I Have Lots Of Thoughts About Oscar And Claustrophobia So Here Is A Second Interpretation Of Todays Whumptober

I have lots of thoughts about Oscar and claustrophobia so here is a second interpretation of todays whumptober prompt

cw suicidal ideation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oscar would bet money that solitary got smaller every time he was sent down there. Logically he knew it didn't, brick and stone didn't just move, but it was hard to be logical when it was like this, when it was dark outside and the only light was coming through the barred window in the high corner of the room and his ribs hurt from tensing with how cold it was.

Sometimes he thought he'd die down here. The weather or the fact that sometimes, most of the the time, he couldn't breathe quite right, could feel his heart in his chest and pinpricks under his skin, so aware of every sensation and the lack of space. He got restless when it was quiet. He got restless and paranoid and considered smashing his head against the wall to just end it and let Snyder find his body-

"Delancey."

Oscar spun at the voice through the door, it was embarrassing how quickly he darted to it.

"Mr Snyder. Fuck. M' I done-“

"I can hear you from my office you know, it's the floor above."

It was one of those moments again, where his heart was beating out of his rib cage, up his throat, and his hands were shaking where they were pressed up against the thick wooden door. he was begging for splinters. Something to make the floating feeling stop, something that made him think about anything other than being at home and in his room for days on end and calling for ma and da and hearing nothing from no one and being so sure he was going to die-

"breathe, Oscar."

"Fuck you," He spat. He didn't mean to, no one spoke to Snyder like that, you weren't meant to speak to Snyder like that, but he couldn't think straight down here, losing his goddamn mind with every minute that ticked past, like he was turning into his fuckin' ma-

"Oscar." It was sharp.

"Let me out. Fuckin'. Please Snyder, christ. I can't breathe down here."

He could barely see either, feel his hands, the numb tingling that had spread from his fingers and up his arms, his whole body felt like a stack of cards-

The slot for the food he hadn't been given was pushed open.

Fuck he was hungry. Too out of it to process it.

"What- what're you-"

It felt like the ground was moving under him. All cold stone and brick. If he passed out maybe he'd hit his head hard enough he'd die

"Don't get your hopes up, Oscar. I told you you weren't eating and I meant it. Give me your hand."

"I ain't wanna touch your fuckin' hand-"

"Give me your hand or I can add another day to your stint down here."

Oscar tried to hold out. He really did. But he relented. Reached his shaking, calluased hand and let Snyder grab it.

If the semi-dried blood on Oscar's knuckles from punching the stone wall bothered Snyder any, he didn't show it. Oscar thought he must've been used to the blood on his hands.

Snyder's hand was a little bigger than Oscar's and warm to the touch, soft. Nails cut and manicured, he had a firm hold, painful, almost as he squeezed Oscar's hand.

"Can you feel me? I'm right here, Oscar."

The air came out of Oscar's mouth in quick puffs of cold air. At least he wasn’t being ignored. At least it wasn’t like calling for ma and da.

"Yeah. Yeah I know,"

"How does my hand feel."

"What-“

"Answer the question Oscar."

He hesitated, trying to focus on the feeling of palm pressed to palm.

“Skins real soft," he said. "Like you ain't ever done a days work in your life."

Snyder huffed a laugh. Oscar wasn't laughing, still trying to persuade himself the walls weren’t closing in.

"Good. good. Now can you take a deep breath."

"Fuck you."

Snyder squeezed his hand so tight it hurt.

"Take a deep breath."

Oscar tried, but it felt like he couldn't get enough air into the bottom of his lungs, like they wouldn't expand wide enough. Like his ribs were seizing up with the cold air with every attempt of an inhale.

Snyder's grip didn't loosen up any. when he spoke again, his voice was low. filled with a barely restrained anger Oscar recognised.

"I can hear you pacing from my office and it's slowly driving me insane, so I need you to calm the fuck down, do you understand me."

Oscar tried to yank his hand back. Snyder didn't relent.

"You're not getting out. So do you understand me."

Oscar voice still wavered when he answered, he thought about how his pacing couldn't bother Snyder if he was dead.

"Yes sir." It was low, gravely with cold, "I understand."

when did you stop loving daisy?

(did you ever?)

