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ajgrey9647 · 9 months

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Prancing and Twirling into Madness

Skinny legs dangled from the hard chair, swinging in nervous anticipation as the child sat in the waiting room between his ‘parents.’ Both adults glared at the boy from the corners of their eyes, annoyed at having to take time out of their day to spend yet another afternoon in a doctor’s office. The place smelled of antiseptic cleaner, new plastic, and the odd scent of cherries, making the cowering Tommy think of the lollipops on wooden sticks the physician gave him at the end of a visit.

The windows gave a wide view of a dark grey, cloudy sky, ripe with rain and approaching lightning. A scattered swatch of icy drops spotted the glass in a swift burst of turbulent wind. A clock ticked away monotonously in the background.

“I can’t believe we’re back in here, Thomas,” his mother hissed under her breath, eyes on the front desk receptionist. “Why? Why can’t you act ‘normal’?”

His father’s eyebrows were knitted together like one large fuzzy caterpillar, his face a florid red with barely contained anger.

“Jesus Christ, how old are you again? That was the third kid you’ve bitten this year!” he whispered, the tone an icy calm, his hands gripping the armrests so hard his knuckles were white.

‘He’s going to beat the shit out of me when we get home,’ Tommy worried, trying not to shake, fighting the frightened tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks.

Tears would only make things much worse. The man hadn’t yet succumbed to the joys of drink as he would in later years when Tommy reached his younger teens. During this early period, Mr. Oliver was quite strict and controlling, demanding the little boy be a model of perfection despite his chaotic background.

Impatient and given to fits of rage when he became irritated, he had no qualms taking a belt to his adopted son’s bare skin when he felt he needed ‘correction,’ as he called it. And, in his opinion, Tommy required much in the way of correcting. He often opined that opening his home to the unwanted child was a huge mistake.

Mrs. Oliver was not a source of comfort nor a protection from her husband’s anger. The woman couldn’t understand maternal instincts, having her greatest love being herself. She had a fondness for attracting the attention of other men, causing Tommy’s father to erupt in jealous fits of screaming and yelling. Normal tasks such as cleaning, cooking, or otherwise being present bored her greatly.

Leaning over towards the intimidated child, he muttered under his breath.

“You better keep your mouth shut when we get back there about how I run my household. Do you understand?”

His breath was hot on Tommy’s pale cheek.

“If you embarrass me, I’ll really make it hurt when we get behind closed doors. No one’s going to believe a bratty, selfish little shit like you anyways.”

Mrs. Oliver rolled her heavily made up eyes and rummaged in her purse for her compact mirror. Her moist, red lips sneered in the child’s direction.

“Its no wonder why your mommy didn’t want you. You’re obviously broken,” she smirked. “Other children don’t act like you do.”

Tommy’s eyes and nose began to burn with the effort of shoving down such mental anguish. Bright pink splotches colored his face and he pulled his knees to his chest, curling into himself.

A strong hand cuffed his shoulder roughly.

“Sit up straight!” his father harshly admonished, glancing over at the receptionist bent over the deck, a phone tucked in the crook of her neck.

Dutifully, Tommy lowered his scrawny legs back down, shoulders straightening from their hunch with effort.

“The school counselor said they can’t let you back in the building until you have this evaluation. You had better get that head out of your ass and pass with flying colors. We’re getting really tired of your shit, Thomas,” Mr. Oliver continued, his knuckles cracking subtly as they squeezed the chair.

The latest phone call from the school had very nearly caused the child to have to remain in bed for several days. Biting wasn’t the only offense Tommy had committed while in the classroom. There was a whole laundry list leading to the counselor’s stern instruction for a physical and mental evaluation to determine a cause for the boy’s behavior.

Teachers commented on his withdrawn and negative demeanor, his lack of focus on schoolwork, his failing grades, and his inability to get along with other children. They had been forced to send him to the principal’s office on several occasions for his crass language and uncooperative behavior. Nothing seemed to be able to get through to him.

And now, here Tommy sat in a doctor’s office with his parents, the first of many he would have over the years until he grew into Rita’s evil Green Ranger.

Heaving a sigh, Mr. Oliver adjusted himself in his chair and looked over at the door to the patient rooms with annoyance.

“I don’t see why this is taking so long,” he commented loudly.

Sliding over the edge of the chair, Tommy’s shoes thumped on the thin, plain carpeting of the waiting room and he wandered over to the small bookcase in the corner. Settling down on his knees on the garishly colored rug, he perused the cracked spines of the slim children’s books lining the shelves. The boy could literally feel the weight of the adults’ eyes on him, their anger and annoyance palpable.

He licked his lips nervously, tongue dry and grabbed a tattered hardback tome at random. It was a rather thick volume, not necessarily a child’s book but according to the faded gilt letting on the cover, it was a collection of fairy tales and folk lore from around the world.

Tommy scrunched his face in derision.

‘Fairy tales?’

What garbage! Mere entertainment for soft minded, naïve youngsters.

Cracking open the book for lack of anything better to do while he awaited his turn on the paper-covered table, Tommy skimmed the first few pages lethargically. But as he flipped through the various ethereal stories, the child became captivated, not just by the stories but the otherworldly illustrations on the adjoining pages.

Grand adventures, princes and princesses, winsome animal companions, witches, and magic; images flooded his mind and the little boy could vividly ‘see’ the lovely scenes coming to life in his mind. He didn’t realize he was no longer blinking until the dull burn in his eyes caught his attention.

That was the only thing though that Tommy came to realize. The nurse was standing by his parents at the door to the patient rooms, his chart cradled in one arm. She smiled at him gently and waved him up with one hand.

“Ready to see the doctor, kiddo? You can bring that book back with you if you like,” she offered kindly.

The child nodded and scrambled to his feet, mindful of his parents’ irritation as they stood waiting. Hugging the worn book to his chest, he made his way over and down the hall to await his exam.

