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pappydaddy · 4 years ago

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Ghost of You ii (f.w.)

A/N: Here is a part two for Ghost of You (Requested by the lovely @lovenonymously!). I didn’t know which way to go with this so I kinda mashed up some of the suggestions in the request to create this! Hope you enjoy!!

Pairing: Fred x Fem!Reader

Movie/TV Show: Harry Potter

Trigger Warnings: Character death, angst, sadness, some fluffy memories, recovery, a mention of alcoholism (recovering).

Part One | Part Two - You’re here!

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation - my gif -

His breath was taken away from him the second she stepped into the moonlight. The purple dress she wore was just an ordinary dress like she always wore but then again, she always managed to take his breath away. He could only manage a smile as their eyes connected, her making her way to where he was standing, the moonlight glowing against her skin like a goddess. “Hello, Freddie.” She giggled, her bare feet stopping to stand in front of him, her dress blowing ever so slightly in the spring breeze that blew past them.

“Hello, Love.” He was finally able to find the correct words in the hectic jumble that was his mind. The fact that he managed to find a girl as sweet and beautiful as the one that stood in front of him boggled his mind. Despite them being so young, he knew that she was the one and that he was truly and madly in love with her.

“I didn’t know what you had planned so I just threw a dress on,” She spoke in an apologetic tone, looking down at her floral dress bashfully. “I don’t even have makeup on or my hair done.”

“You look perfect to me,” Fred whispered, thinking he talked low enough that she wouldn’t hear him. When she snapped her head back up to look at his face, the redness in her cheeks evident in the pale moonlight, he knew she had heard him. He blushed himself, trying to recover from that slip-up. She was the only girl that left the infamous flirt Fred Weasley sheepish. “You really do look perfect.” He spoke these words firmer, stepping closer to her to close the gap between them, his hands settling on her waist.

“I look like I just rolled out of bed, which I did because you wanted to meet at midnight. I had to go to bed so someone didn’t rat me out of breaking curfew.” She smiled lightly, though she had felt like she was in no shape to be seen by anyone with her hair falling in her natural waves and makeup-less face, Fred made those pesky butterflies swirl in her stomach with every look he gave her.

“You’re a Hufflepuff, nobody would rat you out,” Fred spoke over the silence of the night as he swayed them back and forth in a slow dance, turning in a small circle to the beat of the imaginary music in his head. “They’re all too loyal.“ She snorted at this, the sound beautiful to him, but a flaw to her. She slapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed that she had done that in front of him despite how long they had been dating.

Fred laughed, pulling her hand away from her face gently, his fingers interlacing with hers while his other hand kept a hold of her waist, her hand falling back to rest on his shoulder. The pair swayed gently, the blades of grass tickling their feet but they didn’t mind. Suddenly, he spun her out - shocking her for a second before her giggles filled the night air. The image moved in slow motion in his mind. Her dress flaring up, her hair whipping around, the large smile on her glowing face. He pulled her back into him, her body clumsily pressing against his as she stumbled a little, her hand resting against his chest before sliding up to rest on his shoulder again.

Silence surrounded them as they just enjoyed each other's company. Enjoying the rhythm of their beating hearts, the feeling that crawled beneath their skin from their skin touching, the swirling in their stomachs, the sheer happiness they felt. “What do you think life after Hogwarts will be like,” She posed the question, her voice softer than anything Fred has ever experienced. “I hope we still have dates like this.”

“We’ll have dates like this and many different dates, I will never pass on an opportunity to take you on a date.” He gazed down at her as she laid her head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart.

“And when we get married, it’s nice and intimate, not a big wedding that’s too crowded,” She continued to think of their future, not even doubting that they would be forever. “We will live in a cottage-style house that’s nice and cozy with a beautiful garden that our kids can play in. It won’t be too far from The Burrow so that we can visit your family easily and George won’t be too far either since it wouldn’t be right to not see him every day.”

“But we won’t live too close to Mum and Dad, will we,” He asked nervously. “I love my mum, but I don’t think I could survive with her dropping by all the time, a couple needs their alone time.” He spoke with his normal amount of cheekiness in his voice and she could basically see the wink he undoubtedly sent her.

“Not too close to your parents so that you can have alone time with me, got it,” She nodded, pulling her head off his chest to peer up at the tallboy. “I’ll write it in my new journal when I get back to my room.” She told him, barely getting the words out before his lips collided with hers, nearly knocking her over by the sheer force and urgency of the kiss. Once she regained her balance, she giggled against his lips, kissing him back in a way that made him melt.

Fred sighed as he slowly floated back into reality, his shaking hands picking up the journal he was staring at. The brown leather covers tied closed with a matching string. It was in the same pristine condition it was in when she first got it from her mother. It was intended for her to write about all the day’s activities to keep as a portal to her Hogwarts years, but it turned into her planning her future, writing it all down on the pages. The only thing that looked different about it was the edges of the pages were turning a bit yellow where she had accidentally spilt a bit of water on them. He didn’t dare open it, he was barely managing to move her things back into their rightful places. Instead, he slipped it into its place on her bookshelf in between her old school textbooks she held onto for reference sake.

