Chapter Text
"Liz?" Patty called across the dark hallway, her voice was shaking and only as loud as she could muster. "Liz? Where are you... Is he back?" Her voice quivered unmistakably as she ask her last question.
"Patty! Shhh! Come here." Liz's voice called from a cupboard to Patty's right. Patty crawled into the small space with her sister and noted the red marks across her shoulder before the light was extinguished by the closing door. "He's coming home today. I don't want to come out." Patty nodded and placed her hand on her sister's arm below the scars from the last time their father was home. Patty watched her sister shake and make herself small and she thought back to the good days. While their mother was alive everyone was happy and light. Their mom was always upbeat and without a care in the world, some people would call her ditzy or even stupid, but if you really knew her you would see a great intelligence behind her every action. Patty pledged in that moment that she would bring that light back into her sister's world.
Patty was shaken out of her reveries as the lock on the front door turned. They heard the click and then the creaking of the door. Their blood ran cold as they heard him speak, "Girls?! Where are you? I'm home."
~~~
Death the Kid sat in his room alone. He lay across his bed staring at the ceiling, examining the blank empty tiles. His room was very simple with only a bed, a desk, a chair, and many textbooks. He sighed audibly and straighted up. Slowly he walked to his door and exited his room.
"Where are you going at this hour?" He father said looming out of the shadows.
Kid jumped and began to stammer, "I-I-I thought that you wer-re on a mis-sion"
His father's angry mask and harsh voice loomed over kid as he stared at the floor. "And why would that matter? Shouldn't you be studying anyway?"
Kid paused and leaned weakly on the doorframe, "Y-yeah... I have been studying. I was just hoping that I could go play- uh- study outside because- uh- it would be beneficial to-" Kid paused. He had no idea how he was going to finish his sentence. All he really wanted to do was go play basketball with some children he saw out of his window.
Death considered this for a moment, "I have read many studies that suggest that being outside provides too many distractions to be conducive to learning. You know, when I was your age I knew twenty six different languages. You need to catch up, how many do you know? Six? This is unacceptable. I brought you a Latin textbook." Death produced the old book from his robes and handed it to Kid then walked away without another word.
Kid sighed and turned back into his room, of course the one time he saw his father this month was the time he decided to try to be social. He tossed the book onto his desk and lobbed himself into his chair. He read the introduction chapter quickly and then found himself far more interested in his desk. As his eyes moved from the page before him he noted that two stray pencils were laying symmetrically around his book. He tilted his head to one side, "how oddly beautiful" he whispered to himself. As he looked around he found himself reorganizing his desk until it was in perfect symmetry. He smiled for the first time in weeks, possibly even months. As he stepped back to admire his work he thought about how much nicer it would look if his desk was in the middle of the wall instead of to one side. He pushed the desk until it was perfectly centered, in the process destroying much of his work. He took his time to set everything back up in intricate ways until that entire side of his room was left right symmetrical. He stepped back until he reached the other wall, to his growing unease however he found that to his left was a bed and to his right was nothing. This problem however was quickly rectified and soon he was sitting in the exact center of his bed with everything to his right and left being in perfect symmetry. He sat like that for some time until finally he shook his head, laughed at himself, and went back to studying.