Quote of the Chapter:
"When your father locks the
door, break the window." - Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair, Jeanann Verlee
Chapter Eleven: I'll Fight (for you) with my bloody, bare knuckles
Boredom never passes in brief impasses. No, boredom was never tailor-made by God to ever feel like short, fleeting periods of intense tedium and mediocrity. No. Boredom was always meant to feel unnecessarily drawn-out and expanded, like the stretched cord of a wire or an elastic band that just really needed to snap and split in two already. Yeah, boredom was never meant to be short.
Like many things, boredom was nothing new to Meliodas. Having lived over twenty years on this godforsaken planet, growing up in the shittiest part of the country, Meliodas knew what it was like to pass boring days. Watching the rain race down window panes, chewing on blades of dry grass - and the world famous pastime of daydreaming - had occupied a lot of his childhood. Years of his childhood - arguably decades.
Even when he had been dragged into the fast-flowing pace of his father's world, Meliodas still had time for boredom to visit. Late at night, when he lay there, wide awake, unable to fall asleep, it would come. Clawing fingers that would prod at his brain, make him twist and turn on his mattress as he stared at that one bloody spot on the wall.
That boredom, Meliodas now knows, was his insomnia. For him it was either extreme night terrors or endless hours of sleeplessness. No in between. No compromise. All he had were the raw remains of his life choices and experiences.
"Open the damn door!" He roars, ramming his shoulder against tough mahogany. It hurts like hell - especially as he'd pulled that muscle in the short tussle between himself and his father - but he holds in the sharp hiss that pleads to be let out. He needs to get out of this room. "I said open the damn door you bastard!" This time his fist collides with solid wood, splitting his knuckles.
Fifth time. This was the fifth time Meliodas found himself locked in his room. For what punishment? God, the boy had lost count oh-so-many weeks ago. First it had been his distracted state of mind; second it was the slip in his grades; last it was the Liones girl, the dark purple splotches around his eye branding him with the title of 'pussy' in his father's eyes.
'No son of mine could ever be so pathetic,' His father had spat at him, disdain distinct within his dark eyes. 'Why didn't you leave the fool to fight her own battles?'
'Because she's my friend,' Meliodas had burned to say. He took that punch to the face because he couldn't bear it being her instead of him. He fought her battles because Elizabeth Liones was too fragile, too delicate, too precious to ever lose through such a stupid, insignificant thing. Elizabeth was his friend. Elizabeth was priceless. Elizabeth meant so fucking much to him that Meliodas couldn't even put it into words - couldn't sort all the millions of positive thoughts he carried for her within his very brainwaves.
So he took that black eye.
"Fuck you!" Meliodas screams at no-one in particular - he just needed to release the pressure. The growing rage at his dickhead father and his asshole actions. His foot flies at the door this time. "Fuck!"
Too long he stands there, seething to the very bone, breaths leaving in barely controlled inhales and exhales, before piercing emerald eyes fix onto the window: glass. Glass can break. Easily.
There's not much thought to it. One moment he is at the door, screaming his frustrations to the world, the next he took a rounder's bat to the window, smashing the glass into fractured crystals. Glittering shards shimmer in the daylight, like scattered drops of candied rain, and for a moment Meliodas marvels at the beauty of it all; he's awed by the beauty of pure, true chaos. But only for a moment.
Hands shaking, Meliodas finds himself awake, unable to breathe, taken over by the memories once more. The dreams. Another bad day, another shitty chapter of his childhood to tick off the list. This time it was the punishments, the cruel grounding that his father made him endure - treated like an inmate in solitary confinement.
In the past, on those days, even Zeldris would pity him. When he was escorted into his room, complete with impromptu handcuffs and a warden (his father), Meliodas would always catch the sympathetic glint to his brother's eyes. Well, he would catch it beneath the crippling fear - Zeldris being the latest target when Meliodas was out of commission.
That day though, when Meliodas broke the window, things changed. Later that evening, when he came home with a freshly wrapped hand and a fuzzy feeling in his heart, the consequences didn't matter as much. At least in that moment, they didn't. Not at all. He let his father yell; he let Zeldris endure yet another sleepless night; he let Chandler force him to practice drills until he collapsed from exhaustion; and not once did he complain.
"You're no son of mine," The words ring in his head. "You're soft. A pussy. You've gone weak."
"You're right," Meliodas thinks, years later, still suffering from remnants of terror and still unable to tell anyone the truth. He is soft; he sure as hell has gone weak; but it has made him the better man. Not a pussy.
Nevertheless, when he wakes up on days like these, alone and recovering from the heavy past of his life, Meliodas can't help but feel like he's more worthless, more irredeemable, than anything on this earth. Part of him knows that his father is right about some things: he can be a coward, he can think too much with his heart, he definitely has a weakness. And admitting that - saying his father is right - burns like peppery oil.
Frowning, Meliodas checks the time on his phone, trying to ground himself. It's past seven - past the time that Elizabeth would usually have left at. Yet he still hears the distant bustle of her getting ready, the subtle sounds that hint at her leaving for work. All too soon he hears their front door open and then he's suddenly on autopilot, scrambling to catch her, convince her, to stay, to make him feel as if he is not alone, not suffering from this all alone. Like she knows what happened.
But she doesn't. He made it that way. Elizabeth only laughs at his antics, smiles at his jokes and teases him with her own advances. She doesn't know that Meliodas is using her as a lifeline to cling to normality and his sanity. Elizabeth doesn't know how precious, how fucking rare and beautiful and priceless, she is in his own eyes. All she sees is the jokester in him; all she knows is the depressive side that comes out every so often.
When he jokingly yells "Are you seriously gonna leave me with blue balls?" after her, he knows very well that she would. And she did. Every single damned time she did. Because Elizabeth didn't really know, couldn't truly know, what was going on behind the scenes.
"I'm such an idiot," Meliodas sighs as he closes the front door, leaning against it. "A big, stupid idiot..."
He should have told her the truth when he had the damned chance; he should have told her the truth when he smashed open his bedroom window to see her.