21st_sacrament | alex/henry - henry's turn to share (child abuse warning)

A heavy weight has formed in his chest, weighing down his shoulders, and as time passes it only continues to build. It's been there ever since Alex confided in him, about everything - more than just Silent Hill but his home, his family, all of the people etched into the countless folds of his life. Suddenly things became clearer, why Alex was the way he was with Henry.

The way he got so quiet when Henry fussed over him, the way he curled around him tighter after Henry cooked for him, laid out a blanket or a mug just for him when he came over. The hesitance, the disbelief, the warm overwhelming joy when they spent the day together, little touches and brushes of hands.

He knows now, it's the result of a little boy neglected in his childhood, never knowing why, no one to ask, not even knowing what questions to ask and accepting that was the way things were, moving on to grow up and live through a hell that had been around long before he had been born. It's a lie to say it wasn't a lot to stomach, all of the pain and tragedy he's lived through, not knowing what was real for so long. Alex had bared himself, all of his insecurities, afraid that Henry might leave him, would leave him, and shit. That still hurts to think about.

Henry had shared his own story, trapped in room 302, the murders, saving Eileen, and being chased by Walter Sullivan but there was no way it could compare. Silent Hill was its own special hell, that was true, yet nothing about his experience had been remotely personal. Nothing had called him to South Ashfield or it's apartments. No ties to the old town of Silent Hill but brief tourism stints.

In the end he felt unbalanced, it felt unfair not needing to share those intimate, personal parts of himself. Sure, he talked about his family in passing, his mother who he's close to, her sister and husband who he lived with for a time after his parents divorce. He's never mentioned anything else.

To be honest, what's stopping him is he doesn't know how. He never has and so far has been living under the assumption he never will. Alex doesn't ask, doesn't badger him, doesn't bother him about it at all.

The guilt just keeps piling on as time goes by, cinder blocks stacking themselves up on the top of his back.

The load finally becomes too much one autumn afternoon when they're together, sitting on the stone steps in the park near his apartment. His body is leaning into Alex's, head resting on his shoulder. His cheek feels his warm body through the light material of his jacket and it's quiet, they're the only ones there.

He just opens his mouth and starts talking.

I don't drink because my father drank.

It started from a time when he was too little to really know what was going on, why his mother started wearing sunglasses whenever they went out, why she started putting on make-up when she hardly wore it before. The moment when he finally saw her, face black, blue, and bruised to hell. He burst into tears at the sight, pain at seeing his mother hurt without knowing why. She held him, pet his hair, didn't tell him what happened but all too soon he figured it out.

At first he threw things at him, because he was in the way, because he was too loud, because he touched something he shouldn't have. Beer bottles, the remote to the television, picture frames, dishes, anything he could pick up with one hand in his immediate sight.

It got worse when he finally saw his father grab his mother, screaming and shaking her, spit flying from his mouth while everything about him reeked of alcohol, he was five, maybe six. He got between them, trying to make him let her go when he was suddenly lifted off his feet, his mother screaming that he put him back down and suddenly he was on the other side of the room, head slamming against the hardwood floor when he fell. He still remembers the way his vision bugged out, seeing double, triple, quadruple before he blacked out.

He started hitting him after that and beer cans and bottles started littering the floor of their house. His mother would tell him to hide in his room, under his bed or in his closet and on bad nights she would hide with him. Hold him, kiss him, tell him stories and places where they would go take pictures of next weekend and she would press him to her chest when they could hear the dishes crashing against the wall of the kitchen.

She put concealer on him, taught him how to check himself before they left the house, what clothes to wear so no one would stare. He never told anyone, not doctors or teachers, people who would look closely and know, wait for him to say one little word to they could act. The words never came, it wasn't how things were, what happens in the home stays in the home and it was that way until he was ten, until his mother had enough money saved up to leave his father and they did.

He hasn't seen him since and staring at his knees he realizes his fist is white knuckled, gripping the denim of his jeans and he's shaking. Shaking so hard, every muscle feels clenched and tight. It's how he always got before he cried except the tears never come and he doesn't expect them to. He was all cried out twenty years ago.

He's afraid to look at Alex, to turn his head to the side and see what expression is waiting for him. Alex just holds him when he's done, shifting so Henry can hide his face in his neck while he wraps his arms around him tight. He kisses his hair, lets Henry shake and he doesn't tell him it's okay. But he tells him he's here, he's right here and that he's not going to let go and apparently Henry was wrong.

He wasn't all cried out after all.