POST: LONG ISLAND, NY. AUG 1922

This is an impossible question to answer. You must understand how much of myself I put into her and thus how much of myself I lost the day I realized it wasn't going to happen. Can you imagine that? Building the whole of your world and your vision of yourself on the opinion of the one person on Earth you thought you truly understood, the very first person in your life to want nothing more than to bring you peace—just for that same person to change and withdraw as you, in an effort to retain their attention, concentrated and refined yourself into exactly what you thought they needed?

For once in my life I had someone I could understand, until I didn't. And for a moment I thought for sure that without her I had nothing, that I was nothing and I would die nothing, but—

—well, that's simply not the case. Now, here, anyway. In another life maybe I pursued her until my body gave out and I rotted away to reveal I'd been hollow all along. I still feel that way sometimes, on foggy nights when the green light at the end of her dock cuts through my room.

Only now I don't face it alone. And thank god for that.

I'll always have a fondness for Daisy. I don't think I could fully extract her from myself if I tried, as many times as I've reinvented myself. I don't think that's a bad thing. She's good, you see, old sport. She really is. I don't blame her for my giving up, and you shouldn't either.

I would write more, but I have more letters to answer, a past to put away, a present to appreciate, and I'm already being called to tomorrow.

Sincerely and emphatically,

Jay Gatsby

Bonus non-whumptober delancey fic bc apparently it’s necessary.

cw. Mention of/allusions to suicide

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morris wasn’t sure what time it was, but it must’ve been late, or maybe the early hours of the morning; the low hanging moon shining just enough light into the room through the gaps of space between the rotted wood of the roof Oscar hadn’t got round to fixing yet.

His breath was caught in his throat, and he was cold, his thin blanket that had been patched up several times over a tangled mess on the floor. He must’ve kicked it off in his sleep.

Nightmares weren’t unusual, and he couldn’t even remember this one, not really, grasping at smoke as he tried to slot the foggy images back into place, but he felt it in his chest, something hollow that made him aware of what felt like empty space in his ribcage.

It was something about Ma, maybe. When he closed his eyes he pictured her face, her features a little distorted maybe, from so many years without her, but it was easy to piece together when he looked so much like her. He saw her most of the time when he looked in the mirror.

It was the little things he forgot, whether the freckle on her chin was on the right or left of her lip. Whether the scar just below her eye was white or pink.

And she always looked happy, when he imaged her. He doesn’t remember her ever looking happy.

He had an old picture once. When da had told them to pack, Christ, near 10 years ago now, he’d not known what to bring, but shoved the picture of mammy from his bedside table into his pocket before da shoved them out the door and in the back of the cart and abandoned them to Snyder like the shit father he always had been.

Morris remembered being scared, then. Clinging to Oscar’s hand. And in retrospect he realised Oscar must’ve been scared too, a little kid still. He’d held onto Morris’s hand just as tight in return.

It wasn’t long after they were out of the refuge that Oscar had burnt it, the picture.

Morris couldn’t remember what the argument that prompted it was about anymore, he just remembered the flames licking up the side of the crumpled photo, more creases than it was her image anymore with the amount it had been shoved in his pocket and taken out and unfolded and held so tightly he was sure he accidentally tore it.

He thought about the photo (ma sat down next her husband, a bruise shadowing her cheek) as he leant down to grab his blanket from the floor. The rotting wooden frame of the bed creaked. It was loud in the silence of the room, the only noise aside from Oscar’s level breathing, and then that shifted.

“Mo?” His voice was low and rough and so southern that for a moment Morris was sure he was da.

“Go back to sleep, Os.”

A few second of quiet. And then the shitty mattress gurning as Oscar turned over, pushed himself up onto his elbow to stare at him.

Morris couldn’t help the fond twist of his lip despite the circumstance. Even through the dark he could see that Oscar’s curls were a mess, and he was wearing an expression that Morris recognised from the street cat he disturbed the other week while it was napping on a sunny patch of cobble. Disgruntled.

“Wha’s wrong with you?”

Morris pulled his legs up to his chest, ignoring the goosebumps dotting along his skin. “Nothin’.”

“Shit liar.”

“I’m not lyin’.”

“You’re cryin’.”

Morris furrowed his brows and swiped the heel of his palm underneath his eyes. It came away wet.

He hadn’t even realised.

“Seriously Mo.” Oscar shifted and the bed creaked again. “Know I hate it when you lie.”

“Dreamin’ ‘bout ma. I think.”

The admission felt dangerous. There was never any way of knowing Oscar’s reaction to things like this. Whether he’d blow up or ruffle Morris’s hair or ignore him the rest of the night.

