Chapter Text
He's read the book twelve times. By then, he knew each word before turning the pages. He’s read all the books in the very small collection the orphanage had and the ones he had managed to steal from street vendors. Still, it was better than doing nothing or focusing on his empty stomach.
Amy is crying again, because Robert stole her doll. Billy is laughing like an idiot, a little further away, talking loudly to some of the older boys. Tom hates them all, can't focus as he’d like on the story, because he always has to be alert. They started to learn not to mess with him, but he is still vulnerable if they gang up on him, especially the bigger boys. He wants to go to his room, yet Mrs. Cole insists he socialises and forces him to spend some hours in the common room. His only joy is that the others mislike having him there as much as he does.
“Oh, look! Another one!” Billy yells and all of them rush to the window before quickly gathering around the door, arranging their faces into sweet expressions. Even Sarah, the new addition, just three, waddles behind them, smoothing her skirt.
Tom doesn't stand. He’d tried, in the past. He’d hoped. He’d sat in that line and smiled, answered stupid questions, wanting to be the one to leave with the couple. But they never picked him. And they never will.
Unwanted. Insignificant. Unworthy. A voice whispers but it’s weaker than it’s been, easier to chase away. They’re unworthy of him. Let the other snotty idiots leave with boring, mediocre adults. Tom was destined for great things, and he won’t need anyone’s help. He’s all alone and it’s best this way. It is, he repeats to himself, turning the page, refusing to look up.
“Have you come for me, sir?” Amy whimpers as a rush of cold wind signified the door had been opened.
“Are you my daddy?” Billy asks.
Tom snorts. They’ll scare the idiot away, overdoing it like that. Many fools had left in tears, overwhelmed by having to pick one and leave the others.
Someone gasps. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a dozen feet hurrying back. He looks up.
The man is very tall, it's the first thing he notices. The second, is the expensive suit. The third, he is heading straight for Tom, with sure steps, and Tom has to struggle to remain seated, panic gripping him. His instincts scream, the way they always seemed to do when he sensed danger.
I will not show weakness. I am not afraid. There was no need for fear because something other than panic rose inside him, when danger was near. Something that whispered in his veins, something powerful, that set him apart, that had saved him, many times.
He looks at the man's face and he understands the gasps and the fear emanating from the other children. Eyes, red as blood, stare at him from a pale, aristocratic face. Tom’s instincts flare again, that power inside him awake, as he stares back, afraid and mesmerised. There is something in the man’s face that makes Tom’s stomach coil with an unfamiliar feeling.
“Come.” The command is uttered in a deceptively soft voice, but Tom hears all the strength in it. The hairs on his neck stand up, electrified.
“Who are you?” his own voice isn’t as strong, though he practiced, days on end. He’d never heard this stranger before, but just as soon as he did, Tom wants to be him. That familiar feeling in his gut sparks again, with something akin to recognition.
“What is going on-” Mrs Cole rushes inside the room and stops, frozen, as soon as she does.
Tom doesn’t tear his eyes away from the stranger, notices only a slight move of his hand-long fingers, as pale as the rest of him. But he knows, even without looking properly, that there is nothing natural in Mrs. Cole's stillness, something more than fear or surprise keeping her rooted to the spot. He can almost taste that something in the air.
“Who are you?” he repeats. A demand, he’d wanted-Tom never asks, he demands. Only weak, vulnerable children ask. But his voice betrays him, he can hear the wonder inside it.
“Come,” the stranger asks before turning on the spot, a flawless, elegant gesture.
The room is empty, besides Mrs. Cole. Tom looks at her.
Her eyes are wide, alive, full of dread but the rest, a statue. As soon as he thought it, she stumbles forward, gasping, opening her mouth for a scream that never comes. Her eyes glaze, she calms, looks around her with a bemused expression.
“Mrs Cole?” Tom asks, standing. His hands are shaking and he grips the book tighter, to stop them.
She can’t hear him, can’t see him.
