#extended TLWC universe here now folks

[whisker-biscuit]

Help Me Act Intact: Chapter 1

Summary: Five years is a long time to spend under the roof of one of your family's murderers. It's even longer when said murderer has a child your age who seems determined to make friends with you.

Or: Sly and Jing's relationship through the years, in all its highs and lows.

Rating: General

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(This story will only make sense if you've read The Lines We Cross. It's not required reading for that fic but it does help fill in some of the blanks of how Sly and Jing learned to care for each other over the years. Updates will probably be a lot more frequent and a lot more sporadic. Expect shorter chapters with a lot of time jumps.)

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3 Days

The new boy had been here for three days.

He was the only other kid in the whole fortress besides Jing, and she was curious because she hadn’t been around other kids in a very long time. She was also curious because her papa had said he was a raccoon, and she’d never met or even seen a raccoon, either. He was smaller than anyone here except for her, and he had a big poofy tail that was always twitching and looked very soft, and she wanted to ask him if she could touch it.

She also wanted to ask if they could play together, and maybe if they could be friends, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to do any of those things yet for three reasons.

The first reason was that her papa kept the new boy very busy doing chores. He and her aunt and the staff were always giving him new things to do, and so he always looked too busy to play. Jing didn’t have to do chores except to keep her room clean, but she did have to do homework, and thinking about if she had to do homework all the time made her nose scrunch up. It didn’t sound fun to never get a chance to play.

The second reason was that he never talked to anyone. He was always watching and listening to the adults, but he never said a word or even made a sound, and even though it was really cool, it also made it hard to talk to him. She would ask him a question like what his favorite food was or how long he was going to work for her family, and he would just stare at her, and then her aunt would tell her to stay away from him and she’d have to listen.

And that was the third reason – she wasn't supposed to be alone around him, ever. Both her papa and her aunt had told her that many times, and had lectured her the one time they had caught her trying to sneak away from them and follow the boy. He was dangerous, they'd said, and very angry, and he might hurt her because he didn't like their family. They didn’t even let her get too close to him when there were lots of people in the room.

Jing understood all of these things, because she was very smart like her papa always said. But she was also smart because she knew secret ways around the house that no one else knew – because she was the only one small enough to find them.

She was smart, and she was curious. So, she found a way to see him alone, and she knew that would make it a lot easier to ask her questions and get to know this strange new boy.

It was very early in the morning when the little panda girl snuck out of her room. She knew the staff's schedules very well; they always got up before everyone else to start doing the daily chores. She didn’t have to be awake for two more hours, so she knew no one would come looking for her for a while.

The new boy was with them, carrying a large basket of laundry. One of the adults had their hand around his wrist as they all walked, and neither of them looked happy about it. Jing wondered why the adult didn't just let him go and let him walk by himself. Surely that would solve the problem they both had?

She watched them from a long way away for a while, seeing which direction the boy was going, then went a different way herself to find one of her special secret ways around. After a few minutes of being quiet and sneaky – things she was also very good at being! – Jing found the place that the boy had been sent to work for the morning.

He was in one of the laundry rooms, sitting on the floor as he looked through the things in his basket for stains and other things. He was alone in the room (except for her!) but he still looked very annoyed while he worked, throwing sheets and clothes onto the ground without even folding them first. When she stepped into the room, the boy jumped and turned around even though she thought she was being very quiet about it.

They stared at each other for a while as Jing realized she was disobeying her papa so badly just for being here at all. The raccoon watched her carefully like he was afraid she was going to be mean to him – which was very strange because he was supposed to be the mean one, according to everyone else.

“Um. Hello. My name is King Jing,” she finally said, folding her hands politely in front of her like her aunt had taught her to do when greeting strangers. “What’s your name?”

The new boy frowned really deep and made a weird face as he turned back around to finish looking through the laundry. Jing was shocked by how rude he was being. Maybe he was just shy?

“How come you won’t tell me what your name is?” The girl walked around the basket until she was facing him again. He stared up at her with the same strange frown. “How come you won’t talk at all?”

He shook his head and growled, and it took a minute for Jing to realize that he was trying to get words out between the growling. She waited very patiently, because her papa had taught her that sometimes people took a little longer to speak what was on their mind, and one had to be patient for such things so as not to be rude.

“G-g-g……go a-way,” he finally whispered in English, sounding like it was very hard for him to say the words.

Jing’s eyes lit up. She had been learning English since she was very little, but only her papa and sometimes the head chef spoke it with her. This was a chance to show how smart she was and impress the new boy!

