#〈〈 VER. // FEATHERS.GROW.BACK. 〉〉

[halysborn]

❝ There are some people you can’t save. Cause those people will thrash and struggle and try to take you down with them. ❞

« @districtattorneydent »« NEIGH WAY, JOSE »

Harvey doesn’t like it when Dick asks too many questions about the cases he’s working. Or, at least, he THINKS he doesn’t like it. His brow furrows and his lips purse and there’s a moment of silence that stretches between the ask and the answer that Dick fills with A THOUSAND thoughts before one word is spoken. 

Ordinarily, Dick tries to REFRAIN. But THIS one has been ALL over the news, all over the papers. Everywhere he LOOKS, he SEES Harvey and this man. Everything he hears is Harvey and this man. He’s still not sure of what is going on, but he THINKS he understands. 

This man says he’s innocent. Harvey says he’s not. They’ve gone to court because Harvey speaks with a voice greater than his own when he wears his suits and ties and the shiny shoes that smell sharp. He speaks for so many people when he wears these things, and throws his shoulders back. Takes pride in what he does and how he does it. Harvey is GOOD at his job. 

But Harvey says this man is not innocent. Jim isn’t sure. They’ve argued about it, Dick has heard them through his door at night. When he’s curled up tight in bed and they think he’s asleep, they speak in hissing whispers to one another, and Dick WORRIES. It isn’t often that Harvey and Jim disagree. They always seem so happy. So safe. 

This man, innocent or not - is making trouble for them. 

But Dick, small circus boy in a city he is only just beginning to understand, wants to know why Harvey doesn’t think the man is innocent too. Why he’s trying to put him away forever when there isn’t IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE, as Jim puts it. 

     “Shouldn’t you try? If he didn’t kill       those people . . . he shouldn’t go       to jail. Right? Even if he tries to       ‘take you down’, isn’t that what the       law says? Innocent until proven       guilty?”

Of course, he doesn’t understand Harvey’s role in any meaningful way, doesn’t understand that he is EMPLOYED to argue for the state government. Doesn’t understand the political machinations behind these sorts of things, or the full and confounding extend that the law can reach when hairs are split to the Nth degree. 

All he understands is the conflict in the house, and what Jim is saying. But he wants to understand. He wants to learn more of what Harvey does, even if Harvey keeps giving him that LOOK.  

[halysborn]

It's the FIRST time they're celebrating his birthday; it's the first time Dick's BEEN in the Gordon house TO celebrate. Cartoons play in the background, food and presents eagerly await the newest addition. Eyes finally peel away from the steaming cup of coffee upon hearing the boy pad sleepily through his bedroom door. "Happy birthday, kiddo."

« @districtattorneydent »

He’d been listening to the cartoons from his bed, reluctant to rise on THIS - his first birthday without his parents. Sure, it had never been the BIGGEST of deals back when he’d been in the circus, but it seems that his LIFE these days is just MADE UP of milestones that his parents are MISSING. 

It’s HARD to keep up a brace face, but HARVEY and JIM do make it easier. 

Hearing Harvey in the kitchen is his signal, pushing himself from his warm little cocoon to head out into the rest of the house. 

And what he is met with . . . is not what he expects. 

There’s brightly colored candy in bowls, breakfast already made and ready for him, boxes wrapped in paper with the same characters he remembers seeing on the cartoons that he watches of an afternoon. 

It’s . . . it’s a LOT. 

He finds himself looking up at his foster father, brow furrowing even as a faint glimmer of hope takes root in his eyes. 

     “Is this for me?” 

[halysborn]

« @districtattorneydent » « STARTER CALL » « STILL ACCEPTING »

      “So . . .”

He trails off, tapping a staccato rhythm against the can in his hands. THIS marks the first day he’s been HOME since Christmas and the DINNER that had been more NEGOTIATION than WILLING. Honestly, he still doesn’t know what Harvey - or Jim for that matter - thinks about his current state of affairs. 

At least he’s not keeping it a secret any longer. . . 

       “Slade Wilson . . . pretty funny, right?”

The chuckle that follows is a touch nervous, tinged with UNEASE. He wanted it to go well, he really did - but he himself had been SO LATE and Slade himself is primarily UNWILLING to tell him what had happened, or what they’d spoken about. 

Told him to ask Harvey. 

Dick is more concerned about whether or not he APPROVES, really. Harvey’s opinion is important to him, and he wants his adoptive father to SUPPORT him in his relationship. 

As INSANE as it might seem. 

[halysborn]

♖ |  @killerborn ♖ | GENT Wedding

       “P L E A S E  tell me you’re getting         ready. Or that you’re at least          DRESSED. I’m the one that’s          supposed to make us late, not          you.” 

He’s a little NERVOUS about the timing, knowing that they have a ways to drive and that traffic at this hour has a tendency to be NIGHTMARISH. Of course, a SOLVABLE issue if they were planning on taking the BIKES, but Dick isn’t all too keen on turning up in a BUG SPLATTERED TUX to his ADOPTIVE FATHERS’ WEDDING. 

Nothing worse than being the perfect image of a TERRIBLE SON on their most important day. 

Crossing the room, fiddling - and failing - with his cufflinks, he knocks on the bedroom door, nudging it open. 

        “I KNOW you don’t want to go,           but I PROMISE that I will make           it up to you. I made up for           Christmas, remember?”