#kennel posting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whumpcereal · 1 year ago

Text

the kennel, will & his dad reunited

part of the kennel. follows will's rescue; master list here.

content warnings for: graphic descriptions of bodily injury and scarring, med whump, mild body horror, references to mouth whump, references to past noncon, hospitals, absent parents, unconscious whumpee, aftermath of captivity, adult language

after will's rescue, the fragile cry

“Mr. Cartwright?”

Brian looks up, blinking at the woman in front of him. She wears a navy pantsuit, and her dark hair is tamed into a tight, perfect bun at the nape of her neck, and maybe he would think she was attractive under any other circumstances.

But this woman is here because of Will. She’s Brian’s handler, meant to keep the news of Will’s recovery underwraps until the Bureau is ready to put out a press release. Until they know what they’re dealing with.

Brian Cartwright hasn’t seen his son in 293 days.

He isn’t supposed to keep track–the counselor he’s been working with says that it isn’t necessarily helpful to watch the time so closely–but Brian can’t help it. He keeps a running tally of the days in the corner of his desk calendar. Sometimes, updating the long line of hatch marks is the only thing he remembers to do when he goes into the office. They don’t expect much from him, of course, and they won’t fire him; no one fires the guy whose son has been kidnapped.

And Will was kidnapped. Well, worse than kidnapped, but Brian tries not to think too much about it. “Trafficked” is the word the FBI uses; Brian never would have thought the word could apply to his son. That there would be whole teams of people working undercover to recover whatever is left of his boy. But Brian’s spent the last 112 days coming to terms with it, ever since Tommy and Annie were rescued.

Brian waited with the Mahoneys that day. The team that raided Barker’s compound had been so sure that both boys would be there. After all, Will and Tommy had been–well, filmed together. Brian and Doug Mahoney had both had to positively identify their sons from one of Barker’s endless live feeds. The agents brought them in separately, at least, but what that monster made Tommy and Will do–what he made Tommy do to Will–it’s fucking burned on Brian’s retinas. He and Doug have barely been able to look at each other since.

But the boys were there. They had proof that they were with Barker. That they were alive.

Brian and the Mahoneys waited then, just like Brian is waiting now. He’d envied them then too. They had each other, someone else who understood the fear and the anguish of losing their child. Brian had tried to call Casey after Will disappeared, but she’d changed her number. He sat on the other side of the waiting room from the Mahoneys, and he’d tried to ignore the jealousy. He tried to feel relieved. But somehow, he couldn’t. He knew somehow, he guesses.

When the ambulance came to the hospital, Will wasn’t in it.

We weren’t able to recover him, sir. He wasn’t there. The girl–Barker’s daughter–she says he was sold a few weeks ago.

Sold. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out for what. Not after what Brian had seen in those videos.

Brian collapsed in the waiting room that day. Boom down, like Will used to say when he played with his G.I. Joes. Doug and Joanne were escorted back to be with their son, and Brian was put under observation for forty-eight hours. He thought he was having a heart attack. He wasn’t. His heart was just breaking. What was left of it, anyway.

He’s spent most of the last year wandering around with a hole in his chest. Truthfully, he’s spent most of the last fourteen years that way. Ever since Casey left them. He just never thought it could get any worse. He didn’t think of what might happen to Will.

But who thinks of shit like this? No one. Because things like this, they don’t happen. Except, now, Brian knows, they do.

“Mr. Cartwright?” the agent says again. Brian nods and forces himself to focus on her face. She smiles. “I’m Agent Madeline Hevener. I’ll stay with you until your son arrives.”

Brian nods. There was an agent who waited with them before too.

“What–” he clears his throat and stares down at the broad backs of his hands, “what do you know?”

Agent Hevener sits two chairs away from Brian, but she angles her knees toward him. She glances up at the waiting room television. The cable news station is still talking about a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean. Soon, they will be talking about Will.

“We know that he’s alive,” she says gently.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he’s coming home to you, Mr. Cartwright.”

“But–”

Agent Hevener crosses her ankles and sinks back into the vinyl chair. “We won’t know many specifics about his physical condition until the doctors here have a chance to examine him. He was unconscious when he was extracted, but Agent Derringer was able to speak to him briefly before transport.”

“What did he say?”

“Agent Derringer?”

“No. Will. What did he say to Agent Derringer?”

Agent Hevener’s green eyes soften a little. “I don’t know, sir. He was likely in shock, and sometimes, people aren’t very communicative when they’re in such a state.”

