Laurel

[Laurel Morgan]

Prompt List

• Solace
• Rage
• Dinner
• Youth
• Christmas
• Bingo
• Birthday
• Spiral
• Anniversary
• Gray

[Laurel Morgan]

S O L A C E

  "Up, Mommy!" Maddy cried, wiggling her hands impatiently at Laurel, who was trying to balance two cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup in one hand and a pack of Kraft American Cheese in the other.

  "Brandon!" she called, focusing her voice at the ceiling. She knew her son could hear her, because the music in his room had stopped. Unless he was asleep. Maddy cried at her again, and Laurel made a small, desperate noise. She couldn't just drop everything to pick Madeline up, but if she didn't, that child was going to scream her lungs out. She could already hear her tone getting shrill.

  "Hey," her son said, sliding around the door into the kitchen. His dark eyes looked concerned, as though he could pick out the emotion in her voice. He always did - he always picked up the things that Laurel tried to hide the most, just like...
 
   ...like Britton had.

  "Can you please either help me start dinner or occupy your sister? I feel like it's about to be World War Three in the kitchen any second," she said. Her request was punctuated by the beginning of an ear-splitting wail from Maddy, who yanked at the leg of her jeans and scrunched her face up 'til it turned red.

  "UP MOMMY NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW"

  "Please?!" Laurel asked.

  Brandon hesitated for a moment, and then quickly snatched the things out of Laurel's hands and set them on the counter. He watched her scoop up his little sister, narrowing his eyes a little. Wordlessly, he turned and began opening the cans and pouring them into the saucepan Laurel had set out, turning on burners and laying cheese on open-faced slices of bread.

  "Thank you," she said softly, doting a kiss on top of his head as she whirred by, Maddy now singing in her arms.

  "Wet!" Maddy exclaimed, clapping her hands together happily.

  Laurel let out a frustrated noise and disappeared through the kitchen door, heading to the bedroom to get Madeline ready to be changed. Big-girl diapers were still diapers, after all, and Maddy still readily wet herself if she thought it might be an effective way to get attention. She was only three, after all, and sometimes it just seemed the most logical route.

  Brandon watched his mother go, and then focused down at the burner. It was red-hot, and it felt like his head, searing - his chest felt like it was ready to explode sometimes, emotions mixed and filling his heart with things he didn't think he was supposed to feel - hatred, chaos, sadness, desperation. He could see it sometimes in his mother's eyes, like she just wanted to fall down onto the floor and scream, but she'd suck it up and smile and the moment would pass, the tenebrous look in her honey-coloured eyes replaced - no, pushed aside by more pressing matters, things that could temporarily fill that gaping hole, the same one that he felt.

  He couldn't hear them upstairs, couldn't hear Laurel laughing with Maddy as they distracted themselves from reality, all shut up in the bathroom where it was just "Mommy and Maddy'. He envied them, hated them, hated Cameron, hated himself, hated his father, hated them all, because he felt unfinished somehow, incomplete.

  The back door swung open and the sound of a bag dropped down on the floor. Brandon turned around to look at Cameron in dirty BDU's with a weary smile on his face. Was he supposed to be home? What day was it? He returned the smile, however tight-lipped it was, and buried himself into making dinner. The thundering of footsteps down the stairs did little to drown out his thoughts as Laurel ran down with Maddy in her arms.

  "DADDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"Maddy screamed. She scrambled out of Laurel's arms and into Cameron's outstretched ones as Laurel nearly threw herself at her husband. There was laughter and noise and tears and a reunion that Brandon wasn't part of, and he slowly stirred the soup and wondered if that was how he had felt when his father came home, when his father picked him up. He wouldn't ever know, wouldn't ever know that peace or solace or relief, and it was eating him alive.

  He glanced over his shoulder at his mother, and he saw that she was looking at him, too. She looked sorry, even in her joy - she looked sorry.

[Laurel Morgan]

B I N G O

Lately, the turbulence of all of the supernatural happenings had really become hard to ignore. So many momentous events back to back and in such quick succession predicted that only more bad was coming, and anyone with a supernatural atom in their body could feel it. Laurel wasn't supernatural in any shape or form; being married to a demon (who had given up their demon status in a "fulfilled contract" end only to be met with loopholes) and having a child that had demonic blood didn't grant her any special ability. Nor did having a partner who was immune to the effects of vampirism, nor did her close proximity to anything else magical. And yet, somehow, she could feel it. It caused a great ache in her bones, something that made her feel tired and aged - or, more tired and aged, since she wasn't precisely a spring filly anymore, and her joints had sustained several traumas over the years of police work. But this was different. Heavier. It hung like a wet fog.

