-1-
11-year-old Charlotte Dory carefully sets her favorite bowl (clear plastic, clouded with use and painted with rose pattern) on a metal tray and carries it into her father’s bedroom. The chicken soup in the bowl was from his favorite diner and piping hot thanks to their much used and always loyal microwave.
Her father had another one of his late nights. How late she didn’t know because she’d been in bed by midnight but she’d heard him cursing out his alarm clock 10 minutes ago so she knew he was awake.
She nudged open the door with her barefoot to see Jean Dory sitting up in his bed, dry swallowing a handful of the pills he kept in the suggestive candy dish on his bedside table.
“What’s this ? What the hell have I told you about going out by yourself ?" He adjusts his cherry blossom kimono as she sets the soup tray on the beside table. It rests perilously atop a pile of physical magazines, empty boxes, pill bottles and candy wrappers.
“I didn’t go out. I found the soup in the freezer.”
Leaving the soup, she sits patiently on the edge of his bed and pulls up a checklist on her syndicate, reviewing each line.
The soup spoon is barely in Jean’s mouth before he lets out a yelp and the spoon clatters to the floor. “Shit, this is fucking hot! Trying to burn me to death, my dear ?”
“When are we leaving ?,” she asks, ignoring his outburst.
“When are we leaving ? When are we leaving ?,” he mimics using his pillow case as a napkin. “Would it kill you to ask about me for once ?"
He slides out of bed and gazes adoringly at himself in the wall-sized mirror that took up northeast wall of the bedroom. With each passing year it took Jean longer and longer to decide how to present to the world.
“Give me an hour,” he yawns. “Go make sure you didn’t leave anything because no one has time to bring you back.”
Charlotte had been preparing for this day for weeks. She doesn't have to double check.
But she does it anyway.
She loved her tiny bedroom in the back of the cluttered apartment. It had an angelic, cloud-like theme. Every few years her father and aunt took it upon themselves to re-do her bedroom in a way that would make other girls her age jealous---that is if she knew other girls to her age to show it to.
Cream colored walls, gauzy curtains and feathered accent complemented a fluffy white comforter adorned with more pastel throw pillows than she knew what to do with. Above the white tufted headboard a softly lit piece of installation art illuminated the word Sweet Dreams in looping calligraphy.
Her room is pristine, clean as a hotel room—she wondered if her father might take on a boarder to make some extra money until his new business made money.
“How do I look ?,” her father asks, two hours later, coyily walking out of his own bedroom and learning against the living room wall.
His tanned skin is nearly poreless and his eyes are lined with a sharp black. A fitted black and grey floral button up clung to his thin frame, tucked into a pair of burgundy pants that were held up by suspenders with shiny gold buckles. His wet black hair is run through with brown highlights and wrapped around small curlers.
She laughed, she couldn’t help it—the curlers in his hair always did that to her--but he wouldn’t take them out until his hair was completely dry as not to ruin the look. He didn’t care if that meant going out in public looking ridiculous.
“So, giggly,” he teases pulling the handle of one of her oversized suitcases. “Let’s go, I’ve got a lot of shit to do today.”
Charlotte happily shoulders her duffle bag, takes the other suitcase handle and they head to the train station.
Her father keeps her close as they walked, the streets of the inner sprawl where the only home she knew but she was rarely let out of the apartment without someone else—someone else with a weapon that was.
He’d let her know since the day the government dropped her off that he didn’t have a paternal bone in his body. But despite his best efforts he couldn’t turn off his overprotectiveness. And it wasn’t just from potential attackers. She had to be careful when talking about her teachers or her father would be at the teacher’s doorstep telling them off. And as embarrassing as it could be, she kind of liked it.
They find a nearly empty train car and when Charlotte sits, her father slides in next to her, spreads out his long limbs, his right arm falling around her shoulder.
“You just can’t wait can you ?,” he says kissing her forehead and then pulling one of his hair rollers out. His dark hair falls in a lush S- curl in front of his face.
She reaches up to help, finding a bit of satisfaction in how each curl bounces perfectly from its roller.
“I am a little nervous,” she admits, pulling out the last curler.
