by Apollo Surge
Elliot smiled at him, putting a hand over Sawyer's in the grass.
"Having a family is something I've always wanted," he said, looking back at the kids. "When I was younger I felt the same way you did. So my biggest fantasy was just… this. Being surrounded by people the same as me. And lately I keep thinking about how amazing it would be to raise a kid here."
"You know why I can't do that," Sawyer said quietly, picking at the grass, guilt gnawing at him.
"You aren't your dad, Sawyer," Elliot said, frowning at him.
"I can't risk it," Sawyer said, pulling his knees up to his chin. "I can't put someone else through what I went through. I don't want to be that."
"You aren't," Elliot insisted. "You won't be. You could use what happened to you. Give them the life you never had. I think you could be an amazing dad."
Elliot squeezed Sawyer's hand, but it wasn't that easy. Sawyer knew he had more than a little of his father's temper in him. He knew he was capable of violence. He'd hurt people before he came here. More than once. He'd done it on purpose and he hadn't regretted it. How could he be sure that temper wouldn't turn on his own kids, tell him he was justified in hurting them? That they deserved to-
He cut himself off, shaking his head to try and rid himself of those thoughts. He'd love to be a better parent than his father, to prove there was nothing of that man in him. But proving he was a better person than his father wasn't a good enough reason to risk putting a kid in that situation.
"Imagine them playing out here," Elliot said, smiling sadly at the crocodilian kids. "Climbing the big tree near the cabin, catching bugs in the long grass. Hiking out to the river in the summer. We could take them fishing. We could be fishing dads! Didn't you ever wish your dad was the type to take you fishing?"
Sawyer snorted, and kept the numerous unpleasant things he'd wished on his father to himself.
"And camping in the fall," Elliot went on, caught up in his own imagination. "Carving pumpkins, making a huge mess. Baking gingerbread cookies. Do you know how to make gingerbread?"
"I think I can manage one of those premade things where you just put the refrigerated dough on a pan," Sawyer said with a shrug. Elliot chuckled.
"Okay, so Jacob will bake with them," Elliot gave in. "But that's fine. In fact that's better. It won't be just us. They'll have this whole extended family! A big house full of people that love them, never without someone to talk to or play with or help them with their homework. God, can you imagine the holidays? They'd make out like bandits. You know Jacob and Mateo would try to outdo each other with gifts. We'd decorate the whole house, take turns being Santa, watch stupid old Christmas movies. Running together on their first New Year's full moon…"
He kept going, spinning postcard memories of birthdays and first school days and a house full of love and laughter. Sawyer listened quietly, feeling like someone was wringing his heart like a sponge. His eyes stung and he breathed deep through his nose to try and stop the tears before they started, not wanting Elliot to notice and get upset. Elliot made it sound so perfect. And, God help him, he wanted it. He wanted that feeling of being a family so much it hurt. But family had never had all the pleasant Hallmark associations for Sawyer that it seemed to have for Elliot. Family meant pain and disappointment. Because no matter how nice they seemed or how perfect it all was or how hard you tried, eventually it would all be taken away. Until eventually 'family' was just the people whose house you were sleeping in for the next couple of months until they shuffled you along to somewhere else. Getting attached was just asking to get hurt.
He gripped the grass tightly and tried to ground himself. This was different. This was real. He'd done his time waiting for the other shoe to drop here and it never did. They really wanted him here. This was his home. And if he could just get over himself and try, maybe he could even make himself believe that one day. And then maybe he could imagine that beautiful future Elliot described without only being able to imagine how it would end.
"Hey," Elliot said, leaning closer to him. "You all right?"
"Yeah," Sawyer lied, nodding.
"Sorry about all the kid talk," Elliot said, squeezing his hand. "I know it's kind of early for all of that anyway. It's just been on my mind. It's something I'm always going to want, but I understand how you feel too. So… maybe we can adopt a puppy or something. Like, a dog puppy. Not a- You know what I mean. We'll find a way to make it work. You're what matters most to me, hypothetical future kids or not."
