#he really was clinging on to every single available straw

[lemonflavouredspatula]

just so we're clear, not one word of that embarrassing grab for sympathy was an apology or acknowledgement for any of the illegal, undermining, disgusting, self-serving abuses of power. he is still wholly under the illusion that he was good for this country.

[constancelaufeydottir]

Caught

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x fem!reader

Warnings: explicit language, smut, f masturbation, p in v penetration, cliché porn tropes(sorry), ransom being an asshole(what’s new), soft ransom, slight angst(?), MINORS DNI

Summary: Ransom seems to always catch you in inconvenient/embarrassing times.

Word count: 4k

a/n: I honestly can’t get ransom out of my head thus here it is

Part 2

Not beta’d, all mistakes are my own.

Great.

You couldn’t believe the one thing that you’ve been making fun of was happening to you.

You were stuck in the dryer.

That one cliché porn trope where the step-sister was stuck in the washing machine or the dryer and the step-brother was there to help and they eventually fucked.

That one cliché trope you made fun of every single time you went on the hub to look for some excitement.

You tried wiggling and pulling yourself out of the stupid dryer, but your shirt was caught on something and the frustrating thing was the more you wiggle the more stuck you were.

“Well,” you heard a deep voice coming from behind, “if this isn’t every man’s dream.”

“Ughh, go away Ransom,” you tried to wiggle again, but to no avail.

Ransom stood there, his large torso leaning against the door as he watched you struggle. Your ass was practically there for him to ogle, and he swore he could see the cotton panties of yours peeking out of your too-short jeans. He felt his cock twitching in his slacks, while silently cursing at the tight constraints of the material thinking he should’ve worn sweatpants instead.

“Need a hand, sweetheart?” you rolled your eyes upon hearing him. He was the last person you needed to catch you in such an embarrassing situation.

You hated Ransom with everything you got, swore on your life to never cross paths with him. But destiny always finds its way to make your life insufferable, in which your idiot of a brother just had to be friends with this manchild.

Gosh, you hated Ransom. You hated him for his arrogance and narcissistic personality; you despise him for being a spoiled rich kid who had a trust fund solely for him while you had to begged you parents for new clothes instead of yellowing hand-me-downs; you dislike him for being such a hot asshole with a shit personality and you hated yourself for having a crush on him.

Your life was full of a bunch of clichés and today was the worst of all. You really didn’t need Ransom to bother you on a day where you had to clean your room and do the laundry then proceed to get stuck in the dryer. Doing chores was tiring in the first place, and dealing with Ransom would be the last straw before you went unhinged and killed every single person you see. Ending up on a murder mystery documentary was not a glorious achievement and you were not mentally prepared to see blood yet.

“Fuck you, Ransom.” you tried your best to turn your head towards him, “Leave me alone,”

“Oh I will fuck you real soon,” he muttered under his breath, tongue peeking out to wet his lips. “You sure you don’t need my help, princess?”

“For once, please leave me alone,” you hated how your heart fluttered when he called you sweet nicknames, and the way he called you princess made you feel the heat rushing to your core, your panties clinging to your wet folds. Being in this vulnerable position where you could almost feel his heated gaze on your body was god awful, you just wish he didn’t catch the way you subtly rubbed your thighs together.

You heard his footsteps receding, his huffs of snicker followed and you slumped against the warm metal. You tugged at the now tight sleeve of your shirt harshly, thrilled when you heard the ripping sound of the cloth. But before you could wiggle your way out, you felt something touching your thigh. Your body tensed at the feeling, goosebumps crawled on your body as you shrieked and kicked your leg at whatever was there.

“Oh, feisty are we,”

“Fuck you Ransom, I thought it was a bug!” His large hands caught your ankle, a playful grin on his face. “Let go of my ankle, asshole,”

“Stay still,” you felt his body on yours the next second as his hands went to the fabric snagged on the hinge of the door. The cloth of your shirt bunched in his hands and he pulled at them effortlessly, freeing you from the dryer.

You fell backwards, your butt landed on the floor with a soft thud. Your eyes went to Ransom who was kneeling on the floor, and you realized his muscular body could tower yours easily.

Your eyes met his predatory gaze, the darkness of his pupil consumed most of the blue of his eyes. His eyes were raking up and down your body hungrily, savouring the sight of you in your bra and short pants.

You gulp at how exposed you were underneath his ravenous gaze, feeling like you weren’t wearing anything as of now.

Ransom’s hands found their way on your thighs and your muscles tensed up at his touches. You watched as his hands slowly inched up towards your clothed mound, fingers hovering at the buttons of your pants for a second, as if asking for permission.

Ransom chuckled at your hazy expression, clouded with lust and anticipation. Your eyes were dazed with your lips slightly parted, your fingers gripping at his cable knit sweater.

A loud thud from above snapped you out of your trance, it was probably your brother and his other asshole friends upstairs being rowdy and loud.

You realized you almost gave in to your primal desire, ready to submit.

“W-we can’t do this,” you can’t fuck Ransom, not while you’re still crushing on him. Sleeping with him was only gonna end up with you getting hurt. “I hate you Ransom. I fucking hate your guts.”

“I know, princess. But there’s no rules saying that you can’t fuck someone you hate,”

“Ransom we can’t. My brother’s gonna kill both of us if he finds out and before you say anything, no.”

You saw Ransom’s jaw tensed up, clearly unsatisfied by your words. “Alright then.”

You saw him begrudgingly get up, a prominent bulge in his pants that you couldn’t tear your eyes off of. He disappeared into the hallway and you sighed, not sure if you should feel relieved or disappointed.

When his body was pressed against your back as he offered a helping hand, you could feel his warmth radiating from his body and you felt yourself wanting to feel more of that comfort. He might be an asshole but weirdly, his scent and warmth was soothing.

For the next few weeks, you felt like shit. Having a taste of his warmth then being deprived of it was the worst feeling ever. Wow, you were really down bad, falling for him like this. Your brain, the rational part mocks your heart, the emotional one for being blinded by this feeling called love. But, would it be love if the feelings were not reciprocated?

Love, love. Currently the most annoying thing on your list.

But seeing Ransom walking around your house flaunting that stupid charm of his was even more annoying, and you couldn’t do anything about it unless you’re trying to declare a war with your brother. Asking him to get rid of his asshole friends was the equivalent of asking him to die, dramatic bitch.

Every time you caught him staring at you, he would be trying to eyefuck you or undress you with his gaze and you tried to keep a calm composure, keyword: tried.

“We’re going out, don’t do anything stupid at home,” your brother said, or warned? Hmm, you couldn’t tell the difference to be honest, you’re just so use to him telling you not to do stupid things when he really should be the one taking his own advice. Just look at all the dumbass friends he made, especially Ransom. Gosh, you’d do anything to wipe off that stupid smirk he always had on his face.

“Yeah, yeah …” you waved them goodbye and made sure everyone had left before jogging back to your room, dimming the lights and leaving the door ajar so you could hear them coming back.

You open the website that you were far too familiar with, browsing the long list of videos of this certain camboy that you recently grew fond of. Broad shoulders, thick arms, defined abs all covered in a thick cable knit sweater and his firm thighs confined in a pair of dark jeans. You hated how similar he was to Ransom, yet loved it at the same time.

You watched him slowly unbuckled his belt, the sleeves of his woolen sweater rolled up to his arms showcasing his protruding veins. He wrapped his fingers around the leather belt and pulled them out of the loops in a relaxing manner not knowing on the other side of the screen, you’re already touching yourself imagining it was Ransom instead.

“Didn’t say you can touch yourself kitten,” the movement of your fingers halted. You couldn’t see the man’s face but by the angle of his chin, you could tell he was cocking his head as if snickering at your disobedience.

You resorted to touching your breasts, pulling down the straps of your tank top to expose your heaving chest. Your fingers went to tease at your hardened nipples, circling around the areola while your thighs rubbed together to release some of the tension.

The camboy’s cock was now on display, the tip of it leaking with beads of precum. His cock was a sight, but you couldn’t help wondering how Ransom’s cock would look or feel like. Just imagining his length spearing into you made you wet, arousal soaking the thin fabric of your cotton panties.

“Now touch yourself for me,” you heard his deep voice coming out of the speaker, his hand now stroking his dick languidly.

You took off your panties and tossed it carelessly on the floor, then pulled a pillow to place it between your thighs. You felt the soft fabric of the pillow case underneath your glistened mound, sighs escaped your lips as the cold fabric juxtaposed with your heated core. Rocking your hips back and forth, the delicious friction helped ease the tensed feeling you’d been having the past weeks. As you kept your hips moving in a rhythm, your mind wandered over to a certain manchild, whimpers leaving your mouth as you were reminded of his comforting warmth again. With one hand supporting the pillow, the other went to cupped at your breasts, nimble fingers tugging at your sensitive nipple at the same time the soft fabric brushed at your clit causing you to let out a moan.

“Ransom,” you called out the name of the man you were desperate to have a touch for; the creaking sound of the floor made you aware of the presence of someone in your room.

Your head shot up to look at the intruder to realize it was the man who you just called for. Panicked, you fumbled with the pillow covered in your juices and shielded your half naked body from his lustful eyes.

“My, my. What a sight.”

“Such a good girl, are you coming?” you forgot about the video playing and you tried slamming the laptop shut but Ransom’s hand was quicker, his long fingers closing around your wrist.

Your cheeks heated up in embarrassment and you glared at him, “Godamnit, Ransom. How are you always the one catching me at embarrassing moments?” You shrieked. “Fucking hell, how are you even here, I thought you went out? And where is my brother, why isn’t he with you?”

“You talk too much princess,” he was on top of you in a second, his hands pinning your wrists on both sides of your head, caging your movements. You went still, threatened by his huge physique and the size difference between you and him.

“Let go of me,” you struggled to yank your wrists off his grip, and you could still hear the breathy groans coming from the laptop. “What do you want, Ransom?”

“You, princess.” Ransom grinned. The asshole grinned, like a child finally getting what he wanted after throwing a tantrum. “And I have a theory that maybe, maybe you want me too.”

He turned the laptop, the screen now facing you. The image of the man in the screen clad in a white knitted sweater suddenly overlapped with the man who had you pinned down on your bed right now. “He does look like me, doesn’t he?”

You should feel embarrassed, angry or annoyed but having Ransom’s body pressed against yours made your little brain wonky and disoriented. His musky scent filled up your nose, clogging each and every piece of your clear mind.

You briefly glance at the camboy on the screen then back to Ransom; no, they’re completely different, Ransom was way better in every way. The way his woolen sweater hugged his sturdy muscles, the soft material of his sweater caressing your skin reminded you that he was real.

Ransom watched as you trailed your eyes from his face down to his body then back up to his eyes. “Stop looking at me with those ‘fuck-me’ eyes, I’m trying really hard not to lose myself and shove my cock in that pretty cunt of yours now.”

His words made you gulped, the imagery that he planted in your head made a wave of arousal gushed through your entrance. Fuck it, you couldn’t care less about the inevitable heartbreak later, you need Ransom to rail you into oblivion as of now.

Feeling a surge of confidence flowing through your body, a playful smirk crept up your face and you let your gaze fall to his lips.

“Then fuck me like you mean it, Ransom.” You lifted yourself off the bed a little, your face inched closer to his, lips hovering just mere inches apart.

His lips crashed into yours, devouring you like an animal and you let out a little yelp, surprised by his eagerness. You found yourself losing your breath as his tongue invaded yours, drinking in your little moans of pleasure.

Your wrists were released as his soft hands—the hands of a spoiled pretty boy who had never done any chores in his life—travelled across the smooth skin of your body, his hums of enjoyment sending vibrations to your lips.

It was getting harder to breathe, and the lack of oxygen made your brain fuzzy, you could faintly hear Ransom’s small huff of laughter as you parted. You felt him tearing your flimsy tank top into pieces, a small noise of protest bubbled from your throat but he was quick to nip at your neck, placing tender kisses on your skin.

His large hands cupped the underside of your breasts, squeezing them so he could admire the soft flesh and your hardened nipples. He took some time to take in the sight of you naked under his fully clothed body, his stare was desirous and you’d never felt more naked than before even though there wasn’t any piece of clothing left on you.

“Stop staring,” his stare made you feel a wee bit conscious about your own body. Was your breasts too small; did the stretch marks on your hips disgust him; was he noticing your not so smooth skin? You instinctively covered your body with your arms, shielding your imperfections from him, your head turning to the side to avoid meeting his eyes in shame.

“Why hide yourself from me, hmm?” He gently removed your arms, head dipping down to your hips and kissed at the stretch marks there. “No need to feel conscious ‘bout yourself, pretty girl. Let me show you how I’d worship this body,”

You were so high on his touches that next thing you knew, Ransom was balls deep inside you. The girth of his cock stretching your walls. Your legs were wrapped tightly around his hips, your hands gripped at your bedsheets. Ragged moans escaped your lips as he thrusted his cock into you feverishly, hitting those spots that made your body go jelly-like.

“T-too much,” your tears brimmed at the waterline, threatening to fall down your cheeks and the sadistic part of Ransom made him snap his hips even harder, the tip of his cock grazing your cervix. “Ransom, please.”

