Chapter Text
It’s Tuesday afternoon and Polly is hours-deep in a spreadsheet with lots of numbers he’s supposed to make look legitimate when he gets a call from an unknown phone number. The person on the other end introduces herself as a friend of Barty’s and shares some bad news: that the brother he’s talked to once in the last half year is dead, and so is his wife. It was a car accident, something about a crash and falling in a river. Mort, their son, had been at a friend’s house, and how he’s staying at a foster house while the system figures out what to do with him.
“Barty listed you as Mort’s guardian,” says the woman. She sounds tired.
How is it still me, Polly thinks. In all the years the kid’s been alive, Polly saw him once, years ago, when he was still figuring out the whole ‘walking’ thing. There must be someone else who’s better equipped for a kid. Isn’t there anyone on the mom’s side?
Surely if there was, Barty would have picked them. It could well be a choice between Polly and the kid’s grandparents, if they wanted to keep him with family.
Maybe he can say no. Say he's not fit to be taking care of anyone but himself. “Okay,” he says.
“Good. Great.” She sounds relieved. “About the funeral…”
The funeral is going to be this weekend. It takes Polly a solid few seconds of thinking over his work schedule for availability before the fact that this is his brother’s funeral kicks in. He promises that he’ll be there and bring Mort, if the kid will be with him by then. After the woman hangs up, he sits at his desk for several long minutes, trying to process.
No, it’s too much. Better get back to work. He’ll get drunk and vomit up all his feelings in the evening.
For the first time in longer than Polly cares to think, he leaves the office before seven. The first thing he does when he’s outside is call the number Barty’s friend gave him for the social worker in charge of Mort and arranges a time and day for Mort to be brought over. The social worker promises to offer help with everything he’s going to need to get Mort set up in a new city and tells him a lot of things that refuse to stay in his brain. He could have agreed to sign his soul over for all eternity, for all he knows, and from how much he retains from the conversation it’ll be a nice surprise when the devil comes to collect. "Don't worry, I'll send an email," she promises. She sounds like she knows what she's doing.
As he’s lighting a cigarette on the drive home, he realizes that he’s going to have to not do that in the car any more. Or in his apartment. It hadn’t mattered until today, when he was the only person being affected. Fuck. He puts out the cigarette and shoves the pack back in his pocket.
Next, he has to get his apartment ready. In terms of cleaning, there isn’t much to do; Polly always keeps his place clean. Off-white walls, dark wooden floors that a roomba sweeps over whenever he remembers about it, and minimal decorations. It’s easy to avoid a mess when all one does in one’s apartment is sleep. In terms of things a kid is going to need, that’s a whole other question. Somewhere to sleep, first. Clothes? He doesn’t know what Mort will be bringing with him. Had the social worker said? He thinks he remembers something about starting with the essentials. Food. He can’t keep ordering take out, the kid needs healthy food to eat.
Polly sits down at his desk and starts making a checklist. After about fifteen minutes of increasing panic about why he agreed to take care of a whole human being, he reaches for his phone and messages the only one of the two non-work-related numbers in his contacts that can still reply.
Help. I got a kid and I don’t know what to do.
The answer comes quickly.
What do you mean “got”?
He explains the situation over a few messages. As he types he starts to think about the other things he’s been trying not to think about, like the funeral and how he knows nothing about Mort and how much of that is his own fault. Should’ve tried to reach out more, he thinks, and shakes his head. Nothing he can do about it now. They’d both been busy with their own lives. Focus.
Yaretzi types for a long time. The message she finally sends is, Get to RP. I’m buying you a drink.
-
Yaretzi is Polly’s closest friend. She’s also, arguably, his only friend. He might have good relationships with his coworkers, but they’re not the sort of people he can go crying to about how stressful his life very suddenly got.
He’s not crying now, either, and he’s not going to start no matter how many drinks Yaretzi gets him or how sympathetic she looks when she comes to greet him by the door. It isn't fair. They're supposed to drink and bitch about work to each other, not share feelings. “You look awful,” she says gruffly as she leads him to their favorite table. In the smoking section, even. Really pulling out all the stops, isn’t she.
“Why, thank you. Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“Not today,” she replies.
