Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » "I'm RETIRED, for magic's sake!"

At first, Jon mistakes the disturbance he feels for his own discomfort. He turns over, trying and failing to find a comfortable position, feeling as though his whole body aches with the intensity of an inferno. He is just past the cusp of wakefulness when realization dawns, brought on by the distant sound of shouts and pattering feet.

Gable.

The wizard launches himself from his bed, getting his feet tangled in the sheets in the process, which sends him to the floor with a hard thud. He barely feels it, though, scrambling to his feet immediately after and bolting out the door without even bothering to put a shirt on. Maddox meets him at the foot of the stairs to the third floor, nearly getting bowled over in the process.

“What do you—Jonathan! look at me!” The redhead takes his uncle by the shoulders, just barely stopping him from sprinting past. “Tell me what you need, I’ll get it and meet you there.”

The archmage stares back at his disheveled chief of staff, dumbfounded for a moment while his mind takes a minute to catch up with his instinct. He hadn’t considered anything beyond the need to get there, to be wherever Gable is right now and do what he could to ease his suffering, but Maddox is right. If he wants to actually be of any use, they’ll need supplies.

“Medicine…” Jon shakes his head, already trying to pull away. “Towels, water, I don’t know! He’s hurting, that’s all I can tell.”

“Go.” Maddox lets him go with a sharp nod, and the two run in opposite directions.

But the wizard pauses, seeing the younger Kendall having an absolute fit in Lorelei’s arms while she carries him away, off toward the library. He’ll have to see to Lee later, to at least make sure he hasn’t hurt himself fighting his handler, and attempt to soothe away the distress he’s likely about to feel very, very soon. After that, it’s a dead run to Gable’s temporary lodgings. There’s a crowd gathered, as is to be expected, but a good number of them step aside or leave entirely when they see the bare-footed and bare-chested master of the house come barreling down the corridor. The rest he shoulders past without further regard.

“Gabe?" He calls softly at the threshold, gripping the doorknob. Ordinarily he would knock, but he can’t wait that long. “I’m coming in.”

The sight that greets him makes him glad he shut the door behind him.

"Gabe..." Jon sucks in a breath, the syllable nearly choking him, and lets out an uncharacteristic curse as he takes in the scene and kneels beside the room’s prone occupant. He feels for a pulse, careful of the blisters that seem to cover his entire body, and is relieved to find it steady, if fast. The back of his hand rests briefly against the lad's forehead, and he curses again. He's burning up.

"Right. Well..." There are so many things he wants to fix, so many things that demand his attention. He wants to dress the boils with salve and gauze. He wants to press the boy back into a shape that makes sense, to ease the strain on his body. He wants to clean the wound on his arm and wrap it in ice to soothe away the burn. But there is one thing he has to do first. "I'm sorry, Gable. But this is for the best."

With a shuddering breath, he slips off the gold band that's been dangling around his wrist for the past few days, ever present and available, waiting for its hour of need, and eases it over the lad's much larger hand. The wizard brushes his fingertips over the metal surface, and it shrinks down, tight against irritated skin. And just like that, the amber-sunlight-leather-wilderness sensation that has come to be known as Gable Kendall is suddenly snuffed out, silent like it was never there.

It is all Jon can do to keep from sobbing at its sudden absence.

"Gods above..." Maddox's quiet exclamation comes from somewhere over his shoulder, but he can't break his gaze away from the mess his stable boy has become to meet the redhead's eyes. "What happened?"

"He appears to be stuck mid-transformation." To Jon, his own voice sounds like it's coming from across the room. He clears his throat, but it does nothing to help the airy quality of his voice. "What did you bring?"

"Nothing specified for werewolves stuck in between forms, unfortunately." Unsurprisingly, the chief of staff's joke falls flat. He comes up beside his uncle, laying out everything he's brought. "A couple of towels, bandages, as many bottles out of the medicine cabinet as I could carry..."

"Did you bring my tablets?"

"Yes."

Jonathan reaches for the offered brown bottle, for once grateful for its presence. He shakes out one tablet, then leans in close and nudges the lad's shoulder ever so gently.

"Gabe? I have some medicine for you that should help with your pain. Can you swallow it for me?"

Panicked shouts. Slamming doors. To Gable's ears, these sounds might as well be distant explosions rolling through a faraway valley.

Trapped between the glacial march of a transformation that began in his sleep and the silver poison's furious efforts to stop it from completing itself, time suspends him like a fly drowning in syrup, or a wanderer turned around in a dense fog. Constantly searching for up and out while only spiraling deeper into his own mind to escape the torment of a slow death.

One voice, soft and sweet, perforates the mauve haze. But can it be trusted to be real?

It isn't until the wizard has come close and touched his burning skin that Gable sucks in a breath and struggles to open his eyes. When he does, they have the severe and golden appearance of a creature pinned down against its will. His pupils are tight, sharp. They flare briefly as they lock onto the face hovering above him, but the weightiness of his eyelids drags them down again. His chest rattles.

"You're here." The tone is meant to be taken as relief, but the sound is little more than a hoarse mimic produced by the throat of an animal. Low. Gravelly. Barely discernable as human speech. But the way his hand drags across the floor in a great effort to seek out the wizard's pant leg, to touch it, to roll it between his fingers, to confirm the realness that complements the thrum inside his mind... well, that speaks for itself.

I could pick you out in a crowd, the gesture says, or from the other fragments in my mind.

