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Viktor opened the door as gently as he could in the hopes of minimising the amount of noise it would make and cringed when it let out a loud creak despite his best efforts as if taunting him.
"Where have you been?"
And if things couldn't get any worse, it was his father's voice that came from the other room, accusing like he'd caught him in the act of something terrible and provoking like he wanted a fight. The usual.
"Out." He replied vaguely, hoping to ignore the man and instead curl up and start reading the books the Doctor had let him borrow until he was tired enough to get some sleep. The quicker tomorrow came and he could go back to the lab, the better.
He'd tried staying at the lab as long as he possibly could, coming up with more pointless chores to do, knowing that the alternative would be putting up with his father, but Singed had eventually caught on and urged him to go home, saying he didn't wish for an angry search party to come breaking down his door. There were already enough rumors about his apparent evil schemes floating around and he didn't need kidnapping added to the list.
"Think you're smart?" His father scoffed. Viktor wondered if he were even capable of making anything other than nasty noises. His voice was grating enough to listen to.
He didn't even spare the man a glance as he walked past him where he sat at the table. "Yes. I do."
"Vitya," His mother said, stopping him in his tracks when she placed a soft hand on his shoulder. "I've made dinner, come eat."
He didn't want to sit at the table, not with him around, but he obliged nonetheless, for his mother's sake. It was only fair to at least try to have a civil meal when she had gone to the trouble of cooking for them.
"So, you've been with the Doctor all day?" She asked, much more politely than his father had, genuinely interested in what he'd been up to rather than looking to accuse him. Viktor nodded and began eating from the bowl she'd sat down in front of him.
"What do you even do all day? Sit in some creep's basement doing sums?" His father smirked like a child. Viktor saw his mother shoot him a warning look across the table.
"He teaches me chemistry and mathematics, sometimes we build machines together. And when he has a patient he shows me how he tends to their injuries."
Viktor wouldn't usually be so inclined to pay so much mind to his father's attempts to get a rise out of him but it felt good to prove him wrong. And maybe a small part of it was out of a desire to defend the Doctor, but he wouldn't admit that was what got him so annoyed.
"You know, the other rebels have some stories about him." The man commented. And your 'rebels' sound childish, calling themselves that, Viktor wished to bite back but he didn't.
"I'm sure they do." He chose to reply instead.
"They say he makes monsters, pulls apart the pieces of his test subjects and sews them together into something horrible."
Viktor rolled his eyes. He'd heard it all before. That the Doctor was some sort of Frankenstein, or that he kept real people in his basement to experiment on, or that he wasn't even human. The rumours were nothing new.
"He was banished from Piltover, you know?" He smirked. Viktor had wondered if his father would have a problem with him associating with someone from Piltover, and he had cared, but just about the fact that he was a scientist, someone he deemed as inferior, rather than anything to do with his origins. "They say he mutilated his own daughter."
It was probably just another rumour, like all the others that followed anyone who dared not to fit in, even down here. But Viktor, on a few occasions, had noticed the man looking at a photo, a photo of a girl on the inside of the locket he always kept stashed safely away in his pocket. The girl could be his daughter, but the Doctor always looked at her with so much fondness, so much love, so much regret.
Viktor knew the Doctor and he knew that the Doctor would never do something like that, especially to his own child.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Viktor finally snapped, "He wouldn't! Dad wouldn't do that! He—"
The room suddenly went very silent.
And it really sank in just what he'd said.
"What did you just call that man?" His father asked after a long moment, eerily calm.
He wasn't even sure if he'd meant it. Viktor cared very much for the Doctor, he would admit that much at the very least, and the man did interact with him in a very fatherly way at times. But if Singed did have a daughter, a daughter who wasn't around anymore, then Viktor wouldn't want to complicate things.
But that didn't matter, because he'd said it, and to his real father, no less, and now he and to deal with the consequences.
With a sudden rush of bravery, Viktor muttered under his breath, "Well, he's more of a father to me than you've ever been."
The bang that followed when the man's hands slammed down on the table was loud enough to make the boy flinch. "What did you just say?"
He wasn't feeling quite so brave anymore.
He turned to his mother for some sort of help or even just to gauge her reaction. He felt a pit of dread open up, ready to swallow him whole, when he saw the expression on her face that looked eerily like betrayal.
His father scoffed. "You talk a whole lot but can't even say it to my face. Ungrateful child."
This time, it was Viktor's turn to slam his hands down on the table, but with significantly less of an intimidating effect. "Fine, I'll say it! He's a better father than you! He actually cares about me, unlike you! You don't even love me!"
"Of course I do! You're my kid!" His father snapped back, jumping to his feet to tower over the boy. Somehow he was able to make what should have been a reassurance into an argument.
"Then say it! Say you love me!"
Again, the room when silent, though it was somehow even worse than the last time.
"Exactly..." Viktor muttered, genuinely hoping that his father would have been able to prove him wrong. "You've just proved my point. Thanks."
Leaving his dinner unfinished felt like sacrilege but he couldn't stand being in the same room as that man right now so Viktor grabbed his cane, hauled himself to his feet, and walked away.
"Where do you think you're going?" His father tried to stop him.
Viktor barged straight past him. "Out."
"Vitya... come sit back down." His mother said sadly, looking so defeated sitting there alone at the table.
Viktor ignored her and left.
"I thought you were going home?" Singed commented upon hearing the door open and shut once again. He got no response as his apprentice sat down beside him in his usual seat and placed his arms on the desk, resting his forehead against them.
A hand settled in his hair, brushing gently. "Are you alright?"
"Not really," Viktor mumbled, trying very hard to hold back his tears.
"You can stay here for as long as you like, if that'll help." Singed offered and Viktor wasn't sure whether to be happy or hurt that already, without even trying, the man was so much better than his own father.
"Yes please..." Viktor replied, his voice hitching a little.
There was a slight pause as Singed composed his next response. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Do you care about me?" Viktor asked, very suddenly. He turned his head slightly to gaze up at the man and catch his reaction and unsurprisingly, he looked rather taken aback.
"Yes. I would have to say yes, I do care about you Viktor." He answered after the initial surprise had worn off.
"Do you love me?"
Singed frowned. "What has brought this on?"
His own father couldn't say it. But neither could Singed, he supposed.
He hid his face back in his arms. "Never mind."