The Seven Strictures: Restless Hands
Summary: This is the second chapter of the Stricture fic (also can be found by tag on my blog), telling about Sebastian Renard's past.
This chapter consists of several parts. Each takes place in different moments in the past. Through all of his life Sebastian was surrounded by violence wrought by restless hands. Quite often - by a very particular pair of those.
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The other children keep their distance. Some of them, mostly the younger ones, are crying, others sit with forlorn expressions, hugging their knees to their chests or holding onto each other. It is cold and the old bare mattresses provide little comfort, but they sit on them in tight groups, like little animals huddled on bits of land in the middle of the flood.
Only the small shabby noseless kid sits alone and at ease with his back against the brick wall and his legs stretched out. He studies the rest of them with a peaceful and perhaps somewhat sympathetic smile on his mutilated face. Sebastian is sure it's his face that puts the others off. They find it hideous and freakish. That's what some of them told him on many occasions. The others, the ones he does not recognize, must simply share that sentiment.
He doesn't for a moment think it could be anything else.
Each time one of them glances his way, on Sebastian's face he finds a look of madness. They were torn from their families. About to be taken away to a place from where they might never return. Tears, anger, fear – any reaction would make sense. Any at all. Any but his.
One of the bigger boys lets out an unusually loud sob and Sebastian's eyes stop on him for a while. For once the smile leaves Sebastian's face replaced by sheer bewilderment.
"James?" he asks in shock.
The other boy's round red face turns to him. James Norris falls silent, his reddened eyes open wide with surprise. The quiet doesn't last long. With a wild roar, the chubby boy darts towards him. "You!!!"
Sebastian instinctively curls up into a ball, covering his head with his arms.
"I will kill you! It's all because of you!!!"
Pain fills Sebastian's world, but he doesn't make a single sound. Too many times had he been pommeled by those hammy fists. He's gone through worse things, far worse than this. Tears roll out of Sebastian's eyes, but he remains completely silent.
The door opens with a loud creak and James is torn away from him and shoved into the opposite corner.
"What is this, boy?! Do I see restless hands to be restrained? Let this be a lesson to you all!" the Overseer, who barged into the room, alerted by the noise, produces manacles from his belt and cuffs James's hands behind his back.
"I see or hear you making any more trouble and I will tighten the cuffs," the Overseer pulls on the shackles and Norris yelps in pain as the weight of his plump body makes cuffs dig painfully into his pink skin.
Then the Overseer leaves and their little prison falls completely silent.
Renard slowly comes to his senses and sits back up against the wall. His sides, arms and legs hurt. But after he wipes his tears away with a dirty sleeve, the smile slowly crawls back onto his face.
Soon they will all be going to Whitecliff.
He is going home. He is going to a place, that won't reject him for the way he looks. A place, where honestly and rectitude are a virtue and not a punishable offence. He will have a family again. An entirely male, strict, hard-hearted and fearsome family.
Sebastian looks around himself. It's supper time and everyone in the Mess Hall is tired and much more conversational than in the morning. Men talk, joke, argue or share an amicable or solemn silence.
Renard looks about the room from face to familiar face. He is sitting at a table all alone, eating dutifully but without appetite.
Two weeks ago James Norris did not return from his patrol. Two days and nights Sebastian spent searching for him whenever his duty allowed. Then a golden mask with a slash across the face was found nailed to the Abbey gates. Norris's mask.
It left no room for hope or speculation. James Norris was dead. The twelve days that followed proved to be a trial for Renard. Every morning he would wake with firm belief that James was there, on the bunk above his own, simply lying around like the lazy lump he was. And every morning he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as reality dawned on him.
Fourteen days without Norris. Without the man's inappropriate and downright insulting remarks, without his angry grim demeanour. Fourteen nights going to sleep without anyone to say goodnight to only to hear wishes of choking on spit and dying in return. He'd never thought he would be missing those. Or the snoring. Or the mess Norris always left around their bunk bed. It's pristinely clean for twelve days and it is starting to drive Sebastian mad.
He remembers the time when they were children in Whitecliff.
