WIP Amnesty
Since I sort of think I am never going to finish these, I figured I might as well post them for posterity, at the very least. And hey, if someone feels the desire to finish them for me, you have my permission to do what you will with them.
Harry Potter fic based on the Nanny Diaries.
"Wanted: One young witch to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic, and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish being treated like house-elf and being thrown up on literally and figuratively--by everyone in the family." When Nan signs on to work for the Black family, little does she know what's in store for her: a manic depressive mother, an adulterous husband, a deeply disturbed house-elf, and a small boy on the verge of disaster.
Prologue: The Interview
Every summer since the one after my third year at Hogwarts began the same way: with a round of seemingly endless interviews for nanny positions so surreally similar that I'd often wondered if pureblood women are given some sort of secret manual when they become mothers to guide them through.
A typical interview runs something like this:
I am granted entrance into the London townhouse (and they all look the same--austere, imposing, and reeking of old money) by a suspicious house-elf who forces me to wait several minutes while he fetches "Mistress." While I wait I wonder if the house-elf is really fetching her, or if he's secretly testing a stray hair from my cloak with a Progenitor Potion to assure him of the purity of my blood. Wouldn't do for the Mistress to consort with unclean things, after all.
As I wait I take note of my surroundings--an entrance hall like most, wallpapered in some gloomy floral print or, possibly worse, dark wood paneling. The hall always contains some sort of umbrella stand, usually of ogre leg or similar, a large portrait of some prominent ancestor sneering gloomily at me, and an ostentatious, gilt-framed mirror. I check my appearance one last time in the minutes before she arrives: black work robes, plain but of good quality, with only one small stain at the hem from a Potions accident in my final term, hair neat and tidied, shoes scuffed by otherwise nice.
She is always tiny. Her hair is always straight and unnaturally shiny--probably uses the most expensive Glamour products on the market. She is always wearing expensive, tailored robes (no Gladrags off the rack merchandise for her) and some sort of Muggle designer shoes, usually Dolce and Gabana or similar (her abhorrence of all things Muggle does not, apparently, extend to footwear). In her impeccable robes and expensive shoes with her perfectly coifed hair it is almost impossible to imagine her doing anything so undignified as what was required to get her pregnant in the first place.
She ushers me into the small drawing room off the front hall. This is first impression of The Townhouse and it strikes me as dark and a little bit frightening. Everything looks as it should--heavy velvet draperies, antique, spindly furniture that is appropriately feminine for such a room, more portraits in gilded frames--but there are small things that bother me and let me know subtly that this is the ancestral house of a pureblood. Usually its the knickknacks that clue me in: biting snuffboxes that seem innocuous at first, the hand of glory on the mantelpiece, candlesticks that look like silver, but are actually made from the hardened blood of a Veela.
She offers me a seat and rings for the house-elf, asking if I'd like something to drink.
I'm supposed to say, "Tea would be lovely," but am often tempted to ask for a Firewhiskey, just to see her reaction. The house-elf conjures tea and we both sit on uncomfortably straight-backed, delicate chairs. I am in constant fear that my weight will break the chair and I'll spend the rest of my life attempting to repay her for it.
Now we begin the actual Interview. "So," she begins, her voice cultured and every bit the arrogant socialite, "how did you hear about this position?"
This is the part of the Interview in which I outline my family genealogy and enlighten her as to my pureblood status. She is always delighted to hear of my connections to prominent pureblood families. I fail to mention why, if I am so connected, I need a job as a nanny, and she fails to ask, not wanting to ruin her good luck. We talk only briefly about my qualifications, and dance around certain words such as "nanny" and "child care" because they would be distasteful. The closest we come to the subject of me actually taking care of her child is when I wax eloquent about my love of children and my wonderful past experiences over previous summers. I speak about it as if it were a passionate hobby, rather than something I did to make actual money to pay my Hogwart's tuition.
I cite amusing anecdotes about the children I cared for before, saying things like, "I still marvel at little Suzie's absorption with her Nicholas Flamel Alchemy Kit," and "Tommy's obsession with Quidditch led to such fun-filled hours in the park." I tell her how much I love children, love everything to do with them, love their tendency to perform random bits of magic that invariably have me floating on the ceiling, love their Animated Annie dolls and toy broomsticks and peanut butter in my hair and peanut butter on my robes and peanut butter everywhere...
Now she wants to know, if I'm so brilliant, why I would want to take care of her child. She gave birth to it, and she doesn't want to take care of it. She wants to know what I plan to do now that I've graduated, what I think of the state of magical education in Europe, what my parents do for a living. I answer with as much filigree and good breeding as I can muster, and lie about the things I have to. I plan to start my Auror training in the spring, but she mustn't know that. Instead I tell her I want to teach, that my father is a Professor at Hogwarts and I've always wanted to live in France. I'd like to get a position at Beauxbatons, eventually, when one opens up. Mainly, she is trying to ensure that I am not out to steal her husband, jewelry, friends, or child. In that order.
Nanny fact: in every one of my interviews, references are never checked. I am a pureblood. I speak Gobbledygook. My parents went to Hogwarts. I have no visible piercings and have been to see the latest play at the Veela's Vaudevillian. I'm hired.
Now she takes me on the Tour, which exists for the sole purpose of proving to me that 1) I am out of my league and 2) that I will be policing at maximum security to ensure that her child, who is also out of his or her league, does not scuff, snag, spill, curse, charm, or spoil a single element of this townhouse.
It isn't until we arrive in the kitchen that she brings out the rules. There are house-elfs, of course, who will be responsible for preparing meals for the adults and doing all the cleaning and washing, but I will be preparing the child's meals, for which there is another long list of things he can and cannot have:
NO Sugar Quills.
NO Acid Pops.
NO candy at all.
He won't eat anything starting with the letter M.
He loves fizzy drinks.
NO fizzy drinks.
NO caffeine at all, EVER.
All servings are to be measured out before hand--NO additional food is permissible.
All pumpkin juice is to be watered down and drunk out of an Imperturbably Charmed cup (preferably until the child is eighteen)
Actually, "if you could get him naked before eating and then hose him down afterward, that would be absolutely perfect."
NO American food.
NO Muggle food.
...and absolutely NO FOOD OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN.
I find myself nodding and saying things like, "Oh dear Lord, yes" to prove to her that we are in this together, and that her child's digestion is extremely important to me. The Tour continues until she guides us to the child's bedroom, which is usually at the farthest point possible from the parent's bedroom. The child is always groomed within an inch of his life and comes hurtling at the mother shrieking with joy. The mother diverts him to me while carefully hiding her revulsion that her child has actually touched her and backs away so that we can get acquainted This is the cue for the Play-With-Child portion of the Interview. I drop to my knees and become psychotically animated. I talk Quidditch and Chocolate Frogs and Gobstones and Marvin the Mad Muggle. I put on an excellent show, whipping the child into a frenzy of hyper.
Afterward she shows me out, handing me my cloak at the door. "So you'll start on Monday, then?" she says, assuming that I'm absolutely dying to spend even more time with her child.
"Yes, all right," I say. And that easy, I'm in.
Chapter 1: The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black
Like most of the families I've worked for, I met the Blacks quite by accident in the park one day, while they were having their picture taken for the Daily Prophet society page. I had just graduated from Hogwarts the week before, and was in the process of desperately trying to find a job before my savings ran out. My Auror training wouldn't start until the spring--until then I needed something to pay my rent and feed my cat with.
Their little boy set eyes on me, escaped his mother, and ran over, practically tackling my legs. He grabbed my hand and, with a mischievous glint in his dark eyes, proclaimed that I should be in the picture too. His mother, a thin, dark-haired woman came over to fetch her son and apologize.
"He's always doing that," she said a little bitterly, but with a bright smile. "Very precocious, Sirius is. Our nanny canceled on us just hours ago, you know how it is. Its so hard to find good help these days."
I nodded. "Dear lord yes. I'm actually looking for a position right now." I smiled at the little boy, who now hid shyly behind his mother's robes. He winked at me cheekily.
"Really?" her gaze flicked over me with renewed interest. "Why don't I give you my card? If you're interested, we could set up a time to meet and have a little chat. The girl we have now is just terribly unreliable..."
I took her card and waved good-bye to Sirius, thinking that if I managed to wrangle the position, I'd need to think up a good nickname for him. Honestly, who burdens a child with a name like that?
I glanced at the card as I walked away. The small square of heavy parchment was black with curly gold lettering on it that shimmered in the sun.
The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, London
I slipped the card into my pocket, vowing to owl Mrs. Black as soon as possible. I was desperate for a position, even one with the Blacks, who I knew by reputation, and my heart went out to the little boy so obviously desperate for attention that he regularly accosted strange witches in the park.
*******
Chapter 1
I waited nervously outside the tall, austere looking mansion on Grimmauld Place, tugging at my robes and half-hoping the house-elf wouldn't answer my ring. At that point I was desperate for cash and would have taken just about anything, even working for a family with the reputation the Blacks had for Dark Arts. Still, I needed the job, and it wasn't the child's fault his parents were a bit mad, after all.
The door of number twelve swung open a few inches to reveal a house-elf dressed in nothing but a loincloth that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the founding of Hogwarts. He looked me up and down suspiciously. "Miss is here for the nanny position, Kreacher supposes?" he asked, jealously guarding the recesses of the house from my view.
"Yes. Please inform Mrs. Black that I am here." I tried my best to sound imperious and commanding, the only tone a house-elf really respected from someone who wasn't in the family he served. The house-elf opened the door a few more inches and gestured that I should come in, leaving me in the hall to fetch his mistress, muttering to himself all the while. He seemed quite mad, but then most of these house-elfs that belonged to old pureblood families were. They became absolutely obsessed, was the problem. Couldn't get on without their masters when they died and often had to be put out of their misery in the event of a death; they'd just die anyway, so locked in their misery that they simply forgot to feed themselves.
I took note of what little I could see of the house while I waited. The obligatory umbrella stand stood near the entrance, and looked to be made of a troll leg--disgusting. I never understood that particular fashion. Who wants a smelly old troll leg holding their umbrella? A large portrait hung on the wall to the left, of a dark haired, stern looking woman. She sneered delicately at me. "You're a pureblood, I hope?" she asked. "The last one was obviously Mudblood. Oh she lied about it, but I could tell. I always can."
I smiled weakly and turned away from the portrait, thinking that with this kind of family, it was a miracle little Sirius had managed to retain any sort of cheer. The rest of the hall was gloomy and dark with a floral patterned wallpaper that did nothing to brighten things up. The floor was covered in a long oriental rug, and a giant silver and crystal chandelier hung overhead, done up in an intricate design of serpents. The Blacks used old-fashioned gas lamps in sconces on the walls, throwing only a dim, yellowish haze across the hall.
I heard the muffled click of Mrs. Black's heels approaching me down the gloomy corridor before I actually saw her. "Right on time," she greeted me with a tight smile. "I can already tell this is going to work out just perfectly. Why don't we go into the drawing room for a spot of tea before you and Sirius start the day?"
I followed her into the drawing room, a truly ugly space done up in shades of green, right down to the puce carpeting and the heavy moss colored velvet drapes. I sat gingerly on the chintz armchair opposite her, sipping my tea and trying not to stare at a particularly vile looking crystal decanter filled with suspicious red liquid. "Sirius is at pre-Wizardry with Kristin now," she explained, sipping her own tea. "We'll go fetch him soon, and I'll introduce you properly."
Kristin, I thought to myself. She must be the one I'm replacing. Lovely. I wondered briefly if Kristin even knew she was being replaced. Sometimes, when the mother was particularly passive agressive, they never informed the old nanny she had been fired, preferring to let girls like Kristin come to that conclusion themselves when a new girl was randomly introduced into the mix.
