Post by Mitch 'The Broken' Heart on Dec 17, 2020 18:41:30 GMT -5
Penny Larceny
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
The night was clear and chilly, and Penny Heart was bundled against it. She was snug inside a fleece-lined denim jacket a few sizes too big, a black and white scarf, and gloves with penguins on the back that only had a few loose threads. Her pink and purple sneakers clunked rhythmically against the leg of the metal bench outside Sinai Hospital as she waited for her ride.
She looked exhausted. Dark circles were under her eyes, and she looked more stressed than anybody should at the tender age of eleven. Thoughts rattled around in her brain and she was trying madly to sort them into something legible. Organization was key, especially when one’s life depended on it.
Glancing at her watch, she shuffled the penguin backpack on her shoulders, watching the occasional passing vehicle for anything she’d recognize.
Before long a silver Honda Civic pulled up to the front of the hospital, and out of it stepped Silvio Leon, concern and relief mingled in his voice. “Pen...hey…” He nodded to the passenger side. “Hop in; it’s unlocked. Let’s get you out of the cold.”
“Thanks.”
She hopped down from the bench, walking around and hopping in the indicated door, situating herself and buckling her seat belt with a satisfying ‘click’ before glancing around, noting anything interesting.
“I’m okay. It’s not that bad. It gets really cold back home.”
Silvio slid back into the driver’s side, closing the door. The interior of his car was clean, though the dashboard had a number of stickers plastered across it, a small collection of air freshener pine trees (coconut scented) hung from a rearview mirror.
“It’s good to see you again, Princess Penguin. Baltimore’s always a brighter place when you’re around. Have you gotten a chance to eat dinner yet?”
Even though it was something freely agreed to and reveled in by Mitch, seeing her brother fight in such violent bouts had to be difficult for Pen.
“I’m not hungry.”
She looked around, first at the passing scenery but occasionally her head turned back, as if looking for something that might be in the backseat. Her hands stayed primly folded in her lap, but her brow was a bit furrowed, as if thinking about something. Finally, Pen glanced back over at the driver, expression inquisitive.
“...did you bring it with you?”
Silvio gave her a crooked grin, blushing a little before nodding to the back seat. “My, uh...hoodie might have fallen over it, but...yeah. If you wanna see.”
Waiting until they reached a stoplight, Pen unbuckled and turned around, reaching into the back and feeling around a bit before her eyes lit up. Grunting slightly, she tugged. It was heavier than she thought it’d be, but once she’d clambered it onto her lap she could see why. Thick black leather. Five gold plates studded with diamonds and orange topazes. The nameplate hadn’t been changed over yet- ‘KEN DAVISON’ still stood in thick engraving, the replacement would probably be sent to its proper owner in a matter of days and from there, it was nothing a small screwdriver couldn’t take care of.
Pen ran her finger over the skulls and other designs. Her heart pounded in her chest.
“It’s so pretty…”
“Right?” Silvio said with a breathless laugh. “I’m...still kind of trying to wrap my head around it.”
It was surreal thinking back on it now. The whole fight felt like some kind of technicolor fever dream, and the aftermath felt just as gauzy and unreal. Everything that happened at Ultimate Carnage just seemed to upend the whole world. This was to say nothing of what it had been like to meet up with Zane--Kane?--after the UV match.
But that needed to take a back seat for now. Silvio had to be here for Mitch and Pen.
“Is...Mitch doing okay?”
The beating alone had been savage, but the real damage was likely invisible to the naked eye.
He considered what he’d said about Ken Davison.
Your scar is in a place no one can see.
“...he will be.”
Her grip on the belt changed, arms wrapping around the large front plate and gripping tight, jaw setting, mind racing. She couldn’t feel guilty right now. She could feel guilty later, once she’d taken care of her brother. This would help. This had to help.
“I’m sorry, Silvio, but stop the car. This isn’t the one he wanted but at least it doesn’t have slobber all over it.”
Silvio blinked over at Pen, confused for a moment before it dawned on him what it was she meant.
“Oh...Pen, I…”
God, if it was only that easy. If that’s all there was to it, Silvio would have gladly handed the belt over to Mitch.
