On the Job (Finished)

[carcinoGeneticist]

All of the information slowly sank in, and Seth just stared at his grandson. He'd realized that it was better not to fight the wave, just to let the boy finish whatever it was that he needed to say and then try to respond to it. Nothing else worked, because he'd think of something he needed clarification on and then the boy would drop another "bomb" on him and he'd forget that anything could have been important before that.

All of the children were... fucked. Kieran, who'd seemed so... ordinary, had no face. The idea boggled Seth. It just wasn't possible. There had to be something that the kid had missed in his youth. A person couldn't survive without food and air, it was just impossible. The bat tried to explain it to himself as tricks of youth. He felt full and warm when he was happy too, didn't he? Even though that feeling seemed pretty damn distant right now. All he could feel was the churning in his stomach and the confusion and mental distress that were raging in him.

It was terribly tempting to blame Lior for all of it. The sniveling little pussy just felt weird, and Seth didn't like him one bit. He'd gotten hid daughter pregnant, and the way he followed her around like a lost little puppy made him feel sick. It would make the man more than happy to have something to blame on him, a concrete reason for his dislike of the cat. But he couldn't, for two reasons.

Heilyn had always warned him that their children could be screwed up because of the mixing of Bog-blood. It hadn't happened to him, but what was to say that it hadn't happened to his daughter? And then there was the story she'd told him one night, when he'd asked about Sa's bone-wings. After all, Hisstor-mix only carried so far when the unknown parent turned out to be a pedigreed Highland snob. She'd told him that, when she'd been pregnant, she and a friend (who sounded equally freakish) had gone to a mage convention.

...He'd berated her for that for a very long time. He still couldn't believe her irresponsibility.

All the same, he'd pin most of it on that scrap of information about Lior. It was easier than hating his own daughter by far. All the same, he wondered how he'd be able to look at her from now on.

"I'm sure that's not true,[/b]" he said, but he didn't sound like he believed himself. Ignoring his freakishly abnormal appearance, the boy was sweet, but there was an undertone of "batshit fucking insane" running just below that. Seth found himself focusing on the feeler that sprung from the boy's forehead. That creeped him out the least.

[The Jenn]

"Oh, it's totally true," Jak said in a breezy tone. "Dad liked Dell least, and I think it was a tie between me and Amhal for Mom. Dell was in the running too, but we were too freaky for her. Dell didn't beat her up, though. Dad was the one who stayed home with us every day while Mom went wherever she went. Somewhere being a King mattered. That pretty place I see, I think, where everybody else lives. She went there, maybe. And Dad stayed with us. When he wasn't called away to, y'know. Kill somebody. Or something. I don't really know what he did. He just wandered off and wandered back and sometimes he was covered in blood."

He rocked back and forth a little bit, the swaying of his feeler and the swishing drag of his tails a comforting combination. "I wish I brought my scarf," he said with a sigh. "I could have showed it off. I don't get to show it to anybody. It's made out of an eyeball I found laying in an alley. It's really cool. I can see out of it when I wear it and it's around my neck. I didn't start having seizures until I found it, but it's totally worth it to be able to see everybody. I didn't even know they were alive before a year ago. And y'know, I only see family in it, so I guess I'll start seeing you too, once a week. Hope I don't catch you going pee or something. That'd be a waste."

He leaned back and awkwardly reached up with one animal-esque front leg, trying to reach an itch under his cheek. It was a pretty futile gesture, since he couldn't cock his head all the way with the tubes and he couldn't reach up in the right angle to hit the itchy spot. Irritating. "I'd say I could maybe take you back to our place, but I dunno if I wanna wake up Amhal right now with a stranger. He hasn't met anybody in a really long time. I'm the face, 'cause I can be any face I wanna be."

[carcinoGeneticist]

That wasn't something that Seth expected to hear about Lior ever. He'd never thought that the pussy had it in him to have sex with anyone, but he'd been surprised there, too. This piece of news wasn't as weird as the others, but it did strike home. Was that what had drawn his daughter to Lior? Some kind of primal desire to be close to the creepy-death-feeling and the danger? Either that or his daughter was still insane, which seemed like it might have been a possibility.

He shook his head. It was just another question for Rhiannon, another area where he needed truth in what was becoming a complicated web of lies. Elaborate lies, he had to give the pair of them credit for that.

And then the subject of the father was forgotten, dropped aside in favor of an eyeball that was also a scarf. Another trinket the boy'd found in these alleys, probably another cause for his demented appearance. He was struck completely dumbfounded by the way the boy spoke, the strange flow of words and tones, almost to the point that the words were only sounds without meaning. But the meaning was still there, and it was just getting weirder. Seth laughed feebly. "Yeah, a waste.[/b]"

What else could he say?

