Ah, okay, so it's been a while. Sorry 'bout that, folks. Anyway, thanks as always for the reviews. You guys so *totally* rule all! Heh. Just a little note of warning: there's quite a bit of stuff in here that could squick the easily squicked, so keep that in mind, please. Other than that, I hope ya like it! :)
******
After being single for so long, it was nice to wake up to the sound of someone snoring quietly in his ear. The only problem with that was that it very nearly made Jay's young heart call it quits.
Slowly looking back over his right shoulder as if expecting it to be a mirage that would vanish if looked at too quickly, Jay noticed with no small amount of embarrassment that Adam had a serious case of bed hair. Or car hair, as the case was.
Jay yawned and carefully untangled Adam's arms from around his waist, blinking to clear the sleep from his eyes and get a better look at his surroundings. At some point he couldn't begin to identify they had moved from the ground to the backseat of the Jaguar, the tell-tale signs being the trail of clothing leading from the tree to the left side of the car. Jay laughed despite himself at the almost surreal scene just outside the window, at the shoes and socks and discarded tops moving in a relatively straight line towards the door he had just been leaning against. The sun was already well above the horizon, but he was hardpressed to find the time when he didn't have the slightest idea where his watch had ended up in the flurry of flying clothing hours earlier.
Another yawn escaped him as he tried to stretch his legs and arms, having been folded up in an unnatural position for however long it might have been. All he managed to accomplish was accidentally hitting Adam in the head. The movement made Adam grunt in his sleep, which in turn made Jay break up into laughter, and which in turn made Adam's eyelids flutter open.
"You suck," Adam grumbled, groggy as he was. Jay grinned wickedly, seeing the chance to make his joke and not willing to pass it up.
"Yes. And very well, or so you'd lead me to believe."
Adam raised his eyebrows, caught off guard by the remark, and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Jay sighed and crawled into the front passenger's seat to find the keys and turn the car on so he could find out what time it was.
"Great. I'm making cheesy gay jokes. All we need now is to dress up and go see Rocky Horror Picture Show or something."
Adam leaned over the seat, linking his arms around Jay's neck. "I'm just a sweet transvestite . . ." Jay glared at him, making him sink his face into the mass of unruly blond hair gathered at Jay's shoulder. "I dunno. I always figured if I was gonna do the cliche thing, I was gonna dress as Boy George and start singing 'It's Raining Men'."
"Boy George didn't sing that."
Adam huffed but otherwise remained quiet on the issue, though he couldn't suppress a small grin at hearing Jay humming 'Karma Chameleon' while digging the keys from the glove compartment. The familiar sound of the car humming to life was indication enough that Jay had found the keys. That, or he'd given up and decided to hotwire the thing, but one assumption was better than the other.
Though it was a casual glance he turned to the radio's clock, Adam's eyes widened and he almost choked Jay, reminded of what was between his arms when Jay croaked meekly. "Shit!"
"That's my neck!" Jay squeaked, prying Adam's arms from around his throat and taking a deep breath. "Jesus Christ, man. Why aren't *you* the one that's wrestling here?"
"Shut up. I gotta get home."
"What's wrong, Cinderella? Lose a slipper back there or somethin'?"
"I'm not joking," Adam snapped irritably, falling gracelessly into the front seat and darting out to the field, gathering the clothes in a series of short, swift movements, and running back to the car. "I'm gonna be in so much trouble it's not even funny."
Jay watched with well-hidden amusement as Adam struggled against his anxiety to slip a shirt over his head. "I beg to differ, actually, 'cause I think it's funny as hell."
All he received for his efforts was a heated glare and a rude single-fingered gesture.
"Hey, it's not that bad, okay?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
Jay huffed, trying his best to get into his jeans with some dignity in the cramped conditions. "Sure I do. You like to nail an' bail, apparently."
Adam looked up from tying his shoes, eyes narrowed into angry green slits. "That's not it at all. It's just . . ."
"Just what, Adam? You gotta get home so Daddy can beat the crap out of you for living your life?" Jay demanded, temper flaring. Adam flinched and he went on. "This is bullshit, man. When're you gonna wake up and realize you can't stay there?"
Adam turned his head, putting the car in reverse and backing up fast enough to slam Jay back against his seat. "I already told you that -- when they put me underground."
