Eternity

Chapter 2

"It's a kitty, Drew. Meow."

"Me-we," he repeated, giggling.

"Good boy," I said, kissing his head. "Huh? Aren't you?"

"Nick wants some attention," Fang told me. He was half asleep, but clearly still listening to us.

"He's sucking his thumb."

"And wanting you to play with him."

I sighed, looking at Nick. "You wanna learn too, baby?"

Holding up a stuffed dog, I told him it's name and sound. Nick smiled at me, reaching out for me to pick him up. Sighing, I pulled him into my lap. When Drew saw this, he looked his twin dead in the eye and just stared at him. After a second, Nick started crying, wanting away from me.

"Fang, did you see that?" I asked, trying to calm Nick down.

"Nope."

"Drew is bullying him!"

"How?" He asked, opening his eyes a little.

"He just…he…remember the other day? When I told you that Drew just looks at Nicky and makes him cry. He did it again."

"Max-"

"Watch," I said, gently taking Drew's favorite bear from him and giving it to Nick. Giggling again, Nick took it. Then Drew looked him in the eye and Nick dropped it, moving closer to Fang.

"What do you think he's doing?" Fang mumbled, holding Nick to him.

"I don't know," I said, frowning.

Whenever we are in doubt, we go to my mother. When all else fails…well, she's really our last hope. So we lucked out when Angel just happened to be planning to visit us that week.

"You want me to what?"

I nodded. "Come on, Angel."

"I don't know what you want me to look for."

"Just get into his head and see what he's thinking."

She sighed, looking at Drew, who was happily playing with his toys. After a minute, she just shook her head. "He's happy. That's about all that I'm getting."

"Well-"

"Wait a second."

We watched as Nick crawled over to him and tried to take one of the stuffed animals he wasn't playing with. Drew made a noise, making his brother look at him. Once he had his eyes, Drew stared hard at him, making the baby back away, crying.

"He's a mind reader."

"What?" Fang had been skeptical about this whole thing and was clearly not pleased with the results. "How do you know that?"

"I went into Nick's mind," she said, seeming to find words hard. "Drew's not telling him things, exactly, but he's kind of making him scared with thoughts, if that makes sense. He can't affect the rest of us because he's not mature enough to understand how, but he knows how to get Nick to leave his stuff alone."

I didn't know to be proud of Drew or mad at him because of the fact he was using his power to hurt his brother. Besides wings, none of our kids had shown any powers as of yet. This was very cool, but…

"Well, he needs to cut it out," Fang said, picking Nick up when he crawled by. "He's scaring Nicky."

Drew went back to playing by himself, happily babbling away. I just shook my head.

It had been a month and Damien still didn't have a job. Which was fine with him. Honestly, he had been neglecting his video games and, now that it was summer and he didn't have to pick Sam up from school, he didn't have to leave the couch at all.

"Vanessa peed."

"In the potty?"

"Yeah."

"Did she wipe?"

"Yes."

"And wash her hands?"

"Yeah."

"Then leave her alone, Sam."

"Beyoncé."

"Whatever."

Sam went away only for her half-sister to walk down the stairs.

"Daddy!"

"I'm playing a game, baby."

"Daddy?"

He sighed, not looking up. "Come sit in my lap, Nessa."

She ran over there, giggling as she forced his hands away from the controller so that she could get in his lap. He resumed his game, sighing as she start humming to herself.

"I'm home," Cameron called out an hour later. Damien was now sleeping on the couch, Vanessa on his chest. "Damien?"

He grunted.

"I told you to clean today."

His father said that the man should never have to clean, regardless of the fact he was out of work or not. Damien didn't want to point out that Trinity made Dan clean the living room, bathroom, and the kitchen every other day. Sometimes, it's better to just let his dad live in his delusions.

"I did…sort of. Sam was playing with her toys and-"

"Save it," she said, walking into the kitchen. "Did you at least go to the store?"

"…I will right-"

"Never mind."

"Cameron-"

"No, Damien. Forget it," she said, walking back into the room. "Clearly, you were too busy sleeping."

"I haven't just slept today."

"Oh? What else have you done?"

"Fed the girls, played video games…what's your point?"

"Nothing," she said, going to sit down in the chair. Vanessa got off her father and ran over to her mother.

"Mommy."

