Musical Appearance
Sports AU
Angst
Washidad/lams
When John's mother left, his whole world felt like it was crumbling around him. The slurred shouts that reverberated off the walls of the Laurens' household left every child in the household trembling. Martha tucked baby Mary closer into her arms, John's own arms coming to encircle the pair as they huddled in his bedroom closet, trying to block out the noise. John had placed a pair of noise canceling headphones on Mary, connecting Martha's phone to the Bluetooth, and entertaining the baby, trying to keep her form crying. Lord knows it would only make the situation worse.
The front door slammed shut and Henry Laurens' car started, before it rumbled away down the long driveway of their mansion of a home. John counted to 360 before unwrapping his arms and helping his sister to her feet. They climbed out of the cramped closet, limbs protesting every movement after having been stuck in the same position for so long.
"Get to bed, Martha. You have a big biology test tomorrow, don't you?" John asked, taking Mary from the younger girl's arms.
"Yeah but," Martha yawned hugely. "You have the SAT for college. And you know Father won't let you take it more that once." She made grabby hands toward the baby again, trying to convince John to let her put down Mary.
"It's okay. I'll worry about myself, as soon as you get to bed yourself," John promised. "I'll come in and make sure, Marty. And I'll drive you to school tomorrow."
"No, John," she went to protest, but the boy shushed her gently.
"Good night," he hugged her with his free arm before kissing her forehead and leading her to her room. Once, he was certain the younger girl had climbed into bed, John took Mary to his own room. Taking off the headphones and stripping his own clothes, before tucking them both into his bed, alarm set for extra early so he could surprise his sisters with a homemade breakfast. Hopefully, his mother would be home in the morning, her leaving just another moment of rage towards his father.
However, when John awoke, there were no cars in the driveway. Granted, the sun had yet to rise, he still felt a bit of fear surge in his gut. What if his never came back. Sure, she deserved not to be on the receiving end of his father's aggressive actions, but she couldn't have just left him hear. Could she?
John made sure Mary was still asleep before walking to the kitchen, turning on the stove and whisking the pancake batter. Normally, the maids would cook breakfast, but after last night, John felt he needed to make it up to his sisters. He wasn't really sure why that was, he had nothing to be ashamed of other than their shared father. But he couldn't help but feel that this was his fault. It was his own fault that Martha had huddled around a baby last night while they trembled in his closet. He hadn't come out or anything, so he had absolutely no reason to feel this way, but he let the guilt simmer, turning into a deep sadness that ran through his veins.
After scrounging around for some vegetables and ham, John cracked the remaining eggs into the pan, stirring them to create a fluffy scramble, before he added the ham and green peppers. The smell filtered through the air thickly, making John's mouth water. He filled two cups with orange juice when he heard Martha moving around upstairs, serving the eggs and pancakes on two plates.
He headed back upstairs to get Mary dressed, meeting Martha in the hall before they made their way downstairs again. John put a bottle of formula into the microwave, heating it so it was warm as Martha sat at the counter, already stuffing her face with eggs and pancakes, downing the orange juice in a single gulp.
"Slow down there, Tiger," John chuckled, his own food untouched as he tested the formula's heat, deeming it acceptable, and giving it to Mary to suckle on. "You're gonna get sick."
Martha grinned toothily; a bit of green pepper skin stuck to her canine tooth. "Thanks for breakfast, Jack." Clearly, she was doing her best to ignore the fact that neither of their "parents" were home. John respected that. It was always easier to avoid their predicament than try and face it head on.
John wolfed down his own food, grabbing some worn down Number 2 pencils and a calculator, before grabbing his own car keys and putting Mary in her car seat, Martha climbing into the passenger seat.
They sat in silence, Mary gurgling in the background until they arrived at daycare. Martha kept watch of the car as John grabbed the youngest Laurens and brought her inside. However, as they were walking, the bounce in John's step caused the baby to spittle on his shirt. He cursed quietly, feeling the warm liquid seep through to his skin. He had forgotten to burp her. Either way, it was too late now.
