His little princess
August Walker x Reader
REQUEST
Summary: August Walker spends time with his daughter and remembers his childhood.
Warnings: some angst, neglection of a child, alcohol use, narcotic use, abuse, mentions of sex and orgies, cursing, blood, soft August Walker.
Words: 1,9k
Past
His arms were too short to reach for the small piece of bread that had fallen under the kitchen counter. No matter how hard he tried, he would never reach it. He tried getting the fallen piece with the butter knife that he had found on the table, but it was still not long enough.
As he stood up, he looked around the messy kitchen. Empty bottles of beer and vodka were almost everywhere, many of them had shattered as they collided with the floor, and the shards were scattered around the dirty tiles. Somewhere between half-smoked cigarettes and used syringes laid.
Carefully, he walked around the kitchen, looking in every shelf or storage space for food, for anything that he could use to reduce his hunger. He hadn’t eaten for three days or showered for four weeks. His parents didn’t care for him, they never wanted him.
August knew he was a mistake. Somebody who was never supposed to be born. They liked to remind him of that every day. He also knew that they had tried killing him while he was in his mother’s womb and when he was newly born. Unfortunately, he had survived.
As days passed and August grew older, his parent stopped caring at all. All they did was use heroin, get drunk, vomit all around the house, and have unprotected sex. Sometimes other people would come to the house, and all of them would engage in orgies all over the house, not caring that somewhere around would be a child.
Even now, at this moment, his parents were having sex, their moans and groans echoing through the whole house. August knew he had a few more minutes before his father returned and resumed watching television and drinking vodka.
Suddenly, August’s eyes landed on the cardboard box on the top shelf. He remembered his mother getting it from the deliveryman a few days ago. As it was put that high, the whole pizza must not have been eaten, and there should be a few pieces left.
The only way of reaching it was if he stepped on the table and reached on his tiptoes. Carefully, he got on the table, trying not to break any bottles. He could feel his small fingers touching the carbon, only a few more movements, and he would have it in his hands.
“What the hell are you doing, stupid boy!” Suddenly, his father’s voice came from behind. Frightened by his father’s stern voice, August lost his balance and fell, the box slipping on the floor. A shard of a broken bottle got stuck in his arm, making him cry in pain, but the leftovers of pizza had fallen out of the box. The anger in his father’s eyes was unmistakable. There was no way August could get away from him or his wrath.
“Stupid idiot! What have you done?” His father did not care about August’s wound, as he reached for his body and pulled the boy up. “You are gonna pay for it. For every single piece of pizza that you ruined.”
A painful sob filled the small room, as his father’s belt collided with August’s back. One after one, he received blows on his back, and his cries did not mean anything to his father. He stopped only when August’s whole back was covered in bruises and wounds, and his blood had been splashed everywhere.
Present
August woke up, covered in sweat and gasping for air. His back ached, remembering the pain he had felt once. It had been three decades since his father had laid his hands on him for the last time, but it would always be imprinted in his memory. It took him years to forget everything and make memories go away, storing them deep in his brain. Recently, the memories had returned, plaguing his mind every single night.
As he sat up, he looked over at his wife, who was sound asleep next to him. You would have woken up with him, as you had done weeks before, but this time you had been too exhausted. August needed to calm his nerves and erase the memories.
He pressed a small kiss on your forehead and left you alone in the bed. Usually, August would go downstairs and sit on the back porch, listening to the silent neighborhood, as darkness surrounded him until you came and got him. This time he didn’t want to go there.
There was only one place in the big house where he wanted to be. August silently opened the half-closed doors of the nursery and walked inside. He turned on the small light beside the crib and bent over to look at the sleeping infant inside it.
“Hi, baby,” August whispered, as he touched his daughter’s soft cheek. She had been born eight weeks ago, but it felt like only yesterday he had held her for the first time. She was so small in his big hands, so fragile. He had been scared to touch and hold her, but you had assured him that he would never hurt her. He was her father, her big shoulder to lean on, her protector.
