#jsyk father made a replica of their dead husband Who They Have a Bad And Complicated Relationship With

[quantumghoul]

i wrote this a while ago, a rewrite of fox’s last interaction with father but didn’t post it bc institute fans used to be fuckin’ nuts. i’m sure they still are but the demons have returned to hell from where they came.

fox hates their monstrous son who deserves to be dying

warnings for misgendering, deadnaming, and mentions of dubious consent also idk if you find this child abuse bc they fuck him up a bit? he’s a 60 year old awful man but okay

“So, have you come to gloat?”

There he stood. He was waiting for them. Waiting to give them one last lecture, obviously. Most of his weight shifted on a cane, he still managed to shove his awful little finger in their face, and raise his awful voice to them. “Do you enjoy this? Ruining my life’s work? I gave you chance after chance. Despite your ties with the railroad. Your obvious activities to disrupt my work and the work of those here. I ignored it all, I gave you a position those here would die for. To lead the Institute into a better tomorrow. And this is how you repay me? I’m your son.”

There’s that famed guilt, it must be in the Houndstooth blood. He didn’t even have the blood. 'I don’t owe you anything.’ It’s what Fox wanted to say, it stained the back of their throat. They noticed Pat-- the Synth, watching them from the corner. As always. Diligent. It stayed in their throat. “I’m here to give you one last chance to actually help someone. I need your terminal, evacuation for the populous and deactivation codes for the synths. No one needs to die further.”

“No one needs to die further? You’re dooming it’s last, best, hope for humanity, right here, right now. Destroying the Institute-- there will never be anyone better than us. You think that those simpletons on the surface will ever come close to what we’ve accomplished? You decide to destroy everything because what, what reason? The synths. Those railroad people really did poison you, thinking they had any value to be saved. You are the one killing people right now. I have no reason to help you. To think such a thing.”

“Shaun, enough. Just give me access to the terminal, and the codes.” Why was their voice so quiet. They were shrinking. Into a corner. Just like with their father. He sounded so much like him, all the time. He’d be so proud. Eck.

“I gave you everything.” He motioned to the synth in the corner. Like he was an object. With Pat’s face and the implication, it all but made Fox’s stomach turn. “We could have been a family, we could have another chance. You stupid, selfish woman!”

That was enough. That broke what small self restraint that’d kept chained down. “Did you ever think to ask what I wanted?” They grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hoisted him right off his feet and into the air. He dangled, weak, frail body gasping and flailing his cane. Didn’t dare hit them. They’d hurt him worse for it. They pointed to the corner, to the synth. “Do you think I wanted this? Did he want this?! You didn’t ask us, either of us. We’re both just OBJECTS to you? Do you think I wanted some fucked up child version of you?

Pat stepped forward, hands raised. “Henrietta, I must advise against that. I am instructed that while your safety is of the most importance, prime directive refuses to let Father be hurt. I will have to hurt you.” There was hesitance as they pointed their claws at him.

“You, shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear you speak. I never want to hear you speak again. And you--” They gave Shaun a hard shake. “You don’t know anything. About me. You don’t care about me, I’m an experiment to you that you can’t even dare respect the identity of. I am doing what I am doing because no one has given me any choice, no one cares what I think or what I want to do. Not you, not the railroad, but at least in the wastes, I found something worth while.” 

They slammed him down against his desk, rattling and knocking everything off. Shoving him to the terminal. “I have given you enough chances. Enter the code, or I will have to try and make you. You’re weak, you’re old, you’re dying, and I’m not afraid of you. But I think I can make you afraid of me.”

“No.” They slammed his forehead against the pristine white surface. Blood splotching. And again. “They never will learn a better way of dealing with things on the surface, hmm? Not without us.”

Yet another crack to his skull. Going for the head when you needed someone to work a computer isn’t the best idea, but then again, Fox didn’t have the highest intelligence. Not as much as mister ego here. “You act like I’m dooming the surface to live in utter squalor, like they haven’t gotten along without you. Since when do you give a shit about the surface for anything other than your personal petri dish. Enough excuses. Do you care so little for your own people, or are you going to be so much like me to let them die out of spite?”

“I am already dying, as you pointed out, and I am sure you killed many of them. Why help furthering the destruction and stolen property. Not much logic with those muscles.”

Another crack against the desk.

“Fine-- fine. Enough. I will.” That seemed just as persuasive as whatever they might have said. He didn’t seem to have much tolerance for pain. Probably didn’t even know what a bullet wound felt like. (There was a creeping feeling in their gut, curling around their spine, reminding them to care, to feel, to-- something over him, that they should feel bad, but they ignored it.)

They kept a strong hand on his back, pressure keeping him down. The other hand with deathclaw gauntlet ready to tear through flesh, Pat still off in the corner of their eye. His hands slowly found their way to the keyboard, beginning to unlock the damn computer and go about doing what Fox had ordered him. Typing surprisingly slow. Clearly reluctant.

They scowled, muttering to themselves. Also him. 

He clicked his tongue. “Resorting to violence. The wastes truly did infect you.”

“Are you still-- are you still like this? Do you have to die on your high horse?”

“I am simply stating a fact. Let this old man have one last review of his experiment then. Since I am not your son.”

Teeth gritted. He had to salt the wound to the very end. “Fine, you want to be my son so bad? How about a bed time story, something to put you to sleep. And! It’s informative and helpful to you. I can tell you’re a boy who doesn’t like fiction. The story of sad little Henri Jones Houndstooth. Someone who had never been taught to say no. That poor... poor child.

“Her parents told her she was a girl, and she said yes.

“Her parents told her she should go into medicine, and she said yes.

“Her father told her she was a disgrace and unladylike and ugly, and she said yes. Her mother said she should be grateful they bothered to keep her, and she said yes.

“When asked if she liked men, she said yes.

“When he asked her to marry him, she said yes.

“She wasn’t very happy, mind you, through all her life. But. She thought. Perhaps she was the one at fault. Everyone else was always so happy, everyone else was always right. She was wrong, you see, and if she stuck around... if she spent enough time with these pretenses. She’d he happy just like them.

“And when he wanted a child, well… she didn’t say yes, that was for sure. But it happened anyway, didn’t it. You’re here, aren’t you?”

He was deathly silent. Hands hovering above the keyboard as Fox crooned in his ear. “That is the end of Henri Jones, you see, as she died soon after that. She didn’t want to go in a vault, you see, the idea there was so... trapped. Stuck. She’d never escape. But she didn’t know the word no. Never no, always yes. Vault-tec surely didn’t know the meaning of no, so it all worked out.”

“What a cruel person you are,” he turned his head slightly, eyes down to the floor. Not at them.

“You had to inherit it from somewhere.”