Title: you wouldn't want me to have to hurt you, too
Summary: "It's your fault she's dead, you know." Chris isn't surprised by his daughter's accusation, but that doesn't make it sting any less.
Word count: 1700
Characters: Chris Argent, Allison Argent
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by the flawless Jeff Davis, et al, and I only borrow them to indulge in my sick, road trip-provoked fantasies.
Warnings: bloodplay, knifeplay, bondage, undernegotiated kink, parent/child incest undertones, dom/sub undertones, grief/mourning, references to canonical character death
"IT'S YOUR FAULT she's dead, you know."
Chris isn't surprised by his daughter's accusation, but that doesn't make it sting any less.
"That's what you think, huh?" he asks, his voice taut and painful in his throat. He barely glances at the front door as he swings it closed and locks it, preferring to stare Allison down, to see every hateful glint in her eyes.
"That's what I know," she insists. Her eyes are damp with unshed tears. He knows she's been holding them back all day, just like he'd known she was going to snap when they got home. She hasn't really dealt yet with her mother's death. It's just been one thing after another since Victoria died, with the hospital, and then Gerard and the kanima, and now the funeral. Now that they've finally reached a moment where there's nothing to distract them, it's hitting her like a wrecking ball to the chest.
He gets it. He really does. There are countless different ways to grieve, and everything Allison's saying, every bit of hate in her eyes, is totally normal. But his wife is dead, and his sister is dead, and his father is missing. And what Chris really needs is a drink and some time to himself. Not his daughter jumping down his throat.
And he's just so tired. He's had enough. He keeps thinking if they'd never come back to Beacon Hills none of this would have happened. His family would still be alive, and his daughter wouldn't be well on her way to losing everything he loves about her.
"You know nothing, Allison," he says, and it comes out far more derisive than he intended. Her eyes widen, and she falls back a step, but he's been letting her treat him like shit for days now, and he's sick of it. He's her father, goddamnit, and he won't put up with her bullshit. "You think you have it all figured out, don't you? That things are always black or white. Derek Hale bit your mother, and I didn't kill him, wouldn't let you do it, so I'm the bad guy." He's crowding into her space now, and she's backing up as he does it, and then she's flat against the wall in their foyer, looking up at him with wide, shimmering eyes. "Derek didn't kill your mother. She killed herself. That was her choice, and she had every right to make that choice."
"Derek bit her," Allison counters. Her voice cracks sharply, and the first tears she's shed since the hospital well up in her eyes, clinging to her lashes. "He as good as killed her."
"No!" He doesn't mean to yell, not really. He doesn't mean to throw his fist into the wall next to Allison's head. But he does. "We have a code. Victoria got bitten because she broke the code. It was her own damn fault, and I hate her for that." He shoves off the wall, because he needs to put some space between them. Then he turns away from Allison, one hand coming up to massage his forehead, where a migraine is brewing. When he turns back around, she's still plastered against the wall, though some of the tension has leaked out of her body, and tears are steadily flowing from her eyes. "You don't get to go throwing blame at people who don't deserve it, Allison. If you want to blame someone, you blame your mother. And no one else. Do you understand me? No one!"
"I just don't want to feel like this anymore," she sobs. In that moment, she reminds him forcefully of that day he caught her with Scott, the day he pressed the muzzle of his gun to Scott's throat while pinning him to the hood of Allison's car. She'd pleaded and cried and tried frantically to pull him off her boyfriend. Now, she has that same look in her eyes, tortured, imploring. "It hurts, Daddy, it hurts so much —" He gathers her up in his arms. "— and it won't stop. Please, make it stop. Please, please —" And then she dissolves.
WHEN IT BECOMES clear that Allison can't stop crying, when Chris's heart can't take it anymore, he offers to help. He shouldn't, because Allison's his little girl, and she's the only bright spot in his life, shiny and hopeful and untainted by the darkness around them. At least, that's what he wants to think. Logically, he knows better. After everything that's happened this year, he knows his baby girl, the one who wore a buttercup yellow dress and squealed happily as he pushed her on the swing set in the back yard... she's gone. So, with his heart breaking in his chest, he promises to help.