You're the only thing that makes any sense.

Although the metal cuff had just lain against the warmth of the wizard's arm, it bites down cold as unforgiving ice into Gable's flesh. The misshapen young man hisses lividly through his teeth. His face corkscrews and his body squirms like a salted slug, then he cries out as his mind is thrown into utter darkness. It's as if the forest has gone up in smoke, the mountains shatter into a heap of rubble, and the ocean evaporates all at once. The Master, gone. Lee, too—hay stacks, the dusty smell of fresh rain, tender sweet grasses—all gone.

Woodsmoke, tanned leather, amber, jerky, praire dirt, love-worn parchment, cold stream water in the heat of a summer day... Everything gone.

Only the pain. Only the pain. Only the pain.

"No," he whines, voice high and gauzy and insubstantial. "Please."

Gable doesn't register the tablet being held to his mouth. His gaze drifts up, starry and blurred, unfocused, failing. He rasps, "You can't go. Don't do that. Don't leave me."

Another jolt sends his body further at odds with itself. One hand sprouts claws, the other absorbs its guard hairs; one leg straightens while his skull squeezes smaller and longer. A little red bead slips out of his nose and bleeds in a fine line over his lips. "I'm scared. I'm scared."

Gable's fingers twist in the wizard's pant hem.

"I know, I'm here, you're alright, Gabe." Jon grimaces, one hand resting on the back of the stable boy's head while the other nudges the tablet between loose lips. Even if he can't swallow the thing, it'll dissolve after long enough and make it where it needs to go eventually.

There are so many things he wants to say, things he wants to do to try and fix what he's had to by shutting the boy in his own head. He wants to take that cuff right back off, but he knows that doing so would doom Lee to suffering through his father's pains, and that's something his little body just can't handle. He wants to admit that he's scared too, that he doesn't know how to fix this, that he feels just as lost and just as scared and that he's just grasping at straws, trying to find something to help, not knowing if any of it is right or good. But he can't. He can't do any of that, can't say any of it. Because he's in charge, he's the one folks are looking to for answers.

And who can they turn to if he doesn't have them?

"I'm still here, son." The wizard wrests Gable's fingers away from his pant leg, replacing the fabric he holds with his hand and utterly oblivious to the term he uses in his efforts to soothe the lycanthrope. "You can't feel my magic anymore, but you can still feel me. Use your other senses. I know it's hard, believe me, I do. But Lee can't handle whatever is leaking through your bond to him... so for his sake, this has to be the way things are, for now. It's only temporary, just until we can get this sorted out, I promise."

It's an empty promise, and he knows it is. Not because he's outright lying, but because he has no idea how long Gable will have to wear the cuff, how long he'll be isolated from the rest of the world he's come to know since his arrival. However much he doesn't want to acknowledge it, he also knows there's a small chance that Lee's final memory of his father's telepathic presence will be one of overwhelming pain.

The cure is killing him. He knew there was a chance, but now it's blazingly apparent. Whatever solution they end up finding to the lunar wolf's behavior, this won't be it. But that's a secondary problem, one that will only need to be answered if Gable survives, and that is very much up in the air right now. Has the cure already done irreparable damage? Maybe. Will that damage ultimately kill the lad? It's possible. All they can do right now is keep him comfortable, treat the symptoms as they appear, and hope the liquid silver washes out of his system on its own.

Jonathan hears his chief of staff suck in a breath as he lays down beside Gable, their bodies just inches from each other. One hand clutches the stable boy's, the other presses on the back of his misshapen head until his nose is practically tucked under the mage's chin. Maddox doesn't like how vulnerable the wizard is in such a position, but said wizard doesn't seem to care one bit.

"I've got you, just hold on." He whispers, watching the younger man's body for signs of further transformation, and hoping he can time it right to roll out of the way if things get out of hand. Once the pain is under control, then he can think about everything else, but until then, all they can do is wait and hope it works.

A bitter taste on Gable's tongue causes his lip to curl back, baring a line of sharp and wayward teeth.

"I can't." He whimpers. "It hurts."

But Gabe does his best to obey, to push past the pain and fill his carnal senses completely with evidence of his mentor's existence.

He can feel the crush of their palms squeezed together, and smell the wizard's scent engulfing him, and hear the man's voice guiding him through the wretched darkness toward some sense of up and out.

After a few minutes, Gable's tongue begins to tingle where the bitterness had been moments ago, and some spark of recognition generates a familiar feeling of anticipation. His suspicion is confirmed as a different kind of heaviness sinks into his muscles and bones. Not exhaustion, but drowsiness. Relief. Escape.

The boy nuzzles in and presses his closed eyes to the wizard's chest. His speech slows and slurs and softens as his shuddering breaths even out. "Thank you. Thank you."


Lorelei is tidying two pale braids hanging over her shoulders when the master of the house enters the library. Lee's work on her face is still bleeding a little: several thin red lines swipe across her cheekbone towards her nose. The wild little boy had obviously been aiming for her eye.

The maid stands in the wizard's presence, smooths the front of her night dress with dignity, and curtsies while stifling a yawn. "Master Eris. He's... over there, sir."

She gestures to his desk, then makes a cup shape with her hand and points inside of it while mouthing, "Waste bin."

The wizard stays put, glued where he is to Gable’s side, until he feels him start to go. His breaths steady, his body slackens, and the terrified gaze he’s held since he crawled down onto the floor loses its frantic light. And then, he hears those two little words, that whispered expression of gratitude, and he knows he’s at least done something right. If nothing else, he’s eased the boy’s pain.

