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paingoes · 5 days ago

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Aegean Seas

Destroyer AU

long awaited roleswap AU. featuring royal delta and (defective!) living weapon paris

delta still has some psychic ability in this AU, but only a moderate amount. its nothing to write home about.

paris doesn’t have any powers, just an incredible capacity for violence.

(Content: living weapon whumpee, royal whumper, carewhumper vibes, institutionalized slavery, blood, biting, choking, electrocution, choking, suggestive language, background lady whump, clowns, hidden injury, past abuse, past trauma, PTSD triggers, emotional whump, scars, body image issues, war mention, alcohol, non-con touching (nonsexual), conditioning, magical exhaustion, seizure, kinda fluffy?)

“You don’t have to look so upset about it.” Delta twirling the pearl earring around within the pierced fin. The golden bangles of his wrist clicked together lightly at the motion — and all the silver and sea-glass ornaments he wore jingled in time with the movement of the airship. He hadn’t been looking at Paris when he said it, and they were not the only ones in the cabin, but he understood it was meant for him.

“I’m not upset,” Paris said. At least, not as much as he could’ve been.

Far below, the cerulean sea reflected the sun so that the water itself was blinding. Foam was gathering along the coast — a sure sign of rough waters. On the horizon, the embassy building jutted out from the cape.

The ship lowered itself in a hover just by the surface of the beach. Paris slid the exterior door open. He hopped the remaining few feet onto the sand right before the craft finally landed. By way of reflex, he extended one hand back to Delta, who took it without thanks as he stepped down.

The other members of the court soon followed, a handful of advisors and scribes sent to keep the time. With a home advantage, all support had been reduced to a skeleton crew. Paris shifted carefully in between them, eventually settling a few steps behind Delta and a bit off to the right, which he knew was the best sightline he’d get without drawing too much attention to himself.

The path up to the embassy was lined with basalt — and a pretty long walk uphill, considering how many of its visitors were geriatric. At the peak, he again pulled the entrance doors open, taking a cautious look in through the entryway. He felt the familiar weight of the blade tucked up into his sleeve, though he had no real expectation of using it. He held the door open for Delta alone, but deigned to let the rest of the congregation pass through in the same way. He stole a last glance out at the countryside before he pulled the door shut tight.

At the front, Delta’s eyes flitted up in the same clouded concentration he always fell into before the meetings. He refused to take notes, so dedicated to committing absolutely everything to memory. He played all the information back like rolls of film. He waved vaguely at the prompting of his advisors, but it was clear he was somewhere else.

He only came to when they reached the center. It was a large room, polished, and most everything in it was the soft color of sandalwood. The painted monarch sat perched within the straight-backed chair. His own court spread out in a half-moon around him, all their papers all ready to go. Paris only caught a glimpse of them through the doorway, but the glimpse alone was enough to make him spiteful.

“Watch the entrance,” Delta whispered to him just before they passed through the entryway. Paris nodded and stepped off to the side of the door.

Soon he was alone in the large hallway. The building was old and its halls were echoing, though not quite as bad as the castle. He leaned back against the wall, wishing he’d brought the cigarettes with him. He passed the butterfly knife idly in between his hands, having no better way to occupy the time. He’d gotten good enough at it that he didn’t even need to look while he did. His eyes still scanned the corridors in the way they’d been trained, sizing up each impotent official or underpaid clerk whose heels tapped down the linoleum tiles. There was no real threat. Nothing ever happened.

The jingling bells warned of her approach before she came into view. He sighed, slipped the knife back into hiding. Jo popped out from the doorway. She was quicker than he would’ve thought, skipping out a few paces before she even turned to see him. When she did, her painted face contorted into an express of unadulterated mirth. She giggled — and the bells of her hat jingled again as she flipped over to stand on her head.

“I was wondering where they were keeping you this time.” Her voice was raised in faux cheeriness.

Paris watched her carefully — he couldn’t not. The rapid movements set all his nerves on edge. He was sure she knew that. He was sure it was why she did it. He didn’t answer.

She rolled over into a backbend and let her hands guide her up. When she was upright, she was not more than a few inches from his face. She was shorter than him, the difference exaggerated by the heels of his boots and the flatness of her stupid pointy shoes. She rose up on tiptoes to meet his eyes. He could see the glitter against her sclera.

“No dogs in the house of law, eh?” She stretched one leg up over her head. Her movements continued so fluid and so completely uninfluenced by anything she was saying, as if they were completely different hemispheres of her brain.

“I heard that when the neophytes drop out, they give ‘em a new name and put ‘em out on the street. Painted silver! They spend the rest of their days doing tricks for spare change. Is that true?”

No one ever dropped out. He didn’t answer. She did a back walkover, her speech uninterrupted.

“Or I heard what they’re really doing now is selling all the new grads to Crimson’s West Front,” she paused for dramatic effect, “There’s a famine there, you know. They need new meat!”

She cackled. He stiffened slightly, because that part was probably true. Even if they weren’t getting eaten, a lot of the kids did get bought out for the war effort, and were given no arms when they arrived. They were getting pushed into the meat grinder, literally or figuratively.

She seemed disappointed with his lack of outward reaction. As she rolled onto the floor again, she laid there on her stomach for a second, kicking her legs back and forth.

“You don’t have to worry about that though. I bet he’s nice to you,” She grinned impishly, pushing herself up into another handstand. “I hear he’s nice to everyone.”

She erupted into a laughing fit at that. His eye twitched. He felt the weight of the blade in his sleeve. She looked over to see his expression and her smile widened. She cartwheeled towards him, again landing only inches apart from him.

“People on High Street got a name for him. What was it again? The something wonder? You’ve heard it before, right? You had to. You spend enough time with that whore to-“

He threw her into the ground before she could finish, the last synapse snapping within him.

The sudden violence got a forced, clipped laugh from her. She did a back roll before he could strike again, sitting up on her knees before she swept one of his legs out. He dropped, but it didn’t slow him down. Nothing could have. He still drove his fist full force into her jaw, once, twice, about as many times as it would take to break it off.

She didn’t let him get that far. Jo was stronger than she looked and just as quick as he was. She was not downed easily. When he pinned her, she slipped. When her nails reached up to scratch out his eyes, he bit down upon her fingers hard enough to break them. Her blood gushed into his mouth. It was familiar. He didn’t even stop to spit it out.

She elbowed him in the face at the same time she drove her knee up into his stomach — all sharp angles. It was hard enough to knock him off of her and onto his side. Blood poured from his nose. It splattered on the floor right beside her own. She crawled forward on her bloodied fingers, trying to get even. He forced himself back upwards, lunging at her again. He became vaguely aware of a commotion behind him.

“Stop,” Delta said tiredly.

Paris did not stop. No fucking chance. Not now. She was still moving, still breathing, still fucking laughing. His hands closed around the undulations of her throat.

“Stop,” Delta repeated.

Blood dripped thick and hot from the both of them. Johanna twisted beneath him, her eyes shining like stars. He wanted them barren. He wanted her to stop moving.

“Stop,” Delta said it with no more emphasis than the first two times, but he’d closed the distance between them now. The prongs of the choke collar dug into Paris’s neck, cutting off his oxygen.

He backed up on his knees, leaning backwards into the touch, the only way he could loosen the chain. But for all the slack the proximity created, Delta only pulled it higher, tighter. No air reached him, even when he’d stopped, even when he had stilled. It kept going. The panic gripped him immediately, tempered only by experienced. Delta wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, and as soon as he started to think that he would, the chain released. Paris gasped shakily, collapsed down onto his hands and knees. One hand pawed desperately at his throat. Small beads of blood had formed there in the collar’s outline.

He felt the pressure of the chain being picked up and winced, but it did not tighten again.

“Sorry about him.” Delta frowned. “And…sorry about your…clown.”

“Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s had worse.”

And sure enough, Jo sat up again, the wounds he’d given her already half-healed. Her stupid fucking hat jingled as she shook her head clear. The sound was enough to re-trigger the prey drive. He lunged.

Sharp and course electricity ran straight through his body, aborting the attack before it could even begin. All his muscles locked up. He’d built up a tolerance for the dryer sparks, but being tased was rare. It was a different story. He knew the shock only lasted a few seconds, but those seconds dragged out like years. Delta didn’t even say anything, the tips of his fingers retreating from the raw skin of his neck.

“Here girl,” the monarch snapped their fingers.

The clown stood up in her wet clothes, skipping happily back into the employ. Paris kept his eyes trained on the empty space in front of him, the blood spots on the floor. He heard their footsteps retreating. The hallway was silent. One of Delta’s fingers was still hooked around the circle of his collar.

“Clean it up,” he said. Paris nodded. The chain went slack and he was alone in the hall once again.

“She started it-“

“She is a jester,” Delta cut him off. “She was doing her job. If she didn’t have that healing factor, you would have killed her.”

His eye twitched. Killed her. Kill her. It flared up within him again, without any target. He dug his nails into his wrist to keep from something worse. The anger burning so hot inside of him he thought he might just be sick from it. She’d done it on purpose. She’d got him on purpose, but it shouldn’t have worked.

“You weren’t there,” he said, the ache of defensiveness rising in his voice. “You don’t know what she was doing.”

“Did she draw on you?” Delta asked, sounding bored. He already knew the answer.

Paris’s face flushed anyway. He gave no reply.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Some small satisfaction crept into his voice, then faded quickly into irritation. “You didn’t have any impetus. Nobody was in any danger until you snapped. And now they know that if they so much as wave a flag in front of you, you act like a rabid fucking animal.”

“I was defending you, you ungrateful fuck!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Delta looked up in shock.

“I’m sorry,” Paris amended quickly, retaining at least some sense of self-preservation. He covered his mouth with his hand in a a belated effort to silence himself. It wasn’t enough. He’d been on thin ice before, but that could not be tolerated. They both knew it.

“Why are you like this?” Delta asked. He didn’t say it as an insult. He asked like he really wanted to know.

That only made it worse.

The inner courtyard of the Aegean palace was dense with marble and wildflowers. He always thought the statues looked out of place among the foliage, the vines creeping up the legs of the gods as if they’d already been forgotten. The last of the day’s light was held up in the violet clouds. Beneath them, the walls were doused in the cool blue of dusk. The air was warm and wet.

Paris went without prompting, without needing to be forced. He pulled the shirt off of his back, shivering a bit as the scars that already laid there were exposed to the open air. He knelt down by the post. The guard shackled his wrists to the side of it. He rested his forehead against the wood, curling and uncurling his fingers. It made it more tolerable.

He heard the whip crack against the ground as the guard made practice shots. Delta sat off to the side, one elbow propped up against the aluminum garden table, watching without much interest. He’d never get his hands dirty doing it himself. He wouldn’t even know how.

That idiot guard didn’t know much better. The first strike came down unpracticed, landing diagonally along his shoulder and against the old scars. He pressed his head further into the post, preferring the pressure he felt there to the hot pain that was forming along his back.

