Quickly giving a loooong time coming shoutout. My granny! She's always inspired me to write and to express who I am......... after I taught her out of her LGBT+phobia.....oops. Also, shitty birthday to me AND Alexander Hamilton. Since it's my birthday it's only slightly above a thousand words this time, I wanna update these all for today.
~Eko.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The parents are back! The parents are back!"

I just sigh and the whole damn street fills with teens and kids, looking out the window for it before deciding to go down with them. Why not?

"Mom! Dad!"

Half the kids are screaming and hugging their parents, small parts are crying and there is a last part just staring ahead, as if shocked.

"Dad....," Stan whispers.

He looks up, tears rolling down his face. Wow, he's clearly a daddy's boy I guess.

"I'm sorry."

Wait what now?

"I............. I need a moment."

Stan turns and turns into the coyote, running away.

"Stan!"

"Leave him," Kyle says.

Randy looks at him, questioning it.

"But he's my son.... he's upset."

"Don't worry about it. He is the type to not appreciate you coming there right now, trust me. Ken? Can you go? I have to make a body count and figure out what happened. If we have injuries, Stan is the only healer left in here."

Oh no. Oh shit. This is exactly what he feared, isn't it?

"I—Okay."

"Who is he?"

Kyle sighs.

"Kenny, now I need to hear what happen—."

"You're not currently in charge."

"Try it. Now we're gonna go discuss what the fuck happened and why half our people are fucking dead."

Kyle finally looks at the person who made the comment.

"Also. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not seeing any order right now. Get your ass to your kids, they missed you. Someone. Come with me, I need an explanation. Tell me what happened so we can better everything next time."

He turns to me.

"Now, Ken, please check on Stan."

"Yes sir!"

He rolls his eyes and I run off. The direction is a little bit like on the side of..... the ex fenced area? That's.... wow... I didn't think Stan would come here.

"STAN!"

"Leave me alone."

I roll my eyes.

"Sh, it's gonna be okay."

"How exactly? My mom is DEAD!"

I sigh and keep my eyes down to his sitting form.

"You'll miss her, for sure.... but it won't break you."

"How do you know that?"

"I know you well enough to know that. You're not positive per say but you, if anyone, know that grief hurts but you can't stay in something."

"How the hell have I given that impression?"

"You gave that impression with the way you talk about history."

"It's in the past, doesn't matter."

"Hm.... you're never gonna get to that but get this.... you'll be alright if nothing else. Losing a loved one is hard, especially a mother figure. But you know what? Those people are mothers and they won't like the idea that their children get broken over them. So pick your ass up, you have responsibilities now."

"I—I'm not honestly good enough of a healer to do that."

"Shut up. You are. You're lying and you know it. I'm sure you do. Nobody is that hard on themselves while being that lovely to themselves at the same time. You do a lot of things you don't do because you would be self conscious or your other shit."

"It's rather complicated."

"Explain."

He sighs and taps the ground next to him.

"Sit down then. It's really a long damn story!"

I sit down, smiling at him.

"This probably comes from when I was really fucking young. My family.... sure... it's not broken but well my-my dad has been hard on us a lot. He's worse than me... if that's even possible. My dad kinda taught me that if I want/need something, I have to fight for it."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's not exactly what teaches self-control. It hurts like hell. Mom used to try to teach me out of what I picked up, they fought about my future and how this new attitude into life would ruin me. It probably did, maybe I'm not angry but I have no idea as to how to handle emotions. It's hard to understand where I am and why.... it's hard to control everything in my damn head. My family had issues, a lot of them, especially with my sister being someone who nearly burned me to near death before coming to new thoughts. I won't be able to do this, healers are balanced. It's the idea of the kind of magic. Balanced, walk a straight line. We're supposedly the 'good people' as we help, never hurt. Hurting is a stupid thing, in every way being a pacifist is supposed to be my route. But I just..... I get damaged. I'll cry, I'll scream, i'll be jealous. I'll wish pain upon people. We're not supposed to prefer, we're supposed to be an artefact... in a way, it's what's called being a perfect child. I don't have to be smart, I just have to care for anything. I don't have to be brave, I just need to know what to do and how I'll do it."

"Sounds awfully boring."

"It..... it would be. I hate the ideal with a passion, you haven't seen what kind. But at the same time, it's time I'd step up."

"You can feel shit and still do that."

"Don't know if I can though. It's the way mom said she's been raised all her life. She tried to give me freedom because Shelly had so much but now I wish she hadn't. I don't know what to do! I get dizzy after healing the slightest wound! I hate everything that this is. I just....... Why the fuck didn't I realise living like I do is the wrong way? There is a reason mom tried to speak as little as she could when she was angry, always calming down before a word. It's how to live with this shit, it's expected."

"Seems boring."

"Seems I don't have a choice."

"There must be a possibility for you to be like you are."

"No, I doubt there fucking is! Just..... FUCK."

I put a hand around him.

"Sh, take a breath."

He nods and takes a breath, looking at his hands.

"What's gonna happen now? Am I gonna be a disappointment? Will anyone give a shit about me anymore? I can't think right, not at this moment. I'll end up doing stupid shit, I have before today."

"Everyone does stupid shit."

"I do it more than anyone else...... fuck. It's hard to say what this is. It's just—FUCK."

I sigh and take a tighter hold.

"I know what that's like, feeling like a disappointment."

"But you're not..."

"In this story, I'm not. But there are places where I matter as much as a plot line, I'm not easy to like. They like to pretend that I'm worse than I am to shove their weird fantasies in."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. It's being put under a magnifying glass, all your flaws being everything about you. They draw you over, paint with those colours, the mistakes, the imperfections. While some others get the opposite, they think it's fucking normal for people to paint you with those colours. 'Oh I love him, I just prefer *insert name*.' Odd way to show. I am not a plot line, you're not one of them. Nobody is."

He nods, smiling a little.

"We shape the plot, we aren't apart of it, we make it. And that's why we're not disappointments, we're in stories that are disappointing."

"Thank you."

He smiles a little.