Post by Dean Harper on Oct 12, 2024 18:41:38 GMT
The camera comes on to Dean casually sitting in a church pew in what appears to be an abandoned church.
“I have always been a fan of revenge movies. Bloody cathartic violence where the audience doesn’t feel guilty about cheering for someone beating a dude's head in with a rock. All good when it’s in the name of revenge, right? That was the plan for this little gauntlet match you all demanded right? I mean, your faction isn’t doing bake sales for orphaned kids of war-torn countries, it wasn’t about changing the women’s division for the better but slapping some girls around. Then I fucked that all up by taking out the big hitters… So now it's good old-fashioned revenge.”
Dean drums his fingers on the pew, “Which hasn’t got any of you anywhere has it? Vivienne wanted the classical revenge in a cage match, beat her. Shea wanted her revenge for hurting her besties, ended up beating her, and got to take a couple of swings at my ex-husband. Who says I’m not handling the divorce well?” He tilts his head to the side, “And you are in this because I… beat up Shea? In a match, she asked for? In a match, every one of you demanded I sign up for? Where is the logic in that?”
“But fine.” He shrugs, “So let’s focus on what Mai Everstone can do. You win some matches, you do your little flippy thing. You’re as anxious as a small dog in a handbag most of the time. Honestly, I feel almost at a disadvantage here. This is as close as I get to kicking a puppy at work.”
“You want so badly to be loved. You just want to stand out. You want people to see you. But you are weighed down by the company you keep. Where is that little bird chirping so hard that she deserved to get a shot at Che after she fumbled and disappeared after winning the Queen’s Gambit case? Where is the angry girl who wanted more than anything to win the Iron Maiden? Where is your rage when it's not aimed at your blood relations wanting to reconnect?”
“You’ve let your flame get all small like a candle about to go out. All your ambitions are in the backseat because you have to be a team player. Because you want to be loved. Everything else is sacrificed.”
Dean was a lot of things. The most important thing to him was being a good father. He did everything he could to keep his darker impulses clear of his home so Damien would never see what kind of person he was. He let Damien watch a few matches but none of the ones that Dean was in. There had been a time when Dean had not only encouraged Damien to watch his grandfather’s matches but also the hero worship that sprung from it. Now Dean mostly picked more kid-friendly matches. Like the ones that had good people in them, such as Pax and his ilk. Something to enjoy about Dean’s career without ever knowing what kind of monster Dean was.
Halloween was the time of year when Dean let Damien see a little bit more of the things Dean liked. Damien was young but horror movies seemed to at least be something that they could really enjoy together.
Part of the way he was getting Damien into the spirit was by doing their own version of 30 Days of Halloween was a hand-selected different movie or episode that had a scary theme. Tonight was doing a couple of episodes of Batman the animated series that had been recommended online as fitting a Halloween theme. It was some way to deal with the Superhero kick Warren had infected him with. Not that Dean denied his son anything he wanted. But if Dean had to sit through another Marvel movie was was going to throw himself out the window. Cartoons he could deal with.
Damien was entranced and Dean was sitting casually on the couch behind him only paying half attention as he scrolled on his phone.
“Oh no!” Damien gasped, “Is he gonna burn Daddy?”
Dean looked up from his phone to the screen to see Batman coughing as fire was raging around him, “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
”Bruce.”
“What?...Can't be…”
“Bruce. Bruce, you have failed me.”
“Father?”
“You have disgraced the family name.”
Damien made a small sound and hugged Blue the dog closer to him. Dean set his phone down and moved to sit on the floor next to Damien.
“Hey…” Dean paused the episode and sat next to Damien rubbing his back, “If this is too much we can watch Scooby Doo again.”
“Is Batman gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, of course he will. Super Heroes always win, don’t they?” Dean offered, hugging Damien to him, and kissing the top of his head.
“Why is his dad saying such mean things?”
Dean was at a bit of a disadvantage in explaining which supervillain or whatever was causing this but he figured he could wing it, “Sometimes when we get really sad our minds play tricks on us and tell us that everyone we care about us would hate us. Could be that’s what the bad guy did. Just…like made those thoughts really loud.”
“Do you have thoughts like that?” Damien looked up at him.
“All the time.” Dean shrugged, “I think your mom would be disappointed in the things I’ve done since she died. That I dishonor her memory by some of the things I think or feel. Like if I love someone else besides her or the one person she co-signed off on that she’ll be disappointed or angry. I promised her I’d make sure you’d have a family and I worry I haven’t done a great job at that. But then I remember how much your mom loved you. How much she and I loved each other. She’d understand. She’d want us to be happy.”
