Chapter Text
Humans unconsciously strive for any sense of immortality, buying expensive products to make themselves look 10 years younger than their own children, doing meticulous treatments that could possibly risk bankruptcy to only get rid of the annoying wrinkles at the corner of their eyes, pulling out silver hairs as if they were a contagious white plague. It makes everything feel like it could last forever, but eventually everyone will rot away and nothing that they did in their miserable life to preserve the slightest ounce of youth will save them from death.
Yet for a man whose only true passion in life is quite the contrary of existence itself, that being the end of it, to be damned with the inability to achieve the only thing that he craves most was like the universe unapologetically flipping him off.
what a curse.
He wasn't exactly sure how he had turned out this way. Eliè was born out of a forbidden relationship between a prostitute and a french aristocrat. It wasn't forbidden per se, but heavily judge upon by the aristocrat's family who obviously wanted him to spend the rest of his life with a nice church girl instead of a ' dirty slut' to hold up their polished reputation. That wasn't remotely close to stopping their passion for each other tho and soon after, and against all odds, she got pregnant with a sweet baby boy. Said pregnancy demanded her to get some well needed time off work because you can't really sell your body with a belly as big as that. She was sure that some of her clients were as sick and twisted as to not even mind it, hell, even enjoy it but she wasn't about to risk her baby's health for their crude fantasies.
To tie the bond even deeper together they got married on a summer afternoon under the setting sun. To no one's surprise, none of their family members attended, either because they would rather miss their son's wedding instead of seeing him happily marry a 'whore' or simply because they were long dead. They were left with no one to rely on, but they were young and happy and oh so in love.
Life was easier after that. They didn't have as much money seeing as she quit her job to be true to her only love and he got formally disowned by the people that had raised him all his life. Nonetheless, life went on and everything happening around them didn't stop them from awaiting the day their most cherished gift would come into the world.
Labour was hard on her body but it was all worth the effort as soon as she got the see her baby's scrunched up sleepy face his her husband's arms, the Frenchman looking down at the little creature with a soft smile on his face and tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
They called him ' Eliè '
Their sweet Eliè.
For a short amount time they lived happily, owning a small loft and doing humble work to survive. Mornings were spent changing diapers, afternoons cuddling on the couch, evenings welcoming dada home after a long day of work and nights coddling their little baby to sleep. It was a beautiful bliss of freedom.
But like any happy moment ever written in our existence, it never lasts forever.
Tragedy struck their little family just a few months after Eliè's birth, a part long forgotten of his mother's past suddenly surging back up unannounced and roping her into the worst of her nightmares. She had left that life behind long ago, had become a new woman yet it seems that her past didn't want her to escape so easily.
One of her most obsessed clients she had back then, a truly disgusting and vile individual, managed to find her and in cold-blooded fashion take her life away on a winter evening. She was returning home, groceries in hand and street lamps barely lightening her path when out of thin air she was pulled into a dark alley and knocked unconscious.
What followed wasn't pretty to say the least and even calling the deed cruel and grotesque would be an understatement. She was found in the same alley way the next day, clothes ripped and in a pool of her own blood under the flashes of the evidence taking camera. It was a gruesome sight, one that shook their family to crumbles and made their life's miserable.
Now only two plates of food were cooked in the evening, only two pairs of shoes sat next to the front door, only two toothbrushes sat in a plastic cup above the sink. An inexperienced father was left to fend for himself, his baby and for his wife's justice all meanwhile he balanced work, his child's care and talking with lawyers to get the man who murdered his wife locked up. Not too long after they found the perpetrator dead in his own home, suicide by a hanging. Pathetic.
Depression hit his father hard, he didn't have the opportunity to see the monster who had killed the only love of his life, his woman, his wife, suffer just as he had made her before her death. He blamed himself, 'why couldn't it have been me..?' was whispered softly behind closed doors every night. He turned into a completely different person, now numb, distant and monotone.
As Eliè grew up they barely talked, occasionally paying each other company but there were no loving hugs, no affirmative words and no deep-rooted relationship. He felt like a stranger in his own house, like something that was only tolerated enough to be allowed to stay. There was no abuse, no screaming and no fighting and it was the lack of any interaction at all that made Eliè feel like he would cherish even a fist to the face more so as to not be left alone in silence.
But the silence only got worse.
His father couldn't take it anymore, gun in his hand, blood splattered across the white walls and freshly made bed. Eliè was eventually bound to find him after he would return home, the house felt quiet and cold like always but with a slight twinge of something metallic in the air.
It was strange.
He didn't even cry when he found his father's lifeless body slumped on the floor. It wasn't because he didn't let himself be perceived as weak or even because he didn't love his father, in fact he loved his father very much, but it was because he simply didn't have the urge to. There was no tightness in his throat, no swelling tears in his eyes, no trembling in his voice. The police questioned him shortly but it was ruled as a suicide not long after due to all the evidence pointing to it.
The morning after felt almost too normal, the house filled with a serene air and eerily domestic. He had just turned 18 a few weeks prior which meant that he wasn't legally required to be taken into foster care after being orphaned. It felt like a raw punch to his guts, suddenly being kicked into the real world without any notice and having to figure everything out for himself. There was no one to talk to when he got evicted out of the house, no one to ask for advice when he was forced to sleep in a homeless shelter, no one to hug him when things got especially bad (although he guessed it had been like that all his life anyway)