It only grew. It layered. It would’ve layered already, in just a single beating, but his body had years worth of them just waiting to be reignited. The whip dredged up the old pain easily. It didn’t split the skin, but he could remember when it had. The thought alone made him dizzy. The pain quickly became all he could focus on. It kept going.

“Please stop,” he said, beginning to get truly nervous now. It’d been going on too long and was pushing up against the bounds of what he could tolerate. His hands turned over anxiously in the solid iron of the manacles. He couldn’t have gotten out even if he tried.

Delta held a hand up. The whip temporarily ceased. He stood up from the table, electrifying the air as he got closer.

He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Hm?” Delta asked, leaning down a little, “Stop?”

He could tell that he was feeling vindictive. Delta’s voice took on that soft, too-patient tone it always had when he was furious.

“Paris, when I told you to stop, what did you do?” he chided.

“…Kept doing it,” he muttered miserably into the post. He hated when he got like this.

“So you do understand.”

“It hurts.” He kept his voice soft, somewhat whiny. It was calculated, but he didn’t have to force it. It didhurt.

“It’s supposed to. I wouldn’t have to do this if you would just listen the first time. You don’t have anyone to blame for this but yourself.”

There was no making him understand. Delta had no concept of what hurt meant — of how much was too much. His own body was unblemished. He’d never bled for anything.

For as long as he was standing there, the punishment couldn’t continue. They wouldn’t dare swing the whip when Delta was in line of it, god forbid. He took the break for what it was, a few needed seconds for him to catch his breath. Delta seemed to catch onto what he was doing, taking a few steps back. He turned back to the guard.

“Finish up. Gag him if he talks again. He knows better,” he instructed.

He paced out of the courtyard, retreating back inside the castle walks. He never liked to see the aftermath, either.

Delta had been sixteen years old on the eve of his first and only assassination attempt. It had been a failure, in the sense that he had not died from it. It had also been a failure in the sense that the assailant had not even gotten close. 36,000 volts ran straight through his circulatory system before the knife could even fall.

Delta had been uninjured — and in the end, unshaken. The King and Queen were not. They had no other heir.

Paris came as a knee-jerk reaction, dredged up out of whatever trench they’d found him in. He could play nice, when he needed to. He knew exactly what was on the line.

He was passable. The King bought him alone and unannounced. He’d complain for years afterwards that he’d been ripped off.

Paris had glanced up when he was first made to kneel in the throne room. His first impression was that Delta looked awfully calm for someone who had just survived an assassination attempt.

Delta was unimpressed by it, and had been unimpressed by everything since.

Almost everything. Kitty glowed blue in the light of the lounge. It was Delta’s favorite room. in the palace. It had been even since he was little. The walls were all made of glass, with thousands of gallons of seawater lying just behind them. Whole shoals of fish reflected silver onto the dark floor. The sequins of Kitty’s slit dress had the same effect.

She was wearing a collar. He didn’t know why he found this so funny. He guessed it could be considered a choker, if he wanted to be generous, but with the ears and the tail, “collar” was the first word that came to mind.

Hers wouldn’t choke her. If he wanted her to, he’d have to do it himself.

She draped herself over the arm of his chair. Kitty was growing into herself so beautifully. Her eyes still lit up at the sight of the fish swimming, just the way they had when they were kids, and he knew she wanted nothing more than to break straight through the glass to get at them. But everything else about her now shone with such a honed sophistication.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her eyes widening with concern.

“What?” He blinked. He hadn’t meant to.

But sure enough, a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose just as soon as she got close to him. Delta blushed, a pale blue hue rising up beneath his freckles. It came as a betrayal.

“You’re so predictable.” She almost smiled, pressing a pink handkerchief to his face before the blood could drip onto the soft sheen of his clothes.

The air around him crackled so badly both their hair stood on end.

Apollo tread into the kitchen with the golden fringes of his clothing catching all the light. He dragged the kitchen chair out and fell lightly into the seat. He made a soft sound of surprise as he found Paris leaning back against the edge of the counter.

“You have to stay up as long as he does?” Apollo asked. He leaned forward against the marble table, rocking the chair from side to side.

“I’m not supposed to sleep at all,” Paris responded flatly, only half joking. It was a bad look for him to be sleeping while Delta was awake, in the same way it was a bad look for him to be sleeping in. That left a very small window for him to get any rest at all.

Apollo grimaced in sympathy. He placed the empty glass down on the counter. Wordlessly, Paris took it to refill.

“Oh, I didn’t- Is that even your job?” Apollo asked, a blush rising to his face.

Paris shrugged, pouring the last of the bottle out into the glass. He slid it back across the table.

“You should let me fix that for you,” Apollo offered.

Paris yanked his hand back as violently as if he’d been burned. He thought it was invisible. It hadn’t healed that wrong. It still worked. It wasn’t an impediment. He clutched it to his chest protectively, shielding his wrist with his other hand.

Apollo gave him a knowing look. He stirred the drink idly. The ice made a soft noise as it clattered against the edges of the glass.

“They didn’t splint that for you in training?” He tilted his head.

Paris looked down. He tentatively loosened the grip on his wrist. It’d just been a fall. He’d gotten knocked backwards and he’d needed to stop himself from cracking his skull onto the floor. He’d done it wrong. The wrist had taken the brunt of the impact. He kept it in a splint at night — and when he was alone — but he couldn’t ever wear it around the trainers. He made use with the bandages instead, prayed everyday that medical didn’t come see him. In time, the bones had stitched themselves back together. Not enough, apparently.

Apollo was still staring at him.

“…It’s disqualifying,” he said softly.

“Ah,” Apollo leaned his elbow on the counter. He pressed one finger up against his lips. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Paris looked at him gratefully. Apollo took another sip of the drink, seeming to study the swirling patterns of the table’s surface. After a while, he added:

“He wouldn’t mind, though.”

Paris frowned. He didn’t think so either. That wasn’t the point. He couldn’t have his wrist be unusable for a full six weeks. He could not stand to be any more unusable than he already was.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He never would. The silence endured. Apollo shrugged, taking the drink back with him as he ducked out of the bright kitchen. Paris drew the sleeve of his shirt all the way past his fingertips.

ponyboy: heyyyyy

headrooms: holy shit

headrooms: i thought you fucking died

ponyboy: nope :-)

ponyboy: just busy yk how it is

headrooms: fuck

headrooms: dont scare me like that

ponyboy: sorryyyyy

ponyboy: how have you been

headrooms: im chill

headrooms: i got beat up by a jester last week

ponyboy: lmfao

ponyboy: dude shut up your job is cushy as shit

ponyboy: you wanna know what they had me doing last week????

headrooms: uphill both ways in the snow

ponyboy: i was pushing whole barrels full of petroleum and poison uphill in the coldest day of winter. they didnt even give me gloves until my fingers were already falling off!!!

ponyboy: hey fuck you

headrooms: lol

headrooms: are you good though like actually

ponyboy: ya i mean

ponyboy: its definitely heating up here but we’re still holding a good position

ponyboy: they kinda treat me like shit but they also dont want to lose me so im not being sent for the real suicide missions yet <3

headrooms: thats good i guess

headrooms: is vi chill

ponyboy: omg no shes been on her fuckin period lately

ponyboy: bitch mode

headrooms: lmfao mine too

headrooms: i swear its the full moon

ponyboy: IT LITERALLY IS IDK WHAT HER PROBLEM IS

ponyboy: ughhhhhh

headrooms: i miss you

headrooms: like

headrooms: all the time

ponyboy: i miss you too !

ponyboy: ill let you know if im ever in your corner of the galaxy! i want to see you again so badly <3

Paris winced. If her people ever ended up in his corner of the galaxy, that was a bad, bad sign. Selfishly, he wished for it anyway.

He heard footsteps approaching and quickly slid the phone back into his pocket. He was not quick enough to get rid of the cigarette. Delta paced out onto the balcony in a whirlwind. Little bouts of lighting lit up by his eyes.

He plucked the cigarette straight out of his mouth. His other hand smacked hard against the side of Paris’s skull.

“Ow,” Paris winced, though it didn’t really hurt. Because he wanted Delta to feel bad. Or because he knew he wanted to hear it. Whichever it was that day. Whichever worked.

“Those are my fucking lungs,” he hissed. The guilt trip hadn’t worked. Paris shrugged.

“Sorry.”

The apology worked better. Delta’s body language relaxed some as he snubbed the cigarette out on the palace wall. He didn’t ask for the rest of the pack. Smoking was fair game, really. It was getting caught doing it that was the issue.

“Who were you texting?” he asked mildly.

He hadn’t hid the phone quick enough. He tried to play it off.

“Just Lorry.” He looked down.

“Oh.” Delta’s expression seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered automatically. His heart quickened right after. “…Why? Did you-“

“No,” Delta cut off that train of thought before it could really begin. “No news. I was just wondering.”

“She’s fine, then,” he confirmed. As much as she could be.

It was only then that Delta actually looked guilty. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his fault. Lorelai had been purchased months before Paris had. It was a miracle he was even allowed to stay in touch with her. He knew most of the program’s graduates weren’t half as lucky.

He still wanted the cigarette. He leaned back against the wall, unsure what to do with his hands or his mouth when it was gone. Delta didn’t leave after that, the way he’d expected him to. He pulled himself up onto the railing with a kind of stupid abandon.

The air carried the scent of salt from over the ocean. Down on the beach, two kids flew a white kite right above the waves, blissfully unaware of the peacetime’s fragility.

“Keep?” Paris asked, holding up the alligator skin boots. They’d been dyed a shade of ruby red.

“Absolutely not.” Delta shook his head frantically, “Toss. Don’t even tell anyone I had those.”

“I thought they were nice,” Paris muttered.

He tossed them into the trash pile anyway. He crossed back over the length of the massive closet, pulling another bag off the shelf. This was absolutely, definitely not his job. But it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He liked anything that did not make him feel like a total waste of space.

His knees hit the ground before he really knew what he was doing. It was a better instinct, though, probably the least harmful out of all the ones he could not control. Delta looked up in surprise, only realizing what had just happened as the King stepped in through the doorway. Delta’s attention recentered on his father. They both acted as like he wasn’t even there.

“Don’t you have a dispatch to be filling out?” Ulysses leaned against the doorway, surprisingly casual in the company of his only son. It was a reprimand, but his tone was still playful.

“I’m fuckin’ working on it, jeez,” Delta snapped.

“Doesn’t look like it,” the King glanced around the room. Paris flinched a bit as his gaze passed over him, but it didn’t linger long.

“Oh!” The queen Andromeda appeared in the entrance before Delta could even respond, looking excitedly at the gown Delta held in one hand. “I’ve always loved that dress! You never wear it!”

“Oh my god,” Delta said, “Can you leave me alone.”

She rushed forward anyway, squishing his face with one hand as she kissed his cheek.

“Mom!” He blushed terribly.

She smiled, knowing exactly how much she was embarrassing him. He shoved her lightly back towards the door and shut it quickly before either of them could protest. He slammed his head against it once it was closed.

“You can get up,” Delta rolled his eyes. Paris did, rigidly so, in the same mechanical way as when he’d gone down. He blinked a few times, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“They’re so fucking annoying,” Delta muttered to no one in particular, wiping his face off.

