#my neighbors husband had maybe a five second cameo where he answered the door and I asked him to get his wife

[fangirl530]

It's nearly one AM and I just had my own little Dracula adventure. A bat got in the house somehow and spent forty five minutes flying around and refusing to leave. Thankfully, the neighbor's got thick gloves so we trapped him and she managed to grab him and carry him out of the house. Moral of the story: Dracula could have been dealt with a lot sooner if Mina got some thick gloves and forcibly removed Dracula from the premises /j

[elizabeth-mitchells]

Journeys end in lovers meeting - Sam/Deena - Bly Manor AU

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Fear Street Trilogy (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Fraser/Deena Johnson, Sarah Fier/Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Christine "Ziggy" Berman/Nick Goode, Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Deena Johnson Characters: Samantha "Sam" Fraser (Fear Street), Deena Johnson, Kate Schmidt (Fear Street), Simon Kalivoda, Josh Johnson (Fear Street), Constance (Fear Street Part 3: 1666), Christine "Ziggy" Berman, Nick Goode (Fear Street), Alice (Fear Street Part 2: 1978), Sarah Fier (Fear Street), Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Solomon Goode (Fear Street) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, The Haunting of Bly Manor AU, Not Canon Compliant, Haunted Houses, Ghosts, Character Death, Minor Character Death, Canon Lesbian Relationship, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Au Pair Sam, Gardener Deena, Housekeeper Kate, Cook Simon, Josh and Constance as troubled kids, Ziggy and Nick in an unhealthy relationship, minor Cindy/Alice, Martin cameos, special appearances of all the Shadyside killers as ghosts, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, The Rest Is Confetti Summary: The year is 1994. Samantha Fraser recently moved to Shadyside, and she desperately needs a job that will help her leave her troubled past behind. She starts working as au pair at Shadyside Manor, where she is not the only one tortured by ghosts. Grief, regrets, guilt, innocent victims, and an ancient curse. At the center of all of it... love.

Chapter 4:

Sam really didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it was a hectic day for everyone but here. It was an accident, really. She just wanted a glass of water, but when she heard Deena and Kate arguing in the kitchen, she stopped before reaching the doorway, and couldn’t help but listen.

“Are you seriously not going?” Deena was saying.

“No, Deena,” Kate replied, in a tone that made it obvious it wasn’t the first time she said so. “I’ll only go to a funeral when I’m dead, thank you very much.”

“Maybe I should kill you then,” Deena grumbled. In the hallway, Sam fought back a smile at the grumpiness of the gardener. “He’s your platonic husband and you’re letting him down in the most fucking tragic day of his life, Kate.”

“He understands,” Kate snapped back at her. “Besides, we’ve let each other down before.”

--

Eavesdropping on teenagers feels even worse. But Sam can’t help herself, again. She just seems to be at the right place at the right time, and nobody hears her coming. She was just looking for Constance and Josh when she found them talking in the classroom in whispers. She worried they might have been planning something unwise, so she listened in for a moment.

“Do you think they can follow us?” Constance asked in a whisper.

“No, I don’t think it works like that,” Josh replied.

The girl hummed thoughtfully and then added, in a considerably more distressed tone, “Do you think they’ll try to stop us?”

“Shh! Constance!” Josh stopped her. “Let’s just… see what happens, okay? We’re in this together, right? All of us.”

Sam considered intervening, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. She could barely keep track of their changing moods or Constance’s name. In the end, she walked away, deciding to keep an eye out and studying them more closely when she had the chance.

--

Sam had tried her best, but she really had nothing else to do at the moment. It was strange, having a day mostly free from her responsibilities as au pair. Deena would be taking Josh and Constance with her to Simon’s mom’s funeral. A little lost in her thoughts without anything else to do while they all got ready, Sam took a seat near the bottom of the stairs, looking out at the gardens she could see through the open door. It started out as a particularly sunny day, not at all something you’d expect for a funeral.

The au pair was leaning against the railing of the stairs. A little behind her, under the safety and familiarity of the manor’s shadows, Harry Rooker stood perfectly still. His clothes hadn’t changed at all in all the decades he had been wandering those halls, even his bowtie was in still place. The same couldn’t be said about his face though. The passing of the years, one after another, had slowly washed away his features. His eyes were no longer there, his mouth was barely noticeable and his nose wouldn’t likely last long. The burn on the side of his face, which had hurt him so much during the war and cost him so much even after his return, was still there, stubbornly, almost mocking him. As well as his knife, always in his hand, always sharp. Never being useful anymore.

