Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lewis valued the state employee’s silence on the long van trip from the Pittsburgh metro area east toward Evergreen. But he hadn’t expected the guy to summarily drop him like an Amazon package at the corner of 6^th Street and Lands Avenue with a brusque “Good luck,” and pull away! Geez! No one waiting outside either, even though they’d arrived right on time. Not offensive at all…

The tween regarded his new home. The building was smaller but appeared in better condition, and there was way more green space. Nice. Lewis was used to a more urban environment, and he dreaded the first night without the comforting buzz of constant white noise. Still, compared to most areas in central Pennsylvania, the large town of Evergreen was practically a small city, so hardly the middle of nowhere. Small victories, Lewis. Keep counting the small victories.

He approached and rang the bell, straightening his glasses reflexively with anxiety. It chirped a trio of choppy notes that were once a single tone, fractured when some kid jammed the mechanism too hard.

Lewis expected one of the group home’s employees to greet him. Instead, the door swung open to reveal a roughly 17 or 18-year-old spindly red-headed teenager wearing a Guardians of the Galaxy T-shirt with a rip just under the collar, an army green hoodie (so beat-looking it was practically a rag), and some oversized brown cargo pants. A cicada wing in a tiny bottle hung off one of the cargo pant loops as a keychain.

“Hey, you must be Lewis!” Peter Hollows was just as surprised by the kid as the kid was by him. The newcomer was reportedly 13 years old, but he looked barely 11. Two solid inches of total height likely comprised of that ridiculous yellow hair, sticking straight up like a corn bale. Peter understood how being fun-sized felt, so he’d say nothing. What next caught his attention was the big purple shiner the tween sported on his left eye. “Oh!” Peter fidgeted and smiled awkwardly. “Did…you…winnnnn?"

The bespectacled kid sighed heavily. “No.”

The teen maintained that bear trap of a smile, speaking through gritted teeth. “Maybe you’ll win the next one?”

Lewis shrugged and decided to appreciate the attempted comfort. “Well, maybe.” The older boy motioned him in and Lewis obediently followed. “Where, uh, are the people who…work here?” he asked, aiming for polite, but sounding exactly as accusatory as Hollows quietly thought he ought to.

“Hiding,” said the ginger with an eyeroll.

“From what?”

Two identical twins in matching blue T-shirts with the numbers 1 and 2 scribbled crudely on with Sharpie (over faint overlapping stains suggesting they simply re-drew the numbers after every wash cycle) flew down a staircase opposite the front door, cackling. They were fleeing a heavy-set boy who they’d clearly just doused with their Super Soakers.  

“From racoons. And bears. And foxes. And skunks. And wolves. And mountain lions. And all the other feral, possibly rabid animals that live in this establishment.” Peter’s sharp smirk softened at the edges by obvious fondness.

Lewis chuckled weakly. Catching the younger boy’s expression, Peter inferred his innocent joke had wandered into tender territory. They all turned up with the same ashamed "I was sent to the freak house because I’m damaged" face. Any jokes and skirting around the issue likely wouldn’t suffice to brighten the newcomer’s dour mood until the hard part was done. Peter ripped the band aid off: “It’s okay, kid, go on and tell me. It’ll feel good to get it over with. What went wrong? No one ends up here without a preamble of sensational failures.”

Why Children and Youth Services shipped the state’s so-called “problem children” out to the idyllic central Pennsylvania town of Evergreen, of all places, wasn’t completely clear. Perhaps it was an effort to keep them in a therapeutic countryside environment away from potential bad influences in the city? Bad influences existed everywhere, but still, maybe the state employees were onto something. Every kid sent here chilled out within a few months. Most of them were even adopted. Peter had cycled through three whole cohorts during the nearly 5 years he’d lived in this building.

"Sorry?” asked the kid, bristling.

“No offense meant, it’s just a fact. Whatever you did, I promise it can’t be as batshit as ‘dumb kid lights 4^th of July firecracker at inopportune moment and blows foster brother’s hand off.’ Hehe. Now that’s embarrassing!” Peter concluded with an energetic arm pump.

“Uhhh.” Lewis had never heard anyone trauma dump so cheerfully before.

A kid with sandy brown hair (styled in the silliest-looking mullet Lewis had ever witnessed on someone under age 45) wandered by. “Didn’t he try chokin’ ya with the other hand right after?” Peter swatted his head. “Ow!” whined the child.

“You can’t end a story like that, man, it’s a bummer! This guy’s morale is low enough as it is!”

“Sorry, geez!” The younger boy scampered away, leaving Lewis to blink dazedly.

“So, what went wrong?” Peter resumed, unfazed.

“I’ll have you know I always lived in a group home. I was left there.” Lewis rubbed his neck. “That said…they moved me outta the place in Pittsburgh after I set three fires and nearly killed somebody.” At the cocked eyebrow he received: “Accidentally!  I had no idea he had a peanut allergy! And the fires were me trying to build a machine that kept malfunctioning!”

“They sent you here over that?”

“I suspect it had more to do with my being ‘bad for morale’ since I was, like, the eldest and had…never been placed. So, they thought here I’d…fit in better.”

“Ah. With the other freaks, huh?” Lewis caught his interrogator sympathetically mouthing to himself ‘bad for morale???’ and wincing as if it were the most heinous insult he could possibly imagine.

“Yyyyuup.”

Peter briefly cocked his head with a tight, Muppet-like not-quite-frown, then playfully punched Lewis’s shoulder. “The never being placed thing sucks, but it beats some of the alternatives, right?”

Lewis grimaced. “Yeah, I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about placements gone wrong… That said, I live more in fear of, like,” he shifted to a whisper, “a formal adoption going wrong.” Shudder. “I don’t think I could live through the humiliation of being given back.”

Peter’s left eye just barely ticked, indiscernibly to Lewis. “Can’t disagree with that. Uh, lemme introduce you to the kids. Have you eaten? I smell food. Think they’re tossing the zoo animals dinner now.”

The pair wandered into a scene of utter chaos in the large kitchen/dining room. Outside a door leading into the yard, two women—who’d presumably set the buffet-style table across the room from the dining table and promptly fled—peered warily through a glass pane. One curvy redhead and one slender woman with a mangled hombre, both puffing on cigarettes, gawped as if watching starved zoo lions feast on carcasses.

“Why are they launching meatballs out of fake canons and talking like pirates? Is dinner like this every night?”

“Nah, yesterday was Taco Tuesday and they were all fighting like ‘Machete’ characters.” Peter began pointing them out. “Big Chuck over there goes by Curly. The kid in the brown shirt—” Who Lewis recognized from earlier. “—is Nate, he goes by Nibs. They’re 10 and 11.” Nibs was crawling under the table, fanning the flames of the food fight by punching different peoples’ legs, causing them to blame one another. Curly caught him, yanked him out from under the table by the mullet, and “pied” him in the face with a meatball. “Those 9-year-old idiots in the blue are Spike and Dimitri—” He pointed at the twins, who had somehow filled the Super Soakers with watered down spaghetti sauce for a bloodier, more realistic gun fight experience. “—but we call them Thing 1 and Thing 2. …There’s Tim—” A little pill-bug of a child with a spiky black tuft of hair was watching from the safety of an older girl’s lap. “–-or Tootles, he’s 6. And Sam goes by Slightly. He’s 12, in the orange hoodie and that ridiculous hat.” Said hat was constructed of black and grey denim with what appeared to be fox or wolf ears on top, and was loaded with fake piercings, rips, and safety pins. Lewis knew the kid probably thought he looked very punk rock, but he really came across as trying too hard.

Slightly ditched the pirate talk for exaggerated ‘Godzilla’-style disjointed lip sync speak directed at a tomboyish middle-school-aged Asian girl with a short bob cut. “Are you gonna tell him to be less sexist and racist?” asked Lewis tiredly.

“Nah. Don’t have to.” Peter launched a meatball directly into his mouth off a serving fork, swallowed, and finished, “They will.” The Asian girl tripped Hat Kid over with one smooth swipe of her leg, and the dark-skinned high-school-aged girl holding Tootles dumped a bottle of Mountain Dew on Slightly’s head. Peter cackled. “They need to get it whacked out of them to really learn!” At Lewis’s skeptical and vaguely concerned look: “Oh, it’s for their own good! Can you imagine the beating they’ll take one day if they don’t learn when they’re young?" Spoken suspiciously, Lewis thought, like someone who'd earned this kernel of wisdom the hard way.  "Those two are—” Peter pointed. “—Lilly, 16, and Magnolia, uh…” He appeared to be silently counting. “…just turned 14! I keep forgetting cuz she acts older.” He tilted sideways, blocking his mouth with cupped hand, and whispered, “Don’t rat me out, but Mags is my favorite. The boys at school gave her shit when she first showed up, so I taught her to scrap, and she’s a natural! Fences well, too! Really special talent!”

Peter was visibly beaming with pride. Adding this together with the fact that the eldest group home resident was the only one who bothered answering the door for a kid he somehow already knew was on the way, Lewis realized suddenly, ‘Oh. He’s their dad.’ The younger boy felt, warmly, more at home than he had moments ago. “These kids all seem awfully normal to me,” he remarked after a few beats.

“Look at that. You’re exactly as smart as I heard. On that note, I think I know a good place where you can find spare parts for your projects!”

“Wait, really? I mean, can I even work on them here?"

“Bah, there’s exactly one competent person in this dump who pays any attention, and she’s only here three days a week. I’ll help you keep it on the down low.” Peter offered a fist bump.

Lewis tentatively bumped back. “You’re not…concerned?”

“Dude. Worst case scenario? We’ve got like 20 fire extinguishers, and sprinklers in every room.” Thumbs-up. “No one’ll get hurt. Promise. …Make sure you grab something quick. The wild things are ravenous.”

Peter, Lewis observed, patiently waited for the younger boy to load a plate first, watching with the eyes of a starving stray cat. Lewis could even imagine said cat’s tail swishing impatiently, as Peter’s foot uncontrollably curled and extended. The ginger sprung as soon as the blonde stepped back and indiscriminately inhaled everything remaining in the various buffet containers, right off the serving utensils, like an old ‘Scooby Doo’ cartoon. Then he ‘woof’ed softly and muttered, “Needed that.” It was twice what Lewis would expect the twiggy fella to eat, in a fraction of the time. Where’d he put it all?!   

The tough-looking moon-faced girl from earlier snuck up behind Peter to prod him playfully with a fork in the back. He swung around, only momentarily irritated, before chuckling, “Fair enough, I’m dead, point to you. Whatcha need, Mags?”

Magnolia waggled the fork as if it were a rapier. “Help me get pumped up before my appointment?”

Peter’s smile grew back, bigger than ever. “I forgot that was today! How long do you have?”

“’Bout an hour.” They raced to the dayroom where two plastic Spirit Halloween swords hung crossed decoratively over the couch, snatched them, and began rowdily jumping on furniture. The other residents filtered in from the kitchen as they finished eating to watch the fencing match, separating into pro-Maggie and pro-Peter factions and cheering.

Maggie had just cornered Peter with a dramatic, “Time to die!” as she just barely nudged his shoulder blade with the edge of her sword, to a stubborn response of “Never!” Then the audience feedback abruptly hushed and Peter and Maggie’s heads snapped up to find the group home worker with the terrible hombre guiding in a bemused-looking couple. These…were clearly the folks meant to interview with Magnolia.

“I thought you had an hour,” hissed Peter.

“I thought I did, too,” Maggie whispered back sheepishly.

The others awkwardly vacated the dayroom. Peter coughed, making eye contact with Magnolia’s prospective foster-to-adopt parents. “She won!” he clarified. “Hehe. Y’know, she could probably get a fencing scholarship or something if you got her trained by a…” He paused, regarding their expressions of consternation and disinterest. “…professional.”

“Um, what else do you like to do in your free time, dear?” What followed was a fairly sexist investigation by the woman, who seemed to want a traditionally feminine daughter. Poor Magnolia looked more confused with every probing comment and question, wondering why these people were summoned here for her at all.

Peter knew why. Very few people here did their job; they didn’t know who’d match well. Furthermore, they tended to accept any inquiry because they had to. After all, these kids were the “freaks.” They had to take what they could get, right?

“Don’t worry, dear, I can see you got distracted by something and weren’t prepared for us. We can come back another time.” The woman simpered at Magnolia and then, Karen-like and far too audibly in the hallway, announced, “That girl is not for us.”

Magnolia had looked so vibrant and victorious minutes before. Now she slunk toward the 1^st floor girls’ dormitory in defeat. Lewis attempted to block her, cringing empathetically. “Maggie, you wouldn’t want her anyway. I’ve been on tons of those interviews, where guys ask me what sports I play and tune me out completely when I say I don’t. I get they want a kid with common interests, but they don’t need to be so rude about it. You’re not the problem!” Maggie growled under her breath, steely eyed, and eel swiveled under his arm to escape.

Peter had flopped on the couch, eyes on the ceiling. “Nice try, but don’t follow her, Lewis. Maggie doesn’t like being coddled. I leave her alone when she’s like this.” And Maggie always did the same for Peter. “Eventually she’ll come out and I’ll feed her ice cream and put on ‘Jackie Chan Adventures.’ She’ll perk up.”

“You okay, man?”

“Eh. …I think I didn’t help that interaction much.”

“No, you’re a good car salesman! She just wasn’t for them.”

Peter was transparently frustrated. “Anyone should want her! She’s incredible! She’s picked up the basics of 3 different martial arts, she can fence, she’s like a chess prodigy. And she’s tough, but she’s sweet. Remember I told you those boys at school were picking on her? Eventually, she kicked their asses, and then as soon as she taught them a lesson, she helped them up and asked if they could start over as friends. And they did! She’s the best!”

Lewis couldn’t apply such optimism to himself, but he willfully chose to for Magnolia. Maybe Peter’s infectious positive energy was affecting him already. “She’ll find someone who sees what you see, Peter.”

Peter, still flat-backed on the couch, turned his head and stared behind Lewis at the doorway Mags had walked through with a worry that looked like a sad, soft echo of something else. Then he snapped back to it and, a little disjointedly, stated, “I should show you your bunk.”

The 2^nd floor boys’ dormitory was what Lewis was accustomed to, albeit more cramped, since the building was smaller. Bunk beds were shoved against every wall, with everyone’s meager personal possessions piled haphazardly between them to leave enough space for walking. Peter pointed out an available mattress and Lewis dropped his suitcase on it. “I should warn you,” he began nervously, “the shiner came from my last roommate who lost his temper with me for keeping him up.”

“Seems overkill.”

“Eh, severe sleep deprivation will do that to a person… Anyway, I promise I’ll try harder to keep the noise level down this time. Limit project work to outside quiet hours and all that.” Lewis absently started counting and quickly realized the number of beds didn’t add up correctly. Unless there was another room? “Wait, where do you sleep?” Peter pointed up and across the room. Lewis’s gaze trailed to a ladder on the wall that branched up toward a tiny loft beneath a vaulted triangle window, with a partition curtain swung to the side to let the daylight in.

Peter had snared that loft the second he’d shown up here at roughly 13 years old, willing to trade the inconvenience of the taller ladder for that wide, gorgeous view of the stars every night. Then, when he got older, he could easily perform a “nightly sweep” from the “crow’s nest” to ensure everyone was peaceful. (It was an embarrassingly sentimental habit Peter couldn’t control. He was glad none of the boys caught on.) No nightmares, no insomnia. Nobody dipping anybody else’s hand in a cup of water, inciting an incident that would require unpleasant clean-up later. Nobody drawing dicks on anyone else’s face (at least, not with anything too difficult to wash off. Certain rights of passage had to be experienced, after all). Just kids peacefully asleep in the soft glow of the projector light Peter had saved from the old days spent with his big sister, Tara. The smallest of the first cohort had liked it. Once the others finished dunking on him for wanting a nightlight and actually turned the thing on, they admitted it created a nice ambiance. No one had complained since.

Peter saw the curiosity in Lewis’s eyes, fixed on the window. “Wanna see the view?”

“Eh. It’s your—”

“We’re in a boys’ home, we have no concept of privacy.” Peter scrambled up the ladder and rolled onto the mattress with a bounce.

Lewis followed close behind, poking his head over the top of the ladder but not ascending further, respectful of someone’s personal sleeping space. First, he regarded the splendid view of the sky from the large window. That must’ve been lovely at night, especially in Evergreen, where there was hardly any light pollution! Next, he noticed a leather-bound book, unlabeled, mysterious, propped up against the window. Then, scotch taped to the wall above the foot side of the mattress, a series of polaroid pictures. These depicted a younger Peter seemingly teasing a little Middle Eastern boy as the child tried imitating Peter’s acrobatic antics on a backyard jungle gym, but continuing to work with him until he got it right. In the final polaroid, Peter stood upright beside the child, who hung batlike from the monkey bars. Their smiles, directed at one another, were bright enough to power the whole town.

Peter smiled wistfully, tracking Lewi’s gaze. “Oh, that was Alan. …Lilo took those. She loved taking pictures. …He got really good, by the way. By the time he left, that kid could slide down the stair banister on a rug, standing up, like grinding rail on a skateboard!”

“Those two were…some of the old gang?” Lewis asked sensitively, taking note of the past tense.

“Yep. That reminds me. There’s still a polaroid around here somewhere. If you could snap a pic next time Maggie and I are fencing, that’d be great. I hope things work out for her, but I’m gonna miss that kid.”

Peter was surprised by Lewis’s yelp at the sight of a misshapen blue doll head poking out from under Peter’s pillow. “What on Earth is that?”

The older teen was immediately embarrassed (how did that get jostled out???) but steered into the skid. “Oh. Haha. Lilo made her, too. She was so happy the day she left, she forgot alllll about old Scrump here, but,” he continued, addressing the doll, “you forgive her, right? Scrump knows she can’t give Lilo what parents can. She’s a good sport. A really good sport. She’s in great spirits for someone with only days to live because bugs laid eggs in her ears. Ha!”

Wowww, this poor dude was going through it, Lewis realized, and it was dredging up his own insecurities. He wanted to be considerate, but he couldn’t stop his anxious mind from asking, “How many ‘old gangs’ have you been through?”

Peter fleetingly frowned, aware Lewis was thinking: ‘Am I going to end up stranded here for as long as Peter?’  “Hey, quit that, man. That’s the way you give yourself Ye Olde Fairy Tale Curse. You’ve got to believe it’ll happen, or you’ll psych yourself out.” He gently, jokingly boxed Lewis’s ears. “Save your brainpower for tinkering. Why don’t you go out and find some stuff now and start a new project? Then you’ll have something cool to show folks at interviews. And make sure I get a picture of you with it before you leave forever.”

As Lewis smiled back at the encouragement, Peter grew awkward over the emotional bonding. He cleared his throat and clapped Lewis on the shoulders. “Uh. Good talk. Have fun. Better get going, you’ve only got a couple hours of daylight left.” It was still August and the sun was setting around 8PM, but it was probably best for the kid to find his way back in daylight since he was new to town. Peter hinged his hand, motioning for Lewis’s phone. The kid provided it, and the teen entered his own number in contacts and then an address into a maps app. The ginger snapped fingers as a few more thoughts occurred to him. “Wear gloves. Check for needles.”

[X]

Peter wasn’t wrong; Ernie’s Disposal was a cavalcade of perfectly useful, recyclable spare parts. Lewis had already filled two big canvas bags with bobbles and bits, bubbling with an odd cheerfulness over the thought of granting the abandoned items new purpose. He was projecting too much, probably, imagining bringing the lonely items home to a new family the same way he ultimately hoped to be…

The orphan was distracted by the distinctive snapping sound of a soda can opening, followed by a fizz, a splash, and an irate, “Oh, seriously?!” Then an aluminum cr-UNCH and a THUD against the ground. Lewis could’ve sworn he felt tiny vibrations beneath his feet at the force. “It’s not carbonated, why would that even happen!?”

Common sense whispered at him, ‘No, you dolt, not toward the sound! You wouldn’t last 10 seconds in a horror movie!’ Still, Lewis peeked inside the opening (where a sliding door had been ripped off) of a large green van with most of its windows punched out. He and the unnamed stranger inside yelped and scrambled back in unison, Lewis on foot and the other guy awkwardly scuttling on the ground.

Lewis’s brain initially supplied the assumption “hobo” to label the stranger, but that no longer seemed correct. This dude—who Lewis estimated to be a high school senior—was grungy from sitting in the trash, his dark jeans stained brown, and had unintentionally sprayed the contents of the can on himself, freckled face and collar still dripping. Otherwise, however, he seemed in good condition, grooming and clothing-wise. Ish. A blue shirt, depicting the blue Pac Man ghost, under an orange checkered flannel wasn’t the best choice, but there was no accounting for taste. The ballcap he wore over his shaggy auburn hair seemed to have once been red, but had been poorly, patchily dyed blue, like he’d dunked it in a paint bucket once and let it drip dry. At the not-hobo’s side sat a 6-pack cardboard box of Stampede brand beer (recognizable by its black rhinoceros logo) with one empty can aggressively crushed next to it. And nothing else. Yikes. Why was he out drinking alone in a pile of trash at maybe 17-19 years of age, on one of the last days of summer, instead of, at the very least, at a house party with peers?

“What the hell are you doing out here, kid?” demanded the mystery teenager.

Lewis blinked owlishly behind his coke-bottle glasses. “Me? I’m looking for scrap metal for a project, so at least I’m doing something that makes sense.” His mouth twisted in a concerned frown as his eyes trailed back and forth between the 6-pack and the teen. “Are you…like…okay?”

Ralph Sigfried’s pasty face blushed furiously. He rapidly redirected. “Does anyone know you’re out here?” With a squint: “When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?” Lewis countered. “Peter knows I’m here.”

“That your brother?”

Lewis paused, mouth half open, thoughtful, then decided aloud on the spot, “Yeeee-eah.”

“Well, he’s a f***ing idiot, this place is dangerous.”

Lewis was seized by the oddest burst of loyalty. “He told me to wear gloves!” he defended, waggling his hands in the air. They were clad in cheap, thin latex, Ralph noted with dismay. “And to keep an eye out for needles! I was skeptical that he thought people might come out here to get high, but judging by—” The 13-year-old panned his hand over the sad image of Ralph with the beer. “—this, he might be onto something.”

“He thought there might be stray needles lyin’ around and all he did was wisely suggest you wear those?” Ralph groaned incredulously, clambering out of the van shell. “That’s it. Walk me to your house so I can pound some sense into this guy.” Noticing the kid automatically stiffen up, Ralph saw his mistake and frantically waved his arms crosswise. “Not literally, I just wanna talk. I have a kid sister; this kinda thing pisses me off.”

“I really don’t need this problem right now,” Lewis moaned into his hands.

“I promise I won’t tell your parents,” Ralph offered sympathetically. “Just let me have a chat with your brother.”

 “You’d have a hard time reaching my parents anyhow.” With meaningful, wry side eye: “I live at the corner of 6^th and Lands.”

“Haven’t lived in this town that long.”

“Group home,” Lewis supplied.

“…Ah,” Ralph uttered, softening. Then he toughened up again. “Ah! My sister claims some kids from there stole her bike this morning. More reason to talk to this Peter fella if he’s…he sounds like….uh?”

“Yup, he’s ‘dad,’” Lewis confirmed with a nod.

“Got it. Take me to your leader.”

Lewis’s eyes narrowed. “You’re only going to get your sister’s bike back, right? No picking fights?”

Ralph raised his palms. “No picking fights.” [Canned audience laughter.]

The boy extended his hand. “Lewis.”

“Ralph.” The handshake Lewis received wasn’t what he was expecting at all. Not firm. Almost dainty, even. The guy shook hands like he was used to touching anything of value as lightly as possible to avoid shattering it.

You know what, Lewis considered, maybe this wasn’t an awful idea. Peter had made him feel better in minutes flat, so maybe he could lift this guy’s spirits, too. What was the worst that could happen?

[X]

A pleasant enough 15-minute introduction and small-talk-filled walk later, Lewis, wanting not to draw the attention of any employees, texted Peter that he forgot his key so he’d come down to the door. Peter appeared, chipper as ever, with a “Find anything good?” and then halted at the sight of the latex gloves, slapping his forehead. “Moron, I meant the big rubber cleaning ones!”

“Oops,” said Lewis.

Ralph examined the slender red-headed teen in front of him, brain uncontrollably and rudely producing the label “teacup chihuahua.” The baggy clothes were probably meant to obscure how small he was, but the strategy was backfiring. Some rowdy kids decided, as a group, unironically, that this was the authority figure? Snapping out of his incredulity, Ralph finally processed Peter’s remark about the heavy cleaning gloves. He conceded aloud with shade, because he just couldn’t control himself: “That’s better, I guess.”

Peter eyeballed Ralph, brow cocked. “Lewis, you brought home a stray?”

“Why would you direct this kid to Ernie’s Disposal?”

“Ralph. Chill. Out,” Lewis growled.

“For scrap metal,” Peter answered simply.

“To do what?”

Peter ignored Ralph entirely and addressed Lewis. “Bud, I think I know where we can get you some welding equipment.”

“Let’s talk about that later.” Lewis tried to sheer the ship back to harbor. “Ralph here actually came over for—”

“Welding equipment? Why does he need welding equipment?” Sigfried demanded.

Hollows crossed his arms. “So he can weld, Bright Eyes.”

“Is he old enough to operate welding equipment? I have seen welding accidents. My mom and step-dad do a lot of—”

“He’s gifted. What, you want me to discourage it?”

“Well, no, I m— Only temporarily. Until it’s safe!”

“Bike—” Lewis started desperately.

“Ah-ah!” Peter snapped his hand like an alligator jaw in Lewis’s face in the universal “shut your trap” motion and ignored the blonde’s indignant huff. Lewis hadn’t anticipated how easily Peter could be lured into petty pissing contests with people he’d just met.

The ginger exaggeratedly pressed his palms to his cheeks and jested of Ralph, “Well, slap a dish towel on his arm and call him Steve! Kids, I’ve found y’all a mom!” His face fell flat again. “And at what moment in time precisely does it become ‘safe?’” he falsetto’d. “I’m not gonna stick him in bubble wrap, man.”

Now Peter gently pushed Lewis behind him as he caught a whiff of the air. “I’m sorry, who are you again, and is your blood made of Stampede? I can hear the beer jingle through my nose.” Stampede brand beer had a distinctive odor by virtue of being a comically rank beer, the kind anyone with a modicum of self-respect only drank once already drunk. This was why it was so cheap…and why Ralph was willing to drink it sober. [Canned audience laughter.]

“You’re smelling the one I spilled on myself. That was all I managed to do before I ran into the kid. There, I’m guilty of being a klutz, big crime! Now why was he unattended in a landfill? Could you not have at least been with him?”

Peter tipped to the side and whispered in a dramatized aside: “Lewis. Was he…was he drinking alone in the landfill?”

“I just moved here, I don’t know anybody!”

Peter looked sincerely intrigued. “That doesn’t explain the trash pile part?”

“No— Grahhh— Don’t worry about me, worry about him!”  Ralph pointed at Lewis, exasperated. “Do the adults know what the kids get up to? Or are you the primary one watching them?”

“That’s right,” Peter returned grimly with a wry smile. “I’m up in here doing these shitheads’ jobs for free.” He employed jazz hands to take the edge off the airing of grievances. “Haha, Siri, play ‘Mr. Mom!’”

“Okay, so I am blaming the right person.”

Lewis' and Peter’s jaws dropped simultaneously. Lewis, a bright child, connected the dots nebulously linking “drinking alone in the garbage” with this unfortunate conversation. This Ralph character felt bad about something related to the kid sister he'd mentioned on the walk here, and now he was PROJECTING LIKE HELL at the first available target. Effectively. Lewis had pegged Peter Hollows as a difficult guy to ruffle, so it surely meant something that a vein visibly throbbed in the short teen’s head à la Hank Hill. “Ralph, stop pressing buttons!” Lewis mouthed angrily.

Peter barked out an amazed laugh, shaking his head. His wide, stiff smile couldn’t mask nearly unfettered rage flashing through his eyes like lightening. “You, sir, have entered the smackin’ zone. Step back behind the line for your safety.” He jabbed a finger at the taller teen. “Maybe you question where I let the kids go, but I normally know where they all are, unlike most of the negligent craps who ‘work’ here!”

"I didn’t say it was right, man. But I’m the primary caretaker for my little sister, too. Fair or no, I take this shit seriously, and so should you!”

‘Ha! You can’t write jokes like that!’ Peter thought with a newfound smirk, eyes twinkling. “Oh really? So where is your little sister right now?”

Ralph scowled, inhaling deeply through his nose. “This isn’t typical. I’m usually at home with my sister.”

“But you’re no-ot,” Peter sing-songed.

"I also very deliberately did not bring Valerie with me to a landfill.”

“To inhale beer,” Peter finished.

“Yes. That,” Ralph seethed, squeezing one fist like he was imagining holding a stress ball.

“Look. To address your point: Kids should be able to try anything. And you can safely try anything if you’re prepared for everything. Which I am. As the officially-declared household Safety Ambassador,” Peter announced like a royal title with a bow and a flourish, trying instinctively to bring the levity back.

“Reeeaaally?” said Ralph, oozing incredulity.

“REALLY?” Lewis interjected with earnest, wide-eyed surprise.

Peter shot Lewis a brief, irritated look of ‘et tu, Brute?’ with an adorable wrinkling of his nose before fixing his attention on Ralph again. “Oh, yeah. I’m certified in every first aid, safety, and compliance course you can possibly take. If something’s on fire, I put it out. If somebody’s falling, I catch that little shit so fast you’d think I flew there. These kids are safer than a Deltoid in your pocket!” Peter sassed.

“Very mature,” said Ralph.

Peter “bleh”d with his tongue out, leaning fully into the childishness for effect. “Know what, lemme check my pockets right now.” The cargo pants’ purpose was illuminated. “Check it!” Peter removed items from his pocket and began juggling them, because why not. The list included, amongst other things, Neosporin and alcohol wipes, a gauze roll, an Epi-pen, and a Narcan.

Ralph noted the combination of “check for needles” and “Narcan” in such quick succession but opted not to touch that surely drama-infused mystery yet. Instead: “Glad to hear the household is so safe. Lucky Ernie’s Disposal is right next door instead of a 15min walk away, huh? Or is there, like, a Narnia cabinet you can walk through straight into the dump, where all the rusted metal, broken glass, mystery fluids, rotting food, and rat carcasses magically become OSHA compliant under the reality-bending gaze of the almighty 6^th Street Group Home Safety Ambassador?”

Dead silence. This was evidently a very, very, VERY sore spot for Hollows.

‘Shit!’ the youngest boy fretted, ‘Peter’s gonna stab this guy in the eye. I’m about to watch a murder!’ “His sister’s bike—” Lewis peeped.

“Lewis, go inside!” Peter waved him off sternly. Lewis surrendered and obeyed. Hollows continued staring Sigfried down and then, coldly, after a too-long pause that nearly crushed him with embarrassment, said, “I’m also skilled at the tactful art of not rolling up to group homes for minors, smelling like beer, to lecture about child safety.” He smiled that fake rictus grin again and batted his big brown eyes cartoonishly. “Sooooo. See ya!”

Peter started to slam the door in Ralph’s face, aiming for a solid mic drop. He didn’t foresee the hulking teen catching it, stopping the momentum, and easily wrenching it back open with one arm. Peter blinked up at Ralph and registered, ‘Shiiiit, I have to take him seriously.’

“One sec, I do need to ask something else.”

Peter straightened, inflating his chest in a way Ralph would’ve found cartoonishly ridiculous if the other boy’s eyes hadn’t just darkened considerably. That look alone added half a metaphorical foot to the gnome. “No, you do not.” (Ralph realized his mistake immediately. Crap, how did he always manage to look terrifying just by existing?!) “I’m damned well-trained in MMA. I can hit a bullseye with a pocket-knife 3 out of 4 times at a distance. And if anyone threatens my kids, I’ll rip out their larynx and mount it on my wall,” Hollows informed him without a trace of humor.

Ralph’s rapidly shifting emotions started with surprise. Then skepticism. Then a recalculation: ‘Nahhh, actually, if this 5’4 shrimp spent his whole life in boys’ homes, he must’ve learned to fight reeaal quick.’ Lastly, begrudging respect. Eyebrows lifting, he responded, “You know what? I believe you.”

Peter looked like he could spit. “I don’t give a flying f*** if you believe me!”

Ralph relinquished his grip on the door. “Apologies. Didn’t mean to be startling. Sometimes I forget how, uh…I can…come across?” He panned his hand up and down his massive frame.

“Do I look scared to you, asshole?” Peter asked flatly.

“No, you do not.” Ralph felt oddly appreciative of that. “Let’s agree to disagree on childcare. Can I please—”

“Peter? What’s going on?” called a woman’s alto voice from the hallway, interrupting.

Peter nearly jumped out of his skin. Ralph was intrigued that now the smaller boy looked afraid, when the voice sounded so nonthreatening. “Mildred?!”

Lewis, who’d remained snooping near the stairwell inside, inferred additional truths immediately: (1) Mildred was the “one competent person in this dump who pays attention.” (2) This was not one of the three days she normally worked on site. (3) Peter respected Mildred. (4) Peter would dissolve into a puddle of acidic humiliation if Mildred felt he put the kids in harm’s way.

The elf-like teen whipped around and enthusiastically finger gunned with a, “Heyyyy biiiitch!” The middle-aged black woman wearing a pixie cut and a simple cream-colored dress narrowed her eyes sternly. “Oh—ha!—that’s used like a term of endearment, Millie! Obviously. …I didn’t know you were working tonight?”

“They called me in to speak to Maggie.” Mildred frowned. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier. Something came up at one of the other sites.”

“…She’s that upset?”

“I’m about to check on her. Is there a problem here?”

The look Peter cast Ralph over his shoulder was meant to be 100% stony-faced challenging, but Ralph detected a pinch of pleading in it. “No big deal. That Lewis kid got turned around in town since he’s new, so I walked him home is all,” Ralph lied pleasantly, watching Peter’s muscles visibly un-tense.

“Aw. Well. Such a gentleman! Thank you!” Mildred departed, satisfied. Peter’s teetering, fake “at-ease” expression fell off his face and shattered, replaced by relief. He was much too proud to thank Ralph out loud, but he was thinking it.

Ralph cleared his throat to recapture the other boy’s attention. “What I was going to say is my little sister claims one of the boys here took off with her bike today. So, I came to see if I could get it back. Lewis made me promise to lead with that, but…I have a nasty habit of getting into arguments.” The big guy thumped his own chest with a, “My bad. Restart?”

Peter knew if anybody set a verbal bear trap he always flew himself straight into it, so he couldn’t throw any stones. “Fair enough. …Yeah. Let’s fix that. …You probably shouldn’t come in here smelling like beer. Lemme go in and ask about it. Be right back.”

Peter passed a cross-armed, stern-looking Lewis on his way to find the other boys. “I tried to tell you.”

“Yeah, yeah… Sorry.” A thought struck Peter. “Oh, hey, buddy? … When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?” he asked with a sheepish grin. Lewis pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

[x]

When Peter reopened the door with a different scrawny blonde kid in tow, Ralph observed shenanigans behind him. Two tiny twins and one heavy-set kid darted by with Nerf guns, shooting at a swiftly moving, fluffy-tailed box with crudely-cut eyeholes. The animal in the box crashed into a chair leg with a yowl while fleeing the children. Ralph was visibly disappointed again already. “You let them shoot at the cat?!”

“I said it was kinda harsh. But they’re only styrofoam Nerf bullets, and the cat has armor now!”

“You thought making the cat a cardboard box suit of armor made it fair?”

“Fair-er? Besides, Lucifer has this coming to him. The little rat bastard hides in the stairwell at night and waits for people to walk by so he can sink his claws into their feet,” Peter reported bitterly.

Orange Hoodie kid piped up. “Aw, Peter’s just holding a grudge because the cat made him scream like a little bitch.”

Slightly had only been around for 2 months, but he’d already done everything in his puny power to undermine Peter or break his composure. Peter let the kid dunk on him as a gesture of goodwill, since the poor brat was understandably gloomy when he’d arrived, but this was getting old fast. Peter stepped on the kid’s foot, and Slightly grunted. “Explain why there’s a green and pink bike that doesn’t belong to anyone here disassembled in the backyard.”

