New Fic: Demon Child
Oct. 29th, 2007 08:56 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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mag7fansTitle: Demon Child
Category: Delinquent AU, pre-series (aka Little Vin "Delinquent" AU)
Characters: Vin, Vin's mother
Rating: R (for subject matter)
Warnings: Mentions of CHILD ABUSE, profanity
Summary: For the HALLOWEEN/HORROR 2007 challenge. Little Vin reflects on what Halloween means to him and how the bad memories seem to outweigh the good.
Yes, they are all finished before Halloween. I may make changes later and I really did debate on this one because... well, it's debatable, I suppose.
Demon Child
One of the first memories that Vin could remember was being a lion with a long tail and fuzzy rounded ears. That was when he was about four years old. His mom was all dressed up like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz with the red shoes and braids and the basket with the fake dog and everything. He was the not so Cowardly Lion because they’d put a metal on his costume like they did in the movie. Vin never mentioned that he was really scared of the flying monkeys, but he thought mom had known that.
They would color pictures of pumpkins that mom would tape to the wall and they would carve huge pumpkins to put out on the small entryway. She had always bought him a small pumpkin, too, one he could hold in his hand and they’d keep it inside for as long as they could before they had to throw it out.
Their last Halloween together they hadn’t been able to do much because she wasn’t doing well and they said the treatments weren’t working and they made her really sick anyway. She got a pumpkin but they couldn’t carve it. She didn’t have the energy to dress up in a costume and even though Vin was a pirate it wasn’t the same. They went to a few houses for trick-or-treat, but mom got tired easily and was coughing and shivering so Vin told her that he was tired and wanted to go home. Mom had protested and took him a bit farther and then they’d gone back even though another of the ladies from the apartment offered to let Vin go with them and her children.
She died on November 1st, just after Halloween. Vin remembered waking up in the middle of the night and seeing his mom standing over his bed only she wasn’t like his mom at all. She was shadowy and hard to see and she wasn’t tired or scared or in pain anymore. “Mommy?” There were no words though her mouth moved, but there was a feeling of peace that passed over him and he went back to sleep.
When he woke up again and went to see his mom to tell her about the strange dream he had Vin found her cold and unnaturally pale. Vin watched her for some time until the shadow-figure appeared again beside him and even though it wasn’t like his mom it was still his mom. He shivered when she tried to touch him. When he finally got up he went to the next apartment that was just outside and knocked on her door. “Mommy’s dead. She’s cold and she’s not breathing.”
Before the woman could go to hug Vin he turned around and went back to their apartment ignoring her calls for him to wait, to stay with her. Vin knew calls had been made as he sat beside her bed to see if the shadow was still there. She was and she silently led Vin to a drawer where she kept two rings, one with a pretty rock in it and the other plain. It later became clear that one had been an engagement ring and the other a wedding band, but he didn’t know that yet. She then led him to a small jewelry box full of pictures and other special memories. There was a way to get in to part of the box that was hidden and hard to open and there were small compartments for each ring where he placed the rings and shut them up, stuffing in cloth like she directed to muffle any sounds the rings might make on their own.
Vin knew he was going with daddy and had known it for a long time, but it didn’t make it easier when he got there. He remembered the arguments and the fights, the kicked-in doors and broken windows and he was afraid. When he came Vin cried and daddy dragged him away from his mommy and he never thought he’d see her again if he left her. Vin thought that the shadow would disappear if he left.
The shadow didn’t go away, though. Vin would talk to her sometimes and sometimes she would answer and sometimes she would move things. When daddy called him possessed and beat him she’d busted out all the light bulbs in the house and daddy said he was a demon and held him down while he burned a cross into the bottom of his foot with a cigarette. She’d been sorry, really sorry and threw a chair at daddy and made his head bleed, but Vin still got blamed for it.
At night Vin would crawl out his window and talk to mommy in the yard and beg her to come back. She couldn’t do that, though. It was around Halloween that it got worse because she became stronger and could do more things. Everything that happened Vin got blamed for it and she got madder and wanted to hurt daddy then daddy would scream at him and call him names – ‘you little bastard’ and ‘how the fuck did I get a satanic demon-possessed freak like you’. He would hold Vin down and beat him with his belt until blood ran down his legs.
There was no Halloween at dad's house. He was backhanded when daddy caught him watching a cartoon about Casper the Friendly Ghost. The TV exploded after that and the living room caught on fire until daddy put it out with the fire extinguisher. Vin’s eyes had gotten wide when daddy turned on him and he’d run as fast as he could, but daddy always caught him.
