Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy this latest chapter.
Bring On The Backlash
When they arrived in the dining room it was to find Buffy running around the chair Robert was sitting on, disappearing under the table before popping out as a speedy brown blur around and around again until Arthur's whistle had her coming to a screeching halt, her tail wagging like mad as she grinned doggily over her successful finding of Robert. For his part Robert was smiling a little over her shenanigans, but the expression was marred by the large bruise blooming over the left side of the teenager's face, from just under Robert's eye to nearly his jawline.
"Hey. Uhm…Renee just went to get me fresh ice."
Striding over to him Arthur's eyes were dark but controlled as he gently tipped Robert's face to the side so that he could get a better look at the damage. "Did he hit you anywhere else?"
"No, just the once. To punch-uate a point I wasn't getting, pun completely intended." Robert tried a weak smile, but seeing that the statement had fallen beyond flat stopped. "It's really not that bad, he doesn't pack that much of a punch and-you didn't have to come, I'm okay." Robert's eyes veered over to meet Eames's for a minute, than shyly went back to meet Arthur's again. He would have preferred his drama teacher hadn't known about this, but it wasn't like he could hide it either. Even with make-up, he wouldn't be able to hide the swelling well enough for it to go unnoticed, he'd already asked Renee. All they could do was mask the rainbow of colors he was sporting.
"Has he done this before?"
Robert shrugged. "A couple of times. Mostly he uses his words though, since he knows he hits like a girl."
"And we can hit pretty damn hard when we want to, thank you very much."
Gliding into the room Renee was looking plenty pissed at the moment, but when she reached Robert her touch was gently as she pressed the new ice pack against the boy's face before she turned her attention to her son and Eames. "You two made excellent time. Buffy too." She added, having noticed the dog on the other side of Robert, standing guard now that's she'd picked up the seriousness of the situation. Buffy wasn't growling or anything, but she was on alert, ears perked and eyes scanning protectively.
Looking down at her too Robert smiled over his little guard dog, pushing his chair back and scooping her up with the hand that wasn't currently holding ice to his face. Settling her on his lap for petting, he had to admit he felt better with her snuggling against him.
"Your father is upstairs, he's making sure that the son of a bitch that will soon be nothing but gore clinging to my stilettos can't drain Robbie's bank accounts and leave him with nothing. If you want you could go up and help him, Eames can babysit Robbie for us." What she'd be doing in the meantime was obvious in the 'pissed off mommy' gleam in her eyes.
"Mom." "Renee."
Renee gave the son of her body and heart, and the son of her heart, looks that said there was nothing they could say to stop her.
"You're not even wearing stilettos." Robert pointed out, just for a distraction while he figured out how he was going to keep her from killing his father with her bare hands. She could do it after all, he didn't doubt that she loved him that much. Which should have been frightening, but in theory it was a lovely thing. Not so much when he pictured her behind bars because of him, though if anyone could convince a jury to let her off for cold blooded murder it was his godmother.
"I have plenty of them upstairs, not that I'd waste my best shoes on him."
"Mother, I can see that you're really determined here-"
"You know I hate when you call me Mother."
"I know, it was to get your attention." Ignoring her dark look Arthur simply held up a quelling finger. "What happens next depends on what Robert intends to do. You've asked to stay here, but how determined are you to stay until you've finished school? Because everything we do now hinges on whether or not you intend to return to your place under his thumb in the future."
Both Eames and Renee gave Arthur looks that said they thought he could have phrased that nicer, but he ignored them, keeping his eyes locked on Robert's.
Understanding why Arthur was emphasizing this so much, his godbrother knew him well after all, Robert looked him dead in the eyes now. "I'm not going back to him. I knew, tonight, for the first time in my bones what you've all been trying to make me see for years. He's never going to love me. He's not even capable of caring about me. I'll never be anything but a piece of his chess board and-and I'm done with that. I'm staying here until university; I'm not his son anymore."
"What did he say to you?"
Robert's eyes dropped down to Buffy's head as he summed up nearly word for word what he and his father had said to each other, the words all but burned into his brain and heart at this point.
Arthur weighed those words and what he saw in Robert's eyes when the teenager finally looked up and met his gaze. Liking what he saw there Arthur nodded decisively, his course of action clear now.
"All right then, I've been waiting over a decade to destroy that whiney little bitch."
Three jaws dropped a little while Buffy barked in approval, sensing something good was going to happen.
