Archive of Our Own ^beta

You Are on the Floor Crying
And you
have been on the floor crying
for days.
And this is you being brave.
That is you
getting through this as best
you know how.
No one else gets to tell you
what your tough looks like.

Clementine von Radics

Steven was fearless.

No, scratch that; he was absolutely fearless.

Sure, he was hardly the strongest or even the most outgoing amongst his peers, but he knew he was fearless. It was a simple fact of life.

When his class went on excursions, he was the one who strode ahead courageously, the adventurer in him happy to face the dangers ahead before anyone else had to.

When he saw men being harassed over wearing kippahs on their head or a Star of David around their neck, he would shout at their tormentors all manner of things until they backed down and, he hoped, took the time to think about their actions.

And when adults shouted around him loud angry words he didn’t like listening to, no matter how much he winced or flinched, he never once ran away.

Whatever it was, he could face it. He was happy to do it, too. It was his job to keep everyone he loved safe, to keep them out of danger, and that meant being brave, no matter what, even if it meant getting hurt every now and again. But no matter how many bruises and cuts he got, he was always assured by the knowledge that it was all worth it.

He wasn't sure why exactly he thought that, but he knew it was true. He was doing exactly what he was meant to be doing.

Steven was more than just fearless, though.

He was smart too, with a bunch of pastimes to keep him busy when he wasn’t out doing brave things.

He liked to stargaze. It wasn’t the greatest hobby to have in the city, the light pollution hiding the very best constellations, but that didn’t diminish his love for the night sky. He gathered as much information as he could on constellations, learning to point each and every one out by name, even the ones he couldn’t see in his hemisphere of the planet. He hoped one day he’d get the chance to go out into the world and see them all for himself.

He also loved reading and, when he had no books to occupy his mind, making up his own stories. He could spend hours and hours in his head daydreaming up little tales about far off planets and brave princesses who flew on golden wings. When his own imagination was not enough, he would go out into his backyard and use the environment around him to imagine grand, distant worlds where he could be anyone he wanted.

Sometimes, without meaning to, he would laugh and look beside him, as if expecting someone to be there to laugh along with him. He wasn’t sure why he did that. He didn’t have any siblings or any close friends, so it wasn’t as if he was missing any company. And yet, it always felt like someone was meant to be beside him, tagging along on his adventures. It was like he’d put all the pieces of a puzzle together save for one, and no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find it.

Steven learned quickly to ignore that feeling.

Another thing Steven liked was school, for the simple fact that he loved to learn.

No matter how boring the subject, Steven ate any and all information up greedily, always happy to listen to whatever his teacher were teaching for the day. His teachers loved him for it, constantly praising his intelligence, much to his delight and to the grumbles of his fellow students.

He did his very best to behave, to be the very definition of a perfect student.

‘Course, he didn’t always quite meet that goal.

Steven was walking to his next class when he noticed one of the boys from the year below was being harassed by one of the older boys. The younger boy was tiny, barely up to the bully’s chest, who had him backed up against the wall and was holding him tightly by the collar.

Steven felt a surge of protectiveness wash over him, and he rushed forward to pull the aggressor off the poor boy. The bully stumbled back, having not expected the interruption, and Steven used the opportunity to place himself between the boy and his tormentor.

“Hey, stop that,” he said. “That’s enough.”

The bully gathered himself, and scowled at Steven. “What the hell is your problem? This is none of your business. Get out of here before I punch your face in.”

“No,” Steven said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere until you leave.”

The bully scoffed, and looked Steven up and down. “I’d like to see you try.” And then he advanced forward.

Steven drew back a fist, ready to fight the bully off, but when he went to throw a punch, he froze in place.

He had always considered himself brave and strong enough to protect those in need, even if that meant throwing a punch or two. It was simply a trait of his he’d always assumed, a theoretical answer to a scenario he’d never been in.

But now he was in the scenario, ready to do that thing he always thought he would do when push came to shove, and all he could think of was how much this would hurt the other boy, how much fear it could put in him if Steven threw the punch. And that thought made his throat tighten.

(Several flashes of memory passed before his eyes, too fast for him to make out, save for the pain that each of them held.)

The fact he could lash out right now and hurt the bully in front him didn’t give him any sort of satisfaction. If anything, it simply made him nauseous.

He lowered his fist and drew back. He wanted to protect the younger boy, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone in the process. It was...it was wrong.

The bully paused, noticing the withdrawal with a laugh. “Oh, backing down, are ya?”

Even if he couldn't fight, he could still be brave. Steven lifted his chin. “No, not at all. I’m simply not stooping down to your level, mate.” He turned to the boy behind him and said in a soft voice, “Go on, get out of here. I’ve got this.”

The younger boy didn’t argue, and took off in a flash, leaving Steven alone with the bully.

I got this, I got this, he repeated to himself as he turned back to look the bully in the eye.

“Now, why don’t we chill down and talk abo—”

The bully slammed his fist into Steven’s stomach, and the rest of his sentence was lost in a wheeze. Steven stumbled back, winded, and had only enough time to hold his arms up in defence before another fist hit his collarbone.

“You shouldn’t have tried to play hero,” the bully said.

He kept hitting, again and again.

Steven didn’t raise his own fist once.

The school called home about the 'scuffle', as they decided to call it, and since Steven's dad was busy at the synagogue that afternoon, it was his mum who picked him up. She eyed his bloody nose sternly, and Steven lowered his head, ashamed.

She didn’t say anything to him while in the principal’s office, or on the car ride home. It wasn’t until he was standing in his bedroom that she spoke up.

“You should have protected ⸺”

“I know,” Steven said.

“Why didn’t you? It was the only job you had to do. So why didn’t you?”

“I tried. I just...didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

He didn’t have it in him to hurt people, no matter what they were doing. He knew that now.

That was fine. Being brave didn’t mean he had to be violent. He could be brave in other ways.

“I see,” his mum said.

She strode forward and pulled his chin up, so that he had to look her in the eye.

“I ⸺ you.”

Then, before he could reply, she ki—ed him, too fast for him to dodge out of the way, but slow enough for the sensation to linger on his skin.

"Mum," he whi—ed, batting her away. "Stop it."

"⸻," his mum said very, very loudly.

Steven winced. He went to tell her he didn't like when she shouted, no matter what she was saying (what had she just said? Gosh, it'd gone through one ear and straight out the other) but he decided against it. He didn't want to hurt her feelings or anything. He could handle shouting every now and again, even if the loudness made his brain buzz uncomfortably and his skin feel too tight.

She spoke very loudly for a while, and ki—ed him a few more times, all over his arms and face, and even his chest. It went on for long enough that Steven was almost tempted to ask her to give it a rest, but that would be rude, wouldn't it, asking his mum to leave him alone? He didn't want her thinking he didn't love her.

Because he did love her. Even if she was a bit much sometimes.

Eventually, she left, drinking some juice from her bottle as she wobbled through the door. Once she was at the bottom of the stairs, Steven leaned back against the end of his bed (when had he fallen to the floor?) and looked up at the neon green stars on his ceiling. He'd arranged them all into accurate constellations some time ago, and he recited their names to himself, in a soft whisper no one would overhear.

"Cassiopeia. Ursa Minor. Pegasus. Cepheus. Cygnus."

He went through them all, and when he'd exhausted those depicted on his ceiling, he started to make his way through others, as many as he could remember. 

"Ursa Major. Orion. Bootes. Perseus. Telescopium."

All the while, he rubbed his hand along his ribs, wondering distantly why they felt so sore, because despite all the punches the bully threw, none had hit him there.

“⸺, this isn’t good enough,” his teacher said, jabbing her finger at the mark at the top of the page. “I know you can do better than this.”

Steven winced. She wasn’t shouting, but her voice was still rather loud. And disappointed. Some part of him wanted to shrink away and cover his ears, but he pushed it away. That would be silly, and cowardly, and he was no coward.

“You’re a smart kid, I know you are. Marks like this don’t just happen out of blue. So what’s going on? Why aren’t you trying in class anymore?”

“I,” Steven started, then swallowed. He wasn’t sure why his grades had been falling. He'd been keeping up just fine, he'd thought.

“Are you having any trouble at home? Or is this something else? Is one of the other students bullying you?”

Steven shook his head vehemently. No, it had nothing to do with that. His teacher, however, clearly thought that was the case; he didn’t miss how she glanced at the bruise on his jaw, as if it held the answers. Steven ignored the instinct to cover it up and keep it out of view. She was being silly, jumping to conclusions that didn’t exist. He’d simply gotten it from a bad fall.

“⸺, you can tell me. I can help.”

Steven knew no matter what he said, she would not believe him, so he said nothing.

