"Grief is the price we pay for love."
—Queen Elizabeth II
chapter 27
Clementine stared at Bar's tattoos as she traced them with her finger, as if she couldn't see his reaction as she spoke.
Her voice was like a cold, autumn day. It was chilled, and it was full of loss; the memories in her eyes making her heart sink like acorns falling from an oak tree, her eyes as wet as the mud puddles leaves fell into, and her skin cool to the touch as if wind had just swept through her entirety and shook each thin branch-like thought.
Clementine seemed ready to snap in half.
In this moment, she was more dead than alive and Bar knew exactly what that felt like.
He could see emotions that often stared back at him from the mirror now in her eyes and it terrified him.
"When I-I was fifteen, it was a, a year after you left, and I was getting bullied a lot." The little goddess started to explain her scar. "So much that my, that my parents-- my uncaring, a-absentee, undeserving of, of the title parents-- came down to the school to sort some things out. They did, but it was a, a futile attempt. They j-just, they just bought out Mrs. Burns to keep it quiet, to m-make sure I wouldn't speak out about how my parents and her and everyone else let me get t-tor-tormented... tormented like that. I wish," Clementine laughed and it was bitter and sad and it made Bar's chest ache. "I wish I just stuck to myself. That I didn't t-tell anyone about the bullying. I should've known that's not the, not the worse thing I'd g-go through."
Bar watched Clementine's face as she spoke, wondering how many people she told what she's about to tell him. Wondering how much it still keeps her up at night.
"My parents," The little goddess swallowed thickly as if those words were like molasses in her mouth. "Thought it would be a, would be a good idea to go to a re-restaurant. It was such an i-innocent-- an innocent decision. There was no-nothing wrong with that. Nothing."
Clementine's fingers shook against Bar's skin, and her expression was... unforgettable. It was filled with so much shame, so much pain, and hate and grief.
It was like she was trying to convince herself of the truth but she didn't even know which way was up or down anymore.
Bar couldn't stand the tears in her eyes. His whole body became sore down to his bones, like it could feel her pain and was mimicking it.
No one warned him that he could grieve for someone like this. Someone still alive. Someone breaking apart in his arms. Someone that was his.
No one told him that there pain like this.
"What happened at the restaurant?" Bar asked, hands holding her safe as she tried to hold herself together.
Clementine gave a low gasp of air, tears now falling down her flushed cheeks, and Bar wiped them away, dreading what came next.
Because Bar knew, just like him, she'd be part tragedy, too.
He wasn't the only one who was broken but he wished, in that aspect, that he was still alone.
Bar wished he was the only one with scars in his skin; in his mind.
"I... I got k-kidnapped, he grabbed me w-when-- when I went to the bathroom a-alone." Clementine confessed. Bar remained silent, frozen. "That's the downfall of being rich. People want, people want money. Bad people. People w-willing to hurt a, a fifteen-year-old. People who hold grudges, and who enact them on t-the wrong ones."
Clementine should've never gone through that but good people rarely are without pain. Without something devastating clinging to their mind.
"His name was-- his name, his n-name it was... Fe-Federico, his mom... his m-mom used to work for us. She, she died and it was— it was my mom's fault. She refused to call an ambulance. She refused t-to pay for the funeral. She refused to be kind. What kind of—" Clementine choked on the words. "What kind of mother can look into a son who just lost their mother's eyes and feel n-nothing?"
Bar didn't answer.
Clementine wasn't expecting one, she just was getting it all out. All her thoughts. All her pain. She needed to.
So the brute would let her.
And, for a second, Bar wondered if she ever felt part-monster because of who her parents were, too. If she was like him.
"He took me— he t-took me and every day--" Clementine was sobbing through her words now and it was all Bar could do to hold her and will tears not to come out of his own eyes. Even his body knew something was wrong. That something horrible had happened. "Ev-everyday he cut an inch into me. Over an over. He started with my face, he started with my face b-beca-because he wanted my parents-- he always wanted my parent's t-to look at me... to look at me and see the cause of their g-greed. To see what they let him do to, to m-me."
An unpredictable part about what that cruel man had done to her was that Clementine's parents are rarely around to even see her.
Bar would stab irony in the face then, if it was a person, just so they'd know what it would feel like.
"Every day h-he did it with, with something new. A kitchen knife. A sharp p-pipe. A switchblade. And then-- t-then he used his favorite pocket knife-- it was sharp and, and it h-hurt so bad, Oly. It hurt," The goddess sobbed and Bar cried with her, his arms curling their bodies together as the brute soothed down her hair, wishing he could take all her pain away. "He used it to go over all he made, each night so I-I would, so I would feel it twice."
It makes so much sense now, why Obsidian asked what he did in regard to her triggers.
Duck tape.
Bar felt that, somehow, he should've known.
He took a shaky breath, his emotions all over the place.
He imagined Federico and her parents, faceless villains, being brutally hurt in his mind. Getting what they deserved.
"After... After th-three weeks-- three weeks, they found me. My, my parents didn't even, they didn't even pay t-the ransom. They didn't care." Clementine's voice turned venomous. "They just, they let h-him hurt me, Oly. They let him hurt me. I begged ev-everytime I was allowed to, to c-call them. I begged them to h-help. They didn't. And my siblings..."
Clementine took a shuttering breath and Bar wiped more tears away from her face, rubbing her back with a shaking hand as he tried desperately to comfort them both.
But nothing could take away a pain like that, a memory.
Bar knew that.
There are so many things in this fucked up world that Bar would change if he could. So many.
"Obby— he, h-he hates mom and dad for, for what they did. All of m-my siblings do." She confessed. "When they found me, I spent a m-month, a month in the hospital rec-recovering. I got... I got o-out and learned that no one, no one knew what happened. My p-parents kept i-it out of the, out of the news for their precious family image."
