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Grimoire hadn’t really noticed how much he and Dregg were alike until that one sting operation with Dunsworth’s slave traffic thing. But as he looked at his son pleading with Captain Regina to let him prove the Lila girl’s innocence because she wouldn’t be able to bear the guilt of having killed someone, he couldn’t help but think it was exactly what Grim himself would have done.
And so, he watched Dregg run around the house (well, it wasn’t really running, more like power walking while also making it look grumpy somehow), finding clues and talking to everyone about them and writing them down in that notebook of his in his handwriting that was only slightly less unsettlingly ugly than Grim’s. He could see the light in his son’s eyes when he connected something about the case, the way his brow twitched a little when he had an idea. Everything about his behaviour affirmed that yes, this was what he was meant to do.
“Something on your mind, officer Grim?” Asked officer Mires pleasantly. Grim squinted at her a little, but she didn’t seem to be asking it just to start up the flirting antics again, so he relaxed his eyelids.
“Just thinking about how Dregg is good at his job,” he conceded with a bit of pride. Okay, a lot of pride. Mires smiled.
“He’s really made for this line of work, isn’t he?” She said, looking at the door through which Dregg had left just a little while before. “He’s almost as good as you.”
“He might be getting better than me pretty soon,” said Grim, the words slipping out of his mouth as if they were meant to. And well, it wasn’t too farfetched an idea, since, considering the fame Dregg was gathering for solving important cases and even participating in the damn Invidia Games, with a bit more refinement on his technique, he could very well catch up to his old man.
Not that Grim would help him do it. He wanted to delay admitting to Dregg he was better than him for as long as humanly possible, and besides, he was crap at teaching anyway, so even if he wanted to help, he’d probably do more harm than good.
“You must be proud of him,” said Mires, drawing him out of his thoughts. Grim glanced at her for a moment, and allowed himself a smile.
“I am.”
A companionable silence missed its chance to form between them, as hardly a second passed before Mires continued:
“You should also be proud of winning over my heart.”
“Oh goddammit.”
Dregg really, really hated the high class. They were a bunch of rich snobs who thought they were better than everyone else just because they had money, when they were actually worse people than most. Their methods for getting all that money were usually questionable at best and downright evil at worst, they practised honesty almost as often as they practised humility, and they would do just about anything for more money if they could get away with it.
Due to that, Dregg had always hated aristocrats. He respected the king and princess (to a level), yes, but only because they had actually proven themselves worthy of some respect, and he didn’t give a damn about the queen, what with her dumb ideas. But on principle, he refused to respect aristocrats (well, anyone, really, but regardless) unless they proved they deserved it. And most failed to do so.
It had been this way since his childhood. Because Seed Giver, who he’d grown up with, thought the same way, and from what he knew, the environment one grew up in influenced about half of one’s personality. And Dregg could really see that showing in his own hatred for the rich. Because as long as he could remember, whenever he saw a rich person abusing their power, Seed Giver had been there, laughing in their face (sometimes literally) and bringing them to justice. At least when he wasn’t flirting with whatever woman had caught his eye.
He would never in a million years admit it out loud to anyone but himself, but he rather admired his father. It was during that case, in that huge-ass house, where he met Captain (and… and Life), that he saw for the first time how Grimoire Moriss persisted in the face of anything thrown his way, and through that, brought that annoying lady to her metaphorical knees. Even when it seemed there was nothing to be done, he’d turned the case on its head and come out on top. That moment, that fierceness in his father’s eyes and that certainty in his words…
It had lit a flame in Dregg.
A flame that would grow, bright and hungry.
And when faced with choices for his future, Dregg would have not a single doubt in his soul when he said he wanted to be a cop. An investigator, like his father. He wanted to be the next one to strike down assholes who thought they could get away with everything. He wanted to bring justice to those who deserved it, do right by those who needed it.
And Dregg would never forget how, when he told his father about his career choice, he had blinked in surprise, and then smiled with delight. With pride.
It was not worth it. For what seemed like a freaking eternity after that, Seed Giver would gloat to whoever wanted to listen (and to those who didn’t want to) about how his son was going to be a brilliant policeman just like him.
Parents really were useless. At least his were.