Oscar never liked talking about their ma. Morris couldn’t remember the last time Oscar had brought her up first.

He was all too aware of the ways Oscar’s jaw hardened as he swallowed, of the way he flexed his hand.

“I don’t remember what,” he continued, “but I- I don’t think I can remember her face proper.”

Oscar fell back onto his mattress, elbow shifting from under him and Morris noted how he pulled a face at the sound, noted how he didn’t close his eyes but stared up at the ceiling instead.

“You’re right. Should just go back to sleep Mo.”

Morris swallowed hard and pulled the blanket closer around himself. His throat was aching.

“Was she greying when she-“ he couldn’t quite say it, even though it was years ago, and he’s said it before, hundreds of times. “I remember her hair bein’ real dark but sometimes I think about it and-“

“Startin’ to. Grey roots.”

“She was only young though.”

“Stress, Mo.” His voice still sounded all too much like da’s. Low. A quality of gravel to it.

Oscar was starting to grey a little too, in the same spots their da had, only a couple hairs, but Morris was growing more and more aware of it. He’d never thought his brother as old. There was only two years between them.

But ma hadn’t been old either.

“You’re not ever. you’re not ever gonna kill yourself, Os?”

“Jesus-“

“Cause you- ma weren’t even much older than you when she-“

“Morris-“

“-did it and I don’t think I’d be good, at bein’ on my own.” He swiped at his eyes again. “You could. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be good at it-“

“Christ Mo.” Oscar pushed himself up again and glared at him from across the room, if it weren’t for the late hour, Morris would swear there was a sheen to his eyes. But he knew better than to mention it. “I ain’t gonna kill myself, okay?”

Morris was afraid that if he spoke, no sound would come out. Instead he studied Oscar’s face as best he could through the darkness. His cheeks looked gaunter with all the shadows, his deep set eyes even darker, high cheekbones like da, a strong jawline, handsome. His hair was still a mess.

He looked tried.

Had looked tired for as long as Morris could remember. And Morris wondered if this was the image of Oscar he would remember, or if he would make him smile like he did with ma when he thought about her.

“I just.” His voice was quiet, but it felt like he was breaking something by talking. “I don’t wanna forget your face too.”

i’m gagging. excellent work.

ai-less whumptober; day eleven

@ailesswhumptober 11 — hallucinations, truth serum, “Why would you even say that?” ↳ the refuge, circa 1896 word count; 1.8k

cw; drugging, mental health issues, caning, abuse, catholicism

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Morris honest to God doesn't know what Oscar had done. He hadn't been involved, not remotely, hadn't even been told about the plan — whatever it was, whether it was planned at all. Whatever had been done, he hadn't seen. Hadn't heard. He doesn't know.

But Snyder doesn't believe him.

He'd watched, just a while earlier, as Oscar had been dragged from the bunk room — kicking and screaming the way he does when he's guilty — and sat and waited for him to be returned. He had no idea what his brother was in trouble for, but he was sure he'd find out when Oscar was tossed back black and blue, suitably (to the Refuge's standards) punished for whatever slight he'd commited against Snyder.

But Oscar hadn't come back. And then they'd come for Morris.

He kneels in Snyder's office now, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, back lit up in bright agony from his neck down to his tailbone, torn open with what was surely a hundred thousand strokes from one of Snyder's rattan canes, each one — and each strike from Snyder's bare hand, his polished shoes — intended to draw a confession from Morris. Honesty, Snyder says. But Morris can't be honest about what he doesn't know, can't confess sins he isn't privy to — and he wails that sentiment again, face inches from the rich maroon rug that spreads across Snyder's office floor, as Snyder's cane cracks down on him again.

It only earns him another kick to his ribs.

"Give it up," Snyder spits, voice cold and vicious in a manner Morris rarely hears, usually reserved for Oscar or Jack. Snyder is gentler with him. Snyder likes him. But right now he is looking at Morris like he despises him, like Morris has spat in his face. A traitor. "You could bring an end to this, Morris. Immediately. All you have to do is confess." Another hit, and Morris howls. He doesn't even really remember what the question was anymore. Perhaps Snyder had never really asked one. Perhaps there isn't one.

"'m'sorry," Morris sobs, just in case it was him. Just in case Snyder, like Da, had just felt the need to hit him, an irresistible target for violence. A lamb for the slaughter. "'m'sorry, 'm'sorry, Sir, p'ease, le'mme…le'mme…"

Let me make it better. Let me atone. Whatever I did to deserve this.

