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Roman had been hovering in the doorway for a full minute now, and it was driving Dee insane.
Only fifteen minutes ago the kid had been in a screaming match with his brother over something that Dee certainly could not care less about that Thomas had had to break up. And now the kid was at his door, staring at him.
After only a few more moments–he couldn’t be expected to be patient with something so annoying, could he?–Dee dropped his phone and looked up at the door. Or, rather, glared.
“What do you want?”
Roman stopped his swaying, and stepped into the room. Dee balked at him. That had very much not been an invitation.
“Hi.” The kid’s voice was small. Dee definitely wasn’t terrified by the sudden reminder that this was a seven year old. Young kids did not have filters, the two that lived in this house definitely seemed to have no fears, and honestly, what on earth could this one want with him?
“That’s not an answer to my question.” Dee turned more fully to the new presence in the room.
“Yeah.” Roman agreed, looking around.
Dee bristled. “So what do you want?”
Roman settled his eyes on Dee’s face and Dee tried very hard not to turn away. In the end, he only turned a little bit.
“What’s on your face?”
Stupid honest kids. Dee really hated kids.
“A birthmark.” He bit out. Contrary to popular belief, Dee did have a little bit of decorum. Empathy. Whatever. If he didn’t, he would have already cussed this kid out all the way to Sunday for even looking at him. He had done so before. When he was eleven and his first potential foster mother would not stop staring at the large, splotchy birthmark that covered the left half of his face.
“Ro has a birthmark!”
Dee started, turning to face his doorway again. When had the second one arrived?
Remus practically skipped into the room. “It’s on the back of his leg!” He poked his brother’s leg, the twins' previous argument that the entire house had heard obviously melted away like so much cotton candy under a running tap.
Roman nodded enthusiastically. Dee felt as though he had stepped into the twilight zone.
“Yours is cooler though!” The first twin piped up.
Dee was, frankly, taken aback. “I-”
“It reminds me of Gil from Finding Nemo!” Roman bounced in place.
Remus shrieked–excitedly?–at the comparison, slapping his brother’s shoulders. “It does! That’s so cool!” He turned back to Dee, enthusiasm glowing in his eyes in an expression that Dee didn’t think had ever been directed towards him in his life. “If you’re Gil, then Patton must be Dory.”
Roman giggled. “Logan is the big stingray.”
“I’m the shark!”
“Thomas is Marlin! He’s always worrying!”
“Ooh! Virgil is the crazy purple fish!”
Dee stared. It looked like he wasn’t going to be left alone any time soon. While the twins talked to one another, his hand unconsciously floated up to the left side of his face, lightly tracing the bottom of his birthmark as he had so many times before. Maybe little kids weren’t so bad.