hey dad!

“Civility?!” His temper is scratched, adolescence planted on a bed of thorns, never shying away from getting his soles bloodied at the step forward taken. “What civility? Where? If it is not given? There is none to return.” He’s not mad at her, but the canon is never angry; it’s just in its nature to explode when given fire or enough bullshit, whichever is more abundant. In Wynn’s case, he settles that it can’t be the latter. It never has been for her. It’s just enough for him to listen again, just enough not to strip the door off and walk in. “Good. Don’t care. But? Don’t take that shit. They have something to say? Enough to bleed for it? Make them.”

There’s a moment’s worth of adjustment, lips shifting with the jaw, the steam being let out through the veins. It will be a few more minutes, and in the moment he hears nothing being escalated to give him reason to come in, no more than what is already itching beneath his skin. The tongue clicks against the roof of the mouth in annoyance, patience not a virtue. “Why not?” he questions back, defending what shouldn’t be defensible. “You wouldn’t do the same for her?" 

she thinks about what he said, really thinks about it. brow is furrowed with the consideration of balance in the world. if there is no kindness received, should it be given. she’s not sure. maybe it differs in each scenario. it must be the same for violence. “do you always have to have that dedication?” it’s a genuine question, only half targeted at his own beliefs. some of it is innate curiosity, the viewpoint differs so far from what she’s been told by all the therapists and psychologists.

“i think she’s too...” the word escapes her. it’s a parallel to nice, but it’s not exactly right. there’s nothing to describe what she thinks of her sister really. but she doesn’t think claudia would kill someone. not really, not even by accident. “i wouldn’t want her to, i don’t think.” maybe that’s more what it is, because even though she keeps throwing the punches it seems like there’s a little piece of her that doesn’t come back from it all the way. “but i would if she’d let me.”

His gut doesn’t know peace. There’s an ulcer growing in there, has been growing from the very day his place turned into a household instead of a poor excuse of a bachelor pad. It’s an ulcer of love, but he can call it whatever he wants; it still hurts in moments like this, making itself known in all its worry. Sure, he’s seen the pictures she brings home, but that doesn’t mean a complete disclosure.

“What’s the story on his?” Can it be bad? Can it? A mumbled groan scratches the back of his throat, unsure. “What kind of photos is he taking, kid? Are there any you don’t get to take a look at?”

“he kind of takes the same ones as her.” she doesn’t know who started first, or who inspired who. there’s the possibility that they always had the same taste and just finally aligned. there’s speculation to be had, but she’s never been one for that. “i don’t really get their stories you know. they watch all those movies.” she widens her eyes, nods as though that’s going to jog his memory into the times they’ve had to sit on the couch and watch their fair share of art films. because fair was fair and sometimes cloud got to pick the movie she really wanted to watch.

“they don’t really want to show me any of them.” but there wasn’t anything hurt in her words, just the kind of shrugging honesty that came with unfinished art. sometimes she thinks that if they had their way the world would just be them two. but she likes when she’s included, no reason to endanger that. “it’s always of the church or the statues, i think she can be kind of a perfectionist.”

“Then? What is it about? She’s supposed to take shit? And not do anything about it? He’s not angry at the cabron who started it?” He talks as if he knows the details, or even better that he had witnessed the exchange that’s caused trouble for Claudia. He has neither on his side, only taking into account what he knows the girl accused herself. Whoever got in the way of her first deserved it, and there’s not a flicker of doubt that crosses his mind to shade his opinion. There’s barely even any sway when Wynn’s words produce the slightest distraction, staring at her incredulously before it simmers back to clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth in annoyance to the situation. “Bullshit. What does that teach? Nothing.”

But what holds more weight, what makes him pause, is what’s unexpected: the reason he’s believed in before even hearing it. He studies her for a moment before his brows knit together. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for his sister, nothing he wouldn’t /have done/ for Reina. The fact sticks him like a thorn, living off of the sting that’s propelled him this far. “If they didn’t end up in a morgue? It’s a lesson. Fuck them. They couldn’t learn on their own? That’s their problem. Next time? They’ll remember.”