“You think she would?”
“Yeah, buddy. I think she’d understand. You and me are a good team, aren’t we?”
“Yeah…I miss Dad though.”
Dean sighed, Damien’s therapist had been clear that this needed a gentle touch. As much as Dean knew he could poison Damien against Warren, he had to be a good parent, “Warren decided he didn’t want to be a team with me anymore, remember. So he’s not really an option. He cares about you and I support that but he can’t come back.”
“But teams aren’t two people.”
“Batman and uh, Robin are a team, aren’t they?”
“...I guess…But ...”
“And we have my family, don’t we? Pepaw, Grandma Tara, Grandma Shelly, Jeanie, Auntie Hayleigh, Uncle Eddie, Uncle Sabin, and little Auntie Lilith. That’s like an Avengers isn’t it?”
“But we don’t see them.”
“...Fair.”
“Did you do something at work to make them mad like you did Dad? That’s why Auntie Brooklyn and Auntie April stopped hanging out, isn’t it? Is there anyone who isn’t mad at you, Daddy?”
Dean chuckled darkly, he could guess where that detail came from. “Okay, real talk little man. Remember how we talked about why you couldn’t match my matches?”
“Yeah. Because you do bad things at work.”
“Exactly. I do bad things.” Dean kissed Damien’s head again, “Everyone has a skill and mine is doing bad things. And sometimes I do things that make people mad at me. And that’s okay. I am an Adult. I can handle that. But what happens at work has nothing to do with you.”
“But then it keeps going back to just being the two of us.”
“Sure, it does. And at some point, I will find someone for us to have more than that. Promise.” After 1,987 days Max would understand if Dean loved someone else. He’d already started to feel things he hadn’t felt since she died. The healing process was slow but…
“You can’t break a promise.”
“I could never break a promise to you, Damien,” Dean promised.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Damien sighed looking back at the TV.
“Hey…One more thing before we watch Batman.”
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“The important thing to remember is, that just because I do bad things does not mean you ever have to. There is no legacy or family name you have to live up to. I have trouble making friends and keeping people in our lives but that is not your fault. That’s just the way I am. You can be better. You should be better. And know no matter what happens, no matter what you do in life I will always love you and be proud of you.”
“There is one thing I understand better than anyone. That’s the chase of wanting to be loved and belonging.” Dean sighs. “I have been devoted to a few people in my life. Rowan, my father, Warren.”
Dean’s eyes darken. For a moment, there’s a flash of something raw beneath the surface—something vulnerable. He lets out a breath.
“It’s… like chasing something you can never catch,” his gaze distant. “You spend your whole life thinking that if you do everything right… if you just… become what they want, maybe—just maybe—you’ll finally be enough.”
His jaw tightens, and he shakes his head, a humorless laugh escaping. “But it never happens. No matter how much you believe in them, no matter how badly you want what feels like the simplest of requests… it’s like throwing yourself against a wall over and over again, hoping that one day it’ll break. But it doesn’t.”
“What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” Dean runs a hand through his hair. “You start convincing yourself that if you’re just stronger, tougher, more successful, maybe that’ll be the thing that finally makes them see you. Makes them proud. But deep down, you know the truth—you know it’ll never be enough.”
He pauses, his voice growing quieter, the anger fading into something more hollow. “You want so badly for them to love you, to look at you the way you always imagined someone should. But instead, all you get is this endless emptiness. And every time you try, every time you reach out, you just feel smaller.”
Dean looks down, his voice hardening again as he fights to push back the emotion creeping in. “You start to realize that it’s not about you. It’s never been about you. It’s about them. And you can’t make someone love you if they don’t know how.”
He lifts his head, eyes steely, “You tell yourself: ‘Hey you don’t need it, that you’ll be fine without it’. But deep down? Deep under everything? You know there’s a part of you that’ll always want it. Always. Like a drug.”
“So when I say I understand you, Mai. I see you. I see into the heart of you. You want to be cherished. You want to be loved. You joined The Murder to be noticed, to be loved, not just by the masses but by the members of The Murder. But they don’t love you. You are a tool. A tool to boost their numbers. You are a tool to try and get revenge where they failed. And you will fail just as much. And they will abandon you. Trust me, I know.”
“So consider this a mercy. What I do to you will be to just draw blood. But there are lots of ways to draw blood. I am excited to find out which works best for you, Little Bird.”
