#dry heaving every time I need to take a sip of coffee is *not* ideal

[avernusfuries]

[webcricket]

Thursday’s Child

Pairing: CastielXReader Word Count: 2759 (Pt. 1) Summary: Part 1 of 5 - You met Castiel during his stint at being human and knew him as Steve, a sweet, albeit mysterious, man working at the local Gas-N-Sip with sad blue eyes that seemed to light up in your presence. That was eight years ago; now the daughter he fathered during your brief time together - the girl he doesn’t know about because he stole from your bed without a word and slipped out of your life before you knew you were pregnant - is asking for him. You realize, for her sake, it’s time to face the painful truth in order to find him. A/N - Part 1 is an angsty intro to the reader, the next part brings us up to speed on where Cas is at ...

Pt. 1

You walked into the Gas-N-Sip onto a scene a match stick strike short of complete chaos. Beyond the sea of customers waiting at the counter, the grumbled volume of their impatience rising like a storm’s tide breaking on a rocky shore, you saw not the blue-eyed sales associate you sought for, but the ragged figure of the manager, Nora, as she slammed her fist against the side of the cash register to compel its cooperation.

The machine spat its contents out in a metallic ding barely audible above the thunder of discontent. Nora flung a handful of crumpled bills at the gaping man stood before her and waved him toward the door with his uncapped cup of cold coffee without a word regarding well wishes for the goodness of the day.

The frazzled blonde jabbed a finger at her temple, peered blankly over the counter, and muttered, “Can I help whose next?” in a manner that made whomsoever was next dither in presenting themselves for customer service slaughter, and two people leave without getting the gasoline they came for - one of whom had trudged there on foot through the snow uphill in a pair of threadbare tangerine Converse after their car ran out of juice three miles down the road.

As the sea swelled in murmured confusion over who was next, you dove into the crush of shoulders and shoved a path through to the front.

Pressed into the counter, you jostled a carousel display of novelty keychains, the inconvenient disturbance of which, more than your voice, caught Nora’s strained attention. “Nora!” you panted. Caging the scattering of metal rings within your elbows to prevent their clattering to the floor, you ignored the nicotine-husked scolding of a wrinkled weather-worn woman sounding in your ear about cutting the line.

“Y/N?” A flicker of hope lightened Nora’s craggy sleep-deprived aspect at the sight of you. “Have you seen Steve?” Clutching at your wrist, she asked the desperate-toned question before you could, unknowingly answering yours in its sameness. “He hasn’t been in for two days. No call out. Nothing. That’s not like him.”

Cheeks paling, you agreed – conscientious to a fault, it wasn’t like him at all to just disappear.

The sickly sense of suspicion festering in your stomach during the last forty-eight hours that began upon waking to empty sheets and fattened itself not on food, because you’d barely eaten under the barrage of worried emotions, but rather fed on a gluttony of unreturned calls and texts, shuddered and flipped with enough weight to unsteady your feet; wrist yanked from her grip, you flattened your palm to the front of your jeans as an awareness of imminent ill shot sour bile up your gullet.

You shook your head; taking a second, you choked back the throat-searing fluid and fortified your dizzied balance against the confirmation he had indeed gone without a trace. “N-no, I haven’t-” you sputtered- “I-I was hoping-”

Cutting you off, unable to hear anything beyond the unhelpful news of your weakly uttered ‘No,’ frustration rutted her sweat-beaded forehead. “Well when you do see him, tell him he’s fired. He left me in the middle of a mess of inventory and I haven’t had anyone to open. For fuck’s sake, it’s the holidays! I’m in a real lurch here.” Wheezing to reach for the final bit of breath required to bellow out her contained fury, she gestured at the crowd and flashed the one or two nearest folks shocked by her expletive outburst a conciliatory service industry contrived smile.

“If-if you see him-” you attempted to request the returned favor through the burst levy of her rage as the woman spewing insults about your impudence wedged between you and the counter to demand immediate attention. Funneled in defeat to the center of the store, you broke for the bathroom before the wet brim of heartache flooded your lashes and a renewed heave of nausea hollowed your belly of its fill of woe.

