#aunt shirl

[bigdickdaddyneedsgoodlilcumslut]

Any girls on here like getting spun like cotton candy then sucking and fucking all night?

If dm me

[michelle-is-writing]

Christmas Love, Luke Crain

Word count: 1.4k~

When I sent Luke out to grab a few things before his siblings came over for Christmas in a few days, I didn't expect him to come home with a gingerbread house kit and only half of the groceries I sent him to get. According to him, he got “distracted” when looking for the reindeer themed sprinkles I wanted so the kids could decorate sugar cookies. When he came back with the box containing the gingerbread house in hand, I presumed he thought the house would be better for the kids, but I was wrong.

He got it for us.

"Hey, hunny," I attract his attention, taking a bag of white icing into my hand. He hums back a response, currently focused on gluing the piece of red and green candy onto the house's side with the other bag of frosting. "You do realize that this is an activity for kids, right?" I question him, "And we're fully-grown adults?"

Looking over at me, Luke smiles. "The age requirement was three-plus, so I thought we were old enough," He jokes, smirking as he continues decorating. He's so goofy sometimes.

"Yeah, I don't think you meet the age requirement up here," I joke back while tapping my skull, laughing as I feel one of the tiny candies Luke was using collide with my cheek. "Don't be mad!" I shout, watching him grin as he continues staring over at me from his seat.

"I could never be mad," He tells me, his voice all of a sudden softer as he sits back in his chair with the same smile. Sighing happily, Luke crosses his arms together against his chest as his eyes flash between me and the ongoing gingerbread house on the dining table in between us. "I'm actually quite... relieved."

"Relieved?" I ask him, now piping the gingerbread roof with frosting. "Such an odd word to use, but please, enlighten me on why you used it."

With another smile, Luke gently laughs before doing as I say. "When I was younger, every Christmas, my aunt Janet made all of us kids sit down and decorate a gingerbread house she had baked herself," Luke explains, "Usually, Nell and I would take up one side while Steve did the front, Shirl got the back, and Theo got the other side,"

"We always had fun," He added on, sighing afterward. "Soon, all of us got older, and it soon turned into me, Nell, Theo, and Shirl decorating the gingerbread house while Steve went out to be with a girl for Christmas. Then, it was just like this pattern followed all of my siblings,"

Pausing, Luke frowns. "Soon, Shirl wasn't home for Christmas, then Theo, and then..." Swallowing, he closes his eyes and shakes his head. At this point, I put down the piping bag as all of my focus is now placed on Luke and his words. "Then I wasn't home, and I was out of the house on Christmas, fucking up as usual."

"But you don't do things you used to do now, right?" I question him before he can launch himself into a world of sadness. Leaning over the table with a smile, I take his hands into mine before kissing each one. "You have fought so hard to not only try and fix your mistakes, but to be where you are, Luke, and that's all that matters," I remind him, watching as the smile slowly returns to his face. "Never forget I love you, we all love you."

Nodding, Luke takes a moment to process my words before bringing our hands up to his lips. "I love you too," He tells me, pressing a kiss to each of my hands as I had done with his moments ago. "Thank you for decorating this house with me," He tells me as I stand from my chair to walk over to his side and plop down in his lap. At this, he smiles and holds me tight before continuing. "it's just, I saw it and all I could think about was being a kid and doing it all over again."

"I had fun doing it with you," I assure him, leaning close to kiss his forehead as his hands fiddle with my oversized sweater. "You know I'd do anything for you."

"Anything?" He asks, leaning back to face me with a raised eyebrow. Staring down at his coy smile makes me squint my eyes as the corner of my lip quirks up. I know he's trying to be flirty, but he ends up just looking like a curious puppy.

"What do you want?" I ask him, gaining a laugh in return. The pleasant noise makes me grin, loving the fact that he's genuinely happy.

"There's a grocery bag somewhere in the kitchen with a tube of white sparkle icing," He informs me, "Do you think you could grab it for me so I can finish the snow? Please?"

After a few seconds of melodramatic silence, I dramatically throw myself out of Luke's lap before stomping toward the kitchen. "Fine!" I yell, smirking as Luke continues laughing behind me, still in his seat.

While in the kitchen, I search through every grocery bag, and somehow, I don't find the decorating gel anywhere. The closest thing I find is a jar of white sanding sprinkles that I asked Luke to get. Other than that, I don't see any other decorating item.

"Babe, I don't see the sparkle gel anywhere," I tell him, walking out of the kitchen as I stare down at the plastic jar of sprinkles in my hands. "All I found was the sprink..." My words are cut off a I look up from the sanding sugar and to the gingerbread house resting in the middle of the dining table.

Instead of the plain brown roof that Luke was supposed to decorate, I find it to have the words written out in frosting, "Will you marry me?" The only unusual thing is the 'O' in 'you' is replaced by a dazzling ring that's slightly embedded in the icing.

Standing beside the table is Luke, his arms behind his back as he bites his lip and lightly bounces on his toes, awaiting my answer. Awestruck, I move a hand up to my agape mouth while tears make their way to my eyes, crying out of happiness and complete shock. I don't waste another second of standing as I run to Luke and practically lunge at him, wrapping my arms around his neck as his wrap around my midsection, holding me tighter than ever before.

“Yes,” I mutter in his ear, holding my hand to his head as he leans down a bit to embrace me. “Yes, Luke, I’ll marry you,” I continue on, my voice growing hoarser with each word that passes through my lips thanks to my tears.

Pulling back in the hug, Luke reveals his face to be covered in happy tears as well, a grin takes over his mouth. "Oh, thank you," He practically sobs, moving his hands to the sides of my face as he pulls me in for a kiss. After a few seconds, he pulls away and reaches over to take the ring off of the gingerbread house, the bottom part covered in white icing.

At the sight, Luke and I both lightly laugh before I take the ring from him and swipe the frosting off, licking it off my finger afterward. I don’t miss the dazed expression that appears on Luke’s face for a second as he watches me do this, only making me smirk. "How'd you know I always wanted a frosting covered ring?" I quip, Luke taking the ring from my grasp and sliding it onto my ring finger with ease. The main jewel is a diamond, but the two around it are our birthstones, nearly causing my heart to skip a beat.

At my comment, Luke shakes his head with a small laugh before kissing me once again, his hands rising up to wipe away my fallen tears. "How in the hell did I get so lucky?" He asks, resting his forehead against mine as he encases my left hand in his over his heart, the new addition to one of the fingers pressing against his palm.

"I should be asking the same thing," I tell him, leaning in for another kiss as my eyes flash back to the dining table. I think the gingerbread house is going to become a tradition for us too, and this time, it'll stay forever.

[stobinesque]

WIP Wednesweekend: first light Focus

At this point I'm just smushing together like three different WIP Wednesday rules (though borrowing most closely from the rules I cribbed from @steves-strapcollection last week), but I was tagged by @patchworkgargoyle and @bifuriouswaterbender in other WIP Wednesday posts. I have one last Summer Challenge fic to get out the gate, and this one is beefy, so I'm going to do a poll to help focus my scene writing for the week.

The Rules

I post scenes from my final Summer Challenge fic, first light on the horizon (at the end of the world) [AKA, the Rockie Apocalypse Fic]

You all vote in the poll and send me asks requesting a snippet of the fic of your choice

For every vote a fic receives, I will commit to writing 100 words on that fic. For every ask I receive, I will commit to writing an additional 100 words. (So if one gets 10 votes, and 5 asks, that's 1500 words) [I didn't actually write much in this over the past week while focusing on firmament, so between that and the leftover words from firmament I already owe first light 2.4k words]

At the end of the weekend, I will hopefully have completed scenes for all of these

I will post a snippet of what I wrote and tag everyone who requested a snippet!

