RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o20. another cage..

Family is the kryptonite for the majority of humans. Its the people we were taught to love from the start of our lives, no matter their mistakes, their transgressions, their unruly violence. Family had to be loved, even if their love came with spikes, wrapped around the freedom of choosing safety and peace over their chaos.

Adelaide did not know her mother. She was raised by a struggling single father in a community endorsed in cheap thrills, in groups of cool children and losers she could only watch pass he on the streets of childhood. The moment his weekend freedom, the only time of the week when he wasn't stressed cost Fred his daughter's safety, pain got drowned in spirits. 

She escaped a bad stranger and returned in the care of a now alcoholic father, looking at a child without being able to see his little Addie anymore. His daughter would have never been kidnapped, she would have never almost killed someone, even less so get diagnosed with as many burdens as she carried back into his life. 

Writing, swimming, playing along and pleasing people, yet her biggest shadow was how she looked at Fred Grayson and hoped her father was still hidden somewhere beneath all the memories she carried from after the most blurred year of her life. He hasn't changed a bit though, despite the years merciless take on his now white hair and lagged, layered in hanging skin. Even the mole underneath his left eye seemed to have expanded in laziness.

Years of sobriety in, Fred reeked of alcohol when he opened the door for his daughter and she stepped in. He slammed the door closed and Adelaide was reminded why trips down memory lane were discourage to people like her, who carried monsters in the shadow of seemingly good times. 

"Aren't you kissing your daddy hello, little one?" Fred started raising his voice towards a mock of a tease. Adelaide felt a cold chill on her spine. He was standing between her and the door and she would not make it to the back exit. Two hours, her mind reassured her into calming her rapid beating heart, trapped as herself, and then I'll be safe again and dad will leave me alone. I'm an adult now.

Being an adult gave her the illusion that she'd be able to stand up against him civilized. Adelaide stepped around and brought back her picture perfect, smaller smile. Fred has turned his face to her, showing her where the kiss should land and gingerly, fighting back disgust as best as she could, Adelaide came closer and left a peck on his cheek. 

"You haven't changed a bit," Fred laughed, a dirty satisfied grin on his face. His right hand fell heavily on her ass, less inappropriate than usual and more as an overly personal nudge to get her to walk to the living room, right next to the entrance hallway of their one level house. The place under that roof was no home for sure. "Sit," he commanded her to take a seat amongst the empty beer cans on the couch. 

It was a disgusting place to be in, but without any sort of comment, Adelaide sat down at the place he pointed towards, watching her dad take the armchair. This positioning in the room was the dynamic which rules her childhood, because they were to share the couch only when he wasn't cross anymore, ready to hug her through hours of watching television.

"You smell like a man," Fred leant back in the old armchair, creaking under his gained weight. He bent forward one more time, taking an unfinished beer can from the low table between them. 

"I came with an Uber, daddy," Adelaide answered. There was the reason why she knew, no matter how much she wanted to hold Barry's hand through this, it was better for him to stay as far away from her father as possible. Fred has never liked the idea of his daughter going out and meeting other people who would love her more than him, because no one actually kept her safer than him, so experienced after losing her once. 

He'd do his worse and ruin what she held dear.

"What happened to your car?" He asked, then glared all the way through passionately taking a generous sip of highly alcoholic beverage.