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There was a ritual at the boys’ home. Everyone got their turn.
None of them knew how it had come to be, but all revelled in it and shed tears of joy and pain. No matter how kind the boy, the ritual still excited him all the same.
Once a week, one lucky boy would be next in line.
When it had been his turn, the boys had held Harley down, force-fed him bugs from the ground, rubbed his body into the gravel until his grazes bled freely. They chanted and sang and mocked him all the while.
When it was finally over, crumpled in a bleeding, crying heap, the boys had patted him gently on the back and thanked him, told him he did a great job as the puppy. Tradition dictated that Harley would get seconds of pudding that night from the boy who drew first blood.
Then, next week, on Sunday after Church, every boy would run in excitement to gather behind the Big Rock. The next boy would be chosen and a tally would be etched into the circle-tree next to his name, so no boy would be beaten twice.
As the custom dictated, Harley was puppy last time. So this time, Harley was the doctor.
There was a pretence that Mother wouldn’t see them behind Big Rock, but they all knew she heard. She just didn’t care. “Boys will be boys”, she’d say.
The boys gathered in a wide ring. The puppy sat in the centre. Harley circled him like a predator. Like a hyena, grinning madly. He recited his lines along with the circle.
“Master doesn’t want you, puppy’s in the pound! When nobody wants you, you get put down!” the group chanted. Harley stayed quiet, continuing to circle the poor dog.
Harley stopped in front of the boy.
“The doc-tor comes with the nee-dle, now.” he recited. The circle repeated after him.
“Poor little puppy. Bow-wow-wow.”
“Poor little puppy! Bow-wow-wow!” the group repeated.
There was a pause. Every boy held his breath.
Harley straightened, breathed the air into his little lungs. This was joy he was feeling. It was peace. He hated and loved each boy in the circle. The emotion felt divine.
He exhaled with a gentle sigh. He looked down at the boy on his knees in front of him. Harley smiled gently. The boy looked away.
Harley felt love.
“First blood!” he screamed.
Harley delivered a sharp knee directly to the boy’s nose. As he recoiled and fell back against the grass, the circle of boys descended upon the puppy.
Harley laughed hysterically. He threw himself onto the poor dog, holding him down so that the other boys could beat him.
“When nobody wants you?” Harley called.
“You get put down!” the group responded.
“When nobody wants you?”
“You get put down!”
Harley felt love.
Harley felt.
For a moment, he knew nothing at all. Not what this feeling was inside him, nor why it drove him to lash out suddenly against whatever was in front of him in the dark.
“Ooaf! Woah! Good lord, boy!”
His mind returned to him. It was soft and warm. The boy beneath him had become a thick, springy mattress and soft blankets. His head swam, he felt dizzy. His hand hurt. Blearily, he took in his surroundings.
It was dark and quiet. Two pairs of eyes stared at him. He was… This was… He knew this place. Right. He’d been here yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. This was the boys’ dorm at Elliot Ludwig’s company.
Elliot himself owned one of those two pairs of eyes, now holding a hand against his bleeding nose.
“Did you have a nightmare?” the owner of the other pair of eyes asked - a boy around Harley’s age, who he shared the dorm room with.
“Go back to bed, Mason.” Elliot ordered gently. The other boy stepped back and walked across the room back to his own bed, but Harley felt his eyes still on him.
Elliot took a tissue from inside his coat sleeve and dabbed at his nose. He squatted down next to the bed.
“Harley, are you alright?”
He didn’t answer, he only stared blankly at the blood.
“Harley…” he repeated, “Don’t worry about my nose. Are you alright?”
Harley nodded. He didn’t want to speak - he could feel moisture in his eyes that he knew would escape if he made a sound. He didn’t understand why.
He hadn’t felt afraid at all in the dream. In the memory. Why now was he near tears with terror?
“Are you sure?” Elliot placed his weathered hand on top of Harley’s. “Mason came and got me because you were thrashing and mumbling in your sleep. It’s okay, you can tell me.”
Why did it hurt?
It ached in his chest to be consoled like this, spoken to so gently, without the venom of thinly veiled loathing in every word.
His body shook with the weight of holding back his tears.
Mother couldn’t hurt him, why was he afraid?
Mother couldn’t punish him for crying.
When he realised that, he couldn’t help it anymore. He cried out and gasped, throwing his arms around Elliot and burying his face in his shoulder. Elliot seemed taken aback for a moment before he gently wrapped an arm around Harley in return. His little body shook and spasmed as he sobbed, desperately heaving for breath.
“I-I-I’m-m-” he gasped, “I’m s-aca-ared…”
The words he was saying were tumbling out of him, each admission surprised him.
“I’m scared-d that… th-that you’re going t-to disappe-e-a-ar too,” he sucked in a breath, “o-or that M-Mo-Mother is going to… to c-come and take me ba-ack home…”
“Shhh, Harley… Nothing’s going to ha-”
Harley continued, his words becoming steadily less coherent.
“I-I-I dunwanna hide un-under my beddanymoreI’mdone, I dun’... dun’ like bleeding’t hurts… an’alltheboyzvegotnofaces wh-wh-when I can’t s-see th’m… Idunnowhy I-I likeditbutI d-don’t likewhnthhweghhbehin’ebig rock a-an’... w-was fun but s-something feels…” he gasped and trailed off. Every sob made his head pound.
“You poor thing…” Elliot murmured. He chose the wrong words.
Harley wailed and tried to wriggle out of his grip, but Elliot held him. He rubbed his back gently.
“Hey, hey, hey… it’s okay, boy, you’re okay.”
