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amayawolfe · 4 years ago

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Itsy Bitsy Spider (Chrollo x Fem.Reader)

A/N: fluff, spiders, angst, some harsh language

Word Count: 5262

Summary: Having been born in Meteor City, the majority of your life has been nothing but hardships. Looking back on it, you often wondered how you even made it to adulthood let alone become the treasured partner and wife of eight years to the head of the Phantom Troupe and mother to yours and Chrollo's son.

In the middle of prepping dinner, Chrollo and some of the troupe return from a successful mission. Your husband fills you in on the details as he and a couple of the members begin to help in the kitchen. The peace is suddenly shattered when your six year old comes running into the kitchen terrified, screaming, and claiming there is a monster in his room!

taglist: @to-move-on-means-to-grow @daisies-write

The menu music to the DVD you were watching gently woke you from your unintentional nap. You blinked your eyes a few times to bring them into focus and stretched your curled up body along the large, overstuffed couch. This particular spot on the couch was often your place of rest unless your husband was home; in which case the couch was hardly ever used.

Using the remote you turned off the tv and player then pushed yourself up into a sitting position. You snatched up your phone from it's place on the coffee table and checked the time. It was nearly early evening.

"Guess I should start thinking about what to make for dinner," you said to yourself as you swipe through your phone to check for messages.

Down in this underground hideout beneath Meteor City, phone signal alone was nearly impossible to receive. Thankfully, one of the family was able to figure out how to set up a computer that would broadcast Wi-Fi into the hideout from a line that went to the surface where a receiver was carefully hidden. This way, you could at least send and receive messages between the family and yourself.

Your eyebrows rose and a smile touched your lips when you saw that you had a message from your husband, Chrollo.

Luci: Shopping run was successful, we should be home in the evening.

You smirked a little at the cryptic message. The "shopping run" Chrollo was talking about was actually a heist during a gem and jewelry show. A heist in which you had helped plan out with your husband and three other family members.

You glowered down at your phone when you realized the message had been sent a little over an hour ago while you were asleep.

"I really need to get a louder phone," you muttered to yourself as you began to type a response.

You: I just woke up...

You: I haven't started dinner yet, is there anything you or the others would like?

Phone still in hand you got to your feet and head in the direction of your son's room. As you walk through the hideout your sock covered foot falls are silent from a lifetime of practice. You pass a collection of pictures hanging along the walls. There are photos of you, Chrollo, your son, as well as the rest of the family doing random things a family would do.

There were a couple from around the holidays and you and Chrollo are watching your son open gifts. Another was on Chrollo's birthday and two of the members had sandwiched his face between two pieces of vanilla cake with strawberry frosting. The look of shock and horror on Chrollo's face had been perfectly captured. While it was one of your favorite photos, he despised it. Chrollo's favorite picture on the wall was of you and him stretched out on the day bed in the library reading a book together while his head was resting on your nearly full term pregnant belly. You had to admit, it was a very cute picture.

The home was enormous, consisting of s/n's room and his own bathroom, yours and Chrollo's large master bedroom with a large bathroom, a gourmet kitchen, library, study, massive living room, dining hall, training area along with a gym and a pool, a giant vault for looted treasures, multiple guests rooms with their own bathrooms, there was even a "war room" where missions and strategies were discussed.

All the rooms in the place were lavishly decorated and furnished for maximal comfort. Any electronics and appliances were always top of line. Your husband always insisted on the best of the best for you and the family.

Upon reaching your son's open door way you peeked in on him and found him laying on his belly on the floor reading a book aloud softly. He had his collection of stuffed animals surrounding him as though they were an audience listening to the story he was telling. A majority of them were a variety of teddy bears of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Ever since he saw a picture of a tiny teddy bear defending a sleeping child from a large monster he had taken a great liking to them.

S/n's favorite teddy bear was one that Chrollo had asked Machi to make for him during a difficult time for s/n where he was greatly missing his father whenever he went on missions. It was of average size for a teddy bear and had medium brown fur. The button eyes were the same shade of grey blue as Chrollo's and it even had a dark long coat with white fur lining. But how Machi really outdid herself were the little details of a tiny book with a felt cover sewn to the teddy bears paw, the same mark on it's forehead as Chrollo's, and giving the bear little blue green glass bead earrings.

Your son had been so happy to the point of joyous tears when his father gave him the bear made especially for him. He decided right there and then to name the bear "Sir Brollo." Upon s/n announcing this, you had to bite your tongue so hard it bled to keep yourself from laughing at the bright red look that came over your husband's face. Sir Brollo had a front row seat sitting right beside s/n as he read. That bear rarely ever left your son's side.

You rest your head against the door frame as you leaned against it and listened to your son read to his "friends." It saddened you knowing your son had no one to play with except for you and the family when ever they were home. But being the son of the head of the heavily feared and all powerful Phantom Troupe, precautions had to be taken. There had been a few dangerously close calls of s/n being taken away to be used as revenge or leverage against the Phantom Troupe. Close calls that resulted in a sense of dread and anxiety that never fully went away. Even after Chrollo had gathered the nen techniques needed to build you, your son, and the family this safe place, the possible threat of invasion always weighed heavy in the back of your mind. And poor s/n was never allowed out of the hide out unless he had you or Chrollo and at least three other members of the family with him.

These constant negative feelings that lingered in the air had taken a toll on your son causing him to become a very nervous and skittish child with a fear of nearly everything. You and the others hoped that, over time, he would be able to shake these fears and stand up to them.

When your son finished the chapter he was on you lifted your head and gently called his name. "s/n"

The child jumped and looked up at you with wide blue grey eyes. His father's eyes. You could feel the sadness in your own eyes form at his frightened expression.

"I'm sorry kiddo," you said softly and entered his room to kneel down close to him. "I didn't mean to startle you, I just wanted to let you know that your father and some of the family will be home soon."

"Oh, okay, thank you mommy," s/n replied softly.

"Is there something special you want for dinner tonight?" you asked.

"Hmmm, not really. Just, no fish, please," your son wrinkled his nose, "I really don't like fish."

You couldn't help but laugh aloud at his response. Stroking his soft hair you leaned forward, and kissed him on the forehead.

"I know, baby, I know. I promise, no fish."

s/n smiled at your words and he began to kick his feet in the air just above him. "Who else will be home?" "I think your uncles Fei, Phinks, and Shal will be coming in with your dad."

Right then your phone pinged and vibrated alerting you to a message response. Glancing down at it you saw Chrollo had responded to your previous question.

"Oh," you said, "speak of the devil."

Luci: I have been asked to put in a request for your famous stew.

You looked down at s/n, "How does stew sound for dinner?"

His eyes grew wide and he smiled happily.

"Yeah!" he cheered as he rolled to one side and pumped a tiny fist into the air. You couldn't help but laugh again and ruffled your son's hair.

"Alright my silly boy, would you like to help me in the kitchen?"

"No, I want to keep reading to Sir Brollo and the others," he answered honestly. "I want to finish a few more chapters before time to eat."

"Okay, I'll come get you when it's time to eat then." You rose to your feet and started to leave the room. At the door way you turned and added, "I love you, sweetie."

"I love you too, mommy," s/n beamed then returned to his book.

As you made your way to the kitchen you messaged your husband a reply.

You: I can do that, I'll go ahead and get started. See you soon?

Luci: See you soon, princess.

You felt the warmth of a blush touch your cheeks. A reaction that always occurred when Chrollo called you by his favorite pet name for you.

When you entered the massive kitchen you set some upbeat classical music to play from your phone. You loved listening to music while you cooked and baked. You then brought down a large stock pot as well as collected a peeler, knife, mixing bowl, and cutting bored. From the fridge you set out a large chunk of beef, bacon, carrots, and celery. The pantry had the potatoes, flour, beef stock, onions, a bottle of red wine and garlic you needed.

You really felt like you were getting into the grove as you gave your hands a good scrub. You diced up a few slices of bacon and tossed them into the stock put and turned the stove flame on to a medium high heat. While the bacon started to cook and release the greasy fat you were going to brown the beef cubes in, you cut the beef chunk into bite size pieces with impressive speed and accuracy. Chrollo wasn't the only one good with a knife.

Once the meat was all cubed you tossed it into the mixing bowl along with some olive oil. Tossing the meat and oil in the bowl until the meat was evenly coated you then added flour, garlic powder, onion powder, season salt, and pepper; stirring it until it the meat was all evenly coated.

Checking on the bacon and giving it a stir, you decided to let the bacon bits crisp a bit more and started working on dicing up a large yellow onion. Humming along with a playful piece of classical music known as "Thunder and Lightning polka" by Johann Strauss II, you really felt like you had a good rhythm going and was very much engrossed in your work.

So much so you didn't even notice someone quietly enter the kitchen and walk up behind you. You didn't notice them watching while you worked, waiting for a pause in your actions before placing their hands on your waist.

You let out a small yelp of surprise as you knocked the persons hands aside and spun around quickly, bringing the sharp edge of the kitchen knife up to your would be assailant's throat. You had expected to see the face of a dangerous stranger. But instead, you where greeted by the warm, familiar face of your husband. There was a small playful smile on his lips and an extra little gleam in his eyes. Chrollo normally wasn't one to sneak up on you like he just did, but he did tend to become mischievously playful after a successful mission. You figured it was most likely from the adrenaline high.

"Damnit, Chrollo," you hissed as you removed the knife from his neck and leaned back against the counter, "You know better than that. What if I had cut your neck wide open?" "Mmm, but you didn't," he replied softly.

You sighed and rolled your eyes, Chrollo was never one to dwell on the "what ifs" of life.

"I got you a little something, my dear," he stated as he reached into the pocket of his favorite long coat. Your husband was always bringing you little gifts when ever he went on a mission without you.

From his pocket he with drew a small, dark navy blue velvet box and held it before you. You quickly washed and dried your hands so as to not to get the box all dirty, carefully took the box from his hand and let out a small gasp upon opening it.

Inside the dainty box was a small rose charm necklace. The piece was masterfully crafted as the delicate petals of the rose were made from chips of rubies while the petals were made of dark green chrome tourmaline chips. Both gems were set in fine gold which also made up the delicate stem of the rose. The chain was made of fine delicate links also in gold.

"Oh Chrollo," you breathed in awe, "it's absolutely gorgeous."

Your husband smiled at your reaction, pleased to see you so happy with the piece he had picked out for you. He held up his hand to take back the box.

"May I?"

Without a need for question you handed the box back to him. You watched him take the necklace out of the box and he returned the box back to his pocket. You turned around as he held up the necklace and you moved your hair at the way so Chrollo could have unobstructed access to your neck. He stepped closer as undid the delicate little clasp and carefully hung the necklace around your neck.

After he redid the clasp behind your neck he slid his hands to your shoulders and placed a soft, warm kiss on your neck. Chrollo's breath tickled the fine hairs on the delicate skin causing goosebumps to erupt down your arms.

"A piece fit for a princess," he whispered against your ear in a low, sultry voice.

His hands moved down your sides to your waist and pulled you closer to him. Your back flush against his chest, you tilted your head to one side allowing him easy access as his he ran a trail of soft kisses from just below where you neck and shoulder connect to your ear. Chrollo's arms came around your waist and he hugged you tightly as he nuzzled his nose against your ear and breathed against the sensitive flesh. You braced your hands against the counter as your knees started to feel weak.

Mischievous and playful were not the only moods that overcame Chrollo after a successful job. You looked forward to the private activities that were most likely to take place between you and your husband behind the closed bedroom door later that night.

"Hey boss, we finished placing all the merchandise into the vault," called a familiar voice, ending the tender moment between you and your husband. As romantic as he could be, Chrollo was never really comfortable showing physical affection in front of the others. Something that both amused and annoyed you the entire eight plus years the two of you had been together. Your husband gave you one last chaste kiss just below the earlobe before turning to Shalnark walking through the kitchen doorway.

"Thank you, Shalnark. And what are the others up to?"

"Oh, they're arguing over what to watch until dinner is done," Shal laughed.

"Why am I not surprised," you said over your shoulder as you started to scoop the crispy bacon bits out of the stock pot with a slotted spoon. "Say, since you two are here why don't you help me out with peeling and cutting the vegetables? The sooner everything gets into the pot the sooner it'll be done and we can eat."

"Sure thing!" Shal beamed, causing you to smile. He always seemed so happy to you and reminded you of a little ball of sunshine.

"I'll go put my coat up and then I'll come back and help," Chrollo replied and strode from the kitchen. Shalnark came over and washed his hands.

"If you don't mind, could you go ahead and peel and chop up the carrots first?" you asked as you started to add the coated beef cubes to the bacon fat.

"Yea, I can do that," Shal chirped. He dried his hands and set to work peeling the carrots. "How's everything been here the last few weeks?"

"Dull and quiet," you said with a sigh as you turned the meat cubes, "it's pretty much the same routine when everyone else is away. Not that I am complaining, really." "I would hope not," Chrollo entered back into the kitchen without his coat. He was wearing a dark sleeveless shirt with a high collar and some white bands creating a pattern down the front, a dark pair of jeans and white socks. The shirt showed off his toned arms, chest, and shoulders and it enticed you to take a nice, long looks at your beloved.

"'Dull and quiet' means 'safe' for my two greatest treasures." Chrollo took his turn at washing his hands before asking, "Now, what shall you have me do, dearest?"

Deciding against speaking aloud the first thing that came to your mind and causing your husband to blush in front of a family member, you set him to work on peeling and cutting potatoes.

You had removed the meat from the stock pot and added some red whine to deglaze the bottom of the pot when Feitan came in mumbling.

"Did you lose the coin toss, Feitan?" Shal asked while he was chopping the carrots.

"Yes," he sighed, then added bitterly" and I would much rather help here than watch another sports game."

Chrollo smirked and Shalnark chuckled while you bit back a laugh. The three of you knew that Feitan would have greatly prefered watch some documentaries on famous criminals; yet somehow Phinks normally won the coin toss on what they would watch when it came to what those two would watch.

"Well, Fei, in that case you can get the dinner roll dough out of the fridge, space them out in a greased baking then cover them with a towel so they can start rising."

You felt the look Feitan shot at you more so than saw it. He had obviously been kidding about wanting to help out on the kitchen. Or, at the very least, he was putting on a show pretending that he actually didn't want to help out when in truth he did.

When you didn't look back over your shoulder at him after a bit he sighed and went to go do as you had asked. You had made sure to give Feitan an easy enough task where he didn't have to ask someone to help get something down or where he would have to get a chair. You knew he could sometimes be a sensitive and prideful when it came to matters of his height.

"So tell me, love, how did the mis-" your question to your husband was suddenly interrupted by the terrified screams of your son coming from his bedroom.

"MONSTER!! MOMMY THERE'S A MONSTER!!!"

Your heart nearly stopped as you dropped what you were doing and started to turn to run out of the kitchen along with Chrollo and the other two.