*Spicy Six where Vickie is swapped for Eddie bc our man is dead in this I am sad to say

The Snippet

this bit is from much later in the fic than the scenes above, but it's the most recent snippet of something that I have for it!

"Oh! Your hair is so different!"

Robin rubs a hand over the newly cropped length, her face screwed up with apprehension. "Yeah, I, uh—Steve did it last night. It just seemed like— I don't know, I've wanted to do it for a while and I figure people probably have more things to worry about right now than the length of my hair, right?" She laughs, nervously.

Vickie remembers her Aunt Shirl telling her how scared she was to be caught out by people when she first cropped her hair real short. Vickie’s never had to worry much, because as short as hers is it’s still got a feminine flair that her Aunt’s and now Robin’s lack. So Vickie makes sure to keep her grin wide and encouraging. Which isn’t hard, because that’s just the natural state her face wants to be in whenever she’s around Robin.

"I think it looks great!"

Robin’s eyebrows dart up in surprise, like she’d been expecting almost any reaction except that.

Tagging all enablers! (no pressure to engage or participate) @inairbinad @xenon-demon @spicysix @devondespresso @wormdebut @eriquin @theheadlessphilosopher @delta-piscium @starryeyedjanai @patchworkgargoyle @scarcrossdlvrs

[enhauntsaa]

"he's really trying you know." there's a slight defensiveness to her tone, attention seemingly more taken with the dirt that gathers on her shoes, the back and forth of a swing that creeks. from aunt janet's kitchen. shirl watches them, and they're all ten years older than every memory she has of them here, wrapped in this strange family reunion built of silences. it takes a moment before she's smiling at @cathaedra. "i think it'll stick this time. luke really wants it to stick."

[r-nicole07092004]

747A FEBRUARY 9, 2023, I DIDN'T SEE MY LAST HYPNOSIS!! I AM IN CONFERENCE WITH THE MALES AND FEMALES PRETENDING TO BE MY MOTHER AND BROTHER AND THEIR RAPISTS CHILDREN AND GRAND CHILDREN!!

I DIDN'T GO TO THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS OPERATING THE BABY RING SON,NEPHEW,COUSIN OF SERIAL RAPISTS,CHILD MOLESTERS GUILTY OF RAPING ME BEGINNING IN 1969 AND ALLOWED TO STEAL OUR MONEY AND KEEP MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF VICTIMS WITH COHORTS,ALSO GUILTY OF RAPING EVERY MCGRIFF 26301, DAVIDSON,MILLER,SANDERS,I AND OUR SIBLINGS FOR REPRODUCTION

ALL MY SIRNIKS ARE ENSLAVED BY THE SERIAL RAPISTS,SERIAL MURDERERS OPERATING THE BABY RING WITH CHERYL MCDONALD,TASJA OWEN, LISA JOSEPH (HER CHIPS WERE NOT REMOVED)SAVITRA MILLER, THE TEST TUBE CHILDREN ,1/2 BREED REPRODUCTION MIXED TWICE,OF MCGRIFF 26301,DAVIDSON,MILLER,SANDERS,THE MALES AND FEMALES PRETENDING TO BE MY MOTHER AND BROTHER,ARE VIEWING THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILDREN AND SEAN MITCHELL RAPE A RAPE VICTIM BEGINNING IN 1969,

THE U.S. PRESIDENTS ARE STATING,I BELONG WITH THE TERRORISTS,I BETTER ACCEPT THE TERRORISTS CHILDREN,OR ALL MY SIRNIKS,MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF VICTIMS WILL DIE!!

THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS OPERATING THE BABY RING ARE ENSLAVING CHILDREN AT NASHUA CHILDREN HOME IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

MY SIRNIKS ARE THE SONS OF THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS PRETENDING TO BE MY MOTHER AND BROTHER,WE WERE NEVER TRYST, WHY THE CHILDREN EXISTS,WHY THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS WERE ALLOWED TO BE AROUND THEIR RAPE VICTIM BEGINNING IN 1969 TO 2004 AND AFTER TO 2023!!?

I HEARD MY SIRNIKS CAME FROM THE REAL MCGRIFF 26301, WERE RAPED AT BIRTH, I AM NOT INVOLVED,I AM TOO HURT!! NO MONEY NO SIRNIKS,I NEVER HAD MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF VICTIMS,NOR ANY OF MY MONEY

NO SIGNIFICANT ARRESTS!! THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS SHOULD REMAINS WITH THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS!! I WOULD NEVER LEAVE THE FACE OF MCGRIFF 26301, DAVIDSON,MILLER10766 SANDERS

I WOULD NEVER COLLECT THE CHILDREN OF RAPISTS,THE RAPISTS MOTHERS THREATEN MY LIFE DAILY,WITH THE RAPISTS FROM LEFRAK CITY, SPRINGFIELD MA,VERIZON,BRUCE ARNOLD,CARL FLEETWOOD, NATHANIEL GRANTHAM

THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTING CHILDREN ARE IN HOLLYWOOD, SPORTS,ETC...AND RELATIVES, INCLUDING THEIR CHILDREN OPERATE THE BABY RING!! BETH BADONE IS A SERIAL RAPISTS TERRORISTS,CARL FLEETWOOD PONDA WILSON ETC HARMED ME AS A BABY AND NEVER STOPPED,

I NEVER HAD FAMILY!! I NEVER CONSIDERED THE FLEETWOOD,FERGUSON,ETC...MY FAMILY!! THE GATHERING ABOUT CHARACTER WERE UNNECESSARY, THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS BABY RING OPERATORS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN PRISON,THIS INCLUDES GEORGIA HALL, LISA JOSEPH, THE MALES AND FEMALES PRETENDING TO BE MY MOTHER AND BROTHER,VERIZON EMPLOYEES,MY PARENTS ALLEGE RELATIVES,MINUS I, MY PARENTS, BROTHER AND MY AUNT AND UNCLE CHESTER JACKSON,.

KAREN P HOWARD,ETC....ARE SERIAL RAPISTS,SERIAL MURDERERS,WHY NO SENTENCES TO DEATH!!? BEATRICE REDCROSS SPECIAL, SHE IS CLOSE WITH KEVIN KEMP,SURF, ALL THE SERIAL RAPISTS,SERIAL MURDERERS, WHY ARE THE SAME JUDGES AND POLITICIANS!!??

THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS ARE SLAUGHTERING MY SIRNIKS,MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF VICTIMS LIVE VIA CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 9,2023, I WAS NEVER INVOLVED,NOR AROUND THE RAPISTS TERRORISTS MIX OF MCGRIFF 26301, DAVIDSON,MILLER,NOR SANDERS WITH MY AWARENESS

WHY THE SERIAL RAPISTS TERRORISTS CHILD MOLESTERS VOCAL!!? I WAS NEVER THE COHORT OF THE SERIAL RAPISTS,THE BELLS ARE GUILTY OF HARMING US, I HEARD SHIRL BELL WAS GOD MOTHER, I NEVER SPENT TIME WITH SHIRL BELL!!

WHAT'S NEXT REAL MCGRIFF 26301, DAVIDSON,MILLER10766, SANDERS!!?

I WOULD NEVER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH SERIAL RAPISTS,SERIAL MURDERERS,I AM NOT COLLECTING ANY OF THEIR CHILDREN,NOR PAYING MONEY FOR THEIR HELL UGLY DEEDS ACROSS THE U.S. AND ABROAD!!

HOW IS THIS THE PLACE OF THE CURRENT AND FORMER PRESIDENTS!!