“Why on Earth would you be ?,” he says tightening his arm around her as the train comes to a bumpy stop to let more people on. “Dorys don’t get nervous. We make other people nervous. And you my dear are a Dory--.”
“I’m just scared that I won’t fit in--”
“Mmhmm. Hold that thought, love,” he says suddenly, sliding away from her and running his hands through his hair so the bouncy curls became tousled waves.
Charlotte turns around and follows her father’s line of vision to a college aged boy in the corner of the train. He was staring at the two of them through with recognition and when Jean stands the college boy pretends to look away but then looks back almost immediately.
“Stay here, don’t get off without me.” Jean whispers.
He walks over to the college boy, loops his arm around his and they disappear into the next car.
The train makes a few more stops in the Sprawl before it sets it course to Mojave, Charlotte finds herself squashed between two businesswomen absorbed in their Syndicates.
As they get nearer to Mojave she contemplates having to get off the train without her father but he reappears just in time for them to offboard and spill into the small crowd going into the Mojave Train Station.
A black and pink two-seater convertible is waiting at the exit of the small Mojave Train Station. Charlotte's aunt, Minnow Dory is leaning against the sleek car door in a black mini dress with a metallic slash of purple on the skirt and glimmering black stilettos.
Unable to contain her excitement Minnow shuffles the short distance from the car to the station exit and embraces Charlotte in a tight hug.
“Awww, look at you, I’m so happy to see you!,” Minnow squeals to Charlotte even thought they had just seen each other a week ago.
When Minnow wasn’t working she lived in the apartment next door.
Though she was hardly not working. She was the senior executive assistant of the Mojave Blade Company, personal assistant to the Shy cartel leader and godmother to the heir.
“Hey, hey, hey, What about me ?,” Jean interrupts, taking his sister’s hand and spinning her around. “I see we went with corporate sex kitten today.”
Minnow’s spin in the dangerously short skirt garners the attention of a few interested eyes—though most knew she was off limits.
“I call it business on the top,” she says pulling on a tight black blazer and then popping her leg to show off the 7 inch gold bottomed stiletto. “Fuck me on the bottom.”
Jean laughs riotously and then peers at the pink and black two-seater she'd been leaning against.
“You do realize she has six months worth of luggage, don’t you ?”
“Of course I do,” Minnow says looking around like she’d just lost something. She snaps her purple painted fingers in the direction of a crowded bench.
Alan Gray sits on the edge of the bench, deeply invested in something on his tablet. In so many ways Alan Gray was different from every other man Charlotte knew. He was quiet and subdued, but not in a darkly violent way. He was always just there, blending in easily and doing what was asked of him as he followed Minnow around like a lost kitten.
Alan looks up at the sound of Minnow’s snaps and approaches them. He gives Charlotte a polite nod and Jean folds him into a hug, kissing him on the lips before looking Alan up and down.
“If you plan on coming to my opening tonight, brother I hope you know you can’t wear this-”
“What’s wrong with this--”
“Well, for one thing is that a bloodstain--”
“Shit, I thought I’d got that out.” Alan rubs a spot on the form fitting gray shirt.
“Don’t worry. When we show up, they’re going to think we’re on the menu,” Minnow declares with a shimmy and then turns to Alan. “Alan, make sure all Charlotte’s luggage gets to Sara’s.”
She slides the rolling luggage, duffel and backpack at Alan with the edge of her shoe and takes Charlotte’s hand.
“Let’s ride! And if you’re good I might let you drive,” Minnie smiles heading for the two-seater.
“Wait a second,” Jean says taking Charlotte’s hand. “Let me get a proper goodbye.”
-2-
Her father pulls her away from Minnow and to the bench spot Alan had just vacated. Charlotte sits and he takes a knee in front of her. She’s not sure where to look and opts for her lap. But her father gently tips her face up until they are eye to eye.
“Listen love, I know things have been hectic lately,” he says smoothing her hair down. “I wish I could drop you off at school but the timing didn’t work out. I think once the club grand opening happens tonight things will slow down for me. But I know you’ll be so happy at Arkham. You’ll forget all about me.”
