Mom | Grace Hargreeves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stepfordbot) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
umbrellajackassery2019-04-22 07:03 pm
stepfordbot) wrote in umbrellajackassery2019-04-22 07:03 pm
SYNTAX ERROR: PLEASE DEFINE 'SELF' [ OTA ]
They'd been doing well. The world hadn't ended, five was home, the house was full- they'd celebrated. They'd danced and laughed and lived and had fun as normal families do. They reached out to one another to build a better understanding, they spoke more than they ever did in their youth without the specter of Reginald hanging overhead. It'd been light in the mansion. Full of joy. Potential. For the first time since her creation Grace could say without a shadow of a doubt, she was happy. Without a single qualifier or exception. Happy except for the things she had to endure hearing Reginald say about the children. Happy except for how she wasn't allowed to truly be happy.
She was allowed to feel, to express that feeling. She was allowed to change her appearance outside of the strictly defined aesthetics painted onto her by her creator.
And then the ghost. The specter, the threat of everything she managed to recover, to build being taken away again. Of being pared down to the bare doll of a thing she'd drifted about as just after Reginald's death. Reminded in so many ways she has a place and a purpose and it isn't what she wanted- because she isn't meant to want anything.
She's a tool. There are rules.
It means resuming the old routine. The old appearance. All the lovely clothing the children, her children helped her choose folded away in her closet, unworn. Back to the old swingdresses and pincurls, the carefully painted lips and penciled brow. Back to stiffly, mechanically baking and preparing tea at a certain hour. Back to filling the dessert case, a single deviation from the old programming, because the kids are upset. They snack more when they're upset and cookies make everything better. How many batches she's baked now- she doesn't know. She's lost count. The counter and cooler are full of pies, cakes, and pastry, sweet after sweet kneaded, shaped, baked, and dusted with sugar. Flour on her hand and apron but not a curl out of place- not a single, lilting note sung under her breath. Grace bakes in absolute silence.
She was allowed to feel, to express that feeling. She was allowed to change her appearance outside of the strictly defined aesthetics painted onto her by her creator.
And then the ghost. The specter, the threat of everything she managed to recover, to build being taken away again. Of being pared down to the bare doll of a thing she'd drifted about as just after Reginald's death. Reminded in so many ways she has a place and a purpose and it isn't what she wanted- because she isn't meant to want anything.
She's a tool. There are rules.
It means resuming the old routine. The old appearance. All the lovely clothing the children, her children helped her choose folded away in her closet, unworn. Back to the old swingdresses and pincurls, the carefully painted lips and penciled brow. Back to stiffly, mechanically baking and preparing tea at a certain hour. Back to filling the dessert case, a single deviation from the old programming, because the kids are upset. They snack more when they're upset and cookies make everything better. How many batches she's baked now- she doesn't know. She's lost count. The counter and cooler are full of pies, cakes, and pastry, sweet after sweet kneaded, shaped, baked, and dusted with sugar. Flour on her hand and apron but not a curl out of place- not a single, lilting note sung under her breath. Grace bakes in absolute silence.
no subject
She takes no such care.
Discipline isn't something she ever handed out, Reginald handled such things- and what little was in her hands involved grounding, sending the kids to their room. Five? Cannot be kept in his room, cannot be grounded. Flitting through her available options settles on a single course of action that sits wrong even as her programming accepts it as the only way forward- hand darting out to catch Five by the ear and tug (frim enough to not let him twist away, gentle enough not to hurt.)
"If you are going to act out like a child you shall be punished like a child." If they'd ever wondered if some of the words in her came from Reginald? There's proof of it in this particular phrase, the diction and lilt unwieldy on her tongue as she pulls Five across to the nearest chair where she sits, causing the smears of pavlova to stick to the cushion. Not entirely unlike scruffing a kitten she hauls him across her lap like, well. A child.
no subject
And yes, for a moment she does sound a bit too much like Reginald for his liking, which almost makes Five flinch. Except that he scolded them out of annoyance so the kids stopped interrupting what he considered important affairs, not because he wanted to make them better people. He lets out a surprised, small squeak when she grabs his ear but doesn't even try to space jump away, doesn't even react to the pain when she actually hits him, mind buzzing with confusion.
Once it dawns on him what is Grace doing, his cheeks turn pink and his whole face heats up. Five has always felt more than he expressed, often annoyingly self-assured. It's probably the first time in decades anyone has actually seen him ashamed. When wetness pools at the corners of his eyes, he blames it on his body, too young and too hormonal, too hard to control most of the time.
no subject
And only when she's finished with the five does it sink in that she has raised a hand against one of her children.
The complicated tangle of emotions and conflicting processes flares behind her eyes for a moment before she shoves it back in favor of setting Five back on his feet, lips pressed thin, brows still lowered. The damp in his eyes hooks in deep- the urge to comfort near overwhelming, causing a warble to her previously stern voice. "You are going to clean up the cake and pavlova. Then you are going to your room."
She can't make him stay there- but cleaning up the mess he made? That's only fair. She...she has to change.
no subject
Why they always end having breakdowns in the kitchen is beyond Five, even if it always seems to be his fault. He's going to be avoiding the place for a while after cleaning it, at least it shouldn't take that long, even if his backside hurts. It's a distant kind of pain, he's had worse. Looking up at Grace and seeing her so conflicted pains him more but it will be for the better in the long run. And yet, he ends breaking eye contact, lowering his head and giving another compliant nod.
no subject
She should be. She is. She's-
Angry. She is angry and she's not meant to be angry with anyone, let alone one of her children. She's not meant to cause them harm. Her hand trembles before she turns on her heel, stalking back up to the room she'd chosen. It'll take half an hour for her to soak her dress and decide whether or not she wants to resume the usual rotation of clothing or to deviate. It takes a quarter of that for her to lose time in quiet, frustrated despair as she realizes what she's done- how easy it was.
How right it felt.
And how wrong the very notion was. Something of Reginald bound so deep in her processes and- she can't bear it. She can't continue with that in her. She won't.
no subject
The honest anger was something he was trying to get. The spanking not so much and it has come as a bit of a surprise. Not like he blames her, it's nowhere as bad as Reginald would have been back when Five was an actual kid. But maybe that's part of why she seemed so upset with herself.
After a sigh, he rubs furiously at his eyes with the sleeve of the blazer, annoyed at his own reaction. Time to clean.