“Oh,” Brian says numbly. He doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him. Like she knows something he doesn’t.

“The important thing is that he’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah.”

“I want to prepare you for that, sir.”

Brian scrubs his face with his palm. “What do you mean?” He asks, even though he’s under no illusions that anyone can prepare him for what’s happened to Will over the last ten months.

“I mean that the press attention on this particular case is going to be intense. After Barker’s compound was raided, it set off a tremendous interest in your son’s disappearance. Once the news breaks, Will is going to be the center of attention, most of it unwanted. The Bureau will manage as much of it as we can while he’s hospitalized, but it’s going to be difficult. People will assume they’re entitled to access to him.”

Brian nods. “I–I know the Mahoneys have had to deal with some of that.”

“Tommy’s case is a little different than your son’s,” Agent Hevener says, and Brian can tell she’s choosing her words with care. “Agent Derringer wanted me to communicate to you that Will–well, he likely will be very different than he was the last time you saw him.”

The hair on Brian’s arms stands up. “What does that mean?”

“Again, we don’t have all the specifics just yet. But cursory appraisal of injuries–”

“Just say what you mean.”

“Agent Derringer’s initial reports suggest Will was very likely tortured, sir. In a way that’s left him noticeably physically scarred.”

“Oh,” Brian whispers. The coffee he had an hour ago pitches in his gut. “Oh. Oh, God.”

All he can think of is Will’s face the night Casey left. His big brown eyes hovering over full baby cheeks. His little body pressed against the front room window, roly poly in his Ninja Turtle sweats. It physically hurt Brian to look at him that night, to realize how small and fragile his son was. How he would never be able to protect Will from the hurt that was barreling toward them both. But this—this—

“Mr. Cartwright–”

“No, go on. Please.”

“It may be difficult to hear.”

Brian shakes his head. “Just tell me.”

“Agent Derringer also saw some indicators that Will was exposed to repeated sexual violence.”

It isn’t a surprise. Brian knew it was likely. The agents warned him when they found out that Will had been sold that Barker’s transactions were typically for the purposes of sex trafficking. And there was the evidence from the compound, of course. But that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. How could this happen to his little boy?

The explanation worries the underside of Brian’s ribs like a blade. It’s his fault. If he’d only been more present, if he’d only done better by Will–

He can still see Will, his little face pressed against that damned window.

She’s gonna come back, right, Daddy?

Brian hadn’t answered his son. He let Will stand at that stupid window for hours because he didn’t know how to answer. He poured himself a drink and let Will cry, and he never answered any of Will’s questions. Brian retreated into his own world after Casey left, and he told himself he was doing right, that he was taking care of Will in his own way, that Will would be better off for it. Will didn’t need him.

But Will had needed him, and he wasn’t there. Brian buries his face in his hands.

“It’s likely–” Agent Hevener hesitates, “In cases like Will’s, there may be some communication deficits. We know that he was quite literally silenced during his time with Barker, and he probably wasn’t allowed to voice his fears or concerns at any point during his captivity.”

Brian blanches. It’s bad enough to be reminded what that sick fuck did to his son, but it’s the agent’s choice of words. Captivity. Like Will is some kind of animal. But after his time with Barker, maybe that’s exactly how Will thinks of himself. Oh, God.

“And post-traumatic stress is almost a guarantee.”

No shit. “Yeah. I–yeah, of course.”

Agent Hevener ducks her head to meet Brian’s eyes. “What I’m saying is, Mr. Cartwright, is that, while you should absolutely be happy that Will is coming home, you need to be prepared for how difficult it may be to connect with him for a while.”

Brian wants to laugh even as tears needle the back of his eyes. Like he’s ever known how to connect with his son. But none of that is Will’s fault. None of it.

“And in the case that communication is a challenge, you may need special support when it comes to dealing with media attention. As I said, the Bureau will provide you with a consultant for the duration of Will’s hospitalization, however long that may be–”

But Brian isn’t listening.

“What did you mean?

Agent Hevener’s nose wrinkles. “I’m sorry?”

“When you said Will’s different from Tommy? Tommy, he–what that bastard did to them–it was the same, and you’re not–you aren’t giving them–”

It’s something Brian hasn’t voiced before, because who would he tell? What would he say? But it isn’t fair. It’s a ridiculous thought for a grown man to have, but that doesn’t make it any less true. He saw Doug Mahoney’s face just after they saw those videos. He sees the way that Joanne covers up her relief with pity. Because Tommy came home, and Will didn’t. Because even if Tommy was hurt too, it was Tommy who did some of the hurting. Tommy, who was worth so much more to Barker. And his Will–God, Will–

Brian gasps for breath. He braces himself against his thighs.