"Mom, you stay here and take care of Robbie because if you kill the bastard now he's not going to be humiliated, disgraced and cast into his idea of a living hell here on earth before visiting the real deal. Eames, you're in charge of watching the both of them while I'm upstairs talking to my father about how we're going to annihilate Fischer. Robert, call Hikaru and tell him what happened since you don't want him finding out from someone else and he is involved in this too. And Buffy, just keep doing what you're doing, Girl. Any questions?"
Renee's hand immediately shot a hand in the air as she demanded to know what he was going to do to Maurice.
"Dad and I are going to destroy his businesses and then salt the earth they're built on so that they can never recover."
Arthur's grin was a shark's, and sure that his point had been made he strolled out of the room, a man on a mission to completely and utterly destroy the man who had foolishly thought that he could mess with a member of Arthur's family and get away with it.
Renee sighed with pleasure as she watched him disappear from view, her pride in him obvious. "He gets that from his father."
"Sexy as hell."
Renee and Eames shared a complete look of understanding while Robert hugged Buffy to him and mentally sent up a thank you that Arthur was on his side.
The man could be scary sometimes.
)
As he headed up the stairs that would take him to the next level of the house and his father's office Arthur belatedly realized that there was a phone call he should really make now, before he got caught up in what he and his father were going to be doing and pushed aside everything else from his mind. Mal had given him hell before, when he hadn't called her about Robert being sick, and the last thing he needed right now was a fight with her on top of everything else. And that aside she could help with his plan, Arthur reasoned as he accessed her number, which made calling her now that much more logical.
She picked up immediately, which was a nice change of pace, her voice reasonably chipper as she inquired as to what she owed the pleasure of his call.
"I'm calling about Big Squishie. And before you start bombarding me with questions let me lay it out for you, okay?" He paused for a minute, just in case, and then continued. "He's fine, he's moved in with my parents and that's going to be permanent if we have anything to say about it. Maurice punched him and threatened him with being disowned, which Robbie decided to take him up on apparently. He's got a bad bruise on his cheek but that appears to be the worst of it."
Here Arthur paused, giving Mal a chance to curse Maurice Fischer out to her heart's content, which meant he was at his father's office long before she was finished with her impressive, French tirade. And not wanting to bother said parent with his phone conversation Arthur paused outside the door and waited her out so that he could finish his explanation.
When she did calm down enough to think rationally the first words out of her mouth came in the form of a demand to know if Renee had killed the cock-sucking bastard already.
"No, I managed to convince her that letting him live was for the best since we're going to destroy his company and force him to live in a world where he's the laughingstock of everyone whose opinion actually matters to him."
A thoughtful pause, and then Mal admitted that did sound appealing provided that there was some way she could contribute to the destruction and ultimate decimation of her now mortal enemy.
"I promise to find ways for you to help, I already have some ideas for that. I need to work some stuff out with my father first, since I'll need his help to pull it off successfully. Call you tomorrow with the details? I'll make sure Squishie calls you too, so that you can talk to him yourself. He's not up to any more drama or talk about this whole mess tonight."
"Alright, but you both better call or I'm going to knock your silly man heads together."
"Understood."
"We will make Fischer pay for this for decades to come, oui?"
"And into the next life if there is one." Arthur promised her before saying goodbye.
That done Arthur knocked on the door to his father's office and then entered when he was given permission to do so, the look in Arthur's eyes making it clear he was a man on a mission.
His father had a similar gleam in his eyes when their gazes met in perfect accord.
)
As he stood staring at the door that had literally been slammed in his face Hikaru was literally shaking with a combination of rage, fear, and utter panic. Did Robert really not want to see him or had the old bastard just told the staff to tell him that if he came by? And more importantly, had Robert's father taken his anger out on Robert earlier? Had he hurt him? He'd never seen bruises on Robert's body before, but it wasn't like he saw the other teenager without clothes often, and he'd always seen the capacity for physical violence in Maurice Fischer's eyes.
Swiping a frantic hand through his hair, he'd never been the sort to handle feeling helpless well, Hikaru wondered if he should try knocking again, maybe refuse to leave until he saw Robert. Of course the head of the house would probably be just fine with him staying outside and catching his death of cold…
Cursing the fact that he didn't have his phone, he'd thrown it against a wall earlier after arguing with his father for a good half an hour about what he'd done without even giving him a heads up-and he'd come here in such a rush that it hadn't even occurred to him to use the house phone to contact Robert first. Getting to him had been the only thought in his usually genius head.
Giving up on staying where he was, there was no point, Hikaru ran back to his car and moments later peeled out of the Fischer mansion's driveway, his destination the nearest store that sold cell phones. He needed to talk to Robert and he wasn't going to be able to do that without a way to reach him.
