Chapter Text

Part One

I tried to be perfect, tried to be honest 
Tried to be everything that you ever wanted 
I tried to be stronger, tried to be smarter 
Tried to be everything

He’s five-years-old when his father walks out, yelling and kicking the end table before slamming the door shut behind him. Harry may only be five, but he remembers the moments leading up to his father's departure: the arguing and fighting; furniture being knocked over; his mother crying; Gemma crying; nights spent hidden in Gemma's bed with his fingers pressed to his ears to block out the noise. He doesn’t quite understand that his dad isn’t coming back, but when it finally hits him, when his mum sits him down and explains it all to him, he’s surprised to find he can’t exactly cry along with them.

His mum dates a little over the years, but this is just another thing Harry doesn’t really follow, doesn’t get. Why would she want another one of him, another guy to knock over furniture, to yell at her when she burns dinner?

Gemma laughs, throwing back her head and acting like she’s so much older than him (even though the age gap between them is only four years) and says, ruffling his hair, “This one will be better, I promise.”

Pete is nice.

He comes into their lives when Harry is just barely seven-years-old. The man has black hair and brown eyes and, after holding out his large hand for Harry to shake, he hands him a new computer game to add to his collection. Harry’s green eyes go wide and he runs off to his room to try it out without so much as a thank you.

His mum gets on to him later, but Pete just laughs and waves it off. His eyes sparkle and Anne seems happier than she has been in a long time. He stays for dinner, joking with Gemma and holding Anne's hand over the table, then helping clean up the dishes without having to be asked. (Harry watches from the hallway as Pete turns the water spray on her momentarily, causing her to let out a squeal; the noise is so different from what he’s used to, so different from the screams of arguments he’s grown up hearing.)

Harry thinks, idly, that Gemma was right; Pete is better.

But then, suddenly somehow, he's not better.

It turns out Harry was wrong. Gemma was wrong. They were all wrong about everything. Pete is not nice. Especially when he's had a few beers.

Harry, unfortunately, learns this the hard way.

One night, just a couple months after having been introduced to the man, Anne gets Pete to babysit. Gemma is spending the night at a friend’s and Anne has to work the late shift. Pete is quick to say yes, because of course he is the perfect boyfriend, perfect future step-father of the seven-year-old.

Harry is pretty excited himself. No mum for a whole evening. Just the guys. They can play video games and pig out and he won’t get yelled at if he forgets to wash his hands before supper.

Things go smoothly . . . for approximately thirty minutes. Pete orders pizza for them and then pops open a beer he brought with him. “Put these in the fridge,” he tells Harry, holding out two six packs. Harry looks at him wearily before taking one, thinking he probably won’t be able to carry both; he’s small for his age, weak and clumsy, and the bottles are made of heavy glass. Pete just snorts and stuffs the other under Harry’s arm, not giving him a choice.

On his way to the kitchen Pete smacks Harry lightly on the bum. It's so quick that Harry thinks he might've imagined it, or that maybe it was an accident. The only thing that tells him it actually happened is Pete's light laughter.

Still, he ignores it and keeps walking.

He struggles under the awkward hold of the beers but makes it into the kitchen before one of the bottles slides out of the feeble carton. It crashes against the floor and he hurries to set the two cartons down before the rest slide out as well. He barely has time to turn around before Pete is in the kitchen, eyes wild with anger.

“What the hell do you think you’re doin', boy?”

Harry has never seen this side of Pete before. Pete has always been nice and kind, giving him candy or toys when he comes to visit. The way he raises his voice brings back vivid memories of his own father, and instinctively Harry takes a step back.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters out. “It was only one. It was an accident. I’ll clean it up.” This usually works on his mother. As long as he promises to clean up after himself, she doesn’t really get angry at him for accidentally making a mess.

Any hope he has of Pete forgiving him disintegrates when the large man takes a step closer to him, raising his hand to slap across Harry's face.

Harry doesn’t make a sound at first. His eyes go wide and start watering, and his mouth drops open before he makes a choked, surprised yelp. Even his father had never hit him, and his mother sure doesn't smack him. She never even lays a hand on him unless it’s in a comforting manner, like to hug him or hold his hand when he was younger and needed to cross the street. Sometimes Gemma playful pushes him and there was the time that kid in class had given him a black eye, but that had been different. (Gemma had knocked the kid on his arse later.)

Pete is grinning. He points to the broken glass and puddle of beer on the kitchen floor. “Clean it up. Now.”

The curly headed little boy nods and heads further into the kitchen to get a washcloth, but Pete’s hands on his shoulder, making Harry stiffen, stop him.

“No. You can use your hands.”

