Stay With Me (My Blood)

Rating: T
Warnings: Abuse, Alcoholism
Pairing: Skye x F!MC 

Skye was never left alone with her mother. It was an unspoken rule at the Crandall house that Skye and her mother would never be left alone together. There were just too many...incidents when her father and brother weren't around. On the few occasions her and her mother were alone, her mother had a nasty habit of drinking, sometimes rather heavily, and she was a mean drunk.

She never seemed to do this when her brother or father were around. The only alcohol her mother consumed when they were around were maybe a glass or two of wine at dinner, and that was it.

But take the two Crandall men out of the picture? All bets were off, Skye could remember a handful of nightmares from the last few times she had been left alone with her mother, much like she was tonight.

The first time they were left along together, Skye had been six or so and her mom chased her around the kitchen with a scissor for thirty minutes before her father had come home. In a drunken state she had suddenly found Skye's long hair unbearable and sought out to cut it herself. Skye still had a scar on the back of her neck from her mom getting annoyed and slashing at her with the scissor.

Skye was nine the second time, maybe her dad thought her being older would mean she could better handle herself. However that was proven not the case when she had gotten pushed down the stairs to the basement. She can't remember why, something about not getting her mother the bottle she wanted from the wine cellar and her mom forcing her to go back down to get the correct one. She simply hadn't moved fast enough and had broken her leg in the process. Another light scar on her calf was the reminder.

When she was thirteen just before high school, her mother had slapped her, hard, across the face for telling people her and Brian weren't related. Her father was home for that one, but didn't do much to stop his wife. If it didn't require a hospital visit, he really didn't care. That's when Skye learned her father wasn't protecting her by coming home or setting up situations were her mother wouldn't drink...he did it to protect himself. A hospital visit came with questions, a slap across the face or a push into the pool was normally something that didn't require a cast or stitches to fix. So as long as her brother and mother didn't send her to the hospital, they could do whatever they wanted with her.

As long as no one asked questions about why Skye was hurt, or why she was bleeding, or why she had a bruise, he didn't care. As long as it didn't threaten to have them investigated or their name questioned, everything was fine...

This time there was no real way to prevent having the two alone in the house together. Brian had a meeting with some coach at a college he wanted to go to and had thrown a fit at the idea that his uncool mom would come with him. So the two were left alone in the large Crandall mansion alone. Skye talked through the house like she was walking on eggshells, trying to stay out of her mother's line of sight for as long as she could.

Her mother had already finished off a 30 year old bottle of red wine and a few shots of sambuca that she had done only a few moments after the men had left, complaining about how she was stuck with the family disappointment for the weekend. After a few hours, Skye had wondered down for food. It was around diner time and with her mom already clearly intoxicated, Skye knew she would be stuck cooking something that her mom would criticize and yell at her for anyway. Her mother doesn't say anything as she opens another older looking bottle from the wine cellar and poured herself a drink.

"What do you want for dinner?" Skye asked hesitantly as she set herself into the kitchen, it was safe to ask, even if her mother would hate anything she made. Skye wasn't particularly talented in cooking and couldn't make anything fancy, but if she didn't ask she knew it'd be worse.