Hi again guys! Hope you all had a great Easter! I decided to try something new (aka not Star Wars or Marvel) and this is what happened, so... I am rather proud of it though :P Rating it T for physical abuse. Also, I'm not sure how timeline compliant this is with the movie? I did my best ;)

Note: Just to be clear, I am aware that all kinds of abuse are very real and I take them very seriously. I am not intending to make light of it at all and to anyone who has ever been abused in any way, I pray for you often.

Disclaimer: As much as it would be nice, I do not own the Greatest Showman or any of its characters

TheGreatestShowman TheGreatestShowman TheGreatestShowman

He knew he shouldn't have come home tonight.

He knew he should have taken up PT's offer to stay with them for a while, but the man had already done far too much for him, and he couldn't burden his residence on his family.

He knew that he didn't deserve to sleep in his own bed, in his own house, but it had been a long night and he had been too tired to make any rational decisions.

He knew he wasn't welcome, he knew that he'd messed up, and so therefore it only made sense that it was entirely his fault that he'd ended up here, under his father's whip. He wasn't fighting back. He wasn't screaming, or begging, or wailing for his mother like he'd done as a child.

Desperately, he was fighting back tears, of both rejection and pain, because if he'd learned anything from his parents, it was that Carlyle men don't cry. Carlyle men don't screw up. Carlyle men don't wander off to write pitiable plays only to come home and beg for money and forgiveness, of which they'll get neither.

Snapping the whip, merely for the reason of frightening his son further, Phillip's father gripped his son's arm until his hand lost its color, and emphasized every word with a slash. "You." Slash. "Pathetic." Slash. "Son." Slash. Slash. "You aren't worthy to be called a man. You aren't worthy to be called a Carlyle, you deplorable child."

Despite the blood dripping down his back and the numbness in his hand and the pain his jaw from clenching down his screams, Phillip clenched his uninjured fist and bit out, "At least… I'm… free." But it still hurt; the childish part of him that had been longing for belonging, longing for a family since his six-year-old self had been beaten for taking in a stray bird and secretly attempting to nurse it back to health. It didn't help when he cried, or when his father made him watch the tiny creature slowly decline, deprived of his care. That'll teach you to be tough, his father had claimed. All it had taught him was that he could trust no one with his heart; that he could care for no one and nothing besides his class and his image.

"Free from what, boy?" his father mocked. "From your wealth? Your high class? Your prestige?" He'd ceased using the whip, now simply smacking Phillip's cheek to reiterate every word. Sometimes Phillip wondered if he knew the differences between sons and slaves. But no – even the slaves were treated better than this.

His face stinging from the slaps and the humiliation, – there was a part of him that would never grow out of needing to impress his father – a few burning tears escaped and trickled down his cheeks, searing an uneven path towards his chin. "From you," he choked out, risking the punishment that was sure to result from such a comment. Physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil threatening to unravel his life.

Slap after slap, whip after whip, he centered all his focus on the pain, letting it envelop all his thoughts. Letting himself think of nothing else, until he felt empty, like a tortured shell whose tortured mind had been left somewhere else. Or sometime else. Or had died, because it couldn't take anymore.

"Please," he finally whispered, his voice hoarse from screams he didn't remember and sobs he'd tried to hold in. "Please stop, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." It was like waking up, from a dream to a nightmare, from a fictional fairy tale to an all-too-real horror story. "Please…please…"

Without a word, his father threw him onto the ground, kicking him towards the door. "Get out of my house, you cowardly, pathetic excuse for a son." Either he'd gotten bored of torturing his now disowned son, or he smelled his whiskey calling from the other side of his mansion.

Phillip had no intention of waiting to find out, limping more or less to his feet and shuffling out the door, with blood slowly drying on his bare back and his arm around his stomach, where a boot-shaped bruise was beginning to form. Gradually, his numbed mind began to regain feeling again, but much like then circulation is cut off in an arm or a leg, there was no comfortable way to heal – his head pounded and his thoughts were overloaded with emotion; his heart burned in his chest and if it hadn't been the millionth time he'd been through the same thing, he might have wondered if this was the end. His breath was a messy, erratic pattern of labored inhales and shaky gasps, and tears leaked from his eyes without his mind's consent.

Terrified, alone, in pain, he sunk to the ground in the dirty alley, feeling his forehead burn with fever from infections already setting in, lightheaded and nauseous from blood loss, fatigue and overwhelming anxiety. Exhausted and rejected, he leaned his head against the side of a rat-infested, dirty dumpster, and cried himself to sleep.

Early the next morning, while it was still dark enough not to be recognized as he limped through the alley, he crawled into the circus medical tent and dry-swallowed as many pills as the labels allowed, hoping to ease his fever and his dizziness, and as gently as possible, attempted to treat his own cuts without waking the rest of the performers with his sounds of pain.

It wasn't by any means an easy feat - to dress and wrap the wounds on his back, while holding in the tears of stinging burns while avoiding bumping his bruised middle or tipping his spinning head – but with the aid of years of experience, he had it finished before the sun had completely risen. His goal of complete secrecy had been fulfilled; or so he had thought, when the gentle ring of Helen's high giggle resounded through the grounds, much too close to where he stood, in silence, hoping to remain hidden.

It was a vain hope, apparently, as the seven-year-old girl skipped into the tent merely seconds later; wanting to be a veterinarian, she wandered into the medical tent often. Thankfully she was alone, at least. "Phillip!" She shrieked when she saw him, exacerbating his headache and causing him to hiss in pain as she launched herself at him. "Flip, did you get hurt?"

As inconspicuously as he could manage, he placed his hand gently on his stomach, willing the pain to lessen (to no avail). "Hey, Helen! No, I'm just checking to make sure we've got all the supplies we need." It wasn't the most obvious lie, but it wasn't great either. Good thing she was only seven; she probably wouldn't doubt him.

In a manner much too skeptical for a seven-year-old, Helen artfully raised an eyebrow at him and he felt his confidence in his lie wane down a bit. "You're walking like you're hurt." With childish intensity, she squinted at him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He smiled sadly at her, hoping that she never knew how not okay he was. "Yeah, Helen. I'm sure." Turning away so that she couldn't see how broken his blue eyes looked, he willed back tears again, fingering the hem of his shirt and whispering, "I'm used to it by now."

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Chapter 2 is longer, I promise! Reviews make my day :D Pls be nice tho ;)