Hello again, those of you that aren't tired of hearing from me. Here's chapter 3, and I hope it can live up to everyone's expectations. I've tried to make this one a little longer, so maybe I have that going for me.
I don't think I necessarily need another disclaimer, but please don't sue me over this, I don't own any of them. Seriously, I can only pay in plot bunnies.
Enjoy!

"Hello, son. Nice of you to finally answer the door for your old man," Ash sneered, leaning casually in the doorway of an apartment he had no business being anywhere near.
"Well, you'll have to forgive me for not being entirely on the ball at—" Clay looked at his watch— "Three–thirty in the morning." He watched as Ash gave him an appraising look, before being shoved aside like trash as his so-called father bullied his way into his apartment. Clay took one more moment to ask for patience before following his father into the living room.
"So, I don't know if you've heard yet, but I released a new book a couple weeks ago. Wanted to know what you thought of it," Ash spoke evenly, sitting down on the couch as though it was his seat all along.

Clay stood in the middle of his living room, dumbstruck. How could this be happening right now? He was so not in the mood, and he had no idea where his father got the audacity from. His mind whirled, and even though he thought that there might be steam coming out of his ears because of how angry this whole encounter was making him, Ash just looked at him like they were discussing vacation plans over a cup of coffee. He wore an even expression, like he was trying to see how far he could push Clay. Hell, he probably was. Well, Clay supposed that, just this one time, he could give Ash what he was looking for. If there was only one thing Ash Spenser ever gave his son, it was his big mouth and occasional lack of a filter.

"You know what, I may have actually heard about your book. Haven't read it yet, haven't had time, and, oh yeah, I didn't fucking want to. Do you even understand how badly your little book has screwed up my life the past couple of days? Do you even care?" Clay shouted. The gates were open now, and if his father wanted a fight, then he may just get one at this point.

Throughout his tirade, Ash simply sat on his couch and stared at him. Clay desperately wanted him to scream back, to cause a scene, maybe even throw a punch, but he knew that Ash had gotten exactly what he wanted from him, and there would likely be nothing of the sort to look forward to. Clay thought Ash was going to stare at him forever, but just when he started to open his mouth to yell at him some more, he finally spoke up.

"I had no idea you felt that way, Clay. You do realize that I never meant to hurt you like that, right? I never wanted to ruin your career, or to get you separated from Bravo. I'm just doing what I have to do to survive. You know that," he said, speaking calmly as though Clay were a wild animal. To be honest, he probably looked like one right about now. His father, gaslighter of the fucking year. It took a moment for Clay to realize that he'd never said anything about Bravo.
"You son of a bitch," Clay said quietly. "You did know, you knew all along that this would get pinned on me, that I would be the one they blamed! How could you?"

Ash smiled, like he was sharing an inside joke with someone, and it made Clay's spine tingle. He didn't like seeing that smile when he was little, and he liked even less what usually came after it. But Ash just shook his head ever so slightly, and then he hoisted himself up off the couch. It took everything in Clay not to flinch when he walked past him, but Clay could only stare dumbly as he walked over to the door, before opening it up and walking out into the hallway. Just when Clay thought he was going to close it behind him, he paused. Without looking at him, Ash spoke just as calmly as he had been the entire time he'd been here.

"Just remember, Clay," he said. "There is no universe, in which you ever could have escaped my shadow. And now, I'm honestly excited to say, you'll never get the chance." And with that, the door closed and Ash was gone, almost like he'd never even been there in the first place.

At first, Clay wanted to convince himself that he'd dreamt the whole thing. It was late, he'd not had the best of sleep the past few days. But when he closed his eyes and rubbed at them with his fists, nothing changed. He was still standing in the middle of his living room, the hallway light was still on, and his body was still tense for a fight that never came. He felt like death, and if he were being honest with himself, he probably looked like it too. He reached down to the pocket of his sweatpants for his phone, but when he didn't feel it there he remembered that it was still on the charger on his bedside table. He walked over to the door to turn the lock, and then walked back to his bedroom. He didn't even want to bother to turn the hall light off, but he did it anyway because he hated the way it shone in his face while he was trying to sleep.

