Denial (Salvis)

Rhymes and Riddles (pt1) {24}

TW: Mentions/implied self harm. If you are uncomfortable or triggered by that topic, please don't read this chapter! You may private message me, or comment on the previous chapter asking what happened and I can summarize for you.

A/n

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 4K READS!!!!! Chapters coming up will likely be SUPER long. Would you rather I split it into two parts, or just have one really long one? 

        Sal tossed his bag to the floor, kneeling down to pet the flabby tabby at his feet. 

"Hey, Gizmo! Miss me today?" The paunchy cat responded with a loud yowling noise. He threw himself onto his bed, stretching out along the soft mattress. Sal rolled over and unzipped his backpack, rummaging through his belongings, before retrieving the silver flip phone from the bottom. Travis' dramatic mood changes and severe anger issues were already becoming more of a problem, but Sal firmly believed that having someone to talk to might be able to reduce his explosive nature.

"Hey trav! you ok to talk?"

Travis responded almost immediately, "Hey, yes. I can talk now."

Sal knew he had to approach the subject with caution, it was obviously a very personal issue, which already added much grief to Travis' life, "your alright if we talk abt the anger things, right?"

"Yes." His rigid way of texting never failed to instill at least a small amount of fear into Sal.

"Do you know y ur so upset?"

"No, I don't. I was hoping you might be able to help me with that." This wasn't a horrible start.

"thats ok. If i had to guess id say its bcuz of ur dad honestly."

"My dad?"

"well, yah. hes a pretty intense guy, and after seeing everything hes done to you i think youre looking for an outlet." He anxiously ground his teeth together, hoping his prediction wouldn't set him off.

"Oh. I guess that would make sense. Are you saying that because my Father is violent towards me, I'm turning into, like, a mini version of him?"

"NO? NO NO NO! Your not him, youre NOTHING like that monster. I just mean that bcuz of all the pain and suffering your going thru you need to let it out somewhere. You do that thru either hurting others or hurting yourself. That doesnt make you bad Trav, it just makes you human."

Travis didn't respond for a few minutes after that message, probably rereading it over in his head, picking apart the words to make sense of it all. 

"Thank you, Sal. I appreciate your honesty, do you have any ideas on how to help me stop acting like this? I hate it, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't want to be angry anymore. I wish it would just go away, I wish there wasn't so much wrong with me." Sal's eyes started tearing up as he read the message, how could such a precious individual feel so awful with themselves?

"Theres nothing wrong with you Travis. I love you just the way you are and nothing is gonna change that. Do you know what things make you mad? we can fix it if you tell me."

"It's hard to pinpoint when almost everything makes me mad, except for you." Travis certainly was easy to aggravate, but Sal didn't believe that he, himself was an angry person.

"thats ok, we can still work with this! Do you know anything that you do to calm down?"

For the second time, Travis paused for a decent amount of time before furthering the conversation, "Well, yeah, but you don't like it."

"What is it?"

"Cutting."

Sal grimaced, recalling the deep red lines embedded in Travis' forearms. He was right, Sal didn't like it.

"i dont like it no. Do you have anything else you can do?"

"I occasionally write in my journal." Sal's mind flashed back to the crumpled note on the bathroom floor, an actually healthy coping mechanism.

"Great! thats so much better trav! the next time that something upsets you, would you be able to excuse yourself from the situation and write abt it?"

"I guess it's worth a shot, thank you, Sal." His heart beamed with pride, he'd slowly been able to help Travis. It didn't seem like much, but the baby steps truly did have an impact on Travis and everyone around him. 

"Travis?"

"Yes?" Sal's heart was in his throat, he had one last question.

"When was the last time you did that to urself? You dont have to tell me if you dont want to ofc."

"I'm sorry." Sal stared at the message, unsure of what to make of it.

"Its ok travis."

"Okay, I'm going to be attending the service tomorrow, as usual, what would you like me to do there?"

Sal smiled woefully, the sudden change of topic didn't go unnoticed, "A service on saturday? R u ppl crazy?"

"You'd know better than anyone. Yes, sometimes we have services on Saturdays too, what would you like me to do?"

"Abt those trapdoors you mentioned, do you think you'd be able to get the key to any of them? If not, can you sneak me back there after the church stuff is over?"

"I can try, but I won't be able to promise anything. Does this mean that you'll be there tomorrow?" Sal liked to imagine what Travis would've sounded like asking that, wanting to hear the tenderness in his voice.

"Yes! i cant wait 2 see you ;)" The wink was quite bold, but Sal knew that Travis would be all over it.

"Glad to hear it, looking forwards to it too!" Travis almost never used exclamation marks, Sal grinned widely, the 'new' Travis had really grown on him.

        Kenneth was wrapping up the ceremony, thanking people for their time and promising that the Lord would smile upon them. Travis stood directly to his right, scanning the crowd for Sal's face, or lack there of. Due to Sal's entire focus being directed towards Travis, everyone standing and exiting the facility greatly confused him. After looking around in pure perplexity, Sal got to his feet and starting walking towards the end of the empty pew. His foot collided with the corner of the wooden pew leg, sending Sal careening to the ground. The voices of the other participants had died out, leaving him alone in the sinister Ministry.

"Ugh! Stupid fuckin' bench-thingy." Sal pushed his stomach off the ground, twisting so as to allow himself to stand, "Why do these thing even have legs? It's not like they need to walk, and why does it have to be so har- AGH!" The tall figure standing over him interrupted Sal's mumbled complaints.

A/n 

This one is a tad bit lame, I'll post the next chapter tomorrow, as they are connected.

Word count: 1109