“Fred,” George poked his head into the room as Fred turned his back towards the bookshelf. “Dinner’s ready, come sit and rest. You don’t have to put everything away tonight.”

“I’ll be right out, I just have to put one thing back in here.” Fred told him. With an understanding nod, George pulled his head out of Fred’s room to saunter back into the kitchen to prepare the table. He moved across the room to the dresser, picking up the old tube of strawberry chapstick she had left there, shuffling over to the nightstand on her side of the room. Opening the drawer, he neatly placed it among the other neatly placed objects that filled the drawer. With one last look around the room, Fred pushed the drawer closed before making his way out of the room to his waiting brother.

“How’d it go?” George asked when he noticed Fred rounding the corner. George placed the two full plates on the table next to the two glasses of water that were already placed in the spots. Fred shrugged, settling down in the seat George didn’t take, looking down at the plate George had prepared for him.

“Good, I’ve got everything where it’s supposed to be except the closet, but there isn’t much to do there.” Fred answered him, picking up his fork to eat some vegetables. George hummed, taking a swig of his water, nodding slightly.

“Are you going to do that tomorrow? I think you should, Dr. Smith said not to do too much at once,” George reminded him. Fred had taken so long to place the few things back to where they belonged in the bedroom. “And maybe I can help you with your bathroom, the shop is closed tomorrow.” He suggested, knowing that Fred wouldn’t want to do it all alone.

“That would be great, I could use the help to clean the bathroom anyway, it’s a bit cluttered.” He told George after chewing all his food.

“Then it’s settled, we’ll tackle the bathroom tomorrow and maybe my bathroom while we’re at it - it could use a good cleaning as well.” George slid that in there, earning a laugh from Fred. There had been only a few moments when Fred had laughed recently, once being when Ron had managed to slip on a sheet of ice three times and the others from little comments George has made that he never really thinks of.

“Your bathroom needs to burnt and rebuilt, you never clean it,” Fred pointed out, turning his nose up in disgust at the thought of his brother’s bathroom. “After we clean the bathrooms, maybe we could get some takeout? With tacking your bathroom onto the to-do list, we’re bound to be too exhausted to even think about cooking anything.”

“Sure, Fred, whatever you want,” George smiled down at his plate, the smile going unnoticed by Fred who continued to talk. His brother was finally acting more like himself. His footsteps were lighter when he walked, his lopsided smile could be seen on his face more often. He has even been able to come down into the shop and work for a few hours at a time, interacting merrily with customers. Fred had a while to go before he was fully back to himself, but he was slowly getting there. George couldn’t help but to wonder what the new Fred will be like. If he would find another person to love or if Fred having a certain amount of soulmates was real. Either way, he knew that Fred was going to be alright, no matter what being healed looked like for him. He knew that he wasn’t skipping out on appointments anymore to drink, in fact, Fred hasn’t even as much as thought of a drink for at least six months and George had aided his brother in his mission of sobriety - quitting drinking himself to stand alongside his brother in his path to recovery. George looked back up at Fred as he took a break in his story about a new product he thought of yesterday to eat some of his dinner. A loose smile played on George’s mouth as he took his brother in. “I love you, Fred.”

Fred looked up at George, chewing his food before answering. “I love you too, Georgie,” He replied, taking a drink of his water. “But anyway, I was thinking-” He launched back into his pitch, George nodding as he listened, happy to have his brother back. He wasn’t scared of losing someone without them knowing he loved them anymore, but he certainly made it a routine to tell the people he loved that he loved them at least once a day.

He still felt the ghost of you lingering around beside him, but it didn’t bring him sadness anymore. Your ghostly presence provided him with comfort and strength, knowing that you were still with him in spirit. He also knew that someday, when it was meant to happen, you two would reunite in some way. He hoped that you two would spend your days in the afterlife as ghosts, terrorizing people with pranks and practical jokes. No matter what would happen, Fred was sure that he was going to live his life to the fullest until that day for that was what he knew you wanted for him.

#fred weasley #fred weasley imagines #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fluff #fred weasley angst #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley preferences #angst #fluff #harry potter imagines #harry potter #pappydaddy's writing #harry potter angst #harry potter fluff #harry potter perefences #ghost of you #5sos song fic #part two #requested

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solivar · 7 years ago

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one where Hanzo Shimada is an expatriate art student, Jesse McCree is an NPS ranger, both are more than they seem, weird stuff is going down in the New Mexican desert, and their lives collide in the middle of it.

Now with 100% more teenaged Jesse McCree, genius polymath.

The sky simply did not look right -- had not, in fact, looked right since that morning, when the sun rose red above the eastern hills, hanging there like a baleful crimson eye glaring doom at the desert and everything living in it. The cloudwrack overhead swallowed it up shortly thereafter, vast, dark lenticulars piled miles into the sky and as far as the eye could see, curling around themselves like some massive, living thing looking for a place to set down its feet. When they parted enough to permit a glimpse of anything but themselves, the arch of heaven was the dangerously pale and sickly yellow that, in summer, was a precursor for heavy weather, hail and flooding rain, lightning and damaging winds, sometimes tornadoes. Now, at the tail end of October, almost November, that color sky and the savage, stifling heat the pressed down on the world beneath those clouds was unseasonal at best, unnatural at worst.

