his wife a nudge.
"Not at all."
Robbie smiles, showing the new gap in his teeth.
The hairdresser smiles nervously at the famous couple in her salon. "What can I do for you today? I see you've bought Robbie."
"Robert," Rowan says pointedly. "Needs a haircut. Make it short. Whatever fashionable boys' cut there is."
Robbie bounces excitedly as the smock is circled around him. He swings his feet as they dangle from the child's booster seat but stops obediently as he sees his father's disapproving glance.
"I want it like Mummy's!" Robbie bursts out.
The hairdresser laughs. "He is a Mummy's boy isn't he? He's going to be a heartbreaker when he's older." To Robbie, she said, "Robert. You are a boy. Mummy is a girl so it's going to be a bit different okay? I promise you'll look extremely handsome after we're done."
"But I want it like Mummy's!" Robbie insists.
"You can't," Rowan snaps. His fingers are itching to slap his young son across the face but he resists.
"But you said it would be like Mummy does!" Robbie's lip quivers and Christina can sense the impending tears. "You said!"
"And I say you're getting a haircut, young man," Rowan says sternly. He feels his patience slipping from him. He was glad he had the foresight to make a private booking so that at least he was spared the judgmental stares of other patrons, only the other hairdressers that were there. "Stop making a scene. Deal with it."
Robbie holds his tears back at the reprimand but he attempts to take the smock off. "I don't want no haircut."
"Then you don't have to-"
"Yes he does," Rowan says on top of Christina. Robbie starts to sniffle. His eyes are watery.
"Robbie honey, it doesn't have to be exactly like Mummy's. You can look handsome like Daddy." The hairdresser tries to be assuring but it has the opposite effect.
"I don't to be like Daddy. Daddy is MEAN!" Robbie screams.
"Oh honey-"
Rowan steps between Christina and his son. "No you won't save him. See? He's spoilt rotten and he won't listen to me."
"You need to let him make his own choices Rowan!" Christina argues. She's holding onto his right arm as if she could read his midn.
"Your Daddy says you have to have a haircut", the hairdresser says in the same tone. She wasn't going to step in the Chases' affairs – she knew enough from Christina that the glamorous couple's marriage was on the rocks. It was just that, a glamorous façade. "Then you can go home afterwards alright? It won't take too long. Just stay still for me…"
"No!" Robbie says adamantly. "I wanna go home now! No haircut!" He fights to jump out of the hairdressing chair. He's going to throw the largest tantrum of his life if it means he can go home without getting a haircut.
"See this is just the type of thing your lack of discipline encourages," Rowan hisses. He decides in his mind that he's going to end this for once and for all some day. He's sick of all of this. He hits out at Christina's sore spot. He says it so only she can hear, "What kind of mother lets her son become like this? This is your fault."
Christina pales in shock and fury. "You bastard," she says loudly. She shoves Rowan and then spins on her heels to storm out but Robbie is clinging to her legs.
"Take me home Mummy. Please."
She disentangles him from her, afraid that she would taint him somehow but he clings tightly to her again. "Not right now. Mummy … is not feeling too good." She kneels slightly. "Be a good boy Robbie." She wants to kiss him but she settles for a wane smile.
"You have to let go of Mummy," Rowan says with a triumphant smile, pulling his son away from Christina and placing Robert in the chair again.
Robbie is too stunned to say anything. His Mummy has always taken his side, she's never left him like this. Now his golden childhood innocence is being slowly snipped away, falling like the blond strands of hair being cut from him. He screams and struggles but its no use, his dad was holding his head still. Rowan didn't choke his son, despite what it looked like. Rowan didn't want his son to get hurt. He really could really get hurt if he didn't hold him. Rowan had to stop himself from tightening his grip on his son's windpipe to short the screaming. The hairdresser is hesitant about forcing a haircut on an unwilling patron but Rowan urges her to continue. The hairdresser give Robbie a sympathetic look and hands Rowan a tissue before trimming the soft blond tresses.