“Easy does it…” He murmurs, dropping his hand from the back of Gabe’s head to rub the boy’s shoulder for a minute or two, just until he’s sure he’s asleep.

“… what do we do now?” Maddox asks in something barely above a whisper. He’s standing behind his uncle, wringing his hands while he watches Gabe with something like distrust, even though the other is clearly unconscious.

“Dress his wounds.” The wizard grunts, reluctantly letting go of the stable boy and pushing himself halfway up off the floor. “I can take care of it if you’re unsettled by the prospect. I know it’s… gruesome, right now.”

The redhead waves a hand dismissively. “I’ve seen worse, usually on you.”

“I feel like I should be offended, but alas, I find myself unable to care.” The wizard huffs, and reaches for a roll of gauze. “If you can start addressing the worst of the burns, I’ll work on his arm. I’d like to avoid any tight or rigid bandages if we can; his form is unpredictable at the moment. Things could change at a moments notice. It’ll be unavoidable with his arm, how much it’s bled, I’d like to keep pressure on it for a while if we can.”

Maddox nods and takes up a little jar of salve, setting to work on the burns he can see, then eventually tearing open Gable’s clothing to get at the ones he can’t. There are a few that he dresses with gauze, but only the truly heinous ones, per the instructions he was given. Everything else he cleans with a damp cloth and smears with the greasy ointment, leaving it open to the air.

Jon, meanwhile, tends to the boy's arm. It's a mess of blood-soaked bandages and half-healed scabs layered on top of each other. Red wells up where gauze pulls away from skin, but there is no wound to suture, only raw skin that bleeds and weeps clear fluid in equal measure. He wraps the limb tight, with ointment to help keep the abrasions clean and encourage healing. That's all he can do.

"Are we going to put him back in bed, then?" The redhead asks softly once they've both finished their work and the worst of Gabe's injuries have been tended.

"No. Not here." Jon sighs, gathering up the refuse of their endeavor all together in a pile before returning quickly to the boy's side. "Upstairs. People will stare, talk, snoop if we leave him down here. I'd rather have him upstairs, rather have him close, than leave him down here in this state."

"And just how are you going to get him upstairs?"

"Same way I get into the vault."

"Fair enough. I'll meet you up there in a bit."

An hour later, after settling Gable in the big bed on the third floor and leaving him in Maddox's capable care, Jon begins the slow, reluctant march toward the library. Lorelei is still there, luckily, which means Lee probably is too. He's armed with an apple tart from the kitchen, but he feels like he should have more than that as he passes the threshold.

"Thank you," The wizard nods, gesturing toward the library door. "I can handle him for now, if you'd like a minute to clean up those scratches..."

Then, he quietly pads over to his desk and takes a seat, setting out the tart on the desk and burying his bare feet in the soft sheepskin rug beneath it. He's just barely more put together than he was the first time he dashed out of his room this morning. At least Maddox had been able to persuade him that washing Gable's blood off of his hands and putting on a housecoat were both good ideas. He still hasn't put a shirt on, but he can't be bothered to care about that.

"Lee?" he calls softly, trying to sound as approachable as he can. "I've brought you a treat from the kitchen. One of Miss Ari's apple tarts. Would you like to come out and have a bite?"

"Thank you, sir. If you're sure." Lorelei curtsies again, but her pitying gaze is on the desk, not the wizard. When she's sure her help will not be needed, she drifts out of the room.

Small spaces. Dark spaces. Quiet, messy, hard-to-reach spaces. These are the best for hiding, but sometimes the characteristic that makes it so easy for a small boy to hide in them (his smallness) doesn't do a great job in helping him find the most clever way to do it. Especially not in a room lacking the obvious first-rate choices such as crowded cupboards or spidery scrawl spaces where Ma's hate to look.

Paper snowballs litter the rug, tattling on the boy's frantic climb into the waste bin and its subsequent tipping and spilling. It isn't the first time he's tried hiding in one of these, but it certainly is the cleanest and least stinkiest pile of garbage he's ever covered himself with, and for that, his superpowered nose is very grateful.

There's a woody clicking sound coming from the bottom of the bin, where Lee is pressed down small behind a wall of more crumpled parchment, soothing himself by testing his needle teeth on the handle of a broken wax stamp. Chewing things, he has found, can relieve the bad feelings in nearly the same way smashing things does when he has hands. It's been a long time since he's smashed anything, though. Maybe too long.

There's a complete stillness when the old man's vulnerable bare feet come into view. Then, slowly, the noise of papers rasping against one another. A wet nose pokes out and nostrils flare to draw in that sweet, flaky scent of pastry. But the pup remains unconvinced. There are other scents, too, that have not been scrubbed away by simply washing the wizard's hands. The whippersnapper is all too familiar with the fear lingering in the pores of the old man's body—but it's his father's pungent sick-smell clinging to the pants at his eye level that keeps the cub rigid with a line up his back.

The young canine may not have the same mobile facial features of a boy at the moment, but the scathing, moody look he shoots up before darting out to bite toes conveys all the essentials: Everything's wrong today and I blame you.

