All The Troubles Of Youth

by RunawayImaginationIssues

Summary:

Eliot had a good home, until he lost it. Thrown back into the foster system at the age of seven, he bounced around with no stability, until he was put in a home with a sibling—a non-verbal blonde girl that he did his best to shield from the horrors of the worst homes. It wasn’t long before they were labeled as inseparable due to psychological dependancy.
An unruly teenager with authority issues, and a non-verbal autistic girl, both with trauma? There weren’t many homes that would take them out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Notes:

This is honestly an experiment. I’ve created the most drastic AU for this fandom that I wasn’t able to find! So let me know what you think!

Chapter 1: Pilot

November, 1988 - Salem, Oregon

Eliot was gentle, but firm as he tugged Parker along a little quicker. The sidewalks were already laden with snow from the steady trickle of billowing flakes, with just enough wind that it made his threadbare jacket little more than useless.

He was just grateful he was able to find a windbreaker for Parker the month before—it was big on her, better described as a tight fit for him than a good fit for her, but that just meant she would grow into it.

A car skid by them as they rounded the corner, dusting them with cold flakes and colder air that made Eliot tug the little girl closer to him on reflex.

The car didn’t stop, at least, continuing down the street as if they didn’t exist.

Eliot blew out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He prodded Parker forward with a hand between her shoulder blades, keeping the silent child close.

They were late. Very, very late. And if he was honest he didn’t know what he was more worried about—the reception they would get when Hank got home to a table bereft of dinner, or the actual getting there part.

Salem, Oregon stopped being a nice city when the sun began to set. Eliot could feel it creep over his skin; an instinctual reaction like the awe-filtered fear response to sunlight through smoke.

Beautiful, but deadly.

He didn’t slow their walk—looking behind him every ten steps, keeping an eye on the passing cars, rubbing his thumb back and forth on Parker’s shoulder in a silent reassurance—until the tram stop came into view.

With the tram whose doors were just beginning to close.

“Hey!” Eliot broke into a run, pulling Parker along behind him with a grip close to bruising. But he couldn’t care, not right then—she would forgive him later, but they had to get off the streets. “Hey!”

They reached it just in time for Eliot to slam his hand into the back of the tram, just as it pulled away from the curb. But with the snow, the wind, and the darkness that was getting thicker every second, the operator either didn’t hear, or didn’t care.

The teen’s chest heaved, from the run and from the growing desperation building inside of him as the tram’s back lights were swallowed by the hazy darkness down the street. He didn’t realize how tight he was still holding onto Parker’s wrist. Not until she clutched at his arm.

Eliot blinked down at her, shoving everything down deep as he locked eyes with the ten-year-old. Fear-filled eyes.

As much as Eliot wished she could be, she wasn’t naïve. And even if she were, she was perceptive enough to know he was worried. Bordering on terrified. And Parker…

He crouched in front of her, letting go of her wrist in favor of rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “It’s alright darlin’, we’ll just take the long way ‘round.” He mustered up a smile, his split lip smarting with the action.

Something in his chest clenched when her only response was to hug her ribs, tightly. He felt her shiver—felt one run down his own back, too.

“C’mon.” With a hand on her back he guided her forward, a gust of wind pushing against them as they started once more down the street. If Eliot kept a firmer hold of Parker’s shoulder, she didn’t say anything.

He only hoped that the storm that turned his fingers numb with a stabbing ache was enough to turn back any of the darker kind of street dweller, make them hole up in whatever shelter they could find and keep them away from them both.

It wouldn’t be the first time Eliot had gotten into a street brawl, where the only thing on the table was walking away with your life and maybe, if you were lucky, your wallet. But any fight was a risk, and Eliot wasn’t cocky enough to think at fourteen that he’d be able to drop two people twice his size. One person…

It depended on the person.

He shook his head to clear those thoughts, forcing his brain to focus through the fog that clouded it. Twenty blocks between them and Hank’s apartment—about three miles. That was over thirty minutes.

But there was nothing for it, other than for him to keep an eye out, and keep walking.

One thing he knew for certain—it was the last time he’d take the afternoon cleaning shift at that blasted restaurant. The past five times, it had been fine, enough to where he considered the extra money well worth the hassle and stress of making sure he got home on time. But today, three people hadn’t shown up. And the manager had lorded his job over him to get him to do the rest of their work. Considering his age, and how much trouble it had been to get hired in the first place, it was good leverage. He had only managed to finish a full hour and a half past the usual end of his shift. Which meant when they finally did get home…

Hank didn’t know he had a job. He probably didn’t care. But what he did care about, was that dinner was on the table when he dragged himself home.

He could only hope Hank was late, too. Very, very late.

Parker clung to the hem of his jacket as he fumbled with the keys to the apartment building. Her tug made him nearly drop the ring.

“Hang on, Parker.”

Numb fingers fumbled the key into the lock.

Another tug.

“What?” He snapped, harsher than he meant as he looked down at the girl next to him. But she didn’t seem to notice—all she did was point across the street, where through the haze of the snow Eliot could just make out a beat-up ford pickup.

Oh shit.

“Shit.”

Hank was already home.

—

Cheap scotch filled the air even in the hall of the complex.

No illumination came from inside the flat, but light from the hallway painted a staticky mural across the inner wall of the apartment through the ajar door. And that’s how Eliot knew whatever God existed decided to listen to his incessant mantra of not tonight, not fucking again. Because Hank loved slamming things. Doors against doorframes, shot glasses against bar tops, Eliot against the wall. And if he missed an opportunity to do any of those things, it meant he was so drunk off his ass that all he could do was collapse on the couch.

And that was where Eliot found him when he peaked over the back of it—sprawled prostrate across the leather like he had tripped over the rug and just faceplanted.

