From Cabbie: Hello Readers, this is a reconfiguration of a story written by Shady and myself back in early 2000s. This is a sequel to Shady's own fanfiction story. Dean Shelton is Shady's original character who was part of an orchestrated kidnapping of Téa by Roseanne, Tea's cousin. Unbeknownst to everyone in Téa's life, Dean developed a platonic relationship with her while she was captive, ultimately helping in her rescue. He and Roseanne were convicted of kidnapping and sent to prison, only he escaped and is now on the run. This story revolves around Roseanne and picks up after the Delgado-Manning family was reunited after the kidnapping. Starts out gentle… but hang on, the ride gets BUMPY!

From Shady: "Art" is actually the third story in a series that I started writing after TNT's wedding fiasco, and Todd's departure in 1998, which sorta-kinda implied that he really did suffer from DID. I was pretty PO'ed about how things were left between Todd and Téa, and so sad that the story would not continue (at least not for some time), that I just went off on my own. I've thoroughly enjoyed writing all of the stories I've done with TNT, but Art is very different. Not only because it's a collaboration with another writer, my good friend Cabbie...but also because I'm the most proud of it. Forgive me for tooting our horns here, but I really think this story goes so far beyond what came before it. I think it leaves the strict confines of the soap in the dust and turns into something much more epic in scale. It also delves so much deeper into characters that the show created and then never used to their full potential.

I know that when this story was a 'current' thing on the boards, when it was being doled out chapter by chapter every so often, I know it was definitely not popular. I mean, how could it be, right? We broke them up. Added these weird aspects of dark magic and psychic abilities...and had both Todd and Téa (but especially Todd) do some things that were just...unimaginable. This was not the standard TNT fanfic reality. Not even close. And I'm so glad. This tale is blunt, ugly, dark and scary...but to us, that's who they are. They're beautiful, and hideous, passionate...and tragic. That...is TNT.

And out of all the stuff I ever wrote, this is the one thing that I would like to give a life of its own, its own little place on the web to stay, so that any TNTers jonesing for a fix can come and get one...for however long there may still be TNTers out there.

ART OF THE DARK - PART 1

A single votive candle throws out as much light as it can, fighting against the enveloping dark space. Its tiny flame bends and shivers, reacting to the breeze from Roseanne's mouth as she whispers to herself words so strange they almost sound like another language. The light dances on her face, giving her an otherworldly, eerie glow as she stares at the flame intensely, oblivious to the world around her…

...until finally, the flame sputters and burns itself out. Roseanne blinks rapidly, shaking her head, snapping out of her self-induced trance. It takes a minute to realize where she is...then her eyes fall on the burnt-out candle. She picks it up, looking at it in the available light from the hallway outside.

"Shit," she mutters, then goes digging under her mattress for the box of votives she had smuggled into the prison. Feeling suddenly drained, she looks at the box, sighing, then shakes her head, stuffing the box back under the mattress. She gets up, placing the burnt-out candle in the sink before collapsing onto her cot. She turns onto her stomach, staring out at the hallway through the bars, listening to the distant sounds of the guards, talking quietly among themselves. Exhausted from her nightly ritual, she closes her eyes, letting her head drop onto her pillow…

… wondering if all of her hard work is paying off as she falls asleep.

A moving truck makes its way through the night on a heavily wooded secondary road headed eastward. The driver stares blankly at the road in front of him, turning the wheel this way and that way, zoning out as he follows the curves. It isn't long before his head starts to dip down, and his eyelids start to droop. When his head gets heavy enough, he suddenly perks up, blinking himself awake just in time to see a sharp curve in the road. He turns the wheel, shaking his head, still trying to wake himself up. He takes his eyes off the road for just a second…

...and when he looks back, he notices a pair of glowing green dots in the distance. He squints, taking his foot off the gas, trying to see what it is. The truck slows but still moves toward the object at a pretty good clip. Finally, it gets close enough to become fully visible in the headlights. The driver's eyes widen suddenly when he sees the deer standing in the middle of the road, frozen by the headlights in its face. Reacting before he can think, he slams on the brakes, turning the wheel to avoid hitting it. The tires make a heinous squealing sound as the truck spins around. Finally out of the glare of the lights, the deer takes off into the woods on the other side of the road, oblivious to what is happening.

