cruella de vil (

holocron) wrote,
@ 2010-01-28 02:11:00

FLAVORS || d. fawcett

amused
—— 1980 summer ——

1 JULY 1980
Dear shrew o' mine,
My face intercepted a bludger during practise today, thus I get the rest of the day and tomorrow to recover from the broken nose and cracked cheekbone (hence the letter writing, I'm sure you're shocked). It is just one of many casualties in the infernal war of the captain versus Odette, as I am about ninety-five percent certain he was aiming for her face and I had the bad luck to intercede at that very moment. I (and my face) are eager to see exactly how much further this feud escalates.

I have a present for your squirming bundle when next I see you, and you must promise he wears it around Dad at every possible moment, as I didn't even know they made Montrose robes in newborn sizes. I would also demand pictures (more of dad's face than my godson, but I will accept either) of the event, but I know your ineptitude with the contraption. Perhaps your dear husband will comply.

Dearest mam says they'll be expecting Penelope's Head Girl badge any day now, though the lady in question protests it is not a done deal. She still thinks leasing the flat for Pen is a good idea, but Dad is plugging his ears at the slightest mention of her leaving school. Not sure what he'll be doing when the year is up.

Tell Wes thanks for helping me out at the offices, I appreciated it. Hope you're well, etc
Drystan

2 JULY 1980
(morning)
Wait, I've just remembered I already sent you a letter some time ago and apparently, you've never responded.

(afternoon)
Ah, I am assuming this means you are cross with me.

(evening)
Sorry, Sorrie! You know what it is like before the season proper.

3 JULY 1980
All right, all right, no excuses. I shall send you a letter every day for a week, how do you fancy that?

4 JULY 1980
My dear lamb,

Today, in beginning my search for the perfect flat for Penelope, I thought of several factors that must be considered before its acquisition. Location, naturally, as the neighbourhood must be perfect. While proximity to work would also be ideal, I have little idea what it is she wants to do with her life (all I ever remember her saying is a mermaid), so it will have to do that it connects to the Floo network. Next, we'll consider plumbing, as I have learned the word varies in its meaning to […]

5 JULY 1980
Sister mine,

While it must be said that my culinary skills are not to be taken lightly, I will expunge to you the intricacies of preparing boxty and how I thoroughly banjaxed it in the process. I think it must be the truest, deepest shame of an irishman not to be able to master the potato, but it cannot be denied that that is my truest and deepest shame. They always come out raw and crunchy, and that is an affront to both the potato and the eater. The very first time I had the dish, if I can recall it properly, was when […]

6 JULY 1980
Miss Sorrie Mabyn,

Do you know what it is I miss most about Hogwarts? The laundry. I took very much for granted what it meant to have a slew of unseen forces washing and starching your robes. I've been sending it out for ages, but the witch up and quit on me, so I've been at a loss for a number of days. Once it became a matter of wearing the same robes to practice for the third time without washing, I decided to take matters into my own hands. How difficult could it possibly be, I wondered. Not hard at all, surely I, a grown wizard of rather immense competence, can manage one small domestic task. As it happens, I now own no clothes which will fit me past my shoulders[…]

7 JULY 1980
Mrs S M Cornfoot,

Weather here abysmal. Flying in summer lightning not preferable. Saw reserve get nearly struck by lightning. Surprisingly cool. Hoping clears up for match. Not hopeful. Sending box tickets for brother-in-laws. May come if truly desired, but please note brothers-in-law receive priority. Nephew also highly encouraged to attend in full Montrose regalia. Tell dad […]

8 JULY 1980
Sister Sorrie,

I am a most accomplished composer of letters. I cannot imagine why I did not do it most often. I shall continue to do this every day for a year, and you shall be my sole recipient, my most captive audience. When I am dead and gone, you may bind all the letters I have sent you that you have inevitably kept in a very safe place, and gift them to a publisher who will surely trip over themselves to make the hidden story of my life known to […]

9 JULY 1980
Ye ol stubborn lass,

I found Stephen's future wife today. I proposed the match to the mother, and she seemed quite receptive to it. I would have run it by you, naturally, but I made the executive decision as junior patriarch of the clan. She is perfect and will undoubtedly grow up to be the lead Chaser for a renowned Irish team, securing them multiple championships. It may be a bit soon yet to tell for Stephen, but I feel confident their children will be […]

10 JULY 1980
Sister dearest,

Do you know what I had cause to pull out today? A telescope. I was surprisingly excellent at Astronomy in school, as you well know, but I haven't touched the things in years. I shall regale to you the various attempts and failures I had in trying to construct a star chart of the Eastern most quadrant in […]

11 JULY 1980
Merlin's baggy y-fronts, you talk about the most inane subjects for such a taciturn bloke. No more, I surrender. Come to dinner on Friday, I have a squirming bundle who I am sure would be asking for you if he could do things like talk.