“Going to your workplace on your day off,” he drawls, “how sad.”
The Resting Place is a bar not too far from Polly’s office, run by a man who worked there sometime before Polly was hired. Yaretzi, in all her five foot one inch glory, works as a bouncer here. They’d bonded after a certain incident Polly will never let anyone know about, and now whenever Polly goes there, he tries to do so around when he knows her break or end of shift usually is.
“You don’t get to talk. Do you even have days off?”
Polly grimaces.
He sits, and Yaretzi goes to the counter to order for them both. “Really,” she says a minute later past the music and chatter of the early evening crowd, “how are you?”
Polly takes a sip of his Pink Lady more to give himself a few seconds to answer than out of a desire to drink. “Fine. I just need to figure out what to do about-”
“Your brother is dead,” she interrupts. “Were you close?”
He shrugs. “As close as anyone from that house could be.”
She makes eye contact with him and doesn’t look away. Polly is the first to do so, turning to his drink. “The last time I talked to him was Christmas.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” she says. She sounds like she means it. Fuck, she sounds like she cares. Why does this matter so much to her? They see each other for an average of one hour a week.
“I thought you were going to help me with the kid,” he says, taking out a cigarette.
Yaretzi looks like she doesn’t at all want to let him get away with changing the subject. “Alright. Your nephew. How old is he?”
It turns out that Yaretzi does indeed inexplicably know her stuff when it comes to caring for kids. They talk for a while about what he should prepare for, what he’ll need to do to make his apartment safe, helping Mort transition to a new school. She can’t offer any advice specific to the trauma of being suddenly orphaned, unfortunately. Instead, she suggests things he can ask the social worker about tomorrow and chides him for not considering how to keep his nephew entertained. “He’s going to need distractions,” she says, “something that lets him get his feelings out non-destructively, and just to use up his energy.”
“I have a TV.”
The looks she gives him is a whole new level of unimpressed.
“Alright, alright. I’ll… let him pick out some toys.”
Soon, Polly has a plan that Yaretzi deems acceptable and feels slightly less overwhelmed.
Slightly. “What do I do, Yaretzi? I don’t know anything about kids. I didn’t know how to act around them when I was one, never mind now. I never expected to be a father. I only agreed to take him because the alternative was probably sending him to my parents, and even I’m not soulless enough for that.”
“You’re not soulless at all,” she says. “Don’t worry so much, Polly. I can help you. You don’t have to do it alone.”
“Oh yes, that’s what he needs: Barb’s prize fighting pit bull.”
Yaretzi doesn’t get offended. “I’m good with kids. I used to babysit my siblings.”
That’s right, there’s those two younger siblings she sometimes talks about. Experience babysitting them does make her more experienced than Polly, but still. Someone whose job is to intimidate large drunk men isn’t exactly Polly’s first choice for a babysitter.
She doesn’t see her siblings in person often because they live too far away to visit more than a few times a year, he remembers, and is hit with a fresh wave of guilt.
“Come on,” she says. “I’ll get us another round.”
A few drinks in, the owner of the bar stops by their table, tapping his way around the chaos of the bar with the same grace he's shown since Polly first followed the advertisement hidden in his work desk to a small bar he'd never heard of before. As always, he's wearing a bright suit and dark sunglasses. "Polly. Yaretzi told me about your brother," Barb says when he reaches their table. His cane hits Polly's leg. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Polly says stiffly.
"How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
"Are you?"
"No, he's not," Yaretzi says, the traitor.
"Make sure Dimes knows his drinks are discounted tonight," Barb tells her. To Polly he says, "There's no need to put on a tough act here, Apollyon. You're among friends."
Polly could be touched at the gesture or offended at the name. Being offended is safer, so he glares. "Thank you," he says stiffly. "That's kind of you."
"It’s nothing. If there's anything I can do, you let me know."
When Polly had first found his way to this bar, Barb had warned him about his industry. Barb's former industry. "That boss of yours will threaten you with all sorts of nastiness if you don't toe the line," he'd said. "The best way to get out safely is by doing it before you're too far gone. That's what happened to my eyes, you know. I stuck around too long." Polly had been and still is only about eighty percent certain Barb had been messing with him.
