Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shameful as it is to admit, Lampwick very nearly sleeps through the whole first day of his new life.

It’s not entirely his fault, okay. It’s just- Pinocchio rushes through the presentations at an impossible speed, stumbling over his words in a flurry of excitement – it’s a wonder his father isn’t even more flabbergasted, honestly, but then again the man must be used to his son’s shenanigans by now, and the cricket does know both of them already, after all – and Lampwick has barely managed to get a couple words in before the matter is settled and he is offered the chance to take a bath, because he looks like he needs to freshen up a bit.

A bath. Fancy that. He hasn’t had anything more than a hop in the river in a while, and now old Geppetto is giving him access to an entire room to clean up, and the privacy of a locked door to boot. Lampwick’d pinch himself to find out if he’s dreaming, but if he is he’d rather not wake up so soon, either.

He almost cries in relief when he sinks into the tub, truth be told, clean and warm and all for himself. He doesn’t, because he’s not such a weakling as to burst in tears at the slightest push, but he does take a few long, deep breaths, feeling his body release some its tension as the hot, bubbly water works its magic on him – it’s the only magic he’ll see for a while, he wagers, but it’s not like he minds, all in all. Magic has never done him or his ilk any kindness, that he remembers.

He almost falls asleep in the bath itself, too, his head propped up by the edge of the tub while the warmth lulls him into a content daze. Ultimately, Lampwick manages to stay awake long enough to dry himself off, but then he’s led to a bedroom as pristine as the bathroom was – he conks out as soon as his head touches the pillow, and it’s only when he wakes up to find Pinocchio sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him that he realizes that it must be his friend’s bed he’s unceremoniously taken over.

“Good morning,” he mumbles, yawning so wide he feels a twinge in his jaw. He’s not entirely sure it is morning, to be quite honest – it could be past noon for all he knows, given the state of the light streaming in from the window – but it sounds the politest thing to say, and he really needs to work on his politeness, after the stunts he pulled while he was exhausted.

Pinocchio smiles up at him, closing the book that was laying open on the floor in front of him as though he’d been interrupted mid-reading. “Hi. Did you sleep well?”

“Better than I have in ages.” Lampwick’s lips curl into the faintest shadow of a grin, and he reaches out to nudge the other boy jokingly in the shoulder. “Watchin’ me sleeping, now? What, you missed me that much?”

“A bit.” Pinocchio’s own smile dims down some – he shakes his head, looking curiously somber. “Sorry, I just…You were in a pretty bad shape, last night. I just wanted to check if you were doing okay.”

A spark of guilt coils in Lampwick’s chest, sharp and stinging right where it hurts the most. It’s a lot harder to look his friend in the eyes, suddenly, and he retracts the hand with an abrupt movement, settling for twisting the edge of the blanket between his fingers instead.

“Yeah, I- uh. I’m sorry for bursting in like that, and scaring you and your folks. Should have thought better about it.”

“It’s alright.” He hears more than sees Pinocchio getting to his feet and clambering up onto the bed, and then the boy’s huddling right in front of him, grinning broadly when Lampwick finally deigns to look up once more. “I’m happy you did- why, I thought I’d never see you again! I haven’t heard anything about you in ages, you know?”

Lampwick scoffs, a semblance of the usual energy in it. “What can I say, I got good at not being seen or heard, lately.”

He’s relieved Pinocchio’s not holding his actions against him too much, to be honest, for more than one reason. He hasn’t changed much since he was a puppet, Pinocchio, all big blue eyes and boundless enthusiasm, but his face has grown rounder with the transformation, his features softer – his cheeks dimple when he smiles, now, something that wouldn’t have been possible with his old wooden body.

It's not a bad look on him, this change, Lampwick decides, particularly because he’s not nearly so different as one would think, at his core. A different boy wouldn’t have welcomed his childhood best friend with open arms after years of radio silence, nor would he have given up house and home for someone of Lampwick’s ilk – there would have been a lot of more slammed doors involved otherwise, mark his words, and many of them slammed without caring if his fingers got caught in the way at that.

“About that.” Pinocchio fidgets with the hem of his shirt, as though unsure of how to proceed.

“I was wondering- are you in trouble? Because I thought you were doing okay, but last night you said you needed help, and Jiminy said you looked like death warmed over, so…”

That’d be almost laughable, if the situation weren’t as dire as it currently is. Is he in trouble, indeed- has he ever not been in trouble, in the past decade of his life? Pinocchio should know it better than most, given the circumstances of their first meeting. Sometimes it feels as though Lampwick had been bouncing from problem to problem since the day he was born, though his friend doesn’t need to know that right now.

“Yeah, I’m not doing too bad for myself.” The lie rolls off his tongue before he can even think of it, slick and easy like molten butter. “I was just going around, y’know. That’s why I couldn’t stop by.” Another lie, this time paired up with a flicker of unease. “But I might need a hand this time around, Pinoke. Have you heard of this villain roundup thing going on?”

If Pinocchio is doubtful of his claims, then he gives no sign of it – instead he simply nods, looking puzzled. “It’s official now, right? They say we can go petition the king, if we think he’s forgetting someone, but I don’t know if I like it. Why?”

Well, then. Hole in one – but then again Pinocchio was always the smartest guy, out of the two of them. “D’you think it works in reverse, too?”

“What do you mean?”

Lampwick hesitates, but he’s gone too far now to tuck tail and run, so he takes a deep breath and begins his story, slowly at first, then picking up his pace as he goes on. Soon the words are tumbling out of his mouth faster than he can sort them out, resulting in string after string of incoherent sentences, and he’d wonder what the hell has gotten into him to make him spout bullshit with little to no filter, but he fears he already knows the answer to that question. He doubts that he’d have such an easy time voicing his worries aloud if it were literally anyone else sitting before him, if his confession wasn’t being met by Pinocchio’s attentive, earnest gaze, fixed on him as though there were nothing of more importance in the world.

He's gasping for air by the time he’s done, his rushed pleas having taken all the energy out of him, but Pinocchio doesn’t reply immediately, and continues to stare pensively at his friend, his lips pursed in concentration. Finally, after a pause that seems nearly eternal, he shakes his head, throwing up his hands in disbelief.

“That’s so stupid,” he says, and then, before Lampwick can even begin to panic: “You’re not a villain- they can’t send you to that island, you’ve done nothing wrong!”

That’s debatable, but Lampwick’s in no shape to contradict him – the oxygen he’s struggled so hard to get back leaves his lungs all at once, out of shock more than relief. “So you wanna help me?”

“Of course I’m going to help you! Well, not me, but- we’ve got to ask Papa what we should do, okay? I’m sure he knows who to ask to keep you around. I bet there’s plenty of people who want to do the same thing.”

Pinocchio’s so keyed up he’s practically bouncing on the bed, giddy like a little boy. By the way he acts, one would think he’s just been tasked with a great quest, like the ones princes and knights were running around completing before the Beast got his crown and decided he would only accept peace delegations going on – but perhaps it really does feel like that, from his point of view.

It fills Lampwick with a weird, sudden warmth to consider that option, to think Pinocchio might genuinely want to ensure his safety and that the former puppet is not just putting up a show to keep him quiet. It’s as pleasant as it is unexpected, after what he’s been through lately, and it threatens to undo him more than a stern refusal would have, probably.

“Thanks, Pinoke,” he blurts out, trying to keep his voice even. “I really appreciate that.”

“It’s okay. You’d do the same for me, right?” Pinocchio stops his bouncing abruptly, as if a new thought had just occurred to him.

“But…you’ll tell me what happened to you, since you’re not leaving, right? The real story, I mean. We haven’t seen each other in so long- I want to know everything, okay?”

“Right.” The warmth is now a thick, damp cloud in Lampwick’s throat – it makes him choke on his own words, but he can’t find it in himself to be mad at it, just as he can’t get mad at Pinocchio for calling out his bluff with only a couple simple words.

“Of course, Slats. I’ll tell you everything you wanna know, swear.”

Things start moving at once a lot faster and much, much slower, afterwards.

Lampwick supposes this has to be what all those royal folks used to call a happy ending, before the birth of the United States of Auradon. A roof over his head, dry shoes at his feet, and a friend who’d have gladly petitioned the king and queen himself if need be – what more could a guy like him want, at the end of the day?

