Crash Bang

Characters; Garvin (Spyro) and Akira. Rest of GRAIN are mentioned in varying degrees. Rudy is mentioned a lot too but like, solely as ‘the man’ since Garvin never learned his name.

Word Count; 2,860.

TWs; Swearing, self-hatred, self worth issues, panic/anxiety attacks, internalized ableism, lots of downplaying, dissociation, injury, blood, relatively mild suicidal ideation, implied child abuse, victim-blaming, implied physical child abuse, implied child sexual abuse/rape, implied past dehumanization, and messy ending/writing. There might be more, but I’m not too sure.

Notes; Um, yeah! Meet Spyro, basically. Uh. Takes place in the time between the short story of Garvin dyeing his hair for the first time and the short story ‘Boiling Point’. Exactly where in there does it take place? Who knows! Somewhere. That said, I hope you hate Rudy even a fraction of how much I do. Anyway, the ending is very messy because I had to end it early because I had no clue what story Akira would tell, haha.. Yeah.

*~*~*~*

Garvin could, maybe, admit that it hadn’t been the best day he’d ever had. It wasn’t the worst day he’d had by any means, of course, he’d had plenty of days that were way worse. Really, the day had been fine. There wasn’t actually any reason to complain. He was fine. He was alive. So he really wasn’t all that sure why he was even thinking about complaining.

-

His chest felt like it was squeezing his lungs though, and his vision was blurry as he leaned against the sink. He wasn’t sure what had caused him to lose his breath again, he wasn’t sure why he kept losing it.

-

Okay. So. Maybe the day hadn’t gone as planned. He’d been supposed to go out with his partners, spend the day doing… Something that he couldn’t remember anymore. Because he was stupid. But it was fine. Instead, he’d just spent the day losing his breath over and over again for no fucking reason and worrying his partners. But that was fine. They didn’t mind. He didn’t deserve them. Any of them. Not a single one of them. He was pathetic and fucking stupid, but it was fine. No one else ruined plans as often as he did. No one else ruined anything at all. It was just him. Every. Single. Time. He was even fucking up washing his hands, but it was fine.

-

Pavo and Apus were making dinner like they so often did. They hadn’t supposed to have been making it tonight. They’d all been supposed to go out. Garvin just had to ruin that though. He felt like shit. He probably deserved to. He was supposed to be washing his hands, after all. Not failing to just breathe. He hadn’t even turned the sink on yet. He’d gotten into the bathroom, closed the door, and started freaking out. Like a fucking idiot.

-

It was annoying as shit. He was tired of it. The others were probably tired of it too. If he was tired of it, then they just fucking had to be. They were going to beat him, weren’t they? He’d ruined their day, he was ruining their night, they had every reason to— He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to focus on just managing to breathe again. They weren’t going to… There was no reason to think they would. He wasn’t sure why he was even thinking about it, it didn’t make sense. They never had before, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t leave if they did. But they wouldn’t anyway so it didn’t even matter and— He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again.

-

He still couldn’t breathe quite right, and given the way his legs felt like they were shaking, the way his entire body felt like it was shaking… He didn’t think he was going to be standing for much longer either. Which was fucking stupid, he hadn’t been in any more pain than he usually was. He winced at the sudden pain coming from one of his hands, and looked down to see that the skin on the back of his fingers had broken open. It made him realize that he’d gone from tapping the countertop to hitting it, and that he’d just missed it. Opened the back of his fingers on that hand with the edge of the sink.

-

He grimaced at himself, ignored the shaking in his legs, and shifted so he was holding the sink counter with both hands again. He still wasn’t breathing right, and hitting the counter wasn’t going to help. It’d just annoy or worry anyone that walked past and he didn’t need to do that. He didn’t need to make anyone more upset with him than they already were. He probably already had. He was bleeding. What if it stained the sink? They’d be so mad at him. Someone would be upset. Even if it didn’t. Someone always seemed to get upset.

-

A loud noise came from a different room. It sounded like metal being dropped, or thrown, against the floor. Or a metal door being slammed shut. It sounded like metal hitting something, put simply. Loud and grating and terrible.

-

A voice rang out after the sound, and they held back whatever noise had been building in their throat. The man was mad at them again. They didn’t know what the voice had said but it was probably the man yelling at them for— For something. They didn’t know what. They never seemed to know what. Did it matter what? The man was mad.

-

They looked around, realised they were in a bathroom, and bit back another sound in the back of their throat. They didn’t recognize the bathroom they were in. It was probably the man’s bathroom then. The one they weren’t supposed to be in. Ever. Being in a bathroom at all was bad enough— The man would probably kill them for being in his.