In response to the onslaught of additional stressors, compounded by things like Brandon wanting to see his father more and thus forcing Laurel to interact with Britton more, as well as Cameron's sudden aloofness when she asked about his day (since he knew more than he let on about the supernatural and naively believed Laurel didn't - something engineered on her part by playing stupid and holding her hand very close to her chest for too long to come clean now), she was beginning to realize that a personal breaking point was at hand, and she had choices to make. The first choice had been to up her gym time, which had only worked for a while before Brandon declared that he was absolutely not babysitting Maddy anymore because, as he so eloquently put it, "I'm not her fucking parent". That had earned him some time without his electronics to consider why it had been a poorly worded argument, but he wasn't wrong. If tomorrow Britton suddenly took custody forever, he wouldn't be an option. So she'd had to rearrange her schedule again, which only added more stress.

"I thought you quit smoking?" Simon asked, having clocked her leaning on her car and sucking down a cigarette as though her life depended on it. He approached casually, a cup of coffee in his hand, and a half-smile on his face. He looked tired.

"I did," she said, and raised her eyebrows at him as she pointedly took another drag.

"Okay," he said with a nod. "I'm going to assume that means as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you don't smoke."

"That's the plan," she admitted. "Eventually, maybe things will die down and I can actually let go of the few vices I'm holding onto." She flicked at the cherry with her fingers, separating the cigarette from its source of heat,then flicked the cottony end into the wind.

Simon took a sip of his coffee, snorting at her hopeful statement that life would return to normal. "I doubt it, sister," he said. "Whole reason I'm out here is because I got a call just now saying they want us to come look at some 'strange and unusual' graffiti."

"Since when do we do beat cop shit?" she asked, brow furrowed.

"Since it's written in blood," he replied smoothly. "Come on, I'll drive."

"God damnit," she said, but it was the dark expression on her face that really sold it. She looked tired, too, the same way Simon did. "Does this shit never end?"

"Oh, it gets better," he said, walking and talking. She followed along, short form having no issue catching up and keeping in step with her much taller partner. "We've seen it all, right? Vampires, shapeshifters, angels, you name it. Hell, we've even seen strange magic that best I can tell is older than the dirt we're standing on. But you know what we haven't seen? A good old witch."

Laurel frowned. "Yes we have," she countered.

"Not Macht witches, I mean - like, Baba Yaga, Snow White's Mother, Evil Queen With a Mirror witch," he said, waving the hand that didn't have the coffee cup in it as he spoke.

"Okay, sure, but it makes sense that they'd exist, right? I mean, let's be real Simon, suspension of disbelief here was out the window years ago. I'd willingly accept Santa Claus was real at this point." She waited for him to unlock the passenger side door as the arrived at the car, then opened it and got inside, continuing her train of thought. "So, okay, witches? Do you think that or do we already know that?"

Simon set his cup in the holder and started the car, then looked at her, pausing for effect. "They have a witness who swears it was straight up Suspiria-level shit." He grinned. "Can you believe that? We should have made supernatural Bingo cards."

Laurel grimaced at that. "I bet I'd win," she muttered to herself.

Simon was quiet for a second as they drove, and then looked over at her. "Things not so great with the demon spawn?" he asked.

With his phrasing, Laurel couldn't help but laugh. Simon was the only one who knew her well enough to say that and it not be meant as an insult, but rather, as the actual truth. Irony as she is cast. "Teenagers are all demon spawn, I'm convinced," she admitted. "But, honestly, I'm happier at the idea of dealing with 'real witches' than I am at going home and having to try and make it through another tense dinner." She looked out the window as she spoke, then glanced over at Simon. "Is it criminal if I just vanish into the ether?"

"Yes, unless you pay child support. But, and this is just a hunch, I think Cameron would be heavily opposed to that," he informed her, reaching over to offer her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "And he's not the only one." While Simon meant himself, of course, at being one of the people who would not be happy if she just disappeared, he meant Britton too, who despite being told repeatedly to leave her alone, still inquired as to her well-being and was on occasion answered by Theroux when he could see the dude was really hurting. Love was complicated in all its forms.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "Don't worry, if I ever go missing, I'm sure it will be because I made the wrong magical creature mad at the right time."

"You and me both," he agreed.

When they arrived on scene, they immediately began trying to piece together what had happened. As best as anyone could tell, it had been some sort of ritual and it had clearly gone wrong. The uniforms on scene weren't sure what to make of it, and so Simon and Laurel, due to their familiarity with the unusual, and part of the precinct's new unspoken mission to help mitigate magical problems, had been put to task trying to puzzle the mystery together.

"You said there was a witness?" Simon asked to one man who stood by the door, trying to go through crime scene notes.

"Yeah, she's over there," he replied, pointing with his notepad. "I wouldn't expect too much out of her, though."

"Why?" Simon asked, glancing over his shoulder at where the cop pointed.

"Because she's literally covered in human shit," he said glibly. "She's some vagrant that was taking residence up in the alley behind this building. Talking some wild nonsense. But," he added," she's the only person in the immediate area who came forward claiming to have seen anything."

