Chapter Text
May 12, 2020
The sounds of singing and pop music played by an overworked speaker resonated throughout the community centre. To some it was sweet, to others it was a nail through the forehead. Bouncing around the wooden floorboards and the pale teal walls, escaping through to the small reception room at the front.
“I’m sorry, the halls have ended up double booked due to the holidays,” the receptionist apologised to the two men. “The girls will be finished up in the next five minutes or so, I promise. Then the day-care centre will be free again!”
Lyon nodded, a polite smile written across his face. “That’s quite alright. We can wait.”
“Or we could not,” Gray rolled his eyes.
The older male scoffed. “Nonsense! This meeting is the best thing for you. See, they’re stopping already!” Lyon told him.
It was true. The sounds of the singing were replaced quickly with childish giggling and running around the room. Bags, coats and all other belongings were quickly gathered by the gossiping teenagers, little care for what was around them as they discussed their latest rehearsal successes.
“Did you hear that high note? And the dance routine… That last step was so hard!”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it!”
“I’m sure we’ll do much better next time.”
“We’re already getting much better!”
Gray tucked himself into the corner of the room as the small collection of young women raced out in front of him. They bounced around with an excited air, chattering and wishing each other the best of luck. It only gave Gray reason to give Lyon a long, flat stare.
“I promise you; it’ll be worth it,” Lyon reassured him, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ve recommended similar groups to many, many others in your exact position. They’re a great way to assist you in getting over your issues.”
Gray’s frown turned into a glare. “Issues?”
“See, Aki agrees with me,” Lyon offered, leaning down to the child by Gray’s side. He in no way seemed to be in an agreeing mood, too busy staring at the small crowd from behind Gray’s legs and holding onto his father’s hand tightly. Lyon didn’t seem to notice this. “We’re going to help daddy get over his issues. Aren’t we Aki?”
“Please don’t talk to my son about issues…” Gray hissed at him, grabbing onto Aki’s hand even tighter.
“The room should be free now,” the woman behind the desk called out to them both. “Second door on the right.”
“Thanks,” Gray huffed, quickly moving away and towards the door.
Lyon grinned proudly, watching his friend disappear with his son. Without a shadow of doubt, he knew that Gray would take great things from this experience. It had been an excellent idea - after all, Lyon had tried and tested this many times with other clients.
“Mom! We got through the second verse!”
“Excellent work, both of you! Oh Wendy, I love what you’ve done with your hair!”
“Th-thank you, Mrs Blendy…”
“Oh Wendy, how many times? You can call me-“
“Lyon!”
Lyon blinked suddenly, looking back to the man calling his name. “S-Sorry?”
Gray frowned back at him. “Are you coming or what?” he asked him impatiently. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just… thought I recognised someone,” Lyon explained, quickly ignoring his instincts and following Gray into the room.
-----
“I saw him today.”
Ren turned to his wife, pausing. It wasn’t her words that made him concerned, but the way that she held her arms over her body, the awkward glance away, the pauses between each breath. It was all enough to make him stop and listen.
“Oh?”
She hesitated. The words caught on her tongue. It held an almost ominous presence in the build up to her admission. “Her father.”
He paused again. He turned away, putting another item back into the cupboard. “I see,” he said simply.
She bit her lip. Squeezed her arms tight. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him around. I’d assumed he’d moved away again. But he was at the community centre at the same time as Chelia. If I’d been a few minutes late…” she gave a heavy, defeated sigh. “Not that I suppose that would be a bad thing…”
Ren just listened, continuing to put away the groceries in a solemn silence. Hearing that his silence was being returned, his hand stilled. “I don’t think this is my problem…” he said slowly.
She sighed again, this time more dramatically. No matter how sharp and uncaring that might have sounded to the untrained ear, Chelia understood. “No, you’re right. I need to decide what to do with this. We’ll stay a family no matter what happens. She isn’t going to stop loving you, you know,” she told him with a twinkle in her eye.
He turned away, taking an excruciatingly long time to put away just one can of peas.
She giggled. Ren was being as proud as always, but she could always see the love there, even when he didn’t like to admit it. “Thank you,” she told him, walking back to his side and placing a kiss on his cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
——
“And then she started going on about love and how we are all still a family,” Chelia finished explaining before ducking her head into yet another dusty box.
“I see…” Wendy told her softly, brushing the dust from another label. ‘Chelia’s Toys, 2006’. She pushed the box aside. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like finding out your father isn’t-I mean, he is-but-“
“It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret,” Chelia admitted, pulling out random items and inspecting them. “I always suspected. I don’t look anything like him.”
“That’s true… but even so…” Wendy whispered quietly.
“Nothing’s changed,” Chelia told her seriously. “Even though he isn’t related to me by blood, he’s still my dad. All I’m looking for now is my father.”
Wendy nodded. It really was admirable watching the way that Chelia had dealt with the news that would have shattered her own world. To the point where she was concerned that denial was burning strong inside her, no matter how well she seemed to have rationalised the information. The only thing left for Wendy now was to be a support, a close friend, and a sister to prove not all family relied on blood.
“Um… Chelia…” Wendy paused, trying to get the words right that she’d already thought through a hundred times. “If your mother had this conversation with you… why didn’t she tell you who your father was? Why are we having to look in boxes?”
Chelia paused. It was a question she’d both expected and still struggled to find an answer for. “I didn’t want to ask her...” she admitted, looking down. “I didn’t want her to feel like I was-like I was turning my back on Dad,” she said.
Wendy nodded slowly. There seemed to be a lot more emotions going on there than what Chelia was willing to say, but that at least seemed healthy. She reached over and put a hand over her friend’s.
