Kids + Riots= …Wait, WHAT?!

It’s raining. No, it’s pofuring.

“Britney! Wake up, wake up, wake up! It’s raining Britt! We can go out!” Santana shakes the younger girl to wake her.

“Ngh…but I ‘ve to ‘ear ab’t the ov’r ‘roduct‘n ‘f bull shoes…”

“Fine, but wake up soon! Ok?”

“Mmk.”

Smiling fondly, Santana runs into the twin’s room, yells at them to wake them up and ends up with a pillow thrown in her face.

What the hell is wrong with these people!? The only time we get to go out is when it’s raining, and they’d rather stay in bed! Well I’m not staying in this fucking rat hole any longer than I have to.

Santana shuffles back into the room her and Britney share. She flies over to the closet and picks up her docs and the cutest outfit she can find. A red and black plaid skirt with her favorite corset will do. She decides she needs to go “acquire” new outfits.

After Santana is dressed, she asks Britney if she wants to go out with her to shop.

“But the bull shoes!” Britt mumbles. “They won’t stop…”

“Ok, never mind.” Santana says forlornly, and looks longingly at the girl in their bed one last time and shuts the door behind her. She grabs her rain coat, tucks her wings in until it’s almost painful, and wraps herself so she neither shows anything, nor gets wet in the rain.

Santana walks on to the street, keeping her head down. As she gets on the bus and sits down she notices an Other in the back. When the girl looks her way San winks. She looks around and decides it’s safe enough to go sit with Santana.

“Hey there!” the other girl says with a smile.

“Hiya! What’s your name?”

“I’m Zoantia. Who, and what, are you?”

“Santana, half shifter, and yourself?” She says with another wink. Santana loves to mindlessly flirt. It’s one of the only things that make her smile.

“Half cat daemon.” Zoantia says with a smile. “What kind of shifter are you? You have to have something to hide under that big wrap of yours.”

Santana pastes the sexiest look on her face. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Then she giggles and the two continue to flirt. They learn a bit about each other, but don’t go into too much detail. Zoantia (zo-an-ti-a) tells Santana that her name means desire in the northern dialect of one of the daemon languages. They decide that the two of them can “acquire” things together, and spend the day touching, and complimenting, and just being teenagers together. Until they run into a frenzied group of humans.

This group is centered around a stage, protected by a tarp covering most of the group. On the stage is a few people, most likely humans if you take into consideration the banner above them claiming that they are the ‘Humans of America’. One of the humans is holding a microphone, and is shouting a bunch of kind of creepy bullshit. What he’s saying, it’s nonsense, but it’s still really scary.

“We are the Humans of America!” He exclaims. “We will not stand for these monsters, these Others, getting this horrific amendment passed. Stand with us. Fight for the Human right to be safe. Let’s get rid of these walking nightmares! Down with the Others, up with the people!” The group of humans continues to chant this phrase so often heard at many different kinds of protest, most of those kinds aren’t chanting about killing a whole group of people though. This kid, and he is a kid, is talking about a genocide of all the Others on the planet and no one is calling him crazy, or, ya know, genocidal? These people are seriously fucked in Santana’s opinion.

Oh goody! One of the humans is coming over!

“Miss?” Santana looks around in horror and anger. “Would you like a flyer on how to support the Humans of America?” She grabs one purely out of curiosity, and turns the paper over to read it.

“TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HUMANS OF AMERICA, OR MAKE A DONATION, YOU CAN VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.OTHERSMUSTGO.ORG

UP WITH THE PEOPLE, DOWN WITH THE OTHERS!”

 “What the hell is this? What are they talking about?”

“Let’s get away from them, and then I can tell you.” Zoantia whispers in the other girl’s ear. And that’s exactly what they do. San and Zo find a café that they can speak in freely. The owner is a lupine, so they should be safe.

“Hi, is there any way we can go upstairs sir?” Zoantia lets her tail, covered in all black fur, out from underneath her skirt, and picks up his coffee. The man looks them over and waves them through with a grunt as she sets down the cup.

