#the jameson family

[lifeofkaze]

Summer Time

A/N: This is my entry for @hp-12monthsofmagic August prompt. Enjoy!

Drop, drop, drop.

Lizzie Jameson rested her temple against the window, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them with her arms. She watched one of the drops come loose from its spot on the glass, running down and dissolving weaving through the rest of them, leaving a thin trail in its wake.

Drop, drop, drop.

She breathed out a long sigh, her breath fogging up the windowpane. A lone car was braving the grisly South-East weather, its headlights two diffuse white rings rushing past the house on the edge of Lyme Regis. Lizzie watched after it, wondering where it might be going. Probably someplace more exciting than her parents’ house. Everything was more exciting than her parents’ house.

“Liz? Where are you at?”

Lizzie grimaced and slid down from her perch as her brother’s head peeked through the doorway. His eyes swept the living room, lighting up when he spotted her. 

“There you are.”

With the incessant rain of the last couple of weeks, nerves had been running thin in the Jameson household. This morning, things had escalated when Jake had stolen Lizzie’s plush cat, and Lizzie and he had pulled at it until its tail had ripped off. An outraged discussion and a toy Quaffle thrown at Jake’s head later, the two children had been banned from each other’s company for the remainder of the day while their parents had gone to work. 

At first, Lizzie had been chuffed about this, having occupied the living room with both the books and the TV. But after Jake had settled into the kitchen and tugged into Grandma Caitlin’s biscuit jar, she wasn’t so sure whether she’d got the long end of the wand after all.

Pressing her hands to her rumbling stomach, she wrinkled her nose at Jake. 

“What do you want, Jake? Mum said we’re supposed to stay in separate rooms.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Mum and Dad are out, stupid.”

“Mum will know. She always knows.” 

“So?”

Jake looked at her challengingly, making Lizzie raise her chin. “What do you want, now?”

“I’m sorry about Mr Whiskers earlier.”

“You should be.” Lizzie placed a protective hand on the toy cat’s little head. Her father had repaired the damage with his wand, and had tied a bandage around Mr Whiskers’ head and tail for good measure, too. “He is very offended.”

“But he’s fine now.”

“Still offended.”

A frown passed Jake’s face, but instead of getting into another argument with his little sister, he raised his eyebrows at her. “So you and Mr Sulky-Whiskers don’t want to see what I’ve been doing all day?”

There had been a string of low rumbling noises coming from the kitchen earlier, followed by a period of suspiciously long silence. Lizzie was dying to know what Jake had been up to, but she could hardly tell him; instead, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and pointedly looked out the window with a tut.

“Absolutely not.”

“Your loss,” Jake shrugged as he ducked out of the doorway. “You’re only missing out on the best thing ever.”

Lizzie fought with herself a moment longer, then tucked Mr Whiskers firmly under her arms and followed Jake, warily looking left and right as she crossed into the hallway. Deeming it safe from prank devices of various kinds, she made her way into the kitchen. The temperature seemed to be rising as she did so, and as she stepped through the dining room, she could see why. Her mouth dropped open. 

All the kitchen lights had been turned on, making the room overly bright against the dark grey sky outside. The big kitchen table had been pushed to the side of the room, the chairs being stacked on top of it. Jake had brought in their mother’s palm trees from the conservatory adjacent to the kitchen, too, which were now creating shady spots against the flaring kitchen lights. 

The warm temperatures Lizzie had noticed in the hallway were higher here still. The oven was running on the highest setting, its door standing slightly ajar, letting the hot air pass into the room. She stepped forward, her feet sinking into something she only now realised must be at least four bags of flour. Pots and bowls filled with water were scattered throughout the room, and in the middle of it, Jake was sitting.

“Time for some real summer, wasn’t it?”

There was a smug look on his face as he took in Lizzie’s wide-eyed expression. He’d clearly already had some of the ice cream tub sitting between his legs, the big smudge of chocolate on the corner of his mouth making his smile somewhat lopsided.

Still too busy to take in everything Jake had done, Lizzie gaped at him. Jake must have taken her reaction wrongly, because he sighed and pointed at the second tub of ice cream sitting next to him.

“Come on, Liz. There’s cherry ice cream. And sprinkles.”

Lizzie needn’t be told twice. She sank into the flour next to Jake, who passed her a spoon with a wide grin. For what felt like the next few hours, the two of them sat and ate their ice cream, dipped their feet into the pots and pans, and tried building sand (or flour) castles, even though it wasn’t really working that well.

