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 Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:34 pm
 The coat was a tight fit around the arms, and the arms were a little short, but Bath was grateful for the thought. Verity and Shera had thought about him, and had included him on their evacuation plans. For a former criminal who had been betrayed many times by people he had thought were his friends, it was a shockingly sweet gesture. Bath sighed as he hiked the three sleeping bags onto his shoulder, beside the stuffed backpack. Would he ever get used to people being nice to him?
What a hell of a thing to have to get used to, he thought ruefully. He made his way through the crowd in the wake of the Grey-Crescent family. When they found a place just under the overhang to settle into, he sat down on a seat next to them while they spread out the sleeping bags he’d set down. He pulled out his phone and sent a text message to his boyfriend, Temperance. Temp would be at school right now—would they be alright?
I’m okay. I’m at the city shelter. Stay safe. <3
He thought for a second. He wanted to convey…something, comfort, really, to his boyfriend. He couldn’t think of any way to do that without inciting panic or implying that he was worried.
Inspiration struck. I have three new kittens, btw he added. Just as he was putting his phone away, the screens crackled into life and The Broadcast began.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:35 pm
 There comes a moment in an emergency where your mind just snaps in half. Fena had thought he’d already hit that point. He was wrong. He was definitely wrong. This. This was the moment where everything went wrong.
Fena wanted to scream. He wanted to yowl. He wanted to howl, and shout, and shriek, and he wanted to make it all stop and to make it all go away. But he couldn’t do that, even if kids—and adults—throughout the audience were doing that. This X and his leader were coming for them. They were all going to get hurt. Fena thought of Mom and Ra. What if the last thing he’d ever said to them was—well, what if the last thing he’d ever done was snubbed them?
He didn’t want that to be their last memory of him. He didn’t want them to die thinking that he hated them. With a sob, Fena threw his arms around Ra and buried his face in her shirt. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry I got mad at you, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry I shouted at you, I love you, I love you, I love you!” By the end, he was screaming and sobbing in equal measures, as if convincing his parents that he loved them would stop this all for good.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:36 pm
 Frankie might have been able to stay strong after that message. He might have been able to hold it all back. But as soon as Fena broke, so too did Frankie. He couldn’t stay strong while his big brother was like this. If Fena was upset, then he was, too! They were in danger! What if they all—what if they all died?!
Ra had been taken by Fena, so Frankie leaned his head against Mom’s chest and simply cried. He didn’t want to die. This had been such a good night—he’d gotten a new cat and a rat, and he’d gotten stuffed animals, he’d gotten to paint someone’s face and have lasagna—what if he never had lasagna again? What if he never had Ra’s home recipe, made by Mom? What if he was going to lose them both? “You can’t die now,” Frankie sobbed. “You can’t die now. Not now that we got Ra back. Promise me you won’t die, and we won’t die, and we’ll get to go home and have our cats and Quill. Please, Mom, don’t die. I don’t want you to die!” Now the tears were flowing all over his face, and snot was coming out of his nose and settling onto Mom’s shirt. Frankie couldn’t help it. He was shaking too hard, because he didn’t want them to go. It had been so hard almost losing Ra—he didn’t want to lose Mom or Ra or Fena now, not now that things were better, were finally better!
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:37 pm
 Verity was stunned by the broadcast. They were in danger. This wasn’t a safe place, this wasn’t a fortress. It was a death trap! Everyone knew where they were, everyone knew where to find them—they could be found so easily now!
Then Fena and Frankie broke down, and Verity’s baby, just six years old, was clinging to her and sobbing, begging her not to die. She wrapped her arms around him and petted him on the head. “We’re not going to die,” she murmured. “It’s okay, Frankie, we’re not going to die.” Verity looked up at the screens, which had now gone black, the broadcast gone.
They’d done this. X and his fascist cult leader. They’d done this to her, to her babies. Fena was gushing, begging them to love him, and Frankie was begging her not to die, and they were doing that because X had frightened them, had threatened them with some vague and non-specific harm. Verity was a writer. She loved writing mysteries, and yes, most of them involved horrible murders, classic whodunits. But while she’d always enjoyed writing the murderers before, she’d never before really understood how they felt.
In this moment, that all changed. For the first time ever, Verity knew what it was like to want to kill. She wanted to grab this X by the throat and smash his head against a rock, again and again and again, and stab him with a lead pipe for what he was doing to her babies!
Struck by the sudden violence of the thought, Verity looked up at Batholith. The teenager was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. Verity looked away. For one wild moment, she’d felt…different. She could feel that feeling nearby, lurking nearby, waiting for the moment to return to her.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:39 pm
 Shera wordlessly wrapped her arms around Fena and held him tight. What else could she do? She didn’t know what to make of the broadcast. It was…vague, and juvenile. It sounded like something out of a horror movie, not something out of real life. It didn’t seem like something that should be happening on any planet, especially not this one. It’s Haunted Hallows, she thought. This is weird.
But all of that—the broadcast, the date, the surreal atmosphere, the panic all around her—all of that wasn’t important. It was all taking place in another universe, and it wasn’t the universe that Shera occupied. The universe that Shera was in had a population of two: Shera and her weeping ten-year-old. She made soothing sounds and petted his hair. She patted him on the back and held him close to her. “I know,” she whispered to him. She said it out of instinct, but as soon as she said it, she realized that it was a quote from one of her favorite movies.
