IBI. I have more dad Secondo thoughts to share. I saw a video on youtube earlier about dad’s and their reflexes (catching toddlers from stumbling or falling) and it made me think of Secondo with extra reflexive dad senses 👀
!!! yessss!!! it makes it even better when you imagine him wearing his sunglasses, reading the paper, cup of coffee in hand, being soo unfazed about it. you sit over breakfast, the toddler running around, and every now and again his hand shoots out like he's elastigirl from the incredibles, protecting the child's head just before they full-speed run into the edge of the table.
Tags: Halloween Hijinks, Eldest Kid Anxiety, Suburban Dad Secondo, Disabled Secondo, Post-Retirement Life, Magic Rituals, My AU with Seocondo being Papa from 2001-2008
CW: Underage Drinking
Paul is at the party. He gets a little too over his head. And he can't completely blame the punch.
Dedicated to @kissingghouls thanks for cheering me on you’re my little Hell Pumpkin🎃 I’m on AO3 with all my other fics but Tumblr gets mad at me when I post links check out #anamelessfool halloween tag for the prev chapter
The first thing Paul noticed when he approached the house party was that he was the only person not in costume. Even the most leather-necked of linebackers attempted something with a Ghostface mask perched on their heads. Everyone around him looked big, capable. He distracted his nerves by typing in his phone.
Paul L: I'm here
Dana: 🙂
Music thudded softly from within as he climbed the stairs. If he didn’t look to either his left or right he could pretend that he was confident about his choice of no costume. Yes, it was some sort of defiant, anti-establishment sort of thing. But they had just witnessed him exit a car driven by his father and piled high with little kids and their sugar-fueled screams, so perhaps the rebel act wasn’t very convincing.
Dana waved from the front door, ushering him in. He darted in like he was escaping some oncoming storm, and she the only chance at rescue. Inside the fairly large house was packed with most of the upperclassmen shouting over some punk rock cover of Monster Mash. “Hey, so happy you’re here.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” he replied, and at once he slowly removed his hands from his hoodie pockets.
“A freshman… You invited a fucking freshman?” Right. Dana wasn’t the only person here. A sour looking boy tossed the hair from his head, his mouth a thin line.
“Relax, he's cool,” said Dana with a small smile. Paul felt a warmth flood his entire body. “He’s most of the orchestra pit.” Dana was the lead role for the fall play. And midway through Act II he could get a clear view of her singing at the front of the stage. She was just as beautiful now, all dolled up in some kind of half-hearted witch getup that gave her the excuse to have glittering goth makeup.
“Yeah well what do you play then?” Asked the older boy.
The better question was what Paul didn't play. His father was a prodigy on piano but dabbled elsewhere. Paul took after his grandfather Nihil, who somehow despite his foggy brain took to every instrument like a duck to water. “Guitar, bass guitar, piano,” Paul listed and his confidence started to crawl back. “All percussion. Some violin. Trumpet. I'm learning saxophone because Mr. Baxter needs one for the Spring show. And…that's it. So far.”
“Wow, no wonder you’re a shut in,” quipped the boy before melting back into the crowd.
“Asshole!” Dana jokingly swatted at him as he left, then turned back to Paul with a wince. “Sorry. Hey. Make yourself at home. Go get some punch, okay?”
“No, he’s right I’m…not really out there…”
“First time for everything, right?” Dana held out her hand and he took it, deciding he’d be okay with dying right then and there. He floated along beside her as she led him to the punch bowl and ladled him a glass. “Just have fun, Paul.”
Yes. He was going to have fun. He didn’t dare want to let her down, and that fifteen foot walk from the foyer to the dining room was one of the greatest things that had ever happened to him. Partygoers wandered in and out around him but their voices were muffled from the pounding in his ears. The music felt miles away, at the bottom of a lake. At last he recognized someone coming towards him, an older kid named Brian who he spent most of his time with in the orchestra pit.
“Yo! You came!” Brian grinned. “No costume?”
“No time.”
“That’s cool. Hey… you want a little…excitement…” Brian whipped out a flask from his jacket, leering.
“I mean um…” Maybe it would do something with his nerves. And he didn't want to spend the rest of his life known as the fucking freshman invited out of pity. He was cool. Talented. Able to hold his liquor. He was supposed to have fun: Dana’s orders. “Um, sure.”
He tipped the punch down his throat, perhaps a little too fast. There was very little burn at all to scold him. As Brian kept talking to him, his mind kept floating away. He squeezed his eyes shut, leaned against the wall but nodded all the same like nothing was the matter. A stupid smile began to creep across his face as Ben talked and kept introducing him to the girls that wandered by. How may Poison Ivy costumes were there? At least five. Or was he meeting the same girl over and over? The red cup creaked in his hand as he held it like some sort of safety rope.
“Since dawn of time the fate of man is that of lice…” His father's voice unmistakably seethed out from the playlist. Paul looked desperately for the exit but the windows and doors swam unsteadily in front of him.