Sawyer's heart squeezed again and he leaned into Elliot's shoulder. He took a deep breath, steadying his nerves.
"Elliot," he said quietly- "I-"
"Hey! Get down from there!" Elliot cut him off as he leapt to his feet to go and drag a small child off the roof of the cabin before they fell and hurt themselves. Sawyer watched him go, the words unspoken still heavy in his throat. Maybe he'd try again when Elliot came back. Maybe.
But as he waited he saw two of the older kids taking advantage of the distraction to sneak around the side of the cabin toward the trees. He got to his feet and ambled after them, catching up just as they were getting ready to climb over the fairy wards hung on strings between the trees.
"Hey," he called out. "That's a bad idea."
The kids were both around ten-ish, a scruffy girl with short hair and mud on her face and a heavy set boy. They looked up wide eyed at the sound, then took off running into the trees. Sawyer cursed, pulled his shirt off over his head and toed off his shoes and was in wolf shape a second later, running after the children.
He caught up before they'd gone more than few yards, darting ahead to slide to a stop in front of them, teeth bared in a dangerous snarl. The boy scrambled backwards and fell on his ass. The girl, to her credit, grew a few scales and hissed back at him.
"What do you two think you're doing?" he asked and saw them flinch in surprise as his voice appeared in their minds. Normally, only the pack could talk to one another while shifted. Sawyer supposed them being shifters on pack territory was close enough. "Did no one explain to you how dangerous it is to be out here?"
"It's not dangerous!" the girl insisted.
"There's no Fae here," the boy added, stammering as he stood up. "Mama said this place is protected."
"It is protected," Sawyer said. "But that doesn't mean they can't find a way in. We ran into three of them the day before yesterday. And more importantly, Fae aren't the only dangerous things out here! There's cliffs and snakes and bears and WOLVES."
He snapped at them to emphasize this last one and they both jumped back abruptly.
"You're only safe if you stay on the other side of the wards and with the rest of the group," Sawyer said. "Christ, even if the Court Fae can't get on the mountain, we still have wild fae out here! If you met the leshy in a bad mood he could eat you both before you could say 'gee, I really should have listened to all the adults who care about me and told me not to do this!'"
The boy sniffled, struggled to hide it, then failed, sobbing. The girl turned to put an arm around him, but she looked pretty harrowed as well.
"Shit," Sawyer muttered, ears flattening as guilt washed over him. "Hey, it's all right. You're fine. You don't need to cry about it."
"Are we really not safe?" the girl asked, her eyes round and pale. "Can the Fae really still get us, even here?"
Sawyer hesitated, struggling to find the right words.
"Yeah," he finally said. "I'm sorry kid. But yeah, they can even get to us here. We're doing everything we can to protect everyone, but it's still dangerous. That's why you and the other kids have to stay inside the wards and not put yourself at risk, understand?"
"We were supposed to be safe here," the boy sobbed. "We came all this way!"
"Hey, safety is a process, kid," Sawyer said and moved closer to awkwardly butt his head against the boy's side in a rough approximation of a comforting gesture. "We all have to work on it together. Anything can be unsafe if you act like an idiot and ignore the stuff that's s
upposed to protect you. But it's going to be all right. We're all working together to try and fix this."
It didn't seem like the kids were really listening. Sawyer sighed and nudged them both back toward the wards, wrestling with the weird guilt he felt at upsetting them.
"Listen," he said. "As long as you stay in the wards, you're going to be fine. I will personally kick the ass of any Fae that even looks in your direction wrong."
The boy gave him a weird look but the girl scoffed.
"You can't kick a Fae's ass," she said.
"Language," Sawyer snapped. "And the hell I can't."
"You can't fight Fae at all," the boy insisted. "Even Gustav couldn't fight them! You go to bite and they just aren't there, or they've already killed you before you could even get your teeth close."
"That's because you can't fight them head on," Sawyer explained as the kids climbed back over the wards. "You have to be clever about it. Outsmart them. Use their own rules against them. Throw me my clothes, would you?"
