It was January 30th, Lily's eighth birthday, and she was stuck in school. Absolutely unacceptable Facilier thought, and their gang of friends agreed. So together they were planning a massive prank that would shut the school down for the day. The tricky part was what sort of prank, one too explosive would shut down the school for too long, and a plain pull-the-fire-alarm one wouldn't last a day. But then inspiration hit. A stink bomb. One so stinky and powerful that the entire school will have to shut down.
Facilier looked down the crowded hallway, making sure that no teacher saw him. Over the school months he has gained a reputation of being a troublemaker, Lily would have too but she never gets caught, so he had to be on the lookout for teachers. Seeing none, he sticks the stink bomb into a supply closet and sets the timer. He reaches the middle of the hallway and nods subtly to Miles, who gives him a thumbs-up before dashing to his next class. Facilier smirks, the gang had strategically placed hidden stink bombs to silently go off before the first period ended. Now all they had to do is wait.
Facilier kept looking back at the clock, worrying that things might not go as planned but only a few minutes after the timer went off a rancid smell leaked through the hallway and filled the room. Facilier couldn't help the smirk that spread across his face, of course, he later ended up gagging at the smell. Kids started groaning and some turned green, the teacher issued a dismal. His class flowed out and his smirk grew into a large groan as he saw all the other classes exiting the building, the smell was even worse in the hallway. A small punch caused him to turn around, revealing Lily wearing a rag over her face.
"You wouldn't have anything to do with this, Facilier?" She asked with a muffled voice, her face was annoyed as if she couldn't decide to lecture him or laugh.
"What?" He said innocently. "Stage a massive prank resulting in school to be over on your birthday? I would never." Lily raised an eyebrow unimpressed.
Finally, they got out of the disgusting building and out into the courtyard. The children were excitedly whispering amongst themselves while the teachers confusedly asked what was happening. The firemen came and went through the building, stating that the school was safe although incredibly bad-smelling. A quick meeting was made and school was announced canceled, the children cheered and scurried off to their respective places. Lily, still pestering Facilier about the stink bombs, starts making her way home.
"Hey, Lils wait!" Facilier shouts after her, "I want to go past the old warehouses before we go home." Lily quirks an eyebrow but allows herself to be taken to the abandoned buildings. Behind her back Facilier gives their friends a thumbs up, signaling that the plan was a go.
Walking as slow as possible without being obvious to Lily, Facilier tried making small talk. Unfortunately, it wasn't working.
"Come on Facilier, what's going on? We never take a detour after school." Lily said exasperated. Facilier's eyes shifted about as he thought up an excuse.
"Uh... I heard rumors… about a ghost!" He finished triumphantly, "Yeah a ghost has been spotted around here." He then marched purposefully to an abandoned building. Lily rolled her eyes but followed after him, she guessed that Facilier and her mother planned something for her birthday but decided to amuse them regardless.
The building was dark and musty, the windows were boarded up blocking any sunlight. A chill brushed through both of them causing them to shiver. Undeterred Lily walks forward and pulls out her hag stone, she's taken to wearing it around her neck ever since meeting the woman at the beginning of the school year and walks around looking for traces of the spirit. Facilier smiles at his good luck for her believing him.
"Facilier," Lily's voice called from upstairs, "there's something up here." huffing a bit Facilier makes his way up the stairs, he wasn't expecting anything to happen and worried if this would cause them to be late.
In a room farthest from the stairs was a pile of wooden masks, each one was larger than Lily and covered in dust. A wooden amulet of a carved face sat resting on a desk, Facilier made to grab it but stopped when a chilling wind blew at him and an intense feeling of evil passed through.
"What are these?" He asked.
"I don't know, the hag stone doesn't show anything." Lily was about to continue speaking when they heard whispers coming from the mask, she shivered. "We need to get rid of them." Facilier nodded absentmindedly, listening to the whispers. They were becoming him, calling him to answer their calls.
"Right, yeah…"
"Facilier!" He jerked at Lily's scream. Somehow he had passed the mask and was holding the amulet. "Put it down please, it's evil," her voice trembled in a barely heard whisper. She was scared. Dropping the amulet he pulls her into a hug.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. You're right we need to destroy these, they're dangerous."
Separating they both gather flammable objects to start a fire. Piling the old fabrics, sticks, and other wooden things they placed fire repellant charms in a circle, encasing the entire pile. Facilier struck a match and threw it in. He watched the ominous mask burn, ignoring the now incessant calls of the amulet.
"Let's go home." Lily nods and the two silently walk out of the building
Shaken up they make it back to the house in record time, using the conventional means of a solid shadow ride. Walking up the Appartement steps Facilier's energy rose, he began bouncing up and down urging Lily to walk faster. Lily smiled and quickened her steps, finally pushing the door out of the way.
"SURPRISE!" A torrent of voices shouted, Lily stumbled back almost hitting Facilier. Her mouth opened in shock as she looked around her home. All her school friends were there, holding bags of presents, her mother was smiling at her with a large cake covered in eight candles. The shock faded quickly and they all enjoyed eating cake, opening presents (the majority of them were related to voodoo), playing games, or talking.
As dinner came around the rest of the party left, leaving the small family to relax and discuss their day. The conversation rounded back to birthdays and Tulip offhandedly asked Facilier when his birthday was. The silence that came after caused her to stop cleaning the dishes.
"Facilier?" She said tentatively. He shrugged and said as nonchalantly as he could.
"I don't know my birthday. It was never an important thing to know." Lily gasped in shock while the dish in Tulip's hand dropped into the sink.
"Facilier, "Tulip began softly, "why were you left on the streets?" She never wanted to ask this question, some things are best left unsaid, but now it felt necessary.
"My mom didn't like me and dear old dad agreed with her," He said angrily, he still wouldn't look at them, "so he dropped me off here and never came back." Tulip had frozen but Lily had no such qualms and quickly hugged the boy, trying to reassure him the only way she knew how.
"I'm sorry that those horrid people left you," she said passionately, "they were so stupid and foolish to not realize how wonderful you are." She pushed off him and looked at her mother then back to him. "And let me say one thing, they aren't your family, your makers maybe but they are not family." she finished venomously.
Facilier patted her arm understanding what Lily was trying to say, a family doesn't leave you behind, family is there for one another when no one else is. Like Lily, like Tulip, they were his family, and once again he was glad for stealing Lily's wallet all those months ago.
"Sorry for killing the happy mood," he says lamely but with a happy smile on his face. Lily smacks him while Tulip smiles softly. And they laugh, basking in one another's presence.
AN:
UnnaVox: Wow this chapter was way too hard to write… like it took me weeks to finish. But it's done, yeah woohoo, and we can finally move forward. Speaking of that, I've been doing a crap-ton of time skips because one, I don't really have any more ideas for this stage, and two, I REALLY want to get to Hogwarts. The next chapter should be the last major time skip and then I'll start to slow down, or I won't… who knows.
I added the mask scene later on (hope it didn't interrupt the flow too much), the amulet and mask were the ones that Facilier worked with in the movies. I thought this would be a cool way to show how different Facilier's life is from the direction that it was going.
DuoAnimi: She did take forever. I had to force her to work on it. *eye-roll*