Chapter Text
It was a hot day in the town of Lancaster. The streets were empty, with most people staying indoors to escape the scorching heat. It seemed no one, not even the sun, had gotten the message that summer had ended -- either that, or they were hoping to keep up the illusion as long as they could.
This image of a peaceful afternoon was belied by the backfiring of an engine. An old bus -- positively a relic -- cut through the streets like a rusty knife. The way it creaked and groaned seemed as if it hadn’t been serviced since the Transcendence. The windows rattled with every bump in the road, and the cloth lining of the seats had almost been stripped bare. It had no air conditioning other than a pair of fans, which provided no respite from the heat that collected so easily in a moving metal box.
Despite this, the bus was bustling with activity. It was packed to the brim with elementary school students hot off their first day of the school year, kids who were mostly ignorant of the heat and were content to chortle, to arm wrestle, to throw balls across the aisle. The bus driver couldn’t blame them for being rowdy, as she too wished that the summer was not over. She would have been more concerned if she’d noticed the kids who’d leap mischievously into the aisle whenever she took a turn, but they always managed to return to their seats right before her eyes flickered back to the rear view mirror.
In the third row, a girl sat quietly by the window and watched the houses go by.
It had been a long time since she’d done something like this, but the first day had gone off without a hitch. She pulled her usual spiel, with the sad orphan eyes and the forged government documents declaring that she was indeed a real person who was definitely 6 years old thank you very much. It was funny how few questions people seemed to ask these days despite how suspicious she should have seemed, and it reminded her of the countless other times she’d been in a similar (though usually less dire) situation.
A tennis ball hit her in the back of the head, breaking her out of her thoughts. Instinctively she jumped up, her tiny frame barely giving her the leverage to peer over the back of her seat. A growl tried to escape her lips, but she realized just in time why that would be a very bad idea, so instead she channeled that growl into a scowl.
The thrower of the ball, a boy sitting three rows behind her, flinched under her stare. “Sorry Lucy! It was an accident!”
You were an accident! she thought, and had to stifle a snicker. Definitely not the time and place for humor like that. She rolled her eyes at the boy, and slid back down into her seat. Somehow, she’d never gotten used to how annoying kids “her age” could be.
Well, not all of them. She looked at her neighbor, who was staring quietly at the seat in front of her. Lucy Ann hadn’t expected to meet anyone interesting during this project of hers, but then she came across Lane, a first grader sitting quietly at lunch while the rest of the kids ran around screaming at each other. They ended up having a very interesting conversation and now, well, here she was following her home.
The bus turned a corner onto a short road ending in a cul-de-sac. Lane shifted as the bus passed by the first of three houses, grabbing her backpack and pulling it onto her lap. She turned to Lucy Ann and gave her a small nod. They were almost there.
Lucy Ann looked back out the window and saw a man standing in the driveway of the house in the center of the cul-de-sac. A grin spread across her face, and she wondered how long it’d been. He looked different alright, and there probably wasn’t another person alive right now who’d be able to tell who he really was, but she’d known him too long to fall for a disguise like this.
Plus, the demon mark on Lane’s forehead totally gave it away.
The bus screeched to a halt in front of the house in question, miraculously not crumbling into dust from a combination of age and sheer heat. The two of them got off, with Lane in the front. Lucy Ann stood a few inches shorter and a few pounds lighter than her, and managed to hide perfectly behind the stoic girl’s frame. There was no real reason for her to do this, not even the small respite of Lane’s shadow from the glare of the sun, as it had been a long, long time since that had bothered her. The man in the driveway would notice her soon enough anyway, but if there was one thing she had learned from him over the years, it was how to make an entrance.
The bus door shut behind them, and the vehicle squealed off. Lane walked up to the man, with her friend following carefully in her shadow. He beamed at Lane, with that look in his eye indicating his usual irritating mixture of love and possessiveness. When she reached him, he knelt down and hugged her.
"Lane!" he gushed. "How was school, sweetie? Did you have a good time?"
