#OH AND MORPH USED HIS ANIMAL EMPATHY AGAINST HIM

[the-silentium]

In Emergency Only

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Words: 2120 words

Warnings: TUA season 1 and 2 spoilers, violence, blood, sexual innuendos. 

Requested by: Anon!

Your last fic about Five was so good!!  Loved your unique twist you added and the interactions were so believable. Definitely one of my fav fics! If requests are open, could you do one of the same reader reacting to Five fighting and kicking ass, would they fight too or just hang out in the back and wait? Big fan and I love your work

A/N: Still 30 years old Five here! Same Reader and Five as in Doppelganger! Sorry for the title, I really had no idea. Oups.

The music playing in the background brought a smile to your face. You loved to learn more about different cultures and their different people dancing the Polka almost made you regret the reason of your little visit. You swore that this woman, the Handler, had Five in the middle of her palm, enraging your boyfriend to no end, but he sucked up his ego and accepted her deal to save his family. 

You followed Five through the enormous cabin. The architecture was truly beautiful, catching your eyes quite easily. You were occupied by admiring an intriguing animal carved into the wood that you didn’t see Five stopping in front of a vending machine and slammed into his side. He was quick to get a hold of your arms before you fell to the ground and hurt your behind, pulling you into his chest with a seductive smile on his kissable lips. 

“Distracted?” 

You rolled your eyes at him before pecking his lips. “I just like slamming into you.” Five’s groan made you chuckle before you turned your attention to the assortment of snacks displayed behind the glass. 

“See something you want?” Five buried his face into your neck, tickling you with his warm breath. Giggling, you pushed him away and pointed to a chocolate bar in the middle of the display. It has been a while since you last ate some, so you figured why not? You knew that you were sitting this one out, so eating would not be a problem. 

“Please?” You offered him your best puppy eyes, although you knew that it wasn't necessary. He asked you first after all. 

“Sure.” He pecked your lips one last time, turned to the machine while digging some money in his pocket and inserted the coins into the slot. He pressed the letter and number assigned to the candy and karma decided to hit you by stopping the spiral metal thing before the sweet could fall down. 

Frustrated, Five tried typing in the code again, without success. You knew that at this point in time, Five was getting pretty impatient. The last days haven’t been easy on him, especially when you almost got shot by one of the Swedes and every one of his siblings was scattered around town and not listening to him, causing Five to get irritated pretty easily. 

You grabbed his arm to calm him down when he started to push the machine and pulled him along with you to the cake further down the hallway. The only way to calm down Five was to allow him to successfully grant your wishes of eating something and the cake would do just fine. 

You quickly dipped your pointer finger into the icing, turned to him and when he opened his mouth to voice his anger you shut him up by putting your finger into his mouth. His pissed-off expression soon morphed into a cocky one when he noticed the red coloring your cheeks, proceeding to see if the color could reach your neck by sucking harder on your finger. Embarrassed by his antics, you retrieved your hand and hid your face in his chest. 

“This icing is heavenly.” He chuckled before reaching for something behind your back. “Look up.” You reluctantly did as told, dreading what you would find. Instead of being hit square in the face by a hand full of icing like you feared, a single maraschino cherry dangled between Five’s fingers, two inches away from your mouth. Instantly, your mouth started to water, the sweet ingredient had always been your favorite part of a dessert. “Open up.”

You would have blushed if it wasn’t for your excitement of eating the prized cherry. You didn’t hesitate to tilt your head and open your mouth to the incoming sweet, a delighted moan filled Five’s ears when you grabbed the fruit between your teeth and chewed.

“Now that’s a sound I like to hear.” The bliss of the cherry moment now over, your blush came back full force at his innuendo. You weren’t used to his flirty attitude, he was gone for 17 years and as young teenagers, your relationship wasn’t really oriented in that direction. You had to remind yourself that he was, in fact, 58 years old regardless of his physical appearance. 

A kiss fell on your cheek and Five let go of you to make his way to the fire axe on the opposite wall. 

“Do you think preventing the end of the world is enough of an emergency?” 

You smiled at his question and nodded once in approbation. “Definitely.” 

He winked at you before grabbing the axe with both hands and walked into the room. He passed in front of you and you took care of closing the door after yourself, this time your job was to keep watch and stop anyone from entering the room. Because it was the Commission’s board that was targeted, Five had thought it wise to take the matter into his own hands and keep you out of it. 

