Watching The Stars Together
Drabble 53: Bullied
Orion was incredibly quiet that week.
Quieter than Cecaniah even. He picked at his food, churned at it with a fork and went to school for those five days with a scowl darker than even one Wizard could pull.
"What do you think's wrong with him?" Asked Hikari, looking at Wizard with concern as he cleared off the table. Wizard, picking up Orion's plate, looked at her and said, in that same quiet voice of his,
"I'll… talk to… him…"
When Orion returned home from school that Friday, with Cecaniah in tow, bearing shiners and a single black eye, Hikari had gasped, taken him into the bathroom and cleaned him up with demands about who did this to him. Cecaniah refused to say anything, muttering something about promises and pride, and was sent immediately to her room.
Hikari taped band aids to scraped knees and elbows, and Wizard tried to square the truth from Cecaniah, but she wouldn't budge.
"Orion made me promise not to tell." Was her explanation, after each and every attempt at prying information from her.
When Orion was cleaned up, Wizard took the boy into the boy's room. Hikari said something about Wizard being more able to talk heart-to-heart with their son, about Orion being more willing to talk to him instead of her about the incident.
Orion held a rubix cube in his hand, fixating on it with no desire to look at the man that sat beside him on the bed.
"What… happened… today?" Wizard asked.
"I…" Orion choked, tears welled up in his mismatched eyes. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Is someone… hurting you…?" Wizard put a hand on his son's shoulder, and Orion's eyes squeezed shut as he sobbed. He clung to his father, and wept into his clothes, and Wizard held his son tight, rocking him in his arms.
"Yes… yes…" Orion managed to choke out, the rubix cube he had been holding laid forgotten on the ground of his room. "Matt… Matt's been hitting me! I don't know what I did but he's been calling me all sorts of names and I…"
Wizard held his son close, stroking the boy's silver hair.
