Caretaker
By Missy

SERIES: Caretaker
PART: 1 of 1
RATING: PG (Adult thematic material)
PAIRING(s): None; Squiggy-centric
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Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: SOL
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Pre-Series Cannon
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Thirteen-year-old Squiggy experiences the bittersweet joy of preparing his first flock of moths to fly...

NOTES: A Christmas present for Cheshyre.

****

The tropical swirl of air seemed to cool at the very top of the building.

He knew they would die without proper sunlight, even if he did clean out the mayonnaise jar every day, stuffing it with fresh grass and re-poking holes into the bright blue lid. Only he knew that he wasn't a fool, not as crazy as they thought. But he muttered distractedly to himself every day at the very tip of the ledge.

He couldn't complain about the lack of sunlight in his apartment; really; what would his mother do? He got a lot more out of spending time on the roof; fresh air, a view of Milwaukee that couldn't be beat, and a great view of the nursing students and aspiring models who frequented the streets late at night.

In this, his thirteenth year, his thirteenth summer, he began to appreciate girls. Geez, he couldn't tell Lenny that; what kind of sissy would he think he was? Squiggy still liked to looking at them, though. Lord knew they wouldn't let him touch them, to his infinite sadness. His ears still rang from little Shirley Feeney's screams, and he just didn't understand why she didn't like having her hair pulled...

The months fled by, and before he could count the days it was autumn. Andrew would soon return to the school he hated, and the girls who didn't notice him. But then, Lenny would be coming back from summer camp, and Squiggy would get to tease Shirley Feeney a little more.

The little creatures in his jar strove to be free, and he wouldn't allow them to dry up and die, as so many of their siblings had done. So on the last warm night, just before the brittle air of fall settled in, he unscrewed the lid and let them fly.

Their dull brown wings didn't light up the sky. They certainly weren't beautiful to the naked eye. Soon, they would spend themselves, frying on bulbs, swatted, stuffed to death on old sweaters in better neighborhoods than this.

But to the little boy in the process of becoming a man, it was the highest expression of love he could afford. The moths were his brothers, and he had opened their cage and let them go. He would have to wait ten more years for his own chance to fly.