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Darwin!fic: Live a lifetime in a day (like some butterflies)
Yes, you read right. Dorky!Darwin fic is finally here! \O/
So, the idea behind this story came to me when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smunchkin89 dragged me to see a Darwin exhibition, so a lot of thanks to her for bringing me along that time and for not laughing too hard when I behave like a dork. A huge THANK YOU goes to belenustenebrae for her cheering and prodding without which this story would have been abandoned a long time ago. And finally, a round of applause for enaranie who betaed this thing and put her retinas at risk (you are a total angel!). Title and cut text stolen from the song Teach me again by Elisa & Tina Turner.
Title: Live a lifetime in a day (like some butterflies)
Summary: If anyone were to ask Charlie, age 5, who his favourite person was, Charlie's answer would be a sure and delighted "Dad!". He'd then blush, clasp his pudgy hands behind his back and looking at his shoes would amend "I mean to say, my Father, sir".
Rating: G
Word Count: +1900
Disclaimer: As you might know, Charles Darwin is a real person! I don't own him (or what has remained of his mortal coil). I wrote this just because I think Biology would have been a lot more fun if my teacher had told me "Look, ok. He came up with the Evolution Theory. It's cool, but that's not the point. The point is that he was a beetle eating dork".
If anyone were to ask Charlie, age 5, who his favourite person was, Charlie's answer would be a sure and delighted "Dad!". He'd then blush, clasp his pudgy hands behind his back and looking at his shoes would amend "I mean to say, my Father, sir".
Manners are not Charlie's forte. His mother, Marianne and even Caroline have reprimanded him countless times about his exuberance and asked him why he didn't follow Eras’ example. The answer is pretty simple. Eras is always polite, his tone courteous when speaking to older people and Charlie would like nothing better than to be as gracious as Eras when "big people" come to the house, but he doesn't like that Eras. He much prefers the Eras that asks him to help put caterpillars in between the bedsheets in Caroline and Susan's room.
***
Once, he overhears Marianne wondering out loud what Father thinks about Charlie's habit of fidgeting and bothering their guests with his loud chattering about sparkly rocks he found in the garden and basically making a mess everywhere he sets foot.
Charlie knows the answer to that question, too.
His father may be a man who takes his job very seriously, but that doesn't mean he is a serious man. Charlie’s afternoons are spent playing in the house, sliding down the handrails with Eras and hiding from the nanny’s wrath when they succeed in stealing sweets from the kitchen. His father just smiles at their antics and asks if they saved a pastry for him. If his father wasn't so busy with his job, Charlie is pretty sure there would be three troublemakers in the house.
***
The Autumn before Charlie turns six, Eras is sent to boarding school. That means that Charlie is left alone in the house with three older sisters who don't want to ruin their dresses sliding down the stairs, a younger sister who is a four-year-old, and a mother whose delicate health won't allow her to play with him like Eras did.
Charlie starts coming up with fables to pass the time and make his older sisters pay attention to him; they listen for a while, but they grow bored quickly, they give him an indulgent smile and then tell him it's time to start his homework. He tries getting their attention by hiding their ribbons and trinkets and then playing the hero by "finding" what was lost. It's much more difficult to break into his sisters' rooms now that Eras is not there to guard his back, but he manages. As far as plans-to-get-attention go, this one works.
That is, until Caroline catches him "stealing" her mother-of-pearl hairpin. Then it doesn't work anymore.
***
Charlie turns seven and his mother's health worsens to the point that not even the nanny can be spared to look after Charlie. He starts to spend his time outside the house and makes friends with John the gardener. That Spring Charlie learns that strawberries grow on the ground and not on trees, that there are three different kind of apple trees growing in the garden and that those strange looking pebbles he found in the lettuce are not pebbles at all, but chrysalises. He asks John what chrysalises are and he tells him that they're sleeping butterflies. He brings the chrysalises to his sisters, but they slap them away, call them disgusting. Charlie picks up the chrysalises and brings them to his room, puts them in a glass jar where he kept his brightly coloured rocks collection.
