What Some Might Call Home...*

[Megami*]

(Continued from: Unbreakable Bonds)

The sun had long since set over the horizon, and Eric Silvstedt had parted ways with Ricky Callahan hours before, when the redhaired boy finally arrived on the doorstep of the Silvstedt household.  After jiggling the key in the doorknob for a moment, it finally unlocked, and with a slight creak, the large wooden door was pushed open.  The house, an older building probably built around 1950, had just recently been renovated to accomodate the large and continuously growing Silvstedt family.  Sighing audibly as he entered the house, Eric was nearly taken aback by what he found as he entered the house.

Silence.

It was a rare occassion that the Silvstedt household, which served as residence for five children (Eric included), a mother, and generally her druggie boyfriend, was quiet.  It seemed that no one was home at this particular moment, though, and needless to say, it came as a surprise to the redheaded boy.  As he shut the door behind him though, he realized that the light to the playroom located in the basement was on.  Raising an eyebrow rather curiously, Eric descended the steps into the basement playroom.

Down below, he could make out two figures.  The first girl had bright curly blonde hair pulled up into bouyant pigtails and was just ever so slightly on the pudgy side.  This girl was Claire, age 8.  The other girl who sat quietly playing Barbies with Claire was also unmistakable.  The long jet-black hair and dark almond eyes that Kayla Silvstedt, age 7, bore made her look completely out of place in the household.  Then again, that wasn't so  abnormal once you thought about it.  None of the three siblings now occupying the playroom had the same father, and the only one that had taken after their mother in the looks department had been Eric.

The creaking noise being made as Eric descended the stairs had startled the two girls, and now both were looking up at the top of the staircase warily.  When Eric came into view, however, both girls relaxed visibly, the younger of the two, Kayla, bouncing to her feet and running toward the steps in a full-on sprint.  Embracing her brother's legs tightly, a smile formed on the dark-skinned child.  Eric simply patted the girl on the back as she embraced him, never one for really showing much emotion.

"Where's mom?" the boy mused, a worried expression forming on his face.  It was late, they were missing two siblings, and his dimwit of a mother had left two little girls, who were barely even into life, in this old house on the border of a bad neighborhood.  Then again, what else was new?

"Um," Kayla started, scrunching up her face as if straining to remember words uttered long ago, "Mommy said that she was... um... that she was going to go... to... um..."

The girl's face formed into a visible pout as she tried desperately to remember the information her mother had provided her some hours ago.  Although Kayla couldn't seem to remember, Claire finally spoke up, a bit of shame in her voice as though she'd done something wrong.

"Mom went to Wendell's house again," she mumbled quietly, her eyes focusing on the ground.

Eric's eyebrows raised in aggravation at the answer he'd received.  He wasn't mad at the girls of course, but more at his worthless excuse of a mother for leaving them home to go get high with that piece of crap drug-addict boyfriend she'd been dating for a while now.  She'd dated scum before, but in Eric's mind, Wendell was the worst of the worst.  He'd been repeatedly busted for dealing drugs, and as if that weren't enough of an indication, his rap sheet continued on with much, much worse things.  Acting as though he weren't phased by it, however, he proceeded to interrogate the girls a bit more.

"Where are Lucas and Trevor?"

Lucas, age 16, had just recently received his driver's license, and hell freezing over couldn't keep that boy in the house.  Then again, who could really blame him?  When he was home, Luc often found himself contending with the two younger girls, who, while they were quiet, were still as much of a handful as any average adolescent is.  Trevor was the middle child of the Silvstedt family at age 14, and had always had anger issues.  Trevor was born as the result of an affair Eric's mother had had on his father long ago, and it was the proverbial straw that had broken the camel's back.  Eric's father walked out on them soon after, and Trevor has lived since childhood with the knowledge that he caused the family to fall apart.

"Lucas is at his girlfriend's, and Trevor went to stay the night with a friend," Claire once again spoke up, barely audible due to her soft-spoken manner.

"Does mom know they're gone?" the redhead inquired quietly.

