Rained All Day.

It’s at band practice in Rian’s basement one night after school when the boys first begin to notice that something is wrong with Zack. He’s quiet –even more so than usual, which is concerning in itself- and, as if that wasn’t enough, his eyes are rimmed with red, as if he’s been crying.

It’s Alex that sees it first, a simple slide of a sleeve down Zack’s wrist and a dark patch of blue and purple slips into view. The older boy frowns, but chooses to say nothing and goes back to playing and singing like nothing is wrong.

But, when they’re done practicing and they’ve taken to the couches, his sleeve rides up even further without him noticing, and Alex notes that the patch of color stretches and wraps around his tiny wrist, almost all the way, and if he squints, Alex can make out almost finger shaped marks in the pigmentation.

Rian, however, sits perfectly content with his arm around the smaller, black haired boy, apparently unaware of the bruising that stains his boyfriend. Alex just frowns, shakes his head and looks back at the TV, taking a long drink from the plastic cup of water in his hand.

Zack shows up to band practice the next day sporting a really rather horrific black eye, and he manages to control himself for all of three seconds before he starts crying. Rian still seems worryingly unfazed by the whole situation, and so when Jack begins to fuss over the smaller boy and drags him off somewhere to calm down, Alex struggles terribly to contain his anger.

And so he marches towards Rian, twists his fingers in the front of the smaller boy’s shirt and slams him back against the wall. Rian stares at him, eyes wide with fear, because when Alex gets angry, he also gets fucking terrifying.

“Alex, what are you-” Rian starts, but Alex seriously snarls at him, honey eyes narrowed violently at him as he presses his knuckles into his chest.

“Have you been hitting him? Are you the reason for all of his fucking bruises? Are you the reason he’s crying? Are you? Answer me!” Alex finds himself becoming progressively more and more enraged at the younger boy’s silence, pressing harder and harder at his chest.

It takes the gentle sound of Zack pushing the door open for Alex to realize that, okay, maybe he shouldn’t have done that, because Rian’s nearly in tears and he never lets his emotions show.

“Alex, what are you doing?” Zack asks, his voice shaking, watery, and barely there. Alex stammers, stutters over his words and releases Rian’s shirt, and the brown haired boy slumps, his head hanging low as the tears finally start.

Zack stares at Alex, his hazel eyes wide and horrified, because it’s all too real and he can’t bear the fact that they almost found out and-

Before his mutinous mind has its way with him, he runs. Tears streaming and jacket sleeves tugged harshly over his hands, he pushes past Jack and out of the house, slamming the door closed after him. It might be bad at home, but thinking that they’re worrying? The guilt is already too much.

Jack’s brown eyes flit from Alex, who is standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes downcast, to Rian, who is curled up against the wall, sobbing quietly.

“So, what just happened?” Jack asks softly, taking the last step into the room and closing the door behind him.

“I...” Alex starts, looking up at Jack guiltily. “Have you noticed that Zack’s been covered in bruises lately? He’s been trying to hide it, but he’s not done it that well.”

“You mean, like the black eye and that bruise on his wrist? He told me he fell down the stairs.”

“Yeah, I didn’t believe him when he told me that. I thought... I accused Rian of it... And that’s what you walked in on, and fuck-”

“Why would I do something like that to him?” Rian finally speaks, voice tiny and timid, and when Alex turns to him, he flinches back in on himself.

“I don’t know, I just... Assumed, okay?”

At this, Rian stands, glares at Alex for a short while before pushing past the both of them and running upstairs to his room. The slam of the door echoes after him a few short moments later.

“We should go.” Jack says gently, breaking the silence that hangs awkwardly in the air. Alex nods, not lifting his eyes from the floor as he collects his guitar from the couch.

By the time Zack arrives back home, it’s dark, and it’s cold out. He knows this will get him into endless levels of trouble, but right now, he doesn’t care.

As soon as he fumbles with the front door and lets himself in, his father’s booming voice comes wavering through the airwaves at him.

“Zachary Merrick! Where are you? Have you been with that faggot of a boyfriend of yours? You disgust me!”

Zack winces, but it’s nothing he’s not heard before.

