Ficlet: Cutpurse

[serai]

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Cutpurse


His mother had shielded him for as long as she could, until the blows began to rain on her back and she let go, crying for him to run, to get help. Marcus dashed as fast as his legs could take him, but still they'd come too late. He'd sat frozen on the stairs as the gurney passed by, and cried so hard his throat had locked up, leaving him curled around a pain that turned him to stone. And he'd watched as they took the bastard away, because suddenly that’s what he was, The Bastard, and that’s what he remained, forever and ever. Anger reared up cold and dark and his last few tears fled before it.

A week later he got the first tattoo. That pain felt good, it dripped in thick runnels like honey, and he stored it up, gritting his teeth and staring into the floor, seeing her arm thrown up to ward off death. For a long time, he kept the little drawing covered, and no one else knew it was there. His secret sacrifice. Except her, of course - she knew it was there. One day he would pour the honey out before her grave, so that she could be free.

But for now, he kept going back for more. Marcus grew strong and quick, with eyes that saw easily and didn’t care, living by his wits and his knowledge of the shadows, and he sacrificed over and over. His biceps grew armored with sigils, his forearms wreathed in knife-edged flowers, his back a map of promises, each long sweating moment another drop to feed the rage that lived deep in him like a beast in a cave in the earth.

But his dreams late at night were of sunlight and white cloth and tree branches, so now on the spot where once she'd kissed him goodnight curled a bird, blue and white, a detail from the cover of one of those scratchy old records she used to play. There was a lot of blood, his skin being delicate there, but the pain so close to his ear became the swallow’s whistling tune, became the sound of the lullaby she’d sung when he was sad. Became the voice that would keep him steady, the voice that would keep him sane.

Comments

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

OMG! This is so sad and lovely. I loved it. What does the title "Cutpurse: mean?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Cutpurse is an Elizabethan word meaning "pickpocket" or "thief". Marcus is actually a car thief, but I liked the sound of the word, and it fit with the antiquated title of my last fic.

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for the explanaion.

I noticed one of your tags says alex o"loughlin. I watch Hawaii Five-0 and I know the character he plays had a rough childhood and youth. Does this story relate to that and to him?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

No, this story is about Marcus, a character he played in The Invisible, a 2005 film. My last fic, Revenant, is about McGarrett - well, a part of him, at least. (There's a couple more before that, too. I am been taken with him, as Valentine Micheal would say.)

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

Thanks again for the explanation.