Well, everybody, here it is: the chapter where the shit officially hits hardcore. I know a lot of you were expecting this to happen last chapter and it didn't, but it's happening now, so...yay, I guess? I don't know, this doesn't feel like much of a 'yay' situation, haha.
I'm still so shocked that so many of you guys are enjoying this story, oh my God. O.o I'm seriously stunned. Thank you so much for all the support and the wonderful comments, everybody. You're all the best and you're totally making my day.
I'll do my best to have Chapter Eight up soon, though I'll probably have to pace around a bit to get it all sorted out mentally as it is one of the fuzzier chapters as far as what I have planned goes. It'll be up as soon as possible though, I promise. I won't leave you guys hanging too long.
Aaaand as my final note, things that you may find disturbing in this chapter that I should probably warn you about: You know those warnings in the first chapter about the child abuse? I am NOT KIDDING. This chapter, especially the first scene toward the end, has depictions of serious, serious physical and mental child abuse, accompanied by transphobia, coarse language, depictions of violence, and mentions of blood. As you all may have noticed, Michael will not be earning any Father of the Year awards any time soon. Be wary.
The clock on Emily's dashboard says that it's 1:15 in the afternoon when you pull up by the sidewalk in front of your house. Emily idles for a moment before putting the car into park and turning her keys to shut it off, but when she doesn't pull them out of the ignition, you tear your eyes away from where they've been focused intently on the hands you've been folding and unfolding in your lap to look at her instead. There's a sort of almost-hesitation on her face, then she looks to you and smiles in a way that looks a little bit sad to you for reasons you can't quite place. "Francis, sweetheart, can you open that glovebox for me?" she asks. "I need the bag from it, the purple one with the zipper."
You nod quickly, leaning forward to do as she asks. You can find the bag easily enough, the only neon object in a sea of patterned lighters and cigarette packs and old receipts for gas, and Emily gives you a broad smile when you hand it over. "Thanks, doll," she says, and you nod as you close the glovebox without saying a word. She pulls down the visor on her side of the car, opening it up to reveal the little mirror, and she frowns at what she sees before unzipping the bag and rifling through it until she produces a little compact of eyeshadows.
You've never put on makeup, and you've never wanted to, but you think there's something mesmerizing about watching Emily do it, or at the very least distracting. She's deft with the brushes as she layers powdery blues over her eyelids in mirror images, and you think distantly that her hands remind you a bit of your teacher in Preschool, the one who painted on the side. There's a sort of confidence in her fingers, a sureness that doesn't seem at all fitting when you match it up with the uncertainty in her eyes as she winks one shut to check that the colours are blended right and there aren't any breaks in the eyeliner.
It takes a few minutes before she's done touching up, and when she zips the bag and hands it back so you can put it back in the glovebox again, she smiles, lips a blindingly bright pink and her eyes bright. You think it's a bit much for her face, but she still manages some sort of weirdly extravagant beauty. "You look nice," you tell her, and you mean it.
Emily smiles at you with her mouth barely open to show the teeth, reaching over to put a hand on your face. "You're such a peach, Francis," she says, patting your cheek gently. "Thank you." She smiles more broadly as she lowers her hand and winks at you, reaching over to pop open the driver's side door. "Now let's go get you inside to your daddy."
You hope your face doesn't fall too much as you unbuckle yourself and open your door, stepping out onto the sidewalk with a quick little stretch and a twinge of fear in your stomach that you try hard to ignore. Emily walks around the front of the car, clicking as she goes, and when she takes your hand, the grip is crushing again. You're not entirely sure if she knows, but you're not about to point it out either. You've always been the type to suffer in silence.
Emily does the knocking, a series of sharp energetic taps on the wood, then looks down at you with a smile as you wait for the door to open. "Aren't you excited, Francis?" she asks. "You finally get to come home."
You don't trust yourself to speak, so you nod instead, finding it far easier to look convincing when you don't have to worry about your tone of voice giving you away. Emily looks like she's about to say something more, but before she can, the door opens and she drops your hand to wave as your father appears through the glass of the screen door. "Hey, Mikey!" she greets, and he nods shortly. "Francis was finally able to come home today, isn't that great?"