"If only I'd put fecalpheliac on my bingo card," Simon muttered. "Alright, let's go interview our shit-smeared witness," he said with a groan.

[Laurel Morgan]

 

D I N N E R

The red and blue of the police lights were a blur to Leon as he rushed past police and up the steps of his home. The door was knocked off the hinges, and the white carpet that he'd just replaced the foyer with was stained with blood. In the front room, Bambi sat, slouched over in a chair with the goat at her side like some sort of comfort animal. Her chin was on her fist, blonde spirals every which way and shielding the damage done to her face from him. She was speaking to a plainclothes detective, a woman smaller than Bambi in height but someone who seemed to command the room all the same.

"What the fuck happened?" he breathed, another detective blocking him from getting any further into his home. "This is my house," he snapped, hand moving to his forehead in sheer shock at the scene. Broken glass, more blood - he couldn't tell if those were bullet holes or burn marks in the couch. Everywhere he stepped, he felt crunching - Christ, did he own this much glassware? "What the fuck happened?" he said again.

"Listen, Mr. Raines, I need you to calm down a sec, okay? I know that's a tall order, but just humor me. Here, sit down right here, because obviously I need to ask you some questions, but I promise I will tell you as much as I know after. Mr. Raines - hey, Leon!" the detective said, snapping his fingers in the man's face once to break the daze he saw setting in. "Your girlfriend's fine. She's a little banged up, but she's fine, okay? You can talk to her in a minute. Right now, the most important thing is to get information from you as quickly as possible," he said. He spoke smoothly, but quickly, trying to impress upon him that the fresher the info was, the better things would be for everyone.

"Witches?" Laurel repeated, unable to hide the flatness in her voice as she glanced up at the blonde in the chair. "I'm assuming that's not a euphamism for bitches." When Bambi rolled her eyes, Laurel pursed her lips for a moment, and then sighed. "Listen, if you want us to figure out who did this, I need you to tell me everything, Bambi," she said, dropping the skeptical expression. Her voice softened considerably, something that Bambi didn't expect given the detective's previously clinical demeanor. "These are strange times we're in right now. And, for what it's worth, I've had my fair share." She paused. "Plus, I'm willing to bet money that your boyfrend is over there just repeatedly saying they wanted his watch collection or something."

Bambi snorted. This lady was smart, she'd give her that. That was almost verbatim what they'd said when they had a break-in previously. "You know," Bambi said, looking down at the goat and giving him a scrub with her fingertips. "We were going to go to the fair this weekend? Yeah. I feel like he won't be in the mood now, though," she muttered.

"Yeah?" Laurel asked. "My kids hate the fair. Weird, I know. I used to go when I was younger, with my friends." She smiled fondly. "Yeah, we'd get our cards charted by the fortune teller. It was a while ago, though."

Bambi was quiet for a minute, and then spoke. "I don't know what they're looking for. He doesn't, either. Listen, I can't tell you much more. But, I can tell you, they're dangerous. Half the glass in the kitchen is broken now - and some of it, if you'll notice, is in my face currently. I warded this house, and I know that you have no basis for measurement here, but I am strong." She paused. "But they were stronger. And it was only two of them."

Laurel considered this for a moment, and then nodded. "Okay," she said. "It's not much, but I'll work with it." She looked over her shoulder, then motioned for Simon to cut the questions short. It was a relief for Leon, who was walking back through his entire day, as Simon did the one thing he was incredibly good at - waste someone's time. She stood up, stepping back so Leon could take her place and actually comfort his girlfriend. "We'll be in touch," she said.

"Wait," Bambi said. When Laurel turned back around, Bambi gave her a thoughtful look. "What did your cards say? When you had them read, I mean." She ignored Leon as he tried to hush her; the man was currently beside himself with frustration - and fear, obviously.

"Oh, uh - hm," Laurel said, not having expected that question. "Nothing good, I remember that," she said. She laughed, but it was a short and bitter sound. "Listen, my advice? Pack a bag and have the big man out front who's foaming at the mouth to get in the house take you guys to a hotel for the night." She glanced at the goat. "One that's got a flexible pet deposit. I'll call you when we know more, okay?" From out front, they all heard Edward informing the uniform at the door that he was going to go inside, and if they wanted to stop him that would be between them and God.

"Just fucking let him in, alright?" Laurel snapped, approaching the door. She grabbed Simon and side-stepped as the man blew past them and towards the couple at the chair, then shook her head and let go of her partner's collar. "Come on, let's go," she said. "We burned the whole day at the hospital and we still need to go back and meet Rivers. I'd call Cam and tell him I'm going to be late, but seeing as to how it's already almost eleven thirty, I'm pretty sure he's aware I won't be home for dinner and handled it himself."

"I hope so," Simon quipped, following her through the yard. "It's either that or he's just sitting in the dark at the table, terribly confused." He chuckled to himself at the visual.