Chapter Text
Leaving the comfort of Chicago wasn't a decision Robert would've thought he'd find himself making years ago. He didn't think he'd ever be in this position years ago. Being stuck with children was never supposed to be part of the plan, not at his age. Oh, how things could change for the worse in the blink of an eye...
Gradually, guilt and self-righteousness won out. They’re his grandsons, and they’re some of the only pieces he had left of his recently deceased son and daughter-in-law. Riley and Huey had only him to depend on now, and in some way, Robert did the same for them.
They’d never interacted much before the tragedy, a decision that came mostly from Robert's end, a quarter of his son's. Looking back, his relationship with Apollo Freeman had always been strained to its absolute limits, an ongoing slog of years full of bullshit that he always found himself fixing. At some point in his youth, the fool had the ludicrous idea to run off and join a gang, and guess who was the one dealing with the fallout when things came to a breaking point? Who else was there? A drug trade gone haywire sent Apollo to rock bottom, leaving Robert to take him back in and help him get back on his feet.
He regrets not being firmer with him. Deep down, he loathes himself for not telling Apollo to get his act together, to stay away from those streets for once in his life and make better use of his intelligence. Why didn’t he? Apollo had always been smart; he was Salutatorian and had scholarships coming at him from every direction. What was it he wanted to go into again, law school? Ain't that a shame, a bitter pill. All Robert had to do was push Apollo to go to college. That was all he had to do. He would've been set. They would've been set.
He waited too late, that's the problem. Way too late. All and any academic hopes were flushed down the drain the second Apollo grew affiliated with those criminals he dared to call his homeboys, and in a solemn realization, it'd be that way for years to come. While he never brought to attention vocally, both of them knew good and well that it was the truth. He blew it, and Robert carries the deafening blame. Now, all that was left for them to do was to try to rehabilitate Apollo's image to the best of their ability.
Not too long after he withdrew from the gang, something that he swore wasn't a problem and was able to do with little resistance, he found himself a pretty little woman while being out and about, applying for jobs. That in of itself was a lot easier said than done, his reputation becoming an ugly mark of tar in public with an incident still fresh on everyone's mind. It was fresh in her mind, too, Robert recalled clearly, so how on Earth Apollo managed to keep her around was something way beyond him. He was lucky, though. Robert saw Rosetta as a good woman, through and through, and had it not been for her? Robert was certain that his son would've slipped back into the same mess that nearly got him killed...
Well, hindsight was going 20 for 20.
Their relationship progressed a little quicker than he was used to seeing, but he wasn't gonna hate on a player's game. They dated throughout the summer of '93 and winter of '94, had an impromptu wedding in '95, and the next thing he knew? Robert found himself becoming a grandfather. He wasn't entirely too sure what part of the game that was supposed to be, the whole dropping children thing, but whatever makes him happy. Them happy, he meant.
They didn't talk much after Huey was born, and he wasn’t particularly worried about it either. Apollo was finally beginning to take some responsibility, straighten himself up, and who was he to interfere with something he had wished for for so long? They moved to a more affluent part of Chicago, while Robert preferred to stay where he was, enjoying his newfound peace. Alone at last.
Did he have anything against children? He tried not to, nowadays, not that he had the choice anymore. He’d see the boys as toddlers here and there during family reunions… which was enough to convince him that the lack of communication was better for his sake after all. They’re spawns of satan, he’d confirmed to himself, in desperate need of a neat little parenting technique called belt-to-ass coordination. Being the kind soul that he is, he even offered to beat their asses to make the parents' lives just a little bit easier, and you know what they told him? Straight-faced and headstrong? Oh, they didn't believe in doing that type of thing anymore, they were trying to break the cycle, on and on — they're out of their damn minds, that's what they were.
A belt never hurt anyone...well, it never killed anyone, to the best of his knowledge. Maybe if they had taken him up on a deal that sweet, that one time, Huey and Riley wouldn't be so...so them. He tried to think of a word to describe them that didn't sound so abhorrent, something that didn't make him come off as outright detesting them, and he couldn't. It's impossible. It wouldn't be such a peeve if they were only Rosetta and Apollo's problem to deal with, the way it was supposed to be.
Apparently, Apollo had never officially announced his departure from the gang, leaving only one assumption left for the boys to come to — he ditched them. Couldn't handle the heat and left his crew to deal with the fallout the very second things grew serious.
In a way, that had been the truth, but that sure as hell isn't something you want an unsteady, trigger-happy bunch of individuals to think. With dexterity the FBI could only ever dream of harnessing, what was once a neighborhood Apollo deemed untraceable (for some reason) quickly became the opposite. Weeks later, waking him right out of a nap, Robert gets an abominable call that he's still struggling to accept to this day. This was some shit he saw day after day on TV, fictional TV, and now all of a sudden he finds himself right in a plot-line? Sounds like some stupid joke, doesn't it? He almost questions it, having the mind to tell what he hoped to be a prank caller to get the hell off his line before they have a problem, but no prankster could hold such a professionally distant tone.
He still doesn’t fully understand why he was so quick to take them in when he got the call. Fragments of his mind pleaded with him not to, to take his ass back home so he could live what few years he had left in child-free equilibrium. Naturally, when searching for any remaining family, he had been the first to show up on the state's radar. Lucky caller number one, and like some kind of fool, he said yes. Barely had he thought it over — what exactly that meant, how exactly he would handle it — and by the time those worries did come to mind, the damage had already been done. Was it wrong to think of them that way? Damage?
