chapter cws:
graphic descriptions of: murder, general physical harm
other cws for: disturbing thoughts, grief, parental trauma, mental illness, unreliable narrator, canon divergent plot (in terms of Krystall Richards), reader is Krystall's son, male!reader
(Note: I will post a series cw list once the first chapter is done along with individual ones for each chapter. Also if you think I need to add any cws please feel free to comment and I'll get them added!)
moodboard
It got easier, the more he did it.
Whether it was his strength improving, or muscle memory, he wasn’t sure. But still here he is now, a year into this endeavour. The first time was an accident, he’d told himself, but deep down he knew it wasn’t. Deep down he’d craved for years to get revenge on the man who had ruined him- who had left him with no chance because he wasn’t the one he wanted. He shouldn’t have survived, so he was going to make his life hell in return.
The grave he’d stood at was small, kept in a garden with other tiny plaques and memorial pebbles- anything that could fit a name and one date on it. 28 years. An older brother that he never met, and yet for all 25 of those 28 years he’d lived through, he’d been reminded that brother was everything he’d never be-
“Richards.” A voice ripped him from his thoughts, a bored and uninterested tone accompanying the tired look on his coworker’s face. He stares blankly, clearly there was a question he hadn’t heard, and was about to hear again. “I asked how your weekend was.”
A shrug is the only answer she gets. Not that that was anything new, he wasn’t the talkative type, which was precisely why he worked on a tech team. Less people, less interaction, less annoyance. In the time it had taken him to raise and drop his shoulders, the woman across from him had started up her daily rant about her husband and how he refused to pull his weight around the house, how she hated him but not enough to leave him because of the kids. Richards scoffed slightly, earning a pause from the unhappy wife. Fathers were a constant thought in his mind, something he both despised and craved, like picking open the same wound over and over again till it scars so deep you’re changed forever. Not some pigmented reminder of the past, but a deep, ragged fissure that goes almost to bone. Something that can’t be hidden. That’s what his father had done to him, and he wasn’t even there.
So was it better to lose a father who was useless when he was there? Or never have one and live knowing you aren’t wanted? Does it hurt less to look him in the eye when he chooses to take no responsibility?
Well, he thought it was better to save those kids the trouble. It was better to watch the panic in their eyes, watch the pain and tears and hear their pleading, suddenly so ready to be a father now it was life or death. They’d thank him one day, he was sure of it, and one day he’d get to see that panic in the eyes of the man who made him this in the first place- who had written so many times of sons scorned by fathers that turned to pain and death to cope, not once thinking of the baby boy he’d abandoned before he even got the chance to live happily. This was his fault. Those men could’ve lived, those kids would have had a chance too, but he was selfish. How unfortunate, truly.
The rest of the work day drags disgustingly slowly until finally he’s in his car, scanning the lot to watch his coworker get into her shitty beat up minivan. The licence plate was scribbled on a note in his pocket, having taken it down this morning, all he’d have to do is send it to one of his…friends…and they’d get him her address with the right payment. Soon enough that worthless piece of shit she’d married would be gone. If she knew his plans, she’d thank him. That’s what he told himself. Every single time.
