a wisp of trouble
Nov. 5th, 2022 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysTitle: A Wisp of Trouble
Rating: PG
Series: The Feasting Years
Wordcount: 1,746
Summary: The Brighthounds pick up a new member. Somewhat literally.
Remarks: Sweet (baby or otherwise) belongs to qx. Takes place a few months after Saturday Night Fever.
The flat stank like acrid death. It didn't help having only one unsealed window in the whole place, and after fierce argument they'd decided to leave the the main bedroom door closed rather than attempt the dubious manoeuvre of wafting everything out through a single two-by-four, particularly when it would just mean exchanging it for the equally noxious nasal soup of London.
Tippy-toed on a chair, baby Tutt paused to scrub unhappily at their nose before hauling the baking tray overhead again and continuing to flap it at the smoke detector as hard as skinny little arms could manage. It was a champion effort, Penny could admit. Top marks. She pulled her glasses out from where she'd been optimistically cleaning them on the inside of her shirt and squinted despondently through the somehow worsened smudging.
From his side of the table, Fisher said, "Game plan for if she pisses fire too?"
He was holding the baby - the literal baby - like he had something to prove, which was a fairly brave gesture, all things considered. Spewing a gutful of flames all over the bathroom didn't seem to have taken much out of her. She was an active bundle, twisting restlessly inside the confining circle of his hands, and the teenager was having to constantly adapt to where his grip could fit amidst her strange assortment of limbs.
"Game plan?" Arthur said faintly. Penny was a tad worried about a proper faint; he had both elbows planted on the table and his hands folded in a protective frame around the sides of his face like horse blinders. "You can't be serious."
"A little serious at least," Penny muttered, giving her lenses a last futile polish. "Big friggin' hole in the shower curtain? Not on."
"Crotch level too," Fisher marvelled.
"Yeah, she's got mint aim."
"Fire extinguishers are easy." He didn't seem able to leave the leathery appendages on her back alone, fascinated by every short, uncoordinated jerk under his fingers. "In every building. Who is ever watching them?"
Arthur rocked further forward with a groan, hands knuckling into bloodless fists in the curls of his hairline. "No, of course. What else? The solution to this whole situation is naturally to steal more things."
"Easy on the coronary, Art." Penny pushed her glasses back on; it sharpened the edges of the faces in front of her, while also shrouding everything in a cloudy fog. "We're not doing anything 'til the others get back," she said firmly.
Fisher, she could tell at a glance, was more than happy to accept the order since he hadn't had intentions otherwise. Arthur looked like a summer-afflicted snowman on the brink of a heart attack.
"Artie," she said, gentler. Figured she should take some responsibility for her part in it all.
"This isn't," he started, then choked. Rubbed a thumb across his damp forehead, curls crackling stiff and frosted under the movement, and tried again. "This isn't pocketing jellybeans, it's abduction. Of a baby! It's- Police-"
"I have never stolen jellybeans," Fisher said, perplexed. "And what police? She is a saint."
"He's not wrong," Penny said. "No, Art, seriously, look at her - sainted as a steeple, and they had it plastered all over the Sun? Might as well have put out an ad asking for Morpheus to come and get it over with."
The tipping point had been seeing where they'd put her. Not even a hospital, where you'd expect the sole survivor of a family tragedy to go, kept on the downlow and well-guarded. But hospitals were full of other, normal babies. Unacceptable casualties in a crossfire.
Maybe running out with a baby hadn't been their smartest idea. Walking in and punching the first person she saw straight on their neb wouldn't have gone over well either, and Penny was willing to accept that sometimes there just weren't easy answers.
Arthur shot a swift, nervous look at his sibling, who was still stubbornly flapping, and shook his head. "I'm not saying we just hand her back..."
"'Course not," Penny assured over Fisher's little tongue click, for all that for a second she hadn't been sure either.
"But the rest of Aldwych," he continued doggedly, "if we call them, right now, someone can get her somewhere safe."
At that, Fisher pulled a grotesque face of displeasure, supposedly at the baby, which was met mostly with deep, red-eyed bemusement. "Aldwych," he said, voice lilting in particularly condescending baby-speak, "does not like trouble, hm? And I think you are very much trouble, little chicken."
"Chicken?" Penny said dryly. "You get chicken out of all that, do you."
"Self-frying," he said, grinning.
There was an ominous creak and clatter as Kirby made a weary swing too far and the chair wobbled underfoot, and even as Arthur sat up anxiously, Penny swung out of her seat, groaning. A fresh wave of smoky grossness hit her from her own shirt, and she grimaced as she walked around the table to pat a cold knee.
