As Steed's engine sputtered, a donkey's bray, Lancer caught a glimpse of some of the commoners, les bourgeoisie, tromping out of their tour of the castle. The light hanging outside the throne room seemed to change color, become warmer, more invigorated. He cut Steed off to a lower gear, the handlebar trembling in his hands to the point to where they felt numb. They were a family, a real family, a mother and a father walking beside each other with their children, chasing each other through the streets. They were each dressed with jackets, the littlest one toddling along with insulation that made her look like one of the snowmen those who lived in the Upper World were supposed to build. The little one slumped to the road, slipped over nothing, bumping her little head, and weeping, wailing the way only a toddler could. The mother whispered some sort of intelligible cooing, raising the little girl in her arms and swinging her back and forth, a pendulum flying in the air.
Lancer let his face brighten with delight. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real at all.
That was when the defense slipped. That was when the little girl's eyes caught Lancer's before she started shouting, "Look, Mommy, the prince! The prince!". Lancer knew better than to do anything other than let Steed riproar towards the garage.
That was the closest that Lancer de le Pique came, at least in that month, to dressing as one of them. Weakness took over Steed's route. He backpedaled to the throne room as soon as he couldn't hear the family anymore.
His father… this was supposed to be a calmer part of the day. There would be fewer people in the castle. Maybe he could surprise his father, make him feel welcome the way that any father should. Lancer peered into the window as he made his way to the back, another angle into the throne room. His father perched on the throne, fingers digging into his temples, digging his calm's grave. Journalists, unending, formed a line, flashing their cameras into his eyes. The FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH exploded throughout the room, and already Lancer could feel his pulse mount, start to climb its hill. He could only hear the muffled throbbing of his voices, but it was a painful throb nonetheless. His hand shook, although only with a little movement, as he unlatched the window.
The throb hit him in the face, almost as hard as his father's hand had the power to hit, but with a different type of pain, a more awful sort of pain. The throb trembled, waved, fluctuated, bounced, materialized into words. "How is the law going to what is the process of this year's midterms will there be a resolve to the production line quandary allegations are climbing to double this month of ruling negligence, what will you do to solve this, smile, smile! Just a few pictures! This year's feature is bound to boost our reputation, how did you-"
The throb hit Lancer too hard, the punches bounding to the point where they were sickening. He shut the window.
His poor father. His poor father. How stupid, how insipid, how immature could Lancer be, not willing to realize it sooner! He'd lived here for twelve years, not realizing, not realizing the daily throb, the blackened rings of insanity that came, day after day, hour after hour. Nonstop. Trapped in a room that crushed his father's mind, his poor mind, caving in on his temples, wreaking havoc over them, over and over, without focus, without reprieve…
How stupid he was.
The journalists filed out of the room, having maybe been shooed away by one of the attendants or dukes. They made their way to the kitchen, the same kitchen where Lancer had spent hours and hours planning how to steal the cook's famous pumpkin soup, fresh from the garden. The pumpkin soup had appeared later that day after one of those nights that left Lancer sore. The cook had left it in front of his bedroom door, still hot.
He tucked Steed down, back into its home, hands stinging from the December cold, the chill of the almost- night, as he locked the door. He filed inside, watching, waiting for his father, the air around him finally tranquil, stopping the hammerings of the journalists.
He tried to make it to his room, but he found himself, as shameful as he was, biting his lip.
He shouldn't be doing this. He was too selfish. His father deserved to be happy, not ignored. His father deserved to be loved, to be comforted, after being battered day after day by the whips and punches of stress. His father deserved so much more than what he had, and perhaps deep inside of the Chaos King, a land that couldn't be explored yet, his father thought the same for Lancer. His father deserved to be happy. If he couldn't have a public that would appreciate him, he could at least have a son that would.
Still, the air caught in his throat as the Chaos King droned, "Where were you?" The clocked chimed, blared eight times, each bell crushing Lancer.
Dinner. How could he have forgotten? He promised his father he would be home for dinner, home in time to eat and maybe to… to talk, to have a conversation. How could he have forgotten? How?
He bowed his head, feeling, with a pernicious punch, the shame. He bit his tongue, knowing that if he said anything, the king would misinterpret it. The poor king, Lancer thought. It wasn't his fault he misinterpreted things sometimes. It was just the way his mind was built, Lancer thought.
He didn't know he was smiling, smiling from Susie, smiling from endless hours hanging upside- down from tree tops, solving puzzles, exploring all of the songs in his MP3 player with Sans right by his side, until his father asked, rearing up to his full height, "What's makin' you so happy, boy? Huh?"
His mind fumbled, waited for an explanation. Not telling the truth hurt him, but if he told this one, he would hurt everyone he knew. Everyone he loved. His father didn't mean to ask such a horrible thing, He couldn't mean to. He was only trying his very best. He hoped, he prayed that his father hadn't taken the same classes he had, that he would be able to sneak this one sinful little lie past him.
