#For The Record!!! i was not pregnant and if i were i would've gotten an abortion behind her back 👍 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

braveclementine · 10 days

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Chapter 11

Warnings: None. However, future chapters will contain sexual content so readers that are under the age of 18 may have to skip those chapters (Please keep note of the warnings).

Copyright: I do not own any Wizarding World characters that J.K. Rowling wrote. I do however own Elizabeth Kane (main character) and Trang Nyguen (best friend). There should be no use of these two names without my permission. I also do not condone any copying of this.

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"𝖂𝖊'𝖗𝖊 𝖌𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖔 the Burrow for Christmas?" I asked, a bit put out with dad. "Why?"

Dad looked at me curiously and said, "Molly invited me to stay for a couple of days. She thought you were going to be staying at Hogwarts this Christmas since that was Trang's plans. It's a bit late to say no now. And besides," he tacked on, "I thought you'd like this turn of events."

I sighed. "Nothing against the Weasleys or Harry. I just really didn't want to hang out with Ron this Christmas that's all. But I'll go and I'll stay with Ginny and Fleur and it'll be fine, dad. Besides, this is what you want and I'm okay with that." I smiled over my tea and immediately dropped the smile when he returned to his newspaper.

I watched him anxiously, searching inside of me to see whether or not I had the guts to tell dad that I was pregnant. I'd told Trang that I'd wanted to wait until we were past the miscarrying stage. But now that I was actually sitting here, face to face with him, it was hard to keep the secret inside of me. And the fact remained- I didn't want to keep it a secret. Not from my father.

I got up from the table slowly and headed upstairs for my room. I hadn't stayed here in a long time. Neither had dad. He'd only come back because of Christmas and my arrival. There was dust covering everything, almost as though it was a ghost house.

I picked up a picture frame off the desk and blew dust off of it. I'd framed a picture of mum and dad amongst other pictures. Mum smiled up at me and dad winked. I wondered what dad-James- would've thought if he knew I was having the baby of the man he had hated the most. I wondered how he would have reacted.

Then again, I doubted that I would even have been attracted to Severus if my parents were alive. I would've grown up, knowing dad hated him, perhaps hating him myself.

I wondered what mum would've thought. She'd liked Severus, they'd been friends even before school. Had she loved him?

But that question made me think of all of things that were going on in my life so I shut them down. I set the picture frame back on the desk.

I pulled the comforter off the bed to shake it out in the garden to rid it of the dust. I'd have used my wand, but I didn't quite feel up to magic which was weird.

Severus is much older than you.

I gathered the comforter in my arms and started walking down the stairs.

Much older.

I opened the back door and stepped out into the freezing garden.

Same age as both your dads.

I let go of the comforter, shaking off the dust. The wind was starting to bite into my cheeks.

I mean really. What were you thinking, marrying a man twice your age?

I closed the door behind me, carrying the comforter up the stairs. I placed it back over the bed. I headed to the trunk to start unpacking my things.

He was in love with your mum. I mean really?

"Shut up." I muttered aloud, tossing my art pad onto my bed.

I mean your mum and him could've gotten married and had you. Do you know how weird that is?

I ignored the stupid voice in the back of my head by putting a Beatles record on the phonograph. Dad had gotten it for me when I became a music fan many Christmases ago. Of course, it wasn't one of the really really old ones with the tube or whatever protruding from the box.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a longer, but he knew it couldn't last. . .Jojo left his home for Tuscan, Arizona, for some California grass. . .get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged. . .

No, this one was a little rectangular metal box. Pink. You put a small record on it and it played music. I knew that technology had advanced so that I could listen to music on a Walkman but I liked Phonographs. Especially for old music like the Beatles or Beach Boys or Queen or that one dude from America. . .Michael Jackson.

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man. . .All the girls around her say she's got it coming, But she gets it while she can. . .get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged. . .

Besides, technology and magic didn't mix. Older was always better in wizarding households.

I laid down on the bed, letting the record go through the songs while I tried to figure out what I wanted to draw.

Maybe I should name my baby Jojo if it was a boy, Loretta if it was a girl. I liked the Beatles that much.

I set my brain to random, almost doodling, in a way. When I finished drawing, there was a woman with no facial features or even hair. All she had was a defined neck and jewelry. The jewelry was a necklace with three charms each under the other. A bee, a key, and a sword.

I stared at it for a little longer, randomly shading parts of the face before coming back, adding more detail to the three items. I didn't know what it meant, but it felt important to me.

I wondered what the significance was of the three items. A bee, a key, and a sword.

Crown. Feather. Heart.

I blinked. Bee, Key, Sword, Crown, Feather, Heart. Did that mean anything? I certainly couldn't think of anything.

Suddenly, I was looking at the drawing with a bit of fear and apprehension.

. . .all my troubles seem so far away. Now it looks as though there here to stay oh yesterday, came suddenly. . .

I shut the record off and threw my art pad across the room. I shut my eyes, pushing the palms of my hands into my eyes. I sighed. I was overreacting about something stupid. I'd probably just drawn the bee and the key and the sword because they were easy objects to draw. That was all.

I got up and left my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I trooped down the stairs and went into the kitchen, looking for something to do.

I ended up cooking a small dinner. Dad knew something was bothering me and he kept from prying for as long as he could manage which, with dad, was about three and a half minutes.

"What's wrong?" He demanded.

"Nothing's wrong." I lied, twirling my fork in the spaghetti.

"Something's clearly bothering you." He prodded.

I bit my lip. "It's not the right time to tell you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dad asked, frowning. He was looking at me, but I wouldn't meet his eyes.

"I just mean that when it's time to tell you, I'll tell you, okay?" I asked, slightly impatient and immediately felt bad. I sighed. "It's just... I drew something earlier and I don't know why I drew it. That's all."

"Like you might be drawing something you haven't foreseen yet?" Dad asked, sounding curious.

"Perhaps." I said slowly. He could be right but I couldn't see what importance a bee, a key, and a sword had to do with... well anything.

"What did you draw?" Dad asked, still prying.

I got up from the table and went upstairs, opening the door and grabbing the art pad before walking back downstairs and putting the art pad in front of dad.

"I don't understand." Dad said after looking at it for a few minutes. "What was so...hmm frightening's not really the word I'm looking for."

"When I was thinking the words, bee, key, and sword, a voice answered in my head saying crown, feather, heart. I mean, what does any of that even mean?" I asked desperately. Dad had to have answers, he had to.

"Maybe you were thinking of adding a crown, feather, and heart." Dad suggested, laying the sketch flat on the table. "She has no face, right? So maybe a crown ontop of her head, heart shaped face is right here-" Dad said, outlining the face with his finger, "I'm not sure about feathers. Perhaps a costume of some kind?"

"A mask." I said. "Masquerade mask."

I felt relieved and foolish at the same time. I burst out laughing and crying at the same time.