-

It wasn’t hard to find out how to open the cabinet beneath the sink, at least, and they tried to ignore the different pairs of footsteps in a different room. There were other voices that they couldn’t make out. Did the man have friends over again? They hoped not. They’d be stuck hiding even longer if he did.

-

They glanced around the room again, eyes searching for anything that’d tell them whether or not the sink would hide them well enough. They almost wished it wouldn’t. Hiding under the sinks always made the injuries on their back reopen. They didn’t want to be dealing with that again. Not in the man’s bathroom, under the man’s sink. He’d find out at some point. They’d be thrown out or killed or— Or something.

-

The lights were on in the bathroom, was what they realised the second look around. So they looked for the switch, which wasn’t hard to find but… It looked like it was already turned off. Which meant they’d probably broken it, somehow. They didn’t know how. They kept messing up though. They kept making things worse for themself. They tried the switch anyway, just in case the man just had a weird switch in his bathroom.

-

The lights in the bathroom flicked off, and they ignored their confusion in favour of forcing their way under the sink. It seemed like a tighter fit than usual, and it had already always been a bit cramped. But they’d never hid underneath the man’s sink before, they knew better than to go into his bathroom. They’d thought they’d known better, at least. Apparently not.

-

They curled, folded in on themself as much as they could, and stared at the closed cabinet door in front of them. It wasn’t too hard to ignore everything digging into them, at least. Not yet. Even if it was, they’d have to wait. They didn’t have anywhere else to hide. Leaving the bathroom with all of the different voices and footsteps in other rooms— They’d get caught.

-

Someone would catch them. If not the man, one of the man’s friends. At least if it were the man then they had a chance of just being sent off, dealt with the next day. The chance was small, but they’d take it over the man’s friends finding them. They bit at their tongue, barely noticing the metal that dug into their lip, and kept watching the cabinet door. They couldn’t tell where anyone was. They could hear the footsteps, the different movements in different rooms, they couldn’t tell what was going on. What anyone was doing. How close to being found they were.

-

They dug their teeth farther into their tongue, and rubbed the back of their slick hands. Wait— Slick? Their hands were slick? They felt along their hand, and winced when they got to their fingers. They switched to biting their cheek, and tried to ignore the stinging behind their eyes. If their hands were bleeding then they’d be found. There’d be blood in the man’s bathroom. They’d be found.

-

There’d be blood in the man’s bathroom. Would it stain? It’d be a mess. The man wouldn’t be happy. The man would see the blood and stop whatever he was doing to find them. Even if they weren’t found then, the man would find them at some point. How much blood was there? Did it lead to them? They hoped not. If the man didn’t find them then they’d at least have some time to let him calm down. They hoped he would.

-

Footsteps were getting closer to the room they were in, away from the sound of voices in a different room, and they could basically feel each step that was taken toward them. They weren’t sure who it was, which meant it was probably one of the man’s friends. So they curled some more, trying to make sure that their feet weren’t pushing on the cabinet door at all. They held their breath, biting down on their tongue to make sure they didn’t make any noise.

-

Whoever it was knocked on the bathroom door, and they felt the skin of their tongue break under their teeth as they tried not to make any sound. Why was the person knocking? The light was off, the door was closed— There wasn’t any reason to think they were in the man’s bathroom. There wasn’t any reason to think that anyone was in the man’s bathroom.

-

The footsteps started walking again for a moment, and then stopped. They weren’t sure why. They stayed still though, refusing to make any noise, and listened as the footsteps walked back the way they’d come. They still held their breath, trying not to knit their eyebrows in their confusion. Just in case even that much movement gave them away.

-

The voices stopped in the other room a few seconds later, and then started again with another voice added in. The group didn’t speak for long before the sound of footsteps started again. More than last time. Were they looking for them? They hoped not. They preferred when the man wanted them to stay away from his friends. It was easier to hide, to stay hidden, when no one wanted to find them. When no one wanted to be anywhere near them.

-

They tried to curl more, trying to fit under the sink as well as they could. At least holding their breath wasn’t as hard, given how small each breath they took felt anyway. It almost seemed like they couldn’t breathe, but they weren’t anywhere where that would make sense. And even if they couldn’t, that would just make it harder to find them. It’d be better if they couldn’t breathe, if they didn’t have to breathe.

