*WARNING: guns, blood, physical and verbal abuse. Please read at your own risk.*

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄 | 𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙈𝙖𝙣

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝟙𝟡𝟠𝟜 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕦𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕒𝕝. Apart from the typical lethargy that swelled heavy and pulsing with the heat of mid-July, the anomaly thrived from within. You could feel it cresting the hill as soon as the local academia ceased for the season. The change seemed to rise on the weighted breeze, daring to taste different. This year ran contrary to monotony. It foretold of rigid edges, waves storming against the solid, rocky bluff of calm in this town. Questions now litter the air at the next dare to flatten their carefully placed house of cards. All because of one sighting, one word, one fear.

The uneasiness corroded everything, and soon settled into the pillars of the supposed safe neighborhood. In the aftermath of a government cover-up and a jarringly local death, new whispers were being heard. Startling accounts starring a family all too familiar finalized the inevitable decay. All the futile efforts at perfection were growing thin, the more this thing pressed forward. People were starting to notice the lie. The flaw infected their own, the beloved Harringtons. More so, how desperate the sweet of three worked desperately to scrub away a secret.

Unfortunately, the longer the lies circulated, the more clever those people became. They puzzled pieces together, and rapidly, their artifice began to wither. The golden Harrington foundations splintered. Within a few short months, it was natural that the structure would crack.

And so, soon enough, that secret came violently to light. Normalcy died once more, on a fateful New Year's Eve in 1983. A new scandal cut into the heart of sweet, homely Hawkins, Indiana. Of course, the public dishonor struck unyielding. A shock, one older and possessing a far more outlandish characteristic--indifference.

Little as the locals knew of this new addition, he was the fodder of all juvenile teenage imagination. The perfect specimen for an epic, brooding romantic lead. On the outside, he was everything a girl desired: towering, weathered, and alluring. Soft eyes, kind words, strength with a golden heart. Riding on the back of a glittering and noble Harley-Davidson. A modern-day knight in shining armor, if one believes that shit.

Yet, with every dream forged, reality came screaming back. Sometimes biting, sometimes bitter. And this was the truth, cold and hard. This type wasn't a fantasy, a prince, or a love-struck idiot.

He'd go to the grave proving that one.

No, he was something else entirely.

Liam Harrington was a man born in a nightmare. One who suffocated, embraced in darkness, and risk. Forced to become a living hurricane. He spoke thunder and dealt out tsunamis with his battered hands. Scars carved his skin in white lightning; bruises burned his knuckles, and smoke had tainted shaking, withered fingers. Sandy blond hair tossed by the wind, scratching through with help from high speeds and a foolhardy spirit. Sharpened crystal blue eyes teeming with unspoken disdain, anger, and ironic lament. It was enough to pull at the heartstrings of any woman. Any wishing and praying to fix him. Liam was bred as the one thing mothers warned their children never to become. The Devil's advocate, a problem.

Not that he cared much for weak local gossip or the rumor mill.

He was connected with the Harringtons solely in name, never in wealth or privilege. It was clear that this side of the family, which included him, would resolutely and definitively be ignored. And, of course, they made good on their intentions, however vile. He never wanted to be attached to such a glorified, nauseating, self-righteous brood, anyway.

It took him this long to sever the ties himself. He firmly believed that if he was to be disregarded, he might as well go all out. And so, Liam took to scrubbing the permanence out of his skin until the porous surface bled raw. In every way but literally. Running by his first name, pretending to be someone else, even trying to pinch his birth certificate from the official record, all was for not. The latter nearly landed him behind bars, for sure. For all his valiant, though fruitless, efforts, Liam instead earned a criminal record. Therefore, he initiated his magical weapon of nonchalance.

Still, with as hard as he tried, nothing could rid him of the cursed familial connection. The boy was a certified delinquent. With governmental theft aside, Liam was granted a title he never asked for. But, nothing could cleanse blood from the truth. The genetics were written in code, carved in stone. Now, there was an identity that was festering, forever rancid on his tongue. Something he had to choke on the rest of his life.

