Disclaimer: I don't own Jean Havoc.

Author's Introduction:

One thing that never ceases to amaze me when reading all of the stories on this site is the lack of understanding so many people have about the way that others can work. So many times I've read a story and loved it, but been shocked by one thing that just doesn't fit. Whether it's because an action doesn't suit the character, or because it isn't the way a normal human would behave, it's still a shock to me.

I love to read these works of fiction, because they're not too long (although some are admittedly longer than some books I own) and storylines are one of my great loves of life. I ask forgiveness for my perfectionism, but I felt that this one personality-trait in particular is one that needs to be corrected: the way an abusive person acts around other people. I've only addressed it a little in this fanfiction (I got carried away and forgot the main aim of my writing it), but it's still there in part as an example.

So now, I'd like to present my own work. Usually, the stories that contain this sort of situation have Riza Hawkeye as the victim. For the sake of being different, I'm going to use Jean Havoc, instead. My apologies to Havoc lovers. I'm making it a modern-day AH, and Havoc might be a little OOC, because of the situations he's going to be in. Again, apologies.

Without further ado, I'm going to start on the story.

"Therapy" by Dailenna

Picture yourself in a time years before what we know as the present. Not 'many years ago', or I wouldn't have been born yet. In fact, not even twenty years ago, or the trouble wouldn't have all started. When did the trouble start? Oh, around the time when I was seven. Or eight – I did say around that time, after all. Does it really matter exactly when?

Oh, I can see you nodding. I'll have to think harder, then.

Alright, I've got it now: it was when I was seven, because that's when my mother moved out. Don't give me that look; I know what you're thinking. 'She abandoned her son, the ungrateful woman.' No. She was anything but ungrateful. I still remember birthdays before she left, where she'd snuggle me up on her lap– but that isn't what I'm here to talk about.

When my mother left, my father didn't take it very well. You see, she'd run off with another guy. She came to visit me afterwards, just to see how I was going, and, well, the first time she came I remember sitting by her, and she was smiling, but my father was always there, standing in the doorway. It was as though he was watching to make sure that she didn't corrupt me, or anything. After that it just got worse. I don't know whether it was because I was growing more perceptive, or just that she couldn't hide it as well, but every smile seemed forced, until eventually she just stopped coming. The last time I saw her I was . . . nine. No, ten.

Ahh, I've started it all out of order, haven't I? I haven't even touched on what else was happening. I suppose I don't really want to talk about it. I know, I know, I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to talk. It just might take me a while to get to it.

So let's start with something a little different. Mmmm . . . school, I reckon.

It's not like school was a haven for me, but it was a break, you know? I was always getting into trouble. 'Bony Jean is causing some havoc again, ahahahah . . .' Yeah, great jokes kids come up with.

Hmm? Yeah, I did cop a bit. I mean, I was all arms and legs at the time – a scrawny little runt, really – so I got a bit for my appearance, and some kids would tease me because even in summer I'd be wearing these long-sleeved shirts, and I didn't even own a pair of shorts. I'd laugh and say that the heat didn't bother me, and maybe it didn't really, but you know. I'll get to it eventually.

I think– no, I know that one of my teachers sort of suspected what was going on, because there were times when she'd keep me back at lunch time to ask if everything was alright, and I'd always say I was fine, but she'd look at me for a second as though I was one of those little kittens at the RSPCA and give me a dollar to buy something from the canteen anyway.

When I got home in the afternoons, my father wasn't there, because he'd work until five. Those were some of the best moments of my life, but also some of the most nerve-wracking ever. This once, I remember coming back. I swung the door shut behind me and walked through to the dining room, dumped my bag next to a chair, then looked in the fridge to see what I could get. Everything was his, of course, but sometimes there's something in the very back of the fridge that he won't– I mean, that he wouldn't notice if I took. Well, I didn't know, but he'd actually stayed at home this day because he had a cold, so when he heard me come home, he crept out of his room. Then, to see me going through his fridge as well . . . It was an invasion of his privacy.

The short of it is that he saw me, and I didn't see him. He slammed the door shut, and it squashed the fingers on my left hand. There was a huge fuss, you can imagine. 'Are you trying to steal from me?' and 'This is what I get for raising something like you!' and 'I should have tossed you out right after her!' and all that sort of thing.

He . . . well, he knocked me to the floor, and stomped on my already crushed fingers. If he'd been wearing shoes, I doubt that I'd have any feeling left in them at all. As is, most of the nerves are damaged, but I can still feel some things, like heat and cold. It's sort of like my hand is half asleep, but without that heavy floppy feeling.

Oh. Yeah, back to what happened. He slapped me around a bit after that. I was too scared to make a move to stop him. Here you have this little eleven year old boy who's stick-thin, and has never won a fist fight up against a thi-thirty-five? Yeah, thirty-five year old man who does manual labour for a living. My own father, none the less. I know all of that business about how 'kids these days have no respect for their elders' has been going on forever, but the fact is that I didn't even know how to react. If you'd come into my family's house, say, five years earlier, you wouldn't even think him capable of hitting his own son. No, actually. Even if you'd come in during that year, you wouldn't have thought him capable of it.