“Hey, kiddo, let’s just...I’m gonna pull off into a rest stop and we can talk, okay? I know how you’re feeling, but...that’s...not going to work for this.”
“Yes it will.”
Her jaw was set. The seriousness of her expression would have been comical in almost any other situation. She held onto the belt tighter.
“You said my brother could beat any monster. I saw it with my own eyes. Mitch had Kyra pinned but the monster, he pulled Mitch off, beat him up, and... stole it. He stole it and he doesn’t know anything. He didn’t need it. Mitch needs it. And I’m sorry I don’t wanna do this but I don’t know where the big monster rat is and this is the only belt I can get for him.”
Her lip quivered, her eyes welling up.
“I need to take this to him. Then maybe he’ll be happy again. He was so sad, Silvio, I haven’t seen him so sad like… ever, maybe. I’m sorry but I need to do this.”
Pen really had an uncanny ability to shatter Silvio’s heart into about a million pieces. He pulled off into the nearest rest stop, holding up a hand.
“You can hold onto it, Pen, just please don’t go running off, okay? If your brother found out you were running around on your own in Baltimore at night when you were supposed to be under my supervision, I’m pretty sure they’d never find my body.”
Either that, or Mitch would make it a spectacle for all the world to see, but Silvio didn’t really relish dwelling too long on either scenario.
“Let’s just...talk. I think maybe you might need somebody to talk to.”
God it made him ache all the more in his soul. This little girl who had to grow up way too fast; so horribly familiar.
“...okay.”
Her little body was tensed, like a tightly wound spring- she wasn’t aware of it, but Mitch did the same thing when overly wary. She thought of making a break for it but had to admit Silvio had a point- it was dark and Baltimore was very big. She’d never find her way back to the hospital on foot.
“...I told you on the phone something was wrong with Mitch. I think I figured out what it was. I didn’t peek, I promised I wouldn’t. I just put the pieces together. Like Encyclopedia Brown. … He left. Mitch doesn’t like it when people leave.”
Silvio sighed and ran a hand through his hair, nodding slowly.
“...Yeah. I’m so sorry. None of us...Mitch was the first to know. I don’t even know if he told anybody else. He didn’t tell me. Your brother...he has a very gentle heart.” Silvio made a face. “No, that’s...not the right word. He has a...white hart heart.”
Her eyebrow raised.
“...a what now?”
He made a helpless gesture with his hands for a moment.
“Sorry, it’s...so...you know about unicorns, right? How they’re rare; special. They only come to certain, very particular people.”
“Virgins. … Whatever that means, it’s just what the books say.”
She shrugged, expression still more than a little baffled.
“So a hart is a unicorn? What’s that have to do with Mitch, though? He’s… totally not a unicorn unless he’s one of the big black ones with red eyes that snort fire and have horns made of obsidian. … I saw that in a picture book once.”
Silvio shook his head.
“No. ‘Hart,’ is another word for, ‘stag.’ But a white hart is kind of like a unicorn though. When you come across one in real life or in a dream, it’s good luck. But they’re difficult to find; almost impossible to hunt. The people they reveal themselves to...or the ones skilled enough to hunt them...they tend to be special. Or...sometimes...they’re a particular kind of clever that’s careless or cruel but looks like sincerity.” He sighed. “That’s your brother’s heart. It’s a creature that trusts rarely shielded by a dark and tangled wilderness. And when something that unique and carefully guarded is wounded...it hurts all the more for having let its defenses down in the first place.”
“That makes sense.”
Pen sniffled a bit, turning her head to the side to wipe her face on the shoulder of her coat.
“I don’t know how he feels exactly. I know he’s sad but I don’t know why, outside of that man leaving.”
She seemed insistent on not dignifying the departed corvid with a name.
“After he got took to the hospital, he let me stay in the room with him. He didn’t say anything or move a lot. He just said ‘lost’ once or twice, real quiet. … I don’t know for sure but it must’a meant that having the belt would make him feel better. You have one an’ Ade has one, why shouldn’t he? That’s like being at a party and being the only one who doesn’t get snacks. … Like I said I don’t wanna take yours but it’s the only one I’ve got.”
She sniffled again. The light from the pole lamps made the unshed tears in her eyes shimmer.
