technically a follow on from this piece. could probably stand alone. this piece has been 80% done in my google docs for three years so if you see any big holes in it uhhh. no you didn't.
if you've ever wanted some vague exposition on cass' powers or choices, then this is for you
content warning: mentions of death, victim blaming, aftermath of violence/assault, referenced dubcon/noncon, brief mind control
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The common room at Bergen Estate gets quiet at night. Most of the charges prefer their own rooms as it gets dark. Hiding from the bogeyman.
But Harley liked the large, dark emptiness of the common room.
The curved chairs, the pillars, the rows of books and video games lined up along the shelves. The big oak tables. Bean bags in the corner. Rugs here and there. The whole place had the energy of some sort of bizarre combination between a kid’s playroom and a university library. But Harley wanted a space to think, and this was the easiest one.
Their intuition had been right and wrong in equal amounts tonight. They’d known they would be called to Christopher’s lounge tonight. And they were. And they knew that they would be fine after. And they are. But… if they were so fine why do they feel so God fucking awful?
“Harley can go, right? It’s not like we need them.”
Every time they try to push the memory from their head, it bobs to the surface again like an apple in water.
“I have to say, Harley… I really am so disappointed in you.”
They stare out the large bay window, at the leafless trees silhouetted in the mix of light from the garden and from the moon. The whole thing looks ghostly. Gothic. The dark through the glass makes the whole window reflective; a giant mirror just waiting to show them their face. But it’s dark in here too. It’s a dark room reflected on a dark night. That’s why it’s so obvious when there’s a shuffling flash of light behind them, making their heart skip.
The door opens, someone steps through, and then it closes. Dark again. Harley stiffens, freezes, trying to catch another glimpse of who it is in the reflection of the window but it's back to shadows on shadows on shadows.
They listen as the person shuffles to one of the cushioned seats. Shuffles. Like it hurts to move. They sit so carefully that Harley can barely hear them. Then there's quiet. Stillness. An exhale.
Harley doesn’t move. They know stillness. They know silence. Have known it for longer than they’ve been here.
But then there’s another exhale.
And another.
Any hitch of breath that might be happening in between is more or less silent. Which means, usually… crying.
Harley feels themself cringe. The Bergen Boys don't cry. Those are the rules. Not Christopher's rules but the deeper, unspoken ones between the lot of them. You don’t complain, you don’t ask for help, you don’t cry. Or if you did, it got beaten out of you quicksmart. Everything else was a free for all as far as Harley has ever been able to tell.
So the shadow person has come to the common room in the middle of the night. Assuming, like Harley had, that it would be empty. That it would be safe.
Guilt washes over them all at once, guttural and nauseating and they realise all of a sudden that intentionally or not just by sitting here, listening, they're imposing. Intruding. Doing the wrong thing. And then the fear beneath that, on top of that, around that, that if they wait too long and the shadow person notices them, they may well end up on the wrong side of thrown fists. Again.
Harley shifts on the couch where they sit, exaggerating the whisper scrape of fabric on fabric, and leans back on the left side where they know the leg creaks.
The shadow person's breathing stops immediately and Harley hears them stand.
"Who's there?"
Harley freezes again, regretting making their presence known. Cassius.
"I can see you. On the couch. Get over here." His voice is sharp and violent. Deeper than usual. There's a childish part of Harley, not as far beneath the surface as they’d like, that wishes desperately they’d just stay silent and hidden. Safe.
But, like they were told, they uncurl their legs. Stand. Turn. Start to walk.
Harley can see the moment that the light from the window must catch their face. Cassius' face softens, eyes fluttering closed and body sagging with what was maybe relief.
“Harls,” he says, running a hand over his face as he sits back down. Harley doesn’t miss the wince. “Jesus Christ, man, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” The apology flies out of them like a verbal flinch. “I’ll leave.”
“No, ple-” Cassius stops himself, eyes shuttering closed. Harley watches him take a deep breath, brow furrowing briefly. You don’t cry. You don’t complain. You don’t ask for help. “You can stay. If you want. I don't mind.”
Harley hesitates for a moment, glancing around half-uselessly, before choosing a seat across from the other charge and folding into it.