His younger sister comes running at him, and he bundles her into a quick hug, tugging her hurriedly into the dining room so she doesn’t have to see or hear things she wouldn’t understand at the tender age of nine.

He’s just closed the door behind her when he hears his father’s thundering footsteps coming down the stairs, and he turns, absolutely petrified, as his father pulls him by the front of the shirt and slams him back into the wall.

“And where have you been?”

Zack’s eyes water, but he doesn’t give his father the satisfaction of seeing him cry. And it’s as if the older man can tell that that’s exactly what his son is doing, because he shifts his hands quickly and slams his head back into the wall.

And then Zack can’t help letting a few tears slide down his cheek, because he knows it’s his fault, he shouldn’t have made him mad, and he can’t afford to let him near his sister.

He ignores the torrent of insults and words and punches that come from his father, because honestly? He’s dealt with worse, and he’ll have to deal with worse.

So when his father throws him back against the wall and leaves him to slump against the wall, bleeding from a nasty gash above his eyebrow, he feels more relieved than anything else.

The dining room door creaks open, and his little sister comes tiptoeing tentatively through, eyes wide as she sits herself on the floor opposite her brother.

“Daddy hit you.” She says, almost too bluntly for a nine year old. Zack swallows, glances to his left at the door and realizes then that it’s made of glass –she could see everything.

“Is that why Mommy left?” She asks sadly, leaning forwards on her knees and touching the cut on Zack’s forehead gently with her little fingers. “Is she ever going to come back, Zacky?”

Zack swallows, doesn’t answer, and scoops her up into his arms and carries her up to her room. The girl frowns at her brother, matching hazel eyes glaring up at him.

“Zacky, why do you let him hit you?” She persists, and Zack knows she got that trait from their mother.

“Because, Sam, if he didn’t hit me, he’d hit you, okay? And I can’t let that happen. Wouldn’t be much of a brother if I did, would I?”

She stares up at him from her bed, eyes hard and unforgiving as her brother fixes his teary eyes on the wall above her head.

He leaves after a few moments, leaving the little girl to pout after him.

No one hears from Zack for a few days, and needless to say, Rian begins to panic. Since Zack goes to a different school to them, and as far as he can tell, his phone has been switched off since the band practice they had both stormed out of.

It’s a shock, then, when Zack actually shows to band practice, albeit slightly late and with red rimmed eyes again. Alex finds himself wondering how he could have ever thought Rian would reduce him to this.

He lasts around a song and a half before he hisses in pain, tugs his wrist back from the neck of his bass and stares at it for a second.

“You okay there, Zee?” Rian asks worriedly, setting his drumsticks down on the tom that sits in front of him.

“Yeah... Yeah.” Zack replies hesitantly, cupping his wrist gently. “I probably just overworked it, or something.”

“Let me see that.” Jack demands, taking a step over towards the dark haired boy. “My mom’s a nurse, I pick up on some things. I might be able to tell what’s wrong with it.”

Zack watches, eyes filling with tears as Jack examines his wrist carefully, fingers gently prodding at the swollen skin until he pulls a reaction from the smaller boy.

“That hurts?” Jack asks, applying a little more pressure to the joint. Zack bites his lip and winces, a few tears threatening to fall onto his cheeks.

“Zack, I think you’ve broken your wrist. Now, I don’t know how and I’m not going to push you for an answer, but we should get you to a hospital.”

Zack shakes his head violently, eyes trained to the floor because he knows that going to the hospital would only end in his father finding out and that would make everything worse.

“Zack, it’s not optional. We’re taking you to a hospital and you’re getting this fixed. Whether you like it or not.”

Zack rips his arm out of Jack’s grip and shakes his head again, wincing slightly at the pain that shoots through his joint at the movement.

“It’s fine.” Zack retorts. “There’s nothing wrong.”

And so the rest of band practice is awkward, Jack occasionally shooting a worried glance in the direction of the smaller boy, only to find him glaring back.

Rian follows Zack home that night, not because he doesn’t believe him when he says that there’s nothing wrong, but because –okay, it’s because he doesn’t believe him, but Zack doesn’t have to know that.

It’s starting to rain by the time he’s knocking on Zack’s front door, and when it opens, he has to look down to be met by the sight of a little girl he recognizes as Zack’s little sister.

