What's happened to us... | A The Music Freaks Backstory AU

Those times...

(Idk if it's too necessary but just in case, I shall add a CW for mentions of domestical abuse)

...

We said goodbye and Linda vaguely offered for Luke and me to play at the park the next day.

I finally came inside with my mother and she immediately started whispering at me to go upstairs and lock myself in my room, As if I wasn't used to that already.

But then, right before I could step on the stairs, Alan suddenly called from the dining table.

"Who was that?"

My mother froze, and nervously grabbed my hand. She then peeked from behind the wall with the stairs on it and said "i-it was Alex!" She gestured over to me and pulled me from where I was standing, so that he could see me. I looked up to see him, although I avoided eye contact.

After a few seconds, he finally said "Come here, both of you" not really in a demanding or scary tone, but as if he was trying to hold back laughter.  We made our way to the dining room as the familiar smell of tobacco got to my nose. Shivering thoughts filled my head as my mother carried me to the seat at the table. My mother sighed, the look on her face full of disappointment as she sat on the table.

"Where was he?" He asked, not even bothering to look at my mum nor me.

"At the park." My mum answered quickly, focusing fully on the table "Mhh..." Alan just kept on smoking as if nobody had asked her.

There was a moment of silence, my mother slightly nervous, not sure if he had actually calmed down from earlier...

There was silence.  And more silence.

And more.

Nobody said anything.

I glanced quickly at my mum and saw her desperately trying not to cry. I can't even begin to imagine what happened that afternoon that made her so upset.

After a few seconds, Alan finally decided to speak:

"Aren't... we going to eat dinner... or somethin'...?"

My mum suddenly snapped from her trance, I noticed a single tear rolling down her cheek.

"Dinner? Honey, it's 3:00..."

Alan gave her a look, the look. He always used to get like that when he was wrong about something, in our household, he couldn't be wrong.  He sat there, his eyes threateningly staring between his cigarette and my mother, until I finally decided to act.

"I-I'm... getting kinda sleepy" I said, rubbing one of my eyes with my hand and yawning. Obviously, I was not tired at all,  but I was good enough at acting it out so that me and my mum could get out of there.

"Hmmm, well, why don't we get you to your room then?" My mother asked, sort of relieved.

"No need." Alan suddenly said as he stood up, leaving his cigarette smashed on the table so it would turn off.

"But I-hahaha...." My mum abruptly laughed, clearly nervous that he actually meant to take me to my room himself.

But so it was.

I stood up and Alan carried me upstairs,  and I'll be honest, even though he was meant to be my 'father', I felt really unsafe having him carry me up the stairway, from what I  knew, he would totally throw me down the stairs if he thought it was funny or whatever. Once we finally reached my bedroom, he stopped abruptly and put me back onto my feet at the doorway. He then grabbed my hand, or well, my arm really, and held it for a few seconds.  I guess you could call that a 'thing' that he had... I never knew if it had a purpose or if it was some just kind of anger thing.  But either way, he would stand there, holding my arm, squeezing it really really hard, so hard it would feel like it was going to explode. But I knew better than to complain or even show any slight sign of pain.

When he finally let go, my arm hurt terribly and was really red. I slowly backed away from him and faced him at the doorway, then I softly nodded and he walked away, as if he had forgotten why he went upstairs in the first place.

I walked over to my bed and quickly rubbed my arm to numb the pain. I tried steadying my breath and finally sighed in relief, that had gone outstandingly well.

You see, I grew up with the idea that if a parent was angry, they could and would  hurt me. I knew that if I showed any kind of disrespect, or unhappiness about anything Alan said or did, he would do more than just squeeze my arm a little.

He wasn't a good person, he hated both of us... or perhaps he just hated himself so much that he couldn't deal with it any other way...

But anyway, this was a really lucky day, since he was fairly calm, even after fighting with my mother. But other days, he would come from work in a bad mood, and that's when chaos would erupt.  He would yell at my mother and throw things at her, he would beat me and lock me in my room for things that weren't even my fault, or well, I don't think they were...

When I was little, Alan would always use the entire 'father knows best' thing on me,  I thought that whatever punishments he would apply on me, were well deserved for being such a terrible child.  I cannot even begin to explain how much I tried to make sense of it all. I would spend so much time making complex explanations on why I deserve this, would scan through my days and weeks for all the bad things I had done.  

At some point, I even started believing that he could see me all the time,  that he knew all that I did. To me, it made sense, although it sounds impossible, that was at least how I explained that he would know if I'd been bad.

But no matter how much I tried to be Alan's perfect child, how much I tried to not be a bother, not to anger him, things never changed...

Never... until the fatal day where my mum finally snapped...

(ToBeContinued)

(Sorry for the short part btw...)