#like the notes i have for this potential multichap are CRAZY i wish to UNLEASH them

[sabraeal]

Not Necessarily a Virtue

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki AU Bingo 2021 Practical Magic AU

There hadn’t been a plan when Obi picked up the phone.

All it had taken was one rogue text-- another case assigned to his social worker, one that was enough of an emergency that it his behavioral issues seem tame in comparison. Her chair rattles when she stans, its plastic back hitting the filing cabinets with a metallic tang, but her hands tremble more.

“This will be just a minute,” she says, smile plastered tight to her face. And then she leaves him there alone, his file open on her desk, flaws left out for the world to see.

It doesn’t bothered him. There’s no point, not when he already knows: he’s trouble with a capital-T, each failed family drawing him closer and closer to being unplaceable. Some people have a face only a mother could love, but Obi-- Obi has that for his personality. Though considering how each of his six almost-moms signed him away with a sigh of relief, walking out the plate glass doors without even a glance back, maybe he has the sort of personality that makes people reconsider whether they could be a mother.

So here he is again, freshly abandoned, back in the sterile halls of social services for the seventh time without a place to call home. He’s not even twelve.

Not that these people aren’t trying to change that-- he’s not some cat left at the shelter, free to a good home. Unless Kerry or Janine or the girl at the desk he didn’t get to read the name tag of wanted to sleep on their couch, they have to find someone to take him for the night. And he knows from experience, there’s always a family that believes they can change him. A young couple who thought all problem children needed was just a little extra love. By the time Kerry came back, there’d be good news waiting, a miracle crafted by three people who didn’t want to miss the Masked Singer finale. They’d pack him into the back of a car and ship him off to a new place to fail. Because no matter how many homes they tried to make for him, it’d never change how he felt.

Obi had tried, at first. He was just a little kid, wanting to be loved, but every home he went to itched like hives in his head, a constant buzz that set his teeth on edge and made him do anything, try anything to leave. He belonged somewhere else, somewhere not here, and he knew it like he knew Kerry’s other case had overdosed on a bottle of sleeping pills in his foster mother’s cabinet-- with an inexplicable certainty.

He waits thirty seconds after she leaves before he slides off the the plastic seat she’d put him in. They love these things, oddly shaped and in primary colors that make the little kids giddy, but Obi hates them. He’s undersized, and putting him in these kiddie rooms always makes people treat him like he’s eight instead of eleven, asking him about Blue’s Clues.

But that’s not why he gets up, not entirely. There’s a buzzing in the back of his brain, a knowing, and it makes him stand, his hand straying to the glass door. He can’t see anything outside, at least not anything besides more kiddie chairs and offices, but he steps out nonetheless. He steps out and, unerringly, turns to face the girl waiting for him down the hall.

“It’s you.” Her tawny hair stresses the elastic she’s trapped it in, too thick. It’s not one of those hair ones either, but one of those thick rubber bands they use on the produce in grocery store. It hurts; he knows because it’s common sense, but also because he just...Knows. Their eyes meet, and even though he doesn’t her name, they’ve known each other forever.

His mouth is dry when he asks, “Do you know me?”

“I saw you in a dream.” She takes a step toward him, her sneakers scuffed and worn, just like his. “You’re Obi. I’m Torou.”

He doesn’t know this girl. There’s a hundred ways she could get his name; one of them is sitting on a desk behind him right now. But when she looks up at him with eyes he’s only ever seen in the mirror, he holds out his hand. “Come here.”

His heart pounds with each mincing squeak of her sneakers on the tile. She’s taking too long and she’s coming too fast; each terrible second convinces him he’s making a mistake at the same time he’s doing what he was always meant to do. By the time she slips her hand into his, he’s trembling, but it doesn’t matter because they both are and this--

This is right. And he knows exactly what to do.

It’s holding her hand that he picks up the phone. He fucks it up the first time-- he gets that gross digital buzz before he notices the sticker beneath the speaker, informing him 9 dials out-- but the second one his fingers guide him, releasing the number he has no reason to know. A number he has no reason to believe will work, that could have just come from the weird recesses of his mind but--

But he’s not surprised when a man picks up. “Who is this? Do you know what time--?”

“We’re here,” Obi says, and it shouldn’t be enough, but it is. “Come pick us up.”

A specter arrives on the front walk at noon.

