Chapter Text
When Evan Buckley was 5 years old, he found a butterfly out in the garden. It was beautiful with bright orange wings swirling in patterns of white and black. He was mesmerized by it and he crouched down next to the bush it was sitting on, carefully picking it up into his small hand to study it closer. The thin legs grabbed around his finger and the small boy smiled happily as he watched it. But when he looked at it he realized that the butterfly couldn't flap its wings properly. One of the wings was crooked. He frowns slightly and bites his lip, feeling bad for the beautiful animal, wanting to help it.
He takes his free hand and strokes carefully along the butterfly’s body, careful not to disturb the flawed wing, wanting to comfort it somehow. Then he feels a tingling sensation in the hand that the butterfly is sitting on, it starts out in his wrist and travels through his palm and into his finger. It’s not an uncomfortable feeling. It’s sort of warm and soothing, it kind of reminds him of how it feels like when he’s been sitting on his foot for a long time and then moves it, just not as strong. Suddenly the butterfly flaps its wings again and the boy blinks confused at it. The wing is not crooked anymore. He raises his hand so that the butterfly is right in front of his face, and looks at it closer. The animal flaps a couple of more times with strong strokes before it takes off, flying around his head before raising towards the sky, the orange wings glistering in the sunlight.
Evan has just turned seven. His sister Maddie made him a cake in the shape of a car and he had eaten too much, feeling a bit sick after. But it was a nice cake with raspberry jam and whipped cream. He had wished for a puppy for his birthday and he woke up excitedly in the morning, a hopeful feeling in his chest as he bounces down the stairs. His parents were in the kitchen and he got a hug and a low ‘Happy Birthday, Evan’ before they returned to their breakfast. When Maddie showed up with the gifts it was mostly soft packages. Some shirts, a new backpack, and a skateboard. But no puppy.
He’s out trying to master his new skateboard a few days later. He went to the park a few blocks away from their house and he has already fallen off it more times than he could count. But he’s a bit proud that he actually hasn’t fallen down completely on the ground yet, just kinda lost his balance. He’s just about to get on it again when he hears a whimper to his left and he looks over, trying to figure out what it was. At first he can’t see anything, but then he hears it again and when he walks closer his eyes catch a glimmer in the shadow under a park bench. Two big eyes look back at him and when he hunches down he realizes it’s a dog.
“Hi there.” He whispers, not wanting to scare it. He sits down in front of it, waiting as he watches the dog blink at him before it slowly makes its way out from under the bench. It’s not very high, with big hanging ears and soft, light brown fur. He thinks it is some kind of cocker spaniel, but he’s not sure. He smiles when it moves towards him and he slowly stretches out his hand, letting the dog sniff at it and chuckles when it quickly licks his hand. When the dog takes another step it lets out a whimper once again and he notices that it doesn’t want to use its back leg. He scratches the dog soothingly behind its ear before sliding his hand over its back towards the leg, just for the dog to flinch and try to move away, almost falling over as it jumps on three legs.
“Shh, it’s ok. You're gonna be ok.” He soothes and slides his hand carefully over the soft fur feeling the familiar tingling in his hand. Since the day with the butterfly he has helped quite a lot of animals, mostly bugs, a couple of small birds and once even a rat. But never a big animal like this. He’s not sure if he can. But it hurts him to see the dog in pain and he wants to help it.
He furrows his eyebrows and concentrates, tries to focus on the dogs leg and moves his hand slowly so that it covers the thigh. His blood starts pulsing and the warmth spreads in his arm, moving from his elbow down to his hand, and spreading over his palm and out towards the end of his fingers. The feeling is intense and he gasps in surprise, never felt it this strong before, but then the feeling subsides and when he looks closer he sees the dog putting its leg down. Shaking its body before coming closer, licking his cheek. It makes him laugh and the dog happily jumps around him, wiggling its tail and gives up a happy bark.
“Yodi!” A young woman comes running and steps up towards them. “Oh thank god, she got away from me.” The woman smiles at him while she fastens the leash in Yodi’s collar. Before she’s able to walk away Yodi jumps over at him for another lick on his face, as if to say thank you, before happily going with its owner, leaving the boy looking longingly after them.
“Evan, put those away and help me set the table.” Maddie turns back towards the kitchen sink and rinses the vegetables under the running water. He smirks and closes the books, he’s doing his math homework. He’s in 7th grade and he hates math. He puts the books on the side table and starts setting the table, it’s just him and Maddie, their parents are away on some resort somewhere and secretly, he kinda wishes it could be just the two of them all of the time. He misses his sister.
“Shot!” He turns around at Maddie’s outburst and notices the blood dripping from her hand, the knife scattered on the bench next to the tomatoes she was in the middle of chopping for the sallad. She snaps the kitchen towel from its hook and squints her eyes as she wraps it tight at her hand, grimacing slightly at the pain.
“Evan, could you get me the first aid kit, please?” She lifts the towel a little to inspect the wound and he can tell that it’s bleeding heavily. He swallows to dampen his dry throat and steps up towards her, making her look up with a frown.
“Evan? I need the kit, could you please get it?”
He reaches out and grabs a hold of her injured hand, tugging a little when she resists. He places his hand on her wrist, holding on tight and embraces the warm tingling starting to simmer in his shoulder.