The sound of a heavy pair of boots coming down the stairs, as often, disturbed the peace of the foyer. Sam tried not to look too excited as she turned her head to look at Deena descend the stairs, but when she saw the gardener’s outfit she probably failed to hide her pleased reaction.

“Hi,” Sam gasped a little and stood up, “You look…”

“Like I remembered how to take a shower?” Deena smirked. She reached the bottom of the stairs and showed off her clothes, consisting of all black pants, shirt, and blazer that fit her perfectly, made her look a little too good for a funeral, if Sam had to give her honest opinion.

“Like a waiter,” Sam said, biting her lip to keep that honest opinion from spilling out.

“Hey! Didn’t know that side of you, Sunnyvale. Rude,” Deena replied, smiling the entire time. When her expression softened a little, she asked, “Are you sure you’re okay staying here by yourself?”

“Yes, t’s okay. Besides, Kate’s here too.”

Deena made an unamused sound. “Sometimes it feels like she isn’t,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed quietly. Before the silence could stretch for too long, she spoke up again. “Anyway, I, um, had to… be present in a funeral, not too long ago. It’s… I can’t, again. Not yet.”

As she spoke, Sam couldn’t look Deena in the eyes. Not when the only thing in her mind was Sunnyvale. Peter. Her mother. Peter. Twentyfive entitled children in a classroom. Peter. A heavy engagement ring and suffocating wedding dress. Peter.

But it didn’t start like that. It started with her father getting sick, her mother being cruel enough to divorce him on the spot to save herself from taking care of him, and Sam being already in Sunnyvale, thirty minutes away, when he finally died. It started with her mother wrapping her in her best dress, too old for her already, and dragging her to the neighbors house, because they were rich, and look at that handsome young boy, he already has his eyes on you! They were only eight. But then they were twelve, and Peter got in a fight for her and felt entitled to her attention ever since, and nobody ever told her she didn’t have to give him anything she didn’t want to. So when he demanded it, she gave him a kiss, a second date, the color of her prom dress so he could get a matching tie. She gave and she gave until she didn’t know what else he could take from her, but everyone made her feel like she still owed him. So she gave hiim a second chance when he first hit her, and she gave him her bags when he told her to move in with him, she gave him a third and fourth chance, and she gave him the answer he wanted when he offered her a wedding ring.

“Sam? Are you okay?”

In the blink of an eye, Sam was back in Shadyside Manor, with Deena’s gentle hands on her elbows, anchoring her to reality, and those warm brown eyes worriedly searching her face, not knowing what horrors they could find behind the walls Sam spent a lifetime building.

“Yes,” Sam blurted out. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Right,” Deena nodded and slowly stepped away from the au pair. “Well, I’m leaving now. Try to come up with something real to tell me when I return, okay?”

Sam suddenly couldn’t come up with any words so she nodded, smiled, and watched holding her breath as Deena walked away from her, not without glancing over her shoulder by the door.

--

Sam stood awkwardly in the middle of the chapel. She had made it too far to turn around now, but she didn’t dare move closer and interrupt Kate who appeared to be praying. Except, before Sam made up her mind about her next move, Kate spoke up without turning around.

“Are you just going to stand there like a ghost?”

“Sorry,” Sam blushed. “Uh, how did you know I was-”

“I have eyes on the back of my head, darling,” Kate replied with a smile and finally turned around.

“Am I interrupting you?”

“No, it’s okay,” Kate softened. “I’m not a funeral type of person. I deal with loss in my own way.” 

“I get it,” Sam nodded. She found the courage to continue walking closer to the other woman.

“If you ask me,” Kate continued, somewhat unprompted, “This is more for our own comfort.” She nodded her head to the side, indicating the five red little candles burning. “You have to be there for people while they’re still alive. Simon gave his entire life for his mother. I’ve been there with him for most of the journey, in ways that I know count so much more than missing out on one tragic goodbye party.”

Again, Sam nodded. She took a seat down on one of the pews close to Kate. She really didn’t want to think about the funerals in her own life. Her mother made sure they arrived late and left early for Sam's father’s funeral. And then a few months ago…

“You two are very close,” she blurted out. It was a statement, a question, and mostly just a way to get Kate to keep talking.

“Best friends since childhood,” Kate said and she wore one of the most genuine smiles Sam had seen on her. “We kissed once, and afterward I punched him in the face. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Which might be the best and worst part about our friendship.”

“What do you mean?”