“...I think...maybe he might mean something...a little more than just that,” Silvio said quietly. “And this isn’t it for Mitch. He’s going to have a lot of other opportunities to win gold in this company; I know it.”
Truth told, Mitch could conceivably vie for any of the titles at Carnage. Every single person who held a belt in the company needed to be wary of The Broken; Silvio included.
“It’s not the thing itself, though, Pen. It’s what it represents. If...giving up my belt to Mitch could make him happy, I would. But that’s not what he really wants.”
“I know. He really wants the red one.”
Even Pen knew darn well that she was stubbornly and deliberately refusing to get the point. But anything bigger was something out of her hands. Something she couldn’t fix. A failure to care for her brother as he had worked so hard to do for her as long as she could remember.
Her grip on the belt loosened somewhat. Her voice squeaked and crackled.
“...it’s not fair... “
“I’m sorry things have to be so complicated,” Silvio said gently. “But Mitch is going to need a lot more than just a belt.”
Even as the words left his mouth, he felt a twinge of something familiar plucking at his heart.
Mitch was a member of The Set as well as one of Carnage’s roster. If Silvio wanted to live up to his promises, to what he believed Carnage could be...if he was the face of the company now…
I am my brother’s keeper.
Why did this have to happen now and not later? Later, when he was older; stronger. When he had more knowledge and more resources; after he’d had a chance to go to college and gotten a good job? Why now when he as a stupid high schooler without power or money? Why couldn’t this have happened later, when he might have been able to save her?
“...and I don’t know if I can help but...I know I have to try.”
Pen was quiet for a bit. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks but she didn’t sob- her shoulders bucked a bit but she refused to let any more sound come out than she could help. Relinquishing her deathgrip on the World Championship, she held it outward with both hands, looking away as she did so.
“...he isn’t talking to nobody. I said he should talk to you but he said you were probably celebrating someplace. And Ade was on vacation. And the rat was probably somewhere chewing the fuck out of his belt. … His words not mine, I’m quoting, I don’t owe the swear jar for that.”
Sniffle.
“C’mon, how am I gonna be able to enjoy a celebration if I know Mitch and you are feeling so down?” he said with a little smile. He held up a hand as she offered to give the belt back. “You can hold onto that for now. I know Mitch wants you to have a decent meal and place to sleep that’s not a hospital chair. We can go and see him first thing in the morning. Is that okay with you?”
“Uh-huh.”
She nodded.
“He said he’d come to get me tomorrow. He doesn’t want to stick around longer cuz he has to get back to work.”
She paused, her sneakers shuffling.
“...I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have took this. You earned it and it’s not right I tried to steal it.”
“It’s just a thing,” Silvio told her. “It’s a glorious, shiny, desirable thing, but it’s still a thing. What it represents is what’s important; that’s what I have to try and be. And if looking after the members of the roster, caring about them, is part of that? Then that’s what I gotta try to live up to.”
Grace and LRK had departed, leaving his living room and sofa free for Pen. If Mitch felt better knowing his sister wasn’t surviving off hospital food and trying to sleep on injection-molded chair cushions, then Silvio was happy to accommodate.
“I see. So you’re like a king now, and the other champions are princes and princesses, and the rest are your subjects to look after?”
She shuffled towards the car, her hold on the title more careful than possessive. Pausing by the door, she looked up.
“...and I guess I am a little hungry after all.”
“I don’t like the idea of hierarchy; kings and queens and things. I think it’s more like…” He paused, gaze drifting momentarily skyward in thought. “...for people who have a lot to give, a lot is going to be asked. You can acknowledge that or ignore that. And...I just don’t have it in me to ignore it. On top of that, your brother trusted me enough to let me know about you; enough to make me an emergency contact for you. Remember what I told you about the people who get to be close to a white hart?”
“Yeah, they’re supposed to get good luck.”
She frowned.
“That’s not good for the poor hart, though. Imagine being hunted and chased around all the time because people know you’re lucky. Lucky for them maybe, but not so much for the deer. Being a lucky charm sounds terrible, really.”
Silvio gave her a sad little smile.
