#tenderhooked

basically. lamb gets word of a new reject getting sent to slough house. and then there's possibly the worst news it possibly could have been: this is not just any reject, this is david cartwright's baby grandson all grown up. and so lamb has to brace himself because what he's expecting is another david. david as lamb remembers him. an ice cold monster who kept his own hands clean at the expense of everyone around him. i used to have a heart. and then i worked for him.

and if this kid is anything like david, then he is a danger to his colleagues to the service and to the public. lamb is expecting david 2.0, someone that he's going to have to protect people from. and that's not good. that's something he's not happy about having to prepare for. and then what he actually gets is uh. river. which actually, somehow, is worse.

he meets river. he sees what sort of person river is. he realizes he was wrong. this isn’t another david. but the conclusion he NEXT reaches is uh. is also not really… right. because he starts to think okay. so the kid's not another david. river cartwright is, it would seem, a good, sweet lad. and so lamb goes to the next logical step in his mind which is fuck. david raised this kid. it's not unlikely david also abused him. maybe the one place he didn't mind getting his own hands dirty was behind the closed door of his own home.

which, for the record… did not happen. but lamb doesn't know what we do, as the audience, about how david and river are with each other. all lamb knows is the david he knew and the river he's found himself with now (constantly seeking approval, prone to shying away and making himself small when people get in his space, reckless with his own safety, desperate for connection) and that is not an equation that he likes the answer to.

so now he's gone from thinking okay. i'm going to have to protect people from river. how do i do that. to the honestly much more difficult question of is river being hurt and how am i going to protect him. because if david hurt him, it's not unlikely it would still be happening. and if david is hurting someone now, especially someone under lamb's roof at slough house, then it's on lamb to make it stop.

so lamb needs to… look into this. he needs to test river's reactions to some things, see if he can uncover warning signs. and the problem is, he does. river's got some uh. concerning behaviours and instincts. kid's clearly got some Issues. but also when lamb takes it a little farther and starts asking some questions with other questions hidden under them, bringing up david in a way that doesn't rouse suspicion but will get the subject on the table, river's responses are like… not that.

(it doesn’t totally help clear things up that river's got... some issues. maybe his mum had a boyfriend or two who Didn’t Like Him Much. maybe it's because of his mum herself. his general sense of people not wanting him and his grandparents taking him in because they had to but he always wondered if one day he would ruin it. spider did not Help. so it’s like- he reacts to those initial probing efforts in a way lamb finds troubling. but when they actually talk in any way about david, the kid’s all relaxed shoulders and soft eyes. it doesn’t compute.)

and so it wasn’t like that. that’s not what it was like. but that initial sort of like. rollercoaster of worrying about river in two very different and whiplash inducing ways. is he dangerous like david. is he in danger from david. could have very easily gotten river right under his skin quick. in a way that’s really troubling to him now and very hard to shake. and it still... lamb dismisses the initial concern, but it sits at the back of his mind for a while. he's never completely, 100% certain.

and some encounter with david like. through some tense interaction, they’re sort of standing off. david is having a more lucid day. and to cap the conversation off, before he leaves, lamb is just. oh and for the record. you’d better not have laid a hand on that boy. cause if i find out you did…

(river finds out this happened and is torn between being UTTERLY HORRIFIED and a little oddly warmed by it and he’s like. having some of the weirdest mixed feelings of his life because on the one hand lamb just. went out of his way to try to protect him, and it was in a way completely unrelated to the job. and on the other hand lamb implicitly accused david of abusing him and oh my gd??? oh my GD why did he DO THAT lamb what the FUCK???

It’s scary that Red doesn’t move when Wade rips the guy off of him, just shudders in place. It’s scarier that Red flinches away from the blood when Wade cuts the guy’s damn head off.

But the scariest fucking part is that Red doesn’t even move towards at the body. He doesn’t bitch about the sanctity of life, or glare in Wade’s general direction, or do any of the Red Things he’s supposed to. He just backs into the other wall and shakes like a fucking puppy in the rain.

“Red,” Wade says, sitting across from him. Gotta let him see the escape route, even if it means Wade’s gotta sit in the puddle of blood. “Red, you okay?”

He doesn’t answer. He just balls himself up into a tiny Red-ball and breathes ragged and nasty. Wade doesn’t want to touch Red, not after… fuck. Fuck.

Wade pokes him in the knee. There. Touch that ain’t really a touch. 

“Fine,” Red whispers, the words choking him. “‘M fine.”

Sure he is.

“Okay,” Wade says, because Matt really should have his well-deserved breakdown in a room with a ceiling, at least. “Up-and-up, Redthew.”

Wade offers him a hand. Red takes it wordlessly, and nope, Wade fucking hates that. Matt is supposed to be Catholically stoic and refuse help and make this more difficult than it has any right being. A Matt that accepts help on the first try is a Matt that’s really damn shaken.

He thinks, briefly, about calling Nelson, but he figures when Red is himself again, it should be his choice. Wade’s just gotta get Red somewhere that has four fucking walls.