“We’ll find him together,” she promised her.
Chelia’s smile lit up. She jumped on Wendy, grabbing her into a tight, tight hug. “Thank you, Wendy.”
Wendy gasped at the sudden affection but smiled back warmly. She held on tight, knowing that it wasn’t for her own sake that they’d share this moment. “Any time,” she promised, giving another squeeze before letting go. As she did, her eyes drifted to another box in the far corner, and a name that filled with promise. “Look,” she gestured.
It was everything Chelia had both anticipated and feared. The cardboard box with the words scribbled along the side; ‘Sherry High School/College’. She slid across the floor to the box, pushing away the thick coatings of dust. A line of Sellotape that had long since lost all adhesive properties came away easily in her hands, as she opened the flaps. Everything seemed painfully slow to reveal. An oversized school sweatshirt, with gold embroidery of a snaked creature emblem. Old schoolbooks that were filled with notes, love-hearts and scribbles that could have one day been considered ‘important’. Dusty shot glasses that had been packed and forgotten about, tainted with memories of exciting nights.
Usually, Chelia would have found it all fascinating. A different side to the loving mother she had always known, one that had her whole life ahead of her and – from the contents of this box – seemed content to spent it chasing dreams, scribbling love-hearts and enjoying life. She began to pull out pictures, so many frozen images of long nights ago. She had been a popular woman, wearing a wide smile and more often than not with her hands cupped into a heart shape.
“Your mother was beautiful,” Wendy commented, glancing at the pictures that Chelia was putting onto the ground. “She-she still is beautiful! She was very beautiful in these pictures, though…”
Chelia nodded. “She was,” she agreed, starting to see the patterns. Though it often seemed she would be with a different person every night, she finally saw the friendship groups emerging, until she confidently could pick out a picture with four young people. “I think… I think this is it…”
Wendy glanced over, a serious look on her face. “… You’re sure?”
A small pause from the young woman before another nod. “The way that mother talked about him… I’ve only heard her talk that way about me and my father. It was someone that meant a lot to her. One of her closest friends. It has to be someone from these pictures, one of these… one of these men is my real father.”
----
Sometimes it felt like Lyon was a dark mark upon the world of children.
He was the monster that forced parents to fight and separate. He was the demon that turned lives upside down. He was the villain who asked the painful questions: Who do you want to live with? Did they hurt you? Who do you feel safe with? How often would you like to spend time with these people? They were no questions that any child should have had to answer, and it was not an easy question to ask. Sometimes Lyon had to play the bad guy, for the most important reasons.
There was always a secret sense of dread when he saw a child in distress. There were the background thoughts running through his head, the guilt of separating a child from comfort, the terror that if he made one wrong step someone could get seriously hurt, and then there was that look. The one that cut him right to his core. Even if he forced himself into that polite smile, tried to offer a peace offering of candy, and pray the child was not traumatised for life.
Lyon’s eyes stayed pinned to the small child, watching him even as he took continual sips from his coffee mug. Waiting for him to make a sign, some kind of indication of the trauma he’d caused. Or perhaps the salvation he’d brought.
Instead, Aki just brought him a small block. Lyon looked at him quizzically… and turned back to Gray.
Gray nodded with a small smile. “He’s giving it to you,” he said with a small smirk, relishing perhaps a little too much in how uncomfortable Lyon looked.
Lyon looked back at the ‘gift’, reaching over and taking it. “Oh… thank you very much.”
The child beamed and walked off again to search for more toys.
“For someone who works with kids all day, you sure are awkward around them,” Gray commented.
It was hard for Lyon to understand what Gray’s tone meant, even after all his years of training in other’s true motives. “I usually don’t talk to children as young as Aki…” he admitted, looking even more surprised as another wooden block was passed to him by a very proud looking Aki. “And when I do, they’re usually not social visits… Does that bother you?” he asked.
Gray paused for a few seconds, before shaking his head. “You’re a natural,” he said.
Lyon didn’t feel like a natural. He put down his mug to take yet another block, as Aki disappeared into his toybox and produced five more. He giggled as he was racing back and forth across the room now, trying to drop them into his father’s friend’s lap, a fun new game to explore.
“If you say so…” Lyon said, muttering yet another ‘thank you’ and looking more perplexed by the second. “Is he usually so, uh, generous?”
“No,” Gray smiled faintly. “It means he likes you. And trusts you.”
Lyon swallowed hard. That innocence. He was clearly far too young to understand. Either that, or he had been through too much and resorted to taking kindness in the most unlikely ways. “Well… I like him too,” he admitted, smiling back.
When Aki came running back over, instead Lyon held out one of the building blocks back in his direction. The child’s eyes widened, taking it in his hands and inspecting it intently. He smiled and made a happy little sound, running off again to repeat the game again.
“I’m surprised you don’t have a kid yourself…”
Lyon paused. There it was again, an edge of sadness he’d been expecting whenever around children. No matter how much joy or love it filled him with. “I… got distracted,” he excused himself, looking away. He didn’t want to talk about the years he’d wasted. On work, on some girl, on paths taken that left him much older and much less wise than he’d hoped to be by now. It wasn’t a choice he’d made, but many smaller choices which had left him alone.
It became clear he wasn’t going to say any more. In the spirit of distraction, Lyon quickly became caught into the new games with Aki. He poured the blocks onto the coffee table and within a few seconds had been showing the young boy how to rearrange them. Or Aki had been showing Lyon. It was hard to tell, Gray noticed, finding a very small hint of a smile on his face as he watched them both.
At least this, this small protected bubble, felt safe.