shadowed [eight]
Shadowed
Status: completed
Warnings: LOTS of them; see tags
Rating: R
Word Count: 102k
"Be careful, all right? Don't-don't do anything consciously that you know will piss him off. I know… I know how hard he hits, and I don't want to come back to find you dead or in the hospital."
He already doesn't antagonize his father, but Matt agrees to Dallas' request anyway; it's easier than arguing, at least.
"And be careful what you say around Eric." Dallas pauses, just watching Matt as though they'll never see each other again. His eyes flicker back and forth between Matt's own. "I don't think you're as safe with him as you think you are. Despite the fact that Eric says he's only trying to keep you safe."
"I don't think I'm safe with him at all," Matt says, but Dallas continues as though he hadn't spoken and stutters through an awkward goodbye on the sidewalk in front of Jon's house. He pulls him into a tight hug; both arms wrapped around Matt like a vice grip, and while his mouth is pressed to Matt's ear, tells him, "Be careful." Matt feels shivers go down his back, but before he can respond, Dallas is gone.
Matt's not sure what to do with himself now. He has no idea when Dallas will be back and he won't until Dallas is back waiting for him. The wait, in his head, seems double - until he remembers that, right now, it's actually an indefinite time period and for all Matt knows, he could be coming home…
He'll go crazy. He has all this time to kill and learn how to cope with this issue alone again and no way to know when it'll end. Matt imagines that it's like knowing that there's a bomb somewhere, but the timer being completely screwed and there's no way to tell when it's going to go off. Anxious, annoying, impatient time. That's all Matt really has, now.
He opens the door and wanders through the house until he finds Jon, sitting at the kitchen eating an apple and reading the newspaper. "Don't get comfortable," he says without looking up. Matt stares at the coffee ring on the table. "Rick's gonna pick you up in a little while.
Rick. Matt's stomach immediately turns sour. "I thought-"
Jon glares at him over the top of the paper and takes a crunch bite out of the apple, dribble sliding down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand as he says, mouth still full, "You thought wrong. Since Heath's out of here now, Rick decided he could afford some of the time. He called about it a few weeks ago, but with Heath takin' up every damn minute of your free time and Eric payin' so much for rent, I couldn't offer him anything." He takes a long drink of coffee - Matt imagines that it's spiked with some sort of alcohol; his father is very predictable, after all - and smiles widely, creepy. "Now, all that time with that Heath kid is free. Seems everybody wants a piece of hot young Riley ass."
But Matt can't get past the fact that he's going with Rick. Rick. Matt barely manages to choke out, "May I be excused?" before he has to listen to any more of Jon's monologue. Jon just grins wider. He lives for this; Matt knows he does. It's in his eyes.
"Go to your room. Eric should be there, I think."
And he is. Noises sound from Matt's room as he approaches the door and Matt presses it open with one finger, and sees, sitting on Eric's bed in the other corner of the room, three duffle bags; Eric's working through the closet, throwing clothes onto the bed. He looks like he's doing it hastily… Like he has somewhere to be…
He's packing.
"What are you doing?" Matt asks him, temporarily forgetting about the nightmare that is about to befall him. Eric jumps slightly, surprised.
He recovers quickly. After clearing his throat, he says, "You're not as into this as you say you area, and-I can't-If I keep doing this, I'm going to go crazy, all right? I can't. I just, I can't do it." He looks up from the floor, but doesn't look at Matt. "I can't."
Can't. "Please," Matt finds himself saying, already worrying about his father's next roommate for him - with his luck, probably someone more like Rick or Bill, willing to play with him until he's broken… And then do it again the next night. His body shivers with fear. "Please come on, you can't go. Please."
Eric shrugs, as if saying, 'Not my problem' and crams the rest of his clothing in the last unzipped bag and tries zipping it back shut. "I can't. I'm really sorry, but I can't. It's too weird, and especially since you lied to me about this, this, this entire thing."
Desperately, Matt says, "I didn't lie about it! I do like it, it's just-there's a lot of clients, Eric, and it's not always easy to connect with them." Immediately, Matt thinks of Rick and Bill and Harlan. The three other clients that his father has ever had that stayed for extended periods of time. Matt's a little surprised at how convincing he is, to be honest.
Eric could have just ignored him for how much he says after that. He walks from the bed to the closet again, searching through the bottom. Matt cuts him off before he can get very far in his search. "Please. I mean… Yeah, you're sort of like the others, but you know what? In a lot of ways, you're not. In a lot of ways, I actually like you a lot more. It's weird thinking that I actually wanted it from you when I can't…" He stops talking. Eric's looking at him now like he really doesn't hear what he has to say about it, and Matt can't blame him. He's not sure he wants to hear it himself.
There's a strange expression on his face - one that Matt's not sure he can place. Still, Eric sighs and grips the bridge of his nose between his fingers and says, "I'm sorry."
Eric's out of the house before nightfall. Jon tells Matt, once Eric's out of sight - and, to Jon, almost out of mind - that Eric had apparently been looking for apartments for a few weeks, and since the opportunity arose, Eric decided to go for it. "He said that everybody has to live on his own for a while at some point in their lives, and that maybe this is that time." Jon laughs. "Or maybe he was just sick of you or, and this is even funnier, creeped out by you." He grins a toothy grin and claps his hand on Matt's shoulder. His toes curl when he sees Jon's terrible teeth.
"But don't worry. We'll get some clients to make up for the profit loss…" He chuckles again when he sees the tension spread through Matt's body at full speed. This is so stupid! "For now, you'll get Bill, Rick, and Harlan. After we lost Barry, it was good to get Heath. He kept bread on the table for us, you know."
Matt nods and Jon continues. "But you're one client short, boy, and if I don't find somebody for you, you'll have to do it yourself." He laughs, long and loud. When he settles down, he shakes his head. "But Rick says he has the income to take you a few times a week. Unless I get another offer from Heath when - ha! I mean if - he gets back from wherever the fuck he's at, Rick's gonna be your primary client. He's the richest, after all."
Suddenly, Matt feels like throwing up. The nausea bubbles up around his throat and he doubles over a little bit. Jon just slaps him on the back. "Stop makin' such a fuckin' fuss," he says with a scoff. "He'll ease you back into your rhythm, it's not like he's some crazy bastard or anything." Easy for you to say, Matt thinks, you've never been strapped to a metal table and used as a cutting board.
It's hard enough dealing with Rick as seldom as Matt sees him now; seeing him multiple times a year, even multiple times a week, that's-well, really, Matt can't even imagine that. He's not sure if it's better to be prepared or not in this regard.
Jon shoves him back into the kitchen and closes and locks the door behind him. He lets Matt stand there, like he's kind of supposed to do, and resumes reading his magazine. After a few more cups of coffee - and Matt's feet starting to go numb from not moving - Jon says, "Shame about Eric, though. I think I liked him."
Matt throws up in the toilet when he asks to be excused. It smells like rotting food, his stomach acid, and Matt feels like it, too. At least this time, he gets it.
Every time Matt sees him, Rick always seems to have changed from the last time Matt saw him. He has longer hair, shorter hair, green eyes, blue eyes, blonde hair, brown hair - it's like nothing's ever worked out for him. It's almost as though there are billions of him, and each one of them want to mess with Matt's head and sanity and general mental health as much as they can. Matt supposes that there's also the possibility that Rick's doing the multiple disguise thing to keep the Feds off of his tail, but that's even more terrifying than the idea of spending multiple days a week with the guy. Besides paying Jon for sex with Matt - rape, for that matter - Matt can only imagine what he'd done to make that a problem, really.
