Author's Note: Some more weirdness by me.

Sorry I've been so weird on Twitter lately. I've been in a really bad rut I dug myself into and now can't seem to get out of. Please forgive my rantings and ravings of a mad woman.

I guess I could dedicate this to litararylolita, as it is her birthday soon, and I told her I would write a fic for her. But this isn't exactly what she had in mind. Maybe you'll like the subsequent chapters?

I.

He couldn't stand the smell.

It had nothing to do with Cece's lasagna or homemade garlic bread, but he still couldn't bring himself to eat. He wasn't hungry. He hadn't been hungry in a long time. He tried to think about the last time he'd actually wanted food, actually ate something without Clare or his mother reminding him to eat, pressing him to eat, doing everything but actually forcing his mouth open and shoving a spoon down his throat.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. The light was beginning to pound, too loud and too hard. He could feel a migraine coming on.

He stared at the plate in front of him- heaped with cheese and tomato sauce and oozing noodles. Like a pile of blood and bones and running viscera, dismembered limbs tumbling together. A hunk of flesh, steaming and fragrant. Feeling repulsed, he pushed the plate away, fork and all.

The smell was still there. Even with the fresh mozzarella and simmering tomato juices, it was still there. Salt and limp cabbage, like low tide.

Antiseptic. Sterility. Blandness.

Hospital.

His head was pounding.

Across the table, CeCe sent him a sympathetic smile.

"Not hungry, Baby Boy?"

"Not really," he mumbled.

Beside him, Clare was quietly pushing the food on her plate, refusing to meet his eyes. Bullfrog was trying to appear unconcerned , sipping a beer and cutting into his lasagna with vigor, but Eli could tell he was keeping tabs on the conversation.

On his other side, Dylan was staring at him intently. His blue eyes were serious and still, peering at his father from under the fringe of his bangs.

"You're not hungry, Dad?"

Eli sighed. The migraine was seeping into his skull, causing his head to throb like the pulse of a bass.

"Dylan," Clare said, "help me clean up the plates, okay?"

She gave Eli a tired smile, something between pity and fear, and it made him want to knock his cup of Sprite and entire plate of the bloody dinner onto the floor. He hated seeing it in her eyes, and hated her for feeling that.

He hated himself more, for putting it there in the first place.

He blinked, forcing the emotion down. He was so tired. It was only seven-thirty, and he wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

His mother got up and wrapped her arms around him. She held him in his chair for a moment, rocking gently back and forth and brushing his hair back.

"It's good to have you back, baby," she whispered, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

He accepted her touches and her talk without struggle, without emotion. He let her kiss him again, cupping the back of his head in her palm and running her hands through his scalp, as if measuring him, securing the feel of him back in her hands, reminding herself of the solidness of him.

Feel Eli. Eli home. Eli real.

To her, maybe.

Bullfrog stayed sitting at the table, staring off into space. Eli knew what he was thinking: he couldn't look at him. He couldn't deal with this.

Eli didn't blame him. He couldn't deal with himself. How could he expect anyone else to deal with him? He didn't expect them to.

"Dad?"

He made himself look at his son. He had to make himself look at his son.

"Yeah, Bud?"

"You didn't eat anything," he informed him. So serious.

"I know."

"Are you sick?"

"No, I'm just tired."

"When you were in the hospital, did you get better? Cause you look sick again."

Bullfrog cleared his throat loudly. Pushing his chair away with unnecessary force, he lumbered off to the kitchen, not looking at either of them.

Eli stared after his father's retreating backside. He felt nothing.

Not that that was anything new.

"Dad?"

Eli pushed his chair back from the table. "Come here, Bud. You want to?"

He expected Dylan to say no- he wasn't a come-to-me child- but his son scrambled up into his lap without hesitation. His legs were so short that his feet barely dangled over the edge of the chair.