<<<>>> 

“Mama?” The girl outfitted in pastel blue and magenta feather-bedecked fleece footie pajamas curled on the bed beside you stirred sleepily in the crook of your arm; the friction of her minute movements and dry forced heat air of winter combined sparked a static shock where the soft warmth of her bare fingers brushed your own calloused cooler ones.

“Yeah, honeybee?” Swiveling your concentration from the pages of the storybook held above the both of you, you closed the pages and sniffed your reply ticklishly into the freshly washed soap-smell of your daughter’s scalp – the scent of her a welcome haven from the heady aromas clinging to you of yeasted bread, warmed spice, and browned sugar that otherwise denoted a hectic day spent toiling in the bakery and sweet shop you operated below the small apartment.

She squirmed and giggled beneath your unrelenting Eskimo kisses until, fidgeting sideways to evade and escape, she squealed mid-laugh a query so completely unrelated to the book you’d been reading aloud minutes before it took you aback. “Where’s daddy?”

Her innocent and wholly natural curiosity stilled your showering of affection, seized at the center of your chest to steal your breath, and skipped your heart a few agonizing beats, but only a few; you’d grown emotionally numb over many years to the hurt of not knowing what happened with her father, of trying to reconcile your questions with a lack of answers in order to figure out what you did wrong, if anything, to warrant Steve’s disappearance from your life – and his own - without a goodbye, a warning, or so much as an inkling of a reason.

Although you tried and mostly succeeded in tidily boxing up the train wreck aftermath of emotion in your brain, he remained nonetheless an enigma forever in front of you because she was his; she wore his smile, albeit a bit easier and more often than he did; she saw the world through that same shade of inwardly illuminated blue, giving everyone she gazed upon the benefit of the doubt; she treated everything she touched, too, with a kindness, carefulness, and consideration so like him.

He endured even in his absence as an end without an end - the only proofs of the brief love-swept spell of him having been in your life a blunted memory stonewashed by time to dull the jagged edge of loss in believing he was the best thing to ever happen to you, and the life he sparked in your womb, a little girl who turned out to be what he wasn’t – the love of your life.

Yet despite the distance of years and the layers of a life well-lived laid on top of past pain, and like the first time you met him, every once in a while, when you least expected it, in moments when you were most relaxed, his recollection had a way of taking you by surprise such that you forgot how to breathe.

Her inquisitiveness, however, did not; she asked after him on occasion, especially now that she was in school and of an age to notice and wonder at the differences between her family and those of her classmates.

“Max has two daddies.”

Her observation, spoken in an airy awe punctuated by a yawn, penetrated your reverie into the past.

“That so?” Shifting up onto an elbow to better study the seriousness scrunching up her nose, you smoothed her disheveled hair into a chestnut halo of bouncy ringlets encircling her head on the polka dot patterned pillowcase; your fingertips fondly followed a wild whorl rebelling above her ear.

“Mm-hmm,” she drowsily drew out the noise, blinking heavily-lashed eyes that danced over the neon glow of star stickers arranged in constellations on the ceiling. With a mumbled, “and a dog, too” -she tossed the blanket, burrowed face-first into the pillow, and fell soundly asleep.

Staying absolutely motionless, you praised in grateful silence the sudden seizure of slumber children are wont to succumb to for temporarily relieving you from an explanation; whatever she dreamed of would be better than the reality of not knowing you had to offer.

You slipped from the bed and into the hallway, flicking lights off as you walked the worn oriental carpet runner to your bedroom, and found yourself standing in front of the closet digging for a shoebox stuffed in the topmost corner behind a stack of spare sheets.

Extricating the box with a grunt, you sunk to the floor, pushed off the lid, and dumped the contents, those few physical scraps you possessed of Steve - notes, snapshots, and the crumbling petals of a pressed red rose he left behind besides the scars on your heart and her - into your lap.

Last season, perched on Santa’s lap at the mall, your daughter told the falsely bearded jolly supplier of holiday spirit and maker of childhood magic she wanted him to bring her daddy home for Christmas. The pitying frowns donned by Saint Nick and his helper elf upon hearing her request haunted you for weeks afterward. The bright pink bike you bought to place under the tree as her big gift that year seemed a paltry substitute for what she really longed for.