I should have seen this coming. Jon sighs to himself as he watches the little wolf come charging out of the waste bin, ears pinned and teeth bared, right for his foot. For a moment, he thinks about stopping him. If he’s quick he can reach down and scruff the little hooligan before the teeth ever meet his flesh. But the pup’s anger is justified. There is absolutely nothing about why the toddler feels the need to bite and attack him that the wizard cannot understand. He’s fed the boy’s father poison, burned him from the inside out, maybe even killed him, only time will tell on that.

“Ow.”

His reaction is lackluster as the pup’s teeth prick his foot. There are enough calluses there that it doesn’t hurt all that much, and the bite doesn’t even bleed immediately. He knows he’s not at risk of infection, or at least not a lycanthropy infection, with Lee. Inherited forms of the disease don’t spread that way, and in fact can hardly be classified as diseases at all. Still though, he supposes letting the boy ravage his toes until they’re bloody isn’t the best thing to let him get away with. It’s a bad habit for normal canines to pick up, and little boys with canine forms aren’t so different. If not for that fact, he’d be content to let his foot be chewed raw. He’s just too tired to care.

“Alright, that’s enough.” He grumbles, reaching down to lift Lee up by the scruff and set him on his lap, immediately letting go once tiny paws rest on his thighs. “I know you’re upset with me, and you have every right to be, but biting other people is not an acceptable way to express that. In fact biting is something you need to be very careful with, Lee. There are a lot of people in the world that would try to hurt you very badly if you bit them.”

Jon has no idea if the squirming puppy in his lap is even listening, or if he can understand the gravity of the minor lesson he is trying to teach. Oh well. It does give him a chance to look the boy over. At least in this form, he seems fine physically. Wriggly and upset, but that is, unfortunately, to be expected.

“In fact, that’s why your papa is so sick right now. Someone wasn’t careful with who they were biting, and they gave him a very serious illness.” He continues, resorting to corralling Lee with one hand while he reaches for the apple tart with the other. “Now, would you like a treat? I always find that sweets make me feel better when I’m upset.”

Biting. Yes, he knows about the biting.

Blood blooming on Papa's pale tunic. Him trying to hide it, Mama ripping it off him, a bad smell in the air like his cousin's greasy dog Licker when it runs in the rain. Big teeth marks in Papa's side like someone thought he's made out of apples and more blood, blood, blood. Mama winding back her hand but Papa catching it, kissing it, holding it to his chest. She hits him with the other hand anyway and yells at him to leave. Papa's sad, bewildered eyes look right at Lee in his hiding place under the table, then he's walking away out the door. But not for forever.

Until today. Today feels like forever.

Some of these blazing fragments make their way out into the air, pushed forth by a mind that's overwhelmed by trying to make sense of the senselessness. But the one who helps him understand big feelings doesn't reply to his confusion. That constant comfort is gone. Instead, he's stuck with an old man who won't leave him alone.

The moment the pastry gets within lunging distance, the pup strikes like a bass catching a fly off the water's surface (out of frustration more than appetite) and horks it down noisily. Or some of it, anyway; the majority lands in the lap he's balanced on. Needle claws keep him from slipping off his perch while needle teeth scrape up crumbs and glops of candied fruit. A needly growl (that's more like a whimper) and another dirty look up at the wizard's face makes it clear he's not going to share.

“That’s alright, eat as much as you like.” I can’t eat it anyway. The wizard hums, drawing his hand away and letting Lee slurp up the pieces of the apple tart from his lap. He’s already gotten blood, water, and who knows what else on him today, a little puppy drool and sugar won’t make a difference.

While the cub snarfs up his treat, it occurs to him that Lee is probably suffering just as much as Gable is from the gold cuff’s silencing effects. It had been hard enough trying to explain to the boy’s father why such a thing had to be done, and even then he wasn’t sure if the message had actually been understood, or if Gabe was just so relieved to be spared the agony of his wounds he couldn't care. But trying to explain that sort of concept to a toddler? He can't help but wonder if the task is even possible. Should he bother? Or just try his best to fill the void left behind?

Jon supposes it will be easier to start with the second, and then jump to the first if it's unsuccessful. And seeing as Lee appears quite content to remain in his fur and give him the silent treatment... maybe establishing something nonverbal would be in everyone's best interest.

So while Lee snaps up the last of the tart crumbs, he starts talking.

"You know, a long time ago I went on a long and dangerous journey. I used to live in a big stone tower, and had many old and wise people there who were supposed to teach and take care of me. But I was frustrated with them. I felt like I was living in a cage. They didn't understand me, and they wanted me to act like someone I wasn't. So I ran away. I took my horse and my sword and my staff, and I left. I didn't tell anyone where I was going, because I didn't want them to follow me. I wanted to be free, so I headed into the mountains..."

While Jonathan tells the story of his youthful ventures, he does several things. First, he simply makes sure that Lee stays put on his lap, gently guiding him back when he gets fidgety. Second, he allows a good amount of his magic to pool around them, letting the toddler get to know that aspect of him, like standing on someone's porch while they wait on the other side of a door. It's an offering, of sorts.

Let me in, and I can help, is the notion that he presents the boy with. I promise I won't replace him, but I can be here while he can't.

Lee does not give one flying trash griff about the old man's story. It's a boring story, anyway, without any lawmen or gunslingers or rodeo heroes like Pa and Mr. Roecastle. To illustrate how little he cares to listen, the pup collects a mouthful of pants fabric when he's run out of crumbs to lick up and worries it savagely, shaking his head this way and that, letting off pugnacious little growls to drown out the wizard's steady voice. Go away, go away! I don't want you.