The pediatric patient room was decorated in bright cartoonish colors, framed pictures of animals on the walls over the examination table along with the requisite blood pressure cuff and boxes of gloves. A counter stood along one wall with a sink and canisters containing cotton swabs and tongue depressors. The sterile smell was thicker back here, and Tommy shivered, his flesh raising in goose pimples.

His parents sat in yet other plastic chairs while they waited for Dr. Samuels, the pediatrician that they had been referred to by the school counselor. Mr. Oliver gave the child a hard stare.

“Remember what I said out there? Keep a lid on it. Understand?” he ground out. “Or so help me God…”

Tommy nodded his head vigorously. He didn’t need to be told twice. The book was a comforting weight in his arms, keeping him grounded.

Mrs. Oliver crossed and uncrossed her legs impatiently and glared at her adopted son.

“You can at least pretend you’re a normal kid, right? I’m really tired of hearing how disappointed your dad is with you,” she added, spitefully.

Mr. Oliver made no rebuttal to the statement; Tommy would have been shocked if he had, to be honest.

Then there was a sharp rap on the hollow door and the click of the knob. Dr. Samuels was a short, balding man in glasses, wearing a white coat and brown loafers. He gave the slim boy a perfunctory once over and then introduced himself to the patient’s parents.

“So, what brings us in today, Tommy? I understand there are issues at school,” he questioned, pulling out a small black and silver gadget that he used to look in the child’s eyes and mouth.

Tommy fidgeted slightly and bowed his head.

“I got in trouble at school,” he managed in a cracked voice.

“I see. It looks like you’ve been in a lot of trouble lately.”

The doctor’s cold hands were palpating the child’s throat, back, and belly; the touch of hands on his unsuspecting skin made Tommy flinch sharply. However, the reaction was not due to the temperature difference.

“Can you tell me about the things you’ve gotten in trouble for?” the doctor went on, mistaking the child’s reaction as being due to his chilly fingers.

Mr. Oliver was glaring over the doctor’s shoulder, his eyes dark and dangerous.

Tommy tried his best to answer the physician’s questions, carefully maneuvering around any discussion of how things were at home. He relayed his anger and frustration with children at school, with the teachers, the counselor, and principal, his boredom in the classroom, difficulty with reading and spelling, and preference to be left to himself.

“I see,” Dr. Samuels continued to repeat with each answer.

He made long notations in the papers contained by the purple chart. Then he turned toward the Olivers and began to make his recommendations.

Driving back home through the now pouring rain, Tommy stared out the window at the hazy lights of passing cars, blurry distorted shapes when viewed with the water spattered glass. The adults were deathly silent, still angry with him. Experience told him that his punishment was not over just yet.

The doctor had a given his parents a prescription for medication and a referral to a pediatric behavior specialist for further work up. Dr. Samuels had expressed some concern regarding Tommy’s withdrawn personality and his aggressive responses when angered or frustrated. With the limited information on his birth mother, it was unclear if there were any history of psychiatric disorders.

But the child could be on a dangerous path if he were not treated effectively with appropriate medical and behavioral therapies. Tommy’s stomach felt knotted and painful hearing the doctor’s assessment.

Dangerous?

The child continued to stare out at the grey, wet world that seemed to match his current mood. Puddles splashed under the tires as the vehicle moved down the road toward the small yellow house. His stomach growled, but it was best that he not eat before he received the rest of his punishment.

Vomiting would make it harder on him. His father despised weakness and he would order the child to clean his mess alone.

“Goddammit, Thomas!” Mr. Oliver suddenly snapped, making his wife jump. She narrowed her eyes at him in irritation.

“Is this going to be an ongoing problem? Are we going to have to put you on crazy pills and go talk to a quack? Talking doesn’t fix shit!” he ranted. “Back in my day, if I got out of line, my old man would tan my ass. He didn’t put up with any bullshit.”

The car was silent for several minutes as the older man ruminated on his own upbringing.

“If you want to acct like a rebel without a clue, we can take a page out of my pa’s book. Obviously, I’m not beating your ass enough,” he snarled into the stillness. “Children knew how to act when I was growing up.”

Tommy’s hands clenched together nervously as his father began to get keyed up. Trips down memory lane were not good for the child cowering in the backseat.

“Kids in my generation weren’t a bunch of disrespectful little pussies,” he advised. “You didn’t go running your mouth to shrinks or doctors. Corporal punishment cured most issues. I’m thinking maybe you’re too soft, too wimpy. Like a little princess.”

Mrs. Oliver laughed, a tinkly jagged sound as she looked back at Tommy.

“Well, he’s got prettier hair than I do,” she chirped, hooking a thumb over at the little boy’s longish dark locks.

His father’s dark eyes locked on his in the rearview mirror; the man scowled at his wife’s observation.

The rest of the ride was passed in silence.

Striding briskly through the front door, Mr. Oliver made no mention of what he intended to do; the older man disappeared into the interior of the home as his wife plopped down her purse with an annoyed sigh.

Briskly, Tommy darted up the stairs to his room, scrambling to find a place big enough to hide in. His little heart thundered in his chest while his eyes frantically looked around the mostly barren space.

He knew shit was not over.

Hearing a creak on the stairs, Tommy barreled underneath his bed, a foolish endeavor he realized. But what else could he do? He curled into the tightest ball he could manage in the farthest corner he could reach and waited breathlessly. The heavy footfalls were coming closer.

“Thomas Oliver! Get your little ass out here. Right now!” the loud voice echoed from the hallway.

The child remained quiet, hoping futilely that something or someone would step in and prevent the beating he knew was coming.

The bedroom door thundered open, striking the wall behind it.

“If I have to bend down and drag you out, you little shit, you won’t get out of that bed for a goddamn month!” he warned venomously.

Swallowing the lump in his throat and wiping his weeping eyes, Tommy pulled himself out and presented himself for punishment.

The wrathful man grabbed the child by the hair and yanked, making him yelp in pain. Dragging the sobbing boy down the stairs to the bathroom, he said not a word until the door was slammed loudly and he had shoved Tommy over to the sink.