The teacher seemed to realise she would not get the answer she wanted, and sighed. “If you don’t improve, I will have to get your parents involved.”

Steven stiffened. Getting reprimanded by his teacher was one thing, but his parents? No, he didn’t want that. They were already so busy, and he didn’t want to bother them with having to help him get his grades back up.

“I’ll do better,” he promised. “I won’t let you down.”

Steven had fallen down the stairs again. He really was so clumsy, always bumping into things and getting bruises he couldn't remember getting.

He couldn't quite remember how he tripped, but he sure did remember the tumble. It had not been fun, to say the least. 

Gingerly, he picked himself off the floor, almost collapsing back down when a twinge of pain raced up his right arm. He managed to stay upright, thank the stars, and he got to his feet, using his uninjured arm to keep himself steady with the help of the stair post, while pressing his aching arm to his chest.

Mum stood at the top of the stairs, the light behind her casting her into silhouette. He couldn't quite make out her face, but he was sure she was the picture of worry right now.

"⸻?" she asked.

"I'm okay," Steven murmured. "I'm okay. It's only a few bruises."

His mum let out a breath, almost sounding annoyed, but he knew it was really her being relieved. She turned away and marched to her room, the door closing with a bang behind her. The wind often did that, but Steven couldn't hold back a startled flinch at the noise.

His room was up the stairs as well, but one glance at the stairs and the hallway they led to it had him retreating to the living room instead. Why risk falling down the stairs again, right? He'd just stay down here until dad got home.

“Cassiopeia. Ursa Minor. Pegasus. Cepheus. Cygnus,” he whispered to himself, drawing the constellations out on his thigh.

Just until dad got home.

There was a scribbled note on the corner of his homework that hadn't been there before he'd gone into his wardrobe. He'd been interrupted from his work by his mum's early arrival home, and he had decided to have a quick adventure inside the wardrobe to find the lost princess of a faraway moon, just for a little while. He'd taken the homework and pencils in with him, but had made no attempts to continue it in the dark. He wasn't that much of a plonker to try and do homework when he couldn't even see the page. Yet, somehow, when he'd left the safety—a strange word choice there, he thought, shaking it away quickly; the excitement, he corrected—of the wardrobe, the message was there. The handwriting was familiar as his own, but the message itself was foreign.

'Please, you have to stay strong, for the both of us. I can't survive her alone. You're all I have left.' 

Steven frowned. Her? Who was the message referring to? A crush at school? Well, that was just silly because he didn't have any at the moment. He had more important things to focus on.

And this was not one of them. It was just nonsense he must have written while making up his space story. The 'her' it spoke of must be the lost princess. 'Course, that was it. He could blame the dark for the frantic, scratchy nature of the writing. The dark was hard to write in, afterall. 

Ah well. He couldn't leave it there. What would his teacher think? 

He crossed the words out until the message was completely indecipherable. And then, to make it somewhat neater, he transformed it into a little landscape of his faraway moon, adding in a few choice constellations just for fun. The teacher wouldn't like it (she wasn't a fan of the little doodles he did of comets and asteroid belts) but at least it wouldn't lead to an awkward meeting when the teacher's would say "what does this mean?" or "I just want to understand your thought process here", and then point at a sentence he didn't remember writing. 

He smiled at his drawing, proud of the detail. He'd even squeezed in a few new stars he'd learnt about recently. Maybe that'd impress the teacher enough for her to let the doodling slide. 

There were no other little messages to cover up on the page, so Steven settled in at his desk and continued to make his way through the homework questions.

The wet spots on the page were dry by the time he was finished.

Steven was in the midst of one of his adventures through space when he heard something metallic slide across the wardrobe doors. Then, as Steven was wondering about the strange sound, the door to his room slammed shut, sudden enough to make his flinch.

"Hello?" he called out, confused.

He pressed his hand against the door and nudged it open. Or he tried to at least.

The doors were stuck fast. 

"Oh dear," he muttered. "Not this again."

It wasn't the first time this had happened; the wardrobe was old, and the doors sometimes needed an extra shove to get them open. It wasn’t unusual, really.

But this time they didn't even budge, no matter how hard he pushed himself up against them or rattled the doors. 

"Hey, let me out! I'm stuck in here!"

No one answered, and Steven quickly gave up on shouting for help, quickly realising how pointless it was. No one could hear him. He’d hoped his mum might respond, but she must have gone out. It would explain why she wasn't coming to help. She would never leave him alone like this. 

That meant he was well and truly stuck in here. In the dark, cramped space. With no way out. 

It was...it was okay. It just meant more time for his stories.

Sure, it wasn’t nice, but Steven wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid. He was absolutely fearless. 

Absolutely.

"I've braved things far worse than this,” he told himself as he huddled himself into the corner of the wardrobe. “This is nothing. I'll be out soon.”

But he could only tell himself stories for so long; he wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the time the darkness was too present to ignore, and he could do nothing more than rub his hands together fretfully as he peered hopefully in the direction of the wardrobe doors, waiting for them to open suddenly.

They didn’t. The wardrobe only got darker as the light from the room outside faded.

Steven stopped looking at the doors, and simply settled for staring at nothing. He thought about telling himself more stories about space, but realised there was no need, not when he felt like he was floating in the void already, without any anchors to tie him down. He barely felt his legs or his hands or his face or anything. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the wardrobe. His mind was somewhere else, drifting someplace just off to the side of everything, and the darkness faded away into something dreamlike and distant.

The wardrobe became a background thought he could almost forget about.

He was only pulled back into his body when he heard his bedroom door creak open.

“⸺,” a voice called. “Where are you?”

“Dad,” Steven whispered, his throat dry from disuse. He gripped his hands together tightly, and used the feeling of nails on his skin to sharpen his thoughts. Louder, he said: “Dad! I'm here!”

“⸺,” his dad repeated with more alarm.

Something metallic fell to the floor, and then the doors were flying open to reveal his dad’s shocked expression.

Steven didn’t wait to hear what his dad had to say about how silly it was that he got stuck in the wardrobe again. He leapt out and wrapped his arms around his dad. He couldn't even speak, so overwhelmed by the joy of being out of the dark, small space that had kept him for longer than he’d ever wanted.

"⸺?" his dad said, worry clear in his voice as he tightened his embrace. "How long have you been in there?"

Steven glanced at his window. The purple hues he could make out through it told him it was just after sunset. It’d been just past noon when he’d started his adventure.

"Not too long," he said.

His dad pulled back, but kept his hands on Steven's shoulders as his eyes trailed up and down attentively. His gaze eventually settled on Steven's hands, and then over to the metal baseball bat that laid beside him. Steven must have forgotten to put it back before he went into the wardrobe. His dad grimaced.

"Oh, ⸺," his dad whispered as he returned to inspecting Steven's bloody nails. "I'm so sorry. I should have been home sooner."

Steven shrugged. "Oh, it's not your fault. Doors got stuck, is all. A little bit of oil on the hinges and it’ll be as good as new."

His dad gave him a strange look. "⸺?"

"Hm?" 

"Are you...okay?"

"Tip top, as always," Steven said, smiling. 

His dad's lips thinned, clearly unsure, but he nodded all the same. "Okay. Let's get you cleaned up, huh." His dad brushed back Steven's hair and wiped something wet off his cheek. "How does that sound?"

"That sounds brilliant," Steven said.

That night, after his fingers were clean and he was no longer trembling from the cold, Steven decided he would start having his adventures outside instead.

Someone touched his shoulder.

It was a light touch, barely even there, but it was sudden, without warning, and that was enough to make Steven yelp and startle right out of his seat.

The classroom went completely silent as everyone turned to look at him. Steven scrambled back to his seat, but by that point, it was too late. Everyone had seen him making a complete fool over himself over something so silly as a light brush of a hand on his shoulder.

(Horrible, horrible words echoed in his head before he shook them away.)

"⸺?" the teacher asked, clearly confused by the uncalled for reaction.

"Sorry, I'm not sure why I did that," Steven admitted sheepishly. "Guess I'm just tired."

Some of the other students began to whisper between themselves, while some outright snickered and said words he decided to ignore. The attention, however, was enough to make a flush of embarrassment wash over him.

"Did you knock your head?" the teacher asked after a long pause. "Do you want me to take you to the sickbay? Or call your—"

"No!" Steven cried. "I'm fine. Just got startled. No need to bother anyone."

"Are you sure? You're talking funn—"

"I really am fine."

The teacher sighed, but nodded and continued on with the class, casting him worried looks every now and again. It was certainly preferable to the bewildered or amused, almost scathing looks he got from his peers.