“Hello! My name is King Jing!” She repeated in the other language, watching with delight how his eyes got big and wide. “What is your name?”

He looked very surprised, but didn’t answer. Jing pouted a little bit and tried another question.

“I am six and a half years old. How old are you?”

Still no answer. She was starting to get frustrated.

“Do you want to play with me?”

His frown grew deeper and he looked down at the laundry pile, then started going through clothes again. This time, he started throwing things across the room every time he finished with them instead of just dropping them on the floor.

Jing didn’t understand. Why was he angry? If he only spoke English, then he should be happy that she did, too! Everyone else spoke Mandarin around here, so it made sense why he didn’t talk before, but why wasn’t he talking to her now? Why wasn’t he answering any questions? Why was he being so rude?

The panda stomped her foot, upset and confused, and put her hands on her hips. It probably wasn’t very nice, but her aunt did it all the time, so it couldn’t be too bad.

“Will you be friends with me?” She asked through gritted teeth, determined to ask all her questions even though he wasn’t answering them. “Your tail is very fluffy. Can I touch it?”

The look he gave her was very mean and very angry, and his hands stopped grabbing things out of the basket. She thought about all the warnings her papa and her aunt had given her about this boy, but she was too angry herself to think about stopping. In fact, she was so mad and so confused that she had a whole new question, now.

“How come you are working for my family if you’re so mean? Why don’t you just leave?”

It happened so fast. He had been crouching on the floor in front of her, and then suddenly he was standing up and his face was all screwed up in anger and then he pushed her.

Hard.

Jing tripped backwards and fell on her butt, staring up at him in shock. It didn’t hurt very much, but he’d pushed her. He’d pushed her! The raccoon looked just as shocked as she was at what he’d just done, and then he looked really, really scared. He backed away into the other side of the room away from her and held his hands up like he thought she was going to push him back.

She stood back up, shaking because it was very scary to get pushed down like that, and felt tears starting to grow in her eyes. The boy looked even more scared that she was about to cry, but she turned around and ran out the door before he could see it.

She ran all the way back to her room, crawled into her bed, and cried until she was too tired to cry anymore.

When her aunt came to collect her for breakfast, she had already wiped her tears away, but the confusion and hurt still swirled around in her head. When she saw the boy again in the dining room, he wouldn’t look at her as he put plates on the table. Jing sat down at her regular place and stared down at the dark wooden pattern until her papa arrived.

He stopped to look all around the room like he had started doing since the new boy had come, and she saw the way the raccoon trembled under his gaze. Then her papa’s eyes turned to her, and he began to frown.

“Jing, dear daughter, what is the matter?” He asked in English, surprising everyone in the room.

“Huh?”

The larger panda kneeled down beside her and gently touched her face. “You have been crying. Did something happen?”

Jing heard a scary sound in his voice; the one he once used when he’d learned that a guard had said awful things about her aunt. Behind him, she could see the new boy shaking even harder than before, holding dishes to his chest like he could hide behind them. He was waiting for her to tell on him, she realized, and her papa was expecting it too. Her papa suspected something had happened and that it was the raccoon’s fault.

Well, it was his fault, but…she thought about the guard that her papa had gotten scary about. That guard didn’t work here anymore. She didn’t want the boy to not work here anymore either. He was weird and mean but she didn’t want to be the only kid in the fortress again.

And he looked really, really scared, and that made her feel bad for some reason.

“I’m okay, Daddy,” she said softly, lifting her hands so he could hold them in his bigger ones. “I had a bad dream last night about a monster, and it made me cry, but I know that it wasn’t real.”

His frown changed into worry. “Why did you not let me know? I could have chased the monster away for you.”

“Yes, but I am very brave, Daddy. I can chase them away all on my own, now.”

“Yes you can. You are very brave, indeed.” He touched her nose with his finger, making her giggle, then moved to take his place at the table next to her. “Let us eat, then. There is a long day ahead of us.”

Jing nodded and glanced at the new boy. He was staring at her with his mouth open, very surprised that she did not tell on him for his rudeness and meanness. She folded her arms and did her best to look stern like her aunt, giving him a big nod. She would not be a tattle-tale if he did not do that again.

She didn’t know if he understood that, because he turned away and walked off with the rest of the dishes, but he did keep looking at her over his shoulder. If he didn’t understand, then that was okay.

Because next time, Jing decided, she would just have to be more careful.