“it teaches...” she’s searching for a word, mostly because she wants damion to be right. she assumes he is about most things because he’s a good person, and he cares about them. damion wouldn’t make an issue of something that was insignificant, and so there must be a lesson somewhere in there. “civility.” although maybe the lessons weren’t sticking well, as she shrugged off her explanation. “besides, i don’t really care what he thinks.” even if it was mean to say the things that were sometimes tossed at her in the hallway, she’s not sure that particularly makes them true or right. some of them roll right off. but it’s not her sister’s fault for wanting to make sure they don’t get said again. civility. the word echoes around her head.

“i think everyone will remember.” that was the one thing she could say about cloud’s particular brand of violence. but she did not yet know which was the right answer. so she figures they should just finish their father daughter conversation without interruption. “it’ll only be a few more minutes, they’ve got an alright routine.” it’s about just biding time until then now. someone will open the front door for her, and here julian will be. a nice surprise. “i don’t think she could sent them to the morgue. do you?”

It doesn’t start off great. He doesn’t know why he thought it might. There’s no telling if it’s the change in his face that’s made Fred start over or if it’s just a new thought, but there’s a lot to unpack either way. Each new twist and turn causes another gray hair, makes another twist in his lips, a wrinkle to his brow. He’s trying his best to keep up with all the objections that are piling into his head like a six-lane traffic accident, but it’s just one crash after another until it’s all over. By then, he’s out of gas, stares at her with a slightly open mouth and squinting eyes to make sense out of something that can hardly be in focus. It’s called the starting point.

“Okay. Time-out. Let’s pump the brakes right there.” Now, he’s pinching the bridge of his nose, taking a stab at the first thing that’s making its way out of the carnage. “What’s with the curfew point, kid? Did she go over it that one night? You know, that night with the Scream movie marathon?” He was told he missed the sound of the door opening, but a dad knows, even when he tries not to start a fight he’s not sure he’s on the right side of. “And what about that Julian thing? What’s with the pics, huh?” Oh, now he knows how that sounds aloud again and his head tilts, face already wrought with a new expression. “What’s the deal on these pics, Fred? Did she show them to you?”

“i was trying to imagine the scene.” there’s a direct question being asked of her, but it’s a blink and you miss it. her mind goes a hundred miles in the other direction, trying to think about the idea that dad could pretend to be cloud. she wondered if he was going to do a higher voice. but there’s no such luck for her scene work. just more questions. “like her coming home, but it wasn’t working.”

but given enough questions, one of them was going to finally snag her and pull her onto this new line of inquiry that was being asked of her. “she’s shown you her pictures.” and it’s not a lie, given with guileless honesty because there are photos that hang on the walls of the house that she can point to as fact. but maybe they didn’t see the same photos, or all the photos. she knew that for all the ones that she was given access to that there would be nine more no one would ever know about. it must have been the same for everyone else. a fickle artist, of course.

“she takes her pictures with julian. sometimes they’re on the film, it’s not bad. he’s kind of got a good eye too.” how else did he explain some of the photos that showed up on the rolls of film. they couldn’t all have been taken by her. “i mean she’s better, she gets lighting. but i think that’s because you let her practice so much.”

“If she won? What is he mad about?” he questioned, close enough to the level of interrogation. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a shortage of confusion. While Wynn was hinged on curiosity, Julian’s was a powder keg waiting to go off, blowing open the door so he could step through. There was only one barrier to get through and she was sitting right in front of him, blocking the entrance.

“Joder,” he spat out. “He knows it was deserved? She’s supposed to do what? Nothing? What outlet is better?” Already, his eyes were tightened, scrutinizing every scrap of the conversation that was thrown to him, each piece of information falling into place like rusty nails.

