#whosebaby writes

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You've got a bright future ahead of you, said his mother to his small self, stroking his hair with tired, gentle pride. He remembers that.

These kids will have no future, bright or otherwise, thanks to him. Oh, god, he wants to say forever, I'm so sorry. But he won't get forever, and neither will they.

-

Malcolm pauses. Adam knows the conversation he thinks they're about to have. They've had it before and he's been so patient every time, and it puts a lump in Adam's throat to see that he's ready to do it again.

"Adam," he starts, and reaches gently for his hands. "You don't have to be if you don't want to. I'll never fault you for that. But you're always, always welcome in this family, no matter how many kids I--"

He stops. Adam can see the gears turning in his head as he feels how violently his hands are trembling; realizes that there's no dullness or self-loathing or attempted diplomacy in his voice, but fear.

"Oh," he says, finally. "Oh." Adam's heart races so hard it feels like he's going to be sick.

And then Malcolm smiles, eyes bright behind his glasses, and squeezes Adam's hands. "Well," he says. "The sentiment stands."

The nausea pours out of him all at once like an icemelt, like thawing; and then the tears come after.

"Do you know yet what you'd like me to call--oof!" Malcom is interrupted all at once by a hug like a drowning man (ha) finally close to the shore; it takes a second to get his wind back enough to adjust his glasses, which have been almost knocked off his face, and hug him back.

-------

"You should write it down," says Nine from across the room, lounging on the bed. Bap, bap, bap goes the rubber ball as it bounces off the wall. He's casual about not looking at the sketchbook in Five's lap; he never does unless he's been invited, and Five is grateful for it. "I'd read it. It sounds badass. And you can keep it this time, now that the old fuck's not around."

Five stares down at the page. The only thing on it is a smear of graphite from his thumb.

sure thing! i’m not usually super into it myself, but i don’t mind giving it a whirl for a minute ;)

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“Oh, darling, you shouldn’t,” he said, with a coy oh-you gesture, but his eyes were fixed on the vial. “I’m certain it was Chamberlain who took it, dreadful creature. Surely wise Emperor will have something to say.”

“I wouldn’t,” said skekAyuk, “for anyone else.” He held the vial out in one claw, waiting. “Best take it before one of the others comes sniffing along.”

SkekEkt stared at the vial for a long, long moment. His hand made the gesture again; slower this time, absent. Hesitating. 

The seconds ticked by.

Finally the voice licking its lips in his brain won out. He’d barely had the thought before he was snatching the vial from the Gourmand’s claws, a little too quickly and a little too hard. SkekAyuk blinked.

“If you insist, darling,” said skekEkt, a little disquieted at himself, and flashed a smile at him to hide a split second of unease. “I’ll simply have to owe you, won’t I?” 

certainly! >:3

—

“Princess?”

Rustling robes; hasty bare footsteps, scuttling around the room. “Princess, have you seen–oh dear–”

Brea blinked herself awake. It took her bleary eyes a moment to focus; it took another moment for her to groan and lift her head off the table where she’d fallen asleep. She’d dozed off in the library before, lulled by the quiet and booksmell and sunlight, but usually it had been in one of the comfortable chairs that dotted every room of the library she had explored so far. This time, she’d made the mistake of staying up half the night reading charts he had given her of the stars–

(”Did you make them?” 

A pause; a nervous little laugh. 

“Of course not,” he had said. “They are courses plotted by Sifan mariners, to find their way by sea.”

“Oh.” The shuffle of scrolls changing hands. “Thank you.”

Another moment of hesitation.

“You are very welcome.”)

–and gone to bed only when he had shooed her from the library. Her second mistake had been to come back immediately after the afternoon meal, determined to study; instead she had drifted off, it seemed, in the dusty silence of the room. Her hair was a mess, and she could feel a mark on her face from lying on the tabletop, and her neck and back weren’t going to be happy with her.

Now skekOk was fussing around, and as she watched him she realized that he was feeling his way around the bookshelves, patting frantically at every flat surface he could reach. His anxious mumbling had woken her. 

“Scroll-Keeper?” she croaked, which opened into a jaw-cracking yawn. Her legs were cold, but her top half and shoulders were warm. Something started to slip from her shoulders, and she caught it by reflex. A blanket. A shawl? “Is everything alright?”

(There should have been a ‘my lord’ somewhere in there, she knew, but somewhere along the way it had fallen out of her speech with him. Her mother would have had words to say about it, none of them pleased, but he didn’t seem to mind at all and so neither did she.)