Nathaniel McCree, returning from battening down the animal enclosures, wished quietly that the storm, whatever kind it might be, would break. The waiting was always the worst part and this kind of waiting was particularly bad: every nerve alive and twitching, every sense physical and numinous straining to perceive something, anything. It put him far out of sorts.

A low rumble of thunder riding a hot gust of wind, the first to stir the ground level air since dawn, followed him up onto the ranch house’s back porch, set the wind-chimes hanging from the eaves to either side of the steps ringing with spirit-calling music. Also not a good sign: the chimes wouldn’t call in such a way if there was no need for them to do so. From inside, he heard a chair dragging across the kitchen floor and Yanaba came to the back screen door, stepped outside to join him. “Anything?”

“Nothing lurking around the barns, no.” A second gust, stronger than the first, rolled over them, strong enough to lift his wife’s heavy iron-and-pepper braid off her shoulder, and a louder, closer roll of thunder. “Readings settle down yet?”

“Not a bit.” She held the door open for him and he stepped inside, sliding the internal locks to keep the screen door in place but not yet closing the inner door.

The pieces of her rifle were still spread out across the kitchen table, along with her cleaning kit, a trio of 3D printers chugging away on the kitchen counters to produce her specialized ammunition. A fan of holoscreens, hanging just high enough not to be disrupted by her movements, displaying the current data provided by their web of sensor modules, a sphere of more than three hundred square miles of New Mexico, Arizona, and the multiple borders physical and more-than-physical they shared. The local telluric currents fluctuated violently across their surface, as unsettled as the ocean driven before a hurricane, the storm-surge passing through them and bleeding into the natural world in pulses that were slowly becoming more regular, more closely spaced together.

“Nothing’s opened up yet, but it’s only a matter of time now.” Yana remarked, evenly, as she slid the pieces of her weapon back together.

“So I see.” Nate fetched them both a cup of coffee and sat to help load her magazines once the rounds cooled and hardened enough to allow it, to watch the monitors and wait for whatever was coming to arrive.

When the storm finally broke, it did so with shocking speed and violence. The wind, gusting hotly against the shutters and the sides of the house, rose to a screaming sledgehammer as hot as the exhalations of a blast furnace, carrying with it sand and grit and something that might have been smoke and it took their combined strength to wrestle the inside door shut and bolt it in place against the force of it. Lightning, thus far not much in evidence despite the thunder, arced from cloud to cloud and fell in curtains rather than bolts, hanging suspended between earth and sky, visibly pulsing as they raked across the desert. Thunder literally shook the ground, rattled the windows in their casements and the bones in their bodies as they took cover under the kitchen table, the border wards embedded in the yard fence coming to life in an effort at blunting the storm’s ferocity. Wardfire danced with lightning and wind and the both broke around the house at least enough to keep the photovoltaic roof intact and feeding the power that let their monitors scream dire warning tones of imminent doom from overhead. Yanaba poked her head up and grabbed one.

“It’s close, whatever it is,” She muttered and reached up again, this time for her rifle.

“So I see.” The etheric patterns had coalesced from chaotic cross-sea waves into a single stable vortex that, even as they watched, imploded, sending a secondary shockwave rippling through the world beyond the world.

Outside, the storm itself visibly shuddered, the wind curling in on itself, voice dropping from a roar, the rotation of the clouds stuttering and slowing away from tornadic intensity. A torrential downpour followed, washing the dust and the heat and the taste of lightning out of the air, drumming on the roof and cutting fresh courses through the hard-packed dirt of the yard.

“You think something came through?” Yanaba asked, as she tossed him his ballistic vest and shrugged into her own.

“Only one way to be sure of that, darlin’,” Nate replied, and went to retrieve his medical kit.

The hoverjeep was, predictably, not having any of it so they loaded their gear into the back of the gas-drinker: emergency medical kit, detection and mitigation equipment, the larger of her several weapons, extra ammunition. Yanaba made him strap on his own freshly cleaned and loaded by her hands sidearm before she’d let him get in the vehicle and slid behind the wheel herself, because of the two of them her night vision was better and it was rapidly getting dark. The navigation system was at least not inclined to be pestiferous, interfacing smoothly with the house’s monitors and accepting the guidance data as they pulled out. “Last solid contact was about twenty miles north of here, in the hills near Nakaibito. We can take the 491 almost all the way there.”

The drive into the hills was entertainingly fraught, enlivened by heavy bands of rain lashing out of the entirely natural if unseasonable storms that followed hard on the northerly’s heels and broadside, straight-line winds nearly strong enough to blow them off the road. It grew even more so once they left the 491 for surface roads that hadn’t seen a lick of maintenance since hover technology took the lead in transportation and which were prone to being washed half-away by flash flooding and blocked by downed tree limbs and, ultimately, a pair of fallen trees that forced them to leave their vehicle a mile from their presumed destination and hike the rest of the way in.

Yanaba took point, as was her custom, her rifle slung for the moment in favor of a machete to cut through the leg-attacking ground cover and a hiking stick to brush aside things that didn’t need to be cut. Nate carried their handheld tracking and motion detection monitors, set to ignore their own movements, his own hiking stick that doubled as a heavy shock baton in a crunch, and a neatly organized pack of medical supplies. Even with the lightning arcing overhead, their lights and vision-enhancing gear, it was dark and the hike punishingly hard, the ground underfoot a sandy, boggy mire, the rain only barely starting to slack.

