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donteattheappleshook · 5 years

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Stone Hearts

Chapter 5/15

Trust me. Nobody is more surprised by this update than I am.

Ao3 Ffn.net

Emma’s eyes flutter open slowly, still half asleep and not quite sure why she’s half awake. It’s a moment before she feels the bed shift beside her. Another moment passes and she hears a small whimper. She’s fully awake now as she turns quickly to face Killian. He’s tossing in his sleep, his eyes clamped shut and his brow pulled low, beads of sweat already gathering at his temples.

Another nightmare, she thinks. It’s the third one this week. They started as soon as they returned from the Underworld. There had been a brief respite for a week or so after the incident at the bar when work was driving him to the end of his rope and he collapsed in bed before the sun went down, too tired to sleep. But now, it seems that even exhaustion can’t keep the dreams at bay.

“Killian,” she speaks quietly, shushes him as she runs the back of her fingers over his damp forehead and down along the side of his cheek. “Wake up, Killian, it’s just a dream, you’re safe.” She knows from experience that her words will do little to help him as she hears another strained whimper escape his lips, jaw clenched painfully tight. She brings her hands to his hair and runs them soothingly through it as she continues to try to coax him awake.

It’s another moment before he gasps, eyes snapping open as he lets out a cry that has her heart stuttering in her chest as he sits up in bed. His shoulders are tense, eyes darting madly about as though looking for whatever threat pursued him in his dreams. She sits up with him, places a hand on his shoulder and doesn’t take it personally when he flinches away before his eyes focus on her and the tension leaves his body. He groans, collapsing back on his pillow, chest still heaving.

“It’s okay,” Emma tells him gently wrapping him up in her arms.

“It’s bloody not,” he answers somewhat bitterly but he lets himself be pulled into her, laying his head on her chest and allowing his hair to be stroked like a child. He feels like a child and she knows it, he’s said it before. “They won’t stop,” his voice is bitter, angry and a bit defeated. Her chest aches for him.

“They will,” she promises. She knows he hates it. It’s killing him, feeling weak, feeling powerless. But what he went through… he died. And after he died, he was tortured. And then he died all over again. Of course that would affect him. She’s noticed his efforts. He’s stopped drinking; he tried to start running with Henry (and hated it choosing instead to teach the boy to sword fight), he’s even been to see Hopper, anything to help him get a solitary night of peace and rest. Nothing has worked and she feels impotent and powerless to help the man she loves.

“You guys okay?” Henry’s voice speaks up quietly from the crack between the door and the hallway. He sounds sleepy but also worried.

“Yeah, kid, we’re okay,” Emma tells him. “Come on in.”

They shift, making room for Henry to climb up on the foot of the bed. Maybe he’s a bit old to be climbing into bed with his mom and his quazi step-dad but they’re all a little vulnerable lately and Emma loves that he’s still on that cusp between childhood and adolescence where he feels okay seeking comfort like this. She knows it won’t last much longer.

Killian sits up with his back against the headboard. “Sorry I woke you, Lad.” he rubs a hand over his face, scraping through his hair.

“It’s okay,” Henry answers. “I wasn’t sleeping much either.”

Emma runs her hand through her son’s hair and kisses the top of it. She’s pretending not to notice that he’s gotten it cut in a style suspiciously similar to Killian’s.

“Was it another nightmare?” Henry asks and Killian nods. “Have you tried rewriting it?” he suggests and Killian frowns.

“What do you mean?” he asks and Henry looks to Emma.

“It’s something mom and I used to do when I was little. Or well, technically we didn’t since I guess those were all made up memories from when we were cursed in New York but it always helped when I had nightmares.”

Emma smiles at him. Rewriting them. She’d forgotten all about it - or well not really since technically she never really did it in the first place but that’s semantics. But she does remember the nights when she was a child, alone, in the system, dreaming horrible things, some real and some not, and she remembers trying to rewrite them, telling herself a happier story so that she could go back to sleep and let her dreams at least be a place she felt safe and happy.

“What does it entail?” Killian asks a little suspicious but sounding open to just about anything.

“First you tell us about your nightmare.” Killian looks hesitant but Henry continues. “Then we scratch it out and give it a different ending.

