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“Kevin, come back!”
Kevin knew this was a good hiding spot. He had spotted it the moment he had came into the house and stored it away in his head. It was just right between the dryer and the wall, behind the laundry basket and tucked away like a little fox in his den.
His lips betrayed him, trying to force into a smile – or maybe force out of a smile. He didn’t know which was wrong anymore, and Carlos would tell him to calm down and think about this but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t, alright? He couldn’t change, couldn’t heal, couldn’t get better. All he’d do was hurt those he cared about and smile until it didn’t bother him.
He felt tears come to his eyes and he furiously wiped them away because he didn’t cry unless he was regressed and he didn’t need- didn’t want to be regressed right now because then Cecil and Carlos would find him and be so nice to him (nicer than he deserved) and tell him everything was okay and that wasn’t true because it just wasn’t.
The day had started off so well, too. Sitting on the couch, watching an old recorded episode of sesame street. Carlos didn’t know some of the numbers so he was calling back to Cecil to check.
“Cecil, what’s threvin, again?”
Kevin had looked up, humming happily. “Is ‘tween snix an doublezero.” He said, pointing at the screen where the Count was carving the numbers on a bloodstone tablet.
“That’s right!” Cecil had come out smelling like cookie dough and Kevin had immediately gotten distracted from the Letter Of The Day and kneeled on the couch, looking over with big happy eyes at the bowl he was holding. Cecil noticed, of course.
“You can lick the spoon after I’ve scooped out the rest.” He said.
Kevin rested his chin on the edge of the couch and made big eyes that he knew Cecil was never able to resist.
“Oh, just let him get a spoon. You’re going to eventually.” Carlos said from his notepad.
Kevin looked from Carlos to Cecil hopefully until Cecil grinned and sighed and nodded and he ran out to the drawer where they kept all the cutlery, running back in with record time. Kevin took his cookie dough very seriously.
As he scooped up a very reasonably sized spoonful (that Cecil remarked was ‘gigantic’ and ‘leave some for me to cook!’) and started to chew on it, he gathered the couch blankets and pillows around him and his colouring pages. Cecil was a fan of colourful throws and so Kevin had a lot to choose from, all shaggy and in bright colours and so fun to gather around him.
He was so in his head, in fact, that he barely noticed that Cecil and Carlos were both quiet and looking at him. He looked back when he realized and then hid the bottom half of his face under a blanket to disguise a nervous giggle.
“Awhh, It looks like you’ve made yourself a little nest.” Cecil said before returning back to the kitchen.
“Are you a bird, silly?” Carlos asked.
Kevin shook his head.
“Hmm… what else builds nests? Are you a little mouse?”
Kevin shook his head again and giggled. He did a playful little growl.
“Oh, so you’re something that growls! A dog?”
He shook his head one more time, patiently. Carlos was smart, he would get it.
Carlos though until his eyes drifted to the page Kevin had been colouring while watching. It was one of the animal books he had, and of course he had picked his favourite to colour out.
“Are you a little fox?”
Kevin grinned wide and nodded his head a bunch, hiding below his blankets again.
Carlos reached over the couch to give him head scrtiches and Kevin could only feel grateful that he had Carlos, that he had both his caretakers who could see what he needed so clearly. Sesame street continued to play in the background as he napped.
It had been perfect. And Kevin had ruined it and ruined everything and made everything terrible and unhappy again like he always did. The spot behind the dryer was getting more claustrophobic the more he crouched down, but he did even as Cecil called out for him from the rest of the condo. He thought he’d stay here forever, here with the cold metal and the drywall that wasn’t living and therefore he didn’t think he could hurt it.
He probably could, though. He hurt everything all the time.
Cecil was getting close to the laundry room, Kevin could hear his footsteps so he bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut and tried his best not to move or make a sound or cry or do anything that might reveal his amazing hiding spot and get Cecil to come in.
When the footsteps passed and he couldn’t hear them anymore, he also couldn’t stop from sniffling into the collar of his onesie, filled to the brim with regret and hopelessness.