One of Fena’s too. He hiccupped—sorrow’s giggle. Encouraged, Shera pressed on. “I love you too, Fena,” she said. “I’ve loved you since the moment I first met you. Nothing will ever change that. I will always love you, forever and always. Nothing you or anyone else will ever do will make me stop loving you, Fenaret Crescent. You’re my son, and I will keep you safe.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:40 pm
Bath tried to hide his embarrassment. He’d gone from a part of the family to an outsider in an instant as reality had reasserted itself. Batholith wasn’t part of the Grey-Crescent family—he was a hanger-on, a hired hand swept into chaos with this nuclear family on a night of terror. The broadcast had just reestablished that family boundary, dividing the children and their parents from the interloper. And yet, Bath couldn’t stop watching them, watching as the parents held their sons tight and whispered soothing words to them.
It struck Batholith how powerful the bond of family must be for them. How lucky Fena and Frankie were that they had these two amazing adults to look after them, to hug them when they were scared, to comfort them and take care of them. When Verity looked up at him with a look of—curiosity?—on her face, Batholith looked away in shame. It would be nice to have family. He’d never known his parents—he’d just…sort of taken for granted a long time ago that he was a mistake, and that he had been abandoned to assuage their guilt of creating a hybrid. He huddled into his jacket and kept watch on the distant doors. Tonight was not going to be a good night.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:42 pm
Fena slowly calmed down in Ra’s arms, eyes closed. He giggled when Ra quoted a character from his favorite movie. How appropriate…he must be strong, and brave, just like Han was in the face of almost certain death. He had to hold himself together for his loved ones. He just had to…calm down.
Eventually, Fena’s breathing reasserted itself. But his grip on his parent did not subside. He didn’t want Ra to leave. He wanted her to stay here forever, talking to him, holding him, rocking him back and forth. At some point, one of the adults—he wasn’t sure which one—handed him one of the water bottles. He drank greedily for it, then set it down next to him. He was tired. So tired.
He didn’t remember being slipped into one of the sleeping bags, but he could feel a pair of small wings against his chest. Frankie was in here with him. Good. He wrapped his arms around his little brother and snuggled in tight. Someone slipped his old stuffed mouse into his arms. Fena murmured a sleepy thank you as he drifted off into a troubled sleep.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:44 pm
It took a long time for Frankie to calm down. Mom was still reassuring him, but he still wasn’t sure if Mom was right. They were still in danger—so long as they were at the shelter, the danger hadn’t passed, so they were still in danger. They could get hurt at any time. There would be trouble. They’d get hurt.
But Mom was there, and she was handing him a bottle of water to drink from. Mom was petting his back and murmuring something to him. Something. He wasn’t sure what it was. Laceboots was in his arms, and he cuddled the stuffed sheep tight to his chest. At least he had that, right? He looked over at Fena and Ra, who were still wrapped up around each other, and he looked at Laceboots and Mom. He had his family. He had his best, most loyal stuffed animal. He had a bottle of water. He had an awfully big yawn.
“Long since time you were in bed, kiddo,” Mom murmured in that nice amused voice of hers. Actually, the voice wasn’t that nice—not usually, anyway. But tonight, her amused voice was her best tone of voice in the world. Without a single protest, Frankie let her carry him over to a sleeping bag and tuck him in. He was asleep before he knew it.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:46 pm
Verity lay the top of the sleeping bag over her sleeping boys. They’d grabbed their three largest—Shera’s, Verity’s, and one of Shera’s old ones. They were only designed to hold one person each, but so long as they didn’t expect them to cover them completely, and so long as they didn’t try to zip them up, they could hold two people each, cuddled in tight. Verity put the boys in Shera’s old sleeping bag and arranged the newer one for herself and Shera. The other one was for Batholith.
She looked up at the teenager who, predictably, was looking at his phone. “Thanks for keeping the boys safe tonight,” Verity murmured. “We appreciate it a lot, Batholith. Thanks for…getting them home in one piece.” Her voice broke on the last sentence and she realized that she was crying.
Batholith looked up at her and frowned. “Hey, it was the least I could do,” he said softly. “Thanks for getting us to the shelter so quickly. And thanks for the jacket,” he added.
Verity nodded. “I couldn’t let you go cold,” she said. “It’s a parent thing.”
He nodded. “I guess I’ll understand that better when I’m older, right?”
Verity laughed. “I hope you do, Batholith.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:47 pm
Verity was starting to get hysterical, and it was getting late. There didn’t look to be any new developments at the moment, so they might as well go to bed. Shera put a hand on Verity’s shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. “I just want to visit the bathroom,” she murmured. “I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”
When she came back, Verity was sound asleep, but Batholith was still sitting upright on a seat, watching the doors. “She’s serious, y’know,” she said.
Batholith started. “Sorry,” Shera said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. But yes. Thank you for keeping our boys safe tonight. It looks like that might have been a harder task than normal.”
“The freaks weren’t out when we were trick-or-treating,” he said.
“Still,” she said. “You did good. You should get some rest, there’s no point staying up late.”
The hybrid shrugged. “Eh, I’m at that age when an early bedtime is midnight. I’ll wake you guys up if there’s any new development, okay?”
Shera nodded. “Thanks, Batholith,” she murmured. “We appreciate it, we really do.” With that, she slipped into the sleeping bag with Verity. She stretched one arm across her lover’s shoulders and onto the shoulders of her sleeping boys. She needed to keep her family close tonight.
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