He blew out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, turning to look at Parker’s silhouette still standing at the threshold. He gestured for her to come in, putting a finger to his lips. Not that it mattered. It had been what felt like forever since she had made any noise whatsoever—vocally or otherwise.

She closed the door silently behind her, coming close when Eliot crouched to drop below her eyelevel.

*Go to bed,* he signed.

Her nose wrinkled. *Hungry.*

*I know,* he smiled at her, *I’m going to bring you something. Go to bed!*

Parker’s eyes flashed over Eliot’s shoulder. Her blue eyes looked almost white in the dim city light that trickled through the kitchen window, highlighting every facet of her young features in a deathly pale hue, casting whatever remained in darkness. She knew. She wasn’t naïve. Rose-tinted glasses had been stolen from her long before Eliot had been there to guard them.

*You’re coming too.*

*I have to get food.*

*Not hungry.*

“Parker…” Eliot growled, remembering himself just in time to make it quiet. He shot a worried glance over his shoulder, as adrenaline spiked inside his chest.

Quiet. Nothing but Hank’s soft yet nerve-wracking snore.

Relief left him in a slow exhale. He closed his eyes, collecting himself enough to be firm with the little girl as he signed again, *Go to bed.*

She just stared at him. With those big blue eyes. Bad lighting or not he could feel himself caving.

Firm.

Eliot took a breath.

Firm.

“Fine. C’mon.”

Parker slipped her hand into his on the way down the hall, refusing to let go like he would somehow try to make a grand escape to the kitchen. Which he might—for the sole reason that he was hungry and a fully stocked kitchen was a hard thing to turn down.

Most of the kitchens of the homes they were placed in were fully stocked. It was a hard thing to be approved as a foster parent if there wasn’t a stable environment. The trick came when the fully stocked kitchen was used as a way to keep the unruly kids under control.

Years ago, when Eliot was still safe in a home he realized too late he had taken for granted, he had thought abuse in the system looked like poverty. That it looked like shouting and hitting and foster parents too idiotic to realize hitting kids was a poor pastime. As a little kid it was far easier to believe that people willing to hurt others did so out of sheer idiocrasy. But none of that had been true.

The worst homes they had been to were headed by foster parents who knew how to cover their tracks. And cover them well. Disturbingly well. The worse they were, the smarter they were, and the more weaknesses they found to exploit in both the system and in Eliot.

Not in Parker. Never again in Parker. He would die before he let that happen.

Luck was against them, though. It seemed like they were cursed. Most couples who wanted to adopt were looking for abandoned babies. Which fine, good—any kid that was kept out of this casino of life was a good thing. But the older the kid, the more “troubled” the kid, the harder it was to find a good home. And when it was an unruly fourteen-year-old with “authority issues” and a ten-year-old autistic girl who had gone nonverbal in the stress of the system… there weren’t many homes that would take them out of the goodness of their hearts.

Parker would probably have a better chance of getting adopted on her own. But, he reflected, as she wriggled herself deep into his side on the lower bunk, the chances that they would get split up were slim, now. The first time they had almost been split up, they told him he had a ‘psychotic break,’ and Parker—she had shut down. Far down. He didn’t know what the technical term was, but ever since then they had slapped a clause on their adoption papers that they couldn’t be separated. Part of him was grateful. He didn’t know what he would do without her, and he hated the thought of someone hurting her when he wasn’t there to stop it.

Then again, a ‘twofer’ deal? With how long their psych papers were? They were cursed.

He tightened his grip on the ten-year-old, gently pushing back her hair from her eyes. They were still open—blinking languidly at some distant point over his chest and past the wall of the bedroom. Her hand tugged repetitively on his necklace, little tweaks at the same spaced intervals as his own beating heart. He felt it on the back of his neck, but he didn’t stop her. Just like she didn’t stop his pointer finger curling and uncurling the same lock of her hair. All of it was repetitive, predictable— an anchor in the gray dark of the room that kept them from floating off into the expansive silence.

“‘Night, sweetheart,” he murmured, as his eyes slid shut and he did his best not to think about tomorrow.

Chapter 2: Hank

Notes:

Huge thanks to 4Alarm_fire, Catatonic_Dwam, thoughtsatthreeam, and Some_Master_Thief for your comments! I loved every one, they mean a lot! <3

Eliot jolted awake. All of his senses pressed against the inside of his chest like he was going to explode, adrenaline thrumming through him so hard it took him almost too long to realize the restraining weight across his chest was Parker.

Almost, thank God.

They were still inside the small bedroom. The door still, was closed and locked with the portable deadbolt Eliot had swiped from a store at the airport. And Parker was still asleep, snoring just a little too loud into his chest.

He grunted in annoyance, letting his head flop back against the pillow. But he didn’t let himself relax—his ears still strained to hear what had woken him up so quickly, and at such an early hour. The gray light of the false dawn was barely enough to pierce through the thin curtains of the window. Everything was still silvery and indistinct.

A bottle clanked in the other room, followed by a muffled curse.

Eliot’s eyes closed—of course.

Steeling himself for a long moment, he held Parker tighter, pressing a kiss into the top of her head and allowing himself to just bury his face there with his eyes clenched tight. She smelled like cheap apple shampoo. But under that, was something just distinctly Parker. It loosed something in his chest, and he could breathe.

But as another curse, a slammed door from the other room, reminded him, he couldn’t stay there forever.

One more kiss, and he pulled away, disentangling himself from the little girl with an ease born of practice and a knowledge hard earned of where he could touch her that didn’t make her reactive. He eased her head down onto a different pillow—a real pillow, and she slumped into it with a muffled snort, automatically curling herself around it like she always did with Eliot, jerking her knee up into the pillow in an accidental reflex.

Like she always did with Eliot.