There were so many people who did come, but who just didn't seem to see it at all. Mr. Healy, our neighbour used to come over once or twice a month to sit around with my father and talk about the rugby. When he came, Dad would be all happy and invite him in. Nothing wrong there. Just a quick 'Get us a few beers would you, Jean?' and then he'd be in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon. When Mr. Healy left, he'd give me a smile and close the door after him, then my father would glare in my direction, and I'd run up the steps as fast as I could, just so that I wasn't close to him if he wasn't in a good mood anymore. Of course, if he was in a particularly foul state of mind – all depending on just how many beers I'd had to get for him, and on whether his team had won or lost their latest game – he'd leap right up behind me, and push me onto the stairs before I'd even made it to the top. It cracked my nose twice. The first time just enough to make it bleed, but the other time, there was this huge crunch, and it was as though someone had just turned the tap on. He took one look at the mess I was making on the stairs, and gave me an icepack to put on my face.

Other people? Yeah, the school principal came over once. My father welcomed him in and asked what the matter was, and managed to have a whole half hour of calm conversation with the man about how I must be getting bullied at school before the principal left. Dad also had various work mates of his come over and hang around for a while, and none of them ever seemed to think anything was wrong. He never mistreated me in front of guests. Told me to go upstairs and stay out of the way, but never hit me or anything.

We even had this social worker stop by once. She asked if she'd be able to have a look around the house, and he pretty much gave her a whole tour. It's not like the rest of the rooms were filled with ornate trinkets, so my practically empty room didn't look a whole lot out of the ordinary. She kept looking at me, and asked me some questions, but my father was there the whole time. If I said anything, I would be waiting for another beating that night, and I knew it. She left eventually. Didn't seem too pleased, but obviously she didn't have any evidence of anything happening. No, Dad never hit when people were there. Just when they left. He was pretty restrained for a whole three days after she'd left, though. Didn't want any more attention I suppose.

I can see that look you're giving me. Yeah, well it's not like it was always like that, okay? He was fine before . . . before Mum left. And even for a little while after, too. It wasn't like he just suddenly started breaking my nose, and– and stomping on my fingers. It really started more just with jabs and slaps every now and then, but then he started making these rules, and whenever I broke one, there'd be some punishment.

Like with the fridge. Everything in it was his: he bought it, he earned the money that paid for it – it was his. The first time he explained the eating game to me was like this: 'All of this belongs to me, so if I choose to feed you, you get fed. If I don't choose to feed you, you don't get fed.' I usually got at one meal a day. On good days, maybe a little bit more. There were days that just didn't work out, though. I mean, if he had a bad day on Friday, there was the possibility that I wouldn't have anything to eat until school the next week. He specified that I wasn't to eat his food without his say so, and I knew that everything in the fridge was his, but there were times when an aunt or uncle would send us something, because they 'know how hard it's been since your mother left'. I'd start eating something, because it was sent to me, too, so it was partly my food, not just his, and he would glare. I was messing with his fun or something. Well, at first. Then, he'd hit me and ask if his food wasn't good enough for me. I'd stutter back about how his food was just fine, but I was hungry, and a second later, I'd be lying on the ground with one sucker of a black eye puffing up.

By the time that I was fifteen, I'd managed to have a broken nose, fractured kneecap, dislocated shoulder and elbow, broken leg – two– three– three broken legs – and who knows how many broken or dislocated fingers and toes. Bruises? Nah, I didn't even bother counting them. Too many. He burnt me once, too.

He was making dinner – some sort of fish out of a packet that you stick on a pan and put in the oven for however long – and when it was done, I was standing too close to him when he pulled it out of the oven. He tipped the fish out onto the bench and hit me around the legs with the pan. I'm a little kid at the time – of course I'm going to scream. But because I did, he shoved me against the cupboard, with the handle sticking into my back, and just holds the pan against my legs. There I am screaming, and he's telling me to shut the hell up because it's my own fault. I still have a scar from it, if you want to see. It looks strange because it's the one place on my legs where hair doesn't grow.

All of this, and I've only ever been to the hospital five times – two of which were during Ishbal, and another two of which were after I got away from home. He only took me once, when I passed out and he couldn't tell whether I was breathing or not. Didn't want a dead body in the house, after all.

How did the burn get on my skin? Oh yeah, I told you about not having shorts, didn't I? Well, this is really embarrassing to say. Can I just have a second to sort of think it out first? Thanks.

Alright. Okay. Well, he didn't like me to get my clothes dirty, you see? I mean, they were dirty of course – he made me wash them myself, and no more than once a month so I didn't waste water. So, really . . . Well. He . . . I wasn't allowed to wear clothes around the house. I still had my undies on, of course – this grungy little pair that I'd been wearing for four years. I had another pair, for when I did the washing, but they really weren't in much condition to be worn at any other time. Yeah, washing once a month. Now that I'm somewhat more aware of my personal hygiene, I understand how bad that really was. I mean, it seemed bad at the time, but in a 'I'm sure I changed my clothes more often than this when I was little' sort of way.

