STUCK | MxMxM

Chapter 17

IT'S HEREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! I had eye surgery (kinda?) so it took long to write this but IT'S HERE! 

This is not edited and written with a badly blurry vision and so much stress so... bear with it :D 

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Chapter 17

Joe didn't know.

Joe didn't know, even though he was living in the same household as Theo since birth. He didn't know his father once used a pillow over the toddler's face to make him stop crying on a drunken night. He didn't know Theo was put outside, when he was but a few months old because the nurses couldn't stop his cries. He didn't know the boy was always covered up in fresh wounds under his long sleeves and pants. Not that he saw much of him anyway back then. He only heard of those when, many years later, the nanny told him.

Joe was the servant's son at the Walton mansion. His family lived in a small cabin at the other side of the giant garden. He was born there and, when he was old enough, he started running errands in the mansion too.

During the first 12 years of his life, he never saw more than a passing shadow of Theo here and there. They were to keep away from the young master's bedroom. The only people who could enter were the many tutors that came and left every single day.

He was supposed to be this anti-social jerk who didn't want anything to do with anyone below the rich he had grown up in. Between the servants, he was whispered to be the most narcissistic, self-centered boy to have ever existed. Every time one of them got fired and left without a trace, the rest would gossip about the young master's complaints having had led to the lay-off. And naturally, Joe believed all that and disliked the boy just because.

The first time he saw Theo, actually saw him, was the night his father sent him back to the mansion to get some milk.

He could never forget it. It was exactly 10 o'clock, because he remembered it go off at the side of the living room. The building was covered in darkness safe for a few bulbs in the hallways and it gave the space this eeriness. Mr. Walton was by the fireplace, poking at the fire woods with the iron in his hand. A second after 10, the man walked to the metal staircase, hitting the railing once with the fire iron for each step he took up. The sound was loud and it made him flinch every time. Curiosity got the best of him — thank god it did — and Joe forsook the milk to follow the man quietly instead. He really shouldn't have been there in the first place. He shouldn't have been sneaking milk out. He shouldn't have peeked into the living room when he heard footsteps. And he certainly mustn't have followed the boss like a spy. But... he hadn't been able to help it. He'd seen only shadows of the young master, yes, — and he sometimes saw glimpses of his side profile when the door was momentarily ajar during the teachers' entry. The boy was always bending over book after book sat silently behind the desk that was way too big for his body and age — but the shadow had always looked so lonely to him and for some reason he wanted to see 'Master Theodore' up close very badly.

That night, when he arrived on top of the stairs steps behind the boss, he hid behind the wall and peeked inside the open door of the boy's bedroom. He was still sitting behind the desk, hands on his knees and head as down as it could go. Mr. Walton kept on asking him difficult questions, from the books Joe assumed, and the young boy answered everything one after the other in such big words Joe couldn't understand half of what he was saying. Everything was going alright and he was already bored and about to leave, when at the next question, the young master's voice didn't fill the air.