Chapter Text
It had been a week since the Lynxleys’ arrest. Time seemed to slow then, especially when one was stuck in a cramped jail cell with three other family members and the moonlight could barely filter through the grimy, barred window. But all understood it was about night time.
Cattrick and Kitty glanced at Pawbert, on the bottom bunk bed that he shared with his father. As they inched closer to the lying form on the bed, they stood over him with the eyes and intent of graverobbers examining a particularly valuable corpse.
“Look at him,” Kitty whispered first. “He must be dying.”
“I knew they’d eat him alive. He knows, too. Otherwise, why is he rotting in this corner?”
“He’s been like this for a week—”
“Oh, don’t forget, he was like this at home too. Always disappearing.” Kitty said.
“You did find out where he always ended up. Some desert hideout in a hippie’s community.” Cattrick said.
Kitty nodded, crossing her arms. Cattrick stroked his goatee, which was already growing longer the more time he spent in jail.
Pawbert slept, or at least had the appearance of sleep, lying on his side uneasily, clutching his stomach with one paw, and the other seemingly reaching out for something…a hand, help, anything.
He looked, simply put, desolate. He had, ever since they’d been arrested, but now he’d been given a week to marinate in his own depression. He barely ate, and sleep came about as easily to him as getting his father’s approval.
None in the family looked or felt well; such was the fate of the elite reduced to a peasant’s prison sentence, but Pawbert had taken it especially hard.
The twins glanced at each other, sharing a look that both knew to mean “I feel bad for him. And that’s weird. It was his fault, but it seems almost unfair.”
“You don’t think we could go to court and ask for an appeal?” Kitty suggested. “Say he’s not of sound mind? Not guilty by reason of insanity?”
Cattrick raised a brow, looked at her like she’d just announced marriage to a reptile.
“Don’t tell me you care about him all of a sudden?” He said.
“Me? Care about him?” Kitty sneered. “My god, no. I’m just saying, legally…”
“You think it’ll be like that movie with the wolverine who gets sent to an insane asylum, and he ends up lobotomized at the end?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kitty chuckled. “And there’s going to be a big old bison who’s going to put him out of his misery.”
Milton was in the opposite corner of the prison cell, watching the twins mull over their youngest brother. He kept quiet, but the second they started bringing up the insanity defense, his heavy eyebrows raised in sudden interest.
“He’s still alive.” Milton said as he limped over to where the siblings stood. Given the cell space was so small, it couldn’t have been more than five steps. “You should know better than to worry for his wellbeing.”
Kitty turned to face him first, keeping her ears low on her head and her voice cordial. “It’s not that. It’s the legal repercussions that could occur…given all that happened.”
“Four attempted murders, Kitty.” Cattrick said.
“Emphasis on attempted. We both know he hasn’t the guts to actually commit murder. He couldn’t even squash a fly in the corner of his room.”
“Four attempted murders and admitting his plans in front of the may—”
“Enough.” Milton growled, echoing into the walls of the prison cell.
The twins’ shoulders tensed up, and their ears perked up. Cattrick clenched his jaw and Kitty bit her lip. Pawbert remained fast asleep.
“Get him up.” Milton commanded, putting his paws on his hips. “Shake him if you have to. I need to talk to him.”
“You could talk to us,” Cattrick said quickly. Kitty elbowed him.
“I have spoken to you enough,” said Milton. “Most of it, arguments. Most of it, blaming it on me. You act like children, even now.”
“Come on, dad—”
The pressure in the cell increased dramatically, like there was suddenly an elephant above all of them, ready to burst through the ceiling at any moment. Milton’s eyes locked with Cattrick’s, sharp and underlined by quiet fury.
“Let me. Talk to him.”
Cattrick knew that voice Milton was using now. It was the voice he used with the mayor after the incident at the gala occured, and later with the fox at the abandoned honeymoon lodge.
He gulped quietly, keeping his heartbeat steady. Milton was a lot shorter than him, and he thought he could take that extra height to his advantage, but he remembered a time when this wasn’t so easy. He had been a kitten once, big-eyed and innocent and free of mental and physical scarring.
He wondered, briefly, what Milton’s father must have done to him to shape such a monstrous being, and what he learned from his father that he now used against his three children.
Cattrick stepped away, not wanting to stick around if Milton suddenly went off-the-rails after denouncing all his children as suitable heirs. He didn’t need any more scars, and he was already getting new ones from fellow inmates.
“Pawbert.” Milton growled, looming over the bunk bed like Death about to take his next victim.
Pawbert didn’t respond. Milton sighed, and placed his massive paw, sharp claws extended, over his body.
“Dad—” Cattrick whispered, voice starting to shake.
Kitty grit her teeth.
Milton’s claws dug gently into Pawbert’s uniform and deeper into his skin underneath. He could feel the youngest’s ribs through his claws.
Pawbert awoke slowly, mumbling a little in pain, his eyes fluttering open.
Milton stared at Pawbert for a few precious seconds, masking his disgust as indifference, and sat on the bunk bed next to Pawbert, who was just now trying to get up.
“You will go to an institution.”
Kitty groaned, placing her paw over her face. “Dad, you can’t—we were just spitballing—”
It was Cattrick’s turn to elbow her.
Milton tore his glare away from the twins and returned to Pawbert. “You will be transferred over. You will scrub the Lynxley name off yourself.”
Pawbert lowered his head, his ears pressed so hard against his head that they seemed to disappear completely. Milton squinted, and lifted up his chin, with one long claw.
“Do you understand?”