“Yeah. But here’s how I see it. That kind of luck...that kind of power...you can take it, if you want to. You can hunt the hart down, saw off its antlers, wear its hide and eat its flesh. But to me, that’s just cruel and it’s short-sighted. That kind of luck and power is better if it’s shared. It might take longer, and it’s more difficult because you have a creature with a mind of its own. But to find the courage to share a life with someone is always going to bring about greater returns for everyone involved than trying to take a life or control it. A stag willingly at my side is going to be more worthwhile than just taking his antlers for a crown.”
“Difficult is about right.”
Pen giggled a bit in spite of herself, then sighed.
“He might say some stuff he doesn’t mean. He does that when he’s hurt and angry. Not to me, I don’t think he’s ever even yelled at me ‘cept for that one time I wasn’t looking before I crossed the road and almost got creamed by a bus, but I’ve heard him say some pretty awful stuff when really mad that he was sorry about later. You won’t be mad if he’s sharp with you, will you?”
Slipping inside the car, Pen buckled up, folding the title’s straps neatly under the front and situating it on her lap before fixing Silvio with the biggest pair of sad kitten eyes she could manage.
“I’d be pretty dumb for being upset about a stag’s antlers being sharp,” he laughed. As Pen buckled up, Silvio gave a thoughtful hum. “I got some stuff at home for dinner, but if you want, we can order out. Let me know if something sounds really yummy to you right now. Also, I was kinda wondering if you could help me out with something. See, I got my Christmas tree up, but it sorta has this one spot that needs an ornament and I’m all out. Could you help me make one? Somehow I get the feeling the Penguin Princess would have some great Christmas ornament ideas.”
“OHMYGOD YES.”
Her eyes lit up.
“I love Christmas trees. Mitch said we’d get a really big one if he…”
She trailed off, then shrugged.
“We’ll get one. And I love making ornaments. You got paint and the kind of clay that dries when you put it on a cookie sheet in the oven? I’m real good with that stuff. And…”
She tapped her chin.
“...can we have Chinese food? I can have rice sometimes if I've been good and don’t have too much of it but I love the spicy chicken with the red sauce. General-something-I-never-say-right chicken.”
“Your wish is my command, your highness,” Silvio said, bowing as much as his seatbelt would allow. “I know just the place.”
After a quick stop at, ‘Happy Palace,’ a hole in the wall whose interior decor and beautifully tended fish tanks belied its exterior, the pair headed back to Silvio’s apartment with their dinner. Opening the door, Pen could already catch the faint fragrance from a bowl full of cinnamon-scented pine cones on the kitchen table, and see the soft, multi-colored glow from the Christmas tree in the living room nearby.
“Whoa. Sil your place is so… so cute! It looks like elves could live here!”
Spinning about, Pen sniffed the spicy-sweet air, giggling a bit before flitting over to the Christmas tree, eyes growing as big as saucers. The blue, purple, green, orange, white, and red lights shimmered off of the polished plates of the title belt she still carried with her and made its jewels sparkle in a dazzling prism.
“...gosh… it’s beautiful…!”
“I think you could really put the finishing touch on,” Silvio said, shedding his coat and hanging it on the rack, gesturing for Pen to do the same. “Let’s eat, then let me get my art supplies and we can figure out how you can lend your own flourish.”
“Okay!”
She ate like a bird- she took rice in a very particular manner, almost afraid to take so much as a grain more than she should, spooning the spicy chicken on top of it. She also seemed almost abnormally careful not to get any sauce anywhere- after all, this wasn’t her house and she didn’t want to make a mess.
“Sil? Do you think everything’s going to be okay?”
Silvio looked up from his own plate of almond chicken. “I do,” he said honestly. “I’m hopeful for the future for all of us. I think things are going to get better and I’m going to do my best to play my part in that.”
He smiled.
“I really believe we’re going to get to be happy.”
“All of us? Even Mitch?”
Pen looked up, eyes wide, chopsticks twiddling between her fingers. She looked completely trusting, as if she’d believe anything that Silvio said.
“Even Mitch,” Silvio assured her.
Sighing in relief, Pen gobbled down the rest of her food with gusto, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Which, considering that she’d been living off of a combination of hospital food and whatever she could scrounge up from vending machines, wasn’t far off the mark.
