It was always something with Ellen's dad. Everything seemed to make him fly into explosions of rage. Whether it was not having any more booze in the house, or Ellen accidentally walking down the hall as he was getting dressed. The Daymond restaurant was always shaking as her father's yelling and maniacal drunken bellowing rocked the establishment, frightening Ellen and her mother for the umpteenth time.
The yelling hurt. The blows hurt. Everything hurt. Not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. The scars he left on her soul were likely to last forever at the rate he was going. When her father was drunk, he turned into a screaming tornado that tore through everything, even his own family. Ellen loved her father, but not the drunk. The drunk who would regularly throw plates at the wall and smash food on the floor and then blame it on Ellen and his wife, even when they hadn't done anything at all. The drunk who would shout obscenities at any customers who dared to even look at him. The drunk who would just sit around the house drinking and refusing to help out or do anything useful, claiming running the restaurant was women's work.
Nothing helped. Nothing could possibly change him back to the sober man he once was. Not even convincing him to get help was of any use. Every night, after particularly bad incidents, Ellen would fly into her bed and cry herself to sleep, wishing this would all just end.
Sometimes, she liked to imagine fighting back. Throwing plates back at him so he would know what it was like. Hitting him back, punching him back, kicking him back, throwing him out of the house. Other days, when her imagination was being particularly dark and crazy, she would do awful things to that drunk. Humiliate him, make him cater to her and her mother's every whim. Often times she had imagined herself and her mother living on a tropical island far away, running a nice restaurant while her father would be homeless, out on the streets begging for food.
There were times when she would imagine deliberately hurting him. Maybe do something as simple as step on his foot when he was lying around in the dining room in his underwear. Or maybe slap him across the face the second he opened his mouth to yell at her over nothing. That'd teach him a lesson.
Other times, during her absolute darkest moods, she imagined taking a wooden paddle or a whip and striking him with it. He left plenty of scars on both Ellen and her mother. Why wouldn't she do the same with him? He ought to know how they felt being beaten at his hands on a regular basis! She'd imagine lashing him all over with that whip until her father was a bloody, sobbing mess, his clothes and skin torn to shreds and wallowing in remorseful apologies that Ellen would never accept.
No. Ellen always shook those awful thoughts from her brain. As much as she outright hated him at times, she would never resort to doing those awful things. He was still her father in spite of everything. He was her father, and she did love him. But it didn't mean she would excuse or forgive everything he had done to her and her mother.
There would never be an excuse. He still hurt her. It hurt her to know that her father was unlikely to ever return to being the person he once was.
A/N: Hey guys. Random angsty pain bomb ahoy because plot bunnies are dangerous things. Angora plot bunnies, to be exact. Also, got into a fight with my dad, so I wrote this to get my feelings out. Nothing special. (No, my dad's not an alcoholic, just so you know)