WE WERE TO BE AROUND REAL CIA INTELLIGENCE,I HEARD THE MEN COULD NO LONGER TRUST THE WHITE CIA INTELLIGENCE, SOMETHING WAS ALWAYS WRONG

I TRUSTED THE WHITE CIA INTELLIGENCE, I NEVER TRUSTED THE CIA INTELLIGENCE AND FBI, WITH THE RELIGIOUS POLITICAL TERRORISTS GROUPS AND THE U.S. PRESIDENTS,SENATORS, LOCAL POLITICIANS HENCHMEN AND THEIR VERSION OF CIA INTELLIGENCE AND FBI

[fiddlesolo]

CAN YOU WRITE A SHIRLEY/KEVIN FANFIC ABOUT ANYTHING PLEASE ILL SCREAM CRY THROW UP

i literally just saw this lets gooo

“Shirl—”

“Kevin, I swear, if you—”

“Ally’s hurt.”

Shirley sat up quickly, nearly bumping her head into her husband’s as she did. He rested a gentle hand against her arm. “What happened?”

“I think her arm is broken.”

She pushed the covers back quickly, pulling her nightgown over her head and pulling on the first shirt she could find. The sleeves of Kevin’s old college sweatshirt hung loose as she stepped into a pair of leggings.

“Where—”

“Theo has her. She offered to stay with Jayden.”

Shirley nodded, racing past him and down the stairs. She could hear Ally’s pitiful cries, her moans. As she stepped into the family room, her sister’s voice rang out.

“Oh, look, Ally Cat.”

Ally turned tearful eyes toward her mother, lifting her uninjured arm to reach for her. “Mama.”

“Oh, baby,” Shirley murmured, carefully lifting the toddler from Theo’s arms to cradle her against her chest. “its okay. We’re gonna get you to the doctor.”

“No shots.” She whimpered, burying her face against her mother’s neck.

Shirley rested a hand against the back of her head, letting out her own shaky breath at the feeling of Ally’s tears against her skin. “No shots, sweetie. I promise.”

When she looked at Theo, she saw the tears in her eyes too. She noticed her bare hands and her heart ached— she comforted Ally despite the pain it no doubt brought upon herself.

“Thank you.” Shirley mouthed.

The trip to the hospital went by in a blur— a tearful, frantic blur.

By the time the made it to the hospital room, Aly’s tears had subsided. She rested on her mother’s lap in the middle of the big table with the crinkly paper.

“So, what happened here, kiddo?” The doctor asked, flipping through a chart the nurse had left him.

When Ally hid her face, Kevin spoke up. He is was standing at their side, his hand resting on Shirley’s back.

“She fell coming down the stairs. She heard her aunt in the kitchen and went looking for her.”

Shirley pressed a kiss to the top of Ally’s head, watching as the girl’s tiny fingers tugged at one of Shirley’s curls only to let it go and watch it bounce.

“Were you sneaking downstairs to get some cookies from Aunt Theo?” Shirley teased.

Aly’s lips quirked slightly, fighting off her first smile of the night. “Maaaybe.”

Shirley tapped her nose lightly and looked back to the doctor.

A couple hours and one bright pink cast later, they were tucking Ally back into bed. As they stepped into their bedroom, Kevin couldn’t help but yawn.

Shirley tossed the sweatshirt aside and climbed into bed after collecting the abandoned nightgown from the floor. “Tomorrow we need to get the baby gate back out. I thought we were okay—”

“It’s not your fault.” Kevin told her, pulling the covers up over them. When she gave him a look, he shifted closer and threw his arm over her waist. After tugging her closer, he told her again. “It isn’t. It’s Theo’s.”

Shirley laughed, lifting a hand to his cheek. She ran her index finger along the stubble there. “You’re a good dad.”

“You’re a good mom.”

“I—”

“You are. We’re good parents.”

Shirley nodded but furrowed her brow. “I just— Ally getting hurt. Here in our home...”

Our perfect, forever home.

“Kids get hurt all the time, honey. Better here with us so that we can get her the help she needs.”

Shirley nodded again and then started to get up. “I need to fix the baby gate. Maybe make it taller.”

“Shirley, it can wait.” Kevin told her, guiding her back down to lay beside him. “I don’t think she’s going anywhere near the stairs again tonight.”

She hesitated but then nodded, sinking into his embrace when he held her closer.

“Get some sleep, honey. We can fix the gate and talk with Ally about the stairs in the morning.”

[waiting4inspiration]

Darkness before Dawn IX: Fear

Summary: You have another dream about the tomb, and it’s nothing like the last one. You’re attacked by a group of ghosts and Geralt takes you to Ida, who has a theory about what Kurst might be after. 

Warnings: angst, horror themes, strong language, brief violence, mentions of torture, magical elements, fluff

Word Count: 2,845

Darkness before Dawn Masterlist II The Witcher Masterlist

You’re back in the tomb.

But this isn’t the same dream as before. This time, you know it’s a dream. And this time, the tomb door is slightly open. It intrigues you, makes you take a step closer. A small step. You’re not sure if you should walk out of the tomb. You don’t even know what’s behind the door. Inside, you know you could be safe. 

Hearing a sound behind you makes your heart drop in your chest. That scratching sound. It makes a shiver creep up your spine like a spider crawling up your skin. And when you pant out, you can see your breath from the coldness. The shirl of something sharp makes your head slowly turn over your shoulder, and you find you can’t stop yourself. 

Standing behind the coffin, is the figure with the detached jaw, his fingers in slender claws, like how they were when they cut your forearm. He chuckles as you gasp in shock. And that’s when you turn to race to the open door. 

But, somehow, he beats you to it.

He’s now in the human form he recently used when he tried to attack you before letting Malla manifest. Pulling the crypt door shut, you hear it click locked as he gives you a wicked smirk. “You don’t want to know what out there, pet,” he chuckles, making your skin crawl as you back away from him. 

“I know your name,” you whisper. Bumping into the coffin behind you, your hands grip the edge as she starts to walk closer to you. “I know what the other spirits call you. Kurst,” you state, trying to sound confident when you know for a fact that you are nothing of the sort. 

And he knows it too. 

“The power of a name has no effort in your dreams, (Y/n),” he hisses, placing his hand beside yours and pinning you against the coffin. “Not when I’m in control. Your precious protective circles have no effect on you in your dreams. Which means, I can torture however I please in your dreams,” he whispers, leaning closer to your face as you lean back away from his, bending over the coffin. 

You turn your head to the side when his face comes closer to yours. “But I will wake unharmed,” you mention, gripping the edge of the coffin tighter as his lips come to your ear. His breath is ice cold, making you shiver. And when you feel a hand on the outside of your tight, you breathe out a shaky breath and try to pull away from his touch. 

He presses his body against yours, his other hand grabbing your hips making a terrified whimper leave your lips. “That’s what you think. But how many times have you felt afraid after those dreams of your mother beating the crap out of you?”

That question makes you turn your head to look at him again, panic growing in your eyes as his hand on your thigh travels up over your stomach and rests just under your breasts. “How do you know about that?” you ask, your voice small and weak. It makes his chuckle again. 

“Oh, princess. I know every deepest, darkest fear in your mind. And I know how you use it against you,” he speaks, his fingers shifting into claws again and digging into your body, breaking your skin and piercing into your lungs, making your mouth fall open in a soundless scream as he laughs darkly. 

You shoot up from the bed, breathing heavily and staring into the darkness of your room, the sunrise just peeking into your window, casting a small ray of light on the ceiling. Your hand rests on your torso, where Kurst dug his claw into you in your dream, and you realize that it is your fingers digging into your ribs. 

Pulling your hand away and wiping it over your face, you feel that you have been crying. You wipe your tears away and sniffle and you shift on the bed, falling back down and turning onto your side to try and get some more sleep. 

