#he and anchor def weren’t the best parents and for sure in their minds they think they raised Hawk better

[desktopmermaid]

Does fry know king and anchor?

😔 No, sadly (or fortunately?)

Hawk doesn’t want either of them meeting Fry. Hawk just tells her that her grandparents are dead. (Hawk herself barely has contact with his parents after she turned 18, and only sees Anchor when he needs money)

Anchor… respects the choice or at least somewhat understands it. King really wishes he could meet Fry and has some weird hope that one day Hawk would be like “Y’know what actually sure I’ll let my child meet my parents. My dangerous assassin parents. That sounds like a good idea today.” <-would never happen. But King loves to cling to baseless hope : )

[francoiserenaldt]

week one

prologue | next week 

warnings: cussing (and lots of it), angst

word count: 1860

“Indefinitely? Fuck,” Desirée muttered, covering her face with a pillow. This was going to be a disaster. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Well, I guess I should call Stacy and tell her to turn around.” Andy scratched his neck. “We’re not gonna be able to leave for a while now.” 

“I can’t believe this is happening right now. This is actually the worst thing that could happen.” Desirée groans, pulling her head away from the pillow.

“Hey, I’m not that bad.” Andy teases.

“No, you’re not. It’s just...I had an interview for Vogue lined up to start on Monday. I’ve been interning and writing papers for months to get it and now…” She closes her eyes, willing the tears away. 

“Damn, I’m sorry. You would’ve killed it, I bet.”

“And now I guess we’ll never know.” Her eyes fly open as a realization hits her. “What the hell changed in less than 24 hours? They know that’s not enough time to pack anything and leave.”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure this out, okay?”

She nods and he disappears into the bedroom. When she glances back at the TV, the time reads 4:35 AM. She rolls her eyes and tries in vain to go back to sleep.

And so it begins.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2023 - Day 1 of quarantine

She eventually gets off her ass around 8 AM and finds something to wear. She settles on a pair of black Nike sweats and her shoes from yesterday. 

One look at her phone notifications shows an unethical amount of missed calls and text messages from her parents, all of which she ignores. An hour later, she gets texts from Stacy.

stacy: just touched down in boston, hope you’re safe

desirée: great! you get to the airport okay?

stacy:  hell no. the police presence at the border is insane. I saw them cornering every car that tried to leave after me! I was lucky they got distracted.

desirée: holy shit it’s even worse than i thought

stacy: how are you getting back to nyc?

desirée: i’m def not w that border thing

stacy: so you and andy are...

desirée: stuck w each other for the moment. it should be fine.

stacy: are you sure, babe? 

desirée: it’s not like i have a choice.

stacy: if you say so. stay safe!

desirée: will do!

“Hey.” 

Desirée looks up and he’s there, dressed comfortably in sweats that show off his muscular build. He looks good and, if the way her eyes linger is any indication, he knows it. She should’ve replied 5 seconds ago, but the second-best time to say something is probably now. 

Speak, dammit.

“Hey. What’s up?” Her voice, thankfully, doesn’t betray her internal monologue. Andy doesn’t seem to notice.

“Since we’re gonna be here for a while, I should probably show you how everything works around here.”

The next hour is spent learning about where the dishes go, how to properly turn on the shower and all of the boring home life things. Throughout the tour, she notices the ways he’s changed since she was last with him. For one, he cooks now, and he has a relatively organized kitchen with spices and sauces. But she still gets some glimpses of who he was before California. He still eats with plasticware because “it doesn’t make sense to have silverware in a place where you don’t live all the time”, which is incredibly moronic thinking and she tells him so, he still wears oversized shirts to bed, and he still smells like his signature spicy cologne when he gets close to her. He’s still so easy to talk to, always knows exactly what’s on her mind and when there’s more to the story than she’s letting on and-

Holy shit.

This can’t already be happening.

As her luck would have it, the apartment he normally stays in alone only has one bed and he refuses to let her sleep on the couch again, so they share the bed. 

The tears only come when she sleeps with her back turned to him, kicking herself for ever letting him go. 

Monday, August 4th, 2023 - Day 2 of quarantine

In the morning, Desirée wakes up with his warmth against her back. One look down finds his arms loosely wound around her body in a way they definitely weren’t when she fell asleep.

Once she begrudgingly gets out of bed, she makes the call to the higher-up at Vogue and tells them the news. She wants to believe that the bored tone the receptionist uses when she delivers the news is just an attempt at a brave face and they secretly are very disappointed that she couldn’t make it. 

She wants to cry. 

Instead, she goes into the bathroom and gets ready for the day. Apparently, her attempts at a facade weren’t as effective as she thought as Andy stops her in the bedroom.

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah.”

“You’re obviously not okay, Desirée.”

“So why bother asking, then?” She snaps. “It’s been a hard enough morning without you trying to psychoanalyze me, so please spare me the effort.” 

