Archive of Our Own ^beta

Boys don’t cry. It’s against God’s great plan for them to do so, against it for anyone to do so, really, because crying suggests that you are unhappy with the way God’s plan has played out, and it is a sin to believe that His word is anything but perfect. 

So Travis Phelps doesn’t cry. He tucks his tears up under his ribs, buries them beneath his heart along with everything else he is not allowed to have, and by the time he is 7 years old he’s forgotten what crying is even meant to feel like. 

When Sal Fisher finds him in the bathroom, Travis Phelps is not crying. His breaths are shaky and his chest is tight, but his eyes are as dry as they have been for as long as he can remember. 

It does not change the half scribbled out note on the floor, or the growing hollow of his stomach that can never be curbed by measly school lunches. 

Sal leaves when he tells him to. Travis doesn’t ask him to stay. 

--

Travis is an imperfect sacrifice. His father has been careful to tell him this, to remind him of his flaws in case he ever thinks of forgetting. 

He is an imperfect sacrifice, and he should be so grateful that God still accepts his flawed blood. 

“The perfect sacrifice does not flinch from the knife,” he says, and the next cut is deeper and longer. 

“The perfect sacrifice takes discipline willingly,” he says, and the next slap makes his ears ring and his vision spot.

“The perfect sacrifice is committed to improving himself for the Lord,” he says as he spits insult after insult at Travis’s trembling form. 

“The perfect sacrifice is not a glutton,” he says as he stops keeping meals in the fridge. 

“The perfect sacrifice is not you.” He says, and Travis can no longer look at himself in the mirror. 

(When he is eight years old, he gets on his hands and knees at the altar, presses his forehead to the floor, and prays. Begs for God to take him apart and put him back together again, properly. He prays to be made up in perfection, for the flaws to be rent from his flesh and the selfish wants to be pulled from his throat. 

He prays to be a good little boy, a good little sacrifice, because if he stops flinching from the knife maybe father will stop hurting him. 

His pleas echo around the pews until the Helpers walk in, minutes and hours later, and drag him down the stairs once again.) 

God never answers his prayers. 

Travis makes himself stop resisting, trains an unflinching blankness into his marrow. 

The bruises get worse. 

The scars keep piling. 

--

When Travis is seven, he decides to start picking fights at school. Because if he’s getting beat up in the playground, no one will notice a black eye he never got from a fight, or a bruised rib where no kid has kicked him. 

His father doesn’t notice the extra marks. 

When he’s nine, and his father starts ‘forgetting’ to give him meals, he gives compliments to the lunch lady to get an extra portion of food, and pockets energy bars from the free sample booths in the grocery store, to bite back the nausea enough to walk to school in the mornings. 

When he sits in the front pew every Sunday, and his father preaches that homosexuality is a sin, he nods his head and wrinkles his nose and prays for the sinners of the world. He buries his ugly feelings under his ribs with his tears, and takes his fathers hits with a solemn acceptance. He deserves to be punished. 

So, Travis is good at acting normal. 

Sally Face and his friends, he’s starting to realise, are getting better at picking out unusual things. 

They give him odd looks in the hallways, when he winces at his freshly bruised ribs. They squint at him at lunch times, as he scarfs down the crappy cafeteria food and calms his empty stomach. As he rushes to the bathrooms on Fridays with bile in his throat, starved and unable to handle the greasy pizzas. 

As he holds his tender, freshly cut arms close to his chest and doesn’t raise his hand. 

Sal Fisher and his freaks may be noticing something wrong. Travis forces himself to ignore it. 

There is nothing that can be done for sinners like him. Nothing but giving himself up on the altar and praying it’s enough. 

(Still, some terrible, traitorous part of Travis wishes that his peers would try to reach out anyway.)  

--

“Have you guys seen Travis get into any fights recently?” Sal asks as they’re walking to lunch one day. 

“Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s picking one right now,” Larry says with a grumble. 

Sal ignores it. “He didn’t even glare at me in math today. He just kept holding his side and wincing. But I swear I haven’t heard any fights for like, a week.” 