They were so caught up in their doings that they didn’t notice the steely grey sky outside turning darker. They were in the middle of digging a hole into the flour for Mr Whiskers to sit in and enjoy a bowl of milk when a low rushing noise sounded from the living room. 

“We’re home! Jake? Lizzie? Where are you?”

Michael Jameson’s voice took on a more apprehensive note when his second call was met with silence. Lizzie and Jake exchanged panicked glances. Frantically, they began looking for a place to hide, but before they could do so, light but determined steps descended the hallway. They stopped abruptly as Helen Jameson appeared in the doorway.

Wide-eyed, her mouth hung open as she took in the state of both her children and her kitchen. Lizzie and Jake shrunk into their flour-covered clothes as she set her eyes on them.

“Jacob and Elizabeth Jameson. What is this?”

Her words were abrupt, and Lizzie found herself subconsciously clutching Mr Whiskers tighter to her chest, subtly moving behind her brother from her mother’s flashing eyes. Jake seemed no less intimidated, but he braced his shoulders anyway. Pouting, he said,

“We wanted to have summer. Summer outside this year sucks balls.”

“Language, young man.”

Michael had joined them as well. He quietly whistled through his teeth.

“Well, it’s… certainly something.” He stepped into the room, peering at their makeshift ponds and palm trees. “Did you make all that by yourself?”

“I did,” Jake said, puffing out his chest.

“Didn’t you, now?” Helen followed her husband, stemming her hands into her hips. “And who is going to clean this mess, then?”

Jake and Lizzie glanced at each other. 

“Him?” Lizzie offered helpfully.

“Not quite, Lizzie.”

As both their children hung their heads, their parents exchanged a look.

“But since this seemed to have been quite the piece of work, it would be a shame to waste it, wouldn’t it?”

Helen Jameson took out her wand, and with a flick of it, the palm trees scuttled back into the conservatory and the pots and pans stacked themselves neatly by the kitchen sink. The flour-beach, however, rippled as if a wind passed over it, scurrying together to form a set of neat white lines dividing the kitchen in half.

“As punishment for turning my kitchen into a beach site,” she said and stepped out of her heels and into the middle of what Lizzie realised was a tiny football field, “I challenge you to a match. Winners pick takeaway, losers clean the kitchen.”

A football had appeared in her hand, and with a yelp the two children ran to get toward it. There was a short discussion on how to team up, and then Helen set the ball into the centre of the pitch, whistled sharply through her fingers and the game was on. 

They passed the ball back and forth between them, using an open cabinet and the door into the hallway as their goals. It wasn’t long before any pretence at making their match a casual thing was forgotten. When Helen evaded her husband’s attempt at stealing the ball with a cheeky trick Lizzie’s grandfather had taught her in her youth, Michael reached out and got hold of her arm. With a cry of protest, she stopped.

“Foul!” she called, furiously pointing at him. “Yellow card for Jameson!”

“Jameson has no idea what she’s talking about.”

“Talking back to the ref, are we? That’s an indirect red for you. You know what that means.” Her face split into a grin as Michael’s eyes widened and he waved his hands defensively. “Get him!”

Whooping, both kids ran and tackled their father. He swayed under the impact, slowly toppling. Helen spurred them on, joining the fray a moment later, and the four of them came crashing onto the floor. Jake snorted out a mouthful of flour, his dark hair dusted white, and Lizzie shrieked as Michael began tickling her. The ball and their match all but forgotten, the four of them lay on the ground, pulling everyone trying to get away pack into their pile until the sky was well and fully dark, their laughter ringing louder than the thunder rolling in the distance. 

[the-inheritance-games]

SPOILERS!!!! 3s THEORY

I'm actually very proud of this theory rn and feel like a hawthorne for thinking of this, like I might actually be on to something here

Ok so I had a thought and its stuck in my mind

So we all know that Odette said some vague and confusing thing about “ There are always three”

And I think I have a good theory as to what it means

That being, I think that this phrase is a play on or nod to some of these other common sayings about threes

“Everything comes in threes”

“Bad things come in three” /“Good things come in threes”

“Death comes in threes”

Or “Omne trium perfectum” which means “everything that comes in threes is perfect” in Latin

These are all common saying about things happening in threes or what threes means

And I specifically think that Odette meant something about good/bad or life/death events happening in 3s

Or even about beginning/ending events happening (bc we all know she knows about Alphas and Omegas beginning and end)

I think this BECAUSE if you look back at where Odette says this you'll see that she says this in RESPONSE to grayson saying “she DIED before I was BORN”

