[fic][canon]
David has been on the phone with his mother for ten minutes trying to explain the situation to her. She is human. He loves her, but she does not understand. He loves her, but she fools herself into seeing what she wants to see instead of what she is.
And she puts him on the phone with his father.
"Don't- Mom, don't-"
It's too late.
The rough voice that makes the tight, sharp stone sink to the pit of himself.
He catches himself. The air in his throat hitches, and he pulls the speaker away from his mouth and sucks in a reluctant breath. The feeling doesn't go away.
"Boy? What's this about armies in Chicago?"
Timothy Preston, you have been found guilty of...
"Nothing."
He winces at the lie, and his father laughs. There's no real amusement in it. It's angry. Only his father could manage a laugh that feels like a slap across your face.
"Not even through the phone, boy. I can hear a lie in any old demon." That's because you don't believe a word they say. "You think I can't hear one from my own son?"
"I wanted to know what you'd heard about the Barnams."
"So why're you asking your mother?"
Silence.
His dad knows the answer. It doesn't make a difference if David says it out loud, and he won't say anything. He'd turn off the phone if he wasn't positive that his father would come down and kick his ass to teach him a lesson. It's why David always rebelled in quiet ways, ways his father wouldn't see. It's not about abuse. It's about an archangel who only knows how to communicate through physically fighting.
He would be expected to fight back.
"I haven't talked to you in a year. You actually have something to ask me, something only I would know, and you ask your mother instead hoping in a year, she's started paying attention to this shit, am I right?"
David's jaw locks but no words come out. They don't even build up in his head anymore. There's nothing but a blank, dark wall in his head.
"Don't tell me you're still mad about that demon you knew."
You know I am dad. You know that's why I had to be moved, cause I see her mom and I want to tell her the truth. That it's my fault. That it was your hands that hit the finishing blow on her son.
You know. You know.
"You are." More laughter. This time it is an amused sound. "If you really were so angry about it, if you really cared, you would have said something, you would have did something, but you stood there, and-"
No, no, no, no, no no
It's like- it feels like a sword. He slides down against the wall. His hand slips over his face.
David shuts off the phone.
He turns it off.
He hangs up on his father. His hands are shaking, and his chest feels as if it is on the verge of exploding. His head rings with it. It's what he repeated to himself for over a year. Logically, he knows that if he had said something, it wouldn't have made a difference. Logic, logic, logic doesn't exist when this phrase that he repeated to himself time and time again over a year has been said out loud by the one who would know if it was true or not.
And the problem is he didn't fight. He should have fight and he didn't.
The phone rings again, and he doesn't answer it.
It lies on the floor, vibrates against the wood, the sound of it is like screeching in the back of his head, and he sits next to it.
He's never felt this sick before.
Neko purrs against his leg, and his throat tightens, and the tears don't come like they should. They stick in his eyes like shards of sharp glass and remind him of how he failed.