Killian still looks apprehensive but after a moment he starts to speak. “We were on the Jolly,” he looks to Emma who smiles encouragingly. “We were going to have a picnic. But then,” he takes a breath. “But then suddenly we weren’t on the water at the Storybrooke docks. We were back there.” His fist clenches a bit and she knows he means the Underworld. “We were on the river of lost souls and it was angry. All of them were so angry and they rocked the ship and they ripped the boards and I tried to fight them off but they were like smoke beneath my blade.” He reaches out then and takes her hand, holding it tighter than is comfortable but she doesn’t complain. “They took you. They took you and they pulled you under and I couldn’t stop them. And the ship, it took on water and it sank and I could feel them coming for me. Pulling at my legs, pulling me under and I felt the water fill my lungs and I knew I was dead but I was still there, watching it all happen, watching them take everything they could from me, watching you float lifeless next to me.”

He stops speaking, voice cracking and Emma wraps herself around him, placing a kiss to his shoulder. Even Henry doesn’t protest, his face screwed up in concern rather than disgust at his mom and her boyfriend’s show of affection.

“I knew all their faces,” he says so quietly she almost doesn’t hear him.

“Let’s rewrite it,” Emma says, turning to Henry who nods, contemplating.

“So you’re on the river of lost souls.” Killian looks at him, waiting. “And you see the souls moving in the water, coming towards you so you draw your sword ready to fight off whatever might be coming for you.” Killian frowns and so does Emma. This story does not sound like a happier version of his nightmare so far. “But they don’t come for you. They just float. They’re just lost souls wandering aimlessly. So you reach in. If they’re lost, they need finding. Our family finds people - it’s what we do.” Emma doesn’t miss the slight hitch in Killian’s breathing at Henry’s casual reference to him as family. “You get hold of one and pull it out.” He looks to Killian. “Who is it?”

Killian hesitates, looks to Emma almost in apology but she knows who it is and she nods at him to go on. “Milah,” he says almost in a whisper. Emma squeezes his hand. She understands.

“Let’s give her a lift,” Emma suggests. “Make our way to the bridge and let her move on.”

Killian nods, hesitates. “There are others…”

“Who’s the next one?” Henry asks.

“Balefire,” he answers softly. One by one, the people he’s lost, those he betrayed, those he abandoned and those who left him, the demons he had to face in his own personal purgatory are pulled from the water and one by one they find their peace.

Emma looks between her son and the man she loves, heart swelling at how strong the bond between them has gotten without her even noticing. She knows Killian takes care of Henry, loves him and will always watch out for him, but it’s nice to see that Henry feels the same.

It takes another week but eventually the nightmares stop. And every night that week, Henry and Emma are there, rewriting.

*********

Emma looked down from where she was currently climbing a freaking beanstalk with a handsome, somewhat roguish pirate that seemed incapable of shutting up. Don’t do that again she told herself. Instead, she focused on his voice, the lilt of his accent and the teasing tone as he accused her of being an open book.

“No, I have never been in love,” she told him but somehow it felt like a lie.

Jesus Christ how on earth could one man make first aid so confusingly arousing?

When they took out a goddamn giant she refused to acknowledge the giant flutter of panic when she couldn’t see him down below her and the tiny flutter in her chest when he told her they made quite the team.

She forced herself to squirm away as he held her tightly against him, pointing out the trip wire and ignoring the fact that she quite enjoyed the way she could feel the muscles in his arms wrapped around her.

Finally, when she pulled him out from under the rocks, ignoring the heat of his hand in hers and the pull in her stomach at his smile “you are blood brilliant, amazing!”

And there he waited on bended knee, offering her a hand and a chance at something. She wasn’t sure what that something was and it scared her. She knew she shouldn’t trust him, knew that she couldn’t take the chance that she was wrong about him, knew she should lock him up and leave him behind. But when her palm touched his and she saw the tentative smile pull at his lips… she decided, just this once, to trust herself.

She used their hands to pull him closer, catching him off guard as he tumbled forward and she caught his lips with hers. He let out a surprised ‘umph’ before leaning in and returning her kiss with enthusiasm. Emma didn’t know if it was the high of success, the tiny flutter of hope that he had stirred in her, or just that he was so goddamn gorgeous but she let herself “really get into it” just as he’d encouraged her to earlier.

