Stories & Fables

she feels small under his gaze, which pisses her off because she's older and is supposed to be the protective one. despite her best efforts, he's clearly glanced at her phone and seen some of her notifications or seen some of the comments and tags she's received before she had a chance to delete them. taking the distraction, she pulls her eyes away from her brother's and deletes mason's most recent comment on her instagram and blocks him. it won't stop him for long, but he'll have to make another finsta or switch tactics.

❝ i would mind if you told daddy that because you're blowing it out of proportion. i don't want him to make me give up barrel racing again or make me have three body guards at the rodeos like when i first went back to it. please, gavin. i want to have some normal fucking moments in my life. ❞ but they wouldn't be normal. not when mason found the time to saddle up beside her and sneer something toward her when she's about to enter the arena or heading back toward the horse trailer. within brock's sights but just out of earshot.

❝ if you're worried you can come with me and brock this weekend to ellis county. but please, if you say something to him i'm positive it will make it worse. i don't want this asshole putting his hands on you either. he's just looking for attention. if i don't give him a reaction he'll get bored and move on. ❞

so being told to just ignore the guy who was giving his sister crap? yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

"i'm going with you, that's for damn sure. especially if you won't let me tell dad about this. but i can't make any promises about not saying anything to this prick. someone needs to put him in his place and if it ain't gonna be daddy then it's gonna be me. hell, i might even get uncle judd involved. better than dad, right?" though his uncle likely wasn't as scary as their father could be in a situation like this. well, unless you believed gabby's stories of seeing him angry.

❝ oh, you're a psychologist now? i thought you were a probie firefighter. ❞ she's smirking. flirting is not her forte, but some people liked sarcastic comments in the name of teasing, didn't they? as someone that didn't get many words of affirmation in her life, she would rather puke than sit here and twirl her hair while telling him how he's a dreamboat and she would love to go out with him. pointing out his cute little chin dimple is only going to stroke his skyrocketing ego.

❝ how romcom. i'll kick your ass at minigolf, you don't have to pretend to suck for me. -- and i am a little interested to see this quaint ice cream shop. does it have a striped awning? ❞ in her mind, that's a hallmark of a good ice cream shop. or maybe simply part of the very few memories with her dad her mind's been able to hold onto. ❝ fine, since you've already put so much thought into this date -- ❞ that he's probably used on countless other girls by now. ❝ and you seem so desperate for my attention, i'll bite. ❞ but if this somehow turns into something, she's going to run it by harper before the second date.

she's in too deep for him to reach her already. he should have pushed harder when she first started going out all of the time, but he's not sure he could have made a difference. maybe he should have been more thorough about how his addiction had already completely blew his life apart before the apartment fire. she'd been there, of course, but a lot of the personal details of it were hidden from her as much as possible. then there's his dad... a cautionary tale in itself that bobby's not sure he can ever face. harper doesn't even have one memory with his mother because of the fallout of all of that.

he feels helpless in this and responsible. addiction is in part hereditary and he's failed at doing the basic parental duty once again in protecting her. but he'll be damned if he lets her fall too far. ❝ maybe in the moment. but i'm sure you don't feel great when you wake up, especially after the third night out in a row. are you remembering all of these nights or are you waking up to a mystery to decode? ❞

maybe a meeting will be helpful to her, even if she doesn't speak. sometimes fear really stops people from sharing, but listening to others express similar feelings to theirs, even if their experience isn't exactly the same is helpful. ❝ i'll accept that. but you need to want to go for yourself... but maybe you'll hear something that resonates with you from someone else. ❞ he's come to terms with her dropping out of college, but he wants her to still work toward setting up a stable future for herself.

"fine. whatever. let's just go." truthfully, she won't admit that she's relieved he's forcing this on her. she wants to get back to the person she used to be; she doesn't want to be this person who is always either drunk or hungover. she doesn't want to be the person who spews hateful epithets at the people she loves all the time because she's hiding the pain she feels inside. maybe she'll even surprise both of them and get up to talk today, as adamant as she was about not doing so. because maybe telling bobby the truth about why she's like this will be easier when there's more people around them to listen.

at least his own romantic situation lightened adam's mood. he'll take the jabs today, because he's sure that the next few days won't be great for him. ❝ yeah. i think you're right. ❞ he knows that voight respects him... and he and kim had been mostly on good terms with platt even before intelligence, but that didn't mean now wasn't a whole different ballgame. ❝ i'll be trying my best not to fuck up. madeline's pretty reasonable, though. ❞ she wouldn't bring her parents into any of their day to day arguments.