She nodded even though his speech was completely unnecessary. Charlotte held no reservations about going away to school. She knew she didn’t fit into his life, especially now that he had a new brothel to run. She was excited to be in a place that was just for kids her age. A place where she’d make friends for the first time without her father’s notoriety hanging over her head.
“Okay,” is all she manages as he readjusts the silver barrette she had clipped back her bangs with.
“I know you think I'm a real son of a bitch and maybe I am. But that’s because I don’t bullshit you. So when I say something to you it means I mean it.”
She nods.
“Daddy loves you,” he says smacking her cheek with a kiss. “And don’t let anyone near your hair.”
She rolls her eyes as they head back and part ways--she getting into Minnow’s car and him walking down a side street for a meeting.
***
-3-
“….Oh and there was this amazing new designer boutique in New Tokyo. I went a little crazy. Just wait until you see the cute outfits I got you!” Minnie says as she takes another hairpin turn around a corner.
Charlotte’s aunt seemed to always have a new wardrobe waiting for her, especially when she returned from traveling with Rayne Washington for business. Most of the time it was a collection of dresses, shoes and shirts that matched her own . Charlotte rifled for what she liked and ended up giving most of it away. She preferred her own style, it was eclectic and vintage, modeled after the women in the old sketches they’d found from scans of a 20th century catalog. She’d had the scans printed and hung on her wall.
Minnie whips the car into the Hydra elevator and takes it to the condominium’s rooftop garage. She follows her aunt to an elevator and after she puts in a code they go one floor down to the Hyrdra’s penthouse loft.
The penthouse is like any number of Shy Cartel luxury lofts she’d been dragged to with her father; big expansive rooms, high ceilings, grand windows, flawless dark stained wood floors. The loft was buzzing with people and in a half chaotic state of mismatched furniture and unpacked boxes.
Sara Grace had agreed to look after Charlotte while Jean hosted his grand opening and even offered to escort her to Arkham the next day. Sara had recently moved to Mojave at Rayne Washington’s request and despite the chaos, Sara seeks Charlotte out the moment she is in the loft and wraps her in a hug.
Charlotte knew there was a large part of the Sprawl the considered Sara the most dangerous woman in the cartel but she always made Charlotte feel welcome and loved. She knew Sara was the reason her father hadn’t left her to the Former Western Republic’s inefficient foster care system when her mother abandoned her.
“I’m in a meeting with Rayne but lunch should be here in a few minutes,” Sara said releasing her from the hug. “Rias is upstairs. His room is going to be the first door on the right.”
Charlotte walks up the floating staircase carefully and peeks into Zacharias’ bedroom. It’s neat and orderly but empty.
She hears a high pitched child’s giggle from down the hall and goes to the room at the opposite end of the hall to investigate.
The spacious bedroom at the end of the hall would have
earned her father’s approval; nearly everything in the room was covered in
frills, glitter or lace.
In the middle of the room was a small wooden table where 7-year-old Twyla Banner sat pouring what looked like juice from a plastic tea pot--painted to look like porcelain--into an equally fraudulent tea cup.
Zacharias Washington sits on the other side of the table, plastic tea cup in hand, making pretend tea conversation with a prim looking stuffed llama.
“Charlotte!, Charlotte’s here,” Twyla squeals running to hug her. “Let’s do a wedding now! I want to be the flower girl, okay ?”
Zacharias stands, looking a little embarrassed to be caught playing tea party with his little sister. He was like a smaller version of his father in a crisp white shirt and suit pants. In recent months he had some how gotten away with keeping his dark hair long and slightly unruly.
“Charlotte doesn’t want to play pretend,” Zacharias tells his sister, going for the door. “We can go hang out in my room, Charlotte.”
“No!,” Twyla pouts, suddenly incised. “You said you’d play all day, you promised.”
“I forgot Charlotte was coming over. Go find someone else--”
“You have to finish the tea party, your promised!" she demands, stomping her foot.
When Zacharias walks away Twyla starts screaming, her face scrunches up and Charlotte feels a ping of guilt for interrupting them. The truth was she didn’t mind playing pretend wedding or tea party. She’d never had younger sibling to play with and it seemed like fun to her.