Obi knows by the hush in the office. Or really the weight of it-- it’s been quiet like this since last night, since he and Torou sat down on the big bean bag couch in the waiting room, and Obi announced they wouldn’t be letting go. His case worker had crouched in front of them, that sweet smile plastered to her lips, and told him that they’d only have to be separated for a night. But he’d known-- the way he always did-- that every word was a lie. His fingers tightened in her grip, narrowing his eyes until the woman shivered, and that was that.

Kerry stayed with them, of course; she’d slept in her office, under a blanket it’s clear she’s never used and had only just discovered wasn’t comfortable no matter how many Sesame Street characters were on it. They’d been tucked under another by a younger girl with trembling hands, her eyes darting between them as she smoothed out its edges. He’d heard them through the walls this morning while the rest of the office filtered in-- government buildings like this were always cutting corners, leaving things like this paper thin, stuff that would go up like tissue in a fire.

Do you think they’re twins? one asked. Trembling hands, he guesses, since her voice does as well, like a chihuahua in a sweater. I’ve heard about this happening with twins. They look and just know.

Can’t be, we have their birth certificates, says another. Kerry, probably; she might be a liar, but she’s one of the only people in this place that has her head screwed on right, too. Two different sets of parents.

And the man they called last night? This one is stern; their manager maybe. He’s not really sure how this all works; he’s not even twelve, and he can only just know so much. Who is he?

There’s a heavy pause. I...I don’t know.

So when he arrives, dressed like an undertaker and holding an umbrella beneath the bright New Mexico sky, the whole place goes quiet. When he walks it’s stiff, like it took a hundred volts to get him up off the table and he’s only just gotten used to the idea. Obi casts a look down at Torou, at where her hand is white knuckled in his, and thinks about how he knows things, and wonders just what she might be able to do.

The man enters, umbrella folding in a single neat motion, before he says. “I am Lata Forenzo. I believe you have my...niblings.”

Niblings, Obi learns, is like siblings, only sideways.

“It was a simplification,” Lata says, his voice a deep, hesitant gravel. He casts a speculative look at the taxi driver, adjusting the gloves on his hands. “Niece and nephew is an unwieldy phrase, and time, after all, is of the essence.”

“Is it?” Torou’s eyes are wide, and for the first time since last night, her hand leaves his, gripping on to the cloth at Lata’s knee. “Is there something after us? Those bugs, they’re not--”

“No.” Obi’s known his uncle for barely more than a half hour, but he knows he isn’t a tactile person. Even still, Lata looks down at Torou, his not-gold eyes somehow softer, and puts two fingers over the bones at the back of her hand. “But it is time to bring you home.”

Home is an island. It takes the whole night to fly in, and when they land the sun is just barely scratching the sky. Even still, there’s no stopping; Lata bundles them straight into a cab, shushing them before they can make much more than a peep.

“We’ll be home soon,” he says, and the next time he wakes them, salt stings Obi’s nose, and he’s being carried over a threshold.

“Are we here?” he slurs. The house is weird-- angular, really, with a hall so narrow he could kick out a leg and stop them up like a cork. He nearly does, just to be cussed, but he catches Torou still wrapped up in her blanket, lolling on the couch, and says instead, “Can you let me down?”

Lata hesitates, fingers stiff where they wrap around his knees and shoulders, but he nods.

Obi’s feet-- just wearing socks now, somehow-- press on the floor, and he knows: he’s home.

“Oh,” he breathes, hands flying out to steady himself. “Oh.”

When he looks up, Torou’s eyes meet his, round and wide. “I felt that.”

Her own feet swing down-- bare-- and the moment she touches the wide old planks--

“Oh.” Lata braces himself against the wall, the sound bitter on his lips. “So it’s true. There will always be two.”

They aren’t his words, Obi knows, but they’re important. They’ve got that feel, the same as when Torou said she dreamed of him. The sort that are going to be life-changing, one way or another.

But Obi’s had enough of that today. Enough of it for a lifetime. He glances over at Torou, and she nods. “Can we go outside?”

Lata blinks, eyes pulling from the wallpaper to fix on him. After a long moment, he says, “You know where the door is.”

Obi does, somehow, and when he opens it--

It’s paradise.

