Mikael didn’t know what moon madness was and the last time he had asked Fenrir about what it meant he had been told simply that it was something which crept into the mind of some pups and made them no good for a pack and no good for anything, they would turn and snap on those who whelped them, they would turn on everything. He’d been told a moon-mad leader could drive a pack to ruin and death. He assumed it was to do with co-operation somehow. They could not co-operate and so they were broken and by that measure, perhaps his father was moon-mad.
He didn’t want to mistrust his father, everything in his nature told him that it was important to trust your family and to stick together, it was so deeply ingrained that it had long overridden even his mother’s warnings about his father’s capricious nature. He’d asked her about him many times and she’d only ever said that sometimes his mood would turn and he’d go from the easy going and friendly man she loved into something terrifying and cold. He wouldn’t have believed her if he hadn’t seen it himself the day they had been forced to run away. He remembered it and it haunted him, he wasn’t sure what they had been talking about in the other room but he had been sitting drawing a picture – he couldn’t remember what of – in the living room when his mother ran in and stood protectively in front of him.
It was all so hazy now, so many years on and he could never be sure what had happened and what had been added in dreams later, embellished by time. His mother had cried something along the lines of “You won’t harm him or me”, some sort of defiant and strange statement and he’d looked up only to see his father walking into the room, looking blank and cold with his eyes different than he remembered. It was not the first time he’d been afraid of the main but it had been the first time he’d ever even in his childish mind been mortally afraid of the anger that wasn’t anger before.
Even thinking of it now twisted him up inside, remembering the feeling of having excessive fury turned on him, more than just the usual frustration or irritation of a harassed parent but something out of proportion to every warranted response. It made him want to cry to think of that feeling, a normally kind and loving parental gaze frozen over into a wild and animal anger that would hurt everything it loved and cease only to concern itself with the broken fragments of its fractured life.
They had ran then from that anger and even now he knew that it lurked just beneath the surface in his father, spotted more often here on this island than he had ever seen it. His dad had explained to him it was his and his mother’s fault that so much of him was dead and cold, comparing it to the way that flesh necrotises and falls off when the blood supply is lost. He felt bad about that even now and had told his father that, saying he hadn’t had an option but to leave because he was very little and did what he was told. He had said that it didn’t matter, the damage was done.
Lawrence arrived dead on time as he always did, opening the unlocked door with a proprietary air and looking around the room before he so much as glanced at Mikael.
“Good Morning.” He said with cursory politeness, conversing as he always did in polite Swedish.
“Stand up.” And Mikael obediently did, finding himself subject to an intense and critical stare. “What.” Said Lawrence “Do you call this?” a bony finger was pressed to a faint tomato sauce stain on his shirt. He had tried to scrub it away with a wet cloth but it had only made it worse. He looked guilty and murmured. “Food.” He said.
“I can see that but why?” Lawrence said, coldly. He wasn’t really looking at him Mikael realised but looking somewhere through him as if thinking about what horrible thing he was going to say next. He didn’t reply, too afraid to draw the man’s attention.
“Well this won’t do.” Lawrence answered himself, brushing Mikael’s non soiled shirt flat as if even the wrinkles offended him. “It won’t do at all. Your room is a tip and you are dressed frankly like a slob. I won’t have my own flesh and blood disgracing me in this way and this is even making allowances for your seemingly limited mental capabilities.”
He did seem to focus on Mikael then, meeting his gaze with his slightly paler and greyer eyes.
“Which, by the way.” He went on. “I am aware are not so limited as you make them appear. I remember you, I remember how readily you learned to read and to draw, I remember teaching you piano, I remember the keen intelligence you showed. It is why it disappoints me so much to see you acting like this, pretending you are weak and helpless. Perhaps it works but it is undignified and you do not use it to your advantage.”
