That first day Vlad's father had been found playing piano in the school hallway, that was when it began. His mother had fallen so in love with that beautiful music, the soft press of the keys to form something long and charming. She had adored his playing, the way his fingers danced across the white stairs to oblivion. He could play forever and ever, his love for the woman and his child bursting in each note. His father had loved them so much, and he spent many nights sending Vlad to sleep while playing. It was calming, watching his digits flit across the keys. His wife loved it even more so, begging him to play whenever he got home from his draining job. Despite being exhausted to his very core, he would always smile, pat Vladdy on the head, and began to play.
Maybe that was what the problem had been. His father's need to please his partner and son formed into an obsession. Not his obsession, but hers. Keep playing dear, you don't want to make me sad now do you? Every day those words left her thin lips, the lines curling into a small smile. She just watched, stared at the fingers pressing the keys. Vlad was never allowed to touch that piano, even though he wanted to see. See if he could make the same noises his father could make, so that his mother could smile at him. He would be caught by her, just reaching out to pull a note from the monster of an instrument, then be beat. No, no he mustn't touch the piano. It was his father's, he should know better.
Then the scrubbing. She'd make Vlad scrub after every meal, before bed, after he woke up, so on and so forth. She had been a clean freak, but his father, his father could be covered in grime and she would let him. She'd let him roll around in their bed with mud splashed onto his coveralls. She'd kiss his grubby cheeks and ask him to play. That was the daily routine. Nothing his father did was wrong, even when he let a wild dog into the house for Vlad to play with. His father would want to play in the mud outside, but his mother would never allow him to go out. Best not to get dirty, she'd say, your father just wants you to be sullied. He would stare out at the large man playing in the mud, stare at the hand that waved for him to come down, to disobey his mother. He knew he shouldn't, so he never did.
That man had been the light of both of their lives. He was their everything, bringing joy into the home, his dirty fingers slipping into Vlad's hair and tangling it. Just to get a rise from his mother. His big booming laugh would shake the whole entire house, waking it and filling it with life. His music, putting it into a gentle waterfall of sleep. But one day, it stopped. He never came back from his work, his mother sobbing painful tears each waking moment. Vlad never understood, she refused to tell him. She refused to let him touch anything that was his father's, screaming that he would dirty it. That his grime would spread and black out his father's essence.
The new rule came. A tight and constricting rule, one that included physically beating the poor boy. Without his father, there was no one to reign in his mother's anger and calm her, no one to lighten her mood and make her laugh. All that pent up rage was let out on him, screaming and hitting, knives being thrown. His only getaway was school, and even then he was never safe. Bullies crawled out of nowhere, picking Vlad as the official victim. Even he was unable to tell where the cuts and bruises came from, unable to tell apart which was his mother and which was the boys. He'd get home, his house dead silent. She'd walk out and see the new wounds, growing soft and comforting him.
When she'd ask where they came from, he would never tell. If he told, the bullies wouldn't be safe. Yes, they hurt him, but he didn't want them to get hurt themselves. He had already made that mistake, and the kid had never shown back up to school. There were still missing flyers and pictures on milk cartons. He was her punching bag, her forever clean punching bag. And he would never be anybody else's. Once he hit sophomore year, that was when she grew tired of the silence. She wanted him to play, to play music for her like his father once had. It wasn't an option. He had never had a choice in the matter. He didn't have any choice when she asked him to wash his hands before touching the keys. He didn't get to decide how long he needed to scrub.
Every day he would play those same notes, over and over again. It was hard to learn how to play piano, but to play it with bruised and scabbed fingers was a different matter entirely. Playing without proper instructions doubly so. It was an entirely different layer of hell. One that was designed perfectly for him, one where he could only escape if his mother died. And she wouldn't, that old hag would live until he himself died, and then she would take his soul. But he loved her, she was his mother and he wanted her love so bad, why wouldn't she look at him with kindness in her eyes? Why did it feel as if everyone wanted him gone?
Habits soon took their form, a growing fear for germs overtaking his life. He couldn't touch his meals without cringing, the feeling of beetles crawling and pinching under his skin. Bumping into people made his skin tighten, and he began to wear long sleeve shirts, long pants that covered his ankles. If there was any dirt on him, his mother would yell. She would shout and kick and lock him in his room for hours, forcing him to memorize sheet music. She would ask why his hands weren't like his father's. She would sob and lay there in a pile on the floor, screaming at nothing. Why, why aren't his hands like his?! She hated him, and he couldn't fix it.
