Crimson Waterfall is back with:
ADICTED
Chapter 2
Sickening hopeFor months he lived off the stories he heard every Friday night. He didn't do much of the talking, he just listened to the others and Patricia, the discussion leader, said that that was probably what he needed most. Hearing the stories of others.
The stories gave him back a bit of common sense and he felt so much better on the way back home. But as soon as he came home to his empty house, his nerves started to wake up and he was only able to think sensibly again when his son came home. He would drag the high and sick boy up to his room and put him into bed. He didn't even try to get him out of his clothes anymore, it had become something similar like sharing a cage with a lion while having beef strapped around your neck. Lethal.
'Don't touch me!' David screamed as Duo tried to get of his shirt. When Duo didn't listened, fuelled by anger. It soon went wrong. He fell back when his suddenly felt a stinging pain in his cheek. His son had hit him! Shocked, he locked up.
'Get out of my room!' David screamed with hoarse voice. Somewhere he found the strength to get up and even enough to kick his father while he struggled to get off the floor.
Duo fled out of the room, holding his cheek and limping from the kick. He ran downstairs, all the was to the kitchen and hid behind a wall, sagging down on the floor then silently bursting out into tears. He shivered violently and hours after he vibrated himself to sleep. He was so scared. So scared of his own son. He fought of sleep for as long as he could, in fear of what David would do to him when he would find him tomorrow, huddling behind a wall in the kitchen.
'I made you breakfast.' It was a week after he had cried himself to sleep in the kitchen, the next day he bought a lock for on the door of his bedroom. David only left his room to eat nowadays. Maybe, maybe he realised how bad this whole drugs thing was. Maybe he was trying to stop? Yeah and maybe that's why he locks himself into his room. Just as all, well most of, the other parents in the discussion group, he remained hopeful. Something Heero had called 'sickening'.
'I need money.' David grounded up, sitting down at the dinner table. His blue eyes, now faded to grey, stared lifelessly up ahead.
Maybe it is the lack of drugs. Duo said to himself, even though it was clear his son was higher then the empire state building. He smiled, that sure is a funny comparison.
'Why are you smiling like a geek!' David shot angrily at him, shaking Duo out of his thoughts that took him back to when David was young and innocent.
'What'ya do! Stole drugs from me! Huh! Did you?' He stood up and after his growth he reached a good 6.2 feet, glowering over Duo's 5.11.
Cautious, he took a step back. The glass of juice was shaking in his hand while he tried to maintain his fear. Never, ever show him your fear of him, never show him that under the surface he is the one in control, Regina, who became mother when she was still just a child, had once told him.
He was grabbed by his collar and pulled closer. He scrunched up his face, expecting a blow to either the face or the stomach and the smell of David's breath was sickening. He couldn't help but wonder, like any other parent, how long it had been since he had brushed his teeth. He didn't dare to ask.
David snorted, then let him go. 'I need money.' He repeated.
Duo took a deep breath, this was the moment that had come to him almost every week and it was the moment he most feared. He had to deny him. He will only spent it on drugs, that he realised. He no longer believed the stories that his bike was stolen or that he would buy groceries.
It almost made him laugh thinking that only weeks ago he really was that naive. How much he had grown since the discussion group... It was definitely something worth mentioning tonight.
'I won't give it to you.' He said with his strictest of voices.
'Why not!'
'You know why David. Don't play stupid with me... I'm better at him.' He mentally gave himself a pat on the shoulder. Making a joke maybe lightened the mood?
'Give. Me. Money.' He ordered.
He swallowed, then repeated what he said before, but now empathising every word.
'I'll get either way, whether you give it to me freely or not.'
Freely or not? He started to sweat. Was he going to threaten him? 'I hid the money.' Maybe this will stop him from trying anything.
David snorted again, like an angry bull. 'Why! Don't you trust me! What kind of a father doesn't trust his own son!'
'A father whose son is on drugs. A father who knows his son has been stealing money from him. So much that almost wasn't able to pay the rent!'
The sound of a smack echoed through the kitchen.