And he’s…he is happy, he supposes. It’s not the rough, carefree life he’d gotten accustomed to before, but it’s a safer one by far, and healthier, too, if he were to guess. He would have contented himself with a spot on the couch, or even a cot on the floor, but Pinocchio’s father insisted he ought to get a proper bed, and just like that he found a place where to keep all his things without having to fear someone will snatch them if he leaves them unguarded – his days seem to last a lot longer, now that he doesn’t have to fend for himself and there is calmer, more pleasant stuff he can devote his attention to.

Pinocchio’s little cricket tried inquiring after his education during those eventful first days, while they were all sitting around the dinner table. He hadn’t been trusting Lampwick yet, that had been clear enough, but the boy had simply grinned brightly in his general direction, shoving another spoonful of rice in his mouth.

“Never got too far with it, no,” he remembers saying, once he’d finished chewing. “But it doesn’t matter. I can do whatever work there is, as long as it gets food in the house.”

“You don’t worry about the food, now,” old Geppetto interjected, heaping a second serving onto his plate. “Just think about getting back on track.”

The man has kept his promise, thus far. That, Lampwick should count as a blessing, too, and he does, on his honor, he does. He’s not going to take such a thing for granted ever again, honestly.

But though his new life moves at a positively sluggish pace compared to his old one, sometimes it feels as if parts of it were passing by at full steam, too, so quickly they blur at the edge of his vision. His reintegration into polite society required a lot of keeping his head down and having Pinocchio and his father vouch for him, like a dog taken back to a shelter after biting on a child’s arm, but he remembers nothing of it, save perhaps the crescent-shaped marks on the palms of his hands where he dug his nails at the height of tension. He doubts the king himself would stoop so low as to consider Lampwick’s petition himself – it was likely one of his clerks, stamping away at paperwork after barely glancing at it – but they’re all the same to him anyway, soft-handed lackeys with neat hair and perfectly polished shoes, so it’s not like he fears confusing one with the other.

And it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, Lampwick supposes. Whoever it was that put the signature in, his record is clean now, his previous misbehaviors wiped away like chalk off a slate. He’s in a safe spot now, warm and comfortable, while the actual villains are stowed away on a glorified floatie of a prison – rumor has it that some of them had to be brought back from the dead to face their punishment, which sounds like a nightmare in and of itself, honestly. Pinocchio went cold and still like a deer under headlights when he heard, but that was to be expected, given that he’s the only person Lampwick knows who actually died and came back to tell the tale. It must have brought back some memories, even if it might just be an exaggerated tale.

Lampwick didn’t pry for details, though. He never does. What stories from his past Pinocchio wants to tell, he tells them in his own time, in low whispers when they can’t sleep at night or looking down at the floor of Geppetto’s empty workshop, and Lampwick does the same, if a tad more reluctantly. They know more about each other than anyone else ever will, mostly because other people their age are lucky enough to have never seen even a third of what the two of them saw, but asking for more would be crossing that one invisible line drawn between them, thin and see-through like a spider’s thread, and neither of them will stomp on it unless he’s encouraged to.

Still, they’re doing fine. Lampwick’s doing fine. He should be resting more easily than ever did before, and he would like to, really, because he has years of lost sleep to catch up on – and so there’s no one more surprised than him when his so-called happy ending turns out not feeling much like an ending, and not always as happy as he’d envisioned it.

Part of it is the guilt, he knows. He hasn’t dared look at the list of imprisoned villains yet, but it doesn’t take a genius to know he’d find many familiar names in it, and if some of those deserved it plenty, enough to send a shiver down his spine at the mere thought, for each of them there must be at least a hundred henchmen who had as little choice in the matter as he did. And he knows it feels too good to be true still, and that he’ll fare better once reality has finally settled in – his condition has changed so much in such a short time, it’s no wonder he can’t quite wrap his head around it yet.

But there’s more to it, somehow, and the feeling doesn’t go away as the years pass and he grows. He wouldn’t know how to explain it if someone asked, but no one has asked yet, and Lampwick will eat his hat before he willingly volunteers any of that information on his own – and then again, what could he say? It’s not something that makes sense, like the nightmares that sometimes have him jumping out of bed in a cold sweat. It comes out of nowhere, and it goes nowhere, too, damn it all.

It's just- he and Pinocchio get closer as they get older, more than friends, more than best friends, and all Lampwick can think of is those men and women locked away together, having children that will be just as miserable as them. He runs out to the beach for a good soak and the water feels thick and grimy under his fingers, like the polluted air must be on that island on the other side of the sea.

He kisses Pinocchio for the first time on a quiet, unassuming autumn night, and the other boy smells like woodsmoke and warmth, and yet Lampwick tastes bile at the back of his tongue, rotten and spicy and nearly enough to make him break the kiss entirely.

He wishes he had at least an inkling of what the hell’s going on with him, because then he could try and put a stop to it, somehow. He’s never been good at staying put and letting life wash over him, nor has watching the world go by ever been his style – he needs something to do with his hands, something to punch or pry open or sink his teeth into, and if this kind of behavior has let him keep his head more times than he can count over the years, now it’s nothing short of annoying, because it makes him feel as though he were throwing punches at his own shadow.

Pinocchio was always better at stuff like that, honestly. Sure, he was as reckless and happy-go-lucky as Lampwick’s ever been, in childhood, but he was also pretty good at taking things in stride, when the consequences inevitably came to bite him in the arse – inevitably from his point of view, of course. Lampwick is still quite certain than most of those consequences could have been avoided is some of the grown-ups around them had been a little quicker on the uptake, though he isn’t so stupid as to repeat this when Geppetto or the cricket are within earshot. Even now Pinocchio sometimes gets that dull, glazed look in his eyes that means he’d gladly roll over and bare his belly to any inconveniences, so long as they leave without causing too much damage to those around him.

So there they are, then. A boy who’d fight anything that dares stray to close, and another who fervently wishes they could just be left alone for once, and neither of them knows whether he’s making the right choice or not. It’d be almost funny if it weren’t so frustrating – it’s a good thing they have each other, at least, otherwise the lingering unease clinging to them would be likely to drive them both nuts. Not that Lampwick can exclude that it’ll happen anyway, at some point, but he’d already have put a stop to it if he had the means to, so there’s no point in being so pessimistic, right?

He hopes he’s right. He really, really hopes he is, and the more time passes, the more fervently he clings to it, as the feeling settles in the back of his mind, lurking and waiting like a very patient gnat.

Time passes in odd intervals, in Auradon.

Lampwick hadn’t thought it would affect him so much, but he has to admit it makes things a lot easier to go with the flow and keep track of events as having happened before or after the institution of the united kingdoms. It’s been twelve years since the Isle of the Lost was established, which means a little longer since he sought his old friend out; seven years since he first kissed Pinocchio and then reared back in alarm, fearing he’d overstepped, and seven years minus thirty seconds since Pinocchio told him not to be stupid and to do it again; and a little more than a year since Geppetto left the workshop fully to his son’s care, saying that Pinocchio was certainly old enough for the job and that he even had “a fine young man at his side to help him”.

The fine part Lampwick is still unsure about, but there’s no denying he’s a man, now. Sometimes it catches him off guard, even after so long, to catch his reflection in the mirror and remember he’s no longer that gangly, spiteful kid who traded his freedom for the chance to smash a carnival town to pieces – he’s as skinny and long-faced as he was then, sure enough, but he doubts anyone who met him then would recognize him, pleasant and unpleasant folks alike, and the same’s true for Pinocchio, who’s only retained the dark hair and light eyes of his more famous counterpart.

It's a bit of a shame, perhaps. All those other famous people, the princes and princesses and even the evil witches and wizards, they were done growing when they got their turn in the spotlight, and will be remembered as glowing, powerful men and women in their prime for the decades to come. The two of them, though…well, they’ll be lucky to be remembered at all, but even so, it’d be as a little puppet and his donkey-eared friend, not the grown-ups they are today.

But perhaps it’s for the best, instead. They’re not Cinderella and Prince Charming, radiant and golden and with a love story for the ages. Lampwick would take anonymity over being recognized for the boy he no longer is every day – it’s not as though their fame would bring them riches and castles, after all. He’s content with his spot in the sun, however small it might be.

Pinocchio agrees with that notion, that’s for sure, though anonymity for him means something else entirely, something that begins and ends at the edge of their town. His story precedes him, but where foreigners might marvel at him or ask prying questions about his past, the locals haven’t treated him as a novelty in a long time now; he’s as much a part of the environment as any of them, and they would close ranks around him in a heartbeat if needed, Lampwick knows, so mistrustful they are of nobles and royalty as a whole.