"Elizabeth!" Dad exclaimed, looking extremely alarmed. I laughed and cried harder.

"Sorry." I said, wiping my face with my sleeved. "Let's just say I feel quite foolish and relieved at the same time so my feelings were quite mixed."

Dad laughed, shaking his head. "Hearing voices in your head is just your subconscious helping you out, that's all."

"Right." I said, picking up the sketch. "I'm going to go ahead and work on this a bit more. Night Dad." I kissed the top of his head, noticing that there was more gray in his hair than before.

I was halfway across the living room when I hesitated, realizing I hadn't asked him about how he was doing.

"Dad?" I asked hesitantly. "How... how are things here?"

"Well I haven't been here much or really at all." Dad said cautiously.

"With Tonks." I said.

"I haven't seen her." Dad said firmly.

"You do realize-"

"That Tonks was the woman you saw me with when you looked into my future in your third year?" Dad finished for me. "Yes, I know."

"So why won't you say yes?" I asked.

"I thought you might tell me when I say yes." Dad said and a faint blush crept over his cheeks.

"I see." I said sternly. "but I'm not supposed to control your love life dad."

"I know." Dad said, blushing even more.

"But I'll let you know when the time is right, okay?" I said.

"Thanks sweetheart."

"No problem Dad, night."

"Night."

I hurried up the steps and threw the art pad on my bed as I passed my bedroom. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, looking into the mirror. I wondered if there was a counterspell I could do so that I could see the baby bump. I decided not to experiment though. Not now.

I went back into my bedroom, closing the door behind me, picking up my charcoal pencil and started working on the drawing.

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𝕯𝖆𝖉 𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 me on Christmas Eve to a point before the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley was happy to see us and lamented her disappointment that Tonks wouldn't be here. Dad gave a very tight smile and exclaimed his disappointment as well.

I dropped my stuff off in Ginny's room. Ginny was happy to see me, but more because I was there to relieve her from having to hang with Fleur than my physical presence.

Around dinner, we all sat in the living room which had been decorated with hundreds of paper chains. Every sat, talking in small groups and doing our own things. Dad was staring into the fireplace, looking preoccupied. Fleur was talking loudly with Bill in a corner, mostly commenting on her dislike of Celestina Warbeck, who was singing on the radio. I'd never cared for wizarding singers. I preferred the Muggle ones.

Mrs. Weasley was sitting in a chair, knitting something, probably a sweater. She kept dabbing her eyes with her knitted item while listening to the music. Fred, George, and Ginny started a game of exploding snap which started covering both the music and the complaints of Fleur. Mrs. Weasley kept turning up the radio with her wand.

Harry was sitting next to Mr. Weasley who was peeling satsuma and falling asleep at the same time.

I was sitting in the corner, surrounded by artwork. After drawing the bee, key, and sword necklace, I had branched from my subconscious with many drawings.

There were underground libraries, drawn in miniscule detail. I'd never seen these places before nor had I ever dreamt of them or even thought of them. It was peculiar but I continued to delve into the artwork, trying to find some connection.

I wondered if the place existed, if I would visit it in the future and just couldn't see it yet. I had drawn different rooms because each room was different, quite unlike the others and yet, they all belonged to the same place.

There was a room with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling at odd heights and resting on the floor and anywhere in between.

There was a room that looked like a doll town. A doll house, a doll street, doll trees, doll birds, doll everything. Trash cans made from thimbles. Popsicle stick fences.

A bedroom that somehow I knew was moss green though I had not colored it. There were two paintings hanging on the walls, also drawn in great detail. A closet that had clothes that fit you and a bathroom door opened so reveal a shower with many soaps in the dish holders.

It was too realistic. I had never drawn anything so realistic looking. And there were symbols that kept showing up if you looked correctly. The bee. The key. The Sword. A design in the wall, the shape of the pillow, everything had some distinct look. The Crown. The Feather. The Heart. I didn't know what it meant and it felt. . . it felt as though it was from a different world.

"We danced to this when we were eighteen! Do you remember, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley's voice brought me back to reality. I looked up.

"Oh yes. . . marvelous tune. . ." Mr. Weasley said sleepily. He turned to Harry and muttered something.

Harry grinned and I heard him say, "No problem. Has it been busy at the Ministry?"

I crept a little closer, leaving my artwork in the corner.

"Very, I wouldn't mind if we were getting anywhere, but of the three arrests we've made in the last couple of months, I doubt that one of them is a genuine Death Eater- only don't repeat that Harry."

"They're not still holding Stan Shunpike, are they?" Harry asked.

"I'm afraid so. I know Dumbledore's tried appealing directly to Scrimgeour about Stan. . . I mean, anybody who has actually interviewed him agrees that he's about as much a Death Eater as this satsuma. . . but the top levels want to look as though they're making some progress, and 'three arrests' sounds better than 'three mistaken arrests and releases'. . . but again, this is all top secret. . ."

"I won't say anything." Harry said. There was some silence for a moment while Harry seemed to gather his thoughts. "Mr. Weasley, you know what I told you at the station when we were setting off for school?"

"I checked, Harry. I went and searched the Malfoy's house. There was nothing, either broken or whole, that shouldn't have been there." Mr. Weasley said quickly.

"Yeah, I know, I saw in the Prophet that you'd looked. . . but this is something different. . . Well, something more. . ." Harry said, "I overheard a conversation between Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy. Snape was saying that Draco couldn't afford to make mistakes. He knows that Malfoy is the one that cursed Katie Bell, but Draco wouldn't say anything. He just said that Katie must've had an enemy. Snape tried using Occlumency on Draco but he kept him out and asked him what he was hiding from Voldemort and Draco said he wasn't hiding anything, but was trying to keep Snape out. Snape asked Draco if he was trying to avoid his interference with whatever Draco is doing. Snape said he made the unbreakable vow with his mother to protect Draco but Draco told him to break the promise, that he didn't need protection. Draco also said that he's got powerful people on his side."

There was silence except for the crackling fire, exploding snap, and Celestina's horrid singing.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry, that Snape was simply pretending-?" Mr. Weasley started.

"Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy's up to? Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But how do we know?" Harry interrupted.

"It isn't our business to know." Dad said. My eyes flicked to him. I hadn't realized he'd been listening. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."

"But just say- just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape-" Harry said.

"People have said it, many times. It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgment. I do; therefore, I trust Severus." Dad said solidly, his eyes flicking to me and back. Harry looked at me for a second too before saying, "But Dumbledore can make mistakes. He says it himself. And you- do you honestly like Snape?"

Dad looked at me again and then at Harry and sighed, "I neither like nor dislike Severus. No, Harry, I am speaking the truth." he tacked on as Harry rolled his eyes. "We shall never be bosom friends, perhaps... though we'll end up seeing each other much more frequently than I'd like-" dad put a hand on my shoulder. "but I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon."

"But he 'accidentally' let it slip that you're a werewolf, so you had to leave!" Harry said angrily.