The stranger turned the corner and Tom runs after him.
“Wait,” he calls, once he reaches the stairs. “Wait!”
The man does not stop, but walks slower until Tom catches up with him.
He wants to ask where will they go, why. Who are you? He wants to know, he fears, he hopes.
“My things-I need my things.” Tom has very little, but they were all gained, all his, treasures and reminders that he is superior, that no one will bully him. That he’ll always come out on top.
“You do not need them.” The stranger stops abruptly, and Tom almost knocks into him. A pale hand extends and Tom flinches because he noticed the sleight of hand before, and Mrs. Cole had-
Nothing happens. The palm is up, waiting. Tom searches his face again, those high cheeks, that sharp nose, the strong jaw. He takes his hand and he’s swallowed up by darkness, a pressure so great in his stomach, suffocating him. He opens his eyes and they’re in front of a house-a mansion, really. He’s nauseous and disoriented and he grabs those cold fingers inside his own, but the stranger snatches his hand away. Tom reddens, ashamed for showing vulnerability. Hurt to be rejected. No, his mind corrects. Tom knows rejection well, a constant companion. Tom doesn’t hurt. He mustn’t. Tom is destined for great things.
He follows the stranger down the pathway, in silence, having to almost run to keep up with the long stride. Everything around him screams wealth.
This is where you’re meant to be. The double iron doors open before they reach it, into a long hallway, illuminated by candles flickering on the walls. Tom swallows his fear. Predators do not feel fear, he reminds himself, but he clutches 'Frankenstein' closer to his chest.
“Sit.” The room is grand, as everything else, golden chandelier sending sparks around the polished furniture, the cushion of the couch comfortable underneath him.
"Who are you?” he asks, again. “Sir,” he hastens to add, politely. First impressions are important. Tom needs this man to like him, to want him, to not take him back to Wools. The stranger sits in the armchair facing Tom, regards him with those strange eyes, searching Tom’s own face. “You are my father?” Tom means to say, into the heavy silence. He clearly is. That familiar feeling in his gut from earlier had been hope, at long last met. Tom knows that face, because he sees it in the mirror. Older, whiter, waxier, but so very similar. It comes out as a question and he squeezes the book again, because he can’t look weak. This man will not abide weakness. Tom needs to be to be approved off.
A second. And then the man laughs, as softly as he speaks.
“You always did wait for your father, didn’t you? Years on end, even if you knew it is but a childish fantasy.”
Tom feels his cheeks flush again. But he’d been right to wait, it seems. Not so childish. He always knew, deep down, that his father will come. That somewhere, someone wants Tom. He’d looked out the window, as fathers walked with sons besides them and he craved it so hard, it bled him from within.
Tom is special-what he wants, it comes true.
“How right it is,” the man speaks, his head crooked slightly, regarding Tom closely. “I am the father you deserve.”
Tom doesn’t know what to make of that, but he likes the sound of it. Tom is deserving. He is. He always knew, even when no one else saw it, when he was pushed away. Rejected. Freak. Will his father think him a freak? But no, no-that’s why Tom came, despite the fear. Besides the face, Tom recognised that something, sweet and powerful and unnatural. Mrs Cole had called it demonic and the priest had agreed.
“What are we?” Tom asks, and a dangerous smile spreads slowly on the man’s thin lips.
“We are magic.” He snaps his fingers and a tray with steaming tea appears on the coffee table, startling Tom.
He’s elated. His heart is light and carefree and everything will be all right, from now on. He usually needs anger, he needs fear to make it work, but now, with this man here, with his father, Tom extends his hand and a cube of sugar lifts, shakily and drops into the cup. He looks up and the man is smiling at him, perhaps a bit sinister, but genuine. Something flashes in those red eyes and Tom feels lightheaded. There is no fear, no disgust in the way he looks at Tom-in his whole life, no one has ever been proud of him. Met with disdain or caution, everywhere he went. No more.
Tom is home.