Chapter Text
“Simon, Tommy, can one of you give me a hand?”
A few seconds of a silent duel between brothers; Tommy mouths I helped this morning, and Simon could easily deflect that with a No shit, me too, but the fragile peace lingering in the living room is a rare guest in the Riley household. Simon won’t be the one breaking it: so conceding is the way to go.
“Sure, mum,” Simon mutters, half-happy for the excuse to leave, while Tommy just mumbles an excuse. It’s only shitty Christmas telly anyway, the same films they show every year; his father making the same shitty jokes every year.
He stands from the old, stuffy sofa with a swift move. Tommy and his father don't even glance at him, eyes glued to the screen; entranced by Zulu as if it was the first time they’ve ever seen it.
The kitchen light brushes the crown of Simon’s head as steps through the door.
Sharon Riley is moving around in the small kitchen with hurried confidence, busy hands seemingly everywhere all at once. “Thank you, love. Could you make the table and fold some napkins while I finish this?”
“Course,” Simon awkwardly hovers around the cupboards, waiting for his mum to move. When she does, he gets out the plates, the ceramic clinking together when he sets them on the table. Simon is sixteen; his new height makes the small space a hard, claustrophobic fit.
Some of the meal is already done; roast potatoes covered to keep warm, fresh from the oven mince pies cooling on the counter. The mouth-watering scent of cinnamon and nutmeg lingers heavily in the air.
Simon leans in to sniff them. “What kind?”
“Made them without ginger, just as promised,” his mum smiles, tucking a stray hair behind her ears. She slips past Simon to grab the oven mittens; she barely comes up to his chin. It’s always a shock to realise how much shorter she is than Simon, now. “I know when to accept defeat.”
“Thank God,” Simon sighs with relief. He loves mince pies, so last year’s experimental batch was a bitter letdown. Tried recipes don’t need any fixing or experimentation, in his opinion. “Thanks, mum. Know you liked those.”
Her back still turned, his mum gives a tiny shrug; something she always scolded him for as a child, but now that they are old enough, she’s been easing up. “It’s alright, love. They are not worth tweaking around if then one of my sons refuses to try them.”
Simon snorts. “Told ya I knew I disliked ‘em.” He sits to fold the napkins his mum left out (little snowmen and Christmas trees printed on dark red) as she checks on the turkey. The hot air escaping the oven warms his cheeks pleasantly. It’s not exactly cold in the house, no: he remembers the times when it was cold, when even under two blankets he had to lock his jaw so his teeth wouldn’t clatter too hard. But the sweater he is wearing now still is too-small, with sleeves that ride way up above his wrists; and even in the mild winter, the heating could be turned a lot higher up.
Simon does not complain. There is warm food on the table, and under the tree there are even some small, symbolic gifts sitting wrapped up. Gifts that sure as hell haven’t come from his dad.
A few years ago his father had put an empty box under the tree with Simon’s name on it, after he’d asked for something big. He’d laughed when Simon realised it had been empty and he’d slapped him when he didn’t stop crying for too long. The year after his mum had had to beg him to even touch his gifts. In the end he had given in for her, but the lesson had been well-learnt, carved in flesh-deep: Simon doesn’t hope or wish for them anymore.
Simon swallows back the memory, the bitter taste on his tongue. Forces himself to take a deep breath, his fingers to keep on folding, choking down on the echoes of old hurt constricting his chest. He is glad that his mother’s back is turned.
The buzz of the telly from the living room is overtaken by raised voices; Simon cannot make the words out, but they make the hairs on his back stand. Sees the way his mum’s hands still, for a second.
“ –now! ”
“Alright, alright!”
The couch creaking; steps approaching, his brother’s figure appearing at the door.
Tommy’s lips pressed in a thin line. “Dad wants another beer,” he says in a clipped tone. His shoulders are hunched; he seems smaller than just a few minutes ago.
Their mum frowns, the lines of worry on her face casting a new shadow. She doesn’t say anything as Tommy moves to open the fridge.
