Chapter Text
Horrid Henry had tried to run away once.
It was stupid, and he went back home pretty quickly.
As messy as it was being at home, running away at that age wouldn't actually work. And his parents weren't that mean then, and Peter wasn't that annoying. And maybe he was just a bit too much of a menace back then, finding it funny to do everything he shouldn't, taunting and teasing people for the hell of it.
As he grew up, he stopped being as mischievous, though he still teased his friends and Peter a lot. It became part of how he expressed himself, being mean not to be mean, but as affection.
It was who Henry was.
A little shit, maybe, but not to be hurtful.
Unfortunately, the way he presented himself as a child wasn't forgettable to his parents, and every other authority figure he met. Which meant his parents were still mean to him even when he stopped being mean back, and he was still compared to Peter every single time he did something wrong.
He was compared to Peter a lot, and whenever he did something wrong, Peter was told to look at Henry and make sure he never ended up like the 'rotten child'.
Henry hated how Peter looked at him in those moments.
Like he believed Henry was really that rotten.
Sometimes Henry would get locked in his room for days, only being let out occasionally to go to the toilet. Or if he was hurt, or upset, he'd get ignored and left to deal with whatever happened all on his own. But even worse, when he'd done something good, he'd get ignored the same way he did when he'd been bad.
And for things that he didn't do, and they knew he didn't do, Henry would get blamed. Punished unjustly, for nothing at all.
Like he didn't deserve any love at all.
His parents were overly affectionate with Peter, incredibly affectionate, and Henry thought it was gross and disgusting. But sometimes, just sometimes, he'd see the affection and wonder why he couldn't get some love sometimes too.
Wondered why they said I love you to Peter almost every single day without fail, but never to Henry.
Wondered why they always said I'm so proud of you, even over the most simple thing, but never to Henry.
Henry was special, artistically talented. Creative, bright, had the mind of an artist, a musician, someone innovative, and yet no one noticed. No one encouraged him to be as good and bright like Peter did, no one encouraged him to pursue whatever made him happy, no one told him he was good at anything or even acknowledged his talents.
Nothing.
He got nothing.
Henry felt like nothing sometimes.
When Henry was ten, he noticed his parents drinking a lot more than usual.
When they got home from work, they'd sit on the sofa and drink, their voices becoming louder and more frightening even though they didn't say anything to Henry. And it was never when Peter was awake to see it.
Sometimes his dad would come much later than usual, clearly drunk, stumbling into the house whilst shouting thanks to his friends who dropped him off. And Henry wouldn't be asleep, naturally, because he could never sleep with how loud his brain was, and suddenly his dad would be in his room shouting at him.
And of course Peter slept through it all, like a baby.
Peter would sleep over at his friends' houses a lot, leaving Henry alone with their parents. Which meant it would feel terrifying to go into the kitchen and make food, on edge because of the looming threat of his parents coming in and shouting at him for something trivial. Getting close to him, the alcohol reeking from their breaths.
They were scarier when they were drunk.
Like they had less control over themselves.
Their words were harsher, tone was crueller, voices were louder.
Intimidating.
Henry was scared of them.
Even though he pretended he wasn't, he was.
When he was twelve, his parents decided that shouting and screaming at him wasn't enough. His dad was more stressed by work, and someone in his family was really ill, and he was drinking more. And his mum couldn't deal with him being drunk, so she would get drunk with him so it wasn't as irritating.
And suddenly, Henry being quiet in the kitchen wasn't quiet enough, and that justified a slap to the face.
Or when he was awake when he shouldn't be, it justified being shoved into the door, the handle bruising his back.
Or when he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his nose was bleeding from being punched so hard he saw stars.
They weren't violent often, but after Henry turned fourteen, it seemed like they were. During the summer, he found himself hiding in his room more often, because the more he was around them with no school to see visible bruises, the more they decided his face was a nice target for their drunken anger.
Henry was scared.
He'd been hit more than ever during that summer, and when he got back to school, he knew they still wanted to. He knew his parents were craving the feeling of taking out their anger on him, craving it like another fucking bottle of scotch, but they couldn't risk the bruises showing when he had places to be.
Henry packed a bag, just in case.
He didn't wear his own clothes often when school was around, so he packed all of his favourite clothes in a duffel bag, along with a small amount of money that he had, the only shoes he had that he didn't wear to school, and a few comics. Things he'd need, things that would help him survive for a while.
He left it in his cupboard, hoping he wouldn't need it.
But of course he did.
It was late September when his dad found out his sister was more ill than he thought. The cancer she had was spreading, and she was drinking a lot, which meant she couldn't start chemotherapy again, and it was giving his dad extra stress. And the more he tried to convince his sister to stop drinking and take care of herself, the more he himself would drink.
Henry had fucked up at the worst time.
He'd gotten into a fight at school, in an attempt to protect Peter. Peter had only just started secondary school, and he'd been a smart-ass as usual, but to the wrong people. And because of that, Henry had to step in and fight someone in his year because the kid had shoved Peter to the ground and shouted at him.
The school didn't mention that part, because Henry left it out.
He didn't want Peter involved at all.
When his parents found out, they were incredibly mad.
Henry was in the kitchen, and his dad had just argued with his sister. And then his mum got the call from school, and suddenly both of them were in the kitchen, his dad already drunk, and they were screaming in his face. Henry just wanted something to eat, and they were in his face, hitting him and punching him, throwing him around like a ragdoll.
Mostly, it was his dad.
His sister's illness was getting to him.
A hand was around his throat, and his vision was darkening. And then he was on the ground, and two pairs of feet were kicking at him, making his ribs begin to scream, his stomach in knots, bile coming up and being swallowed back down in an attempt to make sure they didn't get even more angry.
And when he tried to get up, his mum tried to push him back down.
Henry made the fatal mistake of hitting her back.
He didn't mean to, but she was getting close, and his body was already in extreme pain, so his reflexes decided to finally work, his right hand swinging out to punch his mother in the face.
She screamed, and suddenly his dad was slamming his head into the table so hard that everything went dark for a split second, his ears ringing and his chest beginning to get so tight, like he couldn't breathe. Like everything was about to explode, his heart ready to beat out of his chest.
His dad slammed his head into the table again, and something hot was dripping down his forehead.
Henry couldn't take much more.
So he kicked his dad back, hard in the leg, and ran out of the kitchen. He couldn't run out of the front door, not if it was locked and he didn't have keys on him, so he ran to his room and locked the door. His heart was racing, and he could hear footsteps going up the stairs, hands banging on his door, threats being screamed, and he realised he was done.
He couldn't survive this.
His parents were kicking his door harder, and his body weight wasn't going to keep it closed for much longer. But they weren't doing enough on their own, so his dad told him he was going to get a hammer and break the door down.
Henry realised that was his only shot, so he ran to get the bag from his cupboard, putting his phone, charger, and headphones into it, and he climbed out of the window. He'd never climbed out of his window before, but the adrenaline was enough to get him out without any more injuries, and he was gone.
Henry ran to the only place he knew was safe.
But it wouldn't last long.