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nordschleifes · 6 months

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extra — que me paso?

➝ fernando is heartbroken. but the show must go on.

➝ word count: 3,7k

➝ warnings: alcohol consumption, angst, puppets

➝ author's note: for all intents and purposes, all dialogues between fernando, alberto and the el hormiguero team are in spanish, however, translated for easier reading. i'm sorry for breaking your heart again, marco. tagging @christianpulisic10, @alonsogirlie and @enaticosencantados as requested.

Staring into space, the words repeated inside Fernando's head.

— We've gone too far — Charlie said, her eyes full of tears, her wet hair falling over her green uniform.

“But does that mean, too far?”, he asked himself, as his mind replayed the moment when he watched, paralyzed, the woman he loved slipping through his fingers and disappearing from the suite.

He couldn't remember feeling such pain before in his life. Not even with all of the heartbreaks and injuries he’d suffered in the course of his life, this one felt different. Fernando didn't understand how or why, but what had happened in Japan had cut him more deeply than any wound he’d ever suffered.

Maybe it was the fact that he said those three words with complete conviction that he would be reciprocated. Maybe it was the fact that he saw love in those beautiful blue eyes. Perhaps it was the fact that they had walked such a long path, filled with so much strife and pain, only to find more sadness and frustration.

In his hands, the phone's screen lit up with a notification. However, the simple eye movement made Fernando's heart ache again. It wasn't a message from the woman who was smiling, hugging her cat, in the background of the device. And if it wasn't her, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

— Fer?

He looked up to find Alberto sitting right next to him, staring at him with a worried expression.

— What? — Fernando muttered, turning off the cell phone screen.

— You're thinking about her again, aren't you? — his friend asked softly.

He snorted, feeling defeated. There was no point in denying it, Alberto knew him like no one else. There was a reason that his name wasn’t listed in Fernando’s contacts as Alberto or his nickname, Galle, but hermano. He was the brother life had given him.

— I am.

The friend pursed his lips.

— Hasn’t she answered you?

— No — Fernando muttered.

— Not even the note at the factory?

— She read it, saw me at the door of the engineering office, and threw it in the trash.

— Oh — Alberto said quietly, seeming to absorb the impact of Charlie's attitude. Something that Fernando was still trying to do, even if it filled his chest with inexplicable anguish — So, you don't think it’s time to…

— No — the driver said, not waiting for him to finish the question. He already knew what Alberto was going to ask him and Fernando was absolutely sure of the answer — I'm not going to give up on her.

— Fer, Charlie doesn’t…

— She'll talk to me, I know she will — he replied — I'll convince her to talk to me.

— And how do you intend to do that?

— I — Fernando began, before being interrupted by the door to the green room opening Sara, the show's producer, came in, her curly hair tied on top of her head and a friendly expression on her face.

— Could you come with me, Fernando?

Forcing a smile, the driver got up, brushing past Alberto in silence and following Sara out of the room. While she was talking about the segments that would be recorded that afternoon, they passed by a window, where the Madrid landscape lay gray and melancholy.

It was exactly how Fernando felt.

Charlie was like the sun and Fernando bitterly regretted having hidden from her shine for so long. It had only been in the last few months that he started to realize how she brought color and joy to his life. Simply getting a message from her wishing him a good morning was able to make all problems disappear from Fernando's day. There were no clouds when she was around, let alone rain or cold.

Charlie was light. Charlie was warmth. Charlie was life.

— Alejandro, can you put the mic on him? — Sara said, bringing him back to the present.

— Of course — the dark brown-haired man replied, approaching him with a nervous little smile. Fernando couldn't help noticing that his hands were shaking as he clipped the microphone to the collar of the white shirt he was wearing underneath his black leather jacket.

— Are you okay? — the driver asked, which made the man look up, his eyes wide with shock, as if he couldn't believe Fernando was talking to him.

— Me? Yeah, I'm fine.

— You're shaking — he said seriously.

— It's not every day that I put a microphone on my childhood idol — the man said, before handing over the transmitter for Fernando to clip to his pants. As he looked at the young production assistant, Fernando felt strangely old, as if he had only just now realized that he was 42 years old. He didn’t often feel his age, especially when he was with Charlie. She was able to bring the fresh-faced 22 year old Formula 1 rookie out of him. She was able to bring out the boy full of dreams, desires and plans for his own future.

All of them had Charlie included.

— Pablo just finished his monologue and he's going to introduce you, okay? — Sara said, and Fernando nodded. Taking a deep breath, he tried to focus on what he needed to do. He was used to performing as an athlete, and this was no different. “Promoting the Las Vegas Grand Prix, talking about the performance this year and the search for the third championship”, Alberto repeated in his head.

— Today, who comes to have fun at El Hormiguero is the two-time Formula 1 champion and Aston Martin driver, Fernando Alonso!

The audience's applause was the cue for him to enter the studio, an artificial smile screwed on his face. After greeting Pablo warmly with a hug, he walked to the stand, waving to the audience before taking his seat. When the music ceased in the studio, Pablo turned to him and smiled.

— Welcome, Fernando, how are you?

— I'm good — he said, with a smile.

— It's been a long time since you've been here, hasn't it?

— Yes, I think I last came in person in 2019, and then only by video call.

— And a lot has changed since then, hasn't it?

— Yes, a lot — Fernando said, trying to remember where he was in his life the last time he was there. He had just competed in the Dakar and was back in Formula 1, despite all the resistance from his family and Linda, his girlfriend at the time. At that moment, she seemed like a distant memory, a flash overshadowed by…

— But they certainly changed for the better — Pablo continued — You spent two years at Alpine and then, with Vettel's retirement, you took over his seat at Aston Martin. And from there, you started stringing up spectacular results.

— Yes…

— This season, there were three wins, in addition to seven podiums, all in your first year with the team — Pablo said, eliciting applause from the audience. Fernando gave a small smile, a bittersweet feeling rising in his chest.

— Yes, it was indeed an excellent first year, better than I could have imagined. The car is very good and the team is brilliant, so it's impossible not to have a good season.

More applause, more smiles. Until that moment, a perfect interpretation of the happy and successful driver who was there to promote the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Spanish television. A performance worthy of a Goya award.

— The next race is in Las Vegas, right? — the presenter asked.

— That's right, we're heading back there.

— There were races in Las Vegas before?

— Yes, there were some in the 80s, but on a much smaller circuit. Now we're going to race on a new circuit, designed for today's cars.

— And what do you think of this new circuit?

— Well, at first I thought it would be a slower circuit, just like Baku, because it is a street layout, with many turns and a long straight but it has several straights, and it is extremely fast.

— Fast in which sense? — Pablo asked, laughing — It's because you have a different concept of fast than we do, you know?

— I think it is possible to hit 360 kilometers per hour, considering the DRS and the clean air of the other cars.

The presenter and the audience seemed impressed, some even scared, by this information. After questioning about the layout, the difficulties and the reason why they would be racing on Saturday night and not Sunday, Pablo adjusted the round-framed glasses on the top of his nose.

— And what do you expect from this race? — he asked.

— I believe we have everything to make a good fight against Mercedes and Red Bull. Both myself and the team's engineers are optimistic about the simulations and data we already have from the track and we have everything to have a very positive weekend in Vegas.

The television host smiled broadly at him.

— Well, since you mentioned engineers, we have a few things to show you today. Laura, please.

Turning his face to the projector screen to his left, Fernando felt his chest sink as a video played on the giant screen, repeated on the smaller studio monitors across the soundstage.

— Are you ready? — he heard his own voice say through the studio's audio system. In the projected image, he was looking into the passenger seat of the DB12, at Silverstone. Charlie was seated next to him, her bangs barely visible under the edge of a black helmet with a visor strip that had the Pirelli Logo with the words “Hot Laps”.

— Of course I am! — she replied, smiling — Don’t go easy on me, either.

The video cut to the moment when he stepped on the accelerator, accelerating down the straight to the sound of the 680-horsepower V8 engine and Charlie's laughter. She squealed with joy as her hands tightened on the leather seat in a vain attempt to keep herself stable as Fernando contourned the Village.

— Come on, is that all you can do? — she asked in a loud voice, trying to overcome the roar of the engine, looking at Fernando with a mischievous gleam in her eyes — I thought you were a two-time world champion!

— If you say so — the driver muttered, hitting the Wellington straight, the numbers on the car's dashboard skyrocketing. The loud rumble made her put her hand on his arm, pulling away as he slowed briefly to round Luffield and head toward Copse.

Hearing her laughter, Fernando watched as the two rocked side to side as they passed Maggots and Becketts. Charlie looked completely fulfilled there, urging him to go faster even in corners where he was being more conservative. She was intense, direct, deep and passionate about what she did.

No wonder he couldn’t help but fall in love with her. It was as easy as breathing.

The applause from the audience brought Fernando back to reality, meeting the curious look of Pablo, who had a slight smile.

— Well, we've seen this lady several times with you during the season, accompanying you during the weekends, talking to you before the races and even on your social media, like on your birthday...

— Yes, that’s Charlie. Well, her name is Charlotte, but her nickname is Charlie — the driver replied, giving a small smile when he saw the photo he had posted to his Instagram. She was posing with the cake she had requested to come to their table on the night of his birthday, in Belgium, the words “happy birthday, asshole” written in chocolate syrup.

— She's your engineer, right?

— Yes, my race engineer.

— And what does she do, exactly?

— Well, all drivers have race engineers, who are the people who inform us about what is happening on the track, the condition of the car, whether it will rain or not, a bridge between the driver and the outside world.

— So she's the one who tells you everything, basically the voice in your head when you're driving?

— Something like that — Fernando replied, chuckling.

— But this isn't the first time you've worked together, is it? You two worked together at McLaren before your sabbatical, didn't you?

— That's right — he said, looking at the photo they'd retrieved of the two of them talking, both dressed in black and white and with less than happy expressions in their faces. Her hair was blonde then, and she had a different haircut, without the fringe bangs she had now. She looked like a different person — We worked together at McLaren for four years. She was my performance engineer at the time.

— Well, that explains a lot the closeness between you that we can see on television…

— Yeah, it does — Fernando replied — The fact that we had worked together helped a lot in my arrival at Aston Martin, since I came from a team with a different project, a different vision, different equipment, while she had been there for a longer time.

— And is it always this quick for an engineer and a driver to get into this sort of marriage, so to speak? Or is it something particular to you, because you already know each other?

The word marriage made his stomach churn.

— Well, the truth is that there is no formula to make a partnership like this work. Other drivers use different ways to maintain this relationship. Lance, my teammate, for example, likes to go cycling with his engineer, Ben. I know that Hamilton likes to run with his and Ocon likes to travel to the circuits with his.

— And what do you do with Charlie?

“We fuck”, he thought, smiling to mask his discomfort.

— A little bit of everything — Fernando finally answered — We eat together, travel together and we are always in touch, even when there's no race.

— Did you ever fight?

— Sometimes.

— So it's like a real marriage — Pablo said, making the audience laugh and Fernando give a weak smile — And, between us, being married to a beautiful woman like her shouldn't be difficult at all, right?

The driver laughed, nodding.

— She would hate you saying that, Pablo.

— Uh, why?

— Nothing annoys Charlie more than that.

— Being called pretty?

— Being summarized as just a pretty woman, because she is so much more than that.

Pablo’s expression lit up with curiosity.

— Oh, tell us more.

— Charlie is extremely intelligent, intuitive and observant. She is not satisfied with points or podiums, she wants victories, championships, trophies. She is ambitious and has the same hunger to win that I have and that, in a way, brought us together. And that makes her one of the best race engineers in Formula 1, if not the best.

— A strong statement, Fernando…

— Not to mention what she’s like as a person, outside of work. She's funny, loving, and caring, plus she has amazing taste in music. Anyway, she is much more than a pretty face and I admire that about her. I admire her and am proud to have her by my side — he finished, the last sentence making something ache in his chest. Charlie wasn't there for him anymore, she never would be, as much as he wanted her to.

— Putting it that way, I think we're going to have to have her here sometime, aren't we? — Pablo said, turning to the audience. Fernando forced another smile, trying to hide his own pain.

The rest of the recording was a blur, the questions and jokes mixing with the memories of Charlie inside his mind. Everything reminded him of her, from the comments about cats to the moment when Trancas, one of the puppets, asked if he had ever forgotten an important date, like a girlfriend's birthday. The bouquet of English roses he had sent to Charlie's suite on the morning of October 23rd was proof that he would never be able to do this.

At the end of his guest appearance, Fernando said goodbye to the show’s production team and got into the car with Alberto, who suggested that the two of them go somewhere to eat, which he accepted, without paying much attention, his eyes lost in the streets of Madrid. Stopping the car in front of a bar that he didn't bother to see what it was, the two sat down at an empty table, being promptly served. After Alberto asked for sparkling water and a board of jamón and cheese, the waiter turned to Fernando.

— And you, sir, what do you want?

Usually he asked for water or juice, even a soda when he wanted something different, but always without alcohol. However, he needed something stronger than Coke that night.

— I'll have a beer — he said flatly.

Fernando didn't tell how many glasses of beer he had drunk until the end of the night, much less how he got back to the hotel they were staying in downtown. Still in the clothes he'd worn on the recording of the show, he was sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling. In his head, Charlie's laugh echoed like a distant memory, her smile wide as she held the team trophy at Suzuka.

He needed to hear her voice again. He needed her.

Picking up the phone, Fernando tapped the screen a few times until he found Charlie's number in the contact list. Pressing the green button next to her nickname, the long beeps made his heart sink. She hadn't answered any of his calls so far, why she would…

— Hello? Fernando? — he heard Charlie say on the other end of the line. His heart leapt in his chest, his mind slow to process an answer. After so much time trying to talk to her, the driver had no idea what to say — Are you there?

— Charlie — he drawled in a slurred voice — You answered me…

— You called me at two in the morning, I thought it might be an emergency.

— It's an emergency — Fernando said, the words slowly coming out of his mouth.

A few seconds of silence passed.

— Fernando, are you drunk?

— Yes…

— You never drink — Charlie stated.

— I wanted to drink today.

— Why?

— I was missing you — Fernando murmured.

She sighed on the other end of the line.

— You know you can't drink. It's not good for you.

The driver was silent, processing Charlie's words. There seemed to be concern in her tone. But why was she worried?

— It's not like you care...

— Of course I do, Fernando — she replied on the other end of the line, seeming outraged by that idea — I care so much that I'm going to send a message to Alberto now...

— He was with me — Fernando replied.

— And he allowed you to drink that much?

— He's not my mother.

Charlie was silent for long seconds, looking like she didn't have any arguments to rebut him.

— And why did you call me? — she finally asked, making him sit on the bed.

— Because we need to talk.

— Fernando…

— It's no use saying we don't need it, Charlie, we need to talk and sort it out.

— But we can't do that over the phone...

— Why not? — Fernando said, in a harsh tone that, in a way, reflected the pain he felt — You refuse to look me in the face since that night in Suzuka. You barely talk to me during debriefs. You ignored my note at the factory and the flowers I sent you for your birthday.

— But I thanked you...

— Do you know how many flower shops I had to call to get that bouquet? More than seven! — he continued, feeling his eyes fill with tears — I don't know what to do to show you that I'm serious.

— Fernando, please — Charlie said quietly.

— Why don't we settle this now? — the driver questioned, feeling his voice crack.

— Because you're drunk, Fernando, and it’s late — Charlie exclaimed — You shouldn’t even be awake right now, never mind having a serious discussion about our relationship.

— I'm perfectly in a position to discuss our relationship.

— For God's sake, it's two in the morning!

— Fuck, Charlotte! — he yelled, tears streaming down his face — It doesn't change anything! It doesn't change the fact that I want to give you everything. I want to give you a home, a family, a future. I want to give you my days and my nights and everything in between.

— Fernando!

— I only want one thing from you, and that's your fucking heart! Why are you making things difficult? Why can't you be happy with me? I'm not enough for you, is that it?

Charlie sighed on the other end of the line, clearly annoyed.

— This is exactly why I don’t want to discuss this with you right now.

— Why?

— Because won’t listen to me!

— And did you think of listening to me in Suzuka, Charlotte?

She sighed.

— Listen, we're going to talk about this in person, calmly, like two adults, and not over the phone after you’ve been drinking.

He stared into space in silence for long seconds.

— Are you going to run away again? — Fernando murmured.

— No, I won't.

— When? — he asked, a spark of hope lighting up in his heart. Maybe if they talked, Charlie would finally be honest with him and herself. Maybe Fernando could convince her that he was the perfect person for her.

— In Las Vegas — she replied, making him feel dismayed.

— But that's a week from now! — he whined.

— Fernando…

— Why don't you fly to Lugano? Or, I can go to your house so we can talk? I can get a last-minute flight…

— You're not going to get a flight, Fernando. You're going to take a shower, take some paracetamol and go to sleep — she replied. Her voice reminded him of the way his mother spoke to him when he was younger, which made him briefly imagine what it would be like to see her taking care of their kids — You’ll feel much better in the morning.

— Fine — Fernando finally relented, passing a hand over his wet face.

— We'll talk, but in Vegas, in person, okay?

— Okay.

— Now, go do what I told you.

— Okay — he said, in a low voice.

— Good night, Fernando.

— Good night. I love you — the driver replied, hoping to hear the same back. However, instead of the sound of Charlie's voice, he heard the beep that indicated that the call had ended.

“Maybe she doesn't love me in the end”, Fernando thought to himself, letting himself fall onto the mattress again.

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ironychan · 3 months

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Homecoming

Part One - Arrival

Part Two - Discovery

@writer652 @dysphoria-sweatshirt @careless-whispers

Maria woke up in the middle of the night when she heard the clatter of wood, and sat up sharply, blinking in the dark. Had something fallen over? Was there a stranger in the tower? She couldn't see any familiar shapes in the half-light. Had somebody...

Then she remembered – she was not in the tower. She was in her childhood room, now turned into a nursery for Massimo and Helena's baby. She'd been asleep on the mattress on the floor, and Alberto was in her arms, now awake and whimpering. The window was open, and the sound she'd heard was the wind blowing the shutters against the wall.

Shaking slightly, Maria got to her feet and shut the window, sliding the latch into place with a soft whine of rusty metal. Then she sat down again and gathered Alberto up for a hug, reaching under his shirt to rub his back.

“It's okay,” she soothed. “It's just the wind. We're warm and safe in here. Uncle Massimo and Aunt Helena are going to look after us.” At least, she hoped they would. As long as she managed to keep Alberto's secret.

She lay down again, and Alberto curled up against her. It was nice to be back inside a real building. They'd put up canvas at the tower to keep the worst of the weather out, and Giancarlo had always talked about repairing the wall properly someday. He'd never gotten around to it, though, and stormy nights like this had been terrible.

Maria had to wonder what Giancarlo was doing right now. He'd probably been back to the island, and discovered his wife and son were missing. If he looked, he would find the boat in Portorosso's little harbour. What if he came to the door and showed her up as a liar? What if he revealed his son's transformations in front of everybody? Would Massimo pull one of those harpoons off the wall and run him through? Would he then do the same to Alberto?

She shook her head and stroked her son's curls. Thinking about what if was never productive. She just had to take things as they came. Hopefully she was up to it, for Alberto's sake.

In the morning it was still wet and stormy out. Maria could see the boats in the harbour, riding up and down on the swells, and the leaves on the tree outside were thrashing in the wind. It seemed a luxury to be indoors, even as the walls creaked and the radiator whistled.

“Good morning,” said Helena, appearing at the door with a bundle in her arms. “I brought you some spare clothes... I won't fit back into these until well after the baby arrives.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Maria. She was too tall to borrow clothing from most women, but Helena was almost as tall as she. “You don't have anything that would work for Alberto, do you?”

