Acid's Note-

Nya~ Chapter 3~

So will Howard forgive Randy? Can Julian keep up his façade? Let's find out~

Enjoy.

CHAPTER 3: PROGRESSION

Julian awoke in a cold sweat.

His mind had been overtaken by a nightmare. He dreamt that he was alone at school, without Randy there to protect him. His other self returned, and it attacked again. Before Julian was successfully pulled into the mirror, he managed to wake up.

He forced himself not to scream in terror.

He didn't want to wake his parents. He didn't want them to know anything.

What was on the other side of the mirror? What sort of Hell was awaiting him?

He didn't want to know. He didn't want to think about it.

Luckily, Julian managed to get some sleep. That was good, since he had to work that day. And since it was the weekend, he had to work two days back to back. He's been living like this ever since he had turned fourteen, when he was old enough to start working part-time. He didn't really mind not really having a weekend to relax; it's his parents' business, and he was obligated to help them. And Theresa would be with him, which always made everything better.

Julian always showered at night, so all he needed to do was fix his hair and apply his makeup. Since it was a food-oriented environment, he had his hair tied back. His makeup, however, was how he usually did it for school. What he wore didn't necessarily matter for the most part, as long as he wore the uniform shirt. It was a midnight blue t-shirt that had "Moonbeam" in cursive, light blue letters and an image of white moonbeam flower below it. Once he was ready, he ambled down the stairs and met his mother at the dining room table. On the table was breakfast made by his father, who was already at Moonbeam, preparing the food and getting everything ready.

Moonbeam opened at ten on the weekends, and it was about eight thirty when breakfast ended. Afterwards, they got in the car and went to pick up Theresa. Once arriving at Moonbeam, Julian and Theresa went to Darius' side while Margaret went to her own side.

Darius' side of Moonbeam was a darling little café. It wasn't nearly as popular as other local eateries such as McFlubbuster's or Charlie Clucker's, but it was a fairly well received place either way. Margaret's side was an art studio. Aside from doing her own work there, she taught art classes and allowed patrons to use the space as well.

Julian and Theresa spent the remaining time helping Darius finish setting up. As they did this, the other employees arrived one by one. By around nine fifty, they were all ready for when customers began arriving a few minutes after ten.

Julian lost himself in his work, taking orders from customers and serving them their food. He was able to let his mind go elsewhere, somewhere that wasn't yesterday's events. And he couldn't have been gladder for that.

~XXX~

It was about noon when Randy knocked on the door of the Weinerman home.

Howard's mother opened the door and smiled. "Oh, Randy! What a pleasant surprise. It's great to see you."

"You too, Sylvia." Randy replied with a smile. "Is Howard home?"

"Yes." Sylvia nodded as Randy entered the house. "He's in his room. He's been so moody since yesterday."

"Can I go see him?"

"Sure, if he lets you."

Randy went down to the basement. He knocked on the door. "Howard, it's me." he called.

"Honk off, shoob." Howard called back from the other side of the door.

"Howard, I'm sorry." Randy pleaded. "I know I shoobed up, but…C'mon, I'm ready to go today. I'll stick by you all day and we'll have the Brucest time in all of Brucedom. And I'm not taking the Nomicon. C'mon, whaddya say?"

There was a long pause of silence after that. After about a minute and a half, the door slowly opened. Howard stood there with an annoyed frown on his face. "Fine…" he sighed.

"Schweet!" Randy cheered, throwing his arms up.

"You're buying the food when we get there." Howard grumbled.

~XXX~

Things had gone quite well at Moonbeam; just as Darius predicted before, there had significantly more customers than the day before, and it was a good day overall.

But during the night, Julian was hit by a nightmare once again. It was the same dream as the one from the previous night, but it seemed that whenever he woke up in the middle of the night, it would repeat over and over again like a broken record.

Julian only got about two hours of sleep, if not less than that, but it didn't matter to him. He was tired, but he wasn't going to let it hold him back today. Once again, he had to go to Moonbeam, and he repeated the same routine as yesterday.

But once breakfast was finished, his mother suddenly asked, "Julian, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Mother." Julian assured her. "I just had some trouble sleeping. That's all."

"You seemed a bit more tired than usual yesterday. Is something the matter?" The look in her amber eyes was almost heartbreaking. Her maternal instincts were telling her something was wrong; she just didn't know what it was.

"Well..." Julian decided to let just a fragment of the truth out. "I have been having…nightmares, of sorts."

"I knew it." His mother said, slamming her hands down on the table. She then rose from her seat. "I just knew there was something wrong. I'm calling your father."

Julian began to protest, "Mother, don't-" but it was too late. She was already in the next room, her cellphone held in her hand.

He propped his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands, exhaling heavily. It had barely been two days and his parents were already suspecting that something had happened. He began to worry that he wouldn't be able to hide this from them for much longer. He decided he'd keep it up for as long as he could, but he wasn't sure how long he could prolong the inevitable.

After a couple of minutes, his mother returned. "Your father noticed your jadedness yesterday as well. We've come to an agreement; you will take today off."

Julian's eyes widened. From the day he started working, not once had he taken a day off. He practically grew up in Moonbeam; he couldn't imagine being away from it longer than he needed to. He trusted Theresa and, to a lesser extent, the other employees to take care of it, but it still didn't feel right to not be there on a day he was supposed to be.

"W-What?" he gasped. "Are…Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." She walked up to him cupped his face in her hands. "Darling, we know Moonbeam means as much to you as it does to us, and we are grateful for that. But we don't want that to get in the way of your well-being. This is what's best for you. We're only doing this because we love you. Do you understand?"

Julian knew trying to argue was futile. Skirmishes with his parents were rare, but when they happened, they always came out on top. Accepting defeat, he nodded.

His mother smiled. "Thank you for understanding." She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. She then walked upstairs to finish getting ready to leave.

Julian folded his arms on the table and rested his head on top of them. He was tired, and these nightmares were getting a bit out of control. He had to accept how things turned out today. He just hoped he didn't let this go any further than it already has.

He let out a yawn, and his eyelids began to feel heavy. He could feel sleep begin to take over.

Perhaps just one day off wouldn't be too bad…

Acid's Note-

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG

I LOVE DARIUS AND MARGARET

God, I can't wait to develop them some more...

Now I could sit here and gush about these characters all damn day, but I know nobody else is gonna care, so I'm not gonna waste anyone's time.

I admit that this chapter is mostly telling and not showing, and it's probably going to end up being one of the shorter chapters. This one was actually pretty hard to write. This is probably going to be the worst out of all of them...I really shouldn't be saying this, but I gotta be honest; I just wanna get the first five chapters out of the way ASAP so we can just get to the juicy stuff already. Luckily, things get a little more exciting in Chapters 4 and 5, so I'll be putting a lot more effort into those two.

So let's talk about Moonbeam. The setting is very loosely based on a really Bruce café I used to go to a lot but it doesn't exist anymore. I was seriously debating on whether or not the café and the art studio should be separate places, but I decided it'd be much more convenient for them to be connected. So yeah. A good chunk of this story takes place there, so I decided that it should be the namesake. Plus it's a really cute romantic pet name that may or may not show up later...Heh...

I'll try to get Chapters 4 and 5 out as soon as possible, though I'll take a little more time with them so I can offer the absolute best to my readers~ Oddly enough, Chapter 5 is much closer to completion than Chapter 4. Yeah, I'm writing this all weirdly...

Sankyuu for reading~

-Acid