I'm Not From Earth - 23. Twenty Three

t w e n t y t h r e e

"I gave you life."

A crack of sizzling wood.

"I gave you life," his father repeated, his voice a throaty whisper, two tones above menacing and one below disparaging, "and you run away from me. I've provided you with food and shelter, money. Isn't that right?"

Rover shivered, and hastily opened his mouth to speak. Wild, bold thoughts took form in his head.

"It's..." He began.

"Isn't that right?" His father echoed. He closed in, and Rover felt smothered.

"I..."

"It's everything you need, you ungrateful dog, isn't it? Answer me!"

"What do you know about what I need?" Rover asked, and at first his voice trembled, threatening to fail him, but as he continued it grew stronger. "You were absent for more than half my life, doing your... stupid black market business --"

"This stupid business has kept you alive."

"I can work for my food. I can live with Sett. I don't need to live in this empty house, with body guards roaming around me --"

"These guards are to protect you."

And at these words, Rover snapped. The spell in which he was incased in shattered. All the tears, the chains of guilt and regret, of cowardice -- they all snapped, and he too had wings. His life poured in a torrent through his lips, the wall surrounding his heart vanquished for good. He no longer remained silent, he vowed no longer to just try.

"Protect me from what?" Rover yelled, his voice cracking, "What? Your clientele? Your dangerous customers? That wasn't your intention when you hired these body guards... as they aren't mine. They're yours, hired as guards of... of a prisoner, and I'm the prisoner of my own house. The only thing they could've protected me is from... is from you. And you know that. Why the hell do you keep me here? Why can't you just let me leave? I don't care about you. You don't care about me. Are you just keeping me around because I'm all that's left of mother --?"

Smack.

Rover's face whipped to the side, his brow crashing into the vase behind. Blood flooded into his mouth where his father's knuckle had cut into the side of Rover's cheek.

"You want to know why son?" His father shot back, his voice choked with suppressed laughter -- the chuckle of a madman. "Well then here's why. I'll start from the beginning, with mother. Your mother wouldn't associate with me with the last moments of her death, since she discovered my business. She spent her last moments with you, Rover, and you can't even remember them."

His father's palm flashed to his left, leaving a deafening ringing in Rover's ear.

"She wanted to take me to court as well, did you know that? Tried to file for a divorce, and run with you and the money that I worked so hard for the sake of you, and your mother's well being. The only reason why that didn't happen, was because the cancer rendered her bed ridden and she couldn't lift her arm long enough to take a drink of water. Did know that too, son?"

Smack.

A split lip, a bruised collarbone.

"So I erased the tapes and documents on her computer while she was in the hospital, for your sake, because she told her lawyer to get the evidence and jail me. If that had happened, you know where you'd be? Do you know where you would be after your mother died? Huh?" His father paused, his fist gripping Rover's shirt. Spittle and a breath that could gas termites washed over him, and his father opened his mouth to continue. "You'd be adopted by one of my brothers. They would ask for money, and I would have to give it up. And soon enough, they would have spent it all, and you would soon be living in another abusive household. The only differences would be that you would be dirt poor, and that your foster father would come home drunk and beat you senseless -- not every four months, but every fucking day."

With each stressed syllable, his father seized Rover and threw him against the wall, rattling the shingles on the roof with each throw.

"And what does my son say to thank me?" His father screamed, releasing Rover and allowing him to slide down to the floor with a crash, "he tells me that he doesn't fucking care, and that he wants to go and live with his orphan friend Somerset. Well here's what you are to me. You're compensation for your mother's shit, and that's all I care. I know exactly what I'm doing, and its justice, that's what.

"So, son, ask yourself this; if mother didn't betray me, would you be bleeding and broken on the floor right now?"

Rover stared back in his father's electric blue eyes, so like his own and yet so unlike his own, and watched as a grimace of pain and glee that stretched across his face. The expression that could once petrify him like a cat terrifies a mouse senseless. But now, Rover could not be swayed.