“ I think you’re too paranoid, Sally Face,” Ash says with a smile. “You see strange things everywhere you go.”

“We live in Nockfell! I’m justified.” 

Todd shrugs. “What exactly would be the theory here, though?” 

“Travis Phelps is being beaten up by ghosts,” Larry suggests. 

Sal huffs. “I know you guys notice the odd things about him, too.” 

Bruises too harsh to be from any petty fights. Wincing that looks too pained for a few thrown punches in the school yard. They’ve all seen it, he's sure.

“His dad runs a cult,” Larry says instead of denying it. “He’s probably been, like, summoning demons since he was a toddler, or something.” 

None of them argue the point, and the conversation drops as they enter the cafeteria. Still, Sal can’t shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong about Travis. 

--

Usually, when Travis’s father hits him in the face, it’s with a backhanded slap. Usually, Travis’s head whips to the side, and stars cloud his vision, and he trips and hits the floor, unable to keep his balance. 

This time, his father punches. 

He feels more than hears the terrible crunch in his nose, as his head knocks back and hits the wall. His face feels numb and cold. His ears are ringing, and he doesn’t notice he’s on the ground until his father drags him back up by the shirt collar. 

Travis has the sudden and terrible realisation that his father has been holding back. He has the terrible realisation that his father is a horribly angry man. 

He needs to leave. He hits the wall again, and he thinks he might’ve actually been thrown. His fingers make an odd snapping sensation when he hits the ground, jamming them accidentally when he blindly reaches out to catch himself. His father is screaming. He doesn’t understand the words. Distantly, he notices the bottles on the table across the room. More than he’s seen in a while. 

Oh, he thinks quietly, before his father kicks him in the ribs. 

Then, the knife comes out. It is glinting cold and steely in the dark, and his fathers boots stomp forward with intent. He is not looking at his arm. 

Travis screams . 

--

“Your blood is a meaningful sacrifice,” his father tells him one day, “because I am giving the blood of my own son, and you are giving your whole living self to the Lord, trusting in Him that you will continue to survive and serve.” 

Travis nods, and doesn’t resist when his pink, still healing arm is cut open again. He watches his blood flow into the grooves of the stone for what must be the hundredth time, and prays thanks to the Lord that he is not a pile of bones in the corner of the room. 

(“You ungrateful brat !” His father shouts as he slaps him, later that night. “You should be thankful that your sinful flesh carries my Holy blood. You would be dead if I were a less devoted man!” 

Travis nods, and puts his whole will into the blood that drips from his swelling nose and onto the floor below. Everything in him must be given to the Lord. 

I am grateful to be blessed with Holy blood, he thinks. I am grateful that I am not one of the bodies in the basement.)

--

Travis doesn’t remember what happened. He doesn’t remember leaving the house, and is only vaguely aware of the fact that he’s outside, and it’s raining, and he’s running. There are no stab wounds on him. The cuts on his arms are days old, at the least. 

That knife didn’t touch him. 

Distantly, he thinks that he hasn’t put any intent into the blood pouring from his nose, or the stuff dripping from his busted lip. He isn’t being a very good sacrifice. 

The thought makes him laugh. 

He doesn’t stop running. 

--

The last thing Sal or any of his friends expect as they settle in for their sleepover, is Travis Phelps. Specifically, Travis Phelps looking like he’s seen the fucking devil. 

He comes with a frantic and pleading knock at Sal’s door, and Sal goes to open it with confusion and not a small amount of apprehension, his friends leaning over to peak from where they’re sitting. 

He looks like he’s gone through the fucking digestive tract of Satan. 

His nose is busted. It’s bent to one side and absolutely pouring blood over his mouth, but Sal thinks he can make out a vicious split lip somewhere beneath the red. His eyes are both starting to swell and bruise from the broken nose, and he’s soaked from the rain. He’s  clutching a hand over his ribs, but two of his fingers look fucked up where they’re resting on his shirt. 