Helena shook her head. “We've got baby clothes, but nothing big enough for him.”

“I'll make do,” Maria promised.

Helena's dresses were a little tight, but not too much. Maria washed up and dressed, changed Alberto's nappy, and headed downstairs.

She found Helena sitting in the kitchen with her bare feet up, eating some rather damp pastries Massimo had brought back from the baker, and surrounded by sketches. Maria came to see what she'd been drawing, and found a dozen views of Portorosso and the dramatic cliffs and terrace farms that surrounded the town.

“These are lovely,” she said. They made her dull little hometown look like a place from a fairy tale.

“Thank you,” Helena replied. “I got accepted to art school in Firenze, but then I met Massimo, and you know how plans change.”

“Yes, I do,” Maria agreed. Except... she really hadn't had any plans until she'd met Giancarlo. Only vague dreams of doing something with her life besides selling fish in the middle of nowhere. The two of them had then made plans together, how they were going to travel the whole world and see its wonders... but then, yes, things had changed.

"I'd wanted to spend a year in the countryside and paint, anyway,” Helena added. “This is such a beautiful town. There's always something new here. The sun hits the roofs in a different place each day, the sea has a thousand moods, the stars reflect on the water... I could paint this place for a thousand years and never run out of subjects.”

That sounded bizarre to somebody who'd always thought of Portorosso as the most boring place in the world. “Where are you from?” Maria asked, sitting down at the table.

Helena offered her the soggy paper bag with the pastries. “Genova. Not far away, I guess, but it feels like a million miles sometimes. It's so much bigger and busier there, all crowds and noise. Portorosso is so peaceful.”

Dull. Portorosso was dull. Genova had always sounded like a metropolis, like a place where big and exciting things were always happening. It wouldn't have occurred to Maria to think of it as crowded and loud.

“There's coffee,” Helena added.

“Oh, thank you.” Maria fished a pastry out of the bag for Alberto, and went to pour herself a cup.

Alberto examined this strange foodstuff. They'd had bread sometimes on the island, when Giancarlo brought it back from the various places he'd been working, but most of their food had always come from the sea. The cream-filled croissant didn't look like anything the baby had ever been given before. He dug his fat little fingers into it and pulled it apart, fascinated by the filling oozing out. Finally he thought to taste it, and his face lit up. He stuffed the rest in his mouth.

“Is that good?” asked Maria, sitting down beside him with her coffee.

Alberto grinned with his mouth full and his cheeks puffed out, and reached for the cup.

“Ah, ah, this is not for you,” Maria told him. “You can have a drink when I'm done.” He really was too old to nurse anymore, but she hadn't had a lot of other treats to offer him. Now that they were in town, the baby could be properly weaned. That would be a relief.

“He's so curious,” said Helena fondly, as Alberto sucked pastry crumbs off his fingers.

Maria moved a little, so that Helena would not be able to see if Alberto's hands began to turn purple. “This is a new place,” she said, “but he's a bright little fellow.” Alberto always needed to investigate and study everything shown to him, from snails on rocks to pieces of sea glass.

“According to the newspaper, the rain is supposed to let up later,” said Helena. “We could do some shopping. He'll need new clothes and so will you.”

“That's a good idea. I'll pay you back when I have the money,” Maria promised.

“If that would make you feel better,” Helena said. “Massimo told me you'd always been very independent.” She watched as Alberto slid down from his seat to start exploring the kitchen again. “I think he must take after you that way.”

“He does,” Maria agreed. “He tries to dress himself but he always gets stuck. He'll manage someday.” She looked around the kitchen, to make sure there were no more buckets of water and creatures sitting around.

Helena noticed. “Massimo delivered the lobsters last night,” she assured Maria.

Massimo himself joined them a few minutes later, his hair and shoulders wet from being outdoors where he'd been checking on the boat. “The water is too rough for fishing this morning,” he said, without any other greeting to the women. “I may go out later if it calms.” He sat down, and Maria pushed the coffee pot towards him. Massimo nodded thanks and poured himself a cup, then sat and watched his nephew opening and closing cupboard doors. “How is he this morning?”

“Into everything already,” said Helena. “Maria and I may go out shopping later, since we were saying he needs things.”

Massimo nodded.

It was always difficult to tell what Massimo was thinking. Maria had once been good at it, but she'd been away for a long time, and she'd gotten used to Giancarlo, who showed everything he was thinking on his face even if he sometimes put great effort into lying about it. Was there something on Massimo's mind, or was he just being his usual quiet self?

“Is something wrong?” asked Helena.

“Maria's boat is gone,” said Massimo.

Maria's heart leaped into her throat. Giancarlo must have come back for it. Why hadn't he visited the house? Was it because he was afraid of Massimo? Or had he been there looking in the window while she'd closed the shutters in the middle of the night? The idea made her shudder. “I must not have tied it properly,” she said. “I didn't think what would happen if the wind came up.”

Massimo gave her a sideways look. He knew she was good with knots. “Somebody went through the equipment in mine, too. Nothing was taken, but I brought everything back to the Pescheria.”

Maria bit her lip, wondering what Giancarlo had been looking for.

“That'll be a very wet and disappointed thief in this weather,” was Helena's only observation.

Maria was terrified that one or the other of them would realize she was hiding something and demand more information, but neither did. Once breakfast was over, Massimo went downstairs to go through the shop, sorting yesterday's catch into what was still fresh enough to sell and what would have to be turned into fertilizer. Maria would have offered to help, but she would have had to take Alberto with her, and the Pescheria would be full of water and ice. Instead, she helped Helena clean up the plates and cups.

“When are you due?” Maria asked the other woman.

“Six weeks,” Helena replied, running an affectionate hand over her belly. “It can't come soon enough, honestly. I'm getting so tired of hauling this extra weight around.”

Alberto chose that moment to tug on Maria's skirt, and she scooped him up and poked the end of his nose with her finger. “You really think that ends when they're born?”

“I guess not!” Helena said with a laugh, “but at least you can switch arms when one gets tired!”

The weather remained windy and grey, but the rain petered out by lunchtime, and Helena and Maria were able to go for their shopping trip. Even after promising to pay it back, Maria didn't want Helena to spend too much money on her, so she chose their first stop: a place that sold second-hand clothing and furniture, halfway up the hill. The break in the weather meant that more people were outside now, hoping to get a few tasks done before it started again.

“Hello, Maria!” Concetta Aragosta called out, as she and her friend Pinuccia passed. “Ottavia Brugnole said you were back.”

“That I am,” Maria replied, a bit puzzled by the greeting. The Aragosta ladies mostly kept to themselves, and didn't seem to be related to anybody else in town as far as Maria knew. They'd never spoken to her before.

Then again, after Signora Brugnole had been the first person to see her back, it was probably the talk of the town: Maria Marcovaldo returns, dressed in rags and carrying a toddler. Maria hadn't thought about that. She'd been so worried about what Massimo would think of her reappearance that it hadn't occurred to her to wonder what other people might say, any more than it had what she would say to them. Were they picturing her as fallen woman, wandering the world in rags with some stranger's bastard on her back?

But Concetta and Pinuccia did not look scandalized or even unhappy. They were smiling kindly as they came closer, and Alberto, who was alert and looking around in Maria's arms at all these new things, greeted them with the same wide eyes as he had every other stranger.

“Hello, there, little fellow!” Pinuccia said, wiggling her fingers at him in a wave. “Has your mummy got you out and about today?”

“Will his father be joining you?” Concetta wanted to know, although she sounded dubious.

Maria shook her head. “His father is... no longer with us.” It was so much harder to lie to somebody's face than it had been to do so to Helena's back last night.

“I'm so sorry,” said Pinuccia.

“If you need any help with the baby, you can always come and ask us,” Concetta added. “I promise, we know all about unusual children.” She winked.

Maria stared at her. What did she mean, unusual children? Did she know? How was that possible? She held Alberto a little tighter, making him squirm.

“We'll see you around and about, we're sure,” said Concetta.

“Arrivederci,” Pinuccia agreed, and the two of them puttered off.

Helena watched them go with a puzzled expression. “Do you know them very well?” she asked Maria.

“No,” Maria replied, just as confused as her new sister-in-law. “I think that's the first time I've ever spoken to them. I was right about Signora Brugnole, though,” she added. “She told everybody.”

“She certainly did,” Helena nodded. “We'll be hearing all kinds of theories about where you've been, I'm sure.”

When they walked into the second-hand shop, the woman behind the counter turned to her teenage son, who was assisting her, and said in a low voice, “that's her. That's Maria Marcovaldo.” Then she flashed a bright smile and approached the two women. “Welcome, Signora Marcovaldo,” she said in a much louder voice. “And welcome back, Signorina Marcovaldo – I'd heard you were back in town.”

Maria hadn't been addressed as Signorina Marcovaldo since she'd left home, and she wasn't sure now whether it was a good idea to start again. She didn't particularly want to use Giancarlo's surname, but being miss while carrying a small child would only make her a pariah. So she said, “it's Signora Scorfano.”

“Oh, so sorry,” said the woman, her smile not faltering a moment. “Signora Scorfano. I expect you need something to wear, and something for your boy, as well.”

It really was that obvious, wasn't it? “Yes, please.”

Alberto was the most important thing, so Maria went to the children's section first. She found him a lovely little set of rust-coloured overalls with sailboat on the front, and a yellow shirt to go with them. This was far more clothing than Alberto was used to, and he squirmed and complained as she put it on him in the changing room. As soon as she had the last button done, he escaped his mother's arms and went running out into the shop again.

Maria ran after and scooped him up, and Helena laughed at the sight.

“You come back here, you little scamp!” said Maria with a laugh. She gave Alberto a kiss on each cheek as he continued to wriggle. “Look at you, you look so handsome!”

“Doesn't he just?” Helena agreed with a grin.

“We'll take this set,” Maria told the shopkeeper. “Let me find a few more.”

She chose a couple more little outfits for Alberto, and then two inexpensive dresses for herself. Both of these would have to be let down before she could wear them, but that would give her something to do for the afternoon, at least. They paid the shopkeeper, and then Helena insisted on treating Maria to lunch at the trattoria on the Piazza. The sun was starting to come out now, glinting on the puddles and sparkling in the spray from the fountain. Fishermen were mopping rainwater off the decks of their boats before heading out to make up for lost time.

“Massimo will want us to hurry,” Helena observed. “He'll have work to do. So many of the men in Genova have office jobs nowadays, I always just assumed I'd marry a man who'd be doing that. A fisherman's schedule is so different.”

“Is that a good thing, or bad?” Maria asked.

“Oh, it's good,” said Helena. “On a rainy day in Genova, everybody goes to work like normal. On a rainy day here, we get to linger over breakfast and spend a little more time together. I still get to have a routine, but instead of just one, I have several, and it's a surprise in the morning which one I'll need to follow today. Now that I've lived here a while, I think trying to live in the city again would bore me to tears.” She'd been watching pigeons peck at crumbs under a neighbouring table, but now she looked at Maria with a smile. “Your husband was a diver. I imagine that was very unpredictable.”

“Yes,” Maria said. “We moved around a lot as he looked for work. Until Alberto came along, of course. Then we had to settle down.”

“Where were you living?” Helena inquried.

Maria hadn't thought of an answer to that. They'd been on that awful little island since about three months before Alberto was born. She wasn't about to tell anyone the truth. For one thing, it might lead them to Giancarlo, but for another, and perhaps more importantly, she was rather ashamed of it. The island had seemed like a good place to stay while they sorted the situation out, but then they'd somehow just never left. It hadn't been a very nice place to live, certainly no place to raise a child, but they hadn't known what else to do. Why hadn't she left months ago?

“We were in Montpellier when Giancarlo died,” Maria decided. They had stopped in that city, so she'd be able to answer questions about it if anyone asked. “I came back as fast as I could, but I didn't have much money.”

“I'm glad you made it,” said Helena. “It'll be okay now, I promise.” She smiled gently. “Massimo is so happy you're home. I honestly thought he might cry about it.”

Maria felt her chest tighten. That was why she'd stayed so long – because she'd had nowhere to go but Portorosso, and she'd thought Massimo would be angry with her. If she'd only known.

As she and Helena stepped outside again, Maria saw that the two Aragosta ladies were sitting on the edge of the fountain, enjoying some gelato. One of them smiled and waved, but Maria did not respond, still put off by their earlier conversation. Alberto, however, wriggled out of her arms, and before she could stop him he took off across the open space towards the two old women.

And towards the fountain full of water. Maria ran after him.

“Alberto!” she called out. “Alberto, come back here right now!”

Concetta Aragosta handed her ice cream to her partner and held out her arms to pick the boy up. That wasn't reassuring to Maria, who didn't want strangers handling her child. She'd almost caught up, only to see the woman grab for Alberto and miss. He hadn't been heading for her at all; he'd been running for the water, and now he toppled over the edge of the fountain and into the basin with a splash.

Maria shrieked in dismay, and then cried out, “no!” as Concetta Aragosta stood up and pulled the transformed baby out of the water. Immediately, Maria snatched him away and began drying him on her shawl in a panic. This could not be happening. There were so many people here! Not just the two old ladies and Helena right behind her, but a dozen others in the surrounding shops and businesses who might now see the little fishy creature in Maria's arms. Concetta and Pinuccia crowded close, perhaps for a better look, and Maria hunched as if to curl protectively around her son. It was too late. Much too late.

“Is he okay?” asked Helena, coming up next to Maria.

Maria swallowed hard, trying not to burst into tears. What were they going to say? They'd think she was worse than a fallen woman, that she was raising some monster...

“There we go,” said Concetta softly, rubbing Alberto's face dry on her apron. “There we go, all human!”

Maria blinked her tears away and stared at the old lady, uncomprehending. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing, dear,” Concetta said. She took a step back, and Maria clutched Alberto closer, shifting his weight as his tail vanished again. “We told you we knew about unusual children, didn't we?”

“We'll see you again soon,” Pinuccia said. She gave her friend her gelato cone back, and the two of them started back up the hill towards their home.

That left Maria standing there watching in confusion as they vanished around a corner – and Helena standing there looking at Maria with a similarly befuddled expression.

“What was that?” asked Helena.

Maria licked her lips as she tried to decide what to say. Her sister-in-law didn't look frightened, at least... maybe because the two old women had been so calm about it. She just looked confused.

“What did you see?” Maria wanted to know.

“I'm not sure,” Helena replied, coming closer to examine Alberto. There was nothing outwardly odd about him now, just a toddler squirming because his mother was holding him too tight. “I... is he your son?”

“Of course he is!” Maria huffed. “You have to promise not to tell Massimo!”

“I don't even know what I'd be telling him!” Helena protested. Her eyes went to something behind Maria.

Maria turned to see what she was looking at, and found that Massimo was waving to them from the Pescheria door. Maria waved back with what she hoped was a normal-looking smile, although she had her doubts. Massimo pointed to his boat, and Maria nodded.

“We have to go back to the Pescheria,” said Helena. “Somebody needs to mind the shop.”

“Of course,” said Maria. The Pescheria would be a relatively private place where she could... she didn't know what she was going to do. Somehow she must reassure Helena that this wasn't a problem, and then she had to be sure Massimo wouldn't find out.

They returned to the building, and stood in the doorway to watch Massimo start the engine on his boat and putter out to sea. Helena then went straight to the cash register to deal with their first customer, a woman hoping to purchase some squid for calamari. Maria waited in a corner with Alberto in her arms. He whined because he didn't know what he'd done to make her upset, so Maria stroked his curls and murmured reassurances, planting a kiss on his forehead.

“You scared Mamma so bad,” she whispered, “and I think you scared Auntie Helena too... but the two Signore Aragosta, they didn't mind.” She would have to talk to them. What did they know? Was it obvious to them in some way that Alberto wasn't fully human? Was there something she hadn't even noticed before that Maria was now going to have to worry about hiding?

Finally the customer left, and Helena came out to speak to Maria. Maria swallowed hard, wondering what in the world she was going to say. Would she throw her out, saying she didn't want a freak like that in her home?

“Is he all right?” Helena asked. “I mean...”

Maria sighed and set Alberto on the floor. There were plenty of puddles and ice he could get into here, but it hardly mattered when Helena had already seen. “He's fine. He's...” how could she explain, without making the situation look even worse? “What has Massimo told you about the sea monsters?”

Helena frowned in confusion and watched Alberto sit down on the floor to pick up a dropped coin. To her, the question must have seemed like something out of nowhere. “He said he first saw one the same summer you left. He tried several times to catch it, but it always got away. He said you and your boyfriend laughed at him when he talked about it...” her voice trailed off.

Maria winced at the memory. She hadn't realized in the moment that Massimo would be hurt by that. Her first instinct had been to protect Giancarlo. That whole summer they'd been terrified that Massimo might find out what Giancarlo was, especially when he kept saying how determined he was to catch the creature and mount it on the wall. Maria had feared he was hinting he already knew, and all her secret-keeping was for nothing.

Helena was still waiting for an explanation. For a split second longer, Maria thought about just making something up, but she knew that nothing she came up with would seem believable, even if it were still more plausible than the truth. Especially when she had already insisted that yes, Alberto was her son. She couldn't have denied that, even if it would help her story. She didn't have it in her.

“Giancarlo was the sea monster,” said Maria. “They transform when they get out of the water, and change back when they get wet again. I know it sounds like a fairy tale...”

With the coin still clutched in his hand, Alberto had wandered over to gaze at a basket of crabs. The crustaceans' claws had rubber bands wrapped around them so they couldn't pinch, but that didn't mean it was a good idea for Alberto to try to touch them. Maria went and ushered him away again. He stepped in a puddle on the way, and his bare foot transformed again.

“So he'll do that every time he gets wet?” Helena asked.

Maria nodded. “You see why you can't tell Massimo, right?”

“We have to,” said Helena. “He needs to know.”

“No, he doesn't!” Maria insisted. “You can't. If he finds out...”

“He would never hurt your child!” said Helena. “No matter what.”

“What if he doesn't believe that Alberto is my child?” Maria asked. “You didn't! He's told everybody in town he was going to kill that sea monster. He'd never let one live in his house.” She shuddered to think about it.

“It's your son,” Helena said. “He'll understand.”

Somebody cleared their throat, and both women turned to see a man standing in the shop doorway. Maria went cold. How much had he heard?

“Sorry to interrupt, Signora Marcovaldo,” the man said to Helena, “but my wife sent me to see if you have any large shrimp.”

“Of course!” said Helena, hurrying to find them. “Here we go! They're yesterday's, but they lived through the night just fine. Will these do?” she offered a basket.

The man studied them critically while Maria backed towards the inside door with Alberto in her arms. Some haggling followed, and she slipped through and shut the door softly behind her, then sat down on the stairs with her face in her hands.

“Ma?” Alberto asked.

“Sorry, Berto,” she replied. “It's not your fault. I want you to know that. None of this is your fault. It's all your father's and mine.”

The voices outside eventually ceased, and Helena cracked the door open.

“I don't think he heard anything,” she said to Maria. “He didn't ask any questions.”

Maria nodded. “You've got to promise,” she repeated.

“Massimo will find out anyway,” Helena said. “You can't keep children from getting into things. Alberto has been into everything from the moment he arrived.”

“Then I'll have to watch him better,” said Maria. Her son was used to being allowed to run around wherever he liked on the island, and was quite happy in or out of the water. It was going to be a very different life he would have to get used to here in town. Perhaps she should have waited until he was old enough to understand why they would have to hide what he was... but no, Maria couldn't have lasted that long, and neither could Alberto. He needed other children. He needed a life Giancarlo wasn't willing to give him.

“Maria,” Helena began.

“No. I need you to promise, because if you don't...” she swallowed. “Then I'm going to have to leave.”

