Chapter Text
“Orso, want a new friend?” Mycroft asked his cuddle companion, Orso the bear, who sat idly on the edge of his bed. “Hmm.” the little boy scanned his room in search for a brand new, unintroduced, plush partner for his beloved bear, but every toy his sights landed on were already friends with Orso. A conundrum indeed. “We will find one.”
He gingerly took Orso into his arms, securing him to his side, and opened the closet door. Muffin wasn’t supposed to go in there unless it was an emergency, and this was certainly an emergency in Mycroft’s book. The closet would have been intimidating any other day, long shadows were cast downward onto his little frame from the dim bulb that shone on the ceiling, but he had his brave super agent face on. Nothing could scare Muffin if he was brave.
“Orso, we’ll find a friend.” He looked his plush in the eye, shiny black beads gazing back in what Muffin could only understand as agreement. “Back here?”
He got low onto his hands and knees, reaching back into the pitch black darkness behind his winter coats. It startled him when his little fingers came into contact with a hard object, and from what Muffin could tell, it was flat on top, the dust clung to his hand as he brought it back to inspect the ‘damages’. A violent sneeze ripped through him as he wiped the unpleasant substance from his skin and onto the rug below.
With renewed confidence and a clear head, he reached back with both hands, feeling the flat surface as it came to an edge. “A box!” Muffin giggled, thinking about how that very word was his fathers’ last name. Box was a strange one, but Muffin couldn’t really criticise it when his own name was Holmes (it wasn’t even spelled right!). “Do you know what’s in the box, Orso?” His silent friend made no answer, but that was alright, Orso couldn’t know everything in the world (but he was a very clever bear).
Muffin gingerly removed the top, careful of the dust, and set it to the side, revealing all sorts of nick-knacks inside. Some of the things that laid inside were familiar: a well-loved cricket ball, some books that Bello and Papà had read to him (Alice in Wonderland was one of his favourites), a pretty origami butterfly that had soft and worn edges, four-leaf clover pressed between two pieces of clear plastic. But the things that were unfamiliar fascinated Mycroft, and he gently placed them in a line on the floor before him and Orso so they could study them together.
First item of interest, a ring. Of course Muffin knew what a ring was, people put them on their fingers to look pretty. Bello and Papà wore rings to show they were married (he got to hold them during the wedding and he got lots of kisses and hugs for doing so well), and Rudy had one that ‘represented the Holmes family and has been passed down since the Victorian age’. That one didn’t make much sense to him, but he took Rudy’s word for it. This ring looked like Rudy’s, the face of the bulky circlet was engraved with what Muffin could make out as a fancy ‘B’ with a lion playing with the top bump of the ‘B’ like it was a ball of yarn. He tried to put it on his finger, but it would immediately flip downward, Muffin wasn’t big enough for that ring so he set it back down.
Second item of interest, a picture. It was in black and white, and the first thing that came to mind was Papà’s best friend Mr. Puppy (Christopher Miracle, but that wasn’t half as fun as Mr. Puppy). He liked making black and white pictures, and he would give them to Muffin’s parents and Rudy all the time so they could put them in special picture books. They were really fun to look through, and it was always neat to see his family in another time before he even existed! But this picture wasn’t like Mr. Puppy’s, they were blurry and not as pretty as his. The focus was a little boy, older than Muffin, and he held a baby in his arms. The little boy had a smile on his face as he let the baby rest on his hip, just like how Bello and Papà would hold him. He turned the picture over (it didn’t have a frame) and looked at the fancy writing on the back, it looked just like Papà’s handwriting! Muffin wasn’t the best at reading cursive, but he was getting better. “L-u-c-i-f-e-r-” He was proud of himself for finding his father’s name, so he moved on to the name below Lucifer’s. It was unfamiliar and strange, but Muffin was all the more determined to read it. “P-a-n-d-o-r-a-”
Mycroft furrowed his brows, Pandora? He never heard of Pandora, and here Papà was with her! He must investigate further.