Chrollo was the first to the door but came to an abrupt stop as s/n came around the corner and ran into his father. Your husband grabbed hold of him to keep him from falling backwards then maneuvered your son away from the door towards you so Feitan and Shalnark could pass to go investigate s/n's room.

Keeping himself between the doorway and you and your son, Chrollo knelt down beside s/n who was now clinging to you and shaking with tears forming in his eyes. He placed a gentle hand on his son's upper back while you stroked his head.

"Tell me what happened, son," he calmly ordered.

"I was r-reading my book and a big monster c-came out of the corner of m-my room." s/n stammered.

"What kind of monster, sweetie?" you asked.

"We couldn't find anything, boss," Shalnark reported as he and Feitan returned.

"It looked like a b-big spider!" s/n added.

Chrollo's eyebrows started to creep up his forehead, "Spider?"

Your son nodded.

"PHINKS!" you nearly roared. Phinks had been known to play pranks on s/n in the past. Pranks that didn't go as he had planned and usually scared the poor kid senseless. The Troupe member claimed he was just trying to help s/n get over his fears, you usually ended up beating the crap out of him regardless.

"It wasn't me!" came Phinks's response as he quickly joined Shalnark and Feitan. "I swear!"

He shied away and stood behind the other two when you locked a deadly glare onto him.

"No, mommy, it wasn't Uncle Phinks," s/n sniffled, "I was reading in my book and it got to a part with monster spiders then a huge spider appeared in my room!"

There was a silent pause before nearly all the adults let out a collective sigh and their guards dropped.

"See, I told you it wasn't me," Phinks muttered as he went back to watch the game.

"Another false alarm," Feitan sighed while walking back into the kitchen. "That's some imagination," Shalnark stated and gave s/n a pat head, "you must have thought the spider was one of those creature right out of your book, huh?"

S/n nodded his head. His face was starting to turn red as he began to realize he had most likely been afraid of nothing once again.

"But," he whispered sadly, "there really was a big spider in my room. And, I'm afraid it's going to hurt Sir Brollo."

"Sir Brollo will be fine, love," you assured gently. "Give me a minute and daddy and I will come help look for the spider, okay?"

s/n nodded and released his grip from you to stand a little closer to his father who rested a hand atop his sons head in means of comfort.

You went to the stove, reduced it to medium low heat, added in the beef stock and spices then turned to Feitan and Shalnark.

"Could you two please finish cutting up the vegetables and add them to the pot? Once that's done add in the meat last, give it a good stir then put the lid on. It should be good on it's own after that."

"Can do, boss lady," Shalnark beamed.

You thank them both and join your son and husband and the three of you head towards s/n's room with Chrollo in the lead. Upon entering the room everything seemed normal. S/n held onto you at the doorway and Chrollo walked a few steps further in while looking around carefully. As he rounded the end of s/n's bed, looking down at a part of the floor you and s/n couldn't see, Chrollo actually jumped a little and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

"Well, I was not expecting that." He blinked a couple times then began to look around the room for something.

"What is it?" you asked. Chrollo smiled a little as he took a large clear plastic container and dumped out the contents to one side. He then went back over to the part of the floor you could not see, turned the container sideways and slowly knelt down.

"An understandably good reason for our son to be scared," he replied softly, "at least at first."

All you could see your husband do was make some slow, careful arm movements. He was speaking softly, to softly for you to here. You wanted to move forward to see what he was messing with but your son didn't want you to leave nor did he want to go farther into the room.

You didn't have to wait long though, as Chrollo began to stand you could now see what he had corralled into the plastic container. It was indeed a spider, but not just any spider, this sider was enormous. With it's legs fanned out it was easily larger than your husbands face.

"It's a snowy tarantula," Chrollo explained as he slowly walked over to the two of you, "it's sort of an ironic name considering it usually lives in hot, arid climates like the desserts around Meteor City."

Once he was within a couple meters of you and s/n he knelt down and gently set the container on the floor. The creature inside barely moved as it seemed to turn and look up at Chrollo.

"It's called a 'snowy' tarantula due to the white hairs all over it's body. The hairs actually shimmer and reflect the light just like fresh fallen snow. An evolutionary trait that developed to help reflect the dessert heat away from it's body and keep it cooler. A magnificent specimen to behold when the light hits it just right. Come see, s/n. She's actually quite docile."

S/n looked up at you and you gave him a warm smile and a nod. He slowly let go of you and took one slow, cautious step after another towards his father and the spider that had frightened him so. You carefully followed behind your son wanting to get a look at the tarantula as well.

As the two of you came closer, the tarantula daintily turned and looked up at you. You gasped slightly at the beautiful deep blue eyes that now stared up at you.

"Now watch," your husband instructed and he began to carefully rotate the container in a circular side to side motion causing the light to dance across the hairs of the tarantula.

"Whhoooaaaa." Your son's eyes grew wide in awe as a rainbow of prismed light moved over the hairs of the tarantula, giving her the effect of a living gem. "She's so pretty. I've never seen anything like it, daddy."

Chrollo stopped the rotation of the container and carefully set it on the floor. He then reached over, placed his hand on the back of his son's head and gently pulled s/n's head towards his own as he too began to lean forward. The two touched foreheads over the tarantula and looked into each others eyes.

"There is no shame in having fear, s/n, but do not let that fear keep you from learning and understanding the unknown. What once was scary and ugly could turn out to be something wonderful and beautiful once you find the courage to face it. Do you understand?"

Your son smiled and nodded slightly, "Yes, daddy, I understand. I'll try harder to be brave, just like you, mommy, and the rest of the family."

Your husband returned the smiled and closed his eyes, "Very good, my son."

S/n closed his eyes as well and the two shared an unspoken bonding moment over the snowy tarantula who just looked up at them. You smiled down at the two you held most dear and felt your heart swell with love and emotion.

Your son was the first to break the silence.

"Do you think we could keep her?" he asked as he gently pulled away from his father. "She could be our mascot!"

"Ah-ha, I don't think so, sweetie," you said firmly. "I'm sure she would be a lot happier on the surface where she has room to find food and make a home." "Awwww," s/o whined in disappointment, "when is she going back then?"

"Probably the sooner the better." Chrollo added, backing you up before s/n had a chance to ask him as well.

"Can I show her to the others before she goes back outside?"

Chrollo chuckled, "I don't see why not. Just be sure to carry her gently and don't shake her. You don't want to hurt her before we let her back outside."

"Okay!" s/n said with excitement. He carefully picked up the plastic container and walked with precise hurried steps out of the room, eager to show his uncles that he hadn't been afraid of just nothing.

As soon as s/n was out of ear shot you turned to your husband who was now standing beside you.

"I'm not going to lie, had that thing snuck up on me while I was reading I probably would have screamed, too," you admitted with light laughter sounding in your words. Chrollo smiled and wrapped his arms around your waist bringing the two of you close.

"How did something like that even get in here? The airducts, maybe?"

"It's possible," Chrollo agreed, "I'll ask Shalnark to run a check on the ventilation system just in case."

You stood on your tip toes and kissed his nose, "I'd appreciate that. Also, you might want to ask Shal and Fei how the hell they missed such a big spider when they came in here to check for intruders."

"When s/n jumped up and ran out of here screaming it probably startled her and she hid among all the stuffed toys," your husband made a gesture with his head to your son's mass collection. You looked down and realized that, even though the spider had been huge, she could have easily hid between some of the bigger plushies blocking her from view.

"Good point," you chuckled, "Okay, one more question, 'Who's taking the spider top side?'"

"Once s/n is done showing the others I'll take them all top side to let her go," your husband volunteered, "we won't go far just to release her."

"He's getting better at recovering from scares like this," you observed. "But still... I worry about him..."

"Of course you worry about him," Chrollo said softly, bringing his head down to now touch his marked forehead to yours, "you're his mother. I suspect you will worry for him one way or another for the rest of your life."

"And what about you? Don't you worry about our son?" you asked in the same softness Chrollo was expressing.

"Of course I do, y/n, he's my son. But, seeing how the two of us are, and what we survived to get here, I feel s/n is going to -" "AAAHHHH!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?" Phinks screamed, "WAS THAT IN YOUR ROOM!?!?! NO!! I DO NOT WANT A CLOSER LOOK!"

Chrollo threw back his head and let out a genuine laugh. A laugh that made you smile and laugh along with him.

"Hey! I can hear you two! Shut the hell up!" Phinks yelled, his voice cracking in embarrassment.

His words made the two of you laugh even harder for several minutes.

By the time you two had settled down and caught your breath there were tears in your eyes from laughing so hard. Chrollo looked down at you with a smile still on his face and gave you a long, warm, soft kiss right on the lips. It gave the moment an almost surreal feel to it.

He was the first to break away from the kiss. Your husband chuckled as he swept some hair behind you ear with his finger tips. "As I was saying, I think our son is going to be just fine."

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journalofimprobablethings · 4 years ago

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a recipe for home

Author: journalofimprobablethings

Fandom: The Adventure Zone: Balance

Summary:

Taako tries to cook for the first time since Glamour Springs. When things go awry, Lucretia is there to lend a hand.

Full fic under the cut, but this you can also find me on AO3!

Preview:

Living in the headquarters of the Bureau of Balance makes Taako nervous.

It’s not just the giant brainwashing jellyfish, or the weapons of mass destruction they're hunting, or the fact that it’s a literal moon base floating in the sky--that’s all weird, sure, but he’s Taako. He can deal with weird.

It’s the sense of deja vu he gets just walking around the place, the feeling that he’s been somewhere like this before. It’s the fact that so many things about it feel so damn familiar. The details of the place that feel right in a way he can’t explain.

The deja vu is constant and sometimes overwhelming. He knows he's never lived anywhere like this--he’s pretty sure he would remember living in the sky--but he still can’t shake the feeling. If he tries to think about it too hard, his head buzzes like the beginning of a hangover and the thin needle of a headache starts to pierce his skull. So he doesn’t look at the feeling straight on. But he worries the edges of it sometimes, as he’s lying in his bunk listening to Magnus and Merle’s snores.

He’s never had a place like this, never been part of a team like this. He’s always been alone. So why does this place--why do these people, Magnus and Merle and the Director and even, weirdly, Davenport--why do they feel so much like home?

The kitchen in the residential wing is the worst--or the best, depending on how you look at it. It’s small, just a tiny galley kitchen for the Bureau members to use if they don’t feel like going to the mess hall, and everything about it feels right. He’s never felt so immediately comfortable in a new kitchen before. He finds himself reaching for a spoon or a pan without thinking, and there it is, exactly where he expected. It’s as if somehow his body already has muscle memory for this place he’s never been. It’s the strangest thing.

Maybe that’s what makes him decide to actually try cooking again.

He hasn’t made anything more complicated than a peanut butter sandwich since Glamour Springs. Every time he thinks about trying, about cutting and assembling ingredients, about transmuting anything, his hands begin to shake, and the echo of forty people choking and gasping for breath sounds through his head. Before he came here, he’d barely set foot in a kitchen in six years.

But for some reason, this damn kitchen calms his fears, at least enough to pull out a pot and prepare himself a packet of instant ramen. Even he, he reasons, can’t mess up noodles and a flavor packet. He only ever cooks for himself, though, never for the others. He plays it off as selfishness-- get your own food, homie, I gave Garfield good elf hair for this shit --and hopes that Merle just thinks he’s an asshole for knocking the spoon out of his hand when he tries to steal a bite. Even he can’t mess up noodles and a flavor packet--but he had thought garlic chicken was a simple enough recipe, too.

Now, he’s standing at the stove, testing the waters in his mind. It’s late, Merle and Magnus long asleep, but after hours of lying in his bunk staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about all the questions this place raises in him, he’d given up on sleeping himself and made his way down to the kitchen. If he’s going to try, the middle of the night is a good time: no one around to disturb him, or ask for a taste.

Taako pulls a pot from the cabinet to the right of the stove, just where he thought it would be, and sets it on the burner. His heart is pounding in his ears, but his hands are steady, the ghosts of Glamour Springs so far silent.

Rice, he thinks. Rice is simple, easy. He’ll start with rice.

After a quick survey of the food stores he's found bacon in the fridge, pigeon peas and capers in the pantry, a container of cubes in the freezer labeled “sofrito” -- who in the Bureau cooks enough to make and freeze sofrito? he thinks. But he’s not complaining, because now he knows what he’s making: arroz con gandules, Tía Elsa’s recipe, a recipe engrained in his bones. There are enough spices in the cabinet to approximate sazón--no banana leaves to cover the pot, but Titi Elsa only did that half the time anyway, maybe if we had a banana tree in the front yard, mijo, but I’m not making a special trip just for leaves. Foil’s fine.

He assembles the ingredients on the tiny square of counter next to the stove, pulls out a cutting board and a knife. Takes a deep breath.

And begins.

He heats the pot, cuts the bacon into thick dice and adds it in. The motions are easy, practiced, the tension in his shoulders relaxing as he falls into the familiar recipe. While the bacon crisps he turns his attention to the army of spice bottles he’s pulled from the rack. He starts mixing them in a small bowl, measuring them by eye in his hand. Garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, coriander. He’s missing annatto seeds, but there’s paprika, easy enough to transmute one to the other--

He stops, staring into the bowl, his hand smudged with red powder.

He did the magic without thinking, a simple shift in flavors, but now he’s staring at the bowl and the smudge on his hand and he’s thinking of elderberry and nightshade and the sound of a town choking to death on his mistakes--

“Taako?”

The voice is distant, he can barely hear it over the ghosts crowding his head.

“Taako, are you alright?”

A hand touches his shoulder, tentatively, and he flinches away from the touch but it pulls him into the present enough for him to open his eyes and see who's talking to him.

The Director is standing in front of him, a blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders and concern in her eyes.

Of all the people to find him like this, it had to be her.

“Peachy keen, jelly bean,” he says, trying for nonchalance, but he can’t stop his voice from shaking. “No worries here, Taako’s good--”

He reaches out to steady himself on the counter, but he misses and catches the edge of the spice bowl, tipping it over the edge. It shatters at their feet, spilling its contents across the floor in an aromatic slash of orange and red and brown.

"Shit," Taako says. "Fucking shit."

He reaches down to clear up the mess, and the world tilts and he almost falls over. Then the Director’s hands are on his shoulders, no longer tentative, catching him before he can fall. She steers him to the table at one end of the narrow kitchen, and guides him, gently but firmly, into a chair.

“Sit.”

He does, and the world tilts again.

“Breathe,” the Director says, and yes, that’s why the world is tilting, because he’s not breathing, but how does he do that? He leans forward and puts his head between his knees, and manages to suck in a shaky breath.

“That’s it,” she says, “Just breathe.” She’s somewhere nearby but now that he’s seated she’s no longer touching him. He can hear her breathing, though, slow and even, and he tries to focus on that, to match his breath to hers.

