AN/ Ehe. Been a while. Well - I'll admit it. I've uploaded this chapter before. But I've edited it a tiny weensie bit, so it's back up. Oh - thanks Cloverbud-Warsong for the favourite! ) (I think I forgot on the other story...)

BEGIN:

Closing the door quietly, Asha made his way into the living room. As always, Ari was waiting for him on the sofa, a fresh cup of tea on the table that was clearly his.

“How was she?” Ari asked quietly.

“She was fine – apart from a couple of questions about her mother, which I fended off pretty well in my opinion, she went to sleep quite happily,” Asha told him.

“That’s good,” he responded.

The two fell into a comfortable silence. It was a regular routine for them, and they took turns in sending her to sleep. Erine was a common source of unification for the pair, and despite their wildly differing personalities they were able to live together and work in relative harmony whenever she was in the room. Mainly it was because they didn’t want her to learn any “bad words”, but it was progress.

Six Years Later:

“I want to go to school.”

“No.”

Erine stormed out of the room at her father’s pronouncement. This hardly fazed her fox family, as it had been a regular occurrence ever since she was seven and had realised that this “school” place existed, and that most people made their friends there.

“Do you see the irony in this?” Asha asked his brother absent-mindedly, trying to watch the TV.

“What irony? The fact that most nine-year-olds are begging their parents to let them off school? Yes, I see the irony.”

Fourteen Years Later:

“Alex, we’d like to talk to you.”

Oh God, the voice of doom, aka his father. Alexander Schalter sighed, switched off the TV that was playing some mindless soap opera rubbish, and headed down to face the consequences of whatever they had chosen to pick on him over now.

It was always the same – he wasn’t like them at all, he didn’t conform to their ideal of the perfect son and so they tried their best to fix him. He wasn’t bullied or a bully, he got decent marks in everything bar Geography (who bothered with that crap, he didn’t know) and he wasn’t exactly unpopular. That would have been enough for normal people. Wouldn’t it?

Going into the homely living room, he was faced with his parents on the sofa, presenting a united front.

It’s not like this is World War III and you have to defend yourself from your big bad son.

“Alex,” his mother began. She wasn’t the most beautiful of women – childbirth had taken the slender waist he’d seen in photos, and her hair had a few stubborn grey hairs – but she was his mom. “We need to tell you something.”

“Well?” he asked her warily. This had to be serious. Oh god, they haven’t got some sort of terminal disease, right?!

“We decided to keep it until your exams were out of the way, and until we felt you were mature enough to handle it,” she started, not looking at him as she tried to find the words to explain what she had to say.

“Handle what, mom?” he asked, getting quite worried by this point.

“There’s no easy way to say this… You aren’t our biological son, Alex.”

WHAT THE FUCK?!

“I…I’m…sorry? What are you talking about?!” he exclaimed, his head spinning as he tried to think of it all as a joke, a prank, a sick prank but one nonetheless.

“Look, Alex –“ his not-mother began

“NO. No. Don’t you dare try and be reasonable, mom. Sorry, Mrs Schalter. Whatever. Just explain it. And whilst you’re at it, explain why the hell you didn’t tell me this before?!” he yelled accusingly.

“Alex! Mind your manners!” his not-father snapped, participating in the discussion for the first time.

“Sorry Mr Schalter,” was the facetious answer

“Alex, don’t be like this,” his not-mother almost pleaded.

“Stop. Just tell me, will you?” he asked, for some inexplicable reason becoming very, very tired.

“It’s like this. When you were born, there had to have been some sort of mix-up, we think. We honestly didn’t know until you were about five. You know how sickly you used to be? We had the tests done around that time. We’d harboured suspicions for a year or two beforehand; you were so different to us,” his not-mother went on to explain.

“Great. Wonderful. Now answer my other question: why didn’t you tell me before?” he asked her.

“We didn’t want you to feel rejected, that’s all,” she soothed.

“So now I feel rejected and betrayed. Well done. Mrs Schalter,” he told her with a bitter smile and pained eyes.

“Alex, stop with this ridiculous ‘Mr Schalter’ ‘Mrs Schalter’ business. We’ve been your parents in every way that mattered. We fed you, clothed you, educated you –“ his father butted in.

“So I’m obligated to you. I should feel grateful. I should be the perfect son you never had because you never opened your eyes to see how bloody hard I was trying. Thanks for that.”

He didn’t want to look at them.

“Alex…” his mother began, then trailed off. She didn’t know what to say.

“Leave me alone, please. I want to think.”

“Alex. Sit down whilst we talk to you –“ his father, for a third time, interjected.

“About what? I think I can get it, thanks. I’m not your son. If you don’t mind, before you start spewing up your excuses and explanations I’m going to go for a walk so I can figure this out.”

With that, Alex got up out of the armchair and quietly padded over to the living room door, closing it behind him, ignoring his mother – no, not his mother (but Mrs Schalter sounded so cold) – and her efforts to call him back, and his father – Mr Schalter he could do – trying to get him to obey as he always did.

Absently grabbing his coat, he headed out to the park to sit and think. He wasn’t about to run away or anything, he just really needed to be alone. Not in his room where his… where they could intrude and force him to talk about it. Not anywhere in the house, where… they could try and get him to understand on their terms. Outside, in the park, where all the noise was just children running around on a sugar-high and their parents… and their parents keeping them from getting too muddy.

