[modern au - ficlet, Father's Fatal Error]

[population_ctrl]

Summary: For the prompt: I am my father's fatal error. Very short, 235 words. Warning: child abuse, non-explicit. * He remembers clearly the first time that Éric lost his temper; not out of any misbegotten sense of attachment or self-pity, but because it was just the right amount of unexpected, just the right kind of eye-opener. Though it’s more than 30 years ago, the situational status quo – watching some inane children’s show with Regate in the living room – is as vivid in his memory as its interruption, Éric appearing seemingly out of nowhere, reeking of alcohol. Cheap vodka, the bottles half-way empty on the kitchen table. The memory is like a movie reel from here, though oddly enough, he remembers it from a third-person perspective, like a fly on the wall. Éric grabbing his arm, pulling him to his feet like a rag-doll. Him, pulling himself free and pushing Regate into the nearby alcohol cabinet, shutting the door in her face before getting knocked to the ground repeatedly. It’s little but a memory and he rarely dwells on it, clear as it may be. Rather, he simply embraces the essence of it. That rhyme and reason has no place in the most basic roots of human nature and that sometimes, you simply have to expect the shift from silence to roaring chaos and deal with it accordingly. Accept its unpredictability and work around it. He’s not exactly grateful to Éric. But even so, he likes to think that it was a lesson worth learning. *