#clockworksinger

There was never a dull moment in the Pines household these days, and that was even truer right after school got out.

“Carlos, you little buttnugget, give my laptop back right now!”

“Make me!” Carlos giggled as he clutched the laptop tightly to his chest, running all the faster as Bee chased behind him, occasionally reaching out to grab him from behind but her hands falling just short every time.

“I’m serious, alright? That’s my laptop! If you break that thing, I swear to God...” Bee left the rest of the threat unstated, partially because she thought it was more effective to leave the consequences up to the imagination but mostly because she couldn’t think of anything.

“You gotta catch me, then!”

His smile grew wider as Bee fell behind in the chase. How could such little legs move so fast?

Before she could ponder the situation further, however, she was stopped dead in her tracks by the sight of Carlos ramming into Willow, who had seemingly appeared out of thin air to block his path.

“What’s going on here?” Her tone was a practiced one, making it clear that she knew something was wrong, even if she might not know the details.

“I- I was just-”

“Carlos stole my laptop and wouldn’t give it back!”

“But- but I just wanted to play!” Carlos’ eyes were wide and innocent-looking, but Willow’s unimpressed face made it clear that she wasn’t falling for the act.

“Carlos, you can’t just take other people’s stuff, alright? Now give her the laptop back.”

Carlos turned around, sighed quietly, and handed the laptop over to Bee, who quickly shoved it under her arm.

“And...?”

“...I’m sorry.”

“There you go. Now go ask around, and I bet you can find a playmate around here somewhere.”

Carlos nodded and wandered off, an exaggerated pout on his face. Bee turned around and took a step away, but before she could get much further, she felt Willow’s hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

Bee glanced back and met Willow’s gaze, looking straight into her eyes, their color a strange golden hue that spoke of the deep, arcane magic that lay behind them (though Bee had heard the tales enough to know of her new guardian’s powers regardless).

“Yeah, it’s all good. Thanks.”

Willow’s gaze- the one that seemed to look both at her and through her all at once- only slightly softened upon receiving this response.

“...well, if you ever want to talk, you can always come to me, alright?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Willow’s hand left Bee’s shoulder as Willow gave her a terse nod. “Good. Now go have fun- and if anybody else bugs you, let me know.”

“Sure.”

Bee broke eye contact with Willow and walked away, though she could feel that strange gaze watching her until she turned the corner at the first hallway she found.

Bee meandered down the hallway for a bit, not quite sure where she was heading- or, for that matter, where this hallway even led, as she was still getting the hang of the Shack’s unusual layout.

The first room she passed by contained a number of giggling kids crowding around Mizar- Mabel, her name was Mabel, this was real life and not some domestic AU Twin Souls fic, as much as it felt like the latter- and doing some arts and crafts activity involving copious amounts of glitter, which now coated the children, the floor, and Mabel herself. One of the kids glanced over at Bee, waved with a hand coated in multi-colored glitter and half-dried glue. Bee smiled weakly and quickened her pace in response.

The door to the next room was closed, and when she jiggled the doorknob, Bee found that it was locked as well. Given the bizarre nature of the house, she had no idea what could be hiding on the other side of the door, and now her curiosity might never be satisfied. Maybe she would have to learn how to pick locks.

In the third room, there was Alcor.

Bee’s heard skipped a beat every time she unexpectedly lay eyes on Alcor, and she wasn’t sure that that would ever change. He was a friend, she knew that, and he’d proven that, not just through months of chatting but through helping her in a way she’d never be able to repay... but he was still a demon, and it was disconcerting to stumble upon a real live demon while going about her business, to have the fearsome being that all the textbooks warned about become a staple of her everyday life.

Admittedly, it was hard to feel intimidated by him when he was surrounded by teenagers, the group of them were gathered around some kind of game board and surrounded by dice, cards, and graph paper. Alcor was sitting cross-legged behind a screen with a picture of a wizard on it, gnawing on a pen as he flipped through pages of a thick tome. The teenagers, in turn, were scribbling down notes onto some kind of form that looked as much like bureaucratic paperwork as like part of a game.

Bee hesitated for a moment, resting her hand against the doorframe as the watched the scene in front of her.

“Hey, Bee! Just starting a game of DDnMD. What’s up?” Alcor broke into a grin as he turned to face her, but his happy expression did nothing to unclench the knot in her stomach.

“...nothing.”

Alcor tilted his head to one side. “You okay? You’re looking awful smorple there...”