Through the rampant ire tied to his name, Liam found a gratifying solace in his trusted band of friends. Branded as untrustworthy, fake, and dangerous. These labels were far from true--these kids were just like him. Cast aside, formed on the outside of the steel bubble of society. He promised himself that he wouldn't give any spark to the fire. No reason for the hate of the Hawkins population to solidify.

So, he gave his battered heart to two: Chrissy Cunningham and Eddie Munson.

Born on opposite ends of the spectrum, but Liam came to the clarifying realization that they were both forged in a yoke of tragedy. A duo frantically searching for a connection and ultimately falling in with him. The only one to save them from similar persecution. Naturally, Liam pulled them in with open, understanding arms. And, as a result, he grew to love them warmly as a part of himself. Life with Chrissy and Eddie healed a fractured piece of his heart, just for a while.

Until he got home, where he continually craved security, a soul to take his own heart in their hands to heal. After all, there was only so much Eddie's stash and Chrissy's addicting touch could mask. It was a simple matter of time before the high brought him down empty again.

The void was a familiar, wrenching comfort with Liam. Even now, as he sat aside his gleaming motorcycle, slogged to the skin in the middle of Hawkins' latest summer storm. He fixed his hazy blue eyes on the little shack of a house before him: Faded paint turned soggy and dippled with rain, streams trickling off the shedding roof tiles and siding like tears. The small porch was no better, rotted and a clear hazard to anyone who dared a step onto the weak paneling. It's held up so far, but Liam added the typical repair project to his list anyway. The lawn was half a day from becoming a complete mud pit. With hardly any vegetation or greenery present, along with a tiny, cracked slab of concrete he was calling a driveway. With the downpour of rain, it might as well be. The place was a piece of shit, but a shelter nonetheless. Dying for an upgrade, and he would fix some of the problems and finish, damn it.

Still, he was human. Not a miracle.

Although he did routinely pray for divine intervention, to save him from this Hell. There was only so much he could bother God with before absolutely resigning to doing something tangible himself. Liam was happy to do his part, as manual labor was an easy distraction. It made him better to some degree, but he still put up with a lot from the other party residing with him. And, as always, God guided him to the next step once Liam had grown. He swallowed this new responsibility, on top of everything else. As ironic and unpredictable as she was.

Now, there's the knot. The enigmatic fracture in the glass. The roll of thunder that forces him to become violent. Electric in frustration. Consequently, startlingly, he's nursing a whining, constant guilt because of her. The woman who branded him her son, aware of how deeply her burn was to his braised, tender skin.

His sweet, sweet, monster of a mother. She's honey and dry ice; the burn that chars your throat after throwing a shot of tequila. Lasting, churning. Throbbing in a foggy afterthought as it runs straight to your head. She leaves him blind to reality before he ends up passing out in a heap of limbs at the ungodly hours of twilight, and your heart screams that you should just know better by now. Something one could regret, a wicked form of addiction that begs repeating.

Liam was a grown fucking man. He should have the backbone to, for once, decline her. Say no. Leave, desert the thing hurting him so bad. Why? Gina Collins shouldn't be a mother. She is a fabrication, wearing plastic for skin, oozing transparent words from thick, paper lips. Appearing to be the perfect parent to those who mattered.

When faced with her son, however, she put on a special kind of show. The kind that showed Liam the sickening reality that she couldn't take care of him, and rather that he had to take care of her. So, against the nagging that he had every reason to just walk away, he just couldn't.

What a twisted, evil joke--she hated him. The word had burrowed its permanent promise into his gut. He knew it. Yet, he forced himself to stay, chained to the thin possibility that Gina Collins, with sharp teeth, cold eyes, with a smiling mouth dripping in soft tones and candied gentleness, could change. She was a trademark of ambiguity.

Liam never knew what version of the woman he would get. He played a mad shuffle every day that he came back from a bad day. Who was waiting for him today? Frankenstein's monster or a perfect picture of motherhood-warm touches, loving kisses, endless apologies, followed by a recount of his day for conversation's sake? Screw it. He didn't even know what a mother properly was. This roulette was all he knew. Every bit reinforced his distance. His utter exhaustion with the dance. All of it.

