Author's Note: I apologize for for taking a little over a week, it's called I got the first volume of DanMachi and I can't stop writing dumb little drabbles about Aiz and Bell. It's also called when did World of Warcraft start dominating every aspect of my life and why am I so addicted to Wranduin. Aaaand it's also called I'm trying to read a 75,000-word fic between everything else to give some constructive criticism and I'm somehow only two chapters through it.
Lubbock woke the next morning to the sound of his phone ringing. Panicking, he scrambled to answer it, and heard his mother's voice on the other end.
"Lubbock! Where are you?! You said you were only going over for dinner! What do you think you're doing?! I never gave you permission to spend the night!"
"Yes, I understand that." He felt a bit guilty, though he knew he really shouldn't. It wasn't as if he mattered very much to her anyway. "I'm not entirely sure what happened. I began feeling a bit lightheaded, so I was told to lie down. I hadn't meant to get a night's sleep, I swear."
The woman on the other line huffed. "That's not everything. Lubbock, you have half an hour to get home or I'm taking away whatever freedom you have for the next four years!"
Half an hour? He inwardly protested that it was a forty-five-minute walk home from where he was staying. Maybe if he ran the whole way, he could be home in under the time limit. "Y-yes, Ma'am. I'll be there as soon as possible."
The phone clicked as she hung up. He grabbed his backpack, got ready to return home, and rushed out the door. He could call Leone later and explain the situation to her. He probably should have left a note for her and Run, but he didn't really have time for that.
Once he got home, he was panting, trying to catch his breath.
"I-I'm sorry for taking so long..."
"As you rightfully should be." His mother glared and turned around to go to her office, motioning for him to follow. She sat at her desk and pulled out a ruler. "Sit down, hands on the desk."
Without a word, Lubbock did as he was told. She slammed the stick down on his knuckles, causing him to flinch away just slightly. He kept his eyes down, afraid to meet his mother's gaze as she smacked his knuckles again and again, fourteen times.
"Now tell me why you thought it was appropriate not to tell me before staying the night at a friend's house?"
"I told you—I had only meant to take a nap. I didn't realize—"
Smack.
She hit his knuckles again. "Learn to be more careful. Now, I have another question. Why is it that one of your brothers brought home a rumor about the principal being pregnant?"
"I-I don't understand why that's a big deal, but if it's of any importance, I'm beginning to believe she's in a relationship with her assistant."
"That isn't the point. The rumor is that she's pregnant and you're the father. Lubbock, you're fourteen years old, and there are people at your school who honestly believe that you are the father of your principal's child. Do you understand how much this could harm your reputation? Even more than that, do you understand how much this could harm our family name?"
"I don't know where that even came from! I mean, Miss Najenda trusts me with a lot, and I was always helping her out before Mister Susanoo was hired...b-but there's nothing more to it than that!"
Instead of the ruler this time, his mother slapped him across the face with the back of her hand. "So where did those rumors come from, if you were just a helper?"
"I don't have any idea. I'm just as shocked by this as you are..."
"That's a lie, but I suppose if you're going to be so stubborn, I don't even want to look at you." She spun around in her office chair, facing away from him. "Go to your room. You're not allowed out for any reason until dinnertime. And at dinner, I don't want to hear you say a word."
With a silent nod, though she couldn't even see it anyway, he got up and headed upstairs to his room. He threw his backpack on the floor and collapsed onto his bed.
It wasn't fair. Normal kids his age could stay with their friends for a night or two at a time, they weren't kept on such a ridiculously tight leash, they didn't have to worry about doing everything absolutely perfectly, they weren't hit for making little mistakes... And the rumor at school—if Miss Najenda heard it, that could very well mark the end of his life. It was a dumb crush, and he hadn't even let it become obvious.
As if she even seemed like one who would want kids anytime soon.
He brought his knees up to his chest with a heavy sigh, pulled his blankets over himself, and went to sleep.
When he woke up again, there was a golden light flooding in through his window. He squinted, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the brightness, and got up to close his drapes. Darkness seemed too nice at the time for him to want very much light to fill his room.
He tossed himself back down just in time to get a call. He checked the caller ID—the same number Leone had given him the day before. He slid the answer button across the screen and held it up to his ear.
"Hey."
"Yo! What happened this morning? I got up and you were gone. Then again, it's drafty and the couch isn't the most comfortable, so I can't say as I blame you."
"No, it wasn't that. My parents are pretty strict, and I got grounded for staying over." Lubbock let out a heavy sigh and rolled over, off his bed. It hardly even bothered him when he hit the floor, his head hitting the carpeted wood with a dull thunk.
"Yeah, I guess—Wait, what was that?"
"Either my head hitting the floor or my entire body hitting the floor. Take your pick, whichever would make you the least concerned."
"Lubba!" She sounded vaguely concerned, and almost a little bit whiny. "You're so much more apathetic than you were the past couple days... What's gotten into you?!"