"I was eating some candy, and-"
His mind froze, was too engendered, too endangered to match what was happening. He was used to this, but it was harder and harder to get accustomed to this when his father was looming right in front of his face, his twisted, grape- tinged breath stinging Lancer's nose. His mind took a little while to apply its filter. His father didn't mean anything he was saying. He was only trying to do something, anything, to escape the throbbing, the throbbing, the throbbing…
"The hell? The hell? The hell did you just say? Candy? You're so fuckin' fat. Just look at ya. Look at ya! Huh? Didn't you fucking hear me, you fatass?! I said look at ya! Get in front of the mirror! Get in- get in-"
His father pushed, shoved, and Lancer knew better than to stay with his feet glued to the floor, as much as his mind compelled him to. He shuffled to the mirror, going over the practice he had done that morning, to distance himself from the world without walking away, without even shifting his gaze. Susie said there was a term for it on the Upper World called "dissociation," but it seemed to be unheard of here. He created a different world, a world behind his eyes, a blurred world to where he saw himself through a camera. It only worked in perfect situations, where the amount of sounds, sights, were just right. This was the right thing to do, wasn't it? His father didn't need him being weak. Not when the entire kingdom was being weak. Not when the entire kingdom didn't know how to strengthen itself.
His ears were still open. Still watching. Still hurting, hurting more than if a wasp's stings had riddled his eardrum.
"I didn't fuckin' raise you like this, and y'know it! Y'know it, don'tcha?"
The sickness brought him back to reality, the snapping of the belt the one crack, the one split, to drive him out of his own world.
Then came a punch, a force so deep his spine trembled. His stomach lit on fire, and he doubled over as if told to. And in a way, the fist in his stomach did tell him to.
Lancer tasted his own icky spit, almost coughed.
He winced, hands flooding to his stomach on instinct. His wince was too long, and that blinded him. It wasn't until his arm hit the dresser that he realized he was stumbling, that he'd almost fallen and hit the floor.
"Get up."
He panted, coughing, more needles taking their course in his stomach as he coughed. He couldn't. Not now. He had an instinct, as strange as it was near, that if he got up, his father would be even angrier than he was now. If he wanted to make his father happy… he had to make his father happy, his father was undergoing too much, too much for any one person… he had to stay here. He had to stay quiet.
"I said get up!"
He let himself hit the floor.
"Alright, alright. If that's how we're gonna work this. You ain't eating, boy. Not for two days. Not if you're getting so fucking fat."
He took this blow, took it to the head, felt the words shake deep into him.
One whip, as distinct as it was sudden.' His leg jerked, the bee sting coming swift.
"I'm done here, boy. God, you're such a disappointment."
...
An hour passed. There was no one that was knocking on the doors, no one peering in from the now- shuttered windows to the throne room. The lights were still on, though, as if his father still thought someone could still peer in, and the shadows seemed to lengthen, to darken, to tell everyone in the throne room that it was well into the night, that it had already dawned to the twilight hours of the next day.
Lancer still lay there. His stomach was still on fire, but it didn't burn as acutely as before. It burned with a different pain, began to throb, as if someone had put in a tiny, delicate, invisible layer outside it.
But his father was happy.
There wasn't any MP3 player to turn to now, and turning to the MP3 player would be foolish, anyway. His father would find him, and who knew what direction his temper went to in the hours he spent in the kitchen, entertaining, banishing the journalists from the castle, after his time in the throne room?
Two hours passed.
Lancer's brain switched, switched into its speech, comforting him, holding him like a babe in its arms. It was the only arms he knew, the only arms he created. He curled his knees ever so slightly closer to his still- furious stomach, lingering.
His father was happy, wasn't he? Lancer saw it. He saw it in the way his father didn't even have the uptightness, the anxiousness to put his belt back on. In fact, he had the joy to toss it in the corner. He saw his father's shoulder blades lengthen, arch, the way a cat, making its way down to the Dark World through centuries of domestication, did whenever it was pet by one of the Darkners. His father was happy. His father was… filled with joy. With delight. If he was, where did that laughter come from these past two hours, the celebration that was happening in the kitchen? If Lancer wasn't like this, lying on the floor as he should be, then his father would still be at the throne room, battered, battered even more than Lancer was battered in his life, with the machine gun of stress.
Lying on the floor as he should be. What a waste he was. What a rebel he was. As the Church would say, he "failed to subdue his unruly passions." Going behind his father's back, without his word, just to satisfy himself. His own desires. He hated that. He hated that part of himself. Leaving behind Sans on the road, making fun of him when he'd first fallen. And the threats… the threats he'd made to Kris and Ralsei… he was going to turn them into blood…
Oh, God.
He fell asleep. Tried to. He was too exhausted to think, too exhausted to cry.
The party in the kitchen rose to a fever pitch. Rouxls found him after hours of tending to his duchy. He carried Lancer to his bedroom, amused at how silly ol' Lancer had chosen to fall asleep in the throne room.