He doesn't know why the ad was hidden in his desk or how it got there, but tonight he's more glad than ever that he chose not to ignore it.
They stay longer than is advisable, drinking his sorrows away. Polly welcomes the hangover he’ll surely have tomorrow – can’t be too emotional if his head hurts too much to form a cohesive thought.
-
The next day, Polly tells his boss that he has to take a day and a half due to family emergency. Tiff grants permission after reminding Polly of all the files their clients are expecting to be processed by the end of the week. Polly promises they’ll be done, and is on his way home by one. The social worker is scheduled to arrive at five. He spends the time before that buying groceries for his embarrassingly empty fridge and furniture for Mort’s room, calling schools and daycare centers about getting Mort enrolled, and going over everything else the social worker told him he’d need to take care of.
He’s just finished setting up the bed when the doorbell rings. It must be them. He’s not ready. This was such a mistake. He can barely take care of himself, how is he supposed to handle a whole kid?
He takes a deep breath, smooths down his shirt, and opens the door. An older woman with curled hair wearing a yellow cardigan smiles at him, and by her side is a kid who can only be Mort. He’s got short ginger hair the exact same shade as Polly’s, green eyes that look just like his dad’s, and more freckles sprinkled across his face than Polly remembers him having. Didn’t he get his nose from his mom, or is Polly remembering that wrong? He’s wearing a red shirt with a faded picture of a shark on it, navy shorts that reveal one scab-covered knee, and bright red shoes.
It’s been a long time since Polly interacted with kids, a fact that is reinforced when his first thought upon seeing his nephew is, Is that what six year olds look like? Had he not know better, he’d have thought this kid was ten.
“Polly Chum?” the woman says. “I’m Violet Keene. We’ve spoken on the phone.”
“Yes,” he replies, still inspecting Mort. The kid is looking up at him with wide, nervous eyes, clutching a backpack to his chest. “You must be Mort,” he says, kneeling down to be at eye-level with him.
Mort nods.
“I’m Polly, your uncle. We’ve met before, when you were very small. You’ll be staying with me now.”
Mort stares at him.
Polly smiles over the anxious thumping of his heart. “Do you want to come inside?”
There’s paperwork to sign, a final reminder to call if something comes up and a promise to check in soon, and then Mrs Keene is gone and it’s the two of them alone in Polly’s living room. Mort brought with him one backpack and one suitcase. In Polly’s hand is a folder with every documented proof of Mort’s existence. His entire life, crammed into so little.
Barty’s ghost hovers over them. Six years and Polly ha visited only once. If he’d been a better brother, Mort wouldn’t be looking at him like he’s a stranger now.
“Well,” Polly says, “would you like to see your room?”
Mort nods.
It’s not much to look at. There’s a kid-sized bed, spare pieces still lying on the ground, a dresser that could fit everything Mort brought with him without making use of the closet at all, and what was before this Polly’s work desk. It looks depressingly plain after all the Pinterest rooms Polly will not admit he’d spent too long looking at, so as Mort looks around he clears his throat and says, “We can get you some decorations to liven this up, how does that sound?”
Mort’s eyes light up. “Can we get some fish?” he asks shyly. “The ones that glow in the dark?”
“Of course. You like fish, hm?”
Mort nods. “I learned about them on TV. I like the colorful ones.”
It doesn’t seem like shyness is going to be a problem after all. That’s good, Polly thinks. “Alright. Do you want a snack before we go?”
Mort says yes, so Polly slices up a couple of apples for them to share while Mort sits at the dining table. He swings his legs in his seat as he eats and tells Polly random fish trivia. He continues this for longer than Polly would have thought possible, rambling about facts that Polly isn’t sure are all true until they’re well on their way to the mall in Polly’s car. He tries not to sound irritated – let the kid talk, it’s better than him crying – but it’s so much.
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” Polly interrupts as Mort stumbles over the scientific name of a fish that either Polly has never heard of, or Mort is getting completely wrong. “Do you have any interests other than fish?”
He glances at the rear-view mirror and sees Mort’s expression fall. “I like hiking.”
“That’s nice. Where do you go?”
“Mom and Dad take me to the park on weekends.”