Shaking his head in fond exasperation, he blew out a breath and undid the portable lock, sliding the door open silently and leaving the lock hanging on the doorknob. It was a silent signal to Parker to stay in the room. Not that she needed a signal anymore, she knew what Eliot wanted her to do. All of this had become far too routine. The only thing that ever changed was the details of the deal Eliot made with their so-called guardians, the demands on both sides, and the guardians themselves.

Hank, he might not have been bad in another life. He might actually have been someone Eliot could have learned from, in some aspects. His wife had stuck around just long enough to put on a good show for CPS, and comes and goes just enough to keep up the act, all for the stimulus checks that are passed into her bank account every month. Checks that she probably spent on her new fella. She had taken the ring off of her finger a long time ago. Hank had not.

There were no excuses. But Hank had reasons, and that was more than Eliot could say for a lot of the homes he had been in.

With the door closed silently behind him, he crept out from the hall, clinging to the shadows for all of whatever protection they offered.

A flinch racketed through him when Hank slammed a cabinet door—the man hunched over in his hangover-induced state of frustration. That was, until he noticed Eliot loitering at the start of the hall. The teen could feel the glare even if it was hard to make out from under the shadow of the man’s arm.

“Where’s the coffee,” he growled.

Eliot made an aborted gesture with his hand, half-pointing to the cabinet just to the left of where Hank had been looking—and doubtless, had already checked.

“One door over—top shelf.”

Hank grunted, pushing himself away from the counter without even trying to reach for the cabinet.

He couldn’t help but hate himself, just a little, for the bubble of panic that grew inside his chest as Hank approached him, his shadow towering over Eliot.

But he just shouldered past him, with enough force to slam Eliot into the wall.

“Make some for me.” He didn’t even look at him on his way past. “I’m taking a shower.”

With Hank’s back turned, Eliot let his nose wrinkle. Good idea.

He got the coffee percolating, making note of the depleting supply—he needed to make a grocery run. Hopefully he could wheedle the money out of Hank, the man was absent enough that he didn’t pay much mind where he spent his money, until he got declined, and he didn’t care about paying for groceries—so long as they were there.

Then again, it all depended on the day. Every day ran into the next into the next, though, and it was almost getting harder to tell them apart.

Blowing out another breath, his fist collided with the countertop twice of its own accord. Parker. Get Parker.

—

Getting the blonde ready in time to actually get out the door in time for school was a challenge all in itself. Not that she minded getting out of the apartment—that much, Eliot knew she looked forward to. But she hated school. Hated it. Asking her to leave the apartment to go there was a bit like throwing her out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Especially since, as a freshman, this was the first year they were separated. And Eliot would have gladly had himself get held back, but then there would have been an intervention from the system—if he and Parker started affecting each other negatively there would be little help to be found to keep them together.

In the end, it wasn’t worth the risk. Even if it meant sending Parker into a school that hated the autistic as much as they hated sign language.

He looked up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, his own face behind her full of bobby-pins as he wrangled her bedhead down into something manageable. She kept swinging her legs under the small bench, munching on dry cereal. Braiding her hair was generally enough to keep her distracted long enough to tame her nervous stomach. A bonus was that it also stopped the school from phoning their foster houses about irresponsible mothers—letting their daughter go to school with her hair in tangles.

And he didn’t mind it, gently tugging the fine blonde locks into Dutch braids was something that calmed him, too—and it was more than worth the effort when he tied off the last band and let her see. The rare flash of teeth made it all worth it.

Out front of the school, amidst the clamor of the other kids getting dropped off, he pressed her smallest stim toy into her palm. It was one Eliot had swiped from a therapist’s office a year ago, a little pop-it that was easily concealed.

“I’m just across the courtyard,” he reminded her, “Anything happens, I’ll be there.”

She just nodded. It was what he told her every morning since the semester started. That didn’t keep the nervousness off her features, and it didn’t help Eliot much either. Because there were a lot of things he wouldn’t be there for—a lot of things he couldn’t help.

*Meet at lunch?* she signed.

He gave her a soft grin. *Of course.* It was one of the few perks to this district—the middle school and high school shared a dining hall.

“And if anyone bothers you—” he started, only to be cut off by her nod, and a nervous smile. “Go get ‘em.”

He prodded her towards the entrance, watching as her twin Dutch braids and bobbing backpack faded into the mass of other students. Only then did he blow out a breath to walk to the high school, running his fingers through his hair.

Three hours till lunch.

It didn’t even take that long for the day to go to hell.

He was sitting in history, trying his best to ignore the spitballs being lobbed at his neck, even though it made everything in him clench. But he couldn’t do anything about it, because retaliation meant punishment, punishment meant detention at lunch, and detention at lunch meant Parker would be sitting alone.

And the kid was lucky too, because he was about to frickin lose it anyway when the knock came at the door of the classroom.

“Excuse me, Mr. Marsh,” the woman smiled self-consciously as all the heads in the room swiveled towards her. “I’m here for an Eliot Spencer?”

He blanched.

“I’m in the middle of class, Miss Collins,” Marsh snapped back. “I’m sure whatever it is will keep—”

But he was cut off by Eliot’s chair scraping back, his backpack being scooped up off the floor as he rushed for the exit. The stares and staggered chuckles from the other students were lost on him.

“Parker?” he pressed. Because he recognized her now—recognized her name. Miss Collins, or the consultant psychiatrist for the middle school.

“Best come with me, hon.”

—

Eliot could hear the arguing even before the principal’s secretary opened the door.

“She disrespected me! Made me a laughing stock!”

“Parker?” Eliot paused on the threshold, the principal’s compact office leaving little space to scan for his little sister. He could barely make out her little braids poking out from above the principal’s high-backed visitor’s chairs.