“What are you-” Maddie suddenly goes silent and completely still. He concentrates on her hand and the warmth has reached his own, he feels how it leaves his fingers and travels into her skin. His pulse speeds up and he feels a bit breathless, almost dizzy, but then it subsides and he takes a couple of deep breaths as he unwraps the towel from Maddie's hand. She’s still completely frozen, not saying a word as he examines her hand closely. The hand is still covered in blood, but there’s no open wound anymore. Only a thin scar showing over her palm, the last evidence that she ever got cut in the first place. He lets go of her hand and takes a step back, hesitating a second before looking up at her face. Maddie’s looking down at him with wide eyes and she looks a bit pale.
“H-how did you- I-” She takes a shaky breath and licks her lips. “Evan, how did you do that?”
He shrugs his shoulders, he doesn't actually know how he does it.
“I don’t know. It just sort of happens.”
“Has- so it happened before?”
“Yeah. Been doing it for years, only on animals so far though. Never tried on anyone human before.” He frowns a little as he thinks back. “I tried it on myself, it doesn't work. I don’t know why.” He had his fair share of cuts and bruises over the years, even a broken arm. Would’ve been pretty handy if it would’ve worked on himself as well. But no matter how hard he tries, nothing ever happens when he tries to fix his own injuries. Maddie nods slowly, backing up until she sits on one of the kitchen chairs, her eyes still blown wide open.
“Alright. That’s- um.” She looks down at her healed hand, turning it over and over and flexing it before looking up at him again, a small smile playing on her lips.
“I always knew you were special, baby brother. Guess I didn’t realize how special you were. This gift of yours is truly remarkable. Thank you for fixing my hand.” He smiles shyly at her, happy she seems to like his ability as much as he does.
“Have you told anyone else about this, Evan?” Suddenly her eyes are filled with worry and he doesn’t really understand why.
“No?” He has felt like this is very personal and has not wanted anybody to know before, so he hasn’t told any of his friends. It seems to be the right answer, because Maddie gets a relieved look on her face as she lets out a small breath.
“Alright, good.” She gets up and stands in front of him, crouching down so he has to look down to meet her eyes. She grabs his hands and squeezes them tight.
“I don’t understand how this is possible, I do know this is something truly wonderful though. But you need to be careful about this, Evan. Not everyone is understanding people, and sometimes, people get scared when they don’t understand what’s happening. And when people get scared, they do bad things.” She lets her gaze travel over his face. “So maybe not tell anyone about this? Unless you really have to?” He bites his lips, he wasn’t really gonna tell anyone, but her words kinda scares him. So he nods, and when she pulls him into a tight hug he buries his face in her neck.
He’s lying on his bed, smiling at his phone. He’s texting with Luna. They’ve been hanging out for a few weeks and he really likes her. He might want to ask her to senior prom. He thinks she’ll say yes. Or at least he hopes so. She always blush when he takes her hand and she has that really cute smile every time he comes up and says Hi on the school yard. He hasn’t kissed her yet, he almost did, the other night when they went to the movies. But then her dad pulled up in the parking lot to pick her up, and it wasn’t like he could kiss her with him watching. So he just gave her a small wave goodbye.
Suddenly he hears a loud crash from outside his bedroom door, he frowns and throws the phone on the bed as he quickly gets up, heading over to the door.
“Phillip! Oh god, Phillip ! Help !” Evan feels his heart stop at his mothers desperate cries and he runs out of the room towards the stairs. When he reaches the top of them he looks down and his breath catches when he sees his father lying still on the bottom step, one leg bent in an unnatural angle and a deep cut on his head.
“Evan! Call 9-1-1!” His mother yells up at him as she pats her husband's head carefully. Evan doesn’t go back for his phone, he rushes down the stairs instead and kneels next to his father’s unmoving body, he presses one hand to the man's neck and with the other he grabs one of the limp hands. The familiar warmth starts growing in his chest and he closes his eyes, letting the feeling consume him. The tingling is all over, he never felt it like this before, it usually only in his arms, sometimes his chest, but now it’s everywhere and he needs to take several deep breaths to keep calm. The normally tingling sensation is this time more of a bussing, gliding through him and making a static noise in his ears. It glides under his skin until it starts to coordinate and then he feels how it surges through his arms, the force punching the breath out of his lungs and he gasps as he tries to breath through it. He feels it reach his hands and it leaves his body, entering the still man underneath his hands, and then everything goes black.
When he wakes up he’s still on the floor. He doesn’t know how long it’s been but he wouldn’t guess too long. He slowly sits up and looks over at his parents, wanting to make sure his dad is alright. He opens his mouth to ask but then he stops before getting a word out, noticing the looks on their faces.
It’s pure horror and rage. He feels how he shrinks into himself under their heavy gazes and he swallows the lump in his throat.
“Get out.” He blinks at his mothers hoarse whisper, surely she can’t mean-?
“Get out of this house. Get out! ” He flinches at the last words being yelled at him and he scrambles up onto shaky legs. Backing away from the two people sitting on the floor, staring at him with fear and hatred.
“Mom-” His voice breaks and he feels tears burning behind his eyelids, he was helping, he didn’t do anything wrong. They can’t mean this. “Dad-”
“I don’t know what kind of demon you are, but you are no son of mine.” His dad is slowly standing up, pulling his wife up and putting her behind him, shielding her, as if Evan was the danger. “We won’t ask again. Leave this house.”
Evan stumbles back, and when his back hits the door he turns, blindly trying to find the handle to open it, a sob rips through him when he finally manages to get a hand around it and he runs out the door, turns left on the street and keeps on running with tears streaming down his face.
He never went to prom.