“Mmh…” Pawbert mumbled. His eyes were sunken in his skull, darkly ringed with exhaustion.
“I said.” Milton grabbed his jaw, voice lowering to a growl. “Do you understand?”
“Ehh…” Pawbert whimpered, making a weak, pitiful sound like he was still a kitten. “It’s…you’re hurting me…”
“Hurting you?” Milton repeated. His jaw muscles tensed, the veins in his fluffy neck standing out. “I’m hurting you? Is that all you care about? Not what—what you did to the family?”
“Sorry…”
Milton struck him across the face, a heavy fist colliding with a small, furry cheek. The the remaining awake prisoners in the hallway heard, all turning their heads to gawk at the Lynxleys’ cell.
The twins winced, not daring to say anything, not wanting to be next in Milton’s line of fire.
“I give you everything I have.” Milton stood, watching as Pawbert stumbled around in his bed, holding his already bruised cheek. “You have a home. You have food, you have money. And this is what you do with all that?”
Pawbert said nothing, grabbing at the coarse, thin prison-issued blanket weakly and trying to make himself seem smaller, shrinking away. He even tried to smile, ears flat against his head.
“You ruin my life. You ruin the family.” Milton snarled, grabbing Pawbert by his collar. “You put all of us in jeopardy, and for what? Do you think your life isn’t good enough?”
Pawbert yelped. Milton tightened his grip on the youngest lynx’s collar, and shook him violently.
“You are worth nothing to me. You were never worth anything.” Milton said. “And now here you are, reaping what you sowed, hiding away in this corner like a filthy prey animal!”
Pawbert gasped, trying to pry Milton’s claws off his collar, but he was too weak, too shaky.
Milton threw him against the hard, concrete wall of the jail cell. Pawbert cried out, holding himself and refusing to meet with his father’s face. Taking heavy, shaking breaths, he choked. “Please…Please, I just…”
“I did everything I could to keep your pathetic body and soul alive, for the sake of your mother!” Milton said, now forcing Pawbert’s arms behind his back, ignoring his yelps of pain. “I spent hours with you in the hospital wasting my time just so I wouldn’t upset her! I told her, I knew you were too weak to survive! That you were just a runt and we were wasting our resources!”
He then yanked Pawbert away from his corner and leaned in very close to his face. “To think your mother and I did all that just for you to grow up to be—”
“Dad…” Cattrick finally stepped forward. “I–I think he gets the message.”
Either by self-preservation instinct or anger at the scene before him, Cattrick balled his paw up into a fist.
Milton, with sharp eyes even in his older age, noticed. He dropped Pawbert, discarding him like a junk letter, and slowly moved back towards Cattrick. Eventually he got so close to his son’s face that Cattrick could smell the prison dinner off of him.
Kitty was already retreating defensively into a corner, her paw over her mouth. Pawbert was practically half-dead now, lying on his side in the bed and breathing heavily, slowly as if trying not to cry.
Cattrick stared directly into Milton’s icicle-cold, piercing eyes.
“What was that for?” Milton asked, voice low. “Were you thinking of hitting me, son?”
Cattrick kept his expression neutral, not breaking eye contact away from his father. He shook his head lightly.
“Huh…” Milton squinted. He bared his teeth, long, yellowed fangs on display. “Go ahead. We are in prison.”
Cattrick remained quiet. He did his best to prevent his body from trembling. He couldn’t be like Pawbert. He shouldn’t.
“Give it your best shot, Cattrick.”
Finally, he looked away. He glanced at Pawbert, struggling to sit up, coughing, wincing at his new bruises.
“This isn’t a good idea, dad.”
“Did I hear a sniffle, there?” Milton said. “Are you going to cry?”
Cattrick couldn’t say anything, his voice stuck in his throat, refusing to escape.
“Are you crying, Cattrick?”
“I—”
“Did I teach you to cry? No?” Milton grabbed at Cattrick’s jaw, just as he did with Pawbert. “Did I teach you to snivel?”
“No.” Cattrick said, trying his hardest to make sure his voice didn’t hesitate. “No, you didn’t.”
Milton smiled, not with the smile a father would give but the kind a predator would upon seeing a particularly juicy prey. “That’s right.”
He let go of Cattrick’s jaw, huffing.
“Let the guards know I request he be taken into a mental institution,” he said. “I never want to see his face again. Nor his voice.”
Milton took a few steps back to his corner in the cell, heavy as the atmosphere surrounding him.
The siblings were then left in their own space, quieted, feeling everything ready to collapse around them. Cattrick heaved a shuddering sigh, trying to stop his paws from shaking. Kitty moved back to Cattrick’s side. She did not touch him, did not attempt to console him.
She was too familiar with all of this. The words Milton said, the things he did, she had heard it all before. Had been witness to all of it before. Just because she didn’t hit him personally didn’t mean she was exempt from nor oblivious to his rage.
Cattrick shut his eyes and grit his teeth. Then…
“C-Cattrick…” Pawbert muttered, weak, frail sounding.
Cattrick’s head turned to Pawbert, who had managed to push himself up against the wall, slumped there, still breathing heavily. He gave a pitiful attempt at a smile, still shaking. He had a slight nosebleed that he didn’t bother to wipe away. The bruising on his right cheek bloomed up to his eyebrow, already transforming into a sickly purple.
For a second, Cattrick thought he was looking through the mirror of time.
“T-thank you…”
He couldn’t stand it.
“Don’t make me hit you, too.” He hissed, and turned away from both sister and brother.