Who: Wash (ft. Carolina at the end) What: The Jungle Temple Test When: Backdated to The Great Destroyer's Plot (September) Where: The Jungle Temple (visions of Spokane, WA) Rating/Warnings High for blood, violence and abuse Status: Complete!
It was snowing. Why was it snowing? Why was he standing outside in it with nothing but a pair of blue jeans, sneakers and a thin long-sleeve shirt? He’d just been fighting a group of black-armored mercenaries and attempting to get to a tower…the Jungle Temple? Had he been playing too much Halo? Had that been just a dream? Was this?
“David? What are you doing out there?”
Celia. She was standing on the front porch of her house looking down at him with a mixture of surprise and concern. She had a scarf around her neck and had pulled on a sweatshirt to come out to meet him. She was clad in her stocking feet and didn’t dare come down the front steps, which were about ankle deep with snow. The door to her house – an old two story job with a steeply pitched roof – was standing wide open behind her revealing a warm glow from within.
What was he doing out there? “I don’t…”
A joke. That’s what it had been. A cruel joke. Ralph had sent him to take out the trash but had ripped his jacket off his back -- “you’re just going to the curb. Grow a pair, boy”. -- and then had locked the front door after pushing David outside. David had banged on the door pleading to be let back in. All he got in return was Ralph’s muffled laugh.
It was freezing out and had just started to snow. The door remained locked another five minutes, then ten, then fifteen and David was sure he was going to freeze to death. It was then he decided to leave. This may have been the only opportunity he had. He could leave and never come back. So he’d walked the two miles to Celia’s house, the only place he could think of to go. His fifteen-year-old brain hadn’t planned beyond that, what he’d say when he arrived, how he would convince the Travers to let him stay.
As it turned out, he hadn’t had to.
“David!” Celia’s mother, Renee, had joined her daughter outside on the porch, wrapped up in a heavy sweater and with thick wool socks rolled over a pair of fleece leggings. “It’s freezing out here. Come inside before you catch pneumonia!”
So David, cold, wet and shivering so hard his teeth were chattering, went inside.
“What on earth were you doing out there?” Mrs. Travers demanded. “Look at you! You’ve got hardly anything on. Did you walk here? Take your sneakers off there. Celia, honey, go get a blanket out of the hall closet, would you?”
Then suddenly David was seated in the Travers’ kitchen a thick wooly blanket that smelled lightly of fabric softener wrapped tightly around his shoulders and a warm mug of cocoa in his pink and numb fingers.
“I got locked out,” David heard himself saying, as though he’d rehearsed the response the entire way to the Travers’ house. “I took out the trash and the door closed and locked behind me.”
It was hard to tell if either Celia or her mother believed him. They exchanged a look between them. Celia gnawed on her lower lip and Mrs. Travers took a seat at the table. She reached out and placed a hand on David’s arm. “Are you sure that’s what happened?” She asked gently.
David nodded, “yeah.”
Mrs. Travers looked as though she had more to say, but finally sighed and sat back in her chair. “I assume your mother isn’t home, David?”
“No,” David lied. Nora Jenkins had been home when Ralph had shoved him outside, however considering she’d been upstairs in her room all afternoon nursing a “headache”, it was unlikely she’d even heard the commotion when Ralph locked David out of the house. She may as well not have been home.
Mrs. Travers sighed and shook her head. Again, David had no idea if she believed him. But she never said if she did or not. “It’s getting late,” she said. “We’ll have you take a hot shower to warm up and then you can sleep in the guest bedroom. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
David had the night to figure out what he was going to do, where he would go next. In the meantime he knew that for once he had a safe place to sleep.
After he’d showered and eaten, David fell asleep in the guest bedroom. Unfortunately he hadn’t been asleep for very long when the sounds of voices stirred him. He couldn’t hear what they were saying and he tried to ignore them so he could go back to sleep. He was just dozing off again when Celia entered the room.
“David,” she gently shook his shoulder. “Your mom’s here and she looks angry. You’d better come down stairs.”
And then, as if in a dream, David was in the living room and sure enough, there was his mother, apparently recovered enough from her earlier headache to have made the drive in the snow to come retrieve him. And she did look angry. Very angry.
”There you are!” She exclaimed when David entered the room. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?”
“He got locked out of the house,” Mrs. Travers tried to intervene. “I would have preferred him coming here than be stuck out in the cold. Especially since he didn’t have a coat or boots.”
Nora Jenkins turned her gaze towards the other woman in the living room and David silently pleaded that she didn’t say anything more. His mother didn’t like to be undermined, even if the other person’s intentions weren’t to do so.
Nora’s eyes narrowed a moment before looking back towards her son. “We’re going home now, David.”