"Alright, short change, down you come," she said, raising a hand and flicking the fingers in the universal gimme. "Baton pass."
The kid seemed disappointed to be tapped out, but clearly pride did not win the battle against sore shoulders, and - they, shit, she still kept slipping - they brought the tray down to her maitre'd palm as if bestowing a sacred duty, then jumped to land heavily on the floor with both feet.
"Shh," Arthur said automatically - a fairly useless reminder, since a few thumps were unlikely to bother the downstairs neighbours more than the last fifteen minutes of shouting and slamming doors had. The kid hunched their shoulders anyway, stumping much more quietly to Arthur's side where they bumped a curly head into his shoulder a couple of times like an insistent cat. When he lifted his arm invitingly, though, they opted to continue their circle, folding cross-legged behind the chair Penny had vacated. The pale-eyed look they offered the baby between the wooden slats stank almost as much as the rest of the flat.
Penny sighed and regarded the alarm with the sourness of an old, baked-in grudge. Enough burnt rice and torched toast had passed through this kitchen to make taking a screwdriver to the embedded system tempting. But then came the suits and the checks.
"Reckon the smell's about cleared out now," she said hopefully; but Kirby's emphatic little "No," was backed by Fisher adding, "She's just settling, Pen, don't risk it."
"Bloody alarm," she groused, and started waving.
The baby manoeuvred a long finger into her mouth, chewing with cross-eyed determination. It was a sight to inspire a second's reflexive unease; but of course Fisher was zealously careful when he wanted to be, and it was with exquisite gentleness that he tilted the small head back and smiled like he'd uncovered a chest of unexpected treasures.
"Tiny fangs," he said. "Maybe she is one of Chroma's, mm?"
"With her throwing fire about?" Penny said sceptically. "Not likely."
"Mahukona." Arthur didn't sound certain though, a crease on his pale brow as he regarded the baby that was for a moment more thoughtful than stressed.
"Y'reckon? The wings too, but."
"I just meant they're known for fire. But you're right, there's... something..."
"She's hot," was Kirby's dark denouncement, fists clenched around the bars of their self-inflicted prison. "She's really hot."
"Ah. So here is the real issue." Fisher grinned across the table, showing too many teeth for gentle humour. "No wonder you're sweating, Arthur. Are you sure you don't want a hold?" And then, as the tray met the back of his head with an echoing clang, "Ow! Gǎo shénme guǐ?"
"Could you stop picking for two minutes?" Penny snapped. "This whole damn time, you, and I'm over it. And don't even start, I know you didn't feel a bloody thing."
The expected fuss at the neat hair bun was forestalled by the baby's grip on his hand, but Fisher caught her eye and abruptly accepted the remonstrance with the usual loose shrug, settled back into his dandling.
"Alright, Arthur," he said, this time without any edges. "Just messing."
"And I'm just trying," Arthur said, low enough to be barely more than a mumble - but he said it, and Penny was proud of him for that, "to- to look out for us. All of us," he added, a little belatedly.
Another as-you-will shrug, and Fisher slivered a glance across the table - and then suddenly perked up, the rest of their heads turning too to hear the bouncing creak of the steps to their landing, the muffled sound of familiar voices in conversation.
"Welp," Penny said with philosophical resignation. "Here goes then."
That veneer of easy distance had finally slipped from Fisher's face, leaving half a smile crooked high, a little wild in its uncertain glee. He got a grip under the baby's arms, bouncing her up to standing on his knees; the tiny wings flared obligingly, jet-black and gorgeous.
"I'm pleading for clemency," Arthur said weakly. "Insanity by association."
"That's fair," Fisher allowed. "But you'll still help with the change table, yes?"
The voices cut off abruptly - shit, Penny thought, because of course Chroma's nose wasn't missing a beat. Coming home to burnt food was one thing; burnt plastic was likely to lead to grimmer assumptions. Penny raised her voice quickly and reassuringly. "S'alright, Chro!"
The door opened cautiously, and Chroma edged in with a frown already on her face, rustling bags of groceries bumping around her knees. She stopped dead as she got a sightline into the kitchen; in her shadow as ever, Ruben leaned unhurriedly around a shoulder to investigate the fuss, and promptly launched his blocky eyebrows into the stratosphere.
A pretty picture they made, Penny had to assume: her up fanning the alarm with a shower of holes scorched into her jeans, Arthur looking like a clinical case of hypothermia with wet eyes and his hair shoved up and ice-stiff, and Fisher halfway between presenting the baby like Simba to the savanna and taking strategic shelter behind it.
With the dangerous calm of a fuse freshly lit and counting down, Chroma said, "Oh you absolute chump-headed pack of tits."
