Ai-less Whumptober; Day Thirteen

ai-less whumptober; day thirteen

@ailesswhumptober 13 — using themself as bait, defiance, “Take me instead.” ↳ the refuge, 1896 word count; 1.3k

cw; mentions of death, panic attacks, dissociation

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Oscar only finds out it's his birthday when Snyder tells him.

He's brought into Snyder's office by a guard with a hand tight on his bicep, and he's expecting any of the usual reasons. Most likely that he's in trouble for some reason or another, almost equally likely that Snyder's just a lonely bastard who wanted someone to smoke with and talk to again.

But instead, Snyder smiles. Tight and utterly false.

"Happy birthday, Oscar."

Oh.

Oscar doesn't know what day it is, and had only half-guessed at it being October. But apparently he'd been right.

Not that him knowing what day it is would've helped him much. He doesn't know what day his birthday is. And Snyder must know that, or see it in his face, because he says.

"October 28th. A mere three days before All Hallow's Eve. How fitting for your birth."

Perhaps that should be another sign for Oscar. The fact that Snyder just told him, rather than keeping another gleeful secret, yet another thing he knows that Oscar doesn't. But there must be another secret somewhere, because Snyder is just looking at him then, expectant.

Oscar doesn't know what's being expected. He takes a guess.

"Uh. Thank you, Sir."

Swing and a miss. Snyder looks irritated, as if Oscar is the one fucking with him. He turns his attention to his desk and flips through some papers, not even bothering to look at Oscar when he speaks next.

"Well, your uncle will be here to pick you up soon."

And Oscar's world grinds suddenly to a halt.

For a moment, he's sure he'd imagined the words, or utterly misinterpreted them somehow. Maybe Snyder is just fucking with him still, a part of whatever weird joke this is. Snyder's always had a backwards, sick sense of humour — a consistent reminder he's hardly older than Oscar, when it comes down to it.

Well, less older now.

"Uh," Oscar sort of croaks. "What?"

Snyder glances up from his papers. "Are you stupid?" he asks calmly.

Oscar swallows. Hesitates.

"Your uncle," Snyder repeats. "He'll be here to retrieve you. I would recommend getting yourself organised."

"My—uncle."

"Yes, your uncle. Do you know what an uncle is, Oscar?"

"I—Weasel? Wiesel? My—my da's brother?"

"Correct."

"Why. Why—"

"It's your eighteen birthday, Oscar."

Oh. Oh.

"In fact, he first contacted me weeks ago concerning your release, but I informed him he would incur a fee for your release at that point in time. Bail, to be curt."

Oscar's head is swimming.

"But. But I'm eighteen now," he says, hardly above a whisper.

"Eighteen indeed. Your sentence is over."

Oscar feels. Dazed. Feels like the world has been pulled out from under him and he's floating, falling, spinning. He has to fight down some insane urge to start laughing, almost the same feeling as when Ma died. A tangled mixture of terror and relief and utter overwhelm.

But just as quickly as it had all started, it grinds to a halt.

"What," he says, breathless, "What about Mo?"

And suddenly all of his worst fears are lighting up like a fire when Snyder doesn't respond.

"What about Mo?" he repeats, more urgently this time.

"Your brother isn't even sixteen yet," Snyder answers calmly, gaze on his papers again. "He has a while to go."

"No," Oscar says. His stomach is on the floor, cold terror washing over him even as his gut burns. "No, no, no—"

"Go and gather your things. Eight o' clock, Mr. Wiesel said. He'll be here any minute."

"No! No, no, I don't wanna go, I wanna stay. I want—You can't make me leave Mo—"

Oscar has to be dragged out of Snyder's office. By the same guard who'd dragged him in, hold considerably more brutal now as Oscar kicks and fights and pleads. He can't stomach it. He doesn't want to go, he can't go — but as much as Snyder won't let anyone go if he can help it, he won't let anyone stay once he's no longer being paid to keep them. Oscar is worthless to him now. And won't be kept.