Geppetto’s pristine reputation went a long way in securing them both a decent treatment, obviously, but that’s not the only reason. There’s just as many people coming and going from the shop now that Pinocchio’s holding the reins as there used to be in the old man’s days, if not more, paying clients and neighbors asking for a favor alike – they would probably go bankrupt within two weeks with all the jobs he takes for free, if most of them rewarded in some other way than money, in that small town brand of solidarity Lampwick took a long time getting used to. He’d never heard of anyone doing stuff without being certain they’d get paid back in the foreseeable future, before.

Still, it’s pleasant, not having to look out for a knife in the back at all hours of the day. Pinocchio’s good faith and generosity can be exasperating, sometimes, but also too endearing to do much about it. Some of Lampwick’s old associates would probably laugh their asses off at seeing him trailing after his partner like a lovestruck fool, as mooning and sappy as the worst of them, but those guys were never the most pleasant to be around, so it’s not like he cares all that much.

Besides, his contribution doesn’t stretch as much as one would think, aside from an adequate dose of fond exasperation. Pinocchio stays out later than usual to fix an old woman’s door, Lampwick nearly burns down the kitchen in an attempt at what ends up being a barely edible dinner. Pinocchio undermines everything he does, as though he had a bottomless list of heinous crimes that he’s just beginning to make amends for, and Lampwick talks him out of his funk, kissing the top of his head and reminding him there is no fairy keeping track of his misbehaviors anymore.

Pinocchio wants to bring some discarded, unsold toys to the local children’s home, and Lampwick carries the heaviest box and only complains a third of what he would in any other occasion, or if it had been anyone but this blue-eyed, soft-smiled fool asking.

“Do kids even play with this stuff anymore?” He grumbles as he leads the way into the building, keeping the door propped open with one elbow. “The way the king speaks, we oughta start selling computers and robots if we want to keep the shop open.”

Pinocchio snorts under his breath, but still he shakes his head, albeit with a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “This is not Auradon City. No one keeps up with trends here. And I’ve never seen a child look a gifted toy horse in the mouth.”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night.”

These children seem happy to see them, at least. It’s not the first such trip Pinocchio has made, and so they’re quite familiar with him already; a few of the older ones immediately drag him away and into one of their games, sat cross-legged on the floor amongst an array of stuffed animals, while Lampwick is left handing out presents to a bunch of younglings, hounded from all sides like a great big dog in a pen full of kittens. He tries to set them to rights and get them all to line up in some semblance of order, but that lasts all of five minutes – it’s hard to say no to those toothy grins and grimy hands, so after a while he gives up and lets himself be pulled this way and that, their tiny fingers snatching toys off his hands almost too eagerly.

There are always more kids than most people think, in places like these. Queen Belle might boast of what a great country they have built, rid of all evils and problems, but the truth is that the average guy’s life is no different than it used to be before they packed off the villains to their new home. Crime has diminished, but only insofar as the Beast’s guards are concerned – there are still plenty of thieves and burglars around, if you know where to look, and children left on doorsteps and in trash cans, too, as Lampwick can attest right now.

Some of the oldest, the ones staring sullenly at the TV screen or sulking in a corner away from the rest of the brood, are of an age to have been just babies when Auradon was founded. He’d wonder how many of them were left behind unwillingly, by folks shipped overseas for their part in this act of villainy or the other, but...No. He can’t follow that line of thought. Not here. Not now. The old, familiar taste of bile is already climbing its way up his throat, and he can’t allow it to happen. It’s probably just his brain acting up on him. Those kids are probably just the spawn of families too big to feed them or pay them any mind whatsoever, just as he was. There’s no reason why they would be villains’ children.

If there are any villains’ children forgotten in Auradon, that is – but there can’t be any, right? They would have checked. The king’s men wouldn’t have been so careless as to tear families apart.

Right?

Besides, there are plenty of younger ones Lampwick should devote his attention to, before some of them succeed in climbing up his back like little monkeys. He’s barely managed to get the majority of them to settle down when the ladies tending to the place bring in a few more, two or three little more than babes, only capable of sitting up in their nurse’s arms.

The smallest of them catches Lampwick’s attention, despite the growing ruckus around him. He doesn’t know why; there’s nothing special about this baby, a tiny, scrawny thing with spindly arms and legs, a tuft of mousy brown hair on their head. True, the little monster is looking in his vague direction, but that means next to nothing – children of that age, they wouldn’t be able to tell an elephant from a sailing ship, not even if it stood more than two feet from them.

Still, he’s on a mission, and it wouldn’t do to disappoint a customer, no matter how young. Lampwick rummages in his box for a moment, then fishes out a small wooden duck, simple enough not to have any pieces that could get stuck down a baby’s throat, holding it out for the nurse to take. “What d’you say, kid? You like this one?”

The child’s eyes go so wide he fears they’ll pop right out of their head, when they see the toy dangled right before them, and they start waving their hand left and right, their fingers grabbing weakly at the wood. It slips away every time, though, so after a moment the woman lays it down a bit closer, so they might slap and slobber over it as much as they please – trust babes to somehow manage to still look adorable with spit bubbles at the corner of their mouths, contrary to just about everyone else in the world.

Lampwick is about to ask what the little mite’s name might be when a chorus of voices raises a few feet away – two older kids squabbling over the same boardgame, it seems, on the verge of turning it into a physical fight. The nurse opens her mouth, taking a step forward as if to cut between them, then she hesitates, glancing down to the bundle in her arms, and that’s when he holds out his hands instinctively, not knowing what else to do. “D’you need to-“

“Oh, would you?” She settles the baby in his arms carefully, if in a bit of a hurry, and Lampwick shifts awkwardly in place, trying to adjust to the sudden addition without dropping it. “I’ll be back in a sec- be nice for Mr. Lampwick, Amelia.”

Then she’s off, trying to stop a little boy from smacking a cardboard box over his friend’s head, and Lampwick looks down at his new friend with his eyebrows raised. A girl, then. Not that he would have been able to tell otherwise – it’s a tad difficult to understand who he’s dealing with, when said person is sucking toothlessly at a wooden duck.

“Ain’t no Mister here, kid,” he mutters, bopping the tip of his finger gently to her nose as she stares at him in wonder. “I’m not old enough for that. Just Lampwick will do.”

Amelia doesn’t react much, so he nudges at her nose again, and that’s when something shifts – she allows the toy to fall on her thin chest once more, and then lets out a gurgling noise, the corners of her mouth curling upwards in a gummy smile. Her fingers open and close fruitlessly a few times before they finally manage to curl around Lampwick’s thumb, soon starting to pull at it with surprising strength for a creature that’s mostly skin and bones.

Hell, is she putting up a show or are all little brats this cute? He’s pretty sure he never was, for one – this Amelia might be the runt of her litter, judging by her appearance, but at least she looks like she’s being fed appropriately. A lack of food gives all children sharp features and sullen faces, even the youngest ones, and Lampwick wagers he was much the same, at her age, and prone to throwing tantrums as well, per his mother’s words.

Amelia seems content to just lay back and make silly putty of his hand, and he can respect that kind of behavior – he leaves her to her game, bemusing himself with watching the faces she pulls, and then feels an odd, unexpected flash of displeasure when the nurse returns at last, having convinced the other children to settle down and share their prize.

He scolds himself right after, because surely he has better things to do than play the cradle for the entire day, but even so, he can’t deny when the woman doesn’t immediately take the girl away, instead smiling gently at the scene. “Did she give you any trouble?”

“Not at all.” Lampwick bounces the kid in his arms a couple times, feeling a grin grow on his face when Amelia produces another giggle, more shriek than laughter, in truth. “We’ve been doing just fine here, miss.”

“That’s great. Thank you, you’ve been a lifesaver.”

“Don’t mention it.” He glances up, then, the grin still firmly in place, and finds himself meeting Pinocchio’s eyes across the room, over a sea of children’s heads.

He hadn’t noticed his partner watching him, but it seems Pinocchio isn’t particularly aware of what he’s doing himself – there’s a strange, unreadable look writ all over his face, and it takes Lampwick a frown and more than a couple handwaves to snap him out of his reverie, in the end. Only then does Pinocchio startle and send a sheepish smile his way, quickly averting his gaze as though busy attending to the kids’ requests.

