She hugs him again, like it's just... okay, like it's just something they can do any time, whenever. Like it's normal. Jack's a little surprised to find that he wants it to be. Harriet's hugs are nice, but he doesn't really see himself enjoying a hug from any of his foster siblings, or anybody from school, or anybody else. For some reason, she's different.
The decibels may not have been at his preferred level, but overall a very welcome experience. He hugs her back, still far too gently by comparison. Maybe that will change once he gets his cast taken off.
Volume one.
He smiles.
After that, he's less self-conscious about reading off what he can — or filling in the gaps where he can't, thanks to the mostly-visible context above and below it. The story they work through is an epic tale of a cowboy, rough and tumble and too willing to use his revolver, ne'er-do-welling his way through the west until he stumbles across a kid in the desert that he's forced to adopt, thus revealing his hidden heart of gold. It's not that bad, for a kid his age — although, surprisingly descriptive with the violence at times. He's just a little too familiar with the feeling of pain and the sight of blood. It'll take up the better part of their time before dinner, which he completely forgets to ask about.
Their friendship is forged in blood spilled across the playground, too tight hugs, and the scratch of a royal blue pencil against notebook paper. An unbreakable bond, Blue is pretty certain. It'd take something big to ever ruin their friendship.
Like a natural disaster or war or something.
"It's very good," Blue says, setting the notebook down and stretching her back. There's a moment before she unfurls her fingers when they seem to be stuck around the pencil. She sets it down, curling and uncurling her fingers a couple of times to feel her joints unclicking. "Be better if there was a girl in it."
"Blue! Orla!" Maura calls from below. "Dinner's ready!"
Blue startles. Dinner? Already? They only got through one story.
"Before it gets cold, please!" Maura's voice comes again. Too accustomed to the way Blue can lose herself in a book or a task.
"Coming," Blue calls back. Her voice is echoed by Orla's from a room across the hall. Carefully, she puts the pencil away in its tin and closes the notebook. She will have to find a good bookmark for it after dinner.
She climbs to her feet, holding out a hand to help Jack up. If he takes it, she won't let go once he's standing, just use it to tug him along to the door.
Orla's door is swung wide open, her room looking more like a traditional girl's room with posters on the wall and a bright and colorfu quilt covering her bed, and Orla herself is thundering down the stairs ahead of them.
"You have a very good reading voice," Blue hurries to say as they follow Orla down the stairs. In case she forgets. He was worried about it, and he shouldn't be. Not everyone is good at reading out loud. Persephone is very bad at it for one; easily distracted, her voice quiet and monotone. Maura is amazing. She does all the voices different and you can tell from the tone of her voice when it's about to get scary or more exciting. Jack is very good too.
In the kitchen, a wide hipped woman with Orla's smile is settling in one of the chairs, Orla clambering onto a chair right next to her. A pale woman with waist-long hair so blonde it is nearly white drifts through the doorway behind them like a ghost.
Maura turns from the stove, setting a deep casserole dish onto the table. Her eyes light on Jack and Blue and she smiles.
"I spoke with Harriet," she tells Jack. It doesn't take a psychic to know he'll be worried about that. "She said you're welcome to join us for dinner. I will drive you home after."
She grabs his hand, and it completely squashes the little seed of disappointment that would have grown about dinner being ready — already. It just feels so fast, like they didn't get enough time. He's starting to realize Blue has this tendency to quite literally pull him out of bad situations, bad feelings, bad anything. She just grabs him by the hand and declares to the universe that things are going to be good, and then they are.
It's incredible.
He's already formatting the politest way to ask if she remembered to call when Maura speaks up, and there's a subtle softening of his shoulders to give away the fact that she hit the nail on the head.
"Thank you," diligently polite, an ingrained habit. He takes his cues from Blue about where and when to sit, emulating her whether or not realizes he needs the guidance. It's not his first loud, crowded family meal. That happens semi-nightly, with fewer adults and more children. This one is full of strangers, though — what's more, they're strangers that matter now that they're... best-friend-in-law... family-in-law? What's the word for it? In any case, he can not screw this up. He does his best to be quiet, unobtrusive, to pick up on the unwritten rules of the people around him as the chaos organizes itself somewhat at the table.
By 300 Fox Way measures, it is a quiet dinner. There are more chairs around the wide kitchen table than there are people, a stack of plates in the middle to allow everyone to choose their own seat. Without pause, Blue tugs Jack with her to a set of chairs on the far end of the table, only letting go of his hand so she can pull one of them out and sit down. Without realizing, she leaves no room for second guessing where he goes: by her side.