"Aw, jeez," Jay groaned, putting a frustrated hand to his head and idly threading his fingers through his hair. "You've gotta have some money stashed away or something. Why don't you just take it and rent an apartment somewhere? Or -- if you're desperate, you can live with me an' spend your weekends watching Mad About You reruns with me an' my cat."
"Because it's not that damned simple! Haven't you gotten that through your head yet?"
"Why isn't it? Have you tried it?"
"I'm not dumb enough to try it," Adam admitted, calming just slightly as they pulled out onto the highway. "You don't know my father, Jay. You don't know how many people he knows and just how powerful he is. He says jump, there's twenty people right there asking how high. I'd be stupid to do something to really piss him off. At least I'm smart enough to know that much."
"Like a dog."
"What?"
Jay folded his arms stubbornly over his chest. "I said you're just like a goddamned dog, beaten and kicked to where you're so fucking scared of him you'll do whatever he wants you to. It's pathetic."
"You'd do the same thing in my place." Adam stopped at a red light, taking the chance to turn his shirt around, since he'd put it on backwards in his haste minutes earlier. "You swear too much."
"Only if I have good reasons. And you, you freaking lovable dumbass, are validating most of 'em."
Adam sighed but otherwise kept quiet the remainder of the ride. Once outside his apartment, Jay stepped out on the sidewalk but then leaned in the open window, body silhouetted from the glaring sun behind him. "Look. If you get in too much trouble, you're welcome to come back here. You know that, right?"
Adam nodded wordlessly and shooed Jay away with his right hand. "Yeah, yeah."
"Don't 'yeah yeah' me," Jay scolded with a frown. "I'll smack those five hundred teeth outta your mouth."
"Hey, look! Something's on fire in your apartment!" Adam exclaimed, pointing over Jay's shoulder in attempts to get him to move away from the car.
"Uh huh. It's prob'ly just cold and Ash set a trash can on fire. It's called the poor man's heating system." He grinned suddenly. "You should come around in the summer. Getting the air conditioner to work involves an ancient tribal dance, steel toe boots, rubber gloves, and sacrificing virgins on an alter."
". . . sounds nice."
"Doesn't it, though? Me an' the stoner guy who lives next door usually just draw a pentagram in the floor and sacrifice sheep, with the considerable lack of virgins in the apartment. We roast marshmallows and pray to the a/c gods and all that good crap. You should join us sometime, it's fun."
"You've got too much time on your hands."
"I do," Jay mocked a sob, letting his head hit the top of the doorframe. "Oh, God, I need a life."
Adam let out a muffled laugh and put the car into reverse, trying to indicate he really was in a hurry. Jay finally took the hint and realized no amount of joking could keep the boy there, so he stepped back inside the apartment building's doorway, waved, and turned around to be hit by the door as it swung outward.
Adam drove away before he could taint his ears with the scorching language Jay was undoubtedly using.
Nearly thirty minutes later, Adam pulled into the garage and took a deep, calming breath before entering through the side door into the kitchen. He squinted at first, surprised by the unusually bright light flooding the room. A quick glance around showed that the heavy draperies normally pulled over the windows were gone, allowing the sunlight to shine inside and cast dazzling reflections off anything silver.
It added an almost homey touch to an otherwise cold house that was far from being warm and affectionate.
Peering into the main room, Adam was caught off guard in that Sophie and Mike both were seated on the couch watching the television, though neither seemed particularly interested in the program.
"So that's what you guys get paid for, huh?" Adam teased with a halfhearted grin, making Sophie jump. She turned a sheepish face toward the teen and gestured to the tv.
"Even the help gets tired from time to time . . . slavedriver."
"Lazy."
Sophie shrugged and tucked a pillow under her chin. "Uh huh. You should come watch it with us. It's the episode where Mr. Burns gets shot."
"I'll, uh, haveta pass, sorry."
"Your loss."
Adam chuckled quietly, though he immediately let the smile fade once his question came to mind again. "Where's ... he at?"
"I'm assuming you mean your father and not the gardner?" Mike asked, not looking away from the television.
"Do humanity a favor and don't ever think your observant nature is your strong point."