Your father grunts noncommittally as he holds the door open for the two of you to come through, and for the brief second that his eyes rest on you, there's a familiar cold fear that floods your veins and it takes everything you have to not shudder at the sensation. You curl your toes inside your sneakers, locking the tension inside them. You won't break down in front of company, you won't. The three of you stand just inside the entryway, and Emily chatters on obliviously about something you're really not paying attention to for several minutes, and you feel the weight of your father's gaze pressing coldly on your shoulders as you keep your eyes trained carefully on the floor.
"Emily," your father says, cutting her off in the middle of whatever it is she's saying.
She blinks suddenly, then gives a smile that you think is mostly fake even though it looks fairly real. "Yeah, Mikey?" she asks, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. "What do you need?"
"I think Francis needs to lay down some. Doesn't she look tired to you?" His eyes haven't moved from you, and something cold slithers up your spine.
Emily looks at you, biting her lip for a second in confusion since you look as alert as you ever are, but she smiles anyway. "You know, I think you're right," she agrees. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to ramble. I can go tuck her in if you-"
"No," your father says, "that's not necessary. I can get her myself."
There's a silence, and Emily's fingers flutter at her side. Her smile flickers briefly before returning as strong as before. "No, really, it's no trouble for me to-"
"No," your father repeats, and you think Emily hears the firmness in his voice this time because she flinches, just a little bit. "Francis and I have some things to talk about anyway. Best that I do it."
Emily's smile is faltering, eyes flickering between you and your father. "Well, I…" Her voice trails off. "I mean, I suppose I can leave then, if you want me to. I just thought I'd stay a while and-"
"Thursday," he says, cutting her off with a glance in her direction, finally looking away from you long enough for you to take a breath. "We're still meeting up for dinner at that place downtown, aren't we?" Emily nods, and he smiles at her in a way that you hadn't realized he could, a way that seems wholly and utterly false. "How about catching up then? It'll just be the two of us, and we can talk about whatever you want to."
There's another brief pause, then Emily nods. You watch her paste her smile back on as if she's holding it there with duct-tape. "Yeah, of course. That sounds great, Mikey." She winks at him and leans toward him with the obvious intent of stealing a quick kiss, but he barely pecks her on the lips, and she pulls away with a certain darkness in her eyes that you struggle to miss. "I'll see you then." She rests her hand on the door handle, then smiles back at you. "I'm glad you're alright, Francis," she tells you, and with one last wink and a grin, she's gone.
Your father watches from the doorway as Emily walks to her car and climbs in. You hear it starting up and pulling away, and then your father moves to close the door and you feel your stomach drop and tie itself into a knot. He turns to face you, and once again, you can't help flinching at how enraged his expressions can become the second an audience leaves.
You shake your head instantly, inching backward into the kitchen and opening your mouth to apologise – you're not sure which part you're about to apologise for, but whatever it is, you're sure you should feel remorse for it - but he's already cutting you off. "I don't want to hear your excuse," he growls bluntly, "or anything else you've got to say other than an answer to the questions I've got. Is that clear?" There's no room in his tone for you to disagree, and you nod compliantly, quickly. He doesn't even wait for your verbal affirmation before stepping toward you with such a force in his movements that you flinch. "Now what the hell is your problem?"
You shake your head. "I don't know, Daddy, I-"
"I don't know isn't an answer," he snarls. "What's the big goddamn issue, that you can't just do like you're told?"
You swallow hard, taking a step backward again. This house is used to the silence, but the rage in his voice, the ringing of his yelling, it's swallowing everything whole and ripping the silence apart, choking the air out of the room and out of your lungs, and your hands are shaking with fear as your tongue trips over the explanations you try to say too fast. "I don't- I don't mean to- I didn't-"
"Don't feed me that bullshit!" Your father slams his hand down onto the kitchen table with a resounding bang that makes you flinch, and you feel your shoulders curl up as if to protect yourself but you force them back down because you know that if he gets too tired of your flinching, he'll make things worse. "If you don't mean to, then why the hell do you?"