“I’m glad. Everybody deserves it. That’s all I really want.”
Pushing her empty plate to one side, Pen reached out for a fortune cookie, pausing.
“...you think it’d be okay if I had one? I really want one.”
She sighed. Sometimes she really hated having to think about this stuff. Other kids got to eat whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.
Silvio shook his head. “I’m not sure, Pen. You would know better than I would, and I trust you to be responsible. But you know what? I can give you temporary tattoos and non-candy treats you can take home with you.”
“Okay.”
Frowning, she pushed the cookie away, sighing a moment before putting a smile on. Everything was going to be alright. Everyone was going to be happy. He’d said so, and why would he lie? Humming a bit, she put her dishes in the sink, folding up the paper containers of the food that was left over.
“I can do the dishes if you want. I always clean up at home, Mitch’s usually too tired to do it when he gets back from work.”
“If you clean up the dishes,” Silvio said, “I’ll get the art supplies out for you to make some ornaments.”
He figured the best thing he could do at this point was give her something normal; a little routine and some fun to help distract her and put some structure back into the world.
“I bet you’re a great artist.”
“Heehee. I am.”
She shot a grin over her shoulder as she took the dishes into the kitchen, the soft woosh of a running faucet sounding as she started her work.
“I love painting stuff. I painted some really cool pictures on the walls at home. A meadow with deer and rabbits and an arctic scene with penguins and stuff. Mitch likes ‘em, he said something about not caring about the security deposit and I dunno what that means, but I’m glad I didn’t have to paint over them.”
Silvio laughed as he opened a hall closet and took out a few boxes; fimo clay in several colors, paints, crayons, colored pencils, paper, scissors, glue and sculpey.
“Sounds like your brother has his priorities straight,” he said, laying the supplies out on the kitchen table.
“‘Course he does.”
Stacking the dried plates and cups and silverware beside the sink (being unable to reach the cabinets), Pen beamed at the sight of the art supplies and skittered over to the table.
“Nice. Pass me the white sculpey, would you please?”
Once she had it in her hands she set to work right away. She molded it into a familiar outline- a fat pear shape, with flippers and webbed feet, with a small hole in the top. Seizing the acrylics, she painted big bright eyes, a black outline, orange feet. On the penguin’s tummy, however, she did something more complex. A dark purple sky dotted with stars, white ice floes with blue highlights, the pink and green waves of the aurora borealis. She worked mostly in silence, her concentration laser focused until she was finished.
“Okay, I think that’ll do it. You can bake it soon as the paint dries some.”
Silvio let out a low whistle, eyes wide.
“Holy spumoni, Pen...you’re amazing!” he laughed. “You taught yourself how to do this?”
“Mostly. I mean I’ve practiced a lot and read some books and youtube videos and stuff, but yeah! I mean I can draw too but I paint better. I took some pictures of some of the stuff I’ve done if you wanna see.”
Pulling up the photo gallery on her phone, she offered it to SIlvio. The paintings in the pictures were mostly naturescapes, and mostly arctic scenes- polar bears, huddled flocks of Emperor penguins with eggs on their feet, breaching orca whales. Among them, though, was a single portrait. A man with a pensive expression in a leather jacket, shoulders hunched up. His face and hands were illuminated by the flame of his lighter, which was igniting the tip of a cigarette. His body language was somehow exhausted and determined at the same time.
“These are wonderful,” Silvio said, scrolling through the pictures. “You’ve obviously worked really hard at this. Take the supplies we’re using here if you want them. I’ve got plenty and I’d love to see what you can make.”
“Gosh, thanks! I got a bunch at home but they’re sort of running out. … You know what? I saw this really bad-butt kit in the window of an art supply store downtown. It was a wood box full of top-notch watercolors and little tubes of oil paint, pastels, squirrel-hair brushes, and a palette. I really wanted it for Christmas but I just don’t think I could ask for it. It looked really really expensive.”
She rolled her shoulders.
“This is good stuff, though. I can make some awesome stuff out of this. Thank you so much!”
He nodded, looking amused. “You’re welcome, Princess. You wanna help me find the perfect place to hang one of your ornaments?”
“Absolutely.”