This time Kate took her time before replying. Her smile was gone.

“Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to leave Shadyside and see the world. But there was nothing that could have convinced Simon to leave his mom. He missed a chance to work at a restaurant in Paris, I missed my chance to see the world, but we have each other. We have each other and ninety-nine percent of the time it feels like the right choice.”

The remaining one percent of the time hung in the air of the chapel so heavily it was almost palpable.

“What about now?” Sam asked, not without a good amount of hesitation.

The meaning of her question was obvious. Simon wasn’t tethered to Shadyside anymore. However, there was no answer from the housekeeper. Kate chuckled sadly, completely dismissing the idea of grabbing a bag of her best clothes and her best friend’s hand and moving away to Paris any day now. Instead, she stood up and threw the little box of matches for Sam to catch.

“What?” Why?” The au pair looked back and forth between the matches and Kate.

“Light a candle,” Kate replied. She noticed the confusion in Sam’s face, but the au pair, unknowingly, carried her heart, broken and hopeful at once, on her sleeve. “Dead people, regrets, protection, good luck,” Kate said while methodically fixing the wrinkles on her red skirt, checking her ponytail, and mindlessly passing her hand over the back of her neck. “Everything counts.”

Sam stayed silent. She watched Kate walk out of the chapel and then she moved toward the candles. She moved almost automatically, lighting up the first match, but then she couldn’t bring herself to actually light the candle. The small flame burned bright for a second, highlighting the sadness in Sam’s blue eyes, but she let it die before reaching for a candle. }

Eventually, Sam decided to light up a new match and light up a single candle at random. Not for dead people, and not for her attempts at forgetting about them, but for the time she had wasted trying to please people that did nothing but hurt her for so long.

On the way out of the chapel, Sam made the mistake of glancing at the windows. Of course he was still there. He would never leave her, would he? She had seen him angry at her more times than she could count, but never like that. That expression of outstanding disgust and fury was forever etched in Sam’s memory of him. He was just a shadow, he was pure darkness in the shape of a man she once knew. But Sam had to look away and walk as fast as she could away from him, fearing that any day now his image would definitely leave the restrained space of reflective surfaces and finally kill her, like she had killed him.

--

“Dinner… is served!” Simon announced with a flourish.

Simon and Deena dropped several bags on the kitchen table and they chuckled when everyone else eagerly jumped forward to look at the contents spilling on the table. 

“There’s nothing like an absurd amount of junk food to fix all your problems,” he smiled proudly at the scene in front of him. All the people closest to him with smiles on their faces, exchanging a warm meal and easy conversation. His smile turned just nostalgic enough, thinking about his mother, the woman who taught him that lesson. She used to fix all problems with food. She had special meals for every sickness, mended broken hearts with each person’s favorite food, and she celebrated every occasion with big feasts. So far, Simon couldn’t say she had ever failed.

Simon, Deena, Kate, Sam, Josh, and Constance, sat down at the table. They got started with their junk food feast. Everything was still hot, smelled amazing, and tasted even better. Behind Simon and the teenagers, stood Ruby Lane. She tilted her head one side and the other, observing the scene in front of her. Her slightly blurred expression showed confusion, then a hint of sadness, and finally settled in something surprisingly close to affection. Eating. Food. Good company. Friends. She distantly could remember the feeling of it all. The details had left her a while ago. But if she focused hard enough on the smiles of these strangers, she almost felt right at home, almost felt like she belonged with them, almost let herself believe that if she wanted to she could reach out, take a seat, enjoy a meal with them… Almost, almost but not quite.

At the table, conversation flowed easily. Everyone was enjoying the food, and the adults all had one or two beers with the meals, perhaps a little more. Despite the emotionally heavy day, the group was in a surprisingly good mood. A consequence of growing up in Shadyside, maybe. They were either the best or the worst at coping with loss. The trick was not knowing how to tell the difference between both extremes. 

Sam was a little concerned about the fact that the pair of teenagers looked so refreshed and so much like themselves after attending a funeral. Maybe they just needed the time away from the manor. She just hoped it would last.

While all of them discussed favorite meals and comfort food, Simon finally explained his choice of food for the day. “This is actually from the first place where I worked,” he confessed.

“Really?” Sam asked, leaning forward with a kind smile.

“Yeah. My mom got me the job,” he added. “She was the sweetest woman, but she could be scary as shit if she wanted to. She convinced them to give a part-time job to little old me. I was barely fifteen.”

“Tell her why you got fired,” Kate said, raising a playful eyebrow in his direction.