As a result of his nanny and sisters being busy taking care of his mother, Charlie starts to go to the local day-school. All the excitement he felt on the first day - he was going to meet new people who had to be better playmates than his sister - dissipates shortly after. The other boys appear to think Charlie is a simpleton. They are quicker to learn their lines and seem to be smart in the same way as Eras, but with a cruel twist that makes them make Charlie the butt of every joke.
The day of the "Hat Incident", Charlie runs back home angry and ashamed and he just wants to go up to his room and never come out again; his plan is thwarted when he passes his mother's room and she calls him inside. It's a first. His mother rarely engages with him outside of schooling matters, and since he's started going to school, any contact he might have had with her are practically non-existent now. He's afraid she's going to ask about the dirt streaks on his trousers - he fell on his way home because being a simpleton is not enough, no, he has to be a clumsy, too - but she just wants to know what the teacher taught them in class. He tells her about the lines they're reading, the ones he has to commit to memory.
Then, she asks what he learned. The only lesson he learned today is that his schoolmates are stupid, but he doesn't think this is what she'd want to hear. He's so upset over the trick his classmates played on him that he can't remember what he learned at school, so he tells her about the chrysalises. Her gaze turns sharp and she quizzes him about the natural studies they are doing at school. Natural studies are the only things that really interest him at school, so the answers come easily and when he doesn't know the correct response, she tells him. It's almost pleasant, this little almost-lesson with his mother; nothing like their earlier lessons when all she taught him were letters and grammar, Latin words and basic math. He has almost forgotten about the Incident when his mother tells him that he can invite some of his friends home to study together, if he wants.
Charlie freezes. He wouldn't want his "friends" to attend his funeral. He tells her that he'll think about it and then leaves, thanking her for the thing she told him about guessing the name of a flower by looking at its core. He's about to pull the door shut when his father puts a hand on the panel over the handle and stops him from closing it. Charlie is sure that his father must have noticed the dirt on his clothes and he's ready to come up with a plausible lie to avoid telling him about the horrible, horrible thing that happened today, but his father doesn't acknowledge him, not even with a brush of his hand on Charlie's head. He just pushes past Charlie and shuts the door quietly.
Lately, his father is always busy, either trying to find a cure for his mother, or out visiting his many patients. He's often distracted, irritated; he no longer asks for Charlie for stray pastries. He's not the only one to have changed either. When Eras came home for Christmas, he no longer wanted to slide down the banister with Charlie, saying that it was a child game. At first Charlie thought that Eras was joking, but no, he was serious. Charlie said "Come on!" and Eras told him that "child games are for children, not adults. Go play with Emily."
***
Charlie kept to himself for the rest of the holidays (except when he didn't and tried to teach Emily how to unlock the bolt on the kitchen door to steal some gingerbread cookies. She asked him why they didn't just ask for them, Maria told her that they could have all the cookies they wanted. Charlie told her that wasn't the point. She rolled her eyes and said "Boys". He stands by his point that little girls are not suitable playmates).
One night a week later, Charlie finds his father in the studio: he's looking at the black sky outside the window, his hand curled around a glass still full of scotch. Charlie runs to his bedroom and then back to the study. He shows a chrysalis to his father and tells him that it's not a soft pebble, but a sleeping butterfly. His father looks tired and sad, but listens to Charlie like his sisters never do. The morning after, he finds a book on natural history sitting on his desk. His reading is not fast, but Charlie is fascinated by the names of the plants, by the pictures, by the vast variety of living beings described in the book that he tries to find under the bushes lining the path that lead to the house, crawling along the roots of the oak in the the back garden, plunging his hands underneath the soil of the orchard.
***
His father doesn't find a cure.
Since the funeral, there's been a never-ending procession of relatives coming to the house. Charlie met so many aunts and grand-uncles and second cousins for the first time and all of them gave him their condolences and told him how difficult it must be to lose his mother, that he must be strong for his sisters.
