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18. Quiet (w.i.j.)

For @whumpmasinjuly day 18, I bring you Part 3 in the Water and Storm saga! Honestly, I don’t know how long this story thread is going to go on, but I’m enjoying writing it and it’s helping me make some good narrative connections for what’s going to happen next. So, I really hope you all don’t mind too much.

A Quick Note: @ashintheairlikesnow‘s characters Oliver Branch and Chris Stanton (the sweetest bean) are mentioned here; Chris and Henry met once a while ago and the bits of dialogue were written by Ash in a tester scene RP we worked on back in June. Thank you for letting me borrow your sweet bean, Ash!

Now, enjoy!

cw: forced isolation, hunger, exhaustion; mentions of ownership, training, and gross men being gross together. (Let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

~*~*~*~

The last rays of sunlight shone pink under the crack of the bathroom door and across the shining white tile. Henry could see it from where he sat, languishing in the bathtub. The colors of sunrise and sunset, the chiming of the clocks below him, and his own bad instinct the only things that created a sense of time. Henry scrunched down in the tub, leaning his cheek against the porcelain side. Wednesday night, maybe. Just about 8:30 in the evening, judging by summer sunsets.

Another day gone in the long week stuck in the small space.

Another day passed feeling useless and anxious.

Two more days before someone would come back for him, maybe. Henry wasn’t going to let himself believe he would just be allowed out without giving more of himself over. It didn’t work like that. There was no way he was just going to be allowed out - allowed back into the main house, back into his bed and clothes, back to the food and sunshine, without any consequences.

Mariana didn’t work that way.

Alexander likely wouldn’t work that way this time, considering he had gleefully locked Henry in there to begin with.

Henry had heard them laughing through the vents, spending that first evening congratulating themselves on another punishment well done while he struggled and rolled to get out of his restraints.

Henry sighed, watching the pink fade to grey, well on it’s way to turning black. He pressed his fingers and the flat of his palm into his stomach, trying to silence the growling. It had gotten worse in the last day and a half, bouncing off the alls of the bathroom and clawing its way up his throat. He felt hollow and stagnant. He still had a protein bar and two packs of fruit gummies left, all of which he was saving should Mariana and Alexander decide he needed a few more days of atonement.

Lots of water and laying still on the floor quieted the noise, the empty feeling, but not for long. All that stagnation, the laying around and boredom -- it made Henry itch underneath his skin. Itch for his bed and blankets, to move and squirm and stare at something else but blank white walls. It to stretch and sprawl, to run and lay out in the summer heat. To simply do something, anything else with his body.

He had spent hours of time stretching and twisting his legs across the cold tile; lying flat on his back and seeing how far he could push his hips into the air; measuring how far he could roll his spine until he could lick the skin of his knees.

The books in his backpack lay discarded on the floor like his once-damp jeans and shirt. He had read them both twice all the way through before throwing them across the room in frustration. He had unlaced and re-laced his shoelaces eight separate times before throwing those away too. He had even cleaned the bathroom, scrubbing it top to bottom until the cleaning chemicals made him woozy.

How did anyone do this much nothing for so long?

How did stand this much empty, open time without tearing their hair out, clawing their skin open, or just plain losing sense?

I don't… don't know. I'm, I'm not allowed… the, the tree outside his bedroom had white flowers when, when, um, when I… was, was-was brought there...

Henry’s head popped up in surprise, his brain latching immediately onto a memory he had misplaced. Three or four years earlier, somewhere up in the mountains surrounded by snow and pine trees. A long weekend with one of Alexander’s work friends -- a privileged friend. The first time Henry had ever crossed paths with another pet.

You get to, to, um, to pretend… to be their, their son, right? Like… normal?

Henry cast a glance around the bathroom. The voice was so clear and bright in his brain that he was starting to wonder if he was imagining things. If he was cracking, hallucinating to fill the impenetrable silence.

But no, the small room was the same as it ever was. No other shape or shadow filled his vision. No figure of the redheaded boy he had known all too well all too briefly crossed his gaze.

Henry huffed in annoyance. He slid down into the bathtub, laying on his back and glaring up. Imaginary or no, Henry could have used Baldur’s company, his cheerful smile, maybe his advice.

I wish I, I got to be sixteen for cameras. I have to, to-to hide under his desk all day...