Mike blinked. "That hurt, kid. Do us all a favor and don't throw it back at us that a seventeen-year-old brat's smarter than a grown adult. Anyway, he went upstairs about ten, fifteen minutes ago. Never has come back down, though."
"Great," Adam groaned, rubbing his hand across his forehead. "Probably filling out my death certificate or something."
"We'll get the gardner to send flowers."
"Bastard," Adam grumbled on his way up the steps. He hesitated outside his door, hearing the familiar sound of shoes slapping against the hardwood floor. That was never a good sign. But, he realized, it was face it now or let David have time to let his anger boil more.
He pushed the door open with a slightly trembling hand.
David sat on Adam's bed, a picture frame in his left hand and his right supporting his chin. He barely looked up from the photo to see an understandably confused Adam in the doorway. "I'm almost glad your mother's not still around to see this."
Adam tossed his jacket across the desk chair and looked down at the picture while doing so, growing angrier than ever when he realized it was the small photo he kept atop his dresser. It had been taken just after he'd started school as a small child, a candid shot of he and his mother eating ice cream cones and succeeding only in getting it all over themselves. He snatched the picture away and glared down at his father.
"I've asked you not to come into my room and I've *told* you not to go through my stuff," he noted, trying his best to keep his anger in check and failing miserably. He slammed the picture back down on his dresser, then leaned against it and folded his arms over his chest. "So I'm assuming you're in here for a reason, not just to share fond memories."
David turned and regarded Adam with an unsettling calm. "Kim would have been humiliated to find out her little boy liked other boys." He shrugged carelessly, leaning back against the bed's headboard. "When you were a baby she used to talk about seeing you grow up and get married and have children. You would have broken her heart, sleeping around with another man."
"It's none of your business what I do with my life," Adam snapped, a thin line creasing his brow. "Even if it was, and if you really do care, I never slept with anyone -- not even a guy -- before last night. I don't just throw myself at anyone, despite whatever it is you believe." He paused suddenly, eyes glinting maliciously. "Maybe you'd like me to start building my own little harem like you did? Fuck a different woman every night until I knock one up and have to marry her to save face. Is that what you want?"
David scowled and rose to his feet. "I've told you not to talk about that."
"And I've told you to stay out of my room. People in Hell want Sno-Cones. I don't see any of us getting what we want anytime soon," Adam shot back venomously. He took a step closer, coming face to face with his father and taking a small bit of glee in how David flinched. "So what is it that finally drove Mom over the edge? Just having to live with you? Knowing you were screwing some cheap whore while she was pregnant?"
"Your mother's death was an accident, Adam."
"Oh, sure it was. It's just all coincidence there was half a bottle of Valium and a bottle of Jack Daniels in her blood when they pulled her out of the pool, isn't it?"
"She was depressed but she wasn't suicidal."
"Maybe not until she had to deal with you beating her up every time you needed a punching bag."
"You don't even know what you're talking about," David forced through gritted teeth, eyes narrowing simultaneously. "You're just a scared little boy babbling about things you don't understand."
"Like father, like son," Adam commented with a shrug. He turned to head back out the door, though to where he really didn't know, then stopped and faced his father again. "Not that I'm one to rub it in, but maybe you shouldn't knock *my* lifestyle. Maybe if you'd have tried it, you wouldn't have gotten Mom pregnant, I never would have happened, and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."
David snorted, shaking his head in amusement but never once taking his eyes from his son. "You think you've got it all figured out, don't you? How long is it going to take you to realize," he continued, pushing Adam back against the wall and bringing a leather strap to eye level that Adam recognized as his belt, "that you don't really know anything at all?"
And, too late, it was at that point Adam found he had finally pushed too many buttons.
He barely had time to yelp before he was wheeled around and pushed onto the bed, forced onto his stomach by the heavy weight resting on his back. His eyes squeezed shut a mere second before the first blow from behind tore a burning gouge through his shirt and into the skin of his back. The belt came down with increasing speed and force, the leather softening the impact of the harsh metal buckle digging crude ruts in the flesh. Adam bit down hard on his knuckles, willing himself not to scream, not to cry, not to do anything that would hint his father had half the control over him he sought.
It was only when he noticed the thin trails of blood leaking from his hand that he chose to fight back for the first -- and possibly last -- time.
