Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dedicated to the memories of Rik Mayall, Robin Williams and, more recently, Carrie Fisher. 

The week that would come to ruin the last five years of her life started normally enough. That was the refrain that haunted Lizzie in the ensuing months to follow. That the day she would lose her imaginary friend for the last, final time would happen as if it were fate.

That Monday saw Elizabeth simply preoccupied as she always was, even while on an abbreviated trip with her step-daughter. Taking Nat to soccer practice was always something she loved doing, even after Lizzie had moved out of the house she and Mickey had shared for three years—to live down the street in her old bedroom, in her mother’s house. Given the fact that she wasn’t the girl’s, Nat’s, mother—at least in the sense of her not being Nat’s biological mother, or, well, soon not even in a committed relationship with her father any longer—it was something that Janie had not failed to mention every time they had a girl’s night out.

Why was it her place to stick around with a little girl who wasn’t even her own? And when driving to and from her studio in the city made for such a pain-in-the ass commute?

It wasn’t as though she wasn’t busy all the time these days as it was. Busy enough so that those nights out with Janie that she had grown to at least half like, if only because they were a welcome change of pace from the meetings with her publicist and the long periods of being alone in the studio, were few and far between, especially when added to how little time Janie had these da\ys. Or the strange time she spent in the same house as Mother.

So why did she keep doing this to herself, going around Mickey even though she was the one who had broken it off?

When she knew that the both of them still needed time apart to heal so that they could keep being friends? 

In the back seat Lizzie could hear the girl talking quietly, conspiratorially to someone that the woman couldn’t see or hear. In the years she had spent with the little girl who had since shot up like a bright weed, she had long since gotten used to the fact that someone she once knew too well was seemingly always close at hand but always too far away for her to ever dream of speaking or seeing, to let alone hear.

Still, it never hurt that Lizzie often drove Nat while wearing sunglasses, on the off chance that an errant tear made an appearance. It was depressing; which was far too funny, given the fact that the person that the tears were for would most certainly have not appreciated them. In all likelihood, he would have mocked her for shedding them. 

She had also long consoled herself with the understanding that a little girl like Nat—a girl who, it seemed, was too much like her—needed that pure expression of Id and the close friendship of someone who was there to remind her to not take shit from anyone. 

Lizzie regretted the years she spent doing what Charles wanted her to do, doing what her Mother wanted her to do. And, eventually, even doing what the well-meant Mickey wanted her to do. She sincerely hoped that Nat would never fall into the trap of wanting to please anyone but herself one day. Especially not some man. 

Overall, Lizzie was happier than she’d been, happier, in truth, with every passing year. Even though she would soon be finalizing the details of her second divorce, as if she truly meant to settle into her thirties in the worst way possible. But the past year was personified by failure after failure, compounding in itself by—failure. Almost as though she were engineering her own life into one big pratfall after another. Hell, even Mother was right this time, and Lizzie could no longer deny it. 

Yeah, she was happy alright.

A real , independent woman. The kind that Janie often embarrassed her by referring to her as “the standard by which all women should be proud of.” She at least thought that the well-known flighty but fiercely loving woman meant it as a genuine, if overwrought, compliment and not a sarcastic term meant to embarrass her.

She had followed her dream. In what way had she, really, though? If anything, all Lizzie did was chase a fantasy until it was now looking impossible to save herself from a catastrophe. 

Compared to her Mother, who never seemed to have moved on from her own “d”, Lizzie was still the more pitiful one. Dependent on a man, if only sometimes, it felt, because she had a bizarre need to be around his daughter, even when the girl seemed more interested in spending more time with her own friends and not her depressed step-mother. Lizzie was afraid of the soon-to-come promise of being alone. And it didn’t help that she was back to living with Mother, who barely seemed to have herself matured in the years they had spent barely speaking to each other.

Oh, but there was even more. Lizzie had been creatively frozen in place for the past half of a year. But, like everyone seemed to love telling her these days, she was strong, independant . Soon she would be at least dependent on Mother and she would sink into obscurity. Probably go crawling back to the courthouse for a job. But first she would surely have to go into said courthouse to break one man, and his daughter’s, hearts.

It had frightened her once upon a time as well to hear the “d” word, but as the man she was now leaving had once told her, they had—both—tried their best and it just didn’t work out. They had tried everything, couple’s counseling, a sex therapist. You name it. But, eventually, both had agreed that it wasn’t working, wasn’t ever going to work—at least, with them as a couple. 

That was the funny thing; divorcing the oftentimes too sweet Mickey Bunce was one of the few things that didn’t make Lizzie feel like she was constantly internally screaming with her hair on fire. Hell, the man would have continued greeting or saying goodbye to his soon to be ex-wife by hugging her if she hadn’t insisted he stop. She may have been heartless, but she still cared for him. Even if it wasn’t romantically, not exactly, not anymore.

But to the impressionable girl in the backseat, Lizzie had moved out a month ago because her step-mother had been busy with her numerous projects. Sooner or later, Mickey would have to tell her. He would have to tell her and, Lizzie knew, at least for a short period of time, it would be expected that she would spend some time away from the girl, not be able to attend these little enlivening moments, like her soccer games, or dance practices. 

And who knew if she would ever be welcome around Nat again, soon enough. But, dammit, she didn’t want the girl to think that she was—ever—going to abandon her like her biological mother once had. Like Lizzie’s father had abandoned her.

Like Fred did...

All of this played at full blast in Lizzie’s head as she drove, listening to the podcast she had playing in through her car’s speakers. Only, as she often had a habit of doing, she found her attention drawn to what snippets of whispered conversation she could hear in the backseat. Conversation she longed to hear, even if it was only one-sided. 

God, what was she doing —

She must not have been distracted, deep in thought—in her own misery—because she came to only when Nat started yelling her name from the backseat. 

Embarrassed by her line of thought, Lizzie felt her face and neck grow warm as she hit a red light and, braked, she turned to look at the girl in her back seat.

Natbrat—Natalie, that was, soon, how she would have to know the girl, if at all—was ten years old, dressed in her team’s soccer uniform, and happened to be very pretty. That wasn’t a shock; she was the spitting image of her father, after all. But more than that, she was obviously smart, imaginative. If, recently, she had grown more withdrawn than normal. The behavior made sense to Lizzie: even girls had to grow up sometime, some sooner than others. Even girls who had a Drop Dead Fred. 

And, currently, the girl looked like she was staring a hole into her step-mother’s face. “I’m gonna be eleven in a few days.”

“Uh huh.” Of course Lizzie knew that. She would never forget the girl’s birthday.

Nat rolled her eyes and sighed. “I have something I want to talk to you about—” Her voice was cut off by a voice in the podcast, one of the kinds that Lizzie liked to listen to when she was out driving, suddenly blared loudly, so loud that it made the car shake and Lizzie shriek. She turned around in a hurry to turn the volume down.

“—AND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, NOTED FRENCH PAINTER—”

“Jesus!,” Lizzie cried out, only to let out another, “Jesus!,” when a car behind her started to lay on its horn. She looked up in time to realize, too late, that the light had turned green.

When was the last time that he had made so obvious of a disturbance? From what she could get out of Nat, without seeming like, well, some desperate ex who was still obviously in love with the other party, she learned that Fred, as always, tended to act up when Nat was upset or needed the out. Like always, as it had been with Lizzie.

But this time felt different, Nat was obviously calm , calm, and she had something she wanted to talk about—

Nat spoke up from the backseat, addressing him aloud for what felt like the first time that Lizzie had heard her do so in a very long time. “Fred!”

What the hell is going on?

The one sided conversation continued in the back, with Lizzie only able to catch snippets of the girl in the rearview window. Nat looked, well, she looked angry , and she had since lowered her voice so that she was speaking almost solely in enraged sibilance. It was hopeless, if Lizzle had wanted to catch any of the conversation. But, even though she was surely imagining it, she could swear she heard Nat hiss out at him, “...thought you said you weren’t a coward …”

Cowardly? Fred ?

Lizzie debated calling Nat out on that, telling her that Drop Dead Fred wasn’t afraid of anything, ever, even though doing so would break her promise to herself, step one in her mostly failed attempts at leaving Fred the Imaginary Friend behind her. 

Lizzie was already envisioning how she would pour these feelings out on canvas tonight, as she always did when the yearning got to be almost too much to bear. Or, at least, she once could. 

The drive, thankfully, only lasted five more minutes and in that time, Lizzie told herself that she would be working as long as she could stay awake in front of a notebook or a canvas tonight. Out of Mother’s home in her less-than beautiful, but nevertheless thankful, sanctuary of a studio. One way or the other she needed to start creating again. And if it came down to it, she would lay on the loveseat in her studio with the vibrator until she could stop the feelings of deep, physical longing that sometimes immobilized her. 

She had already attempted to love a living, breathing man, failed after three years of it. 

Lizzie reached the edge of the field and was about to turn around to ask the girl if she wanted her to stick around to watch the game, even if it ran the risk of seeing Mickey, when Nat blurted out, “I know you and dad are splitting up.”

Lizzie could only stare at the girl like a deer in the headlights. Did Mickey actually grow a spine and tell her already? “H-how?”

Nat gave her a surprisingly weary look, as if to say, really? In an annoyed voice, she said, “Drop Dead Fred told me.”

“Oh, my god—”

Nat held her hand out, touching the driver’s seat, as if she meant to comfort Lizzie. “I’ve known for the past week. It’s not what I wanted to talk about—”

Her car door flew open even though the child proof lock had not been disengaged. The girl let out a choked yell and ended up on the ground as if Natalie had been shoved, where she didn’t look at Lizzie. Instead she glared up at the opened back seat, as if promising doom to someone in the back of the car who wasn’t there.

“Stop that! I already told you to leave me alone!”

Before Lizzie could get the seat belt off of herself and get out of the car the girl had stood up and was running off towards the soccer field. Nevertheless, the woman bolted out of the driver’s side seat and ran to the opened back door as if at a loss, her hand resting on the door. She stopped, catching sight of a too-familiar person walking towards the escaping girl from the direction of the field. 

Oh, fuck. When was the last time Mickey showed up when she also happened to be here?

Her soon-to-be-ex looked at his daughter and even at a distance, she could see the concerned look on the man’s face. Obviously, Nat was upset. 

Sure that it was pointless, but not able to stop herself, Lizzie chastened her once friend, even though she couldn’t see him.

“What the hell are you doing, Fred?” Then she saw Mickey, who seemed to be finished with hearing whatever it was that his daughter had to say, and was starting to walk towards her. “Oh, hell, what am I doing ?” She shut the back door but before she did, but Lizzie couldn’t resist a rare jab at a man—well, not a man —who had completely turned her life into weird shambles even though he certainly wasn’t anywhere near to hear, or cared to listen.

She knew that her time, shepherding Natbrat from one event or practice, was at its end.

And even if it was just as a way of blaming someone for a pyrrhic bit of joy, Lizzie hissed out, “Yeah, great job, promising to run away with me. Thanks a lot, friend .”

Chapter Text

“You aren’t supposed to sleep in that place anymore. It’s not safe, any maniac could break in through that door!”

In the middle of taking her shoes off—God forbid she wear shoes in her mother’s house—Lizzie stood, still in the middle of pulling her right, worn-out Converse off. She let out a long, weary sigh, wishing that she could tell Mother that she rarely slept at the little studio that she could barely pay rent on any longer. Well, except for the fitful nap she had the night before after the angry orgasm she’d had settled for, when, like almost every time she spent with a pencil or brush in her hand, she couldn’t find anything to create.

What was she supposed to do, with the remnants of a lustful dream she had had two nights pior that was too vivid still in her mind? 

Polly Cronin stood, impassive at the foot of the stairs, a hand resting on the wooden ball set in the bottom of the banister. Her makeup was immaculate and she was perfectly dressed even though it was seven in the morning. She looked, as always, like a throwback; a starlet from decades ago, barely aged except for perhaps from what she might say was the stress caused by her only child. 

She stood in stark contrast to her bleary-eyed daughter whose oversized sweater had been unevenly buttoned so that one edge of it hung lower than the other and whose hair stuck up all over her head from where she had fallen asleep before she had been awoken from her phone’s alarm. She looked like she had just slunk back from a one night stand, minus even any longer lasting relief she might have gotten from one. And any potentially meaningful sleep she might have gotten.

Still, she couldn’t tell Mother that she was just a desperate excuse for an artist, already a word that was dirty in that woman’s estimation. So she just muttered, “It’s alright, I was just working for so long the sun came up before I realized it.” 

Yeah, working really hard, aggressively mixing shades of green, green and yellow, orange, red orange, and still not finding anything she wanted to tell with the colors. Searching for how she could possibly craft a story that was a continuation of one that was half-real and half imagination, out of whole cloth fantasy. No matter if only three people, other than Lizzie herself, actually believed that the eponymous figure in that story was a real one.

Her mother stared at Lizzie for what felt like a long time, the disapproval clear in her eyes before she said a word. “I hope you aren’t expecting to fall asleep. You have a meeting with your publicist, and you need to talk about… that… book’s sequel.”

That book. Yes, the one that Mother would rather gag than say the title of. Even though it had been the kick start to everything Lizzie could call of what remained of her success in adulthood. Had saved her life when she had been in the depths of a depression that had, eventually, managed to chew even through her relationship with Mickey. And was about to devour the art that she had once thought she had been born to make.

She was almost tempted to say it; just to see the look Mother got whenever she was reminded that the end result of her adult daughter going back to school—for art, of all things, when she already had a Law degree—had been to make art and a children’s book about him.

But Lizzie was tired, felt beat down. So instead she just focused on the unfortunate day she surely had in front of her. An unfortunate day that she had been trying to stop from happening by trying to force the, well, for a lack of a better word which she didn’t know, Fred, out of her and onto some canvas. 

Lizzie tried to play the only hand her tired mind could come up with. “I could tell her that I’m a little busy, what with my impending d…” it was like a pitiful stutter. She could—still—barely get it out. Nevertheless, she forced it out. “Divorce.”

It felt like saying profanity in front of this woman, who had made a life out of playing the ever-suffering victim of someone who had left the both of them in the dust.

Mother gave her a look that, once, put nothing but fear in her daughter’s heart. Now all it filled Lizzie with was shame. It still managed to stop her in her tracks, albeit momentarily. That was fine, because where once just a look would have frozen her daughter in place the woman still had ammunition in the form of her scathing words to do the job of emotionally hobbling Lizzie. 

“You ungrateful child. I had a divorce, but mine was very much against my will, unlike both of yours. I had my heart broken and I still managed to put food on our table. I am not your manager but if you mean to screw this up like you have so many things in the last ten years, then I would appreciate it if you could do it outside of my home.”

For a moment, tired, and still more emotional from the night before than she wanted to admit, Lizzie felt her eyes burn with tears, her throat constricting with a sob that wanted to come out of her. 

A month ago when she had rarely seen her mother, mostly in lunches and very occasional trips out with Nat to places like the zoo where the older woman worked overtime in killing whatever fun there was to be had, Lizzie would have fought for herself, even an admittedly plagiarized, “piss off”, when she felt too uninspired and went back to old standbys to do the job. Wouldn’t have been shy in walking out of whatever room she was in, often with the open and eager agreement of a Nat, who called her step-grandmother “Mega Beast” up till a year ago when it seemed like she got too old herself to play along with her step-mother’s endless war against their shared nemesis. 

She had actually started to think that things were starting to get better, if only because the emotional black hole that was her mother would have rather had a relationship with her daughter than be alone.

Now it was blatantly obvious to both that it was Lizzie who needed her. Lorded the fact that her daughter had come back home, cap in hand, a month ago.

Too tired to argue, Lizzie pushed the tears back and forced herself to try to smile, nodding blankly at the woman and saying, “Alright. Alright. I’ll go talk to her.”

The smile that Mother wore should have been pretty on her face. Instead it looked like it belonged on a prison guard who had just forced her charge into a cell after a less than liberal use of her billy club. 

The office of Streamline Publishing—located on the twenty third floor of the largest building downtown—was an intimidating place to be. And it only felt like a more imposing place when you knew you didn’t deserve to be there. 

Lizzie, after all, wasn’t one of these authors or even the more professional illustrators that the publisher called its clients. She was a one-trick pony who couldn’t work the beautiful chaos that had originally inspired her into anything else than a vaguely remixed version of her own story. At least, the version that ended in Little Lizzie a grown up, realizing that she had freed her imprisoned friend from his jack-box prison. That was where the version of the story that the real Lizzie had the stones to create ended.

One day, over a year ago when Streamline had been trying to work a contract out with the writer and illustrator of Drop Dead, Fred!, which was an unexpected success, Lizzie had had a dinner with her now publicist, Lana Kruegar. The woman had surprised her when she had also brought along a famous author to eat with them. The author was none other than Margaret Atwood, and Lizzie couldn’t recall a word she said to either woman during the meal, only that Atwood had asked her how she had ever had the idea for the namesake character of her cult favorite children’s book. And then she winked at Lizzie and said, simply, “cobwebs”, then burst into laughter.

The contract had been a foregone conclusion. Lizzie had been completely dragged into the net of the publisher’s devising, and she felt high on Atwood’s compliment for all of an hour before she told Mother about it. Who in turn told her that she had been stupid to not have even a lawyer to examine the contract first hand. 

Maybe the woman had been right in the long run.

During moments like this, she missed being Mickey’s friend. Although she knew in her heart that he had been a poor substitute for a connection to someone else she longed for, he was still a friend that she wanted to one day feel ready to hug back. She missed the necessary antidote to the Mega Bitch’s incessant and skilled negging. Which only hurt all the more when it was completely true.

At the time she signed a contract with Streamline for a sequel, Lizzie would have never dreamed that she would have not been able to create. After all, she spent four and a half years in a torrential rainfall of creativity, as though something—someone—had unlocked a part of herself she didn’t know existed. Never would have envisioned that the well could ever dry up. And she had been able to grow, to experience things that with Charles or under the thumb of the Mega Bitch she never would have been capable of.

The office air felt cold on her, even through the layer of the button up that she had decided to wear again after she showered before she put it back on—this time, ensured that she had buttoned it up properly. She liked it, something about it feeling warm, comforting, maybe even a little, dare she admit it, childish. And recently she had had a habit of wearing it for trips to the office as if it were a comfort blanket.

But now the feeling of it instead reminded her of her youth in a bad way, sitting in the waiting room and waiting for Lana to finish up her conversation with another one of her clients felt like Lizzie was waiting to go to see the principal. In trouble for something that she never would have thought, in the five years she had spent building to this moment, that she would ever screw up.

The waiting room for clients was glass, well, everything. See-through, shiny, with the walls covered tastefully in the accolades and magazine covers featuring their stars and successes. She was sure that they already had a spot planned on the wall for a nonexistent book she was supposed to put out. 

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she had disappointed someone, that was for sure.

Lizzie stared down at her hands, the stain of a tell-tale, vivid green dream that had immaterialized from her mind, something she had started the night before and had ended up throwing away in a rage, on her left hand. The paint had splattered from her pinkie to her middle finger, a large, phantom-green glob right in the center of the ring finger, almost masking the pale ring of telltale skin.

How childish she must look.

The remaining clean curves of the manicure she had gotten at the insistence of Mother were growing jagged. After all, Lizzie had a habit of chewing on them when she was irritated, which was growing to become an increasingly prevalent habit while she was staring at a blank paper or canvas. Blank, blank, or it was some horrible, uninspired mess. Nothing befitting a sequel to something that had meant so much to her to create. And she was terrified to even think about the story of the book itself.

And, try as she might, even the third option; of creating something new all her own, instilled in her nothing but terror like it were the continuation of how she felt, this never-ending time spent having to live Fred-less.

The sound, of Lana Kruegar calling out to her, was less like the reflection of the beautiful twenty-something that the publicist was and more like the prelude to whatever hell was surely waiting for an artist slash writer who couldn’t hope to deliver on a promise she had made—signed, in legally binding paperwork—nearly a full year prior.

She had told Lizzie at the time, with a tell-tale warning in her voice, nobody makes deals like this for a first hit any more. And with good reason. There was no real reason to throw money away on what could have just been a one-hit wonder.

Lizzie awkwardly walked past the woman’s secretary, a man she knew to be named Miles. These days he openly showed his obvious distaste for the woman who was a failure of a children’s author and artist. Nevertheless, Lizzie nodded politely at him as she passed by his desk. 

She made herself believe that Miles just didn’t see her when she walked past as he yawned broadly back at her in response.

Coming into her publicist’s office, Lizzie thought that she could see the start of something on the pretty woman’s face that was like distaste, then it was gone as soon as the woman half-stood from behind her desk, beckoning for the interloper to sit in the seat on the other side of her desk. As she did, Lizzie’s eyes swept over the decorations on the woman’s desk and walls. 

In here it was similar to the way that the outside was decorated. The whole place was very interested in the accolades and accomplishments of its clients and Lana Kruegar was a perfect publicist who once had told her that “she never dealt with failure.”

Lana herself was, well, tall, tall and pretty, pretty in the way that reminded Lizzie too much of the type of woman that her first husband enjoyed “employing” at his dealership. The kind she had once been too blind to see the truth of. Only this one definitely had intellect and wit in her, much like a fast-moving shark, and had proudly told Lizzie once that she was considered a “wunderkind” where her position was concerned.

And there was no Margaret Atwood in here to give Lizzie unbelievable compliments, no dinner to soothe the pit that had formed in her stomach. As if to add credence to the terror Lizzie felt, Lana launched right into what she was afraid the Publicist was going to ask.

“Tell me you have something I can present to Don.”

Don was her superior, really the man that Lizzie was supposed to have been working on something for in order to make good on her advance that had extricated her from the fresh wave of student debt that she had cast on herself. The remnants of that money had been paying for her studio.

Lizzie hissed, dragging in air between her teeth. When she opened her eyes she saw that Lana had shut her eyes, the younger woman pressed her fingers to her forehead as if she meant to massage a bad headache out.

Stuttering out a weak excuse, Lizzie said, “I-I-I’m sorry, I am working on something...”

The smile that grew on Lana’s face chilled Lizzie to her bone, even in light of how her complete humiliation made her feel hot, like her face was on fire.

Lana completed the smile by leaning back in her chair, resting her elbows on her arm rests and steepling her fingers together over her chest. “Sweetie,” the use of the term surprised Lizzie, who was accustomed to Ms. Kruegar’s attitude being nothing but professional, to the point that it once made her client wholly uncomfortable. “You were screwed, six ways from sunday, as of two weeks back. When I heard from Polly that you were having… creative problems. To be honest, it would have been a relief to get the dead weight from a one hit wonder out of here, even the time spent with the litigation would have been welcome, better than trying to coax a woman with a law and art degree having an early mid-life crisis and a perverse attachment to her imaginary friend into being able to create product. But, you see, I actually called you here to give you good news.”

Lizzie was shocked. She never would have called Mother an ally on a good day, but to hear that her mother was colluding with Streamline behind her back, giving updates beyond her own admitted “liason duties”, that Lizzie had never requested she do in the first place, almost managed to make her shocked at the Mega Bitch’s behavior. But Lana’s speech really astounded her, the open cruelty of it.

It felt like this woman had never had anything but disdain for her and was relieved to finally be able to honestly express it.

But the last note that she ended on really drew the shocked, overtired woman’s attention. So much so that she had to lean forward in her seat. “Good news?”

“Yes. It seems that you have an unexpected… patron.”

Before Lizzie could ask what the woman meant she heard soft rapping of a knuckle on the doorway and heard a horribly familiar voice before she could turn to confirm the worst.

“Ah—hope I’m not interrupting anything—”

Lana stood up from her seat, beaming at the intruder. “Oh no, of course not, Charlie. You’re always welcome in my office.”

Lizzie gulped, barely realizing, even as she could see the truth in front of her—behind her—that she was unwillingly in the presences of both of her exes in the space of less than twenty four hours.

Charles grinned at Lana, then turned his attention to Lizzie, a smile that felt smug settling across features that Lizzie had thought she had seen the last of in the divorce proceedings over five years ago. A divorce, Lizzie knew, that she had come out on the short end of, if mostly because she had gone against Mother’s decree that she go after Charles’ money with everything she could, because Lizzie had more honor than both her mother and ex-husband put together. The focus back then, after all, had been on starting a new life.

Only now, Lizzie felt sick, terrible, as if she were in a nightmare. 

Charles looked like good old Charlie 2.0, tanner, possibly fitter. And apparently in the interim since they had last seen each other, good old Charles had moved up more than a bit in the world himself.

“I know it’s been a while—Lizzie, I hope I can call you that, Mrs. Bunce sounds so strange—but I wanted to make an appearance as soon as I could, let you know that there’s really no hard feelings between us. And I hope we can make a beautiful partnership.” He exaggerated the last words by reaching out, spreading his fingers out as though he were making a frame with his hands, his broad, bright-white smile at full strength.

At that point Lizzie would have rather had Mickey cry in front of her and finally tell her that she was an emotionless harpy like he deserved to.

Janie sat across from Lizzie, every way she moved and acted screaming that she was utterly comfortable. It was frankly irritating; it had been a near-steady part of Lizzie’s life since she had met the older woman that she was the one who was stable, content with where her life was going. Janie lived a wild life, slept with whoever she wanted, “found” herself every other weekend. 

Five years later from the woman being happy that her friend’s imaginary friend had sunk her house boat, and Janie was the one who was content. While the younger woman, whom she had once called June Cleaver, was about to become a double-divorced artist living at her mother’s whim.

They met at an outside cafe, where Lizzie sat under the shade of the table’s umbrella, and seemingly as always, Janie happily sat down with half of her upper body bathed in the light of the sun, uncovered by the umbrella. Janie remained slunk back in her chair, arms crossed, shades drawn comfortably over her face, a smile that never seemed to leave her features drawn loosely across her lips. 

In spite of how content Janie looked, she nearly barked at her friend in an annoyed refrain that she had said on the phone an hour earlier. “What? You tell me for weeks now you’re too busy to chat, and now that I’m busy, you need to speak to me, asap?”

“Yes.” Lizzie pushed a strand of her hair away from her face that didn’t exist; one nervous tic to match with the numerous other ones.

Janie dropped at least some of the faux-content act, pulling her sunglasses off and sitting forward to take a closer look at her friend with those dark, inquisitive eyes. “Well, it’d better be good. I’m in the middle of planning a destination wedding. Do you know how hard it was to have to try to come to an agreement with my parents and my groom to be?” She scoffed, giving her sunglasses a toss across the table. “Do you know that I haven’t even had time to speak to my guru in weeks ? Do you think I want to go to California when I’m in the middle of running a campaign—”

Finally having had enough, Lizzie reached her hand across the table to grab onto Janie’s hand, and said, “I know, Janie, I know. I RSVP’d to the wedding as your Maid of Honor and I cold-called for your campaign.” And she had helped design the poster, the fliers, on top of making coffee and being there when Janie needed a shoulder to cry on during the hardest parts of campaigning. She took a breath and said, “I wouldn’t have interrupted you if it wasn’t something important.”

“So, what is it?”

About to say something they were stopped when the waiter came back with their waters. When he inquired about if they knew what they wanted to order, Janie, in an irritated voice, asked him to come back in five minutes. 

Yeah, this was going great . And she was going to just love what Lizzie had to say. So she just said it. 

“I think I’m losing Drop Dead Fred.”

Janie blinked, then called out to the waiter, who had gotten a few feet away. “Hey, I don’t need to stick around after all. I’ll be leaving, actually—” 

Lizzie reached back over the table, this time grabbing and squeezing Janie’s hand until the woman let out a choked groan. 

With a hiss, Janie asked, “What the hell’s wrong with you, you pulled me away from a wedding planner and a conversation with one of the few people in this city who actually wants to talk to me about my campaign, to talk about Fred?” Before Lizzie could say anything else, her gaze weighed on Lizzie and she said, “When was the last time you had a roll in the hay? A really good one? I get the impression that your soon to be ex-husband can’t get a rise out of you if he lifted you with a rope and pulley.” Gesticulating emphatically, Janie added, “I didn’t want to say it while you were supposedly happy with the man, but I’m willing to put good money, that if you find someone who can get your motor,” she mimed what looked like riding a motorcycle. “running, then you won’t be so obsessed with phantom sex with a man child who rubbed snot on you and bashed you on the head with a shovel!”

Lizzie dragged in a steadying breath, staring at her old friend as she tried to remember the speech she had rehearsed on the way here. “I had a conversation—with Lana. They’re talking about just taking the rights to Drop Dead, Fred!, if I can’t make a sequel like I promised.” 

The anger in Janie’s eyes disappeared, only to reappear. “What? Why in the hell’d they think they can tell you that? Fred’s yours, he’s your man —I mean, he’s your imaginary friend!” Janie’s outburst, one that Fred would have been impressed by, was accented by her slamming her fist on the table. 

Lizzie was aware that they had suddenly become the center of attention in the collection of ten tables outside of the cafe. Everyone’s conversation around them died, and the waiter stared at them before he saw that Lizzie was looking at him, which sent him scurrying off somewhere. 

At least tempted to tell her friend to calm down, Lizzie stopped herself just before Janie continued, saying, “They can’t do that. That—that can’t be legal. And I mean, who the hell else could draw or write that obnoxious boat sinking, heart-breaking asshole?”

Feeling the phantom of the first smile that Lizzie had even wanted to have for the first time all day, she said, “I need to present something, like an outline, or the first few chapters.”

Janie threw her hands out and smiled. “Well, that’s all you have to do? Go draw your heart out! God knows you have so much more about that weirdo for material. And, I mean, might relieve some tension, y’know. Ending it with them together like you were planning to this time.”

Lizzie had to slam her lips closed and try to concentrate on not growing a huge, dumb blush on her face. Janie was the only person besides her now therapist that she had ever told her true feelings to about Fred. And for good reason. Anyone else besides Janie, or a person who was paid to listen to a grown woman wax on about how she was deceived by her imaginary friend as a grown up, would have ended any relationship Elizabeth soon-not-to-be Bunce had with them on the spot. 

Letting out a sigh, she admitted, “I don’t think the world’s ready for the truth.” Or for me to put a big, fake bow on the thing and have Drop Dead Fred end up with Lizzie. God, what would Fred think if he learned what I plan to do to his legacy? 

And besides, deep down she was bitter about the thought of a pretend Lizzie finally getting the relationship that she always wanted. 

Janie smiled at her, shaking her head as she took a drink of her water. “I don’t know what your problem is, Liz. You’re the one who got your heart broken, the one who lived the real horror story, and now, you’re the one who’s got the Stockholm syndrome. Take it from me, red hair on a man is a no.” She motioned to her own head, then grinning, said, “So—just take that story to its logical conclusion, then you can finally put Drop Dead Fred behind you.”

The flippant way she said it ought to have inoculated Lizzie against the way that her heart wanted to jump out of her chest and die whenever she thought about never even knowing that Drop Dead Fred was somewhere out there, possibly able to hear her. Touch her. instead, Lizzie had to duck her head, pretending that something was in her eye so she could fight back the tears that wanted to slip out.

But none of it went past Janie. She gave her friend a sad smile and leaned over the table, taking hold of her hand. “Does it really still hurt that much to think of him? My guru turned me on to these really great mindfulness meditations—"

Lizzie fought the tears back fiercely, rubbing at her face and faking what was supposed to be a laugh but instead came out as a whimper. “No, I’m just tired. I haven’t had a full night of sleep since I moved out.”

Janie removed her hand, nodding her head sympathetically, her eyes soft. “Lord knows I have my own Mega Bitch, but if I had that woman to come back to every night, I’d go hang myself.” When Lizzie only stared back at her in shock, Janie corrected herself, stuttering before she added, “I mean, I don’t know how you do it, you know. If I didn’t have the bedrock of my job, didn’t have the anchor of my Partner—” She seemed to realize that she said something else that hurt Lizzie, because she stopped, closing her eyes and shutting her mouth before she continued. “Liz, you don’t need a man, especially not some weird… British redhead…” She trailed off, her nose crinkling in distaste before she seemed to suppress a shudder and said, “And that fashion sense, the way you draw him? The way you describe his voice? If I had an invented man who popped into my life, I at least would have made one who knew how to keep his voice at a reasonable octave. And wore less green. I mean—what’s he even supposed to be?” Her voice had lowered into a conspiratorial whisper. “ An overgrown leprechaun?”

“You’re missing the point. I didn’t invent him. He’s just… he’s perfect because he’s imperfect, he came that way.” Realizing that she had overshared on a long since overtired subject, Lizzie shut her mouth, covering her face with her hand. When she looked at the woman again she realized that Janie was staring at her, the same way she always did when she started talking about her singular obsession. 

Without a word needing to be said, Janie looked at Lizzie with a look that told her to calm down. She said, “So, you need to make a sequel? Good. Maybe this’ll be the fire that you need to get that part of your life finished.” She moved, as if to get up. Before she could Lizzie reached over, grabbing her wrist until, with a very irritated look on her face, Janie slammed back down in her seat, her nostrils flaring as she took in a heavy breath. “Got to stop grabbing my hand. Alright then, what else is it?”

So Lizzie decided to tell her the worst part of it. “Streamline has a new… Exec. And he oversees the division I’m contracted for.”

Jamie gave her an inquisitive look, then asked, “O-kay? We all get worried when we have a new boss—”

She could barely spit the words out. “It’s Charles, Jamie. My publicist answers to Charles.”

At first the other woman didn’t seem to understand what Lizzie said, then understanding made her eyes grow wide. She ducked her head closer, disbelief twisting her mouth. “Charlie? Charles, the filthy STD of a human being?”

Lizzie closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes, the very same.”

“How?”

“Well, it seems he found a new interest in the world of publishing. And he saved up enough money to buy his way into the company I signed a contract with.”

With a sneer, Jamie offered, “I bet he got interested, right around the time those color-coded sex books about the tamest BDSM with a heaping helping of spousal abuse got popular. That stuff’s right up that jack-ass’s alley.”

That prompted a rare snicker from Lizzie. “Well, that would be unfortunate, because he’s in charge of the children’s division—not that that makes any sense—so, sadly, there’s no sex. At least, there shouldn’t be.”

Jamie let out a sigh. “So, what does that man want?” Lizzie was quiet for a moment, then Jamie said, “Well, what is it?”

She felt her gaze breaking away from her friend’s face, staring blankly down the long line of the sidewalk behind Jamie's head. Saying the words made her feel like her soul was about to leave her body. “He offered me an opportunity if I can’t make another Fred book.” She couldn’t help it. Her lip started to curl into a sneer of disgust. She just wasn’t sure who she should be more disgusted with; Charles or herself. “He said I can make the contract up to him personally.”

Ever the master of entendre, Jamie let out a horrified shriek, one that drew the attention of the people at the surrounding tables. “Oh my god! He can’t be serious; propositioning his ex-wife, the one who ditched him? Who the hell does this guy think he is?”

Lizzie answered without pause. “He’s my new boss. And I entered into a contract with my publisher and haven’t been able to deliver on it.” She kept staring down the sidewalk, lost in thought, overtired. “I mean, what am I going to do? All the money from the advance’s gone…”

And then she saw it. It was out of the corner of her eye up the sidewalk when she looked away for a moment. A flash of obnoxious green, a shade she still saw when she closed her eyes. Saw when she thought of him before she fell asleep. And not just green; she had seen red, red hair that was unnatural, wild.

She leapt up without preamble, somehow knew that she wouldn’t see him if she looked head on. Lizzie could’ve sworn in rare moments that she could see him, out of the corner of her eye, and always at a distance. But now, more than any other time, she needed him. Needed him, not as her imaginary friend, but as Fred, the man she wanted, had always wanted.

She took off, leaping over the waist-high wrought-iron fence that separated the restaurant's patio from the sidewalk, running down the street, shoving past people as she ran to the spot where she had seen him. KNEW she had seen him. But Lizzie knew in her heart what would be there when she got to the place on the sidewalk where she had seen him. 

Gone. No trace of him anywhere, leaving Lizzie out of breath, heartbroken anew. 

Ignoring the looks that people around her were making, Lizzie buried her face in her hands and softly sobbed.

Chapter Text

She wanted to go back home—to Mother, yes, but more importantly, to her bed to sleep in—but instead Lizzie left the sidewalk, too embarrassed to go back to Jamie and just drove to her studio. She barely got the key in the door when the tears started anew and refused to stop. 

The small space’s one saving grace was and forever would be that it was cheap and secret, a room kept behind what used to be a large apartment and was only accessible via the fire escape, four floors up. Nevertheless, the room fit the bill of the place Lizzie found she needed. A place where no one could find her, and all that she had been attempting to accomplish in the last year.

This place also had the strange appeal that no one else, perhaps with the exception of Drop Dead Fred, would understand. Climbing up a ladder was fun, and the place always felt, just like Mother herself had earlier said, like it was perhaps not the type of place that Lizzie should keep returning to. Climbing up the ladder that led to the stairwell, itself creaking and seemingly more made of orange rust than the grey of the metal, all while being as tired as she was, was something that was surely only asking for trouble.

But right then, its privacy was what Lizzie most needed. 

After all, the windowless room was not much larger than the bedroom she felt imprisoned in while she was in her Mother’s house. She tried to cover up the mildewy smell of the room by airing out the place, but realized that the room’s stink was more tolerable than the chance of having her studio broken into, like that one time she left for an hour to get supplies with the door open, returning to find out that someone had stolen the tape-deck she kept on a found chest of drawers, one of the four pieces of furniture in the room. Since then she kept a habit of just burning incense, which the room often smelled of.

At least they had left the gross looking, stained, broken jack-in-the-box that she had kept next to the radio, alone.

Aside from the drawers and the worn-out loveseat—which Lizzie stashed her satin bag-encased vibrator into a hidden compartment she had carved into the bottom of—the other pieces of furniture was the cheapo assembled desk stuffed in the left corner,  a wobbly stool, her paint-stained standing easel, kept just to the right of the desk, a threadbare green rug she kept in the center of the room; oh, and the numerous sketches, paintings, concepts, and storyboards of her work that were hung up all over the walls. Or, more appropriately, stylized versions of herself and Drop Dead Fred.

 Slamming the door behind her Lizzie barely remembered to lock it—the only safety precaution that kept her from the strange people who had a habit of climbing up the fire escape at all hours of the night—before she collapsed onto the loveseat, her hips hanging over the edge of the armrest closest to the door. She sobbed pitifully into the pillow she kept on the couch and welcomed sleep to come. 

Sleep, and perhaps one of the rare dreams she could remember having, one with Drop Dead Fred making an appearance in snippets that she could only catch the briefest memories of. Mostly of him smiling at her. Sometimes she dreamed they did more, the kinds of things that she had done with Charles in front of him five years earlier, had later regretted not having done with Fred, instead.

Sometimes, she could recall a light, chaste kiss that had actually happened, still haunted her.

It felt like she had just closed her eyes but when she rolled over, opening her eyes, she saw the time on the analog clock that she kept next to the door. Realizing that she had been sleeping for three hours jolted her awake, and Lizzie started scrambling through her pocket until she had found her phone. 

She skipped through the expected messages from Mother, halting a moment over an ominous message sent from a number she had deleted from her contacts five years prior—which said, “When can we iron out the details of a new agreement? ; )”—and was surprised to find one from Nat.

She had to read the message over and over, but eventually she called the girl, still not quite believing what she read. When the girl picked up, she asked, “Nat? What is it you wanted to talk about?” What does she mean she has to talk about her birthday and Drop Dead Fred?

Nat, sounding surprised at first to hear her stepmother, said, “Dad wanted to talk to you yesterday, you know—”

“Nat, what does your birthday have to do with Drop Dead Fred?”

Nat hesitated, then she said, “Can you please come over? I want to talk about it. In person.” 

Lizzie looked at her studio, at all of the Freds and Lizzies looking at her expectantly. She was supposed to be working. She had a short amount of time to present—something—or else Charles would want her to give him something in return. And, as had been unsaid in the time she spent with Jamie earlier, but was still all too true, she would, soon, need to start thinking of how she could escape the clutches of Mother.

She bit her lip, then she felt her resolve slip, as easily as it always had where the crayon-red headed terror of her life was concerned. 

When she arrived at the house she had spent the last three years of her life in, Lizzie took a moment first to scan the driveway for a sign of Mickey’s truck. When she didn’t see him, she felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. Still, she parked her car on the street before she walked up to the house, the key that she still didn’t have the guts to give back clenched, freshly separated on the keyring in her hand.

Entering the house, Lizzie discovered that she didn’t have any time to feel maudlin about being back in the home she hadn’t thought she would ever leave. Immediately, Nat came running in from the other room, dressed in a t-shirt emblazoned with the symbol of Six Flags, which had been a Fred-approved vacation destination they had gone to over a year prior, her blond-brown hair bound in a fishhook braid she had begun becoming fond of. She was out of breath, grabbing onto Lizzie’s hand for dear life. 

“I don’t have time to answer any questions—he’ll catch on that I’m not looking for him and stop me before I can say it.” She took in a deep breath and said, “Dad’s made plans to move us away.”

Lizzie almost dropped the keys she was holding. Her mouth opened and nothing came out. 

Nat clenched her mouth shut and, as if she was forcing it out, she said, “And I’m too old for an imaginary friend, I’m turning eleven. I know some people need the help for… longer, but I haven’t needed Fred for a year, you know.”

Lizzie stared at the girl like she was an alien, her mouth still fallen open. She wanted to scream.

Nat just kept going, obviously venting something that had been on her mind for a long time. “In fact, he only seems to want to show up when you’re around. It’s like I haven’t had an imaginary friend for the past two years, he’s just been... distracted and obsessed with you . You’re all he talks about—when he wants to talk, when he’s not screwing up one of my projects, or, or tripping one of the other girls at a recital when she says something mean to me. It’s—” she screwed her mouth up and did a higher pitched impression of the real deal’s voice. ”Snotface used to love making a mess!”, or, “Snotface always used to love breaking stuff with me!”. 

Hearing that nickname, never one that she had ever admitted to Nat as the name that Lizzie had gone by with Fred, even keeping it out of her book she had written about them, reminded Lizzie all over again that her imaginary friend had not just faded into the ether, but had definitely moved on to being Natbrat’s friend. It almost made her want to start crying all over again.

Nat, not moved by anything she saw on her stepmother’s face, said, “You get sick of having to listen to your father talk about the same woman that your supposed imaginary friend won’t stop talking about, either. I can’t take it anymore.”

And then Lizzie found her voice somewhere in her throat, where it had been stuck. “What am I supposed to do about it?” About any of it.

Nat, her face growing redder by the second, started to stutter and she said, “Tell dad we can’t leave ! And can you please tell me what you and Drop Dead Fred have to do with each other? Really.”

Lizzie stared at her stepdaughter, felt tears pricking at her eyelids. “What do you mean, you’re moving?”

Nat sighed and threw her arms out, exasperated. “Yes, that’s the plan! Apparently, it’s what a dad does when he breaks up. But can you just tell me what you and my imaginary friend have between you?” When Lizzie only stared at her, stunned, the girl said, “How do you two know each other? I know you know each other, more than what you wrote about.”

Lizzie, feeling tears that she was just able to suppress, said the same lie she was used to telling almost anyone who asked. It had been the truth, once, so that didn’t make it strictly a lie. “He was my best friend and I—I loved him—” caught, almost admitting something she would never be able to admit aloud to anyone, except perhaps to Jamie, she righted herself, saying, “as my muse, my inspiration.”

Something, the first show of something happy in the girl’s face that she had seen in what felt like a long time, filled Nat’s face, making her look for a moment much like the mischievous little girl that Lizzie had met for the first time six years ago. “Your muse, your inspiration?”

“Y-yes. I make—all of my art is about him, about what it was like being with him.”

“But, do you love him?”

Lizzie stared at the girl who was nearing her height. She hadn’t expected that one day the cute little blond hellraiser would break her step-mother’s heart, try to tear it right out of her chest. And for a moment, she really thought that she could admit it. Say it to someone who may as well have been her own daughter, admit why it was that she could never love her good-natured father, not in the way he deserved. 

But Lizzie knew that she had once put her heart on the line, couldn’t stand the thought of being hurt again. And besides, she stopped believing in happy endings when she was denied the one she had most yearned for. So instead, she said, “Yes, like a brother. A protective older brother, who I miss… I really do miss him a lot.”

Maybe she imagined the look on Nat’s face, the one that flashed briefly on the girl’s face before it disappeared behind a mask of annoyance. The look that Lizzie saw in her nightmares of the day she would have to say goodbye to the girl. Disappointment, despair.

Oh god. She was someone that wasn’t worthy of the friendship of someone like Nat. Lizzie Ditzy struck again.

“I’m going to say good-bye to Fred before I turn eleven. I can’t have him running my life anymore. And I—I don’t want to take him away from you, if dad’s going to take us away. Even if both of you are stupid, stubborn. The way you both refuse to talk about each other is dumb , dumber than mud pies, joking about puking—” she made an aggravated sigh. “You can’t stop drawing him, and I swear he just eavesdrops on you all the time.”

“So, what do you want me to do?”

Nat gave her an angry look, a scowl and the tight duet of her eyebrows making for an ill-fitting expression on her as she said, “I want you to say good-bye to him, at least.”

Lizzie laughed hollowly. “I’m afraid that that’s—it’s not possible.” How could you say good-bye to someone you couldn’t see? And to someone you didn’t want to say good-bye to?

Nat was calling out to her, but Lizzie turned, left. As she made it halfway down the lawn, the woman grabbed the Bunce key from the ring and threw it behind her onto the porch.

As she got into her car she turned in time to see Nat standing in the opened doorway. She was looking at Lizzie, an expression she couldn’t read on her face. Before Lizzie turned completely, drove off in her car, she could swear that she could see the flash of something, green, on the stairs behind Nat.

Left in her home and with her plan foiled completely, the girl took in a deep breath before she rose her eyes up to the doorway, as if she were pleading with some god to answer her prayer. “Great going there, Snotface…”

Behind her, her imaginary friend, who was bound up with bungee cords and, more importantly, a pinkie-swear promise to not break out no matter what, called out to her, “What the hell was that about? Why’d you go and do a horrid thing like that ?”

Nat, turning to look at the bound red-headed man at the foot of her stairs, scowled and said, “Someone’s got to act like a grown-up in this house.” She clapped her hands together and looked at Fred, trying to exude confidence she didn’t quite feel. “Right. I’m going to have to play dirty.”

Chapter Text

After the conversation with Nat Lizzie fled back to her studio. As for a long-dreaded follow up conversation that had to do with her publicist?—well, the failure of an artist meant to put it off for as long as humanly possible. At least until she could drown her sorrows in either her next therapy session or a nice, big bottle of wine. The increasing issue at hand; that she was sober and, yes, hungry, was the issue that caused Lizzie eventually to leave her studio.

But when she went down to the garage to drive back to Mother’s house, Lizzie discovered a lanky, well-dressed man from her past who was seemingly intent on haunting her. And this one had no penchant for wearing green .

If she meant to try to ignore the reality of her book publisher, then it seemed that someone else had other plans.

Lizzie's ex-husband Charles Pyck leaned against her car, bringing to mind the question of just how long the man had been down in the garage, waiting for her. Or how he knew where she had parked.

The thought creeped her out; Lizzie would have retreated out of the garage, made for Janie’s election office that was a long ways away, even, if not for the fact that the man had already seen her. And he was her new boss.

Shit.

Charles ran up to her, almost destroying the image of, she supposed, the rich playboy that he was trying to create. Well-featured, tan, and with brown hair that hadn’t greyed or wore thin—in fact, the man actually looked like he had been working out since the last time she had seen him, years ago—her ex looked at Lizzie with a broad smile and piercing blue eyes as he approached her.

“Ah, Liz, I was hoping I’d catch you—”

“What do you want?”

Charles cocked his head to the side, an infuriatingly clueless look on the face of a man more than fifteen years Lizzie’s senior. “Now, Elizabeth , is that any way to treat the man you used to be married to? Or who wants to support you?” When Lizzie only stared at him, enraged, Charles smiled again and, approaching Lizzie until he was just a foot from her, motioned towards her. “I didn’t want you to think that I was being… abstract when I told you that I wanted to secure a personal deal between us. Want to make it clear to you, now, that I mean to come back into your life.”