The only other people in the room was the principal herself, Mrs. Jane Crow—an apt name for a woman with such a beak and glower, in Eliot’s opinion, and Mr. Hall.

All of the heads turned in his direction, with Miss Collins still hovering behind him. But he did better than ignore them—casting a sharp glare in Hall’s direction before he crouched next to Parker.

“So this is the brother, then?” Hall scoffed, “I don’t see much of a family resemblance. Other than the blatant disrespect, of course.”

“Joshua,” Miss Collins ground out.

“Parker?” Eliot murmured, tapping her knee to get her attention. She looked up at him—eyes dry, seemingly fine. But he knew better than to discount the slump of her shoulders, or the flickering avoidance of her gaze.

“What happened?” Eliot prodded.

She didn’t answer. Just looked up at Hall, her mouth tightening.

“She was stubborn and disrespectful,” Hall stated, tugging his jacket straighter as he leaned against the desk, “I asked her a question and she refused to answer. Kept refusing. Didn’t even respond to follow-up questions, just stared at me. And when I told her she would get in trouble if she didn’t answer, she started waving her hands all over the place like some kind of Satan worshiper.”

A bud blossomed inside of Eliot, white-hot and writhing as he looked over his shoulder at Hall, blue eyes boring a hole in the man’s own. Part of him, the part that was always distant and separated from every situation, watched with wide eyes from the corner, chanting to itself that no, this was bad, this was very, very bad.

The teenager straightened, drawing himself up to his unimpressive height. But his eyes, smoldering with a protective anger and a knowledge of things that this man, far older than him, never had to see, never had to experience—that more than made up for it. And he didn’t back down, not even when Parker tugged on his pant-leg from her seat.

“She doesn’t talk,” Eliot bit out. “At least, not to people like you.”

Hall, unaffected, glanced over Eliot’s shoulder at the little girl, derision still thick in his gaze.

And the bud of anger writhed thicker, spreading into his limbs. He clenched his fists.

“Mr. Spencer,” Miss Collins cut in, right before Eliot was about to do something he would regret.

Would enjoy greatly, but regret because he would be witnessed in the act.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance here?” she didn’t touch him, but she stepped close, between him and Mr. Hall, close enough that both of them were forced to look at her. “Mrs. Crow, it’s come to my attention in the two occasions that I’ve had opportunity to visit with Parker—”

“Occasions?” Eliot’s brow furrowed, “What occasions?”

“—that she expresses symptoms of autism.”

No, no, no… shit. He turned behind him to Parker, who had lifted her knees to her chest, and started rocking slightly back and forth.

“If it’s severe enough that she’s non-verbal, I can suggest several different treatment options in order to encourage her mind to stabilize—”

“There’s nothing wrong with her!”

“Spencer,” Mrs. Crow snapped, her voice cracking like a whip, “This is not within your authority to decide.”

Anger flared red inside him, tempered by a hopelessness that swelled inside his throat, making everything in him restless.

Give a little. Give a little to get a little. It was just another bargain. Bargains he could do.

His eyes, flitting furiously in the sudden silence of the room, stilled, focusing on the principal. “Ma’am…” he forced a smile. He hoped it wasn’t as venomous as he felt. “With all due respect, I know her. Better than all of you. I’ve been her brother for five years now. And when we first met, she talked. She talked!”

There was nothing more that he wanted, right then, than to wipe that skeptical, scrutinizing gaze off of Hall’s face. No one looked at Parker like that.

Give a little to get a little.

“If this is the case, Mr. Spencer—” Miss Collins started,

“It is!”

“If this is the case,” she stressed, holding out a placating hand. Lady or not, he wanted to bat it down. Or rip it off. “Then there had to be an outside stressor that made her go electively mute. Which, I might add, is a conscious choice—”

“But it’s not—”

“Mr. Spencer,” Mrs. Crow balked, “You will let Miss Collins speak. Or you will find yourself in detention.”

Eliot pressed his lips together, fists clenching and unclenching as the situation slipped further and further through his fingertips.

Taking a sharp breath, Collins continued, her patience obviously waning, “It is still a symptom that is likely linked to her autism, in which case I would recommend Applied Behavior Analysis and Intervention.”

He blanched. “But ma’am… she can communicate! We use sign language—”

“Well that’s even worse!” Mr. Hall balked, “Everyone knows that in the child’s developmental stage the most critical thing one can do is give a child an alternative to the norm. It’s no wonder she is retarded.”

Red. That’s all there was, red and red hot and red on his snow-cracked knuckles when they slammed into Hall’s fat mouth. And people could say whatever they wanted about the way he grew up—but Eliot knew how to throw a punch.

It slammed into Hall with all the force of a sledge hammer, knocking him to the ground and throwing him unconscious like Eliot had flipped a switch.

Mrs. Crow gasped, Miss Collins shouted her surprise, ducking herself between Eliot and the fallen Mr. Hall and pushing against Eliot’s chest as she ordered him to calm down. Parker was deathly silent. But over all of it, all the chaos and the ringing in his ears, the spout of fury still exploding rampantly inside him, there was one voice that cut over all of it, pulling a plug on his anger with more effect than anyone else had ever been able to.

“Eliot!”

His head snapped to the entrance, blood draining from his face as his eyes locked with the man at the entrance. Still wearing his mechanic’s pullovers, his neck still smudged with grease and pure righteous fury etched into his features.

Hank.

Notes:

1. In no way does Hank’s circumstances excuse his behavior, however this is written from Eliot’s perspective, and he has normalized this type of behavior so much as a coping mechansim that such thoughts would not be uncommon.
2. Autism in the 80s was very misunderstood and stigmatized, and treatments most often focused on making the child as ‘normal’ as possible rather than giving them the tools to function while still allowing them self-expression.
3. Selective mutism was also misunderstood in the 80s, with the assumption being that children were rude or stupid for not talking. It was called elective mutism rather than selective mutism, because it was assumed to be a conscious choice.
4. Sign language was another thing that was heavily criticized and often discouraged in schools, as it was believed to discourage vocal development and stunt the growth of the brain that processes language (this is false!)

