Lepidoptery

by ofguttersandstars

Summary:

Jake kicks his crutches pointedly, still not opening his eyes. “So because I'm a foster kid, I'm a thief? I don't just scream Little Orphan Annie to you?” He blows a wet raspberry.

Once again, the man doesn't rise to the occasion.

“Your Dad is the best pilot I know, I just figured you'd be like him.”

 

(In which, College Ice did not keep it in his pants and Jake tells a story about moths and butterflies… one that isn't actually about moths and butterflies).

Notes:

Enjoy! ❤️

Also, I made Jake use forearm crutches because I do 😉

Chapter 1

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

The Luna Moth has lime-green wings and a white body. Its caterpillars are also green. As a defense mechanism, its larvae will admit angry clicks in response to perceived threats. 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

“This is pointless,” Jake whispers, mostly to himself, huddled in the backseat of an empty maroon minivan that might as well say Free Puppies on the side for all the attention it gets; for the particular type of attention it gets. 

His trash bag full of hoodies, the fronts covered in logos from places that he's never been and never will, and holey jeans — a couple pairs rapidly turning into baggy capris as he only gets taller and more skeletal over time — is sitting beside his bad leg. The pair of forearm crutches that he outgrew about a year and a half ago are lying across the seat beside him, sliding around with every turn. They're covered in peeling plane stickers and half-faded doodles with a pink Sharpie. The sight fills him with anxiety, even though they're almost there and no one else is getting on; he still doesn't like taking up so much space. 

“Jacob,” His caseworker sighs from the front seat. “Just give him a chance.” 

He would, for her, but he doesn't think it'll turn out the way she so desperately wants it to. 

Miss Julie is new; she still believes most of the bad things that happen to kids like him can be solved with a lollipop and a hug — but she's trying, which is more than he can say about his last few dozen caseworkers. 

He's been in the system since he was two, back when his Mom got arrested for drugs the first time and the greater populace discovered they were living in a traphouse. 

Miss Julie reminds him of Glinda the Good Witch sometimes, the one who came down in a plastic bubble like a pink cupcake of a person.

Miss Julie wants to do good is the thing, so Jake can't hate her for her chipper attitude, not when she's so clearly trying. After all, with thirteen years in the system under his belt... she's still the first person to ever track down his deadbeat dad.

Jake calls the guy College in his head. That's where his parents first met, out in Annapolis off of Chesapeake Bay. Jake was a sorority girl’s biggest mistake. It's only too bad that his Mommy kept on making those sorority girl mistakes — only, they quickly became pill mistakes, then heroin mistakes, and then culminated in Jake’s preschool teacher finding her crack pipe in his Teletubbies backpack. Some mistakes have this rotten way of breeding new ones; hell, they might as well be fucking like rabbits across the mess of Jake's life for all he has to show for it.

The minivan rolls up to the gates of NAS Miramar and Jake thinks, once again, that it’s just plain mean of the universe to make College a naval officer. 

All Jake’s ever wanted to do is fly for the Navy, but he won't ever get to.

The human body is fragile; kids are fragile.

All it took was one nasty foster-father snapping Jake’s four-year-old ankle like a glowstick under his boot, to curtail his every flying dream. Then never getting it treated? Well, that took a life without pain away too, for good measure. Six surgeries that the state begrudgingly forked out for and still nothing; eleven years later and his left ankle is pretty much worthless. It’s fused, pure scar tissue, and as painful as all get out. It hurts all the time; it might as well be an anchor instead of a foot.

Miss Julie gets his trash bag out of the van and Jake swings his crutches around to get himself situated; together, they stare up at the cold, imposing building but all Jake feels is apathy. 

College is apparently the Air Boss at TOPGUN, the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, which means he has to be good at what he does. That’s proof enough of the fact that he isn't going to want Jake around; the successful ones never do.

College can make a whole boatload of tiny Vice Admiral mini-me's nowadays. He isn't going to want a son who's already defective. There's no future USNA graduate here, just another drain on his resources. It is what it is and he really just hopes that College isn't going to try and play house with him because of it. He doesn't feel like bouncing around, trying to carve out a place for himself in a life that isn't his for a couple of months, just before he gets given back with an apology note and a filled-out packet signing College's parental rights away. He knows how this works; he's been in the system for as long as he can remember. 

There are amazing fighter jets soaring and roaring overhead, and a part of him wants to sit and watch — but, he definitely wants this next bit to be over with even moreso. He isn't staying here. His next stop is probably another group home, which isn't great. But it’s better than the month before: the four weeks and change he spent camping out on park benches after he ran away. 

He curls up in the chair Miss Julie parks him in, off to track down College no doubt. He listens for the fading sound of her high heels click-clacking down the hall. Jake doesn't particularly care one way or another. He just closes his eyes and lets the hustle and bustle wash over him, pretending he's a naval officer in his own right, straight-backed and proud, strutting down the halls like he owns the place. It’s the closest he’s ever going to get to that life, so why not pretend? 

He doesn't limp in his dreams.

“Kid, are you feeling okay?” The rumbling baritone and squeaky stop of boots on the tile in front of him don't prompt him enough to open his eyes. He doesn't budge.

He only sighs and licks his lips, shifting to turn away from the voice. “Your cologne reeks, sir, and just because I'm a cripple doesn't mean I need a babysitter. Get fucked, sir." He flips off the figure and expects a tirade at the very least.

It's only too bad that the guy doesn't take the bait. 

“Ooo, you're a testy little fucker aren't you?” The big man — he has to be big if the chair beside Jake creaks under his weight — laughs and shakes his head. “Ice sent me out here, pretty frantically if I might add. He's talking with your caseworker now. It’s a bit of a shock to him, as you might already know." The big man stretches himself out fully, to be more of a tripping hazard to passersby. “But what I know about foster kids is that you're a flighty bunch, I wanted to make sure you weren't about to steal a jet to bust outta this juke joint.” 

Jake kicks his crutches pointedly, still not opening his eyes. “So because I'm a foster kid, I'm a thief? I don't just scream Little Orphan Annie to you? The sun will come out tomorrow…” He warbles a bar or two, before he blows a wet raspberry in what he hopes is the annoying guy's face.

Once again, the man doesn't rise to the occasion. 

“Your Dad is the best pilot I know, kid. I just figured you'd be like him.” 

“College,” Jake corrects, finally opening his eyes and languidly rolling his head over to glare at the big, broad asshole sitting beside him. “Shoulda learned how to use a condom in high school. I’m a gay teenager, I figured that shit out before I jumped into bed with anyone — now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you straight weirdos get a class on how to not knock-up pretty blonde cheerleaders. Was he absent that day?” 

The big man doesn't even look fazed at the mention of sexuality, he just smiles, brushing some of his chestnut curls back out of his eyes. “Gay, huh?”

“Yup, as homosexual as they come.” Jake brings a fist up to his mouth and pops out one of his cheeks with his tongue. “Your friend’s doing himself a favor by running the other way, ya know. I'm pretty sure his white picket fence life isn't ready for all this.” He waves a hand at himself, a cautionary tale in dirty clothes and a life that belongs in planned parenthood pamphlets. “I’m sure his wife would be delighted by the chance to meet his bastard in the flesh, dontcha think?” 

The sailor pauses, looking at him all funny before —

“Does that schtick usually work for you?” The guy hums fondly, still looking at Jake like he's seeing someone else. “Pick a new thing — you do arson?” 

Jake flips him off, batting his bright green eyes, “Only on days of the week that end in y.” 

“Hm, white-collar crime?” 

“The ladies do love a shrimp in a suit.” He beams, showing off his missing molars that never grew back in after a boot knocked ‘em clean out of his jaw.

“I thought you were gay?” The big guy teases, groaning as he stands up and pops his back. 

“I’m equal opportunity when it comes to crime syndicates.” 

“Good choice.” He extends a hand to Jake, one that the tiny blond quickly bats away. “C’mon kid, let’s go — well, meet your Dad, I guess. Damn, I didn't think Ice had it in him.” It sounds like a running joke that Jake will never be privy to. 

The blond kid struggles up to his feet all by himself, scowl and all. But the big guy just smiles at the look on his face. 

“I’m Slider, by the way, it's my callsign.” 

They shuffle along together for a few more feet as Jake mulls that one over, the big man — Slider — clearly waiting for an answer of his own. 

Jake stops, he shifts his crutches to one hand so he can mime slipping a noose around his neck and yanking upwards. He lets his tongue loll out and crosses his eyes for the added effect, before he laughs meanly at the look on Slider’s face. “Hangman, it’s my callsign.” He had one foster father who loved playing the choking game as a punishment, Jake’s got enough scars to prove it. And he sure isn't going to let some huge nobody patronize him, or treat him like he's some lost little kid. He bares his teeth instead of a smile and falls back so that Slider can lead the way. The man looks back at him once, twice, three times, with something soft and pained in his eyes that Jake hates. It makes him want to gut the guy and scoop out his innards like a dollar-store pumpkin, if only for being so weak and stupid.

Weakness gets you hurt, or worse, out on the streets; naval officers should know that one already. 

Jake has no sympathy for him, or for anyone for that matter.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

In Tropical Tasar Silk Moths, amputation has been seen to increase the egg-laying frequency in a frantic bid for familial survival.  

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

“You asshole.” 

Jake looks up, screwdriver hanging out of the corner of his mouth and sitting in his Bronco’s open trunk outside NAS Miramar, as he tightens the ankle joint of his prosthetic. He's got half a Chipotle burrito sitting next to him on still-warm tinfoil and he raises an eyebrow when Brad comes stomping around to glare at him, still in his flight suit from his endless rounds of push-ups. 

“What did I do this time?” He asks around the screwdriver, so it sounds a bit like waff’ eh do ‘is time?

“You went to Chipotle without me!” 

Jake beams from ear to ear and flips off his big brother with his free hand. 

He isn't expecting the utter thievery that happens shortly thereafter. 

Jake spits out his screwdriver in rage, “Get back here with my burrito, you sonuvabitch!”  

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

Geometridae is the second-largest family of moths in the world. Their larvae are known as inchworms for their unique kind of locomotion. 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Chapter 2

Summary:

Sorry guys! My body fell apart and I forgot this existed — here’s 7k+ of I’m sorry. 🤣😅❤️

Notes:

Enjoy! 🦋

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Some butterflies have been known to drink blood from open wounds on animals, like it’s nectar.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The office is too white — that’s Jake’s first impression of the joint.

It’s not just the color. It’s how the walls gleam like they’ve been bleached of any personality, scrubbed down to the bone. Cold, sterile light pools from recessed ceiling panels, buzzing faintly like they’re irritated to be on. The air smells faintly of ammonia and floor wax — antiseptic and polyester. Hell, even the faint hum of the HVAC feels clinical, designed to push discomfort into the corners. It’s the kind of room where nothing real has ever happened, where not a genuine word has ever been spoken — at least not recently.

Framed photos line the walls, hung with military precision: fighter jets caught mid-sky, grinning squadrons posed on tarmacs, a few weathered American flags frozen in glass. It’s like someone decorated using the front page of Stars and Stripes and a ruler. Jake bets those pictures used to smell like leather wallets and cigarette smoke, like some young war vet’s back pocket. He leans in to get a whiff. But they don’t. They smell like nothing.

Which makes sense, they're covered in glass like it’s a scene out of a 4th of July Sears catalog.

This place wasn’t built for someone like Jake. But damn, it doesn’t even seem like it was built for Him.

Him. College. Tom Kazansky. Iceman. The guy Jake’s been hearing about in sideways glances and awkward silences since he was old enough to understand that his mom didn’t believe in fairy tales, but she did believe in one very real mistake she made out in Chesapeake Bay, which only spawned a thousand others.

Kazansky doesn’t even look up.

He’s too busy staring at a manila folder with Jake’s name stamped on the front like it’s a threat assessment or an IED or maybe just something he doesn’t want to have to acknowledge. His posture is perfect: Navy perfect. Shoulders are square, chin level, uniform and lapels so crisp that they look pressed by God himself. His blond hair with dark roots is slicked back like a Kennedy’s, every inch of him is a portrait in discipline and anal retention. Jake wonders if the stick up his ass will be visible when he finally opens his mouth. Fuck, it might even be visible from the space station. 

Slider clears his throat far from politely.

Still, nothing.

Jake leans against the doorframe for a second longer than necessary, just to test him. 

Let’s see who breaks first.

Off to the side, sweet Miss Julie stands like an anxious extra in a scene she can’t influence. She clutches her purse against her chest, fingers white-knuckled on the handles, her eyes flicking from Kazansky to Jake and back again. His trash bag is at her feet. She offers him a brittle smile — the kind people wear when they’re begging for civility without saying it out loud. Please, her eyes scream, don’t. Give him a chance here, sweetie.

Jake wants to. Can’t though, he’s too full of his mother’s screaming and this man’s silence.

Finally, Kazansky looks up. His eyes are blue, not green. But they're not blue like the sky or like warm blueberry pie, they're pale and wintry; cold like looking through a sniper scope. Jake wants to shrivel under their inspection. He thinks of the stupid song he was singing out in the hallway with Slider, thinks of a different Annie song before he can stop himself from hoping — Maybe they're strict, as straight as a line. Don't really care as long as they're mine…

“Jacob,” Kazansky says, mouth twisted like he’s sucking on a lemon, like the very idea of Jake is tart.

Summoned, he limps across the plush carpet and drops onto what he assumes is a couch, though it’s clearly decorative — all edge, no give. His crutches clatter against the hardwood baseboard as he lets them fall. “You can call me Jake,” He shrugs and smiles, all teeth. “I am your bastard after all.”

Kazansky grimaces like he’s been punched in the gut, speaking of — his shirt does curve out a tiny bit down there, the only part of him that isn't textbook Navy regulation perfect; must've forgotten to wear his girdle today or he's too busy schmoozing up to bigger fish to climb the Navy ladder. It makes his chest look wider, warmer. Jake wonders if he gives good hugs. Then doubles down on himself twice as hard for even thinking about something so stupid. This old fuck doesn't want to hug your needy ass. He scowls. Slider, reading the room like a weather chart and clearly not liking the forecast, shifts closer to the door like he’s considering a tactical retreat. 

“I didn’t know,” Kazansky blurts — fast, too fast — he immediately stumbles over the words. “No one told me. Your mother — she…”

“Yeah, it’s totally crazy, man,” Jake cuts in with a mock gasp. “You sleep with a woman one time and bam — consequences central. Who could’ve predicted that? Definitely not a decorated strategist. But hey, what do I know? Did you try the pull-out method? I've heard that's very effective for most pregnant girls my age.”

Slider makes a funny sound.

Kazansky tries again, flexing his fingers on either side of his belt. “I want to do right by you.” The words sound rehearsed, heavy, like they came from a lawyer or a speech therapist. “It’s… complicated, I know. But I’d like to—”

“To what?” Jake leans in, his smile going razor-thin. “Toss a ball around in the yard? Go fishing? Teach me how to shave? Bit late for that, College.”

“That’s not—”

“What do you want from me, man? No, really.” Jake’s voice drops into something glassy and mean, something that was shattered long ago and not by his boxy hands. “Did Miss Julie guilt you into this? You expecting a gold star for finally showing up? Look at the absentee dad, everyone, he’s over here trying his best!” He gives a slow, poisonous clap. “Bravo. Really top notch existence. End scene.”

Kazansky’s jaw is tight enough to crack his enamel. “I’m trying here,” He growls, like it hurts him.

Jake snorts, pushing his bangs out of his face. “Yeah? Well, try harder. I’ve got years of this locked and loaded. Wanna talk contraception next? Should I draw you a diagram? Spot you five bucks for a box of Trojans?” 

Miss Julie moves toward him, hand halfway raised like she can shush it all away, but Jake’s glare stops her cold.

Kazansky draws himself up like he’s on parade, back ramrod straight, fists clenched behind him like he’s holding himself together molecule by molecule. “You don’t think I feel guilty, Jacob?” He’s got starter crows feet in the corners of his eyes and eye bags, like he never sleeps well. 

Jake pouts with a flourish. “Aw shucks well, don’t you cry on my account, sir. Pretty sure this room costs more than the Lexus my mom broke into so we didn’t freeze to death in December when I was a kid. But oh no, please tell me why your feelings are hurt that I exist. I think I have a tissue in my back pocket.” He reaches down and pulls out his middle finger instead.

“I didn’t know about you.”

“That’s not the defense you think it is; unless, of course, you thought babies were brought by storks in college.”

Slider exhales like he’s aged five years in five minutes. “Alright,” He tries, stepping forward, palms out. “Cool down, both of you. This is new for everyone.”

“Not for me,” Jake snaps, hands spread wide like he's going to take a bow. “I’ve had dozens of dads. Some were drunk, some were mean and most were looking for a check. They didn’t wear medals, but they all did one thing right — they didn’t come looking for a pat on the head; they just beat me. You wanna take a swing too, hotshot? I’ll let ya.” He puffs out one of his cheeks to make a nice target, what’s a few more lost teeth, anyway?

That doesn’t land so much as crash and burn. Kazansky’s expression fractures for a half-second. Jake sees it, files it away like a trophy. He loves making this asshold squirm.

“So what now?” He taunts, letting his voice soften just enough to sound dangerous. “You want to take me to a base picnic? Pose for photos? Hero pilot adopts crippled teen? Ooo, just don’t tell the press I’m your byblow though, right?” He lifts his bad leg with both hands and drops it onto the coffee table with a solid thunk. “I'll make sure I’m extra crippled for you and the cameras, Daddy.”

Kazansky opens his mouth again, round face as red as a tomato. Jake watches, almost curious — like maybe this time he’ll say something human, something raw and real. Come on, tell me you fucking hate me. 

“You’re angry,” Kazansky grits out instead. “I understand.”

Jake’s eyes flash and he slams his hands down on the coffee table. “Fuck you.”

Miss Julie gasps.

Kazansky’s mouth shuts like a trap. His stupid blue eyes close. Jake watches him take a breath in through his nose and let it out slowly — textbook regulation breathing. The teenager hauls himself upright with a grunt and grabs his crutches. “This was a blast,” He spits out, voice soaked in battery acid. “Really nice meeting you, College. But I think we’re done here. Miss Julie will help draw up the right papers so you can sign your rights away and I can go back in the system. Good job giving it the old College try.”

Miss Julie reaches for him — soft, desperate — but he shrugs her off. 

“Jacob—” Kazansky tries again, like he's giving orders. “Son.”

“I’m not your son,” Jake snaps without turning. “You’re not my father. We’re just two strangers with fifty percent of shared DNA. You know what humans share fifty percent of their DNA with? Bananas.” He limps toward the door, slow and deliberate — like every step is a statement; so every thump of his crutches echoes like a curse. “You want to do something good for me, fruit salad?” He finally shouts over his shoulder. “Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t try. Just go back out and get the milk, Daddy. You’re so damn good at it.”

He makes it into the hallway.

Miss Julie’s heels click behind him eventually, tentative and shaky. She doesn’t speak, she's too overcome — probably pissed at him. What else is new? Everybody hates Jake. 

He doesn’t look back and he isn't fucking crying.

He doesn’t limp in his dreams.

But out here? Out here, he limps like hell.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Female butterflies are usually able to engage in mating on the day of emergence from their chrysalis; they come out ready to tear it up. But males do not normally mate for several days.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake’s vision is narrowed into one long tunnel of rage and white tile when it happens — five feet down the hallway, he slams chest-first into something solid, leather-jacketed, and very real.

The impact jolts him sideways, one crutch goes skittering across the floor with a loud clatter.

His bad leg twists underneath him and of course, it goes the wrong way. Pain, sharp and blinding, spikes up from his fused ankle like someone’s stabbing hot rebar straight into the bone.

He goes down hard on the tile. It’s far from the worst fall he's ever had, but his ankle isn't exactly getting better as he grows. 

The sound that leaves his mouth isn’t tough, or clever, or barbed like it usually is. It’s small — a choked, helpless “Ah—!” that punches the breath out of him and echoes like a bullet through the hallway. It's the kind of sound a little kid makes when they fall off a swing and can’t figure out if they’re more scared or hurt. The kind of sound Jake never lets anyone hear him make. He trembles, hot tears dripping down his face as he grits his teeth. “Ow.” He writhes for a minute, panting, eyes shut tight. “Ow, ow, ow.” 

Miss Julie rushes over. Slider swears loudly from the door that’s still fucking open when he forces open his watery eyes. He sees a blur that looks like Kazansky start running. Oh no. 

“Jacob!” The name tears out of College’s throat like a command, like he's got it all under control, but the old fuck’s hands are shaking when he drops to his knees beside him. They flutter over his crumpled body like moths to a candle. “Sweetheart — don’t move, stay down. I’ll call someone.”

“I told you to stay the hell away from me!” Jake snarls, except it doesn’t come out right — there’s a high, broken hitch in the middle, and his hands are scrabbling on the tile like he can claw his way upright through sheer spite.

He can’t. He can’t even get his leg underneath him. His vision grays out when he tries. He slams a fist into the tile instead, fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Jesus, Maverick!” Slider roars, marching over.

“I’m sorry! You told me to come now, ASAP! Ice has a fucking kid?!” The short human roadblock — Maverick is frozen in place just a few steps away, blinking down at the mess of limbs and crutches and pain at his feet like someone swapped out his flight manual for a play-by-play of the Titanic hitting the iceberg. He crouches. “Kid, I swear I didn’t see you—”

“No shit,” Jake bites out, eyes glassy with pain. “What’re you, five foot two? I thought you were a coat rack.”

“Shut up,” Slider says, stepping in to collect Jake’s runaway crutches off the floor, but even he’s gentler now, the humor wiped from his face.

Kazansky is hovering, still trying to reach for him without pissing Jake off any further — but Jake snarls like a feral dog every time he gets too close. His scrawny chest is heaving under his gross hoodie. He knows he looks young now, with all the bravado replaced with pain, all sharp bones and wide eyes and a mess of snot and sweat as his body curls half-instinctively around the injury. “I’m fine,” Jake hisses, which is a lie so transparent even Miss Julie flinches.

“No, you’re not,” His stupid father coos, low and quiet, like he’s trying to soothe a scared bird or something. “You hurt your foot, didn’t you? When you fell? Can I see?”

Jake glares up at him, tears burning hot in his eyes. “No, you jackass! What gave it away? The screaming? Or the pissing-myself levels of agony?”

“Both,” Maverick answers, mouth creased around the edges in something like sadness, then lifts his hands as Jake shoots him a death glare. “Hey, hey, truce — I’m just the idiot obstacle you hit.”

“I don’t need your sympathy, shortass.” Jake spits. He tries to sit up again, properly, but this time his arm gives out too, trembling from pain, and he faceplants right into Kazansky’s chest. 

Both of them freeze — for a breath, two, three, it’s like neither of them is sure what to do; until Jake lets out a cracked breath and chokes out, “Don't touch it.”

“You’re hurt,” College says again, a broken record. “Let me help you.”

Jake’s voice comes out muffled and bitter: “You’re about thirteen years too late for that — move.”

But still, College holds him there, crouched awkwardly on the floor in the middle of a NAS Miramar hallway with half the base pretending not to stare.

“No,” He corrects, share-edged. “I was late. But I’m here now, Jacob — Jake.”

Jake stiffens at the nickname, at the sound of him trying. The pain in his face fights with something else — something too raw to name. He looks up, his expression contorting, and then — suddenly, like a circuit breaker flipping — he shoves Iceman away with a violent jerk of his arm. “Don’t pretend this means something! I fell!” 

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

His father doesn’t deny it anymore. Instead, he gets to his regulation loafers and offers his hand up. Jake stares at it like it’s a snake. Then, shakily, he grabs at Slider’s arm instead and hauls himself upright alone, trembling but furious. Slider looks at him like he's seeing double, but not with his Dad — with the other green-eyed asshole in the hallway. 

“You wanna make it up to me? You wanna help?” He spits, voice gone hoarse. “You can start by not talking to me.”

Kazansky nods once, and takes a half step back.

Jake gets about six feet down the hall before his bad leg gives out again.

He doesn’t fall this time — not fully — but it’s a near thing. His crutches drag awkwardly, the left one jamming into his belly while the right flails wide. His whole frame jolts forward and his weight slams down on the ankle that’s already well past ruined.

There’s a sick, wet crunch that only he hears, and then— 

“Fuck!” He wails, grabbing at the wall like it might save him from drowning. “Ah!” He bites down on his hoodie sleeve, tears pouring down his face.

Miss Julie’s already at his side, her heels clicking too fast across the tile. “Jacob! Jacob, stop, just—”

“Don’t touch me!” He sobs, turning the snarl on her even as his body folds like paper. He’s pale, greener around the mouth than his eyes. A cold sweat beads along his brow. “I’m not staying here, Miss Julie. I don’t care what he says. Just — just take me to the nearest shithole group home with a bunk or a chair I can sleep in. We’ll call it a day.”

“You can barely stand,” She tsks gently, not taking her eyes off the way he’s trembling. “We can’t—”

“I don’t care!” Jake roars, voice cracking again, raw like his throat’s been scraped open from the inside with a melon baller. “I’m not gonna sit around while some asshat with stars on his starched collar pretends he gives a shit about me! I’ve seen that movie before, Miss Julie, and spoiler alert: it sucks. He's lying!” 

