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“Do you ever just realise how small you were when the abuse started?”
Jay wished Tim was home right now so he could ask him that question; he needed to know he wasn’t alone in this, and Tim’s childhood had been so much worse than his; if anyone would understand, it’d be him.
“Do you ever just realise how small you were when the abuse started?"
Because that was what Jay had just done, he'd realised how small he was when the abuse started. Not how young, he’d known that for years, but how small. He remembered being so short that he had to tiptoe to look in the little mirror his mother always kept on the windowsill in the living room. That mirror had still been there the last time Jay had gone to visit his mother in his old childhood home, and something had drawn him to it. He’d kneeled down in front of it while Tim chatted with his mom and she told him stories from when Jay was younger, conveniently skipping over all the ones that had Jay’s dad in them. From the way she was speaking, you might have thought she’d raised Jay as a single mother.
Her voice faded to nothing in Jay’s head as he looked into that mirror from the height he would have been back then, just barely able to see himself in it if he tiptoed. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked them back. He didn’t need Tim to notice and ask what was wrong. This was meant to be a nice trip to introduce Jay’s partner to his mother; Tim didn’t need Jay messing that all up by having a breakdown.
He felt like he might have one, though; he felt like he was breaking, and all he wanted was comfort, but he couldn’t ask for it. He wouldn’t even be able to tell Tim what was wrong. Tim didn’t need another thing to worry about; it wouldn’t be fair on him.
Getting back to his feet and looking down at the mirror, Jay used his hand to measure from the mirror to himself. Kid Jay would have come up to where the bottom of Jay’s ribs were now.
At most.
That would have put kid Jay just under two feet shorter than he was now.
A whole 59 centimetres.
23.5 inches.
And Jay had been a thin kid. He’d looked like a stiff wind could knock him down. He’d played a game when it was windy, where he’d jump straight up when a particularly strong gust came along and see how far it blew him. And, from what he remembered, it always managed to leave him standing in a different place from where he started.
He’d been a small kid, short and thin, and generally looking breakable; he’d seen photos of himself from back then.
His dad had been screaming in that kid's face, insulting him, and threatening him, when he’d looked like that. His dad was taller than he was, even now, though only by a couple of inches. He must have seemed like a giant to kid Jay, the towering and all-powerful dictator of his life.
He’d been a full-grown adult man screaming insults and threats of physical harm (if he was feeling nice enough to only threaten it that day) at a child who would have been over two feet shorter than him and maybe five stone sopping wet in woollen clothes. Jay remembered standing on the scales in his parents bathroom and watching the arrow point to the 4. He’d always been weirdly proud of that number.
Thinking about that number now, all Jay could think about was that kid him would have been half the weight of his dad. Maybe even just a third of it.
Jesus.
Jay had seen kids the ages he’d been when the abuse was happening, and all he could ever think was, “How could anyone ever bring themself to do those things to someone as small as this?”
Mat, his youngest cousin, was 8 when Jay last saw him a year or two ago, the same age kid Jay had been, and he was a well-fed kid, probably heaver than kid Jay would have been, and Mat was still so small. When he’d hugged him, all Jay could think about was how he could never bring himself to raise his voice like that at someone so small, let alone raise a hand to them. Both Mat’s parents were tall too, so chances were that Mat was taller than kid Jay would have been.
And still, the idea of doing the things that had been done to him as a kid to someone that small made Jay feel sick. He couldn’t scream like that at Mat. He couldn’t threaten him like that or insult him. He couldn’t hit him. Even if Mat wouldn’t cry, look scared, or react at all, Jay still wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do it.
But knowing the way that he’d reacted—the way kid Jay had reacted? The way he’d shaken and cried, the way all the blood had drained from his face and turned him deathly pale? The way he’d frozen, then ran, then fought when his dad had caught him? The way he’d screamed back and tried to be scarier than his dad? The way he’d screamed to try and tell his dad that he was scaring and hurting him?
His dad had known.
His dad had known exactly what he was doing.
His dad had known exactly how scared kid Jay had been.