He's always pleasant to Jon when he picks Matt up - always. He's all smiles and handshakes that make Jon think that Rick treats him like royalty (and that makes things more difficult for when Matt returns home almost in pieces and Jon decides he hadn't had enough), but as soon as Jon's out of sight - getting drinks for the two of them from the kitchen - Rick does a complete one eighty.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it, pup?" His voice is low and menacing in Matt's ears. Rick follows up the line with a lick up his neck. "I guess that just means that we'll have to make the most of it this time. Don't know when I'll see you again right now. For all I know, it could be a while, yet."
Matt forces back the noises of fear - don't give him more ammunition than he needs - and instead tells him, "I guess so." Early on in their relationship, Matt had learned that any amount of apprehension just meant that Rick takes it out on him worse than he'd planned when they're alone. It's not something he generally enjoys, either, so he tries to act as though he's sort of into it. It's the safest option with him.
"All right," Jon says as he returns to the room with two bottles of beer in his hands, handing one off to Rick. He sits back down and stares right at Matt as he drinks. "Bring him back by midnight or you're paying for a full day." Despite Matt's hopes that Rick will, for once, start their weekend off by telling his father the truth.
He doesn't.
Rick has a tendency to keep his dirty fingers in a grip on Matt's left knee as he drives. "Safety precaution," he'd told Matt the first time with a wide, ugly grin. To Matt, safety would imply that Matt isn't in any danger at all when he's with Rick, but when Matt really thinks about it, safety precaution makes absolute sense. Keeping Matt from safety rather than keeping him safe. It's easy to imagine that that's Rick's real goal, especially afterwards.
"I got some new toys for you, pup," Rick tells him as they pull away from Jon's house and Rick clamps his hand tight onto Matt's leg. "All sorts of new toys…" His voice is sadistically sinister, uncontained excitement flowing from his demeanor.
Matt clears his throat and tries to ignore him as much as he can. It's going to be a long, long night.
Twenty minutes into the half hour drive, Rick finds himself bored and forces himself down Matt's throat in the backseat of his van, Matt's hands tied behind his back with jumper cables and Rick's fingers tugging at his short hair. "Oh, that's the stuff," he says in a low voice after he's come, zipping up his jeans and untying the cables. Matt could have easily gotten out of them, but really? He's already here, he might as well do as he's told. He clears his throat, trying to rid himself of the phlegm-y feeling in the back of his throat, and tries not to draw attention to his own discomfort. "You never lose your touch, pup," he says, shaking his head as he starts the car. "That mouth is like velvet, I swear to God." He laughs. "What I'd give to have you at home waitin' for me every night…" Matt tenses; he can't let on that he knows Jon's price. There's no possible way for that to end well. "You got any idea if your daddy's selling?" His hand returns to Matt's leg.
Matt swallows and refuses to make eye contact. "No, I have no idea."
Rick scoffs. "You probably forgot. You're not the sharpest crayon in the jar, are you?" He pushes the gear shift into drive and pulls out of the church parking lot he'd stopped in. "Can't have it all, can you? The great cocksucking skills, the mediocre good looks, the intelligence…" He chuckles and slaps at Matt's knee. "Shame you can't pick and choose, huh?"
Matt doesn't say anything. Rick's taste still lingers in the back of his throat - salty and bitter, much like Rick himself.
"I'll have to talk to your daddy. Maybe one day I'll have the money to keep you full time." He chuckles again. "That's probably a long way off, though, right? Your daddy probably has some outrageous number attached to that ass of yours." He pauses, and then grips Matt's leg tighter. "But we'll worry about that when we come to it."
Taking a deep breathe, Matt tries to relax. "Yeah," he says shakily, hoping Rick won't catch onto how terrible his voice sounds. "We will."
Rick talks inanely for the next ten minutes of the drive until he pulls into his driveway and kills the engine. "Home sweet home," he says, pulling Matt by the collar out of the passenger seat. Matt tries to hide his choking, but Rick has ears like a bat and he laughs at him. "Careful - don't want you to choke too early." Matt blushes - he's sure that someone heard him say that, but not one of the neighbors shoveling their sidewalks turns their head to stare at them.
The hold on the collar of Matt's jacket is tight, and even as he unlocks and opens his door, Rick holds him close, mumbling under his breath words and phrases that Matt can't and doesn't want to understand. He yanks Matt inside behind him. "You know the way. Get in there - there's a new outfit waiting for you on the bed. Make sure you get it all put on. We'll start your punishment early if you don't get it all."
From experience, Rick's outfits tend to be nothing much more exciting than a skimpy, slutty women's underwear set. As Rick catcalls down the hallway, Matt tries not to panic. It's just Rick. He's done this before. Rick changes games, but his moves are always the same. He should get it by now. Rick is predictable. Same moves, different games. Same moves, different games.
The bed has a small box on it, like always; the same, small cardboard box with Christmas gift wrap written on it and crossed out with black permanent marker. Matt knows what's in it - the new outfit from Rick that he wants Matt to wear.
This time, Matt notes as he opens it, it's different. He's used to girly underwear, blindfolds, leather… Not this, not something that looks like it came from the adult BDSM entertainment dungeon downtown. Matt's never seen something like this coming from Rick before. In movies, sure some of the women his father has over, definitely; he's never been expected to wear it himself before.
"You'd better be getting' into that, pup! We don't got a lot of time and the time you spend wastin' is time I'm gonna take out on your ass!"
Matt jumps into action. The skimpy outfit that Matt was pretty certain that even he won't fit in leaves nothing to the imagination - not that Matt has much to show, anyway. There's not much for meat on his bones, he realizes as he looks down at himself. No wonder Dallas is always so worried about him.
Rick's still dressed when he enters the room; Matt hadn't really expected that. Unfortunately, it means that he'll be that much more inclined to spend some amount of his time with Matt doing something else and therefore extend the period of time that they're together that much longer. "Wow," he says when he walks in, voice husky and low. Matt shudders when he feels Ricks hands travel down his back. "See now, I think we might have to break this one out more often."
"Absolutely," Matt hears himself say, voice much more confident than he feels.
Rick makes a sound halfway between a groan and a chuckle. "I got some new toys I wanna try out. Some of it might be a little… well, you know, scarring, so we'll just use some of this right here-" He shoves two pills in between Matt's lips. "-And they will make everything all better…"
Matt doesn't remember much after Rick tied him to the mattress. The sensations after that all mix into one and he can't differentiate between them; truthfully, he's glad that he can't. Rick always, always, takes his cynical frustration out on Matt and he already has too many memories from previous sessions. Getting to block this one out for any amount of time is sort of like a blessing.
"Get your head out of your ass," Rick tells him gruffly as he sits on Matt's chest, blowing smoke in his face. "Your daddy called," he says, eyeing Matt with a strange look. "And he said I was supposed to bring you back home." He takes another drag and blows the smoke in Matt's face again.
"Yeah?" Matt says. His voice sounds old and his lungs feel shriveled. He tries not to cough and somehow manages it.
"Yep," Rick says. He rolls off Matt's chest, but doesn't leave the bed. "But I said I'd keep you for as long as I wanted 'cause I'm payin' for your ass, and that's what I'm entitled to as one of your daddy's returning customers." He takes another drag. "It's in the contract and everything. But, you see… Your Daddy said that there's this new guy who wants a big old hunk of your time, and your daddy likes the money he's throwin' around."
As Rick takes another drag, Matt desperately hopes that Dallas isn't the one stirring up this much of a problem. "That poses a threat to me and your papa, though, pup. See, I want you when I want you. My contract says that I can, so long as I pay." Rick leans over the side of the bed and comes back with a long cardboard box. "So, you see… I got this plan."
He strips Matt of the handcuffs holding him to the bedposts and hauls him off the bed. "I had this special made by an old friend. But she thinks I'm using it on wood." He laughs manically and turns the box over in his hands. "Stupid bitch, huh, pup? She'll never know what her precious metal is bein' used for. What I'm doing with it, that's not for her to know."
