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From the moment he finally regains consciousness, Hugo Verlaine knows nothing will ever be the same for him again.
Hugo barely remembers anything from the past... how long has it even been? Time starts to blur together once you get kidnapped and shoved in a tiny dark closet with no way of telling the time, after all (though, looking at a clock and seeing what time it was, was the least of Hugo's concerns at the time).
The first thing he actually does, however, is cry out - almost completely on instinct - in a frightened, shrill voice: "Papa! Father!" Because he wakes up alone.
At least, that's what it seems like to him, because he can't feel anyone holding onto him, and he hasn't quite opened his eyes yet, out of fear that he hasn't truly been rescued, that he'll wake to see that he's still lying tied up on the floor of that room, or worse-
That he'll open his eyes to discover that he's actually dead, and crossed over into the afterlife.
Hugo still doesn't open his eyes until he hears a familiar, soothing voice from beside him say "Shh, shh, it's alright chéri, it's okay, I'm here, Father's here," and realizes he hasn't been alone the whole time, and that he's still alive. As Paul's arms wrap around him, Hugo finally opens his- he opens his-
He should have finished that with "his eyes", but something's wrong. His left eye opens as normal, but the other - his right eye - doesn't. No matter how hard he tries, he can't get his eyelids to respond, can't open his eye as he's been easily able to so many times before.
What happened? Why can't I open my eye? Why, why…
Finally snapping out of the trance his earlier realization put him in, Hugo blinks the only eye that will respond, turning his head to look at Paul. By now, his other father, Arthur, has joined them, standing by Paul's side at Hugo's bedside, and though he's staring right at them, there's an unfocused look in his eyes that suggests that he's not truly seeing them.
"You're awake, thank God," Arthur sighs, reaching out to take Hugo's face in his hands. Before he can, however, Hugo jerks back suddenly, his single big golden eye clouding over with what can only be described as pure fear.
"Papa," Hugo whispers a moment later, looking at Arthur pitifully. "Papa, I can't- my other eye, I can't open it. It won't open." His next question, though it is expected, hits both of his fathers with more force than any object ever has before:
"Why can't I open my eye?"
Arthur's breath hitches, and he glances at Paul out of the corner of his eye. Paul glances back, the helplessness in his eyes telling Arthur that his husband is thinking the same thing he is right now:
How are we supposed to explain this to him?
Their silence goes on just long enough for Hugo to start picking up hints of what's going on, and he trembles as Arthur reaches out again, letting him cup his face in his hands this time without moving away.
"Oh, mon petit chaton," Arthur starts to say, gently rubbing his thumbs across Hugo's cheeks in an attempt to soothe him, to try to prepare his poor boy as best he can for what he's about to tell him.
That said, Arthur and Paul both know that there's no way to truly prepare their little boy for any of this (he really is so little still, only barely eleven, and forced to face such a horrific situation so early into his life, who was targeted for no reason other than who his parents are).
"Before I tell you, you must promise me something, chéri, " Arthur says, adjusting his position a bit so that he's now crouching next to Hugo's bedside rather than standing, so that they can be more easily at eye level. He fights to hold back his own tears, knowing that if he starts crying - as much as he wants to do just that - it will no doubt only frighten and upset Hugo further. "Promise me you won't blame yourself for what happened to you and your brother. You must understand, this is not your fault, and it is not Victor's fault, either."
Hugo feels panic rise in his chest at that, asking quickly, "What happened to Victor? He- he didn't, he can't be-"
"Shh, shh, easy, Victor is alright," Arthur soothes him again, stroking Hugo's face with his palm. "Nothing happened to him, they didn't hurt him. He- he hid, and they couldn't find him." Arthur pauses, swallowing back something heavy and bitter in his throat, before finally saying:
"Hugo, the men who took you- the reason your eye won't open, is because those men took your eye."
As the words finally start to settle fully in Hugo's mind, finally begin to sink in...
A horrible silence stretches between them as Hugo's remaining eye widens, first with shock, and then with horror. Tears of shock and grief well up within it, too, and only seconds after they do, they start to spill onto his cheek, cutting clear paths down his pale, freckled skin. Slowly, numbly, as he finally registers the feeling of bandages on the right side of his face, too, he lifts his hand to touch them, only now realizing that they're there, as he was too caught up in his earlier fear and confusion to notice them before.
"... they- they took it? It's gone?" Hugo finally whispers. His voice and body both tremble - so hard that his bed frame shakes along with him - as he stares helplessly at Paul and Arthur.
Arthur swallows thickly again, though this time, it's Paul who answers their son, as he wraps his arm comfortingly around Arthur's shaking shoulders.
"They did. I'm so sorry that we weren't able to make it there in time to save your eye, mon coeur," Paul says, his voice as steady and strong as he can keep it in the face of his distraught, devastated, and traumatized son (his sweet, beautiful son, his and Arthur's perfect child, the son he thought he'd never be able to have, who means so much to him and has since the moment Arthur told him they were having a child eleven years ago). "But-"
And here, Paul reaches out, and Arthur lets one of his hands fall to his side so that Paul's hand can take its place, so that each of them can hold one side of their son's face in their hands, together.
"But, we made it in time to save you. And that is what truly matters: that you are still here, and alive, with us. That is all anyone in this family cares about."
Hugo sniffles, pressing his face further into his fathers' hands as his trembling intensifies. He bites his lip, then asks quietly, "You caught them, right? The bad guys- they can't hurt Victor, or come- come back, right?"
"Of course we did," Arthur finally speaks, managing to find his voice again (though it's barely louder than a strained whisper), at least for the time being. "You don't have to worry about any of them ever again, mon chaton. That, we can promise."
Of course, his fathers will never tell him the details, but they know he knows what they mean well enough; such knowledge comes early for the child of two former government spies, now current Executives of the Port Mafia.
Besides, he doesn't need to know all of that. He doesn't need to know how his fathers tore the limbs off of every person in that old, abandoned church, one by one, after using Arthur's Ability to trap them all there like mice in a baited trap.
"I- I just-"
Even with that reassurance, after Arthur speaks, a choked little sob escapes past Hugo's lips as he presses his hands to his face, curling in on himself as best he can with his fathers still holding onto him, before crying out:
"I- I want to know why. Why? Why did they hurt me? Why did they have to- to try to take me and Victor in the first place? Why!? It's not fair! It's not fair!"
Hugo doesn't fight his fathers as they both lean in to hug him, a few tears of their own finally starting to fall from their own eyes, despite how hard they'd tried fighting it earlier.
Though, that was only while Hugo was facing them, and could clearly see their faces. Now, as they hug him and hold him - and each other - close while he cries in their arms, he can't see them crying, can't see the shared look of pain and heartbreak on their faces as they all struggle to face the reality they've been left with in the wake of this cruel act of violence leveled against their family.
Worst of all, Paul and Arthur know that Hugo is right. The unfairness of it all is almost more clear to them than it is to him. After all...
Their child is suffering. And there is nothing they can do to take the pain away from him. Not entirely, anyway.
All they can do is hold him and comfort him while he cries, and try to prepare themselves for the long road they all must face ahead of them now.