At the first sounds of Twyla’s distress her father, Lachlan Banner, a slim man with a shock of orange hair and a mesmerizing Irish lilt steps into the room.
“Why is my little girl crying ?,” he asks gently kneeling down to Twyla’s level.
“Charlotte and I want to go to my room and talk alone,” Zacharias says plainly.
“Yesterday Rias promised to play with me all day. Mom says you can’t break promises--” Twyla says.
“But Charlotte’s going away for six months tomorrow--"
“Alright, Alright you two,” Lachlan says softly, standing and putting a hand on his stepson’s shoulder.
Lachlan crouches down and sits in the child sized chair next to the stuffed llama and picks up Zacharias’s abandoned cup of tea.
“Can your old Da get an invitation to tea ?,” Lachlan asks his daughter and turns to the stuffed llama. “I haven’t had a good conversation with Mrs. Llama in quite a while--”
“Her name is Ms. Raspberry now,” Twyla says
“Divorce, eh ?,” Lachlan says with a raised eyebrow and Twyla laughs even though Charlotte isn’t sure the 7-year-old knew what divorce even was.
Seeing his little sister sufficiently distracted, Zacharias makes a beeline for the door and leads Charlotte into his bedroom.
His room was far larger than her own, though she preferred her cozy corner of her father’s apartment-- it held all of her favorite things in it.
Zacharias sits in the wingback arm chair in the corner and Charlotte perches on the leather ottoman bench in front of the wrought iron bed. On the bedside table was a picture of Zacharias’s father as a child with his father and grandfather and an expensive looking New Revolution Bible.
“Do you like living in Mojave ?,” she asks. He’d lived in the Sprawl with her up until his father had requested they move closer to him.
He shrugs and turns on a holographic Rubik’s cube, shuffling it absently back and forth.
“I wish I was going to Arkham too,” he says.
“Well, I wish I could go to Japan. Minnie told me you’re going back in a few months--”
“It’s boring,” he says. “We just visit a bunch of graves , attend meeting in conference rooms and boring dinners in boring restaurants. At night Father makes me stay in the hotel room and study while he and Minnow do all the fun stuff.”
“Well, it’s not like you’d go to Arkham this year with me anyway,” she reminds him. “Maybe next year your dad will change his mind.”
Zacharias was a year younger than her, though most of the time it seemed he was the older one with the way people treated him and how he’d been taught to carry himself.
“Father says no,” he sighs. “He says it’s not safe and he wants me where he can protect me.”
“Even though your uncle is the headmaster ?,”
“They’re just treating me like a baby,” he says tossing the Rubik’s cube aside and gazing at something in his Syndicate. “You have to send me messages everyday. I want to know everything about what it’s like. I bet there is grass everywhere.”
“Doesn’t your brother talk about it ?”
“Luce never tells me anything,” Zacharias sighs and then sits up in the chair. “Hey, do you want to see something really cool ?”
She nods her head but before he can say anything more Minnie’s voice shouts from downstairs.
“Lunch is here!,” Minnie sing songs.
“I’m starving,” Zacharias says. “I’ll show you after lunch.”
She shrugged like it was no big deal, but her curiosity had been peaked. He always managed to get his hands on the newest and coolest things to show her.
At the top of staircase they run into Luce Grace, Zacharias’ much older brother. Charlotte put him somewhere in his 20’s and he was dressed like he just rolled out of bed in a loose fitting white tank top and gray sweatpants. He smelled like smoke.
She hated how nervous Luce made her, she had no reason to be afraid of him. Luce wasn’t kind to anyone but he went out of the way to atleast treat her with basic niceties. He’d never turned his biting tone on her.
“You can’t go down there dressed like that,” Zacharias scolds his brother. “Father is hosting investors from Avanza Bank at lunch. Mother told you--”
“They’ll fucking get over it,” Luce sneers pushing his brother out of the way. He turns his attention back to Charlotte and his voice softens as best it can. “So, I hear you’re going to Arkham tomorrow.”
“Um, yeah…yes. Yes…” she trails unable to get any other words out
“Just be lucky they got rid of the behavior minders…not that that’d be an issue for you,” he says and then jogs down the steps.
