Okay but why do I find it adorable that he has his pronouns displayed 🥹 probably cuz not many people his age understand pronouns and what not so it just automatically makes him 10x cuter 😩
When it’s his time to go I will literally be a wreck for like months.
summary: shawn struggles to hide the physical and emotional effects of his father’s abuse.
Turner watched new cuts and bruises appear on Shawn’s face, arms, and neck and listened to each excuse for another few weeks with growing concern. He watched his clothes get even more baggy than they always were, only caught glimpses of any of the injuries that weren’t on his face when the kid stopped paying attention to his sleeves, and didn’t think there was any way it was a coincidence.
He didn’t want to cause trouble for Shawn, didn’t want to drive him away by doing something that could turn his life upside down, but he was becoming more and more convinced that something could be seriously wrong. Sure, he’d had some suspicious injuries before, but it had gotten so much worse, so quickly. Whether he was fighting or something much worse was going on, it was becoming more and more of an issue, and the boy could be in real danger. He could tell that Cory was worried too. And when it came to Shawn and Cory, if Shawn hadn’t told Cory about something, it was probably very, very bad.
And Shawn got more nervous every time Jonathon asked, withdrew more with every passing class. Every time Turner looked at him, he got a sick feeling in his stomach and a picture of the world opening fire on the boy, while he stood there with a shield, not using it, just letting him suffer.
“Now at this point, their conflict escalates into a physical fight,” Turner was saying, in the middle of a lecture chapters ten through twelve of Invisible Man, “and the narrator knocks out Brockway’s false teeth. Brockway gets revenge by rigging the boilers to explode, which sends the narrator to the hospital. There, the doctor ‘treats’ him using a series of electric shocks that not only make him feel like he’s no longer connected to his body, but also render him unable to express his anger and indignation.”
As he paced to the back of the room, he reached out without thinking and squeezed Shawn’s shoulder in an attempt to bring him back from the edge of sleep he seemed to be about to tumble off.
The feeling of the boy shuttering away from him like he’d been hit wasn’t one that Jon was going to soon forget.
It distracted him for the rest of the class, until he finally gave up on lecturing and gave them the last fifteen minutes to get a headstart on the next three chapters. Shawn pulled out his book with the rest of the class, but as he stared vacantly at the page and never turned it, it was clear he was doing even less reading than he normally did.
When the bell finally rang and the room of fourteen year-olds began to pack up, Turner walked back over to the boy, looking down at him without trying to hide his concern.
“Hunter, are you okay?”
The boy looked up sharply, obviously trying and failing to mask the nervousness from his face. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
And then, he bolted for the door.
Jon looked over at Cory, who was staring out the door, frowning intensely.
“You know what that was about?” the teacher asked.
Cory shook his head slowly. “I have no idea.” He hesitated a moment before looking up with a little fear in his eyes. “Mr. Turner, I’m getting real worried about him.”
Jon sighed, following the kid’s gaze out into the hall. “Yeah. Me too.”
time-skip sponsored by noodles
Shawn kept his head down as he slunk into Turner’s class and found his seat. The guy was onto something, and all he seemed to do was give him more clues. The way he’d flinched away from him the day before? He might as well wear a sign that said, Please, call CPS!!
If he didn’t get in together, he was going to get into some real trouble.
The bell had barely finished ringing when the classroom door opened again, revealing Mr. Feeney rather than a late student. The shuffling of chairs and books around the room froze as the school principal locked eyes with Shawn and beckoned him over.
With a sick feeling in his stomach, Shawn replayed every moment from the past two weeks. He hadn’t even done anything. That meant…
Cory caught his arm as he hesitantly rose to obey. “What did you do?” he hissed.
All Shawn could do was shake his head and shrug before crossing the room again with every eye on him and following Feeney out into the hall.
“Mr. Feeney, what’d I do?” he asked desperately as soon as the door had closed behind them.
“Mr. Hunter, you didn’t do anything.” There was a strange note of gentleness in the old teacher’s voice. “I don’t only exist to punish your wrongdoing.”
“Well then, why…” The boy stopped short as Feeny opened his office door to reveal a police officer and a man with Child Protective Services printed on his jacket already sitting inside.
No.
He tried to step back, but Feeney was there behind him, and he couldn’t.