After around the amount of time it took to scoop out cookies and put them in the oven, Cecil had come back to the living room. Weekends were Kevin’s favourite. He loved going to the radio station and he loved sitting quietly at Carlos’s lab, but more than anything he loved being in the house with both of them.
He knew (well, he thought, he assumed) that they wished they could go out more places. Maybe they could, go for a date night or something. Kevin had been so so good since the bandages were off around his mouth. He could one hundred percent stay good while they were gone. He wouldn’t even regress, and if he did he’d just turn on the TV and make himself some cereal and that would be that. He could definitely do it.
“Hello, little creature.” Cecil sat down on the other side of him on the couch and grinned at him. Kevin grinned back. Right now his thoughts were kinda fuzzy but when he could use words again he’d suggest it. They were gonna be SO happy.
“He’s a little fox, right Kev?” Carlos confirmed.
Kevin looked at him and nodded a whole bunch of times.
“Awhhh, then hello little fox!” Cecil cooed.
Kevin was so happy he got it immediately. He put his paws (hands? No, paws sounded better) around Cecil’s neck in a hug and Cecil hugged him back.
“Hey, I’ve got something I think you’d love.” Cecil said, and Kevin sat back, looking at him curiously, tilting his head to the side like that would satisfy his curiosity (though it just made everything kind of tilted).
Cecil got up from the sofa and danced into his room. Kevin sat back and exchanged a look with Carlos, who shrugged. There were sounds of Cecil digging around somewhere, several clown horns barmped, a cat yowled in surprise, and for some reason there was a few seconds of chainsaw noises. Kevin’s interest grew.
Into the den came Cecil a few minutes later, holding up a full size fox onesie. Kevin’s eyes immediately lit up, he gasped, he couldn’t withhold his joy. He scrambled off the couch faster than a greased cat and got within a few inched of Cecil and the onesie before stopping because he couldn’t dare believe something so insanely cool was real.
Behind him, Carlos was laughing. “Where did you get that?”
“I wore this to my senior prom!” Cecil replied. “The theme was under the sea.” He thought for a second. “Foxes live under the sea, right?”
Kevin didn’t correct him that no, silly, nobody’s seen a sea fox in years because words still weren’t working great and besides, Cecil was putting the outfit into his hands and he hugged it with the utmost joy and happiness and amazingness forever.
“Want me to help you put it on?” Carlos asked.
Kevin nodded his head so hard he thought it might pop off and fly across the room. It didn’t, thankfully, and Carlos got him into the onesie and zipped it up to his chin and it was a perfect fit, like all of Cecil’s clothes. Carlos pulled up the hood over his curls and Kevin could feel two fox ears when he waved his hand along the top of his head.
He turned around a few times, looking at it, grinning so wide the corners of his mouth where his scars lay hurt, but he didn’t even mind. He dove for the TV remote and turned it off so he could look at himself in the blank screen and he grinned and hopped around and turned around again.
Cecil took both his hands and smiled at him, cooing “Oh my goodness, aren’t you the cutest foxy ever! With your ears and your tail!”
Kevin hadn’t even noticed the tail. He turned around a few times trying to spot it, and when he did he clapped his paws together in delight.
“Can I take some pictures, little fox?” Cecil asked and Kevin nodded and wondered if foxes wagged their tails when they were happy, like dogs. He thought they probably did because foxes were such happy critters.
Cecil brought out his phone and Kevin happily struck a few poses, though he kept trying to see himself in the blank TV. After a few minutes he pounced back onto his little blanket nest on the couch and curled up into a little ball, hugging one of the pillows.
Cecil and Carlos sat back down beside him and he was definitely the happiest fox in the world. Even though his scars still looked so scary and weird and terrible, it was impossible to be scary in a fox onesie. He tried to prove his point and let out a little “Grr!”
“Oh, who does the best little growls?” Cecil said. Kevin looked at Carlos and he was trying to hide a laugh. Not scary in the slightest! Check!
He had dug a bit around in the blankets, forgetting his colouring pages momentarily in favour of making the comfiest coziest nest in the world. Did foxes hibernate? He didn’t remember, but he could definitely take a big long nap in here.
