Chapter Text
The first morning, you wake up sore.
Bro is passed out on the floor next to your bed and the smell of stale whiskey permeates your room. You remember crying in his arms last night and feel stupid, worthless, hoping desperately that he was too drunk to remember when he wakes up. When you sit up, you have to stuff your knuckles in your mouth as the muscles around your middle scream in protest. Tears prick at the corner of your eyes and you refuse. You're done being pathetic – look where it's gotten you.
The blanket swaddling you slides down to your waist and you're still naked. Studying your bare chest, you feel ugly, wonder why you ever thought you could be anything more than a toy for someone to break. How could you have been so foolish as to believe you were loved? How, when every day of your life spoke to the contrary? Who would ever, when all you can do is curl your arms around your stomach and choke on tears like a little bitch, pitying yourself for your own mistakes.
The trek to the bathroom is a rough one. You first manoeuvre as best you can around Bro's long legs, a feat made all the more difficult by the spasms of pain in your lower back. He grunts angrily when you trip over his foot, barely catching yourself from sprawling by the corner of your desk. Walking is a chore. Your legs refuse to sort themselves out right, buckling and making you stumble, making you sag against the hallway wall to even stay upright. You've never been this clumsy in your life. Even with Bro's constant presence to prove that you'll never be the best – or even adequate, really – you've still at least always been quick and steady on your feet. Even after getting trashed by an ass whupping, even when you haven't eaten for days. Your faltering, shambling gait only drives home to you how weak and useless you truly are.
In the bathroom, your reflection in the mirror is a trainwreck. There is a very long moment in which all you can do is stare in horror. Bruises mottle your neck, form fingermarks over your hips. An angry, red bitemark mars your shoulder and you know that if you turned around, you would find a similar mark on your ass. You gag, convulse a little as a surge of nauseous self-loathing rises in you.
Wrenching your gaze away, you stagger into the shower, fumble the door closed and yank the water on, hot as it will go. It scalds and you flinch, hating yourself for not being tougher, forcing yourself to endure it. Your back hits tile and your fingers grope for a bar of soap as you slide slowly down the smooth surface. Drops of overheated water sting your face, your muscles cringe and ache, you grip the soap in your fist against your body.
You are loathe to touch yourself, wincing every time your fingers slip over the soap and graze your skin. The steady drum of water barely helps, for as much as the pain burns away surface sensation, you can still sense the sweat, the grime that has soaked down to your bones. Huddled in the corner of a box of looming tile and frosted glass, the hiss of the shower muffling all else, you can almost imagine nothing else exists. All you need is for the water to work quicker, to boil and melt your skin off until you slip away down the drain, forgotten and never missed.
One arm slung across your knees supports your weight as you clean yourself, but no matter how many times the soap repeats the same circuit, runs over the same track of skin, the feel of hands on you clings deep. Your fingers can't slip lower than your navel. You can hardly bear to look at the traitor between your legs. When you divert your gaze away from your scrawny, shameful body, you see the water circling the drain tinted red and your hands betray you.
The soap that hits the floor with a wet thud is doing nothing. Your fingers find skin, already tender under the heat, and you'll peel it off yourself if you have to. The welts your nails leave begin light, quickly dissolve into the flush scalding water has already marked you with. After a while you can't even watch. Your attempts are feeble, like the rest of you, hopelessly scratching at the surface as you bang your head against your knees. The air in your small space is thick with heat and moisture, robbing you of a throat hoarse enough to give voice to your silent, open mouth.
_ _ _
The apartment is empty when the hot water runs out and you pull yourself shivering out of the shower. The towel on the rack is Bro's, big enough to wrap around yourself, hide the new scratches and abrasions. Fear of the empty apartment thunders in your head. Your room is close, you can enter it and never come back out. Fear again clutches your chest when you try to enter.
Crumpled on the floor, you see your silk boxers. The boxers you were given to make you want it; the ones that mean you deserved it. Your room isn't safe. Nowhere is safe. Your skin crawls and a trickle of water down your spine makes you think of fingers touching you and your throat closes up. You stagger backwards out of your doorway, heaving for air, make it to the living room.