Rating: PG
Series: The Feasting Years
Wordcount: 1,746
Summary: The Brighthounds pick up a new member. Somewhat literally.
Remarks: Sweet (baby or otherwise) belongs to qx. Takes place a few months after Saturday Night Fever.
The flat stank like acrid death. It didn't help having only one unsealed window in the whole place, and after fierce argument they'd decided to leave the the main bedroom door closed rather than attempt the dubious manoeuvre of wafting everything out through a single two-by-four, particularly when it would just mean exchanging it for the equally noxious nasal soup of London.
Tippy-toed on a chair, baby Tutt paused to scrub unhappily at their nose before hauling the baking tray overhead again and continuing to flap it at the smoke detector as hard as skinny little arms could manage. It was a champion effort, Penny could admit. Top marks. She pulled her glasses out from where she'd been optimistically cleaning them on the inside of her shirt and squinted despondently through the somehow worsened smudging.
From his side of the table, Fisher said, "Game plan for if she pisses fire too?"
He was holding the baby - the literal baby - like he had something to prove, which was a fairly brave gesture, all things considered. Spewing a gutful of flames all over the bathroom didn't seem to have taken much out of her. She was an active bundle, twisting restlessly inside the confining circle of his hands, and the teenager was having to constantly adapt to where his grip could fit amidst her strange assortment of limbs.
"Game plan?" Arthur said faintly. Penny was a tad worried about a proper faint; he had both elbows planted on the table and his hands folded in a protective frame around the sides of his face like horse blinders. "You can't be serious."
"A little serious at least," Penny muttered, giving her lenses a last futile polish. "Big friggin' hole in the shower curtain? Not on."
"Crotch level too," Fisher marvelled.
"Yeah, she's got mint aim."
"Fire extinguishers are easy." He didn't seem able to leave the leathery appendages on her back alone, fascinated by every short, uncoordinated jerk under his fingers. "In every building. Who is ever watching them?"
Arthur rocked further forward with a groan, hands knuckling into bloodless fists in the curls of his hairline. "No, of course. What else? The solution to this whole situation is naturally to steal more things."
"Easy on the coronary, Art." Penny pushed her glasses back on; it sharpened the edges of the faces in front of her, while also shrouding everything in a cloudy fog. "We're not doing anything 'til the others get back," she said firmly.
Fisher, she could tell at a glance, was more than happy to accept the order since he hadn't had intentions otherwise. Arthur looked like a summer-afflicted snowman on the brink of a heart attack.
"Artie," she said, gentler. Figured she should take some responsibility for her part in it all.
"This isn't," he started, then choked. Rubbed a thumb across his damp forehead, curls crackling stiff and frosted under the movement, and tried again. "This isn't pocketing jellybeans, it's abduction. Of a baby! It's- Police-"
"I have never stolen jellybeans," Fisher said, perplexed. "And what police? She is a saint."
"He's not wrong," Penny said. "No, Art, seriously, look at her - sainted as a steeple, and they had it plastered all over the Sun? Might as well have put out an ad asking for Morpheus to come and get it over with."
The tipping point had been seeing where they'd put her. Not even a hospital, where you'd expect the sole survivor of a family tragedy to go, kept on the downlow and well-guarded. But hospitals were full of other, normal babies. Unacceptable casualties in a crossfire.
Maybe running out with a baby hadn't been their smartest idea. Walking in and punching the first person she saw straight on their neb wouldn't have gone over well either, and Penny was willing to accept that sometimes there just weren't easy answers.
Arthur shot a swift, nervous look at his sibling, who was still stubbornly flapping, and shook his head. "I'm not saying we just hand her back..."
"'Course not," Penny assured over Fisher's little tongue click, for all that for a second she hadn't been sure either.
"But the rest of Aldwych," he continued doggedly, "if we call them, right now, someone can get her somewhere safe."
At that, Fisher pulled a grotesque face of displeasure, supposedly at the baby, which was met mostly with deep, red-eyed bemusement. "Aldwych," he said, voice lilting in particularly condescending baby-speak, "does not like trouble, hm? And I think you are very much trouble, little chicken."
"Chicken?" Penny said dryly. "You get chicken out of all that, do you."
"Self-frying," he said, grinning.
There was an ominous creak and clatter as Kirby made a weary swing too far and the chair wobbled underfoot, and even as Arthur sat up anxiously, Penny swung out of her seat, groaning. A fresh wave of smoky grossness hit her from her own shirt, and she grimaced as she walked around the table to pat a cold knee.
"Alright, short change, down you come," she said, raising a hand and flicking the fingers in the universal gimme. "Baton pass."
