Dare to be Aware - Chapter Fourteen
Title: Dare to be Aware
Author: Sio & Maura
Rating: Hard NC-17
Length: 54,462
Spoilers: AU
Pairing: Santana/Quinn, past Brittany/Santana, Brittany/Artie mentions, Blaine/Sam, past Quinn/Finn, Quinn/Sam bearding, past Blaine/Kurt
Summary: What does it take to find your own identity? How much pain can you endure in the process?
Warnings (highlight to read): Gender Dysphoria, Violence against Trans, Trans Character, Explicit Sexual Content, Domestic Violence, Graphic Severe Violence, Hospitals, Transitioning, Rough Sex, Potentially dub-con/non-con situations, Abandonment
Chapter 14
Russell settled into his office chair, tossing the mail onto his desk and taking off his tie and jacket before getting to it. The envelope looked odd so he set it aside and sorted through the rest of the mail first. Two bills were tossed into his inbox but most of the rest was junk mail and tossed in the trash. Finally, he turned back to the envelope with his misspelt name.
Carefully opening it, he reached inside an pulled out a card. Bright blue with a ridiculous looking cartoon stork carrying a bundle with a baby poking out. Bright white letters proclaimed IT'S A BOY!. Confused, he flipped it open but it wasn't signed and all it said inside was Congratulations on your new son!.
Tossing it in the trash, he reached in again and pulled out a stack of photos. Frowning in confusion, he flipped through the first couple, sneering at the little Latina whore his daughter used to hang around before he set her straight. Then a young man came in obviously dressed for bed. He didn't even know what he was supposed to be looking at until he got a clear shot of the man's face.
Lucy.
His daughter.
"What the fuck is this?" he muttered, flipping through the pictures, his face getting darker and darker as his rage grew with each progressively more explicit photo of his baby girl dressed as a man getting his penis sucked off by the Latina slut and then fucking her naked Spic body with his fingers. "What the fuck is this?!"
He heard the distinct sound of the front door opening and closing and the soft voice of his daughter calling out that she was home. "Lucy! Come here! I need to talk to you!" He yelled, glaring at the photo crumpling in his hand of his precious baby girl with her breasts tied down and her hand fisted in the filthy whore's hair as she got a fucking blowjob.
Quinn cowered when she heard her fathers voice. She looked up at her mother who had come to greet her. Judy's eyes had already clouded over with a gin haze. "M-mom?" She whispered looking up and trying to figure out what was happening.
"Just go see your father, Quinnie," Judy said softly. "He must have had a bad day," she assured her child with a fake smile. Quinn nodded slowly and turned away, heading into the back office. Her Cheerios skirt swished as she walked down the hall, her backpack over one shoulder and her white sock covered feet gliding over hardwood.
"Yeah, daddy?" Quinn said softly as she hovered in the entrance of the office. She took stock of the room reflexively, seeing a large envelope on his desk and something in his hands. "I'm sorry I was late I had Cheerios..."
"Oh, I just bet you did, you disgusting freak," he growled, slamming the photos down so hard they scattered across his desk, fluttering almost angrily to the floor. "No, I think you were off pretending to be a fucking boy with that goddamn wetback whore! Do you have any idea what your disgusting perversion is doing to this family?!"
"W-what?!" Quinn squeaked as she looked at her father. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the pictures and she felt like she had been shot. "Oh... god. Daddy... no... I..." She said as she looked to the floor.
"Don't lie to me," he growled, low and threatening as he thrust himself back from his desk and got up, stalking around it towards her. "You think you can lie your way out of this? There are photos, you... you... thing! Your sick deviancy is a disgrace." He looked absolutely disgusted as he looked her over, "You're a goddamn abomination!"
The words always be a man rang through her ears, Quinn lifted her head up and looked at him. "Daddy, I wasn't pretending," her voice shook, "I...I don't feel like... like a girl. I never have." She wasn't sure she was speaking over a whisper but the words came out of her lips.
Russell's eyes widened in rage and his hand ripped across Quinn's face with a thunderous crack before he even realized what he was doing. "Sick disgusting freak!" He grabbed her uniform top before she could stumble back out of his reach, "Say it again!" His saliva spattered her face as he yelled, "Say it again and you will never be my daughter again!"
Her ears rang when his hand struck her face. She could feel the blood coming out of her nose when she turned her head to look back at him. "My name... My name is Quinn and I'm a guy." Quinn stammered and stood up on his own legs and looked his father in his eyes. "I'm Quinn."