After he had made the middle couch cushion thoroughly cozy he yawned and curled up, the fox onesie soft as fur against him and the sunshiny orange making him so happy and good.
Cecil had reached over to ruffle his hair and that’s when it all went wrong. Kevin tried to playfully nom on his hand, but his jaw seemed to clench without his permission and suddenly Cecil was exclaiming and pulling his hand back and Kevin was seeing blood dropping onto the couch and he had sprung back, tasting the iron in his mouth and bringing his hands up to his face in shock.
He ran, he ran as far as he could immediately and all he remembered was all that red dripping down from Cecil’s hand.
Now he still sat in the laundry room with the sleeves of his onesie covered in blood from wiping his mouth and this all felt so familiar. Memories were flooding back to him because how could he ever just be a happy little fox? He had done so much that was terrible. He had bitten and bitten and smiled the whole time, not even bothering to wipe the blood off of his mouth.
He was a monster. He had always been a monster. He clutched his head in his hands and tried to weep quietly because Cecil and Carlos shouldn’t be forced to take care of a monster who only did bad and no matter what always turned scary. Kevin was just a thing with teeth and no amount of surgical scars or pacifiers or national geographic could change him.
“Hey, little fox.” Carlos said.
Kevin most certainly was not a little fox anymore. Carlos was being so kind and he sniffled and tried desperately not to cry. He thought smiling might fix it and so he smiled as big as he could but his stupid scars didn’t let him smile big enough.
“How did you find me?” he asked, the words coming out strange like they didn’t belong to him. It was barely even his voice, anyways.
Carlos pointed to his tail. The stupid tail was out in plain sight from the door, peeking out of the space being the dryer like he wanted to be found.
“Oh.” Kevin said. He clenched his fists and they were stained with blood and that only made his eyes prickle more and his smile widen painfully.
“Hey, Cece wants to talk to you.” Carlos said gently. Carlos should be shouting at him right now. How dare he be unhappy like this- how dare he hurt Cecil.
“I don’t…” Kevin said, biting his lip and tasting more blood and whimpering.
“We’re not mad, sunshine.” Carlos said. “We just wanna talk.”
He extended his hand and after a brief period of hesitation, Kevin took it, putting his pawed hand in Carlos’s and letting Carlos drag him to his feet. He followed a few steps behind all the way into the living room, where he saw Cecil standing. When he noticed the two of them, he smiled with what Kevin thought might have been relief. Why would he be relieved?
“Can you to just talk with Cece, just the two of you now?” Carlos asked him. Normally Carlos was shorter than him, but now that he was kind of hunched over with guilt and anxiety he seemed bigger.
No. “Okay.” Kevin nodded. Carlos squeezed his hand and left and Kevin couldn’t stop staring at the bandage on Cecil’s hand where it was already staining with a bit more blood. Cecil sat on the couch and patted the cushion beside him.
“I’m not little.” Kevin said, though he didn’t know exactly how true that was, and sat down far away because he didn’t know if he’d bite again. He hadn’t been able to control it, not really, he had just bitten with habit and muscle memory and everything had come flooding back.
“That’s o-” Cecil started, but he was being so nice and his face was so gentle and he wasn’t angry or sad or looking at Kevin like he was a monster and all the tears that Kevin had been restraining suddenly started spilling out of his eyes.
“I’m- Sorry-” he gasped through tears. “I din mean to bite you an- I din mean to hurt you an- I’m so sorry- I’m so so so sorry.”He tried to keep up his smile but it was harder now because all these stupid emotions were in him that he didn’t recognize and they were overwhelming and noisy and terrible.
“It’s okay, Kevin, it’s okay to cry.” Cecil said like he always did. Kevin knew it wasn’t, really, but Cecil never lied to him and his voice was comforting and Kevin wanted to hug him but didn’t trust himself not to hurt him more. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“No! Is not that!” Kevin said. “I just.” He was trying to talk but words were hard. He knew Cecil wanted to talk, to fill the silence, but he also knew Cecil would wait for him to get everything out and so he did, inhaling deeply until he finally got his lungs filled. “I jus wanted to do a LIL bite, like a lil I love you bite but I. I didn’. I couldn’. ”
“Ooooohh.” Cecil said, nodding. “So like, you wanted to bite like a little fox, but instead you accidentally bit a lot harder.”