She grabs two plates from the pile, setting one in front of him and one in front of herself. On the other end of the table, the pale whisp of a woman fills glasses, not a single one like the other, with water, handing them to Orla who hands them down the line.
If Jack let Blue in on his thoughts, she'd solve his little linguistic conundrum. They're family. No quantifiers. No conditions. No exceptions. Persephone shares not an ounce of blood with Calla, and Calla not a drop with Blue or Maura. But they're no less family for it. Jack isn't either.
"Everyone," Maura says, reaching for Orla's plate and filling it with a heaping serving of casserole, "this is Jack. Blue's best friend."
Variations of hello Jack and nice to meet you echo around the table. Blue gives Jack a beaming and pride look. Underneath her table, her hand finds his, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"I'm Jimi," the woman next to Orla tells Jack, "Orla's mom."
"You've already met Orla," Blue says with begrudging politeness born out of her mother's presence, letting go of Jack's hand to grab them both forks from the pile on the middle of the table.
"My name is Persephone," the pale woman tells him, her voice whispy and thin. She's so unassuming, even sitting across from her, it's easy to forget her presence.
"She's writing a thesis," Blue tells Jack under her breath. Like that's the most important thing to know about Persephone.
"Calla will join us later," Maura says, handing Jack's plate back to him with a heaping helping of casserole. "She's doing a reading."
"That old goat must be paying well for her to do a house call," Jimi notes, filling the empty space on her plate with mixed greens. She hands the wooden salad bowl over to Orla who adds slightly less greens to her plate.
Maura gives Jimi a look over the salad bowl, giving herself a generous helping before passing it to her left to Jack.
"Eat as much or as little as you want, Jack," she says kindly.
Next to him, Blue takes the salad bowl, setting it down in the middle of the table without adding any to her plate. Maura's eyes shift between her and the bowl before settling on her.
"Would you like some salad, Blue?" Maura asks pointedly.
Blue heaves a heavy sigh and rolls her eyes, but she reaches for the bowl again, adding a minuscule amount of salad to her plate.
The casserole is warm and filling. The kind of food to feed many mouths on a dime. There's not much to the salad, but it's fresh and plentiful. Blue eats five resentful forkfuls of greens. The conversation flows freely, at least two conversations going on at the same time, and everyone around the table making an effort to pull Jack into their conversational strand.
Towards the end of it, when almost all plates have emptied, the front door crashes open and closed.
"Remind me to never make another house call!" Calla's voice precedes her into the kitchen like lightning before thunder. She stamps into the kitchen with a jangle of the gold coin adorned scarf that's tied around her hips.
"Told you," Jimi says.
Calla huffs, pausing to reaching past Blue and grab the last plate from the middle of the table. While she's there, she presses a quick and affectionate kiss against the top of Blue's head.
"No one likes a know-it-all," she tells Jimi, settling on the chair between Jack and Maura. Like she hasn't noticed him before, her full attention turns to him as she holds her empty plate out to Maura to fill. "The infamous Jack, I presume?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
The decibels may not have been at his preferred level, but overall a very welcome experience. He hugs her back, still far too gently by comparison. Maybe that will change once he gets his cast taken off.
Volume one.
He smiles.
After that, he's less self-conscious about reading off what he can — or filling in the gaps where he can't, thanks to the mostly-visible context above and below it. The story they work through is an epic tale of a cowboy, rough and tumble and too willing to use his revolver, ne'er-do-welling his way through the west until he stumbles across a kid in the desert that he's forced to adopt, thus revealing his hidden heart of gold. It's not that bad, for a kid his age — although, surprisingly descriptive with the violence at times. He's just a little too familiar with the feeling of pain and the sight of blood. It'll take up the better part of their time before dinner, which he completely forgets to ask about.
no subject
Like a natural disaster or war or something.
"It's very good," Blue says, setting the notebook down and stretching her back. There's a moment before she unfurls her fingers when they seem to be stuck around the pencil. She sets it down, curling and uncurling her fingers a couple of times to feel her joints unclicking. "Be better if there was a girl in it."
"Blue! Orla!" Maura calls from below. "Dinner's ready!"
Blue startles. Dinner? Already? They only got through one story.
"Before it gets cold, please!" Maura's voice comes again. Too accustomed to the way Blue can lose herself in a book or a task.
"Coming," Blue calls back. Her voice is echoed by Orla's from a room across the hall. Carefully, she puts the pencil away in its tin and closes the notebook. She will have to find a good bookmark for it after dinner.
She climbs to her feet, holding out a hand to help Jack up. If he takes it, she won't let go once he's standing, just use it to tug him along to the door.
Orla's door is swung wide open, her room looking more like a traditional girl's room with posters on the wall and a bright and colorfu quilt covering her bed, and Orla herself is thundering down the stairs ahead of them.