When they get up to the hidden part of the café meant for Others and allies, they find a corner booth and take off their coats; Santana releasing her wings from their stiff position, and Zoantia letting her tail float around and shoving her large hood down to reveal her ears. They order drinks and talk for hours and Santana finds out what’s really been going on for the past few months. She knew about the Unveiling and the Amendment, but she didn’t know about the riots, and the extent to which violence has occurred between humans and Others. It’s an onslaught of information Santana’s not sure she can handle. San shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” She says abruptly without any obvious provocation. Santana makes up some excuse she doesn’t remember by the time she hits the bottom of the stairs. Since she’s only a few blocks from the building she runs home to tell the rest of the kids what’s been happening.

Why didn’t Kurt tell us? He must’ve known; he always knows these things. So, why?

--

Hey, I’m Kurt. I would like to be all nice and try to get to know you and shit, but I don’t really have time. I have to get back to the kids, so I’m just going to jump right in. My family and I have a long, complicated history, so I’ve decided to give you the quick and dirty version:

I’ve been taking care of the 5 other bird kids (yes I am also a Halfling) I have lived with since before Burt died. The six of us thought of Burt as our father; we all imprinted on him when we hatched. This was before anyone, outside of others, knew about our kind. The rest of the world found out thirteen months ago.

So, in case you haven’t already heard, the Others are all of those scary beings that creep into your nightmares. Well, that’s what the government, and most of the human population, is saying anyways. There are lots of kinds of Others, like lupines (which you might call werewolves), vampires, witches, shifters, etc... Most of us are part shifter. Full shifters can transform from being human to something else, mostly animals. Me and three of the five kids I live with: Blaine, Santana, and Britney all have wings because we’re part shifter. Mercedes and Victoria are human, though they still have all of the traits of an Other that we do and more. We try not to dwell on the human part, but we will later on. The rest of us are Halflings; half human, half other. Being only part shifter means we can’t really shift; we just turned out as more of a mix of human and whatever kind of animal we are. But we still act as humans do…mostly.

Really, Others are just people, like all the rest of you, but cooler. For example, if you take my family, we’re all a bunch of regular kids with wings on our back, and love in our tender hearts and all that shit.

I mean yeah, some of us can do other things too, like I can fly way faster than the rest of the flock. They only fly up to about 115 mph (and that’s if it’s a life or death kinda thing), but, just for a rough estimate, I can easily fly almost 250 mph. Victoria can read minds, and her twin, Mercedes, can control thoughts, and they’re both telekinetic. They tell me Blaine can...blend in. That it’s not so much that he can become invisible, but more that you just don’t notice him. Apparently it’s weird. And Santana is part phoenix, so she can burst into flames whenever she wants to and not get hurt.  Britney’s special thing is the one that we use the most though. She can mimic anyone’s voice. We use it to order things, like booze and pizza, confuse people who are looking for us, and generally just fuck with people. She also likes to make her voice sound like Burt.

Burt died 5 years back. He had a heart-attack, and was sent to the hospital. We couldn’t see him in the hospital, and, when he died, we couldn’t even go to his funeral. We had to hide.

We’ve been hiding our whole lives, which, in my opinion, is bullshit. Most people dream of flying. Instead of being jealous though, if we show humans that we can fly, they would probably turn tail and run, but Burt raised birds for a living; he had a hatchery, so he wouldn’t really turn something like us away, now would he?

We used to ask him about how he came to have us, instead of our parents. He always told us that one day, our eggs just kind of showed up at his door, and he thought we were some kind of rare birds, or something, so he took us in and made sure our eggs were safe and healthy.

 All of our eggs arrived on the same day, but we hatched years apart. Burt thought it might be because of the different kinds of bird shifters our parents were. I hatched first, and I imagine it must have been quite a shock when I did considering I’m not a rare bird, around 18 years ago. Blaine was second, about 2 years after me, then Santana 3 years later, and Britt the year after her. Years don’t mean that much to us, though. We all age faster than humans. So, we’re literally older than our years. In human body stages I’m probably closer to twenty, Blaine’s more like eighteen, San sixteen, Britt fifteen, and the twins are about twelve. We grew up fast physically. For us, the younger you are the faster you grow, and it only starts to slow down when you hit puberty (that was fun…not).