Kevin nodded and was glad Cecil could say what he was feeling because he sure couldn’t. Between trying not to cry and the fear that he was going to hurt someone again he was all emotioned out for the whole day.
“I’m- monster.” He whimpered.
“You’re not a monster.”
“Yes I AM!”
Cecil was quiet for a second, then shifted to sit more comfortably. “Can I tell you a story?” He asked.
Kevin hesitated, but Cecil stories were always the best stories, so he nodded slowly.
“One day at the radio station, the frequency got all weird and I ended up talking to someone from a different time. I don’t really know how that ended up, it was a normal day, but I think one of the interns might have spilled coffee in the interdimensional headphone port or something.”
Kevin nodded again. Things happened.
“The man I talked to, well, I was apprehensive at first, but I grew to like him. He was funny, and he loved his community, and he shared my passion for community radio. Oh, and he loved cats.”
“Who doesn’t?” Kevin asked, smiling as he thought of Khoshekh, the floating cat that lived in the station’s bathroom and floated four feet off the ground.
“That’s what I said!” Cecil said with a grin. “He talked about how friendly everyone was where he came from, and he talked about government and marching bands.”
“He sounds nice.” Kevin said, considering. “Who was he?”
Cecil smiled and it was soft and turned to face Kevin and look in his eyes. “He was you.”
“What?”
“He was you before Strex, before the Smiling God, before all of it. Just a person like everyone else, someone I could be friends with.”
Kevin looked down at his hands, paws in the onesie, and sniffed. Before now, there was a time he wasn’t a monster. He had thought he was trying to rewrite himself completely, change his DNA until there was nothing left of the old him, and it had hurt. But now… could that Kevin still be inside him?
“You’re not a monster, Kev.” Cecil said, and Kevin looked up at him again. “And that’s why you came back from the desert.”
“I came back cause Carlos took me back.” Kevin said.
“But it was your choice. And you’re family now. So no matter what, no matter if you’re small or big or a fox or a cat or talking or not talking or sad or happy, no matter if you lash out or relapse or get overwhelmed, I’m here for you. Because I can see who you are and I can see who you’re trying to be and I love you times a million.”
Kevin had tears streaming down his eyes and he didn’t even try to brush them away. He scooted across the couch and wrapped his arms around Cecil, and Cecil hugged him back tightly and Kevin kept crying with too many emotions to name.
“I love you too, Cece.” He sniffled.
After a few minutes, a beep came from the direction of the kitchen, and Kevin heard the oven opening.
“Do you want to go get some cookies?” Cecil asked, and Kevin pulled away and nodded a whole bunch of times, before looking down at his bloody sleeves. The blood had dried into the fluffy fabric and made it all crusted and made his stomach turn.
Cecil noticed because of course he did. “Do you want to get changed before snacktime?”
Kevin nodded again. “Yes please.” He said, “But then can we wash it so I can wear it again?” He laughed a little, a bit nervous but mainly just filled with too many emotions to process them right now. “I think I like being a fox.”
“Of course!” Cecil said, “I mean, that had the contents of an entire punch bowl spilled on it and it turned out fine, so blood shouldn’t be a problem.”
Kevin giggled.
“And hey, maybe we can get you some things that are easier to chew on.” Cecil thought out loud. “Like a squeaky toy, so you can practice biting gently before you bite either of us again, okay?”
Kevin gasped with joy because that was a great idea. “Really!?” He asked, “You’d… give me another chance?”
“Always. ” Cecil smiled and kissed the top of his head. “Do you need any help?”
Kevin shook his head, “No, I’m okay.” He said and scampered off to get changed before cookie time. He felt… stable. The condo smelled like warm cookies and Cecil was okay and he had two people who loved him.
Maybe there was hope for him yet.