He opened his eyes to look around for anything that could be used in his defense, line of vision eventually coming to rest on the baseball bat against the headboard that had been collecting dust ever since quitting the school team three years earlier. Unshed tears blurred his sight to the point it took two tries to finally grab the bat. Without so much as a thought he turned onto his side just enough to throw the bat over his shoulder with as much strength as he could manage with his shoulders all but pinned to the mattress. The wood connected with a thud that made him shudder, and he rolled onto his back when the weight fell away.
Adam stared in disbelief at the prone form on the ground, both relieved and disappointed to see David's chest rising and falling unevenly but moving nonetheless. With him being unconscious, it would be frighteningly easy to just snuff the life out of him, and Adam couldn't be too certain it would be such a blight on his conscience.
But then, he noted, dropping the bat from numb fingers and letting it hit the floor and roll under the bed, once David awoke to find Adam was still alive, he would be more furious than ever and stop at nothing to destroy everything he used as his personal ways to rebel. Adam took an uneasy step backwards, colliding with the desk but paying no attention to it. Jay would be the first target and what his father would more than likely take great joy in tearing apart.
All the muddled thoughts became that much more jumbled when the door flew open to reveal a panicked Sophie. She took a quick look at the floor, then up at Adam's equally as frantic eyes. "What happened?"
"I-I'm sorry," Adam whispered softly, taking another step backwards before turning on his heel and walking quickly towards the bathroom adjoined to his bedroom.
"Hey! What are you doing? Adam?" She hurried to the bathroom but was unable to get there before the door was slammed shut and locked. Trying the handle was pointless, she knew, but still it couldn't stop her from repeatedly jiggling the doorknob and pounding on the door. "Adam, open the door, honey. I just wanna talk. Adam, please? Open the door." Another knock, another few seconds of silence. "Dammit, Adam, open the door!"
Sophie huffed and dropped to her hands and knees, struggling to look underneath the door. She saw Adam sitting with his back against the door, slumped over slightly in his place. Try as she might to get him to turn around, her frustration increased every second that went by when he didn't respond. She pushed her fingers underneath the door, poking his arm to get his attention but surprised when instead of skin she met with something warm and wet.
She pulled back to see his blood staining her hand.
******
After being single for so long, it was nice to wake up to the sound of someone snoring quietly in his ear. The only problem with that was that it very nearly made Jay's young heart call it quits.
Slowly looking back over his right shoulder as if expecting it to be a mirage that would vanish if looked at too quickly, Jay noticed with no small amount of embarrassment that Adam had a serious case of bed hair. Or car hair, as the case was.
Jay yawned and carefully untangled Adam's arms from around his waist, blinking to clear the sleep from his eyes and get a better look at his surroundings. At some point he couldn't begin to identify they had moved from the ground to the backseat of the Jaguar, the tell-tale signs being the trail of clothing leading from the tree to the left side of the car. Jay laughed despite himself at the almost surreal scene just outside the window, at the shoes and socks and discarded tops moving in a relatively straight line towards the door he had just been leaning against. The sun was already well above the horizon, but he was hardpressed to find the time when he didn't have the slightest idea where his watch had ended up in the flurry of flying clothing hours earlier.
Another yawn escaped him as he tried to stretch his legs and arms, having been folded up in an unnatural position for however long it might have been. All he managed to accomplish was accidentally hitting Adam in the head. The movement made Adam grunt in his sleep, which in turn made Jay break up into laughter, and which in turn made Adam's eyelids flutter open.
"You suck," Adam grumbled, groggy as he was. Jay grinned wickedly, seeing the chance to make his joke and not willing to pass it up.
"Yes. And very well, or so you'd lead me to believe."
Adam raised his eyebrows, caught off guard by the remark, and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Jay sighed and crawled into the front passenger's seat to find the keys and turn the car on so he could find out what time it was.
"Great. I'm making cheesy gay jokes. All we need now is to dress up and go see Rocky Horror Picture Show or something."
Adam leaned over the seat, linking his arms around Jay's neck. "I'm just a sweet transvestite . . ." Jay glared at him, making him sink his face into the mass of unruly blond hair gathered at Jay's shoulder. "I dunno. I always figured if I was gonna do the cliche thing, I was gonna dress as Boy George and start singing 'It's Raining Men'."