He stayed in the trees and waited until they'd thrown him his pants to shift back. He stepped back over the wards with his shirt still in his hand, not wanting to linger.
"I've already kicked the ass of one of the biggest fae there is," he said. The boy's eyes widened, but the girl looked skeptical. Sawyer tapped the scar in the center of his chest. "It's true. You can ask any of the rest of the pack. The King of the Wild Fae himself was trying to come out of the mountain and start trouble, and I kicked his ass. That's where I got this scar."
"Bullshit," the girl declared, though she looked half convinced, staring at the distinctively shaped scar. The boy looked slightly awed.
"Language," Sawyer reminded her, and pulled his shirt on. "And ask if you don't believe me."
He looked over, spotting Elliot, holding a squirming and very unhappy looking six year old and searching for him. He whistled to get the other man's attention. Elliot smiled with relief when he saw Sawyer.
"Hey, Elliot," Sawyer called out. "Didn't I kick the Erlking's ass?"
Elliot gave a short, surprised laugh.
"Well, yeah. I suppose you did."
"See?" Sawyer said to the kids. "Told you. And I'll do the same to any Court Fae dumb enough to come down here and mess with us."
The girl still didn't look completely convinced, but the boy was grinning again.
"If you're still worried about being safe," Sawyer added, scratching his head as he thought, "I can maybe talk Alicia and Serena into teaching you some ways to trick the fae if you run into one. Might be a good idea to teach some of the adults too, honestly."
"I'm not sure about that," Elliot said, walking over with the struggling six year still in his arms. "I'm no expert, but from what I've seen when it comes to magic a little knowledge can be more dangerous than none at all."
"It's worth asking Serena about," Sawyer said, then winced as the six year old settled into a piercing, furious wail. "What's up with that one?"
"Angry I won't let him jump off the roof," Elliot said, deadpan. "He thinks if he tries hard enough he can be an eagle instead of an alligator. What happened with yours?"
"Trying to sneak over the wards," Sawyer said, giving both kids a withering look as they started to edge away. Elliot went pale.
"We should tell their parents," Elliot said, and Sawyer saw the kids freeze in sudden terror.
"I don't think that's necessary," Sawyer said quickly, suddenly remembering being only a year or two younger than these kids and the fear that had gripped him every time he'd screwed up and knew his dad would find out. Like a fist squeezing your chest so tight you couldn't breathe. He didn't think these kids had parents like his, or at least he hoped not, but he still didn't want to put anyone through that kind of fear. "We talked about it. They aren't going to do it again. Right?"
He looked to the kids, raising his eyebrows emphatically, and they both nodded quickly.
"Promise," Sawyer demanded. "Because if you do it anyway and they find out I didn't tell them the first time, I'll be the one who gets in trouble, got it?"
"We promise," the boy said instantly, then elbowed the girl until she grudgingly agreed.
"We promise."
"Good," Sawyer said, satisfied, though Elliot looked less than convinced. "Now get lost."
He shooed them off toward where the other kids were playing and they hurried away, looking relieved.
"Good catch," Elliot said, still ignoring the screaming six year old in his arms as they started walking back toward the front of the cabin. "God only knows what might have happened if they'd been running around out there alone."
"I can understand why they wanted to get away from the wards though," Sawyer said, looking around at the tent-crowded yard and the tired looking adults, newly homeless and depending on the charity of strangers just to get by, with no idea what kind future they might have. He would have wanted to go hide in the woods too. "Maybe we could, like, take them all on a hike sometime? As a group, with protections and stuff?"
"A lot could go wrong during something like that," Elliot said with a frown. "Maybe when we're more sure what the deal with the protections on the mountain is. Serena's digging into it."
Sawyer nodded in understanding and they went to deliver the six year old in full tantrum mode to the caretakers, who explained that he'd been trying to 'become an eagle' since before the fae stuff even started. Other chores pulled them away, but Sawyer's mind kept drifting back to them, worrying. Elliot's fantasies weighed heavily on his mind as well, heavy as the secret that weighed like a lead canon ball in his gut. It was beginning to make his back hurt. He wasn't going to be able to hide this much longer.