If not for the old man's shepherding hands, he would have fallen off his perch half a dozen times by now, but when he shakes himself so hard he falls over, he only lands into a waiting palm and chuffs indignantly at being spared the drop to the floor. His breathing is hard and huffy and the look he gives the wizard is drenched with hatred. But for a few minutes he remains fairly still, catching his breath, staring up defiantly, listening. And feeling.

Lee opens the door, so to speak, only to shove anger, confusion, restlessness, homesickness, fear, and more anger into the connection with as much force as he can. If the wizard can see it, he shows him his Pa. There's Pa carving things; there's Pa eating things; there's Pa coming home at night for the first time in many days and it's relief like a crushing weight is lifted and then he leaves again and it's dreadful like burying that dead cat they'd found when he learned some things end forever and never come back. But then Pa does come back, and everything's different; it's better in most ways and worse in others. There's Pa looking skinny and tired but he's being silly, making deer antlers out of sticks and telling some story at the campfire in the middle of nowhere; there's Pa's big chest and big arms all around him when the distractions aren't enough and Lee cries and cries because Ma isn't here. Safety, comfort, relief, happiness, where is it? Where is it?

Lee shoves himself away as suddenly as he can and hits the floor. One cannot cry very well as a puppy, and so he makes himself a boy. But then he finds he can't cry very well as a boy, either, only frown and look mad and feel more frustrated and more hateful, so he spends the first minute in his naked skin sitting in the soft sheepskin, tangling his fingers into it, sniffling. Boiling. Then he swats some paper snowballs as hard as he can. And throws the chewed-up wax stamp handle at a bookshelf. Then realizes he should have thrown it at the old man's head instead, so he throws a paper ball at him, but that's not very satisfying.

"I want my Pa!" His voice isn't just raised, it's screaming—unleashing worlds of hurt in a body too small to contain it all. "He's my friend. He's my only, only, only friend." Even a four-years, 363-day-year old knows pine figures don't ever love you back.

Lee gets to his feet and stomps up to the chair in order to be marginally closer to eye level with the man. "You give him to me right now, little mutie! You're a ugly mutie. You disgust me. I wish you weren't never borned! Ooooone. Twoooo…"

Lee points at the floor, mimicking not only the words from his past but the actions as well. What punishment, exactly, will follow his threat? He doesn't know yet. But it will probably involve every single item within reach.

The imagery that Lee throws at him is fast and angry, red hot with the kind of fury that comes from feeling helpless and afraid. And he understands, really he does. He remembers lonely days and chilly nights, with his own father away at sea and his mother busy tending to the family business, when she wasn't busy tending to his little brother. He remembers being locked away in his room, a book in hand while he watched Gideon from his window, running down the streets with other boys his age, sticks in hand and pretending to be brave knights while he focused on his studies, and he remembers the ache in his chest as he longed for that sort of camaraderie. And he remembers that day when the war ended, and he tried to go home to see his family and found them cold toward him, treating him like a stranger instead of a son.

It isn't the same. He knows that. But he feels these things nonetheless, lays them at his feet while Lee screams out his frustrations, grateful not for the first time that the library is sound-proofed. He does not shove them at the child and force him to feel his own pain. But he gladly take's up the boy's heartache, holding it close to his chest and showing that he understands, that he wants to help him feel better, if he will only let him. He also knows just as much that this violent outburst of emotion is necessary, that keeping it bottled up will only eat away at him the longer it stays contained, and that isn't healthy.

If only someone had been there for him to scream at, maybe then it wouldn't have hurt so much when he had to put his life back together from scraps.

"I know, Lee. I know." Jon tries to soothe his charge with a soft voice as he stands from his chair, only to kneel down in front of the boy so that they are on more equal footing. As much as Lee's words hurt, calling him ugly and disgusting, he can't bring himself to be mad. He feels no anger toward the child, only pity, and regret that he had to be the cause of so much hurt. He hates that he had to poison Gable so that he might stand a chance of living peaceably in his home. He hates himself for doing so more than anything. If he had stopped the cure sooner, if he had stuck by his decision that they should try a muzzle before making such a drastic move, maybe then the toddler wouldn't be hurting so badly right now.

"I can't bring him back yet, though. He is very sick, and he needs to get better before he can come back."

When Lee starts his countdown, Jon sets his jaw. Much as he wants to allow the boy to vent his anger as much as he needs to, there comes a point where enough is enough, and that point is now. In one fluid motion, he leans forward, scooping the toddler up in a bone-crushing hug, one that is meant to both comfort and restrain. He knows Lee will probably fight back, but he's made of sturdy stuff. He can take the beating. Claws, teeth, nails, kicks, punches, all of it. Let the boy take out his anger on him, if he needs to.

Lee's counting stops before he gets to three. So does his huffy breathing. And time. And everything else.

He can't possibly understand the big feelings that leap forward right now, but the truth is this: no one has ever held him so compassionately before. No one but Pa. Although this man is not Pa, and he looks nothing like Pa on the outside, he feels a little bit the same in some important, invisible way. However slight that resemblance might be, it's irresistible to the boy's aching heart.