“But I don’t under-” Mik began but found his words cut off by his jaw being tightly seized. “Don’t argue with me.” Lawrence stated. “I am right, you are wrong. You know fine well what I mean and if I so much as see you trying to use that act on me I will cut you off for ever. You are not the only one of us who can act or who finds it easier. I have no sympathy to garner”
Mutely Mikael nodded against Lawr’s hold. “Good.” The older man crooned. “I’m glad that we are in agreement. Now, come with me, we are going to clean this shirt, take it off, fetch a new one.” And then looking over the room, sniffing the air a few times. “And the laundry you have hidden under your bed, get the basket.”
Blushing guiltily, Mikael did as he was told, gathering up the items requested and placing them into the plastic laundry basket one by one. In his mind his weapon rankled, unhappy with them being treated like tamed human pets.
Making their way up to Lawrence’s room, he chatted idly with Mikael, seeming to relax more once they were out of the messy bedroom, discussing a trip he’d taken to Dubai with Melvin and telling Mikael about what he’d done while there. It was startlingly homey as if somehow they had stepped out of Deus and back into a world before it, decades away from the present. He stopped being so upset and brightened, matching Lawrence’s pace while carrying the basket in his arms. He asked about the city and where it was, what the buildings were like and what it was like to ride on a jetski. Lawrence seemed fairly amenable to chatter once the issue of laundry was being dealt with and even went so far as to discuss some of Rodney’s recent work, mentioning that he thought that Mikael would be interested in it given his fascination with art.
The boy could have burst into tears of joy then and there, his father having shown no inclination prior that he had any awareness of his hobbies or any intention to learn what they were. It was a strange feeling, the realisation that even in some limited capacity Lawrence had been paying attention to him and what he enjoyed.
“Yes!” he said and the enthusiasm was genuine. “I’d like to see that, I only know how to paint and draw, sculpture sounds so interesting!” he didn’t add that his mother hadn’t let him do it because she didn’t want sculpting tools laying around in the house or him handling them. He’d been coddled to a degree he realised now was somewhat shameful and had begun to wonder and worry that his own mother had been afraid of him or what he could become when he had always thought she just wanted to keep him safe from what lay outside their little home.
Lawrence nodded. “He is very good, even if his art is often a little…soft and tender. He does not care much for the cruelty or the brutality of the world. He lives in a little bubble of his own.”
They reached the room and Lawrence unlocked the door, heading inside and leaving it open for Mikael to follow. Gesturing to set down the basket he took the clothes and loaded them into the washing machine, adding the detergents without much thought and closing the door. No one else was home which was a relief for Lawrence who couldn’t be bothered discussing what he was up to nor switching back to English so others could understand.
“Not so difficult?” he said as he switched the washing machine on. “I can’t comprehend why you tolerate filth in your life and don’t remove it.”
“It doesn’t bother me.” Mikael said and went on without thinking. “I like messy things I think. The stains and scrapes all tell a story. My shirt says that I had tomato soup for lunch, it says more than it used to.”
Lawrence gave him a look as if he was an alien. “Imperfections should be removed.” He said. “Generally. In objects.” He enjoyed imperfections in people, though mending them was even more satisfying than that, but the idea that Mikael also enjoyed them, simply in a different fashion was intriguing.
“Regardless of the stories it may or may not tell.” He explained “You must keep your appearance tidy and organised, it is important to give an impression to others. I suppose it could be summarised as telling stories only to those you want to hear them. Your shirt should not tell people you are sloppy, it should say you are neat and organised.”
Mikael gave this due consideration and looked over Lawrence. “Is that why you wear all white?”
Lawrence smirked. “I knew you were not actually stupid. Yes. I have no story I want to tell people like this.”
“You didn’t used to. You liked colour. I like colour.”
“I was being human then.” He said, watching the washing spin as he leaned against the counter.
“Why not now?” Mik asked, closing the distance to take hold of Lawrence’s coat in an affectionate and absent gesture.
“I am not who I was.”