Mrs. Black waved her wand and a sheaf of parchment appeared on the tea table. At the top of the first page I could see the word 'nanny' scrawled in neat, loopy handwriting. "I've written out a list of instructions and a schedule for you," she told me, handing over the papers.
I glanced at them. Lessons, play dates, meals, baths--even fun was scheduled. Sirius wasn't allowed a wand yet, of course, but he had pre-Wizardry lessons nonetheless. I rifled through the sheets of parchment, noting that Mrs. Black already had him taking three different languages (French, Latin, and Gobbledygook--it was important for wealthy purebloods to be able to speak to their bankers without translators in order to seem more impressive) as well as lessons in recognizing different herbs and potions ingredients, and a "fun with magical creatures" lesson. The kid was busier than I was, with all these lessons and play dates (code for socializing with other pureblood children so as to make early connections to appropriately wealthy families).
"I've scheduled for Sirius to have play dates with a different child each day of the week after pre-Wizardry lessons. Sirius knows his little friends by now, and I don't want him wandering off with any of those children in the park. In fact, I'd prefer you avoid the park altogether." Mrs. Black stared at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to acknowledge that I understood.
"Merlin, yes," I said, nodding and trying to exude a "we are in this together" air.
"I'm glad you see my way of things. And during his lessons, of course, you will be free to run a few errands for myself and Mr. Black. I'm sure you won't mind. It'll just be a few things, you understand, if we don't get to them ourselves. I'll leave a list for you each morning with Kreacher."
"Of course," I said, inwardly wincing. Although my job description did not call for me to fulfill every whim of Mrs. Black, it was something that inevitably happened with every family I'd worked for. It would start out just running a few errands, but eventually turn into planning Mrs. Black's calendar and turning into her social secretary. It wouldn't do to complain about this, of course. In fact, Kristin's complaints were probably the real reason she was being sacked. She wasn't reliable in the sense that she wasn't willing to be Mrs. Black's uncomplaining slave.
She smiled thinly at me and finished her tea with a dainty sip. "If that's settled then, we should head over to the school now to pick up Sirius. As you'll note on his schedule, pre-Wizardry lets out at one. He'll have had lunch. You're to meet his play date in the Flooing station just inside the entrance. I've written down a list of names and the days that go with each. Sirius will know who they are." She frowned down at her shoes--Prada. "I suppose we should walk, so that you can get to know the area. I don't like Sirius Flooing. It's bad for his digestion."
"I understand completely," I said with what I hoped was a sympathetic smile.
We walked the six blocks from Grimmauld Place to Sirius's school, a tall brick building that to me looked like a very nice pre-school with a neat wooden sign out front declaring it to be "Pucey's Preparatory Wizardry Academy." To Muggles, of course, the sign must have read something else, but Mrs. Black didn't stop to explain, simply walked briskly up the brick path and through the polished oak double doors of the school.
It was only just one o'clock and we arrived just as lessons let out. Streams of children emerged from different classrooms, running to their waiting nannies in the Flooing station. The station itself was fairly typical: three large fireplaces on either side of a waiting area, young women with strollers already queuing up to leave, just waiting for their charges to emerge. I saw Sirius immediately, practically running into the station from the left hand corridor and plowing straight into the knees of a young blond woman--probably Kristin.
Mrs. Black hitched a tight smile on her face and approached her son and her soon-to-be former nanny. "Hello darling," she said dismissively to Sirius, who immediately let go of Kristin's legs and climbed docilely into his stroller. "Kristin, this is Nan. She'll be coming along with you today, to see how things are done."
Kristin's eyes settled on me briefly and she nodded. "Of course," she said perfunctorily. I couldn't tell from her expression whether she'd bee aware of the situation beforehand or not.
"I'll just leave you two to it, then," Mrs. Black said with another smile which I was quickly learning to understand meant she was annoyed or displeased about something. "Have fun, darling," she said to Sirius without looking at him. "Be good."
"Yes, Mum," he said. Then: "I love you Mum!"
Another tight smile. "Mummy has to go now, darling. Mummy has important work to do. Be good and get to know Nan." And with a wave she was striding across the entrance hall and out the front doors before Sirius could say anything else.
I knelt down next to him and smiled. "Hullo there, Sirius," I said. "We're going to have lots of fun together, you'll see!"
But he wasn't paying any attention to me. His eyes lingered on the doors through which his mother had disappeared, twin pools of tears appearing in them and threatening to spill onto his cheeks at any moment. Kristin took over then and I was extremely grateful--she seemed to know how to deal with a distressed Sirius very well. In a sequence of motions clearly done so many times it resembled a sychronized dance, Kristin buckled him into the stroller, stuck an Impertably Charmed cup of pumpkin juice into his fist, and simultaneously pushed a celery stick covered in peanut butter into his mouth. Instead of crying, he started chewing, looking a bit disgruntled. Disaster averted.
I smiled weakly at Kristin. "I'm Nan," I told her, although we'd already been introduced. "So, er, who's our play date for this afternoon."
Kristin's nose wrinkled. "It's Severus Snape," she said in a whisper, so that Sirius, who was still munching on his celery, couldn't hear. "Horrid little brat. Sirius loathes him."
"Lovely," I said.
The topic of our conversation approached us just then, or rather, was pushed toward us in a stroller by his nanny, a harrassed-looking young woman with pumpkin juice down the front of her robes. Her charge, a small, dark-haired boy of roughly the same age as Sirius, scowled when he saw us. He squirmed in his stroller, trying to catch his nanny's eye. "Turn back!" he commanded petulantly. "Take me back this instant!"
His nanny gave me a weak smile as I attempted the "kneeling and being cheerful" routine again. "Hullo Severus," I said. "I'm Nan. It's nice to meet you."
I extended my hand for him to shake. He frowned at me, and I couldn't help but think he had the most unfortunate nose I'd ever seen on a child so young. "You're not a Mudblood, are you?" he asked suspiciously. "Mummy says I'm not to touch Mudbloods after washing my hands, or I must go wash them again immediately."
My smile froze on my lips, but I managed not to show my anger that a child so young had already been taught who to hate. "No, I'm not," I told him. He took my hand with reluctance and let it go immediately. "We're going to have loads of fun today." I didn't really believe it. He shrugged as if he didn't really either.
"I thought we'd head over to the park, allow them to let off some steam," Severus's nanny suggested.
Kristin and I exchanged glances, and I knew immediately that Mrs. Black had given her the same lecture about the dangers of children at the park that she had given me. She agreed with a shrug, though, and I fell into place beside her as we left the school.
Kristin and Annie, Severus's nanny, chatted compainionably as we walked the four blocks to the local park. "So you've been sacked, then?" Annie asked bluntly. "Well, you lasted longer than the last one, anyway."
Kristin just shrugged again. "I knew it was coming, obviously. If it weren't for Sirius, I would've left months ago. That Woman is a slave driver." She snuck a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. "I'd be careful if I were you, Nan. She's off her rocker, Mrs. Black is."
I raised my eyebrows questioningly. "She can't be worse than Mrs. Warrington, surely."
"You worked for the Warringtons?" Annie asked. "I've heard she's--what do Muggles call them?--psychotic."
"I wouldn't say she was psychotic, exactly. Although, she did take quite a lot of Sedative Solutions and was constantly performing Cheering Charms on herself." Mrs. Warrington hadn't been crazy, but she'd been close. At the time I'd wondered if it was possible to overdose on Cheering Charms. She always had this very scary smile on her face, like her lips had been stretched and pinned back to her ears. I far preferred Mrs. Black's tight smile--at least it was small and didn't give the impression on a clown on crack.
Just then the inevitable happened--Sirius bit Severus. It never failed. When you tried to force two kids who hated the sight of one another to spend time together, biting was always an issue. Biting and poking, followed by unnecessarily loud yelling. As if on cue, Severus threw his head back and began howling.
"He bit me! I hate him! I want to go hooooome! Wait till Mum hears about this! Take me hoooome Annie, or I'll tell Mum and she'll sack you!" His face scrunched up, all except that unfortunate nose, which was simply too big to scrunch. He even managed to produce a few tears, but I could tell he was angry more than anything else. His face was quickly turning from red to a splotchy purple. Annie just rolled her eyes and continued pushing the stroller.
"Sirius," Kristin said, her voice holding a slight warning. She ruined it by winking at him. "You know it's not nice to bite."
"Wasn't trying to be nice," Sirius explained. "Hate Sevris."
"Er, well. What would your mummy say if she heard you'd bitten the son of one of her friends?" Kristin tried.
Sirius frowned and his eyes immediately filled with tears. "Sh-she'd say I was bad." He stared at Kristin pleadingly. I shook my head. I'd need to be tougher if I was going to withstand that look.
"Well now that you know, I suppose we won't have to tell her."
Sirius brightened immediately. He turned to Severus, who had calmed down a little after much whispered conversation with Annie. "Sorry Sevris," he mumbled, looking to Kristin for approval. She nodded encouragingly.
Severus glared at him, somehow managing to look imperious, despite being a four year old. "Well I don't forgive you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't just go 'round biting people. It's not be...befitting a pureblood." He recited the words as if he'd memorized them without knowing precisely what they meant. Which he probably had.
Sirius didn't reply. Instead he stuck his tongue out at Severus and eyed his arm as if he was considering a judicious use of teeth again. Luckily we arrived at the park at that moment. I unbuckled Sirius from his stroller and we had some time to talk as the two boys took off across the grass to the sandbox.
"If she asks," Kristin said as we settled onto a bench near the sandbox, "we took them to the museum. We toured the Wizard's portrait gallery and they talked to Merlin. But I doubt she'll ask."
"She doesn't take much of an interest in him, does she?" I asked, watching as Sirius filled a bucket with sand. He cupped his hands together to form a makeshift shovel and began scooping sand with extreme care, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth.
Kristin grunted. "She takes an interest when it's in her interest to do so. Usually she ignores him completely, except for when she drags him out to prove what a perfect family and perfect life she has. It's disgusting, really, the way these women use their children to compete with each other."
Annie shook her head. "Mine does the same thing. Only Sev isn't quite as cute as one would like, is he?" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "His nose didn't use to be quite so... unpleasant, before. Then she tried to shrink it, and overnight it grew back, bigger than it'd been before. Poor little bugger. He'll never get a date."
"At least he's shown signs of magic," Kristin replied, watching Sirius with a morose expression on her face. "Sirius... hasn't. Nothing."
"He's only four!" I protested. "Loads of kids don't show anything until later--six, sometimes as late as eight years old."
"Mrs. B is convinced he's a you-know-what," Kristin said. She smiled sarodnically. "We don't say the 's' word at Grimmauld Place. From what I gather every Black since the beginning of time has shown by the age of four. Ridiculous, placing those kinds of expectations on a child too young to understand what it means. He tries, you know. But he doesn't really understand it isn't something you can make happen."
After the park, during which Sirius managed to bite Severus twice more and Severus began kicking him in retaliation, we separated from Annie and made our way to Diagon Alley via the Knave Bus, the London local version of the Knight Bus. Mrs. Black had given me a list of things she wanted picked up from the Apothecary. I left Kristin and Sirius at
Yes, I really left off in the middle of a sentence. Wow.
*
Jensen is a governess fic. No, I don't even understand what I was trying to do here. If anyone else can figure it out...
Jensen always knew that he would end up as a governess, he just never expected it to suck so much.