“Jake, stop.”

It slices through the air like a blade, and even the background noise of the base seems to hush.

Jake freezes mid-limp, muscles locked. His head whips around.

His father steps forward, slow and sure, every line of his body taut with restrained command. The quiet man from earlier is gone, replaced by Vice Admiral Kazansky. “You are not going anywhere,” Iceman snaps, gruff voice ringing out like a death knell. “You’re injured. You need medical attention and I — we — are not putting you back out on the street. I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again.”

Jake stares at him, stunned. His face twitches — a slow, confused waver in the armor he’s spent his whole life perfecting. It doesn’t last long. He rallies, lips curling back into a vicious sneer. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. You gave up that right fifteen years ago. You don’t own me. I’m not some ensign you can bark orders at!”

“You’re right,” Iceman says simply. “You’re not.” Then he takes another step forward, this time gentler. “You’re my son.”

Jake flinches like he’s been struck, like he can just keep hobbling away.

“I didn’t know,” Iceman sighs, voice quieter now, but still steady. “I didn’t know, Jake. But now I do and I’m not letting you go. Please, just let me take you to a doctor. We have a base hospital next door.”

Jake’s throat works like he wants to say something, but the words catch. He blinks hard, like he can just erase this moment by sheer force of will. “You think saying that makes it real?” He wheezes, just on the raw side of terrified. “You don’t know me. You don’t want me. I’m just a loose end you’re trying to tie up before someone catches you and it ruins your career! I'm a publicity stunt.”

“I want you,” Ice corrects firmly, cutting through the fury. “You’re mine, whether you like it or not. I don’t care how angry you are. I don’t care what you say to me. You are not walking away on a shattered leg because you think it makes you tough. You’re a goddamn child, my goddamn child, and you’re in pain. So stop throwing my own godforsaken stubbornness back at me — I'm the one who gave it to you!”

Jake is shaking, chest heaving, nostrils flared. He looks like he’s about to keep screaming, keep running, keep breaking just for the spite of it—

But his leg won’t hold him. His body won’t let him go.

Something in his chest finally, finally buckles. “I don’t want your pity,” He sniffs. “I’m not some… some charity case. I’m not… I’m not your son because you say I am.”

“You’re right,” Iceman inches closer. “Your mother and I—”

“Don’t.” Jake shudders, teeth creaking with how hard he's pressing them shut. “Don’t you dare talk about her.”

Iceman stops instantly, nods once. “Okay, then I won’t, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that, I'm not anyone’s fucking sweetheart.” For a long, unbearable moment, Jake just breathes, ragged and humiliated and furious and about a hair’s breadth away from collapsing in front of all these uniformed bastards yet again. He nods once to Miss Julie, his gaze fixed on the floor. “I need to sit down.”

“Jake,” Miss Julie tries gently, her voice breaking as she steps toward him, but Maverick’s already moving.

He doesn’t ask. He just crosses the hall, reaches out, and lifts Jake into his arms like he’s lifted a long, lanky teenage boy a thousand times before. 

“What the hell — put me down!” Jake squeaks, his voice cracking, good leg kicking weakly. He writhes in Maverick’s arms like a cornered animal, but there’s a ragged edge to it now, breath hiccuping with pain. His ankle is screaming. His hands grab at Maverick’s shoulders, clawing for leverage, leverage he can’t find. “I said put me down!” He barks, voice shaking, face flushed with shame and heat and fury. “I don’t need to go to a doctor, I don’t need — I don’t want this! Just give me some fucking ice! That’s it, that’s all — just put me down!”

So Maverick does, he walks the last two steps between them and passes him off like he weighs nothing at all. Jake stiffens the instant he’s in the Iceman’s thick arms — arms that yes, are strong, steady, surprisingly warm. He freezes. His fingers press flat against Ice’s chest, not to hold on but to push off, eyes wide, lips parted, breath caught. He flinches from the contact like it burns. No, no, no. 

“Don’t—” He starts, whole body trembling. “Don’t touch me. Let go. I’m not staying, alright? I don’t care what you think you’re doing here, but you’re too late. So just — just drop me. I’ll crawl if I have to, I’ve done worse.”

“I’m not dropping you,” His father sighs, quietly. This voice isn’t commanding though. It’s not the Voice of God and the Navy Jake was expecting again. It’s just sad, like College has noticed the boy in his arms is trembling with the effort of not crying, not breaking, not running even though he can’t.

“You don’t want me,” Jake snaps, still pushing at his chest with one shaking hand. “You want the idea of me. You want the perfect version — the kind of son who can salute right and play piano and go to the Academy and fly your jets. But I’m not that. I’m nothing like you. I’m a mistake.”

“You’re my son,” Iceman corrects softly, his arms never loosening. “It doesn't matter how you got here.”

“It does.” Jake snarls. “Let me go.”

“No.”

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“I’ll make your life hell,” Jake breathes, voice thick, like it’s less of a threat and more of regurgitating something he's heard his whole life. “You don’t want me, Ice.”

“I didn’t say I did,” Ice answers, not unkindly. “I said you’re not going anywhere.”

Jake rears back, but Ice just shifts his grip to keep him close without restraining him too tight, like holding a frightened toddler. “You want to hate me? Go ahead. But you’re hurt, and you’re scared, and you’re allowed to be. I’m not asking you to forgive me, only to let me carry you, for now.”

Jake’s eyes squeeze shut like he’s bracing for a punch, a sob nearly breaks free, but he swallows it. His whole body goes taut, locked down, like he’s shoved himself into a too-small box lined with teeth. Then — he starts trying to slip out of Ice’s arms, not violently. Desperately. One leg wiggles, the other one jolts, and sends pain lancing through his face. He gasps, teeth bared. “Put me down,” He begs again, but softer now. It’s a plea. “Please.”

“You’re not going to die if someone carries you, Jake,” Kazansky rolls his blue eyes, still holding on. “And you’re not going to break me by being hard to love. I’ve loved a boy a hell of a lot like you, who bounced around in care until it made him a barbed-wire-clad adult. I still love him with all my heart and soul; granted, he mellowed.” 

That — that — stills Jake completely. “A boy? You love a boy?”

“Yes.”

Miss Julie watches with her hands over her mouth, tears slipping freely down her cheeks. Slider doesn’t say anything, for once. Maverick just stands with his arms crossed and his eyes unreadable, jaw squeezed tight.

Ice walks forward slowly, each step careful, patient, his voice a whisper — like he’s afraid any sudden movement might send Jake scattering into the wind again, and Jake doesn’t fight him anymore. His face is a carved mask of blankness. He looks like he’s been plucked out of flood waters and doesn’t know if he wants to be saved.

“Can I meet the boy?”

Ice shifts him so he can easily see the people who follow them and breathes out, “He just knocked you to the floor of this hallway. The other one is carrying your crutches, the one who tamed me.”

Jake’s green eyes go wide. 

They walk the rest of the way to the base hospital in silence.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Most Duke of Burgundy sightings are of territorial males.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake’s still in Ice’s arms, but he's gone stiff — his spine like a rod of iron, hands curled in tight fists against the ribbon rack. His eyes are darting, calculating exits, escape routes and hiding spots. He's barely even breathing. They’ve only just gotten him on the exam table — carefully, because his ankle is screaming now — when the nurse chirps something about needing an X-ray, already prepping the form like it’s routine.

He snaps. “That’s stupid!” He barks it, high and sharp. “I know what’s wrong — I’ve had X-rays, like ten! It’s not gonna change anything, it’s fused, it’s a mess, and this is just a waste of time and money—” His voice is climbing, laced with panic, the kind that never gets met with reason. “You people don’t listen, you just want your insurance payout or your box checked or — I don’t need this!”

The nurse flinches. Miss Julie hovers in the corner, wringing her hands. She's still holding his trash bag like a shield. Maverick had tried to take it a little bit earlier with a soft — I can take his clothes. But she held on. 

Jake moves like he’s about to leap off the table — even with a bad foot — and Iceman, who’s been leaning against the wall, holding him tight, finally speaks. “I’ll pay for it,” Cool and quiet, like he’s talking about ordering coffee.

Jake jerks his head toward him. “What?”

“I said I’ll pay for it.”

“You don’t have to — don’t do that. I didn’t ask you to! It’s expensive!”

His father shrugs a shoulder, eyes soft but unreadable. “I can afford it.” He says it like he's daring Jake to argue with that.

Jake stares at him, breathing like a rabbit caught in a snare. His throat works hard, jaw clenched. “You’re not gonna guilt me for it later?” He asks, voice small now, bitter, used to this game. “You’re not gonna remind me that I cost too much, or throw it in my face later when you send me back?”

“No,” Ice says, without hesitation. “You aren't going anywhere but home with me.”

“People do that,” Jake goads, like a warning. His eyes flicker down. “People always do that, lie and say it's fine then use it as leverage.”

“I’m not people, I’m your father.” Ice answers, and it somehow sounds not arrogant. Silence stretches between them. Jake twitches like he might throw something — not because he’s angry, but because he’s scared of what happens if he doesn’t fight. If he lets someone do something kind. People don't do kind shit for him for no reason. He hates not knowing what the angle is. 

“You won’t get anything out of this,” Jake mumbles eventually. “I don’t get better. It doesn’t heal. It’s always going to look like that and hurt like that.”

Ice just gives a faint nod. “We’ll take the picture anyway.”

Jake exhales, almost a laugh but with no humor at all. He looks over at the nurse, voice wrecked and raw. “Fine. But someone better numb it before you start twisting it around.”

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Red Admirals love rotting fruit, it draws them in.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The X-ray lightbox buzzes faintly in the silence. It hums over the film like a spotlight on something bad. Jake stares at it like it’s a blank wall, like it’s nothing.

But the X-ray shows everything.

His left foot is broken — clean through the mid-metatarsals, a jagged fracture, sharp and recent. His ankle? Worse. It’s actually two separate breaks, both cutting through the surgical hardware that had once held his joint together. What used to be a tight internal brace — fused to stop the pain, to give him some kind of function — is now a chaos of displaced screws and rods. One thick piece of metal has migrated, bent outward in a direction metal isn’t meant to bend. It’s poking through soft tissue on the X-ray, perilously close to a nerve bundle. They can't see that stuff on an X-ray, but even Jake knows that metal is poking something it shouldn't. 

It’s not just a break. It’s destroyed.

But Jake, sitting stiff-backed on the edge of the hospital bed, crosses his arms like a boy with a scraped knee, and flatly says, “It’s fine.”

Slider’s hand goes to his mouth after he sees it, takes one step back, visibly swallowing bile; Maverick, who’s probably seen ejector seat fires and tons of broken pilot shit, blinks hard and looks away like it hit too close to something he can't name. But his father, Iceman, doesn’t look away. He stares. The line of his jaw tightens, but his face doesn’t change. He’s gone cold again, measured, the kind of steady reserved for carrier landings in a storm. But his blue eyes — his eyes look carved out and hollow.

Jake glances at all of them, shrugs. “I told you,” He sighs, flippant. “It always looks like that.”

Miss Julie’s fingers curl around her clipboard like she might snap it in half. Her voice catches in her throat before she even opens her mouth. When she does, it’s a whisper. “Oh my God.”

Jake rolls his eyes at her. “What, now you’re crying?”

“You’re walking on that,” She gasps, shaking her head. “You’ve been walking on that for years.”

“Well, I don’t exactly get carried to school on a satin pillow,” Jake bites out. “That’s what the crutches are for.”

“They’re two years too small—”

“They still work.”

“Jake,” Maverick sighs, low, voice gravel-thick. “That’s not pain management — this is medical neglect.”

Jake shrugs again, “Tomato, tomahto. Medically expensive kids are a drain on the system.”

“You didn’t say it was this bad,” Iceman snaps, still staring at the image like it might morph into something less awful if he watches long enough.

Jake’s laugh is sharp. “Didn’t think you’d stick around long enough to see it, believe me.”

For a second, no one breathes.

Then Ice turns to the doctor, voice unreadable, but every word clipped, clear. “What are his options?”

“We’ll need a surgical consult,” The GMO sighs, gently. “This isn’t just a break. It’s a hardware failure. The metal will have to come out, or be replaced, or both. We might need to consider a full ankle replacement or fusion re-do. There’s nerve involvement, so it’s urgent. This isn’t optional.”

Jake huffs, looking away like the ceiling tiles have answers. “You’re not cutting me open again,” He grumbles. “Six times was enough.”

No one argues with him. Ice doesn’t push. He just steps closer, sits in the chair beside the gurney, slow and deliberate. “Jake,” He says, quietly. Jake meets his eyes — and for just a second, his shoulders flinch like he expects anger. But Ice doesn’t yell, doesn’t accuse. “I know you’re used to handling everything on your own,” He starts, “But this? This is a parent-level problem. It needs a parent-level solution. It’s out of your paygrade, sweetheart.”

Jake doesn’t answer. He just shifts his weight a little to the right — away from his ankle — and rests his head back against the wall. He doesn’t look at Ice, or Maverick, or Slider, not even Miss Julie, who’s blinking fast, like if she blinks fast enough she can suck her tears back in. He just stares at the doctor. “So what happens,” He says, voice even, almost bored, “If I say no?”

The doctor, to her credit, doesn’t recoil. She’s older, steady — the kind of woman who’s probably had to explain amputation to teenagers before. But still, she glances once toward Ice before answering. Jake notices, his voice sharpens. “No, don’t look at them.” His jaw tightens. “You’re the one with the degree. You tell me. It’s my body.”

The room stills. The doctor folds her hands together. “If you refuse treatment,” She says slowly, “We can’t force surgery. Not unless your life is in immediate danger. But if you continue walking on this? The fractures will get worse. The metal could sever tendons or nerves. You could lose motor function or the foot entirely.”

Jake doesn’t blink. “Okay,” He shrugs.

The doctor frowns. “Okay?”

“I’ll stop walking on it,” He replies, like that’s the reasonable answer. “Give me a boot or something or a better set of crutches. I’ll keep the pressure off. It’ll get bearable.”

“No, Jake,” She corrects gently, “It won’t.” Jake’s throat moves once. But he doesn’t speak. The doctor presses forward, still calm. “This isn’t a sprain or a stress fracture. The joint is collapsing. You’re in danger of permanent, disabling damage — worse than what you already have. I know you’ve lived with pain for a long time, but this isn’t about pain tolerance. It’s about damage. Damage you can’t undo.”

“I know pain,” Jake barks, sharp now. “You don’t have to explain it to me like I’m five.”

“Then you understand the risks,” She tries.

“I understand,” He bites back. “I just can’t—”

Then Ice — still seated, still quiet — finally says, “Jake, look at me.” Jake doesn’t move. So Ice lowers his voice even more, something just barely above a whisper. “Please, son.”

Jake’s jaw clenches. But slowly, slowly, he turns.

“I’m not letting you go back on the street with a shattered foot, regardless of how you feel about the situation.” Ice asserts, not cold, not angry; firm. “This isn’t a punishment. This isn’t about me. You deserve to walk without hurting. You deserve to heal.”

“I can’t afford to heal,” Jake snaps, incredulous. “I don’t have time to sit around and recover in some cushy bed. I don’t get that option. You’re not gonna—” He chokes on the rest of it, swallows hard. Jake shakes his head once, almost violently, like he’s shaking something off. “I can’t wake up in another group home,” He sniffles, voice cracking at the edges. “Not stuck in bed. Not helpless. That’s how people die in the system. That’s how you get—” He stops again.

The room is so silent it aches.

“I won’t let that happen,” Ice says softly. “You aren’t going anywhere without me, baby.”

Jake stares at him like he wants to believe that, but like he also wants to rip it apart before it has the chance to hurt him. Then, to the doctor, quietly: “You’re sure it’s that bad?”

“Yes,” She asserts. “I’m sure.”

Jake exhales like it’s the last thing holding him upright. He sags a little, like his bones have betrayed him again. “I was waiting till I was bigger,” He says flatly, almost like it’s nothing. “To get it cut off.” He doesn’t look at anyone when he says it — just keeps watching the fluorescent lights overhead, the kind that buzz faintly and never quite seem to turn all the way off. “So I wouldn’t have to get it redone, you know?” He adds, voice softening in a strange, matter-of-fact way. “Revision surgeries, because you keep growing and the bone gets weird and then the prosthetic doesn’t fit right and—” He waves a vague hand, “—it’s a whole thing. I wanted to wait till nineteen, maybe twenty.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then shrugs like he’s talking about changing a tire. “Always figured I'd schedule it myself. Make the appointment. Go in, go out. Simple, no drama.”

Miss Julie chokes on a sob. Slider puts a hand on her shoulder, silent. Maverick runs a hand over his mouth, jaw locked. Ice just watches him like something inside his chest is trying is damnedest not to shatter.

“I read about it,” Jake sighs, small and almost dreamy now. “You can pick if you want a below-knee or above-knee. Depends on the nerve damage, and how high up they have to go to get good edges. Some people even go for the blade runner kind of prosthetic, like carbon fiber, springy. They’re fast.” A little glimmer in his eye, the same one he had watching jets slice the sky earlier. “I figured, if I couldn’t fly… maybe I could still run.” The hope dies in real time — right there in the set of his mouth, in the corners of his eyes. It dries up like water in the sun. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna make it that far anyway. Not with the way this foot’s been going.” He finally looks at the doctor again. “You said the metal’s migrating?”

She nods slowly. “Yes. Some of it’s dangerously close to the tibial nerve.”

Jake hums. “So the clock's ticking then.”

Ice finally moves — takes one slow step forward, then another. Jake flinches before he even gets close. “Don’t,” Jake says, voice cracking at the edges. “Don’t touch me right now. I can’t — I can’t, okay?”

“I won’t,” Ice says, stopping where he is. His hands stay at his sides. “I’m not going to touch you.”

Jake swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. “You don’t get to look at me like that, like you're sorry.”

“I am sorry,” Ice says quietly. 

Jake’s laugh is sharp and hollow. “You don't even know me.”

“I’d like to.”

“Too late,” Jake mutters, folding in on himself. “Everyone's always late.”

But still, when the doctor starts talking again — explaining what kind of surgery is needed, what kind of damage they’re dealing with — Jake doesn’t interrupt.

He just nods and for once, he listens.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“White Admirals are shade-tolerant, but love to lay their eggs on Honeysuckle in dappled sunlight. They want their little ones to be born in the light.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake uses his key and sidles through the front door of his parents’ place with no knock, no text, no warning — just a whoosh of dry San Diego autumn air and the familiar, one-two rhythm thunk of a prosthetic foot on hardwood. He tosses his duffel on the stairs after toeing off his boots in the entryway. His prosthetic clicks faintly as he walks — sleek, carbon-fiber, well-fitted. Jake wears it like he was born with it. He loves his leg, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes — but something he can fuss and fuck with himself.

“Hello?” He calls out lazily, already unzipping his jacket and flinging it near the coat rack. “Old fucks, you decent? It’s your favorite kid!”

The only reply he gets is the low murmur of the living room TV — something slow and ‘90s, probably another documentary Mav conned his Dad into watching to make him fall asleep. Jake learned pretty early on that the best way to get his workaholic Dad to sleep was to put on something mind-numbingly boring, like a documentary on the discovery of sugar, and boom, the Iceman was out like a light. 

He makes his way down the hall, glancing into the living room — and yup, there he is.

His Dad, laid out and napping in a patch of golden afternoon light like a fat spoiled cat. His book’s slipped onto his chest, his hand resting lightly over the cover, and his gray-blond head is turned slightly toward the back of the couch, mouth barely parted in sleep. He’s snoring lightly.

Jake’s grin goes slow and sharp. “Oh, you poor old man,” He quietly giggles with the reverence of a lion in tall grass. “You should’ve deadbolted the door.”

He moves quietly, light on his feet — the way a hunter does. He starts with one knee on the cushions, then the other. He uses his biceps to lift himself fully onto the couch without a sound, crab-walking over Ice’s legs with far more grace than a prosthetic should allow. He looms above him dramatically, hips raised as high as he can get them in this position, practically in a backbend as he grins at his drooling Dad, so sweet, so peaceful — 

Then he drops.

“Oof—! Jake!” Ice coughs and wheezes as nearly two hundred pounds of his grown son come crashing down across his chest and stomach, his arms instinctively coming up to wrap around him in a full-bodied, chaotic hug — if only to keep his hysterically laughing son from rolling off him and into the glass coffee table.

“Hi Dad!” Jake howls, curling like a contortionist to bury his cold nose into Ice’s collar like an overgrown puppy. “You looked lonely, thought I’d fix that.”

“You’re too old to be climbing on me,” Ice grunts, but there’s no heat behind it. He squeezes his son a little too hard in the ribs though, if only to make him squeak like a dog toy. “I’m retired, not reinforced concrete.”

Jake snorts and presses his full forehead to his father’s neck, his own neck bending in ways it shouldn’t be able to. “You’re lucky I’m not still fifteen, back then I was full of spite and bones.”

“You were all elbows.”

“You’re still bony,” Comes a new voice from the kitchen — Maverick, holding a cup of coffee and smiling; he already saw the whole thing from behind the counter. “Should I get the defibrillator?”

“Funny,” Ice grumbles.

Jake flops around and looks at him with a shit-eating grin. “Miss me though?”

His father rolls his eyes, but he threads his thick fingers through Jake’s curls all the same, slow and grounding. “Always.”

“I ordered pizza,” He mumbles eventually, cheek still pressed to his father’s squishy chest. “Should be here in about ten.”

“That’s why we let you in,” Maverick says, ruffling Jake’s hair as he walks by. “That and the guilt — it’s like one of those Sarah McLachlan commercials. In the arms of the angels...”

Jake throws a pillow at his back, already laughing.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“The scalloped edges and cryptic colouring of a Comma’s wings are used to conceal hibernating adults amongst piles of dead leaves, while the larvae, covered with brown and white markings, bear a striking resemblance to bird shit.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

Chapter 3

Summary:

Fair warning guys, I was sobbing while writing the moment Bradley cracks through that chrysalis. 😭😭😭

Notes:

Enjoy! ❤️🥰 I got on a roll and this sort of snowballed. Can y'all tell I had a day off to write this? 🤣

Also, I promise I'll answer all the comments soon!!! Sorry it’s taken so long ❤️🥰

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“In Appalachian folklore, white moths are often believed to mark the presence of those we’ve lost and those we ache to remember.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The first thing Jake notices when they pull up to the brownstone in Coronado is that it’s big. It’s not Navy brass big — not cold, glassy, concrete-and-marble kind of money — but old, weathered, lovingly restored. There's ivy crawling up the sides and a porch swing, for Christ’s sake. The front door is painted navy blue, like someone gave a shit what color it was. There’s a little sign tilted against the front door that says Welcome Home in cheerful, hand-carved letters. It makes Jake want to throw up.

He doesn’t speak for the whole drive there, just sits in the backseat next to Maverick like a loaded mousetrap, glaring out the window with his jaw clenched and his left leg propped on a pillow from CVS. He’s high on base hospital painkillers and seething through every one of them. Kazansky keeps glancing at him in the rearview mirror like he’s afraid Jake might explode or vanish into smoke if he's left alone for too long. 

Jake would prefer both, if he's being honest.

They have to carry him up the steps because the entryway is too narrow for his crutches. His bad leg is trapped in a posterior long leg splint now — it’s a clamshell, the bottom is hard and rigid with stiffened orthocast, but soft on the top for swelling, the whole giant cast stretches from his upper thigh to his toes and is swaddled in four rolls of beige ACE bandages. It's twice as useless and three times as painful as it was. It burns all the way up to his hip. He doesn’t bitch anymore though, he figures they don't want to hear it anyway. 

When College unlocks the door and pushes it open, Jake’s immediately overwhelmed — it’s warm inside, too warm. Golden lamplight, hardwood floors, the smell of dinner wafting from the bag on the countertop, it’s the greasy Panda Express that somebody went to pick up. Probably the same somebody who left a pair of cleats on the stairs. An acoustic guitar leans against the couch; there’s a baby grand piano in the corner. Fuck, there’s a fridge with a water spout and shiny chrome that's covered in photos.

He clocks it like a knife to the throat. Smiling snapshots — the three of them, always together. Iceman in his civilian clothes, then in swim trunks — dorky sunglasses, bright pink flip-flops, a soft belly, broad hairy chest, and a volleyball tucked under one arm. He's grinning like a different person, with sunburnt cheeks and a band-aid on his nose. There's Slider, shirtless at the beach with a beer in one hand and a matching sunburn. Slider on a ship that can't fit in the frame. Slider with a cherry on his nose. There’s Maverick, eyes crinkled in the corners, a ridiculous pink birthday hat on his head. A closed-eyed blissed out young Maverick with a laughing blond couple and a baby. 

That kid, that baby, is in every picture, growing taller over the years. 

He's on Slider’s shoulders. He's wearing a baggy flight suit. He's graduating from kindergarten, middle school. He's playing baseball, volleyball, lacrosse — he's in fucking boy scouts. He's always smiling; he's chubby — he's had enough to eat his whole life, fat on love and home-cooked meals. He goes from blond to dirty blond and then light brown. He must love cookie cakes because that's his birthday cake every year, Jake’s never had a goddamn birthday cake. But there’s this asshole kid, beaming up at Jake’s Dad over a cookie cake with the number fifteen on it. Jake spent his fifteenth birthday sleeping under an overpass. 

