#but it does detail why rodrick was made to go to school/the abuse that got his grandfather institutionalized

[devilmass]

meta + rodrick's abuse

the morning of the accident felt all wrong. he wakes up and the air is different. it feels charged, fed full of vitriol before anything even happens. he remembers waking up in a heap, he recalls the silence of the big house and somewhere else, the sound of a hammer being used. the reluctance to leave his bed does not go away. even when he's dressed for the day, roddy is cognizant that something is coming; something big, something with teeth and nails and a mouth big enough to swallow him whole. perhaps this reluctance is what catalyzes the incident altogether. he often wonders what his life might be like if he'd just listened better. if he wasn't fixed on fighting his grandfather on everything.

it starts when the morning's bible study doesn't go to plan. he talks back, asks when's dad gonna be done ? because he's nothing if not his daddy's son, he wants to go outside and tend the land alongside him, wants to feel the warmth of his gaze just once before the parishioner's come. his grandfather answer's with a swift slap across his right cheek. it comes when his head turns back to the bible, when his eyes are distracted and he doesn't realize the creaking of the chair is his grandfather standing up. or maybe it starts when rodrick asks him, immediately after, is this how god wants you to treat your only grandson ? red cheeked and red - rimmed eyes from holding back his pain.

all he knows is that the look in his grandfather's eyes are unlike anything he's ever witnessed. a heady mix of hatred and an incurable iciness, one that rodrick will never inherit, pours across the kitchen between them. he thinks he's won. his grandfather leaves the kitchen silently and rodrick watches as he trudges upstairs without a word. rodrick's never come out on top in anything, much less with his grandfather, and the immediate presence of his guilt is proof of that. his stomach turns. he sits at the table for an hour, for two hours, before finally deciding to head upstairs to his bedroom. " rodrick ? " the sound of his grandfather's voice inspires a dread that could not be overstated. his rabbit heart jumps in his chest and rodrick dives under his bed, pushing himself so far in that he clings to the opposite wall, breathing hard, watching the doorway. his grandfather stands there, clad in his best cowboy boots with the metal spurs strapped to them.

sometimes rodrick imagines that nothing happened. when he thinks back on the empty spaces between seeing his grandfather's boots and waking up at the bottom of the stairs with his father standing over his body, several hours later rodrick tries to imagine that his grandfather's ire was not as bad as it might have been. that the broken bones mean little when his life is still intact.

he imagines that his dad intervenes just in time. that he picks him up and carries him to bed and washes the blood from his mouth with a warm cloth, just like he used to do with his drool.

but that's not what happens.

his father doesn't stop it. he only comes in, when the hour is late, and finds him crumpled up in a pile of his own blood; he doesn't stop to pick rodrick up. instead, he goes to the living room where his grandfather sits and asks him why -

why did you do that, daddy ? what did you do ? daddy -

he sounds like the child rodrick never knew him as.

the ambulance is called when his father tries to stand him up. rodrick crumples immediately, whimpering, falling into the same heap he was in before. his bloody mouth pukes up more blood, his smashed in teeth doing little to stop it from spraying everywhere.

when the paramedics come for him, rodrick remembers asking if his dad was going to be mad. in the hospital, with morphine running through his veins, rodrick only remembers bits and pieces: photos being taken of his body, strange lights passing overhead, a needle, two needles, and gauze being packed into his mouth. he remembers his clothes being cut off of him and a soft voice telling him that he's so brave.

in the weeks following the accident, rodrick's tally is given: two broken legs, a fractured shin, a broken humerus and several teeth were removed via surgery because they were incapable of being saved. he had a concussion and a numerous bruising that suggests he was given the belt more than once. his ribs and hips are bruised to all hell and he's given a brace when he walks because it makes walking torture.

social service doesn't allow rodrick visitors for the month their investigation spans, a cautionary consequence for the boy's worrying questions about both grandfather and father. when he is given permission to go home, it's under the assurance that rodrick sr. would never be allowed within 500 feet of rodrick and furthermore, would be hospitalized for the remainder of his life.

social services makes sure that rodrick goes to school. they give him needles that make him feel strange and warm and for the entirety of the following year, rodrick falls into a state of selective mutism. he stops talking, but he doesn't stop praying.

he never stops praying. he never sees his grandfather again.