"Have—have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have sinned. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your love; according to your abu—bundant mercy, blot out my tra'sg'essions—"

The cane is tossed down sharply beside his head, and Morris flinches hard but continues his prayers, reciting the atonements and verses that Da and Snyder each have made him memorise. Even as Snyder walks away, shoes a sharp rhythm against the floor, his figure so imposing that Morris can feel him without needing to see him. Over his own voice, Morris hears a cabinet open, hears things being moved against rich wood.

He assumes another cane is being fetched. Or something worse. A knife, a whip, a flame—

"My Lord, forgive me, forgive me, I will withdraw the thorns from my way of life henceforth, my wickedness kept the crown of thorns on your head—"

"Quiet," Snyder says.

Morris goes silent.

He keeps his bleary gaze on the rug beneath him, the dizzying twists of patterns and swirls that seem to suck him in like he's drowning. It's just as hard to breathe. But then Snyder's shoes step into his vision — immaculate polished black leather — and Snyder is crouching, seizing Morris by the chin and lifting his head.

He's holding a handkerchief. One of his own, neatly embroidered, monogrammed.

"If you are so reluctant," Snyder tells him quietly, "To enlighten me, even as I carve you open. Then I have other methods to procure the truth."

The handkerchief is held suddenly to Morris' face, over his nose and mouth, and the air he breathes turns sweet and cold, like mint. He meets Snyder's eyes over the handkerchief in his vision, and Snyder only stares back, eyes dark, expression severe — until Morris' vision blurs only moments later. The world tilts and his brain seems to start to spin in an instant, faster and faster and faster, an endless whirlpool that vies to pull consciousness away from him.

And then Snyder pulls the handkerchief away, sharply.

Morris is left spinning, nauseous, tethered to reality only by Snyder's hand gripping his jaw. It's a feeling he can only liken to waking up after being beaten unconscious, a dazed battle for consciousness that he's losing. The chill of menthol sticks to his nostrils, the back of his throat.

"Morris," Snyder says lowly. "Where did your brother get the clothes? The food, the blankets?"

Morris can't find his tongue. It feels like an impossible task to locate it, to make it do the correct movements to say words — but Snyder slaps him across the face then, so Morris tries.

"I don'…" he slurs. "Wha'…clo's…"

"Morris. Your brother, through methods unknown, brought contraband into my facility. Clothes and food. How did he get them."

Morris wants his mamaí. His head is still spinning, eyes unable to focus on anything, and it doesn't…hurt, nothing hurts, pain feels as if it's a distant memory. But it's scary. He's scared. He wants his mamaí. Doesn't want this man touching him anymore, that awful grip on his jaw that means he can't move at all, can't turn to focus on the blurring figure over the man's shoulder.

That awful piece of cloth, stuffed over his face again to make the slowly fading dizziness reignite like a flame. As his eyes blur once again into oblivion, for a moment he is able to see the figure. A smear of pale skin, dark curls, a long dress.

"Morris," Snyder says. It echoes in Morris' head. The handkerchief is pulled away again, and in its place a hand begins to stroke his matted curls. Brushes them carefully out of his face. It's nice.

In his mind, through Snyder's words — whatever they are this time — washing through him, he finds a memory.

"Cowboy," he mumbles. And Snyder seems, for a moment, to light up. His touch gets gentler. A reward. "Kelly," he breathes. "What did he do?"

"Was…was talkin' to Os. When. Before," it's hard to remember, but Morris wants to be good. His gaze keeps sliding like he's being spun around, but he fights to find his mother again, focus on her. He wants to be good. He doesn't want to be hit again. "'Fore he left last. Cowboy said. Told 'im that…that he'd. Bring. Give…"

"Kelly brought them here," Snyder says. "He got them to Oscar."

It sounds right, maybe. Morris can't do much else but nod, eyelids heavy, mind still swirling like a bathtub filled with water that he's drowning in.

He wants his mamaí. Swears he can see her above the water, staring down at him, not moving as it all falls away.

He wakes up in a bed.

"Mamaí," he mumbles immediately, as soon as he's found his tongue again. "M..mm…m'mmy…?"

"What?" Oscar says, from beside him in bed. His voice sounds strange, deep. It's dark, and Morris can't see. His eyes will barely open. It's freezing cold, like it always is in the farmhouse.

"Mamaí," Morris repeats.