"What?"

"Hi," she giggled, crawling into her lap.

Groaning, Cameron let the toddler cuddle against her. "Just go ahead and make yourself comfortable, I guess."

Samantha came down the stairs then, frowning at all of them. "I found this in the sink."

"That mine," Vanessa said, looking at the stuffed bear.

"Why did you put him in the sink, baby?" Damien asked her.

"Bath time."

Sighing, Cameron stared down at her daughter. "Don't put things in the sink, okay?"

She just nodded, closing her eyes. "Hungy."

"It's not time to eat yet," Cameron said. "You want some juice? Samantha will get you juice."

"No, I wouldn't."

Cameron did a double take. "Excuse me?"

Samantha was fed up with Cameron's sudden love of Vanessa and was going to put an end to it. "No one ever gets me juice. Except for Dad, but he doesn't count."

"Why not?" Damien asked, offended.

"You'd get anyone juice."

He shrugged, closing his eyes again.

"Samantha, if I tell you to do something, you do it," Cameron told her.

"No."

"You better stop that. Now."

The little girl was breaking down. "You like her better than me and that's not fair!"

"No, I don't. I don't like either of you."

"Cam," Damien sighed.

"You always hold her and stuff."

"She's a baby."

"You didn't hold me when I was a baby."

"How would you know?"

"I just do!"

Damien sighed. "Guys, calm down."

"No," Cameron said, glaring at her oldest. "She can't tell me no."

"Try and stop me."

Cameron just stood up, leaving Vanessa behind, and went upstairs.

"You think that she's mad?" Samantha asked Damien after a second.

"Oh, I know she is," he said, frowning a little. "Wanna camp out on the couch tonight?"

"Yeah."

"What's wrong?"

I glanced up. Angel had left a hour ago even though it wasn't the right day, because some new old guy she's with called her and wanted her home. Ugh, this girl and old men.

"My head hurts."

Fang came and gave me a kiss on the head. "Come get in bed."

"I don't wanna."

"You want me to carry you?"

"Fang."

He pulled out a chair and sat next to me. "Fine. I'll stay with you."

"Whatever."

He reached out and grabbed my hand. "You good?"

"Huh?"

"With today."

"What about today?"

"Well, I don't know," he said, shrugging. "I just was trying to figure out what was wrong with you that you're not in bed."

"Nothing is wrong, Fang," I said, sighing a little. "I'm just…not tired."

"You? Not tired?"

I laid my head down on the table. "I saw Ty today."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, after the whole thing with Drew, I wanted to be with him."

"Did something happen?" Fang was suddenly worried. "Is he hurt? Is he getting worse? Damn, Max, why didn't you tell me?"

"Fang, it's nothing like that."

"Oh." He squeezed my hand. "Then what, baby?"

"I just…I feel so bad that he's over there."

"Why?"

"Because it's not his fault that we have so many kids. It's ours."

"Baby, if Tyler wants to come home, I will go and get him and make sure that every single one of these kids never speaks a word."

"Then it's not fair to them, Fang."

He sighed, done with me. "Then what, Max? Huh?"

"I just…if we could go back, would you still want this many? Or would you have stopped at Tyler and Tabitha?"

"Now who's forgetting little Kevin?" He leaned over and kissed my head. "And, baby, the only thing I would change if I went back would be not cheating on you. I would say going to find you and Kevin, but then we wouldn't have Tyler and Tabitha."

"We might still have Kevin though."

Running his other hand over his face, he said, "Let's not do that now. My point was that I love our kids. All of them. Even the ones that aren't ours. I'd go through Hell and back for all of them and this might be Hell right now, but they're all still breathing, aren't they, Max?"

"Still. I just don't think that it's fair for Ty."

"Tyler is fine, Max. If he wasn't, he would complain until we took him back home," Fang said. "This is just the best situation for now."

I looked up at him. "I still want you to get a vasectomy so that we don't have to worry about anymore kids."

"Well, that's not happening," he said, shrugging. "Max, we haven't even had sex since Tyler got sick."

"I know," I said. "Why? Are you…wanting to have sex?"

"Well, not really," he said. "I mean, yeah, I do, but I get why you don't want to."

"Wait, why do you think that I don't want to?"

"Because you're all stressed about your body and stuff. I mean, come on, Max, just because you feel fat doesn't mean that you are."

