Prompt#301 –Corrupt - When Magic Fails - Tekia - Original

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: When Magic Fails
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Corrupt
Warnings: none
Rating: G
Summary: Thomas had always felt that there was something more to the world.
Thomas had always felt that there was something more to the world than what he was allowed to see. He thought that perhaps the people around him had forgotten what hopes and dreams were, and had settled for what was handed them. Content in their oblivion.
When he was just a toddler, his nanny had used to read fairytales to him, her voice hushed and softly lulling him into a sleep filled with dreams of magic. Magic he had quickly learned never existed.
Science was real, his father told him, magic stuff made up by those too stupid to understand the science behind everything. When his nanny had left the house on his fifth birthday, she took the magic with her and he pushed his own dreams and hopes to the back of his mind to be forgotten.
He had to become a genetic scientist like his parents to prove to the entire world that he wasn’t a failure even though his own genes had had free reign to corrupt him in appearance and intelligence.
From his earliest memoires he had been told how defected he was. Conceived by mistake, his mother hadn’t discovered that she was with child until well after the time of safely aborting the fetus. He had been born with brown hair, far distant from both his parents black hair, a soft copy of his grandfather’s deep mahogany mane. He was far shorter than everybody else in his family, but he figured that was because he was still growing. He had hope that he would be as tall as his father one day, because, after all his studying, that seemed to be a family trait. His eyes, on the other hand, he was sure of. They were as blue as his mothers, bright and clear, and really, the only thing that none of the other children could tease him about, as it was his mother’s eyes that had made her famous.
Despite his defects from being born without the proper genetic arrangement, Thomas often felt that he had turned out alright. His father was cold to him, but only because his father was a famous and highly sought after genetic surgeon. His children didn’t have enough money for his time. The same could be said of his mother. She had far too much on her plate to look after the two boys she had given birth to.
So Thomas was sent to school when the time came and he learned to ignore the taunting of his older brother and their peers as they mocked Thomas for a mole that he had been born with on his chin. Thomas was too young for cosmetic surgery, so it still remained.
He had to work extra hard to get attention from his parents, and when good marks in school didn’t do it, bad reports from his instructors did. He had his brother, Christopher, fought every time they were in the same room. Christopher was older by two years and used it to his advantage. He pushed Thomas when their parents weren’t looking, and Thomas was never cowed enough to not retaliate. He tripped Thomas in the halls of their academy, and Thomas was never embarrassed enough not to jump to his feet and shove Christopher into a locker.
It seemed to Thomas that he spent more time in the dean’s office than he did in classes some weeks. He spent even more time in his father’s bad graces, confined to his room or to the massive dining table while the rest of the family when about their separate lives.
The final straw for his father came the day Thomas broke his brother’s nose in the front hall of their house.
Thomas stood, rooted to the spot, as his brother knelt on the hard marble floor, holding his hands to his face as blood dripped from between his fingers. Shocked and silently pleased with himself, Thomas waited for the staff and his parents to arrive.
He was roughly shoved aside by his mother in her quest to hold her beloved, genetically perfect son. His father ordered him to his room. He was to pack his bags, for he had had enough of Thomas’s wild behavior and was being shipped off to stay with his uncle until he learned to grow up.
His uncle was much older than his father. He seemed to be half his father’s age, at time, rushing to and fro, always with a frown on his face that leant him the air of a man always on a mission. He had a golden head of hair and dark blue eyes and towered over everybody else, his limbs long and lithe. He welcomed Thomas and introduced him his own students.
Uncle Jonathan had taken two youths in, teaching them all he knew in his own field of science that not many people talked about. Not even the two students, although of an age with Thomas, would speak of it. When Thomas brazenly asked Jonathan about it, his uncle would gaze at him for a long silent moment before speaking.
“I don’t think your father would like you dabbling in my type of science.”
“But what type of science is it?”
Jonathan smiled, patted him on the shoulder and urged him to go outside and play while he had the chance. While he did know that Thomas was living with him as punishment, he also knew that Thomas’s parents were poor parents. He wanted Thomas to have fun while growing up, and so gave him time to play, time to come into his own.
It wasn’t until he was fourteen that Thomas learned that his father had been right all along. Science was in everything.
He was wondering through the halls of Uncle Jonathan’s mansion and came to his office, the door ajar, and his uncle nowhere in sight. Looking both ways up and down the hall, Thomas fought with himself. His uncle and his two students were gone for the day to who knows where. They often were gone for long hours, leaving Thomas with either: his personal tutor, his books, or the horses that were kept in the back.
It would be quite a while before they returned. He quickly stepped into the office and closed the door behind him with a soft click.
The room was dark; dark wood furnishings, deep burgundy rugs, and heavy curtains over the large windows. The desk sat before the window, wide and impressive for all the papers strewn about the top. Thomas peered over the papers, most appearing to be only letters, while some appeared to be hand written in faded blue ink.
Thomas sat in the chair, carefully balanced on the plush cushion and smiled to himself. This is where his father wanted him to be: behind a desk, feared and respected by all. Maybe the head of the department of genetics. Then he frowned. No, his father wanted that for Christopher, not him.
Suddenly tired of his dawdling, Thomas stood and moved to step around the desk and leave the room. His shin caught on a drawer of the desk and he tripped. Cursing the pain, he clutched his leg to his chest, eyes clenched closed. When he finally opened his eyes, he found that he had knocked the drawer further open and a book, tattered and filthy with decay, hidden inside.
Looking up to make sure the door was still closed, he pulled the book toward him carefully and untied the thin string holding it together. He laid out the papers on the desk, eyes wide.
The ink of the book was blue, faded. The papers were discolored with age and crackled in his hands. The words were ancient. With his heart fluttering in his chest, Thomas quickly found his tablet in his jacket and pulled out the stylus. If he worked quickly, he could copy the book and have it returned to its hiding spot well before Uncle Jonathan returned and he’ll never know Thomas was there.
Tongue sticking out, Thomas carefully began to copy the ancient language that he knew to be Old English with its conjoined letters and familiar sounds. Some words, when spoken with a modern English accent, were very familiar indeed and Thomas thought back on his father’s words from years ago, twisted to fit Thomas’s present thoughts.
Science was a type of magic.