Maybe he never should have left Eddie's. The tang of smoke, the shadows that lined the pathetic excuse of a living room, allowed him to disappear for a minute. The soft murmur of friendly, relaxed words. He missed the pressure of Chrissy against his chest, too. So close, so endearing. Beautiful. Liam's chest ached at the memory of the younger girl's lazy, glittering kisses on his face. He allowed himself a slow grin, there in the rain, as his cheeks and lips buzzed with them. He'd call her later. And she'd come steal him away like the secret he was. Real life shakespeare shit. He loved it. Loved her.

That was another thing. He adored women. Not in a nasty way, he wasn't Tommy H, for God's sake. He shivered; that was Stevie's minion, anyway. Liam had respect, compassion for them. Worked to understand. Including Gina. Damn. Maybe that was the problem. Then again, his mother didn't even qualify as a woman, he thought bitterly, then caught that nauseous conviction. Most days.

Liam let out a drawn, tired groan. He was so fucked up! 

Sick with a sick life. Flipping the key in his ignition, the bike died, giving way to a frantic, aqueous sleet thrumming from the gray heavens. He sat there a moment, in the afterburn that buzzed through his legs from the engine, his face downturned, streaked in wet, hair a dripping slab of slick tawny.

He wanted to wait for the fog to pass through his senses before facing the mother-ish being after leaving this morning, after sharp words and stale coffee that had marinated in the tang of nicotine too long. Threats and verbal punches, all aimed at his rapidly retreating backside; the weathered slam of a rickety screen. A pit that depressed deeper in his chest as he kicked his metallic stallion to life, leaving a ghost of a woman inside her haunted confines. Running to Eddie's, drawn by the beacon of euphoria. An illusion of comfort, placating the wounds that he never let show.

Now, it all came back, biting and vengeful. He wanted to stay the hell away. It was what she deserved. But that was love, he guessed. Wrong, blackened, warped devotion only reserved for him and his foolish heart. Too soft, too pliable. Too damn stupid--

A piercing scream broke the torrent on the lonely corner of the street. Liam knew the sound, but it was different. Frantic, pained. Combative in a way he'd not heard in ages. He froze, his blood growing cold, a dizzy sensation against the sudden blush of fire in his skin. His shirt seemed to smoke with the heat, and he imagined his eyes going a murderous red. There were stories of a man, words too improbable, too malicious to even stomach. One that had hands of iron, the strength of a bear, and words like a viper. Abusive, unrelenting.

She swore he had gone. Forever. She had looked him right in the face and said so herself. Promising a bruised, tear-stained toddler boy in ripped red couderoy overalls and a Winnie the Pooh t-shirt that it was only the two of them, now. His skin blistered hotter, the anguish flooded higher. Liam was a tornado of fire, salt, and bloodied fists.

Eyes burning like hot ocean coals, he was on his feet in the mud at the next instant. Blind, raging, dangerous. Flipping a switch, unleashing the rabid dog. He didn't even hear his boot connecting with the bike, his pressure knocking it into the sodden dirt with a furious shove and an isolated yell lost in the downpour.

Then, a shrill, shaking cry, punctuated with desperation, pain. Panic.

"Damn it!" Turning, he retreated into the house, clearing the faded steps in seconds and yanking the tattered screen door open to admit him. The sound dug deeper into his skin, shivering through him, edging into his movements. Fear, with a clarifying undercurrent of fury. He knew.

It was him. Blazing, intrusive, a complication. Here, he decided to grace his family with a homecoming show. Sick, nauseating. Hateful. Judging from the grotesque beat of the master bed's headboard against the wall as the son ran to aid his mother, it was clear that he was only on his opening act.

Liam's jaw ticked hard as his fist connected with the age-bleached oak, pushing it open fast, leaving the bedroom door to vibrate and creak like a whining banshee in collision with the opposite wall. The impact was jarring and sharp, cracking the plaster and watercolor wallpaper open like a gunshot. The very sound paused the assault of the prick of a husband against the wayward wife, leaving the parties in a repulsive tangle before the destructive eyes of the son, fuming in the room before them.