The impact of his fist driving into his stomach nearly lifted him off his feet. "You want to be a man?" Russell's voice was soft and threatening in Quinn's ear, "I'll fucking teach you what it is to be a man, Quinn. First, men don't," Russell's fingers dug into the waistband of his Cheerios skirt, ripping at it so hard it dug painfully into his waist until the heavy-duty fasteners finally gave and the fabric ripped, "wear," he next went for his top, nearly choking him as he tore at the fabric and zipper before he got it off, "women's fucking clothes!"
Quinn crumpled to the floor, looking up at his father in just black and white boy cut underwear and no bra. "Daddy, don't... I'll leave, just stop," He begged, his thin body shaking with fear. Sure Russell had hit him and her sister before, sure he had helped Judy hide a black eye once in awhile but he had never seem his father like this. "Please..."
"Don't call me that, you little freak," Russell sneered down at him, "I don't have any children named Quinn. Look at you. All soft and feminine." He growled low in his throat reaching back to his desk where his fingers closed around his letter opener. "But don't worry, Quinn," for a moment he sounded almost soothing as he walked around Quinn, but then he straddled his back and shoved him roughly into the floor and taking a heavy hank of hair in one hand and sawing at it with the letter opener as he kept weight and pressure on Quinn's upper back to force his face into the floor. "I can fix that!"
The moment he was pushed into the cold floor, Quinn started fighting. He pushed his arms up under him and tried to push his father off his back. His legs kicked, his flexibility helping him to land a kick to his father's back, but it only seem to enrage him more.
Russell got a grip on some of Quinn's remaining hair and slammed his head against the floor with a sick crack as his nose broke. "You can't fight me, you weak little shit! You can't fight a man of God and win!" Yanking Quinn's head up again, he looked into dazed hazel eyes and spat in his face. "You're not a man, Quinn. You're just a weak little girl."
Quinn's eyes focused and he spat a mouthful of blood onto Russell's face. "Real men don't hurt people," he mumbled through the swelling and blood pooling in his mouth. "I'm more of a man than you."
When the blood hit his face, Russell all but threw Quinn away from him, stumbling for his desk to wipe it off. "You will never be a man," he growled, picking the letter opener back up. "I will not allow you to disgrace the family name like that."
Quinn's body hit the wall with a painful crack, but he scrambled to get to his feet, his ankle rolling in the process and causing him to fall again. "Just let me leave! I'll never come back, I'll change my name!" Quinn yelled as much as he could as he came closer.
"Leave? Like that?" Russell advanced towards him with a sneer, holding the letter opener in front of him. "When you still look like my daughter!?" he roared, slashing across Quinn's chest with the sharpened steel, opening up the skin along the upper swell of his chest, the weight of even Quinn's minimal breasts dragging the wound painfully open.
A scream fell from Quinn's lips as his hands moved to his chest to hold onto his chest. "Stop!" He screamed, his voice shrill and girlish, "MOM!" His voice called out in terror, "Help!"
In the kitchen, Judy clutched the phone and inched down the hall, trembling with fear. The terror of hearing that tone in Russell's voice burning the haze of alcohol away, she had to force herself into the hall for her baby. The last time she heard that tone was when she'd tried to break up with him after finding out she was pregnant with Frannie. He'd beaten her unconscious and she was terrified that he'd do far worse to Quinn.
"She can't help you!" Russell roared, making another cut to his breasts. "Be a man!" He mocked, swinging the letter opener to tear at his child's body again. "Stop fucking crying and be a goddamn man like you want!"
The steel ripped across his upper thighs, slashing them open.
Quinn heard footsteps through the pounding of blood and pain through his brain. His blunt nails tore into the floor and he tried to limp towards to door. "Mom!" He screamed in pain, his hand almost touching the door frame as his chest and thighs spewed blood onto the floor. He was starting to get light headed with the amount of blood coming from his wounds but he knew he'd be safe if he found his mom. At least he hoped he would.
"Where are you going?!" Russell roared kicking him hard enough in the torso that his body lifted off the floor accompanied by the sickening crack of ribs breaking.
"Russell, stop!" Judy called desperately, trembling in the doorway, unable to tear her eyes from her child's broken and bloody body. Her voice shook, but she forced herself to keep talking for Quinn, "You'll kill her!"
"It," Russell growled, turning his livid gaze on his wife. "I'm ridding the world of an abomination against God."
"B-but everyone will know," she stammered out, visibly shaking, "people will talk and...and the church..."
