009: Pure Again Daylight, Chapter 6

[beautifultragedy]

Fandom: Breath of Fire
Story: Pure Again
Summary: Very Bad Things happen when rogue demigods try to reverse time.
Warning: references to sexual abuse

From the Eyes of the Son

Behind Mom's house there was a pond. This pond froze over nicely in late autumn, at dusk. After dinner, Mom and I usually went out back, watched the sunset, and then she'd light a floodlight and spotlight the pond, while I pulled on my ice skates and practiced a bit. It used to bother me, how she'd watch. I was only practicing. I wasn't competing. But pretty soon I warmed up to her cheering and encouragement. After ever stretch of practice, we'd go inside to warm up- or cool off, in my case- and I'd comment about how she was spoiling me, that I needed someone to point out my weaknesses, not cheer on my every strength. "Leave that for your coach," she told me with a smile, and then asked when in the world I was going to get one?

Rzalyn and I had discussed the idea, multiple times. I decided it was probably better to wait until the wintertime, but winter was coming quickly. Rzalyn really was my coach, in all but name.

I told Mom about the competition in two months. "Is that really long enough time for you to prepare, Hon?" she asked, forehead wrinkled in concern.

"Yeah, plenty." I took a sip of my hot chocolate. "You'll be there, right?"

"Of course!" Her voice was a mix of care and annoyance that I'd even suggest that she might not be. "What does your father have to say about it, though?"

I grimaced and looked into my hot chocolate mug. I had no idea. "Why?"

"Just curious. You haven't told him you're planning on competing, have you?"

I set my mug down. "No."

"May I ask why?"

I sighed. "Demeter's a witch, that's why. I swear to god, the woman's trying to drive Dad and me apart. She’s… constantly doing things solely to make my life difficult, and then whining to Dad when I dare to say something about it, in ways that no one would suspect." I picked up my mug again and cradled it- my hands were suddenly icy cold.

"And you think she'd object. What sorts of objection do think she'd have, that your father would see as valid?"

"Oh, I don't know! But I'd bet everything that she'd find one way or another to break my concentration, if she doesn’t stop me from competing at all."

"I see." She set her mug down, then took mine from my hands and set it back on the table, then took my hands into her own. "Garr. I love you more than anything else in this world or outside of it. There's absolutely nothing that can ever change that."

I blushed slightly, a little uneasy. Mom always held my hands when she knew something was wrong. Could she have found out about-? "Yeah... Thanks, Mom."

"I mean it-"

"I know." I raised my eyes to make eye contact. "I love you too, Mom. I just wonder what brought that on."

"I know when something's not right with my son."

"Oh." I pulled my hands away from hers, glancing around. "Hey-? What time is it?"

She chuckled, and glanced down at her chrysm-powered watch. "Quarter of midnight."

"Crap. I better get going home now."

"Why? You told them not to wait up for you, didn't you?"

I stood and pulled on my jacket. "Yeah, but you know Dad. He's probably still up, and he has work tomorrow."

She smiled and stood as well, as I reached down and grabbed my mug. "Yes, I know him all too well," she said smugly while I drained the hot chocolate that was left in the cup. "Give him my regards?"

 I nodded as I took the last few gulps, and then set the cup back down. "Will do." I embraced her and kissed her on the cheek. "Love you, Mom."

 "Love you too, baby. Be safe walking home." She ruffled my hair with a warm smile on her face. I whistled a merry tune as I left and walked down the street, drowning in my thoughts. We didn't have school tomorrow. I figured I'd probably go to Tommy's grave before I went to the ball... I needed to let him know I still had his hair tie.

 Thomas wore his hair about to his shoulders, and he always had a lock of it by his left ear braided, and a series of yellow, blue, red, and purple strings wrapped around it. When Alex had found him, he'd removed the strings and braided them himself. And he brought them to me, because he knew how much Thomas meant to me. I tied it around my wrist and swore I'd never remove it.

