Notes: Yooooo. I'm alive. The crawl out of this rut is long and frustrating and I think I lost a fingernail on my way out.
This is a prequel to A Saturated Sunrise. I deleted it at some point because I was deeply frustrated with the direction the story was taking. I lack the discipline and mental space to write a murder story complete with detail and motives. I never wanted this to be about Mavis and Zeref. I wanted to write about Acnologia and Anna and their family and the tragedies that led to a boy in a hospital with charcoal on his fingers.
So here we are. There will be one more part to this story. It's mostly written but I wanted it to be separate from the rest for the drama of it all. Also, the end is really special to me and I want it to stand on its own.
***I want every one who reads this to please listen to Hold On by Chord Overstreet. This song singlehandedly inspired me to sit down and fix this fic today. I've been playing it on a loop for nearly 24hrs now. The lyrics are gorgeous and meaningful. He wrote it himself. The lyrics in the body are from this song.
"Loving and fighting
Accusing, denying
I can't imagine a world with you gone
The joy and the chaos, the demons we're made of
I'd be so lost if you left me alone"
March
Anna's golden hair fanned over the pillows. She always took him by surprise. They'd been married for what felt like a lifetime – and maybe it was a lifetime. Marrying at the age of seventeen because of an unplanned pregnancy made everything seem more drawn out. He'd been in love with Anna since before he could reach the pedals of his dad's police cruiser. She was the sunshine girl next door…
...Except when she was cloudy and grey.
Her mother had always smiled and called her mercurial. Her father never had much to say at all. Even when she swung to the highest end of her pendulum and drove too fast and laughed too loud and straddled his lap between classes and flirted with the most deadly kinds of danger, Anna's father remained stoic. In hindsight, Acnologia could recognize deep denial when he saw it. He supposed it really did take one to know one.
Anna moved beneath the blankets and rolled over to face him. She smiled and it was the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen.
"How do you feel today?" he asked in the lightest tone possible. Anna still bit her lip and looked away.
"Better," she muttered. "I'm seeing my psych today."
"Good!" Acnologia said brightly. He lived in the small sliver of space between Anna's sunlight and her shadows. "Let me know if I need to pick up any scripts on my way home tonight."
"I will," Anna whispered. The way she sat up slowly and poked at the ends of her hair between her fingers meant she had more to say. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down to tie his running shoes. "Do you think Jellal will –"
"He loves you, Anna. He's just at an age where difficulty is part of the game."
"I know. I just..." she trailed off and tossed the hank of hair over her shoulder. "I think..."
Acnologia focused on his shoelaces. He knew the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Because they were always on the tip of his own tongue.
"Anna," he whispered, finally turning toward her. "We always knew there was a chance he'd – well, what I mean is, we always knew he might –"
"Be like me?" she blurted.
"Anna, please –"
"You can use pretty words all you want but we both know it's true. I did this to him. All the signs are there."
Acnologia turned to her and took her hands in his. "We're doing all we can. I'll call again today to see if the psychiatric clinic can see him any sooner. This isn't your fault, do you understand?"
Anna's expression was one of total devastation. "It feels like my fault."
"It's not." He stood and watched her try to stuff away her feelings. "I'll be back before I leave for the day, okay? Do you feel up for driving? Do you have a ride to your psych appointment?"
"My sister is taking me."
"I'll get Jellal to school then."
"I feel like –"
"You're doing your best," he said, quickly stopping her. "I'll cut my run short. Don't worry about it. Just put the pop tarts in the toaster, okay? I'll handle the rest."
"Okay."
Even though he left her smiling, Acnologia knew she wouldn't make it out of bed to put the pop tarts in the toaster. She never did when she was grey.
Acnologia's running shoes hit the pavement with a gentle scrape of rubber. The shoes were one of the few personal indulgences he allowed himself. He hoped the scientifically developed soles would protect his knees from premature damage.