His lips curled upwards into a devilish smile as your tears finally broke the threshold, streaming down your face. Now this is a sight he would like to see everyday, you crying at the overwhelming pleasure that no one else would be able to give you, except him. He was sick and tired of those immature boys you’d date, even tired of you complaining about them not being able to satisfy you.

Ransom grabbed your ankles and positioned your feet at his shoulder as he leaned down, his pelvis meeting your butt. The new angle granted him a deeper access, and he stayed there for a while, groaning as he was snuggling deep in your warm heat. You felt so full at the moment, your chest heaving as you were recovering from the fast pace before.

Feeling a soft touch on your calf, you blinked a few times to get rid of the tears in your eyes and the next thing you saw had butterflies erupting in your stomach. Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the well-known asshole slash spoiled trust fund brat who swore to sleep every girl he crossed paths with was now placing delicate kisses on your calf which was perched on his shoulder as he stared at you lovingly.

His kisses and touches had you feeling like a goddess, and at this particular moment you could just pretend that your flaws had vanished. Your heart was filled with love for him to the brim and it scared you.

It scared you because what if this was just his tactics to make you be at his beck and call whenever he felt like getting his dick wet. Ransom was not known to be a committed guy, he was known to only do one-night stands.

As he painstakingly pulled out then pounded into you, your tears flowed again. This time it wasn’t because of the pleasure but because you know what you’d ended up becoming—a one-night stand or just a name to add to the long list.

Your soft whimpers were melodious in Ransom’s ears as he’d always enjoyed hearing you talk. Your voice was not high pitched, in fact you had quite a deep voice but every time he heard it, it felt like the smooth currents of a river soothing his soul. And your eyes, they brightened whenever you rambled about whatever you were interested at the moment.

Ransom thought he would always go on being a playboy, to be unattached and have sex with whoever he wanted to but he’d also thought of going on dates with you, to be the reason you smile everyday. Damn, it sounded cliché but that was what flashed across his mind whenever he thought of you.

His fingers unconsciously went to rub tight circles on your clit, eliciting loud moans from you as you felt the mind-numbing pleasure building up.

“Gonna come for me, pretty girl?”

You nodded frantically as you came, the searing euphoric pleasure washed over you. Your back arched off the bed, muscles of your thighs convulsed at your orgasm as your juices coated his cock along with your thighs and trickled down to the sheets.

“Fuck, look at you soaking me wet,” his fingers was still rubbing on your swollen nub, the thrusts of his hips sloppy as he felt his high reaching. “Can you give me another one, princess?”

You sobbed when you felt his movements slowed down, his breathy groans muffled in your ears as the pleasure took over you once again. He pumped his warm seeds deep into your cunt, body collapsed beside yours after and he was careful to not crush your spent body.

He laid next to you, his cock still nestled in your warm cunt as you cuddled each other. Your back was pressed against his front, his arms resting on your stomach, thumb caressing your belly as if savoring this moment of him inside you.

You let yourself relax, the smell of your juices and both of your bodily fluids lingering in the air as your eyelids grew heavier. It was comforting, being embraced by Ransom and pretending you were a couple for a night, cuddling and sharing your warmth.

The soft glow of the sunlight woke him up the next morning, or afternoon, he couldn’t tell. Ransom felt great, a day without having to worry about any responsibilities and having his dream girl in his arms, except the side of the bed where you should be was cold, and empty.

At first he thought you were in the showers, or downstairs. But only the emptiness of your house greeted him, and the sight of a bunch of drunk bodies splayed on one another in the living room. He searched every part of your house, yet no sight of you.

He was so sure you had left him until he heard the jiggling of the keys outside the door. The door opened to reveal you in a sporty attire with two paper cups in your hands, and he didn’t miss the surprised look on your face when you saw him standing in the middle of your living room looking like a lost puppy.

“What are you d-” your question was cut off as Ransom pulled you tight into an embrace, and your shocked face slowly turned into confusion.

“Where the hell did you go?”

“I-” should you tell him the truth, that you considered running away, to stay with a friend until the coast was clear, until … your feelings for him were gone? “I was just out for a jog to clear my mind, didn’t think you’d still be here.”

“What do you mean by that?” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and perhaps a little bit of annoyance.

You sighed, shoulders sagged in defeat. “You know damn well what I meant.”

You walked to the kitchen, placing the cups of warm coffee on the island as Ransom followed.

“No, I don’t.”

“You really want me to spell it out for you?” Taking in a deep breath, you mentally prepared yourself for what you were about to confess. “Ransom, you’re a playboy, you had never committed to a relationship. And I don’t want to be one of those girls who you’d come fuck and then leave as you pleased. So, let this be a one time thing, we can just forget it happened and go on about our lives.”

“But I don’t want to,” his voice sounded dejected, and you almost felt guilty for causing his misery, almost. “I don’t want to act like what happened last night was a mistake; I don’t want to let you go into another man’s arms knowing I could make you feel better; I don’t want to go back fucking around and feel lonely anymore when I know I’d be better with you around.”

“Wow, I almost fell for that.” you could feel his sincerity but the fear of getting your heart broken was far greater than your feelings for him. “Did you say that to every girl you had sex with?”

He rolled his eyes at your stubbornness, reaching for your arms to pull you into his arms and sealed your lips with his. You hated how quick you were to melt in his arms, every rational thought thrown out of the window.

“I love you,” that was the first thing he said when you parted, “and I mean it.”

“You better, because if not, I’m gonna cut your balls off and feed them to your grandpa’s dogs.”

This marks the first time Ransom had ever felt so afraid in his life, how could someone with a face that innocent said such cruel words with a sweet smile on their face? Remind him to never, ever get on your bad side.

“Now that’s a little ag-”

“What the shit??” Both of your heads turned to the source of the voice, it was your brother who had just sobered up, and he looked furious.

“I … think we should run.”

[welcometoyournewhell]

Suck it Up, Sammy

A/N: I don't believe the content is too touchy, but for some it may be. Talks about olden beliefs of twins (and other births that involve more than one child) and albinism.

This was done on the phone and I apologize in advance.

Sam and Dean are stuck with a toddler after a failed hunt. After the youngest fights his brother on every option of removing the child from their grasp Sam finds himself a father.... and is anything but happy about it.

___

Dean grunted as he trudged down the steps of the closest thing to a childhood home he had; Well.... with the exception of Baby. He and Sam were laying low at their adopted father's house until they figured out what to do with the results of their last hunt.

A town went insane over a line woman having albino twins, and a line cult made it their mission to execute these "demonic entities". It was like something out of older times. If a woman bore more than one child, she was that of an animal!

God forbid her children didn't look an "acceptable" way, they were the children of Satan! A single mother and her toddlers had just moved to a small town in Texas before they became a target for a small group of religious cultists.

The only survivor of the night was a three year old girl who was practically mute. While Dean was trying to figure out if she had any relatives or where to send her, Sam was having a pity party for himself, blaming himself for the family's death.

He'd had the visions, he'd had the nightmares.... but he didn't know the needed details to save these people. When he freed the small girl from her bonds.... something came over him and he just.... wouldn't let her go.

She'd panic if he'd try to anyway. They ended up bringing her with them to a few hunts on their way back to Bobby's as Sam shot down every option. Finding her family, almost impossible. Adoption home, chance of abuse or the group finding her. Foster care, a bunch of possibilities and the same group. The church, that one Sam actually smacked his brother's arm.

"Who do you think was just hunting her, Dean?!" He didn't mean that town but Sam had a point. There were too many stories about abuse came with Nun hood. There was no way Bobby would raise her go through the same shit he'd gone through with John and the boys.

So it was either him or Sam being a dad and risking a child's life and putting then through the same hell they went through.... or a previous option.

Well Dean made it clear he wasn't looking to be a father, and Sam wasn't budging. Last night was the final straw. Bobby interrupted there fight and pretty much told Sam.... he was a dad now.

"Not gonna put her somewhere safe, she's your job now. I ain't raising her Sam, and your brother sure as shit ain't. She likes you, she's you responsibility." In which, Sam tried to fight back but the old man made it clear, it was a home or Sam, end of discussion.

Dean was already enjoying being an uncle. Oh the cute outfits and bibs. Sure, she was able to eat with out a bib but.... it was Batman! He spent all his cash on toys, clothes, pull ups, and anything else he thought was cute.

Honestly, it was the only reason he wasn't giving into Sammy's puppy eyes. The younger brother had been wallowing on self pity, trying to talk Dean into another plan for the kid. Dean would ignore him or simply state, "It's a stepping stone Sam. You can be the dad you always wanted dad to be. ", or " It'll get your mind of Jess, dad, and everything else." Normally it was the first one that shut the other up.

They'd spent about a month with her now, and she was slowly starting to get used to them. She was still clinging to Sam like a life line though.... but she was letting Dean and Bobby hold her now too. "Alright kiddo, pancakes, " the eldest hunter asked. Bright blue eyes blinked before looking up to the man holding her.

"I think she'll like them. Gonna have to get used to them." Bobby frowned a bit before shaking his head. "You seem excited about this, why don't you be daddy?" Sam was in bed still, trying to ignore the title. "Because, I'm uncle material. Besides, she'd um... kind of be a bit of a, that. Not like Sammy's getting any anyway."

He bounced her up a bit more before kissing the platinum curls. "Besides, she likes Sam better. Probably should get her into a child psychologist though. She's got some damage." He tapped her little head with a smile. She didn't smile back. She'd looked either sad, come fused, or scared the whole time they'd had her.

"Aint we all? How about a name first? Need something to put on those papers." They should have raided the house for her birth certificate and social security number. "Yeah... the number is still going to be an issue. But not like she's driving any time soon, are ya? "

She was holding on of Sam's forty night shirts to her face as Dean kissed her head. Bobby finished some pancakes before passing his eldest a knife and fork. "What's the knife for, " he asked. "Well look at her mouth." Oh, not for him. "But I'm serious about the name. Even if she has one... she can't write or talk."

Green eyes looked up to blue. "Maybe those magnet shapes? She could spell her name." They didn't know how old she was though. "Dean she's either two or three. She may know her name but.... probably can't spell it." Crap. "Well how about Xena, huh? Like the warrior princess?"

"We're not naming her Xena." Ah, his highness was awake. "'Bout time you joined us sleeping beauty," Bobby grumbled. "I'm twentysix Bobby, I'm too young to be a dad." The older man sighed. "Boy, you lived else where you'd have been one at thirteen. God forbid the olden days."

Blue eyes lit up before the shirt was dropped and small hands reached for the younger Winchester. "Besides, think she's claimed you, " Dean commented. Sam looked at her with sorrow before picking her up and setting her on his lap. Well... trying too. Small arms hugged around his neck, giving him a morning hug.

He sighed as he hugged back. She'd already grown on him, but he couldn't do this! "I don't know what I'm doing though." Bobby laughed as he set a plate down for him. "Well no kidding, no parent does Sam!" Dean was still cutting up pancakes before drowning them in syrup.

He moved closer to his brother before getting the girl's attention. "Just be what dad wasn't, and Bobby was." It was that simple. "You'll figure it out, " Bobby sighed as he rolled his eyes at Dean's response. "We're gonna have to go back down and get her papers, " Sam grumbled as he took a bit of his food.

The girl didn't want the pancake offered, she wanted the big one her new daddy was eating. She opened her mouth and just looked at him like.... "give". The brunette pointed back to Dean. " That's yours." But, she wanted daddy's. Once more the mouth opened.

The younger Winchester sighed before taking the fork from Dean, who happily took care of Sam's plate. "I say we just get her a new number, change her name, and keel her the he'll away from the screw hole." Bobby sighed. "Brother's right. Besides, she's still adjusting to you. Leaving her here or taking her with you isn't an option. "

She looked at Sam, but didn't open her mouth this time. Ignoring Bobby, he huffed. "You just wanted mine!" Dean laughed a bit. "You ain't eating it now. Take a bite, then see if she wants it." The younger looked at him in disgust. "You drown it in syrup Dean." Bobby was getting annoyed with this. "Enough. Sam, eat the damn pancake before is scare her more and force feed it to you."

Enough said. Sam took a bite, baby took a bite. Soon enough the plate had been filled again and emptied again before small fry yawned. She fussed when Bobby came after her face with a damp cloth though.

Sam brought her up to the shared room to change her and put her down for a nap. As he did, Dean was put on dish duty. "I gotta get more food. Another mouth too feed, and Zeus is running low on kibble." The older quirked a brow. "Could have told me last week when I was going baby crazy." The old man sighed. "Just, make sure your brother doesn't do anything stupid."

It was maybe twenty minutes before Same came back down with a small bundle pressed to his chest. She already had favorite toys, and a giraffe blanket Dean found on clearance was one of them. Setting her down in the play pen, the new dad laid back on the couch with a sigh.

"Could be worse, she could be like.... an infant." Not helping. Sam shot him a glare before covering his face with his arm again. "We're putting a kid's life in danger Dean. How can you be happy about this?" The other patted his leg as to make him move. Sitting down, he found himself a foot rest.

"Well.... it's sticking with us and we protect and teach her.... or not knowing what happens to her."" His brother uncovered his face again while sitting up slightly. "So, put her though the same hell? Schooling, social life?" Dean rolled his eyes at the last one. "We're in a new day and age. She can do school online, you have a laptop."