"Don't worry about it. If you care to know how I act at home, this is it. It's kind of hard to find anything to care very much about when you're locked up like a prisoner, you know? I'd call my life more as doing time than growing up. But you know parents—even if keeping you from developing an identity of your own is what they choose, they're obviously right. I'm still developing, so it's not like I could possibly know what's best for me and my own damn life."
"Oh, come on! You're not this depressed or negative, that's just your parents! You're not depressed and negative at all! And you know what? Screw them. Screw them right down to hell! There are two parts you can play in your own life. You can be the puppet, with all the strings attached to you, or you can be the puppeteer and hold onto the strings and beat the shit out of anyone who tries to take that control away!"
He let out another sigh. What she said was true. It wasn't as if he was an emotionless person unfamiliar with nothing aside from depression—that was just the person his household turned him into. And to think it was because he was so against their belief that he shouldn't amount to anything more than just a toy for them to play with.
Screw that, he could pull at and mess with the strings of fate better than they ever would be able to...
"Yeah, but maybe not for the next four years. Up until then, I'll be somewhere in the middle. I'll be the playwright's assistant, or a critic, or maybe I could be the makeup helper."
"Ugh, it won't matter if you wait til you're out of the house! Listen, I've been through more than a few knocks and rough patches, and if there's anything that's taught me, it's that the most important time to hold your ground against people is when you're going to have to see them all the time. Especially if you're living under them. Don't be such a pushover and maybe you'll get somewhere sooner!"
The only thing Lubbock knew how to respond with was a quiet groan. Eventually, after several minutes of silence, he regained a bit of motivation to be vocal again. "That's hard enough as it is, but it's pretty much impossible if I don't have any ground to stand on."
"There weren't magically countries from the beginning of time. People grabbed pieces of land, they killed people over those pieces of land."
"Those people had armies. Do you know what I have? A cellphone, limited Internet access, and the smallest bedroom of the house. I'm not getting very far."
"Fine. You're right. You're getting nowhere. Have fun for the next few years, being the copilot in your own fucking life. Tell me how that goes when you stop trying to fit your parents' definition of perfect. I'm not opposed to helping my friends out, but if you're going to just flat-out refuse to even try to make things better, then I really don't need to have to deal with that kind of negativity in my life again."
"I didn't mean—"
Before he could protest, the line went dead. She had hung up on him. In her defense, this wasn't him at all, and instead some half-assed effort he made to try to sit somewhere between his regular self and what kind of son his parents wanted. But he really couldn't help thinking that there was no way he'd be able to get to sleep that night. The last words he had heard Leone say were in a tone of oddly-mixed hurt and anger.
Maybe if he could just learn to pick a side—the right side—and defend his right to remain on that side...
Just as he was about to try to go back to sleep, he heard his name being called. Dinnertime. He'd had enough of people, and he especially didn't want to interact with his family. Reluctantly, he tossed his phone on his bed and headed out to the dining room.
"Still upset?" his mother asked coldly. "You're allowed to answer me now—what happened to the attitude you had yesterday morning?"
Oh, God, he couldn't honestly believe he was about to do this. He was going to regret it, he was going to hate himself for the next week for it, he was going to suffer some horrible consequences for it. Every bit of his sanity and voice of reason was telling him it was stupid and that he should give some pathetic response like, I suppose it's all the guilt I'm feeling from my recent actions. But that was also the easy way out, and nothing worthwhile was ever going to be easy.
"You. You happened. You always happen. I can't enjoy anything. There's a reason it's so rare for you to see me happy. It's because I never did anything to deserve someone like you as a parent. Maybe if you at least pretended that you cared, that you think I'm worth something, I would know how to be happy. Think about that, and if you ever try to believe it's my fault, remember this—" He took in a deep breath. There was absolutely no coming back from swearing in his house. It was considered unprofessional and extremely disrespectful. "You're. So. Fucking. Wrong."
This was met by a backhanded slap across the face. It stung, but he refused to flinch away this time.
"Go up to your room! You aren't getting dinner tonight, and you'll be lucky if you get breakfast tomorrow morning."
With a glare, he turned around and went back upstairs. He'd made up his mind, and he wasn't going to go back to trying to make his parents like him. He was the only one who would have any say in his life, and that was his final decision. It was, as he had been aware for a long while, a rather toxic environment to be living it.
He was going to leave.
In the back of his closet, he always kept his regular clothes. Preferring t-shirts and jeans, he had the most of those, but he was beginning to regret not buying any jackets or sweaters before then, and there was no way he was about to steal clothes from someone else. He would just have to make do, though, and it shouldn't be too cold for very long if he traveled quickly enough.
Once he packed up his clothes, he reached under his bed to grab a wad of money he had been stealing little bits of for years, and had accumulated a few thousand dollars. He could get somewhere with that, if his parents found out where he was staying.
He slipped his bag under his bed to keep it out of sight in case someone else decided to come in and check on him. All that was left now was to wait—everyone should be asleep by midnight.
Author's Note: Um. Next chapter will be a bit more positive. For now, I hope this is okay. Also I've got some dumb ideas for the next chapter too but they made a couple of my friends laugh so whoop-de-doo, why not use them?