Well, that was certainly something. Lampwick wonders if he should pry about it, even as he reluctantly hands Amelia over to her rightful caretaker, but then decides against it almost as quickly – Pinocchio plays a fine hedgehog sometimes, curling up on himself when approached too suddenly, and it wouldn’t do to scare him off for what might end up being nothing of importance, and besides, it will resurface sooner or later, if it is in fact important.

He has never managed to keep a secret from Lampwick long enough for it to matter, after all. He would hardly get rid of this habit now.

“I was wondering-“, Pinocchio says, out of the blue, then clamps his mouth shut, cutting himself off.

Lampwick shoots him a quizzical frown, looking up from the heap of sawdust he’d been sweeping off the floor. It’s the quietest hour of the day, this one, where they’ve just closed off the shop for the day but they’ve yet to climb upstairs for dinner – old Geppetto can already be heard puttering around with pots and pans, but even those noises are dimmed down in the darkened ground floor, the blinds half-closed over the windows.

“Yeah?” He prompts, when it’s clear that Pinocchio has no intention to continue. “What is it? You’ve been in a funk for ages, Pinoke. Is something wrong?”

A week, to be exact. It’s been a full week since they visited the children’s home, and Pinocchio has been distant and lost in thought from the moment he stepped out of that door. It’s not that unusual, per se – he’s prone to go silent and brooding for prolonged stretches of time every now and then, and Lampwick has learned to make his peace with it, provided his partner doesn’t grow so detached he needs to be snatched off the air like a stray balloon – but the timing is suspicious to say the least, especially if paired up with Lampwick’s own memories of that little trip, and the way his arms feel suspiciously empty, sometimes, when he thinks back to it.

Maybe he’s been working too much, and the stress has gotten to his head. It was never a problem when he was a kid – before Pleasure Island he would have been lucky to find anyone willing to give him the time of the day, never mind a proper job. Perhaps they should take a break, the two of them.

“No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just...” Pinocchio sighs, running a hand through his hair, not quite meeting Lampwick’s eyes for a long minute.

“I was wondering, have you ever thought about having children?”

The broom all but slips from Lampwick’s fingers. He fumbles to keep ahold of it, raising an eyebrow and trying to keep his composure, but- Of all the darndest things- “Why, you don’t have enough of all those little brats running around here and knocking stuff off the shelves?” He snorts, only the barest hint of unease in it. “My ears are still ringing, you know, and we closed business half an hour ago.”

Pinocchio smiles thinly, a wistful light in his eyes. “They’re not that bad, Lampwick,” he chides, though there is no strength in it.

“And they’re customers, anyway. They have their own families to go back to. They’re not...well, they’re not ours.”

“Uh.” So that is supposed to be the tone of the conversation, then. “I see.”

Lampwick props the broom up against the nearest wall and moves closer to Pinocchio, leaning on the edge of the worktable, and is relieved when the other joins him after a moment of hesitation, their shoulders brushing at every move. They sit in silence for a few minutes, time stretching around them until Lampwick feels as though they’d been lost in thought for a decade, and only then does he speak again, his voice low as if he didn’t want to break the spell.

“Dunno, honestly. Maybe I considered it at some point when I was younger. Never gave it much credit, though. Didn’t think I’d be much of a dad, seeing the spot I was in back in the day.”

He grins, more genuinely this time, gently wrapping an arm around Pinocchio’s waist. “What about you? Ever pictured yourself with a dozen little puppets of your own?”

“Not a dozen.” It’s a poor attempt at cracking a joke, but Lampwick is willing to let it slide, considering the matter at hand. He’d be willing to take a lie, if it’ll make Pinocchio feel better and break out of an awkward situation – it’s unlikely, but Lampwick isn’t of a mind to begrudge him for it, and he isn’t in the business of making people’s noses grow for his amusement, either.

The corner of Pinocchio’s mouth twitches upwards, as though he, too, were realizing the ridiculousness of their situation, then he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“I just- I’m not sure I would know how to do it, you know? Especially if they were younger. I wouldn’t have any experience about it.”

“That’s pretty much any parent to ever walk the face of Earth, doll. So long as you learn while they’re growing, it’s all downhill from there, you can trust me on that.” He’s thinking about his parents, who never bothered to learn how to tend to a boy who wouldn’t sit quietly and only speak two words any longer, but he won’t speak of that now. This is not about him. It wouldn’t do to put himself at the center of attention.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same thing, remember? I was- I was born already old enough to go to school, Lampwick. I don’t know what’s bad for a baby, or what I should expect from them. I’ve always wanted a big family, and this house, even before me and you...well. I wanted to be like Papa. A good father. But I never thought it could happen, really happen to me, and I didn’t- I don’t want to risk passing down some bad stuff to a child who deserves better.”

“Hey.” Lampwick moves his hand upwards, cupping Pinocchio’s face and rubbing steady circles on the other’s cheek with his thumb. “Don’t say that. You’d be a great dad. I’ve seen you with kids. You’re a natural. ‘Sides, you got some nice examples to follow, mh?”

“One nice example,” Pinocchio whispers, and Lampwick goes very still, then, because he knows that this is not a jibe at grumbly old Jiminy and his questionable methods. There was a third, much less reassuring adult in Pinocchio’s life when he was a child – earlier, even, when he was little more than a piece of varnished wood – but they don’t talk about her out loud, usually.

What Lampwick said is true – Geppetto was a good father, to his own son and to the boy that showed up unannounced on his doorstep with little more than the clothes on his back. Not many men would have done the same, not making it look so easy and obvious, at least. He raised Pinocchio well enough to ensure his grandchildren would end up just as happy, eventually, that’s for sure.

But the Blue Fairy...she might be the closest thing Pinocchio ever had to a mother, and yet she is all but motherly towards him, every kindness she offers loaded with duty and expectations. She came calling a few times after her protege became a real boy, true enough, but none of those visits ever seemed to make Pinocchio very happy – if anything, he’d come out of them pale and tense like a violin string, his face fixed into a smile that had very little of genuine in it.

And besides, Lampwick has heard the stories, of course. The Blue Fairy mocking a day-old puppet for not knowing any better. The Blue Fairy letting him die before granting him his wish. The list could go on all week, if either of them were of a mind for it, but that’s not what is needed right now.

“One is enough,” he says instead, steeling his voice, more for Pinocchio’s sake than for his own. “You’re your father’s son, not hers. That’s what matters.”

Pinocchio’s expression softens, though he still seems skeptical. “I know, but...I could botch it, couldn’t I? What we did when we were children- I don’t want anyone else to go through that, Lampwick. What if it happens to them, and I can’t stop it? What if I make it worse?”

“You’re joking, right? You’re too good for any of that. You couldn’t ruin a kid’s life if they paid you money to do it. And you don’t have to do everything just like your pops did, either. There’s plenty of children around who’d need a roof over their heads- you don’t need to, uh, make one from scratch. There’s no rule about that.”

“Would you follow it, if there were one?”

“Hell, no. I’ve had enough of puppets getting all up in my business. And anyway, if you don’t trust me, go ask your conscience or something. They’ll tell you the same things I did, except they’re desperate for grandkids, so maybe you should listen to me instead.”

“That’s not going to happen.” A proper, bona fide smile breaks out of Pinocchio at long last, and he leans even closer, his breath warm against Lampwick’s skin.

“Thank you. You always know what to say. And- you’d be a great father, too, you know, even if you pretend otherwise. You shouldn’t sell yourself so short.”

Lampwick huffs in laughter under his breath, and then presses a kiss onto Pinocchio’s head before he replies, followed by a quicker one on the lips: “That’s just ‘cause you’re biased.”

“Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing.” Pinocchio’s eyes are so big and blue and hopeful from up close, they’re almost unbearable to look at, crinkling at the corners as his smile widens.

“So, what do you say? Do you think we should give it a try? I keep you in check, you keep me- does it sound like a plan?”

If Lampwick were smart, this would be the time to put a stop to the conversation, to crack a joke and remind Pinocchio of who they are, and how laughable the thought would be to everyone involved. They were bad company only a decade ago, Lampwick should tell him – should they really be thinking about kids, brainless fools that they still are? Is Pinocchio out of his mind?

And yet, he isn’t smart, and as such, he can’t bring himself to say no.

Oh, it’s a big decision alright, he can’t deny that. Too big a decision to take on a single evening, he is fairly sure. It ought to be discussed further, over and over again – they should check if their house is big enough, and whether its other inhabitants would agree. They must count their coin, which is no small thing, all in all. They’re not children who can afford to run headfirst into things anymore, unafraid of broken bones and untrustworthy grown-ups.

