#TW:Bloodshed

[matthias-salvatore-blog]

Hallelujah - Flashback Drabble

When he thinks of himself, he doesn’t think of himself like this, little boy with bloody knuckles still welling, heartbeat pounding, fast, fast, fast, pearly teeth dragging hard over his lower lip as he tastes metal and salt and something exhaustive that feels like defeat. He spits crimson at the other boys defiant, their laughter ringing in his ears as their insults only spike more fury, only make him fight smaller, but they’re bigger than him, and there’s many of them, and he falls again to the ground with his eyes dazed and his head ringing emptily, harder to think than before. He doesn’t cry, he’s not that little of a boy, but maybe he makes a sound of pain in his throat and that makes them laugh harder, makes them stop and call him names that he doesn’t fully understand yet. Like a wounded animal hidden in tall grass, bloodied and dazed, he just watches them with a weary, beaten hatred, not wanting to call attention to his pain, to make them laugh any more.

 Whoreson.

 The word is spat balefully at him, and the guttering fire in his eyes lights again. He tries to climb to his feet, only to have a foot connect into his stomach, sending all the air out of him in an agonized gush, retching like a dog and curling up in a tight ball. The amusement has begun to wear thin, and he can see they’re getting ready to leave, and so he takes the opportunity to rest on the cobblestones, the hurt settling in now that the adrenaline has worn slowly away, a whimper, soft, leaving his throat when he was finally alone. He curls up tighter; lets his eyes close for a moment. He’ll rest, and then he’ll try to go somewhere safe, not wanting to go home.  He doesn’t want to creep in and watch his mother turn to see him, watch her gasp, watch her sad eyes as she asks him why he couldn’t stop fighting with the other boys, why he couldn’t stay safe, why he was so angry, and so afraid. His tears sting the cuts on his face, and something shifts oddly when he moves, sending glassy jolts of pain down his arm and side. He forces himself up anyway, all little boy scraped knees and small, bloodied, shaking fists, an angel’s face formed from the mouth of Hell, streaked red like war paint.

 Walking is hard and takes him a long time, he stumbles and falls, turns that beautiful bastard’s face to the dirt and spits red again before finding his feet. The face of delinquent England, the native meant to feel an immigrant in his own country, the boy who squandered potential not of his own choosing. He doesn’t like losing, and he knows soon, he’ll be practicing, imagining every time he strikes air its one of those laughing faces. For now, his vengeance is a child’s prayer, halting and useless, pitiful. It has no bearing on reality, just a little boy raging at the sky. He drags his body further, holding his wounded arm across his chest, dizzy. He doesn’t know where he is, or where he is going. Just far from where he was. He loses consciousness near a puddle of water from last night’s rain. He wakes up and keeps going, until he can’t any more, and he needs to find somewhere to collapse, somewhere safe. With the instincts of a damaged creature wanting privacy, the little boy turns towards the big building in front of him, the one that has its door cracked open, the one with the fewest stairs. When he drags himself in, shaking hand pulling open the door, his blood smears against the perfect oak grain of the wood, and again, when he falls, against the marble. They’re right; he does ruin all he touches.

 He greys out with his cheek pressed against stone.

 He doesn’t know how long he is out. He’s cold, and perhaps that wakes him, curls up again because that makes him better able to hide. He opens his eyes, sees the vaulted ceiling, in a cascade of crimson and gold and cerulean. Painted to look like the dusk’s sky, when the sky is still blue but the stars can be seen, just starting to come out. It is one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen, he thinks, in his dazed way. He would want to paint it, if he had paints, but he knows it could never do it justice. Flanking the walls, there are angels, stern and regal and beautiful. They look at him with blank, neutral medieval eyes that look almost alive by candlelight. Stone lions crouch regally, manes carved in frozen cascades, teeth bared. A church then, the scent of incense charring against his nose, he thinks, letting his head fall down again. He should drag himself further into it, but he can’t bear it. At least it’s quiet, and it’s dark. Maybe no one will come. No one will send him away. He could stay until he could think of a way to run further. Somewhere. Anywhere.

 He wakes again without knowing he is gone. Wakes to a blanket around his shoulders, wakes to the mild smell of soup, wakes to flickering candlelight. He is propped up in one of the pews, and there is an angel sitting next to him, or at least he looks like an angel, dressed in black. The little boy can’t  see much of his face at first, through tear-swollen eyes and the reflection of the light that makes it look as if there is a halo brushing his golden hair. He does not know who he is, but there is a bowl of soup in his hands, and his face feels less dry, the blood already wiped away. “Where’s your mother,” the angel asks, and his voice is a human’s voice, harmonic but real. Now Matthias could see, he doesn’t look like an angel, his face asymmetrical, but his eyes kind. Still, the little boy doesn’t want to lie, just in case. He tells him, in a halting mess, where she is. He says it in English and again in Italian. It sounds wrong no matter the language. He falls silent. 

 “Where’s your father,” is the next question, and that question is harder for him. He does not know his father. His father is far away. He is supposed to come back soon. He says that, but he doesn’t know if he believes it.

 “No, I know your father,” the angel replies, and he gestures around them, which confuses the little boy even more. “He has given much up for you, and He loves you.”

 “No one s-should love me,” the little boy counters with the honesty only a child could utter with impunity, his fine features battered, his right arm still held awkwardly. “I’m a b-bastard.” He does not know what it means, but he knows that it is bad. He knows it means that he makes his mother sad, when she thinks he isn’t listening.

 “He loves you, like He loves all men.”

 “Even b-bad ones?”

 “Even bad ones.”

 “Even me?”

 “Yes, although I don’t think you’re bad. I’ll take you back to your mother, bring you home.”

 “T-that’s not my h-home,” the little boy answers softly, and his voice is fierce, fierce in a quiet, weary, beaten way, as though he could scare away his own hurts with enough anger.

 “Are you still in pain?”

 “No,” the boy lies instantly, wary and self-protective. “I’m f-fine.”

 “Your mother is probably worried about you. Probably searching for you right now. You should go to her.”

 “I h-hate h-her. S-she’s a w-whore.” He does not know what that is, exactly, but he knows that he suffers for it, and he is tired of trying to keep himself safe, tired of being afraid, tired of pain.

 There is a long pause, as the angel seems to think, exhaling slowly.

 “You don’t get to choose your family,” he says quietly. “Say, if I take you home, that you can visit here. Any time you need a place to go. A safe place.”

 “S-safe?”

 “No one will hurt you. Ever again. I promise you.”

 “P-promise.”

 “I do.”

 The little boy eats quietly, small shoulders bowed over under the warmth of the blanket.

 “You’re a liar,” the boy murmurs softly, when he finally finishes, all bruised knuckles, head lowered. He sounds tired, like a traveler that has gone a long way and has only much further to go.

 “Why?”

 “B-because liars t-tell lies.”

 “I didn’t lie.”

 The look the little boy gives the priest is terrible, half pitying, half resigned. It is a look that has no business existing on a child’s face.

“You j-just did.”

#flashback drabble #letters #tw: violence #tw:bloodshed #tw:fistfight