A Prize: A Michael Afton X Reader

Chapter 28: Little Sis

⚠️⚠️WARNING: The following chapter contains depiction of child abuse 🚫. I understand if you want to skip this chapter, however it's very important because it shows glimpses into what happened before the bite of 83. Specifically the family dynamic. ⚠️⚠️
(Also to make sure people aren't confused, this is basically a glimpse into what Mike is up to while your character is doing something else.)

POV: 1st - Mike
I woke up a little stressed knowing those two would be together without me. Uncle Henry was sweet and kind, but he's been... weird lately. I don't know if he's going to be okay. Meanwhile, I want to trust Y/N, but they can be quite blunt. The last thing I want is for either one of them to weird the other out.
I was so caught up in my train of thought, that I almost didn't notice the sharp pain of something colliding into my knees. Looking down, I saw familiar strands of bright red-ish blonde hair, "Come on, Liz, we talked about this you can't be hitting peoples knees." She continued to giggle as I rubbed my kneecaps, "I'm sorry, but I HAD TO, you weren't paying attention... OH OH OH! Brother, I've made you something!"
"Oh really? Show me," I said putting on a fake overly energetic voice as I watched her run off to get whatever she made. I sighed as I walked to the kitchen to grab a cola. By the time she got back, I was at least two sips in and comfortable, "So what you got there?"
She shook the paper in front of me, "I drew you a picture of us! Oh! Oh! Oh! I even remembered not to draw you covered in blood since you don't like that," she gave me a big smile. I wish she didn't need to specify that, but I will work on that later. I took a look at the drawing and gave a faint smile at all of its crayon goodness. "Oh Liz, it's beautiful. Have you been doing a bunch of drawings since I was gone?"
She nearly bounced with excitement, "Yes yes yes I've been so excited to see her, Brother. I've been drawing her all day, every day! You have to see her! She's so pretty! I can't believe that Daddy made her for me!" I cringed for a long time, "Me neither..." It's not like dad to do stuff like that. He probably only said that to make her leave him alone.
Ever since I could remember, she's always wanted to be like Charlie. She always wanted the same relationship Charlie had with Henry, but with father. I don't blame her, they're both brilliant inventors. It's not like father couldn't build her robots like Henry did for Charlie, but it's not like he wanted to.
I watched her dance around as I remembered that terrible night. I didn't notice when she came home from school. I came home a little later myself. The first time I even heard her voice, she was talking to Evan in his room. I figured she was talking about some dumb things she did in her kindergarten class. Which really was what she was talking about, but I would've never guessed it would've escalated so quickly.
She ran past my room with a sheet of print paper that glittered with a gold star on it. She never even bothered showing it to me unsurprisingly. I was always just who she would run to when Father was ignoring her after all. I didn't think much of it, I figured she would eventually wonder into my room about it so why rush.
I may have been taking a nap during the majority of the event, but I didn't need to be there to guess what happened. Most likely as she tried to show Father her proud work, he probably ignored her or gently pushed her away. He was busy after all, working on that stupid new project of his. I recall waking to her gently shoving me, desperate to show off her paper. She got a like five out of five on some dumb assignment about matching images to words. I nodded, told her she did a good job, gave her head pats, and then tried going back to sleep.
I didn't hear from her again until I heard her ear piercing scream. I got up, running outside the room. By that point, Father had already grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and dropped her outside of his study, "I told you not to bother me and you did and look what you made me do." His face read aggression and anger, that he normally would only show to me, but his words are the same sickly sweet tone he would always use on her.
She was torn between crying and begging, "Father, Father, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, please don't hate me." Watching from the doorway of my room like an idiot, I waited for the scene to end before approaching Liz. Father had slammed the door on her face as she tried to re-enter the room causing her to cry even more. Panicked, I ran over to her and scooped her up. Moving her inside of her room, I knew that if she didn't shut up, it would just make him more mad.
As I ran, I quickly noticed that Evan was staring at me, his cold faded-green eyes looking at me intensely. Sometimes nowadays, I forget his eyes are green. They always appeared muddy brown from far away. But the story isn't really about him, I ignored him that time.
I think maybe he was upset because I always ran to Lizzy's aid every time she started to cry, but then again, I was the reason he was crying most of the time. Or maybe he wasn't thinking that at all, I couldn't understand him. He was quiet and kept so many secrets to himself. It pissed me off.
First thing I said when I got into the room was "fuck" followed by, "What the hell is your problem, you know you really shouldn't mess with Dad when he's fucking doing bullshit in his little fucking office!" I used to yell at her a lot in retrospect and, in retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised that it only made her cry more.
Through her sniffling she recalled to me what happened, "I just wanted to show Daddy my good grades... I thought he couldn't hear me, but then he shoved me." She then started crying again. I watched as she rubbed her arm which seemed sore. Most of her sobbing was incoherent, but I got the message that she fell on her arm and now it hurt. "Well it sounds like you got exactly what you fucking deserved. If he's ignoring you, it means that he's ignoring you, you gotta give up on your stupid little fantasy. Our dad is an asshole, get over it!"
"He stepped on it... He stepped on my paper... I tried to get it back so I could at least keep it and show him when he was less angry... That's when he hit me..." I was shocked back then, it was the first time I'd ever heard him be violent towards her, she had always gotten the lightest sentence of any of us when punished. The sadness in her eyes, the desperation to understand why this had happened to her and what she had done wrong. I was a terrible terrible brother because I just laughed at her.
She hit my arm, snapping me out of whatever daydream I was in, "You're doing that thing again! Why are you just staring at a wall and not saying anything?! You're scaring me!" All I could do is laugh as she pouted. Yeah, I'm losing my fucking marbles. "Yeah, whatever... So what do you wanna do today since I'm stuck babysitting you?"
I felt her grab my hand as she lead me somewhere to probably play with dolls or something dumb. I won't let myself ruin this relationship and I'm going to be a better brother whether kills me or not. "We're gonna play dress up, I want to do your make up." Nevermind, I wanna be a terrible brother, I do not want her to put lipstick on my eyelids again.