—S

flustered
—— 1980 winter ——

"Tall person." The order rang out in the quiet of the room, commanding and brooking no refusal. "Come here and help."

Having emerged from the newly-converted nursery, Drystan took the offered ornament with an amused cock of the eyebrows and studied the branches. "I'm beginning to think the only relevance I have in this holiday scheme of yours is strength," since, naturally, he'd been lifting and pushing and otherwise situating the tree to the blonde's liking, "and height, since you insist on doing things the Muggle way." He tossed the globe casually, shifting his focus between potential placements on the tree and the blonde beside him.

"You mean more to me than that," Bess retorted. Slanting a smirk at her, he tossed the ornament higher as she started to speak, then paused. Seeming to brush it off, she instead jabbed a finger at a high branch. "There. Don't drop it."

He clucked pityingly as he moved closer, starting to juggle it. "So you say to a Cup-winning Chaser who—oops—"

The strangled yell turned into a hiss when the ornament was revealed to be intact, and the culprit smirking at her. She swatted him on the shoulder as he slyly claimed, "Just wanted to see how much I meant to you," hooking the ornament on the desired branch.

Making a huffy noise of disgust, she turned with a flounce and made to stalk off, only to stumble over a box of ornaments hidden by the low lying branches of their tree. Lightning quick, he whirled to catch her.

"Are you all right?" he asked after a moment's silence of staring at her.

In breathless affirmation, she murmured, "Mmm," a beat later, still frozen in the awkward dip of his arms.

"Sorry," he apologised, regardless of the fault.

Bess swallowed. "It's… not a problem."

In the firelight, her hair was orange gold. Beautiful as she was, it was the hair he noticed every time, that he fancied himself obsessed with as his mind wandered from time to time and that peculiar, precise shade wound itself into his thoughts. Chalking it up to holiday madness, loneliness, overwrought and underused hormones, or the simple fact that he missed her, her hair, her face, her voice, her laugh, when she wasn't in this flat where he knew she didn't really live, he lowered his face close to hers, hesitating a mere whisper from her lips.

It was she who took that final step, lifting her mouth to meet his.

This was not the passionate, crazed clawing at one another he might have imagined. It was, as all first kisses ought to be, tentative, brief, cautious, but lingering. When he pulled away, assessing the look on her face, readying himself to apologise, he found himself dragged back under with a drugging intensity.

They pulled away abruptly, breathing hard.

"I didn't—" she began, clutching a fist to her heart, while he hastened to say, "I never—"

But it didn't matter as they again grabbed at one another, bumping foreheads in their haste, blindly manoeuvring around the tree and its hazards.

"Garland," she gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Sofa," he groaned, stumbling the few steps toward it. With a crash, they landed, tilting it backwards for one harrowing second, but they were too lost in one another to notice. Hands wandered feverishly, lips trailed hotly. He nipped at her neck, she raked her nails along his arm. Biting back a growl, he flipped them so he lay atop her, curling his hand in that magnificent hair, kissing her like he needed to breathe.

A gasp sounded throughout the room. Startled, they pulled apart and craned their heads in its direction just when peals of laughter filled the air.

Sadie, with her sleep-mussed crown of curls, held herself against the wall, pointing and giggling and looking quite pleased with herself.

"Ah," he began, slowly starting to sit up, feeling torn between embarrassment and amusement. "I didn't expect that."

Sighing, Bess gave him a wry look, and muttered, "Expect the unexpected," as she untangled herself. He stopped her with a hand on her waist, saying he would help, pulling them both up.

Although Sadie protested she wanted her presents, she really seemed to be shirking from a nightmare. WIth a bit of cajoling, teasing, and soothing, Bess talked her daughter into curling up once again in the wide guest bed, tucking the stuffed hippocampus close to her tiny body. She kissed Saide on the forehead and blew out the lights.