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. The clay penguin with its painted winter scene was tucked next to some blue and purple lights, giving a nice atmosphere of chill to the little landscape. At Pen’s request, the tree was left on all night, so when she finally went to sleep, the girl was given a twinkling, rainbow nightlight to comfort her.
Around late morning the next day, a black rental car pulled up in front of Witch Dagger Ink, the driver getting out and leaning against the car, lighting a cigarette. He looked pale, the multitude of bruises, bites, and lacerations standing out starkly against his skin.
Upstairs, Silvio’s phone alerted, a text message popping up.
‘I’m here. U can come down too if u want to. Thanks again for watching pen.’
Silvio blinked at his phone before smiling.
‘No problem! Do you want to come up? We’re making breakfast.’
There was a long pause, almost a whole minute, before the reply popped up.
‘Ok sure, thanks’
Grinning, Silvio went to open the door for Mitch, standing on the front landing to meet him.
“Hey, man!” he called, waving to him. “It’s good to see you.”
“Hey.”
Mitch raised a hand, waving back. It was even easier to see how awful he looked up close.
“I’m serious, appreciate you helping me and Pen out like this.”
Feeling a twinge of concern, Silvio gestured for Mitch to come upstairs.
“You’re my friend and my stablemate. If I needed you, you’d do the same for me. Anyway, Pen made me a really cool ornament, so if you think about it, I’m the one who owes you.”
“If she’s the one who made the ornament, if you owe anyone, it’s her, not me.”
Coming up, Mitch was greeted first by the scent of bacon, eggs, and toast, and then by a skinny javelin nearly bowling him over.
“FFFFFF.”
“Ooops… sorry, Mitch.”
Pen grinned sheepishly, backing off a bit. Catching his breath, Mitch managed a smile of his own, ruffling his sister’s hair affectionately.
“It’s alright. Just be easy with me for a bit, squirt. I got stitches in places I didn’t even know were places.”
“Well, sit down. We almost got breakfast ready and I didn’t even burn nothin.”
“It’s true! She’s a natural chef,” Silvio confirmed, gesturing for Mitch to hang up his jacket and have a seat. “I got coffee, too, if you want any.”
It felt nice having people over. Now that Kane had departed with his wife, Silvio was alone in his apartment for the first time in months. It felt weird.
“Please. Black.”
“Me too!”
“Penguin, the absolute last thing you need is coffee.” Sighing, he shook his head with a slight smile before looking over at the other adult in the room, raising a stitched eyebrow..
“Gotta say, two days off being in a hell of a fight, you look fresh as a daisy. Either you got fuckin’ inhuman recuperation skills or I’m just that unlucky.”
Silvio gave a sheepish smile. “Nah, I think maybe I’m just that lucky. I tend to heal up pretty quick. And anyway, it’s not like I had anyone going at me with sharp, pointy objects.”
The mind-gasm following taking the belt off of Ken was something Silvio hadn’t been prepared for. Coming out of that fight was like emerging into a world where colors stopped being shy and showed off their full intensity, where every spoken word was a note in a song that told the story of the world that he finally remembered the lyrics to, where he could see how the threads of his loved ones’ lives wove into his to make each other whole. While putting himself back together was always easier with a little boost from Spooky, the turn around this time had been unreal. He’d gone to bed bruised and battered and woken up pristine.
WE TOLD YOU YOU’D LIKE IT. THE WHOLE ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND THE FORMER GODLING WAS TRULY POETIC.
It was worrisome and it made Silvio all the more certain that his decision to have only three defenses at most was the right one.
He poured a cup of coffee for Mitch, handing it to him as he spoke. “Thanks for helping me out with that, by the way. I don’t think I could have won without everyone giving me a hand.”
Mitch’s jaw set hard, just for a moment, before it evened out. He closed his hands around the warm porcelain, breathing in the rich, distinctive scent as if it would help him banish a state of mind he was trying to get out of. Being spiteful and bitter was as exhausting as it was easy. Silvio didn’t do anything to him. He deserved what he’d earned and being angry made absolutely no sense.
“Enjoy the view from the top while you can. Though I imagine you could probably build a cabin up there if you wanted.”