John entered the daycare, smiling at the teachers present. "Hi Mrs. Adams," he greeted, handing Mary to her.
"Hello, John. Normally your mother drops off little Mary here. Is she alright?" John's face paled slightly.
"Oh, um. She was just, uh, running late this morning. She asked me to bring in Mary," John lied. Mrs. Adams nodded in understanding.
"Well, I'm sure you don't know yet, but kids are quite a hassle," she grinned, bouncing Mary on her hip. The baby smiled, fingers reaching out to grab Mrs. Adams' nose. The woman blew a raspberry, causing Mary to shriek.
"Well, thank you Mrs. Adams. I'm sure my mom will be around to pick her up later," John said. "Bye Mary!" The baby was too enthralled with Mrs. Adams' silly faces to pay John much attention. The boy ignored the painful tug in his chest and left the daycare, not seeing Mrs. Adams' pained face watching as he left.
When he exited, the car was pulled away slightly off to the side, Martha in the driver's seat, picking at her nails. John knocked on the window, raising an eyebrow at her current placing. She jumped out of her haze and crawled over the center console back to her seat, leaving John room to get back in his rightful place.
"You're not supposed to be driving," he told her, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot.
"Sorry. People were beginning to honk, and they yelled at me. So I moved the car," she quietly said. John hadn't felt angry to begin with, so what was left was aggravation at people for not understanding his situation. Obviously, they couldn't. They had no idea what they were dealing with right now.
"It's okay, Marty. Now let's get you to that biology test, yeah?" They smiled weakly at each other. Despite her younger age, Martha understood what was going on. She knew the odds of their mother coming back this time were slim. But neither of them let go of their firm grasp on a thin string of hope. Neither of them were willing to relinquish their childish desires for their family to be ordinary.
"Are you going to hockey practice today?" Martha asked. John's eyes flicked to her once.
"I don't play hockey anymore, Martha. But yes, I am going to work," John told her firmly. Once upon a time, hockey had been John's life. His only support through his ever-shaky home life. He'd go to practice, get thrown against plastic barriers and nearly pummeled into the ground. But it was a better alternative to taking out his aggression than getting into actual fights. So, he would spend hours on the hockey rink, whether there was practice or not, and shoot pucks into the net or throw himself into the wall just to feel something. All under the watchful eye of Coach Washington.
However, when he had been driving to a hockey game, three of his other teammates in the car, they had wrecked, a drunk driver ramming into the side of the car. In the end, it had been ruled that John had run a red light though everyone else would argue otherwise. Unfortunately, the true offender's lawyer had bribed the judge, and to everyone's horror, John had taken the blunt of the blow. The repercussions in terms of money and jail time had been slim to none, but at the expense of his teammates who were in the car with him. Lafayette and Hercules had experienced the least of the trauma. Lafayette with a concussion and fractures arm, Hercules with a need for hundreds of stitches for various cuts, and a broken collar bone. John himself had been mostly unscathed aside from a few bruises and broken ankle. However, Alexander, John's boyfriend, had taken the blunt of the blow, the car hitting his side directly. He had been airlifted to the hospital and placed in a medically induced coma. When the immigrant had woken, it had been to discover a lack of feeling and movement available in his legs. Despite years of physical therapy, Alexander had been confined to a wheelchair.
Alex and John were still dating despite the accident. Alexander tried to tell John countless times that the accident was everyone's fault but his own, but John refused to accept that. Even Alex's foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Washington, had refused to let John wallow in his guilt. However, Mr. Washington had respected John's wishes to stop playing hockey. If Alex couldn't play, John wouldn't either. Still, it wasn't long before John was itching for the cool air of the hockey rink, and Coach Washington had offered John a place of employment at the hockey rink.
John pulled up in front of his and Martha's high school, people already flooding into the doors. He took Martha's hand in his own, kissing her knuckles. "I love you," he whispered. She hugged him tightly.