“Your parents are nice,” Paris protested weakly in their defense.

“He beat you with a 2x4,” Delta reminded him.

Paris shrugged. The King could’ve done much worse. He’d snapped at Delta that time — not on purpose. Never on purpose. It was only the nerves firing wrong, the signals getting twisted. He couldn’t help it. But it’d been grounds for immediate termination. Paris got off easy, and had moved on from it fairly quickly. Delta still held a grudge against his father for it.

“Keep?” Delta asked this time, desperate to change the subject. Paris guessed he was glad, too. Something in him ached awfully whenever they were around.

“Keep,” he affirmed.

It was awful. They had to hold court later, had to hold it in ten fucking minutes, and his heart felt like it was about to explode if he didn’t kill something. He paced uncontrollably, snapping at the air no matter how hard he tried to stop it. Delta watched idly from the throne. Not angry. Just visibly unpleased with it all.

“Come here,” he called finally.

Paris flinched. It was not a request. He tried anyway.

“I don’t…want you to…” he protested weakly.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted it.”

Paris reluctantly approached, kneeling beside the throne. Delta tilted his head, the tiara slipping down a bit as he did so. A soft blush rose to Paris’s face. He pulled his shirt off, then lowered further onto the floor, laying down flat on his stomach. He rested his head against his arm, burying his face. He heard Delta rising up from the throne and settling cross-legged onto the floor beside him.

Delta made that same soft, dissatisfied noise he always did when he saw the old whip scars all along his back. Not his work. The lashes he gave didn’t leave a mark. He didn’t like it when they did. Paris winced.

They were ugly. Paris knew that if the King had caught a single look at the lattice, he’d have never been bought in the first place. Because it was defacement. Because they were ugly. The thought echoed in Paris’s brain every time he caught a glimpse. It was pure vanity. He was a weapon, he knew it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t have even cared about that kind of thing. But he did. He hated them.

“So tense,” Delta murmured from above him. His hands kneaded into the ridges along Paris’s spine – that strange, analgesic touch. Paris could feel his muscles softening involuntarily, the tension in them forcefully removed.

The urchin spine slid into the center of his shoulder blades. He bit his arm to keep from gasping.

It wasn’t the toxin alone that did it. He knew that because he’d pricked himself with it once, just out of curiosity, and he had felt almost nothing at all. It was the way he used it.

He didn’t always hate it; sometimes it was almost nice. It was nicer when they did it alone, when he wasn’t forced to take it, exposed on the floor of the throne room. It was viscerally unpleasant to experience against his will. He did not like Delta having that much control over his body. He didn’t want to calm down.

The spine entered again, and he calmed anyway.

It went on like that until all the rigid tension seeped out through his skin like poison, then a while afterwards too. It was gentle, despite everything. He could’ve cried.

“Better?”

He nodded, though he really just felt hazy. He didn’t think he could even hold a sword anymore. The calm felt intrusive. He was sure he couldn’t move at all, almost limp in the aftermath. He didn’t need to, though. Delta pulled him up a little, trying to straighten him out. He found his position again, on his knees.

He pulled the shirt back on, roughly. His arms had gone numb; it took so much more effort than it had to take off. He shifted, readjusting so that he was facing the rest of the room this time. It took so much effort just to sit upright then. He felt high.

“Good boy,” Delta said, about a half second before the doors opened. He was only saying it to be mean, but in the moment, Paris couldn’t bring himself to care.

Delta yanked his hand away from his face just before Paris could snap it off. Paris hissed in frustration, falling abruptly to the ground. He pounded his fists against the tile. It was all he could do to not fucking kill him.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He hissed out through gritted teeth. It was wrong. He was making it worse for himself. He had no fucking right to be talking to him like that.

He couldn’t help it. He felt like he was going to scream.

Delta watched impassively.

“It’s getting worse,” Delta said. There was real concern in his voice.

Paris pressed his forehead to the ground, curling up. Anything else.

“I know it’s getting worse,” he growled.

Delta started to bend down, which was the worst thing he could’ve done.

“Get away,” Paris warned. For fucking once, Delta actually listened, taking a few cautious steps back.

It took ten whole minutes for him to get back to a state where the prey drive wasn’t waiting two inches beneath the surface. He sat up wearily. Exhausted. Fucking embarrassed.

Delta’s eyes were wide, but then, they always were. The rest of his expression revealed nothing at all.

“You need to figure that out,” he announced quietly.

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Paris buried his face in his hands. “You know I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“That isn’t going to matter to them and you know it.” His voice was soft. Almost sympathetic. “And don’t talk to me like that,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Delta…” Paris whined into his hands. It was an undisguised plea. As if the way he was talking was what mattered right now.

“I’m serious. Don’t.” The plea went unanswered. If anything, his voice hardened. Paris watched with some small horror as all the patience seemed to bleed out of him. As if he could afford to lose a single ally.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Figure it out,” Delta said with such sincere urgency that it seemed like now was his turn to beg. He stormed off, unwilling to let anyone else get the last word in.

Paris picked himself up off the ground and put his fist through the nearest wall.

No matter what happened that day, he still came crying in the night like a little kid.

Paris flinched a bit as he was awoken, but not for very long. He guessed he should’ve been used to it by now. Delta stood over him, tugging at his sleeve impatiently, wordless. His eyes shone like beacons in the darkness of the bedroom. His hair was down. He looked so young when he was like this. His look was all pleading.

Paris sighed, letting himself be roused from the bed. He just barely had time to grab the sword before he was dragged out into the hallway. He followed Delta all the way up the stairs, all the way up to his bedroom. He could hear the water trickling well before he entered.

His parents really did spoil him. Delta’s room was probably the most expensive part of the entire palace. Water rushed down from the ceiling in an artificial waterfall, landing into the koi pond that took up a whole quarter of the room. All the rest of the room was crystalline, opalescent. Absolutely cluttered with anything that would shine.

Paris didn’t roll his eyes at the giant seashell that held Delta’s mattress. He’d seen it enough times that it had lost its novelty. He didn’t expect anything less.

“Watch the door,” he begged.

Paris nodded. He knew the drill. He sat down on the floor by Delta’s bed while the sheathed sword rested in his lap. He wouldn’t need it. He knew he wouldn’t need it. Delta was just scared.

Delta crawled up into the bed, arranging himself carefully for the meditation. The low drone of electricity began to fill the room. Channeling again. All the stars had aligned for it.

“παρακαλῶ,” Delta muttered beneath his breath. “παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ…”

The incantation began shortly after that. The hair on the back of Paris’s neck stood up. He kept his eyes on the door. He didn’t like to watch.

He’d learned to tune out the rambling, for the most past. He knew Delta didn’t like it when people overheard — and he only let Paris do it out of necessity. It was fine. He didn’t understand any of the Greek. It was only the rapid, manic way he spoke that really scared him. Hushed and quick and ancient. It felt right to avert his eyes for it. It was something he had no business witnessing.

His eye twitched a little bit as he realized just how loud the incantation was growing behind him. The room was getting brighter. He got the awful feeling he always did when he felt lightning was about to strike. It was getting bad this time. It was getting worse than he could ever remember it being.

He turned around.

It was about as bad as he imagined. The light burned and radiated off of him, bright enough to be blinding. Delta was definitely seizing beneath it all. His eyes were shut tight like the power was painful. His hands clutched at the blanket. Paris realized with horror that the bedding was turning blue from all the blood that then dripped from his mouth and his eyes.

“Fuck,” Paris muttered beneath his breath.

He should have known better than to wake a sleepwalker.

He regretted it as soon as he touched him. For a minute, he thought he’d really gone blind. The pain exploded in his arm as he was thrown back against the wall. His own body seized with the residual electricity. He gasped, crumbling down into a heap onto the soft floor.

“What the fuck did you do?” Delta coughed up blood onto the floor. Blood or tears poured from his eyes. In all likelihood, it was both. He wiped at them idly, not seeming to be in any particular hurry. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get all of it off with his hands.

He stumbled up from the bed — and immediately fell onto the floor. He crawled the rest of the way over to the koi pond, scooping the water up with his hands to remove the rest of the blood.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” he repeated, even angrier now.

“You were seizing.” Paris gasped. His arm hurt badly enough that he thought it might be broken. He couldn’t tell. He was still mostly blind.

“I told you not to interrupt,” Delta pressed his forehead onto the stone. He couldn’t even stand.

“You’re pushing it too far,” Paris said. It was all he said. It was all he needed to.

“Shut up,” Delta warned.

“You’re pushing it too far,” he repeated, sing-song.

“Shut the fuck up!” Delta stood up again. Paris knew he meant to hit him, meant to fight him, and suddenly that was what was happening.

“Oh god damn it, you fucking moron.” Paris blocked his fists with his arms. It hurt a little bit, but not nearly enough to incapacitate. He pushed Delta off with zero effort, which only seemed to piss him off more.

Delta growled, stumbling to his feet. He marched over to the bedside table, pulled out what Paris recognized belatedly as a fucking muzzle.

“Wait.” He tensed up, still not having risen off the floor. “Wait, wait, wait, chill-“

Delta fell messily to his knees, trying to secure it onto him. This time, Paris actually did fight. He caught his wrists. He hated that thing so much. It was the middle of the fucking night, he’d never be able to sleep with it on. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been trying to help.

“Stop,” he pleaded while he still had the ability to. “Come on. Stop. Please.”

Delta sighed in defeat. He dropped the muzzle to the floor — and let himself fall to it a few seconds later. He mumbled something in Greek.

“I’m tired,” he muttered into the carpet. His mouth was still bleeding.

Paris stood up, with a lot of effort, but he was still in better shape that Delta was. He picked him up with his uninjured arm. It wasn’t difficult. Delta was light. He wouldn’t have won the fight he’d tried to start. Paris pushed him back onto the bed, letting him collapse there.

“On your side,” Paris reminded him. Delta readjusted onto his side so that the blood wouldn’t asphyxiate him.

“Fucking goodnight, I guess,” Paris muttered, picking his sword back up from the ground. He picked the muzzle up too, placing it back in the drawer. Should’ve just thrown the damn thing out.

“Stay?” Delta asked.

“Yeah, think I’m good on that.” Paris started to walk out the door.

“Stay.” It was an entreaty, now. Paris groaned. He walked back, collapsing onto the other side of the bed.

“Not all night. You cry in your sleep. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this.”

“So do you,” Delta muttered in reply, already half-asleep.