The rigidity in his tiny, wild body remains, making him about as comfortable to hug as a chair, but the passionate rage drains out of him and turns to passionate tears instead. After a while, his arms move (as much as they can) to touch the old man's house coat and Lee returns the wizard's embrace. Just a little. Just enough to pet the nice fabric and pick at any little imperfections he finds with his dirty, too-long fingernails, and to roll the seams between his finger pads to soothe himself. After a few minutes, he goes a step further and tries to pull away—just for a moment—only enough to loosen the robe's front and slip himself inside. Bare chest to bare chest, ear to beating heart.

There's still a storm swirling around the toddler; he's still gloomy and tired and easily set off, but at least it isn't fully bottled up anymore. And he isn't standing against the battering winds all alone. That much he understands.

"Why can't Papa be sick in this room?" Softly, now. A big wet sniffle. "I don't like him gone."

Jonathan experiences no small amount of relief when he feels Lee go still in his arms. Not that the boy seems to be particularly pleased to be held, he's still tense as they come, but at least he isn't actively fighting to free himself. Even when he wriggles himself away, it is only a momentary thing, and then all he ends up doing is shoving the front of his house coat out of the way, removing the last barrier between their bare bodies.

"I know, I don't like him gone either." The wizard explains, setting himself further back on his heels and folding the house coat back over Lee like a blanket. It's solidly winter these days, surely the boy must be cold standing around stark naked like this. "But he won't fit on any of the other sofas or beds right now. Do you remember how big he gets when he has fur and teeth like you do sometimes? Well, right now his body is stuck in between being big and furry and being normal sized and not-furry. So the only bed he can fit in right now is on the third floor, where little boys aren't allowed."

He dislikes how what he says feels like a testimony to be said before The Court, even though he knows the little white lie he tells is hardly a lie at all. In fact there's more truth to it than not. His bed is the only one Gable can fit in right now, the way his body is stuck between forms. It's the only bed in the house where he has room to change and shift without worrying about spilling out or falling off as he turns. But he can't tell Lee about the burns, about the blood, about how utterly sick his father is right now without frightening him, and so he withholds that information, for now. If things take a turn, if it begins to look like he won't be able to recover from the silver poison, well... as much as he doesn't want to acknowledge the possibility, at that point he'll have to tell him everything, and bring the boy upstairs to see his father before the inevitable occurs.

"It hurts a lot for his body to be stuck like that." Jon continues as he gets up off the floor to keep his feet from falling asleep, continuing to tote Lee around the library as he wakes up his legs and does his best to provide some explanation for the morning's distress. "You probably felt some of it this morning when you woke up, right?"

Lee tolerates being lifted up off the floor with all the stiffness and wide-eyed distrust of a cat being suspended over a bathtub full of ice water. He peels away from the old man's warm chest to peer down at their feet; brows furrowed, lips pressed tight, he tries to judge just how badly it would hurt him if he wriggled away again and fell from up here.

He already earned himself a few mean-looking purply bruises from his escape out of Ms. Lorelei's grasp earlier... He's not sure it's worth collecting any more of them. They hurt when he pushes on them. They hurt even when he's not pushing on them. He resigns himself to the relative safety of his captivity with a huff and thumps his head against the old man's chest again, hard enough to hurt his own ear.

"But why isn't little boys allowed there?" The sulky youngling is still feeling quick to argue and glad to have the chance to do it. This new 'rule' seems to be an absolute injustice, not to mention plain old nonsensical. If Pa really is sick, then shouldn't he have his baby there to cuddle and kiss and make him feel better?

Lee pretends he doesn't hear the question when the wizard poses it to him. He doesn't want to talk about that bad dream that felt so real when he hurt all over and felt pulled in every direction. He doesn't want to talk about pain, or being sick, or anything sad anymore, so he won't. He'll just stay silent if the old man tries to make him. Maybe he'll even risk the fall and run off under some furniture so that Splatters has to come... Then they'll run away together to the barn, where no one will bother them. Or to the forest.

Then Pa would have to come find him. He's the only one who could.

Lee's gaze snags on odd objects while the old man wanders the room holding him—fancy books, colorful paperweights, whatever's in his line of sight—looking for something to play with that might be interesting enough to squirrel away into one of his hidey-holes whenever the wizard has finally lost interest in him.

"Do you got your guitar here?"

Lee lifts his head to examine the prickly beard that's been rasping at the top of his head for the past couple minutes and quickly becomes fixated on a single gray patch at the wizard's jaw; the change of color is like a spotlight, and the temptation to mess with it becomes too overwhelming for his impulsive little brain to resist. Not too carefully, but not too rough, he meticulously pushes the hairs upwards until they stick out like a baby porcupine. It's somewhat amusing for him, but far from joyful.

His expression is still serious. Somber. As brilliant as the room has become in the morning sunshine, the boy's eyes are dull and far away.

Lee ignores the question, but that's alright. It isn't something they need to talk about urgently. It can happen later, once the boy has had a chance to settle. He can feel the way the toddler stiffens as he rises, not quite as pleased with carried as he was with being held, but that's alright too. Jon adjusts his hold, just a little, so that he can support Lee's body a little better, and ends up freeing one arm up enough to rub up and down the boy's back as they walk the length of the library.

"Because there are some things up there that are dangerous for little boys." He explains, hoping that Lee won't pry too much into it. He doesn't want to explain the various enchanted items in his room that toddlers absolutely should not touch, or the fact that passing through the threshold to the third floor would probably terrify him. He could teleport them, of course, but with how fragile Gable is right now... he'd rather save his reserves in case something horrible happens. "Besides, your papa needs to sleep right now, and I know that he would be very worried about you if you went up there to visit him right now. Perhaps in a day or two, when he is feeling better and is more awake, you can come upstairs with me and visit him."

