#kndrules | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eltube · 6 days

Text

(new fic!) Evil-Adult-Anon

I wrote this fic as a gift for @kndrules’ birthday this year (Happy Birthday Jay!) and after he mentioned it offhand someone was interested in reading it—so I am posting it here for all to see!

It takes place in our adult AU, where—for reference—sector V members are about 35 years old. This fic doesn’t feature sector V, though; it stars Cree!! Who is in her forties, a Japanese history professor, and still coming to terms with her life after Father. (Father is recently in prison—basically, if you have any questions about the details of this timeline, feel free to ask about it.) It also features special guests (The) Steve and The Toilenator, though you may not recognize him at first.

Enjoy!

With every step she took into the hotel lobby, Cree gripped the shoulder strap of her canvas bag a little tighter. She had tried to dress casual, but put-together: one of her nicer cardigan sweaters, the pants she actually ironed, and her new shoes with the fancy broguing on the sides. Her locs were tied back in a small, loose bun behind her, and she figured that–at least if nobody zeroed in on the death grip of that one hand on her bag–she probably looked pretty composed from the outside.

She needed the death grip though, because the farther away she got from her partner’s familiar car, the more she felt her bravado slipping away, already making a smaller woman under this big, domed ceiling. Steve had told her way too many times that she’s “got this,” working his clueless magic that once again made her enough of a fool to believe him. Now, the stronger illusion of her–the stranger who so confidently waved at Steve as he dropped her off, as if this was all her idea–was looking down at her real self with a mixture of smug superiority and pity.

She ran her palm along the bag’s material as she walked on the lobby carpet, grounding herself (as she had been taught to call it) by feeling the bumps along the surface. She recognized and remembered the shapes of the file folders, overflowing with booklets of paper, packed inside. Cree had brought her students’ essays along with her, like she always did during exam seasons in case she had a few moments to catch up on marking them.

In this case, bringing the student papers along had been a kind of silent, last-ditch prayer of desperation. Like, maybe this whole thing would actually be cancelled, right? Everyone would go home, not even knowing she had shown up, and she could sit peacefully alone on these pearly white couches until Steve’s band finished practicing, just reading first-year history students’ takes on bushido and cracking up without a care in the world.

It wasn’t going to happen–but honestly, she just needed the fantasy to get her out the door. As the knots in her stomach were reminding her very loudly now, she really did not want to come.

Trying the grounding again, Cree focused on the surroundings of the hotel as she moved towards the conference room, reminding herself to “name three things” for each of her senses. She had resisted this strategy at first, how babyish it sounded. To her displeasure though, she had to admit that when she actually tried it eventually, the damn thing worked.

I hear…the front desk people typing. Luggage carts. A fountain.

I see…ugly wallpaper. Plants. A snack counter…huh, looks like they have ice cream. That logo is familiar.

I smell…what do hotels smell like? The scent of blandness? Parfum du nothing? ‘Clean stank’? Sure, those count as three things.

I taste…DAMMIT! FUCK! SHIT!

A jolt of surprised rage yanked Cree out of the ritual. She strode directly into something blocking her path, priming her to explode at whoever put it there–and then, just as fast, a wave of hot embarrassment followed. She realized she had knocked her foot against a sign outside the conference room. It was, actually, the exact sign she was supposed to be looking out for.

“SUPPORT GROUP HERE,”--the text on the cardboard seemed to be shouting out loud to mock her as it toppled over. Cree couldn’t help but project onto it like it was a person she hated, some shrill little kid maybe, pointing and going LOOK WHAT THIS WEIRD LADY DID for the whole hotel to hear. Scrambling to catch herself and prop the thing back up–make it be quiet–Cree looked around, praying that no one had seen her “calm” herself into a clumsy mess. Luckily, it seemed like it was a secret between her and the security cameras at most.

