Chapter Text
You don’t fully understand why you’re fully dressed at three in the morning, waiting for your sister to arrive at your -- okay, Jane’s -- quaint little home on the canals of Punta Gorda, Florida.
Oh yeah, because she threatened to murder you if you didn’t do this.
Even though you really don’t want to do it.
It’s only temporary, you tell yourself. It’s only for maybe a month at most and then this critter will be off with some other foster home or, hopefully, a happily adopted family, maybe somewhere in California. As long as it’s far away from you. You really can’t stand their kind after what happened over seven years ago.
There’s the glow of car headlights through the window that faces the driveway, and you force yourself to not completely lose it at the door because she gave you no other choice in doing this and because it’s still the right thing to do regardless of how much you don’t like it and --
All thoughts, greetings, everything, flies out of your head the instant you open the door and she throws her tote-bag-laden arms around you in a huge bear hug. You work around the bags to hug her back. She still smells like vanilla extract, like sugar cookies, like how you remember when you last met face-to-face over seven years ago. She’s still smaller than you are. The hug lingers far longer than it probably should, but you don’t care because you haven’t actually been in each other’s company in the same room for years and you miss the familiarity of being with someone who is practically you and yet not you, not at all. You guess it just comes with having a twin, alongside the really weird but still cool emotional connection thing.
She finally lets go after another moment, beaming with an uncharacteristically sincere smile up at you, her face Yours But Not Yours, same salt-and-pepper hair and pale skin and feminine facial structure. The only difference is in the eyes. Hers are a rich lavender with an amber ring around the pupil. Her hair’s longer than you remember, brushing past her shoulders now instead of just barely touching them like the last time you saw her, no longer in a neat bob with the little black headband like last time.
It’s hard to believe how much things have changed.
She’s still smiling as she sets the bags down out of the doorway and shuffles in, chattering that you two really need to find a chance to catch up in person instead of over the phone or Skype like you have been, and you are totally all for that, but a very small Something shuffling shyly behind her is what has your attention. A small Something with horns.
”Please Dave? The shelter’s crowded, we have even more coming in tomorrow, she needs a home. Even a temporary one is better than none.”
“I said no and meant no, Rose. Why can’t she stay with you?”
“Vodka Mutini’s balls just dropped and he’s going through his territorial phase. I’m not putting up with the vet bills.”
“We don’t have the room down here, and there’s gators and snakes galore. Alligators, Rose. And what if Jane says no? What’ll you do with her then? I know you don’t have the heart to have her euthanized if no one takes her.”
The other end of the line is silent. Bitterly silent.
“Listen Dave.”
“Oh shit here we go again.”
“I know you don’t like them, but this is punishing the whole of the species for crimes they didn’t commit. So one troll happened to cause an accident to someone you were close to; you’re not the only one.”
“You were close to them, too.”
“Yeah, and I got over it. I forgave. I wouldn’t be working at the shelter if I hadn’t. Believe me, Dave, she’s one of the meekest little trolls we’ve had here so far. She won’t be any trouble.” Her voice’s temperature suddenly drops to fucking subzero. “Or do I have to let it be announced to the world that the great Dave Nepeta Strider is still in possession of his childhood Care Bears?”
“You leave Grumpy and Funshine out of this.” You sigh through your nose, rub at your temples. Geez, she’s not gonna stop. “I’ll talk to Jane about it. If she says no, that’s it. Don’t even try to talk her into it, because she won’t budge.” She makes a bunch of happy little noises on the other end of the line. “Jesus, when did you become such a dick? Considering you no longer have one, that is.”
“Maybe it’s the fact that yours is enough for both of us.”
“Shut up. Like I said, I’ll talk to Jane about it. Don’t get all celebratory yet. And don’t expect me to like it.”
The little troll standing on the porch in one of Rose’s old kiddie outfits blinks up at you with one big blue eye. She had said this troll used to be in a fight ring -- there was no trial for animal abuse, apparently things are different in New York. Hard to tell, besides the obvious scars on her face and arms and little skinny bare legs and the eyepatch hiding what you guess must be a missing eye and all the bandages she’s still wearing, some still stained in blueberry-syrup blood. It sort of surprises you that she’s wearing clothes, all the trolls you’ve seen -- on television anyway -- haven’t been wearing anything besides collars or maybe one of those stupid doggy sweaters or booties if they were lucky. She isn’t wearing shoes though, she just has her little bare feet poking out. One two three four. Four fuzzy little toes, like cat’s paws without the dew claw. She’s sort of slouched in a nervous way, picking at the hems of small black shorts with her claws. One two three four five. Five skinny little fingers not unlike your own when you were her size.
“Oh! Dave, this is Vesper. Vesper, this is my brother Dave.” She lets go of her shorts long enough to waggle her fingers at you and she shuffles a bit closer to the door. “C’mon in, he doesn’t bite.” She’s talking to the little troll like she would if she was trying to befriend a stray cat. She shuffles a little closer, cautiously moves a fuzzy bare foot toward the door, then steps over the threshold as if she were afraid it would vaporize her if she crossed. She barely surpasses your knees.