He tries to tell himself that this is what happens when you're an orphan or a bastard child or whatever-you grow up in an orphanage and you might have manners and a good education, but it's not like there's anything you can do with it and you don't have breeding so no one's ever going to marry you. No one worth fucking or bearing children for, anyway. So you end up a governess in some rich man's house, taking care of his kids and making sure they don't ever have to end up like you and it just, it's awful.
On the one hand, you don't get all stretched out trying to birth an heir for your husband, which Jensen definitely sees as a perk because he was present during exactly one birthing at the orphanage and it was quite possibly the most disgusting, horrifying thing he's ever seen. So he's glad that he'll never have to do that, because-ouch-but on the other hand, he still has to take care of kids and be around them all the time and probably, he's going unfulfilled or whatever, because he'll never be a wife and mother. He's heard it's sort of the ultimate aspiration, and yeah, the idea of pretty dresses and his own horse and maybe trips to the coast on holiday is pretty nice. Parties that he can attend for a reason other than there being an odd number of people, having his own maid, even. But Jensen will never know, because he's a governess and being a governess, Jensen thinks, really fucking sucks.
Not that the Padelackis are a bad family or whatever, because they're not. Jared is pretty cool, actually, one of the nicest rich people Jensen's ever met, and the kids are all right, even if Jensen thinks there are sort of a lot of them for Mr Padelacki being so young. Jensen would never say it outloud, but he's not exactly surprised that Mr Padelacki's wife died birthing their youngest child. Popping out kids one after another will do that to a woman, and really, Jensen thinks that maybe Mr Padelacki could've kept it in his pants for a month or two, let his wife rest, or at least found a tavern wench or a slutty housemaid if he really needed it that badly.
Men have urges that they feel an overwhelming desire to satisfy. At least, that's what the nuns at the orphanage were always telling them, and also to never show your ankles in public, because any sort of ankle-revealing was sure to lead to sinning and men attempting to satisfy the aforementioned desires on your person, which they will assume to be loose because you are, after all, just a governess. Jensen's not sure what's so great about ankles, anyway, but considering the fate of poor Mrs Padelacki, he's always very careful with his.
So aside from pretty much having murdered his wife via baby overload, Mr Padelacki is pretty cool. If the circumstances were different and Jensen had, like, breeding and maybe a dowry and shit, then maybe something could've happened between them, but instead Jensen's just the governess to Jared's four reasonable well-behaved kids.
The very pretty governess who is much prettier than, say, Miss Mary Beth Hadley of Shady Grove, a girl who looks more like a horse than a person, Jensen thinks, and is currently proving that she can't, in actuality, no matter how much her mama spent on lessons for the past ten years, play the pianoforte at all.
Jensen sighs and tries not to stare at the clock, but seriously, with this chick playing something that sounds like it belongs in a wrecking yard and doesn't remotely resemble Mozart, he's not sure how much longer he can stand it. The rest of the dinner guests look equally appalled, aside from Miss Jane Winthrop and her mother, who both look absolutely delighted by the display. Miss Winthrop, Jensen thinks, is exactly the kind of girl he always hated at the orphanage: bitchy, stupid, and mean. She's the kind of girl who says things like, "Why Governess, you're looking absolutely skinny, lately! Have you given up eating altogether, then?"
Jensen hates her. Sometimes he daydreams about her falling off her horse and breaking something, like her head. But only sometimes. He tries not to waste his time with uncharitable thoughts because he is, after all, a good Christian and he's trying to raise Mr Padelacki's kids in moral righteousness, or something. Also, he doesn't want to lose his job, because if there's one thing that sucks even more than being a governess, it's being homeless. Or a whore.
Yeah, he thinks as he claps politely when Miss Hadley finishes the song, finally, with an attempt at a flourish that ends up as more of a bang, pretty much anything's better than being a whore, even this.
*
The thing Jensen misses the most about when he first started this job is the wet nurse.
Which sounds pretty weird if he really stops to think about it, because missing a woman whose job it is to pretty much leak milk on command well, yeah. It sounds pretty perverted and weird and sort of gross, actually, but the thing about the wet nurse was, she was in charge of the twins, which meant Jensen got to sleep an extra twenty minutes in the morning and also, he only had to deal with one set of dirty diapers.
Now it's two sets and the twins are much more prolific in their output than Annie ever was. He can't believe he actually misses a time when he had to deal with a three year old who was so terrified of the chamber pot that she absolutely refused to use it until Jensen was forced to tell her that every time she wet herself, a fairy angel died a horrible, grisly death. He can't believe he actually misses the horror that was Annie's potty training, but staring at the mess the twins make every day, he really, really does.
At least they're almost trained now, too. The mornings are always the worst, though, because Jack doesn't like to get out of bed in the night to use the pot even when he wakes up needing it, and Meg just doesn't wake up at all. Jensen's not sure how you can possibly sleep through shitting yourself that thoroughly, but she does. Every fucking time.
"Jack," Jensen says, sighing and sitting on the edge of his bed. Jack pulls the covers up to his nose and stares at Jensen over them, eyes wide and innocent like he has no idea what he did wrong, even though he's pretty much lying in it. Which-gross. "Jack, sweetie, you have to use the pot when you feel the need to go. Wouldn't it be so much more comfortable not to have to wear diapers anymore? Don't you want to be a big boy?"
"But Miss Jensen," Jack says in a loud whisper, "there's. Things. Scary things. Under the bed. And if I get up to use the pot they'll get me and eat my legs off!"
Jensen ducks down and looks under the bed. Dust, a stray stocking, and more dust. "There's nothing there, Jack. I promise."
"They only come at night," he says, nodding. "And they're hungry."
"For legs."
"Yup. And sometimes arms, too."
Jensen stands up with another sigh and pulls back the covers. "Okay, come on. No leg monsters in the day, so let's get you dressed. Your father wants to see you at breakfast today."
Jack slides out of bed and you can only thank god for rubber sheets as you help Jack get ready while Meg runs around the circular design on the rug, giggling and holding her nightdress over her knees until she gets dizzy and falls over.
As long as there aren't any bodily fluids leaking from her, he thinks, it's probably an improvement.
*
Each day at Lorelei Manor varies widely from one to the next and at this point, Jensen has ceased attempting to enforce any sort of regularly scheduled programming. For a while he tried writing up the daily plan and pinning it to everyone's door each morning, but considering that half the children could barely read, the other half could barely talk, and Jensen had serious doubts about Mr Padelacki's ability to do either in a manner befitting a gentleman of his wealth and class, Jensen gave up on that plan almost immediately.
Instead, he lives in chaos, and he really fucking hates it.
Breakfast is a practical free-for-all, what with the twins flinging bits of egg at each other across the table and Annie's new-found hobby of seeing how many times she can kick Kate in the shins beneath the table before Kate, a child so mild-mannered that sometimes Jensen has to check for a pulse, starts to notice. Mr Padelacki just smiles and asks them inane questions about their schoolwork and how's Kate coming along with her pony and does Jack want to come out riding with him in the afternoon. He reads his newspaper and drinks his coffee and doesn't even attempt to help Jensen keep the twins from starting an all-out food fight. In fact, he'd probably want to join in. Mr Padelacki is practically a heathen on his best days, really, so it's almost surprising that his children manage to function in polite society at all. Jensen doesn't feel remiss in taking all the credit. Jensen has lovely manners, he thinks as he scolds Jack and threatens to take Meg's plate away entirely if she doesn't stop assaulting people with its contents.
"And then you'll just have to starve until luncheon," Jensen says, giving her his most stern look. He should have a monacle, or at least an intimidating-looking pair of spectacles, for this shit. Meg giggles and waves a piece of bacon around over her head, but when Jensen narrows his eyes at her, she stuffs it in her mouth instead of throwing it, so that's an improvement, at least.
After breakfast Jensen herds the kids to the second drawing room for lessons. He sets Kate and Annie up with their latest sewing project-shirts for the poor, although what a vagabond is going to do with a hand-sewn, ruffled shirt with a delicately-embroidered flower trim, Jensen hasn't a clue-and sits Jack and Meg down at the table with their readers.
And then it's luncheon, complete with an appearance from Miss Megan, Mr Padelacki's sister, his insane cousin Chad, who spends most of his time drooling and talking to himself in the attic, and Old Mrs. Padelacki, who narrows her eyes and purses her lips at Jensen, saying in a rather disapproving tone, "My dear, are you quite sure that neckline is standard? Because from here it looks as though it's at least two inches below chin height!"
Cousin Chad takes the opportunity to leer at Jensen and comment, "Oh yes, Auntie, I do believe you're correct as usual. Our little governess seems to lack both a sense of fashion and decorum. The example she's setting for the girls is simply atrocious and if I had my way-"
"Shut it, Chad," Miss Megan says, grinning at Jensen and helping Meg with her soup spoon. "No, come on Meggie, you can't just slurp from the bowl, that's not how a lady does it. Anyway," she says, turning to glare at Chad, "like you would know anything about fashion. Or are they delivering sketches of the latest trends to the attic these days?"
Mr Padelacki glances up from his soup, looking down the long table to examine Jensen's dress, which probably is about ten years out of date, but by no means is there anything at all wrong with the neckline. Jensen's not a slut and he doesn't dress like one, for fuck's sake. You can't even see his collarbones in this dress, the neckline is so high. Jensen studies his own bowl of soup, takes a careful sip, gently corrects Kate's posture with a whispered, "You don't want to get a hump and end up like Cousin Chad, do you?" until Kate giggles and sticks her tongue out at Annie, who can't reach Kate under the table to kick her, but makes an exceedingly ugly face instead.
Padelacki hides a smile behind his hand and says carefully, "Now, mama. I think Miss Jensen's dress is fine. Sandy's things were always much more revealing so I'm sure it's all perfectly up to code or whatever."
"Yes, well," Mrs Padelacki mumbles under her breath, "Sandy was a trashy little whore, wasn't she?"
"What's that, mama?"
"Sandy wasn't someone you'd ignore!" she says loudly. "Charming girl. Very, um. Fertile, you know."
"She was, wasn't she?" Padelacki says wistfully.
"Can we not talk about our dead mother at luncheon, please?" Annie says. "I'm trying to eat, here, and this soup sucks enough as it is."
I think there was going to be a whole Virgin Ghost Bride plot and uh, sham marriages and things. I can't even remember now.
*
A popslash AU based on 'Gone' that I started for Autumn Challenge a million years ago and never finished. It's pretty good actually. Hmm.
"This is Fullerton. Doors open on the left at Fullerton. This is a train to Howard."
Justin pushes his way through the crush of commuters to the doors, hitching his messenger bag more securely onto his shoulder and rubbing at his eyes while he waits for the train to jerk to a stop and let him off. It's been a long day in a long week in a long month, and his internship is only just beginning. He knew being a doctor would be hard. He knew going into it that classes were just the beginning and everything would get a million times harder once he actually started interning. He just didn't expect to be so fucking tired all the time. All that, and he hasn't even gotten to do any surgeries yet. He hasn't even gotten to stand in the OR while surgeries are performed.
He's getting really good at stitches, though.
The train stops and Justin steps onto the platform, turns around in a circle for a moment to get his bearings. He's still not used to the north side but Giselle wanted to move. Hyde Park was too dangerous, she said. Too hard to get anywhere from there, not enough of a nightlife. So they moved to Wicker Park even though it takes Justin an hour to get home and back to the hospital now, but it's fine, Justin thinks as he climbs the escalator and emerges from the train tunnel onto the small square in the neighborhood's center. He can use the time to catch up on his reading, to study his case reports, so actually it's better this way.
And besides, it's for Giselle, so it's worth it.