Grayson says his grandmother DIED BEFORE he was BORN and demands she EXPLAIN

He obv meant explain how is it possible for Alice to be the “A hawthorne did this” culprit but he doesnt specify explain what he just says explain and Odette probably choose to interpret that vaguely and gave an answer that “explains” or simplifies the reasons why Alice “died” and Graysons was “born” and says “there are always three”

Like she's saying “well everything comes in threes”/ “life and death happen in threes” that's the karmic reasoning why she “died” and you were born

And so obv Alices death and Grays birth are 2 life/death events and the third (or really FIRST) event would have been Tobys “death”

Which his death would also be the catalyst for both Alice’s death and Graysons birth

Bc Grayson would have never been born is Skye wasn't grieving her brother and although now we know Alice didnt die of grief id still say its safe to assume whatever happened was triggered by the loss of her son.

So the “thee” that Odette is referring to is Toby “died”, Alice “died”, Grayson is born

Everything comes in threes

But while I think this is what Odette meant when she choose to say this in response to Graysons demands for her to explain things I don't think that this is all that this phrase “There is always three” means, it has broader implications and could probably mean a lot of things

Its a vague and versatile phrase that Odette has heard many times, maybe as a warning. But there is definitely more to it, if I am right or heading in the right direction with my theory, then it could mean a lot of things and be important later on.

Also one last thing

I find it interesting how one of the common phrases “Omne trium perfectum” means everything that comes in threes is perfect and if my theory is correct then this would make GRAYSON one of the “things that comes in threes” and how in this phrase that would make him “perfect”

And we all know that he was the grandson who was GROOMED to be “perfect”

Could this be the reason that HE was “the chosen one”?

Was he the one Tobias choose bc he was part of the things that came in threes and has that karmical connection to Alice?

Idk but, its all very intriguing to me, and I can see so much potential and foreshadowing withing this little phrase that JLB very specifically used

[anythinggoesbutme]

no because this is probably the thing i’m most proud of myself for making. sorry if it’s hard to read 😭✋🏻

because my parents thought i was crazy for making this. but those that get it and those that don’t, don’t

also i made this is 2023 and posted it to the fandom page but someone like took it down im pretty sure or i would’ve included the link 😭

[jkriordanverse]

I feel like the tig fandom on tumblr is so small now. Like Ik everyone in it. It used to be in the hundreds (if you check the older posts) and now its just dozens or hundreds (mainly just a group reblogging each other's stuff) and it feels like a weird family. idk.

[mafiasliege]

Jlb you have ruined me now I can't see things without thinking there's some kinda pattern/puzzle/riddle/game 😔🤚

[gambit-blogs]

This song is just so Grayson Hawthorne coded

[27-roses]

Idk what I was doing, but I made this at 2am the other night and was like “frick why not post it” lol

[ariscats]

if Grayson ever goes back to Harvard (which i think he does), when Avery and Jameson go to Connecticut to collage together (in my head, they would live in an apartment that is halfway from each collage) and if Xander goes to MIT (which, again, i think its the school he’ll go once his sabbatic year ends), then the 4 of them would be living pretty close (grayson and xander would live around 2 hours from jameson by car)

[chwe-y]

so like is jameson a lord too now or what? kind of want more simon and jameson interactions like that part where branford is yelling at him about being reckless and jameson starts feeling things coz 1) "i don't need a father" "you don't have a father" and 2) this adult is yelling at him coz he cares, coz jameson is family and family looks after family aka "family first" like buddy here's an adult who doesn't want anything from you he just wants you to be safe coz you're a kid, you're his nephew....so like I need more of that pls and thx also is jameson a viscount now? how does this work? if averyjameson get married will they be lord and lady hawthorne? lol

[ozzinbloggin]

This is what they call a Character Establishing moment.

ASM #37

[elif-in-wonderland]

Acacia is such a nice person. She is even more maternal for Grayson than Sky who is his mother. Actually, I don’t know why I compare the two of them. We know who’s better :))

Also, I absolutely love the vibes of nice and happy family Grayson, Gigi, Sav and Acacia give me. I just love their bond. I’M LOVING GRAYSON CHAPTERS SO MUCH 🥺🥺

[frigidlyauthorial]

okay not to still be talking about the booktok love triangle but my theory is that jameson only likes avery because a) she represents a thrill and b) being with her is a win over grayson. Whereas I do think that grayson genuinely clicks with avery as a person but is holding himself back from trying to earnestly pursue her due to his lingering guilt over the emily situation. grayson and avery would be a better match but neither of them allow themselves to actually want anything because they think they don't deserve it, which is why avery is currently with jameson because he has positioned himself as someone who is carefree and that she can be with with no strings attached

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The Only Survivor

CW: PTSD, recovery whump, two former whumpees meet, referenced murder

Jameson Masterlist | Death Valley (Finn’s story)

For @amonthofwhump, day 2: Unhappy family reunion

-

"Just hang out in the den for a few minutes, okay?" Nat gestures to the room, but Jameson doesn’t get why she calls it a den at all. It’s just another living room as far as he can tell, only smaller and with warm wood-paneled walls that feel decades out of place

There's a couch, a couple of armchairs, a coffee table with a scattering of books and magazines and a TV hanging off the wall. Some blankets are thrown around, thrift store buys on their sixth or seventh home. Some of them, he thinks, might even have been patched.