“I’m not the one who—”

“You were in the process of disassembling it when I walked into the yard.”

Slightly dropped the act. “Was gonna leave different pieces of it at her locker every day. Like mailing people fingers in a mobster flick.”

Peter used every ounce of self-control in his body not to high-five the child. “Then you did steal it?”

“Only because she robbed us.”

“A little girl stole your pocket money?”

“Probably!” Lil shouted from the hallway.

“Screw you!” Slightly shouted back at her.

“No, thanks!” Lil shot back sweetly.

“It’s not like you’re thinking. I mean she pick-pocketed us,” Slightly explained.

Peter swiveled to face Ralph with a big shit-eating grin. “Really?”

“Really?” Ralph echoed, face-palming in abject dismay. This was clearly a frequent occurrence.

“Only in grade school, and already a klepto!” Peter swept hand over forehead dramatically. “If only her big brother were home with her giving her the love and attention she needs for proper, healthy psychological development.”

“Screw you,” said Ralph.

“No, thanks!” chimed Peter. He resumed ‘Dad Voice’ to inform Slightly, “Listen, that girl’s coming over here tomorrow, and you’re apologizing to each other and each getting your bike-slash-money back.”

“Ehhhhh,” Ralph objected. “Part of me wants to haul the scraps back home tonight and give you the money tomorrow. I can’t convey how little I want these two to interact again.”

Peter huffed. “Sure, they shouldn’t have taken her bike, but my boys aren’t dangerous.”

Ralph lifted his palm as a sign of peace and clarified, “Noooo, thaaaat’s not the reason.” He grimaced uneasily at the all-too-familiar devilish glint in this Slightly brat’s eyes.

“I’m perfectly fine with this,” said the kid in the wolf hat.

“Thank jeebus, now you two won’t inevitably fall madly in love and then spend the rest of your lives tormenting me as a team,” Ralph joked.

Slightly loudly “EWWWW!”d in disgust. Peter lit up like a X-mas tree as the perfect punishment revealed itself. He snagged the kid’s hood before he could flee. “Oh, hoho, you are meeting this girl again and getting completely infested with cooties!”

“Hard no!”

“I second the hard no.”

Peter leered mischievously. “Shame you both were so obnoxious to me today, isn’t it?” He released Slightly and addressed Ralph. “Bike parts stay here tonight, bring Val by tomorrow.”

“Have mercy,” said Ralph, noting Peter picked up Valerie’s name awfully fast. He’d only mentioned it once, right?

Peter smirked. “Never.”

“Would you boys shut the door already?! You’re letting in flies!”

“Sorry, Millie!” Peter stepped onto the landing and clicked the door shut. “C’mon, dude, you said you just moved here. It’s a built-in group of friends for your sis.”

“You truly don’t understand what you’ve brought upon yourself, but sure. Just so I can say ‘I told you so.’”

“You’re seriously underestimating the cats I’ve already herded, dude.”

[x]

[Flashback starts]

Peter stumbled backward into the dayroom from the dimly-lit kitchen one evening as the younger kids sat watching cartoons. “Raccoon. Wild raccoon! Eating my Coco Puffs!” He swung in a circle, jabbing an accusatory finger. “WHO?!”

A little Middle Eastern boy sitting cross-legged on an area rug helpfully educated, “Raccoons are legal pets in the fine commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

“Yeah, if they’re vaccinated!” Peter snapped. “Alan, we’ve discussed this. I want a raccoon, too, they’re cute as crap. But they’re too unnaturally smart for anything in nature allowed thumbs—”

“Yup! Almost as good as a monkey!”

“—which means,” Peter continued, “as 13-year-old me could personally testify, you cannot train a racoon!”

“Maybe you can’t train a raccoon, old man.”

“Oh, it obeys you, then, does it, smartass? Huh?” Peter steered Al into the kitchen. “Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me!” he demanded, flipping on another set of lights.

In the brighter fluorescent lighting, it grew evident that the patchy, twitching, heavily drooling raccoon was unwell. “…I…have let in…the wrong animal friend,” Al acknowledged apologetically.

The racoon growled and barked, spitting foam at the now-screaming cluster of children who had gathered curiously behind Al and Peter. “Whoa!” Peter yelped, snapping one arm out like a steel bar protectively in front of the kids. The beast lunged. With his free arm, Peter whipped a stun gun out of his cargo pants at warp speed (the kids often wondered if those cargo pants functioned like a Tardis that could store infinite objects) and zapped the creature, which fell rigidly on its back atop the kitchen tile. The gang sighed in relief. Peter descended into a sweeping bow, smugly announcing, “Situation contained. You’re welcome.”

A little Hawaiian girl shoved her way through the legs of a few taller kids and charged in, wailing, “Nooo! You killed Mr. Pudge!? He controls the weather!!!” She furiously batted the stun gun out of Peter’s hand and tugged her own hair in devastation. “Now global warming’s gonna kill us all even faster!”

Peter reminded himself trying to understand the kid’s theories was futile. “Calm down, Lilo, stun guns only stun! But that’s why we need to get him out of here FAST.” Speak of the devil—the racoon made a quick recovery and dove on Peter, climbing him like a cat’s scratching post. “SHIT!” Peter hissed and held perfectly still. “Al,” he whispered pleadingly. “Get the stun gun and toss it to me.” 

Alan decided the stun gun was farther across the room than he was willing to traverse at risk of a Mr. Pudge attack. With big, apologetic eyes, he uttered gravely, “Sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice!” the rest of the gang exclaimed in unison, fleeing in terror.

“You traitorous little rats!” Peter called.

“Death’s sure to be an awfully big adventure, Peter!” Al quipped behind the safety of the kitchen door.

The raccoon bit down on Peter’s upper thigh. Loud profanity echoed through the night.

[Time skip, next afternoon]

The gang eyed Peter concernedly from various positions in the home’s backyard. They peered from behind a tree, or the playground, or a bush. Some loomed ominously over the hammock from the branches of the two trees it swung between, confident they were adequately sneaky. They absolutely weren’t.

Peter accepted that he was forbidden to relax in this hammock and read old comics in peace. “Kids. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Lilo approached warily and poked his arm. “We’re waiting for you to foam at the mouth. How much longer do you have? I’ll miss you.”

“Oh, please. I got the shot fast. Doc says I’m physically cleared.” He beamed a glance across the yard at a homemade gravestone comprised of some bricks labeled “Mr. Meekabu Pudge” in black Sharpie. “But I’d say I’m psychologically deranged, since I willingly officiated your funeral for a raccoon that nearly gave me rabies.”

“Maggie thought maybe if we honored him, he’d be merciful,” Lilo explained, then nervously observed, “But it’s awful hot today, isn’t it?”

[x]

[Flashback ends]

Peter concluded his tale for wide-eyed Ralph with, “And Al and Lilo…were both adopted.”

“…Huh.”

“Yeah, I know. Like, good for them, but…” The ginger bounced his eyebrows and looked askance.

“Okay, never mind. I think you might be prepared for Valerie after all,” Ralph assessed. The pair chuckled together, feeling amicable now. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a weird dude?”

“Sure, all the time. Why now specifically?”

“I mean….you’re not wrong that I—” Sigfried cut himself short as something sunk in. Slowly, horror dawning on his face, the big guy repeated, “I really did roll up to a group home for minors smelling like beer and pick a fight with you about child safety…” Ralph’s pale face sunk into his large hands with a groan. Then he whapped himself upside the head. Judging by the sound, it was too hard to be merely for symbolic effect. “Peak me. Unbelievable! I’m a f***ing trash human!”

Peter joked through his discomfort. “Oh, please. I’ve met trash humans. You’re just garden-variety annoying.”

Ralph shook his head. “See, that’s what I mean. I pull that nonsense, and you’re making jokes to cheer me up and benevolently setting up playdates for my kid sister, who robbed your boys for sport?”

“They’re not ‘my boys,’ geez,” Peter laughed dismissively.

“You’re the one who called them that.”

“What?” Peter blinked. “No I didn’t.”

“…Ooookay.”

Peter shrugged and answered Ralph’s original question. “I just try to be friendly, man.”

“Well, you’re good at it. Uh…Peter?”

“Peter Hollows. You’re Ralph, right?” Ralph was surprised yet again. Lewis had maybe said his name once or twice? “Lotta kids coming and going, I learn names quick,” Peter explained, noting Ralph’s puzzled look.

“Yup, Ralph Sigfried. I’ll make sure they get their money back and orange kid catches cooties tomorrow.” A quick thumbs up. “Sorry about the hassle. I’ll head out.”

“I’m coming with you. We’re going back to Ernie’s,” said Peter decisively. It wasn’t a suggestion. He opened the door briefly just to snag a pair of sneakers off the rack in the doorway. “You owe me one of those beers for the stress you caused me, idiot.”

“You drink? Aren’t you, like, a freshman?”

Peter shot him a deadpan look. “I’m a senior, Ralph.”

Ralph pursed his lips and tried being less obvious about looking down to make eye contact. “Ah. My bad.”

“No, please, say the quiet part out loud.” Peter tried to look unaffected and didn’t notice himself automatically standing straighter, inching just slightly taller, as much as his spine could manage.

Despite the day he was having, Ralph almost smirked and decided it might be worth letting the elf tag along, if he got to have fun flustering him some more. He motioned for Peter to follow him.

Peter did so, springily, as they started down 6^th street in the direction of the dump. “And what’re you?”

“Junior. Shoulda been a senior this year, but…eh. Shit happens.” Ralph counted himself lucky he’d been allowed to start school early on account of all his grandpa’s and (sometimes) mother’s tutoring, despite his late birthday, or else he’d be 2 years behind, which would suck even more.

Peter knew when he wasn’t supposed to ask a follow-up question. Instead, he asked, “How were you drinking alone in the dump? Like, if you don’t know anyone yet, where’d you even get the alcohol?”

“I look like this, dude. I walked right into the store. They didn’t even ID me.”

“And I…KNOW that now!” Peter delightedly did a goofy little jig complete with victory fist pumps. “Congratulations, Sigfried, you have just become my new best friend!”

Chapter Text

Lewis watched the two new friends stride down the sidewalk together while the sun began dipping lower in the sky, content that they'd bypassed the danger of ending their interaction with a brawl. The tween returned to the other kids. He should start getting to know them. Lewis considered various openers for conversation, then settled on approaching Slightly, who was sulking on the dayroom couch after being thwarted in his grand master plan to play Mob Boss using Valerie’s bike as a prop. “Hey, Sam.”

“Slightly.”

“Right.”

“Lewis?”

“Yup. So… I just have to ask…” From the sound of that exchange with Nate/Nibs this morning, the kids in the house all knew this story. “Did Peter really blow off some poor dude’s hand with a firecracker? Or is that something he fabricated so the rest of us would feel better about whatever we screwed up?”

“Actually, yeah, he did. And funnily enough it didn’t even dampen his enjoyment of 4^th of July fireworks. Lil tells me he watches them faithfully every year and shreds on air guitar to the Boston version of the Star Spangled Banner like he’s having a religious experience.”

“Yeahhh, soooo, that’s EXACTLY how we know it didn’t actually happen,” Lewis pointed out, rolling his eyes. “You just take his word for it?”

“Nope!” Slightly looked energized now, eager to share his findings with fresh ears. “In fact, I thought I could prove Peter was tellin’ big fish stories about certain things and wave it in his face, if I got into his file. Wanted to Xerox the page with ‘pathological liar’ on it and frame it. …They still keep paper copies of everything here. Isn’t that ridiculous? Why do they think a lock is harder to crack than a password for a USB stick? And Peter really needs to ask follow-up questions when kids ask him to teach them how to pick locks.”

“He teaches you to pick locks just because you asked?” 

“Anyway, to Peter’s credit, he’s telling a version of the truth most of the time! This guy’s luck is wild.” Abruptly, Slightly leapt to his feet and hollered the same way someone would yell for roll call, “LORE DROP!”

“LORE DROP!” the other kids chanted, reassembling in the living area like a bunch of scattered magnets in a way Lewis would need to grow accustomed to. It was bizarre, even creepy, yet endearing—they really were a little united tribe.

Curly switched off the lamp while Nibs drew the curtains, and the other kids simultaneously cracked little green glowsticks that they were…what, just carrying around with them in case this happened? “What even is this household?” Lewis murmured.

The gang sat cross-legged on the carpet while Slightly stood grandly on the couch, ready to announce the beginning of the story in a way that reminded Lewis vaguely of the way Gerald Johanson used to tell stories on ‘Hey Arnold’ in the re-runs he’d seen. “For instance, his beloved sister?” Hack hem. “Tara Hollows.”

“Tara Hollows,” the gang repeated reverently, convincing Lewis they’d been shown ‘Hey Arnold’ re-runs as well.

Slightly clasped his hands beneath his chin and batted his eyes dramatically. “Told Peter she was his big sister. Told him their parents were dead, that they died in a fire, and she rescued him but couldn’t save them in time. Also remarked that they weren’t very nice parents, so she and Peter were better off by themselves. But she wasn’t his sister. Wasn’t even a relative. She was just your average, every day manic pixie dream girl off her meds who one day decided, hey, a kid would be fun, casually lifted him out of a stroller in a park, and Tallulah’d right off into the sunset!”

[Tara flashback starts] 

On a sunny, warm weekend late afternoon in May, a petite but curvy young woman flitted innocuously through a park in California amongst playing children and adults picnicking and chatting with their friends or fellow parents. She wore a black Pixies band tank top with an army green cargo miniskirt, fishnets, and black docks. Her platinum blonde hair was amassed into a messy bun. A smattering of silver stars were tattooed up and down her arms. Despite Tara’s flashy presentation, she’d always possessed an (unwanted) talent for going unnoticed. The woman’s blocky green sound-canceling earphones privately played her a big band arrangement of ‘Once Upon a Dream’ while she thought with the glee of a small child being driven to a pet store, ‘Time to pick out my new baby sibling!!!’

She was cheerful, light in her step, but with something a little off about it, too exaggerated, her pupils mildly dilated. Technically, Tara wasn’t high right now. Probably, she thought bitterly, she wouldn’t be for a long time. She was coming down from a touch of mania, but that left her in precisely the right state to complete this final preparatory activity before her grand adventure. She was far more coherent and rational than before, but still close enough to that high-flying confidence, still with one foot in the door enabling her to be brave, to take the leap and follow her dream before she lost nerve. No more endless days of thankless, exhausting labor like a workhorse or a greyhound trying to impress its master for Tara. She was finally—better late than never—going to get to get to be a kid and, best of all, play all day with the baby brother or sister she’d always yearned for!

Parents left and right remained comically unobservant, conversing with fellow adults while Tara peered into one neglected stroller after another. She waved a handmade bell rattle overhead like a dowsing rod, as if performing one of those customs where children choose an object that determines their destiny. None of these children had anything as lofty as destiny on the mind; they only cared to yawn and stretch like kittens napping in a sun patch. Ugh. A few older kids who’d previously been focused on flying a kite eyeballed her suspiciously. Tara simply played the honesty card, pantomiming pinching chubby baby cheeks and cooing over the infants. Welp, okay, just a lady being baby crazy, nothing untoward about that, the kids decided, and dismissed it.

Tara gasped joyfully as one of the children yanked the rattle. He only wanted the toy, though, and seemed downright irritated by her attempts to play with him. When she tried taking it back, he chucked it at her head. Tara frowned sourly, zipped up the hood of his stroller, and stuck out her tongue. No more cozy sun patch for the bad kitty—f*** you. The next little girl cried at the stranger; Tara darted away like an anxious mosquito to avoid unwanted attention. The next few kids farted or spat on her.

Tara wandered down a hill and thought she might try a different park when she saw the last stroller. Although it was to her benefit, the sight flooded her with disgust because said pram had rolled down a hill into a dogwood tree while the mother sat comfortably on a bench somewhere, oblivious. Don’t worry, kid! Good Big Sissy Tara will rescue you from the bad mommy who doesn’t care where you are! The child, understandably, was whimpering softly but not outright crying. Interesting.

Tara approached, dangled the bell. The whimpers ceased; a little pudgy hand snatched the toy. Tara leaned over the stroller, bouncing excitedly on tiptoe, waiting for the infant to register signs of life beyond the bell. A few experimental jangles later, the infant detected human eye contact and stared inquisitively back at her. Tara made the dumbest, most clownish silly face she could—stretching her mouth with her thumbs, sticking out her tongue, wiggling her fingers, the whole tropey 9 yards. The child erupted into peals of laughter and accidentally whapped one of her earphones with the bell rattle. The headset was knocked askew, one ear now uncovered while the touch activation changed the song. The speaker covering Tara’s other ear began playing ‘First Day of My Life.’

Tara’s face went slack for a moment, as if she’d been struck by lightning or seen a miracle. The scene was indeed magical, especially when the breeze gusted, raining white dogwood petals around their heads. The kid quieted, unsettled by her sudden unresponsiveness. Then a petal landed on his nose, he sneezed, and began laughing at his own funny noise. Tara, overwhelmed with fondness, tickled him and ruffled the fluff of ginger hair on his small head. She smiled broadly at the angelic giggles, trying to keep her eyes from welling up. This was The One.

Tara settled her earphones around her neck and leaned closer. The infant managed to yank her bun, undo the hair tie and then slingshot the elastic band back at her face. He shouldn’t even have the fine motor skills to do that yet, goddammit! Tara spluttered and rearranged her hair, affixing the bell rattle to her freshly-made bun with the thick hair tie like a decorative chopstick, while the child clapped at his own success. Welp. Impossible to stay mad at a face like that. Now he was extending his arms toward her for…uppies? “Really?” Tara reminded herself through her surprise to be pleased. “Don’t mind if I do!”

From one of her cargo skirt’s pockets, Tara produced a baby-bjorn so intricately-folded it would make Ted Mosby or Marie Kondo weep with joy. She unfurled it, donned the item correctly over her chest to insert the cooing child more easily, but then sloughed it off and settled him over her shoulders like a back-pack instead. Tara Hollows zoomed away making airplane noises, arms outspread, as his delighted squeals increased.

Nobody noticed a thing, as if neither of them even existed to any of these ignorant twats. Well. Who cared. Tara noticed Peter and Peter noticed her.

Everything was packed up, all the forged paperwork prepared. She deposited Peter in a dubiously-well-attached car seat behind the driver’s seat, snuggled him into a blanket, and plopped a formula bottle into his hands. The kid wore a perfectly contended "I ain’t asking no questions, everything feels kosher to me" facial expression. Fantastic. …Well. Maybe not entirely. Tara’s smile drooped at her decidedly unhappy thought. Peter had no apprehension at all. He reached for her, bumped his head against her like a cat, as if she’d been raising him all along. “Your mom didn’t pay attention to you, huh?” Peter gurgled in reply.  “My dad didn’t pay attention to me either. ...It’s okay. We don’t need them.” She pecked him on the head and buckled him in, testing the belt like one would on an amusement park ride (she knew she wasn’t the best driver to ever grace the freeway). Tara fired up ‘Bat Out of Hell’ on the stereo, picked up the highway, and headed east.   

During her first rest break, Tara found Peter didn’t have his sea legs yet; he’d gotten carsick all over the blanket. Tara tossed it aside flippantly to be dealt with later, removed the oversized green hoodie she’d donned once the sun went down, and swaddled the boy. It was a major sacrifice, since everyone knows that no matter the relationship—romantic, platonic, and gender dynamics aside—once you give up a hoodie, you ain’t getting it back, and this was a SOFF hoodie. But Tara made the sacrifice gladly because, dang, that kiddo looked cozy as hell. She switched on the cheap projector star lamp she’d ordered. “I’m gonna make you one special, but this is good for now, right?”

Tara took the helm again and switched on ‘Lost Boys and Golden Girls.’ She couldn’t sing worth a damn, but Meatloaf could, and soon the performer’s voice lulled the infant into his first night of peaceful sleep in his new home.

Together, Tara and Peter had a home now.

[Flashback ends]

“Day-um!” Curly exclaimed for effect.

“Indeed,” Slightly replied. “You might think that’s a very improbably tale, and I’d agree with you, but I’ve seen the evidence.”

“She must’ve known folks who were professionals at forged documents and fake plates and stuff,” said Nibs.

“We think she scoped out a kid about 1 year old because he probably had all the major shots already,” offered Curly.

“She crossed state lines all the time in the RV,” added Thing 1.

“It was a camper,” Thing 2 corrected.

“RV!”

“Camper!”

“It was an RV,” Slightly clarified. “Can you imagine keeping little Peter contained in a tiny camper? It was a big ol’ RV named the—”

“The Reo Speedwagon!” announced Thing 1.

“Ewww, are you kidding? It was The Led Zeppelin!” Thing 2 argued.

“It was clearly The Van Halen!” Curly insisted.

“It wasn’t even a van, you dumb lunk!” said Nibs.

Slightly grew more obviously pleased to be the keeper of the canon with every disagreement. “It was The Bat Out of Hell, gentlemen.”

[Tara]

The kid was such a ham. Tara had a home video taken with a dashcam of little 4-year-old Peter strapped (inadvisably) into his car seat in the front seat beside her, wearing a boating hat, swaying his plastic toy steering wheel side to side like he was helping her “pilot the ship.”

When he was old enough to contribute, they redesigned the RV together. On a black background, they painted white wingy, vaguely bat-like creatures flying in a night sky full of stars, clouds, and a moon. On either side, they drew two overlapping hearts with wings, one green, one red.

Over countless cumulative hours spent on road trips—singing “Baby, you’re the only thing in this whole world that’s pure and good and right, and wherever you are, and wherever you go, there’s always gonna be some light,” with Peter laughing his perfect, treasured laugh at her “dying cat voice”—Tara started to believe that “happily ever after” was real.

“Why’d they let him keep that part in?” Peter complained once of the motorcycle crash sequence at the finale of ‘Bat Out of Hell,’ when he was about 7 years old.

“The songwriter was a theater dork. He made everything super campy, for fun.”

“Oh, I just meant it’s a bummer the guy finally got the life he wants and he doesn’t get to live it.”

“So, you want an easy, uncomplicated story, then?” Tara teased Peter. “With a cute little cookie cutter ending and a rainbow and a treasure chest? Holy Howard Ashman, I raised such a boring baby brother, where did I go wrong?!” she wailed in fake dismay. “The disgrace!”

“Heyyyy!”

Tara raspberried him.

[End]

“Peter got fed a steady diet of sugary breakfast cereal, Red Bull, and 70s-90s rock,” Slightly went on. “He grew up on the road 24/7, supposedly visited every state twice. And he repeatedly got hopelessly lost in the farthest untouched corners of every major national park due to the navigating skills of the most mediocre never-was-a-girl-scout of all time.”

“She thought Jupiter was the North Star,” interjected Thing 1.

“She thought Saturn was the North Star,” objected Thing 2.

“Jupiter!”

“Saturn!”

“He’d be really useful in a zombie apocalypse,” Slightly noted. “He and Tara got fantastic at survival skills and building shelters, but she never got any better with directions.”

“Writers,” Lewis breathed. “How…how was he educated?”

“It's really easy to homeschool children, my dude. Plus, freelance tutoring for kids online was on the laundry list of gigs she used to make money. To be fair, she must’ve done alright, because he tested into the right grade level.”

“Peter said she was very opinionated about traditional education not fostering true independent thought,” Lil mentioned.

“Did she say that before or after she ordered him to ‘do what Tara tells you and never ask why?’” Nibs cracked, to a few peeps of laughter from the peanut gallery.

“But yeah, no one caught on to her being a child abductor for years, against all odds,” Slightly regained control of the narrative. “Pretty incredible. Almost like she lived in a cartoon or something. That and she was crazy smart! If you Google this lady’s real identity before she got herself fake papers—”

“Anabelle?”

“Allison, right?”

“Abigail. Before she kidnapped Peter, she was an engineering prodigy at some tech institute in California who was already developing designs for her father’s company.”

‘Wow,’ Lewis thought, ‘no wonder Peter was so immediately supportive of my tinkering…’

“Daddy must’ve pissed her off real good, because one day, she sold a bunch of designs she created to his competitor, disowned him without a word, and f***ed off forever, never to be seen again!”

“Peter says that’s very consistent with what he remembers about Tara’s temper tantrums,” Nibs chuckled.

“This does mean technically she never graduated,” Slightly continued. Then, exaggeratedly, as if he were the narrator of the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’: “Who knows exactly what went wrong one day?”

“Drugs!” chorused the kids, as if they were the audience of said show.

“What do you think her father did?” asked Lewis.

[Tara] 

Like many students in high-pressure universities, Abigail already abused study drugs. She only tried coke for the first time—for the extra lift she needed for her coursework and her design work—to please her dad! It was so impossible to please her dad. No matter what she accomplished, there was no thanks, the bar was simply raised higher, higher, higher, until she’d need to fly to reach it.

She knew cocaine would feel good. Duh. But she hadn’t realized how good. Hadn’t realized how much she’d need to feel that indestructible, that big again. It became a habit.

Abby always experienced high highs and low lows, but her mood disturbances had always been brief and mild enough not to require hospital care. Unfortunately, adding cocaine to the mix created a powder keg that erupted into a sustained mega-mania. She embezzled company funds for more coke, then stormed the student lab at the university where her father taught classes on the side of running his tech business, armed with multiple cases of colored Holi powder, announcing that they needed to relearn how to have fun, STAT. The place erupted into a color fight, irreconcilably disturbing several sensitive ongoing experiments and humiliating her father.

Now here she was, sitting on her bunk in the psych ward during visiting hours, facing expulsion from the university and being stared down by her father, feeling so small, like a bug. All he had to say to her was, “I have lost all faith in you.” It felt like falling, like all warmth and light in her body trickling away, like dying.

Then, her salvation—RAGE. All of this—this life of never touching grass or climbing trees, barely having friends, rarely having fun, never feeling real—had been for him! She suffered like a pathetic unfed Tamagotchi, losing her whole childhood, training to become his workhorse, his code monkey.

This wasn’t what she wanted to grow up to be.

-x-

[Peter]

Like many little boys, Peter was enchanted by insects, but Tee’s love of preserving dead ones’ wings in jars was too morbid for his taste. Still, when she gave him one cicada wing in a jar as a keychain and made a matching one containing the other wing for herself, he didn’t decline the sweet gift. She’d accumulated quite a collection, as she’d reportedly started making these long before their days on the road. When he asked why she needed so many, she joked that when she was a little girl she believed if she collected enough wings she could gain the power to fly away.

(Peter wasn’t old enough yet to pick up on the touch of melancholy in her voice and promptly suggested they try hang gliding. Even amused Tara was wise enough to say that that could wait until he was a bit older than 6.)

Years later, Peter would remember this exchange nearly every time he heard the sound of a bug zapper. …Surely he could  train himself out of that eventually?

[End]

“Who the hell knows, my man, but clearly her dad deserved to be shot, because global warming and the looming threat of AI and, hell, missing socks in the dryer would probably all be things of the past right now if we still had—”

“Tara Hollows,” the group finished prayerfully.

Lewis knew he was being baited but couldn’t help obediently reciting his line: “‘Still had, huh?’” He’d been hoping, as the story progressed, that Peter was removed from Tara’s care by CPS eventually but that the woman herself remained alive and well.

Slightly slowly turned to meet Lewis’s eyes and the gang did the same in a probably-intentionally creepy way in the eerie green cast of the glowsticks. “Is this a story that possibly won't end in tragedy?”

Lewis wrinkled his nose at the sensationalization of someone else’s personal family tragedy. Viewing Maggie across the room, he was disappointed not to see a similar look of disgust echoed on her face. “I’m not sure if I want to hear the rest of this.”

Slightly disregarded him. “Now, according to Peter, Tara never made him feel unloved, even though she raised him in some really…uh…questionable conditions.”

“She had a baaaad temper,” said Thing 1. “But apparently it could be ‘kind of hilarious?’” Thing 2 quoted.

“Her mood swings were intense.”

“She was crazy jealous,” Lil shared. “Obviously she restricted who he could talk to because she didn’t want the cat let out of the bag. But from what he says, she sounded genuinely jealous if he played with other kids on rare opportunities when he got the chance. He claims he didn’t mind and was ‘glad they were so close.’”

“She used him as a guinea pig whenever she went into a spontaneous inventing frenzy. He got launched into the air no fewer than 27 times,” Magnolia recounted. “Of course, he says it was a blast. ‘Free air coaster’ he calls it, ‘better than Six Flags!’”

“She could fix their engine no problem, but she patched car tires with duct tape. …He tells these stories so affectionately. Says he would’ve stayed with her forever,” Nibs marveled.

“I’ll take ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ for $500, Alex!” Slightly assessed. At Lewis’s appalled expression, he quickly assured, “We’re not being entirely fair. There’s plenty of good stories, too.”

“It sounds like she could make anything fun,” said Nibs.

“He told us a lot of things she used to say that were really sweet. ‘You have to believe in yourself, because if you rely on other people to do it, it could kill you if they stop.’ …That’s our favorite,” Lil shared with a soft smile. Little Tootles crossed himself and Magnolia dipped her head in a respectful bow as if this infamous, eccentric, child-thieving genius were the adored house spirit guardian. Lewis honestly couldn’t tell if it was meant ironically.

[Tara]

She did feel awful hovering like this when Peter talked to other children in the camps and parks they stopped at, and even worse if she had to invent an excuse to pull him away because he said or did something that might tip her hand to the adults. After all, her own father had made her feel so lonely, restricting her ability to be a kid with other kids so they wouldn’t “hold her back.” But then, he’d never played with her in their stead, whereas she entertained Peter as much as possible when she didn’t have to work her odd jobs online. So…it wasn’t the same, was it?  

Tara couldn’t deny, embarrassing as it was, that she missed his eyes and his smile directed at her when he was with the others. She couldn’t help it—Peter was the only person in her life who’d ever loved her. Maybe she could make friends, too? But no, Tara always fell mute, insecure when interacting with other adults—at least in person, without the safe barrier of a laptop and infinite miles of Internet between herself and, say, a client. She’d never learned to interact with her peers. Funnily enough, Peter was more her peer than they were. Tara was teaching herself now, in her 20s, many things she never gotten to do as a kid, which meant she and Peter were learning a lot of things at the same time. She wished she could provide better guidance, but also hoped it wasn’t mere wishful thinking that this was beneficial for her little brother’s self-esteem. Unlike Tara, who'd always felt trapped in the shadow of her father, with his years of experience, Peter could compete with Tara on a nearly-level playing field and sometimes best her. He never let her forget it either, and she’d let him gloat about his victory as long as he wanted.  

Right now, Peter was at a fire pit engaging the neighboring campers’ kids with a story about one of their escapades. The kids seemed entranced but laughed in his face at the end when he continued insisting it was true. Tara’s jaw stopped grinding, shoulder muscles untensed. Phew! If the kids thought it sounded like poppycock, there’s no way their parents would believe it enough to worry about a thing! She giggled--her little brother was so cute when his nose wrinkled up in frustration like that. 

Peter marched angrily back to their RV. Tara quickly dove onto the couch and flipped on some adult animation on her laptop as if she weren’t spying out the cracked window the entire time. Their door slammed. “The O’Doyles think I’m making things up again!” her little brother complained.

“So what? You know it happened!”

Peter looked uncharacteristically deflated. “That doesn’t matter.” He huffed. “I could high-five Freddie Mercury on Mars. If no one believes it, is it even cool?!”

Translation: Am I even cool? If no one else is impressed, do I matter? …Oh. Oh. This was actually affecting him. Now Tara felt terrible for being gleeful about how convenient it was!

Peter’s sister knelt down and tapped his shoulders. “Hey, wait a second. Yes, it does matter. Peter, you have to believe in yourself, okay? Because if you rely on other people to do it, it could kill you if they stop. You’ve gotta believe you can do things, and you’ve gotta believe what you’ve accomplished matters. Don’t let anybody minimize what you did or move the bar up on you. Don’t let anyone make you feel crazy or weak.”

Peter blinked in confusion at her sudden emotionality.

Tara sighed. “You will do what Tara tells you.”

“And not ask why?”

“That’s right.” Tara kissed his forehead. Then she swung open their door and called over to the kids still roasting marshmallows at the neighboring camper. “Hey, O’Doyle! I’ll have you know he did ride an alligator in Florida!” What the hell. The parents would still think she was just really committed to the bit, but the kids might believe it. She slammed the door shut. Peter’s smile glowed with appreciation. Her heart felt full. “Now, what have we learned?”

“Believe in yourself?”

“That and stay inside the boat at all times in a wildlife preserve, and just because something looks like a log doesn’t mean it is a log, Runt.”

[End]

“We do believe she loved him,” Maggie clarified. “He had some serious rose-colored glasses on is all.”

“He insists he never felt unloved,” Slightly repeated, coming full circle. “But sometimes she made him feel worried, as he started getting older and noticing how odd their whole situation was.”

[Tara]

Tara had been in this fog for one day? Two? Three?

She’d always pulled through these episodes when Peter was small. The strength she’d found in herself, knowing he was dependent on her, was profound. …So why was she failing nowadays? Letting him take care of her, even? He’d made her a nest of blankets and pillows on the fold-out couch where he normally slept, so she wouldn’t have to summon the energy to climb the ladder to the loft bed in the compartment above the driver’s seat, where she normally slept. He’d been sleeping up there, although he’d spent most of last night next to her, feeding her snacks and playing stand-up comedy routines off her laptop. She’d even received a cuddle, so he must have been terribly worried. Dammit!  

As Tara regained some clarity, she felt vibrations against the mattress and pillows, inching closer and closer to her head, and heard the chanting: “Knock, knock, knickety-knock!” Oh, Writers. If she didn’t get up, he’d just keep going. Eventually, he’d start scatting. And then,he’d begin singing never-ending variations of “knickety-knock” to the tune of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ Peter once made it through the entire song.

“Teeeeeeee, I have Reddddd Bulllll!” her little brother sing-songed. “Who’s your best friend who always delivers?”

“Jim Steinman?” Tara croaked out with a voice rough from several days of disuse.

In her peripheral vision, Tara watched as Peter prepared to dump a can of Red Bull on her head. She seized his wrist. “Don’t you dare waste that liquid gold, Runt!”

Peter giggled, handed it to her and watched her chug it. “You need your strength. It’s an important day.”

Tara stretched and felt her back pop and creak. “Oh? What’s that?”

“Grocery day.”

The words took a few seconds to kick in. Then Tara did a Red Bull spit-take. “What?! Do we not have any food left?!” She gasped in horror. “Did you let me eat the last energy bar last night?!”

“You needed it.”

“What did you eat?” Tara demanded, gently shaking him by the shoulders.

“A ramen.”

His big sis squinted at him, knowing the answer before she even asked the question. She knew how impatient Peter could be. “Tell me you cooked it.”

“Nah.” The tiny ginger shrugged. “It was crunchy. And munchy. Crunchy, munchy sodium brick. Hooray!”

“No ‘hooray!’” Tara falsetto’d. “Never let me do that again, understand?!”

“…You seemed like you needed more time to get better.”

Tara’s heart broke. He didn’t even seem angry at her, which was incredible…too incredible. He couldn’t be pretending for her benefit, right? Peter was a precocious kid from what Tara had observed, but still, surely an 8 year old didn’t have that kind of acting ability? Right???

Tara hadn’t done any freelance coding or tutoring in a while, since she…hadn’t been feeling so hot. So, grocery funds weren’t exactly forthcoming. Ugh. Time for their little-used Plan B! Tee and Peter wandered the store for a while until they’d scoped out the various managers with access to the intercom and heard each of them speak. “Think you got ‘em?” asked Tara, and Peter perfectly mimicked the necessary voices. “Damn, you’re gonna make a hell of a voice actor when you’re older,” his sister praised. “Hey! We can make some money that way!” Peter, always wanting to contribute, gleefully high-fived her.

Peter accessed the intercom, ordered the guy at the loading dock away from his post for a bullshit reason. Tara knocked out the security camera with a slingshot and pulled their vehicle in. In a wildly different voice, Peter ordered the guy at the pick-up fridges in the back room away from his post for a bullshit reason. Tara raided the fridges for some pre-prepared bags that hit all the food groups or contained individual items they might want and, ooh, look, Coco Puffs! She loaded up the RV. Soon, Peter came scampering around from the front entrance and they high-tailed it before anyone could deduce what happened. Seemed way too easy to rob a grocery store. Almost like they lived in a cartoon or something!