Eli wound his arms around his waist, pulling the boy closer to him, his hands hooking against Dylan's pulsing, overround child belly. He rested his chin on the horizon of Dylan's head, breathing him in: orange soda (Clare never let him drink soda, but nothing was normal these days) the organic stuff Clare did their laundry in that smelled like a mixture of oatmeal and Irish Spring, and, overwhelmingly, of garlic.

Eli closed his eyes and breathed him in once more, letting it fill him. The headache dulled. The smell that refused to leave was, for the moment, being fought back into some cavern in his mind.

Go away, he urged it. He squeezed his eyes shut, tightening his grip around Dylan. Go away. Go away. Let me have this.

"Dad, you're hurting me."

Of course. Eli released him.

Dylan was tense in his arms. It didn't surprise Eli. Dylan wasn't much for touch, or being touched. He didn't like curling up with Clare or cuddling with her; never had he crawled into Clare and Eli's bed late at night after a nightmare, or early in the morning to wake them up. He eschewed most types of physical affection, whether it was hugs from Helen, CeCe ruffling his hair or even Clare giving him a goodnight kiss. Even as a baby, he hadn't enjoyed it. Clare used to joke that being a baby had offended Dylan's dignity.

Besides, even on the good days, Dylan hadn't grown up in a house where Eli regularly dispensed affection. Dylan wasn't used to Eli offering his arms, his lap, his shelter. Eli wasn't much of a shelter, unless it was the kind that was held together with spit and mud. A scotch tape patch job here, a little ABC gum there. Tissue paper windows, a straw roof. Watch for sparks, they might ignite the entire place in seconds, burning it to the ground in the blink of an eye.

More often than not, Dylan found what little normalcy he knew in the days his father couldn't even manage to get out of bed. The days his son sat outside Eli and Clare's bedroom door, pushing his Brio trains along the wooden tracks (Randall Edwards had given them to him on his last birthday, a relic from his own childhood and something Dylan cherished beyond reason) set on the floor, one ear pressed to the door. Clare would come by periodically, coming into their bedroom to kiss Eli's cheek or brush his hair out of his eyes or force him to at least take a bite of some food he wouldn't eat anyway. She would tell Dylan not to bother Dad; he was sleeping. But Dylan would stay there anyway, not making a sound, but his solid, unseen presence and the roll of the wooden wheels on the toy tracks were enough to remind Eli of one other person he was letting down.

"Are you still sick, Dad? Did you get your medicine there? You need medicine when you're sick."

Dylan was watching him curiously. He reached one hand up, placing it on Eli's forehead; a mimicry of Clare's own actions when their son had a fever.

Eli couldn't help but feel touched by his sureness of the way the world worked. Grabbing his son's wrists in both hands, he pressed the boy's hands to his own cheeks.

"Do I feel warm, Dylan?" he murmured, bringing his face closer to Dylan's.

Dylan has his mother's freckles and blue eyes. He has Eli's serious expression, but Clare's smile. He had his father's glare, but with Clare's fierce eyes. He didn't look much like Eli, except in the passing of an expression or idiosyncrasy. If he mirrored anyone looks-wise, it was Clare's father.

Eli couldn't deny he resented that his son didn't look like him. All fathers must feel like this, he reasoned. All fathers must wish that their children, especially their sons, look like them. Something about males leaving their marks. Or maybe it has to do with wanting to leave some part of us that lives on after we're gone. Then again, maybe those are all bullshit philosophies and he just wants his kid to look like him out of vanity. Whatever the reason, Dylan was resolutely Edwards in looks, and Eli resented it.

"Nope," Dylan said, a crease in his forehead as he brushed his hands across Eli's face. "No fever. Do you have a sore throat? Mom makes me take that gross stuff when I have a sore throat. Did they give you shots?"

"Nope. No shots. Just lots and lots of gross medicine."

Dylan frowned. "I don't think it worked."

Eli felt like crying, right then and there. Me, neither, bud. Me, neither.

Instead, he just pulled Dylan closer, burying his face in the boy's hair.

II.

Dylan didn't know what to think about his dad being gone.

