Work Text:
Different.
The word has stuck to Harold like glue his entire life. Everyone, whether to his face or behind his back, in earnest or to mock him, uses that word to describe him. It’s just how things have always been.
The Steptoe boy is… a strange lad. A bit different, that one.
Phrases like that stick with him, and he doesn’t know how to think about it.
Harold knows he is different than other people, for want of a better word, but… the way others say it… it’s like being different is a bad thing. As though there is something wrong with him.
Except… Harold has never considered himself to be broken or damaged. Yes, he knows he has always found eye contact almost impossible and has a weak grip on his emotions and he’s a bit dense when it comes to metaphors and figures of speech and implication and his ability to talk about classical music can be considered annoying and he has to fidget lest his body start to ache, but… is there anything actually wrong with that?
Mum certainly didn’t think so. She always knew exactly how to help Harold. Rather than arguing with him about it, she would choose foods that didn’t feel horrible in his mouth and let him eat those instead. When she learned that the other children at Harold’s nursery were picking on him, she went to talk to the staff and the kids stopped bullying him. She hugged him when he needed hugs but didn’t touch him when his skin hurt. When he found it hard to speak, it was like Mum could read his body language and expressions, and things were fine without his words.
Mum… understood him. She never called him ‘mentally retarded’ or ‘slow’ or any of the other horrible things Harold heard people call him. She knew he was a bit ‘different’, but she never treated him differently. And he loved her so much.
But… but then she died. Harold didn’t take her death well. He cried until he was sick and lost his words for days and days and couldn’t stop fidgeting and hid under his bed and sobbed. At the funeral, he curled in on himself and chewed his fingernails, and the looks his family members shot at him weren’t just ones of pity – they were disturbed by his behaviour. The rest of the family never had a problem using horrible terms to describe Harold. And after the funeral, Harold’s grades dropped and he cried all the time and… he really thinks he was never the same again.
Dad didn’t take it well either. Dad doesn’t take most things well, but Mum’s death… it messed with him. Suddenly, Dad went out drinking every single night, leaving Harold alone and scared in their dark house. Dad lost the little amount of patience he had to begin with, yelling at Harold for all his quirks and hitting him for things that before never got Harold more than a glare. Dad just drank all the time, and they got poorer and poorer.
After Mum died, things were awful. Their relationship was never very strong, but it has never been the same since Mum’s death.
When Harold was a child and Mum was so good with him, Dad had no idea how to be the father of a ‘different’ child. He thought he could parent Harold like you would a ‘normal’ child, which led to a lot of yelling and crying and Mum yelling at Dad and things being difficult. Dad thought Harold was just being disobedient, but he couldn’t help it. And no amount of discipline ever changed him.
Mum told Dad that parenting Harold that way wouldn’t work, and Dad… he really tried to be the kind of parent Harold needed. But they were never as close as Harold and Mum were, and Harold often felt like Dad didn’t really like him. Of course, Dad did like him, but he didn’t know how to show it. So even back when Harold was very young, they weren’t very close.
And when Mum died, Dad and Harold just drifted further and further apart. Dad didn’t seem to have the mental energy to use Mum’s parenting style, so he went back to the way he treated Harold before, with lots of yelling and being smacked and just not understand that Harold couldn’t change no matter how much he wanted him to.
Sometimes, Harold knew Dad was ashamed at him. He knew his father complained about him at the pub with his mates, lamenting what it must be like to parent a ‘normal’ child. Other times, he refused to believe it, sure his dad loved him the way he was.
As he got older, Harold realised neither were true. Dad did love Harold the way he was, but… the comments Harold got stuck with Dad, and Harold knew his father resented him for it. And Harold resented his father for never talking to the school when other children were mean to him. Basically, both Steptoe and son loved each other, but the relationship was built on resentment and distance between them.
He and Dad love each other, of course they do, but… their relationship is strained, and has been for Harold’s entire life. They never say it, but Harold sees his father as a useless old bastard, and Dad sees his son as a broken, annoying whiner. And, in a way, they’re both right.
The relationship Harold shares with Dad is messed up, but they are stuck together, so they have to live with it. He just wishes he could have had a normal childhood with Dad being a good parent and Mum… being around. How differently would his life have turned out if his childhood wasn’t such a shambles?
To be honest, Harold can put up with Dad being grumpy and his rubbish job and living in poverty; his life has always been that way, so why complain now? All he really wants out of life is for… is for Dad to accept that, whilst a bit different, Harold is perfectly fine the way he is.