“What, you scared?” asked another girl dressed as Poison Ivy. Yes, he had seen at least three others in the past hour. “It's Ghost, you ever heard of them? You like metal?”
“HELL SATAN! ARCHANGELOOOO!”
“Yeah a little bit,” Paul said. “I don't think they're real metal.”
“His name’s Secondo, actually,” explained the kid who had attached the aux to his phone. “Yeah, he's out. His brother is in. They say now he's a…hey man what’s up with you?”
“Yeah, I know him,” Paul slurred with a slight giggle. “That's my uncle. Haven't seen him much, though.”
The kid peered suspiciously into Paul. “You…know them?”
Paul flashed a fuzzy smile and moments after speaking he wished everything was a dream. “Yeah. The guy singing. He's my dad.”
“What?” yelled the kid, and more party guests wandered over. “What, he's your dad?!”
“He uh…got sick. Retired.”
“He will ascend to the heavens! Above the stars of God! Hell Satan!”
A few phones whipped out from pockets and Paul watched in growing horror how every one of these upperclassmen started typing into search engines. A boy held out his phone and Papa Emeritus II glared out at them all. “This? This…is your dad?”
Paul smiled painfully. He decided never to drink ever again. “Yeah.”
“Yeah, I've seen him around! Holy shit!” A girl laughed and flashed another photo for them all to see: A photo of his father in shades, flanked by two women dressed as sexy nuns. “Is one of these girls your mom?”
“And he like, chops up dead bodies now,” said another kid. “You got dead grandmas in your freezer yeah?”
“Well, uh, my dad doesn't chop up the bodies, that's my mom’s job—” This was going nowhere, but the spiked punch made Paul plod on. “Yeah there's um a big difference between mortician and funeral director ya know my dad sorta just handles the documents….for the state….” He ended his statement with a careful sip.
“Holy shit this kid is a fucking riot.”
More partiers began surrounding him, and through his dizziness he was completely certain they were there to laugh at him. Voices swam in and out.
“Who’s that? Oh yeah, the gravedigger kid…”
“Wait, have you seen the music video? And your Dad was in that? Dude there were naked chicks in that video dude!”
“Yeah, uh…I guess…yeah…” Paul was ready to die. He waited for some holy lightning bolt to come down from on high, but if anyone noticed that his own mother was also featured in that video he would do the job himself.
The Aux kid was fully grinning. “That’s amazing dude, amazing, he’s literally Satan, dude—“
“He’s sorta boring, actually,” Paul threw in. His solo cup was thoroughly demolished. The sugar mixing with the alcohol was making his stomach turn. Perhaps vomiting would deflect all of this attention to the more ordinary embarrassment of destroying someone’s living room carpet.
“That means he knows spells.” Dana emerged from the shadows, flanked by some equally attractive friends. Her black lips pursed as her heavily-shadowed eyes gleamed. “If he's the devil he knows spells, right?”
“It's not real,” stammered Paul. Her gaze made him weak. “Well…it's…sorta real…”
“Real? It's all fucking real, no way! Have you seen him do spells?!”
Every morning, an odd musical chant. Every evening, another droning mantra. The man would not shut up about the weather and piles of his journals were scattered around the house. No flicks of wands or fairy dust or leaping demons. No fireballs or bursts of healing light. Just the sound of his father droning syllables and a disgusting collection of animal skulls and jars filled with rusted nails and weird smells. “Yeah, I guess…” And of course, Paul would not shut up. He could not, with how everyone was paying attention to him. He had to get out of this. And the only way out was through. “I can do them too, you know.”
***
Sandra was snuggled up on the couch with the on-call phone when Paul returned.
“How was it? So happy you went.” On the television two men chained in a filthy bathroom argued and came to the realization that yes, one of them would have to amputate.
“It was alright. Any…calls?”
“No, just little ol’ me alone,” Sandra replied, sitting up. “And Ed checking in to tell me the guys brought all the kid cousins out for a late dinner.” She rubbed her eyes, refocusing on the men screaming on the television. “The sequels didn’t compare to this one. Gratuitous. Real fear is all just head games, ya know? It’s all just…in the mind.”
“Yeah well, good night then.” Paul hugged her then walked down the hallway, glancing quickly back as he passed the door to his room and silently slipped into the office.
Secondo always kept a lamp softly illuminated in the corner. Paul moved soundlessly across the beige carpet to arrive at the TV hutch. His fingers trembled as he gently untangled the red ribbon across the knobs. Secondo was miles away surrounded by screaming children in a busy pizza place but still Paul was certain he’d hear the smallest disturbance. Maybe not his flesh and blood father but the Eye would.