“That dumb bitch isn’t right about a lot of things, but I think she hit the nail on the head with this,” he growled. “Look in the mirror, boy! What do you see?”

Tommy gave a limp shrug, sniffing back the snot that running from his nose. He could barely see anything through his watery eyes.

“I’ll tell you what I see. I see a dainty little princess, a Pitiful Pearl who’s took weak to suck it up and do what needs doing. You’re fucking biting people like a goddamn dog! But you don’t obey for shit!” he roared. “That fucking stops right here and now. I’m going to teach you how to toughen up, like a fucking MAN!”

Again, he grabbed the child’s hair roughly; the vibrating buzz of the electric razor echoed off the bathroom tile.

“No! Don’t!” Tommy screamed.

But nothing dissuaded the man; long dark hair rained upon the floor, some gliding to alight on the boy’s sneakers. Again and again, the razor passed over sections of his scalp, at times nicking his skin and drawing streams of blood.

By the time the cruel act was completely finished, Tommy’s scalp was almost completely red, slick with bleeding cuts and the rough beginnings of razor burn.

“Much better,” his father stated, nodding his head at his handiwork. “Look at yourself now, Thomas. That’s a more manly hairstyle!”

Tossing the black razor upon the counter, he looked coldly at the little boy.

“Clean this mess up, then go to your room. You’re lucky you aren’t getting the belt again.”

Then he was gone.

Tommy’s hazel eyes stared at himself in the mirror, fixated on his shorn hair. Heaving sobs wracked his thin shoulders making it hard to breathe. Sinking to the floor, he gathered up the remains of his soft hair in his hands, feeling the silky strands slide through his fingers into the trash bin.

So in shock at the loss was he, that when he stood up again and caught sight of his reflection, he began to bawl anew. With shaky steps, Tommy made his way back to his bedroom, the sound of the television loud from down the stairs, drowning out his sorrow.

Tucked away behind a broken dresser drawer, the child had secreted away a means of comfort in this hellhole. The small stuffed dog had accompanied him through many homes until they both landed here. Pulling the little animal from his hiding place, Tommy ran a fingertip over the glossy black button eyes and nose. He buried his hot scalded face into the warm furry chest and begged for someone strong and brave to come save him.

Over his later school years, Tommy had not only continued to bite other children, he’d stabbed a boy with a sharpened pencil, shoved several teachers, cursed out the principal and counselor, scratched and clawed a boy who’d been tormenting him, and kicked yet another child between the legs hard enough that surgery was required. The youngster bounced skulls off metal lockers, threw desks, and kicked a hole in a wall.

He had been caught smoking on school grounds more than once; a few instances involved possessing marijuana. Additionally, Tommy had defaced school property, vandalizing bathroom stalls with rude and often untrue allegations against his peers and other staff. Several library books were missing pages or otherwise damaged.

At the young age of sixteen years old, Tommy Oliver had a thick medical chart, spanning the years since his official adoption that also included incidents from past foster homes. He even had a juvenile record for running away, fighting, stealing, vandalism, underage drinking, and making threats.

The list of diagnoses was extensive given his age and the list of failed medications was puzzling. Of course, if he actually took them instead of pocketing them in his cheek, they may have had some effect. But he was also a masterful liar, leading countless doctors and therapists down a merry rabbit hole.

Nothing mattered. Life was short, then you die. Tommy was determined to do things his way. He was punished no matter what with the old man clouded with drink and impulsivity. The only positive was being shoved into martial arts as a way to vent his aggression at the recommendation of a therapist.

This was the way he arrived in Angel Grove and the way he operated when he first met Jason Scott, the muscular dark-haired martial artist that, for reasons he could not explain, captivated his attention. Something about him drew Tommy in, made him want to be closer.

The boy had not yet experienced a crush on anyone before, male or female. He never cared to concern himself with other people unless he wanted a cigarette, alcohol, weed, or just to ‘get off.’ They were all interchangeable, faceless no ones.

The burgeoning tempestuous swell of lust and hormones were beginning to swirl even before Rita’s magic took hold. The teen found the reason that Jason was so magnetic once he became the Green Ranger and discovered that the Red Ranger was the object of his desires.

Fantasies intruded while he stared at Jason, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, to stab him in the chest, to fuck him mercilessly while he strangled him to death. To take a belt to that gorgeous tan skin as his old man had done to him. To make him scream in pain and fear.

The long, slow descent had begun so many years ago and had set both Tommy and Jason on a collision course both in the Prime and Coinless Universe. Both with very different outcomes.

In the Prime Universe, the Green and Red Rangers were united, best friends to lovers.

In the Coinless World, both Lord Drakkon and his pet, Red, laughed together in shared insanity, both so crazed and mean, they weren’t even a shadow of their alternate selves.

#lord drakkon #boom! comics power rangers #jason scott #world of the coinless jason #power rangers #ao3 author #ao3 fanfic #warning child abuse #too long

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mourntheantagonist · 2 years

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To Be So Lonely

Chapter 1: The Slip

classification au: little!billy/caregiver!steve

read on ao3

“Don’t blame me for falling. I was just a little boy.”

…

“We just needed a fresh start as a blended family.”

That was the story they stuck to as to why the Hargrove-Mayfield clan had packed up and trekked across the country from sunny California to the middle of bumfuck Indiana. When asked why they chose Hawkins of all places, the script they were given made it crystal clear, Neil had family that lived nearby. It wasn’t a total lie, so long as you considered 200 miles northbound to be nearby. Neil had been sure to have all of the paperwork in order for their eastward migration to ensure that there would be no question as to their intentions. Billy Hargrove was a neutral. It said it right there in bold typeface on his driver’s license.

“It was a one in one hundred chance.” Neil had reminded him on the day of his classification on his drive home from the doctors office. Billy had sat compacted in the passenger seat, his body pressed up against the door to create as much distance as possible between him and his father. “It was a one in one hundred chance and you had to go and be the fucking one.”