Kid Jay had worn his terror on his sleeve, wielding it like a shield, like his dad would finally see it if he just cried a little harder or screamed a little more agonised. Like his dad would suddenly realise what he was doing and stop.
He never did.
Jay couldn’t even imagine being faced with a child who thought he might kill them and just... continue to act like he might kill them if they made one wrong move. How could anyone justify that to themself? In the moment or afterwards. Even if the kid didn’t think you might kill them, even if they were just normal amounts of terrified, how could anyone keep doing the things that were scaring them that much?
Jay had seen videos of kids in those situations, videos taken by mothers as evidence of what was happening.
Someone can’t do those things without knowing how utterly terrified that child is.
They can’t.
So why did Jay’s dad do it? Why did he scream, insult, and threaten? Why did he hit and hurt? Did he not care? Did he enjoy inflicting such terror and pain? Did he think the ends justified the means?
What even were the ends he was trying to achieve?
Now, years later, Jay was in therapy, and he still couldn't work it out. He was living in a safe home with a partner he’d stuck with through what had felt like the end of the world. Something about that ‘end of the world’ had felt all too familiar—an ‘end of the world’ that had brought back feelings and safety mechanisms that Jay had trained into himself as a child.
The only real difference was that this time Jay had been able to fight back; he’d been able to escape what was happening, even if it had only been for a few months at a time. As a child, he hadn’t had that; even school hadn’t saved him. At least this time, when he and Tim had been hunted like injured deer, they’d been able to do something about it; they’d been able to snap Alex out of it, and they’d managed to figure out what was happening to Brian just in time.
They’d all been hunted and haunted by what was essentially a force of nature.
And they’d won.
And Jay had learned something about monsters: swap out a human monster for an eldritch one, and you might just find that the human one is the more horrific of the two.
Even now, when Jay was in therapy and working through his childhood, he would still argue that his dad just hadn’t known that he was hurting Jay (well, kid Jay and his kid sister), but he knew his dad had known. How could he not?
Jay heard the things that he’d screamed as a kid in his head sometimes—the things that kid Jay had sobbed and cried to try and get his dad to stop scaring him. He heard the terror that had been in his own voice. He felt that horror, and desperation, and gutting dread that seizes you by the heart when you hear the terror in a child’s pleading voice, that visceral need to help and save that child.
How could his dad not have known?
How could he have just kept going?
Did he not have that feeling of horror, and desperation, and dread? How could he not have felt that need to stop and save?
— — —
Jay stared at the stairs in the new house he and Tim had finally finished moving into. It was small; perhaps cosy was a kinder word. But it was their own; finally, no more worrying about rent and whether Tim’s screaming night terrors would get them kicked out. They had their own place, and it was close to the hospital Alex had finally been moved to, so they could visit him, and it was close to the assisted living facility that Brian had taken up residence in. It was perfect, really. Except for the stairs.
It was only maybe a month ago that Jay had stopped feeling the need to run full tilt up stairs to stop himself from breaking down into panic attacks from the fear of anyone starting up the stairs behind him. He still ran sometimes, with old safety mechanisms kicking in where they weren’t needed. His dad had instilled that in him. Jay had memories of being grabbed as he tried to run away up the stairs to his room, terrified and sobbing. He didn't know if those memories were real anymore, but the fear in them felt real.
It was only maybe a few months ago that he’d finally overcome his need to always sit with his back to a wall and his face to the door of whatever room he was in, too. That was another thing his dad had instilled in him—the need to never have his back to an open space. Tim had understood that one; he dealt with it too. He couldn’t sleep without his back to a wall; otherwise, he’d wake up with the feeling that there was someone behind him about to kill him if he so much as breathed too deeply.
They made quite the couple, Jay thought dryly as he put a foot on the bottom step, steeling himself to walk calmly up the stairs so that he could go and grab his phone charger from his and Tim’s room. Two people fucked up by their childhoods: Tim because his mom abandoned him and Jay because his dad didn’t. Two people who’d been hunted by the same eldritch monster, and only had each other to confide in about it because Brian didn’t remember anything and they didn’t want to get in the way of Alex’s treatment.
