Originally posted on AO3 on April 8, 2021

the title of this document when i was writing it was "flint honey i know you're trying but i'm gonna need you to try a little harder than that"

Butter

Lucas was not an orphan.

No one in Tazmily was an orphan, unless you counted some of the adults, whose parents had died of old age. Lucas only knew the word "orphan" because of an argument he'd overheard between Lighter and Dad a couple of months after Mom and Claus…

After Mom and Claus.

From beneath his blanket―he didn't have to share it anymore, so he could completely roll himself up in the soft blue wool―Lucas listened as the adults argued at the door, making only a paltry attempt to be quiet. "You have two sons, Flint, not just the one who went missing," Lighter said heatedly under his breath. "And if you don't stop bein' so damn reckless, you'll leave them both orphans."

There was a short pause. Lucas thought that it was nice of Lighter to talk like that―like he thought Claus was still alive―when he was pretty sure no one else in town, except maybe Grandpa Alec, really thought that. Still, Dad's response was a low, furious growl that Lucas couldn't make out past the blanket.

The argument was apparently over, because Lucas heard the door slam, and there were no more voices. He lay in bed for a while longer, thinking about what he had overheard. Then he gave himself another minute to press his face against Claus' pillow and fight back today's first round of tears.

Once that was done, Lucas reluctantly pushed the covers back and sat up. Much to his surprise, Dad was still here, though he was standing right in front of the door, hand on the knob, stock-still. When a moment passed and he still didn't leave, Lucas let himself hope a little. They usually didn't see each other in the mornings anymore.

"Dad," he said, his voice wavering only a little, and Dad jumped a bit at the unexpected sound. When he turned around, his face inscrutable―but not stricken or angry, as it so often seemed to be these days―Lucas brightened.

He opened his mouth to say 'Good morning,' but what came out was, "What's an orphan?"

Dad scowled, and Lucas immediately wanted to take it back. It was too late, though. "An orphan is someone with no parents," Dad said shortly, like he always seemed to these days, and then he straightened his hat, grabbed his walking stick from beside the door, and left without another word.

Lucas watched him go, trying not to look so distraught. He'd gotten to see Dad this morning, which was better than most mornings; he should be grateful. Besides, at least he still had a dad, even if Mom and Claus were…

Lucas wasn't an orphan. He should appreciate what he had.

(He should've appreciated them when he had them. He should've told Mom how much he loved her more. He should've gone with Claus that day. He should've told Dad―he should've told Grandpa―he should've―)

Lucas got up and plodded over to the kitchen for breakfast.

Most of the time, Dad would leave some breakfast for him on the table, covered with a napkin so that the bugs wouldn't get at it. Some nut bread with cheese; a bowl of porridge―an omelet, if he was really lucky. As long as Lucas didn't wake up too late or waste too much time crying into his pillow, it would still be warm when he got to it.

Today, though, Dad had left in a hurry, and there was nothing there. No leftovers, either; Lucas had finished off the last of the jerky for dinner yesterday, and he'd ended up crying himself to sleep before Dad got home, so he hadn't gotten the chance to ask for more. Again, Lucas cursed himself. He shouldn't have asked about orphans. He should have just said 'Good morning, Dad,' and maybe asked if they could have omelets for breakfast today.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Of course, since he was as much of a crybaby as ever, his eyes began to burn with tears, and he hastily wiped them away. He was done crying. If he hadn't been so coddled, then he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Anyway, it didn't matter. Today would be a good day. He'd talked to Dad already, even though it wasn't night yet, and Lighter's knock at the door had woken him before he could get to the worst part of the nightmare (the part where Claus' head snapped up like a puppet's, the rest of his body remaining limp in the Drago's jaws, and he said "Here, Lucas, put your hand on my chest… feel how my heart beats in and out…?").

Today was gonna be a good day. And Mom said that a good day started off with a good breakfast.

Lucas pulled open the lowest drawer in the cupboard beside the stove and dug around until he found an iron frying pan. He knew it was the one Mom always used for omelets because there was a small chip in one side, almost perfectly triangular, from when Dad had sent it flying into the ceiling the first time he tried to flip an egg and lost his grip on the handle. Mom loved telling that story.

The stove was a little high up, so he dragged Dad's chair over and clambered up on the seat. He wasn't supposed to stand on furniture, but―but today was going to be a good day, and he wanted omelets.

So he lit the stove and put the pan on top, and then he jumped down to get the eggs. They raised sheep, not hens, but Lucas couldn't remember a time when their icebox hadn't been fully stocked with eggs. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled out two eggs instead of one. Maybe Dad would realize he'd skipped breakfast and come back, and Lucas could have an omelet ready for him, and Dad would realize that Lucas wasn't just a stupid useless crybaby and he would stay to eat the omelet and maybe even stay―

He was tearing up again. So, maybe he was just a stupid useless crybaby.

Lucas wiped his eyes with his sleeve and walked back over to the stove.

