WHO Genesis & Qebhet WHEN Sunday WHERE her apartment / their work WHAT Attempts at bonding are followed by a startle WARNINGS
Genesis had searched very hard to get herself an apartment that she could afford without the help of a roommate, and that was close enough to both work and the house of her ex-partner. It wasn’t for her own personal space that she wanted to live alone, but because it was harder to convince judges that Caspian should be allowed to visit if there was someone unknown who’d need police checks done as well. So it would need to not only be a roommate, but a squeaky clean roommate. Not the easiest things to find.
But today it had all paid off because today, for the first time, she’d been ruled fit to have Caspian stay over for the night.
It was infuriating the amount of work she’d had to put into everything just so that a judge (who didn’t even know her!) could tell her how much she was allowed to see her son and when.
Kingston didn’t help though, Kingston who clearly thought that Caspian would be better off with just a father. Genesis wanted to accept and understand the way her ex felt. From Kingston’s perspective it was better to have no mother at all than a mother who could fall back into drugs at any time and abandon him.
Genesis never would though. She would rather die than lose her chance to make things right.
But… she’d also told Kingston that her spiral into drugs had been his fault for abandoning her at home to raise Caspian. She had told Kingston - young and angry and drunk and waiting for her court date - that if she’d never had Caspian none of this would have happened.
Genesis had never been able to forget saying that, and she knew that Kingston would never forget it either. But she hadn’t meant to blame Caspian, she didn’t blame Caspian! It was simply that the previously very social Genesis turned out to be absolutely no good stuck inside the house with only a small child for company, and it was easy to feel bitter and frustrated when Kingston had barely changed his own life at all. And it was easy to feel bitter when Kingston kept going back to see the man who had once-
No. She didn't want to dwell on any of that. The only thing that should matter was their kid together, not the ways she felt Kingston had let her down.
Caspian didn’t remember all the times that Genesis had been his only parent when he was younger, but he would always remember that Genesis had gone to jail and left him and that she was, as Kingston’s whole family told him, unstable. She felt sure that at least one of them would have commented that if Genesis had truly loved him and wanted to be his mother, then she would have chosen that over the drugs.
If Genesis could have changed that past, she would’ve. She would have given everything to get back all the years with Caspian that she’d missed, and she would have been a better mother in every way.
Instead, Genesis had to look forward to the future, to tonight when her son was going to be staying over. She found herself looking around the apartment as she cleaned up, and Genesis judged everything she saw. The place was small and outdated, the paint in the bathroom peeling, one of the kitchen cabinet doors with a crack through the middle, furniture and crockery that was mismatched and faded. She pictured Caspian casting his eye over it and the sense of shame made Genesis’ stomach twist and churn. She wanted to make such a good impression on Caspian, but there was nothing in this little apartment that he wouldn’t judge negatively compared to his father’s much nicer place.
Genesis returned to the spotless bathroom to check her appearance, frowning at the lines on her face and watching them deepen as she did. She clipped her hair back behind her head gently and then smiled at her reflection.
“Hey kiddo,” she said, but it was a little strained and so she tried it again, switching up her expressions a little as she did. “Oh, hey kiddo. Hey, kiddo, good to see you. Hi kiddo. Hi, Cas. Hey there, Cas.”
There was a knock on the door and Genesis watched her reflection fall. “Okay,” she whispered to herself, forcing the smile back up. “It’s gonna be okay, he’s gonna have a good time. He doesn’t hate you.” He does hate you, the little voice inside reminded her, but all Genesis could do was ignore it and go to open the door.
Kingston was on the other side, Caspian beside him. God, she swore he’d gotten even taller in the last two weeks. It had been his fourteenth birthday two weeks ago and he was shooting up now. He was going to be taller than her soon enough.
“Hey, kiddo,” she smiled brightly and Caspian gave her a tight smile back. (Dammit. She should have started with ‘Hey, Cas.’ That would have been better.) Genesis knew this all must be uncomfortable for him as well, but if they both pushed through then there could be something special on the other side.
Genesis turned her smile to Kingston and she kept any and all bitterness out of it. ‘“Thanks for bringing him,“ she said, and it was genuine gratefulness. He could have made this more difficult, but he hadn’t. He was making it somewhat easy, for once.
“Just remember I’m coming to get him for church in the morning,” Kingston reminded her.
“At eight,” she agreed with a nod, as Caspian came into the apartment and slowly looked around. Genesis ignored that twisting shame again. She’d have plenty of time for him to see and judge everything. “I’ll make sure he’s dressed and had breakfast.”
“I can dress myself, mom,” Caspian said curtly, but Genesis couldn’t even focus on the tone because hearing him say ‘mom’ was such a win.