One of the photos is clearly recent. It’s basically a family portrait. The teenage boy’s standing between all three of them, grinning like a golden retriever, his arms slung around their shoulders like he’s done it a thousand times before. He got tall, there's a nineteen on the cookie cake now. Jake wants to tear it to pieces. 

He knows who that is before anyone says a word.

Bradley. 

They mentioned him on the car ride up, the kid they've been raising together for fourteen years. The orphan they took in, while Jake was getting crippled by a foster father’s boot. 

He can feel something white-hot and bile-colored start to twist in his gut.

He doesn’t want to go further in. He wants to back out, but he can’t, because Slider has him again, one arm under his knees, the other braced behind his back. Jake stiffens, tries not to shake, pretends his fists aren’t clenched tight in his hoodie sleeves, pretends he isn’t a trash bag someone forgot to leave at the curb.

“I’ll go get him,” Maverick says from behind, turning to go up the nearest staircase. “He’ll want to say hi.”

Jake’s stomach churns. 

They make it about six feet into the living room before there’s a thud-thud-thud on the stairs. A blur of tan limbs and a t-shirt that reads NAVY BRAT appears at the top of the landing. The kid looks like his pictures, big brown eyes and sun-bleached light brown hair, complete with the kind of boundless energy Jake hasn't seen in a single foster kid his entire life. He grins when he sees them.

“Hey!” The cuckoo crows like a rooster, like Jake’s existence didn't just get dropped on him via phone call an hour ago. “Is this him?!”

Jake’s eyes narrow into slits. Bradley barrels down the stairs two at a time, socks sliding on wood, then practically skids to a stop in front of them. “Whoa — hi! I’m Bradley.” He beams like an idiot, reaching out. “You must be Jake! I’m your big brother!”

“Don’t touch me.” Jake’s voice is sharp enough to cut.

Bradley falters. His smile flickers, but he doesn’t drop it. “Sorry — sorry. I was just— I thought maybe you wanted—”

“I don’t,” Jake flips him off. “And whatever hug you’re trying to give me, you can keep it, fatass chicken.”

“Jacob!” College snaps but Jake doesn't care. He doesn't even care if he gets dropped by Slider, who stiffens under him, he's too busy staring at the usurper chick in his goddamn nest. 

Bradley blinks once. “What?”

“I said what I said,” Jake growls, jealousy oozing from every pore. “You’ve got bird legs and a linebacker gut. What are you, a failed science experiment? A chicken nugget that made it to high school? I guess you are what you eat.” You’re fat because you stole my Dad; you stole my life. 

Bradley’s mouth opens and closes. “You—” He looks down at himself, then back up at Jake, utterly baffled. “I’m — I play lacrosse.”

“Wow,” Jake deadpans. “Congrats on running around with a stick. You want a medal or a leash, Fido?”

Slider inhales like he’s watching a car crash in slow motion. Iceman shuts his eyes for half a second, jaw working like he’s chewing on a landmine or trying not to smack Jake across the fucking face. Maverick looks pissed. 

“Okay,” Bradley says finally, color rising in his cheeks. “You don’t have to like me. But you don’t have to be a dick.”

Jake glares at him, eyes bloodshot and rimmed in bruised green. “Watch me.”

For a second, it looks like Bradley might say something back — but then he glances at Iceman, and something seems to click in his dumb birdbrain. Bradley exhales and backs off a step, shoulders loosening. “Right,” He sighs, voice quieter now. “Whatever.”

Jake watches him retreat with the kind of petty satisfaction that never lasts long. The fire in his chest sputters, but the ash sticks. He curls inward a little, teeth grinding like he’s trying to crush something that won’t die.

“I want a room with a lock,” He orders no one in particular. “And no pictures of anyone’s happy family on the fucking walls.”

Slider nods, lips pressed into a thin line, and carries Jake up the stairs. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“The Death's-head hawkmoth gets its name from the skull-like markings on its belly and is commonly associated with the Greek fate, Atropos, who severs the golden thread of life.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Bradley tries.

God, he tries.

He grew up in this house. He knows what pain looks like — he’s seen it in Mav’s nightmares, in Ice’s shoulders after a bad call from DC, in Slider’s eyes when someone they loved didn’t come back from overseas. But it’s never looked like this, like a kid younger than him who looks twice as old, wrapped up in threadbare oversized hoodies with shadows carved into his face and fury blooming in every bone. Jake wobbles in that huge cast like it hurts him to be here, like it hurts to exist.

So, Bradley tries.

The first night, Jake nearly falls in the shower.

The bathroom they share is on the second floor — it’s the old one, the weird one, the one that Ice never got around to remodeling because it used to be Bradley's. The tub is narrow and deep, the tiles are slippery when wet, and the showerhead groans like it’s from the fifties. Slider had to help Jake in the first time, but Jake screamed at him the second he tried to stay in the room — I’m not a baby, I can fucking do it, get out! — and slammed the door with his good leg.

Then there's a thump. 

A horrible sound. 

A grunt. 

The scrape of skin on tile.

By the time Slider shoves the door open with his shoulder, Jake's on the floor of the tub, pale and shaking and wet to the bone, crying, clutching his bad leg like it’s made of fire. They replace the hinges on that door, even though Bradley wishes they hadn't. 

Jake won’t let anyone help him out, even when he desperately needs it. 

It’s scary. 

Bradley watches all of it from the hallway, chest tight and fists clenched. Afterward, when they finally get Jake settled in his room — towel-wrapped, barely coherent, full of meds and still refusing help — Bradley disappears into the garage.

He finds his old tool bag gathering dust under two tubs of Christmas and Hanukkah decor — he used to spend every afternoon on his own lowered bench in the garage, identical to Maverick’s, as a little kid grieving his mom’s death like an open wound. He and Mav used to build all manner of junk together to pass the time and pointedly not think about her. Bradley still remembers how to fix up that sort of junk and so he builds the seat that night.

It’s ugly, just scrap pine and a salvaged deck plank, but it’s solid. He adds braces, seals the wood. He’s never been so careful in all his life. He finds a waterproof cushion and attaches it like he's preparing for an elephant to sit on the damn thing and not a scrawny fifteen-year-old kid. In the morning, he wedges it into the tub while Jake’s still asleep and puts up a sticky note in his neatest block letters:

FOR YOU. SAFE TO SIT ON. LOVE YOU. — BRADLEY

Jake ignores it.

The second day, Bradley installs two grip bars. Ice helps him — drills into the tile, anchors the bolts — and Bradley watches, bouncing on the balls of his feet, heart pounding like Jake might thank him for this, like it might be the bridge.

But Jake doesn’t say a word. He stares at the new bars when he hobbles in. One on the wall, one on the edge of the tub. They gleam in the morning light like something important, like safety, like a peace offering.

That night, as Bradley’s passing in the hall, he sees Jake eye him, rip down the sticky note, and flush it.

Bradley doesn’t stop.

He starts asking, quietly, cautiously, with the gentle instinct of someone who’s never had to be afraid in his own home. He knocks on Jake’s door with a little rap-tap-tap, and if Jake doesn’t answer, he tries again later. He's always polite, always upbeat; trying to chip away at a glacier with a spoon.

“Hey,” Bradley chirps one afternoon, holding a plate of pasta bake. “I made this baked mac and cheese thing, but like — real cheese, not the box. I used to love it when I was sick. I know your leg was hurting earlier, want some?”

The door slams so hard that a framed photo on the wall wobbles. Bradley has to lunge to catch it.

Another time: “I know you’re not supposed to have a lot of sugar on the meds, but I made lemon ice — it’s mostly water and lemon juice, helps with nausea. It’s cold, if your leg’s hot. You can leave the bowl outside when you’re done.”

He puts it outside the door and finds it still there two hours later: untouched and melted.

Once, after a long surgery where Jake comes back green-faced and trembling — clinging to the stair railings like gravity itself hates him, wearing the most horrific thing on his leg: an external fixator — Bradley makes soup. It’s just broth and soft noodles, garlic, and chicken. It’s simple and warm, not too much. It should be easy on his raw, antibiotic-stripped gut microbiome. He doesn’t even knock this time, just leaves it outside with a quiet, folded note that says:

IN CASE YOU’RE HUNGRY. I’LL TAKE THE BOWL LATER. NO BIG DEAL. LOVE YOU JAKEY. FEEL BETTER, K? — BRAD

Jake opens the door from his bed, stares at the bowl.

Then uses the end of his crutch to knock it over, steaming, soaking into the carpet. He slams the door so hard the hinges crack. 

Bradley doesn’t cry. He wants to, out of frustration and fear. 

He sits on the back porch that night with Mav, poking at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker, jaw clenched so tight it aches. “I’m trying,” He admits, voice low and raw. “I know I’m not — I know I’m not who he wants. But he doesn’t even try back.”

Maverick ruffles his hair gently, sorrowful and guilty in a way Bradley doesn't understand. “He’s not ready yet, kiddo. You're doing so good.”

“Well, when’s he gonna be ready? I can’t — I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Maverick sighs. “You’re doing what you’ve always done — giving a shit. He just doesn't know what that feels like yet. It doesn’t mean it’s wasted.” When Bradley still looks confused, Mav elaborates, he's good at making even the hardest stuff make sense. “Sweetheart, you can’t raise a lion in a zoo and drop it in the savanna, right?”

“No, being raised in captivity means they don't know how to survive.” His eyes widen. He thinks about every slammed door, every insult, every half-eaten plate of food. “Oh.”

He makes the eggs the next morning, just in case Jake wakes up hungry.

They're scrambled with no milk, not too greasy; salted the way he heard Jake like them, one time, in passing. He leaves them outside the door. 

They’re still there when he gets home from school, cold and curled at the edges. A fly buzzes around the plate. He throws them out without a word.

But still — still — he tries again the next day.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“The Indian meal moth, also known as the pantry moth (Plodia interpunctella), is usually a consumer of various flours, cereals, rice, and other sorts of commonly packaged foods as a young hungry caterpillar. However, if there's not enough food to be had, or if there are too many siblings in a brood, as larvae, these moths will turn on one another in cannibalism.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Bradley tries everything — because Jake’s fifteen, broken-looking, and limping around on a leg covered in wires and metal with the kind of bitterness Bradley’s never seen in someone so young. It’s not fair. So, he digs out an old baseball glove from the garage one weekend — his first glove, beaten soft with years of use and a hundred games played under the lazy Pacific sun. He cleans it carefully, re-oils the leather, and tightens the laces. Then he finds a spare ball, too. Brings them upstairs like he’s offering treasure.

Jake’s sitting on the edge of his bed, frowning down at his swollen, trapped leg.

“Hey,” Bradley starts gently in the doorframe, rubbing a hand through his hair. “I thought we could toss the ball outside for a while, just sitting down, ya know? Catch and throw, real easy on your leg. If you wanted?”

Jake doesn’t even blink.

The little blond just lifts one middle finger and holds it there.

Bradley swallows. “…Okay. No problem.” He leaves the glove on Jake’s nightstand anyway. Later, he finds it stuffed under his little brother's bed, crushed and crumpled.

The next week, he tries something else. “Wanna hit up In-N-Out?” Bradley tries, dangling his Bronco’s keys. “I got twenty bucks and a craving for fries. My treat.”

Jake lifts his head and looks at him — really looks at him — for the first time in days. Then he snorts. “Yeah, I bet you do. Gotta feed that fatass gut somehow.”

Bradley flinches. He’s not fat. He knows that. He plays varsity soccer, lifts with Slider in the garage sometimes. But Jake says it with such practiced venom — like he wants to wound, like it’s the only weapon he has left — and it lands with more force than it should.

Still, Bradley forces a smile, trying to laugh it off. “Guess I’m a growing boy.”

Jake smirks and looks away. “More like growing sideways.”

Bradley doesn’t say anything after that.

He eats in the car alone.

Later, he tries books.

He remembers what books did for him when he was little — when his mom died, when he had trouble sleeping, when the world felt too big and too loud. He finds a cool little independent bookstore near the pier, full of creaky floors and handwritten staff picks and armchairs that smell like old wood and salt air. It’s the kind of place that’s easy to get lost in. 

He tries to share that with Jake. “I thought maybe we could check this place out,” He tries, holding up a flier. “They’ve got a manga section. Comics, too. You can just sit, I checked. Nobody bugs you.”

Jake stares at the flier, then at him. “Yeah, sure,” He sneers, crumbling it up and throwing it at Bradley’s head. “Sounds like a real great time, fatass. More rich people bullshit.”

Bradley blinks, hurt. “It’s just books.”

“Exactly,” Jake scoffs, voice sharp as glass. “Books are for people with parents who read them bedtime stories. People who don’t need to sell ’em for bus fare. Don’t act like you’re better than me.”

“I wasn’t,” Bradley squawks, stunned, hands raised. “I just — thought you might like—”

“Well, I don’t,” Jake snarls, wielding one of his crutches like he's gonna swing on him. “And I don’t need your goddamn pity field trip.”

Bradley stands there a few seconds longer, he bends down to grab the flier and smooths it out until it's mostly flat and very wrinkled, then leaves it on Jake’s empty bedside table and walks out.

He tries the library next. It’s lower pressure, right? Free, quiet, less rich people bullshit, he hopes.

Jake doesn’t even get out of the car. “Books are stupid,” He growls, arms crossed and refusing to meet Bradley’s eyes.

Bradley looks over, hand still on the ignition. “Not all of them.”

Jake snorts. “Yeah, they are… a huge waste of time.”

Bradley doesn’t argue, just sighs. He puts the car in reverse and drives them home in silence.

That’s when the doubt creeps in. Bradley’s sitting on the roof that night — his old spot, above the garage, where he used to bring homework and headphones and dreams. The stars are fuzzy from the marine layer. The wind smells like salt and asphalt. He’s got his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms locked around them. His face is buried in the fabric of his hoodie.

He doesn’t cry. But it’s close. 

Nothing is working.

Every step forward feels like two steps back. Every gesture is met with mockery, with venom, with silence and it’s starting to feel like maybe Jake hates him — not just the situation, or the house, or the pain, but him, Bradley, specifically. As if his existence is an insult, like his smile is something Jake wants to rip off his face.

He doesn’t tell anyone how defeated he feels — not Mav, or Ice, or Slider. He just says, I’ve got tons of homework, and goes upstairs that night. He eats dinner alone in his room, dumps the rest when his appetite deserts him. He doesn't leave a plate outside Jake’s door.

For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t try anything, and weirdly — that’s when it hurts the most.

It feels like giving up and Bradley Bradshaw has never been someone who gives up.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Raphia frater, which literally means the brother moth or simply the brother, is a moth of the family Noctuidae.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

It’s three months in, and no one’s gotten through Jake’s shell. Not Mav, with his soft-touch parenting and awkward jokes, Jake isn't Bradley — he doesn't want to build shit and ride fast. Not Ice, with his calm, clinical warmth and quiet understanding — Jake looks exactly like Ice and that seems to be something incendiary whenever he notices it. Not even Slider, who tries once with a too-loud, too-cheerful how’s that leg, champ? and gets a death glare so intense he nopes out and never tries again. Jake doesn't want to lift weights, and he can't go on runs. He just listens to music, lies in bed, and ignores them. 

Jake doesn’t speak at dinner. He eats late, alone, or not at all. He slams his door and keeps it locked. He hates the physical therapist and specialists Ice found, Bradley thinks the leg might never get better, and that scares him. Jake hates the tutor Mav brought in when he couldn't go to school. Hates the cat, a chubby little ginger boy named VF-114. Hates the green blackout curtains they got him. Hates the way they try to smile at him like he’s important to them. Bradley’s never seen Jake smile or laugh or enjoy anything. 

Jake especially hates school. 

“School is bullshit,” He tells Bradley, for maybe the seventh time that week.

Bradley sighs as he tosses his lacrosse bag into the car. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Exactly,” Jake bitches from the couch, matchstick arms crossed because he doesn't eat. “The bullshittiest day of all.”

They’ve stopped fighting about it. If Ice signs the excused absence slips, Bradley’s not going to push. It’s easier — safer — to just bring him along to practice after school to get him out of the house. Jake refuses to live camped on the couch like some helpless loser with a death leg.

The drive is quiet. Jake’s in the passenger seat, holey hoodie pulled low over his face because he doesn't let them buy him clothes or wear what they do get, ancient headphones plugged into his CD player, arms folded so tight it looks painful. He doesn't speak the whole way. He doesn't even pretend to acknowledge the sports field when they get there.

Bradley doesn’t say much either. He’s tired. His math grade is slipping. He hasn’t slept well in weeks and this week, Coach is running full-contact drills. He’s already bracing for bruises. So when he gets out of the car and heads to the locker room, he doesn’t say goodbye, doesn't check to see if Jake’s watching, or if he needs help hauling his metal-caged leg out of the car.

Practice is brutal. The summer heat hasn’t broken yet and the drills are faster than usual. Bradley’s working midfield, running sprints and dodges, and tackles until his shirt is soaked through. He’s not in the zone today, distracted, dragging, and the coach yells at him twice before finally swapping him out of rotation.

But it’s during a faceoff drill — stupidly aggressive, too fast — when the hit lands.

He doesn’t see it coming.

He hears the whip of the stick first, then feels it: sharp, direct, clean across his kneecap.

The pain is white-hot.

Bradley stumbles, curses, and falls hard onto his hands. Turf burns his palms. His leg screams. It’s not serious, not really — there's no bone crunch, no twist — but the gash is crooked, ugly, and bleeding through his pants. The rest of his exposed leg looks like something scraped off asphalt.

Coach blows the whistle and swears. Someone helps him up, but Bradley waves him off, gritting his teeth.

“I’m good, I’m good,” He lies, groaning as he hobbles toward the only sagging bench.

He expects nothing when he rounds the track toward the bleachers to get there, maybe a sarcastic remark or the usual scowl. Maybe Jake’s not even there anymore, maybe he crutched off.

But instead—

Jake is there.

Standing. Not sitting. Not slouched. Standing without his crutches. Wide-eyed. White-faced. His hands clenched at his sides. His whole body quivering like a taut wire.

And then — Jake sprints. 

Jake is in chronic and astonishing amounts of pain. They've seen the X-rays, they all know how bad it is on paper, let alone in his poor body. Bradley has never seen Jake get across a room without gasping in white-hot agony. 

This is a run. Or well, it’s the best he can manage. It’s an awkward, staggering thing, because his metal-trapped leg drags and he still leans heavily on a crutch because he’s faster on one, but it’s more than Bradley’s ever seen him move. He bounds down the bleacher steps, nearly trips, skids across the turf in his stupid ancient Vans with no traction, and screams: “HEY! HEY! SOMEONE GET MY BIG BROTHER SOME GODDAMN WATER — HE’S BLEEDING! GAUZE, ANYTHING! DON’T JUST STAND THERE!”

People freeze, a few kids blink, and one of the assistant coaches jerks into motion.

Bradley, still hobbling, stops dead.

Jake rushes up to him and grabs his elbow with his single free hand, gripping it like Bradley might collapse if he lets go. “Sit down. You’re bleeding, you idiot, what the hell — why’d you let him hit you? You’re supposed to dodge that shit, fucking fatass chicken—”

“Jake,” Bradley says, stunned.

“Jesus, sit! You need, like, stitches or something. I told you not to play with dumbasses — MOVE, I’ll help you, Christ—” His hands are shaking. He looks furious and terrified. His eyes — Jesus, his eyes are glassy and panicked and locked entirely on Bradley, like nothing else in the world matters except that bleeding knee.

Bradley sits, his leg does hurt, but mostly because Jake is still yelling at someone — a trainer? another player? maybe Coach? — to get gauze, now, and maybe an ice pack too, and he’s not gonna walk it off, dumbass, his whole damn knee is split open.

Bradley sits there and stares at him. Then he starts to grin. This — this moment, this raw panic and the desperate need to help, the way Jake’s hand is still gripping his arm like he’s afraid he’ll vanish — this is real.

It’s more real than three months of silence, more real than insults and slammed doors and broken down baseball gloves.

Jake cares. He doesn’t even know he’s giving himself away, doesn’t seem to notice that he’s clutching Bradley’s arm like a lifeline or swearing loud enough to make three JV players flinch.

He loves him. Jake loves him. 

Bradley feels it like a warm shock in his chest, like the tide coming in. He lets the grin stretch wide across his face. He has a little brother who loves him.

Jake turns to snap at someone behind him and finally sees the expression.

“What?” He snarls with all his teeth; demanding. “Why are you — don’t smile at me, you look like a moron. You’re bleeding! Why are you grinning like a loon!?”

“You love me,” Bradley squeals, through a grin he can’t stop.

Jake flushes scarlet. “I don’t,” He hisses instantly. “I don’t give a shit about you, you’re a walking injury. Drink the damn water.”

“Okay,” Bradley says brightly, accepting the bottle someone finally brings.

Jake glares at him.

Bradley just sips and keeps grinning.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“As a defense mechanism, when an Elephant hawkmoth caterpillar feels threatened, it will swell its body up into a shape that resembles a snake's head.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Bradley’s knee throbs with every heartbeat, and he knows he’s going to be limping for a few days, but truth be told — it’s not that bad. It’s a surface gash. He needs maybe five or six stitches, tops, some bandages, definitely some ice. He’s had worse from his sports over the years.

But Jake doesn’t care about scale.

Jake clearly sees blood, clearly sees his idiot big brother smiling through it, and goes full Code Red. He demands someone’s phone, shouts until Coach hands his over. Then Jake calls Ice, immediately, speaking so fast and furious that the man probably thinks someone’s been murdered.

“I’m calling Dad,” Jake tells Bradley sharply, finger in the air like it’s a disciplinary measure. “You’re not stopping me. You’re not gonna just sit there and go home and bleed to death, you goddamn idiot.”

“I’m not—”

Jake turns his back on him like he’s done listening. He doesn’t stop at Ice, either. He calls Mav next, because someone has to drive us to the hospital while Dad fills out the intake forms, and then Slider after that because he’s the only one who can make the urgent care people move their ass. All of them agree to come, apparently because Jake orders them to.

“You’re bleeding and I’m the only person here with a functioning brain!” Jake shouts, affronted. Bradley’s pretty sure Jake hasn’t realized he’s been calling Ice Dad for thirty minutes. “Someone had to do something!”

By the time Ice’s Tahoe pulls into the parking lot, followed immediately by Mav’s bike and Slider’s old convertible with the top still down, Jake is pacing in a tight, angry loop in front of Bradley like a manic guard dog who just learned how to swear.

Ice gets out first, eyes scanning fast, face pale.

“What happened?” He barks, already reaching for the medical kit in his four-door.

Jake intercepts him. “What happened, Dad.” The scrawny blond yowls, loud and indignant, “Is that your dumbass older son got sliced by some meathead with a weapon and now he’s bleeding all over the place like a stuck pig and no one is treating it like it’s an emergency!”

Maverick and Slider catch up just in time to hear that: Mav blinks, nonplussed and horrified; Slider looks like he’s walked into a scene mid-movie.

“I — Bradley?” Ice asks, calmly, though his eyes have now locked on the very red stain soaking through his pant leg.

Bradley, still sitting on the bench, throws up a cheery wave. “Hey, Pops.”

“He needs the hospital!” Jake rages. “His knee is basically off. He might need a skin graft. And it’s hot out, so he probably has heat stroke, and he’s been sprinting all practice like a dumbass, and also he hasn’t eaten anything but cereal and air for, like, three days—”

“That’s not true,” Bradley corrects cheerfully. “I had a protein bar before practice, cereal and toast for breakfast, and we had lasagna last night.”

Jake spins on him. “SHUT UP. You are injured. Stop smiling like you’re fine! You are not fine! You’re BLEEDING — someone fix him, dammit!”

Ice kneels in front of Bradley and gently pulls up the torn edge of his pants, eyes flicking over the damage. “It’s superficial. But you’re right, Jake — he does need stitches.”

“I told you!” Jake points at everyone like he’s keeping score. “You’re all taking this too lightly!” 

“Kid,” Slider coos, turning to his youngest. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m furious.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m right!” Jake shoots back. “We need to get him to the ER right now and I swear to god, we are stopping for fast food on the way, because this idiot likes those crispy chicken sandwiches and I am not letting him faint in the waiting room because he forgot to eat again—”

Everyone freezes at that, smiles growing. 

Jake blinks, then goes bright red. “I mean. I don’t care,” He squeaks, too quickly. “He’s stupid. He probably deserves tetanus.”

But Ice is already standing up, his hand resting gently on Jake’s shoulder. “Jake,” He says, softly. “Good job looking after your brother.”

“He’s not my brother,” Jake hisses, looking like he wants to disappear.

Bradley snorts from the bench, wide-eyed and beaming. “Liar, I’m your big brother, you let everyone know.”

“Shut up,” Jake grumbles.

“Thanks, buddy,” Bradley says, voice quieter now, sincere.

Jake looks at him, jaw tight. Then turns back to Ice, determined again. “Can I go in the car with him?”

“You want to ride with us to the hospital?”