The kid seemed disappointed to be tapped out, but clearly pride did not win the battle against sore shoulders, and - they, shit, she still kept slipping - they brought the tray down to her maitre'd palm as if bestowing a sacred duty, then jumped to land heavily on the floor with both feet.
"Shh," Arthur said automatically - a fairly useless reminder, since a few thumps were unlikely to bother the downstairs neighbours more than the last fifteen minutes of shouting and slamming doors had. The kid hunched their shoulders anyway, stumping much more quietly to Arthur's side where they bumped a curly head into his shoulder a couple of times like an insistent cat. When he lifted his arm invitingly, though, they opted to continue their circle, folding cross-legged behind the chair Penny had vacated. The pale-eyed look they offered the baby between the wooden slats stank almost as much as the rest of the flat.
Penny sighed and regarded the alarm with the sourness of an old, baked-in grudge. Enough burnt rice and torched toast had passed through this kitchen to make taking a screwdriver to the embedded system tempting. But then came the suits and the checks.
"Reckon the smell's about cleared out now," she said hopefully; but Kirby's emphatic little "No," was backed by Fisher adding, "She's just settling, Pen, don't risk it."
"Bloody alarm," she groused, and started waving.
The baby manoeuvred a long finger into her mouth, chewing with cross-eyed determination. It was a sight to inspire a second's reflexive unease; but of course Fisher was zealously careful when he wanted to be, and it was with exquisite gentleness that he tilted the small head back and smiled like he'd uncovered a chest of unexpected treasures.
"Tiny fangs," he said. "Maybe she is one of Chroma's, mm?"
"With her throwing fire about?" Penny said sceptically. "Not likely."
"Mahukona." Arthur didn't sound certain though, a crease on his pale brow as he regarded the baby that was for a moment more thoughtful than stressed.
"Y'reckon? The wings too, but."
"I just meant they're known for fire. But you're right, there's... something..."
"She's hot," was Kirby's dark denouncement, fists clenched around the bars of their self-inflicted prison. "She's really hot."
"Ah. So here is the real issue." Fisher grinned across the table, showing too many teeth for gentle humour. "No wonder you're sweating, Arthur. Are you sure you don't want a hold?" And then, as the tray met the back of his head with an echoing clang, "Ow! Gǎo shénme guǐ?"
"Could you stop picking for two minutes?" Penny snapped. "This whole damn time, you, and I'm over it. And don't even start, I know you didn't feel a bloody thing."
The expected fuss at the neat hair bun was forestalled by the baby's grip on his hand, but Fisher caught her eye and abruptly accepted the remonstrance with the usual loose shrug, settled back into his dandling.
"Alright, Arthur," he said, this time without any edges. "Just messing."
"And I'm just trying," Arthur said, low enough to be barely more than a mumble - but he said it, and Penny was proud of him for that, "to- to look out for us. All of us," he added, a little belatedly.
Another as-you-will shrug, and Fisher slivered a glance across the table - and then suddenly perked up, the rest of their heads turning too to hear the bouncing creak of the steps to their landing, the muffled sound of familiar voices in conversation.
"Welp," Penny said with philosophical resignation. "Here goes then."
That veneer of easy distance had finally slipped from Fisher's face, leaving half a smile crooked high, a little wild in its uncertain glee. He got a grip under the baby's arms, bouncing her up to standing on his knees; the tiny wings flared obligingly, jet-black and gorgeous.
"I'm pleading for clemency," Arthur said weakly. "Insanity by association."
"That's fair," Fisher allowed. "But you'll still help with the change table, yes?"
The voices cut off abruptly - shit, Penny thought, because of course Chroma's nose wasn't missing a beat. Coming home to burnt food was one thing; burnt plastic was likely to lead to grimmer assumptions. Penny raised her voice quickly and reassuringly. "S'alright, Chro!"
The door opened cautiously, and Chroma edged in with a frown already on her face, rustling bags of groceries bumping around her knees. She stopped dead as she got a sightline into the kitchen; in her shadow as ever, Ruben leaned unhurriedly around a shoulder to investigate the fuss, and promptly launched his blocky eyebrows into the stratosphere.
A pretty picture they made, Penny had to assume: her up fanning the alarm with a shower of holes scorched into her jeans, Arthur looking like a clinical case of hypothermia with wet eyes and his hair shoved up and ice-stiff, and Fisher halfway between presenting the baby like Simba to the savanna and taking strategic shelter behind it.
With the dangerous calm of a fuse freshly lit and counting down, Chroma said, "Oh you absolute chump-headed pack of tits."