Who patches a thrift store blanket?

People who need to make them last, he figures, and whose hands work better than this. 

There are other rescues around here, somewhere, but they're staying upstairs and Jameson would rather claw his own face off than make small talk with Domestics and Platonics who think he must have done something to earn all those scars, that he's something to fear. 

Or worse, that he’s a silly brainless slut who can’t be trusted not to try and jump them one by one so he can feel alive.

Maybe he was that, once upon a time, before he was torn to shreds, but he doesn't want to think about it right now. It doesn’t feel true, but he can’t say it isn’t. He can’t face their stares, the whispers behind their hands, their murmuring about how he must have been ruined by his scars, so ruined no one would want him any longer even for resale.

He can’t listen to it.

So he just glares at the ground, very much aware he looks more sullen and sulking than angry, but unable to help himself. "You said we would take me to get Allyn's present-"

"I will." Nat puts a hand on his arm and Jameson doesn't even bristle anymore, just rubs at the back of his neck with his other hand, leaning his weight on the crutch and the leg bothering him less. Her voice is low and gentle, not irritated or snapping, even in the face of his impatience. 

From another room, he can hear low conversation - other people who run safe houses - but he can't quite pick up their words. 

Nat waits, until he looks at her. Then she smiles. "This will take ten minutes, maybe twenty tops, I promise. Okay? There's a couple people here tonight that I don't usually get to see." 

Jameson nods, expression softening against his will. He leans the crutches against the wall and sits down in one of the armchairs, picking up a TV remote. His fingers twitch, the tendons and bones protesting even this small independent movement, and he nearly drops the stupid thing before he clamps down on it so hard it hurts. "Yeah, okay. Don't make me sit here all fucking night, though, yeah?"

"I won't. Girl Scout promise." Nat shoots him a wider smile - one he finds himself returning - and walks out the door and down to the room with the others. He watches her braid, the rich brown more and more streaked with silver, swinging against her back as she goes, against her eternal flannel shirt.

Her voice is added to the chorus of the others, muffled by walls and distance. People greet her with cheerful exclamations and she calls back. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine the hugging. 

 He can taste all their voices, layering over and around each other, some in conflict and some in harmony.

He shudders, pulling a blanket over his lap. 

His fingers curl around the bunched fabric, giving him a visual excuse when they won't straighten out, if anyone notices. Nobody's in here, but the motion is still automatic. When his fingers twitch, there's nothing to drop on the ground, nothing to look at. 

Jameson finds some dumbass cop show on TV and mostly ignores it, focusing instead on spending a few minutes slowly reclining his chair, bit by bit, until his feet rest almost straight out from his body. The throb of pain that stretches down his thighs to his ankles is at its baseline, medication holding back the worst of it. 

Thank God for the fucking pills.

One of his knees jerks, bends like a reflex after being hit with a hammer, but the more he takes deep, even breaths the more he is able to slowly unfold it again. Finally, he sits back and relaxes into the low ache. It's so familiar and constant that he wonders what it would feel like if one day his legs didn't hurt at all. 

Would it feel like they'd been cut off, if they stopped hurting? Is it the only way he even remembers he has them, still?

There's a figure in the doorway. It’s not Nat, he can tell that much, so he doesn’t look up. He’s very aware that from this angle, whoever it is will see the scar across his face, the way some of his hair is shorter than the rest, growing more slowly as it comes back. If he keeps his chin down, he can hide the worst of it, maybe hold off questions he doesn’t want to answer.

Maybe, with the blanket, they won't notice anything else. Won’t notice his fucked-up legs. But, wait, the crutches on the wall…

The guy - it’s a guy, he thinks, not that he can see more than a blur without looking directly - is just standing there, silent. It makes Jameson feel uncomfortable, prickly and uncertain that he’s really welcome here, whatever Nat says.

Is it another rescue? 

Another runaway, one who will run upstairs and hiss to the others, Nat Yoder brought one of the whores, what do we do?

