Summary: Duncan continues suffering :')
Duncan was in class when it all happened. He'd been in biology, with the substitute teacher that replaced after the Homecoming incident explaining something he really wasn't paying attention to. Isabel was sitting in front of him, scribbling notes like a madwoman and kicking him with her heels to get him to take notes too; Ken was sitting next to him, looking more asleep than awake, with his phone hidden behind a cartoonish pen case and playing The Sims.
It had been merely two weeks since the kaiju attack, and MEGTAF had made sure to fix the high school as soon as they could to get him in a place where they could watch him without getting shot for trespassing —it had happened in two different occasions, and his mother had been close to being imprisoned for it; not that she really cared, because there had been witnesses and that would have been too much paperwork—.
It had also been two weeks since his mom received that call from General Marshall to bring him to the base because his father had "requested" —mom had laughed so hard at that she had to lean on the kitchen counter for support— his presence. He's not gonna lie, at least to himself, but he had been terrified. The few times he had been in close proximity with his father had ended up with him almost drowning in lava and being attacked by blood thirsty kaiju, so you couldn't really blame him. There was also the fact that the part of the base where they kept his father scared him.
The cells, big enough to contain kaiju, carved in the rock of the mountain, stunk of death. He wouldn't be able to tell just how many of them had died in there, and he also didn't want to know. His father was kept in the biggest one, and even then he made it look half its size.
His father was really big.
They made him change clothes, ones that smelled of steel and hospital, and made him take his shoes off. The room had been so cold, and it didn't take much to assume they kept the temperatures low so Belloc's high body temperature wouldn't overheat the place. Watching his father, laying down on the floor of the cell, had been kind of a shock. He was used to seeing him tower above him, his shadow almost swallowing him, so seeing him so grounded was weird. Not less intimidating, but weird.
He was also not used to being grabbed by him. When he had felt his father's fingers close around him and immobilize him against his palm he had been close top having a heart attack. It had been sudden, and having his back turned to him with the lab coats talking his ears off he hadn't seen the hand until it was already on top of him. The few seconds he spent in darkness had almost sent him into a panic attack, feeling trapped, unable to move the tree trunk fingers with deadly claws that could probably impale him with just a flick. Luckily, it ended as fast as it started. Suddenly he was sitting in his fathers hand, surrounded by him like a snake coiled around its prey, and with the warm scales pressed against him, the cold of the room went away.
He wouldn't be able to tell when he started answering his fathers questions about his life with his mother. They had caught him off guard; how was school, how were his friends, what things did he like… the more he asked, the easier he found talking to him, and the fear started going down until it remained a little voice in the back of his head that stressed over every answer he gave in fear that Belloc would scorn at it. It didn't happen, and an hour later, with his father rubbing his arm up and down with his thumb —the claw so cautiously away from his flesh—, he fell asleep.
The next day he brought with him one of his journals, the one he used for his math studies, and although at first he had been somewhat too embarrassed to show it, feeling like a little kid who brought a drawing from school to hang on the fridge, Belloc had seemed almost happy to hear him talk about how much he loved numbers. It had almost felt like Belloc was a normal dad, and that they weren't in a military base surrounded by people who would have them killed with not a care in the world.
Ten minutes before class finished he felt the tremors. The characteristic thumping that for any human in the world meant pain, fear and death. It took him a momento to realize what was happening, and before the teacher could even signal them to exit the classroom, he heard the roaring. A part of himself felt like he could understand the message behind them; agony and anger, all mixed up to the point it almost made him sick.
His father had broken out of his prison.
The twenty students around him run outside the classroom, following the screams of terror from the other kids already outside and the instructions of the teacher, who tried to redirect them to the safety bunker in the schools basement, meant for kaiju attacks like this one; Duncan never thought he'd live through one carried out by his own father. didn't let him get away from the group, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him along his classmates. He wanted, needed, to get away so he could see what the fuck was actually happening —to try and convince himself that his father wasn't killing inocents just out of the blue, and on his way to destroy a high school full of children like him—.
He should have listened to biology lessons better.
Now he knows better. Now he knows that his father's nose is so sharp that, between the sea of terrified teenagers, he had been able to smell his distress at not being able to get away from his teacher without raising suspicion. He had smelled his distress, had been able to pinpoint his exact position underneath the building's ceiling, and had struck.
had been trying to push him in the direction of the running mass of kids when the ceiling was pried open by two red clawed hands —drenched in blood that he wouldn't notice until much later— and his fathers head came down towards him. His first instinct had been to grab his teacher's arm and throw him away, and now he thinks that, maybe, if he had decided to prioritize himself, things would have been very different.