Simon grits his teeth, a bright-hot wave of emotion rising in his chest. Fuckin typical. On the one day his father could have the common fucking decency not to drink himself into one of his moods. This choking fury is somewhat new; he used to be only scared, made to feel small. Yet nowadays the dark thing roiling in his gut is mostly composed of anger, of disdain, of disgust.
It’ll be his seventh bottle today. Simon has been counting.
In front of the open fridge, Tommy hesitates. “Uh…” He starts shuffling things around; and it’s no wonder. Usually it is hardly so full that it is difficult to find anything in it, but it’s Christmas. It’s actually full now.
The creak of nylon, the sound of glassware and wax paper being moved around is louder than the telly from the living room, louder than the tense silence ringing in the kitchen. “What the…,” Tommy mumbles. He leans in even more; pans and pots knock together, milk cartons are moved.
“Sometime today, son!” from the couch comes the shout; thunder in the distance, closing in with a rumble.
“Just a sec!” Tommy’s raised voice wavers. “I’m just– Just a minute!” Another round of shuffling. He starts tapping around, behind whatever he can see; a minute stretching out, drawing agonisingly long.
But he cannot find it. He cannot find it, and their father’s fuse will blow and their mum will cry in the bathroom again, at Christmas, and–
Their mum starts pulling the mitten down. “It’s alright, love, let me get it–”
“Christs-fuckin-sake.”
It is too late; they can all hear the rumble, the couch creaking. The heavy footfalls approaching like doom.
Nigel Riley is a gaunt man, his frame scraped clean of muscle and fat from years and years of substance abuse. Yet he is still broad-shouldered and tall; he has to duck under the kitchen light to storm inside.
Small, malevolent eyes take in the scene before him deceptively slow; Simon. His mum. Tommy, frozen in place. A dark spark of pleasure in the silence, the fear.
“You deaf, son? ‘ave you not heard what I said? What are you waiting for?” Under the thin veneer of pleasantry the dark fury ringing in his voice is unmistakable; sickening tension curls in Simon’s gut from his suffocating presence, making him clench his jaw.
“Sorry, dad,” Tommy mutters, staring at the floor. “I’m looking, just–”
“Get the fuck on with it then, would ya?” there’s a muscle twitching on dad’s face. His lips curl into a rabid dog smile, with a mouth half-full of blackened, chipped teeth; a bear-trap, ready to snap shut.
Lately, their father’s had it out for Tommy, ever-preferred as he always was before. The not knowing of why fills Simon with the unease of being left out of a mean joke; an urge of desperate protectiveness rises in him, one he’s mostly felt towards their mum before.
“Sure, just…” Tommy trembles before cutting himself off, turning back to the fridge. The thin ice hasn’t escaped his notice, of course; getting berated, getting hit for things only Simon’s gotten hit for before. His hands are clearly shaking as he searches around.
Their father does not move, and with him, time seems to freeze too. Simon cannot understand why they are even playing pretend. The tension in the house is pulling ever-tighter, and the prickle under his skin is telling him it’s gonna snap soon. That it was always meant to snap: that it was always meant to be a day like any other.
(His father, mouth parting in an ugly laugh, leaving out a half-empty can of Stella the night before. ‘That’ll have to do for good ol’ Father Christmas’, he’d said, and he’d dropped a half-smoked smoke in the stale beer.)
The napkin wrinkles in Simon’s fisted hands.
Their father’s eyes are on Tommy’s back, but Simon’s eyes are on him instead, eyes burning a hole into his forehead. Just fuck off already. Leave him alone.
His mum wipes her hand on her apron. Her tone is forced, plastic-cheerful. “It’s alright, love, I can help–”
“Nah, Sharon.” Their dad waves a dismissive hand; a gesture that makes Simon’s blood boil. He lazily glances at Simon; an odd look he can’t make sense of. “Boy’s old enough, is he not?” He takes a step closer, looming over Tommy like a bad omen, a shadow. “He can help his good da out.”
Tommy frantically nods and makes an agreeable sound. He freezes for a moment, seemingly out of ideas, then he stretches up, reaching for the upper shelf; and after a few moments of shuffling, glass finally clinks together.
“Got it now.” Tommy turns, bottle held in his hand. His eyes are downcast; unsure if that was it, or just the smoke to signal the fire. “Sorry, dad.”