His eyes are terrified.  

“Sally face,” Travis wheezes, and then fucking collapses in Sal’s front door. 

They all sit around him now, shell shocked and unsure. Todd wants to check for injuries and cracked ribs, but Sal stops him from doing anything other than splinting his fingers. There’s a sick feeling in his gut telling him Travis should be asked before they do much of anything. (There’s a sick feeling that it would be the first time someone’s thought to do that for him at all.) 

“..I should probably check for a concussion,” Todd says quietly, after a bit of silence. 

Sal resists the urge to try and shake Travis awake. 

“Travis?” He says instead, loud and near his ear. The boy’s eyes flutter. “Travis,” he says a little louder. 

Brown eyes blink open, squinting and swollen. 

Travis doesn’t move, he just stares at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. Then lets out a long sigh. He seems bone-tired in a way that makes Sal think he’s done this a million times before. He tries not to think about what that means. 

“..Travis?” Todd asks hesitantly.

He doesn’t shoot up, or frantically look around. He just turns his head and takes in the apartment around him, the four people watching. His eyes widen minutely. His swollen lip twists into a frown. 

“Shit.” He says. 

Sal can’t help but agree. 

The good news: Travis does not have a concussion, and his nose has been easily snapped back into place. 

(Sal has to try really, really hard not to think about the way Travis didn’t flinch at all when they did it, didn’t even make a sound at the pain. There’s nothing natural about a reaction like that.)

The bad news: Travis absolutely fucking refuses to take off— or even lift up— his shirt so that they can check for cracked ribs. He insists that they’re fine. 

Todd wants to make sure. Travis swears on the Lord and all Heaven above that he’s telling the truth. The words don’t mean much to any of them, but it seems like the strongest reassurance he can possibly give. They accept it. 

The worse news: Travis is trying to leave. Sal instantly refuses, backed by his friends and literally any sane person why the fuck would we let you leave after that, and Travis insists. The angry, bitter bully has left, and deep embedded manners have won out. 

“I’ve overstayed my welcome, I don’t know why I came here, I’m fine, it’s okay, I’ll go back home now, thank you for your help—"

The words are frantic. 

“Travis,” Sal interrupts. “Did this happen at home?” 

Travis freezes. He says nothing. His beaten face looks worse in the dim light of the living room. 

His silence goes on for miles. 

“Dude, we are not letting you go back,” Ash says with a frown. 

“Genuinely no chance,” Larry adds. 

“Listen Travis,” Sal says. “My dad’s out of town for the next week on a work trip. I’m gonna get you some clean pajamas, you’re going to have a shower, and we’re gonna figure this out in the morning. You are not going home. As far as I can help it, you’re never going back there, unless you explain to me why you getting a severe beating inside your own house was a happy little accident.” 

Travis says nothing. 

He takes the clothes Sal brings him, and has a politely short shower with such a complete lack of steam that Sal knows he left the water cold. 

He lays down on the couch the way Sal would expect an army man to sleep in a cot. 

The four of them head back to his bedroom. 

“What the fuck,” Larry says when they’ve all settled down to sleep. 

“Where do we even go from here?” Ash asks. 

“We aren’t letting him go back.” Sal reaffirms. 

“Of course not, man,” Larry says, “but his father is Kenneth Phelps. He runs the cult that basically runs the whole town. How do you even get out of something like that?” 

“We can figure something out if that becomes a more pressing issue,” Todd says. “With the state he’s in, I’m not sure how much his father cares about having him back.” 

The thought silences them all. 

No one sleeps well. 

In the morning, Sal gives Travis an old hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, and Larry starts making eggs and toast. They sit in the living room to eat. 

Sal’s never noticed it as much before, but with the oversized hoodie he’s wearing, he realises just how thin Travis is. His wrists are tiny, and his collarbones stick out like he’s starved. His cheeks look almost gaunt, in the morning light. He scarfs down his food like he hasn’t eaten in ages. 

Sal tries not to think about what kind of picture that paints. They eat in silence. 