The hutch opened and light shone across the crystal skull in its nest of dead flowers. The strong scent of frankincense and charcoal wafted across him, fleeing into the air like a freed spirit. In Paul’s heightened mind everything inside seemed much more foreign and terrifying than usual. Some sort of large, milk-white snake floated in a jar in the far back. There were stacks of rocks, rose petals in a stone urn before bundles of feathers arranged in a bouquet. A few mummified hawk claws hung on a string. Daggers were arranged like surgical instruments on top of a rabbit skin. A series of small journals were crammed where a VCR should go. And buried deep within, the golden goat head of Baphomet peered from behind a collection of railroad spikes, their arm raised as if scolding him for daring to do all this.
The topic of the admonishment was not necessarily betraying his father’s trust. The deepest shame the statue bestowed on Paul as he rummaged around it was the fact that all of this trespassing was done in the name of impressing some mortals the boy decided was worth the cost.
Paul knew his father barely worked with every material in his collection, but he had to make a good impression. His new friends wanted to see some magic, so a decent show of arcane wisdom was essential. He chose a thin deer’s tibia as his wand. An oddly shaped chunk of rainbow obsidian would make a decent centerpiece. He collected some chalk into his hoodie pockets along with a few dried rose petals and a black candle.
Now for the book. Paul was so distracted with worrying about his plan that he hadn’t really sat down and considered exactly what kind of magic he’d actually want to do. There were too many books on the shelves for him to skim through in the small scrap of time he had before his mother checked on him. He struggled to unwedge one of his father’s journals from the VCR shelf, and at last he had a sample of what he actually could do.
The front of the journal was dated: Oct 1999- March 2000. Inside was a mishmash of charts, sketches and the impeccable script handwriting of Secondo himself. Beautiful, but incomprehensible. Long strings of text were arranged in lattices, grids, and atop each other in a flurry of swirling ink. Some pages were perfectly mirrored, others held odd anagram symbols and ciphers.
All In all beautiful, but worthless.
There was not a whole lot of time. Dave was waiting down the street with everyone in the car and he had to think fast. Paul knew that luck and destiny were huge components to magic rituals so perhaps the book he picked out was the one that he needed to use. He’ll figure out which page later. He tucked the journal into his back jeans pocket and closed the hutch, carefully retying the red ribbon to the best of his memory. He turned to go and his father’s framed diploma fell off its nail and onto the floor.
Paul sucked in a breath. Nothing in here was an accident. Everything had magical Significance. He picked up the frame, staring past the large crack on the glass: …conferred upon MICHAEL LEIDER The degree of MORTUARY SCIENCE AND FUNERAL SERVICES. Paul returned it to its nail, apologizing to the piece of paper before sneaking out the room once more.
After climbing out his bedroom window Paul met up with the car of kids waiting for him. They squeezed him in the back between the door and an athletic junior boy, who leered at him as Paul attempted to get on his seatbelt. It was Dana’s warm smile from the passenger’s front seat that finally calmed his nerves.
“I thought you lived at the funeral home,” A boy stuffed in the opposite corner of the backseat called across the car.
The car lurched forward and Paul gave up on finding the seatbelt buckle. “Nobody lives there, my mom’s family owns the place.”
“So like, you ever see a ghost there?” The boy beside him had eager bright eyes but his breath absolutely stank.
“Well, everyone there is dead so like their soul’s moved on somewhere else so there really wouldn’t be any… y’know, ghosts—“
“Come on,” chided a kid from the hatchback trunk. He reached out and grabbed Paul by the shoulders, the other boy beside him hooting.
“Fine, yeah, I did see a ghost.” Paul’s voice was terse as he stared hard at the road. He had been mostly sober for an hour now, psychically punching himself for ever getting involved in a caper this stupid. Too late now. “It was…some old woman. By the freezers. She had old time clothes on.”
The reverent awe that descended on the kids in the car would have made a past version of himself swell with pride. But now he just felt sick.
Something special for you seeing as most of this was your idea! And i think this was the thing we screamed about the most (other than the staff 😏)
He blinked, suddenly awake and needing a moment to get his bearings. As his surroundings started to make sense he could feel her in the bed behind him, curled comfortingly against his back. That was not what woke him though he realises as he feels the tapping again at his calf.
'Papa?' Her voice is so quiet he can barely hear her but when he looks down the bed she is there, hair pillow mussed and standing on end and her blanket clutched in her arms. Her eyes are wide and scared, a look he was unfortunately getting used to but whatever it was that sent her here must have been worse than her fear of him.
'Matilde, what are you doing out of bed?' His voice came out sterner than he would have liked. His recent sleep only exacerbating his usually gruff voice. She flinches back and his sleep fogged brain scrambles to think of a way to reassure her.
'Papa I had a bad dream,' she sobs into her blanket and he tries to search back through his memory to his own childhood, not blessed with as caring a nanny as Matilde. He and Terzo, in their cold nursery, curled around each other trying to soothe each others fears. He knows for certain he doesn't want that for her. Sitting up, he looks to the sleeping figure behind him but she has barely stired. Part of him wants to wake her, she would know exactly what to do, but she is sleeping so peacefully he is loathe to disturb her and he can do this now. Be there for his daughter when she needs him.