He pulled his back from the granite wall without a single trace of fear. He tried to stand up, but couldn't, so remained sitting. It didn't matter anyways. He sensed his father tensing up, eyes widening ever so slightly in suppressed surprise. Breath catching just a bit in disbelief and anger. Fists aching to strike again, but he paused.

Rover steadied his shaking knees.

"What happened before -- it's past now," Rover growled. "Nothing can change that you lied to her. Nothing can change that she reacted the way she did. I'm not saying what she tried to do after was... was right, I guess. Taking you to court and whatever... that sounds a bit impulsive. It sounds like a mistake, but I can't say for sure as you just told me this tonight. Perhaps what both of you did were both mistakes. But like seriously, I don't even care. Mother did what she thought was best for me, and that's all that matters. Just like how I've been trying to do what I thought was best for you, too, and I hoped that counted. But in the end... all you wanted, for yourself, was some justice."

Rover spat out a globule of blood, trying to cover up the emotion plaguing his voice.

"All these years, I've tried. I've tried to do all my homework, to get A's and G's on my report card. I've tried to join the basketball team, the swimming club, the lacrosse team -- the football team. I've tried to get out of your way. I've tried to make you... to make you proud.

"I tried because I loved you, father."

Father stared back at him, his expression impassive. Rover swallowed, and for a moment, he wanted nothing more but to break down on his father's shoulder, to feel him pat his back like he did so many years ago when Rover had woken from a nightmare. He wanted nothing more but to hear his father say I'm sorry, I love you too. But then the pain in his body forced him back into reality. There was no way that would happen, and even if it did, a simple apology could never compensate for all that had happened. Rover could never allow it. He ploughed on.

"I won't be your punching bag any more," he said. "I'm not your scapegoat. No more. I'm Rover, and to hell with being your son. I'm a fucking human, and there's no way I'm taking any more of your bullshit." He could feel the strength of his words on his tongue, ringing like the cadence to an ending symphony.

His father stared back at him, his expression first full of surprise, then quickly transmuting to a mask of melancholy and cruelty.

A short pause in which everything froze in the air, then an air splitting crack.

Rover screamed a soundless scream as his father stomped his heel into his hand, arm arching in unspeakable agony as the knuckles popped from their sockets, nails cracking and fingers splitting.

"Then tonight, I take away from you what I've given."

Rover felt his father's foot against his chest, and then it sliding up to his throat. And then pressure. More pressure. His spine groaning under the force of his father's foot, pressing and pressing into his windpipe. Flesh bruised, tendons gave. He tried to scream, tried to push it off, but all he managed was a whisper of a groan.

No one could hear him. No one to save him. Not his uncle, not Somerset, not his mother. Was he to die like this? His father would have his justice. But what about Rover's? Where would be his? Who would compensate for all that he had been deprived? What about his own happiness?

His love?

Just as his vision started to flicker, he felt the pressure abruptly lift from his throat, and heard a yelp. He was pulled up by strong arms.

"Rover? Rover!"

A smooth, urgent voice. Tones of melted honey and rippling water. Of love, of hate. The sensual smell that elated Rover's mind.

"Holy shit, talk to me. Rover!!"

The pungent smell of blood, fresher than his own, reached Rover's nose, and the sensation of a warm liquid trickled to his neck.

"...Slade?" Rover breathed, trying to focus his blurring vision.

"Shit, shit, shit," the figure that was Slade groaned. "I have to open the side of your neck to get my blood inside, or you'll... Rover, just hang on. It'll just be a moment's pain."

Rover's vision blurred more, the lamps above leaking into random sequences of light. Was that dust collecting at his lashes, or hot tears filming over his eyes? He couldn't really tell, and he didn't really care. He reached out, grasping at emptiness.

A pinch of deep pain at the base of his throat, and then suddenly, he could breathe again.

    *