pocketpretzels | Midnight Manor Private Residence, Saturday Morning

In what might be surprising for Steven and Llewellyn, the primary concern the night before had been sleep. Llewellyn's bad dreams meant rest had been more important, so when bedtime came that's what they had focused on.

Perhaps it was the need to catch up on sleep which had meant Steven didn't wake up when Llewellyn got out of bed. But the alarm did get through. Steven fumbled a hand to the nightstand to clumsily turn the alarm off, or set it to snooze, or something that made it go quiet.

Then he turned over, eyes still closed, and tried to cuddle with his beau. Which was when he found the bed empty.

Steven frowned. He opened his eyes and looked around. Nothing out of the ordinary. Normally Llewellyn left a note if he was going to be gone for a while, such as in the kitchen to make breakfast. No note, no sounds of anyone in the bathroom. That was puzzling.

"Llew?" Steven called.

Well, if Steven listened very, very carefully, there was the sound of light snoring.

If he looked very carefully, there was also a tiny foot sticking out from under the bed.

The snoring didn't stand out because Raphael snored sometimes and it was frankly adorable.

The foot, on the other hand, did have Steven doing a sharp double take when he spotted it. Luckily before he accidentally stepped on it by getting out of the bed. "Er - hello?"

Hard to say if the foot (or anyone attached to it) heard Steven, to be honest. There might have been a slight twitch?

Steven wasn't going to randomly touch what he was realizing was probably a child's foot without permission. So instead he said, louder, "Hello? I think you may be misplaced."

"M' sleepin'," came an indignant voice from under the bed.

"Possibly, but under my bed which is where you're not meant to be," Steven said. The only one who could arguably be under the bed was Raphael, and this was clearly not him.

Which just reminded Steven that now he had two problems to deal with. The child and the still missing, "Llew? Are you about?"

Steven tried that one louder, hoping Midnight would carry it to wherever in the house Llewellyn was.

Silence for a few moments, then:

"About what?"

"I'm looking for Llewellyn," Steven said. He knew Llewellyn would probably prefer a child use his last name, but he was trying to answer the child's question so introducing a different name wouldn't help at the moment.

Then, because it might help, "I don't suppose you've seen him?"

Of all the possible responses to that question, Steven was likely not anticipating a giggle and a drawn-out “Nooooooo.”

Steven definitely wasn't. He was starting to get increasingly worried about where Llewellyn was though. Steven briefly thought about calling him but then he saw that Llewellyn's mobile was still on his nightstand, so there went that idea.

"He wouldn't leave," Steven said to himself. Quietly, so as not to worry the child. Who was another problem that needed solving. Steven tried tamping down on anything resembling panic and went for potential multitasking.

"Yes, er, I need to find my friend," Steven said to the child, though addressing the comment to the child's foot really. "Perhaps you could help me?"

Another giggle, as if there were something especially amusing about this request.

“Yes, I can help!”

"That's very kind of you," Steven said. "Could you come out so we can have a proper introduction then? I'm Steven. With a V."

The foot disappeared, only to quickly be replaced by a head of curly brown hair, which was attached to a small boy who scrambled to his feet.

"I'm Llewellyn," he announced proudly. "That's L-l-e-w-e-l-l-y-n. With four L's."

Steven blinked. And blinked again. There were several warring feelings and instincts inside of him. The first was the tilted feeling of reality not being what he thought it was at all, let alone when he was only just getting a grip on knowing what was real again.

Then there was the reminder of a thing that Fandom did sometimes, which he and Llewellyn had missed the last go round (oh what good timing that trip had been).

This was then followed by seeing that yes, this child had more in common with Llewellyn than simply the name. The eyes, the facial features. This was... well, a Llewellyn. Like the reunion weekend. Not his but one.

Of course on the reunion weekend Steven was able to vanish and let Marc take over. But this was different. This was children. So the strongest urge was that no, Steven couldn't give over the body because he had to protect Marc from any of this.

Compartmentalizing then. Something he was better at than he ever knew for most of his life. Steven reminded himself that Llewellyn hadn't gone away by choice, it was just one of those things, nothing to do but wait it out until he came back.

And in the meanwhile there was a child whose fault this was not and who needed to be taken care of.

"Well then," Steven said. "Looks like I've found you I suppose. Hello. Have you been hiding long?"

"Sleeping," Llewellyn corrected. "I wasn't hiding."

Ignore the part where he'd been sleeping under the bed.

"I see," Steven said, as though he stood corrected. "Were you sleeping long then?"

Llewellyn shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "Maybe?" It hadn't felt like very long.

"Are you hungry?" Steven asked. It was a version of Llewellyn so Steven knew odds were high that it was yes, but he also knew it was good to involve children in planning as much as was age appropriate. "I know I am since it's time for breakfast."

He was hungry. Though he also looked momentarily taken aback by the question.

"Yes?" he answered, a little uncertain. Clarissa didn't like it when he complained. But it wasn't complaining if someone asked, right?

(The question of where his sister even was was also nagging at him, a little, but maybe not as much as it should.)

"We also need to feed Raphael," Steven said. "That's a cat who lives here as well. Do you think you can help me with that?"

"I don't know," Llewellyn answered honestly. "What do cats eat?"

"He has his own food," Steven said. He thought about saying it was like cereal but then realized perhaps this version of Llewellyn didn't like cold cereal either. "I can show you when we're in the kitchen."

"All right," Llewellyn decided, after giving it some thought.

"And once we take care of him, we can take care of us," Steven said. "Does that sound good?"

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