“Yes, thank you–well–” He paused in his searching to wring his hands anxiously, shaking them from the wrists as he did when distressed. “My spectacles. I seem to have misplaced a pair, and I’ve no idea where they’ve–oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

Oh dear, indeed. He could barely see with two pairs and a half. “Where was the last place you would have had them?” she said without thinking, and stopped. Useless question, had never been helpful to anyone since the first time it was asked. After a moment’s thought, she amended, “What would you have put them down for?”

That made him stop. “Erm,” he said. He wasn’t shaking his hands anymore. “Er.” 

Brea waited. She knew it was no use rushing him.

“Well,” he hemmed. “Well… I suppose there aren’t all that many, erm, places I would have put them–”

At that moment something bright winked at her eye, making her wince. She squinted it shut, shielding her face, and glanced at the desk. Something shone at the edge of the map she’d been studying, trying to copy onto blank parchment she’d borrowed from the library’s stores. The angle of the sunlight had changed just enough to glare off of–

“Found them!” She held up her find, careful of the old, old frames. Older than she was, probably, it occurred to her. It was the middle pair, the only one she’d noticed he didn’t keep on a chain. “Funny, they were right here.” 

When she looked over her shoulder to show him, he looked flustered, and suddenly dots connected in her head.

(At least, she was fairly confident that was flustered. Skeksis faces had turned out to be surprisingly easy to read, compared to gelfling.)

Brea hesitated. And then, heart beating in her ears with her own boldness, “Maybe you dropped them when you were tucking me in.”

He drew his head in sharply toward his collar, looking deeply embarrassed. “Ah,” he harrumphed, and she grinned. She’d guessed right. 

“Thank you.” She scooted the chair backward to stand up, her own ears burning now, and kept the shawl about her shoulders–thick and soft and muted brown–as she moved toward him. He muttered to himself as she approached, and stopped when her feet did. 

“Here you go.” She held out her hand, glasses held carefully by the bridge between finger and thumb, and after a moment’s hesitation skekOk reached for them with long claws.

Well, let him have them, she thought to herself. This was awkward enough already. But she was feeling bold today indeed, and on impulse she ignored it. 

Instead she reached out and took his hand, pressing the spectacles into his palm. “It’s alright, you know,” she said. “I don’t mind. It was very nice of you.”

He peered down at her, and she stared up at him. A sharp ray of sunlight sliced across his shoulders, leaving his face unreadable in the dimness above it. She knew she’d only be a blur in his vision, but her heart pounded in her throat anyway.

He didn’t pull his hand away. The seconds ticked by.

And then, “You are very welcome, Brea.”

[[MORE]]

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"I'm not a childling," she says, trying to keep her voice even.

SkekTek peers at her around his shoulder, squinting. "What is a 'childling?'"

Brea blinks, taken aback. "You--what?"

"I am not sure how you expect me to rephrase the question."

She can't tell if he's snitting at her or not. She supposes it can't hurt to answer. "I... they're gelfling, small gelfling. They--haven't been alive long yet, so they don't know what they're doing. And they need to be protected, and cared for." She grimaces. "And guided."

SkekTek pauses.

"Ah," he says. "I had forgotten." And with that he turns back to his table.

-------

Strickler really should have seen this coming, but he can’t say he’s surprised when Bular stares down at the stuffed bear in his hands, lifts it to his face, and tears off its head with his teeth.

“This is vile,” says Bular, muffled by the stuffing and pink fluff packed into his cheek. He’s still chewing.

“I could have told you that,” says Strickler, dryly. “Human tongues have different tastes, which you would know if you could be bothered to ask before taking a bite out of everything you see.”

Bular’s face twists in disgust at the reminder. “How long must I wear this skin?” he growls. “It is revolting, it is beneath me, and it itches.” 

“The deal was every other week,” says Strickler. It’s far from revolting, he can’t help but notice, surreptitiously looking up and down the mountain of human-shaped muscle that Bular has become. “Surely you haven’t forgotten so soon? Live among humans until you have learned that they are not food. This is not a difficult concept to grasp, even for you.” 

Bular snarls at him this time, baring his teeth, and it’s both frightening and a bit ridiculous now that they aren’t sharp anymore. The stuffing and pink fabric between his teeth don’t help. “Were it not for my father--”

“Yes,” says Strickler, examining his fingernails. “Were it not. But it is, isn’t it?”

Bular curls his lip, glaring murder down at him; locks of his greasy black hair fall in his eyes as he does so. Strickler stares right back up at him, his heartbeat fast and his face calm, and waits politely.

Finally Bular looks away, every inch of his huge frame tense, and spits out a cute little plastic eye before turning to stomp away between the colorful tents.