scapegoat ━━ mike schmidt

𝟬𝟭𝟱 family

SCAPEGOAT / Chapter Fifteen
tw: mentions of homophobia, mentions of suicide

Burning. Blood. Broken.

Malakai's eyes flew open, mouth stuck open in a silent scream. He gripped the hands shaking him awake, digging his nails in, shoving, trying to push away his attacker, trying to escape.

The hands were gone in an instant. As Malakai's gaze finally focused, he relaxed at the sight of the man in front of him. Flush faced, eyes wide in shock, mouth half open as he struggled to find words, Mike was sat beside him on the couch.

"I'm sorry." The words left Malakai before he could even think of them, shame suddenly wallowing inside of him. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, mind still whirring. What was that wetness on his face? Tears? "I'm sorry. I should—I'll go."

"You don't have to," Mike said quickly. Malakai was still convinced on leaving until the man reached over and grabbed his hand, giving it a light squeeze.

Malakai relaxed a little at that. The prayer was still swimming around his mind, as well as his grandfather's words. I told you this would happen. And he had, hadn't he? His grandfather had told him numerous times what would happen if he disobeyed, if he sinned. Malakai would be going straight to Hell. His grandfather had been trying to protect him all along—no, not protect. Control. Or was Malakai wrong? He couldn't make sense of it; any of it.

He quickly pulled his sleeves up. No fresh cuts, no aching burns. No blood. It had all been a nightmare, of course, but Malakai wasn't convinced.

"Nightmare?" Mike asked, though it sounded less like a question and more of a confirmation. Upon Malakai's nod, Mike pursed his lips, "You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really. I just...I'm not dealing with something as well as I thought I was." Malakai frowned as he struggled to reflect on it. He wanted to forget it all. He wanted it erased from his mind, every detail, every trauma. He wished he didn't have to deal with any of it—it had never been his fault. He was a kid. Someone else had given him all this pain...and now he was the one who had to fix it. Unjust. That's what it was. Malakai glanced down at his wrist, almost regretting the fact that the cuts had been fake.

He flicked his elastic band. Once, twice. A few more times, and the feeling didn't go away. But it dulled, at least. Malakai was content with his healed skin.

"Have I told you about the time I almost broke my arm doing a cartwheel?"

The absurdity of the question snapped Malakai back to the present. He frowned at Mike, expecting some sort of sarcastic glint in his eye but the man was dead serious. Malakai felt a smile creep onto his face, "No, you have not. You're a closed book, Mi."

Mike shrugged as he couldn't refute it, "Well, what do you want to know about me?"

"Obviously I want to know how you almost broke your arm doing a cartwheel," Malakai grinned. His muscles were relaxing now, remnants of the nightmare almost fully gone.

"Alright," Mike cleared his throat as he began, "I was seventeen. I hung around this group of people and it's not like they were bad kids, but we all didn't have friends, so we were kind of shoved together. Anyway, we were trying to be stereotypical rebellious teenagers but none of us had the guts. So, we're playing dare or dare—"

"That's such an original game," Malakai couldn't help his a sarcastic smile.

Mike grinned, "That's exactly what I said. Anyway, when it came to my dare, we'd pretty much ran out of anything worthwhile to do. We'd already done ding dong ditch, already called our crushes...Y'know, stupid teen stuff. So one of the girls dares me to do as many cartwheels as I can in a row. You wanna know how many I did?"