I don't know anymore

Another cruel fic of mine involving a hurt/injured Jack. This is based of a song by 'Thousand Foot Krutch: Take It Out On Me.' So yeah, I got the hang of fan fiction, came part of my daily hobby, and it is all thanks to you guys! So give yourself a hug- here I'll give you one.

*VIRTUAL HUUUUUGZ!*

Anyways, so that you are aware, this fic is filled with MANY tear jekers, because I'm a jerk for tears. You might need tissues and if you hardly cry, eh, your tough... but if you don't cry at all... You have NO heart! XD

So just leave me with thoughts and I will be the author and write!

WARNING: Abuse (Child abuse, drug abuse, -Sex abuse is for the other story so no, ect.)... Rated T for very detailed situations and violence... May or may not have a happy ending...

Disclaimer: I do not own!

Sometimes, things you see on movies, whether it is true love or happy endings that belong in palaces or castles... they just cannot happen. They just can't, well, not for many, maybe for few... but not for me. Not every one is picture perfect, their life is not picture perfect.

In a particular neighborhood, a small but neat tan colored house stood between two other houses. A broken tricycle laid on its side, making a wedging sound as the cricked, bent wheel moved in a crippled rotation. The water hose facet dripped of clear water, feeding the small flowed bed below with such little. Children rode their bike in front of the house and some played tag in the middle of the street.

But hardly anyone noticed that a pale face watched them play with their loved ones, behind the window of the normal looking house.

It was a boy, age fourteen at the most, with amused- yet sad- blue eyes that would have been a breathtaking sight if they were not so dull. His shocking snowy white hair shot forward and upwards in messy jags, and the blue hoodie he wore over his body, felt warm around him like a gental squeeze of a hug. Even with the warmth of his hood, the boy still looked like someone had dipped him in a tub of ice and took out his pale body only hours later. His lips were barely a good peached color, but were dry and cracked. His stomach ached so badly.

No... Not for me. You can look at my house and admire its beauty of some sort, or just take it as a normal house... But like you don't judge a book by its cover, you don't judge a house by its structure... Inside every house is a story, whether good or bad... Even if you go inside, it could be hidden...

The boy sighed. "Jack! Jackson come here!" a faint deep voice called from the far bedroom, followed by several rough coughs. Jack sighed again, even longer than the first one and more saddening, before getting up from his spot on the couch and following where the voice was calling him.

Jack came to a stop in front of a tall white door and sucked in a breath.

Slowly, Jack reached for the doorknob and getting his grip, he twisted it and stepped inside. The first thing he saw was a man laying on a bed, looking sick in physical condition; his brown hair ruffled like Jack's held light grey strands, and his very dark brown eyes were half-lidded. Beads of sweat slowly dripped down his skin and over the crows feet near the corners of his eyes that carried dark bags.

Jack stood at the foot of the bed, staying still as ice.

"Yes Pa?" he spoke in a small voice.

His Pa, or Alex Overland, glared at him. "Do I have to call you a thousand fucking times for you to get here at my becking call?" he said in a fairly loud growl, causing Jack to flinch. The teen lowered his gaze away from his father. "No, Sir," he whispered.

"What? Damn it, look at me when I am talking Jackson."

Jack did so with baby blues daring to show fear. "N-No... Sir," he spoke a little louder.

He felt himself tense as he watched Alex sit up and move towards the edge of the bed with a sick cough. Alex, covering his mouth as he coughed, beckoned Jack over with his hand. "Come- cough! Cough!- here. Come here," he said between coughs.

Jack hesitated and stood in the same spot. When Alex noticed the boy had not moved he raised his voice.

"Come here damnit!"

The roar of his father's voice made Jack visibly flinch with a shaky sharp gasp. Not wanting to hear it again, Jack did what his father commanded and moved towards him in a quick second.

Once he was now in front of his dad, Alex said, "you know your punishment. Do it."

Jack sucked in a breath and in a slow motion, he pulled of his loved hoodie, revealing scars and bruises around his front, chest and abdomens. There were all shapes and sizes from big to small, thin to thick, visable to hard to detect. Jack turned around, revealing much larger scars. It was like he was whipped repeatedly non stop, in fact, he was... Some of the scars were new and some marks had not yet recovered.