Your eyes flicker open for a second and you find someone else laying in front of you. Someone you don’t know. He stares you, eyes wide and never blinking. And you’re frozen with fear. His smile twists up eerily like it’s being stretched by force and he reaches for your face with a decomposing hand. 

That’s when you scream. 

You push yourself away from him, and end up falling off the bed with a hand out of the circle. A hand wraps around your wrist and something pulls you across the ground, making another shrill scream leave your lips. 

Looking around, you try to find Geralt, but all you see are dead people surrounding you, some of them touching you no matter how much you try to flinch away from them. “Geralt!” you scream, but it sounds more like a cry and you cover your face with your hands. 

Geralt was awake from the moment you shot out of bed. He was watching you closely as you stared into the darkness before falling back down and turning away from him. Thinking that you were going back to sleep, he fell back against the wall of the window seat you have, folds his arms over his chest and tries to go back to sleep himself. 

But then he heard you scream and he was on his feet in the blink of an eye. Seeing you on the ground, he was about to ask if you’re alright, but you were then pulled across the room and he grabbed his sword without having to look for it. 

You’re cowering away from something above you, meaning it will make it easier to attack whatever is there. 

He swings his sword. And instead of one shriek, he hears multiple. Word is getting out in the spirit realm about you, he thinks. 

Still, hearing multiple shrieks concerns him. He’s not sure how many ghosts there are and he never goes into a fight not sure of the numbers against him. Nevermind that he can’t see them. The best thing to do is to get you away from them.

Working as quickly as he can, he sheaths his sword again, slings it over his back before moving towards you. 

You’re too scared to look up again, fearing that you’ll see those spirits, each of them showing different ways of death - buried alive, burned alive, beheaded, whatever - reaching out for you with grabbing hands as if you’re food and they haven’t eaten in years. 

When Geralt lifts you off the ground and pulls you into his chest as he stands, you wrap your arms around his neck and hide your face in his shoulder. He turns to the door and he rushes towards it. He has to get you to Ida who can help protect you from them with a spell. 

Geralt lets you cry in his shoulder, knowing that he can’t understand what you saw until you have the strength to talk to him. 

You keep your eyes shut tightly, scared to look to see if those ghosts are still following you. Even though you can feel them behind Geralt, you can hear them whispering to themselves or calling out to you in mock or laughing at your weakness, you still keep telling yourself that if you can’t see them, they can’t hurt you. And as long as you’re in Geralt’s arms, they can’t harm you. 

Hearing him kicking on a door with his foot to knock, his hands preoccupied at the moment, you slowly turn your head to see where he’s taken you and you meet Ida’s tired, slightly irritated face. But when she sees you, that irritation and tiredness quickly fades away and she opens her door wider for Geralt to walk into her room. 

“She’s being attacked by other spirits. A lot of them,” he states, walking across the room to place you in a chair. 

Ida glances back at the door she had closed and slowly steps away from it. “Are they following her?” she questions, turning her head to look at you. 

Geralt, who kneels beside you and lets you fold your hands around his, lifts his gaze up to you. You still have your eyes shut, shaking your head slightly and biting your lower lip. “(Y/n),” he whispers to get your attention, knowing that you’re too afraid to open your eyes. 

Your aunt steps forward. “Just look for a second. I promise you, they won’t harm you,” she says, making you sigh and drop your head even more between your shoulders. 

Taking a deep breath, you slowly lift your head but keep your eyes closed. You feel a hand on your shoulder and at first, you think it’s Ida. But then you feel it slowly starting to stroke your arm and you realize that the touch is cold. Turning your head to where you feel the touch, you slowly open your eyes and jump back away from the woman ghost, wet and water dripping from every; her eyes, her mouth, her nose. She drowned. 

You let go of Geralt’s hand and bring your hand up to your face and softly sob out. Ida knows that is a sign that you’re still being bothered by these ghosts. 

Quickly moving across the room, Ida throws open trunk after trunk, looking for something specific. You can hear her muttering to herself, but you’re trying to pull away from the touching hands that are starting to turn into grabbing hands again. “Stop,” you whisper, waving your arms to try and get the ghost to stop touching you. Every time they do, you can feel the same tugging from deep inside you that you felt when you allowed Malla to manifest. “Stop it,” you say, more sternly this time as you push the hand on your shoulder away. You want it to end.

Ida returns to you with a book in her hands and she frantically flips to the correct page. Looking to Geralt, she gives him a smile and nods for him to take a step back before she starts to mutter an incantation. 

It feels like you’ve been pushed back into the chair, your hands gripping the arms tightly as a forceful wind blows in a cyclone around you. 

Then it’s quiet. And you don’t feel anyone touching you anymore. 

“Well, I didn’t expect it to be so powerful,” Ida mentions with a small laugh, closes the book and places it to the side. 

You slowly open your eyes again and look around you to see if the ghosts are still there. But you’re only with Ida and Geralt. It makes you relax a little bit. “Almost as if…” she starts, trailing off in her own thoughts before she looks up at you and Geralt. 

Catching her words and how they just end, you look up at her and frown. “Almost as if what?” Geralt asks the question on your mind and he comes to stand by your side again. 

Ida stares down at you for a second before shaking her head. You rest your head against the back of the chair, feeling tired as you felt after letting Malla manifest. Geralt notices your tiredness and slowly steps towards Ida. “What is it?” he whispers, not wanting to wake you from the sleep you seem to be falling into again. 

“I-I think I might have an idea what the spirit, Kurst, wants from her,” she whispers back, her eyes falling to you as you shift in the chair. “I think she has magick in her blood.”

Geralt frowns at her and looks over his shoulder back at you. “You think she might have the potential to be a Mage?” he questions, turning his head back to Ida who gives a small nod. 

“I am a Mage. It is possible that she could have the same power as I have or maybe even not as powerful, but I feel it might be there.”

“And if it is, Kurst can use that to come back to this realm,” Geralt finishes the thought, turning around to face you. He hates how pale you seem, how weak you look in that chair. “How would he get that magick?” he asks, not even looking back at Ida as he starts to walk back to your side. 

She sighs. “I don’t know. But, if it’s true, I can teach her to use it against these spirits so she can protect herself,” she states, earning a nod from Geralt and he kneels beside you again. “I should send a letter to Tissaia de Vries in Aretuza about my suspicions and what I should do,” Ida briefly mentions as she walks to the door. “You should take her back to her room. I think she’d feel much safer there,” she suggests before walking out. 

Geralt hums, carries on staring at you, not wanting to disturb you from your sleep. 

As he places his hand over yours, your eyes flutter open and you tense under his touch. Relaxing when you see that it’s Geralt touching you, you turn your head to the side and sigh before looking around you frantically. 

“You’re safe, (Y/n),” he whispers, your head slowly turning back to him as you sit up straight in your seat. Well, as straight as you can. “I doubt after that spell that they’ll be back any time soon.”

“You don’t know that,” you mutter, shaking your head as you fold your hands on your lap. “I’m not safe. Not in my sleep. Every time I’m asleep…” you trail off, drop your eyes to your hands and breathe out a long sigh. “Every time I sleep, I dream of bad things. I can’t protect myself. Not in my dreams, not outside of them,” you say with a sad voice, making Geralt bite the inside of his cheek.  

Maybe there in a way you can protect yourself. Not in your dreams, but when you sleep. He’ll ask Jaskier to procure the item for him, not wanting to leave you alone after the last time. 

He stands, pulls your eyes away from your hands when he takes them in his and helps you stand to your feet. Pulling you closer, a breath catches in your throat as he leans down slightly closer to your face, but only to push a piece of hair away from falling over your eye. “I told you I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you. And I promise, I will protect you even if it means I never leave your side,” he states, his fingers starting to trace your jawline, your cheek, before he cups your face to lightly stroke your bottom lip with his thumb. 