Russell sneered and lashed another vicious kick into Quinn's body. "Fine," his voice was still laced with rage, "but I never want to see this filth dirtying my house again. Get it out of here before I bury it in the backyard." He stalked towards his desk, deliberately not watching has his wife tried to help the remains of what had been his daughter up off the floor and out of the room.
Quinn had curled into a ball on the floor, his flesh gaping with four slashes across his breasts, his nose was badly broken, his knee twisted awkwardly with the force of the last blow to Quinn's body. His eyes were black and swollen, his body lay limp on the floor covered in his own blood. He reached out for his mom when she knelt down next to him. "Mom..." he whimpered as he opened his eyes and tried to focus on her.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, getting her arms around him and doing her best to lift and support him to the bathroom so she could bandage the worst cuts. "I have to make you leave, you know that, right? I wish I didn't have to, but you can't stay here. I'm so sorry I didn't protect you, sweetie..."
"Mommy," he whimpered as he leaned against her, his tears falling freely, "it hurts. It hurts... Mommy, come with me," he pleaded as he clutched onto her blouse. "Please... please I'll protect you."
"I know you would, sweetie," Judy whispered, her heart breaking for her child, "you always have. But this time I have to protect my baby. I've let you down so many times, but I'm going to protect you this time. I won't let him hurt you any more." She reached into the closet and pulled out an old pair of pants and a button up shirt from the laundry bin. "It's not much...but I won't let my...my son out in the cold without clothes even if that man tries to make me."
He was limp against her as she put close on his bloodied frame. "I'm sorry, mom," he whimpered as he clung onto her body as she carried him from the bathroom. "I love you," he mumbled into her neck.
"I love you too," she whispered, cuddling her child protectively for the first and last time as she made her way out to the front door. When they got there, she carefully set him on his feet and pulled a coat down from the hall closet, settling it around his shoulders. Reaching for her purse, she pulled out a handful of cash and shoved it into Quinn's pocket. "I know it's not much, but if it can get you somewhere safe, it's worth it. I'll find you in a few days with more help, I promise you."
"Okay," he weakly replied, his body starting to shut down with shock. "Bye," he said weakly, kissing her cheek like he'd done every day of his life when he left the house. He limped away from the house on his visibly dislocated left knee, shaking with blood loss as he hobbled down the driveway.
Judy wanted to cry as she watched him walk away, to run after him and beg him to let her take him to a hospital. But she felt an alarming presence step up behind her and her breath caught in her throat.
"Good riddance," Russell growled, wrapping a deceptively strong hand around her shoulder. "Now as for you," he hissed, pulling her back into the house with a painfully hard grip on her shoulder and closing the door on his child's pathetic exodus, "I think you need a lesson on a wife's proper place..."
It was almost a half hour before someone found him passed out in the park, blood seeping sluggishly through his shirt and called 911. The man knelt beside him on the phone with the 911 operator and stroked his back as comfortingly as he could. "It'll be okay, son. Just hold on a little longer. Help is coming..."
The limp, shivering body didn't respond, the brutality of the beating and the blood loss had caused his body to slip into unconsciousness. The paramedics arrived quickly, carefully assessing the damage and moved him as carefully as they could onto a backboard and into the ambulance. They rushed to St Rita's ER, radioing ahead that they had a critical emergency on board.
"Dr. Lopez, you're needed in trauma one. A kid was found in the park!" One of the nurses directed the doctor into the room that Quinn had been brought into. He quickly headed in and took the chart from one of the nurses before even looking at Quinn's face.
"Young boy - sorry," the EMT interrupted himself as her shirt was pulled open, revealing her badly damaged chest, the EMTs having avoided moving the cloth in the field when they realized it might be all there was keeping the victim together, "girl was found in the park about 30 minutes ago. She has several penetrating cuts on her chest, badly dislocated knee and visibly broken nose."
"Okay." Dr. Lopez said as he snapped on gloved and headed to the girl to check her vitals, "is she awake?"
"Barely," A nurse chimed in as she set up a transfusion of blood. Dr. Lopez checked the deep cuts on her chest.
"She's going to need breast reconstruction. Whoever did this damn near tore her apart," he stated almost offhandedly as he worked - trying to keep himself as emotionally detached as possible - before moving to check her nose. "Sweetheart, if you can hear me you're gonna be.... Oh Dios," he gasped as he looked down onto the blood covered face of a girl he'd seen in his house almost daily for a few years and had seen not more than two days before when she had dinner with him and his wife and daughter. "Quinn!"