Don’t let them touch you. They can’t stop, if they touch you. They can’t stop.

Joke’s on those assholes, Jameson thinks, hunching his shoulders up nearly to his chin. He never wanted to start in the first place, not with anyone but Nanda, not with anyone but… but Allyn. 

You don’t have to get me anything, they’d said, laughing with their hair a mess, a halo on the pillow, as he’d kissed them. I don’t think I celebrated Christmas.

I want to celebrate you, I don’t care what we call the holiday we do it on.

They’d slid their arms around his neck, and pulled him down to them, bit at his lower lip until he hissed from the pain. The memory spreads like liquid warmth through him, then freezes as he realizes the guy is still just standing in the doorway.

“You need fucking permission? Just sit down, if you want, I'm just waiting for Nat to finish." The words come out a gravelly near-croak, more hostile than he means to be. He tells himself to apologize.

I’m sorry. It’s that easy.

He can’t make the words come out.

The guy just shrugs and sits on the couch. Close, but still more than arms' length away, neither of them an immediate danger to the other. 

Jameson, trying not to look, has an impression from the corner of his eye of a brown canvas coat lined with corduroy at the collar and ribbed knit at the cuffs, a thatch of ashy blond hair nearly shaved at the sides and longer on top - brutally neat compared to Jameson's growing messy mop of dark hair. Pale under a driving tan, not like the way Jameson looks now that he sees the sun, the way it feels like his skin was just waiting to soak it up again. 

There's an angular jaw and a blank expression.

Jameson doesn't offer a greeting - neither does the guy.

They just sit in silence for a while. On the screen, police officers investigate the disappearance of a rich woman's Domestic as time runs out before the kidnapper's deadline. One of them shakes the other by the shoulders, insisting we’re running out of time to save them! You have to help me!

"Hmph." There's a world of derision in that simple single sound the man makes.

Jameson glances sidelong at him. Something is familiar about his profile, but he doesn't know what, exactly. Maybe he's seen him at other meetings before. He's good-looking, yeah, but hard and bitter, you can see it in his face. 

Jameson's own scars itch. Just like you can see it in me. 

"Be nice if they actually cared that fucking much when someone hurts us," He says, half-joking. Maybe he means it as a kind of apology for being an asshole earlier. The guy's not big but he has muscle, Jameson can see that, too, and it sets something in him on edge. They're alone in here. Anything could happen. 

He tells himself that Nat is in the next room, that he could call for help if he had to. He could fight him off, no matter how much it hurt. But all the guy does is turn to look at him, a wry smile lifting one corner of his mouth slightly higher than the other. 

He looks like someone Jameson saw in a supermarket a few times, the way you start to catalog familiarity in the world around you even if you’ve never spoken to someone. 

Something about it sets Jameson’s heart to beating faster, and he fights back a wince as his fingers feel like they throb harder in response. 

"It would be nice if they look this much for anyone missing," He says, voice slightly raspy. Just a little, not as bad as Jameson's, but he sounds like he's been hoarse for a long time. His voice tastes like cherry sauce on cheesecake. Jameson fucking hates cheesecake.

He has an accent, mouth open a little too much when he speaks. His th in this comes out like it’s dis. Some kind of European thing. 

And, all at once, Jameson feels the thunderclap roll through him. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck stands up and he knows why this guy seems so familiar, suddenly. 

His mouth goes dry, but he swallows hard and closes his fingers tightly around the blanket. “Hey, are you… uh. Sorry, I’m not great at this kind of fucking-... are you Charles Ingvall?"

The guy stills, briefly, and then levels an even analytical stare at him. After a moment, he snorts and sits back, shrugging as his eyes go back to the TV screen, where two detectives beg a shadowy man to just let her go, just let her walk away, nobody has to die here today. "Chaz," He says, after a beat. "Mostly I am called Chaz when I use that name.”

"The cops are looking f-for you, I saw-... uh, an announcement or something-"

"I see it, too. They aren't looking very hard. Thank you for telling me, though.” Sank you for tellingk me. The accent makes him feel a little bit sick. “Is it the police in Utah? They are irritating. Idaho is worse. Montana, they leave me alone mostly.”

Jameson swallows, his throat feeling oddly small and constricted. He looks away - and then forces himself to look back, to meet the man's gaze. He has to see how he reacts.

He has to be sure. 

"They, uh. Yeah, but also… um. They’re looking for you here in California, too.”

Charles Ingvall’s eyebrows raise. They’re darker than his hair, just a little. “California? I do nothing here yet.”

