Too Far Gone
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Though Jessamine and each of the cubs' parents visited the full sickroom several times that night, in the dark they didn't find the marks on Amber's throat until early the next morning. Upon close inspection (which was difficult because both Hazel and Hyssop had now also decided to trust no one), Jessamine found matching marks on each of the two older twins. Jade, who had found the scabbed-over bites on Amber, was inconsolable for most of the morning. Jessamine himself wasn't feeling too good. Amber refused to come out of the room and be looked at, and after an hour of attempting to make him, his refusal stood as strongly as it first had. Every new plan met with failure until finally Jessamine gave up and went to help Hemlock make more of the medicine they had to try out. Spruce and Jade stayed in the cubs' room trying to dislodge Amber. The breakfast Sedge had cooked out of habit remained uneaten on the kitchen table.

Twenty minutes later, Jessamine went back to the room with a tray of heated meat to tempt the cubs' newly Changed appetites, a bowl of the poultice Hemlock had helped devise the evening before, and two shallow dishes of fresh blood, siphoned off of sleep-deprived family members and mixed with the tasteless concoction which he and Hemlock had been working on. Spruce and Jade were on the hall side of the open door now, watching the quick, curious movements of their elder son and the slower, thoughtful ones of their younger between the doorposts. Interested, Jessamine stopped too, balancing the tray on his hands.

Amber had not been accepted by his twin as something safe, yet his face betrayed no pain, fear, or anything otherwise whenever he had to fend off suspicious swats, nips, or even small attacks. To mediate the distrust, he had taken to moving slowly when he moved at all, blinking slowly and carefully, and not looking at his brother for more than four seconds at a time. They appeared to be getting along very well, considering the fact that Beryl had seriously threatened with tooth and fist any of the other members of the household who had even gotten near, too far gone now to recognise them.

"Are you sure that he doesn't have it?" Jade asked finally, turning tired, red-rimmed eyes on Jessamine. "They've been laying like that all of today and most of yesterday." He gestured toward the twins spooned on Beryl's sickbed.

"I can't be sure until a couple days from now, but I don't think so. Maybe he's immune," Jessamine suggested hopefully, leaning his head back against the doorframe. The blood in the bowls sloshed slightly and was still.

Jade sighed, sagging slightly into his husband's arms, and Spruce held him up as if his life depended on it. Probably just happy to have something to do, Jessamine thought, casting a sympathetic glance at his son.

"But what if he's not?" Jade groaned, palming away more tears. "He can't just stay there, but he won't come out! I've already tried everything!"

"I even dragged him, Da," Spruce said wearily. "He just goes back in. I don't think there's a way to keep him out. He wants to be with Beryl."

"They're twins," Jessamine reminded the worrying parents softly, letting his gaze roam to each set of eyes in turn and make sure that they understood. "And he seems to be getting along better than any of the rest of us are. If Amber hasn't caught it by now, it's almost certain that he won't unless he gets worn out over the long term - that would give it another chance at getting in. Still, he's a smart cub, and he's never neglected himself in favour of Beryl before, has he?"

Spruce and Jade nodded a little reluctantly.

Starting to feel rather better himself now that he was rationalising it all out, Jessamine allowed himself a small smile. "I think he knows what his limits are, and that wearing himself out won't help Beryl a bit, certainly better than we grownups do sometimes." Shaking unruly strands of auburn out of his eyes, he stood up to go on with his mission, casting back over his shoulder, "Go on, into the kitchen, and see if you can salvage some of our breakfast for Amber, 'kay? I didn't want to bring his in with the medicine tray in case somebody stole it. Mem's heating some back up for him, I think."

He didn't wait for their answer, but when he turned back around from handing Amber Beryl's dish, they were missing from the doorway.

Beryl and the twins accepted the still warmed dishes with a little distaste, whether at the contamination he was sure they could sense or the slight lack of freshness he couldn't tell. They lapped it all up anyway, their tongues working patiently to scoop every drop from the bottom of the bowls. They didn't eat the meat, leaving it instead the way Jessamine had expected, drained of any of the blood it had contained. Kindred, unlike wolves, didn't digest flesh.

When all three of them had finished, which wasn't long, Jessamine took away their dishes and piled them on the tray. Jade came in the door with Amber's meal while he was doing this, the look in his eyes enough to make Jessamine take pity and let him hand the plateful of hot cereal to his youngest himself, though Beryl hissed a little over the intrusion. A shadow of pain flickered inside the redhead's eyes at the rejection, but he said nothing.

Amber smiled at him.

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The windows were sparkly clean. The whole room was, because Tana Tansy and Talé Drypis had scrubbed everything so Lupin and Sundrop wouldn't get sick too. Lupin had tried to help them, but they'd told him to go play outside for a while. Sundrop had sat in the middle of the bed the whole time and just cried.