Rick takes him to the living room, where the room is flickering orange and hot - really, really hot. The fireplace is going strong, and Rick's pulling the top off of the cardboard box, and-
Branding. He's going to brand me. When Matt starts kicking his legs - there's no way he can do this, no way at all - Rick just laughs and throws him to the floor, placing the end of the stick deep into the heat of the fire without a word.
He should know better, but Matt can't seem to get used to Rick, no matter how much logic he throws at it. "Pup, it'll hurt less if you stop fucking squirming." He presses down hard on Matt's forehead and then says with a laugh, "Actually, it'll hurt either way, but maybe I won't fuck you with the branding stick later if you stay still." He gives a hearty laugh, right in Matt's face. He smells like stale cigarette smoke. "Can you imagine? Keep squirmin' and maybe you won't have to just imagine it. Don't worry," he says as Matt tries not to let his whine escape. It does anyway, and Rick laughs. "I'll put it in a spot that only the other client's will see."
He rummages around the floor next to him and picks up the branding stick. "I think we can both agree that it's better if you stop squirming." Rick picks the branding stick from the fire and raises it above Matt's naked chest. "I imagine that the other clients would, too,"
He slams it down onto Matt's chest. At first, it's like a cigarette burn - a hot annoyance that Matt wants to brush off, a prickle at best, but then-
"Shut the fuck up!" Rick roars so loud even Matt hears it over his screaming. "The neighbors will hear you!" He clamps his free hand over Matt's mouth, but Matt still screams behind it. Blinding white-hot pain clouds his sight and all he can see is Rick's angry face above him; the rest of the world around him fades to a dull gray. Never has Matt experienced something this painful; it feels like Rick is trying to rip his heart out with a dull knife.
"There!" Rick yells, pulling both the brand and his hand away from Matt and letting him roll on to his side clutching at his chest. He lets Matt squirm for a while, still half-screaming, before smacking him with the still warm branding stick. "It's finished. Go to the fucking bathroom and get cleaned up before you bleed on the carpet. I just had it cleaned."
Normally, Matt wouldn't need to be told twice. Now, his legs feel like rubber. His arms feel like they're on fire and Matt isn't sure that he can do anything about it.
"I shouldn't have to tell you twice, you little faggot," Rick says angrily, standing up. Matt shudders. "Get up and go clean yourself the fuck up." He kicks Matt in the side by means of motivation. This time, for fear of another bruise of some sort, Matt listens, stumbling into the bathroom just in time - he throws up as soon as he drops in front of the toilet.
The brand dulls away into a stinging ache after a while. The skin around it burns bright pink, and Matt traces it until it starts to ache again.
Branded. The dark, angry R glares back at him in the mirror. It's always going to be there. Always. Matt's never going to forget him, but he knows that's exactly what Rick wants. This way, even if he can't ever afford to buy Matt, he's always going to be his. The other clients aren't going to like this.
"Matt, hurry the fuck up," Rick says as he slams the bathroom door back open. "I promised your daddy you'd be home by nine AM and it's almost eight thirty."
Matt presses his palms against his eyes and prays for it to be gone when he opens them. It's still there. Christ, he feels like crying.
"Come on!" Rick orders, slapping Matt where he'd kicked him in the side recently. Matt cringes. "Hurry your ass up!"
He leaves. Matt chokes on a sob.
Forever. Rick wanted him forever, and he has him forever.
Rick compliments himself on his handiwork when Matt finally exits the bathroom. "That looks damn good." He whistles. "Too bad you're too young to parade that baby around."
Matt gives him a shaky nod. Rick steps forward; instinctively, Matt steps back. "Now, boy, don't make me tell your daddy about you misbehavin'."
Matt wants to tell him that branding was never part of the deal but the focus of that conversation wouldn't be on the branding, it'd be on how Matt knows exactly what is in Rick's contract. Besides - at this point, he's not sure he could speak even if he wanted to. He stands his ground when Rick moves forward again.
"Good boy," Rick says, like he's talking to a dog. "Now go change back into your clothes, we're runnin' late and I'm not payin' another dime just 'cause you were a lazy ass.
His t-shirt stings the burn; for fear of having the skin attach to the fabric of his shirt, Matt holds it away. Still, when he walks out of Rick's bedroom to find Rick in the kitchen, he shakes his head. "Nuh-uh," he says, picking up a scissors and cutting from the bottom of the shirt to the collar. "Gotta give it time to heal," he says once he sets the scissors back down and grabs his keys from the keyrack behind the door. "You can't just go back to pretending that nothing happened. Besides, I wouldn't want you to." Rick then launches into proper care techniques; Matt tries not to have an anxiety attack.
This isn't going to go over well.
His father doesn't start screaming at Rick until he tells Matt to go upstairs - "I have some business to discuss with Rick." - and once he thinks Matt's well out of earshot, he lays into Rick like he normally does to Matt.
It's the angriest Matt's ever seen him, even after he sort of ran away when Jon announced that Eric was moving in with them. Matt barely gets into his room before he hears Jon yell, "What the hell were you thinking?" Rick's response is too quiet to hear, but his father is loud enough for the two of them, Matt's pretty sure it doesn't matter. "That was never part of the deal! Tattoos, piercings, brands, none of those are temporary, and that was the deal! Permanence is not an option! That fucking thing'll be there his whole damn life and he's going to lose clients over it!" Again, Rick's too quiet to hear, even with Matt pressing his ear to his door. "You're damn right I do!"
Another pause, then, "Two million? Where the fuck do you think I'm going to get that kind of money?"
Matt sighs as his father's voice settles quietly, too, negotiating. Anything could become of him.
Half an hour flies by, and neither Jon nor Rick give anything away in their outbursts that gives anything away about Matt's current situation.
Finally, he hears the front door slam, and Matt scrambles to get to his bed. Jon barges into his room moments later, and Matt breathes a sigh of relief. "End of next fall, you're Rick's." He doesn't sound particularly happy about it, though Matt isn't entirely sure why. "Until then, you'll see him once a month, free of charge, and you'll do everything he asks of you."
Next fall. Not even a year and he's being sold out. Matt wonders if he can leave there once he turns eighteen or not.
"How…" Matt looks down at his shaking hands, then asks, "How much?"
"One point five million," Jon says. He almost sounds apologetic. Matt figures he has to be imagining it. His father has never shown any sort of empathy towards Matt. Not since Emily got sick, at the very least. Jon coughs, then says, "He's paying double because it's unlikely that you'll get play from other clients now. He's making up for the loss."
Other clients. Matt hadn't thought of them. Always being in the house means always doing something wrong which means Jon always finding some reason to punish him.
Jon laughs when Matt's breathing becomes uneven. "Come on. Like you're not happy to get away from here." He isn't happy to get away from here, even if he is kind of happy that he gets to get away from Jon, but he doesn't say this. "Look, you start cryin'-" He sighs. "Whatever. Stay in here through nightfall."
Rick. His entire life with Rick taken away from him for a measly one point five million dollars, none of which he even gets to see. While Matt desperately wants to believe that there is no way for Rick to come up with that money in such a short time, he knows that Rick wouldn't have agreed if there weren't a way.
His entire life with Rick; with psychologically scarring, skin-branding, game-playing Rick. Matt's not going to last one day in that house before he snaps.
And Dallas isn't even here to stall him. For all Matt knows, Dallas could be gone long after Rick has him. For that matter Dallas may not even be coming back. Maybe he's gone forever. Maybe he doesn't want to come back. Get a hold of yourself, Matt tells himself, gripping at his forehead. Dallas is going to come back.
He has to come back. He has to. Matt can't survive without him, not after going so long with him. Not when Matt's finally started to see a shorter path to freedom.
The next few weeks pass slowly. Matt loses another fifteen pounds and earns another brand over top of the one already in place - "Gotta make sure it sticks," Rick told him in apparent explanation as to why Matt needed another one - and Rick and Bill have started fighting over Jon's kitchen table during appointment negotiations to determine who gets Matt more often.
