#but also she has a lot of compassion

content warning: discussion of past child abuse and past torture.

“Dad, I have a project I need help with.”

Lux nods, sitting on the couch with his plate of reheated leftovers. The smell of parmesan mixes with the familiar, almost musty smell of their old, soft couch. He loves being home. “Okay, pumpkin.” She rolls her eyes at the childish nickname, and he adores her teenage annoyance. “How can I help?”

Pen sits in the armchair. She usually flops, so her more measured movements catch his attention. She means business right now. Acting none the wiser, he cuts a slice of lasagna with the side of his fork.

“It’s a project about family history,” She starts and watches him for a reaction. Lux raises his eyebrows but doesn’t look up at her yet.

“Oh yeah? Family tree or something?”

“Uh huh. I don’t actually know anything about it. You and Papa had moms and dads, right? I mean, I know Grandma.”

“Yes. And yeah, you know Mom.”

“So what about your Dad? We can start there.”

He looks up at her now. She has no notebook or laptop before her to take notes or look at her project. He doesn’t suspect that she’s lying about it - just that she’s more curious than she’ll admit.

“Okay. Uh. He was born in 1974.”

“Wow. Old.”

Lux rolls his eyes, now. “He was young, really. Seventeen when the war started.”

Her mischievous energy turns somber at the mention of the war on magic. It’s boring history to most kids, but to her, it’s something that makes her dad get quiet and grim, something that must have been horrifying but that she’s never heard details about. A shadow that hasn’t been permitted to cast darkness over her.

“Was he in the war?” She asks, leaning forward. She’s hungry for understanding.

“Yes.”

A staredown. Lux is aware that he’s just gotten cagey, and that really, he should be able to at least give her this much. Her history. Not her family by blood, but still, it affects her.

He adds belatedly, “It’s… difficult to talk about.”

“Why? You weren’t in the war. You were a baby.”

“No, I wasn’t even born yet.” Scratching at his back through his shirt, Lux shifts to set his plate in his lap instead of on the couch cushion beside him. It’s warm. “But you can understand. He was seventeen when he joined the war. A lot of violence for a kid that age to see. Something in him broke. Or that’s what Grandma says, at least. She says he used to be kind. Gentle.”

“So he wasn’t gentle. Was he, like, abusive or something?”

Her dad hums, delaying his answer by looking around the room. Picture frames that hold so many photos from over the years, always updated with the latest memorable events and trips. Emory’s book collection, plants that are watered and sung to (to the great annoyance of the teenager in the house), snacks piled atop the fridge. She is accustomed to a standard of life that Lux didn’t believe he’d ever get to see himself, as a teenager, let alone provide for someone else. Abuse is just a concept to her, a thing that happens to less fortunate people.

“I can answer specific questions,” He offers. “It sounds like you already have theories. I can talk about it if you can try to be… um, gentle about your reactions.”

She looks worried and skeptical at the same time. She’s not used to him talking about the old painful things he remembers, so she never seems quite convinced that they’re as big of a deal as his subtle reactions seem to convey. Still, she nods. “Sure, Dad. Specific, okay. Did your dad hit you?”

Old, retired memories poke at him. Lux allows them to come forward in gentle waves, ebbing and flowing, no particular memory given a spotlight. “Yes.”

Penelope looks almost stunned at his straightforward answer. “Like, a lot? Punching and stuff?”

“Mmhmm.” He takes a bite of his lasagna, happy to find extra chunks of ground beef. Emory is amazing.

“Why? Were you a bad kid? Did he get drunk?”

She’s seen these things on TV. Lux thinks about how he wants to answer. “I wasn’t a bad kid. I was nervous and quiet, out of the way. Well, sometimes I threw fits. But kids do that. You don’t hit them for it. And… yes, he’d drink sometimes. But he didn’t have to be drunk to be willing to hurt someone.”

“Uh. Okay. So he was messed up from the war? Did he kill a lot of people?”

Another bite. Not as much meat this time, and this spot was a little cold. Maybe they need a new microwave. “That’s what Grandma says, that it changed him. He was very proud of the number of warlocks he killed. I hope that it was his training that made him hate us so much, that he wasn’t always that bad.”

“Oh. He - he hated you for having magic?” She looks stricken at the thought of the hatred stemming from prejudice, not just from Lux being some kind of wild, frustrating bad kid.

“He hated it more than anything.” Mixed in with his thoughts about his dinner are flashes of feeling very small and hurting very much. “There are, um.” Is this appropriate to say to a sixteen year old? He glances at his phone on the arm of the couch. He could reach out to his therapist to ask. But he wants to decide on his own, as a father. He’ll try not to offer up too much. There are plenty of experiences he never wants her to imagine could happen to someone. “You’ve seen my back. Under all that scarring, before most of it, there are some lines from him.”

Lines, scars, on his back from his dad. Penelope’s eyes lock onto his shoulder as if she can use her gaze alone to turn him around and pull up his shirt, inspect the damage and find secrets buried there. “Your dad whipped you?”