Or was it worse to think back to what else he could've done? Referring them to someone else had been a thought that had crossed his mind more and more as of late — Rosetta's folks were gone, sure enough, but on Robert's side, the boys would've still had their Aunt Cookie, didn’t they? If anybody knew how to raise a bunch of good-for-nothing BeBe’s Kids, it’d be Cookie. She would've done them a million times better than he could ever imagine…
No…Cookie wouldn't be down for that either. She's never been one who enjoyed being tied down, especially on a whim. Her refusal of custody would've dwindled an already narrow list of options to two. Ship the boys to their grandfather or hand them to the state and let them figure something out. Nine times out of ten, going by what he's seen and heard, their decision ends up being the group home that's right down the road from FootLocker. The thought made Robert’s aged-weary heart ache something drastic. No one deserved to live so close to a FootLocker, hellspawns or not. Sucking up his mistrusts and kissing his freedom goodbye, he signed the papers that granted him custody, putting plans into motion to get all of them the hell up out of there before that gang could get any ideas. With the boy's inheritance, he buys a house in safe, warm, Woodcrest. He was doing the right thing. He used to think so.
They’re struggling, don’t let Riley’s raunchiness and…whatever the hell was going on with Huey fool you. He would’ve been more concerned if they were just fine and dandy — a hurdle of tragedies had been thrown their way in just a record-shattering week. Getting called out of school only to find out that your parents are turning it up with the angels was bad enough, and before they could even take a second to process it, they’re out of Chicago the very next month. No last-minute goodbyes, no time to discuss, they’re up and out of there. Trapped in the unseasoned cutlet that folks called Maryland, where the blackest those people had ever seen were Eminem. Shoot, putting himself in their shoes, he’d have the right mind to blow his shit smooth off then and there! All things considered, he should be patient with them. At the end of the day, they’re still children, and their entire lives had gone downhill absurdly fast. He had to be patient with them. Rough history aside, he still loved his boys.
So, Lord, please forgive him for occasionally wishing he had just dropped them off at the orphanage instead.
The one time he did what he felt was right, it looped back around to bite him in the ass. Is this what he gets for being Captain Save-A-Nigga? Having his house dwindled to a junky heap of trash, and his fridge raided bare by their indecipherable appetites? Something wasn’t right with them, and he’s starting to put his money on possession rather than grief. Some excorsist type of shit. Did he willingly invite demons into his house?
The most unfortunate part of all of this is that the old man believed, with all his heart, that he had everything figured out. Their lives were supposed to be set, his game plan as flawless as ever. Take the boys’ inheritance and blow it all on a fancy house in the suburbs, and pray with all his might that a cleaner environment would shape them up and set them straight. Huey would go on to be a grade-A scholar and attend college to study CSI, while Riley wouldn’t be America’s youngest drug dealer.
Looking at the boys now, Robert’s hope began to wither.
When he thought about it, perhaps them being possessed was stretching it. Bigger questions arose when wondering if they had been this way since birth. Foul-mouthed and scathingly tactless, teetering on the border that separates ‘a kid acting out’ and ‘borderline psychotic’. The latter, he didn’t have to worry too much about when it came to Riley…not to dismiss the existence of problems in its dreadful entirety. They were there, big ones. Whether it be his blind admiration for the big, bad streets and all his hoodlum brothas alike, or him being dangerously close to repeating the third grade — as his previous records showed — Riley was far from any average eight-year-old Robert had ever seen. Even so, he’d rather deal with some pseudo-slick, wannabe thug than a 50-year-old trapped in a child’s body.
Which wrapped back around to Huey Freeman.
Try as he might — admittedly, it wasn’t a lot — Robert couldn’t figure Huey out. Which was flat-out stupid, wasn’t it? He’s ten. 90% of the time, you can cheer a ten-year-old up just by throwing a few quarters their way. Leave it to Huey to be part of that bleary 10%.
At least with Riley, he tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, even when most of the time it was in the form of complaints. Good luck trying to figure out what Huey was feeling; the most of a clue you’d ever get was what kind of glare he’d shoot your way. Angry? Irritated? Flip a coin and go from there.
He’s quiet. The day they got the news about their parents, Riley hadn’t spoken much either. Everyone involved kept quiet, he recalled. But it’s been a week, and Riley talked so much that Robert wished the boy had been born mute, and Huey had yet to utter a single word to his grandfather. All he’s gotten out of him so far is a scoff when ordered to get the hell out of his favorite reclining chair.
He knows the boy can talk.
He can yell, he can swear, he’s more than capable. Muffled voices bled through the walls whenever he passed by their shared bedroom, never clear enough to pick up full conversations but not to the point where Robert couldn’t tell them apart. Huey’s voice was low and soft, but the words it expressed were anything but. Huey had a mouth just as foul as his younger brother, a nastier attitude coming right with it.
He’d glower at him and roll his eyes, and when you get on him for that, he walks away from you and sulks around upstairs or wherever he runs off to, and it’s been like this for days. Leniency was more than practiced; Robert wasn’t gonna whip a boy who was missing his parents and his home, but he’d be damned to let some child walk all over him either.
For the first time in what felt like years, he’s at a loss.