Title: "Pay the Boatman"
Author: monimala
Fandom: VM
Word Count: 500
Rating/Classification: SAC for nongraphic rape and incest, angst, darkfic.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Summary: Molly Fitzpatrick doesn't pay with coins. Not anymore.
Notes: Vaguely set around/after VM 2.17, "Plan B."
She loves the River Styx best when the darkness is humming. When all she has is the clink of a stray beer bottle and the sound of the neon signs begging for sleep. She doesn't dare switch them off. She's paid in blood for lesser offenses than that. So, she drops the bottle into a crate for recycling, dries off each tap for the twentieth time and runs her hands along the smooth wood grain of the bar. She savors the few minutes of not-quite-quiet that remind her of church, of stained glass and the smile of a boy who'll never smile again.
Because the noise comes too soon. And, as always, it's deafening.
Uncle Liam slamming the door. Danny laughing, loudly, at something he's said. They turn all the lights back on, knocking the chairs from where she carefully upended them on each table. They trade punches and pass a joint back and forth and swear in Gaelic so broken that it would make her grandfather weep for the shame of it.
And then they come for her.
Their eyes are red, wild, and she knows they're flying on weed and meth and she wishes, God, just once that they would share so she could numb herself. So she could be so high up that they can't reach.
She takes the cueball in her palm, feels its smooth weight as she drops it into the nearest pocket and listens to it roll home. And then she climbs up on to the pool table, waiting for them to stumble and weave and cuss their way to her.
There's no use in running.
In even thinking of being elsewhere.
Not anymore.
She used to scratch. She used to hit. She used to cry, "Get off me!" and "Please, stop!" and "I'll do whatever you want." Then Felix asked about the bruises she got in return. She thanked God that he'd never seen the bite marks on the insides of her thighs and she learned to lay still. "Don't ask. It's nothing. Just hold me," she would tell him, listening to her tongue turn the 's' into "th"s and the lies into truth.
Now, the only thing that leaves marks is the felt, scratchy against her bare skin, etching red welts and abrasions every time. But she feels no pain.
Not anymore.
Uncle Liam likes to wind his fingers in her hair and force her head back. He likes to make sure that even the back of her throat has been scraped clean of Felix Toombs.
"Your ours," whispers Danny. As if she's ever going to forget. "You hear me? You're one of us. You're always gonna be one of us."
Above all else, she believes that.
And she still loves the River Styx when the darkness is humming. When all she has is the clink of a stray beer bottle and the sound of the neon signs begging for sleep.
Molly is a fighting Fitzpatrick. With no fight left inside.
--end--
April 7, 2006.