"Yes," Kayla popped in matter-of-factly, "Mommy knew they'd be gone all day!  She said she'd be right back, but we've been down here for practically HOURS!"

Any time Nancy Silvstedt said "right back", it generally meant hours later.  The last time she had disappeared and left the girls home alone, it had been for days.  Thank goodness for older brothers, otherwise both Claire and Kayla might've wound up in a world of trouble.  That was how Nancy was, though.  Irresponsible and uncaring.  She left the boys to tend to the youngest two while she went out and screwed around.  It had always been like this, for as long as Eric could remember.  Sighing in frustration, he ran a hand over his face, only to be reminded of the fact that he was covered in his own blood, which the girls had, thankfully enough, not asked about.  Nobody wants to look like a bully in front of their little sisters.

"Well..." Eric mused, hoping that his last movement hadn't directed attention to the blood he was covered in, "I'm home now, so I'll be here if you need me."

With that, Eric turned, pulling away from Kayla's tight grasp, and began his trudge back up the stairwell.  Once again, he had to step up and play the roll of father for Kayla and Claire.  In a way, he resented them for it.  He resented the fact that he had to come home and take care of two little kids, he resented the fact that his mother was almost assuredly over at Wendell's high as a kite and unable to come home, he resented the fact that his brothers were both able to escape this hellhole they called home for the night.  At this point, he just resented life.

Pushing through the semi-messy household, Eric made his way to the back room: his room.  "Mom" had gotten a new room when they'd remodeled the old house, and he'd been left with the rather spacious although somewhat antiquated master bedroom.  Looking at himself in the mirror, even Eric thought he looked a bit crazy, covered in blood that was either his own or that of Matthias's, he didn't really know at this point.  Wiping a bit of dirt off of his battered face, he groaned slightly.  Thinking back, Eric didn't really know why he'd attacked the boy in the first place...

Of course he did.

Power.  In this place, his own private hell, Eric had no power of his own.  He was everyone's callboy.  He was the maid, the babysitter, the father figure.  He had all these extra parts to play, and no authority whatsoever.  People like Matthias Kovalenko and the crew at Bensons, Eric could exercise power over.  He could bend them to his will, through force if necessary.  Here, he was the one who was powerless.  Taking a few steps toward the far end of the room where a bit of his gym equipment sat, Eric looked on in contemplation at the punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

He imagined someone breaking into the house, hurting Kayla and Claire.  He imagined the place catching on fire and them being trapped in the basement.  He imagined Trevor coming downstairs in another screaming tantrum about how terrible his life was.  He imagined Lucas's voice echoing out from the other room as he screamed at his long-time girlfriend for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

And then he imagined his mom.  The pudgy woman with curly red hair who no man in their right mind would find attractive.  He imagined her curled up with Wendell at his house, smoking all of her troubles away and leaving her children to deal with them.  Selfish bitch.  Selfish, careless, worthless piece of shit.

At that moment, Eric's fist went flying into the punching back, over and over, as the redhaired boy unleashed a barrage of punches on the swinging bag.  The entire time, all he could imagine was his mother's round face, and all he could think about was hitting her, teaching her a lesson for all the screwed up things she'd done to him and the other kids.  All she ever thought about was herself, it never occurred to her that she had FIVE children to take care of, and the way things were going with Wendell, Eric wouldn't be surprised if the 6th Silvstedt sibling was well on its way.  The thoughts enraged him all the more as he continued slamming his fists into the bag to release the pent-up anger that had been boiling inside him.

After all, when you're left to raise yourself, violence seems like a great way to sort out your frustrations.  Fighting is, after all, the very basic of primal instincts.  You fight for food, you fight for shelter, you fight for life.  Right now, Eric was fighting for life.  For his life.  For the lives of his brothers and sisters.  He was fighting his mother, teaching her the ultimate lesson for all the screwed up things she'd inacted upon them all.  And the bitch deserved every bit of it.

((Continued in: A Name Which Lives in Infamy))