Lizzie laughed hollowly, wondering what her quickest escape route was. “In what way? Charles, I am a married woman. I am married to someone who loves me, which is, by the way, something that you were never capable of—”

Charles shocked her by closing the distance between them. Before she could ask him what the hell it was that he was doing he had grabbed the bottom of her face in his hand, his other hand reaching around her, groping her, pulling her closer to him. Lizzie let out a surprised, mm!, and realized, only a moment before it happened that he was going to kiss her.

Charles didn’t kiss sweetly or in the least bit hesitantly. As always—Lizzie could, at that moment, unerringly remember—the act for him was pure prelude to fucking. Not sex, not lovemaking, Charles was a fucker. He was the kind of guy who pinned her down until she either had an errant orgasm or not; but either way, Charles made damn sure he got his. Or else coerced, cajoled, teased her until she got him there when she had not been intimacy-starved enough to leap on him, begging for attention.

It was shocking to Lizzie, to recall a time when even sex that was unfulfilling seemed like a thing to be excited for.

It had been half a decade but Lizzie's body knew where this was heading. As Charles slipped his tongue into her mouth, Lizzie was ready to deck him in the head until he let her go. Then she felt like an almost forgotten about electrical surge shocked its way down her body. Didn’t realize she was kissing him back until the man let her go and stepped back.

His face slightly rosy from the brief intimate contact, Charles smiled at her and said, “Now, that didn’t feel like the kiss of a girl who loves her husband. No,” he leaned in closer, said, “that’s the kiss of a girl who’s, still, a daddy’s girl. You always were, Liz.”

The brunt statement shook the woman out of her horny confusion. Taking in a deep breath through her nose, Lizzie glared at her ex-husband for all she was worth and said, “That doesn’t give you the right—”

Charles's eyes were lit with a damnable, patronizing gleam. “What right ? I heard plenty from Polly, from Lana; your marriage is on the rocks. I’m here to make your dreams come true.” He grinned again, his tongue fitting against the right curve of his lip suggestively. “You don’t need to keep making that—that weirdo stuff, I’ll support you, and you don’t need to pretend to be in love with that wet blanket of a single dad. This,” he motioned down his body. “is a fantasy come true.”

Weirdo stuff ? That weirdo stuff was what Lizzie cared about. What she loved. And Mickey—

Well, he was more of a man than Charles could have ever hoped to be.

Angry, not caring about what he would do if she turned and left, Lizzie did just that. Then she felt Charles turn her around, grabbing her roughly, pressing her fully against him.

He sealed the deal with another kiss, started to turn her around, ended up pressing her against her car with steps he interrupted by kissing her. As her back hit the side of her car Lizzie disengaged the kiss, about to demand that the man quit what was an assault. Then Charles looked down at her, grinning again, and, purposefully, ground his crotch against her.

All at once Lizzie’s frustrated libido silenced her. Just the feel of that once familiar part of Charles, pressing against her—needing her—rendered her silent.

“Oh, I bet you missed little Charlie. But you remember, he’s not so little. An appetite like yours just doesn’t go away. And I remember too well how ravenous you can be; mousy on the outside, a perfect little geisha doll on the inside. ”

Charles was void of an appetizing personality to anyone over their early twenties but he had an attitude that sold he felt comfortable in bed. However, in retrospect of what Lizzie now knew too well about him, Charles was the kind of man she wouldn’t even have oral sex with without a condom on him. And, as she had learned since having sex with a man who respected her since her emotionally abusive marriage to the man who was currently pinning her to her car, she actually didn’t get off on constantly being treated like a little girl in bed. Starved for approval she damn sure didn’t need.

But, pressed up against a car, after literally months since she had been intimate with Mickey? She was no match for her libido.

Biting her lip, for one solid moment, Lizzie looked up at a man she had, indeed numerous times before, called daddy in anticipation for sex that had been ample but unemotionally fulfilling. She wanted him, wanted someone who she knew would welcome a good fuck—maybe even a long one—and then she could go back to her life, fulfilled at least physically. 

Then Lizzie remembered the taste of something in her mouth, slipped onto her tongue by Charles. 

The green pills, the stuff he dutifully fed to his too-willing then wife, killing her imaginary friend; the kind of medicine that tasted of plastic and nothingness. He could rape her if he wanted, if that was what he was going to do anyway, but no way in hell was Lizzie going to give in to the man who had almost killed Drop Dead Fred. 

Smiling up at him and leaning close, her hand going low towards his crotch, as though she meant to make a grab at little Charlie, Lizzie struck with every limb and mode she could imagine. Biting onto his lip, grabbing onto little Charlie with ten times the squeezing pressure Lizzie would ever give to even a stress ball, and stomping one of her feet on top of his, she reveled in how Charles let out a high pitched scream and fell backward.

Digging out her keyring from her satchel she unlocked her car door with her fob, diving into the driver’s side seat and turned the engine over as she sat on her knee, then rocketing out of the parking garage with barely a chance to slam the car door shut, let alone before putting the seat belt on. She didn’t look back at the new little Charlie that she had left, sprawled out on the cement ground of the parking garage.

Lizzie did not realize that she had a few drops of the offensive man’s blood on her lip until she caught a glimpse of herself in her driver’s mirror. She wiped it off with a grin, knowing for the first time in a while that she had done a sneaky, dirty, violent thing that Drop Dead Fred himself would have been proud of. Hell, he would have been in awe to witness it, fuck dumping a mixed salad on and swabbing a booger on the man.

It had been a few days since the reversed assault. Luckily, Charles seemed to get—some blessed hint—and had left her alone. In fact it was Nat’s birthday and Lizzie doubted for a bit that she would even still be invited still; as little as she and Mickey had been talking to each other. If she did doubt it the message she got from Nat the day before had cemented the fact that she was genuinely expected there. 

Lizzie went out and bought a big set of art supplies that she carefully chose to suit her step-daughter’s tastes for the event, then got a green and white pinstriped wrapping paper. It had been unintentional, the woman realizing her choice in wrapping paper only when she was at a red light with it in her passenger’s side seat.

When she arrived, a little late with the hope that she could maybe slink past her soon-to-be ex-husband to see her step-daughter, Lizzie envisioned a nice night in her future, alone in her bed. First, undoubtedly, she would have to withstand her mother’s house and, well, Mother. When she arrived, however, she barely got to the front door before it opened, revealing Mickey Bunce standing in the doorway. 

When he glanced at her the sandy-haired, still very much handsome, albeit vulnerable-looking man, gave his estranged wife a weak smile. Then Lizzie noticed the dark circles under his large blue eyes.

Opening her mouth to comment on it, Mickey surprised her by saying, “Good to see someone who looks like they’ve had as little sleep as I have.” Lizzie bit her lip, unintentionally looking at him in the way that made Mickey sheepishly look away and fake cough in his closed fist. “Not quite used to sleeping alone anymore, and Natbrat’s too big to want to sleep in bed with daddy—” he stopped, realizing what he was saying, and he added, unprompted, “Oh my word, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like—”

“It’s okay, it really is.” This whole thing, as Mother had been less than shy about telling her, had been her fault to begin with. Their mutual second “d”.

Only, she knew that on Mickey’s end it was less than mutual.

Mickey opened his mouth and only then did Lizzie realize that now would be a good time as any to ask him about moving away—and tell him that someone had spilled the beans on their impending divorce to Nat—but they were interrupted by a voice, calling out from upstairs, undoubtedly from the birthday girl’s room. 

“Is that Lizzie? Come up here!” Mickey sheepishly looked at Lizzie, looking as though he was about to say something, when Nat quickly added, “and come up alone !”

Mickey looked as though he meant to apologize for his willful daughter yet again—an apology that was far from needed—and then something briefly flashed in the man’s eyes. A warmth, a familiarity, a longing.

Stifling a gasp and wedging her way around the body of a man she knew too well, Lizzie made her way to the stairs, wishing that the smell of Mickey’s aftershave didn’t make her want to sob inconsolably—or throw herself into his arms. Instead she walked up the stairs, clutching her gift for Natbrat as though it could remind her why she had no choice other than to ignore her stupid, stupid , girly emotions.

In Nat’s room she was expecting to see some of the girl's friends, of which she had plenty of, in the room with the girl. Instead, the now eleven-year-old sat on her twin bed in the center of her room, looking at her step-mother expectantly.

It was easy—too easy—to remember the day the little family had spent, when Nat's walls had been painted this rich, sweet grapefruit; a color that Lizzie had begun to envision as being a much more subdued version of a certain man's hair.

Before Lizzie could do anything—show her her gift, wish her a happy birthday, ask the pre-teenage girl what the hell she was up to—the girl ordered her to, “shut the door!” Lizzie did it, then turned around in time to see Nat, with a satisfied smile on her face, get to her feet and say, “Alright, I want my birthday present, and I want it now.”

Surprised by her forwardness, Lizzie brandished the sizeable package. “Alrigh—”

Nat waved at her dismissively, surprising Lizzie. “No—I mean, thank you —but I have his promise that he’s going to do something for me. Because after today, I’m going to be too old for a grown invisible man hanging around me and embarrassing me, and I can’t stand watching you mope around all the time. If you don’t take him, he’ll go to a new girl and he’ll just embarrass the hell out of her. Lizzie, he’s defective , you broke him .”

Lizzie blinked in disbelief at the girl. I broke Drop Dead Fred? 

But another unbelievable thought crossed her mind. “Wait—you got Fred— Drop Dead Fred—to agree to do something for you?” She wanted to laugh; in fact she let out a low chuckle.

Nat gave her a knowing look, as if she were a fellow soldier in the same trench as Lizzie. “I know. I ruined the sanctity of a pinkie promise last time, and now I have to cash in my last loop-hole. Lucky for me, it’s my birthday.” She grinned. “And Fred needs to give me a birthday present of my choosing after he ripped my soccer ball to pieces.”

This time Lizzie didn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled out of her. When she finished, she felt an itching excitement for the first time in a long time, a desire to see the offending man with her own eyes. She looked at the girl, impressed with her step daughter’s creative way of wrangling someone who often recognized no man, woman, or force, above his fickle desires.

“So, what did you have in mind—”

Nat interrupted her, glancing to her right with an irritated look on her face. “Gotta do this fast. Dad’s not gonna last for much longer, and I want you two to have privacy.” For a second, Lizzie worried that the girl had something definitely not G-rated in mind, then she forced the thought away angrily. She opened her mouth, about to demand that Nat tell her what this was about when the girl called out, “Fred, do it!”

Expecting anything, Lizzie dropped the present which hit the ground with a Fred-rrific thump , stiff in terror—or anticipation? 

Nat rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Relax. If you really don’t want to talk to him, say good-bye properly, then you don’t have to. Just leave.”

The last few days of her life felt like it coalesced in Lizzie. She stared at her step-daughter, knew that this girl was just like she had once been before Mother had crushed that out of her and she had had to find it anew, so late in life. She could see in Nat’s pretty eyes, carbon copies of Michael Bunce’s own, that she knew too much about what was in Lizzie’s heart.

She hadn’t realized that a tear had slipped down her face until she felt it itching past her cheek. Sniffling back another, or perhaps the urge to sob, Lizzie thought about asking Nat if what she said was true. If Drop Dead Fred still thought about her, talked about her. 

Instead she stared at the girl she had grown to love as her own daughter and asked, “What do I have to do?”

“If you want to…” Nat shrugged, the motion meant to be cool, but she couldn’t hide a triumphant glint in her eyes, an upward hook to her lips. “Hug him.”

Lizzie chuckled, holding back the urge to sob anew, but this time it wasn’t completely sad. “Hug him? How?”

Nat motioned with her head to Lizzie’s right, the corner of her room in front of her standing mirror. She looked, felt dismayed when she saw nothing. When Lizzie turned to tell the girl that she couldn’t see Drop Dead Fred, the same as how she hadn’t seen Fred in five years, the girl rolled her eyes. “He’s not attached to you. You’ll have to—” she stopped, an exasperated look on her face as she walked up to Lizzie, manually grabbing and turning her head away, towards Nat. “ you can only see him out of the corner of your eye.” She winced, then added, “Feel grateful you can’t hear him—yet.”

Remembering what she knew in her heart, to be her seeing Fred out of the corner of her eye days earlier, Lizzie felt a lightness in her chest that she thought she had forgotten. Had once felt the briefest touch of when she happened to be drawing or painting Fred. Then she looked in the corner of her eye. 

At first she didn’t see anything. As her eye darted away from the side, she saw it. Not just a glimpse of green and red. She saw a shape, a person’s body and frame. Lizzie stopped her gaze where it had caught him, not daring to so much as blink. It was fuzzy, unclear.

Nat hadn’t let go of Lizzie’s face, and the woman wondered if the girl could feel her step-mother’s heartbeat that felt like it was throbbing through her body, her head, until she felt like the heat in her face would surely burn the girl’s hand. 

Softly, Nat asked, “Do you see him?”

Lizzie hadn’t realized she was smiling, or that she had continued crying until her eyes were wet. A torrential rainfall of girly emotions, pouring down her face, in front of Natbrat and Drop Dead Fred. “Oh, yes.”

She could see the look on Nat’s face, vaguely, in front of her. Could see the pleased smile on her face that broke only when Nat whispered, “Oh, my god, it’s happening.” Before Lizzie could ask what she meant, Nat added, “He always slinks off, stays away where you can’t see him. Because you know each other, you can always see him in the corner of your eye. He begged me to never tell you because he’s—he’s—”

Lizzie finally had to blink but when she did, she was overjoyed to discover that in that same spot, Fred had remained. She finished Nat’s thought as easily as she would have breathed. “He’s Drop Dead Fred.”

Nat laughed. “Exactly.” Finally, as if self-conscious, the girl dropped her grip on her step-mother’s face.

“So, I have to—to hug him?” She didn’t even ask what it was that that would accomplish. She didn’t care anymore.

Nat started to say something then they heard it at the same time—Mickey Bunce, as promised, was on his way upstairs, calling out their names. Letting out a curse that she undoubtedly learned from Fred himself, Nat said, “If you want to do it, you have to do it now.” And as if making the choice for her, Nat grabbed onto Lizzie and almost threw her to where Fred was standing.

She was in a panic, afraid that she would lose her chance, afraid that she was launching herself at a mirror and would go crashing through it, a final prank by both Nat and Nat’s imaginary friend. But Lizzie took the leap of faith, wounding her arms around the place where he had been standing.

She felt it—a warm body. A familiar one. 

She called it out, remembering perhaps the dreams she thought she forgot, or perhaps she brought up instinctive knowledge, the same kind that Nat had been well versed in, had exploited to trap her imaginary friend like this. “Drop Dead Fred.”

Chapter Text

He hadn’t called out to her this time, but Lizzie knew this place. Knew it as well as she knew his face, the very same one that she had drawn and painted over and over again. She threw at least what looked like the door to her mother’s home open, ran inside. From there on she hadn’t known what to expect. 

Her imagination; a strange dollhouse that, for all she knew, was an amazing creation of Drop Dead Fred, was the same as she could remember it clearly in her mind. But as she walked in Lizzie discovered that the set—for that’s what it was, a passion play of her life and stunted emotional problems from five years ago—didn’t play out. A little car didn’t bump her foot, Charles didn’t come out in his Jaguar. And most of all, Drop Dead Fred didn’t come bursting out of another door. 

Scared that something was wrong , Lizzie ran into the foyer, came to a stop next to the vase full of dessicated flowers. She looked around her, taking in the sight of a play that had already happened, all of the tricks and effects used up. The door that Fred had burst into the room through was already thrown open.

Was he gone, fled?

No. Lizzie knew, somehow, that he would be here.

So, taking deep breaths to calm herself, she turned around and looked up the stairwell. Lizzie saw that the tree was gone; once a sign at the time of her growing feelings for architect Michael Bunce. Now she felt scared that she would miss her chance, miss him upstairs. 

Then her hand instinctively hovered over her chest and she remembered something. A final gift from someone more precious to her than anyone else ever had been. 

Lizzie grinned, remembered also how Fred had coaxed her to open her mind and dream something. It was something she had not taken lightly since that day. It had guided her to art school, gave her inspiration that once flowed like a stream from her.

So she closed her eyes and wished herself to be there with him.

When she opened her eyes Lizzie found that she was standing in the room where she had once cut her child self free from Mother’s imprisonment. She looked around her, was surprised at who she found in the room.

Sitting on the ground with a large dollhouse—this one the very image of Mother’s house—not one girl, the one that she had imagined would be in this room, but two —were blocked partially from her vision with the barrier of the dollhouse the five year old versions of Lizzie and, surprisingly, Nat, sat on either side of. She knew the dollhouse; of course she knew it. It was the very same one that her father had made for the last birthday he ever saw of Lizzie’s. 

Look, I can put a little room up here for your friend, Drop Dead Fred.

Surprised by the unexpected sight and the memory she almost missed the man who sat on the edge of the bed—the same place where, five years ago, he had sprung his greatest deceit on her. Only now their positions were reversed.

At first all Lizzie could do was stare. Drop Dead Fred, whose hair was never, ever, the same, but rarely was it, ever, laid flat, sat with his long, skinny legs sprouted out from him, sitting, for once, still. He wore a—what else?—green striped suit, this one different from the one she knew him in, partially unbuttoned, with absurd modifications, an insane zig-zag pattern, and finally a lemon-yellow tie which was stuffed into his vest in a rumpled mess.

Fred didn’t look at her, his head dropped down low, motionless. Lizzie was worried that something was wrong. Her heart felt like it had grown still in her chest.

More as a way to break the profound silence that filled not only the room, she called out, “Fred? Is that—is that you ?”

When he didn’t react, the little girls, still sitting behind the dollhouse where they had been playing nonstop, softly murmuring to each other the whole time, called out in near unison, “Who else would it be?”

She would have thought that that should have brought the man out of his—whatever this was. The longer she looked at the always familiar man, the more she realized that he wasn’t frozen or anything. He was actually breathing, just—wasn’t moving. At all.

Creeped out, Lizzie continued to look at Fred, then finally looked over at the girls. She hesitated, then walked over, looking over the dollhouse and directly down at them. “What’s wrong with him?”

The girls looked up at Lizzie and it was Nat who said, “Nothing. He’s just bein’ a coward.” Then five-year-old Lizzie said, “Made himself cata…” And Nat added, “...tonic.”

He’s catatonic? Lizzie turned, looked back at the impossible man sitting on the edge of her bed, a carbon copy of the very same one she now, shamefully, still had fantasies of. She hesitated. 

The girls followed up, their voices chiding. “What’re you afraid of?”, “He’s Drop Dead Fred.”. “He wouldn’t hurt you.” 

Lizzie let out a nervous chuckle. “I—I know. Just scared—I don’t wanna hurt him .” Or be here, if he doesn’t want me here.

“He’s already doin’ a job hurtin’ himself.”

“He is?”

This time it was Nat who looked directly at Lizzie and spoke up, “He can’t keep up with two girls at once.”

Five-year-old Lizzie added, “Wearing himself out .”

Lizzie felt her mouth fall open. “Oh.” She didn’t think about the fact that it was strange to have two people up here at once. She didn’t know, exactly, what all of this meant, had long since analyzed her own experience here before in-depth till her notes made her look crazy, but, Nat being here—

Lizzie was tired of these explanations which were, really, non-explanations, just more bizarre things layered on top of one another. The problem was that she was in the wrong place if she ever wanted a straight answer. 

Eventually she turned, looked at Fred, called out to him, “Drop Dead Fred.” Expecting a reaction—some reaction—when the man on the bed didn’t move, Lizzie let out an exasperated sigh. 

It was five-year-old Lizzie who got up first, came to stand at her side. She smiled up at her older self. “You want to be with him, don’t you?”

God- damn it. Not in front of—in front of him . She feared that emotions like that would scare him off. What had scared him off in the first place. 

Her younger self continued. “‘s okay. He was there for us, even came back to show you how to rescue me. Now you want to rescue him .”

Starting to slowly get acclimated to this dream logic insanity, Lizzie asked her younger self, “But, what’s wrong with him?”

It was Nat who spoke up. “Fred’s a coward. But that’s only because he loves you the most. He loves you, differently than he loved any of us.”

That took Lizzie a second to wrap her head around. He loved her even more than the little girl she had once been. That thought made her feel like her blood was rushing through her body, made her over-warm.

Before she could wrap her mind around what her younger self told her it was Nat who spoke, standing up. “Gonna miss him, but he was stupid and wouldn’t let you go. He’s guilty, ‘cause he didn’t give me his best, like he always gives to every girl he protects. But now I hafta let him go, and he thinks he can just go away.”

“Oh, no.”

Nat smiled sadly at her, a gap-toothed baby’s grin. “He protects those of us who can’t speak up for ourselves.”

Five-year old Lizzie said, “Want him to be happy. Not fade away.”

Lizzie shivered. She recalled, too easily, how she had almost killed this protector they spoke of. Not for the first time she wondered if she was worthy to be with him.

Spooking her, Nat answered the thought she had not spoken aloud. “Worthiness is not a reason to choose who you love.” That was when it occurred to Lizzie that these girls might be more than just actual versions of the girls they represented.

Five-year old Lizzie added, “ Love chooses for you.”

Lizzie nevertheless wanted to ask if they were sure but she knew, somehow, that everything they said was true. And it shook her, shocked her. Instead of trying to fight fate, for the first time in Lizzie’s life, she asked what she knew she had to ask. 

“How do I… fix him?”

One of the girls answered but Lizzie was too busy to look at her, had turned around so she was staring at the man she had wanted more than anything that she had wanted in her entire life, to know which one it was that had spoken. “Drop Dead Fred is unfixable. You have to take him in his current state.” What a strange thing to say, even in the circumstances. “You’ll have to break him apart, have to teach him how to be a person.”

Before Lizzie could question that she felt like she was compelled to walk to him. It was when she was two feet from him that Fred suddenly spoke, not raising his head. 

In a low, slow voice that didn’t feel at all like Drop Dead Fred, he said, “You don’t need me.”

Lizzie stopped in place. The sound of his voice, unnatural though it was, woke something in her. She felt a strange smile growing on her face. “What do you mean?”

He repeated what he said before in the same manner. Before Lizzie could try to question him again, one of the girls yelled out, “You don’t need him anymore!” She realized that somehow the girls were now standing next to the head of the bed, putting Drop Dead Fred between them.

Lizzie wanted to argue that. She wanted to defy those girls, tell them to tell her heart that aphorism. Then she forced herself to push logic and even her own feelings out of the way. She remembered the last words Fred had ever spoken directly to her. You don’t need me anymore. You’ve got you.

She didn’t need him anymore, no more than she needed any longer to learn the basics of art and storytelling, or how to love Natbrat and care for Mickey, as strange as that now felt. But she wanted him.

She wanted Fred.

She knew the girls could feel that in her mind, and she asked, without taking her eyes off of the sad spectacle that was Drop Dead Fred, “How do I tell him, how can I show him?”

They surprised her by calling out in unison, chanting, “Kiss Fred! Kiss Fred!”

Not expecting that answer Lizzie broke her stare on her once-imaginary friend by looking at the girls as they continued to chant, holding hands and jumping up and down in excitement. As their excitement died down, were now staring expectantly at her, Lizzie asked the question she knew she had to ask.

“But I kissed him before and he left. He left me for years.”

Her own younger self answered back, saying, “He won’t leave you, if he knows how you feel. If you tell him.”

About to question the girl she was stopped when Fred spoke up, directing her attention back to the downward-looking man who still wasn’t looking at her. “Why’d’ want to go and do a thing like that?”

Lizzie let out a nervous laugh. He didn’t sound disgusted, like he once would have been. If anything, he sounded… drained. It was strange, upsetting. It prompted her to tell the truth, blurt it out. “Because—because you’re special , Fred, special to me. I don’t want to leave you here, I tried to live without you again and... it’s impossible—”

The girls interrupted her again, calling out a chorus of, “Kiss Fred, Kiss Fred!’

Burying her face in her hands in embarrassment, Lizzie wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into. Finally it came time to do or die. Either way, she couldn’t withstand the annoying chorus of the two five-year-olds wanting her to kiss their imaginary friend. 

Still, she was haunted by her own feelings, of having someone else force themselves on her.

Lizzie walked the distance between them, got on her knees in front of him. With only a slight bit of hesitation, she gathered Drop Dead Fred’s slender face in her hands, rose his head up until he was forced to look at her. She didn’t realize that the girls had stopped their annoying chorus. She couldn’t hear anything, as she stared into Fred’s eyes. Uneven blues, perfectly imperfect. And it had once felt downright heretical to do it, but now Lizzie let herself feel how very much she wanted to kiss those surprisingly well-shaped lips.

She remembered, unerringly, the first time she saw him anew years ago. How she had known the moment she saw him that she wanted him. How, at the time, it had frightened the life out of her. Now, though, she could appreciate him, appreciate her feelings.

She softly told him, “I’d like to kiss you, but I don’t know if you’ll disappear again if I do. Or if you even want me to.” She let out a snort. “ Charles kissed me when I didn’t want him to.”

He spoke up again, eyes curiously glassy, faraway. “Why’dya wanna do a thing like that with me?”

Lizzie felt a strange sensation inside of her, a combination of the effect of him staring at her and hearing his voice. It made her bite her bottom lip. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Expecting a smart retort, when none came, Lizzie was again interrupted by the voice of a child. “You hafta just do it.”

So, with no more preamble, Lizzie leaned forward, not closing her eyes till the last moment, and kissed Drop Dead Fred.

Chapter Text

When Lizzie came to and realized she was standing in Nat’s room—the Nat she knew, whose birthday she had come to celebrate and instead ended up doing something very strange indeed—she looked around her, was still mentally crouched in front of Drop Dead Fred. K-I-S-S-I-N-G—

“Hey,” Nat said, anxiously, “did you hug him, or—”

The sound of the bedroom door opening drew both of their attention to Mickey as he entered. The man ducked his head into the room and looked at both of them, an immediate expression of guilt on his face as he looked from his daughter to his estranged wife.

He attempted a weak smile, then asked, “Everything... okay in here?”

Lizzie flashed a smile, still riding a high from kissing an impossible man. “Oh, everything’s fine.”

Her reaction alone was enough to draw Mickey’s attention to the rarely, these days, happy and carefree artist. He stood up a bit straighter against the doorway and looked like he had something he wanted to say to her. “So, what did my freshly minted eleven-year-old daughter want to talk to you about?”

Nat answered her father quickly, but didn’t sound at all convincing. “I had a—a thing I wanted to show her.”

Mickey’s eyebrows drew up in surprise. For a brief moment he looked doubtful before that doubt disappeared behind his usual mask of good will. “Oh? What was it?”

Lizzie spoke up this time, looking over at Nat as if she meant to apologize for what she had no choice but to say. “It’s—it’s a girl thing. You know? A girl thing?”

At first Mickey looked like the ploy worked. His face grew a bit red, and he blinked rapidly. Then he smiled, had to bite back a laugh. “Nat, you know you can talk to daddy about anything , right?”

Nat smiled a rictus smile at her father before it fell right off her face. “Right.”

Mickey looked at Lizzie, a nervous half-chuckle coming out of him as he gestured towards Nat. “Come on, guys, I know I’m not—I’m not in the girls’ club or anything, but I’ve raised a girl.” He blinked, a look of disbelief on his face as he stared directly at his daughter, then broke into a laugh. “I changed your diapers.”

Nat clenched her eyes shut and hissed a breath out of her mouth. “I know, dad.”

“I mean, if it’s something I can’t understand, I can listen to it, you know, whatever it is. I’m used to taking books out at the library, or, or talking to your pediatrician.”

Lizzie realized way too late that she had misjudged Michael Bunce. Poor Nat; she could feel the girl’s embarrassment, bordering on mortification, in the wake of her well-meaning but ultimately perhaps too sensitive father. At least, in this moment, Mickey seemed to be over-compensating for something, a connection he felt locked out of. 

Nat just repeated her earlier refrain, this time burying her face in her hands. “Dad, I know.”

Still Mickey kept going, like a runaway train. “Is this a… woman thing?” Before Lizzie could stop this massacre from continuing, he blurted out, “Did you get your period, honey? If you got your period, I can get the gynecologist, the one Mrs. Swell recommends. I mean, do you need pads, or, or, tampons, just tell me, honey—”

Nat finally broke, pulling her face out of her hands to reveal that she was red with embarrassment. “DAD, ENOUGH.”

So that was how Nat took a bullet for step-mother, and let the secret of what they had done stay between the two. The problem was; neither really knew what it was that they had done.

And where Drop Dead Fred was, if it had worked.

“Oh—when you told me about the job, I thought—I thought that this would be a cubicle.” After all, she had described it as a cubicle job. 

The only walls in this place were the ones that made up the huge, open room.

The morning following the birthday party, Janie had arrived at this office with her friend, wearing one of the outrageous outfits that made her look like she lived in a completely different dimension from everyone else. Or was about to turn into an imaginary friend. She waved off Lizzie’s worry, making a grand show by throwing her arms out. “Isn’t it great ? This is one of those open offices. They knocked out all of the walls separating worker from worker, which, by the way, has been shown to boost productivity and morale.”

Lizzie was an utter contrast to Janie’s haute couture, dressed in some of the drabest, most inoffensive clothes she could find. She wore flats, a simple coal-black dress and a muted orange cardigan that was, as she had been told when she bought it, a “burnt umber”. As soon as she had come into the room Lizzie looked over the vast room she was standing in the near center of, at the sea of people sitting at desks identical to the vacant one that they were standing in front of. Try as she might—and she was desperate to see proof to the contrary of her fears—Lizzie could not find a single smile on the faces of the people who took stolen glances at her.

“Well, it’s either this; or you could always ask mommy dearest to find a job for you.”

“So I’d have to call and... bother people?” Christ, who would even pick up their phone for one of these numbers? And, more importantly, what was she supposed to say when someone did talk to her?

Janie patted Lizzie on the arm. “Don’t think of it as bothering, per se. You’re opening up... new avenues of possibility to them. Just stick to the script, you’ll do great. The dirty secret of these places is that female voices tend to do a lot better.”

Without wanting to but unable to stop herself, Lizzie looked over at the man who sat in a desk no more than four feet away. He looked up and over at them, eyes watery with what she just hoped were allergies. Turning back to Janie, Lizzie felt a smile stretch on her face to rival the miserable one that Nat had given her father when he harangued her about her supposed menses. 

“I don’t want this,” she hissed, leaning in closer to her friend. “This isn’t for me—”

Janie again patted her arm, leaning in close as she said, “I never said this was going to be fun. Adventures aren’t always fun.”

“But, this isn’t an adventure , this isn’t some retreat. This place, it feels like it’s going to take my soul, smash it into little pieces, and defenestrate it out of a window.” She tried her best to give her friend her, “ I am not fucking around right now ” look.

Proving that as a would-be politician she was impervious to such looks, least of all from her friend, Janie made a point of looking through the large room before her eyes came back to rest on her friend’s face. “Defe-what? What window? There’s no window in here.” When Lizzie gave her an exasperated look, Janie’s facade slipped a bit as she sighed. “Look, I know what this looks like. I wish I could have something better lined up, but the fact is that right now this is the best string I can pull, quickly enough to get you started earning money again.”

Lizzie closed her eyes and shut her mouth, about to say something to Janie again about how she didn’t want to be here. Then she remembered her whole reason for even coming here in the first place. Finally, Lizzie said, “This is really the best place I can get into this week?” When she opened her eyes, she found her older friend leaning in closer, a sympathetic look in her eyes. Lizzie felt her resolve fall and she sighed, accepting her fate as she let her shoulders slump.

“No one said this was permanent. Let me get more of my life back, once I get this wedding out of the way, I can find something better. But, I mean, you have to help me. I don’t know how to sell an artist friend on any other work I can think of.”

Lizzie tried to hold back the lingering despair she felt at those words. After the wedding would mean that she would be waiting for over four months to get rescued from this place. She had no connections; the thought of another damned job interview left her frozen in terror.

Still, she fixed a smile on her lips and tried to look as happy as she didn’t feel. “No, it’s fine. Th-thank you for this. I can find something else to do if this doesn’t work out. But, I mean, I’ll probably…. grow to like it.” Lizzie knew she didn’t sound very convincing.

Still, Janie patted her on the arm, pleasure gleaming in her eyes. “Atta girl . Use some of that can-do attitude of yours, some of that Fred.” She leaned back, blinking as though she were lost in her own thought as she added, “Christ, I wish I thought to make a seminar out of that. Helping women channel their inner Freds for a weekend.” She smiled and looked at Lizzie, impervious also to the surprised look on her friend’s face as she motioned Lizzie to the empty chair. Janie was seemingly about to continue talking when she was cut off byher phone’s ringer. It was obnoxiously loud in a place where everyone else in the room seemed to be on a headset, talking to someone. Trying to work.

Janie struggled to pull her phone out, whose ringer, one of those recordings of a high-pitched voice demanding that she pick up her phone, grew louder as she pulled it out. Typical Janie; she took forever getting the phone out of her purse, a big thing that she had picked up in the last two years to carry what seemed like a lot of everything, and the whole time she just made annoyed grunting. Not apologizing to anyone for the intrusion in a place where other people were told they weren’t even supposed to have their phones on .

Lizzie awkwardly stared at Janie as she had a conversation on her phone before she realized that they were being stared at by many of the people in the desks that surrounded them. Lizzie feigned a cough and sank into the office chair, pulling it away from what she supposed was her new desk. As Lizzie sat down, she had to stifle a gasp as it almost felt like the chair she had sat in was about to break. Sitting stock still, she turned to look at Janie, who finished her conversation and was putting her phone back in her bag. 

“Right,” Janie said, a smile edging at her lips as she looked at Lizzie. “Look at you, ready to go! So, just turn the computer on, Lou said that the instructions should be on the desktop, next to the phone client. Just put the headset on and follow the instructions, alright?” As Lizzie tried to find the words to argue with her, Janie instead patted her on the head and walked away.

Craning partially out of her seat as she tried to find the backbone to argue with Janie—and with what felt like the whole office staring at her—Lizzie felt herself start to sink into her questionably functioning chair. Instead of leaving, Lizzie turned the computer on before she could talk herself out of it.

After all, it may not have felt like it, but this was a favor that Janie had cashed in for her benefit. After Lizzie had ended up at her friend’s penthouse the night before, shaking and telling her that she had taken Drop Dead Fred from her step-daughter, Janie had a follow up after she promised that she would do something so that her friend could stop having so much time to obsess over her imaginary friend who had ditched her. And finally maybe start earning the money she’d need to get her own place, away from the surely maddening influence of Mother. 

Also so she wouldn’t make it such a habit to show up at her friend’s home so often, to stop from having to go back to her mother’s home for the night.

Lizzie shut her eyes as she waited for the sluggishly old computer to come to life. What am I doing. What am I doing.

When she opened her eyes Lizzie realized that the computer was locked and needed a username and password to turn on. One that she had not been given.

She was an oddity for an office worker because Lizzie actually hadn’t consulted her phone, her personal one, once while she was at her desk while everyone else skulked and hunched, looking down at glowing rectangles in their laps between calls and paperwork. So much for being a “cell free” workplace. When she was told that it was time to leave during the great migration of everyone on the floor at the end of the work day, Lizzie found the tension that had almost fueled her through the day was already dropping her, and with it whatever energy she had in her body. 

The stairs, although they were a few floors up from the ground floor, and in her current enervated state she might have nevertheless still wanted to use them, were off limits, a sign in scrawling sharpie on a piece of lined paper that was taped to the door said that the stairwell had just been painted and needed to dry.

As she stood, waiting for the next elevator down with whomever wasn’t able to squeeze themselves into one of the two that had arrived first, Lizzie found herself finally pulling her phone out. As she glanced at her notifications, she realized that Nat had left her a voicemail. Thoughtlessly, Lizzie pressed the phone to her ear to listen to the message, feeling too drained to think about listening to it later when she was alone.

She might have appreciated listening to the message when she was alone, Lizzie realized only after she heard Natbrat’s hurried, breathless voice. 

“You have to come here. Fred’s really gone, gone for good this time. He’s never disappeared for this long, Lizzie.”

Although she had previously felt emotionally exhausted—and plain old exhausted—Lizzie found her gaze drawn to the stairs, to the sign on the door that told any would-be fleeing office worker that it was off limits. She started for it, just short of bolting for it when one of her co-workers cried out after her. 

“Hon, you can’t go in there!”

Every minute spent in traffic was one that Lizzie felt in her bones. Her flats were stained in the ecru paint that the stairwell had been painted and if she looked at her hands, she would have seen spots on either one from where she had placed them on the still wet paint when she had begun her frantic flight down the stairs. She didn’t know, either, that she had rubbed splotches of it on her cheek, her neck, her cardigan, and her dress.

None of it mattered. Stuck in traffic, Lizzie considered calling Nat and getting the news then and there. But there was something in her that was frightened of what she would hear. She worried about what she would do in a car if the news was indeed bad.

Pulled in front of the Bunce house for the second time in too recent a time for her comfort, Lizzie tore out of her car, almost tripped as she came off the curb of the street and onto the sidewalk.

When she realized that Mickey’s truck wasn’t parked next to the two story, dark green house, Lizzie could have sobbed in relief. If not for how she felt then, she might have instead been stopped by a now familiar guilt, of turning Nat into a Latchkey Kid in much the same way that she had once daddy had left their home. 

With her hastily torn-off dress shoes in one hand she made the rest of the journey to the front door, and, remembering how she had already gotten rid of the key to the house, she rapped on the door with her knuckles and tried to find her calm. Lizzie barely made it past five as she counted to herself before the front door opened to reveal her step-daughter.

They had spent years barely speaking of the elephant in the room; namely, the green-suited red-headed, constantly scheming and high-energy imaginary friend. Now it felt like the only thing they could talk about together.

The girl stared at her mess of a step-mother, sucking her lips in a way that once, when she was a little girl, had been a clear sign that she had committed some misdeed and was worried about the eventual trouble that would be inflicted on her. “I haven’t seen—him—since I made him stick around as a birthday promise yesterday.”

Lizzie stared at the girl, not sure how she should be feeling. “Okay.”

Nat blinked, looking up at her step-mother in disbelief. “”Okay”? Haven’t you seen him since then? You haven’t told me about him, I was starting to get worried.” There, on her face was an increasingly rare look of vulnerability that a big girl like Nat didn’t want to get caught feeling. 

The fear that Lizzie had been trying her best to compartmentalize—a skill she was a master at, but which had been stressed to its limits—burst free, like some drawer that had been overstuffed. “How is it supposed to work?” She gesticulated haphazardly, for want of something to do with her hands, besides holding her soiled shoes as well as an outlet for the gripping tension she felt.

Nat stomped her foot and growled at Lizzie. “Are you kidding me? I give you my imaginary friend and now you’ve lost him ?”

Lizzie threw her hands out in front of her, astonished at the honest rage she saw in the girl’s eyes. “Lost? I haven’t lost anything!”

The girl let out a shriek, gripping her hands into tight fists, her face turning red. “No! You did something to Fred! I let him go, you agreed to take him, and, and you, you—” she trailed off, rubbing her face viciously as tears formed and started to fall down her face. 

Lizzie dropped to her knees and, without thinking, dragged the girl to her chest and hugged her. She found, immediately, that she missed holding Nat like this. She kept holding her until the girl pushed back, making Lizzie scoot back to give her step-daughter space. 

Nat took in deep breaths, still rubbing furiously at her eyes. With a hiccuping, thick voice, she asked, “You’re not lying, are you?” when Lizzie shook her head, Nat took in a deep breath and seemed to stare at the ceiling. The woman let the girl take as much time as she needed to. Finally, the eleven-year-old looked back at her step-mother and said, “You needed him. And he needs you. Where could he have gone?”

Lizzie smiled, unable to stop her own sadness that leached through her. “Maybe he decided to move on. After all, he’s not supposed to help a grown-up.” Saying that aloud hurt. Hurt more than she would have wanted to say. “Wherever he is, he’s got to be happy.”

Nat slowly nodded, letting out a sigh. “He’s always happy.” Lizzie started to, regretfully, say good-bye to the girl, getting to her feet when Nat stopped her, tugging on the sleeve of her long-sleeved cardigan. “Can you come inside? I got some ice cream and cookies, good for when I have a break-up.”

Lizzie, not expecting the girl to have, what sounded like, a methodology for getting over a break-up, let out a surprised laugh. “You’ve had break- ups ?” When Nat nodded her head as if to say, of course, Lizzie blinked back her own tears, sniffed, and said, “I’d love to. Really, I would. Just—not right now.”

The small start of a smile on Nat’s face disappeared. “Oh.” she looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she just nodded and took a step back, her hand resting on the door.

Lizzie walked away, stopped before she made it off of the porch by the girl who called out to her from the doorway. “Hey, you don’t need to treat dad like he’s radioactive. He missed you, you know. But he’s not going to hate you.”

Lizzie turned and looked at the girl, a smile forming on her mouth as she said the truth. “Yeah, but I need time to forgive myself first.” She found that she had to stifle a sob that formed, thick in her throat. “And this is the best thing for him in the long run.” As she walked away Lizzie wished that she could fully believe that herself.

Chapter Text

In the short drive to the house the sun had started to set in earnest. Even before she had fully made her way up past the lawn Lizzie knew that something was wrong. It had something to do with the fact that Polly had thrown the door open and, before her daughter could ask what the problem was, Mother yelled out, “Elizabeth? You get in this house this instant !”

More than a little emotionally fragile—and wanting a warm bath to soak in—Lizzie flinched and, rapidly, reconsidered her options. She couldn’t go back to Janie’s penthouse, not for a second night in a row. And she certainly couldn’t go back to Mickey’s bed.

And besides, something in her—the Fred in her—said that she had no right retreating from the Mega Beast.

Clenching her hands tight Lizzie walked up to Mother, was about to say an apology she half-felt for escaping their nightly routine for one night. Said routine typically consisted of Mother interrogating her daughter, insisting she eat a dinner that was a flavorless meal, and for dessert she negged her daughter until Lizzie sometimes went to bed envisioning shoving the woman’s head through a window.

Lizzie approached her mother who was standing as straight as she could with the light from the house forming a backlight to her, casting her in a dramatic and not wholly unrepresentative shadow. She barely made it past the middle of the yard when Polly’s voice rose and she was almost yelling at Lizzie.

“Don’t… see you for two days —”

Lizzie hurried closer to her, already knowing that she would give in, give up, so that she could just take that bath she longed for and get ready for another day at that horrid office. She tried to walk around Polly, hoping that the unexpected movement would take the woman off center and she could pass by. But as she might have conveniently forgotten, Polly Cronin wasn’t the Mega Beast for no reason.

“Oh no!” Mother grabbed her daughter by her shoulder until her grip hurt, squeezing tight. “You’re not coming in here with those—shoes!” She looked down pointedly at Lizzie’s feet until her daughter looked down at her feet. Lizzie had forgotten that she had run through paint—in fact, her hands were still paint-stained, for once not from her sad, abortive attempts at creating art. Everything she wore seemed to be stained, spotted in grey-tan paint. And as she moved, looking at her feet, Mother finally saw that her daughter was, well, ecru-handed.

“My god!,” she shrieked, so loud and so close that Lizzie had to wince, “what have you done to yourself this time? You are a grown woman , how can you keep coming back home, covered in—covered in—what in god’s name are you covered in, this time?”

Lizzie gave her an impatient smile. “I’ve been working on a full body piece. It’s very intensive.”

Mother let out a suffering moan. “When are you going to grow up , Elizabeth? I work and then I come home to this .” She motioned dramatically at her daughter.

Lizzie had to bite back a sarcastic remark about how Mother had not been too offended by her to not accept money that Lizzie had been proud to give her for the mortgage on the house up till the previous year, knowing before she said it that she just wanted to get inside.

She pushed her mother’s hand off of her shoulder and went into the house, slipping her feet out of shoes that might still, somehow, track paint that had undoubtedly dried as of an hour ago. No sooner than Lizzie made her way past her mother and the same red door that she dreaded returning to almost every night than she gasped in shock at a sight she could have never anticipated seeing.

The house—it was trashed . There, Mother’s very unappreciated vase of gladiolas; and the marble-topped table it sat on, broken, its pieces splattered everywhere. And that was just the beginning of it.

Everywhere she looked, even in the near-barren foyer, was a mess. Accessory mirror panels, smashed, some of the tiles somehow cracked and broken, as if they had been hit with a sledge hammer. What she hoped was just mud had been splattered all over the understated vintage wallpaper. And the carved ball, set into the end of the stair’s banister, had been ripped loose. When she took a step further in Lizzie quickly found the ball—it had been thrown clear through one of the columns that formed one of the doorways, the one that lead to the dining room, now forming a tell-tale round hole, that allowed her to spy a small look at the—also—trashed dining room.

She would later find the banister ball sitting on the dinner table as though it were the center of some shrine, surrounded by odd offerings in the form of broken pieces of antique china and a great mound of garden soil patted into a flat-topped, round mass that gave the whole thing, to an art major, the energy of a strange piece that spoke to something deeply rooted inside of Lizzie.

The sight of it all was so shocking she found herself unintentionally parroting back Polly’s words. “Oh my god.” 

Behind her Lizzie thought she could feel her mother’s rage before Polly had to say a thing. “ Oh my god is right! Now, you are going to march yourself up stairs and you’re going to change, and then you’re going to go from room to room with me and we’re going to get all of this fixed !”

Lizzie turned around, staring into the full force of her mother’s rage as something beside mortal terror, sadness, or rage came over her. Barely aware of what she was saying, she said, “But I didn’t do this.”

Polly’s eyes widened and her face turned into a mask of pure rage. “What? Are you—actually—going to use the same excuse on me, all of these years later?”

Lizzie’s mouth fell open and she said the thing she believed she never would say aloud again. “Drop Dead Fred did it.”

Between her confusion, anxiety, and the fact that Polly had kept her daughter up most of the night fixing what could be fixed, Lizzie couldn’t try to fall asleep until it was almost time for the sun to come up. Even then, alone, finally—thankfully—in her room, Lizzie sat on her bed, wondering what it was that could be going on. Any moment she had had free in every room she had walked through, seemingly meek beneath the weight of Mother’s rage resting on her, Lizzie looked around every nook and cranny of it, searching for a green-dressed red head perhaps crouched in some corner, waiting to yell, “surprise!”. And when Mother went off to grab a new cleaning supply to find a tool Lizzie would hiss his name out, thinking that, perhaps, he was playing a game of hide-and-seek she had never properly ended years ago.

Was Lizzie should have done was fall asleep, catch a few precious hours of energy before she would go back to that office. Which was what she knew a grown-up would have to do, if they were incapable of creating anything that they could make a living off of. As she slumped partially over, tiredness finally catching up to her so that she was blinking unevenly, Lizzie realized that she was afraid of falling asleep. Falling asleep, and never seeing him again.

As her eyes drifted shut once, it came into her mind and burned bright, waking her completely.

Hide-and-seek.

Hide-and-seek!

Ready to start running out of her room and down the stairs, instead, Lizzie, mindful that Mother was more than likely still not fully asleep—and, even then, the woman was a very light sleeper—knew that she had one choice if she wanted to look for him in one last, possible, place. So Lizzie hurried instead to her window, throwing open the lock she yanked it open, was hopping onto the roof before she could think of the logistics of her soon to be escape.

As she squatted, awkward and barefoot on the roof shingles, Lizzie glanced over at the tree limb of the same tree that she had used to escape her room years earlier. Only this time Lizzie was well aware of the fact that she was alone with traipsing down it. And was barefoot. She would have to hop onto a tree limb and slide down the tree like this.

Lizzie felt that old memory nagging at her. A day, five years ago, when Mickey Bunce stood in the very same tree limb, holding the package that had her party dress in it. A prince who had come to rescue a princess who had been locked up in a tower by a wicked witch.

Me, a princess? She pushed back that stray thought, and, taking a deep breath, Lizzie carefully walked down the roof towards the tree. More so than the sudden impression of being a princess, the realization that she was a thirty-year old woman in a nightdress on the roof of her mother's house within an hour of sunrise, struck her. Maybe it was just the delirium from staying up all night, helping Mother clean the house, or maybe it was the effect of Fred’s blatant aftermath, as potent as any drug that had led her here, but Lizzie felt excited by the thought of what she was doing.

