(no subject)

[devoutish]

[From here.

As promised, Alfie leaves Royce the bedroom, if he decides to move in there and claim it. He stretches out on the couch, letting his hat fall down over his eyes, and dozes off pretty quickly. The blanket and towel he'd given the kid stay with him. He has no plans to take them back, not tonight and not ever.]

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[bittytsun]

[ Royce actually does go to the bedroom, because he relishes having a bed. He drags all his stuff in with him after Alfie's fallen asleep, and makes himself a little nest. He sleeps forever, and he'll still be in there dozing when Alfie wakes up. ]

[devoutish]

[Alfie wakes just before lockdown ends, and sets about gathering his things together and having a bit of breakfast. He assumes Royce expects him to take off as soon as possible, but he doesn't plan to - he's going to get the kid to travel with him, if he can. So when Royce finally wakes up, Alfie will still be in the house, sitting on the couch fiddling with his tablet. His bags are packed, but he's in no rush.]

[bittytsun]

[ Alfie is there in the morning, and for a lot of mornings after. Royce's eyesight returns, and they settle back into things. A few weeks pass, and Royce asks Alfie about language, about customs, about holidays and people, about what he should know. He tells Alfie some stuff he's picked up here and there about the mir - he knows a word or two, and he knows a bit about the elves and Novron and all that, but not a whole bunch.

And he learns how to read, slowly but surely.

Royce wants to go to the grocery store downtown because he wants that fresh bread, so he suggests it. They can't quite make it there, though, so they're in the post office when someone comes in, right before lockdown. Royce shies away from the man, suspicious and quiet, holding his scissors out of sight. ]

[devoutish]

[For as long as Alfie's been here, he hasn't really gotten close to anybody but Royce. He talks to people on the network sometimes, but it never goes farther than that - introducing a new person to their little group would be a long, laborious process, and honestly, he doesn't really feel the need to. They're fine on their own. So many people here are untrustworthy. They're just not worth the risk.

So when the new guy shows up - someone Alfie hasn't talked to over the network - he's on guard. He chats a bit, and the man chats back - they smalltalk about the town, the weather, the most recent horrible thing that's happened. And all the while, Alfie carefully keeps himself positioned between the stranger and Royce.]

[bittytsun]

[ They go home. Somehow, against all odds, they get to go home.

Royce chooses to go with Alfie, because of course he does. There's no way he's going back to his own world. He's a little older - a year or so. Now he's nine. Or eleven, or maybe ten. He still doesn't know. He's a little older and a little wiser and a lot more traumatized, but nothing prepares him for London.

They get dumped out into the city unceremoniously, waking up wherever Alfie was taken from originally. Alfie wakes first, and thankfully, he'll find Royce not far away from him at all. ]

[devoutish]

[Alfie looks for Royce immediately, and is relieved to spot him nearby - he'd worried that it wouldn't work, that he'd be sent back to his own world alone, but when he sees him there next to him his stomach unknots itself. He holds out an arm to draw him close.]

We're near my flat. Just four blocks.

[bittytsun]

[ Time passes.

With each day that does, Royce realizes that things are real. That this is it, that he's here forever. Alfie comes back, every day. And eventually, Royce leaves their flat. He meets Alfie's family - his family, now, he's told. And they treat him that way, all smiles and welcoming. They go with the story that Royce is from a particularly war-ravaged background, and that his mother's last request was that Alfie take care of their child - it works best with how jumpy Royce can get.

He fits in nicely. He makes some friends out of Alfie's nieces and nephews, slowly. And then they send him to school, and that's - that sure is a thing.

It doesn't bother Royce when the kids make fun of him. He ignores it. He's excited to learn at first, but being trapped in a school room all day is hard. He fidgets and gets in trouble near constantly, and it's rare for him to go a day without having his knuckles rapped or hit with a switch. He doesn't tell Alfie, and he keeps his hands hidden, for the most part. And really, it isn't that bad. He learns so much about this world and he wants to, and he's okay! Until the kids decide to switch from making fun of Royce (stray dog, stupid mutt) to making fun of Alfie. And that will not fly.

