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The chill of Issac’s skin drew a little closer to Felinus’s knees. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Felinus frowned and lowered himself down to the ground, wrapping himself around Issac’s cold form and peering at his face. The whites of Issac’s eyes had turned completely red from tears and exhaustion, black bags forming at the base of them to give an almost demonic skeletal look to his already too-thin face. “Why are you awake, baby boy,” he asked softly, pressing his lips against Issac’s jaw and finding it damp from tears that Issac hadn’t wiped away. “You’re exhausted.”
Issac looked down at the chocolate ice cream in his hand, scraping the spoon across its surface then holding it back for Felinus to eat. “I can’t sleep,” he said as Felinus accepted the offered bite. “I keep- I can’t sleep.”
“You keep what, Issac,” Felinus pressed. “Why can’t you sleep?”
Issac’s body tensed in Felinus’s arms, and Felinus recognized it by now as him deciding whether it was safer to tell him a lie or tell the truth. He had just begun to wonder what it must be like to have that argument with yourself every time anyone asked you a personal question, when Issac leaned back into him, not quite relaxed but deeper in Felinus’s warmth. “I keep seeing them die,” he whispered, still not looking at Felinus. “My parents. My dreams just keep replaying that night over and over again.” A tear rolled down Issac’s cheek. “Sometimes it plays the whole night in order. Sometimes it is just bits and pieces of it. Sometimes it is the whole night but… backwards, out of order.”
“Trauma does that,” Felinus said softly, remembering Tiger opening up to them about similar nightmarish memories haunting him. “Can I ask how often you see it?”
Issac was quiet for a moment, digging a chunk of brownie out of the frozen dairy. “I used to see it all the time,” he said finally, still prying out the baked add-in, “almost every night. Now it only happens a few times a year. It felt… bad, the first time I made it through the night without seeing their faces. Like if I didn’t keep replaying their deaths, I was going to forget them entirely.” He paused as the spoon cut through part of the brownie and hit the edge of the carton. “I’m still afraid of that,” he breathed, lowering his head. “It’s already hard to remember anything but their deaths. If I forget that night… I’ll forget their faces completely.”
Felinus thought of the stick figures scribbled over on the couch in the other room, how they didn’t have any expressions he could see. “Come to bed, Issac,” he said gently, taking the spoon and carton out of his hands.
Issac shook his head but didn’t fight for his dessert. “I won’t get any sleep,” he said, shivering in Felinus’s arms. “I never do. I was just going to eat that, then go study until I crash.”
“That’s not healthy, baby boy,” Felinus told him, setting them down and gathering Issac back into his arms.
“Nothing else works,” Issac breathed, his head leaning back to rest against Felinus’s shoulder as he closed his eyes. “I tried getting drunk once to make it stop. I drank nearly an entire bottle of gin that the foster family I was with at the time hadn’t locked away properly. All it did was make the nightmares worse, made me sick the next morning, and I was moved into the group home once it was discovered where the alcohol had gone. They tried sleeping pills once and that was even worse than the gin. I won’t touch drugs.”
Felinus sighed softly, wondering where Issac would be right now if the adults in Issac’s childhood actually got him real help instead of trying to make it go away. Probably not on our floor, eating ice cream and afraid that if he ever stopped reliving the worst night of his life he’d forget his family for good, the devil on his shoulder said indifferently. “Tell me about your parents,” he said, nuzzling Issac’s cheek. “Was your mom German too?”
“No,” he breathed. “She was Irish.” A faint smile curled Issac’s lips, painful and loving. “She had the prettiest red hair. She would keep it in a braid most of the time for work but it would come out almost as soon as we got home and stay down on all but the hottest days and deep clean once a month. She was covered in freckles too. The prettiest brown speckles over her nose and down her shoulders. I would get mad that I didn’t have any. One time, when I was little, I tried to draw them on with markers but Dad made me take a bath as soon as he saw them. He said I looked like him when he was a child and they didn’t think I’d get freckles but drawing them in wasn’t the answer.” He held out his arm in front of them, pale flawless skin that seemed to glow in the city lights. “They were right. I never got any of Mum’s looks. Maybe her height.”
Felinus reached out and laced his fingers through Issac’s, marveling how small his hand was in comparison to Felinus’s, and drew his arm back. “How did they meet?” he asked. “Through the Clovers?” He assumed Issac’s mother was like his own, a gangster’s daughter who became a gangster’s wife, but Issac shook his head.
