TW: Domestic + Child abuse in this chapter. Read with caution.
Hayden takes unsteady steps in heavy darkness. The air is thick and stifling, and smells vaguely of cigarette smoke. A tiny, whispered voice calls out to him.
"Brother?" the voice asks. "Brother, what are you doing?" It's a child's voice, his older sister's voice. She calls him by the name the Old Man gave him, a name that he's long since outgrown.
"Looking for a way out," he hears himself say. His voice is small too, high-pitched and so very, very young. He is a little boy again, and the darkness feels much more intimidating than it did before. Here the shadow is not his friend; here the shadow is an obstacle to overcome, almost an enemy that needs to be vanquished.
"Sit down or he'll hear you and get mad!"
Hayden knows she's right, that she's always been right, but they can't stay here anymore. His baby brother has been raised in darkness—hasn't known anything else—and Hayden can't let that go on any further. For his part, he doesn't remember the last time he saw the sun. It could be days, but it's probably been weeks (months? years?). Now the only light he ever gets to see is when the Old Man lets Mom come down to the basement to feed the baby. When she can, she also brings food for Sis and him, but the Old Man keeps her on a tight leash and meals are scarce.
"He'll be mad anyway. I'm getting us out." It's a dumb decision, he knows; he's seen this play out before countless times, as if the past can ever be changed, even within dreams. Hindsight is always 20/20, though, and right now he's just a child who wants to escape.
Outside, Sis and the baby and him can find a new dad, a good one; a dad that won't hit Mom or keep them locked in a basement. That's his dream.
It never works out that way.
Hayden can hear shouting upstairs: a beast snarls obscenities, glass shatters, and beauty crumples to the ground in tears. Hayden tells himself that he'll fight that beast if he has to; he'll claw and scratch and bite and kill if that's the only way to get Sis and his brother out of this place. It's a lie, but it's a lie he repeats in order to survive, because sometimes Goliath just beats the shit out of David—and as David, he's had more than his share of beatings.
Hayden nearly trips when he finally reaches the staircase. Gingerly, he steps out onto the creaking stairs, wincing as even his small weight makes the old wooden structure groan. He moves to take a second step, but a loud roar, followed by a frightened scream, makes him freeze. Sis stays behind him, doing her best to comfort the baby.
"Shh," she coos, "I got you, little one. I got you."
Suddenly, the heavy, gargantuan metal door at the top of the stairs flies open, and in stream the orange lights of the old Victorian home; lights that silhouette the Old Man's large frame in the doorway. His bulky hands are twisted around Mom's forearm, holding her in place. And even though her face is covered in shadow, Hayden can tell that tears are streaming from her eyes. The Old Man holds a half-empty whisky bottle in his other hand, takes a swig of the brown drink.
"Wel-l-l-l, look-y here, Rhea. Whatchu gon' do with that rock, boy, hmmm? You gon' hit me with it, hmmm, you gon' throw it at me?" Rock? Hayden wonders. I don't have a rock. But there's definitely a rock in his left hand, heavy and jagged and not suited for much of anything except maybe bludgeoning a person to death. It's perfect. The Old Man takes another large drink from his bottle, wipes his mouth. "Throw it, boy. Take your fuckin' shot."
Hayden wants to, God he wants to; there's nothing he's desired more in his entire, short life. It's a desperate, needy yearning to finally take a chance stop the pain, but his body just won't move. Mom is struggling to keep a straight face but she's still got tears gushing from her eyes. He sees fear there, too: fear for herself and fear for her children. She's a broken bird who can't protect her own. Do something!
"Fuckin' throw it, boy!" the Old Man screams. Hayden's heart races, beats so hard he thinks it might burst out of his chest. He's never been more afraid.
"Fuckin' pussy," the Old Man mumbles, shattering the old whiskey bottle against the brick wall of the basement. "I knew you couldn't fuckin' throw it." With an abrupt movement, the Old Man roughly pulls Mom towards himself and holds the jagged, broken side of the glass bottle inches away from her neck. Hayden's ears start ringing.
"Don't hurt her!" he yells. His voice is so small it's pathetic.
"Don't be afraid, baby," Mom says, looking straight at him. Bravery. She's being brave for him. The Old Man yanks her even closer; she won't be able to be brave for much longer.
"Don't you fuckin' talk to him, you whore. You fuckin' talk to me. You fuckin' look at me." She's crying and crying, and so are the baby and Sis and he needs to do something, so he does; he throws the rock with all the strength a five-year-old has. Turns out it's actually quite a lot.
