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Latest Story: “Is She Your Mama Too?”
Look at me, on a roll!
This story is a birthday gift to the wonderfully awesome Tohru to my Uotani, @chibisunnie.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHIBI!!! <3 <3 <3
**WARNING** This story is post-manga
“Is She Your Mama Too?”
Summary: The curse has been broken. Tohru and Kyo have moved away, and Yuki will be leaving soon too. As life around him changes so drastically, Momiji decides it's time to get back the life he was owed. He only hopes it wouldn't bring any pain this time.
Word Count: 5058; completed story
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Momiji Sohma, Momo Sohma, their parents, Hatori Sohma
Triggers: Please be warned that this story talks about voluntary memory suppression, parental abandonment, forced separation from family and isolation, and severe mental illness. (If you read my story and find something that is triggering, please let me know so I might warn others. I am sorry, I don’t really trigger so it’s hard for me to remember to do this)
You can find the story at my normal three locations: On AO3, on FFN, and on DA
“Is She Your Mama Too?”
The room felt so large that he was drowning in it, but at the same time he felt crushed by the walls being so close. There were too many pieces of furniture. There weren't enough. His whole body ran cold, but his face and ears were hot and clammy.
Momiji wasn't sure why he was so nervous. He had talked with them before. He wasn't really supposed to, but he had. This would be different though. Would they hate him? Would they be glad? Would they...
Embrace him?
He paced around the room once more. He picked at his nails. They weren't painted this time. He figured he needed to give the best impression. He wished he had at least put a clear coat on, then he could chip it back off as he waited.
“Momiji?”
“Ha'ri!” Forgetting his mature poise for a moment, Momiji skipped over to the door; again a childish fifteen.
Hatori held his hand out; reminding Momiji that he was far too tall to try to leap onto his back anymore. Standing as stoic as ever, Hatori lingered in the doorway.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Hatori's voice was even; neither filled with encouragement nor scrutiny.
“I- I don't care. Akito wanted to make things right with me, and I asked for this. I want to be with them; to be able to call them by their proper titles. I'm tired of being alone. It may be selfish, but don't I deserve it? If Kana were still single, wouldn't you have wanted this?”
It was too far. Momiji knew instantly that he had gone too far. Still, Hatori was calm. He even smiled a little.
“Perhaps, but that will forever be in my past. Zodiac or no, what I did to her - the pain I caused her – couldn't be easily forgiven. So I don't know if I could ever tell her. Either way, I am quite happy now, and so is she. That's what's important.” Hatori crossed to a window. Glancing casually out of it, his hands in his pockets, he again smiled. “What you're doing is brave, even if it is selfish. I wish the happiest outcome for you.”
“Papa told me that you'd talk to Mama; help her understand everything.”
“I will, once they get here. He wanted to ease her into everything; let them know about the Zodiac curse. Your sister won't know the full extent of what your mother went through, but I'll help your father explain everything to your mother once we're alone.”
“Will she hate me again? Once she knows the pain I caused her?”
“It wasn't you.” Hatori placed a hand on Momiji's shoulder. “It was the curse - and her own mind - that caused her pain. It was never you.”
“But I'm making her remember it.”
“You can change your mind. Your father isn't telling them anything until they get here. You can simply host a lovely dinner party for Sohma family members if you want. Your mother still thinks you're a kind boy who has taken to her husband due to your family ties.”
Momiji pulled away from Hatori, and sat on the sofa. He was still so unsure as to what to do. Was it cruel to make his mother remember? Let her know that she abandoned her first child for over a decade? Would it be equally cruel for Momo to find out she had a brother that had been stolen from her? Would she be the one who felt abandoned? Could he do that to her?
Would it be more cruel to stay away? He had the opportunity now to be with his family. His father wouldn't have to strain with a double life. His mother, who had always been so kind to him once she thought they weren't related, would be able to reconnect with a child she once couldn't hold. His sister, a bright and wonderful girl, had told Tohru that she wanted Momiji to be her older brother. He could be granting her wish. They could be a family. No more complications. No more forgotten memories. They could start to heal.
Was he being selfish? Which option would be better for everyone?
The doorbell rang before he could decide.
“Ha'ri?”
Hatori sent a servant to answer the door, then knelt before Momiji. He placed a hand on the teen's knee.
“This is your decision. I trust you thought it through. I will help you however I can. You are not alone in this, I promise.”
“Thank you!” Momiji pulled Hatori into a hug, his eyes welling up with tears.
“Sohma-san, Momiji-san,” the servant cleared her throat, “your guests are in the foyer. Shall I bring them in?”
Momiji and Hatori stood in unison. Hatori gave Momiji a quick sideways glance, and Momiji gently nodded.
“Yes, please, see them in.”