“So much for mindfulness,” she muttered to herself, silently cursing her therapist. That lady was definitely going to hear about the mess she caused with her advice next week. On the bright side, though, all the potential awkwardness Cree felt around walking into this conference room seemed tamer in comparison, now. She let out a long-suffering breath, reasoning that she had come this far, and put on a brave face as she crossed the threshold.

—

The room was set up just the way Cree had imagined it–she couldn’t tell if she found this funny or downright irritating, the cliche of the scene. The circle of folding chairs, the table of cheap coffee, the name tags…it all felt like the setup of a joke at her expense, and when she found herself taking a sharpie and actually writing Cree on one–eugh—that was the punchline.

A nametag, as if these people didn’t know exactly who she was. Even if she had changed her hair or her mannerisms much in the last 15 or so years, she was, she noted bitterly, the only Black woman in the room, so she would always be unmistakable.

At least no one’s staring at me. At least not until my back is turned.

The cheap label stuck to the right side of her sweater, she kept her hand on her bag as she sat slowly down in one of the chairs. It was stiff, but she took some small pride in having good posture. Others in the room, many of whom she was surprised not to recognize–shouldn’t I know everybody here?--were all milling around and making small talk, like friends. They smiled at each other, touched shoulders, laughed; they probably came here dutifully every second week while she was hiding at home.

People started to take their seats around her, and Cree tried to block the lonely resentment building in her gut from showing on her face. As the meeting started and the scattered conversations died down, she closed her eyes and conjured up her confident self from the car again, a witch conjuring ghosts of the past. She would need magic not to screw this up.

Directly across from her, one middle-aged man stayed standing with his hands folded; he, she assumed, was the group leader she talked to on the phone.

“Welcome, everybody,” he said, and his familiar voice confirmed Cree’s guess. “Now that everyone’s sitting, we can start.”

The man, tall and Latino with greying hair and broad arms, had already introduced himself to Cree last week as Paolo. He was friendly enough, and thoughtful enough with his direct invitation to attend the meeting, that she tragically couldn’t refuse it anymore without looking like a complete jerk. And as always seemed to be the case with these people, he said he knew who she was, but she never remembered meeting him–and again, she wondered if this tendency to erase people’s names and faces from her memory made her arrogant.

She tried to console herself with the fact that, at least in this case, there were reasons Paolo might have been forgettable; ice cream men were always wearing those stupid hats anyway, and they all looked the same in uniform. It’s not like she was hanging out with them back in the day—they were never even invited to those Anti-Kid Bingo Nights.

Ugh, she had almost forgotten how much she hated those.

“First of all,” Paolo continued, with the attention of the room bringing Cree back. “Thanks to everyone again who brought food. Feel free to say something about your recipe when we do the circle…if it’s not a family secret!”

There were good-hearted chuckles scattered around Cree where the older members sat, the kind she hears from the tenured professors pushing 70 at work. When she’s not scared of getting a day older, part of Cree looks forward to getting to an age where unfunny jokes make her laugh like that.

“Now, we’ll start with me like always. We don’t have too many new folks here today,”--and Cree felt his lack of eye contact with her here was deliberate–”but it’s always good to introduce ourselves just in case. So, hi everyone. My name’s Paolo–feel free to share just your first name, or your last too, whatever’s comfortable–and, well, when I’m not running this group, I’m the Ohio regional representative of Tasty Taste. It’s been really rewarding for me to help build the new face of the company, and, hey…I’m sure it’s also rewarding for us that I’m able to offer free ice cream to everyone here.”

There was a murmur of chuckles from the group again, and Cree remembered the stand she had passed on the way in, the shape and colours of the logo all clicking into place. The new face of the company. So the stand used to belong to…hell, maybe the whole hotel used to be his. Suddenly she felt a pang of nausea, like the chair she was sitting on might be coated in poisonous slime.

Paolo went on. “I’ll pass the intros around the circle now, and feel free to share anything about yourself. It can be a fact about you related to the group or not! Then we’ll go into a theme for this week’s discussion. Lou, you’re on my right–why don’t you go ahead?”

