Secret (Noah Sebastian X Andy Biersack)

3

Trigger Warnings: Physical/verbal abuse/sexual assault, injury, depression

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Andy was very dehydrated, gulping down glass after glass of water which Noah poured him from a jug. For a while, they didn't speak. Noah didn't want to risk scaring him further, and he knew the fact of him being there at all was scary enough.

Andy didn't know him, had no way of telling whether or not he was being nice so he could get something in return. So he could convince him to do it. Noah would have stabbed himself in the throat before doing anything of the sort, but Andy had no reason to believe that. 

Afterall, from what Noah had gathered from the little information he'd been given, Jude had been locking him up, beating him, and inviting other men (Noah was horrified at the possibility of these being some of his other friends) to use him for their anger, for their frustration, for their disgusting violent fantasies. 

He poured the last of the water from the jug into the glass and let Andy reach for it, wasn't going to lean forwards to hand it to him. Andy held it in both his hands and said into it, before taking a large sip, "Thank you." 

"That's okay," Noah replied. "You don't need to thank me." 

Immediately, Andy's eyes widened and he started to shake his head. "No, please," he whispered. "Please. I'm - I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't wanna do it, please-"

"No, no, no," Noah said, realising Andy had interpreted his words as 'you don't need to thank me; you're going to pay me back anyway.' The fact his mind found that conclusion so quickly was horrifying. "You don't need to do it. I just meant, I'm happy to help. You don't need to do anything you don't want to." 

 Andy stared at him, beginning to cry. The shaking of his hands was making the water spill over the rim of the glass.  

"I'm sorry I scared you. That was my fault." 

"I don't wanna do it," Andy whispered again. 

"You don't have to." 

Sipping the water, Andy wouldn't take his eyes off Noah. He wanted so desperately to trust him but he didn't know how. When there were people in his presence, they were people who wanted to do things to him, people who called him a 'pretty little bitch' as they choked him, made him gag. People who got off on his bruises and his bloody lips.

It was all well and good, Noah telling him he wanted to help, but Andy didn't even know what help was anymore. All he knew was that someone was there, and every time someone was there, it was because they wanted to hurt him. Even if Noah wasn't touching him now, Andy had to expect it. He'd survived the past six years because he always expected it. That way, it was never a shock, and at least he had time to prepare himself the best he could.

Despite his paranoia - even if Noah was there to inflict harm on him, he was currently listening, and Andy was never listened to - he mumbled, "They don't care that I don't like it." 

"I care, okay? I know I'm a stranger, but I care." 

"You...you do?" 

"Of course."

"Do you mean it?" 

Nodding, Noah said, "A hundred percent." 

Andy took another sip of water. It was impossible to work out what Noah might have been planning. "Are you gonna make me do it?" He asked. "Is that - do you care so I'll - so I'll do it?" 

Noah felt awfully sick. "No. No, never." 

"But you...you care?" Confusion was thick in his voice. "Why do you - why would you care if - if you're not gonna make me do it?" 

"Because you're a human and you've been treated like you're not," Noah answered. "And because the man I thought was my friend has been doing so much shit to you, and I had no idea, and I owe it to you to be here, and to help." 

"But - but why?" 

"Because you deserve a better life than this." 

Andy pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. "He makes me do it all the time," he said slowly, quietly. "And I always tell him I don't - I don't like it, and - and then - and then he says I'm - I'm broken and - and I'm supposed to like it, but I - but I don't. I don't like it. I don't like it." 

"You never have to do it again," Noah assured him. He was tearing up. "And you're not broken. You're not. It's okay that you don't like it. Nobody should ever force you do to anything when you tell them no. I'm so sorry he violated you like that." 

Sipping the water, Andy watched Noah's eyes as they spilled. He couldn't quite comprehend it. Noah was crying because of something he had no part it, something he had no reason to feel responsible over. "When he comes back," he said, "I'll have to." 

"No. Me and my friend Nick are gonna make sure he doesn't ever do anything to you again. Okay?" 

"What? You are?" 

"We are." 

"But - but why? You don't even - you don't know me." 

"You deserve a better life than this," Noah told him again, and Andy didn't reply, didn't seem to understand what he meant. After so long being used and dominated, Noah could only imagine the effects on his self-perception. He must have felt like he wasn't even a person anymore. 

Andy put the glass down on the floor beside him. His body was protesting against every movement, and the floor felt very hard beneath him. Like he was sitting on concrete rather than carpet.

Once he started to notice the pain again, he couldn't ignore it. Couldn't block it out, couldn't think of something else to distract him. And when he focussed on the pain, he was forced to remember where it had come from. Forced to recall every recent bout of violence. Every drunk fist thrown his way. Every shove, every stumble. Every raised voice and raised hand.

Everything he'd done wrong, every mistake he'd made, every word he'd said to cause the anger that was always, always aimed at him. 

There hadn't been a single day he could recall in the past six years where Jude hadn't hurt him. It wasn't supposed to be normal, and yet it was. 

His black eye was throbbing; his entire head was throbbing. There were needles inside his chest and pins in his bloodstream.

Everything about his existence hurt.

He didn't even know what it felt like anymore to not be hurting.