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After a particularly rough night of fighting and throwing things, Ches dragged Glam out of the trailer and over to Bob’s house.
He assumed they would do a late night practice session with the other two, blow off some steam before eventually returning to the trailer. But now an hour later, they had just scattered around Bob’s room lying around and staring at the ceiling.
”Hey Glam, could I paint your nails?” Lordy asked in a best of silence after they finished a pointless debate about the number of legs and eyes in the world.
“I’m capable of doing that myself though?”
“Not like Lordy,” Ches chimed in. “They can do cool designs and shit. And use other colors besides black.”
“She’s been using me as a test subject for years, actually got good at it eventually,” Bob added, getting a light smack on the shoulder from Lordy for it.
Despite not giving a solid answer, xe had already pulled a large bag full of nail polish to his side and was grabbing the remover from it.
Glam reluctantly sat up, stretching a bit to rid himself of the sleepiness that had set in. Lordy gave him a cotton ball soaked in the remover to get rid of the small bit of chipped black polish that remained on his nails as she turned on a light.
The sharp scent of the polish remover quickly took over the room, faintly reminiscent of fake watermelon gum that Ches had given him once. Both gave him a dull headache.
He threw away the stained cotton ball before sitting infront of Lordy who now had a handful of different polishes infront of her. A light and dark blue, white, yellow and a clear topcoat. He shook each one before opening the light blue.
”Gimme your hand.”
Glam paused. A low ringing sounded in his ears. He could practically hear the harsh ruler hit that was supposed to follow that command.
Supposed to.
He wasn’t in the mansion anymore. He was in his friend’s house getting his nails painted. Nobody was going to hit him with a ruler because of a fiddle.
Lordy took his right hand as he held it out to xem. There was atleast a little blue on each nail, carefully put where she wanted it to be with patience and a paintbrush for smaller details. After capping the blue he added clouds to the nails, then a light yellow sun on his middle finger.
It was therapeutic to be pampered like this. Have someone do something for him simply because they were bored and enjoyed his company. Ze could easily have messed up on purpose, or stopped because his hands eternal quiver was too difficult to work with, but they stayed calm and collected as they made intricate designs on the tiny surfaces.
She blew on the polish to get it to dry faster, thankfully most were cheap insta-dry that did indeed dry incredibly quickly. Xe put the top coat on and put away the light blue polish.
”Alright give me your other hand.”
…”Glam!”
He snapped out of his mind. The bedroom slowly came back to him as the ringing in his ears faded. Everyone was staring at him now. His hand was still held out to Lordy, wrist up and sleeve back. Like it was supposed to be. Thankfully his wristbands covered the plethora of scars he had expected his friend to contribute to.
“Sorry! Sorry,” He flipped his hand over, expecting Lordy to move on and simply continue painting his nails. She hesitated.
”What the hell was that about?” Xe asked. “You looked like you were about to have a panic attack.”
”Just… instinct. It’s fine,” He tried to excuse. It didn’t help much.
“Instinct for what?” She pressed. He felt his hand tremor get worse as he failed to speak. Words failed him as time ebbed around him, silence warping and twisting into memories he’d rather forget as it stretched on.
”Nothing, it’s nothing, please just… finish the nails.”
”Glam-“
“It’s nothing!”
”Clearly it ain’t,” Bob chimed in, now next to him. His normally unreadable expression was laced with concern.
“You can tell me-“ Lordy cleared his throat. “Us, anything.” Ches said, the most earnest he’d seen the man since the night he turned up at the trailer.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Glam insisted stubbornly. Because there truly wasn’t, he couldn’t tell them anything and he knew it. The fear of his father holding a gun to his head and forbidding him from ever speaking about what went on in the walls of the mansion hung over him even now.
Ches sighed heavily. “Glam listen, we know something’s up with your wrist, with the shakes and the wristbands. Be honest with us.”
”I’m not hurting myself,” he said harshly. The few times he slipped up and revealed the bandages that usually covered his wrists to somebody outside the family, that tended to be the assumption. It usually meant a useless trip to doctor Hans and a harsh whipping for ‘concerning the public’. “It’s just an old injury, okay?”
Finally, they seemed to drop it. Lordy returned to his nails, doing a night design to contrast the other one. Ches and Bob began a new conversation that didn’t really seem to go anywhere.
As he waited for the top coat to dry, he fiddled with the left wristband. Old threats and reminders to hide the injuries underneath flitted through his mind as he debated removing it. The thought of telling them what had actually happened terrified him, but it sounded so freeing. A way to escape his father’s grasp further than he already had.
Fear constricted his throat as the band slid off, the raised scars still visible in the now dim room.
Nobody noticed for a minute, then they all noticed as words began to tumble out of his mouth. He wasn’t sure what they were, maybe an explanation, perhaps confused sobs and babbles, but it forced itself out of his system in a flurry of word vomit.
His breath was short after it was over and he could feel panic mounting as the silence continued. Tears welled up as it became harder and harder to tell if he was breathing or suffocating.
A heavy blanket being thrown over him startled him back to the present. He felt like cold water had been dunked on him to wake him up.
Glam slowly matched the breathing of whoever was exaggerating theirs, eyes refusing to open. Sleep called to him after the emotional outburst and he was inclined to follow.
Tomorrow could be a day of proper explanation.