Chapter Text
Mango wakes with a gasp, struggling against twisted sheets for a moment before registering that he’s in his own bed. He falls back against his pillow, panting, and rubs at his temples.
He dreamed – what did he dream? The dream was long and terrible, he knows, but already the details are fading, too quickly for him to grasp. There is only the lingering feeling of loss and regret and self-loathing, painpainpain, anger, and an unexpected, bittersweet hope.
Mango breathes, sitting up in bed, and sunlight streams through the curtains. Light footsteps patter in the hallway, and a tousled head of thick, untamable hair pokes through his bedroom door.
“Dad, you up yet?”
Mango stares at his son for a moment, caught off guard by the sudden surge of fierce love and overwhelming joy and sorrow –
Gold cocks his head. “Dad? You okay?”
Mango throws his blankets aside, crossing the room in three swift steps, and folds his son into a tight hug.
Gold makes a questioning noise, but he doesn’t hesitate to hug Mango back, his small frame filled with fierce affection.
“I love you,” Mango says, nose buried in Gold’s hair. “I love you so, so much, Gold, okay?”
“I know, Dad.” Gold leans back, giving Mango a huge grin. He’s missing two teeth, the barest nubs of the adult replacements just beginning to show, and his grin is delightfully lopsided. “I love you too.”
Mango laughs, holding his son tightly, as golden sunshine illumines the room.
-
Mango soon forgets his dream entirely, losing even the remembrance of the swirling emotions that had filled his soul after waking. Life goes on as it always has, but Mango finds himself appreciating it more than ever. His son has always been the bright center of his life, but Mango is especially cognizant of it, these days.
Gold grows like a weed, shooting up two inches over the course of a single summer. Mango watches with amusement as his boy turns into a black hole in child form, always ravenously hungry.
Mango is happy, and yet he can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. He keeps finding himself glancing over his shoulder, like he expects someone to be there. He can’t explain it, and neither can he explain the deep-seated anxiety he feels when Gold, freshly fourteen, asks if they can go to the downtown market on a sunny Saturday morning.
He can’t explain it, but fortunately Gold accepts his refusal without too many questions. They go the next weekend, instead, and although Gold is a little disappointed when he sees that the new Minecraft booth which has been advertised so widely has been shut down, they have fun.
That night, after Gold has finally been convinced to go to bed, buzzing with far too much energy after the excitement of the night market, Mango finds that he can breathe again.
-
When Gold is fifteen, Mango finds himself researching fostering. It’s a casual interest at first, a passing idea, but it soon becomes serious. He can’t say why, can’t explain the draw he feels, but the day he’s officially registered as a foster parent he feels as if something important has clicked into place, a puzzle piece he didn’t quite know existed.
When Gold is sixteen, two months after Mango has been certified, he gets a phone call from the children’s home asking if he would be willing to foster a thirteen-year-old girl. She’s been bounced from home to home, the social worker tells him, and she just doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. She’s sullen and withdrawn and distrustful, but it’s clear that she desperately wants to be loved just as desperately as she wants to push everyone away.
Mango checks with Gold, who is ecstatic at the idea of getting to be an older brother. He tells the social worker that yes, they’ll foster her.
The first thing the girl says to him, when he goes to the center to pick her up, is: “I’m Purple. You’re not my dad.”
“No,” Mango says mildly, even as he’s surprised at the bolt of hurt and longing that arcs through his chest. “Not unless you want me to be.”
The girl scowls at him, but she doesn’t refuse to go with him. King doesn’t miss the way her social worker sighs with relief just as they drive off.
Purple spends seventeen days hiding in her room. Gold spends seventeen days treating her much as he would a feral cat that he was trying to tame, leaving small gifts where she can find them and spending time in proximity with her whenever she’s in the common areas of the house. More than once, Mango finds Purple staring at whatever Gold’s left outside her door (a book, a granola bar, a leaf from outside. Once, a small, diseased-looking stuffed animal that he’d won at the county fair), her expression twisted between annoyance and amusement and something wistful.
On day eighteen, Mango watches as Purple comes into the living room and looks at Gold, who is sitting on the couch reading a book. She’s got one of the books Gold has gifted her clutched to her chest, her knuckles white with stress.
When she marches over to the couch and sits down, carefully positioning herself exactly three feet from Gold, Mango excuses himself to go wipe his eyes and blow his nose in the privacy of the kitchen.
-
Purple turns fourteen five months after she arrives. Gold and Mango take her ice-skating, and Mango spends three hours sedately going in circles around the rink as Gold and Purple risk life, limb, and dignity to see who can go the fastest. When they get home that night, Purple allows Gold to give her a small, brief hug. Mango is allowed to squeeze her shoulder. Purple is clearly embarrassed by such a display of affection, and spends the next two days hiding from them.
It’s fine. They’ve got time.
Mango can’t help but be a little jealous of how easily Gold seems to have convinced Purple to let him in. They’re never far apart, now; Purple is always a handful of steps behind Gold, a few feet away. When Gold is stationary, reading on the couch or sprawled out on the floor to draw, Purple hovers nearby like a watchful shadow. She clearly wants to seem just as disinterested as she is actually interested.
Gold takes it all in stride. He keeps leaving gifts for Purple to find. He also convinces Purple, somehow, to spend an entire Saturday with Mango rather than in her room when he and his soccer team go to the beach for a day to celebrate a successful season.
Mango and Purple spend most of the day in semi-awkward silence. Mango finds himself suspecting that they both want to reach out, but are afraid to do so; Mango, because he’s afraid of scaring Purple off; Purple, because she’s afraid of being accepted.