Paolo sat down, and the man next to him looked up and smiled at the group shyly. He was white and semi-elderly, with a belly but stringy, gangly limbs, and he sported a decidedly balding head of thin blonde hair. Cree didn’t recognize this guy, either, and assumed he was another ice cream man. How common was it, she wondered, for men like Paolo to still be working at Tasty Taste now?

“Hi, I’m Lou,” the new man said, and something about his voice sounded instantly familiar. “I brought some quiche today, but it is a bit of a family secret with my husband and me…” He grinned. “Um, I work as a [gastrointestinal specialist] now, but for a long time I guess people probably just knew me as a guy who walked around wearing a goofy costume…a guy who no one liked.”

With that bit of context, in his timid voice, it dawned on her. Holy shit. Her mouth fell open, shocked by how bizarrely normal he seemed across from her now. That’s the Toilenator.

Nobody noticed her gaping expression while Lou continued, now so clearly resembling a time-lapsed version of the villain, like a parody act that walked offstage. “It’s been great for me to get to know people through this group,” he smiled, “And I’m glad more people are coming every time. Sigmund doesn’t come with me since it’s not his experience, but he says he can really tell it makes a difference and he’s grateful to all of you.”

Lou sat back in his chair and the group clapped, something that Cree gathered was customary during this “introductions” phase. She awkwardly raised her hands and clapped once, feeling distinctly stupid, like she was at show-and-tell or something. How long has the Toilenator been married?

More than that—though she realized how cruel it was, while he was being vulnerable—Cree was embarrassed to think she had any common issues with the Toilenator.

As the next few people introduced themselves, their words blurred into nonsense and this parallel between them horrified her more and more. She was suddenly haunted by a mirror image of herself, wearing an oversized toilet seat around her head, getting bullied by people—who were, by all accounts, total freaks themselves—is that the kind of company she was seeking solace in?

More people spoke, mostly ice cream men, or B-list villains, or some guy who watered the lawn at the mansion. Ignoring them, she wondered if the Toilenator had any of the same messed up problems as her—maybe he even went to the same therapists about it. Maybe right after Cree left those offices, all woe-is-me, this old guy walked in after her, clearly doing so much better about it since he can be at home making quiche all day. As if all of this couldn’t be more humiliating, now the Toilenator was beating her at therapy!

“…would like to share something?”

Cree looked up as she noticed the room was staring at her, expectant. It was silent now, no one else sharing, meaning it must have been her turn to speak. She stupidly opened and closed her mouth and sat up straighter, running her hand along her canvas bag nervously again.

”I, uh.”

Paolo was looking over and smiling patiently, and the patience of it sort of made it worse.

”Sorry. I’m…I didn’t bring anything. Didn’t know it was a potluck. I um…well, you all know who I am. I’m Cree. You know me whether you met me back then or not. Everyone keeps telling me to come to one of these things, but I never felt like I…I dunno, deserved it. But now I’m here, so I guess I have to catch everyone up.”

Once the first words were out of her mouth, it became a kind of compulsion to speak, which in a way was a mercy. She caught faces with eyes burning into her, but fought the urge to try and read their thoughts.

”So, I was Father’s apprentice. For…10 years? Something like that.”

Speaking his name made it real. She might as well jump right into it.

”I guess, you know…I realized in my mid-20s, that after everything I worked for, I wanted out. It wasn’t worth it, and he never intended to give me any of the power he promised. I guess a lot of you worked for him for money, but he never even paid me. Then I realized it was his future or mine—he didn’t want me going to school, didn’t want me doing anything that took me farther away, and I guess…something in me sensed it would only get worse. I took a chance, I left, I cut contact and left for college and didn’t look back. I was scared he’d come after me but lo and behold the case against him came together just in time. And it’s only with him in prison that I feel like I can say anything without putting everyone I know in danger, so I’m not used to…saying anything. But I’m trying to start.”

