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painsandconfusion · 1 year

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Ship in a Bottle

Whumping the Whumpers - Part Twenty-Five

(tw: child abuse, bad caretaking, broken nose, broken glass, character death, alcohol consumption, mourning, loss of parental figure, homicidal compulsions, hallucinations, blood, corpse mention, knife, a very unhealthy outlook on handling emotional pain)

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“There- n-n-n-no no no- not quite like th…..YES - right there. That’s perfect - hold it exactly like that and I’ll do the glue…”

Ethan bit down on his tongue, eyes beady and focused on the little rope and the narrow piece of wood between his fingertips that held it in place. Every breath, heartbeat, and thought shifted it from position - but he was determined to prove to David that he could do this. That letting him help wasn’t a mistake.

David grins. Warm. His fingers pinch the piece just above Ethan’s to give the glue a little testing tug as it sets. “Perfect - I think that’ll do it.” He twists it away again, and picks up the minuscule bottle, looking over the fine details and the line of thread they’d just run from the foremast.

Ethan smiled too - smiling came easy with David. His was infectious - Caroline always said so. When David was gone, the little foster family was mundane if anything. They kept to themselves and kept quiet. Just the constant thrum of reality tv buzzing through the house and down to Ethan’s room in the basement.

But then David would come. And the tv would turn off. The house would light up - Caroline would smile, giggling even, when he kissed her.

David’s workshop made up the second room of the basement - right next to Ethan’s. Ethan usually just lingered in the doorframe, watching him work - but this time, David let him help. He couldn’t afford to mess it up.

The car door clicked shut behind him, muffled further by the snow that crunched under his feet.

It was a small cemetery. Rural.

Evidently David’s family had some kind of plot.

It had taken Ethan weeks of searching for David when he finally escaped. After all those years of running and bleeding and screaming, all he wanted was to sit in silence next to the man and watch him build a boat. Even just one more time.

It took weeks because that’s how long it took Ethan to cave. To check the obituaries.

And there he was.

David ruffled Ethan’s hair. And for once, Ethan didn’t mind. The touch didn’t seem to be malicious or self-serving. Just absentminded affection and affirmation.

He handed the little bottle to Ethan to look over. The glass was warm at his fingertips, retaining light and that extant goodness that poured from David’s skin. Like a little of his life seeped into the boats he made.

Maybe that’s why they looked so real.

A three-beat stomp from upstairs made the little thing flinch at his fingers; it was quickly followed by a voice- “DAVID IT’S ALMOST TWO IN THE MORNING GET THE KID TO BED”

David blinked rapidly, and turned incredulous eyes to his watch. “Ah shit-” He knocked back the rest of his tumbler of whiskey and stood up, “YEAH- ONE SEC-” He sucked air in through his teeth, shrugging a ‘whoopsie?’

Ethan bit down on a laugh, setting the bottle carefully back on the tabletop as David snapped off the light. “Thanks for letting m-”

“No thank-yous, just get your ass to bed before she beats mine.” He nudged Ethan playfully toward the door.

Ethan squeaked, but moved easily, heading toward his room. “...tomorrow can we-”

“-oh yeah, I’ll be here when you get back from school. I won’t start without you.”

Ethan turned a grin to him as he reached his door, ducking inside. “Sweet - I’ll see you then.”

Graves lined up in only semi-reasonable rows. Some were off. Some were big. Some small. Some rusted over or draped in lichen. Some pearly and grand.

Ethan knew the name of the cemetery.

He hadn’t gotten the time or the heart to check it - so he had no idea where it was.

The cemetery was small, but not that small. There were hundreds of headstones here.

And he had to check them all.

Air pressed against his tight throat, elbowing its way inside.

It pressed out again as Ethan’s phone buzzed.

He flicked a glare up to the dry, grey sky. Anything to put this off a little longer…

He slipped it out, scanning the message - then shooting back a reply, ignoring his quickly-numbing fingertips.

Bestie 😘: when r u coming home?

Me: I literally just left.

Bestie 😘: that doesnt answer the question

Me: Idk like an hour or two?

Bestie 😘: cool, I got time then

Me: Time for what.

Bestie 😘: making soup

Me: What kind?

Bestie 😘: butternut squash

Me: Haven’t had it.

Bestie 😘: well ur gonna and ur gonna like it

Me: Optimist.

Bestie 😘: realist

Me: Again. Optimist.

Bestie 😘: whats wrong with a little optimism?

Ethan didn’t answer.

He just tucked the phone and his fingers back into the warmth of his pockets, finally starting his search in earnest.

Ethan bounded down the stairs with the ghost of a smile lingering on his lips long after he’d bitten it back. Time to finish the model. Add the last touches of stain and shading.

It was going to be done.

Ethan was going to finish making something.

Something in his own hands that he could be proud of.

He dumped his backpack on the ground and rounded the corner into the little workshop. “I’m here! David, I-”

He saw the wreckage before he heard Caroline’s choked sob.

Splinters of boats littered the ground, haphazardly strung together with bits of rope and string. Frays of stretching glue that refused to let go.

Stomped to crumbled lumps of pieces.

The whole collection.

Ethan just…gaped at her as she swiped the little bottle off the table - the smallest piece yet, trying to process what he was seeing.

“N-no don’t! Don’t that one’s n-” his voice choked out into nothing as the glass shattered against concrete.

He lurched forward, a sob catching in his throat.

He was barely in range as her elbow threw up to block his advance.