"I should! You get him in the fall for good!"
"He's mine! That brand on his chest stands for it!"
"For all I know, Jon gave him the damn thing and it stands for Riley. Christ, Richard, don't you know shit about that boy? Before you give him somethin' permanent, make sure people can't mistake its meaning."
While Jon is rolling in the money, Matt feels like he's falling apart. He's failing fifth period physical science to the point that he can't bring his grade up and his physical education teacher has expressed his concern for Matt's nutrition and his weight - or lack thereof.
Parent teacher conferences are coming up, and for the first time in a long time, the presence of Matt's parent or guardian is urgent.
"Failing physical science, huh?" Jon says when Matt gives him the letter from his homeroom teacher. "When the hell have you found time to fail physical science?" Matt doesn't dare answer. "All right. I'll play their little game this time."
As Matt trudges to his room for the night, he realizes - Jon has been in a surprisingly good mood lately.
Unfortunately for Matt, his realization only leads to his father's mood changing. The next morning, Matt wakes up to find him tearing down his bedroom door. "New rules," he says gruffly. "You study any time you're not with Rick or Harlan or Bill and you'll be in summer school until you pass every damn class they throw at your ass."
For fear of punishment, Matt doesn't point out that that is something he's already been doing. Instead, he hits the books.
Tonight, Jon has to talk to Matt's teachers. Tonight, he has to play the role of the good father and he has to do it well enough so that the school doesn't realize that anything is out of place. Matt desperately wishes Dallas were with him. If nothing else, he could make him feel a little better - cram some sanity back into his head.
He studies all night for lack of something better to do, waiting for Jon to come back home. Waiting; Matt feels like it's all he's been doing lately.
Matt's falling asleep on his physical science book when Jon barges in. "You know what this is?" he says, tossing a packet at him. It slides face up across page 405 of his physical science book. How to Pass your General Education Degree, Matt reads. "It's a study guide." Matt picks it up. "GED study guide. You're too fuckin' stupid for a high school diploma. So, when you turn 19, you'll be takin' that test."
Already sensing the answer, Matt asks anyway. "And now?"
Jon's already gone when he calls back, "And now, no more school for you!"
That's what he'd been afraid of.
Dallas won't be happy. No school means more time for Jon to sell him out. No school means that Liam has more of a reason to freak out.
Liam. How can Matt possibly explain this to Liam without making him run straight to the police? He tries to tell himself that that would actually be a good thing, but the idea that Jon would kill him before he even answered the door scares him too much.
Since Liam thought that he and Dallas were a couple, maybe that's his answer. If Liam thought they were together, Matt could just tell him he was taking the time off because he was dealing with their break up.
It's great. It's got to work.
"We broke up," Matt tells him the next day when Jon sends him to the grocery store for another dog food run. "He, uh… he took a vacation. He's in Los Angeles. I don't know how long he'll be gone."
Liam immediately looks like Matt's gone crazy. "What? Why the fuck did you break up with him?"
Surprised by the sudden change of mood regarding Dallas, Matt says, "It was a mutual decision, things weren't working anymore. Why the freak out, man, I thought you hated Dallas?"
For a long, long moment - Matt counts at least eighty seconds - Liam just stares at him. "Have you seen yourself when you're with the guy?"
Suddenly terrified that the secret might be out, Matt asks, "And you have?"
Liam shakes his head. "That's not what I meant and you know it. You're thousands of times happier with Dallas than I've ever seen you. You… You look like you're alive again, man. Like God gave you something to live for or whatever."
It's getting dangerous. If Matt keeps going in this direction, he's going to say something that he doesn't want Liam to know. With a thick voice, Matt says, "You don't know anything about me, remember?"
With a sigh, Liam goes back to shoveling his sidewalk. "Whatever. But, you know, you've been my friend since we were eleven, and I just…"
"Liam, please." Matt swallows roughly. "Don't make this harder for me."
But Liam doesn't back off like Matt had expected him to. "Make what harder for you, Matt? Make the break up harder for you or something else harder for you? Like whoring yourself out on the street, maybe?"
Matt freezes, but finds enough thought within himself to deny it. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Liam's responding laugh is half-desperate, half-disbelief. It's an odd combination, but the tone of his voice suddenly turns into that of one when a man has no idea what to say. "Don't play that game with me. You don't have to be on the street to be a street whore."
Matt decides not to tell him that that's basically the definition; Liam keeps talking. "I've seen you leave with strange men. And until Dallas, I just thought that they were family or tutors or something."
Matt tries denial again. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Ever think that that's why Dallas left you in the first place? That maybe he was so angry that you never let him do what he needed to, which was get you out of that place?"
It's a possibility that Liam's right, but Matt refuses to acknowledge that conclusion any further. "You don't know what you're talking about."
But try as he might to deter him, Liam holds his ground. "I'm pretty sure that I do, Matt. And you gotta start talking. Before I do."
Matt glares at him, almost angry. "You have no idea what you're talking about. My relationship with Dallas, you don't know anything about. You don't know about the people you see me with, and you don't know how Dallas feels about it."
"I know how I'd feel about it!" Liam exclaims, then sighs like he hadn't meant to yell it out. "If I were him and just found out that my boyfriend was selling himself, I'd be pissed. It wouldn't matter how much I loved him, I'd get the hell out of there if he wouldn't listen to me."
"You're nothing like Dallas," Matt tells him.
"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Liam asks, but with a tone that suggests he doesn't mean it.
Finding himself getting angrier with every word that Liam says, Matt bites back. "You're not even gay," he says; Liam looks almost shocked. "You wouldn't know the first thing about my relationship with Dallas, and you can't just tell me that you know exactly the reason why we broke up when you never even met him."
Liam holds his hands up in defense. "Okay, okay."
"Stop trying to act like you know everything about me just because we've been friends for six years." With that, he brushes past Liam towards the grocery store. He doesn't even feel the coolness of winter air spiking against his cheeks.
As he leaves, Liam calls to him, "Just how long do you think you can keep this up?"
Matt keeps walking. He forgets half the list, too focused on Liam becoming a new threat to his plan. As he fake smiles his way through Claire's conversation with him, thanking God she's back at work, he carefully thinks through his options. The snow is melting, too quickly for Matt's liking, which means Jon won't find it too suspicious to start beating Matt into next week for messing up anymore. Matt figures he only has about another month before the spring thaw is in full swing - and so is his father.
Liam's words stick with him. All through the night, Matt tosses and turns, trying to make sense of his options long enough to come to a conclusion of a new plan, one that includes the threat of Liam telling the police. He can't reach Dallas - how is he supposed to when he's thousands of miles away and he has no way to access a phone without alarming his father? That leaves him three options; running away, running to the police, or turning Jon in to one of the teachers at school.
The third option is out because there's no way he could get to the school and still have his father stay oblivious, unless he was at work. Matt has always thought that his father had someone on the outside watching him to make sure he went where he was supposed to, so he thinks that that's out anyway. Running away would mean that his father could call him in and he could be on the 'missing child' boards in department stores across the country. He would eventually stop running from his father and end up running from the police, so that's out, too.
Which leaves running directly to the police, which raises the question, "Why didn't you come to us earlier?" for which Matt knows he won't be able to come up with an answer that they'd easily believe, regardless of how true it is. They'd keep him in a foster home within Shadowbrook for a while as they were investigating, but eventually, the police would ultimately send him on his way without real, plausible, viewable evidence of abuse, and Matt isn't sure that he's willing to show a social worker just how abusive his father is.
That puts him back at square one. He really doesn't have options - not really. Dallas, he realizes, was really his only option to get out of his father's house, and for good. Now, he's kicking himself for not taking any one of the billion chances that Dallas gave to him.