Harry stares up at him with wide eyes. “Mum told me to never touch broken glass.”

“Well your mum’s not here, is she?” Pete asks and he points at the broken bottle fragments again. “Pick. Them. Up.”

He hesitantly gets down on his hands and knees and starts picking up the shards of glass. Thankfully most of them are large, but Harry’s hands are shaking so much he cuts himself a couple times. For some reason he thinks it would be better if he didn't cry out, so he bites down on his lip to keep from making a noise. Once he has cleared away all the glass he looks up at Pete expectantly.

“Now drink it.”

Okay, now he's really confused. “Wh-what?”

“Drink it,” Pete repeats, more firmly. Harry looks from him, to the spilled beer on the floor and back again.

“But. . .”

“Don’t argue with me!”

Harry nods and gets down on his knees again, lapping up the beer like a dog. The smell is awful, but the taste is ten times worse. It feels warm and heavy in his mouth and kind of burns when he swallows. He can taste the faint linoleum of the kitchen tile each time he sticks his tongue out to get more. His hands, pressed against the floor, sting where he's cut himself and there are drops of blood gathering around him, mixing in with the beer.

Pete’s hand is suddenly on his head, pushing him down till his nose brushes the floor, telling him to slurp it up. He’s gotten beer up his nose - pretty sure part of it's his own blood - and he's sputtering a bit, but finally the majority of it is gone.

He sits up, his eyes red rimmed from holding back tears, and his lips raw from being bitten down on. His nose is running, his fingers are bleeding even more, and his face hurts. He hopes Pete will leave him alone for the rest of the night so he can go hide in his bedroom until his mum gets home.

Pete wraps his large fingers around Harry’s tiny wrist, pressing until the boy is sure he’ll see bruises there, and pulls him up off the floor and to his feet. This time he can't hold back the slight sob, but Pete just grins, like that was what he was waiting for.

“You know,” he says casually, “I’m going to marry your mum.” He leans in close enough Harry can smell the alcohol on the older man’s breath. “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to her.” Then he flings Harry away from him and stalks out of the kitchen.

Harry falls to the floor, landing on his bum. He presses his lips together to keep from crying out and rubs at his now red wrist. He can faintly hear the sound of the football game on the telly. It takes him quite a few minutes to compose himself and get up from the ground. He keeps low and quiet, and hurries past Pete and up the stairs to his bedroom. Once there, he collapses on his bed, wondering what he’s going to tell his mum when she gets home.

By the time she does get home though, he is already asleep, passed out from exhaustion and crying so hard. When he wakes up in the morning, the memory is faint, in the back of his mind, almost like he had dreamt it. If it wasn’t for the sour taste of beer in his mouth, his still-sore cheek, the bruises on his wrist and cuts on his fingers, he’s sure he would have thought it was all just a dream; that it had never happened.

When he goes down to breakfast and his mum sees the spider-man band aids he has stuck around his bleeding fingers, she asks him about it. For a moment he thinks about telling her the truth, but then he finds himself saying, “I was playing outside and cut myself.”

She smiles fondly and nods her head. “Be more careful, you.” She bends down and presses a gentle kiss to each of his bandaged fingers.

He doesn’t know why he doesn't tell her the truth. Later he thinks of all the possibilities: how she probably wouldn’t have believed him, how Pete would probably just deny everything, or maybe she’d think he deserved it, that he had spilled Pete’s beers so he deserved to be punished.

That feeling sticks with him. As the days and the years pass, Harry can’t shake the feeling that he has done something wrong, that he deserves every bad thing that ever happens to him.

~*~*~*~*~

The abuse varies and worsens throughout the years. At first it’s little things – little compared to what Pete has in store at least. He’ll boss Harry and smack him around a bit when he babysits. It gets to the point that, even when Pete and his mum are both around, Harry finds himself automatically doing things for Pete without having to be told. He’ll get him a beer from the fridge; he turns the telly to whatever sports game is on that day (even when his favorite shows are on); he basically cleans up after his mum’s boyfriend.

(It eventually carries on to the other people in his life: his mum tells him to go take a bath so he goes and takes a bath without hesitation; Gemma jokingly tells him to change the channel and he obeys; kids at school bully him around and he goes along with it every time without fail, without hesitation, constantly avoiding confrontation.)

It’s okay for a while because Pete doesn’t babysit that often. But then, after only seven months of dating, Anne announce their engagement, and Harry gets this sinking feeling in his chest that he doesn’t know how to make go away.

Gemma gets all excited and starts clapping, and his mum cries, and Harry kind of feels like crying too but for an entirely different reason.