As she readied herself to jump for the branch Lizzie found herself wishing that Mother had gotten a trellis installed beneath her window. And, after she jumped for it, arms ready, Lizzie found that she had misjudged her athletic prowess and ended up clutching the dangerously creaking tree limb for dear, dear life. 

Hanging onto the tree in the front yard for a painful amount of time, Lizzie wished that she had just taken the chance at waking Mother up and had just gone downstairs after all.

After some scrabbling and pitiful whimpering, Lizzie ended up not climbing into the crook of the tree limb, but rather ended up sliding down the trunk of the tree, scraping her hands, her exposed belly as her gown rode up, as well as her thankfully bra-covered chest as she made her way down the slow, painful journey to the ground. Sinking until she was a few feet to the bottom Lizzie let go to stand on the well-maintained grass, silently miming her pain, afraid to let out a cry that might somehow wake her mother. 

Grateful that she wasn’t hurt Lizzie crept around the house, going into the back yard, creeping past the flower beds towards her goal. The garden shed.

As slunk past the flowers though, Lizzie, impatient to look in this last place, forgot about her mother’s favorite flower. She barely made it past the things when the urge to sneeze rocked through her body. It was too late by the time she thought to suppress it. 

Lizzie sneezed so loudly it sounded like a clap of thunder in the backyard. And, as she looked up and at her mother’s bedroom window, she saw it. The master bedroom light was switched on.

She gasped, thinking immediately of retreat. Of saving herself another argument on the same day she was expecting to return to that horrible office in the city. Then she looked at the garden shed. 

Lizzie realized that she couldn’t retreat again. Not this time.

Taking in a deep breath she hurried the remaining feet to the shed and threw the door open, glad that Mother had never put a lock on the thing. She rushed in, slamming the door behind her.

Standing against the wall opposite the door Drop Dead Fred slouched, his hands shoved in his trouser’s pockets. 

Afraid that, much like the—what had that been? A dream, really her imagination?—moment she had hugged him two days prior when Fred wouldn’t react to her, Lizzie instead got a reaction she didn’t expect when the man looked up and gave his ex-friend an angry scowl.

Before she could say anything, Fred nearly yelled out, “ You ! Why’m I here ? Where’ve you been? I come back home, and you’re nowhere to be seen! Had to make my own fun, trapped in this… this prison , with the Mega Bitch to keep me company!” Lizzie said nothing, staring at her imaginary friend as he gesticulated wildly, his voice rising into an outraged yell that was as far from imposing as could possibly be. She didn’t realize that a broad smile had grown on her face until she saw Fred start scowling even more deeply towards her.

His face tightening and—growing redder —the man shook, then Lizzie heard a steam whistle sound out moments before she watched as steam poured out of his ears. Holding a hand to her mouth to stop the surprised laugh that wanted to bubble out of her, she was unprepared as she heard the once-familiar sound of Drop Dead Fred disappearing from where he was, reappearing a foot away from her. 

Stifling a scream at the sudden movement, Lizzie was grabbed by her old imaginary friend before she could finish it. He shook her, almost making her teeth snap together as he spoke, as high energy as she remembered him being. “I mean it! I wait up for you to come back, you don’t even bother coming back for a week !”

Lizzie, staring at an impossible sight, finally found her voice. “I was not gone for a week.”

“Yes you were.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were !”

Lizzie felt her earlier smile growing on her face. “ No I was not.”

As Fred started to repeat his earlier refrain, unbroken and as quickly as he could, Lizzie found herself sinking into old behavior she would have thought that she would never indulge again.

“No I wasn’t—no I wasn’t—was not—not—wasn’t—did not—”

The fight ended only when Fred pushed her back, nearly making her back slam against the door before she could brace herself. With a choked, “Hey!,” Lizzie glared at Fred, only to hear him disappear and then reappear back where she had found him, leaning against the wall.

Crabby from her lack of sleep—and from her rude welcome from her old friend—Lizzie snapped, “Okay, no more pushing. Or shoving!”

Fred glowered at her. “Not fair! Never had a problem with rough housing before!”

“Yes I did! I told you to stop pushing me back when you shoved me and I broke the tv!” This incident was, of course, well over twenty-six years ago. But, as she could remember from her last few days with Fred, anything to do with the man always managed to bring up old memories.

Afraid that he was going to start denying it, repeating it ad nauseum, Lizzie took in a deep breath and said, “I mean it this time, I already took a tumble out of a tree and I spent the night cleaning up your mess.”

“Aw, come on,” Fred shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and thrust his hips out dramatically. “You went climbin’ and didn’t even invite me? And you’re not supposed to be cleaning up messes!”

Why am I obsessed with this man, again? “I’m really tired, Fred. Can we pick this up after I get some sleep?”

Fred stilled but remained glowering at Lizzie. “Snotface, I’ve been waiting in this bloody shed since the Mega Bitch came back! I want to go out and have fun! Come on, let’s go climbing, or you can just get it over with and let me go back home alone.”

Lizzie was taken aback. “Go back… where?”

Fred growled, throwing his arms out. “You’re grown-up, you don’t need me, and I wasn’t ready to say bye to Natbrat! I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to that little sneak even though she helped you trick me!”

“Yeah, but, where were you going to go, after Nat outgrew you?” That was the first look, besides immature anger, that she saw on his face. It was genuine surprise, hurt. “She’s getting too old for an imaginary friend. You knew that.” She paused, hesitating before she said the rest of what she was thinking. “She was about to give you up, wasn’t she?”

Fred’s lips tightened in a scowl. “That’s between me n’ her! She wasn’t supposed to—to pawn me off on you, like I’m some damn Charizard card!”

She remembered words, spoken by the versions of both her and Nat that she had found in her imagination. “Fred, you overdid it, didn’t you? You were supposed to go to Nat and treat her like you treated me, like your best friend. Your only friend. But you didn’t let me go, did you?” When Fred didn’t answer her back, Lizzie sighed. “They were right, you know. Nat told me; you never let me go.”

She thought that this would have provoked a reaction out of him. Would have gotten even a roundabout answer from the Drop Dead Fred she had loved. Still loved.

Instead, Fred glowering at her and, breathing in through his nose heavily, said, “That’s it! I’m sick of bein’ around girls! Gonna go on my own, goodbye forever!”

Before the astonished Lizzie could think to stop him, or argue, Fred did indeed disappear, in a tell-tale poof.

Chapter Text

When Lizzie, who could remember falling asleep in the garden shed, woke instead in her bed, she thought that she had imagined the night before. Going downstairs—well past noon—she was stopped when she was greeted by Mother calling out to her from the kitchen.

“Elizabeth? Would you come in here?” Lizzie found Polly in the kitchen, looking like she was trying to continue to work as though half of everything there had been in the kitchen had not been thrown, broken, was missing, or destroyed. 

“Yes?”

With a tight smile drawn across her face, Mother said, “First—last night. You forced me to stay up most of the night cleaning, throwing out most of my beautiful collection after you had broken them, and then proceeded to lie to me. Then I heard noises down in the garden last night.”

“What?”

“Stop it, Elizabeth. I know the noise you make when you sneeze! Unladylike, like everything else about you. Surprised you didn’t wake the whole neighborhood up.”

Lizzie blinked, a realization coming over her. She hadn’t imagined the night before? Then that would mean that she remembered right, that she had laid back against the wall where Fred had been, had fallen asleep there. Why the hell did she wake up in her old bed, then?

“Well?” Polly was staring at her daughter expectantly. “Can you at least say sorry for embarrassing me and then waking me up? What if one of the neighbors saw you—skulking around at night, like you’re five-years old again, just like that week before your father left us? What then?”

Lizzie, too numb from surprise and confusion to care, muttered an apology. Then, not caring about the repercussions, asked, “Did you come down and get me?”

Mother stared at her, not blinking, then asked, “What do you mean?” Before Lizzie could amend the question or clarify, she snarled out, “Did you fall asleep in the backyard last night? My GOD, Elizabeth, what were you thinking ? And why didn’t you at least wash yourself before you went to sleep, tracked more mud through the house…”

Lizzie shot up, running out of the kitchen as her mother called out after her. How had she missed it?

She ran out in the hall and finally saw what she had missed, in a hurry to perhaps see if she could sneak out to the garden shed, hoping to find him again. Boot prints; clear imprints, muddy and indeed tracked in from the front door. She followed the trail, discovering that it led to her bedroom door.

And they were far too large to be her own.

Lizzie had tried to call out to him. It bothered her, his continued disappearance from her life. She knew that Drop Dead Fred wouldn’t be absent, not for long, not when his friend needed him.

Nevertheless she found herself downtown sometime later, half of the work day in the past and, under Mother’s command, finally with a fresh bath for her reeking body. She wondered if she could sneak in but as she walked into the room full of workers at their desks, she was stopped by the man that Jamie had introduced her to the day before who was her new supervisor.

Before the man could say anything, Lizzie winced and tried to get an excuse out. “I’m sorry, I had to help my mother all night—”

Lou cut her off. “If you were anyone else in this room, you would be out on your ass right now. But you’re here as a favor to Jane.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose tight before he said. “Get to your desk, now, before I change my mind.” As Lizzie started to walk away, he shouted, loud enough for what felt like everyone else in the room to hear, “You’re not gettin’ paid for the rest of the work day!”

Lizzie winced and hurried to the only empty desk in the room. As she sat down she found herself wondering what in the hell she was going to do. She had barely understood how to do this the day before, and now Lizzie knew that if she wanted to stick around that she couldn’t dare ask for any more help today.

As she turned her computer on the man at the desk next to her—the same man who Jamie had, undoubtedly, embarrassed her in front of the day before—spoke up. “Don’t want to start making a habit of that. And you’re not supposed to keep login information out like you did there.”

Surprised, Lizzie looked at the man. Pale, overweight, balding, her new co-worker looked strangely happy. She got the immediate feeling that he was pleased at her failure. Instead of telling him to piss off like she wanted to, she muttered, “Yeah,” hoping that that would be the end of it.

To the contrary, the man continued to talk to her. “You know, everyone thinks this is real easy to get into. It’s not. It takes a special personality, someone with tenacity, dedication—”

He kept talking but his voice was drowned out by the sound of a more familiar and welcome one, talking at the desk on the opposite side of the man’s from Lizzie. “Oh, yeah, must be real hard to get; a big, ugly toad like you can sit on your arse all day… What do you guys do in here, anyway, chat on these phones?”

Fred.

Lizzie wanted, desperately, to look at him. But the man she was supposed to be listening to kept droning on and on. When Fred’s rant finished, she could finally hear the rest of whatever it was that the man was saying to her.

“—you know, people don’t like to think of collections as important, but where would we be, if nobody was ever held accountable for what they borrowed or bought?”

Fred, this time leaning on the other side of the man’s desk, seemed to be listening intently, then he hunched low on the desk and shrieked out, “You! You’re a parasite ! Dirty ol’ tick man! Ugh, you make me sick!” Fred made a disgusted sound, throwing his head back as he mimed vomiting with exaggerated actions.

Lizzie, who had a very hard time keeping a straight face and only looking at Fred in her periphery, couldn’t stop the surprised snicker that rose out of her. 

The man blinked, looked at her. “What’s the matter with you?” Before Lizzie could do anything, the man, an offended look on his face, said, “Fine then. Good luck figuring out how to use the program today, guess we’re getting a repeat of yesterday again.”

Fred turned, looked at Lizzie. “You! This is where you were yesterday, while I was stuck in the house? Thought you were at least sinking boats or smashing up violins!” Before Lizzie could hope to anticipate it, Fred appeared, this time blocking her view of the unfortunate man at the desk next to hers as he leaned down to her eye level and nearly shouted, “This is pa-the-tic!”

If he thought that this would bother her, Fred didn’t know just how pathetic his now thirty-one year old friend’s life had gotten. Still she said, without thinking, “No it’s not.”

Fred put a hand on his chest and let out an effeminate whine, dancing backward dramatically. “Ooh, I have a fancy new job where I sit next to a smelly old mean man all day, lookit me, I’m Nobrain!”

As Fred danced away, scooting on the tiled floor on his boots' heels, Lizzie saw the expression on the man sitting at the desk next to her. He had turned to look at his monitor, was in fact staring at it, unblinking.

She wasn’t embarrassed, not really. In fact, Lizzie had to suppress a smile as she turned away from the miserable man and took surreptitious glances at her dancing friend. She just wished that everyone else in the office was able to see what she was seeing. They certainly wouldn’t find the new girl to be the most entertaining thing in the room if they could only see the man with the wild red hair dancing backward.

When she looked at her computer, remembering to put the info on the sticky note that she had stuck to the bottom of her monitor into the login screen, she realized, too late, that Fred had disappeared.

Oh no.

The next thing she heard was someone shrieking. Looking a few desks away, Lizzie saw Fred holding onto a picture frame, staring a hole into whatever was on it. To everyone else, though, it looked like the frame was floating in mid air. About to demand that he put it down, Lizzie closed her mouth, knowing that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to stop him at this point. No point in yelling at someone as stubborn as him. So she just stared at Fred as he made everyone close enough to witness his behavior gasp in shock.

“Ugh!,” Fred cried out. “All you grown-ups keep pictures of these grinnin’ morons on your desks! Where’re the action figures? What else you s’posed to do during lunch breaks? What am I supposed to play with?”

Lizzie glanced at her screen, realized that according to the time, she had been at work a grand total of three minutes. And she didn’t know if she would be able to stick around at the rate her imaginary friend was seemingly dead set on turning everything into a chaotic mess. 

“And where’re your beds? What’re you people supposed to take naps on?”

Maybe he’ll calm down if I ignore him. It was either wishful thinking or she forgot everything there was to know about Drop Dead Fred.

“This is the worst office I’ve ever been in. Thank-you-very-much!” Thoughtlessly, Fred tossed the picture, where it almost smashed into someone if they hadn’t of ducked in time for it to smash off of their keyboard instead of their head. “Right; Snotface, let’s go!”

Lizzie shut her eyes. She knew that Janie was right. She needed a job. If not this one, then she needed a job, needed to start making money so she could support herself, find a new place to live. But in her heart she envisioned herself leaping up, dancing with Fred on the desks, causing as much chaos as she wanted to before they could run out before someone called security.

She promised herself, then, that she would finish today and then she would have a long, long talk with Fred. 

After she kissed him.

Lizzie almost lost the breath that she had drawn in on that thought. It had been on her mind nonstop since she had seen him the night before. Kissing Fred. But now, as she tried to get the software for her job up, it was all she could think about. She even imagined she could see him in the reflection of the glass on her monitor, staring at her over her shoulder—

“G-ah!”

Behind her, Fred said, “Whatcha doin’? Ooh, I know what this is! Nat uses this to play games and talk to boys—let’s just use it to play games!” Before she could react—decide if she wanted to react—Fred grabbed onto her hand on her mouse.

The sudden touch surprised her. If she wasn’t full of anxiety it might have overwhelmed her.

He dragged her hand around the mousepad crazily, without rhyme or reason, and then, leaning in real close to her, Fred said, “Where are they? Where’re all the games? This all looks terrible. What’s this? ‘splorer?” He let out an excited yell and almost smashed Lizzie’s hand as he mashed his hand down on the mouse, making her yelp.

Next to her, the horrible co-worker asked, “What’s wrong with you now?”

Fred let out his own loud, “Oi! Piss off before I put you through that desk, stinkboy!”

Lizzie, unable to suppress a strange smile, said, “Need a minute. Gotta remember how I did this yesterday.”

“Yeah! Mind your own business!” He ended it by blowing a loud raspberry. As Lizzie turned back, though, Fred seemed to have no interest in trying to work. He grabbed a hold of her shoulders and said, “Right. Changed my mind; we gotta get out of here!”

Trying to whisper it under her breath, Lizzie said, “This is something I have to do. We can talk in a few hours.”

That was her mistake. Fred made her jump in her seat when he called out, “Hours? HOURS? We’re not sticking ‘round here a minute longer!”

She was going to tell him that he didn’t have a choice unless he wanted to disappear on her again when her imaginary friend let go, grabbing onto the back of her seat, pulling her back until she hit the desk behind her own. Beneath her, the chair that she had forgotten about was almost certainly near-broken, just fell apart. With a gasp, Lizzie jumped from her seat, already apologizing to the woman who sat behind her as she stared Lizzie down, a hateful expression on her face.

“How are I supposed to make any calls in this chaos?,” she snarled at Lizzie.

Fred, who was in front of Lizzie’s desk now, called out to her in a sing-song voice, “Put the phone up your bum, see if you can make a collect call from up there!”

Lizzie closed her eyes, biting her lip as she stood over the wreckage that was her office chair and this job prospect.

This was everything she had imagined happening years ago. What right did he have to show up in her life, now, when she needed to try to salvage what was left of her life after years of pining over him? She didn’t have a chance to wonder what she was going to do because Fred grabbed onto her, jerking her back until she had to suppress a yelp. Flinging backward, Lizzie hissed under her breath, “Stop, stop it, Fred.”

“Like hell I am! You’re a grown-up and you’re choosing to be here.” He kept pulling her until Lizzie had the choice to fight back—what good that would do—or go along, hoping she could calm him down enough to come back.

Saying it to no one in particular as she hurried away, Lizzie muttered, “I need to go use the bathroom, be right back.” Lizzie was pulled by Fred through the neat aisle of human suffering, everyone she passed by staring at her, even though they couldn’t possibly see the man in the green suit who was pulling her along.

He dragged her outside of the office, out in the hallway. As soon as they were almost to the bathrooms, Lizzie burst out, “I want to talk to you, Fred, but I can’t, not right now, I need to work!”

“Oh, yeah,” the man said, scoffing and rolling his eyes dramatically. “”Need to work”, like you need a bath every night, need to sleep through the night, right.”

“Yes, in fact, I do!” Lizzie ripped her hand loose, five years of aching longing forgotten as she was reminded of why she had once been able to ignore what she felt for the man only she could see. “I need money so I can eat and I can find a place to live, away from Mother!”

Fred stopped there, his face growing strangely still. He lowered his voice from his earlier yelling and loud talking as he said, “You’ve been outta Mickey Fartpants’ house for a month. Don’t you have that apartment?”

Lizzie didn’t realize that she was about to cry until she saw the expression on Fred’s face change, saw the kindness in his eyes. Fighting off the need to sob Lizzie stepped away from him, standing against the wall, hand pressed to her mouth before she said, “No, I mean—I gave that up, after Mickey asked me to move in.” Count on an Imaginary Friend to not know how rent worked.

Fred stared at her, disbelief strange on the face of someone who never doubted a thing in his life, except for her sanity and choices. He bounced back in record time though. “W-well, we just have to find you a new place! Then we can do every-thing we ever wanted in it,” he grinned and gesticulated wildly, miming dancing with an exaggerated hip wiggle. “Party all night, get new, important grown-up friends, better’n Mickey Fartpants—”

Lizzie almost smiled. “It’s not that easy. None of this stuff is that easy.” 

Fred scoffed. “And why not? Only reason you never got to do anything fun’s ‘cause of Charles or the Mega Bitch.” He jabbed his thumb at his chest and stood up straight, a proud look on his face. “If I’m gonna be stuck here, let me tell you something. Drop Dead Fred’s gonna help you get everything sorted out, then you can give me back to Natbrat.”

Lizzie stared at Fred. She had almost forgotten the entire reason why he was here, as stressed out as she was. Why she had wanted to take him. And at first she almost said it. Then she realized—what would she do, when Fred inevitably told her the obvious answer?

He didn’t love her. Not—love, love—love her. Not like she wanted him.

And for the first time since she had eagerly taken Fred back, Lizzie wondered what their future was going to be like. How she could hold down any job, with an Imaginary Friend who had a constant case of ADHD at high speed always with her.

How long she could hold back on her own needs as a person. A grown-up person with grown-up needs. Appetites, even, that sweet Mickey could not have ever hoped to fulfill.

Letting out a long sigh, Lizzie said, “Give me a second, alright?” and before Fred could argue with her, Lizzie turned, walked into the woman’s bathroom, hearing, on the other side of the door, a loud, “Oof!” as he smashed into it.

Chapter Text

Lizzie went to the line of sinks to throw water on her face. Taking in a deep breath, all the while hoping that Fred would, for once, respect her privacy, she had just balled the paper towel she had used up and was about to throw it into the garbage when she heard the loud siren, followed by a flashing red light, originating from the fire alarm that was above the door.

“Oh, f—”

The bathroom door burst open, and, waiting a few feet away from the door, with a winning grin on his face, was Drop Dead Fred. He threw his arms out like he was a maestro who had just accomplished some amazing feat. “Ta-da!”

“What did you do?” She had to yell it over the sound of the alarm. He didn’t actually —set a fire— with people in the building? Did he?

Fred grinned even more broadly. “Got to do a thing off my bucket list! Snotface, you have got to pull one of those alarms some time, then you get to hear—that!” He danced to the rhythm of the siren, then gleefully said, “ Now we can get outta here!”

Lizzie stood, frozen in horror, her mouth fallen open. To be fair, it was a lot less worse than she at first thought. To be less charitable—

“Fred,” she walked closer to him so she could talk and hear him over the blaring siren. “ Where is that fire alarm you pulled?”

She knew the answer, before the damned man pointed to it. No more than five feet behind him, as though all he had to do was contemplate it for all of a few seconds before he decided to do it. He had pulled a fire alarm with absolutely no sense of cunning, no planning.

“Ohmygosh.”

Fred grabbed Lizzie by her shoulders as she could only stare back at him with wide eyes. “Thought there was supposed to be some water shootin’ from the ceiling—like, an upside down lawn sprinkler—”

It was inevitable, really. Lizzie watched as the door further down the hall, the one that led into the huge office, opened up. Without thinking, Lizzie saw the knocked down handle of the alarm and she hit it, snacking it with her fist, making it return to its up position. Now she was hiding evidence of her imaginary friend's mischief. But this "mischief" was definitely the kind that had far higher stakes than it ever had before. Like the kind that could land his Snotface in jail.

She had hoped that that would have stopped the siren. When it didn’t, Lizzie did the only thing she could think of. Hissing out a shit, she grabbed onto her imaginary friend without thinking about the fact that he didn’t need to hide from anyone. She reached behind her, blindly grabbing onto the handle of the custodian’s closet that was next to the bathroom and was surprised, relieved, because she found it unlocked.

Still dragging Fred with her, Lizzie fell into the closet as she slammed the door closed behind her, only to find that she was tripping on her heels when she tried to turn around once more, going face first. Unexpectedly, Lizzie found herself not sprawled on the ground. She was on top of Drop Dead Fred.

Fully expecting Fred to make himself not beneath her she was surprised, in the pitch black of the closet, to feel him, still, beneath her. She didn’t say a word, and neither did he. The last time she had come even close to laying on him was the night he left her years ago.

Lizzie could hardly breathe. It wasn’t just that the closet was stifling hot and was also probably very small. 

Then she heard Fred speak, which helped her identify his face in the dark. Even his overly cheery demeanor and—was that a nervous undertone to his voice?—could not lessen the heat that Lizzie could feel, all over her body. “U-um, didn’t want you to fall. Probably woulda…. hit your head. Why’d you wear those bloody things , Sn—”

In the dark of the closet Lizzie acted on things she wouldn’t have thought to. Probably shouldn’t have. She bent forward, surprised at how natural it felt to be sitting on top of Fred, who was laid on his back.

What did he smell like? As might be expected for an imaginary friend the answer might have been, well, paste, maybe even some accelerant. But not Fred. He didn’t smell like men usually did; did not smell feminine, either. But his smell —it was cloying, strange in an irresistible way. Almost sweet. She leaned in closer, telling herself it was to get a better sense of his presence beneath her, his smell.

He could have moved; if not make himself stand up and let out a loud, obnoxious, “Yuck!”, then at least he could have moved . Or said something to ruin the mood, like he could track mud through it. But Lizzie, moving as if she were obeying some internal command that had been long buried inside of her, hovered over what she knew was his face, knew that she couldn’t possibly have found him that easily in the dark. He had moved his face—for all she knew, after all, he could see in the dark. He was special, so wonderful, so… irresistible.

She let a breath escape her, and with it, a whimper. Lizzie rested her hands on the cold concrete on either side of his face, could feel his head caught in the space between her two wrists. His soft, unkempt hair. The siren outside of the closet was drowned out, becoming little more than ambient noise. Nothing compared to the sound of her heart pumping, her breath escaping her opened mouth.

And then she closed the distance between her and Fred, kissing him.

It was not some chaste kiss, although maybe that’s what Fred had wanted at first. Letting out a moan that had been trapped in her chest, Lizzie sank closer to him, kissing him deeper, instinct working where terror or second guessing would have left her sitting atop Fred without kissing him. As her tongue slipped in, teasing his almost still lips open, Lizzie shuddered as she tasted him. He tasted full, teased an extra something that she had never felt before kissing another man. It made her feel heady, whoozy, like she had quaffed a glass full of sangria, something spiked with an exorbitant amount of old-fashioned, Kool-Aid ready white sugar. She was barely aware that he had started to kiss her back when she heard the voice outside of the closet. 

She didn’t mean to stop kissing but it was Drop Dead Fred who moved, pulling them apart. In a husky, deeper voice that did not reflect what he said, Fred, hesitantly, asked, “What’re we doing in here?”

Lizzie sat up, as though she could get away with what she just did. God, what did she just do, anyway? And did Fred even want her to do that, or had she been imagining his consent, him tilting so she could get to him in order to kiss him?

Both because hearing him speak spoiled the strange moment, and because she wanted to hear the voices outside, Lizzie shushed him. Another rarity; Fred didn’t argue back at her.

Outside, Lizzie heard a muffled voice, saying, “Who could’ve done it?”

Another voice said, “No one’s on this floor, except the workers. We can’t find which switch was pulled, either.”

“Could it have been that weirdo, the flake?” Without even having to think twice about it, Lizzie knew who they were talking about. 

The previous man said, “Hard telling. But I think she just ran off. Where else could she have gone? Ditzy woman.”

As she moved, Lizzie realized that she could feel the man beneath her’s hand on her wrist. The feel, of those encircling, warm fingers, made her feel somehow safer.

“At least whatever happened, it didn’t trigger the sprinklers. That would’ve toasted that whole office in there.”

She swore she could feel as the man beneath her let out a gasp.

“Hang on—if I can get in here, I can disengage the alarm—”

Lizzie didn’t realize that she was about to get an unwelcome intruder until she felt Fred finally disappear from under her. She heard the door handle jiggle and for a split second, she expected that Fred had run off, leaving Lizzie holding the bag. And then the door handle kept jiggling and the man on the other side of the door began to curse loudly.

She realized that Fred had locked the door. With a sigh Lizzie sank back, giving a silent prayer to whatever force made imaginary friends stop just short in making their charges go to prison.

As she heard the men go away, Lizzie suddenly remembered that she had been so out of sorts in the office that she had not even taken her purse off when she sat at her desk. Groping around in it she pulled out her phone, and, taking a steadying breath—afraid of what she might find on Fred’s face—Lizzie turned the flashlight on her phone on. 

At first she only looked at the things she found on the far side of the small closet—a wall of switches, all labeled, and shelves of the expected supplies—then Lizzie took in a deep breath and turned around on her knees. When she did, she came almost face to face with a crouching Drop Dead Fred.

Surprised, Lizzie felt the sudden urge to kiss him again come and leave her mind, only after she brutally shoved it away.

Fred looked at her, uneven eyes that pilot-light blue as he gazed at her before he smiled at her. The relief that she felt last only a brief moment as he glanced around her, at the switches on the wall. “What do those do?”

Lizzie bit her lip and had to fight back the urge to laugh at her situation. What the hell right did she have to kiss him? It had rolled off his back like a duck. Nevertheless she said, “They probably control some of the functions of the building. Heating, air, the sprinkler system—”

“OH, GREAT!” His shout shocked Lizzie, who had to jerk away. She realized her mistake only moments before Fred disappeared—and reappeared, exactly where she imagined he would.

“Fred, no—”

Too late. By light of the flash on her phone, Lizzie watched as Fred, gleefully, turned on the sprinkler system.

She didn’t know it at the time but the sprinkler system wasn’t just for that floor. It was for the whole. Damn. Building. 

As Lizzie ran down the same stairs she had escaped down the night before, this time with her heels shoved in her bag and not sure if she wanted to pin her imaginary friend against a wall and make out with him or shove one of the pointy ends of her shoes into his face, she thanked her lucky, lucky stars that she had not been spotted as she mixed in with other late-fleeing, soaked office workers.

Fred had, in fact, finally disappeared on her. 

As she ran out of the building Lizzie found the group of her coworkers. Hoping that none had spotted her she was on her way to the garage when she heard a familiar voice call out to her, running at her from the rest of the people from their floor.

“Elizabeth!” Lou ran faster after her than she would have envisioned he would be capable of. “Where did you go?”

Lizzie looked at him, realizing that wet, the large man looked less than intimidating. It might have had something to do with the way his wet, white polo clung to his skin, allowing anyone to see his man boobs, but Lou looked less like some kind of arbitrator of her fate and more like a fat middle manager. 

She smiled at him, forgetting for a moment that she was soaking wet herself. “I got lost on my way downstairs.” Why not play into their preconceptions of her?

She worried that she overplayed her hand. But the man looked at her pityingly and said, “Oh.” 

“Now that I’m outside, I wanted to take this chance to tell you that I quit.”

As she turned and walked away from the soaked office workers, Lou tried to say something to her but Lizzie was already, barefoot, on her way to her car. She made it five feet away before someone she had indeed been missing, as infuriating as he made her feel, reappeared, crowing out for her.

“Way to go, Snotface! Just rub it in, couldn’t have done that better myself!”

So said the man who turned the sprinkler system on in a whole building.

Chapter Text

“You tell me what I’m supposed to do, now.” Polly said to her daughter from her seat on the opposite side of the, regretfully, too small kitchen table. “You tell me you had a job, then... you lost it. And now: look at yourself.” She motioned to Lizzie, to her still mostly damp adult daughter.

Lizzie smiled at her mother, still mentally riding the high of being involved in what had to be catastrophic water damage to a whole, multi-storey building. Oh, and then there was the part where she had kissed her imaginary friend. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Fred, in rare form as he sat at the far end of the table, grinned and pumped his fist. “Way-to-go-Snot- Face !”

Polly stared at Lizzie, an infernal rage lighting her eyes up. “You’ll be careful about being so flip with me. Attitude like that is even less attractive in an old maid.”

Fred made an angry noise, sounded like he was about to shout something at the Mega Beast but Lizzie beat him to it. A month—well over a whole month —of dealing with this, the most heartless of mothers imaginable, and she really could not take the negging any more. Least of all in front of the man she wanted to be with.

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you.”

Fred appeared next to Lizzie, jumping up and down as he celebrated. It felt amazing, like Lizzie’s heart could jump and take off. And Polly surely had no idea why her daughter looked like a canary-eating cat. 

“Oh!’ Mother pushed away from the table, throwing her arms up in the air. “I can’t force you to do anything! I just wonder what you’ll think of this in ten years, when you’re still living in your old room and no one wants anything to do with you. What’ll you do, then?”

Lizzie looked at her mother, blinking slowly at her in semi-disbelief. Fred blurted out what she was thinking. “What, you mean, like yourself?”

Lizzie had to fight back the grin that wanted to spread on her face. Instead she ducked her head and said, “And with that, I think I ought to take my cue and retire.” Before Mother could argue Lizzie walked away, out and up the stairs where she finally let the smile that she had been holding back start to spread on her face.

She didn’t make it out of the kitchen before Fred was walking next to her, talking excitedly. “That was fantastic ! I could get used to you dueling the Mega Bitch. Oh, I wish you could see yourself now, back when you was little.”

Halfway up the stairs, Lizzie, mindful to not be caught talking to herself for fear that she might insense her mother into another argument, paused and took a deep bow, eliciting applause from her beaming friend, accompanied by wild clapping and foot stomping. They were near her bedroom when Lizzie finally felt safe with talking to Fred since they had fled the city in her car. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I did any of that!” 

As she opened her door Fred said, “Better believe it! You n’ me, we’re gonna do this grow-ups thing right! We’re gonna go crashin’ through everything, like, like a cannonball or a, firetruck, we’re gonna go ramming through all the walls, then we’re gonna explode—” Fred hopped around in an almost manic dance, before he ended up crashing on the ground, miming what seemed to be crashing with appropriate sound effects.

Lizzie, sitting on the edge of her bed, smiled at the man writhing on the ground. She had fantasized that Fred back in her life would mean more. Well, something more intimate, strange. But this, right now, made her feel for the first time in a very long time like she was, weirdly, where she needed to be.

As Fred wound himself out he looked up at Lizzie, grin stretched across his face and said something that made the blood chill in her veins. “When can we throw a party? The last one we went through, we didn’t get to do anything . Now, lookit you. You don’t need me to fight the Mega Bitch. Just imagine what we can do, now!”

You don’t need me anymore. You’ve got you now.

Lizzie fought that fear, that because she could now more or less hold her own against Mother, that Fred would fly off from her anew. And instead of telling him the obvious; with Polly in the house a party would never, ever happen, something wicked inside of her prompted Lizzie to ask about a game Fred had once loudly insisted they play. 

“What, a game, like spin the bottle?”

She could have sworn she saw something flicker in Fred’s eyes as he looked up at her. Finally, with no perceptible difference in his voice, the imaginary friend said, “ Exactly ! Party games! If we’re gonna have a party, we’re doing all the party games. None of that pin the tail on the donkey nonsense.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look dignified, laid out on the ground with his impossibly long legs splayed out. “ We’re sophisticated.”

Ah, oh well . And besides, who knew if he really even knew what spin the bottle entailed? Maybe she’d have another chance to test the waters out. She didn’t dare ask herself when that might be.

Lizzie put her hands on her hips and smiled at him. “And who’re we gonna invite?”

Fred opened his mouth, then closed it, only to throw his arms and legs out dramatically. “Everyone! There’s gotta be loads of people who’d love a party hosted by none other than Drop Dead Fred!” He exaggerated every word of his name by thrusting his body off the ground in a spasm.

Lizzie laughed and shook her head. “Mm. Sorry to say, Fred, but the only party I can attend is in a few months.”

“OOOOOH,” Fred disappeared, only to reappear at Lizzie’s little desk, leaning against it. “What kinda party issit? Can we finally do some wine spitting?”

“Funny enough I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be required. But, I mean, call me old fashioned, I prefer just drinking it.” Yes, because drinking it lowers my inhibitions and lets me act like a semi-normal woman, not some neurotic, child-like wreck.

Fred threw his hands out. “So—who’s the party for?”

Would he still be here in months’ time? Last time, Lizzie knew too well, he had been around for three days, two nights. She forced herself to feel hopeful, where she might have felt only despair at the thought of him leaving her again. “Remember the woman whose house boat you sank?” 

“Well, yeah. She’s fun. I like her. Someone who appreciates rough housing.” 

Having to suppress a laugh, Lizzie recalled how Janie had tried to deal with her neurotic friend’s imaginary friend. Mainly, by strangling what she only thought was Drop Dead Fred. She very well could have been the only person, with the exception of Mickey, who might honestly believe Lizzie that Fred was a real, well, whatever he was, who did not have countless memories as proof positive of his existence. “Janie’s getting married in four months.”

The excited look on Fred’s face disintegrated. “Eeew! Yuck!” He pretended to start spitting on the ground and made obnoxious gagging sounds. He looked at Lizzie, a disbelief on his face that bordered on betrayal. “And—you let her?”

“Not much I can do about it, Fred.”

“Snotface, that’s dis-gus-ting! People ought to spend their time roughhousing more, not snoggin’ .” He held his hands out, a serious, and judgemental, look on his face as his voice lowered into an almost adult octave. “That is foul , really.”

Lizzie bit her lip, wanting to playfully break it to her imaginary friend that adults who roughhouse have a propensity for it to turn into snogging. But she stopped herself, Lizzie unable to ignore the pang she felt in her chest. He really is unphased by me kissing him. Sitting back on the edge of her bed Lizzie looked down, willing the sadness to go back to where she always shoved it before she looked back to her friend, smiling. “They make Janie happy. More than any man she spent—rough housing—with, can ever say.”

Fred was standing up and he walked away, in the direction of the other side of the room as he dramatically stuck his nose in the air, hands shoved in his trouser pockets. “Well, I— don’t —care! It sounds bleak, Snotface. I mean, who’d wanna hold a party for somethin’ like that?”

On that note Lizzie knew she couldn’t stand sitting around in soaked clothes that itched and clung to her skin. Or stand around and listen to someone she had had genuine fantasies of tell her that kissing and cooties were gross. Therapy cannot come soon enough this week.

That was, if she could get Fred to leave her alone long enough to do it.

Getting to her feet Lizzie looked at Fred, forcing a smile on her mouth she didn’t feel any longer. “I want to take a bath now, so—”

Fred rolled his eyes at her. “Agh! See! Just like I said before,” he pointed at her. “A bath .” Fred said it with unvarnished distaste. “S’posed to keep the dirt on your skin, like a badge of honor.”

It truly was a credit to either how much she was lovesick over the man or how—irretrievably, disturbed—she was, but as sad as Lizzie had felt a moment earlier, Fred managed to make her smile at something so stupid and juvenile. “Be that as it may, I don’t like dirt on my skin when I sleep.”

He grimaced at her and Lizzie fully expected Fred to launch into another tirade. This time, though, as his face distorted into a dramatic expression, Fred stopped and stood straight up, a calm look on his face as he said, “Alright then, do as you please. After all, we’re grown ups, but I’ll keep my filth, thank-you-very-much.”

Lizzie laughed, having to bury her mouth in her hand as soon as the first loud laugh came out of her. No sooner than she did than she heard an answering yell from down the hall. “Elizabeth? What are you laughing about?”

Lizzie shut her eyes. “Nothing Mother.” As she felt the smile that her friend had given her fade off of her mouth, Lizzie felt the presence of Fred next to her. She looked over at her friend and sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t start yelling or raising his voice so close to her. 

Fred had an almost serious look on his face as he examined Lizzie’s. “So, how long’re we stickin’ around here?”

That’s a whole can of worms. Lizzie laughed, humorlessly this time. “We can talk about it tomorrow. Right now, I feel pooped.”

Fred looked like he was going to argue then he smiled warmly at her. “Alright, Snotface. Ugh, bathing and sleeping, though.” He gave her a knowing, disgusted look.

Stifling a chuckle, Lizzie focused on gathering her very girlish sleeping dress and some undies, then, before she could stop herself, she turned and asked Fred, “Can you stick around in here? All night?”

Fred rolled his eyes. “I already trashed the whole house! What’s left for me to smash?” Then he stopped, a telltale, horrifying grin spreading on his face. “The windows! All of ‘em!”

Lizzie grabbed onto her friend’s jacket, pulling him in closer before he realized what she was doing. “ Nonono . Do not smash any windows, Fred.” As Fred looked like he was about to pout, or argue, she continued with her earlier request. “When I come back, I’d—I’d like it if you stuck around a bit. While I slept. We can talk before I fall asleep.”

Fred’s eyebrows creased as he looked at her. “Well, yeah. I was plannin’ on it. Why’re you asking?”

Lizzie sucked her lips in. “It’s a little hard to sleep, alone, after you spend years sleeping in the same bed with somebody else.” She didn’t add that she longed especially for a man near her when she slept, really longed for the intimacy of laying in bed with someone.

Fred wore a look of distaste. “‘long as you don’t want me to do nothin’ weird.”

Wait, what constitutes “weird” for Fred? As soon as she thought it Lizzie imagined what, exactly, he meant by that. He definitely meant the exact sort of thing which her heart yearned for. 

Well, she amended, hopefully, that, or trying to sleep with a wild hyena in your arms.

Her heart felt like a big, heavy cannonball in her chest and Lizzie knew she needed some private time to think. She leaned over, wanting to hug her friend, but became immediately worried that initiating too much intimate contact might do something bad. Or scare him.

So she turned and walked out into the hall, leaving Fred in her room as she went to her bathroom. 

Drop Dead Fred waited till Lizzie Cronin had fallen asleep, huddled up underneath her childhood, pastel-pink quilted comforter before he stopped staring at her. He had been almost afraid to look away from her; as though he would, at any moment, lose the last chance he had to see her.

Even for him, Fred knew the worry was a stupid one. At least it was, for a friend abandoner such as he was.

As soon as she had fallen asleep—which he knew the exact moment it happened, from a long time spent watching his Charges fall asleep—Fred nevertheless hesitated, wondering if he could get away with running a hand over her face. He eventually walked away from the window ledge where he had been perched like a bird. Walking a few further steps, Fred concentrated on the closet door and, with a weary sigh, opened it.

As he shut it behind him Fred found himself in Central and he didn’t need to look behind himself to see his own door now behind him. It was deep green, had been marked, “fred” in lopsided salmon-colored paint, and below that was painted the vague shape of a face meant to be his own with x’s drawn for eyes and a sick look on its face. On the door in various places were hand prints, painted in a variety of colors.

Fred had prided himself for the uniqueness of his door. After all, every other door that surrounded Central’s huge circular platform had cool enough colors on them, but only Drop Dead Fred had the stones to really customize his own. He was allowed some concessions being such an old wanker as he was, after all.

As he walked down the steps that lead down to Central’s platform Fred wasn’t feeling his normal, careless, brave self. In fact, for once, he hoped no one would recognize him among the teeming, colorful crowds of his brethren he had woven into—

“Fred! Look, everyone, it’s Freddie !” Before he had a chance to envision an escape—maybe even run back into the physical world—he could feel their hands closing in on him. 

Fixing one of his best fake smiles on his face Fred feigned excitement at seeing people that he, of course, recognized. As one of the oldest of their kind—according, at least, to the people he had come to see—Fred more than likely had met almost everyone here, even if only in passing.

He normally didn’t mind being this damn popular but at the moment, Fred just wished he had thought to come in disguise. Someone dragged him over to a group and they all greeted each other with a joyful, silly dance as was the custom, and he did indeed feel nearly cheered by the dancing. As he spent time greeting and talking to all of the excited younger imaginary friends, Fred started to lose his cool, not recalling the names and faces of a few of the excited ones who ran up to him, wanting to be bashed or roughhoused with by a legend like he apparently was. He could barely feign disgust enough to vomit on one of them as it was.

As he shook someone’s hand, already knowing that he was going to get a little shock from their joy buzzer, Fred felt as he began to lose his temper. “Alright,” he fixed a smile on his face as some of the friends surrounding him took steps back and looked at him. He really didn’t sound all that angry; he had managed to mask most of it, but he knew better than to really believe that they didn’t know that he was aggravated by them. After all, the one really special thing about them—besides, of course, being the absolute, most, bloody awesome things that existed—was their ability to read emotions and to be highly perceptive.

Feigning clearing his throat, Fred was about to ask them about where the ones he had come to see were when a solemn-faced clown with kind brown eyes told him, “They’re ready for you, Fred-fred.”

Fred really felt like he had to pull out an anchor that had lodged in his chest. For once, it wasn’t for show. He had known that he of course had an appointment here when he had first realized that he needed to come back for the first time in five years. Things just made sense here, in a way that was still comforting to an imaginary friend who had been in the physical world for years, where nothing of course made any semblance of sense.

He looked at the clown and asked, “And where are they this time, Patsy?”

Patsy gave him a smile that was meant to be comforting. “They’re in the classroom.” 

Fred closed his eyes, taking a second to try willing a happy look on his face that he only wished was genuine. “Right, o’ course.” 

Sammiel the Man Spider twisted some of his furry eight legs together and said, “It might not be a bad omen.”

Fred scoffed, dramatically throwing his head to the side as he looked at the man spider, sneering at him. “What’re you, crazy? Me, scared ? I’m Drop Dead Fred, I’m not scared of nothing .” He tried to push away that fear he felt, seeing the worried looks on the faces of the friends he could see. “You’ll see. I’ll smash that place up so they can’t use it anymore.”

Most of the friends, who now grew to consist of at least a crowd of fifty, all crowded around an elder of their people, cheering him. It did something to invigorate Fred as he popped the collar up on his jacket and strode away. He almost made it away before someone stopped him, grabbing onto his arm. 

He glared at the woman in the simple medieval outfit who stood in his way—simple, except for the arrow that was sticking out of the side of her head, with a long trickle of purple blood down her head. Clumsy Liddy gave him a strained smile and said, “Really want to go in there—like that?”

Fred scoffed. “Like what?” When Liddy kept looking at him meaningfully, Fred looked down at himself. Looking back at the anxious friend Fred rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. His hair was slicked up in a pointy mohawk and he was dressed in an only slightly better fitting suit, this time with garish, uneven mustard yellow and his trademark sick-booger green vertical stripes. He threw his arms out. “Better?”

Liddy gave him a smile that only looked happy, but the happiness was nowhere to be found in her bloodshot eyes. “Knock em’ dead, Fred.”

The play on words would have normally pleased him. As it was, all Fred could manage out was a friendly laugh. He turned around, feeling all of the eyes of the friends who had surrounded him as he walked away proudly, his head turned up so that his nose was up in the air. He walked to the school room as easily as if it were imprinted on his mind. Along with the rest of his kind, it may as well have been.

He couldn’t hear it but one of the friends leaned over to another one, whom he was trying to comfort by patting him on the back, saying, “It’s going to be alright.”

The other one looked at the friend comforting him, tears rolling down his face as he whispered, “But he’s broken. They can’t fix him.”

This vast area, a platform held aloft over a black pit, was a place that Drop Dead Fred knew so well that he could probably, still, walk to the school room there with a hand over his eyes. In fact, if he wasn’t so—uncharacteristically—nervous, he might have done that for the fun of it. As it was it felt like he couldn’t get to the free-standing door, among a haphazard sea of different doors clustered on the massive platform, quickly enough.

But as he grabbed the door handle and twisted it open it felt like he was deflated. In fact, Fred did deflate as the door closed behind him, laying in a suit-and-skin heap on the ground, eyes staring into the room he had just entered.

Chapter Text

They sat at the head of the room, seven of the most highly esteemed of their kind, wearing Serious Clothes; the kind of things that grown-ups in the physical world wore when they needed to be taken Seriously. Like the name of the room entailed it was a classroom—only the kind with one large Teacher’s Desk, so big that it stretched along one side for the length of the room, allowing the seven in Serious Clothes to sit behind it with their giant stacks of papers in front of them quite comfortably. It reeked wonderfully of chalk and had the distinct undernote of PlayDoh in that baldfaced lie of fun that these childrens’ prisons always did. And the only student’s desk was one that looked like it could fit a middle schooler, like Natbrat, comfortably, which sat a few feet away from the great Teacher’s Desk in the dead center.

One of the seven, whom Fred couldn’t see from his position from where he was still deflated on the ground, said, “Drop Dead Fred, get up and take your seat. You’re late for the roll call.”

Deciding against just remaining on the ground where he was, the imaginary friend put himself in the desk before he forgot that the bloody thing was, as they always were, too small for him. Grunting, Fred tried to shove his knees inside of the tight space in the desk, growling as he grabbed the desk’s top, trying, desperately, to find how to twist it off so that it could lay flat on the side of the seat. 

As he continued to struggle one of the seven called out to him. “So we’re all here. Can you please tell us why you needed to come here before the contract you had with your new Charge ended?”

Fred, huffing and puffing as he started to get genuinely aggravated inside of the desk, grabbed hold of either side of the desk’s top and tried to wrench it loose. When it didn’t work, Fred felt as the top spike that made up his mohawk drooped, falling over one side of his face. Looking up at the seven, Fred blurted out, “I’m not with my current Charge! I’m—I’m not supposed to be back with Snotface, I’m still supposed to be with Natbrat until she an’ her dad make up and with—with—” He choked on the word, could not still come to terms that Snotface had gone , gone and married Icky Sticky Mickey Fartpants . Even mentioning it made him want to vomit. 

He might have, if not for the fact that one of the seven spoke up, hurried. “Whoever you’re with is your current Charge! Sometimes things just happen, things change. You ought to know about that, better even than most of those young ones out there.”