“I have always been a fan of revenge movies. Bloody cathartic violence where the audience doesn’t feel guilty about cheering for someone beating a dude's head in with a rock. All good when it’s in the name of revenge, right? That was the plan for this little gauntlet match you all demanded right? I mean, your faction isn’t doing bake sales for orphaned kids of war-torn countries, it wasn’t about changing the women’s division for the better but slapping some girls around. Then I fucked that all up by taking out the big hitters… So now it's good old-fashioned revenge.”
Dean drums his fingers on the pew, “Which hasn’t got any of you anywhere has it? Vivienne wanted the classical revenge in a cage match, beat her. Shea wanted her revenge for hurting her besties, ended up beating her, and got to take a couple of swings at my ex-husband. Who says I’m not handling the divorce well?” He tilts his head to the side, “And you are in this because I… beat up Shea? In a match, she asked for? In a match, every one of you demanded I sign up for? Where is the logic in that?”
“But fine.” He shrugs, “So let’s focus on what Mai Everstone can do. You win some matches, you do your little flippy thing. You’re as anxious as a small dog in a handbag most of the time. Honestly, I feel almost at a disadvantage here. This is as close as I get to kicking a puppy at work.”
“You want so badly to be loved. You just want to stand out. You want people to see you. But you are weighed down by the company you keep. Where is that little bird chirping so hard that she deserved to get a shot at Che after she fumbled and disappeared after winning the Queen’s Gambit case? Where is the angry girl who wanted more than anything to win the Iron Maiden? Where is your rage when it's not aimed at your blood relations wanting to reconnect?”
“You’ve let your flame get all small like a candle about to go out. All your ambitions are in the backseat because you have to be a team player. Because you want to be loved. Everything else is sacrificed.”
Dean was a lot of things. The most important thing to him was being a good father. He did everything he could to keep his darker impulses clear of his home so Damien would never see what kind of person he was. He let Damien watch a few matches but none of the ones that Dean was in. There had been a time when Dean had not only encouraged Damien to watch his grandfather’s matches but also the hero worship that sprung from it. Now Dean mostly picked more kid-friendly matches. Like the ones that had good people in them, such as Pax and his ilk. Something to enjoy about Dean’s career without ever knowing what kind of monster Dean was.
Halloween was the time of year when Dean let Damien see a little bit more of the things Dean liked. Damien was young but horror movies seemed to at least be something that they could really enjoy together.
Part of the way he was getting Damien into the spirit was by doing their own version of 30 Days of Halloween was a hand-selected different movie or episode that had a scary theme. Tonight was doing a couple of episodes of Batman the animated series that had been recommended online as fitting a Halloween theme. It was some way to deal with the Superhero kick Warren had infected him with. Not that Dean denied his son anything he wanted. But if Dean had to sit through another Marvel movie was was going to throw himself out the window. Cartoons he could deal with.
Damien was entranced and Dean was sitting casually on the couch behind him only paying half attention as he scrolled on his phone.
“Oh no!” Damien gasped, “Is he gonna burn Daddy?”
Dean looked up from his phone to the screen to see Batman coughing as fire was raging around him, “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
”Bruce.”
“What?...Can't be…”
“Bruce. Bruce, you have failed me.”
“Father?”
“You have disgraced the family name.”
Damien made a small sound and hugged Blue the dog closer to him. Dean set his phone down and moved to sit on the floor next to Damien.
“Hey…” Dean paused the episode and sat next to Damien rubbing his back, “If this is too much we can watch Scooby Doo again.”
“Is Batman gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, of course he will. Super Heroes always win, don’t they?” Dean offered, hugging Damien to him, and kissing the top of his head.
“Why is his dad saying such mean things?”
Dean was at a bit of a disadvantage in explaining which supervillain or whatever was causing this but he figured he could wing it, “Sometimes when we get really sad our minds play tricks on us and tell us that everyone we care about us would hate us. Could be that’s what the bad guy did. Just…like made those thoughts really loud.”
“Do you have thoughts like that?” Damien looked up at him.
“All the time.” Dean shrugged, “I think your mom would be disappointed in the things I’ve done since she died. That I dishonor her memory by some of the things I think or feel. Like if I love someone else besides her or the one person she co-signed off on that she’ll be disappointed or angry. I promised her I’d make sure you’d have a family and I worry I haven’t done a great job at that. But then I remember how much your mom loved you. How much she and I loved each other. She’d understand. She’d want us to be happy.”
