#Fall Into Your Sunlight || Lugh and Caity

[croinagreine]

54) things you always meant to say but never got the chance

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

Two months. Two months since she’d been kindly asked to leave the new life she’d grown so attached to behind. Arrived at the Belfast airport. She’d lasted all of a week milling about her aunt’s spare room, before moving back to the Greenbriar Estate. There wasn’t anything for her in Belfast anymore. Nothing but haunting memories and family that had for the most part found it more convenient to pretend she didn’t exist. So she’d gone back to the first place that had felt…not heavy. Not as though she were the black sheep. Back to where she’d first tried to start over. Though her duties were not the same. No instead of tending to Her Grace, Caity cares for the creatures cherished most by her.

Days were filled with things to keep her busy. Up before dawn, breakfast and free time spent to pasture. Groomed and glossed and given saddle time. And in the evenings? Those are kept for herself. Save the ones Her Grace asked for her company. But tonight isn’t one of those nights. And Caity Buckley, finds herself perched along one of the fence posts. The fog rolling in over the moors, as the sun sunk beneath the blanketed horizon. It’s beautiful. In ways maybe only to her. As if some in bygone day she had known it differently. Known it better. But the thought drifts away in the quiet sunlight and her attention turns back to the journal in her lap. The pen removed from the front as she flips through the ink covered pages, to find the first available blank one.

1 August

It’s been two months now since I left you and the boys. And everyday where it should become easier, I find it isn’t. I still wake with my mind buzzing to remember what the boys schedule is. If you had asked something more of me. But of course a moment later I am reminded neither is of any concern to me anymore.

I feel weathered these days. Like the old oak that stands in your grandmother’s garden. Weary but still sound somehow. I suppose that’s silly. Me thinking I have much in common with a tree. But in an odd way I have found myself beneath more often than not in the evening hours this summer. Wondering if you were ever scolded for climbing into its branches. If you ever scaled to the top and felt like the king of the world for how high it must reach. I have thought to ask her Grace but I haven’t. It’s not really my place.

A pause that leaves an idle mark upon the paper. Green casting itself over the landscape again. A breath taken in and released, that is neither steady nor sound as she begins again.

I miss you. And I suppose that’s to be expected. Sharing the day to day as we did. I miss the way your children love you. I miss the way no matter how bad their day, you could bring their smiles out with not but a few words or sometimes just a look. I miss your voice. The way it carried through the house. Even the times its cause was because the children had once again robbed your shoes of every lace, in order to make a net for that troublesome small army of wee green men they had to stop from invading their castle. I miss your smile. Rare thing that it was. And I miss the way you used to look at me when you thought I couldn’t see.

I should have told you the truth that day at the airport. I should have said yes when you offered to marry me so I didn’t have to leave. But I was afraid. Afraid that you were offering for all the reasons other than the one I really wanted. Afraid because I wanted it. Afraid that I wasn’t afraid of you in the same way I have been of everyone else for so long. I should have told you that. I should have come clean. But I didn’t. And now this is what I am left with. Writing letters to you everyday. Ones I’ll never send. A tragedy all its own really.

She stops again. A hand that lifts to wipe away pooled tears.

I love you, Lugh Sweeney. I should have told you that every day from the moment I knew. I love you, because of who you. I love you because underneath that thick shell of yours you are sweet, and kind and all things anyone would be lucky to find in a lover. I love you, because while Her Grace rescued me, you saved me. You and your children. I just wish I could have returned the favor, instead of mucking everything up.

In Confidence,

Caity Buckley

[croinagreine]

Happy Mother’s Day to my beautiful bride, mother of my children, queen of my empires.

           “Well, ye certainly know how ta make o’lass feel special.”

          “T’ank ye, luv. Now get down here so oi’ can give ye a proper kiss.”

[croinagreine]

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas II

More privately, though, he pulls Ms. Buckley aside and hands her a box meticulously wrapped. “When I saw it, it reminded me of ye.”

After she has it in both hands, he clears his throat and takes his leave of her. He was speaking not only of the jewelry box, but the hair pins nestled on the black velvet lining within.