"It's an accident," you insist, head still shaking and your voice trembling. "I don't want to get in your way or make you mad, I'm sorry, it just-"
He cuts you off sharply with a wave of his hand and a glare that could cut steel, his voice dripping ice. "You don't want to make me mad, huh?" He steps toward you, and almost without thinking, you step back. "That why you keep playing these games then? Freezing yourself sick, telling everyone you're not a girl? You think that's gonna make me happy?" His words are snarled through gritted teeth.
You shake your head. "No, I-"
"Then it isn't a goddamn accident! Why do you do it?" He steps toward you again and you step back in response, but your back is against the wall now and there's nowhere left for you to go.
Your panic is a fist around your lungs and you swear you can hear the fear pumping blood through your veins to echo in your ears. "I'm sorry," you plea, "I'm so sorry, please don't-"
"Answer the question!" He roars, and he raises a hand.
"I don't know!" you say desperately, and the hand connects, sending you stumbling. The wall against your back throws you off balance and you wind up on the floor, but you don't hold your cheek, instead taking advantage of the fact that there's no longer anything in your way and scurrying back on all fours in a desperate attempt to get away. You know it makes him mad, you know he hates it when you flinch and when you act afraid, but you're not acting and your heart is pounding and you want to go anyplace that's away from here, anywhere where he isn't, anywhere with air. Your father steps toward you and you close your eyes as words fall out in a frantic rush, wincing visibly. "I'm sorry I got sick, Daddy, I'm sorry, I just wanted you to be happy!"
"And you think that being sick will make me happy? Who the hell do you think has to pay for those hospital bills now because you had to run around with a bunch of goddamn freaks and get yourself frozen, huh?" You've never seen him this mad, and the rage twisting his face burns your eyes, or maybe that's the tears you're trying to fight back. "Answer me, Francis!"
You're not even thinking about what you're saying anymore. It's like being back in the Underground except that the enemy in front of you doesn't want to be your friend and the only command you have is to act because you can't fight or flee, and so you're talking desperately like it will save you somehow. "You told me that you had company and you didn't want to be interrupted and I told you I wouldn't and I know you don't like it when I get in the way of you dating and you haven't been happy since Mom left because I always mess it up, but when I got back the door was locked and I couldn't climb in and I didn't have a key so I waited for a while but the company didn't leave and I was getting too cold and so I had to come in and I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry, I didn't want to get in your way, I'm sorry, I-" There's heat stinging at the back of your eyes, and you watch your father's face go white. The colour change is bad enough, but then you notice that his expression is no longer enraged. You don't know what it is, because you know shock doesn't belong on your father's face and even if it did, that's not what's there, and you flinch because it's unfamiliar and you don't know how to act anymore, if talking will even still help. "I'm sorry, Daddy," you whisper. "I didn't mean it."
He looks at you for several seconds, and there is total silence. You see his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. Your heart is pounding, and you can hear both of your breaths. When your father speaks, his voice seems calm, but you immediately recognise the undercurrent to it, the way it pulses with disbelief, and you swear you feel the world stop. "So are you telling me," he hisses, "that everything is my fault?"'
You freeze, closing your eyes as the panic closes off your airways again and you shake your head, frantic, and you start to back away again. "No, I didn't mean-"
He notices your movements and it breaks the dam. All the rage comes flooding back with twice the intensity, and he reaches for the plate on the counter beside him. You barely duck out of the way in time to avoid being hit squarely in the face by it, and your heart is pounding and your lungs aren't working and you can't breathe, can't breathecan'tbreathe and he's yelling so loud you can't hear anything else, not even the pumping of the blood in your veins as the plate shatters into the wall beside you and one of the pieces of glass that flies away from the wreckage cuts across your arm and you feel little shards of it grinding into your palms as you keep moving backward because there's nothing else for you to do. "Am I supposed to be happy that my daughter can't take care of herself? That I have to raise an ungrateful goddamn brat by myself? IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME HAPPY?" You can't escape this, can't plug your ears and drown him out, can't run anywhere.