Dad shrugged unconcerned. "The news would have leaked out anyway. We both know he wanted my job, but he could have wreaked much worse damaged on me by tampering with the potion. He kept me healthy. I must be grateful."

"Maybe he didn't dare mess with the potion with Dumbledore watching him!" Harry exclaimed. "Or because Elizabeth's your daughter!"

Dad inclined his head at Harry with a small smile. "You are determined to hate him, Harry. And I understand; With James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice. By all means tell Dumbledore what you have told Arthur and me, but do not expect him to share your view of the matter; do not even expect him to be surprised by what you tell him. It might have been on Dumbledore's orders that Severus questioned Draco."

"Well yes and no." I said without thinking. "Severus quite knew about Draco's assignment long before school started. So Dumbledore also knew before school started. Draco's mother and Bellatrix visited Severus because Narcissa wanted Severus to try and convince Voldemort to do the job instead of Draco. If Draco fails, Voldemort will kill his family."

"How do you know that?" Harry and Dad asked together.

I opened my mouth and closed it, a blush creeping into my cheeks. How was dad to know that I had been visiting Severus during the first week of summer while he was underground?

I thought I was saved when the song ended on the radio and there was clapping, which Mrs. Weasley joined in with.

"Eez eet over? Thank goodness, what an 'orrible-" Fleur started.

"Shall we have a nightcap, then?" Mr. Weasley interrupted loudly, jumping to his feet. "Who wants eggnog?"

"Elizabeth." Dad said as I got up to go and grab and eggnog.

I sighed, sitting back down. "I was there when the unbreakable vow was made." I muttered.

"How?" Dad asked sharply.

I shifted in my seat, unable to look him in the eyes. "Cat form."

Dad gritted his teeth. "And you thought that safe?"

"I didn't know they were going to be there." I said defensively. "It was just supposed to be Severus and I. Wormtail was in a different part of the house. It was a surprise visit!"

"Why were you at his house in the first place?" Dad asked, slightly red in the face.

I hesitated and then said, "Because he couldn't leave his house, Wormtail would get suspicious."

Dad sighed, running a hand through his less red more gray hair.

"This is good!" Harry said and both of us looked at him. I'd forgotten that he had been a part of the conversation. "You can give us information based on-"

"I'm not spying on my husband." I snapped angrily.

"Oh come on Elizabeth." Harry said impatiently. "You have to know what's going on. You haven't said anything about your visions and you already know that Draco's up to something so what is it?"

"I don't know." I said flatly and I got up to go and grab an eggnog.

I grabbed one and stood nearby, listening to the conversation that Harry and Dad were now having.

". . . why I haven't been able to write, Harry, sending letters to you and Elizabeth would have been something of a giveaway." Dad was saying.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"I've been living among my fellows, my equals. Werewolves. Nearly all of them are on Voldemort's side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was. . . ready-made." Dad sounded extremely bitter, something that I didn't blame him for.

"I am not complaining; it is necessary work and who can do it better than I? However, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing- and sometimes killing- to eat."

"How come they like Voldemort?"

"They think that, under his rule, they will have a better life. And it is hard to argue with Greyback out there. . ." Dad trailed off, probably remembering grandfather and his own past.

"Who's Greyback?" Harry asked stupidly.

"You haven't heard of him?" Dad asked and I saw his hands close up convulsively out of the corner of my eye. "Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He regards it as his mission in life to bite and to contaminate as many people as possible; he wants to create enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. Voldemort has promised him prey in return for his services. Greyback specializes in children. . . Bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people's sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results." Dad paused and then said, "It was Greyback who bit me."

"What? When- when you were a kid, you mean?" Harry asked, sounding astounded.

"Yes. My father had offended him. I did not know, for a very long time, the identity of the werewolf who had attacked me; I even felt pity for him, thinking that he had had no control, knowing by then how it felt to transform. But Greyback is not like that. At the full moon, he positions himself close to victims, ensuring that he is near enough to strike. He plans it all. And this is the man Voldemort is using to marshal the werewolves. I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback's insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people-"

"But you are normal!" Harry interrupted fiercely and I made my way to sit down by them again. "You've just got a- a problem-"

Dad and I both laughed, though dad laughed louder than I did. "Sometimes you remind me of James. He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit."

Mr. Weasley handed Dad a glass of eggnog which he accepted. Dad also looked quite more cheerful and I was glad that Harry had said what he had said. It was hard to make dad look happy anymore.

"Have you ever heard of someone called the Half-Blood Prince?" Harry asked hesitantly and I nearly glared at him.

"The Half-Blood what?" Dad has curiously.

"Prince." Harry stated again.

Dad was smiling now. "There are no Wizarding Princes. Is this a title you're thinking of adopting? I should have thought being 'the Chosen One' would be enough."

"It's nothing to do with me! The Half-Blood Prince is someone who used to go to Hogwarts, I've got his old Potions book. He wrote spells all over it, spells he invented. One of them was Levicorpus-"

"Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts. There were a few months in my fifth year. . ." Dad continued on reminiscently but I was no longer listening, but watching.

Dad and Harry got along quite well. In a way, they connected on a level that Dad and I never had. Perhaps that was because I was his daughter. Perhaps it was because I was a girl. Perhaps it was because I wasn't James nor looked like him. I wondered if dad would have liked it better if I'd had black hair and brown eyes rather than the red hair so that I looked like Lily. But really, I didn't look like Lily, did I? I looked like Lupin. His brown eyes, his brown-red hair. Even our faces were something similar.

I got up, heading back to my corner, studying my art again. I took up the charcoal pen and in my melancholy thoughts, started to draw again with almost a blank stare.

When I was done with the drawing, I noticed that the room was empty except for Mr and Mrs. Weasley and Dad. They were deep in discussion at the table over eggnog. It sounded like Order business. I wondered if any of them still knew that I was awake and over here.

I observed the drawing for the first time, holding it up for better light. It was a ship. Perhaps a pirate like ship. At the wheel, piloting the ship was a girl wearing bunny ears. The water that the ship was not sailing on was not water, but honey. There was a black sky above them with no stars.

I stacked the drawings together, leaving the newest one on top and got up and headed for the stairs. I hurried up the stairs and entered the bedroom where Ginny was already sleeping and Fleur was getting into bed, wearing a long, white, flowy nightgown.

I set the drawings to the side and climbed into bed. I lay there for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. Perhaps it was imagination from all the art, but I felt that I could see a bee in the ceiling. I closed my eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of a ship sailing on honey.

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disneyanddisneyships · 11 months

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@gyubby99 I had an idea

"Aponi? You have a visitor," a demon called from outside Aponi's office door.

"Send them in!" Aponi called back as she signed papers and worked on documents for the club while she took a bite of a pickle she had gotten.

"Hey, Lilly," a voice stated.

Aponi stopped what she was doing when she recognized the voice.

