Work Text:
~::~ 14 Years Ago ~::~
Dark might have gotten a bit over his head, a bit overzealous when selecting so many Lost Ones. He just wanted Bim to stop racing off, stop putting himself in danger.
But juggling six whole children who were a couple years shy of becoming all preteens at once had been a mistake. He should have spaced the ages out, should have been more specific.
However if some supernatural forces pressed him to give up even one of them, Dark would have fought tooth and nail to keep all of them.
He was standing in the backyard lawn of Manor, which was a mess with the guts of way more pumpkin that he had gotten, and was sipping on a coffee.
Arthur was holding an enchanted knife that was cursed to be unable to cut skin or human flesh and he was just slicing into pumpkins.
Kay was hiding behind Dark, “I don’t want him to touch my pumpkin.”
“Don’t tell him about yours and he won’t,” Dark warned the young boy.
Wilford was just standing close by as Arthur began tiring himself out and just concentrated on a single pumpkin. The madman was beaming down with pride at him, like a lion watching his cub hunting for the first time.
Finally, when the young author was either satisfied with his creations, or too tired to do anymore and gestured to it with pride, panting to try and get his breath back.
“Oooh,” Wilford smiled as he grabbed the pumpkin by the stem and turned it around a bit. “I like it.”
Kay fearfully ducked behind Dark’s legs, while the Entity looked at it. Wilford’s original face he’d sloppily carved into the pumpkin was a mess with cuts that Arthur had stabbed into the pumpkin. Half of the upper jaw looked like it was about to fall off, and the guts and seeds of both this pumpkin and countless others were all over it.
“It looks like a soul made of human suffering,” Dark told the young boy.
“Yes!” Arthur pumped his fist in victory.
“Nice!” Wilford held up a hand and the two high fived.
“And you’re certain that this is the design you want?” Dark asked the Author.
“Yeah, it’s ugly as fuck,” Author smiled proudly.
“Alright, let’s get a candle in there,” Dark sighed and reached down to pick up the full sized pumpkin.
There was a little bit of a standoff between Dark and Arthur. The boy mostly wanted to protect his creation from being destroyed, and Dark wanted to get out of the backyard. But he was able to take the pumpkin, place a magical bust of fire that would neither go out nor consume the gourd in fire. With one last enchantment to preserve it, it was placed with five other pumpkins that had been designed with equally small hands, but far less of a penchant for violence, and Author was forced to take a shower to get the aftermath of his rampage off of him.
After all the Lost Ones were clean, and with cider or hot chocolate in their hands, Dark just watched them out of the corner of his eye. They were watching some movie and not fighting for a change.
Wilford strolled in with his hands in his pockets and just smiled at Dark.
Dark looked at Wilford suspiciously for a bit. “What?”
“That was quite nice what you did for Artie,” Wilford smiled, walking over and placing a kiss on top of Dark’s head.
Dark made a dismissive scoff, “If the boy wants to have an utter travesty for a pumpkin, who am I to stop him?”
“Yes, but you didn’t have to display it on the front doorstep,” Wilford reminded, sitting on Dark’s desk.
“It was nothing,” Dark insisted.
“To him it was everything,” Wilford reminded. “He even went outside after his shower to check that it was still there.”
Dark looked away and at the children in the living room as Wilford smiled at him. He had a thousand words on his tongue of varying levels of admittance or denial. But in the end he made some dismissive sound and continued his paperwork for a bit longer. At least until Wilford convinced him to sit with him and the kids in the living room. Both Wil and Dark seated next to each other as they watched over their little family.