Vin loved his mommy even though she made things worse because she couldn’t help it and if she was gone he would have no one. There was almost another Halloween at dad’s house – almost because Vin had to go to the hospital because he didn’t put the sticks in the right place. That was when he met his first social worker that said that daddy had some issues he had to work out and that it wasn’t Vin’s fault, but he was going to be staying with someone else.
That was okay with Vin and he liked the new home with lots of kids where some were related and most not. They wanted Vin to go trick-or-treating with them, though, and Vin hid in the room he shared with a few other kids and cried because he didn’t want to go. Miss Judy asked him what was wrong because Dave made Vin cry more and try to get away.
He didn’t want to tell her because he was afraid she would say the same things daddy did, but Vin finally whispered, “Daddy says I’m a demon. That I’m evil. He says Halloween makes me worse.”
Miss Judy had cried real quiet and told Vin that that wasn’t true, that he wasn’t evil, he wasn’t a demon and that there wasn’t any reason that Vin couldn’t go trick-or-treating. Vin still refused to go. He went to another room when they watched Halloween shows. He didn’t want to even touch the pumpkins. He didn’t color any pictures at the foster home and he would not do any assignments at school even remotely related to Halloween or ghosts.
Mommy didn’t do anything at the foster home but watch and wait. When he went to stay with grandpap months after that was when things got bad again. Grandpap knew everything daddy had said about him being demonic and suddenly everything was really scary. Vin was dragged to priests to do exorcisms. Holy water was thrown at him. Grandpap forced his head under water to “cleanse” him and Vin thought he wasn’t ever going to be able to breathe again until mom made the towel rack come off the wall and hit him in the head so Vin could get away.
It was shortly after that that Vin got to go away to another foster home because grandpap had left really dark bruises on his neck from where he’d held him under the water. They took pictures of the hand marks on his neck and the bruises on the backs of his legs where grandpap had hit him with the baseball bat. Vin helpfully pulled up his sleeves to show them the hand marks on his arms where he’d been grabbed and shaken really hard. They’d noticed the cross that had been carved into his back and Vin told them that had been done with the glass from the vase. Vin didn’t tell him that mommy broke the vase because he didn’t want them to think he was evil, too.
Vin wanted to go back to Miss Judy’s house, but that wasn’t where they put him and he didn’t like the new foster home because they were strict and everything was always Vin’s fault. He wasn’t smart like the other kids. He couldn’t focus and do good even though he had to go to different rooms to get help with reading and spelling and math.
They tried to put Vin on pills because he didn’t pay attention and he couldn’t tell them that sometimes he was watching mommy. Sometimes he was watching other shadows, too. Sometimes his head hurt or his foot burned like it had when the cigarette had been pressed into it.
Mommy told him not to take the pills, though, so he hadn’t. He’d spit them out and hid them in his sleeves until they didn’t put him on them anymore because apparently they didn’t work because he obviously didn’t have ADD or ADHD because the pills weren’t working. Vin got into fights on the playgrounds and he ran away from foster homes when he got scared, but mom was always with him no matter where he went.
They said he was quiet and the other kids would sometimes make fun of Vin because he talked to his mom. Vin didn’t tell them it was because she was still there and could hear everything he said since he knew they wouldn’t believe him. Around Halloween Vin became even more quiet and the foster parents would pester him and pester him to open up, to join in the celebrations. Vin couldn’t. Most of the times he would end up running during those times. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get him.
Vin knew he wasn’t a demon child. He knew it because his mom told him he wasn’t. The problem was that Vin didn’t know what he was and it wasn’t normal to see his dead mother. Or the other shadows that were there that people didn’t see. So he didn’t think about it and didn’t talk about it and sometimes Vin could pretend that the things he saw weren’t there at all. Maybe then he really wouldn’t be a satanic demon-possessed child even if he would never really be normal.
-The End-
Category: Delinquent AU, pre-series (aka Little Vin "Delinquent" AU)
Characters: Vin, Vin's mother
Rating: R (for subject matter)
Warnings: Mentions of CHILD ABUSE, profanity
Summary: For the HALLOWEEN/HORROR 2007 challenge. Little Vin reflects on what Halloween means to him and how the bad memories seem to outweigh the good.
Yes, they are all finished before Halloween. I may make changes later and I really did debate on this one because... well, it's debatable, I suppose.