She nodded.
"Did you make any friends?"
She nodded again, and the edges of her mouth flickered up into a smile. Lucy Ann smiled too -- though it was more of a smirk than Lane’s soft grin -- and tapped the other girl on the shoulder. It was time. The man clapped his hands in joy, and reached in for another hug, but Lane stepped aside before it could connect, revealing the friend she'd made. His expression shifted to one of confusion, then recognition, surprise, and finally what could only be described as “oh shit.”
"Look at who I met today," Lucy Ann said, her grin growing even wider at the dumbfounded look on her old friend. "I was at lunch, minding my own business, when I came across a six year old with the mark of a demon on her forehead. And not just any demon, but the one and only Dreambender himself!"
Alcor blanched. "Hi Lucy Ann."
She ignored him. "I thought, that's weird. Alcor's been ignoring my messages for two decades now. Maybe he's posing as human and found a family to infiltrate, again. Maybe I've just met his 'sister'. Imagine my surprise when I follow her home from school and find out that she's actually his daughter."
"Well, she's not technically…"
"Busted, Alcor! You! Are! Busted!" she cackled.
"Shh!" he hissed, and glanced both ways to see if there was anyone nearby. "You're going to blow my cover! It's Tyrone!"
"Oh, excuuuuuse me, Tyrone, your majesty." Lucy Ann curtsied mockingly.
Alcor groaned. "What do you want?"
"I want to know why you've been ignoring me. The government's been cracking down on preters lately. I've had to lie low. You're the only person I can trust, which is the saddest thing I've ever had to say."
He put his hands on his hips, and Lucy Ann noticed that even in the scorching heat, he was wearing gloves. Of course, the heat was no problem for a being of pure energy, but for a human it would be at least a little suspicious. “I'll have you know that I'm extremely trustworthy -- when have I ever betrayed you or lead you astray?”
“Says the literal demon. Says a member of a species literally known for lying and cheating.”
Alcor scowled. “That's a vicious stereotype! You know better than anyone else that I'm a paragon of virtue, an angel among demons, a friend to humanity exalting knowledge and power to those in need.”
Lucy Ann curled her lips into her mouth and bit down on them to stop herself from laughing in her friend’s face. It was sometimes difficult to tell when Alcor was kidding around and when he seriously had his head this far up his ass. Her amusement clearly showed on her face, as Alcor’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to speak again. Before he could, though, he paused and looked down to see Lane tugging at his sleeve.
"Oh, Lane, I'm sorry!" He crouched down, and pointed at their guest. "This is my friend Lucy Ann."
Lane stared blankly at him.
"Lane, say hi to Lucy Ann! Do you remember her?"
Alcor squinted at the girl. She just looked back at him with the same empty look on her face. Nothing happened for a minute.
"Al- Tyrone, why-" Lucy Ann started.
"Aw, she says she doesn't," he interrupted, standing back up. "That's a pity. Lane, how about you go to the kitchen? We'll be there in a minute."
Lane nodded, and quietly shuffled through the doorway on the right. Alcor watched her go with a fond smile, and then turned back to his guest.
"How's it-" he started, but now it was his turn to be cut off.
"What's going on, Tyrone?" Lucy Ann asked, hands on her hips in a way that might've been intimidating if she didn't have the appearance of a six year old. "I've never met that girl before today, why would she remember me? Are you losing your mind again already?"
His smile faltered. "Sometimes a soul remembers people even after reincarnation. I was hoping she would, but…" He trailed off when he noticed the look on Lucy Ann's face.
"Oh, really?" she asked. "Why would she remember me? Who was she, Tyrone?"
The demon looked confused. "That's Mizar…"
"Fucking shit, Tyrone!" Lucy Ann shouted. "The moment you invite me in, I'm gonna wring your neck so hard that you're gonna wish you had breath for me to squeeze out of it!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" he hissed.
"I thought you were raising some random kid you'd saved from a human sacrifice. I'd be a little less pissed about that. But no, you're just grooming another Mizar!"