She felt herself smile a little as they broke apart, certain he would have some sort of quip or innuendo for her and almost looking forward to it, but when she opened her eyes, her heart fell into her stomach.

His face was blank, no recognition in his eyes, no hint of the man he’d been a moment ago, the man who’d kissed her, the man who’d made her believe that maybe she could trust people. There was nothing.

“Killian?” she asked, voice small, surprising herself by the use of his real name.

His face remained unchanged as he reached forward and clamped his fingers around her throat. She panicked, hands clawing and clutching at his own as her eyes began to water and her vision went blurry. There was no rage in his expression, no hatred, no vengeance as he squeezed the life out of her. Killian was gone.

Emma gasped awake, hand reaching for her throat. She could still feel his hand there, still see the deadness in his eyes, the indifference. She heard movement coming from the door and looked up to see him, Killian - not Killian - watching her. There was no concern in his eyes, no fear or worry. Not even the slightest shred of emotion crossed his features as he looked her over through the tiny window in the door, clearly realised she’d been dreaming, and turned back around to man his post.

It hurt. More than the fingers at her throat had, more than the blankness of his stare in her dream had. Because this was real. It’s not him, she told herself. But that didn’t didn’t dull the pain or the cold that settled in her chest and spread its way through her limbs. She curled her knees to her chest on the thin mattress and let a few tears fall at the memory of nightmares and the family she had not long ago.

“Once upon a time,” she started, rocking herself slightly and convincing herself it was just to try force some heat back into her bones. “There was a girl with walls a mile high and a boy who climbed a beanstalk to get over them.” She smiles to herself a little, allowing herself the warmth of the memory of Killian, of how he’d persisted, how he’d won her, without trickery. She continues speaking, recounting how he’d bandanged her hand and she’d felt cared for and taken care of for the first time in her life. She reminds herself of what a team they’d made and how she realised that just maybe she didn’t have to fight every battle on her own. She laughs through her realisation that the attraction was definitely not one-sided as she felt him react to being pulled against her when he nearly triggered the trip wire. She smiles to herself as she recalls how he’d supported her, sung her praises, appreciating her strength and her intelligence rather than being turned off by it as so many men had before him.

“And he reached out his hand and I could see it in his eyes, the fear and the hope. And that was when I realised that while I’d started to believe that I could hope again, that there was someone else out there like me… that maybe he’d been waiting for the same thing, waiting for someone to trust him, to find him.”

She stopped, overwhelmed by the memory and the grief of their love story, of losing him. She didn’t want to cry anymore but she didn’t hate herself for it anymore either. She knew now that it wasn’t a weakness. She knew because of him. Promise me one thing, if I helped take off that armor, don't put it back on just because you're gonna lose me.

“And?”

She froze, his voice cutting through the silence and making her heart race though whether in fear or in hope she didn’t know. He spoke. He spoke again. What did that mean? What was he asking?

“And?” she repeated, hoping for clarification. She didn’t get any. And. And. it dawned on her then and she realised he was asking for the rest of the story. She wanted to read into it, wanted to hope but she was too tired, too beat down and too many times disappointed to let herself.

Instead, she let out a bitter laugh. “They lived happily ever after.”

There was another long, weighted silence and she assumed he’d lost interest, but then he spoke again, his voice softer, barely audible.

“They didn’t, did they?”

The tears fell freely now. “No, they didn’t.”

***

Emma threw a book against the door and almost smiled as it made a satisfying sort of crash against the metal. Useless. This was all fucking useless. None of these books were going to tell her how to do something impossible! She was the product of true love for fucks sake! She was born with a built in anti-theft device on her heart and no book was going to tell her how to break the laws of magic.

“What the hell does the king even need with my heart anyway?” she practically shouted at not-Killian. He stayed silent. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” she sassed. “You only speak in cryptic little phrases and questions when it’s convenient for you.” She rolled her eyes at his continued, predictable silence. She threw another book, this one nearly hitting the window where she could see the point of his ear and the flippy bits of hair beneath it. He didn’t flinch and Emma armed herself with another book.

She raised it, aimed and ready to fire when suddenly she noticed the title. She knew this book. She’d seen this book. It was one of Regina’s that she’d leafed through it in the crypt when she’d been practicing magic. It was a book of protection spells, the type of protection spells that had been cast around the border of Storybrooke on rotation since she’d first arrived. She ran her hand over the heavy red leather of it’s cover before opening it and starting to read.