Peter was normally pretty jazzed any time he got to exercise his voice acting chops to dupe some saps, but right now he seemed oddly quiet. He was thinking…about some verbiage on some signs he’d seen outside the pharmacy in that supermarket. “Tee…uh…just curious…”

“Hmmn?”

“We don’t have health insurance, do we?”

“We don’t need it. Our immune systems are so bullet-proof we can lick subway poles like lollipops.”

“What if one day…oneee of us,” Peter worded carefully, “needs a hospital?”

Oh. Oh. “We’ll…cross that bridge if we come to it.” The kid winced a little. “Peter, there’s no reason to worry right now. Think positive. …I’m fine, Runt. Really. You know, the last few days, that doesn’t normally happen. And I always come out of it. But I’m sorry I can’t be fun for you sometimes.”

Peter was thinking she didn’t seem fine. He always acted as brave as possible for Tee when she was sick; if she saw he was scared, she’d spiral even further. But it broke his heart to see his normally whimsical sister completely unable to smile, barely even able to move. He wanted to convince her to do something about it. Why’d she mistrust doctors so much, anyway? But Peter was never very forthcoming with his emotions, so he just nodded and masked his worry as best he could.

Her little brother’s big amber eyes looked up at her with so much love…and just a hint of concern. Tara felt the first pangs of guilt really hit her, full force.

[End]

“Then one day she announced some relative had sadly passed away and left them some money.”

“Her dad.”

“He actually died in a fire, can you believe it?”

“We think she hexed him!” exclaimed the twins together.

“Why would he leave her money after what she did?” Lewis wondered.

The kids shrugged. “I guess the bastard really loved Abigail, deep down,” Lil proposed.

“We don’t even understand how she claimed the money.”

“Like she lived in a cartoon or something?” said Lewis.

“Exactly!” Slightly returned. “But now they had enough money for a proper apartment, which Tara was pleased about because suddenly she seemed interested in settling down somewhere. Weird, right?”

“He was asking about traveling,” Lil explained at Lewis’s confused nod.

“Huh? But it sounded like all they did was travel?” 

[Tara]

They spanned the entire country, building a sprawling photo album along the way. Sometimes they stayed in the camp zones and trailer parks in one place for weeks if they really liked it. But they had a nasty habit of drawing attention to themselves. When less self-aware, Tara blamed Peter for this. Realistically, though, when Peter ran his mouth about their shenanigans, he, as a kid, was dismissed as joking or confabulating by children and adults alike. Tara, meanwhile, could only ride through town on rocket-powered roller skates lighting things on fire so many times before inciting an angry mob.

Anyway… By now, the pair had covered the most scenic places in America enough times that Peter, at age 8.5, could remember them all. Now he was beginning to ask about Canada. About Mexico. About the Amazon, the Pyramids, the gorgeous colors of Amsterdam, the beaches in Portugal. He wanted to fly in an airplane. He wanted to sail on a cruise ship. Of course he did. Hell, Tara did, too!

But, while Tara had been lucky with this forgery stuff up to now, she wouldn’t gamble on being that lucky. Not if she could lose Peter. She could never lose Peter. Please, no.

[End]

“She was worried about increased scrutiny at the border,” Magnolia filled in the blank.

"Undocumented people cross borders all the time. Wouldn't it have made things easier if she made it out of the country with Peter and just didn't come back?" Lewis asked, puzzled.

"Probably, yeah," said Lil. "But Tara was extremely paranoid, and this is also around the time we think Major Tom was starting to lose connection with ground control."

“I don't know how well this plan was thought through," Slightly agreed, "but Tara wanted to sell the idea of home sweet home, quick. Peter let her have her way. He was disappointed, but ultimately, he wanted Tara to be happy. But she didn’t seem happy. She started acting erratic, like, more than usual.”

[Peter]

They rented a small place, cabin-like, in a wooded area outside a rural northeast Pennsylvania town. Peter didn’t comprehend why Tara continued insisting on so much privacy. If she truly wanted to settle down, didn’t she value the opportunity to finally get close with some neighbors? But he had to admit, there was an appeal to the isolation because, while they’d chosen this area for its scenic beauty and green space, all the people in the depressed coal region were so goddamn cranky! Peter didn’t want to talk to most of them either.

He was looking forward to befriending a few of the kids in town, though. Not that they were ever allowed to come play here. Tara was very clear on that. “Don’t worry,” he told her bluntly, “they don’t want to. They think you’re a witch.”

“Oh really?”

“Yup. Who eats children.”

“Then how do they explain why I haven’t eaten you yet?”

“Not enough meat on me.” Peter rolled his eyes at the joke made at his expense. “Hardy har.”

“Make sure you get back to the house before dark. I don’t want you walking through the woods at night.”

“Like I’ve never done that before.”

“Not without me.”

“You think I couldn’t scare a bear off, Tee?” Peter asked, puffing up his chest adorably.

“Not without me,” Tara repeated teasingly. “Peter, don’t make me come home to your carcass, it would be very disturbing for me.”

“Please, you’d recycle my bones into jewelry like that.” Tara had already lacquered Peter’s baby teeth and put them on a leather choker years ago. She still wore it regularly. And she wondered by people thought she was a witch.

Wait…’come home to?’ “Are you going out again tonight?”

When Tara began doing this, Peter had been pleased. His sister was making friends! She’d always been so shy and quiet around anyone who wasn’t him, he’d learned to speak for her in many cases, so this was a positive development. Plus, he finally had personal space! Not only had he spent his life in physically cramped quarters with his sister in the RV, she tended to helicopter a lot in general. One of few things he’d ever snapped at her about was her irrational outbursts of jealousy. Whenever she looked as though she would die if his attention was taken from her for too long, like it was her sustenance, like he was a possession…it sucked. So, Peter was doubly glad she was making other friends.

But after a while, Peter started feeling strange about it, especially as it got more frequent and she came home later and later, sometimes in the middle of the night. Sure, she was the big sister, but he worried about her, too, and this was the most he'd ever been left alone. She was acting sort of distant, and he wondered if he’d done something wrong, started feeling pissed off about her leaving. But jealousy made Peter uncomfortable for obvious reasons, so he turned it off.

He could turn the jealousy off, but not the worry, not completely, because her episodes were more pronounced now, too. Peter had seen Tee “too fast” and “too slow” before, but not this frequently or intensely. The “too fast” part seemed to be happening more than it used to, and instead of simply jubilant, she was equally likely to get explosively agitated.

She’d never melted down the way she did when he finally outright suggested she see a doctor because she was clearly getting worse. And that was only the beginning of the crash-out. She flipped out even more when he lost patience and demanded to know why the hell doctors were so scary. Sure, they’d seen doctors a small handful of times. It would’ve been miraculous if Peter had never broken a bone pulling his stunts, and they occasionally needed antibiotics for something. But Tara always flinched and stammered at every question the providers asked, hand trembling as she tried filling out paperwork with as little detail as possible, arguing with nurses about what information was legally mandatory to provide, stupendously paranoid. Of what?

“Tee,” Peter asked, “are we…not from here?” A lot of the people in their new town were unpleasantly hateful about immigrants, and while he didn’t care for the discourse, it had pushed a “hey, wait a minute” button in Peter’s brain as certain puzzle pieces started clicking together.

“Sorry?”

“Like are we actually from Canada or Mexico or something? Are we not…supposed to be in the United States?” At her blank look. “C’mon, just tell me, I won’t rat! I can’t play this game with you if I don’t know the rules!”

“You sound insane right now. I don’t even have an accent.” At Peter’s new twitching grin and snort. “What?!”

“Are you wanted in another country?” Peter guffawed. He wouldn’t put it past her! “Did you do something so bonkers crazy you had to run from the cops? Tell me, Tee, I’ll bet it’s a great story!” Then the smile was wiped off his face as if an animator somewhere had taken an eraser to it. Tara’s heart was lanced with an icy fear before Peter asked, seriously, “You… You didn’t start the fire, did you?”

“…What?”

“You said…our parents weren’t nice to us,” Peter started carefully. “Were they that bad? That you had to…?” Peter trailed off, was about to clarify he assumed it was to protect them, not that she was some kind of depraved, violent lunatic who murdered in cold blood for no reason.  But before Peter could finish, Tara was shrieking how could he ask her a thing like that and he felt momentarily certain he was about to have a coffee mug thrown at his head.

Then they got in a ‘you’re crazy,’ ‘no, you’re crazy’ shouting match. They had never outright screamed at each other like this before, especially not one of the few things they both agreed they should never let anyone else call them. Then she left, and Peter yelled at her not to come back, which was absurd because she paid the rent, but whatever. He spiraled into regret, waiting and waiting, when Tara didn’t return until nearly sunrise. He hoped his eyes weren’t visibly puffy to her. They apologized. The end.

He napped beside Tee in her bed, all desire for personal space briefly muted. Always positive, Peter found the silver lining after that event. It couldn’t possibly get worse than this, he told himself. No way.

[End]

Lewis put it together. “She could afford drugs again. Or more of them.” Slightly finger-gunned, acknowledging his correct guess. But now Lewis spotted internal inconsistency. “Hey, wait a second… She sounded… Well, functional would be a stretch, but able to meet the kid’s basic needs most of the time… And they were barely ever apart, right? Like what you’re saying about her freaking out if he even spent a little while away from her playing with other kids? If she’d been intermittently using the whole time, she’d have wanted him to do that.”

“Right.”

“So you don’t think she was?”

“Honestly? No.”

“Then what would’ve suddenly set her off?”

The kids looked at each other sadly. “Peter was growing up,” Magnolia addressed the elephant in the room. “It was a ticking time bomb.” 

“She knew he was gonna figure out what she did. And then what? …We think she couldn’t handle the stress.”

[Tara]

Tara’s episodes had factually been getting worse, to the point that she did consider seeing someone. But what if she ended up in the hospital? Who would take care of her brother? Who’d pop up asking questions? …No, she didn’t need to involve anybody like that, she only needed a quick pick-me-up to pull her out of the depression, right? Sure to be plenty of snow around these parts, right? But then she started tipping over into that feared permanent state of too fast and, oh no, that could be even more dangerous for Peter! This was a job for Xanax!

Speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, brake, start, never quite making it back to park.

Then that shouting match. That awful, pointed question about the fire panicked her. It meant he was mature enough to acknowledge his beloved caretaker had the capacity to do bad things. REALLY bad things. He hadn’t landed on quite the right theory about their situation yet, but her brother was getting wayyyy warmer. He was so intelligent. It made Tara incandescently proud, but it was becoming a problem fast. She’d thought she had two or three good years left, but judging by his recent guess? She may not even have one full year!

How would she explain this? How did one explain that you could love someone with all your heart and yet still seriously, egregiously, unforgiveably fuck up? Even if she could verbalize it, did she deserve for him to believe her? Tara had thought nothing could feel more like falling, more like death, than her father’s disdain and disgust. But the thought of her little brother’s hatred was pure, fiery PAIN. She couldn’t withstand it. She didn’t need to speed up or slow down anymore. She only needed that PAIN to go away. That night, the Oxy started.

When Tara dazedly made her way back to the house after having completely, well, not just lost track of time but lost the entire concept, it was 4AM. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Peter switched on a light, posing sternly in a lounger, asking, “And where have you been, young lady?” All comedy all the time, but she knew he was pissed. And his eyes were tinged red. Crap. Tara apologized emphatically, said they should sleep a while and then hang out all day watching a comedy marathon. He apologized back and accepted hers cooperatively, as if nothing significant had happened, then curled up next to her in bed as if he were a much smaller kid again.

Seeing him look younger was better than the alternative, Tara decided. She hated seeing a worried expression on Peter’s face. It made him look too old. Too tired. Then again, that was probably because he hadn’t slept yet.

…

He hadn’t slept yet.

Her little brother was ordering her to go to the doctor because she was sick, was scolding her, and was staying up all night waiting for her to get in because he was becoming the parent. This was a disaster, her absolute worst nightmare! WHAT HAD SHE DONE?! 

[End]

“Peter knew something was wrong, but she was pretty good at concealing it. He attributed it to mental health stuff at the time, and he knew Tara always pulled through her episodes, so he told himself not to worry unnecessarily,” said Lil.

“Then, one evening, Tara kissed Peter goodnight and went out for a ‘smoke’ on the porch. As one does, y’know. You don’t—" Hack hem. “—'smoke’ with your kid brother in the room, do you?” Slightly asked, and the other kids shook their heads sadly. “Eventually, he realized she never came back in. The porch light was still on. And he found her.”

[Tara]

Speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, slow into the turn, brake, brake, BRAKE.

Skid.

CRASH.

[Peter]

At first Peter thought it had to be an oddly-cast shadow, some trick of the light, or even the faint blue glare of the bug zapper causing his eyes to deceive him, because she couldn’t possibly be that shade of blue. But it wasn’t.

She was breathing, but just barely, and her eyes were foggy. Peter couldn’t tell if Tara could see him, which may have been a good thing because he was crying. Peter wasn’t supposed to cry in front of Tara. Tee always promised to do everything she could to make him happy. It would hurt her feelings to cry in front of her. “Can you hear me?! Tell me what to do!” No response, just soft breaths, too weak and whistling.

Peter caught sight of the pill bottle still sitting on the coffee table beside the chair she’d fallen out of (probably, more accurately, flopped and slithered out of like a ragdoll). Peter was very young, but he grew up with full access to the internet and a sister who didn’t censor much information, even if sometimes she did sugar coat it a tad. He had a sense of what this was. He gawped at her for a few ticks, eyes wide, stuck on ‘…Why?’ That gleaned a brief, gasping reaction and a flinch from Tee, although that could’ve been a coincidence. Just in case it wasn’t, though: “No, I’m not mad, promise!” He fished her cell phone out of her cargo skirt pocket. She wouldn’t want him to dial for emergency, but: “I have to, I’m sorry, I have to! I can’t lose you, Tee! You mean more to me than anything in the whole world!”

[Tara]

She couldn’t hear more than the vaguest echoes, but through her fog, Tara could see Peter was crying. She tried to beg him to stop, to tell him sissy was still here, that she loved him, that she’d fix it, but her lips were numb. She couldn’t move, couldn’t comfort him. It felt like being an insect trapped in one of those jars she displayed the wings in, hammering and pounding to no avail.

Then she saw him pick up the phone and dial, start talking to the operator, and her drive to blast through the glass instantly all but vanished. He said he didn’t want to lose her. ‘You don’t know this, but you just did, sweetie. …It doesn’t matter now.’ It was game over from this point on. Was it even worth sticking around for this part? Tara had experienced her adventure; that was good enough.

‘I’m sorry I can’t keep being fun for you, Runt.’

Was he flying, or was she falling? Falling down a long tunnel? Peter was flying, Tara decided. Just like she’d always ached to, her angel, her heart, was flying, because if anyone could, it was him. Flying somewhere safe, she hoped. Flying home.

‘I love you, Peter.’ 

[End]

“Now, Peter is a bit dramatic, isn’t he, but he swears in his memory, the porchlight flickered—”

“He was remembering the bug zapper.”

“Porch light!”

“Bug zapper!”

“The light flickered and FLICKERED while he watched her stutter out until finally it went BLACK!”

The lights flipped back on jarringly and all the kids’ heads swung to find an incensed Mildred in the doorway. “SAMUEL! Where did you get this information, young man?! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sharing— How did you even—?!”

Lewis didn’t particularly care about being a snitch in this case, because—as fascinated as he admitted to feeling during that story—he happened to agree with Mildred that this was not in terribly good taste. “He broke into the file, ma’am.”

Mildred inhaled sharply with twin anger and concern. “Child, do you realize that’s considered a federal crime?”

Slightly turned white as a sheet. “Oh, he probably didn’t know, but I suspect he’s had some sense kicked into him now, huh?” Lewis commented, to frantic nodding from the younger boy.

Mildred wore a complicated look that melted into something so unbearably gentle Lewis could barely restrain himself from hugging her on the spot. “Now, you listen, idiot. I say nothing as long as you do not let Peter figure out you know this information.”

Slightly scoffed, “Please, he’d laugh it right off!”

Mildred straightened with a fierce, protective look. “Now you quit that right now. He’s a human being just like you and me. He may be good at acting like he doesn’t care, but he does, and I don’t want—”

“As I was saying before I was interrupted: Peter knows we have this information already, Mildred,” Slightly defended himself. “I only broke into the file to confirm it.”

“…What?”

“I was telling this particular bit almost exactly the way he tells it.”

“Peter tells it?!”

“Yeah, you cut me off right before the end.” Slightly cleared his throat. “The lamplight flickered and flickered and FLICKERED while he watched her fade until finally it went BLACK!”

A beat.

Then, with a big smile and energetic jazz hands, Slightly chimed, “And that’s why you don’t do drugs, kids!”

“Womp, womp, WOOOOMP!” the gang sang the typical trio of sad trombone notes on cue.

Lewis and Mildred blinked together, dumbfounded. ‘Well,’ thought Lewis, ‘this explains why Magnolia didn’t look offended earlier.’

“I honestly think Peter turning it into a jokey PSA is pretty cool of him,” Slightly offered.

Mildred’s fingers massaged the bridge of nose as she muttered, “Peter, dear Writers.” Eventually she asked, “Is the file back where it was?”

“Absolutely, ma’am.”

“Thank you.” The beleaguered Mildred wandered off, wishing she could have some wine right now.

[X]

[Flashback]

“There’s duct tape on the tires. DUCT TAPE on the TIRES!!!” wailed Ms. Pleakly from the DHS, scrounging a paper bag from her purse and wheezing uncontrollably.

The kid was quite abashed about calling the emergency line. He’d broken a cardinal rule in his household. He sat on the old beaten couch, waiting for someone to give him an update, trying to wipe the fear off his face so he could face his sister with dignity, rehearsing under his breath what he’d say. “I know, I know, I freaked and called 9-1-1 like a chicken, have your laugh. I’ll wear the shame cone. …Sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

Peter’s gaze snapped up from his worn-out trainers to the source of the voice—a broad, bald man who’d entered the room as silently as a ninja, taking the boy by surprise. At least someone was talking to him now. Everyone else so far had skirted around his questions and avoided him like the plague. 

“Ambulances are expensive. Hehe…” His eyes returned to his fidgeting feet. “IIII’m gonna be in a lot of trouble when Tee wakes up…”

Cobra Bubbles knew better. Once the paramedics and the cops had started to piece some things together, they’d sent for the police force social worker who people normally summoned when something had gone impressively, stupendously wrong. And things had indeed gone wrong. He drew a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, then he kneeled to the child’s level, dipped his shades, and prepared to administer the toughest of love. “Listen, son. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.” 

[X]

[Present Day]

“…You Xeroxed it, didn’t you?” Lewis asked Slightly after the others filed awkwardly out of the room.

Slightly’s insidious little grin regenerated. “Thought you were keen on preserving other peoples’ privacy, Glasses.”

“I am. I’m putting it in the shredder. …Oh, c’mon, you’re telling me everyone in the home hasn’t read the whole thing once already? Whaddya still need it for?”

Judging by the shocking complete lack of extortion required to get Slightly to produce the copy from underneath his bunk mattress and hand it over to Lewis, unless the kid in the wolf hat had unexpectedly sprouted a conscience, Slightly definitely had a second copy stashed somewhere. But that was a problem for another day, Lewis decided. For now, this was going directly to the shredder.

With no detours. None at all. 100%. Honest. Really. …SHIT. The temptation was unbearable! Lewis ducked into the dormitory closet and yanked the pull light to hungrily absorb more lore like a kid sucking down a coveted Shamrock Shake on St. Patty’s Day.

Woof. Appeared as though Peter’s birth family had been hunted down after he was taken into CYS care. Unfortunately, by that point they didn’t feel comfortable taking him, since he was essentially a stranger and they now had two other children. Yet despite their rejection, the poor dude still got slapped with their surname on his new official government paperwork. Pan. Peter Pan. What a painfully stupid name. Lewis understood completely why he’d go around introducing himself as Peter Hollows and imagined the unlucky little boy had likely begged and pleaded for an official name change without success.

And, yikes, look at this! Peter had very nearly been formally adopted, by a woman named Wendy Darling. But when she decided his antics were likely to put her other two sons in danger…she sent him back. ‘Shit, how do I constantly manage to hurt people as soon as I meet them?! This is like Peanut Butter Guy all over again!’ Lewis berated himself, thinking of his exchange with Peter earlier that day about how potentially humiliating being ‘given back’ would be.

Oh boy. These were doctor’s notes. Notes from check-ins with the psychiatrist serving Peter’s residence at the time, in fact. ‘You have to draw the line somewhere,’ Lewis coached himself. ‘You respect the sanctity of HIPPA laws, don’t you?’

…Goddamn, he had to stop judging those kids, Lewis admitted, eyes still poring over page after page through this thick prescription lenses. Peter Hollows stories really were addictive!

[X]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 9]

State police worker who delivered child into CYS custody reported news of caregiver’s death was taken so poorly, child “dove into the oven and commanded [Mr. Bubbles] to ‘just turn the gas on and end it now’ because ‘I know what I want my quality of life to be, and this ain’t it.’”

Workers state patient remained in a state of shock when he arrived at CYS housing but what somewhat conversational at first because he wanted to understand what was happening. It wasn’t her death so much as learning his sister wasn't who she'd claimed to be that tipped him over the edge. One too many ‘Abigails’ into a conversation, he insisted it wasn’t her name and refused to engage further. This was followed by 2 days of intermittent crying, refusal to interact with anyone, and huddling in his bunk listening to ‘I’d Lie for You and That’s the Truth’ and 'Promise Me' on his ex-caretaker’s old iPod on endless repeat. It was as if he'd never truly experienced deep sadness or fear before, despite that some of the stories he later told the workers were unnerving. It must have all seemed ordinary to him at the time. Referred by assigned worker, but with no successful interaction, of course.

Patient reemerged on the 3^rd day having returned like a boomerang to what became obvious was his usual personality. Social worker made nervous by how cooperative he was, thought it might be further disturbance, referred again. Patient explained very simply that sister would not want him to be sad, as if reminding me the sky is blue. Patient clarified he now understood caregiver was not his biological sister; insisted she was “still his big sister because she always had been,” asked why that was so confusing to everyone.

Patient describes the day of his guardian’s death as the day “she lost him,” rather than the day he lost her, as if one of them were merely turned around in town somewhere and would stumble upon the other one eventually. However, he also seemed abundantly clear on the fact that she is deceased, so confirmed no severe denial or delusions present, must just be something that makes him feel more comfortable.

Patient understood the goal is to place him with a family and was not nearly as uncomfortable with this as might be expected. He was far more uncomfortable with social worker “putting his sister down” under what patient interpreted as a mistaken impression that this would get patient to accept a new family faster. This appeared to refer to worker’s efforts to get him to acknowledge that the conditions he was raised in were unsafe.

Informed patient that a foster parent had accepted an inquiry, asked if he was comfortable meeting her today. Mentioned she had two younger boys living with her. Patient admitted to having limited exposure to other children, seemed embarrassed but also extremely eager and excited.  

Patient seems coherent, fully understanding of the situation. However, degree of cooperation, while convenient, is concerning. Particularly due to intensity of attachment to prior caregiver, complete non-resistant acceptance of potential new family is unusual to a nearly reactively-attached degree. Advised care team to approach placement with much caution to avoid further suffering.

[x]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 9]

Continuing to advise team to proceed with extreme caution. The foster mother seems to have paid little heed when warned that the child, while sweet, is a dash more feral than what she’s used to, even though she is experienced. She has started to express a few concerns; unclear if child is aware. Previously identified possible attachment issue still evident, as patient has been placed for barely over a month and already refers to the woman as his mother. Workers acknowledge red flags but seem overall less critically concerned, are very reinforcing of the child’s natural optimism. This may have encouraged child’s tendency to urge himself to be positive to override any reasonable hesitation he feels. Having difficulty getting him to accept any validation of underlying feelings of uncertainty or acknowledge even a remote possibility that this won’t go according to plan. Laughed me off and sang the “Debbie Downer” theme song in my face. Continuing to monitor closely.

[x]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 10]

Social worker states patient took discharge from home unnervingly well at first. No tears this time, albeit a look in his eyes “like a couple of mobsters were preparing to tie him to bricks and throw him off a pier” when he was picked up. But shortly afterward, patient behaved as if he’d been “reset to factory default,” acting as if he’d never left CYS housing. Attempted for nearly 30 straight minutes to get patient to acknowledge past 6 months of time. Child can talk in circles like the best of politicians, seems considerably more intelligent than the workers assess. Finally, he ran out of steam and asked, point blank, “Do I have to talk about it?” Told him it was encouraged. When not forced, child talked, for remaining 20 minutes, about Marvel comics and how his sister had preferred DC comics because she was an uncultured heathen. Any severe disassociation and delusion thus ruled out as requested, but encouraged to return regardless.

[x]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 10]

Patient denies anxiety, sounds quite amused by the whole prospect, pointed out that he used to roll down the hill in spare car tires. Agreed that patient’s complete lack of regard for his own safety is both terrifying and somehow impressive. However, reminded him that one of these tire tire-rolling expeditions ended with the tire rolling onto a road and nearly caused an accident. Patient immediately ended eye contact, became chagrined. Pointed out that patient doesn’t worry about his own safety but he cares a great deal if other people get hurt. Patient conceded this was accurate.

Informed patient his social worker requested this meeting because, while she was glad someone wanted to do it, child’s preoccupation with first aid and other safety certifications seemed to have become excessive. Child responded, “Oh, so they don’t want me to be responsible, then?” Asked patient how long he had spent completing these certifications, he answered presumably the amount of time required. Asked if it didn’t seem like a lot. Patient sounded resentful, said the “kids must be very safe with him, then, huh?” Asked if this had any relationship to recent events with previous foster-to-adopt mother, Wendy D. Patient asked only, “What do you think?” Kept staring up at fluorescent lights, a trick children sometimes use to inhibit tears. He would not say her name.

Patient obviously worries a great deal about the other children’s safety, but also refuses to abandon his belief that no adventure should be off limits. Seemingly tries to psychologically rectify the contradiction by compulsively overpreparing for a variety of possible negative outcomes. No amount of reasoning can convince the child that all the safety trainings in the world don’t make it a good idea to let another child roll down a hill in a car tire, mattress surf, or climb onto the roof just because he’s there watching them. Argued for several minutes about how diving out of a tree into a swimming pool is not the same as using a diving board because a diving board is positioned at the ideal angle over the deepest end of the pool.

The child’s mindset seems influenced by former rearer, Tara H., who was highly irresponsible yet miraculously avoided significant harm to the child. Her near supernatural levels of good luck appear to have influenced patient’s perceptions of likelihood of irreparable danger in certain situations. Attempts to convince patient that “sister’s” actions could have endangered him are one of the few things that get him to yell, as he takes it as a suggestion that she did not love him (unclear if workers have actually framed it that way). Alternately, suggestions are countered with an unflustered “she must’ve known what she was doing” or “she must’ve been prepared.”

Support team seems to think it might be worthwhile to try patient in a home with an older sibling figure instead of younger, as this will both reduce likelihood of patient negatively influencing younger children by accident and also eliminate his fear of getting younger children hurt. Asked patient if he thought he would feel more at ease with an older sibling. Patient looked offended at first, clearly preoccupied with the idea that he is not trusted with younger children, but agreed that he was open to it. Stated he “wouldn’t want Tara to be jealous” but it might be okay.

Declined medication, said he didn’t need “happy pills,” he was good at staying positive on his own. Can’t argue with this. Tried to explain I was suggesting ADHD meds, not antidepressants. Child also declined Adderall, unfortunately; said he heard it “ruins food, which sounds like a drag.”

Child seems functional and not in any state of crisis, don’t believe he would hurt himself or others on purpose. Revisit and medication not mandatory, although he would probably benefit.

[x]

Lewis couldn’t help but spot the “on purpose” wedged in at the end of the penultimate sentence in this record. The doctor sounded like a kindly man; he doubted it was meant in a deliberately passive-aggressive manner, probably just a subconscious slip that made it into the notes. But Lewis couldn’t help but wonder how Peter would feel about it if he spotted it.

[x]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 10]

Patient has been reassigned to new social worker. New worker referred as he is still upset that previous worker did not believe that firework incident was an accident, is very uncharacteristically agitated, insisting that he is “not a freaking sociopath.”

Patient vaguely referred to prior foster mother Wendy and her children. Reassured patient that he was not being primarily blamed for the accident in this case and, in fact, the older foster brother would’ve been wise not to let him light firecrackers of significant strength.

Patient very adamant that he would not do such a violent thing on purpose without being considerably provoked. Reassured patient that I do not believe he’s a needlessly hostile person. However, felt it responsible to ask if he was considerably provoked. Patient repeated that he was not several times and that it was entirely an unfortunate accident. Patient seemed to grow more irritable and fidgety with each attempt, but his answer did not change no matter how question was phrased.

Gingerly rephrased, more politely, prior social worker’s point that his demeanor did not match response to previous accidents. (Worker had felt that the child’s expression of remorse—in contradiction with previous reports of effusive apologies following accidents—seemed feigned, even at times sarcastic, and proposed it was a deliberate attack.) Patient stated he no longer intended to cry for an audience. Reassured patient that this was understandable, especially in light of violent follow-up to accident. James H. was transferred to juvenile custody after hospital care, as there are few ways to interpret choking a small child with remaining hand and bashing his head against a brick patio other than attempted murder. Asked patient if he would like to share any feelings. Patient nonverbally clearly incensed but would not speak. Eventually stated that while he did not intend to hurt him, foster brother’s sentence is appropriate.

Patient expressed concern that he would be placed in a situation absent any other children deliberately due to being considered a safety hazard, did not want this. Not surprising, as despite the fact that he was raised absent other children by older sister figure, she is described as very childlike at heart. Reassured patient that I would not recommend this.

Informed care team of professional opinion that if they feel patient is failing to thrive now, he will likely lose motivation in an environment with no other children. Feel very strongly about this.

[x]

[Record from session with Dr. Joshua Sweet; Peter P., age 11]

Patient has not been placed for last 1.5 years. Fewer people are inquiring, due to patient’s reputation for fighting with the other boys, though patient reports this is either in self-defense or in defense of younger children. Based on his overall temperament, this is likely true.

More concerningly, however, he seems to sabotage interviews by being deliberately obnoxious. Meanwhile, patient has dedicated a lot of time bonding with the younger children in the home. Patient talented at feigning comical dearth of self-awareness; however, believe this is a ruse meant to make people laugh and prevent forced introspection. Will not admit to avoiding placement due to rejection anxiety; any suggestion that he is afraid quickly ends the conversation. Nor will he acknowledge that he cannot truly build a found family in this setting, as the other children will inevitably continue to be shuffled around.

Patient engaged in numerous verbal run-arounds during attempts to carry him to the logical end of these maladaptive strategies—if something does not change, he will be alone. Patient became visibly frustrated and distressed at a certain point, fell silent, seemed about to express something.

Finally, demanded to know why I never asked about anything fun. Patient commanded me to ask him about the time he rode an alligator in the FLA Everglades because he hopped out of the motorboat he and his sister rented and sat on it, mistaking it for a log. Ashamed to say I entered a “did not,” “did too” war that lasted the remaining minute. When session end alarm rang, patient slapped the clock, yelled, “BOOM!” and victory walked out, T-posing.

Didn’t tell him this is my last day working here. It would bum him out, and he hates that. I wish him all the best.

[x]

Lewis had by now formed an extremely positive opinion of this particular doctor and was sorry, for Peter’s sake, to hear he had taken another job. Judging by the amount of frustration evident between the lines of these notes and what appeared to be a near total disregard for his professional opinion in some cases, though, Lewis couldn’t blame him.

[X]

[Time skip]

Lewis had actually spent hours perusing that file. Shameful! Now, as he finally started shredding in an empty office (because one of the other kids had picked the lock for him, dear Writers), he was surprised by a knocking sound at the window. There was Peter, having noticed it wasn’t an employee but another kid inside the lit window who might let him slip in past curfew unnoticed. Lewis opened the window and Peter skillfully slithered in, asking, “How’s Magnolia?”

Lewis was glad for the distraction from the damning chore he was performing. “Uh. Well, she perked up like you said, but…for some reason she lopped most of her hair off?”

“Huh?”

“That’s what we said. No one gets the connection.”

Peter thumbed his chin. “I guess girls do have some sort of weird thing about their hair when they get upset. They cut it or dye it or whatever.” His friend Jane demonstrated one of the strangest, whiplash-y versions of the trope he’d ever heard of. When she was a little kid, her mom let her put washout fun dye in her hair whenever she wanted (probably wanted to be extra nice to her after her dad died in the service), so she had continuously changing rainbow hair like Ramona Flowers all the time. After surviving the school shooting, however, she never touched dye again, left it her natural strawberry blonde ever since. “Tell me you told her it looked good.”

Lewis blinked dumbly.

“Oof, kiss of death. It’s okay, you’ll learn through trial and error. Walt knows it took me a while.” Peter noticed the half-shredded document behind Lewis. “What are you shredding at this hour?”

“Oh, nothing—"

Peter grabbed the worst possible loose page—with the doctor’s notes and that terrible, sharp “on purpose.” He dropped it like a hot potato. “What? Who?” His eyelids dropped. “Slightly.”

“Yup. He got reamed out by me and Mildred pretty good, so don’t lash back, okay?”

Peter kicked the trash can, irate. “My version of events wasn’t entertaining enough for him, huh?!”

Lewis sighed as he resumed shredding chunks of pages. “Peter, not that it was right for him to snoop in your personal life, but you neeeeed to learn to not automatically teach kids to pick locks just because they ask.”

“You, of all people, are asking me not to satisfy healthy intellectual curiosity in children?”

“Dude, I’m about to ask a serious question. Would you teach a child to hotwire a car just because they asked? … … …You’re not answering. …Peter, have you already taught a child how to hotwire a car?”

“I do not recall, I would like an attorney.”

“Goodnight, Peter.” Lewis finished the job. “I feel like he probably Xeroxed it at least one more time, so keep an eye out for that.”

Peter saluted. “…Thanks for being a friend, kid.”

Lewis smiled warmly and saluted back.

Chapter Text

[Rewind to a couple hours earlier]

"…Thanks for not saying anything to Millie."

"Ah. Well." Shrug. "Guess you convinced me you really care about the little goblins with the 'I'll rip your larynx out if you come near my kids' bit."

"Phht. I didn't call them 'my kids.'"

"You totally did. But, yeah, I don't wanna make any trouble for you." Ralph left the quiet part quiet, which Peter inexpressibly appreciated. "Just, for shit's sake, make sure Glasses wears the thick cleaning gloves next time."

"Deal." Peter thrust his hand out. Ralph regarded it like a radically foreign object before shaking cautiously. "Oh, c'mon, good firm handshake?" Ralph couldn't tell how much of Peter's caricaturized masculinity was meant ironically. He gripped normally this time. Peter internally winced, thinking, 'Got what I asked for, I guess.' "So… Am I understanding right that you were sitting in the trash drinking alone?"

Ralph grumbled. "Like I said, I don't know anybody."

"Then I'll get you to some parties and introduce you."

"Not a hit at parties. Incredibly awkward."

"Ralph, what teenager isn't awkward?" Peter mused and smiled. "Eh. I suppose I'm an acceptable answer."

"There are different flavors of awkward, Hollows," Sigfried clapped back, watching Peter casually turn another cartwheel down the sidewalk, mid-conversation. Simply walking in a straight line for over 20 paces didn't seem possible for him. Peter popped right-side-up again and cocked his head like he didn't get it. Whatever.

"But I think my abilities may be special," Ralph continued. Should he share this anecdote? ...Ah, hell, it was funny. "I was invited to a party about a week ago. I took Val to the carnival that came through. This super outgoing redhead spotted me like a sea gull spots a fry. Guess new people are a novelty in a place like this. She asked me to come meet some folks from the school. I thought, if this chick's openly eccentric enough to wear a fork in her bun like a chopstick, how intimidating can her friends be? Wrong. Turns out she's loaded, and every high school A-lister, every cheerleader, every sports captain, was gathered in her mansion's swimming pool, shirtless and glamorous as f***!"