--

Travis doesn’t want to be here. He wants to go home , because at least at home he knows exactly what to expect from his father. At least at home he knows what to do and how to act. At least at home he has a purpose. 

(Travis may not know how to socialise, may not know how to make small talk or interact with kids his age, but he knows how to bleed, without flinching and without pause. He knows how to be a good sacrifice. There is no stone to give himself up on in Sally Face’s apartment, and no crosses to spill his Holy blood for.)

The food, at least, is welcome. Travis hasn’t had a meal for breakfast in years. The feeling of a full stomach so early in the day, (and on the weekend , no less,) is a foreign one. 

He manages to load all his dishes into the dishwasher, and start working on some old ones left in the sink before Sal drags him away.  

“You don’t need to earn your right to be here,” the boy tells him. 

At home, cleaning his father’s dirty dishes had been one of the easy things. A simple task to keep on top of, simpler still to do well. He had only gotten in trouble for something dishes-related a few times, some for not doing them correctly, and once for trying to sneak a bite of leftovers off his fathers old plate. 

Still, the whole task had made him feel normal. Most kids had to do the dishes. If he concentrated hard enough, he could ignore the dull throb of his arms, and the aching hunger, and the bruises. He could pretend to be a normal kid, just for fifteen minutes. 

Sally Face acts like even the dishes weren’t a normal thing. Or maybe it’s just Travis doing the dishes that makes it unusual, under someone else’s roof, beaten and bruised in a way that makes everyone look at him funny. 

Something under Travis’s skin longs for sharp metal, and cold, carved stone. 

Eventually, Ash and Todd leave. He had wondered how long they would be allowed to stay. He wonders if that’s how long the average kid would be allowed, or if Ash and Todd’s parents are strange in that way. 

Sal says he needs to go to the grocery store and get more food, and Travis wants to insist that he’s fine, that Sal can buy for one because Travis isn’t used to eating much anyway. But he doesn’t think it would go over well. Normal kids get three meals a day. Sal leaves, and suddenly it’s just Travis and Larry in the apartment. The boy looks at him with none of the protective anger that Travis has come to expect from Sal’s friends. Instead, Larry’s eyes trace the black fabric of the hoodie he’s wearing. 

Travis sits in the silence patiently, does not try to speak. 

(“Good sacrifices only speak when spoken to,” his father tells him. 

Travis gets used to the quiet. ) 

“Why do you always wear purple?” Larry asks him after a while. “It’s not really your colour, man.” 

Travis stares at the sleeves of his borrowed clothes. The black feels foreign against his skin. For as long as he can recall, there has been purple. Purple on his swaddle as a baby, and the rags used to wipe up his blood. Purple on the cast of his broken arm as a six year old, when he squirmed too much and fell off the stone table. Purple on the bruises he doesn’t bother to hide that no one bothers to notice. 

“Purple is the colour of sacrifice,” he says. “And penance. And preparation.” Purple is repentance for sins. It is preparing for the coming of Christ, and sacrificing all that you can give to the Lord, our God. 

Travis has never been good at sacrifice. 

Larry doesn’t bring it up again. 

--

Today, Sal leaves a large, short sleeved T-shirt outside the bathroom door for him. 

Travis does not wear short sleeves. He has never, not even as a very little kid. 

(“People won’t ever understand,” his father would tell him, “they will never know the severity of our devotion. They do not know the meaning of your sacrificial blood. And you cannot be a good sacrifice if you are taken away by a disbelieving sinner, can you?” 

“No father,” he would say, and pull his long sleeves further down his wrists. )

Travis, selfishly, does not want to be a sacrifice. He’s not sure if he ever really did. 

Still, his father’s words echo in his mind. They wouldn’t understand. It is necessary , the thick weave of scars covering his arms. The still tender slices that haven’t quite healed. It had been necessary. Maybe it isn’t anymore. Maybe Travis is too selfish for leaving, too selfish for not staying with his father, and so his blood is no longer Holy. (And he ignores the twinge of panicked joy in his chest at the thought that he might never have to be a sacrifice again.) 

