Time to Make Daddy Love Me [Finished!]

[Bee]

Right here was the place to be. It was where all of his dreams would come true. Oh yes it was. On this doorstep. Mama had told him so. This was where good little boys were left so they could learn to fly. And Zeki wanted so very badly to figure out what made people fly.

There was something a little funny going on, though. Mama had left him swaddled in a blanket, with a little drawstring bag filled with coins, and there was a wound-up note attached by string to his front leg. Mustn't read it! It was for the Flying Man. Bad little boys who read the letters of others got thrown way up into the air, so far up that they hit the sun and melted and their little bits fell in person-rain back to the earth. This what he had been led to believe, anyway. It sounded a little fishy.

He missed Mama. She had been acting so oddly when she left him. Hopefully he would learn to fly soon so he could go home to her. She had left him with only one instruction:

Knock.

So Zeki did precisely that.

[Kari Muffin]

Rocky hurried around his lab, preparing a variety of things for experiments that he had been putting off forever and then some. The raccoon had been distracted by so many requests his head was still spinning. He needed to work on his own projects though.

The raccoon stopped in mid-motion when he heard knock on the door. He let out a long sigh as he dropped his tools where they were and bound up the stairs. Thankfully he had left the door to his lab open, otherwise the person at the door would have been out of luck.

Opening the door was the biggest shock the raccoon had. Ever.

"Oh... my god..." was all he could say as he looked down at the boy on his door step. The boy who looked exactly like he did, only with a mane and a little more... dogish?

Dogish?

Ataxia?

He stared down at the boy, his mouth wide open, his brightly colored wings drooping. Was this really happening or had he finally gone crazy?

[Bee]

Zeki stared at him with open-mouthed awe for a moment. Those wings. Those wings were magnificent. Flying Man's whole figure was magnificent, actually. He looked like...well. He looked like Zeki.

Wariness and suspicion tinged his stunned wonderment. He thought, I'm a clone! And then he thought, But if I were really a clone, I would have wings, unless all the good traits were excised in the cloning process. That was how it worked, right? Some traits were good and dominant like wings and some were weak and recessive. No one knew quite how it worked itself all out, on the inside.

But what Zeki knew was that he had gotten inferior genes.

"I have a letter for you and stuff," he said, holding out a forepaw for the Flying Man who apparently could not see fit to share his dominant genes. Zeki bubbled with envy and admiration. He wanted very badly for Flying Man to open the letter.

[Kari Muffin]

Rocky stared down at the boy for a moment longer before snapping out of the trance he was in. He reached down and accepted the letter with a grin. "Thank you!" he said as cheerfully as he could muster.

He opened the letter hastily, nearly tearing it in the process. It wasn't in a handwriting that he was familiar with, but it was clearly from Ataxia. His face went through a wide array of expressions as he read the precise wording.

This really was happening. This really was his son. And Ataxia had really left for good. Fantastic way of leaving at that. The raccoon could feel his wings sagging again. No! No he couldn't just give up before this thing had started. He was a Dad now.

Crap. He was a Dad.

He put on his normal cheerful smile and looked down at the boy. "Come in Zeki! We have a lot to talk about! Would you like anything to eat?"

[Bee]

Somewhat hesitantly, Zeki followed Flying Man into the house, eying the letter suspiciously the entire while. It had changed his tune, from shock to cheerful accommodation. He wondered what Mama had written to him. Did she tell him that he could learn to fly, despite his faults?

Maybe there was something bigger afoot. His look-alike was behaving so queerly. Maybe he wasn't a clone, after all. Maybe they were really related. Mama was shipping him off to a relative...Mama was so strange.

The mention of food seemed to remind his stomach that it did, in fact, require sustenance. It rumbled and it burbled. He had not eaten since very early in the morning, when Mama had first woken him with news of their epic journey to Corvistowne.

He said, "Yes, please, food would be great, thanks," because he was not entirely ill-mannered. "Can I see the letter?"