That night hadn’t ended with the comment in the car nor the lecture that followed once they walked through the front door of their house. It ended in Billy’s bedroom behind the privacy of his shut door and stereo volume raised up high where Neil gave the final blow of his discipline, laying down the rules with the whip of his belt.

Rule number one, don’t regress.

Neil didn’t care about the warnings the doctor had read off of his clipboard. He didn’t care that a little could only put off slipping into their headspace for so long before it would happen involuntarily at the most inconvenient time. He didn’t care that a little who dropped like that—hard and fast—would have a hard time slipping back out of it.

Rule number two, no caregivers.

If Billy were to regress, Neil already had a plan in place. The plan: the garage—food, water, and a bare mattress. Billy would be left to fend for himself as punishment.

It happened once, about a month after his classification. He could feel himself slipping into it during his sixth period, trying desperately to focus his attention on the stoichiometry problems on the chalkboard and not on the overwhelming urge to stick his thumb into his mouth. He told himself that all he had to do was make it home. He held onto the hopeless idea that maybe Neil would be proud he stuck it out long enough to regress in private.

Of course, that hadn’t been the case. After the nightmare of driving himself and Max home from school, gripping the steering wheel tight and clenching his jaw so hard it hurt, he dropped to his knees right on the front porch, breaking out into tears.

He didn’t remember much after that point as the haze took over and he slipped completely into his headspace. He woke up around a day and a half later feeling like shit. His body ached and his skin was peppered with bruises that hadn’t been there before he slipped. His stomach hurt, like the acid was eating away at him from the inside out. The food Neil had left—two cans of tuna and a jar of peanut butter—was untouched. Same with the jug of water, which was still filled to the brim, evident by his dry throat.

And then there was everything else. His head was killing him from crying for hours on end. His body ached from wounds without an identifiable source and to top it all off, as if it hadn’t already been horrible enough, he was covered in his own piss. It soaked through his jeans and climbed up his shirt and seeped into the old bug-infested mattress below him.

However, the only thing he could think about in the immediate moments after waking up was how even out of his headspace, he desperately needed to be held. He couldn’t think about that though—couldn’t risk potentially dropping again and spending another day covered in his own bio waste. He got up despite his body sending him every signal to stay right where he was and hauled his aching body out the garage door and up the three steps into the house.

He could tell by the sun outside that it was early morning. The sunrise was almost soothing for a moment before he stepped inside and out of the sun’s rays—the yellow hue fading away into the gray-toned house. He’d hoped that he’d woken up first and would at the very least get to make his first appearance in unstained clothes.

He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he bypassed Neil until he was finally on the other side of a locked bathroom door. He stood there for a second, allowing himself to take a moment just to breathe. He didn’t want to look at himself in the mirror—he didn’t want to face reality just yet.

He cleaned himself up, tossing his clothes into a garbage bag and hopping into the shower where he stood under the hot water for as long as he could before the dehydration would eventually kick in.

He didn’t remember much of what happened after that. He just remembered that first stare Neil shot at him when he walked out of his bedroom fully dressed in clean clothes. He gave him a nod, which could be misconstrued as approval, but Billy made no mistake in reading it any other way.

Never let it happen again.

He tried. He really did, but it was like holding his breath—at a certain point, his lungs would inhale whether he liked it or not, regardless of where he was, even if he was underwater. He made it five long months before his lungs finally gave out, and he broke rules one and three at the same time.

Rule number three, never let anyone find out.

He had been underwater, or rather, at school. That was all he could remember. He was stuck in his headspace for two weeks and when he woke up in that same garage on that same old mattress, he wasn’t sure he’d ever want to remember.

That was why they moved. Everyone knew that Billy Hargrove was a little.

- : -

It was a silent car ride. It wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, most of them were. It was always really easy to blame it on it being seven in the morning, but Billy knew why she never wanted to really spark conversation with him. If it weren’t for the fact he’d smashed a plate over the head of someone she called a friend, or pinned and threatened one she would consider a boyfriend, it would be for the fact that he was a ticking time bomb, seconds away from being set off resulting in another Uhaul road trip.

Though, things had been getting better, not good, but better.

He was used to her being quiet, but she was acting different. Her usual longing stare out the passenger window was gone and replaced by fidgeting hands and a bowed head. Billy couldn’t stop looking over at her, sensing something was wrong.

“You good?” Billy asked her.

She kept her head down but stopped messing with her hands in her lap as she heard Billy’s voice. She didn’t say anything. She just froze.

“Max?” Billy asked again.

She mumbled something Billy couldn’t quite hear, just the soft sound of her voice escaping her mouth like a breath. “What?” Billy asked, his eyes now completely off of the road ahead of him.

“It’s been six months.” she said.

There was no need for further clarification. He knew exactly what she was referring to.

The last time he dropped was that day in September, before the move—the reason for the move. He knew what she was talking about because he had been thinking about it too. The signs were all right there, flashing in front of his eyes like headlights on a car, warning him of the impending impact.

“I know,” he said.

Max looked up, not at Billy, but at least she was looking somewhere other than down at her hands. She stared forward for a moment before finally chancing a glance in Billy’s direction. Her eyes were expectant—expecting him to elaborate.

“What?” Billy asked.

“What are you gonna do?”

Billy shook his head and pointed his eyes back at the road. “It’s not like I really have much of a choice do I?”

He could see out of the corner of his eye as Max looked back down at her lap, fidgeting with her hands once again. “I hate your dad.” she said.

Billy chuckled to himself, despite him finding absolutely no humor in what was bound to happen soon.

“At least there’s something we can both agree on.”

- : -

By the grace of god, or whatever being out there cursed him to be the child of Neil Hargrove, he made it through the rest of the day without slipping into his headspace. But, the weight was just growing heavier and heavier and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold his breath.

He couldn’t stop bouncing his leg at the dinner table.