Then too he was alone. Most of the other children avoided or ignored him. Apart from the other bullies, who gave him trouble now and then, only Norris would seek him out on a regular basis. James would yell and snarl at him and beat him senseless like he always did. But he was there. He would talk about the street he had lived on, the by-streets through which he had chased Renard, his sisters who had always been nice to the pesky blond snitch that James Norris hated since day one. All those things both of them missed away from home. Sebastian would cry because the kicks and the insults and the memories all hurt. But while his eyes would water not a sound would leave his throat and that would drive James mad. In the end the bigger boy would grow tired of beating him and slump against some nearby surface and cry. And so they would stay crying together. Missing Dunwall. Missing Mrs and Mr Norris, missing Eleanor and Daisy and little Lara.
They were never friends, not really. Norris had other friends. Questioners most of them. Cruel and sadistic, just like him. But even as they grew up and Sebastian learned to stand his ground too well to be picked on, James would still seek him out now and then as a habit. He would snarl, spit insults and sometimes even try to fight him. But most of the time they would just talk. After coming back to to Dunwall, sometimes they would go to visit the Norrises and Sebastian would feel gladness at the sight of these simple honest people, who had sheltered him in his time of need.
Now the Norrises hate him. He is the leader of the squad James was in. Their son died because of him. He knows it is not entirely true but it is of little consequence. James is dead.
Sebastian snaps out of his reverie, when he hears Windham's voice at a table nearby. He glances toward the man. Sweet soft Windham never seemed to like him much. Who does? Well, Garrett Berinov - bless his kind heart - would likely hear him out. But he is on patrol. Sebastian sighs in resignation.
Perhaps he should sit down at one of those semi-occupied tables next time and weather the cautious angry looks for the sake of drowning in the chatter of others... assuming it would resume after his arrival. Or perhaps he should sit with the questioners. They never get as uncomfortable around him. Let them mock him for being soft and inefficient with the comparably few confessions he extracts. Anything would be better than this moping. He is not allowed to mope. He is a Warfare Overseer. His mind must be devoid of fear and sorrow, lest they invite the Outsider in.
Captain Rowe. He should go see Captain Rowe of the City Watch. Rowe had said it was alright, if he wanted to talk about it. About his loss. And he wants to. No, he needs to. Because if he doesn't he might for once break the orders given to him and go searching for James's murderer. That would be most irresponsible and utterly impractical.
So Rowe it is... perhaps tomorrow, Sebastian decides. And having mechanically finished his meal, he retreats to the barracks to wish the empty upper bunk goodnight.
Sebastian zigzags to take cover behind the chimneys, but he doesn't stop running. His feet barely touch the roof tiles, as he searches desperately for a place to hide. An attic window, a bigger group of chimneys, something that would make his pursuers race ahead. All he needs is a few moments out of sight to start climbing down.
But there is nothing. And the roofs are all on one level, leaving him at a disadvantage. He looks ahead and suddenly the gravity of his situation dawns on him in full. It's a dead end. There is maybe forty feet of roof still left ahead of him and then nothing, just the Wrenhaven.
Sebastian curses, feeling bitter and angry. He had it coming - being so brainless! He should have watched where he was running! He shouldn't have gone down close to the street! Never again will he take a shortcut over that part of town again! That is, if he survives. Renard stops running and leans against the last chimney, facing his inevitable demise.
The inevitable demise comes running in the form of four large oafs.
"Not so safe now, huh, snitch?" Norris huffs, leaning forward and breathing heavily as he fixes his small angry eyes on his prey. "This whole..." Huff. "... roof climbing is not so hard after all! You were just lucky before..."
The three other boys stand beside James all breathing heavily, but all of them smirking. They finally caught the ugly little freak in a trap on "his own territory".
"You know... it's actually better catching 'im up 'ere, than catching him down 'ere," Buck, the smallest bully and only street urchin among Norris's gang, nods towards the street. "Down 'ere, them adults wouldn't let the fun last."
"True that, Buck!" James agrees.
Sebastian scowls at them silently. He could mock their fantastic feat of climbing up a ladder to get to the roof he'd been on when the chase began, or their most courageous attack of four against one, but that would only make them angry. And he doesn't want them angry. He has seen them angry and has felt their anger. Let them celebrate, maybe they will go easy on him and keep the threats verbal only.
The looks on their faces say otherwise. James pulls out some stones from his pockets and so do the others. Sebastian winces involuntarily. He hoped they'd run out of those. From ten feet there is no way they will miss him. And if this is how it starts, then surely it will end far worse than usually.
Sebastian notices the glee on Buck's face. It does not bode well at all. He'd "stolen" some of Buck's clients as errand boy some time ago, and clearly now Buck's planning to put him out of business. And in his present situation that might as well put him into his grave.
