Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. Chauncey

“Where do babies come from?”

Linus looked around confirm his hope that Chauncey’s question was aimed at literally anyone else. He was met, instead, with disappointment. The living room was otherwise empty, the children off on their personal pursuits and Arthur and Lucy upstairs debating philosophers—Schopenhauer, today. Though Linus was particularly fond of Schopenhauer–he and Arthur had argued about it enough that Arthur had decided to incorporate him into Lucy’s philosophical education, after all–, Linus still felt as though sitting in on Arthur and Lucy’s one-on-one time was an intrusion. 

Thus, Linus had elected instead to make himself at home on the squashy yellow couch in the living room, reading through a new edition of The English Garden that featured pictures of Talia’s begonia collection. In the photo, she preened in front of them, holding her beloved new shovel that Helen had picked out for her. On the pages that followed, the article detailed how unusual it was for begonias to grow for so long past their season, but that Marsyas Island, it seemed, was an unusual place. When Chauncey had entered the living room, looking positively distraught, Linus had just reached a photo of the children having a picnic in the garden. It was as chaotic a scene as any meal with the children tended to be. Lucy was inflated like a balloon, floating a good ten feet off the ground, where Phee hovered beside him, her brilliant red head thrown back in laughter. Sal sat with Theodore in his lap, stroking the wyvern’s scales and attempting to pass Chauncey a biscuit, which he seemed to be turning down in lieu of watching Talia dig an impressively big hole–which, she had reassured Arthur and Linus several times, was not for the photographer who had accidentally mistaken her for a “dirty, disgusting boy gnome” because she had a beard. And Arthur and Linus looked on, sitting on the red-checkered picnic blanket, Arthur wearing a look of absolute delight and Linus one of obvious distress and bemusement. Linus had been running his finger over the photo, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, when Chauncey had spotted him on the couch and barreled toward him.

“ Well, Linus?! Oops, sorry!” Chauncey warbled, accidentally slapping the magazine out of his hands in his haste to crawl into Linus’s lap. Linus let out a mental sigh of relief that his mug of tea was sitting on the side table, not in his hands. “I’ve gotta know! Babies. Where do they come from?”

Linus tried to ignore the sensation that his clothing was wet and covered in goo. “Where did this question come from, Chauncey?” He asked weakly, staring forlornly at the magazine on the floor, the cover’s corner bent back.

Chauncey puffed out his chest in pride. “A good bellhop needs to know where all of his customers are coming from! So he can serve them best!”

“And babies are included in ‘customers,’ I presume?”

Chauncey backed off of Linus’s lap in shock, and Linus tried to mask his relief by taking a sip of tea. Though he’d been back on the island for almost a month, he still wasn’t quite accustomed to the utter lack of personal space he seemed to have. Chauncey was by far the most giving with his physical affection, but all of the children seemed to enjoy a good pile-on every once in a while, and it left Linus out of breath.

“Of course babies are customers, Linus! They have luggage, don’t they?” Before Linus could respond that, technically, babies’ luggage was usually packed by their parents in their parents’ luggage, Chauncey had slithered onto the hardwood floor, pacing back and forth in a way that could only be described as distraught. “But where do they come from? I asked Talia, and she said she’d tell me when I was older, whatever that means, and I asked Phee, and she laughed and said ‘Not from trees, so I don’t care,’ which was not helpful, and Theodore just said something about eggs, which made no sense because babies are not chickens, and Sal got all quiet and uncomfortable and suggested I ask an adult, but Arthur is busy right now, and I couldn’t find Zoe, but then I remembered that now we have you ! And you’re an adult who has been in the real world a whole bunch and you lived in the city, where lots of babies are born, so I figured you must know!”

Linus was not prepared for this conversation. He resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and cover his ears and pretend that Chauncey had gone invisible. The only conversations regarding sex that he and his mother had had revolved around the singular idea that, if not done precisely as the Lord had intended, engaging in such activities would lead to a one-way ticket to Hell. This was made especially apparent when Linus’s inclinations toward other boys became more obvious as he aged. Linus took a deep breath, avoiding looking into Chauncey’s bright eyes and hoping that he didn’t say the wrong thing.

