All for ̶̵̲̅o̵̶̶̵̲̲̅̅n̵̶̲̅e̵̶̲̅ nothing.

“You mean to tell me you’ve been housing a homeless all by yourselves?” Nyx’s mother asked incredulously. “It’s a wonder he hasn’t starved to death. Or died of dysentery. Or worse, for how responsible the pair of you are. Shiva’s blessings he didn’t!”

She shook her head, the look of displeasure sour on her pretty face. “I’d ask whose bright idea it was, but I can’t decide which one of you is the stupider this time. No offense, Mabel. Your son’s a love, but there isn’t an idea he’s gotten come to fruition without this little mongrel’s support.” She shook her child by his ear, and Nyx yelped appropriately.

Still not releasing Nyx from her iron grip, she bent, assuming a smaller form and a beatific smile and crept slowly towards the wretch. “Don’t be shy, now, no one’ll hurt you,” she cooed, her voice gentler than a wind chime. She held her hand out, like one might do when approaching  wild dog. “I’m Auntie Aither, and this pretty lady is your Auntie Mabel.”

She clicked her tongue in pity at the sight of him, up close: the streaks of dirty wiped assiduously from his cheek, his wide, dark eyes that flickered with a bright, unmistakable terror, the mass of tangles atop his head the most egregious display of his neglect. “Oh, dove, no, no. You’re coming with us. This is not for debate. Mabel, would you look at this one? He’s … we’ll he doesn’t look great.”

She stood then, clasping her hands together and looking like the picture of maternal kindness as she smiled down at Crowe. “We’re going to get you into a hot bath and clean clothes, and a good warm porridge to heat you through, what do you say?” Her mood shifted to something sharp as she turned her shoulder back to the boys. “Both of you can go fetch water from the rain barrels and start the fire to boil them. And quickly. Mabel, would you mind if we went to yours? You’ve a bigger bathroom, I think.”

"Of course!" she chimed in obligingly, standing aside to shoo them out the door in a cheery bustle. "Of course! And I've got just the shears to deal with that hair—"

"What! Why do we have to get the water!" Libertus elected to complain in a wailing howl as she tugged him along. "He's clean! We take baths with him all the time! In the river! With soap, Mama!"

"Oh, that freezing creek!" Mabel scoffed with distinct disdain in her tone. "Leave it to you boys to think that's a sufficient bath. Absolutely not. Buckets, go on."

Libertus wriggled his way out of her hold with a twisting jerk that left his clothes frumpled and the whole state of him thoroughly disheveled as he gave his mother an open-mouthed stare of pure indignation. "But you make us bathe in it all the time!" he cried, and his tone dropped to something akin to scandalized shock as he placed a hand over his apparently wounded heart. "Mama."

“What?” Nyx’s mother asked, though her ire was directed at her only son, and Libertus’s mother had been an unfortunate and indirect victim of it. Finally, her eyes raised, following the line of her finger pointed to the little waif in the corner. “Oh, go on now,” she said sharply with a flick of her head towards the door, indicating the child should go before them. “It’s past your bedtime too, I imagine. Your mother’ll be worried sick, I wager.”

When the child hadn’t moved, Nyx’s mother had put a hand on her hip, sighing as she shifted her weight irritatedly. “Well, it wouldn’t do to have you wandering the streets alone at this hour, you’re right. Shall we walk you home? Where do you live?”

The child said nothing, and Nyx’s mother took it upon herself to blame her son. “Your friend’s got poor manners.”

“He doesn’t talk,” Nyx informed her blankly, in spite of the way his face screwed up unpleasantly at the twist of her fingers on his ear. “He doesn’t have a home, neither. We were bringin’ him  food to eat, and clothes to wear, and we made this blanket for him, see?” He toed at the little patchwork thing. “Don’t be sore at him, he won’t take being nice to him well, as it is.”

"Oh, gods," Libertus's mother said in a bemoaning sort of way as she put a hand to her forehead and slumped against the clubhouse door frame. "Our sons have been harboring a runaway."

So that's where he got his flair for dramatics.

"We're not harboring anything!" Libertus shot back, aghast and obviously having no idea what the word harboring actually meant. Clearly it was something terrible. "We saved him! Crowe's our friend! We've been givin' him all our veggies and cleaning him and teaching him-- Tell 'em, Nyx! You can't make Crowe leave," he announced, chest puffed out in some semblance of brazen defiance. "This is Crowe's home now, so he can't leave anyhow! We were just visiting because he gets lonely at night." Crowe scowled at him. "Well, you do!"

She crossed her arms petulantly and turned pointedly away from Libertus, but her shoulders remained hunched with a dreaded anticipation as she shuffled back into the corner of her bedthings.  

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Libertus's mother breathed, fanning herself a little as she finally stood again. She held Libertus by the collar, like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, and hauled him along as she stepped into the tiny room. "Two ten-year-olds can't raise a child. What were you thinking? How could you keep this from us? The poor thing looks starved to death."