It takes a few minutes to even out his breathing, and another few to silence the ghosts whispering in his ears. But finally he lifts his head and looks up at the Director. She’s crouched next to him, a small furrow of concern between her brows, and Taako has the strange urge to reach up and smooth the furrow away. He clenches his hands into fists.

He should probably say thank you, but he's angry with himself and embarrassed that she's seen him this way and so what comes out instead is,

“What are you doing down here?”

It’s a rude question for an employee to ask their boss, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“I was working late and came down to make some tea." She studies him. “You were cooking.” She says it so carefully, and not for the first time, Taako wonders just how much the Director knows about their pasts.

He’s afraid she’ll ask what set him off, ask if he wants to talk about it , and he doesn’t think he could handle that. He’s had enough of being vulnerable in front of her for the moment. So he straightens in his chair, pulls his nonchalance back over himself like armor.

“Yeah, you know, sometimes you just need something better than the crap we get in the dining hall.”

He waits for his words to provoke her, for her to stand and say something kind but brusque and leave. But she doesn’t. Instead she just sighs and looks back at the kitchen, surveys the ingredients on the counter, the spilled bowl of spices on the floor. "Gandules?" she asks, and Taako raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah."

She hesitates, and then says the most remarkable thing.

“Would you like some help?”

He stares at her. Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that wasn’t on the list. She sounds different, somehow--less distant, less lofty. She sounds younger.

“Listen, not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but don’t you have important Director-y things to do? Or you know, sleep to catch?”

She smiles thinly. “Sleep is a lost cause tonight, I think,” she says. “And even administrators have to eat sometimes.”

Maybe it's because of that change in her voice, or the fact that she didn’t try to make him talk about the spell he just had. Maybe it's because, against all odds, the Director's presence in this kitchen is strangely comforting. Whatever the reason, he doesn't push away her help the way he normally would. Instead he just shrugs and waves a hand.

"Sure. Knock yourself out."

The Director smiles, drapes her shawl over a chair out of the way, and gets to work. She clears up the spilled spices and shards of bowl, removes the now overly-crisped bacon from the pot, drops in cubes of sofrito to melt and fry in the drippings, and soon the kitchen is full of the mouthwatering smell of cooking onion and pepper and cilantro. It smells like Titi Elsa and home, and the band of anxiety around Taako’s chest begins to loosen.

Taako watches the Director as she measures out the rice and adds it to the pot to toast, then mixes the spices in a new bowl, measuring them in her hand just as he had. She cooks slowly, like she’s having to remind herself of what comes next, but she goes through the steps of making the arroz exactly as he would.

Deja vu, he thinks.

“Where’d you learn to cook this?” he asks. “You spend some time in New Elfington or something?”

The Director doesn’t answer right away. Her hand pauses in its stirring, as though she’s considering what to say, and when she does answer her eyes are far away.

“My brother taught me,” she says quietly.

The answer surprises him. The Director is one of those people who is so private, so self-contained, that it’s hard to imagine her with a family, a life outside the Bureau. Taako tries to picture the Director younger, more carefree perhaps, standing side by side with her brother in the kitchen. But something about the image makes his head hurt, so he stops.

He wonders what her brother was like, and where he is now.

He thinks it must be nice, to have a sibling, someone to teach you to cook, to be at your side through good times and bad. Someone who would miss and mourn you if you were gone. The thought makes his chest ache with something like longing and something like grief.

So much of this place and these people make him feel this way, this confusing mix of longing and sorrow and comfort. He hates it, because he doesn't understand it, doesn’t know why it’s happening at all. These people mean nothing to him. He just met them. He doesn't care about them, he certainly doesn’t need them. He has never needed anyone.

This is what he tells himself, but as he leans back in his chair and watches the Director cook, he can't help but admit that it's the most at home he's felt in a long time.

---

Lucretia knows that this is a stupid risk.

She's supposed to be keeping her distance. She's supposed to be the Director: professional, dignified, distant . She's not supposed to let them catch her wandering to the kitchen late at night, and she's certainly not supposed to be in said kitchen cooking one of Taako's aunt's recipes for him--one of the ones that he absolutely forbade her to ever write down. (She'd watched him make it until she'd memorized the steps well enough to make it on her own. She's tried it a few times, since the redaction, and it has come out fine, but never as good as his.)

She's breaking all the rules she's set for herself, all the boundaries she's put up to keep her story in place, to keep them safe. She's putting everything at risk.

But when she came into the kitchen and saw Taako staring blankly at that bowl of spices, the smudge of paprika on his palm, helping him wasn’t even a question. She knows what happened at Glamour Springs, and she knows how hard cooking is for him now. She'd hoped the kitchen might help. It's modeled after the one on the Starblaster, laid out just the same, one of the places she couldn't bring herself to let go of.

And now it seems it's just made everything worse.

Maybe it's the guilt that makes her offer to finish the dish, so at least Taako can have a taste of home, even if it's not as good as his or his aunt's. Or maybe, she admits to herself, it's pure selfishness. Standing here in this kitchen with Taako, surrounded by the smells of his cooking, she can almost pretend that nothing has changed.

Until Taako speaks.

"Where'd you learn to cook this?" he asks, and her heart constricts in her chest.

She considers, and when she finally responds, it feels like the closest thing to truth she’s given him in weeks.

She remembers the first time she watched him make this dish, in that tiny galley kitchen on the Starblaster. They had lost Lup early that cycle, a venomous snakebite that acted too fast for Merle to be able to help. Taako retreated into himself the way he always did when Lup was gone, but when she offered to help out preparing the meals, he didn’t say no. He was prickly and short, and half the time he would take the knife out of her hand to finish chopping something himself if she was moving too slow. But he let her stay, and watch, and she soaked up everything he was doing as well as she could.

The last day of the cycle, she and Taako were in the kitchen early, and Taako made his aunt’s arroz con gandules, one of the dishes she had always made for Candlenights. He wouldn’t let Lucretia help at all. She stayed with him anyway, as the sky darkened with the coming Hunger and the light dimmed, and by the time Davenport flew them out of that plane and the threads of light pulled them apart, the pot sat covered and ready on the stove. Lup returned to a tackling hug from Taako, and a bowl of rice that tasted like home.

It was several cycles before he actually taught her how to make it, and several more before she cooked it on her own. Of all the things that he taught her to make, it was always one of her favorites, and she made it at the Bureau because it reminded her of that day, that feeling of reunion.

She only hopes they'll get there again, one day.

Gods, she misses him. She misses all of them. She hadn’t realized how peculiar a grief it was, to miss someone who is sitting right in front of you. To look in the eyes of someone who you’ve known for a century and see nothing but wariness and disinterest.

Every time she thinks she's become accustomed to it, something new appears; they do or say something that leaves her shattered.

Every time, it feels a little harder to put herself back together.

“Your rice is burning,” Taako says from the table.

Lucretia comes back to herself and realizes he’s right: the nutty smell of the toasting rice is now tinged with bitterness, and when she stirs there are dark flecks of the grains that have caught at the bottom of the pan.

She curses softly and grabs for the tomato sauce, which hisses and bubbles immediately as she adds it.

It’s been a long time since she let herself wander down those back paths of her memories. She’s avoided it for good reason: it hurts too much, and no good can come of it. For a moment, here, seduced by the familiarity, she allowed herself to drop her guard.

And worse, she let Taako see.

The empty tomato sauce can clatters as she drops it too quickly onto the counter.

“You all right, there, Madam Director?”

She shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous, for him, for her, for the plan. She’s supposed to keep them at arm’s length so that they don’t ask questions, don’t try to follow her down those back paths to places their minds can’t go right now. She’d seen Taako wince when she’d mentioned her brother, because of course that would make him try to think of things that the voidfish has erased, and yet she'd continued on, losing herself in the comfort of the moment and ignoring the danger.

How could she have been so stupid?

She'll finish the dish, because she said she would. What comes next? Toast the rice, tomato sauce and then--what? She stares into the bubbling pot, trying to tamp down the panic clawing at her throat as it always does when she forgets something from the century. She knows this, it's--

"Here."

Taako's voice cuts into her thoughts. She blinks and he is standing next to her, holding the bowl of spices. She hadn't even noticed him get up.

He doesn't ask what's wrong, doesn't even tease her for forgetting what comes next. He just holds out the bowl to her. She takes it, and he doesn't comment on the fact that now it is her hands that are shaking.

"Thank you."

She pours the spices in, and by the time she's done he already has the next ingredient in hand.

They finish the rest of the recipe like that, together, Taako handing her each ingredient in turn. Then she adds just enough water to cover the rice up to her knuckle, and the heat is turned high to bring it to a boil. She and Taako tidy the kitchen without discussion while the water heats, and Lucretia wonders if Taako notices how easily they move around each other in this space, how familiar the dance of dishes and drying and putting away.

The water boils, and they reduce it to a simmer and cover the pot with foil, nesting the lid on top. And then it's done, nothing left to do but wait while the pot bubbles quietly away.

“I should go,” she says quietly. “It’s late.”

"I thought sleep was for the weak, or whatever," Taako says.

"There's always work to do," she replies. She picks up her shawl from the chair and surveys him. "Will you be alright?"

He flashes a peace sign at her. "I think I know how to tell when rice is done. I'm golden."

"You know what I mean."

Their eyes meet, and for a moment there is a connection there, an understanding. It's not what they had before, of course, not even close. But it's not nothing, either.

"I'm good," he says.

She nods and turns to go, but his voice stops her before she gets to the door.

"Hey, Director?"

She turns. "Yes?"

He starts to say something, then stops, and his shoulders go up in a sort of helpless half-shrug.

“Thanks.”

She smiles at that.

"You're welcome, Taako."

The next morning, Lucretia comes into her office to find a covered bowl sitting on her desk. Next to it is a note, and she recognizes the looping scrawl instantly.

Not bad, Madam D.

She smiles and uncovers the bowl. Even though it must have been hours since he placed it there, the rice is still steaming.

#taz balance #taako #taz lucretia #taz fanfic #taz #back on my bullshit writing fics about food and estranged friends #i've accepted that i'll never be over these two and their relationsihp #taako & lucretia #glamour springs #bureau of balance #found family #scribblings #long post

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gustafsnightangel · 4 years ago

Text

Shattered Lives Ch 33 Pt 1

Gustaf was woken by a tiny body curling up at his back. He cracked an eye open and looked at the clock, 4:30. Well at least he had four hours sleep, he’d survived on less. He reached an arm back to hug the kid close to him. There were no sniffles or sobs so he wasn’t too worried. He figured the kid just needed to be close.

“You ok Finn?” He mumbled into the dark.

“I’mk.” His tiny voice so quiet even though his face was buried in Gustaf’s neck. “Can I stay?”

“You can stay, go back to sleep for a bit longer buddy.” He rolled enough to kiss him on the head and squish him in a one handed hug.

He got a few more hours before Lily decided it was Christmas Day and the entire family should be awake. “Good morning Lily bear.” He chuckled and she chattered her usual dad dad. He nuzzled Sildie’s neck breathing her in, feeling his hardening cock press against her ass, and then remembered he had a seven year old in the bed at his back. Morning wood would be difficult to explain.

“Morning love.” He chuckled as she woke, Lily’s squeals made sure she was awake.

“Morning. Ok Lily I’m up.” She giggled. “Sounds like the little lady wants presents.” She pulled back the covers and Gustaf dragged her back against her kissing her neck before she could get up.

“I have a need for you, but the seven year old plastered to my spine had put the kibosh on that lovely wake up I had planned for you this morning.” He chuckled.

“Nightmare?” She asked as he let her go.

“No, I think he just needed that connection.” He watched her closely, today was going to be rough.

“He needed a dad.” She said gently and leaned over kissing him before he could argue. “Take your time, I’ll get Lily and the boys up. He needs you Gustaf. He may not voice it but he needs you to just be you.” She kissed him again and went to deal with Lily.

He waited until Sildie had left with Lily before rolling over to face Finn, which was difficult to do when the kid was wrapped around his neck and stuck like glue. The boy was out cold, he’d obviously relaxed enough once he was next to Gustaf to let sleep claim him hard. He curled the kid into him and let him sleep, drifting into a doze himself.

He woke sharply when Finn stirred and a knee ended up in his ribs. Bright blue eyes looked at him and he smiled before wrapping his arms around Gustaf and hugging him tight.

“Easy kid.” He chuckled and hugged him back. “You ok champ?”

“Yeah.” He mumbled as he let Gustaf go.

“Did you have a nightmare last night?” He asked not really sure what the kid needed.

“No.” He shook his head. “Just sad.” Gustaf hated hearing that grief in his voice, in any kids voice.

“Wanna talk about it?” He wouldn’t push but wanted him to have the option.

“I’m sad they’re not here, but also if they were here I wouldn’t have you.” Finn said softly. Kid logic, Gustaf thought, simple, straight to the point with no added bullshit.

“I feel the same way.” Gustaf said gently.

“You do?” Finn looked at him puzzled.

“I do. I’m sad that your parents aren’t here, but, at the same time, if they were still here I wouldn’t have met Sildie, and I wouldn’t have four great kids in my life.” He watched the kid carefully not sure if it was the right thing to say or if a kid of his age really understood. “It’s ok to be sad they’re not here Finn, and you never have to feel bad or hide it from me ok? I get it.” Finn nodded and snuggled into Gustaf’s chest, the kid needed the connection, needed a dad.

Fuck, he thought, was he really ready for them to call him dad? It freaked him out if he was being completely honest. This is what you wanted, that little voice in his head echoed and he smiled. He wanted it, all of it, but it was scary as fuck.

Sildie smiled at the sight as she opened the bedroom door, tiny lanky body curled into a big lanky body, they were both all limbs. She sat on the edge of the bed and trailed a finger down Gustaf’s jaw before running her fingers over Finns hair and kissing his forehead.

“Doing ok in here?” She asked gently, she knew how sensitive Finn was. He climbed off Gustaf and hugged Sildie.

“I’m ok.” He said and kissed her.

“Breakfast is ready, how about you go get some pancakes?” She said and watched as the kid evaporated at the mention of food. She looked at Gustaf and watched him breath out carefully. “You ok?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Just freaking out a little.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Quinn’s are some fucking big shoes to fill Sildie.”

“Hey.” She cupped a palm to his face and kissed him tenderly. “Breathe.” She murmured against his lips as she could feel the anxiety rolling off him in waves. “Don’t worry about Quinn’s shoes. Just be you, that’s all they want.” She kissed him again. “It’s all I want, just you.” Her kiss was slow and loving. “Breathe love. You’re doing just fine.”

He took a calming breath and pulled her to him burying his face in her hair and letting her scent calm him. “My sweet man, it’s their choice, their decision.” She smiled and stroked his head as he held her. “Let it happen, they have so much love to give you.”

“I love you.” He mumbled into her hair.

“I love you too. Come on you can’t hide in here all day, breakfast then presents or were going to have a mutiny on our hands.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.” He said as she stood and held her hand out for him. He took it somewhat reluctantly, she was taking care of him like he took care of her. He stood and looked into those ice blue eyes, love and compassion looked back.