“Well, erm, you see” Linus started, searching his hands as if, maybe, they held the answer Chauncey was seeking. Regretfully, they did not, so he steeled himself with another swig of chamomile and soldiered on in his explanation. “When a mummy and daddy love each other very much—well, that’s very outdated thinking, isn’t it? Lots of families can have babies, regardless of if they have a mummy and daddy. They could have two mums, or two dads, or even just one person.”

Chauncey stopped in his pacing, staring intently at Linus with his mouth slightly open. “Is that where I came from? Two dads? Because I have two dads!”

Linus felt his heart swell, and nearly choked on what he was saying. “What do you mean, Chauncey?”

Chauncey looked around conspiratorially, though they were clearly alone in the living room, before leaning forward and whispering, “Don’t tell the others I said this, but you and Arthur are like our dads and we love you. But you can’t know! Phee said you’d be so annoying about it if you knew, and that Arthur would just weep and weep about it. And I don’t want to make Arthur cry.”

Linus was so caught up in the sweetness of Chauncey’s interruption that he’d forgotten the purpose of their conversation, which was immediately redirected when Chauncey fixed his bellhop hat on his head and said, “So, anyway. Dads and mums and stuff. That’s how I’m here?”

The conversation was giving Linus whiplash and a massive headache, as much as he tried to get a handle on it. He wasn’t sure how to explain that, in the file that DICOMY had given him a few months prior, Chauncey’s origins were explained away with a handful of question marks, so he shrugged and said, “Where you came from doesn’t matter as much as where you are now.”

Chauncey climbed back onto the couch and rested his eye stalks on Linus’s shoulder. “That’s right. I didn’t come from you and Arthur, but it’s okay because I’m here now and everyone here is my family.”

 Linus exhaled with relief, glad to be getting back into safer waters. “Exactly. So, for babies… When two people love each other very much–”

Chauncey’s eyes practically jumped off of their stalks as he bolted upright. “Does that mean that you and Arthur are going to have a baby?”

Linus choked on his drink, quickly returning the mug to the side table. Chauncey enthusiastically thumped him on the back, grinning widely. “I knew it! You two are in love, so you’re going to have a baby!” With that, Chauncey bolted off the couch, shouting, “GUYS! GUESS WHAT!”

How the conversation had gotten here, Linus didn’t know, but he had to squash it before Chauncey could run through the house to tell all the other children the great news. He stood abruptly, racing after Chauncey into the hallway. “Chauncey, wait!” He shouted, already out of breath, as Chauncey whipped around the corner to climb the stairs.

Chauncey’s eyes popped through the slats of the step rails, practically glowing. “Yes, Linus?” He barreled back down the stairs, tugging at Linus’s t-shirt until he stooped down next to him. Once Linus was at Chauncey-height, Chauncey whispered in his ear, “Ooh, are you going to let me pick its name? I can’t wait to have a new little brother or sister.”

Linus scratched his head, wishing Arthur were here to say the right thing–something he had found he was notoriously bad at. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a rub. “No, Chauncey, it’s not that. It’s just… Well… Arthur and I aren’t having a baby.”

Chauncey’s lips began to wobble, and then his body followed suit. “You aren’t? But you just told me–”

“I know I said that babies come from when two people love each other very much,” Linus said, cursing himself for his explanation, “But I didn’t necessarily mean that it applied to Arthur and me.”

Chauncey’s wobbling lips turned to outright sobs. “You and Arthur don’t love each other?” He cried.

Now you’ve done it, Linus thought to himself, panicking. He loved Arthur; he was more sure of it than anything else on the earth, except maybe that he loved the children. But they hadn’t said it yet–he hadn’t even moved in from the guest house yet. Love was not a part of taking things slow. “No, no, Chauncey, I didn’t mean–”

“You’re leaving again?” Chauncey was wailing now, loud cries that shook his entire body. 