Bar had no doubts that her parents were beastly-people, too. Just like him. Just like his father but worse-- because they hurt Clementine, not Bar.
And anything that hurt Clementine-- what is his-- was evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.
"After... I was s-scared of everything." The little goddess clutched onto Bar harder and he tightened his grip, assuring her that he was there. That he'd always be there for her. "Obby helped. He got, he got me my dogs, Hades and Persephone. Big d-dogs. I took them e-everywhere with me, even when I went on runs. They made me f-feel safe again. Safe enough that I... I paid respects to Rosetta, the one my m-mom let die, I paid for her funeral and e-everything. She was s-such a beautiful woman."
A beautiful woman who raised a desperate, monstery son.
Bar had personal experience with that, he's a monstery son himself. But no beautiful woman raised him and he hadn't kidnapped anyone.
Then, the fact that Clementine got kidnapped-- Clementine, the girl with endless kindness in her heart, got kidnapped.
The rest of the world is fucked, Bar decided. If someone as good as Clementine got hurt the way she did.
"Did Federico--" Bar spat the name like a disease, it rolling off his tongue like weighed down lead. "--get caught?"
Something in Clementine's eyes changed and she nodded, "Life i-in prison."
Bar wanted to kill the fucker. He really, really did.
Prison is too good of a place for someone that hurt his little goddess-- for someone who fucking kidnapped her.
"That's why I, that's why I s-stutter, y'know?" Clementine murmured sadly. "I never used t-to do that."
"I know," Bar said softly-- too softly for something as hard as the knowledge she had given him. "I remember how you used to recite Shakespeare in English every Friday. It was the only time I showed up to class."
Clementine sniffled and nodded, "He m-made me count." Bar tensed. "He made me count every si-single second he cut into, he cut into me. If I, I missed o-one he'd start again. I missed so m-many."
The little goddess released a tiny sob but she continued anyway, not knowing that Bar's heart was cracking for her, weeping silently in his chest.
"He made me, me speak and-- a-and after I couldn't. It took months b-before I could say anything. Emerald is deaf, w-we all knew ASL, that's probably why I didn't, I didn't give up. But now... I just-- my m-mind gets too jumbled and I stutter and I hate it. I h-hate it, Oly, but I'll be stuck like this for the, for the rest of my life."
Bar, for the moment, put aside the anger resting dangerously underneath his skin and behind his eyes.
It wasn't needed, for now, he just needed to calm down his little goddess and help her to feel okay again.
"Babygirl," Bar couldn't even think, the words just poured out without a filter. "You are positively the strongest person I have ever met. You have lived through something that would completely break other people, but look at you." He placed a kiss on her forehead, delicately tracing her scar with his lips as he spoke. "Beautiful, loving, smart, caring, still standing here after everything that has tried to hold you down. Kindness is not a finite source when it comes to you. I'm constantly in awe, now more than ever."
"W-why?" Clementine answered, snuggling her body so she laid fully next to Bar now, his halfway covering hers like a lion fiercely protecting its mate.
"Because your brain-- full of tangles and sadness and scribbles-- somehow maintains the ability to be kind even after all you've been through. Even to people like me who made life hell for you. Even to Rosetta after what her son did." Bar said, then continued. "And because you settle something in my soul that has been restless and searching and sad for the last eighteen years and I have no way to describe it other than this: you are the peace my war torn entirety craves and I have no shame admitting that."
"Hm..." Clementine brushed the hair away from the brute's forehead, the sorrow easing up behind those haunting, minty eyes. "You settle my fear. You m-make me feel safe, Oly. Thank you for that."
"Don't thank me, sweetheart." Bar kissed the shell of her ear, able to get the scent of her vanilla conditioner. "I'm your boyfriend, if you weren't safe around me, something would be wrong."
"I'm going to thank you anyway, grumpy-pants." Clementine chirped, effectively bringing light to the dark atmosphere that climbed to her room as she pecked his lips. "Thank you for all the l-lollipops you give me. Thank you for making sure I eat. Thank you for letting me read all your books. Thank you for taking me to your s-safe place. Thank you for giving me Mr. Squiggles--"
"Mr. Squiggles?" Bar raised an eyebrow. Clementine giggles and pointed to the lilac dinosaur on her shelf. "Ah, okay."
"As I was saying," Clementine said rather sassily and Bar leaned forward, biting her neck in a warning. "Thank you for letting m-me pet Culpa. Thank you for always letting me sit in, in your favorite chair or on your lap. Thank you for being you-- you're amazing, Oly. And pretty." She poked his dimple.
Bar bit her finger in retaliation, kissing it in apology when the goddess pouted, "Not as pretty as you, baby."
"If I, if I argue is there anyway f-for me to win?"
"Not a chance in hell, babygirl."
"Whatever, grumpy."
"Don't have an attitude with me, sweetheart," Bar easily turned dominating, his hand sliding up to gently tug on Clementine's hair. "Or I'll spank that beautiful ass of yours raw."
Clementine squeaked, flushed a bright red that made her scar and still-present tear stains pop out before, to distract herself from the threat, demanding, "Tell me something what the w-word lollipop in it."
"Okay. You may be all lollipops and sunshine," Bar complied, winking at Clementine. "But I bet behind closed doors you're kinks and gags."
Clementine gaped for a second, the blush spreading to her neck, ears, and nose.
"Oly!" Her tone was completely scolding.
She didn't say he was wrong, though.
Bar paused for a moment then said, "I think I'll like my name best when you're moaning it."
Clementine hit him with a pillow and just like that, a tickle fight ensued.
And just like that, they were just two teenagers in the process of falling in love instead of falling apart.