@storiesfabled asked: how do you believe in all this and still believe in god? from the beautiful creatures meme

how she desperately wishes that they hadn't found out the truth about all of this. if she could go back to when she first ran into judd at that bar, she would drag herself out of it kicking and screaming. the cost of their faith and blissful ignorance of the monsters that lurked around every corner didn't even come close to being worth the happiness she's found here. ❝ god's real. i mean -- i've been in heaven. ❞ she's been where grace is now, completely losing the foundation of everything she's ever believed in during those final hours of her life... and then for presumably months of time on earth while she was in heaven. ❝ he's just a selfish prick that -- i don't know... i guess got bored of running things? went into hiding like a petulant child when his apocalypse planning didn't go his way.❞ she always thought the end of times would be eons away and less violent than what the winchesters stopped.

it's hard to explain what expertise she has without outing her true nature, which is something she really can't do. she didn't have to learn the hard way not to trust other hunters... even without the instinctual drive to kill, she knows plenty of them would consider her a threat. with the winchesters having a wild reputation preceding them, she's got no interest in giving either of them a chance to find out the truth about her. though, dean's been in town for almost twenty four hours now and she's yet to see his brother. ❝ these vampires are strong. the dead body found here last week? julian yates? he was a hunter too. you're going to need someone to watch your back, at the very least. ❞ 

@storiesfabled asked: ❝ if i ask for your help are you gonna make a big deal out of it? ❞ from the dash of angst meme

she hates that pack life has come between her and her brother a little bit. but maybe this is the normal sibling dynamic, to butt heads a little bit. she's never really pushed him away and told him to not be involved in her life, like most older sisters, though. they've been close, despite the age difference. but throw a whirlwind of heartbreak, phasing, vampires, and death around and things change a bit. ❝ i won't make a big deal about it. what do you need help with? something pack related? mom? ❞ a girl from school? but she's not tacking that on there. seth would definitely shut down that line of questioning.

it makes her sick to her stomach all over again when he says he'll be on leave because of what happened. ❝ they'll see it was either his life or mine, right? i hate that i've caused so much extra stress for you and carlos because of this. ❞ she's apologized countless times and her dad's made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to hear it again. still, another apology is on the tip of her tongue and she's biting it back. at least it feels like there aren't any tears left and she doesn't have to worry about trying to hold those at bay too.

❝ i'll just need ten or fifteen minutes. ❞ she's still mostly packed from having to move back in with her parents for the second time. things had gotten too scary to keep living at her apartment, even with carlos and tk right down the hall. it may take a few weeks for her to feel secure enough to return. despite being there and seeing the aftermath of what happened to darren, she's not sure her waking mind's caught up with the events of everything.

she's never fully settled back in here either, but peace has been hard to find. marina presses a kiss to her dad's cheek, ❝ i'll meet you at the front door. we'll have the best time. we'll have to stop somewhere for smores supplies! ❞ for both of their sakes. with that, she walks down the hallway to her childhood bedroom to move some clothes to a smaller bag for this trip.

"okay, there's no hurry. i'm going to go get myself packed up too." he walked to his room, packing a bag with a few essentials and then returning to the living room a short while later. he couldn't help but smile at his daughter's happiness over the thought of going to their lake cabin with him. it made him happy to finally see her happy again, for once, and relieved that she wouldn't have to feel fear over darren ever again.

he's terrified to fall asleep, even with her promise. she's been doing a lot better lately, but his mind is back to those times where he thought the world was going to lose her, not only himself. he worms his head to press his face fully into the crook of her neck, placing a few light kisses there. his arm around her hasn't moved since they both crawled into bed and he doesn't plan on moving it any time soon unless she asks him to. ❝ do you have that book within arms reach? ❞ luckily for him she can't see the grimace on his face at the mention of her father. the two still haven't found common ground to get along as of late, despite her safety and recovery being chief among both of the men's concerns.

❝ i'll take you up on that. but i don't need a control group to know you're a good cook. ❞ homecooked meals weren't something he experienced much, so most of them tasted pretty good. often, he'd find himself visiting diners even though he knew most of the food within one is saturated in grease or butter. it still reminded him of families eating together on tv or the boring pot roast dinners his peers used to complain about. most of his family, even extended, was in and out of prison. limited family gatherings usually consisted of pizza or other seemingly cheap takeout.

he twists some more spaghetti around his fork and takes another bite, savoring the flavor. its then that he notices she's focused on her salad. the correct and polite order of eating things. when he finishes his bite, he takes a few bites of his own salad, noting the lemon zest as well. definitely a detail that would be missing if he'd made a salad. ❝ i tried for vinessa and jordan to cook when i could. i'm alright at it. i can follow a recipe if i don't get lost in my thoughts. but i've got no idea how to dress up anything without guidance. spices and garnishes are lost on me. ❞

a few nods in agreement as she explains her thought process of what kind of movie they would settle into when he finished up the dishes. apart from pointing him to her Tupperware cabinet for the mountain of leftovers they're going to have, he's not going to let her lift a finger on the cleanup part. ❝ the hangover is always a classic. you feeling a classic or looking for something newer that you haven't seen? ❞ he's always liked to escape into movies and good comedy is something that could always suck him out of a bad mood.

taking a bite of her food, she relishes in the taste. it tasted better than she ever remembered, and she had to force herself not to audibly moan every time she scooped more into her mouth. especially when she put the meatballs in there. homemade meatballs had always been one of her favorite foods, and she may be biased, but hers were the best.

"nah let's just go with a classic. we can watch the hangover. that way if we decide to nod off or find something else to occupy ourselves we won't miss anything we haven't seen before." she had no intentions of falling asleep, but she was up for more ways of relaxing with him; that was if kevin was up for it as well. she wasn't going to push anything on to him.