#laura stein

[nofatclips]

Do or Die by Ani DiFranco from the Revolutionary Love / Do or Die / Contagious EP - Director and editor: Zoe Boekbinder

[blue-scr33n]

Day Eleven and Twelve- Bargaining and Ring

Laura watched her father put the letter from his brother down, her uncle Joey. He wasn't much of an uncle, she'd only heard about him in stories, and she didn't like him just like her godfather. She watched her father lean back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him. She took a step back and bumped slightly into Audrey, who had been behind her the whole time. She put a finger to her lips at her taller friend and peered back into the study. Her father was leaned over his desk, she could hear the scratches of pen on paper. Her eyebrows knit in confusion before she heard him faintly muttering. She leaned in farther to hear better, mindful to open the door slowly so it didn't creak.

"I'll be gone for a couple hours so if you could watch Laura for me it would mean a lot. She has a friend over right now so she won't be too much to handle, they tend to go off by themselves and-" Laura stopped listening in, eyes welling with tears. Her heart dropped, he was going to go see his brother. She couldn't let that happen! She scampered away from the study and towards her dad's room. She threw open the door and on his nightstand was what she was looking for, Audrey was hot on her heels hissing her name.

"Laura, what're you doing?!" Her friend whisper yelled at her, but Laura only put her finger to her lips and pointed to the necklace with a set of rings on the night stand.

"Dad won't leave without them!" She whisper yelled back, and hurried into the room to snatch it, and on their way back to her room she ran right into her dad, who grunted as she fell on the floor. He recovered quicker than she did.

What're you two-" He cut himself off as he looked down at Laura, noticing the necklace I'm her hands. She stood back up quickly, not bothering to hide them now. "Laura, why do you have mine and your mothers wedding rings?" His voice was soft, as it always was, he'd never raised it at her once. Laura grit her teeth as Audrey put a hand on her back and arm gently.

"You're going to see Joey." She said it matter of factly, and he sighed, massaging the area between his eyes before nodding and looking back to her. "You can't go! He's going to hurt you again dad!" Her voice was frantic, she wasn't close to tears yet. She could feel them though. She didn't want Joey to do anything to her dad, if he was anything like in her uncle Wally's stories.

"Laura-"

"Dad, please!" The tears pricked her eyes again.

"It's only for a few hours, he just wants me to stop by the studio to see something. No doubt he's selling it and wants me to be there. We were together for it's birth, poetically he'd want me to be there for it's final death too." His voice was still calm, if not a bit hurt. By her almost crying or the fact the biggest dream he'd ever had was well and truly gone. She knew he'd held out hope that he could start up a studio of his own, it was a dream of hers to work in it as a lyricist and head of the music department too.

She shook her head wildly, body moving with her. She felt Audrey's hands slip off for a moment and the other girl make a sound of alarm. "NO! HE'S GONNA HURT YOU AGAIN!" She moved her hands through the air, rings jingling on the necklace as she heard Audrey faintly say her name. "YOU CAN'T GO DAD, PLEASE!" She pleaded, her face hot and wet from tears as he dad knelt in front of her, wiping them away with his callused thumbs. He held her face his his hands and he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"I'll tell you what, keep that," He took her hand with the rings before placing it around her neck. The metal was cool against her skin. "As a promise. I'll be back, it'll only be for as long as it'll take to get there, watch the building be signed over, talk with Joey for a bit, and be back. Okay? I'll be back before dinner." Laura lip quivered as more tears threatened to fall, but she nodded. Her dad smiled, and stook out his hand. A handshake, he'd never break a promise with a handshake. She knew that. Nodding again, but with a more hardened face she took his hand in the tightest grip she could, and shook it. Thirteen years later, she wished she'd fought harder to keep him home rather than settling for a bargain like that.

[blue-scr33n]

Day 13 and 14: Heated and Arch. Again, these went well together for my au. I'm just posting the "first chapter" of my comic script.

Laura sighs into her coffee cup, sipping the hot liquid before looking to the man in front of her. His pudgy hands were clasped in front of him, on one of his fingers was a ring pale gold in color. And in front of her was a nearly unwritten on envelope, spare for her name and address.

"So," She began quietly. "Mr. Arch-"

He waved one of his pudgy hands to cut her off. He faintly smiled, face scrunching up too. "Nathan, please. Formalities bore me to death." Laura nods, keeping an eye on him and his fake smile as she took another drink from her mug.

"So, Nathan," She began again, hands gripping the cup tightly. "You want to seize my uncle's assets, Bendy, Boris, and Alice?" Nathan nodded, short and curt. Laura frowned, knuckles paler from how tight she was squeezing. "You realize those are originally my father's, correct?" Her voice was cold, loss still hung heavy in her heart even thirteen years later.

"Yes, but hasn't he been declared dead, and since your uncle was a good friend of mine and they were given to him before his death I believed it would be beneficial to keep not only his, but your father's memories alive by publishing them in small little Sunday paper comics." Nathan smiles again at Laura, and her hair stands on end. She narrows her eyes to hide the wateryness of them.