"I love you, too," and she climbed out of the car, grabbing her bag and joining some of her friends as they too joined the throng of students. John took a moment to steady his breathing in the car before grabbing his own stuff and walking into the SAT testing room. Martha hadn't been exaggerating when she said their father wouldn't allow him to take the test again if he didn't receive the score he wanted. In return, John studied relentlessly for the test, praying to every god out there that he would get a good enough score to get into somewhere that wasn't community college. He would never get into Columbia like Alexander, but he was aiming for NYU with Hercules and Lafayette.
The test proctor was mean. He yelled across the room, kicked kids out for breathing too loudly, and refused to give a five-minute warning for the end of sections. It was like he wanted the students to fail. The test was long and grueling, leaving John's head spinning with numbers and words. However, he felt good. The answer key hadn't had more that three of the same answer in a row, and he had been able to work out most of the math without guessing.
Martha would be going home with one of her best friends, so John slipped out of the school as soon as his test was over and headed to Washington Hockey Rink. The drive was short, but it was still enough time for John to get anxious. The team would be there. While he knew the boys weren't angry about the car crash or his leaving the team, John couldn't help the butterflies in his stomach that appeared when he thought of joining them.
John took a steadying breath before crawling out of the car. The main lobby was silent, most people still getting out of school. John could appreciate it. After stopping by Washington's office to let the coach know he was here, he grabbed a broom and began sweeping the bleachers. There had been a hockey game last night.
Slowly the guys on the team began to arrive and John tried to stay as quiet as possible. However, he could never escape the sight of his two closest friends.
"John, mon ami!" Lafayette called, skating over to the side of the rink John was cleaning.
"Hey, Lafayette, Hercules," John greeted, putting down the broom and walking to the edge of the rink. He winced when Hercules took his helmet off and he was greeted with the sight of a nasty pink scar running down Hercules' cheek. If the taller boy noticed, he said nothing.
"We really could have used you out there last night. We won, but only by the skin of our teeth," Hercules commented.
"Oui, we miss you on the ice," Lafayette said. He leaned his tall, lanky body on the edge of the rink, letting his skates slip out behind him. Despite the Frenchman's skin and bones stature, he was incredibly fast on ice, and provided a valuable asset to the team.
"Yeah, well," John rubbed his neck. He didn't know how to respond. His friends knew there was no way he was getting on the ice before Alexander did. Luckily, Coach Washington blew his whistle, and the boys left John to circle in the middle of the rink and discuss their plan of action for the practice.
After he finished sweeping, John slipped into the offices to help Mrs. Washington with paperwork. She was a stout woman, shoulders slightly hunched from leaning over a desk most of the day. But when she was on the ice, she was graceful and elegant, years of figure skating training her to stand with perfect posture.
"Hello, John, Sweetie. How are you?" She asked, pausing her scribbling.
"I'm good," he said, forcing a smile.
"You're doing well," came a voice from behind him. "And no, you're not."
John turned to face Alexander, his boyfriend now two feet shorter than he had been before the accident. The other boy smile and wheeled himself beside his foster mom's desk, a relaxed grin on his face. Despite the horrors of Alex's situation, he always seemed perfectly okay with it. Holding nothing against John, and happy he could at least move his upper body to continue his other passion, writing.
"I'm fine, Alex," John said, his smile a little more genuine. Alexander rolled his eyes, but let it slide, knowing he wouldn't get anywhere with John at this point. John could always appreciate Alex's ability to know when John needed comforting, and when he just wanted to be left alone.
"Well, we've got work to do, boys!" Mrs. Washington announced, slamming a huge stack of papers on the table. "John, can you file, and Alexander can you help me write these emails?"
The trio worked for hours, the monotony of filing numbing John's mind. The incessant clicking of the old keyboard only added to the painfully tedious work. Despite this, John knew that if he was ever going to get his siblings out of their dad's house, he needed the money that came with the job.