"Money, " Sam fought. "Sammy, we've been getting by for yesrs. For someone who didn't want to her going anywhere else, you really are trying to get rid of her. " Was he? Guilt washed over him as he sighed. "Guess I'm just stressed, and scared, and anxious." He squeaked when there was a poke to his foot.

"Maybe Sammy just needs some time with his favorite brother? " Oh no, the smirk. Sam tried to yank his feet back, but to no avail. His laughter filled the room as he yelled and squealed for his brother to stop. "Dhehhean! Whehehr're too old fhahaor this! "

The older smiled. "Too old to cheer you up?" Sam was louder than the documentary on the television. He bounced around in his seat, trying to get away. "Nahhaha! D-DhehehaHEAN!" Starting princess hair spread across a throw pillow as the older brother moved to the younger's toes.

"Aw come on Sammy, I'm just helping you relax. Maybe de stress a little?" Dean had a shit eating smirk on as he destroyed his brother. It got a bit better and worse as he moved up the moose-like legs. Gasps and shrieks were heard from the younger as fingers dug into the back of his knees.

For Dean, it was like trying to stay on a Bucking Bronko bull ride, or something similar. Sam was physically meaker, but he had some powerful strength in his body. "Shit, ghehehet ahahahway!" Taught and skilled fingers dug into smaller thighs before hands tries to pull at them.

"Sammy, language. Your going to give her a potty mouth!" They really needed a name for her. "Yhahhaour ghahahaoning thahahao whahake HER! DEAN!" Sam shrieked when his brother started to tickle his navel. He shoved, swatted at, and tries to knock off the other. "I'm not going to wake her, but you are. Lower your voice Sammy."

"Sthahahaop chahahalling mhehehehe thahahat! No, get away get awahahahhahay!" Hiccupy shrieks and giggles poured like music from the younger as his armpits were messed with. Tears started to come down Sam's red face as he shook his head and tried desperately to get Dean off him.

The torment stopped as a moose toy hit the older in the head. They both looked over to see a small being just looking at them with tear filled, cranky eyes. They disturbed nap time! "Hey, that wasn't nice," Dean fake pouted. "Neither was waking her and tickling me to death, " Sam growled before shoving Dean back towards the other end of the couch.

The dad stood up before taking his cranky little moose and trying to lull her back to sleep. As he did.... curiosity came over Dean. He stood up before putting the moose toy back in the pen and walking over to the two. Sam stepped back warily. "Don't even. I will drop her," he hissed.

Green eyes rolled before the other tries to find a little foot. "No, I'm curious about something." From when he saw her before the murders, sue was a pretty giggly kid. She talked a lot too. She was scared into silence, so to speak. Sam said it was a form of turama, but maybe he could still get a little giggle out of her. Hell, he just wanted a smile!

But daddy stepped back again. "What are you doing? Leave her alone. Dean, she's trying to nap." The other rolled his eyes. "Here's an idea, let me try this and stop nothing about being a dad and come up with a name for her." Blue eyes rolled before a little head shot around to see what was touching her.

She honestly looked like a sleepy, little puppy. "You ticklish," the uncle asked. She simply pulled at her foot and turned back to sleep on her daddy. "Dude, I told you, leave her be." The older sighed. "Name, Sammy. I just want her to smile. Didn't your extra college classes tell you laughter is the best medicine or something?"

The taller huffed. "That's not how turama works Dean." Okay, so both baby and daddy were cranky. "Well.... who's pull up am I changing first? Her's or your's?" Both were un amussed. "Aw, look Sammy; She's already acting like her daddy!" The other scoffed a bit before turning to walk back up to the bed room.

"Aw, come on Sam! You have no humor." Before the other was fully upstairs he yelled up again. "You don't name her soon, I'm calling her Xena or Ivy!" That caused the other to stop. "Really, not Barbra or Selena, " Sam scoffed. "She can be your little Batgirl." Dean smirked. "Ain't passing the buck that easily."

He thought for a moment. "So Sammy needa tickle therapy for a name, crankiness, and new dad syndrome? Coming right up! " Foot steps pounded through the house along with yelling and shrieks of surprise and laughter.

By the time Bobby got home, he was met with the sight of a cranky toddler who opened her arms to be taken away from the sleeping bafoons. "These idjits keep ya' awake, huh? " She clung to him before sighing in relief; It was nap time.

The older hunter looked over his boys before rolling his eyes, this would be there hardest job yet.

[laurelsofhighever]

The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 22 - Talons and Briars

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

Fifth day of Bloomingtide, 9:32 Dragon

The army made good time. Even after only four days into the march towards Redcliffe, the discipline instilled in the new recruits at the camp in Aeylesbide, and the technique of leapfrogging troops to give each squad a rest during the day, meant they were already approaching Lothering. It was no small feat, given that the soldiers also travelled with the king’s train and all their supplies. Most of the petty nobles had disappeared, of course, frightened away by the prospect of real war even as they promised Cailan their militias, equipment, and any other help he might need in the fight against Loghain. Even the hangers-on from Deerswall had retreated back to their strongholds, Franderel to watch the sea lanes on the Storm Coast and Auldubard and Loren to settle in against the threat of Ser Cauthrien’s growing army and any retribution from Howe. That left only Rosslyn, Eamon, and the king himself to command their force of nearly five thousand.

Alistair stabbed his signature onto the end of the document he was reading, so hard the nib tore through the paper, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. At his side, the lyrium glowstone he had unwrapped to fend off the oncoming night illuminated the dozen or so reports he still had to finish. It wasn’t enough. He had been trying to forget all day, and the day before, but it turned out not even hours of hard marching and a stack of paperwork as tall as his forearm could stop the misery looming in his mind like a flock of circling crows.

He should have known. Sooner or later, it would have happened, and he was a fool for thinking otherwise, for getting his hopes up and thinking they would treat him like an equal. Eamon had always thought him a nuisance, a stain on his sister’s memory; to Cailan, he was a pet, a new toy to be dressed up and taught how to walk for all the world to marvel at; and Rosslyn – well. There was no doubt anymore what Rosslyn thought of him.

Her words only echoed louder in his head.

The war meeting had been Cailan’s way to try and persuade his advisors to let him face Cauthrien head-on, without waiting to go to Redcliffe, and quickly it had become a battlefield of its own. They had no iron-clad plan, after all, so why not go forth and meet her, draw her out and end the war before the wheat had finished ripening? Despite his own misgivings, Alistair had kept his peace while the Teyrna of Highever and the Arl of Redcliffe both tried to dissuade him from such a rash action.

“It’s what Loghain wants. Cauthrien has the advantage of numbers, and if we go charging in she will have the field advantage as well,” Eamon had insisted.

“Such pessimism!” the king had scoffed. “I would have thought you would put more faith in me, Uncle.”

“Think, Your Majesty,” Rosslyn had enjoined, with eyes ringed by shadows and a scowl that deepened with every passing minute. “If you die or get captured, then we will all face charges of treason, and Ferelden will remain in the hands of a madman.” She had hesitated, eyes boring into the map. “Patience can taste bitter. I know. But we can’t afford to be rash. Ferelden will be no better off if we rush in without a plan and lose you.”

For an instant, it almost seemed the words would work, but then Cailan had drawn himself up, stiffening in his golden armour, and Alistair had seen the coming blow like the strike of a shield against a practice dummy.

“It appears,” Cailan had growled, “you are all intent on treating me like an imbecile, as if I do not carry King Maric’s blood in my veins.”

“Your Majesty –”

“You both forget, I have named an heir, and –”

“Mo chreach, Cailan!” Rosslyn had shouted. “Open your eyes! An illegitimate half-brother brought up from the guardhouse less than a fortnight ago is your rightful successor only so long as you say he is, and how long do you think the Bannorn will follow him once you become Loghain’s puppet?” Her voice had dropped. She had leaned across the table and bored her glare right between Cailan’s eyes, the rest of the world dismissed.

“Blind optimism will not win this,” she had ground out. “And I am not having this argument again. This time, you will follow the plan and you will go to Redcliffe, where you will be safe, and you will let me carry out the task with which I have been charged without interference.”

Alistair sucked in a breath and shook himself from the memory, trying to refocus on the words on the paper in front of him. It was one of the logistics reports he had asked the quartermaster to redirect to him days ago, knowing that otherwise it would have appeared at the top of Rosslyn’s already heavy workload. Filling it out gave him a vindictive sense of accomplishment, as if he could gloat about still being an honourable person and doing her a favour, despite what she had said, despite the way she spat the words without a thought.

He had little memory of what had happened after her outburst. His ears had been ringing too loudly to hear Eamon’s reprimand, or Cailan’s bewilderment, and he had kept his sight fixed downward, burning a hole into Lothering’s dot on the map to try and rein in the sting at the corner of his eyes, the scald of his rage at the back of his throat. When the meeting ended, he had looked up once and found her staring at him with horror slack across her features, but he had left before she could say another word to him, and had been avoiding her ever since. He should have known. He should have listened to Isolde. The thought did not bring him comfort, but then he hadn’t expected the pain of rejection to be quite so sharp in the first place.

A shadow fell across the entrance to his tent. She stood there, with another stack of papers in her hand, as if summoned by his thoughts.

“Alistair?”

“It’s ‘Your Highness’ now, I understand – at least, as long as Cailan says it is.”

Her flinch sent a surge of vicious satisfaction through his chest.

“Of course,” she murmured. “Your Highness. Forgive me.”

His jaw clenched tighter. He did not look up. How dare she be so meek and mild when he wanted her to shout, wanted her to scream so he could scream right back? Where was all the sneering condescension, that haughty noble superiority that she had displayed time and time again when talking of duty, and honour, and commoners knowing their place in the world?  

“I… There are some inventories here that were misdirected… where would you like me to put them?”

Still with his eyes on the report in front of him, Alistair pointed with his pen to the only clear space available on the lid of his trunk, next to where he had left the treatises Brantis the chamberlain had told him to study, which he had no intention of reading. She nodded once and followed his direction without saying a word, her timid, shuffling steps so different from her usual confident stride that he couldn’t help but stare once her back was turned, to check it really was Rosslyn standing in front of him and not some imposter under a glamour.

Dust from the road dulled the shine of her boots, and the hunched shoulders of her long blue coat, and he noticed a single piece of straw clinging to the curtain of her dark hair. She must have come straight from the stables after exercises with the cavalry, but she could have sent a servant with the papers, if she wanted. A tiny wriggle of guilt took root in the cracks of his anger, but he ripped it out with an inward snarl, and when she carefully placed her documents on the trunk, he focussed on dipping his pen in the inkpot so she would not catch him looking.

She paused. He kept his eyes down, stubborn, but his ears strained to catch every one of her movements, betrayed by the tap of a fingertip against the paper, the smallest rustle of cloth, and the heavy, halting breath she sucked in to steady herself. The scratch of his pen on the paper tapered off mid-word.

“I wanted to apologise,” she said. “For… the other day. At the meeting.” Another steeling breath, turned away so he couldn’t see her expression. “What I said was… it wasn’t a reflection of you, or how I think of you, and – I suppose – I wasn’t thinking at all, really. I just…” She swallowed and finally faced him, straightening her spine as if she were a recruit coming to attention before the drill sergeant. “I’m sorry.”

Silence pooled between them.

After a moment, Alistair noticed he had stopped writing and set his pen to the paper again, though the words he set down might have been ancient Tevene for all the attention he paid them. Rosslyn stood like a statue, her tension a palpable thing in the air as she waited for him to say something. How many times had that been him? Isolde had delighted in ordering him before her, making him stand in the middle of the room so she could stare her disapproval down at him. And Maric… he remembered again that winter’s day when his father had pushed past him like he was an ordinary servant, like he was nothing at all. He wanted Rosslyn to know what that felt like to have that silence wielded like a weapon. He wanted it to hurt.

She, however, was too proud for such a tactic. Her hands curled into fists at her sides when he continued to ignore her, and he heard the soft crinkle of her coat as she bowed formally to him.

“If that is all, then, Your Highness, I’ll wish you goodnight,” she murmured, voice thick with finality as she turned on her heel to go.

Damn.

“Are you saying you didn’t mean it?”

She paused in the entryway, puzzled. “What?”

“What you said the other day.”

“I…” She shook her head. “Cailan… doesn’t live in the real world. He thinks everyone is as noble as him, and that if he says something with a smile, the world will do what he wants, just like it always has. But people can only be what they are, and they can’t go against their natures.”

“I see.”

The look of horror she had worn at the meeting reappeared. “No! That’s not how I meant to say it.”

“But it is what you meant,” Alistair pushed. “No need to get into more detail – it explains so much.”

“About what?”

“How you see other people,” he answered, returning his pen to the tray next to the inkpot. “Or rather, how you see – what was it? Oh yes, people who ‘seek power above what is theirs to claim.’ Does that ring a bell?” He grinned, a feral gesture with no warmth. “Tell me, do you only think of Loghain as a ‘jumped-up peasant’, or am I included in that category as well?”

He remembered the words so clearly, the way they tore from her lips as she condemned the action at South Reach, but watching her expression now, he could tell she didn’t remember at all. Somehow that was worse.

“What are you talking…” Rosslyn paused, her mouth forming a little ‘o’ of recognition. “Alistair, you’re not –”

“Does it make it better or worse that I have a blood connection to someone who, in my experience, was never as great as everyone else seems to think he was?” He stood, no longer able to contain the agitation in his limbs. “I’ve been trying to work that one out for years. Always on my own, of course. Can’t have the royal bastard asking too many questions, after all. Not if he wants to avoid a knife in his back.”