It had been so fast that Dylan didn't even know his dad wasn't around until he was already gone. His Mom had told him that he was sick, he needed to go the hospital for a few days, that regular medicine wasn't working, so he needed some special medicine to make him get better.

Dylan hadn't realized he'd even left the house. He just thought his Dad had just been sleeping all day again.

He just woke up one morning, and he was gone.

Dylan didn't understand why his Dad couldn't get better with regular medicine, like Dylan did when he had a cold or a fever, because his Dad hadn't seemed sick when he was at home, but when he tried to ask his Mom what kind of "special medicine" Dad needed and what was making him sick, his Mom just told him that "his heart hurt".

Dylan had heard this before. He remembered going into his Dad's room- he was still sleeping and still in his clothes from yesterday, even though it was almost dinnertime of the next day, and why was he sleeping all day long in clothes that smelled?- and the room had been all dark, even though it was sunny outside and summertime, so hot that Dylan had a sunburn from when Grandma Helen had taken him to the pool the other day. He'd gone to the edge of the bed and saw not his Dad, but something else, just a lump that smelled and breathed.

That was the day before he'd gone away, and Dylan didn't know why.

No matter how many grown-ups he asked, though, nobody would tell him what had made Dad so sick that he couldn't get better with regular medicine. Dylan hated the gross stuff his Mom made him take when he had a cold- and a lot of the time wouldn't tell her if he felt sick, just because he hated taking the medicine- but even though it tasted disgusting, it always made him feel better. So what was wrong with his Dad?

He still didn't know, but he was glad to have him home. Suddenly as he had disappeared, his Dad was back home again, an absence that had left Dylan dizzy and confused, because this new Dad was letting Dylan sit on his lap and was hugging him, and while it was strictly more touching than Dylan liked, he missed his Dad so much that he let him hug him and hold him and smell his hair, which he found weird.

CeCe came back from the table with a plate full of orange slices and a glass of wine in her hand. Dylan couldn't understand why grown-ups drank it; it smelled awful and tasted worse. He knew this because when he was really little, still a baby, he had grabbed Bullfrog's cup and drank from it, then nearly spit up on the carpet because the taste was so nasty. Bullfrog had clapped him on the back in the way Dylan hated and told him that he should probably lay off the stuff, at least for a few more years, but Dylan was sure he'd never drink it again, ever.

CeCe bent down and kissed his Dad again on the forehead. She was doing that a lot, Dylan noticed. CeCe was always kissing everybody- his Mom, his Dad, Bullfrog, him (he didn't like that- all the touching and kissing and hair-ruffling- too much touching) but ever since his Dad came back, she was all over him even more, like she couldn't help herself.

His Dad looked down at the plate and gives Cece a look. "Oranges?" he asked.

"They're from the new French market downtown," CeCe told him. "They're really good. Try one."

His Dad rolled his eyes.

"I'm gone for two days and we have oranges for dessert?" he asked.

He glanced down at Dylan and gave him that look that grown-ups have when they're teasing you into thinking they're being serious, when really they're just joking but can't just come out and say it. It usually frustrates Dylan- why can't people ever mean what they say?- but this time he didn't care, because for a second it was like his old Dad had come back.

"We don't like this," his father said. "Where's the pie?"

Dylan saw CeCe smile, but not like something was funny.

His Dad looked down at him and grinned. "I'm just kidding. We love oranges, right Bud?"

Dylan didn't like oranges that much. He hated the gross pulpiness of them and how it made him gag, and he hated how the juice dribbled down his chin and made his fingers all sticky. Plus, he'd once bitten into the skin without realizing that you had to peel it, and it had been so gross he'd nearly thrown up.

His Dad reached out and grabbed a piece of cut-up fruit off the plate. He stuck it in his mouth, sucking on the soft inside, and glanced down at Dylan, making a face at him with his orange peel mouth.