The room was listening intently, with a kind of respect that she only got in a really good lecture—the kind she never expected and worried she couldn’t rise to. She kept talking anyway, facts spilling out of her that she was always worried would explode if exposed to the air.

”I had some distance from everything, and I compartmentalized everything from back then until I graduated, but…you know, I still live with all the shit I did, while I worked for him, while I was trying to prove that I could be him someday. What I did to kids, to my own kid sister…and I went to him, right? And I did it year after year, and I convinced myself they deserved it. I didn’t think it was right to call myself a victim, because of that. Sometimes I felt I should have been sentenced with him. But becoming…”

She took a shaky breath, feeling the full weight of the listening silence. “…becoming a teacher, when I’m working with my students…they’re all adults, right, but even then, I keep thinking…the power I have over them scares me. When I think about doing to them what he did, I feel sick, and it just makes me realize…damn, it was wrong when it happened to me, too. I was like that back then, just…young, and powerless, and wanting to impress someone who could move me up. No matter what it took, right? And he knew that. Even the guilt I’m feeling now, it…he made me feel it on purpose. And it worked.”

Cree had her eyes trained on the floor now, on a space between her shoes, and she was afraid to look up after saying what she knew was far too much. These people connected to her by Father’s common thread of abuse—she didn’t know if their pity or their total apathy to her pain would be more devastating. Whatever reaction there would be, it was the one she was afraid of—it was the escaping of the story, the reveal to the world, that hurt her every time.

—

Cree felt her arm quickly shoot up to her face to wipe at a hot tear escaping. She and Steve had joked on the way over about how her crying was an inevitability, that it was just about how many fugitive tears she let get away. She thought she had prepared for it then, but she never could.

”Cree,” Paolo said in the silence, his voice sounding even-toned and not so sympathetic as to taunt her. “We are all so glad that you came to a meeting. And though it may not be at all close to what you’ve experienced in its intensity, I think you’ve put words to a dynamic that many of us in this group felt in our work lives for a long time.”

Cree bit down on her cheeks and braved glancing up again, seeing that several people were nodding respectfully, including Lou, who had an indisputably kind smile on his face. She wanted to mock it, but it was too genuine for that.

The woman sitting beside Cree wordlessly handed her a tissue and a glass of water, which she sheepishly accepted. When Paolo continued he addressed the entire group, taking attention away from her, helping her come back from where she had gone.

”Many people have said in group before,” Paolo said, gesturing to the circle, “that we have feelings of guilt, like you described. That we feel we can’t be considered Father’s victims, because we weren’t children when he hurt us, or because he didn’t hit us physically, or because we only suffered abuse in the workplace and not interpersonally.” There were more nods around him.

“It comes up quite often, too, that members of the group are ourselves perpetrators—we hurt children on his payroll, and so we had no right to speak. And it’s true that many of us are guilty of things that we very well may not be forgiven for.” Paolo shrugged. “I’ve spoken to some people, former Kids Next Door operatives, who I hurt while I was an ice cream man. I want nothing more than to reconcile with them, but some of them—rightfully, I think—don’t speak to any of us. There’s a reason this group is for people who worked for Father. We all feel this tension. But it is powerful to break the cycle.”

Cree smiled, finding Paolo’s speech corny, but in a way that released some tension in her. The Toilenator—Lou, Cree reminded herself—was standing up and passing a dish around, apparently sensing an opportunity to relax everyone further. A thin elderly man looked over as he took a piece of quiche, adding his input:

“I had hoped I would see you at a meeting soon, Ms. Lincoln,” he said, and she immediately recognized his voice as the butler, Wintergreen’s. He broke into a smile at the way her eyes must have widened. “Yes, it’s been many years—and I often wondered if you were well, after you disappeared.” His face grew serious again, and he added: “I saw a lot of things back then that, if I could go back, I would not have allowed, or so I tell myself. There are people I would have protected. If I had been a better man…well. The point is to be a better man, now. Though a very old one, certainly.”

