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Your hands shake when you hold the gun.
It was your daughter’s, once upon a time, and before that it was the devil’s. You learned how to shoot when you were seven, yet you hold it like it’s going to kill you. You don’t doubt that it will.
You had a house in the wall. When you’d gotten off of that train, you’d built a little concave in the bulwark that used to divide them. It sat wall-to-wall with three other people. Your best friend sang songs of family, had big dreams about a home for them all to share.
They got raided within a day by a man without a reason. Your best friend left, and the woman with the wings disappeared not long after. The only people that remained were you and the old man that lived above them.
You managed, though, because that’s what you had to do.
The day that the world comes crashing down is the best day of your life.
You walked into the adoption centre a young man, cold and wanting and begging. Your hands stung with blood that wasn’t there, not yet.
There are glass boxes embedded in the walls. They hold babies. Your hands ache, but you don’t know why.
Her name was Frontflipo until it isn’t. His name is Mariana, and he is the single most handsome woman you have seen in your life. You kiss him, biting down on his tongue. Tasteless blood drips from your lips to your chins.
“Fix me,” You say to him. “Make me whole.”
Mariana lets go.
You bicker as you meet your daughter. She is less than half your size, but she has your eyes. She squints at you like you’re blurry, so you give her your backup glasses. They don’t seem to help very much, but you don’t know where to get proper ones, and she holds onto them like they’re holy.
She has Mariana’s hair. She isn’t related to either of you.
You suggest divorce as soon as you leave the centre. You are not married, you know this. Mariana’s hands are just too soft for you to hold and too raw to let go of so easily.
People hold you like you are a weapon. You claw at their backs as though they can replace your broken ribs. Your mouth foams like you’re infected, but you know that no one caused this but you. People try to hold you back, try to tame you.
(You are not fierce, is what they do not realize. You are not strong. You are just a man that needs more than he deserves. Your whole body will shake as you plant bombs in your own home.)
Mariana does not hold you like you are a weapon. He does not hold you at all, except for when you are on top of each other. He seems like he is a weapon himself, just like you. It draws you to him.
Still, he does not deserve this, not you.
He wants to go to Cancun with you before you divorce. He’s only just met you. You agree, but it’ll have to wait. You have a daughter to take care of.
Juanaflippa is like nobody you’ve ever met. She is small as all fuck and wears your old shirts that swamp her. You teach her to kill on the first day you have her, and she learns how to take care of herself better than you ever could (care for her, or for yourself). She's allergic to anything and everything.
She has pink shoes and pigtails that you try and try to braid, but they always end up wrangled and knotted. You paint her nails pink, white, and blue, and you both end up with messy, multicoloured arms. Her knees are scraped and bruised and her entire hand fits in the palm of yours.
Her tail swings on the ground and her wings sit idly on her back. She is not related to you. Nothing lasts forever.
You kill a sleeping little boy one day as she watches, indifferent. The old man upstairs hates you more than anything, but you think he’s being a little dramatic. Flippa stands, tiny, on her own bed as she points a gun at a grown man. She shoots him dead, and you cheer with an aching chest. Her hands do not shake; she's better than you ever were. The devil is proud of both of you.
(You are not your father, your wife says when she still cares. You are not your father, but your daughter is you. Your father was worse than you, though, so Flippa will be better.)
Mariana never fucking shows up. You start to wonder if his hands were really that soft to begin with.
Flippa starts to notice. You tuck her to bed one night, with a story you make up of a horrid witch with her mother’s name. She asks if he loves her. You don’t know what to say.
You take Flippa on an adventure one day, and you meet Tilin and their father. You know that it’s a mistake, but you get attached. Flippa is overjoyed to make a friend.
(You show your love in blood pools and desperate hugs.)
The worst day of your life is almost the second best.
Or, that’s not true yet. The second-best day of your life became the worst day of your life when you woke up the next morning.
It’s her birthday. You can’t find her until you go to Mariana’s house and find her sitting on his shoulders, grin larger than you’ve ever seen it. Your chest aches something sharp.
You and Mariana bicker again, but it feels less like fury. Your hands slot into each other’s even as you dig your nails into his skin.
You send Flippa downstairs before you feel his blood in your mouth and his body on yours.
You aren’t proud of the camera. You don’t regret it, either.
The next morning you wake up feeling hopeful for the first time in years. You watch the camera through, wondering if maybe, maybe things could be good.
And then you see it. And you scream your throat raw.
Mariana is evil, and you fucking hate him. And it’s his fault. And he killed your daughter – he killed your daughter, your daughter is dead, and holy fuck, holy fuck, this is it, this is what it’s come to.