“Look,” Andy snaps, “I know you’re upset about your thing in New York, but I don’t deserve that.”

“You know what, Andy? You’re right. You don’t deserve that. So I need you just leave me alone for a second because I’m in an incredibly shitty mood and this,” she waves a hand between the two of them, “isn’t helping.”

“Do you think being an asshole is going to help?” Andy raised an eyebrow. Desirée only offered a huff in response. “So I’m going to ask you again. What’s wrong?”

“You’re clearly not letting this go, so...I had to call Vogue that I’m stuck in quarantine in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and that I won’t be there in time to start the internship,” Desirée speaks slowly, not far from tears. “The lady listening couldn’t have given less of a shit if she tried.”

“Now was that so hard?” Andy gave her a small smile and opened his arms, clearly intending for her to hug him. She holds out at first, glaring at him. He tilts his head slightly as if to say, Come on already! and she runs into his arms, finally allowing the dam to break. He strokes her back as she cries, closing his eyes to hold back his own. Once her sobs lessen, she whispers something in his ear and he almost misses it. 

“You’re the worst.” 

Tuesday, August 5th, 2023 - Day 3 of quarantine

To help her move on from her internship, Andy attempts to teach her how to play video games. 

Attempts being the operative word.

She’s admittedly stubborn and confused about everything and Andy is entirely too amused about the entire thing. This goes on for hours until eventually:

“Maybe I could just watch?” 

So that’s what they do. She sits while he plays his game, stopping every now and then to explain how to make certain moves and unlock certain weapons. She lays her head in his lap. They don’t talk about it.

Wednesday, August 6th, 2023 - Day 4 of quarantine

On Wednesday, they drink. Wine bottles were lined on the coffee table in front of the couch as Desirée’s legs rested on Andy’s lap. She feels his thumb running softly along her calves as she stares at the ceiling. 

“I’m sorry I was being a bitch on Monday.” Desirée murmured, her head hanging on the arm of the couch. “I haven’t done that in a long time. I thought I was getting better at not being so...me.”

“You wanted space and I pushed.” Andy squeezes her calf. “I’m sorry, too.”

Maybe it’s the wine or the way his hand feels on her leg, but she feels emboldened in a way she hasn’t in years. So emboldened that she finally asks:

“Why didn’t we end up working it out?” She whispers softly. 

The question lingers between them. The thought had plagued her thoughts ever since that first night, and the morning after, but she’d never dared to say it aloud before this moment. 

“We were headed in two different directions,” Andy says after a while. He turns to face her and forces a smile, which she returns. “You were going to New York City to become some big-time stylist and I was going to Los Angeles to be a basketball player. Our lives were just going to be too different.” 

She remembers what she’d told him years ago; that their lives were just beginning and their relationship had no future in them. But 4 years later, she’s finding that her heart beats just as fast when he winks at her and hugs her as it did before. And she’s not imagining the redness on his cheeks when she lets her gaze linger too long or the feeling of his arms tightening around her in the morning. 

Of course, that was never the problem, was it?

“I wish we would’ve figured it out.”

“Me too.”

He sleeps with his back to her. They don’t talk about it.

Thursday, August 7th, 2023 - Day 5 of quarantine

Thursday, and the rest of the week frankly, is spent looking at the news. The cheery news anchor, who’s broadcasting live via Skype, promises that everything will be over in a couple of weeks, but independent news outlets are projecting that citizens of Westchester County should expect to stay in their homes for the next couple of months. 

They finally name the new age plague cutis dissolutitis, but everyone sticks to calling it the Westchester Plague. Apparently, high pH bacteria erode the skin until the person has no outer layer of protection left. They have yet to figure out how the disease is transmitted. There have been 3 casualties so far, and each one has been due to suicide rather than the disease itself. 

“Holy shit,” Andy gasps as medical professionals bicker like middle schoolers on the TV screen. “Do you really think it’s only going to be a couple of weeks?”

“No,” Desirée replies. The monosyllabic response is horrifyingly final.

She wants to be wrong.

Friday, August 8th, 2023 - Day 6 of quarantine

On Friday, the first case outside of Westchester County is reported. 

“A 25-year-old woman has contracted the Westchester Plague in Big Bear, California. The patient has claimed to not have been to or from Westchester in her lifetime. The governor of Oregon has scheduled a press conference this afternoon. More at 12-”

Andy turns off the TV. 

Saturday, August 9th, 2023 - Day 7 of quarantine

On Saturday, they run out of food. 

Neither wants to leave the other alone in the house, so they tentatively head to the nearest grocery store. They grab the essentials.  In the checkout line, everyone stands 6 feet apart from each other. Every person who dares to be out, save for her and Andy, is wearing gloves and a mask. Boxes of both items are given to each shopper as they exit the store. 

Each day, life comes closer and closer to becoming a dystopian nightmare. As they return back to Andy’s apartment, she wonders if she’ll start calling it home soon.