Work Text:
guard
/ɡɑːd/
noun
a person who keeps watch, especially a soldier or other person assigned to protect a person or to control access to a place.
When he was younger, with scruffs of dark hair, and twinkling eyes that told tales of mischief and boyhood everytime he smiled, his parents read him bedtime stories. His favourites were the fairytales with brave princes rescuing their fair princesses.
He’d listen intently, watching as his parents enacted the legends and myths.
His father was the hero, dashingly handsome and every night, he’d rescue his beautiful maiden from the tower of blankets and pillows stacked tall against the wall of little Anthony’s room. His glasses always nearly falling off his nose, his red tie would be wrapped against his head.
He absolutely adored it, joining them often, his wooden toy sword in hand. He wanted to protect them, not even five years old, from the world. To keep them safe, and with him right there in his bedroom in the attic in the middle of their London home.
For his next birthday, his father bought him his first rapier. Silver, and probably no longer than his arm. His father had said to him that he was a prince now, ruler of their home at Portland Row. He said he needed to be brave, and be strong and protect his older sister as they went on a special trip.
Two weeks later, he got to be a brave prince again.
Six years was far too young to fight your first ghost, and Jess had cried at the sight of her brother rapier in hand duelling his parents.
Eventually, they won. Though what the prize was, the two of them never found out.
One hand grasping Jessica’s, the other his rapier they ventured out to the war of newspaper press, and clamouring crowds of concerned adults whispering apologies and shock at how young he must be, how small.
He doesn’t remember anything else about the rapier, the children’s books were ripped and their stories forgotten. How could he be a hero, how could he act so fearlessly when he couldn’t protect them? He was supposed to be her prince, and save his big sister from any danger. That’s what the stories had said. His parents, too.
He’d pushed them down, blocking out the legends and myths and feelings of bravery after she’d died. It took him five months to even open her door.
How wrong his parents had been, filling him with lies about the world and it’s cruelties. He was no hero, he was no galient prince who’d do good deeds. He was a young boy.
He was a coward.
When he was thirteen, his head flooding with desperation to prove himself, he moved back home.
He’d decided to start an agency. The problem was getting worse, it was his turn to play his battle.
He found his father’s old blazer, navy, it used to match his. It was slightly big at the sleeves, but he cut it up and sewed it back together. Not unlike what he’d done to himself. He suited himself up, so young and unknowing yet so headstrong and determined to fight the monsters, the real ones, of his world.
He wasn’t a prince, brave like his father had told him before.
He was a soldier.
The red tie was his favourite, it was a scarlet with a square cut. There was a note next to it, in the box he’d tucked away in the attic, in his father’s scribbly writing;
For Tony’s tenth birthday.
The tie, later slightly torn, was still a vibrant scarlet colour. Red meant courage , his father had said. It was the colour worn by the most valiant knights. It was embroidered carefully onto the armour of those who protected kingdoms with mythical creatures and powerful beings with magical powers.
It was worn by heroes, like his father. Only, it had been passed to him. It was his colour now, the tie becoming his armour, his safety, his courage.
And so Anthony Lockwood became one too.
He’d never gotten a seventh birthday party with his parents, nor an eight or ninth. Jessica had done her best, putting effort into every detail, red streamers adorning every arched doorway. It never filled the gaps, and there was an aching hole inside of him each year as he put on his suit.
White shirt, navy blazer that matched his father’s. It was getting too small for him now, the trousers hanging above his ankles, his wrists no longer safe behind the fabric of the jacket. The tie stayed the same.
He didn’t wear it often, saving it for moments when he truly needed the supposed courage of the colour red.
He always ended up wearing it as he gathered around the birthday cake, spending the entirety of the birthday wishes staring at the two empty chairs, knowing even then that they should be taken up by his parents.
Jessica tried so hard to fill the role of both parents, she even did the stories. But playing both roles was far too much for a little girl. She was so small, in all the photos he later found. Her head barely reached the top shelf of the bookcase.
He never remembered her as that. In his memory, a swirly vaste of fears and doubts constantly coming close to leaking out, she was so big and tall. She always held her head high, waiting till her brother was sound asleep before letting her sobs consume her. She’d promised her parents to be brave too.
So she never let him see her cry.
He never got a tenth birthday, it had been spent in his boarding school a week before the christmas holidays.
He had no older sister to distract him, she was dead.
He wore red the entire week.