She’s wearing a tee that’s far too big for her (obviously one of her brother’s) and okay, it’s adorable, and Rian has to shake his head to stop himself from getting distracted by her cuteness.

“Is your brother home?”

She shakes her head sadly.

“Zacky hasn’t been here for a few days now.”

Rian frowns.

“And why do you think that is, Sammie?”

“I think it’s because Daddy hits him.” She says with a shrug, worryingly indifferent despite the situation.

“He what?”

“Daddy. He hits Zacky sometimes. Zacky thinks I don’t know, but I’ve seen it. And where else would all the marks come from?” She gestures with her hands at her wrist, then her eyes, then her forehead.

Rian freezes, and wonders to himself as to how he could be so stupid as to forget that Zack’s father was less than accepting when he came out last year.

“Do you... Do you know where Zack could be?”

“I don’t know, the park, maybe? He likes to walk around when he’s sad.” She says with a small, dejected shrug.

“Thanks, Sammie. If he... If he gets here before I come back, tell him I stopped by, would you? And get him to call me, if he can.”

Sam looks up at him, and for a moment Rian is struck by how alike her eyes are to her brother’s. She nods, gives him a weak wave and a small smile before she closes the door.

Rian frowns, turns on his heel and glares up at the miserable sky as the rain starts to beat down on him.

It turns out that Sam was right about her brother going to the park when he’s sad, and Rian finds him swinging absently on the swing set that they used to play on as kids. He’s only holding on with one wrist, the other resting carefully in his lap.

“You should really get that checked out, you know.”

At the sound of Rian’s voice, Zack’s head snaps up to look at him, black, sopping wet strands of hair falling in his eyes.

“How did you-”

“Sammie told me.” Rian says, taking the swing next to him and looking sideways at him. “She also told me that your dad hits you.”

Zack sucks in a breath, blinks, and prays that the rain is disguising his tears from the other boy.

“She’s... She’s telling the truth, isn’t she?” Rian says slowly, looking away from him for a second. “That’s where all the bruises have been coming from, isn’t it? You didn’t fall down the stairs at all.”

Zack hiccups, and maybe all the effort to hide his tears from Rian wasn’t worth it at all.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought... I thought if I told anyone, especially you, he might try and go after you too, and I didn’t want to even consider risking that. And I thought he’d try and hurt Sam, and there was no way I could let that happen, so I dealt with it all. It doesn’t matter though, because it’s all my fault anyway.”

“No, Zack, it isn’t. You should never think that.” Rian says, reaching over to take hold of the younger boy’s good hand. “It’s not your fault. It’s your dad’s, for not accepting you for who you are. Parents should never harm their children for who they are and who they choose to love.”

Deep down, Zack knows he’s right, knows it’s not his fault at all, it’s just that his father isn’t exactly the best at being accepting and supportive.

“Come on. You need to be somewhere warm and dry, and we need to support your wrist with something before it gets any worse.”

And so that’s how they end up settled in front the fire in Rian’s sitting room, the older of the two wrapping a soft, white bandage around his boyfriend’s injured wrist.

“I don’t... I don’t want to go back there, Ri. But, I can’t risk leaving Sammie there with him.”

“Then we’ll go get her.” Rian says calmly. “You can both stay here with us. But, you really need to go to the police about this, Zee.”

“I can’t... I don’t think I can, Ri. He’s... He’s still my dad, even after everything he’s done.”

“I won’t force you to, Zack, if you don’t want to. I just... Think you should, that’s all.”

Zack frowns, fiddles with the bandage on his wrist absently and looks up with teary green eyes at his boyfriend.

“I’m not going to force you to, don’t look so scared. You can go if and when you want to.” Rian replies, leaning forward to kiss Zack’s forehead. It seems to calm him, as the younger boy sighs contentedly.

Zack shuffles to sit himself beside the brunette boy and smiles shyly, resting his head on his shoulder.

“Thanks for everything, Rian. I love you.”

Rian’s breath hitches, because he knows, he can tell how much it must have taken to allow Zack to even consider saying those words to him.

He turns his head, kisses him softly on the lips and smiles at him.

“I love you too. And I always will, scars, broken bones, bruises and all.”