“No. I want to watch the triage nurse put him in a room. I don’t trust you people to make him stay still.”

Ice raises a brow. “But fast food first?”

“Duh.”

“Drive-thru?”

Jake exhales, like he’s making a sacrifice. “Fine, but only if he doesn’t throw up.”

Bradley just grins and somehow, when Jake grabs his crutches and stomps dramatically toward the car, holding the door open with an irritated huff like he’s already regretting this whole thing, it feels a little like being told you matter — even if it comes with a chicken sandwich and a threat.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Some moths make a shrill, squeaking sound to confuse the predators hunting them. Tiger Moths use bright colours to warn predators that they taste bitter and often squeak to warn of their bad taste.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The bleeding picks up on the ride and they have to pull a U-turn into the ER first. 

Bradley sits back in his waiting room chair, his knee throbbing under the makeshift gauze Ice slapped on in the car. The bleeding has mostly stopped now. He’s fine. He is. He keeps saying it. But Jake is not fine.

Jake is limping like a hurt wild animal in front of the check-in desk, single free arm flailing as he berates a poor receptionist who already promised she’d get him in soon. Mav, Ice, and Slider have all tried, in their own way, to corral him — first with reassurance, then with reason, and finally with a mix of bribery and command. But none of it worked.

Slider gave up first, slumping into a chair with a: this is your problem now look tossed toward Bradley, you wanted a brother. Mav lasted about two more minutes before sighing and deciding to go fill out paperwork at the kiosk instead. Ice stood longest, calm and steady, trying to talk Jake down in a low voice only to be met with: “NO, YOU DON’T GET TO BE CALM — HE’S BLEEDING.”

So now it’s Bradley’s turn. 

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and gently calls, “Jake.”

No response.

“J.”

Jake doesn’t even look at him.

Bradley glances at the others, then quietly says, “Hey. C’mere.”

Jake freezes like he’s been caught doing something wrong. Then he limps over, arms still crossed tightly, and hovers like he’s deciding whether or not to sit.

Bradley pats the seat next to him. Jake ignores it and stays standing, despite how badly he’s trembling and the stress he’s put on his bad leg today. The metal inserts into his skin look raw and bloody.

“You’re scaring the nurses,” Bradley croons softly.

“They should be scared,” Jake snaps, voice raw and tight. “You’re hurt. They’re not doing anything.”

“I’m not dying,” Bradley says, smiling a little. “It’s a surface wound, Jakey.”

Jake’s mouth tightens like that phrase physically hurts him. “You shouldn’t have to wait.” He jabs a finger toward the front desk like it’s a battleground. “People like you don’t wait. You’re not supposed to sit around leaking like a car engine while the world takes a number. You’re supposed to be—” He flounders. “Fixed.”

Bradley’s smile falters. He tries again, gentler now. “Jake, I’ve had stitches before — like, six times. This is routine.”

“It’s not.” Jake’s voice cracks slightly. “Not if they don’t do it.”

Bradley studies him. His little brother — loud, snide, defensive to the point of hostility — looks every bit of fifteen for once, small and overwhelmed. His hands are shaking around his crutch handles. Bradley glances over at their adults again — Ice, Mav, and Slider, all quiet now, watching them with wide, stunned eyes.

Jake sees it and maybe that’s what pushes him over the edge. “I needed to make sure,” Jake blurts out, suddenly hoarse, “That they were gonna treat you. That they weren’t gonna — forget. Or tell you it wasn’t important. Or—”

He stops; he’s said too much.

Bradley watches him, slowly putting the pieces together and then his gaze drops — down, down, down — to Jake’s poor, battered left leg. The one with the angry scars and the ankle that never healed right, the surgeries, the casts, the external metal cage, and the history that Jake never explains. Bradley swallows. Oh fuck. 

“J,” He whispers quietly, terrified, “— is that what happened to your leg?”

Jake’s head snaps up.

Bradley softens. “Is that why it’s…?”

But Jake is already flipping him off, face hardening into something sharp and distant. “Don’t,” He growls, voice low and trembling. “Don’t do that. Don’t ask. You think I’m some sob story? Think I want to sit here crying about how some case worker or teacher or whoever didn’t give a shit when I couldn’t walk? Screw that.”

Bradley doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, softly, “I don’t think you’re a sob story. I think you’re a goddamn hero for dragging your broken leg through hell and still chasing after me like a lunatic.”

Jake glares at him like that was not the right thing to say.

But Bradley doesn’t flinch. He nods toward the desk. “I’m getting treated, Jake, because of you. You raised hell, and scared half the county, and made it impossible for them to ignore me.” Jake’s hands curl into fists. “Maybe,” Bradley tries, gently, “Someone should’ve done that for you.”

Jake doesn’t answer, but he sits down right beside him. Bradley smiles a little. Then leans sideways and bumps their shoulders together, just enough to say I’m still here. I’m not leaving. Nobody is ever going to forget you while I’m here. 

Jake grumbles, sniffling, scrubbing his eyes with his grimy hoodie sleeves, “I still think they’re taking too long.”

“Probably, you want me to fake a seizure?”

Jake huffs a laugh despite himself. “No, save that for when we get the bill.”

Finally, the nurse calls Bradley’s name.

Jake stands up with him and doesn’t let go of his sleeve the whole walk down the hall, even if it means only having one crutch.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Goat Moth caterpillars eat wood, they bury themselves in tree trunks to do it in safety. This is a slow process, digesting wood, which results in the caterpillar taking four years to reach full size.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The car ride home smells like fries and fried chicken and three kinds of milkshake. Someone’s root beer keeps tipping in the cupholder — Bradley thinks it’s Slider’s — and the back seat is one long smear of crumpled wrappers, napkins, and half-unwrapped burgers slowly congealing in the September heat.

Jake hasn’t said a word since they pulled out of the ER parking lot. He's wedged between Bradley and Slider in the back, his bad leg stretched awkwardly to avoid jostling it. Mav’s driving like he's being timed, Ice is navigating with the focus of a man trying to avoid every pothole, and Slider’s halfway into a six-piece nugget box like it might run away if he doesn’t inhale it fast enough. 

Bradley’s knee is stitched, bandaged, elevated slightly on an old sweatshirt — and he’s riding a low wave of pain meds that make the whole van feel like it’s drifting underwater. He’s got a straw in his mouth and a vanilla milkshake in his lap, fries within reach, and a kid-sized chicken sandwich that Mav swore was Jake’s but somehow ended up half-eaten in his hands, again.

Jake speaks then, barely above the hum of the tires and Mav’s classic rock playlist, he asks, “Does the library have books on lepidoptery?”

Bradley’s brain, dulled slightly by painkillers and a milkshake coma, takes a second to catch up. He blinks, turns his head through molasses. “What?”

Jake doesn’t look at him. He’s got his cheek pressed against the window, one fry in his hand that he hasn’t eaten. “Lepidoptery, the study of moths and butterflies.”

Bradley is pretty sure that word didn’t even exist in his vocabulary before right now. He frowns slightly. “Uh. I don’t know. I mean, probably? The library has a lot of stuff.”

Jake nods like that answer makes sense, still staring out the window. His voice goes even quieter. “I like them, butterflies and moths.”

Bradley pauses, setting his cup down. “Yeah?”

“They’re my favorite,” Jake says, like it’s a secret, as if he doesn’t know how to like things. “They start off all messed up, you know? Like crawling things, fuzzy worm things and they’re nothing. So they hide. They hide so nobody can hurt them, then they come out and they’re pretty and they can fly. They can fly around the world, Monarchs fly all the way back to where they came from. They’re never lost.”

Bradley doesn’t say anything at first, just watches the way Jake’s fingers curl around the fry like it’s something delicate. His voice isn’t sarcastic or mean. There’s no sharp edge. “They’re quiet,” He adds. “Not like bees, or wasps. Butterflies don’t sting. They don’t bite, even though people think they could. People get scared of caterpillars and they squish them. But butterflies just land on stuff, like it’s enough just to be there and that’s okay. People love butterflies.” 

Bradley’s throat gets tight. He doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the meds, maybe it’s the way Jake’s voice trembles at the edge of something that feels big. Or maybe it’s just that this is the most Jake’s said about anything that isn’t yelling or flipping someone off — and it’s butterflies.

Of all things, it’s butterflies.

Bradley clears his throat, trying to keep it light. “Well, if the library doesn’t have books on lepidop-whatever, I’ll buy you one. Or ten. Or like… a whole butterfly encyclopedia, if you want.”

Jake snorts, finally looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t even know how to spell that word.”

“Bet I can figure it out faster than you.”

“Wanna bet money?”

Bradley grins. “Nope.”

Jake almost smiles.

In the passenger seat, Ice is watching them in the mirror. He doesn’t say anything, but his mouth twitches like he’s hiding a smile. He’s also been crying, Bradley hopes Jake doesn’t notice. He doesn’t want this moment to end. 

Mav elbows his navigator gently. “What?”

Ice just shrugs, “Butterflies.”

Mav glances back, his smile is a little wet too.

“Hey Jake,” Slider says around a mouthful of burger on Jake’s other side, totally missing everything, “You think Bradley would make a good butterfly?”

Jake turns to him, squinting suspiciously. “What?”

“I mean, he’s got the gangly legs. He’s flappy. Definitely skittish.”

Bradley tosses a crumpled napkin at him. “I swear to God.”

“I’m just saying—”

Jake leans back into his middle seat, resting his head on Bradley’s shoulder like it’s nothing. “Bradley’s not a butterfly.” Bradley goes still; Jake’s voice is quiet. “He’s a moth, always chasing the light, even if it gets him hurt.”

Bradley opens his mouth — and closes it again.

“Is that a compliment?” Mav calls from the front.

“It’s a fact,” Jake snaps with a roll of his droopy eyes. Bradley feels the smallest shift of weight against his side. Jake’s eyes are closed now, like the car and the food and the talking have finally worn him out. Bradley stays still, letting him lean, listening to his breathing even out. He doesn’t ask more questions, doesn’t say thank you, doesn’t ruin it by trying to dig deeper into what Jake really meant.

He just whispers, “I’m gonna get you that book, J.”

Jake mumbles something half-asleep that might be “Thanks.”

The car keeps rolling and somewhere in the jumble of fries, painkillers, butterflies, and moths — Bradley starts to think maybe, maybe, that thanks means I love you to the little butterfly on his shoulder.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Female Bagworm Moths have no wings and live an entire life in silken cases. Once they’ve mated, she will do all she can to gain the attention of a passing bird, so that it will eat her. This gives her eggs the best chance at survival.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake drags himself up the stairs and slams his bedroom door with enough force to rattle the frame, like punctuation at the end of a sentence no one else got to read. The hallway goes quiet, vibrating slightly with the impact, and Bradley stands there for a beat — frozen, milkshake cup still in one hand, half-flattened burger in the other.

They’d just gotten back from the ER and the fast-food run. Everyone’s tired. The sun’s gone down and the house is filled with the kind of silence that usually settles after a long, messy battle. The kind you don’t want to breathe too loudly in, because it might make everything fall apart again.

Maverick, Ice, and Slider are gathered in the kitchen, shuffling around Tupperware lids and greasy bags, the way most guys do when they don’t know what else to do with their hands. Nobody’s said anything since they walked through the front door. The TV’s off. The overhead lights are still a little too bright.

Bradley just stands there for another few seconds in the front hallway. Then his shoulders start to shake. It’s so quiet at first that none of them notice. Not until he lets out this choked little hiccup, a sound punched out of him like air from a balloon — like something cracked inside and there’s no holding it back now. He drops the burger and it lands with a wet little splap on the entryway rug.

Slider turns first. “Baby Goose?”

Bradley turns to face them — eyes wide, red already, mouth open like he’s going to speak but instead — he bawls.

The kind of crying that comes from somewhere deep in the ribs, full-body, uncontrollable. The kind that makes your knees buckle and your lungs seize up, and all you can do is curl forward like your own grief is trying to fold you in half.

“He—” Bradley gasps. “He likes butterflies.”

Maverick crosses the kitchen in three long strides, arms out like he’s approaching a spooked animal, but Bradley crashes into him like gravity’s had enough and pulls him down. “He — he likes butterflies,” Bradley sobs into Mav’s shoulder, arms tightening into his hoodie like he’s afraid someone might take it away. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t think he—”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Mav coos softly, cradling the back of his head. Slider comes up behind them and just wraps his arms around them both, like a blanket too big, squeezing them together while Ice stays a half step back, hands twitching at his sides, eyes wet. He looks like he’s trying to let Bradley have the moment without intruding — but he’s there. He’s present. He’s also so fucking guilty. 

“He kept — he kept slamming doors and calling me names and I thought he hated me,” Bradley chokes. “And then he asked about the library and — he said they were his favorites, he likes moths, and he — he compared me to one, like it was a good thing — like I was, like I was something that mattered to him—”

Maverick’s voice goes low and firm. “You do matter.”

“I thought he didn’t want me,” Bradley sobs, clinging tighter. “And then today, at practice, he ran. He ran, Mav. On that messed-up leg. For me. He was scared. Not for himself. For me.”

“Because you’re his big brother,” Ice sighs, finally stepping forward. “He just didn’t know how to say it until you got hurt.”

“He’s fifteen,” Bradley whispers, voice breaking again. “He’s just a kid. He’s just — he’s just a kid and he’s been angry for so long and I didn’t know if he was ever gonna trust me, and now he likes butterflies, and I don’t know how to fix this—”

“You already started fixing it, even though that isn’t your job, kiddo.” Slider murmurs, rubbing his hand in big lazy circles on Bradley’s back. “You stayed. You didn’t leave when he pushed you away. That’s what counts.”

Bradley doesn’t answer. He just lets himself be held, lets the sobs take him over until his legs give out and they all sit down right there on the kitchen floor, in a tangle of arms and knees and emotional exhaustion. He cries until his ribs ache, until there’s nothing left in his chest but air and salt. Eventually, when he’s just sniffling and breathing hard, Mav pulls back a little and runs a hand through his curls. “You wanna go look up butterfly books?”

Bradley nods, still sniffling. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Ice sniffs, teary and congested. “Let’s do that.”

“Make sure there are pictures,” Slider adds. “Jake seems like the kind of kid who’d appreciate some cool macro shots.”

Bradley laughs, wet and raw. “He probably knows all the species names already.”

“Then we better get him something scientific,” Ice stands, popping his back, like it’s already a mission. So they sit there around the home computer and a box of tissues, researching butterfly field guides and caterpillar habitats like it’s the most important thing in the world.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Moths are considered an indicator species, this means that their presence in certain numbers will display the health of an ecosystem, or lack thereof.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Bradley shows up about seven minutes later, right after Jake like clockwork, knocking once — mostly for show — before the front door creaks open.

He’s got one arm wrapped around four pizza boxes and a plastic bag swinging from his wrist, and in the other arm, hugged tightly to his chest like something fragile or sacred, is a thick, softcover book wrapped in brown paper and twine. There’s a little sticky note on top — one of the neon orange ones Ice uses for tax reminders — with FOR J scribbled on it in Bradley’s all caps, messy handwriting.

Jake hears the door close, and then the faint sound of Bradley kicking it shut behind him, juggling everything without dropping a single slice of greasy heaven. Jake pops his head up from where he’s still draped half across Ice’s lap like a human slice of Kraft cheese, and squints around the corner with all the eagerness of a Labrador.

“Brad,” He calls lazily, “You bring my pizza, or do I have to chase you around the house again?”

“You tackle me once,” Bradley calls back, voice breathless with amusement, “And I never live it down.”

“You squealed,” Jake says, sitting up now, bouncing slightly on Ice’s thighs like it’s a trampoline. “Like a little kid at a haunted hayride.”

Ice groans. “Get off me or I’m calling Sli inside to come grab you, he’s finishing the backyard.” They can all hear the mower going. Bradley will bitch about it, Jake already knows, he’s got a thing about their elderly fathers pushing mowers or shoveling snow.

Speaking of the Devil, Jake’s big brother rounds the corner just in time to see him roll dramatically off the couch and hit the rug with a loud oof. “That’s what you get,” He says, tossing the pizza boxes down on the coffee table.

Jake sits up, stretches like a cat, then eyes the brown paper-wrapped object still tucked under Bradley’s arm. “Ooo… what’s that?”

Bradley looks a little smug, a little pleased with himself. “Oh, this?” He shakes it a little. “Just something I found online, took me a couple of weeks to track it down.”

He walks over and drops the book carefully into Jake’s lap. “You were looking for it a while back — the old butterfly encyclopedia, the one from the ‘80s? The one with the big spread of the blue morphos and those weird old diagrams of silk moths? This is the third edition. Same print run as your bio teacher had in class.”

Jake freezes for a second, just staring down at the paper like it might burn if he touches it. Then, slowly, with deliberate care that seems almost at odds with the rest of his usual chaos, he peels back the wrapping. The thick spine of the encyclopedia emerges first — white and teal, sun-faded, but intact. The gold lettering is worn on the cover, and there’s a library stamp on the inside jacket, from some middle school in Illinois.

Jake’s mouth parts a little.

He flips through it carefully, fingers surprisingly gentle. Each page has that musty, sweet smell of paper that’s been loved for a long time. He runs his fingers over one of the color plates, full of luna moths in pale greens and smoky purples, like they’ve just landed for a second and could flutter off at any time.

Around him, the room is quiet.

Bradley watches him with eager eyes, biting the edge of his thumbnail. Mav is still by the counter, nursing his coffee. Ice, still prone on the couch, is watching his son’s back like he’s waiting for some kind of verdict.

Jake flips another page.

Then another.

Then he quietly, without looking up, says: “...This is so sick.”

Bradley let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Thought you’d like it.”

“You got me a library book.”

“Hey, I paid actual money for that,” Bradley says, snatching a slice of jalapeño and pineapple pizza before Jake can retaliate. “I tracked it down from this guy in Toledo who runs a whole secondhand store out of his garage. He wouldn’t even let me Venmo him until I promised I wasn’t gonna resell it.”

Jake pauses, flips another page. Then, without looking up, says: “What a weird nerd.”

Bradley just grins. “Takes one to know one.”

Jake snorts. “You got any idea how much this sells for now?”

Bradley shrugs, mouth full of cheese. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Thanks.” Jake flips one more page, then very gently closes the book and holds it to his chest. He doesn’t say I love you — that’s not his style. But his mouth is twitching at the corners like he might — just later, in private, when they’re stealing their Dads’ beers like they're still teenagers and drinking on the porch as the sun goes down.

Instead, he looks at his Mav and says, “Can you build me another bookshelf?”

Ice huffs a laugh and finally sits up, joints popping audibly. “Can you build me a new spine?”

“Shut up, Dad, you’re fine with your factory parts.” Jake corrects, flopping sideways against Bradley now, like a dog that’s decided this one’s mine.

Bradley lets him, doesn’t even flinch when Jake’s head drops hard onto his shoulder.

“I like those factory parts, even if the warranty’s blown,” Mav says, coming in with a plate of his own and stealing a slice like he pays rent. “Sli’s though… tits are mine, everything else can go.”

“Gross.” Bradley cringes. Jake doesn’t reply, but he shifts just enough to press the edge of the book into Bradley’s side — a gentle, wordless nudge.

Bradley understands; it’s a moth thing.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“The blue Morpho has bright blue wings, but this is a misnomer, their color isn’t pigment. It’s several, microscopic diamond-shaped scales on the upper side of their wings, organized into a complex layered structure which causes the incoming light to diffract and interfere with each other. So, as a result, we perceive their wings as being the color blue. But they're really just iridescent. Beautiful.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Chapter 4

Summary:

*gently kisses unedited 10k brick* For you, my loves. 🦋

Notes:

NOTE: Jake is a manipulative little shit. This is Jake trying to survive the bloody trials of love, kindness and home-cooked meals.

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

"A butterfly or moth’s name doesn’t always tell you what they eat, not correctly anyway.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The night is heavy with October stickiness. It’s one of those thick, still nights that clings to your skin and leaves your shirt damp at the collar, like the air itself is trying to drown you in your own sweat. The kind of night that used to mean endless wandering, back when Jake moved through the city like smoke, thin and mean and always a step from vanishing. Back when home was whatever slab of concrete didn’t smell like piss and fryer oil. Back when bed meant a park bench, a bus seat, or the piss-warm hood of a car someone forgot to lock — that way there’s no alarm. 

He used to know every corner of this city like a feral cat knows the alley in which its ribs were broken. Not safe, not soft, not forgiving — but known. A nighttime world of seedy clubs and car exhaust and the quiet calculation of which diners had clean-ish bathrooms and which shelters didn’t cop a feel. Jake had rules back then. He lived by them. Never sleep in the same place twice. Never owe anyone. Never get used to anything with a door that locks. Gas stations bathroom posted outside the shop might have ground touching stalls that lock and let him sleep for a few hours, sleeping to the symphony of junkies pounding on the door, hankering for a space to cook their next fix. Sometimes, if they offered to watch his back, he’d shoot them up real nice as a thank you. He knows needles. It’s the same way he knows how to fashion a meth pipe out of a test tube and a lighter. 

But now?

Now the air smells like fucking lemons.

Lemons and sugar, from the pitcher of iced tea Maverick left sweating on the porch like a goddamn Norman Rockwell painting. The light in the hallway bleeds under Jake’s door, warm and golden and way too soft, like honey spilled across hardwood. Honey that sticks to him, dragging him down like a tar pit.

Someone left their socks in the hall again — Bradley, probably. That dumbass always sheds clothes like he’s marking territory. It used to drive Jake crazy. Now he stares at the socks like they mean something, like they’re proof this isn’t all some elaborate dream, or punishment, or test. Something lived in. Something real.

He hates it.

He lies flat on his back, arms crossed over his chest like he’s waiting for someone to close the coffin lid. The ceiling fan clicks overhead in lazy rotations, blades spinning too slow to actually cool the room, but enough to keep the silence from caving in on him.

He can’t sleep right, hasn’t for days, maybe weeks. It’s hard to keep track now that his whole routine doesn’t revolve around where to get free coffee and how to make a cup of expired instant noodles stretch for dinner and breakfast. 

There’s a Band-Aid on his knuckle, a dumb little rectangle that’s somehow become the most humiliating reminder of how far he’s fallen from grace — the shit is name-brand and everything. He got it when Slider — fucking Slider — dragged him out to the little pond out back to teach him how to skip rocks like a real kid. Jake had told him to fuck off. Slider had said builds character, son. Jake had rolled his eyes so hard he nearly gave himself a concussion. But he did it anyway, and somewhere in between the blisters and the bickering, he’d pocketed a smooth, flat stone. 

It’s still in his drawer, under the page with the exit plan.

He hasn’t touched the page again, but he knows it by heart. Bus routes. Times. He’s already started putting things away again — casually, subtly. Toothbrush in his duffel instead of the cup. Socks are buried under old newspapers like he’s storing secrets. That’s the trick. Pack in pieces. Pretend you're not leaving. That way, when you go, it looks like magic.

But every time he gets close to sealing the deal, biding his time till the external fixator is gone — something else ruins it.

Last night he’d been limping toward the kitchen for some water, hyperaware and buzzing — because he’s still got the instincts of a raccoon in a trap — and Tom had been waiting there. Iceman. Jake had frozen in the doorway like a kid caught shoplifting, expecting some quiet scolding, some deep-voiced judgment. Instead, Tom just held up a pair of scissors like a dad in a sitcom.

“Haircut?” He asked with a small smile, calm as you please.

Jake had blinked like the man was holding a live wire.

He sat on the toilet lid. He doesn’t know why, just watched his own scruffy blond hair fall in gray-dusted clumps onto the tile like it was being cut off by someone else. When it was over, Ice had rested his palm — briefly, absurdly — on the back of Jake’s head, pressed a kiss on his forehead. Then he was gone. Goodnight, J. 

No interrogation; no lecture — only quiet care, like Jake was someone worth keeping.

It hurt more than any broken nose he'd ever taken.

Then there was the grocery store. Maverick had roped him in with that whole I need a co-pilot schtick, like guilt-tripping someone into helping carry veggies was a military mission. Jake had gone because — well, whatever; not like he had shit else to do on a Saturday. He expected store-brand cereal and coupon math. What he got was Maverick rolling into the good aisle like a man on a mission. Pop-Tarts. Lay’s. Fucking Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Shit he had asked for just to be an asshole. 

Jake had stared at the cart like it had grown fangs. “I don’t need this,” He’d choked out, horrified. “I was fucking around.”

“I know,” Maverick said, tossing in a twelve-dollar medicated shampoo like it was no big deal. One to treat the dry itchy scalp on Jake’s gross head. 

Jake had almost staggered out right then, almost hop-skipped straight past the checkout, back into the night. It was too much, too easy, too nice.

People like him didn’t get Pop-Tarts. They got pity. Cheap, shameful kindness you were supposed to be grateful for. But this? This was… this was provisioning. This was family-level shit. 

Jake doesn’t know how to survive that. 

Now he’s back in his room — the one with the bed he hasn’t left in two hours, the one that smells like laundry and someone else’s cologne. He wipes his nose on the sleeve of the hoodie Bradley gave him after the ER trip for his knee, claiming it made Jake look underfed and dramatic. Jake had said it was ugly, but he never gave it back. It still smells like sweat and stupid overpriced body spray. He wears it every night, even when it’s too hot, even when it sticks to his back like a second skin. He tells himself it’s just convenient.