Another one added, “And of all people, this is the same one you got in trouble with five years prior. Bringing a human , your own Charge into this place, all so you could hijack the seeing table! We tried to wipe her memory, but of course it didn’t all take, so she remembers whatever you two did in her head! Then you snuck back in here a few days ago to do the same thing.”

“Ex-cuse me, I was being held hostage by my Charge !” Fred stamped both of his feet on the tiled ground as hard as he could, his nostrils flaring as he took in deep, heavy breaths. “An’ let me tell you something: nothing changes, not for me it doesn’t!” 

It was true. Before Snotface, Fred had what his kind would think of as a distinguished record of service. He had failed the least of any imaginary friend in existence and he had been in service longer than any other friend. He had a reputation that he proudly upheld, a persistent presence in his Charges’ lives until they learned to believe in themselves, girls, all of them, who felt inferior in their lives. 

“I had to show Snotface that she could do it alone. And I wasn’t done with Natbrat—not by a long shot! She might have needed me to even stick ‘round till she was a teenager. I could scare the daylights out of any girl who said somethin’ mean about her family, could make any boys who wanted to kiss her think twice—”

One of the seven interrupted him. “Fred, you are not the girl’s father. It is not your place to steer her behavior, or that of those whom she chooses to associate with.”

He really hated talking to these bozos. And to make matters worse, they weren’t even proper Bozos. They just talked and talked , in big words and about things that Fred and no proper imaginary friend had remotely any interest in. 

One of the others added, “You truly are taking the events from the last time you were with this Cronin woman too far. You did not fail her as a child as we’ve reviewed; you were put up against a Great Beast without any of the proper precautions. None of us knew the details of Polly Cronin’s relationship with the girl’s father, how it had twisted her heart. You were trapped against your will, and from what we can see…” she coughed, then added, “to put it bluntly: Elizabeth has more than forgiven you.”

Fred turned a bright shade of red as though he had become heavily sunburnt. He didn’t like what she was implying. Hated it. “I don’t see what any of that has to do with me! ” He finished by slamming the desk with his fists, forgetting that his knees were pressed up against the underside of it—until the shooting pain of the slam left him screaming in agony.

When he finished, whimpering, one of the other members of the seven snapped, “Enough is enough, Fred. State your case and tell us what you want.”

“F-fine.” Finally— finally —managing to find how the top could disengage, freeing his throbbing legs so that he could sigh and stretch them, Fred said, “I want to be removed from Snotface as my Charge and put back with Natbrat.”

When he looked at them he realized they were staring at him as though he had a second head growing from the side of his neck. For once he wasn’t getting the look because he was, in fact, sporting a second head from his neck.

Finally, the smallest one, a child with thick-lenses set in glasses perched on the end of her nose, said, “We’ll do no such thing.”

Fred threw his arms and legs out. “And why not ?”

All at once, the seven shouted at him, “Your Charge needs you!” it made Fred jump in the too-small seat. 

Fred, his face tightened up, shouted back, “No, she doesn’t!”

One of the seven rubbed at their face tiredly and groaned out, “I cannot believe we once offered this big baby a seat here.”

The friend that was a child made a disgusted sound and looked at the one who had just spoken. “Ex- cuse you? Can you mind the slurs?”

Fred, seeing an opportunity, jumped for it. “Ah! If you take me from Snotface, I’ll come back, do the—the thing.” He snapped his fingers, reappearing in a green business suit, his hair slicked down. “See? I can do the look.”

One of the seven made a face at him, making Fred look down and realize that, unlike the rest of them who wore all black, he was as colorful as ever.

Another member of the seven said, “I’m afraid it’s more than a matter of appearance , Mr. Fred.”

“Hey, no one calls me Mister, and I’m not about to start gettin’ called it now !” Fred gritted his teeth, hands balled into fists. “Call me that—again—and I’ll—”

One of the other members spoke quickly. “Give it up, it’s hopeless.” She smiled at him, something sad in her eyes as she looked at him. “I used to look up to you, myself. I wanted a record as long as yours, one day. So, please, listen to me when I say—”

“Yeah?” Fred asked sullenly, bringing his arms around his chest and dragging his long legs in as he looked down at his feet. “What stopped you from helpin’ kids?”

“Things change. Even for us. For all of us.” Fred scoffed, and she kept on. “No, really. We know, now, as much as we wish you would’ve taken a position up here with us that you want to be down in the physical world. You’re the loudest, the bravest of all of us. You were imprisoned for over a decade and you came out of it only to help slay the Mega Beast.”

Fred, with his arms still tight around himself, looked down at his feet sullenly. “That wasn’t me, I just helped Snotface see what she should’ve known all along.” Feeling that pent up anger he had towards the woman, he snarled out, “Stupid dumb dumb girl. Can’t ever… do anything on her own without someone tellin’ her she’s fine.”

One of the seven nearly exploded, “Fred, can’t you see? She did need you. She carries you inside of her still.”

Fred looked up at them, raw anger in his eyes and not caring that it was there as he shouted, “Then why’m I back in Snotface’s room? She shouldn’t need me anymore if I did right by her in the first place!”

The one who spoke up seemed to take no small amount of pleasure in saying, “Things change. People change. Even you.”

Fred froze—again, for once, not literally. He finally turned, looked up at the member of the seven who had spoken to him. Softly—with genuine anger inside of him—he demanded, “Never—ever—say that about me, again.”

One of the other members of the seven, who had been burying their face in their hand, finally emerged, this time looking frustrated as they slammed their hand down on the desk. “There’s nothing wrong with it! We’re supposed to help our Charges do it, why shouldn’t we ?”

Fred felt like he was going to break out into a cold sweat at the thought. Letting out a nervous chuckle, Fred said, “But we aren’t supposed to change. I don’t change.”

One of the seven seemed to be suppressing a chuckle. When Fred snapped his gaze at the offender the man feigned needing to cough, looking down at the table. 

Then the member, the one who said she had once looked up to him, said, “We also help our Charges learn that whatever it is that makes them special is what they ought to embrace.” She smiled at Fred, her eyes seeming to shine with warmth. “And you’re special. At the rate you’re going you’re going to burn yourself out with two little girl versions of your Charges under your watch as their Guardians. And it’s not fair to one, to not dedicate yourself fully to them one at a time.”

Another member of the seven added, “It is our duty to provide for one child at a time the thing that they most desire and almost never receive: complete, unequivocal, devotion and love.”

“For some, the fragile especially, we teach them how to misbehave and protect themselves against the cruelties of the real world.”

Fred growled. “I already know all this! I invented a lot of this myself, I’ll have you know!” But I didn’t need any fancy big words to do it.  

The youngest looking member of the seven gave him an astonished look. “Then why are you so against doing it for one of the women you have a duty to?”

“Natbrat’s not grown up!” He had yelled it so loud—demanded—that it shook the whole room. The members of the seven stared at him in shock before Fred could stop seeing red long enough to realize what he’d done. He closed his eyes, biting his lip. He wasn’t used to having to hold anything back, any emotion he felt. Like any of the ponces up there would tell him he knew that whatever emotions he felt weren’t wrong . At least, they had never before been bad. 

He was changing. 

Even the way that the seven looked at him was different. The one who disliked him seemed to hesitate before he asked his question. “Fred, what, exactly, have you been feeling?”

Again Fred turned red. He wasn’t used to this—modulating his emotions, donkey poo —but he forced some calm inside of himself. “Nothing different.”

“ Drop Dead Fred —”

Fred threw himself out of his desk, tossing himself on the ground as he succumbed finally to a tantrum that he had been incapable of fighting all along. He cried out, “I don’t feel nothin’! Nothing! Nothing !”

As he continued to pound his feelings into the ground the seven watched one of the most loved of their kind acting, well, like one of their Charges. They waited until he tired himself out, which took far longer than they would have anticipated. By the time Fred grew hoarse, could only manage to tiredly slam his fists into the ground, some of the seven were playing on their phones. One was taking a nap.

Fred signaled the finish of his episode by whimpering and resting his face on the ground. 

They waited a few breaths, then the member who idolized the friend she now saw as a broken mess on the ground leaned over to the other member to her right and softly said, “Look what she’s doing to him.”

With his face still pressed to the ground so his voice was muffled, Fred said, “Can hear you, you know.”

“Then”, the member who disliked Fred said, “you know what you have to do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“ No I don’t—”

This time, most of the members of the seven cried it out at the same time. “Yes, you do!” And someone added, "Help her, however she needs helped."

Fred leapt to his feet, his face completely red. He approached the desk of the seven, jabbing his finger at them. “Lookit here. Take me away from Snotface ‘fore I ruin her life completely. She’s a wreck ‘cause of me.” He paused, biting his bottom lip and shutting his eyes. “Don’t make me say the “p” word.”

Some of the members looked embarrassed, including the one who disliked him most. “ Mr. Fred , there’s ladies present!”

Fred grabbed onto the edge of the seven's desk, everyone on the other side flinching, fully expecting him to launch himself across it. Instead he pulled himself up as if trying to lean over it. He looked directly at the face of the one who liked him the most. “Please.” He shuddered as he said it, dry heaving as he retracted off of the desk, rubbing his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.

One of the members sighed, a long suffering sound, and started to massage their forehead. “I think you’re mistaken. If you’re attached to the woman, still, then she obviously needs you.” Before Fred could interject the member motioned to the man who disliked Fred. “Please.” Fred flinched at the word and before he could recover, the man said, “You love her, it’s why you couldn’t keep her out of your mind.” The man let out a long suffering sigh and muttered under his breath, “Obviously.”

Fred nodded, ecstatically yelling, “Of COURSE I love Snotface! I’ll always love her, always !”

One of the members grimaced, then said, “Fred, I think he meant it—” 

She was stopped as a member sitting next to her took hold of her arm. “No no, let’s not open that can of worms if he’s incapable of figuring it out himself.”

Fred put his hands on his hips and looked at the two who were talking to each other menacingly. “What’s that about?”

The member who just chastised the other blinked at him. “What?”

“Okay, what’s that you lot are whispering about?” He motioned between them, leaned forward.

“Nothing,” the other member said, her voice too cheery.

“Something you don’t want to tell Drop Dead Fred?”

The member who was his biggest supporter gave him a pained smile and said, “Fred, I don’t think you’re gonna like anything we have to tell you.”

“Oh? Like what?”

The one who disliked him broke in before she could try to talk to him. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this. We’re gonna be talking in circles all night. You,” he pointed at Fred. “are going to make good on the pact made between Natalie Bunce and Elizabeth Bunce, nee Cronin, which states that you are to remain with Elizabeth,  not leaving, until she doesn’t need you anymore. The agreement was made with the full cooperation of both parties, the aforementioned Natalie and Elizabeth Bunce. Furthermore, your continued desire to interfere with Elizabeth’s life has long been of note. Frankly, I’m surprised you see this as punishment and not a reward.”

Fred, whose mouth had fallen open in abject shock, cried out, “WHO said I wanted to interfere in Snotface’s life?”

Most of the members cried out, “Everyone!”

Fred flinched, overcome with guilt over his—admitted—preoccupation with the one person he should have known better than to fixate on. He pressed a hand to his face, despair almost choking him before he could get out, “You don’t understand! I’m not even bein’ a—a knobend about this! Really ! I’m here, ‘cause I can’t be ‘round Snotface. Not the way I am.”

One of the members, one of the few who had not yet challenged or asked him any questions, leaned forward on his elbows as he asked Fred, “And what way are you, Fred boy?”

Fred blurted it out, “She broke somethin’ in me, five years ago, and I—I think I wanted her to tell me she—she liked me, liked me like she thought she wanted to be with that—that bastard , Charles. But, she didn’t want nothin’ to do with me. So even after I was with Natbrat I watch her all the time, anytime I get a chance to, I get away from Nat so I can see what she’s up to. I—I lookit her, all I wanna do is, is gross stuff. Like what the grown-ups do. But I don’t want to do it anymore, I can’t be around her anymore, ‘cause I’ll just end up pissing her off an’ then she’ll try to kill me with those pills!” 

He could cry and throw a tantrum, but Fred knew that he was lying about one thing he was frightened to death about. About the kiss , how much Lizzie kissing him had started to make him feel. Made him think, even, of things that couldn’t, ever, be.

As if reading his mind one of the members also leaned in closer on their table, a weird smile on their face that didn’t quite reach their eyes. “Just curious, Fred, but, you didn’t happen to kiss her, didja?”

Fred could only stare at the member then he blinked way too many times and stuttered out, “What? Why—why would I do a thing like that?”

The members all stared at him, every one of them riveted. Finally the one who disliked him asked, “Did you not kiss Elizabeth Cronin in the seeing table, in her own subconscious?”

Fred swallowed thickly. “Y-yeah.” He flinched, aggressively gesturing with his hands as he tried to calm his nerves. “What of it? You all knew that already!” As he had learned, five years ago when he had returned back to Central and had sent Snotface back to her world, apparently every imaginary friend who was able to had watched Drop Dead Fred turn into a sap. Had ended his relationship with his Charge by asking her to kiss him.

A final, desperate act by a desperate thing that wanted something he could never have. Even if, as he told her that he had to say good-bye, her eyes shone at him, large, wet, pleading. 

He could have fallen into the warm pools of dark honey of her eyes. Still wasn’t quite sure, to that day, that he hadn’t and had just never come out.

The member who disliked him started to smile an eerie, strange grin. “Oh, goody. You can’t resist your Charge and it’s distorting you. In that case we have no choice but to exile you. If you happen to become better you’re welcome to return, but thank you for making the issue abundantly clear. I think you should figure out how you two are going to survive each other. My advice: be careful, or else you might end up like Rainbow Randall and start going native .”

Fred gripped at his chest, staring at the member with all of the rage he had in him. “It’s not about me! She’s not going to be happy with her imaginary friend around! She didn’t want me years ago, she won’t want me, now!”

The member cocked his eyebrow at him and, as the other members sounded like they were about to object, the man said, “You get one hour at Central, after which time you are confined to the physical world until your relationship with Elizabeth Bunce is resolved. One way or the other.” As Fred opened his mouth to protest, the man, in his first show of imaginary friend-like behavior, waved at Fred and, in a high pitched voice, said, “Buh-bye Drop Dead Fred!”

Before he could figure out what had just been done to him Fred yelped, discovered that he was falling, then he was gliding down a looping, enormous slide. The next moment he found that he was sitting on the ground in Central. Then when he looked up he realized that he was looking at his own door. Knew that once he walked through it he could never again come back here, in spite of what they claimed; that even if he had been tainted by the grown-up world, that he could come back one day. He could get better.

Emotion caught in Fred’s throat. He looked at his long-storied door, his portal between Central and the life of his current Charge, found himself walking up the cement steps to it, pressing his hand against it, spreading his fingers out like a blooming flower. He knew in that moment the mistake he had made, how he had never stopped loving Lizzie the Grown-Up more than he ever had anybody else, how he had short-changed Natbrat. He did deserve this, this exile. 

But he couldn’t stop himself from yearning, from wanting to fix his mistakes. And he wanted to save Lizzie’s life before he could do something horrible to it. Something that would finally make her hate him. More than anything, though, he didn’t want to hurt her.

He lowered his head, half-sitting as he laid atop the top step of his stairs, splaying out on it until the cold cement was pressed against his overhot face. “What’m I gonna do?”

Behind him, a curt, clipped voice answered, “You’re either gonna come with me so we can sort this disease thing of yours out, or,” Fred spun around, looked and saw him—a friend he could not recall ever seeing before. “you’re gonna end up like Rainbow Randall.”

Rainbow Randall. There was that name again. “Why’s everyone talking about him? What’s happened?”

The friend grimaced at him. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. It was a real disgusting mess. Want to know how to stop from becoming a leper in this place, though?” When Fred nodded eagerly, the friend smiled at him, revealing a large gap in his front teeth, a strangely insincere expression settling on his face. “Good. I think we might just become friends.”

“What can I do?”

The smile almost turned into something that felt more sincere. “I can... fix your head. Make your heart forget a few things. Long enough to put things right,” he motioned towards Fred’s door. “out there. And, as soon as we can get that woman to renounce you, you’ll get sent back here like a broken IKEA set, whether the seven dwarves of the realm want you to or not. After all, they just pretend to enforce some made up set of rules.” He cocked his head to the side and stared at Fred, his hands tight on the end of his black walking cane. “Find out that most of the world, even out there, is run by politeness and a belief in other people’s goodness, how in reality you can do anything you want. Well, what is it, you great big damn beanstack with a fucking carrot top wig? Gonna come with me, or are you really going to go ruin that poor woman’s life?”

Chapter Text

When Lizzie awoke she was relieved to find her dearest friend on the end of her bed, watching her. He was smiling, sitting with his legs crossed. 

Perhaps she was imagining it but as she continued with the day, Lizzie got the feeling that there was a warmth, and openness to him that had not been there before. Fred was more forthcoming than usual, felt like he held nothing back. In fact, it could be said that it was as if he was like his old self. The one that Lizzie remembered exploding into cornflakes, shaving a cat—which was definitely not meant in any euphemistic way, the way that Janie would have referred to it.

The day was interesting, strange. She remembered how the last time he had been in her life the way she had dreaded almost every time he was around her. Hearing him chatter to her as she brushed her teeth, and even when he surprised her as she bent down to pull something out from under her bathroom sink to drop a loogie into her hair, Lizzie felt, well, alive for the first time in what seemed like a long time.

But something felt off. Strange, like this Fred was not the same one that had pulled the fire alarm the day before.

The one she had kissed.

That thought led her down an emotional rabbit hole, which ended in shame. With the night to think it over, Fred, it seemed, really did just want to move on from the kiss. 

After saying a sullen good-bye to Mother for the day Lizzie got into her car, deciding that she wanted to take Fred to the place where she most often thought about him. As she parked her car in the same parking garage, Lizzie spared a moment to fear that Charles would, somehow, make a reappearance. But to her relief, it was just her and Fred, alone in the garage as she climbed out of her car.

“Nice to just be the two of us, doing things together, right?,” Lizzie asked, as if she meant to push away the lingering dread.

Fred, excited, called out, “Right! Just like I always told you, we’re great alone!”

Lizzie bit her lip as she locked her car door. She wished she could get the desire to have Fred alone with her, like she really wanted, out of her mind. She turned to Fred who hopped after her, a wide smile on his face as she tried to remember that she had gotten what she wanted. She’d gotten Fred, everything else— everything —was just extra.

Lizzie followed the imaginary friend to her studio, her chest growing tight with the thought of what she would soon be showing him. When he looked back at her questioningly from where he stood in the alley, next to the ladder, Lizzie breezed past him, smiling. “C’mon, Fred, use your imagination.” 

She started to climb. When she was halfway up she looked down, only to realize that Fred was staring right at her ass.

At first she felt flush at the sudden sexual objectification. Then something about it bothered her. When had Fred ever treated her like that? Not since she had become an adult, not even since he had come back. After she had kissed him. Any time he had objectified another woman it was purely innocent, as strange as it was to describe it that way. Meant to get a rise out of her, or a stifled laugh.

Uneasy but glad to hide it in disgust at his behavior, Lizzie snapped down at him, “Hey mister, I don’t think you’d like me staring at your ass!”

“Just checking to make sure that you remember to wear knickers. And, hey—” Fred shook his head and glared up at her. “hey! I’m not mister, don’t call me that!”

Lizzie laughed, throwing her head back. “Mister, Mister, Mister Freeeed!” She finished up the ladder and was at the start of the stairs when she turned, realized that Fred hadn’t climbed up with her, but was nevertheless standing there, waiting for her. “Thought you wouldn’t pass up the chance to climb a ladder.” She grinned, happy to bury her unease in forced cheer.

“Snotface,” Fred pointed down at the landing they were on, rusting and groaning just under the weight of Lizzie on it. “In case you haven’t noticed, this thing looks like it’s going to break at any minute. Even I’m not that reckless.” 

“Yeah?”

Fred grinned and shouted out, “I love it!”

The joy she felt at his reaction nearly erased the disturbing sense of unease she has felt. She climbed up the staircase and led him to her studio and as she dug her keys back out, Fred said, “Wait, this—this’ it?” 

“Yup.”

He glanced around, disbelief growing on his face. “What do you do in here?”

Lizzie popped her door open, almost for once reveling in the musty smell that poured out of her crypt. “I’ll show you.”

With the light clicked on, Lizzie turned and watched the expression change on his face, his eyes growing wide.

“Wait—” Fred stopped, and looked like he was suppressing a laugh. “That—that right there,” he pointed at the largest of the pieces she had done of the man in question. “That’s me , innit?”

He barely let her get a word in as Fred babbled on and touched almost everything in the room. She almost drowned out what he said, caught up in watching him, reading his expressions as he took it all in. He touched the most important item in the room, a relic of their shared past. Fred’s jack-in-the-box sat, like an object of worship, on its table.

Lizzie walked up to him, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched this precious man looking at everything in the room, a fresh excitement in him that she envied; if not as an artist, then as a human being. It was a joy, a love of new things that only a child had the right to feel. 

And it was that ; that, and a strange sense of being closed off from Fred, that oddly repelled Lizzie from him. From, as she had started to imagine her first time bringing him here, leaning over and kissing him again, like it wasn’t a big deal. She longed for a break in his energy, a moment of sober sensitivity, or at least something that made her feel like he was having a moment of sincerity. Even if he did not have the best experience with her yesterday, Lizzie thought she owed it to the both of them to kiss him once in the light, to see for herself what Fred’s expression looked like when she did.

Her eyebrows grew tight as he examined him. There was something wrong with Fred, she was increasingly certain. Everything, every movement and thing he said, fit in perfectly with the personality of Fred. But there was something in him, a Fred-ness , that was missing. At least, the Fred that she had felt the presence of often in the past few years, the one, too, who seemed to not be fully open with her in a strange way that hinted at something new in the man. It had felt less like he was dealing with his Charge and more like a grown-up friend.

Finally, the imaginary friend in question, with his arms crossed over his chest, looked at Lizzie with a conspiratorial grin. “Right. I want my cut.”

“‘scuse me?”

“I. Want. My. Cut. You used me, my—intellectual property—in your work. Now I want some of it.” He nodded at her sagely.

Lizzie laughed. “What? What are you planning to do with it? What could you buy ?”

He grinned and disappeared, reappearing in front of her, crouched slightly so that he was almost face to face with her. “Worried? You oughta be! You won’t have this cool room anymore, not by the time I’m finished with you!”

Lizzie slapped him away, laughing, and Fred reacted as if she’d hurt him, staggering dramatically back, holding onto the side of his face where she’d tapped him. “Oi! Thought we agreed, no rough housing!”

Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest, her eyebrow cocked at him. “Thought you were against that rule.”

“Yeah, but, you’re not ‘sposed to hit me !”

They spent most of the day playing and talking in her studio. Then, just before three, as Lizzie was laid back in her loveseat with Fred sitting next to her, telling him about everything in her life—with the worse parts, like Charles’ reappearance, cut out conveniently—she pulled her phone out to look at the time only to realize that Nat had texted her.

“Oh, shoot.”

Fred, who was laying back lazily with a hand scratching through his mess of hair, asked, “What is it?”

She almost hesitated. Was she afraid that Nat could repossess Fred? Or that Fred wanted to be with the girl more than her? Pushing that aside, she said, “Nat’s alone tonight. Wants to know if I’m working, or if I can come over and investigate this movie she wants to watch with me.”

“Ooh!” Fred disappeared then reappeared in the middle of the room, clapping his hands excitedly. “I love movies! And, you’re not working , are you?”

Lizzie didn’t know why she said it as we instead of me, but she said, “No, we’re not working .” And just as thoughtlessly she texted Nat back, told her that she was doing nothing but hanging out with Fred.

As she sent it Lizzie realized the mistake she’d made. 

Before she even arrived at the Bunce home, Lizzie saw Nat tramping out of the house, stomping in steps that way that meant that she was about to make someone’s day hell.

Fred whistled. “Whoa! Haven’t see her that mad since I tore open her soccer ball to see what’s inside!”

Oh, Lizzie could believe it. She almost flinched, under the weight of the girl’s anger beating at her even from across the lawn. She fixed a smile on her mouth and called out to her step-daughter, “So, what movie did you want to—”

Nat raced up to her, her hands extended—as though she meant to strangle Lizzie. As the girl raced up to the woman thankfully the girl dropped her hands, where they hung at her waist clenched into little fists. She did, however, yell at Lizzie.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME?”

Lizzie had to take a breath and remember to blink. “Uh—”

“He came back, and you didn’t even bother to want to tell me!”

“Well,” Fred said, “she’s got you, there .”

“And I—wait—” Nat stopped and started to tilt her head at a weird angle before Lizzie could realize what the girl was doing. She kept grimacing and looked like she was giving them the side eye. Then her head grew still and her eyes opened wide. “There he is! You bastard ! You didn’t even say good-bye, you just ran off with Snotface like I didn’t even exist!”

Lizzie didn’t bother to hide her chuckle. “Feels good to not be in the hot seat for once.”

“ You! ” Well, that relief didn’t last long . “I felt sorry for the past two days. Dad’s been gone, even my boyfriend wants me to leave him alone.” She threw her arms up, staring at Lizzie with a disbelief that should have only properly belonged in the face of a woman more than double her age on her face. “What gives ?”

It had taken some talking but eventually Lizzie got the two in the house, where, it turned out, the movie Nat wanted to watch was her favorite Disney movie. Lizzie didn’t really know anyone under the age of forty whose favorite Disney movie was one of the older live action movies, but lo and behold, it seemed that Mickey’s girl had hidden depth to her.

They sat in the living room, with Fred sprawled out in the armchair, his legs hanging out, sunk low. Sat on the couch next to her step-daughter Lizzie watched as the girl dug the case out and popped the disc in. As soon as she started the movie up, Nat snapped her fingers.

“Ah! Gotta get the popcorn!” Before Lizzie could get up, the girl had fled the room. Deciding to just wait for the girl to get the snack, she slid back in the couch and found herself with nothing else to do but stare at the still image of the Disney castle, frozen in pause.

It was strange to be back in this house that she had not stopped missing since she had left, well over a month ago. It still smelled of the mixture of the herbs and patchouli oil that Mickey’s mother had given them a massive amount of for Christmas. Was a warm contrast to the austere and overly clean smell of the house she had been living in for over a month. But even that oddness was eclipsed eventually, albeit in the face of the fresh weirdness that was the reality of Fred’s continued presence. 

In fact she nearly started to whistle in boredom. Then Lizzie looked over at Fred, who smiled and waved at her. The growing stretch of silence had allowed Lizzie to think about something that she had been trying to suppress. How it felt to her that there was something different about the way he was acting. Fred reminded her of how he treated her when she was a girl—minus the strange objectification, when she had climbed the ladder. 

Like she was less of a real woman to him, while at the same time possessing a body that was incongruous to some image, of her as a child, to him.

With a chuckle she hoped wasn’t nervous, Lizzie said, in a low voice, “It’s been on my mind, you know.”

Fred looked at her, confused. “What ‘s?”

Was her face turning red? “You know. Yesterday.”

Fred grinned and something felt hot, coiling low in Lizzie’s chest. “Ah, yeah.” He chuckled. “Think they had to wring everything out in there?”

“Uh?” Then Lizzie, cursed with a one track mind, had to struggle to remember the law that they had broken the day before. She forced a smile on her lips, unease already starting to grow inside of her. “You know, I probably shouldn’t bring it up, but…” She cleared her throat and looked up at the ceiling, anywhere, really, instead of her imaginary friend’s face. “That thing, in the closet.” When he said nothing, Lizzie, expecting the worst—like he would give her an angry rebuke, a whole day late—she was surprised to, instead, see the confused look on his face. 

“What’re you talking about?”

Lizzie sucked her lips in. “Fred. We kissed yesterday.” There, she said it.

It turned out that there were worse things than him being angry at her. Like being utterly confused. “We kissed ?” Something flashed in his eyes, but then his face broke into a wide grin. “Snotface, I think you meant I spat on you. This morning.” He readjusted himself in his chair and nodded at her.

Lizzie felt her face growing a deep rep. “Stop it.”

That made Fred pause. “What’s the matter?”

“Drop Dead Fred, I kissed you yesterday.” She added, “and you kissed me back.”

Fred made a face as if he was a conspirator, then winked at her. “Oh, riiiight. I get it. Yeah , we kissed.” He started to suck his lips in, as if he were suppressing a laugh.

How could he do this to me? Lizzie dropped her head in her hands. Was eh seriously acting like he couldn’t even remember it happened? 

“H-hey,” she could hear Fred say it, nervously. “don’t like this game no more.”

Lizzie chuckled, the sound muffled by her hands. “Don’t worry, I’m plenty sick of it, too.”

Before either could say a thing further Nat returned, a huge bowl in her hands. The smile she was wearing faded as she saw the look on Lizzie’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Lizzie smiled broadly at her step-daughter. “Nothing, nothing.” She patted the seat next to her and nodded until the girl, with a skeptical look on her face, took her place sitting close to her. Lizzie had sat Nat firmly in between her and Fred.

As the movie started, Lizzie found herself grateful for the excuse and outlet of her step-daughter pressed against her eating the popcorn, watching a movie she hadn’t seen since they had watched it together years ago, the impromptu choice of a then five-year-old Natalie Bunce. At first she was charmed by the movie and then the actual premise of the film came back to her. This movie wasn’t just about a boy and a dragon. It was actually about the loving, protective relationship that runaway Pete had with Elliott, a dragon only he could see. A dragon who was his imaginary friend. 

She didn’t realize that she was squeezing Nat too hard during the opening number until the girl let out a low, “Ow,” and pulled at her arm away. 

“S-sorry.” She didn’t dare look at Fred. 

Lizzie started to relax, even remembered some parts of it. Then a song started up, where Pete sang to the dragon about how they loved each other, and Lizzie found that she had a hard time breathing. It was a stupid, pandering, downright saccharine piece, complete with a badly animated dragon and a kid who couldn’t sing worth a damn. 

The tear that slipped down her face surprised Lizzie. She got up as soon as she felt the waterworks start, rushed off to the bathroom as she ignored Nat crying out, “Where’re you going ?” 

In the bathroom Lizzie hoped as much as a woman could hope that Fred would leave her alone until she could get herself back together.

Back in the living room, Nat, awkwardly watching the rest of the song, sat with the overlarge popcorn bowl on her lap. She licked off some of the popcorn residue that was on her lips, then tilted her head to the side. As before, she couldn’t make out Fred, not fully; but she could see that the imaginary friend was definitely sitting in the chair.

She took in a deep breath. “What’s going on?” When she heard nothing, the girl’s shoulders slumped. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to hear you anymore. But, you can hear me. ” Nat hesitated, then continued, “You’re hurting Lizzie. I don’t know what you did, but she’s worse than before you came back. I gave you to her so you could make her happy, not make her wanna cry. And you’re supposed to make it so she can talk dad into not moving us away.” She turned, looked straight at Fred even though she couldn’t see him when she did it. “Please. You have to help. I can’t leave .”

Then, feeling dumb, Nat turned away and stared down into her bowl of popcorn as she looked up at the screen, watching as Pete entered Passamaquaddy with the bumbling Elliot. 

Eventually Lizzie came back into the room and sat down next to Nat as though nothing happened. Somehow, Nat knew that if she asked, her stepmother—soon to be ex-stepmother—would try to act like she had just gone off to pee. For five minutes.

It also didn’t escape the pre-teenager’s notice that Lizzie didn’t say a word to Fred.

The movie ended eventually, and Nat couldn’t believe it, but the tension in the room made her wish that she could just go back to her room and do something like her homework. 

It feels like how Gramma Bunce’s funeral felt.

Feigning a laugh as the credits rolled and Elliot left Pete for good—gosh, she really, really should have thought this choice in a movie through—Nat got up and was relieved for the excuse that the near-empty bowl of popcorn offered her. As she carried it off, for want of something to say, Nat said, “I don’t know why Elliot had to leave in the end. Him, Mary Poppins. If I could write that stuff, I’d never have the dragon leave. It’s stupid , just to make people cry at the end.” When Lizzie said nothing, Nat carried the bowl into the open-plan kitchen, the place where it felt like she could recall, too well, meals she made with the three people who meant the world to her—dad, Lizzie, Fred.

As she dumped the bowl in the sink she came back, saw how Lizzie was sat on her side of the couch where Nat had left her. She was staring at the credits as they rolled, but Nat got the feeling that she was staring into space.

Nat shoved her feelings, deep, into a little pocket in her heart, the way she was starting to get pretty good at. Had, in fact, learned how to do by watching Lizzie do the very same.

Clearing her throat, Nat said, “I think it’s late.”

Lizzie seemed to snap out of whatever she was thinking about, blinking rapidly as she looked at Nat. “Really?”

She felt ashamed to say it. But Nat knew that she needed to be alone for a bit. Think about stuff, mainly what she was going to say to dad. How she was planning on phrasing her ultimatum. Not that Nat thought of it that way. More of a plea with a pretty darn strong demand behind it. Still, she felt like garbage, telling Lizzie to beat it.

Lizzie herself looked hurt—or, possibly, it was a continuation of the hurt she’d been steadily trying to hide from her step-daughter. Quickly, though, that look disappeared from her face, hidden behind a veritable blank wall. “It is a school night.” She stood up and opened her arms.

Nat flew into her embrace, already regretting telling her that she needed to leave. Couldn’t spend every moment with her like she wanted to. As she pulled apart, she looked up at Lizzie, loath to let go. Still, she managed to let a smile form on her face as she said, “Love you.”

Lizzie said it like she always did, but this time she said it in a strange, almost sad little voice. “I love you, too, Natbrat.”

Chapter Text

It was officially night and Lizzie was in the presence of someone in her room that Mother definitely hated. Still, it was as far from as romantic of a situation as could be imagined. 

“Snotface, talk to me.”

Lizzie was hurrying as she finished an email, an all too necessary update with Lana where she was purposefully vague about making “progress” on something. She shook her head at the man. Sat on her bed with her laptop, the woman continued trying to find a way to word artist’s block in a way that didn’t make her sound like a failure.

Creative constipation?

She was also trying to ignore the red-headed man who had been pacing in her room, had been trying very hard to get her attention. 

“Hey!” Fred was now standing on the bed, his arms crossed as he looked down at his Charge. “You haven’t said a word to me since we were with Natbrat.” He hunched down closer and stared, hard, at Lizzie. “C’mon, I thought we were over the last time, when you didn’t want me around. You told me earlier that you were excited that we could hang out!”

That made Lizzie pause but she kept staring at her laptop screen as she pretended to be, still, busy. Then she found the breaking point of the man that she had brought back into her life—a man who was, after all, an imaginary friend. 

With a loud growl, Fred leapt down in front of her and he made a grab for the laptop. 

“H-hey!”

It was too late; Fred had a solid hold on the laptop and he held it up above Lizzie’s head as if he were teasing her with it. But instead of teasing her, Fred was standing well over her, bending so that he was staring right in her eyes, wild, angry. 

“ Good, now you can’t keep lookin’ at this stupid box and keep ignoring me.”

Lizzie closed her eyes and willed patience in her. “I need that to work.”

Fred violently threw his arms out and Lizzie yelped, reaching out to try to grab her computer before the imaginary friend could do something to break it, such as flinging it across the room. Instead of throwing or smashing it, Fred just held it at his hip opened, like it was nothing more than some extraordinarily expensive book. 

“ Work ? How can you even think about that right now? When’d you start working ?”

She glared at him, hands tightened into fists on her lap. “What else am I supposed to think about right now? I can’t stay—here—and now I can’t ask Janie for any help. She hasn’t been returning my texts.” Lizzie sighed, becoming hyper aware of her current state for what felt like the first time since she had kissed him in the custodian closet.

What the hell was she doing with him like this? Did she really think that, with him in her life, that things would simplify or get better? Or that he would bring back her inspiration? 

When she looked up at him Lizzie almost felt whiplash when she saw the look on his face. Gone was the light-hearted kindness, or even a more volatile emotion. Something, some complexity; a hint of something human, mature, filled his eyes as he crouched down onto the bed, sitting down. It was almost hypnotic; drew Lizzie in even before he said a single word to her.

“What’s happening with you and Mickey?”

For a second Lizzie just gazed at him. Stared, expecting that he would start mocking her or her soon to be ex-husband. When he just continued to stare back at her Lizzie felt her resolve breaking. Slowly, she said, “We tried to love each other for a few years.” She paused, expecting Fred to fly off about her “doing it” with Mickey. When he didn’t, she looked up at him, saw the sympathetic expression on his face. Even though she still felt a deep resentment growing towards him it made her heart ache. “I don’t want to hurt him more than I already am.” Which one am I talking about, exactly?

Fred stared at her, as though deep in thought. Finally, he said, “What d’ya mean, hurt him ? You both tried, you said. It didn’t work out,” He shrugged. “now time to move on. Right?”

Lizzie made a nervous laugh. “Technically. But I take more of the blame.”

Fred’s voice deepened for a moment as he asked, “Why’s that?

“Because—technically I love someone else.” She let that hang in the air.

Fred might have made a sound, like he was swallowing something thick in his throat. Finally he said, “So, if you work it out with this—other person, could you start seeing Mickey again? And Nat—we could go back to hangin’ out with Nat?”

It felt like Lizzie couldn’t breathe. She looked up at Fred, heart pounding so hard in her ears that she thought surely he could hear it too. When she looked into his eyes, though, it felt like she couldn’t read whatever was in them. She could hear herself say it. “I’d love to work it out with him.”

Fred hopped off the bed, landing on the ground and clapping his hands in excitement. “Great! I want to help be your matchmaker!” He paused, then looked at her, hard. “‘long as it’s not Charles. It’s not Charles , issit?” When Lizzie, stunned, shook her head, Fred grinned broadly and shouted, “GREAT! So, when can I meet the guy?”

Lizzie felt like her heart was breaking. She didn’t know where she got the strength to, but she looked down at her legs and softly said, “I don’t know, Fred. Think I lost my chance with him.”

“Oh, come off it!” She felt his hands on her shoulders and he was excitedly shaking her. “Who’s this guy anyway? You’re great ! Anybody’d be lucky to be with you!”

Lizzie felt another strange laugh come out of her. She couldn’t look him in the face. Couldn’t stand it. “Why do you wanna help me, anyway? Thought you just wanted to get back to Nat.”

Fred shook her until Lizzie looked up in his eyes, the merry bright irises that pulled her, compelled her. “It’s what I’m here for, ‘til you don’t need me anymore.”

Lizzie blinked, stared at him. Afraid of the answer but needing him to say it, Lizzie asked, “And, what happens, when I don’t need you anymore?”

“Huh?” His face froze then his brows tightened, drawn into a plainly confused expression.

Awkwardly, Lizzie reached up, meaning to push his hands off of her. Instead she found her hands planting themselves, still over his own. “What if I… didn’t want you to leave? Not be able to see you, talk to you anymore?”

Fred’s face bunched up and he leaped away from her, making gagging noises. “Yee-uck! I don’t wanna stick ‘round to watch you peck and gyrate on some other guy . I’m lucky I only had to see that disgusting display secondhand with you and Mickey Fartpants .” He fake-vomited for a while, ending up on the floor, where Lizzie could only watch the infuriating mess of his hair above the end of her bed. Finally, Fred poked his head up and he said, “‘sides, I need to go back to Natbrat.”

“Excuse me?”

Fred smiled at her. “I decided that I’m just here temporarily. Then I can go where I’m needed, back to Nat.”

Lizzie started to feel pissed off at him, an almost welcome change of pace from the sadness and mortification she felt at his continued behavior. 

Pretending that they hadn’t kissed . 

Nearly shouting, forgetting how easily Mother could hear her, she said, “Nat doesn’t need you anymore, she is getting too old for an imaginary friend!”

That was one of the few times she ever saw actual pain in Fred’s face, for a brief moment before his expression tightened and an unholy light lit up his eyes. “Right. You take that back.” He was pointing at her face.

“I won’t.”

Fred stood up, then was standing up on her bed, his arms crossed. “Take it back, right now.”

Lizzie stared up at him, anger, hurt, and confusion making her say it. “I’m not giving you back. You’re just going to have to get used to being with me. Even if I’m going to be alone with you. Forever.”

Fred stomped, making the bed springs let out an animalistic squeak. “Like hell I am! Can’t just keep me like this! Like a… like some lint you keep in a tin can! An’ that bit, about Nat getting too old for me, pretty rich, coming from a grown woman who still needs her imaginary friend.”

Nat clutched her chest, could feel the burning of tears in her eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

Fred stared at her, his eyes cold. “Maybe I just need to go away again, so you can get your head sorted.”

“Fred, no—”

On the other side of her bedroom door, Lizzie heard someone start to knock on her door, followed by a familiar voice calling out, “Elizabeth? Stop yelling this instant!”

Closing her eyes, Lizzie struggled to regain control of her emotions. She called back out to her mother, “Sorry!”

The door opened and Polly came into her daughter’s room without asking, eyes full of hellfire and fury as she looked at Lizzie. “Just what is that about? You sound like you’re having some sort of a mental breakdown!”

It took some time but eventually Lizzie managed to get Mother out, with the promise that she was just doing whole body brainstorming, meant to form a mind and body connection to her thoughts. It was a relief, in that moment, to have that to pull out of her ass, the explanation nothing more than bullshit she cobbled together from a multitude of things that she learned in college and from Janie.

Once she had finished, was finally alone in her room, Lizzie was unsurprised to find out that Fred was gone. As she turned her lights off and laid in bed, Lizzie nevertheless whispered his name. When he didn’t appear she shut her eyes and resigned herself to weeping into her pillow but she ferociously thought to herself, like a mantra, I need Drop Dead Fred.

Two days. She had spent two days without Drop Dead Fred making an appearance. To say she felt stupid would have been an understatement in any situation. 

Still, life had no choice but to go on. And, in light of the increasing pressure she was getting from Lana—thankfully, not Charles, at least not directly—Lizzie had no choice but to try to make something in her studio when nothing wanted to come out of her. Nothing but tears, at least.

It was during a chance visit to a hole-in-the-wall bookstore that she loved to walk through that Lizzie was reminded of something that she loved. Filed away in what had to be one of the most uncompelling sections in the place—the paperback romances, specifically, the pink-covered things that had numbers on the spine—she remembered something she had not thought about, at least, not in the past two weeks.

Smiling, Lizzie pulled the little pastel pink book out from the shelf, turning it over to look at the cover. It read, The Man of her Dreams , and featured what looked like a half-visible image of a classic romance cover hunk, dipping a long-haired woman back. The thing looked like it was a ghost romance, which was incorrect. It was actually a romance written by an author who specialized in a, well, very special area.

And, what luck, it was an older one that Lizzie hadn’t grabbed already.

Later on as she took a longer break, eating a sandwich as she sat on the fire escape in front of her studio, Lizzie eagerly read the first few chapters of it.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the highest brow stuff. But, as Lizzie herself knew too well, when you created something niche, you could, to a certain extent, settle on a cult following. And Rowan Domino—definitely a pen name—had been writing something that was, indeed, special when she had written these books.

To be specific, all of  books were about a variety of women finding themselves in the company of their childhood imaginary friend, falling in love and—depending on the specific taste of the publisher it was written for—would proceed to have hot monkey sex. Or it would end with them looking each other in the eyes and professing their love to each other. Which would, inevitably, lead to said imaginary friend becoming a Real Man™. 

It felt like a strange twist of fate that had led to Lizzie reading the back of one of Domino’s books and immediately finding herself with what felt like, somehow, reading about people who were like her. Even if they were just fictional. And in better shape. And younger.

In the long weeks that had followed Lizzie enrolling in college five years ago, she found Domino’s books to be a strange constant in her life, an escape. It felt to her like there might just be a woman out there behind these books that could, somehow, understand her.

As she happily read halfway through the book, ignoring the outside world as her hour break stretched onwards, she was stopped only when her phone rang. Lizzie answered it, tucking the book into the crook of her arm, a blush covering her face and neck from what almost felt like being caught doing something naughty. “H-hello?”

The voice on the other end of the line, male but higher, as though the speaker was attempting to sound female, said, “Hello, is this Mrs. Bunce?”

Lizzie closed her eyes. She could not wait until she could stop hearing herself be called that name. Nevertheless, she said, “Yeah, this is—this is she.”

“Oh, good.” The voice sounded happy, but he—she?—went forward with a fast, prattling speech. “I’m calling on behalf of your therapist’s office. It turns out that they’re closing down, so any appointments you have with your therapist are cancelled.”

Lizzie almost dropped her phone. “What? I don’t—I don’t understand,”

The voice on the other end of the line scoffed. “What’s there to get? Way I heard it, they lost their licenses. Something to do with the state they leave their bathrooms in. So, if you ever licked your hand after you touched a knob and got sick, now you know why.” Lizzie, stunned, could only blink. Then the voice on the other end said, “I mean, you do still have that appointment, with Dr. Raynick tomorrow, right?”

Hearing the voice talk in such an affirmative way, and then name-dropping the name of Lizzie’s therapist, made her start to feel less uneasy even as it willed her to go forward. “Y-yeah, I do.”

“Oh, well, that’s not gonna happen. I think Raynick got ran out of the country. Went to Costa Rica, or some place where they don’t extradite back to America.”

“I don’t—”

“Well, we’re calling you now, because Raynick left his notes with our office. We’re hoping we can pick right up where he left off as soon as we can, without any delay. You see, we’re hoping we can help you on your healing journey—we’re planning on getting a patent on that term, by the way—and when we saw the notes Raynick left on you, we knew we couldn’t delay in your case.”

Lizzie felt her mouth grow dry. “Why’s that?”

The—woman?—on the other end of the line paused, then laughed. “Oh, that’s really funny, very cute. Mmm. I think we both know that you need some help. Right?”

Lizzie started to doubt the validity of the woman on the other line. Still, almost more out of morbid curiosity, she heard herself repeat her earlier refrain. “Why’s that?”

“You’re still in love with your imaginary friend, aren’t you?”

Lizzie froze. She looked around her, afraid that at any moment the imaginary friend in question would appear. Instead of an ecstatic, “Yes!”, Lizzie, huddling closer to the phone so that she might not be caught by Fred if he decided to re-appear at that moment, asked, “How do you know about that?”

“I think we can get past that now. Like I said, Raynick is closed, indefinitely, and now we have his notes. Either you can go talk to someone who doesn’t have these, wait for an opening, probably for months if they’re an office worth getting into, or we can get you in tomorrow. Same time Raynick was supposed to see you.”

Lizzie’s tongue darted out of her mouth. She wanted to tell the woman to stop it. This all felt strange. 

So instead, Lizzie hung up the call, and taking a breath, called Dr. Raynick’s office. It rung once, then a now-familiar voice answered.

“See? Elizabeth, the line redirects here, because we agreed to take the case load from their office.”

“Oh.” It was starting to feel more legitimate, but why couldn’t she shake the feeling that there was something off about this? “How come no one from the office called me—”

“Mrs. Bunce. I can get you in tomorrow, because we’re committed, completely, to helping you move on, but if you want to come in at the same time you were going to go talk to Raynick, then I highly recommend you say yes to coming to an appointment tomorrow. The sooner we see you, the quicker we can help you get over this issue of yours.”

Lizzie opened her mouth, wanting to tell her that she appreciated the offer but that she wasn’t going to be able to, then she felt the weight of the book in her left hand. She glanced down at it, at the phantasmal man holding a woman who looked into his eyes with what could only be described as devotion. Her heart seized at the sight.

“Mrs. Bunce?”

Lizzie closed her eyes and sat the book down next to her. “So, I can come in tomorrow, the same time I already had an appointment before?”

She swore she could hear the woman smile in delight on the other end of the line. “Abso-lute-ly.”

“I’ll see you then.”

The multi-storey building that the office was located in was nondescript. It was interesting, however, that the neighborhood it was surrounded by was dilapidated. As she got out of her car Lizzie expected Fred to show up, tell her that she was nuts for being here. But, as it had been in the past three days, the imaginary friend thus far had chosen not to make an appearance. Who the hell even knew if he didn’t just go back to wherever he came from? For all she knew, it was another planet, the kind of place where they spoke solely in outside voices. And reproduced asexually.