The lunch was a full catered affair from Caffe Bella, one of the new Italian restaurants in Mojave. The chefs from the restaurant moved around the open kitchen rolling noodles, emptying boiling pots and fixing steaming trays of fresh pasta in a rainbow of sauces.
The large dining room table was set with over two dozen settings
and a smaller table had been set up on the living room patio for the guards.
Around the table where the people she considered family; Zacharias, Minnie,
Alan, Lachlan, Twyla and Sara along with other cartel members who had day jobs
as Mojave executives.
Luce wasn’t at the table but opted to take his plate back upstairs, causing Sara to frown.
The conversation is loud and she and Zacharias occasionally exchange looks when they know they are hearing something they probably shouldn’t. Charlotte is silent for most of the lunch, answering the polite question thrown her way about school.
After an hour the table falls silent and Zacharias speaks up.“Father, may Charlotte and I be excused ?”
Rayne is deep in conversation with one of the representative from the bank and seems to think on this before nodding his head.
“Yes, fine. I’ll be getting back to the office soon anyway and you should study.”
As they walk upstairs Minnie says something loudly and the entire table erupts into loud noise as they all contribute to some story about how things used to be.
-4-
Instead of going back to his bedroom, Zacharias leads her farther down the second floor hallway to a door that had been closed.
“Here’s what I wanted to show you,” he says pushing the door open. “This will be my office when I’m older.”
The room is empty except for an imposing bureau and few pieces of half put together furniture. The walls are in the middle of being painted and small moving boxes line a corner.
Zacharias pulls open a drawer on the bureau and takes out an ornate marble box. Charlotte knows what is in it before he opens it.
A gun sitting on a pillow of white silk.
She’d seen weapons before but never so close. The firearm was gorgeous, polished black with obsidian design embedded in the body and sterling silver accents.
“Father doesn’t know I know this is in here. I think he is giving this to me when I turn 13,” he says. “I’ll get inked and then he’ll start to tell me all the secrets about the cartel.”
“Do you…do you want it ?,” she asks. “The gun, I mean.”
He shrugs and takes the gun in his hand. She steps back and he gives her a smile.
“I won’t shoot it. I’m just going to show you the holster,” he says, pulling an equally ornate holster out the top compartment in the box. “It’s pneumatic so the gun will come to me. Watch this.”
He attaches the holster and is repositioning the gun in his hand when it fires.
The loud bang and the clatter of the fallen gun rattles her ears and is followed by a small flash of light, then a searing pain on her right arm.
She screams.
Almost immediately dozens of steps pound thunderously up the stairs. The office door slams open, two guards cover Zacharias and the barrels of several guns are pointed at Charlotte—including guns belonging Lachlan, Luce and even Sara.
She'd disappoint her father if she cried right now. Instead she puts her hand up so they don’t shoot her.
Sara is the first to pull her weapon back but it still takes
her a second longer than Charlotte would have liked. Minnie is standing at the
door but doesn’t move into the scene to protect her.
“Zacharias have you lost your fucking mind!” Sara screams
her face reddening as Zacharias comes from behind the guards covering him.
“He’s not hurt,” Alan says from where he to had been kneeling over Zacharias, checking him over.
“What the hell happened--,” Minnie starts.
“I--,” Zacharias starts but Rayne Washington pushes through the door at that moment. The crowd that had gathered falls deathly silent.
Charlotte takes the opportunity to look at her arm and sees what looks like a thin burn line going up her arm. No one seems overly concerned that she was the one the gun had been pointed or that she was actually hurt. But she wasn’t surprised.
The people in this house may act like she was a welcome addition to the family but she knew where she really stood with them. The love they showed her was highly conditional. One moment they could be sharing a meal and the next all their guns would be pointed at her face. Zacharias Washington’s life would always be more important than hers. He had a mission in life. His care and happiness came first.
She’s envied the attention he got sometimes but not in this moment.
Rayne doesn’t bend to his son’s level as he approaches. He stands over him tall and imposing, forcing Zacharias to look up at his father.
