#present parental affection with talismans and phone calls

[dragonmuse]

See what you did there with the inability to be heard when mentioning Faith... we've yet to see Mainverse Stede receive that knowledge... These waiting rooms have been a delight tonight! Thank you! Has me craving more from each individual 'verse. <3 If your list isn't long enough, yet, I've realized, too, with the recent Feels Like & May Be Bad, that we've not seen Faith discussed/introduced for Feels Like, yet... Or Bottle of Red... This is a slippery slope once you start! XD

(oooh let's do Pete finding out about Faith! I love that Feels like has been this slow growing favorite. A very pleasant counterbalance to I May Be Bad)

Pete had never much minded waiting. He liked to think of himself as a man of action, but he knew deep down that his real strength was in endurance. He could hold steady and firm as long as he needed to and that mattered too. It had done him a great service in securing Izzy’s attention and ultimately, his affections.  Pete had found that very worth waiting for, as Izzy cracked open, spilling a surprisingly generous spirit and willingness every which way. 

So Pete had never pushed about the ring Izzy wore around his neck. It was a pretty little thing, and Pete often watched it when Izzy was on top of him, the way it would catch the light as they swayed together. He knew that Izzy clung to it like a talisman, especially in sleep, but Izzy held him just as tightly, so it was hard to be jealous of it.  

He waited and eventually the right time presented itself. They had both just said goodbye to Lucius, who lingered in the doorway, returning to kiss them both once or twice before departing. It was only the third time they’d had him over and the newness of it was still delicious, but not as nerve-wracking as the first time. Izzy was moving slowly, for him, some of his usual energy bled away to make room for relaxation. 

They were on the couch, half-dressed and the remains of breakfast scattered around them. Izzy was bare-chested and Pete took a moment to appreciate him before saying, 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Why are you asking if you can ask?” Izzy glanced away from his phone to him. 

“Cause I want your attention and also I’m not sure you’ll like the question.” 

The phone lowered, “What?” 

“The ring,” he gestured to his own neck to indicate it. It was currently nestled in bountiful dark chest hair, glittering like a target. “Who’s was it?” 

Izzy touched it absently. “Why are you asking now?” 

“Always wondered. Just figured you might be in a good enough mood to tell me.” 

“Clever.” Izzy’s compliments often sounded like accusations. “Taking advantage?” 

“I don’t get the higher ground very often. Give me this one.” 

“....fine,” Izzy sighed and to Pete’s surprise, came closer, so their shoulders were pressed together. Invited, Pete dropped an arm around his shoulders.  “Her name was Faith.” 

“Faith,” Pete repeated, committing it to memory. 

“She was...she was my girlfriend, I guess. Fiance. Briefly. The ring wasn’t an engagement ring, just a promise, but I intended to make good on it.” 

“Of course you did,” Pete nodded. “You don’t make half-assed promises.” 

“What’s the point of doing it if you’re not going to see it through?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m on your side here. When did you guys meet?” 

“We were fifteen. She picked me out. Wanted someone to make bullies back off and her parents to as a bonus. I was good for that back then. Angry all the time and I had a reputation.” 

“Yeah?” Pete could picture that. Izzy, even smaller than he was now, and pumped full of teenage hormones must’ve been a force to be reckoned with. 

“Yeah. Got called a lot of things, but not many of them to my face, let’s put it that way. Faith liked that. She asked me to take her out. Fuck, she was so clever.” 

“What’d she look like?” 

“Red hair, the kind that’s really orange, not red.  On the small side. Frail. Big blue eyes. I don’t know. She was beautiful to me.” 

Pete was building a picture in his mind, already getting fond of this girl. He knew what it was to pick Izzy out and fix on him for a lot of reasons. 

“Okay, so what? You started going out at fifteen?” 

“Went on dates and everything. Got close. Really close. I ran with some guys back then, but I didn’t have friends. Not really. Bet you did in high school.” 

“Not so much,” Pete admitted. “A few buddies, but...dunno. Didn’t really have a best friend until I met John and that wasn’t until I was past thirty.” 

“Huh,” Izzy glanced at him. “Really?” 

“Yeah, Iz, really.” 

“...huh,” he said again and Pete had to hide a smile against Izzy’s shoulder. 

“I’m only the friendly one compared to you,” he pointed out. 

“Fuck off,” Izzy growled even as he moved in even closer. Pete glanced a kiss off his cheek. 

“Okay, so you and Faith get close. Eventually get engaged.” 

“Yeah, we were together all the time. We were gonna get out, you know? She was...she could’ve gone to a good college. Gotten money even.” 

