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strangersteddierthings · 1 year

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Bad News First, Eddie

Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇FInal Part

This was getting longer than both Steve and Wayne's parts combined, so I'm gonna break it into 2 parts. Posting part 1 now, and part 2 should be up within a day. Thank you everyone for the wonderful replies/reblogs. I screenshot them cause they keep me going haha.

Trigger Warning: Child abuse referenced, as well as one scene of a child being slapped. Use of slurs in a derogatory manner.

Bad news first, Eddie thinks to himself as he swings the trash can lid turned shield, this is a fuckton of bats. Good news, Dustin is safe.

The bats are overwhelming but he's holding his own. He can do this. He can buy them more time. He's done running away from the things that scare him.

Bad news, Eddie thinks, watching Dustin sob above him, I'm gonna die here.

Eddie dies. He knows this because all the hurt stops. The world has faded into itself, dimming to a blackness deeper than Eddie's ever known.

The afterlife is a bit disappointing if he's honest. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't nothing. Endless, unfathomable nothing.

He kinda hoped he'd see his mom or something, but that's delusional. If the afterlife was heaven or hell, he wouldn't end up in the one his mom went to, that's for sure. Too many sins under his belt for that.

Death is pretty boring though.

Time is impossible to track. He's tried a few times, counting seconds to make minutes but that's so boring he loses his train of thought. Ends up humming some tune or another before repeating the process.

The day he finds himself humming a Wham! song has Eddie a little panicked. He doesn't listen to Top 40 stations. He spent a good deal of time avoiding learning any Wham! songs, actually, so now that he's somehow gotten one such in his head...

This has got to be capital H Hell.

Well. Everyone in town thought he was on the road straight to it. Laugh it up, Hawkins. You were right. The Freak went straight down.

Eddie misses Wayne. He can't remember the last thing he'd said to him. When did he last tell his uncle he loved him? Wayne knew it though. He had to know it. They didn't say it out loud but they didn't need to. Right?

In the distance, Eddie sees something. A light? He's not sure what it is but it's something new. Something different.

The light leads him back into the Upside Down. The bats are swarming and he just crashed the bike- fuck fuck fuck, run. Run, Eddie, get the fuck out of here!

He's screaming at himself to run but instead his body stops. Turns. Pulls the shield and spear from his back and screams at the bats.

Eddie rips himself back, away. Crumples to the ground, folding into himself. Not that. Anything but that again.

A soft humming sound. Gentle, warm.

Loving.

Eddie unfolds himself to see what it is.

His mom smiles down at him, reaches out to ruffle his hair as she hums. Eddie knows the danger has passed and he is safe now because Mamma only hums that when it's safe.

"There's my handsome boy," she moves the hand from his hair to boop the tip of his nose. "How about we play a little game, hmm? The floor is lava!"

She scoops him up and plops him on the kitchen table. There is a crunching sound beneath her feet as she moves. Lava sounds an awful lot like Dad's broken beer bottles but if Mamma wants to play pretend then Eddie can do that for her.

His mother is beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world. He takes after her in a lot of ways. Matching curly locks, the same face scrunch when they're angry, their noses, big brown doe eyes. Eddie even shares her voice, just a different pitch. The point is, Eddie's mom is beautiful and he's got enough ego left at four years old to think of himself as beautiful, too.

The problem, then, is that Eddie makes the mistake of saying it in front of his Dad. 'As pretty as Mamma,' he'd said. They'd, he and Mamma that is, were sitting crosslegged on the floor in the living room. Dad had been in the kitchen, Eddie could hear him puttering about. Mamma had booped his nose and called him the best looking kid in all of America.

Eddie nodded fiercly, "yeah! As pretty at Mamma."