Max kept staring at him from across the table. Her sad eyes were drilling holes into his soul, begging him to make the dumb decision to bring up the fact that he needed to go into his headspace to his dad. Max wasn’t stupid. She was just stupidly hopeful. She knew what Neil would say to that, but she just had this idea that maybe they would both be proven wrong.

Max said that she’d sneak in and help him eat and drink and even take him to the bathroom because she didn’t want to have to move again.

“I have friends here.” She told him in the car ride back home from school. Part of Billy hoped she was just saying that to keep his ego at bay—maybe, just maybe, she cared a little about what happened to him. Maybe that was stupid. Maybe she really just didn’t want to have to pack up and leave her friends again.

Max kept staring at him, her eyes growing more threatening the longer he ignored her. He had no plan to give in.

Billy had been dumb enough to believe that the decision was up to him.

“Billy needs to go into his headspace.”

A dead silence instantly fell over the room. Everyone just froze in the middle of eating, not even silverware clanking against ceramic could be heard. Billy stopped breathing, eyes fixed on Max who had turned to look towards Neil. Billy didn’t have the same strength that she had. He was too afraid to look.

He could hear Neil scoff and drop his fork onto his plate, the first sound to follow Max’s statement. “Billy doesn’t need to do anything,” he said, “isn’t that right, Billy?”

It was like his neck had rusted like an old valve—no amount of force could get it to turn. He was stuck there, staring at Max and gripping his fork tightly in his hand. He knew Neil expected eye contact, but the most he could give him was a “yes sir” through a hoarse and hesitant voice.

Billy had hoped that would be the end of it. He just had to get through the rest of the dinner because the more time he spent in the presence of his father, the more inclined his body was to submit and escape the situation.

But Max was having none of it.

“My health teacher said it’s dangerous for littles to avoid their headspace for too long.” Max just dug the grave deeper for him, simply not getting it, clearly not noticing the way Billy’s head couldn’t even turn in Neil’s direction.

Billy didn’t even have to look to know that he was fuming.

“Look at me, son.” he said, his voice low and tight from clenched teeth and jaw. Billy barely moved his neck, instead moving his eyes as far left as they could. He could feel his mind threatening to slip the longer he looked at him. “You gonna let your little sister fight your battles for you?”

“No sir.” Billy’s voice was quiet.

Neil hardly looked satisfied. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, the image of him growing bigger in Billy’s view. “Tell Maxine that you’ll be just fine.” he said.

Billy’s eyes darted back towards Max, whose eyes had fallen back to sadness, finally coming to the realization that Neil Hargrove contained not a single reasonable bone in his body. The table found a second bout of silence as Billy sat there, unable to get the words out. The naive part of him wanted to look to Susan who sat to his right—to give her the same look that Max had given to him, begging. The rational part of him knew it would be a waste because that zipper on her lips was always stuck when it came to defending Billy in any way.

Billy could feel Neil’s eyes still on him like daggers puncturing the skin, while Max’s apologetic eyes softened the edge just a little. Billy took a deep breath, consciously lowering his voice and annunciating his words and holding back the flood of tears that were threatening to break through the dam. He just kept his eyes focused on Max as he told the lie that his father demanded.

“I’ll be fine.”

He knew he wouldn’t, so did Max. It was only a matter of time.

- : -

The night didn’t end at the dinner table. He hadn’t expected it to. The night had ended just like any other night Neil’s buttons were pushed and his blood pressure exceeded normal. Locked bedroom door. Stereo blasting. Belt Undone.

He was in utter disbelief when he woke up in the morning with just the looming presence of his need to be little. He was hovering right on the edge, inching closer with every painful move he made as he pulled himself from his bed. His legs shaked underneath him and his back stung from the friction of his shirt rubbing up against leather-induced wounds. He was close to slipping, but he hadn’t slipped yet.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t stop thinking about the night before, the aches and pains serving as a constant reminder and trigger to flashbacks.

It was the mind's innate reaction—fight or flight. Billy liked to play the role of the fighter. He’d pick fights out of nowhere just to prove to everyone around him—mostly Neil—that he was tough… that he wasn’t a baby. But when it came to real fear, he never fought. His physical body would freeze up, and his mind would desperately try to flee into his headspace.

The mind doesn’t just let up. Billy couldn’t pull back on his mind running away from him, all he could do was hit the pause button. It was like there was a little person inside his head, ankle tied to a rubber band as the person tried to run away. If Billy were to pull back on the rubber band, he’d only stretch it thinner, bringing it even closer to snapping.

Six months of hitting the pause button over and over again wound up in a band pulled to its absolute limit. He could almost hear it tearing apart, ready to launch. Hard and fast.

He kept his breath held tight within his throat as he got ready, showering and dressing as quickly as possible hoping to beat Neil out the front door. He didn’t need anything else to add to the already massive pile weighing him down, pulling him closer to the cliff's edge, pulling hard on the rubber band, compressing his chest and pushing the air out of his lungs.

Fortunately for him, Max had already been waiting for him in the car in the same exact state she had the day before. Silent. Head hung low. Hands fidgeting in her lap.

He didn’t bother asking her what was wrong. He knew.

Billy stuck the keys into the ignition and put his foot down on the clutch, but he couldn’t move. His leg wouldn’t stop shaking. Everything was foggy. He knew he was losing control quickly with the way every sound slowly entered his ears and echoed, like he was in some kind of chamber. There was a filter over his vision, making his view out the window momentarily cloudy.

Billy looked over to Max. She was looking at him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

No. It wasn’t okay. He couldn’t even get his foot to press all the way down on the clutch.

Billy sat there, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, eyes looking past Max, like she wasn’t even sitting there. He didn’t want to look her in the eyes and admit that he was weak—so weak that he wanted to cry.

So he didn’t. He didn’t even entertain her with an answer. He just pulled his seat forward, pressed his foot down as hard as he could manage, and threw it into first gear, burning off the tires and lurching forward just enough to get the car moving.