It's a quick walk to their building, just a few blocks down on Ellen Street, and it really is a nice building. Wood flooring and new mouldings and a southern view of the skyline. Justin takes the stairs two at a time, wrinkling his nose at the debris someone has left on the stairway-three empty beer cans and a torn-up weekly ads page. He opens the door to their apartment, drops his messenger bag on the floor and toes off his shoes.
"Ellie?" he calls out, heading for the living room. "Ellie, I'm back!"
He stops dead in the hallway, staring into the empty living room. Bare wood floors, the only light coming in from the windows-the long shadows of late afternoon. The built-in bookshelves that Giselle was ecstatic over when they first saw the place are empty; all the posters and artwork are missing from the walls. Even the curtains are gone, the ones she insisted they buy even though Justin thought they were too expensive and also, made the room look too girly. Everything's gone, and for a moment, he wonders what kind of thief steals curtains, of all things. And then he knows.
She's gone. She's gone, and she took everything with her.
*
"Fuck off, I'm sleeping," is how JC answers his phone.
"C, it's me. I need help. I'm, I don't really know what happened, but I just, and she's. She's gone, and she took all the furniture and my clothes and my shoes. She took my shoes, C."
"What the fuck are you talking about? I was having a really good dream, Justin. Really good. About the psych intern, you know, the one with eyes and he was doing this amazing thing with his tongue in my-"
"JC! Can we discuss your pervy fantasies about interns later? This is important." Justin pauses, clears his throat. He feels like he has a giant lump in it and it's actually pretty painful. Looking around the empty apartment only makes it worse and he just, he needs to not be here right now. He can't believe she's actually gone.
"Okay, okay. But I'm telling you, this tongue thing was totally amazing."
"She left me, JC. She's just. She's gone. And I don't. She's gone."
"Justin, are you sure? Because I don't wanna come over there and find out that she just went to the salon for the day. Again."
"Somehow, I don't think she'd take the couch with her to the salon."
"Yeah, that's probably a good assumption." JC pauses. "Are you. No, okay, of course not. She really took your shoes?"
"Every last pair."
"What a bitch. Okay, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. You can't stay there."
*
That night is one of the worst of Justin's life, even though JC spent several hours trying to make him feel better with hot chocolate and bad reality television, but not even watching the Dr. Will episodes of Big Brother managed to cheer him up. Plus, JC's couch is incredibly uncomfortable so he didn't actually sleep that much, either, and now he's back at the hospital, bleary eyed and ready to drop and unable to care about much of anything, because Giselle left him and she took all his shit, even his underwear.
It just, it really sucks. He can't figure out if he's sad or angry, but at the moment, he's too exhausted to try.
"Timberlake!" Chris snaps his fingers in front of Justin's face. "Wake up, kid, it's time for rounds."
The idea of Justin as a surgical intern is still hilarious to me. I can't even remember what pairing this was going to be. I think JC was a psych intern, which is also hilarious. I was watching S1 of Grey's Anatomy when I wrote this.
*
A tiny bit of a skater AU I was going to write for a JuC something-or-other. I had just watched the X-Games. Yesterday the World Championships were on and the PLG won again and Bucky didn't even place, very sad. He tried the 720 though and almost made it, but he didn't stay on so. Anyway. Fic.
Ever since Justin showed up, they don't really go to the beach anymore. Even in the summer when the waves are fierce, they just don't bother. Instead they head out to suburbs to skate the swimming pools left empty from the drought and it's always a mission to find the best ones with the smoothest bottoms and the sweetest curves. It's like surfing but better, because there's this sense of danger you don't get from the water. You can't bail on concrete, you just end up bloody instead. No, you gotta see it through when you're skating, and there's no one waiting for you on a jetski to pull you free. So yeah, JC thinks, skating is even better than surfing, maybe way better, even, because it doesn't fuck up your hair with all the salt water and shit.
JC really likes his hair the way it is, thanks. He already has to condition twice a day, and even then sometimes it gets all dry and frizzy and he has to wear a bandanna, which, style wise, really doesn't work for him. JC is not hip hop, like, at all.
*
Chris gets them a backer. Well, Chris gets them Lou, anyway, because they all want to get more serious about competing and they can't do it without sponsorship. JC hates Lou. He's fat and gross and has really bad hair, besides which, he doesn't know anything about skating or bmx. JC bets that Lou couldn't even balance on a pair of inlines, and everyone knows inlines are for total pussies too scared to get on a board or a bike.
But Lou does have money and he rents them a house with a huge backyard and a good-sized swimming pool that they spend an entire day draining. Lance has been designing a ramp in his free time and JC does the harder bits of math for him, goes over the geometry to make sure the angles aren't too steep or so flat they won't get any air.
This was going to end in a Big Air competition. And that's all I remember.
*
I started writing this for the Dragon challenge. JC convinces Lance to join his World of Warcraft guild. This is actually pretty hilarious. But so much research! Luckily, my friends are all fonts of WoW knowledge. Maybe I will finish it someday. I can't even remember what pairing it was going to be, though.
Lance doesn't like video games. Well, he thinks wii tennis is okay, and Mario Party can be fun as long as he's winning, but mostly, he doesn't like video games and thinks they're a waste of time he could be spending doing something actually useful, like being a gay rights activist or going to the gym to pick up hot guys. But JC says, "C'mon, man, it'll be so fun. You'll love it, I promise. When have I ever steered you wrong?" and Lance wants to say, what about the time in Germany when you took me to the drag bar, but then he realizes that probably, that wasn't a mistake at all. He wants to say that he hates video games and spending hours in front of the computer like it's some sort of office job or something, and he hates pretending to be other people because he's pretty fucking happy being himself, and under no circumstances has he ever wanted to be a warrior-mage-elf from the mystical land of Cathula.
He wants to say all that, but JC is looking at him sad eyes and saying, "I read your book, dude, I think you owe me," and since Lance didn't even read his book, he thinks JC probably has a point. He takes the box promising him amazing quests in the entirely new continent of Outland from JC and sighs. The man on the box is blue, and has tentacles attached to his face.
"Fine," Lance says, "but I'm not going to be a dwarf or something stupid like that."
"No no, that's good, because Chris is already a dwarf and Joey's a paladin so we need a healer-type if we want to have a strong guild."
"Guild?" Lance narrows his eyes. This is getting lamer by the second.
"Flannelcat. That's our guild. Chris named it, isn't that great? It's us and, um, Nick Carter-"
"Wait. Wait. Nick fucking Carter is playing this game? And he's in our-your-cat thing?"
"Flannelcat. Yeah. And AJ, but he doesn't play much because he's trying to stay away from things that are addictive."
"Of course he is. Does, um. Does Justin know about the guilded cat thing?"
JC makes a face. "Justin wouldn't understand. He can't even check his email without Rachel walking him through it."
"Okay fine," Lance says, shaking his head. "I'm in."
*
When Wendy hands Lance the phone and says, "Um, I think Britney Spears is calling you," Lance has no idea what to expect. Some fucked up paparazzi posing as Britney to get a story, some fucked up fan posing as Britney because she's psycho, Chris posing as Britney because he thinks it's funny (and because he's a psycho). He never thinks it might actually be Britney, but then she says, "Lance, sweetie, it's awesome that you're joining Flannelcat and all, but I think we need to discuss your race options. You should know we are strictly Alliance and that I'm the only Draenei allowed," and he realizes the entire world has gone fucking insane.
"So, um. You're doing this cat thing, too?"
Lance can practically hear her rolling her eyes. "It's a very respected guild, Lance," she says, snapping her gum loudly on her end of the phone. "You should be fucking honored that JC is even letting you in. I hope you're gonna work hard to level up so you'll actually be useful to us at some point."
"Um," says Lance. He feels dizzy, suddenly, and he's pretty sure that he's been swallowed by some crazy dimensional worm-hole thing that's taken him to this alternate universe in which Britney talks about guilds and levels and somehow manages to form complete sentences, too. "Shouldn't you be, like. Doing therapy or something? Because of that whole mental breakdown thing?"
"This is my therapy, stupid. I have to prove I can interact with people in a normal way without, like, any enmushing or inappropriate attachment."
"Couldn't you just find a support group or something?"
"But then I wouldn't get to kill things for shiny prizes."
Somehow, that makes the most sense of anything in the past year.
*
Lance's relationship with Justin is more of a non-relationship, in that they haven't talked directly to each other in over a year and Lance is pretty sure he doesn't even like Justin anymore, if he ever did. But Wendy is like, friends with Rachel or something, or at least friends in the way that assistants end up being friends with other assistants because that's who they talk to all day even if they've only met maybe three times total, but they're friends and that means Wendy always knows what Justin's doing. For some reason, she thinks Lance needs to be constantly updated as to Justin's goings on, which he doesn't, because he doesn't care and they're not even friends, so.
He doesn't say that to Wendy, though, because the last time he tried, she gave him this kicked puppy look, rolled her eyes, and then called him a child. And she told his mom, and his mom said, "Now Lance, honey, Justin is one of your oldest friends and he's a good boy, you need to be nicer to him." Now Lance doesn't bother pointing out that Justin left the group and fucked the rest of them over so that now all Chris can do is reality TV, Joey is forced to host bad game shows, and JC is making them all play World of Warcraft. So it's pretty bad, and it's all Justin's fault.
"I talked to Rachel the other day, and she said that Justin's thinking about asking Jessica to marry him," Wendy says, smiling at Lance across the pile of scones on the breakfast table. Lance glares at her. He can't even eat the scones because South Beach strictly forbids white flour carbs, and she's just doing this to torture him, he knows. He should probably fire her and find a new assistant, preferably a hot guy who won't question his Justin hate and might be willing to give him blowjobs.
"Awesome," Lance says. "I hope he's very happy."
Wendy looks at him. "You know that it was never about you, right? He didn't do it on purpose." She has chocolate stuck on her lip from the scone. Lance looks away.
"Yeah, I know," he says. But maybe, he thinks, that's sort of the problem.
When JC comes over to help Lance set up his WoW character ("We just call it 'WoW' for short," JC says, smiling and ridiculously happy, "and what do you think about being a night elf druid? You can turn your steed into a dolphin!"), Lance says, "So Wendy says that Rachel says that Justin's going to ask Jessica to marry him."
JC pauses in his frantic mouse clicking and gives Lance a stern look, says, "Dude, are you still not talking to him?"
"We're not talking to each other, C. There's a difference. I don't know how you can just be cool with him."
"Do you want to have blue skin? And what about hair? Because I think the green goes really well with the pale blue complexion. I'm calling her 'Glinda,' after the Good Witch from-"
"Wait. Her?"
JC frowns. "Didn't I say before? We need you to be a girl. To balance out the guild. It's for the greater good, Lance. I could call her Lancine instead? Or, um, Lancet? Lancelotta?"
"Why don't you just call me ElfWhore69 and get it over with?"
"Oh," JC says, frowning. "I would, but that's really close to Nick's name, and we sort of need to keep things simple so we don't confuse Britney."
*
Lance spends a lot of time playing WoW on his laptop with MTV Hits playing in the background and JC's voice in his ear over their private chat channel, Flannelsync, telling him what to do and where to go so he can level up in time to join the guild for their next big quest. JC's working on something on his own, something involving dragon slaying and healing pants and infiltrating Horde forces as a blood elf paladin thing.
"JC," Lance says, impatiently checking his mana and waiting for it to fill up again before he attacks his next troll cave, "don't you have better things to do than play WoW? Like, uh, aren't you supposed to be releasing an album soon?"
"I only have a few months off until the show starts up again," JC says, "and I need to complete my Quest by then because when the next expansion pack comes out in a few months, it'll be too hard, I'll have to level up to like, seventy or something and it'll take forever, so it's just, you know. Priorities. That's something you could learn about, Lance. It's important to have priorities."
