#uncle cory

Fandom: The Morning Show

Rating: M (TW for hints of child abuse/neglect and child abandonment)

Summary: To the world, the press conference leaking Celine’s involvement in Wolf River and Bradley’s detainment was a power move. For Cory, the media firestorm and emotional fallout of it all is about to break him. When a paternal half-sister he’s never met turns up on his doorstep and abandons her three-year old daughter with him, he must figure out how to survive in a brand new world that he doesn’t even begin to know how to navigate.

**

The woman was offering Cory a carrot, begging him to take it. He could have a family. As a child, having siblings to play with, and other people who cared about him was something that Little Cory had wanted so desperately he could almost taste it. He remembered staring at advertisements of families sitting around Thanksgiving tables in the Sears catalog, wishing that he could insert himself right into the photo. Still, there was part of him that refused to let his guard down.

“My father-our father- was a piece of shit,” Cory told her flatly. “He left when I was ten and never came back. I waited for him, and he never came back. And then we heard about you and your mother.”

Something flashed in Kayla’s eyes-regret, maybe, or perhaps bitterness. The baby began to cry again, however, and she quickly turned her attention away from him.

“Mister, that’s a bad word!” Zoey said, putting her hand on her hip. “Miss Nina says that you’re not supposed to say the S word!”

“Oops,” Cory said, dramatically clapping his hand over his mouth. “Miss Nina is correct. He was a…sugar cookie. Yes. That’s what he was. Or how about a shining star? He was more like a black hole, though.”

“A snowflake!” Zoey said, beaming. “Sometimes Miss Nina yells “Son of a Motherless Goat!” when she stubs her toe. I don’t know what that means. But she said I can’t say that one, either.” The little girl spun around in a circle again, hopping on one foot. “Miss Nina is my teacher,” she explained. “At Sunny Smiles Daycare.”

“You should always listen to your teachers,” Cory told her. The kid was something else. “And you shouldn’t tell strangers where you go to school, either. It’s not safe.”

Summary:

Cory's like...