boy howdy I wanted to write some egbertcest smut and fluff but then terrible things occurred instead

as tends to happen

i wanted to throw a fallen soufflé metaphor in here somewhere but it didnt fit

the soufflé symbolizes innocence

Your name is Jonathan Egbert, and your son doesn’t love you. 

Though perhaps that is not the entire truth—deep, deep down, there must be a shred of love that John still has for you, his father. But it is buried far, far down, under strata of confusion and bitterness and betrayal. 

There was anger in John, now, so much anger because of what you had done to him: how you had taken advantage of him when he had hardly had the capability of understanding the consequences and ramifications of your actions. You had raised your son to see that that was okay. That all of was okay, that this was just what some dads and sons did together. It was natural, and natural for them to feel this way, and natural for them to want to take care of their urges. And John had believed it, and you had treated him like a prince through it all and never, ever hurt him, and it had been okay. 

You love your son, and it was okay, because you are a good man. 

You pay your taxes on time. You drive the speed limit. You donate to charity. You help out bake sales at the local schools. You vote. 

You are a good man now, and you had been a good man back then. 

But good men can make mistakes. They can take things to far, and they can blind themselves to the consequences of their actions because they believe they’re good people and thus wholly incapable of harm. 

You may be a good man, but you’ve proven yourself to be terrible father. 

The moment you told yourself that it was okay, you became a terrible father. It was not okay. It was never okay. Never, ever okay to touch John in such a way. Never okay to raise him thinking that was right, thinking that was normal. 

Now John is fifteen and knows that those dad-son bonding moments were nothing but a crock, cheap wool that you had pulled over gullible eyes. He’s learned none of his friends have that kind of relationships with their fathers. He’s learned it’s not normal. That he’s not normal. That he is wrong. And that it’s all your fault. 

Despite this, John didn’t tell anyone. He never did. You don’t believe it wasn’t out of fear of you, at least not blatantly Even at your most angry and stressed you had never threatened your son, even when your own guilty terror arose inside you, spurred by John’s mute accusations.  

You don’t know why John has never told anyone about the things that you did. You know that he knows that they’re wrong, that they’re sick, that they’re illegal. You would not blame him for telling, for revealing how 

Sometimes you pretend he doesn’t tell because deep down he still loves you, and he still needs you. 

You hate thinking it, but you miss it when he was your little boy and didn’t know that the things you were doing were so awful and so, so wrong. 

You just want to hold him and apologize, but you’ve done too much already. You’ve hurt him. You’ve ruined him. This isn’t a smear of out of place frosting you can simply wipe away with a finger. It’s a cake too filled with air bubbles, too hollow to stand on its own, too empty to stave off its own collapse for much longer. 

When John comes home from school, he goes straight up to his room. Sometimes you’re lucky to get a mechanical hello or a stilted wave before the slam of his door that signals the next wave of baking to come swarm your thoughts and occupy your hands. Sugar and butter and cream are guileless and difficult to ruin. Even if you miss a step, or measure incorrectly, or forget the baking powder the final product still comes out tasting oh so sweet even if it’s not perfect. 

You make apple muffins and put two on a plate, and pour out a glass of milk for John. He still eats your food, provided that you bring it to him. 

You knock on his door, listening closely for the type of silence that will allow you to enter. You can hear only the soft click of keys, no hushed voice that indicates he’s talking to some of his webcam friends. You figure it’s all right to slip in and leave the treats.   

You slowly creak open the door and walk inside, placing the muffins and the glass of milk on his dresser by the entryway. John is facing away from you, sitting at his computer. You don’t dare to approach him. You have long lost that right. 

Later tonight, you may sneak into his room and hold him for a moment, pretending you’d just lulled him to sleep as you had in the days before. He’s too big too be coddled in such a way, but he snores the same way that he did as a child and his breath is still as soft and warm as it always was, so it’s not too difficult to pretend. 

Until then, you’ll try to fritter your time away. You still have some ingredients left in the kitchen—ivory cake, sinless and sweet, and some cornflower blue buttercream—

You do grant yourself one luxury before you leave, however. You stick your hand in your pocket to hide your clenched fist—from who, you don’t know. You clear your throat.

“John, I…love you, son.”

As always, he doesn’t reply.