"Boy George didn't sing that."
Adam huffed but otherwise remained quiet on the issue, though he couldn't suppress a small grin at hearing Jay humming 'Karma Chameleon' while digging the keys from the glove compartment. The familiar sound of the car humming to life was indication enough that Jay had found the keys. That, or he'd given up and decided to hotwire the thing, but one assumption was better than the other.
Though it was a casual glance he turned to the radio's clock, Adam's eyes widened and he almost choked Jay, reminded of what was between his arms when Jay croaked meekly. "Shit!"
"That's my neck!" Jay squeaked, prying Adam's arms from around his throat and taking a deep breath. "Jesus Christ, man. Why aren't *you* the one that's wrestling here?"
"Shut up. I gotta get home."
"What's wrong, Cinderella? Lose a slipper back there or somethin'?"
"I'm not joking," Adam snapped irritably, falling gracelessly into the front seat and darting out to the field, gathering the clothes in a series of short, swift movements, and running back to the car. "I'm gonna be in so much trouble it's not even funny."
Jay watched with well-hidden amusement as Adam struggled against his anxiety to slip a shirt over his head. "I beg to differ, actually, 'cause I think it's funny as hell."
All he received for his efforts was a heated glare and a rude single-fingered gesture.
"Hey, it's not that bad, okay?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
Jay huffed, trying his best to get into his jeans with some dignity in the cramped conditions. "Sure I do. You like to nail an' bail, apparently."
Adam looked up from tying his shoes, eyes narrowed into angry green slits. "That's not it at all. It's just . . ."
"Just what, Adam? You gotta get home so Daddy can beat the crap out of you for living your life?" Jay demanded, temper flaring. Adam flinched and he went on. "This is bullshit, man. When're you gonna wake up and realize you can't stay there?"
Adam turned his head, putting the car in reverse and backing up fast enough to slam Jay back against his seat. "I already told you that -- when they put me underground."
"Aw, jeez," Jay groaned, putting a frustrated hand to his head and idly threading his fingers through his hair. "You've gotta have some money stashed away or something. Why don't you just take it and rent an apartment somewhere? Or -- if you're desperate, you can live with me an' spend your weekends watching Mad About You reruns with me an' my cat."
"Because it's not that damned simple! Haven't you gotten that through your head yet?"
"Why isn't it? Have you tried it?"
"I'm not dumb enough to try it," Adam admitted, calming just slightly as they pulled out onto the highway. "You don't know my father, Jay. You don't know how many people he knows and just how powerful he is. He says jump, there's twenty people right there asking how high. I'd be stupid to do something to really piss him off. At least I'm smart enough to know that much."
"Like a dog."
"What?"
Jay folded his arms stubbornly over his chest. "I said you're just like a goddamned dog, beaten and kicked to where you're so fucking scared of him you'll do whatever he wants you to. It's pathetic."
"You'd do the same thing in my place." Adam stopped at a red light, taking the chance to turn his shirt around, since he'd put it on backwards in his haste minutes earlier. "You swear too much."
"Only if I have good reasons. And you, you freaking lovable dumbass, are validating most of 'em."
Adam sighed but otherwise kept quiet the remainder of the ride. Once outside his apartment, Jay stepped out on the sidewalk but then leaned in the open window, body silhouetted from the glaring sun behind him. "Look. If you get in too much trouble, you're welcome to come back here. You know that, right?"
Adam nodded wordlessly and shooed Jay away with his right hand. "Yeah, yeah."
"Don't 'yeah yeah' me," Jay scolded with a frown. "I'll smack those five hundred teeth outta your mouth."
"Hey, look! Something's on fire in your apartment!" Adam exclaimed, pointing over Jay's shoulder in attempts to get him to move away from the car.
"Uh huh. It's prob'ly just cold and Ash set a trash can on fire. It's called the poor man's heating system." He grinned suddenly. "You should come around in the summer. Getting the air conditioner to work involves an ancient tribal dance, steel toe boots, rubber gloves, and sacrificing virgins on an alter."
". . . sounds nice."