Ariel, Peter knew, had the perfect house for hosting parties. Not only for its size and amenities, but because her father traveled often for business, and she was the only remaining sister left alone in that nest. Peter assumed there were security cameras. He also assumed wily, rave-loving Ariel had tricks up her sleeve to deal with that.

"Why are they ALL gorgeous?!" Ralph continued ranting. "Is this town secretly a government eugenics experiment?! Everywhere you stepped, there was a Barbie or Ken doll, half of them with a genius IQ or savant-like artistic ability. How was my mediocre ass supposed to react to that?! You're the most normal person I've met so far, which is really saying something."

By this point, Peter had let Ralph bypass him for a few paces, then reappeared having popped the spare parts into his shoes. He was presently skating backwards and turning circles around Ralph in a pair of heelys. Ralph was speaking to a nearly-fully-grown man who still used heelys.

"REALLY saying something," the taller boy repeated for emphasis. "Long story short, I stress ate an entire pizza while wasted, hurled it back up on her kitchen floor, and cried in her bathroom while she cleaned it up. I apologized, paid for the pizza, and fled the scene. Hope to never look her in the eye again. Drinking alone seems to be for the best," Ralph concluded ruefully.

"Eh, don't worry about it. Ariel is nice, she'll forgive you. You'll be invited again. And you'll be shocked by how dorky those sexy, athletic A-listers are. Thatch runs a whole DND group of them." When this didn't seem to encourage his new acquaintance: "Besides, it can get…a little old being the person everybody wants at parties." Peter redirected to prevent follow-up questions: "Sounds like you've been here at least a month or so this summer? How have we not run into each other around town?"

"I'm pretty good at being invisible for a big guy."

"What've you been doing the whole time?" That led to 10 pleasant minutes of small talk about horror movies, comedians, hair metal, and video games. Not that this really comprised most of what Ralph had been doing. The largest percentage was claimed by depression naps. Now they were slipping through a rip in the junkyard’s fence. "So…why weren't you home with your sister?" Peter broached the subject. Ralph visibly tensed. "Not being accusatory! Just, the combination of 'I'm usually home with my sister' and 'guzzling Stampede in the garbage' is giving…"

"Drama?"

"Dr-AMA." Enter jazz hands, which started their journey in the air and ended it atop the cluttered obstacle course of the scrapyard ground as Peter began spontaneously hand-walking. (No consideration of "wear gloves" or "check for needles." He wasn't precious cargo.) As they approached Ralph's makeshift shelter, Peter righted himself and fell to a dead stop. It was twice as depressing to see that hollow van with nothing but a 6-pack inside. The trash compactor was positioned in direct line of sight, as if Ralph had planned on watching defunct objects meet their tragic, violent end like a gritty soap opera through the shattered van windows while mainlining beer. Yikes. Things weren’t  going well for Sigfried, that was for sure.

"We had an argument." Ralph slumped. "Sometimes I forget how intimidating I am when I yell. I thought, she probably doesn't wanna see me for a while…" He took a seat inside the van.

Peter followed. "What'd you fight about?"

"Val said the kid stole her bike. I said 'kick his ass then.' She said, very seriously, 'That's the problem, Ralph, I can't very well beat up a f***ing orphan!'" Ralph cut himself off, concerned maybe sharing that joke wasn't appropriate for the company. But Peter exploded into shoulder-shaking laughter. "I said, You want me to go beat on the orphan, since I'm already a professional bad guy with no reputation to ruin?' She just chuckled…real nervous. I mean, it was a bit of an edgy joke, but I'd been hoping she was over the, um, context."

Trying to mitigate Ralph's stress, Peter defaulted to playfulness, miming munching popcorn, pushing his cheeks out like a chipmunk, then swallowing. "Yup, I'm invested. Context?" Ralph almost smiled. It was his second almost-smile, and Peter felt determined to earn a full one.

It would defeat the point of trying to start fresh if Ralph let the damning information spread, but there was something about this guy he trusted. And…he achingly needed to know what someone outside the situation thought. "Look. I didn't rat you out to Millie, so…"

"I won't repeat whatever this is, either." Peter thumped a fist over his heart. "Swear on my sister's grave, man.” Ralph, struck by the sincerity, was about to speak when Peter surprised him by swinging himself through the van window with the least amount of broken glass trimming the edges, over and up onto the rusted roof. He settled on his stomach and forearms, peering down at Ralph through the old sunroof. "Go on." Did that translate roughly to 'I'm giving you space?' Okay, random, but nice.

Sigfried looked at the grimy van carpet, absently rubbed his neck. "I've never been well-liked. And I'm less than awesome at standing up for myself. I'll just…tolerate shit. For a long time. But—plot twist!—turns out at the end of my long fuse there's a crapload of TNT. It wasn't on my or anyone else's bingo card, but one day, I snapped like a twig and beat the ever-loving CRAP out of somebody." He tensed, blinking hard.

" …That's it?" asked Peter from the roof.

"I'm underselling it, if anything. Gene was pretty well concussed. Broken hand. Fractured rib. I put a body sized dent in the locker I threw him into." Ralph turned green, reached for one of the beers, started sucking it down.

"Wow, this happened on school property?" Sigfried nodded. "How'd he break the hand?"

"...When I stopped him from fighting back."

"...Whoa."

"It took four people to stop me. I owe them X-mas cards 'til I die, because if they hadn't, I'd probably be in lock-up for a long time. As it stands, I was only in custody 10 days." Ralph couldn't see Peter raise his eyebrows atop the van. Wow, maybe the big guy wasn't exaggerating how significant this beatdown was! "Kept my mouth shut the whole time. Figured I'd seem intimidating as long as I didn't talk."

"Yeahhh, probably wise," Peter replied, sounding a tad too understanding.

"Stayed quiet, thought of my sister, waited it out. My parents' lawyer was pretty good, and especially since nothing like that ever happened before, I got transferred to a parole situation. Mandatory anger management classes, all that. But finishing out the year from home didn't go so well because it's hard to…uh…function academically when you can barely get out of bed. Which is what happens when you start receiving regular death threats because you're considered a menace to society… Then we moved here, where I'll be a junior again."

"Damn. What’d this guy do?"

Ralph realized the only person who'd ever asked that and seemed to care about the answer was Valerie (not that he'd told her). It momentarily warmed his heart before his bad guy complex kicked in again. "Does it matter?" he asked guiltily, gulping more beer.

"Uh, yeah it f***ing matters!" Hollows insisted, too forcefully. He quickly reigned himself in, voice returning to its usual even tone. "Like I said, you seem garden variety annoying at worst, not…y'know…bad."

"Whenever I consider how to describe it, it never sounds intense enough to justify snapping like that. I think it was the way things never changed? One bad day’s tolerable, but once you multiply it by a thousand, it's soul-crushing. Then it only takes one nasty surprise to break the camel's back. And he…gave me a nasty surprise." Peter quietly considered. He was about to say, 'That's literally the plot of 'Carrie.'' Translation: Lots of people sympathize with her, why should you be different? But Ralph had already taken his silence the wrong way. "Well, I'm sure I've sufficiently terrified you. Please, take the rest of the pack to make up for it." The big guy began hefting himself up.

"Wait!" The elf leapt over the side of the van to block the exit, causing Ralph to fall backward in surprise and rock the vehicle. "Hey, asshole," Peter echoed from earlier, albeit with a friendly smile this time, "do I look scared to you?"

Sigfried looked dumbfounded for a second. Then he reiterated back, appreciatively, "No, you do not."

Now something near-miraculous happened—Ralph smiled. He had a sizable gap between his teeth that wasn't visible in any of his previous, thin crescent barely-smiles. His freckles stood out more on the new curve of his rounded cheek like stars. Peter shoved a lot of weird thoughts aggressively into a 'do not touch EVER' box in the farthest corners of his mind and decides to keep just one: 'I've gotta make this guy smile again.' "It's a little hard for me to believe, to tell the truth," Peter said, partly to snap himself out of his trance.

Ralph gestured up and down his frame. "Is it?"

"I believe you could do it, for sure. Struggling to picture you choosing to."

Ralph blanched. "Didn't feel like a choice. Felt like temporary insanity. I was not on radar. I was not on sonar. It was scary. And if it was scary for me, I can't imagine what it looked like to the other people.” A squint. "Are you only not afraid because you don't believe me?"

"No, no," Peter clarified calmly, with a cocky glance, "I'm not afraid because I could fight you and win." Ralph tried so, so hard to be polite and failed. His laughter bubbled out of him, aided by the beer he'd quickly tanked while telling his story. Peter's facial muscles tried averaging annoyance with rapturous accomplishment (Ralph’s laugh was just as positively reinforcing as his smile). "I'll let that slide since you're having a bad day, Sigfried."

"You got me to laugh about my capacity to destroy. Congratulations." Ralph’s palm started its descent too quickly to be intended for a high-five.

Peter cringed away. "If you pat me on the head, man, so help you Walt." Ralph's arm slithered sheepishly back down to his side.

An idea struck Hollows. He could replenish his dignity after that mortifying near-head-pat while making the big guy feel less like the most destructive thing around. Peter launched himself out of the van. "C'mere. Watch this." He produced a set of patently illegal throwing stars from a plastic case in those seemingly infinite cargo pant pockets. "Tell me what to hit."

"…Fine? That door?" Ralph pointed at another random car shell.

"More specific."

"I dunno, the handle?"

The handle. That headlight. That specific word in the graffiti over there. That Campbell's chicken soup can. Peter hit every mark. Not close to it, but nailed it and stuck it, even to surfaces Ralph expected it to bounce off (big hands flying up to shield his face from ricocheting projectiles). The last one, Peter threw with his right hand while doing a handstand with his left. He sprung back to his feet. "So. How breakable do I look to you?" Ralph blinked. "Still feel like the most destructive thing in the zip code?"

Ralph took Peter's point and appreciated it but remained self-effacing. "Well, shit. Now you have me feeling like those folks at Ariel's party did. This is the extent of my talent, dude." He approached the bumper of the van they'd been sitting in, squatted, and just…lifted it, enough that Peter heard the box of beer slide forward. Then Sigfried dropped it, gently rattling the ground, emphasizing how much weight he'd supported. "'I pick things up and put them down,'" he quoted sarcastically.

In Peter's brain, a little yellow man whistled and waved a green flag for the official Incredible Hulk Fan Club. "Is…uh…that with or without gym time?"

Ralph looked embarrassed. "I do really need to start working out…"

Peter quashed the urge to kick a can. The whims of genetics were cruel! Sigfried was just like Peter's friend Jim! Sure, skateboarding works your ab muscles, but Hawkins did hardly anything else, yet he was well-toned all over. Meanwhile, Peter should've been running around as a 12-year-old with 6-pack abs, he got so much acrobatic activity, and nothing. "That's a little more impressive than 'I pick things up and put them down.'" Hollows pointed at an abandoned mini fridge. "Throw that."

Ralph built momentum and hammer threw the mini fridge a few yards. He looked like he'd exerted himself, sure, but he wasn't panting. 'Mother of Menken,' thought Peter.

The pair regarded each other with a specific reaction little boys sometimes have: 'Holy crap, this guy could maybe kill me. …Cooool.'

"Feeling better?"

Ralph looked honestly surprised as he chuckled and nodded yes. Then a foggy cast fell over his eyes and he looked more uncertain. "Yes and no. You're not afraid of me. That's nice. …I still can't tell if my sister is or not."

Peter began collecting his knives. "You talk way too much, but if it helps, I'll keep listening."

"Gee, thanks," Ralph said dryly.

"You're welcome," Peter chirped back. Ralph couldn't tell if he was completely ignorant to sarcasm or pretending he was to be funny. They took seats back in the van. Ralph retrieved the beer box and tossed a can to Peter, who popped it open with fake gratitude. He'd tasted revolting bottom shelf cotton candy flavored vodka better than Stampede. "Now, what was so bad you went ape shit on me to feel better about yourself?"

"Sorry. I do tend do that… I see it. It's bad."

"All good." Not like Ralph had accidentally activated the nuclear codes and unleashed a torrent of long-repressed 'Wendy, I'd never hurt the kids, please believe me' anguish on Peter's brain. Hahahaha. "Valerie wasn't keen on siccing you on any orphans. This escalated how?"

"We were both pretty immature, but she has an excuse, since she's a kid. I accused her of being afraid of me, like Mom. She said she's not scared, just pissed she has to make new friends again after it was so hard for her the first time. None of this was said anywhere near as politely as I'm making out. Now we're yelling at each other, but she's this big and 'yipyipyipyipyip.'" Ralph propped his phone up to cast light on the van wall and mimed what looked like a little shadow teacup poodle. "And I'm this big and 'RAWWRRRR.'" He now mimed a dragon, complete with fire plume with help from his other hand. It was rather well-done. Peter wondered where he'd learned that. "It was not a good look, and she…looked not great.”

"Because you yelled?"

Tick, tick, tick. "I may have thrown a mug. …Not at her! NEVER at her!" Ralph emphasized. "Just in anger at the universe, generally. At a wall nowhere near her body! But it shattered and a piece almost hit her in the face." ‘Really proving Val’s point about the orphan there, dumbass,’ he thought.

"…Okay. Things make a bit more sense now. How often does that happen?"

"It never used to happen!" Ralph bemoaned. "I just…haven't made it back to baseline after all the drama. It's freaking me out. And I know it's freaking her out. She's never been afraid of me before, so it's…a pretty big wake-up call."

Peter thought of Tara. He didn’t want to. Not like this. He wanted to remember the lived versions of the photos in their travel album. Or her dying cat singing voice. Or riding his bike, laughing like a hyena and wearing the costume hat he pawned off on Slightly, pulling her behind him on roller skates on Halloween so she could pretend to be Harley Quinn. Or watching old Charlie Chaplin movies with her. Not the stuff at the end… But, f***, here he was, already mired in it, so might as well make it useful.

"Listen. You could be a flaming dumpster fire, and if a kid loves you, outside of you being actively cruel to them on purpose, they won't stop. Hell, my 'sister' who raised me 'til she died when I was 9 was actually a dope fiend who abducted me out of a stroller. She was a mess. I thought she was the greatest human ever. Even at the end, when she was really unwell and…um…fighty. Even after I was told who she really was. I forgave her everything. I miss her unstable ass every single day. I wouldn't trade knowing Tee for a perfect life today." Peter rested his chin on tucked up knees, not visibly emotional but fatigued-looking, more weighed down than Ralph had yet seen.

"Wow. …I'm sorry."

"Ugh, don't be!" Peter groaned. 'B'aww, my new friend's life is so tragic' was not the intended take-away! "What I mean is, Valerie probably won't stop loving you. And if that little kid likes you, how bad can you be?"

Ralph looked thoughtful, but didn't quite smile again. "That's a way to put it."

Ralph clearly had a lot to get off his chest. Maybe the big guy's mood would be helped if Peter kept him talking? Maybe he'd smile again… Why was that so enticing? …Eh, nah, nothing weird about it. Peter's brain simply had an uncontrollable, formulaic urge to "find sad thing, make it happy." He'd felt the same compulsion the first time he met his pal Hawkins and never flagged anything strange there. Besides, this "project" could take Peter's mind off his own shit. Ralph wasn't the only one who'd survived an explosively dramatic second half of his last school year…

‘Find sad thing, make it happy. This will, in turn, make you happy. Bad thoughts will go bye-bye. Problem solved!’

Peter patted the beer case. "Y'know, Sigfried, neither of us can walk home with this. I think we're gonna have to kill it. We're gonna have to kill it just like you would've killed that orphan." Ralph snorted out a surprised laugh. Peter felt absurdly victorious.

"Sure, I can stay out a little longer." Ralph's smile dimmed again. "My mom and step-dad are having a housewarming. When I realized I wouldn't be able to spend the night holed up with Val playing video games, that's the other reason I left."

"Social anxiety?"

"Sure, that too, but, uh… I don't think Mom would've wanted me there, looming over the new neighbors like some harbinger of impending destruction, or even just being generally awkward and inarticulate and clumsy."

Peter suppressed a hum of confusion. This guy wasn't inarticulate; his vocabulary was even decent. Was the verbal fumbling related to meeting new people? But Peter himself had known Ralph for maybe an hour. Did he make Sigfried feel particularly comfortable for some reason? That’d be…nice. "You sound completely normal, you know."

"…Not in front of Isabel. She's extremely intimidating. She already didn't like me before The Incident and now— Look, it's fair for her to be upset with me for uprooting us, but this move benefitted her! She wasn't tenure track at her old job, but Evangeline University told her she could be!" Ralph's foot tapped faster in agitation. "All she does is complain about moving to the 'middle of nowhere,' like we're in the farthest, uncivilized backwoods of Pennsyltucky and not an ordinary town. She sings rude songs about the neighbors being hicks! Then watch, Peter, she'll complain that her mean, snobby, JUDGMENTAL ASS has no friends and find a way to blame it all on me!" Sigfried cut himself off, wheezing, looking more exerted now than after tossing the fridge.

Aha. The 'bad guy' complex didn't start with the beatdown incident, did it? "Hmmn, I bileeve we 'ave found the root of zee problem," Peter announced in a silly German accent, pretending to scribble in a pad. "Tell me more about your mozzer."

"Nope. Think I'm done," Ralph uttered weakly.

Peter handed him a second beer. Ralph cracked, chugged, and flattened it so quickly Peter wished he’d timed the performance. "Ready now?"

"One more."

'Damn,' Hollows thought as Ralph slaughtered it. It was impressive, if concerning (not that Peter had room to talk).

Ralph shook himself out to release tension, straightened. "Okay." An impressive belch. "Sorry. …Let's just say we don't understand why Mom had kids. Mine and Valerie's reigning pet theory for step 1 is that she's too scatterbrained to remember birth control. As for step 2, she's not wildly pro-life, so we're not sure why she proceeded to have kids. We suspect she was married to my father for a while, since she hasn't officially married my step-dad yet, after he's asked her twice, on the grounds that 'paperwork makes things tricky.'

"Val we think was a legit accident because I wasn’t even introduced to that guy, although I remember she mentioned him to Grandpa. Maybe she was emb— Nevermind. After she found out she was pregnant, maybe she thought, 'Oh, I'll get my dog another dog so they'll entertain each other?'”

"You two don't know anything about these guys?"

"Hell no. I doubt she even knows where they are, and vice versa. Seems like they were huge douchebags, which raises the question, why was a woman this intelligent dating them? Mom's a class-A mystery, Peter."

"You haven't gotten curious? Asked? Tried to find something online?"

Ralph shook his head hard. "Nope. It's like when you're worried you're sick with something bad and you remind yourself not to Google it and scare yourself. The way mom acts…  We don't wanna know what awful shit they did. Then we'd feel…I dunno…jinxed or something."

"Fair."

"She was a single mom, so she worked a lot, right? Understandable. Then she decided to finish her doctorate, at which point her dad watched us a lot. He was a sweet man, but poor grandpa had a stroke." Ralph crossed himself and looked up. "Then we had babysitters, and the second I was old enough to watch Valerie, that was that. She was nonexistant. …You're giving me a look."

"Am not." Peter legitimately wasn't.

"You think I sound like a horrible, ungrateful misogynistic brat."

"I do not, and that was oddly specific, so I'm guessing she's called you that?"

"No." Ralph's eyes narrowed, and Peter distinctly heard a cartoon rattlesnake sound effect in his mind. "But she's thinkin' it."

"…Noooo comment."

"You've gotta believe me, it wasn't so much what she did as her attitude while doing it. Single parent hustle is legit, but usually it's clear they'd like to spend more time with their kids, right? This woman can’t be bothered to look up from whatever she's reading or working on even if our hair is on fire. She doesn't remember our birthdays. Once a year she randomly does something super nice and bats her eyes hopefully without saying 'happy birthday' because she knows she might be wrong. She wishes us a merry un-birthday, Peter. That's not just spaciness or forgetfulness—how hard is it to enter a date in a calendar? This woman has entire conversations with inanimate objects and not with us!"

"Maybe she's on the spectrum?"

"Of course we considered that! What, you think I go around carelessly slandering the neurodivergent?! Valerie and I have tested all sorts of theories. By this point we've ruled out almost every explanation except: This lady hates our guts."

Yikes, that was a whole mood. Peter reflexively chugged some of his own substandard beer.

"You can tell exactly how she felt about our fathers by how she interacts with us. Val’s snarky, pushes buttons too hard, acts superior, but deep down she's sweet and only a little conceited. Mom shoots her the patently disgusted eyerolls you'd direct at a full-blown malignant narcissist. She'll interact more with Valerie, though. She practically hides from me. You'd think I physically threatened her. Never mattered how friendly I was. When I'd get irritable about it, she'd get all snarly, like I'm this repulsive brute. Look, I-I don't know what my father got up to, but I didn't do it, and she makes me feel like I did every single DAY. … …So I don't try to be friendly to her anymore. We stick to opposite ends of the house."

"…That was a lot."

Ralph drew in a few deep breaths. "Yup. Sorry 'bout that." He reached for the final beer.

"Uh." Peter squinted and guesstimated timeframes. "Sip that, would you."

"Our step-dad’s okay. Checks in on us, even though it's very basic 'dad from Stranger Things' stuff. Have we eaten, is our homework done, where are our friends (oh Writers, that one hurts)? It's more than Mom does, but he’s busy all the time himself, and he never confronts Mom about how she treats us, even though we suspect he doesn't approve. Meanwhile, she'll set three fires in a single day, and if we dunk on her at all, he goes, 'Izzy's not crazy, she's a genius!' Then inevitably a fourth thing explodes behind him, and if we dare laugh, he grounds us.

“I kinda wonder if his self-esteem's barely higher than mine. We've gathered he was in a painfully one-sided lavender marriage before he met Mom, and something else must've happened to destroy his capacity to deal with conflict." Ralph shook his head. "Deep down, they're probably decent people who desperately need therapy. But they're not getting it, and I'm sick of them making it mine and Valerie's problem."

Peter looked at Ralph. Ralph looked back out of the corner of his eye.

"I get why you see yourself as a supervillain. You sure can monologue like one," Peter broke the silence.

Ralph chuckled, then admitted, "I haven’t had anyone listen. Well, Val would listen, but she's 11. How much is appropriate to say to her, right?"

"Thought you went to mandatory support group?"

"Didn't really talk. This is the most I've talked in a long time."

"…Dude," said Peter. "You need to get out of that house. And not to work your way through six packs out here by yourself, okay? If you ask nicely, I'll probably come split one with you—if you buy something besides Stampede." He whipped a Sharpie out of one of his infinite cargo pant pockets and made as if to write his phone number on Ralph's arm.

Sigfried yanked his forearm away. "Bah! Don't make me look like I think I'll need a bail person!"

"It's important to have a bail person," Peter said seriously.

"Wha—Queries. Nevermind." Ralph handed Peter his phone. "Just punch it in."

Peter spared a glance at the rapidly-emptied beer box. "If you ever need someone to pick you up, I’ll come."

"Don't normally binge drink outside of my own bedroom, this is just a weird day."

"I know you think that made it sound better, but it didn’t. If you need someone to dig you out from under a pile of trash, for that matter—"

"This is the first time I've come here."

"Not what I meant."

Ralph cocked his head, thinking of the piled-up soda and beer cans and wrappers rattling and crunching around every time he shifted in bed at home. "That was weirdly specific, Hollows. How’d you know that?" he asked, slightly uncomfortable.

"…My sister."

‘Don't think bad things, sadness means death. If you don't make Tara happy again you won't have food, don't think the bad things, stop now, STOP—'

Peter slapped on a bright smile and finger-gunned. "I'm getting you out of the house." He made the 'call me' sign against his ear. Ralph stumbled rising to his feet, banging his head hard on the upper metal edge of the exit hole to the van. "You good?"

"I'm used to it. I've hit my head enough times to explain some things. Heh."

Peter realized Ralph had tanked four beers quickly. He was a big dude who sounded like he drank a lot, but did he usually shotgun like that before walking somewhere? Shouldn't have let him do that. Another epic failure by the 6th Street Safety Ambassador, goddamn… Hopefully the poor dude wouldn’t be too hung over now that they had to get up and face the first day of school tomorrow. "You want more company? How far away do you live?" Why was Peter acting the way he used to back when Janie would insist she could walk home alone?

Ralph groaned and, comically like Janie, complained, "Peter, I can walk myself home, I'm not a damsel in distress." Pause. "Well. I'm in distress. A little. But I can handle it. Wish me luck with The Untamable Shrew and Mr. I-Can-Fix-Her." He waved and tottered away.

Peter waited until he wouldn't be noticed, then quietly tailed Sigfried home. A few silent heart-attacks later as his new friend almost walked into traffic twice, Peter identified his house as the big guy approached it. Ralph obviously slowed to avoid two people entering the home in front of him. A group stood behind the living room window, laughing as a short man in a blue button-up and khakis told a story. He had the look of a court jester about him; Peter felt a flash of empathy. The woman answering the door was probably Ralph's mother. She smiled at the entering newcomers, then shut the door quickly. Ralph stopped and abruptly changed course, walking around the back. …She'd locked it, Peter realized, and he knew that. …OOF.

Peter carefully followed Ralph and snooped from a bush near the back entrance. Ralph tugged the door a few times, growled, "Seriously?" Peter thought he might punch straight through the wood, but Sigfried spun on his heel, charged across the yard and furiously assailed a tree. Five solid hits in, he slumped forward, bumped his head against the bark, and apologized to it.

'Did she lock him out of his own house? What the hell?' Peter marveled. So Ralph hadn't been exaggerating after all!

[X]

Felix, as usual, was doing fine. He was sociable, loved people, only struggled when it came to conflict-mediation. Isabel, on the other hand, had been solitary or bullied most of her life. Long after her awkward teenage years, it persisted because she'd never learned to play nice with others. Her tongue was sharp as a knife, blade honed further by her previous combat-riddled relationships. Izzy remained scathing with others before they could put her down first. It was her coping mechanism and she wouldn't be parted with it, to her boyfriend's dismay.

Her other coping mechanism was playing dumb to bullies, to avoid giving them the satisfaction of knowing she was bothered. Sometimes this worked. Other times, it backfired as stupendously as many of her home engineering projects, when people simply laughed at how oblivious she seemed. Like now. She'd overheard several folks at this party calling her 'Dizzy Izzy' and describing the aimless way she wandered around town as 'walking her thestrals.' Now there were peeps of laughter at her stone poker face when she turned her back.

Isabel retreated into the kitchen, pretending to fetch more wine for the party, and stared at her own glum reflection in the toaster. "Do you think I'm odd?" Yes, she spoke to inanimate objects. She'd developed the habit as a child, since she'd had so few friends. Just like she rarely looked up from her books or her projects—why bother if all anyone would do was mock her?

"Where would you get an idea like that?" scoffed a voice from behind. Isabel turned to find Felix, chuckled grimly, and explained. His face pinched in sympathy. "Um. Sweetheart, I do have to ask if that was before or after the neighbors heard your song about everyone in town being hillbillies? That you were singing in the yard, at full volume, with zero reservations?" Isabel grimaced and laughed nervously. "That may have had something to do with it." (Felix didn't want to be hard on her. He knew Isabel preferred living in more densely-populated urban areas because living in the middle of nowhere, or even a suburb, could make it difficult to find help if you found yourself in…a bad situation… But that wasn’t their neighbors’ fault.) "You'd barely spoken to them yet, honey. Why is that necessary? I want people to see what a lovely person you are when your hackles aren't raised."

[Flashback starts]

Isabel wasn't traditionally soft or sweet, but she was caring. She wanted to fix your problems in the most direct manner possible. It reminded Felix of his ex-wife, and that was a green flag, since he and Tammy remained friends.

The day Felix met Isabel, his car broke down outside her house and he'd realized, FFS, he didn't have a spare tire. A handyman without a spare tire, the most basic of things, how ridiculous. It sent him into a spiral.

He'd recently gotten divorced (amicably, but still, his ex-wife was already dating a pretty woman named Audrey who was essentially female Felix but more manly somehow?!). Then his mother died of cancer related overuse of heavy cleaning products in poor ventilation. He was just returning from the funeral, after suffering through hours of his terrible aunts and grandmother disrespecting sweet, gentle Elaine Tremaine even at her graveside.

As a cleaning lady (a demeaning job, despite that she ran her own business), Elaine put up with too much as it was, so she didn't need those three around, heckling her for sport. She drilled into Felix that he must swallow his unhappiness and "yes/no, ma'am" as necessary until his grandmother (technically his mother's stepmother) and his two aunties, her half-sisters, left after intermittent visits. The purpose of these visits—besides verbally abusing Elaine—was unclear. Felix lost count of the times he wanted to kick them out, but he never did. And that day, at his last opportunity, he still couldn't remove the three insufferable women from her funeral. His father had to do it. How embarrassing.

(Felix Sr. was kind man, who'd entered a single digit incorrectly into a phone one tipsy evening and never found his lady suitor again. He'd rediscovered her by chance through a mutual acquaintance on Facebook many years later, when he was already in a happy committed relationship, and still immediately messaged her, regarding the photos including Felix, 'Is that my kid???' He became a reliable friend, but his well-meaning efforts were too little too late for Elaine's self-esteem.)

During these recent tragedies, Felix worked non-stop to stay out of his own house, which was slowly falling apart because he couldn't maintain anything in his own life.

So here he was, hyperventilating in his spare-tire-less car, helpless and idiotic, when someone knocked on his window. It was a brunette in a little blue nightdress and a simple black T-shirt haphazardly pulled over for modesty. "You alright?" She opened the door and Felix stepped out, explaining he didn't have a spare tire, and soon everything uncontrollably flooded out. He was venting, vision blurring, and didn't notice the woman step away. By the time he concluded his anxiety spiral, the woman was standing there again, looking mussed up and gesturing toward his vehicle, announcing, "There you go!" Felix looked down. She'd taken a spare tire from her own car or garage, removed the flat, and jacked it on herself, while he was freaking out.

Felix stared back at her, brain scrambled. The woman looked abashed now, like she thought she might get yelled at. "Oh, I know you could do it yourself. You seemed like you needed a break, that's all."

Felix nodded dumbly. "No, no, I did. Thank you… Um. I'm a han—"

"A handyman. By trade. It's painted on the car? And you said so. That's why you were embarrassed about not having the spare. No one ever thinks I'm listening, but I am." She rolled her eyes.

"…Yessssss. Well, if you ever need anything, you get a freebie for sure, ma'am." Felix produced a card.

The woman examined it, looked back up at him, grinned confidently. She had an odd quality about her. Brown hair, brown eyes. Should've been plain, yet she was immaculate, especially with that smile. "I'll call if I need anything. Hope your night improves."

Isabel broke at least 10 pieces of equipment in her house in increasingly creative ways. Goofy, nonsensical, porn-plotty ways. Ways that couldn’t be accidental because she knew how to remedy everything herself if she cared to. Know how he knew? Half the time Felix showed up, they'd get engrossed in conversation, and he'd start absent-mindedly handing tools to her at her specific request while she helped him fix the issue without any instruction. Then she'd pay him anyway or give him food.

One day she "forgot" to pay him. He said nothing because she was fixing her own property, really. But Izzy used it as an excuse to come over with more food. Before he could convince her to turn around, she'd shown up and was blinking in abject horror at the state of the professional handyman's own home. Felix blinked back, mortified. Isabel said nothing, asked nothing. He appreciated that. She simply grabbed some tools and started working. Soon, they were spending countless evenings fixing that property together. Finally, look at what nice condition the place was in now, he could probably sell it for much more than he paid! Boom. House sold.

So, now Felix was…here. Jumping into a relationship with a woman with two kids with both feet and nary a plan? Sounds legit! He wasn't scared of Isabel. She had lots of problems, and her relationship with her kids needed work, but Izzy wasn't broken. Or maybe she was broken but…still good

[End]

"But that'll never happen," Felix continued, "if you keep picking fights with everyone because you assume they'll pick one with you." He extended a hand. "Come on out. Just talk to them. They'll see you're not so bad."

Isabel hesitantly followed her boyfriend into the hallway leading to the living room, when through the glass pane in the front door she spotted Delbert and Lucille. Her new colleagues from the university really came? Isabel brightened. Maybe this party could be bearable after all! Plus, if she let Felix do most of the talking, maybe her reputation with the neighbors would be salvaged and she'd finally—

Wait. Omiwriters. Was that her gigantic son lumbering down the sidewalk?! Completely blasted drunk, from the look of it, and not in a fun mood. "Ohhh no. Ohhhh nonononono."

A little purple woman in Izzy’s mind eked out, “Shit! A core memory…”

Isabel's heart froze into a solid block of ice in her chest. She quickly welcomed her new colleagues inside, smoothly clicked the lock behind them, and excused herself to get something. Then she dashed toward the back door. Felix excused himself from story-time in the living room, wary about where his girlfriend was headed so frantically and why. Izzy made it to the mudroom door while Ralph was still ambling around the house and locked it, sighing with relief, before the door rattled and a loud boom of "Seriously?!"  caused her to peep nervously.

"Oh, cripes, honey!" came a chastising voice from behind her. Felix’s hands were planted sternly on his hips, having put two and two together. "You can't lock the boy out of his own home! C'mon, bring him in and introduce him to the folks. He's going to have a hard enough time fitting in as it is!"

"This is not as bad as it looks!" Izzy defended herself. "He is completely wasted. Why? HOW?" she moaned in frustration.

Felix cringed, sympathetic to both sides. (His girlfriend had valid reasons for her intense reaction to this specific stimulus. Even things that reminded her of good times made it hard for her to interact with her son. But the extremely complex feelings and complicated history surrounding Isabel's ex-husband were not Ralph's fault.) "I'll have to talk to him about that, then. Please let him in, hun. When's he ever been drunkenly belligerent?"

Isabel stared trepidatiously out the window as Ralph attacked the tree.

"Erm." Felix fake-coughed. "Hehe."

"Ugh," his girlfriend mumbled in disgust as her son took a leak in a bush. (Peter slithered, ninja-like and unseen, through the greenery in a desperate and thankfully successful effort to flee the blast zone.)

"Well, if you had let him in! …Look, if he's noticeably drunk, he'll want to avoid being noticed anyway, right? It'll all be okay, love."

Felix wanted to be a good stepparent, but so far felt like a failure. (No one could muck it up as massively as his awful grandmother, but he had to set the bar higher than that!) He'd seen what was happening with Ralph and folded like a lawn chair, like always. Poor dude couldn't help genetics. Felix knew if he started yelling, 9 out of 10 people wouldn't find it necessary to call the cops. Ralph probably exploded back at his old high school because he'd been forced to bottle rage, since any emotional venting made him sound terrifying. Felix saw it firsthand with Isabel. If Ralph raised his voice at all, she looked afraid, and then her son looked distraught. Poor things. Today was the day he'd put his foot down and start helping. Both of them.

"Izzy, this is a doom spiral. You know exactly what's happening." Felix smiled gently at her. He knew Isabel was more self-aware than she let on.

Isabel appreciated it, her tensed facial muscles melting into a relaxed smile back. Only for a moment. Soon she was ramrod stiff again and flushed with shame. "Oh, Holy Howard Ashman, you're right!" She should be giving her kid water and asking how he got this way, not having a panic attack and locking him out of his own house! "Why am I like this?!" She creaked the door open.

Ralph looked up from where he had fwumped sluggishly on the ground in defeat against the tree, picked himself up with a cautiously pleased expression, and approached. Her son entered the mudroom, reeking of Stampede and obviously filthy for some reason. "Ohhh dear," Felix whispered.

Isabel's poker face slid right back on as she crossed her arms and PROJECTED LIKE HELL: "Why are you like this?"

Ralph looked ready to willingly melt through the floor and f*** off to Hell. Felix spun him around to interrupt Izzy's blazing eye contact. "Heyyyyy, budddyyyyyy. You look…beat. Wanna go to bed? And talk about this tomorrow instead?" Ralph nodded blearily, grateful to not be actively berated. "We'll haveta walk by the living room where the guests are. Maybe—" Felix pinched his face, shrugged. "—say 'hi!' and explain you had a long day aaaat—" He regarded Ralph's filthy condition, mystified. "—wooork? But you hope they enjoy the party?"