When he was finally back in his bed, trying desperately to forget that the last twenty or so minutes had even happened, he picked his phone up. He squelched the thought of doom scrolling social media, and instead decided to look through some of his photos. The first one that came up when he opened the app was the most recent one of him and Sonny playing checkers on the briefing room table, with Lisa glaring at them half-heartedly. He chuckled to himself, Brock had stolen his phone to take that picture almost a week ago.

It took him longer than he would have liked to realize that there was a tear making its way down his cheek, and he closed out of his gallery entirely. He went to chuck his phone back on the table, before he caught a glimpse of Jason's speed dial contact on his home screen. He wrestled with his mind for a few moments, trying and failing to ignore the urge to call his team leader. His brain was telling him that it would be a breach in his suspension protocol to contact him, but his heart wanted to apologize to Jason for everything.

In the end, it was his heart that won out.

When he dialed the number, it went straight to voicemail, and Clay realized his stupidity for forgetting that Bravo was on a mission, and likely weren't even near their phones, let alone able to answer them. He was going to just hang up, but when Jason's voice told him to leave a message at the beep, his logic decided to take a backseat. So when the beep came, that's exactly what he did.

"Hey Jason. It's, uh, well, it's me."

~SEAL Team~

The briefing for the mission they were currently on had involved a brief section about language skills, of which most of Bravo didn't really have any. Some of them— *cough* Sonny *cough* — had trouble speaking English most of the time. Jason was still reeling from the fact that the only one of them who spoke any Portuguese at all, was suspended.

For a whole plethora of reasons, Jason didn't generally trust translators when it came to the mission field. He was well aware of the vetting process that the Navy took to ensure the safety of their teams through the reliability of their translators, but that didn't mean Jason had to like it. However, because this was merely supposed to be a low-profile reconnaissance mission, they did not have a translator with them. Blackburn had assured them that there would be one on-call should they encounter a need for one, but they hadn't seen a reason to outfit one more person to hike through the jungle with them. And Jason thought that was just wonderful.

After having brought his team to a halt for what turned out to be one of the largest capybaras that Jason had ever seen, who had merely looked at them with the most disinterested gaze that Jason had ever seen an animal offer, they had returned to their hike with no intention of stopping until nightfall. They were two days into their eight day mission, and Bravo's team leader had had just about all he could handle.

Sonny was at the throat of anyone who would give him the time of day, and because Spenser wasn't here, the next available candidate just so happened to be Trent. They were squabbling like children, and he didn't even remember Mikey and Emma fighting like this. Everytime it seemed like it was going to get out of control, Ray beat him to it, silencing them both with a look or, most recently, grabbing them both by their vests and shaking them like dolls. Really, he was trying not to be quite so exasperated by the two of them, but dammit if they weren't making that resolution difficult. When he was getting to the point when he didn't think he could handle one more second of Sonny's incessant grumbling, Brock spoke up quietly behind him.

"Jase, we're coming up on the Tapajos river in about fifteen miles. Whatd'ya wanna do?" he asked. While Jason knew the terrain that they had covered in the briefing, Brock was the current keeper of their satellite map, and he was more than thankful for it.
"Alright, we keep heading that direction, there should be a boat waiting for us, and we can set up camp on the other side," Jason responded. He was glad to have a goal in mind, he didn't like the idea of aimlessly walking through the jungle for any longer than they had to.

It was meant to be an easy mission. Four days hike in, get the information they needed for a strike package, and then four more days to hike back. He understood the need for secrecy, what he didn't understand was why it fell to his team and not one of the multiple recon teams that the Navy usually had on standby. He suspected it was because of the need for stealth as well as endurance, but he couldn't get the niggling feeling of suspicion out of his head. His gut was telling him that there was something wrong, and his brain had yet to find the threat.