It used to be a fuzzy memory, what happens next. A flurry of movement and shouting. Now he's witnessing it with terrible clarity. His dad's hand curling around his upper arm and yanking him into the air, crushing hard enough to bruise. His dad's shouting at him. He remembers not remembering the words but now they hit him like the slap his dad delivered to his face. "No son of mine is going to be a fuckin' fag, thinkin' he's some pretty little girl. Is that what you want, you little shit? To be a little girl?"

"Stop it! Stop it! Let him go, he didn't mean anything like that!" he hears his Mamma plead but his Dad won't stop shaking him and screaming. He bursts into tears because it hurts and he's confused and his Dad's never hit him before- "Hit me! Hit me! If you're gonna hit someone, hit me!"

Eddie gets tossed aside. He lands on back and sees as his Dad does exactly as his Mamma demanded. Eddie's never been so scared in his life, he can't watch. He scampers down the hall as fast as he can and crawls under his bed to hide.

If Eddie had to guess, that's the memory that ingrained his need to run.

He's reliving his memories. He's a little embarrassed how long it takes him to figure that out. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. They don't tell you that the quote flash unquote takes a really fuckin' long time. Like, you know, your whole life long time.

It's so strange to witness, too. Like he's both watching the memories as an outsider, but also through his own eyes. He has both the knowledge that he had when he died, and also no experience beyond what he's seeing in the memory.

He watches his Dad beat his Mamma, beat him, but also watches his Dad push him on the swings and slow dance around the kitchen with his Mamma. And that's the worst part, he thinks. That his Dad could have been an awesome one. If he'd stayed sober like he kept promising. He didn't though, couldn't. Hell, maybe it's even a wouldn't. He watchs Wyatt fucking Munson pick beer and drugs over him and his Mamma time and time again.

Couldn't even put them down long enough to be there when Mamma got sick.

Eddie is seven. He's just had his head shaved, bald as his Mamma now. He regrets doing it as soon as he sees his Mamma's smile falter when Uncle Wayne drops him off at the hospital.

"We match, Mamma," Eddie says shyly, eyes downcast. "I wanted to match..."

"Oh, baby, come here," and she's scooping him into a hug, genuinly smiling again, "I love that we match. So long as it was your decision to cut your hair."

Eddie realizes now why her smile had faltered. She thought Dad had shaved his head against his will, probably because long hair was for woman, as he liked to say. Eddie in the memory didn't know that, though, so he just cuddles closer and says, "Yeah. Uncle Wayne did it for me, so it would be nice and even, he said. Wanna hear what we did in school today?"

There is something looming at the edges of his vision. Eddie can't seem to make whatever it is come into focus. It's not a memory because those always focus. It's something else. Something new.

His dad teaches him to hot wire a car. Makes him learn how to pick the lock on car doors and handcuffs. When he sees how easily Eddie took to lockpicking, he makes him learn other locks, too.

Eddie misses out on school because his dad can't be bother to enroll him and Eddie doesn't know how to do it himself. He's too scared to, anyway. Afraid his dad will start swinging and won't stop until he's dead.

When Eddie is eleven, a lot happens. It was a pivitol age for him. He got his first crush (a boy named Jimmy) and a first kiss (a boy named Jeramiah). Eddie also ends up in the hospital because his Dad caught him kissing Jeramiah.

It's not his Dad that picks him up from the hospital, though.

Eleven is the age he is the day his Uncle Wayne moves him to Hawkins, Indiana.

He's also eleven the first time he hears Black Sabbath.

Eddie is also eleven years old when he decides that he wants good news delivered last. To end with something good.

He relives becoming himself.

Catching up in school because he's not stupid, but falling behind because he is kinda dumb (schoolwork never seemed as imporant as hanging out with friends, or starting a band, or playing dungeons and dragon, or any other number of things).

The relief he feels the first time he meets another person like him, learns there's another word besides faggot for what he is. Gay. The immense pleasure of feeling truly seen the first time he says that out loud to someone (it's his best friend, Jeff) "Bad news, Jeff. You might hate me for this. Good news, I'm gay."

Good, good news. Jeff doesn't hate him!