Chapter 3: Another Deal

Notes:

Thank you so much 4Alarm_fire, mothweave, and Catatonic_Dwam for y’all’s comments! They made my days!!
TWs in the end notes. Stay safe!

Eliot could feel the anger smoldering in the driver’s seat, a low simmer that promised to boil over. Soon.

“I’m sure you are aware that this behavior is unacceptable, Mr. Serand.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hank nodded seriously, “He’s not going to walk free on this, I promise.”

“Still, I would feel better if I called their social worker. This type of behavior seems indicative of something deeper.”

Hank’s charming grin faltered. “A-absolutely, I understand that. But my wife is out of town—”

“I don’t see how that changes the necessity of the matter.”

Eliot could feel the panic, smoldered over in anger at the situation. Anger at Eliot. “Absolutely, Mrs. Crow. I’ll call her myself.”

“Oh and do have her call me afterward. I’d like to stay informed on this…” she glared at Eliot, “situation.”

He fiddled with his seat belt, dragging his nail along the edge of the red button, as if it would help to leap out of the car as soon as it stopped. To go in the house as soon as he could.

God, how could he have been so stupid? Parker or not, knocking out a teacher? Or worse—bringing the social worker down on them, that was a sin too big to forgive. Because it would mean that Hank had to call his wife, and his wife would bring her new boyfriend, and flaunt herself in Hank’s face for the whole time she was there.

Or Hank will have to talk the social worker down on his own, claiming his wife was out of town—and considering the fact that he hated this situation, never wanted to watch these ‘damn kids’ in the first place—that was a situation with equal anger.

But the worst part of this whole thing, was how Parker was looking at him from the back seat, eyes huge and blue with a panic simmering under the surface as her nails clawed at her own ribs, like she could wrench some comfort out of her own chest.

He gave her a half-smile, but it was forced, he could feel it. And it didn’t make the slightest difference. Eliot didn’t dare sign at her, not with Hank sitting next to him in the driver’s seat, but he mouthed, it’ll be okay, knowing she’d understand.

She understood. But she still shook her head. No.

No it won’t.

His lips tightened. He looked ahead, out the windshield, his own gut twisting as they turned onto Hank’s street.

Parker had barely stepped into the apartment ahead of him before Hank shoved at his back. Eliot caught himself on the doorknob, twisting with the motion so he was between Parker and the man at the entrance. If it was anger before, now it was fury—pulsating off of him, each wave more panic inducing than the last as he slammed the door behind him.

Eliot swallowed, pushing back at Parker when she grabbed at his back pocket. “Go to the room, Park.”

Her head shook against his hip.

“Park, room, now.”

“Yes, Park,” Hank sneered, stepping closer. Eliot pushed them both back a step, steering Parker towards the hallway. “Bed. Now. Good girl.”

“Park,” Eliot gritted out, a note begging entering his voice. “Please.”

Hank growled, kicking over the side table as he came closer—advancing slowly to their retreating steps. Like he was milking it, the bastard. The fear Eliot knew was rising in his eyes, that was already in Parker’s. It fumigated the air in a thick stench that Hank inhaled with a taste. A very particular, sick taste.

Parker was scared for him. Scared to leave him alone—and if he was honest, he was scared for him too. Scared like hell. But the one thing that terrified him more—

Eliot wheeled around, crouching hurriedly in front of Parker at the start of the hall. Hands on her shoulders. Moved to her face, cupping those cherubic cheeks still flushed with the cold. Her fingers latched onto his wrists with a death grip.

“Please, go,” he whispered, low enough that Hank couldn’t hear. With the words came an eerie sense of calm. “I need to not worry about you right now, sweetheart.” As if he could stop. But Hank was right behind him, not ten feet away, and his looming presence was already enough to send a rush of endorphins skittering through his limbs like staticky water. Enough that so many parts of his mind had already shut down, and all that was left was just Parker—Parker who needed to leave, now.

He inclined his head, giving her a weighted look. Please.

Please. I’ll come get you, I promise.

Please. It’s gonna be okay, but I need you safe.

Please, I just need you safe.

Parker’s lips tightened, her grip tightened, eyes glassy where they hadn’t been before, in the principal’s office. And he hated himself for that. Hated that he was what always made her cry.

She let go, her fingers brushing his freckled nose before she finally turned and skittered down the hall, vanishing inside their room without a sound. Like she didn’t exist.

“Y’know it’d be a lot easier to believe all that… sweetness if you weren’t such a hypocritical lying bastard.”

Eliot blew out a breath. His eyes slid shut. They opened as he rose, turning to face Hank with a dead look in his eye, his mind gone because he knew, there was nothing he could say, or do, that would soften the flares of Hank’s temper.

“When did I lie?” He asked, voice flat. Stance even. He couldn’t take Hank—not without repercussions that would be far, far reaching. But he could prepare himself to take a hit. In these situations, it was always the coulds—it had to be the coulds. He could blank his mind, take the punishment, let Hank let out all his steam, protect a part of his pride so that some of it would survive the night. The alternative was the couldn’ts.

He could leave. He couldn’t fight back. He couldn’t talk him down. Couldn’t stop him from doing whatever he wanted.

“The deal,” Hank stressed, the anger flaring with the words as he stepped closer, his shadow engulfing Eliot in the dim lamplight. “You stay small, you stay quiet, you don’t report what goes on inside this house…” he leaned closer, bending over. So close that Eliot’s ear was basted with his breath. “And I don’t touch your precious sister.”