You pull your lip in between your teeth as you stare up at him. Not knowing what to say, all you can do is raise a hand to rest on his chest, beside the wolf pendant, before you slowly run it up to touch the side of his face. 

Taking is a deep breath at your touch, he leans into your hands and closes his eyes, savoring your scent and indulging in your touch. 

You don’t know what it is, but something about this, about touching him, draws you in closer. You feel your heart racing in your chest, realizing that you’ve never been so close to him - when he’s not carrying you in his arms that is - makes you take another step forward. 

His hands drop, land on your hips before he wraps his arms around your body. And then, he presses his forehead to yours. “Geralt,” you whisper, leaning in at his touch and end up bumping your nose against his. This is closer than what you’ve been with anyone. 

You can feel your cheek heating up at that thought, and you’re sure you’re breathing heavily. But still, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you-

The door swings open, tearing Geralt away from you and you stumble backward a bit as you both too at the maid walking into the room. She gasps and takes a step back. “I’m sorry. I thought the room was empty, princess,” she quickly apologizes, her cheeks going red with embarrassment as she steps back out of the room and closes the door again. 

You stare at the floor, bite your lip and clear your throat as you stand up straight. “I guess the castle’s awake and the day’s begun now,” you softly say, looking up at Geralt who only hums as he pulls his gaze away from the ground as well. 

“You should probably get back to your chambers,” he suggests, making you nod and take a step forward. 

It’s a weak step, Geralt can see that, so he wraps his arm around your back and steadying you with a strong hand. You might not be as close to him as you were a few moments ago, but you’ll take this.

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[adveanture]

*    @willowdied​​    —    I  THINK  IT’S  THE  LACK  OF  HOPE  THAT  COMES  AND  GETS  YOU    (   NELL  &  STEVEN   ) 

HEAD   IN   HANDS,   BUT   STEVEN   DOESN’T   ARGUE   WITH   HIS   LITTLE   SISTER.         she’s   sitting   next   to   him   on   aunt   janet’s   couch,   listening   to   the   sounds   of   christmas   day   wrapping   up   quietly   in   the   background.      aunt   janet   is   in   the   kitchen   with   shirl,   luke   is   asleep   on   the   rug   near   steve’s   feet,   and   theo   is   up   in   her   and   shirl’s   room   reading   her   new   book.      and   steve   doesn’t   want   to   be   upset   that   their   father   isn’t   here   yet   again,   but   he   is.      not   because   he   wants   to   see   hugh,   but   because   nellie   and   luke   do      —      probably   theo   and   shirley,   too,   though   they’re   not   saying.      and   he’s   angry   at   his   father   all   the   time,   but   he’s   furious   that   he   gets   nell’s   hopes   up,   only   to   dash   them,   while   she’s   still   hoping.      he   sits   up   finally,   gives   his   sister   a   tired,   resigned   smile,   and   wraps   his   arm   around   her   shoulders.   

[hb-writes]

Compensation

Written in response to Hauntober prompt #11: Nightmare 

Summary: Haunting of Hill House story. The youngest Crain has always been protected by her family, taught by Luke and Nellie how to keep herself safe from the scary things in the world by counting from one to eight. When she sees an opportunity to begin repaying the favor, she takes it. 

Characters Featured: Shirley Crain-Harris, Theo Crain, Steve Crain, Luke Crain, Kevin Harris, Hazel Crain (Crain!Sister). 

-----

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven… Eight.

The counting was something Luke and Nellie suggested to their baby sister when they were young, the only thing that ever calmed her after a nightmare. After a certain point, she started hesitating on number eight. There were only seven of them after Hill House and the girl had no recollection at all of their mother, no real connection to the matriarch the others seemed to miss so much.

Her father told her the same thing he’d told the others in regards to nightmares and the things she saw in the middle of the night, that it was just a bit of spillover. When her Aunt Janet had let her call the man after a bad one, that's what he'd always say. But his words had never worked and Hazel had thought he knew it wouldn't work. In saying it, her father had always lacked a certain bit of conviction.

And these weren’t the kind of nightmares born of boogie monsters or things that went bump in the night, anyway. If anything, it was the horrors of daily life spilling over into the dreams, not the other way around

So Hazel fingered the tattered piece of baby blanket that she’d tucked away in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt, her eyes lowered as she touched seven of the small buttons before hesitating on reaching for number eight.

Luke had once told her that sometimes it took a long time, the counting, but no matter how long it took, it would keep her safe. They would keep each other safe. Family was their protection.

So Hazel counted over and over, the soft whispers leaving her lips as she headed towards the bar, not the one she knew her brother-in-law would have set up in the viewing room, but the makeshift one tucked away in the residential side.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Se—

Hazel gasped, releasing a shaky breath at realizing she wasn’t alone.

“Hey, there. How did you sleep?” Kevin reached out to rub her shoulder. “You want something to eat?”

She shook her head and reached for a bottle, hastily pouring out a measure of whiskey and downing it just as quick. 

“Your brothers are here. Your dad, too.” 

She had slept through the afternoon, slept through lunch, and the time she’d promised to spend with her niece and nephew, and all she wanted was to pour herself a little alcohol and go back to sleep again, but her family was all there, even Nellie, waiting in the viewing room.

Hazel should have known that they’d all be there. They were expected. And she was expected to be there with them, honoring Nellie, mourning her with the family. She poured herself another drink and leaned into the wall, looking toward the viewing room, the perfect set up Kevin and Shirley had crafted, same as they did for every funeral.

She fingered the buttons again with her free hand.

One. Two. Thre—

“Haze?”

She looked up to Kevin at the interruption, stopped her counting though she felt a compulsive need to finish.

“I’m sure they’d love to—”

They both shuddered at the sudden rise of voices from the next room over, Shirley shouting about the blood money. Hazel set the cup down, moving past her brother-in-law, something in her eldest sister’s tone setting her off.

“Hey, don’t—” Kevin started, his hand reaching out as she stepped in front of him.

Hazel wormed out of his grasp and stepped into the lobby to see Shirley and Theo shouting, their faces inches apart despite the height difference.

 “I took it, too," Hazel said, standing just inside the entryway.

Theo's face fell as she turned to her. She'd known, of course. They'd kept each other's secret for years now and Theo had been ready to take it to the grave.

“You did what?” Shirley asked.

“I… I took the money, too," Hazel repeated, taking a few tentative steps as Theo and Shirley separated.

Shirley scoffed, throwing her hands up. “Of course, you took the fucking money.”

“I was just out of school and—”

“You don’t even remember that house," Shirley interrupted. "You were a baby, Hazel.”

“That doesn’t mean—"

Hazel heard someone attempt to speak up, to come to her defense. Steve, she thought, but Shirley was louder, angrier, and her words drowned him out.

“We all agreed. We all agreed not to take his fucking blood money and you—"

“She was just a kid, Shirley,” Theo answered.

Shirley glared at Theo. “Yeah, and what's your excuse?

"She was twenty years old. Had no trouble insisting she wasn't a kid anymore. But that’s how she’s always gotten away with it, with everything, right? Hazel’s the baby. Hazel never had mom. Hazel has always been so damn special, always protected, sheltered, given miles and miles of slack. The only fucking person in this family who gets more slack than her is Luke,” Shirley said to the room before turning back to her youngest sister, stepping closer, her finger raised in Hazel's face. “You are an ungrateful brat. I became your fucking guardian at twenty-five so you wouldn’t be alone at Aunt Janet’s when Nellie and Luke left. We cared for you, took you into our home, and this is how—”

"C'mon, Shirley, you don't mean that." Kevin put himself between the sisters, tried to get Shirley's attention, but he couldn't manage it with his calming words holding such little meaningful content. He took a deep breath before deciding to join the condemned.