You weren’t against it, the memory of the barrel of an automatic rifle pressed at the back of your head was still pretty vivid and every time you thought about it you had goosebumps. In other circumstances, you were sure that you would have participated in some kind of way. Maybe with a knife or something, the fire axe was definitely out of your mental capacity. 

You had helped Five in some of his fights before. Not every fight, but some of them. You were impressed by the amount of bloody fighting your boyfriend could be engaged in and were truly amazed that every time he would get out almost without a scratch. 

Back at Griddy’s, you had to hide behind the counter where Five teleported you and wait until he had neutralized every armed guy in the room. You knew how to defend yourself, having followed some training with the Hargreeves when you were kids, but your skills were useless when guns were involved. This was the very first time you had seen the extent of Five’s ability. Never would you have thought that his space-jumping would be that effective. 

Then there was the fight with the Swedes in the Mexican consulate. The absence of guns gave you the opportunity to land some punch to the tough Swedes hitting the shit out of your boyfriend, the perfect distraction for him to throw the white-haired out the window. You hissed out of empathy for the guy before fist-bumping with Five and space-jump outside. 

Screams erupted from the room Five recently entered. Curiously, you made your way to the open doors to assess what you were sure was a gory scene. In the 2 seconds it took you to reach the doors, Five had already neutralized 4 of the board members and was quickly axing his way further into the room. You’ve never feared blood, your uncle had a butcher shop and you helped sometimes to put the meat into packages, nothing too dangerous, and while you helped you had seen the carcass of different animals being emptied from their organs so you were certain that you could handle whatever was happening in the next room. 

A blue spot flashed before your eyes and Five appeared at the same time a man hit a wall and fell down with a lamp. You rolled your eyes when Five took the time to take a sip from a glass, the next thing you knew a guy was hanging from the ceiling and three more board members were dead in a pool of blood. As much as you hated the view of dismembered bodies, you had to admit that Five was pretty efficient in his work. You managed to make eye contact with your boyfriend when he stopped for a second behind the last Commissioner, Five shooed you with one hand so you obeyed. If he thought that you couldn’t handle it, then you couldn’t. End of story. You had to admit that the sound of the axe hitting the bones was pretty disturbing, the sound occasionally made you shiver in disgust. 

You had your back pressed to the closed doors separating the bloody scene worthy of a horror movie and the welcoming Polka party, patiently waiting for your boyfriend to return victorious when a man with a fish tank as head stopped running when he saw you. If possible, you were as stunned as he was. You weren’t prepared to face a non-human person and he clearly wasn't prepared to see someone guarding the exit. 

However, he was faster than you to regain his senses and try to push past you. His sudden movements made you jump, his hands were almost on your arm when Five appeared in front of you and pushed the weird robot-man-fish away from you. 

“Surely we can come to some form of agreement that benefits both parties.” Your eyes widen at the voice, not expecting the fish to be able to talk. You tilted your head to the side so that you were able to see over Five’s shoulder and take a second look at the panicking talking goldfish. “Quid pro quo? What do you say?” Oh. His hope was cute. 

“Why not? Here’s your quid.” Five hit the human body’s leg with what you noted wasn’t the fire axe but something that looked like a cricket bat. “Here’s your pro.” He hit him again on the opposite leg. “Here’s your quo.” Five charged his hit as much as he could without hitting you with the bat, the fish’s pleas reaching your ears, then Five smashed the tank as hard as he could. The glass exploded, water got everywhere, the body fell to the ground in a thud and the goldfish dropped to the ground. 

As Five took a deep breath, you carefully stroked his back in a soothing manner before crouching to retrieve the gasping fish. You already had a bag ready for it, looking around you found a vase proudly showing off its beautiful purple flowers. You disposed of the flowers and poured the vase’s water into your plastic bag. Turning around you met your boyfriend with the fish’s tail trapped between his fingers, its head facing the ground. Hurriedly, you made your way toward them as you felt bad for the little thing convulsing out of the water.

“Poor little fishy! Put it quickly in the water!” You couldn’t help yourself and enveloped Five’s hand with the bag so the fish could be in his appropriate environment. 

“It’s far from being a ‘poor little fishy’ you know? It planned for the apocalypse to happen and ordered hundreds of people’s death.” He said letting go of the fish’s tail. 

You closed the bag so it wouldn’t escape and smiled sheepishly. “I guess I still can’t accept that a fish can talk. Or be at the head of an organization of killers.” You brought the bag at eye level to analyze the goldfish closer and sure enough, the fish was staring right at you. “I guess it does seem intelligent-” You paused as the fish nodded at your words. You controlled your surprise and smiled sweetly at him. “Can we name him sushi?”