Eliot’s throat clicked with his swallow. He stared ahead, at some distant point, far past the burly shoulder that blocked his vision.

“I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain—haven’t I?”

His eyes slid shut. He nodded.

“Have you?”

He shook his head.

“Have you?” a growl, this time.

“No sir,” he whispered.

“Sorry?”

A muscle jumped in Eliot’s jaw. “No sir,” he repeated. Louder. Stronger, as he stared Hank down.

“Because of you I have a whole mess to clean up. A mess I never asked for. Made by a fuck up that I never asked for.”

“Yes sir.”

“So… tell me, is there a reason I should take it easy on you?”

Eliot gritted his teeth.

“I’m not hearing one.”

He blinked, forcing himself to meet Hank’s eyes. “Please… don’t touch Parker. I’ll back your play the whole way, do what I gotta. Just—”

“Don’t touch the girl, I got it.” Hank nodded, and for a moment, the anger was gone. And it was just Hank, and they were talking about something simple, something serious, something that wouldn’t hurt. “So basically… do what I’ve been doing—and you do a better fucking job at your end?”

Eliot nodded.

Hank paused, as if he was considering this play. But he nodded.

“Alright.” Hank didn’t step back, as he started undoing his belt. “But you’re still getting the buckle end tonight.”

He closed his eyes. “Yes sir.”

No matter how hard he tried, Eliot couldn’t make the words louder than a whisper.

—

Two hours later, after an agonizingly slow shower and change, Eliot slipped into their bedroom, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the fuzzy gray haze.

He hadn’t even taken a half step into the room before he found himself with a chest-full of Parker, her small arms clamped around his inflamed back.

Eliot gasped in pain, barely stopping something far louder. “Park—Parker…”

She pulled back like she had been burned, and he didn’t need light to know she had been crying—he could feel the moisture on his shirt, hear the tiny sniffle followed by an equally small hiccup.

A smile split his features—small, broken around the edges, with far too deep a sadness in his eyes. Hands on Parker’s shoulders steered her towards the bed, and she grabbed at his wrists like letting go would make him disappear.

It looked like it would be the second night in a row with no dinner.

Eliot crawled in bed first, settling down with ginger movements, his back to the wall. “C’mere, Darlin’.”

It was a well-rehearsed ritual. As soon as Parker slipped in beside him, her small shoulders still trembling, gentle fingers grabbed hold of her wrists, directing her grip to all the places that didn’t ache. Tonight, it was his necklace, the outside of his tricep and upper shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a firm cocoon against his chest. Nose buried against sternum.

He let out a breath he didn’t even know he had been holding. His long hair was wild against his cheek as he pressed a firm kiss onto the little girl’s head. It made her shoulders shake. Everything around them drowning in the silence. But Parker’s touch, her grip on his necklace tightening with every beat of his heart, was enough to keep them afloat. A reminder.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, voice rough.

Parker’s only answer was to slip her hand under his baggy shirt, her cold fingertips tracing a raised welt on his back with a soft sting. They moved in the shape of a buckle.

No it’s not.

Eliot’s eyes wondered in the darkness over her head. They filled with a burn he was too tired to stop, as he buried his face in her hair, the Dutch braids no one bothered to remove pressing against his cheek. He held her tighter.

 

Notes:

Threats, verbal abuse, and off-screen beating with a belt.

Chapter 4: Not Safe

Notes:

Thanks SO SO SOOOO much to Cicada5, farful, mothweave, and SapphicLoser16 for your awesome comments! They’re truly what makes posting this worth it. <3
TW in the end notes! Stay safe.

He was dizzy by lunchtime.

No, if he was being honest, he was dizzy by the time he stepped off the bus, he was just biting through it with a stubborn jaw and a mind that clung fondly to the memory of the cold shower that morning. Even with the crimson that ran in coagulated clumps down the drain.

But they had woken up late, and it had been a choice between breakfast or a shower—not that he had eaten since breakfast the day before, but at the time it still seemed like the right choice. His back had throbbed with a stinging fire that rattled out in waves along his back in an electrical current.

Just like it throbbed now, screaming from the weight of the backpack that rubbed the coarse grains of his hand-me-down shirt into the raised welts. He couldn’t just carry it in one hand. Because he never did that, and as unobservant and self-absorbed as most people were, he couldn’t risk one exception to that rule noticing the change.

Even though it was doubtful—someone noticing him; the new kid, the foster kid, the kid that was tackled in flag football at least once per game because sorry coach, we didn’t understand the rules.

Just like he was tackled in PE that day, the shoulder in his spine landing like a wall against his back, like every blow he had taken from Hank the night before was laid out all over again.

Eliot hit the floor, the smooth wood grains cool against his fevered skin. His ears rang. Knees burned from the fall just lay limp against the icy ground. Icy ground against fire in his back. Fire and sweat and salt that burned every atom.

Something floated to him on the fog in his mind, voices all around through the ringing. No—not all around. In the distance, somewhere.

“You… to believe… so stupid? You’ve played this game—before Cassidy!”

Cassidy. Cassidy. Good name for a big jerk.

His eyes peeled open, blinking against the harsh light. Blurs everywhere. Blue with pupils narrowed down to pinpricks, Eliot watching from outside himself as sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down into his eye, splitting between his lashes as they moved in a slow blink. He barely felt the sting.

“Sorry, I guess I just got excited.”

“Well do it one more time and I guess you’ll just get detention!”

Eliot chuckled. Coach was a funny guy.

Sweat pooled around him. Something warm and thick spread on his back. He didn’t think of it. The school shirts were black.

Coach was a funny guy.

“Spencer! You alright?”

