For eseme‘s prompt

Jamian and Ty are characters in Addergoole

Summer between Years 5 & 6 of the Addergoole School

“I’ve been thinking about the kids.”

Tya’s hands wandered over Jamian’s body as he spoke, the conversation so out of tune with what his hands were doing that Jamian thought, maybe, that his lover wasn’t really paying attention to either.

“Our kids?” he offered, trying not to say my kids.

“Our kids. us as kids. Growing up in this world.”

“Heavy thoughts.” He moved Ty’s hand up to his shoulder.

“I try once in a while, you know. And I was thinking about this summer camp Regine runs…”

“Ty, they’re still breastfeeding. They can’t walk or talk yet.”

“Well, not this summer, but they’ll grow up, you know. And Mies is almost old enough…”

“And Anise has Mies well in hand. Besides, is a Regine summer camp the best idea?”

“Well, I mean, it would be your decision, of course.” It was clear that grated on Ty, even without empathy. “But it didn’t do me any harm.”

“Ty… love, lover, you grew up with no idea of what the outside world was like.”

“And you grew up out there, and spend your childhood thinking you were a freak.”

“Well, I’m not exactly normal.”

“And it worries me, you going around thinking that, with our babies both the same as we are.”

“And it worries me you thinking half-breed is somehow inferior, around our half-breed babies.” Jamian propped himself up on an elbow, no longer feeling like being petted. “Ty, what’s this really about?”

Ty sighed. “I keep putting my foot in it about the kids, don’t I? I miss them, Jame’. I miss you.”

“You’re welcome to visit any time you want.”

“But it’s not… they were mine, and then they weren’t.” He sulked lightly. “You don’t even remember summer camp, do you?”

“Kinda? I mean, I went to camp a couple summers.”

“So did I. Same camp, Jame’. I remembered you the first time I saw you, here.”

Same camp… Jamian blinked at Ty. “That was… oh, wow, that was you. I had such a crush on him… uh. You!” He’d tried to forget that, all these years.

And it was the right thing to say. Ty grinned, his hands sliding down between Jamian’s legs. “You do remember. I’m glad.”

Jamian surrendered control once again. It seemed to make Ty happy, and it cost him nothing, here, in bed. As he ran his fingers through Ty’s curls, though, he remembered, faintly, the golden curls he’d tried for so long to forget.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/375653.html. You can comment here or there.

For Imaginary’s prompt. Warning, the middle bit with Shad has suggestions of abuse and overuse of the word “pussy.”

Sharach, Meshach, Agatha, and Acacia are characters in Addergoole

Nine years before Addergoole Year 5

“And then we’ll head to Italy, and you’ll go to the college prep summer camp.”

“Mom, I want to go to Italy with you and Dad.” Ten-year-old Agatha frowned at her mother, not pouting: pouting was unattractive. “The camp has bugs.” And everyone was bigger than her there. Everyone was bigger than her everywhere, but it was worse at summer camp.

“Agatha, you went with us to France and Spain. We need some alone time, and you need to starting thinking about college.”

“But I don’t like it there.”

“I suggest you learn, young lady.”

Two weeks later, Agatha tucked the last of her belongings into her billet – the worst bunk, in the back of the cabin, but the other girls had gotten there first – and headed out into the well-manicured grounds. Perhaps she could find a place to hide, before the other kids got settled in.

She stopped just short of running into a tall, broad-shouldered boy. A bully-sort, but he wasn’t smiling meanly. “Hello,” she offered.

“Hi.” His smile looked real. If he liked her, everyone else would leave her alone.

“I’m Agatha.” She offered him a hand. “Do you want to be my friend?”

Eight years before Addergoole Year 5

“Come on, Shad, don’t be a pussy.” His older brother Meshach was halfway up the edge of the gorge. Shad glanced back behind him, then back up at the wall of rock. He cleared his throat, and called back.

“Come on, Neg, don’t be a pussy.” He reached out an arm for their little brother Abednego. “We’re going up the wall, there.”

“It looks awfully high, Shad.” Trust Abed to voice it, so that Shad had to think about the damn thing. He punched the little whiner in the arm.

“It’s not that high. Maybe as tall as our house. We jumped off that last year.” He wished his voice would stop squeaking. It made him sound like a pussy. Meshach’s didn’t to that.

