As Alric spoke, the words made less and less sense. The words slammed at him like blows, until he felt the tone of voice, felt the weight of the memories they stirred viscerally.

He had been stupid to think that things were different here. Could be different anywhere. He was stupid.

Once again that was being hammered home, as it had been every day of his life until he fled the barrel of his father's shotgun.

What he thought was wrong. What he knew was wrong. What he felt was wrong. He was not allowed to have these thoughts, these feelings. He was wrong.

And the one person he had started to think, in the whole world, might actually like him... was like his father.

His eyes darkened and darkened until the red was almost black. He swallowed hard and fled for the closet. He climbed in and closed the door, curling into a ball on the floor of the closet, clutching his knees tightly.

The closet was always the closest thing he had to a safe space.

He couldn't cry any more. Ever since the mutation... the tears, the shuddering sobs, the shaking breaths that rocked his frame.... they never came. Which meant there was no physical release for the pain. It just built and built. He pressed his mouth into his knee to stop himself from keening.

Noise always made his father angrier. He didn't have a right to sound when his father was like this.

He killed his mother. He didn't have a right to anything. Anything.