#ive often thought about what a coming of age story would look like for piper

[godlizzza]

Hello! I just finished your fic The Couple Down the Street and absolutely adored it! I read though all of your ficlets here on Tumblr with that tag, and I saw you have some about kid Piper and one about teen Piper. I was wondering if you’d be open to writing something about adult twenty-something Piper and Herbert/Dan when she’s in med school or university or whatever she ends up doing! :)

"Come on," Piper murmured, pacing the tiny floor space of her dorm room. "Pick up, pick up..."

After five rings she assumed her call would, yet again, go to voicemail, but a voice miraculously crackled to life on the other side.

"Hello?" Herbert replied, sounding grouchy as ever. "What is it?"

Piper sighed with relief and sat down at her desk. "Dr. West, hi. How are you?"

"Busy," Herbert grunted. She could make out the muffled sounds of groaning on his end, followed by Dr. Cain's miffed voice asking Herbert to pass him more restraints. "Is this important? What do you want?"

"Um, sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were still picking me up from the airport tomorrow? You didn't respond to any of my texts."

There was a momentary pause before Herbert replied, "Dan said he'd do it."

Piper thought she heard Dan's voice in the background, piping up, "Did I?"

Piper bit her lip to keep it steady and tucked some of her long, blonde hair behind her ear. She'd been thinking about cutting it for a while, maybe giving herself an Anne Hathaway style pixie cut by watching a tutorial on Youtube, but she knew her mom would throw a fit if she came home for Christmas practically bald. She'd probably lament that her blonde genes were wasted on Piper and what a shame they hadn't been passed onto Candace instead. Just the thought of her sister's smug face had Piper rolling her eyes.

"Can you please just get me?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes with the hand not cradling her cell phone to her ear. "I don't fly in 'til six."

Herbert clicked his tongue and she could perfectly imagine his irritated expression. Or maybe she couldn't. With her away at college, studying pre-med, she'd only been able to see him a handful of times each year. Every time she saw him in person, she was surprised at how old he looked. He was only sixty-one, hardly the decrepit old man Dan joked he was, but every new liver spot, every deepened wrinkle, every white hair made her chest tighten with anxiety. They were physical signs of all the time she was missing out on. Time away from him.

Her first choice of college had been Miskatonic University, so she could follow in Herbert's footsteps, but Dan had been adamantly opposed. Herbert had suggested he could set her up with some of the contacts he stilled maintained in Zurich, where she could get a world-class education, but the thought of being out of the country, so far from everything had made Piper cold with dread. So, they had compromised on a newly furnished university in Washington, where Piper was only a few hours by plane away.

A plane she would be catching shortly, unbeknownst to her mother. Piper hadn't told her mom she'd be coming home for the long weekend, wanting to spend every moment she could with her mentor, catching up on lost time both in and out of the lab. She'd scraped together the money to buy the plane ticket by writing out essays for her classmates on the side. She knew Herbert would have a field day if he knew she was putting her academic integrity at risk, but when needs must and all that.

"I don't see why you can't just get a taxi," Herbert said. "It'd be more convenient-"

"You promised!" Piper snapped, irritation finally getting the better of her. She squeezed her phone tight in her clammy grip. "Just like you promised you'd come visit me over spring break, which you never did. So, could you please just do this one thing for me and pick me up tomorrow?"

"Fine, fine," Herbert sighed, sounding exasperated. "But if your flight gets delayed, I'm not hanging around."

Piper's foul mood immediately evaporated. "Okay!" she replied cheerily. "See you then."

Herbert hung up without saying goodbye, as was customary for him, and Piper set her phone down with a smile. She glanced up at the photos pinned to the corkboard above her desk, some of the only things she'd brought with her to college from home.

One was a recent shot of her and her dad the last time she'd gone to visit him in the nursing home. Another was her excitedly holding up her pet gecko, Hela, on her sixteenth birthday. Dan was in the shot beside her, shying away from the reptile Herbert had gifted her. Hela sat in her tank now, on the edge of Piper's desk, basking under her heat lamp.

The last photo was taken during her high school graduation ceremony. Piper was in her hat and gown, squeezing her diploma in both hands and grinning at the camera. On one side of her stood Herbert, his hand resting on her shoulder. He wasn't smiling but pride shone clearly in his eyes. On her other side stood her mother, Mandy, who was glaring at Herbert over Piper's head. It had been a miracle to even get them standing that close to each other without the both of them engaging in passive aggressive psychological warfare.

It was Piper's favourite photo.

"That your sugar daddy?"

Piper jumped in her seat and spun around to see her roommate, Claire, slipping her shoes off in the doorway. Piper hadn't even heard her come in.

Squeezing her phone in her fist, Piper gagged. "Shut up. Oh, my god. How many times to I have to tell you? He's my mentor."

"Mmhmm," Claire hummed, bouncing her eyebrows suggestively and making Piper want to hurl her phone straight at her head.

Instead, she huffed and spun back around in her chair, pulling her laptop open. She'd have to get busy and finish all her studying before flying out tomorrow. Just the thought that she'd be back in Ohio the next day, Dr. West waiting for her at the airport, was enough to warm her up and make her smile.

#thanks so much for the prompt! im glad you liked the fic :) #i think piper's relationship with herbert definitely starts to change as she gets older #she still idolises him but is mature enough to not let him push her around so much #ive often thought about what a coming of age story would look like for piper #probably something wild lmao #re-animator #my fics #the couple down the street #asks #writing prompt #herbert west #piper skrelpton