Helena sighed, clearly uncomfortable with the situation, but she nodded. “I promise. I won't tell Massimo myself, but I know he's going to find out one way or another. He doesn't miss much.”

“He missed Giancarlo,” said Maria.

“I don't know if I'd be sure of that,” Helena said.

Maria shuddered. “I just... I can't make this more complicated. I feel like I'm going mad as it is.”

“I won't tell,” said Helena, “but I think you should.”

That would have to do for now, Maria decided.

Massimo came back that night with a catch that needed to be sorted and packed in ice for tomorrow. Maria had spent the afternoon washing and re-hemming her new clothes, and had allowed Helena to trim her hair, so she was looking far more civilized by the time her brother came upstairs to eat the fish stew his wife had made them for supper.

“It must have been a productive afternoon. You certainly smell like fish,” said Helena, going to kiss him. She then winced and took a step back, a hand on her belly. “The little one's excited to see Papá!”

Massimo closed the distance between them and kissed his wife's cheek, then bent down to kiss her swollen abdomen. That done, he looked to his sister. “Your shopping trip went well?” he asked.

“Yes, it did,” said Maria. She was finishing up sewing a button on one of the shirts she'd bought for Alberto, who was napping beside her. “He doesn't like his new clothes very much, but he'll get used to them.”

“He needs shoes,” Massimo observed.

“He does,” Maria agreed. “He's never had any.” Alberto would probably hate them, but Maria wouldn't have to worry about him stepping in puddles.

“Good catch?” asked Helena.

“Yes,” Massimo replied. “There'll be deliveries to do tomorrow, so I may not be able to go out again until late.”

“I can do them,” Maria volunteered. “I need something to do besides sit around the house. That would drive me crazy.”

“What about Alberto?” asked Massimo.

“I can watch him in the shop,” Helena suggested. She caught Maria's eye, and Maria nodded. Now that Helena knew, it was safe to leave Alberto alone in her care... Maria hadn't thought of that.

They ate their supper. Helena apologized, saying that she wasn't as much of a cook as Massimo, but it tasted just fine to Maria. She was a decent cook herself, though she hadn't been able to do much with some of the things Giancarlo had brought her, the seaweed and shellfish and random things that lived in the mud. He'd cooked them himself sometimes, but had said he didn't remember most of the recipes his own mother had tried to teach him. Having real food again felt like a royal feast.

“I can do the cooking on the night's Massimo can't,” Maria suggested. “Especially once the baby is born.”

“You don't need to earn your keep,” said Massimo.

“I'm not trying to earn my keep,” Maria told him. “If I'm going to be part of this household, then it's only fair I should contribute to it. You want to help me, I want to help you.”

After the meal, Helena collected the dishes to wash, and Massimo went downstairs to make sure everything was locked up and properly stored. Maria, meanwhile, scooped up Alberto, who'd managed to get stew all over his new clothes just as he'd doused himself in trenette al pesto the previous night.

“You like your aunt and uncle's cooking, don't you?” she asked. “If the mess you make is any measure, then you thought Auntie Helena's stew was delicious!”

“It's good to have a fan,” laughed Helena.

“Come on, bambino,” said Maria. “I think tonight you're going to need a proper bath.” She looked over her shoulder at Helena and saw her nod – Helena would keep Massimo from bothering them, and Alberto could splash in safety.

As she climbed the stairs, Maria though of that old saying about how one person could keep a secret, but once a second person knew, it wasn't a secret anymore. Here, that was not true. Helena knowing and being willing to help would actually make things much easier in several ways. Was it too much to hope for that the two Aragosta women would be the same?

She would have to deal with that tomorrow.

#pixar luca #fanfiction #alberto scorfano #massimo marcovaldo #maria scorfano #alternate universe #homecoming #i apologize to anyone who dies of cute from the illustrations

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jinlizz-dragondrama · 6 months

Text

Sunshine Happy Times

Chapter 12

Shredder has been revived, and we're doomed. After Draxum is expelled from the dark armor, it is revealed to us by my dads that they only used him because of his strong mystic power. Geez harsh... serves him right, though. I try to sit up from my lying position on a wooden bench, but my body screams at me to stay still. I want to get my hands on the Yokai that almost broke my body and spirit. But the cowardly snake slithered his way through a portal that Cass opened.

"YOU RESSURECTED SHREDDER WITHOUT ME!" Cass shouts, annoyed that she was left out again.

"I wanna say I'm prepared, but my chattering teeth won't let me," Donnie says while shaking like a leaf.

Cass, Papa Brutus, and Papa Lui chant "Shred" over and over. But this did not please the Shredder, and it began chasing them. In a blind rage, it threw them onto the ground like a drumstick on drums.

The gang goes in for the attack but is swatted away like flies. Wanting to help protect my family, I attempted again to get up, but the pain was too much, and I passed out. When I open my eyes, I see Shredder make his way toward Splinter, Leo, and April I take off running to them but by the time I reach them purple lightning surrounds it as it almost makes contact with Leo and disappears.

Wiping the sweat off my brow, I finally realize why I'm not in pain anymore. My body is highlighted by a bright white light...

"Am I dead?" I say slightly freaking out and hyperventilating.

Looking over at my body, I rush over and see that my body is still breathing. Donnie and the gang make their way over to me. While Donnie picks me up, princess-style, they discuss what just happened, and I just follow.

"This is so weird being outside of my body like this. Maybe there is a scientific explanation for this.....I'll ask Donnie about his hypothesis when I get back...if I get back into my body." As I'm talking to myself, I walk through Leo, which causes him to shiver and look around for the cause of it.

From the corner of my eye, I see something move through the darkness. I quickly rush over to it, but all I see is a figure wearing a dark cloak and hood making its way to the exit, a smaller cloaked figure follows after. Moving myself forward to follow, I ended up getting pulled back to where my body was but not sucked back into it.

"Guess I can't wander too far away from my body." I sigh and begrudgingly follow the gang.

Donnie wrist tech goes off signaling trouble, rushing to the city down to April's old job Alberto's. Shredder is going to town destroying everything it could get its claws on. Donnie places me a safe distance away from the fight before attacking. Wanting to protect them, I try summoning my powers, which causes my flesh body to wince and whine quietly, but nothing happens. Again, the Shredder goes in for the attack but disappears. Something catches my eye once more, but outside the restaurant's door, I rush outside to see what it is, again nothing there but the sound of a cape flapping in the wind.

Returning inside, Mikey predicts that 15 minutes from now, it will return, but somewhere else. Donnie, being the one for science and data collecting, scoffs at the very idea of getting to that conclusion from two data hypotheses. But it is quickly retracted when the prediction comes true. We're now inside a museum, and once again, I try to use my powers or move my flesh body.

"This could be the end, fellas," Mikey says as he hides in his shell

"I wish I spent more time with my TV....and maybe paid more attention to my grandpa's stories on how to defeat the shredder." Splints say regretfully

I roll my eyes at that but quickly run to hold onto Donnie while he's holding onto me protectively. Closing my eyes to not see our fate and praying, that nothing happens.

"If I live, I'll confess that I-" I open my eyes when nothing happens.

Again, the Shredder disappears, and once more, I see a cloaked figure. It's standing on a dinosaur bone exhibit. Smiling down at me, I can't see their faces, but the smile from the second figure seems familiar. I'm pulled back from my daze by everyone collectively releasing the breaths they were holding. Donnie loosens his tight grip on me and looks down at me while moving a piece of hair out of my face.

"OK, what do we have?" Raph asks. Mikey raises his hand with an idea

"Good ideas first," Raph corrects, and Mikey slowly lowers his hand.

It's decided unanimously....*cough cough* that Leo and Splinter will convince Big Mama to help us in stopping Shredder.

This allows Donnie to bring me to the Lair to check on my injuries. While the machine is scanning me, his mind starts to wander.

Donnie POV

"Ugh...." sighing heavily and pulling the palms of his hands down his face.

Flashbacks of my scream echo in his head. Not even his tinkering on an invention helps distract his racing mind. So he resorts to scanning all of New York for the possible location Splinter will appear in.

The scan is complete, showing a few broken bones, deep bruising, and a few muscle tears. He enhances the scanning to see how severe the damage is. Soon, he can see that something strange is happening. The muscle tears are slowly being sewn back together, an excess amount of calcium is produced, patching up the broken bits of bone, and the bruising is slowly disappearing.

"This is impossible. The human body isn't able to simply fix itself," He says in disbelief

He starts to write on a whiteboard the possible causes of this. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N hovers in and hits the scanner magnifier.

"Come take a look at this."

Donnie starts to spiral a bit when he starts scribbling on the whiteboard but snaps out of it when S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N gets his attention. He looks at the magnifier and sees purple pulsing sticky goo that's slowly pulling the tears together.

"Ah, but of course..." He says while evil laughing, embarrassed, and throwing a small grenade that blows up the whiteboard, getting rid of his data.

"This is an amazing scientific discovery...I must do research"

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N gives him a look and a single sweat droplet slide from Donnie's brow as he chuckles awkwardly.

"Of course, I'll require Aqua's permission before proceeding." He sits back in his computer chair in front of the computer and starts to tap away on the keyboard on the newfound research.

Aqua POV

While this is all unfolding, I watch my body being scanned and look as the microscope records my body healing itself.

"This is so trippy but cool. I'll let Donnie do his evil science stuff to figure out exactly what is causing this. But for now, what were those two figures?

Before I could think of possible suspects, I jumped a bit when an alarm sounded on Donnie's wrist.

"Mikey, Raph, April, let's move, I've located Shredder at the docks," Donnie shouts into his wrist communicator while grabbing his tech bo.

While he rushes out of his lab, looking back at me and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N

"Keep an eye on her, please...son," He says tenderly, and the gang rushes out of the lair.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N nods and turns his attention to me. Not having anything to do, I sit on the ground and start meditating.

"Concentrate, calm your mind, feel your powers as an extension of yourself..."

"Who, who said that?" I open my eyes startled, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N doesn't seem to have heard anything, I look around the room just in case, and sitting back down I start to meditate again.

A flash of the gang running past me like a hologram or illusion. Opening my eyes not seeing anything. As I close my eyes and start to relax a bit another projection appears, crackling static surrounds me, and I can barely make out what they are saying.

"Concentrate...." the voice whispers again, taking a deep breath in and slowly releasing it. My shoulders relax and the tension I had I'm my body slowly ebbs away.

"Relax your mind" turning off my brain to think of nothing

"Feel your powers as an extension of yourself" I open my eyes and I start watching a scene unfold as the boys have got Shredder subdued by... tickling him...oh boy. But some party-goers on a huge boat light some fireworks and it draws the attention of Shredder like a bug to a bug zapper.

The tickling was no longer distracting and it took off like a deranged bat from hell. Donnie and Raph take off after it, while Mikey tosses a whole boat at him. My jaw drops open and the brothers are in awe of their little bro that Donnie flies face first into a metal bar.

Donnie jumps in front of the shredder blocking his path.

"All my tech is standing by, and I mean all of my tech."

Back at the lair, all his tech gets the command to come to him and soon they surround the mad scientist.

I start to concentrate again and my eyes glow purple, the ground starts to shake under Donnie like a mini earthquake. Creating water-bending tentacles and green vines they sharply protrude from the ground at the ready of my movements.

A shocked look plastures on Donnie's face but it turns into a shit-eating grin. He points his tech bo at Shredder and says smugly while all his tech attacks.

"Eat science!"

I bend tentacles and vines to attack as well, I get in a few food hits but it doesn't seem to phase him. All of Donnie's tech either bounces off or gets smashed upon contact with the armor.

"Sad face emoji" Donnie tears a bit and tries to escape with his battle shell but it's torn to pieces by the Shredder. In a last-ditch effort, he throws a hankie to stun the armor but it works for a few seconds as he shreds it to pieces. But while he was distracted I saw April get the crane ready to attack. So I pin Shredder down and April comes in clutch hitting the armor and sending him flying into metal storage crates. Poor Donnie gets K.O.'d by his tech bo. It only made it angry and chased after the fireworks and soon disappeared again.

"What is taking Leo and Dad so long?" Mikey says exasperated while his kusari-fundo is on fire on top of his head.

"Who knows, Leo probably talked his way into Big Mama's dungeon" Raph retorts.

"Uh guys anybody notice that whole situation," April says while pointing to my vines

"It can't be, Y/N's vines...could it?" Mikey questions

Donnie limps over to them, I wrap a vine around his finger. Taking a couple of calming breaths I imagine what my body looked like from my body shape, my height, hair length, facial structure, and clothes. I transform my water tentacles into a water copy of my form.

"Wow this is so cool," I say excitedly and look over at everyone

"Holy truffle Mac n cheese, Y/N!" Donnie shouts

"I come to you from the grave," I say in a ghost voice

"You're dead, say it ain't so!" Mikey says Sadly as he throws his arms onto me

No, no Mikey I'm not dead. It's kind of hard to explain.....but" I look up and see Donnie hastily taking notes

"Well I guess you can say a part of my soul is outside of my body while it heals, but I can't be too far away from my body so I used my "soul body" to concentrate and use my powers and to create this form you see before you," I say while shrugging NY shoulders

"How can you say that so casually, you've never been able to do this prior. What gives?" Donnie questions

"OK you're gonna think I'm crazy"

"Already do", April says in a joking manner

"You know you love me!" I made a heart sign with my hands and she reciprocated

"Well it's like someone else was talking in my head, like how you hear your voice when you think but someone else was speaking to me instead of telling me what to do"

"What did the voice sound like?" Mikey asks

"I don't know I've never heard it before so I can't place who it may be but strange things have been happening. While I was knocked out my spirit form was able to follow you guys around but at each location, the Shredder appeared I saw two figures in the darkness. They don't seem to be hostile, then again they didn't do much but run away before I could get a good view of them."

Everyone starts to think of their conclusions on who the mysterious figure could be but we decided to pursue the Shredder before he destroys something. Donnie grabs my hand and I hold onto him tightly, even though I'm using a water form it feels like touching jello but solid enough to hold onto stuff but liquid enough to have things go through me if need be.

We find ourselves in an alleyway in the pouring rain. Donnie inputted the coordinates of each location where the Shredder appeared.

"After inputting the coordinates of the XYZ D for Donnie's axis, I've calculated that this is the site of our final resting spot...I mean go, team." Donnie says casually.

A portal opens, and we start to freak out a bit thinking the shredder has decided to pop up here, but out falls Splinter and Leo steps out confidently. He is holding some sort of thorny circular artifact.

"It's about time you got here, we've been getting our buttons kicked since you left us high and dry," Raph says exasperated

"High and dry, come one dudes. When I said you got this I meant that. Look I bet the only reason why you're here is because Donnie inputted coordinates blah blah blah blah. Mikey razed his taze, April finally used her crane license and Raoh is gonna put it all together in a plan to defeat that lead head with this mystic collar. Oh, and Aqua.....wait what Aqua!!

Giving a small wave and smile I walk over to him and giggle.

"Couldn't predict this now huh, I found a new ability of mine. Water formation is pretty cool" I say while dabbing

Leo blushes a bit and stutters out, "Nah, w-what no...I predicted...some of...possibly...maybe... ugh fine you got me. Quickly recovering himself he goes back to his cocky attitude "Nice moves kid, gotta show how you did it sometimes"

Donnie grits his teeth and clenches his tech bo til his hands turn white.

"Sorry a magician never reveals their secrets," I say smugly while winking

Out of nowhere, Shredder appears as feral as ever, and the plan goes into effect, Mikey activates his kusari-fundo to flame up which distracts him, Donnie tosses his handkerchief, Raph tickles Shredder while I hold it down with my tree vines, Leo comes in hot with the collar and attaches it to the armor. A big explosion of neon pinkish purple goes off and the spirit of the armor is sealed in the collar.

Big Mama comes out of the darkness imprisoning the armor.

"Woah, what an epic three days of nonstop fighting" April shouts victorious

Everyone passes out except Master Splinter and me.

I wish I could say it was a pleasure seeing you again, my sassy sugar badger" He whispers the last bit in her ear. Big Mama blushes and I look on in shock, folding my arms and smiling fondly. Splinter pushes the passed-out gang through a manhole and we make our way to the lair. When we arrive I help bandage everyone up and place them in their respective rooms.

"A new ability I see," Splinter says, I shrug a bit but smile nonetheless.

"You've come a long way, I'm so proud" He walks to his room

When I reach the medbay, I sit next to my still-healing body, concentrating my water form splashed to the ground and my spirit goes back into my body. Opening my eyes I groan as I slowly sit up. Walking into my room, I slowly sit on my bed, lying my head on my pillow I hear a crunch of paper. Lifting my head, I reach under the pillow to find a small note.

It read, Want answers? Meet me at Central Park alone tomorrow...

#rottmnt #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt fanfiction #rise donatello #rise donnie #rise of the tmnt #donnie x reader

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shrimpscream · 1 year

Text

Rottmnt/Fnaf sb AU

I’ve been seeing a bit of ‚future Donnie builds a robot Raph‘ stuff combined with finding out about the fnaf ruin dlc announcement and started mixing this au together…

Right off the bat, I got some loose ideas for April (maybe a security guard) and Draxum (either a mechanic or animatronic/maybe both?) so this will be about the turtles (look! they even glow in the dark!).

I was thinking that the rise turtles or ‚mad dogs‘ were a quartet of animatronics made for Alberto’s who were bought by Fazbear entertainment after the place had to close down, due to a lawsuit from fazbear entertainment regarding copyright issues (with the whole ‚Alberto being copied off of Freddy‘ thing)

At Alberto’s and later the pizzaplex their actual names are: Rocking Raph, Dancing Donnie or Dancing Dee, Laughing Leo and Magic Mikey due to their personality’s and the activities they often performed for/ with guest. Thought a lot of people just call them by the second half of their names because it’s shorter.

They get their own attraction in the pizzaplex in form of a sort of ninja warrior obstacle run/ martial arts training area.

They all have a certain time slot in which they can be found in their attraction since fazbear entertainment thought it isn’t necessarily to have all four of them be there all the time.

Raph is a new addition to the main band by filling in as a drummer, Donnie is working with DJ music man, Mikey is helping out sun/moon in the daycare by painting with the kids or showing them magic tricks, and Leo as the ‚face man‘ of the mad dogs is basically always at the obstacle course.

Although they aren’t interested in catching Gregory like the other animatronics, they will wander the pizzaplex and can hinder his Progression by accidentally alerting other animatronics to his location simply because they are curious teenagers. Therefore Gregory can decommission them as well.

Important to note here is that if Gregory chooses to disassemble/kill one of the turtles, the others WILL find out about it and attack him on sight like the others.

!it gets a bit more brutal from here on!

Donnie will mostly be seen near areas with arcade games. If you get too close to him, he will tell you to back off and snoop around elsewhere (which will alert any nearby animatronics). If you bother him in the west arcade, where he shares a stage with the DJ, he will start to chase you around the area and you are forced to decommission him by messing with his setup on the stage to cause the system to shortcircuit his headphones, effectively making his head explode. Gregory can then take his headphones which allow him to better hear what direction other animatronics are approaching him from.

Donnie won’t be attacking him afterwards and is instead seen shaking and cowering completely disoriented in corners, silently crying for one of his brothers to find and comfort him.

Mikey can be encountered basically everywhere in the pizzaplex wanting to show Gregory magic tricks, paint with him or just generally ask him questions, making him the most annoying to Gregory. During the moon segment, he will hide on top of the playstructures though.

In order to get Mikey to stop bothering you, you have to lure him to the west arcade with paint. More specifically, the room in which the robot head for the Roxy segment can be fixed. The paint has to be placed inside the lid that the robots head was taken out of after repairing it. Mikey, acrobatic as he is, will try to get the paint containers out of the machine by basically hanging from the top of the machine. Once Mikey reaches in, Gregory will kick the lid shut, startling Mikey so he falls and thus getting his lower arms snapped off.

