Alphabet City Everybody who comes to New York City has a dream. What is yours?

"I can take them." If it was going to be the only thing he was going to have, to be allowed, from their life, he needed it. He needed the two stupid dogs who loved Spark probably more than he did, and needed the apartment where he had always felt better than he did in the place he'd been s...

Rylie would probably move out of the apartment at this rate, if that was considered giving space. "I think so." He sounded somewhat miserable and he gave Jon a pained look. "Has anyone gone to take care of the dogs? They-- they both freak out if they're left alone too long. One of 'em...

Shai snorted and finally took a bite of his food; he knew he should probably take his medication first, that taking it later would probably make him throw up, especially with the stress of the day, but he wasn't really thinking yet. Besides, after one bite, he found that appetite and was fucking sta...

"So..." Shai looked down at his food, trying to find the appetite for it, but it was difficult; he needed his meds, but the idea of swallowing those six little pills just then, of eating at all, was a struggle to envision. "So they're Rylie's." God, that sounded terrible, even if...

Shai blanched slightly and he drew away from the condiments when his hand started shaking. "They're not going to take them, right?" The social worker had promised , but Shai trusted her about as far as he could throw her. If they lost the girls, Shai was pretty sure neither of them would b...

Shai had a sweet face, and when he smiled, it was somehow much more fitting for a boy his age, a kid who was dumbly in love with a girl and his children. "She would have. It's a bad move to piss her off." The smile turned smirk, more like an expression a boy like him would have after his l...

Shai didn't know how to deal with people on the whole, and certainly not people like Jon, who seemed to have some kind of conviction about them that was hard to read-- Shai was just as difficult, and it never struck him how annoying it was until faced with someone like him. He shook his head and ord...

Shai snorted, a humorless laugh. "Do you think I really have any friends?" His ex-girlfriend might be willing to-- Penny would be naturally appalled to find out he was charged with rape, but what as the word of an ex-stripper worth in the eyes of the law? Hell, even Jon and Rosie barely kn...

Shai reached up and ran a hand through his hair. "The order is set for fifteen days. It's temporary, I don't know if they'll put through another one yet." Tucking his hand back away, he curled his shoulders up towards his ears. "There's a preliminary hearing at the same time the restr...

Shai stopped dead on the sidewalk and read the note, then read it again, then again. She could write better than he could-- she was smarter, after all-- and he wasn't a very fast reader at the best of times. But all the words were ones he knew, could recognize, and he swallowed thickly again at what...

"Her sister ?" For the first time in hours, Shai felt any emotion, though this one was a sort of unwelcome sensation of shock. It might have been strange, but the only person he really wanted to see just then, if he couldn't see Spark, was Rylie, and now that was off the table with the res...

Shai was too tired to argue. It was physical, but mostly emotional, as it was clear to anyone who had any heart at all that he was on the very fucking edge of his sanity. He looked up briefly to search Jon's face before nodding and dropping his gaze to the floor again. He was rarely one to follow or...

They didn't immediately put him in a cell. No, it took them an hour or two to decide he'd raped Spark. Shai hadn't been in a jail cell for a few years, but they didn't upgrade them on the regular. It was like every movie and television show-- they got that detail right at least-- though, at this par...

"Lullaby" by The Spill Canvas It's the way that you blush when you're nervous. It's your ability to make me earn this. I know that you're tired, just let me sing you to sleep. It's about how you laugh out of pity, 'Cause lets be honest I'm not really that funny. I know that you're shot, ju...

It was a stupid move and Shai knew it as soon as he'd done it, but he was running and there was no choice but to keep going. They weren't going to let him back to Spark or the babies, they were going to take him away and... he didn't know what, but everything was falling apart just as soon as he'd g...

Lieutenant Toft looked at the ID carefully. "March fifth, 1976?" he asked, and Shai felt like he'd had a fist planted in his gut. What did he say to that? He had no other proof of his existence, and had been marked as a full year older when put into foster care because of his bodily maturi...

Shai was shaking as hard as if he'd been electrocuted. He wasn't scared-- well, he was, but only for his girls-- but more so angry , every nerve was firing off at high speed, to the point where, when he released Spark, his hands were trembling visibly. He was too distracted, too freaked out to hug S...

Margaret didn't look away from Spark, even as the tall boy pulled her away from the table. She obviously heard the police officer, but didn't so much as incline her chin towards him, completely focused on the girl. "Merry, we're not here to take your daughters. What we're concerned about is get...

Shai's breath caught, and he was reaching for Spark when a shape moved into the doorway and then he was on his feet too. It was like instinct to react to that shade of blue, and why was there a cop? They'd orchestrated this, and the glance he shot the social worker was downright murderous. He and Sp...

He tightened his grip on her hand. Shai already knew exactly what was happening and it felt like he was free-falling down an elevator shaft. Through the window to the NICU, he could see Angel and the nurse bent over Lina's incubator and could see the smile on Spark's friend's face so he knew the bab...