This wasn't the first time Lancer tried to disguise himself as a peasant when he got inside the castle gates. He considered muddling up his outfit, covering up his spade icon. Heck, he was already halfway there. His trousers already smelled more like gasoline than normal, and his cloak, slapped on him by his father and the royal hierarchy since he could remember, smelled like musty water. Gasoline and rainwater. Greeeaaat. His father would just adore that-
Stop.
Who was he kidding? He was just being rebellious, entering into his adolescent- like behaviors again. His father loved him, and if one wanted to look at the evidence, he only needed to look around. The fact that he was inside castle walls, the fact that his bank account was practically spilling with gold, all given by his father, the fact that everyone had to address him not as "Lancer" or even "Lawn Sair", but as "Your Highness" or "Your Majesty." He didn't have to attend school for as long as the other children. School. He got to learn new languages, new subjects even the average adult didn't learn. Not that he always comprehended it… alright, he comprehended maybe a fourth of what was being taught… but what did it matter? Would his father do any of these things for him if it wasn't love? If Lancer had his own children and did any of those things to him, would he be considered hated?
Maybe, if his children turned out to be anything like him.
He took a deep breath, tried to freshen himself up, practiced his smile so it crinkled all the way up to his eyes. walked into the room. Still, he made for his room. Maybe he could hide there, practice his Latin for a little while, listen to some Led Zeppelin, heck, even translate Led Zeppelin into Latin. He set his hand on the doorknob, not even looking to see if the door was covered with musty gasoline, but knowing it was anyway.
"Lancer."
He turned around. He learned that the best thing to do when his father called his name like that was to say nothing. To give in to his freezing body.
"Where were you?"
Freeze. Freeze. Freeze.
"Answer me, you son of a bitch, where were you?"
"...'was at the duchy."
Lancer could see his eyes reflected in the doorknob, cast down as always. A shadow crept up behind him. His father's huge belly lunged over the limits of his tunic. He was a black hole. In astronomy, a black hole is a region of space having no leeway for any sort of matter to escape.
Three magic words. "Get over here!"
He knew the drill. He could still see his eyes cast down to the doorknob. He turned off his ears. He had a well- worked science for doing that. He could only hear the bad words, and even then was only on occasion. But still, the insults filtered, cut, although not as deeply as it would to others.
Lancer's hand was yanked from the doorknob, which was locked by his father. By the time he lost sight of his reflection in the doorknob, there was an unbuckling, a beltsnap, a sting. Oh, no. Not his hand. That was one of the rare, more visible parts of his body. With long enough sleeves, he could cover his arms, his legs, his torso, but his hands...
His father was ahead of him. Soon, the sting did spread to his arms, his legs, his back. But he crowned it all by crowning Lancer with a goose egg and a dent in the wall. He allowed his eyes to widen. Usually, it didn't get this bad, but there were a few nights when it did.
His hands were still the worst part. He didn't even need to see to know what it looked like. The red, at first looking like some sick joke of a rash, but deeper. Deep enough for a month of gloves, or a month of using the left hand.
"Get to bed, boy. Bastard. Running all around town, and I don't know it. Lucky I don't do something worse. Dumbass. Y'don't even belong here. Sure as hell don't act like it, either."
He didn't know he was limping until he was halfway up the sixth step, looking at his father. The bees still stung, stung, stung, but his father looked relaxed as he put his belt back on.
So he was doing something right. He was doing something that was making his father happy, something that made his day better. And that couldn't be wrong, right? That couldn't be wrong at all. He wasn't making his father cry, or scream, or cave in like he saw so many other children in the same class as him do to their dads.
Still, he couldn't help but notice he was shaking, notice he was on the verge of crying, as the Led Zeppelin tried to coax him into sleep as he lay on his bed, prostrate as opposed to supine or prone.
As the bed absorbed every inch of red, he absorbed every inch of Robert Plant's sage. "Way down inside, you need it. I'm gonna give you my love."
Wasn't he doing the same thing to his dad? And wasn't it confusing that he couldn't relate the song to anyone who did the same thing back?
He fell to more confusion than when Sans fell.