However, their experience as those two children can only serve to help them, at least. And even if it comes down to nothing, then they’ll still come out of it changed – it’s an adult decision, something Lampwick had never thought he’d live long enough to see, before. That bloody fairy should be proud of the men they’ve grown into, and of where their thoughts are headed, as well, instead of giving them irritating, saccharine smiles of mockery.

Even if what he’s actually thinking about is a slight weight in his arms and a headful of feathery brown hair, right now.

Taking Amelia in is not the hard part, ultimately.

Lampwick wouldn’t be caught dead saying it aloud, but he’ll begrudgingly admit that fame has it perks, sometimes. He’ll not be so nasty as to say the caretakers were eager to hand them a child to take away, but they’re much more relaxed than they’d likely be with someone not flitting in and out of the public eye, and who was already familiar with the place to booth. Rules tend to be laxer if you know the person setting them, he’s found over the years.

Whatever adjustments they need to make to include the girl in their life aren’t excessively taxing, either. It’s clear from the moment Pinocchio meets her that he’s as taken with her as Lampwick himself is, and he understands, now, what was going on in the other man’s mind that first time, behind his puzzling expression. Watching Pinocchio lift her up in his hands, carefully, as though with a fragile sculpture, is an unsettling experience – Lampwick has never been one to believe in fate and destiny and all that garbage people usually associate to stories like theirs, but he has to concede that it felt...natural. Meant to be, like a piece of a puzzle finally slotting in its place.

That sensation holds up just fine, during the day. Geppetto had a child late in his life already, and as such he’s not as spry and agile as he’d like to be when Amelia comes, and yet he’s constantly toting her around as though she were the most wonderful thing in the world – the cricket doesn’t appear so enthused, but he’s more charmed than his snotty facade lets on, really. He seems willing to put up with Amelia trying to make a grab at him like she does with her toys, at least, an action Lampwick can’t help but praise her for.

The days aren’t the problem, then. The nights, now...well, those are another business entirely.

She’ll have her own room, one day, but her crib sits proudly in a corner of their bedroom for the time being, where they can see it at any given moment. It’s a silent agreement, that one, in the sense that neither of them ever discuss where to put it – they just look at each other in the midst of building the frame and realize it didn’t even cross their mind to place it anywhere else, for all that the kid’s every noise has them springing to their feet.

There doesn’t even need to be a noise, sometimes. Lampwick supposes it was to be expected – they’re light sleepers to the core, the both of them, and they’ve never quite gotten used to the fact no one was going to come get them while they were unconscious. It’s only fair that they would double up on that habit, now that there’s someone far more vulnerable in the house with them.

It's tiresome business, though, more than it would probably be for a normal set of new parents. All the feedings and colics and diaper changes pale in comparison with those first few, panicked seconds after Lampwick opens his eyes in the middle of the night, instincts kicking in before he’s woken up in full and realized there’s no threat to any of them – he thinks he’d drive men stronger than him insane, on the long run, and he’s not sure he’d be able to hold on if he didn’t hope it might pass once Amelia graduates from a wriggly, skinny little mite to a proper child. He wouldn’t know how to cope otherwise.

He startles up in such a way one night, his heart beating hard against his ribcage, and his hand automatically moves to search blindly for Pinocchio, who ought to be curled up next to him. The other side of the bed is empty, though, and that alarms Lampwick for all of two seconds before he notices the figure sitting up in the armchair near the crib, a tiny bundle in his arms.

Lampwick exhales slowly, trying to get his mind to settle, then kicks the covers away and gets up, padding softly towards the pair. Making sure Pinocchio sees him coming comes naturally to him by now, and he’s rewarded by the man looking up with a smile instead of a flinch, though even in the scant glow of the nightlight it’s clear it’s not reaching his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. Did it all by myself, I think.” Lampwick crouches down next to him, tucking Amelia’s blanket better under her chin - the girl is fast asleep on Pinocchio’s lap, swaddled tight and snug, her eyes flitting left and right under her eyelids. “Was she hungry?”

“Yeah. I was just waiting for her to be asleep for good.”

Lampwick dares glancing upwards. Pinocchio’s eyes are on Amelia again, but there’s something lurking in them, something murkier and more unsettling than a father simply checking if his daughter is sleeping.

Daughter. It still feels unreal, at times, that someone would entrust the likes of them with such a responsibility. It feels like a practical joke, the kind that pulls the rug from under your feet right when it’s least convenient.

“She’s not going anywhere, you know,” he murmurs after a moment, the words slipping out of his mouth before he’s even aware of their presence.

The corner of Pinocchio’s mouth twitches, but the lightness of his voice seems forced when he replies, as though he were straining to sound amused. “I know. Not yet, anyway. She’ll be running around before we know it, just like you.”

“Oh, shut it. You were always the fastest runner around.”

“But you were the one to find trouble first every time, so how does that work?”

“It doesn’t, smartass.” Lampwick shifts his position slightly, so he might lean against Pinocchio’s arm. “There’ll be no trouble for her to find. We’ll make sure of it. Nothing’s gonna happen to her.”

He says it like he means it, too. Sometimes he feels as if by speaking things aloud he’ll make them true, as though his words were molding them out of thin air. It’s stupid, he knows, like a child’s fantasy, and it’s better than nothing, at least, if only where it concerns getting Pinocchio’s thoughts to settle down.

And besides, stranger things have happened in their world. Might be it’ll work, at some point. Might be that if he acts confident and sure of his convictions, one day he’ll truly believe that they’re safe, and that it’s all in the past, and that no one will come to take Amelia away from them, no man with rough hands and a petrifying smile snatching her out of her cradle. Maybe if he closes his eyes the rot will leave his mouth at last, washed away with everything else.

Pinocchio doesn’t reply, and Lampwick is too much of a coward to push the matter, but still, he doesn’t leave. Instead, he sits on the ground beside the armchair, a hand still brushing against Pinocchio’s elbow, and together they watch Amelia sleep peacefully, as Geppetto’s many clocks tick the night away downstairs.

For a kingdom that boasts about its technological advancements so proudly, Auradon is suspiciously attached to its traditions, if only when it’s convenient.

Magic was forbidden in most of the country back during its unification, except for the odd celebration here and there, and in its place King Beast tried to install computers and cellphone lines, but other customs were not so easy to dismiss – Lampwick has never set foot in Camelot, but he’s heard they still move on horseback and settle their disputes with a good old-fashioned duel, if the rumors are true. It’d make sense for the heads honchos to let those exceptions slide, instead of changing everything by force.

Let them slide, and parade them around to entertain city dwellers if needed, it seems. Auradon City doesn’t host nation-wide fairs every year, but when it does, they turn into enormous, chaotic affairs, full to the brim with travelers ready to show off the specialties of their regions – many of them don traditional clothes and hand out tasty treats whose recipes were passed down for generations, showing off artisanal products that have little to do with technology or modern tools.

Pinocchio’s town as frozen backwards in time as King Arthur’s land, but it is still picturesque enough for foreigners, apparently – they don’t get many tourists around their parts, no doubts owing to the locals’ mistrust for strangers, but postcards have been made, and of course Pinocchio’s own name and craftmanship precede him, as usual. The invitation to mind a stall and sell his wares (and, the unspoken insinuation adds, attract visitors who remember him from before) doesn’t come as a surprise, and though he insists he’d be fine with giving it a pass, Lampwick cordially encourages him not to be a bloody idiot, and for once Jiminy agrees with him, if not with his particular choice of words. They aren’t swimming in gold, the lot of them, and if taking part in some propaganda circus is good for business, then so be it.

Still, for all that Lampwick tries to be supportive, he can’t deny that it gets boring more quickly than he’d expected. Sure, Auradon City is a marvel, bigger and more polished than most spots he’s visited, but soon the novelty of it wears off, and it’s not like he has Pinocchio’s quiet, friendly charm, after all; he’s more likely to scare away customers than to lure them to their stall, and though he’s supposed to shoulder all the heavy work for the day, there’s not much left for him to do, after the table has been set up and all the boxes unloaded and cut open – if anything, the constant buzzing and chattering around him is threatening to get on his nerves, after a certain point, grating at his eyes and ears wherever he turns.

As such, when Pinocchio suggests that perhaps Amelia would settle down for a nap without so much noise around, Lampwick pounces on the offer like a cat with a felt mouse, straps his daughter to his chest in her sling and wanders off to find some peace.