Long nights filled with scrubbing, blood filling a sink and long blisters forming and caking around his knuckles and palms. It hurt, but he had to keep them clean. If he didn't, he'd get hit. And then she would cry, and he hated her crying. He just wanted her to smile again and to laugh, to love life. His fingers didn't move quite right, but they hadn't before anyways. He could never hit the right keys, his hands would slip and pound without meaning to. He didn't have control over it, his hands. They just, they just didn't work. He missed his dad.
The week leading up to his graduation was hectic. Vlad had been planning to leave for a long time, much longer than anyone had been expecting. He had this friend, Jack, who had successfully convinced him to go to the University of Wisconsin with him. Jack had made him believe that he was better than this, he didn't deserve any of the stuff that was happening to him. He was amazing and nothing could ever change that. He was understanding. The night before his graduation, he had everything packed, and his mother would never know.
Until she came into his room. Her eyes. Lord, her eyes were filled with flames. As if she was the devil herself. Vlad was pinned, his hands grabbed and crushed like beatles beneath a boot. She had never done that, she had never outright grabbed his hands. She clawed and bit, forcing his hands into places where he would never have put them. Never in this life, or any other. The beetles were crawling again, tearing under his skin and biting down roughly into the nerves. Everything was still vivid in his now forty year old mind. He remembered every breath and scream from his mother. The uncomfortable feeling of her flesh against his.
When she was finally done, done with him and everything that had just happened, she left. She left him in a bloody and half naked pile, curled up against the wall. That last touch, her cradling his head and kissing it, stayed with him. It haunted him once in awhile, nightmares forming from bits of the memory. That was the last time he saw her. He didn't know whether or not she was alive anymore, and he didn't care. He had never deserved what she did, he had never deserved that last night. He was far superior to her. But that next day, it was filled with tears and comfort. A familiar large man holding him and telling him everything was fine. The drive began.
When Vlad had finished recounting his childhood, the room was left in a gentle silence. A fire flickered beside them, the soft crackling comforting. Danny searched the older man's face, hoping to find at least a hint of anger about his mother. There was nothing, only a sad hopelessness, a look of someone who had never fully been given back after being owned. He slowly reached out, his hand gently covering the bandages there. Wide eyes met his, and he could feel the muscles tense, the want to tear his hand away and never been touched again. Please, please let him just have this one chance to comfort him. He didn't know how else to do it.
A name had stuck though, the one name that Vlad had cared to name. Jack. Why was that name so familiar? The name burning at his brain and curling its tendrils, burying them into the tissue. His head hurt like shit, why was he stuck on himself right now? He needed to focus on Vlad, to let him understand that he himself understood. Danny looked at the fingers peeking through the bandages. "They're beautiful you know... your hands. Even though you're a crazy fruit loop, even with all of those scars," there was a sharp intake of breath. Water dripped onto the table and Danny saw, he watched as the tears began to rain down. A storm behind his dark eyes.
Vlad cried. He cried for the first time since the trip to Wisconsin, and he couldn't stop crying. A flood of tears, ones that hadn't been released in years, were finally released. The dam broken. He felt warm arms surround him, hesitant, but warm and comforting. It was embarrassing, embarrassing to be crying in front of someone 23 years younger than him. It didn't matter right now, he was just lost. His little badger, he had called his hands beautiful. Even though he knew, he knew that they weren't. That they would never be beautiful like his father's, or like Daniel's. Daniel knew this and he still said it. Why was he lying to him?
He was clinging to Danny for dear life, but he knew he needed it. This man needed the comfort that he hadn't received in years. The dinner that was brought to them was left untouched on the table, having grown cold from the many hours that passed. The food was unimportant. They could go without a meal. His long fingers slipped into Vlad's messy silver bun, gently rubbing circles into his scalp. It was almost like repayment for the previous night. That was intended to be comforting, and this, this had the same purpose. Danny would stay the whole night through with him, until his... No. Not his. He wouldn't think of this creepy older man as his. He would stay until the the crazy fruit loop calmed down. That was the least he could do.