The driver realizes he's lost control just as the truck tips over onto its side, slamming down. The force of the impact breaks the trailer doors open, and the cargo goes flying out onto the road, as the truck skids along, creating sparks. Hanging on for dear life inside, the driver catches a glimpse out the windshield, screaming curse words to himself as he sees the embankment coming toward him.

But the truck seems to magically slow its skid, coming to rest at the edge. The driver looks out the windshield again, just in time to see two large crates go over the side. He looks after them, cringing as they smash against the hillside. The crates splinter and break open, spewing out broken pieces of the two custom-made, mahogany cradles that were inside.

In her cell, Roseanne suddenly wakes up, startled. She sits up, eyes wide, overcome by a sense of something powerful. She doesn't know what, or how, or why, but she feels it inside. Something just happened... somewhere… and as she sits there in the dark, she knows…

...it's started.

The sounds that break through the blackness of Todd's sleep are disturbing and terrifying. They're high pitched and tell a wordless, dark story. He soon recognizes them as his own childhood screams, the ones that accompanied his splintering into bits and pieces, his creating alters which would allow him to survive his harrowing childhood. The shrieks rip into him and he tries to open his eyes to see his assailant, but it's no use. He remains blind and frozen amidst the cries, beneath the relentless attacks on his body.

You face me, Peter, you face me. You don't have to sneak up on me anymore - I know you.

Despite his terror, he knows hearing those screams are good for him, that to hear and see what happened to make him who he was is a necessary and a freeing... evil. Yes, that's right. Evil. The real thing. Apart from absorbing it through memories from his past, he knows evil as a living, breathing thing. He is personal and friendly with it. It crawls through him like a parasite, sucking the joy from his being, from his soul. He's learned to live with it. He'll never be rid of it ... and it has put him on a first-name basis with its progeny, with its brothers and sisters. And they know him as one of their own.

Tonight ... he's feeling that evil again. Hearing it in the tortured cries of a boy, feeling it all around him. Todd at last pops his eyes open and realizes the babies are crying ... both of them, Brendan and Evan. He sits up, panting a bit from the dream, perspiring a little. Noticing Téa struggle to get up, still sore from the c-section delivery, Todd gently places his hand on her shoulder.

"No," he says, "Don't get up, I'll get them."

"Todd," Tea mumbles, lying back on the bed, "You can't take care of both of them."

"Watch me," he says lightheartedly, covering up the creepy-crawly feeling he still has all over him. He shivers in the cold of the penthouse and vows to up the thermostat because it's too crisp for those precious boys in their bassinets. They're still so tiny, even after all the time they spent in neonatal care. This is their first night at home. Some night, Todd thinks. He also vows to increase the wattage on those measly night lights ... maybe get a set of those lights you can just press on, the glowy, stick-on kind advertised on TV at three in the morning.

Yeah, buy like ten of them, so they'll brighten the way to the bassinets from the bed. Down the stairs... it'll look like Disneyland.

Todd leans into the first bassinet and picks up Brendan, avoiding the instinctual desire to bounce him as he holds him. Then he leans over and picks up Evan, simply slipping his hand and arm beneath the baby. Both now in his arms, Todd skillfully supporting their heads on delicate necks with his hands. So fragile, he thinks. Sort of rocking them gently, he says, "Ta-da!"

Téa laughs quietly amidst their crying and he thinks that's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard, smiling at it. He walks out of the room to the nursery, flipping on the low-level light with his elbow. He places Brendan in the crib - still far too big for him. He places Evan on the changing table and both are screaming again. He unwraps Evan, who cries even harder at being exposed to the air, and removes the diaper, squinting at seeing the baby's... injuries.

The umbilical stump still hasn't fallen off yet despite their concerted efforts at the hospital and the baby's tiny penis still is wrapped in gauze from the circumcision he got today. Oh, Todd had fought that, fought hard against the doctors and even Téa. He didn't want his boys cut. That was too much for him to take. But he finally gave in to that bit of torture on the basis of health reasons and immediately regretted it. He still regrets it even though it's healthier and easier… blah, blah, blah, it's still getting cut, he thinks.

He finishes diapering Evan, wrapping him up tightly in the blanket, wraps him the way Carlotta Vega showed Téa and him earlier. Tight like a burrito, like the ones that Téa liked so much while pregnant. Taco Bell Supreme number one and Taco Bell Supreme number two, he joked about the boys being swaddled so tightly.

