“Okay…well. Good to know. What more would you like to know?”
“Were many of your interactions with the couples and families growing up similar to this?”
He shrugged. “I was in the group home for about a year longer, after a few more failed adoptions. They pretty much all ended the same way, then I found myself cycling through foster care homes. My interactions were similar; disinterest on my part, a bit of fear on theirs, disappointment for the ones who’d been looking to adopt through the system that way, with theadded bonus of those just doing it for money. At least until I was six, I believe.”
Wes nodded. “Age six, that’s school age, so I imagine life would have to change. Or are you talking about another kind of change?”
“Well, my oddities had them putting me in foster homes, who at the time were just starting out, or...didn’t have other children, but around age six, I began being placed in homes with others. Not to mention, as you said, school started.”
“I don’t imagine you suddenly found interest in the people around you. And it’s not as if you weren’t around others before, so beyond that, what new things or thing came about?”
Not a thing really, more a feeling. One that he now felt often, and hadn’t hesitated to carry out in the many years since.
“Right, as I was turning six, I was placed in a foster care home with six other kids. Three were teenagers, while the others ranged from my age up to age ten. It was loud, and while the foster parents weren’t necessarily abusive or overly restrictive, they were obviously there for a check, and weren’t big on actually parenting. And as the teenagers had been there the longest, there was also a bit of a divide between the three teens and the rest of us, in that the teens felt they had more right to everything, on top of feeling superior to us younger ones.”
“So, they were little assholes is what you are saying.” Foxx sniffed. “Well, they are at the top of my dislike list when it comes to ranking children by age group.”
“You…have a list?” Wes asked hesitantly.
Harlow chuckled. “To be clear, all children are on his dislike list, as he doesn’t like children. Neither do I, for that matter. Well, I don’t… No, I suppose if I have any feelings towards children at all, it would be dislike. Though I generally don’t care or think about them at all.”
Harlow would have been neutral about them if…they weren’t so…disgusting and…didn’t touch people so fucking easily without asking.
“Nope, don’t like them, don’t want them,” Foxx chimed.
“Okay…” the human drawled slowly. “We can…discuss more on that later. Harlow, I think this is the first time you have spoken about yourself during childhood in a collective way. As part of a group.”
“I wouldn’t have, and didn’t for the first few months I lived there, but…the oldest of the younger group, a child named Tommy, did something no one else had.”
“What did he do? Was it something bad?!” the vampire hissed.
Harlow smirked. “No, nothing bad. It would get bad, but it wasn’t because of him. Tommy was just the first person to respect my choice to not interact with the world. We didn’t really eat at the table, and I sometimes wouldn’t eat at all, if I didn’t feel like bothering to walk through the chaos to grab a plate. The kid would come with two plates, and sit beside me in whatever corner I was using to avoid the rest. He never said a word or asked anything. Tommy would do it outside of mealtimes too. He never once demanded I perform some bullshit fake emotions for him, or make any demands from me at all. He was just a silent presence.”
Tommy… Tommy was someone he hadn’t thought about in a long damn time either.
“Aww…he sounds sweet.”
“I suppose he was a good kid.”
Wes’ brow rose. “Was?”
Harlow grimaced. “He was murdered by the foster family he was placed with next. Not that the government called it that.”
Foxx’s grip on his arm tightened, the vampire growling, “What bastards.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the human murmured softly.
“Yeah, it sucks. But that’s further down the line of fucked up shit. Moving back to that house and those teens. Having someone who didn’t poke at me was new, but not really what I was referring to about a change in my interactions, though I suppose it was a slight change. Really, what I was talking about is, in that house I experienced my first homicidal thought.”
“Can’t say I remember my first time wanting to kill someone,” Foxx hummed, as if Harlow having such a thought at age six wasn’t abnormal at all.
He smiled. Yep, his brat was definitely not normal.
Wes’ lips pursed. “From disinterest to wanting someone dead. That is a change.”
“Well, you said the foster parents weren’t abusive, so I’m guessing it’s one of the teens you thought about killing,” Foxx deduced.
The dhampir chuckled. “Correct. I think before that point I felt little, not even a bit of rage. I had basically been living my life washed in apathy. But one of the teens, Joshua, got it in his head that me refusing to talk to him was disrespectful, and personal. More so after he realized Tommy seemed to like to stay around me. The kid started in on Tommy one day. To be clear, I was six, and I was small for my age, but Tommy, despite being four years older, was somehow my size, yet…thinner.
