#gave it to pepito. maybe mumbling who it was from

[redyrmes]

before i start i apologise for saying pepitos name so much but i must stand true to no pronouns. bare with me here

so i am. so very normal about pepito. i will admit at first i liked pepito because i liked my design for pepito and pepito was fun to draw, but the more i looked for pepito content the more i just. augh

bobby is still one of my favorite eggs but the way his death impacted jaiden and roier and the community as a whole was unlike any other death. but thats because of the love people had, the love his parents had, and it was just so empty without him. eventually we moved on, starbobby and flowers and sunsets to remember him.

and roier would never admit how much he missed bobby, he snapped at one point and this man. he has cellbit, he has jaiden, and richas, but he misses his son.

so take away richas, jaiden, AND cellbit, take away his family, leave them on purgatory, he doesnt have richas back yet. introduce new kids and it just so happens hes the only guy that can take care of pepito. with his family gone, pepito is all he has, but he doesnt want pepito.

now we go to pepitos point of view—pepitos just a little kid thats scared, and lonely, and just wants to be loved, for gods sake, and meets a guy. this guy is supposed to take care of pepito, supposed to love pepito. bagi even said something about dont worry, you will never be alone. theres a whole island of people here to help you. a promise that you will be loved.

but pepito gets parents that never show up, and the one that does gives him the chancla, pepito gets a dad in no mental state to take care of this kid, in the most emotionally unavailable place he can be in right now. pepito gets to live in the shadow of bobby and richas and all the family roiers lost and it fucking sucks because thats not who pepito is. pepito is pepitos own person, pepito cant be bobby, even if thats who roier wants. they are gone. or dead. and yet pepito cant make roier love pepito, its not and will never be pepitos turn to have that dad.

and despite bagis promise pepito ends up sleeping alone outside in the flowerbeds. “im tired, let me sleep.” but then fit and pac come and give pepito a little house around the bed, and later on leo takes care of their little cousin, and things seem to be changing? despite all the shit pepitos gone through and at this point trying to be loved is futile, maybe pepito doesnt have to try so hard to be loved, because these people already love pepito. so maybe we end on a high note for the little guy :) and i dunno. i love that kid, i hope things go well for pepito:”)

[tearinglight]

Bedtime Story for Squee

Squee pressed his face into Nny’s shirt, a rare action but today was an exception. He didn’t feel good today, his normal ‘squee’ of terror reduced to little more than a wheezy cough and his face felt funny. Nny shifted a little from the action, letting out a breath. He didn’t mind Squee touching him as much as he minded other people, feeling maybe just a bit stronger when the younger boy clutched his shirt. After all, little Squeegee was so small and weak right now! He needed Nny, didn’t he? Even though Nny was above that petty need of being needed, he could understand that.

The younger boy sneezed and it certainly did not take all of his willpower not to cuddle the precious Squee, no sir. 

Instead, he winced, trying to stay still even as germs ran up and down his body like frightened cattle. The weak grip on his shirt tightened a bit, however, his breath easing out of his lungs in a low-pitched hiss as his body relaxed. It was for Squeegee, he was a good Squee, he deserved to have someone take care of him even though Nny was suffering the whole time through it. The little boy shook with chills, Nny -begrudgingly!- tightening his arms around him.

“Nny?” 

“Yes, Squeegee?” Nny’s voice was soothing, bringing a small bit of comfort to the boy as he pressed his sore eyes to the Wastelock’s chest. 

“What’s it like to die?”

Nny paled with that question, his usual dusky complexion turning a light tan, “Why do you wanna know that Squeegee?”

“Pepito says you’ve died before... “ Squee pushed himself up onto his elbows to look his caretaker in the eye. “D-Do you think I’ll die? ‘Cause with my luck it’ll be malaria or somethin’ I’m sick with right now.”

“Squee that doesn’t mea-”

“Squee! What if I never get better?! What if I die here and rats eat my corpse and-” The younger boy was cut off by a round of hoarse coughs. 

His caretaker rubbed his back in instinct, wincing once more at the bones he could feel under his fingers. Squee was almost as thin as he was at that age, the older boy closing his sore eyes as memories-horrid ones- assaulted him. Squee’s coughs settled down, getting lighter, as did the air of the evening. Somehow, Nny thought about so much in his life. How everything could change as quick as the snap of someone’s fingers...

“Hey, Nny? Where are you from?” Squee rested his head against the older boy’s collarbone. “I hear you crying at night, sometimes. You say names. Where’s your family?”

