Inconvenience

The Magician: Part 2

Chapter 18 – The Magician: Part 2

Thank you to everyone who has commented on and enjoyed this fic over the years. I appreciate you and hope this chapter is at least somewhat worth the wait <3

CONTENT WARNING: This chapter implies, discusses, and describes child sexual abuse.

How was it that things could be getting so much better, yet Harrison was feeling worse than ever? His classmates didn't stalk and pelt him with rocks or call him names, his mother was able to look at him now, and his dad seemed to be happier too. When he walked down the street, he could be sure he'd be met with smiles that reached the eye and pleasant greetings.

Then why, why did he walk with a tremble in his step? Why wasn't he able to hold a knife and fork steady? Why was his skin hugging his bones and his skin going pale? Why wasn't he able to take a trip to the bathroom without feeling nauseous?

He knew why, but he could never say. If he said anything, the smiles would stop, the rocks would return, and everything would go back to the way it had been. Before Ferghal arrived in their little town thirty miles from the nearest city. A town no-one visited and that didn't appear on half the maps.

Harrison heard the door to his parents' bedroom close an hour ago. They hadn't stirred since. That meant he could go now.

He swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood slowly. The whine of his bedsprings probably wouldn't wake them, but he couldn't be too careful. He couldn't have them catching him. He slid noiselessly out the crack in his door and made his way down the hall and into the bathroom.

The door's lock clicked shut and he approached the toilet. His fingers were barely able to stay steady enough to pull his shirt over his head, but they managed, and the sweaty rag lay forgotten on the floor.

Harrison lifted the lid and got to his knees. He kept his eyes closed and pinched his nostrils. The smell of bleach made him faint. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth. His two fingers rested between his lips, trembling against them before he took a quick breath out and the fingers went in.

He didn't think about the feeling of feathers in the back of his throat or the fact he couldn't breathe, he just braced himself and pulled his hand out as quick as possible.

Then he brushed his teeth, trying to wash the vile taste out of his mouth and fruitlessly get the burning feeling out of his throat. He drank straight from the tap, three big mouthfuls, and stared at himself in the mirror.

He didn't recognise those eyes, listless and weighed down by purple bags. That hair was too thin and straw-like to be his, wasn't it? And that skin, so colourless and pasty it looked like it belonged to a different boy, a boy who had been left in the deepest, dankest cave for years and left to starve.

How could anyone want this boy?

He took a few steps back, off the soft rug and onto the cold tile. He pushed his pyjama pants off his hips. He was just as undesirable below the waist as he was above. His skin patchy and dry in places, his lips chapped, his skin hugging his bones. He was hideous.

So how was it that anyone could still want him? Why was he not so repulsive that nobody would shrivel away from his nearly lifeless body?

Harrison swallowed with a grimace and pulled his pants back up so they loosely hugged his waist again. He felt a lump go up his throat when he looked at the toilet. There was nothing left for him to empty into it, in any form.

If everything came back up out his mouth, then there was nothing to go elsewhere, and he wouldn't have to bite down on a cloth to keep from wailing aloud before cleaning red from porcelain.