~*~

She’d been about to retire. Give them time as a family. She’s other things to occupy her time. Reading. Knitting. Maybe a walk if she can manage to get out the front door without disturbing them. So when her hand–so very gently and carefully–is caught as she makes to round the archway that led to the stairs…green comes to rest behind her. And then up. Brows knitting only by so many degrees, as she’s tugged into a slightly more private setting out of sight of the sitting room.

The pristine gift is take in both hands. Appreciating the care taken. The tight corners and the crisp ribbon. And she finds her heart skipping with excitement on just what it might be. What Mister Sweeney could have seen that might have brought her to mind. And there is something vulnerably sweet in the way she smiles. Fingers toying with the immaculate bow.

The clearing of his throat however tears her gaze away from it and back to him again. And there’s a small panic in the way he’s already taking his leave. Panic that has her doing something maybe she shouldn’t. Has her doing something she hasn’t done in…a very long time. She reaches out. A bit shakily. But she does. Fingers that do not grip only come to rest upon Mister Sweeney’s arm. That same nearly intolerably vulnerable smile given to him just as strongly as the box had received it.

           “T’ank ye….”

And whether it is a hundred heart beats or four (she’ll never be able to really recall) fingers eventually slip away. A proper, albeit quiet Happy Christmas, Mister Sweeney left in her wake before she’s all but flitting up the stairs. Finding refuge in the sanctuary of her room. Where it is only moments before she’s so very meticulously peeling back the paper.

The box itself is gorgeous. Carved and painted by hand she guesses. It reminds her of her grandmother’s house. All the little boxes and trinkets they held upon the shelves. And it warms her in a way she hasn’t been in a long time. Makes home…maybe not such the unattainable thing its become. A feeling that only grows when the latch is flipped and the lid lifted.

They’re beautiful. Intrigue but sturdy. And there’s a little laugh that escapes as one is so carefully lifted from the velvet. She adores them, utterly and completely. Remind her of sunny days on her father’s farm before everything had gone so side ways. And perhaps there…alone…to only herself…there’s a tear or three. Both happy and sad all at once. 

Happy that something so beautiful as these had made Mister Sweeney think of her. So much so that he’d gifted them too her. Happy because it has perhaps been awhile–if ever–that she’s received something so priceless as these. And no she does not waste another moment in settling in front of the mirror. The simple pins already in her hair removed and replaced with the far finer options. And maybe…just maybe…in what feels like a while?

Caity Buckley feels as beautiful as she is. Both outside…and in.

[croinagreine]

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

The boys are awake first thing in the morning, and Lugh manages to keep them contained to let Ms. Buckley sleep in as late as she can. She finds the boys at breakfast with their father leaning against the counter, nursing coffee while behind him the window lets in very little light as Boston is being covered by a blanket of snow. “’M fraid were going t’ have t’ fend fer ourselves, the Ravenchenko family are taking t’ day off.” His voice is warm as it is informative. “Dinnae ye fret though, I hired caterers for supper.”

One hand leaves the cup to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “Oh, and Michaeline’ll come some time after noon, so once we’ve let t’ wee beasties a’ Saint Nick’s bounty, ye’ve t’ day t’ yerself. If ye find d'at pleasin’.”

Lorcan gives his father a devious stare, to which Luka snickers. She doesn’t know what’s coming, they’d all done their best year. There were treats aplenty in her stocking, and various little and boring presents but then there were some that were special. “Can I pour ye some tea before we get started?”

~*~ x  |  x  |  x 

She’d...attempted to sneak down stairs. Just to grab a little coffee and vanish again because Christmas was meant for family and--for all that she was growing comfortable and familiar with the children she tended ~~and their father~~--she wasn’t family. So when she’d finally woken up at a horribly late 8am (she can hear her mother’s tsking still) she’d made herself presentable and stolen down the stairs. Or at least...that had been the idea.