"That's not true!" he yelped. "I did save her from a sacrifice! Well, sort of…"
"Tyrone, let me in now or I'll go ballistic."
"Eh, I can take anything you've got." He jumped slightly into the air and floated there. "I've missed a good fight."
Lucy Ann ground her teeth. "Oh yeah? The domestic life’s not working out for you? No time to decimate cults when you've got a little girl’s mind to fill with your memories?”
He stuck a forked tongue out at her. “Oh, you're one to talk. How again do you sustain yourself? What do you do to stay alive? Remind me, my memory is failing me right now.”
Lucy Ann laughed. “Wow, I really was wrong! You are human after all! How could I have missed all the signs? You kidnapped a child, you can fly, you're a dumbass…”
Alcor scowled and shot forward so his face was inches away from hers. “Watch your mouth, I've killed for less than that.”
She stopped laughing for a moment, and then started again even louder. “Good job putting me in my place, you must be an excellent parent! Speaking of which, your daughter is probably missing her father right now, sitting all alone in the kitchen."
"She knows I'm not her father -- I'm Uncle Tyrone to her."
"That's definitely the most important part of what I just said."
"Fine!" he groaned, dropping back to the ground. "Come on in. I'm going to make a snack for Lane; do you want anything?"
"I'll take a Bloody Mary."
Alcor glared at her.
She smiled sweetly in return. "Oh, and don't skimp on the blood."
She followed him into the kitchen. The inside of the house was pretty modern, save for some retro fittings that Alcor no doubt imported in order to feel more at home, like electric lamps and a dishwasher. There was a table in the middle of the kitchen that had five chairs around it -- odd, considering that only two people seemed to live here. One of the chairs had been kicked out from the table, under which Lane was very obviously hiding.
"Hmm, I wonder where Lane has gone?" Alcor warbled. Lucy Ann rolled her eyes. It really was hard to believe sometimes that her friend was one of the most feared beings in existence. All she saw when she looked at him was a big dork who’d danced around at the Pines Family Holiday Party back in 2052 with a lampshade on his head, high out of his mind.
Alcor tiptoed slowly around the table, putting his hand to his forehead as if he was attempting to look far into the distance. When he made it halfway around, Lane jumped out at him, sporting a wide grin for the first time all day. Alcor jumped back, pretending to be startled.
"Oh, Lane! You got me!"
He picked her up and spun her around, laughing as if he was the six year old. Lane stayed silent, but continued to smile. Lucy Ann just watched with an amused grin on her face.
“I bet you’re hungry after a long day of school, right?” He put Lane down on the kicked-out chair, pushed it up to the table, and bent down to look at her. “What kind of snack would you like?”
He stared at her in silence for a moment, and then frowned. “Really? Broccoli is gross.”
Lucy Ann spluttered. "You don't like broccoli? What are you, twelve?"
Alcor looked up and gave her a sweet smile. "Yes, and that makes me twice as old as you, Lulu."
"I thought I told you that you'd be dead if you called me Lulu again. Or did you forget that the last time you lost your mind?"
"No, I remember," he said, smile widening until it almost split his face, and showing off a set of teeth far too sharp to belong in a human mouth. "I also seem to remember that I've been dead for fifteen hundred years."
Lane's smile had vanished, and she was staring at her uncle. Lucy Ann waved to grab Lane's attention, and started speaking to her in sign language.
“I’ll get you some broccoli.”
Lane's face lit up again. She quickly signed back “Thank you!”
"What are you doing?" Alcor asked, smile faltering. "What are you saying to her?"
“I don’t know,” Lucy Ann replied innocently. She wandered over to the fridge and opened it. “Maybe you should learn sign language.”
Alcor huffed. "Why bother? We can talk just fine with our thoughts."
"Oh, well, that sure is nice for you, but she's still deaf, dipshit.” She found the vegetable drawer, and pulled out a head of broccoli. “How is she going to talk to anyone else? You think that the amount of sign language a six year old knows will be enough to talk to anyone for the rest of her life?"