Liam's eyes zeroed in on the sweating, blubberous face of the first presence in the dim, hazy room. The expression, one he'd never dream he'd be seeing, was red with exertion. Chapped lips laced with the typical stench of alcoholism compressed once in an air of confusion, then fell open stupidly to just stare in a way that made Liam's already smoking blood ignite. He took a sharp breath in, the air tinged sour and serrated, daring his gaze to fall on the other. It was sight that birthed a strange bubble of dark satisfaction and a familiar bite of monstrous despair.

Building into a cocktail of one single thing, outrage. A sense that stole all sense of reality away, rankling him along a forbidden road of unspeakable desires. With every one, Liam could only come to the conclusion that this man, this demon, this father of his, deserves it. He then didn't give rationale anything, and lunged. Hand rash, craving evil. Curling tight into violence.

Remorse was nothing. This was an animal who needed punishing, and Liam was here to do it thoroughly.

The first collision broke across the room immediately. A smack that burned his iron knuckles, rippling into the clammy skin. The second, third, and fourth came through in a satisfying rhythm to Liam's buzzing ears, sight blazing crimson. His father had the small sense to try to protect himself by barricading his face from his son's raging advance. Something that did little, spurring the defender on.

Liam's hands tore into the rubber shoulders, pressing, pushing, forcing the towering body back until the wolf hit the peeling, self-painted dresser. The furniture shook and rattled, the trickets and frames on top of it, losing their perch and falling heavily to the stained carpet below.

The oppressor dared to begin a symphony of lament, pain under the onslaught of his son's fight. Good, Liam thought distantly, darkly. He gave one shove, pinning his father bruisingly up against the dresser with a burning, strong grip. He made sure to block any next moves under a glazed, rippling forearm.

"You fucking bastard," he hissed. His father glared at him through a hazy, black hued lens. He struggled against the weight of Liam's arm, but he pushed again, silencing him. "You have three seconds to tell me what the hell you're doing back here."

Liam forced himself back, his skin crawling with the dense desire to give in to the red. He risked a glance at his mother, finding her in a heaving, shivering state with a cold that only came with unwarranted violation. His jaw clenched, an ache pressing underneath his teeth. Forced his eyes back on his father, who heaved disgustingly, viewing him like an insect to be squashed. How dare he?

Silence. Charged only with condescension and tainted, shadowed memories. Liam latched onto the lightning, allowing it to strike him deep. He remembered the chance he gave the man, however much he didn't want to honor it. Three. Two. One. "Now!"

The edge in his voice made Gina flinch, and his father smirked in the infuriating way he always did. Then, the man got himself up, thundering closer and shrinking the gap between men. One an invasion, an alien; the other, a boy hardened by horror, left to pick up after destruction. Maybe Liam had given this man the dignity of his fear, but all he saw now was a pretender, a mask. A villain he must eradicate. With a jolt, he realized Liam was raised in a family of puppetmasters, and he was the puppet.

"Look, baby." Gina froze on the bed, lifting her face, mottled in various shades of bruise from where she had tightly held her wrists together. A split lip swelled at her mouth, eyes downcast and shaking as they focused on the man before Liam. He gave a bloodied, mocking smile in the gathering darkness. "The puppy's got teeth."

"I got more than that." Liam spat, eyes flashing. His father laughed, hard and short, daring to steal his control. Again. He gripped it harder. "Answer the question, Robert."

This made him pause. The kind that told of impending thunder, bullets as fists, but Liam steeled himself. He wasn't scared of him anymore. Robert lost that right the moment his son got a taste of the real world. He was facing it right now, and it pissed Robert off. He would meet his match in his own son, grown from thorns, bleeding cuts, and violent experience. A small pulse of trepidation wove through the layers of waxy, meaty fat.

