The Family
Title: The Family
Author: dtsguru
Fandom: original
Rating: PG-13 (for excessive language)
Genre: urban fantasy
Spoiler Warnings: none
Word Count: 1970
Completely unrelated to entry 01 by the way. Just another little scene that popped into my head late yesterday.
“That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard.” Michael declared.
I frowned, my attention still focused on the woman at the other end of the bar. A peanut bouncing off my nose finally pulled my eyes away from her. Michael and Lane were both staring at me. Neither looked amused.
“What do you think this is? Twilight? You gonna strip your shirt off next? Start spouting nonsense about soul-mates?” Lane’s white teeth glinted in the dim bar lights, appearing even whiter against his weathered, tan skin. He wasn’t smiling though. It was more of a sneer.
I scoffed, darting my eyes back down the bar. Seeking out the smoky gray eyes. “It’s not like that. You can’t deny that chick’s the hottest thing to walk into this town in years. And it’s not like I have a lot to choose from.”
My heart-rate picked up. Where was she? She’d slipped away while these assholes were distracting me. I started scanning the bar as surreptitiously as I could, looking for her brunette hair. I’d never seen hair that shiny on any of the women around town before. What was their problem anyway? They both had their futures figured out. They each had a girl waiting at home. They were supposed to be my buddies, my wingmen, not cock-blockers.
Michael leaned forward. “Fuck you, we are being wingmen. We’re keeping you from crashing and burning.”
Shit. She had me so twisted up I couldn’t even keep my walls up. I spent a second to focus on reinforcing the barriers that kept my two friends from ransacking my brain. They did not need to know just how much of my mind she had taken up residence in. I’d never hear the end of it. I hadn’t even talked to the woman yet.
I opened my eyes in search of my beer. Only after downing half of it did I respond. “It’s not like I was going to walk up to her and propose.”
“You said she was going to be the mother of your children, Eli,” Michael reminded me.
“And you were serious,” Lane pointed out. “You’re sober so you can’t blame the alcohol. That’s not just stupid. It’s creepy as hell.”
“You don’t know her,” Michael explained quietly. “Sure, she’s hot. She’s probably great in bed. But that doesn’t mean she’s mate material. You have no idea if she’s trustworthy and you’re ready to jump right into baby making? Even if you managed to hide your nature long enough to have kids with her, what the hell do you think is going to happen when those kids start acting ‘special’?”
I shrugged and grabbed my beer, intent on finishing it before I spoke to them again. They didn’t know what it was like. Michael hooked up with Leta in High School. He hadn’t even had the stress of worrying about testing her loyalties. Lane met Sheryl only a couple of years after school. At least he had to spend a few years getting to know her, really delving deep into her personality to know if she could handle our secret.
But fucking shit, I was almost thirty years old. The one-night stands were getting old. I couldn’t even let a woman stay the night for fear of something slipping out. What if I talked in my sleep? Or worse?
And I wanted a family. I wanted a wife. I wanted kids. I wanted someone to pass on my legacy, as shitty as it could be sometimes.
“Joe’s got a cousin coming into town next month,” Michael offered.
I sent him a disparaging look. “She’s fifteen years old. I’m not a perv.”
And it was just disturbing that I knew how old the kid was. I’d gotten so desperate I now knew the status of every female Family member in the surrounding two hundreds miles. Every single one of them that I would consider tolerable and of marriageable age was either already married or at least in some kind of relationship.
“Lie.” Lane popped a peanut in his mouth, sending me a grin. “We’ve seen inside that head. It’s a cesspool.”
I slid my empty over the table to clink against his. “Fuck you. And it’s your round.”
He moved through the crowd effortlessly. The small town residents didn’t know how dangerous we could be, but they didn’t need to know the facts to be intimidated. Especially by Lane. At six-four he stood inches taller than any of the regulars in the bar. Our extra-curricular activities had piled muscles onto all of us, but Lane made the rest of us look like pre-pubescent boys.
He had that whole Norse god look going, with the shoulder length blond hair and five o’clock shadow. Every time he walked into a room I half-expected to see him carrying a war hammer over one shoulder.
“You’ll find the right one.” Michael’s voice drifted through my thoughts so quietly I wasn’t sure if he’d spoken the words out loud or not.
I moved my eyes away from Lane and scanned the bar again. All of the regulars were there. Nancy was leaning over the pool table, flashing her impressive cleavage. She’d give me a blow job in the bathroom and giggle about having a great time. And then she’d go home to her three kids, but probably not before following some other guy into that bathroom. Debbie was half-way to passing out in the corner. If I trusted her with the password to my voicemail by Tuesday everyone in the bar would be able to get my messages for me.