The rock flies through the air like a bullet and hits its target right in the temple, surprising the Old Man enough to make him stumble and drop his bottle.
"You little shit!" the Old Man screams, throwing Mom down the stairs like a ragdoll. She lands next to Hayden and he can hear the sickening sound of a bone breaking.
"Mom?"
'Don't be afraid,' she keeps saying, but her voice is far away and her lips aren't moving. "Mom?"
He doesn't notice the heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, doesn't feel anything when the Old Man pulls him up by the scruff of his shirt, doesn't feel the heavy fist connect with his nose and eye. No—he only hears Mom's voice pulling him back from the brink, pulling him back from descending completely into despair; so when he sees her eyes close in the darkness of the basement, the pit is all he knows.
When Hayden finally wakes, he's coated in sweat. He looks at his alarm; it's 6:30 in the morning, and the dog has curled up next to him.
"Hey, buddy," he says, petting the animal's floppy ears. His hands won't stop shaking. "What say you and I pay an old bastard a visit?"
Jessup Correctional Institution: a dehumanizing cage for the troublemakers of society. Young drug addicts and dealers, old timers who made dumb mistakes as kids, murderers, rapists, and domestic abusers—they're all here, mixed together, and if you weren't a hard man going into this place, you sure as hell come out as one. Hayden has had to visit clients here before many, many times, and all very much to his chagrin, but he's never come here to visit the Old Man.
What a bad fucking idea this was. Hayden grits his teeth, shuts his coat against the rain. He's not sure what he's doing here. It's not a good idea for a multitude of reasons—the least of which is his current mental health state. Yet he's here all the same, about to walk into the lion's den. What the fuck am I doing?
The sky erupts with lightning and Cerberus cowers with his tail between his legs.
"It's okay," Hayden says, though whether its towards the dog or himself, he doesn't know. He takes in a deep breath, shuts his eyes, nods. "Right, it's okay. Let's go in, buddy."
Of course, the guards don't let him bring Cerberus to the visiting area, which is fine; the animal doesn't need to be exposed to the bowels of this place. He just needs to be there when Hayden crawls back from its depths. So the dog stays behind while Hayden gets processed. It's a very short time before he gets to the phone booth area (because he can't visit the man in person, without a wall between them, not yet) and he has to steel himself before he sits in front of the glass. One breath, two, three—ready.
There the Old Man sits, his longstanding terror, with graying hair at his temples and piercing blue eyes that remind Hayden of tundra ice, flashing his white teeth in a dark parody of a smile. He hasn't changed much.
Hayden sits in the booth, picks the phone up.
"I see you've managed to grow a beard," the Old Man rasps. "Fifteen fuckin' years, but you grew one. Took you long enough."
"You look the same." The man hasn't aged at all, really; in fact, he doesn't look that much older than Hayden. Considering their strong resemblance to each other, Hayden thinks that in this moment he could be looking in a mirror at himself instead of through a window at his father. The notion makes his stomach knot.
The Old Man squints his steely blue eyes, cocks his head. "No ring either, hmmm?"
Tch. "I don't see how that's relevant."
"I don't see how your visit is relevant, but here we are. How's my old lady?"
"Wonderful, without you. I'm not here to talk about my mother."
The Old Man's vicious grin comes back. "Oh? Why are you here then, Aidoneous?"
Hayden's stomach knots again and his head starts to throb. This was a mistake.
"Your nose is bleeding, boy." On the surface, the Old Man's voice sounds genuinely concerned, but over the years Hayden has learned how to detect the subtle malice underneath. Warm blood trickles down from his nose and the only thing he has to wipe the mess away is his hand. A wave of nausea passes through him when he glances at his knuckles and sees red blood that shines like gold.
A throaty chuckle on the other line pulls his awareness back. "Well, since you're here, I might as well tell you the good news: the courts have allowed me to appeal my case. I might be out within the next year, so fuckin' fun times await you and your siblings. "
Hayden lets the meaning of the Old Man's words sink in. Rage and fear flow through him at the thought of seeing his horrid father walk the streets as a free man. No—that can't ever happen. "You're never leaving this place. Ever. I'll make sure of that."
"O-o-o-oh, would you look at that. Think you've grown strong, boy, hmmm? Why are you here?"
"I'm no boy."