Alfie gets notice from Royce's teacher that there's been a particularly large fight and that Royce is on his way home with orders to go straight home, but Royce - Royce hides for a while because he's nervous about getting in trouble. It takes him a good fifteen minutes longer to get home than it should, and even then, he very quietly opens the door and tries to sneak to his room. ]

[devoutish]

[Like the rest of Alfie's personal mail, the letter from Royce's teacher is delivered to his flat - but he often has his assistant bring things over to his office so that he can look at them there, and today is no exception. He opens up the envelope and reads the short message twice, a slight frown on his face. Then he tells Ollie he'll be leaving early today.

When Royce gets home, Alfie is at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. The letter is open and unfolded in front of him.]

Where are you going, Royce?

[devoutish]

[Alfie doesn't go looking for romance, as a general rule. He's had girlfriends in the past, and even now he'll bring a woman back to his office (but never his flat) from time to time. But something more serious than an afternoon rendez-vous on his couch or against his desk just isn't on the agenda right now. He has a business, and he has a kid. His plate is full.

Which is why it's such a surprise when he meets Renee.

She's the cousin of one of his foreman, and she has a job delivering packages. On her morning runs, she often stops by the bakery to give Abe a bit of lunch cooked up by his wife - and when she isn't too busy, she stays to chat. A passing nod between her and Alfie quickly turns into greetings, and then to smalltalk, and then to longer talks. They talk for nearly an hour one day, until she suddenly realizes that she's very late for work. He tries to give her a bit of money to make up for the missed wages. She refuses, but on her way out the door, leans up and kisses him on the cheek, gentle and lingering.

That afternoon when Alfie gets home, he decides it's time to talk to Royce. He checks the kitchen first.]

Royce?

[bittytsun]

[ Royce is in said kitchen, picking through the cabinets. His hair's a little longer but well-kept, and he's grown at least two or three inches in the time he's been here. A year has been enough for him to settle down, to stop having nightmares every night, to have his own room. He has his tenth (or that's what they decide how old he is) birthday. He reads and reads and reads, visits Alfie's work a few times, and figures out that whole friend business, at least within his family. He still has things about him that he can't change - he still eats like food is going to be taken from him, still startles at seemingly unusual things, but he kind of figures it out.

And he realizes, finally, that Alfie's not going to vanish one morning, that Royce isn't going to wake up and it'll have been a dream.

When Alfie peeks in, Royce glances over his shoulder. He waves a little, and then goes back to trying to find something to eat. ]

[devoutish]

[Royce doesn't know when his birthday is. He doesn't even know his age. But Alfie pays attention to the dates here, and he thinks he's found a good solution for that.

He prepares for weeks, painstakingly gathering supplies through searching and trade, and keeping them hidden as well as he can. It's hard to keep something like this a secret when you're in Norfinbury and a barnacle child has attached himself to you. But that barnacle child's happiness is of the upmost importance to Alfie, and so he perseveres.

And then finally, he's ready. He gets everything all set up the table first - three sort-of-fresh chocolate cupcakes garnished with powdered white sugar and chocolate sauce, and nine candles. Those had been the hardest to find. Four are regular birthday cake candles that he'd been lucky enough to stumble across - they're actually what had given him the idea for this in the first place. The rest are larger, scented candles meant for more general decoration, and he's arranged them artfully around the cupcakes. He uses up one precious match to get them all lit, but it'll be worth it.]

Royce? Come in here a moment.

[It's one year to the day since Alfie had woken up one morning and found Royce tiny and scared. He couldn't think of a better day to commemorate.]

[bittytsun]

[ It's been a good year. Or as good as it could've been, considering Norfinbury and how awful it is in general. Royce hasn't been happier than this in a long time, and while he's cautious about it (can't get too happy, or it'll end), it doesn't change the fact that he is. He's oblivious to Alfie collecting all of the things for this impromptu celebration, and he's also not aware of the date, so he's not expecting this. Alfie's been weird about Royce touching his bag, lately, but whatever.

Royce is busy pulling his dry clothes for the night on when Alfie calls for him. He finishes pulling down the cardigan before scooting on into the kitchen, blinking owlishly. There's a pause as he takes in the sight of the candles and cupcakes, his expression confused, and then: ]

Yeah?

[bittytsun]

[ Alfie gets a note, at his office. Go home, it reads.

And if he does go back to the flat, he'll find it's been broken into. The door hangs off the hinge. Inside the apartment, furniture is turned over, broken in places - there's a trail of destruction that leads to Royce's room, and in Royce's room, there's signs of a fight. There's blood - it's dripped on the carpet and there's a bit of a smear on the wall, and Royce is nowhere to be found.