The last two kids to hatch were Victoria and Mercedes, who hatched eight years ago. They shared an egg because they’re almost identical twins. There’s one thing we don’t understand; how they even exist. 

For medical reasons, Burt needed to know what kind of bird all of our shifted versions would be if we could shift, and he figured out with a sample of blood from each of us what bird all of us are. When Burt took the twin’s blood to see what kind of shifter they were, he found that they were completely human. They just, you know, hatched...from an egg, have wings, can read or control thoughts, and (ya can’t forget this one!) are telekinetic. But they are absolutely 100% human...this is our life, and I used to find it funny because, back then, we’d never want it any other way. We could work it, make it normal (as normal as any bird kid’s can be anyways...). But then the Unveiling happened. That’s when everything changed.

People like my family, the Others, and humans that are like us, have been in hiding for a long time. We have been hiding for longer than any human historians can even imagine. But, for some ungodly reason, the Council decided it was time to Unveil. Let our existence be known. By the way, the Council of Others is the closest thing that we have to a government. They make laws, like don’t kill humans unnecessarily, and many, many more *insert eye rolling action here*.

The Others community always thought the Unveiling was an eventual thing. No one ever thought that we would show the humans in the next, well…ever really.

We’ve been fighting against the Council on this matter for centuries. No one liked the thought of us being out in the open without any kind of protection, Others’ rights, put in place beforehand. Some humans can’t even accept people who are different in their own species, let alone something they think of as fairytales. But the Council went ahead and did it anyways, and decided to make my job of raising these kids a living hell.

And what can I do? I can sit and listen to the news to find out if anything has changed...

“This is the latest news on the Unveiling. The Others Council has been demanding an amendment that protects their rights as beings in society, as we all know. It would seem that most humans do not want the Other’s Amendment to pass. The Great Debates have been going on for close to 13 months now, and still no decision has been reached. Neither the government nor the Others have been willing to budge in either direction. What will happen next? We will have more on this later. As for other recent events...” I try to tune the news lady out, her voice fading into the background of my existence.

“Turn it off. Now.” I tell San because I don’t need to hear this. I have kept the kids safe for years, and now? Now, everyone is making my job really fucking hard. And they never even mention the riots, or the ‘Humans of America’. What the hell? Talk about a controlling government much? I wonder if they remember what happened with the last credibility gap with Johnson and Nixon… “Just-just, god, please turn it off.”

“But Kuuuuurt, they aren’t even talking about it anymore...” Santana says in a voice full of attitude.

“I don’t care, turn it off. She sounds like she’s had five nose jobs, and none of them turned out well.” Making a waving motion in front of my face to dismiss her argument.

“Alright, fine. Gods, you’re moody today...” Santana reluctantly turns off the volume, but keeps the TV on. So long as I don’t have to hear it, I’m fine. (P.S., I’m blind.) That’s when I hear all the other kids walk into the room, their feet padding along the floor at different paces, but ending up in the same place around the same time. They sit on the floor with me and Santana.

“What are we going to do Kurt?” Victoria says, “We can’t really stay here for much longer, can we?” She asks if we can stay wherever we are at the moment every time she knows we have to leave. She already knows what the answer will be, but she asks anyways. It always breaks my heart to hear that every two months, but we have to go in order to be safe.

“I’m sorry sweetie, you know we can’t. Someone could find us if we stay too long...”

“I know, but I really like this apartment.” I hear a few murmurs of agreement.

That’s when Blaine decides it’s time to throw in his opinion, “Kurt, we might be able to stay another week. I don’t see how it would hurt ...unless you don’t want to…” which is obviously not a good one.