As he rounded the first turn of his route, Acnologia's mind drifted from his family to what the media had dubbed The Ankhseram Case. He hated the name. Besides being long and unnecessarily difficult to pronounce, it was dramatic. Acnologia hated media dramatics. Everything about the murders was contradictory right down to the sheer brutality of the killing versus the intricate setup. The perpetrator stalked their victims with extreme care, learning routines and schedules. But the actual killing was done with an egregious amount of sloppiness and violence. The weapons were often completely bizarre and used with no clear skill. Sometimes they were found in places that implied they'd been flung across the room, some were left laid out on the victim's chest, and sometimes they found no weapon at all. It seemed their killer suffered from an extreme case of impulsivity.
What bothered Acnologia the most – more than the media's dramatics and more than the way his partner sulked – was the fact that they hadn't even been given the case until a connection was made between a string of brutal killings in the harbor slums, and a murder in uptown. The logical part of his mind knew there'd been no real reason to suspect those murders when they'd been fresh but he couldn't help his aggravation. He'd gone through the files over and over again trying to look for similarities and dots to connect but hadn't found anything satisfying. Despite the case only being his for two months, the captain held both him and his partner accountable for all the connected murders dating back almost five.
The sky above him rumbled and Acnologia glanced up at the gathering storm clouds. His stomach clenched and he tried to bottle away the impulse to think them a bad omen. Rain always depressed Anna. Lately it seemed like everything depressed her. A combination of medications that had previously kept her stable for years no longer worked. He hoped her doctor would be able to sort out the issue soon. Memories of her last manic episode still haunted him.
Jellal had been much younger then and Acnologia hoped the boy didn't remember those four days his mother went missing. He himself would never forget the midnight call from her psychiatrist letting him know she'd shown up at the hospital bleeding from a wound on her forearm and hysterically crying. Things had been quiet since then. Peaceful even. Sure, she'd had little ups and downs but nothing like the wild swings of her teenage years and those four dark days.
Now he was worried again. Jellal had been acting out at school as of late. He'd been getting into fights and behaving in ways Acnologia would describe as manic. Terror was slowly creeping into his chest and he hated it. Where there was a high, there was also a low. Acnologia feared the low. It seemed a cruel fate for a just barely fourteen year old boy.
He walked the last quarter mile of his route and found Jellal perched on the top stoop of the front steps. His school uniform was sloppy and he seemed lost in the clouds.
"Did you eat?" Acnologia immediately regretted asking. It felt like a betrayal of his wife. A spotlight on her failure to put something as simple as pop tarts in the toaster.
"Nope." Jellal smiled in that rakish way Acnologia recognized. It was a twist on his mother's grin. The one that had snagged his eye when they were children.
"Come inside and I'll get you something."
"It's cool, dad. I'll eat at school."
Acnologia stopped at the bottom of the steps and pursed his lips. He hated this. He hated questioning himself as a parent. Would any other father tell his son to march back into the house and get a fucking toaster pastry? What if he said that and Jellal snapped? Snapped? Was that how he thought of his son?
"Dad?" Jellal's voice cut through his frustrated thoughts.
"I'll get dressed and we'll stop by the donut shop."
"Sure." Jellal leaned back on his elbows and stretched his feet down the length of the stairs even though the rain was already leaving spots on the concrete.
Anna had fallen back asleep in their bed and Acnologia couldn't bring himself to do anything other than leave a kiss on her forehead. On his way out the door he sent her sister a text message. Layla would need to come by earlier and wake Anna up herself.
"You're wasting your time, Yura," Acnologia drawled from his desk. He picked through the mess of papers, folders, and numbered photos.
"There has to be something we've missed," Invel muttered, adjusting his glasses. His eyes were glued to the city map he'd pinned to the wall behind his own desk. The method was archaic in Acnologia's mind but he wouldn't discount his partner's tenacity – even if that tenacity was tedious and migraine inducing.
"I bet if you dropped a red pin on every location we've found a body at, you'd see its in the shape of a pentagram or some other obscure thing the killer has an attachment to. The media will love that."
"Maybe," Invel said under his breath. Acnologia's chair squeaked as he leaned back and sighed dramatically. When Invel turned around suddenly his lips were twitched up into a smirk. "You were kidding, right?"
"A bit, yeah."
"Sorry. Stuff like this drives me up the wall."
"You like order," Acnologia said with a shrug. "This guy isn't about order. He's about chaos."
"You think it's on purpose?"