The list went on. The women around me were all ready for a good time. But not one of them was ready for a serious future. Not one like I had planned. I needed someone who could keep her fucking mouth shut when lives depended on it. Because hers would.
I was wasting my time here. What the hell was wrong with me? Did I seriously think I was going to find the mother of my children in a fucking bar? What a heart touching story that would be for the kids.
I scowled at Michael. Lucky bastard. Hooking up with one of the only eligible Family members in the area while we were still in school. I could see his future clearly. It wouldn’t be much longer before he had little red-headed kids running around his place, causing all sorts of mischief. Probably setting fire to the neighbor’s cat.
“I hate you,” I mumbled. I turned toward the bar, looking for my damn beer. My friend was smirking at me when I turned back to him. Bastard. “In a year’s time you’re probably going to have a wife and a brat on the way. And I’m going to be stuck here, alone.”
“Poor, pitiful, you,” Lane moaned as he plunked a full bottle down in front of me.
Red flashed up Michael’s freckled face all the way to his auburn hair. “Now that you mention it…”
I quickly diverted my gaze as a grin started to pull across his lips. The fucker.
“Leta’s five weeks along. We’re getting hitched as soon as her brother can make it into town.”
I swallowed the bitter jealousy along with a healthy swig of the lager. My friend was excited. I could hide the asshole reaction from him at least. The smile felt forced but hopefully the dim lighting in the bar hid some of that from him. “That’s great!”
Lane stood. “Shit, this is a celebration man. We need some shots.”
Michael grabbed his arm before Lane could make it very far. “Leta will kick my ass if I come home drunk when she can’t even have a sip now. This beer is my limit.”
He held his bottle out, so I had to raise mine as well as Michael toasted to marriage and kids. I kept my mouth shut as the two discussed Michael’s immediate future. If I said anything my jealousy would seep through. Michael didn’t deserve that. He’d been a good friend over the years. There was only a handful of people I wanted at my back in a fight and he was one of them. I wasn’t going to say anything that would ruin this moment for him.
Michael finished his beer and headed home to continue the celebration with his new fiancé. Lane and I stayed for awhile longer but when he realized I wasn’t going to pull out of my funk he declared he’d rather be at home getting laid. I scanned the bar one last time as Lane and I were leaving. It was useless and I knew that before I even started. But something about that woman, I just couldn’t keep my mind and my eyes off of her. Of course, she wasn’t there. She’d left long before.
I stepped out into the cool air beside Lane and started scanning the lot for my truck. I’d spotted the woman walking across the parking lot as I was pulling in, so I couldn’t quite recall where I had parked. Lane was quietly complaining that now that Leta was knocked up and engaged Sheryl would be getting ideas. I grunted out the sympathy he was looking for while I continued my search.
My eyes and my feet froze. She was across the street, at the town’s only inn. The street’s lone streetlight had reflected off that shiny hair, drawing my attention. I watched as she unlocked a door and walked into a hotel room, holding a basket of what looked like folded laundry. As she turned to shut the door behind herself our eyes met.
Goodnight. The voice in my head was melodic, alto, feminine. And holy fucking shit that was her in my head. Then the door was shut and she was gone.
“You turning into a lightweight?” Lane’s laughing voice jarred me from my daze.
I turned to him with my mouth still hanging open. Could he not…didn’t he…was she only talking to me? I shot a doubtful look toward the room. Maybe I was turning into a lightweight.
His smile faded. “You okay to drive?”
I shook my head. “Yeah…yeah, I just thought I saw something. I’m good.”
He paused a moment, studying my face. “You sure?”
Finally spotting my truck a few spaces behind Lane, I moved around him. “Yeah.”
I spun on my heel a few second later. “Hey, I’ve got the perfect Halloween costume for you for this year’s party.”
Lane turned to face me slowly, crossing his arms with a suspicious expression. “What’s that?”
“Thor.”
He rolled his eyes and started heading for his truck again. “Go home and sober up.”
I thought it was the perfect costume. I climbed into my truck, started it up and pulled out of the parking lot carefully, wondering if maybe there was something to Lane’s insistence that I’d had a little too much to drink. And I promptly steered into the curb as the curtains of her room twitched. Son of a Bitch. Please tell me she wasn’t watching that.
A ghost of a feminine chuckle drifted through my head. Dammit. There were two entrances to the bar parking lot. I pulled right back in. Lane was sitting in his truck, laughing his ass off. I parked next to him and stomped my way to his passenger door. I knew I wasn’t drunk. I just couldn’t think with her watching me.
“Fine. Give me a ride home.”
I would be back though. I was going to find her. I was going to talk to her. And I was going to find out how someone who was clearly Family had gotten into the town without any of us knowing.
Then I was going to sweep her off her feet.
