Huh…Foxx hadn’t actually thought about that. Had Harlow been avoiding food for no reason? He glanced over at the man to see if he was going to enlighten them, and found Harlow’s eyes slightly wide as his brow furrowed more and more.
Oh...by the Goddess. “You can’t recall ever gaining weight, can you?!”
“I…” Harlow trailed off, his eyes narrowing.
Foxx burst into laughter. “You can’t!” He started to tsk. “All that wasted effort and time.”
“Foxx, shut it,” the dhampir hissed. “I recall…losing…muscle mass. That is evidence of me gaining!”
“Mm, no.” He snickered. “That’s evidence of you not working out as much. Vampires and paranormals gain and lose muscle mass all the time.”
Harlow rubbed at his eyes with a groan. “Wes, did you really have to ask that?! Do you know what you just did to me? This one…” Foxx blinked as the dhampir pointed at him, “Will NEVER let this go. It’s going to come up randomly now, just like me throwing my fucking back out!”
Foxx hummed, thinking on if he should feel insulted or not. No… Why be insulted when it was true?
“Ah, I didn’t mean to cause an issue,” Wes said, though the smile on his face really didn’t suggest that he felt bad. The smile dropped a bit, the human’s head tilting. “Why are you sitting so stiffly, Harlow?”
“A werewolf sliced up my back,” the dhampir grunted.
“Ah…are you in pain?”
“No, the stitches just run the full length of my back, and they pull if I sit a certain way.”
Foxx smiled and added, “He’s on the good drugs.” Only to be helpful, of course.
Wes’ brow furrowed in what he’d say was concern. “What exactly is Harlow on?”
Harlow snorted. “It’s fine, they aren’t going to have me saying anything I don’t want to.”
“If…you are sure…” The human cleared his throat. “Well…I suppose it’s time I steer the conversation to today’s topic. Childhood.”
Foxx’s smile dropped so fast, he barely stopped the frown from forming on his face. “Harlow’s childhood?”
“Ah…I was hoping to hear a bit from both of you. We don’t have to cover everything today, but I’d like for us to get a jump start.”
“I mean…is my childhood really important to know? Most of my issues started from the day after I turned,” he said with a hesitant laugh, not even sure if it was a lie or not. “It would probably be best to not bother going that far back anyway and just focus on what happened with me recently.”
“Our younger years are part of us, Foxx. Those years are sometimes the most important, as no matter how far back, they did in some way shape you into the person who is sitting before me today. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I will never try to force answers out of you. As it would not only undermine my professional integrity, but it would also likely destroy any chance I had of gaining your trust, or in you feeling safe with me. And without trust and safety, how could you ever believe I am here to help you? So, I will ask questions and you can choose to answer them when and if you are ever comfortable to. All I ask is that you be honest with me when you do answer. Even if that is to tell me ‘no, I’m not comfortable sharing that right now’.”
Foxx grimaced. Fuck a duck… Couldn’t he…just go to his craft room?
Instead of saying that, he said, “Harlow can go first.”
As Harlow, honestly, didn’t give a fuck about his childhood, he shrugged when Wes looked to him, as if he wanted to confirm he was okay with Foxx basically shoving him into the hot seat in effort to avoid talking. “Ask away.”
“Okay, then. Harlow, tell me, what’s the first thing you remember, the very first thing?”
“The first thing?” He frowned, his head tilting.
A woman’s low, sweet but sad voice floated through his mind. ‘They won’t understand because you’re special.’
The words… He had no clue who they had come from, or when he had heard them. But they had always been his first memory. Though could one call it a memory when there was nothing else attached to it, no image, no sense of location, nothing.
What came before them was blank, and what came after… Well, his next memory was of being returned to a group home. Yet, even with those memories, he had some doubt due to how young he was at the time.
It had been a long ass time since he’d thought about both the words and what came after. “I remember a voice. A woman saying ‘they wouldn’t understand because I was special’.”
Wes’ brow rose. “A woman’s voice?”