Directly afterwards, Mikey will start to cry and run away from Gregory in fear. From then on, Gregory can see him walking around the pizzaplex with his stumps covered in paint and crying. Mikey will immediately run away if he spots him.

Leo will mostly bother Gregory around the MainStage and the turtles attraction. He will bother him by repeatedly challenging him to a match of either running through the obstacle course or a swordfight.

If Gregory chooses to run through the obstacle course, he will push Leo off balance, making him fall into the machinery of some spinning elements, which slowly crushes his lower half until it reaches his main power source.

During the swordfight, Gregory will be given one of Leo’s katanas because the practice ones aren’t ‚fun’ enough to Leo. He will trip Leo with some wires, giving him the opportunity to stab the sword through Leo’s main power source, effectively killing him.

In both instances, Leo’s last words will be „I just wanted to prove I’m better at something“ in a shaky voice.

Raph won’t bother you anywhere. He will be practicing on his drums or ‚sleep’ in Monty’s showroom/ backstage areas in a random pile of plushies and pillows he found somewhere around the pizzaplex. Mikey will oftentimes be with him.

However if you disassemble one of his brothers, he won’t be practicing/sleeping anymore and instead chase you.

If Gregory disassembles Leo, Donnie and Mikey, Raph will go savage and actively starts hunt him down and try to get Donnie’s headphones back while crying for his brothers.

The only way to get him to stop is to lure him to the obstacle course/training area se he gets distracted by Leo’s mangled body, which allows Gregory to collapse a catwalk on top of and thus behead him.

He will spend his last moments apologizing to his brothers for not being strong enough to protect them.

Throughout the night, Freddy will make a few comments about how nice and pure the turtles are and that he finds it interesting to have these younger animatronics around as well as wonder where they are if Gregory takes them out.

Is this a bit too overkill? Maybe, but this is still a fnaf au and we all know how dark the rottmnt au‘s/ fanfics can get…

#shrimp on a typewriter #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt mikey #fnaf sb #fnaf security breach #rottmnt/fnaf au #rottmnt april #rottmnt draxum #fnaf #a drawing shrimp?

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willshipanything-blog · 1 year

Text

Breaking the Rules- Chapter 7

Next chapter is here!! As always, Minors DNI and check trigger warnings! This is especially relevant this time, as new ones have been added regarding past trauma, child abuse, etc.

And thanks also to my lovely anon request which I fit in near the start of the chapter- needed something cute to offset the anguish of the rest of the chapter! 🙃

Full tags on AO3, along with the new chapter here.

Complete Tumblr Chapter Index here.

Enjoy my lovelies! ✨💜

Chapter 7- Naughty Boy

It was always after a sudden, jarring change that things got better. Sometimes, it was those jarring events that were the very catalyst for betterment. Like your early escape attempt that ended in punishment so bad, Al had started to feel remorse for the things he was doing to you. Or your decision to try and block out feelings for Al completely (both desire and hatred) that had made you realize you wanted to pick the path that led to Al. And more recently, the worry that Max would arrive and spoil the fragile fallacy of you and Al, that his presence, his recognition would raze what the pair of you had built. But Max had come, and the only things that he had demolished were your needless worries.

It was true; he had collided head-first into your lives. A proverbial bull in the china shop of your carefully constructed relationship, one that had so many fragilities that could be so easily upended and shattered by a presence as strong and wild as Max Shaw’s. But that presence hadn’t smashed a single thing. It hadn’t destroyed the cocoon you and Al had been hiding in all these months. In fact, it had been re-molded, just a little, to accommodate him, too. There would always be a little room, a place in both of your lives for a brother, or for a friend.

The first day of Max being in your lives was (unsurprisingly) a shock to your system, but each successive day became more easy and enjoyable than the last. Barely a week since Max’s arrival, and you couldn’t easily picture a time before you’d known him at all. Such was his charisma: his warm, dark eyes, roguish smile and contagious free-spiritedness made you feel so at ease, as if you’d been friends all your life.

He made Al better too- not that you didn’t love Al just the way he was. But you saw it in little moments; both of them sharing an inside joke from their childhood, reliving a memory of their mother, that brought out a certain boyish air in Al. Nothing had been so brilliantly embarrassing as ‘The Great Alberto’ revelation, but you now had plenty of fodder to take the Shaw brothers down a peg or two if they tried to involve you in the playful humiliations. The way they quibbled over the smallest things might have been infuriating to you, but you couldn’t be truly mad at their childish antics; Max’s innocent charm, and the way Al indulged in the little pranks and jokes that his younger brother loved, ensured that.

You were glad that their sibling bond had rekindled after a lengthy absence, but realized you may have been struck by the smallest twitch of jealousy. How easily Al relaxed around Max, when it had taken months of blood, sweat and tears for you and Al to slip into something akin to that. It was a family tie, you supposed, once there but then extinguished and forgotten by absence, suddenly re-lit again. Max’s sharp resolve-like flint to Al’s stony exterior, lighting a flame between the brothers once more. Blood was thicker than water, after all. But you hoped ‘family’ included you too now. You thought of your own family, your past one. This new one wouldn’t ever be the same, it couldn’t be. But it still felt as it should; loving and warm and real, and you wanted to hold onto it even tighter now Max had found his way into that definition: ‘family’.

The last few days had been good, unhampered by any anxieties about your own past or that of the Shaws’. You had heeded Al’s warning. Even a warning made in jest, in the throes of one of your games, was still a warning. Al could joke, but his words always held weight, and (as he had probably hoped), you hadn’t pried since. Without you poking into the past that had darkened the doorway to this very house years and years ago, a quiet calm had settled over the home, like a soft blanket of snow. Hiding things, yes, covering those blemishes with a clean, white slate- but giving the illusion of something beautiful and pure. What good could of reopening old scars that had surely healed by now? Al now had both yours and Max’s best interests at heart by keeping those things concealed, protecting the people he cared for most from the harm it would surely cause.

“Al, wait!”

Al turned towards you, his hand still planted on the doorknob where he was about to leave for work. You’d stumbled through the house after him, having barely redressed in your silky pajama set, readjusting the straps on your shoulders as you paced towards him. You wanted a proper goodbye, after all, but when you saw the state of Al’s hasty morning routine, you were glad you’d stopped him before he left. Looking around quickly, you noted Max’s absence, and gave a silent thanks for him sleeping in this morning.

“What would people think, Al Shaw,” you chided playfully, stretching up on tiptoes before grabbing the uneven, rumpled collar of his polo shirt, tucking it neatly back into place with nimble fingers “If you turned up at work looking so…disheveled?” With his collar fixed, you brushed your hands along his broad shoulders. It was such a domestic little gesture. Both sincere in intent, but still playful. Like the two sides of Al. Like the two sides of you too, now.

“People would probably think I rushed to get dressed, because a certain lecherous little creature wanted a morning treat.” He smirked down at you, that damn sideways smile not allowing the afterglow of your illicit little morning act to lighten a shade. Al took ahold of your waist, seemingly forgetting he was going to be late for work.

“Oh, you’re gonna tell people about me?” you dared, looking up into those dangerous blue eyes, palms braced against his chest, feeling the firm muscles even beneath the shirt.

“Course not, dove,” he cooed, leaning down to brush his mouth against yours. As he leaned, your elbows buckled and bent, your resolve all too easily broken by that winsome smile and gravelly voice. When he spoke, his warm breath ghosted over your lips. “You’re my dirty little secret, aren’t ya?” With a quick, harsh kiss slamming into your lips, a tight squeeze of his large fingers on your delicate waist, and a final wink, he was out of the door before your heart rate could slow back to anywhere near normal. That bastard. You knew that kind of behavior affected Al just as much as it did you, yet he always played it cool, leaving you flustered and lightheaded.

The sound of tires peeling out of the driveway had you turning back into the house, only to be met by Samson. Obviously, your little goodbye hadn’t been as private as you’d first thought.

“You heard him, boy. Our little secret,” you trilled, leaning forward to pet the huge dog.

“A secret?”

You choked a gasp at the sudden emergence of Max’s voice. He came shuffling into the living room, barely awake and blinking slowly through half-lidded eyes, but you’d clearly piqued his interest with your remark. You straightened, coming up with a lie on the fly.

“Well, I wasn’t gonna tell you, but I’m Samson’s new favorite,” you hummed, giving the cane corso a welcome little scratch behind a short, cocked ear. For a spontaneous lie, it wasn’t bad, though you cursed how easily they seemed to slip from your mouth these days. Practice made perfect, you supposed. Looking over to Max, he didn’t look placated. He looked a little horrified.

“Uh, Scout…” he trailed off, his hand reaching up to his chest, his eyes trailing your own chest with a worried look. It was a gesture that told you he’d seen something ominous there. You looked down slowly with a trembling gaze, realizing that, still in your pajamas, the scar below your collarbone was visible. Not the whole thing, but enough that the top of the marks in your skin could be seen above the décolletage of your silk camisole. It looked like what it was: a purposeful mark written into your flesh, runes written in blood. You fumbled to sweep your hair over the scar, arms folding over your chest in an instant, though much too late to hide the wound now.

Max had seen a hickey on your neck, which- although a little juvenile- was within the remit of ‘normal’ sexual proclivities. But the bite marks on your collarbone? The bruises littering your hips and thighs? The name carved, branded into your skin? Max was easygoing, but those things would absolutely be ‘Not Okay’ in his book. Telling the truth? Out of the question. But if you said it was nothing, it’d be an obvious lie. As evidenced, you weren’t above telling Max lies. But to speak at all would be to open a dialogue about it, which was not an avenue you wanted to explore. He hadn’t seen the full extent of the marks, wouldn’t know the faded scars were an eponymous signature of Al’s on your heart. So instead, you stayed silent, pulling up your nightshirt to cover the scar, and walked brusquely past him into your bedroom, avoiding his gaze. You didn’t want to read pity or fear or anger in those dark eyes.

Slamming the door closed behind you, you sunk to the floor, trying to steady your heavy, labored breathing. Al wasn’t here to soothe you this time, so you closed your eyes and rubbed your hands up and down your thighs in long strokes, trying to create some semblance of the soft, assuaging caresses in lieu of the real thing. You thought a little, keeping those repeated, consoling movements brushing your skin, steady and constant as lapping waves. It helped, and you kept the tears at bay, slowing your breathing as your thoughts formed a coherent rationalization of events.

You were more than explicit in your intentions that you did not want to talk about what Max had seen. He’d been warned already not to ask about your past, and had followed Al’s orders more closely than you had so far. Max would probably think the scars were from a time before Al. A time which, according to your version of events, painted your own family and boyfriend as the villains. Even if that fiction pained you, it did help to alleviate your current anxiety, and the tight knot in your chest, right under the scar that had caused it, had begun to loosen already. You heaved yourself up, got dressed, and readied yourself to fall back into that comfortable routine that had eclipsed any worries over the last week or so. Without Al to reassure you, Max was surely the next best thing.

It was quiet as you left your room, though even Max was self-aware enough to not run amok when you were clearly upset. He was probably waiting to talk comfortably with you, even joke with you- anything to relieve the tension that had weighted the golden morning with such a heavy black cloud. Max’s bedroom door was ajar, but vacant when you poked your head inside, seeing only his usual unmade bed and scattered clothing in the room. The living room was equally empty. Had he taken Samson for a walk whilst you had barricaded yourself in the bedroom? Finally, the kitchen; Max wasn’t in sight, but the dog had planted himself at the far end of the room. Samson looked up at you as you entered, giving a soft whine before laying his head back down between his massive paws, his snout pointing towards the closed wooden door. The door that led to the basement.

You didn’t want to. You had no desire, no curiosity whatsoever to open that door again: the door that led to a descending stairwell, that led to another door, that one metal and bolted shut. And beyond that door, in the deepest bowels of the house, the basement room. Hiding the worst secrets, the worst memories. But Max had (for whatever stupid, arbitrary reason) ventured beyond the wooden door. He’d grown up in this house, and knew it led to a basement. Even though Al had, in no uncertain terms, forbidden Max from going down there. It was one of the rules, alongside the prohibition about prying into your past.

As much as the thought of opening that door terrified you, the possible consequences of Max seeing too much terrified you considerably more. If he found things down there, if they implicated Al in any way, if Max worked out what Al had done, why you were here…

You clasped the cold metal doorknob with shaky fingers, ignoring the sickly feeling invading every cell in your body. The door clicked and opened with a whisper and you dared a peek into the dim stairwell.

“Max?”

On hearing your voice, Max’s form at the bottom of the stairs visibly bristled, and he slammed the metal door closed without a word. The force of him pulling shut the door had him falling onto one of the lower steps, where he stayed sitting. He didn’t turn, not initially, instead opting to keep his gaze on the door ahead. Was he silently working out what he’d seen there, the pieces in his head clicking together to see the full picture of what that room had borne witness to?

It was a small mercy that, from the top step, you hadn’t seen into the basement room yourself. It was less merciful that Max surely had all the pieces now to solve this sick puzzle. He had opened the door, seen the hidden cell that, though disused now, had held five different victims of the Grabber’s. It all seemed so painfully obvious. A metal, soundproof door with a complex lock. Literal bars on the window. A fucking mattress bolted to the floor. The room, together with all the things Max already knew: you, a girl on a missing poster who suddenly turns up, no longer wanting to be found. Your disappearance around the same time as the spate of other kidnappings. There were too many glaringly obvious fucking variables that anyone seeing that room would surely think-

“I can’t believe it’s still there.” Max’s voice was small in the oppressive confines of the narrow stairwell.

“Max?” you repeated your first question, unsure of what Max meant, or what else to really say. He turned slowly where he sat, backing up against the stone wall. Towards you, but with an eye still on the door a few feet away.

“It’s the same. The bed. Everything. I can’t believe Al didn’t rip it all out.”

“Rip it- the bed? What?” This wasn’t what you thought at all, and you were struggling to form questions, simply because you had no idea about the answers Max was currently trying to give in his indecipherable speech.

“Just the same. As when we were little.”

You braced yourself on the doorframe trying to figure this out. Think about this, Y/N. Step by step. Max wasn’t piecing together the truth about the Grabber at all. But he was remembering, or really, recounting, events from his past. The mattress- you knew it was old, but Jesus. If it had been down here since Max was… then Al hadn’t installed it there when he became… then that would mean…

You exhaled slowly, gathering your thoughts before speaking.

“Your father.”

Max nodded, almost imperceptibly at the conclusion you’d correctly landed on. As promised, you weren’t going to pry. But you also weren’t going to abandon Max if he needed to talk. If Al dealt with his problems by clamming up, so be it. Max wasn’t the same as his brother. You descended down a couple of the wooden steps before sitting, bringing your knees up to your chin and clasping your hands around your ankles. It was an invitation for Max to speak if he wished, but as close as you were willing to get to that metal door. You glanced towards it briefly, mentally willing it to stay closed. As if someone- or something- on the other side might escape. But those were your fears, and now was the time for Max’s story. You clenched your jaw, looked straight into his large brown eyes and nodded resolutely. Max understood your implicit meaning, and began.

In many ways, the things he told you were unsurprising. Hideous as they were, you’d been expecting some of the details that were now confirmed. Al and Max had hinted at their father being abusive, and the revelation about the basement prepared you somewhat. How their father would beat them for even minor misbehaviors, preferring the belt over all else. And, if either of his boys were especially bad, how he’d lash out at them in the basement, where their screams wouldn’t be heard, before being left downstairs overnight to think on their misdeeds.

It was the newer revelations that Max told you that shattered your heart like glass when you heard. How their mother, despite the bruises fresh on her wrists, her stomach, her jaw, would plead to stop the violence inflicted on her boys. Pleas that fell on deaf ears, and ended with the back of his hand meeting her cheek with a crack. If the details of his mother’s desperate yet futile attempts to step in had shattered your heart, when Max introduced Al in this story, the shards inside your body were truly crushed under the weight of his words.

“He still looked out for me. Even then, you know.”

“Al-” Again, no questions. After all your earlier inquisitiveness, you weren’t even sure if you wanted to know anymore. But Max continued, and your voice rescinded to let him speak.

“I was only down there a couple times,” he nodded in the direction of the locked door without looking up. “When my report card was especially bad. Al couldn’t take the blame those times. But every other time, Y/N. He’d push me outta the way, square up to the old man- make it really seem like it was his fault, ya know?”

“He fought back?” You couldn’t help but ask, your interest piqued by that statement. That was the innate goodness inside him, something you once thought absent within Albert Shaw. Putting himself through the worst torments for someone else’s sake. Self-sacrificing was not a trait he’d picked up through loving you, you realized. He’d had that within him since boyhood.

“Not exactly. Not then. But if he gave the bastard hell, he’d be so mad he’d forget he was gonna hit me too. Though- I guess that meant he went harder on Al. I’d hear him, being dragged through the house, that belt whipping him all the way. Our father saying that’s what happened to naughty boys.”

Your stomach roiled. Naughty Boy. This was…something. Some explanation for it all, right? You needed more.

“Max, how old were you?”

“At the worst of it? I dunno, maybe like, seven? But, like I said- I didn’t have it all that bad, not compared to Al.”

Consoling Max could come soon- but you were desperately, selfishly trying to work this out as you sat on those steps. That would have put Al at… 13? 14? When he himself was a

Naughty Boy. The same age, roughly, as most of the children he’d taken. If they were to become the new Naughty Boys in his place, then Al would no longer fit that mold. It would be a punishment reserved for other, more deserving misbehaving kids. You were deflecting, of course- what Al had done was infinitely worse. But a new, fiery hatred was simmering within you, for this nameless man you’d never met, and thankfully never would. He’d clearly helped fuck up his kids. Helped create The Grabber, probably contributed to Man’s issues, too- how he left home early, had started abusing drugs.

Maybe those nightmares Al had had weren’t just about the things he’d done-but the things that had been done to him. Perhaps both. The parallels between them were obvious- you didn’t need to be some expert in psychology to see that, even if you couldn't untangle the link between the two completely. Things hadn’t changed- the past was still the past, each insidious event over the past three decades had remained unchanged. The way you felt- that was unchanged too. You loved Al the same, if not a little more. Though he’d see that as pity and reject the reasoning behind your newfound sympathies. But your understanding had changed, even if your understanding was tenuous at best.

“You know what always upset me most?” It was so quiet, so timid the way Max was speaking. Not the same childlike playfulness he usually displayed, but one that spoke volumes to how much these events had really affected him.

“What’s that, Max?”

“That Al would come upstairs the morning after, and he’d come and make sure I was doin’ ok. You believe that? He was the one spending the night in there, but he’d always come check on me, first thing. He was a good brother. The best.” He was a good man, too. It helped cement the idea that Al was not evil, or at least, hadn’t always been that way. He'd been warped into The Grabber by evil that had come before him. You knew, deep inside your soul, that you were clinging to the idea that it was someone else’s fault for Al’s hideous crimes, that his father could be a scapegoat for Al’s actions. Guilt probably wasn’t so easily transferred, but surely some of it could be shifted elsewhere?

It was a little sickening to realize the feeling you were experiencing- relief. Just a small wave, a little proof that not everything was on Al, not all the horror and bloodshed and blame could be laid at his feet. Only you would ever know the full picture, and only you would ever justify it in those terms, but it was a small comfort in a situation borne from so much ugly destruction.

You shifted focus back to Max, who right now needed more comforting than your own twisted mind. You’d been terrified to go too near the door for fear of reminding yourself of things that had happened within the basement. But that seemed insignificant and cowardly in this moment: if Max could bear being here, then so could you. Gathering your courage, you stood and made your way slowly down the steps.