Lux nods, meeting her eyes.

“But he didn’t do all of that. Someone else did the rest?”

“We’re talking about family history,” He guides, shoulders beginning to throb.

“…Right. Yeah. So… um. What did he do in the war?”

Now he’s more playing with his food than eating it. “He was a sniper.”

She looks impressed for a second. One of her Wednesday night shows has cops and a sniper that she has a crush on. Lux doesn’t ruin her fun by getting upset about a show that he doesn’t have to be in the room to see.

“Was he good at it?”

Lux nods. Scratches at the bit of beard at his chin. “One of the best.”

“Wow. Did he have medals?”

A memory of the display case that seemed to take up the whole hallway, glass daring him to break it and get punished, awards and bullets on display to brag about how his dad planned to kill him too one day. “Yes. He lost friends. Did some things that got him awards for bravery.”

“Wow! So, like, if I look him up, will I find his name ‘cause he’s got those?”

He’s lost his appetite. He hides it by cutting up more bites that he won’t eat. “I don’t know.”

“Did he hit Grandma too?”

She’s being too forward, but Lux won’t stop her yet. He can roll with the punches. In his mind he sees the cabin and blood that has stained him for so many years. “Yes, honey.”

His quiet, distant tone slows her down. Penelope shifts and straightens her hoodie.

“You don’t have any questions about Papa’s parents?” He asks, already suspecting the answer.

“Already asked him,” She mumbles, fiddling with her phone now, not really reading anything on its screen.

“Oh.” Her sheepishness wins him back a little. Lux takes another bite, and it’s meaty again, and not too close to room temperature. Maybe he is still hungry. “What do you really want to know?”

Pen looks up, changes to sit sideways, then changes back. “I don’t know. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s okay that you have questions. Ask me anything.”

“Okay. Anything?”

“Anything.”

Penelope leans forward, eyes locked on his. “Who is the Hunter? To you?”

She was waiting to let that one loose. Lux tries not to think about how his father would react in a situation like this. He’s tried for years to imagine how this conversation might go, and worked to avoid her ever having an understanding of the topic. Better for her to be ignorant than to know about him. But it sounds like she already knows something.

“He is… a man who hurts people.”

“Did he hurt you?”

That’s got to be pretty obvious. “Yes.”

“How? What did he do?”

“Um. Well, my scars are mostly from him. I’m not going to be able to list it all out for you. I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

“Your back?” She asks for clarification, and her dad nods. “Why did he - who was he, though? Why you? How old were you?”

“He just… picked whoever he saw that he wanted. I was a stranger to him. I was a couple years older than you. He was… like a serial killer.”

“Well - you’re a survivor, not a victim, Dad, and - and I think your scars look cool.”

Lux cocks a brow at her clumsy attempts to offer comfort. She’s cute. “Thank you.”

She nods graciously. “But. Why didn’t you just kill them with your magic?”

“What?”

“Your dad. The Hunter. These guys that were hitting you and your mom and stuff. Why didn’t you just make them stop?”

The smell of parmesan is starting to make him feel nauseous. “It’s not… it wasn’t that easy. Abuse victims-”

“Survivors,” She corrects.

“-kids who are being hurt, they can’t fight back. Most of the time. And it’s not their fault if they can’t.”

“No, yeah, I didn’t say - it’s not their fault.”

“I was afraid of him. Them. I’ve gotten better, you haven’t seen me like that, but I used to have a stutter, and shake, and my magic wouldn’t work when I was scared. And I was always scared. I couldn’t relax in the living room like you are right now, I had to sneak past and try not to get noticed by my dad. I was, I was nineteen in a cellar with my arms… my shoulders are how they are because of that.”

As he paints context into the base truths she’s always accepted, she looks at his shoulders again.

Lux sighs, absolutely full of aches and bad memories now. “I love you, and I never want you to be scared to ask me things. But I don’t want you to be familiar with the life I knew. So please only ask questions if you really want to know, and just… give your Dad a break right now? I can help with your project later. Give you a timeline and fun facts. There’s more than just the bad stuff. I’m. If I keep talking now, I’m just going to be venting. And that’s not okay for an adult to do.”

Penelope stands now, looking more than eager to go. “I know, Dad. I’m not a kid.”

She is. She is so young, so clumsy with her sympathy, and so earnest. Lux shakes his head. “I know you’re not. I’ll see you after I finish my dinner and clean up, I’ll bring you some ice cream while you do your homework. Okay, honey?”

“Yeah. Okay, Dad.” One more glance toward his back, and she’s gone, pulling her phone back out of her pocket and opening up some app where the kids post pictures and talk to each other.

Lux sinks back against the cushions and closes his eyes, breathing through the wave of doubt and guilt that comes after a landmark conversation with his daughter. He’ll update Emory about it as soon as he’s processed it himself.