Something in him snapped back into place—right before a hand landed on his shoulder. He twisted to the side, dragging himself to his feet. It was effortless at this point to paste on a quick grin, dusting himself off as if nothing happened. The pain radiating into his bones from his back was just that. Pain. Just a feeling, nothing he hadn’t survived and pushed through a million times before—he’d be fine.

“Yes sir. Just didn’t want to move so fast I missed something,” he said, with a predatory glare over coach’s shoulder at Cassidy. The brunette jock, bulked with muscle on his frame, just glared back.

Just try something, skinny, he mouthed.

He didn’t stop glaring, through the sweat-drenched hair that hung in his face. Concealing the pallor of his skin, the bags under his eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he gritted out to the coach.

“I’d feel better if I sent you to the nurse’s office, you look a little shaky.”

That got Eliot’s attention. “No sir, I’m fine! Just adrenaline, y’know that deer in headlights look after a good rush?”

Coach looked skeptical. Behind him, Cassidy looked smug. Kid had no idea that it wasn’t him that Eliot was scared of.

He was never scared of jocks. Jocks had no power. Most of them Eliot could knock down even being half their weight and having half their muscle. They were big clunking tanks with no motivation of the mind and a lot of ego.

There were far worse things to fear.

“Alright,” coach said, releasing a tension in Eliot’s shoulders he didn’t know was there. The burn on his back stayed. “But you’ll sit out the rest of this class. Go get changed.”

Eliot smirked—that was a bonus, an empty locker room. Getting changed at the start of class was complicated enough to make sure none of his torso was seen. “Yes sir.”

This time, when Eliot peeled his shirt off, some of it stuck. Worse, a quick check on the inside of the material showed far more than blood, with globs of yellow standing out amongst the red, clumps of half-dried pus.

Damn.

He shoved the shirt in his backpack, hoping he could get it cleaned before anyone noticed. Since no one was around, and he still had a good twenty minutes until the end of PE, he took advantage of the showers, cold water sluicing the sweat off his body as he contorted his arms as much as he could with a bar of soap, scrubbing his back.

Pain. Just a feeling. Just a feeling.

The room spun around him.

Just a feeling.

He didn’t remember toweling himself off, or getting changed, all that stood out to him was when he checked his back in one of the few mirrors inside the locker room.

It shouldn’t have been that bad.

He had taken beatings before, far worse than Hank dished out last night, and it shouldn’t have been that bad.

Eliot tried to stop the shakes as he stepped out of the locker room, narrowly avoiding Cassidy and his gang as they entered. Lots of glares there—that he ignored, because it shouldn’t have been that bad.

His backpack felt so much heavier now, pressing against his back with a sharper pain. There was something wrong.

But it was fine. It would be fine. He had faced worse before, he had healed, he had moved on. Nothing would be different this time.

Turning towards his next class, he ignored the niggling voice in the back of his mind, the one that pointed out the weakness in his limbs, like he hadn’t eaten in a week—pointed out the pounding headache, the flush he felt in his face, the clammy feeling in his throat, the slight rattle of his inhale, the tremor in his hands, the way the room spun around him with every step.

It would be fine.

It had to be fine.

—

Another Wednesday. Hump day, life’s all downhill from here.

Yeah, right.

Marsh finished writing out the last date sequences of the Gilded Age on the board, listening to the students filing into the room, when the door slammed open.

The chalk in his hand snapped, spraying on his clothes. Gritting his teeth, he turned around, steeling himself against the instinctive reaction to snap at the student who just barreled through the door like an elephant on speed. Because no matter what these kids through at him, at the end of the day he liked the luxury of knowing he had stayed somewhat in control—of himself, if nothing else.

The teenager dragging himself away from the door was on the shorter side, with dark brown hair that had been bleached by the sun at the tips—it was long enough for it, hanging past his jawline and almost past his shoulders in the back, still wet from what Marsh had to assume was PE.

He didn’t know what Coach Ryan was doing to those kids these days, but this one looked like he had been through the ringer—face pale with a flush of red across the nose and legs that barely looked to be holding him up. The boy collapsed in a chair near the back, and even from across the room Marsh could see his grimace.

Eliot Spencer, his mind supplied, remembering the day before when he had been pulled out of the class. He had heard about what happened with Mr. Hall from the middle school. Personally, Marsh had always found him to be a giant prick, but it didn’t put points on Spencer’s board to have punched him in front of three of his life authorities. Hopefully his father had talked to him appropriately on the subject—these days, no one could tell.

What concerned him the most though, was the way the boy’s eyes lolled to the side—visible even at a distance. Drug use wasn’t as nonexistent as the school board would like it to be. Not rampant, but it was still common.

He would just keep an eye on him—right then he had a class to teach.

“Alright! Miss Stacy, please shut the door behind you. Today, we’re covering the last of the Industrialists to the end of Theodore Roosevelt’s term in office…”

Time passed quickly, as it typically did when he got to rant about his favorite topic. Much less get paid for it, as his sister constantly teased him over. Nonetheless Marsh was looking forward to the day when he could finally finish his masters, move to a college, be a professor, and have students with at least a smidge less hormonal disturbance.

But thankfully, today, disturbances were minimal. Paul Conner’s habit of passing notes was kept under control with a few pointed glares in his direction, and Sydney Renan wasn’t present for him to have to forcibly take her gum. He kept glancing at Spencer, noting the way the boy’s eyes just stared distantly at some point far past the board, unmoving. None of him was moving, except the way his shoulders were slightly more slumped, his head just a little lower every time Marsh reminded himself to check on the teen.

Drug use? Maybe it was just exhaustion. He could give the kid the benefit of the doubt, it wasn’t difficult when the only disturbance Spencer had ever caused was when he had to leave the class early yesterday—and that wasn’t exactly his fault. Overall the kid was reserved, if distracted, but respectful.