'Can I stay with you and Bambi?' He nods dumbly not knowing exactly what to say and worried he would scare her further. When he reaches out to her she takes his hand hesitantly, as though she can hardly believe he is willing to help her. She climbs up on to the bed and he settles her in between them hoping the close presence of her nanny, even if asleep will offset any discomfort he brings her. But as he settles back down into the bed it is not her nanny she gravitates towards.
Looking at him shyly she lays her comfort blanket across his torso before snuggling into his chest. Her small head laying just over his heart and he can feel the moment she finally relaxes. He freezes entirely unprepared for this sequence of events, feeling over large and useless as his little girl takes comfort in his presence. On autopilot he wraps her in his arms one hand stroking her soft curls and the other holding her securely as if one movement would ruin the bubble of safety they have created.
'Thank you, Papa,' she whispers sleepily and he has to swallow around the lump forming on his throat. It hits him then all these moments he must have missed out on in her short life. His selfish reasons for keeping away pale in comparison to what he now realises he has done, leaving her scared and alone on countless nights exactly as his father did to him and his brothers. The only difference for her was the incredible women that she had as her nanny.
He looks over to her only to see she had awoken. Her soft, kind eyes looking over them and it's only then that the first tears begin to spill.
A little blurb of Dad Secondo based on an idea from the head cannon post! My dad used to sing this to me as a kid so I thought it would be fitting :)
Warning: kids, absolute tooth rotting fluff, soft Secondo, not proof read cause reading my own writing makes me want to cry.
It had been a long week for you. It was your first week back since having Irene, so not only were you working on getting caught up, you also had to deal with everyone asking weirdly invasive questions about you and your family.
You sigh as the clock clicks to the hour and without another word you walk back to your flat. Secondo finished earlier than you today, as he just had some meetings to discuss band things. As you enter into the flat, you expect to find everyone asleep. The living room and kitchen are dark, but the door to the nursery is left ajar, light filtering through.
As you walk in quietly, you’re treated to the sight of your husband, Secondo, wearing comfortable clothes and sans face paint, holding Irene. You hear him softly singing to her- a stark contrast to why he’s usually singing.
“Lavender blue, dilly-dilly
Lavender green
If you were king, dilly-dilly
You'd need a queen
Who told me so?
Dilly-dilly
Who told me so?
I told myself, dilly-dilly
I told me so”
You watch as he softly rocks Irene, who looks to be about half asleep. Secondo’s usually hardened facial features are soft as he looks at his daughter. He doesn’t even notice you as he rocks her, Irene fighting her tired eyes to stay awake.
“If your dilly-dilly heart
Feels a dilly-dilly way
And if you'll answer yes
In a pretty little church
On a dilly-dilly day
I'll be wed in a dilly-dilly dress of
Lavender blue, dilly-dilly
Lavender green
Then you'll be king, dilly-dilly
And I'll be queen”
Once Irene finally goes to sleep, Secondo carefully puts her in the crib, watching for a moment as she sleeps. He turns around towards you, surprised but happy that you’re home. He walks up to you, kissing you on the cheek.
“I see you’re finally back- Irene should be asleep now…” He quickly shuffled you both out the door before turning out the lights, leaving you two in a dark hallway.
“Let’s hope she stays that way for the night.” You laugh slightly as Secondo takes your hand, leading you into the kitchen. When he flips on the light you see two plates of food covered by tinfoil.
“I made us dinner- I didn’t know when you were going to get off and Irene was playing so well by herself at the time.” Secondo hands a plate to you, as he walks over to the couch in the living room and sitting down. You come and join him, thankful not to be in another uncomfortable wood chair.
You two manage to eat your food before heading to bed. It was good and still pretty warm due to the tin foil. Irene managed to sleep through most of the night, except for when you got up to feed her, Secondo insisting on staying up with you.
Tags: Halloween Hijinks, Eldest Kid Anxiety, Suburban Dad Secondo, Disabled Secondo, Post-Retirement Life, Magic Rituals, My AU with Seocondo being Papa from 2001-2008
CW: Underage Drinking, Strong Language
Paul does the ritual. It goes exactly as expected.
Dedicated to @kissingghouls thanks for cheering me on you’re my little Hell Pumpkin🎃 I’m on AO3 with all my other fics but Tumblr gets mad at me when I post links check out #anamelessfool halloween tag for the prev chapter, #anamelessfool halloween start to start the fic.
The car full of teens crunched along the gravel path behind the old church. Headlights illuminated the rickety silhouette of a swingset, beyond which the old churchyard loomed. The kids unfolded themselves from the car and mingled in the grass.