And the last item of interest, a journal. Or at least what Muffin assumed was a journal. It felt like leather as he ran his hands along it, the edges of the paper were worn with tim but not brittle to the touch. He gingerly opened the notebook and found untidy handwriting on the back of the front cover. “Journal of Lucifer Box.” Mycroft gasped, looking at his plush friend with astonishment. “Papà’s journal!” It was a bit different than the journals he kept now. His memoirs were in neat books on a shelf he wasn’t supposed to touch without help, just in case the whole thing decided to topple on top of him, but this little journal didn’t look as fancy as his books. Mycroft flipped the front page to read the first entry. “Dear Diary,” Muffin read in his best Lucifer voice, trying his flowy and proper accent on. It was very silly on a little boy like him. “My name is Lucifer Box and I am seven years old, today is my birthday.” Oh wow! His papà was only seven years old when he wrote this (just like Muffin!), he was way older now. A full adult with an icky adult job that he had to go to meetings in (that didn’t sound very fun to Mycroft, but it was an awful part of life he would have to go through when he got old enough).
He plucked Orso from the floor next to him and went to his desk where he kept all his pencils and colouring books. It also had a lamp on it, so he could keep reading without his eyes getting sore. He was fully invested in the first story about his sister Pan-Pan (who he could only assume was the same as Pandora) and how he wasn’t very fond of the crying noises she would make. Muffin didn’t think he’d like to be stuck with a crying baby, but if they behaved like him he wouldn’t mind. Little Papà went on to talk about his brother (Uncle Rudy) and how he was picking on him again, but he would forgive Rudy if they could go out to the pond and skip rocks. Rudy is really good at skipping rocks, apparently.
A light knock on his door frame snapped him from the tale of him and Rudy terrorising a colony of ants. “Hey Muffin, what’s that you have?” Lucifer’s (the adult one) smiling face peeked in. “Wait, is that mine?”
“Mhm! Orso and I found it in the closet.”
“You know you’re not supposed to go in there unless it's an emergency. Something could fall on you.” His Papà walked in, avoiding the strewn about items, and turned off the light in the little closet, closing the doors behind him.
“It was an emergency, Papà! Orso needed a new friend and I thought there would be one in the closet.”
“Good Lord, I haven't seen some of this stuff in aeons, Muffin.” He picked up the cricket ball and tossed it in his hand a few times, a fond look in his eyes. A chuckle escaped his dad’s lips, cobalt blue eyes settling on the bear that sat on his desk. “So he’s the culprit of your excavation in the closet?”
“Mhm.”
“And what did you find?”
Muffin was about to answer in full about all the neat things that were in the box, before he remembered his burning question from earlier, “Who’s Pan-Pan?”
His Papà’s face fell, what seemed to be immense sadness and pain overwhelmed his emotions as he sat on the edge of Mycroft’s bed. The ball fell to the ground as he brought his shaking hands to his face, his breathing came in shaky waves. Muffin didn’t fully understand what was going on, all he knew was that his Papà wasn’t okay and he needed to help him.
“Papà? What’s wrong?” Quickly getting up from his little desk, he grabbed Orso and hugged his dad’s leg, worried for him. “Papà? I’m sorry-”
“No no-” Lucifer moved the hands from his face, eyes red and threatening to spill over with tears. “It’s not your fault, I promise it’s not… It’s just that I haven’t heard that name in a very very long time.” He picked Mycroft up, setting him in his lap before hugging him close. Just like how Muffin would hold Orso when he had a bad dream. “Pandora was my sister.”
“What happened?” Muffin snuggled closer, resting his forehead in the crook of his Papà’s neck, safety engulfed him. He hoped his dad felt safe too.
“I-Well… someone very twisted took her life.” Lucifer’s hands shook for a moment, causing him to pull Mycroft impossibly closer. The sound of his ragged breathing nearly echoed in the silent house. “She’s not with us anymore.” One of his large hands curled around and shakily stroked Muffin’s ginger locks, the little ringlets bouncing atop his head.
“ ‘m sorry Papà…”
“It’s alright, I’ve made my peace with it.” Papà was lying, Muffin knew it, but he wouldn’t say anything. Cuddles were much better. He didn’t want his Papà to be upset anymore. “ I should be the one who’s sorry to you. You don’t need to be dealing with your old man crying like this.”
Muffin, who has learned many things from Bello, tapped him hard on the top of the head in an effort to scold him. “No!” A cracked laugh left his Papà. “Here, take Orso. He’ll make you feel better.” He gently placed the little bear in Lucifer’s large hand, pale digits gladly accepting the gift. “No more sad Papà.”
“No more sad Papà.” He held the bear close to his chest before kissing Muffin on the forehead, smiling. “Let’s set the table for Bello when he gets home, yeah? He’s going to make you your favourite.”
“Yes!”