I frowned. "That's not the reason, Fang."

"It's not?"

"No," I said, running a hand down my stomach. "Why? Am I fat?"

"No, Max, I just said that you think you are. You're not. You know what the doctor says."

"What?"

"Remember? When we took the twins in for their shots? He was shocked how much weight you had lost."

"You know that we lose weight fast."

"Yeah, when we starve!"

"I'm not starving, Fang. I just don't eat all the time."

He kissed my head. "Anyways, why don't you want to have sex?"

"It would just be weird, you know? I like sex and doing something that I like while Ty's sick is just weird."

"That's how we got Lucas."

"It was different back then," I told him. "You hated me and I just wanted to have sex with you to make you happy. Now though, we're not having pr-"

"You had sex with me because you thought that I hated you?"

"Well, yeah."

He got up and stood next to me. "Come to bed, Max."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not tired."

"Well, at least come lay down with me," he said. "Please?"

"Fine."

When we got into bed, Fang immediately started kissing my ear.

"Fang, stop it."

"Never," he said, holding me to him. "I love you."

"Do you?"

"Yes," he said, pausing his kissing just to nuzzle my neck. "You're my original baby."

"Your ob?"

"I like bj better," he said, making me elbow him.

"I still feel bad about Ty."

Fang kissed my head. "It's almost been a year, Max. You can't just stop doing things that you like because he's sick. If you did, then what would happen to you and sleeping?"

"Shut up."

We cuddled for awhile until Fang fell asleep. Then I forced my way out of his arms and went to check on Nick and Drew. Drew was like his daddy. If it was daytime, he would play for as long as possible. The second it was nighttime though, he shut off and would sleep the whole night. Nick was the opposite.

"Hi, baby," I said, going to pick him up. He had just been sitting in his crib, almost as if he was waiting for me. "What's wrong?"

He started giggling for some reason as I took him out of the room. I don't think that he likes being around Drew that much. Now that Angel had told me that he was tormenting him, I was worried. I mean, I don't think that Drew is evil or anything, but I don't like him hurting his brother.

"You know, you don't have to be afraid of Drew," I told him as I started up the stairs to check on all the other kids. "I would never let anything hurt you."

"What do you think it is?"

"No know."

Samantha touched it. "It's soft, but feels hard underneath. It's not a stuffed animal. Must be a toy."

"Where are you guys? If you get hurt, your dad will kill me…or at least try," Cameron grumbled, walking up the stairs to the attic. "You know you're not supposed to be up here."

"What's this, Mom?" Samantha asked, still looking at the odd thing.

Cameron picked Vanessa up when she ran to her. "It's a Furby, girls. And it's not yours, so leave it alone."

"Is it Tommy's?"

Taking a breath, she said, "No. I don't know how it go there. Damien put a lot of his stuff up here, though, so I guess it could be his. Though I have no idea why he'd keep it."

"Can I have it?" Samantha asked.

"No."

"You'd give to Vanessa."

Groaning, Cameron turned and walked down the stairs. "Take it. See if I care."

Samantha smiled at her victory, going ahead and taking down the fact that she could use Cameron's favoritism as a way to get her way.

When she got downstairs, Cameron was sitting on the couch, watching TV.

"When's Dad gonna get home?"

"I don't know. He said that he had a job interview," Cameron said.

"What do you do with a Furby?"

"If you put batteries in him, he talks."

"Really?" She ran into the kitchen to get the batteries. When she came back, the stupid thing was talking. Cameron was starting to regret ever telling her that it could talk.

"Me Fur-ba?" Vanessa asked, looking at her older sister from her mom's lap.

"No," Samantha said, cuddling the thing most people would consider demonic. "He's mine and I love him."

"Me Fur-ba!" She started crying.

"Samantha, it is not yours."

"So? It isn't hers either," she told her mother, cradling her new toy. "Though I'm sure that you'd willingly give it to her."

Cameron was not having a good day. She looked down at her youngest. "Vanessa? Mommy will buy you a Furby too, okay?"

"No. Me Fur-ba!" She pointed to the one that Samantha had. 'Fur-ba!"

Trying to fight her temper, Cameron asked Sam, "What if you give her that one and I buy you a new one?"

"But I love him."