The motion detector sang its little rising-falling alarm tone. “Movement up ahead, ten yards. We’re almost there, darlin’ so --”

Underbrush rustled, far closer than ten yards away and with the passage of something much more solid than falling rain, and Yanaba traded her machete for a machine pistol, flipping on some extra light as she did so. Yellow-green eyes flickered in the darkness and a muzzle covered in wet silver-gray fur, a long, slender body vanishing among the junipers and ground cover in the blink of an eye.

“Whatever that was, it didn’t register on the motion detector but it did cause an etheric ripple.” Nate observed, mildly, and moved to his wife’s shoulder.

“So not actually a coyote, then.” The safety on her gun clicked firmly off. “Stay close.”

They set off in the direction the not-coyote had vanished, the sound of water roaring down a no-longer-dry arroyo rising loud enough to drown out the rain beating on the thirsty ground and the thunder still echoing among the canyons. Another sound joined it, as they came within a short stone’s throw of their destination: high and thin, a wordless wail of cold and tired and hungry.

Yanaba froze and he had to check his stride to avoid walking into her. “You heard that, right?”

“Yes, I did. Came from over thataway.” He showed her the motion detector, where a single pulsing contact glittered like a star they were probably going to have to shoot.

They proceeded carefully, Nate automatically moving to flanking position, Yanaba snapping her tactical visor into place to aid targeting in the somewhat less than optimal firing conditions. A second cry rose, closer, and it was by virtue of his place behind and off to the side that he saw its source before she did -- a huddled bundle on the edge of the arroyo, inches from the rushing water gnawing steadily away at the muddy bank. “Darlin’, it’s over here.”

The bundle shivered slightly, and he turned a targeting beam directly on it: a ratty towel, either dark to begin with or darkened with blood and mud and wet, wrapped around something small, moving weakly. A third cry, even thinner and more tired than the first too, rose from up, along with an audible gurgle and cough. Nate crossed to it and knelt, lifted the edge of the towel and dropped it back, hurriedly pulling down his own visor and activating its physical and psychic defense structures; they helped wash the afterimages of what he just saw out of his brain before they could take hold. “Leave your visor on, defense mode active. It’s...I’m not sure what it is, but it’s tiny.”

“Nate, what are you --” Yanaba came through the brush at his back and froze as he opened the towel completely, exposing the thing it was wrapped around to merciless light and enhanced vision gear.

“It’s a baby.” Nate finally managed, after a moment of stunned silence. “Umbilicus is still attached -- still some blood in it, even. Fresh out of the wrapper. How the --”

“Nathaniel McCree, step away from that thing now.” Yanaba’s voice was low and tight.

He shrugged out of his backpack. “Just a minute, darlin’. Gotta find something to wrap --”

“Nate.” Her voice somehow managed to tighten another notch. “Get back.”

He glanced over his shoulder and found the muzzle of her rifle leveled with the bundle, her mouth an expressionless line beneath her visor. “Yanaba -- it’s a baby.” He checked again. “He’s a baby. Can’t be more than a few hours old. Whatever happened -- however he came to be here -- he didn’t do it himself. He’s not the threat here.”

“That is an infant naayéé, Nate. It’s only innocent now, because it can’t bite you in half yet.” The tightness was giving way to exasperation. “Step away. I promise I won’t let it suffer.”

“He. Not it. He.” Very deliberately he opened his pack and very deliberately removed an emergency support bubble which he very deliberately inflated and began running the internal readiness diagnostics and very deliberately removed the little bundle of squirm and too many limbs and a head that wasn’t shaped quite right from his ratty old towel and placed him in said bubble, which immediately began scanning to determine his medical intervention needs. “And he’s human enough that I’m getting readings here and indicators that he’s suffering from exposure and dehydration and borderline hypothermia. So it’s possible that he’s been out here since he was born.”

“The mother probably abandoned it when she saw what it was.” Yanaba said, after a long, uncomfortably silent moment broken only by the emergency support bubble’s assorted diagnostic tones. She lowered her weapon and flipped on the safety. “It’s a monster, Nate.”

“A baby monster.” He looked up from the diagnostic panel. “You see any tracks coming in?”

Yanaba snorted. “In this mess? Fuck no, are you kidding?”

“Not even coyote tracks.” Nate replied, and initiated the processes that would provide hydration and nutrients and bring the little bundle of squirm back to a safe and healthy core body temperature.

Yanaba was silent for a moment. Then, ungrudgingly, “It did lead us here. Not that that doesn’t mean that someone or something isn’t elaborately fucking with us.”

“Point.” He tucked the towel into a biohazard bag and vacuum sealed it. “That’s something we can figure out once we get back to civilization, don’t you think?” He tried it and, to his surprise, the bubble’s internal antigrav units were willing to work; it lifted off the ground to easy physical guidance range.

“Nate…” She sighed. “Don’t get attached. All I ask. Please.”

“I’ll try, darlin’.” He reached out for her hand, and she gave it to him. “I think we should call him Jesse. He looks like a Jesse.”

