Work Text:
What was I thinking?
Carlos laid on the floor of his mother’s closet and his whole body ached with pain.
Every time he moved, the pain intensified, so he tried to stay as still as possible.
All of this happened just because he wanted to help his mother.
The day began like any other – Carlos woke up, did all the chores his mother’s list contained and spent the rest of the day trying to be invisible.
Invisible meant safety, another couple of hours without pain.
Carlos usually spent this time in his treehouse, tinkering with everything he could find, but never actually creating anything useful.
He knew he’s just delaying the inevitable.
Time did not care about his well-being and will mercilessly pass, even though he prayed every day with all his heart for time to stop.
When the Sun started to give in to the Moon, Carlos put everything back in place and started to slowly climb down the ladder.
As soon as his legs touched the ground, he started to tremble from head to toe. He put his hand on the tree for support, to keep himself from falling.
I don’t want to go back there, please.
The later he comes, the harsher the punishment will be, at least he thinks.
Carlos tried to make a few steps but the trembling only got worse. He stumbled back and quickly grasped the tree again.
He took a couple of deep breaths and focused on his surroundings; the light wind gently touching his skin, the remaining heat of the Sun, the smell of wood and grass, the hard texture of the tree bark.
The trembling ended as suddenly as it started. As soon as it did, Carlos started to run and tried to ignore the panic starting to rise.
He lost precious minutes, he’s for sure late.
Mother will be furious.
Carlos ran inside Hell Hall and took the stairs two at a time. His breathing was erratic and when he finally stopped before the door to his mother’s office, he had to lean on the wall to calm himself down. His leg muscles hurt and he had to resist the urge to lay down and relax.
When he was sure his breathing was normal again, he opened the door, his hand shaking slightly.
The room was filled with fabrics of all sizes and colours, half-finished dresses, mannequins and pieces of scrambled paper. It all had some sort of peculiar order Carlos didn’t understand, no matter how hard he tried.
It was quiet, apart from the soft sound of his mother’s pen. The only source of light was a big lamp on the side of her desk at the far end of the room.
Carlos tiptoed across the wooden floor, making sure he didn’t even breathe in the direction of the dresses and mannequins, and kneeled beside his mother, with his back turned to her. While doing so, he noticed that leaning on the desk by her other side was her cane.
He gulped, put his hands in his lap. and waited.
Without interrupting her drawing, his mother placed her free hand in his hair and began to scratch it with slow deliberate motions.
He let out a sigh of relief – he wasn’t late after all.
These night... sessions with his mother started around half a year ago.
The first one was filled with a few beatings. Not that he knew why. His mother grabbed him by the arm one night, seated him beside her, started to draw and scratch his hair, all of this without saying anything.
He started to fidget because his legs hurt and his all body was starting to ache, and his mother slapped the back of his head. He wanted to run away, but he knew that it would make things much worse, so he stayed and tried to stay still.
Eventually, he asked her what was happening. Without answering him, she tightened the grip on his hair and tugged. He understood and didn’t speak anymore.
Through this sort of hit-or-miss, he found out the rules; stay still, don’t speak, show up at a certain time, don’t touch anything in the room.
When he obeyed them, he could go to bed without any injuries, besides the ones he gained during the day.
When he disobeyed, his mother punished him, always in a different way and different level of pain, sometimes it was a slap, other times a hit with the cane.
Hitting with the cane has been the worst, yet. And that was for apparently breathing too loudly and distracting her.
He mostly obeyed, but sometimes he was tired or his other injuries hurt and he just couldn’t stay still, even if his life would depend on it.
The uncertainty and constant changes of his punishments drove him crazy, he liked to be prepared for what’s coming, not to think about every possible scenario that could happen.
He caught himself even in the middle of the day, thinking about it. One time, he had the idea to do something he’s never done before, just to see what punishment would follow.
But he never did it.
Until this faithful day.
Half an hour after he came, there was a soft knock on the door and Jasper came in.
Carlos noticed that he looked like he was about to puke. He wasn’t surprised. To go to his mother’s office when she designed? That was basically a suicide mission.
His mother’s scratching hardened.
He flinched.
And immediately froze, waiting for whatever punishment would come.
But nothing was happening. She was luckily too distracted by the disturbance in the form of Jasper to register his mistake.
“Cruella,” he started, his voice quivering slightly, “We, I mean Horace and I, were just carrying the box with your new fabrics and ehm...”
He stopped and put on something that was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, but instead looked more like a grimace.
“I am sure it can get repaired-”
“What happened, Jasper?”
His mother’s voice was low, it sounded almost like a snarl.
It sent shivers down Carlos’ spine.
“The fabrics fell on the ground,” he whispered like it would make a difference.
“Imbeciles!” His mother stood up. Judging by the familiar rustling sounds, she was reaching for her cane.
Carlos’ heart started to speed up and his breathing got faster.
He didn’t know what to do.
He wanted to shrink and protect himself from pain, his hands were nervously twitching, wanting to cover his head.