“I never meant…”

“But you know, the thing is, I never expected that knife to come from you, or that you’d be so good at twisting it. The look on your face when Cailan told everyone who I was, was it disgust? Because I couldn’t quite tell. It certainly wasn’t surprise.”

“Oh please,” she scoffed, squaring up to him at last. “Do you think anyone at that assembly was surprised to find out you and Cailan share blood?” Another shake of her head. “Some might have questioned that he acknowledged the connection so openly, maybe, but not that it exists.”

“Oh, and that clarification makes all the difference!”

They stared at each other. Disbelief warred with the fury on Rosslyn’s face, her lip curling in the beginning of a sneer that intended nothing but malice. The desk and the four feet of ground that separated them yawned like a chasm, cut deep with the secrets, the misunderstandings, all the uncertainty that had shadowed them since the aftermath of West Roth, in the infirmary, when he had reached out to touch her and she had shied away.

“Nobody has ever dared talk to me like that,” she snarled.

“Go below stairs, you’d get used to it soon enough.”

“Is this… is this the reason you’ve been avoiding me?” she hissed. “You think I’d object to you because of who your mother was?”

A bark of cold laughter leapt from Alistair’s throat. “I’ve been avoiding you?” he repeated. “You’re the one who won’t say two words to me – won’t even look me in the face! And now at least I know why – low-born, illegitimate half-brothers of kings are fine, but only if they remember their place. Isn’t that about the gist of it?”

It was Rosslyn’s turn to laugh. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response!”

“What a surprise! Well then, Your Ladyship, what exactly is your problem with me?” He stalked around the desk to face her properly. “What in the world could possibly make you despise me so much that you won’t even talk to me?”

“You think I…?” The words stuck in her throat, no matter that she tried to shake them loose. She turned away, then back again, her mouth working without sound, her gaze skittering over him and away as if he were a bright light that burned her eyes, until at last she collected herself, and that dratted noble’s mask slipped down over her expression, and she made to step away.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

He pressed forward. “What doesn’t?”

“Just leave it alone –”

“Tell me –”

“No.”

“I order you to tell me!”

“Do you think me stupid?” Her limbs shook, chest heaving with the effort of keeping the flood in check now the dam had burst, now that he had prodded one too many times. “I worked out what you were – ages ago – right after the battle – but I didn’t bring it up because I know you don’t like to talk about your past, because it would have been ill-bred to pry, and I thought – I hoped you would trust me enough to tell me yourself.” A bitter chuckle bubbled up her from her chest, reined in only by the way her arms tightened around her stomach.

“Obviously I was mistaken. But why should I be surprised? You hate the nobility so much, it’s more of a wonder why you ever condescended to talk to me in the first place.”

Alistair rocked backwards at the venom in her words. She knew. She knew and she thought…

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh don’t play the fool now,” she spat, advancing. “You’re not that good at it even though you spend so much time practicing. You’ve made it perfectly clear you think all nobles are tyrants, that we’re all spiteful and petty and only interested in having others break sweat for our comfort, sitting at the top end of the table. And here you stand, complaining about your privileges – but how many people hold their lives in your hands, hm? How many people will die if you make the wrong choice?”

“Rosslyn –”

“I’m not finished.”

His mouth clicked shut.

“You don’t know the first thing. How dare you judge me? Do you think I give a damn that Loghain was born in a barn? Do you think it matters? Thousands have lost their homes, their loved ones, their lives – because that son of a pig decided to grab power for himself rather than honour the bounds of the law. He had my family murdered because he wanted all bars to that power out of the way, and now his lapdog Howe is running loose slavering at the mouth because Loghain promised he would get away with it!

“And I should be stopping them. My family is dead. My father decided it was worth sacrificing an entire army in exchange for my life, and what do I do with it, according to you, except sit here sneering at your parentage while my people cower at the mercy of a madman, starving and worse.”

“I didn’t –”

“I DON’T CARE!” she screamed. “I don’t care what you think – I don’t have time to care what you think! What are you to me? How dare you stand there and judge me, as if I don’t know exactly what I am, or – or just how much everybody who looks at me wishes they saw my parents standing in my place. As if – it –”

She deflated then, folding in on herself as she clutched for the silver seal ring that had been passed to her for safekeeping, that didn’t fit her finger. Her gaze slipped from Alistair’s even as he reached for her, the silence between them roaring so loud he almost missed the choke from the tears held stubbornly back in her eyes. Yet even so she was drawing up, pulling away, smoothing into the posture and poise of the noble façade that would remain, untouched, even as the soul beneath it shattered like glass.

“Your Highness must excuse me…”

“Rosslyn, wait.”

His hand found hers. Her skin was cold, her battle rage spent. At the slightest tug, she went unresisting into his arms and he embraced her, tucking her away from the world and from his own selfish, sulking refusal to see how close she had been to breaking all along.

“It’s not your fault,” he breathed into her hair. “It’s not. None of this is your fault.”

Hesitantly, still fighting for control against the tide that threatened to swallow her whole, her hands slid around his waist to fist in the back of his shirt. When she mastered herself enough to speak, the words quavered against his neck.

“They – they’re all gone.”

“I know.”

“It’s just me.”

“I’m here.”

“I have no idea what to do but I – I can’t ask them because I’m the only one left.”

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated, and wound his fingers into her hair.

“But it was me,” she protested, trying to pull away. “I took the cavalry and – and left Highever unprotected. I wanted to go to war – I didn’t want to be left behind. If I hadn’t – and then he told me to – but if I’d just –”

Words failed. Tears welled to choke her voice and all Alistair could do was hold her as she sobbed. Noble that she was, she made no sound apart from the harsh suck of her breath as her lungs did their best to burst, but she clung to him like an anchor nonetheless, and he stood there, and let her. Distant memories played in the shadows of his mind, nights when his mother would soothe away his childish hurts with a few well-spoken words, and he tried his best to remember them, to speak them into her hair. It was a clumsy attempt. So he held tight as each shake of her shoulders sent a rasp of broken glass against his conscience, an indictment of all his failings. He should have noticed. He should have tried harder. He should have listened to Teagan.

Gradually, the tears subsided into shuddered breaths, and then into the damp puff of breath against his cheek. Rosslyn’s grip loosened on his shirt as she relaxed into the hug, exhausted. He became aware of little things, the warm press of her weight against his chest, the tickle of her hair, the straight line of her nose cutting into the crook of his shoulder. A scent of sweat and sweetgrass and horses that he would treasure as long as he could remember it. Close as she was, surely she could feel his heartbeat thundering beneath his ribs.

“I lied, y-you know.”

“Uh…” Unknown panic crowded in his throat, but he swallowed it down. “About what?”

Her shoulders tensed again. “I… I do care what you think. I c-can’t bear the idea that you would think b-badly of me.”

Feeling the threat of tears once more, he wrapped his arms tighter around her shoulders and cradled the back of her head, anything to reassure her with touch what seemed so hard to say.

“I don’t,” he told her. “Maker’s breath, I’ve made a mess of this, but I don’t think badly of you – I don’t.”

With a wet chuckle, she pulled back, just enough to stand on her own feet, and made no complaint when his hands slid from her shoulders to settle at her waist.

“Even after this?” she checked, brushing her thumb over the tear-stained cloth of his collar. “I got your shirt all wet.”

“Whaaaat, this? This is nothing,” he assured her, craning down to examine the damage. “Once when I was still in Redcliffe the blacksmith’s boy spilled Barkers potion on my shirt – and that was when I only had one shirt.” His nose wrinkled, remembering how the noxious odour of spindleweed had lingered for weeks.

“On purpose?”

“No,” he answered slowly, colouring at the unexpected sharpness in her tone. “At least, I don’t think it was. One of the arl’s horses was sick and it didn’t like taking medicine.”

“Hm.”

“Um… do you want to sit for a bit?” he asked. “You know, get your bearings back?”

She coloured a little, as if only just noticing that they were still wrapped together in a position some might consider compromising, but nodded. “Thank you.”

“Here.”

Taking her by the hands, he led her towards the back of his tent, where a couch had been set up for some purpose unknown to him. At the time, he had argued for a full half an hour with Brantis about the absurdity of bringing such a bulky item on a war march, but as he left Rosslyn to sink into the plush cushions and went rummaging for a bottle of something to steady her nerves, he was glad for once that, on matters of protocol at least, the old chamberlain was stubborn as a mule in a rainstorm.

“Here,” he said, returning with a large glass of apple brandy. “This should help.”

She wiped the last of the salt from her cheeks and took the drink, smiling a little when their fingers brushed. “Thank you.”

“No, wait –”

But she had already knocked it back. The amber liquid stung her face radish pink as it burned its way down her throat, the start of a coughing fit that only deepened the new, fetching tone of her skin.

“You were supposed to sip that,” Alistair chuckled as he rubbed circles between her shoulders to better help it settle.

“Hah – I noticed.” Did she lean just a little bit closer to him?

“More?”

“Please,” she replied, turning to hold up the glass so he could pour again, and then one for himself. “Ugh, what you must think of me…”

I really want to kiss you.

He tore his gaze from her lips with a cough, laying the thought aside with the bottle before slouching backwards on the couch as if every nerve in his body weren’t jangling in response to the inches of empty space that separated him from Rosslyn Cousland.

“I promise it’s nothing too terrible,” he joked.

She shot him a wry glance. “That’s sweet of you to say.” Already the crumbled walls of her resolve were building again – he could see it in her eyes, the distracted stroke of her fingers along the side of her glass, the way her embarrassment for her outburst was trying to squeeze all the emotions back out of sight, to put the mask back in place, to carry on as before.

“What was your father like?” he asked, before he had fully formed the idea to speak. “I mean, I was just thinking it might help to, you know… talk about it. Them. If you wanted. If you think I’m intruding then I completely understand that it’s a stupid suggestion, and I’ll just save us both a lot of trouble and just stop… talking…”

It took a moment to process the fact that she had slipped her hand over his, that her expression when she looked at him brimmed with a sort of shy tenderness he had never seen her wear before.

“My mother always had fresh flowers,” she said. “Whenever my father left the castle to see to the estate, or on business, he would always bring back flowers for her.”

Warmth spread through Alistair’s chest that had nothing to do with the alcohol. “What kind of flowers?”

The flowers turned into fruit pies, and from there into dogs, then griffons, then dragons and foreign, far off places that might be worth the travel one day. At some point, they ended up pressed close, leaning into each other while their fingers trailed imaginary shapes across each other’s knuckles and the level in the brandy bottle slowly diminished. Rosslyn kicked off her boots and tucked her legs up to better snuggle against Alistair’s side, nodding now that tipsiness was succumbing to drowsiness and the idle play of fingers through her hair.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” she asked into the silence.

On the back of her neck, the fingers stilled, contemplative when she didn’t pull away.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Before all this, it never really meant anything to me. I was inconvenient – a secret kept because I might be a threat to Cailan’s rule. I’d never talked about it to anyone, and everyone who knew either resented me for it or they coddled me.”

“Which did you think I would do?” There was no censure in the question, but the wound was still raw, uncomfortable.

“I wanted you to know,” he pressed. “But I didn’t know how to say it. And I suppose… I was scared things would change.”

She shifted to better see his expression. “Things did change – but you’re still the same person.” She frowned. “You’re not keeping any other secrets are you?”

“Beside my unholy love of fine cheeses and a minor obsession with my hair?” he teased. “Nope. Just the prince thing. Sorry to disappoint.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed,” she replied, turning to gaze down at their laced fingers. There was that tender smile again, just creeping into the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, if it makes things less awkward, we could always go back to pretending I’m some nobody who just got too lucky to die on the battlefield,” he offered, before he could stop himself.

The smile disappeared. “If we did, what would that make me?”

“The reason I’d say I’m lucky.”

She stared. In the low light, her pupils expanded, swallowing the ice-grey of her irises until all that was left was a dark ring the colour of a distant storm. She wavered, a held breath poised on her tongue, but the moment passed, and Alistair sighed as she dropped her gaze and nudged closer to settle back against his shoulder.

“You’re probably one of the few people who thinks that right now,” she muttered.

“Is this about the messenger – the one who came on Summerday?” he asked.

A slow nod.

“What, uh, happened? If it’s alright to ask.” He heard her slow intake of breath as her grip tightened on his fingers.

“The scouts I sent back to Highever are all dead,” she told him. “They tried to attack the castle, but Howe caught them. The ones that escaped made it to a farmstead, but they were followed, and the rest made a stand so the message would reach me, and it did, but I don’t know what happened to the ones who stayed behind.”

“I saw the castle walls,” Alistair said. “Nothing short of a trebuchet could get through them. Why did they –?”

“They were trying to rescue my brother. There are rumours he’s still alive.” Her whole body tensed, her hold on his hand clammy now as she tried not to start crying again.

“Is there any chance they’re not just rumours?” he asked, as gently as he could. If there was reason to hope, then…

“No.” She growled it, staring at something he couldn’t see. “Fergus died at Glenlough. My father saw him fall. I… I can’t believe otherwise. I can’t. After what I saw there, better he is dead than Howe’s plaything. I hope they’re all dead.”