He was pretty glad her other hand was too full of rifle to hit him.

Hanzo attempted to arrange is face into an expression that wasn’t unadulterated horror and felt himself failing completely. “You -- your parents --”

“Yeah.” The ranger’s smile was small and sad and the pain behind it lodged in Hanzo’s throat; he found himself unable to swallow or speak past it. “My mother, at least, and I can’t really say I blame her -- I’ve seen the pictures of what I looked like back then. Screamin’ and runnin’ is probably the least of what I’d do.”

“That...that is not funny, Jesse.” Hanzo’s voice sounded strangled in his own ears.

“C’mon now, darlin’ -- it’s a little funny.” Another small, sad smile.

“No.” He wished, at that moment, that he had more limbs of his own to hold him with. “What happened -- well, I know what happened, your grandmother must have --”

“Nana McCree was pretty hardcore, I’ll admit. Came from a long and illustrious line of monster-hunters on her mama’s side of the family and, bein’ the only daughter of her parents, took the responsibilities pretty seriously. She and Pop Pop tried to have kids of their own, but it never took, so she ended up training two of her nieces to continue the family business. We...don’t really get along that well.” The smile vanished so completely it was like it had never been. “By the time they found me, Nana was past child-bearing -- past sixty, both of them, even though they were pretty spry and still doing the work of helping patrol and protect their chunk of the desert around where they lived. They owned a little ranch outside Gallup, which is a ways to the west of here, near the Arizona border. But, no matter how spry they were, nobody was going to believe Nana gave birth to me, so grandparents it was. They also knew pretty quick that they were going to need some help, so they called a couple old friends before the week was out…”

Gabe and Jack arrived under cover of darkness within a couple days of the call, rolling in on a moonless midnight driving a vehicle with all its transponder signals carefully spoofed and using a pair of their more load-bearing alternate identities to travel under. Nate appreciated both the speed and the discretion, if not being woken up by Gabriel ghosting through a crack in the defenses and poking him in the ribs barely an hour after he laid his head on the pillow.

“Boo.” Gabe had more eyes open than should be allowed by law and was wearing his widest, fangiest grin, which was a version of him only his husband really enjoyed waking up to. “How’s it hanging, old man? Jack and I understand that you’ve got gremlin issues.”

“You made good time.” Nate glanced over his shoulder at Yanaba, sleeping undisturbed, and decided to leave it that way -- it was technically his duty rotation, after all. “Where’s your man?”

“Waiting out on the porch with our gear.” Gabe stepped back and Nate rolled out of bed, slipping into his robe and slippers and padding downstairs to open the door.

As promised, Jack was waiting surrounded by duffle bags and equipment cases, his visor and implants engaged to give him a reasonable approximation of vision, back to the door and gazing out over the yard and the surrounding outbuildings. He turned as the door opened, and grinned that tight-lipped grin of his, and let himself be pulled into an embrace. “Good to see you, too, Nate. Gimme a hand with this?”

“Surely.” They schlepped all the gear into a corner of the sitting room, got them settled there for the nonce, and Nate fetched coffee for himself and Jack, who appeared to need it at least as much as he did. “Thank you for coming -- I know it was short notice but Yana and I could really use an extra couple hands and brains right now.”

“We got that impression from all the screaming, yeah.” Gabriel replied, and waved off an offer of something stronger.

Jack drank deeply and then set his cup aside. “So...what happened?”

Nate took a deep breath and told them. They started exchanging speaking glances about halfway through his recitation and by the time he was done, Jack was regarding him with naked concern. “Why didn’t Yanaba just shoot it?”

“Nate wouldn’t let me.” Yanaba answered that question for herself, padding down the stairs in her own nightclothes and stepping into a hug from Gabriel. “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can figure out how to feed it.”

“It hasn’t eaten in a week?” Gabriel asked, a faint hint of alarm in his tone.

“He’s sleepin’ in a support bubble -- it’s keeping him hydrated and feedin’ him liquid nutrients but that’s not makin’ in him very happy.” Nate replied tiredly. “Mostly he’s like any other infant and spends most of his time sleepin’ and eatin’ and makin’ diapers but when he’s awake? Y’all will know it.”

It was almost on cue. From upstairs there came a high, thin, shivery wail, a sound that crossed a multitude of borders, and the wards built into the walls and foundation and the fence outside came to life in order to contain its force. Gabriel’s whole shape shimmered for a moment in response, swirling shadows and dark owl wings and too many eyes, before it stabilized back into something mostly human. He took the stairs two at a time as he went up and left the rest of them scrambling in his wake, a not uncommon occurence, and by the time they caught up he was leaning over the support bubble, hands pressed flat and spread across the plassteel hood, gazing down at its contents. The contents were kicking and flailing assorted limbs but not crying any more, which was a welcome thing after so many days.

“Be careful.” Yanaba said sharply as Gabriel reached down and unlocked the hood, sliding it back.

“Always am.” Gabriel cooed, the tone clearly meant for the bundle of squirm. “Hey, bebé, look at you. Look at all those toes -- that’s a lot of toes. So many toes. We’re going to have to do something about that but for now…?”