Paris shrugged. The waterfall was quiet and reassuring. He could stay for that, if nothing else.

~~~

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @floral-comet-whump @littlebookworm69

@lordcatwich @human-123-person @paperprinxe @whomeidontknowthem @chiswhumpcorner

@bacillusinfection @ichortwine @whump-queen @lumpywhump

@jumpywhumpywriter @sir-fenris @a-formless-whumper

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thebad-lydrawn-sanses · 8 months ago

Note

Okay wait so dream had a vision of the future kinda like what shattered dream had and tried to change the future is that what happened?

Dream: my eyelights Nightmare: the villagers are giving us a lot of stuff. it's nice. Dream: my eyelights. Nightmare: i like your new eyelights. Dream: please keep yours. Nightmare: …I'll try?

Villager: Dream, I need to talk to you. Dream: oh! is this about your dislike of my brother or your house burning down? i heard about it. that must've really sucked :) busy lately? Villager: uh- yeah. My sister was terribly injured in the fire, so we need apples for her recovery.

Villager: my mommy told me to give you this Dream: thank you, Charlie. tell your mom i said hi. Villager: it's a pie. Dream: thank you. Villager: she says your brother is a bad person and should be executed. i think i agree, 'cuz he's really scary. Dream: he's really nice. you should be nice to him. Villager: oh. okay! he's still really scary though.

Prophecy Nightmare: HEY. Dream: AAAAAA-

Villagers: "Are you okay?" "Dream, can I get an apple?" "Are you okay?" "Are you okay?" "Are you okay?" "Can I have an apple?" "Are you okay?" "Are you okay?"

Nightmare: are you gonna sleep tonight? Dream: no Nightmare: did i- do something wrong-? Dream: no Nightmare: are you okay? Dream: no Dream: yes

Prophecy Nightmare: LYING TO YOUR BRO? COLD. Dream: god damn it

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can-u-like-stop · 2 years ago

Text

There was a time when Simon broke Price’s heart every day.

It wasn’t his fault, not at all. And Price would hate it if Simon took it as such. Which is probably why Price didn’t say anything for so long.

But he saw.

He saw how Simon would immediately tense and drop what he was doing whenever Price walked in, even if he was on his off time.

He saw how Simon’s jaw clenched when he relayed bad news to Price, almost expecting a berating for something out of his hands.

(Price had growled and banged his hand on the table once, the almost imperceptible jump Simon did because of it was enough for Price to regret it)

And he saw how Simon flinched when Price went to pat him on the back. That one hurt like a bastard.

But one night, when Simon surprised him with a knock on the door to drop off some papers, Price knew he needed to do something, watching as Simon apologised and edged into the room.

“Could I say something, Simon?” Price asks before Simon can turn to leave.

Simon freezes. “Alright, sir?” He holds his hands behind his back. Attentive, obedient, anxious.

Price keeps his movements casual, not knowing how else to ease Simon’s nerves.

“I’m not your father, Simon,”

There’s a tense silence.

Simon huffs a half-hearted laugh. “I’m… aware of that, sir…”

Price shakes his head. He gets up, and reaches out to place a hand on Simon’s shoulder.

Simon tenses, but stays put.

“I mean, son…” Price says, “I’m not like your father.”

Simon’s cautiously confused gaze drops into something fragile for a second. His eyes move away from Price’s and he fiddles with his gloves.

“I know that too, sir,” he says, clearing his throat.

“Good man,” Price says, knowing he’s pushing his luck. “Go on, you’re free from paperwork for one night at least.”

“Thank you, sir,” Simon mutters and legs it out of there.

At the time, Price thought he’d fucked it all up. And maybe he did.

But now, Price swears he sees a different side of Simon. Youthful, vibrant, and free.

And his heart is made full again.

#tw past abuse #tw abuse mention #simon ghost riley #john price #ghostsoap #soapghost #ghost x soap #ghoap #call of duty #cod #kind of corny but idk i thought of this on a whim

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mortysmith · 11 months ago

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In theory i like the idea that rick is growing and developing as a person. In practice it ends up falling short though, because no one balances him out. rick is getting better while no one else is getting worse, and it causes the whole thing to end up feeling a bit stale. The biggest draw, at least for me, has always been rick and morty's shitty dynamic, but it barely exists anymore because rick has been so watered down.

The ideal solution is literally just to make morty into a bigger asshole. Essentially flipping the main characters' personalities would offer a wide variety of conflict into the show, and would also help keep it "fresh".

Instead it feels the writers are pretending that they can't possibly do anything with morty's character, that they have to keep him the same anxious idiot he was in season one. I've said this before, but it's incredibly frustrating to watch the show have no problem with expanding rick's character while struggling with keeping morty's heavily stagnated characterization consistent. Where rick has space to develop between multiple seasons, morty is constantly forced into one of two boxes (smart/stupid) depending on the episode.

#rick and morty #again i dont hate ricks therapy arc i just hate that morty doesnt have a parallel AntiTherapy arc #not to mention how. even if morty IS more bitter it usually only lasts for like an episode #there is no smooth progression or development. the show is just ping ponging between him being an idiot vs him being capable #this is why im sooooooososososo badly hoping the roy machine comes into play again.#otherwise this is genuinely offensive treatment of a main character #genuinely at the moment i feel like fandom understands morty better than the writers.#this is a half vent post to be honest im just so tired of the rick bias within the staff. Like make. a new show at this point #i also have thoughts on the way rick has been written these past few seasons and um .#well it feels lile fans are in the writers room and im afraid this is a negative. it sort of seems like the show is trying to-#sweep ricks past actions and behaviors under the rug #as if he isnt literally the worst person ever. up until recently i guess.#like its just frustrating seeing mortys abuse being handled so haphazardly? like the s5 2 crows episode #it just feels like the writers are trying to fill out a checklist instead of writing them as people.#“what we had was abusive dont you see?” who talks like this #okay im over it(lying)#rick sanchez #morty smith

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northstarscowboyhat · 6 months ago

Note

I apologize if you answered this already, I can't find if you did. How much does Starlo and Ceroba know about Clover's past in the Lucky Clover AU? I ask cause it is implied his past wasn't exactly the best before the underground. Like do they know alot of it, or is it more of a, "less our kid talks about, the better" kind of deal?

No worries! I don't mind any questions!

As I had it, Clover is very secretive about their past on the surface before they fell into the Underground. They don't like to talk about their previous home, or their previous family, but it's pretty easy for the adults in their life to pick up on the fact that they didn't come from a happy, loving household. Starlo and Ceroba are especially perceptive of this, as any parental gestures or actions by then are treated with surprise from Clover, as if they didn't know that actually, parents are supposed to love and support you no matter what.

They try and gently encourage Clover to talk about their past, but Clover remains pretty secretive. I imagine the truth comes out in tiny bits and pieces as Clover gradually becomes more comfortable sharing their past. They still prefer not to talk much about it, but by the time they're a young adult, Ceroba and Starlo have the general gist; Clover came from a very unstable and unloving household with an abusive father and a mother who passed away when they were at a young age.

Neither of them push Clover to talk about it unless the situation absolutely calls for it or Clover themself wants to talk about it. They don't need to know all the details to reassure Clover that they'll always have loving parents with the two of them.

#the cowboy hat yodels #lucky clover au #abuse tw #abuse mention #child abuse tw #If I'm missing any tags let me know!#This AU won't delve too directly into the abuse in Clover's past but it is a factor so #Just wanna cover my bases

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tamatosss · 3 months ago

Text

My OCs!!! I love and cherish all of them like they’re my children :3

Please check out their references if you’re interested! I put a lot of work into them. I tried my best to condense all important info onto one page each. I can go into more depth for some characters but I have to control myself or I’ll never be finished with these.

PS I’m not the best at writing so forgive me for any grammatical errors or weirdly-phrased sentences 🙏.

#tw mentions of abuse #phew... finally posted these...#this is what I’ve been doing for the past year :3 #can you tell which OCs are my favourite? I think it’s really obvious hehehe #they’re the only two I bothered rendering #tamatosssocs #oc #original character #original characters #my ocs #oc art

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autumnoakes · 19 days ago

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i could write a whole essay on melinoë's character and the circumstances that made her who we see in hades 2, genuinely.

#hades 2 #hades 2 spoilers #THERE'S SO MUCH. THERE'S SO SO MUCH THERE #i don't think in this war there's such a thing as a 'good' side or a 'bad' side #because yes the olympians have done bad things in the past but look at what chronos is doing!#he turned ephyra into some resident evil-esque ghost town filled with undead because they worshipped hades and persephone #not to mention that poseidon and zeus and hades were all abused by chronos as kids (#(look back to hades' interaction with chronos in the flashback of the invasion. its very telling)#we only see a 'good' side through melinoë. because she's the protagonist and she feels like she's fighting on the right side #because it's what she was raised to believe

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obsidiancreates · 10 months ago

Text

Henry Spencer Is A Bastard (With A Broken Nose)

Shawn and Jules have been living together for two weeks when Jules storms into the precinct, grabs Lassiter by the arm, and drags him into the interrogation room.

“O’Hara, what the hell is-”

“You’ve spent time alone with Henry,” she says, sitting Lassiter in the suspect chair. “What was he like?”

“What?”

“This is important, Carlton.”

Lassiter sighs, looking around the room for a moment before answering. “Unpleasant and judgemental. He had every quality of a great cop but none of an actual person I’d spend time with.”

“Which for you is saying something,” Jules mumbles, looking to the side. “Would-would you say you think he’s capable of intentional child endangerment or neglect?”

Lassiter sits up more. “What? O’Hara, what is this about?”

Jules takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “I was helping Shawn get some stuff from his old room, and we found an old journal from when he was a kid.It was mostly just doodles and half-finished homework, and he said to just throw it away, but… I kept it. I thought it was cute, to be able to look at what went through his brain as a kid.”

“O’Hara. If you’re alleging what I think-”

“I read more later while he was out with Gus and one of the pages was a failed writing assignment. He was supposed to write about what he did over the weekend and he wrote that his dad locked him a trunk and made him pretend to be kidnapped.”

Lassiter lets out a breath. “Okay. But you and I both know Spencer’s imagination-”

“Carlton, remember the kicked-out tailight? When he got shot?”

“O’Hara, I was with Henry through that whole investigation, and I don’t think I can say that the man I investigated with would purposefully hurt or neglect his son. He was like a machine through the whole thing.”

“There was more, though, Carlton. One of the assignments was to write about how they spent Easter and Shawn’s said he got cut on some glass trying to dig up his eggs. He drew a picture, it-”

She pulls out her phone and hands it to her partner. Lassiter looks at a crude drawing of a small stick figure on it’s hands and knees, overly-large shards on the ground in front of it, and an egg a good few lines below it. There’s a taller stick figure behind the small one, with a wide-open mouth and the words ‘You can do better, Shawn,’ written beside it.

The teacher’s note on the side says that Shawn needs to stop making up stories for assignments about his real life.

Lassiter hands the phone back. “O’Hara…”

Jules sits back in her chair a bit, the tension giving way to a slumped tiredness. “I know they’ve never had an… easy relationship, but Henry has always been so present, ever since we’ve known Shawn. I thought that was a good thing and Shawn’s discomfort was just Shawn being… Shawn.” She looks down at her hand in guilt. “What if I completely missed that he has reason, Carlton?”

Lassiter grabs one of Jules’s hands. “O’Hara, Henry Spencer is a bitter, unlikeable, and overbearing old man- but I really don’t think he’s capable of child abuse.”

Jules holds his hand back and gives it a squeeze. “I just… don’t know how to ask Shawn if these are real. He’s not exactly forthcoming about messy emotions and memories.”