He doesn’t follow any particular path at first, more focused on getting away from the crowd than anything else, but once the din of the fair has faded in the distance he finds himself slowing his pace, taking in his surroundings with a little more care. Auradon City reeks of new, of modern, every building either made in the past decade or at least renovated after the Beast’s coronation, but at least they’re made to look pleasant, though some of them are even too pristine, and others terribly gaudy and tasteless even for a lout like him.

The Museum of Cultural History, with his marble and mighty columns, catches him by surprise, and Lampwick draws to a stop at the bottom of the staircase, a whirlwind of thoughts in his head as Amelia mumbles nonsense in her carrier, decidedly unwilling to doze off.

He might just as well turn on his heel and sneak into a less-visible alley, honestly. He has never been the kind of guy to enter a museum willing. Hell, his father used to say it was a miracle he’d learnt to read at all, back in the day – hopefully Amelia will take after Pinocchio more in that regard, though Lampwick has vowed, privately, to let her go her way and not punish her for what she can’t do. No sense in walking into a place that is likely to bore him to death again.

But this is not a normal museum, and soon he’s climbing up the stairs and through the double doors, as though his feet were moving of their own accord.

Admission to the exhibits is free, as it turns out. It’s a blessing, and not just because he doesn’t have to open his purse – most inhabitants of Auradon City must have had their fill of it long ago, during field days and dull Sunday afternoons, and as such wouldn’t go out of their way to visit it when something much more interesting is going down in the main square. Only a few people are wandering through the halls, some of them foreigners as blatantly as Lampwick himself is, and the atmosphere is calm and sedated, most of the lights turned off in favor of what streams in from the greatly decorated windows.

He takes his sweet time moving from room to room, soaking in the silence, even though he doesn’t linger in front of any case or sign for too long. The change in setting is doing his daughter good – Amelia’s looking around with those wide eyes of hers when he sneaks a glance of her, still awake but speechless and entranced, her tiny fist stuck in her mouth – but Lampwick has no intention of spending more than twenty seconds reading about the grandiose conquests the king did in his youth, or the stories of heroes who now are probably sprawled on a couch with a servant polishing their boots. He has had his fill of tall tales and moral teachings, thank you very much.

He does hesitate a bit when he’s met with the showcases containing all the wands from minor fairies, but even that doesn’t last long. He only recognizes one of them, from Pinocchio’s stories, but he’ll be happy if neither of them has to see it ever again, so turns his back to it and walks briskly to the next wing, his jaw clenched.

The sensation in the air changes, then, and Lampwick feels his heart leap in his chest – out of surprise, he suspects, but also, strangely enough, out of relief. It’s as though it were saying finally. Finally we’re done. Finally we found what we were looking for.

That makes no sense, though. He hadn’t been looking for anything in particular, and he certainly hadn’t been looking for a round-up of all the villains to ever cross the king’s mind, all cooped up in a few rooms with high ceilings and dim lighting, as if someone thought they would be scarier with a spotlight ominously directed on their heads.

And heads they do have, at least a few of them. Lampwick isn’t sure how they were picked, but some of the villains have replicas of them taking center stage, the scariest ones, he wagers, life-sized statues on pedestals – he’s glad Amelia is too small to retain any memory of this visit, and that for her these would only be giant mannequins in funny hats. He doesn’t really know why they would put so much care in making them look frightening to such an extent; perhaps they’re meant as a cautionary tale, to ensure no one will ever allow a scary tyrant to raise up again.

Lampwick doubts that that will be the case, in truth. After all, he was a cautionary tale, too, once, and he doesn’t think anyone’s ever learned anything useful from it.

There are only four statues, though. For the rest of the villains, their lackeys and their most heinous crimes, there are lists hanging at every corner, posters and placards – some contain brief summaries of the history behind them, but others are just names, this one emboldened, that one underlined, so that they will stand out to the reader first. It resembles more a memorial than a warning, honestly, like those monuments to soldiers who died during a war, with shriveled flowers at the bottom. Thank you for your evil service. May it never be forgotten.

They’re in alphabetical order, too. Lampwick doesn’t know why the hell it should matter to him until he’s scanning down one of the lists, his fingers trailing over names he’s only ever heard in the news for a long stretch of time before they land on one he’s much more familiar with, screeching to a sudden halt.

His face goes numb, as though he’d been standing outside in the cold. His free hand raises, instinctively, to splay protectively on Amelia’s back, and he knows it’s foolish, that the man can’t jump out of his signature any more than he can break out of the Isle of the Lost’s boundaries, but he can’t help it. He can’t.

It’s the first time he’s seen the Coachman mentioned anywhere in a while, after all.

It’s funny, in a way. The guy who ruined his life, the boogeyman he’s still afraid to find under his daughter’s bed, reduced to eight white letters printed on a bland, unimpressive background. Lampwick would laugh if the room weren’t so quiet, if he weren’t afraid to break the spell hanging precariously over them. How the mighty have fallen, as the old folks say. What is left of the Coachman – he can touch it, as easily as he could touch the trinkets in the gift shop. It can’t hurt him. It can’t hurt anyone of them.

He's not really sure of what he’s feeling. Too many things at once, he suspects. For years he’s built this monster up in his mind, just as Pinocchio built up the men who led him to his demise more than once – it’s not easy to let go of that image, to watch it shrink and shrink until it’s the size of Amelia’s pinky toe. It’s almost as though it hadn’t well and truly dawned of him that it was real, that he was free, until he was faced with some proof; it’s not like anyone high up on the ladder ever took the time to reassure him of his former captor’s situation, after all, not like the tearful interviews where Princess Aurora learned of Maleficent’s ruin.

It's an odd sensation, but it’s liberating, too, somewhere deep down. It doesn’t fully relieve him of the burden weighing on his shoulders, a burden that has nothing to do with the strap of the sling, but it does leave him breathing a little easier, his body unclenching and relaxing just the tiniest bit.

“They went all out with this stuff, don’t you think?”

The voice abruptly raising from his side make him startle, taking an instinctive step backwards, but there is no enemy in front of him, nor is there a museum guard ready to chide him for touching the exposed pieces. Instead, he finds himself looking at a young woman, about his age or perhaps a little older, with a toddler on her hip and thick glasses perched on her nose.

She rears back as well, blinking in shock, then her round face creases apologetically – she is short, much shorter than him, and the hand she raises as if to touch Lampwick’s arm is small and pudgy, fluttering anxiously between them. “Oh, Miercoles- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m really, really sorry.”

“’S alright.” And it is, though his heart still seems undecided on whether it should stop hammering or not. “I just didn’t see you coming.”

“Still, I’m very sorry.” She gestures vaguely to the gloomy parade around them, adjusting her grip on her child – the boy can’t be older than two, his hair straight and combed back where the woman’s head is covered in dark curls, and he’s staring at Amelia in open wonder, as if he were trying to place what kind of creature she might be.

“I was just wondering if- Well, if you knew better than me who all these people were, actually. It’s the first time I visit this place.”

Lampwick snorts, shaking his head. “Not really. I mean, I know these folks, but...First timer as well, sorry.”

“Oh. Are you here for the fair?”

“Yeah. My-“ He hesitates a split second, then decides he doesn’t give a damn, not here, where their fellow townspeople aren’t around to scold them for never physically tying the knot: “My husband has a stall there. I was just taking a break. You too?”

She nods, giving him a small smile. “My cousin’s taken over for a bit, so I could go sightseeing. We’re from far south- it’s not every day we get to come to the capital, you know?”

She holds out a hand again, this time with much clearer purposes. “I’m Mirabel, by the way. Probably should have led with that, but...”

“No harm done.” Lampwick shakes it firmly, more amused by the conversation than anything else. “Lampwick.”

Her eyes widen ever so slightly, but if Mirabel recognizes the name, then she makes no mention of it, a fact of which he couldn’t be more grateful. Instead she turns to face the list before them again, her lips pursed in thought – the silence that falls between them is not awkward, all in all, but Lampwick gets restless in situations like these, so he blurts out, before he can say anything less polite: “So you really don’t know who these guys are?”

She hums in agreement, then amends, lightly: “Well, it’s not that I don’t know them. They’re villains. Rumors went around when I was a girl. But...I come from a pretty secluded area. I suppose we missed some key details, and we were too preoccupied with other stuff, anyway.”

