Work Text:
“What do you want from me...”
His words escaped his trembling lips. When he realized what he just said more tears rolled down his cheeks, he felt the strength in his hands fading and the balance he had on his tiptoes betraying him.
He refused to give in and let his body be suspended in the air just by the hands around his neck but with each second he stood without breathing he found it hard to do so.
The scowl above him turned into a disgusted one.
The hands pressed harder and if he wasn’t scared to death before now he was.
He gripped at those hands and kicked his legs to get free with the little strength he had left.
He couldn’t breathe.
There was no oxygen reaching his little lungs and everything was starting to spin.
Was this really going to be his end?
Was his life so pathetic it was going to end like this?
Nothing archived, without making any friends, without having someone to care about him?
A face crossed his thoughts and he felt more tears running down his cheeks.
He was wrong.
There was someone who was going to miss him, someone who would cry for him, someone who was waiting for him in the gardens of this hell he had to call ‘home’.
His lips tried to sob but nothing came from them.
The scowl above him looked at him with shame and tossed his fragile body.
The pain of the fall greeted his body, he curled himself, he coughed, his trembling hands reaching up to where his skin ached like if he still had those hands around it.
For a moment the only noise in that room was his own sobs and coughs.
It was a bad signal.
He knew what was coming and he would rather hear his Father scolding him than guessing what was next.
Him gripping his hair till he was standing on his feet as he scolded him face to face?
Him grabbing the nearest electric device to break it in front of him and demanding him to repair it?
Him kicking his back till he got tired?
He didn’t want anything about that. He was struggling to breathe, his body aching. He already knew he wasn’t enough so what, what else did his father wanted from him.
He felt a shoe press hard on his hip and a scream erupted from his sore throat.
“What do I want from you?” His cold voice made him tear up and goosebumps ran on his skin. The pressure on his hip became more painful and he swears if it wasn’t from his white short-sleeved shirt he was sure the heel would have already scraped his soft skin.
“You should already know.” He pressed hard making him turn on his back and without skipping a beat he pressed his foot on the boy’s chest.
The boy cried as hard as he could but his father kept an unbothered look.
After a few seconds, he leaned down to look closely at his child while adding more of his body weight on the foot over him.
“How could you be so pathetic?” His face didn’t change one bit as he slapped his child to shut him up.
“I have toughed you so well and you can’t even do what I told you. I have wasted all my time teaching you how things are done, how things should be and you pay me back with making me waste more time watching you fail every time, to watch you ruin every task I gave you.”
Another slap on his other cheek and he stood up, removing his foot of the boy.
The kid curled himself again, he gave his back at him but he couldn’t care less about it.
“How could you be my son? You are weak, you are a nuisance, nothing more than a work in progress to me.”
It wasn’t the first time the boy has heard those words but his heart ached every time he heard them.
He curled himself the more closely he could and he wished that if he closed his eyes he could awake from all of this.
If only he could wake from this nightmare.
“Get out of my sigh and come back tomorrow. I hope you have learned your lesson and you won’t break anything again.”
His father sat on his chair and turned his back at him to work on his research.
With the last of his strength, he stood up. He pressed a hand over his chest and slowly walked out of his father’s lab. He closed the door when he stepped out because he knew his father won’t forgive him if he forgets about it.
He sobbed but tears no longer ran from his cheeks.
He could barely walk so he leaned his shoulder over the nearest wall, he dragged his tired feet over the floor.
He felt like he could collapse anytime soon but he wanted to go somewhere.
Somewhere where he knew he could be at ease.
Somewhere in that house, he could feel like it was ok to be there.
Somewhere where he knew a pair of soft hands would clean his tears and ran fingers on his hair.
Yes, somewhere with the only person he cared about.
Just a couple of more steps.
Just a few more steps and the turn of a doorknob.
But as soon as he stopped walking his body slid down the wall and fell unconscious on the floor.
A thud was the last sound he heard but in his unconsciousness, he felt a pair hands cup his cheeks.
“Edward?”