The fish started to swim in circles, hitting the bag from time to time making you laugh at his apparent anger. A hand got a hold of the bag, taking the little burden out of your hands. At this moment you noticed that Five’s eyes were dull, their bright spark gone with every life he took. Worry etched your features, you reached for his empty hand and squeezed lightly hoping to give him some sort of comfort. He shot a small smile your way despite his eyes still being emotionless. 

Your heart broke for him, all this time he was forced to kill against his will and it ate at his soul. Oh how you wished you had a special ability like him and had the capacity to remove all of the darkness hurting his mind. Without warning, Five pulled you to his chest and jumped to an alley. The unexpected spacial-travel made you dizzy for a few seconds. You had done it enough time before to be used to it and be spared of the once usual wave of nausea following a jump. 

You knew that the Handler would come here sooner than later, so you engulfed your boyfriend in a hug regardless of the blood covering his clothes. Deposing a light kiss on his less stained cheek, you smiled lovingly at him. 

“It’s almost over. Then we’ll be only the two of us.” 

His forehead met yours and a sincere smile stretched his lips. “I can’t wait.”

[marshmallowprotection]

:3

Yeah its always fun to push characters to their limits hehe >w> as for rigby... well, i cant think of an in-battle scenario off the top of my head, but just in general if someone triggered her, she just panics. Lashes out. Has accidentally hurt Ryder before because she used her powers against him by accident, which then morphed into an occasional fear, then seeped into her nightmares, until it became one of her major anxieties.

Don't touch her. She's terrified of accidentally hurting someone she cares about simply because they put their hand on her shoulder when she was on edge.

Sometimes, when she's at ease, and depending on who she is with, that will slip to the back of her mind and she wont care about a bit of contact here and there. And the only person she lets hug her is her brother -- when she's relaxed. And she still gets a little nervous about it, but she wants him to be comfortable and happy, especially when he pulls back and gives her smile and praises her on her improvements, even the smallest things (she acts like she hates it but its clear that shes a flustered, confused mess whenever he does that).

She loves seeing him smile. In her own words, she's almost obsessed with the expressions he makes, from an artist's/photographer's pov (she's both). He is her favourite thing to photograph. She loves how gentle he is -- a stark contrast to herself. It kind of bothers her that he looks up to her, because she doesn't really see herself as a good person, but she also loves it at the same time.

Honestly, who doesn't love Vasyl. Like, I want him to be my brother. He's such a sweetheart, LOVES animals, like he'll bring in injured birds off the streets, nurse them back to health and set them free again. He'd adopt every cat if he could.

Depsite his gentleness, he's still quite energetic, but it's a sort of calmer energy; it's not overwhelming, I mean. But his gentle demeanor and his love for nature and his general timidity... hdbdjdvsj he's so soft i love him.

That's one thing I think Rigby and Saeyoung could bond on -- that protectiveness, that intense love for their younger brothers, that self-sacrificing nature that kicks in.

[417]

Oh yeah, most definitely.

I think that's the most fun you can have, when you put a piece of yourself into a character as well as find out what intrigues you the most pfyen about characters that aren't quite like you that you create. You definitely started with what you knew but you branched out and made something more than that. Like, you know you've made a good character when you know that you would be friends with them. That's just my only opinion on the matter, though.

Devoted and very dedicated to the people they care about, these two sound like the "same hat" meme. Though, it is hard to confront yourself through another person's so I'd imagine that they would both vehemently deny being similar to one another until their backs are against the wall and they have no choice but to admit it.

Saeyoung can admire someone who is selfless to the point of sacrifice. That's something that he just knows like the back of his hand. Can't say he would be happy about it in the ones he loves the most, it turns into a game of "I'LL DIE FOR YOU. NO. I'LL DIE FOR YOU." Intense but hilarious to see.

Her brother sounds really sweet. He clearly has a lot of empathy and he wants to care for everyone and anything. That does put him at risk if he is a bit too oblivious and happy to run into the fire for another person or animal. I do admire it, to be honest. I'm like that. Saeran would relate to that as well. Though, he's just soft for people with gentle hearts.

Opposites in many ways, but like yin and yang. They complete each other! I love family units like that. Who doesn't?

This boy is holding back his feral sister because she cares too much. God, it's like Edward and Alphonse Elric.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

The Seal Lullaby: Chapter 6

Cannot believe I’ve been writing this for six weeks

This one is very, very angsty, so consider this your warning. As always, a huge huge thanks to @minky-for-short @childofdustandashes @oversaturated-ocean @purearcticfire and @lookatvanessasface

I’ve met so many lovely, lovely people through posting and writing this fic and I love you all, @brainypaperbullets @hollywoodx4 @arya-durin-51 and the ever complimentary @kilocurican

I really hope you guys like this

“See? I told you he’d have your eyes.”