“As I said,” the principal told him, “you’re not in trouble. These men are simply here to talk to you. Now please step inside.”
“I don’t need to talk to them!” the teen gasped, barely remembering how to breathe, unable to hide the tremble from his voice.
His teacher looked at him with no small amount of compassion on his face. “Shawn, no one in this room wants anything except to help you.”
“I don’t want… I mean I–I don’t need…” Shawn stopped short and stepped back once more as the police officer rose from his seat and walked over to where they were standing.
He bent slightly so he could look Shawn in the face and placed a hand on his arm, the motion slow and deliberate, the man clearly trying not to startle him.
“Shawn, listen.” He paused, waiting for the boy’s eyes to slide up to his so he was sure he was, in fact, listening, before going on. “If you don’t need any help, we’ll make this quick and let you get back to class. We’re not here to try to hurt you or overturn your life or anything like that. But there is an adult in your life who’s very concerned about you, and we just want to make sure that you really don’t need us… that you’re really okay. Alright?”
Shawn didn’t say anything, just staring at him in total panic as a blaring alarm system continued to dictate the chaos inside his head.
The officer squeezed his arm a little like he was trying to pull him out of it. “Just work with us here, okay? We want to help you.”
Shawn wavered for a long moment, aware that his eyes locked with the older man’s spelled out all of the panic he was feeling, forcing himself to suck a little oxygen into his arms and start thinking again.
All he had to do was lie. He lied all the time. He was good at lying. His dad didn’t have to know about any of this, and nothing had to get worse. Everything was going to be fine if he just calmed down and played it cool.
“Okay,” he managed, pulling away from the guy and flopping down into one of the waiting chairs on that side of Feeney’s desk. “Whatever.”
“Thank you.”
The officer straightened up with a slight nod and reclaimed his own seat as Feeney did the same. When he had, the principal’s gaze swept over the three people around his desk.
“Alright, Mr. Hunter,” he began, his voice still carrying the uncharacteristic gentleness from before. “As Officer Rivera just said, an adult in your life…”
Shawn cut him off in exhausted annoyance. “Turner. We all know it was Turner.”
Feeney hesitated, then nodded in defeat. “Yes, Shawn. It was Mr. Turner. He’s been noticing little injuries on your body for a while now, but over the past few weeks, they’ve become more common and more severe, your excuses have become less and less believable, and he’s extremely concerned for your wellbeing. So, Officer Rivera and Mr. Westfield are here to talk to you about where these injuries are coming from. All we ask is that you’re honest with us. Alright?”
Shawn nodded, struggling to control his face and make it believable.
“Good.” The man with the CPS jacket, Westfield as Feeney had introduced him, offered Shawn a small smile. “Now I can already see what your teacher was talking about on your face and neck. I suspect that if you weren’t in long sleeves, I would see bruises on your arms as well. But the first thing I’m going to ask you to do is take your shirt off.”
The boy opened his mouth to protest, but the man held up a hand to forestall him, his tone still patient and non accusatory. “That’s all. Just your shirt, just for a minute. I just want to know the extent of the injuries we’re talking about here.”
Shawn looked among the three men he was talking to, searching for anyone who was going to let him out of this. Finally, his voice came out small and scared. “Do I have to?”
“No.” It was Officer Rivera speaking again, with the same kindness as before. “You don’t have to. But if you don’t, we’re going to have to assume that there’s something to hide, and that it’s pretty severe. Eventually, you may have to, but at the ER or urgent care instead of here. When it comes to keeping you safe, we have to work on worst-case scenario assumptions where we don’t know. So I think your best bet is to just do what Mr. Westfield asks you to.”
Shawn bit down on his cheek hard. This was a mess, and he was in a corner. But there was a way out. There had to be. He always found a way out.
“Fine.” The word came out a whisper as he hesitantly rose and reached up to his collar.
He paused for another moment, looking to Feeney and silently begging him to make it stop. There was compassion in the principal’s gaze, but he simply inclined his head for him to keep going.
What was he supposed to do now?
There was a collective wince around the office when he pulled the shirt off.
Looking down at his skinny torso, currently every shade of black and blue, he could see why.
But Westfield simply nodded and made a note on his clipboard. “Turn around for me?”
