A/N: Thanks to SempiternalDreamer and a sudden need for emotional outlet, I broke through the writer's block and finally managed to get this done. It seems wooden and clunky to me, but it's a new chapter and it feels great to be writing again! Thanks for sticking with me and for the so-very-much-appreciated reviews. Responses are at the end of the chapter.
Kid's hysteria had subsided into depressed avoidance, and Liz was sick of it. She hadn't laid eyes on him since he'd come out of his catatonic state and forced everyone out of his room. While she and Patty worked in the third-floor school room, he petulantly insisted on his tutors coming to his private study. He hadn't made an appearance at the table, choosing to eat alone behind his locked door. At least she hoped he was eating; with Kid it was never safe to assume things. He wasn't even concerned about the house falling into asymmetrical ruins. You knew it was bad if he was too crazy to worry about his regular level of crazy. Liz thought he belonged in a hospital getting serious psychiatric care, or at least seeing a shrink, but had been told it wasn't an option.
By the evening of the seventh day, she'd had it. She was sitting in the library with Lord Death and Patty like she imagined an actual family would. An actual family that was okay with one member being in self-imposed solitary confinement. It didn't seem like anybody was ever planning to deal with the situation and, as much as she hated it, Liz had made herself a promise to look after him.
"You know, Kid's been locked in his room for days. Aren't you worried?" she asked Lord Death, who was reading to Patty. Liz secretly enjoyed listening, but always feigned indifference behind a copy of Vogue or the Death Times society pages. Kid's father looked up from 'A Tale of Two Cities' in a dazed sort of way. Like maybe he'd forgotten he had a son.
"There isn't much we can do except let him work through this."
Liz made an exasperated noise, "Have you even tried?"
"Uh, not for a while." Death replied, looking uncomfortable. He shifted guiltily in his seat and Patty complained about not being able to see the page with the picture.
"Not since he woke up, you mean." Liz scolded, "You are such a wuss."
She tossed her magazine aside, "I'm gonna go up there and drag him out."
"Good luck with that." Death sounded like she'd announced her intention to make the sun rise in the West. His failure to do anything, to even have hope for Kid made Liz mad, and she felt obligated to deliver a nasty parting shot.
"Well, somebody has to try. His mom wouldn't have left him up there all by himself for a week, would she? I bet she'd be ashamed of us. Especially you." she tossed her hair and flounced out with maximum attitude.
Death glanced down at Patty, "Am I really that bad?"
"Pretty much," she shrugged and pointed at the book, "Read."
Upstairs, Liz took a calming breath, and knocked on Kid's door.
"Hey!" she called, "Open up. I want to talk to you."
"I'm sorry, but I'm busy." He sounded faint and overly polite. In Liz' limited experience with him, that wasn't a good sign.
"Yeah, you're sorry all right. Come out of there or I'm gonna get Patty and shoot this door down. And I'll make sure I do it as unevenly as possible!"
He heaved a sigh that was audible through three inches of solid ebony, and the lock snapped open.
"Fine. What is it that you need?" Kid asked impatiently. He moved into the doorway, blocking the entrance to his sanctuary like an angry little boulder.
In spite of his manner, he seemed fragile and sort of broken to Liz. She'd seen the look in his eyes before. In worn-down junkies and homeless wanderers on the streets of New York. On her own reflection in the blurry metal mirrors of subway bathrooms. That look of hopeless despair.
Crap. Now she felt all bad and big sister-y about him.
"You've been up here by yourself long enough. Time to come out." she said, hiding her pity behind a facade of bossy authority.
"No thank you. Please go away." Kid turned to go back inside and she grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" He jerked out of Liz' grasp, "Why can't you leave me alone?"
"Because it's time for you to stop acting like a freak!" she told him, "I know what you're going through, but hiding won't make it any better."
Kid's irritation was rapidly giving way to annoyance.
"What precisely am I going through that you know so much about?" he demanded.
"I know everything, Kid. Your dad told me everything."
"Everything about WHAT?" he was yelling now, and Liz swore she saw a spark out of the corner of her eye.
"About your mom. About what she did to you. I can't-"
Fury ignited Kid's glare, anger burning away the last of his apathy."He had no right to tell you that. It's none of your business!"
She was right; she had seen a spark. The dangerous purple glow of death magic had burst into life around Kid's clenched fists. For the first time since meeting him, Liz was afraid of the young Reaper. He might not have his father's power, but she was pretty sure he could rip her face off if sufficiently provoked. And he seemed pretty provoked right now.
"I know you've gone through hell, and you're a mess but there are people in this house who want to help you and you're worrying them."