He shrank a little, and sat on the table, resting his feet on the chair next to Lane. "She's learning it at school…"
Lucy Ann reached as high as she could onto the counter and pulled down a cutting board. She put it and the broccoli on a chair, and started looking for a knife. "She's gonna fall way behind if she's only using it at school and not at home. Most deaf kids don’t have a demon at home invading their thoughts." She found the knife, and started chopping up the broccoli.
Alcor screwed up his nose in a way that was probably meant to look frustrated but rather just made him look like a kitten that needed to sneeze. "What's it matter to you? Why do you know sign language anyway?"
She put down the knife, and turned to face him. "I know sign language because I get bored if I don't do anything with my time, jerk. Some of us don't have the luxury of a built-in full time job like you, oh great and powerful Dreambender."
"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew some of the things I've had to do to people who summon me."
Lane looked up at him with a worried look in her eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice. Lucy Ann frowned, and turned around again to look for a bowl to put the broccoli in.
"Well, maybe I'm not struggling to fight back demonic impulses or whatever, but I've been alive much longer than you and I still get bored as shit to the point of losing my mind. You've gotta do things with your time to stay sane! Sometimes I sneak into the public school system and leech off a free education, just for fun."
She finally saw the bowls -- stacked on a high-up shelf that she had no chance of reaching. She turned back to Alcor and nodded her head in their direction. He didn’t seem to notice that either.
"How does that even work? Don't they notice eventually that you're not getting any older?"
Lane was staring at her now, and Lucy Ann grimaced, because even if she could hear them, the poor girl would have no idea what was going on. “I’m almost done,” she signed. Lane nodded, but didn’t look any less concerned.
She pointed at the bowls but Alcor continued to ignore her, so she decided to give up and just carried the cutting board over to the table and set it in front of Lane. Lane gave her a smile, and signed “Thank you!” again. She then cringed, and her smile fell away. Lucy Ann was about to ask what was wrong, but Lane then started eating some broccoli and she decided to let it go for now and return to the sulking demon in the room.
"Obviously, but I tell them I've been cursed to always look the same age. The thought that I'm a vampire never even crosses their mind." That last part was technically a lie, but it had never been a problem before. Not until now. “Speaking of which, weren’t you going to fix me a drink?”
He grumbled and got up from the table. "It's not like I don't do anything. I did go to college once, and I was even a professor of demonology once." He stepped past Lucy Ann and started throwing together the contents of some concerningly unlabeled bottles into a wine glass.
"Oh good job, buddy. I'm guessing that you don't even remember that I’m the one who got you to do that, but whatever. It's not like you'll remember this anyway." She gestured at the house around them.
He scowled, and handed her the finished drink. "Of course I will! I'm in my right mind, I'm around Mizar!" He punctuated this by scooting back to his seated position on the table next to Lane.
Lucy Ann set the drink down on the chair without taking a sip. "Goddammit, Alcor. You think that being around Mizar is keeping you grounded and human, but it's not. You're obsessed with her, because you're a demon and that's what demons do, they fucking obsess."
Alcor gasped, and next to him, Lane cringed again. "N-no! I'm not obsessed! I'm not like the other demons!"
"Yes you are! You don't do anything but follow this one soul around! Maybe you're a little different from the others since you haven't eaten it yet, but don't think I've forgotten the fact that you literally own her soul!"
"E̺ͧͧ̕͝ͅN͔͈͉͓̮̙̄ͧ̒ͯ̍̓͛ͦO̡ͫ͋͠͏̗͖̗U͈̼̦̺͕̤̠̭ͬ͛̌͟G̥͉ͥ̾̅̄͌ͤͫͫ͠H̟͔ͩͥ͊̃̅ͥ̃͢!̷͛̔͏̜̞̰̤̻͖" he screeched, and then clapped his hands to his mouth in surprise. Lucy Ann stared at him with a barely-concealed smirk on her face.
