A Sickness

(TW: generational trauma, PTSD, childhood trauma, all against the background of magic. )

You learned a lot of things when you became a father. Especially when you were the primary caretaker. One of these things Isagani had long been forced to learn was that every child was unlike any other. They were quite like species of monsters-- each had their own weaknesses and strengths and abilities. All humans were like that, really, but children were on a whole another level. The rules one child considered fair could be abhorrent to another. In that way children could be much like the unspeakable horrors lurking just outside the boundaries, ones that Isagani had faced down himself back in the day. The only difference was that children could only truly wound you emotionally. But oh, he had faced down both physical and mental pains on levels that could be considered torture. Emotionally? That was ‘another ballpark’, as his lover once put it.

It was a fitting exile for him, to take care of these outcast children he kept stumbling upon.

This one had similarities with the many he’d reared, but twisted in new unfamiliar ways. Quail had started off like most children he rescued from orphanages: utterly terrified to be here, waiting to be either abused or abandoned at any moment. The free rein of the gigantic Croasca Library had done quite a lot to help him cope with all the changes. The Library they lived in was completely safe, but full of secrets and large enough to cover an entire city block. The perfect stomping ground for a young fledgling. Having near complete independence with his free time helped Quail a lot.

What Isagani didn’t expect was how quickly he recovered from this period of terror.

Little feet pounded on the floor and Isagani’s room was knocked on. The father had been half asleep under sunflower-patterned blankets, but he still responded attentively, voice a rasp. “What is it, Quail?”

The door opened. There stood his boy, clad in the thickest blue and yellow fleece pajamas and using a comforter as a cape. It dragged behind him. “Isagani, it’s cold!! I’m freezing!! Turn up the thermostat!!” Despite never calling him by a parental title, Quail felt no fear at making demands anymore, even though he’d only been in his care for six months. It wasn’t out of character for him to come pounding on his door with requests like this, though it had surprised Isagani at first.

It didn’t feel that cold, but Isagani had always had trouble telling the subtle change in temperatures thanks to how he was raised. Children were usually more in tune with that. “Yes, yes, little one, I’m up.” He pulled himself out of bed, stumbling because of sleepiness, cursing himself that his coordination was nowhere near as perfect as it was back in the day. He clumsily pulled on a pair of black and yellow pajama pants as he went.

He went to the thermostat in the hallway of their little rooftop cottage, but the temperature was 68 F. It wasn’t that cold, and it was about the same temperature as it always was. Well, it’s not like he couldn’t afford the heating bill. He turned it up a little higher. 74 should be fine, right?

He headed to the kitchen to make them both tea.

But even as the temperature increased, enough that even Isagani noticed it, Quail still whined and bundled himself up. It wasn’t until Isagani touched his cheek to check his temperature that he realized something was wrong.

Quail was extremely cold. Colder than anything. Isagani had only ever felt this level of biting chill from one source, a source he had hoped he would never have to encounter again. No, he’d given up on encountering it again: it was another Professor’s problem. But yet here was that same chill, in his ten-year-old son’s body.

Isagani’s entire face dropped, and his eyes went dead. It was the first time in so very long that Isagani had been wretched from the constant calm he viewed everything with. This had done something that no normal person could normally do: it surprised him. It made him panic.

“This... is not normal.” His voice was a different sort of quiet than normal. Few had ever heard his voice sound like this.

He told himself it had to be something natural.

He’d taken in many kids, and many of them had sprouted strange symptoms and abilities, but this one was not just any ability. It was unique. No, it had to be something natural. It couldn’t be the same source. It couldn’t be.

--

The Croasca Library was huge and imposing, yet so very inviting, with gothic arches, golden chandeliers, and dark yellow stone walls. Yet it was always very warm on every one of its five giant floors. Still, Quail shivered, bundled up like it was winter though it was early summer in the southern U.S.

“Go explore. I will research to see why you’re so cold.” Isagani told his son gently.

Quail obeyed, and ran off towards the stairs to the second floor, where they both knew the carnivorous plants balcony greenhouse was. Hopefully it would be warm enough for him there, since it was suited for tropical plants.

