Author's Note: Hey, everyone! Thanks so much for clicking on this fic! It means a lot to me that you were willing to click on it and I hope that you read it all the way through. Sorry I haven't been updating A Genius Rescue. I am super busy with school and college applications. Like, you have no idea. I'm actively procrastinating on editing an essay I have to have done by the 29th as I write this. But I was struck with this idea and it seems like the inspiration bug really bit me because I finished this all in one sitting (It's like midnight right now, lol). It's quite different from my usual stuff and I really put a lot of heart into it. Something I always wanted in this series was just for Cadel and Prosper to sit down and talk about their relationship. Kinda dumb, I guess, but hey, what can you do? It's a little odd and it might be confusing but I think my audience is pretty smart and will get it. I'm excited about posting a fic again! Hope you read and enjoy! :)

It had been ages since Cadel had last seen him, yet he hadn't changed a bit. It was uncanny, really how little things had changed. Everything was the same. The thick dark hair, the lanky frame, the knitted jumper tearing at the seams. Although that seemed a little different, even more ragged, oddly enough, as if someone had actually tried to tear it off him.

Cadel figured his face was probably the same too, though he couldn't tell when his back was to him. He stood there awkwardly, a few moments suspended in time, gazing at the figure sitting on the rocks before him, as if they weren't sharp enough to draw blood. He looked smaller than he had in life. More peaceful too…?

"Cadel?" His heart skipped a beat. His voice was like everything else. The same. Even after all these years it had never lost its sophistication. Crisp and clear, still laced with that cultured English accent. No, his voice hadn't changed one bit.

And neither had his eyes. They had always been bright and piercing, black as coal or midnight. And they were looking at Cadel now. Bright and shining. Shining with curiosity.

"Cadel?" He repeated. There was a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Cadel, hello?"

Cadel blushed. The heat rose in his cheeks, resisted the cool breeze that carried the salt and moisture through the air. Though he didn't understand why.

"I never could sneak up on you," he finally said quietly.

The slightest hint of a smile on his thin lips. "No," he agreed. "No one could." He sighed. "Except for that one time."

Cadel reflexively looked up at the house on the cliff above. It wasn't pretty, even without all the emotional baggage. The concrete walls were slanted, and the roof lopsided, as if the thing had been the project of a primary schooler. A primary schooler who had procrastinated and built it all in one night. Blue eyes drifted down to the cluster of rocks at the bottom.

"They're going to demolish it." He spoke again. He was also looking at the house, his dark eyes reproachful. "I suppose they've finally given up on trying to sell it to someone. Good riddance. It completely clashed with the rest of the architecture…"

He trailed off, his gaze drifting back to the sea again. He was leaning back, Cadel noticed, his long, pale hands spread over those pointy rocks. They looked even whiter than they did before, whiter than he had ever seen on anyone…

"You look quite a bit different Cadel." His eyes were back on him. "You've grown a lot." That was true. Instinctually, Cadel looked down at himself, at his white shirt and blue tie. At his khakis and dress shoes, so unlike the sneakers and parkas he'd worn in the old days…

He pointed just under Cadel's nose. "Is that a mustache?" He asked, squinting his eyes just slightly. Cadel couldn't see a hint of light in them. He nodded.

"Jesus," he breathed and then there was a slight pause where the waves came between them, their rushing and roaring loud within his ears.

"Even with that you still look like your mother."

Cadel didn't say anything for a long while.

"Have you met her?" he said at last. He scowled.

"Hell, no! I'd never be able to face her. And you know she's not around here, anyway…"

More silence. Side by side the two men looked out to the horizon. The sea stretched out endlessly, a deep, dark mirror reflecting the sunset. Pink, orange, and purple danced beneath the clouds floating lazily in the sky.

"It's not fun," he said at last. "Being stuck here. You'd think I could do anything, but I can't…"

"So, you're trapped here?"

"Yes, I'm trapped. Ironic, isn't it?" A short laugh. "I died trying to escape this place, and now I'm stuck."