“Sir–”

“Will is just as strong as Tommy! He–he–”

Agent Hevener moves discreetly into the chair next to Brian’s. She puts a gentle hand on his knee. “I’m sure he is, Mr. Cartwright. He would have to be to survive the things he’s been through.”

“He’s a good boy. This isn’t his fault! I–”

“We know. There is nothing Will did to deserve any of this.”

“Then why–”

Why was it Will? That’s what Brian wants to ask, but he knows that he can’t. There is no possible answer that will ever make any of this make sense.

Agent Hevener seems to understand. “I don’t know, Mr. Cartwright. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and I still don’t know. But if I may–”

Brian nods, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“He survived, sir. He’s coming home. And that’s worth celebrating, even if we don’t know exactly what it will bring.”

They sit in silence for a while. Brian knows she’s right, that it’s a good thing that Will’s on his way home. But somehow, the warnings, the preparation, the fucking anticipation of waiting to see his child after nearly a year–it doesn’t feel quite the way he thought it might. What was it that song said? The waiting is the hardest part? That’s bullshit. Somehow, Brian knows it’s going to be the end of the waiting— the seeing, the knowing— that will kill him.

Agent Hevener’s phone buzzes. “They’ll be here directly. The reception staff in emergency is prepped; they’re the only ones who know he’s coming.The ambulance won’t have any lights or sirens. No one will know he’s arrived until we break the story.”

“When can I see him?” Brian asks without hesitation.

“I can’t answer that. But we’ll keep you here. This waiting room is a little further removed, and we can control who comes in and how you get out. Agent Derringer says there’s a good chance that Will may need to be prepped for emergency surgery–”

“For what?” Brian interrupts.

He can hear the desperation in his question, but he doesn’t care. The answer doesn’t even really matter–it won’t change anything–but he’s suddenly greedy for knowledge of his son, how he’s feeling, what’s wrong, what will come next. He imagines Will in the back of the ambulance. Just now, in Brian’s head, Will is still a little boy. The broken young man in those videos—he isn’t real. Brian doesn’t know how to help the person in the videos; but he can help his little boy. He failed at that once, but he won’t now. He won’t.

Agent Hevener’s voice shakes him out of his reverie. “I don’t know, sir. But–”

“--please! I just–I won’t get in their way. I just want to see my son.”

He does, but he doesn’t. Once he sees, Will can’t ever be his little boy again. But goddamnit, Brian has to see him anyway. Has to touch his face or hold his hand or whatever it is people do. Brian has to let Will know that he will be there, even if he’s never fucking been there before.

Agent Hevener looks down at her phone again and then at Brian. She doesn’t say anything.

“Please, ma’am.”

“Mr. Cartwright, I don’t think you understand–”

Brian shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand.” His voice is quiet; this isn’t a soap opera, and on some level, he knows this woman is just doing her job. But he won’t back down. Not this time. “He is my son. I haven’t seen him in a year–and what I have seen has–God, I can’t–someone hurt my boy. They hurt him so badly. I don’t care if you think I’m not ready–it doesn’t matter if I’m ready. I have to be. I have to be there for him, even if–even if he doesn’t know it for a while, Fuck, I–”

Agent Hevener holds up her hand as if to stop him, and for just a second, Brian’s ready to rip her hand right off. But she looks up from her phone, and her mouth presses into a thin line, and Brian knows.

“He’s here?”

Agent Hevener nods. “If you come with me—”

“Whatever you say. I’ll do whatever you say,” Brian says instantly.

“He’ll be in the emergency treatment area until a doctor is able to fully examine him. You can be in the treatment room, but you cannot get in the way. If they need to move him–”

“I understand. I understand.”

“Good.” Agent Hevener stands and smooths her pantsuit. She looks back at Brian and he thinks he can see sympathy in her eyes. “Remember what I told you: it won’t be what you expect, Mr. Cartwright.”

Not might. Won’t.

“I understand,” Brian says again.

“Then, let’s go.”

Brian follows the agent like a puppy, keeping his eyes on the lacquered hunk of her bun, which doesn’t move at all as they weave through the hospital hallways. It’s somehow too quiet back here, but Brian understands. The agents have taken control; every few corridors, there is a faceless person in a suit standing by. They are doing their best to protect Will. It’s more than Brian’s ever done.