Isagani sighed once he was out of earshot. He went to his computer behind the front desk and set to work. He already knew the unnatural cause of cold like this. It only had one source. It was unique to him. Only he had that power. But the only way for Quail to have his power is if he...

No, it couldn’t be that. It must be something normal. Hyperthyroidism, maybe.

But Quail did not report any of those symptoms except the constant feeling of chill.

Isagani’s “family”, the ones bound by blood and flesh, would laugh at him if they knew how worried he was. How much he was tearing himself up hoping that the obvious was not true. Because if it was, he would be faced with a chance of repeating history. And he didn’t know what he did wrong last time. He didn’t know how not to repeat history. And if it happened again, it would only be “proof” that those awful creatures he called kin were right.

‘Adoption can’t solve every problem, King.’ He could hear that disgusting creature’s voice whisper in his ear, unsure if it was his mind playing tricks on him or not. ’You might be able to run from your true nature, but you can’t stop it from infecting every child you take in. It was only a matter of time before one of water-children grew up to be exactly like how we’re supposed to be. Exactly how you taught them so hard not to be. You can’t change your nature, and you certainly can’t change ours. No matter how hard you try to live among them, you’re not one of them. This is how we’re meant to be. Cruel and merciless. Even you are, deep inside.’

It didn’t matter that he’d raised dozens of adopted children to be stand up individuals, well adjusted and happy, just with strange abilities. It didn’t matter that Isagani King was right 99% of the time. They only had to be right once out of more than 4 dozen times to think to think that the argument was won. And they’d rub it in his face as if they were right every time.

He set up the appointment and turned off the computer, going to find his son.

But as he found Quail, feeding captured crickets to pitcher plants, he noticed something when he brushed his fingers through that curly blonde hair.

Quail’s roots were going white.

Isagani tried not to flinch, and failed. White, just like Isagani’s own long wavy hair.

--

“Is there something wrong with me, tatay?” Quail asked on the way to the doctor. He was wrapped in three scarves, two sweaters, two thick fleece pants, and a ski jacket meant for snow. It was the only way to stop his shivering. Isagani hated it when Quail only called him parental titles in great distress.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, don’t think about it like that.” Isagani scolded him gently, tapping his finger on the wheel as he drove. “You’re just different. You’ll be okay. I always figure something out, don’t I?”

“Yeah...” Quail didn’t sound convinced. Isagani hated how easily Quail could read him, when not even the unspeakable horrors could tell what he was thinking on most subjects.

It made so many mixed emotions well up inside him. So this is what they meant when they said anxiety felt like it was eating you alive from your stomach. Isagani was familiar with anxiety, but not with this acidic bubbling feeling in his core. He did not like these sensations.

It welled inside him throughout the trip and as the doctor tested Quail. They said it was anemia, but that didn’t explain anything, because Quail got plenty of sun and had lots of iron in his diet. Quail knew all this too, he was a very smart child. But the doctor said that they didn’t find any evidence of a serious issue. They took a sample of blood just in case to send to testing to be sure.

Isagani had very often been described by his many enemies as ‘too smart for his own good’. He was already piecing together everything from just this. Isagani himself had some hefty experience in medicine from some time ago, so he was quite sure that the doctor was not simply being an idiot, which was quite common for doctors in his many years of experience. He had a sinking feeling where all of this was going.

When they got home, Isagani had Quail take off his many layers, trusting his intuition. And as Quail pulled off his gloves, Isagani couldn’t hide the hitch of his breath.

His fingers were tipped with black. Just the very tips of his fingers and the slightest bit of his nails. Not to mention, his boy was pale all over, much more than when he’d first adopted him. Ghostly white, with those big blue eyes. His curly blonde hair stayed the same, but he could see the roots of it going white.

Isagani knew exactly what was happening. This was the same source as last time. But how? Nothing he’d heard back from the others said anything about that source had changed. That source couldn’t have moved. That source couldn’t have... could he?

That first child of his, that source. That child was supposed to still be mad at his father. He was so very stubborn, still refusing to grow from the damage done to them both.

That child had been raised with love and kindness, unlike every other child in their fucked up family. Kindness was seen as weakness, only given by his fellow outcast, that lovely woman.