Cadel didn't say anything, just gazed out at the sea some more. Some seagulls were whirling overhead…

"I suppose this is my hell. I think it's different for everyone. Depending on what they do…"

"Well, it's a beautiful hell, then." Cadel said the words without thinking them. His thoughts had slipped out, as they were more and more prone to do now, since Saul and Fiona became his parents. He supposed he was healing.

Still, Cadel looked to him from the corner of his eyes. A quick glance, then back to the sea. A sigh.

"Not when you've seen the same sunset for years like I have."

Cadel didn't have anything to say to that. So he looked up at the seagulls again. There were three of them, circling round, and round, over and over again, above their heads. Their calls echoed out into the fading daylight.

"Do you wonder if they ever get tired of that?" He mused.

"I know why you did it."

He blinked. "What?"

"I know why you did it," Cadel repeated. Silence. He didn't say a word for several moments and Cadel began to wonder if he was still there. He was. And he was staring right at him, his dark eyes drilling holes into his blue ones. He looked out at the sea again.

"Kale Platz… he had a…" Cadel paused. "Do you remember him?"

"Of course," was his gentle response.

"Okay. So anyway… Kale Platz had a case file… with all your stuff in it… information and things… and after you died, he gave it to me…" A quick glance. "He was the one who told me you were a wine waiter by the way."

"I know. I saw it on the cameras."

"Oh, right. Anyway, it had tons of stuff on there…"

"Like what?"

Cadel glanced at him. His gaze was intent, but his eyes were curious, but also pensive, if that was possible. "Why?" Cadel asked, but he didn't answer. So Cadel was forced to come up with an answer of his own instead.

"Well…" Cadel furrowed his brows, his shiny dress shoes making circles in the sand as he thought. The sand swirled in his shoe, seeped into his socks.

"Well, apparently all those psychology degrees were actually real… which was surprising…"

A slight chuckle. "I told you all the way back in my office. I said I specialized in troubled youth."

"Yes, you did say all that," Cadel conceded. "But well… Well, I thought they were all bogus… like everything else was."

"Eh, that's fair," he said, and he shrugged a little.

"But did you plan on using your degrees when you went to work with Darkkon?"

"Yes, actually. He was hiring people to 'analyze the neurological make-up' of his test subjects." He spoke with exasperation, making air quotes with his white, bony fingers. "Even then I knew it was utter bull shit." He rolled his eyes, sighed, shook his head. "But when you get your degree in Apartheid, South America, it doesn't exactly make you competitive..."

He was turned toward Cadel now, one leg crossed over the other. For the first time in ages he was reminded of a time long gone, when he'd sit on the computer in his typist's chair, his little feet dangling above the floor, as his therapist spread out on a red crimson couch, newspaper in hand. The image hit Cadel with a wave of nostalgia, which was strange, he noted. He had conjured that image many times, and not once before did his heart sink and soar simultaneously in such a way.

"Cadel?" Confusion and concern spread over his features. "Are you alright?" It was only then that he realized his eyes were filling with warm water.

"I… yes…" Cadel wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand. "Yes…" he said again. "But I know why you did it."

"You were poor and alone. And you thought that being self-serving was the only way." he sniffled and went on, not even caring if he wasn't making sense anymore. "And then you were scared for me. And all you wanted was for me to never be as scared and alone as you were…"

The man on the rocks listened with furrowed brows, his already thin lips pressed into an even thinner line. But his gaze was attentive, as if he was listening, really listening.

It seemed strange coming from him. Strange, but good…

He listened for quite a while, actually. Such a while that Cadel soon ran out of words to fill the silence and his sniffles were the only sound that travelled between them. The rhythm of the waves had fallen into the background and the seagulls were long gone…

"But you were scared."

"Hm?" Cadel peeked through his reddened eyes at him. He was staring out at the ocean again, though there wasn't much to see now. The sun's light was fading fast. The ocean was black, the sky a deepening purple…

"You were scared," he repeated. "I scared you. I made your life miserable."