"Honestly? No. I think this is who he is as a person. And I don't think he knows what he's doing."
"Yeah, well, the captain doesn't think we know what we're doing either."
"We don't."
"Excuse you?" Invel countered, adjusting his classes again. "Have some faith."
"I've got faith. But we're under a microscope now. Everybody is watching. If we don't nail this guy soon, we'll be a pariah."
"I'd rather be a pariah and eventually get it right than rush and bungle it."
"I'll take the option that doesn't make me feel like a fucking failure," Acnologia murmured, digging through the mess on his desk for the bleating phone buried underneath. "Shit."
"What?"
"I'm late. I gotta go. I'll be back by six. Will you still be around?"
"I'm not a family man like you, Fernandes, I'll still be around."
"Right." Acnologia slid his phone into his pocket and grabbed his suit jacket on his way out.
The clinic was everything he'd come to expect from children's hospital waiting rooms. The walls were tastefully decorated with brightly colored art – not at all like the grim charcoals his son stained his fingers with – and the rows of chairs were all upholstered with soothing blue and green fabric. In the far corner Acnologia spotted his wife staring blankly at her palms and his son bouncing a rubber ball off the ceiling.
"Sorry I'm late," he said quietly, taking a seat across from Anna. "I got held up at work."
"Murder is important," Anna said in the voice Jellal had taken to calling the Drone Tone.
"Not more important than my family."
"It's cool, dad, they're running late anyway," Jellal offered, squishing the ball in his palm.
"I shouldn't have been late," Acnologia muttered, ignoring the vibrating phone in his pocket.
"They're just going to tell us what we already know anyway," Anna whispered. She suddenly balled her hands into fists and looked over at Jellal with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jellal. I didn't mean to say that. You aren't sick. You're fine." Anna glanced over at Acnologia and he recognized the empty expression immediately. "I need some air."
Anna stood just as the door on the far wall opened. A medical assistant held a clipboard to her chest and smiled too brightly.
"Jellal Fernandes?" she asked as if there were anyone else in the room.
Acnologia stood and took Anna's hand in his. Her skin was clammy and he wanted to recoil but didn't. Jellal plowed ahead as always and trailed directly behind the medical assistant. Sometimes Acnologia wondered if his brash personality would make his condition worse – and he absolutely believed Jellal had a condition.
"Have a seat in here and Doctor Dreyar will be with you shortly. He had to take a call. It'll only be a moment." The medical assistant left them alone in the doctor's office. A stack of three boxes stood behind the desk. Acnologia distracted himself with whether this Doctor Dreyar was coming or going.
"I don't like this," Anna whispered, perching on the edge of a chair. "It's a bad omen that he's not here. And look at those boxes!"
Jellal shrugged as he always did when presented with his mother's superstition; the framed diplomas and degrees on the walls intrigued him.
"It'll be fine, Anna. There's a pile of doctors in this city. If Jellal doesn't like this one, that's okay! We just need a foot in the door."
"I'll get my sister to –"
"We talked about this," Acnologia whispered. "The cards only have the power you give them. I think maybe you give them too much."
"They're never wrong," she said softly, meeting his eyes. "They've never been wrong."
"Anna –" The door swung open, interrupting him, and Doctor Dreyar appeared. Acnologia disliked him immediately. He was too young looking. How could one so young be so accomplished? His face was entirely too smooth, and his hair entirely to blonde. Anna, however, watched him intently. She said nothing and Acnologia decided to not complain.
"I apologize for the wait," Doctor Dreyar said easily. "I'm transferring to another facility soon and things are a little hectic at the moment."
Anna inched forward in her chair and covered her knees with the palms of her hands. Jellal slumped casually at Acnologia's other elbow. He didn't outwardly betray any nerves but his hands were still bunched in his pockets. Doctor Dreyar took a seat in his leather chair with a stiff professionalism.
"I've had some time to review the assessments you provided," he said, looking directly at Anna and Acnologia. "I'd like to address symptoms and self observation with Jellal privately and then I'll meet with the both of you."
Anna stood abruptly. "Okay, that sounds good. We'll be outside." She didn't wait for Doctor Dreyar to confirm or for Acnologia to follow her before pulling open the office door and fleeing.