Once he'd clambered back up onto the chair, he stared dubiously at the pan. Mom always waited a little bit for the pan to heat up before she put the eggs in, but he wasn't sure how long he was supposed to wait. It always felt like way too long when he and Claus were waiting for breakfast. Claus would complain, and Mom would laugh and tell them not to be so impatient.

Biting his lip, Lucas reached down and touched the pan.

Ow!

That was probably hot enough.

Lucas hit the egg against the side of the pan, like Mom did, but it didn't crack. He stared at it for a second, surprised, before he tried again. And again. Finally, on the fourth try, he put more force behind his arm, and the egg shattered in his hands like glass.

Some of it dripped onto the stove, where it crackled and sputtered, and Lucas made a panicked noise, hastily cupping the cracked egg in both hands. He tried to pull the shell apart to let the rest of the egg fall into the pan, like Mom did, but he ended up dropping several pieces of the shell into the pan as well. Wincing, Lucas hastily tossed the shell aside and reached into the pan to get the pieces.

Ow ow ow ow!

The egg was already hot, and it sizzled way louder than it did when Mom made them. Or maybe it just seemed louder because he was closer to the pan. Lucas stepped back, his hands fidgeting. He would have to fish the broken shell out once he was done. It wasn't poisonous or anything, so it was probably fine to leave it in for now.

...Except now the egg was hissing angrily in the pan, smoke rising from it in thin plumes, and Lucas suddenly remembered that Mom always stirred the eggs before she put them in the pan. Oh no. Was it too late now? Mom always stirred them up really good with a fork, and then she would stir them a little more while she waited for the pan to heat up―

Hastily, Lucas hopped off of the chair and ran to get a fork. When he realized that none of them were clean―he hadn't washed the dishes lately―he panicked and grabbed the least dirty-looking one, then hurried back over to the stove.

Clambering back up onto the chair seemed a hundred times harder when he was carefully holding a fork (with the sharp parts pointed away from his eyes just like Mom said) and listening to his un-stirred egg shriek in the pan, but he eventually managed the trick. When he stood up and peered into the pan, though, he saw that the egg looked―weird. Different. Not omelet-like at all―instead of an inviting pale yellow, it had turned into a strange, mottled brown around the edges. The rest was a half-transparent milky white, and the yellow circle that all the eggs have before you stir them was sitting right in the middle of the pan.

Lucas winced. He wasn't sure that stirring the egg now was going to help. Still, he leaned on the edge of the stove and dutifully stuck the prongs of the fork into the yellow part.

He was right. It didn't help. When he tried to drag the yellow around and mix it with the white stuff, it just wrinkled up like fabric and got even louder. The crusty brown parts stuck to the pan, too, and the fork made a loud, shrill scraping noise when he tried to stir them around.

Lucas bit his lip. Omelets really weren't supposed to look like this. By the time he'd finished stirring the egg, it was just a bunch of torn-up little white clumps with brown parts―now black parts―and some greenish-yellow runny stuff that bubbled whenever some touched the pan. He must have done something else wrong, too, besides just not stirring the egg.

How had he messed it up? It was just an omelet. They were so easy to make. Grandpa used to talk about how easy they were all the time when they were visiting his house and Lucas couldn't sleep. He would get up out of bed because Claus kept rolling around and hogging the blankets, and he would go downstairs, and Grandpa would almost always be awake, and he would say, Lucas, you should really get some sleep, because insomnia is a hard habit to break―take it from me. And then Lucas would sit at the table with a glass of cow's milk that tasted different from the sheep's milk they had at home, and Grandpa would talk to him while he made an omelet, and Lucas would say Is it really okay? and Grandpa would wink at him and say Of course; omelets are quick, easy, and delicious―no downsides. Just don't tell your mother that I'm letting you spoil your breakfast.

The tears dripped from the tip of his nose and sizzled when they hit the pan. He couldn't do anything right. He couldn't even make a stupid wrong omelet without crying.

Once he'd scrubbed his face with the sleeve of his pajamas, Lucas grabbed the pan with both hands and hefted it off of the stove. For a second, he looked around for a plate; then he realized that he'd forgotten to grab one before he started, and that brought even more tears to his eyes.

With a sniffle, he shuffled closer to the cupboard where Mom kept the plates. The pan was still yelling at him, and he hesitantly set it down on the unlit burner of the stove, then climbed onto the counter to reach the cupboard. He had to lean back to swing the cupboard door open and pull a plate down. Finally, he hopped back onto the chair and grabbed the pan again, turning it upside down over the plate and shaking it.

Nothing happened.

Lucas waited for a minute, still holding the plate awkwardly aloft in arms that were beginning to tremble under its weight. After a moment, he groped for the fork―touched the hot stove for a second by accident; ow!―and then tried to pull the egg off of the pan with that.

It didn't really work. It just made that bad screeching noise again, like the back door at Fuel's house used to whenever you swung it open too fast, until it burned down with the rest of Sunshine Forest. Some of the white-black parts peeled off, but they left a weird residue behind that Lucas couldn't scratch off.