They throw a party and the night of, Pete takes him aside, muttering something to Anne about having a ‘man to man talk.’ She smiles all cheery like and goes back to being the perfect host, showing off her engagement ring. Pete and him do not have a man-to-man talk though.

Pete wraps his hand around Harry’s wrists, like he has done so many times the younger boy practically has permanent bruises there.

“We’re going to be spending an awful lot of time together now,” he tells Harry, as if the boy hasn’t already thought this through, as if it isn’t the reason he has barely said anything that night, hasn’t been able to meet anyone's eyes, has almost locked himself in the bathroom a couple dozen times. He’s seven (almost eight now), but he isn’t stupid.

Pete squats down to Harry’s level and looks him straight in the eye. His voice goes low. “If you ever tell anyone what goes on between us, I will make sure you never say another word again. Do you understand?”

Harry nods feebly.

“Great!” Pete’s voice changes instantly. He is all smiles and bright eyes, the man who gave him a computer came, and held Anne's hand on the table during dinner. He ruffles Harry’s hair and heads off to find his new fiancee.

Harry, on the other hand, actually does lock himself in the bathroom.

It's the first time he ever makes himself throw up.

~*~*~*~*~

After the wedding they move to a new house in a new neighborhood, and everything just kind of goes downhill. It isn’t like Pete can harass Harry twenty-four-seven because his mum is home most of the time, and even when his mum is gone, usually Gemma is there so they aren’t really alone that often. But there is this overwhelming sense of fear in the air which is almost just as bad, maybe even worse. A sense of impending doom, like if he messes up, if he does anything wrong, everything will snap and he’ll break and Pete’s hand will be flying towards him in punishment.

It wouldn’t matter if Pete did leave him alone, anyway; everything around him starts crumbling, too, and he doesn’t know if it’s a result of the constant state of fear he lives in, or some kind of genetic makeup. Maybe he deserves all this, maybe his life was meant to be a disaster, with or without Pete.

They moved during the school year and to a completely different area, so Harry is with a whole bunch of other eight-year-old's he doesn’t know, in a primary school he’s unfamiliar with. He automatically starts shying away from everyone, unwilling to make friends, worried they'll be mean to him, won't like him, or that they'll eventually ask him about his family, about the cuts and bruises he's always covered in. And what is he supposed to say then? What if they want to come home and visit? What if Pete doesn’t approve? What if they find out? What if everyone finds out?

Harry does eventually start to make some friends, friends who are just as quiet as he is, or are unbothered by how often he keeps to himself. He never invites them over and they never extend the same invitation to him. Why would they? It only makes sense; they don’t even really want to be his friends in the first place. They just put up with him like everyone else does.

~*~*~*~*~

When he is eleven-years-old Gemma goes on a school trip for the weekend. His mum is off at work, leaving Harry alone with Pete for the first time in a couple weeks. He tries to get ready for a night of getting his step-dad beers, cigarettes, drinking with him, smoking with him, smacks and punches in places his mum will never see or will blame on him being so accident prone. It's not really something someone can ever prepare for, though, no matter how often it happens.

He stays in his bedroom as long as he can, curled up under his duvet reading a book for school. Pete comes in nearly an hour after Harry’s mum has left. He sits down on the edge of the bed and Harry marks his page and sets the book aside.

“What’re you doing?” Pete asks. His words are a little slurred; he’s already had a few beers.

Harry shrugs. “School work.”

“Turn over.”

The young boy blinks a couple times, confused. “Turn . . . ? What?”

“I said, turn over.”

Slowly, Harry turns over onto his belly, tilting his head so he can watch Pete and see what he’s doing. Pete pulls the duvet off of the bed and reaches for Harry’s pajama bottoms. The curly haired boy instantly freezes, possibilities going through his mind, but thinking definitely not, he couldn’t be. The older man pulls Harry’s bottoms and briefs down to his ankles and swats at his behind. Harry clenches his teeth together.

“You’re lucky your mum’s home most of the time,” Pete says. I know, Harry thinks, I know. “Been wanting to do this for some time now.”

Do what exactly? Harry doesn’t know. But then, after a couple more smacks at his arse, Pete is pulling him apart none too gently. A couple seconds later Harry feels pressure and then – oh, no that definitely isn’t what he thinks it is. He turns his head a little and yep, Pete has his pants undone and is rubbing his prick over Harry’s hole before slamming into him suddenly without warning.

Harry can’t hold back the cry he makes. It feels like every inch of him is on fire. Trying to get away, he attempts to scoot up the bed, but Pete just holds him in place. Harry buries his face in his pillow and sobs while Pete rams into him repeatedly, telling him to shut up and take it, that he knows he likes it.