Ralph thumbs-upped. "Solid lines, director. Learned 'em."

"Awesome, kiddo, lezgo!" Whoo! Killing it! Good step-dad FTW!

Ralph glared over Felix's head at Isabel; Isabel glared over Felix's head at Ralph.

All might've gone to plan, but on the way past the gathering, Ralph spotted the cake with the strangest expression. "Oh…cake. Is it chocolate?"

"Um…how is the flavor relevant?" asked Felix, befuddled.

"How is cake relevant?" asked Izzy.

Crickets.

Ralph sucked in a breath. "Don't suppose I could have a slice to take upstairs?"

"I'm so confused. You don't even like cake." Felix remembered an event in the not-too-distant past when he offered his step-son some cake and he'd looked irritated more than anything.

"Why are you having this discussion here?" Izzy demanded nervously.

"I know what you're remembering," Ralph huffed, too drunk for inside thoughts. "You saw me walk in all beat up-looking and you offered me cake. What was cake gonna do? Cure cancer, eliminate global warming, and give every fluffy shelter animal a home?!" A little louder, tossing his large hands in the air, drawing even more attention to the hallway dispute: "The man literally said 'let them eat cake!'"

"This is not an argument that needs to happen here!" Isabel repeated. She attempted to physically push Ralph's broad back toward the staircase but remained stuck, comically walking in place as if on a treadmill.

This particular referenced day in the blended family history was a sore spot. Felix grew increasingly flustered. "I-I just thought you wouldn't want to talk about it and the cake would make you feel better?"

"You offered me chocolate cake. I have an anaphylactic reaction to chocolate."

"Wait, really?! That's a…very uncommon allergy."

"You've seen me react to it! Because Val thought Nutella was just another brand of peanut butter, remember?"

Ralph didn't see Felix as a villain—quite the contrary. He was livid precisely because somehow even the nicest dude alive couldn't be bothered to remember that Ralph could be fatally sickened by chocolate, when the same guy wouldn't poison a mouse! They'd had a bad infestation the last winter they lived in the old house, and he’d railed at Ralph for setting traps because Felix and his mom kept them as pets. Then after he patched up the holes to keep them out, he and Isabel had a blast building this convoluted MacGyver maze to lure them out of the house. Very sweet, Ralph supposed, but it sucked Felix didn't find Ralph's health as important as that of a wild rodent that could potentially spread disease in his household.

"Are you sure I was there for that?" Felix wasn't. But Ralph was sincerely convinced that he was.

"Quit attacking Felix for trying to help you!" Isabel interrupted. She shooed her son like a dog, brushing hands in his face. "UP. NOW."

The trio became aware that the whole living room was thoroughly invested in the full-fledged soap opera happening in the hallway, because Delbert had begun loudly munching popcorn directly from the serving bowl. Lucille thwacked him in the head to stop once the family noticed their audience.

Isabel instinctively became defensive. "Okay. Fine." She began quoting the crappy misogynistic dad from the 'Creepshow' episode about Father's Day in a mocking tone. "'Give me my cake, Bedelia, I want my cake, where's my cake, blah, blah, BLEH?!'" Ralph, also a 'Creepshow' fan, recognized the reference immediately. He darkened, chest inflating, teeth grinding. Isabel fetched a slice, walked it over, and thrust the tray out forcefully toward his chest, as if she were drawing a sword and pointing it at his heart. "Here, take your stupid cake and leave."

…

Ralph lifted the cake with his bare hand and gently but pointedly "pied" Isabel in the face with it. Achievement unlocked. The large teen stomped up the stairs with a loud "GOODNIGHT!" and slammed his door.

Izzy coughed and wiped her face off with her sleeve. "I didn't know you bought ice cream cake. That was…really cold."

Felix—somehow convinced that he, not Ralph or Isabel, looked like the biggest jerk—was staring at the brown ice cream smear on his partner's face in horror and blubbering, "Oh, Writers, the cake was vanilla but the ice cream was chocolate. …I-I didn't know he was allergic, I swear!"

"I, for one, hope they keep hosting these, this is hilarious," Delbert chirped. Lucille facepalmed.

[X]

After a shower and some water, Ralph lied down in the dark waiting to either sober up or try to sleep this off before his first day at the new school in the morning. Hearing a knock on his door, he cringed, assuming Felix or Isabel had come to ream him out. Sigfried rose to face the music and found the last person he'd expected to see at his door—his little sister, carrying a pizza box, topped with a mysterious item in a paper bag. Ralph switched on the light and let her in. "Hey, Sourpatch," he eked out, unsure where to begin.

"Care to explain the ruckus I heard out there earlier, Stinkbrain?" A cursory glance determined the bed passed her grossness meter and she hopped on, patting the spot next to her.

"I asked if they'd share the cake. Cake was denied." Ralph was still shocked she was speaking to him. Apparently she wanted to gloss over the shouting match they'd had. He'd take her up on that, at least for now. He sat.

"…Oh," said Valerie, understanding what the others hadn't.

"Um… I'm gonna get your bike back for you tomorrow," Ralph told her, notes of apology in his voice. "I took a trip over to 6th and Lands and spoke to the Alpha Brother. He's gonna take care of it."

Val broke into a wide grin, shoved the pizza box aside, and leapt to her brother's side for a hug. "Ahhhh, thankyouthankyou!" If Ralph was surprised before, he was fully astonished now. What the hell was going on? "I wonder if he can get those guys to stop calling me 'Princess,' too." The jab had really added insult to injury. "It's not funny!" she insisted at her brother's chuckle.

"If it makes you feel any better, Princess is an actual D&D class with the superpower to boost morale in any conditions. Can't win the war without morale, so they're pretty damned useful to have around. Can personally confirm." Ralph smiled fondly and ruffled his sister's hair. "Why did you pickpocket them, anyway? Not the best strategy for making friends."

"Hehehe. The jig is up, huh? …Yeah, I did that. In my defense, I wanted money for your birthday pizza."

Ralph stared at her.

"This I'd already ordered." She handed him the paper bag.

Ralph produced from the bag an extremely stereotypical "World's Greatest Dad" mug. He smiled crookedly in partial confusion. "You got me a dad mug." The intent here, Ralph knew—using the single brain cell the two siblings shared in their near-hive-mind—was a dead even split between ironically humorous and sincere.

"I did," Valerie snickered, confirming his assessment.

"That's the dream!" He placed it on a shelf above his bed like a sports trophy. "Maybe we don't let Felix see, he might feel sorta put out."

Ralph scooped her into another hug and didn't let go. Valerie fake-struggled and it eventually turned into a playful 'slaying the dragon' game, which she won. Ralph fwomped face down on his bed and Valerie crawled onto his broad back like he was a bear skin rug and starfished on top of him comfortably like a happy cat.

"Thanks, Sourpatch. …I'm surprised you didn't box it back up and return it."

"I'm not mad. …Figured part of why you were in such a lousy mood was because they forgot again. Should've said somethin' earlier, but I wanted to surprise you. …Plus, turns out you kinda need a new favorite coffee mug, now. …Hehe…"

Ralph cringed hard at the attempted dark humor. "I really feel like I'm being rewarded for bad behavior here."

"You're not bad." Ralph didn't reply. "…Why'd you get so loaded?" Valerie whispered.

"…I was scared. After earlier, when you got scared, I got scared. I never want to hurt you."

"You wouldn't."

"Not deliberately."

"You wouldn't. …If you want to make it up to me, let's play Mario Kart."

"You'll get to enjoy clobbering me, I'm still tipsy."

"Then as a gesture of good will, I'll let you finish a slice of birthday pizza first. That should help." Val leaned against her brother in the same affectionate way a dog leans against its owner.

[X]

A shadowy figure lurked on a branch in the tree nearest the bedroom window. The Writers tried punishing Peter for being a stalker with that piss gag, but he was a rebel who wouldn't be deterred, dammit! Ralph interacting with his kid sister was exactly as cute as he'd hoped it would be.

So why was this other, gross feeling intruding on his happy thoughts? Jealousy.

[Flashback]

When little Lilo first showed up to the home, good old Cobra Bubbles himself had all but delivered her directly into Peter's arms, explaining they had a lot in common. That she had to be removed from her sister’s care, that the normally energetic child had been holed up for days listening to sad Elvis songs in her grief. Bubbles punched Peter gently on the shoulder. "Remind you of anyone? I think you can bring the joy back out of her. Besides." The agent smirked. "She was overheard praying to The Writers last night for 'the nicest angel you have.'" [Canned audience laughter.]

Mr. Bubbles' instinct was on the money. Lilo bonded to Peter immediately, even sought him out in the crow's nest in the middle of her first night, dragging that goofy doll up the ladder behind her, reminding Peter of another kid he used to know... He'd let her curl up against him like a soft, warm puppy, and hadn't minded at all, found it rather soothing. However, in the morning, Mildred reprimanded Peter and said he should've punted her to Lil, then insisted apologetically that she was only trying to protect him because "you kids are all scrutinized so much and it might look bad."

Peter never admitted to Millie exactly how hard that had pressed his buttons or why. When little Tootles arrived, Peter rebuffed most of the youngest kid's attempts at physical affection beyond manly noogies and slaps on the back. It felt shitty, but he knew Mildred was right. Would've been nice to be able to hug his own little brothers and sisters, though…

[Flashback ends]

Screw that. Peter detested jealousy almost as much as sadness. Turn it off.

Hollows resumed focusing on the other, floaty, nice thing he felt watching Ralph be so sweet with the little girl. At first it made him confused and uneasy, just as the similar feelings had earlier, but at last, Peter placed the source. He felt protective of Ralph because Mr. Spicy Sadboi reminded him of Tara! Duh! Made perfect sense. Nothing weird about that, right?

Welp. The big guy was safe and settled now, so Peter should climb down from this tree and stop staring. …Any minute now…

Somewhere in Peter’s brain, an ominous thumping sounded behind a locked door labeled “Peter’s Deep Dark Secret.” Anxiety wrung their hands and laughed, “Hmmn, I don’t think he’s ready for that yet. I’m sure we can just ignore it.”

[X]

Isabel tossed and turned. Felix had consoled her earlier, but she knew, she could feel that he was disappointed in her behavior. Hell, so was she. 'You managed to attract all those trash men before because you're a trash woman,' she berated herself savagely. 'This is a fluke! He'll leave any day now!'

Felix was awake, too, having done increasingly complicated calculus in his head until he was forced to ask himself, ‘Did I enter the kid’s birthday wrong in the calendar? …No, that’s impossible, that would mean Ralph has been humoring me for the last 2 years we’ve known each oth— Ohhhhh, fudge, he would!’ Incredible! Was this oddly specific screw-up genetic or something?! …Oof, he couldn’t tell Isabel. Then she’d feel even worse…

His partner made a soft noise of frustration. Felix rolled over and pulled her into a spoon. "You're still awake, too?"

"…I had that strange dream about the rose again."

This, while a deflection, was true. Recently Izzy had started dreaming that her long-deceased ex-husband was gesturing very intensely at a dying rose under a glass container, getting progressively angrier, like she ought to know what to do. As if she could ever figure out what exactly that asinine prick wanted, even when he wasn't in one of his weird bitchy moods! Ugh! In the dream, the problem was magnified, because Adam couldn't seem to speak, could only growl or roar. How appropriate. "Bork, bork," she'd reply, deadpan, making him agitated enough to kick a chair. "Yeah, gee, that's gonna get me to do what you want!" Oh, that growl she understood. "wHy IS shE bEIng SO dIFFicULT?" she mocked him.

Despite her dismissal of Adam's mysterious concern, Isabel secretly found the dream troubling.

"They're only dreams, Isabel," Felix soothed. "Why, I dream the craziest things sometimes about my mother begging me to help her fix the timeline, and I'm sure it means nothing at all!"

But if it meant nothing, why would Izzy keep having it?

Chapter Text

[Jim 14yo, Peter 13yo]

Jim Hawkins sat in an empty jungle gym outside the local YMCA. The daycare was closed today, the playground abandoned, so he chanced puffing shoplifted cigarettes out the window of the fake pirate ship jutting from the structure, unaware someone had crept into the crow’s nest above to watch the rising smoke trail.

The stranger hopped onto a connector bar outside the ship’s window to chide jokingly, “Smoking in a children’s playground? Despicable.”

Jim yelped, leaping out of the ship and onto a platform. “Who the fffff—? There’s no kids here!” Besides this gremlin of nebulous age. Jim dropped awkwardly from the platform onto the ground. Meanwhile, Peter flipped off the bar and planted himself so gracefully that Jim almost clapped.

“Geez, don’t send up a smoke signal and then act surprised when somebody shows up, Broody McAngyBoi!”

“Could you not call me that?!”

“Fine, what’s your name, Broody?”

“Jim.” The young man offered a handshake out of habit, despite his irritation. “Jim Hawkins.”

Emotions flitted across the other boy’s face too fast for Jim to accurately read. Surprise? Uneasiness? Then that outgoing grin plastered over it. The kid accepted the handshake and shook with exaggerated firmness that made Jim feel like an undulating majorette ribbon. “Peter Hollows. What’re you moping alone out here for?”

Jim huffed at this characterization. “Mom bought me a summer membership. Thought she’d get me out of the house makin’ friends using intramural sports. Didn’t wanna hurt her feelings, so I let her drop me off, but I'd rather be alone.”

Peter shrugged. “Then don’t interact with anyone. The service is paid and you’re just gonna sulk? Here’s one for the books—I side with your mom. Go hit a punching bag alone. You can be as pissy as you want while getting exercise.”

“What are you here for?”

“I come for the MMA classes. …Say it,” said Peter challengingly in response to the judgmental full body scan Jim gave him.

“You look like you need them.”

Quicker than lightning, Peter executed a surprise hold and a flip. Jim landed on his back, spluttering. “I’m a quick learner,” Peter said cockily. “You good?”

Jim righted himself, unhurt but indignant. “Was that necessary?!”

“Please, I didn’t hurt you, we’re on a mat!” Hollows bounced on his toes on the soft, rubbery blue surface. “Dear Milt Kahl, lookit this thing. What’s the kids’ motivation not to fall off? The woodchips and pebbles were character-building! …You gonna say why you’re sulking?”

“No, I'm not gonna share with the stranger who just assailed me."

“'S better if it's somebody you don't know. If you embarrass yourself, maybe you just never see me again?”

Jim squinted. “…That…actually makes sense, you little weirdo.”

He should put distance between them, but something about Peter was oddly magnetic, and Jim hadn’t talked to anybody about this. The boy (who Jim assumed was several years younger but precocious) rocked on the balls of his feet impatiently, waiting to be told a story. Hawkins was still unconvinced he wasn’t hallucinating the elf. Most importantly, Jim was insanely bored.

"Fine. ...Dad left when I was 10. I was getting over it. Then Mom started dating again, and I really started getting over it because I got along way better with the new guy. But they broke up recently, and Mom and I are a package deal. He wouldn’t come spend time with me now, even if he were allowed to. That’d be cringe, right?”

There was more nuance and detail to this story, and much more going on in Jim’s life generally. He was stressed by his mother’s hang-wringing about his falling grades, shoplifting, and lack of friends. Plus, anyone would worry if their mother were a petite woman like Sarah who ran a bar alone. (Jim once demanded to shadow for a night to observe her clientele. She ratted him out to her regulars ahead of time. Jim didn’t find the silly little musical number they prepared about how harmless they all were very funny, but Sarah was face-down on the bar shaking with laughter at the spectacle.)

But Jim, rarely talkative, hit the main beat and shut up. “Now I don’t feel like going in there and watching a bunch of guys teach their sons how to box and shit, alright? Satisfied?”

Peter hummed softly and nodded in understanding. “That does sound sucky. Sorry. Whaddya figure broke them up?”

“Mom developed the wildest theory that Mr. Silver was a mobster.”

“Was he?”

“I recall nothing. I'd like an attorney.” Jim winked.

Peter looked distracted now. “You’ve made me realize the funniest thing, Broody. I never wanted a dad. Is that odd? I miss my sister, and I miss my first foster mom… Nothing but lovely single ladies in my life, so far, but I’ve never even entertained the concept of a dad.” (Sometimes Peter pretended Adam Sandler was his dad, but no one else needed to know.) “Guess I’m comfortable being the dominant masculine energy in any given space I’m in.”

“Dear Writers,” huffed Jim with heavy eye roll. Hawkins didn’t notice, but Peter searched his face for any hint of a laugh at his over-the-top machismo parody. That was the entire goal of this project—one laugh. Peter suspected Hawkins wasn't much older than him, but the cloud of negativity hanging over the guy's head visibly aged him. It was painful to look at. Peter had to do something.

“Fair’s fair—what’s your story?” Jim asked.

The flash of awkwardness on the younger boy’s face vanished like magic. He drew a deep breath. “First, my big sis Tara died. Overdosed. She raised me ‘til I was 9, but I learned she wasn’t my sister at all, she kidnapped me from a stroller in a park. Ha! How ‘bout that? Doesn’t change anything for me. She was… still my sister? I mean, she’s the lady who taught me how to—” Peter launched into a long, perplexing list mixing ordinary activities like “ride a bike” and “make pancakes” with increasingly bizarre ones like “roll down the hill in a tire,” “pick locks,” and “hot wire a car.” “Therefore, she’s my big sister! Obviously. The social workers didn't get it. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been through, like, 15 of 'em."

During this, Hollows had hopped back onto the jungle gym to hand-walk backward across the monkey bars. Somehow his rapid-fire chatter didn’t even slow down, Jim marveled. What kind of lung capacity did he have?!

“Aaaanyway. After Tee died, the authorities tracked down the family I was ‘napped offa.” He'd made it to a spiral slide and flopped on his back into the entrance, head-first. “But they’d had two other kids in the meantime and couldn’t afford a third, so, ha!” Peter went down the slide for comic effect, the visual equivalent of a sad pennywhistle, sing-songing, “Awwwkkkwardddd!”

Jim was quiet by default, but now he was struck speechless. 

“Was almost adopted, but Wendy tossed me back in the ocean cuz her kids started copying me.” Peter reascended to the crow’s nest above the pirate ship, swinging around the pole as he spoke. Jim supposed the constant motion was a nervous tic. “I didn’t invite them onto the roof, they followed me! I was herding them back inside when the little one almost fell, but I caught him! It was an accident, but you try reasoning with her!” Jim suspected Peter was omitting a few things. “Then I had another family, but I blew my foster brother’s hand off with a firecracker, and welp, can’t apologize for that adequately, so they chucked me, too. He ended up in juvie because he tried strangling me. Had impressive grip strength in his left hand.” Peter smirked and sassed, “Wonder what that was all about?” No laugh? Ugh!

“Then I went to a group home, then a second one because of—” He paused. “—personality conflicts in the first one. It was a four on one fight!” Peter paused the narration to bray loudly like a donkey. Jim didn’t laugh. Dammit. “But they’re not the bad guys, oh no. I am, because after getting pounded I booby trapped their bunks like the kid from ‘Home Alone.’ Way gentler versions of the traps. Black eyes and sprains, not head trauma and broken bones! Yet naturally, I’m a sociopath!”

Jim shook his head, wondering when he’d wake up.

“I promised myself I was done having black eyes every day, so now I come here.”

Hawkins mimed waving a white flag and interrupted before Peter could get too many lines into the YMCA theme song. “Oooookay, man. You win.”

“I wasn’t trying to win anything.”

“Yes, you were,” Jim cranked. “It’s obnoxious, makin’ up a bunch of stuff like that to win some petty ‘I have it harder’ contest!”

“Huh? Didn’t say I had it harder.” Peter sat on his heels atop the canopy above the slide, resting his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. “And I’m not lying.”

“Nobody tells a story like that like…THAT.”

“You’re clearly not a fan of stand-up. Maybe that’s why you’re so sour, Broody.”

Jim watched the kid’s bonkers gymnastics reach preternatural levels. “Who taught you that?!”

“I did.”

Hawkins' hands flew up at the perceived compulsive lying. “You did not! How could anyone teach themselves that without breaking every bone in their body?!”

“Had someone spot me sometimes, but I taught myself. Remember—motivating power of gravel and woodchips!”

Peter was using muscle groups that were invisible on his wiry pipe-cleaner frame. “That’s impossible. How are you that strong? You look like you’d fly away in a strong breeze!”

“Oh, so I’m stronger than gravity, you mean?” Peter swung off the monkey bars, stuck the landing, and folded into a sweeping bow. “Thanks for the compliment!”

Jim clicked his tongue. “I’ve decided I don’t have the mental energy for you.”

“How 'bout physical energy?” Peter spun Jim around by the shoulders when he tried walking away. “I’m told I have a very punchable face. If you won’t come in for the bags, try your best to hit me!”

Jim wasn’t comfortable. “I dunno… What’re you, 11?”

The elf’s face flattened. “Don’t pick unnecessary fights, Jim. I’m 13. Seriously, not only will you not hurt me, I doubt you’ll even graze me.”

Peter, to Jim’s astonishment, was exactly as good as he’d bragged. Hollows taunted his opponent while he dodged him and tricked Jim into punching obstacles like a Loony Toon running into a wall. He was only teasing, but it didn’t help Jim’s mounting frustration. When Hawkins was launched off the spinning merry-go-round during their sparring, he lost his temper. Jim caught his breath on the ground, glaring. “Is it your hobby to pretend to try cheering someone up and deliberately make them feel worse? You like kicking people on the ground, psycho?!”

Peter let the wheel slow to a stop and frowned in legitimate consternation. “Wait… What’d I do?”

“Parading around talking down to people because you’re this paragon of resilience who’s ‘stronger than gravity,’ unlike the little pussy who’s moping because one bad thing happened to him, huh? That’s the point you’re trying to make, right?!” Jim barked. Peter started chopping his arms crosswise, alarmed by the interpretation, but Jim ignored him. “There’s a lot going on, but I don’t feel the need to talk forever about myself like I think I’m a god!”

After a long silence, Jim watched Peter sag like gravity affected him after all. The boy seemed visibly heavier, closer to the ground. “Wow. Ha. I was today years old when I put together why those guys at the old home beat on me so much…” Peter swallowed thickly. “Thanks, that’s valuable information. Hope your day gets better, Jim.” He dismounted the merry-go-round and walked around the building with the spring sucked out of his step. Hawkins breathed into his fist in frustration. Maybe Peter really was trying to cheer him up. He sure had a funny way of trying...

Perhaps it was how small Peter looked that flooded Jim with a strong desire to apologize. He peered around the corner. Crap, had he lost the kid already? Some leaves rustled and fell on his head. Jim looked up. They’d been displaced by the anxious movement of Peter sitting on a high tree branch (the older tween wondered how he’d gotten up there). Peter looked rough, face sort of…crumpled, like tissue paper. Jim heard soft self-critical mumbling of, “Bad for morale…” spoken with profound disgust, like it was the worst fate imaginable. The ginger hadn’t noticed Jim watching, so Hawkins politely played dumb. After lapping the building again, he feigned spotting Peter for the first time and cleared his throat loudly, waving.

Peter looked mortified for 0.5 seconds, then quickly replaced his downtrodden expression with an angry one. “Piss off!”

Jim began his pitch. “There’s a skate park nearby. Oughta practice more. Could use somebody spottin’ me, so I don’t break every bone teaching myself.”

“Try not falling,” Peter snapped.

“You’ve inspired me to try harder.”

“It doesn’t help when you say it sarcastically, James.”

“I’m trying to apologize, jackass! Here’s your opening! You like doing people favors to make them happy, amiright? ...Sorry I misunderstood you. You’re not that annoying, you caught me on a bad day.” Regarding Peter’s parting comment about the guys in the old home: “And you don’t deserve to be hit.”

Peter glared sternly. “I never said that.”

Jim gamely replied, “Said what? …You do talk too much, but that’s okay. I don’t talk much at all.”

“Neither did my sister. That’s why I fill dead air so much.” Peter made as if to climb down and Jim, rattled, automatically swung his arms out as if Peter were a much smaller child and he planned to catch him. “Ugh, Hawkins, I’m not a kitten!” Peter scramble-dropped down the tree trunk (exactly how a kitten would), plopping on his butt at the very end—the first time Jim saw him fail to stick a landing. A snicker bubbled out of Jim’s throat. “Shaddup!” Peter ordered but smiled begrudgingly. He’d finally earned a laugh after all!

Jim offered him a hand; Peter didn't take it. He rose, dusted himself off, and asked, “Alright, where’s this park and where’s your board?”

[x]

The two boys limped to Hawkins' house, both heavily bruised, Jim’s ankle sprained. “Verdict's in. Concrete is worse than gravel and woodchips,” Peter grunted, rubbing his jaw. At Jim’s “no shit, Sherlock” look: “Certainly understood it in the abstract.” The ginger cracked his neck. “But I tend to learn by doing.”

“Never taking advice from you again.”

“You wanna get good on that board, don’t you?”

“Are you gonna try again?”

“Eh… I don’t think it’s my hidden talent.”

“Oh, I see. Coward,” Jim teased. Peter gasped in dramatized outrage, grabbed a large stick from the ground, and brandished it in an ‘en garde’ stance as if to defend his honor. “How old are you?”

“Nine,” Peter joked with a bright smile.

“Thought so.” Jim seized the stick for a makeshift crutch. “Ah. Muuuuch better use of stick.” He couldn’t point with his skateboard under his other arm but jerked his head in the general direction. “House is over there, with the sort of globular roof.”

“Sweet.” Peter stole the skateboard from under Jim’s arm, knelt on it. “Race ya, Peg Leg Putz!” He kicked off and rolled down the hill, arms spread like wings, dramatically NANANANAAAAing the intro melody to Van Halen’s ‘Dreams.’

“Yup, he’s 9,” said Jim, feeling a confused, protective fondness for the first time.

Sarah Hawkins stepped out her front door into a beautiful clear summer day in Evergreen, prepared to do some gardening before her night shift, when something rolled straight into her shins and felled her like a tree. “JAMES PLEIDEIS HAWKINS!” she bellowed automatically, rubbing her legs, then looked up to find…the wrong kid. Poor little dude looked more than simply worried he’d hurt somebody or that he was in trouble. He was pale, like he’d seen a ghost. Using humor to express no ill will, Sarah mock-scolded, “FIRST NAME, MIDDLE NAME, LAST NAME!”

Peter looked relieved and helped her up. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Over here, Mom!” Jim called. She gasped at his obvious sprain as he approached. “I injured myself like an idiot, he’s innocent.”

“You don’t look so hot yourself, sport,” Sarah remarked, reaching as if to touch one of the bruises forming on Peters face. The boy jerked back as if she’d static shocked him, stammering that he was fine.

This pattern continued. Ms. Hawkins, thrilled her son had made a friend, begged Peter to stay for dinner. Jim watched, fascinated, as the gregarious, cocky boy he’d spent the afternoon with became reserved. He looked at Jim’s warm, kindly mother as if she’d stab him in the heart at any moment. He looked like an insect aching to fly into the light but cursed with knowing what would happen. He nibbled the dinner like it was fairy food, like if he accepted the generosity and dug in, nothing would ever sate him again. Jim considered that perhaps those stories—at least the bit about his ex-foster mom— were true.

Peter practically roadrunner sped away from the property in a cloud of dust after trading phone contacts with Jim. Jim explained the ostensible problem to offended Sarah, who was an understanding sort; she agreed not to push so hard in the future. Still, Jim caught her smiling fondly at Peter whenever he came around. He wondered what might’ve happened in another universe where Peter accepted Sarah’s tenderness.

He especially wondered it whenever he’d glimpse Peter hiding squirrel-like in the tree nearest the Hawkins’ living room window. The younger boy would watch with rapt attention as Jim and Sarah enjoyed completely mundane nights in together, renting adventure movies and having popcorn food fights. Jim never let Peter know he saw, and he forgave the eccentric little elf for his creepy stalker energy. Later, he made time to watch the same adventure flicks with the younger boy together.

Like Peter hadn’t desired a father, Jim never particularly wanted a little brother before. But you learn new things about yourself every day.

[X]

[Jim 16yo, Peter 15yo, Jane 15yo]

Some debris flew up from under the tires and shredded the Guardians of the Galaxy T-shirt Jim was just beginning to outgrow near its collar. Maybe they’d wear thicker clothing in the future along with the helmets, but aside from that, things were going swimmingly. The dirt-bikes they’d salvaged and the course they’d created proved to be time well spent. The boys were having a blast zooming through the clearing, racing and spotting each other while learning tricks. Were they supposed to have these? Absolutely not, but secrets were always safe between Jim and Peter, partners in crime.

As they whizzed past Blind Man’s Bluff, Jim remained fully focused on the ride, whooping with full-throated enthusiasm. However, some movement through the trees captured Peter’s attention, and time temporarily slowed to a crawl.

In the tire swing local kids used to catapult into the lake off Hangman’s Tree was a girl. Esmerelda had pointed her out to Peter before as the newest talent on the girls’ gymnastics team, Janie Edwards. He’d passingly thought she was cute, but that was it. This scene caught his eye more fully. Jane practiced some Cirque du Soleil-like tricks on the tire swing and—intending to jump in the water to cool off—wore only her bra and panties. (Simply a plain white T-shirt bra and cotton novelty underwear from a Spencer’s Gifts with “Red Bull Gives You Wings” printed across the ass. Not that it mattered. The view was still glorious.) Two silver dog tags twinkled at her neck where they hung off a tight thick suede choker so they couldn’t fall off when she hung upside down. In the afternoon sunlight hitting them through the tree’s foliage, the silver pieces cast dappled starbursts over her cleavage. If you listened closely, Peter thought, you could hear Hot Chocolate’s ‘You Sexy Thing’ on the breeze.

'She'd be even better if only she weren't so stiff,' Peter thought, critiquing both her acrobatics execution and overall sexiness levels.  

Then time mercilessly un-paused itself.

Reorienting, Peter realized his horny teenage ass had skidded, lost control of the bike, and was presently barreling through brush toward the cliff. Something had jammed the breaks, because of course. Rolling off now risked serious injury on the sharp rocks and stabbing branches. The track was mere yards from the tree, so after only seconds ticked by while he tried to think, Peter was practically on top of the edge. Careening off the bluff wasn't ideal regardless, but his trajectory also put him on the wrong side of the tree, the side where you didn’t want to jump because of a collection of jagged rocks in the water. He could jump off while airborne and try backpedaling, but, as Peter hated acknowledging, he was extremely light. He wasn’t sure how far he’d fly.

This, at the very least, was about to suck a lot. Peter heard Jim’s calls of frightened concern in the background. Then everything slowed a second time.

As Peter launched off the cliff, Jane, who’d processed the situation, swung as far toward him as she could, hanging by her legs on the tire swing like a trapeze artist. Her arms were outstretched, aiming to catch his hands to prevent him from flying toward the rocks. Sweet—Peter liked these odds a lot better! He arced backward, felt the yank of her hands, and unlocked his feet as the bike flew forward without him. There was a loud splash and a muffled clunk (a violent crunch, muted by water) as it landed precisely where he’d suspected it would. Yikes.

Still in slo-mo mode, Peter looked up to find Jane questioning her life choices. She couldn’t possibly hold onto him. When they swung backward, his weight would pull her right off. At least they’d probably both land in a good spot now? Peter couldn’t thank his younger self enough for learning all those party tricks, back when he had no friends and nothing better to do. He swung himself forward and upside down as hard as he could before the tire picked up too much backward momentum. Peter’s feet contacted Jane’s, kicked them off, replaced them in a slightly different position, calves and feet anchoring as tightly as possible. Once he’d replaced her on the swing, her legs dropped under her, and she prepared to fall in the same facing-away position he’d been in when she caught him. Peter caught one hand, let her whip around and catch the tire with the other. They stared at each other in shock as the swing swayed gently and stabilized.

“That was—!” Jane wheezed, torn between “unnecessary” and “incredible.” “Have you considered joining the gymnastics team?”

Peter pulled a big, authentic smile, captivated by her startlingly vivid robin’s egg blue eyes. “Nah, not interested in cavorting around in tights all day.” [Canned audience laughter.]

“Why not? Might be a good look for you,” Jane teased. Her hand began slipping. “Am I too heavy?”

“Wh—? No.” Peter was unsure if he was trying harder not to offend Jane or himself. “Go ahead and drop, we're in the right spot now."

Despite the fact that she'd clearly intended to do so, hesitation crossed Jane's face. The expression was quickly replaced by stubbornness, refusal to be mocked. Peter chuckled softly in understanding after she dropped, hit the water, and resurfaced moments later, calling up, "You big baby!" as if he were the one who'd been worried. Peter reoriented himself on the tire and showily stripped off his pants, shirt, and helmet, tossing them onto the ground at the cliff’s edge. Jane performatively whooped and mimed tossing $1 bills from the water. He stood, got a swing going, and cannonballed in.

Now at the cliffside and ready to join the party, Jim whipped off his own shirt and performed an impressively graceful swan dive (he was briefly on the swim team before losing interest). Jane cheered while Peter yelled, “Show off!” [Canned audience laughter.] He spent roughly 1.5 seconds feeling intimidated by Jim’s more generously toned chest and arms, then remembered ‘good friends aren’t jealous’ and roughly turned it off.

He still wanted Jane’s attention back, though. “‘Ready to float, Beverly?’” he joked with a mischievous grin and tugged her under. Beneath the ripping surface, her strawberry blonde choppy bob floated around her like a halo, reminding him of a mermaid. She shoved him away with an eye roll. They bobbed back to the surface. Peter laughed, kicking himself backwards in the water. “Not surprised I can’t keep you down with those big buoys of yours!” Jane’s jaw dropped, her scoffing laugh falling halfway between scandalized and oddly flattered. She splashed him in the face. Peter kept giggling though the mouthful of crappy lake water.

“Peter, she just helped you avoid grievous injury, be polite!”

“Awww, Jim, I’m only trying to drown her!”

"Hey, you done with the bikes?” someone called from above them. The trio looked up.

“One of ‘em’s out of commission, but yeah,” Peter said.

The other kids looking over the cliffside groaned. “You’re helping us fix it!”

“Sure thing, sorry about that!” The onlookers disappeared from view atop the edge of the bluff.

“Who are they?” Jane asked.

“They’re from the town over,” Jim explained. “We teamed up to make those bikes operable after rescuing them from the scrap yard. Now we share them.” He frowned. “Why don’t we dry off and go get lunch, huh?”

Jim and Peter pointedly blocked Jane like security detail as they exited the water and trudged up the hill to retrieve their dry clothes. “Boys, seriously, it’s no different from wearing a bikini!” Yet Peter, who’d crudely commented on Jane’s water balloons himself, was shooting those guys some looks. And so was Jim. Didn’t have a high opinion of their own “friends,” did they? “If you're friendly with each other, why’d you want to leave so fast?” she queried once they were out of earshot.

“He doesn’t like what they get up to besides racing with us.” 

Jim admitted, “Peter’s not wrong.”

It was shameful, in Jim’s opinion, how often he and Peter were pulled over for silly, innocuous stuff like graffitiing. They painted the town a mural; people should’ve thanked them! Maaayyyybe a mural depicting a familiar, scantily clad swimsuit model wrestling an alligator in the lake wasn’t to Evergreen’s sensibilities, but art was art! (Peter approved the design but tsked disapprovingly at Jim for drawing his sister’s bikini that small. Hawkins couldn’t be blamed. He’d seen the photo album. Tee Hollows may have been insane, but she was bangin’ hot!) Showed how little the cops had to do in the peaceful community of Evergreen. Okay, one time they’d affixed a rocket to Jim’s skateboard the way Tara had done with her skates, crashed it, and caused a trash fire. But beyond that, Peter and Jim were harmless!

He supposed Nick and Judy (yup, they were on a first-name basis) understood that, because they never pushed for serious repercussions. Like everyone in Evergreen, the two neighborhood cops were uncommonly kind. Their disappointed, almost parental expressions when they escorted the boys home were almost punishment enough. (The looks they gave Jim and Peter when the boys sang ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ at them were far funnier. The look on Judy’s face when Nick started singing with them was even better. Several trips in the squad car later, they were dropping Jim off on his doorstep with Peter in tow, singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ together in perfect four-part harmony. The look on Sarah's face was everything. “This isn’t helping, you two. Quit it before I call your manager.”)