It wasn't the last time he startled in class, nor was it the worst instance. Teachers eventually began to avoid touching him altogether, and his peers soon followed. 

And eventually his dad as well.

He wasn’t sure how it started, or why. He’d noticed a few aborted movements here and there, and the many awkward attempts to avoid touching Steven at all even when a situation called for it, but he didn’t realise it was a problem until one day after school when he’d decided to do his homework in the lounge room rather than in his room. His mum had been cleaning in there, and he decided it'd be best to stay out of her way until she was done.

He must have been dozing off, because he didn’t realise his dad was behind him until he sensed the pressure of hand on his shoulder. Steven pulled away with surprise and snapped his eyes up to meet his dad, who was watching him with alarm. Well, no wonder! Steven had startled like a little kid in a haunted house. He relaxed into the couch and laughed sheepishly at his own reaction.

“You gave me quite a start there, dad,” Steven said. “Been practising your ninja skills, have you? Well, you should be plenty chuffed, because I didn’t hear you coming at all.”

His dad’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. “It’s...you.”

Steven raised an eyebrow. “‘Course it’s me. Who did you think I was?”

His dad gave him an assessing look, as if trying to uncover some great mystery in Steven’s eyes. “No one, son. I...I’m glad you’re okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, it’s alright. Just give me some warning in future, yeah. Don’t want to be embarrassing myself in front of my ninja dad everyday, now do I?”

Steven wasn’t sure where the conversation went after that, but his dad must have misunderstood Steven’s request to be given a warning as a request to not be touched at all, because after that day, they might as well have been strangers.

His dad still talked to him, still asked after his day, still prayed with him and took him along to the synagogue on Shabbat (even though Steven was slowly losing interest in the practice; he'd never been as devout as his father), but not once did he hug him, brush his hair from his face, or even simply give him a pat on the shoulder. It was as if Steven was a disease to avoid at all cost.

Steven knew his dad didn’t mean to hurt him, but no matter how much he told himself that, he couldn’t excavate the build-up of pain that was forming over his heart. He could take his peers steering themselves to the other sides of hallways to avoid him, or being left partnerless in a group dance because no one wanted to pair up with him, but seeing his dad hover his hand over Steven's shoulders only to pull away was more than he could bear.

He knew it was his fault. If he simply didn't react so strangely to sudden touches, then no one would have any reason to avoid touching him. Everything would still be normal.

Mum still touched him sometimes, but he never found it quite as comforting as he did the hugs and kisses he used to get from his dad. If anything, her attention made him yearn for hugs from his dad even more. And yet he could never quite work up the courage to ask or seek them out. He didn't want to be a bother.

In the absence of comfort, Steven learned to find other sources. At home, he wrapped himself up in his duvet until the warmth and weight of it completely encompassed him. When he was at school, and felt the hollow sense of loneliness, he would cling to the strap of his school bag and keep it tight against his chest; it helped to ground him in a world that was all too happy to ignore he even existed.

“I think ⸺’s been having some trouble lately,” he overheard his teacher say through the walls. “He’s been having difficulty making friends, and he doesn’t raise his hand in class anymore. I’ve hardly heard him say a word since the start of the school year. Sometimes, it's like he's not really present in the classroom at all. He goes...distant.”

Steven swung his legs to and fro. It wasn’t as easy as it’d been before his growth spurt, his shoes now squeaking each time they struck the linoleum floor, but it was something to do. Sitting still had never been something he’d excelled at, especially for long periods. And he’d been waiting in the hall for almost 20 minutes, with nothing to occupy him except the muffled discussion between his dad and his teacher in the next room.

“You’re not in trouble,” was all his dad had told him before the discussion had started.

Except kids who weren’t in trouble didn’t get their parents called into school.

Steven glanced at the classroom door. The teacher was saying something about a school counsellor and something about fostering friendships, but he couldn’t make out much more than that. It was all adult talk over something that didn’t even really matter.

Steven was fine. He wasn’t lonely or the other word the teacher had used that sounded like decompressed. She was worrying over nothing, really. There was nothing wrong with being the quiet kid.

But if she thought he needed friends, then that’s what he would do. He would make a friend.

Sunday became Steven’s day for adventures on his own out into the city. His dad didn’t quite approve of the idea, but he didn’t stop him either, simply asking that he not stray too far from home, and to return before it got dark. Steven agreed readily, glad to be out and about.

‘Course, who could blame him for going out further and further each time? There was only so much he could see on his own block before he got curious about what lay outside its confines.

It was on one of his adventures through the city that he found his way to Grant Park.

It took only an hour of him wandering amongst its grand greenery for him to decide this was his favourite place in the world.

For one, it was ginormous, filled with all sorts of sights to see. It had flower gardens, sculptures, and a huge fountain that mesmerised him the moment he saw it. It was a playground perfect for any adventurer.

And well, for two, it was named Grant Park. It was basically meant for him.

After a few journeys to Grant Park and taking in all the sights and whatnot, it soon became part of his weekend routine to visit the park and feed the local pigeons.

He didn’t bring bread, because he knew that it had no nutritional value for birds, and he would not be such a plonker as give them something like that. Instead, he stopped at the pet shop that was on the way and purchased a small bag of seeds with the small amount of pocket money his dad provided him with. Then, with that in hand, he’d make his way to his favourite spot in the park, right in the furthest corner near the street where pedestrians didn’t tend to wander. It was quiet and peaceful—or at least as quiet and peaceful it could be in a city—and the place where the pigeons liked to flock.

There was one pigeon in particular that he quickly grew fond of. It was a mostly white bird, with a few grey speckles on its left wing that, along with its more daring personality, was enough to distinguish it from all the others. He’d decided to call it Cygnus.

“On account of your feathers,” he explained to the bird in question. “Cygnus means 'swan', and well, you aren’t a swan obviously, but, close enough, right.”

Cygnus just pecked seeds like the other pigeons. Steven didn’t mind. He just liked having someone to talk to, even if they didn’t talk back.

“My bar mitzvah is coming up soon, did you know? Yeah, dad’s been preparing for it for ages, planning a big celebration. ‘Course, he’s the rabbi, he can’t not, but I just hope he doesn’t go too overboard, y’know? Not really a fan of all the attention, yeah. But I’m sure it’ll be fun.

“And Mum’s excited too. Says it means I’ll finally be responsible for my own actions. She even said she’d give me a few gifts after the celebration. Isn’t that great?”

Cygnus ruffled its feathers.

Steven laughed self-consciously. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to listen to this twit, yeah?” he said. “You’ve got other problems to worry about. Stuff birds worry about, probably. Bird politics, bird wars, maybe even bird jobs.”

Steven threw down a few more seeds, this time closer to his feet, and the little white bird hopped towards him.

“You used to send messages, yeah, back in the day,” Steven said. “'Cause you lot are far smarter than people think. Always know your way home, no matter how far you are. Plenty smart, that is. And that’s not even talking about crows or anything. They can recognise their own reflection, y’know. Most animals can’t do that. Bird brain should be a compliment, that’s what I think.”

Without needing to be prompted, Cygnus fluttered up onto space on the seat beside Steven, and he beamed with delight. See, he could make friends. Animal friends, sure, but still friends.

As carefully as he could, so as not to scare off his little bird friend, he poured out the rest of the seeds onto the bench. Cygnus immediately started to peck at the little pile, and Steven watched him quietly, keeping as still as possible as he did so. Cygnus finished the seeds quickly, and eyed Steven eagerly.

“Sorry, Nus, I’m all out. But I’ll be back soon with more, promise.”

Steven stood up and wiped down the leftover seeds from his clothes, and Cygnus quickly flew down to munch them all up.

“Hungry little fella, aren’t you. Well, don’t worry, lil’ buddy, I won’t be gone too long,” Steven said. “I’ll be here, in Cygnus and in health.” He snorted at his own joke. “Sorry, that one might fly over your head.”

He immediately dissolved into giggles, and that was enough to startle Cygnus away. Steven’s laughter petered out at that. He sighed, and wrapped his hands around his forearms.

Maybe his teacher was right. Maybe he was lonely. Because as much as he loved talking to the pigeons, sometimes he wished he had someone to talk back to him. Or even just laugh at his jokes.

That would be wonderful.

Grant Park wasn’t the only haven he found in that part of the city. One day, rather than heading back along the coastline, Steven headed inland from the park, and stumbled across the grand building that was the Harold Washington Library Centre.

He hadn’t even realised it was a library when he first ventured in, simply awestruck by the majesty of the building,

Through the doors, there was a majestic lobby; the ceiling went way up, so high it made him feel like a little ant amongst grass. Along the tops of the wall, there was a walkway filled with doors to places he couldn’t see. And at the centre of the room, there was a wide, circular hole that let him see into the floor below. He ran and pressed his face to the railing that ran along the circle's edges, trying to see as much as he could. People walked to and fro beneath him, books piled up in their hands.