“Jesus fuckin’ finally.” Their father’s bony, skeletal shoulders seem to marginally relax; he seems to consider letting it go. The collective relief is almost palpable. “Can’t a man even get a pint in his own fuckin house...”
He reaches for the bottle and–
Maybe it’s Tommy’s shaking hand, maybe it’s their father’s carelessness, or the condensation dewing on the glass; but somewhere between it all the bottle slips; and glass explodes into a thousand green shards.
Glints of light dance on the glass littering the floor; mocking razor-smiles, each a new insult in the venomous dip of time refusing to flow.
Simon’s heart beats a million, or maybe not at all.
The napkin in his hand, long-forgotten, is torn.
“You useless little shit!” their father hisses at Tommy, saliva spluttering from his hateful maw. His huge hand swings between a blink and the next; he hits Tommy so hard he stumbles backwards.
The slap echoes louder in the small, shitty kitchen than the sound of the broken glass from a few seconds ago.
Tommy is standing frozen where he’s hunched, mouth agape, eyes too-wild. “I’m sorry, I– it was an accident,” he rasps. His hand presses on the reddening spot on his cheeks. “Please dad, I’m sorry–’
That only seems to surge their father on. “Oh you’ll be fuckin’ sorry,” he spits, and it’s as if Simon watched in slow motion; their dad grabbing Tommy’s sweater, pulling him in close, fist already raising–
“YOU LEAVE HIM THE FUCK ALONE!”
The shout seems to echo in the small space; it encases the already tortuous drip of time in rigid glass.
Simon finds himself standing.
His hands are braced on the table, and his chest is heaving with something vicious. He vaguely realises the words came from his own mouth, still twisted up in a snarl.
His dad’s gaze turns on him, inch by inch, hand still raised; as if he didn’t believe that it was Simon that spoke. The anger on his face momentarily morphs into shock.
Through the blood drumming a vicious staccato in his ears, Simon is vaguely aware of the deathly quiet. His own heaving breath stuttering in his chest is the only sound in the kitchen. A drop of a pin could be heard.
There’s blood in the water.
The pitch-dark, careless evil Simon is intimately familiar with in this father's eyes slowly focuses on his elder son. “What did’ya just say to me?” The tone grates against Simon’s ears, drawing blood.
But in the haze of his anger, the violence thrumming in his father’s words is just a tide breaking on Simon’s shore.
“You heard me.” Simon growls. He straightens up and circles the table. His fisted hands shake with the emotions in his core. “Leave him alone.”
“Ya think you’re giving orders to me now, ya little cunt?” The grip of his big, boney hand on Tommy tightens. His gap-toothed grin is a rusty blade, ready to cut. “I do whatever I want with my own fuckin’ brats, including you.”
“Simon, Nigel–” his mother tries to step up.
“You shut the fuck up, Sharon! This is men’s talk, innit?” His father growls eyes still on Simon, gleaming with sick delight. “Because that’s what you think you are now, kid, do you? A man?”
“I’m more of a man than you,” Simon grits out, voice shaking like his clenched fist, standing his ground. He’s looking up at his fath– no.
No.
It dawns on Simon that he is not looking up.
Their eyes are almost on the same level. They are almost the same height.
And with a nauseating clarity, it clicks.
(Not even a month ago: catching the look of rigid calculation in the dark, malicious eyes, as hands rose to strike; a moment of hesitation Simon couldn’t even comprehend at the time.)
He is almost as tall as his father.
The slow change he’s witnessed shoddily slides into place somewhere in Simon’s mind. He had a growth spurt this summer, didn’t he? He’s almost 6'3”: it's not so easy to hit him now. The lack of patience towards Tommy, the odd look in his father’s eyes; the measured, animal calculus of how far Simon can be pushed before he stops being scared. Before he becomes angry; before he knocks that hand away.
Before he hits back.
It’s the same animal that lives in Simon: the same part that caught the scent of hesitation, the scent of weakness. The part that has seen the blood in the water.
Simon stares at his father as if he was doused in ice-cold water.