Yet rounding the door frame that leads from the back stairs...she’s met with a rather---well she’d expected them to be in the sitting room. Swimming through the mass of presents. (More than she’d ever seen in her life under one tree to be sure) as Mister Sweeney looked on like one of those picturesque Christmas portraits you saw hanging in department stores. But they’re...not. 

No instead of ripping wrapping paper and echoing yells of excitement. It’s quiet. The boys sitting proper at the counter. Snitching food from each other’s plates, with only a few lost cause bits of pancake on the floor from trying to stick it to each other’s faces. Mister Sweeney himself leaned to against the counter, like a tree that can no longer be arsed to stand straight. Providing shade over the tiny little ‘pond’ of his coffee, from the wee bits of light that manage to make it through the snow drifts outside. And right then she really wishes she had a camera. From her stand point in the door way. Because it’s a moment. A moment she could have had with---none o’t’at now, Caity--she thinks. Letting the moment be just that. A moment. That she tucks away.

But like most moments it doesn’t last. Mister Sweeney inevitably breaking the silence to explain the absence of the cook. And now she’s wondering...exactly who made those small mountains of pancakes the boys are eating. Logically it had to be the only other adult in the room, but to be honest? She had never occurred to her--the idea the man could cook. Not because she thought him incapable just...why learn what you never actually had to do for yourself? And its added to the mental tally she keeps, of all talents the master of the house has. Though he’s reassuring her in the next moment that dinner will be catered.

A comment that has her giving the snow outside and only so dubious glance, as she pulls herself out of the doorway. Settling opposite the trio she’s come to care about. Some of them more than she probably should. Though at the mention of Michaeline and having the rest of the day to herself---right. Of course. That...makes sense. In so far as Christmas is generally a holiday.  one in which most people that can afford it do not work. Still it draws up the memory that Michaeline just might be as lone as she is this year. Perhaps...more so given she’s alone by choice rather than because there’s no other option.  But he could have family? Ones he doesn’t speak too. The man is rather private. Almost more so than their employer.

             “Oh...ah, yes. Yes, that be agreeable.”

It’s a quiet response. Something to the way he worries at his neck nudging her to look elsewhere. As if some kind of small embarrassment has traversed the counter from him to her. Fingers fidgeting with each other, just out of sight. Green glancing ever so carefully down the kitchen before Luka’s snickers pull her attention. A lift of a questioning brow that has him swallowing the noise, planting an elbow in his brother’s side; that instantly realign’s the other boys attention back upon their mostly devastated breakfast.

             “Tea, sounds lovely. T’ank, ye.”

It’s gracious and she does not fuss over the idea of him fussing over her. She lets him have the moment. The moment to be gentlemanly. The moment to pretend there are not certain boundaries between them. Pretend that she shouldn’t be the one pouring his coffee instead the other way around. And once they move from breakfast to presents? It’s...a bit overwhelming. 

Paper and ribbon and boxes o’plenty in the aftermath. Presents that she truly had not expected at all, and treasures twice as much. The boys screeches and hollers and so very many thank yous that you would think them never had a Christmas before, at all. And she has to wonder how much more of that is their father’s doing verses her own. Though she likes to think she helped mold manners already instilled. 

And she laughs at the shirt and cup. Promises to wear and use them always. But it is the wooden piece that catches her up most. Because it was so much more than just itself. It was acknowledgement her interests were taken notice of. Acknowledgement that they were aware of her even when it was not required, even when they did not rightly need her. Acknowledgement of...a lot more than just her knitting fancy. And it is perhaps the most precious of her small treasury of goodies. One that even if they don’t understand, will be held nearest her heart. Always.

[croinagreine]

Where Secrets Break...