She looked up slowly.

"Jason? The fuck are you doing here?" She asked as she tried to hide the alarm on her face.

"I uh... I saw you got married... the uh.. the other day and.... I thought I'd come say congratulations...." He explained.

"Oh.... uh.... thank you.... you look.... good," Apono struggled.

"Thanks.. I've uh.... I've been sober for the past 2 months," he replied.

"Oh.... thats..... that's great.... I'm happy for you...." she stated.

Jason caught a glimpse of the pickle next to Aponi.

"Are you.. pregnant?" He asked.

"What- how did you...." she trailed off with shock on her face.

"You.. you hate pickles.... you only ever used to eat them when you had pregnancy cravings....." He replied. "How far along?"

"Only a few weeks....." Aponi answered before throwing the pickle into the trash.

"Does your husband know?" He asked.

"Uh.... i-i havent... told him....." She muttered.

"You're scared, aren't you?" Jason asked.

"How the fuck would you know?"

"Hey don't forget, before I fucked both of us up you and I were voted most likely to remain high-school sweethearts...." Jason joked. "I know when you feel scared.... i... regrettably I used it to my advantage when we were alive and im... I'm truly sorry....." He explained.

Aponi sat there, not saying anything or even looking at him.

"Look.... I knownits not my place to say, and I shouldn't even be here right now.... but.... when that wedding was sbroadcatsed, I saw the way he looked at you..... he... he loves you more than anything and.... I'm sure he's gonna love that kid just as much..... and there ain't no way he could fuck up as bad as I did..... you should tell him...." Jason spoke as his eyes nervously darted around the room. "You..... you would've been a great mom.... and you're gonna be a great mom...."

Silence

Jason sighed before he began to make his way out of the office.

"Jace?" Aponi called, making him stop walking. "For the record.... I forgive you," she stated.

Jason turned around. "And for the record..... I'm happy for you," he replied before casting a smile to Aponi and wlaking out of the office, closing the door behind him.

Aponi was left alone with her thoughts.

She looked down at her stomach, placing one of her hands over it.

"We've got this...." she muttered to her unborn baby.

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trinity-mia · 4 months

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a story as endless as the ocean

the lightning thief

0.3 hurricane season

warnings : abusive home life, cussing

word count : 5.8k

0.3 Hurricane Season Comes a Couple Months too Early

If I were religious, this confessional probably would've hit a little bit harder, but— y'know. It's never too late to repent or whatever the Christians say.

I completely ditched Grover the second the bus made a complete stop. His bladder acted up every time he got anxious or nervous and this time was no different. He bolted for the bathroom the second he got off the bus.

He made me promise to stay right where I was and he'd be back in a second. But whatever happened, I had to stay there.

I felt so guilty starting my bike back up. I'd even hoped it would be loud enough to grab his attention and make him come running back out to stop me. But it was New York, and the roar of my engine just blended in with the other loud noises. He didn't come out. So I left.

He was out of sight and he was just freaking me out too much. And I had just finished a school year, which meant I was less than an hour from seeing my mother. The feeling of needing to see her just became too overbearing.

A few words about her, just before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she is actually the greatest, most genuinely perfect person I've ever met. Which, by the way, just proves my theory that the best people have to worst luck. It was kinda sad really. Her parents both died in a plane crash when she was five, so she had to move in with her uncle. He didn't really care for her all that much, so she spent more than enough of her life feeling neglected and unwanted. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent highschool working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The best break she seemed to have ever gotten was meeting my dad.

I have no memories of him, just this kind of... warm glow, maybe the barest trace of a smile. My mom doesn't like talking about him and she doesn't have any pictures. She said he was rich and important, so for all I know, I could've met him at an A-list party or something without knowing of any relation between us.

The only problem with that was: no one in Hollywood looked like me, which for the record is funny— because I've met almost too many who would pay every dollar they have in order to do so. I've had many plastic surgeons tell me my face was the most requested one for women who came to them.

RDJ, who played my father in the MCU as our Tony/Celeste Stark father-daughter duo, had once offered to be my fill-in father, once. I'd only laughed him off, but secretly wouldn't have minded. With how much advice I always asked of him, it was like he filled the roll in, anyway.

But aside from that, it also isn't an odd thing to say because I look nothing like my mother. Everything to do with my facial structure and features came from my father because my mom's features don't match mine and our hair and eye color are both different. And there is also the even bigger point of: my mother said that he'd needed to go overseas to do whatever he did. So he set sail over the Atlantic and never came back.

She'd always said he was lost at sea. Never dead, just lost at sea.

Either way, she worked odd jobs to provide for us, even though I could've done it myself. She always hated it when I spent my money on her, so she didn't let me buy an apartment, at least not one she'd live in, and she didn't let me buy my Harley. She paid for food and everything else because she is a stubborn woman and "doesn't want anyone's charity— not even her daughter's."

She took night classes to get her high school diploma because she'd gotten pregnant right after what would've been the start of the second semester of her freshman year of college (at least, if everything had gone her way). She couldn't go back to actual high school, so she did it during the night and online. She never complained or got mad, which was kinda crazy, all things considered. I was not an easy child, not by a long shot.

That, combined with paparazzi always following me around, combined with how awfully I got along with my asshole stepfather, her life was a trainwreck. She'd married Gabe when I was around 5 or 6. He'd been nice the first few seconds we knew him, but quite soon after revealed his true world-class asshole, misogynistic colors. As I grew up, I'd started calling him a range of nicknames, most including curse words that my mother always gave me a dirty look for saying.

I didn't know if it was just me being superstitious or paranoid or something, but I always felt gross around him. He stared at me like I was a piece of meat or a stack of 100 dollar bills or something. It always made me feel like I needed to take five showers and scrub a layer of skin off of my body.

Just to add salt to the wound, he smelled awful. Like so bad to the point where I'd have to apply perfume outside of my apartment because it would wear off the second I walked into the same room as him.

The two of us made my mom's life a living hell, with how much we hated each other and how awfully he treated her. When I get home is a really good example of how our 'step-father, step-daughter' "relationship" worked.

Our apartment was pretty small, mostly because it was coming from mom's money and not mine. When I needed a fix of seeing my mom, this is where I'd hunker down, but that didn't mean I lived there full-time. I had my own apartment in my name in the Upper East Side, almost too luxurious for a seventeen-year-old, but there were certain pretenses I had to set as "Hollywood's Shining Star". Plus, I needed a few bones to throw paps whenever they got too close to figuring out my mother's address. The absurdly large amount of rent I paid, in addition to giving me an escape whenever Gabe pissed me off too much, was another way I attempted to save my mother. I'd been used to the business for my whole life, she still didn't understand many of the ways my world worked.