In Alfie's room, pinned to the wall with a knife, there's a note. This one reads let's make a deal, and is followed by a phone number. ]

[devoutish]

[It is, quite literally, his worst nightmare.

His hands start shaking the moment the note arrives. He shoves them in his coat pockets to hide them, and calls three of his best men to him - one to drive, and two to come up to the flat with him. It's only a few blocks away, and he's perfectly capable of walking the distance, but that doesn't matter. Every second counts, and he tells Jacob to lean on the horn the whole way.

Elliot and George flank him as they storm the building and pound up the stairs. His heart drops into his stomach when he sees the state of the door. George tries to get in front of him, to enter the flat first, but Alfie roughly elbows him out of the way. No, no, no--

He doesn't have a home phone. They need to go back to his office.

He spits out the number to the operator. And then it's ringing.]

[bittytsun]

[ A particularly frigid week of wind and snow and ice has made it rough on the population of Norfinbury. It also ends up with a whole lot of people sick, from the stress and the weather and from - well, a few of the doctors mention they think that the colds might have a bit of that Norfinbury horror behind them.

Royce, despite their best efforts, is still suffering a bit from malnutrition and from a whole lot of stress, and so when the colds go around, it hits him pretty hard. He goes for as long as he can, but about three days after the sniffles and stuffy nose starts, the sickness gets worse.

He keeps quiet and stubbornly insists that he can go, that he can keep moving, but about ten minutes into travelling, Royce has to reach out to Alfie and ask him if they can go to another house and just... sit down for a second. His skin is hot and flushed, but he's freezing, and it's pretty clear he has a fever. And he is pointedly denying himself that realization, because it's terrifying. ]

[devoutish]

[In response, Alfie scoops him up in his arms immediately. He hadn't wanted to let Royce go out at all, really - the only thing that had made him relent was the worry that he'd sneak off on his own, if he'd insisted on staying inside.]

We're gonna take a rest day. Yeah.

[devoutish]

[Alfie stays away from London and from work for four weeks, by order of the doctor. Renee's parents are happy to let him stay with Royce in the spare bedroom for as long as he needs, and so that's just what they do. He goes for daily walks, getting some light exercise, but most of the rest of the time he spends laid up on his back either in bed or on the couch - dozing, reading, or chatting with the various people who drop by.

This evening, about a week into the recovery period, he's in bed, Royce curled next to him and Renee sitting very close by in a chair. Alfie's reviewing some business papers that Ollie had brought him to look over, and Renee... well, Renee is distracted. She's trying to help her mother with some mending, only she's never been any good at darning socks and she doesn't have the patience for all the mistakes she keeps having to undo. She's agitated and fidgety, with the knowledge of a secret that she's kept for far too long (four weeks!) weighing on her heavily. Her fingers fumble, she slips a stitch, and with a sudden grunt of annoyance at herself, she decides to just come out with it. She sets down the sock, the needles still embedded in the fabric.]

I'm pregnant.

[bittytsun]

[ It's been a pretty good four weeks, honestly. Royce has slowly accepted that things are okay, and while it's going to take longer for him to admit that it wasn't his fault, he's dealing with it better. He sleeps a lot, he gets his appetite back - and when he does, he practically eats everything in the house. Poor Renee's parents.

At this current moment, Royce is dozing. He had been reading, but the silence and the comfort of being in a warm place with two people he trusts lulled him right under. It's not enough to make him miss the grunt of annoyance, and he sleepily opens his eyes just in time to see Renee put the sock down and speak.

There's a beat, and then Royce looks up at Alfie, trying to judge his expression. Alfie's going to probably notice Royce is not at all surprised about this. ]

[bittytsun]

[ It's been a long time of them all being here. Too long. Like their session should've ended, says a lot of people who have been here the longest. Nothing gets found, the whole town is unearthed, and still, there's nothing. No indication that they'll ever get out. Eve stops replying, and there's no sign of Winter or Miller. They're alone, except for the anomalies.

And then people start to die.

One by one, people die from anomalies, from exposure, from starvation, from any number of things. The obituaries go up as normal, but nobody returns. Everybody just... starts to be gone, for good. Like they've run out of revivals.