“See that you are.” She said kissing him. “I made bacon, you might want to come and get some before it’s all gone.” She grinned.

She could see this was difficult for him and only hoped he wouldn’t have a panic attack over it when the boys decided to let him know.

“Go easy with him today.” She said softly, sitting at the table and getting some pancakes for Lily. “If you’re going to ask him to be your dad, go easy, and expect a lot of tears and emotion, ok?” The boys looked at her. “I had to give him a heads up, it’s only fair with something this important. We can’t blindside him.”

Brendan nodded. “He wants to be though, right?” He asked slightly nervous.

“He wants to, but he’s not sure he’s worthy of the title or if he can be that for you like your dad was. But he wants to try. It’s a big deal for him, just try and remember that.”

“He already is though.” Finn said.

“I agree love, and I couldn’t be happier that you want him as a dad. Just be gentle, be kind. He will cry and he will get emotional. This is huge for him.” The boys nodded and she put her finger to her lips as Gustaf walked out in some really ugly Christmas pajamas.

He grinned at the giggles coming from the table.

“Those are really bad.” Sildie chuckled as he came over and kissed her.

“I know, I saw them and just had to.” His grin was wide.

They sat and ate breakfast, Lily ending up in Gustaf’s lap feeding him bacon and tiny crumbs of Lussekatta. The kids cleared the table and once a pot of tea was made they all sat around the tree while Brendan handed out presents. The twins helped Lily unwrap gifts as Sildie took photos and recorded some of it, Gustaf getting his own photos of them so they would have some with Sildie in there as well. He’d noticed that about the photos in the digital frame, there were about six with Sildie in them as she’d been behind the camera for most of the time.

There weren’t a lot of presents but those that were given and received were thoughtful and full of love. Gustaf saw the tiny package Sildie was opening and smirked, she was going to be furious. She opened the small box to reveal a key and frowned at it as it was oddly familiar.

“You look perplexed love.” He said, she could hear the knowing smirk in his voice.

“What’s it to?” She asked looking at him and holding it up. Her tone had the kids attention too. He knew that tone, suspicion and irritation.

“Why don’t you go down to the garage and find out.” He suggested.

He saw it the moment it clicked. “You didn’t.” She choked, staring at him. She didn’t know if she wanted to rage at him or kiss him.

“Oh, I did.” He nodded.

“He did what?” Liam asked not catching on just yet.

“He bought her the car.” Brendan said piecing it together. Damn the kid was as sharp as Sildie.

“I... you... I’m so mad at you right now.” She said simply, unable to put her words together.

“Ok.” He laughed.

“I specifically asked you not to buy me one.” She huffed.

“I know, and technically I didn’t, it’s still in my name.” He shifted closer to her and kissed her. “Presents are off limits love.” He grinned.

“Damn it Gustaf.” She sighed, she wasn’t angry per se, she was exasperated. “I don’t want your money.” She said quietly.

“I know.” He kissed her. “Please don’t be angry.” He murmured. “It’s nothing more than me trying to make your life easier. You need a new car so now you have one. The money you saved is still in the bank and you can use that for partner if you take it.” He swiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb and kissed her.

“No more spending money on me. This counts as at least five birthdays and Christmas’s.” She pleaded.

“No dice.” He kissed her quickly and grinned. “Presents are off limits and I like buying things for you.”

“You know you’d make a great lawyer considering the way you find your way around loopholes.” She said sarcastically.

“I’ll leave that to you.” He chuckled.

“Thank you.” She said gently, she couldn’t be mad. It was Christmas and he’d done it out of kindness and love, not for the sake of just buying it because it was expensive.

“I love you Sildie.” He kissed her temple.

“Love you too.” She bumped his shoulder with hers and he laughed.

She saw him pick up the thin package with gold wrapping and smiled. His brow knit as he studied the dvd wondering what on earth could be on it.

“You’ll need the laptop.” She said softly and he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t worry it’s kid safe.” She chuckled, and that mischievous grin spread across his face. He wouldn’t mind a not kid safe sexy movie just for him to take with him when he was away.

He got up and found the laptop they used to Skype with him and sat back on the floor with it. Tugging her hand he urged her to sit closer wanting to watch it with her. He had no idea what was on it and nothing prepared him for the title page. Our Family, it said simply.

He looked at her and she smiled. “Play it.” She said gently, kissing him with that deep tenderness.

He pressed play and watched as every small home video they’d taken together on their phones flowed from one memory into the next. Looking over the top of the screen he saw Brendan smiling, the kid had put this together and found a way to sneak into his phone and download all the videos he had of them.

“You’re sneaky.” He said playfully to the teen, to which the kid just shrugged and grinned.

“I figured this would hold you over until we can get some more together.” Her voice quiet.

“I love it, and I love you. It’s perfect.” He placed the laptop on the floor, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “I can watch it when I’m away on set.”

“I love you too, Merry Christmas.”

“Our first together.” His voice thick with emotion.

“Just the beginning love. We have many more to go.”

“Yes we do.”

With their gifts opened Gustaf stayed on the floor with Lily while the boys tidied up the paper and Brendan made a fresh pot of tea.

“We have one more present for Gustaf.” Brendan said hesitantly his eye flicking to Sildie, not sure if this was the right time but the three boys had decided today was the day. Gustaf’s gut lurched as Brendan and the twins handed him an envelope.

“It’s something the four of us made.” He shrugged, the teen trying not to make it too big a deal, especially with Sildie’s warning. Gustaf’s hand shook as he took it from him. The twins sat beside him and Brendan sat in front so he could keep Lily occupied while Gustaf read the letters the four of them had written.

His throat was chocked with emotion as he unfolded the first piece of paper. It was a drawing, obviously done by Brendan at the level of skill involved. A portrait of all six of them, a family unit. If the kid didn’t go into cooking he could certainly find a career in drawing, he was exceptional. As he stared at it he saw that there were colorful scribbles over the picture and Lily’s handprints in yellow paint in the corners. He smiled and had to stifle the sob that wanted to escape as he ran his thumb over the dried paint.

He felt Sildie sit behind him, felt her mold her body against his back much like she’d done in the cabin when he burned the notebook. She was grounding him and he took a steadying breath as her fingers fanned out over his heart.

The second piece of paper was from the twins. Again, a drawing of the six of them, in a house as a family, more stick figure than portrait, but something they had thought about, something that they had worked on together for him. Their handprints were done in orange and green, the names of each person underneath. His thumb brushed over the dad inscribed in blue, the mum in red and he sucked in a breath barely holding onto his composure. The final piece of paper was a letter, and Gustaf’s eyes flicked to Brendan before he started to read. He saw the nervousness in the teens eyes.

It was simply written, words from their hearts. Hearts of four children that had lost so much, yet willing to give him so much of themselves freely. They weren’t words to impress, but to convey their love. To ask him for the one thing they needed, the one thing to fill that void of never ending grief, that heart wrenching sorrow. To be the man in their life, the dad in their life, to help them heal.

It spoke of the love they would always have for Quinn and the harsh reality that he was gone. Words from four kids, childhoods partly destroyed by tragedy, where things were anything but normal. He crumpled, he had no words, no way of answering as his emotions completely consumed him. Leaning back into Sildie he pinched his fingers to his eyes as he wept, felt her kiss at his temple, the assurance that he was ok, that this was all ok. How did he be this person, how did he be a dad to them? Sildie’s words from earlier echoed through his mind, they just want you. Just be you.

Brendan’s eyes met Sildie’s and she smiled, mouthing an “it’s ok” at the kids alarmed look. She had warned them and had been expecting it. This was a huge step for them, for Gustaf, and her heart was so full it felt like it would explode. With their letters still in his hand Gustaf wrapped an arm around Brendan and the twins and pulled them in close, the last line of the letter replaying in his head.

You’re the only dad we have now.

Lily squealed at being caged in by so many bodies and Gustaf chuckled releasing the twins, sniffing and trying to get a grip. Brendan held on tight as Sildie scooted back and pulled Lily into her lap.

“I love you dad.” Came the faint mumble and Gustaf sobbed holding the teen tighter, his body shaking. It was new for them too and with all the emotion that had crashed through him he’d forgotten that.

“Love you too B.” He managed to get out before more tears fell. He kissed the teens head and held him tight. Watching the photos scroll through on the digital frame he let it just consume him. There was no way he was containing this. He felt the twins curl into him and pulled them close again, Sildie’s hand at his lower back, soothing, grounding. Sitting there with his family in his arms he let the tears fall, let the love and warmth from four amazing kids surround him, soothe him.

When he managed to get some measure of control he loosened his grip on the kids and they sat back, tears of their own falling.

“I love you guys.” He said shakily as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s going to take a bit to get used to.” He sniffed and Sildie handed him the tissues.

“We just wanted you to know.” Finn said quietly and hugged him.

“Can we take it slow?” Gustaf asked, as he planted a kiss to Finns head, and to his relief the kids nodded. “Because this is going to choke me up for a while.” He wiped his eyes and stared at the portrait Brendan had done. “This is beautiful.” He murmured, his hand cupping the back of the teens neck to draw him in for another hug. “And so’s this.” He unfolded the twins picture and grinned. “That reminds me, I almost forgot. I have another gift for you guys next door.” He felt Sildie’s hand squeeze his shoulder at his words.

“More?” Liam’s face lit up.

“More.” Gustaf kissed Liam’s head and folded the three pieces of paper carefully as if they were delicate 16th century priceless art works and returned them to the envelope. To him they were, they were priceless and so very special.

Sildie almost cried as she watched Gustaf get to his feet, go straight to his messenger bag, and place that envelope in his notebook. She knew that notebook went with him everywhere. A lesser man would have sat it with all the other gifts to maybe toss at the bottom of a box later, but not her man. No, he would keep those with him, on him forever, pull them out and look at them when he needed to remind himself of what incredible kids he had.

She stepped in front of him as he went to grab his keys and he stopped abruptly, his gaze finding hers. She placed her palm over his heart and kissed him. “I love you.” She said tenderly.

His hands disappeared into her hair and he devoured her mouth so thoroughly she was breathless when he spoke. “And I’m so in love with you.” His smile wide. “Shall we go next door and surprise the kids?”

“Are you ok?” She asked, resting her forehead against his.

“I am, a little shaken but I’m ok. I just need time to process and I think they do too.” He closed his eyes and tried to settle. “That was huge and overwhelming.”

“They just want you, love.” Her kiss was soft. “Just be the wonderful soul you are.”

“I just want them too. And you.” He growled the last two words and snapped his eyes open to find hers as she giggled.

“Take a breath.” She said gently and smiled as it shuddered out of him. “And another.”

He calmed, the breath leveling him out. “Thank you.” He murmured and kissed her temple. “You know just what I need.”

They headed next door and as the boys stood in the living room while Gustaf collected the three small boxes from his office . They tore the wrapping off and looked puzzled at the key in their hand.

“Ok the deal is if you can find what the key opens you can have it.” Gustaf grinned, Sildie’s chuckle was all he heard as three boys looked at each other and then started looking for all the keyholes in the place. “Don’t worry I’ll change their door handles back to regular ones tomorrow.” He murmured and kissed her temple.

“Does Lily gets keys too?” Liam asked.

“She does, but I wanted you guys to find yours first since she’s going to need your help finding hers.” He said.

Gustaf knew Brendan had figured it out and was always amazed at how the teen put his brothers first. Holding off for the twins, helping them find their room first after searching for a bit. They went all over the apartment, Brendan turning it into a scavenger hunt. Silence descended as the twins stared at their room, while Brendan opened the door to his. Brendan looked at Gustaf, not quite sure if he understood correctly. He was sure Sildie had said she was going to ask Gustaf to move in with them. Gustaf turned to Sildie.

“Move in with me?” He asked loud enough for the boys to hear.

She looked over to Brendan to see a smile bloom across his face. “What do you think guys? Should we move in here with Gustaf?”

“These rooms are for us?” Liam asked in awe.

“All for you. There’s one at the end of the hall for Lily too so Ama doesn’t have to share anymore.” The boys crowded into Lily’s room and Sildie chuckled.

“I think they’re ok with it.” She whispered to him as he took Lily from her and kissed the tiny girl until she giggled.

“Come see your room little lady.” He set her down and she went exploring. The boys did much the same in their own rooms.

“Mum come seeeee.” Liam said grabbing her hand and dragging her to their room. Mum, she thought, we’ll she’d kind of expected that considering. If the kids were ok with the sentiment then she was too, sort of. They needed closure, they needed to move forward and if calling her mum helped them she’d suck it up. She knew deep down she wasn’t mum material but for them she’d try.

“When can we move in? Can we sleep here tonight?” Finn asked hopeful, as he sat on the bottom bunk with a book.

“We can start moving in tomorrow and we’ll see about where we sleep tonight. We don’t have things for Lily over here, no food.” She just wanted to get through today and there was so much more of the day to go.

“We can always camp out tonight.” Gustaf said walking back to them, Lily on his hip. “Why don’t you take a shower and the boys can help me move some stuff across and we can sleep here tonight.” He stroked a finger down her jaw and curled the wave of hair around it.

“You’re sure?” She said hesitantly.

“Never more sure love. Then we can move everything else tomorrow.” He kissed her long and slow. “Besides.” He growled. “I want you in our bed tonight.” He nipped her ear lobe gently and her giggle made his cock twitch.

The boys practically skipped home and started to help Gustaf pack up and move everything they’d need next door for their sleep over. It had gone better than she could have hoped for, she thought as the hot water soothed and relaxed her. By the time she was getting dressed the boys were taking their showers and Gustaf had Lily in the tub.

She decided on leggings and an oversized sweater. She wanted comfort. “Is this ok?” She asked and he smiled at her.

“Love, you’d look good in a paper bag.” He chuckled.

“Be serious.” She said shortly and he heard the anxiety in her tone.

He placed Lily on the floor to play and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m very serious, and yes what you have on is fine. I’m just going in jeans a shirt. My sister is probably going to be in something similar.” He kissed her, lingering. “Relax.” He murmured. “Breathe. It’ll be ok with whatever you decide to wear.”

“Ok.” She nodded and whooshed a breath out.

“Go get the boys squared away while I take a shower and then we can go.” He kissed her sweetly. “I’ll be right there with you love, together, you and me.” She nodded and then kissed him.

“Just nervous.”

“I am too.” He confessed.

“You’re nerv....” She choked. “Great.” Her squeak made him smile.

“Yes. Would you like to know why?” He kissed her tenderly and she nodded.

“You’re the first woman I’ve brought home for Christmas.” Kissing her temple he breathed her in, calm.

“I’m what?”

“My family met Ana and previous girlfriends, even Hanna my first wife, but I never had them home for family Christmas. Most of the time they were with their own families or I was working. I’d asked, their families were more important which is understandable. It stung a little I’m not going to lie, but you’re the first and last woman I’ll be taking home for Christmas.” His hands roamed her body and pressed her against the hard lean length of his. “I’m nervous because you mean so much to me and I want them to love you as much as I do.”