He tells himself a lot of things.

Yesterday, Bradley carried him across the yard like a sack of potatoes, crowing something like he’s not heavy, he's my brother. Jake had kicked him in the ribs with his good leg. Not hard, not to hurt. They’d laughed. He laughed, like a person who’d never had to count the beats between someone’s smile and someone’s fist.

It’s disgusting how easy it is for him to melt in their warmth. The way they fold him into the chaos of their lives like it’s nothing, like he’s theirs.

So, he makes his plans. He’ll vanish like he always does: saltines, peanut butter, and hoodie pulled tight over his head. He’ll ride the bus until the sun rises in a place where no one knows him. He’s done it before. He knows how this works. When the fuzz finds him, they’ll drop him into care whenever he ends up. 

But tonight?

Tonight the fan swirls; the fridge hums. Somewhere down the hall, someone — maybe College — snores, low and steady.

Jake cries like a goddamn idiot: hot, fast, silent. He doesn’t wipe the tears away. 

He wants to stay. That’s the scariest thing of all. Hope — that shiny, fragile little monster — doesn’t just kill. It guts you from the inside out and leaves you begging for the kind of pain you do know how to survive.

Jake loves them so much he can’t breathe — so rather than let it kill him, he’s gotta go. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Caterpillars will grow extensively in length and weight in their short lives; round caterpillars have the best chance at survival.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake starts with dog walking, because it’s the easiest to hide. 

No one questions a fifteen-year-old with a can-do attitude and a fake phone voice that sounds suspiciously like an infomercial. The neighborhood down the hill is full of retirees and HOA-approved lawns, pastel shutters, and decorative mailboxes shaped like ducks. It’s Stepford with a sunburn and it’s crawling with lonely dogs whose owners don’t want to walk them in the lingering fall heat. Perfect.

He finds the flyer at the grocery store, printed on neon green paper like it’s screaming for help. Responsible teens wanted! Great with animals! Reasonable rates! There’s a doodle of a smiling golden retriever in the corner. Jake rolls his eyes so hard he almost sprains something, but he tears off a tab anyway. Not because he needs to — he’s already memorized the number — but because it looks more casual that way. Less like he’s desperate. Less like he’s plotting an escape.

He calls from the payphone outside the gas station, slouched like he’s bored, like he’s not sweating buckets in the ninety-degree heat under his hoodie and the brace on his leg. “Yes, ma’am. No problem, ma’am. I’m great with beagles.” Lies. Beagles are hellspawn. 

The first dog is named Charlie, and Charlie is an unholy terror on four legs. He barks at nothing. He yanks Jake down the sidewalk like he’s chasing demons. The leash burns Jake’s palm. His new crutches — sea-foam green, because of course, Bradley had to pick the ones that match his stupid eyes — squeak with every step.

By the time the twenty minutes are up, Jake’s ribs feel like they’ve been reorganized, his palms are raw, and his shirt is sticking to his back in a way that should probably be illegal. But the old lady hands him a ten-dollar bill with a smile like he’s just rescued her firstborn. His. For a second, he feels something like pride. Then he shoves it in his sock and limps away like he’s not dying inside.

He does it again the next day. Then again and again and again.

The dogs multiply: a Yorkie that screams at hydrants, a bulldog that insists on laying down every four feet and daring Jake to whine about it, a pit bull-staffy mix that looks at Jake like she knows him, knows what he’s hiding, knows he’s not really a neighborhood kid, knows that his sock is full of ones and his hoodie pocket holds a laminated bus schedule he stole from the Greyhound station. She is the only one who doesn’t want to leave when it’s time to hand them back. Those blue eyes stare at him and lick him softly instead, pained. Nanny dogs, he guesses. 

By the end of the week, Jake’s bad foot is bleeding through his sock, and every muscle in his back is staging a slow, deliberate mutiny. But he doesn’t stop. He can’t, not when Bradley looks at Jake like he belongs in the brownstone, not when Bradley smiles at him and jokes with him and tells the old fucks one night, when he thinks Jake is tucked in bed — I think I’m going to skip the Academy, I’ll get my four-year at USD and commission later. Jake needs me here. 

That can’t happen. Jake won’t let that happen.

So he ups the ante. He leaves the school lot after seventh period to bus tables at a diner out by the highway. It smells like old grease, despair, and those weird pine-scented urinal cakes. The manager doesn’t ask for paperwork. Jake lies through his teeth and says he’s seventeen. The guy barely looks up. “Can you work late?” Jake nods. “Cool. Aprons are by the freezer. Don’t touch my cigarettes.”

The floor is sticky. The pay is garbage. The tips are decent if he smiles at the right church ladies and keeps his mouth shut. His hands are red now, cracked from dish soap and too-hot water. He wears long sleeves even when the heat is suffocating. Not to hide bruises — not this time — but to hide the tremor that’s started in his wrists, the tender pink burns from balancing five plates at once.

He hides the money in a shoebox under the lining of his duffel. Every bill is flattened, counted, and sorted like it’s sacred. He keeps a coded ledger in the back of a beat-up composition notebook. Every dollar is a step out the door.

His crutches clatter against the fancy floor when he gets home late, and he always winces — not from the pain, which is constant — but from the sound. He doesn’t want them to hear. He doesn’t want to explain why he’s limping worse than usual or why his palms are bandaged with diner napkins. They’re already watching him too closely. 

Bradley starts to tease him, ruffling his smelly hair after work. “Hey butterfly, you saving up for a motorcycle like Mav or just trying to be mysterious?”

Jake shrugs, all fake-casual with too many teeth. “Maybe I’m starting an offshore account. Maybe I’m planning a very elaborate prank. Maybe I’m just building a bomb in the garage. A guy’s gotta have hobbies, fatass.”

Bradley just laughs. “God, you’re such a gremlin.” They’d watched that movie together the night before, snacking after midnight and joking until their ribs were sore. 

Jake smirks like it’s all a game, like his heart doesn’t stutter every time Bradley calls him something as soft as kid or little brother.

Ice slides an envelope onto his dresser one morning. No note, just fifty bucks and a sticky tab that says for emergencies. Jake stares at it for a full minute like it might explode. Then he peels off the tab, folds the bills once, and adds them to the box like they’re just part of the haul. He tells himself it’s fine. It’s money. It’s not a gesture. It doesn’t mean anything.

But then there’s Maverick. Of course, it’s Maverick who gets too close. Maverick who knows more about Jake’s childhood than he lets on — he lived it too. After dinner, Jake’s drying dishes, trying not to drop the plates when his hands twitch. Maverick leans against the counter, arms crossed, eyebrows raised like he’s trying to figure out which part of this equation is going sideways.

“You know you don’t have to earn your keep here, right?” He says, mock-casual. “We give allowances for chores, sure, but this—” He gestures to Jake’s sleeves, his bandaged hand, the unmistakable limp, and the way he isn’t using his crutches right. “This isn't a chore-level effort. This is a lot, bud.”

Jake doesn’t look at him, just dries the same plate twice.

“You’re not a tenant, Jake,” Maverick reminds softly. “You’re our kid.”

Jake snorts, short and mean. “Didn’t realize there was a membership card.”

Maverick doesn’t flinch. “You don’t need one.”

Jake sets the plate down harder than necessary. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“Great. Then we’re done.”

“Jake.”

But Jake is already gone; not stomping, not storming — just scuttling. He drags himself down the hall on aching legs, crutches squeaking like they’re mocking him. Back in his room, he stares at the shoebox under his bag like it’s a lifeboat. He adds the fifty from Maverick. He doesn’t look at it too long, doesn’t think about it.

It’s not help. 

It’s fuel. It’s distance. It’s a door.

Still, every dollar he adds to the box feels more like a betrayal.

Now he flinches when Bradley ruffles his hair, not out of annoyance, but because he’s starting to need it. He hides his laundry because it smells like the detergent Tom uses. He lingers after dinner. He watches movies he doesn’t care about just to hear them laugh. Sometimes he wakes up drenched in sweat, convinced he’s already left, already lost it, and it takes a full sixty seconds of clutching the comforter to convince himself he’s still here.

He tells himself he’s staying sharp, staying smart — he knows getting complacent on the streets is what gets you killed. It’s just survival. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“A healthy caterpillar is constantly eating and moving, they’re always hungry and always on the go — so a caterpillar that is not eating or moving much might be sick.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake starts small: a headache here, a sore throat there. 

At first, it’s just an idea he plays with — an experiment to see how far he can push it. He figures if he’s going to make it on the streets again, he’ll need more than just cash. Pain meds. Antacids. Antibiotic cream. He remembers what it was like the first couple of times — the cold that settles in your bones, the cuts that fester if you don’t clean them, the stomach cramps from bad food or no food at all. He learned back then how to make do, how to ration, how to steal, how to beg. But back then, he didn’t have an even-more-busted leg or a grown face people might remember. Now, if he wants to vanish, he has to be prepared. These old fucks seem like missing poster people. He can’t exactly go to a hospital when there’s an Amber Alert for him. 

But when he tells them his stomach hurts, Bradley brings him a bottle of Pepto and rubs his back like he’s six again. He leaves the bottle. When he says he has a headache, Iceman gently brushes the hair from his forehead, checking for fever with his cool, callused hand. He leaves the thermometer. Maverick picks up a new bottle of Aleve on the way home from work without even being asked. There’s no suspicion in their eyes — only concern. Concern so warm and unguarded it makes Jake want to scream.

He wonders, idly, if they think he’s dying. He’s gone from the most forcefully hardy kid, other than his leg, to being sick every five minutes in a matter of months. 

He spits the pills into a Ziploc he keeps under his pillow. He keeps them in a shoebox next to his money stash. It’s not elegant, but it works. Each day he adds something new: a roll of gauze, Band-Aids, a half-used inhaler someone forgot about in the bathroom cabinet. He fakes cramps, pretends to have gas. He’s nauseous, dizzy, and feeling a little off, Mav, I’m sorry. So Maverick buys Gas-X, Theraflu and more Pepto without asking questions. Slider jokes that Jake must be going through a growth spurt, but his voice is gentle, not mocking. He offers ginger ale and toast and lets Jake sit on the couch, wrapped in a blanket like he’s made of porcelain. He’s never been so fussed over in all his life. 

Jake hates how good it feels.

He tells himself he’s manipulating them like a monster, that it’s tactical — a necessary ruse. But there are nights when he lies there, bundled up in the thick warmth of Maverick’s old quilt, with a new thermometer tucked under his tongue and Bradley perched on the edge of his bed reading ESPN out loud, and it doesn’t feel like strategy. It feels like family. It feels bad. They don’t treat him like a liar. They treat him like a kid — their kid — someone worthy of comfort and patience; it burns.

Iceman, always the calm one, starts making him soup. Not just opening a can — he makes it from scratch, with soft carrots, big chunks of chicken, the kind of broth that fills the whole house with steam and smells like someone knows how to take care of you. He doesn’t even say much while he cooks — just moves around the kitchen in silence, classical music humming on the radio, the cadence of someone who finds peace in making sure the people around him are fed. He’s so weird. 

Bradley starts leaving cold compresses in the freezer, ready for Jake before he even asks. He shuffles in from school or from one of his side jobs, and there it is — folded in a dish towel, waiting. Sometimes there’s a little note: rest up, gremlin, or a goofy doodle of a plane with a frowny face. Sometimes there’s a butterfly postcard or a couple of song lyrics.

Maverick offers to take him to a doctor when Jake says he feels lightheaded one too many times. Jake declines, says he just needs rest. Maverick doesn’t push, but his worry sticks to Jake like smoke.

Slider — somebody help him — starts carrying Jake everywhere when the limp gets a little more obvious. Sometimes Jake doesn’t even ask. Slider just lifts him, strong arms under his knees and back, and hoists him up like it’s nothing, like it’s natural. Jake protests at first — he hisses about being fine, about it being unnecessary — but Slider only grins and says, “You’re awfully light, kid. I’ve carried sacks of Navy shit far heavier than you. Don’t flatter yourself.” He says it like it’s a joke, like it’s no big deal — like Jake deserves to be carried.

Jake starts biting the inside of his cheek every time they touch him now — not because he’s scared, but because he’s afraid of how much he likes it. There’s a quietness to being cared for, a gravity. When someone tucks a blanket around you, when they leave lights on in the hallway so you don’t have to wake up in the dark, when they refill your water glass without being asked — it’s not loud or showy. It’s just constant, unrelenting in a way that feels dangerous. 

Jake knows what happens when someone makes you the center of their world. Sooner or later, they look away, they let go and when they do, you fall. Turns out there was nothing holding you up at all, your wings have turned to dust from disuse. 

That’s why he keeps collecting. He keeps spitting pills into that zip-top bag, even though his mouth tastes like chalk and guilt; keeps adding bottles to the stockpile under his bed. He starts mapping out routes in his head again — bus terminals, train lines, alleys where he can sleep without being noticed. He knows he’ll limp. He knows it’ll hurt. But he also knows how to hide pain. He’s done it before. He can do it again.

But still, each time someone looks at him with love — real, uncomplicated love — he feels a little bit more like a monster.

This isn’t a con anymore. This isn’t just survival. This is sabotage.

They think he’s sick, fragile, in need of rest. They think they’re helping and Jake lets them, because he doesn’t know how to stop.

Somewhere, deep down in the softest part of him — the part he wants to kill, the part that remembers lullabies and bedtime stories and his mother’s voice before she broke — Jake doesn’t want to leave at all. He has to though. He’s like a rot, a cancer and he’s eating this house, this home; he’s going to be the reason it crumbles to dust. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Caterpillars can die while forming a chrysalis.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake says it like a throwaway comment at first, eyes downcast, shoulders slouched, pushing food around his plate with the edge of a fork. It’s dinner, something elaborate — roasted chicken with lemon herb glaze, truffle mashed potatoes, some kind of roasted vegetables Jake can’t even name. It smells incredible, tastes even better, but he’s not after indulgence. Not now. He lets the words slip out between bites, muttered just loud enough to be heard: “All this rich food’s messing with my stomach. I think I just do better with canned stuff.”

The table goes quiet, just for a beat. Not in an angry way — more puzzled, a little affronted. Maverick leans back in his chair, squinting like he’s just been insulted personally. Slider raises his eyebrows, incredulous. Even his father, the Iceman himself, who usually reserves judgment like it's currency, sets down his fork with the gentlest of frowns. Bradley is the first to respond, his tone light but confused. “You mean, like… Campbell’s?”

Jake shrugs, doesn’t look up. He hates lying to them. “Yeah. You know, real simple stuff. Chicken and stars, Spaghettios, tuna, powdered mac and cheese from a box — that kinda thing. Real food makes me feel sick sometimes. But I can eat it… sorry for bugging you. Didn’t mean to say anything.” He makes a show of eating another big bite. 

There’s silence again, not judgment — not exactly. It’s that weird, shifting discomfort that happens when people want to be understanding but have no idea how. Jake knows it well. It’s the sound of people adjusting their worldview just a little. It’s a familiar rustle, one he used to thrive on. A boy with a hard-luck story and a tired smile, shifting the room just enough to make space for his exit. He’s doing it again, like muscle memory.

Maverick clears his throat, empathetic. “No, sweetheart, if that’s what your stomach’s used to, we can just adjust. No problem. Get you used to this.”

They do hate it though, that much is obvious. Iceman watches Jake more closely at meals now, like he’s trying to decode what kind of trauma makes someone prefer canned ravioli over roasted duck. Slider mutters about sodium and preservatives under his breath, about the food a growing boy needs, but he doesn’t push. Maverick tries to slip in simpler meals, stuff from scratch that’s supposed to mimic the canned stuff, but Jake just pokes at it until they cave.

Bradley is the one who takes it the furthest. One night, he comes back from the store with a box so heavy he has to carry it in both arms — cans upon cans, stacked and sealed, labels facing out: Dinty Moore stew, Chef Boyardee, beans, chili, peaches in syrup, canned corn, saltines, powdered drink mix. There are more boxes of shelf-stable boxes of Velveeta mac and cheese than Jake can easily count. He dumps it all on the counter with a crooked grin. “Figured we’d build you a bunker,” He grins, proud. “We’ll keep it stocked, butterfly.”

Jake thanks him with a soft voice and a ducked head. His stomach knots like someone’s weaving his insides into a basket.

They call it his snack shelf: the hallway closet, top level, two full rows now. Jake starts stockpiling separately. At first, it’s a couple of cans tucked into his backpack. Then a couple of boxes slid under his bed. Saltines packed in the crevices of his bag. He tests expiration dates, checks labels, and plans out how long he could live on the stash if he rationed it. He builds a system.

They think he’s just a picky eater with a sensitive belly, maybe PTSD, though no one says it out loud. Iceman gives him probiotics one night with his dinner. Maverick starts buying ginger chews. Bradley tries to introduce nightly Pedialyte just in case. Everyone walks on eggshells, and no one wants to pry.

Jake doesn’t tell them that he’s already decided he’s leaving.

He doesn’t say that this canned food — this bulk-buy, shelf-stable garbage they all hate — is his future. It’s what he can carry in a pack. It’s what he can survive on under a freeway bridge. He doesn’t want to rely on warm soup made from scratch or roasted chicken that makes him ache for something he can’t name. He needs bland and portable. Something that doesn’t taste like loved and kept. He isn’t supposed to be. 

It’s easier to swallow the metal taste of Spaghettios than it is to swallow how it feels when Maverick brushes a hand over his hair as he walks by, casual and fond. Easier to eat beans from a can in his room than to sit at a table with people who talk around their love for you like it’s obvious — like it’s permanent.

They think Jake is fragile, that’s the worst part. They’re so careful now, every headache, every stomach twinge, every complaint sends them into nurse mode: blankets, heating pads, tea, hot water bottles. Maverick asks if he wants to talk to someone. Iceman sits with him in the quiet, reading the newspaper with an eye always trained on Jake’s posture. Slider buys him ginger ale by the case.

It makes Jake feel like he’s rotting from the inside out.

They think they’re helping because they love him, this is what a family does when they think someone is in pain.

But he’s lying every day. He’s spitting pills into bags, hiding food, preparing to disappear.

He can’t stop, to stay is to risk it being real — and if it’s real, then it can be taken away.

Jake isn’t built to survive love; he’s built to survive after it. 

He hopes they still love him when he’s just a memory. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Black Death — Monarch caterpillars will often turn black or darkish in color when they are sick with bacterial infections.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake brings it up casually, like it’s just something brothers do — no fanfare, no expectation, just a lazy Saturday with the windows rolled down and the radio humming low. They’ve already hit the hardware store for some weird part Maverick needed, stopped at a donut shop for emergency rations, and now they’re coasting downtown with no real plan. Bradley taps the wheel with his knuckles, squinting through his sunglasses toward the afternoon sun.

“Can we try the library maybe?” Jake asks from the passenger seat. He doesn’t look up from the jelly-filled donut he’s tearing apart with careful fingers. “Might be fun.” He tries, wiping his hand on a napkin. “You said they might have lepidoptery books?”

Bradley grins. “Hell yeah! Let’s get you a card, bud.”

Jake knows the downtown library has padded chairs, clean restrooms, and security guards who leave you alone if you don’t smell too bad. Libraries open early and stay open late, and nobody asks questions if you sit with the same book for six hours. He pretends to be excited because when you’re homeless, a library is the closest thing to dignity.

But mostly, because it lights Bradley up like a pinball machine.

They park in a lot with cracked pavement and walk side-by-side toward the entrance. Bradley’s gait is lazy, comfortable, with that perpetual bounce in his step like he’s always ready to turn a corner into something fun. Jake’s leg still aches bad, still makes stairs a bitch, but he keeps pace with his fancy new crutches, breathing in the soft, sterile air as they step through the doors.

The library is quiet, of course, but not dead. There’s a low hum — whispered conversations, keyboards clicking, the shuffle of books being returned, a faint beep at the checkout station. It smells like paper and hand sanitizer, and the light through the tall windows slices across the carpet like a quilt.

Bradley shows Jake where the YA section is. They joke about book covers. Jake pretends to gag at the romance titles and makes dramatic faces behind people’s backs when Bradley flips through a fantasy book with dragons. Bradley finds one with a spaceship on the front and tries to convince him it’s basically pilots in space.

They’re laughing loud enough that a librarian gives them the look. They muffle it behind their hands like little kids.

Then they head to the front desk.

The librarian is a soft-spoken woman in a floral blouse with glasses and a name tag that reads Marjorie. She doesn’t blink when Jake gives her the address Bradley rattles off — their house, his room — like he’s always lived there. She takes his name down, takes his picture. The flash startles him a little, but he smiles, not a real one — just the one he’s perfected for official forms and adults and fake IDs.

She slides the plastic card across the desk with a practiced smile. “Welcome to the library, Jake.”

Jake stares at it like it’s a ticket to a train he doesn’t want to board.

Bradley claps him on the shoulder. “There we go! You’re official now. We’ll make a normal nerd of you yet.”

They go back to browsing, and Jake checks out three books he won’t finish. He’ll keep the receipt like it’s sacred. Not because of the books, but because it proves he exists somewhere. He has access. He’s part of something. Bradley doesn’t know — of course he doesn’t — that Jake is memorizing which corners of the building get the most sunlight through the windows. That he’s taking mental inventory of the water fountains, the bathrooms, the exits. That he’s watching which guards are stricter, which ones smile. That he’s testing how long you can sit in one place before someone asks if you need help.

He’s storing it all away, just like the canned food, just like the pills.

But Jesus, Bradley is trying. He loops an arm around Jake’s shoulders on the walk back to the car, nudges him with an elbow, ruffles his hair. “Next time, you’re getting a graphic novel, gremlin.” He announces. “I’m not letting you drown in biology.”

Jake rolls his eyes, but he smiles. This one feels more real, his rounded cheeks ache with it. Bradley thinks they’re bonding. They are, that’s the worst part. Jake’s not faking that piece. Bradley makes him laugh so hard sometimes he forgets where he is, what he’s gotta do. 

I love you, fatass. Jake whispers when Bradley’s back is turned. 

So he decides something quietly, without telling anyone, not even himself: Bradley should remember him as good, as soft, as laughter in a library and donut jelly on fingers; as a backseat full of borrowed books, as food — canned and rich, simple and sweet, from their kitchen or from a box, all of it love in disguise.

When Jake leaves — and he will leave — he wants to leave behind warmth. Something edible. Something that lingers. 

He wants Bradley to know that he isn’t scalded, that he didn’t fly too close to fire. 

Jake was just a burning-out bulb at the beginning, not the sun. 

He wasn’t going to glow forever. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“A caterpillar's chrysalis may appear wrinkled due to various factors, including dehydration or damage during or after the pupation process.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

It’s a hot night, one of those evenings that clings to the skin like sweat-soaked gauze, and the bedroom window slides open easier than Jake expected — probably because Bradley fixed the track last week with WD-40 and a sense of purpose. The neighborhood is quiet in that way coastal places get at night, where the distant ocean breathes against the cliffs like some giant asleep in the dark, and the eucalyptus trees shiver just a little under the weight of all that quiet. Jake’s timed it right — or so he thinks. Everyone said goodnight. Iceman is nursing a shitty beer and reading under the living room light, splurging for once. Slider went to bed early, Maverick fussing over him with a promised massage. Bradley disappeared into his room with his Walkman and a sci-fi paperback. It should work.

Jake eases his duffel through the window first, arms aching with the strain of keeping silent. It’s heavy — full of everything he’s hoarded. His fresh cast, his leg now free from external metal, knocks against the frame, a dull clunk that makes his heart lurch, but no lights flip on. 

He crouches low and crab-walks onto the terrace roof, casted leg dragging awkwardly behind him. His crutches, his old ones, clatter softly as he tosses them over the side into the bushes below — not loud enough to wake anyone, or so he thinks — and then he shimmies forward, hand over hand, towards the drop.

His body feels heavier than he remembers it ever being. Not fat — no, he’s still wiry, still sharp angles and thin wrists — but there’s a softness now, a little bit of padding under the skin. He’s been eating real food for months: whole milk, pancakes, salmon that flakes off the fork. It slipped in like kindness always does, quietly and without warning, until one day he looks down at his hands and sees that they don’t shake when he’s hungry anymore. Now, that added weight betrays him. He isn’t used to his body anymore, not when it’s fed.

When he swings his good leg off the edge and lets gravity pull him, he misjudges completely. He wobbles, gulps and then the ground rushes up to meet him too fast, not in a planned crouch but in a full-bodied collapse.

He lands hard — a bone-jarring THUD that punches the air out of his lungs like a steel-toed boot. The world goes gray at the edges, not from pain but from sheer force, like his ribs suddenly decide to press inward and keep everything vital hostage. He coughs and wheezes, sprawled on his side in the patchy grass, gasping, the taste of copper and dirt coating his tongue. He doesn’t think anything is broken; he’s just winded. He’s had worse falls. Ones on pavement, on gravel, in alleyways slick with oil and piss. This is nothing. 

But the sound fucks him over. The crack of the impact, the split-second silence that followed, and then the undeniable noise of a duffel bag bursting slightly open — that’s what dooms him. Fuck. 