The wizard catches Lee's wandering gaze as it passes over a little stone carving of an elephant as they pass. Its speckled ocean jasper body makes it one of the more colorful paperweights in the room, pinks and greens and blues and browns, a harmless toy that will hopefully entertain for a little bit, at least. And sturdy enough not to break if it ends up thrown.

"Not here, unfortunately." He sighs, taking the carved elephant off its perch and offering it to the boy. "Perhaps we can go and get it after lunch? I try to keep it safe where the dragons can't eat the strings."

It'll mean teleporting down to the vault, but he's more alright with that than he is bringing Lee up to the third floor. He needs to keep the toddler entertained, and he's determined not to leave him alone today, if at all possible. Much as he would like a bath after the morning's events, keeping Lee with him means he'll either need to bathe in the washrooms with the toddler at his side, or forego it entirely until he's sure he won't flee or have a fit the second he's alone. Or even with Lorelei.

But then an idea comes to him.

"Lee, how would you like to go swimming with me today?"

Resistant as he might feel to being tamed, Lee is still a child. A child who is easily won over by the peace offerings of winsome old men.

The wizard's petting on his back calms the boy's nerves and relaxes some of the tension he's been holding onto like a suit of armor. Slowly, slowly, he even begins to lean into the sensation. Lee accepts the pretty stone elephant without a word and turns it over in his hands. His touch is gentle, now, and almost reverent as he follows the lines and dots in the stone. For some reason, he doesn't feel like smashing things anymore... Maybe it's because there's some hope now that he'll get to see Pa soon, and he doesn't want that privilege taken away due to bad behavior. In fact, he would calmly deny that he'd thrown or hit anything else in the past few minutes if it would improve his chances of seeing his father. Or getting more gifts.

"Eat the strings? Like spaghetti?" That's a very silly thought. It draws out the tiniest of smiles, which triggers the single dimple he shares with his papa.

While his grubby fingers trace the elephant's tusks, Lee muses to himself proudly that this colorful beast would make a sensational steed for Nasty Larry to ride on when he tyrannizes the next pine cone town. If Lee asked nicely, maybe the man with the hot hair would help him build a really impressive metropolis for the dastardly dude to smash through on his new elephant. When Larry smashes and crashes, nobody tells him he's a bad boy. He knows he is.

...'Swimming?'

Lee likes the sound this word makes. He whispers it to himself, softly chanting the sizzling Sss noise followed by the Wuh sound that makes his lips pucker. The whole word brings to mind the foggiest memory of some tiny yellow ducklings. They're floating on the surface of a gummy water trough in a strange place he doesn't recognize anymore. The fuzzy ducklings, and the shape of a thin man casting a long shadow, are all he can remember about it. Ma had let him feed the baby ducks some barley that day. She was in a very good mood. It was a happy time for him.

The boy shrugs and holds up the elephant. "Can Zeppadoop come too?"

"Yes, just like that." The wizard chuckles, burying the memory of the first time one of his pets had tried to ingest the strings of his instrument and the ensuing struggles. He had to very gently pull what he could out of her gullet, careful not to cut her insides with the wire strings, and then feed her a mixture of greasefish guts and warm water to encourage the rest to come out the other end with all reasonable haste. She had survived, though just barely. The strings had made her very sick, and Jon has been very careful to avoid repeating the incident since.

Jonathan can't help but let out a little sigh of relief, hearing Lee agree to the suggestion. A bath disguised as swimming will do them both good. There are so many layers of dirt he feels like have caked themselves into his flesh, despite being physically fairly clean. At least compared to earlier, just after they managed to get Gable tucked in.

"Of course." He says, shifting Lee's weight so that he can open the library door. The boy is mostly covered by his house coat, so as long as he doesn't scramble out of his arms nobody should be too scandalized. Who knows where his sleeping gown has gone by now. "Let's stop by your room and get some fresh clothes, and then we can head out to the swimming hole, alright? You don't have to put them on right away, but there's snow on the ground, and we don't want you to catch a chill when you get out of the water."

Jon totes the toddler dutifully toward his quarters, easing the door open with his hip when he gets there, and setting Lee down once the door is shut behind them. He encourages the boy to fill a bag with whatever else he'd like to bring as well, be it toys or other comfort items. Even if they get wet in their upcoming swimming adventure, a simple cantrip will have them dry again in an instant.

"Ready to go?" He finally asks, once they have a full set of clothing gathered up for Lee. The wizard himself will have to do with bare feet and the same house coat and lounge pants he wears presently, but it is only a minor thing in the grand scheme. Today is about taking care of Lee. He can cope with chilly feet and dirty clothes for one day.

When they reach the familiar corridor, Lee rubber necks as far as he can to get a glimpse of the neighboring room, where he now knows Pa had been living and sleeping separately from him for the past few days—not in the barn like he had imagined. He wants very badly to go there now, just like he had wanted so desperately to run there this morning, except he knows Pa won't be there anymore... His papa is upstairs, far away, where little boys aren't allowed to go.

Lee stands where the man in pajama clothes sets him down and he looks around the room for a little while without moving yet, contemplating his choices and enjoying the familiarity of the quarters. This room smells good. It smells like nice people. It also tastes a bit like his own acrid fear, but he can ignore that part easier than someone else's fear-scent.