"Oh, really? Like who?" Kid shouted. Wispy black death's heads began swarm over the purple energy clouding around his hands.
Liz took a risk and went on the offense. "Like ME!" she hollered, leaning into his face, "I'm worried, you rotten little brat, so stop screaming at me and turn off the fireworks. Or are you going to kill me for giving a damn about you?"
Kid took a step back and she followed, keeping it up close and personal. She had an idea that he wasn't used to being challenged, and she was right on the money. His anger shriveled up and he became small and miserable again. The death magic retreated back to wherever he kept it when he wasn't destroying his enemies, summoning his skateboard or having a tantrum.
"Why would you care? You've seen what I'm like."
"Well, you're fucked up, but you're not the only person around here who is. Not by a long shot. And it's not like it's your fault, what happened to you. What went down with your mom was some messed up shit."
Kid felt like he couldn't breathe. He never discussed his mother with anyone. He or his father occasionally made passing reference to her in private conversation, but they never really talked about her, and they avoided the subject of her final moments like the plague. The words were hard to find, but he needed Liz to know, to understand that Sophie shouldn't be defined by her last, mad actions.
"She...wasn't a bad person." he stammered.
"It wasn't her fault, either. It was that witch's fault. What was she like?"
"How should I know?" Kid snarled, "I never met her! And if I ever do I'll be too busy tearing apart her rotten, disgusting soul to find out."
For the second time in five minutes, Liz was reminded that the little boy in front of her held the power of life and death in hands that had a pretty tenuous grip on sanity.
"Sorry," she said hastily, "not the witch. I meant your mom. You never talk about her."
"You never talk about your mother, either." Kid retorted, playing for time.
"Yeah," Liz huffed, "But your mom loved you. Mine didn't. She was a self-centered whore. She was some rich guy's mistress, and she only had us because she thought it would give her a hold on him. Only it didn't, and he ditched her right after Patty was born."
"So you don't like her because she was a...a prostitute? Doing that doesn't make her a bad person either, you know."
Liz was mildly amazed, "Sometimes you're not as uptight as you seem. No, there's nothing wrong with it, that's not why I think she's crap. Dumping us with anybody she could find while she drowned her sorrows with cocaine and men is what made her a piece of shit. Who leaves their kids with their dealer, for fuck's sake?"
"What happened to her?" Kid was fascinated in a horrified sort of way. This was the kind of stuff that happened on bad television dramas, not to average humans. Not that he actually knew any average humans, but still.
Disgust pursed Liz' lips, "She hooked for a while, high end stuff, until she found another guy who could afford a full-time girlfriend for hire. Guy didn't like kids, though, so that was it for Patty and I. She just took off one day and didn't even make arrangements for us. We never saw her again. The neighbors took turns feeding us and giving us a place to sleep for a while, but eventually one of them called Children's Services and we ran. I wasn't going into some foster care joint and I wasn't letting Patty get separated from me."
Her voice was hard, but Kid could hear the pain beneath it. For all her tough posturing, she was damaged underneath and that was something he understood well. He still didn't want to talk about his mother, but he needed to give her something after she'd been so honest with him. He went into his study, where he opened one of the built-in storage drawers behind the paneling. Liz followed him in and he handed a framed photograph to her without a word.
Liz couldn't be sure, because he was so damned short, but Kid looked about eight years old in the picture. He was leaning against the knee of a gorgeous woman, both of them smiling with delight. Even on paper there was something vibrant about her, as if she was more alive than most people. Liz thought the quality, ironic as it might be, was even more attractive than the long white-blond hair and perfect features.
"Wow." was all she could come up with; she simply wasn't sure what to say. They studied the image together in silence for a moment, and then Kid tried to put it back in the drawer.
"Don't" Liz said, grabbing his arm, "Leave it out. Don't be afraid to look at it."
She took the frame and propped it up on one of the bookcases, making sure to get it exactly in the center of the shelf. Kid looked completely freaked out and Liz grabbed him by the shoulders.
"The thing is, you need to learn to deal with it." she told him, "Every time you lose your shit, that fucking witch wins all over again. "
"I can help it. It just happens. I don't want it to, but I can't stop it. I'm weak. Disgusting, vile-" Kid was vibrating with anxiety and he looked terrified, like Patty used to when life dealt them yet another frightening curveball. Liz hugged him hard enough to shut him up while she frantically thought of a way to distract him. She had no idea what Kid did when he was upset; she'd just have to go with what she knew worked for a girl his age.
"Come on, let's do something." She said, pushing him firmly toward the door.
"What?" he was full of apprehension, but allowed her to guide him down the hall.
"You're going through a rough time and you need to be babied a little." she announced, steering him into the media room and onto a couch, "We're going to watch a movie, anything you want."