Bro's futon is propped upright and his comforter smells like him when you cocoon yourself in it. However much you might get whupped later for getting in his bed wet, the scent of him is familiar, oddly comforting. It reminds you of being little and running to him when you were scared in the night. He always called you a pussy, but he never sent you away, and you think that he was right. You have never been strong like him, or brave like him, or tough – and you think you never will be. Because people like him aren't as stupid as you are, they don't let themselves get tricked, they don't get raped.
You bury your face in Bro's blanket, and smell him all around you, and it feels like a shield. As long as you bury yourself in this scent, in these soft, white layers of protection, you will be safe. You will be hidden and no one will be able to see the sad, trembling child that you really are.
_ _ _
Fingers clutching your upper arm and hauling you up into a sit is what wakes you sometime Friday afternoon. You almost scream in panic, but Bro looms over you, shaking you in his grip until you're focussed enough to look up at him. The expression on his face is one of pure fury, only heightening your terror.
“Th'fuck is this?!” he demands, shoving his hand in your face. His breath is thick with the smell of liquor and you're still too disoriented to make sense of what he means. When you finally realise he's holding your phone in front of your nose, your stomach sinks. The familiar image on your screen of your sleeping form makes your head swim and your chest feel tight. You look up at Bro, pleading silently, mouth agape. His upper lip twists into a horrible snarl. He smacks the side of your head, the plastic cupped in his palm biting into your temple.
“Answer me, y'stupid little shit,” he shakes you, making your sore muscles ache and the blanket around you slip down to your waist. “The fuck is this?!”
Your mouth flaps uselessly, unable to find words, searching for breath as you shake your head desperately. An irate exhale accompanies the tightening of the grip on your arm as Bro kneels in front of you. He redirects his attention to your phone, his silence furious and judgemental as he interacts with the screen.
“ 'Why,' “ he suddenly starts reading. “ 'You lookin' t'step up your game?' “ Your blood roars in your ears. You try to squeeze your eyes shut, knowing what comes next, but Bro gives you an angry shake.
” 'Y'gonna come up here'n have your way with my tender young body?' “ He continues, his voice a tight mix of seething rage and a mocking pitch. He scrolls a little with his thumb. “ 'Maybe you'd like that...catchin' me...vulnerable, unable t'fight back.' “
“Stop!” you manage to choke out, shaking with a dry sob. Bro turns his face back to yours and you can tell he's glaring through his shades. “I'm sorry!”
”Y'gonna cry about it, y'little sissy?” he snaps, throwing your phone down beside you and shaking you for good measure. “Y'gonna baw about it like a little girl until I actually feel sorry again for somethin' you brought down on your own fuckin' head?!”
His voice is rising and he's shaking you like a ragdoll and you can't stop crying, can't stop proving him right. Apologies spill from your mouth as steadily as the tears on your cheeks because of course he's right, of course you did this to yourself. Everything is your fault.
“Shut up!” Bro reinforces his order with a slap across your mouth and you bite your lower lip, swallowing your sobs. “You fuckin' retarded or somethin'? Th'fuck would ya do this for?”
You feel so stupid and guilty and ashamed. Bro jams your phone in your face again. Red and black pesterchum dialogue hovers mockingly before your eyes.
”Y'want me t'fuckin' feel sorry for ya when you were askin' for it?” Your chest feels like it's imploding. “Y'think y'getta cry like a bitch when y'wanted it?” He slaps you again when you shake your head and try to say “no.” “Th'fuck'd ya think was gonna happen, y'stupid little shit? Th'fuck is wrong with you?!”
”I-” the words don't come out right. You struggle for breath. “I-”
”I- I- I-” Bro mocks you. “Spit it out, y'pussy little retard! You what? Y'asked for it? Y'got what you deserved?”
”I though someone actually gave a shit!” you manage to spit out, before clutching your sides to try and keep your sobs forced down. Bro rears away from you and you brace yourself for another blow. Instead, his hand leaves your arm, and without the support you double over.