For most of the short ride here it was a joke. Get the weird gravedigger kid to do some magic or something, see some ghosts. But as they surveyed the headstones cast about like old crooked teeth juxtaposed beside the children’s covered picnic area they fell into a reverent silence. The big junior boy attempted to lighten the mood by dragging his body down the metal slide meant for preschoolers and he wasn’t even rewarded with the dumb grins he craved. Brian was still taking furtive nips from the flask in his jacket but Paul hadn’t been interested for two hours now. This didn’t seem like the place for it.
He wondered how he’d do it, whatever he’d decide to do. He knew he needed to create a circle and surround it with the right symbols. Something would need to be inside, maybe the candle; and he’d utter the syllables while tracing the circle once more with his tibia wand. He knew enough about magic to know that most of it was about just thinking about what you wanted and letting whatever happened after that run its course, but a good show was in order. He didn’t want to look stupid on top of failing to procure a decent paranormal event.
Dana smiled again at him, but she still held her friend Tiff’s hand. “What are you going to do for us?” she asked. In the low light emitted from the nearby streetlamp her eyes were wide, glittering. She was living her favorite quote, and all Paul needed to do was to let her soul take her where she wanted to be. Some sort of dark, mysterious place where demons and magic are fun. Paul left all that when he was too young to remember, but knew enough that gothic drama had a price.
“Maybe…” Paul analyzed the scene beyond the fence, where the ancient headstones were planted. “Spirit communication?”
“Ghosts? We’re going to talk to ghosts?” Tiff could barely contain her excitement.
“Yeah,” Paul replied quickly. “Let’s use the picnic area to set up.”
Under the awning studded with dead wasp nests was a smooth platform of sidewalk concrete. The kids gathered around and Paul felt the fear settle in. He was a natural performer as long as he was lodged in some hole with only his music to be perceived by. Now five older kids stared into him, getting more restless as he scrambled through his father's journal to find an enticingly arcane image to entertain them with.
He finally discovered a page drawn with a ring of syllables that he could reasonably pronounce. He got to work, drawing on the white concrete with the dark sidewalk chalk. He placed the candle in the center of the small circle along with the obsidian chunk and a sprinkling of the dried rose petals. The two girls were captivated while the boys half watched and half play wrestled with each other. Brian swayed a little and handed him a lighter for the candle, chuckling.
“Now I uh…call in the energies,” said Paul. He was supposed to start facing east and go clockwise, but in the dark there was no indication of true direction. He remembered observing a few of these gestures and repeated them here. Just recently at the equinox he had helped Secondo circumnabulate the property line of his home, restoring the energy buried along with all the nail-filled mason jars holding up the wards. He replicated the careful gesture of drawing a pentagram in the air with the wand, but refused to include the deep sonorous chant that went with it. He knew they would laugh.
At last he returned to the circle. “I…cast my will as a net,” he mumbled. “The Void will provide. Nevertheless I will endure.“
“Now what?” Muttered Brian.
“I circumambulate the circle.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Grunted the boy from the backseat that Paul thought was named Tyler.
“Walk around,” said Paul. “Say the words.” He held out the tibia, pointing at the syllables as he stepped toe to toe past them. The other hand held the book as he read out each symbol slowly, his voice cracking. “Ab-Che-halva-ach-aleph-namu…eke…ab-Che-halva…” In his circumambulation he kept passing Dana and Tiff, trying not to meet their eyes. He wasn’t certain whether they were fascinated or bored and he didn’t want to find out. The sounds were guttural, cruel, and unknown. He was not sure of when to stop.
And then the candle went out.
The boys stopped mugging. Paul cautiously brought the tibia back into his hoodie pocket, blinking. “Should we…go out and check?”
“Check for what?” Whispered Dana. He hadn’t realized how close she came to him, her eyes wide with excitement. The boys were already out on the grass, still pretending to be half-interested but silent and watchful all the same.
“I dunno…” Paul held out his hand and Dana took it, Tiff linking arms with her. The three of them stepped cautiously back onto the grass to scan the treeline.
There was the chainlink fence, the gravestones beyond it, solid as always. The candle went out, but nothing happened. Paul felt stupid, wondering with a growing sickness in his gut that all he did tonight was look like the weirdo gravedigger kid they thought he was.
“So does your dad talks like that to all the dead grandmas he works on or…” Tyler was already done with all this, and Dave laughed in response.
“I told you there’s no spirits there,” muttered Paul. “And he’s not the one that works on them ,okay?”
“Yeah. This is all a fucking joke. Honestly.”
Paul heard Dana’s voice and it warmed him, just for a small moment. “Listen, come on, it’s just all in good fun, ok?”
Paul felt something small bounce off his shoulder and fall into the grass. “Ouch, fuck!” snapped a kid nearby, clapping a hand over his own head. “What the hell is that?”
Paul ducked down to retrieve the items that fell by his feet. It was an ordinary quarter and two pennies. He heard someone else stir, disturbed by more items falling on their head. “Coins.”