Flopping onto the nearest bench in the picnic area, he laid his head on his arms and watched the ducks swimming about. It was peaceful here, with the wind in the trees and the sun shining overhead. They’d picked a lovely day to tell him.

So what did he do now? He never really got along with his parents – with the Schalters – anyway. Looking back over his life, he knew that his mother was always distant from him, though she tried her best by going to all of the Parent’s Evenings, baking him cookies every now and again, helping him with homework and all that other mumsy stuff. His father on the other hand; well, the less said about that the better. They had absolutely nothing in common, and Alex had long since given up trying to live out his expectations of making every team he tried out for and being the most intelligent in the class. He guessed it explained why. Why should they feel anything for him? He was a cuckoo in the nest, and their own child, their real son or daughter, was lost.

Nearby, another person alighted onto the picnic area. He seemed to want to use the place for what it was intended for – a picnic. Alex sniggered a little at his vibrant red hair that was so obviously from a bottle. After all, that colour was just too much to be natural. He’d seen him around the park a fair few times with a girl and sometimes another guy, but had never really gone near them. The other guy pulled out enough food for three, which made sense when the other two turned round the corner.

It was impossible not to overhear them.

“Dad! I want to go to school, I’m sick of being homeschooled!” the girl, probably fifteen or sixteen like him, whined. She looked very different from the two men, with brown hair curling round her shoulders, but her attitude towards them made it almost impossible to think that they were anything other than family.

“Erry, listen. You know why we can’t let you go to a normal school, and you also know why we aren’t going to have this conversation here,” the other guy, ‘Dad’, told her.

“Just because you’re an overprotective idiot who couldn’t save my mother!” she screeched.

There was silence after that statement. The guy who had pulled out the picnic looked like he wanted to hit the deck and wait for the bomb to explode, whilst ‘Dad’ just got whiter and tenser. After a few minutes, he left them both standing there, Erry with her hands over her mouth looking for all the world like she’d just shot him.

“That was uncalled for, Erine,” the first guy told her with ice in his voice, angry past the point of yelling.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Asha,” she said, shamefaced and obviously meaning her apology.

“Why are you saying that to me? It’s him you hurt,” Asha reminded her.

For some reason, Alex decided to get up and go after the poor guy. It wasn’t his fault his daughter was a brat, after all, and as a teenager himself he could understand her frustration at being denied being normal. If nothing else, it would take his mind off his own dilemma.

It wasn’t that hard to find him. He was on one of the benches that were spread out by the path for weary joggers, and his head was tipped back as he looked up into the foliage of the pine tree behind him. Alex felt a little nervous, approaching this stranger, but it was obvious that he wasn’t some kidnapper or serial murderer so he might as well see if he could help. After all – he wasn’t going to see the guy again.

“Hey,” Alex said, then stopped for lack of anything else to say. I really should have thought this through he thought, mentally kicking himself.

The man tilted his head forwards and looked at him with a questioning glance.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a soft voice.

Alex swallowed. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Look, I don’t mean to intrude, but the girl back there – Erinay? – she didn’t mean that. As in, she’s really upset about saying it and as a teenager she probably only used it to make you feel guilty so you would let her go to school. What I mean is – don’t take it too harshly, kay?” he blurted out, flushing slightly under the older man’s steady gaze.

He was granted a reprieve when he tipped his head back again to answer.

“I know. It’s simply that she is old enough to learn to guard her tongue a little better. What is your name?” was the unexpected question.

“Alex. Alex Scha – just Alex,” he cursed himself for his slip.

“My name is Ari. I hear a story in your voice. I take it something’s happened recently to make you unsure of your identity?”

“Umm… yeah,” he answered, scratching the back of his head slightly nervously.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Maybe it would be good to say it aloud. To think it through aloud.

“In short, I’ve just been told there was a mix-up when I was born, and I’m not my parent’s son,” he sighed.

“I’m sure they love you,” was Ari’s non-committal answer.

“… I’m not so sure. I think they want to, but I’m just too different. I’ve always been different,” he told him, more to himself than to the red-head.

“Everyone’s different,” Ari pointed out calmly.

“Yeah, but – it’s like there’s, I dunno, a glass wall or something. I don’t understand what they are. I see what I want, I have what I want, if I’ve got what it takes to get it. As in, money and charm and whatever. And people don’t get why, when I’m bored of it, I drop it. Geography, for example. What idiot thought up boundaries? And – nah, it sounds weird,” he stated, embarrassed and annoyed with himself for suddenly becoming so talkative in front of a stranger.

“Go on,” he was encouraged.

“… I can do things.” Alex answered, and then hurriedly clarified, “Well, obviously, but sometimes, if I say I see something that isn’t there, everyone else sees it too. And I have a real knack with fire, even with soaking wet wood I can get a campfire started.”

Ari looked at him with shock, and all of a sudden Alex felt embarrassed. This was a total stranger! Fine, so he seemed nice enough, but he had his own problems and didn’t need his.

“Anyway, seeya,” he said, turning to go.

“Fire like this?”

Alex could swear he heard a growl from Ari as he turned and saw a tiny ball of flame flickering in the palm of the other’s hand. Stepping back in shock and wonder, he nodded, just a little, and saw something in the other’s eyes.

Pain, and hope, and a grief so great he wanted to turn away and cry himself – and maybe a little wonder too.

Alex ran.

AN/ Yeah. They met; perhaps quickly, but do you really think that Ari would wait? Plus, he's a fox, and tricksy, so naturally he'd be easy to talk to.