Elliot felt the boy’s body tense up in his arms. An abrupt sting of nausea hit him and he gagged.
“Goodness gracious, Harley, calm down!” Elliot tried not to let the concerned frustration seep into his voice - it clearly wouldn’t do him any good, “You’re going to stress yourself sick!”
Elliot pulled away from the hug. When Harley’s hands desperately grasped at him, he held both of his small, clammy hands in his own.
“I get upset too. Look at me, boy. Do you know what I do to calm down?”
Harley’s eyes finally focused on him, though he still looked far from all there. Elliot wondered silently if he’d ever been taught any emotional regulation. If a simple nightmare could make him nearly throw up, he doubted it.
“Put your hand on your belly, like this, and close your eyes.” he guided the boy’s bruised hand to his midsection, “Breathe really deep through your nose, try to push your hand out with your breath. That’s right… And out through your mouth. And again. In…”
Elliot watched his face carefully. The immense tension slowly began to melt out of him. Quickly, it seemed to be replaced with exhaustion. His choking sobs died down until only his breath shook gently, tears dripping silently from his face.
Elliot wrapped an arm around his back, holding him against himself as Harley’s little body felt heavy and nearly limp in his grasp. Despite the fact that he seemed nearly asleep already, his eyes struggled open, looking at nothing in particular.
“My head… hurts…” he mumbled. He looked dazed and Elliot could feel the boy’s heart beating hard. He placed a hand against his forehead to check for a stress-fever and frowned when he found one. Harley shuddered against his cold palm.
“I’ll get you some tylenol.”
Elliot guided Harley’s limp arms to drape around his shoulders and picked him up. Elliot was strong, especially for his age, but he wouldn’t have been able to pick up any other thirteen-year-old. Harley was unusually small, and very thin.
As he felt himself be held, Harley closed his eyes. He felt warm, and safe… ‘safe’ had been a distressing concept not five minutes ago. Now safe felt… safe. He was too tired to cry anymore. He felt lightheaded. As he felt Elliot stand up and start carrying him, he tried to open his eyes again and found that he couldn’t. His whole body felt like it was made of wet sand, dense and crumbly. Like he was slowly being swept out to sea and scattered to the waves…
Elliot adjusted his grip on the boy as he unlocked and opened up the medicine cabinet in the staff kitchen. With one hand, he took a glass, nudged the faucet lever with it and filled it with water, then placed it on the counter with the bottle of Tylenol.
“Alright, Harley, here you go.” he murmured, keeping his voice low to avoid agitating the boy’s headache. He paused when he got no response. Elliot stopped to listen. Harley’s breathing was slow and even, his body completely dead weight in his arms. Elliot smiled a small, concerned smile and nudged him gently.
“Mmmuh…?”
“Here, take this so your head doesn’t hurt, and then you can go back to bed.”
“Mmmmkay…”
Elliot placed the boy down gently, making sure he wasn’t going to fall over before handing him the glass and the pill. Harley swallowed it and nearly dropped the glass. Elliot took it from him quickly.
“Yuck… I hate pills.” he mumbled blearily.
Elliot watched silently for half a moment, wondering if Harley would fall asleep on his feet. He looked around with a somewhat lost expression on his face until his eyes landed on him. He raised a hand toward him limply in a meaningless gesture.
“Can… Can you…”
Despite his own back’s protests, Elliot nodded and bent his knees to pick the boy up again. He felt Harley nestle his face into his shoulder.
“Than’you Mr. Luwwig…” he slurred. Elliot noted that that was the first time he’d heard Harley say that.
It had to be past midnight now. It was very, very quiet. Elliot listened to Harley’s breathing as he carried him back to his room. Near immediately, his breaths began to deepen and even out. Elliot wondered to himself if he’d been too hasty to choose Harley for his purposes. He’d felt trepidation about his behaviour before, though he assumed it to be a product of his youth. Elliot knew that what the boy needed was a parent, and it pained him to know he wasn’t prepared to be that for him. He couldn’t allow himself to grow too attached. He had a daughter to worry about already.
Elliot snuck back into the dorm room quietly. Gently, he placed Harley back into his bed. His eyelids fluttered a little as he placed his head against the pillow. Elliot pulled the blanket up over him and frowned slightly when he saw the boy’s bleary eyes open and looking up at him. He squeezed them closed again as he made a pained sort of groan and raised a hand to his head. He looked almost ready to cry again in pain and exhaustion.
Elliot sighed softly. He thought of what he’d do when his daughter was ill. Harley wasn’t his child, he reminded himself, he had his own child to worry about… But he just couldn’t stand the thought of going back to his own room and letting the boy cry himself to sleep.
“You’re too soft”, he scolded himself in his mind, as he slipped his shoes off and placed them next to the bed. Harley watched him in dazed confusion.
“Shuffle over a bit?” Elliot whispered, and it took Harley a moment to realise what he meant. He pushed himself nearly against the wall. Elliot lifted the covers and laid down next to him. It was troubling how little space Harley took up. Elliot expected it to be far more uncomfortable.
Harley curled up against him and Elliot put one arm around him. He gently rubbed his forehead and watched Harley’s eyes glisten with moisture for a moment before they fluttered closed. Elliot told himself he’d only stay here until he was sure Harley was asleep. He’d give him the comfort he needed for his health and nothing more. It was transactional, he told himself. This was the price to continue moulding him into his prodigy. Anything he could tell himself to believe that he wasn’t already too attached, and that he wasn’t already putting the project in danger.
As Elliot watched the tension leave Harley’s body as he finally fell to peaceful, painless sleep, he felt his own eyes become heavy.
Only five minutes, he told himself.