There's a fear that Wayne might be like his Dad regarding all this, so he can't tell him; won't tell him.

But then Wayne comes home unexpectedly when Eddie is a freshman and catches him with another boy's tongue in his mouth. Eddie has a panic attack that winds up with him in the hospital.

He remembers the paralizing fear when Wayne came to pick him up upon his release. Eddie had walked to the pickup numb and afraid. He climbed in, buckled the seatbelt, and waited for the worst.

Wayne climbed in and started the pickup but didn't put it in gear. Instead, he spoke, "Life is gonna be rough for you, boy. Rougher than it should be."

Eddie cannot make words form to reply. Can't do anything but shake.

"Eddie," Wayne says and he feels the seat move as Wayne shifts to turn towards him, "the bad news is, life is gonna be rough, but the good news? Living under my roof isn't. Won't be. Eddie, my boy, I love you. And nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that."

Eddie breaks, like a puppet with its strings cut, sags in the seat and sobs. Never, never had Eddie ever bothered to entertain the idea that this might be Wayne's response.

Eddie is a sophomore the first time he notices Steve Harrington. It's fucking awful. It's also amazing.

Because noticing Steve Harrington means noticing Steve Harrington. He's immidiately popular because he's good looking and good at sports.

Eddie's not gonna claim to know Steve, he doesn't. There's just these little clues that King Steve isn't a default jerk. For one, Steve doesn't partake in bullying. He stays silent. Lets it happen.

But Eddie's also been witness to two times when Stever did step in; both times when it was escalating to be a phycical altercation.

"Hey, Tommy, don't," Steve had said, not quite stepping between Tommy and the other kid, but enough to be within Tommy's line of sight. "The game is tomorrow. You throw that punch and your hand is gonna hurt like a bitch through the whole game. And I swear to God if we lose this game because you can't handle it-" Steve didn't finish the sentence, didn't have to. Tommy lowered his arm and scoffed. Walked away mutter about how the kid wasn't worth it anyway.

The other time, it had been Jeff he'd defended. Jeff hadn't even been doing anything. Just stumbled into some asshole from the basketball team and knocked him over. Eddie had been the one who'd shoved Jeff (because Jeff was teasing him) and he was ready to place himself in the way when Steve had beat him to it.

"Fucking relax, it was an accident," Steve stood face to face with Roger. Eddie and Jeff just stared at the back of Steve's head. "It's not Jeff's fault that barely tapping you knocked you down like a house of cards. Right, Jeff?"

Eddie and Jeff blinked at each other in a sort of stunned silence because since when does King Steve know either of their names? Steve turned to look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Jeff stammered out, "R-right. It was an accident. Sorry, man."

"See, he's even sorry."

Eddie reached out, wrapped his hand around Jeff's wrist, and tugged him away. He could not stay here and witness anymore of Hero Steve or he was going to embarrass himself infront of the entire cafeteria in the worst way possible.

That was the tipping point for Eddie. When he finally had to admit he wasn't just noticing Steve Harrington. He had a full blown crush on the dude.

Fuck.

Watching his memories play, Eddie realizes he spent far too much time in high school trying to get Steve's attention. Bumping into him on purpose, being antagonistic to his friends just get a response, or trying his best to use Jedi mind powers to make teachers pair them together for projects in the rare few classes they shared (this never worked; teachers liked Steve too much and hated Eddie).

Steve changes between junior and senior year and still doesn't notice Eddie. Eddie's kinda bitter about it.

Then Steve graduates, but doesn't leave. He's always hanging around, bothering the freshman Eddie's taken under his wing. He's not jealous that Dustin Henderson thinks Steve hung the moon. He's not. (he is).

Anyway, the bad news. Steve graduates but doesn't leave and Eddie can't get over his stupid crush. Good news, he and Steve share a mutual friend in one obnoxiously lovable freshman, so that's like one step closer to Eddie being Steve's friend, right?