Simon rolled his eyes and picked up a couple of fries to throw in her direction. “For giving you free food you asshole!”

While all the others laughed, Kate gasped loudly and wore a nearly comically offended expression for a moment. It was her turn to roll her eyes and lean across Deena to look at Sam and explain, “This bitch throwing me food like a toddler? He got fired for being too talented for a food truck, basically.”

“Ah, whatever,” Simon laughed. He ran a hand through his messy blonde hair and pushed through his unexpected shyness to explain. “The food was good, but it was also too slow and expensive. Got me fired but got me noticed.” He stopped then, and tried to make it seem natural and not at all like he was holding back information. Which made Sam think about the missed opportunity across the ocean that Kate had mentioned earlier that day. “But!” Simon went on, with extra cheerfulness on his voice to hide who knows how many things anymore, “now I get to happily cook for all of you, ungrateful little shits that you are.”

“Hey!” Deena protested, stopped a second to swallow her food and continued. “I am grateful. Dude, I love your food. I survived eating this cheap shit almost exclusively for like a decade. I’m in heaven when you cook actual food.”

“Do you just love me for my food?” Simon pouted dramatically. 

Sam watched them banter with a smile. Before she could stop herself, she was joining the conversation. “This actually reminds me of my childhood in Shadyside,” she said, holding up a burger in her hand.

“What?” Kate smirked, “You don’t have these bad boys in Sunnyvale?”

Sam laughed along with everyone else, she was starting to feel just the slightest bit tipsy, and this time decided not to mention the fact that Kate hadn’t even taken a bite of her burger yet. However, she hadn’t managed to shake herself from the weird, nostalgic mood that had had a hold of her the entire day. One moment she was there, seated at the kitchen table in Shadyside Manor, and with the blink of an eye, she was back at an expensive Sunnyvale restaurant.

She had been more than a little tipsy back then, she had needed the courage in any way she could find it. During the meal, a hundred different memories of her mother’s cruel comments on her weight and eating habits passed through her mind. She didn’t push them away though, she focused on them, because it hadn’t been just her mother, and she needed to focus on that pain and resentment. Because seated across from her was Peter. Peter, who had joined her mother in criticizing her. Peter, who never once defended her from his own mother. Peter, who had hurt her emotionally and physically more than anybody else.

Peter, who refused to lose an argument, who didn’t know when to let it go, and would never let her go. They didn’t get to the altar, but since their first kiss, he had assumed only death would take her away from him. He didn’t consider he’d go first, he might have even dreamed of a second or third wife, and one or two times he had been close to being responsible for that sudden end. Instead, it was their anniversary, they were both drunk, Sam admitted more than she had meant to, he was yelling at her in the middle of the street, threatening to kill her, taking a step backward when she reached for him, and then there were the truck’s headlights…

“Oh, yeah,” Sam blurted out, and hoped they wouldn’t notice the way her voice was trembling. “But in Sunnyvale, we add a little caviar on top of the burgers.”

Sam was surprised to see everyone laugh at what she had considered a pretty lame joke. It was a beautiful sound. She didn’t think she’d ever been surrounded by the incredible number of five people that genuinely liked her for who she really was. Josh even choked a little on the food he had been chewing, and Simon slapped his back, maybe a little harder than necessary. It made Kate and Constance laugh even harder. Those were things that Sam noticed, but her focus was actually on the woman beside her. Deena had laughed with all of them, of course. But the soft smile she was directing at Sam was something completely different, something she couldn’t even compare to anything else she had ever experienced. 

When the conversation hit an inevitable lull, Constance was the first one to notice the way Simon’s mood dimmed, his shoulders slumped and he stopped eating, just fumbling with the papers on the table. There was a lot a person could say to a friend that just lost their mother, then there was what a moody teenager with an exceptionally tragic life could offer.

“My aunt was a shit cook,” Constance blurted out. “These burgers were all she got for me when my parents died. But I couldn’t eat it… I thought I would never eat again, which would be okay because that would kill me and I’d be reunited with…” She shrugged, and everyone else at the table listened to her intently, rendered speechless not just by the unexpected confession, but because of her expression, neutral without being insensitive, sincere without being very emotional. “But then,” Constance continued, adding the smallest smiles here and there. “It was like I could hear my mom yelling at me for not eating. Cindy Berman could be a pain in the ass in case you didn’t know. But that feeling… it was like she was right there with me, beautiful and annoying and never gone entirely.”