“They’re your family Gustaf, they love what you love.” She scoffed, remembering what Bill had said in the car to her that night.

“Yes, but I... I want things to go smoothly for you.” He said honestly. “I don’t want you or the kids feeling uncomfortable.”

“I’ll be ok.” She said forcing the smile, she wasn’t convinced but she’d try.

“And I’m nervous after the boys gift.” He choked. “It’s a lot to live up to, I’m still reeling a bit and I... I’m fucking terrified.” He looked at her hoping it wouldn’t compound her already heightening anxiety.

“We can be terrified together. Apparently I’m mum now.” She chuckled and blew out a breath. “Go shower.” She kissed him. “Let’s get it done and then sleep in our bed.”

“Now that I can get down with.” He said gently and kissed her quickly before heading to shower.

With the Kladdkaka and presents packed, kids in coats, Lily in her stroller, and her nerves relegated to a deep pit in her stomach, they walked to the Skarsgard family home. By the time they were in the elevator she’d let the lawyer surface and wrangled her emotions, she would get through this and she was not going to embarrass Gustaf by having a complete meltdown in front of his entire family. With that firmly decided she plastered a smile on her face and let the lawyer take the reigns.

Even though his parents were divorced his mother My still lived in the house Gustaf grew up in, and his parents had an amicable relationship which meant Stellan would be here with his wife and two sons. All Sildie knew was there were going to be lots of people, and probably lots of questions, she was ambivalent about both.

Gustaf walked straight through the door without knocking, each child knew they had an open door at their mothers house. Sildie was greeted by voices and music as Gustaf helped her with her coat and pulled Lily out of her stroller to hang up her coat and snuggle with him. She looked at Brendan and could see the teen was nervous but ok, same with Liam, but Finn was glued to her leg.

“Give me a minute.” She murmured to Gustaf and pried Finn loose enough to get down on his level. “You nervous love?” She asked gently and he nodded. “Me too.” She smiled shyly when his eyes met hers.

“Can I hold your hand and stay with you?” He asked in a barely audible voice.

“Of course. You know, I think Uncle Bill is here today too.” She said looking at Gustaf.

“He will be if he’s not already here, and Oona and Aunt Alida.” He added, he felt for the kid, lots happening and slightly unsure of his new surroundings. Finn was sensitive and hated crowds, just like Sildie.

“Then maybe you can play Mario cart later.” She saw the slight smile and hoped that was enough to keep him from freaking out.

She took his hand and Liam’s and walked behind Gustaf, Brendan followed with the Kladdkaka. Gustaf introduced them to the room and she was greeted by happy smiles and friendly waves. Heading to the kitchen she noticed everyone seemed to see them, say hi, but not crowd them, and she was thankful for that. She smiled as Bill came toward them, a familiar face she was relieved to see. Brendan and Liam went with him to meet Valter, but Finn stuck to Sildie and hid behind her, even with Bill.

“He’ll be ok Bill, he just needs some time to adjust.” She said squeezing Finn’s hand and the kid squeezed back. It was their own secret communication of checking in with each other.

“Bathroom?” Sildie asked Gustaf before they headed into the throng of people.

“Down the hall, last door on the right.” He kissed her sweetly.

“Good to know.” She smiled and squeezed Finn’s hand again. If Finn knew where the bathroom was he’d have somewhere he could go to breathe and collect his thoughts.

Finn seemed to blend into Sildie and as she was introduced to Gustaf’s cousins she was relieved that none of them pushed an introduction to the kid, or a conversation. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t handling things well. That changed when Gustaf’s father came over to say hello.

“And who’s this little guy attached to your leg?” He asked conversationally, not pushing.

“This is Finn, his twin is Liam, who I think ran off with Bill at some point.” Sildie chuckled. “Finn and I are kindred spirits, we don’t handle big crowds very well.” She squeezed Finn’s hand and he squeezed back as he pressed tighter against her leg.

“Ah. I understand completely. My youngest boy is the same way. Can I?” He asked, pointing to Finn and at Sildie’s nod he dropped to the kids level. She saw now where Gustaf got it from, that compassion, that kindness, the never ending patience. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

“Hi Finn.” He said gently.

“Hi.” Came a mumbled, barely there reply as he pressed himself tighter against Sildie’s leg. Sildie was grateful he hadn’t completely shut down.

“I hear from Gustaf you like the Harry Potter movies?” Stellan looked up at Sildie and she could have kissed the man. Finn nodded quickly, his face still half attached to Sildie’s leg. “My youngest son likes them too and is watching the first one, would you like to come and watch it with him? It’s a little quieter over there and not as many people.”

Finn looked up at Sildie and she squeezed his hand willing the universe for him to take a leap of faith and go. She got down to his level and kissed him. “You can go watch it, I’ll be right here.”

Stellan held out his hand and waited, he was offering but not pushing and Finn could see that. He took Stellans hand and squeezed Sildie’s.

“Are you Gustaf’s dad?” He asked quietly.

“I am.” Stellan smiled. “Ready for some Harry Potter magic?”

Finn nodded and dropped both Sildie’s and Stellan’s hand before hugging Sildie tightly around the neck. “I’ll be right here love, I won’t leave without you and you can come find me or Gustaf at any time ok?”

“Ok. Love you mum.”

“Love you too. I’m proud of you. Go make some new friends.” She said smiling at him when he let her go and took Stellan’s hand again. She watched them go and blew a breath out as she stood. She felt Gustaf’s hand at her waist, his lips at her jaw.

“Ok it’s official, your dad is awesome.” She chuckled. “My new bestie.”

“He’s good with kids.”

“One would hope so considering he has the eight of you.” She quipped and Gustaf’s laugh eased the tension in her shoulders.

He introduced her to Valter who was just a big goofy kid at heart. He owned the house in the realm of video games and she saw now why Gustaf wanted Finn to go up against him, although Brendan and Liam were holding their own quite well. Valter and Brendan seemed to be on the same wavelength as the geek speak flowed as easily as their native tongue.

“If we can persuade Finn to play he’d wipe the floor with him.” Gustaf murmured pointing at Valter and Sildie smiled.

“Let’s play that by ear, he might relax more as the night goes on.” She said softly.

“There are other nights, doesn’t have to be tonight.”

He led her back out to the living room, introducing her to more people, his hand at her back a constant source of grounding and comfort. She was going to have a hard time remembering everyone’s name. They stopped near a man that was taller than Gustaf by a few inches with his back to them.

“Sam.” Gustaf said and tapped him on the shoulder.

As her eyes landed on his face she felt her entire world bottom out. “Dr Sam.” She choked, the familiar lightheadedness and prickling of her skin her only warning her system was about to implode, catastrophically.

“Sildie?” He said puzzled, his brow knit.

She saw the recognition in his eyes as her chest tightened. “Excuse me a moment I need the bathroom.” She managed to wheeze out before she broke from Gustaf’s grip abruptly and fled. Last door on the right, last door on the right she repeated, the wheeze tightening her chest. She burst through the door and slammed it shut turning the lock and virtually collapsed on the floor as her legs crumpled under her. Bringing her knees up she sat trying to force oxygen into her lungs, while making herself as small as she could. She would not pass out or have a fucking coronary today she willed.

Gustaf didn’t know what the fuck was going on. At her choked Dr Sam he’d watched the color drain from her face to a sickly grey.

“What the fuck Sam?” He spat, turning on his brother, temper flaring. Yes, he had one, it didn’t surface often or easily, but he had one and it was volatile. “You two know each other?” He wanted to go after Sildie but he had to know what he was getting into first.

“I’m sorry.” Sam said in his gentle manner, knowing how explosive his brother could be. “It didn’t click until just now. I looked after her brother in the ICU, mum was with his wife.” He sighed out, his gaze flicking to Lily, the realization that this was the child his wife had been carrying. “Shit Goose, I didn’t know. I see hundreds of people a year I don’t remember them all and it didn’t click.”

“Fuck!” Gustaf swore and glared at his brother. “Didn’t click? How did it not become fucking obvious when I told you her name?” He spat. “This will fucking destroy her.” He seethed. “She’s spent the better part of two months, two months Sam, working her herself up to come and meet everyone without losing her shit.”

“Goose, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember everyone I treat.” It was the truth and Gustaf knew it but he was livid. The one thing he didn’t want shoved in her face today had been firmly rammed down her throat.

“We’re not fucking done.” He snarled and set off down the hall with Lily still snuggled in his arms.

He stood outside the bathroom and hesitated, his hand poised to knock. He could hear her sobs and felt like shit. How had he not seen this as a possibility? Because there is more than one hospital in the city and Sam can’t control who his patients are you moron, he swore silently. He felt like shit for that now too, the way he’d ripped into him, jumped down his throat without thinking. What a fucking mess. He took a breath, she needed him calm, she needed him to be her rock. “Breathe.” He said softly as he got rid of the rage at his brother. “Just breathe.”

She heard the soft knock and the call of her name before the lock clicked open. It was like the voice was down the end of a tunnel as black clouded her vision. Damn it to hell she would not pass out. Still forcing air into her lungs he closed and relocked the door.

His heart broke, she was sitting on the floor, knees under her chin, eyes red, that tell tale wheeze as she tried to breathe. He sat beside her, hauling her into his lap with Lily.

“I’m so sorry love, I didn’t know. Sam didn’t either.” He sighed, kissing her head and stroking his fingers through her hair more to soothe himself.

“I know.” She sobbed. “I’m not mad it just... I can’t breathe.” She wheezed.

“There’s more.” He said gently. Fuck this was going to destroy her. “My mum was with Dana.” He dropped that piece of news quickly, like ripping off a bandaid.

“Oh.” She said quietly before a new wave of tears fell, the choked sobs that made her wheeze worse.

“Let it out love.” He soothed, it was the only way now, there was no going back. There was no calm breathing, she needed to cry it out, she needed to let it consume her to move past it when it had gone beyond breathing techniques and conscious thought. “I’m so sorry love, I never meant for it to happen like this.”

“It’s ok.” Her sobs catching in her throat.

“No, it’s not, but it will be.” He said softly as he held her tighter as she fell apart. “Pass out if you need to I’ve got you love let it come.”

She let the grief swamp her, she was safe and he was with her. Letting it go was the only way now as his hand stroked her back, soothing, calming. “Deep breaths for me love.” He murmured as her sobs lessened, his gentle string of instruction calming her further.

Lily squirmed after a while and let it be known she wasn’t happy with the current situation and Sildie laughed as she sat up, her breathing calmer. He settled her, leveled her out.

“She wants you all to herself.” She sniffed and started to reign it in. “Not that I blame her.”

“I love you.” He said tenderly, fingers toying with the wave of copper at her jaw.

“I love you too. I’m so sorry.” She said as she climbed off him and stood, throwing cool water on her face to get a grip. “Sam must think I’m a fucking basket case.” She huffed.

“Don’t. That was some slap in the face Sildie and I never meant for that to happen.” He stood behind her, kissed her neck, and let his hand wander under her sweater to find bare skin at her hip. “Relax.” He murmured and rubbed a hand up and down her spine, the skin on skin contact what she needed. “Get through the rest of this and I’ll make it all better when we get home, to our room, in our bed.”

His gaze met hers in the mirror and he saw the lawyer surface. “There’s my girl.” He growled. “So fucking strong for me.”

@hausofobsession @ill-skillsgard @grandpa-sweaters @authentic90skidd @tuckersgirl @fairlyfallacy @flowers-in-your-hayr @raewritesfiction @stinkerbelle007 @kamie-b @mrsaugustwalker @skrsgardspam @loliwrites @trippedmetaldetector @lihikainanea @fay-walden

#gustaf skarsgard #gustaf skarsgard fanfiction #shattered lives

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starlingstories-blog1 · 7 years ago

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The Scared and the Scarecrow

“Die on a hilltop… eyeing the crows… waiting for your lids to close… but you want to watch as they peck your flesh… Ironic that they go for the eyes first.” ~ Eddie Vedder

I know she’s the girl Marissa would want me to choose. I can tell all the way from the other side of the room, from behind my tall mug of cheap beer. She is skinnier than the girls I usually bring home, but she makes up for that in the way her eyes wander into the dark corners of the desolate bar; in the way she hugs herself, like she’s cold; in the way her eyes locked onto the bartender’s forehead but never meet his gaze.

Marissa taught me to look for signs like these. This was before we traded New Orleans for Maine - before she stopped hunting and made me our sole provider. We were in a bar not unlike this one, with its musty aura, creaky floorboards, and questionable patrons. I coughed when Marissa deliberately blew cigarette smoke into my face. In old movies, it looks sexy to inhale what’s expelled from your lover’s lungs; in reality, it smelled like shit and made my eyes water.

“The girls I hunt have been waiting,” Marissa had told me, “like deer with their white tails in the air, certain they heard something rustle in the leaves. They spend their entire lives listening for a growl or twig-snap. They pass the time - graduate college, marry protective men, and contributing to overpopulation. They keep night lights on and they shrink from familial hugs - they never walk in the woods alone. They hold their breaths for a horror-movie jump scare that never comes. Half the time, they don’t even fight me. It’s their destiny; they are prey - cogs in nature’s indifferent machine. They find peace in finally submitting to a predator. ”

I had wanted to remind her that she was the predator. I had simply stepped into a slaughterhouse and forgotten where the door was. Five years later, I’m still gaping in awe at her museum of fleshless, grinning corpses, trying to determine what species they once were. I’m still chasing Marissa through a forest of meat hooks, following her like fabled travelers follow the manic laughter of dancing pixies. If you eat fairy food, they trap you forever. I ate whatever Marissa offered me, ate it like I’d been starving my whole life. I’ve stopped looking for a way out. I can barely remember ever wanting one.

I - obedient and hungry predator’s pet - take a sip of my now-warm beer and walk slowly across the bar. The only other patron - a regular - sits hunched forward, his forehead pressing into the counter. He looks like he’s about to vomit and can’t decide if he should run for the bathroom. I vaguely remember his unwanted, meaty hand grabbing my ass last weekend. I briefly contemplate vomiting with him.

I sit down, uninvited, beside the girl. “Hi,” I say. “Chilly night, huh?” It’s only early October - the first frost hasn’t even hit - but she looks like she’s cold in her oversized sweater. She looks like a scarecrow with the knitted atrocity to fashion hanging off her willow-tree frame; if I were a crow, I wouldn’t be the least bit scared of her.

She doesn’t sit down, seeming to prefer the awkward, liminal space between the barstools. “Yes,” she whispers, “very chilly.” She folds her little hands together on the bar like she’s praying - probably praying for me to fuck off.

I take advantage of her phobia to eye contact and study her. She has too-short hipster bangs that frame her pointy face and accentuate the bruise-like bags under her eyes. I wonder if she really does, on some level, grasp that she is destined to die tonight. Maybe she’d been lying in bed for hours, unable to sleep - feeling drawn to this bar. Or, maybe, she’s just a boring old insomniac.