He takes her to the basement, strips her out of her funeral clothes. She's still crying, but silently now, as he urges her into the wooden chair above the drain in the cement floor. She goes willingly, lays her wrists across the metal cuffs on the chair's arms. She looks up at him, and there's a spark of relief in her eyes when he locks her in.
The first drag of the dagger across her skin slices, droplets of blood popping up along the line of it, and the relief it gives is visible. She heaves in a breath like a weight's been lifted from her chest and she can finally fill her lungs again the way she needs to.
Chris meets his daughter's eyes and finds her tears have stilled. "Again?" he asks, and she nods. "Say it, Allison."
"Cut me again." There's a plea there in her gaze, undeniable, and he feels a swell of power wash through him.
"Say please." It slips from his mouth before it even occurs to him to say it.
Allison doesn't seem to mind. "Please, Daddy, cut me," she begs, voice cracking from the strain of all her crying.
He presses the tip of the knife into the skin at the curve of her shoulder just next to her bra strap, punctures the skin. A droplet of blood wells up around the tip, and some of it catches, dragging along her skin as he slices a four inch line down toward her arm. It's not deep, the knife only going far enough into her to draw a little stream of blood.
He knows exactly how she's feeling. He knows that her blood feels tainted and that, when it leaves her body, it's like all the toxins of death and destruction are flowing out of her. He knows that the sight of deep red blood sliding down her skin, standing out against the pale white-pink of it, is therapeutic. It's catharsis. It helps.
And when he pulls the chain that hangs next to her, triggers the outpouring of cold water from the shower head above the chair, Allison turns her face up into it. She gasps at the temperature, and the water mixes with her blood, dragging it down her body in diluted streaks. He releases the chain after only a few seconds, but when the water stops flowing, Allison is gasping regardless.
"Don't stop," she urges, and Chris quirks an eyebrow at her. This time she adds it without his prompting: "Please."
He leans over the chair, laying one hand on her forearm and letting it take his weight. She squirms a little, stifling a whimper at the pain. Then he brings up the blood-dipped tip of his dagger and carefully traces the lines of her face - so like her mother's. Her eyes flutter shut as the metal slides over her eyebrow, down to her cheekbone, and then up the bridge of her nose.
"I didn't like the way you talked to me earlier," he says. His tone is carefully selected for its placidity, but there's an undercurrent of warning there that he knows Allison won't miss.
She hesitates, eyes wide, but when he only stares at her expectantly, she says carefully, "I'm sorry."
"You should be. Do you think it's okay to treat your father with that kind of disrespect?" Chris straightens up then and begins to walk around the chair in a slow circle, trailing the knife over Allison's skin as he moves. He feels more than sees her shiver. Then she shakes her head, and he snaps, "That's not an answer."
"No... sir."
He gives an airy snort. His girl always has been a quick learner.
As a reward, he cuts her again, carefully nicking the taut, pale skin covering her shoulder blade. Her answering gasp devolves quickly into a moan of relief. But there's something else to that moan, something he hadn't expected. Something he doesn't think he should try to parse out, because nothing good lies down that road.
He only falters over it for a moment, and then continues his walk back around until he's in front of his daughter again. Her cheeks are flushed, and she stares expectantly up at him. There's a prurient sort of need in her eyes. He studies her cautiously, silently. She holds his gaze for several drawn-out beats, and then her eyes slide from his face, trailing down his body like the knife had over hers. Chris's stomach clenches.
"Daddy..."
"No."
The denial comes out sharp, because he knows what she's going to say, and he can't hear those words from her. She's his daughter. He loves her more than anything. But that... that's the one thing he won't, can't give to her.
There's a flash of hurt in her eyes, and she ducks her head. The wave of sadness in him is almost overwhelming.
"Why not?" she asks, voice thin and meek like a child's.
"Because."
But even Chris knows that's not a good answer. He just doesn't have a better one to give her.