 I really scared the daylights out of Mom and Dad the day after Alex told me that he was dead. I don't remember anything I did that day before the night, at around ten when Tommy usually showed up. I completely lost it then. I tore my room to shreds- toppled my dresser, dumped my bookcase, smashed my desk, ripped my clothes from the closet, destroyed the posters that adorned my wall. By the time Dad and Byron managed to subdue me, my hands were bleeding from punching hard objects that didn't readily move. And I kneeled there, amongst the ruins of my once-immaculate bedroom, with Dad and Byron pinning me down and refusing to let go, and I cried until my voice was gone.

 A few days after Tommy's funeral, I went to his grave and sat there, just talking to him, with my back against the headstone. After a while, the words left me, and I found myself kneeling in front of the stone, pleading for him to come back. Then I cried until I lost my voice again. I think I must've fallen asleep there, because I woke up in Wyndian Hospital, being treated for hypothermia. It wasn't fun.

 I was still thinking about Thomas when I arrived back home. All the lights were out; I immediately went upstairs and knocked on Dad and Demeter's bedroom door- I saw a dim light coming from underneath it. "It's open," I heard my father's voice, very soft, and I opened the door and peeked in.

 Dad was sitting next to his side of the bed with a little lamp on, wearing his reading glasses. He was reading a book on ways to use Black magics for healing, and he looked up at me and smiled. "I wish you'd called, Garr. I was getting worried about you."

 I sighed, repentant. "Sorry, Dad. I lost track of time." He was right, I should have called. I usually only did if I was spending the night at Mom's, but then again, I generally left at around nine 'o clock if I wasn't.

 "It's all right." He picked up a bookmark and placed it in the book, then set it down on the nightstand and rose and walked towards me. "So, how's your mother?"

 I nodded. "She's doing well... She said to give you her regards."

 He grinned and chuckled. "Have fun over there?"

 "Yeah... I wanted to talk to you about something."

 "Oh?"

 "It can wait until after you get home from work tomorrow."

 He stifled a laugh, as Demeter was sound asleep and he probably didn't want to wake her. "No, my son, it's so rare when you want to talk to me about something, I want to hear it now. I'm curious." He smiled again, I figure to let me know that his comment wasn't intended as a dig at me.

 I looked down at my feet. "Well, there's a competition in a few months... an ice skating competition. I want to enter."

 He raised an eyebrow at me. "Is two months long enough to prepare?"

 "Of course. I'm the best in Wyndia." I flipped a stray lock of hair back over my shoulder and reached behind me to undo the clasp of the hair band. I shook my hair out, then snapped the band onto my wrist and gave Dad a cocky grin.

 "Well, in that case, you know I'm going to have to buy you a new pair of skates, right?"

 I brightened quite a bit. "Really? Those ones-"

 "Yep."

 If I weren’t afraid of waking Demeter, I would have whooped for joy and threw myself in Dad's arms. As it was, I settled for just throwing myself in Dad's arms. "Thank you!" I'd seen a pair of pure white skates, with steel blades that had been gilded with silver. The shoes of the skates had silver etchings on them, and the laces were a comforting shade of blue. When I'd pointed them out, Dad had initially thought that they were women's skates, but I was elated to discover that they were, in fact, men's. But my elation was crushed when Dad saw the price tag and said absolutely not. I wondered what had changed his mind.

 Dad embraced me, chuckling. "Don't mention it." He pulled away, stretching. "I assume Rzalyn will be your coach?"

 I thought about it for a second. "Actually, yeah, but would you be willing to co-coach?"

 "I'd be honored to." He yawned and shook his head. "Gods. I'm sorry, Garr... I need to get to sleep. It's the middle of the night."

 "I know. Love you, Dad."

 "Love you too, Garr." He hugged me. "Go get some sleep too, okay?"

 "Kay." I returned his embrace, and then headed down the hall to my room, and I heard Dad's door shut again. 

