Spiderwebs #30: Preparation
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content: no warnings :)
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It was a lot like planning for a vacation, but more stressful. For Heather, at least. Her packing had the frantic, frenzied pace of a burrowing shrew. She came up with a list of things to bring: clothes, food, money, a weapon—better safe than sorry, she told him—coats, water, more food? Toothbrushes, soap, sedatives—she wouldn’t offer an explanation for this one—buy gas, gloves, boots, and so on.
Jackie certainly wasn’t taking this any more seriously than a vacation. He hadn’t gone outside in a while, and besides that, he hadn’t left the vicinity of Heather's house for several months now. He found himself curious as to what it’d be like. Had the world changed at all while he was gone? No longer was he privy to the knowledge free men took for granted. News never reached his secluded life. He wouldn't know if there was high water coming or if the Swedes landed on the sun.
Like Heather, he also packed a few things. Nothing impressive. A new book from Heather’s shelf—something by Oscar Wilde about a portrait—alongside his clothes, a pencil and paper, the dollar bill he'd taken from Matthew, and one of Heather’s old backpacks to carry it all.
On the second day, she also handed him a heavy, black wool coat. It went a few inches below his hips, and was studded by brass buttons all along the front.
“I think it looks good,” she offered.
It did look very intimidating in the mirror. He pulled the coat off and shrugged. Petty things like vanity no longer appealed to him. There was no time for such luxuries. He could remember being invested in his appearance, long ago. He missed being able to care about stupid things. He missed buying his own clothes. Heather’s fashion sense was okay, but it wasn’t the same.
There was also the matter of the cop, with his warning of returning in two weeks or so. Evidence was key, and they needed it gone. With a gallon of gasoline and an old firepit in the yard, Heather burned the tapes, the cassette recorder, the polaroids of Jackie’s open chest and exposed organs, hell, even the ropes. It all went up in flames, went black and curled around the edges, until there was only a pile of ash and char. She cleaned the blood off her tools and gutted the house of stains from the inside-out.
The third day arrived with a flurry of snow outside. The intensity of the sun was wholly unfamiliar to Jackie, and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust. They shoved their luggage into the back of the car. Jackie was happy to learn that he could sit in the front.
“What?” she said when he let out a sigh of relief. “Did you think I’d keep you in the trunk?”
He laughed at this, but it was an uneasy smile he wore. It was hard to tell with her. What sorts of things she found ridiculous, and what lines she wasn’t opposed to crossing.
Still, things were generally okay. He was safe. He was out of the silence, out of the isolation, and he felt okay. He felt happy. Before this, his happiness was brief and based on whatever small luxury could distract him. Maybe a painkiller, maybe a break from the tests. But his happiness now was more of a pervading contentment. It was a constant, heavy high in his heart, felt in the far edges of his soul.
Although he had found it redundant, Heather had an idea with strings of thread. Before they left, she taped up a string near the front door, and also to the hallway’s entrance. This, she informed him, would reveal if anybody had come in and searched the house. The thread would snap easily when someone walked through it. It wasn’t clear what the benefit of this knowledge was, if she would go to jail either way, but it seemed to calm Heather down a bit.
The wind scratched at Jackie’s face when he stuck his head out the window. The flecks of falling snow pierced his skin. The cold stung his eyes, making them water. He didn’t care. The feeling of movement and freedom was exhilarating. Heather started the car with a jerk of the gear shift. And off they went, out of the house, into whatever lay behind the highways and empty roads.
He rolled the window up after a while, then turned to her. “How long are we leaving for?”
“Three weeks.” Her grip on the steering wheel was tight enough to nearly bruise. “Longer, if we need to.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Stop asking me questions, I’m going to be sick.”
Indeed, her expression had not shifted from dull panic. There were dark circles under her eyes. Something played on the radio, but the melody was too quiet to recognize. She turned it off with a small, barely noticeable frown.
Jackie left the subject alone and leaned his face against the window. This was the best day of his life, he thought.
The sky was starting to turn black. They left the house late, to draw as little suspicion as possible. Streetlights shone like cat’s eyes on the sides of the road, streaky and long with motion. He thought he saw a few people, passing by, their faces blurry and indistinct. There were trees, pines with bristling needles, bare birches, old oaks. Snow stained the sidewalks in shades of dirty white. There were one or two other cars, but not many. Maybe it was a holiday. Maybe it was Christmas.
“What’s the date?” he asked.