As she went inside Lizzie gave a brief thought to the question of if Fred could see and hear everything she had been doing in the past few days, if he would be a party to the conversation she was about to have. It would be awkward, to say the least, if he showed up as she unloaded, almost primarily, about him.

Well, maybe not as awkward as if he watched me when I masturbated twice yesterday.

With that thought in mind Lizzie went to the floor that had been specified. When she got off the elevator she almost hit the door closed button and wanted to see the panel on the ground floor that detailed what office was on which floor one more time.

The floor was a large, open space, with the floor a patchwork of old black and white tiles that had been partially torn out, its walls in a state of what looked like either repair or were being ripped apart, leaving them bared, down to the slats behind the wall proper in some place, and there were holes in the walls which had not been ripped open. Across the large empty expanse of the room was a shut metal door.

As she stood out of the elevator, instinctively clutching her bag, Lizzie became aware of a breeze, one that came from the wall to her left. She shuddered, turning around, ready to leave.

The sound of the metal door on the opposite side of the room opening dragged her attention to it and then to the woman who was walking across the floor of the big, empty room towards her.

She was tall, tall, and seemed to walk in heels in a somehow more ungainly manner as Lizzie herself, wobbling. In fact, as she watched the woman come up to her, Lizzie thought that the woman would surely trip on the broken floor. Nevertheless, the woman seemed to hurry to her, the sound of her heels a steady, clack, clack, clack as she strode in an uncomfortable, almost painful looking gait across the floor.

“Elizabeth? Hi,” the woman’s voice was certainly familiar. As she came closer Lizzie saw that she was wearing large-framed glasses that significantly magnified and distorted her eyes and had long, curly hair she kept in a neat updo. The woman crossed the distance between them, holding her hand out. “We were starting to think you weren’t gonna show.”

Lizzie spared a thought for the elevator behind her for a brief second before she fixed a smile on her lips and took the woman’s hand in her own. She looked down as her hand met the woman’s own and she confirmed what she felt; the woman's hand was large in hers. Well, that was fine. Lizzie didn't have a problem with trans people.  It was only that the woman felt, well, somehow insincere, like this was some kind of a disguise, which made her wary. The whole situation put her on edge.

And then there was the way her dark eyes seemed to glitter at Lizzie, reminding her of the way that Lana once looked at her, making her feel like nothing more than some soon-to-be-resource. 

Finally, though, Lizzie found her voice. “Sorry. I had a hard time finding this place.”

The woman smiled at her and Lizzie noted the unusually large gap in her two front teeth. “Ah, that’s fine. Just—we’re hoping to get back on schedule—”

For a second Lizzie thought she had an out for her sudden cold feet. She tried to pull her hand back. “Oh, I get it if I’m too late. I can just come back, another day, maybe—” 

The woman didn't release her hold onto Lizzie's hand. Her smile widened, feeling too large, broad, so that it seemed predatory. “Oh no, I insist. Please.” She leaned in closer, not releasing her hold on Lizzie’s hand. “To tell the truth, we’ve had a bit of a problem getting Raynick’s patients to switch over. So we’re actually pretty empty for the rest of the day.”

“Oh.”

The woman nodded as her and before Lizzie realized it, she was being dragged to the metal door. At first, Lizzie wanted to pull her hand away, Maybe even call out for her imaginary friend to make a comforting re-appearance in her life. 

But maybe it was the thought of that same imaginary friend, the one who had left her out in the cold for three days thus far, that had her walking along with the strange woman, through the opened metal door.

Chapter Text

Once on the other side of the metal door Lizzie was shocked to discover what looked like a, well, normal, shockingly so, waiting room. Albeit one on the small side to the tune of just having two exceedingly generic-looking plastic and metal chairs facing the receptionist’s desk, no more than three feet from the desk. Well, normal, other than the fact that if anything it was exceedingly plain.

The woman guided Lizzie to the desk where she took a clipboard up from her near barren desk, handing it to her with another overlarge smile that didn’t quite seem to reach her dark eyes. “Please. Fill that questionnaire out.”

Lizzie glanced around, looking for something to fill out the paper that was clamped in the clipboard. When she found nothing, she looked back questioningly at the woman. At first, the woman looked at her, puzzled. Then her eyes grew large and, with one of the most insincere chuckles Lizzie had ever heard, she started to look through the desk until she brandished a ball point pen at Lizzie. “Here, dear.”

Lizzie took it and feeling the woman’s eyes directly on her, she walked over to the chair and examined the questionnaire more closely, huddling over it. She started to fill it out, then felt her hand still as she got past the first two questions, which were normal-ish. 

Have you been feeling any stress in your life recently? How would you describe your current personal relationships in one sentence?

The third question stunned her. Why have you continued to keep in contact with a realized manifestation of your imagination?

Lizzie paused on that, and, rising her head up to question the receptionist who, thankfully, had gone to sit in her seat after she had disappeared into the office to likely tell the doctor that she had arrived, spoke up before Lizzie could get a word out.

“Those questions are nothing to worry about. Just be as truthful as you can with ‘em, alright?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Please, we need your full cooperation. To help you.” She fixed another one of those discomforting smiles on, her face so still that it reminded Lizzie of a mannequin’s fixed stare.

Lizzie looked at her, wanting to tell her that this question was strange and she felt uncomfortable answering it. As they continued to stare at each other, though, she just sank back into her seat, looking down at the questionnaire, knowing that the woman was undoubtedly still staring at her. She hesitated before continuing, found her eyes wandering through the rest of the questions. She discovered that the further ones didn’t inspire any further sense of comfort.

Have you experienced any nocturnal emissions featuring the manifestation? Would you describe the manifestation’s name and character as one originating from your own imagination?

As Lizzie felt her whole body break out into an embarrassed blush she found her eyes glancing at the pen in her hand. She realized that the pen had the name of a business on it. Just not the one she was at.

As she tilted the barrel of the pen to the side so she could read what it said, she saw that it read, Jimson & Sons Construction. “We do wood!”

Shifting uneasily in the seat, Lizzie told herself that she was fixating on nothing. Then she looked down at the paper she had been writing on, noticed for the first time that the copy she was undoubtedly writing on had been made off-center, so that the words were tilted haphazardly to the left.

I can’t believe Raynick left his patients with this… place.

It was more the reason to just get this over with. So, completing the questionnaire—with her legs firmly crossed, as if she meant to trap her discomfort inside of herself—Lizzie completed the last question and walked up to the receptionist to hand it over. As she reached it over, the woman seemed to grab for it too quickly, her hands clamping down on either side of the clipboard. When Lizzie looked at her the woman’s eyes were stuck on the questionnaire, unblinking, before she looked up at her. As soon as she noticed it the woman’s intense expression lessened. 

She again smiled at Lizzie. “Thank you. I’ll just be a moment with the good doctor so I can— he can review this and your old notes in further detail.” Before Lizzie could say anything the receptionist opened the door and disappeared into the office.

Awkward, Lizzie clutched her arm, felt her gaze drawn to the desk that the receptionist had been sitting behind. It really was barren. No printer in this place, no file cabinet, no computer—really, there was nothing to this room except the desk and chairs. Like it was some uncanny interpretation of a waiting room for an office but missing key aspects of it.

The only thing on the desk was a small, sickly-yellow legal pad, on which wasn’t written names or important information like phone numbers but instead had a crudely drawn ink-black heart that had been etched into the upper fourth of its whole page. It looked like the person who had drawn it had painstakingly dragged a pen through it, over and over, in a haphazard pattern of lines, indented so deeply that it appeared like it was actually a cut heart-shaped hole in the pad.

Something about it made Lizzie feel strange. Quickly she walked back to her earlier seat, already pulling out the book she had brought with her, hoping to finish it that day if only to get it out of her system. 

She got a few sentences in before the door opened. Expecting the woman from before, Lizzie did an about face when she instead saw a man standing in the doorway, looking down at the questionnaire on the clipboard that she had just filled out. She knew someone was going to look at the questionnaire once she filled it out but watching as this man looked at it as though he were merely looking at some medical chart made Lizzie feel more exposed than she thought was possible to feel. As if she were walking around, naked. 

When the man lifted his head up at first Lizzie had to tell herself that she was imagining the immediate likeness. If she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t the woman from before, Lizzie might have guessed that those dark eyes of his belonged to the receptionist, even not hidden behind thick, distorting lenses.

As he gazed at her and smiled an only slightly less jarring version of the smile that the receptionist had smiled at Lizzie with, she rose to her feet instinctively, as if her fight or flight instinct had grabbed onto the back of her head and refused to let go. 

“Elizabeth Bunce? I’m Dr. Aleck Deckles. Please, come in here.”

In spite of everything inside of her that was screaming to not do it, Lizzie followed the therapist and was almost to the doorway when Deckles— what a weird name —stopped mid-stride and turned around. He was a young man, younger than Lizzie would have expected, and perhaps her age, if that.

She said, “You look a lot like—”

“Yes, my receptionist, she’s my sister. Twin, actually.” His expression contorted, the look on his face not feeling like it belonged on that face of someone as young as he looked. “Oh? What’s that book you brought with you?”

At first Lizzie didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she looked down, saw what she was holding along with her purse. She had forgotten that she had it out, had not put it back in. “Ah, it’s nothing—” Lizzie was already shoving it back in her bag.

In the middle of putting it back in her hand was stopped, the book grabbed as Dr. Deckles wrapped his hand around the top of the book. Lizzie looked up at him and was taken aback by the light she saw in his dark eyes.

“Please.” He enunciated it with what looked almost like a full mouthful of teeth—teeth, Lizzie noticed then, with a start, that had a sizable gap in the front two. “Let me have this.”

Lizzie laxed her grip on the book, watched as the man drew it out of her hands, holding it out so he could look at it. She felt herself grinning a wide, nervous, embarrassed smile as she started to babble, diarrhea of the mouth on the level that Fred would have been hard pressed to match.

“Wh-u-ah-that—that’s a—it’s kind of my—I mean, it’s just a book —”

Dr. Deckles, thankfully, didn’t turn it around to read the back summary. He looked at her, an almost grave expression on his face as he said, “Fiction’s more dangerous than you’d think. Tell me, did you start reading this stuff right after the incident five years ago?”

Incident? Lizzie didn’t think of what happened, meeting Drop Dead Fred, as something that could be called an incident. But, embarrassed and surprised, it made her say, “I did start reading—this author, uh, Domino.”

Deckles’ face broke into a wide, disgusted expression. “Ugh. I knew it. People with your condition always gravitate to this pervert’s books.” Before she could guess he was about to do it the therapist abruptly threw the book into the waiting room, where it hit the ground and bounced. “They’re like contagion spreaders.”

“Hey—”

Deckles grabbed onto her arm, forcing her attention to him. With a weary sigh, he said, “Forget about it. Come on, you and me have a lot to talk about.” Before she could reconsider his offer, the glib, dark-haired man steered her into the office, closing the door behind them. He motioned for Lizzie to take a seat in the backless, wide chair that sat a few  feet away from an old, black, wingback armchair in the center of the room before he went to sit in the armchair.

As she tried to get comfortable in the chair Lizzie took a look at the office. Like the receptionist’s office, there was something weird about it. Almost as though everything in it was a placeholder, meant to signify something more realistic, to be expected in its place.

A strange-looking bookcase that looked like the real thing, until you took a closer look at it and realized its shelves were too small to hold anything but what looked like a painted grey milk bottle and some very old encyclopedia books that were stacked horizontally, the center shelf holding only a large, black walking cane that was sat up on display. A little desk in the corner that had—what were those on top of it, the pictures that the frames must have come in when they were bought, never removed? 

There wasn’t a light in the room save for what the bare light that came through the slats in the window blinds allowed—when Lizzie looked up, she saw the reason for it, how the lightbulb in the ceiling fixture had been smashed until it was just a metal ring jutting out of its socket with a few edges of sharp shards protruding from it.

She wanted to get up, walk out. But before she could consider it something else drew her attention. There was someone missing in the room, someone who definitely should have been there. 

“Hey—where’s your sister?”

When Deckles blinked his eyes never seemed to quite close. “Say what now?”

Lizzie began to feel truly strange then, completely uncomfortable. Something in her told her that she was in the presence of the uncanny, and instinctively she wanted to leave its presence. As quickly as she possibly could. “Oookay—”

Deckles started to talk, his earlier confidence returned as though it never left. “Ah. Yeah, she left. It’s her lunch break.”

Lizzie wanted to argue with him out of the sheer fact that her brain could not let him put something so silly and stupid out and try to have her accept it as reality. “What? There’s just one door in here, and I didn’t see her in the waiting room—”

“Look, you were probably just—reading that damn book—you didn’t see her come out. She’s really quiet.” Maybe Lizzie was imagining it but it seemed like Deckles was starting to lose his cool, the patter he spoke in, speeding up as though it were in danger of wobbling and crashing at any moment. “Don’t worry, she’ll be out there when you leave.” FInally he met her gaze again but Lizzie could swear that the look on his face was a near disgust.

At once Lizzie stood up, an apology on her mouth. She needed to leave; didn’t need a Drop Dead Fred to tell her that this was a bad place to be. And she would have time, later, to lament the fact that he didn’t appear even when she was in a place like this, but for now she just needed to leave.

Deckles almost leaped out of his seat. “Where are you going ?”

Lizzie worried that he might try to stop her from leaving. She would have doubted it ten minutes ago, but now she had the feeling that he didn’t want her to leave—and not because it was for her own good, or even for his professional career.

“I need to use the bathroom…”

Deckles expression hardened. “Why the hell didn’t you do it before you came in here?”

Lizzie was taken aback. “I’m… sorry?”

He rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. “If you need to use it, there’s one on the floor below. Just tell ‘em you need an estimate on your patio and ask to use their bathroom, then leave before they try to talk you into any contract work.”

Lizzie could only stare, overwhelmed by how insane this had all turned out. As she walked to the door, however, she was surprised anew as Deckles spoke out again.

“But if you’re planning on cutting and running… I am curious. What are you planning to do with that friend of yours? I mean, he is back in your life, isn’t he? I can see it in your face, the way you talk. The repressed anger, sorrow.”

Lizzie, whose hand was almost on the door handle, paused, then turned around. Deckles had quickly sat back down, was positioned in his chair comfortably with his fingers steepled as his elbows rested on the chair’s arms. 

Lizzie’s fingers nervously wrapped around the strap of her bag. She normally lied about these things for obvious reasons. But as she saw the clipboard still on his lap, Lizzie understood that he knew too much about her, about this.

She didn’t move away but she said, “I’ll cope. He’s just—he’s flighty. He’ll come back. He’s my friend.” She felt herself smiling, trying to force cheer on herself, even though she didn’t fully believe what she said. Or, even, that she was talking about her imaginary friend.

Deckles’ eyebrow rose up, a thoughtful expression darkening his face. “Hmm. So that’s the option you’re gonna take.”

Lizzie’s face tightened. “Which one?”

Deckles let out a trapped breath, shrugging. “Why, the one where you end up a bitter old woman, broken hearted.”

She had forgotten her unease, even the beginnings of sharp fear in that moment. “What would you know about it?” Her hand came away from the door, hand clutching at her chest. “I chose what I wanted and I went for it. I know that may seem… weird, and pointless to someone, but you don’t know how much it means for me that I can accept Fred now in my life. And your job? You’re supposed to listen to me. Not tell me what you think I need, when you don’t even know me.” As crazy as it was, how it sounded to other people, a major reason why she got along with Raynik was because he was the first person she found as a mental health specialist who didn’t try to tell her that the things that made her unique and special, happy, were things that needed “cured”, as if she were a wrinkled shirt that just needed ironed. Or, thankfully, since those days she spent in Mother’s house years ago, plied with pills.

The man rolled his eyes but smiled at her. “Easy there. Forgive me for just telling you the truth. I’m not trying to tell you to stop being who you are or anything. I just get the feeling that you’ve been surrounded, for some time, by people who’ll just let you go on like this. Like the last therapist you had. He took your money and let you walk out, day after day, without saying what he should have.”

“Which is?” She didn’t notice it, but Lizzie’s hand was loosening around her bag’s strap.

Deckles smiled more broadly, the look on his face almost apologetic. “You’re a very sick person and you need to not be enabled like this.”

That stopped her, stunned her. Lizzie scoffed and turned around, turned the door handle to leave. From behind her the hurried voice of Deckles stopped her in her tracks. “Too abstract, fine, then how about I can promise you that one way or the other, you can stop being in this constant state of limbo with your relationship with him. I can make it so you’re happy, even if he never… falls in love with you.”

She paused, hesitated. Everything in her screamed to leave. But the one person she was half-expecting this whole time never made an appearance. 

Lizzie ducked her head, taking in a deep breath before she turned around to look at the man who was smiling at her, an almost blank, pleased look. Softly, she said, almost as though trying to talk herself into this, “I don’t want to lose him.”

“I can empathize. We’ve both had our hearts broken, haven’t we, Lizzie?” He stopped, paused, then smiled at her again. “Sorry, I can call you Lizzie, can’t I?”

Lizzie gently shook her head to clear her thoughts as she wondered about how he had known her nickname. “Y-yeah—”

“Being someone who’s been right we’re your standing, wanting to believe so hard that things’ll get better, then feeling like your whole self is wasting away, waiting, waiting—” he shrugged, and for a brief moment, Lizzie thought that she could see something flickering in his eyes, some genuine emotion. “for the other person, the one you’re meant to be with, were made for, to acknowledge what you believe, what has to be there. Even though it’s not even possible…” He trailed off, a noncommittal expression on his face. “you could die from the heartbreak, you know.”

Lizzie felt as her earlier desire to leave was forgotten. She hadn’t realized it, but a tear had slipped down her face. “Who are you? Did—did Polly do this?”

Deckles laughed. “Come on. I think we both know your mother isn’t any more capable of long term planning and being capable of subterfuge, any more than your Drop Dead Fred is.”

Lizzie twitched, barely holding back the instinct to flinch as she heard him say that name aloud. “Then, who are—”

“I think we’re past this. You’re here, you haven’t walked out, yet. If you want a straight answer, maybe you’re better off walking out that door and forgetting about this. Then you’re gonna start wasting away, until you’re eighty-years old and that Fred of yours is decades in the past, long, long gone to chase the dream of making some other little girl happy.” He must have seen something on Lizzie’s face because he nearly smiled anew. “If you want to hear what I have to offer, take a seat and we can continue with this consultation.” When Lizzie stared at him, blank, Deckles let out a long sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his upper legs as he stared, straight, into what felt less like her eyes and more like Lizzie’s soul. “Call me a softie, I feel really bad for you. Can just see the signs of it, written all over you. But even I can only do so much. You walk out that door? I can’t ever help you. Don’t bother coming back here.” He said it with an almost flat affect, but there was a sneer on his mouth.

Lizzie swallowed what felt like a large lump that had grown in her throat. “What are you offering?”

“Please.” Deckles barely seemed to blink at all, his dark eyes staring at her, daring her. “We’re nearing ten minutes and this isn’t gonna go over an hour. Even though there’s really only a few things to talk about, I think it’s safe to say that we might not have enough time to get to it, unless you cooperate with me.”

Lizzie walked back to the seat. Her heart was beating an uneven, fast rhythm in her ears. She gazed at this—therapist?—and couldn’t help but wonder what she had gotten herself into. Yet something in her ached for the promise this man was telling her. And, deep inside, Lizzie knew that she could let herself wither away, pining for her imaginary friend. A Wendy for a Peter Pan. She wasn’t willing to be with any other man, to feel the agony of realizing that not only could he not satisfy her, but that her heart yearned for one person, always. Made all the worse, it seemed, because she had been able to make Fred come back. And she had been told that he was hers.

Hers, and maybe not ever able to provide the one thing she needed from him.

So Lizzie became impatient as well. “So, what would I need to do?”

The man looked pleased. Sitting back up in his chair, Deckles spread his hands out expansively. “It’s very simple. You need to recalibrate your heart. Your expectations. Your desires.”

Lizzie stared at him, then blinked rapidly. “What?”

Deckles looked, at first, like he might laugh but he held it back. “Don’t worry, I won’t need to use any calipers or do any invasive surgery. You see, your problem is up, in your head.” He tapped his own head meaningfully. “You need to let that part of you learn that that heart of yours can’t let you be dependant on things as fleeting as love and affection, even sex, for contentment.” He leaned slightly forward, one eyebrow raised meaningfully. “You’re letting that thing in your chest and that other thing, between your legs, run your life more amok than that friend of yours is.”

Lizzie felt her face grow red in embarrassment. “Hey, that’s not—”

Deckles sat further back in his chair, his hands held out defensively. “Now, I’m only telling you the truth, God’s honest truth. I can’t count the number of people I’ve talked to who meet their childhood imaginary friend once they’re past adolescence. And let me tell you it’s not a pretty sight, to see the end result of these people and their so-called relationships. You can’t copulate with an imaginary friend. You can’t marry one. Frankly,” he shrugged. “They don’t want to. They can’t comprehend…”, he paused, then, in a voice that was dripping in disgust, he said, “grown-up—emotions, concepts.” He let out a small chuckle, shaking his head. “They would never make a good provider, they’re selfish, short-sighted.” He looked, meaningfully, at Lizzie. “Fred could never give you children. Or be there with you at someone’s funeral to hold your hand. No, he’d always have to make it about himself, wouldn’t he?” When Lizzie didn’t say anything, he said, “You don’t need that, Lizzie. You don’t need to live your life in the shadow of someone else. I’d venture that you’re pretty goddamn wonderful the way you are.” He almost chuckled as he said, “ Real pretty too, you know? Like,” he finally did laugh. “You could find a Chris Hemsworth without even trying, you know?”

Lizzie, who had sat back down, processing everything this strange man said, stared at him. There was that word again, need. Finally, though, she said, “I want to be with him. Even if—if it means the only way we can be together’s like…. Like…”

So far the man had surprised her, but what he said then was one of the last things she was expecting him to say. “You’d  be willing to stick around, clean up his messes, defend him to anyone who’d dare to try to question you. That sound about right?”

Lizzie stared at him, wanting to ask him how he knew, exactly, how she felt. Then she saw it, the shadows behind the man’s eyes, the haunted sadness. Softly she asked, “You had one too, didn’t you?”

He sneered, then stopped, something stopping the look from spreading all the way across his face. “You could call it something like that, sure.” She noticed, then, that his hand trembled as it sat on his arm’s rest.

She wanted to get up, to hold onto that hand. It was like she was looking at herself, at someone that she might not yet be, but might transform into, soon enough. Would heartbreak eventually leave her bitter, obsessive? 

“What did you do?”

He was quiet. The silence in the room, in the building, was so palpable that the sound, of someone on a street blocks away doing work on a road, felt like a muffled, abrasive reminder of a life outside of the office.

Deckles had been staring at her, but there was a faraway look in  his eye, as though he wasn’t there with her mentally. “You take it day by day. But you learn that you don’t need them. Not really. It’s not like a real need. You need to eat, breathe. You manage. But it never hurts to have help.”

“What kind of help?”

Lizzie could swear she saw something in his eyes glimmer for a moment. “Now that… is what I was hoping… you’d ask.” Before Lizzie could say or do anything, Deckles stood up, walked across the floor to her. 

Lizzie’s hair stood on end, she only had a moment to imagine what he was about to do to her. Standing in front of her—a man who was already quite a bit taller when she was standing—Deckles reached inside of his curiously impeccable pinstriped trouser’s pocket and drew something out, holding it out to her.

Lizzie flinched at the sight of the bottle, then looked up into his eyes so that he knew she meant what she would say. “No.”

It almost stopped her, the sympathetic warmth she found in Deckles’ eyes. “It’s not what you think it is. It’s—a numbing agent. Think of it—” 

But Lizzie wasn’t listening. She stood up, wanted to walk past him when Deckles grabbed onto her hands, forcing them open. He placed it, the bright orange pill bottle, into her hands and bent down until he was staring her in her eyes. “I’ve been right where you are. I didn’t have any help.” he paused, his face so close to hers that for a second Lizzie thought that he was, perhaps, going to kiss her. “I want you to know that you don’t have to suffer like I had to. Don’t have to do it alone.”

She wanted to shove the damn bottle back at him. But she loosely held it, found herself needing to blink back tears. “I don’t want to do that to Fred. I won’t kill him.”

He shushed her and Lizzie felt his arm around her, drawing her in close. As she limply rested her face on his chest, could hear his heart beating through his shirt, Deckles said, “The grey pills, they won’t kill him. It’ll give you a defense. Stop it from hurting, stop him from having so much undeserved control. So you can start working again.” As Lizzie started to sob he dragged a hand over her back. “You deserve a normal life. You shouldn’t have to be the whipping boy for everyone in your life, made to feel… inadequate. We can’t help the way we feel, right?” When Lizzie didn’t answer, he gently shook her and answered for her. “Right.”

Lizzie drew her face away, pulled herself loose from Deckles, took a far-too-late step back. Letting out a nervous, embarrassed chuckle, she said, “You really do know what I’m feeling, don’t you?” When he only nodded solemnly at her, she felt—both—relieved, but also filled with an unnamable despair. It was a realization that she had finally hit a wall where it didn’t feel like love could get her through it. 

Her heart broke anew.

“Hey,” Deckles said, almost cooing. “When you eliminate the impossible, you’re only left with the possible. And you shouldn’t need to have to do this,” he grabbed the bottle, shaking it so that the contents made a rattle. “for very long, alright? One bottle of these, and then,” he motioned in a straight, horizontal line with his other hand. “I can guarantee you that you won’t need to worry about the control he has on your life.”

“What if I don’t want to… take them?”

Deckles smiled indulgently at Lizzie. “I didn’t say you had to do anything. But your life’s not going to move anywhere until you lose the extra weight you carry around your neck.” Lizzie knew without needing to ask what he meant by that. “And you can fall out of love if you want to. If you, really, want it.”

Lizzie wasn’t so sure about that. After all, she had already spent years trying.

“So—I think you’re good to go, now.”

Lizzie blinked, stared up at the strange man. “What?”

He smiled at her, shrugging. “You got what you need, now you just need to take the life preserver I threw for you.”

Dismayed, Lizzie, clutching the bottle tight, said, “But you said—I have an hour, still—”

“Yeah. well,” he asked, looking annoyed. “What’re you gonna do about it? Report me to your insurance?” As Lizzie, stunned, stared at him, Deckles turned and walked away towards the strange book shelf. 

She scoffed, said, “I actually came here to talk about how I feel—”

With his back turned to her, Deckles made an exaggerated moan and said, “Aren’t you sick of talking about your feelings yet? If not, you will, soon enough, trust me.”

“But I—”

“What?” He turned back around, smiling and starting to laugh. “What more’ve we got to talk about? You’ve got your freedom, it’s in those pills,” he motioned towards her, nodding. “ they’ll give you everything you need, take the bars off the cage you’re in.” When Lizzie opened her mouth to argue, he playfully began to shush her, until Lizzie felt like she had no choice but to put the bottle in her bag and walk to the door. 

Before she left, Lizzie turned and said, “When can I see you next?”

Leaning next to the book shelf, Deckles shrugged. “Believe me, I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. But,” he sighed. “I don’t think I could do it, anytime soon. Look, I’ll call you, then we can catch up. You can tell me how everything’s going.” When Lizzie only stared back at him, he smiled and nodded towards her. “Okay? Now, go.”

Lizzie hesitated but she turned around, walked out of the office. As she walked out she realized that the receptionist was indeed back. It made her jump.

The woman looked up at her from behind her desk, smiling. “Hope you two had a productive talk.”

God, but it was uncanny. If not for affect of her voice, Lizzie would swear that she was in fact her brother, Aleck. A little uneasy Lizzie looked at the woman and asked, “How was your lunch?”

She blinked, in that way where her eyes never seemed to fully close. “What now?”

Lizzie shivered and muttered, “Nevermind.” As she started to walk to the door, feeling the woman’s eyes on her as though they were glued to her, she turned, realizing she had forgotten something. “Wait—I had a book—”

“Oh,” the woman said, her voice high, happy. “I got rid of it.”

Lizzie stared at her in disbelief. “You did what… with my book?”

The woman’s eyes darted over the room before she looked Lizzie back in her eyes, smiling broadly the whole time. “It was trash. I got rid of it.”

Lizzie wanted to press her on it, but she felt increasingly uncomfortable around her. So, starting to turn around, she walked to the door. As she opened it, though, the receptionist said one last thing to her.

“Trust me, honey, you don’t need to see how that story ends, they always end the same, anyway.”

Chapter Text

Fred had been hanging around Nat for a few days and around day three, he started to get really bored with not being able to talk to the now eleven-year old. So he pleased himself by knocking stuff off her shelves, her desk at school, and continuing the good work of enacting instant karma on kids that harassed or seemed, to Fred, to do anything even remotely that might make his ex-Charge unhappy.

Not talking to Nat was bad enough, sure, but the girl was continuing her cold shoulder to him. At first Fred thought that she just didn’t know that he was around, even though he had returned in a celebration of throwing and breaking stuff. Out of desperation Fred picked up one of Nat’s pencils and wrote, on the page that Nat had written class notes on, It me Im back!!! When Nat came back and stared right at the note that Fred had left she didn’t seem to react to it at all. So, when Fred got a little mad he escalated it, as was his specialty, taking one of the water color crayons and scrawled above her headboard, Qut ignorn me, sined, yuor frend fred.

He almost thought that the girl just couldn’t read it but he knew that Nat was actually really good at reading and writing. So much so that the girl made a big deal out of all of those bloody books she read that didn’t even have pictures in them. And he knew Nat definitely saw the note; she re-wrote the notes he scrawled over and as soon as she saw the one he left above her bed, Nat left the room and returned with a sponge and a spray bottle and scrubbed off what she could of the red message.

On the fourth day however, Nat, who had been helping Mickey Fartpants make dinner until the man had run off to another room to answer his ringing phone, sat down at the dinner table and said, “I know you’re here, Fred. I don’t know why you are, but you’re supposed to be with Lizzie. She hasn’t come back since movie night. What, did she send you back or something?”

Irritated and surprised that she was finally acknowledging him, Fred, who leaned over the table, practically yelled at the girl, “I don’t want to go back! I want to go back with you!”

Of course she didn’t hear him; she hadn’t even seen him. But he tried yelling, hoping that if he just yelled as loud as he could at her that she would hear. It didn’t work. Nat reacted as though she were sitting alone, talking to herself as Mickey in the other room was busy talking to someone on his phone, probably something to do with his stupid job . 

“You’re not supposed to be back here. I’m too old, Fred. Lizzie needs you.”

“No she doesn’t!” Fred stomped away from the table, holding his fists to his eyes. He was furious; was it too much to ask for either of his so-called friends to want anything to do with him?

He had considered going back to Lizzie but he was still angry from the argument they had had. That was weird, Fred usually got over whatever made him angry about his Charge quickly. And he couldn’t understand the reason for it; they had spent time together like it was the old days, the best days, and then she shut him off. Threatened to keep him to herself.

Didn’t she realize what that meant to someone like him, who had a hard enough time already, keeping up with her strange, deep emotions from her being a grown-up? No, of course not. She wouldn’t ever ask him what it was like being her friend, took him for granted.

And, well, Fred was used to that. But there was something undoubtedly different about the way he felt for her, and a huge part of him knew that if she just sat him down and asked him that he would love to unload to her.

And there was the lingering, strange feeling that maybe he wasn’t just mad at her. He was angry at himself, also, for how un-friend like he felt when Lizzie told him that she meant to never give him back, that they would be spending the rest of her time alive together. A strange, thrilling feeling that blew up his whole chest and abdomen, like she had shoved a handful of moths up there and lit them on fire. Fred wasn’t sure if he was more frightened at the thought of that feeling devouring him from the inside, or what would happen if he didn’t take a chance on them. Not that he had any clue about what the feeling meant. And he wasn’t going to go ask Lizzie about it, as sure as he wasn’t about to go to the Mega Bitch for a hug.

Nat, unaware of the crisis that her ex-imaginary friend was going through, said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with either of you. I just want my friends back. So you two have to make up.”

Fred, shouting as he started to crouch on the ground, shouted back at her, “You tell her, then, that she can’t have me forever ‘n ever!”

The “conversation” ended when Mickey reappeared, looking, anxiously, at his daughter. “Sorry about the interruption. We, uh, have a bit of a snag.” When Nat asked him what he meant, Mickey, looking like he was holding back what looked like a massive tidal wave of vomit, said, “Lizzie—Elizabeth’s coming over. We need to put the hamburger helper away and make—something, anything.”

Nat and Fred said it at the same time. “What?”

As promised Lizzie arrived at the house, just as Nat and Mickey finished something they barely managed to cook with pork cutlets and butter noodles. Fred, who was through a three-day anger binge for the woman, all but forgot his earlier anger with the promise of seeing his Charge. When Mickey said that he could see her car pulling up, he rushed to greet her on the porch before she came in. As he ran outside he was nearly pushed aside as Mickey did the same, running outside and walking right where Fred was.

Even though he was irritated with the man, swiped at Mickey ferociously for daring to walk through him, Fred was relieved when he could see the look on Lizzie’s face when she saw him. He had been scared that days away from her would have made it so that she couldn’t see him anymore, like Nat.

Lizzie, as always since the last time they had re-met years ago, kept her hair short, which framed the only slightly heart-shape to her face when she smiled, far better than the girlish, meek weight of all of that brown hair on her head once made her look. It had been getting warmer outside and now she wore a plain grey t-shirt partially tucked into her jeans. At first the sight of her surprised Fred—he didn’t know if it were possible that he’d ever get used to seeing her, all grown-up and not wearing those strange, heavy dresses she once wore before she went off to college. 

He had to be careful, he decided. Lizzie was proving to be a veritable source of cooties. A right infestation.

And a case study in the effect of cooties was standing next to him. His relief was short lived, as instead of greeting her supposed best friend ever, the woman looked at Mickey and said, “Good to see you again.”

Happy to have someone who could finally hear him, Fred glared at his Charge and shouted, “Hey! Aren’t even going to say anything to me ?”

Mickey, who had a stupid, dumb grin on his face, walked up to Lizzie, looking like he couldn’t formulate a word from his gross dad brain. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Lizzie looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself, pressing her lips together. “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry for not coming over more often. I know we never said that I’d stop talking to you—”

Fred, the limits of his patience finally reached, crowed out, “Had enough of this! Lizzie, ignore this twat, come in and say hi to Nat, tell her that since you’re not talking to me, either, that she needs to take me back so we can talk again!”

He knew she heard that, like he knew she had seen him. Lizzie had flinched, stopping talking right as Fred yelled at her.

Mickey, chuckling nervously, asked, “And?”

Lizzie, closing her eyes, let out a long sigh. “I think we need to talk sometime about finalizing the last of the divorce paperwork.”

It did Fred’s heart good to see the stupid grin on Mickey’s face disappear. After all, this guy had been what Fred was sure had been a major reason why the first time he had returned in Snotface’s life years prior why it was that he and Lizzie hadn’t had that much time together—back when they really could get in some mischief—and had been a big part of why Lizzie apparently didn’t “need” him at the end of the three days they had spent together.

He was always proud of his handiwork, but saying good-bye to her (even though he didn’t really , by taking up the mantle of his ex-Charge’s step-daughter) that soon after waiting so long for her had hurt. Of course it did. And there was nothing namby pamby about having had to wait years to say good-bye properly and only getting a few days to do it, with Lizzie too wrapped up in other men to enjoy a proper hangout with him.

Sounding like he was at a loss for words, Mickey eventually stuttered out, “Y-yeah, of course.” He drew a big, stupid new grin on his face. “Wanna come in? Me and Nat made dinner. Hoping you’d have some—”

Before Fred could say anything Lizzie did his work for him, to his delight. “No, sorry. I just—I hope I didn’t make you guys go out of your routine or anything—”

Mickey hurriedly said, “Oh, no, no—you’re not an… an inconvenience, nothing like that!” As he started to chuckle, even Fred started to feel sorry for the man. 

“Ooh,” Fred said, wincing. “can you smell the desperation comin’ offa him?” He mimed plugging his nose from a terrible smell.

He could swear that he could see Lizzie trying to hold back a smile and it made Fred feel infinitely better than he had been feeling all day, just the look on her face that told him that she still found his jokes funny. That somewhere in her was still Snotface, albeit perhaps trapped in the body of a grown-up. 

“I just wanted to tell you, face to face, that I think we can start being around each other soon. That I won’t—that I can handle some dinners together before you know it.”

Mickey’s aggrieved smile started to falter. “Oh? That—well, that’s good. I’d like that!”

Fred, stomping up and down from a combined, potent emotional cocktail of relief and aggravation, demanded, “Tell Mickey Fartpants you don’t need to talk to him anymore, but Nat needs to come with us immediately or he can’t move away with her!”

Yes, in the days he had spent with Nat he had been privy to many a conversation in which Mickey tried to talk his poor daughter into the logic behind moving, getting a fresh start back in the state he had been raised in since he was six years old. All of the talk of the country and the stupid idyllic nature made Fred want to puke. How could you have any adventures out there? And more to the point, how could he make the journey that far away from here?

Lizzie closed her eyes. “I, uh, think I’m gonna start up on a sequel pretty soon after all.”

“Oh?” Mickey’s smile for once felt even to Fred like it was sincere. “That’s great news! Then Charles—he won’t be able to touch Drop Dead, Fred!”

That stopped Fred right in his tracks. His mouth fallen open, Fred let out a silent scream as he tore at his hair, only saying what he wanted as soon as he got enough of a handle on his horror. “YOU AGREED TO LET CHARLES TOUCH ME?”

Dropping her head into her hand, Lizzie said, “I guess you heard about Charles’ new position, then?”

Mickey’s eyes crinkled tightly closed and an apologetic expression settled on his face. “The Mega Be—Polly still likes to give me weekly updates. Whether I want them or not.”

Instead of being disgusted properly by the thought of anyone who didn’t have to listen to the Mega Beast on a weekly basis choosing to do so, Fred was instead shocked over the news of Charles. Charles , whom he had successfully torn off of his Charge years ago like some overfed leech.

Making himself pop into the space next to Lizzie he felt her jerk in response to his sudden appearance. He didn’t care about her reaction to him. This news, that she had gotten near that bastard that he had pushed her away from, was now somehow back in her life—it was like a big, blaring sign that Fred had failed . Failed, and now he was only seeing more and more signs of the fact that he had definitely screwed up the last time he had come back to fix her life.

Didn’t stop him from being angry at his Snotface for throwing his hard work away like this. 

“Charles? CHARLES? Why don’t you just marry the Mega Bitch while you’re at it?”

Ignoring him—somehow—Lizzie, still talking to Mickey Fartpants, asked a question that had nevertheless been haunting Fred. “Why do you still talk to her when you don’t have to?”

Mickey shoved his hands in his pockets, said, “Some things you never get used to, you know? And besides, I want to hear about what she’s up to, in case I can get a chance to warn you if she tells me one of her schemes.”

Fred cringed. Even to him, a non-expert on grown-up emotions, it was abundantly clear what was going on here: Lizzie didn’t feel whatever it was that Mickey Fartpants felt for her. Somewhere buried beneath all of the layers of relief he felt that Lizzie obviously wasn’t interested in Icky Sticky Mickey Fartpants.

He groaned. “Alright, have we had enough of this guy ? Even I feel sorry for him. Looks like he’s gonna start crying , the girl!”

Lizzie let out a small chuckle. She had wrapped her arms around herself and she looked up at Mickey. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about Polly. I’ve been looking around, I think I can get a place with the money I have left. It’d be a walk from Nat’s school, actually.”

Mickey cut Fred off unknowingly before the imaginary friend could voice his own approval. “Wow, that’s great news!”

Lizzie looked down, said, “Funny what you can accomplish once you get your priorities straight.” He thought that she was looking at him as she tilted her head to the side. Before he could ask her what she might mean by that, Lizzie said, “I can probably actually move in next week. Might need to move out around Mother’s schedule at the hospital.”

Mickey, excited, said, “Wow, how can I help? I can take a day off, help you get everything out in record time—”

Lizzie cut him off, holding a hand to her head. “No thanks. I can—I can manage on my own. I don’t have many boxes of my stuff.” Seeing the pleading, sorry-ass look on Mickey’s face, she added, “I still need… some time. Alright, Mick?”

Mickey stared at her, a look in his eyes that, somehow, always gave Fred pause. It was like some riddle, the kind he couldn’t ever hope to guess the answer for, right there in his eyes. Then Mickey blinked and an almost sad expression came onto his face. “Oh. Did you wanna… did you want to say hi, to Nat?”

Fred stared at Lizzie, his arms crossed. He didn’t know what to say. Honestly, he was torn. Excited that apparently Lizzie was immune to whatever supposed charm Mickey Fartpants once apparently had for her, but he knew that the pain Nat was feeling was very real, beneath all of the rough insistence that the girl didn’t need her imaginary friend any more and that she didn’t care that Lizzie had moved out. And Lizzie—he just had no idea what to think of her, let alone take a guess at how she was feeling, three days apart from her.

Lizzie dropped her gaze and let out a sigh. “To be honest, I wanted to stop by and touch base with you.”

“Oh.” Mickey looked properly crushed. Which amused Fred to no end. Finally, Mickey looked back up at Lizzie, at a complete loss for words. “So—see you sometime soon?”

Lizzie smiled at him, a radiant look on her face. “Yes.”

Mickey took a step forward and for a moment, Fred, who had had to withstand watching the two give each other cooties numerous times over the last few years, wanted to repel him away. Then, for the good of the man’s sake, Mickey seemed to reconsider what looked like an attempt at a hug or kiss good-bye. 

He sucked in his lower lip and waved limply at Lizzie, turning around once he gave her a last, hesitant look. “Have a good night, Lizzie. I hope I can see your new place soon.”

Fred, who was busy giving Mickey his now-usual ugly look as a way of a good-bye was surprised to feel a slender hand entwining with his. When he looked at Lizzie, surprised, he saw that she was smiling at him. 

Which made him feel overjoyed, enough to start celebrating, loudly. As Lizzie directed him to her car, he thought his heart would burst from relief, any and all infractions he may have once held against his Charge, forgotten.

The only problem was that the smile on Lizzie’s face did not seem to reach her eyes.

Chapter Text

As Lizzie had told Mickey in the three days she had spent without Fred, part of what she did was indeed go apartment hunting. After a previous month of no luck she was surprised to find a place where the price was right, to the tune of her not even needing to find a roommate with enough in her savings for what she needed to put down a deposit and turn on the utilities. The only problem was that the woman who owned the building seemed to need a lot of convincing that Lizzie was indeed an artist and not, say, a sex worker. Thankfully, Lizzie had Drop Dead, Fred! to show as proof that she was an artist. 

Whatever that meant, when you were more often than not, not creating something.

And, hell, if she didn’t start creating something she could sell, Lizzie wasn’t sure where she’d be in a few months, but it likely wasn’t going to still be in this apartment. 

It was a small duplex, to the tune of just having four units in it, one of which was the landlady’s. And it was a small apartment having a really open floor plan, with a kitchenette attached to what Lizzie supposed was going to be her bedroom slash living room slash entrance. She ended up thinking that she should just be grateful that it wasn’t also a slash bathroom. 

The part of the new living arrangements that most bothered her was the lack of a bath; the ability to take a long, leisurely soak. She missed her bathroom more than she missed the Mega Bitch. Especially in light of the blow up that had seen Lizzie having to deal with what passed for a good-bye from Mother.

I hope you know you’re never welcome here again! 

She didn’t know why, but knowing that it wasn’t true didn’t make her feel any better. Her history with her own mother suggested that in less than a week she would have to actively avoid the woman. She certainly wasn’t going to make the mistake, again, of giving Polly a copy of her apartment’s key. She’d rather pay a locksmith if she ever got locked out.

It was strange, also, that this was the second time she had Fred alone with her in her apartment. Only this time it was just her apartment. Hers , and hers, alone.

Collapsing back on her bed, a necessary purchase that had dipped deeper than she would have liked into her remaining funds, Lizzie groaned and wished she could fall asleep. If that possibility was on her mind, then the man who was hopping up and down on an edge of the bed took that away.

“Up! Up up up up UP! C’mon, Snotface, we got our own place! Let’s go get some movies, scary movies, and then let’s play video games all night!”

In spite of her weariness, Lizzie felt a grin growing on her face. A week and a half after she had, she supposed, repossessed her imaginary friend and she had started to get used to the man’s presence in her life. It was like having a poltergeist mixed with a very immature man as your boyfriend. 

Except, obviously, he wasn’t her boyfriend. 

Obviously.

Her hair feeling like a greasy, matted mess, Lizzie crawled to the side of the bed opposite of the one that Fred was hopping and buried her face onto the new mattress. She withstood the feeling of Fred bouncing on the bed before she rose her face and, blearily, said, “How about I wash this grime off of myself and go to bed early and you can play a game?” She was well-versed in giving her phone to Fred to keep him occupied, when she needed to try to see if she could finally get something on paper for what was supposed to be the better-than-the-original sequel to her book or talk to the owl-eyed landlady about everything she needed before she had moved in.

Yeah. It felt pretty weird to treat someone you saw as appealing like you would like, well, Nat , five years ago.

Unfortunately this time, even the promise of the phone wasn’t enough to keep Fred from being deterred from his set goal. “Come on, you promised !”, he wailed.

Of course she knew what he was referring to. It was her promise that once she was moved out of Mother’s home that they would celebrate together. Of course, it was also a promise that she had made more than a week ago and had nearly forgotten.

With a muffled groan, something in Lizzie prompted her to look over at the man peering down at her from where he stood on her bed—why oh why was he so into hopping on her bed these days?—and she said, “Tell you what. You come into the shower with me and we can hang out.”

Oh god. Lizzie regretted what she said immediately. It was perverse, impure—and perhaps, more a reflection on her inner desires than she would have liked to admit.

Luckily—Fred’s face contorted into a look of disgust and he made a retching noise. “No, thank you !”

Lizzie grinned at him, relieved she could pass it off as a gag. Ha ha, isn’t it funny, Lizzie naked in a space with Drop Dead Fred? She dropped her head back down onto the mattress. Fuck!

Nevertheless she got her shower, at least got the relief of having ten minutes alone after she had embarrassed herself. In spite of the time he seemed to have been checking out her ass when she had first shown him her studio all those days ago, Lizzie being naked was a sure way of getting Fred to leave her alone. It at least, should have been a relief. Instead, alone, it caused the big questions to only make themselves more of a nuisance in her mind.

She once thought love meant that she could do this—live with a man only she could see, pine over until she went blue, even deal with his childishness. But the words spoken by Aleck Deckles seemed to be poisoning how she felt about the one she cherished the most.

You’re letting that thing in your chest and that other thing, between your legs, run your life more amok than that friend of yours is.

He was right. The problem wasn’t with Fred. Whatever he was, Fred was just doing what he was supposed to. She was the one who was really defective.

She pushed that disquieting thought from her head as she, curious, pulled the medicine cabinet open for a momentary glimpse of the bottle that Dr. Eckles had given her, then went back out into her apartment, the one room it consisted of. She found Fred—going through her box of books.

Her box of books, which had a large selection from a certain author. 

Lizzie panicked, running across the room and grabbing onto his hands. 

“Hey—thought you said what’s yours is mine—”

Lizzie tore the box out of his hands, her heart pounding in her chest. No, she didn’t want him to find out that she dreamed of imaginary friends becoming the Soulmates of the lonely women who wanted them. Not like this, at least. She sucked her lips in and huddled over the box, realizing, too late, that this reaction was going to have the opposite reaction from the man she was trying to hide her stash from.

Sure enough Fred let out a loud cackle and jumped in excitement. “Ooh! Whatcha got, whatcha got !”

Lizzie shut her eyes before she turned to look at Fred, knowing that she was mere moments from him finding her dirty, dirty little secret. Later she would tell herself that she had acted immediately, did it before she could think of the repercussions—notably, how their relationship was a pot that had been threatening to boil over and she, thoughtlessly, turned the heat up as high as it could go.

“Hey Fred, there’s been something that I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

That managed to turn down some of the intensity she saw in those wonderful blue eyes. Something serious appeared on his face. “Yeah?”