But even as small as it was, Gabe mostly took over the living room so he could play poker with his buddies, so that always made it seem even smaller. I never knew why he enjoyed playing so often, since the times he won were few and far between. The T.V. blared ESPN, talking about an NFL player who'd hurt his hamstring during practice. I'd hoped my mom would be home, but I doubted it. Stale chips and beer cans were strewn all over the place. Oh, if only the cameras could see me now.

He hardly looked up from his cigar, but I knew he knew it was me. "Well, there's my darling step-daughter, home from school. I was wondering when you'd make it home. Got any cash stuffed up that bra of yours?"

"No. Is my mom home yet?" I asked, praying he wouldn't actually check.

He raised a greasy eyebrow. "She's still working. And don't lie to me, I know you love carrying cash around. I'd say you have a few twenty's in there. Maybe even a hundred or two. C'mon sweetheart. Just a little something for your step-daddy. Wouldn't want me to check now would you?"

Fuck. I sighed mentally. He could sniff money out like a goddamn bloodhound, which was funny considering his smell should've masked everything else. He was right though, not that I'd tell him; I did have a few twenties and two hundred dollar bills. And I definitely did not want him checking, considering the only time that happened was when I'd been close to getting sexually assaulted by another dude who came over to play poker with the asshole in front of me.

I gritted my teeth and pulled out some of the cash that's been there. I slowly counted it in front of him, $280 in total, and used a little sleight of hand to give him only $60. It was a little trick my instructor had taught me a few months prior when I was filming Now You See Me.

Gabe managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I never knew why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. I may have enjoyed a drink or two here or there— a bit of wine at dinners, and a bit of tequila and others at certain parties— but I was never able to stomach beer. Even the smell made me sick. No doubt Games proclivities were to blame. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "little secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. Again.

"Gabe, the girl just got home. And she makes the money herself. Shouldn't you give her a break?" Eddie, our on-the-older-side-and-mostly-better-than-the-rest-of-Gabe's-asshole-friends building manager said, doing his best to reel Gabe in, to no avail.

Gabe twisted his face into a frown, making his quadruple chins ripple. "Now why would I do that? She's Hollywood's bitch. She's loaded and I'm her step-father. If anything, I deserve the money she gives me considering I agreed to raise her freakshow self." He threw the money I'd given him to the middle of the table. "Give me my chips. Let's start another round."

I left as soon as the money started getting counted and replaced with chips. I was not in the mood to get screamed at for not giving him the full amount.

My suitcase had been thrown haphazardly into the hallway, kind of close to where my bedroom door was. I picked it up on my way and once I made it into my room, I tossed it onto my bed. Gabe wanted to use my room as his own personal 'man-cave' while I wasn't in school, but my mother always made sure my door was locked and he wasn't smart enough to break-in.

Home sweet home, I grumbled in my mind, pulling out the nearest perfume and spraying it generously. Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought about that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic— how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone— something— was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. Step by step, almost there—

Then, with one single word, my fears melted away.

"Allie?" My mom's voice called.

I felt my whole body immediately relax. My mother could make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkled and changed color in the light. Her smile, as warm as a quilt. She'd gotten a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never thought of her as old. When she looked at me, it was like she was seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, Allie!" She cried, almost tackling me onto my bed with a hug. "You look so grown up! I can't believe my princess graduated today!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home. My dietician hated it, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand over my double dutch braids and demanded to know everything I hadn't called or texted her about. She asked about all the new movies I'd starred in since the beginning of the year and talked a lot about college. She mentioned a few interviews I'd done, and my cover of Vogue that I'd told her about, but hadn't come out yet. All she wanted to talk about was me. Was her baby okay? Was she doing all right?

She'd been in the middle of saying something about Columbia when Gabe interrupted from the other room. "Hey, Sally! How 'bout you make us some bean dip?"

I saw her shoulders sag, just slightly, and I knew she saw my whole body tense. She knew I hated him and she knew how much I wanted to stab him in the eye with a spoon, but she always wanted us to get along. My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to one of the hot actors who'd played as my dad in some of my movies, not this ass.

For her sake, I'd tried to sound super happy about my last year of high school, but in all honesty, it sucked. I suffered from a bad case of senioritis (even though I wasn't really a senior) and I got sexualized and catcalled almost daily. I didn't tell my mom about that, though. I also didn't tell her about Mrs. Dodds or the old ladies. With the usual horrible stuff she read about me on the internet, she didn't need anything to add to her worry.

"I have a surprise for you!" She said, and she snapped her fingers like she always did once she remembered something she'd forgotten. "We're going to the beach. I want to use the beach house you bought a lot now since, for this moment, you don't have shows or movies to worry about and you won't have to model again for a few more weeks."

I perked up immediately. Our summer beach house was virtually the only thing my mother let me buy with my own money. At least, the only thing that she'd use, too. Her parents used to rent it out until they died, which is where she'd hunkered down when her uncle died. She stayed there for a week to wallow in her misery before she had to rejoin society, lest she blow all her money to stay there. She'd met my dad there, on her last night. She never had the nerve to go back until I was around six, also around the time of her and Gabe's first year of being married. She tried to make it back every year, but it was a large and expensive beach house in the Hamptons, and cost a lot of money to rent out, even for a night.

By the time I was 12, I had a pretty good understanding of life and why the number in my bank account could actually be a great thing, even if it was accompanied by a countdown for how long it would be until I turned 18. I'd asked Danny to look into buying it out, and low and behold, the woman who owned the property was looking to sell, as she was close to having blown all of the money she'd inherited from her dead Oil-Tycoon husband and didn't feel the need to care for it anymore. She was all too happy to sell it to me.

But I'd done all of that behind my mother's back and she almost boycotted going that year entirely, before deciding this would be the only thing she'd relent on. She strong armed me into an agreement that I'd never spend so much money on something that had to do with her again, however, and not wanting to see the disappointed look on her face due to not being able to provide me the same luxuries I could provide myself, I relented. She knew how much it meant to me, being able to go to the house every year with her, and since I'd already bought it, there wasn't much else she could do.

"Uh, when?!" I asked, almost jumping up and down.

"Once I get packed, we will be ready to go. You already have your suitcase of clothes and things here, so all I need to do is get my stuff ready. I'll take your step-father's car and you can take your Harley."

Quick bit of information: I kinda have a car obsession. So I own many cars, however, they are all stationed at our beach house in East Hampton. I wasn't about to temp Asshole Gabe into wanting to drive my luxury cars. The only vehicle of my own that was always near, was my Harley, which I knew made my mom happy. I tended not to use any of the cars I bought around her, for the same disappointed look reasons.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for East Hampton. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"Pig," I muttered. "He won't let us go, will he?"

"Of course he will. He doesn't have control over you anyways," my mother said evenly. I tried to ignore her emphasis on 'you.' "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

"Money," I scoffed under my breath. "I bought the damn house. The only money we spend going is the gas money we use getting there and back."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mother said placatingly, settling her hand on my arm to keep me from pouncing.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back?"