“Woah.”

He quickly decided he loved this place even more than Grant Park.

“Hello there,” a voice called. “Are you looking for something?”

Steven looked over to the source of the sound. The receptionist at the welcome desk was waving at him. She looked nice, he thought, with the kind of wrinkles that made her look like she laughed a lot. She wore half-moon spectacles over her near-black eyes, and Steven wasn’t sure if it was because she needed them, or if it was simply something people who worked in libraries were given upon induction.

She was one of the good adults, Steven decided, and he trotted over to her desk.

“Hiya,” he said, giving an arching wave. “Um, no, I just, well, the owls outside—the statue owls, sorry, not actual owls, but wouldn't that be lovely—well, they were really snazzy, and so were all the other decorations too, so I thought I’d come in, and oh my days, it’s just as nice in here, I mean, just wow. I have no words.”

The receptionist—Cynthia, according to her nametag—gave him a kind smile. “I know the feeling.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “To tell you the truth, I still think that sometimes.”

Steven giggled, delighted by her trusting him with the secret information. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Cynthia looked past him. “Are you here alone?”

Steven’s giggles tapered off and shrunk in on himself, twiddling his hands together anxiously. He couldn’t tell her the truth; she’d probably send him home, or worse, get his parents to pick him up, and then they’d never let him go adventuring ever again. He didn’t want to give this up. So he said, “They’re out exploring. We don’t come to this part of the city often. We live further up north. At Lakeview.”

“You live here long? In the United ⸺, I mean?”

“My whole life,” Steven said. Despite his love of exploring, he’d never left the country, let alone the city limits. He hoped that wouldn't always be the case. 

“Oh, but your accent...” Cynthia shook her head, and smiled. “Well, why don’t you do some exploring of your own? Are you interested in reading?”

“Yes!” Steven said, bouncing on his toes. “I love reading.”

“Well, if you tell me what kind of books you’re looking for, I can send you in the right direction.”

Steven thought about it. “Well, I really love learning about the stars. Do you have any books on them?”

“Of course,” Cynthia said. She typed something into her computer. “We have a few books available to borrow, most of which are on the fourth floor. Do you have a library card?”

“No.”

“Well, we can set that up now, if you want. That means you can take the books home with you. We’ll just need one of your parent’s signatures and proof of your current residence.”

Steven deflated. If he asked his parents, they’d know he’d been straying a long way from home, and he really didn’t want them to worry. “Um. Can I still read the books here if I don’t have a library card?”

Cynthia paused for the moment, seeming to consider something, before she nodded. “Yes, that should be fine, dear. Just make sure to return the book to their rightful place, okay.”

“Okay,” Steven agreed. “Thank you.”

“If you need any more help, you know where to find me. Though, before you run off; can I get your name?"

The question made him pause. He’d never had anyone ask him that. The only people he ever talked to already knew his name, except they always said it wrong. He hadn’t had the heart to correct him.

But now he had the opportunity to introduce himself to someone new.

 "Oh, right, of course. Silly me. I'm Steven. As in even-Steven."

"Steven," Cynthia repeated, smiling. "Well, it's lovely to meet you, dear."

For the first time in a long time, Steven felt well and truly seen. He beamed with delight.

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

Thanks to Cynthia’s guidance, it didn’t take long for Steven to find the library’s collection of astronomy books. It wasn’t much of a surprise to him to learn he’d read most of the books in the selection available, but that didn’t deter him away from checking out what else the library had to offer. 

Most of the books were about teaching the reader about constellations, but he had already learnt all the constellations that were visible to the naked eye, so he disregarded those. Some were more about the science of stars, and while he did find that interesting, he leaned more towards the history of stargazing and the mythology of it all. He liked the idea of people making up stories to help journey through the night.

As he was nearing the end of the shelf, one book caught his eye. He pulled it out and looked it over curiously. It was an older book, with a yellow cover that depicted, to his surprise, Egyptian style art at the bottom. At the top, the title of the book was written: ‘The Dawn of Astronomy’ by J. Norman Lockyer.

He didn’t recognise the author’s name, but Steven decided the ‘J.’ in the author’s name stood for Jacob. He wasn't sure why he decided that, but Jacob Lockyer sounded better than J. Norman Lockyer, he thought.

No matter the author’s name, the book sounded interesting, and the cover made it seem it had something to do with Ancient Egypt. He knew a few things about the subject, mostly from school history projects and from old mummy movies he’d watched when he was younger, but he was hardly an expert. Perhaps it would be fun to learn more.

He settled onto one of the closest chairs, and opened the book, flicking through the introduction and index to get to the first chapter.

'When we inquire among which early peoples we are likely to find the first cultivation of astronomy', it began, 'whatever the form it may have taken, we learn that it is generally agreed by archæologists that the first civilisations which have so far been traced were those in the Nile Valley and in the adjacent countries in Western Asia.'

It only took that one paragraph for him to be completely engrossed in the book. He couldn't pull himself away; it was just so interesting. Why had no one ever told him how amazing the Ancient Egyptians were?

Okay, so he knew why. His dad and his dad’s rabbi friends had gone on enough rants about the Egyptian enslavement of his ancestors for him to know that the Ancient Egyptians weren’t all that amazing. But their concept of mathematics and astronomy and even their collection of gods was just brilliant. He couldn’t deny he found it all fascinating. So, despite the small hint of guilt he felt for enjoying the book, he continued to read.

He got so absorbed in the book that he didn’t notice the hours passing him by, and it was only a quick, unintentional glance at the clock in the corner of the room that drew Steven away from the book.

“Oh bugger,” he muttered, “I have to get home.” He scrambled out of his seat and rushed to take the book to the return tray. He wanted to keep reading it, but his curfew was soon approaching, and he didn’t dare return late.

That day marked the start of a new routine. Every Sunday, he’d take the bus down to Grant Park to feed his pigeons, and then he’d head over to the library. His first few visits consisted of him heading beeline to the Dawn of Astronomy and reading from where he left off. He did this until he finished it and then, with glee that bubbled through his body and made him bounce on his toes, he asked Cynthia where all the books on the Gods of Ancient Egypt were kept.

Cynthia directed him to the 6th floor, and even provided a few recommendations, and from there, Steven’s love of Egyptian mythology exploded.

Reciting constellations was eventually replaced by reciting Egyptian gods.

"Osiris. Horus. Isis. Hathor. Thoth. Amun-Ra. Taweret. Ammet. Khonshu."

His love for Egyptian mythology soon spawned a fascination for Egyptology as a whole, and he quickly made his way through a selection of books exploring pharaohs and pyramids and Ancient Egyptian practices. Eventually, all the pigeons that visited him at the park had names. Amongst Hatshepsut, Ramesses, and Nefertiti, Cygnus became the odd one out.

Steven didn’t tell his dad about his new fascination, and he often had to catch himself from accidentally dropping a reference to anything Egyptian in conversation. It was hard to not talk about it, really, really hard, but he knew what would happen if he ever shared it. Dad would ask questions, and questions would lead to him finding out that Steven was venturing further into the city than he was allowed, and that would lead to Steven being banned from going to Grant Park or the library ever again.

Steven didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t go there anymore.

There was a dead pigeon in the park.

It wasn’t Cygnus, thank heavens, its brown feathers enough to assure him of that fact, but Steven still stopped walking to glance worriedly at the small corpse.

It’d been crushed somehow, by a tire or something heavy running over it if he had to hazard a guess, because whatever had killed it had had enough crushing force to leave its flesh exposed and mince-like, and send its entails across the ground.

He managed to stomach the sight until one of the other pigeons started to peck curiously at the strewn guts.

Steven gagged and turned away. It took all he had not to vomit right there and then.

“So it turns out I’m squeamish,” he told Cygnus later, when he’d recovered enough to sit down and feed the pigeons in a place very, very far away from the dead one. “Extremely squeamish. So you better not go and get squished, alright, because I won’t be attending your funeral. I’ve seen enough blood and meaty bits in my life, thank you.”

Cygnus fluttered up on the bench’s armrest. Steven eyed the bird suspiciously.

“You wouldn’t eat my guts, would you?” he asked.

He held out a handful of seeds, and they got pecked clean until nothing remained. Then, with an investigative tilt of the head, Cygnus began to peck curiously at Steven’s palm.