The nurse working to stabilize Quinn's vitals looked up sharply. "You know her, Dr Lopez?" She looked out to an orderly looking in, tossing him a vial, "We need her typed stat, Wright!"
"She's," He caught his breath for a moment, "She's my daughter's gir... friend." He stopped himself. Santana had only told him and his wife a few day's before that she had begun dating Quinn. He looked down at the blood matted hastily cropped hair and her wounds. "We need the police in here for when she wakes up and she's going to need surgery to close these wounds," he ordered, as he continued to inspect her. "Get a call up to Surgery to set up a theater and get Dr. Grabowski here ASAP!"
They had finally gotten Quinn stabilized and Emilio Lopez had taken the brief moment of reprieve to step out of the trauma room and call his wife. "Maria? Hey, I need you to bring San to the hospital... something happened to Quinn," he spoke softly in his native Spanish. He listened to his wife for a moment and nodded despite being on the phone, "Just get here here okay?"
Hanging up, he headed back into the trauma bay. Quinn was still unconscious with a tube taped into her mouth to breathe for her. One of the broken ribs had punctured her lung and they had needed to intubate her to get enough oxygen into her body to keep her stable before surgery. He pulled a stool over next to her body and he pulled the dressing up over the gauze covering her chest that were still seeping with blood.
"Quinn," he whispered, taking her hand and rubbing it worriedly, "you need to wake up okay? We need to find out who hurt you and you're gonna have a very upset girlfriend here in about 20 minutes."
Santana ran down the hall, colliding headlong with her father as he stepped out into the hall at the sound of her quick footsteps, but so upset she didn't realize who it was. "Let me go!" She struggled with him, trying to get past whoever it was keeping her from her lover and best friend, "I have to get to hi-her! Quinn!"
"San... San, look at me." He held her shoulders, "Quinn's sleeping and I need to tell you what you're going to see before I let you go inside. Okay, Mija? She's here and she's safe but you need to be prepared for how she is okay? Someone hurt her very bad. She's going to be okay but she doesn't really look like Quinn right now."
"I don't care about that!" Santana snapped, pushing at him again, "Just get out of my way and let me see Quinn!"
He took his daughter by the hand and led her into the room where Quinn was still lying on the gurney attached to half a dozen machines and tubes. "Santana, don't touch her chest okay?" He warned as he brought her over to the bed and stood behind her.
"Quinn," Santana breathed, relieved to see the steady rise and fall of his chest. She crossed the room ignoring her father and brushed her lover's hair back. "What the fuck happened to you? Wake up and tell me who did this so I can shove my boot collection up their ass sideways. Please, Quinn..."
"Santana, Quinn... She was found in the park. Someone had beat her fairly severely. They even managed to break her knee cap," he said, taking his wife's hand and watching his daughter try and cope with her girlfriend's injuries. "She has a broken nose and her eye socket is fractured, someone cut her hair and slashed her body... She's going to need extensive surgery. I wanted... I wanted to give you a chance to see her before we take her upstairs." Just in case she doesn't make it went unsaid, though her parents communicated it sadly between each other with their looks and gentle squeezes of their hands.
"He's," she took a breath, composing herself and reminding herself that her parents didn't know about who Quinn really was. "She's going to be okay though, right? We're going to find who did this and lock them up and she's going to be okay. Right, Papi?"
"We will make her better, I promise." He smiled sadly, as he watched his wife console her daughter. "Mija, do you want to take a minute alone with her before she's taken up to Surgery?"
"Please?" Santana whispered, her eyes never leaving Quinn despite the way her mom was tugging on her shoulders.
Emilio took his wife outside the doors to explained the procedure so she could comfort Santana and left the couple together. Quinn lay limp and pale on the bed his face still caked in blood and dirt from where he passed out in the park.
"Quinn," Santana shook her head, blinking rapidly, "I thought you were supposed to be my boyfriend. You're not supposed to be in this bed or hurt. You're supposed to holding me or fucking me with your big cock, baby. You need to get better, okay?" Santana tried to brush some of the dirt away from her cheek near his mouth before leaning down and kissing the corner of his lips. "That wasn't meant to be goodbye and you damn well better not let it be. It was just for luck but you don't need it cause you're gonna be fine..."
The nurse came in and started to prepare Quinn to be taken upstairs as Maria came and collected her daughter. Quinn's bed was wheeled out of the room and Emilio headed up with her to make sure she was in the proper hands in the operating room.
"Quinn's strong, Santana." Maria said softly as she guided her daughter to her husband's office. "She'll be okay soon."