“What are you doing up so late?” Cassius asks, as though they’ve bumped into each other at a truck stop. At a bar. Fancy seeing you here.
Harley shrugs. “I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. I kept…” thinking about what you were doing. They bite down on their tongue to keep themselves from saying more. It’s stupid.
They trail off as Cassius looks up at them and the dull light from the window catches the shape of his brow. At the blood smeared along his temple. The bruising already flaring up along his cheek. “Did… did Beauche do that to you?”
Cassius huffs out a half laugh, running his tongue between his teeth and the obviously bruised tissue of his cheek. He drags his hand up, knuckle brushing softly against his brow. “Yep. What a gentleman, huh?”
“But Christopher said he wouldn’t be violent.”
Cassius scoffs, “Yeah and Christopher’s such a shining beacon of truth, huh?”
Cassius sits back in his chair, eyes hard, and Harley holds their breath. With the shadows of the trees outside dancing across his face, the shading of the bruises and the swelling there, Cassius looks half monster.
Then his expression softens, his body relaxes. “Nah, it was my fault." He lets out a sigh, hand running back through his hair. "The guy wanted me to cry.”
“And did you?” Cassius’ glare is immediate. Has Harley slamming their jaw shut so quickly their teeth click together. “Sorry.”
Cassius shrugs a shoulder in acceptance of the apology and leans back in the chair. He closes his eyes and all at once it’s like some mask comes down. He looks exhausted and hurt and… young, actually. Harley always forgets that. He’s younger than them. About a three year gap between them.
“Why are you up?” Harley says, after the silence gets unbearably fragile. “Here, I mean. I thought you’d be…” They struggle for a tactful way to put it. “In the other wing.”
“Nah, he didn’t want me to stay, thank fuck. And Christopher doesn’t like me coming in af-... Um. He doesn’t like me coming in too late,” Cassius says, picking non-existent dirt out from under his finger nails. He clears his throat a little as his face flinches in and out of a frown. “Plus, the sooner I see him, the sooner I have to… you know…”
He gestures loosely at his face and Harley frowns. The sooner he’d have to do what? Get rid of the bruises? Get rid of the pain that keeps making him flinch and close his eyes? None of them talked about it but they’d all seen it. Bruises fading on Cassius just to bloom on his brother in minutes. Always after a visit to Christopher. Always without a word spoken.
Harley can’t help their own contempt, “Isn’t that a good thing for you?”
Cassius looks at them with an expression Harley can’t place, dark eyes flicking between both of Harley’s, as though searching for something. He looks angry. Murderous. Violent. Then he snorts and it’s gone. “Yeah. Sure.”
He drops his head, hands fidgeting between his knees. With the angle and the shadows, Harley can only just make out the shape of his nose, his eyes half hidden behind his hair. It sticks out at awkward angles around his head like a terrible crown. Frizzy waves in some parts, kinked curls in others.
It'll suit him more when he leaves and he grows it longer.
The thought comes unprompted, unbidden and with the utmost certainty. Like the predictions always do. Just a slice of truth falling into the head with the right prompt. An understanding that that's just… how things will be.
It's not the first time Harley's thought something like it. That Cassius will do much better once he leaves. The notion of it is almost horrifying. Cassius has been here longer than they have. It’s hard to imagine Bergen Estate without its golden boy.
Harley chews on their cheek and “If I ask you something, will you answer truthfully?”
Cassius shrugs. Smirks. “Probably not.”
Harley rolls their eyes and looks away, annoyance settling in their gut. They don’t even know why they bother with Cassius. He’s always the exact same. They're about to stand up to leave when Cassius clears his throat and-
“I’ll trade you for it,” he says softly, dark eyes shining with something unnameable in the dim light. “You ask me something, I ask you something. No lies.”
“Promise?”
Cassius just shrugs. Which is probably as good a promise as Harley’s going to get, really. They sigh and trace the patterning of the rug with their eyes before pursing their lips together and looking back up at Cassius with a focussed sincerity.
They swallow. Inhale. Hands grip the arms of the chair. "You hate it here.”
Cass’ eyes skitter to the side and back. "That's… not a question."
"Why don't you leave?"
“Same as you, dumbass. Legally binding contract.”