“Coins? Oh! Yeah!” said Dana, holding one up. “Where are they coming from?”
Something fell behind Paul, bouncing off his back. A cigarette lighter phone charger. Nearby, a few crumpled receipts and empty paper soft drink cup dropped onto the grass, followed by more coins. “It's…stuff from the car…”
“Car’s fucking locked,” hissed Dave. He swore again and Paul heard another coin bounce off his head. He felt old crumbs collect in his hair, sprinkled by something inexplicable above them all.
Paul glanced over to the car.
Then something happened. It felt like his brain was broken; his eyes lied. He saw the air above the car, the negative space empty there for a moment, and then watched an object pop into existence. Something big, dark and heavy that then was dropped down on top of the car so forcefully the hood crumpled into a crush of metal.
It was a small headstone from the churchyard.
“Everybody under the awning,” Paul commanded hoarsely, running backwards while still staring fixedly at the car in front of them. Coins continued to drop seemingly from nowhere, the soft sound of them hitting the grass all around them.
Paul couldn't process what he just saw. The rock was not there, and then yet it was there. And absolutely totaled the car right before their eyes.
The night taunted them with its normalcy. There was nothing out of place. No stirring leaf, no swing disturbed. The single streetlight buzzed and threw stark highlights across the asphalt by the ruined car.
A small stone fell from the awning, skidding to Paul’s feet. But there was nothing there except those empty husks of paper wasps and cobwebs.
“The car, man!” Dave whined. He bit his lip and wrung his hands. “My fucking car…”
“Would you shut up about the car?!” the junior boy rasped. His hands were over his head. “How did that stone—”
Gravel dumped across his head and skittered to the floor. The boy yelled, hopping backwards into Dave, who nearly punched him in terror. The sliding hiss of gravel falling behind them made their heads whip around to see when more would drop.
“Just like that,” said Paul, pointing. He stared fixedly at a spot where another stone had dropped. He squinted, trying to steel his nerves. Name it, his father’s voice uttered. Name what?
Just as before, a new stream of gravel was there in the air as matter-of-factly as how they were not there moments before. The space became filled without even a blink of an eye. And more stones fell.
“I’m getting out of here,” shouted Tyler. He made a few steps towards the edge of the awning and another heavy grave marker dropped, barely missing his head and cracking the concrete. He scrambled back to the group just in time for Paul to read the date 1812 carved upon it.
“It doesn’t want us to leave!” shrieked Tiff. “What did you even do?!”
Another fall of small stones from the parking lot; this time a steady, almost luxurious stream of tiny pebbles appearing, falling, and pooling into an aggressive pile right before their eyes. The sliding, angry hiss rustled terror up Paul's spine as he bit the inside of his cheek and drew blood. Satisfied, the gravel stream ceased as if someone turned off an arcane spigot. Another rock dropped onto the Junior boy's head, and he screamed, prompting yet another small rock to be pelted at Tiff and Dana.
In the silence between the bursts of stones across their heads, one of the girls started sobbing. Paul stared down at the circle in front of him, tears blurring his own eyes. “Oh, fuck! Fuuuck!” shouted Dave and Paul whipped his head up to the sound of tires on the gravel. Another spurt of rocks fell to the ground, these much larger and thrown fast enough to bounce off the concrete.
Beside the wrecked car loomed a black hearse. The headlights dimmed as the door opened, a form gingerly rising to its feet and affixing a crutch. Tall, wide shoulders slung back. The face was obscured, but the Eye shone. The eye, a brilliant beam in the dark.
“Fuck, run!” Brian yelled, but his drinking got the best of him and he stumbled across a picnic table. The other kids were frozen on the spot, the spurts of rocks scattering around them forgotten as a storybook nightmare materialized in front of their eyes.
“No,” Paul said softly. “Don’t run.”
The hearse, the Eye, the shambling gait on the large proud form was an image out any slasher movie. But Paul knew this visage more than anyone. And more than anyone, he felt an intensity of fear only experienced by a son who had completely, utterly, and wholly fucked up.
Tags: Domestic Fluff, Holidays, Children are extremely serious especially Secondo's, Secondo retired and moved away from the Ministry a decade ago, Secondo is disabled in my AU, Dad Secondo
Secondo's children enact the most important ritual of their entire year.
Blaming and tagging @riptide-kid for this
Ficlet below the cut!
“We all have to get up.” Eden stood by her parent's bed. Her eyes were enormous, blazing with determined intensity. Her round, pale face and lank hair gave her the appearance of some ghostly entity standing in the dark of the room. The littlest brother Sam was behind her, kneading his hands.
Secondo and Sandra were no strangers to their daughter’s habit of standing by their bedside with something cryptic to say. Maybe it was Secondo’s bloodline, or maybe the eight-year-old was just extra theatrical, it was hard to tell. Secondo didn't mind it all that much. Sometimes her mysterious statements became accurate portents.