There’s archival footage of devastating hurricanes that can hold no justice to the state in which his office exists. Not a single thing immaculately placed, an ocean of shattered glass and splintered wood between him and the door. Hair askew, sleeves rolled up past his elbows showing the wounds sustained in the disaster of tearing things literally apart with his bare hands. But the second the door opens and hollow-socketed bloodshot eyes rise to meet this new intrusion in his madness…the colour drains from his face. What was once ruddy goes paler than freshly bleached sheets as it takes a few seconds for his mind to comprehend the reality before him. She looks like she was run over by a train and dragged in by a pack of wild, restless dogs. Which is unfair to Michaeline who’s trying to open the door and give her the room required to go where she pleases and if Lugh has any guess, it’s straight toward him. And looming like thunderclouds, he rises up from behind his desk by strained muscles and an iron will, knuckles damn near leaving impressions in the glossy mahogany surface. “Get. Out.” His man of nigh going on twenty five years quails at the low rumble of his voice, barely a whisper in the silence of the room, fracturing everything like a gunshot. Michaeline has the good graces not to say anything now but the undercurrent is that there will be a long conversation later.  He isn’t aware if the man replied or gestured because he had eyes for no one and nothing beyond the small bedraggled redhead in front of him.

His strides eat ground and in four of them he’d met her just inside the room. Propriety be damned, arms wrap once around her shoulders, palm shifting into place to cradle the back of her head into it while the other goes around the nebulous space between her ribcage and the small of her back. He doesn’t think about asking her if she wants this closeness, doesn’t think about all the reasons he should have kept his distance. Later he will deny shaking as he holds her uncharacteristically close, reassuring himself that she is safe and she is home. Later he will deny realising just how soft her hair is, despite its appearance, in that moment as he strokes it. Later he will deny that he intentionally brushed her brow with the gentlest of kisses while he murmured nothings and everythings to her, eyes squeezed shut as relief flooded through his system. “Easy now, Miss Buckley.” Miss Buckley? No. “Caitlin.” Another perhaps kiss at her cheek. More promises that she’s safe now. “Caity, what happen t’ ye?” Because when he knows how…. Then he knows who. And how it will end.

Meme: Missing For Days Verse: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Ship: Fall Into Your Sunlight

It has been what feels like years since she woke up in that alley way, bruised and bleeding. The haze of how she’d gotten there so thick at first she hadn’t had the will to move. For hours. And she only knew the time had lapsed because when she’d first come to it had been sunny and bright beyond the dark alley, and by the time she’d found her wits to get up the night sky had been well over head. But that seemed ages ago, but the memory had all started to come back between those first painful steps and the last exhausted ones that had seen her standing on the step of Mister Sweeney’s front door. 

And the broken play back repeats itself as Michealine fumbles and stumbles to let her in the door. His questions drowned out by fractured clips of rough hands gripping her jaw so hard she’s sure there’s black imprints left behind. The stench of stale beer and grease making her want to choke all over again. The stinging pain of metal set to skin. Reopening wounds she’d spent so long trying to forget were there. Wounds she can still feel oozing. All the while –He didn’t want you becoming too complacent dearie. He’d remind you himself but sticky thing that your sister’s cunt is and all–grating on her ears like razor blades.

Yet even for all that she doesn’t remember the distance between the front door and Mister Sweeney’s office being so great. Later of course she’ll realize it’s because of how pitifully slow she’s moving. Her speed inundated by the exhaustion. By the stabbing pain in her leg where an angry gash still weeps, and the awkward angle of walking sans a shoe. But regardless she keeps moving down the hall. Almost tripping when Michealine cuts deftly in front of her opening the double doors for her before she can think to attempt it herself and…

She knows its him, just by his bearing. The way he takes up the chair that holds him. But she can’t hold focus on him. Green practically floating away and around the room. And fear cuts through her like a hot blade all over again because–his office is an absolute nightmare. Seems as though a storm of the worst kind had blown through it–the only sensible thing her mind can connect it too of course is Angus hadn’t stopped with just tormenting her. And there’s a wetness that pools in her gaze as her mouth starts to form a word–though its murdered half born when…

                Get.Out.