“Do you remember it, what we did in the closet?”

Fred’s eyebrows drew tighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout—didn’t you say something about that to me already? I said I remember turnin’ on all the sprinklers, then you said, said there was something else…”

At first Lizzie wanted to smack him. The asshole, lying to her face. Unless he made it a point to kiss all of his—his friends. And she doubted that very much; Nat would have run away from him screaming.

Then something else occurred to her. It was the expression on Fred’s face; the genuine confusion. He doesn’t remember. He —really— doesn’t even remember us kissing.

It felt like all of the life deflated out of Lizzie at once. She dropped her hands from the box, unsurprised when Fred proceeded to, eagerly, dig through the box of books. He missed it as his Charge, sitting further back on the edge of her bed, stared into space. 

“Agh—a ha! Wait—waitaminute—wass this?” Fred waved the item in question in front of her, even as Lizzie remained stuck in her shock. “I think you took some of the Mega Bitch’s books with you when you left!” He cackled in laughter, throwing a book across the room, where it hit the ground harder than Lizzie would have liked, given the fact that her landlady lived in the apartment below.

It was the fear that she would get in trouble for this disturbance that was what broke her out of her shock. “Fred—”

Fred, laughing, was pulling the telltale pink-covered books out and were throwing them out of the box. “I think we ought to burn ‘em.” His eyes were overbright with excitement as he looked at his Charge, a grin on his face.

What am I supposed to do now? Trying to look happy, Lizzie said, “Or, I could leave them in the box, ignore them.”

He gave her a disgusted look. “What? Why’re you wantin’ to keep these ?”

Lizzie had to fight from wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m—I’m not. It’s just—if they’re Mother’s, then I want to give them back.”

“Why?”

“Fred.” Lizzie looked at him disapprovingly. “What did we talk about with breaking the things I have?”

Fred, still holding one of the offending pink books up, stopped and pulled a face at her that looked like it bordered on pain. “Oh, comeon !”

“Fred!”

He swallowed, looking at Lizzie pleadingly. “Gotta be kidding me! This?” He held the book up, hand trembling with what Lizzie knew was likely a pressing need that her imaginary friend had to smash it up. “You won’t let me smash these ?”

At least he doesn’t know what they’re about. “Leave them alone and I’ll—I’ll owe you.”

“What?” That seemed to freeze him. This was a new thing and both knew it. So far, Lizzie had been tolerating or even secretly enjoying the mayhem Fred was causing. Whether she was aware of it or not, Fred had noticed her morose attitude, how she pulled away from him. He was trying to amp up the crazy, hoping that it would make her smile like it always, once, did.

They both knew that the fact that she even offered him a favor if he didn’t do something horrible to the little pink books meant that they were important to her. Then, as if the realization had never been there in his eyes, Fred smiled good-naturedly at her and held his hand out, his pinkie extended in a hook. “I’ll take a pinkie swear on a favor, thank you .”

Lizzie got up from the edge of the bed, hesitating before she hooked her pinkie into his. She was surprised when their fingers barely connected and without warning, Fred pulled her into a hug.

It surprised her. Once upon a time, she and Fred had hugged frequently and happily. Nowadays, both seemed to hesitate to go to even a platonic level of affection. The surprise of the hug at first had Lizzie stock still in her taller imaginary friend’s arms. Without realizing it, though, she hugged him back. As she grew accustomed to the sensation, though, he pulled away.

Fred, grinning, said, “I’m gonna keep that promise!”

It was as though a spell that had been cast on her had disintegrated, leaving Lizzie just standing there, wishing that she could wipe the need that the touch, meant to just be friendly, had left in her body. Or how his smell; that potent, peculiar, enlivening combination of Fred’s skin, hair, and clothes, made her ache to bury her face against his shoulder and try to breathe him in.

Luckily, either she really was good at pretending or Fred was too clueless to know that she was affected to the degree that she was by the hug. Lizzie, absent-mindedly tucking her hair behind her ear, said, “Hey, it’s been awhile since I saw Nat.”

Fred, finally removing his arms from around Lizzie and disengaging them, said, “Yeah, it has been a while.” Was there a hint of accusation in his words? “I miss her.”

“Oh.” An idea came to Lizzie, who felt like she was reaching the end of her rope emotionally. “Then—why don’t you go over and see how she’s doing?”

Fred let out a dismayed yell. “What? Tryna pawn me off again ?”

Lizzie shook her head fiercely. “No way. You’re the one who went off last time.” She crossed her arms, looking at her imaginary friend with something approaching murder in her eyes. Said imaginary friend had already tried previous times before to act like him fleeing her after their argument had been because Lizzie had somehow exiled him.

Then an idea occurred to her. Trying to suppress her smile, Lizzie said, “I have an idea. How about you go on a—a spy mission for me?”

She could see the war that was happening in Drop Dead Fred’s head. And she knew him so well now that she could guess what he was thinking about: he knew on some level that she was trying to get him to go for a bit, but the promise of playing, something they rarely did, excited him.

Fred, looking like he was torn, nevertheless clapped his hands as that broad, slightly off-putting grin settled on his face as he said, “GREAT, What’m I supposed to do?”

Lizzie had to hide the relieved smile that wanted to grow on her face. “I need you to go and see what’s going on with Mickey and Nat. Can you do that for me?”

Again he hesitated, then his eyes lit up and a smile followed suit. “Of course!” He made a mock-salute at her, winking. “Double-O Fred, reporting for duty! I’ll go over there and then I’ll return with a full report of the goings-on, as promised!”

“Oh, great—” before the words could come out of her mouth, Fred poofed out of existence and, as Lizzie waited anxiously, he didn’t return. 

Chapter Text

In spite of the fact that he had gone to all of the trouble of getting dressed in a real neat suit and a bow tie that, against his first instincts did not spin like a propeller, Fred was admittedly not doing a bang-up job of being a proper spy. 

If not for the fact that he was excited to, finally, have a game to play with the approval of Snotface, Fred would have been focused on the way she was acting. As he sent himself to Natbrat’s—and, to a far lesser extent, Mickey’s—house, Fred was rubbing his hands together with excitement at the thought of being able to see Nat again. It had been too long since the last time he had seen her, and he had never gotten over how much he missed her. Knew he never would, as it went with every Charge he had, although it only faded over time.

It was late; past dinner, actually, and Fred crept through the house. Creeped around, even though no one could see him. It really didn’t matter after all, he was playing a role, a game. To him he was a spy, and he truly meant for no one to see him even if that actually meant look through him .

Fred walked from room to room, starting in the basement as he made a mental note of everything he saw and found. Anything that felt out of place from all of the time he had once been there, from how he had played an endless amount of games with Nat, and how they had brought down the remainders of what was left from Grandma Bunce’s house following her funeral, was jotted down in his memory. He honestly meant to give Lizzie every detail of his search here, hoped it would please her.

He hadn’t been very good at pleasing her recently. 

Every day that passed, in fact, it felt like the smiles she gave him seemed to light up her eyes less and less. It disturbed him; not that it was the way that he would have described what he was feeling. Fred just believed—at least, wanted to believe—that he was just frustrated with her. Couldn’t she see how hard he was trying for her, wanted to understand her? So, why couldn’t she try harder to understand him ?

It wasn’t like him to be introspective. In fact, Imaginary Friends were wired to act on instinct, to be keyed totally into the emotional needs of their Charge. The funny thing that wasn’t so funny was that Fred had been doing an awful lot more thinking than he was used to recently. Or wanted to. Honestly, it was all more than a little worrying. 

Was this because he still kept Nat, in much the same way that he had kept Lizzie in his heart, for the last five years?

He was doing so much thinking about all of this; hours of thinking, in fact, between making mental notes of the state of the house—counting window panes, tiles, and how many of Nat’s best belongings, her toys, had been buried alive in boxes and totes in the basement and attic, alongside the still yet touched furniture and knick knacks that had once belonged to the girl’s grandmother—that Fred missed the woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen as Fred skulked through it.

The sight of the woman surprised Fred, struck him still and dumb. The realization that he was not alone, then of the fact that it was this strange blond who walked in and did indeed blow the cover on the spy game Fred was half-heartedly playing, made him stare in shock at her as she came in. The woman made it halfway across the floor before she looked at where Fred was. 

He wasn’t worried about seeing her, of course, but he was nevertheless struck by the sight of her. He didn’t know much about this grown-up nonsense, girly emotions, stamping and pecking, but Fred knew that her reason for being here—unless, of course, she was a burglar in that bathrobe of hers—was for Mickey.

He grimaced, was about to let out a loud, “Yuck!”, which caused the woman jumped in shock. He realized before she said anything that she could see him.

“Oh, wow!”

Fred stood up, backing away in shock. No; the only people who could see him were Lizzie, Lizzie and Nat. Lizzie, Nat—

And other Imaginary Friends.

“What are you doing here?”

The woman blinked, then gave him an accusatory stare. “I could say the same to you, Fred.”

He blanched. “How’d you know my name? What’re you ? How did you get into Nat’s house ?” And then it clicked. Horrible though it was it clicked for Fred that he had been right all along. Nat still needed him and not only did he fail her, but she had gotten another friend to do the job for her. “You’re here to take my Charge, aren’t you?” He was starting to advance on her, index finger pointed towards her like the tip of a rapier.

The other friend put her hand on her face, covering her mouth, her bright green eyes seeming to bore into him. Finally, the rotten interloper pulled her hand away, said, “I can’t believe this. Does this mean—is Lizzie here?”

Fred threw his arms out. “We’re not talking ‘bout Elizabeth right now! Are you here for Natbrat?”

Her eyes seemed to dart around, and the Friend’s face grew bright red. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you. You know, you and Lizzie, you’re both heroes of mine.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This Friend came into his house, took Nat away from him, and then was trying to, what, confuse him? Well, she should have known better. It took a lot more than some stupid game to pull one over on Drop Dead Fred!

Scowling at her, Fred came closer and closer to chest-poking distance, barking at her, “You’d better leave Nat alone, else we’re gonna rumble, ya understand me?” For maximum effect, Fred got into a puglist’s stance, fists at the ready.

She squinted at him as though in confusion, then laughed. It was a braying, wild laugh, almost the opposite of how she looked—how strangely normal, almost Human this one appeared. Then she clamped a hand to her mouth, an embarrassed look on her face. 

Fred scowled, his hands on his hips. “Y’ listen now and you listen good! Nobody tries to take a Charge from Drop Dead Fred, not without me sockin’ you one in the mouth! And ‘sides, Nat needs a boy imaginary friend, she doesn’t like Barbies no more and she doesn’t need to have to learn how to put stupid make-up on!”

The woman looked like she was going to scream—which would have been more than fitting, in Fred’s estimation—or she was going to start laughing. When she finally said something he realized that she sounded like she was on the verge of laughter. “I—I’m sure. But I’m just here to help, alright? I know—I can’t ever measure up to you, most of us never can. And—and I don’t,” she laughed, the sound nervous, high pitched. “I don’t want to step on your toes. Or hurt your feelings.”

Fred stared at her, only now realizing that there was something strange about her, beyond the, well, obvious. If she wasn’t able to see him, and due to how she knew about him and Lizzie, Fred might have believed he was talking to a Human, or one of the Seven. It wasn’t just the way she talked, the sweetness and the innocence that was such a key part of what made an Imaginary Friend, gone from the way this woman acted, but the way she was dressed. A bathrobe. 

Mickey’s, of all things.

Finally, he said, “What’re you about?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re tricky , woman! Why’dya look like that?”

She sucked in her lower lip, biting down. “Uhm, I like wearing this.” She ran her hands against the robe’s tied belt defensively.

Fred scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Never seen no Friend wearing a bloody bathrobe that belongs to a dad. ” He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her.

She crossed her arms, her brow pinching together as a look of aggravation spread on her face. “Yeah? Well, I do.” She nodded at him. “I got as much a right to be here as you, actually more. Way I heard it, you were exiled, weren’t you?”

What was she talking about? Exile? Was she trying to confuse him, make him angry? 

Fred stomped, hard, and thought very seriously about jumping her. How long had it been since he had fought someone, let alone one of his own brethren? A part of him knew that a good tackle and—yes—rough housing would do him some good, let off some steam. As he readied himself to do it, though, she put her hands out, a panicked look on her face.

“Whoa!” She chuckled, the sound turning nervous. “No offense, I don’t let anyone but my Charge touch me like that…”

That was it. Outraged, Fred hollered out, “NAT LETS YOU ROUGH HOUSE WITH HER?”

The woman looked confused, then she winced, said, “Fred, I’m sorry, I really am. I was looking forward to seeing you, just—” she motioned towards him. “I didn’t think it’d be like this. I don’t want you to think I’m here to replace you, or—”

“But you are replacing me!” Fred couldn’t stand it—how could this happen to him? He thought that he hadn’t even left Nat without a friend. He knew she couldn’t see him or anything, but Fred had not stopped being her friend.

She dropped her head into her hand, another one of those looks on her face that reminded Fred of an expression that a Grown-Up might wear on her face. “Oh, I can’t believe this.”

“You’d better believe it! I’m not gonna give you Nat, you—you friend stealing asshat !” He jumped, relieved for the outlet for his rage.

“I’m not taking anyone from you!” She finally raised her voice, almost making her seem like a true Imaginary Friend for the first time since Fred had met her. The funny thing was that she actually looked embarrassed, ducking her head as soon as she yelled back at him.

“Ah hah! Tricky woman, tryna trick me, probl’y trickin’ Natbrat too! Make her think you’re a Grown-up, maybe even tryna act like her new mum? Well, I know what you’re up to now, and I won’t let you take my spot, and soon Lizzie’s comin’ back in here, so Natbrat won’t need some tricky girl like you for a friend!”

She blinked at him as though freshly astonished by something he said. Then the strange Friend stuttered, then said, “You know what; call me whatever you like, I just hope we can learn to get along, and that you know that I would never try to take your place.”

Fred scowled at her, too shocked—hurt—by not just this intruder in Natbrat’s home, but by Nat as well. Why didn’t she even tell him that she had gotten a new Friend? Or even tell Lizzie to pass the news along to him?

So Fred did the most mature thing he could think of. Grinning at his replacement, Fred raised both of his hands up and gave her the biggest Flip Offs he could manage before he left the Bunce house. Really gave her two birds, which turned into two big pigeons then fluttered onto the kitchen island before they turned into a beating, anxious ball of flapping feathers and screeching onto the ground.

As soon as he left the Imaginary Friend staggered in shock, holding onto her face. It felt like she could finally let out a breath that she didn’t realize had been trapped in her chest. Words could not describe how she felt but there was one that she felt could do something to describe it. “Shit.”

Of course it was at that time that her own Charge called out to her, walking through the house towards her.

Mickey entered the kitchen, blinking blearily at the overhead light that she had switched on as soon as she had caught the other Imaginary Friend wandering around downstairs. He looked at her, a smile teasing at the side of his overlarge—sensuous—lips. When he spoke, his voice was deliciously thickened from where he had been awakened from sleep. “I thought I heard someone leaving the room. And absconding with my bathrobe.”

“Oh—I thought I heard—heard something.”

Then they both saw the pigeons out of their lines of sight, who fluttered back onto the counter island, seeming now to be in the middle of a fight. Or—god—she hoped they were fighting.

She pushed the mess of her loose, curly hair away from her face. When he smiled at her she always seemed to have to be doing something with her hands. Once, she would have said that she always knew what she was, thought that her life was an endless string of years that she spent with her Charges and living with the heartbreak to follow; as well as the ever-present threat of being killed by some psychiatrist who plied her tether to the physical world with drugs and therapy meant to purge them of their “odd behavior”. And then the years that followed, where she went into retirement. 

If she had told her old self that she would welcome the chaos that Mickey Fartpants had thrown her into, she would have wedgied herself. Then laughed at the preposterous idea, that meeting her old friend out of the blue would lead to her standing, shivering in his bathrobe, helplessly watching as the unwanted gifts a personal hero of hers had left were beginning to bash their heads into one another, the kitchen filled with the sounds of their angry cooing and flapping wings.

But the way he was looking at her made her feel as though the birds didn’t even exist. She felt like she was hypnotized, watching as Mickey walked up to her, a rapidly becoming familiar look in his beautiful eyes.

Chapter Text

He didn’t come back in the three hours since Lizzie had sent him off on his wild goose chase. 

The first hour had been, shamefully, a relief. Being around Fred, especially when he touched, hugged her, left her body feeling like it was on fire. It never hurt that she had long known that Fred had some understanding of her, deeper than he would have ever revealed, and increasingly she could not stop thinking of it. Could recall too easily the note he had slipped under Mother’s front door the day after they had been first reunited. How he had somehow known exactly what she would have wanted to hear from a man. Specifically from Charles, yes, but he was also aware of something back even then. Something that didn’t come with the territory of being a child’s best friend.

Where was that side of him, if it ever did exist? 

Could exist.

When the first hour crawled by Lizzie wondered if she could get away with “relieving” herself. After all it was bound to happen, sooner or later. The bathroom was too small to get comfortable and take care of her frustrations. And besides, she wasn’t some shrinking violet, the kind who once would hide in her bathroom to do it, biting into her hand to stop from moaning after Charles hadn’t been able to get her off—or, really, cared to. This was her home now and she wasn’t some twentysomething who felt ashamed of her sexuality.

Eventually even the most clueless of people would have to key into sexual tension, one way or the other. At least that’s what she told herself. Still, Lizzie didn’t jump at the chance to be caught jill-ing by Fred. 

Lizzie made herself busy, hunching over on her bed with a sketchbook, doodling nothing that would come to fruition. She had turned on a playlist she had for this work to drown out the sound of people outside and even though she was waiting, at any moment, for Fred to pop back in and tell her what was going on at the Bunce house, Lizzie slipped into a willing fugue, pencil in hand as she tried to capture a new vision of Drop Dead Fred. 

As she dragged her eraser over the sketch that she had just failed at, Lizzie felt like finally tossing the book across the room in the same manner that Fred had tossed a handful of her paperbacks. 

Lizzie fell back on her bed, wondering why she couldn’t be happy here. She had gotten out of the Mega Bitch’s gravity but still the images, the story, didn’t want to come. It might have had something to do with the fact that Charles had not ceased bothering Lizzie. To the contrary he now sent her a daily series of text messages that she ignored, relieved when her desire to ignore the harassment hadn’t thus far, at least, led to trouble for her. Or otherwise he didn’t seem to truly want to press the issue with any real immediacy.

When she did look at them, they read, Little Lizzie, are we pretending that ur happy w/ a wet blanket like him? Or, don’t worry dont hold that incident against you ; ) when can we meet up to talk about a collaboration?

Fuck. Lizzie knew it wasn’t just that she was horny. Although she was. She hadn’t been with someone in so long—in fact, it had been half a year since she and Mickey had had a rather passionless make out session that had led to nothing—so that even the grotesque teasing from Charles was at least lighting her mind with possibility. Needs, the kind that he teased her for, had always been voracious in her. He had known that. Was now using it against her.

This was the night she reached a final horizon in her emotions. It lay somewhere, between listening to Elvis Presley and the Philharmonic Orchestra insist that he loved and always would, and the Smiths inquiring about what she would like to ask, and that they could never say no to her.

The realization that this was her fault, the impure emotions towards something as pure and loving as an imaginary friend, finally struck her. It had been buried beneath a nigh impenetrable layer of denial, but it only took a glance at the pink book that still sat on the ground, where Fred had spiked it, to feel like it was clearer to her than it ever could have been.

Aleck is right.

Lizzie found the bottle once more in the medicine cabinet. She had put it there a week and a half ago, because she knew that Fred would not go looking through the same place she put her ever-dreaded period aids.  

Even though she had just been so certain of it, fed up with the pain she felt, Lizzie hesitated as she was in the middle of twisting the cap off of the bottle. She had almost rashly killed the very man that she now loved. Loved so strongly that it had, ironically, led to this, with pills. The green pills. She didn’t know how he could have ever forgiven her, and he had not only forgiven her but he had saved her. Now, maybe too late, she appreciated Fred, dedicated to him as she was. And the fact was that she longed for him so powerfully that, as she could now see, it had transformed into an obsession that had distorted how she felt about him.

Yes, she had almost killed him with pills once. But Aleck had told her that these were different. 

As she managed to twist the cap off Lizzie looked down at the pills and saw that they were, indeed, not green. They were gray, and dark, like they were actually perfectly shaved little pieces of granite that were shaped like pills.

Although she had been curious about them Lizzie had not dared to actually open up the bottle. It felt like bad luck to do it. Bad luck, and a shortcut. One that she feared might nevertheless destroy her, or Fred.

If she had doubted that Aleck knew a little too much, perhaps, about the trouble that Lizzie had found herself in she definitely would have thrown the bottle away. No, the problem wasn’t that she didn’t believe Aleck when he said that he was experienced in exactly what she was going through, but it had disturbed her. Scared her to see the cynicism, the cold aftermath of what seemed to be a love that would never be.

It left Lizzie wondering how long she could keep it up. She felt like there was something inside of her that was causing  interference between her once-abundant curiosity and her hands, a sort of static. Her emotions felt too bright, too constrictive, demanding something of her that she couldn’t go forward with. Her body, her very soul, ached to express her deepest desires for once in her life.

But this night was proving to be pure agony. Had left Lizzie looking down at the pills and wondered about what she had discovered from Fred. 

He honestly doesn’t remember us kissing .

She no longer doubted it. The longer Lizzie thought about the look on his face when he answered her, the more she knew that he wasn’t lying to her. Fred couldn’t remember kissing her and she didn’t know how that could be. She wondered if Fred had made it so he had forgotten it, or if, somehow, when she woke up his mind had been wiped of it. Like imaginary friends just weren’t allowed to remember stuff like that.

Without thinking Lizzie had gently tapped one of the pills out onto her hand. She stared at it. Almost to just confirm that it was a pill, not a small, smooth rock.

What did she know about what Fred was, anyway? Maybe they weren’t allowed to experience the very things that Lizzie felt for him. If that were the case how could she ever be angry at him, the same as if he could never, ever, love one of his Charges?

Chapter Text

Fred returned as soon as he flipped the offending, trespassing Friend off. Now back in Lizzie’s apartment, Fred didn’t look at his Charge, too busy pulling at his now-returned-to-normal sport coat out of habit, irritated.

“Can’t believe it ! I go for a bit, Nat goes and replaces me! Can’t believe it!” When Lizzie didn’t say anything at first Fred thought that she was in the bathroom. When he saw her on the bed she was so still that he thought she had fallen asleep sitting up, with her back to the wall. He realized that she was indeed awake, was staring forward. Fred was outraged.

“Hey! Snotface! Can you hear me? Do I at least still have you as a friend, or what?”

He made himself appear next to her bed, hands on his hips as he struggled to quell his outrage. Fred watched as Lizzie blinked slowly, dopey, and turned to look at him. 

“Oh, hi, Fred.”

Fred scoffed. “Oh, hi, Fred ? That all you got to say to me? I’m beyond devastated, I’ll have you know! I used to play dolls with you and before I know it, you both go n’ forget all about me!”

She blinked slowly. At first Lizzie seemed just tired to him—not a surprise, given all that she, no, they had done—and he was indeed offended, mad, so he took her at face value. 

Now that he had finally found a sympathetic ear Fred took full advantage of it, airing his hurt with his previous Charge as he paced. “Stupid girl—went an’ got herself a new Friend! Doesn’t she know she can’t just replace Drop Dead Fred? I’m a classic, the best there is, and with a girl , no less!” He got through one rant before he stopped, looking over at Lizzie, a grimace curving his lips. “Hey! Don’t feel free to jump in here or nothin’, you know !”

Fred felt strange as soon as he saw the look on her face. The way that Lizzie looked up at him,  reminding him of how she may have looked up at him when she was a little Snotface. Her eyes felt almost guileless, her lips softly parted.

There was something there, almost reverential, that felt very off putting on the face of a Grown-Up. On Elizabeth, no less.

He shifted, uncomfortable, pushing that impression away as something foreign and unwholesome tugged in his gut. It started to disturb him. Looking away, he feigned new anger as he scoffed. “You know, I told her that I’d come back once we’re finished here, she couldn’t even wait for me properly. I mean, lookit you ,” he turned, daring to look at her once more as he motioned to Lizzie. “You’re a good friend. You waited for me, what, most of your life?”

She still stared, her chin raised as she looked straight at him. It was weird, uncomfortable for him to keep looking into her eyes. At first Fred wanted to comment on it, but something about her kept confusing him, worried him. 

So he waited until finally, Lizzie shifted slightly and spoke. “What did she do?” There was something almost dreamy, far away in how she spoke. 

Fred, figuring that she was just tired and that a good conversation with her best friend would wake her up, said, “Went off and found herself a new friend. A girl , at that!”

He waited for a reaction and he only got one after what felt like a long pause. “Oh.”

Fred rounded on her, now as outraged at his so-called friend as he was at his ex-Charge. “Oh? Oh ? That’s all you can say? Stupid O ?”

Lizzie laughed. It was that sound that brought Fred’s attention anew. He watched her expression, wishing he could push away the feeling that it wasn’t her emotions that were coming through in her laugh. No, he knew Snotface’s laugh, knew it better than he knew any other sound the woman could have ever made. It felt lower, sluggish. 

She said, “You sounded like Mother there for a minute. Just… I’m sorry. I really am.”

For the first time Fred forgot totally about the fresh outrage, the betrayal he had found at the Bunce house. He didn’t even think about the momentary connection to the Beast to end all Beasts. Making himself appear on the bed, peering over Lizzie, Fred grabbed onto either side of her face and stared, deeply, into her eyes. In his mind he was now playing Dr. Drop Dead Fred and he would find out what hideous thing was making Snotface act like this.

“Alright,” he said lowly, tongue sticking out as he sunk himself into deep concentration.

His first sign that something was weird—the woman didn’t flinch or even try to jerk away from him as he grabbed her, tilting her head this way and that to look Lizzie’s face, like he was looking for any defect on something that they had broken. His eyes finally found hers and as she looked back at him, Fred almost lost the breath he had in his lungs.

There. Her eyes, bright, a mischievous mouse’s browns, were different. The sparkle was gone. She may as well of been looking at Mickey Fartpants or some stupid piece of paperwork for how much joy there was in her eyes. Even when she had been very mad at him Lizzie had always looked at him with that spark in them. Her Fred, the part of himself that had always been inside of her since the day they had met.

He didn’t realize that he had let go of her face, was hanging over his Charge with one of his hands tightening into a ball over his chest. What is this? 

Lizzie spoke, her voice more lulled, almost tired sounding. “Found what you were looking for?”

Fred spoke sincerely as he sat back—needed the space between them, he increasingly found. “I don’t know.” He struggled—finding the words he needed to say proved to be quite a chore to someone who typically just said what he wanted to, Fred spoke straight from his heart or his immediate whims. “Are you feeling alright?”

Lizzie looked up at him, puzzled. A soft smile was forming on her mouth and even though there was a—dull quality—to her eyes, they were still that lush, warm brown. “Fine? Me? Better than normal, actually.”

“Really?” Unintentionally, Fred sank in a little closer.

She surprised him. Looking down, the smile on Lizzie’s face spread wider and she reached up, pushing away a bunch of that pretty hair away from her face when it swept over. The little, easy movements made something ache in his chest in a way Fred never felt before. “Really. Don’t think I’ve felt this good in weeks.”

“Oh.” Well, what else could he do? Whatever it was if his Charge was content—happy—then Fred made it his business to keep it going. If we keep this up, maybe I can end up with Natbrat and kick that lousy friend-stealer out. “What is it?”

Lizzie looked up at him and that same hair that she had just pushed out of her face fell back into its earlier place, sliding against some of her face to form a partial mask. She seemed to hardly be aware of it—or care. “Whuh?”

Fred, letting out an impatient sigh, sat back, his hands balled up into fists on either side of the sitting woman’s legs. He looked off to the side, wishing he could just figure this out so he could solve it. Like Lizzie’s emotions, mental state, was a puzzle he could fix. Even if her Grown-Up emotions felt infinitely trickier, more complex even than they had been five years ago. 

What was all of this? It had to have a reason—

“Hey,” Lizzie asked, her voice still low, dreamy. “You sit that close to me. Mr. Fred, I might wanna kiss you.”

Fred froze. He looked back at his Charge, wary. 

When she spoke like this Fred never could stop the fear he felt. The terror, that she could see the darkness staining inside of him, the rot that had begun years ago, almost as soon as he had first seen her. The ache which whispered things to him, to his body, strange riddles of their own.

But she had nothing to worry for, never would even have to imagine worrying over. After all, Fred kept those desires buried as deeply as he could inside of himself. The teasing about her nude body in the shower. Or the desire that flared to life whenever she mentioned them supposedly kissing.

Didn’t Lizzie think that if they had kissed, if he had remembered it, that Fred would never forget it? Instead her continued insistence of something that never could have happened just hurt him.

Fred scoffed, feigning disgust as he fell backward, toppling off the bed and onto the floor where he cried out, “Don’t call me Mister and don’t you dare give me cooties !”

Unlike any other time when he rebuffed her strange jokes, Lizzie let out a soft giggle. Fred poked his head up, watched as his Charge put her hand to her mouth. She looked happy. He just wished that he could get over how she didn’t sound like herself when she laughed. 

He told himself, that first night, that she was just tired. As the week went on, though, Fred started to doubt that belief.

Getting everything in the apartment, hanging around Fred, even finally returning one of Mother’s calls—everything just seemed to go through smoothly now. The only problem, Lizzie felt, was that initial first night. The pill had left her doped up, whatever it was. And whatever effect the pill had would, in the ensuing days, feel a lot less intense, dulling than it felt that first night. Which was good; she knew that her reactions, the slowed way of acting on whatever Fred did or said that first night, had worried him.

Well, there was one other problem. Which was that Lizzie couldn’t draw or write, paint—anything.

She had gone to her studio one day, the one that she knew she would soon have to give up, would have to move everything she cared about into her apartment eventually because she could no longer pay for it. Even though Fred said he would leave her alone to try to create for an hour, Lizzie must have stood in front of the easel and stared at the overwhelming whiteness of the paper she had hung for that entire time. Lizzie stared, wondered what it was she had ever seen in so vast, so consuming of a sea of white that she could, ever, hope to sully it with a chaotic interruption of sudden color, or anarchistic black. And for the first time since she had just decided to start expressing herself—ever—Lizzie wondered just who the hell she was, anyway; a mixed-up old maid, the daughter of a vapid woman who was the lifelong recipient of heartbreak, the only source of inspiration she had, being her own heartbreak. Who the hell wanted to hear the point of view of someone stuck in a permanent state of arrested development?

But Lizzie felt good . Like she was wrapped up in a big, cashmere blanket of a hug that didn’t let go. She wondered if this was how it felt to be a grown-up. Why it was that no one else she knew was worried about something like maintaining a relationship that confused and infuriated, or was all too worried, it seemed, with making something that was a representation of the emotions that had once shaken her.

Something told her, even as she smiled slightly at the vacant, somehow now pleasant sea of white of her blank paper, that perhaps those emotions were gone. She was free of them, and now she could just coast where once she felt like she was caught in the jagged teeth of her own fears, wants, desires.

But, where was she flying towards?

A weird idea came to her that second night as Fred seemed wrapped up in a game on the tv, providing loose commentary towards her every once in a while, as if to affirm that he was still present. Sat on the bed with her laptop in her lap, the drawing tablet next to it attached and thus far untouched, Lizzie only wished that she could think of what to do. 

Somehow she knew she should have been worried. After all, Lizzie was nowhere near to be able to produce anything to show, even as a concept of a sequel worthy of Drop Dead, Fred!, and if she kept it up, she had no doubt that Charles would try to take it from her. That, or she would have to give him something else.

As her mind wandered, relaxed as though her thoughts had been massaged, Lizzie glanced at the closet. She had put the box with the books she had managed to keep safe from Fred in there.

A thought occurred to her. I wonder what would happen if I sent an email to Rowan Domino?

There were worse ideas. Lizzie wondered when, if ever, she was going to ever feel inspired again. So, feeling foolish even as she did it, Lizzie found the public address that Domino had set up for fan mail and on a whim, she sent her an email, knowing that the woman would never get back to her. Didn’t even know if she checked the inbox any longer.

Once she had sent it,Lizzie lay on her back in her bed, staring at the blank canvas of her ceiling. Blank, blank—what was the problem with it, anyway? Nothing wrong with the stark white. It was cleansing, like how her mind felt. Like all of the stupidity she had cluttered it with, her heart, too, had been thrown out, crushed. So she smiled lightly, pleased that she had been brave enough to salvage what there was of her heart before she had become so confused and jumbled. And it would one day grow to save her friendship with Fred.

She didn’t know how long she spent like that but she felt his hand on her bare arm, heard his soft voice. “Snotface? You... alright?”

If Lizzie had the presence of mind, she might have felt irritated by him. But not now. No; she was incapable of it, was therefore a better friend by default. She would never feel annoyed by his antics, nor would she be bothered by any pesky feelings she had towards him. Indeed, as Lizzie felt him rubbing his hand down her arm comfortingly, Lizzie felt so relieved when she felt no answering ache in her abdomen that she smiled more broadly. 

Finally turning to look at him, Lizzie said, “No, I’m fine.” When she found that he was still looking at her, concern filling those beautiful blue eyes, she said, “Wanna come lay next to me?”

She almost thought that he was going to do his go-to, tell her that she was gross. Then Fred surprised her by pulling the blanket that had been balled at her feet up her body, draping it over her before he reappeared, laying next to her.

Lizzie looked at him, the red-haired man who lay on his side, propping his head up with his hand. Once she would have been overwhelmed that he was here, laying this close to her. Would have been caught in the implications, thoughts that only would have occurred to her and not him. 

But now—

Lizzie smiled at him and reached over, could and not feel any unwanted repercussions from touching him. She ruffled his hair and playfully hid her face against the wrist of her other hand. “Ha, got you laying next to me like we’re at a sleepover. Now who’s the girl?” Expecting a definite reaction, when she didn’t get one, Lizzie awkwardly cleared her throat and took her hand back. “Want to sleep next to me tonight? I know we never could when I was little—bed was too small—and pink—now we can have a proper sleepover. How’s that sound?”

He looked strange, the look in Fred’s eyes faraway, hesitant. When was Drop Dead Fred—ever—hesitant, unsure?

Lizzie knew the last time she had seen it, the expression on his face the same as one she saw five years ago.

I love Charles. His eyes had grown clearer, more focused as his mouth tightened, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t. 

Instead, he simply asked, Why?

Where did that memory come from? Lizzie chuckled nervously. What did he have to worry about? She wasn’t about to go running to that bastard. And she wasn’t about to make Fred uncomfortable, not ever again. “I heard there’s a fair downtown tomorrow.”

That seemed to snap Fred out of his own fugue. With a laugh, he clapped his hands, disappearing and then reappearing back on the bed, crouching on his side of it. “Really? Are we going? Are we, are we, are we?”

This, this was why she had taken more of those pills. The cozy joy she felt in her heart as she saw the genuine excitement of her imaginary friend. Sheltered from emotions that could do nothing but hurt her.

“Of course, Fred.”

Chapter Text

Two days after she had made the decision to send that email, Lizzie received a call from an unknown number. 

Stood in her studio as she once more spent hours trying to express—anything—on paper, Lizzie stared at her buzzing phone, which sat on her desk. She answered it with little hesitation, excited for the excuse to not have to stare at blank canvas any longer. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was familiar but it took Lizzie some time to recognize it. “Elizabeth Cronin? Lizzie?” It was Dr. Deckles. 

Not sure how to react, Lizzie stuttered, found her seat back on her stool. “Oh, it’s been a little while.” She had forgotten that he had told her that he would be back in touch with her, but the memory of that statement finally occurred to her.

Dr. Deckles—Aleck—let out a low chuckle. “Yes, it has. I wanted to know—”

Lizzie, alone, with Fred over at Nat’s house to “scope out the competition”, was relieved to have a moment to talk to the man who had made her new transformation possible. “I’m so excited to hear from you!”

Aleck paused. “You are?”

The almost always present smile on Lizzie’s face broadened. “Yes. I started taking the pills.”

It sounded like Aleck let out a breath. “How do you feel? My god, I didn’t know you started them yet.”

“Yeah! I mean, I’m not finished yet. I just started four days ago.”

“How do you feel—wait, I want to talk about it, can we meet up?” 

Lizzie, stunned, could only gasp weakly. “But I don’t—do therapists typically meet up with their patients?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about there! You stopped being my patient the second you left my office!”

Somewhere beyond her contentment, Lizzie wondered if she should have reason to be worried. But he was the man who had given her the pills. Had opened a door for her that she had thought was closed. So she kept smiling, said, “I’d like that, sure.”

That call was how Lizzie ended up at the lunch spot, waiting for Aleck to arrive and sit across from her. It was a warm day outside and in the cool shade inside of the tastefully chic and retro art deco restaurant Lizzie  was fretting over a glass of lemon water. Fred had said that he wanted to continue his “surveillance” of the new imaginary friend that Nat had apparently gotten—not that the girl had told her about getting one—and he had, thus far, not returned since.

She was loath to admit it but Lizzie was relieved that he was gone, at least for the moment. She had told herself that she had abandoned any notion of a romance with someone who wouldn’t be able to return her feelings but nevertheless she felt guilty about potentially being found, having lunch with someone else. 

Lizzie failed to see him coming in. It was as though her eyes, trained on the entrance, nevertheless missed him as she glanced away for a brief moment. It felt like she looked back and discovered Aleck walking through the restaurant, halfway across the floor to her already.

He was smiling at her and Lizzie felt her memory of that man coalescing as she saw him in casual clothes, a button up shirt and jeans, his dark hair styled into a clean, but spiked look. It was surprising; the last time she had seen him, Lizzie had not been aware of how surprisingly young he looked. She would suppose, soon, that it never hurt his image that his discomforting twin sister was nowhere to be seen.

“Hi,” he said, almost sheepishly as he approached. “Hope I made it in time—”

Lizzie almost stood up, awkward and not entirely sure what to do. It had to do, either, with the calm state the drug had put her in or just because she was always awkward, especially on a lunch with a man. Even if that man was just who, she supposed, was at one point her therapist, and he was just doing a follow up. She settled on saying, “No, I wasn’t waiting that long.” Although by that time, she had been actually waiting for twenty minutes prior.

If Fred had bothered to show up who knew how long she might have actually stuck around for.

Nevertheless Aleck had the understanding to at least look a little ashamed. “Sorry. Just—not used to traffic around here, still, you know?”

“Oh, how long’ve you been in town?”

A strange expression crossed his face, as if he were at a loss for what to say. Then he cleared his throat and seemed to be aware that he was still standing. Taking a seat in the chair opposite hers, Aleck said, “Not much more than a few weeks, actually.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows raised. “A few weeks? And you already have an office and some patients?”

She had meant it as a compliment but the look on his face almost made her feel like she had just insulted him. Before she could apologize, Aleck shook the expression off of his face, smiled broadly at her. “Yes, I know, it is unusual.” He paused for a moment, then rapidly added, “I want to get to the point: you’re actually the first person with Actualized Tulpa Syndrome I’ve had a chance to treat. It used to be referred to as ITS, but ATS is the acronym I’ve been referring to it as since I began my study in it.”

If she had been holding something Lizzie would have dropped it. “Say what?” A syndrome ? Shouldn’t he have told her if she was diagnosed with a syndrome?

He licked his lips, his nerves clear on his face. “So—you’re the first person who’s ever gone through with the treatment.”

All of her goodwill, the pleasant grayness that had been a welcome reprieve from the overbright emotions, felt like it dropped out from under Lizze. “Huh?” 

“Now, don’t get mad, but I have given you pills that I concocted myself, meant to help you—”

Lizzie stood up from her seat so fast that the chair behind her gave out a loud, exaggerated groan. “What do you mean? I’ve been taking those pills, one every day—”

“—And if the timeline you gave me on them was correct, you are nearing the middle of it.” He gave her an almost apologetic gesture, raising both of his hands out. “So I really need to know: how do you feel?”

Now Lizzie could understand why he wanted to meet. An emotion, strong enough to break through the barrier of the pills, finally came to her as she reached for her purse, the first instinct in her mind: flee. Flee, and flush the rest of the pills.

She was stopped by a hand, clasped tight around her wrist. About to tell the man to let her go he started to talk again. 

“No, no no—Elizabeth—Lizzie—I know this is a nasty shock—”

“You bet it is!” She snapped her hand loose, just short of shaking with rage. “What the hell are you, anyway? Some kind of a quack?” She stopped, turned to look at the man who had risen partially out of his seat. “Oh my god—my therapist, he’s not gone, is he?”

The man hesitated, then shook his head. “No, that guy—he’s still in town. Not that he deserves his license, enabling you like he does—”

Lizzie breathed in through her nostrils, sure that if she wasn’t drugged that she would have been screaming at him. That was fine; she settled for storming out of the restaurant. As she walked through the restaurant and was almost out of the door it occurred to her that Fred should have appeared by now. How much more upset was it possible for her to get ?

Outside it was a perfectly normal day, very bright and as always, obscenely busy in the shopping district. Lizzie was relieved for once for the crowd; she couldn’t wait to disappear into the teeming sea of people on the sidewalk. Disappear until she could find her head again. 

She had stepped out when it felt as though the supposed Dr. Deckles appeared behind her, pushing the door open so he could follow her. He was talking again as well. 

“Hey, hey, hey—come on, I thought you were happy . They gave you freedom, didn’t they?”

Lizzie forgot her immediate urge to escape, turning around to look back at the man. “You could’ve poisoned me!” As he stepped closer she shoved the man away, hard enough to make him have to stagger back. “What’s the matter with you?”

To Lizzie’s surprise he answered without hesitation. “I want to save you from the same pain I went through.” When Lizzie got ready to really give it to him this time, he quickly added, “I haven’t lied to you. Not one word I said. You don’t know the pain of the kind of heartbreak you and your imaginary friend will endure if you keep going down the path you’re hurtling through.” He stopped, looking at her as if waiting for her to say something back to him.

The most shocking thing to her was the feeling that he was speaking of Fred as if he were a sentient being, one whose feelings were something that she should consider. With the exception of Nat, no one truly—honestly—ever spoke of Fred as if he were as real as any man that Lizzie had ever fallen in love with.

Lizzie was aware of the crowd once more as they were starting to box them in, closing the distance between the two. She was also newly aware of the fact that anyone could hear their conversation. Their strange conversation.

As though he could see that she was starting to calm down, Aleck said, “You want to walk away and throw those pills out? You’re more than free to, be my guest.” He blinked rapidly, misery clear in his eyes. “I don’t know how I’m going to find someone with a Tulpa and who’s as reasonable as you, but I know that my work is important. It’s necessary. No one deserves to have to become a slave to the emotions they have for something that can not love them back, have to endure what I went through.”

As she kept looking at the man, Lizzie understood that he was being honest with her. All she needed to know the truth of that was to see the brightness of his eyes, the sincerity, in spite of how matter-of-factly he spoke. It was powerful enough to shove her unease away; a combination of his persuasive words and the drug that stopped some part of her that might have otherwise left her panicked over this situation. 

“Why did you lie to me about the pills?”

Aleck sighed, then he crashed against Lizzie, might have bowled her over if not for how she had grabbed onto him. Their argument was forgotten about as both watched as the two teenage boys who had pushed Aleck ran away, their laughter muffled until they made it through much of the crowd before both let it all out, laughing as they continued their escape.

Lizzie looked back up at Aleck as she sheepishly let him go, but as soon as she took a step back she felt like she saw a strange expression on the man’s face. A look, the type that a man who was giving her a drug certainly shouldn’t have been gazing at her with, had been on his face.

Nevertheless, the supposed doctor cleared his throat, that expression disappearing totally from his face. “We can go back inside but I think we need to get off the street, if we’re going to continue this conversation.”

Lizzie shook her head, already turning into the crowd that they had parted to walk away in. “I need to go.”

Aleck followed her, pleading and cajoling as Lizzie tried to ignore him. As they passed an alley the man surprised her as he pushed her into it. The thought, to scream, passed her by as the man got her against a wall and stared into her eyes. 

“Now you have to listen to me, alright?”

“Let me go.”

“Afraid I can’t do that. I can’t just stand by and watch someone with so much potential, so much life, wilt away like this. Please,” he let go of her and put his hands together as if in prayer. “ Please just tell me if the pills work.”

Against her better judgement—perhaps feeling sorry for this obviously broken man—Lizzie said, “Yeah they—they work.”

Aleck’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. The man began to jump in the air, letting out an ecstatic yelp as he released his grasp on her until finally he stopped, a self-conscious look on his face. 

Lizzie stared at him, starting to feel like perhaps this man wasn’t just some lunatic who had tricked her and drugged her. Or the pills he was giving her were making her lose what was left of her mind.

Aleck cleared his throat into his closed fist, looking away from Lizzie. “So, you’re experiencing all of the effects I told you about?”

Lizzie shrugged, not sure of what to tell him. “I do feel… um…”

“Yeah?”

She sighed. “I feel clear, I can think around him again. It’s almost like—like—”

Aleck, sounding nervous but hopeful, offered, “Like when you were a kid again?”

Lizzie snapped her fingers, smiling. “Yes. I don’t think about—the other stuff. At least, I don’t fixate on it any more. In fact I think my libido—it’s gone down.” Which was worrying, certainly. But there was some part of her that was relieved for the break in her physical needs.

But Aleck had an answer for that. “ That ?” He scoffed. “That’s nothing to worry about. It’ll go away once you finish the regimine, and then you’ll be able to focus those feelings on more suitable choices for partners. Fred can be your friend, you’ll both be happy.”

In spite of the leaden weight that Lizzie felt like her emotions were becoming, something in her ached when she thought of it in that way. But—what was the alternative, really? “The first night was tough. I felt like—like I didn’t want to move. It felt good, but I was helpless.”

The man, who had started to lean against a precarious-looking stack of empty crates, looked agitated. “And he’s not able to latch onto your feelings, even if they’re not dulled… Damn, wish I’d brought a notebook!” He snapped his fingers.

Lizzie felt a rare smile grow on her mouth. There was something to him that made her feel safe. Like he couldn’t possibly hurt her, didn’t want to. Like Fred. 

“But now, I just feel like I can think clearly, I can focus a lot better.”

Aleck pressed his hands to his face, looking like at any moment he might start yelling and jumping up and down again. Instead he just let out a delirious-sounding chuckle, then started to pace up and down the alley a few feet in a circuit as he started to think out loud. “Alright, next time I’ll recommend a lower dose, at least for the initial day. I can’t believe this is happening, this is great, oh, in your face , Randall, in your goddamn face—”

Lizzie, who was left to awkwardly stare at the strange man who had given her her pills, repeated, “ Randall ?”

Aleck stopped mid step as though he had been caught in the middle of something embarrassing. “Him? No one. Just some guy who thought he could tell me that you couldn’t help it if the sentiment gets its claws in, good and tight. Tried feeding me, of all people, a line of bull- shit about how “there’s nothing that can be done”, that, “it needs to run its course”.” He actually did the finger quotes, ending in an abbreviated chuckle that showed a flash of his large, white teeth. “Well, if he could just—see me now.” He did laugh then, motioning to Lizzie. “You, you, Lizzie Izzie Wizzie, you’re a goddamn miracle. Proof that we’re not all at the whims of a sick kind of love.”

Lizzie awkwardly shoved her hands in her pockets. “Um, good?”

“”Good”? It’s GREAT!” His sudden bark of yell made Lizzie flinch. “You’re well on your way to proving my thesis. We’re going to not only bypass your condition; we’re going to reverse it! There’ll be hope for people out there, just like us, who’ve fallen for the wrong person by way of an overactive imagination!”

Lizzie, starting to feel uncomfortable, began to inch away, smiling blandly at the ranting man. “That—that’s nice.” She was almost out of the alleyway when Aleck grabbed her—she really was sick of it at this point—and he almost bent down so he was face-to-face with her. 

“We’re going to heal you, then I’m going take you with me to a vast fortune!”

“Wait—what have I got to do with this?”

Aleck’s brow creased, the look on his face confused. “What do you mean? You’re the first. None of it would be possible without you.”