Pete continues to slap him as he sinks further into him, and Harry knows he’ll have hand prints covering his body. When Pete grabs onto his hips to control his movements, Harry is pretty sure he will have bruises there too.

It doesn’t take long thankfully. Pete is filling him up and pulling out, and Harry cries out again at the stinging it causes. His bum is sore. He won’t be able to walk for a week, he’s sure.

He can feel Pete’s spunk leaking out of him, sliding down his leg. That's not the worst part, though. Neither is the dark chuckle Pete makes when he pushes a finger back inside momentarily, pressing against him painfully.

The worst part is what Pete whispers in his ear before he gets up and leaves, hollering for Harry to be downstairs in five minutes. The words echo back and forth in his head over and over and over again.

Now nobody can love you.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry starts looking for some way to deal with everything; it’s all building up inside him, and he needs to let it out somehow. He screams into his pillow, he cries, he kicks and punches walls and his furniture, but at the end of the day, he’s still hurt and he doesn’t know what to do to make it all go away.

When they're home alone, Pete makes Harry skip meals, won't let him eat unless he's "earned it." One day at school, when Harry is feeling particularly low, he doesn't eat lunch. It's not really a conscious decision, he's just not in the mood to eat anything. It happens again a few more times until it's stuck with him. Skipping meals becomes a form of punishment. And that’s what he needs to do, right? To punish himself. Because whatever it is, whatever is going on, it’s his fault. At the end of the day it is his entire fault. And maybe if he gets better at punishing himself, Pete won't have to.

When he drops a few pounds he starts to feel a little better. If he has to eat dinner, he just makes himself throw it up. He slowly gets thinner, wrapping himself up in jumpers year round and wishing away his baby fat.

But it still isn’t enough. He’ll skip a meal or throw up his dinner, but he still ends up crying on the bathroom floor, ashamed and hating himself. Wishing he was thinner, smarter, just overall better.

That is, perhaps, how he finds himself holding a razor blade to his wrist one Saturday night. He slides it across the skin experimentally, bites his lip because fuck that hurts, watches the blood drip down his arm, and thinks oh.

And everything kind of clicks into place after that.

When Pete sees the cuts he just laughs, presses down on them, and says, “Good boy. That’s what you get for being a little fuck-up.”

And Harry knows he’s right. That's exactly what he deserves.

~*~*~*~*~

Gemma is seated across from him, blinking her long mascara-covered eyelashes a couple times before looking away, down at the food on her plate. She’s been away at school for a few years now and is home for the long weekend. Something in the way that she's been watching him (watching, not staring exactly, but definitely watching) looks suspicious and concerned. Harry doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, definitely wants to stay away from that topic, but his thoughts take him there anyway. For a few minutes he freaks a little, wondering if she knows something.

She couldn’t though, there’s no way. He’s just being paranoid.

He takes a small bite of his green beans, only half-listening to what his mum and Pete are going on about – something about Pete’s job and an annoying client. Well poor, poor you, Harry wants to say.

Gemma looks up again and their eyes met for a second time. Both sets are the same shade of green, but Harry’s pretty sure hers are brighter. She’s tired, he can tell, but there’s a light in her eyes that is missing from his. Maybe it was there once upon a time or maybe he never had it, he doesn’t know.

“I have to talk to you,” she then says and every muscle in his body tightens in fear.

What did I do this time? is his first thought, and then Oh God what if she knows? Tried so hard to be good. So quiet. He has so many secrets though. How is he supposed to hide them all?

She smiles though and he relaxes a little bit – as much as he can, anyway. “I have a surprise, actually,” she continues. “Kind of an early birthday present.”

Harry raises an eyebrow in curiosity. His sixteenth birthday is still a few weeks off. He wonders why she wants to give him his present now when they both know she’ll be back to celebrate in a couple weeks.

Or maybe she’s not coming, he thinks. Is this her way of saying she’ll be too busy that weekend or unwilling to make the trip?

“Yeah?”

She nods. “I was going to wait, but. . .” She shrugs, her voice trailing off.

He can feel Pete’s eyes on him and instinctively, he pulls on the sleeve of his jumper till it covers more of his slightly exposed wrist. Gemma’s eyes follow the movement, but she says nothing. Probably just thinks he's cold. It’s snowing outside; he’s allowed to be a little chilly. It’s easier now that it's winter and he has a legitimate excuse to wear long sleeves. His mum had been getting a bit worried when it would be seventy plus degrees outside and he’d be dressed in jumpers and jeans instead of shorts and t-shirts - or prowling around naked like he had when he was younger. Apparently something he’s famous for and can’t live down.