These out-of-towners who shared the dirt bikes, however, were a much rougher crowd, into a lot of violent performative bullshit and hard drugs. Once Jim pieced together the whole picture, he knew he wasn’t interested, and he absolutely did not want Peter near it. (They were in the same grade due to Jim’s academic slip after his father left, and he was only 1 year older, but Hawkins behaved like Hollows was a much younger kid brother, to Peter’s annoyance.) Jim began avoiding the gang, no longer scheduling to meet for races, instead goofing off with Peter when they probably wouldn’t be around.

Two girls who Jim privately dubbed “The Edgelord Sisters” ran with this crowd. They flunked his vibe check as badly as the boys. The angry, stocky redhead—always scowling like the same bird shat in her Wheaties every morning and she still hadn’t shot it—was packed with as much unpleasant, unironic machismo as the guys. Red Hair was the type of person who willfully misunderstood what ‘Fight Club’ was about. Peter was entirely too fond of the bouncy, eccentric, blue-haired sister. Said she reminded him of Tee. That, for Jim, was Red Flag #1, since most of that Tara woman’s screws had been knocked dangerously loose. Moreover, Blue Hair was the only member of that creepy gang Peter had enough rapport with that he might follow her straight into a bear trap. Jim dreaded that.

Interrupting his thoughts, Jane cocked an eye at Jim and asked, “You don’t want them around me, but they’re fine to have around you?”

“I’m not the precious cargo,” Jim said.

Jane laughed the same scoffing laugh from earlier, rolling her eyes. “Ohhoho, I see.” More seriously: “In that case, you two be careful, please.”

“Jim, old pal,” Peter laughed, “when are we ever not careful?” Jane observed curiously as Peter playfully “pew-pew”ed at Blue Hair since he never got to say hello, and she did so in return, while Jim and Red Hair exchanged twin glares of profound distaste.

[x] 

The three became close and hung out near Hangman’s Tree regularly.

The first time that fool curmudgeon Amos encountered them near the clearing chasing a fox—startling the teens with unexpected gunshots outside hunting season in an area where kids regularly played—Jim was immediately on the old man's ass to reprimand him. This left Peter behind to notice Jane, stock still, looking almost meditative, controlling her breaths. She claimed to be fine, but he detected an unsteadiness about her, like a tightrope walker, focused on not tipping and plummeting to her doom. He saw, in her crooked smile and her eyes, embarrassment, fear of her weakness showing.

Peter came closer, held her hand when she didn't brush him off, and whispered, "Hey, if you haven't fallen over yet, you probably never will." Jane looked mortified that her friend could tell she felt about to faint. "Can confirm. Never fell once," Peter continued, thumbs-upping her, with Jim still well out of earshot. "Haven't had this happen in years, though." Jane had no time for follow-up questions because Jim returned. Hawkins didn't discern that she was any more disturbed than the others, despite him being a kind and attentive person. Peter verified this before they parted ways: "See. Nobody else notices a thing. You're good at that!" He lingered close, almost like he planned to peck her on the cheek, but ultimately finger gunned and waved goodbye.

They grew much more curious about each other after that.

Jane started spending time with Peter alone, became willing to open up about things she wouldn't with her mother. Thoughts like how, while surviving the shooting was terrifying enough, it was particularly nightmarish considering that was the fear her father must've felt before dying in the service. Feeling weak and helpless, which made her furious. Or how her little brother cried that she'd become a mean, angry person.

Peter never made Jane feel like a victim, framed everything as a victory. She'd ask, "Is it a 'win' if I achieved it by hiding and keeping my mouth shut?" He'd answer, "Waiting something out is not the same as running. That's determination!" Pointed out it could probably never get any worse than that. Asked her how much she thought she could handle now because of it, even though it sucked. He assured her she wasn't mean or cold, she was tough. It felt...really good. Before long—far sooner than expected, given the ineffectiveness of therapy—Jane began believing these things.  

There'd been tension between them at first because Peter had bristled at how over-serious or irritable Jane could be and mocked her. Now he still teased but far more gently, and Jane was able to genuinely laugh about it. Peter made her laugh more than she had in years, and it was clear he put great effort into doing so (how sweet). Jane noticed over time her muscles were less tense, she slept more soundly, she hummed in the shower again, was more playful with her little brother.

(Peter noticed, too. Theory confirmed: Janie was even more beautiful when she wasn't so stiff. Better at gymnastics, too, more flexible now that she was looser. The combination of those two things was...oof...a little hard to endure with dignity whenever he occasionally spotted her for practice...)

Peter didn't volunteer information about himself for quite some time. "Not a chance. For someone who knows how to keep quiet, you have no concept of what an 'inside thought' is," he taunted of her reputation for being too bluntly opinionated and incapable of telling polite lies (like "of course Santa's real" to small children). It took Jane time to realize the joke wasn't necessarily "Jane can't keep a secret." Did Peter expect...mockery? So it felt like the highest of compliments, months later, when she learned more. If Peter Hollows could grow less guarded around her, maybe she was getting better? Maybe she wasn't the terrifying, frigid ice queen her brother's feedback had made her terrified of becoming.

Jane felt completely secure around him, too. What a notion. To feel safe...

[x]

By the following summer, there was palpable, electric energy between Jane and Peter that Jim loved teasing them about. Hawkins watched one lazy summer evening from the tree as the makeshift raft of scrap materials Jane constructed collapsed within 5 minutes, exactly as Peter had predicted. The two teens fell flailing and laughing into the water, then clung to the same piece of recycled boogie board styrofoam and quieted, floating in a slow circle amongst the emerging fireflies, staring each other down. Jim grinned and counted down for himself, “3, 2, 1…”

Peter kissed her. Jim leaned forward and clenched both fists in anticipation. Jane kissed back.

“Good job!” Jim whispered, simultaneously willing himself to think, ‘good friends aren’t jealous.’

[X]

[Present Day. Jim 18, Peter 17, Jane 17. Between when Peter spied on Ralph and when he returned to the 6^th Street Home.]

Crap! Was this night not weird enough?! Peter stopped by the 7-11 for some soda on the way home, and there in the parking lot sat Jim’s car, occupied. The last time they’d meaningfully interacted was months ago. Peter couldn't decide who was harder to look at. …Welp, now he didn’t have a choice, because Jane dove below the dashboard as if he hadn’t obviously already seen them together. FFS. In the spirit of good taste, he’d smile and wave. Happy thoughts. Nothing wrong. Jim raised a palm, smile stiff. Neither Jim nor Jane moved as if to leave the vehicle. Peter grumbled low in this throat and went inside.

Before grabbing his soda, he beelined to a can of Febreeze and doused himself in a cloud, ignoring Max Goof’s objections from the register. “I’m gonna pay for it, calm down!” If he had to endure talking to Janie today, he wasn’t gonna smell like trash and piss!

[x]

“We’re making it worse,” Jim groaned. “It’s bad enough we’ve been avoiding him. It’s doubly bad if he starts thinking it's because we’re treating him with kid gloves because of...this business. You know him as well as I do.”

“Ohhh, I know him a little more intimately than you do, Jim. That’s the problem.”

Hawkins ‘ugh’ed softly at his girlfriend’s reminder of how they’d pulverized the Bro Code, but then patted her head. “If we don’t start talking soon it’ll be irresolvable. I don’t wanna lose my best friend over this.”

“Agreed.”

They stared each other down. It had been like this for weeks, the pair locked in a stalemate of ‘You first!’ ‘No, you first!’

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Jane proposed.

“No, he’s seen us. That would be surrendering!” Jim complained. “Just make sure you’re far enough behind him in line that he leaves first!”

“Why don’t you go in and do it?”

“Between the two of us, Janie, I feel you have the far less punchable face.” Jim pinched her button nose affectionately.

“Jim, he doesn’t hate you.”

“He doesn’t hate you either.”

Both looked profoundly unsure. “Only one way to test it, right?” Jim asked at last.

“I suppose so. Together?”

“Together.” Jane opened her door. In a savage betrayal, Hawkins leaned over, nudged her out, tugged the door shut after her, called, “Thanks, Space Monkey!” and peeled out of the lot, blasting Flogging Molly to drown out her yelling.

"This adventure has been cancelled! You get back here, James Pleiades Hawkins! Gnnnnahhhh!”

[x]

Jim prepared to circle the block a few times before returning for Jane. Maybe he’d pull into the empty lot of the old unused Aldi building and turn circles in the car as fast as he could without losing control, like he and Peter used to do together… 

The unexpected love triangle was mere garnish on top of pre-existing drama. The trio wouldn’t have been so easily parted by something as banal as ‘Oops, I’m dating my little brother’s ex-girlfriend now’ / ‘Oops, I’m dating my ex’s older brother now.’

Jane was convinced she was the bigger villain for how she’d broken up with Peter when he was still in a vulnerable place last spring. It wasn’t a great look for her, but Jim knew the truth. Being a lousy girlfriend was bad, but being a lousy big brother was worse. Jane wasn’t responsible for Peter the way Jim was supposed to be!

Peter never talked about it, but Jim knew it was a hard disappointment, Al and Lilo both leaving around the same time last year. Peter tried to stay out of the Home most of the time, avoiding the fatal danger of bonding to more recent arrivals. But Jim and Jane were only human; they couldn’t be available 24/7. Jim was embarrassed to admit he hadn’t realized Peter started filling the gaps spending time elsewhere until Eugene asked him one day, did he know the punky-looking blue-haired chick whose car he’d seen Peter jump into after school last Friday? 

He'd anticipated Peter doing it. He’d suspected Peter doing it. He’d all but known in his bones Peter was out street fighting for cash with that jackass Violet, performing like a circus monkey for the gamblers. He’d known Peter was snorting coke with that nutcase Powder, and, knowing Blue Hair, possibly playing with guns and explosives at the same time. One of those things would kill him eventually if Jim didn’t step in… Yet not only had Jim not asked because he feared the truth, once he verified his suspicions, he folded when Peter promised it would stop, because he couldn’t stand to believe he’d lie to him. Like a gullible infant, when he should’ve been the adult. When Jim should’ve been keeping his brother’s lifeline secure!

The rock station he’d been listening to dicked Jim over royally. An intro played to the worst song ever. Every note made him as viciously nauseous as he’d been the night he hoisted his overdosing, barely coherent best friend into the back seat of this vehicle...

[Flashback starts]

Jim wove through traffic, trying to apply every skill he’d ever learned on a skateboard or dirt bike to his ratty but reliable red Firebird, which simply doesn’t work, even in a cartoon. He was about to gun it through a red light when a truck barreled by and he barely swerved and slowed to avoid a collision. Jim let the car drift to the roadside and moaned as sirens approached, under a mile from the hospital.

He made the difficult decision to stay put. It wasn’t any old cops, it was Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps. They’d help. He rolled down his window as a tall lanky black man and a short, sturdy-looking white lady with a long blonde ponytail exited the police cruiser. “Well, well, Hawkins, our arch-nemesis. This seems extra for you, doesn’t it, kiddo?” Nick opened semi-playfully, with notes of worry and confusion because what the hell was Hawkins doing?

Jim immediately cut him off. “You’ve gotta understand, it’s Peter!”

Nick was already on the same page, yelping “Whoa!” at the sight of Peter in the backseat. “Mystery solved, Judy!” Judy muffled an aunt-like shriek at Peter’s condition. “Why isn’t he in an ambulance?! E-escort! We’re gonna escort!” Sirens cleared a path head of Jim the remaining way to the ER.

After Peter was taken by the staff, Jim was frozen, unable to decipher Nick and Judy's dialogue. He couldn’t stay with Peter because he “wasn’t family.” Ha… It was painful, answering questions. Jim told them Peter’s legal guardian Mildred was on her way. Would they bend the rules if he made clear Peter had no family? Nope.

“We’ll aim not to create trouble for you over that situation,” he finally processed Nick saying.

“Still need to give you a speeding ticket,” Judy eked apologetically. Her partner fought the urge to facepalm over her nearly robotic devotion to DA RULES. “We’re so sorry,” she more tactfully continued, inviting him into a hug.

Jim unenthusiastically side-shouldered it.  “Look, I’m not mad, I’ll pay it. I appreciate you helping. I might not’ve—” He swallowed. “—made it in time if it hadn’t been for you.  I’m sorry. I-I’m actually really sorry about…all the pain in the ass stuff I’ve taken up your time with…”

“What does that have to do with this?” asked Judy caringly. Nick overlapped her: “That’s not important! And you’re hardly a bother at all!”

Jim waved his hands crosswise, blocking his face. “You two won’t…uh…y-you won’t get any trouble from me anymore, okay? Thanks again.” He nodded, stepped away, and curled himself sullenly into a waiting room chair, staring into space, waiting for Jane and Sarah, who’d already reported they were on their way. No matter what some people claim, graffiti, occasional marijuana, and unlicensed dirt biking are not gateway drugs to cocaine and illegal street fighting. Peter was just into way wilder shit than Jim was. Hawkins tried telling himself that but kept circling back to ‘Peter would never have met them if it weren’t for me’ and ‘Writers, I’ll do everything, everything right if he only lives, I swear.’

Nick, from a distance, read Jim’s mind: “Shit. We just witnessed the world’s most brutal ‘scared straight’ program…for the person who needed it least.”

When Jane arrived, she gathered him in her arms, concerned to find the normally stoic young man trembling. “What’s going on, how is he?!”

Jim made a wavering motion with one hand, swallowing hard. “Rough waters. Not stable yet.”

“I’m so confused, why wasn’t there an ambulance?!”

Jim hissed through gritted teeth, “That flighty blue-haired nutso messaged me makin’ it sound like Peter was just too impaired to get home on his own. I might’ve even ignored it if she hadn’t been texting from his phone.” She was able to do that because Jim was the emergency contact. “I thought, ‘Why the hell can’t Peter unlock his own phone and text himself? Why isn’t she texting me from her phone when she has my number?’” They'd avoided being implicated like the plague, despite that Good Samaritan laws exist. Pathetic. “It was so suspicious I got scared, and by the time I got there he was already— They left him there like that!” Jim raged. “Then I didn’t want to wait for an ambulance!”

Jane gripped his upper arms and squeezed. “Then you did everything you could.”

Jim shook his head in disagreement. “No. I didn’t. I’m the reason he met them in the first place.”

“You told him not to go off with them repeatedly! “

“I needed to do more. I should have kept him safe!”

“It’s not your job, though, Jim. Nobody blames you. I don’t blame you.”

“It is my job! I’m his— I’m…” Hawkins started choking up. “I didn’t even tell him how important he is to me! I didn’t tell him I love him like a sibling I was raised with from birth! He has no idea! My little brother’s gonna die believing he doesn’t have any family!”

Jane mirrored Jim’s silent tears. Then her face crumpled and she retreated into the chair next to him, face buried between her knees.

Jim spotted his mistake instantly. “Oh, Janie, no, there’s— There’s hope, I was just upset.” Jane was shaking, but her sobs weren’t audible. She was always quiet when she cried. Side effect of living through a shooting. Hawkins wrapped her in a hug and stroked her back. “He’ll wake up.”

“You can’t know that,” Jane croaked.

“Peter’s too damned stubborn to die. He’d just been seizing, I think, and he still didn’t want me to help him up to get him in the car. He started pulling himself up. I don’t even know how! He couldn’t communicate much, but he was still conscious, and I urged him not to fall asleep.” Jim gasped with wet laughter at his little brother's impenetrable sense of humor in the face of death. “H-he was trying to hum the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ theme song at me! ...He’s gonna wake up.”

After a long pause, Jane whispered back, “He’s gonna wake up.” 

[Flashback ends]

Jim stopped aggressively turning circles and roaring his frustration into the night, drifted to a stop near an out-of-order lamp in the empty lot he'd pulled into. The song mercifully ended, but its lyrics still taunted him.

‘Times are getting harder, but I’m nothing like my father.’

‘I’ll never walk away without you with me.’

Bullshit…

After all that, once Peter stabilized, all of Jim's 'I told him not to do that' and 'Why would he lie to me?!' anger resurfaced, reinforced by his anger at himself for letting this happen. When he faced Peter for some meager, surface-level “I’m glad you’re all right,” stuff in the hospital, he was too stern, too harsh. Too “You know better than to end up like your sister” and “I told you so” and “Never do that again” and (this was a joke, and Peter even laughed, but Jim still felt guilty) “You’re paying my speeding ticket.” Not gentle enough. No “I can’t lose you” or “You’re family to me” or “I’d’ve traded places with you in a second.”

'I'll try it again tomorrow' he told himself, but his own shame kept him away a day longer, a day longer, a day longer... Until the delay grew so long he knew he'd look foolish crawling back. Never really talked it through. Left the kid alone after what must’ve been an even scarier time for him than for Jim and Jane. Pathetic. When Peter didn't reach out either, he began seriously wondering if he'd come across so icy and uncaring that Peter didn't care to speak to him anymore anyway. 

He'd still been trying to work out a way to reintroduce himself when succumbing to his feelings for Janie only weeks later (while they were keeping each other company and trying to work through their complicated feelings about the event), as Jim saw it, completely sealed the door behind him. What a betrayal. What a failure. Jim’s forehead hit the steering wheel. How could he face Peter now? How could he expect his kid brother to ever feel an ounce of respect for him again?

[x]

Jane stood in the self-check-out line 3 customers behind Peter, anxiously tapping her foot like a woodpecker, concealing her purchases under her jacket like contraband. It was awkward that she was dating Jim now, but all’s fair in love and war. She’d messed up far worse than that. Jim thought he was bad? He’d literally kept Peter alive! Meanwhile, Jane had been just as irresponsible and willfully clueless as Jim before the accident (it hurt to suspect Peter was lying to her, so she'd ignored it), completely noncontributory during, and then afterward, brutal.

Pretending to be comforted by Jim in that hospital waiting room was solely for his benefit. Jane’s faith had already been shattered. Her heart trying to “rip the band aid off,” she supposed? She’d held out a lot of hope for her father before his body was recovered, and she couldn’t stand drawing the pain out again. It had a curious effect on her after she learned Peter made it. She’d already lost him; it was done and dusted. She couldn’t just rewind. What if it happened again?!

Jane found she couldn’t visit. Couldn’t respond to his attempts to contact her. Then when Jim, who’d at least managed those things, scolded her into visiting, she managed one hug, a “thank the Writers you’re alive,” and even carded her hand through Peter's hair out of habit, even almost kissed him—before her walls flew right back up. He’d been discharged from the hospital for maybe a week, and she broke up with him on the spot. She took the coward’s way out, hid behind her own little brother Daniel like a shield…

[Flashback]

“Janie, nothing like that is going to happen again. Never.”

“I’m having a difficult time believing that.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“Reportedly, you told Jim the same exact thing. And you broke his heart, so…I don’t want to be next in line.”

Hollows grimaced epically.  “I know. Yeah, I did that.” Jane, stony-faced, spread her palms. “I’ll do anything to make this up to you, Janie.”

“Peter, I have a little brother.”

He’d been gripping her hand, but Hollows recoiled as if he’d been hit, blurting, “Wendy, whaddya think I’d ever do to hurt Danny?!”

Both mutually, silently decided to ignore the embarrassing name slip.

“You were never holding when you were around us?”

“What?! I didn’t carry anything around, that only happened with the guys from the Lanes!”

“Mirabel caught you snorting lines in the bathroom at Joe’s party,” Jane firmly interrupted. “She doesn’t spread rumors. You were carrying at least once.”

Peter scoffed, frazzled. “Do you remember me acting weird?”

“Uh, yes, but I was drunk, so maybe I didn’t realize how weird. Our friends must think I’m an imbecile!”

Peter’s fingers framed his face, digging into his temples and forehead, thumbs stabbing his jaw. “I told you I wasn’t up to coming to that party, Jane. And you kept begging me. I get I promised I’d go, but folks get sick sometimes.”

“You could’ve said no more forcefully then.”

“I hate saying no to you. …But I knew I couldn’t smile for you that day.”

“Because you were still coming down from earlier, from wherever you came from, when you were supposed to have already been with me, with our friends,” Jane snapped accusingly. “That’s what Eugene and Jim think.”

“Fine. Fine, you’re right!” Peter clapped his hands together angrily. “Happy? How else was I supposed to perform the circus act you people want 24/7, after being summoned by popular demand like a hired clown to your party!!!” Peter exploded. A few ticks of silence. At Jane’s shocked expression: “No, nonono, that’s not true, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s the circus act I want me to perform. None of you forced me. I only want you all to be happy. If you’re happy, I’ll be happy.”

“…Peter, I’m having trouble believing that, too. Anyway, neither of us can make the other happy right now. Let’s talk...later." She shuffled away and blew a kiss from a distance, like he was contagious. "I am happy you’re alive,” she repeated, as if that should be sufficiently comforting. The she turned her back and left.

“Nononono, wait, you’ve gotta believe me! Jane!”

[End]

Jane couldn’t summon the vulnerability to admit that she hadn’t been this frightened since her father’s death or the shooting, and she couldn’t risk experiencing it again. She hoped he understood that was the real reason. Jane and Peter probably shouldn’t have dated because they were opposites in most ways. One of their few common traits was refusal to display hurt, embarrassment, fear. Peter knew that because he knew her…right?

Within a few days of the breakup, her emotions quieted enough for Jane to realize, J.M. Barrie, what was wrong with her?! She could’ve sent him into another heart attack! This was unforgivable. She wanted to apologize, but surely he’d never want to speak to her again!

Then, within a month, after they’d been spending more time together without Peter, Jane was dating Jim. Even had the nerve to think how nice it was to date someone capable of emoting occasionally. Jane knew she was a hypocrite. Her brother had been right about her after all. She really did have the emotional capabilities of pigeon shit, dammit...

She couldn’t face Peter yet. Thankfully, he’d exited the building. Jane’s neck muscles untensed as she scanned her purchases. Then, without warning, from beside her: “Heyyyy, biiiiitch!”

A few things registered: (1) That was Peter’s voice. (2) That was Peter’s emotional support ‘Hey, bitch’ he administered to lighten embarrassing interactions. (3) Her wrist was in the process of scanning the barcode for a pack of Trojans. Janie yelped and jumped nearly a foot, dropping the condom box on the ground.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.” Peter waved a prop pack of gum in the air. “Left this behind.” (In reality, he’d reprimanded himself a mere few steps outside the exit for the high sacrilege of running away like a wimp and forced himself to return and face Jane.) Then, to Jane’s utter mortification, he picked up the condoms and handed them to her, quoting pleasantly, “‘It’s dangerous to go alone, take this!’” His big congenial smile never faltered.

This was what Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare must feel like, she thought. This was Hell. Janie accepted the box as uneasily as if he'd handed her a foaming Mr. Pudge. Finished paying. Stepped away from the register with Peter in step with her, looking at her expectantly. Trapped. Jane swallowed. “Peter! Good to see you…”

“Jane, I gave you and Jim a perfectly friendly greeting earlier. You can unlock your jaw now.”

Jane indeed unlocked her jaw and rotated it once she realized how stiffly and painfully she’d been grinding her teeth. “I… S-sorry. I mean—for being weird.” Understatement of the year. “And also…for…just sorry,” she stammered pathetically. The way I broke up with you wasn’t appropriate.” Understatement of the century. “It was…h-hostile. And unfair. I see that now. And I should’ve…been around.”

They’d been silent, distant, virtually nonexistent. They’d abandoned their best friend all summer—one of the last summers they could’ve all spent together, in fact—in a situation when he was already isolated and hurt. It was like being shipwrecked on an island. It was cruel and unusual punishment.

Peter kept his face indifferent, though his gaze seemed foggy. “I got over it already. There’s nothing anybody can do to me that I don’t bounce back from. C’mon.” Something shy crossed his face. “You know that, Janie. …Couldn’t blame you two for being mad enough to avoid me. I nearly gave you heart attacks.”

‘You’re the one who went into cardiac arrest!’ Jane wailed mentally. “It was still wrong,” she asserted.

‘No, it wasn’t. I’m supposed to make people smile and I made you cry. Of course you hated me after that.’ Peter kept the self-effacing thought well-concealed. “I forgive you. That’s what friends do.” He blinked and processed her words. “That wasn’t why you've been running from me, was it? You guys didn’t give me the chance to forgive you, you know that, right?!”

Jane welled up and barely prevented tears from spilling over the warm, grateful smile spreading across her face. This was too incredible to be true, but it was Peter. He was a modern marvel. So, maybe…? “I’ve missed you.”

“Then try texting me sometime.” Peter pointed his thumb out the glass sliding doors. “Jim, too.”

Jim, having returned for Jane by now, turned his face away upon seeing the gesture from a distance. “Jim thinks you hate him,” Jane translated sadly.

“Ha! It’s like Broody McAngyBoi doesn’t know me at all!”

Only Jim did know Peter. He knew him better than anyone besides Tee. And Jane was an infamously poor emotional interpreter. She was confused, he decided. The truth was, Peter had lied to Jim, let him down, broken his heart, and almost gotten them both killed in a car wreck.

[Flashback]

This was such a shitty ending to the story. Somebody’d better at least write him an interesting obituary. They’d better mention funny Peter Hollows stories and call him by his proper name. If someone wrote an obit about ‘Peter Pan’ he'd haunt them.

Peter’s muscles were achingly tense, immobilizing, even while his heart felt weak…fluttery…like it was sinking, creating a vivid sensation of falling although he was already on the ground. His lungs couldn’t hold onto air. Then there was the heat. “Dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun” was an apt description of this, he thought, remembering Tee and that song she loved so much.

Wow, when was the last time he’d seriously thought, ‘I want Tara?’ When he was 10 years old and…something else almost as bad was happening?

He thought he’d heard Tee’s voice earlier. …No, that was Powder. ...Where had she gone?!

(“Vi, he’s somebody’s little brother!”

“Sure, but he ain’t mine. It’s my job to prioritize you, sis. We’re getting out of here, now!”

“F***ing let me go!”

“Let the pipsqueak win his Darwin Award. You know how important it is to him to win.”)

Peter's vision kept blurring and cutting out. The choppiness of his perception was only enhanced by the flashing lights in the makeshift club, which forced recollection of that ominous blue electric bug zapper. Then, abruptly, the room plunged into pitch darkness. He momentarily thought he’d gone fully blind, but no… The kids had taken their generator and the portable stage lights they used to party in the abandoned bowling alley and fled to avoid being linked to a dead body… Peter thought he couldn’t get any hotter, but combined with the rage, the heat, the HEAT. 

‘Ha. You have a special knack for being abandoned, don’t you? FFS. Don’t cry, you idiot, this is your fault. Jim and Janie knew you couldn’t trust these guys, but you had to believe people liked you, when they couldn't give a shit.’ When they'd use him for entertainment until he had nothing left to offer, then leave or forget him.

This group was meant to serve as a distraction from the friends and kids he was preemptively pulling away from. Time was creeping forward toward the inevitable fairy tale curse that would kick in around Peter's 18^th birthday. When his classmates and Jim and Jane would all leave Evergreen for bigger opportunities. When he’d be booted out of the Home like a household pest, even after years of dedication, taking care of those kids for free. Better to spend time with superficial party friends, having fun while feeling less like he was stranded alone on an island he couldn’t leave, but without the danger of real attachment. Or so he'd thought. Clearly, once again, Peter took the friendship more seriously than the others. He'd never have abandoned any of them like this, especially not Powder. 

He really was going to die alone. Should've listened to Dr. Sweet. He'd thought he had more time, was all. He thought he'd have forever...

A speck of light returned in the corner of his vision and migrated across the room, soaring like a firefly through a dark night. ‘Tee?’ Peter thought murkily. No… Whose voice was that? Jim? Was he here?!

Jim, using his phone as a flashlight. Jim looking over him, face ghost pale, then red with rage, cussing at the ceiling. Jim trying to pull him up, noises of exertion and frustration edging closer to frightened, because he couldn’t quite carry his friend, at least not easily or efficiently. Peter wasn’t heavy, but it's tough to move nearly dead weight. Jim…crying? Peter had never seen Jim cry. It was messed up. Hollows’ already ailing heart felt like a dying butterfly being stepped on.

The last thing Tara saw and heard was her brother being afraid... Couldn’t, wouldn't do that to Jim! Although he felt he’d erupt into flame, Hollows summoned every iota of energy to lift himself, focused on merely staying up while Jim puppeteered and coached him, told him he had this, he was stronger than gravity.

It was probably 3 minutes; it felt like an hour. Then they were at the car and Peter was finally on a horizontal surface again, every cell on fire. He heard Jim choke out emotionally, “You’re being really brave right now.” F***. That was it. Peter felt it, for the very first time—the desire for a dad. Or, at the very least, a big brother (a real big brother, not a traitorous bastard like—). And the even stronger desire not to let him down.

‘Don’t go to sleep. Jim said don’t go to sleep. “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you,” hehehe. Jim will be sad if you die. You hate making anyone sad. You can’t die…’

He faded in and out. Then a horn blared, Jim shouted, and the car swerved, jerking Peter forward. He collided with the driver’s seat and wheezed. His heart—

Static. More unsettling flashing lights. A woman’s scream. His vision tunneled. It looked like the old Loony Toons fade out. Ha! ‘Th-th-th-th-th-th-that’s all folks!’

Black screen.

-x-

The next time Peter saw Jim, the day after he was revived, his big brother figure’s face had lost the gentleness it held while coaching Peter to the car, replaced by an icy fury. ‘Did you expect an “attaboy,” moron?! You almost got him killed with you!’ Peter scolded himself out of feeling agonized. He had no right to feel anything, so he didn’t.

Peter swore he felt nothing after Hawkins left the hospital room. Yet he shivered, teeth chattering. The nurse asked if he was okay. He said, “Just cold, I guess,” and lied trembling another 15 minutes under a blanket in the perfectly normal room temperature.

[End]

Obviously, Jim now found Peter to be such a profound disappointment he couldn’t look him in the eye. Unsurprising. Not the first time Peter had disappointed someone so egregiously they left him forever. ‘Think of something else, please, now—’

“Listen,” Peter snapped himself out of it, “I met this guy who’s enrolled at our school. He just moved here, and he's socially anxious. Could you two do me a favor and hang out so he feels welcome? That’ll give you both another stimulus to engage with instead of just staring at me awkwardly,” he teased.

“These are good points.”

“So you’ll do it?” He batted his big brown eyes with dramatized hope.

Jane chuckled despite herself. “I’ll have to talk Jim into chilling out, but I’m positive he’ll help your friend, Peter. …And of course I will.” She looked at him with serious, wide blue eyes. “I’ll do anything to make this up to you.” She was being hypocritical again, she knew. That was the exact sentence he’d uttered to her, which she’d dismissed.

A few ticks of uncomfortable silence.

“What are you waiting for? Go ahead, enjoy your date. Hit a home run. See paradise by the dashboard light, the whole shebang.” Peter’s eyes only flicked down to his shoes once. “Jim’s a good guy, Jane. I approve.”

Peter really did approve. Jim was more reliable, more responsible; he’d take better care of Jane, would worry or anger her much less. He was even happy for the kid. Why should poor Daniel get stuck with Peter Hollows as a role model when he could have Jim Hawkins instead?

Jane, clueless, glowed with appreciation at this miraculous display of forgiveness. “I’d never tarnish your tough guy reputation by telling anyone, but you’re incredibly sweet.” She couldn’t help wrapping him in a quick bear hug and, before thinking better of it, pecking his cheek. “See you soon. I mean it.”

[x]

When she stepped back into the car, her boyfriend was beaning his head repetitively into the wheel, mortified by the emotional ineptitude he'd just witnessed through the glass doors. “Oh. My. Writers. WHY, JANE?”

“Huh? What’d I do?”

“And you say men are oblivious!” Jim groaned in frustration, starting the car. 

Jane may have fumbled her exit, but she redeemed herself with a shockingly astute observation for her: "He still wears your shirt. That hand-me-down Guardians of the Galaxy one. He had his hoodie zipped, but I could see the rip under the collar and the top of Chris Pratt's head," she insisted. 

Jim struggled to focus on the road, thoughts whirlpooling in confusion. "Nah, that can't— Well, he doesn't have many options. No one else is giving him clothes."

"Jim," Jane sighed. "Even I can see Peter doesn't hate you. He confronted me for not giving him a chance to forgive us, and he's right." Jane shuddered. "You know I hate admitting Peter is right." That forced a chuckle out of Hawkins. "That went shockingly well. If he can forgive me of all people, why wouldn't he forgive you?"

Jim still wasn't sold. He couldn't banish a mental image of himself watching his birth father and Mr. Silver walking away, slowly fading, replaced by him turning his own back on Peter—like a montage for a sad early-2000s rock song or something. Hollows was still wearing the shirt, though? That, Jim, admitted, was a happy thought, if Jane wasn't mistaken, if he could believe it. "...Well...maybe."

[x]

This was normally where he’d bask in copious, imagined canned audience applause at his performance, but Peter stood rigidly stock still until he heard Jim’s car exit the lot. Then he melted into a shelf, knocking over several cans. He returned the merchandise, dented, to the shelf, eyes scanning for employees who might reprimand him. “You’re really holding it together over there,” Max teased from the register. Peter growled quietly. The other teen apologetically raised his hands. “Shutting up, shutting up.”

Peter felt his throat closing up... Shit! He selected the cheapest available shades off a rack and returned to the self-serve register while Max respectfully pretended to be engrossed in Angry Birds on his phone. Never let ‘em see you cry. Peter missed a step outside the sliding doors, wearing sunglasses in the dark, saved it and landed on his feet like a cat, and barked, “The hell you looking at?!” at an approaching PJ before storming away.

He was relieved he hadn’t let on to Jane that he was suspicious. That would lead to nothing good.

At first, Hollows took his friends’ absence in his moment of vulnerability hard, felt stabbed through the heart, really. But, he reasoned with himself, of course they were furious—he’d nearly scared them to death. They’d get over it, they only needed time. But as weeks passed, he grew more confused and devastated. They weren’t even letting him apologize for frightening them! How was that fair?!

Peter worked up the nerve to head back out to Hangman’s Tree in case they still hung around there. He’d convince Jim it was the last time he’d ever disappoint him. He'd convince Jane he'd never carry drugs around Danny, and that there would be no repeat performance of his judgment error. (Yes, of course he knew he’d scared her, after trying so hard for so long to be a safe space where she never had to be afraid. Writers, when she'd broken up with him, her body looked practically calcified she was so rigid. Poor thing was probably gonna start having neck pain again. All that progress lost because of him...)

They were indeed out there together. Peter ducked behind another tree in the distance and watched them laugh and absently toss Bacci balls over the course of conversation. He was about to approach when they got in a playful spat about the points system. Jane pretend-tackled Jim and kissed him.

Oh. OH. This explained it. Why would two people who’d been so close to him be so willfully distant, starting immediately after the accident? Guilt. Peter did technically correct math but arrived at an incorrect final answer: They felt guilty because, in their stressed out state, with raging teenage hormones pumping full blast, his emergency contact and his girl probably started screwing while he was laid up in a hospital bed. That was a good punchline. Laugh, Peter, laugh, dammit!

(A little turquoise Tara in Peter’s head screeched, “SHOOT HIM!”

Her yellow coworker barked, “I told you, you’re banished, you toxic wench!”

“I’m toxic?! You get us hurt all the time, tricking yourself into thinking people love you!” Envy snapped.

“If you incompetent shits let me do my job and keep everyone smiling like I’m supposed to, they would love us!” Joy barked. The two rolled across the floor like a tumbleweed in a cartoony fistfight as their coworkers backed away.)

No. No jealousy. That would risk any happy memories of his friends rotting away. Anyway, jealousy would mean they’d hurt him. Nothing hurt Peter; that was one of his best qualities. Hell, you could drop an anchor on him, and he’d stand right back up! Hahahaha.

(Plus, if he felt jealousy, he'd soon be reminded of sour, angry, sad thoughts about Tee he shouldn't have. What did he still have to be angry about? How was she meant to make up for it? Poor thing was dead, you couldn't pay your dues any more than that, could you? He was being unreasonable. TURN IT OFF.)