His father takes a step towards Simon; Tommy makes a choked-off little whine in his hands. “Dad–”
“Ya fuckin shut it,” and his hands fists again, anger refocusing on his younger son. He’s about to hit Tommy again.
Before he knows, something in him boils over; Simon’s body takes a step forward, ready to shove.
He doesn't get the chance; his father’s boney fist connects with his jaw with an audible impact. He hits him so hard that his vision whites out, that he sees stars.
He can barely feel the back of his skull knock against the wall; he only distantly feels falling to the floor.
There’s someone screaming: his mother, probably.
Hands fisting in his hair, wrenching his head back–
(Big, calloused hands grabbing Simon by the cheek, wide-eyed, and all he can do is to look up, and up, and up. Through the terror, the drumbeat of his own heart, he can’t focus on the words his father snarls. She’s. She’s d. She’s dead– No, she can’t be– she’s– His dad’s breath stinks of stale beer, making Simon’s gut roil, his nose sting. He can only manage a high-pitched whine, but he knows that he should laugh.)
A hiss, “Now ya did it,” and he can just curl up before the kick’s impact reverberates through his flesh and bones. And another.
At least his father isn’t wearing shoes, a dark part of him supplies.
And another and…
Must not have been more than a few seconds, but in the terror of his helplessness it feels minutes before he realises he’s been let go.
Smon’s body aches. There’s a sharp pain in his split lips where soft tissue knocked against knuckles and teeth.
Red drips on the floor slowly, one by one.
He turns his head, and looks up.
His father is looming above him, a few paces back that nonetheless feels too fucking close. He’s wheezing, and his hands are still fisted. The self-satisfaction and the hatred in his eyes are like his fist, tainted with blood; there’s a taunt there, a challenge waiting for Simon to rise.
He wants more; he urges Simont to want more.
The visceral revulsion of understanding chills Simon to the bone. A deep-set knowledge sinks down into his marrow; that this is how it will be, every day, from now on. He and his dad– they will kill each other. His dad will kill Simon before he gets to grow a bit more.
Maybe not tonight. But in days, weeks. Months.
The clarity of the revelation makes Simon’s breath hitch more than any kick; in that moment, he understands that can’t stay here anymore. Of course– Christ, why is he still here? He is a fool.
With that, Simon tentatively moves; his face and side throb in sync with his pulse. He blinks his swimming vision clear; the dirty off-white of the kitchen floor shines, stained beer-yellow. Green glass shards reflect the pulsing Christmas lights hung by the window.
They grate under his socked feet as he stands, knees trembling with adrenaline, cutting into his sole.
He wipes the blood off his face; it sticks to his fingers.
His mom and his brother are standing frozen, pale-faced, they know better than to interfere, to fight his father. The skin on Tommy’s cheek is still bright-red in the shape of a hand, and there are tear tracks on his cheeks.
Well, maybe Simon doesn’t fucking know better, not anymore. Something in the core of him steels, goes cold; he’s almost as tall as his father. He doesn’t have to take it anymore.
“Alright,” he raps into the silence, voice stiff, hoarse. He is sixteen; he can just… leave now, can’t he? Even his fath– no. Even Nigel can’t order him to stay anymore. “I’m done.”
He looks at his mum, at Tommy with muted grief and shimmering anger before he storms out of the kitchen, not even noticing the light brushing his head. It's as if he was piloted by someone else, dragged around on strings.
“Yeah, tha’s righ’, off ya go.”
For once, Nigel is right.
Time shrinks and dilates at the same time; going numbly up the stairs he is swimming in something thick and slow. It’s his and Tommy’s room; the worn bunk bed, old toy soldiers and wire puzzles on the shelves that he will probably never see again. Tommy's drawings, scattered all around. He doesn’t pay attention to any of it; he starts changing out of his beer-stained, sticky clothes with ragged, jerky movements.
He’s pulling up his jeans when he realises that the napkin is still clenched in his hand.
He stares at it in a daze. The cartoon snowmen are torn now, stained with beer and blood.
Simon’s brain short-circuits, head turning left and right, looking for a dustbin he knows he won’t find. Where should he–
–There is nothing. And he finds that he can’t make himself throw it on the floor.