The thing that's looming finally comes into view when his most recent memories come up. Or, more accurately, it -she- makes herself seen.

He's holding a broken bottle to Steve's neck demanding to know what he's doing here and then the scene pulls away from him until he's watching himself threaten Steve. The memory moves in slow motion.

"Eddie?"

He screams because Jesus H Christ nothing else in the afterlife has ever spoken to him.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to scare you," she says. Eddie can see her now. She doesn't look like either an angel or a demon. She just looks like a regular person, a girl with shoulder length brown hair, wearing jeans and a yellow shirt that looks too big for her.

"Uh, it's fine?" Eddie says, because what else is he going to say? "Who're.. who are- what are you?"

"I am Eleven. It has been difficult to reach you, Eddie. Had to try, though."

"What?"

Eleven nods, like someone has said something he can't hear. There is a long pause before she speaks again. "Do you want to wake up, Eddie?"

"What do you mean wake up?" Eddie feels like he might start having a panic attack.

"I am not good with words. Not delicate, Mike would say," Eleven says, "so I will be frank. You are alive. Can be alive. Doctor Owens says you retreated into yourself. To protect yourself. But it's safe now. It is all safe. The Upside Down cannot hurt you again."

Eddie feels the panic set in almost instantly at those words. The memory explodes into black and the girl vanishes.

The more Eleven shows up, the more aware of other things Eddie becomes. Occasionally the sound of conversation drifts in but it's far away, muffled. He can taste food on his tongue that he had not eaten. Feel a brush get stuck in his hair.

They don't really talk, he and Eleven. She takes her queues from him and since he's got no idea what's happening he doesn't know what queues to give.

"So, you're not here to like... send me on, or something?" He asks. They're sitting cross-legged in front of each other. Eddie in the outfit he died in and Eleven in shorts, a crop top, and an oversized jacket.

"Where would I send you?"

"Y'know. Like... Hell or wherever."

Eleven is silent a long time before she says, "I don't want to send you anywhere. I want to bring you back."

Back. He can go back? That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem like it should be an option. "You mean like, back to Hawkins?"

"Eventually."

Eddie's not sure what to make of that. Is he gonna be a ghost? Because if it's Hell or being a ghost, the latter sounds infinity more fun. Plus, as a ghost he could probably check in on Wayne.

"Alright. You win, Eleven. Take me back."

Eleven stands up immediately, offering a hand to help Eddie up. "You have to want it."

"Want to be a ghost?"

"No. You have to want to be alive."

That makes sense, Eddie supposes. Wanting to be alive is probably what makes ghosts be able to like, be ghosts. "OK. OK. I can do this." He does a full body shake, dancing from one foot to another to pump himself up. "Alive. Alive. I want that. I want to live. I want to see my uncle again. Want to give Hawkins a big fuck you for thinking I'd end up in Hell. I want to see Jeff and Gareth! I want to haunt the fuck out of Dustin Henderson for trying to follow me! I want to know if Robin, Steve, and Nancy won! I want to know if they made Vecna pay!"

He is yelling by the end of it, and Eleven is beaming at him like she's proud of him.

"Yes! Yes! Now, wake up!"

Eddie does wake up. Sort of. He's already awake, sitting in what appears to be someone's living room. He blinks several times before exhaustion washes over him and he sags back into the chair he's sitting in. "Wh-" he tried to speak but his vocal chords don't seem to want to work.

"Holy shit." A voice says off to his side. It's vaguely familiar. Like a distant memory. "Call Owens! Call Owens right fucking now!"

Bad news is this. He's been stuck in his own head for several years. His fucking body has been moving around without him yet the amount of physical therapy he has to do is torture. Fucking Owens won't let him contact anyone until he gets the all clear from his new therapist. Oh, and his uncle believes he's dead.

Good news is this. He's alive.

#steddie #eddie munson #my fic #child abuse mention #eddies really going through it guys

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obsidiancreates · 4 months

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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.

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