Whitehot embers exploded behind his eyes as his nose crunched back. It dazed him - sent stars sparking across the air.

Still, he scrambled forward, ignoring the warm wet spreading sensation as he scrabbled for the tiny ship stranded amongst the wreckage of its brethren.

There it was.

He’d missed it the first pass. The stone was small. Almost flush with the ground. The name, engraved in metal and bolted to the small rectangular stone.

The world seemed to stop completely. Any remnant of a breeze ceased. Birds stopped chirping. Squirrels ceased their chases.

He just stared at the stone, feeling the burn of the nonexistent wind ripping the moisture from his eyes.

“Wh-why- what are you doing!? David’s gonna-”

“Do NOT say his name - cheating fucking bastard-!” An invisible string jerked him to a stop as her food crunched down on the tiny thing.

Ethan stared as her foot pulled away to punt some other bit of scrap - already torn asunder, though evidently not enough for her.

Bits of glass and wood pressed into his jeans, pricking at his knees as blurred, bony fingers scooped up the precious tiny thing from the floor.

The foremast was snapped completely off. He plucked it up, vibrating with the force of a sob he kept swallowing as he tried to pinch it back into place - but the ship was crumpled. Sideways and wrong.

Then was snatched out of his hand.

Ethan stared up at Caroline, tears spilling down his blank face. “Wh-where is he-?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Pl-ease lemme see him-”

Ethan didn’t recoil as the slap snapped his head to the side. He just let his face turn, eyes dead on the ground as the pain wrapped around his head.

“Are you kidding me!? You’re never seeing him again. I don’t want to hear another word about that disgusting drunk.”

She stepped past him, pausing at the door to look back on his kneeling form.

“..don’t you dare cry over that piece of shit. You’re sixteen goddamn years old. Act like it.”

Then she was gone.

The creaking footsteps pulling a flinch from him every stair.

He stared down at the tiny foremast between his fingers. Barely a sliver of wood now.

He didn’t move for hours. His mind wouldn’t let him. He just stared at the little splinter, rolling it between his fingers as the blood ran from his nose. Gradually stopped. Dried.

Then the puddle of it started to film. Fray at the edges. Crack.

Finally, numb, he tucked it into his pocket, stood, and grabbed a broom to clean up this mess.

Cool earth seeped into his jeans, chilling the skin at Ethan’s knees. It sent pinpricks of acid shooting up his leg - he ignored them. The pain was fake. Just cold.

He swirled the little foremast between his fingers. Rain and decay has softened it a bit. Cracked it. Made it more akin to cork than mahogany.

Still. It was David’s. Its condition didn’t change that.

Ethan didn’t want to have some dramatic fucking graveside speech. He didn’t want to pull the ‘I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can…’ bullshit.

David wasn’t there. He couldn’t hear a thing. His ears were probably close to rotted off six feet under where Ethan stood. He hoped to hell that ghosts weren’t real. Ethan didn’t believe in heaven, so no good there. And if reincarnation was a thing, then David wouldn’t be here anyway.

So he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a point.

He just set the little sliver of wood in front of the stone, tucking it a little under so it couldn’t blow away.

They’d keep each other company, these two dead, broken things.

They belonged together.

Ethan pressed the door open with half as much force as a breath, letting it slowly push away from him in a wide arc.

Silent.

He stepped inside the room.

In the moonlight, everything glowed white. Caroline always liked white.

White shag rug on dark floorboards. White sheets. White blankets.

White pillowcase stained with her smearing mascara and darkened by a puddle of tears.

White walls.

White sheer curtains that let in white moonlight.

But all Ethan could see was red.

Deep, thick, oily red splashed across the perfect, pristine room.

Red seeping through the blankets. Melding through her nightgown.

He could see it spreading dark and smeared across the floor, soaking into the rug as she dragged herself across the floor. Gurgling. Desperately reaching for the door.

Red splattering the walls.

Red pooling through her whiteblond hair.

Red on his hands.

On the knife.

It twitched between his fingers. Beckoned to him. Begged him.

But Ethan didn’t obey its call.

He just walked back out of the room, closed the door softly, felt its weight between his fingers as he pressed it - still clean - back into its place in the knife block.

He didn’t sleep that night, riddled with woken dreams of what he might have done.

Ethan didn’t linger. Only a moment of silence marked his grieving before he pushed up off his knees.

Stood.

He turned back toward the car, leaving the graveyard without a word. Without a backward glance.

David was dead. There was no point dwelling on it.

Still. The tears were stubborn, skittering hot down his cheeks anyway.

He brushed them away as fast as they came.

Time to move on.

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(tags: @prisonerwhump, @whumpawink, @mabledonut, @heathenwhump, @paleassprince, @happy-little-sadist, @wormwriting, @distinctlywhumpthing, @whump-cafe @jo-doe-seeking-inspo @azayta @wibbly-wobbly-whump @batfacedliar-yetagain @there-will-always-be-blood @siren-of-agony @whumpworld @bandages-andobsessions @deltaxxk @whumpasaurus101 @michaeltalks @pickywhumpreader @whumpberry-cookie @morning-star-whump @shelfsdesires @throwawaywhumper @the-mourning-stars @d-cs @suspicious-whumping-egg)

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#child abuse #minor whump #bad caretaking #broken nose #broken glass #character death #alcohol consumption #mourning #loss of parental figure #homicidal compulsions #hallucinations #blood #corpse #knife #someone please get ethan to a therapist #whumping the whumpers #david #ethan #Spotify

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