Isagani King’s kindness had made that child feel alienated, because he knew he was the vast minority. He fell victim to the idea that just because something was a minority, it must mean that it was wrong. He was tricked into betraying King, and then betrayed himself when his betrayal did nothing to help those rats. Then that child exiled himself.

That was the age old story of his first child.

It’d been so, so very long since that happened. But Isagani still didn’t know what he’d done wrong then. He actively refused not to raise children without love and kindness. He’d rather be betrayed again than give a child the same childhood he’d experienced. But... what else could he do? There had to be a solution, to have fixed the problem before it got to that level. He’d communicated at every step, but that child never communicated back. That child whose ability of sheer cold was unique to himself. That child whose ability was now in his newest child.

All of this flew through the librarian’s head at incredible speeds, all while he stared at those fingers with utter devastation. Black tipped the same way that child’s were.

He couldn’t let the same thing happen twice. He couldn’t. It broke his heart when that child betrayed him. He had to do something to stop this. But even though he was quite confident he knew the answers to almost every question in the universe, he did not know the solution to this one. He couldn’t repeat his mistakes, but he couldn’t stop treating his child with love, but he didn’t know what had went wrong to make that child turn against him. What could he do?

Isagani tried to remember what his lover had told him, what his lover did to calm his racing thoughts when he was at a loss for a solution to an investigative case. Count to ten backwards in your most familiar language. So Isagani did, in a language that only he in this city, no, in this country, knew.

“I know how to make it better.” He finally told his child. He hoped Quail didn’t hear the pain in his voice. He took those little hands into his.

It was a disease, a sickness, these memories and feelings, spread from family member to family member. That awful heinous cruelty they possessed had been spread to Isagani a long time ago. They’d contaminated him, beat that illness into him until it latched onto his core like a parasite. He tried so hard to push this illness down, but it somehow infected his first child, and made him cruel too.

“Feel the cold, and concentrate on it. Concentrate until you feel you can touch it. Then channel it to your hands.” Isagani had said these exact words so long ago, and here he was saying them again, under near identical circumstances. He was hyper aware of the cruelty inside him, hyper aware that any action he did the same as last time could be the thing that made history repeat itself. “Once it’s in your hands, try to push it out.”

“Okay...” Quail closed their eyes, breathed in and out, and tensed in his grasp. His hands got even colder, until powder white snow and ice crystals rose from his hands.

Isagani covered his hands in his much larger, more tanned ones, and channeled his own energy to his hands, turning the snow into mist. “See? Do you feel better now?” He couldn’t help but smile, at how nostalgic this all was.

Quail stared at the dispersing mist with those big blue eyes, awed. “Are we magic, Isagani?” He whispered.

Isagani chuckled a little, brows upturned. “Something like that. We are powerful beings. But we don’t want to scare the humans around us, so we must try to keep it secret. But in the Library, we are safe to be ourselves. Nothing can hurt us in the Library, because it is mine, and it obeys my command.” It was a familiar sentiment, but it tore him up inside it to say it to a child that so resembled the first.

Oh, Quail was so very similar to that first child, even in personality. How did he not see the similarities before?

“As long as I stay in the Library I’ll be safe, right?” Quail asked gently.

“Yes. But I won’t keep you prisoner. I’ll take you other places. You just can’t use or talk about your abilities there. It’s not safe.” Isagani told him softly.

“Because people will hurt us?” Quail asked softly.

“No. They can’t hurt us in a way that matters.” Isagani laughed a little, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Because they’ll kill as many innocent people around us as they can in their foolish attempts trying. And because even if they didn’t, there are creatures like us who think because we have power that we must use it to be cruel. We can’t let them find us.”

If he could do anything different this time, it would be to not sugarcoat anything. To tell him every inch of the truth, so Quail might understand one day.

“Okay, tatay. I won’t let anyone know.” Quail squeezed his bigger hand, and smiled. Smiled big and bright as a summer sun, with only the trust a young child could have.

Isagani wondered what he did to break that trust the first time. He wondered if he’d break that trust again this time.

(This story is set in the same universe as my other short stories on this site: “Library of Secrets” and “Yellow and Purple?” However it is standalone and can be read separately.)