Continued from yesterday:
Logan made another of his famous Marge Simpson noises. “Car’s out front when we’re ready.” Mrs. Ogg cleared her throat softly, looked at him and then at the door. Logan evaluated it and sighed. “Another check for Chuck to write,” he muttered. “But it ain’t vandalism if it got in her way."
Translation: _Don’t get her in trouble over this and we’ll foot the bill._ Mrs. Ogg nodded, grateful she didn’t have to bring it up to Sara. They were upset *enough.*
Todd finally noticed the door as they passed through it. "D-Day-umn,” he came back out of his shell to whistle.
“Yeah, somebody loves ya, treefrog. So this dragon… he do *that* to you?”
He meant Todd’s hands. “Nn. Used soap n’ water. Had ta stall."
"Huh? Why didn’t ya just use water?”
Because soap made him blister and Manny would steer clear for a few days if he thought it was contagious. Todd couldn’t bring himself to do it all the time though. He blinked slowly, realizing he *hadn’t* just been stupid. “Huh. Guess I was tryin’ to ward him off."
"Ward who off?”
“…Dragon.”
Logan just about slapped his forehead in frustration. “Allright. I get it. We’ll save it for another place."
No, Todd thought, worriedly. He didn’t get it at all.
~
Sara finger-combed his hair, because holding his hand would hurt him and hair was G-rated. Nobody could object.
Todd was pale and shaking and self-wounded and Dragon-wounded and all she wanted to do was hold him tight and safe and never let him go.
She couldn’t do a *thing* to help him get better, except be there for him.
That hurt.
+
Hot, sweet tea helped with the shock. A better, softer, warm blanket helped a little more. Sara liked to think the best help was the comfy couch to snuggle on, the warm fire to snuggle by, and herself as the snuggle-ee.
They’d made a little nest of sorts. Finger food here, hot drinks there, medicated skin goo over *there*… nothing had to be got up for and fetched.
Todd’s breathing evened out and his colour returned by degrees. He snuggled back after a while and almost fell asleep in her arms.
And cute though that was… she needed to *know*.
"I promised I wouldn’t force you,” she said. “Just - please… tell me what you can?”
~
Todd swallowed and nodded. He had promised to. Even though he hadn’t *said* as much. “His name’s Manny. He’s my uncle.” And that told her precisely squat. Keep trying. “Nn'gh. He did stuff to me that weren’t beatings. But it was still bad. Sent me to the hospital once and that sent him to jail, but I couldn’t testify. They wanted me to but I just couldn’t. I was scared of gettin’ in more trouble.” Todd’s voice grew a little lower. “Y'know, when you tell yo parents stuff that happens, they get this lovely reaction of blamin’ you for it. Like you asked for it or something.”
Sara nodded. “Indeed. They do.” Inside her mind was looking at the clues and coming up with possibilities. She didn’t like any of them.
“And when you get in trouble for tellin’ the truth, it becomes harder to do it. I thought the cops were gonna do all that shit Manny told me they’d do if I went. They didn’t understand why I wouldn’t stop panicking. Didn’t look very good for Manny. Dunno how they managed without me testifyin’ but they sent him to jail for quite a few years.” Todd shrugged. “Pop made me write to him after. Apology letters. He was convinced I been lyin’ bout stuff. Screened the hell outta the outgoing, but didn’t bother with the replies. I didn’t mind as much cause this time he was far away and behind bars. Could only hurt me wit words now."
He was still skirting around what Manny had actually *done* to him. But he’d said a lot - enough for Sara to get a rough sketch of things. A Dragon who hurt without any provocation, who sent a person to the hospital without violence, who had terrified a younger person specifically from going to the police… but she didn’t feel as if she could say that yet. She wanted him to keep talking.
"One dragon let another keep contact with you,” Sara muttered, imagining perfect crimes. If the man wasn’t already dead…
Todd could feel *her* thinking. “It’s in the past sweetums. Don’t be diggin up any graves,” he tried to joke.
She hugged him tightly. “It’s not in the past if it’s still hurting you, darling.”
“S'okay. I got over it then, I can get over it now.”
“The second time is rarely any easier than the first.” _And this time I’m here for you. Please let me help you get better?_
~
Perfect crimes. Dragons grouping together over prey. The image of broken bones healed over, under the macroscope.
“Manny never hit you, did he?”
A pause, during which Todd grew as still as a corpse. “Naw. Not often.”
And given the clean nature of most of the breaks… which implied great strength… “Your father beat you.”
Flinch. “Yeh.”
“Alcoholic?”
“Yeah.”
Sara knew too well that there was more than one way to hurt a person. Physical punishment was a rarity for her own childhood… but words could hurt worse than breaks and bruises. And so could other things.