"Doesn't it, though? Me an' the stoner guy who lives next door usually just draw a pentagram in the floor and sacrifice sheep, with the considerable lack of virgins in the apartment. We roast marshmallows and pray to the a/c gods and all that good crap. You should join us sometime, it's fun."
"You've got too much time on your hands."
"I do," Jay mocked a sob, letting his head hit the top of the doorframe. "Oh, God, I need a life."
Adam let out a muffled laugh and put the car into reverse, trying to indicate he really was in a hurry. Jay finally took the hint and realized no amount of joking could keep the boy there, so he stepped back inside the apartment building's doorway, waved, and turned around to be hit by the door as it swung outward.
Adam drove away before he could taint his ears with the scorching language Jay was undoubtedly using.
Nearly thirty minutes later, Adam pulled into the garage and took a deep, calming breath before entering through the side door into the kitchen. He squinted at first, surprised by the unusually bright light flooding the room. A quick glance around showed that the heavy draperies normally pulled over the windows were gone, allowing the sunlight to shine inside and cast dazzling reflections off anything silver.
It added an almost homey touch to an otherwise cold house that was far from being warm and affectionate.
Peering into the main room, Adam was caught off guard in that Sophie and Mike both were seated on the couch watching the television, though neither seemed particularly interested in the program.
"So that's what you guys get paid for, huh?" Adam teased with a halfhearted grin, making Sophie jump. She turned a sheepish face toward the teen and gestured to the tv.
"Even the help gets tired from time to time . . . slavedriver."
"Lazy."
Sophie shrugged and tucked a pillow under her chin. "Uh huh. You should come watch it with us. It's the episode where Mr. Burns gets shot."
"I'll, uh, haveta pass, sorry."
"Your loss."
Adam chuckled quietly, though he immediately let the smile fade once his question came to mind again. "Where's ... he at?"
"I'm assuming you mean your father and not the gardner?" Mike asked, not looking away from the television.
"Do humanity a favor and don't ever think your observant nature is your strong point."
Mike blinked. "That hurt, kid. Do us all a favor and don't throw it back at us that a seventeen-year-old brat's smarter than a grown adult. Anyway, he went upstairs about ten, fifteen minutes ago. Never has come back down, though."
"Great," Adam groaned, rubbing his hand across his forehead. "Probably filling out my death certificate or something."
"We'll get the gardner to send flowers."
"Bastard," Adam grumbled on his way up the steps. He hesitated outside his door, hearing the familiar sound of shoes slapping against the hardwood floor. That was never a good sign. But, he realized, it was face it now or let David have time to let his anger boil more.
He pushed the door open with a slightly trembling hand.
David sat on Adam's bed, a picture frame in his left hand and his right supporting his chin. He barely looked up from the photo to see an understandably confused Adam in the doorway. "I'm almost glad your mother's not still around to see this."
Adam tossed his jacket across the desk chair and looked down at the picture while doing so, growing angrier than ever when he realized it was the small photo he kept atop his dresser. It had been taken just after he'd started school as a small child, a candid shot of he and his mother eating ice cream cones and succeeding only in getting it all over themselves. He snatched the picture away and glared down at his father.
"I've asked you not to come into my room and I've *told* you not to go through my stuff," he noted, trying his best to keep his anger in check and failing miserably. He slammed the picture back down on his dresser, then leaned against it and folded his arms over his chest. "So I'm assuming you're in here for a reason, not just to share fond memories."
David turned and regarded Adam with an unsettling calm. "Kim would have been humiliated to find out her little boy liked other boys." He shrugged carelessly, leaning back against the bed's headboard. "When you were a baby she used to talk about seeing you grow up and get married and have children. You would have broken her heart, sleeping around with another man."
"It's none of your business what I do with my life," Adam snapped, a thin line creasing his brow. "Even if it was, and if you really do care, I never slept with anyone -- not even a guy -- before last night. I don't just throw myself at anyone, despite whatever it is you believe." He paused suddenly, eyes glinting maliciously. "Maybe you'd like me to start building my own little harem like you did? Fuck a different woman every night until I knock one up and have to marry her to save face. Is that what you want?"
David scowled and rose to his feet. "I've told you not to talk about that."