Status: completed
Warnings: LOTS of them; see tags
Rating: R
Word Count: 102k
"Be careful, all right? Don't-don't do anything consciously that you know will piss him off. I know… I know how hard he hits, and I don't want to come back to find you dead or in the hospital."
He already doesn't antagonize his father, but Matt agrees to Dallas' request anyway; it's easier than arguing, at least.
"And be careful what you say around Eric." Dallas pauses, just watching Matt as though they'll never see each other again. His eyes flicker back and forth between Matt's own. "I don't think you're as safe with him as you think you are. Despite the fact that Eric says he's only trying to keep you safe."
"I don't think I'm safe with him at all," Matt says, but Dallas continues as though he hadn't spoken and stutters through an awkward goodbye on the sidewalk in front of Jon's house. He pulls him into a tight hug; both arms wrapped around Matt like a vice grip, and while his mouth is pressed to Matt's ear, tells him, "Be careful." Matt feels shivers go down his back, but before he can respond, Dallas is gone.
Matt's not sure what to do with himself now. He has no idea when Dallas will be back and he won't until Dallas is back waiting for him. The wait, in his head, seems double - until he remembers that, right now, it's actually an indefinite time period and for all Matt knows, he could be coming home…
He'll go crazy. He has all this time to kill and learn how to cope with this issue alone again and no way to know when it'll end. Matt imagines that it's like knowing that there's a bomb somewhere, but the timer being completely screwed and there's no way to tell when it's going to go off. Anxious, annoying, impatient time. That's all Matt really has, now.
He opens the door and wanders through the house until he finds Jon, sitting at the kitchen eating an apple and reading the newspaper. "Don't get comfortable," he says without looking up. Matt stares at the coffee ring on the table. "Rick's gonna pick you up in a little while.
Rick. Matt's stomach immediately turns sour. "I thought-"
Jon glares at him over the top of the paper and takes a crunch bite out of the apple, dribble sliding down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand as he says, mouth still full, "You thought wrong. Since Heath's out of here now, Rick decided he could afford some of the time. He called about it a few weeks ago, but with Heath takin' up every damn minute of your free time and Eric payin' so much for rent, I couldn't offer him anything." He takes a long drink of coffee - Matt imagines that it's spiked with some sort of alcohol; his father is very predictable, after all - and smiles widely, creepy. "Now, all that time with that Heath kid is free. Seems everybody wants a piece of hot young Riley ass."
But Matt can't get past the fact that he's going with Rick. Rick. Matt barely manages to choke out, "May I be excused?" before he has to listen to any more of Jon's monologue. Jon just grins wider. He lives for this; Matt knows he does. It's in his eyes.
"Go to your room. Eric should be there, I think."
And he is. Noises sound from Matt's room as he approaches the door and Matt presses it open with one finger, and sees, sitting on Eric's bed in the other corner of the room, three duffle bags; Eric's working through the closet, throwing clothes onto the bed. He looks like he's doing it hastily… Like he has somewhere to be…
He's packing.
"What are you doing?" Matt asks him, temporarily forgetting about the nightmare that is about to befall him. Eric jumps slightly, surprised.
He recovers quickly. After clearing his throat, he says, "You're not as into this as you say you area, and-I can't-If I keep doing this, I'm going to go crazy, all right? I can't. I just, I can't do it." He looks up from the floor, but doesn't look at Matt. "I can't."
Can't. "Please," Matt finds himself saying, already worrying about his father's next roommate for him - with his luck, probably someone more like Rick or Bill, willing to play with him until he's broken… And then do it again the next night. His body shivers with fear. "Please come on, you can't go. Please."
Eric shrugs, as if saying, 'Not my problem' and crams the rest of his clothing in the last unzipped bag and tries zipping it back shut. "I can't. I'm really sorry, but I can't. It's too weird, and especially since you lied to me about this, this, this entire thing."
Desperately, Matt says, "I didn't lie about it! I do like it, it's just-there's a lot of clients, Eric, and it's not always easy to connect with them." Immediately, Matt thinks of Rick and Bill and Harlan. The three other clients that his father has ever had that stayed for extended periods of time. Matt's a little surprised at how convincing he is, to be honest.
Eric could have just ignored him for how much he says after that. He walks from the bed to the closet again, searching through the bottom. Matt cuts him off before he can get very far in his search. "Please. I mean… Yeah, you're sort of like the others, but you know what? In a lot of ways, you're not. In a lot of ways, I actually like you a lot more. It's weird thinking that I actually wanted it from you when I can't…" He stops talking. Eric's looking at him now like he really doesn't hear what he has to say about it, and Matt can't blame him. He's not sure he wants to hear it himself.
There's a strange expression on his face - one that Matt's not sure he can place. Still, Eric sighs and grips the bridge of his nose between his fingers and says, "I'm sorry."
Eric's out of the house before nightfall. Jon tells Matt, once Eric's out of sight - and, to Jon, almost out of mind - that Eric had apparently been looking for apartments for a few weeks, and since the opportunity arose, Eric decided to go for it. "He said that everybody has to live on his own for a while at some point in their lives, and that maybe this is that time." Jon laughs. "Or maybe he was just sick of you or, and this is even funnier, creeped out by you." He grins a toothy grin and claps his hand on Matt's shoulder. His toes curl when he sees Jon's terrible teeth.
"But don't worry. We'll get some clients to make up for the profit loss…" He chuckles again when he sees the tension spread through Matt's body at full speed. This is so stupid! "For now, you'll get Bill, Rick, and Harlan. After we lost Barry, it was good to get Heath. He kept bread on the table for us, you know."
Matt nods and Jon continues. "But you're one client short, boy, and if I don't find somebody for you, you'll have to do it yourself." He laughs, long and loud. When he settles down, he shakes his head. "But Rick says he has the income to take you a few times a week. Unless I get another offer from Heath when - ha! I mean if - he gets back from wherever the fuck he's at, Rick's gonna be your primary client. He's the richest, after all."
Suddenly, Matt feels like throwing up. The nausea bubbles up around his throat and he doubles over a little bit. Jon just slaps him on the back. "Stop makin' such a fuckin' fuss," he says with a scoff. "He'll ease you back into your rhythm, it's not like he's some crazy bastard or anything." Easy for you to say, Matt thinks, you've never been strapped to a metal table and used as a cutting board.
It's hard enough dealing with Rick as seldom as Matt sees him now; seeing him multiple times a year, even multiple times a week, that's-well, really, Matt can't even imagine that. He's not sure if it's better to be prepared or not in this regard.
Jon shoves him back into the kitchen and closes and locks the door behind him. He lets Matt stand there, like he's kind of supposed to do, and resumes reading his magazine. After a few more cups of coffee - and Matt's feet starting to go numb from not moving - Jon says, "Shame about Eric, though. I think I liked him."
Matt throws up in the toilet when he asks to be excused. It smells like rotting food, his stomach acid, and Matt feels like it, too. At least this time, he gets it.
Every time Matt sees him, Rick always seems to have changed from the last time Matt saw him. He has longer hair, shorter hair, green eyes, blue eyes, blonde hair, brown hair - it's like nothing's ever worked out for him. It's almost as though there are billions of him, and each one of them want to mess with Matt's head and sanity and general mental health as much as they can. Matt supposes that there's also the possibility that Rick's doing the multiple disguise thing to keep the Feds off of his tail, but that's even more terrifying than the idea of spending multiple days a week with the guy. Besides paying Jon for sex with Matt - rape, for that matter - Matt can only imagine what he'd done to make that a problem, really.