“Damn. Thought fate would have given the poor kid a break after he got my nose too.”

“Oh, shut up! It looks so sweet, don’t give the little guy a complex.”

“Yeah well, he’s been saved, he’s got your face. Handsome devil.”

“I’d be slightly more worried about the fact he’s got your appetite. And your sleep schedule. And your blabbermouth.”

“God help us all.”

Alex and Eliza loved to play this game, in the early mornings or late evenings or whatever time they found themselves lying side by side on their bed with little Philip on his back and encircled by his parents’ bodies. The conventions of normal time, words like breakfast and noon and dinner and bedtime, had kind of blurred into meaningless ever since they’d had their baby. To the point where Eliza had found Alex putting a pizza in the oven (he’d been given his kitchen privileges back and was actually turning into a very good cook) at two in the morning and had thought nothing of it. It was kind of fun, actually, to not have any ties to structure or schedule, to just float in their own little bubble, them and their little treasure, beholden to nothing and no one but themselves.

“I don’t quite know where these came from though,” Eliza hummed, gently ruffling Philip’s head of tight, dark brown curls that stuck up after a good night’s sleep and after he’d been doing his favourite activity of rolling around on the floor of his father’s writing room while he worked, and bounced adorably when he got excited or happy or fidgety. Right now, they were fluffed up around his sweet, attentive face as he yawned and fought against his impending nap, to not much avail. But he had his mama and pops right by him, he was warm and smelling all soft and soapy from his recent bath, the room was illuminated with the orange glow that was only ever found in the early evening as day slipped to night. He wasn’t fighting too hard, it was mostly for show.

“I do,” Alex murmured after a few moment’s pause, his eyes fixed on his wife’s fingers gently combing through their baby’s curls in such a gentle and protective gesture.

His guard was down, the simple warmth of the moment pulled the words from where they were living in some sleeping part of his heart and out from between his teeth.

There was weight to his answer, it was obvious and Eliza was careful in asking for more.

“You do?” she breathed quietly, her eyes flickering up to him and back down again, making it clear that he didn’t have to go any further if this is a part of his past he’d decided he doesn’t want to let go of just yet. She never wanted to feel like she was dragging anything out of him.

But, as it happened, Alex gave it freely, perhaps after an increasingly sleepy Philip reached up and took hold of his father’s finger as it hovered over him, clutching at him for a little comfort as he drifted. That gave Alex the gentle little shove he needed.

“My mother’s hair was like that,” he whispered into the heavy curtain of sundown draped across the room, “She had curls exactly like that. I guess they skip a generation.”

Eliza tried not to show too much of the bolt of surprise that went through her at Alex’s whispered explanation. She tried.

But Alex only gave her a wry little smile, he couldn’t exactly blame her for being shocked.

“You…you saw your mother in her human form?”

Alex didn’t look at her, his eyes were fixed on some point above her head though she had a feeling it wasn’t the wall hanging he was seeing, the one she’d been spending her lazy early motherhood days crocheting, when she wasn’t making little Pip new cardigans and hats and socks (he got them dirty very easily, he was a big fan of knocking things over onto himself and whichever of his parents or aunts were in reach; he was making quite a sport of it).

No, something every different, something from far away and another time was reflected in his dark pupils.

“I did,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, barely seeming to notice as Philip began to lazily gnaw on his finger, “She was a human for a while actually. Two, maybe three years. I-I don’t keep time so well when I’m…”

The slightly panicked gasping that overtook his voice, stealing the end of his sentence, terrified Eliza and she scrambled to bring him back, cursing herself for ruining their perfect evening by pushing for information.

“Baby, it’s okay, you don’t have to…sweetie, please, deep breaths.”

Alex followed her direction, shaking his head. Even Philip started to cheep softly, his little face mirroring his mother’s concern in a kind of way. He slobbered on his father’s finger even more, mewling around it, like that was his way of helping.

“No, it’s okay, it’s just been a while since I thought about this,” Alex’s eyes grew more far away but his breathing eased and he regained his voice, “It’s kind of…um, the memories aren’t so good? Like they’re…damaged. I guess because I was young and…different brain, kind of.”

Eliza shifted closer to Alex, one of her legs snaking around his, bridging the gap between them in a simple gesture but, in the language of their marriage, it meant a lot.