What a couple they made.
It probably wasn’t all that healthy; they were too dependent on each other, but after everything that had happened? That was okay.
Another step up the stairs reminded Jay of one of the times he fought his dad. He didn’t remember it properly; maybe it didn’t happen on the stairs at all, but that didn’t matter; he still remembered the desperate, terrified energy that had grabbed him by the throat and made him fight for what felt like his life at the time. Usually ‘fight’ was the last resort response his brain turned to; he had to get through fawn, freeze, and flight and have them all fail before he turned to fight. There had to be no other way out besides physically fighting his dad, physically fighting his way out of his grip. Because kid Jay was scared. Because kid Jay was terrified. Because kid Jay thought his dad might break his arm. Because kid Jay thought his dad might take his life.
Kid Jay thought his dad might kill him.
Kid Jay had been ready to kill too. He’d come to terms when he wasn’t yet a teenager, with the idea that one day he might have to kill his dad to save himself. He’d been ready to kill to save himself, and to go to jail for it. He’d been such a young child, and he’d been genuinely thinking about the logistics and what could happen afterwards if he was somehow forced to kill his mother too. Kid Jay hadn’t been able to wrap his head around the fact that she’d been forced to do the things she had to make sure Jay and his sister didn’t get worse from their dad. Now Jay wished kid him had understood her side of what was happening.
He’d been a child thinking about what might happen next if he was forced to kill in self-defence, whether he’d go to jail, whether it’d be ruled as self-defence, whether he’d be able to keep his little sister with him or if they’d be separated, and where they’d go if kid Jay was forced to kill both of his parents. Who would he tell? His grandparents? His aunt? Who would take him and his sister in? Anyone? Or would they take his sister and hand him in to the police?
Would kid Jay have handed himself in to the police?
Many times, he’d thought he would.
That wasn’t something a child should have felt the need to think about. That wasn't something anyone should have to ever think about. But kid Jay did. Because so many times he’d genuinely feared for his life at the hands of his dad.
That wasn’t something anyone should ever have to feel.
Kid Jay had thought his dad might kill him.
Kid Jay had thought his dad might kill his mom and sister too.
Jay remembered how he used to think that if he found out that his dad was beating his mom while he and his sister were at school, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
Horrified? Yes.
Surprised? No.
— — —
Tim’s fingers were solid and grounding where they sat between Jay’s, and he squeezed Jay’s hand gently as they walked along, heading to the corner store to grab snacks for a movie night. Jay smiled softly as he listened to Tim talk about what he’d been doing at work, helping with building a new play area for the school down the road.
“Oh my god, look at the dog!” Tim interrupted himself as an elderly woman walking a small, doddery-looking Jack Russell came towards them up the pavement. He let go of Jay’s hand to kneel down and pet the dog as the woman stopped, happily engaging him in conversation. Everyone liked Tim; he could hold a conversation with anyone.
Jay stayed standing, watching the exchange quietly with his smile fading just slightly from his face.
Jay had come to the conclusion that children were less human than dogs (or any animal really) when he was maybe 15 at the oldest. He was surprised it had taken that long now, really. He remembered nearly asking people about it a few times, when he’d been at some of his lowest points as a teen. He’d never gone through with it, though. It would have raised questions and alarm bells, so he’d always kept the question to himself.
“Why are children seen as less human than animals?”
He’d almost asked Tim that question a couple of times since finding him again a good few years ago now, in the middle of being hunted by Alex and that eldritch monster that had brainwashed him. Jay doubted Tim would have an answer, but he thought he might understand where the question was coming from.
If Jay were to ask anyone whether it was okay to hit a dog, or any animal really, nearly everyone would say no. With no exceptions, it was never okay to hit a dog because it didn’t understand what you were trying to ‘teach’ it. All it understood was that you were hurting it and that it couldn’t get away. But ask someone if it was okay to hit a child, and a lot, maybe even most people, would argue that it was, or they’d make some sort of exception to a general belief that it was ‘usually not okay to hit a child.’