“Ooh, I see how it is,” Steven said, drawing his hand away. “I’m just future fodder for you, yeah. You and your pigeon friends are just waiting for me to kick the bucket so you can gobble me up. Well, you’re going to be waiting for a while yet, mate, because I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Cygnus’ coo almost sounded disappointed,

Steven journeyed over the library after that, and spent the afternoon reading a book on mummification and then one on the Duat. It was a bit foolish on his part, reading about dead things when he trying to not think about dead things, but he found the topics in question so fascinating he couldn't put them down. He hoped that all the talk of excerebration and the weighing of hearts would erase the dead pigeon from his mind, but the sight lingered at the back of his mind for the rest of the day, jumping forward whenever he thought it was finally gone.

It all came to the fore at dinnertime, when he was served up a dish of kosher chicken covered with crunchy breadcrumbs and laid out with an assortment of roast vegetables. His dad had cooked it especially for him, as a treat for getting full marks on his history paper. Steven had been delighted that morning when he heard his dad was cooking it, but now, he was frozen, staring at the chicken on his plate.

It was skinless, and drizzled with a tantalising honey mustard sauce that he loved, but that was not enough to entice him to take a bite.

All he could see was the dead pigeon, and its blood-covered guts.

At least the vegetables were safe, and he ate every single one on his plate until all that was left was the chicken. At that point, it was more than obvious that he was avoiding it. He’d hoped his dad would finish first so Steven could dispose of the chicken quietly when he wasn’t looking, but his dad lingered at the table even after finishing his dish, silently staring out towards the window. There was never much conversation at the dinner table, not when it was just the two of them. Which was most nights, since mum tended to eat by herself. He wasn’t sure why, or even when the habit had started, but he supposed it was because she preferred to eat later than they did.

With no conversation to cover up his hesitancy at eating the chicken, his fork dilly-dallied awkwardly over his plate, edging towards the chicken every so often as he tried to work up the courage to stomach it down.

He could do it, it was just meat, he’d been eating it for years. It was no big deal. Come on, just one bite, he could do it.

Dead. Pigeon. Guts.

Nope. Nope. He couldn’t do it. He set his fork down and sat back with an annoyed groan.

“⸺? What’s wrong?” His dad looked down at Steven’s plate, and frowned. “Is something wrong with your chicken? I cooked it just the way you like it.”

Steven looked over at his dad. “No, it’s nothing to do with you. The chicken’s lovely, I’m sure.”

“Then what is it?”

Steven grimaced. "I...um, well, it's a bit silly. Maybe even a bit of an overreaction. But I...well, uh..."

"⸺?"

“I think I want to be vegan," Steven blurted out.

His dad blinked at him, taken aback by the announcement. “What? Why?”

“I saw a pigeon get its guts eaten by another pigeon.”

“Oh,” his dad said, raising his eyebrows. Even he seemed disturbed by the idea, glancing down at Steven’s chicken with a grimace.  “Okay. Is it just you who’s going to be vegan?”

“Er," Steven said, confused by the question, "I mean, you can be one too, if you want. I’m not fussed if you don’t though.”

His dad gave him a strange smile. “Right. That’s good to hear.”

“It’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

“No,” his dad assured. “I’m sure we can make it work.”

Steven was amongst the shelves on the 6th floor of the library when Cynthia walked up to him out of the blue. It wasn’t rare for her to visit him sometimes on her breaks and ask what he was reading. She liked to listen to him ramble about his newest discovery, always giving him a gentle smile.

But today, she wasn’t smiling. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked stern.

“One of the books you were reading last weekend has gone missing.”

Steven blinked at her, confused. “What? Which one?”

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

He frowned, not recognising the title. It didn’t sound like it had anything to do with Egypt or astronomy. If anything, it sounded like a botanical book, and he’d yet to have any deep interest in that particular subject. “I’ve never read that.”

“Yes, well, that may be the case, but I saw it on your pile when you were in the reading room last Sunday. And that afternoon was the day it went missing, so that means, for all intents and purposes, you were the last person to have it.”

Steven’s eyes widened. She thought...she thought he’d stolen it. She was blaming him. She thought it was his fault.

Steven’s heart started to hammer in his chest.

“Did you take it, Steven? You can tell me.”

“I didn’t,” he stammered. “I promise.”

“Steven, you don’t have to lie, it’s okay. I won’t be upset.”

“But I’m not lying,” Steve pleaded, desperate for her to believe him. “I’m not. I would never take a book without asking.”

Cynthia sighed, and that was enough to make Steven quail. She was disappointed. Oh god, she was angry. She was angry at him. She was angry at him.

Whatever she said next was lost in a blurry haze. All Steven could focus on was what would happen if she decided he really had taken it. He wouldn’t be allowed to come back. They’d ban him from taking books, ban him from coming in at all. They would call his parents and tell them how terrible he was.

“No, no, no,” Steven panted. He backed away until he ran into a bookshelf and sunk down.

It didn’t matter if it was his fault or not, Cynthia thought he’d done something bad and now he would be punished and he wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it and he’d lose the only thing that really made him happy anymore and oh god why couldn’t he breathe why couldn’t he breathe what was wrong with him what was happening what was this why couldn’t he—

A hand pressed against his knee.

Steven flinched back. He might have yelped as well, but he could not make out the sound under the grind of the drill that was his thoughts ramming into his brain.

“Sorry, sorry, no touching,” Cynthia said, showing him her palms. Her voice sounded muffled, as if underwater. “I’ll just sit across from you, okay, darling.”

Steven watched apprehensively as she sat herself up against the opposite bookshelf, her feet close enough that she would easily be able to brush her feet against Steven’s. Thankfully, she did as she promised, and kept herself from touching him in any way.

“It’s okay,” she told him calmly, “you don’t have to keep apologising.”

Her words were enough to make Steven realise he’d been muttering “I’m sorry” over and over again under his breath. He snapped his mouth shut and hugged his knees closer to his chest, shame burning up through his face.

“What’s happening to me? Am I dying?”

“No, dear. I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“What? No,” Steven said, shaking his head in disbelief. “No, I don’t have panic attacks. That’s not...I don’t do that.”

Because he wasn’t supposed to feel anything like this. He was fearless. No matter the danger, he could face it. That’s who he was. That’s who he’d been his whole life.

Except...except he couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d felt fearless.

It was wrong, it was all wrong. He wasn’t meant to be like this. He wasn’t meant to be so...weak. How could he protect anyone if he acted like this at the first sign of danger?

(Protect? Why was that always the first thought that came to his mind? Who was he even protecting?)

“Hey, hey, Steven, I need you to focus on me. Alright? You like mind exercises, don’t you?”

Steven squinted up at Cynthia. Even sitting across from him, she felt so far away. “Yes?”

“Well, I have one for you right now, okay. Can you read the title of some of the books behind me and then make up a story based on that? Can you do that for me?”

Steven swallowed. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that.”

He scanned the shelf, and focused on the first one that drew his attention.

“Um, okay. So, uh, The Undiscovered Self, is about, uh, Amun-Ra discovering that he is not only a fusion of, of Amun and Ra, but that there is actually a, a third, secret god in his soul who is becoming stronger and, and having more influence on his powers. He spends the book learning about this third part of himself, and in turn becoming more comfortable with his role as Supreme God.”

“Good, good, keep going,” Cynthia encouraged.

“Um, wait, hold on, let me find one. Alright, so, um, Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries is, uh, about a world where, when you reach 13, all your memories of childhood are banished. Completely gone from your brain. No one remembers, but the bloke the story’s about, well, he’s not good with that, yeah, so he goes on an adventure to try and get his memories back.

“And,” he tracked his gaze further down the shelf, “Making Sense of Suffering: The Healing Confrontation with Your Own Past—bloody hell, what a mouthful that is—is about a man travelling back in time to save his younger self from the psych hospital he was left in, despite knowing it’d have no impact on his own timeline. He helps his alternate self to heal and in turn it helps him heal too.”

By that point, Steven’s breathing had eased to something manageable, his body no longer on the edge of all-out rioting against him. He slumped against the shelf behind and blew out a breath.

“That wasn’t fun,” he muttered. “The panic attack, I mean.”

“It never is,” Cynthia agreed. “But you did a good job working through it. I’ll admit, I’ve never used that particular mind exercise in the psychology section, but you did pretty good. Are you feeling better now?”

Steven nodded. “I feel absolutely knackered, though.”

“Yes, that happens,” Cynthia said, and somehow, Steven could tell she had personal experience in the area. She sighed. “I’m sorry I made you panic, dear. I should have realised I was upsetting you.”

“It’s okay. You were just doing your job. I shouldn’t have gotten upset at you for being cross with me."

“Oh, Steven, I wasn’t angry at you. I could never be angry at you. You’re too much of a sweetheart.”