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip... And maybe if the girl apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I cut off your dick with a butter knife, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why she put up with this guy was beyond me. I cleared my throat quietly, preparing for the intense acting energy I was about to exert. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.

"I'm so terribly sorry," I lied, "for interrupting your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed and for a moment I doubted my acting and lying skills, but then he rolled his eyes. I guess his tiny brain couldn't detect the intense sarcasm in my voice.

"Yeah, okay. Whatever," he settled on. He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Allie. Let me go get ready. Get your helmet and keys and I'll be right back."

She left to go pack and make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

We were ready to leave an hour later. Gabe watched me roll mine and my mom's suitcases down to his car and kept watching as I got my bike ready.

He yelled down to me once I finished putting my mom's suitcase in the trunk. "There better not be a single scratch on that car once you bring it back or there'll be hell to pay. I'll have a beer bottle with your name on it waiting. I'm sure it'll love getting broken over your head and I'm sure you remember how that felt last time."

I wasn't going to be driving, but I doubt he cared. It'd be my fault because I was easy to push around and had a lot more money than my mother. He'd find something to blame on me and that beer bottle would connect with my skull at some point. As long as he could hold my mother over my head, he had the upper hand.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on a few different occasions while we were in school. I thought it was a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.

The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the ass and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

Once I saw my mom walking towards me I got on my bike, put my helmet on, and was ready to drive as soon as she'd opened her door.

Our beach house was very large and sat right on the beach. It was perched right at the end of the neighborhood and was easily the largest house in a couple-mile radius. There was a shitton of rooms, most of which weren't used often, so there would be a few cobwebs if it wasn't taken care of. The beach had white sand, the same shade as my hair and the seas were normally pretty cold.

So, of course, I loved the place.

It calmed me down in a way nothing else could. The water hitting my feet made me feel like I could do anything. Like the feeling you get when you walk out of a movie theater and you feel like you could conquer the world, except I don't feel like I'm in a daze. It's quite the opposite, actually. I feel wide awake.

As we got closer, my mom always seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. I didn't even have to be in the same car as her to know that.

We got there at sunset, opened all the windows (well, not all the windows. Mostly the ones in the living room and on the main floor), and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

Should I explain the blue food?

Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This— along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano— was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, which wasn't shown often, but did remind me that I did get a few things from her. My polite streak was proof of that.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

I told her I'd get her a laptop and an editor and a publisher right then and there, but she would hear nothing of it. If she wanted to be an author, it wouldn't be because of her famous daughter. She'd probably use a fake last name so it wouldn't seem like she was leeching off of me. I asked her why she wanted to go the hard route and she smiled and shook her head at me; the 'you'll understand when you're older' went without saying.

Eventually, I finally got enough nerve to ask about my father, one of the few things that was always on my mind when we were here. My mom's eyes went misty and I almost took the comment back, but I stood my ground. She took two blue jelly beans from the bag. I figured she'd tell me the things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Allie," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But he was also gentle. You look exactly like him, it's almost uncanny. If you were to style your hair the same way he did his and had the same physique, you two would be impossible to tell apart. You have his white hair and those pretty green-blue eyes. And you definitely didn't get your height from me."

That was true. I'd passed my mother in height a while ago. She was very short and petite, and while I did get the petite from her, I was also tall and curvy.

"I... I wish he could see you now, Allie. He'd be so damn proud."

I was shocked. For one, I'd never heard my mother curse. Ever. And secondly, I couldn't quite decide what was so special about a 16-year-old girl who got sexualized on the internet, in public, and pretty much everywhere else. Sure I'd quickly become one of the highest paid actors and models in the world and just that previous September I released the most streamed album of the year, but what would that really mean in the long run? Hollywood is wishy-washy on the best of days, and fame is fickle. The countdown was nearing on a year and two months. It would only get worse the more I did. The more people who knew my name meant a lot more trouble for me. On dark days, I wondered if the trouble was worth it.

"Did he... stick around? After I was born, I mean," I asked, trying very hard to keep my voice from cracking. It was close, but I think I did it.

"He... he came to see you a few times. His work was very serious and he didn't have a lot of time. But he saw you."

I nodded slowly, taking it in. I guessed that was why I'd remembered something about him. I wasn't about to tell my mother that, though. She was already on the verge of crying as it was. I felt like that would set her over the edge.

"I was going to ask you... I got offered by Warner Brothers to do another movie. They wouldn't start filming for a while, but they wanted to go ahead and get the cast done. It's filming in Georgia, though. They said they might be able to pull a few strings and move it to New York, but Georgia would be ideal. Would you be okay with that?"

"I don't know, Allie. There's a lot I need to think about right now. I'd feel better if you didn't leave. You know how worried I get every time you board a plane."

"I know. It's just, this one's... different. I think it would... I really want—"

"You know," my mom said, standing up slowly, "I'm getting a little tired. I think I'm going to turn in for the night. Please don't stay up too late. We can talk in the morning."

I just nodded and my mother left me to my thoughts. The wind picked up a little, and my hair flew from my shoulder to my back. My head fell to my right hand as I tried to rub away the headache that was starting to form.

I only looked up when I felt someone watching me. I could've sworn it was coming from the ocean, but I didn't stay long enough to figure out if anything was there. I was not trying to be the stupid one in the horror movie. No thanks. I brushed my hair with my fingers as I walked into the house.

That night I had an awful dream, shocker shocker.

It started with a whole bunch of memories I'd tried to suppress of all the bad things that had happened to me throughout my life.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that— a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

And there was one time when I was thirteen and I'd seen a huge lion prowling the edge of a forest we were filming near. I noticed every time the camera would move in its direction, it'd retreat back to the forest and then come back out once the camera moved. Finally, it just leaped away after hours of us filming and no one getting near it.

Then, the dream changed.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. Both animals lunged at each other and before I could see what happened I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She ran into my room, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Hurricanes were never seen around here this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice— someone yelling, pounding on our front door.

My mother grabbed both of our suitcases and ran to the front door, a floor down from us. I followed her down to the foyer.

She threw my suitcase to me and slung open the door.

Grover stood there, out of breath and looking like he needed a seat. However, he looked different. What the fuck...?

"Searching all night," Grover gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror— not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come

"Allie!" she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here, by himself, in the middle of the night.

My mom looked at me sternly and spoke in a tone she'd never used before: "Allie. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to Gabe's car, pushing past Grover on her way. She took my suitcase and threw me into the driver's seat. Grover got in the back, while my mom ran to the passenger's side and sat down with my suitcase in her lap.

She didn't even let me ask a question. She just put the keys in the ignition and said, "drive. Now. I'll tell you where to go. Take a left up here."

Now that we were in the car and I had more things to worry about, I finally processed many things. Grover's muscular disease finally made sense to me. Because he didn't have legs. Well, he did, but they weren't human legs. They were more like farm animal legs, all thrown together with fucking hooves.