“Blaine, you know I would love to stay in a place for more than two months so that I don’t have to keep memorizing the layout of every new goddamn apartment, or house, or forest, we live in, but it isn’t safe. There are like, I don’t know, twenty different WhiteCoat districts looking for us, and you know we cannot get caught. Because the Halflings that get caught, they disappear. They go with the WC’s and are never seen again. The entire reason they were made was to ‘control’ the Halfling population. So, no Blaine, I’m sorry, but we can’t just stay another week. We’re leaving on schedule, as planned.” I finish with a huff of breath, and I know that I just got angry at him for saying the same thing Victoria did, but he’s older, he should know why we can’t stay. He knows what happened with Fangf…

I tell the kids to go pack, and they all grumble, but most of them comply. In fact, all of them except Blaine do.

“Yes, Blaine? Did you need something?” I ask in a hurt, tired, angry tone. I hate thinking about Fang.

“Uh, um…” Blaine lets out a huff of breath like he’s not sure if he should tell me or not. He mumbles a ‘sorry’ and runs off to go pack his stuff. I’ve been packed for two days already, so I have time to sit here and think about all of the things I’ve been trying really hard not to think about. Like the riots. Those ones the government never mentions on TV, or anywhere for that matter…

First of all, I want to know why the government has been screening these out of the media. Why won’t they show what the “Humans of America” are like? Are they afraid it will help the Amendment pass? I just don’t get it. Secondly, those riots tend to get violent, which the flock (that’s all six of us) knows how to handle. We taught ourselves to fight when the White Coats divisions became a popular killing machine. I’ve been trying to decide whether I should bring the kids to one of these riots or not. I want them to see what’s going on. So they can understand why we aren’t safe. But if we do go, I’d want to show those moronic humans what they’re rioting about. I’d want show them our wings.

But I also want to keep the kids safe. I won’t lose anyone else. I can’t, not after Burt. So maybe I wo-

“Kurt!” My gods, why do people have children? I can’t even think in peace!

“What do you need, Mercedes?”

Can you come here? She thinks into my head. Her and Victoria do this often.

Be there in a sec, I reply just as silently. Victoria will tell her. I guess I can decide about the riot later…

So I stand up, and go to walk to Mercedes’ and Victoria’s room, which is right past Blaine’s. I decide to ask if he’s packing and open his door. And oh my goddess, what is that?!

“Woah! Um…ah jeeze… Hey Kurt. Um, you need something?”

“Uhh…” Ok, I touched little Blaine. Fuck, I need to say something or this’ll be awkward. Like it’s not already?  Shut up brain! “Umm…”

“Oookay, I’m going to go take a shower now.” And that certainly does not help me not one bit because of course now I’m trying to imagine what it would feel like to take a shower with him and his…skin. It makes me think of…well never mind.

So, um, Kurt. Why are you thinking of Blaine like he’s a French desert?

Victoria! Get out of my thoughts. NOW.

Fine…party pooper.

So I walk into the twin’s room. “Yes, Mercedes, did you need something?”

“We want to go.”

“Go where, honey?” The twins are silent for a minute, as if they’re waiting for me to confess something; the gods only know what though. Soon they give up and Mercedes tells me what the hell they’re talking about.

“To one of the riots. Victoria told me you were thinking of taking us, and we all want to go. I, um, asked around. Sort of.”

“No, absolutely not.” I guess I don’t have to decide later anymore. “If Victoria had finished her completely unnecessary search through my brain, then she would’ve heard that it isn’t safe.”

“We all know that it’s not safe, twinkle toes.” Santana says in possibly the snarkiest voice I’ve ever heard her use. Apparently, the other kids, save for Blaine, came in at some point without me hearing. I must be all over the place! I always know where the kids are.

 Britney puts her hand on my shoulder.

“We want to know what’s going on, D.” The kids gave me a nickname a few years back. D means dad. Since half of them saw Burt and me when they first hatched, I guess I kind of am one of their dad to them.  “Since Lord Tubbington told me about what you were thinking, I got curious. We should go.” Britt says with a smile. She thinks the twins talking in her head is her pet cat, Lord Tubbington, who never existed outside of her imagination.

Santana takes over from here on out.

“What  Britney means to say, pastry puff, is that we’ve been kept safe our whole lives, and we love that you and Burt did that for us, but we don’t want to be protected anymore. We need to know what’s going on outside of these four walls. We can only leave on rainy days, and that’s such bullshit. I hate being cooped up in here all the time.” There’s a slight pause in the conversation, and I hear ruffling, like the kids are moving closer to each other, like they’re moving into a formation maybe?