“You think she would?”
“Yeah, buddy. I think she’d understand. You and me are a good team, aren’t we?”
“Yeah…I miss Dad though.”
Dean sighed, Damien’s therapist had been clear that this needed a gentle touch. As much as Dean knew he could poison Damien against Warren, he had to be a good parent, “Warren decided he didn’t want to be a team with me anymore, remember. So he’s not really an option. He cares about you and I support that but he can’t come back.”
“But teams aren’t two people.”
“Batman and uh, Robin are a team, aren’t they?”
“...I guess…But ...”
“And we have my family, don’t we? Pepaw, Grandma Tara, Grandma Shelly, Jeanie, Auntie Hayleigh, Uncle Eddie, Uncle Sabin, and little Auntie Lilith. That’s like an Avengers isn’t it?”
“But we don’t see them.”
“...Fair.”
“Did you do something at work to make them mad like you did Dad? That’s why Auntie Brooklyn and Auntie April stopped hanging out, isn’t it? Is there anyone who isn’t mad at you, Daddy?”
Dean chuckled darkly, he could guess where that detail came from. “Okay, real talk little man. Remember how we talked about why you couldn’t match my matches?”
“Yeah. Because you do bad things at work.”
“Exactly. I do bad things.” Dean kissed Damien’s head again, “Everyone has a skill and mine is doing bad things. And sometimes I do things that make people mad at me. And that’s okay. I am an Adult. I can handle that. But what happens at work has nothing to do with you.”
“But then it keeps going back to just being the two of us.”
“Sure, it does. And at some point, I will find someone for us to have more than that. Promise.” After 1,987 days Max would understand if Dean loved someone else. He’d already started to feel things he hadn’t felt since she died. The healing process was slow but…
“You can’t break a promise.”
“I could never break a promise to you, Damien,” Dean promised.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Damien sighed looking back at the TV.
“Hey…One more thing before we watch Batman.”
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“The important thing to remember is, that just because I do bad things does not mean you ever have to. There is no legacy or family name you have to live up to. I have trouble making friends and keeping people in our lives but that is not your fault. That’s just the way I am. You can be better. You should be better. And know no matter what happens, no matter what you do in life I will always love you and be proud of you.”
“There is one thing I understand better than anyone. That’s the chase of wanting to be loved and belonging.” Dean sighs. “I have been devoted to a few people in my life. Rowan, my father, Warren.”
Dean’s eyes darken. For a moment, there’s a flash of something raw beneath the surface—something vulnerable. He lets out a breath.
“It’s… like chasing something you can never catch,” his gaze distant. “You spend your whole life thinking that if you do everything right… if you just… become what they want, maybe—just maybe—you’ll finally be enough.”
His jaw tightens, and he shakes his head, a humorless laugh escaping. “But it never happens. No matter how much you believe in them, no matter how badly you want what feels like the simplest of requests… it’s like throwing yourself against a wall over and over again, hoping that one day it’ll break. But it doesn’t.”
“What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” Dean runs a hand through his hair. “You start convincing yourself that if you’re just stronger, tougher, more successful, maybe that’ll be the thing that finally makes them see you. Makes them proud. But deep down, you know the truth—you know it’ll never be enough.”
He pauses, his voice growing quieter, the anger fading into something more hollow. “You want so badly for them to love you, to look at you the way you always imagined someone should. But instead, all you get is this endless emptiness. And every time you try, every time you reach out, you just feel smaller.”
Dean looks down, his voice hardening again as he fights to push back the emotion creeping in. “You start to realize that it’s not about you. It’s never been about you. It’s about them. And you can’t make someone love you if they don’t know how.”
He lifts his head, eyes steely, “You tell yourself: ‘Hey you don’t need it, that you’ll be fine without it’. But deep down? Deep under everything? You know there’s a part of you that’ll always want it. Always. Like a drug.”
“So when I say I understand you, Mai. I see you. I see into the heart of you. You want to be cherished. You want to be loved. You joined The Murder to be noticed, to be loved, not just by the masses but by the members of The Murder. But they don’t love you. You are a tool. A tool to boost their numbers. You are a tool to try and get revenge where they failed. And you will fail just as much. And they will abandon you. Trust me, I know.”
“So consider this a mercy. What I do to you will be to just draw blood. But there are lots of ways to draw blood. I am excited to find out which works best for you, Little Bird.”
Well howdy there pardner.