*
And that's it. And now my laundry is done! YAY.
Harry Potter fic based on the Nanny Diaries.
"Wanted: One young witch to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic, and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish being treated like house-elf and being thrown up on literally and figuratively--by everyone in the family." When Nan signs on to work for the Black family, little does she know what's in store for her: a manic depressive mother, an adulterous husband, a deeply disturbed house-elf, and a small boy on the verge of disaster.
Prologue: The Interview
Every summer since the one after my third year at Hogwarts began the same way: with a round of seemingly endless interviews for nanny positions so surreally similar that I'd often wondered if pureblood women are given some sort of secret manual when they become mothers to guide them through.
A typical interview runs something like this:
I am granted entrance into the London townhouse (and they all look the same--austere, imposing, and reeking of old money) by a suspicious house-elf who forces me to wait several minutes while he fetches "Mistress." While I wait I wonder if the house-elf is really fetching her, or if he's secretly testing a stray hair from my cloak with a Progenitor Potion to assure him of the purity of my blood. Wouldn't do for the Mistress to consort with unclean things, after all.
As I wait I take note of my surroundings--an entrance hall like most, wallpapered in some gloomy floral print or, possibly worse, dark wood paneling. The hall always contains some sort of umbrella stand, usually of ogre leg or similar, a large portrait of some prominent ancestor sneering gloomily at me, and an ostentatious, gilt-framed mirror. I check my appearance one last time in the minutes before she arrives: black work robes, plain but of good quality, with only one small stain at the hem from a Potions accident in my final term, hair neat and tidied, shoes scuffed by otherwise nice.
She is always tiny. Her hair is always straight and unnaturally shiny--probably uses the most expensive Glamour products on the market. She is always wearing expensive, tailored robes (no Gladrags off the rack merchandise for her) and some sort of Muggle designer shoes, usually Dolce and Gabana or similar (her abhorrence of all things Muggle does not, apparently, extend to footwear). In her impeccable robes and expensive shoes with her perfectly coifed hair it is almost impossible to imagine her doing anything so undignified as what was required to get her pregnant in the first place.
She ushers me into the small drawing room off the front hall. This is first impression of The Townhouse and it strikes me as dark and a little bit frightening. Everything looks as it should--heavy velvet draperies, antique, spindly furniture that is appropriately feminine for such a room, more portraits in gilded frames--but there are small things that bother me and let me know subtly that this is the ancestral house of a pureblood. Usually its the knickknacks that clue me in: biting snuffboxes that seem innocuous at first, the hand of glory on the mantelpiece, candlesticks that look like silver, but are actually made from the hardened blood of a Veela.
She offers me a seat and rings for the house-elf, asking if I'd like something to drink.
I'm supposed to say, "Tea would be lovely," but am often tempted to ask for a Firewhiskey, just to see her reaction. The house-elf conjures tea and we both sit on uncomfortably straight-backed, delicate chairs. I am in constant fear that my weight will break the chair and I'll spend the rest of my life attempting to repay her for it.
Now we begin the actual Interview. "So," she begins, her voice cultured and every bit the arrogant socialite, "how did you hear about this position?"
This is the part of the Interview in which I outline my family genealogy and enlighten her as to my pureblood status. She is always delighted to hear of my connections to prominent pureblood families. I fail to mention why, if I am so connected, I need a job as a nanny, and she fails to ask, not wanting to ruin her good luck. We talk only briefly about my qualifications, and dance around certain words such as "nanny" and "child care" because they would be distasteful. The closest we come to the subject of me actually taking care of her child is when I wax eloquent about my love of children and my wonderful past experiences over previous summers. I speak about it as if it were a passionate hobby, rather than something I did to make actual money to pay my Hogwart's tuition.
I cite amusing anecdotes about the children I cared for before, saying things like, "I still marvel at little Suzie's absorption with her Nicholas Flamel Alchemy Kit," and "Tommy's obsession with Quidditch led to such fun-filled hours in the park." I tell her how much I love children, love everything to do with them, love their tendency to perform random bits of magic that invariably have me floating on the ceiling, love their Animated Annie dolls and toy broomsticks and peanut butter in my hair and peanut butter on my robes and peanut butter everywhere...
Now she wants to know, if I'm so brilliant, why I would want to take care of her child. She gave birth to it, and she doesn't want to take care of it. She wants to know what I plan to do now that I've graduated, what I think of the state of magical education in Europe, what my parents do for a living. I answer with as much filigree and good breeding as I can muster, and lie about the things I have to. I plan to start my Auror training in the spring, but she mustn't know that. Instead I tell her I want to teach, that my father is a Professor at Hogwarts and I've always wanted to live in France. I'd like to get a position at Beauxbatons, eventually, when one opens up. Mainly, she is trying to ensure that I am not out to steal her husband, jewelry, friends, or child. In that order.
Nanny fact: in every one of my interviews, references are never checked. I am a pureblood. I speak Gobbledygook. My parents went to Hogwarts. I have no visible piercings and have been to see the latest play at the Veela's Vaudevillian. I'm hired.
Now she takes me on the Tour, which exists for the sole purpose of proving to me that 1) I am out of my league and 2) that I will be policing at maximum security to ensure that her child, who is also out of his or her league, does not scuff, snag, spill, curse, charm, or spoil a single element of this townhouse.
It isn't until we arrive in the kitchen that she brings out the rules. There are house-elfs, of course, who will be responsible for preparing meals for the adults and doing all the cleaning and washing, but I will be preparing the child's meals, for which there is another long list of things he can and cannot have:
NO Sugar Quills.
NO Acid Pops.
NO candy at all.
He won't eat anything starting with the letter M.
He loves fizzy drinks.
NO fizzy drinks.
NO caffeine at all, EVER.
All servings are to be measured out before hand--NO additional food is permissible.
All pumpkin juice is to be watered down and drunk out of an Imperturbably Charmed cup (preferably until the child is eighteen)
Actually, "if you could get him naked before eating and then hose him down afterward, that would be absolutely perfect."
NO American food.
NO Muggle food.
...and absolutely NO FOOD OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN.
I find myself nodding and saying things like, "Oh dear Lord, yes" to prove to her that we are in this together, and that her child's digestion is extremely important to me. The Tour continues until she guides us to the child's bedroom, which is usually at the farthest point possible from the parent's bedroom. The child is always groomed within an inch of his life and comes hurtling at the mother shrieking with joy. The mother diverts him to me while carefully hiding her revulsion that her child has actually touched her and backs away so that we can get acquainted This is the cue for the Play-With-Child portion of the Interview. I drop to my knees and become psychotically animated. I talk Quidditch and Chocolate Frogs and Gobstones and Marvin the Mad Muggle. I put on an excellent show, whipping the child into a frenzy of hyper.
Afterward she shows me out, handing me my cloak at the door. "So you'll start on Monday, then?" she says, assuming that I'm absolutely dying to spend even more time with her child.
"Yes, all right," I say. And that easy, I'm in.
Chapter 1: The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black
Like most of the families I've worked for, I met the Blacks quite by accident in the park one day, while they were having their picture taken for the Daily Prophet society page. I had just graduated from Hogwarts the week before, and was in the process of desperately trying to find a job before my savings ran out. My Auror training wouldn't start until the spring--until then I needed something to pay my rent and feed my cat with.
Their little boy set eyes on me, escaped his mother, and ran over, practically tackling my legs. He grabbed my hand and, with a mischievous glint in his dark eyes, proclaimed that I should be in the picture too. His mother, a thin, dark-haired woman came over to fetch her son and apologize.
"He's always doing that," she said a little bitterly, but with a bright smile. "Very precocious, Sirius is. Our nanny canceled on us just hours ago, you know how it is. Its so hard to find good help these days."
I nodded. "Dear lord yes. I'm actually looking for a position right now." I smiled at the little boy, who now hid shyly behind his mother's robes. He winked at me cheekily.
"Really?" her gaze flicked over me with renewed interest. "Why don't I give you my card? If you're interested, we could set up a time to meet and have a little chat. The girl we have now is just terribly unreliable..."
I took her card and waved good-bye to Sirius, thinking that if I managed to wrangle the position, I'd need to think up a good nickname for him. Honestly, who burdens a child with a name like that?
I glanced at the card as I walked away. The small square of heavy parchment was black with curly gold lettering on it that shimmered in the sun.
The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, London
I slipped the card into my pocket, vowing to owl Mrs. Black as soon as possible. I was desperate for a position, even one with the Blacks, who I knew by reputation, and my heart went out to the little boy so obviously desperate for attention that he regularly accosted strange witches in the park.
*******
Chapter 1
I waited nervously outside the tall, austere looking mansion on Grimmauld Place, tugging at my robes and half-hoping the house-elf wouldn't answer my ring. At that point I was desperate for cash and would have taken just about anything, even working for a family with the reputation the Blacks had for Dark Arts. Still, I needed the job, and it wasn't the child's fault his parents were a bit mad, after all.
The door of number twelve swung open a few inches to reveal a house-elf dressed in nothing but a loincloth that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the founding of Hogwarts. He looked me up and down suspiciously. "Miss is here for the nanny position, Kreacher supposes?" he asked, jealously guarding the recesses of the house from my view.
"Yes. Please inform Mrs. Black that I am here." I tried my best to sound imperious and commanding, the only tone a house-elf really respected from someone who wasn't in the family he served. The house-elf opened the door a few more inches and gestured that I should come in, leaving me in the hall to fetch his mistress, muttering to himself all the while. He seemed quite mad, but then most of these house-elfs that belonged to old pureblood families were. They became absolutely obsessed, was the problem. Couldn't get on without their masters when they died and often had to be put out of their misery in the event of a death; they'd just die anyway, so locked in their misery that they simply forgot to feed themselves.
I took note of what little I could see of the house while I waited. The obligatory umbrella stand stood near the entrance, and looked to be made of a troll leg--disgusting. I never understood that particular fashion. Who wants a smelly old troll leg holding their umbrella? A large portrait hung on the wall to the left, of a dark haired, stern looking woman. She sneered delicately at me. "You're a pureblood, I hope?" she asked. "The last one was obviously Mudblood. Oh she lied about it, but I could tell. I always can."
I smiled weakly and turned away from the portrait, thinking that with this kind of family, it was a miracle little Sirius had managed to retain any sort of cheer. The rest of the hall was gloomy and dark with a floral patterned wallpaper that did nothing to brighten things up. The floor was covered in a long oriental rug, and a giant silver and crystal chandelier hung overhead, done up in an intricate design of serpents. The Blacks used old-fashioned gas lamps in sconces on the walls, throwing only a dim, yellowish haze across the hall.
I heard the muffled click of Mrs. Black's heels approaching me down the gloomy corridor before I actually saw her. "Right on time," she greeted me with a tight smile. "I can already tell this is going to work out just perfectly. Why don't we go into the drawing room for a spot of tea before you and Sirius start the day?"
I followed her into the drawing room, a truly ugly space done up in shades of green, right down to the puce carpeting and the heavy moss colored velvet drapes. I sat gingerly on the chintz armchair opposite her, sipping my tea and trying not to stare at a particularly vile looking crystal decanter filled with suspicious red liquid. "Sirius is at pre-Wizardry with Kristin now," she explained, sipping her own tea. "We'll go fetch him soon, and I'll introduce you properly."
Kristin, I thought to myself. She must be the one I'm replacing. Lovely. I wondered briefly if Kristin even knew she was being replaced. Sometimes, when the mother was particularly passive agressive, they never informed the old nanny she had been fired, preferring to let girls like Kristin come to that conclusion themselves when a new girl was randomly introduced into the mix.
