Chapter Text
Alfred awoke groggily to muffled yelling. He sat up and opened his eyes, turning his head to the left to see that his twin brother, Matthew, was not in his bed. He rubbed at his eyes, too sleepy to come up with theories as to why he was already up. The faint smell of pancakes that had been cooked earlier lingered in the air, making Alfred’s stomach growl. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, a little bit lightheaded due to low iron.
Taking note of the time, he hurriedly dressed himself as to not make his parents angrier than they–obviously–already were. He dragged himself into the unusually cold bathroom. In order to wake himself up, he splashed a handful of cool water onto his face. He toweled off and stared at himself in the mirror.
Alfred poked at the bruise on his face, causing himself to wince. He tugged at his skin, investigating the parallel, blueish-green marks on his cheek. It was especially noticeable on his jawbone. Now, if a teacher or other student had seen this, there would be absolutely no question of where it came from. It was obvious. He had been slapped by his father during a particularly bad argument the night before, when Alfred had decided to be stubborn and extraordinarily difficult. Arthur had not taken kindly to this disobedience.
He sighed in anger, but covered his face in foundation and concealer regardless. He was rather known for wearing makeup anyways, it wasn’t anything out of the usual. No questions would be asked, no suspicions would be raised.
He finished up and stepped into the kitchen, where his fathers were standing together, waiting for Alfred.
Arthur was the first to step forward.
“Alf, I’m so sorry. You know it was just a mistake. I love you so much, and I’ll always love you no matter what. I promise to never hurt you again.” He offered with a warm smile. He took another step and opened his arms for a hug.
It was almost convincing–but Alfred knew better. This wasn’t the first time he had been physically hurt, and definitely wouldn’t be the last time. He knew by now that I’ll always love you no matter what, meant I only love you when you obey.
He diverted his gaze from Arthur’s uncomfortable eye contact and huffed. He was tired of this cycle of abuse, apology, argument. So he instead tried to walk away, into the kitchen to grab food. Unfortunately, he had to walk right past Francis, who grabbed his arm roughly and yanked him back so hard he almost lost balance.
“What the fuck was that?” Alfred snapped, broadening his shoulders to seem tougher despite how scared he was. He was shaking slightly, but anger quickly internally overtook fear and he felt his heart race with hatred.
Francis’s eyes darkened, which momentarily brought back fear in Alfred, but he wouldn’t dare show it.
“Care to repeat that?” Francis said in that way-too-calm voice that meant he was absolutely furious.
“Sure, I would care to repeat myself! I said, what the fuck was that?” Alfred retorted, putting emphasis on the swear. He knew he was just instigating, but he didn’t care. It felt so good to finally stand up against his parents, despite the knot in his stomach slowly growing from fear. It was exhilarating.
“Why are you such a fucking brat? Don’t you feel any remorse for how you treat us? Why can’t you be more like Matthew? He gets straight A’s, top of the class, and the star of the school hockey team. He always listens to us and is never a burden. Unlike you.” Arthur spat degradingly.
Alfred’s anger slowly dissipated into humiliation and tears welled in his eyes. Matthew was only a few minutes older than him. Did they really think he was that much better?
“I’m going to school.” Alfred mumbled, not daring to say more because he didn’t trust his own voice to not crack. He wiped away the tears threatening to spill over. He couldn’t cry and risk messing up the delicate makeup he had worked hard on. Grabbing his backpack, he left without even bothering to grab breakfast like he would’ve.
He was going to regret this later.