A shadow cast itself over her husband’s face but it was the brush of her thigh on his and the gentle babbling of Pip, a noise that was quickly becoming a welcome part of the background of their lives, it was these that helped him keep talking.

“I was only small, maybe nine? Ten?” he looked like he was really struggling to drag the correct facts out of the fog in his brain, like there really was some wall dividing his life now and his life then that he couldn’t quite reach over to see what was real, like all he had were the snatches of past conversations he could overhear. Or not a wall, not exactly. A surface of thick, muffling water.

“Small, anyhow. And it was one of the worst winters I think we’d ever seen. Had to travel too far to get too little food, it was freezing, storms…”

Eliza shivered, he said it so matter-of-factly, like such suffering was just a factor of whatever life he’d been living. She tried to imagine having to carry her son through an existence like that, knowing that they were surrounded by so many potential slips and stumbles and staggers that would just take her baby from her. Just like that. Without a thought. Just another casualty of nature.

“What was her name?” she found herself asking, wanting to have a way to think of this woman she was feeling such heavy, constricting empathy for.

“Rachel,” Alex’s mouth seemed to struggle with the shape of the word. Like it had more meaning than he could really cope with.

“Rachel,” Eliza bore the burden of the name with him, slipping under it with an easier, more awed tone, to help him hold it up.

Alex nodded, “And she…we ended up somewhere near the coast of South America, we’d used pretty much the last of our strength to get us to warmer waters. I remember…” his expression tightened, the sour memories bleeding across his tongue, “I can remember feeling her ribs poking through her fur while I slept against her.”

Eliza blinked, absorbing that awful image of a child having to watch his mother wasting away. She didn’t need Alex to tell her that his younger self had felt those hard bones press into his back, harsh and uncomfortable, but nowhere near as much so as the knowledge that the bones were likely there because his mother was giving him most of her share as well as his own.

Another thought surfaced, along the back of that one. She remembered the way Alex always seemed to glory in the fullness of her body, kneading where her thighs and hips and calves curved outwards, feeling the softness there as they made love with a kind of rapture. All the parts of her that made her cringe when she caught sight of them in the shower, in the fogged-up mirror as she changed, Alex would bury his face against them and murmur how beautiful they were, how gorgeous, like they were his favourite parts of her. She’d blush and smile and cling to every word.

And now Eliza was starting to understand a little more.

“So,” Alex went on, his usually animated and bouncing voice, a thread of a million tones and inflections, now flat and quiet like he was recounting one of the uncomfortable and grim parts of history not taught in schools, “She decided that the best way, the only way was to shed her skin and get some food from in town, steal or beg or charity or…whatever, I don’t know. All she knew was that there was no food in the sea, so she had to look elsewhere.”

Eliza nodded, assuring him that she was still listening even when she didn’t know quite what to say. Even Philip’s murmuring quietened, like he was listening to his daddy’s story.

“She made me the best nest she could in a small crag in the rocks near the shore. She told me to wait there and she would come back after no more than two night falls. She was only going into the local town, not far. She…she promised.” His voice wavered and caught on some snag. Like a child still feeling the sting of a broken promise from someone they trusted.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza bit her lower lip, feeling his pain passed like an electric charge from his skin to her own.

“A man saw her. He took her skin,” Alex now looked angry, the shadow morphing into something more like a storm cloud, “Just like in the stories, he took her skin…”

It was obvious in the way he spoke that what this man did was on a level almost unspeakable, a bitter and vicious crime that shouldn’t even occur to the mind of someone sentient and respectable, let alone happen. Eliza felt a small click in the base of her brain, two pieces of information snapping together. This happened in the legends she’d read about Selkies, before she’d known they were true. They all spoke of Selkie ladies held prisoner on land by lecherous men who locked their magic pelts away, like ripping the very heart out of them, stranding them in a land where they didn’t belong all for the sake of some twisted and warped idea of love that was actually possession in a cruel disguise.

“Oh no,” she murmured, a hand flying to her mouth.

Alex looked like a man tasting acid, “That…that fucker held her prisoner for so long, she tried to many times to escape but he’d always catch her and…hurt her. When she finally made it back to me, she was covered in bruises and her teeth, he’d knocked out her teeth, Eliza…”

Tears were stinging her eyelids, she didn’t want to weep openly in case she scared little Pip but God, this was hard to hear.

“I’d given up hope of ever seeing her again,” Alex seemed unable to stop, even now as his voice cracked and wobbled, “I waited and waited but she never…she never came, I was so close to starving…I have no idea how I survived, fighting I guess, scavenging off gulls. I stayed near the coastline because I kept hoping, even after so long I’d lost count.”