Mrs. Black waved her wand and a sheaf of parchment appeared on the tea table. At the top of the first page I could see the word 'nanny' scrawled in neat, loopy handwriting. "I've written out a list of instructions and a schedule for you," she told me, handing over the papers.
I glanced at them. Lessons, play dates, meals, baths--even fun was scheduled. Sirius wasn't allowed a wand yet, of course, but he had pre-Wizardry lessons nonetheless. I rifled through the sheets of parchment, noting that Mrs. Black already had him taking three different languages (French, Latin, and Gobbledygook--it was important for wealthy purebloods to be able to speak to their bankers without translators in order to seem more impressive) as well as lessons in recognizing different herbs and potions ingredients, and a "fun with magical creatures" lesson. The kid was busier than I was, with all these lessons and play dates (code for socializing with other pureblood children so as to make early connections to appropriately wealthy families).
"I've scheduled for Sirius to have play dates with a different child each day of the week after pre-Wizardry lessons. Sirius knows his little friends by now, and I don't want him wandering off with any of those children in the park. In fact, I'd prefer you avoid the park altogether." Mrs. Black stared at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to acknowledge that I understood.
"Merlin, yes," I said, nodding and trying to exude a "we are in this together" air.
"I'm glad you see my way of things. And during his lessons, of course, you will be free to run a few errands for myself and Mr. Black. I'm sure you won't mind. It'll just be a few things, you understand, if we don't get to them ourselves. I'll leave a list for you each morning with Kreacher."
"Of course," I said, inwardly wincing. Although my job description did not call for me to fulfill every whim of Mrs. Black, it was something that inevitably happened with every family I'd worked for. It would start out just running a few errands, but eventually turn into planning Mrs. Black's calendar and turning into her social secretary. It wouldn't do to complain about this, of course. In fact, Kristin's complaints were probably the real reason she was being sacked. She wasn't reliable in the sense that she wasn't willing to be Mrs. Black's uncomplaining slave.
She smiled thinly at me and finished her tea with a dainty sip. "If that's settled then, we should head over to the school now to pick up Sirius. As you'll note on his schedule, pre-Wizardry lets out at one. He'll have had lunch. You're to meet his play date in the Flooing station just inside the entrance. I've written down a list of names and the days that go with each. Sirius will know who they are." She frowned down at her shoes--Prada. "I suppose we should walk, so that you can get to know the area. I don't like Sirius Flooing. It's bad for his digestion."
"I understand completely," I said with what I hoped was a sympathetic smile.
We walked the six blocks from Grimmauld Place to Sirius's school, a tall brick building that to me looked like a very nice pre-school with a neat wooden sign out front declaring it to be "Pucey's Preparatory Wizardry Academy." To Muggles, of course, the sign must have read something else, but Mrs. Black didn't stop to explain, simply walked briskly up the brick path and through the polished oak double doors of the school.
It was only just one o'clock and we arrived just as lessons let out. Streams of children emerged from different classrooms, running to their waiting nannies in the Flooing station. The station itself was fairly typical: three large fireplaces on either side of a waiting area, young women with strollers already queuing up to leave, just waiting for their charges to emerge. I saw Sirius immediately, practically running into the station from the left hand corridor and plowing straight into the knees of a young blond woman--probably Kristin.
Mrs. Black hitched a tight smile on her face and approached her son and her soon-to-be former nanny. "Hello darling," she said dismissively to Sirius, who immediately let go of Kristin's legs and climbed docilely into his stroller. "Kristin, this is Nan. She'll be coming along with you today, to see how things are done."
Kristin's eyes settled on me briefly and she nodded. "Of course," she said perfunctorily. I couldn't tell from her expression whether she'd bee aware of the situation beforehand or not.
"I'll just leave you two to it, then," Mrs. Black said with another smile which I was quickly learning to understand meant she was annoyed or displeased about something. "Have fun, darling," she said to Sirius without looking at him. "Be good."
"Yes, Mum," he said. Then: "I love you Mum!"
Another tight smile. "Mummy has to go now, darling. Mummy has important work to do. Be good and get to know Nan." And with a wave she was striding across the entrance hall and out the front doors before Sirius could say anything else.
I knelt down next to him and smiled. "Hullo there, Sirius," I said. "We're going to have lots of fun together, you'll see!"
But he wasn't paying any attention to me. His eyes lingered on the doors through which his mother had disappeared, twin pools of tears appearing in them and threatening to spill onto his cheeks at any moment. Kristin took over then and I was extremely grateful--she seemed to know how to deal with a distressed Sirius very well. In a sequence of motions clearly done so many times it resembled a sychronized dance, Kristin buckled him into the stroller, stuck an Impertably Charmed cup of pumpkin juice into his fist, and simultaneously pushed a celery stick covered in peanut butter into his mouth. Instead of crying, he started chewing, looking a bit disgruntled. Disaster averted.
I smiled weakly at Kristin. "I'm Nan," I told her, although we'd already been introduced. "So, er, who's our play date for this afternoon."
Kristin's nose wrinkled. "It's Severus Snape," she said in a whisper, so that Sirius, who was still munching on his celery, couldn't hear. "Horrid little brat. Sirius loathes him."
"Lovely," I said.
The topic of our conversation approached us just then, or rather, was pushed toward us in a stroller by his nanny, a harrassed-looking young woman with pumpkin juice down the front of her robes. Her charge, a small, dark-haired boy of roughly the same age as Sirius, scowled when he saw us. He squirmed in his stroller, trying to catch his nanny's eye. "Turn back!" he commanded petulantly. "Take me back this instant!"
His nanny gave me a weak smile as I attempted the "kneeling and being cheerful" routine again. "Hullo Severus," I said. "I'm Nan. It's nice to meet you."
I extended my hand for him to shake. He frowned at me, and I couldn't help but think he had the most unfortunate nose I'd ever seen on a child so young. "You're not a Mudblood, are you?" he asked suspiciously. "Mummy says I'm not to touch Mudbloods after washing my hands, or I must go wash them again immediately."
My smile froze on my lips, but I managed not to show my anger that a child so young had already been taught who to hate. "No, I'm not," I told him. He took my hand with reluctance and let it go immediately. "We're going to have loads of fun today." I didn't really believe it. He shrugged as if he didn't really either.
"I thought we'd head over to the park, allow them to let off some steam," Severus's nanny suggested.
Kristin and I exchanged glances, and I knew immediately that Mrs. Black had given her the same lecture about the dangers of children at the park that she had given me. She agreed with a shrug, though, and I fell into place beside her as we left the school.
Kristin and Annie, Severus's nanny, chatted compainionably as we walked the four blocks to the local park. "So you've been sacked, then?" Annie asked bluntly. "Well, you lasted longer than the last one, anyway."
Kristin just shrugged again. "I knew it was coming, obviously. If it weren't for Sirius, I would've left months ago. That Woman is a slave driver." She snuck a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. "I'd be careful if I were you, Nan. She's off her rocker, Mrs. Black is."
I raised my eyebrows questioningly. "She can't be worse than Mrs. Warrington, surely."
"You worked for the Warringtons?" Annie asked. "I've heard she's--what do Muggles call them?--psychotic."
"I wouldn't say she was psychotic, exactly. Although, she did take quite a lot of Sedative Solutions and was constantly performing Cheering Charms on herself." Mrs. Warrington hadn't been crazy, but she'd been close. At the time I'd wondered if it was possible to overdose on Cheering Charms. She always had this very scary smile on her face, like her lips had been stretched and pinned back to her ears. I far preferred Mrs. Black's tight smile--at least it was small and didn't give the impression on a clown on crack.
Just then the inevitable happened--Sirius bit Severus. It never failed. When you tried to force two kids who hated the sight of one another to spend time together, biting was always an issue. Biting and poking, followed by unnecessarily loud yelling. As if on cue, Severus threw his head back and began howling.
"He bit me! I hate him! I want to go hooooome! Wait till Mum hears about this! Take me hoooome Annie, or I'll tell Mum and she'll sack you!" His face scrunched up, all except that unfortunate nose, which was simply too big to scrunch. He even managed to produce a few tears, but I could tell he was angry more than anything else. His face was quickly turning from red to a splotchy purple. Annie just rolled her eyes and continued pushing the stroller.
"Sirius," Kristin said, her voice holding a slight warning. She ruined it by winking at him. "You know it's not nice to bite."
"Wasn't trying to be nice," Sirius explained. "Hate Sevris."
"Er, well. What would your mummy say if she heard you'd bitten the son of one of her friends?" Kristin tried.
Sirius frowned and his eyes immediately filled with tears. "Sh-she'd say I was bad." He stared at Kristin pleadingly. I shook my head. I'd need to be tougher if I was going to withstand that look.
"Well now that you know, I suppose we won't have to tell her."
Sirius brightened immediately. He turned to Severus, who had calmed down a little after much whispered conversation with Annie. "Sorry Sevris," he mumbled, looking to Kristin for approval. She nodded encouragingly.
Severus glared at him, somehow managing to look imperious, despite being a four year old. "Well I don't forgive you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't just go 'round biting people. It's not be...befitting a pureblood." He recited the words as if he'd memorized them without knowing precisely what they meant. Which he probably had.
Sirius didn't reply. Instead he stuck his tongue out at Severus and eyed his arm as if he was considering a judicious use of teeth again. Luckily we arrived at the park at that moment. I unbuckled Sirius from his stroller and we had some time to talk as the two boys took off across the grass to the sandbox.
"If she asks," Kristin said as we settled onto a bench near the sandbox, "we took them to the museum. We toured the Wizard's portrait gallery and they talked to Merlin. But I doubt she'll ask."
"She doesn't take much of an interest in him, does she?" I asked, watching as Sirius filled a bucket with sand. He cupped his hands together to form a makeshift shovel and began scooping sand with extreme care, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth.
Kristin grunted. "She takes an interest when it's in her interest to do so. Usually she ignores him completely, except for when she drags him out to prove what a perfect family and perfect life she has. It's disgusting, really, the way these women use their children to compete with each other."
Annie shook her head. "Mine does the same thing. Only Sev isn't quite as cute as one would like, is he?" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "His nose didn't use to be quite so... unpleasant, before. Then she tried to shrink it, and overnight it grew back, bigger than it'd been before. Poor little bugger. He'll never get a date."
"At least he's shown signs of magic," Kristin replied, watching Sirius with a morose expression on her face. "Sirius... hasn't. Nothing."
"He's only four!" I protested. "Loads of kids don't show anything until later--six, sometimes as late as eight years old."
"Mrs. B is convinced he's a you-know-what," Kristin said. She smiled sarodnically. "We don't say the 's' word at Grimmauld Place. From what I gather every Black since the beginning of time has shown by the age of four. Ridiculous, placing those kinds of expectations on a child too young to understand what it means. He tries, you know. But he doesn't really understand it isn't something you can make happen."
After the park, during which Sirius managed to bite Severus twice more and Severus began kicking him in retaliation, we separated from Annie and made our way to Diagon Alley via the Knave Bus, the London local version of the Knight Bus. Mrs. Black had given me a list of things she wanted picked up from the Apothecary. I left Kristin and Sirius at
Yes, I really left off in the middle of a sentence. Wow.
*
Jensen is a governess fic. No, I don't even understand what I was trying to do here. If anyone else can figure it out...
Jensen always knew that he would end up as a governess, he just never expected it to suck so much.
He tries to tell himself that this is what happens when you're an orphan or a bastard child or whatever-you grow up in an orphanage and you might have manners and a good education, but it's not like there's anything you can do with it and you don't have breeding so no one's ever going to marry you. No one worth fucking or bearing children for, anyway. So you end up a governess in some rich man's house, taking care of his kids and making sure they don't ever have to end up like you and it just, it's awful.