Everything in her recoils even if her body makes no movement. Gaze dropping away to her feet. Because of course. Of course that would be his response. How else could he possibly have responded to events like this? She’d put his children at risk, though she’d had every reason to believe the monster wouldn’t follow her this far.  Wouldn’t dare risk attacking Her Grace’s family. And there’s a hard swallow that damn hear chokes her as she tries to control the sudden sick that wants to come up and out. Feet beginning so very slow to—

The doors shut behind her and how confused she becomes. Because hadn’t he been talking to her? Why would he speak to Michaeline that way? He’d done nothing wrong. At least nothing that she could think of. And there is a nebulous moment where the movement Mister Sweeney takes…coming right for her doesn’t…register. Doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t set off the hundred alarms that it probably shou–

Arms wrapped around her like bulwarks. A protective cradling shield to the back of her head, while another settles dangerously close to ruined flesh. And for moments she’s as stiff as anyone as tired and beaten down as she is could manage. Brows shifted together so tightly it sets her brain throbbing all the harder. But the longer he holds on despite that, the stronger he he does, the kiss brushed against her brow–the quicker the cautious terror begins to fade. The faster the fight goes out of her, to the point that Mister Sweeney is very possibly the only thing keeping her on her feet.

           Easy now, Miss Buckley…Caitlyn…

Gods she hates when anyone else calls her that. Always had. Until it had come tumbling out of his mouth just now. Washing over her like spring’s first rain. The idea of a kiss that maybe she imagines on her cheek, snapping clean the last of her defenses. And the arms at her side rise slow and trembling.

            Caity, what happen t’ye?

Hands fist into the sides of his shirt, because she can not manage to reach round him. And the sorrow pooled in her eyes breaks. Races down her face in silence rivers, because she’d learned a long time before she’d ever met Lugh–sobbing did no one any good. But that does not stop her from pressing her face into his chest. For holding onto him like her life depends on it. The tremble in her frame rising to shaking that might very well put the tectonic plates to shame. The only two words she can manage fumbled out between breaths against soaked silk.

            “He knows….he knows….”

[croinagreine]

18) things you said when you were scared {Nanny}

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

She doesn’t know how badly she’d been thrashing about or how far her cry had carried. She’d thought herself beyond this kind of thing. Reliving the terror of the things done to her. Reliving the horror of knowing there was no justice for it in the end. All she does know is somewhere between her own cries and stinging burning pain of metal set to skin–she’d heard her name. Her name framed in a voice that had no business within the place she existed. And that voice grew into hands. Hands that framed her shoulders…then her face. Their grip firm but not…not what was…

She snaps to awareness. Instantly feeling the chill of the room as blankets and sheets are flung from her in her panic. Pure reaction in the way she back peddles. Trying to get away. But the head board proves stronger than her backwards momentum and she comes to a very sudden–rather thudding stop. Terrified green trying to look everywhere at once, trying to rationalize where she was–what was happeni–

Red hair, far richer than her’s could ever be–even for the way the soft light from the evening lamp washes it out. Eyes greener than her own set in a long face and it’s breaths before she realizes the obvious. She’d been dreaming. It was a nightmare. And the person at her bedside wasn’t her monster, it was…

She’s practically flying forward. Arms wrapped around his neck, wedging her face between the too. Silent sobs wracking her own frame seconds later. Because whether she wants to admit it or not…she needs that physical assurance. That anchor to settle her back in the real world. To convince herself this was real and not the other place from which he’d all but yanked her free of.

               “Tell me he dunna….he dunna know where oi’am…please….”

Later she’ll know that couldn’t have made sense. Later she’ll understand how completely on the spot she’d put him. How awkward he must feel. But right now she just needs someone real to say it. Someone level to remind her, she’s safe. Someone, to just once not let her stand on her own two feet. Even if later she’ll tell him it was nothing more than a uncommonly vivid night terror…and that she apologizes for having woken him at such an unrighteous hour.

[croinagreine]

Good Morning October

It’s early and she’s already been up for a few hours. Long enough to shower, compromise with her hair fifteen times before it settled on an treaty agreement for the day, and shuffle her clothes enough to make it look like she had far more than she did. Black leggings she hadn’t paired with this particular muted orange sweater yet...or so she doesn’t think. It’s October first after all, the season is changing; and she might as well give it her own little welcome. 