Children didn’t understand why someone was hurting them any better than a dog did.
Kid Jay had come to the conclusion that children were afforded less humanity than dogs were, so it was okay to hit them. Especially if they were young. Before they were teens, it was prime time to hit them; bonus fucking points if they were under ten.
Kid Jay had learned to be invisible because of that, because of his dad’s anger and threats, his screaming, and hitting.
Mealtimes were when his invisibility was most often employed—well, family mealtimes. Usually, he and his little sister had eaten their dinner much earlier than their parents, but Sunday dinners were the exception to that rule. And that was when Jay most often had to become invisible, to make sure he faded away into the background while his dad screamed and threatened.
He was still working on his 'irrational' fear of roast dinners, as stupid as that sounded.
Kid Jay had known how to breathe silently, how to take breaths so shallow and slow that his chest barely moved and he barely got enough air. Kid Jay had known how to eat without a single complaint, despite his sensory issues. Kid Jay had known how to eat without getting up to get a cup or water, without kicking his feet under the table, without fidgeting his fingers on his cutlery between forkfuls, without his cutlery clinking against his plate no matter how viciously his hands trembled. Kid Jay had known how to hide the way he shook with fear and the way tears burned to gather in his too wide, dissociating eyes.
He’d known how to avoid eye contact. He’d known how to hold eye contact when it was demanded. He’d known how to go minutes at a time without blinking so that he didn’t miss a single thing, a single sign, a single tell that it was going to get worse.
He’d known how to dissociate almost on command to protect himself, so much so that he was surprised he hadn’t ended up with a dissociative disorder like Tim had. Maybe he did have one; he wouldn’t be surprised, and Tim did always say that the point of a system was to not know you had one.
Tim’s hand slipped into his again, and Jay forced himself to blink, nodding along to whatever Tim was saying even though he wasn't really listening, and carry on towards the store.
They’d worked though; all those things that added up to kid Jay being invisible, he’d gone forgotten by his dad’s anger a lot after a while. But his invisibility had left his mom and sister all too visible, and his sister had usually taken the brunt of the abuse in her teen years.
Their mom had given up defending her at some point.
When Jay and his sister were children, their mom used to get between them and their dad. She’d tell him to stop yelling at them, and he’d berate her for ‘always taking their side,’ but at least that had spared Jay and his sister from their father’s wrath (for a few minutes at least). Somewhere along the way, Jay’s mom had stopped stepping in and started to tell him and his sister to just agree, to not fight their dad because all it’d do was make him worse.
Somewhere along the way, Jay had done the same.
He’d left his little sister to face their dad alone.
Tears welled in Jay’s eyes as he and Tim stepped into the store, and he croaked out something about going to the toilet before abandoning the comfort of Tim’s hand in his and hurrying away along the little isles to try and find the bathroom he knew was at the back of the store, deaf to Tim’s concerned call of his name.
Jay would regret leaving his sister to take their father’s rage alone for as long as he lived. At first, he’d stood up for her, he’d shared the abuse so that she didn’t have to shoulder it alone. He’d even stood between his dad and his sister before, his stance as strong as he could manage under the weight of his terror, after he’d grabbed his dad’s arm to draw his attention to himself.
Tim knocked on the bathroom door, his voice heavy with worry as he called Jay’s name and asked him to open the door and tell him what was wrong. Jay couldn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to stand up from where he was crouched with his back pressed into the corner. He couldn’t leave the bathroom looking like this, tears spilling down his splotchy red face and his nose running. Tim would just have to wait. Jay would tidy himself up, and they’d buy their snacks. Then they’d go home, and maybe Jay would tell him what was wrong.
— — —
Somewhere along the way, Jay, his little sister, and their mom had all stopped fighting. But Jay’s dad had never let the war end, not until his mom finally divorced him. He'd just kept firing at them while they dropped their weapons every time. And even if they hadn’t, he was fighting with guns, and they held little more than pocket knives.