InsaneJournal

Who: Gavin, Anya, and just a smidge of Mr. Sinclair
What: Gavin goes to talk to his dad, but his dad doesn't actually want to talk.
Where: Mr. Sinclair's Apartment, and then a hospital.
When: Friday, April 13th. Mid/Late Afternoon
Rating: SFW, but trigger warning. (Parental Abuse)


Gavin sat in the passenger seat of Anya’s car, staring out the front window at the apartment that had become his father’s new home. Home. Was that the right word to use? Wasn’t home where the heart was? Full of love and happiness and family. There was none of that here. There was no heart. This wasn’t a home. It was barely an apartment. “I do not want to do this.” Gavin sighed, but he knew there was no turning back-- he was just stating a fact. Even if Anya had offered to drive him back, Gavin would’ve denied it. This was something that needed to be done no matter how much he didn’t want to. No matter how scared he was of what might come of this trip.

Anya liked to have fun, and in order to enjoy herself completely she wanted everyone around her to be having fun too. Right now, she was just with Gavin, and right now Gavin was definitely not having fun. He seemed reluctant to leave the car. Anya offered a small smile and squeezed Gavin’s hand.

“Do you want me to come with?” she offered.

Gavin shook his head, smiling weakly. “You’ve done enough in being here.” The last thing Gavin needed was someone watching in on whatever unfolded… That is, if things went well. If it went well, there would be a lot of soul-baring and things that shouldn’t be seen by random audiences—his father would hate that. If things went bad though… Well, her being outside would hopefully be good enough. “I-I need to do this.” He got out of the door and hesitated. “I-I don’t mean to be cliché, but if I don’t come back in half an hour…”

“I’ll investigate,” Anya promised. She unbuckled and leaned over to give Gavin a hug. “I’ll wait here. As soon as you’re ready, we can leave.”

She let go and continued to smile. “And if you need me, just call, okay?”

Gavin nodded, stuck standing with the door still half open until finally, he took a deep breath and shut the door. Moment of truth time. Within the next half an hour, either there would (hopefully) be some sort of resolution to the family troubles that Gavin still felt in a sideways-way responsible for, or he would be on the way to a hospital. With his father, it was sometimes hard to tell which way it would go. With a last over-the-shoulder look at Anya sitting in her car, Gavin took a deep breath and walked into the apartment building.

Gavin’s reluctance to go inside was a bit worrying, but Anya was an eternal optimist. She wanted to believe that everything was okay; that Gavin was just overreacting and that nothing would happen. But five minutes turned into ten, and ten into twenty, and soon Anya was watching the door more than playing games on her phone. Her eyes flickered to the time and saw she had seven more minutes until she promised to check in. If only she could just go in now...

But she promised. And so she looked back down at her phone and started up another game of Angry Birds.

Twenty-four and a half minutes after Gavin walked through the door and the apartment took on a calm feeling, everything was shattered. The silence broke with a series of garbling, pained shouts—Gavin’s voice—being screamed over by another, older male voice. The door burst open to reveal Gavin’s father, Mr. Sinclair, holding his son up by the collar of his shirt, screaming into his face. There was blood on his free hand, but it was clear from the red drips coming down from Gavin that it was not Mr. Sinclair’s blood on his hands, but Gavin’s. Mr. Sinclair threw his son onto the pavement with the same amount of care someone would have when throwing a bag of rotten potatoes—that is, not carefully at all. Now that they were outside, the words they were shouting were easy to hear.

“It was none of your business doing what you did! You destroyed this family, not me!”

“I’m sorry Da—“ Gavin groaned, but he was cut off by a swift kick to the gut.

“Don’t you fucking ever come back. Enjoy what’s left of this fucking family.”

With that, Mr. Sinclair went back inside and clicked the door locked. Gavin got up onto his hands and knees, wiped his face, and got himself onto his feet. Finally turning around towards where Anya sat in the car, the extent of his damage was revealed. Blood was dripping from his nose like watered-down ketchup, staining his chin and shirt a sickly wet red. A large gash went up the left side of his forehead into his hair which was now also damp with blood. The only part of his face that wasn’t at least a little bit reddened was his right eye, which had already taken on a bluish-purple hue. Trying to retain what little pride he had left, he took two careful steps towards the car and promptly collapsed back onto the ground.