"You, too," Sadie protested sleepily as she waved her other hand at Drystan in the dark, pursing her lips exaggeratedly. He obliged with a quick laugh, after which she snuggled further in, seemingly content as the sound of her breathing grew heavy with the sound of sleep.

Bess shut the door firmly and leaned against the frame, watching him as he moved 'til he stood a scant few inches away.

"Is this all right?" he asked, looking down as he laced their fingers together, pressing her slightly against the door, his forehead low to hers.

Wordlessly, she leaned forward to press her lips to his, so they might slowly, carefully, make their way to the bed.

frustrated
—— 1982 summer ——

As he stared out the window at the still unfamiliar view of the tropical paradise, Drystan felt that peculiar stirring within him which he had not yet come to understand. He couldn't say for how long it had been happening, but it was long enough that he quite desperately wished it away.

It stayed.

Some days, the feeling inexplicably worsened so that, try as he might, he couldn't begin to fathom the why or how of its comings. It left him feeling twisted up inside, raw, strung out, and frustrated. It was a terrible sort of hell, like a raw nerve that buzzed and tingled with a curious pain that only time eased. Except time didn't ease this. Few things would. Sometimes, just one.

When the door to the suite opened, he heard his wife pad in, easily pictured her with her long golden hair and her flimsy dressing gown from after their swim. He heard her, too, approach him on the far side room, talking as she did so, happy conversation of the time on their trip. He turned as she drew closer and was struck by the picture of her in the filtered moonlight, the clear face, the waving hair, all of it. She twisted him up and left him raw inside, too, though her manner of doing so was decidedly different, the effect completely unintentional.

Drawing her to him, it was as a man possessed. Her words trailed off, eyes expectant and wide, questioning. He wrapped his hand, firm but with care, in the loose gold of her hair and used it to angle her head back, offering her lips up to him, which he took with no small amount of force. Perhaps after the moment of surprise passed, her hands crept up, slid to his shoulders in spite of the obstacle of his hand wound in her hair, the other in a cup around the back of her neck.

Drystan pulled away just so that their lips grazed, but did not touch in spite of her straining. Slowly, he walked her backwards with measured ease, as if to say he was in no rush, as if he were sure and knowing of every step of the path. His words punctuated the rhythm of their movements. "I'm going to take you this time," he said as his hand unwound itself to ghost up and down her back with a tantalizing slowness, "take you, and you'll let me."

"Is that so?" she asked, steady still in spite of the rapid falls of her chest.

"It is. I've a powerful urge to drive you mad as you make me." His forehead nearly touched hers as he looked her in the eyes, stroking his thumb over her cheek, close to her lips, and down the neck, the collar bone, the swell of her chest, the lines of her ribs, and down further still. "To make you scream. You will for me, won't you?"

Her assent was that incendiary little moan, like a precursor. "It won't be slow," he promised, "but it will be long."

Bess swallowed hard, struggling to keep her tone even as she shuddered out, "You're almost starting to frighten me."

Pressing her against the wall, he drew her arms up, pinned them above her head with a hand. "Oh, I've in mind things to do to you you can't even imagine. Been waiting to do." He paused in his speech and thoughts as he nipped at her collar bone, his free hand drawing ever expanding circles low on her thigh. "Aye," he said quietly in her ear as his grip on her wrists tightened, "this time, I think, I want you just a little bit afraid."

regretful
—— 1983 summer ——

"Tell me everything!" the afternoon had begun.

Penelope knew her brother and Bess had been invited, but though no one said anything during the planning of the party, everyone knew they wouldn't be coming. Instead, Bess had invited her over for the afternoon a few days later, and immediately demanded to be regaled with all the details. Penelope artfully supplied them from her memories of setting up earlier in the evening, and from a few of the tamer pictures she had seen. Some of the details were from what Charles had told her, but not many, as she'd been too busy wishing the ground would swallow her up whole to really listen to him. He'd also been dreadfully smug the whole time, so she wasn't entirely sure how truthful his account was.

"The band was wonderful, the station manager from the—" She broke off when the door opened and shut, and she saw her brother walking in with a sack and his broom thrown over his shoulder, slightly hunched over. He barely missed a beat when he saw her, and she offered a tight smile in return before continuing. "I can't remember their name, and it was very loud, so I'm not certain they were good, but—"

Drystan paused before the staircase and turned to the parlour. "You were at Brookstanton's party?"