"What?" Kid gaped at her like she was speaking a foreign language. Liz tried again.
"What's your favorite thing? And not some gloomy black-and-white shit that only plays at art houses. Pick something fun...what do you like that's not depressing?"
"Uhm... I...Uh...like James Bond movies." It came out as a question, like maybe she'd slap him if he said the wrong thing.
"Never seen one, but I've always wanted to." Liz said cheerfully, although she'd never thought any such thing.
Kid finally relaxed a little, "We could watch the first one." he suggested shyly.
"Okay, you get it ready and I'm going to go down and get you a big-ass ice cream sundae and a bowl of popcorn. See? I'm even willing to brave Nadine for you." Liz grinned at him and headed to the kitchen. On the way, she stopped in the library to gloat over her success and to invite Lord Death and Patty to watch the movie with them.
Kid's father was seriously shocked. He dropped "A Tale of Two Cities" in amazement and Patty gave her sister a dirty look. Frankly, she thought Kid's decision to come out of his room paled in comparison to the storming of the Bastille.
"How'd you manage that?" Death asked.
Liz gave him a smug grin.
"It's called dealing with personal shit. You ought to try it sometime."
He supposed he should rebuke her for her sassiness, but was too relieved to do it. Besides, she was right. Instead, he told her he and Patty would be up as soon as they finished their chapter because the little girl was sure to inflict bodily harm on him if he stopped in the middle of a good part.
"I win! We raced up the stairs and I won, Sis!" Patty shrieked delightedly when she finally burst into the media room with Lord Death behind her.
"I sat through twenty two whole pages and Mrs. Deforge cut off the Bastille guy's head!" she added with relish.
Kid, ensconced in the center of the sofa with a blanket and a bowl of ice cream, shot his father a reproachful glance as he paused "Doctor No".
"You missed the whole beginning, Dad."
Picking up on Kid's jealousy, Liz told Patty to sit beside her and tried to change the subject with the first thing that came to mind.
"Sean Connery is wicked cool." she exclaimed with the fervor of the newly converted.
Patty sniffed, and dug into the popcorn bowl. "Does he cut off anybody's head?"
"No, but he's hot. Like, majorly hot."
"That's not the point of the story." Kid rolled his eyes heavenward.
"Never hurts, though." Lord Death blurted, baffled and uncomfortable in this new social setting. He'd never had to choose one child's activity over another's and he had the distinct feeling he'd messed up once again.
"Well, you've got good taste in men, at least." Liz said, unnerving him even more. She jerked her head in Kid's direction, which Death correctly interpreted to mean that he should sit next to his son.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked awkwardly.
"I'm fine." came the stony reply.
Lord Death looked at Liz, who made a cryptic flapping motion at him, and then back Kid's pale, hurt little face. Liz was right. His wife would be ashamed of him; not just because he'd let their child down, but that he hadn't even noticed how badly he was needed. Even after his vow to be a more attentive father, he'd dropped the ball. He had to do what he could to make things right and hoped he could find the words.
"I'm glad," he said softly, putting his arm around Kid's stiff shoulders "I've really missed you and I won't leave you alone again. I'm not good at this, but I promise you I'll try to do better. I'm here for you. We all are."
Kid didn't answer, but he nodded and slowly eased into his father's comforting embrace. After they'd settled themselves and the movie was rolling again, Death snuck a peek at Liz, who grinned approvingly and gave him a double thumbs up. He'd once ended a global-scale war with a single, well-timed reap and hadn't felt this proud of himself.
Two thumbs up! Maybe there was hope for him after all.
RESPONSES!
Anna: I'm so glad you like it!
Berryblair: I've been writing stories since I was seven, and it's still a struggle. I think this chapter has gone through about fourteen revisions and I'm still not happy with it! Loving your work though :)
Naughty Mage: Hitting a reader in the feels is the best compliment a writer can get. Thank you so much.
REDEADED: I'm having so much fun on our collaboration. As always, you are true friend!
SempiternalDreamer: You know what happens next, and it never would have gotten here without you. Thank you for the beta reading, the encouragement and for being an all-around delightful human being *hugs*
Loki son of Laufey: You just gave me one of the nicest reviews I've ever gotten and I appreciate it so very much. I love it when I get to share headcanons with someone - it makes me feel like I'm not out in the void making up crazy stuff. This particular thing has no end in sight and I may still be adding to it when I'm eighty. I am trying to pull a sequel to Life Lessons together but it has been verrrrry slow going :(
LuckySoulStarEater: Getting emotion across without it being over the top and sweet without being mushy is really hard, so I'm super happy that you thought I got it right,