She does thaw out just a bit when Mango gets up to make dinner, offering to peel the potatoes for stew. She peels them with a knife, which is strange to Mango (who has always used a vegetable peeler). Mango finds her knife skills a little alarming and quite impressive. He tells her the last part, but not the first, and she ducks her head to hide the microscopic smile that tugs at her lips.
She falls asleep after dinner, curled up on the couch like a little pillbug. Mango drapes a blanket over her and lets her sleep, settling himself into his armchair to read. He finds his gaze constantly drawn to his foster daughter, though, and after a bit he gives up on reading and simply watches her, a fond smile on his face.
Purple’s snoring a little, tiny, whistling sounds that are honestly adorable. She’s tall for her age, but she’s curled up into an impossibly small ball. From where he’s sitting, all Mango can see is a wild fluff of purple hair cresting the blanket. Neither of his children have ever met a hairbrush that can actually tame their hair, it seems.
The thought makes him frown, because it tugs something deep inside him, a feeling that he ought to sit up and take notice. Take notice of what, he wonders, and he almost misses when Purple whimpers in her sleep, curling up even tighter and burying her face into the back of the couch.
Mango gets up, worried that she’ll smother herself if she stays in that position, and gently takes hold of her shoulder to adjust her a little so that she can breathe. When he sees her face, he sucks in a breath; tears are slipping down her cheeks.
“Oh, little one.” Mango thumbs away the tears, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The movement knocks something loose inside, the feeling that he’s missing something intensifying until he can barely breathe. The tension builds, building and building and buildingandbuilding, and then it s n a p s –
“Oh,” King gasps, faltering, and he sits down heavily on the couch. “Oh.”
His vision blurs, and he lifts a trembling hand to find that his cheeks are wet with tears.
He feels the couch dip as Purple shifts, hears the rustle of the blanket being shoved away. A choked sound escapes his foster daughter, and he turns to see that her eyes are wide and shocked, her face slack with surprise.
Her lips move, a breathless question, and she has to lick her lips, swallow, before she can force the word past her lips.
“King?” she croaks.
“Purple,” King says, saying her name like it’s the very first time. His hands find her shoulders, holding on because he’s half afraid she’s going to disappear if he lets go. “Oh, Purple – ”
“What – how – ”
“I am so, so sorry,” King gasps. “I’m so sorry.” He lifts a hand, about to cup her cheek, and then snatches it away. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t – I didn’t know…” He bows his head, shaking. He can feel Purple shaking, too, her thin shoulders trembling. “You don’t have to – you don’t have to stay. You can leave. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I would never have – you don’t have to stay, you never have to see me again, I’m sorry – ”
“No!” The word rips its way out of Purple’s throat, surprising both of them. She surges forward, dropping all her reservations for once, and clutches at him with desperate fingers. King can feel warmth soaking into his t-shirt as she buries her face in his chest. “Please don’t leave me,” she sobs. “Please.”
King folds her into an embrace, wrapping his arms around her and holding her so tightly that it’s a wonder she can even breathe. “I won’t,” he mutters, tears falling thick and fast. They glimmer in her hair like raindrops. “I won’t, I promise.”
They stay like that for a long time, King whispering apology after apology. Purple just trembles, smearing his shirt with snot and tears.
King couldn’t say how long it’s been when he hears the front door open and close, the thump of shoes being kicked off.
“I’m home!” Gold calls, his voice far too loud for the late hour. He’s never had a firm grasp on the concept of an indoor voice. Multiple thumps track his movement through the house as he sheds whatever he’s currently holding, and he enters the living room trailing sand like pixie dust.
At any other time, Mango would be scolding him for the mess, groaning at the thought of trying to get all that sand out of the carpet, but right now all he can do is clutch Purple tighter.
“Um.” Gold’s eyes are wide as he takes in the scene. “Are you guys okay?”
King laughs, because he doesn’t know what else to do. How to describe what just happened, how to explain memories of a life lived and relived?
Gold approaches them warily, before holding something out to Purple. “Um. We went to the aquarium while we were there, and I got this for you.”
Purple turns her head just enough to see Gold out of the corner of one eye. King sees her take in the stuffed seagull being held out for her approval. It’s a demented-looking thing. It should be cute, with its chubby body and large eyes, but it somehow looks absolutely manic instead. This is a seagull that tries to eat rusty screws instead of French fries when it finds both in a gutter.
A hysterical little laugh bubbles its way out of Purple’s throat, and she reaches out to take the seagull. She draws back a little as she does so, and King lets her pull away even though he doesn’t want to.
Purple clutches the seagull to her chest, strangling the poor thing until it looks ready to give up on life. Gold pokes King in the shoulder.
“So, uh, what happened?” Gold asks. “Did somebody die, or something?”
“Or something,” King says faintly. “Or something.” He shakes his head, another laugh gasping free. “Oh, Gold, you have no idea.”
“Then tell me?” Gold sits down on the couch on Purple’s other side, curling his legs up. King can see sand from his clothes working its way into the very fibers of the couch, but he can’t bring himself to care.
“This is going to sound insane,” King says, and Gold shrugs.
“Hit me with it,” he says.
Purple turns, suddenly, shuffling into Gold’s side and ducking under his arm. He’s clearly surprised at the contact, but he doesn’t hesitate to put his arm around her and hug her close.
King draws in a deep breath. He looks at his children, sitting there on the couch, both so alive and vibrant.
I made the right choice, he thinks, feeling tears well up. For once in my life, I chose well.
“We did,” Purple mutters.
Gold makes a questioning noise.
“Die, I mean,” Purple says.
“Uh.” Gold clearly doesn’t know how to process this. “What?”
King laughs, and sighs, and shakes his head. And then he explains.
-
They do better, this time. And they are happy.