“I told you, stop asking—” The tension eased from her shoulders, but only slightly. “Sorry. I’m tired. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
Well, he could wait. He was good at waiting. Jackie wondered how long he had been waiting, locked down there—it could have been weeks or years, and he would never know. But that was behind him, now. That was in the past. He could file it away with all his other bad memories. There was no point in dwelling on it. He had lived, and he would continue to live, and that was all. It was nothing to worry about.
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Taglist:
@theelvishcowgirl
@lthrboy
@whumpy-wyrms
@yassifiedinformation
@creppersfunpalooza
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I am a staunch supporter of Hawks x the Todoroki family. That sounds bad but I promise it’s not in a weird way.
Obviously it would be separately and also not illegal for Shouto.
Endeavor/Hawks is like hero worship and falling into bed together a few times after a rough fight. Enji insists it means nothing and it’s just a way to deal with the excess adrenaline and it’s not happening again. It happens again. It happens a lot of agains.
Now…. Rei/Hawks? Hell. Yeah. Not romantically, this is purely sexual. Hot Young Hero Gets Pegged By Sexy Milf Divorcee. I can see the hub logo already. Idk how they’d meet tbh maybe he saves her or she divorced Enji rather than… what happened:/ But they meet and sparks immediately fly, and he takes her back to his penthouse and they freak it.
Dabi/Hawks. Classic. My favorite. Sweet and spicy. The tension and the romance is unparalleled. I don’t even need to type any of this out because what happens in canon is already perfect enough. If all of these ships happen in the same universe, this is endgame. But also, if these all happen in the same universe, the first family dinner where Touya brings his bf home and the room is just full of people hawks has slept with… delightfully awful.
Fuyumi/Hawks is where we start to get some sweet innocent dating. Maybe they met while Hawks did a press assembly at her school. Maybe the kids staged a meet cute or smth, parent trap style. They date for a few months, and spend a handful of nights together, but ultimately decide that neither of them are in a spot in their lives where they can pursue a serious relationship. They part on good terms, and occasionally still talk as friends.
Natsuo/Hawks. Baby’s first one night stand 🥰 buuuttt it turns into booty call for sure. Natsu is freshly 18. He’s finally his own person. He’s in university, he has his own apartment. Things are good. So he goes clubbing and meets the youngest hero to reach top 10, and he just so happens to want to go home with him. They toe the line of booty call and friends with benefits, but they don’t really hang out much because hero work and university are Very time consuming.
Shouto/ Hawks. Stop side eyeing me, I said it wasn’t weird or illegal. I intentionally put a space after the slash, it’s unrequited. Hawks was simply Shouto’s sexual awakening, just as I’m sure he was many other kids that age. Shouto never had any sort of attraction to anyone until Hawks showed up in the hero scene. At first he saw his press debut and was just ‘oh wow that man is very attractive. Guess I’m mildly attracted to boys now.’ And then he saw Hawks on tv, covered in soot, walking out of a burning building while holding a baby in one arm and a kitten in the other and he decided then and there that he would never look at another man in his life because no one could ever compare.
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"Hmm?"
Ashe tilted his head, his freckles standing out from his pale skin in the bright light of the day.
"I'm sorry, Yuri... What did you say?"
Yuri grinned one of his knowing smiles and shrugged.
"Oh, just that it's refreshing to know someone who is just happy to be themselves. Proud to be even." He then snorted. "I can't even leave my room without my clothes neatly pressed and my make up on. But you just go out into the world as you. No apologies given. Not that they're any to give but, you know what I mean."
Ashe, blushing, shook his head and laughed his unfairly cute laugh.
"You're the least apologetic person between the two of us, Yuri!"
Yuri laughed again and nodded.
"Fair point."
He leaned in and placed a hand on Ashe's thick right thigh, squeezing lightly.
"I'm not going to apologize for this... But only because I don't think I have to," he murmured. Then, without warning—although Ashe supposed Yuri had warned him to some extent—the lavender haired boy kissed him.
After getting over his initial shock, Ashe brought a hand up to grip at the others clothes, tugging them to pull Yuri closer. When the kiss ended, Yuri—ignoring the heat rising up his neck—cleared his throat.
"I think we should find a room—yours is probably closer."
Ashe laughed, the sound; a charming jingle in his head.
"So eager... It's cute."
"Hey. I'm allowed to be eager! I mean... Just look at you."
He waved his hand at Ashe's whole body. The boy giggled.
He actually giggled.
Saints help him.
"You just gestured to all of me."
Yuri nodded firmly. "You better believe I meant all of you. Both inside and out, you are beautiful, Ashe Ubert."
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