From the moment his daughter was born, August had been starting to have nightmares of his childhood. Each night a different one would reappear, and everything he had tried to forget would return. No matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, memories managed to get through the walls he had built.
It didn’t help that you had started to worry about him. It was hard enough for you to stay at home and take care of a newborn. August didn’t want to share his burden with you, as he knew how hard you would take it. Years ago, shortly before the wedding, he revealed to you his childhood, what he had endured, and from where the scars had come. You had cried for days, your heart had been hurting for all the pain he had to take, for the love he did not receive from his parents, and for how the foster system had treated him.
That day he promised never to allow you to carry his burden, not even the smallest piece of it. And he intended to keep his promise, especially now when you both had another person to take care of and love.
August looked at the sleeping baby and smiled. One look at her, and all the darkness and burden that surrounded his heart disappeared. He did not smile much, but with you and your daughter in his life, he had started to do it more.
“I will never hurt you,” He said. I will never do to you what my parents did to me. “I am going to guard you against all the evil in this world. I will be there when you need me.”
“Because I love you.” I love you like my parents could never love me. I will die for you. “With all my heart.”
As he held her, August could not stop thinking of his own childhood. The pain he had suffered, the scars he bore from endless beatings with a belt and others' hands and sharp objects, the loneliness he had felt, as he was always left alone, the constant hunger for not having food for days, and the never-ending hope that his parents would love him one day.
August knew his troubled past would make him a bad father, and for years, he swore to never have children. Before you, August had had affairs and relationships with other women, but they never lasted longer than a few weeks. He never wanted to settle down and have a family of his own, not until you came.
You came into his life like a hurricane and turned it around. For the first time, he could see the world in other colors, not black and white. It took him time to admit his love for you, to acknowledge his feelings for you. Soon enough, August proposed.
“You are the light in my darkness, my little princess.” You and your mother both. “When mommy told me about you, holding the pink stick in her arms, I was afraid. No, I was terrified….” I did not want to make the same mistakes my parents made. “I spent the next nine months worrying that I would be a bad father to you, that I would screw everything up and be - ” Become like my parents.
“But then you arrived, on a rainy morning, screaming at the top of your lungs. When I held you for the first time, I promised myself I would not make the same mistakes my parents did. I would never abandon you, never lay a finger on you, or cause any harm. I will keep you safe from all the dangers in the world and make sure that nobody hurts you. Because, my princess, I love you.”
With his sleeping daughter in his hands, August moved to the other side of the room and sat down on the rocking chair. It was your request to have one in your daughter’s rooms for the times like these - when one of you wanted to hold her or she woke up crying, needing a change of diapers, or when she was hungry.
August’s voice filled the small room as he sang to his daughter. Baby in his arms snuggled closer to his warm body, making August smile.
“I will always be by your side and I will never leave you, not while I am alive and my heart is beating. Because I am your dad, and it’s my job to keep you safe, to keep you out of danger, and to be the strong shoulder you need to lean on. I love you, my little princess. Always have, and always will.”
A few years later
“The king and queen were so grateful to the prince for waking up their daughter and everyone else in the palace that they let him live in the palace with them.” As the story was finished, August closed the book and pressed a kiss on his daughter’s forehead. She snuggled closer to his body, her small hands wrapped around his strong chest.
“What happened next?” She asked, her eyes were shining in the dim light.
“They lived happily ever after. Just like me, you, mommy and little – “
“Brother!”
“Or sister.” August would never admit it, but he wanted to have another girl. He wanted to have another princess to spoil, to cherish and to love. One wasn’t enough.
Having a son would not be bad either. He would raise him as a man, as somebody he was not but wanted to be - an honorable man. He would make sure that his son would not make the same mistakes he did.
“It will be a brother! I just know it!”
“Of course, of course.” August laughed and kissed her forehead. “Now go to sleep. Mommy’s already asleep.”
“Love you, daddy,” She said, as the sleep slowly overtook her.
“Love you too, my little princess.”
August watched as his little daughter slept. Never in a million dreams did he think that he would have a family of his own – a loving wife, a beautiful daughter, and another child on the way.
He was glad that you had crashed into him on that day.