Unable to hold the pan up any longer, he flipped it back upright and dropped it onto the stove again. Then he just stared at it. It looked―even worse now. What was left of the egg was―smoking, still, a little bit, and―

He was so stupid. Mom always started an omelet by putting a little block of butter in the pan. He remembered now. She tried to teach Claus to make them once, so that they could surprise Dad when he got home from Lighter's place, and she'd said that the butter was important. Without the butter, it―it wasn't right. That was probably why the egg was all white and black and crunchy instead of yellow and soft and fluffy and―and warm and delicious and―

The sound his tears made when they hit the stovetop reminded him that he needed to turn the gas off.

With the stove off and the egg done―thoroughly ruined―Lucas didn't know what to do next. He just stood there for a little bit, staring at the pan. The egg was still mostly stuck on there, all black and brown with little bits of the white shell scattered about and barely any yellow at all.

Burnt, he realized now; the stove had burnt it. When he went out the other day to see the Sunshine Forest, lots of it was black and brown like that, too. So, he hadn't made the eggs so wrong that they'd changed into something else or anything. He just… burnt them. That's all.

It―it wasn't that big of a deal. Mom said so. Everyone cooked food wrong sometimes. Even Dad did it on Mom's birthday once, and Mom had laughed at him a little bit and then told him it was okay, and then Lucas and Claus helped clean up the dirty dishes while Dad made breakfast again, but better this time.

Lucas wasn't a baby. He wasn't going to―give up just because he messed up making an omelet. There were still more eggs. This time he would remember to put butter in the pan, and he would remember to stir the eggs first.

And Dad would―Dad would come home and smell the omelets and realize that Lucas wasn't stupid and dumb and a crybaby after all.

He would prove it.

Lifting the pan resolutely, Lucas hopped down from the chair, almost falling on his face when the weight of the pan threw him off balance. He made it all the way to the washbasin before he realized that he couldn't reach that on his own, either. But he wasn't a stupid baby, so he didn't cry about it. He just stood on his very tip-toes and threw the pan into the basin, and then dragged the chair over and climbed back on top.

Washing dishes was easy. He and Claus used to do the dishes all the time. Dad would hold Claus up so that he could scrub them, and then he would lean down so that Claus could hand the wet dishes to Lucas to dry them. They'd been doing that since they were little kids. He could wash one pan on his own.

Lucas filled the basin with warm water and grabbed the soap. First he dunked the pan under the surface of the water and struggled to pull it back out. The water that filled it was heavier than he'd expected. Still, he rubbed the soap all over the burned parts of the egg, and then wrapped the dish rag around his hand.

Feeling confident, Lucas began to scour the pan vigorously, just like Claus used to do, even though Mom always told him to slow down. He kept on scrubbing and scrubbing for a long time, until the soap suds had vanished almost entirely and the dishwater had grown tepid around his hands.

It didn't work.

Lucas stared at the pan. There were still big pieces of blackened egg stuck to it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to get them off. He'd even tried prying them off with his fingernails, but all that did was hurt a little bit and make an annoying sound just like the fork had.

Slowly, he placed the pan into the basin. It bobbed for a moment, then tilted, capsized entirely, and slid beneath the surface of the water, which was now gross and oily and had bits of burnt egg floating around in it.

Lucas sobbed so hard that it knocked him right off of Dad's chair and onto the ground. It didn't really hurt, but it made him cry even harder anyway. He couldn't even stand on the furniture right.

The pan was too heavy and he couldn't reach the stove and he forgot the butter and he didn't stir the egg fast enough and now the egg was ruined and the pan was ruined and it was no wonder, really, that Dad would rather go out and look for Claus than stay here with him.

Lucas cried and cried and cried. Then he stood up, whimpered miserably, and shuffled back into bed. He pulled the soft blue wool blanket up over his head and rolled over until it was wrapped around him completely, and then he cried a little bit more.

He wanted to go back to sleep, even if it meant he would have a nightmare again and wake up without Mom there to comfort him again. But he wasn't actually tired enough to go to sleep. It was already late morning; not even late enough to have a nap, even if he was a baby, which he wasn't. And even though he was toasty and warm in bed, his stomach kept on rumbling and waking him up.

So eventually Lucas got back out of bed. He felt a little stupid, now, for crying about the pan. It would probably be okay if he just used a lot of soap and scrubbed really hard. And maybe… maybe asked Dad for help.

Even though he would probably be mad because Lucas wasn't supposed to use the stove without permission.

And because he ruined a perfectly good egg that Dad was probably going to make his own omelet with―one that would be yellow and soft and yummy and good.

And because he broke Mom's favorite pan.

And because he couldn't even wash dishes like Claus could without bursting into tears like a baby, and because he couldn't even wait a few hours for Dad to come home without whining about being hungry, and because―

Lucas climbed back into bed and cried some more.

god i get so emo about this game. no crying till the end? bitch with that prologue?

(also the original ending involved Lucas falling asleep and having another nightmare but I decided to cut him some damn slack and just ended on him crying instead :3 ur welcome lucas)