Demon Child
One of the first memories that Vin could remember was being a lion with a long tail and fuzzy rounded ears. That was when he was about four years old. His mom was all dressed up like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz with the red shoes and braids and the basket with the fake dog and everything. He was the not so Cowardly Lion because they’d put a metal on his costume like they did in the movie. Vin never mentioned that he was really scared of the flying monkeys, but he thought mom had known that.
They would color pictures of pumpkins that mom would tape to the wall and they would carve huge pumpkins to put out on the small entryway. She had always bought him a small pumpkin, too, one he could hold in his hand and they’d keep it inside for as long as they could before they had to throw it out.
Their last Halloween together they hadn’t been able to do much because she wasn’t doing well and they said the treatments weren’t working and they made her really sick anyway. She got a pumpkin but they couldn’t carve it. She didn’t have the energy to dress up in a costume and even though Vin was a pirate it wasn’t the same. They went to a few houses for trick-or-treat, but mom got tired easily and was coughing and shivering so Vin told her that he was tired and wanted to go home. Mom had protested and took him a bit farther and then they’d gone back even though another of the ladies from the apartment offered to let Vin go with them and her children.
She died on November 1st, just after Halloween. Vin remembered waking up in the middle of the night and seeing his mom standing over his bed only she wasn’t like his mom at all. She was shadowy and hard to see and she wasn’t tired or scared or in pain anymore. “Mommy?” There were no words though her mouth moved, but there was a feeling of peace that passed over him and he went back to sleep.
When he woke up again and went to see his mom to tell her about the strange dream he had Vin found her cold and unnaturally pale. Vin watched her for some time until the shadow-figure appeared again beside him and even though it wasn’t like his mom it was still his mom. He shivered when she tried to touch him. When he finally got up he went to the next apartment that was just outside and knocked on her door. “Mommy’s dead. She’s cold and she’s not breathing.”
Before the woman could go to hug Vin he turned around and went back to their apartment ignoring her calls for him to wait, to stay with her. Vin knew calls had been made as he sat beside her bed to see if the shadow was still there. She was and she silently led Vin to a drawer where she kept two rings, one with a pretty rock in it and the other plain. It later became clear that one had been an engagement ring and the other a wedding band, but he didn’t know that yet. She then led him to a small jewelry box full of pictures and other special memories. There was a way to get in to part of the box that was hidden and hard to open and there were small compartments for each ring where he placed the rings and shut them up, stuffing in cloth like she directed to muffle any sounds the rings might make on their own.
Vin knew he was going with daddy and had known it for a long time, but it didn’t make it easier when he got there. He remembered the arguments and the fights, the kicked-in doors and broken windows and he was afraid. When he came Vin cried and daddy dragged him away from his mommy and he never thought he’d see her again if he left her. Vin thought that the shadow would disappear if he left.
The shadow didn’t go away, though. Vin would talk to her sometimes and sometimes she would answer and sometimes she would move things. When daddy called him possessed and beat him she’d busted out all the light bulbs in the house and daddy said he was a demon and held him down while he burned a cross into the bottom of his foot with a cigarette. She’d been sorry, really sorry and threw a chair at daddy and made his head bleed, but Vin still got blamed for it.
At night Vin would crawl out his window and talk to mommy in the yard and beg her to come back. She couldn’t do that, though. It was around Halloween that it got worse because she became stronger and could do more things. Everything that happened Vin got blamed for it and she got madder and wanted to hurt daddy then daddy would scream at him and call him names – ‘you little bastard’ and ‘how the fuck did I get a satanic demon-possessed freak like you’. He would hold Vin down and beat him with his belt until blood ran down his legs.
There was no Halloween at dad's house. He was backhanded when daddy caught him watching a cartoon about Casper the Friendly Ghost. The TV exploded after that and the living room caught on fire until daddy put it out with the fire extinguisher. Vin’s eyes had gotten wide when daddy turned on him and he’d run as fast as he could, but daddy always caught him.
Vin loved his mommy even though she made things worse because she couldn’t help it and if she was gone he would have no one. There was almost another Halloween at dad’s house – almost because Vin had to go to the hospital because he didn’t put the sticks in the right place. That was when he met his first social worker that said that daddy had some issues he had to work out and that it wasn’t Vin’s fault, but he was going to be staying with someone else.
That was okay with Vin and he liked the new home with lots of kids where some were related and most not. They wanted Vin to go trick-or-treating with them, though, and Vin hid in the room he shared with a few other kids and cried because he didn’t want to go. Miss Judy asked him what was wrong because Dave made Vin cry more and try to get away.
