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nyx-knacks-writes · 8 hours ago

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Be More Careful, Okay?

Based off of @princeloww's idea of Alec and Campbell being uncle and nephew. I think Alec is a tad out of character here, but I saw this prompt by @prompt-dealer and had an image of Campbell being chased by an angry Alec, and I couldn't resist. No spoilers for either Broadchurch or Takin' Over the Asylum, and none for princeloww's The Never-Ending Sky, either. This is just my little idea of something that could occur if Campbell were to end up in Alec's care. I take zero credit for the idea of Campbell and Alec living together and zero credit for the prompt.

“I’m too young to die!”

“Young ain’t got nothin’ to do with it!”

Alec chased Campbell around the house, literally around the outside of the house, yelling obscenities and threatening—well, Campbell didn’t exactly know what he was threatening, but chances were high that it wasn’t good. Nature of a threat, after all.

Truth be told, Alec also didn’t know what he was threatening. He’d figure that out later. However, he did know that Campbell was in deep trouble. Trouble so deep that he wasn’t exactly sure how to punish the boy. Especially given that Campbell wasn’t even his son. So round and round they went, both yelling and trying not to slip on wet grass that would surely yank their feet out from under them at the first opportunity, causing an impromptu meeting with the cold, wet, muddy ground.

The first offense had been the shirts. Campbell had had good intentions, really. He’d come home early from school on Monday, seen that the bathroom laundry hamper was full, and decided he’d do a load of washing to help his uncle. What a lovely nephew he was, right? Right? Wrong. Despite his best efforts to sort the colored clothing from the whites and the darks, he’d missed a pair of socks. A pair of red socks. A pair of brand-new red socks the exact color of a freshly washed fire engine gleaming in the summer sun. The shirts had come out pink. Oops. When Alec finally got to see the result of his nephew’s good intentions, he’d simply sighed and shaken his head. No sense in getting mad. He could probably do with some new shirts anyway. He’d donate the pink ones to a charity shop in town. Yeah, yeah, “real men wear pink” and all that, but what was he supposed to do? Like it or not, pink was still very much thought of as a feminine color. He could only imagine the abuse he’d suffer at the hands of his coworkers if he came in wearing a pink shirt. Big, bad DI Hardy in pink? Unthinkable. So he’d donated the old shirts, added a shopping trip to his weekend plans, and obtained the new white shirts that he preferred. A little hit to the wallet, but ultimately, no lasting harm done.

The second offense had been the soup. After the Sandbrook case had finally been solved and closed, Miller had insisted Alec start taking better care of himself and get a hobby. So what did he choose but learning to cook, which would satisfy both her demands? Ever the efficient one, wasn’t he? However, some dishes required a couple of extra hands for the sake of timing, so he would recruit Daisy and/or Campbell, depending on the day and on who was around, to help him out in the kitchen. On Tuesday, he’d needed both of them. It was going to be pumpkin soup for dinner that night, since it had been so cold and rainy, and Alec had asked Campbell to add the cream, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the pot while he began pureeing vegetables a few cups at a time and Daisy helped him to avoid overloading the food processor. Four teaspoons of nutmeg would do it. However, when Alec caught sight of the little container of nutmeg on the counter after putting the soup back onto the stove to simmer, there was no teaspoon in sight. Instead, there was a tablespoon with a suspicious coating of brown powder sitting only an inch or so away.

“Campbell,” he’d asked slowly, “how much nutmeg did ye put in the soup?”

“Four tablespoons,” Campbell answered, looking up from the knife he was washing. “Why?”

Alec cursed, cut the gas, and put the soup pot on the stove’s back burner.

“Nutmeg is poisonous in high quantities,” he said. “The recipe called for four teaspoons, not tablespoons. If we eat that, we’ll end up in hospital.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, debating on chastising Campbell versus just letting it go. ‘Try to read it a bit more carefully next time, aye?” he eventually said as Campbell made a point to look anywhere else but at his uncle’s eyes. “Anyone have suggestions for dinner tonight? Looks like we’ll be doing takeaway.”