"I'll buy you an new Furby and a Barbie."

"We only knew each other a day," she said, going to give it to her younger sister. "He's not that great."

Vanessa stared down at her new demon toy. "Fur-ba."

"Furby hungry," the doll whined. Vanessa looked up at her mommy.

"Fur-ba hungy."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Furby hungry," the toy kept up.

Vanessa started crying because Furby sounded so sad. Where was Daddy? He'd feed Furby.

"So your past work experience is tattooing?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. How do I know that you know about anime?"

Bone nodded. "True."

"Come on, Luther," Damien said, frowning at him. "I mean, seriously? Just give me the job."

"I don't like your tone," he said, offended. "You clearly having an anger problem."

"Clearly," Bone agreed.

"I'm sorry, Mr.," he paused to read his name off the application. "Mr. Shar?"

"Sheer, Luther."

"Right," he said, shaking his head. "I don't think that we want you for this job, Mr. Sheer."

Damien took a deep breath. "Fine. I'm going to tell my mom and she's not going to let you come to dinner on Sunday."

"Aw, come on."

"No," Damien said, crossing his arms.

"You're such a baby."

"You're the baby," Damien said.

"Fine! I'm gonna tell Dan that you didn't skip church last week because of diarrhea, but that you went to a comic convention!"

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, but I would."

Damien stomped out of the store, not even telling them bye.

"Why won't we give him the job again?" Bone asked.

"Because I know that he can do better," Luther said, standing up. "Oh, and if we did give it to him, Cameron would start hanging around more."

"Ew."

"Yeah."

Fang now had another job to help with money issues, so I was stuck home alone with the kids a lot. In the summer, it was worse than usual. So, I looked online to find things for kids to do. When those seemed to take too much energy, I devised another plan.

"Ow! That's my eye, Jason."

"You don't think I know that, Cody?"

I never knew that Fang's anime obsession would come in handy one day. Like I've said before, he had to move all of his stuff around to give Lucas and Ty the attic, so I saw some of the things that he had in the garage the other day. Can you say plastic sword duel anyone?

"Be nice boys," I said absently. Well, sorry if I think Nick's crying is a little more important than their sword battle.

"Uh, Mom, it is kind of hard to be nice in a fight," Jason said, frowning at me. Lance giggled, tapping Chris on head with his.

"I don't like this game," James said, just staring at his sword. "Can't we watch TV?"

"I thought you guys wanted to play outside?"

I was sitting down on the porch, playing with Nick and Drew. Well, Drew was playing while his twin was crying, but whatever.

He just groaned, hitting Jason with his sword. Most parents discourage violence, but I encourage it. With all these stupid 'anti bullying' stuff going around, I have to make sure my boys get thick skin from somewhere.

Mommy had put Nick and his brother down for their naps around noon. Nicholas was trying to fall asleep when he started getting bad thoughts forced into his mind. He couldn't decipher any of them, but they just gave him a bad feeling. He started crying while his brother started giggling.

"Tabitha," he heard Mommy call. "Get your brother, will you?"

"Fucking bitch," Tabitha mumbled, walking into the room. She picked up Nick, sighing a little. "What's wrong with you?"

Tabitha wasn't even close to Mommy, but she'd have to do apparently. He cuddled against her, wanting far away from these thoughts. She sighed, giving him a kiss on the head.

"Come on, you can come in my room to nap."

Adeem groaned when Tabitha came back with her youngest brother. "Why did you bring him?"

"It's easier than calming him down." She laid the baby on the bed before sitting down, closer to Adeem than Nicky was. "Max is really starting to piss me off."

"What else is new?" He went back to texting Jarrod. "Where's the other one?"

"Drew? Still in his crib. He wasn't crying."

"Well, I like him better," he said. "This one cries too much."

"Tell me about it."

"I don't know, Cameron," Damien went on. "I kind of like being home all the time."

"Too bad," she said as he kissed her cheek. "I don't think our marriage can survive you being here all day much longer."

He just smiled, closing his eyes.

"Daddy?"

"What?"

Vanessa giggled, running into the room. She was supposed to be taking her nap, but she wanted him instead.

"Fur-ba hungy."

He frowned as she laid his old Furby on the bed before crawling up there too. "Where'd you find him?"

"The girls were in the attic yesterday."