- : -

He felt like he was floating—like he was high on something, and not the good kind of high. It was the kind of high where his heart would beat out of his chest and he felt like everyone was staring at him, the kind of high that made him break out into a sweat and forget how to breathe.

The kind of high that would make him forget he was supposed to be holding his breath.

The kind of high that would make him forget he was underwater.

He watched the clock on the wall sitting in the back row of his third period class—English—trying to mute the discussion over Johnny Cade.

He was trying not to think about how much his path and Johnny’s seemed to overlap.

Neglected. Abused. Only Johnny became everything Billy couldn’t. He was good. Johnny was a tragic hero. Billy was just tragic.

So much for not thinking about it.

Maybe he could have had it not been for the bruises and welts throbbing with every minor movement.

The seconds ticked by slowly. The haze only intensified. His mind was sprinting away from him.

He tried to pull away, desperately clinging on to whatever he could find to ground him. Pushing away the need to cry, the need for pressure, the need to be comforted. He tried. He really did.

But the rubber band snapped. He inhaled. He fell.

Hard, and fast.

next chapter

#classification au #harringrove #stranger things #steve harrington #billy hargrove #mandi writes tresh #fanfic #warning child abuse

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neon-candies · 6 months

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Happy Halloween!

Warnings for: Child abuse, emotional abuse, unhealthy relationship

Angel probably has this nightmare frequently after Annie was "born". And he probably tried to avoid talking about it at first. But it gets to a point where he can't even hide his fears and concerns. However that's a conversation for another time.

#annabelle content #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel angel dust #Hazbin Hotel Valentino #radiodust #radiodust fankid #hazbin hotel fankid #trigger warnings #child abuse #emotional abuse #unhealthy relationship

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sm-baby · 1 month

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Well can we see Mei-Lyn as a baby?

#child endangerment #child abuse #tw #trigger warning #child abandonment #art #Piece by Piece #mei lyn #mei-lyn #meilyn

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dianagj-art · 9 months

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This idea got out of hand way too quickly but I have no regrets<3

Isn't it fun to think that with all the crossovers One would actually have a support system of friends that care about him?

Coin Toss Michael by @gemini-forest

Bonus!

#he deserves all the hugs<3 #that's his emotional support parent figure #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt separated au #separated leo au #slau crossovers #coin toss au #rise leo #rise future michelangelo #dg art #dg fanart #dg comics #oh i forgot to put trigger warnings sorry guys #tw child abuse #cw child abuse

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loupy-mongoose · 2 months

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WARNING:

This comic contains BLATANT depictions of INJURIES, BLOOD, and CHILD ABUSE.

This is not directly related to the current running story, but I was hit with a mood to share some... rather unpleasant character lore...

#art #comic #tw: blood #tw: injury #tw: abuse #tw: child abuse #If this needs any more tags or warnings please let me know.

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matutito · 7 months

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i digitized this post from @nerves-nebula tm(n)t version. its been months since i last drew these guys aaaaughh

mike doods

#art #my post #my art #tmnt #teenage mutant neglected turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt raph #tmnt donnie #tmnt leo #tmnt mikey #!! huge child abuse trigger warning for this tmnt version #tmnt neglected

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duskyashe · 10 months

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CAMP NANO DAY 6

[chapter 4] [AO3]

(please see tags for trigger warnings)

============<×^-^×>============

It was a little known fact that Bruce Wayne hadn't only fostered his boys. As one of the few above-the-board trained and highly experienced foster parents in Gotham, Bruce had actually fostered dozens of children from all kinds of situations over the years. The only kids the press ever actually found out about were the ones he legally gained custody of, in one way or another, due to stringent privacy policies set in place back when he'd applied to be a foster parent for Dick.

Sometimes Bruce is able to keep in contact with his former foster kids, and he's always happy when that's the case, but other times he loses complete contact with them and can't legally track them down again. It's those children, outside of the ones he's legally able to claim as his own, that he worries about relentlessly. But even among those kids, there's two he worries about the most.

Jasmine Madeline Fenton and her younger brother Daniel Jackson Fenton had come into Bruce's life and home when Dick was thirteen. They weren't the first kids he'd fostered since adopting Dick, but they were the most impactful. Jazz was six, her hair was freshly cut and washed, her clothes neat and a bit on the baggy side, and her backpack still had a tag on it. Danny was three, he, too, had freshly cut and washed hair, his clothes were brand new, and his diaper bag was fully stocked.

Jazz was six and her clothes hung off her frame. She had bags under eyes and didn't know how to brush or wash her own hair. The backpack she had when she walked in his front doors was the very first new thing she'd ever seen that her parents hadn't immediately cannibalized for their experiments.

Danny was three and hadn't been given a real bath in almost a year. His clothes were all either too small or his sister's hand-me-downs. His diaper hadn't been changed in over six hours.

Bruce had been so sure he was going to be awarded permanent custody of the two. There had obviously been criminal neglect going on in that household at least, it should have been child's play to gain permanent custody of them. His lawyer and the children's case manager had assured them their case was practically airtight.

The kids had only been in his custody for two weeks before the state awarded full parental rights to the Drs Fenton. Jazz had only barely started getting used to eating three times a day again. Danny had just started smiling whenever Dick played peekaboo with him. And the courts sent. Them. Back. A month later and the Fenton's moved without a word, leaving behind not a single trace. It was almost as though they'd vanished.

Dick had been devastated. Alfred was crushed. And Bruce? Bruce experienced the five stages of grief for the second time in his life twice over. For years, he had private investigators searching everywhere he could think of for the siblings, desperately hoping to find even the slimmest glimmer of hope that they were alright, that they were still alive.

Jason coming into the household lessened some of that pain and desperation, especially after Bruce obtained full custody of him, but the tension between Dick and Jason drove the lingering tension between Dick and Bruce to critical levels. Argument after argument, fight after fight, all about the same topic: Why did Jason get adopted when Jazz and Danny were still out here?