Kingston then proceeded to tell Genesis about where he would be if she needed anything, and the details of all of Caspian’s emergency contacts. One of them was Kingston’s father, a man who hated Genesis perhaps more than anyone else in the world and so there was no way that she would ever be calling on him. Genesis thanked Kingston anyway and when she closed the door after him, she turned to smile at her son.
“Where can I put my bag?” he asked and Genesis nodded quickly and crossed to the other side of the little living room where she had installed a curtain that went right across. “It’s only a one bedroom place,” Genesis explained, pulling back the curtain to reveal a single bed and a tiny bedside table between it. “I’m looking for a new apartment though. I hope this is okay for tonight.”
It clearly wasn’t. Her teenage son didn’t look at all thrilled that his bedroom for the night was nothing but a curtained corner. But at least he had the window, and it wasn’t the wall where the water pipes knocked all night. He dropped his bag down onto the bed and then the two of them looked at each other, awkward mother and awkward son.
They ended up having pizza for dinner - she’d let Caspian make the dinner choice - and then she’d offered up a few options for things they could do with the night. There was Netflix or she had some board games or there were a few evening nearby (cheap or free) events he might be interested in checking out.
He didn’t seem that enthused by any of the options, but conceded to a board game. “I don’t play board games usually,” Caspian said as she pulled out the boxes and put them down on the kitchen table. He was picking at his sleeve. “I play video games.”
“What kind?”
Caspian shrugged. “Just… video games. PC stuff. Like Elden Ring.”
Genesis shook her head a little to match her words. “I don’t know Elden Ring,” she admitted. “What’s it about?”
Caspian sighed as though it was a dumb question, but he gave her a mild answer anyway. Genesis asked a question to follow it up and from his next reply she found another question to ask him. Almost an hour later the board games had not been touched and Caspian was explaining some boss fight story with more enthusiasm than she had ever seen on him. For the first time, his eyes lit up and his hands gestured wildly as he tried to explain his favourite sword: It was the Godslayer’s Greatsword. It did fire damage. It scaled with dex and faith. You could infuse it with war ashes. It was the fastest colossal sword but did the least damage.
Genesis had literally no idea what even a single part of all that meant but it was with delight that she tried to follow along, happy to see him happy. She moved her chair closer as they talked about the game so he could show her pictures and youtube videos on his phone. It looked like the least interesting thing in the world, just horrible monsters you had to hit over and over. But Genesis was willing to admit that maybe Elden Ring was her new favourite thing if it would suddenly bring them together, even if it was just for a short time.
Hell, maybe she needed to download this game and learn to play it too. Maybe they could even play it together!
Once Caspian finished talking about Elden Ring he became a little less excitable, but the conversation had opened something up between them that hadn’t been there before. He seemed less devastatingly uncomfortable, and in the morning when Kingston came to collect him, Genesis told Caspian, “watch out for the mad pumpkinhead out there.” It was literally the only enemy she could remember the name of, because ‘pumpkinhead’ was a pretty easy one.
Caspian made a face and a laugh like she was kind of embarrassing, but Genesis would grip tight to embarrassing over being nothing at all to him.
On her way to work, Genesis pulled out her phone and texted Caspian to ask where she could buy Elden Ring and how to install it. She told him he’d made it sound really cool and she wanted to give it a go, even if she sucked.
Video games were never going to be an interest to Genesis, but she could maybe play enough to understand her son a little more.
Downstairs, outside the prep room, Genesis tied her hair up into a bun to keep it out of the way and put on her lab coat before making her way inside. She flicked on the lights and walked over to check the chart, seeing who was going to be worked on today. Mrs Afra Radden, car accident, would need reconstruction.
Walking over towards the wall of coolers, Genesis’ gaze was drawn to the floor where spilled water caught the overhead light. She frowned at the damp patch because it sort of looked like-
There was a second wet patch, about a foot and a half away from it and then- at the same distance away again- another wet patch.
Genesis told herself that they were spills and that she was making things up when the other thought filled her head.
Footprints.
Wet bare footprints.
She could see the arch of the foot.
She could see the toes.
No.
Not footprints, just- it was just a spill because there was no way for anyone to have made wet footprints with their bare feet in here, because who the hell would have bare feet in here? The only people in here who weren’t wearing shoes were-
Well, they weren’t getting back up to go walking.
“You’re being silly,” Genesis whispered, the creeping shiver down her spine as she put the clipboard down without looking and slowly followed the footprints out the door.
They were footprints but they couldn’t be footprints.
And yet here Genesis was following them down the hallway and feeling like an idiot from a horror movie but horror movies weren’t real and there was some sort of normal explanation for this and maybe if she just kept following she could find out what that was and-
The footprints stopped only when they hit the wall at the end of the corridor. They didn’t turn, they didn’t change, it was just one foot and then the next and then the wall.
“What the fuck,” Genesis whispered, staring down dizzily at that final footprint, each toe perfectly marked out.