Jack sucked in a breath and sank to his knees, lifting his top body in a straight stance. He could hear Alex going through his drawer, looking for the thing he needed. It was a long fiber glass rod, thin at the tip and thick as it went down.

Jack moved his knees further away where there was a line of black tape, giving Alex a distance. It was like Jack had eyes on the back of his head, because he could just see Alex raising the rod high above his head.

The teen closed his eyes shut.

Give me strength...

Swoop! SMACK!

The first lash made Jack nearly lurch forward. He clenched his eyes tighter, quickly making his body straight again. He could feel a trickle of warm liquid, he knew was blood, run down his back. It hurt like hell, but Jack felt like he could make it through this one... if he was lucky. To stop himself from screaming through the rest, he bit on his lip and waited for the next hit.

Swoop! SMACK!

The second was the worse. The force caused Jack to gasp by the sudden loss of air and bite his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream...

Swoop! SMACK!

"GaAh!" Jack finally yelped. Tears found their way out his eyes and trickled down his pale face. The boy arched his back, feeling the pain growing more intense as the lashes overlapped each other.

"Don't move. I'm almost done," Alex said with no care or sympathy laced in his voice. It couldn't have been worse than the first time Alex had done this, figured Jack.

The pain then, was unbearable and just pure agonizing.

Jack had been eight at that moment. He can still remember it.

By the tenth lash, Jack fell to his stomach and fainted for a sec.

There in the same damned room, with the same damned door locked close, the eight year old Jack was playing with his building blocks beside his father's bed. Alex sat on the bed, talking to his wife 'Emily Overland.'

They had been talking and talking about things Jack could not understand. But what the tyke did notice, was that the low, angry tone in his daddy's voice grew. The tyke looked up at Alex with childish curiosity.

"Oh, so you're not coming home? Emily... Yeah but... No... Shut the fuck up, bitch! I'm speaking!"

Jack flinched at his father's voice and use of language. He knew about bad words, but had never up close heard his daddy speak them. The child could hear his mommy's voice yelling back at his father and wished dearly to talk to her. He had not seen her in three days and had only heard her sweet, angelic voice twice. He loved his mommy.

"You know what? FUCK YOU AND FUCK EMMA! BYE!" Alex screamed before throwing the phone to the wall. The device shattered and fell to the floor. Jack started to grow scared. Did daddy just said something mean about Emma? His older sister Emma? And Mommy? The tyke looked up at his father with tearful baby blues.

"Daddy?" he whispered.

Alex began heaving with something a Jack has never seen before. Was his daddy sick? It should stop because right now Jack was getting really scared.

The last thing Jack expected was for the man to take out a belt from his drawer. Jack hated the belt. It was a sign of punishment he rarely got no matter his behavior. And what frightened him worse was that now, his daddy was glaring directly down at him. Did he do something wrong?

"Daddy?" he whimpered.

Jack did not know what overcame Daddy, but whatever it was, it made him grab Jack roughly by the arm and yank him to his feet. Jack's foot clumsily knocked down the block tower as he was nearly lifted of the ground. His little batman shirt was yanked over his head, leaving his upper body bare.

"Daddy? What awe you- Ow!" Jack felt a sting on his lower back and couldn't help but to immediately cry. Another was added to his side, making a hard slapping sound. Jack shrieked louder.

"Daddy! DADDY STOP!" the tyke wailed as Alex continued.

But Alex never did. Jack tried squirming out from his daddy's hand with little success. Tears tracked down his face and shrieks erupted. What did he do wrong? What did he do?

"DADDY! DADDY I'M SOWWY! I'M SOWWY!"

He really was...

Jack's eyes opened slowly from the distant memory. He hadn't noticed he had been crying through it as well. His back felt like it was on fire thanks to the alchohol Alex had poured on it to keep it from infection. As Jack pushed himself up using his arms, they shook like jello. His whole body shook. Slowly, the teen turned his torso behind to see Alex still sitting on the same spot, staring down blankly at the floor.

