This is the worst thing I've ever written I despise it with a burning passion but I spent too much time on it not to post it.
I hate it so much I'm not gonna edit it bc it's not worth it
Ash never hated his parents. He disagreed with them, yes. But he never hated him. He just couldn't bring himself to.
He didn't have the best childhood but that was never their fault. If he hadn't been born they would have been happier. They could have sustained a more stable position of nobility.
He still thinks back to his days with his parents, three hundred years later.
How much better he could have acted. How selfish he was. It was easy for him to get caught up in the past. The things his parents said would swirl around his ears infecting his thoughts.
They still sit there. Three hundred years later.
Selfish.
Stupid.
Burden.
Broken.
Catalyst.
They never could seem to leave.
Ash didn't hate his parents growing up. He loved them, with some sort of twisted manner he didn't recognize until he met Olly's parents, and the way Olly loved them.
Ash's love for his parents was built from fear, and desperation for acceptance, attention, and a yearn for forgiveness.
He remembers how he would make things for his parents. He would write them letters almost every night, in hopes that they would open them and understand, and maybe, just maybe love him. They never opened the letters.
Sometimes in the dead of night he wakes up from nightmares about his father, which Olly had always assumed were nightmares about what happened when he was in America, which almost always had the same panic inducing effect but were much more frequent. When you spend so long living in fear of someone you love, the memories haunt you much more than the scars do.
He remembers the night his father got mad drunk. He didn't have a reason too, other than frustration. Ash remembers when he tried to take the drink away from him. Ash was worried he'd hurt himself with too much. His father didn't seem to care. They started to argue. Ash turned to leave.
There was a pop, and the sound of glass against bone.
Olly and never asked how he'd broken his arm and had never questioned about the scar on his right bicep. Ash probably wouldn't have answered truthfully even if he had asked.
Sometimes when Olly rubs his arms and shoulders his thumb will run over the scar. Sometimes it brings him back to the memory briefly.
But still. Through all this. He still loved his father.
When Victoria came along Ash loved her. She was sweet and caring and funny and smart and compassionate and selfless. Everything Ash wished he could be. He desperately wanted to be Victoria.
He's never admitted it before but he would often pretend to be her. When no one was watching he put on one of her dresses and pretended to go to a fancy ball. He pretended that his parents were gently talking to him about how he should flirt with the prince, just like how they told Victoria to flirt with the prince.
He had always wanted to go to a fancy ball, but that was Victoria's job, to be taken to nice dinners with their parents while Ash stayed at home.
The food was delicious. Victoria like to bring whatever she could fit in her bag back for Ash. Little bites of everything.
He spent all his time with her. He taught himself to draw her and when she wasn't there and he was sad and lonely he would draw her and pretend he was talking to her.
She would tell him that some day they would run away and live in a big world where there were parties and balls and foods to eat. She would tell him about this world everyday.
When a group of sailors were leaving for, "The New World" he naively went on their ship in hopes of getting to this beautiful place.
He arrived to find the world he thought it was, was very different from the battle and death stricken land he was in.
He missed London. He missed Victoria. He missed his mother. He missed his father.
He died and as time went on he slowly began to realize the cruelty he had gone through.
He hadn't ever talked thoroughly about how he felt and what had happened with anyone.
And now, he was married and Oliver had just told him they're taking a child in.
His hands shake, his lip quivers.
There's no way this is happening.
The girl playing with his snake right now is sweet and caring and funny and smart and compassionate and selfless. She's everything he wishes he could be.
He wraps his arms around his legs and closes his eyes tight to stop the tears. In his hand is an unfinished drawing of Victoria. He couldn't even remember her details well enough to sketch more than a vague oval. He looks back up to Oliver. "She deserves the world... And that's not something I can give."