He didn’t want to tell her because he was afraid she would say the same things daddy did, but Vin finally whispered, “Daddy says I’m a demon. That I’m evil. He says Halloween makes me worse.”
Miss Judy had cried real quiet and told Vin that that wasn’t true, that he wasn’t evil, he wasn’t a demon and that there wasn’t any reason that Vin couldn’t go trick-or-treating. Vin still refused to go. He went to another room when they watched Halloween shows. He didn’t want to even touch the pumpkins. He didn’t color any pictures at the foster home and he would not do any assignments at school even remotely related to Halloween or ghosts.
Mommy didn’t do anything at the foster home but watch and wait. When he went to stay with grandpap months after that was when things got bad again. Grandpap knew everything daddy had said about him being demonic and suddenly everything was really scary. Vin was dragged to priests to do exorcisms. Holy water was thrown at him. Grandpap forced his head under water to “cleanse” him and Vin thought he wasn’t ever going to be able to breathe again until mom made the towel rack come off the wall and hit him in the head so Vin could get away.
It was shortly after that that Vin got to go away to another foster home because grandpap had left really dark bruises on his neck from where he’d held him under the water. They took pictures of the hand marks on his neck and the bruises on the backs of his legs where grandpap had hit him with the baseball bat. Vin helpfully pulled up his sleeves to show them the hand marks on his arms where he’d been grabbed and shaken really hard. They’d noticed the cross that had been carved into his back and Vin told them that had been done with the glass from the vase. Vin didn’t tell him that mommy broke the vase because he didn’t want them to think he was evil, too.
Vin wanted to go back to Miss Judy’s house, but that wasn’t where they put him and he didn’t like the new foster home because they were strict and everything was always Vin’s fault. He wasn’t smart like the other kids. He couldn’t focus and do good even though he had to go to different rooms to get help with reading and spelling and math.
They tried to put Vin on pills because he didn’t pay attention and he couldn’t tell them that sometimes he was watching mommy. Sometimes he was watching other shadows, too. Sometimes his head hurt or his foot burned like it had when the cigarette had been pressed into it.
Mommy told him not to take the pills, though, so he hadn’t. He’d spit them out and hid them in his sleeves until they didn’t put him on them anymore because apparently they didn’t work because he obviously didn’t have ADD or ADHD because the pills weren’t working. Vin got into fights on the playgrounds and he ran away from foster homes when he got scared, but mom was always with him no matter where he went.
They said he was quiet and the other kids would sometimes make fun of Vin because he talked to his mom. Vin didn’t tell them it was because she was still there and could hear everything he said since he knew they wouldn’t believe him. Around Halloween Vin became even more quiet and the foster parents would pester him and pester him to open up, to join in the celebrations. Vin couldn’t. Most of the times he would end up running during those times. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get him.
Vin knew he wasn’t a demon child. He knew it because his mom told him he wasn’t. The problem was that Vin didn’t know what he was and it wasn’t normal to see his dead mother. Or the other shadows that were there that people didn’t see. So he didn’t think about it and didn’t talk about it and sometimes Vin could pretend that the things he saw weren’t there at all. Maybe then he really wouldn’t be a satanic demon-possessed child even if he would never really be normal.
-The End-
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 01:29 am (UTC)Nicely done. The part about his mom is heart-breaking - and terribly sweet. I love that she's trying to protect him, but it only makes it worse because no one understands.
This collection is very nicely done. Beautifully written and so true to the characters you've created in the universe. I'm fascinated with how well you've fleshed them out. I love the supernatural element to Vin's - the idea of his mother's love being that protective.
It does, of course, beg the question of what happens his first Halloween with Chris and Buck - and I hope we eventually get that story. When you're at a point you can write it.
Thank you so much for writing these companion pieces. They are excellent.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 09:26 am (UTC)You know, I'm sooo glad Vin and Ezra found Buck and Chris, 'cause those two boys have been so unlucky in the past, they deserve something good. And I can't think of anything better than them.
Love how Vin's mom is protective of him, even if she ends up making things worse. A mom is always a mom, no matter what.
And the supernatural elements of this story... you got me hooked from the first word to the very last.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 03:03 am (UTC)I really like the idea of Vin's mother in that respect, because, honestly? If it was my kid and I knew he would be left in less than ideal circumstances? Oh, yeah, I'd be that ghost/spirit blowing things up.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-07 05:41 am (UTC)