"I, yeah, but-"

"I shouldn't have held a gun to your head," he confessed. His voice was rough, his eyes hardened. "I shouldn't have tried to drown you in concrete. God, I shouldn't have killed your mother."

"Pro-"

"God, what was I thinking‽ Why did I ever stay with Darkkon‽"

"Pros-"

"You know what I should have done, Cadel?" And he held up one long, bony index finger in the air as he made his point. "I should have gotten straight out of there as soon as you were born! And I should've taken your mother with me!"

"But-"

"Imagine it, Cadel! You, your mother, and I, in a neighborhood somewhere nice, far away from all this-"

"Prosper English!"

Prosper stopped as abruptly as he had started. His eyes were wide as he gazed at Cadel.

"Do you hear yourself right now‽ You used to talk about such things as if they were your worst nightmare! And now you're here obsessing over it!"

"I-"

"And besides, you're dead anyway! There's nothing you can do."

"I… well…" Prosper seemed momentarily at a loss for words. He huffed. "Well, I know that!"

Silence once more. Cadel gazed out at the sea, though there really wasn't much to see anymore. Twilight had swallowed up everything and come nighttime the moon would be in the sky. It was freezing, the breeze lifting Cadel's clothes in the air. Goosebumps lined his pale arms.

"I didn't come here just to talk, you know…"

"I figured," Prosper answered.

"I came here to tell you that I know." Cadel looked to the man on the rocks, the man he had seen as a father figure for most of his childhood, and as a dangerous threat for the rest. "I know that you saved me."

A pause. He looked at Cadel first, then at the sea beyond them. The moon was coming up.

"I had a feeling you'd figure it out," he finally said.

"Mhm."

More silence. The rhythm of the waves continued. If he squinted Cadel could see the lights of a boat somewhere out in the water. He focused on that, and not on the silence, which seemed far less comfortable, far more awkward than the silences before.

"I'm sorry," Prosper said, and he looked directly at Cadel when he said it. "I shouldn't have mentioned your mother. That was foolish of me."

Cadel blinked, glanced at Prosper, before glancing away. He almost could've given him a point for apologizing. Almost. In the end all he said was, "Yeah, it was."

As silence reigned between them for the final time, Cadel realized he had run out of things of note to look at. The moon was in the sky at last. A new moon. Cadel could see where it blocked out the stars.

"I came here on vacation with Saul and Fiona."

"Hm?" Prosper turned to look at him.

"I'm here with Saul and Fiona. They're going to get worried if I stay out in a foreign country for hours like this."

"Oh. Of course." There was disappointment in his voice. "Alright. Go if you must."

Cadel hesitated. He had expected irritation or anger in Prosper at the mention of Saul, though he didn't know why. Perhaps he couldn't tell what was different and what was the same about him anymore. It had been so long, after all…

But eventually he did go. And his heart was heavy as the concrete that formed the steps along the cliffside. At the top sat his parked car, a silver Tesla, waiting for him dutifully as a horse would their rider. But he hesitated at the door, his fingers hovering just over the handle. He looked out at the horizon again, at the sea now entirely shrouded in darkness, at the shadow of Rex Austin's house, the barbed wire fence around it marking it off, separating it from the public and all the friendlier houses nearby.

Perhaps he should go back… He couldn't leave him alone here of all places…

But then he heard it, the faintest howling, or maybe whistling, coming from the darkness. And then the strands of his hair were lifted, the fabric of his clothes. A gust of wind came from the seas, surging forward with such strength that Cadel stumbled. He yelped as he nearly collided with his car.

But it left as soon as it came. And when Cadel stood upright a second later, he just barely caught the whisper riding on the breeze…

Sweet dreams, dear boy.

"Sweet dreams," Cadel muttered. "What a laugh…" But there were unshed tears in his eyes as he climbed into the driver's seat.

Author's Note: The End!

Honestly, I'm a little confused too. But I hope you liked it! Likes and reviews are appreciated and thanks so much for reading! :)