-

A pair of footsteps were getting close again, and they closed their teeth on their already bleeding tongue. They should just give up. They were hiding under the man’s bathroom sink, their hand was bleeding, and the man had gotten his friends to help look for them. They’d be found. They were going to be found. But it was going to hurt. They didn’t want to be found. They didn’t want to deal with the man or his friends or— Or whoever else he’d brought over.

-

They bit farther down on their bloody tongue to keep their breath from hitching at the sound of the man’s bathroom door opening. They squeezed their eyes shut, and tried to ignore the feeling of something wet slipping down their cheek. The sound of the light switch being flicked reached their ears, and they forced their eyes back open. They held their breath, and tried to stop their crying. Crying wouldn’t help them, it never did. It’d only make things worse. They didn’t want to make things worse. They didn’t want to be found— They didn’t.

-

Whoever had opened the door didn’t move for a second, probably looking at the mess they’d left behind from their bleeding hand, and they tried to stop shaking as much as it felt like they were. They felt themself blink, felt the same wetness as before slip from their eyes as they did. They tried not to breathe, or at the very least— They tried to breathe as silently as possible, as slow and shallow as possible. They didn’t know what would give them away. Something would. The man never gave up when he wanted to show them to his friends.

-

The footsteps stepped into the room, and they tried to stop from tensing. They felt as they failed, felt as their shoulders hiked up to their ears and as they tried to silently pull themself closer in. The metal pipe digging into their back was going to reopen something, if it hadn’t already. It always did at some point. They pushed their back against it some more anyway. They’d rather deal with that than whatever would happen this time if they were found— By a friend of the man even, given that whoever it was wasn’t yelling yet. They were in the man’s bathroom, about to be found by one of his friends— They bit down on their tongue some more to keep from making any noise as their throat seemed to close on them.

-

The footsteps had already stopped again, they tried not to make any noise. Tried to hope that they wouldn’t be found. Tried to stay as still as possible. They stared at the closed cabinet door that they knew was in front of them, and tried to ignore the tears that they knew were going down their face.

-

The cabinet door was slowly opened after what felt like only a few seconds later, and they felt more than they heard their breath hitch with the fact that they’d been found. They wanted to close their eyes, curl up into a ball and not have to deal with whatever happened. They couldn’t even get their eyes to blink.

-

They didn’t know the person kneeling in front of the sink staring in at them. They stared back, trying to ignore the way they were pushing back into the metal pipe behind them, trying to ignore the tears rolling down their face. Trying to at least not make any noise.

-

The person shifted, and they flinched back some more, and then tried not to flinch again when they realised they had. The person was sitting instead of kneeling. That was all. Why was the person sitting? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t— They bit harder into their sore tongue.

-

“Uh… Hey, um- Shit, uh. Ya gotta breathe, hey- Can ya, uh, what’s five things ya can see?”

-

They stared, and pushed backwards some more. They’d been found. The man would show up soon. The man would hear the person talking and show up. Or the person would snap and grab them. Why was the person even talking to them? They should’ve been pulled out already. That was always how it went.

-

“Okay, uh… Four things ya can touch then? Can ya do that?”

-

They dug their teeth farther into their bleeding tongue. They’d been found. In the man’s bathroom. The back of their hand was bleeding. Their back was probably bleeding again. They were making a mess in the man’s bathroom. They’d been found by one of the man’s friends. They couldn’t see past the scarred face in front of them. How long did they have until the man showed up? How long before the person in front of them snapped and dragged them out? How long before any other friend’s the man had brought over showed up?

-

How much was it all going to hurt? The one in front of them hadn’t said anything about any fun yet. That seemed to be the only reason the man ever brought anyone over though. Hadn’t they already dealt with it for the day though? The man never brought anyone until later, after all. They should’ve already dealt with that day’s fun. They didn’t want to go through more. They didn’t want to deal with the man’s friends.

-

“Three things ya can hear maybe..?”

-

They’d been found though. The person in front of them would snap and grab them and drag them out and the man would be told where they’d been hiding and— And they’d probably be beaten. Their back was already sore, and they were probably reopening it too— They’d be back having to kneel on broken glass while eating. They’d lose the blanket they’d been given. They’d have to be tied to the foot of the man’s bed at night again. They’d messed up— Why had they been in the man’s bathroom? Why couldn’t they just know better? They should’ve known better.

-

They felt their shoulders hitch, felt how their lips quivered despite how much they’d dug their teeth into their tongue. They pushed farther back, staring forward at the person in front of them. They weren’t sure why they hadn’t dragged them out yet. They weren’t sure why they hadn’t yelled for the man or any of the other people that’d been brought over. They knew better than to hope that they wouldn’t though.