Dylan stared at his father's Jack O' Lantern grin. He tried to smile, but all he could really think of were those bad dreams he sometimes has. The kind where he wants to scream, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to get the sound out, and then he realizes that his mouth is gone- not just sewn shut, but entirely gone, and there's only a piece of skin between his chin and the bottom of his nose. Just a blank face with eyes that are doing the silent scream in place of his vanished mouth.

III.

Clare watched Eli from her vantage point in the kitchen. She watched as their son crawled into his lap- something that hardly ever happened, because (much to her dismay a lot of the time) Dylan was not a particularly cuddly or affectionate child- and Eli wrapped his arms around him like a vine. She watched CeCe bring them the oranges, reminding her of an offering before a statue of a god, praying to avoid disaster. The meager offering of the French market oranges (since when were oranges French?) placed at the stone sandals of the sculpture, backing away slowly and humbly in the hopes that the gods would find their gift, however earthly and undeserving it was, as something that could change the fortune of their lives.

Behind her, Bullfrog slammed the door to the refrigerator, startling her.

"Sorry," he mumbled, reaching around her for a bottle opener to pop the cap off his beer.

"It's alright," she muttered, still watching them.

Eli had popped a slice into his mouth, slurping on the juices loudly. There was something luxurious about his complete disregard of consciousness when doing it, something almost reckless about him sucking on that orange, sinking his teeth into the soft, tender flesh behind the cork-covered, bitter skin and the tangy juices like a bright July dawn.

Bullfrog cleared his throat, making her look his way.

"How's he been acting?" he asked under his breath. "He been normal enough?"

Clare shrugged. "Nothing abnormal. He just seems tired. Why, did you notice anything?"

He made a noncommittal gesture at her, then took a swig of his drink.

"Wouldn't know it if I saw it," he said vaguely. "It's not like he's making his 'Crazy Eyes' and running around with a butcher knife."

"He hasn't said much all day."

Bullfrog grunted back a non-answer.

Clare turned back to watch them once more.

Eli was now grinning down at Dylan. The peel was still in his mouth, covering his lips and his teeth, stretching his expression into a ghoulish, twisted leer that couldn't help but make her shiver. It looked demented, and as Eli bent his head closer to Dylan's, Clare had the sudden, fearful jolt, like the one that accompanies one missing a step on the stairs, that he would suddenly sink his insane grin into the boy's neck.

Bullfrog lingered over her shoulder, peering at his boy and grandson, countertop voyeurs.

"Everything alright with them?" he asked softly from behind her.

Clare didn't take her eyes off the pair. "Everything's fine."

"You sure?" Bullfrog tapped her shoulder, and she turned to look at him. "It's a lot for a kid to handle. Does he get what's happening?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. I told him that Eli needed to go away for a little while. He hasn't said much since then."

"Does he know why?"

"I don't think so. I wasn't sure how to talk to him about it."

Bullfrog glanced back at them, looking pained.

Dylan stretched up in Eli's lap, and much to Clare's surprise, kissed his father's orange peel mouth- something that clearly shocked Eli, too, because his eyes flashed with something like his old fire and untapped surprise. Dylan had rarely, if ever, made such a leap of affection since he had outgrown his teething times. Clare could count on one hand the times Dylan had done such a thing to even her, unless specifically instructed. It was never a spontaneous gesture of love, this butterfly of emotion that landed on you and was gone so quickly that you barely had time to register it had landed on you at all until it had already flown away, its magnificent colors disappearing into the sky, leaving you dumbfounded that something with that much delicate, skittish perfection had momentarily graced you.

"If you don't want to do it," Bullfrog murmured, "CeCe and I will. It's not gonna be easy, but if you want us to talk to the kid, we will."

Eli popped the peel out of his own mouth, dented with his teeth marks, and gave it to Dylan; Cece descended on the pair, admonishing them for exchanging germs, and handed Dylan a wedge of the sunny fruit of his own, which he looked at with a scrutinizing distrust.

"It's alright," she whispered back. "I can do it."

Bullfrog nodded and took another somber sip from his beer.