Home has rules too, loads of them. It’s quiet time from nine to eight, though Lata doesn’t much care if they’re sleeping, so long as they’re in bed. Teeth have to be brushed twice a day-- he’d glowered when Obi said he had good teeth and only needed the once, standing over him for a week morning and night to see the rule stuck. There’s only one dessert after dinner; Obi balked at that one, until he’d learned that a limit on quantity wasn’t the same thing as size. He and Torou find three old sundae dishes in the cabinet and pile them high with ice cream and every topping they can find, and when they slap Lata’s down in front of him, cheeks bulging with their own towers of sweets, all he’d does is give them that small, reluctant twitch of a smile and dig in.

They have to make their beds and pick up after themselves-- this house has treated us well, Lata tells them, it’s only right we take care of it in return-- and they have to tell him if they plan to play in the yard; but in return their sheets are always clean, and dinner’s promptly at six. When they come back in, sweaty and exhausted from the summer heat, there’s always a bowl of fruit waiting for them and cold drinks.

He’d known, in the way he always does, that this couldn’t last. So when summer’s heat began to cool, he’s not surprised to see Lata waiting on for them on the veranda, mouth pulled into an even grimmer line.

“It’s time,” he says, “for a Family Meeting.”

“School,” Lata says with the sort of relish and derision only a professor like him can summon up, “is starting. Which means there are new rules.”

Fingers brush at Obi’s, and when he reaches out, Torou’s fingers knit in his. He knows what rules these will be-- his parents had them to, the only ones they’d ever made. His mother had gotten down on her knees the night before kindergarten, nails digging into his shoulders, and used a voice so dark, so unlike her, he’d dreamed of button eyes staring into his for a week. His father had tossed out their Coraline DVD after that.

“Forenzos,” Lata starts, already sounding weary, “look after each other. So you’ll walk together, both ways, and if one of you gets into trouble--” he fixes them both with a stern look-- “I expect both of you to run.”

Obi stares. “What?”

“You’ll come back right after school, unless we have previously discussed plans,” Lata continues. “You’re far too young for...cellular phones, so I expect that if you make plans with friends, you will discuss them with me the night previous, or you will come home first and ask permission. Not,” he murmurs, just barely audible, “that I expect you’ll have much trouble with that.”

“Is that...” Obi’s jaw works. “Is that all?”

“I expect you to keep up your grades.” Lata’s brow furrows, taking them in, as if he’d never once questioned whether or not they would be stellar students. As if most people don’t look at the both of them and see future high school flunk outs. “If they are slipping, I’m afraid I’ll have to limit your free time until we are able to bring them back to an acceptable level. Homework is to be done at the table, and once you are done, your time is yours until dinner.”

Torou’s hand squeezes his. “We?”

Lata blinks. “Excuse me?”

“You said ‘we.’“ She clear her throat, eyelashes fluttering with nerves. “If our grades are bad, you said we would, uh, fix them.”

“Of course.” His mouth pulls at the corners, annoyed. “How could I possibly ask you to rectify such a thing on your own? You’re already doing the best you can, if you still struggle, then it’s clearly something we both-- oh my,” he murmurs mildly, “she’s leaking.”

“Sorry,” she sobs, pink burning on her cheeks, the way it never did on his. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” Lata flails out, yanking a tissue from the box, shoving it into her hand. “I just...hope that you find this all fair. I was always quite good at school, but my sisters--” he glances at them, wary-- “varied. I hope I can only...encourage you to your best.”

“But what about...” Obi snaps his teeth around the words. If he doesn’t ask, then it won’t become a rule, and his uncle can’t be disappointed when he breaks it.

The pictures on the wall prove that they’re family, that Lata truly is his mom’s brother, even if they don’t share much more than a hair color. But Obi’s never seen it, the way he does in pictures of Torou’s mom, where there’s a flick of the hand or a cock of a hip that says they spent their childhood together, inextricably intertwined forever in ways they would never understand.

But Lata raises a brow now, and he sees it, that small thread that ties him to his mom, that says brother. “About...?”

“The other stuff,” Torou blurts out, coughing down a sniff. “He wants to know what we...”

Her words peter out too, like she can’t figure out what to do with them. He can’t stop knowing, and she can’t stop dreaming, and the thought of having to pretend they can is...tiring this time, in a way it never was in the system.

His mouth wraps around the words with a curious sort of wonder. “Other stuff?” 

“You know,” she mutters, so small. “The weird stuff.”