He feels the attention of the bunk room shift to him as he's tossed in, lands on the floor in a brutal skid that has his arm and hip grazed to shit by the filthy floors. He's still shouting.

"Os," Morris says immediately, running to him. Taking his hand. "Os, what happened?"

Oscar's eyes are burning. His chest is tight, lungs won't expand. He can't bring himself to look at his brother, but a larger part of him desperately wants to look at him, to stare at him, to commit every inch of his face to memory lest it be forgotten in two years.

Two years.

Oscar chokes a sob.

He knows everyone is staring. He knows he's much too old to cry. He's eighteen. He's eighteen now.

"Os," Morris repeats, real gentle. "Hey. Hey, it's okay."

"Get your shit," the guard at the door barks.

Morris looks up at him, and without his eyes on Oscar, Oscar finally dares to look at him. Sees the earnest confusion in his little brother's face, the crease in his brow, not understanding what's going on. Even when he does turn to Oscar then, that familiar dependency on his older brother for explanations. Oscar doesn't know how to explain this.

He chokes out another empty, breathless sound.

"Os, you ain't breathin'," Mo tells him quietly. "You gotta breathe. C'mon. Breathe—breathe."

"You don't get your shit, you're leavin' without it," the guard spits, and Morris. Pauses.

"Leavin'," he echoes. "Who's leavin'?"

Oscar wants to die. His stomach is rolling, throat so tight he can't breathe at all anymore. He squeezes Morris' hand so desperately he can feel every bone and tendon, will surely leave bruises behind — but then there's a distant shout and then the guard is moving, coming for him again. Heaves him up with that familiar grasp on his upper arms.

"We ain't got time for this," the guard grits out. "Got your new boss waitin' for you."

"No," Morris protests immediately, rising up to his feet as if to chase his brother as he's dragged away. He doesn't even know what's happening, and it makes Oscar feel sicker to know that it's Morris' instinct to protect him regardless. "No. No! Os ain't do nothin', let him go. Let him go!"

But if Oscar's protests had been utterly ignored, it goes without saying that Morris' will be too. He doesn't cut much of an imposing figure, even as he rises on bare tiptoes in a desperate bid to seem bigger. He trails the guard to the door, shouting all the while, and when the guard only keeps going, Morris starts to hit him. Insubordination that would usually always earn attention, earn the ire being turned to him.

But this time, it doesn't work.

"No!" Morris screams. "No, this ain't fair, where are you sendin' him? He ain't done nothin'! Take me instead! Take me!"

Oscar doesn't see the hit. He just hears the deafening crack and then the familiar thud of his little brother's body hitting the ground. Hears his screaming go quiet as the door is slammed and locked behind them. And Oscar is just forced to keep walking, coughing and retching, down the hall and the stairs to the entrance hall where his uncle is waiting for him.

He's largely unrecognisable. A bigger man than Oscar remembers. Better dressed. He's got a cigar in his mouth and a rough look on his face, one that almost twists to pity when he sees Oscar.

"Lord above," Wiesel mutters. "What they been doin' to you?"

Oscar doesn't speak. Can't. Feels utterly numb, the voices and sensations all washing over him as Snyder speaks to his uncle. Papers are signed. And then he's being exchanged, the hands of the guard swapping for the bigger, careless hands of his father's younger brother, taking that same grip of his upper arm to lead him once again.

"Right. C'mon."

Oscar doesn't have a choice. He never has.

He goes.

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

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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.

Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

the penguin! idk what episode (possibly opening flashback)

is THIS your man? [shows an image of a malnourished injured exhausted man with big sad eyes looking up at the camera with blood smeared all over his face and mouth. and he is visibly trembling]

Day 12 of @ailesswhumptober

Isolation/sensory deprivation- "can you feel me? I'm right here."

cw. Claustrophobia, dissociation, references to child abuse

(My longest one yet!)

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Morris never meant to tell Snyder that Os hated small spaces.