Peter would never let Jim and Jane know he’d pieced it together. He’d smile and do everything in his power to make them happy, just as he always had. Based on their behavior, they were probably remorseful. If he confronted them, they’d enter total mortified despair. Why should all three of them be upset when two of them could be happy? Even Peter could be happy if he tried hard enough.

After causing such suffering by nearly overdosing (he knew so well how that felt after losing Tee), Peter was more determined than ever to atone by making the world happier. If he had to absorb every speck of misery—Jim’s, Jane’s, Ralph Sigfried’s, his own, anyone’s—himself and crush it under enough internal pressure to forge a diamond, so be it. He could do that. Peter Hollows was stronger than gravity.

Chapter Text

The IMs started far too early for Ralph’s taste, but they were amusing.

PETER: Bring the money.

RALPH: Without context or chat history, this is gold.

PETER: *mobster meme*

RALPH: Do I have to bring Val? I’m telling you it’s a mistake.

The phone rang. Ralph shook his head in bemusement before picking up. Why was he picking up? “Why isn’t this another text message?”

“I’m annoying you ‘til you bring your sister over. The kids’ll be friends, I’m convinced.”

“Fine, better question—why’d you make your ringtone ‘Sassafras Roots?’” Peter’s confused silence made Ralph wonder if he was mistaken. “Is that song not…flirtatious?”

Peter coughed as cereal went down the wrong pipe. “What?! That’s a song about two friends goofing off and drinking root beer!”

“Hmmn. We may need to poll that. I’m more annoyed you interrupted my show.” Ralph viewed the flash mob musical number from his cracked bedroom window. “Mom’s singing the song again. But now the neighbors are singing back. They’re composing elaborate countermelodies. They’re parodying themselves because they’re more self-aware than her! It’s amazing!” 

A rough, nasally voice piped up in the background. “Have you snapped and started conversing with yourself like Mom?” Ralph held up the phone. “Is your imaginary friend from last night real?!” Val hopped cartoonishly high and seized the cell, tapping the speaker button. “Hiii, Peterrrrr.”

“He’s already tellin’ stories about me, huh?”

“Ralphie thinks you’re unstable but probably harmless.” Her brother angrily shushed and tried retrieving the phone as Valerie skipped evasively like the Roadrunner around the room, into the hall, and down the stairs.

Peter gasped in mock delight. “I feel the same way about your brother.”

Ralph followed Valerie into the kitchen. (His friend he met yesterday called so early they hadn’t eaten yet, but Ralph was too lonely to mind.) “I’ll bring ‘er after school, right away, promise.”

“Good, wanna have enough time afterward to hang out with my best friends Jim and Jane. You don’t know anyone yet; I’m helping. Aren’t I amazing?” Peter gloated, unaware Ralph’s heart constricted with anxiety.

Isabel surrendered to the taunting neighbors, wandering into the kitchen through the sliding glass door from the yard. She acknowledged Ralph talking at the phone in Val's hand: “Oh, you’ve made a friend?” The line delivery was pointedly: You've ACTUALLY made a friend? She claimed her coffee and left, nose upturned. Ralph shoved a whole bagel into his mouth to muffle a bellow of rage. Valerie scampered out the sliding door with the phone as Peter asked, “What’d I miss?”

“They’re extra icy this morning cuz they fought. But truly, what’s more damaging, years of emotional neglect or a piece of cake in the face? Didja see that part, too? Sure wish I’d seen it! …That was you in the tree last night, hmmn?” Valerie grinned insidiously at the damning silence. “Ralph said you tried walking him home? A creepy Keebler elf was watching us? I can add two and two. Y’know, more people probably notice.” Peter felt his face flare. “Don’t think Ralph did, though. He dunks on Mom for being clueless, but he takes after her.”

Valerie answered Ralph’s “Is the phone still on?!” by deflecting: “Have you taken your pills yet today, Moody McEmo?” At his “Bring. It. Here,” Val Sugar Plum Fairy danced over for comic effect before handing the phone to Ralph. “Ralph, take your Spicy Sadboi pills,” said Peter.

“Dammit!” Ralph grunted as his two hecklers laughed. “I will deliver your money and my sister and see you later, Peter. Never call me this early again!”

[X] 

Admittedly, texting someone he’d met yesterday at the crack of dawn was strange. Calling him was even stranger. But Ralph and Valerie both seemed entertained, so he was probably in the clear?

Peter watched from a distance as his boys headed into the elementary building, then saw Ralph and Val pull up on a motorbike. A little blonde girl in a pink dress and cropped white jean jacket looked uneasy as Valerie shot her a smug look. Val stood on the bike seat to be level with Ralph, and they fist bumped with a “Top shelf!” Ralph called, “Stay sweet, SourPatch!” as she ran inside.

Peter hadn’t expected Ralph to drop his sister off today. That wasn’t an additional reason why he’d come. That would make him a stalker. The tree thing didn’t count! …Dammit! Peter knew old habits died hard, but this one hadn’t reared its head in a while. He’d enjoyed watching Jim and Sarah to absorb vicarious “happy family” feelings (hopefully Val was wrong; if Jim had noticed, he’d die). And then…Peter was guilty of it a few times after he met…Janie? (“Poor boy can’t do math,” Disgust mocked as Peter avoided the logical conclusion at all costs. “Good!” said Anxiety.)

Ralph spotted Peter, waved him over, and smiled. Sweet—evidently in the clear after all! Peter approached, cool as a cucumber. “Do you trail them to school every day, ‘dad?’” Ralph asked. (He should've wondered why Peter kept popping up everywhere, but Sigfried was too pleased with the attention to worry.)

“Ha, no. Just preventing any confrontations between the boys and your little princess before our intervention.”

“Fair enough. I dropped her off so the kids would know her brother’s a massive dude on a motorcycle. Felix helped me refurbish this when I went to my old school so— Eh. Dunno what I— It didn’t work. The trope-iness made me look more ridiculous. But it’s a nice ride.” He patted the back. “Need one?”

“Appreciated, but not taking the bitch seat. I’ll roller blade.”

“Ugh, you’re one of those.” Ralph rolled his eyes exactly like his mom. “You do know the heelys look sillier? …I’d let you drive if you had a license.”

(“Now that’s acceptable. We like that a lot. Do it!” Joy commanded.) Peter bent the truth: “I’ve driven a motorbike before!”

Too far away to hear the terrified yelps, Officer Judy Hopps still paused biting into a donut, sensing an acute disturbance in the atmosphere she knew, in her aunt-like way, was caused by Peter Hollows. …But she hadn’t had enough coffee yet…

Ralph panted as Peter parked, swearing silently he’d never be that trusting again. “Have you ever. Driven. ANYTHING?”

(Joy snickered. He’d directed Peter to drive poorly so Ralph would hold onto him.) Hollows popped Val’s green helmet off, grinning angelically. “Dirt bike?”

“Never teach any of those kids to drive!” Ralph swayed and fell, hitting his helmeted head on Evergreen High School’s parking lot with a Homer-Simpson-like “Doh!”

“Nice bike!” someone called. Ralph peeked over the seat and recognized the gorgeous redhead whose kitchen he soiled. “Oh…” Please. Die. Now. “Hi, Ariel…”

“Ralph? Morning!” Her eyes softened. “You’re not still upset, are you? You were clearly having a rough night. If I’d checked on you sooner, it may never have happened. You’re invited any time, alright?” Ariel turned and fixed transparent bedroom eyes on Peter. “So are you. Obviously.” She departed with suspiciously exaggerated hip sway. (Ralph discreetly pointed at Ariel, then Peter, and raised eyebrows. “Oh, haha, just once,” Hollows admitted.)

“I vomited on the pretty girl’s floor and she apologized to me. Is this high school the most magical place on Earth?”

“It’s an uncommonly nice bunch.” They walked toward the building. “Ton of traumatized families moved out here thinkin’ it’d be calm and therapeutic, and then they just made it that way themselves.” Peter loved Evergreen so much partly because it embodied his personal philosophies remarkably well. “They're empathetic cuz they’ve all experienced some tragedy. Dead or missing family members. Surviving terrifying accidents or attacks. Or—” They’d made it into the hall now and stumbled upon a convenient coincidence: “—they were savagely bullied at their last high school, but now they’re the extremely well-liked football captain and drama club manager! Good sign, right? You’ll be fine here!”

Ralph observed the two boys Peter pointed out. One was nearly as tall as Ralph but leaner, muscles visible through his cut-out workout tank. The other was a short (albeit hunched) guy in a green T-shirt. Peter pushed Ralph toward them. “Go, join the ginger commune! One of us!” Ralph hilariously tried weaseling behind much shorter Peter. “Please, Herc and Quentin are the nicest men alive, they won’t bite!”

Hercules waved pleasantly with a “Hey, Hollows!” Everyone knew Peter’s silly legal last name—he was called to the principal’s office too often to avoid that—but respected him enough to call him Hollows. It warmed Peter’s heart before he remembered…he wasn’t ready to talk to them. The whole school, except Ralph and the freshmen, knew about Peter’s epic near crash-and-burn through the grapevine. His skin prickled as he recognized the “better check in on the little guy” look in his classmate’s eyes. Not what his ego needed. Peter pointed at Ralph, mouthed, “He’s shy,” and steered Sigfried away. “Fine, you can meet them later.”

“If they’re so nice, why’d you avoid them?”

“I’m not avoiding anybody, I’m trying to make you comfortable!” Peter lied.

“Was that school merch on Football Guy?” A light blue shirt with a circle comprised of white stripes and a darker blue cricket. “Are we the Crickets?”

“For weird legal reasons, our choices were a cricket or a mouse. I think you understand the voting results.”

On their way down the halls, the vibe between Peter and Ariel was replicated. First, a brunette in a purple sundress was more subtle, face stoic. But as Peter passed, she chanced a quick, distinctly saucy wink and upturned curve of her lips. Peter elbowed Ralph and bragged, “I helped her get her groove back!” Ralph marveled as the brunette was swept into the arms of the hunky football captain. Got her groove back indeed!

(Meg was demolished that summer after her boyfriend dumped her. Peter felt bad for her. As one does. Not for any particular reason, cough cough. The screwing wasn’t romantic, but they boosted each others’ confidence again, then hung out sassing each other and watching dark comedies. Peter honestly enjoyed Meg’s company. She hadn’t reached out lately, but summer before senior year was a busy one, and now she had a new boyfriend, so… Surely she’d text eventually? They were still friends. “Friends with benefits” did mean friends with benefits, right?)

Next, a cinnamon-skinned girl with long wavy black hair popping out of a purple bandana, big gold hoops, shocking teal eyes, and simple white off-the-shoulder shirt over black skinny jeans—the most indescribably angelic beauty Ralph had ever seen—rushed over. “Peter! Please tell me you’ll go out for the boys’ wrestling or gymnastics team this year!”

“Nah, folks drain all the fun outta school sports.”

“Not even for a college scholarship?”

“Too late for that, Em. Already fried all my brain cells with Liddell,” Peter laughed.

Esmerelda shot him a mildly worried "you quit that" look before ruffling his hair affectionately. “Okay… Shame, it’s so fun to watch you perform.” If Ariel’s bedroom eyes were toasty, these were smoldering. Em turned and smiled more innocently at Ralph. “Hi, new guy! See you around!”

“That’s Em, the girls’ gymnastics captain.” Peter grinned goofily. “She’s extremely flexible.”

“Peter… HOW?”

“Listen, I don’t know how I did it either.”

“…What, ah…” Ralph tried to be polite. “What mixture is going on there?”

“Oh. Gypsy, I think.”

“That’s not an ethnicity, that’s a slur.”

“Since when?!”

“Sound it out with me, Peter: RO-MA-NI.”

“Right. Gypsy.”

“No.” Ralph facepalmed.  “…Who’s Liddell? They the—?” He mimed smoking, hoping to learn where to buy MJ.

“Alice. Weed too, but mostly I drop acid with her.” Ralph looked surprised. “Geez, LSD’s perfectly safe. You trace lines in the air and see pretty colors.” A blonde in a blue and black floral rockabilly dress waved Peter down. “Speak of the devil. Hey, Alice!” He asked, sheepishly, of her arm in a sling, “Uh, how’s that healing up?”

“On its way.” With the same look the others gave him, she mouthed, “Thanks for kissing it better.”

Peter helped her with her locker, then whispered to Ralph as they walked away, “Acid’s normally very safe. No clue why she thought she could fly that time. Hehe.”

Someone snarkily called across the hall, “Get tested!”

“Didn’t ask for your advice, Bonnie,” said Peter.

“I was talking to Alice,” the cheerleader specified.

At Ralph’s wrinkled brow, Peter laughed, “Aw, I’m perfectly comfortable bein’ the school slut, Sigfried. Saves nice young ladies the trouble. See, that, I’m a hero!”

“You’re kinda my hero right now, dude. Can you teach me to pull babes like that?”

Peter quashed an inexplicable blush. (“F***in’ yes!” Joy whooped, shredding air guitar. “Quit celebrating! We’re having hot flashes like a menopausal chick! This sucks!” Anger, a little red Tara, complained.) “I was already friends with them. Their boyfriends left for college or they broke up. I helped them drink or smoke away their troubles, and shit happened.” He cut himself off. “Yikes, that sounds shadier than it was. Hell, I was usually more loaded than them!”

“New plan to look like less of a bad guy: Stand next to Peter until I look better.” Ralph knew instantly by the lightning flash through Peter’s eyes that this was a rare “no jokes allowed” topic. “Whoa, sorry! I don’t assume you’re rapey, promise.”

“They’re all smiling and saying hi. You can tell they don’t think I’m a creep. Respectful one-night stands aren’t the kinda rocket science folks believe they are.”

A paper ball pelted Peter in the head. He whipped around to find Rebecca, sitting cross-legged in front of her locker, flapping hands like wings beside her head, sticking out her tongue in jest. She was miming “Little Sitting Eagle.” Oof. Welp, can’t win ‘em all.

Hollows subtly steered Ralph away, pausing as another pair of students entered view. Peter faced the nearest lockers and pretended to fiddle with a dial, ordering, “Act natural!” Ralph curiously observed the two via peripheral vision: A dark-haired boy with a rat tail, black leather jacket, brown T-shirt, and grey cargo pants. A strawberry blonde with a choppy bob in a faded rose skater dress under an oversized grey jean jacket, dog tags, and black and white Chucks. Evidently, they’d been observing Peter’s many admirers.

“See, Jane? Peter got his groove back. You can stop worrying so much.”

The girl looked like her ears would start smoking. “But he did all that to passive-aggressively show me up, didn’t he? How immature!”

“Are those Jim and Janie?" Ralph whispered. "Did you date? But then…” The pieces clicked. “Wait, were you trying to forget about her?” Jane was cute, but not supermodel beautiful like the others. If Peter could bang Em and leave thinking of Jane, the poor bastard was besotted. “And you called him your best—Oooh, the Bro Code got obliterated!”

“Ralph, you talk too much.”

“Peter, you don’t have to introduce me to them if it’s difficult.”

“I wanna get back on comfortable terms with them anyway, and you’re a great excuse. I just...need a minute.”

“Glad to be of service, I guess.”

“Those aren’t even your lockers.” Ralph and Peter whipped around to find Jane cocking a brow at them. “You’ve been messing with that forever.”

“You know how finnicky these are!” Peter argued. Ralph pounded once with his fist and it popped open. Peter glared, but Jane and Jim chuckled, so mood effectively lightened! Huh. Maybe Sigfried was learning something from Hollows. Peter gestured toward everyone in turn. “Jim, Jane. Ralph.” The others smiled stiffly, staring like Ralph should facilitate something, which was the opposite of his usual role. Eek. Peter suggested they all go dirt biking later. Jim looked pleased, agreed immediately, and offered Hollows a warm smile, but Peter’s eyes dipped away. Now Jim looked at Ralph pleadingly. Sigfried was mystified, but he nodded agreeably.

Bell rang. Everyone scattered, but Jane followed Peter. “So…you’ve had a productive summer.” Jane wore a devilish look that told Peter he was in for a solid roast. “Did you really ask Rebecca to—” Cough. “—call it ‘Big Chief Flying Eagle’ when you hooked up?”

“Does that sound like me?”

“It sounds exactly like you.”

“Sounds suspiciously like I was too drunk to shag anyway, so who’s the problematic one now, huh, Rebecca?” At Jane’s eyebrow quirk: “Relax, I’m joking.” Jane nodded, satisfied. “Becca’s spicy, but there’s not a malicious bone in her body. I must’ve seemed fine to her.”

Jane heard a record scratch in her head. “Wait, were you blacked out?!”

“Of course not. Only browned out.” Peter could remain upright and coherent through an impressive number of drinks; folks rarely knew how drunk he was. Jane groaned into her hands. Peter firmed up. “Whoa, don’t tell her so! She’d feel weird about it.”

‘Uh. Yeah,’ Jane agreed, especially given all the teasing she’d done! When Rebecca told Lil and Jane she’d dubbed Peter “Little Sitting Eagle” in retaliation for the racist humor, there’d been gales of laughter. Now, in context, it felt in poor taste. “Peter, how much brownout sex do you have?”

“The punchline is no one knows for sure. Ha! ...No, I wasn't that drunk every time! Quit frowning! Everyone's fine. No one did anything wrong. What’s concerning?”

“Your emotional state? Are you okay?”

(“Don’t listen to her!” Joy insisted. “Those were some baaaabes, and almost all of ‘em gave you A+ grades!  It cheered you up for…30 minutes, right?”) The worry on Jane’s face was intolerable. Hell, this was why Peter frequently drank to fully enjoy those one-night stands and situationships. They were meant to be fun distraction, not therapy. He wanted physical comfort and conversation (and for them to PLEASE NOT LEAVE) for a few hours, but sometimes they’d look all concerned or ask how he was doing or feeling—the horror! Hollows needed a soft, giggly alcohol or weed barrier to buffer that.

When Peter scoffed, Jane reframed: “But…don’t you wanna remember the fun?”

“Believe me, Esmerelda I remember.” Jane swatted him, mouthing “rude!” “We’re not even dating anymore! Go on, say something about Jim. I won't get jealous.” Jane said [REDACTED BY DISNEY CENSORS.] Peter's vision finally unblurred. “Now you know THAT shit was outta line!”

“What’ve we learned?”

“Not to talk about how Esmerelda can [REDACTED]?” Jane inhaled sharply. “See, that’s why you need to learn what an inside thought is!”

“I’m not that bad!” Jane objected.

“Know what I’m practicing right now, Jane?” Peter tapped the side of his head. “Having inside thoughts.” She shoved him playfully and he snickered.

“…Peter, you are okay, aren’t you?” Jane thought back to when they’d begun dating. How surprised she’d been to learn he was cuddly! Peter was reserved about PDA, but whenever they were alone he was glued to her. One of them was jetpacking the other, or he fwomped his face directly into her breasts or lap like a pillow, happily receiving shoulder rubs or head pats. He’d barely received any physical touch in years, Jane supposed. She hadn’t considered how he’d react when his source of physical affection was removed.  

Peter shot Jane a look that unbalanced her. It held ferocity, bitterness, despite that he’d behaved like she was forgiven. It looked like “you have a lot of nerve to ask that.” Second bell rang. “I’m totally fine,” he insisted. “See you later!”  

Shit. Now Jane was worried again.

[X]

“No wonder Tee loved this! Woohoooo!” Despite Ralph’s discouragement, when school let out, Peter tied rope from a supply closet to the back of Ralph’s motorcycle to be dragged 20mph on the heelys, which oddly weren’t destroyed within 3 minutes. Like they lived in a cartoon or something. “He refuses to take the back seat, and he’s not allowed to drive. Don’t get any ideas, Val,” Ralph explained when they picked her up. “I’m allowed to die, but you’re precious cargo!” Peter chirped.

While Val waited for Ralph, the other kids had already returned to 6^th and Lands. Peter dragged Slightly out and ordered, “Start over.” Ralph sternly gestured at Val, who sighed and slapped the money into Sam’s palm. He nodded. “I’m Sam, but you should call me Slightly.” Valerie straightened dramatically and quoted, “‘Only if you call me Nighthawk.’”

Slightly chuckled. ‘Stepbrothers’ was great; maybe he’d warm up to this chick. “Be right back.” He stepped around the side of the building and returned with the "reassembled" bike—merely coated handles-to-bumper in duct tape. “All ready to ride home!” Valerie scowled, suspecting passive aggression, and deadpanned, “Thanks.” Peter guessed correctly that Sam truly couldn't figure out how to reassemble it and feigned a coughing jag to conceal his laughter. Val shot desperate side-eye at Ralph, who telepathically promised they’d avoid her pretending to ride the deathtrap to spare feelings.

Inside, Ralph witnessed the chaotic household, wide-eyed. Peter weaved through the obstacle course of a dayroom, kicking safety hazards from running children’s paths, catching them, and juggling effortlessly. Hollows made a game of anything. Still, the simple fact he was so skilled at it made Ralph wonder how much pressure he was under watching all these kids.

“Hey, you!” Peter caught Tootles as he ran by brandishing a meat tenderizer like a club, confiscated it and handed it to Ralph, who sat it on a high shelf. “You’re in air jail!” The 1^st grader fake struggled, giggling. Ralph briefly believed in the competency of the 6^th Street Safety Ambassador until Peter tossed the kid airborne. Sigfried yelped and snatched him mid-rise. “Oh, please, you never did that to Val when she was smaller?”

“Sure, Hollows, but not under a ceiling fan!”

Look at that, and it was spinning, too. “Ha. When’d that get there?” Peter shrunk about an inch, and Ralph felt sympathy. He saw now that Peter was anything but deliberately negligent, he just desperately needed Adderall.

Ralph returned Tootles to the carpet. Slightly snatched him up. “Intercepted!” Nibs tripped him. “Fumble!” Tootles tucked and rolled like he’d barreled out of a car, giggling, unironically overjoyed to be a football. Val caught him next. She propped him under one hand, ruffling his hair, while Curly prepped like a bull and charged. Val yanked Tootles to the side, yelling, “Now, Charlie Brown!” a la ‘Cha-Cha Slide.’ Curly performed a deliberate pratfall for the youngest boy’s amusement.

“She’s integrated into the flock. That was record time, Sigfried! Record. Time! SAY I TOLD YOU SO,” Peter insisted.

“Fine. You told me so. This will come back to bite you, though.”

Ralph ripped two sticky notes off Tootles' shirt. “Why're you covered in these?” Another cursory glance revealed that anywhere Tootles might roll, Post-Its fluttered around, scattered from their original placements by the kids’ constant whizzing energy. Reminders to fix broken things in the house, make medical appointments for children, and times/dates of interviews.

“Shit, forgot about those again,” muttered Peter, confirming Ralph’s suspicion that he was the source.

“Do the staff do anything themselves?” Ralph asked angrily, picking more up.

“Mildred does. On the 3 days she’s around. I intend to grab these and leave them on her desk, but I write them as I think about them, stick them somewhere, and they end up…not there…and resurface as wads in the laundry later.”

‘Wow, one of them,’ Ralph thought irritably. It was stressful becoming Valerie’s “dad” at a young age, but Peter clearly had it worse. Felix was obtuse, but he was around regularly. Plus, one Val was more than enough! “Peter, blink twice if you need help. I can tell you enjoy playing with them, but this seems like—” Ralph spotted Slightly deliberately tossing Tootles toward the ceiling fan so the smallest child could catch a blade, be whipped in a circle, then be flung bouncily onto the couch, yelling for more. “—a lot,” Ralph finished after closing his hanging jaw.  (“Her idea!” Slightly insisted, pointing at Val.)

Peter laughed, but one eye ticked. “Someone needs to find these kids some parents so I can finally watch ‘Diehard’ and go to bed, Ralph.”

Oof. Ralph noticed a common theme: lots of very physical, wild games invented to entertain the kids. Maybe they had nothing else to do. “Get the feeling they aren’t big readers. Will they play board games? Cards?” A head-shake from Peter. “Fighting over the TV must make it worse. Yeah? Do they have a game console? No? This might get me whacked by that Mildred lady since kids don’t get outside enough as it is—”

“They do. More than the home likes, actually. Gotta keep ‘em on a short leash for legal reasons ‘til they’re a certain age. They barely go anywhere but to and from school and the backyard without a chaperone. Not that anyone cares what they do when they’re in the building…”

That was sad. “Wow. No wonder they have so much energy… We were gonna donate an old one. I'll bring it here instead. …Let’s get as many notes as we can now before you forget again.” The children presented an obstacle to this goal. “Whaddya normally do for some peace?”

Peter whistled. “Kids!” They fell into line. “There’s a pack of Skittles hidden on the 2^nd floor. Who can find it first?” The kids dashed for the steps. (“Is there really candy up there?” “Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t.” “Nice.”)

In reality, the children intended to hunt for Skittles later. They were more intrigued by the dynamic between Peter and Ralph and lurked on the stairs, observing as the big guy stalked around the living room, then the kitchen, gathering Post-Its into an organized booklet. Peter followed—pleasantly baffled by someone assisting him—while trying to open a stuck pickle jar for a snack. Ralph thoughtlessly seized the jar and popped it open with a, “There ya go!” The kids gasped softly into cupped hands at the faux pas. Peter suffered an abject masculinity crisis, slumping into a kitchen chair and staring down morosely at the open pickle jar, while Ralph obliviously continued hunting sticky notes.

“This is hilarious. Which one’s the dad?” whispered Slightly. “That’s a bomb I ain’t touchin’,” said Nibs. “Ralph’s the mom,” Val offered, “Can’t explain why, just is.”

“You’re not here to help me, man. Relax!” Peter interrupted once past the Pickle Jar Ego Injury, remembering he should be showing Ralph a good time.

“Don’t worry about it. I still feel bad about berating you yesterday. Now I see what you’re dealing with. I’m sure you’re doing as well as you can.”

(“Oh, shit, he pities us!” Embarrassment gasped.) “Please, this is nothing. I was far wilder than these kids,” Peter assured Ralph. “Once I swung out on a hotel pool gate and hung like a bat over the Grand Canyon. One of few times I made Tee scream. Ha! That and the alligator. I got out of the boat in the nature preserve and sat on it cuz I thought it was a log. My sister wrestled an alligator!” (“Perfect!” Joy cheered. Story Time was his favorite deflection tactic.) “She wasn’t a big lady, so it was no small feat! Any time I wonder if she really loved me, I just remember Tee wrestled an alligator for me.”

-x-

Peter cut himself off. The emotion troupe was horrified. Why had he uttered “wonder if she really loved me” out LOUD?! Joy’s head swung around. “Oh, you asshole!”

Peter’s Sadness had quiet-quit his job long ago. He had one evolutionary purpose—attract social support—and he’d never succeeded. Generally the other emotions prevented him (see Peter’s interactions with his classmates and Jane), but many times people didn’t notice he was there at all, which was humiliating. Something about Ralph Sigfried, though, lured him from his weed edible and Twinkie-filled pillow fortress of despair. “He seemed like maybe he’d give a shit?”

“We’re supporting Ralph. He trauma dumps on us; we don’t do it back. If he’s happy, we’ll be happy. Maybe we’ll eventually get laid for our troubles.”

“Firstly, rude! Secondly, I keep trying to remind you why that is a terrible idea,” Anxiety snapped.

Joy shooed Sadness back to the pillow fort. “Go back with the other failures who rarely drive and don’t bother me!” The Head Emotion realized how shitty he was being and softened. “I-I’m sorry, I’m just…” He rubbed his temples. “I’m tired, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t be so tired if you let the rest of us help you,” Sadness argued gently.

Joy glared at the pillow fort, where another emotion regularly camped out nowadays. “Can you blame me for hesitating to trust other peoples’ ideas?”

Anger snaked both her arms out of the pillow fort to flip Joy off. Once, the colleagues had enjoyed a close relationship, like the real Peter and Tara. The awful incident that caused their falling out was rarely discussed. “How come you’re allowed to make mistakes, Joy? What about Wendy? Your coke idea worked awesome—we’d’ve been reeeaaal happy dead!” Anger snapped. Joy grabbed a set of headphones and tuned everyone out, while the other coworkers groaned.

-x-

“You can’t bring people in here without clearance!” a cranky rail thin woman interrupted. (The younger boys automatically amassed to conceal contraband Valerie.)

Peter was never pleased to see Carla, but she was a handy distraction. “Roof’s not ‘in’ the building, right?” The woman sneered but looked satisfied, stalking away. “Fine. Let’s sit up there for a bit. Jane texted that she and Jim need more time anyway.”

Still watching, the boys gasped and ooooh’d. “Called it!” Slightly bragged. At Val’s confused expression: “Peter normally brings girls to the roof!”

“Phhht, boys, I thought we were joking earlier," said Val. "This is obviously a misunderstanding. It’s Ralph.”

[X]

“If that lady ran a background check on me, I wouldn’t be cleared,” Ralph pointed out nervously as they climbed the fire escape. “Don’t wanna cause trouble. We could’ve brought Orange Kid to my house.”

“But you needed to get out of it,” Peter returned, sounding sweeter than usual. He course-corrected: “And Val can play with the kids here. Otherwise I’d need to invent a reason to take a gaggle of boys on a field trip. Too much effort.”

They took seats on the roof. “Sorry to hear the kids are so cooped up,” Ralph remarked.

“Eh, yeah, it is what it is. They let ‘em wander more if they’re in a group, or if it’s a special occasion like their birthday or Halloween, if they’re home on time. But otherwise they’re locked in a tower for safekeeping until they’re 12, maybe 13.”

“Yeesh. How’d you take that?” Ralph couldn’t imagine it being easy for the energetic dude.

At the look crossing Ralph’s face as he realized he’d assumed: “Yup, you guessed it, I’m a lifer. Haha.” Peter shrugged. “Took it like a champ, I guess? Got in the yard or on the roof a lot. Taught myself tricks on the jungle gym. Listened to stand-up. Watched the whole Adam Sandler catalogue, every ‘Hey Arnold’ episode. Read about magic tricks, booby traps, and survival stuff. Not a bad use of 3 years.”

“You were in the home since you were 10?”

“A home. Came to this one when I was about 13 from one out in—” He pronounced a word that scrambled Ralph’s brain. “Not as friendly a place as Evergreen. It was a lucky move.” The years from 10 to 13 were hard. Peter was unable to expend his boundless energy in spaces where he wouldn’t be punished for causing rampant chaos. Moreover, he’d been used to touring the country spending countless hours in nature with his sister (luckily he still had the photos). The first home didn’t have green space like Evergreen, so it felt like being a caged bird or a broken stallion—a stallion fenced in with a dozen other horses who wanted to kick his ass.

[Flashback starts]

In the yard, the under-12s cowered behind Peter as the resident 15-year-old wannabe mobster demanded to know who stole his cigarettes. Hollows doubted one of the older boys in Lampwick’s own bunk hadn’t pilfered them, but it didn’t matter; the stubborn ass’s mind was made up. Peter regarded the kids and resigned himself to a rough day. He’d rather take a beating than watch one of them take it. He wiggled his fingers, “Right here, Romeo!” The children laughed at the silly first legal name. Peter wouldn’t normally play this card since his own last legal name sucked, but the guy had it coming.

“You’re pushing your luck, Pan. Say my name properly.”

“Okay, Limpdick.” The boys guffawed.

“You sure that crazy bitch wasn’t your biological sister after all? The insanity seems heritable.”

This was a surefire way to make Hollows stop laughing and see red, and Lampwick knew it. When Peter charged, the older boy motioned three of his peers to gang up on the runt while the under-12s scattered, spouting cusses they probably shouldn’t know. It would not make a good story, Peter knew, chagrined. When he reoriented dizzily on the ground, Peter caught the home’s director eagerly watching from his office window like someone viewing a soap opera. Peter scowled. He didn’t like or trust that man an ounce. He treated them like livestock. He’d even heard him refer to the boys as “canon fodder” once. (“There’s always a war!”)

Hollows marched back to the younger kids’ bunks, where he was the eldest, at not quite 12. He glowered, sourer than they’d ever seen, bruised, hands sternly on his hips. ‘Dad voice’ emerged. “I think you owe it to me to admit it if you did steal his cigarettes.” The littlest slowly raised his hand, eyes wide and fearful. “Are. You. Kidding? How old even are you?!”

“Ten?” Carlo claimed, grinning sheepishly. (“He’s 8,” someone ratted.)

“The hell you smoking for? You need full lung capacity to run, jump, and climb as The Writers intended!” Peter snapped, as if he didn’t smoke himself.

“I don’t smoke. Just snatched ‘em cuz he pissed me off.” (“He totally smokes,” someone else chimed in.)

“Did you get through that whole pack?” At Carlo’s “no,” Peter held out a palm and wisecracked, “Good, cuz I need a cigarette.” The boys chortled again.

“I don’t owe you nothin’. Didn’t ask you to do that.”

Not even a “thanks?” What a brat! …Well, Peter reconsidered, the kid was barely 8. He’d been a little shit himself to Tara at that age. The boy would grow out of it. “Fair enough, no strings attached. Don’t do that again, because I won’t do that again.” Carlo nodded, eyes lighting with respect. “Now hand over the cigs. You’re going cold turkey.”

Unluckily, the incident started an ongoing feud, because Lampwick held a grudge and Peter couldn’t not run his mouth when challenged. Plus, Peter kept leveraging that embarrassing name, which backfired, because Lampwick began responding with a barrage of homophobic slurs. “Quit calling me your Romeo, [REDACTED!]” So, that was fun for…reasons. The label Peter detested most, despite it not being technically a slur, was “twink.” It hit an extra button, boiling his blood because he’d hoped by now to hit a growth spurt that never came.

Months later, things culminated with the wannabe mobster and his henchmen turning the single closest tree into Peter’s enemy (insult to injury!). They tied, gagged, and strung him by the ankles to a moderately high branch. Peter resisted, even bit one, but ultimately focused on not reacting to how being restrained made him feel, for…reasons. They couldn’t be allowed to know that. He glared, stony-faced, manually slowing his heartbeat.

“He’s like a piñata!” one goon cackled. Another brandished a stick and slapped his palm. They only took a few good whacks and didn’t swing at the face or the crotch, which was better than Peter had expected. Then they left him. The premise of being found in this pitiful position was enough, but Peter suspected they hoped he’d pass out and eventually piss himself, or the rope would snap and he’d fall on his head. Welp, F*** THAT.

With knowledge accrued from lonely hours spent on the crappy library computer reading about magic and escape tactics, Peter freed one wrist, accessed his pocket knife (a treasured belonging of Tara’s. He was impressed with himself for still having it, since there were frequent contraband checks, but hey, that’s what all that sleight of hand was good for, right?), and freed the other one. Knife in his teeth, he rocked himself side to side with all that ab strength he’d built up with jungle gym acrobatics, getting a good swing going. ‘Haha. Guess I am a piñata,’ he thought. Always find the humor! Finally, Hollows grabbed another branch and Twister’d his way into a monkey position that allowed him to cut his feet free without falling. He sat on a branch, took a breather, stuffed the knife back in its designated pocket, and scurried down.

Peter was relieved to find no witnesses until he spotted a suspicious bush with shoes. There was Carlo with a familiar guilty grimace. “You saw that whole thing? Were you just gonna leave me in that tree?!”

“Honestly? I believed you could get down. Hey, I wasn’t wrong, was I?” the little boy added defensively, taking Peter’s silence as further offense.

Carlo couldn’t have been more wrong. This…this was far better than the “thank you” Peter hadn’t received before. Hollows snapped himself out of his emotional reverie and replied with bravado, “Damn right! C’mon, let’s go get dinner.”

Peter was very satisfied with the bullies’ expressions when they saw him barely worse for wear fewer than 20 minutes after they’d tied him up. However, he soured in disgust upon seeing, as usual, the older boys claimed most of the food, leaving scraps for the younger ones. Carlo, spotting Peter’s nose flare of outrage, wasn’t surprised to learn later in the week that he’d sabotaged the bullies’ bunks with booby traps.

They both were surprised when he was ejected from the facility for it. Peter waved to Carlo as he was bussed out. Couldn’t deny being offended that he was the one being treated like a criminal, but he wasn’t disappointed to leave that hellhole!

[Flashback ends]

Peter ruffled. “I need to retrain you to quit asking downer questions.” Before Ralph could apologize: “Ask about the time I fought a goose.”

