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Lilac and Purple Chapter 13

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mi struggo e mi tormento
Oh Dio, vorei morir!
Babbo, pietà, pietà!
Babbo, pietà, pietà!
(translation)
I languish and I suffer
Oh God, that I would die
Pity me, father!
Pity me, father!

— O Mio Babbino Caro
From the opera “Gianni Schicchi” by Giacomo Puccini

The front door to the Meanswell house creaked open. Like a spring-loaded toy, Stephanie jumped up from her spot beside Sportacus on the front lawn.
“Well?”
Milford looked down at his neice and sighed. She stilled seemed so very young.
“Níu managed to talk me into it.”
The girl gave a squeal of delight, wrapping her uncle’s ample stomach in a grateful hug. Exiting the door behind him, Níu made sure that his grin was not too smug in the light of his victory.
“You can come this time,” Milford told her, “but you are not to leave my sight. Understand?”
“Yes, yes, of course, oh thank you!”
Sportacus wondered how Robbie would react, allowing the girl to accompany them on the third exploration of the manor. The elf expected some resistance, though whether it was for the sake of a venture free of a frolicking prepubescent, or for the sake of Stephanie’s own safety, he couldn’t be sure.

**

It seems Robbie was too distracted to care.
“What are you hoping to find?” Sportacus asked the man, as the team of four ascended the hill to the old house.
Robbie shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure. The Anastasia Plum seeds were seized by the cops and re-interred in Melissa Meanswell’s grave. I just have this gut feeling that there is something… I don’t know.”
The ambiance of Deverhill Manor had changed drastically since the first visit. Now, instead of chilling terror, it seemed to convey a sense of pathos and decay. With the garden now void of living plants, the sun was fully cast upon the building, throwing its dilapidation into sharp relief. There were gaps in the brickwork from where persistent branches and vines had lodged themselves. There were a few gaping holes in the roof, and the cast-iron latticework was severely rusted and crumbling away. The imprints of dead mould were still visible on many parts of the walls. It gave the same sad, anticlimactic impression of an ages-old magic trick being debunked and revealed as so much smoke and mirrors: Old, obsolete, perishing. No amount of repairs would be able to reinstate the structure’s former integrity.
The interior was still fairly gloomy, given the dirty windows and moth-eaten curtains that still hung.
“Where did you want to look first?” Milford asked, looking to Robbie’s dim silhouette.
He didn’t respond, but paced in a small, slow circle, staring into the darkness. His turned towards the gracefully curving staircase.
“We haven’t been upstairs yet, have we?” Stephanie piped up.
Níu approached the steps, testing the bottom one with his boot. It creaked hazardously.
“Wait,” he instructed, and then placed a hand very deliberately on the banister.
Nothing new could be seen or heard, but Stephanie flinched. As the old elf’s hand had hit the faded wood, she sensed something pass through the floor and into her body that felt very similar to the invisible, internal rhythm she experienced when dancing. It was not exactly electric, but it held a similar power.
“What was that?” She cried. Robbie was the only other person who appeared to have felt it.
Unperturbed, Níu stomped his foot down onto the bottom step once again. The wood was just as splintered as before, and the carpet just as threadbare, but it gave out a sturdy, unyielding clonk.
“Alright,” he announced. “When we get up to the second storey, Milford and Stephanie, both of you are to hold my hand. There could be weak spots in the floor, we don’t want any accidents. Sportacus, Robbie, the same applies to the two of you. We’ll progress slowly.”
A sunbeam glimmering with dust could be seen hovering at the top of the stairs like a bright phantom. Each pair of eyes squinted as they adjusted to the slightly improved light. There was a great crack in the arched palladian window that looked out over the front gate. The remains of multiple swallows’ nests encirled it.
Before Robbie had regained all of his eyesight, he felt something swiftly grab his hand.
His breath caught in his throat as the blue elf’s warm fingers entwined with his.
