Chapter Text
"oh I'm so glad you're here!" Is the first thing Taylor yells in his and Ashlyn's direction when they arrive at the book shop. And it sounded genuine too, Ethan is pretty sure that that's a first.
They came inside the book shop to see Taylor checking behind their stairs for something. "Hello to you too sticky fingers." Ethan greeted them.
They didn't get a response, instead Taylor started whispering something to what ever was behind the stairs. So Ashlyn asks for more information, well information in general considering they didn't have anything besides 'EMERGENCY! MEET AT BOOK SHOP.'
"You're pigeon made it sound pretty urgent. What's going on?" Taylor looks at her like they're seeing her for the first time. Holy fuck they might start crying. What the fuck is going on.
Ethan comes up to where they stand next to the stairs and "that's a child. Taylor did you steal a child?" Ashlyn comes up next to him.
"Oh you're so cute" she says simultaneous to Taylor's "No! I didn't steal a fucking child! One that would be kidnapping, not stealing and two that's Rachel!"
Ethan in shock, to steady himself and to calm Taylor places his hand on their shoulder. Ashlyn looks at them from where she is crouching before the child, Rachel. She couldn't be older that four maybe five.
"What do you mean that's Rachel?" She asks. Surprisingly calm. Good they needed that right now. Rachel looks between them, she doesn't seem to concerned about any of this.
"I don't know, okay! I woke up this morning. Went over to Rach, because we planned to have breakfast together and boom I open the door: child." They gesture wildly at the child in question. Rachel seems to finde the entire thing rather funny because she starts giggling.
"Oh yea you find that hilarious, don't you." Taylor says looking at them. She giggles harder, they sigh. They seem very exhausted. If they found her this morning they had them for about 3 hours now. What could a child do in that time to exhaust them to such an extent.
"Right, what do we do now? I don't think any of us are exactly equipped to deal with a situation like this." Ethan asks, which gains him another long suffering sigh from Taylor. Rude.
"I asked Andy to come as well, but they haven't shown up yet. I sent a second pigeon with a little more details but again no response, I'm starting to get worried." Ethan has never seen Taylor this stressed before, so he suggests the dumbest thing he ever has.
"We could go looking for them..." Why? Why would he say that is he that dense? Oh god now the fireflies are at it again. Rachel tries reaching out to one flying very close to her.
"You'd do that?" Taylor asked adding what had to be a fake sniffle.
"Oh of course Taylor!" Ashlyn says for Ethan and turns to little Rachel. Who is looking into her clasped hands. Probably got that firefly ...
"Rachel do you want to go look for Andy with us?" And god damnit now Ethan can't get out of it cause Ashlyn already agreed for him and Rachel looks really happy and they says the first thing since they arrived.
"Andy!" She yells throwing her arms in the air. A little light escapes from their hands and rushes back to Ethan.
Ashley stands up from where she was crouching and brushes imaginary dust of off her dress. "Well that's settled than!"
Taylor looks a whole lot happier now, maybe even smug but that could just be Ethan's bias. Rachel makes grabbey hands at them and gets picked up, still looking very happy. She starts humming a song Ethan doesn't recogniseas and they start their way out of the shop.
"Hey do we take the Waysto-" Ethan is cut of by Rachel yelling "MAGIC STONE" and struggling to get out of Taylor's arms.
"Well there you have your answer." Says Ashlyn as she speeds up to follow the kid.