The admission shook her. She didn’t resist when Alistair let go of her hand and turned to pull her more fully against him, lending her his warmth and his strength as best he could. This time, she didn’t hesitate to slide her arm up around his neck.

“What’s this?” she asked after a moment, tilting her head to better see the pendant that lay against his collarbone where her movement brushed his shirt aside. “It looks old.”

“It was my mother’s,” he said. “It’s all I have of hers.”

“You were young when she died?”

He nodded. “I can’t remember her face. It’s like every time I try, a little bit of the memory flakes away. It’s all just blurs and warm, fuzzy feelings now.”

“You must miss her.”

Another nod. “Sometimes I wonder what she’d make of all this. There are so many things I’d ask her… about my father, and what she’d think of me being a prince. If she ever even wanted any of it for me.”

They fell silent again, content to savour this newfound closeness and listen to the quiet of the drizzle pattering on the tent roof.

“It’s not all bad, is it?” Rosslyn asked after a while. “Being a prince, that is.”

“Weelllllll,” he replied, drawing the word out. “The food’s definitely better – believe it or not, but you can get sick of boiling everything – and I must be doing something right to be lounging against feather cushions with a beautiful woman in my arms.” He wiggled his eyebrows, which made her chuckle.

“Beautiful, is it?” she teased. “Underneath all these mudstains and wrinkled clothes, you mean?”

He poked her gently in the ribs. “Oh hush, you know exactly what I mean. You’re ravishing, resourceful, radiant, uh…”

“Have you run out of words beginning with ‘R’?”

“Why, Your Ladyship, you wound me.” He pouted. “Here I am, trying to shower you with compliments, and all you do is mock!”

With a mischievous tilt to her lips, she stretched up so her face, bright with blushing, rested a scant few inches from his own.

“Ridiculous,” she said, making a point to roll the ‘R’.

Her breath puffed against his lips, and it brought his attention tumbling down to hers. They looked so soft as they parted wider, like in his dreams, and he couldn’t help but be drawn forward. Fingers brushed against the back of his neck, responding, and his own curled at her waist, consciously light, restrained, yet delighting in the warmth of the body leaning up to meet him.

Outside, the guard on watch clanked past, calling out a low greeting to someone he knew, and the intrusion was enough to startle them into remembering that the world beyond the tent still existed. Rosslyn turned away, tucking her dark hair behind one ear, her lopsided smirk clamped between her teeth to stop it spreading into something more dangerous.

Her hands fell into her lap. “I should go.”

“I… yes. Of course, you’re right. It’s getting pretty late.”

Alistair scrambled to his feet and followed her outside in a daze. They didn’t quite touch, but the tension between them no longer stagnated, as if their argument had been a storm to sluice the air and wash their feelings clean. His heart already beat louder with hope, and with the demand to touch her again, to have her pressed close enough to smell her hair, to feel her breath over his skin and be reassured that after all the uncertainty, she wouldn’t want to go back to being just friends either.

She peered out at the rain. He was tempted to invite her to stay so she wouldn’t get wet, but she would have declined.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked instead.

“We have another meeting with Cailan,” she reminded him. “I’d be grateful for some moral support, if you’d care to give it – I still don’t have a solid plan for Cauthrien. Some Commander-in-Chief I’m turning out to be.”

“Hey, you’ll figure it out,” he reassured her, breath catching when she leaned into the hand he placed on her shoulder. “Then when it’s all over we’ll be celebrating in Lothering with spit-roast pork and Cailan’s best cask ale before you know it.”

She chuckled. “Just don’t lay out a spread until after we win, or with our luck Cauthrien will just swoop in and steal it all from under our noses.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Swooping is…”

“Alistair?”

He rubbed his chin, frowning. “Do you know, I might have an idea.”

“For Cauthrien?” she checked.

“Mhmm. I don’t know if it would – it would need some work.”

“Do I get to know about this secret grand plan?” Rosslyn asked, one fine eyebrow raised.

He looked down at her, distracted from his racing mind. “Well, you can’t expect me to tell you all my secrets, can I?”

“You told me not half an hour ago that you haven’t got any more secrets,” she pointed out.

“Ha, you’re right. I did say that,” he answered. “You got me. Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll think of some more for you to pry out of me.”

“I can be nice,” she smirked.

Neither of them moved. Camp life, muted by the late hour and the weather, murmured around them regardless, a dull reminder that come sunrise, they would be at war again, getting ready to send men to their deaths for a cause they hoped was worth the price.

“I should thank you,” Rosslyn said as she turned to find her way back to her own pavilion. “For listening. I’d gotten so used to knowing my family was gone I forgot why I missed them.”

“Anytime,” he replied. On a sudden spur of daring, he made to reach for her hand, simply to squeeze it for reassurance or maybe to kiss her knuckles in the courtly manner Cailan managed so effortlessly, but at that moment he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Eamon strolling past the next line of tents on some errand of his own, and caution urged him to halt the movement, though he didn’t quite know why.

“I suppose this is goodnight then?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” she replied. “Goodnight… my prince.”

He smirked and bowed formally to her. “Sleep well, dear lady.”

The colour that bloomed on her face was worth the bravery. As she turned and strode away to find her rest, failing to hide the giddiness of her smile, Alistair stood in the rain and felt his heart follow her, pinned by the tide of white light thrumming through his veins, and – he realised later, as he was climbing into bed – by the confident sway of her hips as she marched.

[swan-archive]

i really have no explanation for this other than that it is the monster shitpost equivalent of me, sitting on Sarah @herowndeliverance’s doorstep in the middle of the night and caterwauling my love for her and her works until she gets fed up and hucks a shoe at me. i’m sorry, you guys.

Evenings are the easiest time for them, George finds.

In the light of day, Alex’s slip-ups and pratfalls appear almost luridly obvious, every flash of too-sharp teeth or misunderstanding of ostensibly simple concepts an affront to the humans he’s trying to mimic. George is on tenterhooks every moment, waiting for someone to declare enough is enough and demand the monster in their midst be put down for the safety of the crew and passengers. Nights are hard, too, given Alex’s stubborn refusal thus far to sleep in the bed until morning. It’s too soft, he complains, it’s too warm, it feels like it’s eating me alive, how do you bear it the whole night through?

It’s where you’re meant to sleep, George argues back, not on the floor like an animal, but night after night he wakes to find Alex curled in a ball by the door and has to rouse himself enough to carry him to bed. More often than not, he’ll wake an hour later to find Alex has just crept back out to the floor. And then comes the morning, which finds both of them ill-rested and ill-prepared to face the whole thing all over again.

Evenings, though. Evenings are better. They can retreat to the cabin for that space between supper and lights-out, and while George busies himself with diary and letters and record-keeping Alex will puzzle at his writing, or bow his head over a book. Hard at work, his brow furrowed as he scratches out an untidy line of notes, he could almost pass for an ordinary human child at his lessons, and the two of them for an ordinary little family. George sits on the bed, having ceded the desk to Alex, and regards him, the scritching of his pen, the way he mutters to himself in an ever-shifting blend of English and French, Danish and a lilting, bird-like stream of chirps and clicks that must be the mermaids’ language.

George knows he ought to be grateful that he’s been given a second chance, strange as it may be, but he can’t help but dream of how it would have been if he’d arrived in Christiansted just a few days earlier. Early enough to save his son in his entirety. There would of course be no need for the exhausting, constant explanations of everything from table manners to furniture to where and what the American colonies are. No need for skulking and hiding in their quarters either—if Alex’s moments of good humor are anything to go by, he’d been a charming boy as a human, and undoubtedly he would have made his share of friends among the other passengers. Alex would have understood who George was and why he’d come, and would have gone with him, perhaps a little warily, but willingly. Maybe would even have been able to convince his half-brother to join them. They’d be here together, they’d be happy, and—

Alex is limping.

George looks a little more closely, and—yes, there it is, in the way he drags his feet as he crosses the room to put an armful of books away in George’s trunk. A momentary flicker across his face, not enough to call a wince, but visible all the same.

“Are you all right, Alexander?”

“Sir?”

“Your feet. Is there something wrong with them?”

“I—no. Nothing. Nothing at all. Why do you ask?” He lifts up one foot as if to examine it, bracing himself on the chair, and that was definitely a wince. George raises an eyebrow.

“Alexander.”

“Really, sir, I’m fine! Only…” He shifts his weight from foot to foot, as if trying to alleviate some discomfort. “It’s just. It’s the knives. That’s all. They’ve been a little worse today than usual. But I’m sure it’s nothing—hey, what’re you doing, don’t shove—!”

George has taken Alex by the shoulders and steered him over to the bed, seated him there with a push sharpened by fear. “Take your shoes off.”

“Sir, this isn’t—”

“Shoes, Alex. Now.”

Alex grumbles, but obediently kicks off shoes and stockings and sits there dangling his feet above the floor. George takes one of Alex’s feet in his hands, and then the other, but no, no cuts, no swelling, no gasp of pain from Alex to indicate he’s turned or sprained an ankle. Everything, by all appearances, normal.

“You see, sir?” Alex says, in far too casual a tone for George’s liking. “I’m not hurt at all. It’s just the normal pain.”

“Hmm.” Wash considers reminding him that that kind of pain is very much not normal. Decides to keep it to himself. Alex keeps going.

“Some days they ache more than others, it’s not unusual at all. And it’s not as if I can’t walk, obviously, they don’t hurt that bad, it’s just a bit distracting. Although,” he adds, brightening up, “I’m sure if I went back in the water for a little bit it would clear right up! If it wouldn’t be too much trouble…”

“No,” George barks immediately, his stomach executing a flip of pure icy terror. Go back—back in the water—no, George has already lost his son to the ocean once, he will be damned if he sits back and just watches it happen again, lets the pieces of Alex he’s regained slip right through his fingers. “No, Alexander, I forbid it, it’s far too dangerous, you could get hurt, you could drown—”

Alex doesn’t even dignify that with a verbal response, just stares at George, unimpressed. Right, mermaid. Drowning isn’t such a compelling argument. George tries another tack. “Very well, how are you planning to get into the water? If you jumped from the ship you could be injured in the fall. And if you lost sight of the ship, how would you ever know where it’s gone? You could lose your bearings and get left behind. Not to mention…sharks, or, or whatever kinds of creatures live in the open sea…”

He’s grasping at straws by the end there, trying to avoid saying outright and what if you leave me, what if you swim away and never come back, but Alex’s eyes widen and he swallows hard. “As long as I keep moving, I shouldn’t trouble whoever’s out there,” he tries, but he sounds unsure.

“Shouldn’t. But you can’t know that.” George doesn’t know exactly what Alex is talking about, but he doesn’t like the sound of that whoever.

“But if I just went for a little bit—”

“No,” George repeats. “Absolutely not. It’s too much of a risk. That’s final,” he adds, at the rebellious glint in Alex’s eyes. “You’ll stay onboard, where it’s safe. Besides, you said yourself the pain is worse some days than others. Perhaps you’ll feel better in a day or two. You must be patient, Alexander.”

Alex’s mouth twists, like it had the first time George had tried to get him to eat bread, but whatever challenge he’d been thinking of flinging at George doesn’t come out. All he says is, “Yeah. Maybe.”

“That’s right,” George says encouragingly. “And now, I think it’s best if we get ready for bed, don’t you? It’s been a long day, and we could both use our rest.”

Every day is a long day, lately, and that’s not like to end anytime soon, George thinks, as the two of them undress. By the look on Alex’s face, he feels the same way. Neither of them say anything, though, and Alex pulls the shirt he’s borrowed from George for a nightshirt over his head and crawls into bed without another word. George douses their candle and joins him.

“Good night, Alexander,” he says softly. Alex doesn’t reply, just wriggles around, trying to get comfortable. George rolls over and subtly slips an arm over Alex. With any luck, that’ll at least make him think twice before he sneaks out onto the floor again.

—

The next day comes and goes, and the next, and the next.

Things don't get better.

Alex tries bravely to pretend they have, of course, but George isn’t a fool, and he can see that Alex’s limping is getting worse. Can see the way Alex needs to lean on walls or cling to the railing in order to walk any distance more than a few feet. George tries to make himself unobtrusively available whenever Alex needs to go somewhere, so he can offer an arm or a steadying hand on the shoulder. Alex is no fool either, though, and proud to boot. When he catches George trying to coddle him (in his own words) his temper flares quick and bitter in a way that puts George in mind of his own boyhood, although Alex’s invective, its shrill mermaid screech meandering through four or five different languages in a single rant, puts George’s adolescent self entirely to shame.

By the fourth day, Alex appears to have grown tired of cursing at George’s meddling, opting instead for a flat, stony silence. He shows no interest in his books, or in conversation; the only thing that gets his attention is the prospect of an (unaided) turn about the deck, for some fresh air. When they step into the sunlight, Alex staggers to the railing, and George thinks him about to vomit over the side, but he just stands there, his legs trembling a little beneath him, looking out to sea.

George comes up behind him, very slow. Alex is humming to himself, a curious tune that George’s ear struggles to follow. No, not humming, there are words there, words George can almost understand, if he just gets a little closer, listens a little harder, perhaps. Just a little more…

The boards creak beneath his boot, and Alex jumps and bites off the melody with a startled squeak. He glowers over his shoulder at George and scoots several feet further down the deck, where he returns his gaze to the flat blue ocean. George, in turn, fights down the uneasiness that’s sprung up in him at that song—where did he learn that song—and leaves Alex in peace. Hopefully some solitude will be enough to shake him out of this funk he’s in, and make him more amenable to accepting George’s help.