Royce is a little terrified, but not by a lot. This is how it used to be, back home. Sure, it's colder, and sure, he... he's got a lot more to lose, here. But he knows how to not die. He knows how to be careful, so he is. He tells Alfie they should pick two houses and just go back and forth between them and not risk it. Stay close enough to a food source. He likes downtown, because of the bread and fresh fruit that still inexplicably restocks - but they both agree it'd be bad on Alfie's back. Instead, they stay up towards the school, and they watch more and more people die and not come back.

Today, they're walking through the school together. It's quiet, and Royce stays close to Alfie as always, hood up, alert. Get food, go back to their little base. It'll be fine. ]

[devoutish]

[Alfie agrees completely that they should stay put as much as possible, and he's both relieved and proud that Royce feels the same. He's such a smart, resourceful kid - though Alfie had already known that, of course - and he won't have to fight with him on this and live in terror of him running off. It's as good as it can be.

Though admittedly, that bar isn't set very high right now.

Being in the residential area, with its houses with beds, helps. They don't have to sleep on the floor, which means they can move better when they need to. But Norfinbury is even more psychologically punishing now than it had been in the past. It's empty, and dead, and cold in so many ways. They're completely alone.]

What are you hoping to find today, Royce?

[He tries to sound cheerful.]

[bywolves]

[ When he wakes up, it's like being hit with a hammer square in the jaw.

It's the memories. There are so many. He forgot so much. Years, it feels like. Maybe it was just one, but it was a long year - he was young, and alone, and afraid. Until Alfie. Alfie Solomons - the man he considered a father for that year. Anomalies, and revivals. London. The last day he was here, bleeding to death on the inside, struggling to drag in his last few breaths. He remembers all of it, and it takes him a long, long time to sort through it.

He was with Merrick, falling asleep on a rooftop somewhere after talking for hours. And now he's here, in the cold. He pulls his cloak close, and pushes his hair back from his face. The tablets. That's right. He has - he has to...

He checks his tablet first. And there's... a lot. Just from one person. There's network posts from @ASolomons, and he hasn't felt emotion like this in a long time - he brings his hand to his mouth and tries to breathe. He forgot. And - Alfie. Alfie's been here. For years, it looks like. Years, on his own, in a cold, terrible wasteland. Royce almost feels pained, thinking about it.

Voice rough, older - Royce sends Alfie a message. He can't decide if it's better or worse if Alfie is still here. ]

... Alfie. [ He doesn't know what else to say. ]

[devoutish]

[It's been a long, long time since Alfie has been talked to by a voice other than his own.

He fills the silence by recording on his tablet, or by just talking to himself - long, rambling stories that usually stop making sense about ten minutes in. He mixes up the past and the present, and the real and the unreal, and it's been years since he's actually bothered to care. And so now, this other voice coming to him from over his tablet isn't actually that surprising. He goes back and listens to old network posts all the time, and when he isn't listening to them, he often hallucinates them. He's been visited by all sorts of people who, when he thinks about it later, he realizes weren't really there.

He answers.]

Have I told you about-- no. No, I've told you everything, haven't I.

[bittytsun]

[ Adjusting, as always, is a hard thing to do.

It's a lot of changes at once. A new baby, a new flat, a new schedule. Baby Anna isn't a particularly fussy baby, but she's still a baby, and Royce, who has just barely gotten used to living in a world that's a little louder than he's used to, can barely stand it. Normal kids might be able to sleep through the crying every other hour, but Royce's hearing is sharper than most. He wakes up every time she cries, and after a few weeks of this, he's unbearably cranky. He can't sleep, and all of the attention is on the baby, and - while he doesn't want to be the center of attention, he still feels... bad.

Both Alfie and Renee have their hands full, and he won't make it harder on them, which means he hides away a lot, but that just makes him feel lonely. It'd just been him and Alfie for so long. He gets angry, because it isn't just him and Alfie anymore - he gets angry, because he knows he shouldn't be angry, and that all builds up between his lungs and waits to explode.

At five in the morning, just after Royce has fallen asleep again, the baby starts crying at the top of her lungs, and startles Royce out of his dreams. ]

[devoutish]

[In their bedroom, Renee rests a hand on Alfie's arm.]

I'll go this time. You sleep.

[But he doesn't, and not just because of the crying baby. Royce might not openly talk about it much, but Alfie knows the noise is stressful to him - and so instead, he makes his way to Royce's room, peeking in.]

Royce?