“Are you a local?” I ask. I’ve already guessed the answer: you wouldn’t catch a Mainer dead in a sweater until at least November.

She shakes her head no. “I’m visiting my aunt.”

Alfy, the bartender, brings her a glass of white wine. I ask him if I can please have a fresh beer and he grunts an affirmative. The glass looks huge in the girl’s hands; she uses them both to bring it carefully to her mouth like she’s sipping from a chalice in some arcane ceremony. I suppose that’s appropriate for tonight - for her last drink.

“I’m, um, looking at colleges,” she offers, apparently deciding small talk is preferable to silence.

“What would you major in?”

“Maybe English Literature,” she says. The “maybe” beards her complete certainty.

“Do you want to teach?” I ask. I’ve met enough English majors to know that asking certain questions in a certain tone - a tone that implies their future includes barista training and crushing debt - puts them on the defensive and gets them talking.

She shakes her head. “I could never teach.” She goes on to talk about working for a publishing company, becoming a freelance editor, or writing novels. I stop listening before she gets to freelancing, but at least she’s saying something.

When her eyes finally, hesitatingly, meet mine, they are dark pools of unrest. I begin to rethink whether or not I would fly away if I were the crow to her scarecrow. “I wanted to go to this art school,” she says. “It’s got an amazing creative writing program… but my aunt needs me here.”

“She old?” I ask.

Alfy slides my beer across the counter. I let the condensation cool my sweaty palm and ignore him when he shoves a coaster at me.

The girl blinks and for a second I think she might be offended. “She has cancer.”

Oh. I nod sympathetically. As women, we are supposed to bond over the mutual fear of one day finding that dreaded lump in a breast and ending up with no breasts at all. We’re supposed to huddle together against role-of-the-dice anomalies and genetic inevitabilities. I feel no such kinship. I have known since I met Marissa that one day she will grow tired of my bullshit and become hungry for my vital organs. I don’t have the luxury of fearing death by disease or the traitorous-snake-oil of chemical healings.

The girl taps her fingernails lightly against her wine glass; some of her chipped, black nail polish flutters down onto the counter. She wipes it away quickly, as if she just accidentally spat.

“You and your aunt close?” I ask.

“Not really, but my mom can’t move here and my sister is married with kids.”

“So they dubbed you the sacrificial lamb.”

She shrugs and makes an almost unseeable smile out of her dry lips.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Twenty-three.” Her eyes start doing that darting thing again; she doesn’t look twenty-three.

“No husband or kids?”

“I don’t want a husband or kids,” she says, no “maybe” about it this time. “I-I couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility,” she stammers, as if she owes me an apology or an explanation for not wanting a man to put something inside of her that will eventually grow arms and legs and rip its way back out.

“Sometimes, there’s no way to avoid winding up responsible for someone,” I say. “But nobody’s counting how many burdens you break your back with, martyr girl. Don’t think you’re gonna get some golden halo or ticket to heaven out of it.”

Her cheeks turn red, contrasting with her alabaster skin in a way that makes her look like an embarrassed cartoon character. “I don’t think of sick people as burdens.”

“Yes, you do. You do because they are.”

Her eyes turn glassy and I think she might cry, but when she blinks they are matte again. For a moment, I wonder if her reluctance to make eye-contact has less to do with a fear of people peering in and more to do with preventing something from peering out.

“What about you?” she asks. “Are you responsible for someone?”

“Like I said, sometimes there’s no way to avoid it.”

She glances at the cracked clock about the bar and furrows her brow.

“We have a few minutes,” I say. Alfy never rushes people out.

“My aunt keeps the house so dark now,” the girl sighs. She rolls her head back on her anorexic neck and squints up at the water-stained ceiling. “She has this hoard of Victorian china dolls, all lined up like they’re waiting for something.” She swallows. “She keeps talking about leaving me the house. It’s so full of stuff. It’s suffocating… I don’t want a house.”

She looks at me again and I know I’m not going to have any trouble getting her to come home with me. This girl is trapped and tonight Marissa will free her. Maybe it really is fate.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Alice,” she says.

“I’m Tara.” I finish my beer in one big, messy gulp. “Do you want to come to my apartment for a bit? My roommates will be there. You’d like them,” I say, like I have any idea what kind of people she likes - as if I have roommates, for that matter.

She studies my friendly mask of a face with her bottomless-well eyes - searchlights tracking malintent. I’ve been with Marissa so long I have trouble remembering if I have any malintent towards the girls I hunt. I have no more animosity towards them than a pig farmer has towards his livestock when he leads them to the butcher. He can appreciate their floppy ears and friendly squeals, but his mouth also waters for bacon and pork roast. Is that malintent?

“You don’t want to go home.” I give her my best imitation of a compassionate and motherly smile.

Alice nods and wraps her sweater tightly around her shoulders. She forces her quivering chin still with a clench of her jaw. “No, I don’t want to go home,” she whispers.

She doesn’t object when I pay for her wine.

She knows, I think. She knows.

She doesn’t object when I hold the door for her.

Do pigs know?

She doesn’t object when I button her sweater for her, or when I hold her tiny hand.

This one does.

She doesn’t even object when Marissa slits her throat with a serrated Spyderco Harpy knife.

They find peace in it submitting to a predator.

I put Alice’s dead-girl eyes in one of Marissa’s sickly-sweet smelling preservation jars; the way they look at me is no different than when they were in her skull.

#writing #shortstory #lit #horrorwriter #writers on tumblr #writer #horrorstories #cannibalism #hannibal inspired #lgbt fiction #lesbianfiction #queerhorror #originalstory #mywriting #prose #spilled ink

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tatteredsmiles · 6 years ago

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Vegas Vignettes: Father’s Day 2027

Light filtered through gossamer curtains, dancing over patterned bedsheets and plush duvets as the sun crept across the sky. Faint sounds of a city that never slept softened, night having transitioned into day, greeting its residents with a familiar din. Though tired as she was, Sigyn couldn’t help the blissful smile that curved upon her lips. Today was a special day.

Carefully slipping from their bed, she delicately gathered two tiny twin boys in her arms — fragile little things, at only two and a half weeks old — and quietly left the room. Sigyn tended to the newest members of their family, changing diapers and nursing them to contentment, before rousing the rest of the children. She made sure they were as quiet as could be, getting them dressed and making sure teeth and hair were all brushed. They had some very important work to do, and she wanted them looking their best.

Sigyn tied her hair back and rolled up the eight little sleeves of her ‘ helpers ’, assigning each one their own task as they set to work making a very special breakfast. Preparing two large bowls of batter ( from scratch, of course ), she gave one to each of their elder boys to stir. She placed various mix-ins along the counter in smaller bowls, letting their girls sprinkle in bits of diced fruits and chocolate chips to their delight. With all four of them occupied, Sigyn began warming up the stovetop, melting butter to coat the surfaces of several pans to prevent their concoctions from sticking to them.

The pleasant aroma of coffee brewing permeated the air. It was soon joined by the warmth of batter baking, the savor of bacon cooking, perfectly seasoned potatoes frying, and eggs, too. Sigyn gracefully managed this balancing act, ensuring the food was neither overdone nor undercooked, and somehow still kept all of it warm. Placing the prepared dishes on platters and pouring coffee and juice into carafes, she arranged everything on a tray. Knowing their children would still want to help in some way, she handed a stack of plates to Narfi, cups to Váli, and napkins and silverware to Kayla. She gave Liv, on the verge of a tantrum at having been left out, her own special task, which made her very happy.

As silently as a group of young children could, Sigyn had them bring their items out to the balcony outside of their parents’ bedroom and set the table. She carried the tray herself, as it was far too heavy for them to handle, and placed it in the center. Liv waited for her mother to retrieve the twins, bouncing around as antsy toddlers were prone to do. The second Sigyn gave her the nod, she eagerly climbed up onto the bed, curling against her father’s chest and nuzzling his face.

❛ Up, Dada, ❜ Liv cooed in her small, sweet voice as she tried to wake him, ❛ Up, up! ❜ Her impatience grew, and she bounced a little on the bed, jostling her father. Liv let out a tiny shriek when he suddenly grabbed hold of her, squealing and giggling as he tickled her in mock punishment for having woken him. She scrambled out of his arms and slid down from the bed, wildly brushing her ruffled hair from her face before raising both arms and exclaiming, ❛ SUH-PISE! ❜ She waved animatedly, motioning for him to follow her. ❛ Come see! ❜ Clapping her hands, Liv pattered out to join the rest of her siblings on the balcony.

Sigyn met her husband’s confused look with a brilliant smile, tears of utter joy and happiness pricking her eyes, and inclined her head in the direction Liv had gone. The moment Loki stepped out onto the balcony, a chorus of ‘ Happy Father’s Day! ’ echoed around them as their children shouted excitedly, proud of what they’d done for their dada on his special day. Sigyn came up next to him, their twins still cradled in her arms. She lifted herself onto the balls of her feet, pressing a tender kiss to his cheek before whispering in his ear, ❛ Happy Father’s Day, Loki. I love you. So much. ❜

There was a hint of lingering, burning passion in her next kiss, which she placed upon his lips. Sigyn gently brushed her nose with his, parting from him and handing him the smaller of their twins as he took his seat. She couldn’t help stealing another quick peck before turning to order their children to their seats as well, so she could begin serving them. Only when her family had full plates and cups did Sigyn finally sit down and serve herself, still balancing their older twin in one arm.

Looking around the table at her beautiful family — her incredible husband and their six precious children — she couldn’t imagine a more perfect sight. The only thing that could have possibly made it even better would have been the addition of Loki’s first three children ( and their mother ) here with them. However, that would soon be rectified at the lunch she’d planned for all of them, with a reservation at his favorite spot. Sigyn couldn’t wait for all of them to be together, celebrating the most devoted husband and amazing father to their children she ever could have wished for.

She shifted the baby she was holding from one arm to the other, reaching out with her free hand and placing it over her husband’s, giving it a gentle squeeze. Scooting her chair closer to Loki, Sigyn leaned in, her ever-present smile lighting up her eyes as she gazed upon him. ❛ I wish I could have done more than just this for you today. You deserve all of the best things and all of the happiness in the world. ❜ She pressed a series of soft kisses to his lips as she spoke. ❛ I could not have asked for a better father to these wild, willful, wonderful children. I love each and every one of them, and I love you. You make me so indescribably happy, Loki. I hope you enjoy every minute of your special day. ❜

#v: a dangerous night to fall in love { m o d e r n * f a n t a s y }#fathers day submission #avalthollr #omg it’s so sweet i love it #submission

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jenguerrero · 6 years ago

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#johnwhaleniii #paleogrilling #cidermillpress

Paleo Grilling is a cool paleo book. It’s not strictly grilling. Some dishes are completely grilled. Others are grilled as part of the process. Some are barbecued. And then there are the supporting characters that don’t see the grill. But it’s mostly grilling. The range is neat. For beginners, there’s an opportunity to learn the nuances of different steaks. He breaks out several of them separately with minimalist recipes so you can really get a feel for different cuts. I skipped those and went for the more complex dishes.

I wanted to share with you his recipe for Killer BBQ Spare Ribs. It’s such a neat recipe. The barbecue sauce is not overly sweet. It gets natural sweetness from pineapple, tomatoes, honey, and molasses. Oh, I love the depth of flavor that molasses brings to the party. Yeah, pretty much any party. The ribs do the majority of their cooking in the oven and then get the sticky, oozey sauce caramelized onto them on the grill. We’re team barbecue around here, so I *did* add just a little wood to the grill for some smokiness, and my kiddo added 2 teaspoons of liquid smoke to the barbecue sauce. These are delicious and people are going to be happy when you make them. Sugar haters are gonna hug you extra!

A big thanks to Cider Mill Press for letting me share the recipe with you! I’ll show you the rest of my pics and thoughts on the other dishes we tried after the recipe.

If you love it, come find me again or hit that follow button! 😀

Killer BBQ Spare Ribs

Makes 6-8 servings * Active time: 1 hour 45 minutes * Total time: 4 to 5 hours

2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced extra thin 1 clove of crushed or minced garlic 1 cup of local honey 1/3 cup of dark molasses 1/3 cup of local dark maple syrup 1 ½ Tablespoons paprika <Be sure to use the smoky kind! ~Jen> 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 ½ teaspoons fresh ground pepper 1 Tablespoon ancho chili powder (more if you like extra spicy) 2 teaspoons ground cumin ½ cup apple cider vinegar (the more you add, the tangier the flavor) 1 ½ cups organic strained tomatoes 5-6 ounces organic tomato paste (no sugar added) ¼ cup chili sauce ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce 1 ½ Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice 5 Tablespoons chopped onions 1 teaspoon mustard powder ½ pineapple, cubed (if fresh juice collects on your cutting board, add that in, too!) 4-5 pounds baby back pork ribs

1. Preheat the oven to325°F. Meanwhile, mix the BBQ sauce ingredients – all the ingredients except the ribs themselves – in a large saucepan over low to medium heat allowing the sugars to melt. Line the bottom of the roasting pan with a thick layer of the BBQ sauce.

2. Place each rack of ribs into the roasting pan, layering them with a solid basting of the sauce so both sides of each rack of ribs are fully coated. Cover and allow the ribs to cook for 2 ½ – 3 hours. No need to turn or recoat the ribs during this process.

3. About 15 to 20 minutes before the ribs have finished cooking, fire up your grill. A gas grill will work just fine, but there’s nothing better than wood-grilled BBQ ribs, so consider your options carefully! Look to achieve a medium heat from your grill.

4. Use long tongs that will allow you to slide the tong the full length of the rack of ribs. This will help prevent the ribs from breaking off as the ribs will be soft and tender from their time in the oven.

5. Basting is perhaps the most important final step in preparing killer ribs. I continually baste the ribs, always trying to achieve a beautiful dark brown and black glazed surface. As soon as the flames char the edge of the meat, I quickly baste over that area with a fresh coat of sauce and turn the ribs so the opposite side can be lightly and evenly charred by the fire as well. Unlike steaks on the grill, I turn the ribs over and over, basting and turning each rack in order to achieve the best and most flavorful results. Do not worry about a little bit of blackening and charring: paint over all the charred areas with a fresh coat of BBQ sauce and the two flavors wed together beautifully. <We like having sauce to pass at the table, so I removed some of the sauce to a little pan to baste the ribs and let the rest simmer away on the stove to thicken up a bit while I grilled. I quickly blotted the fat that was on the surface with paper towel. You lose a little sauce that way, but it’s easier than skimming with a spoon… ~Jen>

6. As soon as the ribs reach the level of browning and blackening you desire, remove the ribs from the grill and place them onto a serving tray. Do not place them back into the roasting pan. Bring the ribs directly to the table and allow them to cool to the touch before digging in.

Continuing my review of the book…..