Christina sits outside in the public parlor. When she hears the hysterical crying and screaming, she pretends that she doesn't have a son. Having been in recovery for several years, Christina no longer has a reason to stay sober so she goes to the nearest bar she can find. She quashes her guilt under several tequila shots and martinis.
After putting the tab on Rowan's credit card, she stumbles back to the mansion in the early hours of the morning. She is drunk but shame reminds her of her son and her concern for him overrides her pounding headache.
Chase is curled up in a ball on his bed. On a closer inspection, his eyelids are a puffy red and dried tear tracks are on his face. He is still in the same clothes as yesterday. His hair is now a severe buzz cut. When Christina tries to stroke the spiky hair, it is then she notices the bruises around her son's neck and upper arms. She is relieved that there weren't any gaping cuts on him but its cold comfort. He looks traumatized. She knows she did this to him. Christina makes up her mind to bear with Rowan then, so that he would never need to take it out on Robbie. She would protect him, even if it means that she would fall apart.
Robert Chase was six years old and already he understood the oedipal complex. He doesn't remember how but he knows that Rowan made his mother leave. Then his father shook him and made him have a haircut. He held his neck to stop him from escaping the razor. It was more than just a haircut and Chase knew that Rowan knew. It was about controlling him, shaping him to what he wanted his son to be. The strong hands that forced him to submit to his will. It gave him nightmares about his father for years to come.
For his mother, it was when she started drinking again. It was when the seams of the marriage started unraveling. Ten long years of maintaining the fragile façade before it was shattered one morning by the sound of a car revving up in the driveway. A familiar sound that was to be no more.
"He beat your mom. He beat you...What did he do?" (Cameron)
Rowan never had to hit his son. He did something much worse. He left invisible wounds on Chase's psyche. Chase knew about them, read them in his own psyche reports: perpetual fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, compulsive need to be approved by others, borderline obsessive need for control...bullshit for 'fucked up'. It was immensely unfair that he had to live with the consequences of his father leaving him and his mother drinking herself to death. He was the one that ended up fucked up.
"I'm so proud of you, Robbie. I knew you could do it. Why don't we go to Zac's Pizzeria to celebrate? It's your favourite tonight."
He is happy. Coming first at the state violin recital. Everyone gave him a standing ovation when he finished the piece. He spent hours painstaking practicing it so it was perfect, after all it only takes one mistake to ruin perfection. "Where's Dad?"
"So you want the chicken avocado pizza with barbeque sauce and no anchovies?" She's fingering the glass of red in her hand, swirling it.
"He didn't come. Again." Robert wanted his voice to sound casual but it still comes out shamefully cracked and squeaky. He stares hard at his mother. He always knew when she covered for him. "He didn't even plan to come. He's at work isn't he?" He notices that she's drinking again.
His mother downs the glass in her hand to avoid looking in her son's eyes. They were always so expressive. She doesn't want to see the pain. She knows that she is selfish. She lies. "I'm sorry honey, he had to go to a really important SLE conference that he is the speaker of. I'm sure he'll try to make it next year." She hurried on to distract him. "So did you want the chicken pizza?"
"Don't bother, I'm not hungry anymore." He hides his watery eyes behind his long fringe, excusing himself so he could cry in the bathroom. But he quickly runs out of tears and composes himself. It shouldn't have been disappointing because he expects this to happen. It isn't worth it at all. The victory feels empty.
Rowan abandoned him, cut him out of his life as if he was getting a haircut. Chase felt that so much more than a beating. He doesn't know why but he loved...loves the man so much. He doesn't want to anymore but he can't stop it as much as he can stop himself from breathing. He knew that it was a testament to his 'fucked up'-ness but he would rather that his father had hit him if at least to prove that he was worth it. So he could feel something more than this apathy. Wear it around like some sick badge. But Chase would never admit that. He was going to have long hair for the rest of his life, to remind him of when things were good and if only just to annoy his father.
Author's note: The point of the flashbacks is to show how Chase's memories are what he wants them to be. Sometimes he's too young to notice that things aren't exactly right and sometimes it is because it's too painful to remember everything. The whole story was actually inspired by the haircut scene. I watched it happen to a kid as I was getting a haircut recently. Thanks for reading.