But he knew that he wasn’t allowed to move.
So, he didn't, but his body was trembling with fear.
When his mother’s cane hit the ground, Carlos whimpered and clasped his hands together to keep them from moving to hide his face.
His lips started to tremble even harder, words of apologies already forming on his tongue.
But then he remembered that he’s not allowed to speak and the words disappeared.
Tugging of his hair? Slap? Hit with a cane? Or something worse?
His breathing was starting to be more and more erratic, the thoughts in his head were fighting for attention, creating one scenario after another.
Is it because I flinched earlier? Or was I breathing too loud again? I am breathing too loud right now ! That’s not allowed!
He felt cold sweat beginning to form on his skin.
Carlos bowed his head, closed his eyes that were filling with tears and began to quietly count to ten.
With each number, he inhaled a deep breath and focused on the constant rising and falling of his chest.
With each number, he awaited pain.
But nothing happened.
Carlos opened his eyes. The room was empty. The doors were closed.
By a quick glance around him, he found out that he’s alone. His mother had to go with Jasper to look at the destroyed fabrics, probably.
He decided that he will use this advantage to stretch his body.
Sitting still for that long really stiffened his body, even though he’s been doing it for half a year now.
After some satisfying cracking of his back and head, he went and looked around at all the things his mother had in her office.
He found a half-torn red dress with white roses on it, a black and white robe, about thirty scrambled pieces of paper with wonderful designs on them and one of the mannequins had its right arm ripped off.
Looking at the designs, he didn’t understand what was wrong with them. To him, they were beautiful, the colours were combined in a way he wouldn’t think was possible and the sketches looked fantastic, all weird angles and... stuff.
As ironic as it may sound, he didn’t know that much about fashion to comment on it.
At last, he went to the desk, looking at the sketch his mother was drawing before Jasper interrupted her.
It was a rough outline of a dress, very tight except the part around the ankles, which had a flowy feeling to it.
To him, it looked good, but he had a feeling something was missing. The longer he stared at it, the better he saw what would improve it.
Too much preoccupied with the vision he suddenly had, to care about the consequences, he grabbed his mother’s pen, which was lying next to the paper, and drew in a few lines, adding a lightning-like line that separated the top half of the dress from the bottom half.
In the exact moment he put out the tip of the pen from the paper, he heard his mother’s voice from the other side of the door and the door handle started to move.
As quickly as he could, he put the pen in the same position it previously laid in and kneeled beside the chair.
His heart was beating so loudly he was surprised she didn’t hear it.
Carlos heard the opening and closing of the door and the clicking of his mother’s heels, along with a soft thudding of her cane hitting the wooden floor.
He didn’t dare to look at her, as she sat in the chair, but when he was sure she can’t see him, he moved a bit to the side to have a better view of her reaction.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then his mother’s shoulders tensed and she reached for her pen.
Carlos instinctively moved his head to the side, just as the pen flew past him, but he wasn’t fast enough. The sharp end of it scratched his left cheek and hit the floor with a loud thud.
Carlos reached for the scratch and when he looked at the tips of his fingers, he saw blood.
He finally discovered a new type of punishment. And he knew that this one will hurt the most.
A loud tearing sound brought him back to the present moment. Then a small ball of scrambled paper hit him in the chest, immediately followed by a cane.
The impact stole all air from his lungs and his back hit the floor. He tried to get his lungs some air, but he couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe!
His eyes widened in fear and he tried to stand up, to run away to safety.
The attempt was swiftly ruined by a cane hitting the back of his legs.
Carlos’ legs gave up beneath him and he fell to the ground. The pain intensified by a thousand per cent and he fully believed he was going to die.
The lack of oxygen made his head light and his body slow.
He gave up and just laid on the floor, without moving, while his mother repeatedly hit him in the back with her cane, and tried to take in breaths. It hurt like hell, but eventually, he got a short inhale.
Encourage by this small victory, he tried to take a deep breath, but instead, he let out a scream which turned into coughing, as his mother’s cane hit his right wrist.
The pain ripped through his whole body. He whimpered and tried to crawl away using his uninjured hand. His cheeks were wet with tears and could feel the blood in his mouth and nose.
He managed to crawl two times, then his mother grabbed him by the legs and dragged him to her closet, which was just a few meters away from her desk.
She opened the door and shoved him inside.
He fell on the floor and let out a small scream of pain.
The door shut behind him and he heard the key turning.
I moved; I’m not allowed to move. Why I am such a failure? Why can’t I follow a few simple rules?
Using his good arm, Carlos wiped off the blood that started to flow from his nose and then he started to cough. Every cough hurt him, but he couldn’t help himself.
What was I thinking, daring to change Mother’s design? She is a fashion genius. I am just a useless, talentless kid she has to put up with.
Carlos laid on the floor of his mother’s closet and his whole body ached with pain.
Every time he moved, the pain intensified, so he tried to stay as still as possible.
All of this happened just because he wanted to help his mother.