 I passed Janus and Sara's room and stopped. Then, after a moment, I opened the door and went inside. First I went to Sara's crib- she'd kicked off her blankets and was whimpering slightly. I reached in and pulled her covers back over her, then stroked her forehead until she slipped back into full sleep with a sigh. I smiled warmly, thinking about how much I loved her and Janus.

 And with that thought, I walked over to Janus's bed. He, too, had partially thrown off his covers, and I tucked them back around him. He opened an eye and looked at me. "Hi, Garr," he whispered sleepily.

 "Hello there... too hot?"

 "Nope. Bad dream."

 "Want to talk about it?" I knelt next to his bed; he shook his head vehemently.

 "Uh-uh. Mom was hurting you in the dream. I don't want to think about it anymore."

 I blinked and felt my chest tighten in panic momentarily. I managed to get my wits back to me quickly, though, and I brushed his bangs off his face. "Okay."

 "Can you sing me that lullaby, Garr? The one you sing in Draconic?"

 I nodded and began singing softly. I knew he didn't understand the words, but I guess the sound of them just soothed him, like it did for me when I was his age. I sang to him until I heard his breathing even out and deepen again, and after a few more minutes I paused. "Janus?" I whispered. He was fast asleep again.

 I left their room and shut the door behind me, then went into my own room. I looked around. My desk had to be replaced after I destroyed it, and the walls had to be repainted to cover the patchwork Dad and I did to fix the holes in them from my kicks and punches. I could still see the wreckage, though, and my room being so clean again downright scared me. Sighing, I stripped down to my undershirt and boxers, grabbed the pill bottles that held the medicines Dad was making me take, and downed one of each straight without any water, and climbed into bed. I closed my eyes and fought to concentrate on sleep, but I couldn't. I kept thinking about Demeter and the abuse I had to put up with. Any normal teenager would have killed themselves, or her, or both by now. Both murder and suicide were starting to look good to me, though. That scared me.

 I turned my thoughts to how, in the springtime, the pond behind Mom's house would be warm and fun to swim in. I'd take Janus to Mom's, and she always welcomed him like her own son, and fed us lemonade and fruit salad and her absolutely divine chocolate chip cookies, and Janus and I would splash around the pond for hours on end.

 And then there were times when, in the evenings, after Demeter's... attacks... and I'd go running to Mom's and she'd let me spend the night there, no questions asked. I'd sneak out after she was asleep and go out to the pond, and just stand in it, in the area where the water was chest-deep to me, and think about what she said. If you lay a violent hand on me, Garr Bateson, I will have you committed for insanity so fast your pretty little head will spin. Is it really worth it to stop me? Was it? I wasn't sure sometimes.

 So I just stood in the pond. And thought.

 Suddenly, I felt a hand wrap around my ankle, and yank me beneath the water's surface. I looked down, and saw that it was Demeter, and I instantly started to struggle, but the more I tried to twist away from her, the tighter her grip was around my ankle, and the further down she pulled me. I looked back up, and we'd sunk so far already that I couldn't see the sunlight anymore. Sunlight? But it was the middle of the night! I-

 I couldn't breathe. I was rapidly becoming very light-headed, and my vision was blurring, and my lungs were burning. I was drowning. But I couldn't get away from her! I couldn't! Was she trying to kill me?! In desperation, I threw my arms up and tried to swim against her, back to the surface.

 And then I felt a hand wrap around my wrist and tug me upwards. I could barely see at that point, but I managed to recognize him- Thomas... Demeter shrieked beneath me, and Thomas pulled on my arm again, and then growled, and swam downward. "Let him go," he sneered, and with that, he put a hand against Demeter's face, and a flash of light erupted from it. Demeter instantly released me, but I was too weak now to swim on my own. I was loosing consciousness. I felt Thomas wrap his arms around me. "It's going to be okay, Garr. You're going to make it through this. It's going to be okay." And then he started swimming back to the surface with me and moments later, we broke the surface, but I still couldn't breathe. "Garr? Garr! Garr, wake up! GARR!!!"