But it was one of those casual conversations in his office that almost made Morris think about Snyder as some kind of friend. His heart had stuttered in his chest with panic when the guard had first called down to the dorm to get him but upon being shoved into the office he'd been greeted with a sandwich, with real fucking meat in it, and a glass of milk.

Snyder was sat on the far side of his desk, his own meal in front of him, steak and potato's and veg, and a glass of something that smelt like the shit da used to drink by the bottle.

"Sit down Morris, I didn't invite you to stand there."

"Sorry, mr Snyder."

He sat down, the plate of food in front of him. Snyder cut a sliver of steak and looked up again. Stared at him for a moment. Expectant.

"I know you grew up poor Delancey, but I trust you've had enough food that you know how to eat it-"

"Yes. Sorry. Weren’t sure it was for me-"

"I have to teach you not to interrupt as well, apparently." His tone was sharp.

Fuck. "Sorry."

Snyder stared at him a moment longer then turned his attention back to his own lunch. he scoffed slightly, but didn't look over at Morris again, too busy catching a green bean on the end of the fork. He only leant back once he took the mouthful, chewing thoughtfully while he stared at Morris, eyes bright and assessing.

Morris had to try and shrug off his gaze as he reached for the sandwich, trying to remember all the ways ma told him to eat polite and chew with his mouth closed. The bread was soft.

It was hard not to feel on edge. Being invited to Snyder's office was never over anything good.

But Christ Morris was hungry.

Morris was sure Snyder waited until he had taken a bite to ask him question just to be a dick. It was the kind of thing Morris assumed he'd find funny, the kind of thing that reminded him Snyder was in his early twenties at best, only a few years older than Oscar when it came down to it.

"Is it good?"

Morris nodded. Knew better than to speak around the food. The memory of da whacking him round the head at the dinner table at home when he did it was all the reminder he needed. He could still hear his voice ringing, that southern drawl snapping at him to 'have some fuckin' manners'.

He swallowed. "Yeah. S' good."

It wasn't a lie, the bread was fresh and there was butter and ham. The glass of milk was cold.

"Do you know why I asked you here Morris."

He was never sure what the right answer was to Snyder's questions. But it felt the appropriate time to put the sandwich back on his plate, Snyder hadn't touched his own food since the initial fork-full.

"No, sir."

"Your brother had been particularly," he hesitated, searching for a word and seemingly in no particular hurry to find it, "difficult, recently,"

Morris hadn't really noticed any changes, Oscar was as Oscar as he ever was, but he was always good at hiding these things from Morris, he realised as he got older. With every year and birthday he realised he never reached quite as old as Oscar seemed.

"You know why I've been placing you and Oscar on different tasks, don't you?"

Morris didn't, he had been wondering since the start of the week when him and Oscar had been sent to opposite ends of the refuge, with Morris cleaning in the chapel and Oscar down the other end, doing fuck knows what. Morris never really asked. Oscar was his older brother, older and responsible and fine, so it didn’t matter whether Morris asked.

But he didn't know and he knew Snyder knew that. But he shook his head anyway.

Snyder smiled slightly. "In an attempt to break the little codependent habit you and your brother have, I've been trying to seperate you. seems you're doing better without him than he is without you."

And an ugly satisfaction curled in Morris's gut that almost immediately made him feel sick with the guilt of it.

"Os has always looked after me."

"Oh I'm aware. I'm just surprised he can't seem to clear out a cleaning cupboard without nearly passing out-"

Morris spoke without thinking.

"Yeah but he ain't never liked small spaces. Don't think it's got nothin' to do with me."

Something in Snyder's eye glinted, a vague shift to his posture that made Morris want to sink back in his seat and out from under his stare. Snyder's eyes were intense, cold. being directly under them was intimidating.

"Your brother's claustorohobic?"

"He's- what's that mean?"

Snyder's lip twitched, amused. "Scared of small spaces, Morris, like you described."

Morris bit the inside of his cheek till he tasted iron, washing out the taste of ham and butter and bread that wasn't stale to replace it with something copper. Like he'd put a nickel under his tongue.

"Yes, sir."

