#birght

The Decorating Book, Mary Gilliatt, 1981 📚

The beginning of an idea I’ve had rattling around in my mind for awhile. More Bright fanfic. More Dorghu. Enjoy

Chapter One

She waited for her AC to kick on and for her phone to come back to life. It had died a couple hours ago and she had been so busy she hadn’t bothered to plug it in at the nurses station. When the cab of her car began to cool her phone chirped back to life, slowly. It was an old phone. One at a time her notifications started to roll in, none of which merited much interest until the very last which was a voicemail notification from her son.

Abby smiled and bypassed the voicemail choosing to just call him back.

His phone rang a few times before he picked up. “Hey, Mom, everything’s fine, I promise!”

It took her a moment to respond, “Everything is fine? What does that mean exactly?”

“I’m home now, and Dad and I talked and nothing bad happened, really, I mean technically…”

“Mikey. Explain, now.” Abby had been tired, exhausted even and ready to collapse into bed, but now she was wide awake and ready for the two hour drive to Los Angeles.

~~~~~

Dorghu needed a drink and a cigarette and a good night's sleep. He helped himself to two of the three before he drug his feet into the living room to sit for a minute. Before he could sit something caught his attention. He caught the scent of something salty with a hint of pineapple under the stench of exhaustion that nearly matched his own. His first instinct had been to reach for his gun or knife but that would not protect him from the attack to come.

“What are you doing Abby?” He reached up with the hand that loosely held his beer and flipped on the living room light.

“Mikey called.” Her eyes were tired and her tone was hollow, but there was no threat in them. Not yet at least.

The orc stared at her intently, taking in what had and hadn’t changed in the last eight years. She kept her longer, still a mess of wavey brown, her skin still suntanned and youthful. “You look tired”

She resituated herself in the chair against the back wall, “So do you.”

He took a long pull, half the bottles worth, of his beer before he set it down and put his cigarettes back in his pocket. “So, what did he tell you.”

“More than I wanted to know… but also not enough.” She rubbed at her face and raked her fingers through her hair. The two of them sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence. When Abby broke it her voice was gentle, “I didn’t know he was ready to… you know.”

Dorghu sighed and sat himself down on the nearest end of the couch. “You’d be surprised.”

There was a flash in her eyes and her posture stiffened.

“Abby don’t pick a fight, not tonight. Did you talk to Mikey?”

“No, I just got here a minute ago. I needed to talk to your first.”

Dorghu nodded. “You still drink your coffee with too much cream and sugar?” He took her half-hearted scowl and twitch of a smirk as a yes. That didn’t mean he relaxed, she was still on edge and rightly so, but he couldn’t help but take a deep breath and revel for a moment in the fruit and sea salt scent of his estranged wife.