“Chauncey, no! I promised! I’m staying!” Linus tried to protest, but it was drowned out by a carnal scream from Chauncey as he thundered up the stairs.

“ARTHUR!!!!”

Linus stood alone at the landing of the stairs, sighing to himself. Well, old boy, there’s another month in the guest house .

Chapter Text

2. Talia

Linus had taken to gardening about as well as a fish to the earth, but he was growing to love it anyway. Incredibly true to her words, Talia made Linus work with her in the garden nearly every day, and he approached that work with as much zeal as he could, despite the stiffness of his joints and near constant dirt stains on the knees of his pants. Sometimes change, he realized as the leaves turned a rainbow of brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges, could be good—magical, even. 

And fall brought about a lot of changes on Marsyas Island: Arthur invited Linus over to spend the night and then decided to ask him to stay forever, for instance, and Talia began pivoting from planting flowers to cultivating vegetables. By October, her lovely patch of squash, tomatoes, corn, and pumpkins was in full force. The burst of colors were enough to take your breath away, and that’s what Linus was thinking about one morning as he weeded amongst the chrysanthemums and watched Talia dither around the garden in his periphery. She was puzzling over the pumpkins and stroking her beard.

“A penny for your thoughts, Talia?” Linus called over to her.

Talia wrinkled her nose. “No thanks, Linus. You can’t really buy anything with a penny,” she said, clearly still focused on her vegetables in front of her. Her eyebrows waggled mischievously as she added, “But I could be persuaded by ten dollars.”

Linus spluttered before laughing despite himself, pushing himself up and brushing his hands off on his pants. When he’d become okay with dirtying his pants with his even-dirtier hands, he wasn’t sure, but he presumed he had the magic of the island to blame.

Somehow, though, he didn’t mind too much.

“Though I believe your thoughts are worth at least twenty, I left my wallet inside. I didn’t realize inflation had gotten so bad,” Linus said, moving to squat next to Talia. “What are we looking at?”

Talia gestured at the pumpkins, scowling. “They’re boring.”

Linus frowned. He always felt a touch sensitive when the children said something was boring, as it was a subtle reminder of their first impression of him some months ago. He thought the pumpkins looked beautiful, but when he told Talia this, her scowl deepened further.

“They’re missing something. I don't know what it is. Just something,” Talia said with a huff that signaled the end of the conversation. “You can stop weeding, if you want. You’ve earned yourself another day above ground.”

Linus thought about this conversation for the rest of the day. It sat with him as he stripped all of the children’s beds and washed their sheets, as he helped Phee with her turn to make dinner, and as the family tucked into the lasagna and salad they had made. The conversation turned to Halloween, only three days away, and Linus felt his face brighten in realization at what he could do to fix Talia’s sour mood and celebrate the holiday. When dinner wound down, he excused himself and quietly picked the biggest, roundest pumpkin in Talia’s patch. After hauling it inside, Linus set about using a marker to trace out the jack-o-lantern’s features: triangle eyes, a cute little square for a nose, and a jaggedy smile filled with teeth. 

It would be perfect, he thought, and Talia would be so excited to see that one of her pumpkins had gotten a makeover.

He was still mentally patting himself on the back for his excellent thinking twenty minutes later, when the doors to the kitchen swung open and Talia–a silhouette against the bright light of the hallways–barged in, looking panicked.

“Linus, have you seen…” She trailed off when she saw the knife in Linus’s hand, fully submerged in the pumpkin’s face. “Linus, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

In a flash, Talia charged toward Linus, shovel raised, and Linus finally understood why people say that your life can flash before your eyes. His life certainly did, though he was embarrassed to realize that most of the flash was of Arthur, hair askew, skin flushed, and in various states of undress.

To Linus’s great relief, Talia came skittering to a stop on the other side of the table, voice crescendoing as she shouted, “Linus, what did you do to Alphonso?!”