“Hold onto me,” he entreatied. Robbie’s more familiar impulses wanted to rip his hand curtly away from Sportacus, but he found himself obeying the hero, being gingerly lead across the floor to the East wing.
Down the narrow corridor, the gloom returned. A series of intricately moulded doors sat to the pair’s right, and the odd recess, furnished with a window-seat, was to their left. Addled by the changes of fifteen years, Robbie tried his best to remember the layout. Because he’d always slept in the underground lair, he had frequented the upper stories much less than the lower. At the end of the hall, he recalled, lay the poorly-lit stairwell to the third floor, but he was not sure if it was at this side of the house or the other. Sportacus must have shared his interest, because they continued along the passage, heading for the set of double doors that faced them directly.
At length, they came to the threshold. Sportacus reached out his free hand to one of the door-knobs, but felt himself being pulled back heavily by Robbie. The elf turned to see him examining a framed plaque that sat upon the wall. It was a collection of lepidoptera— the bodies of preserved butterflies pinned up on display. It looked nondescript, but something about it seemed to trigger a reaction from the man. He turned violently again to the doorway, a kind of petrified recognition in his eyes.
Before Sportacus could make any sense of this, a startled scream reached them from the West wing. His crystal beeped insistently. Dashing away to the source of the sound, he lost Robbie’s hand.
“Uncle!”
“Don’t struggle, or it’ll widen the hole!”
It was not one of the more flattering situations to be caught in. Half of the Mayor seemed to be sticking out of the floorboards like an egg lodged in an egg-cup. Sportacus watched from the doorway of what appeared to be a guest bedroom as Stephanie and Níu heaved the poor man out of his predicament. The naughty little boy in Sportacus wanted to laugh at his superior’s loss of dignity.
“I’m glad Ms Busybody wasn’t here to see that,” was all Milford could say as he dusted himself off. He had lost some weight under Sportacus’ influence, but he couldn’t bear the prospect of being denied Bessie’s heavenly chiffon cakes.
Suddenly, the dust was shaken off the furnishings as a storm of crashes and frightful howling bled through the walls. It sounded as if wood and glass were shattering in damaging torrents.
Sportacus’ blood froze as his crystal flashed again in the dark. He sped back down the hall towards the gruesome, hysteric din, leaving the others in his trail and invoking the Fates to have mercy.
“Robbie!...”
The noise reached a climax, and abated suddenly, just as Sportacus reached the double doors at the end of the hallway.
The room was a study, or at least it was once. Some ferocious poltergeist had ripped through it, leaving nothing upright. Heavy bookshelves had been toppled, their precious contents torn, battered and strewn across the floor. A glass display-case containing fragile keepsakes was now but a few piles of shards. The wallpaper had a few fresh, vicious rips through it, pictures on the wall had been smashed, and an antique globe in the corner had been battered almost out of recognition.
Upon the only clear patch of floor lay Robbie, hunched over and shaking badly. A few hoarse whimpers escaped him. His hands lay splayed upon the splinters and his head was lowered, like a slave bowing in deference to his master. Small tears in his clothing suggested cruel little cuts and bruises.
Lying by his right hand was an ebony staff with a silver tip.
An apparition, unearthly but clear as day, bloomed before Sportacus. A tall man in a flawless suit stared sharply down at the floor, his deep brown eyes stony with disappointment.
“Hold out your palm, Robert. Fifty strikes ought to be enough.”
Something that was black and searing and freezing sat upon the elf’s chest. He regarded the staff on the floor with more hatred than he had ever felt for a single entity.
Driven by a force greater than himself, Sportacus grabbed it off the floor. With one clean motion, he snapped it in two across his sinewy thigh.
Robbie, slowly recovering from his trance, peered up timidly at the other man. The gaze returned to him was kindly and consoling.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
Sportacus carefully hoisted Robbie up, supporting him with an arm, and helped him escape the dark hallway.

