#i have quite a few asks in my inbox and i'm doing some spring cleaning

[helluverse-rewrites]

Lilith in my rewrite is more....evil then whatever Viv has in mind. She's the reason Charlie has mommy issues, AND actively likes to blame Eve for her "naivety" whenever she can.

Her design will probably reference the evil queen from Snow White (Original)

Oh shit that's actually really clever. I love the idea of Lillith being based off of a Disney villain :)

Yes! Let's give Charlie all the issues imaginable!!!

[confused-android]

Day 13, Todd - Family

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Amanda: hey, what time are you showing up at mom and dad's on tuesday? (7:02PM)

Todd: For what? Why would I go to their house? (7:05PM)

Amanda: …for hannukah? they sent out the invite three weeks ago, asshole. check your fucking email (7:10PM)

Todd switches apps on his phone and opens his Gmail account. The only things in his inbox are bills and spam. He looks in his spam folder, and even checks his agency account, just in case they had, for some reason, found that email address and sent him an email there.

Nothing.

He searches both accounts for his mom's email address, and finds only the last email she'd sent him, before all of this shit went down. Before he'd told Amanda the truth, and she'd told their parents. Before he was on the FBI's Most Wanted list for almost three months. Before they opened the agency.

From: Debora Brotzman <deb.b.brotzman@zmail.com> Date: 4/8/16 2:14 PM To: Todd Brotzman <theodore.brotzman@zmail.com> Subject: Visiting Mandy?

Hey sweetie, it's MOM. Mandy said she's feeling better this week – are you going to visit her? Call me when you get there, if you can!  :-) Dad found a place to give him an interview, even with his knee, so send him some love and prayers! :-) I miss you, you're doing great.

Love, MOM <3 (Mandy says this is a heart, but in case you can't tell, imagine I put a heart there!)

He hadn't called her on that visit – all of his attention was taken up by Dirk, and it felt weirdly vulnerable to call his mother in front of some weird stranger. After that visit to Amanda, he'd been a little too busy to call her during the Patrick Spring case, and then he was afraid calling her would be trackable, and would bring the FBI down on his and Farah's heads. And since getting back to Seattle… Well, he's tried calling his parents a few times, and sent them an email over the high holidays, but they haven't responded.

He knows why, but it's just been easier to pretend that they were busy, to let Amanda send him occasional messages when she visited home, to imagine that they just… hadn't gotten around to responding to his lengthy apology email.

That strategy doesn't seem to be possible, here.

Todd: No email. (7:43PM)

Amanda: you sure? (7:44PM)

Todd: Yeah. (7:46PM)

Amanda doesn't respond and Todd slumps back into the couch, rubbing a hand over his face. This was… this was utterly predictable. He knew this was coming as far back as Amanda's first Pararibulitis attack, and this is what he knew would happen if they ever found out, and he can't pretend that they're just busy any more. He hasn't been invited home for the family Hanukkah celebration. He's not family any more.

This is the natural consequences of his actions, and he isn't even sure if he deserves to feel miserable.

Fuck.

Why does this suck so much? It's not like he was close with them, anyway. Not for a lack of effort on his parents' behalf, of course. That last email from his mom is typical. Just that it's hard to want to spend time with people you hurt, you're hurting, even if they don't know it. He kept hanging with Amanda because she needed him, and he needed to keep trying to make up for how shitty he was, but there was no way that he could ever save up enough to pay his parents back for years of – of stealing from and lying to them. So spending time with them, talking to them beyond occasional five minute phone call and a yearly awkward hanukkah gathering, never really happened.

Does this even matter? Should it matter?

Of course it matters. It's a punishment from his parents, for being awful to them. He's supposed to feel like shit.

Well, that's successful, then.

Dirk and Farah are out at some kind of trivia night thing, and Todd is honestly kind of relieved. He's not sure if he can handle them right now. Not in a bad way. Just that, Farah wants to be comforting but isn't ever really sure how, and Dirk is sure that he knows how to be comforting but rarely succeeds, and Todd always has to pretend that he feels very comforted by whichever of them has drawn the short straw to hang out with him when he's miserable, and he doesn't really feel like pretending right now.

His phone dings.

Amanda: i texted mom. (8:12PM)

Todd: …? (8:14PM)

Amanda: she said it wasn't an accident (8:20PM)

Todd: I figured *shrug emoji* (8:22PM)

Amanda: i feel kind of weird about this, tbh? (8:24PM)

Amanda: like, i'm still pissed at you, but you know that, and we're working on it (8:24PM)

Amanda: and i told mom that and she said that you emailed her for yk and apologized and that she didn't respond (8:24PM)

Amanda: and that sounds shitty of her? (8:25PM)

Amanda: but also you were shitty (8:26PM)

Amanda: like, really shitty (8:26PM)

Todd: I know that. I was shitty. And she doesn't have to respond to me. (8:27PM)

Amanda: it just feels weird bc she's our mom (8:31PM)

Todd: Yeah. (8:32PM)

Todd: I'm… having some feelings about it. (8:32PM)

Amanda: well i guess i'm proud of you for having feelings? idk (8:33PM)

Amanda: do you want me to not go? (8:37PM)

Todd: No! (8:37PM)

Todd: No, no. Go spend Hanukkah with mom and dad. I'm bummed, but I'll be fine.  (8:37PM)