Duo didn't move, even though the force of the blow caused his face to look the other way. He did not move. It was the only thing he could do to stop from bursting out into tears.
'You worthless piece of shit! Is this what they tell you to do in that group! Let your son starve!'
'I offered you breakfast...' Duo timidly fought back.
'This tasteless slap of bread with cheese! Don't I deserve better! Didn't mom deserve better!'
'Don't blame the divorce all on me David!'
'Give me money!'
'NO!' He looked back at his son fiercely. A fire burning in his eyes that had long been gone. It must have startled David that he really wasn't able to win this fight, he stumbled back a step and then left the house. Before slamming the door he yelled: 'I'll get my money!'
Suddenly very tired he sagged down in a chair, folded his hands on the table and lay his head on them. The thought crossed his head that he could leave. He could pack his bags and go. But he knew he never really could and he would hate himself forever if he did.
He took a deep breath, just like a person did to stop hyperventilating. Composed he stood to make himself a cup of coffee and he spent the rest of the day in the kitchen, waiting for David to come home.
But he never did.
The coffee was not enough to calm his nerves, not even the fifth cup. He was already late for the discussion group, there was no sense in trying to make it now. But that didn't mean he didn't have the craving to speak to someone. He remembered Patricia telling him that he should come clean to his adoptive mother. She said that she would understand and wouldn't judge his parenting as he feared. But how could Patricia now? She never met Helen, the woman who adopted him when he was caught after roaming the streets the first ten years of his life. Helen, the woman who believed that God was with all his children, always, to keep them on the right path. He didn't know how to tell her that god was too busy with other children to keep her grandson from turning to 'The Dark Side'.
He thought back of his time with her, how she had slowly turned him from streetrat to gentlemen. He hated her in the beginning, he could tolerate her after a year, he liked her after two and after three he finally embraced her love and gave her his. She had always been there for him, after her whole family was dying on her, leaving her and her sister to cope on their own. So why couldn't he stand by Davids side?
He was a lousy father.
He jumped in his seat when the phone rang. Expecting it to be Patricia, to ask why he wasn't there, he took his time to pick up.
'Hello, Duo speaking.'
'Mr. Maxwell?' A male voice asked, he sounded annoyed.
'Speaking.'
'Are you the father of David Jacob Maxwell?'
His eyes widened, who was this man, a cop! 'Y-yes...' He wasn't sure he now wanted to be.
'Could you please come down to the police station.'
'Oh my god! Something happened! Is David alright!' He asked, panicked. What could he have done? Or was David the victim? And what happened! Why didn't man answer him dammit!
'Just come down to the station, mr. Maxwell and please hurry, you're son is hard to control.'
'I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!' Was heard in the background, definitely David's voice.
Duo sighed and shook his head. 'I'll be there.' Without a polite goodbye he hung up the phone and strode to the hallway. He didn't take the time to put on gloves and a scarf, just a coat to arm him against the cold outside.
The five minute drive to the station seemed to last forever and he was almost grateful he finally got there, thinking that the worst was over.
Opening the doors he was hit by the many sounds of people struggling and shouting at the agents holding them as they were brought to their temporary cells. Most of them were gangsters and he recognised the look in their eyes, it was the same of that of David when he last saw him. He looked at a gangster, walking past him, a cop holding his arms behind his back. He was one of the few not to struggle. He was chewing gum, nonchalantly, obviously used to this whole ordeal. As he walked past Duo he gave him a cold glare before turning his bald head to look at where he was going.
Duo swallowed, did he just had a glimpse into his sons future?
He approached a cop that didn't seem busy, only writing something down on in a book.
'I'm searching for David Maxwell?'
'Duo Maxwell?'
He nodded.
The cop closed the book and gave him a strict look, a look that screamed: You didn't raise your child properly. 'Follow me.'
The pushed their way past the youths and cops to a bar door. He opened the lock. After they walked through he locked it again.
They were in a hall, on either sides were cells. It looked like a kennel for abandoned dogs. It sounded like one two.