David muttered an affirmative and had taken a step towards were his shoes were still drying over a heating vent by the door when Mrs. Travers spoke again.
“He doesn’t have to go.”
Nora looked at her again. Her words were civilized, but there was anger underneath that was unmistakable, as if Renee herself had done something wrong. “There’s no need for that. David can sleep in his own bed tonight.”
“I understand you came all the way here, Mrs. Jenkins,” Renee went on, “and I’m sorry I didn’t call you when he showed up. But it’s late now. It might be better for David if we just let him go back to sleep. I’ll make sure he gets to school on time tomorrow.”
“I don’t know how it is you raise your daughter,” Nora said this time with a sneer she didn’t even attempt to hide, “but I don’t let my fifteen-year-old son sleep over at a girl’s house.”
“He’s in the guest bedroom,” Renee tried to argue.
Nora was having none of it. “David, put your shoes on. Ralph is waiting for us.”
David flinched at the last statement. Of course Ralph was waiting. David was not looking forward to the reception he was going to receive when he got home. Ralph didn’t appreciate being made to look foolish. He hurried to get his shoes on.
“Do you want to stay here, David?”
David paused, one sneaker not fully dried from his earlier walk was cold on his foot. The other in his hands. He glanced at Renee Travers. He wanted to say yes he did want to stay. He didn’t want to go home. He wasn’t wanted there for anything other than an object for anger and frustration to be taken out on. He had marks on his back left over from an afternoon in which that anger and frustration had nearly put him the hospital. He was scared of what was in store for him once he left this warm safe haven.
Then he looked at his mother standing in the middle of the hall watching him. She needed him. What would happen to her if he truly did leave? What if her worries of being thrown out, of Ralph leaving her, actually came true? Where would she go? What would happen to her? The possibilities -- none of which were positive -- terrified him more. He had to stay. He had to watch for her, take care of her.
David looked back at the sneaker in his hand. “No, ma’am,” he said. He quickly put on his other semi-dry and cold sneaker. “I’m sorry. Thank you for letting me stay here.” He didn’t look at the other woman as he left the house after his mother.
The car ride home was a silent blur. His mother neither spoke to him or looked at him and the next thing David knew he was he was walking into the front door of his home. Ralph hadn’t been waiting in the hall for them. However, no sooner had David gotten inside and there he was, looming in the doorway to the living room. He was a broad shouldered man, with a barrel chest and tree limbs for arms. Ralph had been a football player in his younger days, and a decent one too. He might have been able to play professionally after college, but an injury had benched him permanently. A detached piece of David’s mind wondered if that was why he was so angry all the time.
Ralph still moved like a football player. David had barely gotten in the door when Ralph had grabbed him by his shoulders and had backed him into the corner. His face was inches from David’s demanding to know where he’d been. Who he’d been talking to. David could smell the beer on his breath.
“You went to that little whore’s house, didn’t you?” Ralph demanded as he shook David against the wall. “You’re fucking her, aren’t you??”
“N-no!” David stammered. “You locked me out. I was freezing.”
“Fucking liar,” Ralph snarled and struck David across the side of the face with an open palm. Ralph didn’t like liars.
“Jesus, Ralph,” Nora sighed. She shrugged her coat off and hung it in the closet. “Let him get his damn sneakers off would you? He’s tracking slush all over the floor.”
Ralph grunted and let go by shoving David again against the wall. He loomed and glared while David slid his feet out of his sneakers. No sooner than he had, then Ralph had him by the back of his neck and was dragging him through the house. Once they reached the kitchen, Ralph threw David into one of the chairs around the table. The force of the shove would have sent him sprawling out of the chair and onto the floor if Ralph hadn’t grabbed him again by the back of his neck in order to sit him properly in the chair. Before David had a chance to brace himself for whatever came next, Ralph slammed his face against the table.
David felt blood as it started streaming from his nose and down his face. He could taste it in his mouth and feel it going down the back of his throat. Tears of pain stung his eyes. Ralph wouldn’t let go and David knew better than to struggle. He pressed his forearm against the back of David’s head, keeping him down, smearing blood all over the tabletop.
“You thought you’d just run away,” Ralph growled in his ear. “It isn’t that easy, Davie. I know where it is you go. I’ll always find you.” He pressed David’s face harder against the table and pressed his own much larger frame against his shoulders, pressing his chest hard against the edge of the table. It hurt and David couldn’t breathe.
Nora was there now. She was leaning against the kitchen doorframe, her arms lightly folded over her chest, watching the scene play out with passive interest. If anything she looked annoyed at the mess that was being made on her table. David closed his eyes.
“Don’t ever let me catch you with that whore again,” Ralph warned, pressing David’s face and chest harder against the table. “If I so much as think you’re at that house again, I’ll go there myself. Do you hear me?”