“You’ve… been here, though?” Jameson’s voice is getting worse, rasping itself into a whisper as his throat tries to close. He doesn’t want to talk about Robert. He doesn’t want to admit-

But someone else survived Robert.

Someone else lived.

Jameson wants to know why.

“Yeah,” Charles Ingvall says, and looks away from him again. He picks at the seam of his thick denim blue jeans. The word comes out yah, as hoarse as Jameson’s voice. Not quite as ruined, but not much better.

How often did he hurt you to make you scream? The question dies before Jameson can ask it. Instead, he just says, “They found your fingerprints."

The man closes his eyes. There’s a breath, a beat, and then he shakes his head. "Damn. Where? I thought I had wiped them from the last truck. That is irritating. Next time I will ask for help to be sure. This is what I get for trying to do alone, right?”

Jameson’s heart is racing. He feels almost faint with it, and the constant pain of his hands and legs fades a little under the buzzing adrenaline flooding his system. If he had to, right now, he could still run. His body always comes through in a pinch, when he has to run.

For a while, anyway.

Before his legs give out and he collapses on a sidewalk, unseen, just another WRU runaway starving in the street who should have just stayed and hurt and burned and bled for the pleasure of-

“Robert Weber.”

The words come out like flytrap stickiness, nearly gumming his tongue and lips together with the taste. Just saying it makes Jameson smell, briefly, the scent of lemon cleaning products layered over decay. Dead people stuck up his nose, down his throat, stuffing up his ears with their screams for help that wasn’t coming, help that would never come, help that was locked in a cage with his hands over his ears wishing they would just die already so he could stop caring about them so much.

The man goes still when he hears the name. He seems briefly carved from stone, except for the flare of the whites around his eyes. "Who?"

"You… you know goddamn well who.” Jameson’s voice is thready and thin, barely there. His own voice on his tongue has lost nearly all its taste. “They found your fingerprints in a closet in his house. They’re looking for you, you’re-... your family is still looking for you.”

“I don’t have a family.” Charles Ingvall stands abruptly. “And I do not know Robert Weber.”

“Yeah, you do. Hey, don’t-” Ingvall’s moving away, about to walk out the door, and Jameson pushes himself up, too, nearly crashing right back to the ground before he manages to grab one of his crutches, jamming his arm into the grips and holding tight to the handle. The other one clatters and thumps against the hardwood floor. “Shit! Fuck, don’t leave, look-”

Ingvall pauses in the doorway, looking down at the crutch, then back up at Jameson. “You are injured.” He doesn’t sound pitying. Just someone pointing out a truth. “Let me get that. I don’t want to talk about Robert Weber.” He reaches down and picks up the crutch, helping Jameson get his arm through the guides so he can balance again. “Do you understand? I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Yeah, well-... I do.” 

“I don’t care.” Ingvall turns away again, and Jameson closes his eyes.

He never admits how bad it was.

He never tells anyone what it was like living in Robert’s house. 

He’s swallowed down the pain and the fear and shoved it as far as it can go. But this is his only chance to know someone who has survived what he has, and he can’t stand to lose it. So he follows, thumping along behind Ingvall, and says in a rush, “The cage was made for you, wasn’t it?”

Ingvall stills once more.

Jameson keeps going, his mouth with a mind of its own driving the words even as he feels his shaking get worse. “He bought it for you, but he put me in it, too.”

Ingvall stands there with one hand on the doorframe. His fingernails dig into the painted wood and Jameson wonders if he’ll leave little half-moon marks there, signals of someone who felt something so much bigger than his body and had nowhere for that feeling to go. 

Then he looks back at Jameson, over one shoulder. “He did not buy the cage only for me,” He says, heavily. His cheesecake voice weighs down Jameson’s tongue, sticky cherry sauce on top. “He bought it for someone like me. It was there when he brought me into his home. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I had not stopped my car to check directions…”

“I didn’t know anyone survived. I thought everyone went into the basement or... you know.”

“Or out, in the barrels.” Ingvall looks down at the ground, closing his eyes and taking a deep, deep breath. Then he turns back to Jameson entirely. “He called me his little Mouse.”

“He called me the goddamn dog,” Jameson says, and finds himself smiling, just a little. He feels it pull at the scar that cuts through the corner of his mouth. “You got out and decided to help the-... the runaways?”

“I was rescued by a man who helped them. He thought I was one, until he met me. I owe him my life, so I have given it to him, to doing his work. You…” Ingvall’s eyes drop to Jameson’s wrist, taking in the tattoo still there just peeking out beneath one sleeve, faded and scarred over but visible. “Robert bought one?”