"Less than a boy, you're right; little beyond a squalling baby is more appropriate, but it takes too long to fuckin' say. Fifteen years ago you thought you were a man too, sitting as a witness against your own father. Sheesh. Rhea should've swallowed you; instead I manage to squirt you and those other brats into her belly like a fuckin' idiot. And now the boy who thinks he's a man because he's finally grown a beard is here, staring me down behind the protection of a glass wall. Where's your little brother, hmmm? Where's that blond little shit, why isn't he here protecting you?"
The Old Man's words irritate and dig under Hayden's skin. This was a mistake, he thinks again. But it's too late now; he has to see this through—whatever this is. The phone cracks in his grip.
"There it is," the Old Man says, unfiltered glee in his voice, "There's the anger. Can you feel it, the rage coursing through you? That's power. Tell me, Aidoneous, what you plan to do here with that rage. Have you come to finally kill me, here in this prison, surrounded by guards?"
The question makes him pause. "No," he finally answers.
"Yeah, I figured that would be too brash for you. You and I, we're alike in many ways, kiddo. We're cautious."
The drums have begun to beat, and blood trickles down his mouth again. The room is too hot; the pain is too much. Obsidian hands pull at the edges of his consciousness and he can't hold onto the ledge with his fingertips alone. He has to leave.
"I'm not your fucking son, and I'm not anything like you."
"Your mother would disagree."
And it's annoying because the Old Man is right: Hayden did come here to kill him, but his intention was not to literally take the man's life. No, Hayden came to this wretched nest of misery to kill the idea of his father; to show himself that he had nothing to fear from a frail, elderly man.
Except the man is anything but frail or elderly. He has the same burly build like Zane; the same manic eyes that Hayden remembers from his childhood; the same snarling grin; the Old Man hasn't changed at all, and Hayden feels like a powerless kid again.
"Leaving already, I see. Just like you to be weak when things start to get interesting." Heavy waters against the dam, and it finally breaks. The rage has nowhere else to go but out.
Hayden slams the prison phone against the glass wall, sending a spider's web of cracks through it. Distantly, he knows that the guards are rushing towards him, that he might even be arrested, but he doesn't care. The haunting, the nightmares—they have to stop. The past will stop hurting if the fear goes away. It has to.
Glass shatters, and the guards are running, running, running towards the two of them, but time has slowed. Shards slice through Hayden's arm, and his nerves combust. A strong pulse beats under his thumb; he's wrapped his hand around the Old Man's neck. When Hayden speaks, face pressed the cracking window, his own voice sounds strange to his ears. Darker. Angrier.
"Fuck you," he says. "Waste of flesh, insult to roaches and other vermin. I fucking hate you, and every day that you're in here is another day that society isn't poisoned. You will never leave this place." His grip has grown tighter, but the Old Man doesn't look scared, doesn't look bothered in the least. Bastard. Fucking bastard. "I'll kill you before you ever see court."
His head hurts, his arm hurts, everything fucking hurts, and the Old Man just keeps smiling with an amused snarl. Bastard. Fucking bastard.
"Sir! Sir, are you alright?"
Blink once for awareness, twice for consciousness; if you need anything greater to bring you back, you might be more than just mostly dead.
Hayden blinks twice, and the glass isn't broken, but his nose is definitely still bleeding and he's suddenly standing, albeit on shaky legs. Another hallucination.
"Sir?" It's a guard.
"I'm fine." He can feel the Old Man's gaze on him; burning through whatever defenses he has left. He has to leave.
I'm losing my mind. I really am going nuts. It's a frightening thought, but that's the only explanation for what he just experienced. "I was just leaving."
The Old Man's rough laughter rumbles through the glass. "Go ahead and leave, boy! Run away like a coward and cry into your piles of money." Hayden doesn't need to be told twice.
He's leaving, he's leaving, get the dog, he's leaving, don't forget the fucking dog, he's leaving, walk through the metal detector again, he's leaving, he's done. Run away and cry into your piles of money.
The pain is still there and the laughter is still there and the drums are back in full force. Cerberus licks his hand.
He needs to hit something. "Hey, dog. Let's go to Mike's. "
Maybe when he's punching a bag he'll start to feel like he has some control over his life.
(But it might be too late; the dam is already broken.)
A/N: Sorry for the long wait between updates, guys; I had a family emergency that needed to be dealt with. Updates should be more frequent now. Many thanks to all who have favorited/followed the story! And Madame Thome, thank you for taking the time to leave comments, I appreciate it! :)
Love,
Noodles