“Here, Mr. Cartwright,” Agent Hevener says finally.

They’re in a nondescript hallway, all washed out neutrals and pastel hospital curtains. Agent Hevener quickly ushers Brian behind one of them.

Will isn’t here yet. Brian stares at the empty hospital bed, willing himself not to picture Will inside of it. The monitors are dark, cords dangling listlessly, and the whole room has an antiseptic smell that Brian understands but wishes were different. This is not a homecoming. This is not what Will deserves. But then, Will has never gotten anything he deserves; Brian and the entire fucking universe have pretty much made sure of that.

Brian looks around, unsure of what to do or where to stand or precisely how to handle this particular moment in any way, shape, or form. Agent Hevener glances down at her phone again. Brian presses himself against the tall storage cabinets in the corner of the room. He has to stay out of the way. He will stay out of the way. As long as he can see Will.

Then, the silence is broken.

A gurney pushes inside the curtain, flanked by four different uniformed paramedics. One of them rattles off information to a nurse in pink scrubs, and even though Brian can’t understand a word he’s saying, the nurse seems to know; she takes feverish notes on a metal clipboard, and the gurney is shoved backward to the side of the bed opposite Brian’s corner.

And there’s Will.

Suddenly, Brian is in a different hospital room. Casey’s hand is wrapped around his, squeezing his bones with some kind of wild mutant strength he didn’t know she possessed. She isn’t screaming like in the movies. No, the noises coming from between her grit teeth are far more primal.

Brian can’t blame her. He tried to stand next to the doctor to watch the baby come, but one look told him that he wasn’t prepared for that nature documentary in the making; the nurse must have agreed, because she told him in no uncertain terms that no one would be helping Brian if he fainted.

Casey’s grip somehow manages to tighten. An animal grunt. Brian lets go of her hand, and someone guides him through snipping the gummy cord that stretches from Casey’s body. At the end of the cord is his baby. Slimy and gray and impossibly small. Whisps of dark hair on a blood-tacky scalp. Scrunched eyes like white beans. Tiny fingers and toes. Tiny. Just so tiny.

It’s a boy! Congratulations, Dad!

But even with all the commotion, it is too quiet. The baby is too still.

Why isn’t he crying? Casey asks, even as one of the nurses continues to maneuver between her raised legs. She is angry; Brian never quite knows what to do when she’s angry.

A nurse has the baby–their son–and she pivots away from Casey’s bed. Brian can’t see what she’s doing. He feels like he’s frozen in amber.

He’s supposed to cry, Casey says, her voice tight and breathless. Why isn’t he crying? What’s wrong with him?

Nothing, Brian thinks. There’s a spark of annoyance that Casey is already looking for the cracks in the facade, and their son isn’t even a minute old. The baby is beautiful, even if he isn’t really beautiful at all. He is theirs. Brian knows that he’s being unreasonable, that Casey is just concerned, but still–

Brian!

Terror washes over Brian. His scalp prickles with sweat, and he can’t look at his wife. He can’t watch the nurse with the baby. He can’t move.

There’s a crib at home. A changing table with a weird embroidered pad. Blue walls. A mobile with cartoon animals. A chestful of tiny clothes. They’re prepared. But Brian never thought to prepare for this.

The silence crawls on for what feels like years, and then, a fragile cry, so small and strange that it brings tears to Brian’s eyes, cuts through the air.

Casey is gone, and the boy on the gurney is so much bigger than the baby Brian held in his arms, but that sound is embedded in Brian’s sense memory. He’s heard it in his dreams since Will disappeared, and even though it goes through him like a knife, he leans into the pain. It means Will is okay.That things progress as they should. And Brian wants nothing more than for that to be true.

The nurse and paramedics are still going back and forth, but Brian can’t really hear them. He can only look at his son. He takes an unconscious step forward, and nobody stops him.

Will may be grown, but somehow, he has never looked quite so small. Brian can hear Casey’s voice. What’s wrong with him?

Everything. Brian shakes his head, and his hand moves to his mouth as if pulled by puppet strings. Everything is wrong.

The smell is overpowering. Urine and shit and sweat and blood and who knows what else; the filth on Will’s sallow face is caked on, an unsettling streaky brown. Dried blood clings to the corner of his lips and the underside of his nose. His dark hair hangs around his shoulders in thin, greasy clumps, and his cheeks are dusted with patchy suggestions of beard; there are smatterings of white hair in both. When hands shunt Will’s slack body from the gurney to the bed, his mouth doesn’t move. Brian’s gut lurches when he realizes that Will’s jaw is still wired shut.