He's always pleasant to Jon when he picks Matt up - always. He's all smiles and handshakes that make Jon think that Rick treats him like royalty (and that makes things more difficult for when Matt returns home almost in pieces and Jon decides he hadn't had enough), but as soon as Jon's out of sight - getting drinks for the two of them from the kitchen - Rick does a complete one eighty.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it, pup?" His voice is low and menacing in Matt's ears. Rick follows up the line with a lick up his neck. "I guess that just means that we'll have to make the most of it this time. Don't know when I'll see you again right now. For all I know, it could be a while, yet."
Matt forces back the noises of fear - don't give him more ammunition than he needs - and instead tells him, "I guess so." Early on in their relationship, Matt had learned that any amount of apprehension just meant that Rick takes it out on him worse than he'd planned when they're alone. It's not something he generally enjoys, either, so he tries to act as though he's sort of into it. It's the safest option with him.
"All right," Jon says as he returns to the room with two bottles of beer in his hands, handing one off to Rick. He sits back down and stares right at Matt as he drinks. "Bring him back by midnight or you're paying for a full day." Despite Matt's hopes that Rick will, for once, start their weekend off by telling his father the truth.
He doesn't.
Rick has a tendency to keep his dirty fingers in a grip on Matt's left knee as he drives. "Safety precaution," he'd told Matt the first time with a wide, ugly grin. To Matt, safety would imply that Matt isn't in any danger at all when he's with Rick, but when Matt really thinks about it, safety precaution makes absolute sense. Keeping Matt from safety rather than keeping him safe. It's easy to imagine that that's Rick's real goal, especially afterwards.
"I got some new toys for you, pup," Rick tells him as they pull away from Jon's house and Rick clamps his hand tight onto Matt's leg. "All sorts of new toys…" His voice is sadistically sinister, uncontained excitement flowing from his demeanor.
Matt clears his throat and tries to ignore him as much as he can. It's going to be a long, long night.
Twenty minutes into the half hour drive, Rick finds himself bored and forces himself down Matt's throat in the backseat of his van, Matt's hands tied behind his back with jumper cables and Rick's fingers tugging at his short hair. "Oh, that's the stuff," he says in a low voice after he's come, zipping up his jeans and untying the cables. Matt could have easily gotten out of them, but really? He's already here, he might as well do as he's told. He clears his throat, trying to rid himself of the phlegm-y feeling in the back of his throat, and tries not to draw attention to his own discomfort. "You never lose your touch, pup," he says, shaking his head as he starts the car. "That mouth is like velvet, I swear to God." He laughs. "What I'd give to have you at home waitin' for me every night…" Matt tenses; he can't let on that he knows Jon's price. There's no possible way for that to end well. "You got any idea if your daddy's selling?" His hand returns to Matt's leg.
Matt swallows and refuses to make eye contact. "No, I have no idea."
Rick scoffs. "You probably forgot. You're not the sharpest crayon in the jar, are you?" He pushes the gear shift into drive and pulls out of the church parking lot he'd stopped in. "Can't have it all, can you? The great cocksucking skills, the mediocre good looks, the intelligence…" He chuckles and slaps at Matt's knee. "Shame you can't pick and choose, huh?"
Matt doesn't say anything. Rick's taste still lingers in the back of his throat - salty and bitter, much like Rick himself.
"I'll have to talk to your daddy. Maybe one day I'll have the money to keep you full time." He chuckles again. "That's probably a long way off, though, right? Your daddy probably has some outrageous number attached to that ass of yours." He pauses, and then grips Matt's leg tighter. "But we'll worry about that when we come to it."
Taking a deep breathe, Matt tries to relax. "Yeah," he says shakily, hoping Rick won't catch onto how terrible his voice sounds. "We will."
Rick talks inanely for the next ten minutes of the drive until he pulls into his driveway and kills the engine. "Home sweet home," he says, pulling Matt by the collar out of the passenger seat. Matt tries to hide his choking, but Rick has ears like a bat and he laughs at him. "Careful - don't want you to choke too early." Matt blushes - he's sure that someone heard him say that, but not one of the neighbors shoveling their sidewalks turns their head to stare at them.
The hold on the collar of Matt's jacket is tight, and even as he unlocks and opens his door, Rick holds him close, mumbling under his breath words and phrases that Matt can't and doesn't want to understand. He yanks Matt inside behind him. "You know the way. Get in there - there's a new outfit waiting for you on the bed. Make sure you get it all put on. We'll start your punishment early if you don't get it all."
From experience, Rick's outfits tend to be nothing much more exciting than a skimpy, slutty women's underwear set. As Rick catcalls down the hallway, Matt tries not to panic. It's just Rick. He's done this before. Rick changes games, but his moves are always the same. He should get it by now. Rick is predictable. Same moves, different games. Same moves, different games.
The bed has a small box on it, like always; the same, small cardboard box with Christmas gift wrap written on it and crossed out with black permanent marker. Matt knows what's in it - the new outfit from Rick that he wants Matt to wear.
This time, Matt notes as he opens it, it's different. He's used to girly underwear, blindfolds, leather… Not this, not something that looks like it came from the adult BDSM entertainment dungeon downtown. Matt's never seen something like this coming from Rick before. In movies, sure some of the women his father has over, definitely; he's never been expected to wear it himself before.
"You'd better be getting' into that, pup! We don't got a lot of time and the time you spend wastin' is time I'm gonna take out on your ass!"
Matt jumps into action. The skimpy outfit that Matt was pretty certain that even he won't fit in leaves nothing to the imagination - not that Matt has much to show, anyway. There's not much for meat on his bones, he realizes as he looks down at himself. No wonder Dallas is always so worried about him.
Rick's still dressed when he enters the room; Matt hadn't really expected that. Unfortunately, it means that he'll be that much more inclined to spend some amount of his time with Matt doing something else and therefore extend the period of time that they're together that much longer. "Wow," he says when he walks in, voice husky and low. Matt shudders when he feels Ricks hands travel down his back. "See now, I think we might have to break this one out more often."
"Absolutely," Matt hears himself say, voice much more confident than he feels.
Rick makes a sound halfway between a groan and a chuckle. "I got some new toys I wanna try out. Some of it might be a little… well, you know, scarring, so we'll just use some of this right here-" He shoves two pills in between Matt's lips. "-And they will make everything all better…"
Matt doesn't remember much after Rick tied him to the mattress. The sensations after that all mix into one and he can't differentiate between them; truthfully, he's glad that he can't. Rick always, always, takes his cynical frustration out on Matt and he already has too many memories from previous sessions. Getting to block this one out for any amount of time is sort of like a blessing.
"Get your head out of your ass," Rick tells him gruffly as he sits on Matt's chest, blowing smoke in his face. "Your daddy called," he says, eyeing Matt with a strange look. "And he said I was supposed to bring you back home." He takes another drag and blows the smoke in Matt's face again.
"Yeah?" Matt says. His voice sounds old and his lungs feel shriveled. He tries not to cough and somehow manages it.
"Yep," Rick says. He rolls off Matt's chest, but doesn't leave the bed. "But I said I'd keep you for as long as I wanted 'cause I'm payin' for your ass, and that's what I'm entitled to as one of your daddy's returning customers." He takes another drag. "It's in the contract and everything. But, you see… Your Daddy said that there's this new guy who wants a big old hunk of your time, and your daddy likes the money he's throwin' around."
As Rick takes another drag, Matt desperately hopes that Dallas isn't the one stirring up this much of a problem. "That poses a threat to me and your papa, though, pup. See, I want you when I want you. My contract says that I can, so long as I pay." Rick leans over the side of the bed and comes back with a long cardboard box. "So, you see… I got this plan."
He strips Matt of the handcuffs holding him to the bedposts and hauls him off the bed. "I had this special made by an old friend. But she thinks I'm using it on wood." He laughs manically and turns the box over in his hands. "Stupid bitch, huh, pup? She'll never know what her precious metal is bein' used for. What I'm doing with it, that's not for her to know."