“We took the money, too, Shirl," Kevin offered, bringing the wrath of his wife upon himself as the hand he stretched out behind him moved Hazel a few steps back.

Hazel fit her hands back inside the hoodie’s pocket once again, her lips moving as she counted in her head. One. Two—

She backed into Luke and he pulled the hand from her pocket, closing his fingers over hers as they watched Shirley and Kevin explode before them. 

One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight.

Each of Luke's gentle squeezes was a number, a constant rhythm as they counted in their heads. Hazel’s heartbeat slowed and the shouting faded away as she concentrated on Luke’s rough hand over hers, the sound of the blood pumping in her veins.

One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight.

She glanced up at her brother, at the pain she’d never know because, in a way, Shirley was right. Hazel never knew Hill House, not really, and though she had her own pain in all of this, it was different, because she had been protected, distanced so thoroughly from the childhood nightmare the rest of them shared. Whether by virtue of her age or by the complex efforts of her family, Hazel had been protected, looked after, kept safe, even as an adult. 

But sometimes they needed protection from the nightmares, too. Luke, Theo, Shirley, Steve, and even their father. So, she tightened her grip on Luke’s hand and he met her eye for a moment, somehow understanding without words that she wanted to take over, that she would protect him for a moment. 

One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight.

It wasn’t a fair exchange, the eight gentle squeezes offered to one sibling as compensation for nearly twenty-six years of protection, but it was a start.

[adveanture-archived]

*    @willowdied​​    —    I  HATE  HALLOWEEN. 

STEVE   KEEPS   TRYING   TO   MAKE   THINGS   NORMAL.         they’re   not   going   to   be   though,   no   matter   how   hard   he   tries.      aunt   janet   is   trying,   too,   but   so   far   it’s   not   worked   out   so   well.      he   sits   on   the   edge   of   theo   and   shirl’s   bed.      it’s   just   theo   in   here   right   now   though      —      just   him   and   his   little   sister,   who’s   never   seemed   very   ‘little’   at   all.            “      there’s   gonna   be   a   lot   of   candy,      ”            he   offers   hopefully.            “      you   don’t   really   have   to   wear   a   costume   or   anything.      but   you   could   at   least   come   with   us?      ”            it’s   going   to   be   hard   enough   to   get   luke   to   go   trick   or   treating;      having   theo   along   would   help.   

[disappearinginq]

Bad?

It’s like you know the words that are going to pop up ;-) Haunting of Hill House:  I stole from you. I stole money, I stole time, I stole things to pawn, I knew how to make you feel guilty and I did at every chance I could because I knew what I could get you to do if you felt bad enough - I knew exactly what words to say to make you drop everything and come running, and I knew, every time, that you would. She was an only child. Not by choice, her parents always told her they wanted more than one, but it just wasn’t in the cards. She’d wanted siblings so badly as a child, jealous of the relationship between them that was closer than friends could ever be.

“Luke needs help. Expensive help. And Theo is up to her eyeballs in debt, and Kevin says Shirl is driving their business into the ground because she wants to help people so badly she isn’t charging what she needs to to stay afloat, and Nell…” Steven trailed off at the mention of his youngest sister. “Nell…I think is more like mom than anyone wants to admit.”

They’d had long conversations about what Steven thought of his mother. Clinical depression, maybe even bi-polar, schizophrenia…all of them hereditary. He knew she wanted kids, and she knew he harbored doubts on whether or not he should. She wished she could show him what she saw in him - not just the bad parts, but all the good. “And do you know what you told me? That mom had come back. She never really left to see Aunt Janet. And when you came downstairs for food because we botched dinner so badly that night, you found her in the kitchen. And something you saw there made you run for dad.”

“Maybe I should’ve written the story how I saw it. How Mom slowly lost her mind, talking to people that weren’t there. How we found the corpse of a man who sealed himself into a wall to die. How just living there screwed with our heads so badly, we thought the girl next door was a figment of Luke’s imagination up until the night mom killed her with rat poison, right before she tried to kill our siblings.” Magnum PI “Damn, Higgins. I don’t know what you did, but it must’ve been pretty bad.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. It was bad enough when she didn’t actually own anything I was using. Now, I swear to God she just appears when I even think of wearing my shoes in the guest house.” Katsumoto winced. “She can’t be that bad if you bent over backwards to try and help her stay here--aren’t you the one who called Masters in the first place?”

Comparably to everything else, it didn’t actually hurt that bad �� the blade was sharp instead of dull, and Thomas had barely any strength behind it due to the awkward angle he was trying to swing at.

He couldn’t even describe it to the nurse, and when he tried to explain it to TC, the older man just frowned, scratching his head in utter bewilderment. It didn’t taste bad, it just…tasted wrong. As if between one bite and the next, the food rotted in his mouth, and the more he tried to swallow it down, to force his brain to accept that yes, this is food, and we’re fucking eating it, the more violently he coughed up everything.

They’d warned him how bad Thomas looked. How grim the prognosis was. Catastrophically high fevers that came and went in waves, soaring up to 105 in surges that the doctor and nurses cautioned would blind him or make him a vegetable – or both - if he lived. Pneumonia settled in his chest, reducing his lung capacity to the point they now had him on a respirator to give him a chance to rest but also to make sure he actually got some oxygen. Lines and tubes that Rick didn’t know the first thing about seemed attached to every part of his body, and the monitor from what little he could interpret, didn’t bode well either. High pulse, high temperature, high…everything.

Prodigal Son: 

They’d tried to implement a no contact rule several years ago, but somehow it just made it worse. JT insisted it was because instead of stopping violence, it made players get creative about it. Instead of tackling people where they could expect it, brace for it and defend against it, it led to tripping, pushing, shoving, and any number of ‘oh, non-contact? My bad, I forgot’ excuse

Outer Banks:

As livid as he was at the time, Shoupe couldn’t help the small smile at the memory. It was amazing what you could do with 30 seconds of insane courage. He didn’t know an adult that was bold enough to steal a cop car - never mind lure said cop out of his house to be within proximity to start said car. Yeah. It was bad. But damn, if it wasn’t also funny as hell.

Whew.  I think that’s it...?

[burnselfs]

@herhaunt​      —      STEVEN  &  NELL  

𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩  𝙤𝙛  𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧  𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙛𝙛  𝙞𝙨𝙣’𝙩  𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚  𝙮𝙚𝙩.   dad is going to ‘send it along’  —  that’s what aunt janet says.  hugh’s lawyers think it’s best that the kids stay with janet for the time being, though steve doesn’t really understand that  —  not yet, anyway;  that shoe hasn’t yet dropped.  he’s got nell’s hand in his the whole way inside, with luke right on the other side practically hanging onto steve’s leg.  aunt janet picks him up though because he’s talking about being hungry on the car ride here, and she asks steve to ‘handle getting the girls unpacked, won’t you?’ 

shirl and theo don’t need him for that  —  he knows by looking at them they’d rather he not help right now  —  but nellie needs him.  besides, he’s sleeping in the living room;  what’s he got to unpack for himself?    “  𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲  𝗼𝗻,  𝗻𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗲.  ”    he scoops her up all the way with the arm that’s not carrying his own suitcase, and he carries her all the way up the stairs of aunt janet’s townhouse, down the hall to the room that she and luke will be sharing. 