He quickly lays Evan down and picks up Brendan who is screaming like crazy, hiccupping cries now that he was abandoned for so long. Todd keeps apologizing and realizes Evan is continuing to cry. He glances at him but pushes forward with the changing of Brendan. Unlike Evan, Brendan's umbilical stump fell off the way it was supposed to but he too has that gauze on his penis and it only reminds Todd again of what feels like a willful assault on his sons. He stops a moment at that thought and breathes deeply, thinking of a number of unmentionable things, including Téa's continuing recovery from her own terrifying experience, the kidnapping during her pregnancy, but pushes the dark thoughts aside. He finishes Brendan's changing, swaddling him securely. He then carries Brendan in his arms and picks up Evan. He walks with both of them downstairs, both crying because they're hungry. The classic 2:00 a.m. feeding; which followed a 9:00 p.m. feeding, an 11:00 p.m. feeding and will most likely precede a 4:00 a.m. feeding, and then maybe a 7:00... then …

"God, you guys, can you learn to eat just a little bit less?" he mutters to them affectionately, kissing Brendan on his warm head. Once in the kitchen, he sets Brendan down on a baby-seat on the floor, hating to step away from him. He holds Evan because he's smaller, and Todd feels some sort of obligation to him first. Evan seems the needier one, the weaker one. He pulls the bottles out of the refrigerator and sticks them both in the automatic warmer. Waits the appropriate amount of time and then sets the bottles down on the coffee table. He gets Brendan and seats himself in the big rocker, with both boys in his arms, staring at the bottles two feet away.

"Well...this is interesting," he says.

The boys are crying and he rocks a little, trying to figure out how to get the bottles to the babies. He wishes he was Russian and could bend spoons. Maybe the bottles would simply float to him, like magic. Black magic, he suddenly thinks, but shakes away the thought, not knowing where it came from. He then hears Téa's gentle laughter behind him.

"It's complicated with two," she says. "When you're all alone."

Todd turns up and sees her tired face, her amused smile. She moves around and picks up one of the babies, settling into the rocker next to Todd after grabbing one of the bottles. Todd gets the other one and they both proceed to feed their boys. Todd and Téa look at each other as they both bottle-feed the boys, smiling softly at each other. Todd mouths the words, "I love you." Téa says it back and shakes her head in disbelief, at the incredulousness that they are both here rocking their boys, their children, and sharing a part of life that is indeed miraculous.

They'd all been through so much. Todd knows that bottle-feeding is not what Téa had wanted, he can see it in her eyes, the tinge of sadness at not being able to nurse her sons. She'd tried to breastfeed, but with the boys being premature they needed special formula to give them an extra boost. Plus, to nurse twins would keep her practically a slave to the breastfeeding, or so it seemed to him. She compromised by pumping breast milk every four hours and alternating it with the special formula. Nevertheless, the coldness of a machine against her breast was a far cry from their loving suckles. When the children finish their bottles, and the boys more or less burp, a difficult process due to their smallness, Todd and Téa sit in the dreamy light with their children who are now sleeping peacefully.

Téa says in a whisper, "You seemed upset earlier. Did you have ... a bad dream?"

Todd thinks that he'd been covering up pretty well - how the hell did she know? He shrugs, whispers back, "Yeah...the boys' crying ... kinda made me dream stuff. How long had they been crying? I just couldn't wake up."

"They'd just started, amor, just as you sat up. You didn't let them suffer long." She smiled at him and he looked down at Brendan. Sometimes Téa's own peacefulness saddened him because he knew she was still haunted by her experiences and whatever quiet acceptance she had gained had come from very hard work. From having these boys. Again, hard work.

"That's weird," Todd says. "The dream had been going on ... oh well. I'm sure it's just stress, you know ... the whole thing with Shelton getting out...whatever." He avoids Téa's eyes, because he doesn't want to reveal just how angry he is about that, about her captor escaping prison. He grits his teeth. He should have gotten fucking executed.

"Um ... have we heard anything?" Téa asks, biting her lip.

Todd turns to her and snaps, "No." He calms himself, though, muttering, "Let's just get these boys to bed. I don't want to mention that bastard around the boys."

Her eyes immediately dart over in his direction. She starts to turn her head...but catches herself, and is glad she does. She covers up by directing her attention to Brendan, snoozing away in her arms. But the relief is quickly replaced by anger at Todd, for referring to Dean that way. She steals a glance at him, watches him as he gathers all the baby stuff and starts to get up with Evan.