Eliza closed her eyes, heart hammering, not sure how much more she could stand to listen to.

“But then one day she did come back,” his eyes settled, just a little, “Like she’d promised but…everything was different. We were both covered in scars, she was never the same, I was never the same. It changed everything.”

“Oh,” Eliza mumbled, her voice thick.

“We never went near another human place after that. Every time she heard anything that even sounded like his voice, she panicked and we had to move. Mama always thought he’d keep looking for her, wherever we went. We stuck to the open water. She thought we were safe there until…”

Eliza didn’t want to ask him for more but she knew she had to. This was a wound she needed to leech, it had been festering for too long, she could tell. After this, she could help him stitch it up and things would get better.

“Until what?” she whispered.

“Until the boat,” Alex answered, his voice clipped, “We didn’t know they’d extended their fishing route so far, we thought we were out of there way but one day there they were. It was me they caught, the net was like barbed wire, it made me bleed.”

A cold and sharp realisation lanced through Eliza, “Is that…?” A shaky hand reached out, gently indicating the white, faded line of an old scar that had bisected her Alex’s right eye for as long as she’d known him. She had no idea what forged the connection in her mind, that scar had always just been one feature of many, part of the landscape of the face of the man she loved. She’d never given it much thought but she saw it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, she knew before Alex gave his sad, quiet nod of answer.

Eliza made a small, strangled noise, reaching out and running his finger carefully along the line of the scar tenderly, like she could brush it and the horrible trauma it represented away. Or, if not that, at least reassure him that now it was nothing more than a healed mark, something she loved.

“They wanted my pelt,” Alex shuddered, feeling like he was working his thumb against a scab that held nothing but endless beads of blood underneath, “They wanted to rip it off me, hang it from some wall, throw it on the floor just because it was beautiful and it was mine and they wanted it. Humans are always like that just taking for the sake of taking.” His voice snapped and Eliza winced.

“But mama, she vaulted over the side of the boat after me, she attacked the one who was holding the knife to my neck, she bit and she clawed at them, half out of her own skin…I’ve never heard screams like that…I thought for a moment she could win but…”

His bottom lip was now shaking so hard his words were almost nonsense but it was almost like Eliza could hear them in her own mind, past his hitching breaths.

“I went over the side, someone’s boot in my ribs. I couldn’t swim for a while, I just sank. And when I got my mind back, the boat was gone. And…”

The end of the sentence didn’t seem to be coming, Eliza moved to hold him and reassure him that it was okay, he didn’t need to say it. But then the words broke free in such a broken, distraught gasp that gave way to tears like a cave crumbling in on itself that Eliza couldn’t move.

“And there wasn’t even enough left of her pelt for me to keep.”

Eliza tried not to disturb Philip as she climbed over to Alex’s side of the bed. Fortunately, the little baby had nodded off during Alex’s story, curled up hugging the pillow that smelled of his mama. Eliza couldn’t help but pray that he’d nodded off before the end of Alex’s story. One of the good intentions that paved the way to hell, perhaps, but she couldn’t help but hope. Part of motherhood, she was realising, was clinging to every single second where she could continue to protect her son from most of the world, whether that was the right decision or not.

For more than a few moments, Eliza was terrified that Alex had slipped away too far for her to reach but after a few minutes of stroking his hair and murmuring through her own tears that he was safe, his memories where just that, past pain that could hurt but not finish him, he was back to himself. The tears eventually ran out, the trembling stopped and he was left just clinging to his wife and taking deep, shaking breaths. But he was here.

“Oh Alex, baby, I’m so, so sorry,” Eliza whispered, the words sounding so painfully weak and watery, powerless against the scars he carried.

“No,” he murmured, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes to try and take the sting of drying tears away, “No, I n-needed to tell you…t-tell someone…been holding onto that for too long.”

Eliza sighed gently, climbing off him carefully and taking his hands, drawing him over to the window seat, the one she’d purposefully piled high with blankets and cushions so Alex could perch there on the nights he couldn’t sleep so he could watch the sea rolling and thrumming its endless rhythm out on the beach. That never failed to calm him down. And it worked now, he sighed with all the relief of a man seeing the calm, still skies beyond the storm clouds, pulling his knees to his chest and letting the panicked energy run out of his eyes like watercolours, forehead resting against the slightly warped glass. Eliza sat across from him, her legs filling the spaces his left, her expression loving and heartbroken and worried all at once.