"I was," she said, then gave her attention back to Bess. "It was not very fancy, I think, just a lot of people. I do not imagine you would have found it much—"

"Why?" He was still hovering by the stairs.

Penelope felt her jaw clench and Bess made an impatient sniffing noise. "Because I was invited. At any rate, I—"

"Did he make you go?"

"Drystan, honestly!" Bess snapped in exasperation.

Though Penelope felt like doing much the same, she forced herself to be calm and levelled a cool gaze at her brother. "He asked, and I said I would, because that is what adults capable of compromise do."

Drystan made a rude noise and turned to go up the stairs. Bess watched him retreat with a faint wrinkle between her brows. "I'm sorry. I keep telling him not to be such an arse, but…"

She shook her head. "It's fine. I am quite used to it. As I was saying—oh, did you know, his teammate's wife went into labour in the middle of the—"

* * *

She stayed for dinner, as she thought she might, and spent an overall enjoyable evening with her niece and nephews. She oohed and awed appropriately at Brian's newest antics, and plaited Sadie's hair. Stephen was particularly clingy and insisted on staying up much later than his usual bedtime, which was solved only by aunt Penelope promising to read him a bedtime story.

As she was finishing tucking him in and blowing out the lamps, she saw her brother standing in the doorway with his arms folded. Sparing him not one glance, she bent to kiss the sleeping Stephen's forehead, and brushed past him on her way out.

"He's not good enough, you know."

The words stopped her in her tracks and she looked over her shoulder at Drystan who was impassive as always.

"You've made that perfectly clear," she said, turning back and resuming her way down the corridor, trying not to bristle.

His footsteps were steady and even behind her, which infuriated Penelope more than she could reasonably articulate. Coming here had plainly been a mistake.

"Prove me wrong," his voice rang out, and if there was a hint of smugness or a challenge, she would have hurled every nasty word she knew at him and left with a mind to never come back. But Drystan used that almost pleasantly reasonable tone she had hated so much as a child, and the impact of it had her balling her hands tightly into fists.

Penelope took to the stairs quickly, skimming a crescent-marked palm neatly down the bannister. "I do not need to prove anything to you."

"Does he know?" Drystan asked quietly.

Her feet stumbled down the stairs, and she stopped. Fighting to regain composure, she turned around and looked at him defiantly. "That isn't any of your business, now is it?"

"Does he know, Penelope?"

"Perhaps I don't need him to know to feel safe."

Drystan scowled, and now it was he who averted his gaze.

Abruptly, she softened towards him. "I know you don't agree," she said gently. "I know you think I need a caretaker, but perhaps that's why it has taken me so long to get past it. I can't be—I don't want to be coddled."

He was silent for a long while, looking out the window at the inky black night. "Are you?" he asked finally. "Past it?"

The words stung, and her expression was crestfallen and betrayed as she walked to the door. Penelope paused with her hand just on the knob, not able to bring herself to even look over her shoulder. "A little more each day. But what about you?"

She opened the door and left without a second glance.

* * *

When he opened the door to the master suite, low lights burned, showing that Bess was awake under the covers. He could feel her disapproving gaze follow him as he divested himself of his robes, preparing for bed.

"Why are you being like this?" she asked, even as Drystan snuffed the lights and got into bed, his movements exact and precise though tension rolled off of him in waves.

He fluffed the pillow a little harder than necessary and lay down, gruffly saying, "Because someone has to look out for her."

"You're not her father," Bess said sharply, to which Drystan shot her a nasty look.

"A fact I am altogether too aware of," he returned icily, "but thank you all the same."

An uncertain silence hung in the air, as if they both were owed apologies and neither intended to give them. The quiet stretched out for minutes, perhaps even longer, when Bess said quietly, "All I want is for the two of you to not fight."

Her words went unattended to so long, she thought Drystan had fallen asleep. He then took a deep breath, a much calmer sound than she thought him capable of in that moment, and he began to speak.

"Do you know, my father wouldn't have cared if I did nothing with my life, as long as I was always there to take care of my sisters?" His voice was hollow and slow, and when he laughed, it was hollow and brittle. Drystan rolled onto his side, away from her, as if he did not quite know she was there at all. Her hand reached out to him, and then stopped as he lay still, disturbed only by the even rising and falling of his shoulders, feeling strongly that he wasn't to be touched just then. Her hand eventually dropped to the bed, and waves of sleep began to overtake her against her better judgement.