That old refrain of laughter, of middle-aged amusement at a tired joke, bubbled up and helped eat away at the nerves of the moment. Cree’s smirk was one of genuine mirth, this time. Her mind swirled with possibilities of what Wintergreen had been doing, feeling, all this time. Here was someone who served Father tea, who made the delightful children sandwiches for lunch. She had never even thought he had a conscience. But in its way, that must weigh on him, too.

Maybe she wasn’t—in every way—alone.

”I became a teacher after I left the business, too,” one ice cream man added, holding a hand under his quiche to catch the crumbs. “And I think what you said about teaching—seeing yourself in your students, and everything—well, that was a really good point. My students are adult learners, and in a new country, so sometimes when I see them lacking confidence, I remember how I felt when I messed up at work and Father exploded at me…you know, it takes me right back there. I’m not an angry guy, and I try to make class fun, but I just think…what if? What if that’s me one day? Sometimes I even have to leave the class because it messes me up. But, I don’t know if this is true for you…it makes it feel more rewarding to do it the right way. To be patient and not like some tyrant. I keep reminding myself that’s not who I am, because I get to decide.”

”I feel the same way about my patients,” Lou beamed, sitting back down now that the quiche tray was empty. “I love reassuring them, especially about things that are embarrassing, like stomach issues can be.�� He shrugged. “Humiliation was a common theme in the ways all the villains targeted me, but it doesn’t have the same power anymore.”

”Damn, everyone sure moved up!” Cree thought aloud, laughing in spite of herself. “I guess the job market can’t be that bad, huh?”

”Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Paolo laughed back. “After all, this group is my big career move, and they pay me in quiche!”

The response to this quip was uproarious, so disproportionately so that Cree found herself earnestly cackling along. As the evening wound down, the relief of introducing herself gave way to a rush of endorphins, powering her forward.

She had conversations with people her teen self would have never spoken to—wouldn’t have been caught dead sitting in a circle with. That old outline of herself would have called this group a joke, a bunch of expired villains sitting in a circle like a kindergarten class, a cautionary tale about what happens when you let yourself go soft.

She would have laughed about that with her teen ninja friends and then gone home alone, tried to sleep with the pit in her gut, knowing that she’d have to meet him tomorrow, to give her report, to get her orders. In the back of her mind, Cree thought to herself how much she would have wanted to hold that lonely girl. How much she wished she could call her up and invite her here herself.

—

By the time Cree met the car in the parking lot, she had four phone numbers tucked in her pocket, scrawled on hotel stationary in shaky hands by people who swore they had gotten the hand of technology enough to stay in touch. She often told people she’d call them or text them, fully intending to throw their cards in the trash the second she left—she didn’t intend that, this time. Though she guessed that time would always tell.

Steve unlatched the door handle and grinned at her from the front seat, a fry from the fast food place nearby hanging out of his mouth. “What’sh up?” He said, lips full, and then swallowed quickly to free up his speech. “Band practice was awesome today, you’re gonna love the new album.”

Cree climbed in, slung her bag over her shoulder and onto the floor in front of her. She realized how heavy it was, what she had been carrying all day.

“I’ll judge that when I hear it,” Cree grinned back. “Did you get me a burger?”

“‘Course.” Steve shook the paper bag beside him. “Your go-to after a rough day. I’m guessing you need it, huh? Tell me about everything that sucked on the way home, I’m all ears.”

“Actually,” Cree looked out the window, watching the hotel start to roll past as the car moved. She smiled again despite herself. “I was gonna say you can have it. The eating’s pretty good at these things. And man, you won’t believe who made the food.”

#Knd #My writing #i don’t know if that’s the fic tag i decided on i will update this later #Cree lincoln #the toilenator

8 notes · View notes