“So what is it?” Harry finally asks, coming to the conclusion that she either isn’t going to tell him or is just trying to wind him up and wait till the last second.

He puts down his fork, no longer hungry. Hell, he hadn’t been hungry much to begin with. He smiles at his mum though, hoping it conveys his appreciation for dinner.

Gemma looks down, but he can see her wide smile. She tucks a strand of her dark hair behind her ear then gets up. She walks away from the table and a moment later he can hear her feet on the stairs, then down the hall, heading to her bedroom.

Confused and feeling a little impatient, Harry huffs out a breath, but gets up to clean off the table. He takes Pete’s empty plate without having to be asked – knowing he’ll just bitch about it or make some snide comment like why don't you ever make yourself useful later when Harry’s mum isn’t around. He brings Pete back a beer too – again, not needing to be asked.

Pete doesn’t thank Harry, just pops off the top and takes a swig.

When Harry’s sitting down again, Gemma returns. She skips over to where he is, looking happier than he’s seen her in a long time – which is an accomplishment, really. Gemma has always been the happy one in the family. She works hard, yeah, takes school a lot more seriously than he does, but she’s got an air of freedom about her, always laid back like zombies could take over the world and she wouldn’t give a damn.

Of course it’s not that hard to be happy compared to Harry, but he tries, he really does.

“Close your eyes.”

He rolls them briefly, but does as instructed. She slips two pieces of paper into his outstretched hands. They’re harder than normal paper and rectangular, rather small in size. He opens his eyes, immediately becoming more confused because the slips of paper are blank.

She laughs and reaches out to flip them over. And there. He’s not sure he’s seeing right because there’s no way – no way on Earth or Hell or Heaven or Mars – that she scored The Script tickets, not this late. The concert is a week away for crying out loud.

Also, how long exactly was she going to wait to tell him?

Harry blinks a couple times, trying to clear his already perfect vision. He looks up at his older sister in awe. “Are you shitting – I mean, sorry mum – are you kidding me?” His voice is quiet, but he’s pretty sure his tone expresses how enthusiastic he is.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, Curly Sue, they’re real. Don’t ask me how I got them though.” She winks and wiggles her eyebrows.

“Hopefully nothing illegal,” his mum jokes – she’s leaning over his shoulder, trying to get a better look. “Well that should be fun! I know how much you love them.” They're only his favorite band ever.

Gemma nods quickly, now turning to look at their mother. “I was thinking he could come spend the weekend with me. You know my roommate’s never there so it wouldn’t be a problem. He’d have a bed and everything.” She then looks down at Harry expectantly, like he could actually say anything other than yes.

He jumps up. “Of course!” He wraps her in a quick hug, a little surprised to find that he’s almost taller than her now. She practically tackled him when she walked through the door an hour ago, so he hadn’t really had a chance to notice how much he had grown since the last time he’d seen her.

She groans. “You’re getting so big, Curly,” she says, her thoughts on the same track as his.

Harry just smirks a little, doesn’t say anything, and pulls away from her to look down at the tickets again. “Thanks a bunch, Gem.”

She just shrugs, like it’s no big deal. It is, he wants to tell her, it’s a huge fucking deal. He can’t remember the last time he was out of the house for longer than the usual eight hours for school.

Harry glances around, suddenly remembering Pete. He’s got a hard look on his face, contemplative and frowning. He takes a swig of his beer, leans back in his seat and crosses his arms.

He’s going to say no. He can’t say no.

Pete says nothing.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry didn’t eat much, but he can still feel the weight of his dinner pressing against his stomach. It’s uncomfortable, unwelcome. So when everyone’s distracted he sneaks into the bathroom between his and Gemma’s room. He turns on the shower and gets down on his knees in front of the porcelain toilet.

He just sits there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths to try and calm himself down.

When his breathing is low and steady he lifts up the seat, leans forward, and sticks two of his fingers down the back of his throat.

The first time he did this he had to move his fingers around a bunch, use three instead of two, and push them way back until practically his entire fist was in his mouth. He had been impatient, too, and crying – full of guilt for what he was about to do – so when he didn’t throw up right away (because of course he had to be gifted with zero gag reflexes) he had gotten angry and started cursing himself and the toilet – as if it was its fault.

Now though, it’s like his body knows exactly what he wants and is accustom to doing it. This makes him feel guiltier of course – a part of this ritual that doesn’t ever go away – but he ignores it.

It isn’t long before the contents of his stomach are in the toilet, tinged with bright red blood.

His stomach hurts, the back of his throat is raw, and his fingers are gross, but he’s empty, and that’s what he needs: to feel as empty as he knows he is.