It also prompted you to hire a private investigator to track Steve down. You hadn’t looked for him before then – you’d gotten on just fine without him; but it was becoming clear she needed to know him, if not as the father figure she idealized, at least as a means for both of you to get some kind of closure.

Part of you supposed regardless of why he left he should know he had a daughter and it was unfair - however unfairly he’d treated you - to keep her to yourself when you’d created her together. Whether he wanted to be a part of her life once he knew he’d not only deserted you, but left you knocked up, heartbroken, jobless, and in deep debt holding a newly minted mortgage for a building in need of major renovations before you could bake up that first batch of blueberry scones and realize a long-imagined dream – a dream he inspired you to pursue - would be entirely up to him.

Maybe you’d hesitated to look for so long because you felt he would want to be in your lives out of a sense of obligation rather than any emotive attachment of fatherly feeling; whatever had happened, the Steve you loved was a good man – dutiful of responsibilities to a fault. But Steve chose to leave and you wondered if he’d feel more trapped than anything if he knew there was a child; that he would be there like a hare snagged in a hunter’s snare awaiting fate, but that he wouldn’t want to be there.

In terms of fairness, that consequence wouldn’t be fair to any of you.

You eyed the sealed legal-sized manila envelope folded in half and jammed in the bottom of the emptied box. The part of you that preferred not knowing and defaulted to pigeonholing pain instead of dealing with it stuck it in there a month ago when the backlogged and grandfatherly private investigator working for literal beans of the brewed coffee variety and a weekly doughnut delivery as a personal favor to you got around to handing his findings over along with the kindly-intended counsel that he’d uncovered enough of the big picture to deem the case concluded, and it was up to you to decide whether it was worth hunting the guy down for a face-to-face to fill in the remainder of the damnable details.

Tucking the document into your outstretched hand – the fingers suffering from a nervy tremble no amount of suppressive will would quiet - he strongly cautioned against the latter pursuit of an in person meet up on the basis of having had decades of not so positive experience with quote unquote, “This same sort of dead beat dodging child support.”

Bolstering your resolve to learn the truth with a lungful of air, you slid a finger into the glue affixed gap of the envelope; the flap sliced your flesh as you tore into the paper. Soothing the slash against the warmth of your tongue, you slipped free the sheets within and rotated the cover page to scan the paragraph typed thereon – it comprised a summary of the steps the investigator took, contained a list of contacts in South Dakota and Kansas – potential current states of residence based on credit card activity - should you want to trail him further, and provided a social security number along with a name in bold uppercase print: JIMMY NOVAK.

A noose of nerves cinched tightly at your throat. The last thing you expected was an outright lie.

Steve … no, Jimmy, he carried a sadness in the slouch of his shoulders, a something secretive that distanced his gaze sometimes; he told you he lost everything - his family, his home - that he started over with nothing save the two feet he landed on to build a foundation. You believed him, respected his fortitude to move forward, and loved him enough not to push him to talk about a past obviously painful to him until he was ready.

You never dreamed what he meant to say was everything you knew of him, everything he shared, was a fabrication built not to move on from the truth, but to hide it from you.

The whoosh of your pulse pounded in your ears; vision tunneled, the panicked pump of racing blood blackened the periphery of the white sheet when you turned to the next page.

Written there was the fact Jimmy had another family; had a daughter – Claire. He left them, too. He hadn’t lost his family and home, he ran out on them just like he ran out on you.

“Mama?” Dainty fingers tapped at the damp shine of your cheek; she crept in so quietly you hadn’t heard the tip-toe tread of her bare feet on the carpet. “Mama?” she said it again, a broken whisper verging on a sob, and tangled her limbs around your neck.

You shoved the papers off your crossed legs and pulled the ball of her body into your embrace. “What’s wrong, baby bee?” Blinking to staunch the sting of your tears, your piqued emotion surrendered to a roused motherly alarm as you folded the mess of her sweat-matted hair to your bosom where she could hear the reassuring thump-thump housed within.