For a moment Snyder let the silence sit. And then he finally leant back in his chair, satisfied in a way that made Morris nervous.

"Finish your food, Delancey," he said as he picked up his knife and fork again. "Or there won't be a meal for anyone in the morning."

This time the sandwich tasted like sand in his mouth.

…

The next night Oscar never came back to the dorm room. Morris had spent a couple of hours sitting and waiting, had even asked around in the group of boys if anyone had seen him, and the longer he didn't show up the more on edge Morris found himself getting.

It was a last resort to ask one of the guards, because inevitably they'd tell Snyder and Morris didn't know if he could suffer any more of his direct attention.

But Oscar wasn't here.

He was clinging to the hope that when one of the guards, or Snyder if he was feeling like it tonight, took rolecall before the boys were sent to sleep that they'd notice.

And then Snyder walked in the room, cane in one hand and clipboard in the other, and the boys had all lined up by their bed silently, and Morris had affirmed he was there when his name was called.

and then Snyder skipped directly over Oscar.

Morris has to bite his tongue. For the second time in two days he tasted blood. He pressed his teeth harder and stared at a crack in the wood on the floor beneath him-

"Morris did you hear what I said?

Snyder's cane was on the floor next to his feet. All at once his heart was in his chest. He could feel his ribs creaking.

"No, sir."

"I said your brother won't be joining you tonight."

Morris felt sick. Hadn't yet looked up from the wooden slats on the floor, splinters throughout the room. He could feels the eyes of all the boys in the room on them.

"Aren't you curious as to why, Morris?"

"Why, sir."

"I'm trying to help him. A young man still so scared of the dark? Of small spaces? I'm meant to be releasing upstanding young men. Not children."

Morris tasted bile in the back of his throat. He could already hear the whispers that would come later. They weren’t meant to know this about Oscar.

"Would you like to come and see him?"

It was more than da ever offered when Oscar was locked in his bedroom at home for days at a time. When Morris was tiny and would whisper outside his room and wait for Oscar to answer, if he would answer. The first few hours were always the worst, Oscar's awful yelling that tore up his throat so bad that he only stopped when he couldn't yell no more. Slamming his hands on the door and begging when he heard footsteps walk past the door only to be ignored by ma or da or Morris on those days he was too scared to find out what da would do to him if he knew he'd been talking to Oscar.

The silence was the worst part.

Oscar going quiet for hours at a time.

At least if he was sobbing, loud and breathless and so bad it sounded like he was choking on each inhale, Morris knew he was alive.

"Yeah. Yeah please."

Snyder's expression didn't shift, and Morris couldn't read it.

"Come along then. Boys, the rest of you, bed."

Morris could still feels the stares as he followed Snyder out of the room as the others scrambled for their beds. he knew the second the door was closed behind them the whispers would start.

Snyder was silent as they walked through the halls of the refuge. It was disconcerting how quiet it was aside from the sound of Snyder's polished shoes on the floor. The hallways long and empty and dark, not bustling with young boys and coughs and sniffles and crying and arguing and fights-

The stairs as they got further down were covered in even thicker layers of dust, and Morris knew it wouldn't be long till he could feel it when he breathed. He would've stopped to let his eyes adjust to the dark if it weren't for the fact that Snyder didn't.

They were almost at solitary and the panic that crept up his throat at the sight of it was unrelenting. And then they walked past it.

A storage closet at the end of the hall.

He could hear Oscar's laboured inhales from here. The door rattling as he slammed against it, so far from everything, so removed.

"Mr Snyder-"

"The best way to overcome our fears, Morris, is to face them. I'm only doing what's best for him.

Then Oscar's voice broke as he yelled out again. He sounded so young, like he had back in the farm.

"Da! Da please- fuck I- I swear I'll stay outta the way just lemme- please-"

Snyder was smiling. Didn't shift his gaze from the door.

"I wasn't expecting him to call for your father, and of course from this I can come to my own conclusions. But I always like having confirmation that I'm right."