Lassiter nods, and then blinks. “So let’s ask Guster. They’ve been stuck together like flies on a flytrap forever.”

Jules shakes her head. “If Shawn isn’t going to say anything, I really don’t think Gus will.”

“Well, you can either ask Guster if these are real, or you can worry about it forever and never get any answers.” Lassiter knows his partner well enough to know that’s unacceptable to her.

She gives his hand one more squeeze. “I’m just worried. Henry works here. He’s in charge of Shawn.”

“And I’m sure that when we talk to Guster about all this, we’ll learn that Spencer was just exaggerating like he always does.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gus reads the page with wide eyes. “Wait, he was serious about that?”

Lassiter stifles the urge to shout ‘Come on!’ when he hears Jules suck in a breath.

“You mean you knew about this already?”

“I mean, Shawn told me once that he liked Easter at my house way more because there was no ‘manhunt training’, but I thought he just meant something like when his dad would have him stakeout their porch.”

“He what?”

“It, sounds worse than it is. … I think.” Gus looks down at the old notebook again. “I thought. … I mean, Henry was always a little intense. When Shawn and I were boyscouts he used to set up challenges that were impossible to win, and then make us feel bad for not winning.”

“What do you mean, impossible to win?” Lassiter is starting to get concerned now. Shawn’s incessant need to show everyone up has been a pain in his ass for years, and if Henry reinforced that grating attitude and now acts like he tried to quell it-

“Stuff like telling us to go find a rocket in the middle of the woods and then going and grabbing it himself. He used to promise us ice cream if we won, then say he’d eat it himself if we didn’t win next time.” Gus’s face pinches the more he talks about the memories. “Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in years. I guess I didn’t realize how messed up that is until I said it out loud.”

“It’s horrible,” Jules says.

“But not criminal,” Lassiter reminds her. “And as… weird and dangerous as the eggs thing is, that’s not criminal either. … I think.”

“What about the trunk, Carlton?”

“... Yeah, that part’s looking pretty bad.”

Gus shuts the notebook. “We need to talk to Shawn about this. I don’t know if I’m even remembering right, but I know he will.”

“He’d never open up about something like this,” Jules says, gesturing to the notebook and letting her arms drop back to her sides with a flop. “He barely tells me about his childhood at all.”

“Well I was there for most of it, and I need to make sure I didn’t miss some serious abuse going down for our entire lives. Do you know how many times I’ve defended his dad to him, Juliet? … Oh my god, on that same boyscout trip with the rocket, he told me his dad had never said he loved him!”

Lassiter doesn’t need to look at Jules to know she’s probably seething with the rage of the entire underworld- if he believed in such a thing.

Henry better hope they find out it’s not as bad as it’s seeming.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Shawn gets home, Jules, Lassiter, and Gus are all sitting on the couch looking somber. Well, Jules and Gus look somber. Lassiter looks mildly offput.

“Guys! What’s all this, are we having some kinda surprise party?” Shawn looks around for decorations, but there’s nothing. He looks back with excitement. “Is it a case? A big one?”

“Shawn, sit down, we need to ask you about something.” Jules gestures for him to take a seat on a different chair.

“Uh-oh. That’s not your happy voice.” Shawn sits down and leans forward. “Hey, babe, what’s wrong?”

Jules takes a deep breath, and pulls out the notebook. Shawn looks at it. “Oh, that? Please don’t tell me that my drawing skills when I was eight are a dealbreaker.”

“Shawn, did Henry…” Jules falters. Shawn’s expression…

It doesn’t harden, per say. It just… shifts. Becomes a little closed-off.

“Spencer, did Henry actually make you dig through broken glass to find ridiculous holiday candy?” Lassiter says, offering Jules his hand for support. She takes it.

Shawn’s mouth quirks up in the corner, a huff-laugh escaping him. His eyes aren’t as amused, a dark look in them. “What? How-how’d you know about that?”

“Oh my god.” Gus looks sick.

“Guys, seriously, what is this?” Shawn reaches out and snatches the notebook, flipping through it. Fast at first, and then slower. The slight smirk disappears completely, and Jules and Gus know that habit of sticking his tongue over his teeth means Shawn is not in a good emotional space whatsoever as he reads.

He closes the notebook and tosses it onto the coffee table, sitting back into the chair and sniffling. “It’s uh- it’s nothing.”

“Dude, that is not nothing. I thought you were making that stuff up when we were kids!”

“What? Why would I make that up?” That just seems to confuse Shawn.

“Because you were always making things up!”

“Not about my dad! You were like, the one person I could talk about him with! You thought I was lying about everything the whole time?” Now he looks hurt.

“Not everything, but crazy stuff like him locking you in a trunk in the middle of a hot day and putting broken glass over your eggs, yeah! Oh my go- this makes me look back on everything I know in a completely different light, Shawn!”

“Okay, you can’t actually be this surprised, Gus. I mean, you were at my house all the time, you know how he was. We couldn’t even play hide-and-seek without me getting a lecture about hunting perps the right way.” The bitterness in his voice is familiar to his friends, the way he keeps from meeting their eyes, the arms crossed over his chest and tense body language. It’s not that they’ve never seen him like this. But they’ve never seen him like this and truly understood it. Even Gus.

Gus, who looks increasingly horrified as he thinks back on more and more memories. “When we were really little and you told me your dad would throw you out for reading comics, were you serious?”

Shawn scoffs a little. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Did he actually ban them?”

“... Yeah. That part he did. He said they made cops look bad.”

“Good god, Spencer, you’re talking like everything in your house was about cops twenty-four-seven.”

“Gee, Lassie, I wonder why. You’ve met my dad, right?”

“But you’re talking like he expected you to be a perfect cop from the second you were born.”

Shawn goes silent. He still won’t look at any of them.

“Oh, my god.” Jules reaches out to put a hand on Shawn’s knee. “Shawn, did he expect that?”

“... Look, guys, it’s… it’s done, alright? It is what it is, and… I’ve accepted that, and I’m working on making things work with my dad. I don’t… I don’t need this. Okay? I don’t want to think about it and get all…” He huffs. “Last time I thought a little too hard about all this stuff I ended up on my motorcycle with nowhere to go, and-and I don’t want to do that again, alright?”

“Shawn, this is important. We’re all working with Henry constantly, watching how he treats you, and this changes how some of that looks.”

“How?” Shawn finally looks at Jules, right in the eyes. “How does this change anything? He’s the same person, Jules. He-he’s controlling, and-and expects way too much, and is disappointed in me. That’s not different now just because you know he went overboard with stuff when I was a kid.”

Lassiter lets out a deep breath. He’d really… really been hoping this wouldn’t be the case. “How overboard, Spencer?”

Shawn looks at Lassie, and then clicks his tongue and looks away again. “Not in that way, man. He never hit me or anything.”

“So what did he do?”

“Why is this an interrogation?” Shawn stands up, pulling away from Jules’s outstretched hand. “This is stuff for me, and my dad to hash out, okay? Just me and him.”

“Did your mom know about this stuff?” Gus asks.

The mention of his mom seems to make Shawn shut down even more. “Now this is really over.” He walks away, and pauses for just one second to turn around and say, “Don’t- don’t go my dad about all this. I don’t want…”

“... Don’t want what, Shawn?” Jules’s voice is soft and careful.

Shawn doesn’t seem to be able to find the end of the thought. He just shakes his head and walks back out the door.

The three sit in silence for a minute. Jules has tears in her eyes. Gus looks almost shellshocked.

Lassiter stands up. “Alright, I’m officially taking lead on this case.” He looks down at his partner. “O’Hara, find out who in the precinct knew Henry well and still works there. We’ll interview anyone who he might’ve talked to his son about, see if we can dig up any leads there.”

“Whoa, Shawn just said he didn’t want his dad finding out we’re asking about all this, and we just learned he’s way worse than we thought,” Gus says, standing up too. “We can’t start poking around the precinct, because in case you forgot Lassie, he works there!”

“Part-time.”

“He’ll know something is up.”

“Please. I think I know how to run a discreet investigation, Guster.”

“Could you hide something like that from Shawn?”

“... Of course.”

“No, you couldn’t, and if you can’t hide it from Shawn it’s a safe bet that you can’t hide it from his dad.”

Jules stands up. “No, Carlton is right. None of us realized how these pieces fit together until we all talked about it with each other, right? If Shawn won’t… can’t, open up to us about it, the next best thing is getting as many witness statements as possible.”

“Why? It just feels like digging things up to dig them up at this point.”

“Because Henry is currently in charge of Spencer’s livelihood, Guster.”

“I know! He’s in charge of part of mine too!”

“Right.” Jules looks up at Lassiter. “And if we can prove to The Chief that Henry has a negative, unreliable bias against Shawn, we can lessen some of that control!”

“As much as I’d hate to see Spencer off the leash again, I’d hate to be helping enable an abuser even more,” Lassiter agrees.

“Abuser is a strong word.” Gus doesn’t look like he feels that sentence is 100% true. “He wasn’t all bad a lot of the time. I mean, he loosened up on the comic thing when we were older.”

“We know he cares, Gus,” Jules assures. “But, caring doesn’t mean he didn’t do something wrong. Really, really wrong.”

Gus swallows, and then nods. “I know.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They collect a good few statements over the next week.

One statement claims that Shawn would play poker with some of the officers when Henry brought him to the station- why Henry was bringing a seven year old to an active police station and then not keeping an eye on him was something that went unanswered- and that Henry was obviously upset when he discovered this. Another statement corroborated the story, and added that he caught sight of Henry taking all the money Shawn made from the games and shoving it into the police donation box.

One statement was from an elderly file sorter, who claimed that Shawn was sometimes sent down to grab files for his dad and used to complain to her that henry would only buy Shawn cop car toys, and no others. When she’d asked Shawn if he wanted to be a cop when he grew up, Shawn had reportedly said quote, “Something about not getting a choice.” Other statements claimed, when this was brought up, that Shawn seemed very excited by the idea of being a cop when he grew up- until his arrest.

One statement, given by someone Lassiter vaguely remembers being rookies with back in the day, lends more credibility to the recollections of the elderly woman. The statement claimed that when the rookie would go on ride-alongs with Henry or work under him, Henry would almost always complain about Shawn. Everything from Shawn having an interest that didn’t relate to being a cop, to Shawn ‘acting like a child’ when he would have been under twelve according to the timeline, to Shawn ‘not even trying’ during a specific incident where Henry claimed Shawn forged his signature to go on a field trip and quote “hesitated for a second with his pen or something- I remember it was something really minor, and Henry couldn’t stand it. I thought it was weird that he was teaching his son how to forge signatures and then expecting the kid to never use the skill, but it wasn’t really my place to say.”

By the end of the week, Jules is steaming and Shawn hasn’t come around the precinct at all. Gus keeps dropping by, digging up old journals of his own to use as cross-references when possible. Shawn is quiet with Jules at home, like he’s waiting for something big to happen and he’s worried he could trigger it early.

It makes Jules more upset at Henry, because now her boyfriend’s emotional immaturity seems a lot less like a natural childish nature and a lot more like having genuinely never been taught how to handle anything.

No, according to the information she and Lassiter have gathered, it looks like all Henry taught Shawn was that winning is everything, being the best is non-negotiable, and Shawn was born to be a cop and anything that didn’t align with that idea just… shouldn’t be there.

“Wow.” Lassiter tosses the latest statement onto his desk. “And I thought Henry didn’t discipline Spencer enough as a kid. Some of this stuff makes it sound like Spencer grew up in a boot camp.”

“He basically did,” Jules says bitterly, reading over one of Gus’s old notebooks. “Gus wasn’t even looking for evidence of it, and these journals are full of casual, offhand observations that look worse and worse the more we know. Listen to this one. ‘Today Shawn was in a bad mood, and when I asked him why he said his dad stole his mood ring after showing him to turn the box upside-down. I said that’s cheating, and Shawn said it can’t be if his dad said to do it.’ Who the hell steals a mood ring from a kid?”

