Lydia is watching from behind Enri now, her narrow hips leaned against the back of a sofa, her arms folded across her chest. She cocks her head at the exchange, regarding how the boy holds himself as though this is consummately fascinating.
(It is fascinating. To see the change worked over their son.)
(What is not fascinating. What is upsetting: to hear their son speak so to Morgan. To witness Morgan's agitation. To see him shift uncertain, because this is not something that can be bitten out of Enri.) (It has, she thinks dryly, been bitten in to Enri.) (She doesn't like it. She doesn't like seeing Morgan on precarious ground.)
Enri behaves like a changeling child. This is not unusual for him, save that his behavior occurs at the wrong time. He was, in memory, always loving. Always eager to please, near-desperate to please (they knew, or she knew and so Morgan must have known, that this was owed to some childish belief that they would take him away from his exile and bring their little princeling home.) (How it...)
(How it broke her. Many times over. To leave her sons.)
(To deny her sons anything they asked. And to deny them in speech.)
Regardless of tangential reasoning, whereas Felix retained an almost neutral distance with his parents, Enri adores Morgan. It was only when the pair of them would leave him that he threw his tantrums like so.
This is a tantrum.
This isn't defiance. This is a dog over a favored bone. This is a Puppy, snapping to keep at his game with Darius Scarlett. (There, an intuition roused and utilized in the other room: that Enri has found thrill in submission. (And why not. He was always so eager to please.) Enri has found delight in harm received - and inflicted. She saw the bruises on Scarlett's throat. (And why not. Like father, like son.) The boy (her son) has learned better than a brace of boys before him, and wrested a sort of control over Darius. (Think how Darius flung himself at the door. Think how his shouts sounded, far from collected. Think how he looked when she observed him.) Darius might well be exactly what Enri claims.
More importantly. Worth the consideration of now, and this moment:
Enri is, it seems, deeply embroiled in a - for lack of any better word - scene. For all intents and purposes, Enri might as well not be here. 'Puppy' is here. Liken it, she thinks, to how they are not Morgan and Lydia in the woods. How the return to Morgan and Lydia and a world of steel and glass necessitates mutual regard, mutual comprehension. The mundane word for something complicated, intimate, and often disregarded: aftercare.
What would happen, she wonders, if someone were to sever her from Morgan before she was ready? Before Morgan was ready? Who would she wound, and how would he rage?
They erred in yanking him away. (He'll likely begin to cry in a moment.) (Someone will need to speak with Darius if this is to continue.)
(Will this. Continue.)
(Will it end badly?)
It won't do to speak discordant with Morgan. She waits, watching her son seethe, tearing himself to pieces between shouting outrage at his father, cringing his shame before his mother, and his eyes ever and ever flickering to the door. Darius, Darius, Darius, the ghost and elephant and obsession in the room.
Well.
Her expression revealing nothing (save for a brief connection of gaze with her husband), she speaks. She emulates, as best she can, the speech patterns of Darius Scarlett - though it's been years. And she hasn't the faintest idea whether his tone alters, for his boys.
But she suspects amusement. She suspects pitch, and tone, and perhaps, for Enri, indulgence. "Go lie down, Puppy. Rest on the bed."
(Were she someone other, this would feel sickening. This emulation. This necessity of performance.) (It doesn't feel good, to be certain.)
Enri stares back at her, caught in horror and caught in confusion and simply caught. She raises one brow, unmoved. "Now."
And he goes. Of course he goes. No fight, no argument. No complaint. (The minute he's on that bed, and away from a brawl, away from the door, she knows this will crash on him. A rise from the fog that takes one, and into reality. He'll weep with shame.)
It's only then that she allows herself to share unspoken words with her husband: a press of her mouth, a shift of eyes, an abbreviated shake of her head. Oh, he's in deep. And. He's not here with us. And. Patience.
no subject
(It is fascinating. To see the change worked over their son.)
(What is not fascinating. What is upsetting: to hear their son speak so to Morgan. To witness Morgan's agitation. To see him shift uncertain, because this is not something that can be bitten out of Enri.) (It has, she thinks dryly, been bitten in to Enri.) (She doesn't like it. She doesn't like seeing Morgan on precarious ground.)
Enri behaves like a changeling child. This is not unusual for him, save that his behavior occurs at the wrong time. He was, in memory, always loving. Always eager to please, near-desperate to please (they knew, or she knew and so Morgan must have known, that this was owed to some childish belief that they would take him away from his exile and bring their little princeling home.) (How it...)
(How it broke her. Many times over. To leave her sons.)
(To deny her sons anything they asked. And to deny them in speech.)
Regardless of tangential reasoning, whereas Felix retained an almost neutral distance with his parents, Enri adores Morgan. It was only when the pair of them would leave him that he threw his tantrums like so.
This is a tantrum.
This isn't defiance. This is a dog over a favored bone. This is a Puppy, snapping to keep at his game with Darius Scarlett. (There, an intuition roused and utilized in the other room: that Enri has found thrill in submission. (And why not. He was always so eager to please.) Enri has found delight in harm received - and inflicted. She saw the bruises on Scarlett's throat. (And why not. Like father, like son.) The boy (her son) has learned better than a brace of boys before him, and wrested a sort of control over Darius. (Think how Darius flung himself at the door. Think how his shouts sounded, far from collected. Think how he looked when she observed him.) Darius might well be exactly what Enri claims.
More importantly. Worth the consideration of now, and this moment:
Enri is, it seems, deeply embroiled in a - for lack of any better word - scene. For all intents and purposes, Enri might as well not be here. 'Puppy' is here. Liken it, she thinks, to how they are not Morgan and Lydia in the woods. How the return to Morgan and Lydia and a world of steel and glass necessitates mutual regard, mutual comprehension. The mundane word for something complicated, intimate, and often disregarded: aftercare.
What would happen, she wonders, if someone were to sever her from Morgan before she was ready? Before Morgan was ready? Who would she wound, and how would he rage?
They erred in yanking him away. (He'll likely begin to cry in a moment.) (Someone will need to speak with Darius if this is to continue.)
(Will this. Continue.)
(Will it end badly?)
It won't do to speak discordant with Morgan. She waits, watching her son seethe, tearing himself to pieces between shouting outrage at his father, cringing his shame before his mother, and his eyes ever and ever flickering to the door. Darius, Darius, Darius, the ghost and elephant and obsession in the room.
Well.
Her expression revealing nothing (save for a brief connection of gaze with her husband), she speaks. She emulates, as best she can, the speech patterns of Darius Scarlett - though it's been years. And she hasn't the faintest idea whether his tone alters, for his boys.
But she suspects amusement. She suspects pitch, and tone, and perhaps, for Enri, indulgence. "Go lie down, Puppy. Rest on the bed."
(Were she someone other, this would feel sickening. This emulation. This necessity of performance.) (It doesn't feel good, to be certain.)
Enri stares back at her, caught in horror and caught in confusion and simply caught. She raises one brow, unmoved. "Now."
And he goes. Of course he goes. No fight, no argument. No complaint. (The minute he's on that bed, and away from a brawl, away from the door, she knows this will crash on him. A rise from the fog that takes one, and into reality. He'll weep with shame.)
It's only then that she allows herself to share unspoken words with her husband: a press of her mouth, a shift of eyes, an abbreviated shake of her head. Oh, he's in deep. And. He's not here with us. And. Patience.