“  𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀  𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁  𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵  𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿  𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀,  𝗼𝗸𝗮𝘆?  ”    steve’s voice is quieter than usual, and tired  —  so, so tired  —  from the little sleep he’s been getting.  his throat hurts, too, like his body is perched and ready to cry again at any moment.    “  𝘄𝗲’𝗹𝗹  𝗽𝘂𝘁  𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲  𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆  𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁,  𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻  𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲  𝗼𝘂𝘁  𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁  𝘁𝗼  𝗱𝗼  𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵  𝗹𝘂𝗸𝗲’𝘀  𝗮𝗻𝗱  𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿  𝘁𝗼𝘆𝘀 . . .  ”    the room is nice  —  tidy and pretty like the rest of janet’s house  —  but it’s small;  too small for two kids, even nell and luke’s size.  aunt janet knows it, too, as she keeps apologizing over and over on the way here from the airport.  it’s just temporary though. 

just like hill house was supposed to be temporary. 

[acenettle]

I got into the Sims 4 recently, and just had to make some Discworld characters.

Aunt Bobbi with baby Havelock. Cute, maybe?

Gytha Ogg with some of her children (Jason, Tracie, Grame, Dreen, Shirl, Nev, Trev and Kev – Daff was off somewhere) plus second husband Winston. Perhaps a few more babies would be in order?

Aaaand Lady Margolotta chilling on the roof of her castle, like you do.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty One

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Steven looked at the blinking cursor at the end of the sentence on his screen, an accusing slow blink of black against the white background, and chews on the edge of his lip. He’s already worked his chapped lips past the point of being salvaged with chapstick. The next tug of his teeth against skin comes away with a strip of dead skin and the rusty taste of blood from the split against his tongue.

The line was good, he could feel the weight of it behind his teeth, and he could hear the ebb and flow of it in his own internal voice. It was melodic, it moved in all the right ways. So why was it that Steven couldn’t leave the line alone and move on? He’d been staring at it for seconds going on hours now, and it still wasn’t enough.

It was because something wasn’t sitting right, and Steven didn’t know how to suss it out. How did you root out the needle in the haystack when every time you ran your fingers through it, it came out just the same?

“You’re thinking too hard.” Luke’s voice, light and playful despite the depths it had plumbed to in the time between their last meeting years before and now, walking the same halls and living under the same roof again. Luke’s voice had been a puddle at Aunt Janet’s pitchy and splashy, full of ups and downs. It was deeper now, a little choppy at the tops of his words but you could feel the still waters running deep behind the consonants. 

That wasn’t the only thing that changed. 

Gone was the little brother with the coke bottle glasses and the lisp, with his big boy hat and his wide eyed hero worship of his older brother. Fine blonde baby hair had given way to something deeper, that cradled his skull and made his skin look brighter. It dusted across his forearms, down into the vee of his shirt when he wore the ones he slept in, worn out at the neckline into a soft scoop. 

There was some alien creature in front of him, wearing the subtleties of his little brother around the edges but little else to tie the ‘then-Luke’ to the ‘now-Luke’. His brother had become a song that you could hum the melody to, but you couldn’t remember the words to the song, no matter how hard you tried. 

(Elfin had been the first word that he thought of, when he was trying to slot some definition in his mind next to this new person in his life, overflowing from the old box in the back of his head that Steven kept him in. But nothing about Luke was elfin. Neither was he rangey, or coltish. There was too much weight to him, too much heft. Steven was still struggling to find the right word for him.)

“Sorry.” Steven scrubs a hand over his mouth and marvels at how different the voice that leaves his mouth is compared to the one he hears in his head. There are moments when it’s vertiginous, this separation between the inner and the outer. Sometimes, Steven isn’t sure which one is the right one. The real one. 

The real Steven Crain. Was it the mild mannered, bespectacled author who signed books in a shop down the street from his house to auction off for charity? Or was it the man who stood beneath the shower’s spray and found his thoughts swirling down the drain just like the water from the faucet? Steven wasn’t even sure that he wanted to know the answer to that question. 

“I’m having a hard time with this one.” Steven has made his name, and his living off of historical novels. Always with a sprinkle of the supernatural, a dash of despair. A winning recipe he’s not keen to change, even if there’s been half an idea brewing in the back of his head for months now that he doesn’t know what to do with. 

A different kind of story, when you got down to the marrow of it. Sure, all of his stories carried the same sort of melancholy to them, the same sense of longing. But this was less a vein running through the center of a stone and more a river cutting through the rock to carve its own path. Steven hasn’t even mentioned it to his publisher. He doesn’t know if he will. 

“What’s giving you trouble?” Luke’s hip juts out, a flash of skin between tank top and lounge pants, there and gone. He’s palming a bottle of juice, twisting and tightening the lid in the webbing between thumb and index finger. It’s oddly mesmerizing. 

“It feels…” Steven lets the words fall off the cliff of his tongue with nothing to follow. Because this was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what the problem was. The words on the screen lined up nicely, there was a music to them. They should be practically perfect, good enough that Steven wouldn’t mind Nell over his shoulder, or his editor taking a look at it. 

But something about them wasn’t sitting right with him. Steven pulls his gaze from Luke’s hands and turns it back towards the glare of the white screen, the cursor pulsing at the end of the last sentence like a lethargic heartbeat. 

“Disingenuous? No. Dispassionate? No.” It’s somewhere in this ballpark, a word that starts with ‘d’ that Steven just can’t put his finger on. “Distant.” It’s not a perfect fit by a long shot and Steven shows his displeasure of it with a crinkle of his nose. But it was going to have to do, or this conversation would be stalled for God knows how long. 

“Distant?” Luke echoes, the back end of it tugged up into a question. It’s a leading question, meant to give Steven the room to work it out on the free air, instead of the caged confines of his own head. Steven is more grateful than he can put to words right now. 

“Usually, when I write, I feel myself in the main character.” Even with his female leads, Steven could find enough of himself in them to do a passably good imitation. He’d never know exactly how a woman’s mind worked, Leigh was sure to tell him that, but Steven did okay. But not with this piece. 

“With this one, it feels like I’m standing over someone’s shoulder. Like I’m repeating their story instead of telling my own.” And that shouldn’t be a problem. Hundreds of stories were told that way, with limited perspective and distance to help control the narrative. Just not Steven’s stories. His stories were about being in the meat of it. Feeling what the character felt. No matter how painful. 

“Do you think it’s the wrong main character?” It’s a perspective that Steven would have never thought of for himself. Of course, Luke was always good at things like that. He and Nell saw the world differently than Steven did. And it helped him immensely when they gave that insight into their world view. 

“I don’t know.” Steven hums, drumming his fingers against the laptops casing in a rapid staccato. “Really, the story is supposed to be about the man who buys the house. He’s surrounded by this...maw. This gaping, ravenous darkness and he has no idea. It keeps growing around him, creeping in and he doesn’t even see it. Like the frog in the pot of water. He doesn’t know he’s boiling until it’s too late.”

Steven’s gaze slips to the window, unfocused enough that Luke is a series of soft shapes against the backdrop of golden sunlight. “It’s a ghost story, right?” The Luke shaped outline lifts the bottle of juice and finally takes a drink. Steven is grateful for the distance so he doesn’t watch the way that his throat works. “Why not write it from one of the ghosts perspective?”

That was...a very interesting thought. “I do have a couple of spirits who aren’t inherently evil and haven’t been driven mad by the house.” The ‘yet’ feels heavy on his tongue, but Steven doesn’t want to commit to anything, not when they’re rebuilding on top of the very foundation of the story right now. 

“Yeah? Like who?” Luke moves away from his perch against the counter and comes back into focus in Steven’s peripheral before he slinks down into the kitchen chair across from the laptop, knees wide and shoulders rolled down loosely. So much new muscle and length that he didn’t know what to do with yet, or how to move. 

“There’s one…” It comes out guarded to his own ears. Steven tends to keep his stories to himself until he can filter the biggest parts of himself out through the narrative. “An heir who dies to keep the rest of his family safe.”