Steven gulped. “So...if I did take it, the book...what would happen?”

“Nothing, darling,” Cynthia soothed. “You won’t be punished for doing so. Simply return it back to the chute like you would if you had borrowed it and this can all be forgotten. Does that sound good to you?”

Steven nodded frantically. If it meant she wouldn’t have any reason to be angry at him, then he’d ransack his whole house to find the book.

It only took him 10 minutes of searching his room to find the book under his mattress.

Despite making the decision to search for it, it still surprised him to find it. He really couldn’t remember taking it. He must have done it by accident, he supposed, though he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to do that, considering he never ventured much into the fiction section, and the only way things found their way under his mattress was by him putting it there himself.

Well, it didn’t matter. If it was here, then it simply meant he could return it and fix the problem.

As he went to tuck it away into his travelling bag for safe keeping, he noticed that one of the last few pages had been dog-eared.

“Well, that’s just poor book etiquette, innit?” he said, shaking his head with disappointment.

He opened the book up to the folded page to smooth it down, but was quickly distracted from his task when his eye caught the strikes of yellow that were dashed across the bottom of the two open pages. He frowned, and inspected them further. Sentences had been highlighted, too precise to be random; someone had done this with the intention of drawing attention to the words. Curious, Steven skimmed over the highlighted text.

'I’m sorry I’ve put you through this when you don’t even know who I am, and we’ve never met in person, and I can’t tell you who I am because I promised to keep all those little secrets

'I’m so sorry---because you really do mean a lot to me and I hope you have a very nice life because I really think you deserve it. I really do.'

Without thinking, Steven threw the book onto the floor.

He blinked, confused. Well, that was silly. Why’d he done that? It was just...just some random message another library member had left. A very awful library member, he thought, since they happily defaced library books. 

Though, how was he any different? He’d just thrown the poor book on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to the book as he crouched down to pick it up. “That wasn’t very nice of me. I’ll...I’ll take you back next Sunday, yeah, so you can be safe and sound back home in the library. And then I’ll track whoever's been mistreating you and give them a good talking to. Dog-earing pages. What a twit. They should know better.”

When he returned the book, Cynthia did not get mad, or even disappointed.

Instead, Cynthia, in her kind and gentle voice, asked if she could hug him.

It was the best hug he’d ever had.

Steven had always preferred books over movies, but that didn’t mean he didn’t go to the cinema every now and again. 

He liked to keep the tickets in a small box hidden behind his wardrobe. He kept them as little mementos, to look over and think fondly of the movie he’d gone and see. Well, that was the idea anyway. Funny thing was, he couldn’t remember seeing half of the movies he had tickets for. 

He could recall everything from Lord of the Rings, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and The Mummy Returns, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember ever seeing Jurassic Park III, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, or American Psycho (and how on earth had he even got into that one, it was way above his age range!). 

There were others he only remembered bits and pieces from. He wasn’t sure why only a few particular scenes stood out to him, but he’d always had a bit of dodgy memory when it came to stuff like that.

One such movie that he only remembered a few scenes from was one that had only come out the month before. He wasn’t sure why he’d gone and seen it (though, for a reason he could not discern, the name of the movie made him smile). The only thing he knew about it was that it was based on one of his mum’s favourite musicals. 

Well, okay, so she’d never actually told him it was her favourite, and he’d never once heard her talk about it, but when he found himself in the theatre watching it, he had quickly recognised the lyrics he often heard her quoting to his dad, when Steven was alone in his room and murmuring Egyptian gods and pharaohs to himself.

“He had it coming,” the singers cried out in unison. “He had it coming.”

Steven remembered his first thought when he’d started watching the musical display was to avert his eyes, because gosh, they were all half naked. Was he allowed to be in here? But no one had tried to drag him away and tell him this movie was for adults only, so he’d sat and patiently waited for the ladies to put their clothes back on.

Throughout the scene, as each lady described the motives behind her murder, he heard them whisper.

“He only had himself to blame.”  

Mum loved that line the most.

Steven blinked back from the memory and went to place the ticket back in his box, but when he went to do so, he noticed the ticket was no longer whole.

He’d somehow ripped the ticket up. Not in half, or even in quarters, but completely ripped up.

Steven sighed, and brushed up the shredded pieces into his hand.

“What a mess.”

Sometimes, while sitting in class, Steven would find little ink scribbles on the back of left hand. He wasn’t sure who wrote them; he knew it couldn’t be him because, for one, he would remember doing that, and for two, he preferred to write with his left hand over his right. So it had to be someone else.

Despite keeping an eye out for who was writing onto his hand, he never did quite seem to catch anyone so much as leaning in his direction, let alone reaching out with a pen to scrawl gibberish on his hand. He decided to give up on trying to figure out the culprit.

Most of the notes were simple reminders— ’pick up bandaids’, ‘don’t forget, buy honey for Rosh Hashanah’, ‘don't fold page edges he doesn't like it’—while others were just plain nonsense: ‘hide the enlistment papers, dad can’t know’, ‘find out why I’ve been fronting suddenly in states of panic’, ‘how much does dad knows about us???’.

He usually ignored them, deciding they weren’t important. Today, though, there was a little note, and it was specifically addressed to him.

'Just hold on a little while longer, Steven. I’m going to save us. I promise.'

Steven licked his thumb and rubbed the ink off.

Cynthia wasn’t at the reception desk.

Steven paused on the threshold of the lobby, confused. Cynthia always worked on the weekends. There’d never once been a day where he’d come in that she hadn’t been in.

The man at the desk now was preoccupied by something on the computer screen, and he did not look up at Steven’s approach. Steven waited for the man to notice him, but a minute passed without the man looking up.

“Hello,” Steven said hesitantly. The man still didn’t look up. “Hello.”

It took a few calls for attention before the man seemed to notice Steven’s presence. Even then, his focus did not stray from the computer.

“Oh, hey,” the man said distractedly. “You need directions?”

“No, I know my way around.”

“Uh, okay. Then do you need something else?”

Steven ignored the question. “Where’s Cynthia? Is she somewhere else in the library today? Or is she having a day off?”

The man finally looked over at him. “Cynthia?” the man echoed, confused. “The old receptionist?”

Steven nodded.

“Uh, no, she’s not working here anymore. She moved back home. To Mississippi, to look after her sick sister, I think.”

Steven stared at the man. “What?”

“At least, that’s what the boss told me when I got hired,” the man went on, not seeming to notice Steven’s numb expression. “I don’t know, it’s not really any of my business.”

Steven couldn’t even blink, frozen in place. Cynthia had left? No. No, surely not. She would have said goodbye. She would have told him, she couldn’t have left without telling him, or at least giving him some sort of heads up. He’d only been here last weekend. Or...was he here the weekend before. He couldn’t really keep track sometimes.

But it couldn’t have been so long for Cynthia to not have any reason to bring it up to him.

And yet she’d left without a word.

“Kid? You good?”

Steven backed away, wrapping his hand around his elbow. He barely felt the sensation. Everything was so far away. Even his own body felt adrift from him, as if he’d kept walking along a path without noticing it had stopped long before.

“Is she coming back?” he murmured.

The man made a face. “Er, no clue. If she does, probably not any time soon.”

Steven sucked down a breath. “Can...can you call her? Can I talk to her?”

“Uh, yeah, we’re not allowed to do that. Company policy and all that. Besides, don’t think she’d have the same number anyway. So you’re out of luck, I’m afraid. Why do you want to talk to her anyway? If it’s a library problem, I’m sure I could sort it out.”

Steven stared numbly down at the terrazzo floor. If he wasn’t looking at his feet firmly planted on the ground, he wouldn’t have believed there was anything under him. “She was my friend.”

“Oh,” the man said, more with confusion than pity. “Uh, well, I’m sure you’ve got other friends to talk to, right?”

Steven said nothing.

“Uh, well, if that’s all,” the man prompted. When Steven did not move, the man sighed. “Kid, I’m kinda busy right now, and I can’t have you hovering. Can you find your own way to wherever you need to go?”

“Yes,” Steven heard himself say, and he turned towards the exit.

He couldn’t remember how he got home after that. Or any of the days after.

The library wasn’t the same after that, and while Steven still went there every now and again, he started to favour Grant Park once more.

But even his time there didn’t bring him the comfort it once did.

“I just feel hollow, all the time,” he told Cygnus, who was eyeing the ground for seeds that weren't there. Steven hadn’t brought them with him today, having not had the energy to make the detour to the pet shop. Getting here had tired him out enough. "I felt like this long before Cynthia left, but it's been getting worse lately."