...It sounds unconvincing even in George’s head. But he has to hope, because the prospect of waiting out the rest of the voyage alongside a mermaid throwing an extended tantrum is a grim one.

Alex doesn’t rejoin George until supper in the galley that evening, and it quickly becomes evident that matters have not improved. Over the course of the day, Alex seems to have developed a cough, and a particularly nasty one at that, loud and dry and hacking. It’s enough to draw stares (and glares) from the other passengers, even though George has taken up his usual position between Alex and the rest of the room to ward off any commentary on how Alex won’t touch anything on his plate but meat, how none of the etiquette lessons George has plied him with appear to have taken. Alex's appetite is poor too; he picks at his meal with obvious disinterest, and every swallow is accompanied by a grimace of pain.

“Drink this,” George says at last, pushing his ration of grog towards Alex. “It’ll soothe your throat.” It’s a long shot; Alex has been stunningly unreceptive to any drink offered him aside from plain water thus far, but George is starting to worry about that cough. If Alex gets sick, on top of everything else...

Alex accepts the mug, though, and even downs a few sips, albeit with a look of utter disgust on his face. “I don’t understand how you can drink that stuff,” he says, shoving the mug away and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He stifles another cough.

“You’ll get used to it,” George says, trying to sound reassuring, but only managing a hollow sort of false cheer.

“Yeah, if you can train the creature off blood first,” mutters someone a few seats down. Quiet voice, but in a tone clearly meant for George to hear.

George stiffens and turns around, but is met with nothing but a sea of blank, hostile faces. No obvious answer as to who the speaker was, and that galls George almost as much as the insult; he’s deprived of even the satisfaction of calling the scoundrel out, forcing him to apologize to Alexander, mermaid or no. As it is, it would be too much of a risk to try and start a fight over a single anonymous insult, and George knows any trouble he gets himself into will come down on Alex tenfold. Restraining his temper with difficulty, George turns back to Alex, who is hunched over his still-full plate. His face is flushed with anger and shame, and under his own controlled rage George feels a guilty squirm of gratitude that Alex has at least gone red and not green, for once.

“Come, Alexander,” George says, “we’ll finish our meal in the cabin. I grow…tired of the company.” Alex’s brow knits at the sharpness in George’s tone, but he lets George take him by the shoulder and guide him towards the door.

As they pass a knot of sailors, one of the men whispers, “Should send it down to the hold after the rats. Maybe that’ll satisfy it…”

Alex blinks impassively at the sailors as George’s grip on his shoulder tightens. His lips curl back in something that could, generously, be called a smile. George is having to work very hard to keep him moving all of a sudden.

“No, Alexander—” and he knows how it must look for him to be commanding Alex as if Alex is a wayward hound, but it’s all he can think to do in the moment. “No, leave them be, it’s not worth it. We’re leaving, Alex.”

Alex shoots one last glare at a bearded, blue-eyed sailor—must be the whisperer—and tenses as though he means to spring at him. The sailor curses and nearly falls out of his seat, and George wrenches a snickering Alex away and hustles him out of the galley before they end up with a real altercation on their hands.

Alex wilts quickly as they head back to the cabin, that fighting tension going out of him now that he’s been deprived of his sport, and it’s in a tone more sullen than fierce that he grumbles, “You should’ve let me…”

“Let you what?” George snaps. “Attack that man? For making a foolish comment that he wasn’t even bold enough to say to your face? You cannot possibly think I would have let you risk yourself in that way.”

“You were going to.”

“I was not,” George says, before realizing Alex has goaded him into a child’s sulky denial. He regroups. “…Regardless. The point is that I didn’t, and you mustn’t either, not if you want to stay safe here. You have to prove to them that you can control your, ah—instincts, that you’re no threat.”

Alex presses his lips together in a thin, unhappy line, as though fighting to keep something in. It doesn’t work for long. “What if I can’t?” he says.

“You can. I know you can. You just need to remember how—”

“But I’m not even human,” Alex protests.

“You are close enough as makes no matter,” says George firmly, although his stomach twists at hearing it laid out in such matter-of-fact language. Alex flinches.

“It's not…I’m not...” he begins, and then trails off. Coughs. George waits for him to finish, but he just shakes his head. He looks very pale in the lantern light.

They make their way to the cabin in silence, after that. George lights their lantern and urges Alex to finish his meal, but Alex’s appetite is no better here than it was in the galley. He barely seems to taste his food, and after a while lapses into staring down at his lap. George would call this an extension of Alex’s earlier silent treatment, but the listlessness of it is out-of-character enough to concern him.

“Would you like to use the desk? I can fetch some books for you,” George offers after a while, hoping to tempt some kind of energy back into him.

“No,” Alex says dully, not bothering with the thank you for asking that George has been working on with him. “I’m tired. I don’t want…I’m just tired.”

It’s still early, far earlier than Alex would habitually go to bed, but George doesn’t have the heart to chide him for being slothful, not when he’s in this state. “It might be for the best that you get some extra sleep,” he says instead. “Especially if you’re feeling unwell. If that cough of yours is worse by tomorrow, I can see about getting a tincture for you, something to clear your throat…”

Alex nods unenthusiastically, and it’s with a certain lethargy (and a great deal of coughing) that he limps about the cabin, preparing for bed. After casting one last longing look at the floorboards in front of the doorway, he climbs up onto the bed and curls up on top of the coverlet into the smallest ball possible, his face to the wall.

George sighs. At least it’s some kind of progress.

Alex may be too tired to stay up any longer, but George is still on edge from the events of dinner, and it would be discourteous of him to send Alex off to bed for his health but then toss and turn too much himself for the boy to sleep. Some work, then, to distract him until he’s ready to turn in. He takes a seat at their desk, shuffles through his papers, and extracts the draft of his letter to Martha.

My Dearest,

I write to you from aboard the Necessity, with such astonishing news as must constitute an act of Providence itself—

George reads to the end of what he’d completed in days past with a critical eye before setting quill to paper and pressing onwards.

He’d written to Martha from Christiansted, in the shaky, near-illegible hand of an invalid, informing her of the death of his son just a few scant days before George had arrived in port. Of his failure, and his intent to return home empty-handed as soon as possible. That letter had left the islands shortly before he himself had, and at the time George had wished for nothing more than that it might reach Martha swiftly and prepare her to receive him, comfort him in his grief and help him readjust to the rhythms of ordinary life.

Now, though, that letter is full of gross inaccuracies, and George must correct them as quickly as he can. Hence, this new draft, to be sent off the moment they make landfall. Martha is a practical woman, and clever, in her sweet, understated way; she’ll be invaluable in figuring out how best to provide for Alex, how to keep his nature hidden. And they will have to hide it, because George can’t imagine any way the gentlemen and ladies of Virginian high society would accept a flesh-eating mermaid in their midst.

It’ll be fine, he reminds himself. It’ll all be fine. Alex is smart, that much is clear, and even if he’s resistant to George’s teachings now, he’ll surely come to understand that he must blend in to stay safe. Martha has a gentler hand than George does, too, so she’ll be able to smooth over any…behaviors…that George himself can’t correct. No use worrying about any of that now. It’ll sort itself out. For now, just focus on explaining the how and the why of the creature he’s bringing home with him.

And that’s a difficult enough task in and of itself, for George still hasn’t pieced together all the details of how Alex came to be what he is now. He’s tried pressing Alex for more information, but Alex just gets confused and angry, spits out a few disconnected sentences before retreating into unhelpful stammering, vivid green splotches flickering across his skin. After that point there’s no use in trying to get anything else meaningful out of him. Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew, he snarls, curling and uncurling his fingers ineffectually for want of claws. I was—and then I wasn’t—it was dark—I wanted—I wanted—

So for now, George supposes, he’ll have to work with what he’s got. It’s slow going, because there’s no good way to put my son died and then turned into a mermaid into words that doesn’t make him sound like he’s taken leave of his senses. The paper is soon littered with more scribbles and cross-outs than before, and he glumly considers the prospect of having to recopy the entire thing. At which point he’ll no doubt discover even more mistakes, more to add, more to re-write...

It doesn’t help his concentration any that Alex, instead of drifting off to sleep, keeps up an erratic stream of coughing as the evening drags on. Three minutes of silence—a tiny cough—two more minutes—another couple of dry hacks—five minutes—a protracted coughing fit that ends with Alex curled even more tightly around himself, seemingly embarrassed by the racket he’s making. He doesn’t sit up and ask George for help, though, and that grates on George’s nerves even more than the noise. As Alex launches into another bout, George resolves to bring him to the surgeon the moment he can get on his feet again, regardless of the lateness of the hour.

Alex coughs, and coughs, and then, quite suddenly, his whole body goes stiff and he starts to gasp. A horrible, rasping sound, like an animal in its death throes, and George leaps from his chair and rolls Alex over. Alex lets out a terrified whine and continues to fight for breath, and a great wave of panic crashes over George, what is this, he’d been fine earlier, hadn’t he been just fine?

“Alex, Alexander, speak to me, what’s happening, what’s wrong with you?”

“Can’t—can’t—” Alex chokes out. “Can’t—breathe—please—” He stops, wheezing too hard to form words, his eyes bulging and his mouth gaping like someone’s caught him by the throat and is squeezing the air out of him. He claws helplessly at George’s arms.

“I’ve got you, Alex, I’ve got you, don’t be afraid,” George babbles, catching Alex in his arms and dragging him off the bed, “stay with me now, sweetheart, we’ll get help, just stay with me, the ship’s surgeon will know what to do…”

“No—” says Alex. He tugs on George’s sleeve with surprising strength. “No—not—please, I need—I need—” He draws in a rattling breath. “Water.”

Oh. Oh. George freezes, halfway to the door with Alex in his arms. He needs the ocean, he can’t breathe without water, he thinks—but he can’t, he can’t bear the thought of just running up to the deck and throwing Alex overboard, not when he’s in this state, what if that hurts him even more, what if the shock kills him—

His eyes light on the washbasin.

As gently as he can, he lowers Alex to the floor, grabs the washbasin, still full of brackish water, and places it in front of Alex, heedless of the water slopping out over the edge. Alex pushes himself up and, with the mindless twitching desperation of a beached fish, topples forward into the basin, face-first.

His shoulders heave as though he means to drink the basin dry, and George watches in horror as his body convulses, his skin bristles with scales, and his legs melt away. A sickening series of pops and crunches, and a fishy tail sprouts past the hem of his borrowed nightshirt; his hands on the rim of the basin have gone clawed and webbed; and George can see on Alex’s neck the red rents of gill-slits, with clear water gushing through. Nothing of the human boy left, just a creature out of its element, suffering too much to care what a pitiable spectacle it makes.

Minutes tick by, or perhaps hours, George couldn’t say. All he can do is sit there, count the pulses of Alex’s gills and the twitches of his fins. Every one another sign that he’s alive, still, somehow. A monster, but alive. Finally, Alex shudders, heaves himself half up on his elbows, and flops over on his side, his eyes shut tight, his scales paler than George has ever seen them. He’s still panting, but the death rattle has gone out of his breaths. George reaches over and pulls Alex close, so his head is resting on George’s knee. Alex twitches a little bit, as though he’d like to push George away, but he simply doesn’t seem to have the energy, and he falls still.

“I’m sorry,” Alex wheezes, his tail stirring feebly against the floorboards. His eyes are still closed, and George knows, with a sick certainty, that Alex is trying to spare him the discomfort of looking into them, black and inhuman as they are. “I tried—I tried to—but I couldn’t—if I’d been more—”

“I know, I know,” says George. “Shh. You did fine, dear heart. You’re fine. You don’t have to any more. Just rest now.” He strokes a lock of hair off Alex’s forehead, where it’s caught on his scales. Alex’s face crumples and his shoulders tremble, as if he’s about to weep, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

“Why—” he says, choked off in an awful gulping noise. As close as he can get to a sob, without tears, with barely enough breath to force the sound out. George’s already broken heart cracks a little more down the middle. Why am I like this, George’s mind completes the question, why are you doing this to me, why does it hurt so much, help me understand, I need to understand.

All George can do is gather Alex up in his arms, lift him to his shoulder, and let him hitch and choke, sodden nightshirt and cold scale be damned. I’m sorry, love, he thinks, rubbing circles into Alex’s back just above his dorsal fin. I’m so sorry. Sorry I let this happen to you. Sorry I don’t know how to fix it. Sorry I was so selfish, I nearly killed you all over again. Alex lets out a thin wail and George shushes him, gentles him like a baby, hums a snatch of lullaby. Hopes Alex remembers lullabies, that he doesn’t take it for a threat, but most likely that memory was lost along with everything else that went when he drowned. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Well, at least there’s one part of this mess he can make right, though it might kill him to do so.

“Alex?” George asks, when Alex’s dry sobbing has petered out into uneven, hiccuping breaths. Don’t startle him, George, easy now. Alex makes a little noise, not quite a word. It’s good enough for George. “Alex, I’m going to take you to the water now. Do you think you can walk for me?”