The servant bowed, then retreated to collect Momiji's family. If all went well, he could leave with them that evening. He could go home. A home he never stepped foot inside, but one he desperately wished to return to.
A moment later, the servant escorted the trio into the living room. Momiji's father was a well-built man just reaching his forties. He was well-groomed, but the stress of running a business already created some gray streaks through his hair, and some wrinkles around his eyes. By his side was Momiji's mother, a thin woman with Momiji's blonde, wavy hair. It was pinned up that evening, with a thin lock of it draped down her cheek as an accent. Her clothes were clearly high-end, and draped loosely but elegantly on her. She just had her fortieth birthday, but she still looked about Hatori's age. A few laugh lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth were the only tells of her maturity. Clinging to their mother's hand was Momo. She wasn't nearly as little any longer. She had become a surprisingly tall nine-year-old. Still, she hovered close to her mother's hip, as she always did when she was unsure of her new surroundings. Her hair had more brown in it than Momiji or their mother, but it had the same waves, inherited from their German half.
“Welcome.” Hatori walked forward to great their guests with hand shakes and polite bows. “Mamoru-san, Freida-san, Momo-chan, thank you all for taking the time to come out and visit.”
“The pleasure is ours, of course.” Momiji's father Mamoru shook Hatori's hand; a lightheartedness in his voice. “Thank you for inviting us over for dinner in the first place. Might I ask for the occasion?”
“Well-”
“Momiji-kun?” Momo's soft voice chirped out. “Were you invited too?” She quickly dropped her mother's hand and skipped over to Momiji.
“Momiji?” Mamoru's voice grew tight; unsure.
“Momiji-chan?” Freida's face contorted in confusion. “You were asked here for dinner? Shouldn't you be having it with your parents?”
Both Mamoru and Momiji flinched. Slightly.
Ring the Bells
The Christmas tree is still up; the younger servants don't have the heart to take down such a beautiful thing. No one roams the halls with heads filled with schedules and arms full of work; the more distant aides had traveled back to Paris to visit with their families. Only a few familiar faces remain: Lumiere and Plumette have stayed, lighting candles in the night through windows, finishing up the cleaning in preparation for a party in three days. Cogsworth is gone, as is Mrs. Potts. The two could not escape their respective spouses begging for them to stay awhile at home for Christmas, and Chip was delighted to spend more time with his father. Maurice has gone back to his old home for a little new year's cleaning. Cuisinier's kitchen has not gotten colder, nor has Chapeau's quiet step vanished from the corridors, but both of them are still too far away for their presence to be felt.
Adam finds her in the library working on a plan for the well. Her gaze lingers on the window, past the last December snow and the trees--iced over for real--to the lights of Villeneuve that he thought he could see.
She looks up and smiles, gesturing for him to sit. Oh, what a time they've had. So much has changed since that fateful June. Now the castle laughs in its windows and dances in its paintings, and every picture of the queen has been restored so that her voice sings through the castle's heart every time someone passes.
He studies the sketch in her hands, admires the machinery--the brightest woman of her age, he'd reckon--but her hands are still over the thick parchment; the charcoal she's using is still sharp to a point. Something is on her mind, and her thoughts are not here. Curious, he shifts his head a little, so that they are facing the same way, glancing sideways at her, wondering what beautiful thoughts grace her mind tonight. He's seen this expression before, somewhere, but where?
She smiles. She is far away, past the pillars and the forest, somewhere that fills her heart with joy.
Oh.
Suddenly he remembers. It's the same look--albeit softer and kinder--that graced her features after they had danced for the first time, when she thought of her father and how he taught her to dance. The look that prompted him to show her the mirror.
The look that convinced him to let her go.
"Hang it all," Adam exclaims, and pulls her along with one hand. Belle looks up at him, a question in her eyes, and he grins. "Quickly now; we have to beat the dawn."
Within minutes, the other four staff are alerted and the six of them dress down, shedding the royal colors for winter cloaks as they whisk themselves away to the village, where the Scripture is being read to prepare for the new year and the villagers are singing in the square.
Mrs. Potts is beaming when she takes Adam's hands in hers. Lumiere produces a multitude of floating flames to illuminate the night. Belle embraces her father, the two of them tears and kisses and laughter.
And Adam smiles as the villagers come up to him and ask so many questions, start so many conversations, and even gift him with a few of their wares. He thinks he's going to cry, and almost turns away. He had been out of the castle a few times after June, but this is the first time he feels like he's truly met these people. He's found a family with not only his staff but with this village--finally--and he couldn't be happier.
"Quickly, now," Mrs. Potts urged, and the whole company found themselves on the hill where Belle once sang of reveries and somewheres, far from the lights, high enough to see the sliver of blue along one side of the horizon.
"Resolutions, anyone?" asked Belle.