* * *

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indianamoonshine · 3 years

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Strawberry | Chapter 12 | Flames

Summary: Will joins the family dinner. The night can hide many things.

Rating: (+18) for…situations.

A/N: I'm SO SORRY for the long hiatus. Please accept this peace offering (jealous!Din) as a token of my gratitude.

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The symposium of a midwestern dinner sounds a lot like Bach's work.

Difficult notes with high to reach places and then very low caverns just a moment later. The cicadas in the background are a nice touch; it's something Tchaikovsky might have wished he could capture. Silverware - old enough to be considered vintage now - clank against the porcelain dinner plates. Charlotte lets out her fae-like laughter and Rhea listens intently, eyes gazing dreamily upon Tommy as he carries on conversation. The house is full tonight.

You suppose it was out of the kindness of your father's heart to invite Will to this dinner. Everyone within a two mile radius usually came to these spur-of-the-moment things. Will was an old family friend and his father supplied yours with fresh goat's milk and chicken eggs, so it wasn't all that strange he came along. Still, it made the meal a bit more difficult to swallow. Quite literally.

Din is sitting directly across from you. You think it might have been intentional because Will chose to plop his happy ass right beside you, grinning that lopsided smile and charming his way out of the discomfort with a joke. You play the part by laughing when he tries to outwit everyone in the room or by asking him how the farm manages these days. Will isn't a cocky person by nature, but something about the rigidness of his composure when Din asks for the green beans makes you all too suspicious.

It doesn't make any sense. Will broke things off with you. If he were to be jealous, it wouldn't be for anything but pride and show. A year ago it would've bothered you that Will was cajoling the room for the sake of his vanity, but now it was just embarrassing for everyone involved.

"Din, do you remember the summer of '90?" your father asks across the table, clearly involved in another conversation that pertains to this anecdote.

The man across you hums and shakes his head with a reluctant grin. "I try not to," he fibs, cutting at his steak.

Your father chuckles. "I was nineteen and Din was..." he pauses. "Jeez, Din. How old were ya?"

"Seventeen."

"Ah, right! Rhea hadn't been born yet but Scarlett was pregnant with her by the end of the summer. That was our last free year, wasn't it? Well, mine anyway." You dad points his fork in Rhea's direction, a bit of steak dangling from its end. "And then you came along."

Rhea scoffs. "Well, geez. My bad for existing."

There's no darkness in either of their words so the exchange makes everyone at the table chuckle in good humor. Your father and Din go back and forth about the irresponsible and, well, illegal things that had been done that summer. Underage drinking. Trespassing. And somehow Din always got away with it.

"He never got us caught. Ever. I still don't know how you did it." Your father says to his friend, eyes wrinkling with a genuine smile. "Damn good thing too considering how much pot we smoked. It's a good thing my girls didn't get that rebellious streak."

A witty response is formed upon your lips but only until Will cuts you off.

"I don't know about that," he pipes in.

You're taken aback, quite literally tossing your head to gauge his interjection. "What?"

An indifferent silence hushes the dinner party. Your sisters chew their food carefully, eyes glued upon the scene before them like it was one of their soap operas. Your father awaits an explanation with a rather scandalized look upon his face, but Will's father - Clarence - doesn't seem at all fazed by any probability of illegal activity.

Will rolls his chin to serve you an exasperated look. "Oh, come on. We're adults now; we can come clean." He drenches his steak in more A1 sauce before revealing: "Your daughter was the one to egg the sheriff's house."

The entire room initially goes as silent as a graveyard before everyone chokes on a snort and begins to roar with laughter. Clarence slaps your father on the back as the two of them snicker like a pair of hyenas.

"Will!" you growl. "You said you'd take that to your deathbed!"

The pain in the ass beside you howls with laughter, holding his stomach, and having to pause from drinking his beer. "Daffi, it's fine. They can't do anything about it now."

"That's not the point!" you scowl.

Din is grinning from ear to ear, obviously amused by your humiliation. It was a childish thing to do but the sheriff was a dick in the worst way and you wanted him to know it. That was a hot summer - record breaking, actually - and by the time he'd woken, the egg had dried upon his lawn and across the face of his home. Ole' Sheriff Winslow scoured the town for weeks before finally abandoning his quest altogether.

"You got something to say, Mister Djarin?" you inquire playfully, scolding him with a fire in your eyes.

Din clears his throat and furrows his brows. "No, no. I wouldn't dare."

The two of you exchange a glance that was far too intimate for this dining room. His eyes softened upon meeting yours and his smirk was silly, drunk on something other than the beer in his hand. If it weren't for dear Will's additional reminiscence, you might've fallen under the spell lingering in the space between you.

"Yeah, that was a great summer. We had our first kiss that year, remember?"

You blink, all thoughts of Din's mouth upon yours fizzling away like steam. Instead, it is replaced with the frayed-edged memory of Will's rusted pick-up parked in the darkest corner of the local McDonalds. It was hardly a first kiss worth mentioning if it hadn't been for how good he was at it and how bad you were. Still: what the fuck?

You wanted to say just that but refrained from doing so. Instead you say, "Lots of awkward fumbling if I recall." It comes out sharp - petty. If he wanted to behave like a child, you could do it too.

Din's trying so desperately hard not to glare at Will. You can see it in the deliberate chug of his beer.

“What. The. Hell.”

“I know.”

“Wait,” Charlotte holds up a hand, expression dumbstruck. “I’m not done.”

You roll your eyes and scrub at a particularly stubborn dish, waiting for her dramatics to be over.

“…was that?” she finishes.

Rather anti-climactic.

“It’s Will,” you tell her, voice bored but teetering on the edge of fury. “It’s fucking Will. What do you expect?”

Charlotte shakes her head, eyes bulging with disbelief as she blinks over and over again as though trying to compute. She takes a dish from you, sopping wet, and begins to dry it with a rag. You know Charlotte is eager to gossip because she never - never - offers to help clean after supper.

Everyone else is carrying on from the awkward conversation by sitting at the bonfire and making pudgy-pies. It’s the kind of snack one eats when they need to forget about anything other than the impending weight gain. You watch from the window as Rhea slathers Nutella upon a piece of white bread and then some cut strawberries. Honestly, you could really go for one, but the idea of being anywhere near Will makes your skin crawl.

“Did he say anything to you? Before dinner? Or after? Like…why would he say something like that?” Charlotte carefully stacks the delicate plates atop each other. They clank against one another noisily.

Like cymbals within the symphony.

“Nope,” you tell her. “Not a word. I have no idea what’s gotten into him.”

Charlotte goes silent, rubbing at the plates until they’re dry as a bone, and then whispers, “He obviously knows.”

You square your jaw, glancing around to make sure no one is in the vicinity, and then let out a great sigh. “Yeah, I’m sure he does. I was all over Din at the bar.”