An older brother who dies to protect his siblings, both the beloved and the ungrateful alike. But Steven can’t say that out loud, he can’t admit how much of his writing is just wish fulfillment turned into something just different enough to pass muster. 

“There you go.” If Luke catches on, he doesn’t say anything about it. And he doesn’t wear any of it openly across a face that has never kept a secret in all its life. Steven was grateful for that. For as much as Shirl and Theo had grown and changed into people unrecognizable from the siblings he grew up with, there was still enough Nellie and Luke left in this young adults who moved in with him just last year for Steven to find comfort in.

He’d never mistake this kitchen for Aunt Janet’s, but at least he could look at his brother and still see someone who cared for him looking back. 

Luke says it like it’s so simple. There you go. As if shifting the entire narrative was just that simple. Make a choice, and commit to it. It couldn’t really be that simple, could it? Steven scrubs a hand against his stubbled cheek and finally looks at something other than his brother or his words. He looks at his coffee cup, and buys himself precious seconds with an overly sweet mouthful of still too hot coffee. 

Just like that. A new perspective. The same story, just told through a different lens. 

You could turn a villain into a hero with a new perspective. And you could excuse things that might be inexcusable otherwise. 

“There I go.” Steven parrots it back to him with a slow, wonder drenched shake of his head. “I don’t know how I finished any books without you here.” He’s rewarded with a big, bright grin that lights up Luke’s entire face, somehow reminding him of the kid he knew while simultaneously making him look every bit the adult he was now. 

“Y-you’re welcome.” That stutter sets off something warm and pleased in Steven’s chest. Luke didn’t stutter nearly as much as he did when a kid, but it was just as often a good thing these days as it was something stressing him out. 

Steven takes another sip of his coffee, this time so that he can hide his smile behind it. Given the eye roll he gets from Luke, Steven doesn’t think it’s very successful. But when he says “How many porch light metaphors are too many?” and gets a laugh in return, it all feels successful enough. 

[tickletastic]

91 for nell, luke, and steve?

Song 91: Somewhere Only We Know by Keane

Luke woke up screaming, a cold sweat washed over him. Nell was hovering over his bed, and the bent-neck lady was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t five, he was fourteen, and he was safe. Hill house was far, far away from him, and he was in his room in Aunt Janet’s house. It only took him a few seconds to piece those bits together, but it took him much longer to stop hyperventilating. 

“Luke, it’s okay, it was just a dream, you’re okay.” Nell tried to soothe him, rubbing his back though she was very panicked too. When she realized it wasn’t helping Luke, she ran to the room next door, waking up Steve and bringing him back. 

Steve looked alarmed, and he sat directly in front of his younger brother, forcing him to look into his eyes. 

“Hey, Luke, you gotta breathe with me. I need you to breathe. Just look- look at me and breathe with me.”

Luke had started to wheeze, so he tried his best to mimic Steve’s breaths. 

When he finally had his breath back, he placed his head between his knees, rocking slightly.  

Steve continued rubbing his back, whispering to Nell to get dressed and get some clothes out for Luke. 

Once Luke had completely calmed down, Steve enveloped him in a hug, holding him tight for a moment. 

“Look, Nell put out some clothes for you. Go get dressed and we’ll go to the tree house.”

Half an hour later, the three of them found themselves in the tree house at the edge of the woods behind Aunt Janet’s house. 

Although Steve very often found himself annoyed by his younger siblings, he had known how scarred they were when they had moved to Aunt Janet’s, so he had taken it upon himself, with help from Theo, to make a tree house hideaway for their youngest siblings. 

For years, Nell and Luke would go there to hideaway. The five of them would often go to the tree house to play board games when Aunt Janet was away, and they spent a lot of time there. Since it was so often used, Shirl had decorated it with a carpet and some beanbags, and pretty string lights lined the ceiling. It was somewhere only the five of them went, and they only had good memories there. They often referred to it as the Anti-Hill House.

When Luke had climbed the ladder, he visibly calmed, sitting down in the beanbag that he had declared his all those years ago. 

Though he was much calmer, he still held a distant look in his eyes, one that both Nell and Steve noticed.

“Luke, do you wanna talk about it?” Nell asked him softly, placing her fingers on his knee. 

Luke brushed her hand away, shaking his head, “not really, it was nothing new.” 

Steve walked over to Luke, sitting down in the beanbag next to his, the one that belonged to Theo, and gave Nell a look.

“Hey, remember how we used to cheer you up when we were kids?”

Luke thought about it for a second, and his eyes went wide, but by the time he realized Nell and Steve’s fingers were on him.

“Dohohon’t!” Luke started giggling right away, he had never been one to hold his laughter in. 

Steve’s fingers were spidering over Luke’s tummy in a claw-like motion. Nell’s were tracing her twin’s ear, scratching behind it every few seconds. 

Luke’s body was completely limp, he never tried to fight when his siblings tickled him.

Steve drummed his finger up to Luke’s ribs, deciding that he didn’t wanna keep the tickling up for too long since his brother was probably tired. 

Luke squealed, trying to flip onto his tummy. His siblings had a feeling that he didn’t mind being tickled, but when it came to his ribs his instincts always took over. Through his snorts he begged for his brother to stop, or even switch spots, but he eventually managed to flip himself.

He curled into the beanbag, giggling lightly. “Yohou guys are evil.”

Nell laughed, retracting her hands, “where would you be if we weren’t?”

[plastiicparasite]

"I just want to go home."

Injuries Starters | Accepting!

But where is home for you, Luke?

Aunt Janet’s? It felt sofar away now. Steve could remember the events of the house like It wasyesterday, but his time with Aunt Janet was cloudy. It was if he was lookingthrough frosted glass – shapes, just the resemblance of a memory, but all the  detailslost. Then again, Steve had left his Aunt’s home earlier than any of hisyounger siblings. She was only a small part ofhis life, but the importance of her role was magnified by the other Crains,especially Luke. He would always be Aunt Janet’s golden boy, no matter the shit he pulled.

There was Shirley’sguest house. With the addition of Theo, of course, still lingering around likea leech, suckered happily onto the business. Once upon a time, Steve and Shirlhad been hopeful withLuke tucked away in the picturesque countryside, kept from society andsurrounded by woods. It felt like the holistic, healing environment he needed,the sort of bullshit sold to you by middle aged white women and her crystals.Of course, Luke had still managed to find a way back to dealers, only this timehe shot up among the squirrels.

And then there was thestaple of the seemingly endless list of rehabilitation centers, the definition of insanity, enteringagain and again with the same blind hope of recovery and the lurking shadow ofinevitable relapse. Steve wasn’t sure whether Luke was even registered. Had hebeen kicked out again? Forfeited his bed? Shirley would know, she was on top ofthese things. (Steve knew he should have helped her more, but she did a betterjob than he ever could.)

In the meantime, Steveheld Luke to his chest, hands resting on his back, conscious of each shudderingbreath his brother managed to choke down. His best guess – Luke was comingdown, hard, and he had lost his access, yet again. There was anunmistakable chill thatstuck to his brother’s clothes (too thin for the weather, he should give him acoat before he left). In the last week, a unique kind of cold had developed intown. It was a biting chill that dug deep into your core and sank into yourbones, swimming through the blood long after coming indoors. It was a fear ofSteve’s – to hear Luke had frozen out there, oblivious and unconscious in somefilthy alley where he wouldn’t be found until morning with a light coat offrost.  

“Look, buddy, stay thenight. We’ll – we’ll work on getting you home tomorrow.”

Steve had been throughthis before. He would get the usual: blankets, change of clothes, toothbrushand a bucket.