"I apologize for my wife," Acnologia said so quickly the words stumbled over one another. "She's not well today."
Doctor Dreyar simply nodded in the way he'd come to expect from psychiatrists but Jellal snorted quietly. Acnologia shot him a warning glare before seeking out Anna. The halls of the clinic were quiet despite their upbeat aesthetic. Chilled spring air that often came along with rain billowed around him as he pushed open the front doors after finding the lobby empty. Anna was hunched over on a bench, trying to light a cigarette despite the wind. The sight of her struggle broke his heart again. He thought maybe he should be used to it by now.
He wasn't.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. The cigarette fluttered between her fingers. Acnologia bit back a sigh and pried the lighter from her hand. He lit the end easily and watched her suck back a concerning amount of smoke.
"Don't be sorry. This is hard."
"What if I'm like my parents?"
"Anna." He really did sigh this time. "You have got to stop comparing yourself to irrelevant things. You are a good mother. Jellal loves you. You didn't corrupt him." Acnologia felt an old anger rise in his chest. "These things just fucking happen! We are better than your family!"
"Except Layla."
"Layla is the exception that proves the rule. And she's not better than us," he tacked on quickly. "There's no hierarchy of people, Anna."
"Are we better than the killers that keep you up at night?"
Acnologia's mouth fell open with a response half hanging out. He'd expected a retort but not that one.
"Unless you've got a stack of dead and weirdly mutated corpses in the basement, then yes." She laughed in the lighthearted way he loved more than anything else. Morbidity had always amused her. She was the perfect wife for a homicide cop.
"You're funny," she said softly; smoke curling from between her lips.
"It's my one redeeming feature." He leaned into her side and pressed a kiss to her temple. "We'll figure this out the same way we figure everything else out. One inch at a time. Jellal is a good kid. He just needs different supports now. And that's why we're here."
"You sound better than that voice in my head."
"You need to tell that voice in your head to fuck off," Acnologia muttered. His phone was vibrating again.
Anna flicked her cigarette into the puddle of rainwater just beyond the curb. He thought about picking it up and throwing it away properly – littering was illegal – but wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders instead.
"Do you think they're done?" she whispered.
"Maybe. We should go inside anyway. The rain won't wait for us."
Anna popped up to her feet and grabbed his hand. She pulled him close to her and kissed him quickly.
"I don't have any regrets, Acnologia," she said as thunder rolled in the distance. "Our life is better than they all said it would be."
"All?" he asked with a grin.
"All except for Layla." This was their mantra. When the rest of her family was utterly useless and negligent, Layla always came through. "Come on. Let's go back."
Anna pulled him back inside the building as thunder shook the world once more.
Acnologia ignored his phone studiously until he followed Anna and Jellal to her car. His own was on the far end of the lot. He left Anna with a kiss on the cheek, squeezed Jellal's shoulder, and sent them off with a warning that he'd be home late and to have dinner without him.
Invel's last text was brief but to the point.
'Another body. State and Main. I'll meet you there.'
"Long, endless highway, you're silent beside me
Driving a nightmare I can't escape from
Helplessly praying the light isn't fading
Hiding the shock and the chill in my bones"
September
Twenty-four, nineteen, thirty-seven, five.
The numbers ricocheted off the inside of his skull.
Twenty-four: six splatters of blood by the easternmost bedpost facing the window.
Acnologia paced the length of the small hallway. The principal's door was still shut.
Nineteen: broken fingernail between the planks of wood flooring just outside the bedroom door.
The air was muggy. Hot. Acnologia tugged on the collar of his button-up shirt. Outside was a delightful early autumn breeze but inside the belly of the school it felt like mid-summer.
Thirty-seven: strips of adhesive found torn by the teeth and spat four and three quarters of an inch from the victim's open mouth.
He turned suddenly and met the eyes of his son. Jellal sighed and looked away.
Five: a broken plastic case of small electronics screwdrivers – all coated in blood.
"Can you stop pacing?" Jellal muttered. "It's making me nervous."
"My pacing is making you nervous?" Acnologia snapped. "You don't get to tell me that I make you nervous when I'm here because of you."
