February 1976

Arthur had his back turned to the breakfast table, but it was easy enough to read him, tone and all.

"Mhm... hm... he did?!" His shoulders rose and fell in a deep heave of a sigh. He raised his hand to his face, likely to pinch the bridge of his nose, before planting that hand on his hip. "I am so sorry about that. Peter knows better than to do that! How is he doing?"

Peter stilled in his seat, as if the way he jiggled his leg under the table and the way he swirled the mug of hot chocolate to watch the marshmallow swim created enough sound to drown out the news. He watched Arthur's back; specifically, his eyes were trained on the phone cradled between Arthur's head and shoulder, and the dry croak of Lisette's voice that would be crackling out of the receiver.

"That's good to hear," Arthur replied, and the tension melted out of Peter's tiny body. "That boy of yours is made of tough stuff, I must say. If it's alright with you, I would like to send Peter back over to apologize, himself. Maybe Peter can do Andy's chores while he's staying there?" Though the tone was heavy on the teasing side, no one would be able to miss the serious suggestion underneath, especially when Arthur looked right over his shoulder at the child sitting on the table, scowling at the way Peter slumped back in his chair and rolled his eyes.

"Yes, we can arrange that. Okay, I will have Peter over and we can renegotiate payment. Send my love to Andy, and again, thank you so much. Goodbye."

Arthur hung the handset in its cradle and stood by the phone, running his hands down his face. He turned and walked silently to the table, taking the seat across from Peter and folding his hands in front of his face, eyes cast down to the steaming mug of coffee in front of him.

"...I didn't mean to do it," Peter murmured, squirming in the heavy silence.

"I know you didn't," Arthur replied. "But you still did, and now a little boy is hurt." Arthur's green eyes rose from his coffee to the child in front of him. They dimmed as Arthur's mind seemed to wander. To what, Peter didn't know; likely some long ago memory like Arthur tended to drifted back to.

His eyes closed. "For once, would it kill you to not cause me so much trouble?"

Peter, who had raised his mug to his mouth to take a sip, lowered it halfway, looking into the beverage as something in his stomach went bitter. "We were just wrestling."

"You're too strong," Arthur continued on, almost as if Peter hadn't said anything at all. "More than you have any right to be."

I'm a military fort, I'm supposed to be strong! Peter had wanted to point out, but when Arthur opened his eyes again, melancholy darkened them further, making Peter shrink in his chair.

"How many times do I have to tell you to be careful with people who are weaker than you?" Arthur scolded him. "I know you feel more connected to humans than with your fellow personifications. Nevertheless, you are still a personification who is stronger than your friends; they can't recover as fast as you or come back from the dead if you do anything bad to them."

Peter bowed his head again, rubbing his thumb on the lip of his mug. He was going to have to learn to stop doing that, else he'd break a mug someday, but he needed some way to take the edge off as the vivid memory of his friend's agonized shrieking filled his head. "...I know."

"You say that, but you still get carried away," Arthur continued to scold, and Peter wished he would be quiet, so he could push away the thought of Andy's corpse, pale and marked and bloodied by Peter's hand, and he could tell himself he wasn't a monster in peace. But Arthur's voice grew firmer, burning the imagined scenario into Peter's mind to the point of it feeling all too real. "Peter, I need you to promise me that you won't get carried away with humans. When you go back to Lisette's home, keep control of your strength before you do something even more regrettable."