Henry Stillman

Things had been going well since the band's hiatus, as suspected, it had been exactly what they'd needed to get Andre more acclimated to his new baseline, and while they hadn't done extensive testing of his abilities, they had at least gotten him to the point where he could actually turn it off, which was really the important thing, and more than that if Henry knew Andre was using some level of suggestion, he could actually resist, which had been the second most important thing.

The most entertaining thing that had happened was adopting Frankie as an occasional fifth member of the band, which had been a game at first, but it had stuck, and it had been a while since Frankie had been part of one of the bands, which meant it was about due time that he was again.

The most surprising thing, at least to Henry, was that their fanbase had grown during the nearly eight-month hiatus instead of dwindling, though it probably helped that they hadn't just dropped off of the face of the planet and Zelda and Lew both kept up regular posting -if somewhat more infrequent- on their social media, and Andre updated at the same rate he usually did. Not only that, they'd emerged from hiatus with a couple of singles and plans for an actual album, which had definitely overridden all the lingering pregnancy rumors, most of which Zelda had done nothing to dissuade just because it had amused her.

Things had been going well, they'd had a handful of public appearances, an interview to make up for the one they'd missed at the beginning of their hiatus, which was the official announcement that there was a new album in the works, they'd even actually played a couple of festivals. Which was exactly where something had gone wrong.

Zelda was the first to notice thanks to whatever kind of pack link she and Frankie shared, but even that had only worked for a few minutes, not even a half hour and hadn't been enough to figure out what was going on, because she'd -wisely- come to get the rest of them from the van as soon as she'd realized that she'd managed to outpace Frankie bringing the food back.

It had been a full day since then, and nobody had yet made demands or claimed responsibility, and Henry was once again pacing the hotel room, trying to get spinning thoughts back under control, trying to pull together even the beginning shreds of a plan, especially when traditional tracking methods were going to be useless, especially with the festival still going on, and -as far as they could ascertain- Zelda's pack-bond being actively blocked, which just meant whoever had Frankie was still in the vicinity, somewhere, otherwise he'd just be out of range instead of behind something she couldn't get through.

It had been almost a week since the ritual they weren't supposed to tell anyone about, and despite how things had gone, they'd decided -for now- to keep to that.

It wasn't like they could actually trust anyone around here as it was, and none of them could afford the expulsion, so the pact remained.

The whole thing had gone tits-up from the start, not even five minutes in and Andre -who had taken point though none of the rest of them had argued it- had seized, spitting seawater and bile, and it had taken a few harrowingly long minutes to just make sure he wasn't actually going to drown in a bone-dry storage room and a few minutes more to get an explanation out of him.

Lew had been in favor of telling someone immediately, even knowing that he would -quite likely- be shut back up at home in the equivalent of a Rapunzel tower, if he was lucky. But when Andre assured them that he had a handle on it, they trusted that he did, he knew his abilities better than they did, after all.

Of course, in the few days since they'd started taking it in turns to sleep in the same bed as Andre just in case he woke up in the middle of the night spitting seawater again, something that hadn't happened every night, but enough of them to be a concern, and time between lessons was spent desperately searching for any clue as to where his astral-self was stuck and how to get it un-stuck.

Right at the moment it was the wee hours of Sunday morning, because once again Andre had jolted awake choking on an ocean whose whims he alone was at the mercy of. Henry had been the one to shove him over onto his side into a recovery position and it hadn't been more than a moment for the other two to cluster close, which was what led to the four of them sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Andre's bed, knees touching.

Henry had once again voiced the opinion that they couldn't keep doing this, and Andre argued that he could hold out a little longer, "Hens, Lulu, ...Zelda." He'd learned two days after being assigned to each other not to shorten her name, but it had still taken him the rest of the week to stop trying, "I'm okay, I can make it through this week. If we don't find anything I can..." He shook his head, "I don't know, head to the infirmary and tell them I've got nightmares breaking through the barrier, it's technically what's happening, so it's not like I'll be caught out in a lie."

[You may forget
In time you may not see
What love can mean]

The worst part about Frankie's disappearance wasn't that the school tried to cover it up, because they didn't, in fact they'd done everything they could to find him again, the worst part was that after only a few months of searching, they'd decided that he'd simply run away. That he hadn't been able to handle the curriculum, or another Alpha classmate or two, or even the authority of the Omega professors, all of which were patently ridiculous to anyone who'd known him, which Henry had.

Sure, he'd always known that what they had was only 'for now', that they'd graduate and move on with their lives, find actual bondmates. But the thought that Frankie would have just left never did sit right with him. Which was part of the reason he'd signed on for extended education, but then he'd ended up actually enjoying the program, and it had turned into a mentorship position, and then into a student-teacher position and then some ten or twelve years after he'd decided to stay just in case Frankie came back he'd still have a familiar face there, he'd become a full professor.

In the decades since, the school had changed, though not as much as one would think, and his position had evolved, what had been a theater and stagecraft class for the newest students had become an actual History Of Theatre course that he led, but with three student-teachers and two mentors under him.

That night was the forty-somethingth anniversary of Frankie's disappearance, and the thought that he didn't remember exactly how long it had been bothered him, though he knew it shouldn't, especially after so long, it wasn't like Frankie would hold it against him, especially considering that he had professorial duties to keep track of these past few decades.

Regardless, Henry was working late in his office, a memorial candle in the window and a sheaf of design packets on his desk to grade, though right at that moment he'd taken a brief break from doing so, sitting back in his chair as the clock-tower chimed off the midnight hour.