YOU NEED TO LEAVE . oh , only if the solution was as easy as the statement , breathed out in a cautious feather of breath by parrish . he hardly bears a flinch when his wrist is tugged out free , and beneath the dimming sunlight , he too , finally examines the colors battered deep into his flesh like bruised plums . parrish’s gaze stung , a form of guilt prodding angrily against his heart as the boy turns his distressed eyes against him . it’s not fair , he almost wishes to say . ❝ just leave , huh . ❞ the words fall more colder than he expects it to , but the weight sinks like drowned stones against the steep silence between them .
❝ first , you’re not going anywhere near him . second , leaving , that’s just a pipe-dream . ❞ if he left , the beast would spin its way around his mother , tear her to empty pieces , her bones picked clean , flesh torn until there would be nothing to destroy . that was only how the system had worked itself to this point : elliot , the self - made barrier between his father and mother , a self - established role since the terrible age of 13 .
❝ —- i can’t . not now . ❞ his voice finally drops the tense blade - edge , and expression sinks back to a softer twitch of something like remorse . and he slowly snags the wrist back towards himself , pressing a careful thumb over the bruise , as if the action could erase the color . he keeps his finger pressed , wonders why parrish was so desperate to keep him afloat . often , his words meant the key to the bird - cage , his offers the climbing ladder from the sunken ditch that he’d successfully cornered himself down to . again , that was his defense mechanism .
sometimes , he was certain that if he searched hard enough , dug through the dirt viciously enough , the 10 - year old boy would be found again , crouched and quietly breathing the words of ‘ please don’t , i’m sorry .’ in a mantra , as if they were the saving grace . but it was different now . he’d long chosen to leave the boy behind , kept him buried beneath the dirt as he pushed forward towards life . to live , to live , it was to forget , and become a different creature for him . it was the only way at the time . ❝ i wouldn’t stab with the scapel , i would dig it into his throat . hard enough to kill him , ❞

His heart sinks like a stone in his chest, listening to Elliot’s voice, focusing hard on the darkened edges of his tone that had Parrish cringing. The way he exhibited little reaction from having been touched so forcefully sent shock waves down his spine. He’s giving up, he’s giving up isn’t he? It was always all or nothing with him, his black-and-white mind often unable to truly understand the demons with which Elliot grappled, the intricacies of his familial ties that he could never dream of having to deal with. His father was long dead; a brute, sure, but now just a corpse buried underneath six feet of dirt.
Elliot’s father, though, was alive and breathing, and had pushed his son so far to the cliff’s edge that he was now speaking of jamming a blade into his paternal figure’s throat.
He felt a spike in his blood when Elliot’s warning hit his ears. You’re not going anywhere near him.
“What, do you think I wouldn’t take him out right here and now if he was here? I have half a mind to go knocking on your door and tearing into him.” But he knew he would never, could never, go that far. It was all talk, as much as he wanted to deny that. He wasn’t Elliot, this wasn’t his fight, as much as he wanted it to be; wasn’t aggressive enough, wasn’t strong enough, supposed he wasn’t man enough to deal with this problem on his own (maybe dear old dad was right about me and my weaknesses all along).
“Well, look, would you at least come by and let my mom patch you up a little? I can see some cuts on your hands, and I know for a fact you don’t have any Neosporin in your medicine cabinet.” He lied about the cuts,but he couldn’t help it; he just needed to get any excuse to keep Elliot out of that house, if only for today, if only a few hours. He just hoped to god Elliot couldn’t notice the transparency of his fib, and he knew how unlikely that would be.
He tries to crack a smile, in turn attempting to put a crack through the tenseness of their situation. “If you get an infection and lose your hands, I’ll never forgive you. How’re you gonna hug me without any hands?” His voice lowered a bit as he added, staring into Elliot’s eyes that darted back in the direction of his home in a close to frantic fashion, “I know how much you care about your mother and her safety, I do. But I care about you, and you can’t protect your mom if you’re half-dead. I know it, you know it – don’t overestimate your strength, El. You can’t save her if you can’t even muster the will to save yourself.”