Ms. Lorelei's soap and eucalyptus scent is all over Pa's bed now, but the drawer with their clothes in it still smells strongly like wood and leather and clean sweat: like Pa, when he's not sick. After pulling on his own clothes (which someone wisely sewed out of a single dark brown fabric to disguise a mottling of earthy stains) Lee spends a minute rummaging through the rest of the drawer, pulling out tunics as big as tents and draping them around his neck like scarves. There are only three of them, but Lee is so weighed down by fabric at the end of his hoarding spree that he looks like a top-heavy coat rack with short legs. The garb might not keep him as warm as his sheepskin coat, but he's happy now, and has no intention of replacing the tunics where he found them. With a bit of spring to his step, he moves on to the next treasure trove from which to pilfer: his toy sack.

It isn't easy, but sheer determination can accomplish quite a lot. Lee gathers up all the pine figures scattered about the room (plus the new elephant recruit) and hauls the whole bag over his shoulder—a motion which, paired with the weight of Gable's large shirts, nearly topples him—then he teeters over to the man by the door. Chin up, proud grin: "Ready, Peepaw!"

The swimming hole is not what Lee expects to find when they get to it. There are no ducks. No scummy algae. The water isn't even in a big metal tub, it's in the ground, like normal water. The boy gives the old man an incredulous look as if to ask him if he's sure he knows what 'swimming' means.

... Peepaw?

Now that's a name he's never heard before. The word itself is absurd, the sort of thing only a child could come up with, much like the other thing Lee had called him, what was it...? Mutie. But at least this new title is said with a pinch more endearment than the previous one. Is this an improvement? Jon's inclined to think it is.

"Well alright, then. Let's be off."

He keeps one hand on Lee's shoulder as they travel, in part to shepherd him along and keep him from running off, but also to keep the boy from falling over from the sheer weight of his toys and his father's shirts. It's only a short walk to the swimming hole, just past the greenhouse and the bridge over the river, hidden in a copse of pines just out of plain sight, so Jon doesn't bother with a cloak either. It's a sunny, if brisk, day, he'll be fine to be outside without it for a bit. Besides, the water should be quite warm.

The pool of water shimmers faintly, steam rising lightly from its surface, when they arrive. There is a ring of warm rocks around the pool's edge, free from snow due to the water's heat, and it is one of the wider, flatter rocks where Jonathan leads his tiny charge. It'll make a good spot to keep their belongings while they play in the water. It's fairly deep in some places, nearly ten feet at its deepest, but the area where he's led Lee is quite shallow. A good starting point, until he figures out just how much skill in the water the boy has.

"Something wrong, Lee?" The wizard asks as he steps forward and dips his hand in the water. Nice and warm, but not scalding. Perfect.

He sheds his house coat, folding it neatly and setting it on a nearby rock, then does the same with his lounge pants. The shorts beneath he leaves on, for modesty's sake. He's already seen Lee starkers, but there's no need to subject the child to his bareness.

"Go ahead and undress as much as you're comfortable," he says, stepping down into the water. It only comes up to his knees here. "The water is nice and warm. Let me know if it's too hot for you, though. We can move closer to where it comes in from the creek, it'll be cooler over there."

Lee blinks up at the grandpa-man with a candid little frown. "Peepaw," he says matter-of-factly, "there's no ducks."

Duh. That's what's wrong.

The boy eyes the steaming pool of water distrustfully and keeps a few feet away from its edge. Bathtubs (and shallow puddles) are the only way he's ever gotten wet before. What if there's snakes in this water? That's what Ma was always afraid of and why they never went to the lake. Lee's frown deepens as he twists to look back in the direction of the house. Pa could tell him if there was snakes here.

Somehow, the void in his mind where Pa should be feels even bigger when he's being faced with a new experience; it's like the dark emptiness inside him has grown wider and deeper and scarier, and he imagines it plunges way down into the earth without a bottom. He's afraid to even try reaching out to it for comfort right now, afraid he might just fall right into that hole and get swallowed up forever. Part of him wants to run back into the house and climb upstairs where he's not supposed to go. The other part is scared to, because he never wants to see Pa sick. ...What if he looks like a big black hole, too?

He looks up to the old man again and swallows.

Lee sets his things down on the big flat rock. Watching the wizard get in first helps him judge the depth a bit better; it probably only comes up to his waist, and he doesn't have to sit in it like a bath if he doesn't want to. With a longsuffering sigh, he unwraps the big shirts from his neck and stuffs them lovingly into his toy sack, where they'll be safe from robbers who like to steal your most precious items when you're not looking. The rest of his clothes get strewn wherever they land. He wades into the water slowly, clothed only in his skin and a worried grimace.

After a minute of carefully picking his way over to the older man, Lee shrieks (half in terror, half in delight) and his hand flies out for Peepaw because his foot has touched something unexpectedly slimy. His skin pebbles from the thrill of it, and from the cold air on his bare skin, and from the hot water on his bare legs and belly. Once he's got a hold on Peepaw's hand, he grips it like an alligator turtle and doesn't let go.

"Is there any fishes here?"

He doesn't think to ask why the water here is hot in the winter. He just accepts it as fact. He's still learning how the world works, and he's seen so little of it yet. Without loosening his grip on his much older and larger lifeline, Lee uses his other hand to hit the water's rippled surface, splashing it into his own face. He gasps and giggles and does it again. Then he splashes Peepaw with a daring grin.