HIDING - every scar has a story

21. Mouth shut.

*Lovelies, pretty much anytime we're at Cary's house you should snuggle up somewhere safe to read. Just saying... we're getting this boy out but it takes time.*

{Cary}

Cary woke up to the smell of pancakes. For a second, lying still, he thought he was at Jon's house. He bent his knees to roll out of bed and his bruises kicked him wide awake.

His house. Time to get up.

Standing wrenched a sound out of him and he hung onto the desk, waiting for his vision to clear. His stomach's hungry clench demanded he eat, and the smell of pancakes could not be his imagination.

The walk downstairs to the kitchen took a long time. When he got there, he found his father standing at the stove, flipping pancakes in his jacket and pleated pants for teaching.

Cary blinked and ducked into the hall to hide. When had he ever seen Conall making pancakes?

His mother was gliding up the hall, the baby in her arms. She smiled when she saw Cary, her eyebrows coming together like a question mark. Liam's eyes were open; his little face was propped on his mother's shoulder looking at where they had been. Cary watched his brother watch him as Beverly went into the kitchen. His father turned with a smile for his mother and put his hand around Liam's soft head.

"I think Ciaran might like to join us for pancakes," Beverly said.

"Of course," Conall said, turning two fresh onto the stack on the plate. "There's plenty."

His mother looked into the hall. Cary didn't move from where he watched through the crack in the door. She came out to him, smiling. "Ciaran, your father has made us pancakes." She brushed a hand over his shirt, and he shied back.

"Honestly, did you sleep in your clothes again? Come in and have breakfast before you go to school," she said.

He couldn't tell if she even knew she was lying anymore. "I'll eat in the kitchen."

The mood of the morning made her generous. "Alright honey. I'll make you a plate."

She told Conall he wasn't feeling well. Cary saw his father lift his head to look out the door. There was no sharp edge on his expression. Cary drew a full breath and his shaking stopped. That look told him he'd bought a kind of safety for himself as well as Liam—for now.

When his parents had gone into the dining room, Cary stood at the counter in the kitchen with a plate of pancakes stacked six high. He ate quickly, washing the food down with milk from the carton. In the dining room, his parents were laughing and making easy conversation about getting a nanny. Cary looked at his last pancake, golden and soaked with syrup on his plate. There had never been a morning like this in his memory.

He had never tried to touch the bottom of Conall's anger and leave him empty.

Cary set his plate in the sink and leaned on the counter. He had done it. He had taken it all. In a handful of days he would have his body back for himself—not healed exactly, but close. He heard Liam's contented chuckle in the dining room, talking to himself under the sound of his parent's voices.

Worth it.

Cary gathered the dirty dishes off the counter and started to load the dishwasher. He heard his father leave and his mother settling Liam for a nap.

He was drying the griddle when Beverly came into the kitchen. She put a hand on the counter, smiling with half her face. The other half was doing something he didn't recognize. "I'll run the bath." she said. 

///

*Trigger warning: blood.*

When Cary went upstairs his mother had the tub full, as hot as he could stand and grainy with Epsom salt in the bottom. Cary locked the bathroom door and stripped without looking at himself in the mirror. He lowered himself into the steaming bath, gasping, then slid his head under. The water boomed in his ears and was hot on his eyes and face.

He saw his father make his hand soft for his brother, cupping Liam's downy head. Something hurt Cary inside, deeper than his bruises. He stayed under the water, eyes open, mouth shut.

Mouth shut. He could stay under a long time, almost two minutes. He sat up. There was another soft tap on the door.

"Cary?" His mother's voice sounded different, plain like her face without make-up. "Do you need your back done?"

He looked at the water, already pinkish. He cleared the water out of his ears, took a breath to steady himself and reached a dripping arm to the knob of the door behind him to turn it open.

They didn't look at each others' faces or speak. His mother scrubbed his back in quick, smooth movements, then poured water over his shoulders, a double bowlful, to wash the torn, dead skin away. Cary pressed his face against his knees, his hands clenching the hair at the back of his neck hard enough to hurt.

The bathroom door clicked shut.

He splayed his hand against the tile wall, feeling himself tipping into black. A minute or two, a drumline of heartbeats and the feeling passed. He reached back to lock the door, then lifted himself out of the tub.

He caught a look at himself in the mirror. Shit. He blinked and in the black of his eyelid falling he was in the basement again—holy hell Conall was angry, swinging so hard he couldn't move fast enough—and then Cary was looking at himself again, his white face and black eyes in the mirror. Mouth shut. 

*Trigger end.*

///

On his way out of the house, Cary stopped in his brother's room. Liam was sleeping, curled like a little peanut under his blankets. He reached into the crib and put his hand around the back of Liam's soft head, feeling his brother's warm skin under his cold fingers. Liam stirred and sighed. WIthdrawing his hand, Cary gripped the crib rail to just look.

He wasn't a child anymore. He knew Conall would be angry again in a week or three or five. His father's anger would fill the house until the air crackled with its dark electricity and his mother tiptoed around the edges of rooms, white and quiet.

He would have to do this again. The realization pressed on his face like water. He held still, not breathing.

In that moment he thought of the God Jon prayed to, if there was such a person for him. If not for him, then for Liam. His mouth was shut but the words came out somehow:

 If You are real, keep him safe.

(not like you kept me.)

Cary went to his mother's bathroom, made himself a cocktail of painkillers, and went out. 

1153 words.