He reached down and picked the bundle of squirm -- whom Nate was trying very hard not to call Jesse in Yanaba’s hearing -- and cuddled him against his chest. There wasn’t a onesie on Earth meant to accommodate that shape, not even a sleep sack, but they’d managed to jury-rig an effective diaper and procured a soft lambswool blanket to wrap him in. He kicked a little against Gabe’s chest, and an appendage that was far too bonelessly flexible and weirdly jointed to be properly described as a hand wrapped itself around his fingers as he stroked the baby’s face gently and dragged them into his mouth.

“Wow, that’s a lot of teeth, too.” Gabe pressed a kiss to the baby’s approximation of a forehead. “A lot of teeth. What do you need so many sharp teeth for, bebé?”

“Traditionally, the naayéé consume human flesh and blood.” Yanaba deadpanned. “And from a fairly early age at that.”

“Well, that’s not going to work, now is it?” Gabriel nuzzled the little critter again and made no move to pull his fingers away from teeth that were, while tiny, multitudinous, needle-sharp, and entirely capable of reaching the bones of the unwary; Nate had spent some time with his hand under a biotic field emitter as testimony to that fact. “You don’t need to eat people, you know? There’s lots of other nice things to eat. You can have those teeth later if you need them but for now can we try something else, little one? Come on, I know you can do it. Let me see you --”

A fruity little giggle rose out of the bundle in Gabriel’s arms, a sound so perfectly sweet and pure and human that even Yanaba peeked in when he carried the bundle over to them. He still had too many limbs and that head with its enormous sealed-shut eyes and weird shape was still the sort of thing that would induce nightmares in the unprepared but now, instead of a mouthful of meat-eater teeth, it had rosy gums and drool and lips stretched into a wide, sweet smile.

“He’s probably going to need something more substantial than just formula.” Gabriel said, and let him have his fingers to gnaw on again.

“We’ve got goat milk that hasn’t become cheese yet.” Yanaba suggested, and looked astonished at herself.

“If you’ve got any fresh red meat to puree for enrichment, that might be a good idea, too. He’s pretty hungry.” Gabriel looked up, a little smile settled on his face. “What’re you calling him?”

“We’re not,” said Yanaba at the same moment Nate said, “Jesse.”

“Jesse. Jessito. Yeah, I can see that.” Gabriel cooed again and was rewarded with another sweet monster-baby giggle. “He even looks like a Jesse. Jack, I think we’re going to have to stay awhile.”

“Yeah, I saw that one coming.” Jack gave Yanaba a look comprised of equal parts resignation and amusement. “I think we’re outnumbered and outflanked here, Yana.”

“Obviously.” Yanaba sighed, and went downstairs to liquify a steak.

“Gabe was convinced from the start that at least one of my parents was human, because he got my teeth to go away that night just by askin’ nicely.” Jesse was steadfastly refusing to meet his eyes. “It took him the best part of three months to get me into a totally human shape and he’s been kinda smug about that ever since because the smart money said it wasn’t possible at all. Most of the old-time naayéé weren’t real human-lookin’ no matter who their mothers were, with a few exceptions, and they were...really pretty special exceptions. But Gabe’s nothin’ if not stubborn and he wasn’t willing to give up on the point, because it probably would have become a matter of life and death eventually.”

“Your grandmother,” Hanzo said, his mouth dry, the question not quite willing to form on his tongue. “She wouldn’t have...”

“Nana? Nah. For all her telling Pop Pop not to get attached, she took hold pretty hard herself. Used to say that I grew on her like saddle mold.” An amused little snort. “The rest of the local family wasn’t so keen, particularly when it became clear I was human on the outside only and that was pretty early.”

“That isn’t true.” Hanzo said, and silently willed him to meet his eyes, a signal he clearly did not receive.

“True enough for government work.” Dryly. “It became clear because I killed things without even trying hard. Or meaning to.”

Hanzo opened his mouth and closed it again without any of the possible sounds trying to crowd their way up his throat making it past his lips. Jesse, mercifully, didn’t notice.

“It was little things at first -- bugs, mostly. Scorpions are pests, y’know, and finding them all shriveled up just meant they could be swept out instead of squished. Spiders. I hated spiders when I was little. I think I might’a had a bit of a complex about things with too many legs. I’d just...look at ‘em hard and they’d keel over. I was too little to make the logical connection and it happened too fast for anyone else to see it for the longest time.” His eyes dropped closed. “One day when I was five, almost ready to go to school, one of the goats I was playin’ King of the Hill with butted me off the side of a rock with a bit more enthusiasm than usual and...it hurt. Skinned knee, bloodied lip, I was scared and mad and it came pourin’ out of me and before I could stop it everything for a hundred feet around me just...died. Everything -- the goats, the plants in the field, birds fell out of the sky. Gabe came running when he heard me screaming and caught it with both barrels -- he’s not particularly killable but I still hurt him badly enough that it took him the best part of two days to reform. Nana tranqed me from range and they bound me up in wards until they could figure out what it was and how to control it.” A tiny, humorless smile. “That was mostly Jack and Nana -- control and precision were the gifts they gave me.”

“You were so young -- you must have been so frightened.” At five, he had been aware of the interest Uncle Toshiro had in him, but was still too young to fully appreciate what it meant beyond the specialness of it.

