Work Text:
Cillian
(Todd is 2 New World years old)
Sweet Lord, he is so small.
I mean, it ain’t exactly news. Kids are small. I remember them running the corridors of the ship, not a care in the world. But it ain’t never been my kid. It ain’t never been me that had to answer or consider how shockingly fragile they look, especially here where the animals tell you they're gonna eat you before they do. And it ain’t like me and Ben was ever gonna have one on our own.
And he is beautiful.
It breaks my heart and freezes me to the spot, his beauty. Huge brown eyes and sandy hair that I know will darken with time, but for now he is an elf child we found in a field of clover under the full moon, as floppy and endearing as a puppy. How are we even the same species, him and I? As different from me as any Spackle.
“You’re gonna scare that boy outta his mind,” says Ben. He comes into the room big as an ox wiping the back of his neck with a cloth. His Noise is purple and pink, filled with the image of me sitting on the edge of the bed, Todd on the floor playing with wooden sheep his Pa carved for him before he was born, filled with the images that are in my own Noise of the boy and the thousand different ways fate could take him from us.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say. My throat closes into a knot.
Ben’s taken to it with greater ease. He has the gift of not worrying all the time, and the blessing of being the master of his mind and thoughts. He ain’t just big as an ox - he’s as calm and languid as one too. I do envy that.
Todd’s been in our fields since he could walk, playing amongst the ewes since he could run, his Noise saying sheep, sheep along with them, laughter like silver and crystal floating up into the sky. His child’s Noise as innocent and clean as anything. But he weren’t mine. He was someone else’s. I got to enjoy watching the little boy who played with the lambs because he was one of them. These worries in my head, plaguing my Noise, they belonged to his Ma.
Now they’re mine and I ain’t never been so scared in all my life, not even in the war.
Not like this.
“Little boys are made of titanium wrapped in rubber, Cillian,” Ben reassures. “It’s Prentiss we need to keep him away from. You see how he is with his own boy. Shameful. That can’t never be Todd. Not ever. And I ain’t gotta tell you what’s in that man’s Noise.”
“Can’t even hear it now,” I reply.
“But you heard it then. It ain’t gone. Just quiet, however it is he does that.”
And I know he’s right. Prentiss manages to keep his Noise inside his head, but before he could do that, when he was just like the rest of us, it was clear as day to anyone walking past him. He wants the whole world. All of it. Because he’s the kind of man who thinks answering to him is always better than answering to yourself.
Ben comes behind me, places his arms around my neck, big square hands across my chest. The soft hair on his arms tickles my cheek. When I knew Ben was meant for me, I was dizzy and giddy and insufferable for days. I had no idea how to keep a lid on it and if it weren't for Todd's Ma, who was Ben's partner in crime at the time on the ship, I'm sure it would have ended differently. I thought that was the most powerful love a man could know.
How wrong I had been.
Todd is only just now beginning to speak with his voice. Every word is his Ma talking to me, every glance is his Pa lookin at me. The promise I'd made to them is right there whenever he giggles or cries. How she’d clung to me, desperate to find truth, to see that the answer in my Noise was as real as the one from my lips there at the end when it all went to shit. And let me tell you that you don't ever want to see real bravery because the real thing don't happen until the worst things show up. And they showed up, and they didn't have Spackle faces, but rather faces that were known to us.
No, no. Don't think that in front of the boy. Don't let him see that.
“The fear never goes away,” she’d said. “It’s always there, in the back of your throat. It’s a good thing. Keeps you in check.”
I hear her in Ben’s Noise - her soft, sweet voice. I hear Todd’s Pa too, the most gentle man I ever met.
My eyes are wet with tears. Fuck, I miss them.
When the hellhole of Prentisstown was still New Elizabeth, in the first days, hope flowing through the town like a river, the Hewitts had come all humble and hat in hand, Mrs. Hewitt’s belly just starting to show.
“Can we please farm the parcel next to you?” she’d asked. "We ain't have'n much luck where we are right now."
Nobody needed our permission. The plot just hadn't been taken. Ben and I had figured the only reason the town tolerated us was because of the sheep, our skills at animal husbandry that kept everyone from starving. When the land next to us went unclaimed, that empty silence spoke more loudly than any man's Noise.
I never expected to hear a woman of such tender demeanor come asking, her eyes full of worry we would say no, to her, of all people. She could ask for the sun and I would get it for her.
I never expected to hear Mr. Hewitt say, “We’d be much obliged. Young one’s on the way. It’s a boy and it would be nice to know he has a solid start here on New World. You fellahs do important work. There’s respect to be had there. When he’s old enough, maybe you can take him on and show him... if you'll have him.” Every word in perfect sync with his Noise. You don’t hardly never see that.
Of course, there are no secrets here. Our Noise said everything we felt and Mrs. Hewitt took Ben's hand in both of hers and the fact that she had no Noise was of no consequence.
They hardly knew what they were doing. Mr. Hewitt kept crowding the seedlings. Ben had to show him why that ain't the way. They caught on, though, with a little extra patience that I guess hadn't been shown to them up to that point. They stayed with us for a spell while we brought their stuff over a little at a time and got their house to be livable. After that, Mrs. Hewitt never once came to the farm proper without something in hand to offer. And it wasn't because God commanded. It was just in them to be that way.
There are different kinds of love, I am learning. Different ways to fall in love, ways that ain't got nothin to do with the bedroom, ways that don't have names in plain English and yet there they are in your Noise. God knows I fell in love with the Hewitts, with their kindness, their goodness, her generosity, the way he always looked right at you when you spoke, genuinely listening. Their absence is a hole in my soul.
Todd sees our Noise. He sees his Ma and Pa. He smiles and giggles in the way only children can. Ben holds me harder.
“One day at a time,” he says. “One thing at a time. I'm scared too, but don't let the fear sour you, Cillian. That's our boy now. We owe it to them to do right by him.”