#Omphalos/Theogeny

[lexi-the-twilight-dragon]

FATHER’S DAY

The Labyrinth can show you what you fear. Or it can show you what you thought you wanted. (Or, if Tucker’s Labyrinth experience had gone differently)

FANDOM: Red vs Blue. S17 spoilers. RATING: Angst/Alternate Version. WORDS: 1407 CHARACTERS: Tucker, Junior, Donut, Washington, OCs (mentioned)

~.~.~

He’s alone.

Could’ve sworn he was in a group of like a dozen earlier, but none of them are anywhere to be seen. Only his own boots can be heard clacking against the floor of this weirdly empty hallway.

“Hello?”

Empty hallways always seen to elicit that response for some reason, don’t they?

He walks for what feels like an hour before there’s any change in the hall at all, but when there is, boy howdy is there. After a couple of turns, it abruptly stops to view a straight-up, motherfucking black hole.

“Oh holy fuck.” It’s obviously kinda daunting that an instant-kill abyss is right there, but not gonna lie, it looks pretty fucking cool.

So fucking cool, in fact, that he’s completely taken by surprise by the sound of footsteps not far behind him. He hadn’t heard them come around the corner, but they’re not exactly quiet either, which instantly lets him know that whoever it is, they’re way bigger than the average human being.

And when he turns around, he’s right. Behind him is a Sangheili soldier, and a stocky one at that. He may be visibly young, but even a juvenile Sangheili easily towers over Tucker, and this one’s gotta be 6’9 at least. And while Tucker’s decent at understanding Sangheili rank and armor, he can’t tell what this greenish-blue one means.

Then Tucker sees his eyes. They’re not gold, like most Sangheili’s, or even the usual variants of orange or green. They’re a deep, chocolate brown. Tucker brown.

The greenish-blue armor? It’s aqua armor.

“Junior? What are you doing here?”

Junior cocks his head, slightly but sharply. It’s a lot more obvious when his neck is a foot long.

“Well, nice to see you too, Dad, after, what’s it been, seven years? Don’t I even warrant a ‘hello’?”

Tucker’s taken aback a second by the sass. The hostile sass.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, it’s good to see you too, ‘course it is. I just… wasn’t expecting it to be here, you know? There’s uh… kinda some dangerous shit going on right now? With a murderous god-thing running around?”

He barely finishes the sentence when Junior laughs. It’s not a good laugh. It’s halfway to being a scoff.

“Funny,” Junior says, fixing him with a gaze that, even in spite of his human eyes, has the full power of a reptilian Sangheili glare, “It’s almost like you’ve forgotten I’m a war mediator or something. You know, the job where you’re sent to the slap-bang middle of conflicts and hundreds if not thousands of lives rest on your every word? Not to mention your own, because both sides will happily kill you if you fuck up? You think that’s not ‘some dangerous shit’? Because that’s kinda where you left me, at age three no less.”

Whatever Tucker was about to say vanishes in an instant, but Junior is far from done.

“What, you thought I was safe working with the embassy? Don’t you have any idea what kind of shit-show Sanghelios turned into after the war? Holy fuck, Dad, I thought you’d at least have paid that much attention. Was I not on your radar at all? Or did you just assume I was dead after a couple months?”

“What? No!” Tucker’s voice reappears. “I… I was gonna contact you as soon as that Freelancer bullshit was over, like I promised, I just kept hitting obstacles.”

“You’d be referring to Chorus, right?” Junior’s tone drops to something chilling. “That I can understand. But if I got my dates right, that conflict ended two years ago. What were you doing after that?”

Tucker can’t answer.

“Church sent that message straight to my desktop computer from Chorus, why couldn’t you? It didn’t have to be much. ‘Hey Junior, good to know you’re still alive, great work you’ve been doing by yourself for all these years, sorry I missed your birthday seven times, and by the way, you now have three dozen little siblings, and none of them are going to see their father again either’!”

Junior’s started to approach him, slowly but very threateningly, and he backs up without even thinking. It’s only within a step’s breadth that he remembers there’s a black hole abyss behind him. This split-second distraction costs him, because the next thing he knows claws are lifting him off the ledge by his throat.

