🏃 / catch my muse stealing valuable’s from your muses family during a family holiday dinner
the house is absolute insanity. with all three kids home, sophie tearing through her new cache of toys, and even roman and josephine stopping by, it’s easy to lose track of people. phil is busy in the kitchen, from which carol has been banned during the holidays for years. sasha and roman have been roped into helping sophie construct the absolute monstrosity of a dollhouse her grandparents bought. everyone else is scattered between the kitchen and living room and the house feels happier than it has in months.
she’s pulling extra napkins out of the closet when she sees the light on in the office. stevie had been in an odd funk the past couple of days. he must have just needed a moment of peace. she raps her knuckles against the door before pushing it open, just meaning to check in on her way back to the party. but then the door swings open and stevie whirls around, hands behind his back and a deer in the headlights look that stops her heart for a second.
behind him, she can see the safe door standing open and her stomach drops. there’s a long pause where neither of them move. nobody speaks. eventually, he opens his mouth and she holds up a hand. a few slow steps bring her to the safe, where she can see her gun, the small packet of documents with her passport and credentials, and a stack of cash that looks significantly smaller than the last time she checked. clearing her throat doesn’t quite clear the lump that’s settled there, and when a glance behind his back reveals a large handful of the missing stack, she couldn’t speak if she wanted to.
she takes it without comment, leafs through to count the bills. it’s a few grand, all of it the reserves from a job she had wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and hadn’t gotten around to depositing. it isn’t that she can’t spare it--all he ever had to do was ask. but here, in the middle of christmas dinner, he’s stealing money. all she’s ever tried to do was help him. she wants nothing more than for him to be better. he had been doing so well. and now this.
from the other room, phil calls her name. without thinking, she swings the safe door shut and listens to the lock click back into place. from the desk drawer she retrieves an envelope, stuffs the cash in, and passes it back to her son. he hasn’t said a word the whole time and she can’t decide if that’s better or worse. her name drifts in from the hall again, closer this time. she finds her voice then, calling back that she’s coming, give her just a second.
and she turns her back on her youngest, the last glimpse of him staring at the envelope in his hands burned into her mind for the rest of the night. he does not rejoin them for dinner. carol sits at the kitchen table until dawn waiting for him.
