#please ignore the paint all over my fingers my tube of black exploded

[bigfootsmom]

little painting, big feelings

[howardlinkedin]

Group Project: Part 5

Running Title: Group Project. Part 5 Part 4: Here Part 6: Here Sequel to Shelter Summary: The Walker-Link family are adorable as kittens while the Mafia leader cries about it, and Cross gets love advice from a ten year old. 

At the adoption signing, Lala looked at her name, scripted on the dotted line of the very thick cut of paper.

WALKER, Lala.

Directly after, she would write and re-write the name dozens of times, until all the paper in the suite was used up.

She never had a last name before.

---

Adam D. Campbell, the Don of the Noah, was crying on the floor.

His assistant, Lulu Bell, ignored him for favor of setting his desk back into order, while his son and heir looked on unimpressed.

Just yesterday the man had chopped off fingers and auctioned on the Black Market.

Ah, the duality of man, Neah mused.

Tyki Mikk slouched into the room without so much as a knock. “Hey boss I-” he stopped and stared. “Why did he break this time?”

The heir passed on the file he just exposed his father to. His cousin flipped it open and whistled, impressed. “Damn, the boy’s been busy! Another kid already?”

“She’s a lovely PRINCESS!” blubbered the Don.

---

Allen’s tattoo started at his fingers, and traveled all the way to his shoulder, where it tapered off into something that was part elegant and another part roguish.

His hand was painted like a glove of mandala’s, red scarred fingers still visible, and wrapped up to the wrist before shifting into curves of black. Waves of it wound up and up his forearm until reaching the shoulder, where the ink exploded into a crown.

In early mornings, because of his tendency to wake before the sun, Link would trace the ink and thank anything that could hear his thoughts for not taking Allen away all those years ago. 

(He thanked clowns and red haired Colonels for finding him, ensuring the two would eventually meet.)

The only downside to being a famous singer/songwriter, was that  everyone and their pet parakeet found you to be the most interesting creature in the world. Things that made Allen who he was became plastered all over tabloids and blogs.

What happened to that arm? The world suddenly was very interested. Is that hair natural? Where did Allen Walker come from?

---

“Link, I don’t think the loft above the bakery will be big enough.” Allen stated out of the blue, while the little family finished packing.

With two additional tickets, passports and a slue of documentation proving that, yes, these two lovely children are ours now, thanks for checking, it was time to head home. The tour was over, and Link had to return to his bakery.

The blonde looked at his husband, eyebrow raised, and wordlessly handed Allen a handful of printouts.

Oh boy, the singer thought. Houses!

“You’re the best husband, ever.”

---

The third time he fell in love, it was with a woman who held herself like royalty and had a smile that made kings throw crowns at her feet.

Cross realized it one night from work, passing the center of town to home, and noticed Anita’s Cafe still had it’s lights on. As if on autopilot, he parked his car and knocked on the entranceway. 

With her hair a cascading mess and falling out of her bun, sleeves rolled to her elbows and covered in dust, Cross thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. From the independent set of her shoulders, to the elegant and easy way she moved about the room, he could feel a familiar stutter in his so-called heart.

“Marian!” Anita exclaimed, both surprised and pleased at seeing the officer at the current hour. She smiled her beatific smile and Cross felt double damned and freedom all at once. “What are you doing here?”

“Saw the light.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalant and that he was definitely not having a mental breakdown behind his mask of charm. (Which he most certainly was.)

The cafe owner let out a short laugh, and wiped her hands on her dirtied apron. “I was doing some cleaning. Then I found myself redecorating. And after that, well.” It was her turn to shrug. “Tables needed to be moved.”

Marian kind of wanted to move onto a table with her at this moment, but kept that to himself.

“Would you like to come in?” She opened the doorway wider.

It was tempting. Beyond so. Every bit of himself wanted to say yes, please, and spend this lovely quiet night in the presence of this amazing woman. But.

She was so damn beautiful and the last time he thought this of someone, they ended up gone, gone, gone.

“Sorry.” He lamented. “I don’t think I can.” And he leaned to kiss her forehead before getting back to his car and running away, away, away.

---

He was scared. It tasted like ash and left a burden between his eyes.

To let go so easily? How could he?

Damn his guilty and weak heart.

---

“So, Allen!” The Talk Show Host elated. “Everyone’s been wondering, what’s with the arm?”

Backstage, Lenalee began to seethe and considered throwing the stage director through the curtain just to cause distraction. Said stage director looked at the pretty bodyguard nervously.

In his bakery, Link squeezed an entire tube of strawberry icing all over the floor and frowned at the television.