He wanted to try to convince himself that it was because of the situation with Clay. He hated the idea of their youngest at home by himself, believing that his team had abandoned him, believing that they thought him to be guilty. He wanted to call him, wanted to tell him that this would all blow over soon and not to worry, but he couldn't. Even if he were of the immediate mind to break protocol and contact Spenser, they didn't even have their phones with them, and there wouldn't be service here anyway.

Dammit, he hoped their boy was okay.

~SEAL Team~

When the sun finally started to shine through the blinds covering his bedroom window, Clay still had his face buried in his pillow. He had stopped crying hours ago, but the tears stains remained on his face, and on his pillowcase. He felt like death, and he knew that he should get up and do something with the day, but he didn't know what he would do that wouldn't make him feel like shit. Generally at this time, he would go to the gym on base and get a good workout in if Bravo wasn't out of the country, but seeing as how he had no id and wasn't allowed to be there anyway, that was out of the question entirely. He thought that he might go on a run, and when his brain didn't immediately supply and excuse or reason not to, he rolled out of bed and went to his bathroom to clean up a little bit.

He washed his face and tried to ignore how red his eyes looked in the yellow light of his bathroom, and when he went back in the bedroom to put on his running clothes, he caught sight of the framed picture of all of Bravo after a particularly rough training session that was sitting on his dresser. He shook his head, and when he was dressed, he grabbed his tennis shoes and made his way out the door.

Getting in his car for the first time in a couple of days, he realized that his duffel bag was still sitting in his passenger seat, so he threw it into the back and started the engine. Muscle memory got him to his favorite park trail, and when he got out into the sun, he started feeling better almost instantly. He wasn't naive enough to believe that a little sunshine was all he needed to be back in tip-top shape, but he had to admit, even just to himself, that he should have done this days ago. He shoved his keys in his pocket, and started a slow jog onto one of his favorite trails.

He hadn't been running for very long when he realized that he forgot his headphones, and therefore couldn't easily listen to his music. He regretted that lack of forethought even more when he realized that his mind was starting to wander because he had nothing to distract himself with. He wondered what point the guys were at in their mission, and if they had come to Francis' base of operations yet. He wondered how badly Sonny was complaining about the mission's environment, even though in his subconscious he figured he probably already knew the answer to that one. He knew it was childish, but he wondered if they missed him.

He wanted to believe that Jason was missing his extra set of eyes, and Sonny was missing his verbal sparring partner. That Ray was missing his backup sniper, and Brock was missing his partner in crime. He was sure that Trent probably didn't miss having to keep an eye on what he called the "walking medical disaster", but that deep down, was probably used to doing it anyways, no matter the amount of complaining he generally did about it.

He hoped that his team missed him even a fraction of the amount that he missed them.

Teardrops started to mingle with the sweat pouring down his face, and this time, he did nothing to try to stop them. He was supposed to be on that mission, he was supposed to be watching his brothers' backs.

Finding a rock on the side of the trail wasn't hard, and he slowed to a stop and sat down heavily on top of it. He had tried for days to be strong, to be nonchalant and uncaring about his current predicament, but he was done pretending, at least for now. The sperm-donor that everyone referred to as his father was actively trying to ruin his life, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it except try to hold his head above the water and wait for it to pass.

Pulling his knees up to his chest to hide his face in them made him feel like he was six years old again, trying his damndest to hide from his father's wrath and failing. He could do nothing to stop the empty feeling inside his chest, the thoughts of abandonment that welled up in his mind against his will. He was trying to be positive, repeating Blackburn's words of encouragement over and over again in his head like a mantra, but it didn't stop the hurt, and it didn't stop the fear.

Why did he have to feel so completely and utterly alone?

Was the capybara at all necessary for the plot? I don't know, but probably not. Do I have the capybara song from TikTok stuck in my head at the moment? Yes, yes I do.
The speculation I've seen in this fandom regarding Clay's childhood and his relationship with Ash has varied between every author and story I've read. Do I have my own thoughts and theories? Yeah, I do. But if I give them all to y'all now then what would be the point of reading more?
Until next week, my friends.