Tag: mum

It’s Koschei’s birthday!          

************* 

 HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENT is one big box filled with all kinds of accessories and goodies; essentially an oversized care packaged, wrapped up neatly in gold wrapping paper (gabriel insisted, as he is the self-proclaimed “king of wrapping”). it has all of his favorite snacks, which may or may not be a subtle way of encouraging him to eat more. some very expensive jo malone cologne is also nestled in there, as well as a new laptop case because she can’t stand looking at the one he’s used so much he’s worn a hole in it. all this, and a velvet box, which contains a very tasteful watch, with an elegantly simple style that matches her own. rolex, of course. more significantly however, the watch is engraved with his initials: K.L.P. the same initials as her father. because all that time ago, she gave him her father’s middle name of “lucien”, in some small effort to start some kind of family tradition after her mother died. they are the initials on his adoption papers, and they are the initials that mark him as hers forever. a note in her familiar script reads sweetly.

          happy birthday, pup. i’m so grateful to have finally gotten the chance to see you grow. you make me so proud with each passing year, and even though you’re away at college putting everyone else to shame, you’re still, and always will be, my baby boy. love, mum.

The prodigy who’s finished his undergraduate theoretical astrophysics and engineering degrees in two years, and is now well into graduate school at the age of (as of today) 20, can be felled immediately by goodies from mum. Because mum is his hero. Mum is his model of greatness: merciless, ambitious CEO of the largest scientific corporation in the world.  And mum is just, well, the coolest.  

The years they spent separated by the circumstances of war were the worst of his life: survival in and out of psych wards and foster care homes that found his manifold mental health woes too great a challenge, on the streets becoming alarmingly proficient at major felonies, and constantly high.  Being rescued just after his seventeenth birthday those three Christmases ago, and reconciled to Dr. Pichiner … . he may never be able to articulate his gratitude.  He did try, just a few weeks ago, on her birthday.

Still, with eagerness, and a bit of greed, he opens the gold foil he recognizes as his adoptive father’s work.  He rolls his eyes good-naturedly.  Gabe’s grown on him.  Slowly.  Mostly because he’s so good to mum.  Even though he’s decidedly uncool.

He’s munching on some sweet and sour gummies while he opens the watch.  Dark clever eyes dart over the data provided: a Rolex like mum’s, with his initials.  He squints, and then his eyes widen with epiphany: has he ever learned his middle name?  Curiosity overcomes him and he hops up while distractedly reading the note. 

He dials Seraphina on his mobile. 

     “MUUUUUUUM!” he cajoles, when she answers, with the endearing entitlement of a child who has finally found a home in which asking for something, needing something, needing someone, is not a crime.  “What IS me middle name, ey?! Oh, and THANKS, it’s brilliant!  This cologne is WAY better than Dad’s!” 

materxnatura:

        ‘ koschei, i stopped working there for a reason. and for me,
                   me, to stop working there, that’s – you’re going to get hurt. ’

@masterfulxrhythm​ liked for a starter.

      “ … . Dr. Pitchiner, you’re … probably going to never speak to me
      again after we have this conversation.  So I’d … I’d ask you to just
      let me finish.” 

The prodigal young geneticist doesn’t welcome himself to a seat at the Californian ranch home of his former mentor and her husband: both of them ex-employees of InGen.  

He knows he won’t be welcome long enough.

So he fidgets with the amino acid lapel pin she gave him years ago, when he first came to the company’s employment as a teenager who’d already obtained a PhD.  He wore it today as a good luck charm. As a gesture of goodwill.  As a farewell. 

That’s obvious in the way tears gather in the corners of his eyes, as he inhales to speak, exhales, collects more useless words, and continues to quietly implode, a vein pressing against his temple. Finally he blurts it.

      “The Indoraptor was my fault. I bred it.  I bred it without Blue’s DNA to
        help it be more loyal and emotionally connectible.  I didn’t do it for 
        money, I did it because I wanted to be famous.  I did it because I
        was stupid and vain.  Then I realized too late I cared for the animal.
        By then they’d taken it from me and begun to train it to be a weapon.
        And it’s dead now … ! Grady told me Blue killed it.” 

He laughs feebly. 

       “So you see, you foretold the future.  I’m the Frankenstein’s ass
        that took your masterpiece and made a new animal.  And I already
        lost him.  Like you lost her.”  

materxnatura:

             WHEN HER ELDEST son doesn’t put up a loving fight, that’s when she knows something is wrong. her chest tightens in the familiar despair that all mothers like seraphina feel when their baby is somehow in pain, but of course she is a veteran parent who knows how to keep that from manifesting on her face. but she does let down her hands from his face and furrows her brow as her once jubilant smiles falls in immediate worry.

                                                            ‘ pup, what’s wrong? ’

@masterfulxrhythm continued from here.

Koschei’s round cheeks flush violently; having spent the majority of his life in mental institutions, drug dens, and on the street, he’s built a reputation for callousness, for manipulation and for sadism.  It’s hard to break that habit, and show his adoptive mother that he can sometimes be plagued with ordinary adolescent insecurities.

        “ … . it’s  the new baby. Not …! Not that I don’t wanna have another
        little sister, I joost.” 

He tosses his hair, ridding restless dark eyes of dishwater blond bangs.

       “I feel like I ought to make myself small so you don’t … you know,
        get preoccupied. With me. When.  Well.” 

He nods at the swell of her belly and shrugs fiercely.