Eventually the tension exploded in one of the worst ways possible, and the family was reduced back down to three. The first six months after Jason's funeral, Bruce refused to take on any new children. He even asked the private investigators to only contact him if they definitively found proof of the kids. The pain, the grief, the guilt was just too much for him. He'd failed Jazz and Danny, and he'd failed Jason, too. He couldn't handle failing yet another child.

Then Tim showed up, too tiny and too determined to get his way. The shock of seeing the obvious evidence of yet more criminal neglect from his own neighbors drew Bruce out of his downward spiral just enough to realize he needed help. Tim was right, he had been killing himself with his work, and doing so was the exact opposite of what Jazz, Danny, or Jason would have wanted from him. He notified CPS of a possible situation he was keeping an eye on, as well as the fact that he was pulling himself back together so he'd be able to reapply to be a foster parent, and then sought the help of a therapist sworn to absolute secrecy with the help of multiple NDAs.

A year later, he was reinstated as a foster parent, awarded first temporary, then later full, custody of Tim. He fostered a pair of blonde little girls for a few nights before an aunt was found in Vineland, New Jersey, who got custody instead. About a month after them, he fostered a ten year old boy for a week before his dad regained custody. He even fostered Tim's friend, Stephanie Brown, for two months while her mom went through rehab.

And then Red Hood came to town.

Between trying to track down and figure out who Red Hood was, Bruce also took on twin eight year old boys for about five days, a fifteen year old girl for two and a half weeks, a pair of cousins for ten days, and three siblings for a night. When Red Hood was finally revealed to be a revived Jason, angry at the thought that Bruce had replaced him and missing a few key memories, it had been two years since the last time he'd heard from the private investigators he'd hired eleven years prior. After weeks of careful negotiation and peace talks between Bruce and Jason, the family of four was well on their way to being the family of five they legally were, when Bruce decided it was time to get back in contact with the team he'd left in charge of the investigation looking for the Fentons. They only had a potential sighting of the Fentons at a class reunion in Wisconsin a few months prior, but any sighting was better than what they'd had for most of the eleven years prior, so Bruce asked them to double down and see what came from it.

Two weeks later, there was a knock on the manor door. It was the middle of a torrential downpour, one of the worst thunderstorms Gotham had seen in years, yet there was undeniably someone knocking at the door. Bruce, who'd been passing through the entry hall on a late evening stroll through the manor, was the one to answer the door.

She was in her late teens, her hair was long, wet, and stuck to the side of her face, her clothes in poor repair with splotches of dark red and neon green on them, and her backpack was worn and frayed. He was in his early teens, he, too, had long, wet hair that stuck to his face, his clothes were rags and barely hanging onto him with more of those dark red and neon green splotches, and his duffle bag was stuffed to the gills.

"Mr Wayne?" Jasmine Madeline Fenton asked, voice quivering as the two of them huddled on his doorstep, Daniel Jackson Fenton's eyes drooping to half mast from exhaustion. "We need your help. Our parents are trying to murder us."

============<×^-^×>============

I'm not gonna lie, it took me forever to figure out what I wanted to write today, but once I decided on this, it just wrote itself (⁠^⁠_⁠^⁠メ⁠) I actually got the idea for this fic from a prompt @evandarya had posted in the Batpham server a while back, which I absolutely loved and just had to write, so this ficlet is dedicated to them (not that they're aware of it yet lol)

Once again, I have no idea if I'll ever continue this ficlet, for my muse is fickle and likes to play favorites ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠⊙⁠_⁠ʖ⁠⊙⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I might get lucky and get sudden inspiration for a sequel for this, or I might not, who knows? Honestly, if anyone wants to add onto this, go right ahead lol that'd be amazing.

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woaheyeradioboy · 1 month

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I genuinely don't fucking care what you like in fiction. I don't care how disgusting, heinous, or "illegal" (not actually) it is, as long as you aren't agreeing with it or acting out things you read in a non-roleplay/fiction setting.

TW: Rape, Child Abuse, Pedophilia, Age gaps, Abuse, Bestiality, Grooming, Incest, and similar content

You can read about someone being raped. You can read about a child being raped. You can read about incest. You can read about pedophilic incest. You can read about someone fucking a dog. You can read about someone being raped by an animal. You can read about someone grooming someone else. You can read about horrible power imbalances. You can read about Victim x Abuser. You can read about gang rape. You can read all of that and more, whether the content is "romanticizing" or "sexualizing" it or putting it in a "positive light", because I do believe if you're reading these things you are capable enough to not have your morals and "respect" of laws immediately broken because you didn't get told 100 different times during the story how bad the content was.

You can read WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT, however you want, forever and ever. Don't act out the fiction in real life unless roleplaying with another consent adult (or teenager within your age range if you're not 18+) and it DOESN'T MATTER.

Fiction can affect reality, but usually only if you're allowing it to. Children oftentimes shouldn't be online but even if they are, it is never an authors fault or the people who enjoy the fiction the author writes that the child ends up exposed to bad things. If someone who is mentally unwell and cannot separate fiction and reality due to this is online and is affected by these things, it is not the authors fault or the fault of the people who enjoy the authors fiction.

If something that someone else wrote affects someone else in a bad way, it is not the authors fault.

Censorship of fiction is bad no matter what, and if you want to censor any form of fiction you are automatically already getting closer to people like transphobes and racists and ableists, because being pro-censorship ALWAYS leads down the same exact rabbit hole of puritan beliefs and controlling others.

#Static Broadcast #profic #comship #anti censorship #anti purity culture #pro fiction #proship #tw r4p3 #tw child abuse #tw pedophila mention #tw age gap #tw abuse #tw animal abuse #tw inc*st #the fact that the trigger warning tags are censored can easily be an add on to my point tbh

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genericpuff · 9 months

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yeah so let's talk about the scenes between hades and thanatos that went from being goofy "haha a boss being hard on an employee" 'jokes' to child abuse as soon as it was revealed that hades was thanatos' adoptive father

and yes i'm putting a content warning jump for ❗❗❗ child abuse and neglect ❗❗❗

so first off, before we even get into the Thanatos / Hades father son relationship thing, I wanna mention a sequence in Episode 39 and why I think Rachel included the scene of Hades reaming Thanatos for being bad at his job.