You hear Bro's angry footsteps walk away from you, hear the jingle of his keys. The slam of the front door makes you jump, fills you with shame and despair. He can't even look at you, won't even beat you, you're too disgusting to touch. You rock forward, arms wrapped around yourself, forehead against your knees as you run your throat hoarse sobbing. Of course he doesn't care about you. Why should he, when everything you are is weak and ugly and the complete opposite of how he taught you to be? Why should anyone?
Your tears carry you through the afternoon, through hunger, until you're long past too exhausted to sit up and grow too weak to stay awake.
_ _ _
Bro doesn't return on Saturday. You drink water. You can't force yourself to eat and you remind yourself that you should be grateful to Bro for this survival mechanism. Without years of experience, you would never have learned that water and Advil can perfectly substitute a meal.
The sound of your phone's last, dying gasp is loud in the silent apartment. It's the first noise it's made since Bro brought it out here. There are no more texts for you, to tell you how attractive you are; no more emails to make you feel desired and cared about. He hasn't even come back for seconds, though your fitful dozing magnifies every tread or creak in the building into paranoia, makes you feel the grip of hands holding you down all over again. Conscious, however, you know that he's done with you. You've served your purpose, been broken in. Whatever worth you may have had has been used up. You have nothing left to offer.
You don't bother to get your phone. The charger is in your bedroom, and the yawning maw of your door is enough to make your hands shake. It dies, and you don't leave the futon, and you pull on one of the shirts Bro discarded on the floor when you need to go to the bathroom.
When you pour ibuprofen out into your hand, you stare at it for a long while. The medicine cabinet is full of pill bottles you don't bother to understand – the prescriptions are made out to people you don't know, the labels don't tell you what they do. You look at the five, neat little red tabs in your palm, the full cabinet, and wonder what would happen if you took everything. You're too much of a sissy to find out, and as you close the cabinet, you tell yourself it's because you did actually want it, you liked it.
The image the mirror throws back at you is small, pathetic, drowning in an oversized tee belonging to a man far greater than him. You're not a man; it's too late for that. All you are is scrawny, bony, nose too big, skin too sallow, circles around your mutant freak eyes much too dark. How could you ever think you had a chance? Who would ever actually like you? You dry-swallow the Advil and limp back to the living room, crawling back into your little den of Bro's smell.
_ _ _
Sunday around 1, a smack on your bare butt startles you awake and Bro's voice tells you, “Put'cher ass away, little dude.”
The blow makes your still-tender insides ache in pain and you struggle to pull in sobbing gasps as your mind dredges up the feel of fingers digging into your flesh, pulling you apart. You tug Bro's shirt down to cover yourself, as if that will save you, and concentrate on getting your breathing under control as you sit up.
Bro returns from the bathroom and the sway in his step tells you he's drunk again. You wonder if it's still, but then he stops before you and you brace yourself for a repeat of Friday night. His fist extends and you flinch before you realise it's an offering. Watching him carefully, just barely catching the fleeting knit of his brow, you cup your hand below his. Three light blue, oval pills fall into your upturned palm. You frown at them in confusion.
“What're these?”
”Jus' take 'em, they'll make y'feel better.”
He walks away and you don't know if the nausea that rises in you is from hunger or the aftershocks of remembered sensation, the ghosting feel of hands clutching your hips. You tilt your head back and throw the pills down your throat. One of them sticks a little. Bro is rattling around in the kitchen, and by the time he comes back into view, he's on the phone ordering pizza. He's got two Coronas threaded in his thick fingers and passes you the opened of the pair. Warily, you accept his offer, eyeing him as your hands clutch cold glass.
He isn't even looking at you. You wish he was. If he was, you could tell him you don't deserve this, you failed him, you're not an adult – a man, like he is. But he remains face forward, and you have no choice but to wash down the pill clinging to your throat with bitter swill. You don't cringe once the whole bottle, but Bro isn't looking to see. He finishes his call and simply twists off the cap of his own beer, drinks it in silence as he flips the TV on.
