Fic: Flashback
Title: Flashback
Fandom: Bones/Shanshuverse
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Angel Booth vows to protect his son.
Drew’s name had started coming up in conversation a few months ago. “Drew and I went to dinner,” Rebecca would say. “Parker really enjoyed the babysitter.” “Drew and I saw that movie. I didn’t think it would be appropriate for Parker.” Booth hadn’t worried too much about it, not at first. Rebecca had had boyfriends in the past, off and on. None of them had gotten too involved with Parker. Rebecca was always careful about that. She didn’t want Parker getting too close to the men she dated, for fear they might break his heart. Just like his dad.
Then the bombshell had come. “Drew and I took Parker to the park today --”
“You did what?” Booth jerked at the wheel of his SUV, jerking it back into the right lane. The driver he’d nearly cut off yelled at him. Booth would have flipped him off if he’d had a free hand, but he already had one on the wheel and one on the cell phone, so he just glared.
There was a pause on the other end. He could see Rebecca pursing her lips, gathering herself. “Drew and I took Parker to the park.”
“Why is Drew going to the park with Parker?”
“Because Drew and I are dating, Seeley. I thought it would be a good idea for Parker to get to know him.”
Booth’s teeth clenched so hard he thought he was going to crack a molar. “I don’t think it’s a good idea at all, Rebecca. I don’t even know this guy, and you’re getting him acquainted with my son?”
“This is really not your decision, Seeley.” Her voice had gone tight. “I see a long-term future with Drew, therefore I think it’s appropriate that he get to know my son.”
Booth started to grit out a reply, but Rebecca had broken the connection.
He threw the cell phone across the car. “Shit.”
***
He’d been on his way to a crime scene when the call had come, and the unfortunate cops would undoubtedly be complaining to the FBI for weeks about the pissy agent they’d sent. Booth didn’t care.
He got to see Parker on the weekends, when Rebecca didn’t come up with an excuse not to bring him. Now this Drew guy, whoever the fucking hell he was, had free access. Just thinking about it made him angry.
More than angry. His chest tightened so he could barely breathe, and he felt hemmed in, trapped. If he let it, it could become a full-blown panic attack.
Back at home, he threw his jacket haphazardly on the couch and headed straight for his workout room. He stripped his shirt off and began to pummel the punching bag, taking out his aggression, his tension, fighting it out of him, hoping when it was gone he would be able to breathe again.
No one -- no one -- was going to take his son from him. Not now. Not again. Rebecca had taken him when she’d refused to marry him, and no way some fuckass named Drew was going to take Parker away again.
He hated the feeling that he had no control. That nothing concerning Parker truly belonged to him. He hated being on the fringes of the boy’s life, only able to be a father when he was allowed. Every time he saw Parker’s big blue eyes, his open smile, he wanted nothing more than to pick him up and run with him, take him where they could be together, where he could truly be his father.
He hit the bag so hard something popped audibly in his hand. He drew back, pain throbbing through his fingers. “Fuck,” he muttered. He backed up, sat down on the weight bench. It wasn’t until he dropped his head into his hands that he realized he was crying.
Clenching his teeth again, hard, he stretched out on his back on the bench and stared at the ceiling. He felt like something had been ripped out of the middle of his chest. He couldn’t take a deep breath, and when he tried it hitched and shuddered and he choked on it.
He’s gone he’s never coming back you’ll never see him again…
Fighting the sick tension wrenching through him, he pressed his fist against his mouth until his teeth broke through the back of his lip. The blood tasted hot and metallic, and something dark and devouring rose from his belly and swamped him. It was like drowning in deep water, where things watched and lurked just beyond his level of perception. There was something in that deep darkness, some part of him he couldn’t reach. He woke up sometimes with the dark fingers encroaching on his consciousness, strange memories skittering away from him like roaches running from the light.
Slowly, he sat up. Images rode the wave of nausea, and he almost caught them. Someone with Parker, running with him, taking him away. He forced his quickening breath to slow. It never happened. You saw him in the hospital, right after he was born… For a moment he had to fight for his own memories. Rebecca hadn’t wanted him in the labor room, but he’d slipped in anyway, charming his way past a nurse with a smile and a touch. In the end, Rebecca had given in and let him cut the umbilical cord.
She died. She died when he was born, she died to birth him…
No. Nothing like that had happened. He had stayed all night in the waiting room. When the nurses had tried to keep him from visiting the next morning, he’d flashed his badge. Rebecca had called him an interfering control freak asshole and had let him hold Parker for a while.
But he could see it -- a dark alley, Rebecca dead on the ground. Rain. Fire. What the hell was it? It made no sense.
The image -- Memory? Hallucination? -- began to fade. The desperate panic tightening his chest started to loosen. PTSD, he thought. Same damn shit he’d been dealing with since he left the Army. Just shadows and echoes of what he’d done. His soul bore an imprint of every murder he’d committed, and sometimes those marks sent shadows through him. That was all. It would go away. Maybe he’d need another stint on the couch before it did, but it would eventually.
He pushed to his feet. His hands were still shaking a little, and sweat dripped down his body. He headed for the shower.
Drew. Drew was an asshole. Drew was not touching his son.
Ever.