"That's okay,[/b]" Seth was quick to reassure the boy. He couldn't help but feel he'd just dodged a bullet on that one. A big bullet at that. He really didn't want to meet another abomination, especially not one that continually had the descriptor "jellyfish" attached to it. "I can meet him another time, probably. I'll come visit you again.[/b]" he spoke without thinking, and wished he could take it back a second later. He wouldn't, though.

He knew that he couldn't forget about Jak, no matter how much he wanted to. And as long as he couldn't forget about the boy, he couldn't live knowing he was scrounging for "food" in a dirty alleyway and stealing money just to live.

[The Jenn]

The look on Jak's face when Seth said that he would visit again was like gray sunshine appearing through the overcast sky of a particularly deadly swamp. "You'll visit us? Actually visit? No one's ever visited us before. Not that they knew where we lived, but still! Will you really? Ahaheehehehehe!" He laughed and stood on the toes of his back legs, doing an odd, shuffling little dance that vaguely resembled a corpse being jerked on a string. His balance was bizarre.

"Well, if that's the case, you'll need to know where we live! It's only about five blocks from here to the pie shop with the nice cat-lady, and then another three blocks along the side alley next to their building before you come across one of the shanty towns. Our place doesn't look like a place - it looks like a massive junk heap. Took me almost six months to pile it all just-so. There's a way in, though. We've got a really big carriage wheel in front of where you can find the door, but don't go in without permission or you might get some sort of nasty surprise in your face or something. We're pretty paranoid."

He glanced up at the moon, his head tilting skyward out of habit even though his eye could see the sky very well without him moving. "I guess it's getting kinda late, though. This place isn't nearly as abandoned as I was hoping. The neighborhood's getting really nasty lately and so we're trying to find a place to relocate. I should get back to my brother. He worries sometimes. But you will visit again? You promised?" His rambling voice developed a wistfully hopeful note.

[carcinoGeneticist]

In some way, a part of the bat got the distinct feeling that his promise had been a deal with the devil. Except this wasn't some abstract being of evil that would get him in a metaphorical afterlife, this was his own abomination of a grandson that was currently laughing like a madman while dancing. This was not the kind of situation that Seth had ever dreamed he'd find himself in, and the thought that he'd put himself in it was one that did nothing to ease the way his gut was continuing to lurch.

He should have kept his mouth shut. He really should have kept himself from saying anything to the boy, but he couldn't. Family was far too important.

He knew that, even though it would be nice to forget the directions as well as being oddly convenient, he wouldn't be able to. This whole evening was going to be burned into his memory and he'd be lucky if he could forget about it when he was an old man laying in his deathbed. He simply nodded to Jak again. "Got it.[/b]" It was all he could say to the boy without taking the risk of having what he was really feeling leak out.

Seth fell quiet while he considered the next things the boy said next. When he considered, he stared at the ground, which made the whole situation a little easier to deal with. Sure, he still had to listen to the unnatural drawl of the boy's speach, but he could at least avoid looking at the boy full-on.

"Why don't I walk you home?[/b]" he offered, voice sounding just a little bit wary. "That way, I can see where you live myself. Make it easier to find you when I come to visit you again, won't it?[/b]"

Damnit, Seth. He just kept digging his hole deeper and deeper.

[The Jenn]

Jak tilted his head and grinned, the expression a face-splitting gap with lots of teeth. "Yeeeeeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Then you won't have any excuse at all for not visiting! I really like the sound of that. C'mon, then. It's this way."

As he moved to walk past the bat, he began changing forms at the same time, his gait shifting from a shuffling hop to a smooth, oddly rolling bipedal step in a matter of seconds. The way his hips swayed as a bipedal ferret suddenly made more sense now. All of his oddities melted away with his form and he went downstairs, assuming that the man would be following him without question. Or maybe with question. He didn't seem much the talkative type. That was okay, though. Jak had more than enough to tell him!

The streets were mostly empty on the walk back to his place, but even so, the boy kept to the edges of the buildings. No use inviting unnecessary questions. He'd learned skulking on the streets and he was damned good at it. Following the route he'd detailed for the bat, he made it to a tall, shadowed pile of garbage that might have been a dwelling with some serious imagination. It smelled closer to a rusty sewer. Then he looked up at Seth. "Home sweet home," he whispered in a coarse voice.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Right. No excuse not to visit. It only sounded worse when someone else said it, and Seth felt his stomach drop again. It was salt poured on the wound of his own thoughtless speaking, and there was no backing out of it now. The excited words of the boy were proof enough of that.

Seth couldn't help but stare in horror as Jak shifted back into the Corvistowne ferret. There was something unsettling about the transformation, even though the boy's horrific features were melting back into something more normal. The entire act of it was utterly wrong, something that wasn't supposed to be possible. It had taken a while for Seth to deal with the way his own coat looked when its patterns shifted, but seeing the body itself change was not going to be okay with the bat for a long, long time.