"He was declared dead, yes." A hand goes up to her chest, where two golden rings on a chain lay against her sternum. They were given to her by her dad before his passing. "Besides, Mr. Arch," She rose in her seat, hands lifting her cup with her. She wasn't a tall or imposing woman, in fact she was short and quite pudgy with round glasses and her curly hair forever remained in a bun. Bangs swept off her face making it softer. She was the furthest anyone could get from imposing, especially as a simple songwriter and bar hopping singer. "No body was found of my father. So if you're only here to insult his memory and try to make even more money-"

Nathan rose as well, a good foot taller and twice as round. His hands were still clasped, but his pale knuckles became even whiter. "I don't wish to insult anyone's memory, only to send it out to more people who may not have been able to watch the Bendy shorts while they were airing." Laura narrows her eyes further, pushing up her thing framed glasses before picking up the letter from her uncle. She hadn't opened it yet, and she was cautious too. She hated her biological uncle, not only for taking her father from her but for also never being there for him when her mom disappeared.

"You want them? Fine. I'm not going to use them, and you can have everything else in his stupid apartment. But-"

"But?" Nathan cuts her off with a raised bushy eyebrow.

"I want to go through his apartment. No one believed me when I was a kid that Joey had murdered my father," She grits her teeth. Cops had babied her, told her that her wheelchair bound uncle couldn't have killed her father. Now she was going to prove he did. She was going to make sure her father would be some unsolved case to be studied years from now. "I give you what you want," She spits, hand with the letter jabbing out at Nathan. "You give me what I do."

Nathan studied her for a minute, looking her up and down. His eyebrow was still raised, and it felt like she was broiling under his scrutiny and glare before his face lit up and he chuckled. "You make a compelling argument Ms. Stein, I'll give you a week. I'll send someone of mine to collect your signature for the property." He began to leave, but before he did Nathan turned around, and his face softened slightly but still felt condescending to Laura. "I do hope you get what you're bargaining for." And he ducked out of her door.

Laura looked down at the letter in her hand and then her eyes hardened. She whisked herself over to the counter and scribbled a note, grabbed her coat and stuffed the letter in the pocket before rushing out the door. She was going to prove everyone wrong, everyone who doubted her. Her godfather, her wife, the police, even Nathan Arch himself. She was going to avenge her father. She had to, he promised to be home... and if he couldn't come home she would at least bring his memory justice.

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Day 15- Poisoning I did only a fic again, from a bit later in the story (with things I haven’t hammered out because I’m procrastinating it)

Laura shook her head, trying to clear the fog from her mind. She had tried numerous times, all futile, to remember what she was doing there in the decrepit studio. A part of her knew she was never there always, she remembered the sun, she remembered a woman with a laugh that set sparks in her chest and butterflies in her stomach. There was an older man who she felt was family, both were in color, unlike the rest of the place she was in right now. But what colors were they? The woman’s eyes was… Hazel? She couldn’t remember, she couldn’t remember and it brought her to her knees, tears streaming down her face. She knew she needed to remember, screaming at her to remember their names.

“Oh my little guardian,” Alice’s voice rang out around her, and she looked up, the woman in question with the asymmetrical horns and no halo strutted closer to her. Laura could barely see the woman through her tears as she kneeled in front of her, cupping Laura’s cheeks gently and wiped the fat tears away for her. “What are the tears for? Certainly not that demon and his follower?” Laura’s face pinched in disgust at the mention of the other two. They’d hurt her… she couldn’t remember how, she just knew they had. They’d hurt her angel too, scarred her, made her imperfect to herself. Laura though she was perfect just the way she was, but she wanted to be perfect again so Laura would help as much as she could. Laura shook her head, pulling her face from the other woman’s hands and wiping the last of her tears with the palm of her hand.

“I…” She paused. What was she trying to remember? “I don’t remember my angel… it felt important though…” Alice frowns, and stands, offering a hand to Laura as she smiles softly.

“If you can’t remember anymore then it must not have mattered in the first place, must it have?” Laura takes the clawed hand of her angel, and shakes her head. The part of her that was screaming to remember had gone silent, the fog returning ever so slowly. It encroached in on her like a dense smokescreen to things that felt important, a barrier she couldn’t pass. She brushed it off and took her angel’s word for it though.

“I suppose not… do you have another job for me to do?” Deflecting, Laura decided that was the best route to go down so she didn’t have to think about the memories she couldn’t unlock anymore.

“Ah, now that you ask, I do have a very important job. It’ll require a little bit of… time to complete, but when it’s done we’ll finally be ready to kill that pesky little demon and his devotees. What do you say my guardian?” Laura straightened her shoulders and nodded quickly.

“Of course my angel, I would help you with anything.” But the words felt hollow on Laura’s tongue. She knew something was wrong with how Alice’s smile curled too sharply when she agreed, but being led by the hand into a new room Laura could barely even remember why.

[t-okomon]

sometimes l rewatch old seasons and think of Houseguests I really liked, that got evited too early. aka Holly bb5, and Laura bb11