Linus blinked owlishly. He had no clue who Alphonso might be, though Talia’s distress indicated that whatever he had done to him was a great personal wrong that might very well be irreversible. “I’m sorry—who's Alphonso?”

Talia gaped at him, gesticulating wildly at the pumpkin on the table. “Who's Alphonso? WHO IS ALPHONSO? He’s only my best friend and closest confidante in the whole world!”

Linus gently put down the knife he’d been using to carve the pumpkin face. “Talia,” he began, mind racing as he tried to decide what sentence could possibly follow it. His mother had not exactly been the best role model of having healthy conversations, and–as much as he was working on it–he worried that he would follow her in that route. Linus thought of the time she caught him with a boy, fumbling around half-clothed in the darkness of their basement. Linus wasn’t sure what the cause of an aneurysm typically was, but he had a pretty good idea of what it could be based on the reaction that followed. “I’m not sure what, exactly, you’re saying to me right now, but—“

The rest of Linus’s sentence was drowned out by another wail from Talia. As she climbed onto the bench to get a better look at the jack-o-lantern that Linus had been making excellent progress on, she saw the mass of seeds and pumpkin innards stacked high on Linus’s right. In a fury, she dove across the table, grabbing blindly at the orange goo and shoving it back into the opening at the top of the pumpkin. “Treachery! Betrayal! DISEMBOWLMENT, LINUS! Alphonso deserved better.”

Linus gaped at Talia, open-mouthed. “Pause, please. This is Alphonso?”

Talia looked at him as though the injustices would never cease. “Yes, Linus. This was Alphonso,” she sniffled, rubbing her hands together to rid them of Alphonso’s guts. They plopped on the table terribly. “But now he is a shell of a man. And worse yet, we’ll never know what he was feeling in his final moments.”

Linus didn’t know if it would be appropriate to try to explain to Talia that pumpkins don’t have feelings. He waffled over what to say to her as she paced the table, sniffling. The solution that came was obviously–he had just about finished giving Alphonso his lovely smile, and he realized that maybe he could show her that pumpkins do have feelings–but this pumpkin was happy, not sad. “Talia, look!” Linus said hurriedly, turning the pumpkin around to show Talia the face he had carved. “Look at that face! He’s overjoyed! He’s not in pain!”

A moment too late, Linus realized his mistake. The stringy pumpkin innards that Talia had hurriedly stuffed back into Alphonso’s cavernous head now hung out of his mouth, giving the appearance that the jack-o-lantern was literally puking its guts out. 

Talia let out a feral cry, dropping her shovel as she fell to her knees on the table and shook her fists dramatically at the sky. “Why, cruel gods, why?!” Her voice echoed through the house, loud enough to wake anyone within a hundred-mile radius. “Why have you forsaken me in my time of need?!”

Ever the master of timing, Arthur chose that moment to pop his head into the kitchen. Linus’s chest tightened as he tried to decide on an explanation that also worked as damage control, but Talia didn’t give him a chance, running to Arthur, hugging his legs, and pointing murderously at Linus. “Linus KILLED Alphonso! He’s a MURDERER! Next time we go adventuring, we’re going to feed him to the cannibals!”

Arthur smoothed Talia’s hat with his hand before giving her a light pat on the back, eyes twinkling devilishly as Linus. “As much as I’m sure that Linus would make a delicious snack for the cannibals,” his eyes roved Linus’s pumpkin gut-covered body, and Linus melted into the table in shame, “We will not feed anybody to anybody, yes?”

After grumbling what Linus could have sworn was a threat, Talia muttered an affirmative into her hands, eyes still twitching toward Linus’s station at the table. Arthur pretended not to notice, cheerfully continuing with, “That is the spirit, Talia. Thank you. Let’s go find another activity to work on for a bit.”

Linus sighed. He supposed this newly-established rule of “we will not feed anybody to anybody” applied to making everyone pumpkin pie with the guts of Talia’s “best friend,” too.