"You have a very good reading voice," Blue hurries to say as they follow Orla down the stairs. In case she forgets. He was worried about it, and he shouldn't be. Not everyone is good at reading out loud. Persephone is very bad at it for one; easily distracted, her voice quiet and monotone. Maura is amazing. She does all the voices different and you can tell from the tone of her voice when it's about to get scary or more exciting. Jack is very good too.
In the kitchen, a wide hipped woman with Orla's smile is settling in one of the chairs, Orla clambering onto a chair right next to her. A pale woman with waist-long hair so blonde it is nearly white drifts through the doorway behind them like a ghost.
Maura turns from the stove, setting a deep casserole dish onto the table. Her eyes light on Jack and Blue and she smiles.
"I spoke with Harriet," she tells Jack. It doesn't take a psychic to know he'll be worried about that. "She said you're welcome to join us for dinner. I will drive you home after."
no subject
It's incredible.
He's already formatting the politest way to ask if she remembered to call when Maura speaks up, and there's a subtle softening of his shoulders to give away the fact that she hit the nail on the head.
"Thank you," diligently polite, an ingrained habit. He takes his cues from Blue about where and when to sit, emulating her whether or not realizes he needs the guidance. It's not his first loud, crowded family meal. That happens semi-nightly, with fewer adults and more children. This one is full of strangers, though — what's more, they're strangers that matter now that they're... best-friend-in-law... family-in-law? What's the word for it? In any case, he can not screw this up. He does his best to be quiet, unobtrusive, to pick up on the unwritten rules of the people around him as the chaos organizes itself somewhat at the table.
no subject
She grabs two plates from the pile, setting one in front of him and one in front of herself. On the other end of the table, the pale whisp of a woman fills glasses, not a single one like the other, with water, handing them to Orla who hands them down the line.
If Jack let Blue in on his thoughts, she'd solve his little linguistic conundrum. They're family. No quantifiers. No conditions. No exceptions. Persephone shares not an ounce of blood with Calla, and Calla not a drop with Blue or Maura. But they're no less family for it. Jack isn't either.
"Everyone," Maura says, reaching for Orla's plate and filling it with a heaping serving of casserole, "this is Jack. Blue's best friend."
Variations of hello Jack and nice to meet you echo around the table. Blue gives Jack a beaming and pride look. Underneath her table, her hand finds his, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"I'm Jimi," the woman next to Orla tells Jack, "Orla's mom."
"You've already met Orla," Blue says with begrudging politeness born out of her mother's presence, letting go of Jack's hand to grab them both forks from the pile on the middle of the table.
"My name is Persephone," the pale woman tells him, her voice whispy and thin. She's so unassuming, even sitting across from her, it's easy to forget her presence.
"She's writing a thesis," Blue tells Jack under her breath. Like that's the most important thing to know about Persephone.
"Calla will join us later," Maura says, handing Jack's plate back to him with a heaping helping of casserole. "She's doing a reading."
"That old goat must be paying well for her to do a house call," Jimi notes, filling the empty space on her plate with mixed greens. She hands the wooden salad bowl over to Orla who adds slightly less greens to her plate.
Maura gives Jimi a look over the salad bowl, giving herself a generous helping before passing it to her left to Jack.
"Eat as much or as little as you want, Jack," she says kindly.
Next to him, Blue takes the salad bowl, setting it down in the middle of the table without adding any to her plate. Maura's eyes shift between her and the bowl before settling on her.
"Would you like some salad, Blue?" Maura asks pointedly.
Blue heaves a heavy sigh and rolls her eyes, but she reaches for the bowl again, adding a minuscule amount of salad to her plate.
The casserole is warm and filling. The kind of food to feed many mouths on a dime. There's not much to the salad, but it's fresh and plentiful. Blue eats five resentful forkfuls of greens. The conversation flows freely, at least two conversations going on at the same time, and everyone around the table making an effort to pull Jack into their conversational strand.
Towards the end of it, when almost all plates have emptied, the front door crashes open and closed.
"Remind me to never make another house call!" Calla's voice precedes her into the kitchen like lightning before thunder. She stamps into the kitchen with a jangle of the gold coin adorned scarf that's tied around her hips.
"Told you," Jimi says.
Calla huffs, pausing to reaching past Blue and grab the last plate from the middle of the table. While she's there, she presses a quick and affectionate kiss against the top of Blue's head.
"No one likes a know-it-all," she tells Jimi, settling on the chair between Jack and Maura. Like she hasn't noticed him before, her full attention turns to him as she holds her empty plate out to Maura to fill. "The infamous Jack, I presume?"