“No, I mean-” Harley bites down on their cheek and tries to figure out the right words to say what they mean. “You can make him do whatever you want, right? You can make anyone do what you want. So why don’t you just… make him get rid of you."
Cassius exhales in a way that could almost be a laugh. But probably isn’t. “It’s… complicated.”
“Because of Henri?”
He shrugs, looking bored as he meets their gaze. “Sure.”
“No lies.”
Cassius sighs, leaning back slouched in the chair. He shrugs. “Just because I can make someone want to do something, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it.”
“Like… he’d resist you?”
“No.” Cassius pulls a face. “I mean yes, maybe. But no… It’s like…” He makes a sound hallway between a sigh and a groan. He rolls his neck, eyes roaming around the room like he’s trying to figure something out. He leans his chin on his hand, fingers skirting over his lips before looking back to Harley. “Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ, sᴏʟᴠᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ.”
Harley stands instantly. They turn on their foot and move to the door and for the first time in their life everything is certain. Everything is clear. Everything makes so much sense and all they have to do is… Is to…
“Um…”
Cass half smiles. There's something vicious and cruel behind his eyes. “Dᴏ ɪᴛ, Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ. Sᴏʟᴠᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ.”
They step forward, compulsively, and for some bizarre reason they start raising their arms in front of them, as though their body can’t figure out a way to solve the issue even though they want to and as soon as that thought hits them the frantic desire starts to dissipate, filling instead with deep dread and panic.
They turn their head towards him, eyes wide. Frozen. "I…"
Cassius’ gaze is dark and heavy. Hungry and calculating. His jaw sets. “Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ, ɢᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ Cʜʀɪsᴛᴏᴘʜᴇʀ.”
The feeling that floods them is white hot and immediate. Desire and rage running through them like lava. They’re not sure they’ve ever moved so fast, wheeling on a foot, making it to the door, but no sooner are they reaching for the handle then-
“Nah, ꜰᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ɪᴛ. Cᴏᴍᴇ sɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ.”
All at once the desire dissipates, and the panic sets in like shame. Like failure. They come back over. They sit back down. Then their thoughts catch up and they look at Cassius with fury. How dare he do that? How dare he go into their head and make them feel that?
Cassius just smiles. Shrugs. “Sorry. Figured I’d show not tell.”
‘’I could’ve killed him.”
Cassius shrugs, unshaded and unconvinced. “Nah. You would’ve got halfway down the hall and changed your mind.”
“But what if I didn’t?”
“Then you would’ve gotten to his room and realised you didn’t know how. You wouldn’t have killed him.”
“I might’ve,” they protest, still indignant.
Cass shrugs, smile lazy and tired, “But you didn’t.”
They try, for a few moments, to hold on to the anger. The indignation. It’s so, so easy to hate him when he’s far away. When they can’t see him or only see him at a distance. It’s much much harder three feet away from him, where the moonlight show the bags under his eyes as dark as the bruise blossoming above his temple.
“He takes you away from here sometimes,” they say eventually. “You could… when you were away from here. You could leave. Make him let you leave. That’s not that hard.”
Cassius just looks at them, chin resting on his hand, fingers covering his mouth. He raises his eyebrows at them expectantly, foot bouncing like a motor. He’s probably trying to look annoyed. Sarcastic. But he just looks like a sad little boy.
Understanding clicks in.
“But Henri…” Harley voices for him.
Cassius shrugs a shoulder. A tear manages to make it all the way to his cheekbone before he swipes it away with the side of his fist. The Bergen Boys don’t cry. “Told you. Complicated.”
This isn’t how things are meant to be. Cassius is meant to stay in the other wing, up on his damn pedestal and away in Christopher’s bedroom. He’s not meant to cry in the common room. He’s meant to be the golden boy in his golden room. It’s meant to be easy to hate him. He’s meant to be arrogant and selfish and mean and rude and-
“Your French isn’t better than mine,” they say suddenly. They can’t quite say where the compulsion to say it comes from.
Cassius blinks, “What?”
“In the office before, you said your French was better than mine. It’s not.”
He looks at them for a moment, frowning and annoyed and then suddenly he’s laughing, eyebrows shooting up in exhausted amusement, “You’re weird as fuck, you know that?”