“You’re getting caught on the small stuff again, O’Hara.”

“I know, I know. I just- now that we know some of the major things, even the small stuff is making me just unbelievably angry.”

“Yeah, it’s rough to read. At least you and I wanted to be cops.”

“Right? No wonder Shawn ended up a psychic detective, how do you just do something else after being raised so specifically like that? And no wonder he-he buys EasyBake Ovens and goofs off all the time, he had it so strict as a kid…”

“Mmmmm… let’s not excuse every antic, O’Hara. A lot fo it is still just him being a jackass.”

“I won’t get into this with you again, Carlton.”

“Good, I don’t want to get into it again either. … Heads up.”

Jules closes the notebook and tucks it into a desk drawer as swiftly and inconspicuously as possible, Lassie doing the same for his file. Henry walks past them, barley sparing a glance as he makes his way somewhere else.

Jules stares daggers at him so intensely that if dropped to the ground covered with enough puncture wounds to imitate Julias Caesar, Lassiter would think it was a mild scene all things considered.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s three weeks since Jules found the notebook when Shawn rolls over in bed, puts his arm around, and mumbles “I have an eidetic memory.”

Jules puts her book down and looks at Shawn with furrowed brows. “What?”

Shawn sighs and sits up properly. “I have an eidetic memory,” he says again, “And… I don’t like looking back, because I remember everything perfectly. Which means I usually remember what I felt perfectly too, and it usually wasn’t great feelings.” He can’t look her in the eyes this time, either, but instead of the tense, protective body language of before, he’s holding a pillow close to his chest and slightly burying his face into it, almost sagging around it.

Jules starts to rub his back. She knows how hard this kind of… difficult emotional discussion, is for him. Now she even knows why- suspects why, really, because not all of it is proven in full, but still she thinks she can cout is as knowing. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“About the memory?”

“Yeah. That sounds… really difficult to deal with, Shawn. Does Gus know?”

“Yeah, he knows. I think other than my dad, and… and you, he’s the only person who knows.”

“Shawn…”

“I just, I just want you to know… that I’m not asking you to drop it for no reason,” Shawn says, “Or-or because I don’t feel like it’s important. I know it is, I do. I just…”

“Don’t want to relive a lot of it,” Jules says softly. “... Shawn, does this mean you remember everything perfectly? All the time?”

“Eh… fifty-fifty. The ADHD gets in the way sometimes.”

“... But when it doesn’t?”

“I just try not to think about a lot of it.” Shawn moves again, to look her in the eyes, He takes a deep breath, and he looks a little pained. This kind of thing is painful for him, he’s so unsure how to navigate it. “I have to keep moving forward, Jules. It’d be so… so easy to just get stuck, forever, in all the stuff stored in my head. And I’m really, really trying to, I mean that. It’s difficult, and I’m not… always great at it, but I’m trying.”

“And you’re worried we’ll set you back?”

“No! No, I… I don’t know.” Shawn lets Jules pull him close to her chest and begin running her hand through his hair. “My dad and I don’t solve stuff, Jules. We just… argue over it. I’m getting tired of it.”

“... I understand.” She kisses the top of his head. “But I don’t like him being in charge of you when you’re a grown man anymore.”

“You think I do? … But it’s making him a lot happier than he’s been in a long time.”

“You should be happy too, Shawn.”

“Hey. Hey, I am happy.” He looks up into her eyes. “Look at me right now. I’m being cradled like a sweet little baby seal by the most beautiful, badass woman in the entire world. Of course I’m happy.”

Jules laughs a little and contorts a bit to kiss him on the mouth. “I’m glad you told me that, Shawn. And I promise, I won’t ask you to relive anything else for me.”

“... But you’re not going to stop investigating my dad, are you?”

“Did you stop with mine?”

“... Fair enough.” Shawn lays his head back down, and soon enough Jules hears soft snoring from him and mumbled phrases in his sleep.

…

An eidetic memory. Perfect recall.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Jules goes over everything they have so far knowing Shawn has a perfect memory, it makes her angry to such a degree that she thinks it might kill her. Not literally, but it feels strong enough.

She has some of Shawn’s old report cards, some statements she got from former teachers via social media contact, and some copies of pages of one of Gus’s old journals laid out in front of her, and she sees a pattern.

Shawn didn’t do good in school. His report cards are less than average, and are packed with notes about how he doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t seem to absorb any information, and doesn’t remember anything he’s taught. The statements from the teachers describe Shawn as hyperactive, passionate about everything but his schoolwork, and having difficulty with staying observant in class.

Gus’s old journals are full of the same, but also the opposite. Shawn didn’t pay attention in school, but sometimes he could pull something the teacher said from his memory word for word without even trying, and then a few entries later Gus would mention Shawn failed a test on that exact subject. Shawn got beat up because he told a bully he memorized the pattern of answers used in the math tests, but his dad told the teacher and let Shawn know he was doing it. And most of all, Gus writes about how freaky his friend’s ability to look at people and figure them out is. How Shawn notices almost everything almost all the time, and usually makes some dramatic conclusion that isn’t right, but he still notices things and Gus can’t figure out how Shawn fingers things out.

Detective training, and an eidetic memory, and psychic visions. Jules is now pretty sure that Shawn covers up some of his deductions using his visions- he’s known enough impossible information that they can’t possibly all be deductions in disguise, but when she thinks back there’s a few times where it’s obvious in hindsight he used his abilities to cover up the fact that he’s an incredible, highly-trained detective.

Maybe she’s jumping to a conclusion, but she finds herself thinking ‘Because Henry made him hate that he can do it so well,’ as she pieces it all together.

Gus’s journals lend a lot of credit to that theory. Shawn is smart, and Gus knows it, but Shawn acts dumb sometimes and Gus doesn’t understand why, and then Gus mentions that it’s weird that Henry kept Shawn up all night before to stakeout their porch and now Shawn is tired during Little League and Henry tells him to get his head in the game because Henry is the coach.

Henry is the coach, Henry is the chaperone on the field trip, Henry is their Scout Master- he’s in charge of every part of Shawn’s life except for school. And Maddie is rarely brought up, even when Gus writes about spending all day or night or even weekend at the Spencer house. Jules hasn’t seen Shawn’s Mom since Yang almost blew her up, and she just figured that Maddie wanted to stay out of Santa Barbara after that, understandably. She’s getting a different feeling about Maddie staying away now. It seems a lack of presence was her main impression in Shawn’s life, or at least, Shawn’s life through the lens of Child Gus.

So it was basically just Henry. And her heart aches for the thought of someone being stuck in a bad marriage, basically raising a kid alone, and that kid being as hyper and curious and chaotic as Shawn. But the ache is smothered in the sense of righteous rage when she reads other entries about things like a girl throwing a ball at Shawn and missing, and an ostrich choking on the ball, and Henry dragging Shawn away. The entry goes on to say that Shawn told Gus that Henry didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t do it, even after then-superior officer Captain Connors came in and tried to vouch for Shawn.

Henry always assumed the worst. Assumes, the worst, still.

Shawn tries so hard, sometimes, with his dad, and Jules is starting to realize that Henry doesn’t put the same effort in. He tries some, she knows it, she’s seen it, but she also sees him constantly berate, put down, and insult Shawn, publicly and privately.

Suddenly she remembers something from when Shawn went undercover on the dating show, something she’d been too upset over about Shawn being there at all to really take in in the moment.

“I’m sorry, this woman is way too good for my son. If it was me, I’d vote no.”

She doesn’t have Shawn’s memory, so without rewatching the clip she can’t be totally sure those are Henry’s exact words, but she’s certain that it’s the exact sentiment.

First of all, she takes a little offense to that for herself. But secondly and more strongly, she takes offense for Shawn. As she thinks about it she can remember the way Shawn tried to cover up the awkwardness in the clip, the way the girl on the show whispered “Is this a joke?” and the way it absolutely was not. The way Henry said that on TV, to Shawn’s face, with no hint of shame.

“O’Hara.” She looks up to see Lassiter holding a cup of coffee and a bagel for her. She takes them and Lassiter says, “There’s more steam coming out of your ears than there is that cup.”

“Sorry,” she sighs. “I just… I don’t know if I can control myself tomorrow when Henry comes back in. The more I dig into this, the more I want to just- go back in time and pick little Shawn up and take him somewhere better.”

“Well as much as we don’t like it, O’Hara, Spencer is who he is because he was raised the way he was raised.”

“I know. And I like, who Shawn is!”

“Inexplicably.”

“Carlton.”

“Mmm.”

“Anyway… I love Shawn, and who he is, all of him, but I still wish he could’ve been who he is without going through all of this. It’s not okay.”

“No. No, it’s not.” Lassiter sighs. “Look, O’Hara, put the case down for a while. At this point we’ve got enough to at least make The Chief doubt some of Henry’s intentions and judgements when it comes to Spencer and, well, that was the goal.”

“... Yeah. Yes, okay, I will… I will put this down for a few days.” Jules closes up the file and puts it back into her drawer. “Shawn is still less than happy I’m working on this, anyway. He understands why, but I know he wishes he didn’t.” He probably understands a lot of things he wishes he didn’t. Jules has had to grapple with the realization that she actually doesn’t know as much about how Shawn’s mind works as she thought she knew, and that it’s possible she’ll never know a lot of it. There’s more than just psychic visions to the mystery of his mind, and some of those mysteries are locked up with a key cast out of self-resentments and resentments of his dad.

God, she hopes she can keep up a poker face when Henry comes in.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her file is missing from her desk the next day, and so is Lassiter’s. They both know why.

They march over to Henry’s desk just as Gus comes in to collect a check, and all three end up standing over Henry as he openly and unashamedly reads through the Spencer Upbringing Case File. Gus takes a step back when he realizes that’s what’s happening, as does Lassiter.

But not because of Henry.

Jules looks murderous.

Henry purses his mouth in a frown and nods, raising up the file and then closing it and tossing it onto his desk in one smooth movement. “It’s comprehensive,” he says, like he’s grading a paper. “But it’s a bunch of biased bull.”

“Give them back.” Jule’s voice is ice-cold.

Henry shrugs, moving his head side to side for a second, still frowning, and then says, “Nah.” He takes the files, and drops them in the trash. “I think you owe me an explanation for why the head detective and his partner are investigating the way I raised my son. Why’d Shawn put you up to this?”

“He didn’t.”

Henry scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

Jules slams one hand onto Henry’s desk. The whole bullpen goes quiet.

“I was helping Shawn get something from your house, and I found a notebook,” she says.

“Oh, so, you found one of Shawn’s little projects where he exaggerated things to make himself look like a victim of the world?”

“I found the writings of a little kid who didn’t seem to realize at the time of writing that being locked in a hot car trunk and digging through broken glass for Easter Eggs wasn’t normal.”

Henry laughs, crossing his arms. “That’s what you have a problem with? It’s called training, detective. You went through it yourself.”

“When I was an adult, by my choice, and I sure as hell never had to dig through glass.”

“You’re really hung up on that.”

“Because it’s genuinely evil!”

Henry’s smug look melts into a scowl. “How dare you.”

“How dare I?! Do you understand how much all of this is still affecting Shawn, even right now?! He can barely talk about all of this!” “Oh, well, he sure seem capable of reminding me of it.”

“Because you did it! You’re the only other person in the entire world who understood what was done to him in the name of training because you did it!”

“Done to h- you’re overreacting, detective!”

“I, agree, what is going on out here?” Chief Vick hurries over to Henry’s desk from her own. “Detectives, there had better be a damn good reason-”

“There is, Chief.” Lassiter reaches into the trashcan and pulls out the files.

“Karen, Detective O’Hara has allowed her romantic entanglement with my son to-”

“Henry was borderline abusive during Shawn’s childhood,” Jules interrupts, facing her Chief. Chief Vick’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open, a disbelieving laugh escaping her even as she accepts the files and flips them open. “You understand what it is you’re alleging, O’Hara, and against who?”