[Kari Muffin]

Rocky gave the boy an indescribable look of pure confusion. Should he really let him look at the letter that Ataxia had written just for him. Or should he just hand it over?

Really he should just be honest. The raccoon shut the door quietly. He held the letter close to him and shook his head. "No, I'm sorry I can't let you read the letter. It was written just for me to be perfectly honest. But I am going to tell you the truth... even if it's going to be hard to believe. I'm not very good at this so... yeah."

The raccoon choked down his worries and put on his cheer as bright as it could possibly go. "My name is Rocco. If you haven't guessed I'm your father... and your mother left you in my care. So... welcome home."

This wasn't how he picture his life.

[Bee]

Zeki stared at him, dumbstruck. This made quite a bit more sense than him being a clone (though some childishly wary part of his brain clung to the suspicion), but it didn't quite seem real, either. Suddenly some person who had never ever been part of his life at all was going to be taking care of him? What was this rubbish? Where was Mama?

She had lied to him.

Liar. Shameless mendacity! His own mother. He wasn't coming here because he was going to learn to fly.

He was coming here because Mama didn't want him anymore.

The weight of the realization was crushing. The transition between shock and tears was quick, but with several distinct steps: sharp, wet breathing as he told himself that crying was stupid and tried to not be some dumb crying baby; pathetic whining noises as that tactic failed; and then the sobbing.

[Kari Muffin]

He knew that was going to happen, but the surprise still crossed his face. He had pretty much just said "Sorry, your mother doesn't love you." Something that Rocky had actually heard in his youth about his own farther. Of course Ataxia probably loved Zeki more than Rocky could ever put in words. That woman just....

Stupid smart women and their stupid complications.

"Oh, Don't cry, Zeki. She says that she'll be coming back once she fixes a few things!" Rocky said as stooped down to look at the boy in the eye. "I'm sorry I'm not a good enough parent to make things better. But your Mom mentioned that you want to learn how to fly, right? Well, I'm going to teach you all that I know to make up for not being there for you earlier and... your Mom loves you no matter what. She just can't be here right now."

Really he was horrible at this. How could Ataxia had done this? Why hadn't she told him about having a son until now?

[Bee]

Zeki sniffled--ew, he was leaking snot, he hated crying--and looked up hopefully at the blurry black and green fuzzshape. Then he blinked, wiped his eyes, and looked hopefully at the fully outlined form of his father.

He wanted very badly to believe him, though the fact that he could not see the letter made him suspicious (maybe he could sneak a look later).

Mama loved him, yes...Mama had always been good to him, why would she abandon him forever and ever? This had to be temporary. And this man was going to teach him all about flying. First he would launch himself into the skies. And then he would build magnificent machinery that would propel the masses into the heavens.

It would be glorious. They would make statues of him. Zeki, the great artificer of our time, inspired to heights of greatness by his...daddy. Resentment tinged with happiness. He had a daddy, but had to lose his mama to get one.

The world worked in stupid ways. But eventually he would have both. He wiped the snot off on his arm.

"Okay," he said, cautiously. His tummy rumbled. He blushed and frowned. "Dads can cook, right?"

[Kari Muffin]

What Rocky wouldn't give for a box of tissues, of course he didn't happen to have anything remotely useful like that. The raccoon was glad to hear the boy's voice, even if he was still cautious.

This parent thing didn't seem like it was going to be all that fun, especially since Ataxia set him up for a rather fantastic fall. If he ever saw her again....

"Not all Dad's can cook. But you're pretty lucky! I can make you something pretty quickly. Does a grilled cheese work?" He said as he ushered the boy towards his tiny dining room kitchen. A grilled cheese was the fasted thing he could cook, besides eggs... which he didn't happen to have in his ice box.

When he opened it he faced the grim reality of how he hadn't gone food shopping this week. Goodness... all he had left was cheese, butter, some strange wrapped meat, some juice and a few things in cupboards.

Well if Zeki didn't want a grilled cheese he was sure he could find some cereal or something.

"Well, you can take a seat at the table, or we can eat in the sitting room if you'd like that more."