Suddenly, John's phone rang, cutting through the silence. When he looked at the caller ID, John recognized the number of Mary's daycare.
"Hello?" He answered, Alexander stopping his typing to look at his boyfriend curiously.
"Hello, John? This is Mrs. Adams. I'm calling to let you know daycare is over. Your mom never came to pick her up, and I didn't know if you were supposed to and you forgot or…?"
John cursed softly under his breath. "Yeah, um. I'll head right over." John could feel tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. Why wasn't his mom coming home? John quickly hung up the phone and apologized to Alex and Mrs. Washington that he needed to grab Mary from school, leaving out the detail of his mother's lack of presence.
The daycare was deserted besides Mrs. Adams who was holding Mary on the outdoor step. John left the car idling and ran to grab his youngest sibling. He apologized profusely, trying to hand Mrs. Adams a ten-dollar bill for allowing Mary to stay after the daycare closed. She merely waved John away, explaining that things like this happened all the time. However, by the sad look in Mrs. Adams' eyes, picking up a baby two hours after it closed was not usual.
John quickly strapped Mary into the car and called Martha as he began the drive home, asking if she was ready to come home. The older sister must have heard the distress in his voice, and she immediately agreed to head home earlier, apologizing profusely to her host for leaving. Martha was waiting outside, fiddling with her phone when John pulled up.
As soon as she closed the door, John burst. "Mom never picked up Mary." Apparently, Martha didn't have anything to say to that. John glanced over to his sister and studied her tensed shoulders, watched her chew on her thumb nail, deep in thought. John sighed and parked his car in front of the house. They had a few hours before their father got home. Hopefully.
John put Mary into his own bed and watched Martha go down to her own bedroom, leaving the door open in case John needed her. He cracked open his textbook and began working on his calculus homework, numbers flying around his head as he reworked graphs on a scrap piece of paper. John didn't notice the hours had ticked by until the front door slammed again. He could hear Martha jump from the other room.
Both siblings immediately raced downstairs, John praying to everything holy that Mary would stay asleep as she had done for him all through his studying. When Martha and John finally reached the kitchen, their father already had a bottle in his hand, lounging on one of the barstools.
"Hey, Martha, hey Jackie," he slurred, eyes lazily meeting their faces. Martha smiled, going over to kiss Henry's cheek and begin brewing some tea, hoping to ease their father's inevitable rage. However, as soon as the kettle whistled, Mary screamed. Both John and Martha froze.
"Why is that child yelling?" Henry snarled. "Jack, you were supposed to put her down by now." The man swaggered over to his eldest child. Martha quickly turned off the kettle and ran upstairs, grabbing her phone on the way.
John breathed a sigh of relief when Martha got out. It was short lived, however, when the father snarled. "I just want to come home to piece and quiet. Is that too much to ask?"
"N-No, Father," John responded, backing into the stove and wincing when the remaining heat flooded up his back. Unfortunately for the freckled teen, Henry Laurens noticed.
"You don't like the heat, boy? Well, you shouldn't have been playing with fire." And for a while, John didn't register anything but searing hot pain, searing skin and coursing through veins. It wasn't until the kettle was cooled and empty that the older man lost interest in John's screams.
It could have been hours, minutes, seconds, days. John didn't know. But soon, he heard his father's snores echoing through the living room, and Martha's quiet footsteps. His sister gasped softly. John heard the dial tones coming through his sister's phone, then Alexander's almost timid voice. John wanted to protest. Don't get the love of his life involved. Please.
But soon enough, sirens were heard approaching their driveway and the door was kicked in. Mr. Washington knelt by John's side, cursing softly at what was probably third-degree burns.
"M-Martha. Mary. Are they okay?" John asked, voice hoarse from screaming.
"They're all okay, John. We love you so much, you're safe now," George whispered, placing John on the gurney to the ambulance. "It's okay. You are so loved."
WC: 3321