“Water,” Alex repeats groggily. Shakes his head slowly like someone just waking, and then the meaning of George’s words hits him. “W-water? Wait, sir, no—” He pushes himself off George’s shoulder in alarm. “You don’t—I’m sorry, it was my fault—I won’t go, I don’t need to, I’ll do better—” He’s doing his best to string words together while hiding the rasp in his voice, but he can’t hide the hope on his face. George could weep at that, but he steels himself instead.

“I will not have you die because of my—” Incompetence? Idiocy? Failure as a parent? No phrase seems strong enough to describe the monstrosity of George’s actions. “—Because of my mistake,” he manages. “And if this is what it takes to make you well, then so be it.” George swallows, then asks, uncomfortably, “Can you…can you change enough to walk, then?”

“‘Course,” rasps Alex, in a shadow of his ordinary stubborn tones. He can’t sit up all the way, not in this shape, but he holds himself a little straighter, breathes in as deep as he can. His tail flops side to side.

Nothing happens.

Looking puzzled, Alex tries again, his whole body tensing with the effort. Some of the scales pull away from his face and hands, his gills seal, his tail goes unpleasantly limp and insubstantial-looking—and then it stops.

“It’s not working, I can’t, I can’t—why won’t it—” He paws at his tail with hands not quite webbed, a thin glistening film caught between each of the fingers. “It won’t go, something’s wrong with me!” The scales are already creeping back over his cheeks, and his gills open back up with a slick, wet sound. Alex gasps and claps his hands over them, the tears springing up in his eyes and just as suddenly stopping, cut off by his shifting body.

“Alex, Alex, shh, it’s all right,” George hastens to reassure him. “It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to walk. I’ll get you there.” Easier said than done. Alex is almost as long as George is tall, like this, and he has no hips or knees to speak of; George gets one arm around Alex's chest, and has to settle for wrapping the other around his tail more or less where his hips would fall if he were human. Alex clings to George’s shoulders tightly, every too-deep breath slicing through his gills to land with a puff of cool air on George’s neck. Careful not to tread on Alex’s fin, George shoulders the door open and makes his way up to the deck.

Most of the passengers have retired to their cabins by this hour, for which George is abjectly grateful, because Alex is fully mermaid again by the time they emerge from below into the moonlight. He’s started to wheeze again, and George keeps up a stream of meaningless encouragement, almost there, dear heart, just hold on for me, only a bit longer, you’re doing so well, as much to reassure himself as Alex. Alex’s only acknowledgement is the occasional flick of an ear-fin, which, George admits, is about all the reaction his nonsense deserves.

The sailors are muttering amongst themselves at the sight of Alex, what’s happened to it and where is he taking it, but no one interferes, thank God. George feels quite sure that he would tear anyone to pieces who dared to lay a hand on Alex right now. They reach the railing, and George has a moment of doubt: how to get Alex into the water? Surely he can’t just drop him over the side, and going down to the water isn’t an option—perhaps George could lower him on a rope—?

The night breeze kicks up sea spray as the ship crests a wavelet, and George and Alex are showered in a cool mist. Alex trembles with the chill.

...Alex starts up, as if he’s suddenly realized where he is, his eyes wide and black and shining. He squirms, the life flooding back into him, and strains toward the railing.

“Alex, no—I can’t hold you, Alex, please—”

Too late.

Alex writhes in George’s arms, his tail slicing back and forth with a mermaid’s terrible strength, and George tries to cling to him, but Alex pushes himself away, gets a hand on the railing, and leaps—

George cries out and flings himself forward just in time to see the splash as Alex hits the water. The foam where he fell shows pale for a moment before being washed away in the ship’s wake. And then, nothing. “No, no, no no no no no,” George says, unable to silence himself. He clenches his fists on the railing, his knuckles gone white. “Alexander, Alexander!” he cries, as if there’s any way Alex would be able to hear him.

No reply but the sounds of wind and water.

He’s gone.

You fool, George, you utter, utter fool, he screams at himself. He should have known better—he shouldn’t have made Alex wait so long—he should have made sure, somehow, that he’d have some way to ensure that Alex would return. But he didn’t, and now George has lost him for good.

George deserves nothing better, though. How could he? What has he ever given Alex to balance out the loss of his freedom? Ship’s rations and cramped quarters, unfriendly eyes on him every hour of the day, a halting, uncertain affection that would mean little enough to a lonely boy plucked from his home and even less to a mermaid. Pitiful. It’s a wonder Alex stayed as long as he did.

Cruel, though, of whatever higher power is guiding George’s life, to force him to face the loss of his son twice over.

And then—a flicker of movement, out behind the ship, not quite in sync with the steady rolling of the waves. George peers out, a bubble of hope building in his chest. Sees only ocean. Please, God, he prays silently, please bring him back, I’ll give anything, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe—to make him safe—just give him back to me…

“Sir!” calls a voice from the water, just below where George is standing. George jumps, and looks down, and—there he is, keeping pace with the movement of the ship, his fin cutting a little wake on the surface. “I’m here, sir,” Alex shouts, a bit unnecessarily, waving a hand up at George.

“Oh,” George breathes. For a long moment all he can do is stare, unbelieving. Alex, there in the water, Alex, swimming along as though nothing is wrong. Alex. A hundred different endearments war with just as many apologies in George’s head, but the only thing that comes out when he finds his voice again is, “Are you hurt at all?”

“No, sir, I’m fine!” says Alex. He executes a playful roll to show just how well he is, flicks his tail theatrically. George makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“That’s good, that’s wonderful, just—just stay close to the ship, please. Don’t go too far. Don’t leave.”

Alex makes a little face, says something that’s lost in the noise of the waves (obviously, maybe), and with a swish of his tail, plunges underwater.

George stays. George waits on the deck, at the railing, keeping an eye on Alex as he swims along. He’s not quite sure what help he’d be, if something did go wrong, but can’t bear the thought of leaving him all alone out there. When Alex dives out of sight, George counts the seconds and the minutes, his heart thundering in his ears, until he surfaces again. More than once, he comes up with something silver and wriggling in his mouth, which he darts underwater again to consume. Living blood, thinks George, living prey, he can’t sustain himself forever on salt pork and hardtack. On human food. Something will have to be done for him when we get to land.

Alex has made a short sprint up to the bow of the ship, and as George watches, leaps out of the water like a dolphin and lets out a whoop of delight. Not human, but so happy, so lively, as he is only in fits and starts on board the ship. George knows now, knows to his bones that he’d do anything to keep Alex that happy.

So Alex will need to eat: fine. George will be ready for that when the time comes. He won’t be caught by surprise again, not like he was by this disaster. No, he will have a plan in place and that plan will make everything right.

Until then, though, he’ll just have to watch and wait. Not an altogether unpleasant prospect. He’s never seen Alex swim before now. A rare and unusual treat, to be able to watch a mermaid in its element without fearing for one’s life.

Alex flips over apparently for the fun of it and drifts along for a ways on his back, the pearly scales of his belly glinting in the moonlight. George settles in for the night.

—

The sun is well up over the horizon, and George is leaning wearily on the railing, half-drowsing, when he hears Alex’s voice calling for him again. He jumps to his feet and looks down at Alex, who is swimming as close as he can to the side of the ship. 

“Sir? How do I…” A wavelet catches him in the face, and he dips under it for a moment, comes back up. “How do I get back onboard?”

“I—yes, one moment, Alex, just wait there a minute,” says George. Probably a stupid thing to say to someone trying to keep pace with a moving vessel, but if Alex rolls his eyes or gives any sign of impatience, it can’t be seen from the deck. George grabs the nearest coil of rope he can find and, ignoring the irritated glares of the crew, tosses the end to Alex. Alex catches hold with no trouble, and George slowly, hand over hand, reels him in. He prepares to haul Alex up over the railing, but Alex is ahead of him, and when he draws up level with the deck his legs have already come in enough for him to climb over on his own. He stands there before George, drenched, still greenish in spots, looks down at himself, and starts guiltily.

“Sir, I’m sorry, your shirt...” he says. Makes no move to cover his nakedness—still hasn’t learned enough for that. “I meant to, that is, I ought to have taken it off before I went—but I wasn’t thinking straight, and by the time I remembered I’d already left it behind, I can repay you for it, somehow, there must be some way I can make up for it—sir!” George has dropped to his knees and thrown his arms around Alex, crushing him close despite the seawater soaking into his clothes. Alex wriggles a little, but doesn’t shove George away.

“I don’t care,” says George with feeling, stroking Alex’s sodden hair. He really doesn’t. What difference could one shirt possibly make? It doesn’t even register next to the fact of Alex, here, in his arms. “You’re back. You’re back.” He pulls back just enough to cradle Alex’s face in his hands, looks full into those eyes still too dark to be human. “You came back.”

“Of course I came back,” says Alex, furrowing his brow. He laughs a little. “Where else would I go?”

George’s heart clenches—he’s only staying because he has no other options, because he feels an obligation, because, because—but his relief outweighs his fear, and he pulls Alex back into his embrace. “Nowhere, love,” he says. “Nowhere but here. With me. Where you belong.”

Alex hesitates, then, with a sigh, relaxes against George’s chest. The last of his scales slough off.

For now, it’s enough.

[9point81mpers-2-blog-blog]

A calendar year of life-changing habits

I like to begin the year with some New Year’s Resolutions and whilst I very often veer off track quite quickly and crumple into a pile of guilt, I’ve learnt over the years that it’s not the quantity of my resolutions, but the quality, that counts. I need to make resolutions that resonate with me, become part of my day, my community. This year I’ve decided to incorporate one new habit at a time into my life. Despite being one rather fallible individual, I am extremely passionate about small change leading to big impact and here I’m setting out twelve life-changing habits that I believe are possible to make throughout the course of one calendar year. The order is not extremely important as each habit holds power on its own. The important thing is to adopt each habit fully and unconditionally before moving onto the next. You need to love each habit, make it work for you and only then will you start to see just how tangible and powerful these small changes can be.

*** 

January – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and compost?!)

An easy (but addictive) habit to start off with – recycling. Start now if you don’t already. Make reduce, reuse, recycle your life motto. Get a recycling container that’s bigger than your waste bin. Check the packaging of the things you buy. Check your local recycling.  Locate recycling points in your area and loop them in to shopping trips to save time and energy. You’ll quickly become that colleague in the office that polices the rubbish bins for plastic bottles. Many councils also offer a food waste stream, which is used to generate green energy or you can compost the waste at home.

February – Reduce Meat and Dairy Intake

We don’t really need as much meat and dairy as the world (or our stomachs) tell us. If going vegan is one step too far (my husband is nodding), try meat-free-Mondays or skip dairy for a few weeks each year. It’s good for you and for the planet. With more and more veggie options available out there, you won’t be lacking choice, flavour and nutrients.

March – Shop Cruelty-Free

Whilst we’re on the topic of animals, my next step was to go cruelty-free and leather-free. It’s easy to reduce our meat and dairy intake to prevent animal suffering without considering the bigger picture. Leather is not a by-product of the meat industry. And just because bunnies don’t wash up or brush their teeth doesn’t mean our kitchen and bathroom cupboards are necessarily cruelty-free.  Although I was extremely shocked by the number of products in my house that did not sport the leaping bunny logo or claim to be free from animal testing, it only took a couple of swaps and a bit of googling to restock my cosmetics and cleaning equipment. And shopping cruelty-free doesn’t necessarily mean breaking the bank with outrageously priced hipster products hand-crafted in someone’s yurt. Since animal testing is actually illegal in the UK, many supermarkets’ own brands will be cruelty-free (hello Tesco) and there are some great low-cost cosmetics out there like Superdrug’s own range, BWC and Sainsbury’s Purify. Some personal favourites include Ecover, Lush, The Body Shop, Faith in Nature and Original Source.

April – Grow Your Own Veggies

Spring is the time to start planting, or so I’ve heard. Unfortunately, I’ve never had much luck with growing anything (indoors or outdoors) but I’m keen to make 2018 the year I successfully nurture something edible. A good friend of mine recently purchased an allotment and now has tomatoes and courgettes for all eternity. Other possible options include local farmer’s markets or organic alternatives.

May – Buy Fair-Trade (Food)

There are some foods, however, that we cannot grow in our backyard or indoor greenhouse. One thing that strikes me again and again in this ever-more-globalised world is that I (really) have no idea where my food comes from. Although I reluctantly have to put a proportionate amount of trust in my supermarkets, there are a few choices that I know will definitely benefit those who grow and pack the food I buy. After being introduced to STOP THE TRAFFIK many years ago, I’ve learnt a well-kept secret of the industry that the foods most susceptible to child slavery are chocolate, bananas, tea and coffee. If you only make one swap to Fairtrade this month, make it count. Sure it may cost a few pennies more, but it’s more than worth it when you know that your cupboard basics are not fuelling the international slave trade.

June – Buy Fair-Trade (Clothing)

I’m sure we are all well aware (or “blissfully ignorant”) that sweat shops and child labour are still very much present in today’s clothing industry. And thanks to the increasing demand for fast fashion and cheap clothes, this trend isn’t declining any time soon. Although there are many brands that are fair-trade and sweatshop free, my main advice is to start in charity shops for the wardrobe basics and put pressure on big brands to change their production practices. Ethical consumer provides an excellent visual guide to shopping.