As soon as Gavin was thrown onto the pavement, Anya threw her phone onto the dashboard and scrambled out of her car. The door was left open as she ran around it and dropped to her knees beside Gavin. He did not look good. He needed a hospital, she thought to herself. And his father needed to be investigated for child abuse.

“Oh, honey,” Anya said, touching Gavin as gently as she could. “Here, let’s get you into the car. Come on.”

He did not look good at all. She smoothed his hair back and looked towards the door. How could anyone hurt their child like this?

Gavin flinched when he felt a hand on his body, but relaxed when he realized it was Anya, and he was suddenly very grateful for having the forethought to invite someone in the possibility that it would play out exactly how it did. He placed an arm over her shoulder to hold himself up, and as they hobbled back over to the car, all Gavin could think to say were a few distant-sounding words. “Don’t want… to get blood on your car…” It was clear that Gavin’s ability to stay conscious was more than a little compromised, but he was determined to at least make it into the car without losing it.

“Don’t worry about that,” Anya said. “I’ve had worse in my car. My mom...”

As she told Gavin about how her mom needed to borrow the car to drive some of the daycare kids to the movies and how one of those kids had gotten sick on the way back, she helped him settle into the passenger side. Strapping him in, she lingered for a moment and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Gavin was too sweet to deserve this. Once again she wondered how anyone could ever do this to their child.

Finally Anya moved away and shut the door. She went around and sat in her seat, buckling herself in and turning the car on. Nothing was said about going to the hospital because she didn’t want him to freak out, but Anya was taking him. She may be abusing his current state right now too, but if he couldn’t struggle then she would have an easier time getting him in there.

The areas of Gavin’s skin that you could see were beginning to pale just enough for it to be noticeable—after all, Gavin was bleeding a lot. His mind was getting foggy between bleeding and pain and confusion. Everything seemed like it was in the wrong place and even the fabric of the seat in the car felt alien to his raw nerves. “Where’re we going…?” Gavin grumbled, his speech also taking on some damage, almost like he were overly tired but obviously caused by something much more sinister.

“The hospital,” Anya said. “You’re really hurt, Gavin. I don’t think I can help you by myself. But I’ll stay with you, okay?”

Oh, he did not sound good. Anya pursed her lips and pressed on the gas a bit more, urging the car to speed up. The sooner they got to the hospital, the better. But poor, poor Gavin. Perhaps the seriousness of his injuries hadn’t set in yet, because all Anya could think of was why anyone would want to hurt him.

Gavin didn’t answer for a few seconds. His mind was running considerably slower than average, and it took a bit of time between hearing the words and actually registering what they meant. “Whuh…? N-No.” He groaned, but his body language did not match his protests. Gavin knew he couldn’t fight her off in his current state even if he wanted to; nonetheless he didn’t want to end up hospitalized. It required too much explaining to people, too much work to keep quiet. “Drive me back to school. I’ll be okay…” That much, even Gavin knew was a lie. Everything hurt, and the bleeding from the wound on his forehead was not lightening up. “Jus’ lemme… lemme…go…to school… be… okay…”

“It’ll be okay, Gavin,” Anya said, taking his hand again. He probably didn’t want to be touched right now, but Anya needed to somehow convey that everything would be fine eventually. “Once the doctors patch you up, then I’ll bring you back to school.”

And while they were doing that, Anya would call her parents and let them know what just happened. They would know what to do in this situation; they had been in this sort of situation before. They could help.

Just like that, Gavin’s resolve was completely eradicated. He had no control over this situation anymore, what with his bleeding and light-headedness and his body numb with shock. There was the strangest feeling like he should be in incredible pain right now, but it all felt so far away—muffled slightly by some odd fog. “Thanks.” Gavin slurred back in response. Fatigue weighed down on him until he had no choice but to let his head fall back against the headrest and lie there in a lamely limp fashion. Gavin had passed out once before in his life, and this was starting to feel all too familiar. “I don’think I can keep awake.”