His foot was still on the step, looking down at her, clenching his jaw at her while steam released through the pressure. She’s not in trouble resonated, even if it didn’t seem like it cleared through his system. Lips shifted before his tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, annoyance seared into the noise. “You’re going to tell me what happened?” he asked, hand waving impatiently. “Or? You’re going to move?”

it’s a good question. she’s not sure that she has the right answer, but she thinks about it for a second while he continues on his own path of logic. “sometimes, it’s not about winning and losing.” she keeps her voice measured like she imagined anna or damion might use when they were trying to explain the point later. the performance ends with a sharp nod, as though once said the persona was lifted and she was back to considering the other questions that he was asking. what outlet would have been better than hitting him? “maybe a stern expression.” the answer would have been a joke from anyone else, but her tone is deathly serious as if it’s just one of the possibilities that might be implemented.

“i don’t always get along with everyone at school.” it wasn’t that she didn’t fit in, really most days passed without any incident in the slightest. but when some people got bored, they found targets. and she wasn’t supposed to start fights, she was still trying to figure out the line where it became just finishing the altercation. “cloud wanted to teach them a lesson.” she was more interested in seeing if it would stick, but she wasn’t going to say that out loud because what if dad heard. then she’d be on the other side of the door right now too, and who would get to talk to julian. “but it’s not really a lesson once the nurse and the principal and all our parents have to get involved.”

He wonders how much time he’s spent on gauging Fred’s seriousness before always coming up with the same conclusion; she’s always serious. There’s never a moment that she isn’t painfully honest with her thoughts for better or for worse. Still, he watches her as if this will be the day that the unbreakable trend will make its move for a difference. In the end, he breathes in, now pondering what’s the right move to make.

“Why don’t you try it out on me first, okay?” he tries, gives her the chance against all logic. “Give me the test run. Pretend I’m your sister. How are you going to tackle this exactly? What’s the opener?”

she nods, trying to think of how she might visualize the scenario. she likes to think that she knows cloud well, really well, better than almost anyone on the planet. but this was uncharted territory, trying to mix what they’d learned from all their movie watching and the reality of who julian was. she thought for a moment, gave the question the time that it deserved. finally she mimes checking her watch, the scene formulated in her head.

“i thought dad said curfew was eleven?” but then she pauses, maybe not that. what did she know. they’d never really had a curfew, and it was almost the same as opening the window to sit on the roof. just because in the past neither of them had scaled down the trellis didn’t mean it wasn’t looming. “wait— do over. how did the photos turn out?” that seemed safe, the photos were always a safe bet, and sometimes she got to see them on the little viewfinder before they were printed out. a sneak peak into her sister’s head before she deleted all the ones that she didn’t like. “did you let julian take any again?”

she looked at her dad expectantly, as if this were a normal game where all the rules made sense without any more explanation. “well, what does she say?”

He had barely made it onto the walkway from the driveway when Wynn began talking to him, plucking his reason out of his back pocket without blinking an eye. His footsteps slowed, brow furrowing with tightening eyes. Where would she be if not here? Another move closer brought him up on the steps, two beneath where she was sitting, the truth in a brighter light from the new angle. The lack of surprise was evident, but it only reached out as far as where Claudia was, not to why he was being pushed away from seeing her.

“Why? She didn’t win?” he questioned, head tilted with annoyed defense. “What else is there to talk about?” And if Wynn was not the one talking to her, that left only one. “He doesn’t think who she punched deserved it? Now? She’s in trouble? Mierda. Where is he? What room?”

she scratched the top of her head, trying to figure out if he was trying a trick question on her. no one really bothered asking who won and lost the fights that they got into, it was more a matter of who started them. they weren’t supposed to start them anymore. “she always wins.” the puzzled expression doesn’t dissipate, trying to understand what he was actually trying to get to the bottom of. she’s never seen concern displayed in such a way, cataloging the flickers as they appear. “dad didn’t say no one deserved it.”