"You were talking unconsciously again," the man said in a meek whisper. Jack casted his eyes down. Yet again, his father heard his thoughts and cruel memories. And Jack hated it. It made his father feel terrible even more and Jack didn't want that. "Jackson... You know I love you, right? None of this is because I hate you," Alex said in a gentle tone.

Jack loved that tone. He missed it on a daily basis. It revealed his true father that would be gone at moments and replaced by a monster; a demon; the devil. Jack understood who the true Alex Overland was, but at an early age, Jack was introduced to a different person inside the body of his father.

Jack cherished those words spoken to him and nodded. Hesitantly, he moved to face his father. Though he felt weak and his head felt 10x heavier, he still looked up at Alex like he used to when he admired him. Once upon a time, Alex had always been the knight and armor...

"Yeah. I do..." the teen replied.

"Jack why do you put up with this? With me?" Alex immediately asked. Jack's eyes shot up by the question that had many answers.

Jack felt something stop him. Alex never left him, unlike what his mother and sister did. Alex never abandoned him... He had plenty of oportunities to just dump Jack at some orphanage... But he never did. Jack blinked away the tears that were beginning to form. There were so many reasons.

...

so many reasons...

"I-I don't know... It's just... You're still my pa," the teen croaked, feeling his voice crack.

Please don't hurt me...

Alex stared at him plainly for a few moments before snorting. "Yeah right. I can't still be your pa. Your pa would never do this to you," he exclaimed. Jack felt his heart crack. Alex was still his dad. He was just...damaged. He needed help. He needed someone to be there for him. Jack was willing to be that person.

"Damnit, Jack this isn't healthy for you!" Alex said in a louder tone, not filled with hate or anger, but filled with frustration.

Jack looked down at the floor covered in his own blood, then looked at the scars that litrered his torso. He traced a finger over one of them.

Alex was right, this wasn't healthy for him. No not at all. Not one bit in a million years.

But Jack could never allow his dad to take his anger out on anulyone else, and he wouldn't let his father kill himself over mistakes made in the past. "I know," he agreed plainly.

Alex sighed and pulled at Jack's chin, making the teen gaze up into his eyes. "I'm not healthy for you; I'm so full of fury and anger..." he tried, wondering if Jack might change his mind and leave.

But he didn't expect the next thing.

Jack hesitantly laid a cold pale hand on his father's knee.

Please don't hurt me...

Surprisingly, Alex did the exact opposite...

Instead, he placed his bigger hand on Jack's smaller one, like he used to when he and Jack would do during Bedtime Prayer when Jack was seven. Jack's breath hitched at a sudden fear and his fingers nearly wanted to pull away. But he quickly calmed himself and looked up at his father dead in the eyes. He remembered when they were brighter.

"T... Take it out on me," the teen whispered.

Damn me.

Almost immediately, Alex bursted into tears and allowed Jack to wrap his thin arms around his broad shoulder and pull him down in an embrace. Despite the stinging and burning marks the rod had left on his back, Jack welcomed his father to wrap his arm around his back, pulling him closer in a hug Jack dearly missed. It took all of his own might to stop from breaking down himself.

...

"I miss you Papa," is what he wanted to say so badly like he used to when Alex came back from work and Jack was only five. A long time ago, those distant moments were gone just like the rest of Jack's happiness...

...

Jack held his father like that for almost an hour until the man had fell asleep like a baby. Jack smiled softly and laid Alex gently on the bed, tucked him nicely in the covers, and sat beside him for a while longer. Jack wanted to cry, he honestly did want to, but he had forgotten how to.

Not really, he was afraid that if he cried, it would break him because if he cried now... the tears would never stop.

Jack missed his father. He missed that joyful, full of ideas, adventurous man that darkness had consumed and Jack feared that his real pa had died and the devil replaced his body... Jack sighed and buried his head in his knees, rocking himself. Then it came to him like the many times before.

School was today.

Scream if you wanna,

Shout if you need to,

Just let it go (Take it out on me)

Fight if you need to,

Smash if you have to get control (Take it out on me)

Chorus for 'Take It Out On Me' BY: Thousand Foot Krutch

Review please!