Not this morning, though. They expected her here. In fact they were surprised it was this late. She was a very punctual child, with a strong sense of what was necessary.
No surprises there.
“Mommy, it's time. Everybody has got to get up.”
“Nope, this is your father's job,” Sandra muttered. She sleepily tapped his back. “Magician and man of the house and all that. I've got fifteen minutes until I'm getting up.”
“We need to hurry then,” Eden said solemnly. Sam nodded, still frowning.
“I'm getting up at the pace I'm getting up,” Secondo announced, pulling himself upright. He reached for his forearm crutch.”Go get Paul if you want somebody fast.”
“Paul! We forgot Paul!” Sam hissed. “We left him alone!”
“Well, go get him!” Eden ordered back. Sam slipped out the door to wake their older brother. Eden paced on the carpet.
Secondo snorted, shaking his head. “Serious business.”
“They take after you, dear,” Sandra replied from under the quilt.
The door opened and Sam dragged Paul in by the wrist. The teenager blinked slowly in the soft darkness, his hair looking like it was caught in a windstorm. “Whuh—”
“You and Daddy have to go check!” Eden insisted.
Paul tossed his head and he locked eyes with his father, his face now full of determination. Secondo watched his son struggle not to break character. “You're right. We need to make sure,” Paul announced in a hushed tone. Eden and little Sam hugged each other excitedly.
Secondo finally got the momentum to pull himself upright and onto his crutch. “You're the fastest of all of us,” Secondo told his oldest son. “You have to lead the mission this year. Good luck.”
“You can't let him see you,” Eden reminded him while Sam bobbed his head vigorously in agreement. “Not for even one second.”
“Godspeed,” muttered Sandra.
The four adventurers organized themselves at the end of the hallway. Down the hall was the living room, now slowly becoming awash with reddish light from the large curtained windows. “Go on, Paul,” whispered Secondo.
Paul nodded and crept down the hallway, dramatically stopping every few feet to look back at his younger siblings. Eden, the mission commander, glared as she observed his task.
At a pace that seemed like forever to the children under eight years old, Paul finally reached the end of the hall, peeking around the corner. He turned and tossed his hand at Secondo. “Now you,” ordered Eden in a whisper.
The old magician nodded solemnly and walked with as much authority and dark majesty as he could in pajamas. He met up with Paul at the end of the hall, craning his neck to observe the living room as cautiously as he could. He gave the younger children a satisfied nod. His mouth was a thin, firm line, his whitened eye gleaming in the dim light.
“All clear. Santa’s gone. And he left presents for you.”
----
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Fun fact, my dad would do this to us every Christmas Morning. And when he moved out, as the oldest sibling it was up to me to check. I don't know if you know this but apparently if Santa is down there by your tree and sees you EVEN FOR ONE SECOND, he vanishes and takes all your presents. (This fact had no bearing whatsoever on me, obviously.)
Ok Secondo's family in my AU (the year is 2018) (thank you for your interest @can-of-pringles and @saintbowie )
Sandra was a sibling of sin and worked in the infirmary. A med school dropout who came from a family of funeral directors. She was Primo's nurse towards the end of his life. She is a surprisingly bubbly, energetic soul. Very athletic and self-conscious. But she has the intellect and drive for knowledge that matches her husband's. Also she can maneuver his temperament with the right kind of sarcasm.
I am writing a fic about their meeting. It's a tense love triangle between Secondo and Primo and Sandra in 1998. Secondo is navigating becoming Papa Elect and his mother's very recent death.
I'm enjoying writing their conversations.
Since meeting Sandra, Secondo has attempted to quit smoking 6 times. He's on his longest streak of 3 years in 2018.
Secondo retired and left the Church in 2008. He was too ill and Sandra's father had recently died. Her brothers were struggling with the family business and so the couple stepped in. They went back to school together and loved every minute of it. Secondo is a licensed funeral director and Sandra a mortician. Secondo enjoys his new role helping grieving families and organizing administrative tasks.
Secondo is the primary caregiver of the family. His mobility was destroyed by the Curse and so he suffers chronic pain and weakness in his leg and spine. He can manage working from home fairly regularly and so he handles most of the domestic tasks he's able to accomplish. He's turned out to be a very good cook and his personal goal is to create every type of pasta from scratch at least once.
Paul was 4 when the family left the Church. He doesn't remember much of it, just that his dad was too busy or ill to spend quality time with him. Paul (14) is shy but has inherited his father's musical talent. He knows several instruments, guitar being one of them. He enjoys contributing to the theater and art clubs at his school. Theater is his big interest. But Paul would never sing in front of a crowd though.
They had two other children, Eden (8) and Samuel (5). Eden is very crafty, a go-getter. A tiny, exacting dictator with a fascination with the macabre. She has been known to tell her father odd messages of magical importance. Sam is an enthusiastic follower of his sister and tries to copy her all the time. The two younger children are closer to each other than Paul. They love their older brother but it sometimes seems like Paul is a third caregiver to them.