"I'm sorry-" you gasp out, but he isn't listening, and he's crossing the room toward you but you can't get up and you can't get away because there's nowhere here that's safe, nowhere for you to go.
He grabs you by your arms, and you gasp in pain as his hands wrap tightly over the bruise to paint a new one across the skin, and you don't taste the air sawing through your lungs as he lifts you bodily off the ground and shakes you so hard that you feel your brain rattling against your skull. "What happened to your mother isn't my fault! You are not! My! Fault!" he roars, and you gasp with the agony of your brain pounding around and his grip on your arms. "If you want so badly to make me happy, then why don't you stop fucking everything up?" You can't take this, you can't. You try to kick away from your father in desperation, and he roars loudly, yelling white noise instead of words as he throws you to the ground, and you curl up into yourself among the shards of glass, covering your head with your arms and shaking. "Get out!" your father bellows, and when you don't move instantly he steps forward you with his foot pulled back as if he's prepared to send it crashing into your ribs. "I said get out, you little bitch!"
You scurry to a standing position as ceramic slices into your palms, but your legs are shaking so much they give out underneath you until you force yourself to put them back to use, and you scramble to your feet and bolt for the door, pulling it open and ignoring the pain as you run outside, not caring that that's what started this mess, and you're thankful that there are no neighbors to see your fear and make things worse as you run down the street, as far away as you can get from the place where you know you've ruined so much and you know you'll have to return.
Over an hour later, you're still biting back fear when you make your way down to the edge of the little creek that runs behind the elementary school you attended for the few months you went to kindergarten before running away. You used to come here a lot, when things would get really bad and the park didn't seem like it was far enough away from your house to be safe. There's a plastic house on the playground that you slept in once and the jungle gym was always a good way to spend time, but whenever things were at their messiest, you always bypassed the school playground to come here to the creek, to the sounds of quiet isolation and rushing water and being safe.
You tuck your legs carefully underneath you as you sit down, and you bite your lip hard to keep from crying out when the movement sends a razor of agony shooting up your right leg. The adrenaline pulsing through your veins had mostly concealed the pain when you'd first started out and the need to get away had filled in when the adrenaline wore off, but the time you've spent walking to get here has alerted you to the fact that you must have twisted your ankle when you'd fallen, or maybe when you were trying to get up. The logistics don't really matter to you, but the pain does. As accustomed as you are to hurting, it's a bit harder to hide that hurt when its source is a part of your body that you use conspicuously every day instead of a wrist or something similarly easy to conceal.
Deciding that you'll worry about that later, you turn your attention to your hands, examining the scratched up palms carefully. By some miracle, it doesn't look like there's any glass wedged in the wounds, which saves you the trouble of having to pick it out later with tweezers, but air still burns against the open skin and you know you'll have to be careful about keeping them clean for a while until they heal up. You bite your lip as you look over at the creek and the cold water rushing through it, contemplating just dipping your hands in to wash off the blood before deciding that it may not be the best idea. The last thing you need right now is an infection, so you settle instead for carefully dipping your fingertips into the water and scrubbing a bit at your hands, wincing when you come too close to the wounds and put pressure on them. You think that once upon a time you might have done more than wince at the sharp flutter of pain, that you might have even cried, but those times are long gone, and now this hurts about as much as a scraped knee would, even if it's still considerably more traumatising than tripping on the sidewalk ever was.
You try not to think about it too much, try to focus on being careful as you clean instead, and soon enough, your hands are well off enough that you can turn your attention to the last area that's still in need of attention, cautiously examining your right arm. The lone scar that stretches across the skin as a reminder of the one time somebody who hurt you apologised is neatly bisected by a thankfully clean cut from where the glass sliced across it, and you poke at it experimentally. You don't feel this one nearly as much as the others and you don't really know why, because it's long and gross and still bleeding a little bit, but you decide to just go with it. You've found it's best not to question your good luck, and besides, the rest of your body hurts more than enough to make up for the relative numbness of the arm.