Morris sort of. half nodded, knew what Snyder was asking even without the question. He could feel his heart beating in the hollow of his chest.

Christ Oscar sounded so young. He wasn’t meant to sound so young. So scared. It made Morris nervous, the unfamiliarity of it all.

"Da would lock him in," he said, real quiet, like he was telling a secret. And it was, in a way. "Back on the farm. Days sometimes. Just so he was outta the way. Couldn't bother no one."

"A cruel man, your father." Snyder was casual, as if they couldn't hear Oscar. "Did he ever do the same to you?"

"No. No he hit me but they-" his eyes burned. "They didn' want Os. So sometimes they'd just. Put him away."

It was something from childhood Morris remembered and had never questioned much, till now. And the thought made him feel sick.

He ran back the memories again, hazy at best like most on the farm, but there were so many things that just. didn't involve Oscar.

There was one particular memory slowly piecing itself together, like it had been triggered by the sound of Oscar’s fist on the door. Morris had been tiny, Christ not much bigger than four or five, and had sleepily dawdled down the cold hallway of the farm house crawled in with ma and da in the middle of the night because Oscar was in the next room over and wouldn't stop banging on the wall. morris couldn't sleep. So he'd told da. And da had said he'd get him to stop.

Da had clambered out of bed, dragged a hand down his face and came back five minutes later.

Morris was already curled into ma's side, asleep.

He didn’t even remember complaining about Oscar till now.

His vision darkened a little at the edges.

"Let him out?"

Snyder barely spared him a glance at the question.

"Not until morning. How is he going to overcome anything if I give into his endless yelling."

"Please, he's-"

"Nearly 18 now Morris. God, sometimes I wonder how you boys would survive to adulthood if I weren't around."

"Can I see him?" His voice came out a croak.

And for a moment Snyder hesitated, and Morris thought he might actually say yes.

"Wait here." He said instead and Morris wasn't brave enough to disobey Snyder when he said things like that. He wished he was.

"Oscar?” Snyder called out, just a little louder than usual.

The banging stopped.

Then the begging started.

Morris shouldn't be here to hear it. He knew he shouldn't, every fibre of his body, every bone and muscle was telling him to sprint back up the stairs, back to the safety of the dorm room where he didn't have to hear this. This mockery of his older brother. It made him uncomfortable down to the marrow his bones; it was wrong.

"Da, da I'm sorry- please jus'- lemme out. Please. I'll be good i swear. I swear- please-"

Snyder didn't answer. Morris was watching his back but could picture the expression on his face.

Oscars voice wavered. Uncertain at the lack of response.

"Da? Da are you-"

"I'm here."

Morris pressed a hand to his mouth to stop himself from making a sound. The lump in the back of his throat was painful and the burning in the backs of his eyes was turning into a pounding headache-

"Da, pl-" a sob. "Please. I don'- what'd I-"

"I'm turning the doorknob. Can you feel it turning.”

"Yeah. Fuck. yeah. Please-"

"I'm right here, Oscar."

"M' sorry. An’ I- I been prayin' like you said. An' I ain't- ain't talked to Mo-" he went quiet. Just for a moment. Morris noticed Snyder had let go of the door knob. "Da?

Snyder had turned around, face expressionless, hand on his cane.

"Da! Da please come back!” The door rattled. “Fuck. Da - Mo-"

Snyder was close enough to slap a hand around Morris's face. Fingernails digging into his cheek. A hissed "not a word," as he all but dragged Morris back toward the stairs

As if Morris would've been able to bring himself to do anything even if Snyder wasn't there.

In there, that person in that room, crying and yelling and so scared. That wasn't Os. It couldn't be. So Morris would wait until Snyder brought him back.

Just like he would on the farm when Oscar acted like nothing had happened, and Morris had his big brother come back home.

i stumbled across these like oct 3 or something and i have been drooling over them ever since. like. highlight of my day. both of you are incredible

staring at the AI-less whumptober prompts absolutely terrified for what @noxexistant and @i-didnt-do-1t have in store for the rest of the month :D