July – Cut Out Non-Recyclable Plastic

We’re already half-way through the year and I feel we’ve made some big changes to our buying habits. It also makes us more mindful of our connection to those around us and how each small choice can have a global impact. This month is the most challenging habit yet: cutting out non-recyclable plastics. My husband and I took on this “fast” from single-use plastics for Lent and it was the longest 46 days of my entire life. I was prepared for having to cut out crisps and biscuits and ready meals etc. But I was not ready for the extra time spent checking all of the packets of spinach in four different supermarkets until I found one that was recyclable (after two weeks of searching!). And with all good intentions of making our own bread and pasta, it’s incredible to think how much of the grub, gadgets and gifts we buy is coated with metres upon metres of non-recyclable plastic – plastic that will stay on this planet for the rest of eternity (or add to global warming during incineration). After the initial trauma of not being able to pick up a quick coffee and sandwich on the go and having to plan and prepare every single meal in advance, we settled into a rhythm of buying all of our fruit and veg loose (much to the cashiers dismay), stocking up on frozen goods in cardboard packaging and going without cheese for a couple of weeks. My top tips would be:

-          Bio-degradable cling-film made from plants

-          Bamboo tooth-brushes (some are better than others!)

-          OraCare toothpaste (cruelty-free and in partnership with TerraCycle)

-          Join a local zero-waste Facebook group for daily tips and encouragement

August – Reduce Single-Use Recyclable Packaging

Now we’ve cut our waste right down and we’re recycling the majority of packaging and composting food-waste, it’s time to reduce the amount of single-use products we buy. Time to purchase that pretty Ecoffee Cup (and get discounts on hot drinks out!), make use of re-fill facilities and buy in bulk where possible.

My husband and I recently visited U-Weigh in Hythe, a beautiful and typically English town on the Kent coast. Here you can bring you own containers and fill them up with pasta, rice, lentils, sultanas, popping corn, nuts, seeds, flour… you name it, they’ve got it – loose and in bulk. The owner laughed when I asked how long they’d been there. “Thirty years!” he said, although back then the shop served a very different purpose: mainly offering basic everyday products locally and at a reasonable price. Now they have a new kind of clientele: the zero-waste generation. Shops like this, as well as Ethos in Maidstone that offer refills of washing and cleaning liquids are the start (or rather the return) of a waste-not-want-not attitude to consumerism. And it’s up to us to support the movement.

September – Cut out Palm Oil

I wasn’t really aware that non-sustainable palm oil was still creeping into a large number of food products and cosmetics sold in the UK. A French friend of mine mentioned to me recently that she hasn’t eaten Nutella for years as her stand against palm oil – a French person abstaining from Nutella?! She must have good reason. It struck me that I always looked for the words in bold on packaging, checked for the little vegan symbol and then headed straight to the recycling possibilities; I completely glossed over this little ingredient. Nevertheless, after a quick bit of research I discovered that the palm oil industry is linked to major issues such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, animal cruelty and indigenous rights abuses. Huge areas of rainforest are cleared to make way for palm oil production, land which could then remain infertile for years. There are, however many happy alternatives such as rapeseed oil and sustainable palm oil – just check for the RSPO label. After another round of packaging checking and research, I began to famliarise myself with products to avoid and the alternatives. Spoiler alert – you’re probably going to have to get a new favourite biscuit!

October – Speak up and get writing

By now I’m feeling a lot more aware about the ingredients of the products that I buy and the food that I eat. However, I can’t avoid the occasional snack on the go or an emergency purchase when we run out of toilet roll. It helps to remember that some changes are outside of my control. For bigger changes such as urging cafes to stop offering plastic straws and cutlery, asking councils to provide better recycling facilities or encouraging snack companies to re-think their packaging, we’re going to have to get writing, tweeting and petitioning. This year I’ve got a new found respect for Twitter and the ability to hold corporations to account publically and force them to respond regarding the ethos of their products, the recyclability of the packaging and the traceability of the ingredients. I’m sure my local MP is fed up of the emails I send but until we have Tetrapack recycling facilities in this borough I will not stop! This month I’m encouraging you to contact your MP or local council, sign a petition for an issue close to your heart and write to your favourite snack company and push for change.

November – Switch to Ecotricity

A nice easy one for the end of the year as we head back into the cold season. Switch to Ecotricity. The only UK supplier of 100% green electricity from renewable energy sources and 100% frack-free green gas. Although their customer service leaves a lot to be desired, the switch was quick and easy and they even gave us a free £25 Luch voucher – what’s not to love?

December – Start Volunteering

Finally, we’ve reached December. Christmas is coming, we’re feeling great about our life choices and the new habits we’ve incorporated into our lives. Now it’s time to give something back. Use those spare hours on a weekday evening to help at a local homeless shelter. Research active charities in your local area. Find something you’re passionate about and invest time and money into something worthwhile that gets you out of that work, gym, sleep repeat cycle. Helping others has been proven to fight depression, improve confidence and self-esteem and build community. Doing good does you good.

***  

Let’s support each other on our calendar years of life-changing habits. Comment, share and encourage.

[month9books]

Riverdale Recap and Review - Season 1 - Chapter 7 - In a Lonely Place by Andrew Buckley

That 50’s style comic book opening scene with Jughead wearing his crown and Archie in the sweater with the bowtie was beautifully shot, iconically accurate, and all sorts of creepy. This is something that Riverdale does well, I’ve seen it since episode one and they’ve managed to maintain it almost every single week so far: they commit to the weekly theme and they hit it hard right on the offset. Sure, they’ve only got 42(ish) minutes to work with so there’s no time to beat around the bush, but major props have to go to the producers, writers, and showrunners for consistently hitting the right notes in what’s become an almost perfect symphony of characters and story arcs. This week’s themes of ‘home’ and ‘hope’ are driven like a knife through Archie’s back during that opening sequence that narratively asks the question as to what a home truly is. We’ve seen so many different homes in Riverdale already, it’s easy to see why that particular theme probably gets revisited more than most but it was especially poignant this week with Jughead’s story. So let’s get to it . . .

I feel Archie redeemed himself a little this week after last week’s severe dip in his collective IQ. While he doesn’t shine through as being incredibly intuitive (he managed to ignore the fact that Jughead was homeless for how long?) he grabs some major points for having a heart of gold. He feels bad that he wasn’t there for Betty during her time of need and he fights to help Jughead by arranging for Mr. Jones to go back to work even though he doesn’t even have the full back story yet, he just wants to help his hurting friend. His dedication as a friend despite differences or awkwardness actually gave him a few moments to shine. Yes, he’s completely overshadowed by everyone else on the show but I still feel he gained a little ground this week.

After Polly’s magical escape from the mental institution, she sneaks (like a ninja) into her parent’s attic only to be found by Betty. All the characters in Riverdale have such strong personalities and stories, I’m having a little trouble getting behind Polly though. While she’s obviously not the ‘party girl’ that the Blossoms paint her to be, there’s something not quite right about that girl, and her continuing to cling to wanting to go live on a farm somewhere just doesn’t seem grounded in reality.

Either way, Betty helps her, first by appealing to the Blossoms via Cheryl, and then by Veronica’s intervention to move her into the Lodge residence. The Blossoms once again reiterated that they’re the big, evil, rich family of Riverdale by pulling a Rumpelstiltskin. They want Jason’s baby but they couldn’t care less about Polly, and I can’t completely blame them for that because we really haven’t been given enough reason to sympathize with Polly just yet. The Blossoms want the baby, but Cheryl, in an off-character moment of morality, wants what’s best for Jason’s unborn child and turns on her own family to place Polly in a safe place. This is sure to cause even more conflict in the Blossom household but it looks like Cheryl is beginning to hold her own against her deranged mother, which is nice to see.

We should get this out of the way before I get into this next story point. I love Veronica. Not the character as such, but more Camila Mendes’ portrayal is just so spot on that it’s scary. Which is why this one is tough to write about because her grandiose sweeping gestures and on-point wordplay has been stunning so far. But this week our dear Ronnie headed into some cliche-ridden waters and it was a shame because the character deserves better. Veronica holds a grudge against her mother for forging her signature, not because it was wrong, funnily enough, but because it would paint her in a negative light with her father (daddy issues much?). She proceeds to head out for a night on the town (Riverdale has a nightclub? And a busy one? On a school night?) with Kevin, Reggie, and Josie in order to defy her mother into negotiating with her. It feels like a classic rich girl move and that is too much of a departure from what we’ve come to know about Veronica. While it represents her past life, it’s a life she’s determined to leave behind but goes ahead with it anyway. In the end, all it boils down to is a quick convo with her mother, and all is well again in the Lodge household. Although it will be interesting to see how Mr. Lodge reacts to Hermione’s deception. 

Hats (and paper crowns) off to Skeet Ulrich for almost completely dominating the performance side of this episode of Riverdale. I say ‘almost’ because Jughead is the one that steals the show and delivers the feels. Jughead has pulled a Harry Potter and now lives under the stairs at school. We learn the reason why is because his Dad is somewhat of a deadbeat and his Mom and sister have left town. Father/son stuff always rips my heart a new one so I fully felt the story this week. Jughead wants his Dad to get his act together and he’s holding onto hope that it can actually happen and that it will eventually lead to a happy home, in one form or another. After Archie and Jughead get FP his job back, it all seems to be going well, until they head out for dinner and old demons join them at the table at Pops. We learn the backstory of Fred and FP’s friendship, their doomed partnership, and the clear signs that they hold each other responsible. I think Fred comes out on top here as FP obviously has some issues when it comes to making the right decisions above his own self interests, but they’re both a little at fault and I was shocked that Archie actually cut through the crap and addressed the issue with his Dad. Sure, FP was bad for business but did Fred ever consider what it would mean for Jughead’s family? In true Fred Andrews fashion, he quickly redeems himself by inventing an alibi for Jughead to help prove he’s not the murderer.

Jughead getting taken downtown and questioned was a bit of a leap for Sheriff Keller but I think he’s really grasping at straws at this point. The killer is in town, we’ve already met him, but no one knows who it is. There were a lot of great scenes between Jughead and his Dad but their relationship, and the weekly themes, are driven home by the confrontation behind the police station. We can truly believe that FP wants to clean up his act and wants Jughead to be proud of him, but he lacks the motivation and willpower to do it and prefers to continually blame others for his actions. Jughead on the other hand clings on to hope that his Dad can turn his life around and rebuild their home as a family, but it was clear in that scene that Jughead doesn’t truly believe it to be possible and, furthermore, his Dad knows it too. Which is why Jughead moves into the Andrews household and FP willingly lets him go.

This week’s cliffhanger piece is the sight of Jason’s jacket hanging in Mr. Jones’ closet. We last saw that jacket in the hidden car last week so it could be that Mr. Jones torched the car, Jason had multiple jackets, or someone else fired up the vehicle and then planted the jackets in Mr. Jones’ trailer . Mr. Jones is too obvious to be the killer so we can scratch him off the list. (As my Polly/Betty multiple personality theory got shot all to hell, I have a new one . . .  which I’ll share before next week’s episode. Stay tuned!)

What is a happy home in Riverdale? It almost doesn’t exist because every household is so rife with drama and problems that it seems impossible. But this episode was all about hope for a happy home and we can only assume that our dear characters will find exactly that, in one form or another. Even if it’s just an air mattress on a friend’s floor. Just hopefully not anytime too soon because the drama on this show is just so much wicked freakin fun! 

STRAY THOUGHTS OF AWESOMENESS . . .

- Polly jumped out of a window and, despite there being blood on the glass, she survives completely unscathed. I think it’s safe to say that Polly is a mutant/immortal/vampire or something to that effect.

- The Cooper’s attic is the place scary things go to die. What’s with those freakin dolls?!

- The Betty/Jughead (Bughead as the kids are calling it online) is still pushed to the back of the bus again this week. Juggie putting his arm around Betty causing Archie and Ronnie to address the gesture brought some of it to the surface but it’s still not sitting at the forefront of the story. Understandable though as there’s a ton of other stuff going on.

- The Team Blossom hunting crew has actual hunting dogs. Dogs are well known to be very useful when tracking pregnant teenagers.

- I’m seriously looking forward to when we get to see Mr. Lodge in the flesh. It has to happen. We all know it!

- Mr. Blossom’s wig disturbs me more and more every single week.

- Alice Cooper continues to be evil. Not Penelope Blossom evil. But evil. Press conference outside the church? What? Why? Worst mother of the year award goes to . . . 

Andrew Buckley attended the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for Film and Television program. After pitching and developing several screenplay projects for film and television, he worked in marketing and public relations, before becoming a professional copy and content writer. During this time Andrew began writing his first adult novel, DEATH, THE DEVIL AND THE GOLDFISH, followed closely by his second novel, STILTSKIN both published by Curiosity Quills Press. Andrew also writes under the pen name 'Jane D. Everly' for his HAVELOCK series of novels. Look for his first upper middle grade novel HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES available now fromMonth9Books with the sequel scheduled for release in August 2017.Andrew also co-hosts a geek movie podcast, is working on several new novels, and has a stunning amount of other ideas. He now lives happily in the Okanagan Valley, BC with one beautiful wife, three kids, one cat, one needy dog, and a multitude of characters that live comfortably inside of his mind.Andrew is represented by Mark Gottlieb at the Trident Media Group.

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