Rick takes him to the living room, where the room is flickering orange and hot - really, really hot. The fireplace is going strong, and Rick's pulling the top off of the cardboard box, and-
Branding. He's going to brand me. When Matt starts kicking his legs - there's no way he can do this, no way at all - Rick just laughs and throws him to the floor, placing the end of the stick deep into the heat of the fire without a word.
He should know better, but Matt can't seem to get used to Rick, no matter how much logic he throws at it. "Pup, it'll hurt less if you stop fucking squirming." He presses down hard on Matt's forehead and then says with a laugh, "Actually, it'll hurt either way, but maybe I won't fuck you with the branding stick later if you stay still." He gives a hearty laugh, right in Matt's face. He smells like stale cigarette smoke. "Can you imagine? Keep squirmin' and maybe you won't have to just imagine it. Don't worry," he says as Matt tries not to let his whine escape. It does anyway, and Rick laughs. "I'll put it in a spot that only the other client's will see."
He rummages around the floor next to him and picks up the branding stick. "I think we can both agree that it's better if you stop squirming." Rick picks the branding stick from the fire and raises it above Matt's naked chest. "I imagine that the other clients would, too,"
He slams it down onto Matt's chest. At first, it's like a cigarette burn - a hot annoyance that Matt wants to brush off, a prickle at best, but then-
"Shut the fuck up!" Rick roars so loud even Matt hears it over his screaming. "The neighbors will hear you!" He clamps his free hand over Matt's mouth, but Matt still screams behind it. Blinding white-hot pain clouds his sight and all he can see is Rick's angry face above him; the rest of the world around him fades to a dull gray. Never has Matt experienced something this painful; it feels like Rick is trying to rip his heart out with a dull knife.
"There!" Rick yells, pulling both the brand and his hand away from Matt and letting him roll on to his side clutching at his chest. He lets Matt squirm for a while, still half-screaming, before smacking him with the still warm branding stick. "It's finished. Go to the fucking bathroom and get cleaned up before you bleed on the carpet. I just had it cleaned."
Normally, Matt wouldn't need to be told twice. Now, his legs feel like rubber. His arms feel like they're on fire and Matt isn't sure that he can do anything about it.
"I shouldn't have to tell you twice, you little faggot," Rick says angrily, standing up. Matt shudders. "Get up and go clean yourself the fuck up." He kicks Matt in the side by means of motivation. This time, for fear of another bruise of some sort, Matt listens, stumbling into the bathroom just in time - he throws up as soon as he drops in front of the toilet.
The brand dulls away into a stinging ache after a while. The skin around it burns bright pink, and Matt traces it until it starts to ache again.
Branded. The dark, angry R glares back at him in the mirror. It's always going to be there. Always. Matt's never going to forget him, but he knows that's exactly what Rick wants. This way, even if he can't ever afford to buy Matt, he's always going to be his. The other clients aren't going to like this.
"Matt, hurry the fuck up," Rick says as he slams the bathroom door back open. "I promised your daddy you'd be home by nine AM and it's almost eight thirty."
Matt presses his palms against his eyes and prays for it to be gone when he opens them. It's still there. Christ, he feels like crying.
"Come on!" Rick orders, slapping Matt where he'd kicked him in the side recently. Matt cringes. "Hurry your ass up!"
He leaves. Matt chokes on a sob.
Forever. Rick wanted him forever, and he has him forever.
Rick compliments himself on his handiwork when Matt finally exits the bathroom. "That looks damn good." He whistles. "Too bad you're too young to parade that baby around."
Matt gives him a shaky nod. Rick steps forward; instinctively, Matt steps back. "Now, boy, don't make me tell your daddy about you misbehavin'."
Matt wants to tell him that branding was never part of the deal but the focus of that conversation wouldn't be on the branding, it'd be on how Matt knows exactly what is in Rick's contract. Besides - at this point, he's not sure he could speak even if he wanted to. He stands his ground when Rick moves forward again.
"Good boy," Rick says, like he's talking to a dog. "Now go change back into your clothes, we're runnin' late and I'm not payin' another dime just 'cause you were a lazy ass.
His t-shirt stings the burn; for fear of having the skin attach to the fabric of his shirt, Matt holds it away. Still, when he walks out of Rick's bedroom to find Rick in the kitchen, he shakes his head. "Nuh-uh," he says, picking up a scissors and cutting from the bottom of the shirt to the collar. "Gotta give it time to heal," he says once he sets the scissors back down and grabs his keys from the keyrack behind the door. "You can't just go back to pretending that nothing happened. Besides, I wouldn't want you to." Rick then launches into proper care techniques; Matt tries not to have an anxiety attack.
This isn't going to go over well.
His father doesn't start screaming at Rick until he tells Matt to go upstairs - "I have some business to discuss with Rick." - and once he thinks Matt's well out of earshot, he lays into Rick like he normally does to Matt.
It's the angriest Matt's ever seen him, even after he sort of ran away when Jon announced that Eric was moving in with them. Matt barely gets into his room before he hears Jon yell, "What the hell were you thinking?" Rick's response is too quiet to hear, but his father is loud enough for the two of them, Matt's pretty sure it doesn't matter. "That was never part of the deal! Tattoos, piercings, brands, none of those are temporary, and that was the deal! Permanence is not an option! That fucking thing'll be there his whole damn life and he's going to lose clients over it!" Again, Rick's too quiet to hear, even with Matt pressing his ear to his door. "You're damn right I do!"
Another pause, then, "Two million? Where the fuck do you think I'm going to get that kind of money?"
Matt sighs as his father's voice settles quietly, too, negotiating. Anything could become of him.
Half an hour flies by, and neither Jon nor Rick give anything away in their outbursts that gives anything away about Matt's current situation.
Finally, he hears the front door slam, and Matt scrambles to get to his bed. Jon barges into his room moments later, and Matt breathes a sigh of relief. "End of next fall, you're Rick's." He doesn't sound particularly happy about it, though Matt isn't entirely sure why. "Until then, you'll see him once a month, free of charge, and you'll do everything he asks of you."
Next fall. Not even a year and he's being sold out. Matt wonders if he can leave there once he turns eighteen or not.
"How…" Matt looks down at his shaking hands, then asks, "How much?"
"One point five million," Jon says. He almost sounds apologetic. Matt figures he has to be imagining it. His father has never shown any sort of empathy towards Matt. Not since Emily got sick, at the very least. Jon coughs, then says, "He's paying double because it's unlikely that you'll get play from other clients now. He's making up for the loss."
Other clients. Matt hadn't thought of them. Always being in the house means always doing something wrong which means Jon always finding some reason to punish him.
Jon laughs when Matt's breathing becomes uneven. "Come on. Like you're not happy to get away from here." He isn't happy to get away from here, even if he is kind of happy that he gets to get away from Jon, but he doesn't say this. "Look, you start cryin'-" He sighs. "Whatever. Stay in here through nightfall."
Rick. His entire life with Rick taken away from him for a measly one point five million dollars, none of which he even gets to see. While Matt desperately wants to believe that there is no way for Rick to come up with that money in such a short time, he knows that Rick wouldn't have agreed if there weren't a way.
His entire life with Rick; with psychologically scarring, skin-branding, game-playing Rick. Matt's not going to last one day in that house before he snaps.
And Dallas isn't even here to stall him. For all Matt knows, Dallas could be gone long after Rick has him. For that matter Dallas may not even be coming back. Maybe he's gone forever. Maybe he doesn't want to come back. Get a hold of yourself, Matt tells himself, gripping at his forehead. Dallas is going to come back.
He has to come back. He has to. Matt can't survive without him, not after going so long with him. Not when Matt's finally started to see a shorter path to freedom.
The next few weeks pass slowly. Matt loses another fifteen pounds and earns another brand over top of the one already in place - "Gotta make sure it sticks," Rick told him in apparent explanation as to why Matt needed another one - and Rick and Bill have started fighting over Jon's kitchen table during appointment negotiations to determine who gets Matt more often.