"You think you can call the shots now, boy?" he asked, taking large, rumbling steps up to the younger man. Liam just fixed him with a smoldering silence, staring at the mass of chin on his father's face for a second longer before allowing his vibrant, angered ocean to connect with his sick, black void. "I'm your father."

Liam hears his heart in his ears, and he counts the beats. One, two. Three, four. Then, speaks low, rough. Deadly, but practiced calm. "You're nothing," he whispered. "Haven't been anything close, my entire life. You don't deserve the label. So." Liam took a slow step back, his quiet anger simmering through his features, warming the storm's moisture from his skin. He felt his chest ease as his body moved, beckoned back by a gleaming thread. Go easy. "I won't give it to you."

Robert nodded, pursing dry, peeling lips as if giving Liam consideration. "Okay, fine. You wanna be the tough guy. I get it--"

"What are you doing here?" Liam asked, refusing him room to speak, to breathe words, even. His head turned, his expression of hate morphing to something softer as he peered studiously at Gina, left on the misshapen bed of faded floral patterns. Seeing it made his head swim. "Mom?" he prompted. His voice fractured, lowered to a gentle, probing question, bated and stricken.

He knew her answer. It ran like a satanic minion through his mind's eye. Chaotic, taunting truth that rolled heavily in his gut. He didn't want it to be real, willing her next words to be a guilded assurance. Smiles and soft lips despite the marred wound upon them. The picture of the previous incident scratched like an old record, faster and faster. He swallowed back the urge to vomit, pressing his lips together, throat bobbing dryly. Tell me I'm crazy. Tell me I'm wrong.

There it lay: Torn clothes, blood crusting in a thin layer on the sheets. Her voice, yet to be heard. Gina was working them still, forcing them out of a blemished, swollen throat, through reddened teeth that chattered. He took a step closer, every instinct warning against it. Curse his guilible, hopeful heart. Too soft, too good. Too much.

His hand reached out without knowledge, drowning in the need to heal, help. Soothe, against his better judgment. Blue eyes glowed with hurt for her. Shit, not again. Liam, gaze burning with tears he wouldn't let fall, sank to the floor at her bed, searching. Hoping she would do just one kind thing for him. Just once. This time, and today after all this upheaval, this puncture in the bubble of possible good, however intangible.

"Mom?" A broken plea. From a boy craving a mother not made of shadows or selfishness. One he didn't unconsciously give a million thin chances to, only to lose. One worth his prayer. Worth his faith. "Please, tell me." Give me the truth, if you can stand it.

He placed a palm lightly on her freckled cheek as she thawed into more human, less frightened deer. The press of his hand on her brought her eyes to him, and he gave an encouraging smile. Her eyes welled, and saltwater tracked down her bones, collecting into her shirt collar. The sewn fabric looked loose, like it's been hastily pulled, hard. Either into or out of a grip. His stomach flipped. The image playing again--screams, thrusting, cutting words. Threats, pleas. An attack.

It was a theme park memento from ages ago--Universal Studios, sporting the comedic escapades of one Rocky and Bullwinkle. He liked it. Sometimes, when the woman wearing it matched the innocent, cartoonish nature displayed. Then, as he saw, neon pink bike shorts, dirtied and bloody from some unseen wound. Still torn down her legs, left to bunch messily around her reddened, throbbing ankles. His anger flared again, his hand falling deftly into the ratty old flowers of the comforter, curled into a pulsing fist. Turned white under pressure. She deserved it. No. She was still his mother. He had responsibility. Never could he simply walk away.

"You can't help yourself, can you?" Liam growled through clenched teeth, a jaw carved in marble. Venom. In the next breath, he was on his feet again, leaving half his heart in Gina's hands as she watched through wide, tainted blue eyes. Tainted, but not with her typical haze, her drug. Not this time. No, something else. Infinitely damaging, definitively sinister. "Everything we have. Everything!" He tracked muddy, soaked boots across the mottled carpet, strides promising danger.

He stopped in the next minute, seething. He stared up his nose at Robert coldly. It was funny, how Liam could match his father in height, but possessed more strength and will to give a shit. Little did he know how much he would come to regret doing just that much. "You gotta ruin it."