Paleo Grilling By John Whalen III Format: Hardcover

My thoughts and pics of the recipes we tried: 1) Classic Caesar Salad – p 44. Great, rich, garlicky-anchovy taste. 2-3) Steak au Poivre – p 102. If you’re familiar with the dish, he has coconut milk stand in for the cream. Killer peppery, brandy sauce. We loved it.

4) Grilled Artichokes with Garlic – p 274. I had no idea you could grill artichokes. It works beautifully! The smokiness penetrates right through the artichoke hearts. Quick note – the recipe calls for ½ olive oil and misses the unit. It has to be ½ cup because ½ Tablespoon would be way too little. 5-6) Killer BBQ Spare Ribs – p 174. We loved these. They’re fall-apart tender and juicy. The bbq sauce is not an overly sweet one because there’s no sugar. My kids loved it. He keeps them paleo and gets natural, complex sweetness from pineapple, tomatoes, and molasses. They do the majority of their cooking in the oven and are finished on the grill. I did add some wood to the fire for smokiness, and my youngest added 2 teaspoons of liquid smoke to the sauce. These are total keepers.

7) Grilled Beets with Walnuts – p 281. I never grilled beets before either. Fabulous. Mine took about twice as long before a fork penetrated them to my liking. I’ll add parsley next time for a little purple/green color pop. 8) Grilled Peach Scallops with Basil-Cilantro Puree – p 230. Really quick grilling. I was surprised by how much the scallops picked up the peach flavor. The peaches were all supposed to be diced. I halved two just because they look so cute on the plate that way. We loved the chimichurri with it. 9) Chorizo-Stuffed Mushrooms – p 27. Really interesting. It’s the hard Spanish chorizo that you’d use in paella. Here, he has you pulse it down in the food processor, so you get all that flavor without the chewiness. I wish I’d thought of that before – lol!

10) Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Grilled Pineapple – p 187.

Some others I have flagged to try: Bacon Deviled Eggs – p 34 * Portuguese Kale and Sausage Soup – p 47 * Balsamic Glazed Flank Steak with Vidalia Onions and Mushrooms – p 96 * Bistecca Alla Florentina – p 100 * Porterhouse with Chimichurri Sauce – p 104 * Skirt Steak with Olive Tapenade – p 113 * Red Wine and Herbs Marinated Tri-Tip Steak – p 115 * Filet Mignon with Red Wine Reduction – p 116 * New York Strip with Pizzaiola Sauce – p 120 * Blackened Texas Brisket with Coleslaw – p 122 * Paleo Hamburger with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Portobello Mushrooms – p 126 * Marinated Steak Kabobs with Salsa Verde and Grilled Cherry Tomatoes – p 133 * Leg of Lamb with Rosemary-Mustard Marinade – p 144 * Marinated Lamb Kebabs with Mint Chimichurri – p 152 * Grilled Roast Pineapple Pork Loin – p 165 * Blueberry Pork Chops – p 173 * Red Wine-Marinated Chicken with Chipotle Cauliflower – p 182 * Seared Tuna Steaks with Dill Aioli – p 220 * Grilled Lime Mahi-Mahi and Smoked Green Beans with Prosciutto and Pine Nuts – p 224

*I received a copy to explore and share my thoughts.

I’m an Amazon affiliate. Any time you use one of my links to make a purchase, I get a tiny percentage. Thank you!

Paleo Grilling

Killer BBQ Spare Ribs recipe (oven/grill combo) and Cookbook review: Paleo Grilling #johnwhaleniii #paleogrilling #cidermillpress Paleo Grilling is a cool paleo book. It’s not strictly grilling. Some dishes are completely grilled.

#Barbecue #BBQ #cook book #cookbook #food porn #grill #grilling #Jennifer Guerrero #JenniferGuerrero #John Whalen III #Paleo #pineapple #pork #recipe #review #Ribs

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chicagopdlover · 7 years ago

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Part 6: GONDALIERS DON’T SING AND NO ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP? A FIRST-TIMER’S DISCOVERY OF THE REAL ITALY.

St. Mark’s Square and colorful buildings line Venice’s Grand Canal GONDOLIERS DON’T SING BUT VENICE STILL EVOKES ROMANCE In Part 5 – The Classical Beauty Of Tuscany, The Elegance Of Florence And San Gimignano’s Tall Towers VENICE Where we stayed: The Carnival Palace Hotel , opened in 2012, overlooks the Cannaregio Canal in the heart of historic downtown Venice . The modern 67 room hotel is not in the midst of tourist traffic, so if you want to venture to St Marks , museums and art galleries, you either have a very long walk or you can easily take a water bus from a station just a short distance away. The hotel buffet was diverse, with a vegan brioche I mistakenly took for a wheat croissant until I bit down into its soft, buttery texture. These were so amazing I ate them every morning for four days. Russ and I and several View from Old post office that’s now a mall couples stayed in Venice for a two-day extension of the tour. Our tour company, Odyssey’s Unlimited, had arranged for our continued stay at the Carnival Palace Hotel, as well as our transportation to the airport and flights home. There was so much more to see in Venice than what we already had crammed in. Where we dined and what we drank: The final dinner for our tour group of 24 was at Tre Archi (3 Arches), just across the canal from our hotel. We had a choice of fish of meat-based dishes. The fish appetizer was a selection of fresh seafood, followed by house-made gnocchi with diced scallops. Grilled fish fillets were next. A plateful of ham slices and fresh Buffalo mozzarella began the meat selection, followed by pasta with a coating of meat sauce. A tender seasoned filet steak came next. Both dinners included salad, tiramisu, and coffee, as well as a continuous pour of wine. This will be a dinner most of us will never forget as the evening’s entertainment was an accordionist who sang a mixture of modern tunes and Italian classics before handing his accordion to tour member Don, who used to play one for a band. Our Tour Director Elizabeth Cirio , who had arranged for the accordionist to let Don play, jumped up to dance, with others joining her. seafood appetizer at Tre Archi. photo by Karen Kuzsel Elizabeth has told us that in Rome and other Italian cities, it would be difficult to find a restaurant with bad food. In Venice, she said, it’s difficult to find restaurants with good food. That caution caused us to be more judicious in picking where to eat. Many of the restaurants serve overpriced, inauthentic cuisines, especially around St. Mark’s Square where a single coffee can run 15E. Now, with that in mind, the Square is inundated with sidewalk café seating. Quite a few restaurants have tuxedoed orchestras who rotate playing a variety of contemporary and classical tunes, many from the big band era. You’re paying for the music and the people-watching, not the coffee or meal. St Mark’s Square & the Doge’s Palace on Venice’s Grand Canal Staying apart from the heaviest foot traffic in Venice may be as easy as sitting on the opposite side of the canal that leads towards St. Mark’s Square. Such was the case for Riva del Vin Ristorante Pizzeria , one of many canal-side restaurants with fake flower boxes adorning the railing. Can’t say the food was remarkable, but the views of docked boats and the people-watching on the other side were worth eating mediocre Margarita pizza, salad and lasagna. Le Campane restaurant’s inside garden murals. photo by Karen Kuzsel We stopped at Le Campane , when the outside “barker” promoted their garden-like setting. The weather was muggy and they offered a 14E prix fixe meal, so five of us decided to check it out. We walked past many smaller dining rooms until emerging into a final larger, brick-walled room that indeed simulates an outdoor garden with murals and plants. We chose different options, all of which were good. I had a hefty portion of spaghetti mixed with bacon and tomato pieces. Russ had spaghetti bolognaise and schnitzel. Not expecting schnitzel, right? We shared a platter of lightly breaded calamari and a mixed salad. The wine was fine. Nothing memorable. Veal dish at Ristorante Lineadombra. photo by Karen Kuzsel Our final main meal in Venice was also in one of the most beautiful settings. The Michelin Guide -rated Ristorante Lineadombra has an indoor contemporary-designed restaurant, but six of us elegantly dined on a large covered terrace that extended over the canal on the far side of Dorsoduro. Most of the classically-prepared dishes were seafood, but our two meat-eating husbands did manage to find dishes to their liking. The three women, Cherryl, Cindy and I shared a grilled and baked whole mild white fish that was plated with fresh vegetables. We were all served a complimentary piece of grilled octopus and an amuse bouche with an avocado puree and tiny shrimp. Lucky for me, Russ can’t eat shellfish. plated fish and vegebrables at Ristorante Lineadombra. photo by Karen Kuzsel Market Square What we saw: Venice is the capital of the Veneto region. It lies in a shallow lagoon, the widest in Europe, and sits among a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges, of which there are 400. The Grand Canal divides the city into two parts, with three districts in each part. Rialto Bridge Residences and personal craft crowd inner canals We didn’t make it to Burano , the island known for lace, but we did have a quick journey to Murano Island for a glass blowing demonstration at Ferro & Lazzarini . Our group boat trip over was subsidized by the City of Venice as a marketing tool to combat the misconception that Chinese and Korean reproductions sold in Venetian shops and labeled as genuine Murano glass, are not. We all visibly gasped when Ferro & Lazzarini’s Sebastian Tasses took two gold-gilded ornate drinking glasses and bounced them off a table, neither cracking. He said that is the strength of real Murano glass., adding that only Murano can do true colors because they aren’t composed of lead crystal, as are imitations. Real Murano glass should come with a logo and a certificate of authenticity. Ceiling in the Doge’s Palace During our extended stay, Russ and I visited the Doge’s Palace , not realizing we would only have an hour before they closed. The Doge was the most powerful official in the Republic. Two tall columns in the piazza of the palace is where executions took place. The prisoners would walk across the Bridge of Sighs to reach the prison once condemned. The original bridge was built of wood. This one, made of stone, was erected in the 16 th century. The walkway is narrow. Window slits looking out towards the canal would have been their last vision of freedom. Because we had so little time, we scurried through the palace ballrooms, some of the largest and most ornate we’ve seen on this trip. The ceilings are painted much like the Sistine Chapel , elaborate in religious depictions. We wished we had had more time to fully appreciate the beauty of the palace, even while understanding the harsh judgements the Doge and judges dealt. The Bridge of Sighs’ windows gave prisoners their last look of Venice What we learned : If you plan to be in Venice for more than a day or even multiple trips in one day, I’d suggest you buy a waterbus pass. Apparently, where you buy them changes as frequently as some women switch purses, but we got ours at a newsstand shop. Two full days of waterbus access was 20E each; three days, 30E. The transportation is prompt and generally packed with locals and tourists. There are many seats in the back of each. We only had to show our pass once to board, but be aware that if caught during a random inspection, there is a hefty fine for not having a valid ticket. Forget all the romantic movies you’ve ever seen where the always handsome gondolier croons ballads as he carefully guides you through the moonlit canals. Gondoliers do not sing . Most do wear the striped shirt and flat, wide-brimmed hat with ribbons, but honestly, they are more intent upon keeping the gondola balanced when water busses, water taxis and motorboats slide by. The last thing anyone would want is to be dumped overboard into Venice’s muddy brown polluted canals. That said, we did take a gondola ride and our stocky gondolier was both handsome and deft at navigating the canals. As he said, “It’s not about muscle strength. It’s all about technique.” The lion is the symbol of Venice We learned a lot about gondolas that I find fascinating. Each boat contains 290 pieces of wood. They are always black because the original ones were covered in pitch to hold them together, but each is decorated individually. The gondolier has to wait about three months for his order to be produced and when finished, the arrival is celebrated with a blowout party as if someone just had their first child A gondola can be anywhere from a two to six-seater, with rides averaging about 80E. As much as I have seen photos or movies about Venice, I had never really thought through the realities of life there. Every single items must be brought in by boat. Deliveries are mostly hand-wheeled through the narrow alleyways and piazzas on carts. All garbage, sewage and goods to be recycled must leave by boats as well. Just one of many shops featuring hand-crafted masks Walking in Venice is often like maneuvering around a maze. Tiny alleyways are hardly wide enough for two-way way walking, so etiquette demands you walk single file. Even with the density of residential and storefront buildings, the alleyways and piazzas are kept pretty clean. Before embarking on our Portrait of Italy tour with Odysseys Unlimited , we realized most of our travel-oriented friends have all been there. Many quite often. We know what we saw is a tiny portion not only of the country, but even of what we saw in the areas we visited. But hey. We threw coins in Trevi Fountain . Guess we’ll be back.

from Christian David Biz https://ift.tt/2KEqEOx via Article Source

#Christian David Biz

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notable-law-music-tech-news · 7 years ago

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How to make perfect fried rice (and I mean perfect)

I make really great fried rice. Before you silently judge me for this arrogance, know this: Behind this hubris lies the wisdom of my Chinese in-laws. When first dating my now-husband, I would fly to Seattle to visit his parents, and our family time would be spent with me taking copious notes on an iPad while they attempted to teach me to cook their family dishes. I was so taken with their food. I learned dumplings and stir-fries and five-spice braised beef. I learned how to make traditional dishes for winter’s solstice and dishes for health and good luck. Yet of everything I’ve learned, it’s their fried rice that has become my back-pocket dish.

Until my visits to Seattle, I had only ever eaten cheap takeout fried rice and didn’t love it. It was overly salty, gluey and filled with vegetal nubs and rubbery meat, ribboned with dry shredded eggs. My in-law’s recipe was different. Their fried rice was elegant and lightly seasoned; the grains were individual, kissed with soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. Their recipe uses bacon, though any salty meat would work. Spam is especially good too. It’s a deceptively simple dish—deceptive because the fried rice, despite its spare appearance, involved many specific techniques and tricks honed through decades of cooking experience. When they taught me to make fried rice, they taught me their way, not meant to be altered or improvised upon. But there’s a reason they did this: when I tried this at home, the fried rice turned out perfect. Every time. These were some of the secrets they passed to me, and now I pass on to you:

When adding soy sauce, the goal is not to add so much that you discolor this dish. I go for a toasty, tawny look after the soy is stirred through, rather than a dark brown. This usually means no more than two teaspoons.

Chances are if you buy soy sauce from an American grocer, it’ll be Kikkoman, a Japanese brand (you can tell from the pear-shaped glass bottle with the red top). Try to seek out a Chinese light soy (and not dark soy, which is thick and sweet), though, because it does taste different.

The eggs are important here: Rather than frying the rice in oil first, what I do is carefully pour the beaten egg base onto the medium-hot oil. The rice is then carefully folded into the eggs, taking care to not flatten the rice and eggs. The result is small puffy pillows of egg in your finished dish. Note the photo—there are no stringy, shaggy bits of eggs. Those are small Puffalumps that actually taste like eggs.

Scallions are crucial for the onion-y component. They must be finely sliced on a sharp angle. My father-in-law insists they be cut this way—it adds a bit of beauty to a very simple dish. In the finished dish, the scallions poke through the rice like tiny jade spears. They are added at the very end to preserve their fragrance.

I can’t stress how important it is that you use ‘old’ rice. Not fresh and steamy from the rice cooker. I’m talking about leftover from a day or two before. If I don’t have leftover rice, I’ll make rice the morning of, spreading it out on a baking sheet to make sure it doesn’t dry in large clumps.