And they throw them out, here and there: Chip wants to learn to play an instrument, Maurice wants to be able to see more of the world. Cogsworth has had enough of chaos and longs for order. Belle wants to live more adventures, and Lumiere only wishes that he and Plumette will never suffer again. Plumette wraps her arms around Lumiere and whispers that this is enough.
"And no more curses," Mrs. Potts grumbles, and the whole of Villeneuve seems to reply "Amen."
And then the first crack of dawn explodes around the sky in red, orange, pink and yellow, the first beams striking Adam across the eyes. He stares back without flinching, vowing to be unafraid and fearless, just like his wife. There will be no more suffering. There will be naught but joy, peace, happiness and love in his heart and the hearts of the people surrounding him.
"Bonne année," he says, and the rest of the village takes up the call with tearful voices. After all, they were all starting anew, now. The darkness was gone. The dawn has come.
And the bells in Pere Robert's church begin to ring, soothing their ears and welcoming brighter years to come.
Happy New Year, everyone.
St. Mark’s Eve
@adamprrishcycle I hope you don’t mind but I read this and I just really liked the idea, I’m sure you could write something better for it but this is what came to mind when I read your ask.
She’s tense next to her mother. Her usual steady hand was now shaking, causing little unintentional lines to appear in her notepad for tonight wasn’t like any other. The cold nipping at her doesn’t bother her tonight, she’s too focused on the grounds around her to feel the sting whenever she breaths in through her nose. She’s watching for him to show up, hoping he doesn’t.
Her last Saint Mark’s Eve she saw her true love in a church, tonight she hopes to see him in his car, driving her to where they don’t have to pretend any longer.
“They’re here.” Maura takes a deep breath, clutching Blue’s hand once she starts listing names, “Dianna Folk, Franklin White, Richard-” Blue freezes, it can’t be him, she would’ve been able to see him if he were here. “Richard Wickham, Blue are you okay?” She nods, not trying to hide her relief. “I don’t see him,” Blue tells her, “I don’t think he’s here.” When she looks over at her mother she notices the smile.
“I told you, Blue, you’re safe.”
“He’s safe.”
However, there’s the unmistakable squeeze of her mother’s hand and a look of sadness that isn’t uncommon on nights like these, “but there’s another blue sweater, just like theirs.” Another raven boy, Blue concludes. He could be a random one she’s never met before, one who’d die in a yacht accident or while on vacation with their friends, one whose life was meaningless to her. The only worry she has is the fact that her mother has never met Henry or Matthew, there is the possibility that it was one of them. “David-” Blue nods, not any of her Raven boys. She doesn’t even regret the sigh of relief she lets out, even if it’s for another death she’s hearing of.
Maura continues her list, Blue sits restlessly next to her jotting down names as fast as she could. Urging her to speed up the process, she’s eager to go see him. She’s hardly listening, instead she’s imagining the joy when she tells him the news. She knows her boys are waiting for her back at The Barns, but she knows he didn’t listen to her and is probably sitting, waiting in the pig just outside her house. She nearly cheers when her mother says what she’s been waiting for all night.
“Last one, Jordyn Embers.” Blue’s standing, ready to leave even before her mother’s finishes saying the name. “Do we need to have the talk?” Blue grimaces.
“No.”
“Thank god.”
The ride back is loud even though no one is talking. Blue can see the knowing look on Maura’s face and hates that her mother knows so much.
Just like Blue guessed, the orange monstrosity of a car is parked on the road, contrasting horribly against the blue of her house. She doesn’t wait for her mother to turn off the car before she hopes out, skipping over to the passenger side of the pig. Looking through the window she sees him dressed in some grey sweat pants and his hoodie from when he was on the crew team. His glasses sit idly on the dashboard, next to a box that Blue knows the contents of. A knock on the window is the only thing that catches his attention, too busy looking into his misshapen mug.
“Orla came out to give me some tea and uhm,” he points to a box on his dashboard and Blue rolled her eyes, “she said,” he clutched the steering wheel, looking away from her as if what he said won’t be true. All he needed right now was for it to be true. “She said we can-“
“Kiss?” He nods and seems to gulp. As much as she likes to hide it, Blue is a bit nervous too. “I’m-“ she finds herself getting pushed back into the closed passenger door, lips she’s only felt once before pressing against her own again. She fights the urge to continue and quickly pushes him away. “What if I saw you? You didn’t know yet!” He only slips on his glasses and starts the car in response. “Dick!”
“Yes, Jane?” She crosses her arms and leans back into her seat, only looking at him through the corner of her eye. He’s still smiling and she hates it. “You texted Ronan, did you think Adam wasn’t going to call me?”
“I didn’t expect him to check his phone, it was a courtesy text.” She hits him when he lets out a laugh.
“Just drive, Dick.” He leans over again and pecks her cheek this time.
“Any requests?”
“Somewhere we don’t have to pretend.”