Jellal rolled his eyes – Acnologia didn't see it but he could feel it. "Where's mom?" he drawled.
"I don't know. She said she'd meet me here."
"Whatever." Jellal sighed and folded his arms behind his head. "You know she isn't coming. She's at home in bed again. It's all she ever does now."
"You will not disrespect your mother," Acnologia said in the harshest tone he could dredge up.
Twenty-four, nineteen, thirty-seven, five.
The numbers would push him over the edge. He was pacing again.
"It's not disrespectful to state the facts, dad. I don't know how you can ignore it."
"I don't ignore anything."
"Sure. Sure you don't ignore it." Jellal's volume was rising. It made the hairs on Acnologia's arms stand up. "You're actually worse than that. You pretend it's not happening." He laughed in the unwieldy way Acnologia was beginning to associate with an outburst. "Why's mom get a break but not me?"
"Excuse me?"
"I'll repeat myself." Jellal suddenly stood. He'd grown nearly four inches since turning fourteen and Acnologia knew in another year or so he'd no longer have a height advantage when it came to squaring off with his son. "Why does mom get a break with her bullshit but not me?"
"Your mother's condition –"
Jellal barked a laugh and cut him off. "Her condition? Is that what we're calling it?"
"Knock it the fuck off, Jellal," Acnologia hissed, not caring about the swear word in school. "When your mother picks fights with her age peers and gives someone else a busted lip and black eye, then we'll address it. What is wrong with you? It's the first week of high school!"
Jellal shrugged and flopped back down to the bench. "He pissed me off. It couldn't be avoided."
"Did you take your meds this morning?"
"Why are you taking his side?"
"I'm not taking anyone's side."
"You are. You asked me if I took my meds, which means you think I was irrational in clocking that guy."
"Fighting in school is irrational, Jellal." Acnologia stood directly in front of him and planted his hands on his hips. He didn't intend to appear so confrontational but he was angry. "Did you take your meds or not?"
"No," Jellal muttered. "I lost my phone and forgot."
"Jesus Christ," Acnologia muttered, turning away from him.
"Isn't it the seventh commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain?" Jellal said smartly.
"No," Acnologia snapped. "It's the third."
"Guess you better go to confession, then." Jellal's leg began to bounce. It was a thing he'd been doing for most of his life. It meant he felt anxious. An anxious Jellal was a volatile Jellal. "Light a candle for your violent son and his mother's bullshit."
Acnologia's eyes rolled upward and his head fell back. He scrubbed his face with his hands to try and gather himself before making a hasty response. His mouth opened but so did the principal's office door.
"Detective Fernandes," the woman said, folding her hands in front of her. "Will your wife be joining us?"
Acnologia made a show of checking his phone – ignoring Jellal's derisive snort – before sighing. "No, she won't be."
"I see. Well, come on in."
Acnologia trailed behind Jellal. The principal's office smelled of something heavy and floral. It made him feel light headed.
November
"I could've handled it," Invel said smoothly.
"It's fine. I wasn't sleeping anyway." Acnologia bit the inside of his cheek until it hurt. For once he was grateful for a studiously impersonal partner.
"Radio says the body is shredded." Invel kept his eyes on the road. Rain pelted the windshield and Acnologia could feel the cold creep of winter through the glass. "We need to wrap this shit up."
"Agreed."
"If we don't shut it down, they'll go over our heads."
"I know."
"I don't want this bullshit on my record." Invel's annoyance grated. He understood the urgency. He understood what would happen if they didn't catch the killer who'd been leaving their victims in increasingly bizarre and mutilated ways. "Goddamn this fucking rain!"
"Take a breath, Yura," Acnologia muttered, narrowing his eyes on the blur of lights ahead of them. Yellow and red bled together in the rain. "You're gonna need to tap into that collected calm I know you've got. This one's ugly. I can feel it."
He could hear the shouts coming from inside the house all the way out in the driveway. The scene of blood and death was still in his nostrils and the powder of silicon gloves still between his fingers. And now he had to diffuse the kind of argument that was becoming all too common for his liking.
Acnologia took his time climbing the front steps and unlocking the front door. The house smelled of burnt grease. A crash from the kitchen rattled in his head. When he rounded the corner into the dining room and kitchen he found pieces of broken stoneware and scattered slices of bacon burned black. Jellal and Anna stood on opposite sides of the mess glaring at one another.