Though you hadn’t known the details or the extent of Max’s admission, you had assumed it would be a slow process to extract it in full. Even slower once you’d promised Al to stop asking questions. But Max- whether purposefully, or in an emotionally-charged accidental confession, had bled his heart out in front of you. As he unfurled his story before you, a visceral tableaux of truly awful abuses, you could do nothing but listen. Even as his voice cracked and slow, hot tears slid down his face, you sat wordlessly, matching tears falling down your cheeks in silence.

How easily Max revealed this dark past for you. Not eagerly, but told as clearly as if those events were yesterday. Fresh in his mind, like he’d pictured them a thousand times, running through those memories like a rehearsal until he could recite them by rote. It wasn’t like that for you; the darkness had been eclipsed by the light, all the awful things inflicted on you forgiven by Al’s transformation, his redemption. Things were so good now, it was hard to remember the time before. If Max was so easily reminded of events decades earlier, how little happiness had he encountered in his life, nothing good to cancel or even balance out the agonies he’d endured? Your heart had broken for the child that had gone through that torment, but it was breaking for the man in front of you now.

You squatted down next to the younger Shaw brother at the bottom of the staircase. He looked to you as your knees connected and when his tear-stained eyes met yours, he smiled. He actually smiled, still trying to be the brightest spark in the room, to keep his cheerful disposition up, even after the bleakest of confessions. So stubborn in his attempts to be chipper, but you’d break down that wall- Max was allowed to not be ok. What had happened to him was not ok. You gripped one of his hands in yours, stroking his knuckles in a motherly gesture. When was the last time Max had been treated in such a way?

“Max. Thank you. For telling me, for feeling like you could. I know that was hard to talk about- I’ve never got it out of Al. But I’m glad you’re ok now. Al is too. I care about both of you, you know.”

You sprung forward to grab him in a tight embrace and held him, your hands clasped behind his back, offering your shoulder. It took only a moment for him to rest his head there, to bring his own hands around you, to let go entirely as his sobs echoed in the narrow stairwell. You would hold on as long as it took, and promised yourself to hold Al even tighter tonight.

The hug reluctantly broke after a long while. Max sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. You pulled away and gave a small, reaffirming smile.

“Hey Scout, I know Al didn’t tell you much about all this shit-” he paused, seeming to want to ask a question of his own now. “But you didn’t seem all that surprised by some of that stuff I said.” He phrased it as a statement, rather than the accusatory question that was obviously on his mind: Did you know what was down here?

“I’ve.. been in the basement, yeah. I’ve seen what’s in that room,” you said. Again, not a lie, just a statement with some pretty glaring omissions. “But it’s an evil place, and I don’t come down here now. Neither does Al.”

Max gave a wary look, and you couldn’t be sure, but thought he glanced towards your collarbone, the spot where that hidden scar had been partly revealed to him just a little earlier. You didn’t think there was an expression of knowing in Max’s stare, but maybe just one of remembrance. Perhaps the evidence that you’d been through a troubled past reminded him of his own, his morbid curiosity wanting a peek at the basement after all these years. Everything the basement symbolized for him and Al (and though he didn’t know it, for you too). The violence, the terror, the pain of the past. But that’s what it was, right? The past. Their father who had beaten them- gone. The Grabber, who had hurt and violated you- dead. Or, at the very least, dormant.

Memories could be painful, and though some scars were still visible, on your skin or in your mind, they were healing. For you. For Max. And you hoped for Al too.

Well, shit.

Max seriously couldn’t believe he’d just told her all that. He’d never told anyone those details before. The only other person in the world who had any idea of all that was Al, and he was wound up tighter than a camel’s ass. Trying to talk to him about it would be like getting blood from a stone. He felt useless- because really, Al had had it so much worse, and he always seemed to be doing better than Max. Al had so much strength, holding it together over the years despite the punishments he’d taken, for himself and for Max. And how had he repaid the favor? By running away the first chance he got, and ending up in some rough spots over the years- addiction, debt, even couch surfing when he was technically homeless for a while. Coming back to Denver only after their parents had gone- and only then to borrow money. Even now, when he was trying to rebuild the life that had crumbled around him, it was Al helping him get there. Always there for him. Even if he couldn’t talk about the terrible things they’d endured.

But talking to Scout was easy as pie. Calm- that’s how she made him feel. She made him feel looked at, listened to. She cared, and that sincerity read on her face so clearly. She didn’t even need to say much- just a few questions, encouraging nods, and Max had let loose his worries. Even her hug was soothing- motherly and reassuring. Just like the ones he’d half-remembered from decades ago. He cursed that: how easily he could remember the fucked up parts of his childhood, but how memories of mom were always so fuzzy and difficult to summon.

Max had never really had a friend like Scout before- one that stuck around, who really listened. Who he felt a strong enough connection with to really open up. His “friends” before had been wasters, hanging around if they knew he’d scored a hit, or if they were in the mood to sleep with him. But then, he realized- he’d been that type of friend too, before he’d gotten clean. He hoped he could start being better at it now; if anyone needed a friend, he’d put her at the top of that list.

He marveled that Y/N didn’t seem lonely (or at least, didn’t admit to being lonely) after leaving her family, her old relationship. However shitty the situation was, and despite the fact she’d found Al, surely she missed the freedom she had. Right now? She barely left the house, and never alone- it was like she’d locked herself up in the house away from any dangers outside its walls. But, Max surmised- as brave a face as she put on each morning, as much as she comforted Max, and as much as she’d obviously captivated his big brother- there was still fear in her eyes. He’d seen it this morning, when he saw part of some old scar on her chest. Her reaction to him spotting it was pretty extreme, and Max kicked himself afterwards for pointing it out for always being so fucking tactless. It must have been a nasty cut, to still leave a scar months and months after running away. Maybe in time she’d talk to him about her past. Max would happily return the favor and listen to her story. But maybe he hadn’t yet proven himself that good a friend. He was still getting the hang of how to do it well.

#the black phone fanfic #the black phone #the grabber #the grabber x you #the grabber x reader #albert shaw x you #albert shaw

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arabriddler · 6 months

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The King and Queen of Gotham. Oswald and Sofia met when they were little and were friends. Oswald’s mother worked as The Falcone’s maid before getting kicked out for stealing money to treat Oswald’s ankle ( 1 ). they were apart for a while afterwards. Both planning to take over Carmine Falcone’s control over Gotham. When Oswald was captured by her father, Sofia gave him an out by faking his death and asking him to leave Gotham, but when Oswald returned home he found his mother dead ( 2 ).

Oswald executed his revenge over Falcone by getting himself admitted into Arkham and forming a one-sided fake relationship with Edward The Riddler, Nygma ( 3 ). There, he and Ed helped break outAlberto, Flacone’s son who went on a rampage and was secretly admitted to Arkham’s high security wing. Then he forged some papers and used outside connections to get himself out of Arkham. Outside, Oswald made his appearance public as The Penguin and run for mayor and promised to get the city under control and safe.

Falcone got worried about finding Alberto. At the time, Riddler, who was secretly in an alliance with the penguin broke out for a night. (4) he promised Falcone that he knows where Alberto is and offered evidence and a meet up place ( it was the same warehouse Falcone tortured Oswald in ( 2 )). This was all going according to Ed and Oswald’s plan. They left a back door open on purpose. Falcone thought it was a mistake and inspected it. There he saw The Penguin go inside a purple box.

It was time to meet The Riddler and in the warehouse was a set up for a game, The Riddler announced that the game involved Falcone knowing which box has The Penguin and kill him. The Riddler gave a riddle whose answer was blue, but Falcone chose purple since he saw Penguin going in there earlier, and he shot it. When the boxes were revealed he found that penguin was in the blue box and Alberto was in the purple one dressed up as The Penguin. He accidentally killed his own son. After giving Falcone some time to grieve, Oswald killed him then he and Riddler staged his and his son’s death to like like a murder-suicide.

Of course, Sofia knew better, and was upset that Oswald didn’t follow her advice and killed her father and brother. This ignited a sort of war between them before they met on common ground and agreed to divide Gotham between them in respect of their old friendship.

Notes and links

(1) The story of Oswald and Sofia’s childhood friendship. (2) The story of Oswald getting captured by Falcone.

(3) Oswald and Edward in Arkham

(4) Ed returned to Arkham after the game. When Oswald became mayor, he used his influence to get Ed out of there.

#Oswald cobblepot #the penguin #sofia Falcone #this was supposed to be just about their relationship but couldn’t explain it without talking about the whole Falcone thing ooopsss #bee's art #nahlaverse #Qt least we have a bit of a timeline

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mighty-ant · 1 year

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La Mano Delicata, Part Two

Part One

ao3

Alberto’s father wears a thick, gold human ring on his thumb.

There’s a black stone inlaid on its surface, where a gold letter ‘M’ is engraved in sweeping, elegant, alien curves. It's out of place beneath the surface, among the seaweed and roughly hewn stone, a world that grows at the beckoning of nature. There’s nothing natural about the ring, or the other human artifacts his father leaves scattered in their cave, and for that reason they fascinate Alberto to no end.

Most of of what his father finds is already broken: metal spindles on strange dials that shriek when forced to turn, bottles and cups that are as clear as water or dark as the deepest depths, smooth and cool to the touch but with jagged edges that cut his fingers and palms if he’s not careful. There are smaller things, metal things, with shapes that curve and point, but their names are unknown to him because as his father likes to remind him, he isn’t Alberto’s teacher.

Their home is far from other sea folk, almost a two hour swim in any direction if he wants to see a familiar face. Alberto was young when they moved and his memories of before are vague, but he recalls the other kids that lived near him and how they played games in the coral fields. But the solitude is good too. Alberto knows he’s learning to become self-sufficient, like his father, and he wants to become like his father more than anything.

There’s an alcove in the wall of their home where his father leaves his favorite human trinkets. Small chains of gold and silver, plates pure white as dead coral but cool and utterly smooth to the touch. When his father returns from his long absences with treasures and (if Alberto’s lucky) a fresh catch in tow, he always drops his gold ring onto the smallest plate, one more intricate than the rest with unfamiliar landscapes and writhing vines painted in the most delicate blue.

The ring is there when Alberto returns from an afternoon hunt.

Other sea folk aren’t the only thing scarce out here—most days, it’s an effort to bring home dinner, swimming out to the reef to find the schools of fish and scuttling crabs that hide there. He learned their migrating habits the hard way after a two-hour journey greeted him with an empty expanse, the fish having moved overnight to the entirely opposite end of the reef. He was so hungry when he got home that he scraped the barnacles off the sides of the cave and gnawed on them, shell and all, chipping a few of his teeth in the process.

His father doesn’t tell him not to touch his favorite treasures, at least not in so many words. It’s understood that Alberto can play with the broken things he scatters around the cave, but the perfect, shiny, intact ones? Those are just for his father.

And yet, when Alberto arrives, clutching a rough woven net with three fish and an eel inside, he finds their home silent despite evidence of his father’s presence. He often talks aloud, more than he ever talks directly to Alberto, about how good the humans must have it, how he wished they took better care of their belongings. But it’s quiet now.

Alberto passes hesitantly through the opening to their home, scanning the corners and peeking into his and his father’s shared room. Again, he’s met with silence, and not even a glimpse of his father’s purple scales.

He’s stalling as he sets their dinner down on the table, fashioned out of the wooden hull of a sunken human ship. He traces the whorls and grooves of the aged wood, picking at the algae growing there, wondering at the human hands that must have crafted it. But Alberto is impatient to a fault and he gives into his curiosity within seconds, dashing over to his father’s alcove.

The ring is still there, still shining and still mysterious, and he picks it up carefully. It’s not that he’s worried about breaking it, exactly. He's learned that human things are made to last, even the broken ones. But he’s only ever looked at the ring from afar, and a small stupid part of him is certain that it’ll dissolve into seafoam if he exerts too much pressure.

The ring catches the light just so, sparkling like the spray of sunlight across the ocean surface, and Alberto finds himself entranced at once. Up close, the ring is not nearly as perfect as he imagined it to be. There are small scratches etched on its surface, pale white and numerous, and he couldn’t count them all if he tried.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Alberto almost drops the ring. He does drop it in fact, but he claps his hands together to catch it before it can fall more than a few centimeters. He looks up, cold dread sinking into his gut with the strength of a riptide.

His father stares back from the shadowed entrance. His eyes, the ones Alberto inherited, shine out of the dark and his lean, barracuda-thin body is still.

His head tilts to the side—he asked Alberto a question after all.

“Oh, uh, y-yes, sir. Sorry, I was just looking at it.”

He hums. “Didn’t realize you needed to grab something in order to look at it.” His father swims closer, holds out his hand. Alberto drops the ring into his palm at once.

“It’s-it’s cool, is all,” Alberto tries. “Human stuff. I can never find anything that isn’t already broken.”

His father slips the ring back onto his thumb, expression thoughtful. He curls his hand into a fist. “Hm. I haven't taken you to the surface yet, have I?”

He knows he hasn’t. Alberto has been told so many, many times never to follow his father under any circumstance, but he must’ve just been waiting until Alberto was ready . The weight of dread floats off of him like bubbles to the surface, bursting into shocked joy.

“N-no, sir! Not yet,” Alberto says, grinning.

His father smiles back. “Would you like to see it?”

Their vespa can’t move faster than a human can walk. What Alberto had mistaken for artistic license, Giulia informs him are large splotches of rust that deteriorate the metal and flake off under his hands like sharp-edged grains of sand that leave a tang of iron on his fingers. The handlebars are loose, the frame shakes and rattles under him and Luca worse than their homemade vespa did, and within five minutes the engine casing turns blisteringly hot to the touch.

It’s perfect .

But even Alberto is smart enough to realize that he and Luca won’t be going anywhere on this vespa, not further than Portorosso’s winding streets and certainly not around the world.

Luca and Giulia run upstairs to go look at a book of all things, leaving him with the setting sun and encroaching neighbors. But the prickling sea urchin of jealousy that’s clung to his ribcage for weeks barely twinges. Giulia isn’t trying to take Luca away from him, he knows that now. It doesn’t change the fact that Alberto is still going to lose him when this is all over, at least for a little while.

He should probably ask Giulia how long school lasts.

Parking the vespa by the Marcovaldos’ back door, Alberto takes a moment to just grip the handlebars extra tight, feeling the aged leather creak against his palm. This isn’t like one of his father’s forbidden treasures–the vespa is Alberto’s to do with as he chooses, and he chooses to return it. Alberto still doesn’t completely understand humans, but he does know that Luca will need soldi to board the train and Alberto doesn’t need a vespa if Luca isn’t here to ride it with him.

The Marcovaldos’ yard is bustling with neighbors and more food than he’s ever seen in one place. There’s pasta in all shapes, only some he recognizes from Giulia’s training regime for the eating competition he never got to win. Tables are brought over from nearby homes and they spill out onto the street in a delightfully chaotic train, each weighed down with bottles of wine, platters of cheese and olives marinated with pimientos, trays of focaccia and steaming chive garlic bread. Plates are filled and what little space remains is immediately filled with music, chatter, and gesticulating hands.

The storm that pelted Portorosso during the race has passed and brilliant golden sunlight breaks through the lingering clouds. Drizzle falls intermittently, glittering like coins, and Alberto’s tan skin bursts into patches of indigo scales wherever the raindrops land. But the fear of discovery, of fishermen and their harpoons, is gone, washed away by the trust in Giulia’s smile and the reassurance of her arm around his shoulders as they crossed the finish line. The fear was dashed by the brazen presence of Concetta and Pinuccia Aragosta, le Donne Gatto, once hiding in plain sight but hiding no longer.

The fear surged, brief but paralyzing, when they stood before Massimo, who loomed larger than the tallest wave of the most fearsome storm.

Every omission, the terrible truth of Alberto’s existence, was laid bare and he couldn’t look Massimo in the eye. He’d thought of all their fishing trips, the comforting sway of the boat and Massimo’s sure hand teaching him how to haul up the nets. The human’s expressions were often difficult to determine beneath the bushy brows and mustache, but Alberto had been so sure that those keen, hidden eyes had looked back at him with approval a few times, maybe even warmth.

He couldn’t bear to see them filled with hate.

When Massimo instead grabbed Alberto by the wrist and raised him over the crowd, declaring them the winners, he might as well have raised Alberto to the top of the world.

“Al-Alberto!”

A pair of unfamiliar voices call him, almost identical in their stutter like they’re unsure of his name. Alberto startles ungracefully, nearly knocking over their vespa. He’s quick to catch it, not willing to risk any additional dents or scratches that could put his refund at risk.

It gives the owners of the voices enough time to crowd in close to him, smiles too wide and webbed hands fluttering.

Alberto smiles uncertainly, reluctantly letting go of the vespa. “Uh, hi, Signore e Signora Paguro.”

After so many months on the surface, it’s almost strange to see the faces of other sea folk. He’s not exactly accustomed to humans, but he expects to see them up here, where the air is light and the sun is blazing. And anyway, for a long time his father was the only sea folk he spoke to, when he was still around.

While Alberto might’ve seen Luca’s parents at the finish line, they hadn’t exactly met. They were too busy clamoring over Luca, hugging their runaway son, stroking and kissing his cheeks. They’d missed him, both of them had , and obviously came to the surface looking for him despite Alberto’s blind insistence to the contrary. He hopes Luca knows how lucky he is to have that.

Staring at them now, face to face, it’s funny how Alberto can recognize Luca’s features in both of theirs. Or the other way around, he guesses. Luca takes more after his mother in looks, though the green tint to his scales is definitely his dad’s.

Alberto knows he looks identical to his own father, down to the seaweed green of their eyes and the yellow tint of their sclera. When he was very, very small, so young it feels like a dream, his father used to call him ‘Mini-Me.’

“Alberto,” Signora Paguro repeats effusively, like she’s eager to say it again now that she knows she got his name right the first time. “You’re Luca’s friend! The Alberto.”

He rubs the back of his neck, his usual veneer of cool skittering out of his reach. “Uh, yeah? That’s me.”

“Luca’s told us so much about you,” Signora Paguro starts to say, before reluctantly amending. “Well, no, that’s not true. We don’t know anything about you.”

“We knew you existed!” Signore Paguro offers helpfully.

Signora Paguro takes Alberto’s hands in her own, her teal scales matching well with the purple of his. Not like the humans’ strange, fleshy shades of brown and pink. These are sea folk like him. He should probably feel reassured by their similarities. Instead, he feels only panic, ratcheting up his spine with every word out of Signora Paguro’s mouth.

“Alberto what?” she asks, her expression open and gentle, though her tone is insistent. “Who are your people? Your parents must be worried sick if you’ve been out here for as long as Luca has!”

“I, um,” Alberto replies intelligently.

What can he say? That there’s no one? He’s not like Luca with a mom and dad and a grandmother. He can’t even imagine a home with so many people in it. All his life, it was just him and his father, and he got sick of Alberto before long.

For a few weeks, he thought it could be him and Luca. Now, it’s just him. Again.

He tries to answer without lying. “You’re not gonna…find anyone. My dad and I…we lived pretty far away. Like, really far away. Farther than you’ve ever been, probably.”

Signora Paguro’s smile falls. “Oh, no, sweetheart. Can we help you find him?”

Alberto almost laughs in her face. As if he hasn’t tried. As if he hadn’t spent the first three of the last thirteen months swimming further than he’s ever swam, up and down the coast, out into open ocean where the depths were endless and black beneath his feet, until his limbs ached and his eyes burned and his stomach ate itself.

At the start, Alberto asked the sea folk he encountered in the rare villages by the shore. Have you seen someone who looks like me? But grown-up? He’d gone cave to cave, home to home, like a stupid kid who’s lost his goatfish. After all, what kind of idioti loses a whole parent?