“Don’t worry about it, alright?” Bee turned away, but before she could take a step back into the hallway, Alcor spoke up once more.

“I’ll be right back, okay? You just keep filling out your character sheets while I’m gone.”

And as Bee retreated back to the hallway, Alcor joined her there, shutting the door behind them.

“Is there something that I should know about?”

“I told you, don’t worry about it, it’s nothing worth disrupting your-” Bee waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the closed door. “-nerd game or whatever...”

“Sure it is. Look, if there’s anything I can do for you...”

“Well, there is one thing.”

Alcor arched a single eyebrow in the air. (Bee was secretly envious of his ability to do so; she’d tried to pull off that gesture time and time again, but every time the action eluded her.) “And what’s that?”

Bee sighed. “Is there a single room in this house that isn’t infested with children?”

Alcor blinked, then blinked again, before laughing nervously. “Sure there is. Follow me.”

Alcor led her through what felt like a maze of hallways; Bee was starting to doubt whether she’d ever quite figure out where things were in this house. Finally, he opened a door, revealing a small, clean room containing multiple bookshelves and two brightly-colored beanbag chairs.

“Half the house doesn’t even know this place is here yet, so it’s a good place to decompress. Sprouted off just a few weeks back, and it’s not like people go looking for new rooms on a whim-”

“Wait. Did you just say this place sprouted a new room?”

“...yes?”

Bee shook her head in wonder. The more she learned about this place, the weirder it got. “Alrighty then.”

“So if you want you can just, uh, grab a book- they’re mostly books from the library that were getting a little worn-out, so the subject matter can be a little, well, iffy...”

Bee put her hands on her hips and gave Alcor a stern look. “Dude. We met in a demonology chat room. I think I can handle it.”

“Right, right.”

Bee eyed the bookshelf, then decided to plop down in one of the beanbag chairs without grabbing a book, putting her laptop on her lap but not opening it.

Alcor looked intently at Bee, who felt a sense of deja vu- it was the same kind of gaze that Willow had given her earlier, the one that looked at her and through her at the same time. “You’re still smorple.”

“What even is...” Bee shook her head. “You know what, never mind. I guess I’m ‘smorple’ because I’m just worn out, you know?”

“How so?”

“I mean...” Bee sighed and buried her body deeper into the beanbag chair. “It was always just me and mom, and she wasn’t there half the time, so the house was pretty quiet... and now I’m here, and it’s so loud and busy and there are all these kids- how many even are there?” Alcor opened his mouth, but before he could speak Bee waved her hand in the air dismissively. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

And now Alcor- Alcor the Dreambender, the almighty demon, feared by many, the subject of many of her theories and research and, okay, even fanfics- his dark eyes were tinged with pity and sorrow. “I... I know it gets wild around here, I’m sorry...”

“Don’t apologize.” Bee rested her hands on her forehead, then hastily used one to secure her laptop as it started to slip off her lap and dropped the other back at her side. “It’s not your fault, I know this is better than the alternative, I just... argh. I don’t know. I’m not making any sense, I’m sorry.”

Alcor paused, then took a few steps back until he was almost at the door. “It’s okay, I think I get it. But... well, I really should get back, they’re probably about done filling out character sheets by now- I can leave you here, you want me to show you how to lock the door?”

Bee stood up, using one arm to push herself up while the other clutched her laptop, walking over to Alcor’s side. “Well...” She took a deep breath as she weighed her options, considered the pros and cons of staying in an empty room and retreating from the world. How long could she get away with it? How long until she had to face her new reality?

Her voice sounded more confident than she expected when she finally finished her statement. “Actually, I’ve always wanted to play DDnMD. Could I... join in? Might be a good distraction, you know...”

Alcor’s face lit up, and he shot Bee a wide smile, through which she could see the sharp tips of his fangs. “Absolutely! We were just about to start a new campaign, and I can show you the ropes, I know everything about DDnMD- actually, literally everything- omniscience, you know...”

The two re-entered the hallway as Alcor led the way back, Bee trailing a few steps behind.

“Who’s this ‘we’, anyway?”

“Oh, there’s Rob, Holly, Isolde, Shen- have you met Shen? I feel like you two would get along...”

Alcor kept rambling on, but Bee’s mind started to tune out his words, focusing instead on his sheer enthusiasm, on the rapid rhythm of his excited speech.

Things were different here. There was no getting around that. And maybe she’d never quite get used to some of the weirdness.