“I’m more of a ‘plant a tree,’ dude,” Silvio said, getting a few plates and serving up portions of a vegetable scramble, bacon, and toast for each of them. “Thanks for having breakfast with me. I know you’re probably in a hurry to get back.”
“Yeah, I got work tonight. … Pen, slide me your milk a sec.”
The girl looked up from destroying her eggs and obliged, only to give a little delighted squeal when he poured a little of his coffee into it before sliding it back.
“Not an ideal situation, probably. I feel like roadkill, but it is what it is.”
Ironically, he had a stop to make before he left in earnest, a promised meeting with the person responsible for his current roadkill condition. It would be the greatest test of trying to let things go. He just had to remember that there was no reason he shouldn’t be congratulatory. None at all.
“Anything I can lend to help out? I got a first aid kit, tiger balm, ibuprofen; that kinda stuff.”
“They gave me some gigantic-ass Tylenol before I left the hospital but what the hell, you got some ibuprofen for the road, I’ll take it, thanks. Nothing for the rest of it, I’m going to feel like complete crap until my blood regenerates or whatever you call it, then I’ll probably feel fantastic.”
He shrugged curtly, tucking into his breakfast with the same ravenousness as his sister, pausing after a few moments as something dawned on him.
“...where is he, anyway? A little surprised he’s not here. Somewhere on an extended celebratory blood bender, maybe.”
Silvio blinked, looking surprised. “...Oh. Did...you not see the...the end of the match?” he queried. Mitch had taken his fair share of headshots during the fight, and if he’d simply wanted to get away from the arena to put some distance between himself, his opponents, and the match result, he couldn’t blame him. “He’s with his wife now.”
“...no, to be honest I can’t remember the immediate aftermath of it that well. Probably on autopilot concentrating on not bleeding to death or some shit. I can’t even remember getting to the hospital clearly and… his what.”
There was a sharp clang as Mitch dropped his fork, the utensil clattering against the plate below it. The Broken’s expression was akin to someone who’d just seen a dog do a card trick.
“You’re f… freaking kidding me.”
“I’m as surprised as you are. Apparently that’s part of why he’s been doing all this; trying to get her attention.” Shaking his head, the Oracle held up one hand. “But that’s for him to share. I don’t wanna go telling his story for him. It’s pretty wild, though. I can get in touch with them and get you their contact info if you want to visit with them. They’re still here in town.”
“...sure.”
Mitch still looked more than a little gobsmacked. Pen wrinkled her nose, expression darkening into the same hardness she’d shown when talking about King the night prior. It was an odd look for the normally cheerful child.
“He gets everything he wanted and you get beat up.”
Mitch held up a hand, shaking his head. He didn’t want his attitude infecting her- that wasn’t right. He felt a jag inside, and he bit his lip.
“Pen… just… easy, okay? Don’t f… don’t do that. This is good. This is a good thing. I’m glad. Yeah. Tell him I’ll meet him wherever soon as I’m done here.”
Silvio nodded, taking out his phone and firing off a few texts. A moment later, he forwarded the information from Grace off to Mitch’s phone.
“It sounds like they’re going to stay in Baltimore for the foreseeable future,” he said. “I’m sure he and Grace would be glad to see you.”
“Guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting, then.”
He finished off his coffee, gathering up the dishes and putting them in the sink. He paused, then, looking at his sister.
“Pen? If it’s okay with Silvio, you wanna wait here while I do this? I can swing back around and get you after I--”
“No.”
Pen shook her head stubbornly, folding her arms. Mitch knew this expression- she didn’t whip it out often, but when she did, an entire crew of heavy machinery couldn’t budge her from her position.
“I’m going with you. Somebody’s gotta watch your back, you know.”
Silvio shared a quick glance with Mitch before giving a tiny shrug. “If you change your mind, I’m totally cool with you hanging out here a little longer. But, hey, if you wanna go with your brother, why don’t you show him the cool ornaments you made before you head out?”
That broke her mood, and she smiled.
“Yeah, c’mon! You gotta see this.”
As Silvio watched the brother and sister go into his living room, Mitch’s face lighting up in a way that was hard to recognize if you didn’t know him, the Oracle felt a tiny, bittersweet ache in a corner of his heart.