“No. I… I ran away a long time before that. I just needed a ride.” Jameson is swallowing too much, he knows it, but he can’t seem to stop. There’s a lump in his throat he can’t seem to get around. “He offered me a ride. There was a bottle of-... of water. He drank a little of it, so I didn’t think…”

“Yeah.” Yah, the accent softer as Ingvall’s voice lowers. “I drank the water, too.”

“Why didn’t…” Jameson hesitates. This isn’t any of his fucking business, but… “You remember who you are. You remember yourself, that you’re… whatever the name was, I don’t remember-”

“Finn Schneider.” Ingvall says the words like they’re made of pins, sticking him with pain with every movement of lips, teeth, and tongue. “I remember the name.”

“Why didn’t you go home? You had a home to go to… why didn’t you just fucking go home?”

Ingvall blinks at him, as if he’s suddenly started singing in Spanish. “Because I was not Finn Schneider any longer,” He says, matter of fact. “Were you sold, too? Did he trade you for something new?” 

Jameson’s fingers clench and unclench on the grips on his crutches. “No.”

“Oh. Then how did you-”

“I beat him to death with a goddamn shovel when he made me help him bury another body.” The words are flat and blunt. 

“You… you what?” Ingvall’s eyes are wide again, and some of the hardness and the years fall off of his face. Jameson thinks he can see, now, what Robert saw - just a little - in a younger man who could look worried and vulnerable and not simply hardened. Had he looked like that, when he still felt hopeful, before he knew almost everyone was just shit and would fuck you as soon as look at you, would hit you faster than they’d help you?

“I beat him to death,” Jameson repeats, slowly, “With a goddamn shovel.”

“You-... you killed him?”

“Yeah. I… I was tired of watching people die, just really… fucking tired. And… I didn’t want him to kill anyone else anymore. So I made sure he couldn’t, and then I left.” Jameson feels the strength go out of him all at once, and the crutches are the only thing that keeps him standing. He loves these fucking things so much.

“I never thought to kill him-”

“Yeah, I know. If you had, maybe I wouldn’t be this fucked up.”

It hits Ingvall like a punch to the face, and his eyes close as he flinches at the simple, honest truth in the words. “... I-... I never thought I could-”

“I don’t blame you. I know it sounds like I do, but I don’t, fucking swear it. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Just… We’re the only two of his who lived. I know that doesn’t mean anything, not really, because like… there’s always people who survive bullshit, but… it kind of means something to me. That there’s somebody else.”

Ingvall’s jaw works as he looks down at Jameson - funny, neither of them are very tall at all, but Ingvall’s still tall enough to look down. “Does it?”

“Does it not, to you? Mean… mean, fuck, something that there’s two of us? That we aren’t alone?”

Ingvall’s smile is bitter. It’s not really a smile at all, just an upward tilt of the lips that goes nowhere near his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“But-”

“I am glad you lived,” Ingvall says, softening his voice a little. “I am. But we are all of us alone, in what we survive or what we don’t. All we have between us is a man who could have killed us and didn’t. That isn’t very much. Besides that…”

Jameson’s cheeks burn red, embarrassed and a little angry, too, at the casual disdain in Ingvall’s voice. He looks down, but his voice has fled - all his angry retorts wither up and die in the face of having his attempt to speak to someone, to… what, fucking bond or something… looked at with such distant dismissal. 

Ingvall goes quiet, for a second, just watching him. 

“What? Just fucking say whatever you’re gonna say and stop fucking staring at me.” His left knee throbs with his pulse, a sudden wash of pain that makes his leg twitch. It pulls Ingvall’s gaze to it, and Jameson’s face burns hotter - and so does his anger. “Don’t fucking stare, it’s fucking rude.”

“Sorry.” That’s sincere, at least. Ingvall closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s been so long… I don’t know how to talk about it. I shouldn’t… I have been cruel. I’m sorry. I meant only to say… I guess I just mean-... scheisse.”

Jameson snorts. “Bet I can guess what that word means.”

“Your language stole a curse or two from mine, to be sure.” Ingvall’s voice lightens a little. “I mostly curse in English, but sometimes when I really mean it, well. Scheisse feels more real. What’s your name? I haven’t asked.”

“Jameson. I… I named myself Jameson.”

“The bottles on the fireplace,” Ingvall murmurs. “He always had so many, lining them up-”

“I could read. He didn’t know, usually they make it so we can’t but it didn’t work on me. I could read, and I would sit in the cage-”

“And read the bottles, over and over.” Ingvall nods, just a little. His hands go into his pockets, and he’s still smiling, just a little. Some of the tension has bled out of him. “I did, too. Jameson, what I meant to say, before I was… rude, I was trying to say that we are not the only two who survived him.”