Your dear sister brightens at the mention of the night prior. She stops her drying and places her hands upon your shoulders so that you may look her in the eyes. You see mahogany. Deep. Rich. Full of life and excitement. In her eyes, it is proof that she’s a good spirit and in good health. (And…well, maybe a little tipsy, but that’s besides the point.)

“I like him. For you.” Is what she confesses. She places her hands upon your cheeks and squishes them together. You protest, taking her wrists and wrestling her, but giggling all the while. “I mean it. I think he adores you. And so do I.”

You nod in her grasp. “Okay, okay! I know, yes. I know!” you chuckle, breathless from the lack of air supply. She still has you in a chokehold. “Can you please let me go now?!”

Charlotte releases you from her trap and you gasp a throat-full of air, belly aching from laughter. The two of you embrace one another in a hug, attempting to lift the other, and then falling upon the linoleum - sore with serenity.

There is something stirring in Din.

It is a fire that has just been fanned from embers he sought to snuff out. But they hadn’t perished, despite how hard he had tried. The coals burned. He burned.

For you.

At the bar, Din ignored Will to the best of his ability; sort of like how one ignores an irritating bumblebee. Leave him be, Din had chanted. He’s harmless. After all, Din had years stacked against Will. How was it possible to be so insecure by this kid?

Because that’s essentially what he is, right? He’s so goddamned young; he looks as though he’s never taken a hit in his life. He’s too pretty, too put together. He’s firm skin and tight abs. And Din, well…

Din was not.

Din was old. He was well past forty years of age now, playing house with a woman over twenty years his senior. No matter how well he managed to keep the façade so believable, it would one day end in disaster - embarrassment. Heartache. And defeat. He can’t bear the thought.

It wasn’t like him. He’s never given a shit about anyone’s perception of him before, nevertheless mulled over the ex of a romantic interest. Not to say that Din’s ever felt the way he did with you; no one has even come close. Xian was his longest “situationship” and when it inevitably burst into flames, he didn’t bat an eye. (He wonders if that makes him a terrible person.) If his toxicity with Xian was worth anything, it was just a testament of his endurance.

But you. The world fucking blurs when you’re near.

So when Will - cocky as Din once was - utters unsolicited bullshit, it takes every ounce of dignity he has left to remain silent.

We had our first kiss that year, remember?

There is a primal urge to reach across the table and wring the smug expression from Will’s face, to grab you with an unfamiliar hunger, carry you across the acre, and toss you onto his bed and just…

No. That was brutish. He wasn’t like that. He couldn’t allow himself to feel possessive over you because you couldn’t be owned. He knew that. But that fire licked at his inner conscious until he had to excuse himself from dinner altogether.

The darkest parts of him pace during the bonfire, though he manages to sit still and interpret Will’s behavior. His youth glows betwixt the crazed flames, an ombré of red and orange dancing across everyone’s skin. Din watches, he listens, he notes every little thing like hunters do. Because for some reason - some ungodly, twisted reason - Din felt as though Will were a bounty now. It’s the only way he could feel superior.

“Daffodil!” Will calls out suddenly. “Get over here!”

The hinges in Din’s jaw pop as he clenches his teeth, grinding them so forcefully he thinks Rhea - who sits beside him - might hear. When you arrive from the house (he guessed you were cleaning up, just as you always do), he notes the skimpy length of your cotton shorts and…

Wait. Is that his shirt?

It is. It’s the very same shirt Din offered you after the rain debacle after the bar. It was one of his favorites despite how plain it was; just a grey t-shirt that fit snugly on him but dwarfed you entirely. It skimmed the top of your knees and pressed against the swell of your chest. That something within him growled once more.

“Come sit,” Will instructs, patting at his lap.

You hesitate. “I…”

Will chuckles, urging you with waggling fingers. “We’ve been like this since we were kids, Daffi. Come on.”

There’s a pathetic attempt to steady himself as Din watches you perch upon Will’s lap.

You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt…

The group chats a while longer, exchanging stories Din’s never heard, but none of it matters. You’re on another man’s lap. And despite Mark’s very obvious presence, he wants so badly to grip your wrist and run.

“I’ve seen you before,” Will says suddenly. He points a finger in Din’s direction, eyes a little hooded from drink. “Weren’t you at the bar a couple of nights ago?”

Those who partook in the rendezvous go silent. Rhea freezes and Charlotte blanches, looking towards their dear sister who’s pale in the face now. Mark, in his sheer oblivion, raises a brow. Din’s been in every intense situation imaginable, but something about now makes his gut churn.

He could loose you. Right now.

He’s about to lie, to make up some bullshit excuse about having ‘one of those faces’, but Rhea pipes in.

Her voice is strong and firm when she says, “What the hell are you talking about? He wasn’t there.”

Effortless. Shoulders sag, the tension subsiding thanks to Rhea’s impeccable skill.

“Strange. Swore I saw you with…” he shakes his head and shrugs. “Never mind.”

An artificial laugh - so sickly sweet that it’s almost impossible to digest - escapes your lips. “You must’ve drank too much. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

His kiss takes you by surprise.

You’re walking back to the house after the men have soiled the fire and everyone’s said their good nights when he just does it.

It’s covertly enough, but it’s shocking. A massive hand encircles your wrist and pulls you behind the shed out back, pressing you against the mossy wood and stealing the breath from your lungs. It’s the biggest risk the two of you have taken. For God’s sake, your father is just now walking inside the main house and Din’s mouth is attached to the hollow of your neck.

You’re dizzy, gripping his shoulders so tightly that the fabric of his shirt warps beneath your fingers. “Din,” you breathe out. He kisses you speechless again and you break for air. “Din, what’s the matter?”

He curses under his breath. It’s sharp. Fuck. It’s not angry, per say, but it is damaged. You weave your fingers through his hair as he settles his breathing, concentrating on the strings of your shorts that he fiddles with.

“I…” He sighs, pressing his nose against your cheek. His breath is warm and you shiver. “He touched you.”

He sounds ashamed. Embarrassed. You can’t imagine how difficult it must be to vocalize your self-doubt as someone who relishes in secrecy. He had a wall built around him and it was made of iron.

“Not like you,” you whisper shyly.

You had some walls of your own. He was tearing them down like that of Jericho.

There’s softness in the air. The two of you are silent, eyes closed, and mouths inches apart. Exchanging of breath. It’s an ancient form of intimacy.

You trust him. You trust him with your life.

His hand feels natural in your own as you lift it to your breast. The trembling of his fingers is almost endearing; the man was far older than you and he still shook at the mere touch of a woman.

“No one can touch me like you.” Your hands glide south, pressing underneath the fabric covering the raw parts of you, until you stop at the band of your panties. “No one can.”

It’s all he needs to hear.

Soon after, he kisses you fiercely, but not without nodding in agreement. And that very hand, which grazes so deliciously at your belly, finally dips.

Sparks.

#strawberryfic #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #din x you #din x reader #din x y/n #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you

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