Ralph snorted. “What?”

“Buncha geese loiter around the sprinklers on the school’s lawn. Senior prank my sophomore year was lettin’  ‘em loose on the building. Goose stole my last Cheeto—unforgivable! Plus, you know how they honk and you just know they’re saying slurs. Told that little shit to keep my name outta his mouth, but did he listen? Naturally, I challenged it to a duel! We found a Second for the goose because we’re all about good form at Evergreen, but the geese ganged up because they’re scoundrels. Jim was supposed to be my Second, but he stood back laughin’ up a lung while I fought two geese with nothing but plastic cafeteria cutlery and a styrofoam tray. The Goose’s Second tried eating the tray, threw up, and waddled away. Goose #1 I forked in the ass like a Thanksgiving bird, and it surrendered!”

Ralph laughed quietly into his fist. Peter’s smile sprouted back. There. MUCH better story! Meanwhile, based on that far-away expression Peter so skillfully dismissed and his little verbal slip downstairs, Ralph suspected there was much more to Hollows than met the eye.

“I just remembered,” Peter said. The Cheeto story reminded him. He fished something out of his pocket; hooray, not melted!

“Do you have an infinite storage void in those pants?”

“You can’t just go around asking folks what’s in their pants, Ralph.” Peter slapped the carob bar into his hand. “Happy birthday. I tried one and was pleasantly surprised it didn’t taste like ass.”

“…I didn’t tell you it was my birthday yesterday. Or that I’m allergic to chocolate but don’t hate the taste.” The second part was a lie. It was the least inconvenient allergy ever; Ralph didn’t miss the taste of chocolate a bit. But he didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

“Val did. On the phone this morning,” Peter lied.

“When did you even buy this?”

(If any 7-11 would carry carob bars, it was one in the unusual town of Evergreen. “See, I’m not toxic,” Joy argued. “We were suffering through reuniting with our ex, and I still remembered to get Ralph his candy! Sure, I wanna get my boy laid, but I never said I wouldn’t treat this guy right!”)

“Sorry, I guess the normal well-adjusted response is ‘thank you,” Ralph corrected.

“See! You can be normal and well-adjusted!” Peter praised. “Then you won’t flake on Jim and Jane? You’ll have fun, promise!” Ralph gave him a pleased but dumbfounded look. “What?”

“You’re…putting a lot of effort into making me feel welcome.” Ralph felt a gratitude as warm as molten gold. He impulsively swung an arm around Peter’s side, squished him into an aggressive hug, then released him a few ticks later, regaining his senses. “Sorry, sorry! Uh…” He wasn’t used to being treated like a human being who mattered? “Means a lot is all.”

Peter barely kept a dazed smile off his face. That was the first close physical contact he’d received while sober in some time. “No problem… I could make the kids sing the unholy amalgamation of every restaurant birthday song we made up and let you wear the Fruit Hat?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, but that’s the kindest thing I’ve ever been threatened with, thanks.”  

[X] 

The children paused their revisited candy quest at the sound of a loud crash, followed by Sigfried’s cussing. Out a window, they saw the bottom chunk of ladder had broken off as Ralph descended the fire escape, planting him on his ass. (“If it came down that easily, the Safety Ambassador has been negligent in his surveillance duties!”) Meanwhile, Peter cackled, trapezing himself on the upper ladder to hang upside down on the lowest remaining rungs, teasing his friend. Once extremely tall Ralph stood, the perfect way they lined up, combined with Peter’s roguish smile, couldn’t be missed.

“Holy shit, I see it!” Valerie yowled as if converted to a new religion. “That munchkin instinctively wants to be high enough to kiss him with dignity!”

“We ship it!” cried the Twins.

“We should warn your brother Peter has the emotional range of a toaster,” Nibs added. “Hey, that ain’t fair!” Curly defended. “Peter displays the emotional range of a toaster. He has the emotional range of a toaster oven.”

“I should warn you, Ralph’s relationship resistant. I’ve tried winging him, but he practically hides from wom…en. ...You goobers might have a point!”

“Good. Peter's gotta get his mind off Jane. I wasn’t even around yet when they broke up, and he’s still moping. He thinks we don’t notice or somethin.’” Contrary to Peters assumptions, Slightly liked him, was even impressed. (That file suggested the amount of damage Peter could take without giving up was incredible!) Sam only dunked on Hollows because he knew the guy could take it. He wanted to see Peter happy and was willing to endorse the hell out of this!

Ralph stayed in the alley and called Felix to ask if he’d help the Home fix the fire escape since Ralph broke it…and bring the console…and bring Valerie home so she wouldn’t have to fake riding that bike. (“Sorry, didn’t mean to pelt a laundry list of tasks at you. …No, I know you’re used to it.”) He apologized for the other night. Felt shitty that Felix was immediately so helpful after Ralph was such a dick…

Meanwhile, Peter entered the house, about to order the children to prepare the Birthday Song and the Fruit Hat immediately, but was distracted by Slightly’s over-loud last few sentences regarding Jane. “You draw this conclusion how?”

The boys and Val, now officially a single hive-minded unit, scurried down the stairs and surrounded Peter, disturbingly resembling piranha. “After she dumped you, you sat on the roof and played ‘Tuesday’s Gone’ 25 times,” Thing 1 ratted. “We counted,” Thing 2 corroborated.

“Holy shit, you can count?” Peter clapped back. “They’re exaggerating,” he told Val.

The smaller kids slunk away now, leaving only the bravest souls, Val and Slightly. “Ohhhh, we understand your heartbreak, buddy, but the past is the past!” Val danced around Peter. “That was an ingeniously executed Spiderman maneuver you tried on your future boyfriend. Shame it didn’t work. In your defense, poor Ralphie can’t comprehend someone wanting to kiss him.”

“Um. What?” Peter deduced what she meant and made a swift decision steeped in a culture these Gen Alpha kids weren’t necessarily familiar with. Getting agitated would only make him look too “the gentleman doth protest too much.” The game was to tell straight-faced jokes back. Hollows buffed his hand against his chest. “You know me, master of moves. Next I’ll show up to his house with a bouquet of cheesy garlic bread sticks.”

“Trying to win him over with fat jokes?” Slightly asked.

“As one does.”

“Ralph’s self-esteem’s so low it’ll probably work,” Val educated. “Neg him right to hell, he’ll come around.”

Peter squinted. ‘Don't take the bait…’ He failed. “We’re all joking, right?”

“Sure.” Valerie winked.

“Obviously.” Slightly winked. The children fled. “Oh, he reacted to that. There’s definitely something there!”

“Bet I can make a blood vessel in his eye burst faster than you can!” Val challenged.

“You’re on! …Careful of that size difference, Hollows!” Slightly switched back to addressing Peter, calling around the corner. “Don’t dislocate a hip!” No blood vessel bursting, but Peter’s face turned a shade of red that Sam felt was worth a few points.

“Felix says he’ll— What happened to you?” Ralph asked of his friend’s expression as he walked in.

Peter sighed and ground his teeth. “You told me so, Ralph. Those two together are gonna be a nightmare.”

[X] 

There wasn’t much chitchat involved in this meet-up, but Ralph preferred that, and it seemed exactly what Peter needed. The discomfort between Hollows and Hawkins evaporated the second they revved their engines. Soon they were whooping and competing amicably.  After a few races, they decided to hand off a bike to Ralph, and Jim chanced patting Peter’s shoulder once he dismounted. “Um… I missed this.”

Peter smiled awkwardly and looked askance. “You could’ve…asked to do it, then.”

“Yeah, I could've.” Jim’s face heated up. “I owe you a huge apology, man—”

Peter batted a hand. “I fully approve, Jim, don’t worry. Jane’s a big girl, she’s allowed to have personal preferences. Now, behave yourself. One misstep and I rat about how much time you spent drawing my sister’s rack for that mural!” Peter teased and slithered away before Jim could explain it wasn’t all about that. ‘Don’t give up. Just chip away at the stone,’ Hawkins encouraged himself.  

Jane was referee but accomplished little beyond getting The Vapors over every wheelie and flip. “Understood,” Ralph told her. “My sister's never gonna hear about this. She’d kill herself on one of those within 15 seconds.”

It took goading to convince Ralph to try the ramp. “It’s not as hard as it looks, and there’s nothing like being airborne!” Peter promised. Ralph’s mood did lift during his first two shockingly successful tries. The third time, he wiped out. Jim and Jane loudly “Uggh”ed as he rolled into a mud puddle. Peter worried for a second, until the grumbling and abjectly defeated body language indicated his friend’s pride was wounded more than his body.

(“Reintroduce the levity!” Joy commanded.) Peter, without braking, flipped off his bike’s handlebars as the machine dropped to the ground (earning a yelp and flinch from Janie and Jim) and dove into the mud puddle beside Ralph like it was a Slip-N-Slide. He reclined with forearms folded behind his head. “Always found mud baths soothing.”

“You. Are. Nuts,” Ralph assessed, far more stunned than comforted.

“Nah. These’re just the things that lost boys do.” Peter playfully yanked Ralph back into the mud as he began to stand. His large friend stumbled and went face down. Peter tensed; given the amount of nervous flailing, perhaps he'd activated a core memory. Then Ralph’s eyes met his again and he reoriented, calmed, before packing the dirt equivalent of a snowball and dumping it on Peter’s head. Soon they were in a mud battle, grappling in the puddle, which, was, uh… (Joy fanned himself. “My, I’m not sure what this feeling is, but I think it falls under my purview.” “Perv,” chastised Disgust. Anxiety screeched objections at the sight of Jim and Jane watching with wide grins of delight.) “Why are you making those faces?” Peter snapped.

“What faces?” asked Jim, already inscrutable as stone. Meanwhile, Jane’s inside thoughts uncontrollably burst through her face as if through a bullhorn.

After their exchange earlier, Jane would feel so relieved to see Peter set up with someone special and not resorting to sad brownout sex for physical affection!

“Oh, not you, too!” Peter groaned.

“Wait… Does he not know?” Jane whispered quickly as Peter approached. “How can he not know? He used to drool at ‘The Incredible Hulk!’” Jim whispered back, incredulous. “Right? He stares at Shang’s ass as much as I d-diiiiiiid before dating either of you!” Jane finished before Peter pulled her aside toward Hangman’s Tree.

“I’m confused,” said Ralph.

‘You sweet summer child,’ thought Jim. “Just an in joke,” he misdirected. “I’m glad you showed up, by the way." He jerked his chin toward Peter, whose scolding yielded no effect on visibly gleeful Jane. “Thanks for tolerating him. Guessing he’s followed you like a lost duckling chattering nonstop since you met?”

“Painfully accurate.”

“Did it to me, too. And he needs it right now. Dude had a rough second half of last year and…Janie and I have been negligent in our best friend duties. This is the first time Peter and I have ridden together in months, so…thanks. I really owe you one, Ralph.”

“Huh. Lookit that! Not used to puttin’ things back together. Usually my clumsy, inept ass is breaking stuff.” He was partly joking, but then Ralph saw something Peter overlooked: Jim looked at Peter precisely the way Ralph himself looked at Valerie. Wow. He really was helping reassemble something precious! That felt great.

The boys looked up at the sound of loud “shoo”ing from the tree. A fox had poked its head out of the hole and Peter was trying to scare it off. “Awww, what’d he do to deserve that?” asked Ralph. The fox ran toward the big guy and curled around his leg like a cat. “I think this little guy’s been around humans before!” He let the animal bump its head against his fist, then pulled some jerky out of his pocket. The fox greedily tore into it, then rolled joyfully and showed Ralph its belly.

“Nooo, Ralph, you don’t understand!”

“Peter, he’s homeless!”

Jane cooed, “Awww, he’s so sweeeet.” Ralph assumed she meant the fox. Peter, facepalming in embarrassment, knew better.

“He’s not ‘homeless,’ he’s a wild animal!” Peter insisted. “I can’t let him hang around here because—” Gunshots rang out. Peter instinctively leapt in front of Jane like a shield. Jim tore across the clearing to do the same. The fox dove straight into Ralph’s arms, and he cradled it like an infant while following Jim. “You’re a f***ing idiot, Amos!” Jim raged at an elderly man stepping through the trees. “There’s kids out here all the time!”

As if it weren’t enough that the fox was so cute and this lunatic indiscriminately shot outside hunting season where children played, Ralph couldn’t bear seeing Jane’s condition. Val claimed he made that exact expression while desperately quashing a tidal wave of despair or enough anger to rip someone’s face off. Only Jane must be suppressing fear. When his mental ‘currency conversion’ estimated exactly how afraid she must be, he snapped in outrage. Sigfried’s thunderous bellow echoed in the clearing. “IF YOU SCARE THE GIRL OR THE FOX AGAIN, I WILL GO FULL JOHN WICK ON YOUR ASS, OLD MAN!”

You’d have to hear for yourself to truly appreciate it. Ralph had some pipes. A flock of birds shot out of a tree. The fox squirmed out of Ralph’s arms and flew into a den. Amos was too disoriented to shoot it, but his twitching hand fired into the ground because the old coot had forgotten the safety. Jane broke composure, swerved her face into Jim’s chest, and screamed silently. Amos stumbled away through the brush. Jim looked pained, like he’d been stabbed in the eardrum. Peter’s facial expression was best described as “Vietnam Elmo.” “Ha! Watch your blood pressure, there, T—” Cough. “—Ralph.”

“I-I’d better take her home,” said Jim, shepherding Jane toward his car. “We’ll see you soon!”

[x]

The Firebird left the woods. Ralph slumped dazedly against the tree. He was stupid to feel surprised by how quickly he’d ruined everything. This was his role in life. “Welp. If you didn’t believe me before when I told you about arguing with Val, there you have it. That was me, yelling. Protectively. With the intent to scare a dangerous crazy person away. And I wasn’t even trying that hard to be scary.”

“Nononono! Amos scared Jane!”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t also scare Jane. Even the fox ran from me, not the gunshot.”

“Remember Auradon Elementary from the news a few years back? Jane used to go there…if you catch my drift. Jim knows she’ll need to calm down, that’s why he yanked her into the car so fast. He doesn’t think you’re a threat!” This factoid didn’t ease Ralph’s self-consciousness. To Peter’s consternation, his face turned as green as Jane’s had when her composure broke. “You were doing fine! He ruined it, not you!”

“People used to make school shooter jokes about me,” Ralph blurted.

“…Oh.” Peter sat next to him.

“It was offensive, but… I did turn out way more violent than I expected, so now, it’s, like, haunting every time I hear about one, if that makes sense.” He looked gravely tired. “Those kids and Mom… I thought they were being shitty, but what if they saw something real? What if something sets me off again? What would’ve happened if my parents were firearm enthusiasts?”

‘A suicide, not a homicide,’ Peter privately assessed. “Nothing,” he said out loud, “because it requires planning.”

“You’re trying to comfort me by calling me stupid?”

Peter thwacked Ralph’s forehead gently. “No, you’re reactive! In the time it’d take you to plan a shooting, you’d calm down, fool!”

“…That’s…not a bad point.” Ralph’s vision looked a little less cloudy.

“It’s crime of passion for you all the way. Unless you start carrying a weapon around all the time—" Peter whipped out his own pocket knife and twirled the blade on a rock as if it were a plastic fidget spinner. “—you’re limited.”

“Why do you carry knives all the time?” Ralph thought to ask through his muddy thoughts.

“We’re not talking about me right now, and you need to ask better questions,” Peter deflected immediately, defaulting to story time again. “Ask me about how I made the ladies laugh at the public pools when I was a kid!”

[Flashback]

“You have trunks on under that bathrobe, right? You’re not gonna pull a trench coat maneuver and land me in jail?” Tara interrogated him of the ludicrous costume the first time Peter donned it.

Channeling Hugh Hefner, Peter wore the old boating hat with a robe and was puffing on a prop stogie he’d crafted from a toilet paper roll. “Ready to flirt with mermaids!” The ploy was successful. Soon a slew of amused pretty girls doted on 8-year-old Peter as he relaxed in a lounger. One of them bought him cheesy fries. “It’s good to be the captain!” Hollows celebrated to a sea of giggling.

“Little bruh, can you teach me your ways?” asked a just-as-amused buff male 20-something from the water.

Tara had no similar luck with the resident muscle-bound hunks. She was attractive, but her crazy started showing as soon as she opened her mouth. Attempting to wing her, Peter lied, “It was my sister’s idea. She’s hilarious!”

Tara smiled flirtatiously. “Bruh, can you teach me to pull hot babes like that?” the guy asked. Tee turned beet red and furiously dunked him.

[End]

Ralph offered a polite chuckle, but the humor clearly didn't cheer him. Welp. Peter tried. “And now I’ve responded to news of your friend’s traumatic experience by making it about me. Complete garbage human…” the big guy continued.

Peter groaned. “Okay, do as I say, not as I do—you clearly need to talk about this! I don’t mind. Plus, can confirm you don’t give off psycho vibes because I’ve seen what real PSYCHO vibes look like.” Redirect, fast! “And no one in Evergreen will piss you off, so you’re safe.”

“I think there might be family history of violence.”

“Oh. I get it. You believe you’re cursed. That’s easy to fix. Just believe you’re not cursed! …I’m serious.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m glaring at you. Peter, you don’t get it, you’ve never done something so violent.”

“Bro, I once blew a guy’s hand off with explosives.”

Ralph summoned all the information he knew about Peter so far and guessed, “Accidentally?”

“Well. I mean.” Peter looked uncertain. (“NOPE,” Joy commanded sternly.) “I…uh…yeah, but..."

Ralph spread his palms in frustration.

"Ugh, fine, but I was kicked out of a group home for violently booby trapping some guys' bunks. Adults said it wasn't self-defense because they weren’t attacking me at the time. Didn’t matter they’d gang up on me and yell slurs every day." Peter fiddled with his pocket knife again, embarrassed by Ralph's look of surprised concern. "Oh, well... It was coal country, I look like this, and Tara had blessed me with an enduring love of sparkly glam metal and musicals. Ha. You thought I learned all these self-defense methods just for fun?"

("See, he gives a shit!" Sadness whispered smugly over Ralph's expression. "That's enough. Don't give us another heart attack!" Joy snapped, seizing the controls.)

Ralph opened his mouth. "Bah, no commentary!" Peter insisted. "It wasn't all about— They also stole food from younger kids. They were all-around creeps. That's why I said it matters what these assholes did to you. I get it's shitty to be called a sociopath when you're only retaliating. I can't watch shit like you with your sister or that fox, or you hiding from Hercules and Ariel, and believe you're violent without being criminally provoked. I don’t question he had it coming. Believe me?”

“…Yeah, I believe you.”

“Wanna tell me about it?” (“You sure, Runt?” whispered Anger. “We may start sleuthing out where people live and planning something that’ll land us in prison.") As if overhearing Peter’s Anger, Ralph's gaze flicked down to Peter’s knife. He’d seen Hollows with those kids; he was the protective sort for sure. And despite his flagrant ADHD, he seemed capable of planning. "Ralph, please, if I'd waste energy hunting down and killing somebody, I'd've done it by now. I value my own happiness too much for that noise." 

Ralph made cautious eye contact with Peter. He barely knew Hollows but could already tell Peter's sharing was a meaningful gesture to show the other party they were safe... "Um, it started pretty innocuously, really. Standard bullying fare." Fat, stupid, and smelly (kids doing their own laundry forget to move it to the dryer and it mildews) jokes should've been ignorable. "Trouble was I had no friends and got stiffed at home too, so there was no break. My only comfort was the kid, who I couldn’t lean on because I was the big brother. So, I got pretty f***in’ depressed. But the vibe’s different when you’re visibly brooding and angry at my size. People started crossing the street to avoid me. Then the prospective school shooter jokes started.

“Which suggests they were afraid, right? At first. Then they realized, holy crap, he’s just taking it! I did nothing the entire time besides get fatter eating sadness pizza. Then it started escalating. I was their ‘big dumb brute who could kill me but won’t’ action figure. Throw soda cans at him, he just walks away! Full cans. Heavy. Not good. Or hackey sacks filled with rocks. Told you I’ve taken enough hits to the head to explain stuff… Lots of other... Th-they got pretty violent.”

Peter carefully kept his face neutral. “No one knew about this?”

“Of course not! Who’d admit they allowed themselves to be pelted with full soda cans without doing anything? Please don’t repeat this to anyone!” Ralph begged, holding his head, humiliated. "Even Val knew very little. Didn't wanna dump on her, but also...y'know... Nobody wants their little sister to know they're taking abuse like a f***ing wimp, right?"

“…Understood,” said Peter. "Why didn't you do anything, defensively?" He didn't want to rub salt in the wound and say 'you're gigantic FFS' out loud.

Ralph stared at Peter like he was speaking elvish. "Just look at me."

It took Peter a second to realize Ralph didn't exclusively mean 'would've been a bad look.' "You were afraid you'd hurt them more than you intended?" Ralph shrugged, well aware he must seem completely insane. "And you think you're the bad guy?" 

“I started snapping eventually. You’ve heard me yell. They remembered my size could become a problem and decided to humble me some more, just in case. Faced with the question ‘What’s both large and strong enough to hold this guy?’ they came up with ‘cafeteria dumpster.’”

Peter had a lot of thoughts but only voiced: “Exactly how did they get you into a dumpster?”

“Fair question,” said Ralph after a resentful sigh. “Knocked me out a window. A 2^nd story window and a high dumpster, so not a long fall, but that wasn’t the point.”

“And no one had a problem with these little shits?”

“Didn’t tell anyone,” Ralph repeated stiffly. “You’re the first to hear of it.”

“…Understood,” Peter repeated.

“They knocked me in, pulled the top over, and I was in there for…I guess about 4 hours cuz it was half a school day. Until I entered full panic attack, convinced the maggots were starting to eat me, and broke out.”

“Out of the metal dumpster, with your bare hands???”

“Yup.” For the first time, Ralph looked a twinge self-satisfied. Then he cocked a brow at Peter. “What's that look you’re giving me?”

“Wh-what look?!” (Peter’s Embarrassment groaned and tugged a blanket over a visible tent in his slacks. Disgust slapped his head. “What's. Your. DEAL??? Your friend’s describing egregiously abusive bullying and you’re popping a bo—?” Anxiety clapped a hand over Disgust’s mouth: “Don't acknowledge it. We’re not ready.”) “I'm just confused. Weren’t you visibly banged up?” A cafeteria dumpster would house metal can lids and plastic and glass shards, right? Not to mention the damage Sigfried must’ve done to his own body freeing himself? 

“A bit.” A lot. “Didn’t figure Mom would notice. I avoided Val so she wouldn’t get upset. Felix noticed. But he didn’t ask questions, just offered me cake. What was cake gonna do? I showered, patched myself up, barely slept. Halfway through the night I thought, why do I take this lying down when I can snap them like twigs over one thigh?! And I wasn't scared of that anymore. It was comforting. But it became, like…a DARK thought that got bigger and BIGGER. Went to school the next morning, got reprimanded for ‘playing hookie yesterday.’ Between sleep deprivation and everything else, next time I saw Gene—” Ralph punched his own palm. 

“...Ralph. That’s the plot to ‘Carrie.’ That’s the plot to ‘Worm!’ Society accepts what you’ve described as traumatic enough to trigger latent superpowers! You think that wasn’t ‘enough?’ ...No, don’t look like that! You broke out of a dumpster, that’s incredible! And you got him back!”

Ralph wilted. “I proved them right is what I did.”

Peter was at a loss. Reframing things positively was his number one approach, but Ralph was incapable of feeling the same accomplishment Peter felt after cutting himself down from that tree or after [STATIC]. Maybe… “How’s this: we go over non-violent restraints, you condition yourself to default to that instead of offensive stuff. Then maybe you won’t be as nervous about shattering somebody’s ribcage if you feel threatened.”

“I didn’t shatter his ribcage.”

“Thank Walt you’ve acknowledged that, Sigfried, cuz you sure act like you did.”

“…Working on the holds might help.”

“Let me know anything else that'll help, okay? Gonna do my best to make sure you’re not miserable in Evergreen.”

Ralph looked up. Poor Peter looked so demoralized. “...It’s...not your job to make me happy.”

Realizing he’d seemed too serious, Peter corrected with humor. “I can’t stand people to be sad around me.” He pulled big watery eyes. “Look, I’m a kicked puppy. Can you hear Sarah McLaughlan? Singing her sad ‘Arms of an Angel’ song because you kicked a puppy, you bad man?”

“I’ve done nothing but be sad at you for two days. Why do you still want me around?”

“You’re also a goldmine of slapstick and cringe comedy, and that’s nothing to sneeze at on my end.”

“Phht. Fine, I’ll take it. Other than Valerie and maybe Felix—” Ralph looked at his shoes. “—no one’s ever been this kind to me. Don’t feel bad because you can’t magically do something in two days that multiple antidepressants can’t. Seriously. You’re doing great.”

(“…Kiss him,” Joy blurted. “WHAT?!” shrieked the others. “No way! Not giving Jane ‘told you so’ rights for the rest of our lives!” Embarrassment squawked. “You know why we can’t do that, Joy!” Anxiety objected for the umpteenth time.) A heavy blanket of protective denial fell over Peter, and the last 5 seconds of controversial thought were forgotten. He smiled. “Um… Glad to hear it. Let’s meet up tomorrow afternoon to practice holds?”

“…I have a little more time now.”

(Joy lit up. “Perv,” repeated Disgust.

Poor mute Fear cast a meaningful glance at Anxiety, who said, “Yeah, I’d prefer more time to prepare—”

“Buuuut we won’t freak out and embarrass ourselves because we trust him aaand we’re prepared as all hell, remember? We can get out of nearly anything now. Like goddamn Houdini!” Joy interrupted reassuringly. Fear nodded and felt concerned anyway.)

“Oh, uh, sure.” Peter started awkwardly kicking sticks and rocks out of the way. He must’ve developed an odd look because Ralph looked wary again. “Ugh, stop! You’re not gonna break me! I’ll tell you if you’re hurting me, that’s part of the point!” At the stern, skeptical line of Ralph’s mouth: “Swear on Tee’s grave, I won’t be too proud to tell you if you hurt me.”

“Fine, I believe you.”

[X]

Their first practice went fine. Ralph seemed encouraged and more relaxed by the time he left. Peter was overjoyed. He’d improved Sigfried’s outlook, and it hadn’t triggered any uncomfortable feelings. He wasn’t even sure where that strange foreboding came from earlier. How odd…

They regularly spent time together over the next few weeks as Peter sought more ways to lift Ralph’s depression funk.

Peter tried teaching Ralph to enjoy 1^st person shooter games again (after Sigfried reported they made him nauseous now) by making copious goofy commentary and sound effects to remind him it was just a game. Like Janie, Ralph physically relaxed more and more until he nodded off to sleep on Peter’s shoulder later that evening while they watched ‘Tucker and Dale Vs Evil’ with Val. She laughed her ass off at Peter's predicament and left him trapped like that for 30 minutes. 

Trying to combat his friend’s bad guy complex, Peter leveraged the power of Ye Olde ‘Look, a Cat Stuck in a Tree’ situation to make Ralph look good in front of a little boy. With his impressive arm strength, Ralph launched Peter high into the air so Hollows could access the branch the cat was stuck on much faster than he otherwise could’ve. Peter snagged the kitten and dropped it into Ralph’s waiting arms. After his pet was returned, though, little Antonio worried about Peter getting down and wouldn’t be satisfied until Peter—now stubbornly clinging to the branch exactly like the kitten—begrudgingly agreed to fall into Ralph’s princess carry. Peter slapped his way out of Ralph’s arms and stormed away, blushing heavily as they laughed. The kid had better not repeat that! Story not approved!

(“I’m shocked you allowed that,” remarked Embarrassment, crossing his arms angrily. “All part of my grand master plot,” explained Joy. “I only plan to play ‘princess’ until I’m finally allowed to play ‘lion tamer.’ Hehehehe.”)

After learning how infrequently Ralph had made it not only outside the house but outside his own bed all summer, Peter took advantage of the ideal September weather to take his friend camping. Things went a little sideways, but Ralph's brute strength remained impressive, and Peter got to show off, too, so yay!

[Flashback]

They rested at the fire they'd built at the campsite Ralph moved them to, much closer to civilization, no longer completely entrenched in deep wilderness. “You and I have very different understandings of what ‘camping’ entails, Peter.” Ralph resentfully munched on a vile carob s'more, determined to choke it down because he was evidently an insane person who didn't want to hurt the feelings of the guy who'd nearly gotten them killed.

“This is how Tee did it!”

“I have questions. …I did not expect you to slaughter three wolves with those throwing stars.”

“Didn’t expect to see you break two wolves’ backs against a tree!”

“I’ll be muttering the Nine Old Men’s names for a week…”  The equivalent of a Catholic praying the rosary as penance.

“Ralph, they wanted to kill you.”

"I still didn’t like doing it!”

Both boys conveniently omitted what this conversation followed. Their ecstatic victory whooping of “We are men! WE ARE MEN!” had attracted a larger pack of wolves, forcing them to flee like little bitches.

[End]

Hollows introduced Ralph to the glorious services of ‘Pranks Anonymous.’ ("Plenty of fun nonviolent alternatives for revenge, Sigfried!") A few TaskRabbit jobs earned enough money for Gene to receive rubber dicks and embarrassing niche porn by mail for months. If Ralph nearly crushed Peter in another highly-coveted hug, ah well, Peter needed his back cracked anyway.

Peter was happy Ralph was happy that Valerie had friends now, but it truly was the bane Sigfried had predicted. The kids hadn’t grown bored of their running gag like he'd anticipated. If anything, they were escalating. 

[Flashback]

“What in the name of Brian Kesinger is that?” Ralph asked of the structure the kids had erected in the 2^nd floor hallway of the Home. 

“It’s our ship,” Slightly explained as the gang unfurled a large rainbow flag off the mast of their makeshift sailboat. “Because we ship it,” Valerie added.

Ralph squinted at what they’d named the “ship” and pursed his lips. It was a twinge humorous, but: “You’re pushing your luck. Take that down before Peter sees.”

“Whaaaa? Peter has a great sense of humor!”

One of few things Peter was sensitive about was his size; that ship name was a trigger. Based on what Ralph knew, the whole thing probably was. “Kids, I’m serious.” Sigfried tried removing the flag but, in typical clumsy fashion, tangled himself in it and tumbled downstairs, tightly cocooning himself along the way.

Ralph hit Peter’s feet where the shorter boy had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Kids, stop trying to assassinate your mother!” he joked.

“Sorry, Father,” Curly replied, batting his eyes innocently.

“MMMPPPH!” grunted Ralph.

Peter helped untangle Ralph, processed the situation, and acknowledged the punchline tiredly: “Oh, Walt, because they ‘ship’ it…” All humor vanished once he read the flag’s text, face turning red, blue, and green in rapid succession as he regretted his “mother” crack from earlier. “The SS Twink’N’Tank?!" The gang howled with laughter and scattered, blissfully oblivious to how badly they’d messed up. 

Ralph put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I told them it was rude, but it’s just a word, man. …And they’re only playing, I can tell.”

Peter couldn’t tell, but he kept mum. “I’m not upset,” he lied. “Part of the fun for them's gettin’ a reaction, so I play the game, y’know?”

“Phht. You’re a good ‘dad.’ Besides, the ladies sure don’t seem to care that you’re short.” With a smirk: “And you’re the deadliest garden gnome I know.”

Just like that, the ‘twink’ pain vanished. “Heh. Thanks, ‘mom.’”

[Flashback Ends]

Still, Ralph usually got a little laugh out of their antics. Peter should be glad his friend didn’t suffer the same hang-ups on this topic that he did, and he wouldn’t punish him for it. So, Hollows suffered through every one of the kids' gimmicks with a patient smile and a clenched fist.

-x-

And they continued working together on those nonviolent holds. Tonight, Hollows found himself having a—hack hem—very nice dream about Ralph practicing restraints on him. No anxiety; he trusted the gentle giant. Once pinned to the ground beneath his large friend Peter reflexively shut his eyes, feeling uncharacteristic shyness. Not a fan of being pinned, per se, but when Ralph asked if that was good, voice eager for approval, he felt…mmmph.

(“Who wrote this script?! It’s two teenage boys, there’s no need for subtlety! Pornify this!” Joy complained to the Dream Director. A disco ball descended from the ceiling and corny ‘70s funk began playing. “Change the line to, ‘Is that good, Sir?’ You just know he wants to take orders and be called our Good Boy, c’mon!” The nagging yellow man was escorted out by security before the dream could derail.)

“Yeah, that was good. …Let go now, would you?” The strong fists didn’t release him. Now ice shot down his spine. “What the hell, I’m not playing.” Peter opened his eyes to find an entirely different, wrong person sneering down at him.

It all rushed back at once.

Hollows woke up, shuddering, in a cold sweat, and hoped he hadn’t gasped too loudly. He peeked around his curtain. No one awake, thankfully. Peter left the curtain nudged over a sliver at the foot end of the bed to let in the occasional dancing star from the projector lamp and was comforted for 5 seconds before fiery shame flooded him. He thought he’d outgrown this! Last time he’d had a nightmare was probably before he moved to Evergreen. Short of the ‘life flashing before his eyes’ stuff during his cocaine overdose, the last time Peter acknowledged this event more than fleetingly, more than indirectly with heavy mental censoring and emphasis on the bright side, was…he couldn’t tell you.

Peter simply didn’t think about certain things, and it made them not real. But then it was always so shocking to remember…

-x-

“And this is why Ralph is a bad idea, Joy,” said Anxiety. “He'll dredge up all this old shit.”

Surprising everyone, Anger leapt to Joy’s defense. “Ralph’s got nothing to do with that! It’s not his fault! We shouldn’t associate him with it. Can't we fix it?”

“Maybe if we actually, y’know…dealt with it?” Anxiety asked tentatively.

“We did deal with it. End of story,” Anger insisted, crossing her arms and grinning savagely.

Joy, surprisingly, scowled; how dare she claim this victory!? “You mean after you made everything worse by keeping Fear here from doing his job, you solved the problem using my idea! That’s why you almost never drive anymore, Tara! Terrible influence on this child, surprising no one! Now, allow me to console your little brother after your bad advice permanently damaged him!” Anger huffed and marched away from her ex-friend, face a rigid mask of resentment. Why bother defending him? Who needed him?

Joy turned away from Anger toward his switchboard. He cast memories of beautiful, glittering fireworks, and one particularly glorious ground bomb soaring through the air toward the hand of a piece of shit who was about to reflexively catch it to protect his face. Joy switched on the stereo and softly played the Boston version of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ until Peter was soothed to sleep because he won...

Anxiety tentatively approached Joy. “Listen…can we talk? I tell you this as your friend, man. Normally you do a great job with short term stuff, but lately your solutions are…not effective. The coke. Those girls?”

“What harm did the girls do?”

“How much more did he want Jane when they left? And your long term solutions have always needed work. …Wendy? Trying to make the kids your family? Ralph?”

“If I do a shit job, why has our boy stayed so happy after everything that's gone wrong?”

“Because you’re a champ at distracting him from it! But this new venture is wrecking all your hard work! This guy's reminding us of every shitty thing you’ve helped Peter forget! Tara’s rough patches! Wendy being scared you’d hurt the kids! The old home! James! And now the kids are harassing us! We need them to love us!”

“The kids are playing, not being hateful. They’re good kids, they’re not bigots.”

“Are you sure?! …What do you see in this venture? It can’t just be ‘this guy’s smile makes Peter incandescently happy.’ I know you’re not a lunatic.”

The Head Emotion huffed like a dragon puffing smoke out its snout. Peter Hollows’ Joy never surrendered. “We only need to push through this early part. When has our boy ever given up because something was challenging? Then it’ll be great. It’ll…like…heal shit or something! How many hours do you spend building mazes around all the internalized homophobic bullshit that makes our boy so tense? What else could you deal with that's actually important? What have I missed out on, huh? We can barely enjoy musicals anymore!”

Anxiety grasped Joy's explanation and even deemed it sensible enough to cooperate. But he had to ask, “What makes this guy right for the job? He’s kind of an oaf.”

Joy shrugged and chuckled sheepishly, “His…uh…smile makes Peter incandescently happy? Ha!”

Anxiety groaned.