And it's simply because of what happens the episode before.

Persephone's ableism aside (seriously, I have legs, that doesn't mean I want to walk everywhere, I also own a car, that doesn't mean I have to drive everywhere, maybe flying is tiring? Maybe he's injured and shouldn't be flying? Maybe he has a disability that results in him having wings that can't fly? Check yourself Persephone 😒) this is one of the earliest signs of LO's "Revenge for Persephone" problem which is CONSTANT throughout the narrative - that anytime Persephone is slighted or inconvenienced in the slightest, then the narrative needs to ensure there's some kind of revenge, either directly for her sake or indirectly for the audience's, and it's often always facilitated through or by Hades.

And that leads us to Episode 39, which is when we get exactly that.

Moving onto the scene itself, this is what we call in the work environment a "dressing down". This is not how legitimate employee reviews are given. Hades is not planning on giving him any sort of formal review or constructive criticism. He's planning on tearing him a new asshole just for the fun of doing so. You can even see it written on his face. He's doing this just for the joy of tearing him down. As someone who's been subject to this kind of behavior in previous work environments, I can assure you that this is not normal behavior that's indicative of a functioning workplace, this is abuse.

Taking that train scene into account, it's a way to indirectly "avenge" Persephone. She was slighted by Thanatos, so now Hades is going to make his life hell. But here's the thing - this not revenge for Persephone's sake. Hades doesn't even know Persephone's in the building, and Persephone doesn't know that Thanatos is being berated by Hades. But the scene is here anyways because of course the audience needs to feel "better" about Persephone getting pushed by a stranger at the train stop.

Now, scenes like this have been done in other stories, often times to explain the behavior of bullies/aggressors/etc. because in many cases, textbook bullies, whether children or adults, are abusing others because they're being abused by a higher authority so they take it out on those "weaker" than them.

But this doesn't work in LO, for several reasons.

First off, it pretty much plays it off like a joke, especially when the scene continues after Persephone has walked into Tower 4.

But beyond that, the higher authority abusing Thanatos is someone we're expected to root for. He's the main love interest. While this could be written as a legitimate character flaw, we all know now, in the year 2023, that Rachel sees Hades' behavior as a feature, not a bug. While most scenes written like this would cast a new perspective on a bully and allow some room for understanding and empathy from the audience, in LO's case, we're still not expected to empathize with Thanatos here, they want us insulting him right alongside Hades.

And of course, that brings us to the big blue elephant in the room - the knowledge of Hades and Thanatos' relationship completely re-contextualizes these scenes in a way that's far too depressing and horrifying for a writer like Rachel to be able to wrap up confidently.

Of course, she tried, but her efforts... can't even really be called efforts. For starters, because a lot of it is played off as a joke, as if Rachel can't handle even a single moment of legitimate emotion, she has to "write off the awkward" by making things "funny".

But when she does try to seriously write these scenes of introspection, reflection, and communication, it just winds up turning into the main protagonists going "woe is me, I was the real victim!" and never actually suffering consequences for their actions as a result as they Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss their victims into apologizing to them. It still isn't asking us to empathize with or side with Thanatos, it wants us to end up right back at square one supporting Hades' side of the story.

Literally "well you weren't that bad, at least you were there!" bare minimum accountability, followed by "well I didn't make your life easy so I get it" from someone who was literally a child who was abandoned and left to live with an abusive asshole. It wasn't his fault that he was in the situation he was in, it wasn't his fault that he was a "handful" for Hades because he was a CHILD and Hades was the ADULT, but the comic paints it as Thanatos being at fault anyways for being "ungrateful".

But there are even more subtle signs that point to Thanatos' childhood with Hades that, while not specifically mentioning it, do paint a pretty nasty picture of how Thanatos views Hades and the people around him as a result of his childhood, in a very fridge horror "stop and think about it" kind of way.

First of all, the fact that Thanatos hasn't even been allowed to touch Hades' car. Obviously he's referring to specifically driving it but it makes me wonder what kind of bare minimum accommodations Hades made for his own adopted son. Again, played off for a joke.

And of course we have this one piece of concept art-

Now to be fair, this is concept art from before it was retconned that Thanatos was Hades' son, but it still casts an icky implication in hindsight both because of Hades' treatment towards Thanatos as well as the implication that Thanatos was getting "too close" to Persephone for Hades' liking. This sort of weird dynamic can be found in the actual comic when Hades admits he knows Thanatos was sleeping with Minthe.

And then there was this one scene, which prompted me to write this post in the first place, shared in the ULO Discord.

Thanatos has just met Daphne, so it's not necessarily weird for him to be suspicious of her asking for his phone, but the actual dialogue... doesn't line up with what you'd assume he would be suspicious of.

He doesn't say "you're not going to peek through it, are you?"

He specifically says "You're not going to smash it, are you?"

Now, if this line were intended to be anything more than some throwaway "haha funny" line (which, again, where's the punchline here) then maybe it could point more to something that happened between him and Minthe. But there's nothing that implies she was ever violent towards him, and the one time she IS violent towards anyone, it's implied that's the first and only time she's ever escalated things to that point and that even she's shocked and disgusted at her own behavior.

There is plenty to imply that Thanatos was abused by Hades, though.

So reading this line in hindsight... really just feels like further proof on a growing pile of evidence that Thanatos was constantly being berated, controlled, and abused by Hades, a guy who he never asked for as a father figure, but was still expected to apologize to anyways.

But there is one last thing I wanna mention before I wrap up. One thing that was mentioned by yet another user in the ULO community that really stood out to me because it just goes to show how horrible Hades has been towards Thanatos, both in the past pre-retcon and in the present well after it was established that they were father and (adopted) son.

And that's Hades' two dream sequences that involve him having children with Persephone.