"I-I mean, no," he whimpered. "Being around her reminds me of Mabel, and when I had a family, and how I'd do human things around them like... uh… live in a house, and-”
He cut off, and finally looked at Lane. Her eyes were shimmering, threatening to break her blank expression, and she had her arms raised over her head. Alcor quickly scooped her into his arms and held her close. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry sweetie,” he murmured, loudly enough for Lucy Ann to hear. “Uncle Tyrone didn’t mean to yell. Does your head hurt?”
Lane bit her lip and buried her face in Alcor’s shoulder.
“Alright.” He turned to Lucy Ann. “I’m going to put her in bed. I’ll be right back.”
Lucy Ann nodded, and watched the demon leave the room with Lane. She sighed, and then picked up her drink. Arguing sure made her thirsty. She downed the whole drink at once, and stared off into space.
This wasn’t how she’d expected their reunion to go. Alcor was being a creep and a jackass but she really did care about him, and she knew he felt the same way about her. Arguing with him wasn’t really solving anything, and it just resulted in upsetting Lane. No, what she needed to do was to unwind the conversation back to why she had followed Lane home in the first place.
After about 20 minutes, Alcor finally returned to the kitchen with a tired look on his face. Lucy Ann returned the favor.
He sighed. “Look, Lucy Ann, I don’t kno-”
“I want to make a deal.”
Alcor paused mid-word. She watched the cogs in his head turn and the expression on his face flicker, clearly trying to pretend that those words hadn’t sent an excited shiver up his spine. “Oh... yeah? I- I don’t know about that, it’s not really my thing,” (he almost choked getting those words out, and Lucy Ann had to stifle a giggle), “but you know, I might as well hear you out.”
Lucy Ann hopped up onto a chair, so she was a bit closer to Alcor’s eye level. “Here’s the deal, bud. You need to give Lane some space. I think it’s been a long time since you’ve played human and you’ve gotten rusty on what healthy boundaries are.”
He spluttered, but she ignored him and carried on. “You need to chill, like a lot. I know I can’t make you stop obsessing over her, but you’re going to have to find some things to do that aren’t just about Lane. When she’s at school, I want you to go do something with yourself, pretend to be a human, get a job and actually blend in.”
Alcor frowned. “That’s asking a lot. Why would I do any of that?”
“You didn’t let me finish!” Lucy Ann placed her palms on the tabletop and leaned forward. “You do all that and I’ll look after Lane, I’ll make sure she’s safe and happy at school. No demonic intervention! I’ll also move in with you so that you’ve got, you know, someone to talk to who isn’t a six year old.”
Alcor stared at her for a moment. A look of sadness flitted across his face, deep in combat with the hunger for a successful deal. He chewed on his lip, and Lucy Ann had to smirk at how silly her old friend was. This was barely a deal -- the material gains benefited her much more than it did him and it was astounding that he hadn’t realized it yet. Really, she was really doing him a favor though, and if she had to play to his weaknesses in order to do it, well then, what else was a conniving preter-pal for?
“Alright,” he said finally. “I can… I can do that. Yeah. It won’t be hard, I’ve tackled much... much harder things than that.” He extended a hand bathed in blue flame, and Lucy Ann rolled her eyes. She stepped up onto the table, grabbed his hand, and gave it a good shake. She felt a familiar tingle as demon fire traveled up her arm, and then dissipated in a flash.
Alcor smiled, a nostalgic look on his face. “Yeah. I can do this. I’ve pretended to have a job before. It’ll be fun. I like messing with humans. You got the worse end of the deal, you’re going to have to find a way to protect Lane while she’s at school.”
Lucy Ann smirked again. “Yeah, you’re right. I hope I can find the time to shield her between math class and nap time.”
His eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. How again did you say you met Lane?"
Lucy Ann's eyes twinkled. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm enrolled as a first grader at Lancaster Elementary School. The government won't find me there!” She cackled at the look on his face, then jumped off the table and skipped toward the stairs. “See ya after school, jerkwad!"