He didn’t like to put kids on the spot, but when Spencer’s head started to dip towards the desk he couldn’t help himself but snapping, “Spencer!” before he really thought.

The teen’s head snapped up. He grimaced, face just as pale as ever. “Yes sir?”

The words were slurred.

Maybe it was drugs.

Marsh raised an eyebrow. “Maybe use your free period to take a nap?”

That got a few chuckles throughout the room. He almost felt bad about it, especially when what he could only describe as exhausted panic crossed Spencer’s face. He squinted, like he was trying to read something incredibly important but couldn’t quite see it, his mouth opening and closing like his vocal tract was failing him.

“Yes sir,” he finally said. The words were clearer, now.

Marsh nodded, but hesitated to take his eyes off the boy as he turned to point to another date on the board. “Right. Another issue discovered in this era—”

“Mr. Marsh!” Stacy screamed.

It happened in slow motion. He turned, just in time to see Spencer’s eyes finish rolling up inside his skull, the teen’s limp body sliding out of his seat. It collided with the ground in a dead thud, like a lid slamming shut.

“Spencer!” Marsh rushed around his desk, pushing past standing gawkers. “Get back, give him room!”

The other students huddled back as he slammed down next to the kid, pushing thick hair away from his neck to check his pulse. He didn’t even look up when he spoke.

“Liam, go get the nurse, now! Conner, call 911!”

Marsh growled, panic clenching his chest at the faint sputtering heartbeat of the kid sprawled prone in front of him. Liam had already left—the door slamming open and his sneakers squeaking down the hall at a fast pace. Conner was slower—the emergency phone was in the corner, but it wasn’t long before he heard the teen’s shaky voice rattle off an address.

It was only then that he remembered the other students—the low murmurs throughout the room, shuffling movements in a panic.

“Everybody, out—go to Miss Renald’s class. Now!”

He ignored the scrambling mass of students, leaving fast enough that it might as well have been a fire. His attention, his world narrowed down to the boy who’s heartbeats he kept counting, as he waited, praying that he wouldn’t have to do CPR.

After the students left, before the nurse came, the paramedics, everyone else, and Marsh was shoved out of the picture, a stillness fell. It settled over the room, broken only by Marsh’s shaky breaths and the boy’s shallow rasps.

That was when he saw it, past the strands of the boy’s hair scattered across his shoulders—the puckered bit of flesh that poked out from under the kid’s collar. It wasn’t two seconds later that the first crimson bud bled through the black of his shirt, like glistening oil.

Eliot was unresponsive, oblivious, when shaky fingers tugged up his hem, exposing his back to the cold air of the classroom.

Marsh gagged, clamping his mouth shut to swallow the bile threatening to shoot from the knots twisted in his stomach.

Welts layered upon welts upon scars, broken skin ruptured from the damage lined with pussing sores, oozing slow yellow onto his inflammed back. Skin mottled the darkest purple, black across his spine. Almost every welt ended with a rupture—a rupture lined with upraised swelling in a half-circle. A buckle.

The macabre painting wrapped itself around the boy’s body like it was a broken canvas, the lines of paint soaking deep through flesh down to bone. Bones that stood out like raised bumps on a blind man’s book, skin stretched across them with little padding. So tight that Marsh could see where the shafts of his ribs didn’t align. Three of them, clumped under the skin in bulges that had swollen outward and looked near rupturing. One that already had.

He didn’t know how long he stared, heartbeat all but forgotten, before the nurse came. Before the paramedics came, before the nurse half-lead him down into a seat while professionals crowded around the vulnerable body, throwing words far over Marsh’s head as they worked in tangent to load him onto a stretcher. Face down.

He didn’t see it when Eliot’s eyes flickered open. Didn’t hear the murmured, half-panicked Parker that slipped out of Eliot’s mouth. As movement in front of him kept blurring out of frame.

But hell, if he didn’t hear it the second time. The name coming out as broken and cracking as the boy who said it, just as he was lifted onto the stretcher.

He jerked against the hands that held him, panic rising, flinching away from the cold teeth of scissors stripping away his shirt—the last rip of the cloth tearing away vibrating through him as foreign hands brushed his skin. Gloves. Didn’t touch.

“Park… Parker!” the scream flayed his throat, his voice the last part of his body to betray him, the rest of it already had; lying limp, unresponsive to his cues to push the hands away, his face twisted in pain, water running across his nose, his temple, into his hair. “Stop…”

“You’re gonna be okay, kid—what’s your name?”

A light shined in his eyes. Blinding him. He flinched back, panting hard.

“Stop—”

“You’re alright,” the voice was calm. Too calm. Too calm and belonging to one of the hands that touched him. On their side. Not his. He was the piece of meat. “We’re gonna take care of you. But I really need you to tell me your name.”

“P…Park…” he squeezed his eyes shut, flinching away from a cold touch against his lower back. Piece of meat.

“Parker?”

“Sis… sister. Please, Parker—not… safe. Not safe.” More tears fell—helpless ones. Because he couldn’t move, couldn’t stand, couldn’t fight—and the deal was off. “Please… ssshe’s not—”

“Alright, alright—we’ll get your sister.” The voice was the only thing he could make out, in the dark, amongst the hundreds of other sounds, other words, that roiled together in an ever-turning fog blocking out everything else. “I need your name. To get your sister, I need your name.”

He pressed his lips together, heat washing over him in a wave. Hatred burned in his chest, breaking out of his throat in a half-sob. “Eliot.”

“Eliot.” The touch on his shoulder then, was different than the rest. It was calm, soothing, a grounding point in the chaos and all the other touches and the movement and the pain ripping through a body he could hardly feel, hardly move.

“We’re gonna take care of you, Eliot.”

Notes:

TW: Graphic depictions of injury, and paramedical procedure from the POV of a patient