"You're crazy," he snapped. "You throw the most dramatic tantrums!"
"Better watch out, Jellal," she said snidely. "Have a good long look." Anna threw her arms wide and her smile was absolutely manic. "This is your future. You really will be just like me."
"Hey," Acnologia cut in. "What's –"
"Fuck this," Jellal said under his breath. He shoved past Acnologia and headed for the door. His jacket fluttered as he stormed by, ignoring it despite the cold snap. The walls rattled when he slammed the door.
"You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Acnologia asked harshly, turning back to Anna. Her eyes were leaking tears and her expression had lost all its sharp edges. "Anna, I –"
"He's gone," she whispered. "He's gone and it's my fault. I chased off my son."
"Anna, please."
"I did this!" Her words were a sloppy mix of sobs and heaving breaths. "I said hateful things to our son," she gasped. Anna's hand covered her mouth and her eyes fell to the broken mess of plate and bacon. "Oh," she said. "I burned breakfast."
Anna clumsily opened the laundry room door and tried to sweep but the dustpan was still attached. She grasped it too loosely and it clattered to the floor.
"I'm so sorry," she sobbed to no one in particular.
Acnologia sighed deeply and spun on his heel. He left her to her meltdown. He had nothing to offer her this time. His shoulders felt heavy and his hands felt empty and useless.
The driveway was wet again with rain and the sound of drops panging against the tin roof of the front patio made it hard to think. Perfect. Acnologia plopped down to the top step and tipped over the planter to his left. He snagged the pack of cigarettes Jellal had taken to hiding there. Smoking hadn't been a thing he'd thought about since before Anna had gotten pregnant. Now he sucked greedily on the filter and took the poison into his body like an old pro.
Acnologia's eyes flit from one torn page to the next. The sketches of hands weren't concerning on their own but the devil was in the details. The smaller pairs of hands were obviously Jellal's. It wasn't until Acnologia realized the marks across the wrists of the opposite pairs weren't skin creases but scars that his heart ripped in half. These were Anna's hands. The scars they'd tried so hard to pretend didn't exist had been seen, judged, and interpreted. In the most recent sketches – Jellal dated every single page – both pairs of wrists had identical scars. Jellal wasn't angry. He was terrified.
Acnologia leaned back in his chair and stared hard at the ceiling. He tried to find a safe place in his head that wasn't connected to murder or the damning fact that his son had now been missing for almost forty-eight hours.
"Fuck," he whispered. "I'm so fucking tired." Acnologia snapped back into an upright position and glared at the surface of his desk. Every inch was either evidence or sketches of broken hands.
A loud rapping on the doorframe of the office startled him and he suddenly stood. He hadn't meant to but sitting again before turning around would've been awkward.
"Detective Fernandes?"
"What?" he said over his shoulder.
"They found your son."
Acnologia spun around and snatched his jacket off the back of his chair. "Where?"
"He's down in interrogation –"
"What?" Acnologia snapped. "He's fourteen."
"Uh, yes, sir. Front desk called your wife –"
"For fuck's sake." Acnologia swept past the officer with all the grace of a thunderstorm.
"Erm," the officer stuttered and when Acnologia turned around, the younger man withered. "Uh, never mind. He's in room four."
He spared the officer nothing but a frustrated grunt. Everyone he passed on his way down to interrogation cleared out of his way. Exactly how long had Jellal been in custody and why the fuck hadn't he been notified? As soon as he swung the door of interrogation room four open, he found the answer to his question.
Jellal smirked but the expression tapered off – either from pain or nerves, Acnologia didn't know. His entire right cheek and about a half inch of his forehead was red and inflamed. A tattoo that looked vaguely familiar had been scrawled on his face.
On his face.
His.
Face.
Acnologia sucked in a calming breath but only had enough fuse to glare at the officer in the corner of the room. The other man cleared his throat and disappeared quickly. He slammed the door shut and tossed his jacket on the table. Jellal had the nerve to meet his gaze without flinching.
"Who put that on you?" Acnologia demanded.
"Why?"