“I do, Chief, and I think our case file speaks for itself.” All eyes are on them now. Jules doesn’t back down. “I’m well aware of my emotional ties to this case, but I assure you I’m not allowing it to cloud my judgment. If I was, I wouldn’t have used the word borderline to describe the conclusions I’ve come to.”

“Karen, this is ridiculous.”

But Chief Vick is focused on the files in her hands. Her eyes flick up to Henry. “Is it?” She looks over to Gus, who’s been watching with the quiet tension of a prey animal waiting to make a run for it. “Mister Guster, can you genuinely testify to the validity and accuracy of the claims in these files?”

“Oh, um, well, most of those are from my own journals.” Gus’s eyes flick between Henry and Jules. “I’d say that’s even more reliable than just plain memory.”

“It certainly is.” Chief Vick turns her eyes back to the file. “Henry, I think after I’m done going through these we’re going to have a chat about some of your current responsibilities and extent of authority over consultants.”

“Oh, come on, Karen!” Henry looks around at the entire precinct staring, and judging. “This is completely unfounded, and-and blown way out of propor-!”

Henry doesn’t finish the sentence because Juliet O’Hara punches him in the nose.

There’s gasps from everyone in the room. Jules’s fist is bloodied. Henry’s nose went CRUNCH! when her fist made contact.For a long moment it’s like the whole room has collectively stopped breathing.

“I don’t make unfounded accusations, Henry,” Jules breathes. “Especially not when I have been building a case for over a month, and have watched Shawn completely close off whenever I asked him about this.”

Henry holds his nose, looking at Jules with fear that Lassiter and Gus don’t think is nearly intense enough. “Juliet,” Henry pants, blood streaming out from between his fingers. “This is insane.”

“Quiet, Spencer.” Lassiter moves Jules a little farther away. Her fist is still raised. “I won’t tolerate you disrespecting my partner, especially not in the same way you do your son.”

“What?! You can’t believe all this too, Lassiter.”

“You know I’m not Shawn’s biggest fan, but if you think what O’Hara has done over the last month is anything less than the best damn investigation possible then I have to seriously reconsider some of our shared opinions of your son’s work.”

Gus glances at a box of tissues on Henry’s desk- and then subtly moves to knock them on the floor and kicks them away.

“Herny, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the precinct for a few days while this gets handled. O’Hara, I’m going to need to speak with you in my office.”

Jules lowers her fist, and nods. She knows she can’t just punch Henry and get away with it scot-free, and she accepts that.

No-one moves to help Henry. Not a single soul. He grumbles as he makes his way past Gus to grab a different box of tissues.

“It’s like he just sucks the respect out of people,” Henry grumbles.

CRACK!

No-one is more surprised than Gus when his fist slams into Henry’s jaw. Gus reels away immediately, shrinking and cradling his hand, as Henry goes down.

“Mister Guster!” Chief Vick moves forward to try and catch Henry.

“Uuuuh!” Guss whines, shaking his hand. “I-I mean, you don’t get to say that about Shawn! He asked us not to keep doing this! You gotta stop assuming the worst of him all the time!”

“When he earns it!” Henry barks out, then groans and spits. It’s mostly blood.

“You won’t let him earn it!” Jules is furious again. “How many killers does he have to catch for you to see that your son is an amazing man?!”

“It’s not about catching killers,” Henry says, spitting again. “It’s about growing up.”

“Says the grown man who can’t even tell his son ‘I love you’.”

“He doesn’t say it either.”

“That’s not helping your case, Spencer.” Lassiter has his eyes on Jules and Gus. “And considering I’m the only one on said case who hasn’t taken a shot at you yet, I’d say keep your mouth shut.”

“Oh, what do you know.” Henry spits a third time. The Chief looks about ready to punch him herself. “Father-son relationships are complicated, especially when the father wants what’s best for the son and the son just wants to throw everything away and get himself killed!”

“You wanted him to be a cop, Spencer, you didn’t exactly put him on a path to a peaceful and easy life.”

“I put him on the right path, and he never appreciated it, and that is what your case file should say!”

“You know what, Spencer?” Lassiter takes a step closer to the bleeding man. “I’ve put up with a lot of crap from both you and your son over the years, and you two are a lot more similar than you think. But one thing I can say that Shawn has over you is that he doesn’t mean it when he says stupid crap like that.”

“He looks up to you, you ass,” Jules adds. “And he is willing to put aside all of the things you say and do to him to have a good relationship with you. Do you understand how incredible that is? That you don’t even have to work to have him in your life? That he comes to you no matter how many times you tear into him for it?”

“He comes to me because he never listens when he needs to.” Henry’s face is starting to become very purple as the bruises set in. “I don’t know what he’s been telling you, but he needs, my help.”

“Exactly! And he feels like you’re reliable enough to give it to him, and you do! So why do you treat that as though it’s a fault? Do you have any idea what I would have given as a kid, and even now, to be able to just-just go up to my dad and say ‘I need help,’ and have him be there to help me? That means the world!”

“Not to Shawn.” Henry looks pained beyond just the broken nose and possible broken jaw. “The kid is too focused on himself.”

“You don’t know your son at all, then.” Jules turns and walks with The Chief to her office.

Gus shakes his head, grabs the check out of Henry’s paperwork pile, checks that it’s signed, and leaves.

“Oh, really? It’s up to me to take him to the hospital?” Lassiter looks around and then huffs. “Alright, Spencer. Don’t bleed on my seats, or my dashboard, or anything but yourself.”

“I’m not a bad father,” Henry says, still holding his nose. “I care about my son.”

“Yeah, and somehow Shawn knows that even though you act the way you do.” Lassie buckles Henry in for him so that the nose remains pinched. “But here’s the thing, Spencer. Your son is an arrogant, attention-hogging, impulsive, completely absurd person, and he didn’t just become like that out of a vacuum.”

“Yes he did. I did everything I could. I did everything right as much as possible.”

Lassiter sighs as he gets into the driver’s seat. “You seriously think that? You’d be okay with your grandkid being raised that way?”

“If they had Shawn’s potential, yes.”

“... Dammit.” Lassiter turns to Henry, and punches him in the gut. Henry coughs, and then chokes on his own blood, and then coughs again.

“What the hell?!” Henry gets out between hacks.

“O’Hara would’ve done it. I feel like I owed it to her. … And honestly, Spencer, after compiling that damn case, I’ve been wanting to do it for myself anyway. I already knew you were an overbearing perfectionist with a control issue, but you wishing your son was more like that than he is is even worse.”

“Shawn’s no perfectionist,” Henry wheezes.

“But he is overbearing with a control issue more often than not. Like I said inside, you two are a lot more similar than you think, and frankly I blame you for the parts of Shawn that go past mild annoyance and into infuriating obstacle.”

“I’d never just hand a collar over to save someone’s ego,” Henry coughs out.

“See, that’s where I wish Shawn wasn’t like you.”

“He’s handed you a collar twice.”

“What? He has not.”

And Henry must be a little delirious from the repeated blows, because Lassiter is pretty sure his next words of “See, this is why Shawn should’ve been head detective,” wouldn’t come out of him otherwise.

Lassiter grips the steering wheel tighter and makes a sharp turn into the hospital parking lot. “Well he’s not, and from the sound of things he never would’ve been anyway.”

“He could’ve been a perfect cop.”

“He’d have been miserable and you know it.”

“He’d be doing things right.”

“You’re hopeless.” Lassiter isn’t any gentler helping Henry out of the car than he was helping him in. “I’m not picking you back up when they’re done with you.”

“I’ll call Shawn.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will.” And Shawn will come, and probably be mad on his dad’s behalf, and will definitely be mad at all three of the punchers, because he loves his dad enough to overlook years and years of mistreatment that most people would probably consider ground for cutting contact. “And Spencer? If you ever insult O’Hara’s work again, or say anything that gets her that angry, I will help her cover up your disappearance.”

“You don’t mean that,” Henry scoffs.

“Try me.” Lassiter gets back in his car. “And if I hear from her that you’re still badmouthing your son to his face, I’ll make you disappear myself.”

And then he drives away.

And Henry walks into the hospital alone.

122 notes · View notes

paingoes · 20 days ago

Text

Rubies - Trial III

the prosecution makes its argument

(Content: living weapon whumpee, past trauma, referenced child abuse, referenced caning, past emotional abuse, war, guilt, parental death mention, child death mention, emotional whump, crying, angst, comfort)

In the Emperor’s quarters, the dead far outnumbered the living. Delta knelt upon the bearskin run and ran his fingers through its thick white fur. He wanted to reach for the mouth of it, to feel the teeth, but he dared not move without permission. The fresh cane marks along his calves made sure of that.

“Here, boy.”

The Emperor had taken to calling him boy, which he found strange and overfamiliar. To his handlers, he had always been One-Oh-Seven. More and more, it has simply been Delta. There was no need for numeration when there were no others.

He rose up off of the carpet, taking silent steps until he stood in front of the weary form of the old man.

The doctor was nowhere to be seen. For this, he was grateful.

A hand heavy with time and with rings pressed against his forehead. Did he look sick? He didn’t mean to. The Emperor would find no fever there, at any rate. Delta ran cold.

“Are the stars all in alignment tonight, poppet?” He withdrew his hand. “Will today be a good day?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

There was no gap in between their words. There was no hesitation. He would be punished for lying just as quickly as for failing, so he was careful not to lie. Of course today would be a good day.

Delta was excellent.

But the Emperor still searched him. It was not illness he had sensed.

“Is everything alright?”

The concern in his voice only made the sting worse. Delta looked down in shame.

It was sullenness. That was all. He was cold all over, soaked with shame. It was bad, he knew. He was supposed to take all punishment without complaint, but Delta so seldom needed correction. It hurt all the more when it did come. He couldn’t get the chill of it to leave him. He’d been torn into.

Unfit, the doctor had said. Unworthy of the privilege. Disgraceful.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Delta responded, the shame of it deepening. He hadn’t meant to sulk about it. He was only proving their point.

There was nothing wrong with his ability to perform, which is all the Emperor had really been asking. A little emotional hurt had never impacted his powers before — thank god for that. Today would be no exception.

With that, the Emperor rose up. Delta followed a half-step behind him. He was getting on in age. It was never hard to keep up.

They walked all the way past the war room, out onto the deck of the ship. The air was thin in the upper atmosphere, but it was getting more bearable upon the descent. There were a collection of advisors and generals gathered about by the railing. Delta kept his head bowed respectfully, careful not to look them dead on. With the Emperor there, he knew they wouldn’t dare touch him. But it was a deeply ingrained habit and one he saw no reason to break.

There was a pressure at his shoulder. It was meant to be reassuring, but it only scared him worse. He could see the target below. Its perimeter was painted in a pale orange color.

They wanted showy this time.

Space was made around him as they clicked the collar off of his neck. He closed his eyes. The light was painful. All the hearts beating so close were distracting.

Disgraceful. He felt the sting of fear in his chest and prickling at his eyes. It was going to hurt. He was getting frigid in a way he hadn’t before. He didn’t want to be hurt.

He zeroed in on the target anyway, visualizing its delimitation among the pale. He wished they’d given him something to hold onto. All he had now were his own hands and his nails cutting indents into the palms. Showy. The world snapped as the target was turned to dust.

The collar clicked back on. Blood was already pooling in his throat and in his sinuses. The migraine aura descended. He swayed, but not fall. The Emperor’s hand steadied him there. It moved calming circles into his back. He heard the applause, but to him it sounded miles away.

“Incredible.” The Emperor had whispered into his ear. “You were wonderful.”

And like that, he was glowing. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t supposed to feel a thing, but the warmth of the praise made itself at home in him. It was the only time he let himself feel anything close to pride — and he could have lived in its light. It was almost worth it. He felt sick enough to die and it was almost worth it.

