♪ Now when I'm very good, and do as I am told I'm Mama's little angel and Daddy says I'm good as gold
And when I'm naughty and answer back and sass I'm Mama's little devil, and Daddy says I've got the brass. ♪
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
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Fic word count: ~1,600
Warnings: Detailed depictions of child abuse (mental, medical, and physical,) canonical mistreatment of the Sinclair twins, the highchair/restraints being used on Bo, panic attack, near asphyxia, fear of death, smoking, psychological torment, weaponized love, Trudy and Victor Sinclair being horrible parents, childhood mental illness, all hurt no comfort.
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“Don’t you love your brother, Beauregard?!”
Does he?
Vincent is sitting in his big boy chair in the corner. His hair is parted neatly down the middle, smoothed by Mama’s doting hands and a lipsticked kiss. There’s no mask on his face today. His last one melted.
The brat left in the window where the sun could get it too long.
Not that it’s his fault actually. If the Doc didn’t insist on interrupting breakfast to prod at some scar tissue in Vinny’s nose that was making a whistle sound when he breathed, it wouldn’t have happened. Pulled him away and left his mask where it lie, forgotten for hours while he inspected and snipped the problem away.
And then there was a new issue.
Mama’s mold was still shattered. One problem the Doc’s cold, rough hands couldn’t piece back together into perfection. There's a hero cast somewhere that could make a new mold, but Mama wants a newer one. To replace Vinny’s year four mask.
Every second his scars stay exposed makes him cry. He doesn’t like being stared at and dissected like a bug with its wings pinned.
Bo isn’t in his big boy chair. He’s strapped into the too small highchair. The tray squeezes his stomach and the metal hurts his knees. Not as much as the straps though.
Not as much as his feelings when he’s asked about if he loves his brother.
Of course he does. Vincent is the only one in the house that Bo still trusts. And that means he loves him. Because it isn’t his fault the mask melted. It’s Doc’s. And it’s not his fault about the mold breaking, it’s Mama’s.
And it’s not Vincent’s fault that his face got messed up. That one is Bo’s.
Being a good boy and sitting still and letting Mama get her copy of his face should be just the easiest thing. He’s doing this for his brother. His only friend in the world.
It’s never easy.
Mama makes the mixture in a big bowl, hot water and some powder that turns orange. It’s slimy and smells an awful lot like marshland before a rainstorm. The schlop always feels clammy on his skin. Unpleasantly cold and wet no matter how dry it gets.
“Don’t you move now, Bo. Your papa’ll woop you.”
Lies aren’t allowed in this house, unless it’s ‘I love you.’ So Bo knows she means that threat. He’s got to behave or face worse than this.
Doesn’t mean he just can.
The alginate makes Bo flinch, rocking back to scoot his chair away from the sickening feeling. Mama don’t let up. She scoops up handfuls of it and spreads it on his face like it’s one of her fancy creams. At first she always leaves his eyes out, and his lips, and every time he thinks maybe he got lucky and she ain’t gonna drown him in it.
He’s always wrong to trust Mama.
All it takes is another handful, pressed against his mouth while he tries to scream his protests, but she presses her palm down hard so he can’t open it. Everything’s muffled, bottled up so no one can know.
The mixture sneaks tiny drops past his lips and makes him gag, once, twice- but Mama keeps pressing her clawed hand down until it starts to dry just enough that it holds itself. Then over his eyes it goes.
Bo tries to hold them open, but Mama always knows when he’s gonna do stuff like that. She purses her lips and blows a quick puff of cigarette air, makes him flinch again so his eyes close and she can take advantage of it.
Once it’s dark is when Bo panics for real. The healing wounds on his wrists tear right open again as he thrashes harder. The blood drips slow as honey, pooling around the leather straps holding him down.
It’s moments like this, that Bo questions his trust of Vincent.
Vincent who sits patiently in the corner for Mama to finish her torture so he can get back to being the favorite. Without his mask, he’s not wanted. An ugly, warped thing that needs covering up. Like a weed in the garden. Or a corpse in the Doc’s operating room.
Bo wishes his brother would help him. He wishes his mama would listen and take this stuff off his face. He prays that the Doc won’t come home yet and get mad and make things hurt worse. Or maybe that he won’t come home at all.