On the one hand, you don't get all stretched out trying to birth an heir for your husband, which Jensen definitely sees as a perk because he was present during exactly one birthing at the orphanage and it was quite possibly the most disgusting, horrifying thing he's ever seen. So he's glad that he'll never have to do that, because-ouch-but on the other hand, he still has to take care of kids and be around them all the time and probably, he's going unfulfilled or whatever, because he'll never be a wife and mother. He's heard it's sort of the ultimate aspiration, and yeah, the idea of pretty dresses and his own horse and maybe trips to the coast on holiday is pretty nice. Parties that he can attend for a reason other than there being an odd number of people, having his own maid, even. But Jensen will never know, because he's a governess and being a governess, Jensen thinks, really fucking sucks.
Not that the Padelackis are a bad family or whatever, because they're not. Jared is pretty cool, actually, one of the nicest rich people Jensen's ever met, and the kids are all right, even if Jensen thinks there are sort of a lot of them for Mr Padelacki being so young. Jensen would never say it outloud, but he's not exactly surprised that Mr Padelacki's wife died birthing their youngest child. Popping out kids one after another will do that to a woman, and really, Jensen thinks that maybe Mr Padelacki could've kept it in his pants for a month or two, let his wife rest, or at least found a tavern wench or a slutty housemaid if he really needed it that badly.
Men have urges that they feel an overwhelming desire to satisfy. At least, that's what the nuns at the orphanage were always telling them, and also to never show your ankles in public, because any sort of ankle-revealing was sure to lead to sinning and men attempting to satisfy the aforementioned desires on your person, which they will assume to be loose because you are, after all, just a governess. Jensen's not sure what's so great about ankles, anyway, but considering the fate of poor Mrs Padelacki, he's always very careful with his.
So aside from pretty much having murdered his wife via baby overload, Mr Padelacki is pretty cool. If the circumstances were different and Jensen had, like, breeding and maybe a dowry and shit, then maybe something could've happened between them, but instead Jensen's just the governess to Jared's four reasonable well-behaved kids.
The very pretty governess who is much prettier than, say, Miss Mary Beth Hadley of Shady Grove, a girl who looks more like a horse than a person, Jensen thinks, and is currently proving that she can't, in actuality, no matter how much her mama spent on lessons for the past ten years, play the pianoforte at all.
Jensen sighs and tries not to stare at the clock, but seriously, with this chick playing something that sounds like it belongs in a wrecking yard and doesn't remotely resemble Mozart, he's not sure how much longer he can stand it. The rest of the dinner guests look equally appalled, aside from Miss Jane Winthrop and her mother, who both look absolutely delighted by the display. Miss Winthrop, Jensen thinks, is exactly the kind of girl he always hated at the orphanage: bitchy, stupid, and mean. She's the kind of girl who says things like, "Why Governess, you're looking absolutely skinny, lately! Have you given up eating altogether, then?"
Jensen hates her. Sometimes he daydreams about her falling off her horse and breaking something, like her head. But only sometimes. He tries not to waste his time with uncharitable thoughts because he is, after all, a good Christian and he's trying to raise Mr Padelacki's kids in moral righteousness, or something. Also, he doesn't want to lose his job, because if there's one thing that sucks even more than being a governess, it's being homeless. Or a whore.
Yeah, he thinks as he claps politely when Miss Hadley finishes the song, finally, with an attempt at a flourish that ends up as more of a bang, pretty much anything's better than being a whore, even this.
*
The thing Jensen misses the most about when he first started this job is the wet nurse.
Which sounds pretty weird if he really stops to think about it, because missing a woman whose job it is to pretty much leak milk on command well, yeah. It sounds pretty perverted and weird and sort of gross, actually, but the thing about the wet nurse was, she was in charge of the twins, which meant Jensen got to sleep an extra twenty minutes in the morning and also, he only had to deal with one set of dirty diapers.
Now it's two sets and the twins are much more prolific in their output than Annie ever was. He can't believe he actually misses a time when he had to deal with a three year old who was so terrified of the chamber pot that she absolutely refused to use it until Jensen was forced to tell her that every time she wet herself, a fairy angel died a horrible, grisly death. He can't believe he actually misses the horror that was Annie's potty training, but staring at the mess the twins make every day, he really, really does.
At least they're almost trained now, too. The mornings are always the worst, though, because Jack doesn't like to get out of bed in the night to use the pot even when he wakes up needing it, and Meg just doesn't wake up at all. Jensen's not sure how you can possibly sleep through shitting yourself that thoroughly, but she does. Every fucking time.
"Jack," Jensen says, sighing and sitting on the edge of his bed. Jack pulls the covers up to his nose and stares at Jensen over them, eyes wide and innocent like he has no idea what he did wrong, even though he's pretty much lying in it. Which-gross. "Jack, sweetie, you have to use the pot when you feel the need to go. Wouldn't it be so much more comfortable not to have to wear diapers anymore? Don't you want to be a big boy?"
"But Miss Jensen," Jack says in a loud whisper, "there's. Things. Scary things. Under the bed. And if I get up to use the pot they'll get me and eat my legs off!"
Jensen ducks down and looks under the bed. Dust, a stray stocking, and more dust. "There's nothing there, Jack. I promise."
"They only come at night," he says, nodding. "And they're hungry."
"For legs."
"Yup. And sometimes arms, too."
Jensen stands up with another sigh and pulls back the covers. "Okay, come on. No leg monsters in the day, so let's get you dressed. Your father wants to see you at breakfast today."
Jack slides out of bed and you can only thank god for rubber sheets as you help Jack get ready while Meg runs around the circular design on the rug, giggling and holding her nightdress over her knees until she gets dizzy and falls over.
As long as there aren't any bodily fluids leaking from her, he thinks, it's probably an improvement.
*
Each day at Lorelei Manor varies widely from one to the next and at this point, Jensen has ceased attempting to enforce any sort of regularly scheduled programming. For a while he tried writing up the daily plan and pinning it to everyone's door each morning, but considering that half the children could barely read, the other half could barely talk, and Jensen had serious doubts about Mr Padelacki's ability to do either in a manner befitting a gentleman of his wealth and class, Jensen gave up on that plan almost immediately.
Instead, he lives in chaos, and he really fucking hates it.
Breakfast is a practical free-for-all, what with the twins flinging bits of egg at each other across the table and Annie's new-found hobby of seeing how many times she can kick Kate in the shins beneath the table before Kate, a child so mild-mannered that sometimes Jensen has to check for a pulse, starts to notice. Mr Padelacki just smiles and asks them inane questions about their schoolwork and how's Kate coming along with her pony and does Jack want to come out riding with him in the afternoon. He reads his newspaper and drinks his coffee and doesn't even attempt to help Jensen keep the twins from starting an all-out food fight. In fact, he'd probably want to join in. Mr Padelacki is practically a heathen on his best days, really, so it's almost surprising that his children manage to function in polite society at all. Jensen doesn't feel remiss in taking all the credit. Jensen has lovely manners, he thinks as he scolds Jack and threatens to take Meg's plate away entirely if she doesn't stop assaulting people with its contents.
"And then you'll just have to starve until luncheon," Jensen says, giving her his most stern look. He should have a monacle, or at least an intimidating-looking pair of spectacles, for this shit. Meg giggles and waves a piece of bacon around over her head, but when Jensen narrows his eyes at her, she stuffs it in her mouth instead of throwing it, so that's an improvement, at least.
After breakfast Jensen herds the kids to the second drawing room for lessons. He sets Kate and Annie up with their latest sewing project-shirts for the poor, although what a vagabond is going to do with a hand-sewn, ruffled shirt with a delicately-embroidered flower trim, Jensen hasn't a clue-and sits Jack and Meg down at the table with their readers.
And then it's luncheon, complete with an appearance from Miss Megan, Mr Padelacki's sister, his insane cousin Chad, who spends most of his time drooling and talking to himself in the attic, and Old Mrs. Padelacki, who narrows her eyes and purses her lips at Jensen, saying in a rather disapproving tone, "My dear, are you quite sure that neckline is standard? Because from here it looks as though it's at least two inches below chin height!"
Cousin Chad takes the opportunity to leer at Jensen and comment, "Oh yes, Auntie, I do believe you're correct as usual. Our little governess seems to lack both a sense of fashion and decorum. The example she's setting for the girls is simply atrocious and if I had my way-"
"Shut it, Chad," Miss Megan says, grinning at Jensen and helping Meg with her soup spoon. "No, come on Meggie, you can't just slurp from the bowl, that's not how a lady does it. Anyway," she says, turning to glare at Chad, "like you would know anything about fashion. Or are they delivering sketches of the latest trends to the attic these days?"
Mr Padelacki glances up from his soup, looking down the long table to examine Jensen's dress, which probably is about ten years out of date, but by no means is there anything at all wrong with the neckline. Jensen's not a slut and he doesn't dress like one, for fuck's sake. You can't even see his collarbones in this dress, the neckline is so high. Jensen studies his own bowl of soup, takes a careful sip, gently corrects Kate's posture with a whispered, "You don't want to get a hump and end up like Cousin Chad, do you?" until Kate giggles and sticks her tongue out at Annie, who can't reach Kate under the table to kick her, but makes an exceedingly ugly face instead.
Padelacki hides a smile behind his hand and says carefully, "Now, mama. I think Miss Jensen's dress is fine. Sandy's things were always much more revealing so I'm sure it's all perfectly up to code or whatever."
"Yes, well," Mrs Padelacki mumbles under her breath, "Sandy was a trashy little whore, wasn't she?"
"What's that, mama?"
"Sandy wasn't someone you'd ignore!" she says loudly. "Charming girl. Very, um. Fertile, you know."
"She was, wasn't she?" Padelacki says wistfully.
"Can we not talk about our dead mother at luncheon, please?" Annie says. "I'm trying to eat, here, and this soup sucks enough as it is."
I think there was going to be a whole Virgin Ghost Bride plot and uh, sham marriages and things. I can't even remember now.
*
A popslash AU based on 'Gone' that I started for Autumn Challenge a million years ago and never finished. It's pretty good actually. Hmm.
"This is Fullerton. Doors open on the left at Fullerton. This is a train to Howard."
Justin pushes his way through the crush of commuters to the doors, hitching his messenger bag more securely onto his shoulder and rubbing at his eyes while he waits for the train to jerk to a stop and let him off. It's been a long day in a long week in a long month, and his internship is only just beginning. He knew being a doctor would be hard. He knew going into it that classes were just the beginning and everything would get a million times harder once he actually started interning. He just didn't expect to be so fucking tired all the time. All that, and he hasn't even gotten to do any surgeries yet. He hasn't even gotten to stand in the OR while surgeries are performed.
He's getting really good at stitches, though.
The train stops and Justin steps onto the platform, turns around in a circle for a moment to get his bearings. He's still not used to the north side but Giselle wanted to move. Hyde Park was too dangerous, she said. Too hard to get anywhere from there, not enough of a nightlife. So they moved to Wicker Park even though it takes Justin an hour to get home and back to the hospital now, but it's fine, Justin thinks as he climbs the escalator and emerges from the train tunnel onto the small square in the neighborhood's center. He can use the time to catch up on his reading, to study his case reports, so actually it's better this way.
And besides, it's for Giselle, so it's worth it.
It's a quick walk to their building, just a few blocks down on Ellen Street, and it really is a nice building. Wood flooring and new mouldings and a southern view of the skyline. Justin takes the stairs two at a time, wrinkling his nose at the debris someone has left on the stairway-three empty beer cans and a torn-up weekly ads page. He opens the door to their apartment, drops his messenger bag on the floor and toes off his shoes.