Lata jolts in his chair, spine as straight as a poker. His hands press flat against his knees, and when he looks at them, the gray in his eyes in thunderous.

“This is the most important rule,” he tells them, voice oddly resonant, “you must follow it. Promise me.”

Obi’s heart sinks into his stomach, but he nods, fingers squeezing Torou’s tighter.

Lata’s hand presses heavy on his shoulder, leather flexing over cotton. “Don’t ever hide yourselves. Not for anything. Not for anyone.” Obi dares to look up, and Lata’s gaze is waiting to catch him. “Being...normal is not necessarily a virtue. There is no shame in being who you are, none at all.”

Or what you are, he doesn’t say, but his eyes do, loud and clear. He doesn’t say what that is either, but--

Obi knows. Just like he always does.

And if he didn’t, well-- he would have found out soon enough.

It’s a small island; small enough that K-12 are all squeezed into one school, though Lata tells them that by the time they go to senior high, they might have built another. It’s still not small enough for Torou and him to be in the same class, so he drops her off at the door with promises to find her at lunch and moseys down to his own. It puts him a little behind schedule, the school bell ringing on his heels, and when he steps in--

The room goes silent. Twenty pairs of eyes stare at him, round and wide, not a single person daring to do much more than breathe.

“Forenzo,” the teacher says, faint. “You must be...the Forenzo boy.”

“Yeah.” He grips at his shoulder. “Obi.”

“You can take your seat...at the back,” she says, before hurrying to the board, eager to put her back to him.

“I thought my mom said all the Forenzos died,” a boy whispers as he passes. “Except the old man, of course.”

“No, they just left,” says the one next to them. “Chased out. Because they’re, you know...”

Obi does; he always had, even before he had a word for it.

“I don’t think a boy can be a witch,” a girl says, thoughtless and thoughtful at the same time. “They’re wizards, or something.”

“Warlocks,” scoffs another. “Don’t you know anything? And they do blood magic with little girls--”

Obi grits his teeth, eyes forward. There’s two empty chairs in the back, one in the corner by the window, and the other next to it, and he steers toward that one-- window seats always get him in trouble--

And the boy next to it scoots away, fear bright in his eyes. Obi looks back at the teacher, but she’s writing her name on the board real slow, like she’s hoping this might solve itself.

Fine, he can take a hint. He takes the window, sliding in behind the desk. The girl in front of him scoots forward too, making sure her chair doesn’t touch his desktop, and he sighs. At least they’re all getting this out of the way first.

A bag drops, right next to his seat.

“Ms Kino!” There’s a girl there, smaller than everyone else, though her voice makes her twice as tall. In the morning sun, her hair burns bright like the horizon. “Can I change my seat?”

“Shirayuki?” The teacher blinks back at them, and Obi could swear she breaks into a cold sweat. “Shirayuki, I’m not sure that’s--”

“I can’t see the board from over there,” she says, every syllable digging in its heels. “There’s glare. Because I’m so small.”

Ms Kino squints back at her, and really-- there’s no denying how small she is, at least a head below Obi and he’s nothing to write home about either. “If you’re sure...”

“Great.” She drops into her seat with a thump as loud as thunder, setting out her notebook and pencil with the sort of purposeful efficiency that says there’s no doubt she’s here to stay.

Obi slips his out of his backpack too, so quiet so the other kids will stop looking at him like he’s going to set the place on fire, but he hears, “You’re new, right?”

He looks down, and there’s the girl, smiling across the aisle. “Yeah. I’m--”

“Obi, I heard.” She leans toward him. “I’m--”

“Shirayuki.” His mouth twitches. “I also heard.”

Her smile stretches towards a grin. “You know, Ms Kino likes group projects.”

He blinks. “Does she?”

She nods. “Would you like a partner?”

“She hasn’t assigned one yet,” he says, a little lost.

“She will,” this Shirayuki says, confident. The way he is, when he knows.

He nods, slow. “All right, so for the next one.”

“To start.” She fixes him with a look he can’t get out from under. “Are you eating lunch with someone?”

“Ah, yeah.” He feels guilty about it now, for some reason. “My um. Cousin.”

She brightens. “Great. I’ll show you guys the best place to sit.”

He’s been adopted, he realizes, like the way the cats around the house aren’t. And this girl means to keep him.

For once in his very short life, Obi doesn’t mind knowing. Just like he always does.