And what a coincidence that after a while Noah's little brother, and Anthony's adopted but hate crime disowned child should come along. James stopped and took cover behind a house. The man seemed to be crying again. He did that a lot. But it meant that he was weak. James left and returned with a stick. Then he charged - "AAAAAAAAAGH!" and hit the man with the stick.

Anthony was just enjoying his breakdown in relative peace and quiet, until nothing was peaceful and quiet again. Anthony stopped crying for a moment in sheer shock about this entire thing. What the hell? Is he seeing this right? He wondered for a brief moment whether the familiar-looking kid beating him with a stick was just a hallucination, because if so, it was the worst hallucination ever. 

Either way, it didn't help his mental state. "What do you want?" he asked through his tears. Worst case is that he was talking to himself like a madman, best case is that the person is actually real.

"I want you to leave town and never come back!" James said and he hit him again. "Also, I'm not afraid of you!"

Anthony was very confused, depressed and shocked. He was aware that absolutely noone liked him, but he didn't expect this kid to just come and beat him and straight up tell him to fuck off. "What? Why– why?" What could this random child have against him? Surely it can't be the time he adopted and then got disowned by him, because he was absolutely sure that was just a drug-induced hallucination or fever dream or something, and not real.

[CW: Reference to child sexual abuse. Ok I think we've had the entire list. I'm sorry]

"Because you do evil things with boys!" James gave him a few hard hits. He was going to show this guy that he was not afraid!

He thought he was having a breakdown before this, but it was insignificant compared to what he was feeling right now. "What?" The only thing keeping Anthony from just sobbing his lungs out is the fact that he was talking right now. "No......no, I do not!" And as soon as those words were said, he descended into another, much worse breakdown, just crying and sobbing his chest out.

"Liar!" James shouted. "You admitted it!" He kept beating the man.

:'(

"No, I didn't," was the only thing he managed to say before deciding that trying to convince this kid that he's not a predator wasn't worth it. Doesn't seem like he'd listen, even if he did try explaining it. So he just lost all traces of stability he had left, and just cried and sobbed even more.

James stopped hitting him and frowned. He didn't? Also, why was this man crying all the time? It was all very confusing. "You said you like boys."

The fact that the kid stopped hitting him was....quite surprising, but a bit of a welcome surprise. Anthony tried to steady his breathing, and it took a bit of time until it was at the point where he could talk normally again. "Men. Men. Not little kids. Not boys." He was a bit too out of it to even care about the fact that he's basically announcing to every passerby that he's into men. That didn't matter.