Junior holds him up so they’re face-to-face, and at this close a distance, it’s much easier to see the tears forming in those all-too-human eyes.

“Did you really not want me all this time?” he says, all the anger and volume gone from his tone, “Is that it? Am I really the abomination Church said I was, and you were just lying to me?”

“No.” It’s not even Junior’s claw that causes Tucker’s voice to drop to just over a whisper. “Junior, that’s not true, that was never true, I swear.”

“Wasn’t it?” Oh god, his voice was breaking now. And so is Tucker’s heart. “What was it you said the second I was born again? ‘It’s not mine’?”

His face, and voice, suddenly harden to scalpel-sharp steel. “Guess I shouldn’t have expected more from you, Tucker. You’ve never been one to think of consequences anyway.”

He straightens his arm, holding Tucker out further from the ledge.

“So what do you think are the consequences if I do this?”

“Junior!”

Junior snaps his head around, and Tucker can just see past him at the group that has appeared in the hall.

“Junior,” Donut repeats, “Put him down.”

Junior turns further around to face them, which puts Tucker back over solid ground, but not by much. If Junior drops him now, he’ll still fall.

“Hmph. Of course. It’s always gotta be about them first, doesn’t it? The Reds and Blues, going off on another adventure. Never mind the family you leave behind.”

“Killing him won’t change that, Junior,” Donut warns, “It only eliminates the chance that he will come back for you.”

“A chance he won’t take,” Junior growls, “He’s never taken it before.”

“That’s not true.”

It’s not Donut who’s speaking now.

“Hi Junior. You haven’t met me before. I’m Wash.” He steps forward from the group. “And it’s my fault your father hasn’t contacted you, not his.”

Junior stops, listens. Lowers his arm ever-so slightly. Tucker feels slightly safer, but slightly confused.

“I was stingy with the communications after Freelancer went down, because I… I was paranoid for the team’s safety. I should have allowed him to call you, but I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t try to reach out.

“Tucker,” he turns to the aloft soldier, “Show him the photo.”

“Wh-What?”  Tucker’s mind pulls a blank.

“That photo you showed me,” he clarifies, “The one you show everyone so they know just how proud you are of your son.”

Tucker’s breath hitches. In amongst all this bullshit, he’d almost forgotten about the photo of his boy in his pocket.

He reaches back to grab it, slowly and carefully. If he drops it into a black hole of all things, he’ll never forgive himself. Junior looks back at him as he holds it up.

“This… this is the photo your school sent me, of you and your fifth-grade basketball team. Uhh… one of them was called Elliot, right? And Tyler? And… Quinn, was his name? He was the only one chill enough to smile properly.”

He almost wishes he didn’t have his helmet on, so Junior could see the raw emotion lining his face.

“Junior, I never forgot about you for a second. I failed to keep my promise, and for that, I am so sorry. But you will always be my first kid, and I am so fucking proud of you, and everyone I meet fucking knows it. Okay?”

Junior’s helmet doesn’t cover his face, so the emotion on his is as plain as day. He’s crying, but Tucker knows enough about Sangheili, and enough about his son, to recognize a smile.

He lowers Tucker onto safe, solid ground, and lets him go.

Wash comes up behind, and puts a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tucker. I shouldn’t have deprived you of the right to contact your family. But Junior’s safe. Safe enough to attend school, anyway. He’ll still be alive when you get to call him next.”

“Yeah,” Tucker replies quietly, “I know.”

Junior’s form glitches for a second, before it disappears.

~.~.~

A/N: Was going to do one of these for Grif, Tucker and Simmons, but Tucker’s is the only one that came out kinda decent. I need more Junior in my life. RT is good at editing across media now, can’t they cross over Junior animated in H2A?

(Also I couldn’t help referencing Chain of Memories, sorry)

#Red vs Blue #S17 spoilers #Omphalos/Theogeny #spelled it right this time #Lavernius Tucker #Junior #Franklin Delano Donut #Agent Washington #bringbackjunior2020