[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 08 ~Recovering~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: The boy.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 08 ~Recovering~
The boy didn’t have the strength to even sit up for several hours after the customer left. Every bit of him felt like it was on fire.
No, scratch that. He was pretty sure he’d rather be on fire than this. It would hurt less.
But he was finally able to push himself up to sit. He swung his legs around to put his feet on the ground and after a few deep breaths he tried to stand.
His legs went out from beneath him, though, and he ended up crumpled on the floor. And it was too much and all he could do was sob. He sobbed for the pain and for the fear and for the horror and for the knowledge that his father didn’t have even the tiniest bit of love for him, even though he was the only family the boy had ever known.
Because if his father had even the smallest bit of affection for him, he wouldn’t have let that… that monster…
Those eyes…
Oh, god…
Those eyes and that voice!
Oh, god…
And then everything in his stomach tried to come up, only there wasn’t really anything there. He hadn’t eaten at all that day and barely a bit the day before. So he just kept dry heaving for a while and then he passed out.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in bed and his father was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding some sort of can with a straw sticking out of it. “Ah, there you are. I had a devil of a time trying to get you to wake up! Drink this.” And his father shoved the can into his hands.
“What is it?” the boy asked numbly.
“One of those chocolate nutrition shakes. Just drink the damn thing.”
The boy was in no state to argue. Not that he would have anyway. The thing tasted terrible but his father didn’t allow food in the bedrooms and he doubted he could make it downstairs to eat lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever meal was next. What time was it, anyway? Was it still the same day? How long had he passed out for this time?
But even after he accepted the can from his father, the man just sat there. What, did his father think he was going to throw the can away if he didn’t stay to babysit or something like that?
Finally, though, the man said, “You did good.”
He did good? HE DID GOOD?! That was great. That was just great! Suddenly he felt like yelling, shouting at his father everything he felt. But… he had neither the strength nor the voice for it, so ultimately he sighed and instead asked, “When is the next customer?”
“You won’t be seeing all those men anymore…”
Had he heard the man right?
No, surely he misunderstood. His father liked the money too much. Again and again he’d been told sleeping with the customers was all he was good for. “What?”
“You won’t be having all those men to your room anymore. Now finish your damn shake, okay? I’ll bring you another one later, and hopefully by tomorrow you can start coming to meals downstairs again. Just rest for now.”
And his father left the room, closing the door behind him. He didn’t even lock it.
Who was that man and what had he done with his father?
Had… had he actually been moved by the state of his son? Had the cuts and bruises and burns actually stirred some sort of emotional reaction in the man? Did he actually, somewhere deep, deep down, love him after all?
Not sure what to think, the boy finally just finished drinking that nasty shake and closed his eyes and went to sleep.
When he woke back up, he found another can on the dresser by the bed with a note, “Drink this!” in the ever so neat handwriting of his father. At least that box was gone. His father must have taken it away when he left the drink.
It looked like it was starting to get dark outside. He must have slept most of the day.
Sitting up, he drank the shake as quickly as he could. He was too exhausted to do much of anything else, so he just went back to sleep.
The next day was much the same, but at least he was finally able to stand, to stumble to the bathroom. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, but it turned out to just be the mirror. The boy in the mirror… he looked awful. He was struck by the desire to comfort the boy in the mirror, reaching out towards it. But the reflection reached back and he suddenly realized he was looking at himself.
It was too much.
Fortunately, the toilet was right there.
The shakes tasted just as bad coming up as they had going down.
Was that really his reflection?
It was the next day before the lad was able to make his way downstairs to eat normal meals with his father. Bit by bit, he improved as the days went by. The pain lessened a little every day.
He could barely remember what happened to him. It all sort of bled together in his mind into one long, awful mess. But that man’s eyes and his voice, those he would never forget.
During all of this time, his father had… well, he wouldn’t exactly call it being caring. But he did seem more concerned than usual. And as the week ended and the next began, some small little hope sparked, like a tiny candle deep in the darkness of his life, that the whole thing was a wake-up call for his father and that they might actually become something like a normal family.
And that was something the boy had wanted for so very long.
Another week passed. His body was recovering much faster than he’d thought it would. But at night, when he slept, all he could see were those eyes and all he could feel was the pain and he would wake up screaming and begging for someone to kill him.
And then he would sob himself back to sleep. Until the next nightmare.
And the one after that.
It was probably a good thing he didn’t remember most of what happened to him. If not remembering was so bad, remembering would probably kill him.
Another week and he was almost completely healed. At least, physically speaking. The nightmares still hadn’t gone away. His chest and back were scarred now, but the scars were oddly neat.
Things between him and his father got better and better. Oh, the man was still cold and distant, but he hardly yelled at all anymore and he didn’t beat him, not even once.
But it couldn’t last.
Another week had passed and the boy was downstairs eating breakfast with his father.
“Hurry up. The customer will be here soon!” his father said.
What? “What customer? You said… you said there weren’t any more!”
“No, I never said that.”
But… but… hadn’t he? Hadn’t his father told him he wouldn’t be seeing all those men anymore? “You promised!”
“No. You misunderstood. You don’t see other customers anymore. Just this one. He bought you and pays for your upkeep.”
“What? What one? WHAT ONE? YOU ANSWER ME, DAMN IT!” the boy shouted, so very scared of what the answer would be. His grip on his chopsticks tightened, his hand shaking. “YOU MEAN THAT MONSTER, THE ONE WHO HURT ME?!”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” his father rolled his eyes. Standing, the man walked around the table, grabbing his son by the upper arm to pull him up out of his chair.
No. No. No no no no… this just couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. Before he knew what he was doing, the boy stabbed at his father with whatever it was he was holding. It turned out to be the chopsticks and his father released him, stumbling backwards, the chopsticks still sticking out from his eye socket.
The man roared in pain as he fell back. But the boy was off, running up the stairs. He grabbed his stuffed animal from under the bed and he ran to his father’s room. Taking the man’s wallet, he ran back down the stairs, as fast as he possibly could. He could hear the shrieks of his father, who was shouting obscenities and then, “I’ll find you! No matter where you go, I’ll find you! I’ll make you wish you were never born you little bastard!”
His father caught up to him at the door, but the boy was able to shake him off by elbowing him in the stomach. He fled down the front steps and just picked a direction, running as fast as he could for as long as he could.
The last thing he heard from his father was a shout for someone to call him an ambulance.
His lungs were burning. He had to stop. He couldn’t run anymore…
Where was he?
What was he going to do now?
How was he going to keep his father from finding him?
Where would he sleep?
What would he do for food when the money in the wallet was gone?
Oh, god…
But he couldn’t go back. No matter what, he would never go back. He’d kill himself before he’d let his father take him back home.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 09 ~Trust Me~
A/N: So I guess you all have figured out the father and the pimp are the same guy. Now all that's left is for me to reveal who the boy is. Expect that at the end of chapter 10. Chapter 9 goes back to Jin and Kame.
I wanted to update UP first but I'm sort of in a jam over it. I know what's going on in the stuff with Ren and Tatsuya. And I know what's going on with Junno. I know who the traitor is. I know they're after the Sayaendou. But as to what specifically happens next, I can't seem to make up my mind. I have all the side stuff. I'm having a bit of writer's block over the central events, though. I mean, I suppose I could do a filler chapter (I do have a funny idea on how to incorporate cheesecake into the story)... I dunno, I'll figure something out. It's just frustrating. I didn't have this problem on any of my other stories.
In the meanwhile, here's this at least. I have to write SOMETHING, otherwise I'll lose my drive and who knows how long it would be then.
Wow, live journal is STILL having problems with cuts. So annoying!!