He’d watched their faces turn from confusion to pity too many times and he felt pathetic, abandoned all over again. His father had left him to flounder and humiliate himself in his loneliness.

Signora Paguro is still waiting for an answer, so Alberto chokes down the sea urchins lodged in his throat. He doesn’t want to lie.

Massimo calls him from the back of the pescheria before he can open his mouth and conjure more half-truths for Luca’s mother.

“Alberto,” he says, and nothing else. But Alberto has spent weeks bustling about a fishing boat with this human, and he recognizes the intent behind this particular summoning: Alberto, I need your help with something.

Desperate for escape, Alberto starts backing away before even making his excuses. “Sorry, signora, I’ll be right back. Or, uh, Luca will be right back. I just gotta, y’know. Massimo’s calling me.”

Signora Paguro watches him go with a bewildered expression. “O-okay, honey.”

Alberto flees to Massimo’s shadow, away from the bustle of too many bodies and too loud voices. Bulwarked by his solid silence, Alberto’s finally able to breathe after shedding what feels like the entire weight of the midnight zone from his shoulders.

“Yeah?” He hops from foot to foot. In the shade of the awning and out of the drizzle, Alberto can feel his scales start to dry and the tingle of phantom tail behind him.

Massimo is still looking over his head at Signora Paguro, who’s pushing Signore Paguro toward a pair of empty seats. Nonna Paguro is already sitting down, chatting with one of le Donne Gatto. Under the gentle rain, they’re a rainbow of scales and tails.

The reminder that their secret’s out is jarring. Even though Massimo abandoned his harpoon at their feet, raising them up as the winners of the race, part of Alberto is still waiting for the other shell to drop. For Massimo to change his mind, see him for the monster that he is and throw him out onto the street. Or worse, that he won’t care about the sea monster part and just doesn’t like Alberto .

When Massimo tilts his head toward him, his mustache ticks up in a smile.

“Time for dinner, ragazzo.”

Beneath the awning of the pescheria, slightly tucked away from the hubbub of the party, there’s a table set with places for four. Plates of trenette al pesto lie steaming, waiting for them, just as they did on his and Luca’s first night in Portorosso. The familiar sight pulls something up from Alberto’s belly, spreading bubbly and warm through his body like sips of wine. He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling other than to smile about it, his grin big and ridiculous.

“Great, cuz I’m starving,” he announces, rather than give voice to the sensation of overwhelm. He bounds over to claim his usual chair, at least when they’re having dinner upstairs. Massimo takes a moment to join him, guiding the Paguros to their nice little cloth-covered table like a good host.

Alberto grabs his forchetta, but knows better than to start eating right away. The table manners of surface folk were at the top of Guilia’s lesson plan, whether she knew it or not, and Alberto had been her reluctant student. He doesn’t care much about offending strangers but, against his better judgment, he wants Massimo’s approval and he figured early on that he wasn’t gonna get that if he was slurping up his meals like a half-starved seal.

Besides, winning Massimo’s approval is nothing like trying to earn his father’s.

Alberto’s dad liked to talk. Not to Alberto, but at him. Barbed observations about Alberto’s skills, or lack thereof. How lazy and stupid he was. They hadn’t lived in a colony since Alberto was seven and it’s been so long since then that he’s forgotten most of the elders’ lessons on maths and letters. And no matter how hard he tried, his father would rather mock than instruct, so he was left to practice alone until he got too frustrated with himself and gave up.

After all, when Alberto’s father was his age, he was never dumb enough to wander into blue shark feeding grounds while searching for dinner. Alberto’s father was never so weak at his age. His father was a better swimmer, hunter, forager, you name it. Nothing Alberto did was ever good enough.

By contrast, Massimo almost doesn’t talk enough . He chooses his words judiciously, like a nonna scrutinizing fruit at market day, and opts for none of them more often than not. But his silence isn’t a warning sign like Alberto’s father’s, the stillness of the sea before a storm. He’s simply a man of few words, a foreign concept to Alberto’s mind, having only known big words that mask small, cruel actions.

I haven't taken you to the surface yet, have I?

And yeah, sometimes the silence unnerves him out of learned instinct, has him second-guessing if Massimo even wants him around, but Alberto’s never been afraid of him. Even at the start, facing down the biggest human he’d ever seen, mustache impressive as a walrus’s and single arm thick enough to put a tiger shark in a chokehold, Alberto was in awe of Massimo. All of his talk about hunting sea monsters had been…concerning, but in an abstract way. It was tough to reconcile the mountain of a man who happily made them pane, burro e marmellata in the mornings while singing along to the radio with the lethal pescatore with sailfish-quick reflexes and a harpoon always within easy reach, the sort of dangerous land monster they’d been warned against all their lives.

It gave Alberto and Luca that much more incentive to keep their secret.

But Massimo himself is kind and gruff, while humans like Ercole singled them out again and again with words and fists. It didn’t even occur to Alberto to be afraid of Massimo until he stood before the monster hunter in the rain, scaled and sharp-toothed, every inch the monster Massimo claimed to hate. Even then, it wasn’t even the threat of the harpoon in Massimo’s hand that frightened him. His father had batted him around enough times to teach him to expect violence from those bigger than him. No, it was the thought of the approving light in Massimo’s eyes dying, the suggestion of a smile turning hateful.

Rejection. That’s what Alberto was afraid of.

Only it never came.

Now he can’t help but wonder, as he watches Massimo shoo Machiavelli off his chair, what happens next? Once he sends Luca out into the wide world that’s out there waiting for him, what’s left for Alberto once he’s all alone again?

Massimo remains standing over his own place setting, not taking a seat yet. He looks across at Albero and raises a single, inquisitive brow.

“Giulia e Luca?” he asks.

Alberto rolls his eyes without any of the vitriol he might’ve felt a few days ago. Well, maybe just a little. They are keeping him from dinner, after all. “Upstairs. With a book. ”

Massimo turns toward the stairs leading up to the second landing, their home above the pescheria. “Giulietta,” he calls, at the same volume as his usual speaking voice. “È ora di cena.”

The window to Giulia’s room bursts open and she sticks her head out. “Two minutes, Papà!”

“It will get cold,” he chides but doesn’t argue. There’s a lightness to him that Alberto hadn’t noticed until this moment, a looseness in the breadth of his shoulders, a slight curve to his mouth that the mustache can’t completely disguise. He nods at Alberto, and the small smile becomes more pronounced. “Mah, we know better than to let good pasta go to waste, don’t we? Mangiare!”

He doesn’t need to tell Alberto twice.

After his overnight sulk in the tower and terror-turned-elation of the race, he’s so hungry he could eat a sea cow. The last few weeks of regular meals have made him soft, he’s just now realizing. Time was, he could go a couple days on scavenged shellfish alone; he’d learned the hard way not to grab and eat the random vegetation that grows on the surface. But the pasta was filling, the pesto rich, and man had he missed Massimo’s cooking. And it had only been two days! That didn’t bode well for his plans going forward but. Oh well.

He blinks back to focus when Massimo raps on the table with two knuckles, right by his water glass. “Eh, slow down, ragazzo. Dinner isn’t jumping overboard, either.” He speaks in a cajoling tone not that different to the one he uses with Giulia.

Alberto swallows his current mouthful and fights embarrassment when he looks at the dent he’s already made in his plate. Massimo’s eaten maybe half of what he has from his own dinner. “S-sorry. Just a…little hungry I guess.”

Massimo jerks his chin at Alberto’s plate. “Don’t apologize for being a growing boy. You need to eat. But I don’t want you making yourself sick.”

Alberto starts eating again, but at a normal pace this time, not like he’s being timed by an impatient Giulia. “Thanks,” he mumbles, not really sure what he’s thanking him for. Not treating him any differently than before? For caring?

When he glances back up, Massimo isn’t eating. He’s watching Alberto instead, his smile replaced by a frown. “When did you last eat, Alberto?”

“Uh…” he almost wipes his mouth on the back of his hand but catches himself just in time and grabs the cloth napkin beside his plate. Alberto kind of wishes he could hide behind it. “Not that long ago,” he hedges. He thinks it was the sandwiches Massimo made for lunch the day he ran away.

He casts about for a distraction. It’s almost like it’s been a point of pride for Massimo to feed him and Luca delicious new surface foods, so hearing that Alberto sat alone in his cold, dark tower for the last two nights feeling sorry for himself, too pathetic to think of eating anything, probably wouldn’t go over well.

“The race!” he blurts. “Y’know, all that-that running and almost dying really tired me out. It’s been a while since humans tried to harpoon me, y’know? I’m a little out of practice.”

Massimo chokes on his wine, making Alberto jump. His expression is stricken when he lowers the glass.

If Alberto was hoping to get Massimo’s attention off him, he’d failed miserably.

“I’m fine, though, obviously,” he tries to excuse at the same time Massimo says, “I am sorry.”

Alberto’s mouth hangs open, ready to keep rambling, but no sound comes out. Does he have water stuck in his ears? Because he could’ve sworn he heard Massimo say–

“I am sorry, Alberto.”

There! He said it again.

“Huh?” he manages.

Massimo’s heavy brows furrow in consternation, and his hand on the tablecloth clenches into a fist. Dinner sits between them, growing cold just like Massimo warned.

“You did not deserve to be hunted or attacked, now or ever. We were wrong, and I apologize for the part I played in harming you.”

He glances down at Alberto’s left arm, and his fist tightens until Alberto can count each bleached knuckle. For the first time since Alberto has known him, he looks at a loss for words, not just silent. He looks…afraid. But what the heck could Massimo be afraid of?

“That scar on your arm. You said it was…land monsters who gave it to you.”

Alberto follows Massimo’s line of sight, momentarily confused. He’d almost forgotten about his souvenir from the surface; the old scar is pale in his human form, a faint white line against his tan skin. It hadn’t bled too bad when he got it, and it wasn’t deep enough to even leave a cool scar.

“Yeah?”

Across from him, Massimo inhales deeply. His fist trembles faintly in a way Alberto has never seen it do before, even while winching up a fishing net heaving with fresh catch. “I have gone on many hunts,” Massimo intones gravely. “And struck at what I believed to be monstri marini many times. Did I…? Was that��my doing?”

It takes Alberto way too long to put two and two together. Some genius he is; it’s a good thing Luca’s the one going to school. When things do click, he gasps so loud that he makes Massimo jump this time, and he might’ve laughed if only Massimo didn’t look so gutted.

“What? No! No, this wasn’t you. It was-it was night, but the boat was different from yours.” Night or no, he would’ve recognized Massimo’s silhouette too. He’s still the biggest human Alberto’s ever seen.

Massimo looks him in the eye. “You are sure?”

Does he suspect Alberto’s lying to spare his feelings? It’s weird to think that Massimo might feel bad about maybe hurting him in the past, but nice to know he cares. At least a little. And giving it some thought, yeah, Alberto probably would lie, if only to spare Massimo needless guilt.

“I’m sure.” Completely the truth this time. Nice.

Massimo stares him down for another couple seconds, probably just to make double sure. After a few weeks on the boat together, Alberto’s gotten better at withstanding that stare, even with its raised eyebrow. At least when he’s in the right.

Massimo leans back, the pinched look to his face smoothing out. “It will not happen again.”

Alberto blinks, caught off guard by the end of the staredown. “Huh?”

He nods at Alberto’s arm. “You and your people will be safe on our shores. Not everyone will be kind, but they will all think twice before trying to harm you.”

Alberto’s father used to talk a big game. Called himself an explorer when all he did was pick up humans’ lost junk, a better fisherman (but only when Alberto lost track of the spawning grounds or the fish were few), and always threatened to steal one of the human’s boats and raid one of their villages.

But Massimo speaks so little that when he does talk, Alberto believes it. He isn’t a pathetic loner like Alberto’s father; everyone in town knows and respects him. At the end of the race, he got rid of the fishermen (and their harpoons) crowding around him and Luca with a glance . He invited all of them, le Donne Gatto included, to his house for a party, to show all of Portorosso that he’s on their side.

Alberto grins, and pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes. It’ll be nice, he thinks, to still be able to visit even when Luca’s away at school with Giulia. “Thanks, Signore Marcovaldo.”

Massimo ducks his head, tapping on the table between them again.

“Eat,” he grunts, artfully twirling a forkful of pasta single handedly. “Your food will get cold.”

Alberto laughs under his breath and applies himself to his dinner without needing to be told twice.

As he eats, he looks out over half the neighborhood that’s gathered in the yard. Most everyone’s still eating and chatting, but someone brought out a record player and there’s a little circle of kids dancing. Quite a few people catch his eye, smile and wave and call out greetings, and Alberto waves back hesitantly. Even the Paguros wave from the nice little table Massimo set up for them in the rain, movements awkward in a way Alberto recognizes in himself and Luca, sea folk uncertain if they’re doing a good job copying the humans’ mannerisms.

Even if they don’t agree with Alberto’s plan, he knows things will be okay between them and Luca now. They came all the way to the surface to find him. Alberto’s father brought him to the surface to leave him behind. He may not know what makes a good parent, but he knows what a bad one looks like, and the Paguros are far from that. They might even be good enough to let Luca go.

There’s a clatter from upstairs–Luca and Giulia are finally coming down for dinner. And Alberto’s running out of time to work out the details of his plan.

“But, but, hey!” he stammers ungracefully. “Random thought. The, uh, the prize money. The soldi. That we used on the vespa. Hypothetically, could I get it back and use it instead for, I dunno, a train ticket?”

Oh man it sounds so stupid coming out of his mouth. Is that how “soldi” works? Can it be returned? Anxiety latches onto his brain like an ocean parasite as one of Massimo’s brows ticks up incrementally. He peers down at Alberto from beneath it.

“Hypothetically,” Massimo rumbles, “that would depend on where the train is going. Like Rome. Or Genova, for example.”

Alberto freezes, staring hard at his water glass as Massimo reaches over to brush Machiavelli off Giulia’s chair. The cat just jumps onto Massimo’s shoulder, which he doesn’t seem to mind.

“If the shopkeep gives you a full refund–and knowing Mattia, he would–you will have just enough for one ticket to Genova. But only one.”

Massimo sounds a little sad at the end, but it’s just what Alberto needed to hear. The specifics of the humans’ barter system continues to elude him but he’ll figure it out in the end. Maybe Giulia will help him out.

Speaking of which: she and Luca come stampeding down the stairs like a horde of elephant seals, yelling about who got to the table first (Massimo keeps everyone’s plates from getting thrown to the floor in the chaos).

He doesn’t even have time to start feeling left out before Luca looks at him, grinning and breathless, and Alberto’s heart skips a beat. Santa ricotta. He’s gonna miss him. His first friend.

“I think Luca won,” Alberto chimes in, and tries not to laugh when Giulia squawks in outrage.

Like gravity, Alberto’s plans usually lead to a quick, painful fall.

Following his father up to the surface and getting himself stranded is one such example.

Eating some weird surface plant that had him dry heaving all day and through the night is another.

Wanting to ride a vespa around the world almost got him harpooned a couple times. Plus, it turns out vespas need to eat something called benzina to turn on and move. And (according to know-it-all Giulia) the world is way too big to travel by vespa, much less Italy.

But this plan, Get Luca a Train Ticket So He Can Go to School and Make Something of Himself, has gone off without a hitch.

Step 1: Corner the Paguros at le Donne Gatto’s house where they’re staying until Giulia (and Luca) leave for school in two days. Apparently the old couple are Nonna Paguro’s poker buddies? Who would’ve thought.

Massimo goes with him. Apparently his “hypothetical” questioning wasn’t as subtle as he’d hoped. But Massimo sits back with his lap covered in cats and shares a bottle of wine with le Donne Gatto and only speaks up when the Paguros have a practical question, like where Luca will live if he goes to school in Genova, which yeah, Alberto hadn’t thought about that. Whoops.

“I have already spoken to Giulia’s mother,” Massimo says, which is news to him.

Besides, Alberto has a different job.

It takes the better part of an hour to explain to them how smart Luca is, how much he wants this, needs this, deserves this. Alberto’s spent too long putting Luca down, and now this is his chance to pay him back for all of it.

And somehow, in the end, it works. He convinces them. Signora Paguro hugs him, which is weird, with tears in her eyes. “You’re a good friend, Alberto,” she tells him. “I’m-I’m glad Luca met you.”

And Alberto doesn’t know what to say to that (cause he’s not, not really. Luca’s the good one; he’s the screwup), so he laughs and salutes super awkwardly before practically diving out the door.

Step 2: Return the vespa in exchange for soldi to buy a train ticket.

After leaving the cozy home of le Donne Gatto, he goes straight to the vespa shop. Alone this time. But it’s night time, and the shop is dark, so Alberto camps out on a nearby set of steps until morning, the vespa propped against the side of the building. He can’t risk going back to Massimo’s and having Luca find out about his plan. And the more he sees Luca, the harder it will be to say goodbye.

In another rare stroke of luck, it isn’t that cold out on the steps and he’s able to sleep in fits and starts until the sun rises. Then he’s up and pounding on the door until the half-awake shop owner unlocks it and lets him in, already rambling about how he needs to return this vespa for money, signore, please and thank you.

“Ah, si.” The old man covers a yawn with his hand. “Massimo warned me you were coming. Let’s see now—si, leave that rusty thing outside. Come, come, I have your refund here.”

Money in hand, Alberto makes his way to the train station to buy Luca’s ticket. Giulia helpfully wrote down the number of the train she’ll be taking and the time it leaves.

A113 Genova via Portorosso at 2 p.m.

Step 3: Spend one last great day with Luca.

He’s under no illusions. Once Luca goes to school, with all its people and telescopes and books, he’ll forget all about Alberto. But that’s fine. He’s used to it. Maybe he’ll see Luca next summer, when he and Giulia come down to visit their family.

In the meantime, he’ll cherish the golden memories of building their ramshackle vespa together, the glitter of seaspray on his face as they ducked and rolled with the waves, their first taste of gelato.

Today, they ride bikes through puddles and play pallone in the square, and when it rains they laugh when they change into their true forms instead of running for cover. Giulia slaps her hands over their eyes when they start another staring contest with the sun and even that’s okay. Alberto wants her to promise to take care of Luca, but he has a feeling she already will. She’s a better friend than him that way.

All the while, Luca’s train ticket burns a hole in his pocket.

Step 4: Figure out what he’s going to do for the rest of his life.

That last one is, admittedly, turning out to be a little bit trickier.

He can go back to the island and keep doing what he did before he met Luca. Survive, look for cool treasure, scare hapless sea folk with his deep sea diver suit. Only now he can apparently pop into Portorosso whenever he feels like. It’s better than what he had going on before. A thousand times better.

So why is Alberto frozen on the shore, unable to move any deeper?

The night was black as squid ink when he made his way down to the beach– the beach, the little spit of sand thick with boulders where he revealed his true face to Giulia to prove Luca wrong, where he was singled out, where he was betrayed. Not that he’s applying any sort of special significance to this place. That would just be…sad.

This beach happens to be where he left from last time. Nice and out of the way, with a quick, deep dropoff, perfect for a quick getaway.

Not that Alberto’s gone anywhere yet.

The horizon line is paling with the faint blue light of predawn. And he still hasn’t swam back to the island.

Eventually, though, he does get tired of standing.

Sitting in the surf, the tide lapping at him every ten seconds, his entire lower half becomes blue and scaly. His tail curls comfortingly around his waist, a secret sort of hug he rarely allows for himself, especially with him being human almost 24/7 these days.

He can sorta see the outline of the island in the distance, mocking him with its nearness.

“Leaving again without saying goodbye?”

Holy–!

Alberto whirls around so fast he falls sideways into the surf. Water splashes on his face, revealing a riot of scales, and his instincts scream at him to hide before his brain catches up with him.