Oscar releases a breath that seems to shake. "Christ," he breathes. In the narrow bed they share, he shuffles closer. "She ain't here, Mo."

That doesn't make any sense. Not only because Ma is always here, but because Morris had only just seen her. She wouldn't have left. She never leaves Morris.

"Jus'," Morris slurs. He scrunches his eyes shut hard and opens them again, but all he can see is a muddle of a room that's much too crowded for their bedroom. "Jus'…mamaí was jus'…"

She was just here. Morris fights to sit up — doesn't understand why Oscar seems instantly so panicked at him doing so, hands hovering around him — and looks around the room. Doesn't recognise an inch of it, but he immediately recognises his mother again, as vague a figure as she is, all the way on the other side of the room. She's wearing her long cardigan, has her hair up in an untidy pile of dark curls. Morris tries to go to her, but his legs don't seem to work, and Oscar keeps a firm hold on his wrist, tight enough that Morris is sure it should hurt. But it doesn't. Nothing does.

"I wan' mamaí," he urges. Oscar's grip gets tighter.

"She ain't here, Mo."

Morris can feel his eyes start to burn, fighting to keep them on his mother, but his vision twists and then she's gone — moved somewhere else, a figure in the corner of his vision that he can't seem to catch. "Can see her—"

"No, you can't—"

"I can—"

"Mo, she's dead. She ain't here. She's dead."

The world seems to stop.

And then it starts tilting again — in the other way this time. Like Morris had reached the apex of a leap and began to fall.

"No," he whispers. His stomach is turning, vision blurring more, but this time it's with tears. "No, she…why…why would you even—say that?"

"Fuckin'—'cause it's true, Mo. Ma's dead. You know that. You—" he stops himself suddenly, like he'd been about to say something that he thinks it's best Morris doesn't hear. He swallows. Morris starts to cry. "Jesus. Fuck. What the fuck did Snyder do to you?"

It's a rhetorical question, asked to the air, but Morris' chest still aches because he doesn't know. He can only sob, feeling as if everything is suddenly crumbling around him, and as it crumbles, his back begins to burn like a fire catching. His jaw begins to ache, fingerprints bruised into it. He weeps as Oscar pulls him carefully back into the bed and lays beside him, pulling a blanket around them both, just like he did when they were really on the farm. When Ma was really alive.

"'m'sorry," Morris sobs. He still doesn't really know where he is, but he knows Oscar is here. Knows Ma isn't. Oscar pulls him closer like they're kids and wraps an arm around Morris as tightly as he dares when Morris' back is an open wound.

"'s'okay," he whispers back, voice scratchy and soft. Deep like he's more a man than a boy. "I got you, Mo. 'm'here."

Morris falls back into oblivion and dreams of nothing.

Day 13 of @ailesswhumptober

Whumpee using themself as bait/defiance - "take me instead."

cw. child abuse

the night the boys were taken to the refuge

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the middle of the night, or close to. Dark outside. The blanket didn't do much to keep Oscar warm but the two fingers of whiskey he'd drank earlier were humming through his veins still, so he wasn't as cold as he could've been. But it could be better.

He glanced over to Morris on the other side of the room, all curled up, knees pulled up to his chest and curly hair that Oscar would have to cut soon splayed out across his pillow, his face tucked into the gap between it and the mattress. He looked like the kid when he was sleeping like this, the nine year old he was, even with the hollow cheeks.

Oscar sat up slowly, careful to not let the bed creak under him. If he woke mo up he wouldn't go back to sleep for hours and Oscar knew he would've been the one talking him down, keeping him quiet so da didn't hear. He wouldn’t mind usually, but he’d already sacrificed the heavy quilt ma had knitted years back, quietly draping it over Mo's sleeping body and gently ruffling his hair; he didn't want to sacrifice a nights sleep aswell, not that that seemed to be going well so far.

Walking quietly across the creaking, wooden floor of the farm house had been a skill Oscar perfected. He was practiced and silent and it brought a sense of comfort as he felt his way down the dark hall, fingers on one hand running over the bottom of crosses and the torn edges of ma’s sketches of the Virgin Mary pinned to the walls. When he reached the end of the hall he started down the stairs. It was careful; he knew what side of what step made what noise, and how to avoid it, avoid alerting da to the fact he was still up.

He just wanted another finger or two of whiskey, something to help him sleep.

If he'd paused before pushing the door to the kitchen open he would've noticed the dim, yellow glow around the door frame, the low flickering orange and yellow of lit candles.