At the city police department, Colonel Marian Cross barged into Commissioner Tiedoll’s office and asked, loudly, if he could arrest an asshole please and thank you.

Blinking and tilting his fluffy white head to the side, Allen, at 18, lifted said hand and wiggled the scarred fingers. “This arm? I had an accident as a kid.”

And that’s all he said on the matter. He wiggled his digits again, if only to make his engagement ring catch the lighting and attention of the host. “Hey look I’m also engaged!”

“Also, my hair is naturally white and I like to sing and write music. I’m thinking about being a singer one day, what do you think?”

The audience tittered at the humor in Allen’s voice, obviously charmed by the young man, while the host tried to cover his bewilderment with a weak laugh of his own.

---

There was something terrifying at the idea of a family, Lala concluded.

For as long as she could remember, she never had one. What do you do with a family? What are the rules and expectations? Some days, the young girl felt out of her depth and the unsure footing her life had taken was distressing.

The idea of a family was also something her lonely little self desired. There was a warmth that she couldn’t describe and it made the proverbial gears in her head that had once stand still, whirl and rotate. A song rose up, and the usual notes inside her head shifted into something different.

But what do I do with it? Lala wondered.

How do I know this is where I’m meant to be?

A family meant love, but for the life of her, Lala didn’t believe she knew how to recognize such a thing.

---

On the table, Allen’s cellphone began to chime. Faster than a blink, Timothy snatched up his father’s phone. “I got it!!”

He looked at the caller I.D and answered. “Hi grandpa!”

Lala poked her head from around the corner, her new clothes half folded in her arms from packing. It seemed very odd that the Colonel would be calling them. Usually it was their father who did the calling.

“Where’s your dad?” Cross questioned around a mouthful of cigarette.

Little Timothy looked around the suite before shouting to his aunt in the living room. “Hey auntie! Where’s Dad?”

Looking up from painting her nails, Lenalee bid, “He and your Papa went out.”

“Dad’s out being gross with Papa right now.” The boy translated to his grandfather. “Do you want to talk to Lenalee?”

“No.” God, no. Cross shuddered at the thought. The girl herself wasn’t awful to talk to, but he doubted coming to her for his emotional crisis would go over well.

Especially since he was 100% certain Komui would somehow find out about it and Cross did not want to deal with that mess.

He sighed and pinched his brow. “Never mind kid.” What was he thinking, anyway? Calling in the middle of the night to bitch for advice like some kind of lovesick protagonist.

Marian Cross did not do lovesick.

The grandson scrunched up his nose. “Why do you sound so sad?”

“What?”

“You sound like, really sad and junk. Well, more sad than usual.”

“Excuse the fuck out of you goblin child.” Cross grouched, now determined more than ever to hang up.

“You owe me so much money old man.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Lala rolled her eyes. “Tim, don’t harass grandpa.”

“I’m not! He just sounds lame right now and I want to know why!”

The redhead felt his whole face twitch. So he was lame now?

“Did you break up with the pretty lady?” The blue haired goblin child asked, well, out of the blue. Cross almost swallowed his cigarette.

“Listen, kid, there’s nothing to break up when we’re not even...unbroken in the first place!”

“That’s dumb, why?”

Goddamn, Cross had forgotten how nosey kids could be. “Because. I’m hanging up now.”

“Dad says you’re in love with her.”

Silence. The Colonel went to his alcohol cabinet. “Yeah, and how does he know that?”

In a packed up suite in Barcelona, Timothy sat on the kitchen floor and blew a raspberry. “That’s easy!”

---

“She makes you feel safe, right?”

Lala leaned against the wall and listened to her younger brother, slightly awed.

“Like, you don’t feel scared to be yourself and and she doesn’t make you feel bad for it. That’s love, I think.”

How cool, Lala thought. She had gotten herself a cool little brother.

---

After seeing what the media papers had to say about Allen Walker, newest young singing sensation, the Godfather threw them all at the wall. “Disgusting?”

Lulu watched, bored, as her boss threw his tantrum. Sometimes the man needed to have one in order to function properly after. Regardless, someone was going to need to clean up the mess, and it wasn’t going to be her.

“Lulu Bell! Did you read this nonsense! They called his arm disgusting!” He wailed and threw a chair.

Media outlets were also becoming too curious. They began snooping and trying to dig into Allen Walker’s life. To be fair, Lulu thought, the boy did practically come from nowhere, with too much amazing talent and too many secrets.

One photo in a magazine depicted Allen from grade school! Outrageous! The Don was beyond furious.

“What do you want to do about it, sir?” Lulu inquired, because her boss never simply complained about a problem. He got rid of problems.