"And I've told you to stay out of my room. People in Hell want Sno-Cones. I don't see any of us getting what we want anytime soon," Adam shot back venomously. He took a step closer, coming face to face with his father and taking a small bit of glee in how David flinched. "So what is it that finally drove Mom over the edge? Just having to live with you? Knowing you were screwing some cheap whore while she was pregnant?"
"Your mother's death was an accident, Adam."
"Oh, sure it was. It's just all coincidence there was half a bottle of Valium and a bottle of Jack Daniels in her blood when they pulled her out of the pool, isn't it?"
"She was depressed but she wasn't suicidal."
"Maybe not until she had to deal with you beating her up every time you needed a punching bag."
"You don't even know what you're talking about," David forced through gritted teeth, eyes narrowing simultaneously. "You're just a scared little boy babbling about things you don't understand."
"Like father, like son," Adam commented with a shrug. He turned to head back out the door, though to where he really didn't know, then stopped and faced his father again. "Not that I'm one to rub it in, but maybe you shouldn't knock *my* lifestyle. Maybe if you'd have tried it, you wouldn't have gotten Mom pregnant, I never would have happened, and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."
David snorted, shaking his head in amusement but never once taking his eyes from his son. "You think you've got it all figured out, don't you? How long is it going to take you to realize," he continued, pushing Adam back against the wall and bringing a leather strap to eye level that Adam recognized as his belt, "that you don't really know anything at all?"
And, too late, it was at that point Adam found he had finally pushed too many buttons.
He barely had time to yelp before he was wheeled around and pushed onto the bed, forced onto his stomach by the heavy weight resting on his back. His eyes squeezed shut a mere second before the first blow from behind tore a burning gouge through his shirt and into the skin of his back. The belt came down with increasing speed and force, the leather softening the impact of the harsh metal buckle digging crude ruts in the flesh. Adam bit down hard on his knuckles, willing himself not to scream, not to cry, not to do anything that would hint his father had half the control over him he sought.
It was only when he noticed the thin trails of blood leaking from his hand that he chose to fight back for the first -- and possibly last -- time.
He opened his eyes to look around for anything that could be used in his defense, line of vision eventually coming to rest on the baseball bat against the headboard that had been collecting dust ever since quitting the school team three years earlier. Unshed tears blurred his sight to the point it took two tries to finally grab the bat. Without so much as a thought he turned onto his side just enough to throw the bat over his shoulder with as much strength as he could manage with his shoulders all but pinned to the mattress. The wood connected with a thud that made him shudder, and he rolled onto his back when the weight fell away.
Adam stared in disbelief at the prone form on the ground, both relieved and disappointed to see David's chest rising and falling unevenly but moving nonetheless. With him being unconscious, it would be frighteningly easy to just snuff the life out of him, and Adam couldn't be too certain it would be such a blight on his conscience.
But then, he noted, dropping the bat from numb fingers and letting it hit the floor and roll under the bed, once David awoke to find Adam was still alive, he would be more furious than ever and stop at nothing to destroy everything he used as his personal ways to rebel. Adam took an uneasy step backwards, colliding with the desk but paying no attention to it. Jay would be the first target and what his father would more than likely take great joy in tearing apart.
All the muddled thoughts became that much more jumbled when the door flew open to reveal a panicked Sophie. She took a quick look at the floor, then up at Adam's equally as frantic eyes. "What happened?"
"I-I'm sorry," Adam whispered softly, taking another step backwards before turning on his heel and walking quickly towards the bathroom adjoined to his bedroom.
"Hey! What are you doing? Adam?" She hurried to the bathroom but was unable to get there before the door was slammed shut and locked. Trying the handle was pointless, she knew, but still it couldn't stop her from repeatedly jiggling the doorknob and pounding on the door. "Adam, open the door, honey. I just wanna talk. Adam, please? Open the door." Another knock, another few seconds of silence. "Dammit, Adam, open the door!"
Sophie huffed and dropped to her hands and knees, struggling to look underneath the door. She saw Adam sitting with his back against the door, slumped over slightly in his place. Try as she might to get him to turn around, her frustration increased every second that went by when he didn't respond. She pushed her fingers underneath the door, poking his arm to get his attention but surprised when instead of skin she met with something warm and wet.
She pulled back to see his blood staining her hand.