Nny sighed, “Well, nowhere, really… just somewhere… “

----FLASHBACK------

The small child held some bread in his hands, the piece of food precious as he wandered the paved streets of Detroit’s abused and dirty alleyways. He jumped at a rat scurrying over his one sneaker, almost dropping his bread but rescuing the ball of wheat before it hit the ground. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t have eaten it even if it HAD hit the ground, either, he was hungry and it wasn’t like more food was going to drop out of the sky. Smirking to himself, the boy held the treat up in the air like that monkey had done to that kitten on that old VHS movie that his foster siblings had watched. 

Careful not to catch the attention of the Lady, he’d done his scouting missions from the gaps between the railing, peering down onto the TV with stolen binoculars. He had never learned the Lady’s name or the names of the kids he was holed up with. It had never interested him, their cruel words scarring him until his eventual escape.

The boy gasped as he heard the roar of a fire truck fly past, running up the fire escape on his left to hide on the building’s roof. From here he could see the city, twilight falling over that little cliff where he’d seen couples go to do Naughty Things. Yet that was in the distance, this apartment building also showing him one of the single most important houses to him, ever. The house where he kicked up flowers, where he slept on the roof, where he had started to feel comfortable in a way that no other house had made him feel. He had never had a House before.

Of course, he had also never had a Lady Of The House before.

-----PRESENT----

The boy of the present choked on the air of the Now, his heart leaping into his throat as he suddenly slipped out about the Lady. He never talked about her, she was reserved in his memories for extremely bad days when his nose was runny and it was hard to focus. He examined Squee, the boy seemingly asleep in that exact state Nny had just said was worthy of Her. Maybe his subconscious just had no other way to make little Squee feel better?

Whatever. The boy was asleep now, so now Nny could finally esca-

“Who was she?”

Nny actually jumped at the sound of Squee’s voice. That was highly irregular. 

“O-oh. Squeegee! You’re awake,” Nny gave a sheepish smile, feeling a little guilty. “What? Who’s who?”

“The Lady of the House.” Squee mumbled, his voice groggy with sleep as his (sadly) parental figure wrapped his arms around him once more.

---FLASHBACK----

The boy’s violet eyes connected with her green ones in terror. She was only a shadow, dark and nowhere near as thin as the boy, as he looked up at her in the rain, muddy with parts of her flowers sticking to his hands. He had been coming onto the property for a while now, banging up her garden and sleeping in her little star-flower patch whenever he thought it was safe to breathe in the comforting scent. Those eyes should have been cold, the emerald orbs should have turned hard with anger but instead they crinkled up, becoming kind pools of jade. She kneeled in front of him, her movements quick and precise.

“Ah, so you are the little pisquano who has raided our gardens with their terrible temper tantrums!” The boy tried to force himself to run away, but her eyes held him captive. “So tell me, Little Noddleboy, what troubles you so that thou feel it necessary to destroy our gardens?!”

She was loud, her tone indicating punishment, but the hand offered brushed his chin with a gentleness he had never known before. For the first time in a while, he attempted to speak but all that came out was a tiny little “-y”. She suddenly broke out into fits of laughter, booming peals of the stuff.

“I see! Thou art a mute,” She reached her hand out to brush his messy hair. “Do not run, my gift, for I-”

That touch to his hair had been too much too soon, the boy running away as fast as he could. He could hear that welcoming, booming voice behind him but he didn’t look back. No matter how much he wanted to…

---PRESENT---

“-but I kept coming back, I think. I don��t really know why. I guess she just felt like,” Nny gave a non committal shrug. “Someone I could trust.”

Squee sighed, “I think this is the first time one of your stories had a nice ending. You met someone nice your first time in the neighborhood even if you were scared of them…”

“Yeah, I guess,” Nny subconsciously pet Squee’s hair, his eyes dulling as he tried to slip into one of his thinking moods. “Didn’t really help you, though, did it? I kinda wasted your time.”

“Not really… you kinda just told me that you were just like… me… “ Nny froze up at that, Squee crawling higher so he rested more comfortably under Nny’s chin, the boy slightly high off of cough syrup. “You had her ‘n’ I have...you…”

Nny’s eyes stung a little, suddenly not him but now looking through the Lady’s eyes at his tiny self. A helpless, vulnerable version of himself that he couldn’t help but touch on the chin with a gentleness he had never thought himself of possessing before. Before he knew it, Nny’s eyes had slipped closed, resting their sore gaze for at least a little… while… dreaming of dying and going to a perfect heaven with the Lady and Squee, right over the stars.