Silently, he followed the boy through the dingy alleyways and backstreets, keeping one hand on his katars as reassurance. The feeling of the curve of their handles made him feel safe. Safe was important right now. He mirrored the teen's movements, slinking along in the shadows to avoid being noticed, as that was the last thing he needed right now. He didn't imagine that his grandson would appreciate his leading some stranger right his... Er. Home, he supposed.

Because the place wasn't exactly something the bat would call home, and he suppressed a shiver as he looked the place over. It wasn't the kind of place that a child should live in. "Indeed,[/b]" he said, glancing down at the cat-dog-turned-ferret. He smiled at the boy, though it took substantial effort. Then he kneeled down, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out, hesitating for a moment.

"Take this. Get yourself and your brother something good to eat.[/b]" he said, looking the boy in the eye and taking his hand, slipping a bag of money into the boy's paw. "I'll come visit again soon, okay? Be careful.[/b]"

[The Jenn]

Jak tilted his head on the long ferret neck in confusion as Seth knelt down, obligingly lowering himself a tiny bit more to accommodate. For all that he was only sixteen, bipedal ferrets were tall, and humans usually weren't.

His eyes brightened like a kid at Christmas when the man pressed a bag of money into his hand. Just from the weight of it, he could tell there was more than enough for a decent meal. He could even get it from one of those restaurant places, and then bring back a big serving for Amhal in a doggie bag! Er, kitty bag.

He giggled, the sound high-pitched and giddy. "Yeeeeeah, sure, alright. Fresh food would be fantastic. Won't even have to worry about bugs or mold or rot, right?" His muzzle split in a toothy grin, not as wide as his natural face would allow, but still unnervingly unnatural. "I'll see you when you come. Seth? Or should I call you something else? Grampa?" Sugar daddy? He didn't say that one out loud. He still wasn't entirely sure what it meant, only that he didn't quite know and probably shouldn't use it unless he did.

((Feel free to cut it here. Enter omg!drama!))

[carcinoGeneticist]

It had been about a week since Seth had discovered the fact that he had additional grandchildren.

It had consumed his life. Every time he looked at his daughter, he wanted to scream. Every time little Treasa or cheerful Kieran swarmed him to play, he had to swallow his fear and suppress the desire to take off that damn mask. Keeping this a secret was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, and he couldn't live with it for another day without screaming it to anyone who'd listen.

So he took Rhiannon by the scruff of her neck, ignoring her indignant cries, and dragged her out of the palace with him. She would look her past in the face and justify herself to her father. Nothing else would do.

As they walked down the dark streets of the Outer Bazaar, Rhiannon found herself whimpering slightly. It was a cowardly noise, but she couldn't comprehend what was going on. Her father's rage, his complete silence as they had walked... None of it made any sense. Where was he bringing her? There was a small fear in the pit of her stomach as they walked into a darker and danker neighborhood, stopping outside of a trash heap.

"We're here,[/b]" her father said, the words clipped as he pushed his daughter towards the pile.

[The Jenn]

Jak lay flopped inside their home, stretched out on his side and enjoying the cool dirt beneath his cheek. It was hard-packed, but it still collected the cold from the ground rather nicely. It being late afternoon, he probably wasn't going out again for a few more hours, not until it got dark. Maybe he would steal something, but he didn't think so. He was probably just going to get out to... get out. Dance around in the dark in someone else's body. Have a lark. Maybe he would bring his eyeball scarf with him or something. He didn't take it out very often.

Considering, he hefted himself to his feet with a grunt and shuffled over to it, ducking his neck so that its twitching end could slither comfortingly around his throat. Ah, and now he could see even more than his flaming eyeball would allow! Or, at least, from a different angle. It had taken a while to get used to both sets of sight at once, especially switching between 'normal' sight whenever he took bodies. He managed. Admirably.

A voice right in front of their house, and then a noise against their pile of junk, made his ears perk up and his head swivel around. "You hear that, Awwwlee?" he hissed quietly, taking a step or two forward. He shifted forms as he did so, becoming an Avington bull for the hell of it. They were big and intimidating, and nobody immediately had it out for them, so far as he'd been able to tell. "I'mma go check it out. You stay here. Keep an eye on me."

Scarf still around his neck and goggles on his face, but floating angler-dangler gone in the transformation, he slowly moved towards the covered entrance and peeked his head out. Then he saw Seth and his whole expression brightened. "Heeeeey. I remember you... Grampa!" He shoved his way through the pile and then froze, blinking in confusion.

No way. No effing way. His blinking turned into a stare of massively creepy proportions, eyeball scarf twitching around just so that he could look at her with a third eye. She'd never known about his little 'trick', had she?

"...Mom?"