Lampwick is struck by a sharp, sudden stab of envy. Hell, wouldn’t he love not to have any clue as to what horrible things the men and women named around him have done, too, to never have risked being reduced to a simple afterthought among them. Perhaps Pleasure Island was even more of a mistake than he previously thought – he should have lured Pinocchio into moving southwards, if there really are lands so blissfully unaware of everything else down there.

“I’m not sure I want to know more, though,” Mirabel continues, catching him off guard.

Lampwick shoots her a perplexed look, raising an eyebrow. “What d’you mean?”

“Well, the way people talk about it, they make it look like all of these villains were burning down entire cities every day, but there’s so many, now that I can see them. If it were true, there wouldn’t be an Auradon anymore, just ruins, so I was thinking that maybe they went overboard, stuffing them all into the same spot.”

That’s a surprisingly tame approach, and one Lampwick has heard very rarely before, mostly coming from his own mouth at night, huddling near Pinocchio and speaking in whispers. Most people wouldn’t be caught dead criticizing the current setting of things, not if it meant risking the peace they built with so much effort.

“So what’s the verdict?” He says, after a moment of careful weighing his words. “We just let them all out?”

Mirabel scoffs. “Can’t there be a middle ground? I’m all for keeping the worst of them, the ones that did unforgivable things, someplace where they can’t hurt anyone else. But there’s hundreds of people written down here. Did they all act the same? Are they all just like this Maleficent lady?”

Lampwick would like to ask her what she thinks unforgivable means, around her parts. Nothing gets forgiven, in Auradon, no more than it gets forgotten – he suspects that if he were to ask any of the higher ups, they would say he should have shipped off to that island, too, and was only spared by the king’s mercy or some stuff like that. Traditions aren’t the only thing people cling to, apparently, not when old grudges are right there at hand.

But that only makes Mirabel’s argument – his argument – all the more right. He was a child, and they would have put him in the same cage as the people who hurt him. He wasn’t a villain anymore than Amelia could be when she’s screaming her throat raw at bedtime, and though he managed to escape his sentence, there must be so many others who weren’t so lucky. It was unfair then, and it’s still unfair now, and if he felt relieved once the reality of facts hit him, he feels all the more so knowing he isn’t the only one with such an opinion.

Mirabel must mistake his expression for something else entirely, because she shakes her head brusquely, as if to erase what she just said. “Never mind. You were minding your business and I started dropping philosophical questions on your head. I should leave you to your visit.”

“Wait. Didn’t mean to-” Lampwick rubs at his forehead, wracking his brain to find something sensible to say.

“Actually, I think you’re right. ‘S just not something you hear often, around here. I know some people who should have a talk with you about it.”

The woman grins, her cheeks dimpling as she does so. “Don’t give me too much credit,” she replies, shrugging. “My sister always said I’m too big an optimist, and it’s not like I know what I’m talking about, anyway. I told you, I grew up very far from here, and there were no villains in that place, only the nasty things normal people do all the time.”

“You sound like an expert in that.”

“No, not really. It’s just- my family used to be a prime example of that.” Her expression darkens for a couple seconds, then she’s smiling again, poking at her child’s side. “Not all of them, though. They’ll be wondering where we went- what do you say we go back to the stall, Julito?”

“Arepas,” the boy mumbles, rubbing at his nose.

“Yes, mi amor, we’ll see if your abuela has a snack for you, mh?”

Mirabel looks up at Lampwick again, her eyes glinting with mischief. “That goes for you, too. Please swing by if you have the time- I need to make up for bothering you so much, and you need to try out the best food Encanto has to offer.”

Lampwick gives her the mockery of a quick salute, feeling compelled to smile back. “Thanks. Will do.”

She waves him goodbye, urging her son to do the same, and walks away briskly, leaving him in that room with a thousand new question in his head and Amelia finally napping in his arms.

“You mind if I take a little detour?” Lampwick asks, casually enough, as she’s handing his daughter back to Pinocchio. “Just a couple more minutes.”

“Uh-uh,” the man agrees, too preoccupied with smiling at Amelia and lifting her up in the air to make her giggle. Then, glancing sideways as he seems to finally register the words he’s being told: “Why? Do we need anything?”

“Not really. Just need to say hi to someone I met while walking around.”

“Oh, you made a friend? That’s good!”

Lampwick scoffs at the insinuation, telling him not to be a fool, but he doesn’t miss the way Mirabel perks up when he finally finds her stall – she introduces him to her mother and cousin and eldest son, and he makes sure to buy a little bit of everything as well, to bring back home when they return.

And when he sinks his teeth in the bit of fried dough Senora Julieta offers him, there’s no bitter aftertaste left on his tongue, and for a moment he thinks he might happily hang around the city a little longer, if that’s what it brings out of him.

Someone is shouting inside the house.

Lampwick frowns and hastens his step, tucking the shopping bag a bit more securely under his arm. It’s not an alarmed kind of shouting, so he doesn’t suppose there’s any danger waiting for him behind the front door, but whoever that voice belongs to (and he could make an accurate, if worried, guess even from so far away), they’re angry, and that’s not so common in their quaint little neighborhood, especially if he’s not the one doing the yelling.

“Anyone home?” He calls out as he walks inside, but he gets no reply, and that unsettles him even more – he sets the groceries down, then, and follows the sound of raised voices, which seem to be growing more incensed by the minute.

The cricket is the first thing Lampwick sees; he’s perched on the back of a chair, his hat askew, his hands on his hips, looking positively furious. At who, it’s not hard to understand – Pinocchio is standing right in front of him, his hair standing up as though he’d been raking his fingers incessantly through it, red in the face like a fresh lobster.

“Absolutely not,” he’s saying when Lampwick enters, his voice firm and uncharacteristically harsh. “No. You can’t make me do it. I’ll never agree.”

“Be reasonable, Pinocchio,” Jiminy cajoles, if quite tersely, as though his charge were testing his patience. “It’s a great opportunity. Not taking it-“

“I know what those opportunities mean. My answer is no. She can forget about it.”

The cricket sighs audibly, then, when he finally notices Lampwick, he gestures brusquely in Pinocchio’s direction, his little green face set in a frustrated scowl. “Please, make him see some sense. I’ve argued enough.”

“What’s going on?” Lampwick asks, all but ignoring him in favor of striding over to Pinocchio and putting a hand on the other’s arm. “Something wrong with the kid?”

Pinocchio shakes his head – he’s trembling, it’s clear to see from up close, his hands opening and closing as though trying to steel him. “She’s with my father. They went on a walk a while ago.”

That’s good, at least. It’s better if Amelia isn’t around to witness her dearest Papa screaming at his conscience until he’s hoarse, but still, it doesn’t explain much of the situation at hand. “Then what is it?”

There is a rumpled piece of paper sticking out of Pinocchio’s pocket. Lampwick only notices it when he fishes it out, smoothing it down with stiff, nervous tugs before handing it over.

“It’s a letter of admission,” Pinocchio says, hollowly. “Amelia’s been invited to attend a school in Auradon City. A big, prestigious one. Starting this year.”

Lampwick can only stare back at him, dumbfounded, the letter sitting in his weak grasp. “Melia’s only five,” he stammers, nonsensically. “Ain’t that a bit early?”

“They have courses for all grades. She could go there as a boarder, and stay until she graduates.”

“And as I said, that would be a great opportunity for her,” Jiminy says, raising his hands in a placating gesture as if expecting another rebuff. “There is a waiting list, usually, this late in the year. She would skip right to the top.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t sign her up for it, that’s for sure,” Lampwick mutters under his breath, and then, louder: “Wait, did you, Pinoke?”

“No.” Pinocchio seems positively outraged at the idea, all but seething, a far cry from the kind, generous man Lampwick sees every day. “I would never.”

“Then how’d she end up there?”

“The king put fairies in charge of every school in the capital. Can you guess who’s the headmistress for the lower grades?”

Whatever retort Lampwick had been considering dies in his throat. Of course. He should have expected it. They couldn’t truly believe their past would leave them alone for good, at long last. There must always be someone interfering, well-intentioned or not.

“She means well,” the cricket interjects, as though capable of reading his mind. “She cares for you. She just wants your daughter to do well.”

Pinocchio’s head snaps around, his voice near a snarl. “She thinks she can do better than us, you mean. She wants to make sure Amelia’s not taking the wrong path- is it because of me or because of Lampwick, do you think?”