David tried to respond, but the blood in his throat and mouth choked him and made it impossible to answer. Ralph struck him again with a closed fist this time and hard enough to make stars explode behind David’s closed eyes.
“I’ll kill the bitch and her mother,” Ralph went on. “I’ll kill them both and you’ll watch me do it. Do you want that, Davie? Do you? Do you?!”
“Answer him, David,” Nora prompted from the doorway.
“No!” David finally managed to gasp out. “I won’t go back! I promise!”
Ralph grunted again, disgustedly. He gave one final shove and then he was gone. David didn’t dare move until he heard the TV switch on in the living room. Then and only then did he pick his face up from the table and gingerly touch his face. Blood was smeared all over his mouth and cheek. His nose and forehead hurt and his chest ached. He didn’t look at the doorway, but he knew his mother was still there. She gave a small tsk before coming into the kitchen proper.
“I wish you wouldn’t do things to upset him,” she said. She crossed the kitchen to pick up a roll of paper towels, tearing off a few sheets. She came back to the table and handed them to her son, a silent command to clean himself up. “He doesn’t like having to discipline you.”
David didn’t believe that for a moment. “I know,” he murmured almost robotically. He took the paper towels from her.
“Why were you really at the Travers’ house?” Nora asked. She reached out to tilt David’s head back so she could see for herself the damage done. David noted the frown on her features as she looked at him.
“I was cold,” he lied.
His mother narrowed her eyes and drew her hand back. “You remember what we talked about?” She asked. “What people think if you tell them your problems? It’s selfish, David. People don’t want anything to do with a selfish person who can only think about themselves.”
David nodded slowly. “I know.”
“You acted very selfishly today,” Nora said. Her hand on David’s head, a hand that should have been offering comfort and solace, was cold and stiff. “Running off like that was a very selfish thing for you to do. I had to tell Ralph where I thought you were. If I didn’t, you and I both would be out there in the snow now. It’s below freezing tonight.”
David swallowed hard. “I won’t do it again.”
“Good boy,” Nora said. Her hand fell away from his head. “Go clean yourself up and go to bed.” She did not help David to his feet, did not help him to the bathroom. She left the kitchen to join her husband in the living room.
Achily, David got to his feet. He went to the bathroom to wash the blood from his face. This was always how these altercations ended: with him alone, bruised and bleeding, thinking of excuses to give the following morning to cover for any bruises or marks. He was tired. He was so tired.
You were scared, a voice spoke. It sounded as though it were right behind him, but all David saw in the mirror was his own bloodied reflection. You believe him. You believe what your mother says. You cannot leave. You cannot ask for help.
“No. She’s wrong,” he murmured, “You can’t be selfish and ask for help. It doesn’t work that way…”
Someone had said that to him once.
David took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He couldn’t stay here, he decided. He couldn’t...no...he wouldn’t stay here anymore. He wouldn’t be Ralph’s outlet any longer. He wouldn’t let his mother tell him that this was all justified. He had to leave.
Where will you go, David?
The voice was unfamiliar, echoing in the small bathroom, but oddly, David wasn’t afraid of it. It was as though he’d been expecting it. Waiting for it to speak this entire time.
“Celia’s,” he answered. “Like I should have before.”
But your stepfather threatened to murder them if you went.
“He won’t,” David responded. His voice sounded different. It was the voice of a man and not of a teenage boy. “He never would have. He wanted to control me. He hated me.”
Are you afraid?
“I was,” Wash answered. “When I was younger. He can’t control me. I won’t let him. Not anymore.”
You have passed.
The bathroom started to fade away leaving Wash standing in the middle of a darkened room deep within the Jungle Temple. His hand went to his face. The blood was gone. The pain in his head was gone as was the ache in his chest. As if it had never been there.
Wash blinked, for a moment confused.
“It’s alright. We’re back now.” Carolina said softly before placing a hand on Wash’s shoulder. She waited until he turned toward her before pulling him into a fierce hug. God, how she wished that she could have been there for him. Or done more than break Ralph’s nose when she had visited Spokane. The asshole certainly deserved everything that was coming to him and more. If there had ever been any doubt as to the hell that her brother had gone through growing up, it had been put to rest with that vision.
They had both been taken together, but she had been unable to interfere or interact with the scene that had played out before her. He hadn’t been able to hear her, but she had stood witness to his pain. “I’m proud of you, Wash. Damn proud.” He had overcome his worst fears and the torment of his childhood. He didn’t need her anymore. At least, not as his CO. She didn’t need to watch over him to make sure that he made the right choices. Now, she would just be his sister.
There was a hint of a smile on her lips as her arms tightened. Just his sister sounded pretty damn good to her. It meant a whole lot more than being his CO ever had and frankly, there was nothing else she would rather be.