He clenches his fist back around it; fingers gripping a lifeline. He finishes dressing and he haphazardly throws a few clothes in his bag.
He walks down with his shoulders set, rigid determination in his steps. Emotions in his chest start to bubble back up; anger, despair, a sick sort of joy. He’s done. He’s free. Fuck Nigel, fuck this all, I’m not going to–
With full force, he runs into Tommy; the impact makes them both stagger back.
Tommy’s wet eyes widen as he sees his clothes. “Simon– What are you doing?”
Fuck Tommy too, Simon thinks, then he immediately regrets it. “Leaving,” he grunts out and pushes past his bewildered brother, overwhelmed with the need to shake him off.
He strolls to the hallway. Boots, coat. His hands shake as he starts lacing them up, his back to the kitchen door.
Tommy is not having it though, of course; he clings to Simon’s arms, small grip deceptively strong. “Simon! What? What do you mean? Please, don’t go.”
“I have to,” Simon manages in between his teeth. “Sorry, Tommy.”
“But you’re coming back, right?” Tommy’s voice is laced with desperation. He eyes the bag on Simon’s shoulder. “You’re just going for a walk, right?”
Simon peels his arms off him. He should lie. “No.”
Tommy’s breath hitches, eyes going wider. “What? No, when are you coming back–”
“I’m not.” His hand stills reaching for his coat; it used to be Nigel’s. Simon inherited it this fall. The thought of putting it on suddenly feels unbearable, nonsensical; he reaches into the pockets, for his keys and wallet, and shoves them into his own.
Tommy’s grip around him laches himself at him again, hiccuping. “Don’t, please. If it’s because of me, I’m so fucking sorry, Simon, I didn’t mean to…”
It takes all Simon has not to knock his hands away. He should have lied. “It’s not your fault.”
Fighting himself, Simon puts his hands on Tommy’s shoulders and looks him in the eye. He needs to make Tommy understand before he goes. “I promise it has nothing to do with you. Okay? But I’m leaving.”
Tommy’s voice slips into a pleading whisper in his ears. “Fuck, please, Simon. Don’t leave me here alone.”
A jagged jolt of pain stabs Simon in the chest; his conviction almost wavers, overwhelmed by guilt. He has to go now. “I’m sorry, Tommy. You’ll be fine,” he manages. He squeezes his shoulders. “See ya.”
Simon picks up his bag and looks back; across the hall, in the half-light of the kitchen his parents stopped arguing. It’s his childhood that ended a few minutes ago painted in one harrowing image; his father sitting by the table with a new bottle. His mum, picking up pieces of broken glass.
Her eyes widen when she sees what he’s about to do.
He needs to go.
“Si–” his mum’s and Tommy’s voice rings in unison as he bolts through the door, banging it behind him with full force. He can’t bear to hear what they’d say.
He marches down the empty street in a haze, barely seeing anything in his way. There’s something lodged in his throat, a pressure behind his eyes, in his chest, constricting his lungs. He doesn’t watch where he’s going, the visceral urge to put as much distance between himself and that house overpowering everything.
He doesn’t know where he stops; his chest is heaving with heavy pants. The night air is cutting him skin-deep: he crosses his arms shivering, eyes closing, his rage not enough to keep him warm. Maybe he should have taken that coat.
He forces himself to take a deep breath; in, out. It’s alright. Tommy will be fine. Now that he’s out of the way, his da– Nigel will calm down. Simon can almost convince himself of that; that without him the house will feel less claustrophobic, crowded.
The taste of freedom sours quickly in his mouth; his heart is trapped animal trashing with the knowledge that he really is leaving Tommy, his mum.
Fuck. He’s not even gone yet but he’s already worried.
Simon runs a hand over his face; he belatedly realises that his lip is still bleeding. That his arms and side are aching with the throbbing pain slowly letting itself known. It’ll be okay. He has the keys to the butcher’s shop right in his pocket; it has a backroom, a couch. His boss won’t mind him taking a kip there, maybe even staying for a while. He’ll never have to go back to that house. It’s okay.
He lets out a deep, ragged sigh.
Simon leaves, and knows that he won't ever come back home.