Oh no. Oh, he’s made a mistake. “There’s a park we can try this weekend,” he tries.
It doesn’t work. “I want to go with Mom and Dad.”
Polly grips the steering wheel tightly. “I’m sorry, Mort. You know that isn’t possible any more.”
“But I want to!”
“You can’t,” Polly snaps. “They’re gone.”
Mort sniffles. Polly looks back and sees him looking dangerously close to tears. Shit. “We can go to the beach,” he offers. “It’ll be fun.”
On the bright side, Mort spends the rest of the drive and most of the time at the mall in silence. On the other hand, Polly spends the entire outing feeling like garbage and buys Mort not only more stickers than anyone can reasonably need on their walls, but also the ugliest bird plush that Polly has ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. It’s hideous, and Mort falls in love with it immediately and has already named it Bert by the time they get back to the car.
-
The next day, Polly takes Mort to get registered at his new school. There’s less than a month left before summer vacation, and until then the school is going to be his best way to keep Mort busy and taken cared of while Polly works. And it’ll be good for Mort to start making friends. Mrs Keene had said something about friends and stability, if he remembers right.
The principal is friendly and has disturbingly large teeth that immediately bring fairy tale wolves to mind. Mort is intimidated right up until Mr Tolshotol gives them a tour of the school, and then he’s back to bouncing with excitement.
The meeting takes a few hours and leaves a large part of the day free by the time they’re heading back out to the parking lot. “Well, Mort, what would you like to do? We can go home, or to the library, or-”
“Library!” Mort cheers.
Polly chuckles. Growing up, Barty had been the nerdier of the two of them; it’s good to see that Mort has gotten than particular trait from him, too.
After a quick lunch, they go to the library. It’s a good thing Polly had opted to take his cane, because right by Downing Hill Public library is a small park where they end up spending much longer than he’d anticipated. First there’s a dog that Mort has to pet, then some art displays for them to to look at and for Polly to stop Mort from trying to climb. Inside the library, Mort spots a college kid with blue hair and wishes, in a loud whisper, that he could have hair that colorful, too.
The college kid looks apologetically at Polly and scurries off. “Maybe when you’re older,” Polly says. “Let’s find you some books, hm?”
There’s one close call when Mort sees a book he says his mom read to him a lot, but no crying or tantrums. They walk out with a newly registered library card and a small stack of books. Mort reads one on the way home.
The afternoon passes with merciful peacefulness. Mort reads, then plays with Bert in his room while Polly works and cooks dinner. He has ingredients to spare, so he looks up a recipe more involved than fried rice to try out. They eat dinner together, then watch some TV, and then it’s bed time.
Polly expects Mort to get himself to bed after showering as he'd done yesterday. He’s surprised to find Mort standing in his doorway, Bert in one hand and book in the other. “Polly?” he asks. “Can you read to me?”
He wants to say no, he’s busy. “Of course,” he says, and follows Mort to his bedroom.
Mort climbs into bed and tucks himself and Bert in, and looks at Polly expectantly. Polly sits on the edge of the bed and takes the book Mort had chosen. Frog and Toad, says the cover. Kids like such strange things.
He reads one story, then a second when Mort whines that it’s too early to stop. After the second story is finished he closes the book at sets it aside, and tells Mort, “Go to sleep. You want lots of energy tomorrow for school, don’t you?”
Mort nods. “Good night, Polly.”
“Good night, Mort.”
As he closes the door, Polly hears Mort say, “Good night, Bert.” He shakes his head and gets back to his files.
-
The next day is the first day of school for Mort. This means waking up extra early to make both breakfast and lunch, making sure Mort has everything he needs, making sure he has everything he needs, and still being late to work. Polly coaxes Mort into eating some cereal while he eats his own burnt toast and drinks extra-strong coffee. He makes a sandwich and cuts up some fruit and puts them in Mort’s lunchbox, and then it’s time to go. No, wait, first he has to convince Mort to leave the bird behind, then they can finally go.
“Are you excited?” Polly asks.
Mort thinks about it. “They didn’t like me very much at my last school. They said I was weird. But Dad said they’re the weird ones. Do you think they’ll want to be my friend here?”
“I’m sure of it,” says Polly, whose few memories of elementary school are mostly of being a loner.