Some of the boys, many not older then sixteen. Made catcalls at him before making some comment about his hair. Others shouted at the cop, saying things to him not even the devil deserved to be called. A few arms came through the bars, trying to reach them like starving men, only when he followed the arm up to the face he saw evil grins and a diabolic sheen in their sick eyes.
'Here we are.' The cop stopped and pointed into one of the cells.
With a sigh, Duo nodded, confirming that amongst the three boys in that single cell was indeed his son. Another cop walked up to them before the door was opened and to get David out proved to be a problem as he didn't want to go to his father, but the other two were more then eager to leave.
After finally getting him out of the 'safety' of the cell the cop grabbed him roughly by the upper arm and lead both father and son back to the front to sit at a desk to fill in some paper work.
'What happened?' Duo asked his son when they finally sat down. He was boiling inside from anger, but he wasn't sure if he had the right to be angry. His 'sickening hope' forced him to believe this might not be his sons fault.
'He tried to rape a young girl.' The cop answered for him without looking up from his book he was currently writing in again.
Before Duo's shocked look turned into a raged one David protested.
'That's so not true! Don't believe the nigger dad!'
The cop looked up angrily, not at David, but at Duo. Thinking he raised his son as not only a rapist but also a racist.
He ignored his sons last comment 'You WHAT? You... Are you crazy!' The worst part was definitely not over. But then again: Could God be any more cruel to him! He averted his eyes, to disgusted to even look at David. This was not his son! What the fuck could drugs do more to ruin the lives of both of them!
'Dad! How can you believe this shit!'
He wasn't even listening, only the voice of the cop penetrated the barrier he had mentally placed over his ears.
'He is free to go, but he'll have to go to court if the victim will press charges.'
'I understand.' He said in trance. He stood up and ordered his son to come with him.
When they were finally in the car it took him a while to compose himself before he dared to start the car. A mad father in a moving vehicle... could there be anything more dangerous?
'I didn't do nothing wrong.' David said with slurring voice when they reached the first red light.
'That is just another way of saying that you did.' He retorted, still in trance. He noticed his calmness was freaking David out. Good.
'C'mon pops...'
'Pops? Since when do you call me that?' The trance broke 'Is that what drugs makes you do! Destroy lives, rape girls and call your father pops! From now on it is MR. MAXWELL for you! Do you have any idea what you've done!'
'I didn't try to rape her. She is making the whole story up.'
'REALLY!'
'Yeah! She was more then willing when we entered the ally.'
'An ally! DAVID!'
'Keep your eyes on the fucking road! You'll kill us both!'
'You mean like this!' Duo yanked at the steering wheel causing the car to go to the other side of the road, with traffic coming right towards them, for a split second. Cars honked furiously and David screamed as Duo pulled back just in time to avoid crashing into the nearing car, the headlights blinding the two of them.
'ARE YOU CRAZY! You are so sick! Why couldn't-'
'SHUT UP!'
David fell silent and looked at him like a goose looking into the barrel of a gun.
'From now on... no more drugs.'
'You think it's the drugs?'
'I sure hope so! Otherwise you deserve to be locked up forever!'
The reached the house but they both remained seated. Staring at the door of the garage in front of them.
'It's ruining not only your life David, but mine as wel...'
'...'
'The school called this afternoon... You wasted your second chance... your last chance.' Duo said sorrowfully, lowering his gaze to his hands which fumbled in his lap.
'Please don't yell at me...' David begged in a soft voice. A voice that reminded Duo of the young David.
'I won't... But there is now room for argument now David.' He grabbed his sons chin and gently forced him to look at him. 'You are going to better your life. You're gonna find a job and I decide where the money you make is spent on. So NO drugs, got it?'
David nodded, a tear leaving his eyes.
Duo gave him a reassuring smile but it soon faded. 'If things go wrong again... You're going to a rehabilitation centre, understood?'
He nodded.
'Good. Let's go inside. Tomorrow is a busy day. We're gonna find you a job and strip your room and redecorate it... We're gonna make a fresh start.'
David nodded again and Duo's heart clenched with hope. Maybe, it wasn't such a lost case as he thought.
It sure did take a while so I'd appreciate reviews!
CW