"Your father's gone a-hunting."

[privateinvestigations]

Who: Clint Chevalier, Euan Fitzpatrick, Mark Campbell, James Campbell and Hunter Alexander
What: Revenge is best served murderous
Where: Chevalier-Cole-Ashwood joint, NYC
When: After this and this

Clint had his baby son expertly nursed against his shoulder when he opened the door to his pals. Normally, he would arrange a meeting like this away from home, but he was on solo daddy duty that evening. "Come in. Sorry, my hands are fucking full at the moment. Ange and Lex are away on some dirty lesbo weekend for an anniversary or some shit, and Linc's on a location shoot in Hawaii. I'm left holding the rugrat. Don't worry, he only understands sprog-speak, so your secrets're fucking safe. But I can't put him down, or he'll scream the fucking place to rubble. I dunno what's up with him, but he's a moody shit today."

He had tried everything since Angela and Lexie left at lunchtime, but all he had succeeded in was getting Zephyr to nap for about 3.4 minutes and crap his diaper what felt like about 12 times in the last hour. He was quiet and calm if Clint held him, and all hell broke loose when he tried to put him down for too long. But he was under strict orders to try to stick to a feeding schedule, at least, even if everything else went to shit. Clint wasn't quite as clueless of the process of parenthood as he used to be, but he still felt like his skills paled in comparison to those made to do this job. Like all three of the dudes arriving now to talk about a really fucking sensitive subject. Clint wasn't sure he would have the stamina Mark did to handle all he did with his kid. Clint felt sick to his stomach when he worried about what Zephyr might be like when he grew up, hoping like hell it was nothing like him, even if the kid was looking more and more like him by the day.

"You look rough, bud. I know it's not usually allowed on the menu, but if you want a drink, I'm happy to cough up. You look like you need it," Clint commented as Mark came in with his brother, James. This was some really fucking serious business and Clint wasn't surprised Mark needed back-up. He probably wasn't going to deal well with what Clint revealed here, that he had found out instigating some heavy digging into the situation that was the biological mother of Mark's kid. He nodded to Euan as he passed. "I take it all this is well off the fucking record?"

Comments

[aussielawyer]

Mark had gratitude beyond words every day that he had mates who understood the difficult task of parenting a kid with issues. There were many times they offered sound advice when he was poised to fuck up out of anger or plain distress about missing so many years of Justin's life. Years that were filled with abuse and neglect, and pain that kept an undiagnosed mental illness exacerbated and life-threatening. He knew it was a miracle Justin ever found him. Barely hanging onto his life, but he was one of the best things Mark ever did. But Justin's batshit crazy mother stole those vital years from him. He could've known the kid since he was born, but she chose to instead take her fucked up anger towards him out on the kid. He was starting to realise there was a reason he didn't remember sleeping with her, even if she had a reputation for being a slut on campus. There was a good chance she roofied him, he knew that. And closing in on two decades later, he still felt stupid for it. But he was a cocky SOB back then, basking in the glory of being the top of his Ivy League class and destined for greatness. He shouldered the blame that was his.

He nodded, trying to form some semblance of organised chaos on his head. But maybe it was impossible to organise because it was so fucking incomprehensible that someone would want to harm an innocent child. That would always be an incomprehensible fact. It just made you lose your shit and cripple your brain from working succinctly when the innocent child was yours, that you made and would sacrifice your own life to protect. "Okay. Get it done. And if it can be a slow and painful death, even better. Not that anything will make up for torturing a kid for fifteen straight years of his life, but small mercies. Make it clean and untraceable. I want to know when it's done."