“I had a bad dream,” she murmured and fisted the fabric of your robe.

Me, too, you thought, and snuggled her in tighter.

Glancing at the discarded report amid the box’s other trinkets, your bleary gaze landed on a glossy polaroid photo of you and Steve snapped at a holiday party you goaded him into attending with you when your original plus one ditched you at the last minute so you wouldn’t have to face alone a roomful of tipsy marketing execs you loathed.

That night, that moment, his fingers flirting hesitatingly at your waist, touches giving in to the pull of gravity as the night wore on to graze then hug your hips as if they belonged there - had always been there - a confidant and comfort tenderly testing the territory of more - you naïvely yielding like pliant putty to his touch - that was the point of no return; through the retrospective filter of the truth it became clear he seemed too good to be true, because nothing about him was true.

Part of you wished you could reseal the envelope and the truth with it and return to the comparative bliss of not knowing. Mostly you seethed, an unprocessed anger relegated to the back-burner ignited, inflaming mind and muscle until your entire frame radiated a heat of rage.

The girl quaking in your grasp, bend of her spine shivering as you skimmed it in soothing caresses, reminded you some nightmares do evolve to have happy endings; no matter what happened, or what would happen, you had her and he couldn’t take that away from you.

Wiping her fear and tear flushed features into your pajamas, she gasped a desire that plunged daggers through your heart. “I want my daddy.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” you spoke in a whisper to shush her whimpers and calm the heated tempest of your nerves.

She went limp wrapped in the safety of your words and arms; you’d do anything for her, including suffer pain and swallow your pride to dredge up a monster from the past. You only prayed he wouldn’t hurt her, too.

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[eraserxhead-blog]

Momento Mori - Subversion Part 2

The headache was at it's worst when Aizawa came to, still in his office, still at the desk. Dreams like this never occurred, rational thought told him this was a Spirale situation. He closed his dry eyes, willing the pain to recede back enough so he could focus, turning the alarm off his phone and answering the call.

Then came the voice.

Sure enough. This was a Spirale situation, one he wasn't too keen on dealing with. He could just let it happen, die, not deal with anymore problems that came with this damned city but then that would be counter productive, now would it? He cracked an eye open, digging in the drawer for eye drops to at least ease that irritation. One pain of many.

He opened the app and scanned through what new spaces have been revealed. The city itself wasn't large. Claustrophobic even. And now the world seemed just a little bigger. He heaved a sigh, suggesting the little dot gave him enough information that his counter part was still in the city instead of those other branches that needed to be explored. Fine then, made it easier for him. At least he knew the city, having wandered in it for the past six months. No need to play hide and seek in a place he had no knowledge of.

One drop in each eye, closing the lids to deal with the sting and then came the relief. He didn't expect people to help him locate his copy, they had better things to do as in... finding their own copies. What an absolute pain. Aizawa heaved a sigh, standing up and starting out the door.

The real question would have to be: where would his copy hide? This was himself after all. Viral infection that made things irrational and clumsy would probably be an issue, but he lived his life to every rational point. The irrational moments he had would be few and far in between. Damn his past self for giving into irrational thoughts that left him in the hospital with a giant glowering at him for his morals. He spat on the ground.

In the past. No longer a problem. No longer an issue. His copy would also live rationally, that's what made Aizawa who he was. Minimalist, cranky, rational Shouta Aizawa.

Now let's just hope this rational train of thought proved right. Between Archimedes Ward and Golden Ward. If he was hiding, he'd be en route to either work or home. Feeding cats in a back alley. Doing something familiar to bring back that sense of recognizable relief. A calm after a panic attack.

Now it was a gamble to see if he's right.

Aizawa took the high road in this case, finding it easier to search for someone who could be considered a look alike over buildings. New job meant he didn’t get to do this often and he felt like he was out of shape. Something to change then, he’ll have to work on this.

----

It roughly took him a couple hours of scanning the city streets from several perches at the top of each building he came across, but he found him. His double.