Author: dtsguru
Fandom: original
Rating: PG-13 (for excessive language)
Genre: urban fantasy
Spoiler Warnings: none
Word Count: 1970
Completely unrelated to entry 01 by the way. Just another little scene that popped into my head late yesterday.
“That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard.” Michael declared.
I frowned, my attention still focused on the woman at the other end of the bar. A peanut bouncing off my nose finally pulled my eyes away from her. Michael and Lane were both staring at me. Neither looked amused.
“What do you think this is? Twilight? You gonna strip your shirt off next? Start spouting nonsense about soul-mates?” Lane’s white teeth glinted in the dim bar lights, appearing even whiter against his weathered, tan skin. He wasn’t smiling though. It was more of a sneer.
I scoffed, darting my eyes back down the bar. Seeking out the smoky gray eyes. “It’s not like that. You can’t deny that chick’s the hottest thing to walk into this town in years. And it’s not like I have a lot to choose from.”
My heart-rate picked up. Where was she? She’d slipped away while these assholes were distracting me. I started scanning the bar as surreptitiously as I could, looking for her brunette hair. I’d never seen hair that shiny on any of the women around town before. What was their problem anyway? They both had their futures figured out. They each had a girl waiting at home. They were supposed to be my buddies, my wingmen, not cock-blockers.
Michael leaned forward. “Fuck you, we are being wingmen. We’re keeping you from crashing and burning.”
Shit. She had me so twisted up I couldn’t even keep my walls up. I spent a second to focus on reinforcing the barriers that kept my two friends from ransacking my brain. They did not need to know just how much of my mind she had taken up residence in. I’d never hear the end of it. I hadn’t even talked to the woman yet.
I opened my eyes in search of my beer. Only after downing half of it did I respond. “It’s not like I was going to walk up to her and propose.”
“You said she was going to be the mother of your children, Eli,” Michael reminded me.
“And you were serious,” Lane pointed out. “You’re sober so you can’t blame the alcohol. That’s not just stupid. It’s creepy as hell.”
“You don’t know her,” Michael explained quietly. “Sure, she’s hot. She’s probably great in bed. But that doesn’t mean she’s mate material. You have no idea if she’s trustworthy and you’re ready to jump right into baby making? Even if you managed to hide your nature long enough to have kids with her, what the hell do you think is going to happen when those kids start acting ‘special’?”
I shrugged and grabbed my beer, intent on finishing it before I spoke to them again. They didn’t know what it was like. Michael hooked up with Leta in High School. He hadn’t even had the stress of worrying about testing her loyalties. Lane met Sheryl only a couple of years after school. At least he had to spend a few years getting to know her, really delving deep into her personality to know if she could handle our secret.
But fucking shit, I was almost thirty years old. The one-night stands were getting old. I couldn’t even let a woman stay the night for fear of something slipping out. What if I talked in my sleep? Or worse?
And I wanted a family. I wanted a wife. I wanted kids. I wanted someone to pass on my legacy, as shitty as it could be sometimes.
“Joe’s got a cousin coming into town next month,” Michael offered.
I sent him a disparaging look. “She’s fifteen years old. I’m not a perv.”
And it was just disturbing that I knew how old the kid was. I’d gotten so desperate I now knew the status of every female Family member in the surrounding two hundreds miles. Every single one of them that I would consider tolerable and of marriageable age was either already married or at least in some kind of relationship.
“Lie.” Lane popped a peanut in his mouth, sending me a grin. “We’ve seen inside that head. It’s a cesspool.”
I slid my empty over the table to clink against his. “Fuck you. And it’s your round.”
He moved through the crowd effortlessly. The small town residents didn’t know how dangerous we could be, but they didn’t need to know the facts to be intimidated. Especially by Lane. At six-four he stood inches taller than any of the regulars in the bar. Our extra-curricular activities had piled muscles onto all of us, but Lane made the rest of us look like pre-pubescent boys.
He had that whole Norse god look going, with the shoulder length blond hair and five o’clock shadow. Every time he walked into a room I half-expected to see him carrying a war hammer over one shoulder.
“You’ll find the right one.” Michael’s voice drifted through my thoughts so quietly I wasn’t sure if he’d spoken the words out loud or not.
I moved my eyes away from Lane and scanned the bar again. All of the regulars were there. Nancy was leaning over the pool table, flashing her impressive cleavage. She’d give me a blow job in the bathroom and giggle about having a great time. And then she’d go home to her three kids, but probably not before following some other guy into that bathroom. Debbie was half-way to passing out in the corner. If I trusted her with the password to my voicemail by Tuesday everyone in the bar would be able to get my messages for me.