“More scared that I was going to hurt someone else.” His voice was rough and when he opened his eyes there was a hint of moisture around their rims that had not been there before. “I told Nana and Pop Pop I didn’t want to go to school and they agreed that it was probably a good idea for me to stay away from other kids until I was old enough to keep my emotions under control.” A pause. “Y’know, this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten with this conversation? Normally by the time I get to the whole baby monster cured by my terrifying smoke Dad bit, it’s all over.”

Which confirmed at least one suspicion. Hanzo’s heart ached and he said, quietly, “We don’t have to continue if you don’t want to -- I can see how much this pains you.”

“It’s almost a good kinda hurt, darlin’.” One of the ranger’s hands found his and squeezed tightly. “Of course, the rest of the family found out. And there was a blow-up between Nana and the eldest of her nieces, Maritza, who lived on the Rez and was one of the local hunter-protectors. A bunch of hard words were said and they never did reconcile, which was a problem in the long run.” Finally, finally, those dark eyes turned to him. “Gabe and Jack stayed with us until I was ten, which was longer than they’d stayed in any one place for years, and probably about two years longer than was technically safe for any of us.”

“How did they know each other? Your grandparents and Gabe and Jack?” The question came out before he could stop it.

“They served together in an international unit under the auspices of the United Nations. Ana and Rein and a handful of others, too. Technically it was an all-volunteer outfit, it’s just that all the volunteers had particularly refined and unusual skill sets that allowed them to meet the parameters of their mission -- which was, actually, keepin’ things from Beyond out of this world or, if they managed to wiggle their way in, evictin’ them again with extreme prejudice.” Again, the smile that crossed his face had little in the way of humor in it. “Gabe and Jack got into their current condition in the line of duty and, while it took a long time, the DoD finally got around to acknowledging that fact, which is why they get to stay here unmolested now. For a while that wasn’t true, and they had to keep movin’ in order to stay ahead of the people assigned to determine exactly how hard to kill they really were. Lingerin’ as long as they did, even in the geographical ass-end of nowhere, was a huge risk for them t’take and I’ve never --” He stopped, swallowed hard, continued on. “I’ve never quite felt that I deserved it. Gabe hates that, but it’s true.”

Two days after his tenth birthday, Jesse sat on top of the ranch house roof and watched the men he called Papi and Jack drive away -- waited, point in fact, until there was nothing left to see of their vehicle, even with the running lights on, and there was no real reason left to stay. When he climbed back down, he dug out the wards that they made for him and which he hadn’t needed at all for going on two years and put them back on. Nate was proud of the maturity and self-knowledge that took, and also worried enough that, when he went into town for the next few weeks, he made sure there were enough chores available to keep Jesse busy. Fortunately, none of the MiBs who’d been sniffing around came to the ranch while he wasn’t home and, a few weeks later, they faded away entirely, chasing other leads.

When Jesse turned eleven, he also started to grow. He’d always been on the lean and lanky side, all knees and elbows and feet just big enough to trip over if he wasn’t being careful, but now, seemingly overnight, he shot up ten inches and outgrew almost all his clothes, his shoes, and his bed. He took a positively unholy joy in being taller than Yanaba for the first time ever, a fact about which she grumbled and smiled about, because it was something that made him demonstrably happy, a thing he’d had in short supply for quite some time. The spring between eleven and twelve, he decided he’d like to try going to school in town again and so they enrolled him and requested that his records be transferred over from the online academy where he’d studied his academics thus far.

By twelve, he was starting to fill out in across the shoulders and chest, a good two inches taller than Nate, and more alone than he’d ever been, for all that he was now going into town every day and spending most of it with kids his own age. Maritza’s children lived in there with her ex and they had been warned, in general terms, not to mix with their not-cousin because he wasn’t right -- a warning they helpfully shared with the peers they’d known all their lives, and the precise dimensions of the not-right-ness grew in the telling as it passed among them. Jesse put his head down and held his tongue and put the wards back on and concentrated on his studies: he was the sort of student every teacher loved, the kind that didn’t have to be nagged to do the reading or turn in his homework on time, and while he was never going to love math for its own sake, he at least tolerated it for its relationship to science (which he enjoyed) and music (which he was good at and enjoyed). The librarian was his best friend that year, feeding his appetite for books, for worlds he could escape into that were at least different than the one he presently occupied, and he made her a lovely thank you card that he handed back with the last of them at the end of the year. After that, he saw no reason to return, not so dedicated to the idea of having friends that he was willing to suffer the slings and arrows of adolescent cruelty to search them out. Loneliness was a grief he was used to, after all, and he could learn just as well at his terminal in the study.

In the winter between thirteen and fourteen, Nate began to feel his age -- not that he hadn’t been feeling it before but those long, dark months were colder and wetter than most and his joints let him know about it at length. Jesse effortlessly picked up his slack, for which he was eternally grateful, rising early to tend the animals and put on the coffee, walking miles of fence to check and maintain the integrity of the physical and numinous barriers, moving his terminal into the living room so he could run errands in the house and do his schoolwork at the same time. Yanaba fussed over him to excess, which he tolerated to the best of his abilities, and so did the boy, which gave them time together on a daily basis that they used to improve his emergency medical skills, to work on the little handicrafts that they both favored when they were too tired to think, to read their way through each others’ lists of favorite novels. They were, in fact, halfway through Lonesome Dove, one of Nate’s all-time favorites, the afternoon he started to feel a touch dyspeptic and then a little nauseous, and then a lot tired. The last thing he saw, as the world started going light around him, was Jesse reaching for him, and the look on his face.