Libertus was not usually so astute, even when it was only the two of them playing, and only Nyx’s hand for him to worry about. There was a brightness to him, like the bloom of purpose, that had seemed to make itself known since the advent of the little bog monster had invaded their lives. Like coming into himself. He loved teaching her, in spite of her obvious resistance to it. He loved doting on her, protecting her. And it was heartwarming to witness, to find this blubbering, awkward boy himself growing into something mature, even if was for someone else’s sake.

And so, Nyx did not find himself minding in the least when Libertus had positively crowed over his victory, and that Crowe himself had agreed. That one had maybe not progressed as exponentially as he’d done in the hours they’d first met him: still a tangled mess of a runt, skinny in spite of all the veritable bushels of vegetables they’d pushed on him over the last few weeks, and still a wordless, incoherent thing. But he laughed, and sweetly. And Nyx often thought that was their most important victory of all.

“Alright, you got me,” he admitted, pulling his hand from under the pinning of theirs. “I take it back. Hey, Crowe, you—”

Just then, the sound of their clubhouse door swinging violently open, coupled with the sight of Nyx and Libertus’ mothers in terrifying tandem, gasping sharply at the sight of them, froze them in fear, and even Nyx was too stunned to react with anything more than a mouth gaped in surprise.

“Nyx Ulric, it’s way past your bedtime, young man!” his mother cried, darting forward to catch him by the ear and pull him from the warmth of their shared bed. “If I have to come find you one more time, I’m gonna tether you to my ankle!”  Her pretty face was drawn in hard lines of disappointment, which were then turned on Libertus. “I thought better of you, at least, Libertus. You’re supposed to be the good one.”

Ms. Ostium and Ms. Ulric looked a lot more like their sons that Crowe had initially expected. Both were pretty in that way that mothers always seemed to be, and she had no trouble at all discerning which belonged to who. One stood taller, slimmer-- looking almost regal in just the same fashion Nyx often did whenever he wasn't being an absolute prick. The other was shorter and round, just like her son, and obviously the milder of the two-- also like Libertus.

Both surged forward to collect their sons and Crowe leapt to her feet at once, eyes wide with a panicked hesitancy that suggested she was still making the decision to either fight for her friends or bolt via the crooked window.

Ms. Ostium seemed to register her first, though it took obvious effort to pull her attention away from scolding Libertus. She cast her a wayward glance as if to note her face so that she could inform yet another worried mother of a child in need of reprimand, but she paled, double-taking with widened eyes.

She seemed to note her with a sweeping gaze that took in the matted hair, those hollowed cheeks, and the too large clothes that looked like drapery on Crowe's too sharp, too bony frame. Crowe took a reflexive step back towards the window as she pawed at Ms. Ulric's sleeve.

@dawnfrayed

Their headquarters-slash-secret-base-slash-clubhouse had turned into something resembling more of an eclectic combination of a grade school classroom and a war bunker. Which was all the same because it no longer really was their headquarters anymore.

A hodgepodge of construction paper and crayon art covered every inch of the four walls, many of which overlapped each other several times over in layers of clumsy drawings and clumsier messages. Libertus' dedication to teaching their charge new words might have fallen short, but she had seized upon learning to write with emphatic interest. Many of the signs contained only her name as if actively claiming the home as her own through each awkward scribble of Crowe, Crowe, Crowe.

Crowe. She had started to write it with that 'e' on the end after Libertus had so prudently informed her that the extra letter was only there to make words prettier. There had been a point when he'd looked intent on correcting her spelling, but that happened to time in at just the same moment that Crowe had broken a crayon with a particularly vicious glare aimed solely at him. Libertus had decided the 'e' was just fine.

Crowe, as she was now known, still did little talking apart from their names, her yeses and her nos, and the occasional echo that parroted the boys' words back to them. She still yelled a lot. She still glared a lot. But they had grown accustomed to her acerbic behavior and often fights were just part of the games they played (which always seemed to have a lot to do with wrestling or chasing).

The game tonight was no different. They lounged on the floor, sharing Crowe's makeshift bed of moth-savaged blankets and old clothes as they slapped cards down on a pile and drank from a canteen of juice. It was a simple game of liars and math and one that gave each of them the excuse to shout and slap each other-- which Crowe had discovered was a favorite pastime for boys in general.

"Horseshit!" Libertus cried, triumphantly smacking his hand down over Nyx's as he laid down a card. "You ain't got an ace, we already played all the aces! Crowe, back me up, he's lying."

"Lying," she chimed obligingly with a somber nod of her head before also slapping her hand down over theirs.

His sullen glaring hadn’t abated, even after all this long while. And while it had been merely a few hours, Nyx had decided that they’d been fast friends already, and this level of reticence was a little beyond him.