James swings and as one the other three boys do too. Sebastian darts to the side, running around the chimney and dashing towards the edge. The four bullies only make it around the chimney in time to see him jump. They stand gawking as they watch the small boy fall like an arrow into the grimy water.
"He's insane..." Buck says quietly. "He'll break his neck and hagfish will eat him."
Snickering, the boys stare at the circles on the water.
"Rat's ass!" James yells angrily, as the little blond weirdo reappears above the water and after splashing about for a moment swims towards a disused sewer entrance. "We'll get you, you homeless ugly little shit! For now swim in sewage all you like, you... rat-eating piss mop!"
They stand like that a while, screaming insults down at the boy in the water.
Sebastian climbs onto a rock beside the sewers. He wipes the water out of his eyes, removes the wet hair from his face, grins and tilting his head back shouts "You know, I'm quite sure the chimney sweeps must have taken the ladder away by now! Good luck getting down from there without it!"
He smirks as he watches the bigger boys rush back the way they came. When they're gone, his smirk dissipates and the boy coughs, clawing onto his dirty wet clothes. It's late afternoon, he must do what he can to clean and dry them before nightfall. Sebastian stumbles to his feet with a grunt, and wincing from the hurt in most of his body, he walks away, heading nowhere in particular, having nowhere to go to.
Sweat trickles down Sebastian's forehead as he lunges to the side again and again, ecstatic, drunk with adrenaline. He is doing it, he is finally doing it! Sebastian suppresses the joy, keeping his focus. No rash moves, no showing off, only speed, focus and precision.
"Shit! Stop twirling like a fucking girl!"
The swearing does nothing to distract or discourage the smaller lad. Light on his feet he slips out of Norris's grasp and uses every opportunity to strike. At first the punches amused Norris, but not anymore. Every time he tries to strike the noseless freak, Renard just ends up hitting him instead, and that makes Norris more and more furious and out of control. But what really pisses him off is how defiant and smug the other teen looks. Unable to take it anymore, James tries to grab the little prick, but as his knees bend the blond punches him in the jaw, and then before James has a moment to even get surprised a series of strikes to his face and neck follow. Norris forgets about his own attack, trying to stay on his feet and in that moment the shorty kicks him in the stomach with all of his strength, sending James to the floor.
Sebastian breathes heavily, looking at the massive writhing figure on the floor. James swears, clutching onto his head and gut and Sebastian feels a mighty urge to kick him. Kick him like Norris kicked him all those years. Oh, but it wouldn't hurt half as much. Perhaps if he found a nice metal beam – then he could return the pain Norris had so gladly given him through all these years...
And then he snaps out of it. It's over. He won. There is no reason for him to hurt James anymore. Indulging his lust for retribution would be against the Strictures. Reluctantly he steps away, dropping his battle stance.
"If you try to pick on me again, James, I will beat you again," Sebastian says in a husky deadpan voice. "You don't want your friends to see that."
"Fuck you, you little cock-sucker!"
"Restrict your lying tongue, Norris. And your restless hands."
"I'll get you, you-" James lurches at him, but Renard dodges and slams him on the back with both fists. Norris lands with a grunt. "This isn't over!" James snarls, pulling himself up as best he can, but when he turns around, Sebastian is already gone.
Notes: James Norris was a big part of Sebastian's life. A big angry violent part, that wanted him dead half of the time. Nonetheless, you don't go through hell and back with someone without getting attached. Whitecliff and Abbey work brought the two together despite their mutual hatred, that slowly faded replaced by a sort of antagonistic brotherly bond. They still felt largely annoyed or outraged by one another, being opposites in too many ways, but their squabbles had turned from genuine insults and threats to semi-humorous idle talk.
In the end Norris's Restless Hands were the end of him (that is a whole separate story). After a lot of guilt-ridden mourning, Renard's memories of him reconfigured themselves into a mostly fond memory of a much better man than Norris had every been. Everyone else at the Abbey found the change in Sebastian's attitude towards Norris postmortem either disturbing or ridiculous.
No illustration for this chapter sadly, I apologize.
(Mentions of characters not belonging to me: obviously Windham, the gay Overseer from game canon; Garrett Berinov, a big nice and reasonable Tyvian Overseer, belonging to saint-ripu, and Wilbur Rowe, a Captain of the City Watch, whom Seb admires, belonging to luffik)