For a moment, nobody knew what to say. Simon, although his eyes were glassy, smiled brightly at her. “You do not act as if you’re listening to your mom,” he said.

“Hey! I ignored her when she was alive too, she gets it,” Constance rolled her eyes playfully. “But the point is I know that we have to keep eating, and keep living… for them. Don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do,” Simon agreed.

He took a deep breath to get a hold of his emotions and raised his beer bottle to the center of the table, where Kate, Deena, and Sam joined him in a toast for the living. Constance joined in enthusiastically with a can of soda, but Josh didn’t move a muscle.

“Hey, do we have some more beer?” Josh asked a moment later. “I could really use one.”

“Uh, no. Not at fifteen you can’t,” Deena replied immediately. She tensed on her seat.

The teenage boy rolled his eyes and focused on the au pair across the table from him. “Miss Fraser, do you think I could have a beer?” He asked with a sharp, charming smile that looked just a little off on the edges.

“I… agree with your sister, Josh,” Sam replied carefully. She didn’t want to cross any boundaries, but she was also responsible for the teenagers.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve gone without a real drink?!”

“I remember my first beer,” Kate interrupted him, reminiscing with an easy smile on her face. “It was my first time babysitting Constance, and then Christine thought it would be a good idea to give me a beer.”

“My mom hated beer,” Sam said. “She used to say one sip could mean I’ll end up in hell.” Then she took a hearty sip, thinking of her mother and the thousand suffocating rules she’d pressed upon Sam’s shoulders her entire life.

“Well,” Deena smirked, “You did end up in Shadyside so…”

While most of them laughed, Josh’s face contorted into an expression of deep frustration and rage until he didn’t look like himself anymore. “Why the hell am I being controlled by a bunch of dykes?!” He slammed his hand on the table furiously. 

But just as soon as the words left his mouth, Sam and Deena jumped out of their chairs. Deena was his sister, and maybe Sam was just the au pair, but while Deena was so angry that she couldn’t even get any words out, Sam got ahead of her.

“That language, and that attitude, and beyond unacceptable, Josh. You are going to your room right now. No discussion. Did you hear me?” Sam said, her voice firm, unwavering, and her stance perfectly commanding.

All eyes were on her, but she was staring straight at Josh. He didn’t budge, he was stronger than most teenagers Sam had ever worked with, but she was even stronger. She didn’t hesitate at all. She glanced quickly at Constance, and the girl, despite intensely rolling her eyes, stood up and walked toward Josh. She not-so-gently grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the chair. Slowly, and with Josh throwing threatening looks at Sam over his shoulder, they walked out of the kitchen. After excusing herself, Sam followed them. She didn’t look back to see the impressed looks her friends were exchanging, pleasantly surprised by that side of her.

--

“Hey, Sunnyvale,” Deena said as soon as she caught sight of Sam walking down the stairs of the manor to the foyer where she was waiting for her.

Sam reached the end of the stairs and noticed that Deena was wearing a jacket, and holding Sam’s own jacket in her hands. But when the au pair reached out to grab it, Deena pulled back.

“Ah, ah. Not yet,” Deena said. She was smiling, but there was a hint of worry in her eyes. “You only get warmth in exchange for information.” Her words made the au pair chuckle, and Deena instantly felt herself relax a little. “How did it go with my asshole brother?” She finally asked.

“Um, it was fine, I think,” Sam replied. “He… Well, I think he’s embarrassed. He probably regrets it a lot. He’s acting almost as if he doesn’t even remember what he said.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Deena frowned. She felt pretty embarrassed about the entire incident, and she was so not looking forward to having that conversation with Josh, who apparently had turned into some kind of monster in the place of her sweet younger brother. “I’m sorry about it.”

Sam shrugged and attempted a smile. “If it helps, I think he really listened when I explained that we all just want what’s best for him, and having that makes him luckier than most of us.”

The gardener nodded thoughtfully. “I agree with you there,” she said as she held open Sam’s jacket to help her put it on. Deena was careful, and her hands were confident, but at the same time, she barely touched Sam’s body as she helped her. The only thing she couldn’t help herself from doing was standing perhaps a little closer than necessary. Enough to feel her heart skip a beat when Sam’s blonde hair brushed her cheek, and the smell of some sweet-scented shampoo filled her senses. “But also, how depressing is that for us?” Deena said, stepping back from Sam. The au pair laughed and turned around to stare a Deena, who offered her a hand and said, “Come on, let’s go be depressing outside for a change.”