He pressed a hand to his chest, as if trying to find where the hollowness is his soul was located. It was the time of year where the chill was starting to bite in the air, and he had pulled his sleeves over his fingers to help keep them warm.

“It’s like someone scooped out all the good feelings up with the bad feelings too, y’know. Not half full, not half empty, just plain empty. Missing everything important. I think I’ve always felt like that, deep down. Like I’m missing some part of myself, some essential gear in the clockwork of me.” He rubbed at his wrist, the skin tender thanks to the bruise that wrapped around it like a wristwatch. “I just don’t quite tick right.”

Cygnus kept inspecting the ground along with the other pigeons.

“But at least I’ve got you, yeah. My lil’ bird buddy. You and the others help keep my head on my shoulders.”

‘Course, he’d only gone and jinxed himself by saying it, because barely a moment later, a strong gust of wind startled Cygnus and the other pigeons into fluttering off, and Steven was left alone on the bench.

Steven slumped back with a long sigh, lying his head against the top of the backrest to stare up into the blue of the sky above him. Lately, he’d started to have doubts that G-d was really up there listening, but he still clung to the idea nonetheless. It was one of the last sources of comfort he had left.

“If you’re listening,” he whispered, “I could really use some help.”

His dad sat him down one afternoon.

“I know where you’ve been going.”

Steven stilled. “What?”

“Your mum...followed you.” His dad seemed almost ashamed at the admission. “She told me about where you’ve been going. Is it true? Have you been going down to Grant Park?”

His mum had followed him? Steven’s throat went dry at the idea. That was...that was...fine. It was fine. She was just worried.

Except now dad knew the truth, knew that he’d been going out past the border they’d decided on long ago. And that meant he wouldn’t be allowed to go to the park or the library anymore.

Once, that fact would have sent him into a panic. He would have lied through his teeth if it meant he could keep his slice of happiness.

Now, he could only sigh tiredly, and think I should have seen this coming.

“It’s true,” he said quietly.

His dad sighed. “⸺, we talked about this. I know you enjoy being out of the house and away from...here. But that’s almost a two hour walk."

“I catch the bus,” Steven said.

“That’s not the point, son. You shouldn’t be going out that far all by yourself. You might get...lost. End up somewhere you don't recognise."

"Dad, I'm not that hopeless."

His dad sighed. "With your issues, I—" He shook his head. "It's just not safe."

Issues? Steven dug his nails into his thighs at the callous remark. It stung to hear that his dad thought so little of him.

“So, what are you saying?”

His dad went to place his hand over Steven’s, but drew back with a wince. “⸺,” he sighed. “I’m saying you have to stay close. You can’t go there, or anywhere that far away, anymore. No more trips like what you’ve been doing.”

Steven stared resolutely down at his knees. He hated every word coming out of his dad’s mouth, and he wanted to argue, to say that he was capable and that he could handle himself better than what people seemed to think, to raise his voice and ask for someone to listen to him for once.

But he didn't want this conversation to get loud. He hated loud conversations.

"Okay," he promised. “I won’t do it again.”

His world grew small. Well, smaller. It’d never been all that large to begin with.

He stopped going places. He stopped going out altogether.

When he wasn't home, he was at school, and when he was at school, he was somewhere else.

The days passed in a haze, and most of the time, he could barely remember what he did between waking up and going to sleep. It was like he was on autopilot, doing what needed to be done to get from what place to another. 

Even the small pile of books he owned weren’t enough to draw him out of his funk.

He stopped doing homework; he didn’t have the energy for it anymore. His brain was too far away.

As a result, his grades started falling again. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

His teachers got worried. Very worried. He could tell from the looks they would give him, and their varied and desperate attempts to get him to speak up in class. He tried, he really tried, but he was just so tired. He was constantly dozing off in class and missing chunks of lessons he once loved dearly.

One day, he was taken out of class, and led to the counsellor's office. He’d never once gone to see her, despite his teacher suggesting it to his dad a few years back. Yet when he walked in, she greeted him warmly, as if she knew him, and pulled out a folder marked with the name that was supposed to be his.

“How are you feeling today, ⸺?”

Steven dozed off before he could reply.

Steven awoke to a flash of white across his vision. He lurched forward, expecting to find himself in his bed, but the sudden pull of something against his chest made the world around him snap into focus.

He was in the car and Mum was yelling. 

“You never listen!”

(No, no, he couldn’t do this today. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't.)

Mum had always had quite the road rage. Steven pressed himself against the car door and looked out the window, waiting for his mum to calm down. They’d be home soon.

“You just keep messing up, again and again. Why can’t you ever do anything right? Why can’t you ever listen!”

Those shouts were very...personal. Steven glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but quickly looked away when he noticed her staring right at him.

He didn’t quite doze off after that, but he didn’t feel quite awake either. He was in some state inbetween, in the place that made reality feel like a dream around him.

He was brought back to wakefulness when the car came to a sudden and violent stop, and Steven was flung forward in his seat. The seatbelt left him winded, and he quickly unclipped it to relieve the pressure from his chest. Except the pressure didn’t leave. It was still there, a burden on his chest keeping him from breathing.

The passenger door clicked open, and Steven was dragged out of his seat and towards the front door to their house. His feet wobbled underneath as he struggled to match his mum’s pace. She didn’t pay him any mind, but she must have noticed him struggling, because the hand around his arm tightened to help keep him steady.

It was very tight though. A bit too tight.

“Mum, that hurts,” he said, fighting against her grip. He knew she didn’t mean to. She just didn’t know her own strength sometimes.

She thrust him through the front door, and he stumbled to keep his footing.

He’d never seen her look so angry. Not once. She didn’t get angry. She...She was...she was just in a bad mood. It happened. It was...

“⸺ would never have done this to me,” she screamed. “He was perfect. And you k—ed him.”

Steven couldn’t follow her words. “I, I, I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t want him to overshadow you, because you knew he was good and you weren’t. That he’d always be better. You hated him, didn’t you? You hated him, and that’s why you killed him.”

Killed? What? Why had he heard that? That’s not what she said. That’s not what she said. Steven rattled his head, hoping to fling the thought as far away as possible.

“No, no, I didn't,” he stammered. “I didn’t do any of that.”

Something was cracking inside Steven’s head, like a dam forced under too much pressure finally giving way. He fought to keep it intact, but it was hard when his mum was yelling at him and his heart was beating like a drum in his chest. It was just...all too much. It was all too much and after so long of numbness, he couldn’t handle it. He backed up against the wall, hoping it would keep him steady.

“Please, mum, I, I can’t breathe, I think I’m, oh god, I think I’m having a panic attack, please, I can’t—”

“Shut up!”

And then there was a flash of something, and a burst of pain. The next thing Steven knew, he was on the floor with an aching jaw and his mum standing over him.

He stared up at her, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

She’d — him.

She’d h—t him.

She’d hit him. 

She’d hit him.

Steven gasped.

His mum had hit him. His mum had hit him.

“Mum,” he panted, as he gingerly lifted himself off the ground. “Mum, what are you doing?”

He’d only gotten to his knees when she kicked him down. Steven fell back, and yelped as the back of his head collided against the plaster. Dazed, he blinked up at her.

“Mum?” he mumbled. A plea for answers, for why she was doing this.

She scowled. “You’re not my son. You could never be my son. I hate you.”

Steven gaped up at her, frozen. No, he wasn’t hearing her right. She would never say anything like that. She was...she was a good mum. She looked after him. She was nice.

“I hate you,” she repeated, even more scathingly than before.

“No, no, no," Steven said, shaking his head, “you don’t mean that. You don’t. You’re just being...you’re just...”

He couldn’t find any excuse. Because there weren’t any. There never had been.

Steven’s breathing picked up against his will, and it only grew worse when his mum leaned over him and raised her palm up. He flinched back, preparing himself for the incoming pain.

His mum lowered his hand, seemingly satisfied by his reaction alone, but she did not drop her hateful glare.

“Get out of my sight,” she hissed.

Steven didn’t dare defy her, and with a panicked scramble, he fled to his room.

Everything was crumbling

Steven was crumbling.

(He’d been crumbling for a very long time.)

He sunk down onto his bed, and hugged the duvet to his chest. As rubbed his thumb along the silky fabric, he mumbled under his breath the words that brought him comfort.

"Osiris. Horus. Isis. Hathor. Thoth. Amun-Ra. Taweret. Ammet. Khonshu. Seth. Anubis. Sekhmet.”

And yet, even after minutes of going through the familiar cadence, his thoughts did not calm. They barely even slowed down. Desperate, he turned to his oldest trick.

“Cassiopeia. Ursa Minor. Pegasus. Cepheus. Cygnus. Ursa Major. Orion. Bootes. Perseus. Telescopium. Crux. Pisces.”