Now they were done, and Lupin was standing in the door, watching his cousin cry with wide open, not blinking eyes dropping tears one at a time into the pillow he hugged. It wasn't really Sorrel's pillow: Talé Drypis had taken that one away to be burnt. But it was in Sorrel's place where he had sleeped at night.

"Sundrop," Lupin said. He thought he could hear it echo on the walls in a room so empty of anything that had been there before, even just toys or pictures on the walls. All of those had been burnt up too, though most of Sundrop and Sorrel's toys were in the playroom down the hall, not in their room. It didn't matter, he guessed. They were all going to go see Sorrel soon anyway. He did wish Sundrop would stop crying and be happy again before they did. His crying made Tana Tansy look so worried and hurt...

"Sundrop," Lupin said again. He crawled up on the bed, dragging himself over the skinny little rim that Sundrop had said was so Sorrel couldn't fall off it at night, when he used to dream dreams in his sleep. Was he dreaming now? Did dead people dream? He tumbled onto the bed with his elbows on the pillow and Sundrop grabbed him around his middle and wouldn't let go even when he pulled.

Sundrop cried. "Don't go away!"

"I won'," Lupin said, and this time when he pulled, Sundrop let him go. Lupin turned over on his side where it was comfortable and let his cousin hug him again.

"I wanna go home!" Sundrop hiccupped, and Lupin thought he knew what he meant...

He woke up.

For a split second all he could feel was vertigo. The placement of the ceiling seemed obnoxiously wrong; his own placement felt funny too, until he realised what the difference was. It wasn't his room. It wasn't even Jessamine's house, and he was lying in the very middle of the bed with no Hemlock to take up one side and displace him onto the other. Something about sickness and cubs popped into his head to explain it all, where with well-honed skill it was promptly pushed to the back of his head, digested, and accepted as a cure to the strangeness without him ever having to face it. He would deal with that when the business of getting up was over with.

Sighing, he rolled over and sat up. The small, neat plastic clock he had brought along from home read 9:03, three hours after the alarm he had forgotten to set the night before should have gone off. There was sunlight shining in through the windows he didn't recognise, and the room was hot. The door, which he was sure he had shut when he went to bed, was open a crack like someone had peeked in to check on him, and through it, from the distant interior of the house, he could hear the faint sound of music.

His clothing was on the floor where he had left it folded neatly, so he picked it up and went about getting dressed back into it, a prickle of goosebumps making its way up his arms at the relief from the hot sweat-dampened nightshirt he'd worn to bed. Too big for him; it was Hemlock's, but the reason he'd brought it for was gone now. The night before, it had smelled of his husband. This morning, after a night in the heat, it only smelled like himself.

The floor was a little cool under his feet when he got up, not as warm as he had expected it to be, which was a welcome relief to the rest of his overheated body as he crossed the room to the door, swung it the rest of the way open onto the empty hallway, and headed down the hallway toward the breakfast smell of the kitchen. As he got nearer he could hear Sineult's voice, speaking softly to his son.

"...so 'e won' get hot. But your Tana Jess'mine knows what t' do, an' Amber too. You know how good he takes care 'f Beryl..."

Lupin peeked around the door, half sure that he should leave the two to their discussion. In the middle of nodding, Fern caught sight of him.

"Tala Lupin! D' you want breakfist?"

Although taken aback by the normality of the question after waking up so strangely, Lupin nodded. He was sure that his parents had explained to him about Beryl the night before, but somehow the cub looked more cheerful this morning than he had then and Lupin didn't want to spoil it by looking worn down and heartsick himself.

"Just a little, please."

"'S jus' oatmeal," Sineult explained, blushing. "You c'n have some sugar an' syrup in 't if y' want 'cause there's both in th' house. I jus' went to th' store a couple days ago. Fern, y' want t' get a bowl down?"

With a quick "Okay!", the cub scurried to the cabinets under the sink and stove to do his da's bidding. From inside them, he dug one white porcelain bowl with a vine of blue roses painted all around its rim and a pewter spoon, which he carried over to Lupin with the air of a king returning with the spoils of his conquest.

"Here, Tala Lupin! But you've gotta get it out 'f the pot y'rself, 'cause 'm not tall 'nough," the cub added sadly. "Da says not to, so I don't burn me."

"Of course," Lupin told him softly, getting up and going over to the stove, where a pot of cream-thick oatmeal was waiting. "Your da is smart to tell you that. It hurts, to get burned." He lifted his bowl up to the lip of the pot so he wouldn't spill before scooping the still-hot food into it with the stirring spoon that had been left there, while on the table behind him, Sineult kneaded the bread dough Lupin had seen on his way into the room. It smelled of yeast and ground grain, and the kitchen in Jessamine's house.

Lupin thought that just maybe, he wanted to go home too.

Home was wherever Hemlock was, and Hemlock wasn't here.

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