“And what if this stuff—what if it kills me? What then? Makes my kidneys fail?” And then Lizzie said her worst fear, even with her desires for him sufficiently dulled. “What if it kills Fred?”

He scoffed, looking away as if in disbelief. “You think—you’d honestly think—I’d poison you? No no no,” he shook his head. “What I’ve given you is a precise compound, meant to clear your mind, free yourself of undue influences. Nothing more. They aren’t like those horrid little… Green pills,” his face contorted into a look of anger when he said it. “that were in vogue a few years ago. You might not believe me, but I don’t want to kill the silly little monsters. I just want them to keep within their own realm in the human heart.”

“Which is?”

“They need to do what they’re good at. Being a friend. Even to the—admittedly—rare person who ends up falling for one.” He let out a nervous chuckle. “Don’t you get it? They don’t want to be in an intimate, committed relationship. It wouldn’t be fulfilling, anyway. I mean,” he scoffed, a sneer growing along his lips. “Could you imagine how you’d have to talk one of ‘em into having sex? “Come on, let’s play a game, it’s called genital jousting”.”

Even though she was horrified—and it did reflect a very real fear for her—Lizzie let out a laugh, her face growing red in embarrassment and shock.

Spurred on, Aleck continued. “I want to free both the sufferer of the syndrome and their Tulpa. By the time you’re finished with those pills,” he nodded at Lizzie. “you’ll both be better off than where you are now. You’ll even feel good enough to let Fred go back home, once and for all.” Perhaps seeing something in Lizzie’s eyes, a sudden fragility, he said, “The thought of wanting to say good-bye to him feels impossible right now, I know. Then again I know as well as you: how you feel without those pills, how anything’s better than knowing that the one you love can’t reciprocate how you feel. Am I right on the money?”

Lizzie, who dropped her gaze to their feet, felt herself say it, compelled. “What if he did feel… could feel… that way about me?”

She was almost offended when she heard Aleck have to choke back a laugh. She snapped her gaze up at him, saw how he seemed to regret almost laughing even though his eyes were bright with it. “Sorry, really, I am. This isn’t a laughing matter. It’s just—” He licked his lips. “I’ve been right where you are now. It’s like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a damn mountain. It’s just gonna keep falling back down and each time; you’ll think you can get it.”

Lizzie thought, unbidden, In my case maybe Tantalus is a better fitting analogy.

Aleck continued, “You don’t think your feelings for him leave him frustrated, too? He can’t understand it. It’s downright cruel.”

“Is it?”

Aleck nodded. “And more to the point—Lizzie, please , believe me when I say I want to see you happy. You have a lot of potential. Someone deserves to be with you. Someone who can answer those feelings you have.”

About to argue with him Lizzie was shocked when Aleck put his hand behind her head, drew her close. She was too surprised to stop it, perhaps didn’t even really want to. He kissed her, pressing his very full lips into hers. Lizzie kissed back—she thought—but the once-familiar eagerness she felt in her abdomen and chest, whenever she kissed someone she wanted to be with, was gone.

When he pulled away, Aleck let her go, looked at her eagerly. “Well?”

Lizzie immediately didn’t want to hurt his feelings, coming even before a reasonable outrage at his unwanted behavior. She winced, said, “Well… the pill isn’t going to let me feel anything.”

Aleck smacked his forehead, shaking his head. “Right, right, stupid Kaleb—” He stopped, as though he had been caught saying something bad, then, clearing his throat, said, “I meant Aleck.” He looked back at Lizzie, and said, “I wanted to do that because it’s vital that you understand, Lizzie, that any man—any one—would be lucky to be with you.”

That phrase made her feel like there was something warm, once-familiar in her chest. Roused her emotions, where his kiss had left her feeling empty. Who else had once told her that anyone was lucky to be with her? “Still, I don’t appreciate being kissed like that.”

Aleck smacked his hands together and took a few steps back. “Right, sorry! I just—thought it was a good time for it, you know? Nevermind, we can just,” he mimed rubbing his hand over something. “Start over, a clean slate. Hi, my name is Aleck Deckles, and I just want to help you get better.”

Strangely, Lizzie felt comfortable continuing to talk to the man. Something about him, in spite of everything, felt like it compelled her. It was something, oddly familiar, which made her feel in spite of how little they actually knew each other—the short period of time they were acquainted for—like she could trust him. It was bizarre; she even knew, clearly, that Aleck was attracted to her, had feelings for her that she didn’t share. Yet she stood against the cement wall of the alley as the crowd walked past them, with him on the other wall, talking. He mostly wanted her to talk and after some prodding, he got her to reveal more about her situation, her life. The specifics of how the drug was making her feel, how she had previously felt for Fred.

In little bits and pieces Lizzie also felt like she was getting a clearer picture of the strange man. Of the nature of his own previous love, the one who had broken his heart.

“Yeah,” he said at some point. “She was a really… silly bitch.” He scoffed. “You know? I still can’t hate her, not fully.”

Lizzie, still trying also to wrap her head around meeting someone else who had had an Imaginary Friend—no, sorry, she now knew that the correct term was Actualized Tulpa— was awkward as she tried to imagine, ever, being able to hate Drop Dead Fred. She asked, “What happened?”

She had noticed; once Aleck was able to get his train of thought going, a long stream of consciousness babble, he rarely stopped. This was one of the few times when he seemed to be at a loss for words. Or, at least, he seemed to need to censor whatever it was he really wanted to say. 

Finally, though, he sighed, asked, “Mind if I smoke?” 

When Lizzie shook her head Aleck dug in his pocket and pulled out a crushed carton of cigarettes and a Zippo. She watched as the man took a cigarette out then lit it up before he took in a long drag, the kind that always made Lizzie briefly wonder about if she should consider taking the dirty habit up. 

“Same thing that’s happening to you. Only I made the mistake of telling her I loved her, found out the hard way that some people—some things —are incapable of affection. The kind that people like you and me, Lizzie, need. Deserve. Love’s a funny thing. I think that you make yourself become affectionate with some effort and time spent together, so maybe people who suffer some trauma and end up recalling their Tulpa to re-enter their life in such a fragile time end up becoming vulnerable to a fixation like affection.” He shrugged. “But that’s just my working theory. And it’s not precisely what I’m focused on.” He mimed blinders around his gaze with his hands, one of his hands’ fingers firmly tightened around the cigarette, his voice rising as he kept speaking. “I’m not particularly interested in theory, or, or obfuscations. I want to provide relief to sufferers of ATS.”

Lizzie continued to stare at the man as he took a moment to gather his breath. She wasn’t sure if she was looking at a madman or someone who believed he was doing something good.

Does it matter if someone means well if they end up hurting someone else? Still, she said, “I didn’t know that anyone else had their Imaginary Friend—” she stopped, corrected herself. “Tulpa—return when they grew up.”

Aleck nodded knowingly, shaking his head as he bent down slightly to take in a long drag of his cigarette. “Happens more than you might think. But, good luck pinning a sufferer down.” He stifled a chuckle that seemed to be lacking any actual humor. “They’re all a lot like you are, Lizzie. You guys,” he pointed to her, cigarette jammed between his index and middle fingers. “have a type. ATS sufferers have a set of unique personality attributes. And a similar story they tend to follow.”

“Which is?” Lizzie already regretted asking the question.

Aleck let out a trapped breath, shaking his head slightly. “You’re kind, emotionally vulnerable, generally unhappy with their intimate relationships. Dreamers, willing to believe that anything is possible if the right chance presents itself. So, life inevitably throws you a curveball, and as you try to use some old coping mechanism to deal with a crisis that appears in your life, typically within twenty-five years since the last time you were in contact with your Tulpa, then you’re surprised by the re-introduction of said Tulpa in your life.” He motioned in loops with his hands meaningfully, looking closely as his mostly silent conversation partner. “Is any of this ringing a bell?”

Lizzie, almost drawn into a trance by his words, blinked, then nodded. “Yeah—yes, that all sounds like my life years ago.”

“So you see? Now, it’s pretty hard to get a look at people who’ve been in contact with a childhood Tulpa who re-enters their life in general, so I can’t account for people who do what you did the first time. Successfully complete their contract with their Tulpa. However, I have found that those who end up in a secondary contract—that’s one, where a childhood Tulpa comes back into a person’s life and either never leaves it, or remains for an extended period, potentially for years—end up eventually seeking help. It’s not surprising,” he let out another one of those humorless chuckles, this time not bothering to try to cover it. “and trust me, them trying to get help is a good thing.”

Lizzie felt herself softly asking it. “Why’s that?”

Aleck gave her an eerie, knowing look. “Let’s just say some of the worse stuff I’ve seen, for your own good: you don’t want to know. But I can tell you that most who don’t come to terms with their problem will end up generally very unhappy people. And, Lizzie, I can only imagine what would prompt a person to purposefully re-connect with their Tulpa once they have successfully severed their contract with It.” As Lizzie looked down, until she was looking at his feet, he asked, “Would you like to help people like you, make it so that as long as someone tries to help themselves they can choose how they want to feel?”

Lizzie raised her gaze, looked Aleck in his eyes before she chose her words carefully.

Chapter Text

“Oh, come on,” Fred said before he cried out a now familiar refrain. “we never do anything together!”

Lizzie, who usually knew better than to try to force the work out of her when she couldn’t do it with gentle prodding, sighed and answered her Imaginary Friend’s cries. “I already told you, I don’t have much time before my shift starts.” And what a busy day it was going to be as it was. She had at least hoped that she could make some progress before she would have to go to her new job. Well, it helped to think of it less as a “job” and more like a final, completely exasperated gift from Jane who had told her, multiple times, that she couldn’t help Lizzie any more if she screwed this last chance up. 

It was also something that kept her occupied during the day and provided the start of the money she needed to keep her little apartment. Even if it came at the cost of having to wear— that —dress shirt.

So as Fred stood next to her easel, his hands crossed over his chest, Lizzie stopped what she was doing, hands already itching to clean themselves of the paint she had splashed on them.

Like Aleck said; any movement was oftentimes better than standing still. In fact he had told her that the day before,when they had met and gone for a stroll through the park. And he was right. Getting back into even gentle walking felt good, time out in the (usually) overcast sun. Three days before this one, she might have been loath to admit it, but now Lizzie could definitely say that since meeting the man, she felt like her life had taken a positive turn. Him, and the pills he had given her.

Pills, which Fred was to remain unaware of.

Not that it stopped the Imaginary Friend—no, Lizzie had to correct herself, Tulpa —from sensing that there was something wrong, or at least, different in his relationship with his Charge.

As Lizzie washed her hands, watching the water run from washed-out red and a minty green to clear, she could hear Fred continuing to voice his disapproval. “Come on. We don’t even talk anymore! Haven’t done anything fun since that fair a few days ago.” He scoffed. “Was stupid, too. Didn’t even let me shoot nothin’ with the rifle.”

Starting to dry her hands on the worn piece of cloth she kept next to the sink, Lizzie turned to glance at the Tulpa before she turned her attention to the loveseat, where she kept her work clothes. She had meant to come here and see if she could start creating again—yet—but it seemed that along with some other things, Lizzie just wasn’t ready yet to live life like normal. Well, her new normal, since over a month ago. 

A jarring, discombobulated journey into her thirties.

And, as she picked up her dress shirt and slacks, her heart sinking as soon as she saw the splash of color that was still drying on it, Lizzie knew that everything was going to take some time before she could really even dream of “normal”.

Still, she had to try, if only for her own sanity. “Fred.”

“What?” He had the nerve to sound sullen, annoyed. 

“What did you do to my clothes?”

“They look a mess on you anyway! I wanted to fix ‘em for you.”

Lizzie held her once-pristine cream-pink dress shirt up, almost burying her face in it. “I needed this for work.”

From nearly directly behind her, Fred exploded, “Work, work, work—’s all you ever talk about! Work, and that tosser who smiles like a weed whacker.”

He was talking, of course, about Aleck. At this point Lizzie knew that she couldn’t hide that she was, technically, dating the man who “smiled like a weed whacker”. Although Lizzie had had doubts about her continuing to date the man, once the pills had finished their course. She hoped that her lack of attraction for the man would form into something she once felt for Mickey once she could feel things like that again. She honestly wished that she wasn’t just stringing him along, along with herself for the ride. As always, Lizzie was afraid of being alone; the thought, of being alone intimately around the man she had been fixated on for the last five years, was too much to bear.

Usually Lizzie couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, as though she were cheating on Fred. As ridiculous as that was. But at that moment found that she couldn’t feel the least bit sorry for an aggravating man-child. Instead, Lizzie found herself wondering just what she was supposed to do with her previously only clean set of work clothes, with her apartment too far away to even dig yesterday’s set out of the hamper.

It was a good thing she’d taken the pill that regulated the anger she might have otherwise felt for her supposed friend. 

“I need to look presentable if I’m going to be able to pay my rent next month.” She turned around finally, looking at Fred with her stained shirt clasped in her hands. 

Fred rolled his eyes, arms back at the now familiar I-am-angry-at-Lizzie position across his chest. “Come on! You have this, doesn’t anyone want me anymore? Just paint me.” He disappeared, then reappeared sitting in her little stool, posing with his fist curled under his chin. “You can paint me—Fred the Thinker, Fred the…” he paused, his brow creasing. “Can’t think of anything else, but you get the picture.” He motioned at her, a smile stretched on his face. “You got the education for it, you just need to figure out how to paint me.”

Lizzie felt a ghost of a smile on her mouth. She wished she could tell him that as a source of inspiration that there was nothing wrong with Fred. The problem, as always, laid in the conduit; her. In between her profound heartbreak and the dulling effect of the pills Lizzie wasn’t able to paint him anymore, or draw, or write. 

She sighed, preparing to tell Fred to leave so she could just pull on her work clothes and figure out what the hell she was supposed to do with paint-splattered dress clothes. At least I left my jacket in the car.

“That’s not gonna work,” she mumbled, already having pulled her apron off and starting to pull her shirt off before she stopped. She had started to get so used to Fred’s presence that she had already nearly undressed in front of him before she stopped herself. Weirdly enough, he hadn’t heckled her for nearly stripping in front of him—but honestly, Lizzie was so busy these days that she didn’t feel like she thinking about how comfortable she had grown around the Tulpa; or, for that matter, why he wasn’t acting like his normal self, mentally and emotionally child-like.

Without turning to look at him Lizzie said, “I think you should go, Fred. I need to get changed…” When he didn’t say anything Lizzie looked over at Fred. The expression on his face stopped her before she could think of what to say. 

She had imagined that he’d look angry, withdrawn. When she instead saw the penetrative glint in his eyes, how he looked at her with a strange frown, Lizzie felt like something in her chest was pressing down on her heart. As she watched him, stunned at an expression she had never before seen on his face, Lizzie watched as Fred dropped his arms to his sides.

Something alien inside of Lizzie felt like it responded in kind. Something that terrified her. 

Taking a step back, she demanded, “What is it?”

Whatever it was it seemed to snap out of him with a violent shake of his head. In a low, sullen voice, Fred said, “Nothing.” And before she could even think of questioning him further, Fred disappeared.

The incident a few hours prior was almost forgotten as Lizzie looked down at herself in the mirror, at the green paint splattered across the chest of her dress shirt. She had hoped that it would look better with her sport jacket but Fred had managed to splash that color all across the front. Against the almost severe austerity of the stone-grey jacket her dress shirt looked like a badly kept secret, peeking out at the most inopportune times whenever she moved around and the lapels of the jacket parted. 

At least for once she could be sure that the inappropriate staring that some of the diners gave her was because of something that made sense and wasn’t perverted.

She told herself that she would give her all to this job if she couldn’t give it to her art, or even to the man she wanted to. That promise that she had made to herself now made her current choice in what she should now do very clear to her. Lizzie would have to work with the stained shirt; the stains on which had only grown darker and more intense as the paint had dried.

When she left the bathroom of the restaurant Lizzie wasn’t surprised, but was nevertheless irritated to realize that Fred had no intention of leaving her alone this night. Thankfully he at least gave her her privacy in the bathroom.

As she stalked past the Tulpa, her hands ground into tight fists at her side, Lizzie heard him yell out to her, “This is real stupid, you know!”

As if to accent the declaration the first group that Lizzie took and led into the dining room had an older woman who stopped her and pointed at Lizzie’s chest—at the stains—and, after asking what it was, started to laugh uncontrollably.

As soon as her shift ended, Lizzie rushed out to her car where she slammed the driver’s side door shut and lay back in her seat with her eyes closed. 

Her new boss had pulled her aside almost as soon as he saw her and told her in no uncertain terms that she would be fired if she “pulled some cute stunt like that again”. No amount of begging and pleading would make the man believe that Lizzie had not meant to come in with a paint-stained, splotchy dress shirt, and in fact he was only scarcely mollified when she promised that she would come in the next time with clean clothes.

She could barely get a new thought out before Fred appeared in her passenger’s side seat and said, “I can’t believe it! You still have to come back here tomorrow?”

She wasn’t mad at him; to the contrary, it was impossible for Lizzie to be mad at Fred. But she could feel vaguely annoyed at him. Deciding that retreat was better than anything even close to a confrontation when she could neither handle it nor wanted it, Lizzie decided to ignore Fred, apparently too “vaguely annoyed” to realize that it was impossible to ignore a fully agitated Tulpa.

Pulling her phone out Lizzie sent a text to Aleck. As she typed it out she nearly lost her phone when Fred tried to prise it free from her hands. Letting out an exaggerated, “Oi!”, Fred tried to grab it again only to find that Lizzie was stepping out of her car, walking away from it as she finished the text. She finished it before Fred made a grab for the phone, this time succeeding in getting it.

In the thankfully abandoned parking lot behind the restaurant, Lizzie closed her eyes and demanded, “Give me it. Give me back my phone.”

Fred scoffed, reading the text she had just sent. “Had a hard day. Need to talk”? Why th’ hell d’ ya need to talk to that guy? I’m your friend! Can’t you see there’s something wrong with him? He’s like Charles , Lizzie, he’s not right for you, else I wouldn’t still be here to begin with!”

There was a time when that assessment of anyone would have mattered to her. At the moment, though, Lizzie just wanted him to be quiet . Be quiet and leave her alone while she tried to pick up the pieces of her life. So she waited until he had finished ranting and took her phone back. 

It seemed that the action, taking her phone back from Fred, hurt him. She could see it reflected in his eyes, an uneven jester’s blues.

She just couldn’t feel the pain she might have once felt for making him look at her that way like she once would have. As Lizzie took her phone, staring her Tulpa in his eyes, she felt the phone vibrate as someone called her. She could swear there was a plea in his eyes but she answered her phone anyway.

The familiar sound of Aleck’s voice on the other end was a welcome reprieve from her situation. “Hey, I know you just got off work, I was thinking—”

Even hurt, it was foolish for Lizzie to take Fred for granted. As she turned away to continue her conversation, Fred started to yell at her, effectively drowning out any coherent thought Lizzie might have had and of course the other voice on the phone.

“No! You’re not going to meet up with that stupid man, we’re going home and watching a movie marathon.”

In between bouts of his shouting, Lizzie could make out Aleck saying, “I think our old friend’s making his presence known.”

Dropping her head into her hand, she suppressed the urge to sob. “I don’t think tonight’s a good time.”

What she didn’t think about was the fact that both men would think that she was talking to them. Fred let out a dismayed, “Come on!”, while Aleck said, “Oh, alright.”

Biting her lip, Lizzie focused and said, “I think I want to go to bed early and…” her eyes trailed down, to where she caught a hint of the paint staining her oddly masculine clothes. “get out of my work clothes.” 

Thankfully, Fred was quiet as Aleck spoke. “Hard day, I take it?”

Not that Fred was quiet for very long. “Mind your own business, weirdo!”

Almost laughing at that ironic statement, Lizzie instead just muttered into the phone, “You have no idea.”

“Then,” Aleck said. “Why don’t you let me stop by with some Chinese takeout? I’d love to hear all about it…” he paused, before adding as though realizing his mistake. “For the good of me learning about the therapeutic process for ATS.”

“Of course.” Lizzie said, thinking about her own options for the night. More immediately, about what she was going to do for her own dinner. The only thing she could remember having in her kitchen at the moment was a bottle of ketchup and a loaf of bread. As crass as it was to think of it that way, if she did let Aleck come over with a free meal she would be able to supplement the returned plate of short ribs that she had eaten as her only meal that day. The downside would inevitably be the other man in her life, the one who was now abundantly aware of Aleck’s continued role in her life.

Adding to her worry of what he would do if she did let Aleck come over, Fred, snarling, said, “You can’t let that creep come over! I won’t allow it!”

It was funny; the very worry Lizzie had had ended up being the very reason why she actually did agree to invite Aleck over. After all, even if it was Fred, Lizzie did hate being told what to do. 

Dressed in a t-shirt and cotton workout shorts Lizzie sat on the edge of her bed, trying to get into a series she had started and was now finding herself unable to concentrate on. So she ended up blandly watching people walking from room to room in their Victorian-period finery, apparently having very dramatic conversations with one another.

The problem was that the British drama had to compete with all too real British absurdity, the kind that was throwing a tantrum.

“Snotface! You have to stop ignoring me. Told me that you would try to listen to me better. I’m trying to tell you, this guy had bad news written all over him. At least Dirty Charlie was obvious and Mickey Fartpants was as boring as a benign tumor . This guy’s whole thing is that he’s an opposite of, well… me! ”

Lizzie, who had been at least pretending to be interested in the show, finally dragged her eyes away from what seemed like a highborn gentleman about to chastise the lower class woman whom he had, one episode prior, pledged his love to but was embarrassed in public by. She looked at Fred, sitting on her cheapo folding chair, staring at her with his hand curled into a fist. His fist seemed to be supporting the weight of all of that pure displeasure that he directed at her. 

Not bothering to hide the fact that the comparison between the two was ridiculous, Lizzie snorted, said, “How are you two the opposite of each other?”

“You mean, besides the fact that he hates me? He looks like a total nerd, has no sense of humor, and he won’t stop trying to kiss you!”

Lizzie, who had felt a smile start on her mouth felt a sudden pang of emotion that surprised her, mainly because she had been good at feeling nothing, or something very near to it, for the whole day. Damn, the pill’s worn off, and I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to get my next dose.

Turning away from Fred, Lizzie sighed and turned the tv off. “Guess you’ll just have to deal with it. It’s part of growing up, after all.”

Again there was a sign of some deeper emotion, some pain in his eyes, at least before he hid it behind anger. Fred leaped up, spreading his hands wide as though he were a magician revealing some trick. “Right then. I’m going out, don’t want to be around to see you suck face with the weedwhacker! Ta!” And before Lizzie could consider if she even wanted him around that night, let alone put up an argument, Fred did indeed disappear.

As she had come to realize, when Fred said he was leaving, he really did leave. He wouldn’t be back for some time, more than likely. And knowing him he was at Nat’s, probably involved in a soul-cleansing one-way unloading of his emotions to his once-Charge. 

It’s as close to a private moment as I’ll ever get. Still, all Lizzie wanted to do was flop back on her bed. Wait for the strange man who had plied her with experimental mood stabilizers to arrive with a dinner that her stomach was growling for.

She must not have shut her eyes for more than thirty seconds before her phone let out a blaring, rhythmic chime. Groaning, Lizzie flung her arm around, hoping to hit glass and plastic paydirt in the folds of her comforter, then found it, sticking it to her face as she answered the call without looking at the caller.

At the sound of Nat’s voice, Lizzie thought to herself, I guess I know where Fred went.

“Hi. I wanted to make sure I called tonight.”

Lizzie wanted to glance at the time on her phone. It had to be, what, at least past ten? “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Then she realized too late how hard it must be to sleep with an imaginary friend throwing things around you.

She expected Nat to bring up her old Imaginary Friend, only for the girl to awkwardly stutter out a half laugh. “M’yeah. But I won’t keep you for too long.”

Thinking about Fred gave way to guilt. Lizzie thought of how she had been neglecting the time she once used to spend with Nat. She could try to come up wit h excuses, but she had once promised that she’d be the girl’s friend forever. “That’s fine, if there’s anything you need to talk to me about, you know I’m always—”

Nat cut her off. “N-no, there’s nothing I wanna talk about. I actually just called to—to invite you to a show I’m in in two days. It’ll start at seven.”

Lizzie blinked. In two days? “This is a little last minute.”

She sounded embarrassed. “I—I know. I’ve been busy, so’s dad. I forgot I didn’t tell you about it. But I don’t want you to miss it. But, if you’ve got something else, something you need to do—”

Lizzie cut her off, trying to force a chuckle into her voice that she couldn’t feel. “No, I wouldn’t miss it, not for anything in the world.” She paused. When the girl didn’t say anything back, Lizzie softly said the girl’s name.

She spoke quickly. “Good, that’s great. It’ll be in the school auditorium. Made sure dad saves you a seat.”

Lizzie cringed. Of course he would be there. “That’s good. Okay if I ask what the show is?”

“It’s a surprise. Actually.” She paused, then added, “It’s nothing, not a big deal or anything. But I want you there, hope you’ll like it.”

Lizzie sat up, staring at the blank, white wall surrounding her tv. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a big deal or anything. I know I’ve been… negligent in visiting, seeing you.” And then she remembered what Nat had told her, as though she had shoved it underneath a pile of her current worries and changes in her life. “Oh—how is your dad? Is he still planning on moving with you?”

The girl hesitated. Before Lizzie could consider apologizing for asking, she said, “It’s going to be fine, okay?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Dad’s busy these days, but he seems happier than he’s been since you left. I think—I’d like it if you could come over some time? Not just to see me; I miss you two hanging out. I know I’m just a kid, but I always thought you guys made better best friends than anything else. And it sucks, you know, seeing you two trying to act like the other one doesn’t exist.”

So Mickey’s been having the same coping mechanism as me. “I’d like that.” She just hoped that Nat wouldn’t call her out on her bluff and name a specific date. 

The girl let out a soft sigh. “Glad I said that. See you for the show?”

Lizzie thought about the shift she had at the restaurant that day but she knew she would end up calling that off, damning the consequences of doing it. “Sure thing, Natbrat.” she wanted to hang up, but before she did, Lizzie couldn’t resist asking a question that she wanted to ask. “How is Mr. Drop Dead Fred tonight?”

Another one of those pauses. “I wouldn’t know. He hasn’t been here in a while.”

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Lizzie shifted on her bed. “What do you mean? How can you be sure if he’s there or not, if you can’t see him?”

“Trust me, I’d know. I mean, usually, he breaks something of mine or bangs on something. I think it’s his way of telling me he loves me.” 

Lizzie let out a sincere, soft chuckle. That behavior did sound like the kind of thing Drop Dead Fred would do, and for the right reason. “Alright then. Maybe you can get some sleep, if he’s not gonna keep you up playing burglars or night raid.” 

But as Nat said good night to her, Lizzie couldn’t push away the worry that ate at her, the question of where her Tulpa had gone to, if not to see Nat. If she would have worried for longer about it Lizzie was stopped when she heard the sound of someone knocking on her door, followed by her expected visitor opening the door and peering at her.

Aleck’s eyes glanced around the room as though he thought he could actually see Fred. “Think we’re gonna be bothered tonight?”

Lizzie smoothed her shirt against her body and stood up, forcing a smile on her mouth. “Actually, I think he left us alone for the night.”

Chapter Text

Lizzie knew that he went back to visit Natbrat when he wasn’t around her. What she didn’t know was that Fred did not only go to the girl’s house now, that he had branched out in his destinations.

At first he had gone back to the place he knew best with his Charge. When he returned to Snotface’s childhood home Fred’s mind had danced with images of smashed glass, of shredding and burning everything there was in the Mega Bitch’s wardrobe. But to be honest—not that Fred would ever ever admit to it—it had gotten old. There were only so many times you could watch a woman either trying desperately to deal with her empty nest like she belonged in a sanatorium, or cry in rage at the sight of something new of hers that had been broken.

And, deeper even than the admission, that watching the Mega Beast melt down after Fred created some mayhem was getting old, was the one that touched on something that made him even more uncomfortable. That watching the way that she coped with being alone scared him, made him think of what Lizzie would be like when—if—he finally left her.

It wasn’t just Alek; to Fred it went without saying that not just any bloke would do for her, but the longer he spent around Lizzie, the more it became clear to him that he would never feel like anyone was good enough for her. A real problem, given the fact that Lizzie very obviously did not want to spend her life without someone to do awful, dull things with; such as going on silence-filled dates.

Feeling frustrated and unwanted by both his current Charge and his Ex, Fred took to wandering the streets, more often than not talking to himself, watching Grown-ups walking around like there was always nothing wrong, it was somehow more mature to hide your emotions, swallowing them whole. 

That night he decided to walk through the park, recalling memories he had spent with both of his Charges.

Muttering some of the most heinous words under his breath Fred could imagine, Fred nearly missed as the man on the bench spoke up. “Oh, that sounds pretty bad. In the dog house, old boy?”

Fred stopped in the middle of skulking away, hunched over with his hands shoved deep in his trouser’s pockets. At first he figured that the guy was talking on his phone or was otherwise participating in a practice Fred himself had grown accustomed to and was talking to himself. Sneering, Fred turned around to look at the man who leaned back on the bench, staring directly at him. He certainly didn’t seem to be able to talk to Fred, but then again it looked like he wasn’t talking to anyone. He didn’t have a phone, or even one of those little black plastic jellybeans in his ear.

Fred glared at the man and said, “Mind your own business, fatso!”, then turned around to properly leave, glad for a chance to yell at someone for once.

He didn’t make it a foot away before the man spoke up, letting out a long chuckle. “Brother, let me tell you something. You’ve fallen into more trouble than any one of us I’ve ever seen.”

That stopped Fred midstep. He turned, looked more closely at the man. 

He was on the short side and was dressed in a clean white dress shirt, tucked into some high-waisted, nondescript dark blue pants. He was an older man—Fred would have guessed that he was around fifty years old—and had a brown and silver crop of finely kept facial hair, as well as similarly well-kept brown hair swept neatly across his head.

He also happened to be staring directly at Fred.

The Imaginary Friend gulped, then drew himself straight. Some other gent might bend or break beneath the weight of something this senseless or weird, but Fred wasn’t just some other two-bit Imaginary Friend. He was Drop Dead Fred and he would go charging at danger head first.

“What are you, then? Some sorta weirdo? Is that it?”

The man laughed and motioned for Fred to sit next to him. Even though Fred ignored the obvious request, the man kept on as though the Imaginary Friend wasn’t glaring at him with his arms crossed.

Fred discovered that he had a soft, pleasant voice that lay somewhere on the baritone side in spite of his height when he spoke. “I’ve noticed you walking down here recently. I like it here, it’s quiet at night, safe—”

Fred cut him off, barking at him, “What do you want?”

The man gave Fred a crooked smirk, further irritating him. “Ah, to be foolish and ignorant again. Let me cut off the foreplay then. I’m here to help.”

“Help?” Fred scoffed. “Must be joking , I’m Drop Dead Fred—”

“—and let me guess: you don’t need help from some guy in a park who just happens to be able to see you?”

Fred scrunched his face up, grimacing at him. “What ‘r you talking about? You aren’t some Human. You aren’t my Charge, but you can see me. You’re a Friend; you just happen to have no taste in fashion.” He accented this by blowing a raspberry.

To his surprise, the man shrugged. “I suppose you’re technically right.”

He wasn’t expecting that reaction. Starting to feel really nervous—not quite “watching Lizzie swallow a green pill” nervous, but still —Fred considered running away, then he realized that it was his desire to run away that was the very reason why he needed to stay here and face that fear. Standing as tall as he was capable of, Fred stared the man down, not at all worried when the man didn’t so much as flinch at him. 

“Well, is this any way of greeting a compatriot? What kinda man even are you?” He took joy in sneering at him. This fake, this phony; who the hell did he think he was?

The man stared at him, his blue eyes bright, warm, a kind smile curiously resting easily on his mouth in spite of how mature he looked. “I am a very strange one. My friends call me New Eyes.” He hesitated, a shadow seeming to pass over the brightness in his eyes. “I believe you’ve already made the acquaintance of a mutual… friend of ours. Although if he’s still involved in the drama that has become your life—and that of your Charge’s—then I don’t doubt that he made it so that you don’t remember meeting him.”

“What ‘r you talking about?” The man did have a habit of talking, talking, and Fred was itching to show his frustration.

New Eyes blinked, an aggravatingly pitying expression growing on his face. “I know how this all must feel. But you’re not alone, even though someone did something very bad to you—”

Fred, who was starting to get nervous, gripped and maneuvered the fingers of one of his hands against the multicolor row of buttons that lay on a messy constellation on one of his sleeves. “ Who did what ? What did this guy do to me ?”

“He made you a deal, then took your memory of it away. No buyer’s remorse if the buyer can’t remember they even bought something to begin with.”

“Who is he? Who did it to me? Why? What did he do to me?” Fred had started to forget that he was playing at being brave, his panicked confusion leaking out like some bag of trash with a hole in it, except it was a lot less fun.

The man let out a frustrated breath. “Please, Fred. We have as long as we need to to talk about this. I can tell you anything you want, but, if you can manage it, I want to answer your questions one at a time.”

So Fred took a deep breath, trying to re-adjust his mind to this new problem, one that he was thoroughly unused to. Someone had gone and made a deal with him, one he couldn’t even remember making. He knew what his first question was going to be. 

“Who did this?”

“They call him Screw Eyes. The name’s no coincidence. He’s my brother—at least, he used to be my brother.”

“What am I going to do?” Fred felt his hands fall past his hips, feeling lost, helpless.

New Eyes sighed. “I was a little facetious when I said that we have time to talk about all of this. Actually, if what you want is the thing you tried to stop by making a deal with my brother, then we only have until your Charge finishes her regime of the gray pills.”

Fred tensed at that term. “Pills? No. Snotfa—Elizabeth ‘asn’t been taking any pills.” He would have known. Yes, Fred was sure, his Charge wouldn’t hide anything from him. Those days were long in their past.

But then there was something , he recalled noticing a dulled light in her eyes, a vagueness to her where before there had been a vibrancy.

“I should have known brother dearest would have made it imperative that she not let you know what she’s doing.” New Eyes sighed, rubbing a hand over his chin. “Still, I believe you two are the first he got to agree to this. Before this I really believed that he could work his way through his heartbreak, that he wouldn’t actually harm anyone. Maybe I wanted to think that he wouldn’t go through with his scheme. But then he met perhaps two of the most stubborn people that may have ever existed and has proven that he is willing to go through with it.”

Ignoring the obvious jab, Fred asked, “What’s he doing?” He was feeling the first real sharp sensation of fear, the kind that was once reserved solely for the Mega Beast. He advanced towards the man, his hands spread out helplessly. “What’s he done to ‘lizbeth?”

In spite of the sadness in his eyes, the man on the bench smiled softly at him. “I may have come late, but I think there’s hope yet. In spite of what you both say. Otherwise, Screw Eyes wouldn’t have to work this hard to get you sent back. It’s reversible, as long as she doesn’t take that last dose. Only problem is: I don’t know how many she’s taken already.”

Growing impatient, Fred repeated his earlier question. “What’s he done to Lizzie?”

Chapter Text

The next day Lizzie got an unusual email, one that at first she didn’t register the sender of. R.D? 

Only after she thought about it for a minute did it hit her, she remembered an email she had sent a few days prior. One that she was fully not expecting to get an answer back from. 

Sat in her bed with her laptop on her sprawled legs, Lizzie read the email eagerly. Once she might have wondered when Fred would inevitably interrupt her but by this time she had gotten used to Fred’s returning attitude that morning. He had been quiet, cagey, strange. Well, stranger than normal. And if not for the effect of the pills she might have been concerned enough to ask him what the hell was up. But stress and with a grey pill-induced sense of chemical tranquility, Lizzie found herself sinking into going through her meagre inbox smoothly.

Lizzie read, then re-read the message, not even questioning the excitement she felt rising in her. Dulled by the pill, surely, but nevertheless potent in how it arose a strong anticipation in her. 

The person who had answered her back (and she had just let herself realize that it might actually be from the author themselves) obviously had a flowing, personal way of writing, and it left Lizzie feeling warm after reading it. But it was the note that the email ended on that left Lizzie so anxious with excitement that at first all she could do was pace the short length of her apartment, biting her thumbnail. She forgot that Fred was even there with her until she couldn’t stop herself from asking his opinion.

“Fred, my favorite author says she wants to meet me! Should I—” She was stopped when Lizzie realized that she was speaking to no one. Fitting his new habit of disappearing on her, Fred was nowhere to be seen.

Shaking off her mild annoyance, Lizzie walked back to her computer and realized that she had missed a very important consideration. Rowan Domino apparently wanted to meet—that day. 

This was more than Lizzie felt comfortable dealing with. Even under the heavy weight of the grey pills in her system, she couldn’t help fidgeting with the skirt of her summer dress as she walked down the sidewalk, in a beeline for the park. It was overcast but it had not actually rained all day so Lizzie figured it wouldn’t start when she was out in it for an hour or so. And anyway the weather wasn’t actually her main concern. More than anything, she was worried she would be late. Worried she underdressed, somehow. Worried, certainly, that she had overdressed. More than anything, she worried that the woman behind the pen name Rowan Domino wouldn’t like her.

Once she got to the area specified in the email—shocked, still, that Rowan was in town, in her city—Lizzie looked around the center area with benches. She stood at the entrance to the space, anxiously holding onto her purse. Lizzie would have started to just question anyone who sat alone, looking like they were waiting for someone, if only for the fact there was just one person sitting on the benches. And it wasn’t a woman.

She might have kept standing there, waiting to see if perhaps she had missed a woman who fit her preconceptions of Rowan Domino. when the rain started.

Crying out, Lizzie’s first concern quickly became the weather when it began throwing buckets of water down, not even giving her the common courtesy of a light warning drizzle to begin with. Desperate for shelter, Lizzie found what looked like a large, sturdy canopy of leaves and a tree branch directly over a bench.

Making a run for it, Lizzie huddled under the tree’s overhanging limb. She watched in dismay as the summer storm only grew, until it was sheets of rain hitting the ground in a waving cascade as it hit the pavement. She couldn’t believe it. It rained like this on the day that she wanted to meet someone outside.

When the wind swept through the tree, making the limb above her head creak dangerously, Lizzie was ready to dive out of the way in case it came crashing down on top of her. Instead of breaking the limb moved, allowing a torrent of not only the rain, but some of the collected water that had fallen on top of it, to fall on top of her. 

Shrieking, Lizzie leaped up, realizing that she needed to leave, or find shelter. As she started to look through the barrier of heavy rain she saw something that caught her eye. On the farthest bench the man who was sitting there was beckoning to her from beneath a bright blue umbrella.

At any other time Lizzie would have had second thoughts about it, but faced with nothing but the promise of more rain or having to retreat, she gratefully made for the seat next to the man and ducked under the umbrella with him.

As she slid into the spot, already starting to feel cold from the natural shower, Lizzie opened her mouth to thank the man for the unexpected save only to be interrupted as the man spoke.

“Wow, what luck ? That is why you always leave home prepared with the proper protection!” He laughed.

Surprised, Lizzie copied him, laughing. As she turned to look at him, Lizzie was surprised by how distinguished he looked—in spite of the casual, but distinctly upscale, style of his clothes. His shirt was also blue, but it was a robin’s egg blue with his collar opened, overlaid with an unbuttoned black overcoat. She would guess that the reason he looked so distinctly sophisticated had to do with his neatly trimmed beard and mustache, which was a brown with a healthy peppering of silver throughout. Her immediate impression of the man was that he reminded her of what she thought of when she imagined a college professor. The kind who ended up being a student’s favorite.

“I appreciate it. I would have brought an umbrella, but I was in a rush, and didn’t pay too much attention to the weather…”

The man looked down and chuckled. “No, nothing to worry about. You’re young, you have a license to be careless. You have the time to make up for your mistakes.”

Lizzie laughed again, wanting to pull her once-pretty dress away from her soaking wet skin. She wondered what Fred would think of her now. Trying to shake that thought away—still bothered by his continued disappearance—she asked, “What brings you out in a rainstorm?”

He turned to look at her and even in the gloom beneath the umbrella Lizzie could make out the kindly blues of his eyes. With his shirt and with the same color in the umbrella, it really did make his eyes pop. “I’m waiting to meet with a new friend.”

“A new friend? How new?” She might have decided then to give it up and just go back home, see if Rowan wanted to meet some other day, but due to the severity of the continuous rainstorm—and a combination of the shelter and the company the kindly older man shared freely—Lizzie found herself in no hurry to go home with her tail between her legs. And maybe, she hoped, Rowan was just late and would show up when—if—this rain let up.

“Ah, very new, we haven’t had a chance to meet, yet—” The man smiled at her, then made a surprised gasp when the rain began to hit the umbrella they huddled beneath less like bullets and more like something closer to mortar. “Whoa! I think we should take that as our cue to leave!”

After some time running under the umbrella together, Lizzie and the man decided to take their conversation to a nearby bakery. Inside, Lizzie, still dripping wet, tried to get her teeth to stop chattering as she anxiously looked around at the interior of the shop. Everyone looked dry, and more than a few of the people cast glances over at the newcomer tracking in puddles of rainwater everywhere she walked.

About to make up some excuse and cut her losses for the day—the bakery was closer to her car than the park that she had thought a nice walk to would do her some good—she was surprised when she felt her companion pulling his coat around her.

About to deny his offer, the man, who had already dropped it on her shoulders, leaned in close so that he was looking her in the eyes from behind the lenses of his rain-spotted spectacles when he said, “Please. I haven’t reached my quota of maidens in distress today, let me help.” He finished it with a seemingly characteristic smile.

Letting out an awkward titter of a laugh, Lizzie nevertheless found the warmth of the coat to be welcome. With his coat off, Lizzie got a better look at the man. He surprised her; she had realized earlier that he was a short man, but with nothing on his arms as he had rolled up his dress shirts’ sleeves, she could now see a surprising amount of the same brown hair that was on his head covering his arms. He looked, while not fit, certainly in better shape than men his age, if more than a little thick around his core. And the cologne he wore, which permeated through the coat he had draped her in, was subtle, nice. There was something undeniably paternal about the man, the feeling that he was a safe person to confide in, let alone be around.

It was only as they walked to the counter to order something that was mostly for show so they could stay in the warm shelter of the cozy, bread scented heaven that Lizzie realized that she was surely soaking through his coat. 

“Oh. I think I’m—your coat—I’m soaking it—”

In the middle of some banter with a young baker behind the counter, the man stopped and without missing a breath, smiled broadly at her and said, “Young lady, you don’t have anything to apologize for. You put a dry thing on someone who’s wet, they’re bound to soak the other thing. And a coat has one purpose: to keep its wearer dry .” And before Lizzie could think of protesting, the man turned his attention back to the woman behind the counter and continued the anecdote he had been telling as effortlessly as though he had not stopped in the first place. About to go find a table to sit at and wait for her companion, he again surprised her when he walked with her, holding onto his pastry in one hand, having given Lizzie her own to eat.

Lizzie looked at him as she sat down by the window and asked, “You come here often?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Why do you think that?”

She motioned towards the counter, at the bakers behind it. “You were joking with them, I don’t know, it felt like you knew each other.”

The man gestured loosely. “This place? Never been here. I’m actually just visiting. I’m from Massachusetts.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows rose up. “Oh—this rain, it’s unfortunate. Looks like you won’t be able to meet your new friend after all, then.”

It was the man’s turn to look at her, a mischievous look that fit strangely well on his face growing with a slight smile. “I don’t know if I’d say that, unnecessarily.” About to ask him what he meant by that, the man continued, saying, “It’s serendipity that brought us together. Or, you know, bad weather.”

Lizzie had begun to relax. Beneath the soothing weight of his coat surrounding her, the pastry she was taking bites of, and the atmosphere of the bakery, she started to forget her worries, her disappointment at missing Rowan. “What do you do?”

“‘scuse me?”

Lizzie shifted in her seat, starting to worry that she was bothering him. “For work. I’m a—” Her first instinct was to say that she was an artist, then she almost imagined Mother chastising her. What made her money at the moment wasn’t being an artist . Looking down, embarrassed, Lizzie said, “I work as a hostess.”

The man nodded appreciatively at her, then said, “Could have sworn you were about to say something else there at first.”

Lizzie caved, almost regretting saying it as she said it aloud. “I am— was an artist.”

The man drew his hands out, spreading them. “Whoa! That’s pretty cool. Don’t bury the lead next time.”

She blushed. In between her publishing house’s constant, battering attempts to talk her into thinking of herself as a machine meant to pump product out for them, Mother’s ceaseless snide comments about her not being able to even do her “art” (it was always, even after Lizzie had arrived to help Mother keep her house with a big check in hand from it, almost somehow in quotations whenever the woman spoke of it) reliably, and yes, Fred’s interruptions in her life, it felt almost like she forgot that she used to be able to draw, write, and paint her own work.

Softly, Lizzie asked him, “What do you do?”

The man released a scoff and drew back in his seat. “Guess you could say I’m actually a writer. Been on a hiatus for a few years, found another calling in my life that’s kind of taken over my life.”

Lizzie dipped a little closer, intrigued. “What’s that?”

He kept smiling at her but there was something—like a shadow had crossed over behind his eyes—before he said, “Oh, nothing more boring than listening to people’s hobbies. What I’m wondering is who you were waiting to see in the park?”

She hesitated, realizing too late that she was running her hand down her neck nervously. There was something about this man, besides the fact even that he had saved her from the rain. The more time she spent around him the more she actually felt reminded of how at ease she felt around Fred; at least, in the moments when the Tulpa wasn’t actively bouncing off of the walls. 

“I was meeting with a woman.”

“A woman?” The man nodded, bringing his lips together thoughtfully. “What was her name?”

There was no way this man, even though he was an admitted author, would know who she was, but there was still some part of Lizzie, the part of her that was mortified at the idea of Fred finding out about the books that didn’t relish the idea of this man knowing that she had come all of this way to meet with someone whose work was essentially trashy romance paperbacks. But Lizzie pushed that fear away.

“I was supposed to meet with someone named Rowan Domino.”

The man sat back in his chair, his hand covering his mouth. As his hand slipped, Lizzie saw a smile peeking out underneath his fingers.

“What?”

The man blinked and reached over to prod at his pastry with a finger. “Nothing. So they—her—she goes by Domino?”

Lizzie rolled her eyes, growing more self-conscious by the moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s a pseudonym. We only shared two emails between us so far.”

“Oh. So how are you so sure she’s actually a she ?”

Lizzie felt her ears growing warm. Embarrassed, she nevertheless laughed. “U-um. Well, it might have something to do with what she writes.”

She felt like the man was examining her a little too closely, as if she were a specimen of great interest. Inevitably, he asked, “Now I’m intrigued. What does Domino write that makes you so sure they’re actually a she?”

Lizzie hesitated, letting out a self-conscious chuckle. She had started to press her hand to her cheek, as though it could deflect how red her face was growing. “W-well, since you have to know, Rowan Domino—she’s actually known for writing romance.” She watched his face closely, couldn’t see anything perceptible changing in his eyes. Sighing, she added, “Paperback. You know, the kind with—pink borders, a hot guy on the cover? That kind?”

The man made a reflexive expression, almost apologetic. “Sorry. Still don’t see how that would make the person female by default.”

Lizzie scoffed and rolled her eyes. “C’mon.”

“No, really. Rowan Domino isn’t necessarily a woman. That’s just narrow minded.” In spite of what he said, he could hardly keep the smirk that wanted to grow on his lips off of them.

“Yeah?” Lizzie, not realizing just how comfortable she had grown with this man that she didn’t even know the name of, leaned forward and gave him a baiting look of disbelief. “How would you know that?”

“Glad you asked. I should know, because I’m Rowan Domino.” When Lizzie just stared back at him, blinking far too many times, the man’s expression broke into another grin, this one with a mischievous edge to it. “But, I mean, that’s not my name. You’re right about one thing, it’s a pseudonym.”

Not recovering from her shock, Lizzie could hear herself asking, “What’s your name? Your real name?”