She read for nearly three hours. Some of it she couldn’t make out but some of it she was able to decipher.

“Ah-ha!” she shouted, forgetting herself when she found it. She panicked as she heard movement coming from outside her door, saw not-Killian turning to see what the disturbance was. Quickly she dropped the book, making a show of trying to catch it and making a few more loud exclamations before it landed with a thud at her feet. Her guard stared at her for a moment and the moment lasted just long enough to make her worry that he hadn’t bought her poorly executed ruse. But, finally, his face as blank as ever, he turned his back on her again and she let out a sigh of relief.

Picking up the book, she quickly flipped to the page she’d found, reading silently this time. There it was, the spell, the spell keeping all of them trapped here in Storybrooke, the one that felt like running into a solid brick wall when you tried to cross the border.

She scanned the page quickly and her heart sunk so she read it again slower. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. If she read it right, and she was pretty sure she did, the spell could only be taken down by the one who cast it. ‘Stupid fucking magic laws’ she grumbled to herself somewhat despodent. So even if she and Henry did find a way out of this place they would still be stuck in town, right back where they started from a few days ago - only now even more alone.

She wanted to scream, cry out again, do something, hit something, anything to get this anger and frustration out of her body. Why? Why was there always something? Was six months really all she was allowed? Was that the deal as the savior? Was she cursed to never be happy, to never be safe?

She noticed movement through the window in her door as the cuff was held up, followed by a quick succession of rapps on the door. Henry! It was time for her to see Henry! She’d lost track of time but was suddenly more grateful than she had ever been in her life for this brief moment of humanity that Gold had allowed her - even if she still fantasized about separating his head from his shoulders.

Quick as she could, she ripped the page out of the book and crumpled it in the pocket of her jacket and jumped up to retrieve the cuff from the slot in the door. Once it was secure, she held her arm up to the window and the door was swung open. The man on the other side looked indifferent and unaware of her theft but then that was always his expression so she just had to hope he hadn’t seen her.

She stepped out and the hand that didn’t belong to Killian anymore resumed its place on her shoulder. She didn’t know whether to shutter or melt under the touch but she settled for tensing every muscle in her body and trying to ignore the memory of it’s warmth and the truth of its emptiness.

They walked to Henry’s room without a word passing between them apart from the warning of “five minutes” that she expected. She gave the door a warning knock.

“Hey kid it’s me, don’t shoot!” she called as she swung the door open.

“How do I know?” Henry called as she walked in, slingshot held at the ready.

She smiled. Sometimes she was just so damn proud that she made him. She shut the door and cast a quick glance behind her before whispering “Princess Bride.”

Henry lowered his weapon and whispered “Goldeneye” before running to wrap his arms around her with such force that he actually knocked her back against the door.

“Woah, kid, you’re getting strong!”

“I’ve been getting ready,” he told her. “There’s nothing to do so I’ve been doing push ups, pull ups, running, whatever I can. When it’s time to go, I’ll be ready,” he promised. She knew that it was more than that, more than a few days workout. He was growing up and the last few months of their lives had been particularly physically demanding but his voice was strong and certain and Emma felt a renewed sense of purpose, the one that appeared the first time she met Henry and that swelled within her each time she saw him.

“Good job,” she told him. “You’re okay? They’re not hurting you?” she checked his face and arms for any signs of harm and then his cheeks and eyes for any signs of exhaustion. “Are you getting fed enough? I can sneak you some of mine next time--”

“Mom, I’m okay. You need to eat too you know. Listen,” he told her, pulling her into his arms to whisper in her ear through the guise of a hug. “Ruby’s outside the window, she’s been here the whole time. We have a plan. They never watch me - except sometimes Archie but possessed or not he’s a wimp. If you can get out of your cell and get to us, we can do the rest.

Emma nodded and just let herself hold her son for the last few minutes she had left. She whispered promises that she would get them out and out of Storybrooke and he whispered that he knew she would. Before she was ready, the door was opened again and it was time to go.