My in-laws add a small pouch of preserved Chinese vegetables (usually mustard greens or salted radish) that have been soaked and drained to reduce their saltiness. I love this as an add-in, but it can be hard to find those unless you go to an Asian grocery store. The packets usually are in Chinese and may helpfully just say ‘vegetable’ on them. They are about the size of an airplane peanut pack, with a photo of a slumped tangle of something fibrous on the front. The good news is they are so inexpensive you can afford to make a few mistakes until you find one you like (then keep a photo of it on your phone. What? That’s totally normal). If you have it, add it. If not, the dish will not suffer.

For an easy dish with so few ingredients, I know the methods seem rather particular. I am reminded of that line from Legally Blonde: “The rules of hair care are simple and finite.” So too are the rules of fried rice: don’t use fresh rice, don’t flatten the eggs and rice, don’t over soy sauce it, and stir in the scallions off the heat. Like its takeout cousins, this fried rice tastes great cold the next morning too.

Perfect fried rice

2 slices of bacon, diced

2-3 scallions, sliced thinly on a sharp bias

3-4 cups leftover medium or long-grain rice, such as jasmine (no freshly steamed rice)

3 eggs, well beaten

Salt

2 tsp. light soy sauce

Toasted sesame oil

Heat a 12-inch non-stick skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add diced bacon and sauté until crisp and golden. Remove from pan and leave about a tablespoon of rendered bacon fat in the pan. (Any more and your final product may become too greasy.)

Add beaten eggs, swirling to evenly coat the bottom of the pan. When the edges start to ruffle, add the rice evenly on to the eggs. Gently but expeditiously stir them around, breaking the eggs into small pieces. Do not press down on the rice, as you want to keep the fluffy texture. I use chopsticks to do the stirring, which also curbs the impulse to smoosh down with a spatula.

When the rice is warmed through, add bacon back in and stir through. If using the Chinese preserved vegetables add them in now too. Add a small pinch of salt to season.

Season with a teaspoon of soy sauce to start, and take a quick taste. If you like a bit of a deeper flavor add another teaspoon. Remember we are going for a light brown color, not a murky dark shade.

Turn off the heat, add scallions and stir through. Add a drizzle of toasted sesame oil, and stir gently to incorporate. Scoop into bowls and serve immediately.

from Lifehacker https://ift.tt/2rGveRg

#newsofnote recipe

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midnightjamlady · 7 years ago

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Pasta ala bak chor mee

Needed a quick lunch and all I had left in my fridge was some minced pork, half a stick of carrot and French beans. But with staples like lemons, Parmesan and duck fat still in stock as well, this fridge-clearing lunch turned out to be no ordinary leftover lunch!

This was just something thrown together on a gut feel but wow, the final product was really good and just as I had hoped! So here’s me writing it down because I really want to make this again soon!

* * * * *

Spaghetti with lemony duck fat minced pork (serves 2)

Prep your ingredients (as shown in photo above). Slice: 5 cloves of garlic, 3 shallots, spring onion, French beans. Finely dice half a carrot. Grate: zest from a quarter of a lemon; about 3 tbsp of Parmesan cheese. Prepare as well: 200g minced pork. While you prep, start a pot of water to boil for the pasta.

Start cooking. Drop your pasta into the boiling pot of water and cook according to packet instructions (usually 8-10 minutes). I like to salt the water so that the noodles are slightly seasoned.

In a hot pan (heat: medium high), melt 2 tbsp of duck fat in a glug of olive oil. Add the garlic, shallots, the white bits of spring onions, and carrots to sweat and soften. After about 2 minutes, add the French beans and sauté.

Once the vegetables are soft, add the minced pork and sauté in the pan on medium heat. Season with salt, black pepper, and some dried herbs (I used my herbe de Provence, which is a mix of thyme, rosemary, oregano, marjoram). No need to loosen the pork into tiny bits — just stir them through the veggie mix. Make sure it’s not too hot or the minced pork will overcook and become tough. When they’re almost cooked through, add a small ladle of water from the pasta pot and gently simmer on low heat. When the liquid is almost all gone, take the pan off the heat while you wait for the noodles to be cooked.

Once pasta is cooked, transfer the noodles over to the pan (on medium flame). Toss noodles with the minced pork and veggies, as well as the grated lemon zest and Parmesan cheese, green bits of the spring onions. Add a little more pasta water (less than a ladle), and mix them all together. Serve and eat up!

* * * * *

The duck fat makes all the difference and you don’t need a lot of it. You could substitute it with other animal fats like bacon or pancetta but the final dish will taste different — but not in a bad way, it’ll just be more porky and still tasty, but essentially different from this. The lemon zest is also crucial to cut through the fattiness and help lift the dish with a bit of brightness. Cooking the minced park carefully also means they end up juicy and not rough and dry. This hardly needs a sauce as the flavour is all in the fats (duck fat + olive oil), the aromatics like garlic, shallots and spring onions, and the lemon zest. The Parmesan works as a secondary seasoning to the salt so that the saltiness isn’t just one dimensional. But that means you should also take a lighter touch when salting the dish.

I love making pasta because you basically need just ten minutes to prep the ingredients and another ten minutes to cook. And it can be as humble or decadent a plate as you like.

The idea was actually inspired by a “bak chor mee” pasta I had awhile back that was served with some foie gras sauce at one of my favourite joints Perle Noire. But obviously I don’t have foie just sitting around in my pantry so duck fat is the closest in spirit and animal! This idea is a winner though. I don’t often rave about my own dishes but this deserves some shameless self praise. I really loved it and I hope you’ll enjoy making this too!

Ezra loved it and finished his little bowl of noodles too, veggies and meat and all!

#pasta #noodles #duck fat

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briarofthebush · 8 years ago

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I’m in my favourite place for a casual coffee and snack in my local area. I live in a pretty commercial corner of the town, which boasts about 5 Starbucks and one cosy café, one old-school diner, several other franchised café/eateries such as ‘Chipotle’, ‘Panda Express’, ‘Red Robin’ and ‘Subway’ just to name a few. When I can, I love an excuse to take me out of this highly commercial area so I can enjoy a good coffee, and a good vibe in an independent business. My local café is often too dark, the food is pretty ordinary, and the noise unworkable. There is no nice vibe, in fact it feels hostile at times.

Here, where I am this morning, up the road a bit, away from the shopping district, there is the smell of coffee and good, smoky bacon. There are always a lot of relaxed people around, many in my own demographic, as well as younger and older. Lots of dog owners (though they keep dogs outside). People play with their kids (or ignore them) on a big rug at the back. Many people have become familiar faces to me. There is light. The coffee is excellent. The food is usually delicious. They make coconut bread and a maple and bacon muffin which is awesome. I meet here to ‘write’ every Friday morning, though sometimes it’s purely a social gathering. Oh, and they know my name now, when I order stuff!

This place sits up on Roosevelt Rd, along with a few pubs and another couple of restaurants, amongst other small businesses in Mapleleaf. I love this part of town. It is a very steep 15 minute walk up through the suburb from my place, or it’s a short bus ride.

I can get a really good fresh croissant here, or a breakfast sandwich on an English muffin or a Bagel. There are lots of cakes and quiches to choose from. There is a range of great looking sandwiches that they will make fresh, including the BBQ pork, the Cuban, Turkey, cream cheese and cranberry, Tuna salad, Mediterranean roasted veges, (though I’ve yet to try one). I often get a croissant with ham and cheddar, which is chockers with good ham, unlike in Australia, where the meat portion on a sandwich is distinctly light-on. (I really think there is no excuse for skimping on the meat in a sandwich, because they are incredibly expensive, for that tiny sliver of turkey or beef or pork they give you at home.) Let the Americans take credit for knowing how to put together a good sandwich.

Although don’t get me started on the bread. AS we speak, I am stocking up on par-baked and bakery reads in my freezer, because there is no such thing as a corner bakery for miles or a milk bar where can grab a loaf on my way home from places, and I live a good walk from the supermarket. I have tried several of the packaged brands of bread, the white, the whole-wheat, the grainy, and they all stick to the roof of our mouths. They have so much sugar in them. They feel wrong, they taste wrong. Only the Italian style or Sour dough breads are less sugary. The good bakery breads are excellent, but as I said, I have to get to a supermarket that is out of my way when I’m in transit, so I make special ‘bread shopping’ trips to stock up. If I had a bigger kitchen, I would make my own.

I love to buy a sandwich at QFC, an upmarket grocery where I can also get a hot sandwich from the deli counter on my way out, and savour it’s deliciousness on the way home as a reward for walking up to the supermarket along the noisy, smelly road. They give them names like ‘The Rainier’ or ‘The Snohomish’, and pack them full of really nice cheese, pestos, relishes, mustards and Boars Head Cured meats. I always feel like a bit of criminal for ordering one, but it is so worth it to get one. And always get it cut in half so it can be stretched to 2 meals, or shared. One day Johnny and I greedily thought we could eat more than a ½ roll each, and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich as well to share on our way home. We were really hungry and it was a very cold and grey day. We walked past the old homeless guy on his wheelie-walker on our way in, and the minute we saw him again on our way out we knew we had to give the grilled cheese to him. I will one day be greedy enough to order one for myself.

These are but a few memorable foody experiences I have had here in Seattle, in USA generally. I wish I could say I’ve had many more, but I really did know what I was in for, moving here. I knew it could be a challenge, to be able to eat what I was used to here. I knew the food would, at the very least, look different, and possibly taste differently. I have been really fortunate to fall in with foody types, who have travelled, and have shaken loose their need to have every little thing BBQed, covered in buffalo sauce and bleu cheese and other indiscriminate flavourings, or in a burger… people who ‘get’ food, and care where it comes from, and that it is different the world over. We’ve been taken to a place that does oysters and raw food, which is possibly the best place in town, we’ve had amazingly cooked Central American food at a gaudy old garage painted up to be a festive cantina- served Mojitos with plantain chips and moles to die for. We’ve had beautifully cooked Bistec et frites in a French restaurant, crab dips, lobster rolls, Aussie style pies, authentic Mexican food, Indian food, Korean banquet, Yum Cha and Southern style food truck delights. We had Caribbean style jerk cooked food in beautiful sandwiches, in another converted garage. (This up-cycling of mechanic workshops into restaurants is to be commended). We were fed a delicious crab and lobster filled ravioli- lasagne at Christmas. We have had fresh filled dumplings cooked for us, pork ribs and roasted chickens and lamb chops cooked for us by our friends in their homes. Beautiful, fresh and nutritious food.

We’ve have tried Southern fried chicken in a few places, and I can’t fault it anywhere. It is always delicious. All I know is, I should never really have it.

All the same, as much as Seattle is fast becoming a foody destination, (according to word on the ‘street’), the idea where a café is a more casual place where there is restaurant style great food available has not quite caught on. Not in the suburbs, at least. People still expect and receive the over-sized sandwiches, huge plates of diced potato and bacon with everything, hot or BBQ sauce with everything, and there seems to be an expectation for people’s plates to be loaded up with no space left. Loaded up to the roof in some cases. Lunch is often a 3 courses on an order affair, with soup, salad, chips to go with your sandwich, panini, burger or bagel. You feel weird just ordering a sandwich. But I quite like the ½ sandwich +soup options in some places. (You don’t have to be a pig). You are often expected to order at the counter and bus your own dishes. As nice as the staff are at the counter, they don’t often clean up after you. Everyone knows where to put their dirty dishes. Salads are often very much a chopped up bowl of everything in a bowl. I have seen maybe two carefully arranged salads on a plate in 20 months.

Breakfast, on the other hand, is a FULL plate of stuff, and often a pancake to go with it. The American breakfast is seemingly a tradition that will never budge, especially since people in the west will now eat biscuits and gravy, fried chicken and waffles, and even pulled meat on their eggs Bene, (which often is smothered in béchamel and not hollandaise). The Avocado Smash phenomenon and the Shakshuka are happening, but only in those very trendy cafes where people line up out the door, such as you see on Portlandia. The best option if you don’t want to walk out feeling like you’ve done something really dirty and need to go and take a long shower and hit the gym all afternoon, is to have a breakfast bagel or croissant. Which is what I do here quite often. They don’t actually do big plates of food here, just sandwiches, quiches and cakes. Beautiful cakes, wholesome and generously full of fruit or nuts. Their coconut bread is to die for.

Today I am going to do something different for me, and order pie (fruit, probably berry), only I didn’t see any pies in the display case at the counter. But I do know that, unlike at home where you feel very strange and humiliated to ask for things you cannot see, I know I can ask here and they will probably want to give me along and well explained story about the display case being broken or the pie oven being broken or the berry supplier being on strike. And then we’ll probably get talking about my accent and about someone’s sister who went to Adelaide or somewhere. It will be pleasant and not humiliating. And then I’ll order something else.

When I leave here I will probably hit QFC and grab some good bread and maybe even a sandwich for Johnny and I to share for lunch. If we go to the pub later it will mean a fairly naughty food option. Happy Hour Food is often quite calorie heavy. Cheese balls, Fried curds with a delicious raspberry sauce, Fries, pulled pork potato skins, pizettes, nachos, burgers, sliders, buffalo wings are some of the things you might find on the menu. One of our 2 locals has much more fresh fare, (woodfired pizzas and salads for example) and the other has much more traditionally prepared, aka fried food. Unfortunately the one with the cheap Mug Club beer is the one with all the greasy options. My favourite item on their menu is a raw tuna Poke ‘nachos’ on fried wonton skins, with mashed avocado, jalapeno slices, spring onion and a teriyaki dressing. It is really delicious, but doesn’t seem to line my stomach for the ensuing pints of beer well enough, unfortunately. It has taken months of experimentation to figure out the best ‘drink friendly’ foods to begin a night on, and to work out that a starter snack of something small but stodgy then another later on after a couple of drinks, then maybe a THIRD night cap (small) supper is possibly the best way for me to cope with 3-4 (or more) pints. It can get pretty washing machine-like in my tum at times.

(I’d better poke in a disclaimer here: while I am not on a strict calorie controlled diet, I am actively trying to NOT put on MORE weight before I return home to the land of salad days). A heavy meal when drinking is just stupid. Dessert is ridiculous. No-one needs that much food! Well I don’t. I don’t move enough. And then, if brunch is on for the next day, well that is just really asking for more lard to deposit itself on my rear…

I’ve actually decided against the pie. The shared monster sandwich Johnny and I will have will be quite enough food for the rest of the day.

Until ‘happy hour’.

Take Me Home, Country Loaf I’m in my favourite place for a casual coffee and snack in my local area. I live in a pretty commercial corner of the town, which boasts about 5 Starbucks and one cosy café, one old-school diner, several other franchised café/eateries such as ‘Chipotle’, ‘Panda Express’, ‘Red Robin’ and ‘Subway’ just to name a few.

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