Chapter Nine
"Elliot's right," Serena said over dinner that night when Sawyer brought up teaching the crocodilians Fae-tricking methods. "Knowing a little about fairies will get you killed faster than knowing nothing. You can't just use the same tricks on every Fae. You have to able to correctly identify it first, and even then there are a bunch of other external factors that can affect what tricks will work or not."
"You don't think just a few small things could be helpful?" Sawyer insisted. "Like the, uh, the putting your coat on backwards thing? Or carrying iron? Iron hurts all fae, right?"
"Yeah," Serena confirmed. "So some of them will avoid you. Others will just get offended and try harder to kill you, which they will now be completely within their rights to do by Fae law."
"It's like picking wild mushrooms," Alicia added. "You heard red and white mushrooms are deadly, so you avoid those. But you decide this mushroom you found is safe because it's brown and wrinkly and maybe your guide book has a picture of a morel and it looks pretty much the same, but it actually turns out to be gyromitra, and six hours later you're vomiting everywhere and shitting your insides out, and then you go into convulsions and die."
Everyone at the table cringed simultaneously.
"Good metaphor babe," Serena said with a strained smile, patting Alicia on the shoulder. "Really, that's pretty much the nail on the head though. You misidentify a fae and try to challenge it because you think you know the right way to drive it off, it can get you killed. It's safer if everyone just stays inside the wards and doesn't get it into their heads that Fae are something you can deal with safely."
"So, we teach them how to identify correctly first," Sawyer argued. "I'm just saying, if the situation keeps up, eventually they're going to run into something. We can't just bank on it never happening."
"I think it would be wiser to focus on dealing with the situation at its source," Jacob spoke up from further down the table. "If we deal with the Fae, they won't be at risk of encountering them."
"I mean, is that even true?" Sawyer frowned, pushing his food around his plate. "Even if we figure out whatever is letting them get into our territory and fix it, they'll still be everywhere else. The crocodilians can't stay here forever."
"He has a point," Elliot agreed. "Both courts are clearly up to something,
some kind of escalation of their usual shenanigans. They hardly ever bother to steal shifters, let alone attack whole populations of them. And all the shifters in the world aren't going to be able to stop the courts from fighting, any more than we could stop the seasons. This may just be the new normal. We should be preparing for that."
Everyone at the table looked slightly uncomfortable at that idea, shifting silently in their seats.
"I have sent a request for information to the Council," Serena said, taking a deep breath. "I made some good connections there during everything that happened with the Wild Hunt, so we may actually get an answer. If anyone knows what's going on with the courts, it's them. Several of the major Council members concentrate on Fae issues. And the Courts are supposed to be balanced. A sudden change like this is a big deal. The Council is probably already moving to counter it. We just have to hold out until it passes. Like a storm."
"And how long does the Council usually take to fix something like this?" Sawyer frowned, leaning toward her over his plate. "Has something like this ever happened before?"
"I'm sure it has." Serena looked away, pursing her lips. "The Courts are always trying to get one up on each other. It won't take the Council that long to handle it."
Sawyer wasn't quite so convinced.
"Maybe a small primer on identifying fae?" Alicia suggested after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "Nothing about how to fight them. Just a few notes on how to tell what they are and what they're capable of? Maybe avoiding common traps like fairy rings?"
Serena sighed.
"I guess we could try," she agreed. "If you're okay with it, Elliot?"
Elliot blinked and sat up straighter as all eyes at the table turned to him.
"Uh, yeah. If you think it's a good idea, it probably won't hurt."
"All right." Serena rubbed her eyelids. "I'll try to write up a lesson plan or something. Can you talk with Cuvier about, like, arranging a schedule or something? There's so many people we may need to split them up. Maybe ten adults in the morning, ten around midday, and the kids in the afternoon? Christ, that's like a full time job."