The list went on. The women around me were all ready for a good time. But not one of them was ready for a serious future. Not one like I had planned. I needed someone who could keep her fucking mouth shut when lives depended on it. Because hers would.
I was wasting my time here. What the hell was wrong with me? Did I seriously think I was going to find the mother of my children in a fucking bar? What a heart touching story that would be for the kids.
I scowled at Michael. Lucky bastard. Hooking up with one of the only eligible Family members in the area while we were still in school. I could see his future clearly. It wouldn’t be much longer before he had little red-headed kids running around his place, causing all sorts of mischief. Probably setting fire to the neighbor’s cat.
“I hate you,” I mumbled. I turned toward the bar, looking for my damn beer. My friend was smirking at me when I turned back to him. Bastard. “In a year’s time you’re probably going to have a wife and a brat on the way. And I’m going to be stuck here, alone.”
“Poor, pitiful, you,” Lane moaned as he plunked a full bottle down in front of me.
Red flashed up Michael’s freckled face all the way to his auburn hair. “Now that you mention it…”
I quickly diverted my gaze as a grin started to pull across his lips. The fucker.
“Leta’s five weeks along. We’re getting hitched as soon as her brother can make it into town.”
I swallowed the bitter jealousy along with a healthy swig of the lager. My friend was excited. I could hide the asshole reaction from him at least. The smile felt forced but hopefully the dim lighting in the bar hid some of that from him. “That’s great!”
Lane stood. “Shit, this is a celebration man. We need some shots.”
Michael grabbed his arm before Lane could make it very far. “Leta will kick my ass if I come home drunk when she can’t even have a sip now. This beer is my limit.”
He held his bottle out, so I had to raise mine as well as Michael toasted to marriage and kids. I kept my mouth shut as the two discussed Michael’s immediate future. If I said anything my jealousy would seep through. Michael didn’t deserve that. He’d been a good friend over the years. There was only a handful of people I wanted at my back in a fight and he was one of them. I wasn’t going to say anything that would ruin this moment for him.
Michael finished his beer and headed home to continue the celebration with his new fiancé. Lane and I stayed for awhile longer but when he realized I wasn’t going to pull out of my funk he declared he’d rather be at home getting laid. I scanned the bar one last time as Lane and I were leaving. It was useless and I knew that before I even started. But something about that woman, I just couldn’t keep my mind and my eyes off of her. Of course, she wasn’t there. She’d left long before.
I stepped out into the cool air beside Lane and started scanning the lot for my truck. I’d spotted the woman walking across the parking lot as I was pulling in, so I couldn’t quite recall where I had parked. Lane was quietly complaining that now that Leta was knocked up and engaged Sheryl would be getting ideas. I grunted out the sympathy he was looking for while I continued my search.
My eyes and my feet froze. She was across the street, at the town’s only inn. The street’s lone streetlight had reflected off that shiny hair, drawing my attention. I watched as she unlocked a door and walked into a hotel room, holding a basket of what looked like folded laundry. As she turned to shut the door behind herself our eyes met.
Goodnight. The voice in my head was melodic, alto, feminine. And holy fucking shit that was her in my head. Then the door was shut and she was gone.
“You turning into a lightweight?” Lane’s laughing voice jarred me from my daze.
I turned to him with my mouth still hanging open. Could he not…didn’t he…was she only talking to me? I shot a doubtful look toward the room. Maybe I was turning into a lightweight.
His smile faded. “You okay to drive?”
I shook my head. “Yeah…yeah, I just thought I saw something. I’m good.”
He paused a moment, studying my face. “You sure?”
Finally spotting my truck a few spaces behind Lane, I moved around him. “Yeah.”
I spun on my heel a few second later. “Hey, I’ve got the perfect Halloween costume for you for this year’s party.”
Lane turned to face me slowly, crossing his arms with a suspicious expression. “What’s that?”
“Thor.”
He rolled his eyes and started heading for his truck again. “Go home and sober up.”
I thought it was the perfect costume. I climbed into my truck, started it up and pulled out of the parking lot carefully, wondering if maybe there was something to Lane’s insistence that I’d had a little too much to drink. And I promptly steered into the curb as the curtains of her room twitched. Son of a Bitch. Please tell me she wasn’t watching that.
A ghost of a feminine chuckle drifted through my head. Dammit. There were two entrances to the bar parking lot. I pulled right back in. Lane was sitting in his truck, laughing his ass off. I parked next to him and stomped my way to his passenger door. I knew I wasn’t drunk. I just couldn’t think with her watching me.
“Fine. Give me a ride home.”
I would be back though. I was going to find her. I was going to talk to her. And I was going to find out how someone who was clearly Family had gotten into the town without any of us knowing.
Then I was going to sweep her off her feet.