5th floor common room ; sunday morning

[flickofthewrist]

There were no youthful visitors for Flick. That was probably a damn good thing since, after the previous weekend, he wasn't really in the mood to be messed with by the island. Everyone else could have their kids (and he'd spend the rest of the week laughing at them) while he had a bowl of cereal on the common room couch.

It was early and he was still half asleep. The potential New York trip had gotten pushed off because he was too chickenshit to really face what might be true back there. He still couldn't believe his mother was alive. It was one last way to fuck his mind up that his dead father had left behind. He wasn't going to fall for it.

Nope. He was going to eat cereal and he was going to stretch out on the couch and watch television on this fine Sunday morning. Maybe he'd go back to bed soon. Or maybe he'd go down to the gym and beat on a few things.

But, later.

[Open for young and old.]

Comments

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

So, it turned out that Operation Tigershark had one tiny flaw that Henry hadn't been expecting, namely that Emma was a teenager, and he was pretty sure he'd break the universe if he actually went to talk to her.

But right now he was taking a break from stalking monitoring his tiny not!mom to find some food. He figured a floor above hers would probably be safer than her common room.

[flickofthewrist]

Flick glanced over when he noticed someone else coming into the common room. Someone a lot tinier than he was used to seeing. Tiny and unfamiliar.

"Hello, tiny person," he said, raising an eyebrow.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

Henry looked around, and stared at him, surprised.

Sorry, Flick, you had one of those faces.

[flickofthewrist]

Yeah, Flick wasn't really that used to getting stared at. He stared back for a second before he shook his head and took another bite of his cereal.

"Why are you staring at me, kid?" he asked, glancing back over. "Look like you've seen a ghost or something."

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's not that." Unless Jefferson had died while he wasn't looking. "You just look like my friend's dad."

[flickofthewrist]

"Do I?" Well, that was something new for him. Hadn't heard that before. "Huh. That a good thing or a bad thing?"

Flick couldn't tell what kind of staring that had been.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"It's a confusing thing." Sometimes Henry was less subtle than he thought.

[flickofthewrist]

"Ah, a new emotion for me to cause," Flick quipped, shaking his head. "I'll add that to my diary when I get back to my room and have time to digest this lovely conversation."

Or not.

"Sorry to confuse you, kid," Flick eventually allowed. "Can't help my face, though. Hope the other guy isn't a douche or anything."

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

Well there was the time he'd drugged Emma and tried to force her to make a magic hat...

"He's okay, I guess."

[flickofthewrist]

"What's your name, anyway?" he asked, curiously. "You here visiting anyone special or just taking advantage of free portals and free food?"

He would have done that.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

If he didn't basically already get free food at Granny's it probably would've occurred to Henry too. "I'm Henry," he said, smiling at Flick. "I'm visiting my mom...kinda."

[flickofthewrist]

"Henry." He nodded. "I'm Flick. I'm visiting no one and no one's come to visit me."

Still relieved about that one.

"How do you kind of visit your mom?"

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"Um..." When you didn't actually talk to her.

[flickofthewrist]

Yeah, that wasn't suspicious at all. Flick raised an eyebrow.

"Who's your mom?" he asked since that seemed like the next logical question.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

Henry briefly considered playing the two mommies card and saying Regina.

"You probably don't know her." Did that evasive expression look at all familiar, Flick?

[flickofthewrist]

"I know a lot of people who dodge questions like you do," Flick said, fixing Henry with more of a critical look now. "Try me."

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"Emma?" Maybe there were lots of Emmas at this school?

[flickofthewrist]

"Emma? Amazingly enough, I do know her," Flick said, a little more interested now. "She's your mom who you're kind of visiting? She even know you're here?"

That's the only thing he could think of when it came to 'kind of' visiting someone.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"Um..."

That would be a 'no', Flick.

[flickofthewrist]

"Yeah, that's answer enough," Flick said, shaking his head. "Why haven't you gone to see her? Aren't kids supposed to want to spend time with their parents?"

Unless you had horrible parents, of course.

"You can't be that shy if you're talking to me."

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

Because she'd kind of freaked out the first time he'd appeared on her doorstep and introduced herself. "It's complicated."

[flickofthewrist]

"Because everything else in life is easy?" Flick retorted. "Huh. Could have fooled me."

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"Look, will you promise not to say anything her if I tell you?" Though he wasn't going to get the version of complicated that involved being born in juvie, fairy tale curses and soul-sucking monsters from another world? "It might mess everything up."

And not just in the never getting born sense.

[flickofthewrist]

Flick was actually a little torn on this. On the one hand, he was curious as to why Henry didn't want to actually meet Emma and what could be so complicated. On the other, Emma was a friend of his, one he trusted, and he didn't exactly want to keep a secret from her that seemed to be about her.

So.

"I promise," he said and decided he'd do his best to keep that promise.

[owngreatuncle.livejournal.com]

"I was adopted," Henry said. "I found Emma a couple of months ago, but my mom, my other mom, freaked out about it, then some stuff happened, and I can't see her at the moment." There, that was nice and vague.

[flickofthewrist]

"Not really seeing the part where it's complicated," Flick said after a moment. "So, you were adopted and your mother mom doesn't want you seeing your biological mom? That's not complicated, that's common."