The words were so soft, they were nearly a whisper. "How is he doing it better than me? How did I fail, and how did he—"

The role of caretaker had been impressed upon him very early in life. Though he resented it deeply when he was younger, he had taken it very seriously. It had not, however, left anyone to take care of him.

"Drystan," Bess began, pained, trying to clear the sleep from her voice, "you couldn't have foreseen any of this. You couldn't have done anything to stop it."

"I know that," he said in an empty-sounding voice. "My head knows it. But I can't feel it in here. I can't take care of anyone. I've let down my da, not that he'd ever know it."

The minutes ticked by, and when he spoke again, neither of them knew if it was a dream.

"You shouldn't have married me," he said in a voice deadened by sleep and grief. "God knows I shouldn't have let you. And I'll always be too weak to send you away."

The only sound left in the room was the rustling of the curtains in the cool night breeze.

sad
—— 1983 fall ——

He had his nose pressed to the window as he strained to see outside. But his breath kept fogging up the glass, so he had to keep changing spots, leaving the imprint of a little nose and hands all over the bottom three feet of the window. He was getting very impatient, because today was a special day, and he thought everyone would know that, but no one was here yet!

"WHEN IS SHE COMING?" he yelled down to his mother as he strained on his tiptoes to find an unsullied patch of glass.

She was patiently reading her paper at the dining table, too used to her son to do much more than smile absently to herself. "Soon!"

With a long suffering sigh, he rested his cheek against the now-warm window, because soon wasn't now.

"Happy birthday, boy-o!" he heard a few minutes later. Turning, he saw his father emerge from their bedroom, hair wet and tousled from his bath, and a grin on his face.

"No one's not here yet," he said, sounding pained, before whipping his head forward again.

Dropping to his knees, his father put a hand on his shoulder and looked out the foggy, smudged window with him. "Aren't they?" A pout and a furious shake of the head. "Well, best come down and have some breakfast, then. They'll turn up soon." He kissed the top of his son's head and started to turn him towards the stairs, but the boy squirmed away.

"I won't!" he said, pressing his face back to the glass. "I have to keep watch!"

Biting the inside of his cheek, his father hid a smile as he gave a curt nod. "You do. Keep a sharp eye out, you hear?"

His son nodded vigorously and shooed him off without tearing his eyes away from the lane in front of the house. He could hear their voices drift up to the landing, and his dad ask his mum where her brother had gone.

"Cake," was her succinct reply, and he grinned to himself and hugged his stomach.

An interminable two minutes later, he saw the long, sleek car skid to a stop in front of the house, and a tall, sandy haired man slide out the back door. Skirting around the car, he opened the door on the other side and crouched down, out of view. A moment later, two heads came into view, one darker and much shorter, which had him jumping away from the window.

"SHE'S HERE!" he yelled, tearing down the stairs. Taking a corner very fast, he bounded off the wall and wasted a precious second steadying himself rather than chancing three extra seconds picking himself up off the floor, and sped towards the entryway. After wresting with the lock for a moment, he threw the door open and ran barefoot in pyjamas into the yard.

He flung himself towards her with his arms open wide. "AUNTIE DUCKS!"

"Easy, easy!" Penelope laughed, steadying herself on Stephen's shoulders. She only rocked back into her husband for a second, but his arm was secure around her waist.

"We've been having some balance issues this week," he spoke over their heads to the parents congregated in the doorway. "She's not nearly as entertained as I am." The trio made their way up the path, with Stephen's hand firmly around Penelope's. The silhouette of her cloak was very obviously off as her enormous stomach protruded, making everyone very sceptical that she was only the five months along that they claimed she was. Catching the amused stares, he added, "I keep telling her it's twins."

Stephen watched his mum help her in and then bend to kiss Penelope's cheek as they hugged. "You didn't have to come all the way out here like this," she said. "You know we all would have understood."

Glaring mutinously at his mother, Stephen made it quite obvious he would not have. His aunt seemed to know that, though, because she ruffled his hair and drew him to her, smiling. "The car wasn't so bad. I think we may even be purchasing one," she raised her eyebrows meaningfully at the man in the corner, "But I couldn't miss my sweet boy's big day. Eleven is a very special number, after all."

