A bit of a shorter chapter for my dear sweet boy, Scout.

I really care about this character, he's gotten me closer to tears than any of the others. He's not my favorite, but I hope to flesh him out a bit more retroactively when I go back and edit after the next chapter. Gotta love fanfic, haha.

Anyway, I'm gonna shout myself out this week, if you haven't, go read Cascarones. TheSparklyKitten let me play with her OC Ari for her birthday and I'm really proud of that cute little Easter story.


Scout was rocking back and forth on his feet, getting a pat-down. He didn't know why they thought that he would try to sneak something to the brother who had assaulted him but he got the pat-down anyway. He was the last in a line of crooks. He wasn't as smart as his parents or brother but you didn't have to be smart to smash a window, pull a knife on someone, kick a cat into traffic. He didn't have to be an evil genius to be evil. He could be his own brand of awful, and that scared him more than anything.

"You have an hour," the guard said, letting him sit across the glass from Andrew. Scout almost started crying. He'd only cried in private since the incident, over a week ago now. They'd all been affected, none of them were fully themselves yet. Reese and Luca put on a brave front at school but they both had been quieter at home and they were almost never apart. That at least gave Scout the option of alone time, hiding out in Luca's room until he had moved his stuff from his old house into the basement. It wasn't so bad, the basement. It was clean and comfortable. But it wasn't home yet.

"Andrew." Scout coughed into his arm. Andrew looked so tired. Defeated. Scout wanted to cry, tears stung at his eyes. He'd never seen his brother like this, his hair dirty and in disarray. His brother was a handsome man. He'd always been so pulled together, trying to set a good example for his little brother.

"How's your head?" Scout was taken aback.

"I fell hard," Scout said and then clarified, "you hit me hard. You permanently damaged my vision. I don't know if I'm going to be able to play football for a while. I might not get a football scholarship, I might not go to college because of you." His voice shook. He was trying his hardest not to break down, it hurt so much to put the blame on Andrew instead of on himself.

"I didn't go to college because of you!" Andrew roared. A guard moved towards him on his side of the glass, "Mr. Burks-"

"Stop!" Scout pleaded, "Stop, please. I want to talk to him." He almost said that he wanted to talk to his brother, but he couldn't spit those words out.

"Mr. Burks," the guard spoke directly to Scout, "if you behave erratically again your visit will be cut short."

Andrew gathered himself, his face melting from anger to a sympathetic, regretful expression that made Scout's stomach churn.

"Scoutie, it was a terrible mistake, hurting you like that. I'm sorry I impaired your vision, mine was impaired too. I was blinded by ambition, it was never my intent to clip your wings, I simply needed to spread mine."

"I don't want to hear any flowery excuses, Andrew." Scout was shaking, "I just want to know why you did it in plain English."

"I meant what I said, Scoutie-"

"Don't call me that."

"I meant what I said about not ending up like them! But they weren't wrong. They were on to something, something lucrative, something golden. I was going to make something great."

"My friends have told me what you made. What's lucrative about monsters, Andrew? No. I don't want that answer, I'm sure you don't have one. There's not a single good excuse you could make for hurting me and my friends."

"Why are you here, Scout, if you don't want excuses or an apology?"

"I want an apology! But I don't want an apology attached to all these excuses! Because you're not in the right, Andrew, and you're delusional to say otherwise."

"Why are you here?" Andrew repeated.

"I just wanted to look you in the eye and realize that you didn't love me. And you don't have to. Maybe one day I'll convince myself that I don't love you either but I'm not coming back until that's my reality. So if there's anything you need to say, say it now." Andrew looked at his brother, tears streaming down the teenager's face. Then Andrew stood and turned away.

Scout was sobbing as he returned to Wasabi, who ran to his side and pulled the boy into a hug.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, Scout, it's okay… It's going to be okay, Andrew can't hurt you anymore…" Wasabi knew that wasn't true, that his own mother had done much of her damage after Wasabi had moved out.

"I know he doesn't care about me," Scout sniffled, trying to slow his tears, "so why do I still care about him?"

"Oh, kid, I get it. I understand. It's not easy to let go of the people we think we're supposed to love, no matter how much they hurt us. My parents ruined my life when I was younger and I still sometimes think that I failed them, not the other way around."

"I'm going to stop loving him," Scout whispered, "this year, I think I'm gonna do it."

"Scout… It's not that easy. I wish it was, I really do. But it takes a long time and a lot of help."

"I have to!" The tears started up again, "Mr. Tomago if I can't distance myself from him then I'm going to end up just like them!"

"No, no, no, no… You're not going to end up like them. You're your own person, and you're so strong and amazing. I'm so proud of who you are, Scout. You're going to be great."

"How do you know? I'm the last in a line of criminals. I'm going to complete the cycle." Scout was close to hysterics.

"Scout, my wife and I come from rubbish families. I've been afraid of ending up the kind of parent my parents are all my life. Leiko knows this lesson even better than me. Her dad made serious mistakes, he was in and out of jail and struggled with alcoholism until his death. You can ask her more about it, but she spent a lot of her life worried that she would end up just like him. And you know what?"

"What?" Scout asked, calming down a bit.

"She didn't. I didn't. We turned out okay, despite everything. Scout, we're not the sum of our parts. We don't have to be like the people who hurt us. I know that you're going to turn out just fine. You're a very talented young man."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome. Are you ready to go home?"

"I'm not ready to call it home, sir. But I'm trying."

"I'm glad. We all care a lot about you. So let's head back, and try to make it home." Scout nodded, glancing back at the prison. He had moved out of his childhood home this past week, had left it behind, but leaving Andrew now, that was leaving home. That was much harder.