AN: Pay attention now
Disclaimers: Weiss Kreuz is not mine, not the characters or the content, this drabble, however, is mine
Warnings: Adult themes, including: domestic violence, child abuse (physical and sexual) and prostitution
Spoilers: This should fit in with canon Weiss Kreuz, although there is no reference to this period of time in the series (that I remember). Since this is way before the series anyway, there is nothing that I consider a spoiler per se.
Dreams
The sound of the door slamming reverberates through the house. I feel my room tremble with the force, and I tremble with it. Silence falls, the house stills. I hold my breath, fingers resting on the keyboard, head cocked towards the door of my room, listening, listening... Did she slam in, or out? Or was it him this time? Nothing. Absolute silence, the eye of the storm. This is when I start to panic - did I attract any undue notice from either of them today? Have I left something downstairs that could be used to focus their anger on me? Still nothing. I wait, tension building. What's going on?
Sudden noise, the staccato screams of crystal shards as something is thrown violently at the wall downstairs. A glass maybe, or a figurine. Violent sobbing drifts upstairs and I let my breath out with a quiet huff of relief. It was him this time. For now all I have to endure is the broken vocalisations of a broken woman. For now.
Sometimes I think I prefer it when she leaves instead of him. At least then I can slip out of the window and stay away for the night. The next morning I simply look surprised when he demands to know where I was, tell him that she'd let me go to a schoolmate's for the night. She never contradicts me, just winks at me behind his back. Score one for her. I don't care. She'll forget it just as soon as he's the one who storms away. I'll use them, because they use me.
But now, I'm stuck here, listening to the wailing that sometimes seems never to end. It will end of course. He's stormed off to the local bar, and she knows that as well as I. She'll be quiet as a mouse when he comes in, stinking drunk, cowering in a corner and hoping like hell that he'll leave her be and settle on another target. Me. Real maternal instincts huh? Guess 'survival' wins out over 'protection of young'. And all that I can hope is that he's satisfied with beating the crap out of me, or too sloshed to get it up, the same thing really.
Then, tomorrow, I get to see how much I resemble a human punch bag. Get to see what story fits best with the placement of my injuries. Yes sir, fell down the stairs sir. No sir, my parents asked if I wanted the day off, but I said no. Yes sir, probably concussion sir. And the teacher accepts it, because the last thing he's being paid to do is care. And I accept that, and keep up the lies, because the last thing I want is for someone to ask questions. Because if they can't see what's going on, if they don't know what's happening, then their guilt will sure as hell keep them quiet when I finally get even.
Sometimes that's the only thing that keeps me going, my dream of revenge. Countless times I held the razorblade to my wrists, knowing that it's a slow death. Knowing that he'd let me die if he found me, knowing that she'd scream and cry, but do nothing useful before it was too late. I don't blame her, my mother, for being cowed by his greater strength, his vicious streak. I understand, that in her own way, she is ashamed of the way in which she uses me to protect herself. I don't mind. Honest. And I know if I repeat that mantra often enough, hard enough, I still won't really believe it. There will always be a small corner of my mind that loves and hates and forgives and blames her in equal measures. I can deal with that.
Because after my revenge, then what? I'll have to leave town - hitchhike most likely - get a job and a place far away from here. I can whore myself in the beginning, I'll have to, I have nothing except a few clothes, a laptop stolen from school, and my looks. Pretty boy they all call me. The bullies who mouth off behind my back, too wary of the fighting techniques I've learned from the receiving end to go any further. He calls me pretty sometimes, and those days, arguments or not, I've learned the bitter taste of humiliation and degradation.
I know I'm not the only one abused in this way. I know the world we live in is foul with corruption and sick with twisted minds that can only be described as evil. Listen to the news and you'll know what I mean. I'd like to think that, maybe, one day, I can drag myself out of the gutter and do something about it. Clean up the world kind of thing. It's a noble image, but I know why it's never done. A killer is a killer, whomever he kills, and prison sentences only mean you're fighting a never-ending war. But if I can't do anything to stop them forever without joining their ranks, then I'll do what I can. I'll try and steal their victims back from them, try and leak word of their meetings to cops who aren't bent, and I'll try and bring resolution, the truth, to ordinary people.
There's a name for that kind of thing. It's called investigating - Private Investigating. Yeah, that'll do nicely. Yohji Kudou, PI.
The doorbell rings, and the wailing downstairs stops abruptly. I frown, this isn't how the story goes. As her unsteady steps weave towards the door, her hands no doubt wiping the worst of her tears away, I creep onto the small landing, the better to hear and see what's going on. It's a cop, the flashing blue lights of his car flickering fitfully behind him, blue strobe lighting that makes the scene more unreal than it already is. Their voices drift to me, the cop sombrely informing her that her husband has been stabbed in a bar fight. My world, my dreams, crash around me as the cop tells her that her husband is dead. Dimly I hear screaming, a litany of no's that manage to sound ecstatic and distraught at the same time. I want to scream myself. He can't be dead, he can't. I was supposed to kill him, me. Not some random stranger in some random bar.
The cop excuses himself and leaves, the darkness closing in echoing the darkness threatening my vision. Slowly it passes, as do the sobs from the porch. She climbs to her feet, closing the door and walking, more steadily now, back into the house. She vanishes into the bedroom, closing the door behind her, and any sounds are too quiet for me to hear.
After a few moments, I manage to pull myself together, even managing a smirk. Sure, I won't have the pleasure of seeing the shock on his face as I tighten the garrotte around his neck, I won't have that victory over the biggest and realest demon in my life, but I won't have his ghost either. I won't have the police searching for me, my profile in their records, listed as a wanted fugitive. The greatest hurdle of my career is gone, removed by fate. Suddenly the dream seems real, tangible, achievable. The world itself seems more alive, waiting for me to pick my path and walk it, head held high.
Yeah, I grin. Tomorrow looks bright, and as for the day after that... Well, lets wait and see.
But for now, you just remember, the name'll be Yohji Kudou, Private Investigator.
AN: Well, if you're wondering (like me), where this drabble came from, all I can say is, a door slammed in my house. Not a huge event, I know (it was the wind that slammed it, for the peace of the curious), but it does, seriously, shake my room (kinda worrying really, but you get used to it). My mother had just been in the room complaining that she had to go up town, and blaming my dad in the process, so I guess the muses took that and the slamming door and escalated it. Quite when it turned into a WK fic, I'm not sure.
Hopefully my muses will now let me go back to my ff8 writing (which I was doing at the time) seethes at muses