When the pizza arrives, Bro is on his fifth beer. You feel...flat. Not numb, not sad, not anything. Just flat, grey, maybe a little drowsy. Or a lot drowsy. Things feel kind of like melting. It's different from a normal sort of drunk – one beer doesn't do much for you anyway. The smell of the pizza makes your stomach growl, but you're not hungry. You watch Bro eat slice after slice, silent, swaddled in the warm, formless mass of his comforter. The sounds from the TV are slow, incomprehensible, and your head is fuzzy.
As Bro stands, his movements are hard to follow. The sight of him dusting crumbs off his pants makes you dizzy and you close your eyes. Your head slumps against the back of the futon and if you hear Bro leaving the room, you think maybe you imagined it.
Bro's hand falls on your shoulder and you open your eyes in surprise, see him standing in front of you. It's a struggle to get your head back upright, keep your eyes open. You breath feels a little short and Bro is trying to draw your attention to the table.
“These'll help y'calm down, okay?” he's indicating a small collection of the pills he gave you earlier. Sound is behaving wrong. “If y'can't sleep, these'll fix it,” he indicates a second collection of awkwardly elliptical yellow pills. “Y'gotta make 'em last though, so don't be takin' 'em all at once, a'right? Shit's expensive, y'know?”
You nod. You actually don't know, but nodding seems right. The hand on your shoulder pats it heavily.
”Y'got all'a that, little bro?”
Another good time to nod. Bro leaves your line of sight. His footsteps cross to the door, it opens and closes. You hear the scrape of the key in the lock and his footsteps on the stairs. You wait for the fear to come. It never does, and you breathe a sigh of relief. Still, you pick up one more pill out of the first set, just in case.
You spend the rest of the afternoon staring blankly at the TV.
_ _ _
Days slip by unnoticed. Time leaves dark pockets in your memory. You sleep, dream of suffocating, wake to shaking and paranoia. You don't keep track of how many pills you take a day – one, two, three, sometimes even four. You take one whenever footsteps in the hallways become too loud, when the creeping feeling of being watched seeps into the edges of your mind. You favour blue over yellow; when you combine them you're left flat on your back, half-paralysed, mind clear and blank. No matter how much you take, your supply doesn't diminish.
Bro is in and out of the apartment – mostly out. He's always drunk when you see him, sometimes tweeking. Sometimes he sits down next to you and shares a bowl out of his personal stash. Sometimes you play awful knock-offs of more famous FPS franchises together, and things almost seem normal again, but for your newly acquired inability to competently hold a controller.
He doesn't hit you; he hasn't since he found out you asked for it. He doesn't touch you at all. For all the times you've been rankled by having your hair ruffled; for every dick move elbow-jabbing your ribs or shoulder checking to fuck you up when you're winning against him; even for how many times you've resented him, your butt sore and bruised from his belt – all of it was preferable to feeling filthy and tainted. Even when he's been home for one of your nightmares, he doesn't so much as extend a hand on your shoulder to anchor you back in reality. He just stands and watches until you've stopped trying to tear your blankets off, until you've realised where you are on your own, that you're not being attacked. When you've settled, he gives you brownish-orange pills stamped OC, and tells you to chew them so they kick in faster, and hands you a bottle of apple juice to wash down their horrible, bitter taste. He's always already out the door by the time the first warm, euphoric waves wash over and calm your anxiety.
At some point your charger appears in the living room. You get an email from John, asking if you're okay, if you still want to come visit him, apologising for anything he might have done that made you mad. It's dated 6/13 and you can't tell him that it feels like he's writing to you from an alternate universe, or to a different version of you, one who's already dead. He can't know, so you tell him that everything's fine, you're still on for coming up, you just can't get on pesterchum because Bro's being a dick. You hate lying to him. You pick up a yellow, look at the neat little PERCOCET stamp on one side for a moment before popping it in your mouth, and you wonder if things will be better in Washington.
By the time you wake up the next day, you've forgotten about the email.