And there were the welts from the belt.
Another note, then he offered Shawn another brief smile. “Alright. Thank you. You can put it back on now.”
The teen did, sat down again, then focused on keeping from shaking as he waited for someone to speak.
Westfield did, leaning forward to look at him. “Alright, Shawn,” he stated. “You’re pretty beat up. Can you tell us how that happened?”
He hesitated, his mind going a million miles per hour. Whatever he told them first, they were going to assume was a lie. So he shouldn’t play his best card. Not yet.
He shrugged and looked away from the CPS officer’s gaze. “I just get scraped up. Falling out of trees, running into things, that kinda thing. I’m fine, I swear.”
This time, the smile that touched Westfield’s face was sad. “I think we both know that there is something a lot deeper than just falling out of trees going on here,” he told him simply. “Even if it was believable that you could get as bruised as you are that way, that doesn’t explain your back, and it doesn’t explain the cuts on your face.”
“Mr. Hunter,” Feeney added, “like they’ve already told you. We’re just trying to help. All we need from you is the truth.”
Shawn hesitated. This was it. Make it real. He had to believe that it was real, or else they never would.
“Look,” he said when he thought he’d paused long enough, “I live in a trailer park. There’s a hierarchy. There’s turf. We fight for it. It just comes with the neighborhood.”
“What kind of fights are these?” Westfield asked.
The boy shrugged a little. “They’re just street fights… you know, you throw words, then people shove you towards each other, and then you start throwing punches.” He cracked a smirk. “You should see the other guys.”
“Now what about your back?” the social worker pressed. “That didn’t happen in a street fight.”
“Well, yeah.” The kid spread his hands like the answer was obvious. “Sometimes when I fight, I get the belt. Lots of parents punish kids that way, don’t they?”
Westfield conceded the point with a small nod, but he still didn’t look convinced.
“Do your parents drink a lot?”
Again, he had to think quickly. There was no way they’d just talk to him… they were probably at his house right now too, and they would probably search it. That meant they’d see that there was a lot of alcohol in that trailer.
“The whole neighborhood drinks a lot,” he told them plainly. “So yeah, they have a few beers every night.”
“Does alcohol make them more volatile?”
“I mean, they’re more prone to yell at each other,” Shawn said easily. “Mom might throw her hairbrush at Dad if it really gets heated. But not like you’re thinking.”
“Do they ever hit you with the belt while they’re drunk?”
“Nah.” He brought the smirk back. “When they’re drunk, they don’ t pay any attention to what I do. It’s always the next day that they figure it out.”
“So you feel safe at home?” the guy pressed.
That lie hurt a little as it left his mouth. “Yeah, of course.”
“So, why did you find the need to lie in the first place, Mr. Hunter?” Feeney asked gently.
“You know…” He spread his hands in the same gesture as before. “I just told you guys I fight all the time. I’m talking to my principal and a cop. I knew how that was gonna go.”
His teacher nodded slightly, sighing a little as Rivera took his turn to lean forward and look him in the face.
“Well, I’m not happy to hear that.” His tone was serious, but more concerned than judgemental. “Shawn, I know that it seems harmless now, but fights like you’re describing can get out of hand in the blink of an eye. Someone pulls a knife or a gun and suddenly, someone else doesn’t walk away. And territorial fighting is an early step in gang activity. Besides that, you’re already beaten black and blue. Your body can only take so much of that.”
Shawn begged to differ. He’d been taking this for years and was still going strong.
“I can tell that you’re better than that,” Rivera continued, “that you’re a smart kid. Walk away. It doesn’t matter who calls you what. And if they threaten or harass you, call us. I know we’re not popular in neighborhoods like yours, and I know why. Trust me, my parents are from Mexico… I know how some cops are. But a lot of us really are on your side. We’re here to keep you guys safe.”
Shawn swallowed hard and looked down at the desk. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet,” Rivera sighed. “But you could be soon. Okay?”
“Okay.” The boy glanced up at Mr. Feeney. “Can I go back to class now?”
The principal looked to the officers for approval, and when they nodded, he did the same. “You can go. But remember… if any of your answers ever change and you need help, you can come to any adult in this school, or you can call the police or the CPS directly. Alright?”