The next day, Campbell really did wind up in the hospital. Not for ignoring his uncle’s warning about the soup, but instead for a skateboard accident. It had been something of an impulse buy on Campbell’s part, and while he was getting to be rather good when it was dry, he’d not yet practiced when it was wet. He’d missed the bus to school in the morning, pondered what to do, and instead of calling a friend or his uncle or even Ellie Miller, he’d decided that the best possible way to rectify this problem was to attempt to skateboard to school and ask to leave the board in the office until the end of the day. He’d load up his backpack, throw on a rain jacket, hop on the board, and sail off into the morning light, perfectly balanced and confident that as long as he was careful, nothing would go wrong.

What actually happened was that he rolled out with all his things, made it about halfway to the building, hydroplaned on a small hill, and ate dirt. Great. One ambulance ride, a thorough wound-washing, a chunk of chin and six stitches later, he was sitting in a hospital bed as Alec chewed him out for being irresponsible and not just calling for help or walking to school instead of getting on a set of wheels that had not been properly tested for mildly inclement weather. Not that he could be too hard on the boy. His intentions (get to school without inconveniencing anyone) had been good, and the fall, given its consequences, had really been punishment enough for poor Campbell. He looked like he’d expected a bowl of cherries and gotten a cherry bomb instead: a little confused and a lot regretful. Like he was contemplating the choices in his life that had brought him to this moment.

Thursday had been blessedly normal. No blood, no pink shirts, no ruined meals. Normal ride to school, normal day, normal ride home. He didn’t even have homework for once in his school career! Maybe he was in the clear! Maybe his little bad-luck streak was over!

And then on Friday he inadvertently dyed his uncle’s hair a bright teal. What he wanted to do was put a teal streak in his own hair. It had been something he’d been thinking about for a while, and after having such a rough week, he figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try. He’d spent the afternoon in and out of the bathroom, making sure he was doing it right and not dying the whole house at the same time, and it had come out beautifully! Not a drop anywhere but in his hair, nice clean stripe, absolutely gorgeous. His one mistake? Leaving the bottle in the shower. When he’d gone to rinse out the excess dye, he’d taken the bottle into the shower with him to check the instructions for how to properly care for the freshly dyed hair. When he was all set, he’d left it there. And what did his poor, unsuspecting uncle do when he went to wash his hair later that night? He grabbed the dye bottle instead of the shampoo. And what did he see when his hair finally dried? Bright teal. Everywhere. All over his head. No missing it. Thus leading to the lovely game of ring-around-the-house. It was a little childish, yeah, but Campbell hadn’t been sure what his uncle was going to do with him when the newly teal-headed man had stormed into the living room with murder in his eyes. The options had been limited, so Campbell chose to run.

Uncle and nephew made the oval at least four times over, pushing Alec’s pacemaker to the limit, before Alec finally stopped seeing red and had the bright idea to simply wait for Campbell to come back around again. He snagged at his nephew’s hood when the opportunity presented itself and pulled the boy against his chest.

“Campbell, I . . . why?” Alec asked helplessly, wind going out of his sails. “I know ye’ve had a tough time adjusting here, but why?”

“I didnae mean to!” Campbell squawked. “I left the dye in the shower by accident, I swear!”

“I know ye didnae mean to, I’m asking ye why ye haven’t been more careful! Two out of the last five days ye’ve injured or nearly killed yerself, an’ I just want to know why!”

Alec stopped for a moment, released a breath, and let it go.

“Look, I know ye’re not happy to be here. I know nothing’s the same and ye’re not even with yer mum and da anymore. I’m worried about ye. Please, just . . . I need ye to be more careful. That’s all. That’s why I’m upset. Now please, let’s stop these Looney Tunes shenanigans an’ go back inside. It’s too cold an’ wet to be out at this time of night.”

Campbell stopped to consider that for a moment, and Alec realized what he’d said. However, the apology wasn’t halfway out of his mouth before Campbell cracked a grin.

“But I am a looney.”

“Campbell—”

“How can ye expect me no’ to engage in Looney Tunes shenanigans when I am, in fact, a looney?”

“Campbell—”

“In fact, you ought to be thankful that I don’t engage in more Looney Tunes shenanigans just to spite ye! In fact—!”

“Campbell!”

The boy in question stopped talking, but his grin didn’t fade even a little.

“Yes?”

“Inside. Please.”

And so, the pair trooped to the door in silence, neither sure what to say to the other until Campbell paused with his hand on the doorknob.

“I’ll be more careful,” he promised. “I didnae mean to worry ye, really. I’ve just had an unlucky couple of days. I’m fine.”

“Really fine?”