“Get Tryde here!”

---

“Hello Mister Walker, I’m here to cover your interview.”

Allen started at the overly serious looking man in his living room. “Uncle Tryde?”

“This is my photographer and assistant, Chomesuke.” The uncle in question billowed right on, as though the young man had said nothing.

“Hello Master Walker, cho!” The peppy assistant waved, setting up her camera.

Link hovered in the entryway like a protective, yellow haired shadow and gave the woman a look at the “Master” comment.

He may never get used to Allen’s family at this rate.

---

After his very titillating conversation with his ten year old grandson, Cross tossed his phone on the counter and uncorked a wine bottle.

He wondered if this is what his life had come to, finding advice from kids he’d never met in person and then getting drunk afterwards.

“Safe, huh?”

He sat heavy on the piano bench. Allen hadn’t been able to take it with him, with the bakery apartment being too small. Cross thought it was just left as an excuse to bother him.

Closing his eyes, Marian pretended he didn’t feel a familiar weight lean against his side. A memory of dark curls tangled with his mess of red hair while the weight would tuck into his shoulder.

“What am I going to do with you?” The memory would grouse, half whine and half sigh.

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

“Too late for that, I think.”

The memory vanished the instant the doorbell rang.

On the other side was Anita with her hair down and apron gone. She gazed up at the Colonel, eyes clear and seeking. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Cross found himself giving out an uncontrolled, throaty chuckle and leaned on the doorway, suddenly exhausted. “Want to come in?”

“Well, I didn’t come all this way just to be stared at.” Anita sassed, pushing her way through.

Closing the door, Cross didn’t notice a familiar image under the lamppost. With the click of the door, it flickered and disappeared.

---

Timothy squirmed in his sister’s sudden hold. “Hey, Lala what the heck?”

First Grandpa was being bizarro and now Lala? What’s the world coming to?

The blonde girl shook her head and gave the boy one last squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For what?” The boy squinted, confused. Lala ruffled his wild blue hair and left to finish packing.

Man, Timothy thought. Girls were weird.

Lenalee glided in like a swan and planted a noisy kiss on the boy’s cheek. “You’re a good kid Tim.”

Said good kid squawked and slapped where he had just been kissed, turning red. “AAAH!”

---

Soon enough, candid photos of Allen Walker made it to magazine spreads. Full articles about his life, but still vague enough to not daw too much gossip made it to media blogs.

Everyone learned about the boy who was adopted by the Colonel, who married his childhood sweetheart. Who always had a talent for music and also had an adorable corgi that smiles for the camera.

Link has a stack of magazine covers, featuring Allen in much more lovely light that he preferred seeing his young husband in. He kept them if only because he believe the white haired young man to be madly attractive, and it would be a shame to get rid of them.

One day Allen would come home, giddy as can be and shove a new magazine heading into Link’s face.

“Delightful! Sweet Barker, an Even Sweeter Husband!” With Allen and himself on the cover, arm in arm.

The blonde baker stared at it, incredulous. “Where did they get that photo? Isn’t that from Alma’s birthday?”

“I gave it to Chomesuke to use.” His husband said, innocent as can be.

Link stared at his husband.

Said husband grinned his damnably charming grin and kiss the other man soundly. Pulling for air, he states, “Now everyone knows how good of a man I have.”

Link stuttered, face flushed.

---

Going through the stack of homes for sale Link had handed him, Allen came to the last one and gasped.

Link knew which one he had found.

“This one! Link this one!” The singer waved the paper in the air, eyes glittering with delight.

The baker huffed to hide his smile. “If you insist.”

---

Anita ran her hand over the grand piano’s white base, admiring.

“It belonged to Mana. Gave it to Allen eventually.” Cross said, like a confession.

“Tell me about him.”

---

Another new morning, and Allen, bed head and still in his pajamas, found himself a lapful of teenager. “Lala?”

Snuggling into her father, Lala bid him a pleased “Good morning.”

“Good morning!” The father laughed, equally pleased, because if his kid wanted to cuddle, then she could as long she wanted.

Link, who was watching from the kitchen felt his heart grow fond.

“Papa!” Lala ordered. “You too! Here, here!” She patted the space on the couch where she had trapped Allen in.

“...Alright.”

“Me too, me too!” Shouted Timothy, not wanting to be left out.

Setting her suitcase in the foyer, Lenalee snorted at the family piled together. “You’re supposed to be getting ready for the airport you saps.”

Allen, a giddy and joyous mess, could only blubber.

Oh, whatever, thought Lenalee. They were a cute family.

Lala, sighed with contentment. 

She felt safe.