Mostly though, his brain is like static. Painful, heated, buzzing tv static burning a hole right through the back of his head. He’s in the middle of it, the dark, and sinking. There’s two little holes for him to breathe through, but he can’t get enough air.
Bo digs his nails into his own palms and draws even more blood, and underneath the sticky shell, he screams. And screams. And screams.
Nobody ever listens.
Mama tugs his messy hair in place of being able to slap his face.
“What did I tell you! Quiet while I finish!”
But there’s not enough air and he needs her to listen. Bo’s going to suffocate and all his mama cares about is making Vincent pretty.
Never learning, never getting used to the constraint, Bo tries to tear his arms upwards from the tape, to dig those blunted nails into Mama’s flesh instead of his own.
He can’t get them to budge.
She just keeps going, either not knowing about the mental threat to her safety or not caring.
The alginate starts to get tacky, so Mama wets strips of plaster gauze, the kind from Doc’s office like he used when he broke Bo’s arm putting him in his restraints a long time ago. Water splashing in a new bowl, rung out of each piece before its placed over top, just makes Bo feel even more like he’s dying. Drops landing somewhere in the abyss, his head underneath the water as he drowns.
Bo wants to die. Or he thinks he is dying anyhow. With the very last strip, Mama covers over his nose too.
Again Bo tries to scream, but barely a groan gets past his sealed lips. The full minute it takes to all harden up is far too long without breathing. What was a completely black void behind his eyes gets sparks of flashing red and white. He’s out of air.
A last effort to get his mama to listen, Bo rocks and slams his back against his highchair, desperately trying to tip it. The impact of the ground would force air back into his lungs.
He feels it start to give way, gravity suddenly weighing more heavily on him, but Mama hisses and rocks him right back upright. Her fault for putting a big kid in a little baby's chair.
Mama peels it all away then. From the outside it’s so easy, to cup the sides of his fake plaster face and ease the two layers back, only a couple scraps left sticking to his skin. She’ll help him clean up later if he’s well behaved at supper maybe.
First thing Bo does now is take a big breath in, but it’s too much at once after so long without air, he coughs, throat raw and dry, making Mama jerk back in disgust from him.
“Did you have to be so dramatic?”
Bo knows he’s crying when the image of his mama turns blurry. His face is already numb and cold and wet, but chest starts heaving with sobs, rising and falling all out of rhythm. Instead of his growling and screaming, Bo wheezes and cries and whimpers, unable to catch his breath, because of the tears this time.
The thing about alginate- it’s very sensitive.
Sure it doesn’t pull too bad once it firms up like jell-o, coming off easy from Bo’s eyelashes and eyebrows without disturbing single hair, but that’s just the thing. The rubbery, weak material ain’t meant to last long. It’ll dry out and shrink in a couple hours anyhow, the whole thing got no real structure.
Mama laid the fresh cast in a box of sawdust to pour plaster in it without spills or damage, and noticed, in the mess of Bo thrashing as it came off, a rip had formed. Right across the middle of his face from the side of his mouth to the opposite side of his nose.
Once upon a time, she’d tried to just patch it when it tore, only for the plaster face to come out warped, cheeks flattened and bumpy, nose crooked. One eye missing. She’d given it to the Doc to dispose of. Familiar story.
Mama clicks her tongue against her teeth, a noise of distaste Bo knows just as well. It sends a cold feeling down his spine, worse than the goop on his face.
“You know I’m gonna have to do that all over again now.”
His wrists won’t stop bleeding. They itch and burn as much as his tearful eyes.
Bo steals a glare over at Vincent in his precious, safe corner. His head down, he’s doodling something. Maybe drawing pretty pictures of Beauregard’s misery. All for himself. Selfish, selfish Vincent, doesn’t help and keeps the pain around as art.
Still, that’s no worse than stealing his brother’s face.
The scar on the back of Bo’s head aches.
“I love you.”
It’s for Vinny. To answer the question, he does love his brother.
Mama answers back, like she belonged between their bond,
“You love me. Well thank God you do.”
Her cigarette ash on his skin hurts worse than the burning in his lungs. The crumbling cherry touches his cheek and leaves a little singe by the corner of his mouth. His own tears soothe it.
Though smoke doesn’t make calming down any easier.
“You best love me, Beauregard. Show me. Be a good boy and sit still.”