Massimo watches, silent and shadowed, with a softly glowing golden lantern held aloft in his hand.

Alberto quickly affects a casual pose, propping his chin up on a fist. The tide keeps breaking over him, and he knows his fingers must be webbed now, pupils sharp and inhuman, curly brown hair exchanged for purple frill. He pretends not to notice. “H-hey! How…uh, how long have you been standing there? And who said anything about leaving?”

He hasn’t seen Massimo since breakfast, when he slunk in through the front door after returning from the train station. Giulia and Luca were already up and eating Massimo pinned Alberto with one of those inscrutable looks of his and pushed a plate of biscuits and a tazzina di espresso in his direction.

Massimo plants himself on a nearby boulder, setting the lantern down beside him out of reach of the sea spray. Clearly, he’s not planning on leaving anytime soon. Great.

“I was downstairs mending the nets when I saw you leave. It is not safe to be out alone this late.”

Nerves jangling, Alberto resists the urge to roll his eyes. “What, afraid I’ll drown? Not to brag, but I think I’m a better swimmer than anyone in town.”

Massimo raises one of his eyebrows but even that silent warning isn’t enough to get Alberto to back down. He feels…jittery, exposed, like there’s a big spotlight on him even though it’s probably too dark for Massimo to even see him well without his lantern.

He doesn’t understand why Massimo is still here .

“Alberto, what’s wrong?” he asks, so softly Alberto can barely hear him over the crash and pull of the waves.

And that’s just…what do the humans call it? The last straw?

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong!” Alberto struggles, splashing to his feet. His tail lashes against the water and his eyes must be glowing, reflecting the lamplight, like a monster . “Why would you think something’s wrong? Cause I’m helping my best friend leave forever?”

Massimo frowns. “He won’t be gone forever, anymore than my Giulia will be. They will have vacations from school, summer, and you can travel to Genova to visit—”

He’s never raised his voice to Massimo before, or any adult, really. Definitely not to his father. But Massimo keeps being all calm and reasonable, as if Alberto hasn’t been lying to him, as if Alberto isn’t the monster the parents of Portorosso warn their children about at night. As if Alberto isn’t painfully, irrevocably alone.

“How!” he demands. “I don’t have help, not like Luca or Giulia. It's just me. It’s just been me for…”

Massimo keeps being calm. Keeps being reasonable. He asked about Alberto’s father, a week and a dozen fishing trips ago; Alberto had sort of lied then.

“For how long, Alberto?” he asks now.

383 days. Until he stopped keeping track.

“A…a while.”

Not a total lie.

An understatement? Definitely.

“Where were you living, all that time?” Massimo sounds determined, but also like he’s a little afraid to know the answer.

Alberto wonders how long he’s been holding back all these questions. Massimo’s not exactly a chatty guy, after all. But Alberto sat at his table, ate his food, and slept in the treehouse he built for his daughter. At this point, he probably owes him some honesty.

“Over there.” He points at his island, still a hazy shape against the lightening sky.

Massimo doesn’t gape, but it’s a near thing. He stands up, boots crunching on the sand, and his eyebrows go really high up on his face. “Isola del Mare? But after the war, it was rumored to be…haunted.”

Alberto shrugs a little sheepishly. “So maybe I messed with some of the boats that came by. I didn’t want anyone discovering my hideout!”

He didn’t set out to scare the humans at first; he was just trying to steal food. But he learned how superstitious they could be and he couldn’t not take advantage, especially when they had so many shiny and new and unbroken things.

But Massimo just smiles at his admission. “Clever. So what is your plan now, ragazzo?”

Alberto blinks. “Whadaya mean?”

Plan: Get Luca a Train Ticket So He Can Go to School and Make Something of Himself is basically finito. He left Luca’s train ticket with Giulia, who’d taken it grudgingly. She thinks he should say goodbye to Luca in person.

Massimo steps forward slowly, like Alberto’s a goatfish he doesn’t want to spook. He kneels and takes Alberto’s shoulder, his palm broad and callused but gentle in spite of it. “Luca and Giulia are leaving for Genova tomorrow. The Paguros will return home. What would you like to do?”

“What can I do?”

He’s never had a choice before. Or at least, he’s never had anyone tell him he does. Anxiety crawls under Alberto’s skin like a hundred tiny ants. He wants to shrug off Massimo’s hand but at the same time he wants to clutch his wrist, half afraid that he’ll fall apart and dissolve into sea foam if Massimo lets him go.

Massimo clears his throat once, squeezes Alberto’s shoulder.

“You could stay. Here. With me. I wasn’t joking when I said I’ll be needing help with the pescheria.”

Alberto’s certain he has water in his ears again. There’s no way Massimo just said—

“Stay?” he repeats shakily, not daring to answer one way or the other, as if Massimo will rip the kind words away and laugh in his face for hoping. But Massimo isn’t his father. He says Alberto’s strong. Massimo asks questions because he wants to know more about him, not because he wants to trap him in a lie. He followed Alberto to the beach when he could’ve just looked the other way.

“But I’m…” He looks down at himself, still purple, scales shining dimly in the gray dawn. There’s no way Massimo can look past what he is. Can he?

“You are Alberto,” Massimo says, firmly as stone. Water is wet, the moon isn’t a fish, you are Alberto. “That is all that matters.”

Massimo’s hand has been on his shoulder this whole time. His blue and purple scaley shoulder.

“Okay.” Alberto grins, and if his face had started to dry then his stubborn tears are ruining it by cutting twin blue trails down his cheeks.

Massimo ducks his head a little, meets Alberto’s tear stained eyes. “Okay?” he repeats. A question this time.

Alberto laughs, scrubbing away the tears. “Okay. I’m gonna be the best employee you’ve ever had.”

That makes Massimo chuckle too, which maybe shouldn’t be much of an achievement, but it is to him. Even if Massimo’s only his boss, he’s still nothing like his father.

“Well then, we had better return home. My best employee will need rest if he wants to continue being the best.”

Home. That sounds…too good to be true, to be honest.

Massimo shakes him a little with the hand still on his shoulder before standing back up. Alberto moves first, grabbing the lantern to lead them back to the pescheria. Even with the change, his eyesight is still better than any human’s, and it’ll be darker the further they get from the beach. Besides, there’s no harm in living up to his self-appointed title as best employee as soon as possible.

On their walk back, they’re allowed glimpses of Portorosso waking up around them.

The air is still cool, a chill lingering from the past days of rain that the sun isn’t strong enough to burn away yet. The gentle strains of piano drift down from an open second story window. Fruit vendors load their carts with crates lowered from heaving truck beds. An old man sipping coffee on his balcony waves to Massimo, who returns the gesture. Padre Eugenio is opening the huge wooden doors of the church, while il maggiore makes the first of her rounds through the plaza.

These sights and sounds are becoming familiar to Alberto, more than his father’s quiet cave in the middle of an empty seabed. More than the island, with its lone building of crumbling stone and only the waves and the calls of seabirds for company. But soon he’ll only have Massimo to share these bustling mornings with.

Alberto stops in the courtyard. Above them, he can hear Giulia and Luca laughing, the clatter of plates. They’re probably waiting to surprise them with breakfast.

If he had swam back to the island, would Luca have come looking for him before he left? He did once before, so maybe…yes?

Yes.

He feels Massimo’s eyes on him. It wrenches the truth out of Alberto once more, choking and sharp, like he’s swallowed sea urchins. “I’m gonna miss him. Like, really gonna miss him.”

Massimo sighs heavily, a great gust of wind against a broad sail. His father never would’ve let Alberto see his eyes get shiny with tears, or hear his voice tremble. He would’ve called it weakness. In Massimo, it looks like strength.

“Of course you will. We always miss the people we love. I love and will miss my Giulietta. You love and will miss your Luca.”

He peers up at Massimo. “And that’s…okay?

With a hand on his shoulder, Massimo guides him to the stairs. And breakfast. And home.

“It is love, Alberto. And love is always okay.”

#ant writes #is there still a luca fandom?#are am i hearing crickets?#massimo marcovaldo #alberto scorfano #but really #alberto marcovaldo #post movie #luca #my interpretation of alberto's garbage father #found family

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yetanothercomicbook · 1 month

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The PsychoCrystals

Star Trek #34

Average. Involved.

"A world that tries to destroy killer dragons with bolts of poetry and music."

First half is quite grounded. Kirk, Scotty and McCoy explore the surface of a deserted planet. Scotty has the most to do. He gets to see different facets of his own personality played out inside a crystal. Feels like something that could happen on the TV show.

Second half puts the heroes in danger from the locals, in typical Trek fashion. They are to be executed for accidental transgressions, yadda yadda. Spock is added to the story, and so is a dangerous creature that threatens absolutely everyone. This, of course, allows our heroes to prove their good intentions and save the local population. Consequently, they are not executed for their supposed crimes.

Arnold Drake (8 of 22).

Alberto Giolitti (31 of 33).

6/10

#Star Trek #October 1975

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alberto-the-security-guard · 2 years

Note

Calling out that he was home the second he opened the door, Alexander loosened his tie and threw it onto the coatrack before Alberto or one of the kids could insist that he move it to a place actually meant for ties. Next in his routine was him throwing his briefcase next to the shoe rack, hoping his laptop held up for the countless time along with the files inside.

Catching sight of himself in the front hall mirror, he stared for a moment before smiling at his reflection and walking past it to the kitchen where he grabbed a water from the fridge and held the icy fluid to his head. Then sitting down at the table, he called out a, “are we ordering out or should I nuke something in the microwave? Assuming you already ate.”

"We did not already eat, we were waiting for you," chuckled Alberto as he kissed his husband's forehead. "I just want you to know that I'm so sorry."

That's when Teddy's son Dimitri walked in with an awkward wave.

"Hey Mr. Pine." He turned to Alberto. "Bella will be back with the food in thirty minutes."

@sword-and-sorrow

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canmom · 5 months

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Animation Night 178: Alberto Vázquez

Hiii everyone! Animation night is back. And I've a treat for you tonight...

So. One of the best things about running Animation Night is that doing this (almost) every week gives me a motivation to go roving out looking for stuff I'd probably never watch otherwise. And sometimes the stuff you discover ends up being just insanely good.

This was the case way back on Animation Night 25, the very first Halloween Animation Night. On that night, we took a chance on a film by Spanish director Alberto Vasquez called Psiconautas, los niños olvidados - known in English as Birdboy: The Forgotten Children. I'll tell you a little about that movie in a minute, but it completely blew us all away: emotionally overwhelming, deft in its handling of the heavy shit, and gorgeously animated. (4C were involved).

So. Psiconautas is set on an island inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. It is a land in a state of general decline - its industry collapsed, the land choked with gigantic rubbish dumps, and the people in spirals of futility. Birdboy is a kind of spirit of the land; his father, Birdman, was shot down by police on suspicion of drug trafficking and he now struggles to keep a monster contained inside him and protect the one tiny shred of nature and life. His friends, who steal the pills he needs to keep it in check, are dealing variously with intrusive violent thoughts, uncaring fundamentalist parents, and a parent's addiction manifesting physically in the form of a huge spider. They want out of this hellish island - and they have a plan: with a bit of money, they might be able to buy passage to the city.

But it isn't that easy. Their money goes only so far as a tiny inflatable raft. And in the vast rubbish dump they encounter the Forgotten Children, abandoned by this society and left feral. Birdboy is forced to let his rage manifest. I won't spoil how it ends but - it's not an easy one.

Born 1980, Vázquez got his start in book and magazine illustration, with a style of distorted proportions and watercolours, or murky black, textured shapes as in these illustrations of Lovecraft. He turned to comics in the mid 2000s - which is where Psiconautas was born, along with other works like El evangelio de Judas (Judas the Catholic Squirrel) (2007) and Alter Ego (2008). In comics his style is very heavy, with big blocks of dark hatching. Within a few years he got the animation bug, working together with Pedro Rivero.

At the time, my knowledge of Vázquez's style was limited to short films such as Decorado, which should give you a pretty strong sense of his style.

youtube

At first it seems like a series of brief joke vignettes - but soon of course the threads start weaving together, characters from one skit come back in another, the threads of causality start to break down as the main character goes to pieces. It's clever and striking, but of course the deliberate artificiality which is the point means it is all wrapped in a layer of irony, which blunts the impact a bit.

The short films were made with a tiny team, with Vázquez hmself filling in just about every role from writing through layout to cleanup, with only a few other people on board. His later works became much larger projects, pulling in artists from as far afield as the great Studio 4°C in Japan, though I believe the bulk of the animation is still done in Spain.

The result is something great. Psiconautas has its share of black humour, but it's more willing to go for real drama, taking the vibe from 'unsettling' to full on 'fooooof'. I'm so excited to see it again.

But the main reason to return to Vázquez tonight is... he's gone and made another movie!

Just as with Birdboy, Unicorn Wars takes a short film and expands it. This is actually one of Vázquez's earliest animated works, Unicorn Blood (2013) - a work with a rougher cutout animation style, depicting teddy bears who hunt unicorns to try to fuel their cuteness. In the short we see a condescending teddy bear Moffy lecturing and fatshaming his brother Gregorio, as they hunt a unicorn, with abruptly segues into montages of violent religious imagery as a voice sermonises on the necessity of slaughtering the unicorns. They encounter a unicorn, but Gregorio can't shoot before the unicorn throws itself off a cliff - and as Moffy rounds on him, he gets motivation to, well, do a murder. It's a highly stylish work as with anything Vázquez touches, with gorgeous music textures and great use of watercolour.

Unicorn Wars returns to these themes about a decade later. Now the teddy bears are fully in a Vietnam-style war against the unicorns. A troop of teddy bairs are recruited to the war, and we are introduced to the conflicts between brothers Gordi and Azulín and top recruit Coco. Naturally the deployment goes south fast, and these three bears are the only ones left alive. Things get very violent and occult very quickly. There's more than a little cannibalism.

I've been excited to watch this movie for like three years now. It dropped last year, and became available on BD this year, so I've finally been able to get my hands on a copy. Together with that, we'll revisit some of Vázquez's older works. I'm really excited, I've been wanting to run this one for aaaaaages. Now's our chance!

Now, I need to get some food before the shops shut, so the plan is to start in about an hour, at 10pm UK time - in the usual place, https://twitch.tv/canmom. Hope to see you there!

#animation night #alberto vázquez #Youtube

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ironychan · 3 months

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Scary Monsters

@dysphoria-sweatshirt @30spiders @sweatersexual @angrylittlesliceofpizza @writer652

Part 1/? - Rocco’s Closet

Part 2/? - School for Monsters

Part 3/? - The Waternoose Family

Part 4/? - The Terrifying Humans

Part 5/? - Hiding Places

Part 6/? - Nobody’s Fault

Part 7/? - Edge of Disaster

Part 8/? - Caged Monsters

Part 9/? - The Journey Home

Part 10/? - Portorosso

Harry didn't want to get back in the pram, so he scurried along the cobbled street with the rest of the group as they made their way downhill to the Pescheria and harbour. Luca and Alberto were busy telling their families about the monster world, but they did their best to keep an eye on their unwanted companion. This was not easy. Harry was like a curious puppy on its first walk, dashing back and forth across the street to take a closer look at everything.

“Mamma mia!” the woman who ran the laundromat exclaimed, dropping a pile of sheets as Harry dashed past her to look in the window. She stared for a moment with one hand over her heart, then took in the presence of Luca and Alberto and made herself calm down. “I'm sorry, young... man,” she managed. “You startled me.”

“I'm a monster,” said Harry smugly. “I'm supposed to be scary.”

“You certainly are,” she agreed, gathering up her sheets again – these had been clean, and were now covered with dust and would need to be done again. “Lovely to have met you. I'm sure I'll see you again.” She hurried back inside and shut the door.

A minute or so later, a man driving a truck loaded with boxes of fruit stopped to watch them go by. Harry grinned and waved to him. The man waved back halfheartedly, and waited until they rounded a corner to start his truck again.

“It looks like the humans here are scared of me,” Harry said suspiciously. “You said they wouldn't be.”

“They're not screaming and running away,” Alberto pointed out. “They're just not used to you yet.” Humans in Portorosso had mostly accepted the idea that just because something looked frightening didn't mean it necessarily was, but that didn't mean they liked scary things, even ordinary sea monsters.

“I think they're a little scared of monsters,” Harry said. “If they weren't, we wouldn't even have any doors to this town.”

“It depends on the monster,” said Luca. He glanced back over his shoulder at Rocco, who was still scowling into his gelato.

They arrived at the piazza. As usual there was a gaggle of children here, kicking an old volleyball in order to get around the local legislation that forbid playing football in the streets. Harry watched for a minute, bouncing up and down in excitement, then ran up to them.

“Can I play?” he asked eagerly.

The boy who had the ball snatched it off the ground and backed towards his friends, who gasped in horror.

Luca quickly reassured them. “It's okay! This is Harry. He's with us.”

Harry smiled hopefully.

One of the taller kids, a girl, spoke up. “You can't,” she said. “You've got... too many legs. Rules say only two is allowed.”

“Oh,” said Harry, though he looked at them suspiciously.

“Come on, Alberto lives over here,” Luca said, gesturing towards the Pescheria.

One of the teenagers in the town, a boy called Amerigo, had been hired to mind the shop while Massimo and Giulia were waiting at the train station. He smiled as the group approached, then his eyes widened when he saw Harry among them. Like the others, though, he reasoned that if this strange creature were with Luca and Alberto, then it must be all right, and that was enough to keep him from panicking.

“You've got a new friend,” he observed.

“This is the Pescheria,” Alberto told Harry. “Massimo catches fish, and Giulia and I sell them here or deliver them to people's houses.”

Harry examined a basket of bream on ice. “Weird fish,” he said. “They all look the same. Where are the ones with two heads?”

“We don't have any two-headed fish,” Luca said.

Harry moved on down the length of the shop, while Amerigo watched cautiously from behind the counter. “Oh, these look more normal,” said Harry, pointing at another creature. “What's that?”

“Those are squid,” Alberto said. “We cut them into rings and fry them. It's called calamari. Much nicer than eating them raw and getting ink all over you!”

“What about that?” Harry pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a group of people posing with an immensely long silvery fish, at least four metres, in the piazza.

“That's a regaleco,” said Giulia. “Papà caught it by accident. See, there's me.” She pointed to herself in the photo, a very small child of four or five standing by Massimo's side.

Harry continued to scuttle around the shop, examining the merchandise and decor, while people from the piazza began to gather in the doorway to stare at this new and bizarre arrival. Nobody said anything, as they did not want to be rude, but there was a general feeling of unease in the air. Luca and Alberto could feel it keenly, but Harry seemed oblivious, and upon noticing the crowd, he went up to greet them.

“Hi, everybody!” he said. “Wow, I didn't know there were so many humans. Kids' rooms only have maybe one or two at a time. Hi,” he said to one kid. “How are you doing?”

The girl gave him a sideways look and did not reply.

Not at all discouraged, Harry looked up at Old Tomasso, who was staring back down at him. “Hi! Do you need a son?” he asked.

“Ah, I'm a little old to be raising children,” Old Tomasso replied. “You might ask my daughter, Viola, though she and Giacomo already have a couple kids of their own...”

“Is she here?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Well, I'm starving!”s aid Alberto loudly. He grabbed Harry by the shoulders and steered him towards the interior door. “Time for you to try some human food! We'll treat you to the most delicious thing our world has to offer – trenette al pesto!”

They dragged Harry up the stairs to the living spaces above the shop, leaving Amerigo to deal with the curious onlookers. There, Massimo and Alberto got to work on dinner, while Daniela, who'd been learning some human cooking, declared that she would make dessert. Harry had looked exciting as they climbed the narrow stairs, but the kitchen itself was obviously a disappointment to him. He looked around the cramped little room dubiously as people got to work.