“....this ends really sad, doesn’t it?” Pete had known that. You didn’t wear someone else’s ring around your neck and cling to it like a lifeline when the person who wore it had just moved to France or something. But this was less abstract now. He could hear the grief, practically taste it in the air. 

“She was only seventeen,” Izzy said miserably. “Where’s the goddamn fairness in that?” 

“There isn’t,” Pete rubbed his arm a little. “I’m sorry.” 

“She’s been gone longer than she was alive. If it had been me instead-” 

“No. That’s a dark road,” Pete dropped his voice, low and soothing. “And now how it went down. You lived. You made it here. Hope it’s not a bad place to be.” 

“It’s good,” Izzy agreed. “Does it...should I not wear it?” 

“Hell no. You wear it until you’re buried with it if you want,” Pete said, squeezing his arm a little. “You loved her. Think it’s good to honor that.” 

“You don’t wear your dad’s anymore.” 

“I was worried I’d leave it in the dressing room or something. I take it off too much. But it’s safe.” Ready for the day it would be repurposed the way his father wanted it to be anyway. “It’s different for you. The necklace was clever.” 

“Told you she was small, couldn’t even get it on my pinky,” he tapped the ring. 

“Tell me something else about her.” 

“Why?” 

“I like people you like, and there’s not a lot of them,” Pete settled a little, got comfortable. 

“I don’t remember-” 

“Aw, don’t lie. You’ve got a memory like a....do elephants actually have good memories or is that one of those sayings?” 

“Dunno. Think they do,” Izzy considered. “Don’t they mourn their dead or something?” 

“We’ll look it up later,” he decided. “Or ask Lucius, he always knows things like that. Anyway, just one story.” 

“We used to play hooky sometimes,” the words came slowly. It wasn’t a unique story and Izzy wasn’t really much of a storyteller, but two kids knocking around a city that Pete had claimed as his home had its own charm. 

Years later, Lucius would hear these stories too and he’d dig a little and produce the little photo. To Pete’s surprise, the girl he had conjured up in his imagination wasn’t far off from the real thing. By then, he’d met Delly too and wheedled out a few pictures of a younger, somehow impossibly, grumpier Izzy. It wasn’t hard to picture the two of them slipping around the edges of louder, bigger people. A shadowy pair clinging to the edges, determined to survive. 

“Sorry,” he told the picture when Lucius left it with him to go get his drawing supplies. “You should be here, I think. But I’m taking good care of him.” 

There was only silence, of course, but Pete didn’t mind. He preferred the dead where they belonged. Just seemed polite to acknowledge them sometimes. Just in case. 

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #feels just like i'm falling for the first time #pete black #izzy hands #faith callahan

[novelconcepts]

What are your thoughts about Charlotte Wingrave?

Sort of depends on the day and on how willing to be charitable I'm feeling. Usually I think she was a good-hearted woman doing her best, cursed to doomed romance by Viola Lloyd's gravity, but that she wasn't a terribly present figure at the house or for her children. I suspect her story with Henry is meant to parallel that of Jamie's mother--a woman left behind to wrangle children, looking for some measure of life where she can find it, even to their detriment. And, since most of our looks at Charlotte come through the lens of her very young daughter's memory or her illicit lover's, we never really get a clear picture of who the woman was outside of Mother or Mistakes. It makes her the least well-rounded woman in the cast.

I think the most we can actually tell of her comes from Hannah's flashbacks--where she seems well-meaning, but the sort of kind that comes with a don't look too closely tag on it. She wants to help Hannah, but she doesn't really seem to be seeing her or truly listening when Hannah speaks. It's sort of an "of course you'll move in here. of course you'll sell your house. of course" rich white woman mentality that doesn't take into account, really, how Hannah is feeling or what she actually wants. In a way, that almost plastic kindness is what traps Hannah in the gravity well. The show doesn't devote a ton of time to unpacking that, but it always leaves a weird taste in my mouth, how Charlotte handles that whole deal--that strange blurring of "you're my employee, but I'll call you family" vibe. That said, "He may not be dead, but nobody’s perfect, are they?" is one of my absolute favorite lines in the entire show. Impeccable delivery.

#ask #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #charlotte wingrave #i think the actress does a fantastic job with the role--for what there is of it #but she's basically a ghost to her family even before she's gone. dominic is the same. they mean well but they replace #present parental affection with talismans and phone calls #which is always interesting to think about. and terribly sad. to think these kids have been missing them much longer than they've been dead #sort of another parallel with owen and his mother in that way