The walk back felt longer, not just in the emotional sense but in a very real, very physical sense. Emma’s muscles felt like they were failing her as she tried to put one foot in front of the other and the hand on her shoulder felt like a weight she couldn’t support. The hallway stretched out before her, growing, it seemed, impossibly longer and suddenly it turned on its axis and Emma saw black spots in front of her eyes. She was gonna be sick. She was gonna be sick and she held her stomach as her feet gave out under her and she swayed towards the ground.

She didn’t hit the ground though. Killian was there, suddenly, quicker than she could have been, catching her - like muscle memory - holding her up before slowly lowering her to a seating position on the floor, his arms wrapped tightly around her and one hand in hers as he crouched behind her. For a brief, fleeting second, she felt the familiarity of the embrace, felt the somewhat muted heartbeat pressed against her back, felt the warmth of his chest and his breath on her neck and it felt like Killian, it felt like home.

She turned to meet his eyes as the blackness cleared from her own and she was met with the blue she had always loved. But behind it there was nothing. No concern, no love, no support. Muscle memory. That’s all it had been. She felt sick all over again and she ripped herself out of his hold, shoving him with as much force as she could despite still feeling wobbly and weak. She rose to her feet and began walking.

She felt a hand on her elbow and jerked her arm free. “I’m fine! Probably just weak since you guys only feed me once a day,” she snapped. “I hope you’re feeding Henry more or you can tell Gold that he’ll have me to answer to,” she threatened, trying to keep her heart from beating out of her chest at both her barely contained rage and the renewed grief that seemed to find her every time she was near him. Gold really outdid himself this time. This kind of cruelty took dedication.

There was a brief pause before she felt the hand fall on her shoulder again and she whirled on him, rage seeping out of every inch of her being.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me with his hand! With his hand that you stole, from him, from me! Don’t you fucking dare! You killed him! And I promise you I’ll kill Gold and the King and then when I’m done I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you for taking him from me!”

There was a long, silent pause as Emma stood, panting in the hallway, watching him, daring him to do something, say something, react. But there was nothing. He hesitated, hand hanging in the space between them for a moment, before lowering it back to his side and continuing to walk. Emma steadied her breathing before following along behind him.

A few hours later, when Emma’s meal was slid through the slot in the door, she could have sworn there was more on her plate than yesterday.

She couldn’t sleep that night. She was too annoyed. Annoyed at herself mostly because she couldn’t for the life of her stop thinking about that moment when for the first time in what felt like forever she found herself wrapped in the arms of the man she loved. It wasn’t him. She knew that. But her body didn’t and her body had been denied his touch and his comfort for far too long and like an addict it only craved more now that it had had a taste.

She could hear him, breathing on the other side of the door. Did he never sleep? He breathed too loudly. Killian never breathed too loudly - except those few nights where he would sleep so soundly he snored.

“You know,” she started. “It’s really creepy, you standing out there, listening to me not sleep.” He was silent. Of course he was, he only spoke to her in the middle of the night when she was telling stories or -

“What happened next?” It was soft but she heard it. His voice through the door. It only took her a second to piece together her confusion and realise he was asking her about the story from last night - their story. He remembered it? He cared about it? No, he didn’t care. He was probably just trying to get information. Probably. Definitely. Probably. He had to be.

The silence drew out between them as they both waited for the other to say something or do something. Emma made a decision. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish or why she was such a masochist but she had to try. If his asking meant something, if there was the tiniest chance that she could gain a bit of him back, even that bit of him that seemed to know to catch her, to support her… she had to try.

“Her son was taken and it broke her heart. So he gave up who he was, gave up the darkness that had been driving him for centuries and helped her. He chose her, and he never looked back.”

She told him the story: of Neverland, of Echo Cave, of the kiss, of him promising to win her heart, of the two of them bringing Henry home - and through all of it he listened. He never said a word, never interrupted but she could hear his steady breathing and see the point of his ear, angled towards the door. He listened.

“You know,” she said into the silence, the quiet weighed down with her heavy eyelids and whatever unspoken thing was going on between them. “You can open the door.” She hesitated. “It’s not like I can get out without the cuff… and this room is really claustrophobic.”

He was quiet for so long she thought she had lost him but then the door opened and she held her breath as he walked into view and sat down in the opening, with his back against the door frame. He didn’t look at her, just sat silently, stoically staring at the wall across from him, waiting.

She told him about Marty McFly.