What he wants to hear is his father saying that it will all be alright.
Emma said the next best thing. She arrived at The Mount with all her family the day before the burial and after all the greetings, the "adults" started to talk in quiet tones and broken whispers. Charlie wanted to scream. And then he felt someone tugging his sleeve. The youngest Wedgewood was fidgeting with the folds of her dark dress, her left foot scuffing the side of her shoe against the carpet. She sucked her lips in and mumbled "Can you show me where the garden is? I can't breathe here.” Charlie looks at her, releases a breath and he's nodding without even noticing he's doing so. He spins on his heels and leads her towards the double-door, past the dining-room and down the corridor, over to the open glass doors of the patio.
She hums, "Thank you. My name is Emma."
He looks back at her. "I'm Charlie".
So, that's how they met. He wanted to let out a scream and she wanted to take in a mouthful of fresh air. The Wedgewoods decided to spend the Summer at the Mount to help Charlie's father; Emma and Charlie spend all their time outside.
One afternoon, Charlie is lying in the grass with Emma in the shadow of the oak tree, watching the clouds float.
He's almost asleep when a fleeting shadow passes over his half-lidded eyes, something brushes feather-light over his upper lip. He squeaks, sits up, swings his head around to see what the shadow was and then he stares. Paused on Emma's nose, flapping her wings slowly, is a Gatekeeper. Emma's eyes are crossed, trying to focus on the bright orange insect.
She giggles softly, keeps her movements to a minimum and whispers "Charlie, look! It's so pretty! I've never seen one like this. Have you, Charlie?"
Charlie is confused. The book said that this kind of butterfly is not common in Shropshire. "It shouldn't be here," Charlie says, "It should be far South.”
Emma takes her eyes away from the Gatekeeper slowly and looks at him, the wings of the butterfly projecting a shadow on Emma's face shaped like a little lace mask, "Maybe she is on holiday."
The air is hot. The sun is still high and the only sound they can hear is the droning of the cicadas.
In that moment, Charlie discovers that wonders can be hidden in plain sight.
fin
So, the idea behind this story came to me when
smunchkin89 dragged me to see a Darwin exhibition, so a lot of thanks to her for bringing me along that time and for not laughing too hard when I behave like a dork. A huge THANK YOU goes to belenustenebrae for her cheering and prodding without which this story would have been abandoned a long time ago. And finally, a round of applause for enaranie who betaed this thing and put her retinas at risk (you are a total angel!). Title and cut text stolen from the song Teach me again by Elisa & Tina Turner.Title: Live a lifetime in a day (like some butterflies)
Summary: If anyone were to ask Charlie, age 5, who his favourite person was, Charlie's answer would be a sure and delighted "Dad!". He'd then blush, clasp his pudgy hands behind his back and looking at his shoes would amend "I mean to say, my Father, sir".
Rating: G
Word Count: +1900
Disclaimer: As you might know, Charles Darwin is a real person! I don't own him (or what has remained of his mortal coil). I wrote this just because I think Biology would have been a lot more fun if my teacher had told me "Look, ok. He came up with the Evolution Theory. It's cool, but that's not the point. The point is that he was a beetle eating dork".
If anyone were to ask Charlie, age 5, who his favourite person was, Charlie's answer would be a sure and delighted "Dad!". He'd then blush, clasp his pudgy hands behind his back and looking at his shoes would amend "I mean to say, my Father, sir".
Manners are not Charlie's forte. His mother, Marianne and even Caroline have reprimanded him countless times about his exuberance and asked him why he didn't follow Eras’ example. The answer is pretty simple. Eras is always polite, his tone courteous when speaking to older people and Charlie would like nothing better than to be as gracious as Eras when "big people" come to the house, but he doesn't like that Eras. He much prefers the Eras that asks him to help put caterpillars in between the bedsheets in Caroline and Susan's room.