He jumped out of the way, and just when he thought he had avoided him something clamped around his leg and pulled. He landed on the ground, and with his mind working at twice its normal speed he tried scrambling back up on his feet, until something pulled again to the point of lifting him up from the ground. Only then did he notice that his leg was inside his father's mouth. He had to fight himself to not scream right then and there, because not even two days before he had been sitting in his father's hands, laying against his fingers while talking to him about how much he liked gymnastics, and numbers, and how much fun he had with his friends; and now his father was going to kill him.
For a full second his mind just waited to feel the teeth close around his leg and snap it in half. For a full second he waited, hanging a mere ten feet from the ground to drop down with one less limb and agony running through his system. He almost started sobbing with relief when he was lowered to the ground and his leg was released, allowing him to crawl away in an attempt to put some distance between them. He tried getting up and away, to run far and fast before Belloc changed his mind and decided to finish him, and when he managed to get back on his feet he was pushed back to the ground. He tried one more time, and again he was forced back on the ground by a hard push on his back.
It was his fear that made him scream, even though he knew his teacher was still paralyzed a few feet away and students were still running ahead of them.
"Dad, stop!" It did nothing. Belloc managed to grab his leg again, even though he tried kicking him, and dragged him back towards him. Duncan turned on his back to be able to look at him directly, trying to ignore the fear of what he could find, and screamed again. "Dad, you're hurting me!". It was a lie, and in a different situation he would have felt bad about it, but in that moment it probably saved his classmates' lives. Belloc stopped his manhandling for a second and stayed still as a statue; looking at him through lost, blurred eyes —later he would see they were covered by the inner lid, the one that protects them from harsh conditions and blinding lights—. Duncan didn't move either, terrified of startling him, and waited.
He heard a warble, thunderous to the point of making his teeth shake, and his father lowered his head until the tip of his snout graced his chest. Duncan fought back tears and kept still, letting his father sniff him and bump his nose on him a couple of times, sometimes so hard he would fall on his back. Having the kaiju so close it was impossible to miss the blood on his mouth. It coated his teeth and his chin, and he had to suppress a sob when Belloc started smearing in on him —it had been an accident, and to this day he thanked any deity that existed that instead of mistaking him as prey, his father had opted to just clean the blood off him—.
Another warble, this time even stronger, made his bones rattle inside his skin, and a particularly hard shove left him back on the ground, hands up trying to stop the pushing and shoving. "Dad, please, you're scaring me". He couldn't hold back the tears any longer, and that was his first mistake. The second one was sobbing when his father's nose bumped against his head —he was trying to look for injuries, for his eyes were too blurry to be able to discern him clearly— and his tongue sneaked out of his mouth and lapped at his face.
Next thing he knew, his father's teeth were closing around his chest and he was shoved head first inside his mouth.
(…)
Belloc is not exactly there anymore. He is, but he isn't either. There's a thick fog covering his brain like a heavy blanket, and the only things he knows for a fact are that he is furious and distraught at the same time. He feels a heavy wave of sadness take away his breath, and the anger bumbling so hot in his chest he fears, for a moment, his own fire is going to burn him.
He is also not completely aware of what he is doing or where he is going, but his instincts have never given him any reason to not trust them. They have gotten him out of countless sticky situations, so even though a part of him wants to lay down and mourn and cry and beg the fallen for mercy, he doesn't. He doesn't because there is a sliver of hope that lights up in his mind, one that has a face, a voice and a name, and his head and heart yell at him to get to it before they take it away.
He goes under, and now he can't either talk or form a coherent thought —and he doesn't want to, because the pain is too much and this is the closest thing to being unconscious to it— that isn't centered in finding his treasure, that last one that remains. He can smell it clearly, even though so many other scents threaten to cover it and make it disappear, and he is so fixated in it that he doesn't pay attention to the screaming around him; to the humans scurrying around at his feet looking for safety, and the sirens blaring in a desperate call for help. Help that's not coming.
Finding his treasure is easy, and just when he has it in front of him his mind supplies him with an important piece of knowledge that he can not forget; Duncan is the treasure, and he is all alone, outside, where anybody can just snatch him up away from him. Belloc can not allow that.
He doesn't exactly understand why his child is scared and insists on getting away from his touch; no matter how much he repeats that everything is fine, that there's nothing to be afraid of because he's there to protect him, the boy keeps reeking of terror and shying away from his touch. He tries again to reassure him that everything will be alright, even attempting to get the blood, that is not his, off his skin, but the moment his whelp sobs his brief moment of semi clarity is gone.
He stuffs the boy in his maw, where nobody would ever dare to reach for him, and only when he stops squirming he marches towards the nest.