“You broke your leg doing that.” And then their dad had broken his arm, for good measure, for being stupid enough to jump off the roof.

“Look, just shut up and let’s climb the damn thing, okay, before Meshach has to come back down and get us.” He grabbed his little brother’s arm, and hoisted him to the first ledge. “Hold on tight, and don’t let go. We can do this.”

“We can.” It killed him, sometimes, how much Abednego trusted him. But he trusted Meshach… and Meesh trusted Dad. He wasn’t sure any of it made sense.

Seven years before Addergoole Year 5

“I’ll be home by dark.” Acacia threw the lie over her shoulder as she ducked out the screen door.

“Don’t do anything wild and reckless.” It was her mother’s joke, although it had never been quite a joke.

“Nothing tooooo wild.” She grinned at the door and then took off running. She would have to hurry to be back before Mom started to worry, even if that was long after dark.

Several hours later, on top of the abandoned Terrance Building (Rumor had it, it had once been a psych warn, but too many people had died), she grinned at her friends. “We did it. Now all we have to do is get down without getting caught.”

“That might be problematic. I think I see a police car in the distance. Get down.” Geoff grabbed her neck and pulled her down under the low saftey wall; Acacia rolled and kicked him in the nuts in a move she’d been practicing for months.

As the cop circled the base of the building, 15 stories down, and Geoff rolled in pain, she grinned. “Nothing too wild.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/374410.html. You can comment here or there.

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt

Jamian and Manira are characters in Addergoole

Summer between Years 5 and 6 of the Addergoole School

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

Jamian had to admit, the situation was a bit surreal: him coaxing Manira out with those words?

They had been hanging around the Village for a month, spending time near each other – at first by accident, and then, as he realized how despondent Manira was getting, on purpose, at least from Jamian’s end.

“I should stay here with Caprice.”

“You should get out, before you go all post-partum depression on me. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

This time, at least, he got a small smile. “Isn’t that my line?”

“So use it. Manira, I love my kids, but if I spend every minute of the day staring at them, I’m going to go bonkers.”

“I… what if I do something wrong? I haven’t… I mean, I… damnit.”

He’d figured out that there was something strange about Manira, something she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell, but he still hadn’t figured out what. Right now, it didn’t matter. “Look, I’m the same Cohort as you, so I’ll be around for the next three years. You’ve got me to help – and you’ve got our Mento… okay, never mind that. But you’ve got Maureen, and Caitrin, and Mendosa, and together, we can figure this out.”

“Really? You’d help me?”

He grinned at her, finally feeling like he was doing something right. “You helped me, didn’t you? Come on, the daycare is expecting Caprice – and Dommie and Carey.”

“You nicknamed your kid Dommie?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Wishful thinking, maybe? Look, the rest of the cy’ree – Mags and Anwell, Mea, Joff, and ‘Vette, they’re all waiting for us.”

“Well, all right. But what is there to do around here?”

Now his grin was stretched wide. “They put in a water park the next town over.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/372923.html. You can comment here or there.

For stryck‘s prompt

Finnegan is a character in Addergoole. Efrosin, who was meant to have more lines in this, is a character in Addergoole: Year Nine, coming in September.

Summer between years six and Seven of the Addergoole School (2001)

Summer Camp was, Finnegan decided, one of the best ideas he’d ever had.

When Doug had offered him the job last year, he’d needed something to do that wasn’t think about Allyse or their tiny baby daughter Bailey. Two months hip-deep in other people’s kids had done a good job of that.

This year, he came for the fun, and because he was good at it; he brought Efrosin, because the kid needed to clear his own head.

Camp Red Oak Hill might have a higher percentage of future Addergoole students attending it than any normal camp, but that was a fact known only to the staff and the parents; normal kids came here, too, and the children of fae who weren’t part of Regine’s master plan. It made for a wild, rambunctious mass of children, much like camps he remembered from his own earlier years.

And tonight, looking around the fire at fifty-seven kids, Finnegan felt a dreadful sense of responsibility. He was supposed to look after them. He was supposed to teach them.

He was supposed to send them home, knowing maybe fifteen of them would eventually end up in the halls of Addergoole.

He cleared his throat. “Tonight’s story isn’t quite a ghost story…”

He waited out the obligatory “awwws” and other complaints.

“It’s a monster story instead. You see, when I was coming here, I spoke to the old Indian…”

“The old Native American,” eight-year-old Talitha interrupted.