Like what about a fic where it's a few weeks before the curse is broken and everyone is struggling to re-adjust to their human form after spending so long as IKEA, especially Plumette who keeps falling over and Lumière keeps catching her and yet he's so intrigued to have fingers again and Mrs. Potts and Chip are dancing all around the castle because they're so excited to have their limbs back and catch each other when they fall over thank you
i love this but everytime i look at it i read ‘after spending so long in IKEA,’ and then i picture this sort of mass-IKEA trip the staff have to go on to find replacements for all the objects they were, and then i imagine Lumiere leaving having bought like 5000 coffee tables he doesn’t know how to put together, and they lost Chapeau somewhere in the back, and Cogsworth is criticizing the minimalist Scandinavian design, and basically it’s a total clusterfuck and why does my mind take me to these places
But, uh, yeah. You had a great fic idea. let’s give it a shot!
It’s funny, in the first day following the breaking of the curse, everyone feels marvelous. Lumiere and Plumette dance like they haven’t in years; Cogsworth stretches his tough old limbs, and Mrs. Potts twirls around with Chip as if the cursed years hadn’t happened, as if this was yesterday to all those other yesterdays. To be human again! Utterly marvelous, utterly new, an enchantment more powerful than anything Agathe could conjure.
But—speaking of Agathe—once she leaves, slipping away quietly after the celebrations, reality seems to come plummeting back to the castle. To be specific, Plumette plummets; she plummets down stairs, carpets, polished floors, as her legs catch her up and she doesn’t lift off as she expects.
“Dammit,” she whispers, finding herself on the floor again. Oof, the floor is so hard—she hasn’t felt anything for years, but in these few days following the curse she’s felt far more of the palace’s floors and rugs than she ever wanted to. Hands curl around her arm, and she finds herself lifted by a force that isn’t her own.
“Did you drop something?” says Lumiere, and she could murder him for his cheek. He holds her off the ground, and for a moment she floats in his arms.
“I dropped me,” she says. “Lumiere, I can’t keep up with these human legs! I missed them so, but now I have them back—mon dieu, they shake and quiver like feathers.”
“Mm, you mean they’re soft and perfect?” He is kissing one that slipped out from under her skirt. “You were not the only one to miss these legs.”
“Mmmmm?” She wants to be grumpy, but as he slides her onto a loveseat she finds her frustration dissolving. “And what else did you miss?”
“Hands,” he says, so passionately she is surprised. “Hands—fingers—the calluses I’ve earned from massaging your back; fingernails that chip and bruise, the wrinkles that show me where I’ve been, the burns and scars that say: ‘here, Lumiere; this is when you cooked bœuf bourguignon so well your lover cried; this spot here that tells me I have been pricked by thorns, and felt it, and this mar here that came from holding your hand so tightly through the night.”
She sits, silent, watching him as he stares at his own hands. One eye cocks up to her, one dimple quirks; his hand steals toward her leg.
“And of course, there are other things fingers are good for as well,” he says.
“Mon dieu!” Crash. She falls to the floor again. But this time there are other things to feel beside the floor—like the taste of his lips on hers, and exactly what his clever fingers can manage.
(I’d love to add the Mrs. Potts thing here, but you basically covered it—Mrs. Potts was always a kinda sedentary mum before, but now Chip and his mum run in fields and go rolling down hills and fall over each as they dance.)
(P.S. awesome prompt—might have to return to this one again :) )
post-curse body got me going like “DON’T EVEN L O O K AT YOUR ALTAR, DON’T EVEN T H I N K OF PUTTING ON THAT BRACELET, DON’T EVEN T O U C H THAT TAROT BAG” and i’m just like damnnnnnn body chillax i get it i get it forced fallow period yikes
goldeneblume
Honestly, she could use a trim. As much as she liked her long hair, it was beginning to feel a bit old- like she'd had the same hairstyle for years longer than she really had. Oddly enough, she got that feeling about a lot of things...
She'd received Cyrah's name from one of her clients, and figured there was no harm in giving something new a shot. Maybe it would even draw a bit of attention to herself and she could get out of her apartment for once. As much as she loved her job at the veterinarian clinic and spending time at home with her cat, Jemma knew that she was lacking in a healthy amount of genuine human interaction.
Math Isn't Worth It. (A little One-Shot for princesss-tigerlilyy! :) )
Title: Math Isn't Worth It.
Summary: Tigerlily was never one for tutor sessions. And Henry was never one for staying on task.
A/N: Just a short little drabble for my fabulous friend, princesss-tigerlilyy~ Hope you like it, hon! I tried to keep to your StorybrookeVerse!Tigerlily as much as I could. And I tried to be humorous with this. Again, hope you like it! :))
----
Float. Drop.
Float. Drop.
Float-
“Hey, Tigerlily!”
Drop.