“Do you want to go downstairs and explain to my guests why I have to discipline my child for playing with a weapon in a house full of people ?,” Rayne asks him. “Are you so jealous of Ms. Dory because she gets to that shitty school and you never will ? Did you want to kill her ? Because if that’s what you want boy, I will gladly do it for you.”
Rayne grabs Charlotte by her hair and places the barrel of his own firearm to her head. She sees Minnie’s hands tighten into fists but her aunt does nothing.
“No, sir,” Zacharias says quickly. “I was just--”
“Acting like an irresponsible child,” he barks. “Apologize and say goodbye to Ms. Dory. You’re coming home with me this weekend and won’t be seeing her for a long time.”
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” he says quietly before Rayne pulls him out of the room by his collar.
When Rayne is gone, Minnie comes back to her normally bold self. She snaps at Alan to make sure Charlotte isn’t hurt and she isn’t—the bullet had only grazed her arm but she’d always have the burn scar.
She’d never forget the look of disappointment on Zacharias’s face, like he’d failed his entire legacy with one action and could never be redeemed.
She recognized that same look on his face nearly 19 years
later when he stood at the expansive window of the Mojave Medical Center’s deluxe
birthing suite, looking out into the desert city’s bright night sky.
-5-
Zacharias presses the button on the side of the window, tinting all the birthing suite windows, and strides over to where Charlotte lay in the hospital bed with their barely 24-hours-old daughter, Atsumi Washington, in a cradle next to her.
The room was quiet—just the three of them. It would change tomorrow when the parade of well wishers and guest would come through. They’d act happy to see the baby girl but deep down some would be disappointed.
“Give me a few years. Then we can try again-,” Charlotte says.
He just shakes his head and pulls off his dress shoes and charcoal suit jacket and climbs into the single hospital bed with his wife. He closes his eyes and pulls her close as she rests her head lazily on his shoulder.
When Rayne Washington died she’d watched from a distance as her
oldest childhood friend took on the mantle he’d been destined for.
The Shy Cartel was begun by his great-great-great grandfather to survive in a new country during wartime. It was a practical thing, but after generations the cartel had become wrapped in lore and tradition. Tradition stated that cartel leadership was meant to be passed from father to son and Zacharias Washington now had three daughters to his name.
“What about Rayne’s great-great grandfather?,” Charlotte says, her fingers absently stroking his collar. “He only had a daughter and they just waited until she had Rayne’s grandfather to pass on leadership”
“That’s a cute story but not the whole truth,” Zacharias scoffs. “He forced his daughter to marry and produce an heir before she was barely 17. I don’t want to put our girls through that and I’m not putting you through more. You signed up to give birth to one heir not three children….Maybe this is a sign it’s time for it to end.”
“What do you mean by end?”
“Everything. The cartel. The business. Our way of life.”
“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” she says, turning around to lift the newborn out of the cradle and place it between them.
Zacharias places his finger in the baby’s grip as she holds on to it.
“I don’t think everything has to be over because of some silly cartel superstition,” Charlotte says. “Maybe it means things need to change.”
-----
A/N
Like I said this was just a little story I had in my head where I got to show Charlotte and Zacharias interacting and writing Jean!Dad. This is technically the farthest story in the Vice timeline because it takes place a few months after Burn. I have no idea what happens after this.
CPShawna: Uh...
SHV: What ?
CPShawna: Erm, I just realized 11-year-old Charlotte is basically a Vice version of Rose Fierro
SHV: Wow...I am just now seeing this. Wow well--
CPShawna: Also, in Built for Sin you said Luce lost his V-card at Vice when he was 21 but in this time line (assuming he and Rias are still 14 years apart) he'd be 24 and Vice doesn't exist yet.
SHV: Yeah, well there are going to be little time anachronisms--
CPShawna: Also, in Sweet Prince you said Sara and co moved into the loft in Hyrda after Lachlan dies but in this story he is still alive. How do you explain that ? Also, this isn't the farthest in the timeline because the Burn epilogue is 2 years after Burn. If you can't keep this straight, how much have you messed up the timeline in your Lucely serial ?
SHV:Um.....Well....have I mentioned I think the next thing I post will be FZA ? And oh look, here is the prologue ! Clicky Clicky
*Runs away*