Two could play at that game. “The old Tuscarora who lives down at the bottom of the hill. And he told me of a monster who used to roam these parts.”

He dropped his voice. “She was a nightmare, they say, the kind of creature that could chill your blood. She ate little children’s hearts for breakfast, and for dinner, she had lady fingers, real lady fingers. Those she didn’t eat, she’d enslave.”

He was really getting into it. “And she was a terror, a real slave-driver. She made her captive work all day without anything at all to eat, and then at night, when she let them rest, she fed them cold bean mush over broccoli.“

Even Efrosin joined in on the collective “Ewwwwwwww.”

“She walked these very hills, living in a cabin up just past the fence-line, where the old stones still sit. And she would come down here, when this camp was first started, and she would steal. Little boys. And little girls, one by one.” He dropped his voice down to a faint whisper.

“What happened to her?” Yuriko was a little old to be getting into the stories this much, but she was leaning forward nearly off of her log. “Did the camp people stop her?”

“Now, that’s the thing. Some people say that she died a natural death. Some people say that her slaves rose up and killed her dead, and buried her body at the crossroads.

“But some people say she never died, and sometimes she walks the paths around the camp, looking for a way in, looking for children to steal.”

And if that didn’t give them nightmares…

“Some people say, she looks just like we do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/371851.html. You can comment here or there.

For Lilfluff‘s prompt

Kendra and Ofir are characters in Addergoole

One week into Summer vacation after Year 5

Kendra had been home for nearly three weeks before anyone came to visit.

She had been settling in, having long conversations with her father and shorter, more uncomfortable conversations with her stepmother and her younger brother ‘Deus.

Her son Falke was still tiny, hungry all the time and cranky when he wasn’t hungry. “Just like your daddy,” she teased him, when nobody else was listening. The truth was, she didn’t mind. He didn’t take that much effort, and her stepmom and dad were more than willing to take most of the burden.

When the doorbell rang, Falke was finally settling down for a nap, so she slipped out the door before the noise could wake him up. “‘Deus is out… oh. Hi.” She swallowed a squeak. These weren’t her brother’s friends, or, at least, they hadn’t been when she left a year ago. “Kale, Nancy, Ashley, Hi. Brittany – are you pregnant? Oh, wow. Justin, you look… good.” Really good. “Hey, Jasmine. New hairdo. Um. How did you all get here?”

“Courtney’s mom let her borrow the van. We heard you were back, but you didn’t stop by.” Brittany’s hands were over her full stomach protectively. “So we thought, you know, maybe we’d stop by…”

“Oh! Hi.” She remembered how to smile after a moment. “Sorry, it’s just been…” Inside, Falke started wailing again. “Well, let’s just say, Brit, if you’re having a boy, I can pass you down a whole bunch of clothes in a month or two.”

She shared a grateful smile with the girl who she’d barely known before she left. At least with Brit pregnant, there would be less questions. Maybe she wouldn’t have to try to explain Ofir, or Jamian, or anything else over the last year.

“So, who’s the dad?” Trust Justin to ruin her plans. And the way he was looking at her, he was remembering that kiss before she left. Kendra flushed.

“Just some jerk.” She hunched her shoulders, thinking about it, thinking about the day he’d lost her. “We’re not together anymore.”

“Just like that?”

“Things were… complicated.” Things were always complicated at Addergoole. “But, ah, I’m home now.”

“Come on, let’s see the baby.” Jasmine pushed the door open. “and then you can tell us all about your year at school, and this jerk. And oh, my god, you would not believe what Terry did to Anna.”

Lock her in a closet? Sell her to his friends? Turn her into a toad? “This way, follow the screaming baby noises. What did he do?”

“Totally cheated on her with Amber. And then pretended it was all her fault.”

“Oh, that sounds… horrible. What did Anna do?” I’d get someone to do a tlacatl on him so he couldn’t get it up for weeks…

“Cried, mostly.”

“Oh, thats… awful.” She paused in the doorway to her room; Falke had settled down to little burbling noises. “Maybe I’ll talk to her.” Give her some pointers.

“And then Amber…” they were on again, and it all sounded so dire, until she thought about a collar locked around her neck. It was going to be a long summer, wasn’t it?

She caught Kale smiling at her, those blue eyes so sincere. But possibly a fun summer, too.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/371500.html. You can comment here or there.