Da was sitting at the kitchen table, bottle of whiskey next him, crucifix pinned to the wall behind him just above his head.

Oscar froze in the doorway.

"S' late, Os." His voice was like gravel, like the words were pulled up out of him and spoken from the back of his throat. There was a warmth to it, sometimes, by nature of his accent, by nature of being their da.

He stayed in the doorway, kept his distance and tried to keep his voice even. "Couldn't sleep."

Da took a slow sip of his drink, one poured into a glass not just straight from the bottle, and some the tension drained from Oscar's shoulders.

"S' the babby asleep?"

"Yeah. Yeah mo's sleeping."

Oscar had spent a couple hours lying shoulder to shoulder with Morris, chatting quietly about everything and nothing until he had eventually drifted off. Oscar didn't believe in God or anything like that, or maybe he did and it was just god who didn't give a shit about him, but he couldn't help the habit of swiping a cross on Morris's head with his thumb and a murmur of god bless, the same way he'd watched his ma do hundreds of times over before she passed.

Da nodded, his figure still mostly shadow in the low light, but broad, familiar. “Good kid. You wanna drink?”

Oscar was hesitant, glanced up at the crucifix and then back at da again, his eyes were dark with the way the candles were haphazardly spread about the table, his blue eyes, Oscar's own, flickering into view every view seconds.

He stepped further into the room, let the floor creak under him this time.

"Yeah. Thanks, da."

Da didn't respond, wordlessly pushed his half full glass toward Oscar and instead took the bottle by the neck.

"Once you finish that, want you to go wake up your brother, tell him to pack."

The whiskey hit the back of Oscar's throat and burned. He sputtered and da huffed a laugh. He knew da was jeering the fact he apparently couldn’t hold his drink but Oscar didn’t care-

"What? Pack?”

"We're goin' into town."

"But it's-" da was unpredictable, but usually in a way Oscar was used to. So unpredictable that there was almost a pattern to it. But it had been different since ma died. He had been different, withdrawn and angrier and kinder in equal measures. Uncertainty seized at Oscar's chest. "It's the middle of the night, da."

"Didn't ask you to ask questions. Drink that n' then get him up."

A pit in his stomach opened up.

Da was going to kill Morris. That had to be it.

It was a thought that had lingered in the back of Oscar’s skull since the baby had been born.

He couldn't finish the rest of his whiskey.

"What- where you goin' in town."

"Don't start at me Os."

"Mo ain't- he ain't done nothin'. He's been good-"

"Oscar-"

"Least take me instead, c'mon da, you don't even like me-"

The back hand was sharp. A crack that sent Oscar sideways and the glass of whiskey crashing to the floor in needle shards and a pool of splintered amber all before he noticed da had even shoved out his seat, his free hand still around the neck of the bottle.

Oscar's cheek throbbed and his eyes burned and the candles flicked.

Da's head was blocking the cross.

Oscar hoped the noise hadn't woken Mo up.

"I ever say you ain't comin' too, boy?"

Da's eyes were dark with the way he leant over the table, shrouding out the light.

The smell of whiskey stung Oscar's nose.

"Said go get your brother. Or I can go get him an' leave you here."

Oscar tried to swallow through the stinging of his cheek, ignore it and the pressure he could feel behind his eyes. The familiar anger crawling up his throat. Da always hit hard, especially when he'd been drinking. but apparently the silence of Oscar’s lack of response was answer enough.

"M' loading' up the cart," Da continued, and he took a heavy swig of the bottle, then held it out to Oscar; he hesitantly stepped forward, just enough that he could reach. The neck was still warm from da's large hand. "Half an' hour Os. And then we're headin'."

Oscar nodded, didn't ask where they were going, knew he wouldn't get an answer. Knew da could hit harder than that.

"Atta boy."

Da slapped his shoulder, too hard, and shoved past him, out to the outhouse, Oscar could only assume. Out to where the old cart was kept during winter.

Oscar's cheek stung. He glared at the lone crucifix nailed to the wall. The bony figure of Jesus limp and splayed out across it, a speck of red on his ribs where he’d bled. his eyes on Oscar.

Oscar turned away. brought the bottle of whiskey to his lips and let it burn on the way down.

playing guitar, singing phoebe bridgers, thinking about michael sullivan, and eating pringles (that i dropped on my bedroom floor) like a stray cat

here’s part of what i was singing if y’all care