"Furby hungry," the doll said, sounding sad. Vanessa gave it a kiss before pushing it towards her daddy.

"Fur-ba hungy."

He put his finger in the things mouth, holding down his tongue. "This is how you feed him."

She giggled, taking her Furby back. "Love Fur-ba."

Cameron got out of bed. "I'm going downstairs."

"'kay," he said, watching as Vanessa cared for the doll. She was treating it like a regular baby doll, almost ignoring the fact that it could tell you what it wanted.

"Nigh, Fur-ba," she told him as she put him into her mother's spot and covered him over.

"You like Furby, huh?" He smiled at her. "I was a little afraid of him when I first bought one. I think everyone is."

She laid down, still watching her new toy. He was saying something, but she didn't care what he had to say, so long as he wasn't hungry.

"You like having me home all the time, huh Nessa?" Damien kissed the back of her head. "I like it too."

"Fur-ba go nigh-nigh," she yelled at the toy, not caring for her father at the moment. Why was Furby so hard headed?

"Thanks for babysitting, Damien," I said, giving him Drew. "Tabitha's being a real brat recently and won't."

"It's not a problem," he said, smiling at me. "Now that I'm home all the time, I have nothing better to do."

"Fur-ba!" Vanessa ran to the door, holding some creepy doll up.

"Is that a-"

"Yes."

I frowned. "We bought Tabitha one once, but it started talking without the batteries in and I threw it away."

Vanessa's Furby started telling her that he didn't like being held upside down, but she didn't understand, so she kept holding him.

Damien went and sat Drew in front of the couch before coming back to me to get Nick. Jason, Lance, and Chris ran into the house, Lucas, James, and Cody coming in a lot slower. They were mad because they thought that I should let them stay home alone. And I do let Lucas sometimes, but all three of them is just asking for something bad to happen.

"Have fun," I told Damien as Nick started whining. I think that he was realizing that I was leaving.

"Yeah, bye."

"Furbies are scary," Jason said, to which Lucas nodded.

"Fur-ba hungy," Vanessa said, giggling as she held down his tongue.

"Done now," Furby said, making her laugh even more.

Nick was in Cameron's lap. She had just come home an hour ago and he immediately clung to her.

"Damien, I think that Nick's hungry."

"No, baby, she was talking about the Furby."

"Damien, I'm serious. That's the only reason left that he could be whining. I've tried everything else."

"Well, do they eat solids?"

"I guess."

"But aren't they preemies?"

"Still," she said, looking down at the baby. "They're seventeen months now. I think they can eat solids. Do they, Lucas?"

"They like apples."

"Do we have any?" She looked at her husband.

"No."

"What else, Lucas?"

"Um…cheese."

"Out," Damien answered before she could ask.

"Max feeds them sandwiches," James said.

"We have peanut butter," Damien said, going into the kitchen. "And jelly. Will that work, Cam?"

"Sure."

Drew, who was on the floor, looked at Vanessa. She was playing with her Furby, but felt him looking and turned to stare into his eyes. Then she started crying.

"Daddy!"

"What's wrong?" He came out of the kitchen with a plate with a sandwich on it. "Huh?"

She seemed to know what Drew wanted and just gave him the Furby before running to Damien.

Giggling, Drew started petting it.

"What happened?" Damien asked her, looking down at the girl. "Huh?"

"D'ew mean, Daddy!"

"What'd he do?" Samantha, who had been ignoring them all because she was mad about something stupid, asked.

"Mean," she said, as if that explained it all. Damien went and handed Cameron the plate before picking Vanessa up.

"Are you okay? You want Daddy to get your Furby back?"

"No!" She stopped crying. "Fur-ba mine?"

"He's still yours."

"Fur-ba love."

"Yeah, he still loves you."

Drew got bored with the toy when he noticed that Cameron was letting Nick eat half the sandwich. He went over there to get his part and James picked up the demented toy.

"Here, Vanessa," he said, giving her the toy back. "Drew can't hurt you. I won't let him."

"Thanks, James," Damien said as Vanessa started cuddling with the little demon. Part of Damien was hoping that Drew had kept the toy so that it wasn't in the house anymore. Especially because he didn't remember ever bringing it to Cameron's house…hadn't he thrown it away when he moved from his apartment and into her place? He was almost sure of it…