"Ellie?" he calls out, heading for the living room. "Ellie, I'm back!"
He stops dead in the hallway, staring into the empty living room. Bare wood floors, the only light coming in from the windows-the long shadows of late afternoon. The built-in bookshelves that Giselle was ecstatic over when they first saw the place are empty; all the posters and artwork are missing from the walls. Even the curtains are gone, the ones she insisted they buy even though Justin thought they were too expensive and also, made the room look too girly. Everything's gone, and for a moment, he wonders what kind of thief steals curtains, of all things. And then he knows.
She's gone. She's gone, and she took everything with her.
*
"Fuck off, I'm sleeping," is how JC answers his phone.
"C, it's me. I need help. I'm, I don't really know what happened, but I just, and she's. She's gone, and she took all the furniture and my clothes and my shoes. She took my shoes, C."
"What the fuck are you talking about? I was having a really good dream, Justin. Really good. About the psych intern, you know, the one with eyes and he was doing this amazing thing with his tongue in my-"
"JC! Can we discuss your pervy fantasies about interns later? This is important." Justin pauses, clears his throat. He feels like he has a giant lump in it and it's actually pretty painful. Looking around the empty apartment only makes it worse and he just, he needs to not be here right now. He can't believe she's actually gone.
"Okay, okay. But I'm telling you, this tongue thing was totally amazing."
"She left me, JC. She's just. She's gone. And I don't. She's gone."
"Justin, are you sure? Because I don't wanna come over there and find out that she just went to the salon for the day. Again."
"Somehow, I don't think she'd take the couch with her to the salon."
"Yeah, that's probably a good assumption." JC pauses. "Are you. No, okay, of course not. She really took your shoes?"
"Every last pair."
"What a bitch. Okay, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. You can't stay there."
*
That night is one of the worst of Justin's life, even though JC spent several hours trying to make him feel better with hot chocolate and bad reality television, but not even watching the Dr. Will episodes of Big Brother managed to cheer him up. Plus, JC's couch is incredibly uncomfortable so he didn't actually sleep that much, either, and now he's back at the hospital, bleary eyed and ready to drop and unable to care about much of anything, because Giselle left him and she took all his shit, even his underwear.
It just, it really sucks. He can't figure out if he's sad or angry, but at the moment, he's too exhausted to try.
"Timberlake!" Chris snaps his fingers in front of Justin's face. "Wake up, kid, it's time for rounds."
The idea of Justin as a surgical intern is still hilarious to me. I can't even remember what pairing this was going to be. I think JC was a psych intern, which is also hilarious. I was watching S1 of Grey's Anatomy when I wrote this.
*
A tiny bit of a skater AU I was going to write for a JuC something-or-other. I had just watched the X-Games. Yesterday the World Championships were on and the PLG won again and Bucky didn't even place, very sad. He tried the 720 though and almost made it, but he didn't stay on so. Anyway. Fic.
Ever since Justin showed up, they don't really go to the beach anymore. Even in the summer when the waves are fierce, they just don't bother. Instead they head out to suburbs to skate the swimming pools left empty from the drought and it's always a mission to find the best ones with the smoothest bottoms and the sweetest curves. It's like surfing but better, because there's this sense of danger you don't get from the water. You can't bail on concrete, you just end up bloody instead. No, you gotta see it through when you're skating, and there's no one waiting for you on a jetski to pull you free. So yeah, JC thinks, skating is even better than surfing, maybe way better, even, because it doesn't fuck up your hair with all the salt water and shit.
JC really likes his hair the way it is, thanks. He already has to condition twice a day, and even then sometimes it gets all dry and frizzy and he has to wear a bandanna, which, style wise, really doesn't work for him. JC is not hip hop, like, at all.
*
Chris gets them a backer. Well, Chris gets them Lou, anyway, because they all want to get more serious about competing and they can't do it without sponsorship. JC hates Lou. He's fat and gross and has really bad hair, besides which, he doesn't know anything about skating or bmx. JC bets that Lou couldn't even balance on a pair of inlines, and everyone knows inlines are for total pussies too scared to get on a board or a bike.
But Lou does have money and he rents them a house with a huge backyard and a good-sized swimming pool that they spend an entire day draining. Lance has been designing a ramp in his free time and JC does the harder bits of math for him, goes over the geometry to make sure the angles aren't too steep or so flat they won't get any air.
This was going to end in a Big Air competition. And that's all I remember.
*
I started writing this for the Dragon challenge. JC convinces Lance to join his World of Warcraft guild. This is actually pretty hilarious. But so much research! Luckily, my friends are all fonts of WoW knowledge. Maybe I will finish it someday. I can't even remember what pairing it was going to be, though.
Lance doesn't like video games. Well, he thinks wii tennis is okay, and Mario Party can be fun as long as he's winning, but mostly, he doesn't like video games and thinks they're a waste of time he could be spending doing something actually useful, like being a gay rights activist or going to the gym to pick up hot guys. But JC says, "C'mon, man, it'll be so fun. You'll love it, I promise. When have I ever steered you wrong?" and Lance wants to say, what about the time in Germany when you took me to the drag bar, but then he realizes that probably, that wasn't a mistake at all. He wants to say that he hates video games and spending hours in front of the computer like it's some sort of office job or something, and he hates pretending to be other people because he's pretty fucking happy being himself, and under no circumstances has he ever wanted to be a warrior-mage-elf from the mystical land of Cathula.
He wants to say all that, but JC is looking at him sad eyes and saying, "I read your book, dude, I think you owe me," and since Lance didn't even read his book, he thinks JC probably has a point. He takes the box promising him amazing quests in the entirely new continent of Outland from JC and sighs. The man on the box is blue, and has tentacles attached to his face.
"Fine," Lance says, "but I'm not going to be a dwarf or something stupid like that."
"No no, that's good, because Chris is already a dwarf and Joey's a paladin so we need a healer-type if we want to have a strong guild."
"Guild?" Lance narrows his eyes. This is getting lamer by the second.
"Flannelcat. That's our guild. Chris named it, isn't that great? It's us and, um, Nick Carter-"
"Wait. Wait. Nick fucking Carter is playing this game? And he's in our-your-cat thing?"
"Flannelcat. Yeah. And AJ, but he doesn't play much because he's trying to stay away from things that are addictive."
"Of course he is. Does, um. Does Justin know about the guilded cat thing?"
JC makes a face. "Justin wouldn't understand. He can't even check his email without Rachel walking him through it."
"Okay fine," Lance says, shaking his head. "I'm in."
*
When Wendy hands Lance the phone and says, "Um, I think Britney Spears is calling you," Lance has no idea what to expect. Some fucked up paparazzi posing as Britney to get a story, some fucked up fan posing as Britney because she's psycho, Chris posing as Britney because he thinks it's funny (and because he's a psycho). He never thinks it might actually be Britney, but then she says, "Lance, sweetie, it's awesome that you're joining Flannelcat and all, but I think we need to discuss your race options. You should know we are strictly Alliance and that I'm the only Draenei allowed," and he realizes the entire world has gone fucking insane.
"So, um. You're doing this cat thing, too?"
Lance can practically hear her rolling her eyes. "It's a very respected guild, Lance," she says, snapping her gum loudly on her end of the phone. "You should be fucking honored that JC is even letting you in. I hope you're gonna work hard to level up so you'll actually be useful to us at some point."
"Um," says Lance. He feels dizzy, suddenly, and he's pretty sure that he's been swallowed by some crazy dimensional worm-hole thing that's taken him to this alternate universe in which Britney talks about guilds and levels and somehow manages to form complete sentences, too. "Shouldn't you be, like. Doing therapy or something? Because of that whole mental breakdown thing?"
"This is my therapy, stupid. I have to prove I can interact with people in a normal way without, like, any enmushing or inappropriate attachment."
"Couldn't you just find a support group or something?"
"But then I wouldn't get to kill things for shiny prizes."
Somehow, that makes the most sense of anything in the past year.
*
Lance's relationship with Justin is more of a non-relationship, in that they haven't talked directly to each other in over a year and Lance is pretty sure he doesn't even like Justin anymore, if he ever did. But Wendy is like, friends with Rachel or something, or at least friends in the way that assistants end up being friends with other assistants because that's who they talk to all day even if they've only met maybe three times total, but they're friends and that means Wendy always knows what Justin's doing. For some reason, she thinks Lance needs to be constantly updated as to Justin's goings on, which he doesn't, because he doesn't care and they're not even friends, so.
He doesn't say that to Wendy, though, because the last time he tried, she gave him this kicked puppy look, rolled her eyes, and then called him a child. And she told his mom, and his mom said, "Now Lance, honey, Justin is one of your oldest friends and he's a good boy, you need to be nicer to him." Now Lance doesn't bother pointing out that Justin left the group and fucked the rest of them over so that now all Chris can do is reality TV, Joey is forced to host bad game shows, and JC is making them all play World of Warcraft. So it's pretty bad, and it's all Justin's fault.
"I talked to Rachel the other day, and she said that Justin's thinking about asking Jessica to marry him," Wendy says, smiling at Lance across the pile of scones on the breakfast table. Lance glares at her. He can't even eat the scones because South Beach strictly forbids white flour carbs, and she's just doing this to torture him, he knows. He should probably fire her and find a new assistant, preferably a hot guy who won't question his Justin hate and might be willing to give him blowjobs.
"Awesome," Lance says. "I hope he's very happy."
Wendy looks at him. "You know that it was never about you, right? He didn't do it on purpose." She has chocolate stuck on her lip from the scone. Lance looks away.
"Yeah, I know," he says. But maybe, he thinks, that's sort of the problem.
When JC comes over to help Lance set up his WoW character ("We just call it 'WoW' for short," JC says, smiling and ridiculously happy, "and what do you think about being a night elf druid? You can turn your steed into a dolphin!"), Lance says, "So Wendy says that Rachel says that Justin's going to ask Jessica to marry him."
JC pauses in his frantic mouse clicking and gives Lance a stern look, says, "Dude, are you still not talking to him?"
"We're not talking to each other, C. There's a difference. I don't know how you can just be cool with him."
"Do you want to have blue skin? And what about hair? Because I think the green goes really well with the pale blue complexion. I'm calling her 'Glinda,' after the Good Witch from-"
"Wait. Her?"
JC frowns. "Didn't I say before? We need you to be a girl. To balance out the guild. It's for the greater good, Lance. I could call her Lancine instead? Or, um, Lancet? Lancelotta?"
"Why don't you just call me ElfWhore69 and get it over with?"
"Oh," JC says, frowning. "I would, but that's really close to Nick's name, and we sort of need to keep things simple so we don't confuse Britney."
*
Lance spends a lot of time playing WoW on his laptop with MTV Hits playing in the background and JC's voice in his ear over their private chat channel, Flannelsync, telling him what to do and where to go so he can level up in time to join the guild for their next big quest. JC's working on something on his own, something involving dragon slaying and healing pants and infiltrating Horde forces as a blood elf paladin thing.
"JC," Lance says, impatiently checking his mana and waiting for it to fill up again before he attacks his next troll cave, "don't you have better things to do than play WoW? Like, uh, aren't you supposed to be releasing an album soon?"
"I only have a few months off until the show starts up again," JC says, "and I need to complete my Quest by then because when the next expansion pack comes out in a few months, it'll be too hard, I'll have to level up to like, seventy or something and it'll take forever, so it's just, you know. Priorities. That's something you could learn about, Lance. It's important to have priorities."
*
And that's it. And now my laundry is done! YAY.