Henry curled his nose in disgust at the idea, then sniffed. He was suddenly very lonely, Painfully, desperately lonely. And Baldur’s voice was so close, the other boy seemed real, touchable, floating just out of sight. Henry hadn’t thought about the redheaded boy in years -- not his bright green eyes, the dangerous things they had talked about, or the honey-warm feeling in the pit of his stomach when they were allowed to be close.

A bright, safe spot in an awful weekend.

A small, kind memory in the middle of a dreadful week.

Henry huffed to himself and reached to pinch hard at the meat of his thigh. He had to check his self pity right then. Had to rein in the hopeless attitude before he lost sight of what he had been attempting to do. Baldur had spent months confined to a single hallway, crammed under Oliver Branch’s desk, or stashed away in the basement of the governor’s mansion. He had told Henry -- well, Nicholas -- all about it in quiet whispers after the older men had fallen asleep. Henry had listened while playing with the other boy’s fingers and moved as close to him as possible, hanging on every word.

Henry had lasted five days. He could handle two more.

He could do it.

So what’s the plan then, kiddo?

Henry smiled to himself. “I don’t know, Caleb. What’s next?”

No, you tell me. Remember this is your life now. You get to pick. So. What do you want to do, Henry?

Henry knew it was the conversation they had had while picking out college classes months and months ago. Just an echo of Caleb Garcia, of his family, and the care they had given him without question. Henry’s heart ached, but he couldn’t help answering back. It was the closest thing he had gotten to a conversation in days.

“I want to get out of here,” Henry murmured, as hushed as a prayer in an empty church. “I want to go, I want... I want to come home.”

Then come home, Henry. June’s voice now, gentle and sweet. Like she was kneeling next to his bed, trying to wake him up when he slept until noon. Come home safe, okay?

“I want to...” Henry took in a shuddering breath. “I tried. I tried, but I... I got caught. They’re going to watch me closer now, I know it. It’ll be harder, I-.”

Sometimes it seems like you’re sent to us perfectly braindead...Go on, then, darlin’, how do you talk to the press? Pretend I’m a reporter rather than Alexander’s devilishly handsome friend...

He nearly choked as a fourth voice invaded his brain. It caught him off-guard, frightening him out of the comfortable lull he had been in. It stirred the banking embers of his anger, whisking them back to a small flame. A dull roar, but still. It was something.

Something invigorating.

Something electrifying.

Something that would grow and strengthen.

“I’m not braindead,” Henry answers in a dull echo of what he had said way back when. “I’m not brain-dead. I’m smart, I stayed hidden, I could do it again.”

The thought strikes him across the head.

“I can do it again,” he repeats. “I can do it again...”

Henry thinks for a moment. He could do it again, but he was going to have to be smarter. Running into town after slamming the front door was a little ham-handed. The librarians would have probably snitched on him once they had found him. He would have to be smarter, sneakier. He would have to play the chess game, just like Mariana.

“Play the game... play the game...” Henry murmured. His stomach growled but he ignored it. He just had to get back into the house. He just had to behave. To be as perfect as he had been. Gently prod Mariana and Alexander into believing he was just as he was, that he had learned his lesson, that he was a good boy again.

You're good for him, aren't you? You're not too rebellious or defiant, might give him second thoughts?

Henry sneered quietly at Oliver Branch’s voice. A much younger him had protested and argued, insisted he was really good for everyone who wanted him to be. A much younger him had cared. Henry didn’t care anymore.

“Don’t change the subject, you bastard. I have thinking to do,” Henry hissed. Then it hit him. “I’ll send letters. I’ll be perfect when I’m next to them, but I’ll send letters to him... I can find the newspaper’s address, that’s not hard. But I’ll be perfect for everyone else, so they’ll never know.”

Yes, that was it. That’s what he would do.

Henry smiled to himself, a grin that quickly transformed into the one he would give to the cameras and interviewing journalists. He stuck out his hand to no one, smiling to the ceiling.

“Hello, I’m Henry Aldersky. It’s very nice to meet you.” Henry began in the easy, bright tone Mariana had trained into him. “What paper are you from?”

We learn from out past mistakes in this house, Henry.

“Can’t douse the fire from inside the house, Alexander.” Henry didn’t care if they heard him laughing.

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