“People call me Rand. I don’t mind being called it. Full name’s Randall, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So, Rand it is. Or, you know, Rowan, when I’m writing.” If Lizzie wasn’t still too surprised to notice, she might have caught how Rand nervously tugged at the collar of his shirt and let out a surprising giggle that didn’t quite fit his outer persona as he kept talking. “I wasn’t going to keep this going or anything, but I don’t know how to break the ice on this. I was actually about to ask if you were Lizzie—Elizabeth—out in the park, before all that rain came pissing on us. But, I mean,” He motioned towards her, that affable smile now carrying an undeniable note of desperation. “You’re really fun to mess with, you know? No surprise, there—”

Lizzie finally snapped out of her shock. “You’re a man ?”

Rand looked confused, then he seemed to look down at himself, tugging at his short-kept beard before he let out a nervous chuckle. “That’s what they tell me.”

Shock—and a small, undeniable sense of betrayal—faded away, leaving Lizzie feeling embarrassed. “Oh. Oh, god, I’m sorry —I don’t—I didn’t mean to—”

Rand waved his hand towards her. “No, no—I’ve been messing with you. You’re allowed to make some assumptions. I bet you didn’t think the person who wrote the love books about Actualized Tulpas was such an asshole.” He looked uncomfortable, hesitating before he continued, asking, “Can we joke about my bad introduction?”

Lizzie dropped her head in her hands, still reeling from how embarrassed she was in light of her own asshole-ness, yes, but also trying to wrap her head around this reveal. The person whose cheesecake books ended up eerily reminding Lizzie of her own deepest desires—was a man? And such an older man, at that.

Rand coughed, dropping his gaze down as he started to tear a piece off of his pastry, jamming it into his mouth. Muttering around the mouthful of food, Rand said, “To be honest, I’m starting to get a bit offended…”

Lizzie jumped into action, saying perhaps a little too loudly, “Yes, of course! I shouldn’t have assumed you weren’t—that you were—”

He offered, “A warm-blooded man, obviously past the age of fifty?”

She sank back in her seat, sucking her lips in to try to fend off what felt like a smile wanting to grow, reflexively, on her face. “Right.”

Rand raised his gaze back up to her, that mischievous hint she saw in his grin earlier lighting his eyes up. “I’m willing to call it fair, in return for me yanking your chain. How’s that sound?”

She nodded, letting a breath that had been trapped in her chest out. “That sounds fantastic.”

“Good. We can talk about a lot of stuff, but to be honest, I’m interested in one thing in particular.”

Lizzie stared at Rand openly, trying to find aspects of this man in the person whose strangely pointed writings had come to mean a great deal to her. Easily, she offered, “Sure.”

Rand nodded slightly and leaned back in his chair. “I’d like to know what you think of our mutual friend.”

Her eyebrows grew tight above Lizze’s eyes. “Who’s that?”

That mischief seemed to be a permanent fixture in those unruly blue eyes of his. “Why, the one who wears all green, has red hair like one of those troll pencil-toppers, talks almost exclusively in shouts?”

If Lizzie had been eating some of her pastry, she might have choked on it then. “What?”

Chapter Text

It might have been more high maintenance in comparison to her normal prevailing attitude— whatever didn’t inconvenience the other person, within reason —but Lizzie was only too happy to insist that she and the enigmatic author go and talk somewhere with her more private, if he did indeed deem it the time to reveal that he knew her Imaginary Friend. The guy, whose romance back catalog was made of stories about Imaginary Friends, knew Drop Dead Fred— and knew, also her nickname. A fact that Lizzie had kept out of her book, feeling that having the fictional version of Fred that she had created saying that name would hurt too much.

It was still raining outside but the entrance to the bakery was actually made up of two doors with a very small space in between, meant for patrons to wipe their feet off on the ragged strip of worn out greying carpet laid down in it. The little room smelled old and dirty, humid from the trapped heat circulating in what was essentially a glass box due. To Lizzie it was nevertheless preferable to potentially being eavesdropped on, so she insisted he follow her and she took him into that small space, barely waiting before the door had closed behind them before she spoke.

“How the hell do you know Fred?”

“Drop Dead Fred? Is he the same Fred we’re talking about here?” The grin he was wearing was starting to wear on her. She wanted to slap it off of him.

“Yes! Who else would I be talking about?” All at once Lizzie felt utterly self-conscious. Draped in his coat still and only just starting to not be soaking wet beneath it, she felt like a cornered, cold, wet rat. And if she couldn’t be warm or dry, she would settle for not feeling cornered . 

“I’m sorry.” He actually managed to look apologetic. “If it were any consolation, you’re just too much of a joy to mess with. And you wouldn’t be the first person to call me an insufferable dick.”

Lizzie gestured in agreement, still struggling to find the words she wanted to say. What she could possibly say ? Still, somehow, she managed to again ask, “How do you know Fred?”

When he looked away as if examining the wet world outside of the window, Lizzie knew that he was being duplicitous even as he sounded cheerful. “You’d be surprised, the circles I run in. But we’re not the type to get hung up on explanations, now, are we?” Before Lizzie could think to interject, he said, “Great. I just wanted to talk to you about your situation. I get the feeling that things aren’t progressing like normal. In your case, I mean.”

“Situation?” It was all she could do, staring at him. “What are you talking about?”

Rand drew himself up and cleared his throat in his fist, not able, still, to meet her eyes. “So this isn’t the first time you’ve had a run in with your childhood Tulpa, is it?”

Lizzie waited, as if daring him to say something more. When he didn’t she rolled her eyes. “Yes. I have had a… run in with Fred once before. After we separated, when I was little.”

This time, when Rand looked at her, it was impossible for Lizzie to miss the open excitement on his face. “This is unprecedented.” He looked so excited that the man had raised his fist up to his mouth, had clamped his teeth around the knuckle of his thumb, as though suppressing the need to yell.

Lizzie shifted, uncomfortable. “I mean, I figured that most people don’t have their imaginary friends return to their lives once they’re out of middle school…”

Rand nodded, lowering his fist from his face. “ Right , and you’re right. Your experience is already rare. But here’s the thing: you should only get a chance to keep your Tulpa once .” he raised a finger up meaningfully. “Once they move on, there’s a high chance they forget that you ever even existed. But, I mean, we both know that Fred’s a bit special, isn’t he? Remembered you. And, somehow, he came back for you, a second time.”

Entranced by what the man who claimed to be Rowan Domino was saying she jumped in surprise at the sound of a clap of thunder outside; further proof that the storm outside had not abated. “What’s so special about him?”

Rand looked away, sheepish. “Ah. I don’t know how much I want to be talking about him. If you’re so curious you should try to ask him yourself. Although,” He chuckled, scratching at the back of his head. “I get the feeling that you’re not exactly amenable to talking to him like that.”

Something occurred to Lizzie then, something that felt like it could have shaken the foundations of everything she thought she knew about the whole concept of a Tulpa. “When did you talk to Fred?”

He spoke as if what he was saying was not some unbelievable fact. “Oh, just last night. I came into town for a meeting and I wanted to take the chance to meet him for the first time. Gotta say: I’ve been a fan for a long time. He lived up to my expectations.”

Lizzie stood back against the glass wall and stared at him. This man, being Rowan Domino? Strange, but acceptable, possibly true. That this man knew her Tulpa? It didn’t make sense. And yet, here she was. Here they were, talking about her Imaginary Friend, and it had nothing to do with her art or book. Someone besides her, her and Nat, knew Fred, had met him.

Rand’s smile fit lopsided on his face, bittersweet. “I can tell—it’s all a bit too much right now. Isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, adding, “And those little pills of yours aren’t helping, either.”

Lizzie’s heart sped up in her chest. “How did you—”

She was cut off as someone that she was too invested in her conversation to see, walking up the sidewalk, came into the restaurant, throwing the door open and nearly walking into her before she sank back against the wall in time. The man, soaked through from the rain, gave her a muttered, “Sorry”, before he walked past. 

When the intruder had gone into the bakery Lizzie looked at Rand, too stunned to think of what she could say. Rand softly scoffed, looking down at his still quite wet folded up umbrella. “Yeah, don’t blame you. Maybe it isn’t my place to do this, talk to you like this, when you’re already dead set on your own course. Maybe it’s just my curiosity that drove me to want to meet you. But I just want you to know, now, that whatever you’re feeling, you’re not the only one to feel it. Once you decide what you want, I’d be more than happy to talk to you again, one way or the other.” Before Lizzie could formulate a response, stop him before he readied himself to leave, Rand looked at her, smiling one last time at her before he said, “I would just recommend you give it one last chance without the barrier of the grey pills. You might like what you find out, without those pills to shield you. And, hey, if you find that it’s not what you want after all, just send him back. Send him back, and ask if he’ll forget you. From a kindred spirit of his, I’d at least want to never have the sense of having lost something that I didn’t have a chance at getting. If you do end up letting him go, I mean.”

And, as Lizzie found her voice, where it had been trapped in the back of her throat, Rand nodded politely to her and turned around, opening the door and leaving. 

She watched him, helpless, as he unfurled his umbrella and walked down the sidewalk past the bakery. Lizzie wondered why she didn’t chase him. 

Yes, it was raining—but she could feel the weight of his coat, the one he had left with her—on her shoulders. If she had the will to do it, Lizzie could have run down the sidewalk in the pouring rain, grabbed onto Rand before he had a chance to fully escape the conversation he had started. But something stopped her. Something in her that almost agreed with what Rand said. It was, perhaps, too late to repair whatever she and Fred had. She had hurt herself, hurt him, and she was only one pill away from finishing it. 

Even dulled by the effects of it, Lizzie wondered what damage the pills had done to her. She sank further back against the glass wall, pressing her hand to her face. She willed the emotions to come, a veritable flood of them, but instead felt nothing. It was as if they had been locked away from her until she could only get a vague sense of them, knowing that they were present, could almost hear, sense them. Like she was a little girl again and something—her caterpillar jack-in-the-box—had been kept on a shelf too high for her to reach.

She might have laid back against the wall, wondering what she had done, what she was going to do, when she heard the sound of someone calling her. Lizzie struggled through her purse and retrieved her phone, glancing at the caller before she reflexively accepted the call. When she realized that the caller was Aleck, she froze and stared at the empty silhouette, a placeholder in lieu of her not yet taking a picture of him. 

She felt obliged to answer it and she never had missed a chance to talk to him before. After all, talking to Aleck had always had an effect of making her feel better about what she was going through. But, now, Lizzie got the feeling that there was more to this whole situation than what the man calling her had always told her. Had insisted was the truth.

She waited until he finished trying to call and glanced out, realizing that the rain had let up in the time that she had been leaning back against the glass. As Lizzie turned to put her phone back in her bag, her hand grazed the pill bottle.

She pulled it out, staring at it, at its last remaining pill. She was planning on taking it tomorrow, which would mark it as the day that would prove that either Aleck Deckles’ little grey pills could free her emotions from the fixation that had plagued her for years, or would end in disappointment. For the first time  since she had begun to take them Lizzie wondered if there was some chance, no matter how slim, where she would be happier if they failed.

As she walked down the sidewalk towards her car, Lizzie thought she could hear the sound of the lone pill hitting its near-empty bottle. As accusing as if it were a reminder of a duty she was thinking of going AWOL on.

That night Lizzie wanted to speak to the man who was sitting on the far edge of her bed. She couldn’t help but wonder what he knew about her, the impossible knowledge from Rand, who claimed to have already spoken to Fred.

Finally, however, the pressure got to be too much. Turning halfway on her back to look at the man who sat, facing away from her, Lizzie softly said his name. 

Fred was still at first, then he turned to look back at her. In the near dark of the bedroom, she could hardly make out his face. Finally, he asked, “Yeah? What is it?”

Lizzie opened her mouth. She had intended to do it; ask him how he felt about her, before it got to be too late—even if it might, already , be too late. Then she felt her bravery, if she ever did have it, fade away from her. She settled further into her bed, sighed, and asked, “Do you want to watch Nat’s performance with me tomorrow?”

She couldn’t see the look on his face, which made for an unusual situation for Lizzie. When Fred spoke he sounded vaguely irritated. “‘course I am. You gonna bring that turd in a blanket?”

If it was meant to make Lizzie laugh, she was so deep in her own thoughts that she neither wanted to laugh at the childish nickname or chastise him for it. “No. I think I’m going to take a day off from him.”

“Good.” Fred didn’t sound in the least conflicted. Somehow it did something to make Lizzie feel better about avoiding the man, who, at least up to this point, Lizzie had thought just wanted to help her. 

She shifted under the blanket, wondering if she could ask him about their mutual friend. The strange one who had thrown Lizzie into a pit of sinking sand, only to leave her with nothing more than his coat and a polite wave good-bye.

Something stopped her from doing it. Something inside of her that was still afraid of opening up a can of worms that she had thought she wanted to remain firmly sealed.

Fred could sense her indecision. “What is it?”

Lizzie shook her head, perhaps too emphatically. “Nothing. Just—I hope we enjoy Nat’s performance.”

“‘course I will,” Fred said, without a hint of indecision in his voice. 

Of course he would. 

Lizzie rolled onto her side and stared at her partially-covered window, wishing she knew if it was better to feel everything she knew she was just bottling up, to go with what felt like a sure thing. Or if there was something else, some other choice that she had perhaps only let herself believe was an impossibility. 

Lizzie had fought with the idea, with the choice, as long as she could. Until it was the usual time in the morning when she waited until she was sure that she had some modicum of privacy from Fred and slipped herself her daily pill. As she sat at her small kitchen table, Lizzie stared into her opened bag, at the bottle.

Fred had gone, off to do who the hell knew what these days. So the choice; to take the pill like she had planned—was supposed to—was hers, alone, in that moment. It lay in her bag, the hazmat-orange of the bottle and the pure white of the top, stuck out from the soft darkness enclosing it inside of the purse. It demanded to be looked at, to be acknowledged. 

Eventually Lizzie sat in her chair with her only companion, the bottle, almost collapsed on the table, her hand filled inside of the purse with the plastic weight of the cylinder.

Chapter Text

She had taken the night off of work for the event, trading her typical dinner shift for a lunch one with a very unhappy but nevertheless eventually assenting co-worker, so that she wouldn’t end up gaining the dangerous ire of her new—really new—boss. When she arrived at the restaurant Lizzie got the immediate impression that it was going to be a long work day. Surprisingly once it came time to end before dinner started, it felt like the day had passed by in a blur.

Of course, traffic took longer than she anticipated, she ended up taking too long getting back to her apartment, and on the way to Lizzie cursed herself for not thinking to just pack a change of clothes. Then she had to remind herself that she needed a shower after sweating it out, spending her shift walking through the restaurant on her feet, then stuck in hot traffic. She couldn’t show up to Nat’s performance sweaty.

So she ran through an abbreviated shower and change of clothes, only recalling the nagging questions that she had been valiantly repressing in the midst of work that she could bury herself in. Who was Rand, how did he know Fred?

And what did he mean, that she wasn’t alone? 

She stopped her line of questioning for herself before she became mired in the most important one—the one that haunted her to no end.

As she made sure her hair looked good for the upteenth time in the mirror, Lizzie on a whim called out, “You there, Fred?” When he didn’t answer back, Lizzie sighed, leaning forward on her sink so she could apply her lipstick. Yes, it bothered her that he never seemed to be around.

Dammit, she thought he’d be happy that she was ghosting Aleck. So much for being her friend. 

She met her own eyes in the mirror and that was when the question that had been plaguing her since the night before rose from where she had thought she had buried it successfully.

Is there some way we could ever be together?

Once she reached the school, Lizzie let the middle school usher guide her through the auditorium to her seat. The room was on the large side, filled with people already sitting in their seats, the grey fabric of which had a pungent smell of must and b.o if you happened to stupidly press your face into it. 

Once she told another usher inside of the auditorium her name, and the boy guided her to her seat, which was in the second row from the front in the center. As expected she sat next to Mickey. 

Dressed in his blue long-sleeved dress shirt in an outfit that screamed “dad” in a way that wasn’t unpleasant, Mickey Bunce looked like an ideal parent at his child’s performance, if you didn’t look at the winking, slight weight of the silver earring the otherwise consummate professional architect still kept in his right ear.

About to say an awkward, “Hi,” Lizzie was stopped dead in her tracks when she felt it, a pang of overwhelming emotion. 

She must have looked strange; Mickey sat up in his stadium seat and continued to stare at Lizzie. “What’s wrong?”

Mortification. There now was the full brunt of an emotion that Lizzie had not felt since she had started to take the grey pills. She had known this might happen, skipping that dose, last one even though it was. As she turned away, awkward under the full weight of Mickey Bunce’s baby blue eyes, she also tried to tell herself that these emotions were her normal feelings. Even if they felt overpowering.

“I’m fine.” Letting out a nervous chuckle Lizzie pointed to the empty seat next to him. “This one taken?”

Something seemed to cross over Mickey’s face, like a shadow, before he blinked. “N-no. Feel free, take a seat.” He hesitated. “Unless you planned to come with someone else—”

Lizzie shook her head, denying that as she took the seat. As she sat her bag down on her lap Lizzie found herself wishing more than anything that she had not picked today to be the day she decided to stop taking the damn pills. Sitting so close to her ex was an experience that she wished she could only feel in that grey headspace.

Like this, it was as if she could feel Mickey’s presence next to her; his tasteful cologne, the pretty, boyish shape of his face, his slender limbs underneath his clothes. Yes, when Lizzie had dated him, then married him, she had undeniably been attracted to Mickey, to his spirit, his carefree, gentle personality. But there was always a caveat. Still, she shifted, uncomfortable, in her seat, even before Mickey started to talk to her.

“So—she wanted me to make sure I didn’t tell you about this. Seems like this is a big deal for her. I saw the rehearsal,” Mickey took in a deep breath, sighing. “It’s really good. I know,” he gestured defensively, smiling. “She wouldn’t want me to hype it up that much, but it’s really—it’s inspired . I’m proud of her.”

Lizzie blinked, finding that she had to struggle to remember that she was sitting next to her soon-to-be ex-husband, no longer the man that had been, at least, a temporary port in a storm for her. One that she found herself missing so much now that it was nearly her undoing to know that she couldn’t lean over and hold him. To feel his arms around her again.

God, what’s wrong with me? She smiled at Mickey, trying to ignore the way his cheeks dimpled so damned earnestly when he was happy. “I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

As if in direct opposition to how she was growing to feel to her ex, newly awakened to her emotions once more, she heard as the once-empty seat next to her creaked as someone apparently slammed down into it. His presence, so close to her, gave him away before he could say, or do, anything. 

Letting out a snort, Fred, lounged back in the seat and with his long legs strewn out hit the seat in front of him. The grandma who was just sitting down let out a gasp and looked behind her at the seat that was, to her perspective, empty before her eyes settled on Lizzie. 

Letting a nervous grin grow on her face Lizzie did a little wave at the woman, grateful when she eventually sat back in her seat. She was about to lean over to say something to him when Fred slouched further down into his seat, his arms crossed over his chest, a frown on his face. “Right. How long till this thing starts?”

She discovered that she couldn’t say anything. Her words caught in her throat. It was impossible not to lose her every thought, impression, under the full weight of her awareness of his presence next to her. 

His smell —how had she never noticed it before she had kissed him? Unusual, but irresistibly so, standing out among the rest of the smell of the place; the growing sense and smell of the many families that had come and who were filling the seats in the room around them, the sharp, artificial smell of the freshly washed carpeting underneath their feet.

And looking at him it was as if Lizzie was seeing him fresh for the first time. Without the greyness of the pills, she was too aware of how she loved his hair, wanted to touch it, feel its odd, soft texture between her fingers. Found his long, gangly frame to be one she had always wanted, strange and perfect. And his face —Fred, when he wasn’t pulling weird expressions for emphasis, was a strange type of handsomeness that had a very appealing combination of unpredictably lovely features. Like a nice-shaped nose on the overlarge side, well-proportioned lips that fit in a smile easily and naturally, and uneven, crazy bright blue eyes that you only noticed were uneven—special, unique—when you looked at him head on.

Even in his crazy get-up and acting the way he did, Lizzie found that without the protection of her grey pills for the first time in too long, she was overwhelmed by him. More than Mickey ever could, ever did for her.

This, of course, caught Fred’s attention. He turned, crouching partially over the armrest that separated their seats, scowling at her. “Hey! What’s gone wrong with you ?”

Lizzie blinked and sat up in her seat. Hoping that, somehow, her impure thoughts weren’t written all over her face. “Nothing’s wrong.”

On her opposite side, Mickey asked, “What’s going on?”

Lizzie turned to look at Mickey. She realized that he had no idea that she had taken his daughter’s imaginary friend—back—and certainly had no idea that his ex was talking to him. Perhaps too quickly, she said, “Just thinking aloud to myself.”

“Oh.”

On her left, Fred snarled out, “We’re havin’ a conversation, so piss off , Fartpants!”

Lizzie didn’t turn to look at him, saw that Mickey had something more he wanted to say. “You know, that seat next to you isn’t taken. It’s not going to be used at all; Nat said that she wanted it in case Rachel shows up.”

Rachel was the girl’s birth mother. The one who had not appeared for so much as a birthday party since the divorce had been finalized. Lizzie tried to hide her disappointment, wondering if she had dropped the ball so hard on being a good mom in her time she spent struggling alone and out of the Bunce house that the girl had gotten back in contact with the woman who had expressed no desire in being a mother to the girl. “Oh.”

Of course, with the grey pills out of her system, the disappointment she felt was more than likely written across her face. 

Mickey leaned in closer, an apologetic smile on his face. “No, no—I think she used Becky as an excuse, you know. She won’t tell me, but I think she actually left that seat for Drop Dead Fred.”

Lizzie froze, stared at Mickey. Wondered if he knew her strange, implausible secret. Trying to regulate the muscles in her face into something like a normal expression, Lizzie said, “Wow, that’s commitment. Saving a seat for an imaginary friend.”

She had almost forgotten about the friend in question, sitting on her left. Nearly shouting, Fred said, “Stop that, I don’t like being talked about when I’m here to listen to it! Snotface, if you’re gonna ignore me all night then I oughta just go up to the stage and try to make the whole night miserable for that awful bitch Hayden.”

With images of Fred tripping girls on the stage—or maybe even re-enacting a famous Stephen King story, with whatever liquid he could manage to get his hands on—Lizzie kept looking at Mickey and, desperate, said, “I think it’s a wonderful thing that she kept a seat for her imaginary friend.”

Hoping that talking nicely about him would placate Fred, when he instead said, “Alright then. Keep ignorin’ me, I’ll just go on the stage—” he let out a yelp when Lizzie, still looking at Mickey, reached back and grabbed onto his wrist, tightening her grasp. 

Mickey blinked in that way that Lizzie knew he always did whenever he was trying to figure out what the hell she was up to. Laughing nervously, Mickey leaned forward and in a conspiratorial whisper, said, “If you can see him, can you tell him to try to behave ? She worked really hard on all of this, but the ending piece means a lot to her.”

Lizzie smiled at him and nodded, all the while keeping her grasp firm on her Tulpa’s wrist. Behind her Fred yelped and said, “Okay, ‘kay, I get the picture, I was jokin’, I was only joking. ”

Mickey scratched the back of his head, something seeming to worry him. Before Lizzie could ask what it was, the man stood up, saying, “I don’t know when this is gonna start, but I want to get a drink out of the fountain outside and use the bathroom.” Nodding awkwardly, he left his ex and his daughter’s ex-imaginary friend alone.

With Mickey out of earshot Lizzie turned to Fred, relaxing her grip on his wrist. With an annoyed hiss, she asked, “Can you behave for a bit?”

Fred scowled and sank back into his seat anew, yanking his arm loose from Lizzie’s grasp so he could fold his arms over his chest. “Come on, you know I wouldn’t do anything to this. This means a lot to Natbrat.”

“Never stopped you from doing anything like that to me.”

Fred was still scowling, but there was something insincere about it as he gazed at her. “Yeah, but—you deserved it. If you, really, look down inside of yourself, you’ll see that everything I ever did was ‘cause I love you.”

Lizzie’s heart jumped at that word. She might have overwise taken the term for granted, knew that he meant it platonically, perhaps even like a brother would love a sister. But, fresh off of her mind-altering pills, Lizzie felt a yearning grow inside of herself until she was staring at him, her heart beating a strange rhythm in her chest. 

Somehow she managed to make Fred look visibly uneasy. Looking away from her, the Tulpa muttered under his breath, “What really has gone wrong with you?”

Lizzie knew it wasn’t a question, but was a statement, one that wasn’t even aimed at her, really. Still, she answered him. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently.”

“That’s dangerous.” He snorted and theatrically rolled his eyes.

She ignored his teasing, followed what her heart wanted her to say—for the first time in weeks. “I think there’s a way we can be happy together, Fred. Happy again.”

Fred was quiet, uncharacteristically so. He didn’t look at her, seeming as if he was staring at something when in fact there was nothing for him to be staring at yet. With a soft sigh, he asked, “What did you have in mind?”

Maybe she was just imagining it—very likely—but Lizzie thought there was a different tone in how he spoke to her. Not mature, not exactly , but sincere; a true rarity for him. It scared her, how hopeful just the tone of his voice, not even happy or excited, seemingly at the concept of talking to her about this, but at least taking it seriously, made her feel.

Trying to wipe the smile that wanted to grow on her face off, Lizzie said, “We can talk on the way back home about it.”

Fred looked like he wanted to argue but that was when the lights dropped and Mickey reappeared, taking his seat and asking his ex, “Didn’t miss anything, did I?”

If Fred did have any questions, he seemed to at least assent to talking about it later. 

Nat was in the front row of children, dressed in a dark grey dress that fit the style of the other girls in the performance. Her blonde hair was tied behind her head, as if in a bid to make her look older than her girlish features gave away. It was, of course, impossible to tell what she sounded like, her voice surrounded by those of her classmates. 

The performances started five minutes later, with a piece called, “The Four Seasons.” It was about the four seasons. Then it was followed with a song about the heroism of Chief Sitting Bull. Somewhere between the second song and the next, a song about different shades of color, Fred leaned in distractingly close to Lizzie and whispered to her.

“Well, none of it’s exactly….” he clicked his teeth. “It sucks. It really, really sucks.”

Well, there went his assurance from the night before, that he would definitely love a performance with Nat in it. The giddiness that his close proximity and his joke made Lizzie chuckle. 

The sound must have surprised Fred—she understood why, given her recent coldness—because he turned to look at her.

So close to her, staring right at her, Lizzie felt it. 

The sudden urge to kiss him. Sitting next to her ex husband, supposed to be watching the girl she helped raise since a few years ago singing, Lizzie ached to feel him again. When she looked up into Fred’s eyes she could see it, a realization in his blue eyes. Surprise.

There , it was there in his eyes, the same as any man, any person, would have.

Lizzie sat back in her seat, turning away from him, her heart pounding loud in her ears so that it was a struggle to hear the children singing. She didn’t dare look back at Fred. 

His eyes . He could dissociate, lie, pretend things didn’t happen, but she had seen it, there, in his eyes. It was a recognition, if not of what she was going to do, then at least about the desire she had, looking at him. 

Yes, and he didn’t exactly look like he reciprocated it.

Her embarrassment started to sink in as the kids went into an enthusiastic rendition of a pop song that Lizzie vaguely recognized from hearing all the time on the radio. As it ended, she found herself questioning if she dared to say anything to him on the ride home like she had planned to. What right did she have, when they had had their chance before, at least, she had had her chance? Either he didn’t want her, or he was incapable of sharing the feeling she had for him.

Obviously. In spite of what some weirdo she had met the day before had told her.

She was sunk deep in the mire of her own thoughts and growing disappointment when she was pulled out, the feel of someone gently elbowing her bringing her out of her mind. It was Mickey who turned, bending down softly to tell her something.

“Nat worked really hard on this next one. It wasn’t easy talking everyone into letting her do it. It’s actually kind of a song that no one remembers too much.”

As Lizzie sat up in her seat, violently pushing her feelings for the Tulpa next to her away, a soft piano tune started to play. And then the girl herself stepped forward, walked directly up to the mic. She sang by herself. And the soft beauty of Natalie’s voice shook Lizzie, as if the woman had only just been sleeping.

If I should die this very moment,

I wouldn't fear.

For I've never known completeness

like being here…

The other children behind her started, their voices a low, shared note, an almost unified chant. A choir whose god they praised was love, love in its purest and most longing. It was beautiful, unspeakably so. And the lyrics —

Wrapped in the warmth of you,

loving every breath of you.

Still my heart this moment,

or it might burst.

Could we stay right here —

‘til the end of time, ‘til the earth stops turning?

Wanna love you, ‘til the seas run dry.

I've found the one 

I've waited for.

Lizzie felt like she couldn’t breathe. She stared at Nat as if she were in a trance. The world contracted around her, until it felt like she was only aware of two people in the dark room with her: Nat, and Fred. And, god, it felt like the girl and her classmates were singing everything that there was in her heart.

All this time I've loved you,

and never known your face.

All this time I've missed you,

and searched this human race.

Here is true peace;

here my heart knows calm.

Safe in your soul,

bathed in your sighs.

Wanna stay right here,

‘til the end of time…

She was hardly aware of getting up from her seat, that she was running down the aisle to the doors of the auditorium. She was overwhelmed, feeling like everything that Lizzie had shielded herself with, protecting her heart, was ripped off with that song. So she ran, ran before she could disintegrate out in the cold, unfeeling darkness of the auditorium. Could be left, bare, for everyone to see.

As she ran, realizing too late that she had made a turn somewhere, was no longer headed to the entrance but was now just running through one of the corridors, Lizzie found she was tired of running through the dark, in a school that was supposed to be closed off from the public. She stopped, turning around to look at where she had just come from.

It was pitch dark, with the overbearing white light of the fluorescent panels above off, bathing the sleek, smooth tiles of the hall’s floor with a bare glint from the lights on at the end of the hall in front of the entranceway.

Her first instinct was to walk back the way she came, then to leave. Or maybe just cool her head outside for a bit so she could come back and congratulate Nat on her amazing performance. As she looked at the light, though, Lizzie knew she didn’t want to go back, out of the darkness. So, with a defeated stagger, Lizzie walked to the nearest wall of lockers and slid down it until she was sitting on the ground, her knees raised in front of her.

She stared at the wall of lockers opposite her, trying to come to a consensus on how she felt. It was impossible; so much of her hurt like hell, even the small amount of time she had spent sitting between one man she used to at least believe she cared about and flanked on the other side by the one she had never stopped wanting, had left her never wanting to experience anything like it again. She didn’t ask for this; she had tried . Tried to go for what she wanted, then when that didn’t work, she had again tried to make it work for her, picking up the parts of herself and hiding behind a facade.

It didn’t help that both people she talked to who seemed to know more than she did about her situation told her completely different things. 

Sat on the ground in Nat’s school in the near dark, gasping as she struggled to not start crying, Lizzie asked herself something she realized that she had forgotten about. Among everything, every question that had plagued her since she had gotten Fred back, she forgot the question that had first driven her to keeping him once again.

What do I want?

She heard him walking on the smooth tile floor, his shoes softly squeaking before he said anything. “Elizabeth? Snotface? You ran off . Ran off, before Natbrat could finish…” he trailed off, walking until he was standing against the lockers across from Lizzie.

She glanced up at him, hands clenching her knees almost defensively. 

This was a travesty. She had started to cry again but this time she fought it back, looking up at Fred, could feel her nostrils flaring in and out, like the gills of some pathetic fish. He was her Imaginary Friend; he was Drop Dead Fred, her childhood best friend, her protector.

The man she had always longed for, since she was old enough to realize what she wanted romantically. A perfection, a tenderness that she had never found in human form.

His face was half-bathed in the complete darkness of the hall, the other half visible in the faint light of the entrance way in the distance. With his arms crossed in a far too familiar stance, Lizzie nevertheless felt like she was looking at a new person. A stranger with oddly familiar blue eyes, looking at her as if asking her an unspoken question.

It felt strange to be under the weight of his gaze. Uncomfortable, and yet, the promise of perhaps finally some reprieve, left her aching. 

Lizzie’s lips opened and she almost asked him it, then and there. Then her will —or was it just her now malfunctioning conscience?—kicked in and she looked away, letting out a tittering, nervous chuckle. “I just needed to get some air. I was feeling overwhelmed.” Which was a true statement, not technically a lie.

She expected Fred, who she had been guessing was in his own way avoiding just this moment himself, to segue away from her feelings, or at least the catalyst of it. To let Lizzie get a chance to forget the things that she was experiencing. But he surprised her. 

He walked until he was standing over her. For one moment, his continued silence—and closeness—made her uneasy. Afraid, in a way she hadn’t been of Fred in over five years. 

Finally, though, he reached down, gesturing for Lizzie to take his hand. She didn’t hesitate, taking his so very warm hand in hers gratefully, letting him pull her up. As she started to thank him, about to take her hand away, she discovered that Fred wasn’t about to let her hand go. 

“Got something to admit. I’ve known there’s been… somethin’ wrong for a few days now. I couldn’t get a feel on your emotions like I always can. Even when they’re so… strange to me. But just now?” In the vague light of the hallway, Fred looked a little uncomfortable, not quite meeting her eyes. “Got something I need to tell you ‘fore it’s too late. Even though everything tells me I’m wrong here.” He chuckled gently, shaking his head as he seemed to softly speak to himself. “Me, Drop Dead Fred, afraid of making a mistake ?”

He can feel me? What did that mean?

Even more than that there was something between them, some emotional charge that had never been there before, except for that seemingly forgotten-about moment in the closet. Lizzie found it hard to find her voice. But she did speak, her voice husked with a strange emotion. “What is it, Fred?”

It was like fate or something very much like it, as the Tulpa leaned forward so fast that he might as well have shot forward and leaned over her until his mouth was hovering a breath shy of his Charge’s mouth? “Feels like... there’s somethin’ inside of me that wants something that I don’t know nothin’ about.” He smiled for a moment before it was gone, forgotten on his face. “Used to scare me.”

Lizzie spoke, her whole self attuned to the man so close to her. “ What used to scare you?”

Fred tilted, leaning in close so that he was almost touching the side of her face. He breathed in, smelling her, the sensation on her skin making Lizzie’s mouth and eyelids quiver, twitch in anticipation. When he spoke, his words touched her like his warm breath on the side of her face, her neck. “You.” And he shocked her, his voice deepening as he said two words that he had never before said aloud to her. “Elizabeth Cronin.”

Lizzie shuddered, knew that him calling her that had crossed some major barrier that she never thought they would ever come close to breaking through. It made her see him in a light, fresh even beyond the strange kiss they had shared before. Calling her that name as if he truly did see her as an adult, a grown woman, and not some adolescent girl that needed protecting.

Lizzie whispered, “What’s there to be scared of?” She felt a smile start on her lips, spreading irresistibly. “I thought you were fearless , Drop Dead Fred.”

She had expected that that would pull him out of this new persona of his. Instead, Fred, who felt like he was somehow getting closer to her—perhaps because of the continued feel of his breath on her—seemed to only grow still. When he spoke his voice had softened just a bit from how he had said her name. “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.” As if in direct contrast to what he said, Lizzie felt him reach up, touching the side of her neck opposite where he was breathing her in, just centimeters from burying his face in her neck. He caressed her, fingers shaking slightly even as he slid his hands up and down her own shivering neck. 

Lizzie felt like she was bathing in an intimate touch that she once would have been shocked to imagine experiencing. Hesitantly, she took a chance, ducking her head and moving slightly so that she was almost touching her nose to Fred’s. “And what if I want you ?”

Fred again grew still, even his stroking on her neck stopped. He sighed. “I don’t want to disappoint you.” To Lizzie’s delight, in spite of what he said, he resumed stroking her, the feel of his touch on her neck soothing but almost innocently erotic. “Afraid I’ll lose our trust. And me ? What’s so great about me ? Don’t need me when you got you, right?”

It felt like a switch was flipped in Lizzie. Boldly, she reached her hand up, copying Fred. He felt smooth, warm, soft, and exactly like a man. “You don’t need to be anything different, Fred. You’re you, that’s more than I could ever want.” She turned bold, raising her hand up the back of his neck, sliding her fingers through his hair. It was soft, thick.

In the near dark, Lizzie could make out a hazy image of his eyes. She couldn’t see the expression on his face, couldn’t tell if he was as drawn into this as she was. So it surprised her when she heard him ask, “I want to try something.”

Feeling the earlier devious smile start on her lips, Lizzie asked, “What do you want to try, Drop Dead Fred?”

She couldn’t tell, but Lizzie was certain that he was smiling now, too. “Lizzie…”

“Come on.” She examined his eyes more deeply, searching for the smallest sign of any emotion. “I don’t want you to forget about it again, if I kiss you.”

She said it. Lizzie could tell, as soon as she said it, that that had been a profane phrase. But, saying it, it made Lizzie ache to imagine, to remember. 

Fred’s hand moved from her neck to her face, thumb and forefinger stroking within achingly close proximity to her lips. “I won’t. Promise I won’t this time.” That was the beautiful thing about him that no man could ever compare to; he believed her. Utterly, whole-heartedly, when it finally came down to it. Believed in something he seemed to not be able to recall happening.

Pulling back away a bit, so that Lizzie could make his face out, Fred cleared his throat and, as if he were asking permission to something far more serious and intimate, he asked her, “Can I kiss you?”

Lizzie smiled broadly at him, the fuzzy feeling that had been growing in her stomach seeming to spread through her whole body. “I’ve been yours longer than you’d ever think.”

Fred grinned at her, something reminding her of his usual impish self. “No, you have to tell me to—”

Lizzie cut him off, biting her bottom lip both in growing frustration and in anticipation. “I want you to kiss me, Fred, I want to know what it’s like to have you kiss me .”

She almost expected him to keep his cruel and unwanted game up, then the Tulpa surprised her. He near-lunged forward, surprisingly gentle as he grasped either side of her face and began to kiss her.

Lizzie moaned, grabbing onto the back of his head as she guided him into a deeper kiss.

Chapter Text

The man sat down at his desk, staring at the blank screen of his computer like he was waiting for it to do something and not the other way around. Aleck rested his cheek on his fist, started to strum at the desk with his nails. He had told himself that he needed to wait, be patient. It was a skill he was already good at. Some would say exceedingly so. 

He had to wait until Elizabeth Cronin could get back to him, and with it, news of the two things he was most anxious to learn about.

So, yeah, sleeping had been more than a hard sell for him as it was. Working had been a near impossibility. Never helped when your mind was on someone who was ghosting you. Although he told himself that more than likely she was just at that little stupid recital that her ex-step daughter had invited her to.

Not that it could account for the full day she had not answered one of his calls, or texts.

After five minutes of staring into the cold white of the screen of his writing software, Aleck was about to get up and see if getting a glass of water or perhaps doing some menial task in the apartment could make him feel better. Wake him up, or help shake the dread that had been growing in the back of his throat.

As he started to get out of his metal folding chair he heard someone knock at the door. Immediately his heart felt like it was about to soar. There was no one else who that could be; even though he had never brought her over here—for obvious reasons—Aleck forgot any good sense he might have had and walked to the door, undoing the very necessary locks on it, given the neighborhood he had to live in, and opened the door without so much as looking in the peephole.

Drawing his arms out wide, Aleck nearly cried out, “And the award for latest callback is…”

As he stared at the person on the other side of the door Aleck realized that he wasn’t being visited by the person he most wanted to see. And, really, he didn’t know who this person was who stared at him.

A bearded older gentleman—in his fifties, at least—and on the shorter side for a man, his visitor had a strange, immediate aura of distinction around him, from his nice clothes to the polite way he looked back at him, expectant.

As Aleck dropped his arms to his side and stared at his unwanted guest, surprised to not see someone he was expecting instead of this stranger, the man spoke, his voice soft, but with masculine, smooth heft to it.  “I wanted to make a house call. Even though you’re supposed to be the doctor. I figured—you’d make an exception for little old me.”

Aleck, stunned, was in no position to stop him when the stranger suddenly walked up to him and pressed him aside, walking into his apartment. Aleck turned around and finally felt his shock wear off, watching as the man started to walk around, glancing at everything in Aleck’s life as if the place were a museum. 

Aleck Deckles had gotten this apartment in the last few weeks, having had to skip out on the last one he had. And the one before that. Even for him, Aleck knew that getting apartments and not paying rent on them, running out before someone could get suspicious and get him in trouble for fraud, was not something he could do in the long term. Or, likely, even in the short run as well. 

And, really, whatever apartment he happened to be living in was his dirty secret. If it had been Lizzie who had been at the door, he had had no intention of letting her come in. After all—it would certainly all make him look like nothing more than a fraud, now, wouldn’t it?

The man looked at his barren kitchen, a hand resting aggravatingly on his chin thoughtfully, his eyes moving over to the shabby little desk that Aleck had scrounged, found leaning against a dumpster. It was partially broken, stained, and one of the legs had to be replaced with cinder blocks. 

“Quite a place you’ve got here.”

One of the things that anybody who knew Aleck—if he made it a point to make friends, which he hadn’t—would’ve said about him was that Aleck wasn’t lacking in quickness, or in learning how to acclimate to a new situation.

“Hi. Your name must be Asshole. Thank you for the compliment, but I’d like you to leave. Now. Before I have to bust something over that old head of yours.” To accent his point, Aleck grabbed onto his door and swung it fully open. He let the mask of pleasantness, the one he was used to wearing to get what he wanted, drop free to reveal his true face; a cold, dark expression.

To his annoyance the man only chuckled, shaking his head as he turned away, walking towards the other end of the room, Aleck’s living room. A room which consisted of a stool—again, found in an alley somewhere—and the library of Aleck’s books, which had been part of his collection since he had devoted himself to his current goal a few years ago. A dictionary, books by Jung, and a variety of books on the subject of Tulpas. There were also the few books that pertained on how to grift effectively, but to be honest, Aleck got better information on the internet these days. You could ask anyone anything in a forum or a web board and you could get any answer you could have wished for.

The man walked into his living room, staring at the stool, the stack, as well as the slight scattering of books, his hands kept clasped behind his back. 

His mannerisms, his grace, irritated Aleck. Like he was saying he was better than him.

Aleck swung the door closed, rolling his eyes. More than happy to keep the distance between them, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at his unwelcome intruder’s back. “Alright now, old man, time to get going before I make you wish we’d never met.”

Without turning to look back at him—the man was now bending over, examining the spines of Aleck’s books closely—he said, in a voice that sounded distracted, “No need. We already know each other.” Before Aleck could ask him what the hell he meant, he continued, saying, “You know, I visited your office first. Or, well, what was your office.”

Aleck felt his face starting to grow red. Embarrassment and anger at this man fueled him. “What the fuck is this? Are you some undercover cop from the grandfather commission?” 

The man surprised him by chuckling. “That’s funny. I mean, not the joke, but the fact that you can’t stop yourself from saying those.” He finally got back up, turning to look at the man whose house he had just barged into. “Some things never change. At least, for some people.”

“Alright,” Aleck started to walk towards him, hands tightening into fists. “You got something to say, say it now, otherwise I’m going to beat the unholy shit out of you and when you come to I won’t be here for you to try to find—”

The man waved his hand towards him, bemusement in his very blue eyes. “Alright, calm down. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

Aleck scoffed. “You are old, but you aren’t my friend.”

He nodded his head sympathetically, lips pursed thoughtfully. “True. But we once knew each other very well.”

Something flickered, some memory in the back of Aleck’s mind. Those blue eyes, even, somehow, that voice seemed familiar. But it was something old, far older than Aleck looked like he was. And it was impossible—

“Ah.” The man looked down and took the final steps across the floor to Aleck, his hand extended in expectation for a handshake. “I’m sorry. I think I got us off on the wrong foot. You see, I don’t look like how I used to look, well, much at all anymore. Let me re-introduce myself. I go by Rand these days.” When Aleck didn’t shake his hand or seemed to recognize him, the man sighed and withdrew his hand. “Look, I’m trying to be nice here. You’re making a huge problem for not just me, but potentially for quite a few people—”

“Who the fuck are you?” Aleck stared his intruder down. He didn’t know a “Rand”, and he certainly didn’t recognize some bearded old man.

“Rand” looked at him, disappointment written clearly on his face. With a sigh, he shook his head and said, “Right now, I’m here to try to warn you. Let this whole thing go. I talked to both of them, what you’re doing is cruel, stupid, and it’s not going to work.”

Aleck grinned at him. “Who the fuck are you?” When “Rand” looked back at him he shook his head, his face surely starting to show his anger. “You don’t get to come into my life and try to tell me what I can do. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

The man spoke without hesitation. “But I do. That’s the problem, Kaleb.”

Aleck jerked, flinching at that name. There was no way he knew his name, his real one. The person he was before he became—this. 

And before he could ask him how he knew that, the man shook his head and started to walk past him. Aleck was powerless to stop him, watching passively, shocked, as the man made for the door before he turned and said, “I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass, act like I know how you feel, how you felt. But you can’t deal with what you went through by hurting someone else, acting like you’re going to do other people a favor by killing their hearts.” He scoffed. “Make it so we can’t talk to our Charges if they still want us.”

Aleck found his voice, saying, “What an auspicious gift. A doomed love with someone who can’t even appreciate you.”

“Rand” stared at him, unblinking. “Which one are you talking about?” When Aleck said nothing, the man continued. “Stop acting like a martyr. I met the woman you’re supposedly helping. She reminds me of her.” When Aleck flinched at that comparison—an impossible one, one that a man he didn’t know shouldn’t have been able to reference—the man continued, “ If she wanted to be with you, I wouldn’t stand in the way. Wouldn’t dream of it. But you’re sick. Not even good for yourself these days. And what’s more, you’re trying to destroy something you don’t even understand. Are incapable of understanding.”

Aleck’s expression had turned down into a frown. His anger had dissipated but there was something almost more familiar, colder, more resolute to replace it. “Don’t talk about me that way. I’m not some fucking Disney villain. I offered Elizabeth a choice. She chose me—” Aleck stopped himself, then corrected it. “She chose her own fate. What right do stupid feelings have to control how someone has to live?”

“Rand”’s lips turned in a soft smile that took Aleck off-guard anew. “Now, don’t act like some misunderstood victim, either, here. Neither Fred nor Lizzie have ever done anything to you, and you’ve just interrupted their lives, then tried to kill something between them they didn’t even know existed.” He nodded at him. “And between the both of us: I think we both know that Fred didn’t exactly have a fair chance of getting over his initial misgivings. Lizzie never doubted herself before you entered their lives. Everything was going like it should have.”

Aleck felt his face growing hot. Anger; raw, unrefined, an emotion that he rarely let himself succumb to, burnt its way through him. He nearly shouted at the man, “He walked away the first time five years ago ! He lost his chance, and he’s just going to stop again. Then he’s going to break that beautiful woman’s heart! How is that fair ?”

Again “Rand” spoke with barely a hint of hesitation. “You’re right, he did leave her years ago. But love isn’t fair, it doesn’t play by any rules. I’ve heard about your plans, know how you’ve tried to ply other people like Lizzie with those pills. Pretending that you’re above it, by taking pride in destroying love for other people, is worse than childish. It’s nihilistic, evil.”

He had started to shake. He was losing control— losing it, losing it, ha ha, whee, what a twist, a new distortion inside of my kaleidoscope! —and that meant that this stranger, who acted like he knew him better than Aleck knew himself, was gaining control over him. 

“I think it’s time you leave.”

The man looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he closed his eyes and sighed. “I had a feeling it was too late for you, but I thought…” He stopped, a sad half-smile growing on his face. “I can’t stop you. Or maybe it’s just because I still remember some better times that we shared together, even if you don’t. But I think you should know—this fight’s already over.” And he turned, leaving the apartment on that final, ominous note.

Aleck rushed to the doorway and yelled at the retreating man’s back, “Yeah, well, I heard about you these days, Rand. All anybody talks about back home is about how you’ve gone fucking crazy, turned yourself into a Human.” He expected the man to turn around and look at him, argue with him, like he wanted him to. But as the man only continued to walk, almost sedately, away, the anger rose in Aleck, refusing to abate. He shouted after him, “You gave up living forever, Randall ! You of all people know why I have to do this!”

He watched as the man he once considered his brother left him, clutching the doorway of his rat-trap apartment.