The Banging Stopped. Then The Begging Started - Tumblr Posts

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.