~~~~~~

Silas placed the blank sheet of paper down onto the desk and slid it towards him. His expression was grim.

“I want you to write down every target you can remember hitting. Names and dates. It doesn’t have to be exact.”

The room was small and dark, not much bigger than a broom closet. Maryam sat beside him at the table. He had a legal right to keep her there — and thought he had not asked her to, she volunteered to accompany him.

Delta rocked his leg a little as he felt at the rough graphite of the pencil.

He took the order for what it was. He had a good sense for it. There were some things he struggled to remember, but in general, his memory was better than most. He had been allowed no distractions. He’d had no choice but to focus in.

He started with the earlier days of his imperial career — the battleship he’d crushed on the water, the first show of strength before the purchase was made. And then there was all that came after. He was never told until the day of what he would be after, but he remembered them all the same.

Marisol

Pyrha

Holliday

Basalt

Clover

Killian

Versus

He wrote mechanically, appending the dates as best as he could. He’d already made up this list in his mind several times. He’d have offered it to Levon if things had gone differently, but as it stood, he’d never been given the chance.

Regina

Ursa

Deidra

Anatol

Timber

Jocobe

Weissan

He soon ran out of space on the page. He write in a smaller script around the margins.

“That’s enough,” Maryam said, eyeing the prosecutor nervously. Delta kept writing.

“You can stop now,” Silas agreed, reaching to take the paper back.

“I’m not done,” Delta snapped.

He recoiled just as soon as he’d said it. He didn’t know where he’d gotten the nerve to speak like that, to talk back at all, and especially not to them. He dropped the pencil and drew back into the chair, fully expecting to get smacked in the mouth, bare minimum.

The hit didn’t come. Silas took the paper and examined it without much reaction. It was a long list — and that was only with the Emperor. He hadn’t even gotten to Paris yet.

“Can I ask you something? For my own curiosity?” Silas said.

Delta looked up at him.

“About how far away from the target are you when activated?”

“…A mile, sir.” Delta tapped at the chair.

He nodded. “What’s the closest you’ve ever been to someone you’ve killed?”

He heard Maryam scoff beside him, but he thought it was a fair question, if an abrupt one. He had to think about it for a second. As the answer came to him, he felt the shock of ocean water, stealing just as much breath from him as it had the first time.

He held his hands up to demonstrate, having no other way to quantify the distance. Right up against his body. He’d garroted him, wrapped the chains around his neck and held him there. The water had done the rest. He hadn’t even used his powers.

“Daniel Martino,” he answered quietly, “The same night I got picked up.”

It was his most recent kill — and if Levon’s word was anything to believe in, it would be the last.

He hadn’t told anyone about it until now.

“Your handler?” Silas asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Silas and Maryam exchanged a look he could not read.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t fault you for that.” Silas folded the paper into his pocket.

The clemency caught him off guard. Delta looked down, embarrassed all the same.

The shades were drawn in the conference room. It was a stormy day outside — Delta could imagine how the static might’ve felt on his skin had he been out there. For now, all he could do was imagine it.

“Delta,” the prosecutor drew his attention back, “I asked you a question.”

Silas was sharper with him when there was a crowd. He was familiar with this tactic. It didn’t register to him as a surprise, only as a kind of dull pain.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Delta said weakly, but sincerely. “…Could you repeat it, please?”

He usually would not have been bold enough to make requests, but then he usually wouldn’t have zoned out in the first place.

“Were the accounts of lateral violence within the Institute true?” He asked, then clarified: “Were the students there encouraged to hurt one another?”

“Yes, sir.” Delta closed his eyes. He did not need to guess the next question.

“Did you ever use your powers to injure the other students?”

Not because he wanted to. He didn’t know if he was allowed to answer with that. It had been a yes-or-no question — and his handlers had gotten mad whenever he tried to explain himself around it. He didn’t know if the same rules would apply here.

“Yes, sir.”

He caught the concerned looks of the others at the conference table. The council members had shown him no scorn so far, in spite of everything. He dreaded losing it. But in his mind, it was an inevitability. He couldn’t make himself look back.

“Did you ever kill any of them?”

It wasn’t the same as injuring. The administration had loved to use him as a threat long before he was in the imperial service. He’d always be the first they brought out they sent to scare the others into submission. After the first few times — cracked ribs, broken arms, and painful shocks — any actual violence wasn’t needed. The threat alone was enough.

That wasn’t the same as killing. While the punishment had been painful, the kills were quick. Those were for safety alone. Nobody ever died as a punishment. They died because they were about to kill everyone else.

It’d been a yes-or-no question. The answer was yes, obviously.

“Yes, sir.”

He kept his eyes down. Kitty shifted a bit to his left. He didn’t want to see the way her face changed when she found out.

Silas ended his line of questioning. The lights dimmed further as the video began to play.

PYRHA 08

SOL 07

The caption showed against the grainy white backdrop. He could see the town in his mind before it was shown on the screen. It was before the disaster. Jade was pushed up into the edges of the home. All their streets were still cobblestone. From above, as he had seen it, the town looked to be built into a crescent moon shape. The blue tops of buildings stood out against the pale sand.

“…There was this burning, endless light…”

The voiceover played over still frames of the cloud. The images clipped together in animation. He saw the tip of the airship approaching the edge of the sky.

Whoever had produced the documentary had no knowledge of the cause. How could they? It was a superweapon, they were sure, but how could they have known what?

All they could do was to quantify it. The ground temperature had reached the same peak as the sun. The duration lasted ten to fifteen seconds — 12.945 seconds, Delta corrected in his mind. There’d been no warning. 2,031 people had died. About five hundred families.

The focus was the math — and more than that, the footage. Few of his attacks had ever been so well documented. But almost as an aside, they had spoken to some of the eye witnesses.

A girl with chestnut brown hair smiled sadly into the camera as she held up the picture. The image quality changed again as a video from inside her house began to play. He could not tell if she was the infant or the child holding onto it inside the cedar living room. The camera shifted angles to capture their mother grinning on the couch, clapping along to the silent song.

There was some primordial ache in him that would not sleep. It’d always burned too hot. After the first few times, he’d learned not to touch it.

He felt it burning now, pressed up against his skin with no escape.

“And my friends always made fun of me for being such a townie, because I had to ride the bus two hours just to get to school,” the girl chirped softly, “And I remember that morning, my mom telling me not to stay too long after classes. She wanted me to come straight home that day because-“

Her voice broke.

“Because we were going to go out as a family.”

The clip cut away to the moment the sky tore open.

Delta stood up before he knew what he was doing. He stumbled blindly away from the table, pushing out into the hall.

He’d taken her parents from her. Ripped her away from them, the same way he’d been ripped away from his own. The loss cut through him sharper than he could ever remember.

He was crying. He couldn’t stop it. The sorrow and fear enveloped him in equal measures. He’d walked out. He hadn’t been dismissed, he’d never walked out like that in all his life. But he couldn’t stand to hear anymore. He didn’t want them to see him cry.

He wanted his mom. It was silly. He didn’t even know what she looked like. She clearly hadn’t wanted him.

“Delta?” Levon called after him. He stopped dead. He was recall trained — he wouldn’t dare move farther. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He didn’t think he could.

He sank to the floor instead. He tried to hide his tears, but his body shook from the effort. He was still good about being quiet when he was hurt. He was trying very hard to be good about it.

A soft sob escaped him anyway. Levon bent down onto the floor beside him.

“That was too far. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.” Levon placed one hand lightly onto his shoulderblade. His thumb worked over the knots that had formed there, so bound up and painful.

“I’m sorry,” Delta said. It was always the first thing to come out of his mouth these days, no matter how much they tried to correct it.

He remembered how young he was at the time. He remembered how proud he’d been.

“I didn’t know,” Delta said through tears, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I know, baby,” Levon’s voice got quiet. It didn’t echo. No one else could have heard. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Then, even quieter, the admission: “It’s not your fault.”

Delta sobbed into his sleeve, leaning over so that his face almost touched the ground. He wished he could stop it. It was taking everything out of him.

He felt a gentle tug at his sleeve. It was an invitation. He accepted it before he could stop himself, too desperate for any semblance of comfort. Levon pulled him into the hug. His cries grew muffled as he hid his face in the fabric of the shirt.

“I’m so sorry, baby.” Levon said, the pain audible in his voice. He carded his hands through the boy’s hair, doing all he could to soothe him.

“I didn’t mean to,” came the soft whine in response.

~~~

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