“... we aren’t? There was someone else?” Hope, thin as a thread through the eye of a needle, that there might be other people out there who didn’t end up in the basement or the blue barrels, other people who walked out of that house, or crawled, or-

“You are the only survivor, Jameson.” Ingvall turns away again, and then time he doesn’t turn back. 

“... what? What do you mean, you’re right here-”

“Finn Schneider died in the cage. I left as only his Mouse. I go by many names now, but if you called Mouse, this many years later, still I would run to the call."

"But-"

"Listen to me." His voice stays quietly steady, even as Jameson's has begun to tremble. "We are not survivors. We do not share the journey. The stupid trusting silly boy I was, the one who went into that house? He did not leave it."

Jameson stays silent, when Ingvall pauses this time. His face burns even as his stomach twists cold and grows ice from his pelvis to his heart. “Yeah, okay.” He finds himself mumbling and he can’t make himself look any higher than the guy’s knees.

Ingvall sighs. "I am glad someone did survive, Jameson. But I did not. Do not say Finn Schneider to me again. I don't know that man."

He walks away and leaves Jameson standing there in the room with the credits of the cop show playing pointlessly on the television behind him. 

When Nat comes to tell him they can go shopping now, he tells her to forget about it, he’s hurting too much anyway, and asks to just go home. She nods, watching him as she gets her car keys out of her pocket, but he says nothing else. While she drives, she keeps giving him sidelong looks, but all her soft well-meaning, careful questions get nothing but grunts. 

He makes it to the shower and gets his clothes off before his legs give out entirely. 

He sits in the tub with hot water beating down on his back and shoulders, trickling through his mop of hair, hands over his face, whispering fuck fuck fuck fuck to himself while Trash Cat paws at the other side of the door and meows for him. He doesn’t even try to let her in.

He just lets the scalding water burn against his scars.

-

@finder-of-rings  @endless-whump  @astrobly  @thefancydoughnut  @newandfiguringitout  @doveotions  @pretty-face-breaker  @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow  @boxboysandotherwhump  @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump  @whumpiary  @orchidscript  @nonsensical-whump  @outofangband  @eatyourdamnpears  @hackles-up  @grizzlie70  @mylifeisonthebookshelf  @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp

@whumperfully @pigeonwhumps  @squishablesunbeam  @darkthingshappen @whumper-soot  @pumpkin-spice-whump @pardonmekreature  @d-cs @honey-is-mesi @whump-queen @sowhumpful

[glitteratti]

have to stay at my parents overnight to housesit and i let my toothbrush at my place…yes its literally right around the corner from them but i dont want to mooooooooooooove

[avengersnonsexualageplay]

Anyways. Should I write a fic where Post-Ultimate Spiderman (Aka, Norman Osborn and Nick Fury's Special little boy,) Norman Osborn gets married to Jay Jonah Jameson and now Peter and Harry are having a fucking time hiding Peter's identity from BOTH of them who have decided Peter is their precious little boy while they both get hissy (but also protective and possessive) over Spiderman and Fury keeps having to run interference cause he's an Adult Who Can Help??? Peter is only a smol guy, he’s just trying to chill. He’s in the middle of the biggest crack journalist and one of the hottest billionaires in the city just begging Harry (happily letting him take the fall for this) to come distract them when he gets a Spidey sense.

I love the newer trope of giving Peter literally any and every caregiver out there but these two would coddle him and refuse to let him out of their sight. They’re gonna buy him and Harry puppies. They’re gonna be the most annoying doting fathers ever. Aunt May is in a constant custody battle with them. She’s gonna kick their ass so they always do what they’re told. Harry Has Once More Disappeared After A Bad Science Test Score And Peter Has To Let Them Coddle Him In Retaliation. He’s gonna kick Harry’s ass next what a brat.

[ratatatastic]

"And Lundy, talk about all the different Finns on this team: one of them a good friend of yours, Eetu Luostarinen got married pretty quickly right after the Cup got done. How did that party compare to the Cup parties? You guys just kept the action going it feels like!" "Yeah, I mean, it was awesome to see one of my best friends get married and be a part of it! But it got a little tight with the time since the season went so far—he actually missed his bachelor party but I think he's pretty happy with the parade and the parties we had in Florida so I don't think he minded that too much... but it was awesome to be a part of his wedding and see all his friends and family celebrating; that was a special moment as well."

Territory Talk | 8.26.24 (x)