Still, they would never understand how lucky he had been. He had been blessed. Blessed to have Holy blood, blessed to have the opportunity to willingly give himself to the Lord, instead of just being another body decaying below the church. 

Sal knocks on the door, suddenly, asking if he’s alright. He is taking too long. 

He sighs. He pulls on the shirt. 

He is a traitorous sinner that Sal somehow decided to let stay in his home, and he will do as he asks. 

He will convince them that he is better off this way. That he is lucky. He ignores the way his heart picks up, leaving a room with his arms exposed, and heads to the kitchen for breakfast. 

The whole gang is back in the apartment. Travis doesn’t know what they’re telling their parents to continue being here for so long, so often, or if this is just how normal families are. His fingernails dig into his clenched palms. He sits at the table. 

(When Travis is eleven, he runs away from home. He goes to school in the morning, and does not get on the bus at the end of the day. 

Instead, he goes in the opposite direction, to the sprawling forest at the edge of town. He hides in the hollow of an old tree, curled up against himself. He eats saved up scraps from school lunches, and free samples from the grocery store. 

He stays in the woods for two days, flinching at every sudden noise, curling up to hide when he thinks he hears footsteps. 

His father never comes. 

No one does. 

On the third day, he leaves the woods. 

He still has food left in his backpack. He can get more samples from the grocery store. He can steal if he must. He can use the crumpled bills tucked into his shoes and get himself to the next town over, where his father’s influence cannot reach, and his patchwork of injuries will be enough to keep him away from home for good.  He can be free. He can be safe . 

Travis looks at the church, barely visible at his distance. He thinks about the things below it, cold stone and sharp blades, and never ending bloodstains. 

He goes home. 

He leaves his sandwich scraps for the animals, and puts his saved up money in the church donation bin. 

His father smiles when he walks through the front door. 

“Good sacrifices always find their way back,” he says. 

Travis says nothing.

That night, he passes out on the stone, and wakes up hours later with his arm tightly wrapped in purple rags. 

He goes back to school, and no one mentions his absence, or the bags under his eyes. 

He does not try to leave again.)

Despite his bright hair, and bright purple shirts, and bright green shoes, Travis Phelps is adept at hiding. He keeps his arms tucked into the folds of his oversized t-shirt, keeps his extra-scarred forearms pressed against his torso, and manages to make a whole ten minutes of peace before he reaches for the butter in the middle of the table and puts his arm on display. 

The first to notice is Todd, who looks up and takes such a sharp breath in that everyone else stops, too. 

Then, they are all noticing. 

Ash makes a little gasping noise around her bite of bread, and Larry looks a bit sick. Sal is frozen , locked onto his scarred arm like he might find answers there .  

Travis stays deathly still as they take it in, hand hovering just above the butter dish. He feels laid bare with their eyes on his old wounds, like his insides have been spilled all over the floor and he has no way of putting them back in right. 

His arm hurts where it stays extended, illuminated by the soft kitchen lights. No one moves. 

“What. Happened.” Sal whispers. 

Travis is vaguely aware of the way his hand is trembling. 

“Blood sacrifices,” he says. His voice is disconnected from his brain, and his words feel far away. He watches the group's eyes widen as though he’s looking through a TV screen, distant and static-y. Sal says something else, and Travis can’t make out the words anymore. His ears are ringing. Father will kill him if he finds out he’s told anyone. 

He blinks, and he’s on the couch. His hands are clenched into fists in his lap. 

Sal, Ash, Larry and Todd are sitting around him. 

“Are you with us?” Todd asks quietly. 

He nods. 

Everyone is looking at him. It reminds him a bit of the show he saw once as a kid, where the main characters were holding an intervention for their friend, because he was eating too much chocolate, and they were getting annoyed at not having any. It was a silly episode, meant to teach some lesson about healthy foods and hurting feelings. Travis only saw the show once, because his father smashed the TV in a fit of rage the next week. 