[bittytsun]

[ Royce is twelve years old. It's been three, almost four years since he's been in London, and he's growing as a person all the time. Surrounded by a family that loves him and understands how he works, Royce slowly starts to figure out how to be happy. He stays home and learns from the books Alfie brings him, runs little jobs for people, like deliveries and news. People know him as Alfie Solomons' son. And he gets used to living with a baby, who he likes more and more as she gets older. She's two, and Royce reads to her a lot, does a pretty good job of taking care of her while Renee takes a break.

But, like always - things aren't perfect. And like always, things go wrong.

Alfie's in prison, is what Adam tells Renee one afternoon. For something he wasn't explicitly part of - for something he'd backed out of before it had even started, and subsequently been blamed for by other parties fabricating proof of his involvement. The gang is looking into it, doing everything they can, but Alfie - Alfie is to be put to death. Royce overhears this from his bedroom, even though they're trying to be quiet about it, and they practically have to strap him to a chair to stop him from leaving the house to go shriek at the policemen, to get them to let his father out. Adam makes Royce promise not to do anything stupid. He can't try to break Alfie out. He can't help. Just take care of Renee and Anna. That's your job, now, you're the man of the house.

Three months. That's how long it takes. There's no promise that he'll be safe. It's torture, and Royce gets quieter and quieter. He stops reading to Anna. He barely answers anybody but Renee - sometimes Leah. He's not allowed to say goodbye. And there doesn't seem to be any sort of resolution in the works. It ends up a week before Alfie is sentenced to death that Adam finally comes back to their flat - they have a plan.

They just need a little more time to prove his innocence. And that's why Royce and Renee are out in a car in a back alleyway near the prison, waiting silently for the breakout. Royce is still and stoic in the backseat. He feels like he's going to throw up, he's so scared. ]

[devoutish]

[It's a risky move, breaking out of prison when your aim is to prove that you don't deserve to be there (this time), but Alfie Solomons has never been one to play by the rules. For once, he isn't the mastermind behind the plan - Adam and some of his other top men put it together, and Alfie himself only gets a few days' notice before they put it into action.

Two bribed officers and one clobbered door guard later, Alfie is being hustled out a side door and towards the waiting car. Ollie's driving. Renee and Royce are in the backseat. Anna is already at Henry's house in the country, where they'll pick her up before heading off to the little country cottage where they'll spend the next week or two. After that... well. They'll see.

Prison hasn't been kind to Alfie, and he walks with a noticeable limp, but he lights up when he sees the car at the end of the alley. He knows who's in there.]

[bywolves]

[ They put together a sled.

It's a pretty decent sled, actually. Using chairs and an empty bed frame, plus some rope and twine Royce digs out of the houses around them, they put together a sled that can carry either Alfie, or their supplies or a measure of both. Royce prefers to carry Alfie - he doesn't want him to get cold - but there are times here and there that there's too much snow. He can't carry Alfie and the sled through the worst of it, so he has to put Alfie down and cover him in a lot of blankets. It's not a bad way to travel.

Royce stays. A week goes by, and he's as real as always. He's different from how he was when he was a kid - he curses more often, he's angrier, and he has some measure of manners. He's a broody sixteen year old (almost seventeen, alright, he's pretty sure) and sometimes Alfie gets the brunt of it. But Royce always apologizes.

And through it all, he takes care of Alfie without complaining at all. He makes sure Alfie eats, he keeps him warm, and tells him the second they find something to do it with, he's going to trim Alfie's beard and give him a haircut.

It's the start of the second week, and Royce bundles Alfie up and starts off into the snow, groaning quietly under his breath at the ache of his sore arms. ]

[devoutish]

[Alfie improves, a little. He never tries to walk off on his own again - and while he's sometimes still prone to confusion, talking to himself, and talking to Royce about Royce as if they were different people, it's happening a little less towards the end of the week. He's still in horrible physical shape, but he helps with the sled as much as possible, handing Royce supplies and offering pointers.

And, of course, he fusses. Royce is still his kid, his boy, and he wants to take care of him as much as he can. So while he keeps quiet for the first few groans after they start out that morning, he still speaks up not too long into the trip, lifting his head a little to look at Royce's back.]

We'll need to rest. Stop at a house halfway through the day. Get our strength back.

[Except since only one of them is pulling while the other is curled up on the sled under a mound of blankets, it's pretty clear who Alfie thinks is going to need that break.]