There is no place for your anger; no place good, anyway, not within you, and no place for your grief, either, so you cannot have it anymore, Jesus fuck, it needs to go, you need her back. She can’t be dead. You would do anything. So you do anything.
Badboyhalo is an easy target, because like your wife he is a demon and his hands are claws (and the hands that held yours with warm, soft blood dripping down your wrists just last night tore into her shell barely a few hours later, and fuck fuck fuck fuck she’s dead). Plus, Dapper is fucking stupid and tiny and breakable and you have mines and a home you don’t care about because Flippa’s not in it.
Badboyhalo looks at you with almost pity when you scream and scream and shake and nothing happens, and he doesn’t get it, not yet, but he will soon. And then you’ll all be happy and it’ll be okay. Please. Your hands shake when you hold the gun.
(Your hands dig into nobody-yet-everybody's ribs as though you could tear them out and fill your empty chest with them.)
Flippa will be okay because everyone else dies when they’re that young, but you came back (wrong) so she will be too. Once Flippa is okay, everything will be.
And none of it works. Tilin is Flippa’s best friend, and you can’t do it. Flippa will kill you when she finds out, and . . . Tilin is your nephew. You can’t.
(You show your love in death and death and death and death and death, but you can’t love right, because there’s something wrong with you that’ll never be fixed. Fuck Mariana, you’re just like your father. Flippa’s just like you, except she’s still good and she can still be saved. She will be saved. She hasn’t been saved. She’s dead. Fuck. But she will be.)
So Jaiden and her ilk try to comfort you with false niceties and promises as you swear to send your bitch wife to hell. Anything for Flippa. Anything.
There’s a trial. Mariana is there, and you seethe at the sight of him. You recruit anyone you can. Obviously, Philza has to be a dick about it, because he doesn’t care about your daughter and he never did and he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t know what it’s like. But killing Chayanne again won’t help your case, at least not right now, so you let it go, but you don't plan to forever.
(You don’t like the old man upstairs, and he doesn’t like you, either. And you hate God. And your old man. You like the devil, more or less, even though he’s the most like your old man than anybody other than you.)
The eggs sit in a row on the side of the court room, like a carton for the picking. You look for Tilin, and you think about the TNT that sits dormant underneath you all, and you think of how you could get them out of here. Tilin smiles shyly, scared, back at you.
(You show your love in swords, and in false promises, and you show your love in nothing at all.)
Jaiden argues like her life depends on it, although you doubt she knows. It’s barely enough. A voice in your head screams that they should be killing your wife, kill him, bring Flippa back at all costs, who gives a shit. The voice in your head is just your regular voice, as it turns out. Nobody really listens, though, so you talk about Mariana cheating as if it matters nearly as much.
You are put in a small cage, barely long enough to stretch your arms out. It is familiar – cages run in the family. Your old one was smaller than Flippa’s is because you’re trying so hard. You wonder what your father’s was like. Whatever.
Flippa’s coming back, though. Fuck. Fuck, Flippa’s coming back. Mariana is next to you, and you reach for him through the bars, lock your calloused hands in his sharp ones like a key slotting into a prison cell door (you don’t know which is which, but it doesn’t matter anyway). You both know you need out, and you need out now. You need her. You need him, too. You need your trip to Cancun as a family. You need your family. You need a divorce, but first comes a marriage. You're not sure if you can get married here. Of course Flippa would be your flower girl. She'd be so happy. And then you can get a divorce. Sign the papers and sign away your wife with one last sloppy, bloody kiss, and then it'd be okay, except for when you still need more and so you'd see each other every day. But then maybe Mariana wouldn't show up when you need him. Maybe you'll need to do it yourself. Maybe that's how you get fixed - just you and your daughter and no-one else. But you can't. You need this. You need – you need -
You need to craft a boat, and then break through the ground underneath both of you. Once you’ve done it, you both scramble out underneath the building, away and away from the guard watching. You lock lips down there, for just a second, because you can’t ever stop, and then clamber on top of each other to get out. Outside, everyone is gathered in a circle, and you think for a terrible second that you’ve missed it. But it’s not over yet. She’s not back yet.
You look to Mariana, who is not looking at you. His mouth is red with your blood, and yours with his.
“Fix this,” you say it like it’s a demand, but it’s more of a plea. “Bring her back.”
What you mean to say is this: make us a happy family. Make us whole. Make her okay. Make us good. Flippa doesn't deserve this, not you and not your wife, so make us better.
It’s hopeless. It always has been. Mariana doesn’t hear you, or maybe he knows it’s too hopeless to reply.
But still, she comes back, and you think it might not be so hopeless after all.
It happens again.
(And again, and over and over and over. You think, sickly, that at least she’ll never grow into your jaw and your teeth and your father’s body. But you’re not even related. And she’ll never grow at all.)