“Okay, so I brought plenty of my old clothes for her to wear so you don’t have to go shopping, a few of your old ones too, if she prefers those.” She jabs a finger at one tote bag. “Then there’s a few books on troll care in this one here, proper books, and this one has children’s dishes, and--”
“Waitwaitwait. Rose, you’re speaking as if she’s going to be staying here longer than a month.” -- you cut your voice to a whisper -- “As if I’m going to be treating her like a person.”
She wheels on you with such a look of fury you almost piss your pants right then and there. Okay. Okay. Person treatment it is.
The troll in question has been standing off to the side, blinking back and forth between the two of you, soft, pointed, battered ears flicking like a cat’s.
“You can sit down, sweetie,” Rose tells her gently, leads her over to the couch, picks her up and sits her down. She looks frightened and tiny on the couch cushion, ears flicking constantly and fuzzy feet rubbing together in a nervous way. “Do you still have your You-Know-What VHS tapes?”
“I imported them all to DVDs a few years ago. They’re in the cabinet on the left, second drawer.” While Rose digs through the Classic Care Bears DVDs you stuffed in flimsy paper sleeves and haphazardly labeled, you take a moment to look at all the bags she brought. Clothes, Early-Learning reading books -- the kind that are maybe fifty pages tops with pictures every three pages and short chapters, dishes -- none of which look remotely like pet dishes, a few of Rose’s old stuffed toys -- battered but still loved -- these are more along the lines of the care a little kid would need, not a troll.
Rose has apparently found an episode she remembers, because she sticks it in the Blu-Ray and turns the TV on. The resulting blast has you both scrabbling to turn down the volume because shit, if you wake Jane--
A noise at the end of the hall tells you you’re in for it any second now. You would have preferred to go in your thirties, probably stabbed full of holes because you were fighting for the greater good, not at nearly-twenty because you accidentally woke up your legal caretaker and she strangled you for it, but nope, looks like you’re going to get the shameful going-out.
“Dave, I swear to God, if you don’t turn that down--” Jane Crocker steps out in all her 110-pound glory and soft baby blue flannel pajamas and furry bunny slippers, hair disheveled and glasses missing, face contorted in anger at having her sleep disrupted. Then she spies your sister and she’s all smiles and warm hugs. “Rose! So good to see you again!” She squeezes the daylights out of your sister, teases her hair, then notices the troll sitting on the couch, who had until that moment been watching the colorful bears singing and dancing on the TV and had decided to grab a pillow to try to hide herself. “So this is the troll, eh? Hoohoo, you are a tiny one, aren’t you?”
Vesper just flicks her ears and looks down at her feet.
Jane heads over to the tote bags and rifles through them. “Hoo-whee. I remember when Dave first arrived, even he didn’t have this much shit. Guess the standards of kidcare have been raised again. Oh well. I’ll go put all this away somewhere. Y’don’t mind sharing your space, do ya, Dave?”
“I guess not?”
While Vesper is once again distracted with the TV, having decided it was safe to remove the cushion, and Jane is busy finding room to put away separated plates and tiny plastic bowls and cutlery, you pull Rose aside.
“What is the deal, Jasprose?”
“What do you mean, what’s the deal? I thought I’d given you ample enough notice to do your research!”
“Did you think I was going to?”
“I expected you to! If you thought taking care of her was going to be like taking care of a cat, you are sadly mistaken. Trolls are not animals, Dave!”
“Then what are they?”
She looks taken aback for a moment. “I don’t know. They’re not human, but they are in no way animals. They’re...somewhere in between.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I expect you to treat her better than a dog. She’s already been treated that way and look what that treatment’s gotten her so far. Nothing but scars and bad memories.”
There’s not much you can say to refute that.
Rose sighs. “Look Dave, just...treat her the way you’d want to be treated, okay? And do it gently, she’s been through a lot in her short life, and not all of it has been good. You of all people should know what that’s like.”
If ceiling fans could hold your weight you would be metaphorically strung up by your toes on one right about now.
“...Alright.”
“Good.” She wraps her arms around your neck. “I should hopefully have this all sorted out soon, and she’ll be out of your hair, so you can go back to your Care Bears and hatred of trollkind again.”
“Hey…”
Jane comes back with the empty tote bags. “Managed to find the space in your room to set up a pad or something for her, until we can get something better. I won’t stand for her ruining the good air mattress.”
“That’s fine.” You eye the tiny troll on the couch. She yawns, exposing long, sharp white fangs and a dark gray tongue. The episode’s over anyway. Time for bed for everyone.
Rose hugs you and Jane goodbye and squeezes the little troll as gently as she can before taking off to a nearby hotel on the interstate to spend the rest of the early morning. Jane heads back to her room and you look over at Vesper. She blinks sleepily up at you and flinches a bit. Rose was one thing, at least she knew who Rose was and had a bit of time to get to know her. You’re a different story entirely.