“What? No I’m not,” Harley spits, suddenly self-conscious and antsy.
“Yes you are,” Cassius says. “I did you a fucking favour and a half tonight-“
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“And you know what, you’re welcome by the way.”
“I never asked you to-”
“Oh, save it. Yes you fucking did. You know what I can do. You know what I can feel. You were basically fucking screaming at me.”
And that, they do remember. Closing their eyes. Drowning Christopher’s voice out in their head. The huge loud static of I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this.
The air stills. The atmosphere between them settles like dust in the shadows and darkens again. Guilt creeps over Harley's shoulders and rests with heavy claws. They shouldn’t have said anything.
“My French is more usable than yours,” Cass mutters.
They’re truly unsure if he’s being genuine or just trying to break the ice that’s frosted over. They try for the latter, “Your grammar sucks.”
“Yeah, well we didn’t get much further than ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi’, so I don’t think I did fine,” he gives them a dead-eyed smile that they assume is meant to cast the comment in humour. They don’t really find it very funny.
After a few awkward beats, Cassius gives up the ghost. He clears his throat, “Alright. My turn,”
Harley readjusts in their seat, straightening their spine, tucking their hair behind their ears to listen for the question. They wait one moment. And then two. The whole time the golden boy seems to scrutinise them, looking into their eyes as he sizes them up, makes some sort of assessment.
Cassius’ voice is low and jarringly sad as he finally lands on a question, “Why do you hate me so much?”
If it was possible for Harley to feel every cell in their body crystallise… that was what this feeling was. “I don’t hate you.”
Cassius smiles. Tilts his head. The blood along his temple catches in the light. “No lies.”
Harley frowns and looks away, turning their head to look out the window across the other side of the room. They wonder if he remembers the day they met as well as they do. It was in this room. Just a few feet from where they were sitting now. He’d been sitting on the arm of the couch making some smart mouth comment to someone and they’d thought he looked friendly. And then his eyes had met theirs and prediction hit like an epiphany:
You’re going to kill me one day.
Unprompted, unbidden and with the utmost certainty. A slice of truth falling into their head.
You’re going to kill me one day to save yourself.
They knit their fingers together in their lap, pressing knuckle to knuckle. They press their lips into a thin line. Something with wings — a bird or a bat, they can’t tell — takes flight from one of the trees outside the window. Darkness reflects darkness back.
After it becomes clear they’re not going to answer, Cassius prompts again, “Was it something I did?”
They shrug one shoulder. Like he does. Look down at their hands. The shadows across the room dance and shimmer.
“Is it because of…” out of the corner of their eye, Harley sees him wave a hand at himself. “You know. What I do.” A pause. They see his Adam’s apple bob. “The way I do it.”
Harley frowns, ducks their head lower so they don’t have to look at him, even in periphery. They manage to shake their head this time.
“Is it…” Cassius stops and starts. Stalls. Clears his throat. “Is it something I’m going to do?”
Harley finds themself looking up, despite themself.
They meet his eyes. Time stops for a second.
Cass looks so full of grief for a moment that Harley’s certain the rest of the world must’ve been robbed of it. All shoved into one person to hold for a second. His voice sounds wrecked, “I’m sorry.”
They almost believe him, too. And they hate him all the more for it.
Did he have to be so perfect at this, too? Did he have to be forgivable for this, too? Can’t they just hate him? Can’t they just hate his guts and let him get whadt he’s owed for the things that he’s done, does, is going to do? They want to ask him. They want to tell him. All of it. They want to see his face as he tries to figure out how to respond. They want to know how he feels when he finds out he’s gonna be a murderer.
“It’s okay,” is what tumbles out of their mouth instead.
“Yeah,” Cass laughs and another tear makes it out of him. They hate him for it. He swipes at it with the side of a closed fist. “No it isn’t.”
They hate him as he stands up.
They hate him as he cuts the conversation short.
They hate him as he passes and gives the back of their chair a pat.
“See you around, Harls.”
They watch the window for the flash of light as the door opens, a yellow glow spilling into the room for a moment like blood from a cut. And then the door shuts with a click. And the room is back to its inky darkness. And the golden boy is gone. And Harley isn’t.
And their hatred is an unspooled ball of yarn in the middle of the floor.