Todd: I'll try emailing them again next Yom Kippur, I guess. That always seemed to mean something to dad. (8:39PM)

Amanda: that could work (8:40PM)

Amanda: idk (8:40PM)

Todd: I don't know either, if it helps. This sucks, but I knew it was coming, I guess. (8:42PM)

Amanda: :/  (8:45PM)

Todd: :/ (8:46PM)

Todd drops his phone on the coffee table and stands up, shoves his hands through his hair, and sits right back down. Then he stands up again, because while he has no idea what to do with himself, he at least wants to not know what to do somewhere other than the couch. He looks in the fridge without taking anything out of it, contemplates and rejects the idea of a shower, and then grabs the pipe and lighter from his dresser and climbs out the kitchen window and on to the fire escape. He leans up against the side of the building and shivers as a gust of December air hits his neck and seeps in through the fabric of his hoodie.

"Fuck," he says, voice lost in the night, and cups the bowl in one hand and lights it with the other. He takes a long inhale. The smoke floods his lungs and he tops it off with clean, cold air, then holds the breath for a beat before exhaling. He lets the smoke drift away and sits with the scent lingering in his nose before taking a second hit, and then a third. He taps the ash out through the grate next to him, shoves the pipe and lighter back into his hoodie pocket, and thumps his head back against the brick.

It's hard to not feel like a complete piece of shit when your parents have disowned you. Like, the people who are supposed to love and care for you no matter what just don't want to see you for the holidays? That's pretty bad.

He knows that it's not like he doesn't deserve it – he did a horrible thing. Like, a really horrible thing. The kind of thing that gets you disowned by your parents. But it… it really sucks. This whole situation sucks. And it's a situation he made, which means that he sucks.

It's cold outside. Not quite freezing, but not that far above it, either, and his hoodie isn't quite cutting it. He doesn't go inside, though. If he goes inside, he'll check his phone and reread the conversation with Amanda, and have to start thinking about it all over again. So he just stays on the fire escape, buries his chin in the collar of his hoodie, and tries to think about anything other than his parents choosing to ignore him, and not see him for the holidays.

"Fuck," he says again. And that seems to sum it up.

Todd loses track of how long he spends on the fire escape, but it's long enough that he's not really cold any more, just trembling slightly, when the door to the apartment bangs closed.

"Shit," Dirk swears, his voice drifting through the window. "It's bloody freezing in here."

"The window's open," Farah adds, baffled, and then says, "Todd?"

"Todd!" Dirk echoes, his voice a little louder than hers.

"I'm out –" Todd coughs, then tries again. "I'm out here! Sorry!"

He can hear some bustling and movement from inside, and then a long leg sticks through the open window and taps around, looking for the floor, and is then quickly followed by a body. Dirk steps out of the way for Farah, who is altogether more graceful when exiting the building, and they both look down at him, separate expression of confusion on their faces.

"Why are you out here?" Dirk asks bluntly.

Farah shakes her head and puts on hand on Dirk's shoulder, asks, "how long have you been out here?"

Todd shrugs. "Maybe since nine? I'm not sure. What time is it?"

"It's almost ten," Farah says, and crouches down in front of him. "What the hell, Todd?"

"I'm sorry," he says, too tired to really get riled up, or even defensive. "I didn't know what time it was. I left my phone inside."

"Will you, um. Come inside now?" Farah tries, and looks up at Dirk for back-up. Dirk has a funny expression on his face, though, and steps around both of them. He sinks to the floor next to Todd and wiggles up close, until they're pressed together at the shoulder and hip. "Dirk!" Farah exclaims.

"Come on," Dirk says, and gestures to the floor on the other side of Todd. She opens her mouth like she's going to object again, but then something on Todd's face, or on Dirk's face, seems to speak to her, and she scoots back a bit and tips off her heels and down to sitting. Farah holds still for a long moment, steeling herself with a deep breath, then presses against Todd's other side. The brick at his back and the metal grate under his ass are still cold, but his two best friends are warm on either side of him. For a moment, at least, he feels like he has family.

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Link to: day one, Farah - Youth day two, Farah - Dance day three, Farah - Gore day four, Farah - GNC fashion day five, Farah - AU day six, Farah - Family (to be written) day seven, Farah - Pride (to be written) day eight, Todd - Youth (to be written) day nine, Todd - Dance (to be written) day ten, Todd - Gore day eleven, Todd - GNC Fashion day twelve, Todd - AU

prompt list

[softspots]

I hope this isn't an insensitive question to ask but I was wondering about something; since you've been gone for quite a while I'm sure there's probably quite some asks in your inbox that have been collecting dust and might have lost the context from when they were sent. (At least I'm assuming so, hopefully I'm not terribly wrong) Are you going to do a spring cleanup of your inbox to start fresh or keep what you have to maybe slip back into the swing of things? Once you're ready, of course

you're right, there are certainly some asks that have passed their best-by date, as it were. I do plan on some spring cleaning, the thing is... I'm terrible at deleting asks lol. I always think "no, I can still answer this!" or "but I really liked this one!" and end up only getting rid of a few, which still leaves me with a cluttered inbox

I really want to get the number as low as possible this time, though, and only keep the asks that don't need the context of the time they were sent in to make sense. so I'm gonna try my best to rein myself in and be reasonable, it just might take a little while lmao