“Now, Pinoke, that’s just a bad faith-“

“Can you give us a moment, cricket?” Lampwick cuts in, before the situation escalates again.

Jiminy huffs and puffs as he’s wont to do, but he hops off the chair and into the next room over, undoubtedly thinking Lampwick might succeed where he has failed. For his part, Lampwick waits until he’s left to inch even closer to Pinocchio, stuffing the letter in his back pocket and taking the other’s face in his hands – Pinocchio goes rigid for a split second, then all the tension and rage appear to flow out of his body, leaving him looking tired and worn out and much closer to his usual self in the blink of an eye.

“I can’t do it,” he whispers, a pleading hint to his voice. “Don’t ask me to do it. Please. She’s too young. I can’t let fairies raise her too, and it’s too far away. If- if she really needs to leave, then send her south to Mira. She would be safe there, at least.”

“She doesn’t need to go anywhere.” Lampwick can feel fury pent up in the back of his mind, too, but where Pinocchio’s was prompting him to lash out and revolt, Lampwick’s anger makes him bizarrely calm, the cogs in his brain ticking more clearly than they were doing before.

It’s more than a little strange, to be honest. He’s the one raving and ranting, usually, ready to fight back with tooth and nail – Pinocchio tends to be the calming presence, instead, despite what the stories convince to believe. He can always find the brighter side, whereas Lampwick’s glass will forever be half empty, provided it doesn’t get swiped away from under his nose first, of course.

But he can take the opposite role, if needed, and boy, does he want to. He wagers he wouldn’t be so mad if he were the only person involved, but Pinocchio’s the one shaking in outrage at the thought of his little girl being taught to feel ashamed for every misstep, and Amelia – his Melia, his wild little girl who loves her grandpa and can whistle three different tunes already – would be the one getting hurt. That would upset even the mildest man of Earth, and Lampwick is very far from claiming that title, even on a good day.

“I told you before, didn’t I?” He continues, slowly, always with that strange calmness washing over his words. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. No one can take her away from us. When she’s older, if she wants to see the world, we’ll let her, but now- to hell with them. She’s staying right here, where she’s happy.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yeah.” And he does, now. This is not a case of him speaking the things he wants into existence – he’ll make sure their kid is as safe as she can be, and if the world doesn’t agree, well, Lampwick’s going to have words with his. Strong, very strong words, and possibly a punch or two.

He’s not a scared little boy anymore, after all. For right or for wrong, one of their worst nightmares is locked away miles from the coastline, and the other doesn’t hold so much power over Pinocchio anymore. He’s done. They’re both done with that bullshit.

“I swear. I’m not gonna let anything get to her. To you both. Alright?”

“Alright,” Pinocchio repeats, closing his eyes and allowing his shoulders to slump some. “Alright.”

Lampwick nods, then rests his forehead against Pinocchio’s, and as they stand there keeping each other upright, he fervently hopes Geppetto will take his time bringing Amelia back from their walk, so they might manage to compose themselves before she returns.

“Daddy, look, there’s someone under the pier,” Amelia pipes up, tugging at his arm.

Lampwick squints in the direction she’s pointing at, shielding his eyes with the other hand. It’s very early in the morning still, the sun low and bright orange on the horizon, and as such the beach is empty of all those people who come there on the daily for a swim – they’re probably still sleeping, and he’ll concede that it might have been a smarter choice, if compared with getting out of the house barely after dawn.

He doesn’t regret it, though. For all that Amelia tends to be an early bird, she mostly entertains herself without waking either of her parents – Lampwick woke up entirely on his own, and since he couldn’t fall back asleep, it was his decision to let Pinocchio rest and take the kid on a little stroll, just the two of them. Hopefully she’ll release some pent-up energy and be more agreeable for the rest of the morning, this way.

The beach was his choice, too, and an obvious one at that. The sea soothes him, especially at this time of day, and though he knows it would sound cheesy to pretty much anyone else, he wishes Amelia will learn to enjoy it as much as he does – already she was skipping along on the shoreline, before she noticed the supposed intruder to their privacy, turning over the sand to look for pretty stones and chucking the uglier ones into the water.

She’s not going anywhere far from the coast, after all. There has been no reaction to their refusal to enroll the kid into what might be the most exclusive elementary school in the land yet, but Lampwick doesn’t doubt it’ll happen at some point, likely when they least expect it to. Fairies are of fickle minds and easily irritable, and the one involved in this particular issue is a subtly nasty one even for their standards – she won’t have taken kindly to seeing her offer ignored, if past experiences are of any indication.

Good. He can’t wait to see her pissed off from up close and personal. He’s got some frustration to unload himself, the sooner the better, actually.

Still, stray thoughts aside, his daughter is right. Lampwick doesn’t catch so much as a glimpse of the newcomer, only a shape disappearing into the waves, but just as he’s about to suggest that perhaps they only meant to take a soak in the low tide and enjoy the shade of the pier, he notices that they don’t seem to be resurfacing anywhere close. Worse, there appears to be something still moving between the wooden pillars, a much smaller, unidentifiable figure turning in the sand.

Dammit, did they go through all that trouble just to leave an unwanted pet behind? It wouldn’t be the first time someone pulls a stunt like that, after all. There’s always a bastard ready to toss a bag of kittens into the water, after forgetting to spay their housecat, though they usually pick rivers or lakes for that job, not a well-visible seafront.

Well, if their plan was to leave it to die of starvation for a while, they’ll be sorely deluded. Lampwick takes Amelia’s hand and urges her to trot forward, his brain already working through all the possible outcomes – they’ll never manage to convince Pinocchio to take in a dog, but a cat, a cat would be difference. If the two of them look pleading enough, perhaps he could be persuaded that a fuzzy little friend could be added to the family. Definitely. Especially if their daughter turns on the waterworks.

As per usual, though, all his plans go down the drain the moment he’s faced with reality, and he stops abruptly, while Amelia takes a few more steps, leaning closer with open curiosity.

It’s not a cat left for them to find, nor is it a dog. It’s a child. A boy, as it turns out; he’s in full birthday suit, kicking his naked legs in the sand, looking as though he might be a couple months short of one year old – he’s bigger than Amelia was at that age, but the lower part of his face is still rounded and babyish, and the girl was always scrawny besides, compared to her peers.

Already old enough to roll over and crawl, it seems. He puts a dirt covered finger in his mouth, then, apparently bored with this choice of pastime, he gets to his hands and knees and starts creeping towards the water’s edge – Lampwick’s instincts kick in before his braincells do, well-honed by Amelia’s toddler years stunts, and he snatches the boy away with faint alarm, but not before the latter has managed to get splashed up to his elbows and onto his face.

And then, something wondrous happens.

Lampwick holds the kid up at arm’s length, unable to believe what he’s seeing. The boy’s skin has changed colors where the water reached it, turning a purplish hue, and his hair is just a darker shade of that now – there is a slash running across his face where the contrast is particularly visible, like the stage make up of an old school singer, and the eye on that side is a different shape entirely, bright yellow with a slit dark pupil, resembling that of a snake.

And that’s not the only snake-y thing about him, either. The kid has scales on his arms – fish scales, more likely, but still – and his hands have claw-like, webbed fingers, stuff Lampwick has only ever seen on frogs and lizards.

He looks around frantically, trying not to let his worry show. There is no one else around beside them, save a bunch of screeching seagulls, and whoever it was that left the brat behind, they’re not coming back anytime soon – ever, perhaps, because who would leave a naked child in a secluded spot without a warning if they were planning to return?

And fuck, why does this sort of things always happen to him?

“Daddy?” Amelia says, shaking him out of his reverie – she doesn’t look scared in the slightest, but rather delighted instead, poking at the boy’s scaly limbs in wonder. “What are we going to do with it?”

Kid, I have no idea, is what first reaches the tip of his tongue, but of course, that’s not something he can say out loud. Of the people present he’s supposed to be the most competent one, the one in control, who knows what the next step should be – and to hell with the fact that Lampwick hasn’t been competent in anything since he left elementary school and was supposed to write more than two full sentences without making a mistake.

But it’s fine. He’s fine. He can handle this, at least until someone better suited strides in and takes the matter off his hands.

Someone like Pinocchio, for one.

“Come on, Melia,” he mutters, as the boy, treacherously satisfied with himself, rests cheerfully in this strange man’s hands, his little legs swinging and dangling in the air.

“Let’s go check if we have a fishbowl big enough for a baby. Then, we’ll see.”