Hansel: Aftermath

[The night before The Dwarven Ruins (Finally)]

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Hansel was drunk, and it made him more bold and bullheaded than usual. A lack of boldness wasn't typically something people would associate him with, he knew. It was only with very specific things.

“We need to *talk*,” he said firmly.

Jonn's eyes narrowed and he immediately turned partially away. He was drunk too and it made his body language sloppy. That would make this easier. Hansel hadn't planned it that way—it had just worked out. About time something worked out.

“Nah, I'm good,” Jonn deflected, clearly knowing he wasn't going to get away with it.

Hansel pointed to him, then jabbed his finger at the bed he'd taken up residence in at the guild barracks. He knew he hadn't been an actual father to Jonn, but he thought he had the gist of it. Some sort of tough love thing.

(No, that was definitely the beer thinking. He'd never once been tough on Jonn. He always gave in. The kid just let him win sometimes. Dammit.)

Jonn sulked over to his bed to sit across from Hansel, folding his legs under himself and slouching, glaring towards the fireplace. It made him look too damn young, like a teenager, and that made this worse. Hansel steeled himself. Gods, he hated having to have *conversations*.

“Jonn—.”

“I’m fine, Pops.” Jonn's voice was too loud in the quiet room, which meant that he wasn't. A sleeping figure stirred and he ducked his head, sheepish. “I'm fine. I don't need to talk about it.”

What he was talking about was kind of a relief—one Hansel felt guilty for taking advantage of, admittedly—because Hansel had no idea how to talk to him about his boyfriend being killed. And it being … kind of Hansel's fault. He'd been trying to blame Mishka for it, for all of it, but that was harder now.

Unfortunately, that wasn't what Hansel needed to pin him down about. He swallowed the words a few times before getting them out.

“You knew who Mishka was when you met him.”

Jonn went tense. “Yeah,” he muttered.

“He said you talked about me.”

That made his eyes snap up, and his words stumbled out of him. “He's a liar. You talked to him? Why?”

“He wasn't lying,” Hansel said softly. He was trying to not make this an attack; he wasn't angry. He wasn't sure what he was.

Jonn looked away again, his shoulders dropping. He accepted that Hansel would know that without questioning it. “Well, I lied to him. Fuck him.”

“You knew who he was. You know what he's like. You just …” He sighed. “Avoid him, Jonn. He's like a fucking storm. When he blows into port you stay the fuck home. Why didn't you stay home?”

The kid was quiet for a good long time. His fingers worried at the thin sheets, at the laces and eyelets of his boots, ended up with nails between his teeth as his eyes searched everywhere for answers except anywhere near Hansel. It wouldn't take him so long to lie.

“I don't know, I …” He kept hesitating, finally met Hansel's eyes for a second. “I thought I could beat him.” Once it was out he rushed to explain himself. “I thought—I mean, I know, Dad, look—I thought if I actually talked to him, I thought there'd be something. I thought I could help. I didn't think—I never thought it would—.”

This was getting too close to what neither of them wanted to talk about, and Jonn looked at him again, silently asking Hansel to stop him before he just kept talking and never stopped.

“All right, all right.” Hansel reached across the gap between their beds to grab his wrist, grounding him. “It's fine.” As soon as it was out of his mouth he knew it was the wrong thing to say, and he tried to fix it by clarifying, “I'm not mad.”

The guard had already gone back up. “Just disappointed?” Jonn joked weakly, covering up the lapse of real emotion.

“Not disappointed.”

Hansel tried to lure him back out by offering sincerity, as much as he would have preferred to brush it all off and go to bed and pretend this conversation had never happened.

“I just …” Oh, he hated this. He hated it so much. “I used to want you to meet him, y’know? You and Luci both. Long time ago.” That went without saying. It hadn't been as long as it felt.

The kid wasn't following and was just uncomfortable now. He pulled his wrist away awkwardly. “So?”

This was stupid. It shouldn't even cross his mind. He sighed and said it anyway. “I don't know. What did you think of him?”

“He tried to fucking kill me,” Jonn said bluntly. Which wasn't an answer, and he knew it. Hansel stared him down and he dropped his head again, and in a small voice, said, “I mean, I didn't hate him. I wanted to.”

Hansel could relate, but didn't say as much. He didn't dare say that Mishka never would have killed him, either.

“I really wanted to,” Jonn insisted, looking him dead in the eyes for the first time. “I did, but it was—it was kind of fun. Before the whole poisoning thing. I knew he was full of shit and he knew I was and for a while I thought we were the same—.” He bit his tongue. “I mean, in the same league, you know? But we're not.” And he looked away again. “At all.”

It was more honesty than Hansel had expected from him, and not what he'd hoped to hear. How a kid neither he nor Mishka had raised had ended up with his least favorite parts of both of them was a damned mystery.

But some of the good parts, too. He didn't know how he felt about those, either.

“Look, don't worry about him, all right?” he said. “I don't think he'll mess with you again. He had his fun.”

“He should be fucking worried about me.”

“Jonn—.”

“Flynn's fucking dead because of him.” His voice was low now. Not quite sober, but getting there. Hansel's chest tightened. “If it'd been me, I mean, I fucked up, but it was Flynn, Dad. He didn't do anything.”

He had to say something to keep this from happening. Jonn would understand. He would have to. It couldn't be Mishka's fault because Jonn would never be able to take him, but it couldn't be his own fault because—because—what then? Jonn would understand, but what if he didn't? What if Mishka had found a way to take his son away no matter what he did? The motherfucker. No, even he wouldn't—well—

“Don't do anything without me.” He grabbed the kid's wrist again to make him sure that this was serious. “Just—fuck, Jonn, don't be stupid. Just stay away from him. And we'll figure something out. All right?”

He'd been gone too much. Jonn trusted him, but not that much more than he trusted anyone else. But he nodded, after a moment, in a way that was clearly calculated, not emotional. A final bit of vulnerability came through.

“You swear?”

Hansel's heart ached. “I swear.”