“Hey, um, we should probably get to bed. Sound like a good idea?” This is awkward. This is awkward and you know it, she knows it, half of China knows it. She nods, slides off the couch, limps over to you and grasps at your fingertips. Tiny scarred fingers, tipped in small yellow-orange claws, yellow-orange like her horns, squeeze like a baby’s would, tight and gentle. You used to grab Mom’s fingers like that, used to try to grab Bro’s fingers like that. He’d never let you. The lump in your throat is hard to swallow.
You lead her down the hall to your room, which, aside from the newly-erected blanket pad on the floor and the Care Bears adorning your bed, looks like any young adult male’s bedroom. Her clothes are piled neatly on top of the dresser, separating pajamas from play clothes from the more dressy stuff. You pluck a PJ set from one of the piles -- you realize with satisfaction that it’s one of yours, from a purple-and-yellow Dreamer line they started making when you were just a kid, the purple ones were your favorites.
“Can you dress yourself?” Vesper blinks, looks at the purple nighties in your hands, and nods, tugging at the shirt she’s wearing and getting stuck in it. She has a belly-button, you notice, a little one that sort of almost sticks out but not really. You wouldn’t think something that hatched from an egg or whatever would have a belly-button but apparently she does. It’s cute. You help her get her shirt over her horns and get the new one on. She manages the pants without any issues. You notice Rose already took the liberty of cutting a tail hole in the rear. Nice of her.
The pad turns out to have an old mattress topper beneath it so she isn’t sleeping right on the floor. Nice of Jane. When she crawls up under the covers she seems surprised and pokes it several times. You don’t think it should be such an issue until you realize that she may have never slept on anything more comfortable than a floor her entire life -- even at the shelter in New York they weren’t really given a lot by way of luxury. It makes your stomach do flip-flops in a bad way.
She slowly settles in amongst Rose’s old cat plushies -- they’re all dressed in funny little jester and bard and wizard and royalty costumes because hell, Rose ate that fantasy stuff up when you were kids -- but she sort of pushes them away off the mattress topper.
“What’s up?” You crouch down next to the pad. “Don’t you like them?”
She blinks up at you, then looks at the toys and sort of tilts her head. She may not even know what they’re for.
“They’re toys, you play with them. Have you never had one before?” What are you saying, of course she hasn’t.
She blinks at you and slowly shakes her head.
“Then let’s get acquainted, eh?” You pick up one bright tabby cat in a black cloak. “Here’s Viceroy Bubbles von Salamancer.” Blue-gray cat with a gray robe. “Here’s Skulligan Malone.” Ginger cat with a polka-dotted robe and a crown. “Here’s Fossilbee Oldington the Third. These are all Rose’s old toys.”
She blinks and picks up the good Viceroy, squeezes him with her little hands and makes a bit of a face. Right. They’re not exactly soft and squishy, not good for cuddling with their stiff posable limbs. Fun for dress-up, though.
“Alright then. I have an idea.” You take the cat army and set them off to the side, rifling through the Care Bears on your bed until you pluck out Grumpy. He’s old -- one of the originals from the ‘70s -- and faded and patched in unnatural colors that won’t wash out but you can still tell he’s blue and at least he isn’t losing his stuffing. “Ever had a comfort object before? Know what that is?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s something that you keep with you in case you’re scared or something, it helps you feel better. This one’s mine.” You crouch next to the pad again and hand her Grumpy. He’s almost as big as she is, but she takes him in her tiny hands, gives him a test squeeze and a little nod of satisfaction. “But that’s the thing, I don’t really need a comfort object anymore. I don’t have much to be scared of. You’re gonna be here for a while and I get it, it’s scary sleeping in a new house with a bunch of strange people, especially if you’re not sure if those people are gonna hurt you or not. Trust me, I know what that’s like. Would you like him instead, as your comfort object?”
She blinks up at you, nods slowly, and with her skinny arms hugging Grumpy settles down in a tight little ball on the pad.
“Are you okay with the lights off? Do you need a night light?”
She looks up at you over Grumpy and tilts her head.
“I’ll probably go get one anyway. It makes it just light enough that the dark isn’t so scary anymore. Probably best for a new environment, eh?” She doesn’t say or do anything that would make you think otherwise, so you go to grab the little bulb you keep in your underwear drawer -- why, you have no idea -- and stick it into a socket near the bed. The last time you used this was when Jane had taken you in, that first night, until you were assured things with her weren’t going to be like they were with Bro and they haven’t been. She’s loud, but she’s all bark and almost no bite. Not like Bro at all. Doesn’t mean she won’t berate your dumb ass for stuff, though.
You change into your pajamas -- you typically sleep in your underwear but that’s pushing it with a new house-guest -- and crawl into bed. Just before you drift off to sleep you think you hear the tiniest of tiny “thank-you”s you’ve ever heard. You’d thanked Jane like that on your first night. It makes your heart pool in your feet.
Okay. Maybe this won’t be so hard after all. Even if she is a troll, you can treat her the way she needs to be treated.