They continued to talk above him, and Stephen loosed his grip around her middle. He couldn't actually hug all of her; she was much bigger than the last time he had seen her, which reminded him... He pressed his ear firmly against her stomach, listening. "I can't hear the ocean," he told his father, frowning.

In the silence that immediately followed, Penelope's jaw dropped as she looked up in shock. "Honestly!"

They were still laughing when a knock sounded on the open door. "Anyone home?" the cheerful blonde asked, and Stephen's eyes immediately lit up.

"Is that the cake, Aunt Bess?" he asked in a hushed voice, looking at the domed platter she had ducked under her arm.

"Of course it is." She had a mischievous glint in her eyes and she bent towards him and said in a mock-whisper, "And it is just as we discussed last night, young man."

He waited the whole year for this. They had a party and cake, and he got presents, and then the next morning, he and Uncle Drystan went on a fishing trip. He couldn't even remember when it began, he just knew they always did it. There was a little cabin that was always toasty and warm, even though it rained, and sometimes even snowed. Last year, he'd caught a real fish! But he tossed it back because he didn't like all the wriggling. Uncle Drystan had said that was all right, sometimes he threw them back too. He just liked to go fishing for the fun (really, the quiet) of it all, just like his dad took him.

"Now I can really say happy birthday!" She slid one arm around him in a hug, both careful not to jostle the precious cargo. "Oh—and I almost forgot, I promised Sadie I would give this to you," Bess smiled, extending a roll of parchment from her pocket. He eagerly accepted it, sad his cousin had to miss another of his birthdays. But next year, he would be in school celebrating with her, which meant everything would be different. So he was going to make this year extra special, so he'd remember it forever.

"Hi, Uncle Drystan!" he chorused from under Bess's arm when he saw the large man coming up the step, sliding away from her and bounding to a stop in front of him. "Are you excited for tomorrow? I'm excited for tomorrow. Mum bought me new wellies, and they're yellow."

His uncle raised his eyebrows and looked up towards his mum, a frown marring his brow.

"Mum said—" Stephen turned around to ask her, but she wasn't there. He blinked, certain she had been just a moment ago, prodding Aunt Penelope. "Mum?" He craned his head all around, but he didn't see her, or his dad. No one, actually, except Aunt Penelope, walking into another room down the hall, not even stopping to turn when he called her. Brows pulling together, he turned back to his uncle. "Uncle Drystan, I—" He paused and looked up at the man, who had a strange expression on his face, of unease and guilt. "Uncle Drystan, you don't look very well." When there was no response, Stephen tugged on his trousers. "Uncle Drystan?"

"Drystan?"

"Drystan."

He jerked awake.

Drystan was still blinking away visions of a strange dream when his muscles registered a crick in his neck. Disoriented, he blinked and shook his head before the dimly lit room swam into focus. A book lay facedown in his lap, and Bess was crouched by his chair, tugging her robe closed. Looking concerned, she laid a hand on his leg. "Is everything all right?"

Blinking again, he raised his eyes slowly to look at Stephen, sleeping peacefully in his bed with his fist tucked by his mouth.

"It is," he rumbled softly, readjusting himself. "It is, everything's fine. I just—I couldn't sleep and I thought—he was babbling, so I..."

"He must be excited. It is a big day for him," she mused, looking at the tiny sleeping form.

Drystan nodded, wiping at his jaw. "I can't believe he's going to be four." The number staggered him every time, he had to believe he'd made a mistake.

"We should consider investing in a time-turner," Bess whispered, giving him a look. "We need one." Leaning forward, she took his face in her hand and kissed him lightly on the lips, her fingers lingering on his cheek as she pulled away. "If everything's fine, you should come back to bed. It's late."

"I will, I... I'll just be a minute," he jerked his head toward the book and candlelight.

Bess nodded and stood, padding out and leaving him to sigh and blow out the candle. He tucked his finger in his place in the book and stood, stretching, unable to shake the strange, sinking feeling the dream he could not quite recall had given him.

Just as his hand touched the handle, he heard, "night, Da."

Drystan turned to look at the bed, where Stephen's eyes were slitted, clearly still half-sleep and most probably dreaming, himself.

"Goodnight," he whispered, walking back and kneeling down. Even as he kissed his forehead, the little boy's eyes were closing. Swallowing thickly, he could feel his throat starting to close as he traced a lock of hair on that fair head. "Happy birthday, boy-o."

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