that was the other part that never really mattered. cloud didn’t start fights for fun, she started them because someone tried to push the books out of wynn’s hands, or made a comment that they thought sounded smart but was actually really dumb. there was a zero tolerance policy for dumb around these parts. “we’re supposed to find a better outlet for our emotions.” 

she didn’t move from her position blocking the door. there was really no reason to go inside and interrupt their conversation. “she’s not in trouble. it’ll be okay.” there wasn’t really any reason to assume there would be a problem. it wasn’t the first time this happened, and if she was a betting girl she wouldn’t say it was the last. “they just have to talk.”

“she’s not here right now.” wynn sat on the porch steps of their house, the conversation that was inside apparently no loner required her participation. and even though she could have just gone to her room, she had a tendency to still hear the dad-cloud debacles, and they weren’t really meant for her ears. so she sat outside, because the right thing to do was to give them privacy. she knew that. anna’d agreed, it was the right thing to do.

“well. that’s a lie.” she looked up at the boy who’d finally come into view. she didn’t know what exactly he wanted, but she could take a pretty good guess. three members of the household, which one could he want to see. “she is here. but she’s being talked to.” there was a stern expression on her face, as though there was no other way to follow through on the conversation. “we’re not supposed to start fights anymore at school.” she elaborated without being asked, operating on the assumption that cloud was going to tell the boy about it anyways. probably. most likely. “there was a mutual agreement.”

“Yeah. Chicago vice, that’s us,” he sighs, but it’s sudden reminder that Fred will take him literally with the idea. “No, hold up there, 007, they’re not Bonnie and Clyde. We don’t need to pull out all the stops with the coffee and donuts here… Not yet.” It’s not something he really can close the door on entirely. It’s more like a small gap left behind. “We’ll just keep an eye out, okay? Save the surveillance for the big time.” Last thing he needs is to push Claudia away. Subtlety is key. His favorite special agent might not be the expert in that field, but she’s the best he’s got.

“He’ll say it if he’s serious,” Damion answers after a beat of a pause, vaguely remembering a timeline of his own high school days. Something about saying it to a Marla McCullough rings a bell, but it didn’t pan out. Obviously. No matter, now. He’s brought easily back to the present, staring at his daughter with a confused look, wondering how they got to talking about movies. “Ask if… he’s kissed her?” he tries his best guess at the flow Fred took on before his own words catch up to him, making him grimace. He’s not sure if he wants to know, but he should. He has to. “I don’t know about that one. How would you bring it up?”

they’re just going to keep an eye out. that sounds more subtle than she’d been expecting, but she can do subtle. she’s been practicing the best ways to sit in a room and become invisible, it seemed like a skill that would be handy. of course she’s not useing it against claudia, there’s no weapons being wielded. it’s for claudia. she apparently just has to listen, with people saying the important parts. if he’s serious, he’ll say so. she’ll keep an eye out. no, an ear. that made more sense.

“wait. so i can’t just ask?” she didn’t think that talking about boys was the kind of conversation topic that needed and introduction. they sit on the bed with popcorn and sodas and talk about the first thing that comes to mind. she paused, brow furrowed with thought while she tried to consider the way it would come up. “i thought you could just say how was the church and go from there. made total sense to me.”

“I don’t know, kid, that’s what I’m…” He decides to sigh out the frustration, meditate on the issue instead. It’s really on him. Fred isn’t the kind of informant that has access to police logs and open warrants. “We’ll just have to watch him, okay? At the first sign of a red flag, we’ll find a way to pull the plug on him. That church was near a good bistro, too..” It’s fine. It’d be worth the change. But he’s talking in worst case scenarios. Maybe she won’t get that attached. They’re teenagers, after all. Doesn’t all this stuff last for a few months?

