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Pawbert woke up whimpering, curled into a ball, from another nightmare about being in jail. The fur on his face was wet— he'd been crying in his sleep again. It was another sign of his weakness, wasn't it? How easily he cried, and how often he had these nightmares.
They had only been in jail for a few days before the whole mess had been straightened out; father made the right apologies, greased the right wheels, made sure people saw the right facts. Pawbert had been home now for longer than he'd been imprisoned. He should be over it, he should be stronger than this. He should be going about his business like nothing had ever happened, like father and Cattrick and Kitty were.
Instead, here he was cowering in his room, crying and having nightmares.
He pulled the covers up to his chin, hunkering down with his tail in between his legs. Cowering in his room… he'd been there since they'd gotten home. He hadn't even gone out for meals, the maids just brought food to the door for him. He was sure that was how his father and siblings would prefer it, anyway. They wouldn't want to see him. They barely wanted to see him to begin with, and now, in trying to fix things, he had made everything worse.
His brother and sister were furious, he knew they were. But his father? His father just looked at him with that awful mixture of disappointment and disgust. Like Pawbert was something that he'd scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
When Pawbert had been little and he had a nightmare, his father would come in with a glass of warm milk, and pet his ears and ask him "what's wrong, kitten?"
But the older he'd gotten, the less softness his father had for him, and the more harsh expectations. Expectations that Pawbert never seemed to be able to meet. He wanted so desperately to live up to his father's expectations again. To have him look at him the way he did when he was little, and he brought home a straight A report card.
That was why he'd done it. Why he'd tried to do it, anyway. He wanted to show his father that he had the same confidence, initiative and drive that his siblings always impressed with. So, instead of just bringing the letter to his father and telling him the plot he'd discovered, he'd come up with a whole plan. A plan to show that he could make big moves and do great things for the family.
And it had blown up in his face completely. He'd practically destroyed the family legacy. His father would hate him, and think of him as a failure forever.
All because he had tried to do something great, and hadn't measured up.
Now his father had to make apologies, and pretend to be happy that the sins of their ancestors had come to light. For now, he had to condemn his own legacy, and eat a slice of humble pie while they took away Lynxley land and gave it to the reptiles.
Huddled under the covers, Pawbert wondered if there was anything he could do to fix it. To make things up to his father. Maybe in a few months, when the publicity waned, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde could turn up dead in some kind of tragic accident.
But even as Pawbert started to smile, thinking of it, a sour feeling churned in his stomach and he tightened his tail to his body again. He remembered the hard, painful cots in jail. He remembered the cold showers, and the bad food.
He remembered the humiliating stares, and his father's look of disappointment.
What if he just screwed it up again? What if he made a mess that his father couldn't clean up?
Maybe that was the lesson. Maybe it was better not to try. Maybe he was the fail son, and would always be the fail son and trying to do better just led to ruin.
Maybe he should know his place at the bottom of the Lynxley foodchain.
Under the covers, Pawbert tucked his chin into his chest and started to cry again.