Heh, yeah I suppose I stunk a little. A little? What am I saying? I reeked, really. I mean, my father told me that at least twice a day, and the kids at school would give me strange looks. More than once, someone gave me one of those 'you're hopeless' looks and told me that I smelt like piss. I sort of shrugged it off and sat under the stairs of the main building, away from where most of the other kids sat.

I was in High School by this time. I still remember in year nine, when if you asked any kid in my grade whether they were a virgin, they'd glare at you for even thinking that they were, despite the fact that half of them hadn't so much as kissed someone of the opposite sex, let alone slept with them. There were a few same-sex partners, but everyone laughed at them and said that they hadn't had a real root. I was stuck in that group. The 'not cool enough to even consider' group.

They'd always play on my last name. I mean, I told you about Primary School before, with the lame jokes, but these didn't seem to get any better. By the time I'd been at the school for a year, it had become an accepted fact that if 'there's some Havoc in the air', then something stunk. Badly.

This once, when a kid was knocking me about because of my long sleeves, one of his mates grabbed at my arm, right where my father had made his latest bruise. I almost crumbled at the feeling of the kid's fingers digging into it, but he laughed. Must have thought he was just that strong.

At home, we used to have this fish-tank that my mother would keep some sort of fish in – I mean, no duh, what else do you keep in a fish-tank? But when she left, she left it behind because I liked the fish, and I kept them at first, but as all small animals do, they died. Dad wasn't all that bad then. He told me to flush the fish down the toilet, and said that we could keep the tank, just in case we wanted to get some more fish. When I asked him about it later, he wasn't so lenient, and gave me a slap before sending me to go clean out the bathroom. I didn't really ask him again, and the fish-tank just sat there until the afternoon after that incident with the kids at school. When he got home that evening, he was really put out. From what I remember, he'd been up for a promotion at work, and had been passed over for some other worker, so he wasn't in any mood to put up with any of my crap.

I was up in my room when he came home, because if I was out of sight he usually had time to cool down before I came to see if he'd give me dinner. This time, though, as soon as the door slammed shut, I could hear him coming up the stairs, and so I made myself small in the corner of my room, hoping that he wouldn't see me amongst all of the nothing there. Fat chance.

He strode right in, and there was this glint in his eyes as though he was as angry as ever, but the fact was that he didn't even take more than a step inside my room. He just stood there, his eyes fixed on me. It was so intimidating – he's just waiting for me to say something so he'd have an excuse to hit me, but I was frozen. I couldn't do anything. The only thing that wasn't frozen was my bladder: I wet myself. A flipping teenager and I wet myself. It was so humiliating. He laughed at me. 'You see how pathetic you are? You still act like a toddler. Grow some balls.' Then he lunged towards the chest of drawers in my room, and dragged the fish-tank off so it crashed onto the floor.

It was like this manic grin spread across his face. I didn't know what he was capable of, let alone what he was going to do. You know, it was the first time he'd so much as said my name since before I was in High School. 'Jean,' he said. 'Come here, Jean.' There he is, standing on the other side of a floor covered in shattered glass, calling for me to come and cross it to get to him. Where am I standing? In a puddle of my own urine.

I refused to go to him – must have been the first time I refused to do something he told me since the days when I still had some form of willpower. As soon as I said no, the smile disappeared from his face and he's angry again all of a sudden. 'Come here.'

I don't want to go through it all now. Maybe next session, since time is running low now, anyway. But the next day at school, I had to sit outside because I stunk so badly, and when someone noticed the cuts coming out from under my sleeves, I was sent to the school counsellor. She met me inside her office, and I could see that she made an effort not to scrunch up her nose, but it didn't take long before she asked me if I minded if she opened the window. I didn't really like the smell of myself either, so it was fine with me.

All she asked me was if I was having any troubles with things at school – obviously someone had told her that I didn't have any friends, and my marks were abysmal – to which I replied with a succinct 'no', and then she asked if I was having any troubles at home. Again, 'no'.

She just looked at me as though she was really disappointed in me. There was this silence while I wondered when she'd let me out and she asked me if I was using drugs. I almost laughed at that one. Yeah, because there's no other excuse for this all. There's no chance that maybe I lied before? She may have been nice, but she wasn't a very good counsellor. She asked if I was feeling suicidal, which I thought was a bit full on. If I was, would I tell her? But I told her no anyway, and she frowned at me. Then she asks if there's anything I want to tell her, and since my answer to that wasn't any different from the three before, she shrugged and sighed, and said that I could go back to class if I wanted to.

What? Time's up? Yeah, I thought it should be soon. I'm sorry about how I've been today. Just sort of jumping all over the place and all. It's not like I remember every little thing that happened – there's just too much to keep it all in categorical order. Yeah, sequential, that's what I meant.

Thanks, Doc. This time again Wednesday, then?