"You know she's deserved everything I gave her, son. I can see it, now." Robert noted. It made him sick. The knot in his chest, the hate, the tether to his control, started to fray. "Those screams weren't pain. She wanted me. Every inch--"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Tell him, baby," Robert shot the words at Liam's mother, authoritative eyes never leaving his son, darkening with an appetite that sickened him. "Didn't you like it?"

Liam sparked again, all heat, flame, and ire. His coiled fist connected with the blooming red skin of Robert's face again, solidly. Deep, lasting. Finally, it was like the first step in a burial. A twisted sense of joy prickled in his chest. He raised his arm to strike again, taking in how contused his father's nose became, spouting red rivers and grossly misaligned.

"Liam, stop!"

His movements stuttered, giving his opponent the space to bring his vast leg up between Liam's legs, cracking his essentials with a fracturing velocity. It stunned him, his eyes screwing tight shut as he cried out low, guttural. He felt himself, in the abrupt chaos of his shock, curl in tightly, sheltering his middle as the pain traveled up and exploded into his stomach.

Robert was moving. In his state, memory of his shotgun that he kept housed in his waistband, hidden under his shirt, flashed. Suddenly, it buzzed from its place tucked away. It was like a bite, festering like an itch to be out in the light. The firearm would only be used in extreme circumstances. As it stood, if his father didn't heed his word, Liam would not be responsible for his retaliation. By fist or bullet, it wouldn't matter. This man never deserved any of the several chances given. Liam had had enough.

"You need to leave." It was a warning; the weapon at his side burned into his flesh. His free arm gripped the edge of his shirt, rumpling it in shaking fingers.

Robert sniffed nastily, advancing as if deaf, holding a hand to his broken, flooding nose, and kicked again. Liam took it, willing his body to stay up, on level with his father, a new layer of heated pressure branding him.

"You gonna back down now, son? I'm not done with you! " He battered on his face again, making Liam's face snap to the side, teeth rattled, oozing copper and red. His hair, drying in frizzed, bleached bronze, fell into his eyes, obscuring his blurred-out gaze. The ocean against the sunset. He spat out.

He ached; he wanted to scream. The urge built in his raw throat in a torrent, a dam threatening to burst. To flood him, cleanse everything in his wake. With the last punch landing in his chest, he snapped. The gun found his hand and he cocked it in the same swift move, aiming straight for his father's head. That made him come up cold, his sweating, bulging skin losing any color it managed to hold. The man always looked ill, at best. Liam couldn't believe he came from something as abhorrent as the creature at the end of his barrel.

"I'm done with you, Robert." He pressed the curve of the handle forward, cementing cold, tarnished steel against moist flesh. He cursed the minute tremor in his fingers, but took a step forward, limping a little. No weakness present, no remorse, no regret. Liam would die rather than give Rober that kind of satisfaction. If he wanted a man, that's what he'll get. "I said, leave."

One more chance. The Guardian inside whispered. Wait. Against all reason, all shadows, all pain, this man before Liam was a father. His father, his blood. The hands on his shoulders seemed to pull him back from the edge of destruction that this impending action could bring. But, oh. How he loathed this life he was forced to endure. With manipulation, with abuse, the only things to raise him. How could he know anything else? What else did he know? Did he have what it took to be decent in any lasting, real way that mattered? By all accounts, his code of good was skewed. Weak and glossed. Water that slipped through his palm. If he were to hold back, walk away from him, from every hurt, would God give him something better?

On the other hand was the moment now. How the rage consumed and turned him savage. A wild, bitter man made of stains too black to wash out. He needed to fix this, to get rid of this evident conflict before him. Doing so was the only way to peace. The only way to normal. Better to close your eyes, rip the band-aid. No regret, no remorse. He could fix it.

Oh, on the contrary. With that one shot, tearing through his father's skull. In the echo of his mother's horror, the scream connected with the bang. Another step, he took closer to the edge. Watching in sweltered blue fury, the blood leaking onto the shag carpet at his feet. The smoking barrel lowered.

All he did was ruin.