“We’re almost there,” Anya said, casting a worried look over to him and speeding up a bit more. “Can you stay awake until we get there? Here-” She let go of his hand and turned on the radio, fiddling with it until a familiar song came on. “How about we sing?”

Singing made everything better. And singing would keep Gavin awake. She reached for his hand once again and squeezed it tightly.

It was in that moment Gavin realized how little Anya actually knew about him. Sure, he trusted her, but there were a lot of things that she didn’t know. For instance, he didn’t sing. He didn’t even know the song that was playing. When he tried to sing along with some basic level of tone, all that came out was a choked groan. He did, however, manage a pathetic squeeze back onto Anya’s hand. “Th…ank you…” He repeated as the black splotches began to show up in his vision. Staying conscious wasn’t working out.

Okay, so the song wasn’t working. But he was squeezing her hand back, even if it was a meager attempt. Anya would take what she could get though. Still there had to be some other method she could use, because if she tried to drive any faster she would most likely crash into the car ahead of her.

“You’re in a relationship, right?” Anya asked. “How’s that going?”

Anya’s question managed to pull together a few shards of Gavin’s mind. If it weren’t for the crushing pain, he would’ve smiled. Instead, he burst into a coughing fit—which incidentally woke him up a little bit more. “S’good.” Gavin forced out. He knew he had to stay awake as long as possible. Once they got to the hospital, they could help, but for now he had to stay going. “They’re… They’re great.” How Gavin wished he could be with them now… Or at least soon, once he was cleaned up and bandaged.

“Tell me about them?” Anya said, choosing not to comment on the plural usage. That would probably upset him, and that was one of the last things Anya wanted to do right now, save for crashing and not making it to the hospital on time. She saw the sign for the hospital and swerved into the other lane, wincing a little at the sharp movement.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

The violent turn sent another wave of black-out through Gavin’s vision and he just barely managed to fight it off in favor of getting out a few words. “Vince… nice. Happy. Like a puppy.” Gavin gave a single laugh which then developed into another series of coughs. “Benji… sweet. Protective. I’love ‘im.” Words started to feel like marbles in Gavin’s mouth that he had to try and speak around.

“They sound nice,” Anya said as she pulled into the parking lot. The ride felt like it had taken ages, but finally they were there. And Gavin was still awake, too. She had been right -- everything would be okay.

Rather than spend time searching for a spot, Anya pulled up right in front of the doors. She would move her car later, once she was sure Gavin was okay.

“Alright, honey. We’re here,” Anya said, pulling the keys out of the ignition and getting out. She went over to Gavin’s side and opened the door, once again reaching over him to unbuckle his seatbelt and then carefully helping him out of the seat.

Okay, the whole trying-to-move thing was definitely a drag to say the least. As soon as he managed to clumsily grip onto Anya enough to get to his feet, his vision swam with blackness yet again, and pain shot through everything in his body. Thank goodness they had arrived, because the sheer shock was wearing off and giving way to true, terrible pain in pretty much all of Gavin’s body. He practically collapsed, almost taking Anya down onto the ground with him. Somehow, he stayed on his feet. “S’not… f-far, s’it?”

“Just a few steps,” Anya gasped when his weight was suddenly dropped onto her. She hoisted him back up and wrapped an arm around him firmly, trying not to aggravate any of his injuries. “We’ll sit down on the closest chair, okay? And I’ll find someone that can help you.”

Their steps were slow, but eventually Anya managed to get Gavin into the hospital. She settled him down into the nearest chair as promised and, after bending to give him another kiss on the forehead, ran off to find someone.

Gavin watched as Anya walked away, left now only to his pain and discomfort. There was nothing left to distract him from the darkening blurred edges on his vision that threatened to blot out his consciousness. Without thinking, he wiped his face on his arm, smearing bright crimson down his sleeve. Everything was still bleeding even now. “Tha’s… g’nna stain…” Gavin sighed to himself, as unconsciousness finally over took him, his body going limp and slumping down into the chair.