As you dip your fingers back into the water so you can clean off your arm, you bite back a wince. Everything aches, and every movement is enough to make you want to find a nice back corner of the universe and sleep until either everything else disappears or you do. The thought of going back home is almost unbearable, but you have no idea of where else to go, where else you can go. Even if you knew where all the monsters lived, you couldn't just walk in and take up residence. They'd ask questions. They'd have the right to. They'd ask questions and then they'd find out the truth because you've lied a lot for your father's sake but you've never thought that you were really that good at it and you know you're not good enough to hide it from Sans, and then between him and Undyne they'd probably both get themselves sent back behind a new barrier after making headlines for turning the ambassador's father into a human pin-cushion.
It's your own fault, you think. If you had just done things the easy way and given up on the mountain, this wouldn't be a problem. Even if you had just never come home, it wouldn't be a problem, because you know your father and you're pretty sure he'd be more than happy to give you up to the lowest bidder if he could find a way to do it without repercussion, but at the same time you know that even if you could load a save and go back to a week and a half ago, you'd still make the same choice, would still go back because you've always managed to find a way to save everybody else and you think there has to be a way to talk things out with him too. He's the last living parent you have. There has to be something.
It doesn't matter, you decide. Living or not, the choice was made and you can't undo it, so you have to get past it instead, solve the problems you create, but the last place you want to go is back to that house, especially now, especially with his anger still likely to be crackling through the air. You think it might be safer to wait until nightfall, but you doubt it would do you any good, because then whenever your father calmed down enough for the sight of your face to not send him into the throes of unstoppable rage, he'd still be mad about the fact that you ran away for almost twelve hours again because you couldn't just get over things at home. You're pretty sure there's not really any answer to this situation that comes out with you being the victor and everyone being happy, and distantly, you realise that you're not surprised. This is all you've ever expected out of going home, really. It never has mattered what you try, because all roads lead to the same ending.
You hear a sniffling noise that pulls you from your wandering thoughts, and you look around briefly, barely noticing the way your hands have stilled in the water as you search for the source of the noise. It takes several moments for you to realise that you're the one sniffling, and you feel your shoulders twitch a few times with painful spasms of emotion that choke off in your throat. You reach up to touch your face, but you're not entirely sure if the wetness you feel there is the creek or actual tears, because you're pretty sure that if they were tears you'd be feeling something beyond the hollowness that's hanging limply in your chest, the fear from before having taken over and left no room for anything else in the hole where you know your emotions are supposed to be resting. It's probably not a good sign, but you think not feeling anything is a bit nice for now, because if you feel anything at all you know it will landslide all too quickly into feeling everything at once, and you don't think you can take that, you really don't. Not on top of your father. Not on top of your guilt. Not on top of the knowledge that you have people who care about you but you can't tell the truth and you can't go home to them because that isn't how this works and it never has been.
You're not sure how long it is that you sit there feeling miserable, but it must be a while because the sun is casting long shadows across the ground when you finally feel your shoulders stop shaking and the numbness settling back over your entire body, its monotony broken only by the murmuring aches that spread through you whenever you move. You lean over the creek, looking down at your reflection, and frown when you notice that your eyes are red and puffy and you must have been crying after all, not just wanting to cry like you usually do, and you stick your hands in the cold water and press them to your face, finding refreshment in the pleasant chill and the knowledge that the cold will help hide the blotches. You hold your hands there until you can see your own reflection without any hints of crying when you look down, and you try to fake a smile at the face that looks up at you from the water, but you don't think it believes you and you know that you don't believe it. You try a few times more to get the smile right, and then you give up because you know it's going to look just as fake no matter how many times you try, and it doesn't matter anyway because it's not like you've really got anybody to fool.
You stand up, brushing your knees off from where you've been sitting so long on the grass, and you look up to the sky. If you hurry, you might still make it back before night falls and the weather gets really cold, and if you're lucky, your father will be passed out and he won't notice you and he won't try to scare you away again, and you'll have plenty of time to change into a shirt with sleeves long enough to cover up your arms and your palms. It's not really much of a hope, but it's all you have. With one last, despondent look at the face in the creek and the smile it's wearing that it doesn't feel, you nod to yourself, determined to keep going, to keep fighting until you find a way to make this mistake right as you square your shoulders or try to and you start the long walk home.