She sighs quietly...he just didn't understand, and probably never would. Then she makes a face, getting mad at herself, for reacting at all. It shouldn't bother you, she thinks, looking back down at her sleeping boy. Put yourself in his shoes… if you were him, you'd hate the guy too. You'd be calling him a lot worse than that. It shouldn't bother you.

Todd shifts Evan around a little, to get a better hold on him...not much work, since the tiny boy fits nicely in the crook of his arm. He looks at Téa. "Ready?" She looks up at him, and nods, then stands up as slowly as she can, and follows him toward the stairs, with Brendan in her arms.

Shouldn't bother her… but it does… and she realizes that she's going to have to be careful. Todd was already suspicious enough about her feelings toward Dean. The fact that she had any feelings at all toward him that weren't feelings of anger bothered him greatly. It bothered her too, was a confusing reality, but they still remained and had become a sore spot between them.

But with all the other things going on, it was easy enough to dismiss...god knows they were both just so tired of dealing with the whole thing. Just thinking about it exhausts her...so she dismisses it again, wanting only to be with her family. They walk carefully upstairs, one behind the other and soon place the babies into their lace-covered bassinets, too frilly for Todd, but insisted upon by Carlotta.

She and her suspicious ways, Todd had thought as he had looked at the boys surrounded by lace, Téa on his arm.

"It's good luck, to surround them with beauty," Carlotta had told Todd, who had wanted to take away the lacy junk. "It will lead them to a beautiful life," she had concluded. Who was he to argue with that? He'd finally given in, the way he'd been giving in to everything when it came to Brendan and Evan. But when he was alone, when Téa and Carlotta had finished putting the lace around the bassinets, when they finally lay the babies down for a nap, Todd had bent down to the sleeping boys and whispered to them, "You guys need all the luck you can get so don't sweat the lace. It's a formality, just a formality. You're both still men ... in spirit. You got a little growing to do...but you're still men."

Todd and Téa lie down on their bed, Todd pulling Téa close to him, hugging her delicately so as not to hurt her incision. "You're amazing," he says. "How'd you get to be so strong?"

"Women are naturally strong," she answers exaggeratedly, teasing him.

"No, it's more than that."

"I don't know, maybe knowing you're with me. Knowing how strong YOU are. That helps ... so much. And the boys - they've given me something that's far beyond words."

"What's it like? Knowing that two people came out of you?"

She's quiet for a couple of beats. Then she tries to answer. "Growing up, I was taught about miracles. I THOUGHT I believed in them, understood them ... but until a few weeks ago, I didn't realize what it really was. When I saw those boys, I learned what a miracle was." Téa starts to tear up, and Todd kisses her cheeks. "Todd, we could have lost them so many times. I could have..."

"Shhh...we didn't lose them and I didn't lose you. I know what a miracle is, too. You ... you're one."

Téa smiles at him, kissing his lips, feeling them with hers. She can see, though, in his eyes, something. She realizes that it's fear. "You're really worried about… him… coming back? You ... um ... don't have to be," she says, placing her hand on the side of his face. He doesn't say anything for a moment, trying to pick his words, trying not to show how deeply connected he's feeling to ... that other side.

"Téa," he finally says. "Isn't there a saying that goes, 'He that giveth can taketh away?'"

"Oh, now it's my turn to say, shush."

"No. Listen to me. We've been ... so damned lucky. You and me, here. The boys. Shelton, well, he's just another bastard and I'm used to dealing with that. I mean what's one more, you know? But I keep thinking that everything else is just ... so ... temporary. That the good feelings I have ... that ... it's all gonna slip away again. That something's gonna happen-"

"I know ... that's what I was trying to say."

"No. You were talking about what could have happened in the past. I'm talking about what CAN happen. That's always been a fundamental difference between you and me."

"And what's that?"

"The fact that you always seemed willing to just forge ahead, to not be concerned about ... what COULD happen. Like with me. You… uh… always said you trusted that I wouldn't hurt you. You were ready to take a leap that I could never do."

Téa wraps her arms around him, closing her eyes to her own fears about the future, about the fragility of everything around them. How very passing happiness could be. "Miracles," she whispered. "We just have to believe in them. And realize that we're entitled to have them."

"Yeah," Todd whispers back, shrugging. "Miracles..."

As the minutes wear on, Téa soon falls asleep, but Todd doesn't. His eyes remain open, on the watch, hoping like hell their miracles will continue. Hoping like hell they exist at all.

To be continued….