The green onions are placed on the counter with the fridge door closing behind him, just in time for his daughter’s questions to land on him, stir him away from contingency plans and fallout shelters. He adopts the face of a man that has recently been inflicted with food poisoning. “You know.” It sounds strained because it is, a pain just to speak just that, and it doesn’t look any easier in his shoulders, shifting them around to try to bring them onto the same page. He doesn’t have to see her curious gaze to know it failed. “You know…” he tries helplessly again, trying to come up with something before frowning. Fuck. “When a boy… likes… a girl he tries to…” Wrinkles form at the bridge of his nose, fingers attempting to grasp for things that don’t tangibly exist, but a breath rips the cartoon bandaid off, not touching the gauze tape that holds a bullethole together. “You know, kiss her.”

she nodded at his directive, tapped her temple to signal that she retained the thought. she liked to watch people, note what made them different from one another. she was starting a new category, but she wasn’t sure what to label it yet, maybe special. because she knew cloud a lot better than she knew most people, she might even be able to see why julian was the one who was allowed to get past all those defenses that she’d seen her sister put up over the years. “keep an eye on them at the bistro.” the idea turns in her mind, as though it’s trying to find the connecting puzzle pieces of thought. “it’s like a stakeout.”

but her thoughts quickly shift with the next expression that presents itself to her. she hasn’t seen that one before, or at least not in the context of the this kind of conversation. she didn’t think they were talking about anything particularly painful, but she didn’t know for sure. “he can’t just say he likes her?” wasn’t communication supposed to be the most important part of a relationship— she thought that’s what anna had tried to teach her. it sounded like the kind of thing that she would have watched sitting on the couch, not really letting it play out in real life. “i guess they do like movies. you think i should ask?”

“Hold on. Are you saying he already has a record?” Lord, why are you testing him in this way? Julian’s score inside the Killgrave household takes a big dent, almost as big as the car crash he’ll probably wind up in one day, and he better not take his daughter down with him. The thought alone is enough to add twenty pounds to his limbs as they walk into the kitchen, feeling the fridge door open heavily as the various condiments and glassed ingredients rattle slightly against the shelves.

“Did she really what? Sorry.” He’s already lost track of that part of their conversation, something about the appliance’s light zapping away a sense of reality before he shakes his head. “Nevermind, kid. Shakespeare is overrated, all right? Don’t worry about it. Everyone croaks in the end. Do you see the green onions?”

Cooking will solve all this. Dinner and the dessert they’ve already talked about. At least it’ll put his head right, away from the concerns that come with raising teenagers. Though, there’s never really any escape, ears always open for more information that’ll feed into it. If he’s only talking to Claudia it’s not the worst, right? “I guess not,” he mumbles as he takes out a few things from the glass shelves, turning around to set them down on the counter. “As long as he hasn’t tried anything more than talking.”

“does he?” she tried not to hang around the police station, they weren’t as nice as she thought they would be for people who were supposed to protect and serve. so if there’s a record to see, it’s going to take a while for her to find it. but she’s thinking it’s not possible. or at least probable, cloud was a pretty good judge of understanding those things. it wasn’t that crimes couldn’t be committed, sometimes they needed to be, but sometimes that didn’t really make them crimes either.

if there was a train of thought for her to follow, it’s quickly redirected all the same. with his own comments about shakespeare, ringing in her head over and over again. everyone croaks in the end. that was the truth, but sometimes people were special. they deserved green onions before then, and nice celebrations. but as much as she can follow a recipe, that’s not what catches her off guard, rather his last comment does. it finds no purchase in her train of thought, and she doesn’t know where to file it or what questions to ask. so she finds herself with only the obvious left. “what’s more? what’s more than talking?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he confirms for her, has that touch of hope that she knew that already instead of taking a wild guess at it, but either way it’s known now; he can’t argue with the results, no matter how they arrive at them. It’s a conversation for another day. They have to stay on topic, as tempted as he is to want to talk about something else besides some boy making his move into their lives. If he thinks he’s getting Claudia, there’s no way, not without all of them. “How does a kid like him get a car like that, anyways?” Sure, it’s Father Rafael’s, but that’s just what he was told. “I wouldn’t be the one giving him the keys if it was mine.”

