"Where the hell have you been!" Victor screamed, stalking across the living room to the front hall, where his wife and son stood at the entryway. "Get in here this instant!"
Janet, dark eyes widening in concern, ushered Chase inside and hastily closed the door behind them. "Victor—" she began in earnest, but he cut her off.
"No, Janet! No more making excuses for him!" Victor roared. He rounded on Chase, entire countenance livid as he towered before his only child. "Our son has done plenty of stupid things the past thirteen years, but this time, he's gone too far! Running away and skipping school when you were already grounded, Chase—do you have any idea what you've put us through for the past two days? Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
Chase's body jerked in place at the reprimand, neck snapping up from where he'd been standing with his head bowed and eyes cast down at the linoleum floor.
"M'sorry," he muttered lowly, wrapping an arm around himself as he stared blankly at the space to the left of his father's head. Despite the warm Los Angeles weather in early September, Chase was dressed for a snowstorm, bundled up in heavy layers from head to toe. "I dunno what happened...musta lost track of time..."
"You lost track of time?" his father shouted back disbelievingly. "For two days? Even a thick-headed moron like you should be able to come up with a better excuse than that! What the hell are you even thinking, Chase?"
Victor tore his plastic safety goggles from his head in a rage and hurled them at the floor. They hit the linoleum with a loud thwack, startling Chase, who jumped in surprise and watched with wide eyes as the goggles skidded several more feet across the floor.
His father wasn't done. "We thought you'd been kidnapped, or worse—we had the whole damn police searching LA for your truant ass!" he bellowed, rolling up the sleeves of his lab coat. He was too far gone now to care about the risks of doing something to his son that might leave a visible mark. "This ends now, Chase! I thought I made myself clear last week when you pulled the same disappearing stunt to get out of your afternoon classes, but I guess I was wrong. Not anymore!"
Victor brought up his hand in preparation to swing, fingers curling into a fist. Chase, seeing what was coming, let out a strangled noise in his throat and scrambled back. His movements were frenzied, uncoordinated, stumbling over his own feet in a panic as he tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and his father as possible. The blank look in his eyes was gone now, replaced by a wild, haunted expression that made him look more animal than human. The effect was compounded by Chase's pallid skin and unkempt hair, both casualties of his being separated from his bedroom and bath the past two days.
"Don't!" he shouted desperately, ducking his father's blows in quick succession as though his life depended on it. "D-Don't—Don't touch me! Get away!"
"Get back here!" Victor roared in fury, lunging again.
Chase didn't stop trying to run until his back hit the opposite wall. He cringed, glancing behind him with something akin to betrayal, before ducking his head down again as though it might make his father disappear. He was cornered, and they both knew it.
Still standing by the door, Janet sighed and cast her eyes down in resignation, even as Victor stormed forward and seized the front of Chase's jacket in his hands.
"Very funny, mister!" Victor snarled, shaking him violently by the fabric. "Bad enough that you blatantly disrespect us when we try to set boundaries you, now you're acting too good to take the punishment you've earned! You're not getting out of this one until you learn your fucking lesson!"
He pulled back his fist and struck, cracking Chase across the jaw so hard it spun him to the side. The blow was powerful, to be certain, but not to the extent that Victor or his wife could have ever anticipated what happened next: instead of fighting back, the way Chase usually did, their son let out a keening wail of fear and threw his hands up over his head to protect himself.
"Please! P-Please don't!" he wailed, his whole body trembling so badly that his knees threatened to give way beneath him. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I messed up! Please please please lemme go, I swear I'll do anything you want! Juh-Just, don't hit me anymore! Please!"
Thunderstruck, Victor and Janet exchanged stunned glances, both completely caught off-guard by his sudden outburst. This wasn't how the scenario was supposed to play out. Chase had never once in living memory gone down from a single hit; he usually liked to posture and hurl smart remarks until Victor beat the arrogance out of him by force. The most the Steins had come to expect from their son following a punishment was a few days of sullen silence, followed by a brief, guarded period of respect, before Chase inevitably forgot himself and lashed out again.
That stubborn willfulness was nowhere to be seen today. Chase only kept sobbing like a child in his father's grasp, still clutching his hands over his head for protection and seeming unable to even make eye contact with his parents. His body had gone limp in Victor's hold, leaving him to slide slowly down the wall and nearly onto his knees. Only his father's hands still bunched in the fabric of his jacket kept Chase's body semi-upright.
Completely uncertain how to proceed, Victor swallowed and released his grip, stepping back to give his son some space. "Chase," he said loudly, his voice coming out far more doubtful than the authoritative tone he'd been trying for, "get up this instant. We're not done talking to you, and you still need to answer for what you've done. Stand up!"
Freed from his father's grip, Chase finally lowered his hands from his head and wrapped them tightly around his legs instead. His body curled up as much as it could and he pressed his face into his knees, letting out a shuddering sob.
"I'm sorry," he whispered brokenly, voice barely rising above a mumble. His teary eyes flickered back and forth across the room, landing anywhere but directly on his parents. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
Victor glanced away from Chase to Janet again, who looked as lost as he felt. Within him, his paternal instincts warred furiously against his sense of good reason. Letting Chase go now would be sending a message of unforgiveable weakness, communicating an unwillingness on their part to follow through on a punishment in the face of apology—something Chase would doubtless remember and later use against them. If Victor let up early this time, who was to say that Chase wouldn't turn on the waterworks every time he felt like breaking curfew or cutting class from now on? Could Victor, as a father, really afford to show his son any mercy after what he'd done to his family?
Glancing back at Chase weakened Victor's resolve. His son was currently rocking himself back and forth on the ground where his father had left him, sniffling, his movements suffused with an air of suppressed hysteria. Whatever had brought on this...attack, whatever it was, had obviously shaken Chase badly. Perhaps it would be enough to make him think twice, the next time he got it into his empty, sports-filled brain to ditch school and run away from home without so much as an explanation.
Either way, Victor knew he couldn't bring himself to hit Chase when he was like this. He was too relieved to have him home again, secure in the knowledge that he hadn't been taken by an enemy of the Pride, as he and Janet had both feared when he hadn't come home the first night.
"I'm going to give you some time to think about what you've done," Victor said at last, folding his arms over his chest as he glanced down at Chase on the ground. "You and I are still going to have a talk about this, young man, once your mother and I have decided on a punishment. For now, just go on up to your room and change out of that damn tracksuit, for god's sake. It's barely September; you look fucking ridiculous. Go on!"
Chase finally looked up and gave him a watery glance, seeming as though he were waiting for his father to change his mind and start yelling again. He uncurled a bit and glanced over at his mother by the door, then back to Victor. "Can—Can I take a shower first?" he asked hollowly, starting to stand with his back pressed to the wall. His movements were strangely delicate, as though he were afraid of falling again if he moved too fast.
"Of course you can, sweetie," Janet said, sharing a look with Victor to make sure it was cleared between them. "Go on upstairs. Your father and I will come talk to you later."
With an inaudible mumble of gratitude, Chase stood up fully and slunk out of the room. He gave them both one last, wary glance before shuffling off, with uncharacteristic sluggishness, toward the stairs in the living room.
Left alone in the silence, Victor and Janet could only stare at one other in shared confusion. Their locked eyes broadcast the exact same question that was echoing in both of their minds: what was that all about?