"I should! You get him in the fall for good!"
"He's mine! That brand on his chest stands for it!"
"For all I know, Jon gave him the damn thing and it stands for Riley. Christ, Richard, don't you know shit about that boy? Before you give him somethin' permanent, make sure people can't mistake its meaning."
While Jon is rolling in the money, Matt feels like he's falling apart. He's failing fifth period physical science to the point that he can't bring his grade up and his physical education teacher has expressed his concern for Matt's nutrition and his weight - or lack thereof.
Parent teacher conferences are coming up, and for the first time in a long time, the presence of Matt's parent or guardian is urgent.
"Failing physical science, huh?" Jon says when Matt gives him the letter from his homeroom teacher. "When the hell have you found time to fail physical science?" Matt doesn't dare answer. "All right. I'll play their little game this time."
As Matt trudges to his room for the night, he realizes - Jon has been in a surprisingly good mood lately.
Unfortunately for Matt, his realization only leads to his father's mood changing. The next morning, Matt wakes up to find him tearing down his bedroom door. "New rules," he says gruffly. "You study any time you're not with Rick or Harlan or Bill and you'll be in summer school until you pass every damn class they throw at your ass."
For fear of punishment, Matt doesn't point out that that is something he's already been doing. Instead, he hits the books.
Tonight, Jon has to talk to Matt's teachers. Tonight, he has to play the role of the good father and he has to do it well enough so that the school doesn't realize that anything is out of place. Matt desperately wishes Dallas were with him. If nothing else, he could make him feel a little better - cram some sanity back into his head.
He studies all night for lack of something better to do, waiting for Jon to come back home. Waiting; Matt feels like it's all he's been doing lately.
Matt's falling asleep on his physical science book when Jon barges in. "You know what this is?" he says, tossing a packet at him. It slides face up across page 405 of his physical science book. How to Pass your General Education Degree, Matt reads. "It's a study guide." Matt picks it up. "GED study guide. You're too fuckin' stupid for a high school diploma. So, when you turn 19, you'll be takin' that test."
Already sensing the answer, Matt asks anyway. "And now?"
Jon's already gone when he calls back, "And now, no more school for you!"
That's what he'd been afraid of.
Dallas won't be happy. No school means more time for Jon to sell him out. No school means that Liam has more of a reason to freak out.
Liam. How can Matt possibly explain this to Liam without making him run straight to the police? He tries to tell himself that that would actually be a good thing, but the idea that Jon would kill him before he even answered the door scares him too much.
Since Liam thought that he and Dallas were a couple, maybe that's his answer. If Liam thought they were together, Matt could just tell him he was taking the time off because he was dealing with their break up.
It's great. It's got to work.
"We broke up," Matt tells him the next day when Jon sends him to the grocery store for another dog food run. "He, uh… he took a vacation. He's in Los Angeles. I don't know how long he'll be gone."
Liam immediately looks like Matt's gone crazy. "What? Why the fuck did you break up with him?"
Surprised by the sudden change of mood regarding Dallas, Matt says, "It was a mutual decision, things weren't working anymore. Why the freak out, man, I thought you hated Dallas?"
For a long, long moment - Matt counts at least eighty seconds - Liam just stares at him. "Have you seen yourself when you're with the guy?"
Suddenly terrified that the secret might be out, Matt asks, "And you have?"
Liam shakes his head. "That's not what I meant and you know it. You're thousands of times happier with Dallas than I've ever seen you. You… You look like you're alive again, man. Like God gave you something to live for or whatever."
It's getting dangerous. If Matt keeps going in this direction, he's going to say something that he doesn't want Liam to know. With a thick voice, Matt says, "You don't know anything about me, remember?"
With a sigh, Liam goes back to shoveling his sidewalk. "Whatever. But, you know, you've been my friend since we were eleven, and I just…"
"Liam, please." Matt swallows roughly. "Don't make this harder for me."
But Liam doesn't back off like Matt had expected him to. "Make what harder for you, Matt? Make the break up harder for you or something else harder for you? Like whoring yourself out on the street, maybe?"
Matt freezes, but finds enough thought within himself to deny it. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Liam's responding laugh is half-desperate, half-disbelief. It's an odd combination, but the tone of his voice suddenly turns into that of one when a man has no idea what to say. "Don't play that game with me. You don't have to be on the street to be a street whore."
Matt decides not to tell him that that's basically the definition; Liam keeps talking. "I've seen you leave with strange men. And until Dallas, I just thought that they were family or tutors or something."
Matt tries denial again. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Ever think that that's why Dallas left you in the first place? That maybe he was so angry that you never let him do what he needed to, which was get you out of that place?"
It's a possibility that Liam's right, but Matt refuses to acknowledge that conclusion any further. "You don't know what you're talking about."
But try as he might to deter him, Liam holds his ground. "I'm pretty sure that I do, Matt. And you gotta start talking. Before I do."
Matt glares at him, almost angry. "You have no idea what you're talking about. My relationship with Dallas, you don't know anything about. You don't know about the people you see me with, and you don't know how Dallas feels about it."
"I know how I'd feel about it!" Liam exclaims, then sighs like he hadn't meant to yell it out. "If I were him and just found out that my boyfriend was selling himself, I'd be pissed. It wouldn't matter how much I loved him, I'd get the hell out of there if he wouldn't listen to me."
"You're nothing like Dallas," Matt tells him.
"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Liam asks, but with a tone that suggests he doesn't mean it.
Finding himself getting angrier with every word that Liam says, Matt bites back. "You're not even gay," he says; Liam looks almost shocked. "You wouldn't know the first thing about my relationship with Dallas, and you can't just tell me that you know exactly the reason why we broke up when you never even met him."
Liam holds his hands up in defense. "Okay, okay."
"Stop trying to act like you know everything about me just because we've been friends for six years." With that, he brushes past Liam towards the grocery store. He doesn't even feel the coolness of winter air spiking against his cheeks.
As he leaves, Liam calls to him, "Just how long do you think you can keep this up?"
Matt keeps walking. He forgets half the list, too focused on Liam becoming a new threat to his plan. As he fake smiles his way through Claire's conversation with him, thanking God she's back at work, he carefully thinks through his options. The snow is melting, too quickly for Matt's liking, which means Jon won't find it too suspicious to start beating Matt into next week for messing up anymore. Matt figures he only has about another month before the spring thaw is in full swing - and so is his father.
Liam's words stick with him. All through the night, Matt tosses and turns, trying to make sense of his options long enough to come to a conclusion of a new plan, one that includes the threat of Liam telling the police. He can't reach Dallas - how is he supposed to when he's thousands of miles away and he has no way to access a phone without alarming his father? That leaves him three options; running away, running to the police, or turning Jon in to one of the teachers at school.
The third option is out because there's no way he could get to the school and still have his father stay oblivious, unless he was at work. Matt has always thought that his father had someone on the outside watching him to make sure he went where he was supposed to, so he thinks that that's out anyway. Running away would mean that his father could call him in and he could be on the 'missing child' boards in department stores across the country. He would eventually stop running from his father and end up running from the police, so that's out, too.
Which leaves running directly to the police, which raises the question, "Why didn't you come to us earlier?" for which Matt knows he won't be able to come up with an answer that they'd easily believe, regardless of how true it is. They'd keep him in a foster home within Shadowbrook for a while as they were investigating, but eventually, the police would ultimately send him on his way without real, plausible, viewable evidence of abuse, and Matt isn't sure that he's willing to show a social worker just how abusive his father is.
That puts him back at square one. He really doesn't have options - not really. Dallas, he realizes, was really his only option to get out of his father's house, and for good. Now, he's kicking himself for not taking any one of the billion chances that Dallas gave to him.