The porch light snaps on like a searchlight.

“What was that?” Iceman — clear, sharp, already halfway to military alertness.

“Bradley, Jake, stay in your rooms!” Slider — from upstairs, his steps thunderous as they hit the hallway floor. “Mav, slow down!”

Jake tries to scramble up, but his cast catches on a nearby bush and he can’t find his breath fast enough. His arms shake like they’re being blended on the inside. His chest burns as he coughs. His duffel sits beside him like a confession, vomiting everything out.

The back door bangs open.

“Jake?” Maverick’s voice cracks at the edges as a flashlight beam cuts across the yard, catching the mess: crutches, supplies, the busted-open duffel with peanut butter protein bars and gauze spilling out like a makeshift ER, rolling across the dewy grass. 

Jake looks up at his entire world coming undone in the doorframe. He feels freakish and wrong. He opens his mouth to lie, to say he fell; to say he dropped something, that he was sleepwalking or testing gravity or some other idiotic excuse.

But his throat betrays him. 

Nothing comes out but a wheeze.

His father is the first to kneel beside him, big, cool hands on Jake’s back, feeling for injuries, checking the angle of his cast, touching him with worry, not anger. 

Slider is next — barefoot, furious, in boxers and a t-shirt, his eyes wide and wet in the corners. “Jesus, kid, what the hell—”

Bradley stands at the top of the stairs inside, just visible in the doorframe. The look on his face isn’t anger, not even surprise. It’s something worse — heartbreak blooming slowly across his features, the kind you can’t stop once it starts.

Jake closes his eyes. “Fuck.”

Slider’s voice splits the night wide open.

“What the hell were you thinking, Jake?”

It booms across the yard like a thunderclap, slicing through the quiet in a way that makes Jake flinch hard enough to jolt his ribs. He’s propped awkwardly on one elbow and tries to sit up straighter, because God forbid they see how much it hurts. His whole side is on fire. His scraped hand is already swelling. But all he can focus on is the sound of Slider’s voice — not teasing, not grumbling, not even annoyed. No, this is rage, raw and blistering and too loud to be safe. It’s not exactly new for someone to want to knock him upside the head. 

Jake grits his teeth. “I tripped,” He hisses, aiming for snark and hitting somewhere near pathetic. “Didn’t realize I needed a hall pass to eat shit in the backyard.”

Slider is pacing now, barefoot in the damp grass, hands on his head like he’s deciding between screaming and self-immolation. “You could’ve broken your damn neck, kid! What, we’re supposed to find your body out here in the morning and pretend like this wasn’t a shit choice?”

Jake scoffs, rolling his eyes like it’s all a performance. “Calm down, old man. I’m not dead.”

“Don’t,” Slider snaps, rounding on him, eyes flashing, finger pointed. “Don’t do that. Don’t you act like this is some joke, young man. You have a bag, Jake, a bag full of food and gauze and money and God knows what else. You were leaving.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jake spits back, too fast, too sharp. “Gold star for observational skills.”

Slider recoils like he’s been slapped.

Jake regrets it instantly. But his smart mouth doesn’t stop. “You think I tripped and accidentally packed a go-bag? Jesus, Sli, at least pretend you have half a brain.”

Slider’s face crumples — not angry now, just hurt. “You don’t sneak out in the middle of the night with a busted leg and crutches like we’re a prison, Jake! You don’t—” His voice wavers, cracks, and suddenly he’s yelling again. “You don’t do that to people who love you!”

That hits like a baseball bat to the sternum. Jake freezes, just for a second. His mouth wants to say something cruel. Something to push them all back again. But all he can manage is a pitiful, “Is that what this is? Love?” He cries it like the word tastes bitter, like it’s a punchline to a joke he’s too tired to laugh at. “Because from where I’m sitting, it feels more like misplaced guilt. Ice couldn’t keep it in his pants and you feel bad for the result.”

Slider takes a step back like he’s been slapped again. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out and that’s worse. So much worse.

Jake doesn’t look at him. He looks at the porch instead — at Ice, at his fucking father, who hasn’t said a word this whole time. Ice stands still, arms crossed, unreadable as ever. But there’s something colder in him now — must be how he got his name. It’s not the usual steady stillness Jake depends on. This is different, it’s icy, literally. He’s sealed, closed off to Jake, like he’s just flipped a switch and turned off the lights behind those blue eyes. More than anything else, that makes Jake’s stomach knot up.

He can’t bear it, can’t stand the way Ice won’t look at him, like Jake’s already gone, like he never mattered at all. He didn’t want the fucking confirmation. 

Maverick is crouched beside him, still quiet, still careful, holding the duffel bag like it’s radioactive. He’s picking up the pieces, literally — the bag of pills, an emergency whistle, a cash bag wrapped in duct tape, a folded bus schedule printed in smudged black ink from the library. Every item is a confession Jake never meant to speak out loud.

Maverick zips the bag up and stands with it.

Jake panics, he sees white. “No, wait—”

“No,” Maverick says, not yelling, not angry: just done with him. “You don’t get to keep this right now.”

“I need it!”

“For what, Jake?” Maverick cuts him off. “For bailing? For vanishing like none of this matters? Like we don’t matter? You’re fifteen. You shouldn’t even know how to prep like this.”

Jake’s voice is shrill now, desperate. “Well, I do, okay? Sorry, I don’t have the luxury of pretending things last forever like you guys do. Sorry, I’ve had to survive a few things!”

“We’re not asking you to survive us!” Maverick shouts as his patience finally gives way. “We’re asking you to let us in!”

“I did!” Jake explodes, finally on his feet — swaying, breathing hard, crutches hanging off his arms like dead weight. “I let you in! I let all of you in and it was a mistake!”

The yard goes still. Slider turns away, hands on his hips, jaw clenched so tight Jake can hear the grind. Iceman still doesn’t move, doesn’t look at him.

Bradley — now at the door, still barefoot in pajama pants and that old sweatshirt with the frayed cuffs — just stares. Jake can feel the moment something changes, not with anger, not disappointment. It’s full of pain, this quiet, awful ache that makes Jake want to punch something. Bradley doesn’t yell, doesn’t ask questions, or blink. He just sighs, turns, and walks back inside.

Jake sways on his crutches, throat tight, skin flushed, heart in his mouth. He suddenly wants to vomit, or scream, or crawl into the dirt and vanish.

Maverick takes a breath. “Jake—”

“I know,” Jake rasps, sick. “I know. You all tried. You did the thing. The family thing and I screwed it up. So let’s all just agree I’m the problem and be done with it, okay?”

“That’s not what anyone is saying,” Maverick sighs.

“No?” Jake laughs, bitter. “Because it sure as hell feels like it.”

He shifts, tries to limp back toward the porch, but his ribs spasm and he gasps.

Ice moves, a single step forward, eyes creased with worry — to catch him, if he stumbles again. But Jake doesn’t fall this time. He just stands there, panting, crutches squeaking faintly beneath him, surrounded by the people he tried so hard not to love.

It hurts. 

He didn’t plan for this part, didn’t account for how it would feel to see Maverick holding his escape plan like a dead thing, or Slider trying not to cry, or Ice closing the door behind his eyes. Jake had planned everything down to the hour, down to the sock full of ones and the duct tape around the bags. He knows how to leave, knows how to vanish.

What he didn’t plan for was being missed.

What he didn’t plan for was mattering.

He never has before. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“When a butterfly is nearing the end of its life, it will often seek out a secluded spot to rest, like hanging upside down under a leaf.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Slider stumbles back when Jake lunges for the duffel — clawed fingers shaking, green eyes wide, the kind of panic that doesn’t look like a tantrum, doesn’t sound like rebellion. It looks like fear, like a drowning little boy reaching for a lifeline. Ice knows the difference.

Maverick doesn’t — or well, he does. But he’s afraid. He’s holding the bag just out of reach — not maliciously, not even forcefully, but with that same gentle, missing-the-mark kindness he always defaults to. He crouches again, tries to soothe, like Jake’s overreacting, like this is about pride. But it isn’t. Ice sees it in Jake’s eyes; it scares him.

“Give it back,” Jake growls, voice too tight, too low.

Maverick just shakes his head slowly. “Jake—”

“Give it back!”

The scream tears from Jake’s throat like something feral. It audibly scrapes raw down his windpipe. He shoves at Maverick’s chest — an unbalanced, lopsided flail. The cast on his leg throws him sideways. He doesn’t move Mav at all. He’s not strong enough. It doesn’t matter. He’s not trying to hurt anyone. He’s trying to fight.

Slider steps forward, hands up. “Jake, kiddo…”

“Don’t touch me!” Jake stumbles back, hits the grass hard on his bad leg, then collapses onto his side and scrambles away like an animal cornered in a trap. His breath hitches, hyperventilating, sharp little gasps that can’t get past his ribs.

Tom kneels beside his little boy, hands fluttering. Jake is clawing at the earth now, digging into the grass with both hands like he can anchor himself there, like if he grips tight enough, he won’t vanish. His chest heaves. His shoulders jerk. He shakes like someone trying not to fall apart and failing in real time.

Maverick still has the bag. But the guilt is there now — Ice can see it on his face. The slow realization dawning: this isn’t just a getaway bag. It isn’t just a pack of supplies. It came in a trash bag from Miss Julie.

“I need it,” Jake sobs, fingers curling into fists on the ground. “I need it. I need it back — please — please—”

Bradley’s back down beside him in an instant, barefoot and terrified, murmuring words Ice barely hears over the sound of Jake’s cries. “You’re okay, hey, you’re okay, you’re safe, breathe with me, butterfly, come on.” But Jake can’t. He’s shaking too hard now, curling over his knees, eyes squeezed shut. The cast juts awkwardly. His pajama pants are twisted. He’s covered in grass and dirt and snot and sweat. He’s breaking.

Tom feels it like it’s his own body crumpled on the ground. His son. His youngest son. The boy he didn’t get to raise. The boy he wasn’t there for. The boy who learned, somewhere along the way, that no one was coming back and Ice just took the one thing that made Jake feel like he could survive, even if it was just a shitty old bag.

He doesn’t ask for permission or say jack shit about it: he just grabs the duffel from the way Maverick shoves it towards him, sets it between his legs, and slowly, quietly, unzips it. It creaks open — cheap zipper teeth catching halfway. The duct tape over one corner has begun to peel. The fabric smells like sweat and mildew and asphalt. It smells like Salvation Army surplus. But Ice knows this isn’t garbage or thrift, not to Jake. 

The first thing he sees is a rolled pair of socks, held together with a rubber band and fraying at the toes. More smelly clothes. Underneath them, a half-crushed peanut butter cracker wrapped in tissue. More rations from the hallway closet. A roll of quarters in a medicine bottle. A bag of pills that look sticky. A worn scarf with moth-eaten holes at both ends. A busted toothbrush. A folded map with pencil lines marking exits. A bag of cash — small bills, exact change. But he stops when, wedged near the center, he finds a small lump of fabric. 

A plush bird — butterfly, maybe? — or what used to be one. It’s cheap, the fabric worn thin and stained with what might be blood, or juice, or years of dirt. One antenna is gone, the other chewed nearly flat. The stuffing’s settled to one side, hardened into a crooked lump. It doesn’t even look like much anymore, not unless you saw it in its heyday. It’s not an expensive toy, it looks like it came from an arcade game or was given away at a promotional or charity event. 

Ice blinks, stunned. He reaches in and lifts it, gently. Two fingers under the wings, like it might fall apart in his hand. It’s warm from being buried under everything else. He holds it up, studies it; doesn’t say anything.

But Jake screams. “No — no, give him back — give him back!”

He launches forward, the cry breaking open something in Ice’s chest. He doesn’t wait for help. He throws himself to the grass, elbows Slider aside, knees buckling — and seizes the butterfly out of Ice’s hand with both fists like it’s the only oxygen left in the world.

He shoves it into his face, trembling.

The sob that comes out of him then is wrenching, full-body. “I’ve got you.” Jake warbles into the threadbare thing. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. Nobody is going to touch you anymore.” 

Ice flinches like he’s been shot.

Jake doesn’t care, doesn’t care who’s watching, doesn’t care how undignified he looks. He curls over his precious butterfly and rocks on his knees, arms locked around it, mouth open on a silent cry that finally gives way to shaking.

Bradley is still kneeling behind him, mouthing words, horrified. Slider has both fists balled up at his sides. Maverick’s dropped now, hands slack, staring like the bottom just fell out of the earth.

Ice watches his teenage son and sees a baby. His baby. 

It doesn’t matter what the system has said about him or called him in the past: a punk, a project, a thing to be fixed. This is a neglected and abused child who clung to one dirty toy for years because no one else ever stayed.

Ice swallows, hard. He reaches forward, not for Jake — Jake is still curled around himself, head down, eyes closed. But to the bag. He pulls it toward him, unzips it further, and begins to unpack it. One by one. He lays each precious thing in a line beside Jake, not saying anything, just — giving them back.

Jake doesn’t move at first. But his fingers start to twitch. His head stays down. But he lets Ice hand them over. Then his hand reaches out — trembling, soft — and pulls the scarf in. Those green eyes lift, red-rimmed and hollow; he’s rubbing his cheek against the tawdry fabric — “Mama.” 

Ice breaks and wonders if his child has ever been whole.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“A gentle way to euthanize a dying butterfly is to put them in a freezer.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The chaos of earlier has ebbed, leaving behind a hush so gentle it almost feels frozen — just the low hum of the air conditioner, the occasional creak of a settling floorboard, and the soft, uneven breaths of a boy who’d cried himself into something calm.

Jake is in the middle of their bed now. They brought him there without much fanfare, Maverick tugging the blanket back, Ice arranging the pillows, Slider quietly lifting Jake like he weighed nothing and placing him down like he was glass. Jake hasn’t protested. He doesn’t have it in him. Not after everything. Not after sobbing until his throat burned and he couldn’t feel his face from crying so hard into Slider’s chest.

Now he lies still, curled up small in the middle of their king bed, stuffed butterfly clutched tight against his chest. The cast on his leg sticks out awkwardly from the blanket, but no one comments. They’d tucked him in gently, all of them crowding the space beside him — Slider on his left, Ice at his right, Maverick at the foot, a hand resting against his shin like an anchor.

The room smells like fabric softener and aftershave and lemon balm lotion from when Ice rubbed it into Jake’s shoulders, whispering that it would help him sleep.

Jake blinks slowly, his fair lashes damp and dark against the pale of his cheeks. His lips are chapped, his nose red. He looks bruised with exhaustion. But his eyes flick up when Maverick speaks, quiet and careful. “Where were you going, sweetheart?”

Jake swallows, hard. His fingers flex around the butterfly’s body. He doesn’t answer for a long time. Slider doesn’t say a word. He just rubs circles between Jake’s shoulder blades with the heel of his hand, slow and steady like a heartbeat. Ice lets his fingers trail gently through Jake’s hair, no pattern, no expectation; only being present.

Jake’s voice, when it finally comes, is barely audible. “Wasn’t really a plan, Mav. Figured I’d head downtown. Try a shelter. Or—” He wets his lips, blinking fast. “You know, a bridge. Something to sleep under.”

Slider’s hand stills for just a second. Maverick’s fingers curl, briefly, into the blanket. Ice makes a tiny sound in his throat, like something breaking under pressure.

“You were gonna sleep outside?” Maverick whispers, barely breathing.

Jake shrugs one shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” The words hang there like ash in the air. His voice is too even, too flat. He says it like someone reporting the weather, not a child explaining how he planned to survive a world that had never made room for him. “Been worse places,” He adds, as if he’s trying to make them feel better. “Slept in a dumpster once behind a Chinese place. It was warm and smelled like old rice. There was a box I fit in, I think. I was six.”

Ice turns away like he can’t bear to hear it. His jaw is tight, the kind of tight that holds back tears.

“I could’ve done it again,” Jake whispers, almost defensively now. “I know how to keep safe. You can’t stay in the open. You gotta hide. You gotta stay moving during the day. Don’t let anyone see you sleep. Cops don’t like it. They’ll move you along.”

Bradley had wandered in quietly and now sits at the edge of the bed, looking wrecked, his hands between his knees. Jake glances at him, almost apologetic, before looking away.

Maverick reaches forward, not to stop him — just to touch, gently. His palm brushes over Jake’s hand. “Sweetheart,” He sighs again, so tender it aches.

Jake flinches, just barely. “I wasn’t leaving because I hate you,” He hiccups, hoarsely. “I just — it felt too nice. I’m not used to things staying nice. So I figured it’d hurt less if I left first. I break the things that love me, when I love them back.”

That’s what breaks Slider. He bows his head, his arm curling tighter around Jake’s shoulders, and Jake lets him, trembling slightly under the press of warmth and muscle and protection.

“You are never a burden,” Ice whispers, voice wrecked. “We’re not mad at you, Jake. We’re terrified. Terrified you thought you had to go.”

Jake sniffles, blinking hard. “You don’t know how many people only let me stay as long as I didn’t cause trouble. You don’t know how fast people turn on you when you stop being convenient.”

Maverick leans in, kissing the top of his head. “We’re not those people. You don’t have to earn your place here. You belong here forever.”

Jake doesn’t say anything, he just lets them touch him, surround him, press against him like heat on a cold night.

He’s still holding the butterfly, still holding on like it might be the only real thing he’s ever owned. But he’s also holding them, letting himself be held; letting himself stay.

Slowly, with aching hesitation, Jake exhales into the quiet — like maybe, just maybe, it could be true.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Gothic butterflies in tattoos often symbolize an acceptance of the darker parts of beauty.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The sun is bright in that late-September, early-judgmental kind of way — harsh and nosy, catching on the lingering sweat at Jake’s temples as he stands in the backyard, arms full of a plastic storage bin labeled Spooky Shit in thick Sharpie. The heat clings, relentless even this late in the year, making the black lace sleeves of his mesh top feel like a curse from the very Victorian ghosts he’s trying to channel. His combat boots are untied. His nails are painted matte obsidian, three chipped. There’s a bat-shaped hair clip holding back the sharp edge of his undercut, and his eyebrows — blond, carved, intimidating — have been threaded recently, one of them now climbing in slow, deadly disbelief as he levels a stare at the window.

That window.

The one that, years ago, he’d tumbled out of in the middle of the goddamn night with a go-bag full of stolen gauze, peanut butter crackers, and trauma. The one that still creaks on the right hinge. The one Bradley fixed with WD-40. The one Ice repainted last spring because Jake had bitched one too many times about the chipping.

Now it’s apparently where Maverick wants him to pass up Halloween decorations, he’s doing his dumb shit face.

Jake clutches the box closer to his chest like it’s full of vials of cursed blood instead of string lights and a papier-mâché skull named Jeremy, then deadpans, “I am not hauling my fatass up there.”

Maverick gapes down at him and huffs. “It’s not that high.”

Jake looks directly at him, then down at his own leg — matte black carbon fiber, covered in red Sharpie doodles. “I have one leg and she’s aftermarket.”

Slider, lounging in one of the patio chairs with an iced coffee and a pair of sunglasses too expensive for this chaos, snorts. “You jumped out of that window when you were fifteen, cast and all, Jakey.”

Jake doesn’t even turn his head, just flips him off. “Yeah, and I also believed back then that I could live off of generic Pop-Tarts and spite. We all make mistakes.” He sets the box down on the grass with a thunk and plants one hand on his hip, letting the light catch the glint of the little safety pin earring dangling from his left lobe. The pose is pure attitude, all angles and aesthetic violence. He gestures broadly, dramatically, toward the side of the house. “There is a door. A functional, ground-level door. I’m a modern bat. I do not climb. I curate.”

Bradley appears at the edge of the porch, holding two iced lemonades, one with a bendy straw. He looks at the box, then at Jake. “Asshole, you made us hang a forty-pound skeleton on the chimney last week.”

“That was art,” Jake says without hesitation, making grabby hands for the lemonade. “This is just vertical oppression.”

Ice finally steps out of the house, quiet as always, sipping black coffee and taking in the scene. His expression is flat, but Jake knows him too well. There’s a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth, a little softness in his lined eyes. It’s the kind that still catches Jake off guard if he thinks about it too long.

Ice looks at the window, then at Jake and the tub.

Jake scowls at him, and he can feel his matte black lipstick melting in the heat. “Don’t even start, Dad.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Ice blinks, deadpan.

“Your eyebrow said it,” Jake shoots back. “Your eyebrow’s a narc and way too goddamn hairy, I need to get these bitches done every time I look in the mirror.” Slider chokes on his coffee. Maverick’s hiding a laugh behind his hand. Bradley’s sipping his drink like he’s at a play he paid for. Fucking traitors. 

Jake kicks at the grass with his boot, then sighs, long and performative, as he picks the tub back up. “I swear to God, if Jeremy loses a tooth because I trip on my way to our demon-ass attic, I’m haunting this house myself.”

He shimmies up the rickety ladder, a lemon wedge squeezed between his teeth, his box of spooky shit clutched to his chest.

Ice smiles, wiggling all of his fingers in a little wave. 

Jake flips him off again.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Millions of Monarch butterflies will migrate to Mexico's Central Highlands from around late October to early November, often coinciding with the Día de los Muertos celebration.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

Chapter 5

Summary:

Hi guys! It’s the one day a month where I maintenance my wheelchair and realized I meant to write Jake getting a wheelchair way sooner in the story — surprise, surprise: another reason Jake is cranky is because he’s in pain.

Also, this chapter is very cute — it’s to lull some of you (Stevie) into a false sense of security.

Haha, just kidding, it’s not gonna get worse — it’s gonna stay happy.

I promise 😈

Notes:

Enjoy! 😉 🦋

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Certain moths like the Io moth have circular patterns on their wings, which resemble wheels — this is called mimicry and used to scare off predators.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

It happens on a Saturday, after almost a year of being Jake Kazansky — by feeling if not always by name.

It’s the kind of summer day that bakes sidewalks and curls the leaves on the lemon trees outside; that makes the hot California air shimmer like a mirage. The heat presses down heavy, and Maverick’s latest attempt at grilled corn — over-charred, undercooked, vaguely lemon-scented from the tree out back — floats in through the kitchen window, tangled with the thick scent of motor oil, sunblock, and the soft, persistent hum of Tom Petty bleeding out of an ancient boom box on the counter. 

It’s too hot for real talking, too hot for real thinking, and yet here Jake is — sweating his ass off on the front porch like he’s auditioning for the role of a melted ice cream cone. He sits slouched on the top step, recently freed left leg stretched out in front of him on a folded beach towel that’s faded and fraying at the edges. The towel’s pink, he tells everyone it was the only clean one, but it’s not. It’s the softest. He picked it for that reason and hopes no one ever calls him on it. His toes are bruised in three different colors, his foot curled inward, dystonic. Sli helped him set up on the steps and looked worried at the tiny spasms that never stop bucking under his blistered skin.

The recent surgeries and fixators, the metal reworked inside his ankle — they haven’t done what anyone wanted. It’s worse than it was. He can’t put any weight on his foot at all, he can barely move it without lightning bolts of agony shooting up into his hip. He cries quietly, when they’re not with him and he has to stagger around on his crutches. He doesn’t want them to think he’s worse — but his family isn’t as stupid as he’d like them to be. The crutches feel like anchors, his leg can’t take the pressure anymore.

He balances a slowly melting orange popsicle in one hand and a Game Boy in the other. It’s Bradley’s old one and the screen’s too scratched to see clearly anymore. He doesn’t care. It’s not even on. The popsicle drips lazily down his wrist, and he makes no move to stop it. 

See, it’s the illusion that matters — the performance of not caring, the perfectly arranged tableau of a teenage boy too cool, too jaded, too burnt-out for anything real. He’s fifteen, but he knows he doesn’t look it. He’s lived too much of his stupid life in fluorescent-lit hallways where time gets eaten alive by bad news and false hope, by surgical consults and recovery timelines that never actually end. It’s always been easier for Jake to snap first, to act like everything’s beneath him, than admit he still wants stuff. 

He doesn’t dream of running anymore, he dreams of being able to get across a room without sobbing. 

He wishes he could just crawl and drag his fucked up leg behind him. But that makes their faces go all pinched in pain and the last thing he wants is to hurt his family. So, he grits his teeth and bears it. 

Slider is in the driveway, stuffing the back of the Scout van like he's prepping for a zombie apocalypse rather than a Boy Scout camping trip. The gear is piled high and just keeps coming — tents, coolers, first-aid kits, bug spray, snacks, backup snacks, and what looks like at least one frying pan, even though Slider once almost set a picnic table on fire with one. 

He’s got his ridiculous ranger hat on, the one Jake always says makes him look like a park service knockoff from a kids' show, and a red whistle swinging from his neck like some kind of forest-themed pendant. Bradley’s helping him, taking a break from his own packing for USD, strong and sunburnt, laughing. 

Jake watches them with the practiced disinterest of a kid who wants desperately not to be seen wanting. His eyes track every movement Slider makes, though his head stays still, posture casual to the point of boredom. His gaze catches on the hiking boots tossed carelessly by the passenger seat — mud-stained, worn in, exactly the right kind of scuffed. He used to own a pair like that, gifted by a sweet foster mom whose son had outgrown them. They’re long gone now, discarded like so many other things he’d loved. 

