#ackerfrenchie

The Penthouse was silent.

It wasn’t a surprise really. There were many hours in the day that the living space lay in stillness, but the silence of today unnerved Levi and when he took his money clip from his pocket, setting it on the tiled counter, he looked around.

Erwin wasn’t home; he’d flown off to some corporate something or other, but he had left Petra behind. She didn’t usually get left behind; her job was to be his arm candy, after all, but Erwin himself was unnerved and Levi imagined he was using this business trip to get away from the tension that surrounded the house over the past couple of days.

Petra had gotten pregnant.

Neither of them knew whose child it might have been, and Petra herself hadn’t even realized her condition, so high on the chemical benevolence of Daddy and his Prince. Though the monkey wrench had shocked Levi into sobriety (for a few days at least), Erwin had not seemed half as bothered, dressing up their copper haired pet and kissing his way to the clinic.

Erasing a simple mistake, he had said.

Levi had cried.

And then he smashed the coffee table.

And then the television.

And then a window.

And then he cleaned.

Petra had come home, kissed him hello, and bragged about her “date” with Erwin, having no recollection of anything that had taken place.

Now she was sleeping, or at least he assumed as much, but the lack of chatter in the space and with a sigh, he pulled open the refrigerator.

He needed to care for her. He’d been weak, too unable to have any say in the life or death of what could have very well been his child, but he could still care for her, even if she didn’t realize she needed it.

Water was a good start, he supposed. Coffee might be better, but he’d wait. Fruit—no, maybe some crackers or cheese. Cucumbers, he settled on. Pulling a little metal cutter from the drawer, he sliced it, and pressed out the middles in little flower shapes, a wave of nausea flowing over him at the realization of how much like a child she was, how much of a fucking toddler they’d molded her into.

It made him fucking sick.

Flower cucumbers and a couple cheese stars on the plate for extra measure, he poured some water into a champagne flute and headed into her bedroom, nudging the door open with his foot and praying she wouldn’t lash out today.

@the-bark-is-worse

Life in the Zacharius household was a peaceful routine that Levi felt himself slipping into. He wasn’t at peace by any means, but as time wore on, sleep came to him sooner, deeper, and with fewer nightmares.

Petra was a remarkable cook and though he didn’t ask, he wondered if she had learned it from her mother. Neither Petra nor Mike spoke of the woman and Levi was not the sort of man to pry, so he thanked her for each meal and worked as he was instructed to.

At first, Levi didn’t do much by means of making the actual saddles, instead, running trips to the tanner to retrieve the leather, the blacksmith for the hardware, and of course, keeping the shop clean. This he found to be the most pleasing part of the job as it involved absolutely zero interaction with anyone and there was a definite satisfaction in bringing cleanliness to a space otherwise constantly littered with scraps of this and that.

It was a relatively silent life. Mike was not a talkative man and though Levi learned that Peta was chatty, she was not chatty with him, her wariness of him thick in the air. He took no offense to this; she was not cruel about it, and continued his days in his own mind.

After a week of work, Mike handed him a stack of coins and Levi stared at the money a typical, but meaningless frown on his face. This was a working man’s wage. Not one for a criminal.

Mike didn’t give him time to protest, moving upstairs to wash for supper and Levi slipped the money into the pocket of his breeches, his eyes on the windows of the shops, lest someone think he was stealing.

He set the coins in the drawer of his bedside table. He’d save them, he supposed. He didn’t know what for but, he didn’t have any needs that weren’t met by the benevolence of the saddler and his daughter and Levi was not a frivolous man.

During afternoon tea one day as he sat, sipping the luxurious white tea Petra had purchased for this fortnight, he remembered the simple black tea his mother would brew as they sat together in the mornings.

He remembered the coins upstairs.

The next day at lunch, he made his way to the tea shop. Surely peasant’s black tea was not hard to come by in this sort of city. He stepped into the shop, fully prepared to purchase a canister of the leaves.

Before he crossed the threshold, he was thrown from the shop.

“We don’t serve your kind!” the old man had cried, shaking a cane at him, “take your filth elsewhere!”

Of course. He may have a bed, he may have a job, and he may have been paid like a common man, but he was still a criminal.

Still a rapist.

Continued from {here} with @the-bark-is-worse

Realistically Levi could have done the math himself. He’d only been with her one time, a time be only remembered in bits and pieces. He didn’t even remember what he’d been high on that night. Something to ease the reality of being in a social situation anyhow.

He remembered loud music, people shoulder to shoulder, and being so. fucking. horny. That narrowed down his choice drug a bit as most caused his libido to flatline entirely but it didn’t matter what he’d put in his system. The point was, there was a girl on his doorstep and there was a kid in her belly.

His kid.

He wanted to tell her to go away; he had nothing to give her. How did he know it was his anyway?

He glanced to the doorframe, peeling with decades of paint, and the carpet of the hallway of his apartment building, stained with blood, shit, sweat, and God knew what else. She wasn’t lying. She wouldn’t have bothered coming here if she was lying.

He’d been hard to find on purpose. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to find him; he didn’t even remember he name, truth be told. But Levi wasn’t interested in being found by anyone. When he needed someone, he sought them out. He was fine on his own.

“Well,” he said, stepping aside, “you can come in if you want.”

He left the doorway and turned, placing the knife he’d been holding on the kitchen table and taking note of the line of cocaine he’d just cut before he’d been interrupted by an unexpected pregnancy.

Fuck.