Thank you @kissingghouls for the tag!!!! I tried to pick something a little unique for this challenge...
VISITATION (From 'Domestics')
(family, humor, self-indulgent fluff, Dad Secondo)
2013: Papa Emeritus Terzo, Copia, and Nihil visit their estranged brother Secondo after the birth of his youngest child.
I have this whole ficlet series similar to Bestiary but based on small domestic moments in the lives of the brothers and the characters in my AU. Why? Because it's fun and ridiculously self-indulgent.
I love me a good flashback....
⛧⛧⛧
“Which way am I turning here?” Copia asked.
“Left,” muttered Terzo.
“Left...”
“Right.”
“Oh, Right then?”
“Yes, left is right!” Terzo paused then groaned. “Left is correct.”
“Marian couldn't come?” Terzo asked Copia idly. He smirked. “Hope your leash is long enough.”
Copia frowned. “At some point I wil fly out of this car, yes, jerked back by the leash, your Unholiness,” he replied flatly. “But ah… I'm into that.” Two hours in the car with Terzo gave one plenty of time to practice talking trash. “We should have arrived twenty minutes ago.”
Terzo shifted in the passenger seat. Car rides made him sick, and therefore extra irritable. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Nihil in the back. Nihil was staring ahead, expressionless, his eyes dull like a mesmerized cow. “We would have made time if we didn't stop back there.”
“Terzo, the old man barely asks for anything these days,” Copia said firmly. “So when he asked to stop and buy a balloon for his new grandson I um…had to indulge him.”
“Isn't this thing just brand new? A little ball that sleeps and cries? Why—why does it need a fucking balloon?”
“That thing… is your nephew,” Copia said, and he squeezed the steering wheel. “Have you ever taken care of anything small and helpless like that? You'd understand.”
Terzo muttered something in Italian and dropped his head against the door, staring out the window. Copia assumed if he wasn't so carsick he would really put on a pissy show for them all.
“We’re nearly there,” Copia said, slowing to an agonizing stop at the intersection, looking carefully right and left, waiting the appropriate three seconds at the stop sign, and then continuing on.
[They pull up to a plain suburban house.]
The door opened, Secundo towered over them all, his dark intense presence unmarred by his years away. The former Papa Emeritus II of the Satanic Church of the Void was now wearing a checkered button-down shirt and dark khakis. His grip on his cane tightened as his shark-like gaze flicked from guest to guest. Four Infernal Eyes regarded each other on the porch. Secundo's pitted face moved slightly. “Shoes. Off.” He shifted back, granting them entry.
They were led inside to a sunken foyer. Beyond a small railing was an ordinary living room with a beige carpet. There were halls nearby leading to kitchen, basement and bedrooms. All with as few stairs as possible made it easier for Secundo to easily walk around in his current state. His time as Channel of the Void left him permanently weak in his left side, but they all knew it could have been much worse.
Copia was struck by how unbelievably ordinary the place was. There was an unusual number of crammed bookshelves and a piano near the window, but other than that there was very little evidence of this being the home of a former leader of The Satanic Church of the Void. A single taxidermied goat head loomed over the television that displayed a muted cartoon program. Two small children sat near it in the center of a pile of wooden blocks.
Copia pulled his own shoes off, then knelt to help Nihil out of his. “It's nice to see you again, Secundo.”
Secundo never dropped his intensity and simply changed the words he spoke. “Yes, it is, Copia. Welcome.”
“Is that…is that little Paul?!” Copia nearly squealed as he pointed towards the little face peering from between the metal railings. The boy Paul had a shock of messy dark hair and a wild look that was all too familiar. “He's a small version of Terzo! Look!”
“That had been my unfortunate impression as well,” Secundo replied flatly.
Terzo gave them all a painfully polite smile, then joked. “Not to worry, I had nothing to do with it.”
Nihil’s head whipped from Paul to Terzo. “Yes, definitely our little scamp! An even smaller Terzo, heh!” Both grandson and son threw him identical scowls.
“Do you remember us?” Copia asked Paul. The boy cocked his head, thinking. He was born at the Ministry but the whole family left by the time he was five. “I remember we took out my old trike and you were pedaling up and down the hallways…”
“I distinctly remember you pedaling up and down the hallways on his tricycle,” Secundo said with an amused smirk.
“Just that once! To teach him!” Copia shot back.
[They settle into the collection of couches and proceed to observe the newborn.]
“Nihil, would you—” Sandra frowned. The old man had fallen asleep in the recliner within the past five minutes. She chuckled. “Well then, we will try later! How about you, Terzo?”
Terzo furrowed his brow. “No, certainly not. No thank you, sorella.”
Secundo looked quietly invested from his place on the opposite couch. “He'll reconsider later.”
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Tagging @katyaoaksdottir @fishwithtitz and @thew0man and you, yes YOU!