He blinks again, forcing himself back to the present. Everyone is still looking at him, something like pity and fear in their eyes. 

He wants to go back to this morning and never leave the bathroom. 

“..We know this is gonna be hard, Travis,” Sal begins, and everything gets so much worse. 

“And we don’t want you to force yourself, but those scars look bad. And some of them aren’t even fully healed. We’re worried.” 

“And blood sacrifice is probably the worst possible explanation, man,” Larry adds, and it would be annoying if there wasn’t so much raw concern in his voice. 

Travis looks down. 

His skin is hardly visible anymore, on his arms. Scars cross over each other in uniform lines, some reaching from his wrists to his elbows, others going horizontal across them. There are two shiny pink ones going lengthwise up his right arm, still healing, and one angry red line wrapping all the way around his left like a band. 

That one is the most recent. He remembers it clearly, two days before he left his fathers house for good. It was done with a pocket knife, instead of the more common embossed knives made for rituals. It had been just him and his father, down in the bowels of the basement. 

(“You son of a bitch,” his father hisses, face twisted in rage. “Letting your blood be spilt in some fucking fight. You are a sacrifice . Every part of you must be given up to God , not your schools fucking pavement.” 

Travis does not flinch at his fathers hand in his hair, pulling at it painfully, forcing him to make eye contact. 

“Yes, father,” he says. 

“I can’t fucking hear you.” 

“Yes sir . ” He amends, voice blank and words loud. They echo on the cave-like walls. 

His father draws the pocket knife in a line all the way around his forearm. Travis doesn’t dare to blink. 

“Well?” His father asks. “Give yourself to the fucking Lord!” 

He lets his head fall, pressing his palms into the ground. He was already on his knees. 

“I give everything I am to the Lord, our God,” he says, putting all that he can into the words. “I give my blood and my soul, and the flesh that makes me. I will give every piece of myself to the Lord, until I am nothing, and return to the nothing from which I was born.” 

The blood runs down his arm in thick lines, pooling on the stone beneath his palm. 

His father huffs, satisfied. 

“Good lad,” he says, and there is no love in his voice. There never has been. “Now stay there until all the blood runs out. If I see you upstairs with a single fucking drop not on these stones, we’ll be back down here again before you can blink.” 

“Yessir,” Travis says, and keeps his head bowed. He listens to his fathers footsteps fade up the stairs. 

The blood runs sluggishly for ages. His father cut deep.)

Travis traces the healing wound lightly. He swallows. 

“It’s been happening since before I can remember,” he starts, and the room grows cold. 

“They used to have to hold me down, because I would squirm too much and they didn’t want to hit an artery. Eventually, I learned to be still. 

“Father says I am a meaningful sacrifice. Because he is giving the blood of his only son, and I am willingly giving my body to the Lord, trusting that He will keep me alive.” He thinks about the times they went too deep, when he bled too much for too long, lying on the cold stone floor and praying for mercy. 

“That’s why they sacrifice my blood, instead of just killing me. It is a divine blessing, to be able to give the pieces of myself away, and keep living in the name of God. I was born a sacrifice, and eventually, I am destined to bleed out on the ritual stone, giving every last bit to the Lord.” His voice is calm as he says it, blank and direct. They look horrified. Travis sits in the silence for a moment, but no one else speaks. Stress pushes more from his lips. 

“It was usually a random cultist that did it, but sometimes my father if he was mad. Sometimes it was a polished ritual, sometimes it was just me and him with a pocket knife. It hardly mattered, as long as I bled with intent.

“He didn’t get mad at me for getting into fights, but he would get mad if I got cut in them, because it was a waste.” 

Sal must hear something in his voice, or maybe just finds the right words, because he speaks up. “You’re a person , Travis. You weren’t born a sacrifice. You don’t have to die as one.” 

Travis furrows his brow. His thumb digs into the cut where it had been tracing the healing flesh.

“Everything in me must be given to the Lord,” he says quietly. The drop of blood that slips from his reopened wound hits the hardwood with intent.