Phanniemay 2013
Introduction: For those that don't know, beccadrawsstuff on tumblr created a theme-a-day calendar for the month of May, dubbing it Phanniemay. I've been participating in it since the first day (though have been slow to actually start posting my responses up on here). And as always, general warnings for homosexual relationships, violence, foul language, self harm, abuse, suicide, death, angst, and other dark topics.
Overall Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is a product of Nickelodeon. All characters in this story are imaginary
Summary: It wasn't innocent fun to him. It was pain and torment. And it was too much.
Character: Poindexter (and briefly Danny)
Prompt: Bruises
Day One
His fingers trembled as he pushed a button on his stiff white dress shirt through the eyelet. Each one he undid showed a little more of his pale flesh dotted with dark bruising that he knew from past experiences would take a day or more to fully disappear. If that. The next day would be the same. More bruises would be added to mix, turning his frail body into a mess of black and blue, ugly purple blotches.
The shirt hit the floor of his room, and he hugged his arms about his body, staring at his reflection in the mirror on the back of his closet door. His normally neatly combed raven hair was mussed up, sticking up at odd angles. His thick round glasses hung slightly askew upon his face. He couldn't live like this any longer. Every day was agony. The bullying was unbearable. He thought if he just ignored it, it would get better. But it didn't.
His parents merely told him it wouldn't matter when he was older when he became the boss of the jocks. It was a phase of life that everyone went through at one point in their lives. His teachers pretended not to notice the abuse he suffered, favoring the jocks that won stupid football games instead of the nerds and geeks of the school. He was small and weak. He couldn't protect himself or fight back when the jocks cornered him. It could always be worse. He guessed. But thinking that didn't make things any better.
Grabbing something from his bag, he walked over to his bed. His back pressed against the wall as he drew up his knees, staring down at the object in his hands. His heart ached more than his body, tears burning in his eyes. It was his only way out, the only way for him to escape the cruelty of bullying.
Closing his eyes, he fitted the barrel of the gun into his mouth. For a moment, his finger seized, unable to perform the simply action of curling, as fear gripped him tightly. But after a deep breath, his finger squeezed the trigger, and the resounding bang echoed in a small bedroom.
Fifty years later, another raven haired teenager stood within that same bedroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror and frowning at the dark bruise forming over his left eye. A tired sigh escaped him after another day of the same old bullying.