His voice comes out sharp when he finally speaks, half a smirk riding shotgun with the bitterness. “You sure you’re not smuggling a small nation in there, Sli?”

Slider grins and points at him like Jake’s said something brilliant. “What can I say? Preparedness is sexy.” He snaps his fingers, his smile only growing. “Wait a sec, you’d kill it out there, J. You’ve got the brain for survival. You could get the hang of it in no time. You want to come with?” He pulls a face, mock-glaring at Bradley. “Your brother hated Scouts and gave up before his first badge, but you — we might make a scout out of you yet.” He lifts a hand to his forehead like a tragic heroine. “Maybe one of my sons will finally get an Eagle.”

Jake snorts, but it’s brittle. “I’m too old for Scouts.”

“You’re fifteen,” Slider replies, brow raised, hands on hips. “I’ve seen Scouts start older than you and Eagle by eighteen.” 

“Almost sixteen, next week.” Jake frowns, wistful. “And I’m too slow,” He sighs, flat and matter-of-fact, like he’s reading off a medical chart. “My leg hurts. I don’t think I could make it all the way through anyway. It would be a waste, no matter how much I wanna do it.” His cheeks flush red and he looks away, it was stupid to say so much. They’re going to think he’s being whiny. 

Slider pauses, jaw working, mouth half-open with something unsaid. He closes it instead. Jake shifts his weight and grimaces — barely — but it’s there in the set of his jaw, the way his fingers curl into the step beside him. 

The movement jostles his ankle and sparks off something electric down the bone, pain burning behind his eyes. He hides it well. He’s had years of practice burying anything that might make people feel sorry for him. But Maverick catches it from the open window in the kitchen, a dish towel in hand. Iceman sees it too, still behind his newspaper on the porch. Bradley watches openly now, tension tightening across his shoulders. 

“Butterfly—” He tries, but Jake doesn't say another word. 

He goes back to licking the side of his popsicle like it's the only thing keeping him from asking, begging, to go. If he admits it, the wanting, it’ll turn to rot inside him. He doesn’t plead. He doesn’t even ask. But his eyes stay locked on the van until it disappears down the street, like it’s taking something else with it.

Used to be, he’d try. Used to be, he had that softness about him — the kind that hadn’t yet been replaced by sarcasm and side-eyes and barbed little insults to keep people at arm’s length. 

But that was before the surgeries started stacking up like bad debts. Before he learned what it meant when a doctor shook their head and used words like nonunion and degradation. His ankle had been crushed, warped, rebuilt. 

Jake stopped believing in miracles around the fourth time someone wheeled him into an OR with a clipboard and a hopeful tone. 

It used to be him bringing up the idea of amputation, now the doctors do it — with a strange kind of relief, like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence that’s gone on too long. He’s tired of waiting for everyone else to give him permission to be done with this chapter. He wants a life that doesn’t require suffering for every step.

But, maybe this is all he gets. It makes him want to curl up and not get up again. 

Why, if it’s just going to hurt?

Later that night, after the sun’s gone down and the house is wrapped in quiet, Jake curls up on the couch. His ankle is pillowed and padded, surrounded by a grocery store bag of peas that stopped being cold an hour ago. He stares at the TV without seeing it, expression blank, hands still. A commercial plays for some goofy sitcom reboot. He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even blink. He’s so sick of this being his whole world. 

“Is he asleep?” Bradley whispers from the hallway.

“No,” Jake mutters, without opening his eyes. His voice is low, scratchy with fatigue but laced with warning. He knows they’re watching. They always are, lately. It makes his skin itch. He’s tired of smiling for them. He thinks he might just be done. 

Ice steps behind the couch, arms folded across his chest, gaze clinical but softened by concern. Maverick crouches beside the coffee table, his mouth tight with something like nerves. Jake doesn’t move.

“Jakey,” Maverick tries, careful and calm. “We were talking and we think it’s time you had something better.”

Jake opens his eyes, squints at them like they’ve just handed him a live grenade. “Like what? A miracle surgery? Those don’t exist and I’m tired of getting cut open.”

“Freedom,” Ice corrects. 

Bradley leans down, tone gentle but certain. “We want to get you a wheelchair. Not the clunky hospital ones, but like custom, built for your body and light so you can throw it in the truck. You could go places with a chair, butterfly.”

Jake stiffens. His mouth opens, ready to fire off a joke, a protest, something about expense or how it’s too much or how he’s not that bad. Not yet. Not like that. 

Slider chooses that moment to step in from the front door, still smelling like pine and dirt and damp canvas. “You’ve been taking care of yourself for years, baby,” He interrupts, his voice low, earnest. “But now, you’ve got options. We can get you up and not crying in pain.”

Jake doesn’t answer. He sits there, fingers worrying at the hem of the blanket, knuckles gone pale. His throat works around a lump too thick to swallow. When he finally speaks, it’s so soft they barely catch it. “I didn’t know you saw —”

“We did.” Ice kneels down in front of him until they’re eye to eye, nothing but sincerity in his voice. “You don’t have to put on an act for us to be okay, son. We want you to really be okay. This is the path we’re on and surgery didn’t help the way we hoped. But maybe this will. You’re allowed to make things easier on yourself, you’re allowed to live however you want — as long as you live.”

Jake turns his face away, and for a second, the armor cracks. His eyes go glassy and wet. Not because he wants to cry, but because he’s so fucking exhausted from holding it all in. He doesn’t know how to say thank you without sounding pathetic, doesn’t know how to accept kindness without twisting it into something barbed. 

Bradley just reaches down and squeezes his shoulder, grounding him. “You’re not a burden, butterfly. You’re just tired.”

Jake nods once, small and choked. “I’m so tired.”

Maverick leans closer, steady and warm. “Then let’s get you to bed, sweetheart, and tomorrow — we’ll get you wings.”

Jake flops into Ice’s chest, arms locking around his Dad’s neck, sniffling. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Butterflies land the way they do because of their delicate legs — it’s similar to how wheelchair users benefit from specialized wheels or casters for different terrain or tasks.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

They drive to the seating clinic in silence. 

It’s not the kind that fills rooms after fights or worms its way into hard conversations like doubt or rot, but the heavy kind — thick with anticipation, with questions no one wants to ask out loud. 

The four-door hums along the freeway with the windows cracked just enough to let in the heat, and Jake stares out at the blurry shapes of palm trees and strip malls, chewing the inside of his cheek like it might keep him grounded. 

His left ankle is bundled the way it always is, swaddled in foam and an old ace wrap, propped awkwardly on a folded sweatshirt. Every bump in the road makes it twinge, and the ache sings up his leg with the steady rhythm of a song he hates but knows by heart. His crutches rattle against the doorframe with each turn, a soundtrack to a life built around adaptation. His hospital backpack — faded, frayed at the seams, patched with duct tape where the strap gave out — is tucked under his seat like a relic. It’s been to more orthopedic appointments now than he’s been to movies. He’s packed it without thinking: paperwork, water bottle, emergency ibuprofen, protein bar he won’t eat, headphones he won’t use, CD player.

He’s dressed for utility, not fashion: loose jeans, no hoodie, no armor, no misdirection. There’s a vulnerability to it that gnaws at him. If he’s going to do this — if he’s really going to sit in front of strangers and let them measure him like broken furniture — then he wants to do it clean. Honest, or well, as honest as someone like him can be, anyway. His stomach knots itself tighter with every mile. 

The clinic looks like every other one Ice has ever hauled him to: beige stucco, fake plants in dusty pots, tinted windows that try and fail to make the building look less like a purgatory of waiting rooms. 

The handicapped spots are front and center this time, painted a garish blue that makes Jake want to duck his head. It’s like a neon sign blinking welcome, cripples, and for some reason, that’s the hardest part. 

He hesitates before opening the door.

Ice notices, of course. He always does. “You okay, Jake?”

Jake shrugs, casual as anything. “Yeah, Ice. I — I just don’t know what they’re gonna say.”

He doesn’t say I’m scared, Dad. He doesn’t say What if they take one look and think I’m faking? or What if I’m not broken enough to deserve this? Those thoughts are venomous little creatures and he’s learned not to feed them with air anymore. 

Ice doesn’t press, just reaches out, warm and steady, and rests a hand on Jake’s shoulder until he can breathe again. Ice is solid, it makes leaning on him easy. 

Inside, the clinic smells like rubber. The reception area is all soft pop music and fake cheer, but the room beyond it — the actual seating space — looks like a cross between a bike shop and a prosthetics lab. Demo chairs line the walls in matte colors like army green and steel blue. There are pressure maps laid out on long tables, wheels the size of trash can lids hanging from racks, footplates and seat backs stacked like hardware. It’s a landscape of possibility. 

Jake feels like an imposter dragging himself into it.

Monica introduces herself first, the PT — she’s mid-thirties maybe, black scrubs, kind eyes, and the confident voice of someone who knows exactly how much pain people carry even when they smile through it. He likes her.

CJ is the sales rep, younger, high-top sneakers and a name tag covered in pins, the kind of guy who’s way too cheerful for this but somehow makes it work. 

Jake sizes them up with a glance, then glances away. He’s prickly from the start — posture coiled, sarcasm loaded, hands clenched in the sleeves of his T-shirt.

“So,” Monica says, crouching beside his bad side like she’s done this a thousand times, “I read your referral and history. I’ve gotta say — you’ve been through hell, kiddo.”

Jake scoffs, his default defense. “What gave it away? The Frankenfoot or the surgeries that needed a second printer page?”

Monica doesn’t flinch, just meets him head-on. “Both. But also the way you walked in. You’re managing a lot. Your leg’s pretty bad, huh?”

Jake shrugs, eyes fixed on the laminate floor. “I mean, it’s manageable. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

CJ peeks around a rack of carbon-fiber wheels. “We’ve got a few setups to try today. No pressure, no rush. It’s your call what feels good. Sometimes it’s weird at first. Sometimes it’s a relief. Either way, we’re here to talk about it.”

Jake hesitates, then blurts it too fast: “I just— I don’t wanna waste anyone’s time. If it turns out I’m not… like, wheelchair material or whatever. I don’t want anyone mad or anything.”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say and he hates how small his voice sounds when he says it, like he’s trying to take up less space in a room full of devices designed to help him take up more.

Monica and CJ exchange a look — practiced, yes, but not pitying. It’s the kind of look that says you’re not the first kid who’s said this out loud. Monica tilts her head gently. “Jake, can I ask you something? Do you wish you had a wheelchair most days?”

Jake bites his lip, nods. It’s tiny, like his voice. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Monica shakes her head, so does Ice.

“And when you picture having one,” CJ adds, voice even softer, “Do you feel dread… or relief?”

There’s a beat and then, barely audible: “Relief.”

“Then that’s your answer, Jake.”

They help him into the test chair — glossy black, sleek, a minimalist frame that looks impossibly light. Jake braces himself for it to feel medical, clinical, like something designed for someone else. But when he lowers himself in, when Monica adjusts the footrests so his bad ankle isn’t dangling, when CJ measures his hips with quiet efficiency — something shifts. 

There’s a moment, subtle but seismic, when his back hits the support and the tension in his shoulders drains down into the seat. For the first time in years, he’s not calculating pain every second. He’s not pretending to be okay just so no one will flinch around him. It’s not some dramatic epiphany. It’s quieter than that.

But, he exhales, all the way. His shoulders slump and his jaw unclenches as he scoots himself forward. “Oh,” He whispers, like something’s just clicked into place. “I moved and it doesn’t hurt.”

Monica smiles. “Yeah. That.”

He experiments with the push rims, tentative at first, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to own this movement. He rolls forwards, back, in a little circle. It’s not smooth — he’ll need to learn the rhythm — but it’s his. It’s not pain dictating his pace or a brace limiting his steps. It’s choice. It’s motion without penalty. He can move. He can move fast. 

He looks up and finds Ice near the wall, his hands clasped, eyes glassy. He’s not crying, but damn close. He meets Jake’s gaze and nods once — the kind of nod that says go ahead, we’ve got you.

Jake rolls forward again, a little more confidently this time. He turns the chair in a slow spin and lets himself grin — just a bit. “Can I try the red one?”

CJ grins. “Oh, you’re one of those. Fast kid in a flashy chair, I can already tell.”

Jake’s smirk deepens, his armor flickering back to life now that he’s on steadier ground. “I’m gonna need flames on the wheels and a horn that plays Highway to Hell.” He beams up at his father — “Ice, I’m gonna be Hell on Wheels!”

Monica chuckles. “First taste of freedom’s addictive, huh?”

Jake doesn’t answer.

But the way he moves — slow, purposeful, stubbornly forward like he’s carving a path through wreckage no one else can see — says everything.

He laughs, loud and free and alive. 

For the first time, he sees a future for himself that isn’t etched in deep inky black lines of pain — it’s in technicolor. 

On the ride home, grounded again but with hope unfurling on his back like new, wet wings: “I think I know what it’s like now — what it feels like when a chrysalis breaks open, Ice.” 

His Dad grunts, noncommittable, but Jake catches his hands trembling on the wheel. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“A butterfly doesn’t move like a bird, and a wheelchair doesn’t move like legs — but we still move anyway.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

They said six weeks. It takes three.

Jake pretends not to care. That’s his specialty — delivering indifference like it’s gospel, rolling his eyes instead of asking questions, grunting instead of hoping. But under the sarcasm and all that don't-touch-me energy, he's practically vibrating with it. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud; not even under threat of death or extra math class. 

Ice had made a call — well, a few calls — and somewhere in the bureaucratic wilderness, some old string got pulled. Slider might’ve mentioned Jake’s father is the COMNAVIFOR in just the right tone to make the VA administrator twitch. Maverick, who doesn’t know how to cook a full meal without burning some part, but will throw money at a problem now that he has it, wrote the deposit check the same night Jake whispered yes to the red frame. All three of them argued over who got to buy it, Jake thinks Mav fought dirty. 

He thinks they see it now: the way he leans to one side after walking a handful of steps in pants of agony, the way his whole body stiffens before standing with a whimper, the quick, breathless exhale he makes when he has to climb into the back seat of a car. 

So yeah. When the call comes — early — Jake doesn’t light up. He doesn’t bounce or grin or ask if they can go early. He just lifts one shoulder and says cool in a voice that sounds allergic to excitement. 

He does, however, spend the next three nights tossing like a storm is trapped inside him. He complains about it being the heat. 

He’s stone-silent on the drive to the clinic. Slider doesn’t fill the silence, doesn’t try to crack lame jokes or offer unsolicited advice. He just drives. Jake doesn’t fidget, doesn’t speak. But he watches the buildings go by like it’s a countdown. 

It’s waiting when they arrive.

His chair is parked in the back room like something out of a movie — a round, low-backrest, the whole thing is bright red with black seating. J. Kazansky is printed on the side in a clean white font, just above the left axle. The light titanium frame gleams under the fluorescents. He’s got thick poly tires to prevent flats, with one solid footplate. His backrest kisses the middle of his ribs like it trusts him to sit tall on his own. It doesn’t scream disabled. It doesn’t scream fragile or broken. It looks fast. It looks dangerous. It looks like him.

Jake stares at it with a blank face that doesn’t fool anyone.

“You wanna give it a spin?” CJ asks, already crouched at the wheels, like he’s been waiting his whole life to hand this off. Monica stands behind him, beaming like it’s her own birthday.

Jake just nods. He doesn’t trust his voice not to betray him. He shifts awkwardly from the transfer mat into the seat. It’s not smooth. He hates that it’s not smooth. His movements are tight and guarded and shaped by years of pain — but still, he settles in. His hands grip the push-rims with the familiarity of someone who’s been dreaming about this and trying not to. 

And then — he moves.

It’s not dramatic at first, just a few inches forward, then a pivot. But the chair responds — like it knows him, like it’s been waiting. There’s no awkward dragging, no resistance, no biting his lip through the torque on his ankle. It’s silent and smooth and fast. The bearings whisper against the floor like a secret. He turns a slow circle, gliding instead of grinding. There’s a moment where he stops and just breathes, and in that breath — long, steady, unflinching — something in him unspools. His spine settles back. His jaw slackens. The tension around his eyes — always there, always flaring whenever he has to move — just evaporates.

“You okay, Jake?” Monica asks gently.

He nods, eyes wide. Then he croaks, almost like it surprises him: “It doesn’t hurt.” He swallows. “I’m not… leaning on anything. I’m not dragging.”

Slider makes a tiny sound, barely a gasp, like his heart just cracked in half. He’s spent the last thirty minutes pretending he wasn’t hovering, now he doubles over and lets out a sigh that sounds like it’s been living in his lungs for months.

Jake doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow down. He tests the corners, the responsiveness. He zigzags between chairs like he’s running drills. Spins in place just to see if he can. By the time he loops back around to the front desk, his fluffy blond hair’s sticking up in wild directions, there’s a flush high on his cheeks, and a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He’s happy. “Holy shit.”

CJ pumps a fist. Monica claps. Slider wipes at his face and misses. “Aw, kid.”

Jake wheels in a slow circle and fires a grin over his shoulder. “Bet I could beat you to the car.”

Slider raises a brow. “You wanna challenge me, Speed Racer?”

Jake pops a tiny wheelie, more swagger than skill. “You scared, old man?”

“Oh, you’re getting cocky now? In that candy-apple hot rod?”

“Damn right I am.” Jake spins toward the door like it’s already his. “Try to keep up.”

Outside, the sun hits them like a spotlight, baking the sidewalk until it shimmers. Jake doesn’t flinch. He just rolls — easy, natural, like his body has finally decided not to fight him. Slider jogs to catch up, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Okay, okay — you win,” He wheezes. “I’m officially impressed.”

Jake smirks. “Told you, I’m aerodynamic now.”

The chair folds easy into the trunk. Jake transfers without wincing, for the first time, he doesn’t make that soft grunt of pain sliding into the seat. Slider doesn’t start the ignition right away. He just looks at Jake in the rearview mirror. 

Jake is leaning back, one arm draped casually across the door, one hand still resting on the wheel beside him. His face is soft. His legs are still. His mouth, usually curled in defense, is calm, not grinning, not biting — resting.

When they pull into the driveway, Ice is at the mailbox, having just come home from base. Maverick’s on the porch, drying his hands on a dish towel like he’s been waiting all day without meaning to. Jake doesn’t wait to be helped. He doesn’t wait for the door. He’s already out, rolling down the front path with a little speed, doing a slow turn just to show off. When the front wheel drops off the edge of the sidewalk, he laughs instead of flinching. He catches himself, pivots smoothly, then keeps going.

Ice freezes; Maverick watches like Jake’s just walked on water. Jake sees the expressions — half-proud, half-shattered — and rolls to a gentle stop at the porch.

“It’s fast,” Jake barks, like he’s daring anyone to say otherwise.

Maverick’s voice breaks on the words. “Yeah, sweetheart, it’s part of you.”

Jake looks down at the chair. His chair. He runs a hand along the side — feels the clean welds, the warmth of the metal from the sun. It feels like something that always should’ve been his. 

He doesn’t say thank you. He’s not built for thank you’s, not out loud.

But the way he rolls up the folding ramp and through the door — all on his own, at his own pace, without flinching, without help — says everything.

“Anything good in the mail, Dad?”

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Some butterflies ride thermal currents to glide effortlessly — like how skilled wheelchair users coast on momentum from only a few pushes, conserving their energy.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake’s new chair changes everything.

It’s not a miracle. It doesn’t erase the years of surgeries or the sometimes late-night pain or the scar tissue that crawls up his left leg like ivy on a crumbling wall. It doesn’t take away the metal still threaded through the bones in his ankle, or the icy sensation that hums beneath his skin when the weather shifts. 

But it changes everything else — the pace of life, the weight of moving, the sheer goddamn effort it used to take to just exist. What used to be a long, slow drag through life — limited to the path from the car to the front door, punctuated by bracing on doorframes and hiding winces behind snide remarks, is now smooth. 

Jake used to plan his routes through the house like a military operation, calculating how many steps he could handle before the burn started, and how long he could lean against the fridge before someone noticed. Now, he rolls. He glides. He spins into the kitchen and snatches a pancake off a plate before Maverick can yell about it, then disappears again like a shout with good wheels.

He can go to the store now — easily. No more pretending he’s okay while dragging himself through the aisles like a ghost on a bad day. No more clutching the cart handle like a lifeline. He doesn’t have to lean or limp or force himself not to cry in the frozen food section. Instead, he zooms. 

He makes a game out of weaving around displays like it’s a damn obstacle course. Bradley eggs him on, of course — a longtime skateboarder, his brother coaches him on how to spin around corners so tight it makes the cashiers flinch, how to reverse just right to snag a bag of chips from the bottom shelf without ever breaking momentum. Jake masters accidental wheelies in the cereal aisle. He knocks over a box of Pop-Tarts once and shrugs with all the attitude in the world. 

“Gravity’s a bitch,” He says, completely deadpan, as if he didn’t do it on purpose just to make Bradley laugh. He pretends it’s all a joke, that he’s just having fun.

But the truth is, it matters. It’s not even about independence. It’s about waking up in the morning and not immediately calculating what it’s going to cost to get out of bed. It’s about having both hands free instead of clinging to crutches like lifelines, about rolling across the driveway and having enough energy left over to look up — to look around — and see things. Jake doesn’t even realize how much of himself he’s been holding back — how small he’s made himself just to survive — until he stops having to anymore. 

He didn’t notice how much pain muted everything, until the volume turns up on the rest of his life.

One afternoon, as they’re unloading groceries from the Bronco — the old one with the stubborn tailgate that only opens if you kick it just right — and Jake’s halfway through hauling a bag of tortilla chips into his lap when Bradley pulls something else out of the trunk. 

It’s a box. Cardboard, brown, no markings, with packaging that’s more about function than flair. Jake squints at it, suspicious. “What’s that?”

Bradley doesn’t answer at first, just gives him a lopsided, quiet smile. “Something I bought for you. I told you your birthday gift was coming a little late, butterfly.” He was so relieved when Bradley said that a month ago, his first birthday party and cake was overwhelming enough.

Jake immediately rolls back half a foot like the box might explode. “For me?”

Bradley opens it anyway: pops the flaps and pulls out the contents with deliberate care — two enormous wheels. They’re black, knobby, chunky — they look like they belong on a mountain bike, like they’ve been ripped off the side of a Jeep. They are everything Jake’s current tires are not and he knows exactly what they are. All-terrain. Trail wheels. The kind designed for grass and dirt and rocks. The kind that doesn't skip over roots or sink in mud. The kind built for trails, for Scouts. “Maverick’s got the other half, it’s a big front wheel attached to a clamp that lifts your footplate and casters off the ground. He’s been hiding it in the garage” 

Jake’s mouth goes dry. “You guys got me off-roading stuff?” He asks, voice too casual, too tight.

Bradley shrugs. “Uh, duh. These are quick-release hubs. You can swap ’em in, like, thirty seconds.”

Jake doesn’t say anything. 

He knows what those wheels mean. They mean his family saw him watching, sees the way he always lingers by the door when Slider’s loading up the van, the way he tracks every Scout trip like he’s memorizing coordinates for a place he’s never allowed to go. Jake’s never asked, not directly. He never let himself. He figured it was stupid — the idea that a half-broken sixteen-year-old with a Frankenstein ankle and medical trauma could just join a Scout troop. They hiked. They camped. They climbed. Jake had spent the last five years learning how to sit down without crying. It never seemed like an option.

“You — did someone say something?” Jake asks, voice cracking despite the flat tone he’s aiming for.

Bradley just gives him that look — the soft one, the knowing one, the one that cuts straight through Jake’s bullshit like it’s never even been there.

Jake flushes, looks away. “You’re not supposed to... notice stuff like that, fatass.”

Bradley doesn’t smile this time. He just says, gently but firmly, “Slider already talked to the council. You’re good to go. He said you’ve got more survival skills than half his kids anyway.” He pauses. “They’re excited. They want you there.”

Jake’s head jerks up. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” This time the smile is there. “You’ve always wanted to go, Jake. You don’t have to pretend you didn’t. I hated that shit, but you don’t. You love being outside. You love bugs and weird skills and packing for Armageddon.”

Jake looks at the tires in Bradley’s hands like they’re holy. He can feel them already — on gravel, on mulch, on packed dirt under pine trees. He can imagine rolling through a field, wheeling up to a fire pit, making jokes around a camp stove instead of from the couch. He can see it and that vision is so dangerous, so precious, he has to blink hard to keep it from shaking loose.

He clears his throat. “You’re such a sap, B,” He mutters, but the words are thick and wobbly.

“I know,” Bradley chirps, completely unbothered. “I love my baby brother.”

Jake doesn’t say thank you. But he reaches forward and runs a hand over the thick tread, fingers slow and reverent. His touch lingers. It’s not a grab. It’s a gesture, like he’s saying yes without ever opening his mouth. I love you too. 

That night, he slips the wheels on himself. He won’t let anyone help, not even when the locking mechanisms are stiff or when his hands tremble from how hard he’s trying not to cry. In the morning — before anyone else is up, before the sun is even high enough to burn off the dew — Jake rolls out of the house with his chest open, his wheels wide, and for the first time in his whole goddamn life—

He’s not just free.