Twenty odd minutes later he had a phone and was punching in Robert's number, thankful that he had a head for numbers and therefore actually remembered his friend's number instead of needing his cell to supply it. Of course Robert might not pick up because of the strange number and-
"Hello?"
"Thank God you picked up!" Breathing a sigh of relief Hikaru slumped back against the side of his car. "I'm so sorry I didn't call you sooner, I broke my phone and then I went to your house-did you know? The maid said you didn't want to speak with me but-I'm so sorry, Robert. I didn't know what my father was up to, I swear. On my honor."
"That's…that's why you weren't answering my text or calls? You broke your phone?"
"I was so angry at my father I smashed it into a wall."
"Oh." Pause. "And no, my father must have told her to tell you that. I'm not even there."
Surprise turned to relief. "You're at Mr. Gordon's place."
"Actually I'm at his mother's place. My godparents' place."
Well that was good too, Hikaru thought, since he'd met Renee and knew that she was more than capable of going head to head with Robert's father and kicking the old man's ass. Though there was still the issue of why Robert wasn't currently at his own house that needed to be addressed. "So are you okay? Did you just leave to avoid him? Have you even talked to him?"
"I talked to him. I didn't know about things until he called me down to his study. I-uhm." Long pause. "Eames said I should tell you at least over the phone instead of shocking you with it at school tomorrow, in front of everyone and stuff, so-he punched me and I've got a rather large bruise below my eye. It doesn't hurt really or anything, but it looks sorta nasty."
"He. Punched. You?"
"It's not that big a deal, and I've always bruised easily so-"
"Where do your godparents live? Give me the address."
"What? Why?"
"I'm coming over. Give me the address or I'll just look it up."
Robert gave him the address without any argument, explaining that his godparents had already cleared him to invite Hikaru over if he managed to get ahold of him. He asked where he was and when Hikaru told him Robert informed him that it shouldn't take him more than ten minutes since he was driving.
"I'm on my way."
Hanging up after saying goodbye Hikaru got back into his car and programed the address into his GPS and was off, speeding a little so that he made it to his destination in half the time Robert had predicted. He recognized Mr. Gordon's car in the driveway as he pulled up behind it, the sight making him feel a little bit better about the whole mess they'd found themselves in. Plus Robert had mention Mr. Eames, so it stood to reason both their teachers were there, along with Mr. Gordon's parents. That was good. That meant there was no way Robert's father was getting him back.
Getting out of his car Hikaru ran across the pavement and up the short set of stairs that led to the porch and then the front door, ringing the doorbell as soon as he spotted it. He didn't have to wait long, the door was opened within seconds of the first chime to reveal his drama teacher on the other side with an impressed look on his face.
"You must have sped quite a bit to get here; I only just arrived to wait for you to let you in. Come in then, I'm glad you called him. When none of us could get ahold of you we were starting to worry."
"How is he?"
Giving him a look of understanding Eames dropped a hand on the boy's shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze before moving out of the way so that Hikaru could get past him and into the house. "He's fairly decent at the moment now that he knows he hasn't lost his best mate on top of everything else. I was trying to keep him busy, picking his brain for the Christmas plays, but-well, that really wasn't working so he decided to go to his room and watch 'Homeward Bound' with Buffy, as apparently it's her favorite movie of all time. He's waiting for you upstairs."
"Lead the way."
Nodding, Eames motioned for him to follow and then headed for the stairs, deliberately hurrying since he could see that the boy was ready to jump out of his bloody skin. Not that he could blame to kid, he'd be just as bad in the teenager's trainers. The night was going to end on a relatively good note, but it could have gone horribly wrong in a lot of ways and neither Robert nor Mr. Saito were going to be okay until they saw the other.
When they arrived at the right door Eames just pointed and then gave Hikaru a salute. "I'm going to join the others in Arthur's dad's study, if either of you needs one of us."
"Thanks."
Not bothering to watching the other man go or even knock Hikaru just opened the door and hurried inside, his eyes immediately sweeping the room in a search to locate Robert.
Having looked away from the movie he wasn't really watching as soon as he heard the doorknob turn, Robert hastily picked Buffy up off his lap and set her down on the bed before quickly getting off of it himself, not even carrying how pathetic and girlie he might appear as he ran straight for Hikaru, who thank God was moving just as quickly towards him.
Throwing their arms around each other they hung on for all they were worth without saying a word, Buffy nodding in approval before turning back to watch her movie.