Once, he overhears Marianne wondering out loud what Father thinks about Charlie's habit of fidgeting and bothering their guests with his loud chattering about sparkly rocks he found in the garden and basically making a mess everywhere he sets foot.
Charlie knows the answer to that question, too.
His father may be a man who takes his job very seriously, but that doesn't mean he is a serious man. Charlie’s afternoons are spent playing in the house, sliding down the handrails with Eras and hiding from the nanny’s wrath when they succeed in stealing sweets from the kitchen. His father just smiles at their antics and asks if they saved a pastry for him. If his father wasn't so busy with his job, Charlie is pretty sure there would be three troublemakers in the house.
The Autumn before Charlie turns six, Eras is sent to boarding school. That means that Charlie is left alone in the house with three older sisters who don't want to ruin their dresses sliding down the stairs, a younger sister who is a four-year-old, and a mother whose delicate health won't allow her to play with him like Eras did.
Charlie starts coming up with fables to pass the time and make his older sisters pay attention to him; they listen for a while, but they grow bored quickly, they give him an indulgent smile and then tell him it's time to start his homework. He tries getting their attention by hiding their ribbons and trinkets and then playing the hero by "finding" what was lost. It's much more difficult to break into his sisters' rooms now that Eras is not there to guard his back, but he manages. As far as plans-to-get-attention go, this one works.
That is, until Caroline catches him "stealing" her mother-of-pearl hairpin. Then it doesn't work anymore.
Charlie turns seven and his mother's health worsens to the point that not even the nanny can be spared to look after Charlie. He starts to spend his time outside the house and makes friends with John the gardener. That Spring Charlie learns that strawberries grow on the ground and not on trees, that there are three different kind of apple trees growing in the garden and that those strange looking pebbles he found in the lettuce are not pebbles at all, but chrysalises. He asks John what chrysalises are and he tells him that they're sleeping butterflies. He brings the chrysalises to his sisters, but they slap them away, call them disgusting. Charlie picks up the chrysalises and brings them to his room, puts them in a glass jar where he kept his brightly coloured rocks collection.
As a result of his nanny and sisters being busy taking care of his mother, Charlie starts to go to the local day-school. All the excitement he felt on the first day - he was going to meet new people who had to be better playmates than his sister - dissipates shortly after. The other boys appear to think Charlie is a simpleton. They are quicker to learn their lines and seem to be smart in the same way as Eras, but with a cruel twist that makes them make Charlie the butt of every joke.
The day of the "Hat Incident", Charlie runs back home angry and ashamed and he just wants to go up to his room and never come out again; his plan is thwarted when he passes his mother's room and she calls him inside. It's a first. His mother rarely engages with him outside of schooling matters, and since he's started going to school, any contact he might have had with her are practically non-existent now. He's afraid she's going to ask about the dirt streaks on his trousers - he fell on his way home because being a simpleton is not enough, no, he has to be a clumsy, too - but she just wants to know what the teacher taught them in class. He tells her about the lines they're reading, the ones he has to commit to memory.
Then, she asks what he learned. The only lesson he learned today is that his schoolmates are stupid, but he doesn't think this is what she'd want to hear. He's so upset over the trick his classmates played on him that he can't remember what he learned at school, so he tells her about the chrysalises. Her gaze turns sharp and she quizzes him about the natural studies they are doing at school. Natural studies are the only things that really interest him at school, so the answers come easily and when he doesn't know the correct response, she tells him. It's almost pleasant, this little almost-lesson with his mother; nothing like their earlier lessons when all she taught him were letters and grammar, Latin words and basic math. He has almost forgotten about the Incident when his mother tells him that he can invite some of his friends home to study together, if he wants.
Charlie freezes. He wouldn't want his "friends" to attend his funeral. He tells her that he'll think about it and then leaves, thanking her for the thing she told him about guessing the name of a flower by looking at its core. He's about to pull the door shut when his father puts a hand on the panel over the handle and stops him from closing it. Charlie is sure that his father must have noticed the dirt on his clothes and he's ready to come up with a plausible lie to avoid telling him about the horrible, horrible thing that happened today, but his father doesn't acknowledge him, not even with a brush of his hand on Charlie's head. He just pushes past Charlie and shuts the door quietly.