Nate’s will stipulated cremation, which was duly accomplished, and his ashes brought home in a ceramic urn glazed the deep blue of the night sky over the desert mixed with tiny flecks of silver. For the first month after, Jesse and Yanaba drifted around the ranch like ghosts themselves, doing what needed to be done mostly on autopilot, numb and gray with grief. Toward the middle of the second, they began bumping into each others’ edges again, became aware of one another, and came back together to do more than just function. Just you and me now became the fulcrum around which their lives turned and they made the effort to keep it that way, sitting together in front of the fireplace to do homework assignments and read novels, to watch a new old movie on the holotank, to do the 3D design work for Jesse’s own custom ammunition, built around his strengths and the nature of the power running in his veins. They both knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d be taking up Yanaba’s half of the household’s self-chosen duties, no matter how little Maritza liked it, because there were things abroad in the desert by night and day that would answer to no ordinary bullets.

Yanaba caught a cold at the tail end of spring that nagged her relentlessly all through the summer. It settled in to stay as summer faded into autumn, sapping her strength to the dregs, forcing her to spend more time abed in the mornings than she liked, and finally whole days abed, feverish and too weak to stand. She didn’t want him to call an ambulance, or to go to the hospital, didn’t want to leave him alone on the ranch, not because she didn’t trust him but because she feared what would happen to him if she did. Jesse tended to her with all the skill he’d been taught over the years but there was one thing he lacked: a true healer’s touch that could have chased what troubled her away when even the biotic emitters did nothing but help her hold ground. And that he did not have, and never would, because healing was not his gift. In late October, just after his fourteenth birthday, as his grandmother lay sleeping the feverish, restless sleep of an invalid, he did the one thing he had dreaded more than anything else and called Maritza, to beg for her help. She and her eldest sons, the not-cousins who’d been a year or two ahead of him in school, arrived four hours later and an ambulance from town shortly thereafter. Before she left, as they were loading her onto the litter, she took him by the hand and made him swear his vows to her and sealed the promise he gave with her own. Maritza went with the ambulance, in her own hoverjeep; the not-cousins stayed behind, and after dinner Jesse retreated to his room, ill at ease and not entirely sure why.

He woke, sometime in the dark hours after midnight, to the sound of voices drifting up from downstairs -- quiet but clearly audible, because if the house’s heating system did anything, it carried sound.

“Everything’s ready?” That was Maritza, low and soft and somehow more dangerous for it.

“Yeah.” The Eldest of the not-cousins. “Aunt Yanaba had a lot of the things we needed already in her kit. No real need to go searching for them.”

“That’s because she knew that this would need to be done eventually and prepared to do it.” Crisply, cool, and the calm certainty of it turned the blood to ice in his veins, chased the last traces of sleep from his mind. “What is it, Chase?”

“Mom...are you sure about this? I mean -- if this was what he wanted, if this was his fault, why’d he call for help? All he had to do was wait.” The Younger of the not-cousins, who’d be almost nice to him at dinner and offered to help with the dishes and clearly wanted to talk to him but got glared off by his big brother. “If he were...hurting people it’d be one thing but he’s --”

“Naayéé, Chase. A monster in human shape like that thing Yanaba called his father.” Her voice cooled and hardened and Jesse was already dressed and pulling on his hiking boots, dragging the bug-out bags that Gabe insisted he have packed and ready to go out of the back of his closet. “That’s all he is and all he can ever really be, no matter what he might look like -- if anything, they helped make him worse because now it’s hidden instead of written on his flesh like it should be. Do you want to wait for him to show it before something’s done about him?”

Silence. Jesse eased his window open, put the first bag on the back porch roof and reached for the second.

“No. No, but --”

“No buts. We can’t hesitate in this -- not the way Yanaba did. She died thinking this thing loved her --”

The sound of pain that came out of him was completely involuntary, choked off as quickly as he could, and it was already too late.

“What was that?”

“Not sure -- he’s been upstairs since just after dinner. Sleeping the last time I checked. You want me to…?”

“Yes. Chase, stay here.”

Footsteps on the stairs but Jesse was already sliding off the porch roof after his bags, whispering the charm that Gabe taught him that would call the shadows, make him physically indistinct, mask his trail from even the most determined prying magic or skilled tracking. He thought Chase caught a glimpse of him as he vaulted the yard fence but, if he did, he held his tongue and stayed where he was; it was a small enough thing to be grateful for but Jesse never forgot it and repaid it as best he was able when circumstances allowed. That night, however, he thought of nothing but the best route to take across the desert and into the hills, as far from what remained of his not-really-family as he could before the sun rose.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66 #I'll fix the italics later

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solivar · 7 years ago

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

Now with 100% more best dad!Gabe, ickle naayee!Jesse, and -- hey! Is that an Overwatch origin story? IT IS!