#cs #cs fanfic #captain swan #ouat fanfic #cs smut #i can't believe i actually updated this #after a year #I'm so sorry!

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fasengeta · 5 years

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The familiar clatter of shopping carts breaking free from their corral made her flinch inwardly and clutch her bag closer to herself as she walked through the sliding glass doors of her own personal purgatory. The day had yet to begin and with that old bone tired ache drumming a steady beat against her ribcage while financial necessity loped and braided itself around her neck like a hangman’s noose, she knew deep in her soul that today was not going to be a good day. She wanted to go home. Heck, she regretted getting out of bed this morning. Still... it was better for her future to be employed in a job she disliked than to try to get by on what little the state would willingly provide an unemployed student. That being said, the day she finally walked out the front door for that final time, she'd be resisting the urge to moon dance all the way to the parking lot. It would be a long time until that was possible but the distant dream still made a path for the tiny ghost of a genuine smile to cross her lips. Pausing a moment to take a small glance around to judge if today would be busy or not, she was glad to note that it didn’t look like the lines to check-out were overcrowded. The customer service area looked packed, but it was rare to see less than twelve people waiting in line at any given time before 9:00. She started walking once more and smelled a whiff of the faint earthiness from the brightly colored cactus plants that were sold by the anti theft detention system near the greeter’s station. The familiar face of an employee who’s name she couldn’t quite recall… (Greg? Grant?) waved airily at her with all the artificial cheer of a painted clown doll. She waved back, still trying to place his name (the distance between them made it impossible to make out what was displayed on his name tag), the practiced motion having been thoroughly ingrained into her over countless wasted hours devoted to workplace integration videos. The moment of timed obeisance to their company ended and Gabe or Gary(she was fairly certain that it began with a ‘G’) quickly set himself to welcoming the next few people to enter through the doors as she continued on, still idly wondering who it was that manned the door. It probably didn’t matter if his name was Gino or Griff. She wasn’t especially outgoing and the thought of interacting with others made the nervous little butterflies that lived forever in her gut flitter and furl their figurative wings as if pursued by a particularly rambunctious kitten. She had hoped that the time she’d spent completing her training and interacting with others on the job would make that interaction easier but sadly that hadn’t proven the case. Worse still, it had seemed like the gulf between herself and other people had seemed to only widen and she often felt more alone than she had before she’d been hired. A shucked ear of corn slid out of a customer’s overflowing vegtible bag and rolled across her path, causing her to sigh as she bent over to pick it up, and return it to the man. “Thanks.” He’d said, not even bothering to look at her before he’d placed it back with the others in the crate. She frowned and had started to make her way towards the abandoned corn when she’d caught sight of the produce department worker waving her off, pointing to himself then the corn, his unspoken “I got this” was clear as day on his face. She nodded to indicate her understanding, before she caught sight of the vaguely unnerving gaze of an abandoned plush toy surrounded by a a well-stacked fortress of freshly made marketplace salsa and stone-fired naan chips. One thing that she had become used to seeing while working retail was the various oddities that the customers tended to leave in the most improbable places. At least this time, she thought as she picked up the toy to drop off at the lost and found at customer service, the item left wasn't living. She would never forget how guilty she had felt when she'd discovered one of the store's Betas with the seasonal Valentine's day supplies. The fact that someone had callously abandoned a helpless creature that had never harmed anyone to die among mass produced greeting cards and overpriced chocolates pressed in the form of hearts probably said something mildly phylisophical about people in general but whatever one might have decided called it, she'd taken it as a sign that the fish needed an extra pair of eyes to look after them. The pets area wasn't exactly her section, but checking in on the little guys to make sure they were all present and accounted for was never any trouble. It relieved her to know that they were ok. What would happen to them after she'd finally graduated and left her current job was something she didn't really like to think about so she did her best to put it out of her mind. Shaking the depressing thought from her head as she crossed the double doors that led to the back. Compared to the relative calmness on the sales floor, the receiving area was a flurry of activity as usual, the employees moving crates and pallettes in place as they unloaded the supplies from the food trucks. Without giving much concious thought to the action, her eyes sought out a familiar mop of brown hair. Finding no sight of Amedeus, she purposefully marched up to the card reader next to the computers and swiped her ID. The