“Do you live here?” he asked. “Or are you the servants?”

“This is our house,” Giulia said, insulted. “We don't have servants.”

Harry frowned. “Well, who cleans up after you cook?” he asked. “Who scrubs the floor and cleans the windows?”

“We do,” she told him. “We do everything ourselves.”

“Where do you sleep?” he asked next.

“Upstairs – there's one room for me and Alberto and one for Papà, and the bathroom.”

Harry examined her face, trying to figure out if she were joking.

“Nobody has servants,” Giulia added. “That's from, I don't know, medieval times.”

“Farmhands might count as servants,” Lorenzo Paguro mused. “Like those two boys Atinnia Trota has working at her place since her husband died.”

“Are all humans this poor?” asked Harry. “Where are the normal people?”

“We're not poor!” Giulia huffed. “This is normal! If you want rich people, the richest ones in town are the Visconti family, and even they don't have servants. They've got some employees who work in their vineyards, but that's not the same. Signora Visconti does her own cooking.”

Harry sat down on the bench below the stairs, where he watched thoughtfully as everybody else pitched in to get food on the table. He appeared to be re-thinking this whole expedition, as if he didn't want a new family if that were necessarily going to come with work. Luca kind of hoped that was true. Harry's father wasn't very nice, but Harry belonged in his own world and they needed to get him back there as fast as they could.

There was no room for so many people to sit down around the tiny kitchen table, so they headed out to the yard to eat as the sun set and the first stars began to come out. Daniela and Luca set the table, and Massimo brought out the extra-large pot that could hold enough pasta for everybody. Seeing all this made Luca so happy to be home he nearly cried – it reminded him of the evening after the race last year, when the sea monsters had first been welcomed to Portorosso. Even Alberto was getting a bit misty-eyed, although he'd never admit it. The two boys dug into their favourite dish with gusto.

Harry didn't look so excited about it. He tried the trenette al pesto, but just shrugged.

“We need to figure out how we're going to get back into the monster world,” Luca announced. That was a problem he wasn't sure how to solve. Any door they might go through was just going to lead into the factory, and that was the last place they wanted to arrive. He frowned, chewing on a mouthful as he considered it. “What happens to the doors when the kids get too old to be scared anymore?”

“They go to storage,” said Harry. “They check them out every couple of years, but you can't open them from this end. You need the equipment.”

“So we'll have to find somebody else who's got a monster and wait there... but then when we get into the monster world they'll grab us right away,” said Luca. That wouldn't work at all. Mr. Waternoose might even have a special watch on doors from Liguria in case they tried to come back.

“Aren't there any doors anywhere else?” asked Alberto. “I mean... there's other scare companies, right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, mouth full. “And there's a few at universities and stuff for research purposes, but they don't lead to kids' rooms.”

That sounded promising. Luca seized on it. “What doors are those? How do you find them?”

“I dunno, they're closet doors,” said Harry.

“There are other kinds of closets besides bedroom ones,” Helena observed thoughtfully. “There's linen closets, storage closets, broom closets...”

“Signora Marsigliese has a storage closet in her grocery store,” Giulia offered. “It's where she keeps stuff when there's no room for it on the shelves yet.”

“Oh, they won't use one in a shop,” said Harry, “especially if somebody lives there. The researchers don't actually want to meet any humans. They just want to find ways to stabilize the link, make it more energy-efficient, improve door matching, that kind of thing.”

“So nowhere there's people at night,” said Luca. “Where's got a closet that's closed at night?”

“Somewhere like a museum?” asked Helena.

“There's no museums in Portorosso,” said Alberto.

“No, but they've got lots of them in Genova,” said Giulia. “There's the Museum of Natural History, and the Maritime Museum, and Mamma does work sometimes at the Palazzo Spinola, which is going to be a museum someday but they have to restore it first because it got damaged during the war.”

“That's the one I'm thinking of,” Helena said. “There's one of the former bedrooms where I've helped touch up the frescoes, and I've never seen anything myself but there people working there full-time who swear it's haunted. They hear footsteps and see lights in the middle of the night.”

Luca did not believe in ghosts, but if closet monsters were a real thing then they might well be the explanation. “That's gotta be it!” he exclaimed. “There's a closet in there, right?”

“There's one where they keep paint and tools,” Helena agreed. “It's got a big sign on it that says solo personale autorizzato.”

“A lot of the ones the researchers use have signs like that,” Harry confirmed.

“Perfect!” Luca grinned. “So we just have to go back to Genova!”

“Now wait a moment, young man,” said Daniela. “I'm not sure I like the idea of you going back there, no matter how you get in. This monster world is obviously dangerous. Back me up, Lorenzo,” she said to her husband.

Lorenzo nodded. “Your mother is right, Luca. This really isn't your problem.”

“Yes, it is!” Luca insisted. “Louise and the others need our help. We're the ones who got them in trouble in the first place. Right, Alberto?”

“Right!” said Alberto through a mouthful of pasta.

“Well, you certainly can't go by yourselves,” Daniela said. “You have to at least take a grownup with you.”

“Oh, that's a good idea,” Giulia put in. “Like I said, Luca, your Mom's scary. The monsters will respect her.”

It was hard to say whether Daniela had really meant herself when she'd said a grownup, but that didn't seem to have been the part of the suggestion that startled her. “I'm not that scary!”

“Yes, you are,” chorused Alberto and Luca.

“No, you're not,” Harry scoffed.

“You haven't seen her get mad,” Luca told him.

Feeling like they had at least an approximation of a plan made Luca feel much better, and although he wouldn't have said it he was very reassured by the idea of taking his mother along. They wouldn't feel nearly so adrift and terrified in that strange world if they had a proper grownup with them.

After supper it was time for the kids to get into their pyjamas. Harry didn't have any with him, and nobody else's would have fit him, so he was given one of Massimo's extra shirts. It was as huge and awkward on him as Louise's monster-sized nightshirts had been on Alberto and Luca, but he didn't seem to mind.

The person who did mind was Giulia. Although she was too polite to say so, she was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Harry sleeping in her room, so the boys offered to also sleep over so it wouldn't just be the two of them. Luca had hoped this would avoid any arguments. It did not.

“You don't like me,” said Harry accusingly, as they rolled out sleeping bags on the floor.

“No, you're fine,” said Giulia, without looking at him.

“Alberto and Luca said you'd be cool.”

“I am cool,” Giulia insisted, annoyed. “It's just that I haven't known you very long yet.”

Harry wasn't at all impressed. “You're scared of me. They said you'd be fine, but you're scared of monsters. I bet you're scared of them, too. Everybody here is, even if they try to be nice about it.” He smiled to himself. “I bet I could be in charge of this place in no time.”

“Giulia isn't scared of anything,” Luca said loyally.

“Sure,” Harry said, “so why doesn't she have a closet, then?”

“Because there isn't room for one,” said Giulia. “This house is very small.”

“I noticed.”

“And I don't need one anyway,” she added. “I keep all my stuff on my shelves, and my clothes go in the drawers. My school stuff mostly stays at Mamma's house in Genova, because that's where I use it.”

Harry considered that as he built a little nest for himself out of blankets. “What do human kids learn at school? Do you learn about monsters?”

“No,” said Luca, “because humans mostly don't believe in monsters, not even sea monsters like us. Nobody knows about us except the people in Portorosso and some of the ones at school.”

“And a lot of them think it's a joke,” Giulia added. “I didn't even believe in sea monsters until I met Luca and Alberto, and I didn't believe in closet monsters until I met you today.”

Harry frowned. “See, that's what Dad says – he says humans shouldn't know about us, because what you don't know is always scarier than what you do.”

“That's probably true,” Giulia observed. “Now that I know about sea monsters, they're not scary at all.” She looked at Alberto and grinned. “In fact, Alberto is the least scary monster I've ever met.”

Alberto stuck his tongue out at her.

“I think he's scarier than I am,” Luca said.

“Now, I think if humans knew about us, they'd be even more scared,” Harry went on, “because then they'd know we could be lurking there, waiting to jump out at any moment.”

“Or we'd just take the doors off all our closets,” said Giulia.

That clearly hadn't occurred to Harry. He blinked, then scowled, annoyed at being outwitted.

Harry couldn't lie down flat like a human or a sea monster, so while the other kids bedded down, he nestled into the pile of blankets he'd built, looking rather like an egg in an Easter basket. Everybody else began to drift off, only to discover that Harry snored. It wasn't loud, but it was a whistling sort of noise that was impossible to ignore. Giulia had to stuff her head under her pillow in order to block it out.

Halfway through the night, Giulia woke up again, as she sometimes did, and rolled over to get more comfortable – whereupon she found herself looking into multiple glowing eyes that blinked in unison. She inhaled sharply and sat up, clutching at the covers.

Harry started laughing. “Boo!” he said.

“Harry!” groaned Luca from his bed on the floor.

“I knew it! I knew you were scared of me!” Harry cackled.

“It's the middle of the night,” Alberto scolded. “Go back to sleep!”

Harry continued to giggle to himself as he settled down in his little nest again. Luca gave him a disapproving frown and looked at Alberto, who wasn't going to stop at frowning and had gone all the way to a nasty scowl. The two silently agreed that the first thing they were going to do when that haunted closet at the museum opened was to shove Harry in, and after that they wouldn't take any more help from him.

In the morning, Giulia got up first, and noticed that Harry was still asleep. She crept over and knelt next to him, leaning in so her nose was only an inch from his face. It took him a moment to realize she was there, and then a couple of his eyes flickered open, and he screamed like Signora Brugnole did when she saw a mouse.

“Now who's scared?” asked Giulia, and got up to go brush her teeth while Harry sat there panting.

Luca and Alberto had already been half awake, but were jolted to full alertness by Harry's cry. They yawned and rubbed their eyes and looked at him, then both lay down and pretended to go back to sleep. He'd deserved that.

Helena had crespelle ready when they came downstairs for breakfast. They were thinner than Louise's pancakes but were served with ricotta and nutella, and she'd also sliced some bananas to put on top. The kids sat down and dug in, and Massimo came to sit with them and sip his espresso.

“Giulietta,” he said, as his daughter put bananas on her breakfast. “Your mother and I have been talking about money.”

“Uh-huh,” Giulia said, then whacked Alberto's wrist with her butter knife as he reached across the table. “How about pass the nutella?” she suggested to him, as he shook the stinging joint.

Harry, meanwhile, looked down at his own plate dubiously. “Is this it?” he asked.

“What more did you want?” asked Giulia. She passed the nutella and knife to Alberto, and gave him a plate for Luca.

“How about bacon?” asked Harry. “Or eggs? Or waffles? It's just tiny pancakes with cheese, and some coffee?”

“You don't want to eat heavily first thing in the morning,” said Helena firmly. “It's not good for your stomach.” She poured her espresso into milk, and added a little bit of cocoa. “As we were saying, kids, I didn't think we'd all be heading back to Genova. I have enough money to pay for my own ticket, but not for the boys or Signora Paguro.”

That wasn't what any of the kids had expected to hear, least of all Harry. “How can you not have money for train tickets?” he asked. “They cost nothing.”

“Obviously they cost something,” Giulia told him, “if they were free we wouldn't be worried about it.”

Luca was not discouraged. “We'll have to earn the money, then,” he said.

“How?” asked Massimo. “I cannot hire all three of you for extra besides your pocket money.”

“I've got some I've saved,” said Alberto. “And we can do odd jobs around the town. I've done that before!” Sometimes he'd even managed not to break anything.

“So have I,” Giulia agreed.

“And I can help,” said Luca.

“How much money will we need for the tickets?” Giulia asked her mother.

Helena did a brief bit of math for one adult and three youths, assuming Harry would go in the pram again. The figure she came up with wasn't too daunting, so after they were done eating, the kids got dressed and set out to do some work.

“I'm gonna head up the hill to where the older people live, and ask if they need anything done in their gardens,” Alberto announced. They almost always did, and while pulling weeds and turning over soil were tedious, there were very few ways he'd found to do them wrong.

“I'll do deliveries, and keep the tips,” Giulia said.

“I'll go with Alberto,” Luca said.

“Great!” Alberto nodded. “You can do your big eyes thing, and they'll pay us extra.”

“How about me?” Harry asked, scuttling out into the yard to join them. Helena had decided to wash his little sailor suit while the kids were out, but that left the problem of what he would wear in the mean time. Massimo had gone through some old things and found a shirt he'd worn as a child and had kept to use as rags someday. It was a bit too big on Harry and had to be pinned so he wouldn't step on the hem, but it was clean.

“You want to help earn money?” Alberto asked, a bit suspicious. Harry clearly wasn't interested in work – he seemed to think money was just something people had in infinite quantities.

“No,�� said Harry. “I need to find a new Dad, remember? Where are these Visconti people you mentioned?” He had evidently decided that he wanted not just a new family, but a new family with money.

“They live over the hill in the vineyards,” said Giulia. She checked her list of deliveries. “They've ordered some naselli... they must be having visitors because it's quite a few. Signor Visconti likes to schmooze people who are thinking about buying his wine.”

“I'll go with you, then,” Harry decided.

Giulia tried not to groan. “All right,” she said, “but you have to help. Do what I tell you to do, and don't wander off, you got it?”

“You're not my mother,” Harry told her.

“Do you want to stay at our house, or not?” Giulia asked. “Because if you do, you have to do what I say, got it?”

Harry snorted. “Fine.”

The boys headed up the hill to find some work to do, and Giulia attached the cart to her bike while Harry, under her direction, brought out boxes of ice and fish for delivery. He made a face as he handed her the first one.

“It smells,” he said.

“It's fish,” she told him. “Don't fish smell in your world?”

“I dunno, I've only seen them when they're already cooked,” Harry said. “And the ones in the pond at the zoo, that you can feed. Those don't smell.”

“They're not dead,” Giulia said. She climbed onto the bicycle. “Keep up, I'm not slowing down for you.”

She wasn't training for the race yet, not so early in the summer, so despite her words Giulia didn't hurry as she cycled up the hill to the first of her day's deliveries. Harry scuttled after her, looking around at the town and the people as they went. His many legs seemed able to carry him quite quickly, so she sped up a little.

Their first stop was the home of Signora Tarasco, where Giulia knocked on the door with a box of fish in her hands. The door opened, and Giulia proudly held out her merchandise. “Sardines, as ordered!” she announced. “Fresh from Papà's nets!”

“Ah, thank you, Giulia,” Signora Tarasco said. She took the box from Giulia, and then her eyes went to the waiting bicycle and cart, and she saw Harry standing next to it. For a split-second she just blinked at him, trying to figure out what she was seeing, then she screamed. She almost dropped the box, but grabbed it at the last moment, only for it to tip and pour dead sardines all over herself. Giulia dived to catch the fish, but could not grab them all, and ended up with two in her hand while the rest splattered on the pavement.

“Oh, my goodness!” the woman exclaimed, with a nervous giggle as she clutched the now-empty box. “You gave me a start! Wha... um... is that another of your friends, Giulia?”

“That's Harry,” said Giulia, picking herself up. “He's the monster from Rocco Marsigliese's closet.”

“No, the monster from Rocco's closet used to work for my Dad, but he fired her,” Harry corrected. “But he's a jerk, so now I'm looking for a new Dad, like Alberto.

“I saved these,” Giulia added, offering the fish she'd managed to grab.

“Oh... oh yes.” Signora Tarasco reached out and took them, her eyes locked on Harry. “I just... oh, dear, I ruined the rest of them. Let me... let me pay you for those.” She fumbled for her coin purse.

“You don't have to do that,” said Giulia, looking at the rest of the order, scattered on the cobblestones.

“No, no, it's only fair,” Signora Tarasco said distractedly. She gave Giulia a handful of coins without bothering to look at or count them. “Keep the change, dear,” she added, and shut the door, her only objective being to put something between herself and Harry as quickly as possible.

Giulia scowled and shoved the coins in her pocket. “Okay,” she told Harry, “you're going to have to stay behind the cart while people answer doors.”

“Luca and Alberto said the humans here would be fine,” Harry said, arms folded. “I'm starting to think they lied to me.”

“People will be fine once they get to know you,” Giulia told him. “Until then, you're scaring them. You're never gonna find a new family like that.”

Harry just sniffed. Evidently he thought if the humans were scared, that was their own fault.

They moved on to the next house. Harry would stay back with the cart while Giulia handed over the deliveries, but he refused to hide behind it. In fact, he seemed quite interested in people's reactions to him. Giulia explained who and what he was over and over, and people were polite but clearly uncomfortable with his presence. At least he didn't go around asking people if they wanted a child, like Luca and Alberto said he'd done in Genova, but she suspect that was merely because he'd already decided who his first choice was. If so, he was destined for bitter disappointment.

Giulia saved the Visconti family's fish for last, partly because it was furthest from home, and partly because she dreaded what Harry might do. She was sure it would be embarrassing at best and catastrophic at worse.

Harry himself perked up considerably when he realized there was only one box left. “Are we going to the Visconti house now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Giulia. “Although... how would you feel about having an older brother?” Maybe she could discourage him in advance.

“An older brother?” he asked.

“Yeah, they already have a son,” Giulia said.

Harry thought about that a little. “What is he like?”

“He's the biggest jerk in the world,” said Giulia. “Even worse than your Dad, I'm sure. He kept this town under his evil empire of injustice for years.”

“He did? How?” Harry wanted to know.

“Because everybody was scared of him!” Giulia said. “You never knew when he was going to show up and make your life miserable, just because he could! We finally kicked his butt last summer, and nobody takes him seriously anymore.”

They crested the hill and coasted back down it into the valley, where the vineyards were spread out around the big house where the Visconti family lived and ran their business. The villa had originally been built in the 18th century by their wealthy ancestors, with yellow walls and big cypress trees out front. It was now in rather poor repair, with the plaster flaking and cracks in the wall from the earthquake that had happened before Giulia was born, but still imposing. Harry grinned when he saw it, and would have gone right up the double staircase leading to the front door, but Giulia shook her head.

“Deliveries go around the back,” she said.

She led the way around the gravel path to the back garden, where the kitchens were. Harry frowned.

“This looks like a servants' entrance,” he said.

“It used to be,” Giulia said, “but I told you, nobody has servants anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's snooty. It's like you're saying you're better than anyone else. The Viscontis don't need servants – they do that anyway.”

They passed the garage. Giulia had been hoping Ercole wouldn't be there, just because she didn't want to see him, but he was, checking the air pressure on his Vespa's tyres. He looked up as she passed, then did a double-take.

“Porca paletta! What is that?”

“Is that him?” Harry asked excitedly. “Their son?”

“Yes. Ignore him,” Giulia instructed.

But Harry scuttled right into the open garage. Ercole crab-walked backwards, then scrambled to his feet as if to flee. If that were his intention, he changed his mind when Harry got too close to his precious Vespa. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Don't touch that!”

“Are you the one who used to have the whole town under an evil empire?” Harry asked eagerly.

Ercole knew exactly where he'd heard that. “For your information,” he said, moving his Vespa aside so that it wasn't too close to this odd little creature. “People in this town used to love me until those sea monsters came along. Now it's sea monster this and sea monster that, and nobody has time for real people anymore.” He peered suspiciously at his visitor. “What are you?”

“Aren't you scared of me?” Harry asked.

“You can't be scary if you hang out with Spewlia,” Ercole replied. “You're just a little bug. You should mind you don't get squashed like one.”

Giulia rolled her eyes, but on the whole this wasn't as bad as she'd feared. She knocked on the kitchen door. “Signora Visconti!” she called out. “I've got your fish!”

#fanfic #pixar luca #luca 2021 #monsters inc #monsters university #luca paguro #alberto scorfano #giulia marcovaldo #ercole visconti #scary monsters

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