He’s ready.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Butterfly wings are made of chitin, a lightweight but strong material — similar to how wheelchair wheels are designed for strength without heaviness, using materials like carbon fiber, titanium and aluminum. It’s how the wheelchair brand Tilite got its name.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake hesitates in the hallway, wheels squeaking faintly over the smooth floor.

The sound irritates him — not because it’s loud, but because it betrays him. Gives away the fact that he’s circling like a shark with low self-esteem, a predator with nowhere to strike. He’s already passed Slider’s office three times. Once with a fake cough. Once with an obviously manufactured just stretching my shoulders. Once with a bag of Goldfish crackers as a decoy, as if he just happened to be eating them on loop. 

Each time he chickened out. Skidded past the door like it was the edge of a cliff and he didn’t quite have the guts to jump. But now he’s back. 

This time he stops in front of the open doorway, raises a hand and knocks twice before he can talk himself out of it.

Slider looks up immediately, reading glasses perched halfway down his nose, pen in hand over some paperwork. He smiles — not with surprise, but with that quiet, patient kind of welcome that Jake still doesn’t quite know how to handle. “Hey, Speed Racer, what’s up?”

Jake’s hands go straight to the rims of his chair, fidgeting with the smooth aluminum like it might give him a script to follow. “Can I... ask you something, Sli?”

Slider sets the pen down immediately, no hesitation. “Always, babes.”

Jake draws in a breath like he’s prepping for surgery. He holds it. Lets it out too fast. “It’s dumb. Forget it.”

“Jake.” Slider’s voice is steady — not commanding, not pressuring, just solid, like a rock in a river. “Try me.”

Jake bites the inside of his cheek. He stares at his lap. “I know I’m late, like, really late. And I’m—” He gestures vaguely at himself, a quick circle that somehow encompasses the chair, the scars, the years of being left behind. “Not exactly Boy Scout material, considering, y’know. The whole... fucked leg, chair and chronic-pain situation.”

Slider doesn’t flinch, doesn’t let him slink away. Jake presses on before he can stop himself. “I just — If someone, hypothetically, wanted to be one. A Scout. Even now. Would that be, like... allowed? Or is it too babyish? Too late? I mean, I get it if — if it’s stupid—”

He’s rambling. He knows he’s rambling. He’s talking too fast, voice pitched too high. He hates it. He hates how much it matters, how much he wants. 

The second the question is out of his mouth, he wishes he could rewind time and swallow it whole. He stares furiously at the floor, willing himself not to look embarrassed. But it’s too late. The hope is already hanging there, bright and painful in the air between them.

Slider stands without saying anything. He crosses the room slow and steady, like he’s moving through water. He ruffles Jake’s messy blond hair with one hand, just enough to ground him, just enough to say I heard you without making a big thing of it. Then he tips his head toward the hall.

“C’mon,” He grins. “I’ve got something to show you, Kazansky.”

Jake hesitates. He narrows his eyes, instantly suspicious. “Is this a trick? If this is a trap where you make me watch an educational video about trusting adults or being a teenage scout buddy—”

“Move.”

Jake rolls after him with a muttered, “This better not involve safety goggles or babysitting.”

They stop by the hallway closet near the laundry room — the one Jake knows is stuffed with ancient winter coats and weird Scout gear that smells like mildew and charcoal. Slider opens the door and reaches in without fanfare, shoving jackets aside with practiced ease. Then he pulls something out — long and narrow and draped in a garment bag, like a suit waiting for prom night. He holds it up and starts to unzip it.

Jake’s brain short-circuits.

Inside — pressed, clean, perfect — is a Scout uniform. A crisp Class A shirt with a stiff collar and epaulets that look military-grade. The patch space on the chest says Jacob Kazansky, behind it hangs a dark green Troop 122 tee, rolled neatly over hanger arms. Fresh pants. A neckerchief in the exact dark red of the troop's colors. A slide. A hat. A belt. Everything. Not borrowed. Not hand-me-down. Not maybe. Prepared. Bought. Thought about.

Jake’s jaw drops, and his hands fall still on his wheels.

Slider looks down at him with something just a little bashful around the edges, like this matters to him, too. “I called ahead,” He says, quiet but sure. “Talked to the council. Checked the regs. You’re not too old, kid. Not by a long shot. You’ve got time to earn every badge you want.” He nods toward the chair. “And this? Doesn’t disqualify you. If anything, it makes you a badass. My son’s gonna be a fucking Eagle Scout.” He beams.

Jake doesn’t say anything. He can’t. His chest feels wide open, like someone took a crowbar to his ribs and finally let the air trickle in. He’s never let himself dream this far. Not past the first hurdle of would they even let me try? He didn’t know they saw him. He didn’t know they planned for him. This wasn’t a maybe. This wasn’t some sweet, symbolic gesture. 

“You’re in, son,” Slider grins. He reaches out again, ruffling Jake’s hair a second time — softer this time, a benediction more than a tease. “Welcome to Troop 122.”

Jake doesn’t mean to squeal. He really doesn’t. It just happens — it bursts out of him like a balloon finally untied, high-pitched and bright and completely out of his control. His arms shoot out before he can stop them, and suddenly he’s hugging Slider — full-body, fierce, clinging. His teary face buries in Slider’s belly like he’s ten years old again and just skinned his knee. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Slider hugs him back without hesitation. Those big arms don’t hit him, like every other big set of arms has done before this house, before this place — they wrap him up like it’s the most natural thing in the world, one hand smoothing over the back of Jake’s head, like it’s okay, like he knew this was in there somewhere waiting to come loose.

“You’re not babyish,” Slider coos into his hair. “You’re brave as hell. You’ve always been. We just finally got you the uniform to match. I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Jake snorts into Slider’s belly, muffled. “Do I get a knife?”

Slider laughs, voice thick. He wipes something suspicious from the corner of his eye and grins down at him. “We’ll start with a compass and a s’more, Ranger Rick. Knife comes after your first overnight.”

Jake pulls back, eyes shiny, face flushed, and squeezes tighter one more time before letting go. “Deal.” He pauses, clears his throat, and mutters with a scowl, “You better not tell Ice I cried.”

Slider smirks. “Too late. He’s the one who ironed your neckerchief for you.”

Jake groans. “Oh my God. I’m never living this down.”

But he’s smiling and he doesn’t wheel away. He doesn’t crack a joke to cover it up. He just stays. Lets the moment sit. Lets it mean something.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Both moths and wheelchair users often follow nonlinear, adaptive routes in their journeys. For wheelchair users, that can be ramps and curb cuts. For moths, that can be transverse orientation.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake’s first merit badge arrives on a Wednesday, slipped into a plain white envelope that looks deceptively boring.

Maverick finds it on the kitchen counter, half-buried under a pile of mail. The return address has the council office stamp. His eyebrows shoot up. “Jake!” He calls, poking his head down the hallway. “Mail’s here, baby boy!”

Jake zips into the kitchen two seconds later, wheeling in fast and spinning around the island like he’s practicing for the Paralympics. His hair’s damp from a shower, and he’s wearing a faded T-shirt that used to be Ice’s. He snatches the envelope like he suspects a trap. “If this is another newsletter I swear—”

But then he stops, because it’s not.

Inside is his first real badge: Insect Study. Green border, tiny embroidered beetle in the center. Antennae curled like a crown. It’s pristine. Heavy in his palm in the way that real accomplishments always are.

Jake stares at it, speechless.

Bradley strolls past, clocks it immediately. “Oh, I called it. I knew your bug-loving ass would go for that one first.”

Jake doesn’t look up. “They’re invertebrates with highly specialized ecological functions,” He says automatically, reverently, still staring at the little patch. 

Maverick chuckles and slides a tiny thrifted frame across the counter. “Found this last week. Figured we’d need it.”

Jake grins, eyes bright. “I’m framing this one. The sash can wait.” He presses the badge against the glass like it’s holy.

Ice leans over his shoulder, spotting the beetle, and smiles like he’s remembering the first time they gave Jake a book on butterflies. “Do you want me to show you how to mount it properly?” He asks, already reaching for tweezers.

Jake nods, quiet. “It’s my first real one.”

Slider walks in last, mug of coffee in one hand, and breaks into a grin when he sees it. “Bug Boy finally gets his first badge. Hell yeah, I put that in forever ago.”

“It’s Insect Study,” Jake says primly — but he’s glowing, and nobody corrects the nickname because he secretly loves it.

That night, after everyone’s asleep, Maverick sticks the frame on the fridge beside a scrap of printer paper that reads: Troop 122’s newest Entomologist. One badge down. 

Jake sees it in the morning when he rolls up with a sleepy squint. He pretends to be annoyed. “You guys suck.”

But he doesn’t take it down.

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“A moth’s feathery antennae detect minute changes in airflow and scent, helping them navigate just like wheels respond to small terrain changes — both are sensitive to the environment in subtle but crucial ways.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

The living room is golden in the way only California can be — bathed in that late-afternoon haze where every edge glows and the air tastes like eucalyptus and dry heat and something faintly sweet drifting from the kitchen. 

It smells like sunblock and old paperbacks and Maverick’s latest obsession with grilled peaches. The stereo hums low in the background, Fleetwood Mac twanging through Landslide, and Maverick’s got a old Polaroid camera slung around his neck like he’s been assigned a mission from God and intends to fulfill it. He’s wearing flip-flops and a NAS MIRAMAR shirt and the kind of sunburn that says he forgot sunscreen yet again. 

Bradley’s home from class, belly-down on the couch with one foot hooked over the armrest, a USD hoodie rumpled around his waist and a sociology textbook cracked open on his back like it personally betrayed him. He’s shoveling trail mix into his mouth with the mechanical rhythm of a man defeated by both academia and raisins. 

Slider is sitting in rush-hour traffic to pick up Jake for a meeting at city hall.

Ice is at the dining table, glasses perched low on his nose, red pen in hand as he absolutely demolishes someone’s report with the meticulousness of a man who’s reviewed government briefings for fun.

Jake rolls in, quiet at first, just a hum of motion. His chair glides easily over the hardwood, polished and practiced and then they see him.

He's in full uniform — Class A. It’s pressed within an inch of its life, every seam sharp enough to slice paper. The tan shirt fits him like it was tailored, tucked neatly into olive-green pants that hit perfectly at the top of his low-profile footplate. His Troop 122 patch is bright over his heart, and the slide on his neckerchief is centered with almost military precision. Even his hair is combed — combed — and clearly, recently trimmed. Ice got to him with the gel too, which is a miracle on par with the parting of the Red Sea.

For a second, no one speaks. The light catches Jake’s shoulders just right, and he looks like someone you’d trust to build a fire in the rain or patch a leaky tent at midnight. He looks like a Scout.

Bradley’s the first to react.

“Whoa!” He yells, flinging his textbook off him like it’s contagious. “Look at this little asshole!” He throws both fists in the air and makes a sound that’s somewhere between a wolf howl and a proud older brother letting loose at graduation. “You look like the Eagle mascot mated with a Swiss Army knife and became a doofus!”

Jake flushes, his whole face glowing red, but he’s grinning so hard it looks painful. He scowls automatically. “Shut up,” He mutters, fiddling with the edge of his wheel, but it’s ruined by the smile splitting his face. His ears are red. His hands won’t stop twitching. He doesn’t know what to do with this much praise, this much attention — not when it’s good.

Maverick steps forward with a grin already blooming. “Hold it there!” He barks, mock-serious, lifting the Polaroid like a weapon. “Smile or I’m giving you a wedgie in three… two…”

Jake rolls his eyes and flips him off — with great ceremony, too — thumb out, elbow high, like a salute. Maverick clicks the shutter, and the camera spits out a photo that’ll live on the fridge for the rest of eternity: Jake Kazansky, Troop 122, middle finger up, smiling so hard his eyes squint at the corners.

“Instant classic,” Maverick crows, waving the picture through the air.

Ice hasn’t moved yet.

He stands slowly, chair scraping softly against the hardwood, and approaches with something unreadable in his expression. His gaze travels over Jake with the quiet precision of a man taking in a miracle and not wanting to scare it off. He doesn’t speak. He just steps close and gently reaches forward to adjust Jake’s collar — like he’s done a hundred times before school, before events, before important firsts — smoothing it with fingers that shake just slightly. He brushes a bit of lint from Jake’s shoulder. His knuckles graze the patch on Jake’s chest.

Jake watches him. Then — with perfect teenage timing — he bonks their foreheads together. It’s not hard, not rough, just enough. A gentle bump to jolt Ice out of whatever spiral he’s slipping into.

“Thanks, Dad,” Jake murmurs, voice low and raw. “I love you.”

Ice swallows. He blinks once. Then again. Opens his mouth like he’s going to say something profound — and can’t. So he just nods. His hand lingers on Jake’s shoulder longer than it needs to. He turns away too fast, blinking hard as he heads for the kitchen, muttering something about the thermostat needing adjusting. Maverick watches him go, lips pressed together. Bradley actually shuts up for once. 

Jake wheels forward and slouches into the couch, flopping like he’s been doing this his whole life. His legs swing up onto the cushions with a little flourish. “So,” He starts, casually chewing a hangnail. “Who’s teaching me to tie fifteen knots before Tuesday? Sli tried — he failed.”

Bradley groans, already flinging a pillow at his head. “God, not me. I can’t even tie a tie.”

“Guess that’s Ice’s job,” Maverick sings, patting Ice’s shoulder as he reenters the room, eyes suspiciously glassy.

Jake grins, all teeth. “Only if he doesn’t cry on the rope.”

Ice shoots him a glare — the affectionate, watch it kind. “You’ll learn square knots and humility or so help me, son.”

Jake blows him a raspberry. 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Some moths, like the Death's-head hawkmoth, migrate over vast distances without strong legs.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Jake starts small.

It’s just eyeliner at first — dark, smoky stuff smudged under his lower lids like a moody new wave frontman. A little concealer to clean up under his eyes, some drugstore brow gel to make his face look a little less like a face and more like armor. It’s nothing flashy, nothing neon or glittery or to make a statement. That would be so not the point. He times it like a covert op — sneaks into the downstairs bathroom when the coast is clear, stereo humming from someone’s room, Sli snoring on the couch, Ice on the phone, Maverick out washing the Bronco. He does his face in the warped yellow light of the vanity bulb, using his CDs like a close-up mirror.

It’s not about looking pretty. It’s about looking sharp, like no one can touch him. 

He likes how it makes his eyes look — dangerous, older, untouchable. He likes how it makes people think twice before getting in his way.

At school, it barely causes a blip. One girl in chemistry calls him mysterious. Some burnout in the hallway mutters glam zombie like he thinks it’s original. Jake doesn’t flinch. He just spins his chair and rolls past like he didn’t even hear it — which is a total lie, obviously. But whatever. He’s sixteen, not clueless.

Back home, he scrubs it off before dinner, every night. 

Until one night, he forgets.

He’s late the next morning for a meeting, tearing through the hallways with a granola bar in his teeth and half his scout uniform on. His hoodie’s half-zipped, his hair’s a wreck, and the eyeliner’s still perfect — deep black, flicked just right at the outer corners. Totally obvious.

Bradley spots it first, munching cereal and leaning back against the counter like he owns the place. “Fuck,” He says around a mouthful of Cheerios, “Who’re you trying to impress at Scouts, Duran Duran?”

Jake freezes like someone hit the pause button. “I — no one. Shut up.” He immediately goes for his face, scrubbing at his eyelid with the back of his sleeve. “It’s not — God, just forget it.”

Bradley holds up his hands, all chill. “Didn’t say I didn’t dig it. You’ve got Bowie vibes, butterfly.”

Jake flushes, muttering something halfway between buzz off and whatever, and tries to pivot away.

Then Slider strolls in, sipping from a travel mug like it’s no big deal, clocking the makeup in one glance. He raises an eyebrow and says, deadpan: “You might wanna fix your wings. One’s flyin’ south.”

Jake practically short-circuits. “You know what wings are?”

“I’ve got a basic understanding of culture,” Slider says dryly. “Also, I saw you checking your eyeliner in a CD’s reflection yesterday. Subtle as a brick through a window, Jakey.”

Jake looks like he’s ready to crawl into the breadbox and stay there forever.

Then Ice walks in. Jake tenses automatically. He braces — for a lecture, for a weird dad moment, for something. His spine goes poker-straight. He can hear his own pulse in his ears. Ice glances at him, clocking the eyeliner, the mascara, the shimmer right at the corners. Then he just walks past him toward the coffee pot, calm as ever. He pours himself a cup, takes a sip, and says over his shoulder, “Left side’s a little smudged. Still looks nice, though.”

Jake blinks like he got hit with a rubber mallet.

Then Maverick leans in from the hallway — already halfway out the door with aviators on and keys in hand — and yells, “Looking good, sunshine! Your Dad gonna frost your tips for you next?”

Jake groans and drops his forehead onto the table. “I hate all of you.”

But the relief in his voice is blinding.

After that, the guard comes down, not all the way — he’s still Jake, still prickly and smart-mouthed and allergic to emotions in public — but the makeup starts getting bolder. He tries silver glitter one day. Navy liner the next. Lip gloss, eventually. Maverick offers to paint his nails and Jake says no, like, twice — loudly — and then one night during a movie marathon, he relents. Lets Maverick do one hand, then steals the polish to finish the other in his room.

Slider buys him a palette for Christmas. “Something with colors that don’t suck,” He says, handing over a box wrapped in Santa paper. “Figured you might wanna mix it up. Go full Cyndi Lauper.”

Ice never says much, just occasionally offers notes about blending or helps him clean up a crooked wing before dinner.

But Bradley steals Jake’s eyeliner before a date. Leaves it on Jake’s desk later, freshly sharpened with a neon sticky note stuck to it that reads: Lookin’ sharp, bug boy. Me too. Appreciate it. — B (Date thought I looked hot).

Jake pretends to be annoyed. But he tucks the note into the corner of his mirror, right next to his Insect Study badge and his Scout knife permit.

Alas, the talk — the dreaded so-you-might-not-be-straight talk — finally sneaks up on them one lazy Saturday. Ice tries to approach it with his usual dad finesse. Jake sees it coming from a mile away and wants to perish on the spot. The gay thing is complicated. It used to make sense and now it doesn’t. He knows he likes boys, but girls — aren’t terrible. Or maybe, he just thinks they’re pretty. Is he a girl? Fuck, everything sucks. 

It starts innocently enough. Ice leans in the doorway while Jake’s messing around with his makeup at the downstairs mirror, just doing liner and humming along to The Cure.

“Can I ask you something?” Ice starts, all casual-like.

Jake freezes. He knows that tone. “If this is about girls or boys or whatever, you can save it, okay?” He fires off, fast, flustered, a little too loud. “I don’t have, like, a label anymore. I think I’m gay, maybe. Or — I don’t know. Maybe I like girls. Maybe I only like guys. Maybe I like no one. Maybe I’m not a boy. Maybe I’m just a big weirdo with a crush on David Bowie’s bone structure. Who knows! Leave me alone! It’s hard!”

Ice raises his hands, palms out. “Easy, son. I wasn’t gonna pressure you.”

Jake glares, breathing hard. “Good. Because I’m fine. And I’m not coming out or whatever if I don’t feel like it. This isn’t some afterschool special. I’m not going full Rainbow Brite.”

Ice smiles — not in a patronizing way, just soft. “That’s fine. You don’t have to. I just wanted you to know we love you, no matter how you show up. Lipstick, no lipstick. Boys, girls, aliens. Doesn’t matter. I’m gay, Sli’s bi and no one knows what the hell Mav is. You know you’ve always got us.”

Jake doesn’t say anything. His ears are red. He mutters something about aliens being hot and turns back to his mirror. Ice watches him for a second. Then adds, “By the way — your right wing looks bomb today. Ten out of ten.”

Jake groans. “Shut up, Dad.”

But his hands don’t shake for the rest of the morning. His lips twitch like he’s trying not to smile. The next day, he wears purple shimmer and neon gloss. Maverick gives him a thumbs up on his way out the door. Slider wolf whistles. 

Bradley says, “You’re glowing, bug,” and offers him half a Pop-Tart pack.

Jake rolls his eyes and flips them off, obviously.

But later, in the bathroom mirror, he whispers, “Yeah. I am fucking glowing.”

He doesn’t wipe it off before dinner. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Moths like the Lappet moth have wings that mimic dead leaves or bark. This is like how some wheelchair users use adaptive camouflage — custom colors, skins, or attachments that reflect identity, mood, or function.”

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

 

Two weeks after they take his left leg below the knee, Jake’s still in that weird in-between space — not totally wrecked anymore, but not really okay, either. 

Nineteen feels like a joke now. He’s back at home instead of USD, living in sweatpants and oversized band tees, his surgical stump still wrapped in gauze and angry pink around the stitches. The whole thing looks like something out of a horror movie he wouldn’t recommend. He’s not cleared to put any weight on it yet, so his new wheelchair is his entire universe, the perks of growing out of his old one — a rigid-frame black chair that he maneuvers like it’s an extension of his brain, all quick pivots and perfect 180s. 

The hallway bathroom is narrow and gross in the way every house’s downstairs bathroom is — old tiles, cheap mirror. Jake backs into it like a pro, flicks the door shut with one hand and locks the brakes with the other. His sweaty hair’s a mess, his hoodie’s half off his shoulder, and his mouth tastes like the strawberry Jell-O they’ve been forcing on him since surgery. 

He’s not, like, high high, but the painkillers have him on a soft, fuzzy cloud where time doesn’t matter and the usual stop signs in his brain are just… not there.

Perfect conditions for a terrible idea.

The little velvet box has been living in his top drawer for weeks now — hidden under old CD cases and worn-out socks, waiting. 

Inside: a clean piercing needle, sealed alcohol swabs, a black opal navel ring, and enough teenage delusion to fuel a scene kid’s blogspot. It’s not impulsive. It’s strategic. He’s been planning this. He’s been waiting for this moment and now that he’s slightly drugged and full of questionable confidence, he figures: why the hell not? 

He props a cheap makeup mirror on the counter, yanks his shirt up, and stares at his stomach. It’s softer than it used to be — pudgy from all the meds and downtime — but it’s still his. The jagged scar under his ribs is front and center, a relic from when he fell off the damn roof trying to run away at fifteen, just below it, the faded stick-and-poke he gave himself with a safety pin and a busted pen cap. It’s crooked. It’s stupid. He loves it.

Jake swabs his belly, makes a dot with a Sharpie, and exhales hard. “Best time to do it,” he mutters. “Anesthetized and full of confidence. What could possibly go wrong?”

The needle goes through with a clean little pop. His whole body tenses — not from pain, but from the rush. It’s like flipping a switch. He fumbles with the ring, fingers slick with sweat, but he gets the ball clicked into place. He leans back in his chair, chest rising and falling fast, staring at the shiny black opal nestled in his skin like it belongs there.

It feels weirdly good, not the physical part — the sting, the warmth — but the choice. The ownership. For once, something on his body isn’t surgical. It’s not corrective. It’s not a recovery thing or a damage thing. It’s just his. 

Something permanent on purpose, not because a doctor said so.

Twenty minutes later, he rolls out of the bathroom still shirtless, with a folded paper towel taped lazily over his belly and an absolutely insufferable look on his face.

Maverick’s in the kitchen, coffee in hand, flipping through the TV Guide like it’s still relevant. When he sees Jake, he freezes mid-sip.

“What the — Jake?”

Jake grins like a gremlin. “Don’t freak. I sterilized everything.”

Maverick lowers the mug slowly. “Is that a — did you seriously pierce your belly button?”

Jake lifts the edge of the paper towel, smug. “Lost a leg, gained some sparkle. Balance, Mav.”

“You just had major surgery. You couldn’t have waited a few weeks?”

Jake shrugs, shifting in the chair to avoid pressing on his stump. “Honestly? Perfect timing. Didn’t feel a thing. Plus—” He bats his lashes at his most pushover Dad — “I look adorable.”

Maverick groans, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re gonna kill Ice.”

Jake smirks. “He’ll survive. Probably. I haven’t killed him yet.”

Later, when Slider hears about it, he laughs so hard he nearly drops his coffee. Bradley gives him a discreet fist bump while they’re watching reruns of MythBusters and whispers, “Iconic. Truly.” Jake pretends to be annoyed, but later finds Bradley’s note — Badass move, butterfly. Also, it’s crooked. In a good way. — taped to his drawer with a new piece of jewelry, a little blue morpho on a chain for his belly button.

And Ice? Ice sees the glint of the ring under Jake’s shirt one morning, sighs, and says, “You know, people usually consult their surgeons before stabbing new holes in themselves.”

Jake spins a tight circle in the kitchen, hair a mess, eyeliner smudged, and grins like a menace. “Where’s the fun in that, Daddy?”

But beneath all of it — the sass, the chaos — is something solid. A sense that for the first time since he woke up in that hospital bed missing a piece of himself, Jake’s building something new. Something that’s his. A body that doesn’t just survive — but rebels and decorates. Rising from the ashes and all that shit.

So yeah, maybe he only pierced his belly button.

But it’s a start. 

 

ཐི༏ཋྀ󠀮

“Moths are often seen as the less beautiful cousin of butterflies, but they actually possess intricate patterns, textures, and subtle grace — just like our wheelchairs challenge society’s norms of how beauty and strength appear.”

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