“She didn’t like the Clovers,” Issac whispered. “She was a nurse at the hospital. She tried to be nice when I was around, but she didn’t like any of them and didn’t love that Dad had to bring me with him to the pub after I started school. Neither of them wanted-” He broke off. “They met at a dance. That’s all I know. Dad said he’d tell me the rest when I was older, but that it was the fourth best day of his life.”
“Do you know what the other three were,” Felinus asked, just as curious about who the German Reaper was away from the myths and urban legend, as he was about keeping Issac talking about anything that wasn’t his parent’s deaths.
Issac nodded. “The first day she said he could come see her after a bad day,” he said, staring straight forward, “the day she agreed to marry him-” he smiled. “Then he would say that he couldn’t possibly choose which day is his favorite so number one was their wedding day and the day I was born.”
“He sounds like he was hopelessly in love with her,” Felinus observed.
“He was,” Issac agreed. “There was never a doubt about that. They both loved each other so much.”
“And they loved you,” Felinus told him, holding him tightly. “Their brilliant little boy that was going to be a senator one day.”
Issac choked out a laugh, tears falling more freely down his face. “They didn’t want me to be part of the Clovers,” he said, his voice shaking, “or any of Dad’s world. They were both so angry when I got picked up for shoplifting. They told me that there were many types of rights and wrongs in the world and that what Dad and the Clovers did were wrongs that were necessary for a better tomorrow but that I was different. That I had to always do what was right even when it was really hard, and leave the necessary wrongs to Dad.” He shuddered with a sob. “They were both so angry. Dad tried to stay calm with me but I heard him start to go after the ones who set me up when we got back to the pub and Mum just yelled at him for hours when we got home.” His eyes closed and he shuddered again, curling forward into a ball. “You asked me what I wanted? I want to go back and stop myself from falling for the setup. If I hadn’t- If I had been smarter- I’d still have my family.”
Felinus stiffened and the weight of what Issac had been building to started to fall into place. “How long-”
“Maybe a week,” Issac said between heaving sobs. “Dad didn’t leave us after that, didn’t take me back to the pub. If he worked, he did it while I was at school and took me straight home to wait for Mum.” He sniffed and rubbed at his face. “I thought it was amazing. They both seemed happier the more Dad was home. Then… then the phone rang after I had gone to bed. They argued after Dad hung up. He just kept repeating that he had to go and Mum kept telling him to stay.” Another shuddering breath. “I had come out of my room. They were both upset but they tried to not look it when they saw me. Dad kissed us both and told Mum to put me back to bed. That he’d be home soon then no more calls. Mum kissed me and told me to lock the door and not to open it for anyone before she went out after him. Then-”
“It’s not your fault, baby boy,” he said, turning Issac carefully to cradle him into his chest. “It’s not your fault. What happened to them had nothing to do with you.”
“You don’t know that,” Issac choked, crying into Felinus’s neck. “No one knows that except the monster who did it.”
“The fault shall never be laid at the feet of children,” Felinus recited. “The fault belongs to the adults that failed to do better and those who did not prevent it.” He rocked Issac gently in his arms, stroking his hair. “It’s not your fault, or your parents’ fault. The fault belongs to the men who betrayed your dad’s loyalty and trust and anyone who might have known what was going on and didn’t stop them.” He kissed Issac’s forehead. “It wasn’t your fault, baby boy. I know you can’t believe it right now after so long thinking otherwise, but that’s okay. I will spend all the time, resources, and money necessary until you can start believing it. To forgive yourself.” He kissed his forehead again, feeling Issac relax ever so slightly. “But first, I’m going to take you back to bed and if those dreams wake you up again, I will be right there to remind you that you aren’t there, you aren’t going to forget them, you aren’t alone anymore.”
“You’ll get no sleep if I go to bed,” Issac said, either unwilling or unable to struggle as Felinus picked him up to carry him back into the bedroom.
“Then it’s a good thing I more or less set my own hours and can make other people do the grunt work,” Felinus said, holding Issac all the closer as they passed the office. He settled them both back into the massive bed, cuddling Issac closer to his chest. “Go to sleep, baby boy,” he murmured into his hair. “I will be right here every time you wake up. I will never leave you alone.”