Words weren’t necessary for a while, the mostly silent room broken up only by the quiet snuffling of their baby son, blissfully asleep and unaware, the near constant rattling of the cottage’s old pipes that they barely even registered anymore and the muffled voice of the sea, that all said more than either of them could. Somewhere in the middle of it, Alex’s hand found Eliza’s and after five minutes had still not relaxed or let go.

“I’m glad,” his voice was quiet and crackling but Eliza heard it.

“Oh?” she blinked at him through the gloom, only just realising that the sunset had shifted into night while they’d been distracted. Their bedroom was suddenly very dark, the moonlight the only thing that sliced through the shadows.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, finally tearing his gaze away from the sea and back to her, “I’m really glad he has her hair. I wouldn’t want her to be forgotten, I want…I want some part of her to still be here.”

Eliza could understand, she gave him a proud, small smile, squeezing his hand and nodding.

“She gave her life for me, I can’t try and forget her. It’s just not fair, the way I tried to push it all away,” he shook his head, guilt straining the edges of his mouth and eyes.  

“Alex, no,” Eliza moved forward, “Baby, don’t think like that. Look at everything you’ve done; how much you’ve made of the life she gave you. She would be so, so proud.”

Alex looked hopeful but uncertain, “Really?”

Eliza nodded, firm, “I know it.”

He pressed his lips together and looked over to where their son slept, curled up in the middle of the vastness of their bed, snoring in perfect contentment. He looked back to Eliza, his sweet, beautiful Eliza who’d given him her heart.

His family. Small and a little strange but his.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, talking more to himself than anyone else, “Yeah, I think she would be proud of me.”

-

Watching Philip grow was a wonder.

Sometimes Eliza would be leaning against the counter in the kitchen, a quiet moment at the beginning of the day or the end, seemingly always with the sun half covered by the horizon in some respect but no less warming. She’d be feeding Philip, something she always loved doing, holding him so close to her skin and having his hungry little snuffling against her and his hand tracing the line of her collarbone as if for comfort. And she’d think how big he was getting, how his eyes seemed so aware and intelligent as he took in everything around him. She’d notice how he was a little heavier than the last time he fed, a little longer in her arms, his hair a little wilder, actually brushing his eyebrows. Her little man, her little ray of sunshine was growing up.

And didn’t that just break her heart in the best way.

Pip took his first steps a week or so into his sixth month. He woke up one lazy Saturday morning in his mama’s arms, exactly where he loved to be when he first opened his eyes, but where was Pops? Mama explained, through a yawn as she rolled over and hid from the truth of the alarm clock in her nest of blankets, that Pops was taking a shower after his morning run along the beach and would be back in just a few minutes. Pip could tell she was right, he could hear his Pops singing that song from the mermaid film he loved so much, the one the funny red crab sang. That was Pops’ bath time song. But Philip wasn’t great at waiting, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Eliza had dozed off within a minute though Alex’s cry of surprise definitely woke her up, he reached a pretty damn high volume. Apparently, Philip had taken it upon himself to stumble on over to the bathroom himself, wanting to see his daddy now, not realising that Alex was going to hit the roof when there was suddenly another, babbling, quiet little voice singing Under the Sea along with him.

It was Philip’s turn to be confused when Mama and Pops suddenly started crying and laughing and hugging him.

Not that he minded of course.

 His first word was a little debatable, on whether you thought animal noises constituted a word. A favourite nickname of Alex’s for his son was his ‘little lion cub’. Probably because he was noise, probably because of his fluffy mane-like cloud of hair, probably because most nights he could be found sat on his father’s lap while Alex read one of the many books he treasured all the more for their tattered edges and scuffed leather covers, his favourites being the ones about flora and fauna from far off places he’d never been to. One of their best games, the one that made Eliza laugh the most as she watched them fondly from the wingback she always sat in to sew, was Pip poking at the illustrations on the page with a pudgy finger and Alex dutifully, enthusiastically, imitating the noise it made. And Philip’s very favourite, the one he chose to point at most often out of all the meticulous, hand sketched plates Alex liked to imagine had been done by some glasses wearing, lined faced scholar while tropical storms battered the canvas of their tent, was the roaring, almost regal looking lion. More often than any other, he’d be chuckling so hard and beaming so wide that he nearly fell to the floor as his Pops hooked his fingers into paws and bared his teeth, snarling fit to beat the big old lion that came on sometimes before the movie started, with the swelling music, and made Pip jump.