After a tolerably short meeting to finalize things, Mr Tolshotol takes Mort to his new class and promises to Polly that “Everything is going to be fine. Miss Blum is a wonderful teacher.”
“Great,” Polly says. “Mort, be good. I’ll come to pick you up after school.”
Does it make him a terrible person, Polly wonders, if he’s relieved that Mort is someone else’s problem for the next eight hours? It’s been barely two days and he needs a break already. He needs a drink and a smoke that he doesn’t have to sneak while the kid isn’t looking. He needs Barty to come back from the dead and take his kid back so Polly can go back to worrying about getting through the files piled up on his desk on time and nothing else.
On his way back to his car, he sees a black motorcycle with a red sun decal on its side parked on the far end of the parking lot. His thoughts are, order: Who in the world is driving that to an elementary school? and Huh, Yaretzi would like that.
-
You didn’t tell me your nephew is a giant!! Yaretzi texts him during lunch time. Polly almost chokes on his food laughing at the angry sticker she sends.
How do you know how big he is? Are you stalking us?
HE’S GOING TO MY SCHOOL
Polly does choke on his food this time.
What do you mean, your school?
I’m a gym teacher Apollyon
You’re what
He gets a picture in response. Yaretzi, dark hair tied back in a messy pony tail, dressed in casual athletic wear with a whistle on a lanyard around her neck. Behind her is what looks to be a school gym. There’s an errant basketball in the far left.
What happened to bouncing?
That’s a hobby I need a day job
Who lets Yaretzi around kids? Is that a good idea? He’s seen her throw men twice her size out on the curb; one can only imagine what she would do to a misbehaving child. He feels like his entire perception of her got turned on its head, It’s going to take some time to get used to her looking like the picture definition of a stereotypical gym teacher.
Of course you would choose a job where you make children run.
I don’t have to make them do anything, they like running
Nope. Not computing.
Why didn’t you tell me sooner?
I don’t want anyone at rp to know
He can’t argue there.
and it's funnier to surprise you
Well, that's just plain rude.
Alright. Why are you telling me now? Did something happen?
She wouldn’t have revealed this secret just to tell him that his nephew is too tall. And she’s not responding.
Did you do something?
No
Yaretzi, did you make my kid cry?
Only a little and it’s not my fault
I thought he was going to the wrong class
Wow.
I’ll make it up. We’ll get ice cream after school
Polly chuckles.
You’d better make it up or I’ll be making a complaint with the principal
“Taking a break?” Typhon asks.
Polly jumps and guiltily drops his phone on his desk. He clears his throat. “I got a message from a teacher at my nephew’s school. I’m, ah. His parents were in an accident, so I’m… his guardian now.”
“I see,” Tiff says, with a tone that makes it clear that this is not an adequate excuse. “And will this get in the way of finishing your work on time?”
“No, sir.”
“I thought not,” Tiff says, and then he’s gone and Polly can breathe again.
He works without break until his head is swimming in numbers. He’s nowhere close to done by the time it’s time to get Mort from school, so he sticks what he can in his briefcase to work on at home. As he drives to the school, he tries to mentally prepare himself to once more be around an emotionally volatile child.
By some miracle, Mort is in a good mood. “This school is nice! I made friends!” he says proudly as soon as Polly pulls up in front of him by the curb.
“That’s good. Were the teachers nice, too?”
Mort nods enthusiastically. “Yeah! Miss Yaretzi was scary but she said sorry and that we can get ice cream after school.”
“Did she,” Polly says, looking around.
And then he sees her walk out the front door. Same outfit as in the picture, minus the whistle. No jewelry, no leather, no biceps on display for all, no minimal makeup, if any. “Hello, Apollyon,” she says.
Some kids walk past. She waves goodbye at them with a smile that’s entirely nonthreatening.
“Don’t call me that,” Polly says. She knows he doesn’t like his full name and calls him that specifically to annoy him, and he’s not letting Mort pick that habit up from her.
Mort gapes. “You know Miss Yaretzi?”
“I do. We’re friends, of sorrts. Now, tell me more about this ice cream you promised us.”
“There’s a frozen yogurt place a few minutes that way,” she says, pointing east. “Mort, do you like frozen yogurt?”