Lately, his father is always busy, either trying to find a cure for his mother, or out visiting his many patients. He's often distracted, irritated; he no longer asks for Charlie for stray pastries. He's not the only one to have changed either. When Eras came home for Christmas, he no longer wanted to slide down the banister with Charlie, saying that it was a child game. At first Charlie thought that Eras was joking, but no, he was serious. Charlie said "Come on!" and Eras told him that "child games are for children, not adults. Go play with Emily."
Charlie kept to himself for the rest of the holidays (except when he didn't and tried to teach Emily how to unlock the bolt on the kitchen door to steal some gingerbread cookies. She asked him why they didn't just ask for them, Maria told her that they could have all the cookies they wanted. Charlie told her that wasn't the point. She rolled her eyes and said "Boys". He stands by his point that little girls are not suitable playmates).
One night a week later, Charlie finds his father in the studio: he's looking at the black sky outside the window, his hand curled around a glass still full of scotch. Charlie runs to his bedroom and then back to the study. He shows a chrysalis to his father and tells him that it's not a soft pebble, but a sleeping butterfly. His father looks tired and sad, but listens to Charlie like his sisters never do. The morning after, he finds a book on natural history sitting on his desk. His reading is not fast, but Charlie is fascinated by the names of the plants, by the pictures, by the vast variety of living beings described in the book that he tries to find under the bushes lining the path that lead to the house, crawling along the roots of the oak in the the back garden, plunging his hands underneath the soil of the orchard.
His father doesn't find a cure.
Since the funeral, there's been a never-ending procession of relatives coming to the house. Charlie met so many aunts and grand-uncles and second cousins for the first time and all of them gave him their condolences and told him how difficult it must be to lose his mother, that he must be strong for his sisters.
What he wants to hear is his father saying that it will all be alright.
Emma said the next best thing. She arrived at The Mount with all her family the day before the burial and after all the greetings, the "adults" started to talk in quiet tones and broken whispers. Charlie wanted to scream. And then he felt someone tugging his sleeve. The youngest Wedgewood was fidgeting with the folds of her dark dress, her left foot scuffing the side of her shoe against the carpet. She sucked her lips in and mumbled "Can you show me where the garden is? I can't breathe here.” Charlie looks at her, releases a breath and he's nodding without even noticing he's doing so. He spins on his heels and leads her towards the double-door, past the dining-room and down the corridor, over to the open glass doors of the patio.
She hums, "Thank you. My name is Emma."
He looks back at her. "I'm Charlie".
So, that's how they met. He wanted to let out a scream and she wanted to take in a mouthful of fresh air. The Wedgewoods decided to spend the Summer at the Mount to help Charlie's father; Emma and Charlie spend all their time outside.
One afternoon, Charlie is lying in the grass with Emma in the shadow of the oak tree, watching the clouds float.
He's almost asleep when a fleeting shadow passes over his half-lidded eyes, something brushes feather-light over his upper lip. He squeaks, sits up, swings his head around to see what the shadow was and then he stares. Paused on Emma's nose, flapping her wings slowly, is a Gatekeeper. Emma's eyes are crossed, trying to focus on the bright orange insect.
She giggles softly, keeps her movements to a minimum and whispers "Charlie, look! It's so pretty! I've never seen one like this. Have you, Charlie?"
Charlie is confused. The book said that this kind of butterfly is not common in Shropshire. "It shouldn't be here," Charlie says, "It should be far South.”
Emma takes her eyes away from the Gatekeeper slowly and looks at him, the wings of the butterfly projecting a shadow on Emma's face shaped like a little lace mask, "Maybe she is on holiday."
The air is hot. The sun is still high and the only sound they can hear is the droning of the cicadas.
In that moment, Charlie discovers that wonders can be hidden in plain sight.