But he’d meant it, when he said he’d be patient with him, and that he was free to go at whatever pace he was comfortable. Even i it maddened him to no end, wanting results and successes now, immediately. Something to show off, some payoff, some feather in his cap to keep him warm tonight.

“Crow,” Nyx decided absently, but the words felt real and true when they left his mouth. “We can call him Crow for now. Until he tells us otherwise.” He flicked a chin a him. “That okay? For now?”

Libertus's face lit up with the suggestion and all his prior enthusiasm came flooding back to him with a sudden smack of palm meeting table. "Crow!" he echoed, wholly proud of himself despite doing nothing. "It's already perfect because that's what you sound like." She squinted at him. "I mean, if you like it that is."

She stabbed another veggie as she considered that offer and all the others they had given her. If you like it. Until he tells us otherwise. We're friends, see?

That okay?

Was it okay?

She shoveled another bite into her mouth, letting the act of chewing buy her time as she struggled to grasp the foreign taste of those words. Adults had done such things before, but never with such patience, never with her voice taken into consideration. That made it all the more ironic that she had more of a voice now with a pair of especially ridiculous boys when she'd only elected to say grow and crow to them.

Maybe it was petulant, the way she refused to divulge her name. But she was alright with being petulant about the only thing that hadn't been taken away from her yet.

She swallowed finally, her eyes still on her plate as she moved to stab yet another vegetable.

“He would not have said row,” Nyx hissed, nearly spitting the words back at Libertus in irritation. “Are you kidding me? Seriously.”

It was honestly something of a defeat in his eyes, like a step back, when it seemed they’d only been going forward. So maybe he was a little more sharp than he needed to be with Libertus. But he’d apologize about that later.

“He doesn’t have to tell us anything he doesn’t want to,” he announced, in that serious, adult voice of his when he thought himself very wise indeed. “He wants to tell us his name? He’ll do it. But we’re not forcing anything out of him.”

He met the boy’s hard glare with a soft, circumspect understanding. “We’re your friends, see? And friends are there for you no matter what. You’re not like .. comfortable yet. And that’s okay. But we’re here for you, anytime you want to talk. If you want to talk. When you want to talk. Okay? Okay.”

He didn't really give her a chance to reply and she hadn't really deigned to give him one regardless, but it still annoyed her how positively cocksure the kid was. Like he had her all figured out and knew just what to do. So far, that had been the case, but that just made him all the more irritating. Even in his kindness, she petulantly decided not to give him the satisfaction of anything less than a glare as she stabbed another baby carrot and popped it in her mouth without breaking his gaze.

Nyx was equally as enthused as Libertus was over this simple evolution, albeit less vocal about it and about fifty times more cool. But he did smile from ear to ear with pride at hearing him talk. On command, like he understood. Like he wasn’t some half-wild thing, and almost the semblance of a person.

“Lib, that is literally the same word,” Nyx pointed out, with that over-exhaustion children got when they thought they were above certain things. Too smart, too mature. “How about …” A thought struck him. “How about your name?” he suggested helpfully. “What’s your name? What should we call you?”

He tossed a bossy look at Libertus over his shoulder. “Way more important than ‘row,’ I think,” he said shittily.

Libertus's mouth dropped open in a wordless scoff, as though he didn't have a proper argument to throw back at that claim. Truthfully, he didn't, but that didn't stop him from scoffing a few more times for effect before finally muttering something along the lines of Well, I was trying to go easy on him.

The kid, however, seemed to have no intention of answering that. Her expression went hollow and aloof again as she dropped her gaze to her food and continued cramming vegetable after vegetable into her mouth. A beat passed, then Libertus spoke up again.

"Well?" he pressed, absently gnawing at his forgotten steak again. She didn't reply. "Do you know your name?" Silence. "Maybe you forgot? Or maybe— maybe you never had one?" She nibbled at a cauliflower without meeting either gaze.

from here bc how dare you be charming at me!

"No, they wouldn't!" Crowe's voice was a slurred, clumsy thing as she blurted the words. Her head lolled uselessly to one shoulder to escape the warm tickle of his breath on her ear; a clever trick which only served to distract her from her grousing. Inelegantly, she turned to look at him— all narrowed eyes and stained, blushing cheeks as she sat half-slouched in her seat in a way that made her neck and jaw melt together in the very picture of romance.

"They would not and you know it. Look at you," she said accusingly as she took the point of his chin between her loose fingers for an incriminating shake. "You're beautiful. Look! Look at all of this!" Her hands made a crude pass over his face, squishing his cheeks between her palms as she spoke. "Rugged scruff, devastating why-aren't-you-kissing-me lips, cheekbones and a jawline like some dime novel hero. Pretty pale eyes and that grin," she said with an indignant scoff as she pointedly (and clumsily) covered his curling lips with the tips of her fingers.