“Yeah!”
Polly winces at Mort’s lack of volume control. They’re going to have to work on that. “Alright. Are we going by car? I can follow you.”
“Sure,” she says with a smirk, and opens the back passenger door. “Mort, why don’t you tell your uncle about what you and your friend did at recess.”
“Okay!” Mort climbs into the car and she closes the door. And heads not out to where most of the cars are parked, but to the side of the parking lot. Where the motorcycle still is.
No, Polly thinks. Mort is saying something about a kid called Moth. He keeps talking until Yaretzi gets a helmet out of her bag and puts it on. How did he not know she rode a motorcycle? What else doesn’t he know about her? Why had she never mentioned this?
“Miss Yaretzi has a motorcycle,” Mort breathes. Polly can hear the hero worship developing. “She’s so cool.”
“There’s nothing ‘cool’ about motorcycles,” Polly sniffs. “They’re dangerous.”
The helmet is too opaque to see her face as she rides past them, but Polly knows that she’s smirking.
And that’s not the end of his woes. Not at all. Yaretzi leads them to a small, brightly-lit shop. Polly prepares himself for an inevitably long wait as Mort decides what he wants to get, but the reality is so much worse.
Yaretzi passes out cups between the three of them and explains the flavors to Mort. “I bet I can get more than yours,” she tells Mort, and Polly has lost before he knew there was anything to lose.
Mort wants all the flavors. He’s too short to reach the handles, thankfully, so the mess stays fairly contained as Polly obediently adds a total of twelve flavors that can’t possibly go together. There’s coffee, cotton candy, chocolate, peanut butter, soda, and various fruit flavors. It’s a nightmare. And then there’s the toppings.
For himself, Polly gets a simple coffee and some chocolate chips and nuts for toppings. He watches with something that is either horror or respect, or both, as the cashier weighs Yaretzi’s cup, then Mort’s. Both are overflowing with frozen yogurt and candy and both cost over $5, with Mort’s being slightly more expensive.
“I win!” he cheers. Yaretzi grins and graciously concedes defeat.
The real loser, Polly thinks, is going to be himself. It’s good thing he’d left his suit jacket in the car, because he can only imagine how many stains would have gotten on it.
“I’ll pay for yours, too,” she says.
“Oh?”
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else about the school. I don’t want my jobs mixing.”
“Very well,” Polly says, as if he’d been planning to tell anyone to begin with.
They sit at one of the tables and eat. There’s some teens at a few other tables, but overall the shop isn’t too crowded. Polly watches how Yaretzi interacts with Mort, feeling rather like he’s studying. She deftly catches his hand when it gets too close to knocking over his cup and has napkins ready to help him clean when his melting yogurt drips on the table. She pretends to try to steal one of the shark gummies from Mort’s cup (of course there were shark gummies) and makes Mort shriek as he ‘defends’ his food.
Meanwhile, Polly hadn’t had Mort for more than half a day before yelling at him. God, what is he doing.
Mort’s cup is still about two-thirds full when he starts to pick at it the yogurt more than eat it.
“You don’t have to finish it if you’re full,” Polly tells him.
“That’s right. Do you remember how little Polly got? You can give him your leftovers.”
Polly glares at Yaretzi. “I had plenty, thank you.”
Alas, Mort takes Yaretzi’s side. “Yours was boring.” he says, sliding his cup over to Polly. “Mine is prettier. You should try it!”
Polly sighs and digs in.
Long after the yogurt is all eaten, they go home. Polly gets Mort to do his homework at the dining table while making a light salad for dinner. Then an hour of TV while Polly tries to get through some of his files, then forcing Mort to take a shower, and finally it’s bed time. Polly reads two more Frog and Toad stories until Mort gets sleepy. Then, finally, the day is over.
How’d it go? reads a message on his phone from Yaretzi.
Fine. He’s asleep now.
He’s a good kid
Polly takes a long time to reply.
He is. Thank you, for today.
Any time. Good night, Polly.
Good night.
He pours himself a drink and gets settled at his desk. If he works quickly, he’ll be able to finish early enough to get a decent night’s sleep. If he can do that, he might just be able to get through tomorrow.