Vincent shut the front door of his house quietly behind him after he finally got home. Despite his carefulness, though, he was still heard and greeted by the one person left awake.

"Daddy!" a short boy darted into the room and barreled straight into his father, who grunted and pretended to fall to the floor in mock surrender.

"Ak! You vin, you vin! Let me up, Andy," he cried out before Andy let him up. He then dusted himself off and set a semi stern look at the child. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"I pretended to sleep until Uncle Jeremy went to bed, so that I could wait for you to get home. Jay is asleep, though," Andy stated as seriously as possible for an eight year old.

"Zat is because Jay is apparently smarter zan you. Don't you have school in ze morning?" Vincent fixed the boy with what was often mockingly called his 'grown-up look.' It didn't actually look all that grown-up.

"Nope. School's out tomorrow," Andy said with a triumphant smile. "Plus, how can Jay be smarter than me? He's a baby."

"No, he's not. Can you go start the tub? Be careful not to vake up Jeremy," Vincent said, taking off his sweater. Some of the blood on his shirt had soaked through and stained the inside a little.

"Cold water, right? 'Cause it's blood?" Andy asked, darting into the kitchen before his father could even begin to answer.

Vincent called out to Andy, who was surely all the way to the bathroom by that point, "Grab ze orange soap please! Ze green van doesn't vork!" The only response that came was that of the tub faucet starting to spew water and the thumping sound of cabinets hitting the wall. Vincent started walking into the other room, pulling his stained shirt off on the way.

You sure that's such a good idea while Jeremiah is still in the house. He could wake up, Valentine said from the back of his mind.

"I'm not talking to you right nov," Vincent grumbled, running into a wall when his shirt blocked his view.

Oh, the silent treatment. How mature, no response. You're serious aren't you? Well that's not much fun. Valentine went silent. Vincent decided to take his sweet time getting to the bathroom, and Andy was just shutting off the water and putting the soap bottle on the edge of the tub when he got there. The little boy looked up, trying not to stare at the various scars and bruises that his father had. Andy knew better than to ask about them other than the still bandaged wound on his arm that he'd gotten from falling out of a tree the week before.

"Daddy, you must be super lucky, 'cause Uncle Jeremy went to bed early tonight. If he was awake, he would've seen," Andy said as his father dumped the dirty shirt into the half filled tub. The downstairs bathroom was smaller than upstairs, despite being the one with the shower, and Andy had to climb onto the toilet to make room.

"If your uncle had been avake, zen I vould have been more careful," Vincent assured the boy. The worry was cute, though. He'd never had to tell Andy not to tell anyone about Valentine's 'excursions' as they both called them in conversations. The little boy just automatically knew that it was something that needed to be kept a secret. He worried about his father, though. Being a better reader than most kids his age, and being curious about why his was different from all the other kids' fathers, he read a lot of books about how the brain works (always with a dictionary or other reference book on hand, in case of big words). In fact, he could probably tell a person more about mental disorders than most of the adults he knew, and he could even pronounce everything to some degree of accuracy. A lot of what he read scared him, though, and made him wonder what would happen if Valentine ever got caught.

As Vincent washed his shirt, he noted the expression on Andy's face.

"Somesing wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing Daddy. I'm fine," Andy lied. Problem was, he was a really crappy liar, especially when talking to his father, who often seemed like a human lie detector.

"Alright," Vincent said dubiously but dropping the subject anyway. Andy nodded and managed a smile. No matter what happened, his Daddy would always be his Daddy. He was sure of that at least.

They sat in silence for awhile, Andy sitting on the toilet while his father kneeled over the tub. The water was starting to take on a red tinge where it was visible through the soap as the blood from the shirt leached into it. Annoyingly, Vincent's hair kept falling into his face, and he had to keep pushing it back behind his ears, making a mental note to shower when he woke up. After the third or fourth time, Andy got up and checked in the cabinet over the sink for a hair tie. He didn't see any of those,so he tried to find some string instead. That stuff was always getting everywhere, kinda like cat fur, except spread by his uncle when he had enough time off from school to sew. Not finding that either, he sat on the toilet again with his arms crossed until an idea came to him. Andy stood behind his father and started to tie Vincent's hair into a clumsy knot. It ended up as a very messy ponytail that fell to just above his shoulders. A few stray hairs were still loose, but they wouldn't be a bother.

"Sank you," Vincent said, concentrating on what he was doing. He pulled the shirt out of the water to see if he could still see the spot on it. It looked like it was gone, but he stuck it back under another time just in case.

"You're welcome!" Andy said cheerfully before letting out a great big yawn.

"Looks like bedtime-"

"No!" Andy cut his father off. "I wanna stay up."

Vincent stood up and dumped the mostly clean shirt into the sink. The washing machine could probably take care of whatever was left, if there even was anything left.

"You're tired, Andy. It's bedtime," he said, trying and failing to sound stern. Andy looked down in disappointment.

"Ok," Andy tried to give his Daddy yet another tackle hug, but the small space in the bathroom made it difficult, so he had to settle for a regular hug. "Goodnight Daddy."

"Goodnight Andy," Vincent hugged his son back before the boy scampered out of the bathroom and up to his bedroom.