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On some level, Dave had always known that his home life wasn’t normal. Even as a kid, blinded by adoration of the strength that Bro exhibited, he knew there was a difference between the bruises that he would carry to school, and the homemade lunches his best friend John would bring. But back then, before reality had sunk in, each bruise, each cut, each scar was a trophy. It showed that his Bro thought he could be strong one day, that he was trying to help him become as strong as him, and Dave felt pride in that. It never mattered that Bro often left him to fend for himself and hoard food most of the time, that was just one of his lessons. Or that he’d grown so used to any touch bringing pain that he’d flinched when Jade had patted him on the shoulder one time during lunch. None of it registered as particularly ‘bad’, though. Sure, little movements startled him, but he’d been training to notice them for years. Sure, Bro didn’t like to hear his voice so talking was hard and he often found himself rambling because of it, but who needed to be all that good at communicating anyway? Everything was fine, he was fine. His friends didn’t show up at school on Monday with stitches they’d had to sew themselves over the weekend, but that didn’t matter. He was different. He was special.
And then, after years of not being allowed anywhere but home and school, Bro let Dave attend John’s thirteenth birthday party.
He didn’t know why he agreed, Dave hadn’t even tried to plead with him after the intensity of the strife he’d faced last year after he’d tried that, but it hadn’t mattered. Bro had said yes the first time he’d asked, and Dave knew better than to question it. So he found himself outside of John’s the afternoon of April thirteenth, feeling more out of his depth than he ever had before. For one, John lived in a whole house, not just a tiny, single bedroom apartment. The place was clean, the garden neat and tidy, and there was a whole-ass car in the driveway; it was a middle-aged person’s suburban dream, for fuck’s sake. But everything was so much weirder inside. The house was cozy and homey with thick rugs and nice smells wafting from the kitchen. There were no cameras anywhere. John’s father was kind, gentle around his son, and nice to his friends. It was too good to be true.
Dave spent the evening on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when it was clear that this wasn’t an illusion, that John wasn’t going to open a door and have stupid sex puppets fall all over him, that Mr. Egbert wasn’t going to suddenly pull a sword on any of them, it was almost worse. Dave didn’t know how to act.
He felt out of place. And the lack of familiarity felt a lot like fear.
It was only later that night after he’d gone home, mid-strife with his brother, his palms and knees ripped like paper from skidding across the pavement on the roof of the apartment building, that he realized that this wasn’t normal. There was nothing out there for his Bro to be ‘training’ him for, he shouldn’t have to stockpile food in his closet because the fridge was empty of anything other than cold, hard, sharp metal. He shouldn’t have to feel watched at home, in his own bedroom, and he definitely shouldn’t have to swallow the panic in his mouth whenever he got home from school to see one of Bro’s summons to the roof for a strife.
If living with his Bro had been hard before, it was terrifying now that Dave could see how wrong it was. He could feel the fear every single day because Bro was going harder on him, probably had been for a while if he was being honest. Any noise he made got him noticed, and getting noticed was bad because it led to bruises and scrapes and slashes. Talking had been hard before, but now, with the anxiety that choked him if he spoke too loudly and made him shiver if he rambled on too long, it felt almost impossible. School was the only escape, but that couldn’t last forever. He slowly sank into himself. He’d never considered himself a quiet person… but now? It made him feel safer to make as little noise as possible.
Over the next couple of years, he could tell that his friends noticed there was something wrong. They all invited him over to their homes more often, but after that first time at John’s, Bro never let him again. Maybe he knew something about Dave had changed, maybe he just couldn’t be bothered to say yes. But they were all stubborn in their own ways; Jade tried to involve him in conversation more often, John played more pranks to try to get him to laugh, Rose even laid off the psychoanalysis shit at times. And sometimes he could forget, sometimes he could laugh and talk and joke around with his friends. Sometimes he felt almost normal. But then he would remember what was waiting for him at home, what punished him for showing any emotion, making any noise, and the smile would fall off of his face just as quickly as it’d arrived.
There was a really bad strife when he was seventeen, one where Bro pushed him harder than he ever had before. He was relentless, barely giving Dave time to defend himself in between attacks. Repeatedly, his sword clanged against Dave’s and the sound of clashing metal made his brain feel like it was vibrating inside his skull. It pulled the anxiety from where it normally lurked in his stomach up into his throat, it blurred his vision and made him want to lock himself in the bathroom. Yeah, Bro would be able to see his panic attack over the camera situated over the bathroom mirror and the next strife would be even harder, but that almost didn’t matter. Almost.
Dave’s sword wasn’t fast enough to block the next blow, and Bro’s katana cut into his side. The pain didn’t register at first, just heavy wetness as blood soaked into his t-shirt and ran down his side in rivers, but it was still enough to distract him, and by the time he’d raised his sword again there was a deep slash in his dominant arm and Bro was flashstepping back inside the building, obviously not impressed. Dave lowered himself to his knees for a moment to catch his breath, mind covered in a heavy blank fog. He felt like he’d been beaten black and blue, though there was no way the bruises would show for a good while yet. He could taste the blood dripping into his mouth, and he raised his hands up to feel his nose. It was numb, but it was definitely broken.
Dave sat up slowly, hissing slightly as the slash in his side stung when the flesh pushed together. He drug himself back to the apartment, sure that he was leaving a bloody trail, and settled himself on the bathroom floor, locking the door behind him. Then he silently began to stitch his wounds back together, eyes dry and face carefully emotionless for the camera which was almost certainly filming him. He didn’t remember coming to the conclusion that he couldn’t stay in that apartment anymore, but when he found himself outside of John’s door an hour later, barefoot, and not quite sure how he’d gotten there, he knew he couldn’t go back.
He stayed silent through all of the hovering that John’s dad did when he first saw him. He’d already done everything he could, splinted his nose and wrapped gauze around his wounds, but Mr. Egbert still made him apply antiseptic cream before wrapping him back up. He stayed silent through all of the questions, only responding by nodding or shaking his head.
He stayed silent all through the court case, silent when the video footage that Bro had been collecting for years was enough to put him behind bars. Silent when he was ruled guilty for all to hear. Silent, carefully blank, continually looking over his shoulder, even months after the court case, because he knew that one day Bro would get out, and he would be back for him.