Henry was exhausted, mostly. There were other feelings, too, but he wasn't going to deal with those right now. (You can't control yourself.) Going to the Church of the Doodler was supposed to help them. Guide them. But now he just had more questions. Mostly about his son. Sons actually. Lark had refused to tell anyone what he had seen on the throne. (My poor son, you know as well as I do... you can't control these children.) Not that Henry would've expected Lark to tell him anything. (I don't like you.) And Sparrow echoing his brother's sentiments... did Sparrow just say what he thought Lark would say? Or did Sparrow feel those things too? What was Henry supposed to do other than take his sons at their word? And there were those other feelings again.
Despite the weariness in his bones and the late hour, Henry went out to the back porch and sat. He needed to screw his head on straight before trying to sleep tonight. (...but you're so afraid of it, you're so upset at yourself for that specialness within you that it just manifests as all this rage.) Not for the first time, he sat on the porch and stared at the inky blackness, missing the stars. They used to bring him such comfort. And now they were gone. And he's just left with the unspoken. The anger that he can't express. Won't express. Won't allow himself to express.
He thought about the look he saw on his boys today. The intensity of both of them. Lark, determined and angry. Sparrow, determined, angry, and sad. He thought about how much those looks had changed since his son had stabbed him and brought forth a chaos god. Not their intensity, no. His beautiful boys had always been intense. But the weariness and sadness in both of them. The anger in Lark. Man, he wished Lark and Sparrow would stop blaming themselves. Lark's (no - Sparrow's) words echoed in his head. "If you'd been a better father..." (This is my fault, but it's your fault too! You fucked this up - We fucked this-...) They were right. Barry had been right. It truly was his fault. He hadn't been able to control his children. And how his son was telling them the only way out was to kill an eldritch god.
The sky above took him back to that night in the kitchen, making popcorn. "But, Lark? I believe you have an apology for Father?" The hope that had filled his chest at that moment. His child that had wanted nothing to do with him for weeks, wanted to speak to him? Wanted to apologize even? Maybe the effects of the Rogue Card had finally warn off now that they'd been home for a bit.
Henry knelt down on the yellow linoleum, wondering what his son was going to say.
"I really do need to apologize, Father. I am sorry" (You can't control these children.)
Physical pain at first. And then the pain of betrayal. But before that could fully set in, a new pain appeared in his body, burning like fire and static under his skin, making its way to his gut. He pitched forward, retching, black bile pouring onto the floor out of his body and out of his sons.
And then it was over. The stab felt numb. The betrayal sat there, as negative emotions about his sons often did in Henry, quickly replaced with panic and urgency to see what had happened outside as the world fell apart around them.
Present Henry remembered that moment and remembered that brief feeling of betrayal that he had since refused to acknowledge. But now that feeling was staring him in the face. And that was the problem - he could never allow himself to have those feelings about his sons. He was confronted with the fact that while he was great at loving them and dealing with the feelings of others, he could never cope with how infuriated and frustrated his own boys made him feel. Because he refused to hate his children the way that Barry had hated him. Refused to become his father.
And because he never learned to cope with those feelings, the sky had filled with static and turned red. The eye of the Doodler now forever watching. Because he couldn't figure himself out. He could never hate his sons. Sparrow loved him but was torn between his father and his brother. Lark hated him and also had come to hate himself. And how Henry knew they both blamed him. And he wouldn't fault them for that. At the end of the day, it was his fault. Sure, Willy had cast a spell - but those boys were trying to summon the Doodler long before Willy had met them. Henry had never truly taken the boys at their word that they wanted to summon the Doodler. He had thought it was the fantastical ambition of two chaotic pre-teens. And now he had to figure out how to save the world.
There was only one other place Henry could think to go. One place that he'd been avoiding like the plague. But it contained the only person he knew that might know something about the Doodler. The only other person who had lived with it. Henry stood up and walked inside. It was finally time to deal with the anger burning inside him. The anger he had passed to Lark. He couldn't change the past. All he could do was love and support his family and maybe hope that he could be the hero this world needed, unsung or not. It was time to go home.