So really, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise on the afternoon that Alex scooped Philip up from the floor, where he was building the biggest tower of blocks he could possibly make, simply for the pleasure of knocking it down again, explaining that it was time for lunch.

“Come on,” Alex smiled gently, trying not to laugh at Philip’s crinkled, cloudy little face at having his game interrupted, kissing at his nose until he was smiling again, “You must be hungry by now, my little lion cub.”

Pip blinked, his face breaking into one of his sunny smiles, the ones that stretched nearly the whole width of his face and turned his eyes into sparkling dark chips of opal. He lifted his hands and crooked them into claws and pulled his lips back from his teeth, more than a few gaps between them, and gave a loud growl.

“Rrrrrrrrrrawr!”

Alex nearly dropped him he was so surprised but seconds after that he started laughing, utterly delighted, heart pounding with the realisation that the very purpose of his son’s first words had been to make him laugh. Eliza got a demonstration as soon as she came home from work, swinging him around in her arms and peppering his cheeks with so many kisses that there were plum coloured lipstick marks over nearly every part of his face and he was giggling breathlessly.

After that the words came thick and fast, ‘mama’ and ‘pops’ in almost the same breath, ‘birdie’ for the rather tuneless coughing of the gulls outside his bedroom window, ‘sticky’ for the way the sand clung to his little starfish hands when he’d eagerly bury them in the ground on his and Pops’ morning walks, ‘Legs’ for the stuffed giraffe he’d been given the day he was born and remained his most treasured toy right up until he was sixteen and still kept him on his bedside table, huffing if anyone dared move him.

That was like the floodgates opening. After that, it felt like Pip grew several inches every single day, he got everywhere on his own two legs, he started wearing little woolly jumpers and cord trousers rather than his onesies and dungarees, he chattered away in full sentences. And every single day that passed Eliza and Alex only grew more in love with him, their little boy who had been such a surprise but now they weren’t sure how they’d ever lived without him.

To the two of them, it was honestly a bit of a surprise that it took until one night a few weeks after Philip’s first birthday, when Alex and Eliza were cooking dinner, moving around each other and their tiny kitchen in a complex, polyrhythmic dance that they were well practised in, though always taking a few moments’ break to watch Philip plod around the garden in his brand new rain boots, peering into the dew soaked clumps of grass for snails with broken shells or bits missing in some way or another that he could carefully pick up and carry back to the waiting bucket full of leaves and soil, with the words ‘Snail Hospital’ carefully printed on one side in Eliza’s neat penmanship.

Alex made a small, fond noise of surprise as he found Eliza’s arms wrapping around his middle, her forehead pressed to the space between the blades of his shoulders. He had a feeling he knew why, she’d been watching their son with an expression close to happy tears for a while now.

“Hey,” she murmured, her breath warm on his ever-chill skin.

“Hello there,” Alex smiled back, not picking the knife he’d been slicing mushrooms with back up again, getting the sense that she wanted his attention.

He could almost feel her smile against his back. Her hands went wandering, sliding down to follow the narrow valley of his hips, sending warmth forking through his muscles wherever her hands brushed. That warmth had potential, he could feel it clear and acknowledged as hairs standing on end.

“I can hear you thinking,” he hummed, tone light and conversational, his own smile growing.

“I might be,” Eliza replied in the same voice.

“Well, are you gonna share?” he chuckles, “Cos I’ve got to get these in the rice or they won’t cook in time. So, y’know, talk or let me earn my keep.”

Eliza chose to duck under his self-deprecating humour, putting a slight shift in her body, some trick of the magnetism that ran between the two of them to compel him to lift his eyes to their little Philip, his head now entirely lost inside a clod of ammophila, nothing but his back half showing as he risked life and limb to rescue a slug that had become stuck upside down.

“Alexander?” Eliza murmured, kissing his back gently.

“Yeah, honey?”

“What would you say to having another one of those things?” she whispered.

There was a moment of confusion in Alex’s mind, before they watched Pip’s head reappear from the grass, soaking wet and with clumps of mud in his curls but the satisfied smile of a job well done, and he realised what she meant.

He felt all of the breath leave him, like it had been knocked out of him by her words alone. All he could do was find her hands with his own, wrapping their fingers together and squeezing tight, blinking back tears.

Eliza grinned, holding his hands back just as tight. She had her answer in the way she heard his breath catch and his teeth snag his lower lip and his eyelids flutter. She knew what he’d say before he made his emotion laden tongue work.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, “I’d be up for that.”

It could be said, after that evening, in the years following their quiet conversation in the kitchen, Alex and Eliza became a little addicted.