Author comments

Blah I wanted to write something Cadel/Prosper esque. I wanted more Prosper but he's hard to write without sounding OOC. T__T I'll just screw with him 100% then!

Prosper: Ooh Cadel, it's ok you're good! Please go enjoy a normal life! *skips off to pick flowers and spread joy*

Yeah...fail xD Mm so it's set a couple hours just after Cadel finds out you know who is his dad. Aww! That chapter and all of chapter 4 of Genius Squad are my faves, Prosper and Poptarts, is there a better recipe for win? Anyways onto the actual story!

I don't have the creativity to write Evil genius or the like. Please credit wonder authoress Catherine Jinks for that 3

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Cadel woke in a dreamy fit, perspiration saturated his forehead and his leg still ached from the previous days exertions. Someone in him shock still rang like a gong in an empty orchestra pit.

He had to find a way to escape.

Thaddeus was his father.

In short, his life was a lie.

Had there ever been a time he could have trusted anyone but himself?

Next to the photo of his mother the dim red glow of a clock decided the time was to be 4am. The bed was large enough for him to have spread out but instead he was curled in a corner, in his mind's eye he could still look across the room and see his former psychologist sitting there with that crooked grin they way he had at the beginning of every session.

He felt exhausted both mentally and physically. With interest he noticed that while the hall light was off a soft glow did infiltrate under the doorway. Somewhere was still up. For the sake of instinct along he strained his ears to hear the sound of movement. It was a large house and anybody could be lurking...Maybe someone had seen a strange boy get loaded semi conscious in a car and alerted someone. The idea didn't stick though, if Cadel could foresee that tactic Thaddeus certainly would have, as well as manoeuvred so as to counter such a possibility. Sleep, pain and worry all dimmed his mind and this time he couldn't shut it out.

Being here...It felt worse than all the times he had known or suspected being watched. He hadn't seen or heard any kind of electrical bugging equipment, yet the feeling that he couldn't walk out the room without alerting someone didn't pass.

In time he heard the rhythmic sound of footsteps coming upstairs.

'Not this way, not this way' He thought feverishly, even as the sound of the steps got louder and inevitably turned towards the direction of the room. Cadel gave up entirely when he heard the gentle turn of a knob, closing his eyes and feigning sleep for the time being.

"Cadel?"

It was hard to misplace that particular voice.

Cadel didn't move, concentrating on creating a rhythmic breathing pattern. Not that it was hard, he felt tired as it was.

When no sound continued he surmised that perhaps he had been in luck and the trespasser had left as silently as he had come. Remaining on the safe side though he didn't dare open his eyes yet.

An Icy hand swept the hair back off his forehead, resting there for a few minutes before pulling away with a soft tsk. Cadel waited until the final click of a turned lock before letting himself shiver from the contact. But he wasn't sure if that was all it was from...

The brief words came back to him, a crowning achievement, to do great things within the world and finally, that awkward gesture at the end where it had seemed Thaddeus would try and tuck him in.

There had been a time, when Cadel was much younger, when some part of him that had wished Thaddeus was his father. But now all felt was confusion and betrayal. So what if Thaddeus was his father? So what that he wanted Cadel, in all his imperfection, to stay with him and would in turn treat him with the respect and admiration he was long due? So what if he actually seemed to care about what happened to him? How much was real? How much was, as he'd said 'for his own benefits'? The thoughts kept him in an uneasy toss and turn until at last even the soft glow under the doorway extinguished completely.