I need time, Love, Joy

I need space

I need me

Santana and the kids are singing Britney Spears. This seriously isn’t real. I must be having a terrible, but awesomely in tune, nightmare.

Say hello to the girl that I am!

You're gonna have to see through my perspective

I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am

And I don't wanna be so damn protected

There must be another way

Cause I believe in taking chances

But who am I to say

What a girl is to do

God, I need some answers

What am I to do with my life

(You will find it out don't worry)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Santana sing outside of the shower. When did they all learn to sing like this? The kids are perfect as the background and Santana’s a great lead. They definitely didn’t just whip this up. They’ve known about the riots for longer than the past few minutes, and they must be really upset. I completely fucked up.

How Am I supposed to know what's right?

(You just got to do it your way)

I can't help the way I feel

But my life has been so overprotected

I tell 'em what I like

What I want

What I don't

But every time I do I stand corrected

Things that I've been told

I can't believe what I hear about the world, I realize

I'm Overprotected

There must be another way

Cause I believe in taking chances

But who am I to say

What a girl is to do

God I need some answers

I need time (love)

I need space

(This is it, this is it)

I don't need nobody telling me just what I wanna

What I what what what I'm gonna

Do about my destiny

(I Say No, No)

Nobody's telling me just what what what I wanna do, do

I'm so fed up with people telling me to be

Someone else but me

What am I to do with my life

(You will find it out don't worry)

How Am I supposed to know what's right?

(You just got to do it your way)

I can't help the way I feel

But my life has been so overprotected

Santana ends the song and they all sit down for a minute to catch their breath. When she stops panting, she grabs my hand and explains all that she can.

 “Kurtsie, we’re tired. We’re tired of hiding all the time, and moving every two months. We’re tired of finding out shit from strangers. We’re tired. We’re just fucking tired, and we want, no, we need the Other’s Amendment to pass. So, we’re going to fight or fly or sing. We’ll do anything to make sure it passes. No one is leaving the family or anything, but we all agreed that we’re going to go to a riot, even if you don’t.” Santana’s voice gets very small when she tells me this, and I think I’m going to cry. When did the kids become afraid to tell me what they were thinking?

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve talked about it; figured something out. Why didn’t you-”.

“Because…we just couldn’t before now.” Blaine cut me off as he walks in the room. He sounds reluctant, like he doesn’t want to say the real reason.

Apparently, the kids all want to say something, anything but what they’re actually thinking, so I want to talk to Vicky. She’s my baby, and she knows how everyone really feels, so I’ll get the real information. She’s always told me everything - the good, the bad, and the abysmal.

Victoria knows what I need right now, and sends a thought to all the others to go somewhere else. The kids walk out and go do whatever they do when I’m not around. I hear Victoria’s feet pad over to one side of the room. Her bed squeaks a little when she sits down. I go to the other side of the room, and gingerly do the same on Mercedes bed, first checking for any toys or things that they would have lying around. Then I get back on topic.

  Victoria, why now? You knew how everyone felt. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?

We didn’t want to hurt you. We all- scratch that- all of us, except Blaine, think of you as our father. You’ve been raising some of us for longer than Burt did. We didn’t want to let you down. We know how hard it was for you to pull yourself together after Burt died to raise us, but you did. We wanted to be strong like you, so we just…we couldn’t.

I don’t know what happened. I just wanted to protect you; all of you. I can’t lose you. I just can’t. Not after Burt. Do you know what would happen to me if I lost any of you? I don’t think I would be ok. I know I wouldn’t. Please don’t go. I don’t even see why you want to. It’s dangerous.

San’s right, D. We need to be able to go outside and play, and go to school. We want to be like all the other kids. We have to help get the amendment through. We don’t know what else to do with ourselves but help it pass. We are going. We don’t want to hurt you, but we have to.

 My shoulders sag, and I feel tears falling down my cheeks.

Since when the hell do kids like riots?