The blueprint is lifted up carefully, mulling over everything as it slides into the drawer, knowing that there’s a chance Claudia could want to use the desk, whenever she returns. If she returns. Lord, he needs to stop watching Dateline with the kid. Seeing Julian Santiago on the screen one day would be all that he needs. “He better be taking it seriously.” It doesn’t make the mark as a threat, more worry, prep for doomsday. Hearing that he makes her laugh doesn’t do much to chip it away either, makes him look at Fred as if questioning whose side she’s on around these parts. “Yeah, that’s probably what Juliet told her dad, too. Look how far south that went.” And he’s going out on a limb here and saying that that boy is no Romeo. “Who else is he being chuckles the clown for?”

“it’s not technically his.” when people asked for title and registration that usually meant something. she didn’t actually know the official documentation on the car that julian drove, but there was probably a way to figure it out. one had to be sure when they were making these kinds of claims. “but he can drive. i think he’s only been pulled over once for speeding.” she remembered the story, relayed in laughter and don’t tell dad. although she still hadn’t really figured out why he shouldn’t know some things, the boundaries between adult and teenager have never really solidified in her mind the way they have for her sister.

all of it’s dropped with his next round of questions, her mind spinning to see where the new puzzle pieces of phrases clicked into place. “did she really?” romeo and juliet was assigned for a different class, she read macbeth. there’s a word of a difference between the two couples, their endings withstanding. she doesn’t think of her sister as a lady macbeth type, and julian is no romeo.

“he only really talks to her.” there’s no bias to the words, just an honest observation that she’s made and been able to see time and time again. finding each other almost subconsciously, letting gravity sort out the issue of who was going to find who. “and me.” she doesn’t know if the number is too small or too large, or if people should be laughing at him more. she doesn’t ever find what julian says to be funny, but she’s not sure that that’s all laughter has to be made of. it’s a hypothesis she’s working on, not ready for public consumption. “is that bad? only talking to two people in a building of a thousand?”

“Yeah. Graham crackers.” He’s in the conversation. He is. His mind is just busier with the fact that his girls are growing up, no longer entertained by field trips to the farmer’s market or lulled to sleep in the back of the Subaru with thanks from Fleetwood Mac. Now, it’s boys with cars and prison recipes. It’s a lot for one guy to take in.

“You know what’s cool? Airbags. Jot that down,” he pointed as if he meant it, but then his own words had to bite back, sink themselves beneath the skin and into his bloodstream. “It doesn’t have airbags…” he muttered quietly, the realization hitting before he took in a deep breath, releasing it into a whispered breath of motherfucker until he switched quickly, covering it up with the next round of words. “What? No, kid. Steady. You know…” His hand waved in the air, as if that would conjure up the appropriate word. It didn’t really. “Are they… an item? How serious is she taking all this?”

“airbags.” she nods with one sharp affirmation, everything that her dad says is filed away under not to be questioned. the authoritative truth of a situation can be found in his reasoning, and the facts are most of the time secondary. there are a few topics on which she has to default to an encyclopedia, but not now. “they save lives.” makes perfect sense to her, although it doesn’t really take away from the fact that the car is cool on the outside. maybe it’s just less cool on the inside. she makes a mental note to ask claudia when she finally comes back. some version of here’s the pudding and are the seats leather as the door opens.

“they like each other.” her observations are minimal at best, mostly because she can’t yet connect the feelings that her sister might be experiencing to something in her own wheelhouse. which is okay, there’s still lots of life to be lived. “is it supposed to be serious?” she never considered that a relationship should have to be that. she thought they always had the best time when there was “he makes her laugh. like here,” she tapped right below her eye, as though that would make everything clear. “she says they’re friends. she told you that right?”