Moving in the direction back home it looked like. If a little... Uncoordinated. Must be that virus the voice on the other end stated. Then he didn't have much time before rationality dissolved into irrationality. That's when things got difficult. Aizawa heaved a small sigh into his capture weapon as he made his way down from the perch on an office building, moving through the crowd carefully as he approached his double.

One hand on the other's shoulder stopped him, the aggravated shrug when someone didn't want another touching them but when he hand did not leave, his doppelganger turned around, frustrated.

"What-- oh." He paused, staring at him. "This is..."

"Strange? You don't know the half of it," Aizawa replied, jerking his head in the direction of a less high traffic area. "I have some explaining to do. Follow." It wasn't a request, but by the surprise on his double's face well... He would follow.

He had to follow.

Closer to some café on the way to and from work, they sat outside. Aizawa watched his double's hands shake, the tremors weren't from any nervousness the man didn't show. How far did this virus progress? The headache behind his eyes was starting to become insufferable now.

"To make a long story short, we're in an unfortunate experiment where only hours ago, we were one person. Now we're not. As to why? I'm not sure, but the end result left us in a bit of a situation. You have a virus. If you're not taken to another place, you'll die and with you, so will I." Aizawa rested his chin on an open palm, staring his doppelganger down.

There was a bit of doubt behind those tired, dry eyes, in which Aizawa slid over his own bottle of eye drops. For the relief at the very least. He took them, used them, and muttered a small sound of thanks.

"Sounds strange," his copy replied. "Sounds irrational at best."

Aizawa nodded in agreement. "The ramblings of a mad man, yeah? I know. I do not want you to die and nor do I want to die. That would be counter productive."

"And so where is this place that's supposed to be a cure all?" His copy challenged.

Aizawa gave a thin smile.

"An app on the phone. I hear it'll take you to a place just like this to live your life how you see fit, away from this mad house of a city we live in," Aizawa replied, pushing his phone in his copy's direction.

"It'll be counter productive to fight about it anyway. You're tired, getting weaker perhaps?" Aizawa asked. His copy looked at him suspiciously but after a few moments of debate, he slid the phone back and nodded.

"Just figured it was the flu or something. I was going home to sleep it off."

"As would I." Aizawa took his phone back. "Let me buy you a drink. Coffee, black, no sugar and cream yeah?"

His copy stared at him before he nodded. "I suppose you would know my preferences. I'd like that. Let me pay?"

"No need, I'll pay for you. Least that I can do in this less than ideal situation," Aizawa replied, standing up and moving to the inside of the café. This was another gamble. Whether or not his copy would run away after this strange occurance but once he came out with two cups of coffee, he was still there. Sitting. Thinking. Tapping a finger against the table surface, a form of fidgeting. One he did when aggrivated.

He set the coffee cup in front of his double and sat across from him.

"Truth be told, I'm surprised you didn't run," Aizawa started, taking a sip from his own cup.

"I thought about it but given you already found me the first time, I'm sure you'd find me a second time. It would just be a waste of time," his copy replied, holding the cup between two trembling hands. Aizawa just watched for a moment and he gave a soft sigh.

"There's an old latin proverb I learned back in school. Momento Mori. Remember you will die." Aizawa stared at his coffee cup.

"I remember learning that." His copy agreed softly. "I'm not keen on dying at this moment."

"Neither am I, but should it happen. I guess it'll happen. One way or another." Aizawa shrugged.

"Would it be painful?" His copy inquired after a few long minutes of silence.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Probably not as painful as it was this morning," he admitted.

The silence continued on, which stretched on for awhile, what felt like an hour. In reality, it was only ten minutes.

"Alright." His copy stated and Aizawa lifted his head to stare at him. "I'm tired. Let's just get this over with."

Aizawa gave a stiff nod, setting his coffee cup down and switching over to the app on his phone.

"Do me a favor?" Aizawa said, glancing up from his phone. His copy hummed, watching him wearily.

"Try to find happiness for the both of us."

There was only a soft, quiet chortle as Aizawa pressed the in app button.

"Sure. I'll try," his copy murmured, fading away, leaving the hero alone. He exhaled through his nose and set his phone back on the table.

A quiet prayer to no one that he hoped he just didn't condemn a soul just now.