**

Finding the first available patch of open grass, towards the outskirts of town, Sportacus sat his languishing companion down against the base of a tree. The other three watched fretfully from a distance. A few mute tears had escaped down Robbie’s thin cheeks, but he had not uttered a word.
“Breathe deep, Robbie,” Sportacus instructed gently. “Just focus on the sun and the sky and the sound of the treetops rustling.”
He shifted on the ground, and as he moved, long pale fingers clawed the front of his vest desperately.
“Don’t leave me again,” begged a tiny voice.
The elf placed a reassuring hand upon his drooped shoulder. He managed to settle himself into a sitting position next to Robbie, careful not to break the reassuring contact which he so obviously needed at this moment.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The tall man slowly curled in on himself, leaning into the strong, warm body beside him. Dazed eyes fixed on the grass, his head found Sportacus’ broad shoulder. He was braced with another arm around his side, and he was clutched protectively closer to the other man.
A dull sob eventually escaped, and it cleaved Sportacus’ heart. He was holding a lost orphan in his arms, one who would never know the simple joy of having a loving father to depend on. His fingers found Robbie’s dishevelled hair, and gently stroked the crown of his head.
Níu respectfully led the others away.
An unmeasured stretch of time passed. Robbie’s cries ebbed in and out of existence, cooled by his protector’s comforting shushes. A light breeze weaved its way through the neighborhood. Sportacus looked down at his helpless charge, wondering if he had drifted asleep.
He suddenly spoke, face still buried.
“I actually preferred him to be angry when he hit me with it. Bruise my back, crack my ribs, cripple my legs. Fine. I’d just curl up in my chair as I recovered, and read the filthy novels he didn’t know I had, scribble out sour pubescent fantasies in my sketchbook, or write furiously in my journal, using the ‘barbaric Viking tongue’ that he forbade me from speaking.”
Sportacus frowned. Robbie seemed to be describing all this with a very frank attitude. He settled back down, allowing the man to vent.
“When he was calm, my ‘punishments’ must have looked much more acceptable to the upstanding citizen. ‘Hold out your palm, Robert. Fifty strikes ought to be enough.’” (Sportacus shuddered internally at the accuracy of the vision he’d beheld.)
“With that steady rhythm, I wasn’t panicked enough to have adrenalin dull my senses. I squinted to hold back the tears. It wasn’t the pain, I could handle that. It was the prospect of not having the use of my hands for a length of agnonising days. A younger Robbie spoke with his hands more than his mouth.”
He tilted his head to stare out at the townscape.
“Sometimes, when I had delivered straight As for the whole semester, or when I’d managed to avoid trouble-making for more than a week, he’d actually reward me. No words of praise, he’d just take me out. To the bakery, to the record store, to the park. One time, we came across a pack of bullies from school. They began their usual chants and jeers, but were cut off by Dad’s stern glare. I knew how well that glare made a boy stop in his tracks. A few harsh words and they slinked off. At that moment, I almost felt that I could love him.”
“Sometimes he said, in a roundabout way, that he loved me. That I had my mother’s eyes. I was never molested, thank goodness, Dad had an entirely different breed of pathology to that. Sure, partly, these declarations of ‘love’ were a guilt trip. But I can’t deny him his humanity— they were also an honest attempt to cross the huge rift that seperated us.”
He paused, pulling his head back into Sportacus’ shoulder.
“I still hate that more than anything,” he moaned. “It’s so much easier to just cast him as a black-hearted monster with a big bad cane…”
His voice began to splinter into sobs again. The elf was still trying to absorb all that Robbie had shared with him, and could barely endure the quaking of his slim frame as his tears fell once more.
It was futile to curse Deverhill’s name. All sorrow and anger melted away from Sportacus’ body, and all he could feel was an excruciating need to see a smile grace Robbie’s lips again.
“Let’s get you an ice-cream.”
Robbie jerked upwards, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sure it will make you feel better.”
He arose, standing at his full height. Just like that, the hero-vs.-villain boundaries had been re-established. Sportacus shook his head and chuckled at this. Robbie was a truly impulsive creature.
“You mean to say that Sportafruit The Healthy wants to buy Robbie Rotten some junk food!?”
“I just want to make you happy.”
For a moment Robbie faltered, his eyes softening. Then:
“Well, I suppose so. Though I’m a bit worried that you might be losing it.”
The elf smirked, and lead the way.

**

He concentrated on his cone of organic, sugarless, fruit-juice-sweetened frozen yoghurt, as Robbie squirmed with delight at the scoop of death-by-chocolate that the vendor was fetching for him. The elf sighed, regarding his compromise as a reasonable price for the glee that had returned to his companion’s eyes.
As they sat down together on a park bench, Sportacus noticed that Robbie had ordered a double scoop. The one atop the black hole of chocolate was pale pink, fluffy and identical to the elf’s own.
“What flavour is that one?”
Robbie looked away for a moment, then pouted at him.
“So maybe I felt like some frozen yoghurt too! Got a problem with that?”
Anything but. Along with his frozen treat, Sportacus savoured a delicious upsurge of something thankful and joyous inside him.
OH CAN YOU FEEL THE ANGSTY ANGST. :raincloud:

The comfort scene should kinda have a parent and child feeling to it, as opposed to an OMG THAT'S HAWT feeling. Sportacus is doing what his father should have done when Robbie was a kid. Except Robbie probably would have kicked Niu's arse if he tried to hug him. =P

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sushigal007's avatar
Just got my laptop back from repair and overdosed on this. Loved the party at Robbies place (low budget Phantom, haha) and the whole carrot cake scene and especially Robie thorwing a diva fit because he couldn't wear lycra and make-up to clear the garden! Brilliant!