Then it had been down the stairs, for a cup of coffee. Just the one to give her a stout boost to start her day, before she has to move back upstairs to wake her charges. A few more moments of sleep won’t rush their schedule, and it gives her just a few more moments to collect herself. Shifting around to the hallway door by the back stairs, to ensure she stays out of Mrs. Ravenchenko’s way. No sense making the other woman’s job any more difficult. And maybe she gets a little more lost in the changing colors outside the window near by than she should have because the next thing she knows there’s...

Sound.

Sound that’s filling the entirety of the house she’s almost sure of it. Big Band rattling her bones at volumes it was perhaps never meant to be played. And her coffee? Ends up all over her front. The burn of which is mostly ignored in the wake of other things. Other things like her usually very reserved mountain of an employer all but belting out the lyrics as two pairs of feet come pounding down the back stairs. Yell singing along as well--though maybe not as on key--as they barrel passed her. Diving for cover behind the kitchen island. Where they slide to a stop on hand and knee, peering around the corner before slipping around it out of sight. And with rather blown wide gaze the their quarry comes into view. And for an honest moment? She truly has no idea what to do with scene.

Mr. Sweeney--comfortable clothes...or well as close as the man himself gets anyway. With his not quite dress pant level slacks and buttoned shirt, with cuffs folded at the forearm. Though she supposes it has to be more comfortable than the well pressed---to the point she’s sure every fiber is stiff as a corpse and she’s often wondered which witchcraft specifically allows him movement--suit. Leaning in from the door way that had recently expelled the boys before turning on his heel. Disappearing through another door that led to the living room. Gone from her sight as quickly as he’d come into it...still singing along to the blaring music.

But what’s completely frozen her up? It isn’t the music. Isn’t the startlement of the sudden audible abrasion. Isn’t the fading scalding heat of her coffee, that’s soaked into her sweater, dripping off her face and hair...its the fact Mister Sweeney was actually smiling. And there’s something she just can’t shake that makes her believe no one’s really seen that particular expression in ages. Though the moments broken a second later because while she’d lost all control over her immediate self, Mrs. Ravenchenko had not and...

             You need towel. I get you one.

            “Th...thank...ye.”

[croinagreine]

52) things you said with my lips/teeth on your neck {Nanny}

Meme: Things PromptStatus: Open

She thought she’d been...quiet when she got up. Crept on tip toes rug fiber by wood grain into the bathroom. Where she’d closed the door painfully slow. Every cell in her body holding its breath. Because its four in the morning and he needs all the sleep he can get. Sleep that has evaded her for reasons that make her far more exhausted than she perhaps should be. Though maybe a bath will help, if only to prepare her for the day. Its going to be a long one but hopefully pleasent. She’d promised them a trip to the aquarium and then if they behaved perhaps a stop over at the boardwalk--(more importantly of course the arcade on the boardwalk but that’s besides the point).

A sigh as the water is turned on. A sound she wishes didn’t echo quite so loud in against the tile but somethings couldn’t be helped. And she’s up and across the room again. Brush lifted from by the sink to straighten out what tangles there were. And maybe she gets a little...lost in the repetition. The only excuse she can really come up with to explain how he’d so deftly snuck up on her.

The briefest of subtle starts. Green cutting upward to find his reflection in the glass before them. Settling back into the hands that frame her arms, as one of her own reach up to brush finger tips against his knuckles. A twitch of her mouth as warm breath washes over her skin. The grazing idea of teeth. Willing her stomach to untie itself from the knots that are still instinctive. He’s not going to hurt her, he’s proven that time and time and time again. Lugh is not him, and the fingers along his knuckles move northward. 

Thread themselves through strands just long enough to find a hold in if she were of the mind. But instead nails are brought to bear. Just enough pressure to tease. And the brush ends up finding a home on the counter again, a head falling a little more to one side.

            “Oi’d say oi’ dinna mean ta wake ye up but...”

Something rumbled and inaudible against her skin. That has his beard tickling nerves. That gleans a half giggled noise, and verbal tease from her.

           “Mister Sweeney...do ye kiss Her Grace with that mouth?”