Her own mother had lived in eternal fear of such ‘other things’ happening to Sara - even when Sara was patently unwantable. Thus, it was a horrific image that plagued her. Manny, an unknown and dark shape looming over a younger Todd… vulnerable.
“This Dragon of yours is in the school,” she said. “He *has* to be. Two seperate attacks hours apart? If he wasn’t in some form of camouflage, he’d have been arrested anew.”
“Hon. Please. Don’t go diggin’ it up?” Some secrets were never meant to be told. If Sara got mixed up over this, Manny would *delight* in telling her. Making her hate him.
“He’s here to hurt you. It dug itself up,” she insisted. “And given his past, it’s illegal for him to be an employee of a school… no matter *what* the position.”
“Sweetie…? Please…”
“It’s a matter of *law*, darling. It’s illegal for him to even *be* there… let alone to be near *you*. And since he’s in a school, that puts others at risk. I’m sorry, love, but… I’m honour-bound to find out as much as I can and *nail* the fucking bastard.”
Todd flinched. Staring at her. Retreating.
Sara looked at her hands. Fury colours. She turned the holowatch back on. “Yes, I *am* pissed off. At *him*. At a system that lets a man abuse innocents and refuses to seal them away in the closest place to Hell. At this whole - *thing*… and that it had to hurt you so badly you can’t–” she wanted to hit something. Anything to stop the tears from springing forth. She got up and paced around the couch, fretting off the nervous energy. Sara fetched up against the mantlepiece, forehead against her forearms. The tears were coming, anyway.
“…i’m sorry…”
Sara stared at him. “How can you be sorry for your own wounds?” she said. “How can you be sorry for someone else’s actions? It was never your fault.”
Todd huddled under the blanket. “…was,” he murmured. “…’s always m’ fault.”
“Never,” Sara said, joining him again on the couch. “Never, ever, ever, darling. Please try to remember that. Dragons *always* try to make it your own fault. It’s just not true. They *lie*. They lie abominably… and so sweetly that it turns your head inside out the longer you listen.” She sniffed. Damn waterworks.
“Please don’t cry?” Todd begged. “Ain’t your fault, either, yo.”
“I’m not blaming myself, dear. I’m crying 'cause you can’t.”
They held each other as the sunset’s colours washed through the room. Each loaning the other what comfort they could share.
After school, Mr. Haufman had clocked out. He’d left his coat, his accent, and had checked out a book of basic German from the library. Then he’d gone home to his flat in the tenements. Actually, it wasn’t really his flat. It was his late brother’s. Who had been murdered a few years ago, along with his own sister-in-law. Manny didn’t know where Todd had gone or what he’d done, but he was hoping for some answers. Answers would be nice. Then maybe he’d repay the favour for giving him a chance to turn his life around in prison. Yes, Manny had really learned his lesson. He’d learned it wasn’t fun to be cornered and vulnerable and for nobody to give a flying crap enough to stop it. He’d learned, but he wasn’t thrilled at being the student. When he found Todd, the boy was going to answer for it.
Finding him wasn’t trouble any longer. There was a limited number of places Todd had to go. Manny already knew he had a girlfriend, and he knew her name. Get to Sara, get to Todd. And that boy, Kenny… he’d looked an awful lot like Todd, but he was too cringy for a boy who’d helped his parents get killed and made it out unharmed. Manny didn’t trust police reports as far as he could spit. There was no way his brother had fallen to a street-crazy or random hoodlum. Ted Tolensky(1) was the first to grab the handgun and start shooting when there was trouble. No, it had happened on the inside. There’d been a betrayal of some kind - Manny could smell a rat.
He’d had a lot of time to think about how Todd might’ve grown up in prison. When he wasn’t thinking thoughts that had gotten him there in the first place, he was theorizing possible mannerisms Todd might have developed from home life. His father’s temper. He would talk down to women because from what he knew, they stuck around anyway. Maybe he drank or did pot when his dad was too wasted to take inventory. He’d be bitter, ugly, scarred and broken. Complete trash with no purpose and nobody left to care.
Yet, one of those was untrue. He had a girlfriend. Who seemed intelligent and saw right through his German act. Who had a chest as flat as a guy’s back. Manny hadn’t realised she was a girl until he called roll. Would the Todd he imagined go after a girl smarter and less pretty than his mom? The beauty he could understand Todd having to settle for, but the broad’s brains threw him off. Smart women didn’t stick around with men who treated them wrong. They thought they were better than men and usually turned lesbian.(2)
But he’d figure it out. He had to. Something had torn apart his family, sad and pathetic though it was it had been the only thing Manny knew to return to. It had been Todd’s fault. He was going to find out how and make him pay.
(1) Ted Tolensky sounded like a good name for Todd’s father. Cause I forgot Papa Tolensky’s name if it’s been mentioned. @.@; If it has, just ignore the Ted.
(2) God, I hate men with mindsights like that. –; I know a few too many.