name 'Marceline' quickly scrolled across the screen and she tapped the 'CLOCK IN' option with more force than what was probably necessary. The system was often finiky and it wouldn't be the first time that it had failed to read a prompt correctly. She’d already sat through the embarrassment of contacting a salaried manager to help her record the correct hours(she’d tried to take a lunch break and the system had cheerfully alerted her that she couldn’t take a break when she hadn’t yet arrived) and she wasn’t at all eager for an encore performance. The screen informed her that her presence had been noted and she stalked over towards the employees lounge to stow away her perishables in the fridge before beginning her shift. The familiar scent of roasted coffee struck her the minute she entered the room and her face contorted into a sour frown. She hated the sludge her store referred to as coffee but as if eager to worsen her already foul mood, her lack of energy had chosen that moment to smack her in the face and remind her that in order to operate within the required specs of her job, she was going to have to grind up her taste-buds, boil them on the sacrificial pyre of poorly processed coffee seeds, and serve it on a platter of self-castigation. She wasn't particularly picky when it came to coffee, and she could detect northing in that smell that would indicate that there would be any difference between the brews made in the office and the ones sold in a coffee shop. But,she thought darkly as she picked up one of the small Styrofoam cups, once a person made the mistake of ingesting it, the similarities stopped there. She brought it to her lips and winced, her body seizing up as it tried to process what it was consuming. Marceline had never eaten tobacco products, nor had she ever chosen to smoke, so her thoughts on the matter would be considered anecdotal at best, but that cloyingly bitter smell that wafted out of cheap cigarette butt was the closest analogy she had at her disposal that came to truly describing the abject awfulness that was her store’s coffee. Sadly, while she could openly declare the taste of it to be literally sickening, it didn’t stop her from taking a cup or three when she needed the caffeine. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and free was still free. When the situation called for it, like today, she just had to grin and bear it. The store expected the employees to shroud themselves with a mask of false happiness while working. It made sense that they’d expect the same from them when it came to their coffee too. She tossed the cup in the trash, then rolled her eyes in minor annoyance as the object hit the side of the bin and bounced off, landing a good couple of centimeters away from the intended destination. Secretly glad that no one except the security guard who monitored the cameras could have seen that slightly ego-bruising miss, she pitched it directly in it’s place where it thankfully remained(she might not have considered herself an overly prideful girl, but she did set some standards for herself and tossing cups into cans less than three feet away was one of the more unspoken ones). Having accomplished this, she removed the tarragon chicken salad wraps she’d made for herself and Amadeus for Lunch. Truthfully speaking, it wasn’t exactly a meal worth bragging about, but she‘d been wanting to try the recipe out since she’d found it in the middle of looking for another meal idea. Inspiration had waited until last night, when her brain knew she would have an exam in the morning to strike and had refused to leave her alone until the wraps were finished. On the plus side, she’d been able to sleep after that. On the other, well... it had been 4 am and after a week of poor sleeping habits, it was difficult to tell the pink of her Iris from the tiny red veins that zigzagged across her sclera. She had liked the results well enough when she’d eaten some of what had remained after she’d made their wraps for breakfast, and with any luck Amadeus would enjoy them too. She hoped he would anyway. With the luck she’d been having lately he might have an allergic reaction to it and she’d be forever apologizing to the kindest person she knew for accidentally poisoning him in her ignorance. Having safely deposited the food she’d kept in her bag in the fridge, marked with a name and a date on the side to inform the maintenance workers who were tasked with cleaning the fridge not to touch it(and supposedly deter thieves), she made her way to the locker room to put her bag inside her little padlocked hidey-hole. It was, like her lockers in both high school, and middle school before it, ordered chaos in physical form. The only thing that differentiated the three was the three was the complexity of the course material they contained but not much else. She still had little doodles on the side of some notes and a series of body parts she’d spent time practicing on another, even a little comic she’d created featuring a tiny stick figure that was carrying a box labeled microeconomics coursework. The box gradually increased in size as the panels went on, weighing down her sweaty and exhausted little character as it tried it’s best to carry it’s progressively cumbersome burden. This continued until it reached the final panel, where all that could be seen of her mini dramatis persona was it’s legs and arms, pinned in place by the massive box it had collapsed beneath after it had gotten too big for her abused person to bear.

#ideas

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