Pen pals? His blood pressure ticks up a few points, the read all over his face as he looks at her. Brows scrunched together, eyes focused in, lips twisted in a type of undefined pain like stray shrapnel. The idea of visitations just makes it spread. “Yeah, that’s not in the cards, kid.” It’s not that he’s worried about Fred being implicated in a prison break or accidentally accepting a marriage proposal via jail mail, but a combination of both and more scenarios he’s not ready to handle right now. “How about we sign up for some newsletters?” That’s close enough, right? “Or sponsor one of those ASPCA dogs? They send you updates on how all that’s going.”

They’ll just cross that bridge when they get to it, he guesses. For now, he’s going to breathe out and settle into the convict cookbook. It’s not bad. It’s no Food & Wine, but it’s workable. “We can go to the store for any ingredients we don’t have. We should be good, but you can always tweak this stuff to elevate it. A bay leaf goes a long way.”

That is, as long as Claudia is able to be back soon enough to enjoy it. This is the part of the conversation he gives her his completely undivided attention. As important as food is to the life of the Killgrave household, it’s not a household if one of the members is MIA. He’s never created a good enough mask to hide his concerns, mouth balling up to one side in thought as he nods back. “A ride, huh?” Okay. That doesn’t mean he has to immediately start to worry. “From the priest’s boy again?” He hasn’t even had a chance to really talk to this guy, you know, like a sit-down, the kind that’s half-interrogation, half-threat. “They going… steady now or something?”

“you want to add a bay leaf?” she looked at the ingredient list, which mostly included coffee and chocolate, and tried to puzzle out where the seasoning for spaghetti fit in. it took up the majority of her attention, leaving space for damion’s other questions to filter in and be given honest answers. but he already knew the ride was from julian, so her attention went back to the list of ingredients. “maybe graham crackers would help.” then it wasn’t really a pudding, more like a trifle. that was very elevated.

“he’s got a cool car.” she picked up the book again, already preparing to follow damion into the kitchen. she hugged it to her chest so she wouldn’t lose the page that the recipe was on, and shrugged. she didn’t really know what she was supposed to say in these conversations. it wasn’t that she was going to lie, it was only that cloud was so touchy about who knew what. she always wanted to be the one to say. which was far more difficult when she wasn’t home. “no i think they’re just going to pick up pictures.”

“Even the book had to put in for a prison transfer, huh.” He’s throwing in a small joke, but the book is being thrown open instead of getting laugh, leaving him to sigh while he resigns himself to look at it with her, in search of something to try out together. He’s less thrilled to hear the implication in her voice that follows. “Yet? What are you planning on doing, kid? Joining a pot luck club with them?” He hopes not. That’s too much to explain to Anna on her next visit, one he was hoping would go a lot better than that.

There’s a closer look at what’s underneath Fred’s finger, the dessert recipe. “That actually doesn’t sound half bad.” Better than he expected when he heard about serial killer foods. “Do you want to give it a go for her? It’d be nice for you to hand it over to her when she gets home, which should be soon, right?” Her presence hasn’t gone unnoticed since the door opened, but he knows already where she is. “Did she let you know about any happenings going on? Anything I need to know about?”

“i thought you could only be pen pals.” which is a point of order that she’s considered but has not yet made the move on. she doesn’t know who to start with really, and she doesn’t want to get more mail than she can respond to. “you can’t actually visit them, right?” it’s another point of consideration, eyes waiting expectantly for a truthful answer. but, she doesn’t think there’s a maximum security prison within driving distance from here anyways, so the entire line of inquiry is just theoretical. a point of interest that will be shuffled away, as long as no one else makes a big deal out of it. 

and anyways she’s easily distractible, gone from the moment he points at the information contained in the recipe. “sure. pudding’s mostly milk right.” she’s good with recipes, following them with an almost robotic precision. she always knows the exact action to take. she’s just not always sure why she might take it. this time, it’s to make a dessert for her sister. “i bet i can do that.”