But the change to his oldest source of joy made no difference. His mouth was simply working on muscle memory as the scenes from earlier tumbled through his mind like clothes in a washing machine, coming back around and around until it was all he could see, all he could hear.

His mum hit him. His mum hit him.

He gulped down a breath and shook his head violently. No, no, it wasn’t true. It was all just...just some fever dream he was having. He’d wake up and everything would be the way it was meant to be, wonderful and happy and normal.

(When had his life ever been any of those things?)

“I’m dreaming,” he told himself, and for good measure, he pinched the skin on the back of his palm. “This is a dream, none of this is real, Mum would never hurt me, I’m just having a bad dream.”

Then why wasn’t he waking up? Why did it all still hurt?

(He knew why.)

'I hate you', she’d said.

“No, no, she loves me, I know she does,” he mumbled.

'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.'

He threw his hands over his ears and scrunched his eyes closed, desperate to block it all out. “It’s not true, it’s not true, no, no, no—”

“Steven, you gotta calm down.”

Steven shot up from his bed with a strangled scream, and in a panic, looked at the door. But his mum wasn’t there. No one was there. He looked around the room wildly for the source of the voice. It was empty. He was completely alone.

“Oh god, oh god,” he muttered as he pressed himself against his bedhead. “Who's there? Who said that?”

“Do we have to do this every time?”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, and Steven flinched. Whoever was talking was not human. It was something...unnatural. No, supernatural. Steven gripped the duvet tighter to his chest. “Oh bloody hell, are you a ghost? Am I being haunted right now?”

“No, I’m not a—” the voice snapped irritably, before cutting themself off when Steven flinched. The voice made a noise that sounded like a sigh, and Steven thought that if they had a body, they’d be pinching their nose with exasperation. More calmly, the voice said, “I’m not a ghost.”

“Okay, glad we got that sorted," Steven said, the slightest tremor in his voice as he spoke. "So, what, you’re just a voice in my head, yeah? Great. Brilliant. Guess that means I’ve gone completely bonkers then.”

“Steven,” the voice said, annoyed. “You’re not crazy. Don’t say that."

“Aren’t I? People are always saying the first sign of madness is talking to yourself.”

“Well, those people are idiots. And you’re not talking to yourself. Not exactly. I’m your...friend. I’ve been your friend for a very long time.”

“My friend?” Steven echoed sceptically. “Well, some friend you are then, mate. Leaving me high and dry and all alone. I could have bloody well used you these last few months. Where were you, huh?”

The voice was silent for a time. “I’ve been here. Just...out of sight. I wanted to do more, but I just...I wasn’t ready.”

Steven huffed. “Who the hell even are you?”

“It’s me. It’s ⸺.”

“What?” Steven frowned. “Sorry, I...didn’t quite catch that.”

“...You're still blocking a lot of it out, aren’t you?”

Steven ignored the rest of the sentence to focus on a single word. “Still?”

The voice sighed. “We’ve talked before, Steven. We’ve talked a lot actually. You just...forget. You always forget.”

“Oh. Um. I’m sorry,” Steven found himself saying. The voice sounded sad. He didn’t want the voice to be sad.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I get it. I just...wish it could be different. Wish we didn’t live a life that forced you to hide so much of it away from yourself just to keep yourself sane."

Steven's earlier panic had eased somewhat, and in its place was a heaviness he grown used to in the last few months. He laid back down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. He said nothing for a while, and neither did the voice, but he could tell they were still there, a faint presence at the back of his mind that was somehow familiar. It took a long time for him to form the words he wanted, no, needed, to say.

“This isn’t the first time she hit me, is it?”

“...No. It’s not. I’m sorry.”

A lump formed in Steven’s throat. “Right. Makes sense."

He bit his lip and let the tears sting the corner of his eyes. And then, before he could blink them away, they were streaming down his face and he was sobbing, almost choking from the weight on his chest. It was as if all the tears he didn’t realise he’d been holding back these last few years had decided to finally make their appearance.

“It’s okay, let it all out.”

Steven tucked his knees into his chest and did just that, letting out all the pain and misery he hadn’t realised he’d been harbouring all this time. Save for a sob here and there, he cried quietly, so quietly he felt no need to muffle his cries into his pillow. Just another habit he hadn't realised he picked up because of her.

“I’m here for you, you know that, right. I’ll make sure you get through this.”

Steven sniffled. “Is this why you’re here? To help me through all this? To protect me?”

“Actually,” the voice said, a small, dry chuckle in their words, “you’re the one who protects me. You’ve been keeping me safe from danger for a while now.”

“Me?” Steven said through a sob. “I protect you? Are you kidding? Have you met me?”

“I have. And you know what I think, bud? I think you’re the bravest person I know.”

“Oh, mate, you’re having a laugh right now, aren’t you. Look at me. I’m afraid all the time,” Steven admitted. He wasn’t sure why he’d ever believed he was fearless. He couldn’t even remember what it felt like. To just walk around, being sure of himself, and knowing he would make it through. It seemed so foreign now. “I’m not brave, not in the slightest.”

There was another long pause, and for a brief moment, Steven was sure the voice had fled from the conversation. But then, in a faint whisper, he heard them speak.

“I’m sorry.”

Steven blinked, thrown by the sudden apology. “For what? Me being such a coward?”

“Hey, don’t say that. You’re not a coward.”

“But it’s true, innit. Wasn’t even brave enough to admit the truth to myself. I still can’t remember all the things she’s done to me.”

“It helped you to survive.”

Steven scoffed. “Did it? Ignorance didn’t make me any happier, clearly.”

“But it helped you to cope with it better. Steven, you’ve been my shield for a long time, the wall that kept all the bad things out. I got so used to relying on you to protect me that I didn’t stop to think that all the bad things you were keeping me from were bombarding you in my stead. I put you in the firing range without any sort of armour or even a means to defend yourself, and I’m so sorry. I did this to you. You’re scarred because of me.”

Steven stared ahead, and thought of the life he'd lived so far.

He'd been fearless once, not because of who he was as a person, but out of necessity. He'd been fearless so he could stand up to that which he feared and not realise he feared it at all.

Except it hadn't been enough. His lies had been beatened down to the bone, until he had nothing left but the constant, droning terror that soon turned to numbess. He was scarred, it was true. Scarred in ways even he didn't know. And he wanted to hate the voice for being so cruel as to throw him into the lion's den without any way out, or even a light to help him see. 

But he couldn't. He wasn't a hateful creature, and even if he was, he couldn't hate someone for protecting themselves the only way they knew how.

Steven sighed deeply. He could feel sleep creeping in, and he knew that the next time he woke, he would remember none of this. It was in his nature to forget, afterall. The curtain that kept the magic alive would be completely back in place, letting him believe in the lies he told himself to keep from falling apart.

But for tonight, he wanted to remember, really remember, just for a while. Just long enough to say what needed to be said. So, with a steadying breath, he drew back the curtain as far as it could go, and let himself see what—no, who — he’d forgotten.

And as the memories came to him, in a slow and comforting trickle, he smiled ever so slightly. Ah. So that’s who he’d been protecting all this time.

“Marc,” he whispered.

He felt a faint sense of surprise from his alter at being called by name. “Steven?”

“No matter how much it hurts,” Steven said, “you are worth protecting.”

There was a long pause, and Steven imagined Marc visibly floundering for a response, for anything that would help hide the fact that the statement had him close to tears. Eventually, his alter settled on, “So are you.”

Steven laughed weakly. “That’s good to hear, because I don’t think I can handle this for much longer.”

There was a sensation almost like being hugged, and Steven sunk into it. “You won’t have to. I’ve got a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Yeah. We’re getting out of here. As far away as possible.”

“Hm. Sounds like an adventure.”

“That’s right. The best one ever.”

“I think I’d like that. It’s just...I’m really tired.”

“ I know. And it’s okay. You can sleep. I’ll look after you.”

“You sure?” Steven mumbled. “I don’t...it doesn’t feel right to leave you to deal with everything.”

“I can handle it. I’m stronger than I used to be.”

Steven pressed his face into the pillow. “I should have been stronger.”

“Are you kidding? You were strong, Steven, as strong as anyone could have been. You did the very best you could with what I handed you. You protected me. And look, I’m still here. I’m still here because of you. And I’ll never forget that. I will always be grateful. But you don’t have to be in the firing line anymore.”

Steven felt his eyes dipping closed, and a gentle presence pulled him down into the comfort of his mind. He did not fight it.

For once, he was not afraid.

“I'll take it from here, Steven. It’s my turn to protect you.”