He did as Wilson suggested. Just as he was in the middle of trying to calm himself down, however, he suddenly heard the sound of a baby crying from another room. That wouldn't have been all that alarming - he would have just expected it to have been his younger self. But then he heard another one start crying in response to the first's, and any attempt to remain calm went flying out the window.
"W-Wilson?" he said, looking up at his friend. "Could I talk to you for a minute?" He glanced at his mom and dad. "...Alone?"
Wilson stared at Blake for a moment with a half-grin plastered on her face before she registered what he said.
"Oh!" she said, hopping on her feet for a second before she hurried over to Blake. "Uh! Sure! It's a lot uh, to take in. Naturally. Do we go like, out back? To the front? Where you wanna go?"
"We could go into another room," his mom said, giving him a comforting smile.
"Don't worry," his dad added. "We won't eavesdrop. Scouts honor, and all that other stuff!"
Blake managed to give a nod, and then the two were off, heading towards the source of the crying several rooms over. Blake just sat where he was, hoping that Wilson would bring over another chair or just stand near him.
He waited until he was sure that his parents were out of hearing distance, then slowly looked up at the physical embodiment of time. "Wilson, I hear two babies," he whispered, his lip quivering. "I-I'm an only child."
Wilson drew near to Blake, close enough to hear his whisper. She glanced back at the door Blake's parents left through, and her heart sunk in her chest.
Oh dear.
"It seems like there's uh, a lot that you've been lied to about by somebody. I mean, I don't know who, but... that's definitely more than one baby. I uh, I dunno how to help you like, process that but-" she put a hand on his shoulder. "-if you ever want to go back home, I'll take you in a jiffy. Otherwise, we can wait this out long as you need to let it uh... digest."
He looked in the direction of the room his parents were in. "I want to go back home," he firmly decided, but the word felt sour when he said it - how could he consider the place that had lied to him all of his life a home? There was too much he didn't know about. His brother. His dad being a spirit, and his mom being a magician. Him therefore being half-and-half. Had they even died in a car crash, or had that been a lie, too?
"Could you-Could you bring me back to the park, though?" he asked. "I don't think I can...I can handle going back to the dorms yet."
Even though he wanted to get back to the safety - and comfort - of his own time as soon as he could, he knew that it would be wrong to end his meeting with his parents on a note like this. He took a deep breath.
"Mom? Dad?" he asked. The words felt strange coming out of his mouth, but his parents had apparently heard him. The two poked their heads into the room. "I've got to go. I need to work on a history paper, and it's due tomorrow." That wasn't a complete lie, but he still felt horrible for not telling them truth.
His parents exchanged a look.
Then they entered the room and pulled him into a tight embrace - he was so surprised by it that he let out a startled squeak, but neither one seemed to care. "See you later, Blake," his dad said, giving him a grin as he pulled away. "And by later, I mean in the next decade."
"And a little more than that," his mom added.
"And a little more than that," his dad corrected. He turned to Wilson. "Hopefully see you later, too, Li Ming. I'd be very, very offended if you hung out with my son but didn't even stop by my house."
Wilson watched their embrace with a warm smile - though a twinge of ache in her heart. It wasn’t that it wasn’t precious, but sue was thinking about all of the things Blake was experiencing emotionally, and all of the lies that had just been exposed. For Blake, it sounded like he’d been living in (metaphorical) darkness for quite some time, and someone finally turned on the light.
That person mostly being her. She was the initiator after all.
She laughed at Rory’s comment. “Oh, but I am here! And ha, you know me. I can go anywhere and anytime I like. If you wanna see me again of course I’ll stop by.” She tipped off an imaginary hat and bowed, before walking up to Blake and putting a hand on his shoulder.
The sudden transition from the house to the park was disorientating, but what was even more disorientating was the fact that the moment they arrived back in the present, an unfamiliar boy sprung up from the bench and grabbed onto him by his shoulders.
"You must be him," the boy said, tilting his head to the side. His dark brown curls fell in front of his blue eyes as he continued to look Blake up and down. Nodding to himself, he added, "There's no doubt about it."
Now back in his own time, Blake's instinctive defenses kicked in. He jerked away from the boy - a boy who couldn't have been much older than him - and took several steps back. For someone to react so calmly to people appearing out of nowhere, he had to be used to magic in general. "Who are you?" he asked, a wariness to his tone that hadn't been present in his previous conversations with Wilson.
The boy grinned. And it was then that Blake knew he was in trouble - he had a pair of very small fangs, and a quick check of the planes revealed that he was looking at a demon.
Spirit, he corrected himself.
Now, who was he working for? And why was he interested in him?
"You can call me Puck," the spirit said. "And Pres wants to see you, Blake Croft."
Wilson watched and listened to the boy with a curious gaze. If he had met them at their specific location, then he had to be the brother - no. No. He knew the brother. That's what Puck was implying.
"Pres? Is that Blake's brother? Because I think he might need a moment. He did just come here to get a breather. He's had a lot going on today."
"Yeah, he is," he said, turning to look at Wilson with confusion written across his youthful features. "But how did you know that? Better yet, who are you? Blake's not supposed to have any friends."
While this exchange went on, Blake looked wildly between Puck and Wilson. He wanted to keep up the guise of a strong, unfaltering magician, but it was simply too hard when Wilson was coming up with theories like that, and the complete stranger was confirming them. "You work for my brother," he slowly said, looking Puck over. "He's alive and a magician-"
Puck raised a hand up. "Hold it right there. We figured out that you're going to be a little...disrespectful, and that we were going to have to let it slide until we explained everything to you, but I don't just work for him. I work with him, and, even more importantly, I'm his boyfriend."
Wilson smirked as she watched Blake and Puck talk. Mimicking Puck's motion, she held up a hand.
"And my name is Wilson. I figured you'd be presumptuous, but I am his friend."
Her smirk faded a little bit, and she paused, looking over to Blake. Slowly, she leaned in towards Blake, and spoke to him in a muttered whisper through the side of her mouth. "We are friends... right? Or at least, I was friends with your guys' dad so..."
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