But even with the commotion around him, Will doesn’t stir. His gaunt body seems to sink into the white sheets on the bed. Even under the space blanket they’ve wrapped him in, Brian can see how Will’s bones swell where there used to be flesh, how skeletal his arms are, the way his head lolls on a neck that is too long and thin for the body Brian could have sworn he knew. Will’s neck is collared, of course. Brian saw that in the videos, but this close, he can smell the reek of infection beneath the electrical box. Brian thought he was ready. He thought he knew.

He didn’t know anything.

The space blanket is peeled away, and Will’s body–what’s left of it–is exposed beneath the harsh exam room lights. Brian only just catches himself against the wall.

“Mr. Cartwright–”

“Don’t,” he whispers. “Just don’t.”

And then he looks away, because he thinks he might collapse if he doesn’t.

It isn’t that he can count Will’s ribs like ladder rungs or the way that his hip bones jut into space. It isn’t the chunky leather mitts where Will’s hands should be. It isn’t even the smears of blood between Will’s bony thighs; Brian can’t even begin to process that little tidbit.

No, it’s that every inch of Will’s skin is marked. Veins of raised silver curve and snake from Will’s collarbones to the tops of his feet; there is more scar tissue than there is filthy skin, or at least it looks that way to Brian. Whorls and curlicues and precise lines that were all laid down on his son’s withering flesh with careful intention.

Brian doesn’t have to stare to know that this DeAngelis monster spent his months with Will treating him like carving wood. The fucker bought Brian’s child just to ruin him. The patterns are deliberate, cruel–and they are permanent. Brian closes his eyes, and he can see Will’s little pink body wrapped in the striped hospital blanket; he can see the soft white neck peeking out from those rumpled Ninja Turtle sweats; he can see the boy who was almost a man, desperately uncomfortable in his own skin.

You don’t get it, Dad. I’m just–I’m not what she wants.

Brian got it. He understood better than Will knew what it was to feel lost, to measure yourself and constantly be found wanting. But this, Brian will never get. He will never understand this kind of cruelty, and he will never understand what Will is feeling, not ever again. How could he possibly?

But even so, even though his mind and body are buried beneath layers of incomprehensible pain, Will is still the most beautiful thing that Brian’s ever seen. Because he is here. Because he is real. Because he is all that matters. He is all that’s ever mattered.

Agent Hevener’s hand is firm on Brian’s shoulder. “Mr. Cartwright?”

“Can I–” Brian watches as the nurse begins to hook Will up to the various monitors, manipulating his thin arms as easily as a doll’s. Brian’s throat aches, but he doesn’t bother to try to stop his tears from falling. “Can I touch him?”

“I’m not sure that–”

“Please. The doctor–there isn’t a doctor yet. Just until they come. I won’t–I’ll be careful. Please.”

Agent Hevener sighs, but her grip relaxes, just a little; it’s answer enough for Brian.

Somewhere in the space of the last few minutes, someone has cut the mitts from Will’s hands. His fingers are gnarled bones, barely fingers at all, and the backs of his hands are scarred, just like the rest of him. When the nurse moves out of the way, Brian eases into the space next to the bed. He reaches over the plastic strut of the bedside, and he touches trembling fingers to Will’s wrist. He can feel a rigid line of scar tissue beneath his fingertips, and he lets out a kind of wet gasp.

Will is too quiet, too still. But he is real. He is here. Maybe this isn’t the reunion Brian pictured, if he ever let himself picture this moment at all, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.

“Mr. Cartwright–”

“No,” Brian snarls. They will not take his boy again. “No,” he says, softly this time. He wraps his hand around Will’s curled fingers and exhales, breath shaking. “Bud?” Brian leans close and presses his lips to his son’s soiled forehead. “Bud, I’m so glad you’re home.”

It’s stupid. Will doesn’t hear, and even if he did, he couldn’t answer. His ruined fingers don’t move; his breath barely lifts the battered plane of his chest. But Brian doesn’t care. He will wait until he hears the fragile cry that will let him know his boy is still in there; that someday, somehow, Will will be okay.

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#the kennel #brian cartwright oc #will cartwright oc #dad cartwright takes center stage #and i'm telling you #it's heartbreaking #and i shouldn't post right now #but can't stop won't stop #whump #whump writing

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