she doesn’t actually know how much time they have, but her guess is enough. “soon.” the word receives a nod, although not one of much commitment. lately trying to question her cloud has been like pulling teeth. she’s given up on the effort as long as the expression that’s brought in the door remains happy. it’s all in the eyes, whether she’s aware of it or not. “she was going to the photo shop first. she got a ride.” it’s the kind of errand that used to take twenty minutes and now takes an hour, it’s the kind of errand that sets damion on edge for some reason, although she’s not sure why. she wonders if he’s missing the happiness part, or there’s something else that she should be on the lookout for. it’s hard to tell sometimes. “is that the happenings?”

“Yeah, it’s more of a metaphor, kid,” he replies back to her while the angle is adjusted, narrowing his eyes at it to get it right, make sure the line stops at exactly ten centimeters for the dimensions to be accurate. He’s trying here. Trying to give both work and his daughter equal amounts of attention, but Fred will always pull out a little more ahead. Besides, he’s getting closer to being done, or at least closer to getting to a break. Perfect timing some would say when she pulls out the actual book she’s brought home.

“Oh… Yeah. Look at that.” Okay, it’s time for a break, all right. His pencil lowers back down to the ruler while he’s stuck looking at the cover photo, expression caught somewhere between disturbance and acceptance. “They let you check that out, huh?” That’s the downside of a free country, he guesses. Can’t really dissuade her, though. She’s got a big smile, and he’s not here to put a damper on things, especially when it’s clear it’s for dinner, something that equals family time.

“How about we skip the Ed Gein chapter?”

she pauses, filing away the information about the book although she’s not sure that it will ever be used. still, she tends to take everything inn and she’ll sort it out later. did it matter that it was a metaphor? “those aren’t very useful.“ is her finite conclusion.

“i had to wait a week, they had to transfer it. but look—” the book is opened, revealing a table of contents populated with simple recipes and easy desserts. the kind of meals that she could help with. “no ed gein! actually, i don’t know a lot of them yet.” but that’s what the internet was for, give her a list of names and she would eventually be able to turn up a pile of stories. “and here,” finger jabs at a recipe labelled double chocolate coffee pudding, “you bet cloud’d like that?”

He doesn’t remember what his hearing was like before kids, but somedays it feels like he must have gotten bit by a radioactive dog. Even in his office, he can hear the bookbag fall against the table, but the scary thing is he knows who did it. There’s a lot of monkey see, monkey do in their household, but Fred still has a deliberate touch in the mimicry. Claudia’s bookbag always slides a little. There’s also that thing about knowing his kids’ voices. It helps.

The ruler is held straight over the blueprints he’s creating by hand, other fingers occupied by the pencil that runs along the edge. He’s thinking, though. Not entirely of the structure he’s mapping out, but the possible book that she’s acquired and what he might have to say about it. “Uh, I don’t know, kid.” He’s genuinely stumped, only coming to one guess. “You might get bummed out if it’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s not like that Netflix special about cats.”

the office. she was right, a triumphant crooked grin appears on her face although there’s no one to see it. it wasn’t that life needed to be neat an predictable, she was supposed to know it was rarely the case, but it still felt nice. damion was in his office, she was home from school. the last part of her triangle equation would be solved out by dinner time she was sure of it. 

“the librarian showed me that one.” she hadn’t checked it out, not because it was labeled classic or that she knew some people had to read it for school but rather the label of fiction didn’t suit her interests very much. “but i didn’t really see anything about mockingbirds.” and besides, the one that she really wanted was here. 

“no look—” she didn’t wait for an invitation into the office, but rather just walked up to the desk that he was at so she could set the book next to what he was working on. the invasion of personal space wasn’t the first on her mind, edge of the book lining up with the edge of the blueprint, title impossible to ignore at that angle: the serial killer cookbook. “for dinner.”