"So I can fucking arrest them! That's why!" he roared. "Tattooing a child is illegal!"
"I'm not a child," Jellal said with a shrug.
"You're fourteen and yes you are a fucking child!" Acnologia spun around and stared at himself in the mirrored glass. "Where have you been besides a shady tattoo parlor?"
"Around."
"Not an answer, Jellal. You can't just –"
"I can do whatever I want."
"No," Acnologia snapped, glaring at himself. "No you can't. Where were you?"
"Just out. With Ultear."
"Ultear Milkovich?" Acnologia's eyes slid closed and he exhaled slowly before turning back to Jellal. "That girl is a prison sentence waiting to happen."
"So what?"
"Did you wear a condom?" Acnologia demanded, ignoring Jellal's attempt at deflection.
"With Ultear?" Jellal laughed shortly before his inflamed cheek twitched. "She's not into guys."
"My question stands. If you need to be tested or –"
"I'm not a fucking moron, dad. I know what condoms are for and how to use them."
"You say you aren't a moron and yet here you sit with a goddamn –" Acnologia leaned over the table and peered at Jellal's face. Yes. Of course. "Where did you see this image?"
"In the garage."
"What were you trying to accomplish, Jellal? This is ancient history. Why did you put a culture on your face that you were neither raised in nor understand?"
Without hesitation Jellal answered. "Because I wanted to show mom I was more like you than her. I wanted to show her that I'm not going to wind up like her. I don't want her scars or her episodes. I'm me. I can be stable!"
Acnologia's face twisted. His throat hurt when he tried to form words. "Jellal –"
The door burst open and Anna entered the room in a flurry of tears, layers of sweat clothes, coats, and a scarf. She crossed the room at an impressive speed and crushed Jellal against her body. Acnologia straightened and turned back to the open door. He shot the small crowd in the hallway a ferocious glare – clearing the area – before pulling the door shut again.
"Jellal," she gasped, brushing her fingers over his face. Jellal flinched and closed his hand over hers, guiding it away.
"I'm fine, mom."
"No, you're not! What happened?" Anna turned to him and Acnologia felt a defensive comment burn his tongue but he swallowed it.
"He's tattooed his face, I guess. It should be looked at immediately. Maybe it can be removed."
"Jellal?" Anna asked again, peering at his face before taking the rest of him in. "Are you okay? Are you hungry? Tired? You smell like a bar."
"Mom, please." He didn't back away and Acnologia raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine. I'm just…" Jellal trailed off and glanced over at him before sighing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run off. I don't know what to say."
"Have you been taking your meds?" Acnologia demanded with less boom than before.
"Not the right ones," Jellal muttered. Anna's face pinched but she said nothing.
"What did you take? Something for your face, I hope?"
"I had some percocet before the guy brought his needles out. Ultear said it would help." His shoulders drooped. "It didn't. She got me some trazodone but I think it made me feel itchy."
"Oh, honey," Anna said softly, touching his dirty hair. "You shouldn't take things like that. We'll see your doctor in the morning and fix this, okay?"
Despite her own messy hair and the dark circles under her eyes, Anna sounded reasonable and responsible. Acnologia said nothing. He wouldn't burst her bubble. Only hours before she'd been a frantic mess unable to function or finish a complete sentence.
"Anna why don't you take him home and he can get cleaned up. Somebody at the hospital should be able to get him something for –" Acnologia gestured to his cheek. "For that. I'll call Doctor Dreyar's office."
Anna smiled and slid her arm around Jellal's shoulder. He no longer looked defiant and surly but exhausted and ready to let his mother dote.
"Layla drove me," Anna said softly. "Will you be home tonight?"
"I have some things I need to wrap up before I can leave but I'll be home." Acnologia watched them exit the interrogation room with mounting frustration. "Jellal," he called.
"Yeah?"
"We'll finish this discussion later. You know the one."
"Yeah, okay," Jellal whispered, looking abashed.
Once he was alone Acnologia slumped against the wall and glared at his folded hands. He wanted to unearth every single motherfucker in Magnolia with a tattoo gun and start lopping off heads until he found the asshole that had tattooed Jellal's face. These things were getting harder and harder to swallow.