Momfoolery

[Miranda Quattrone]

Prompt List

• River
• Storm
• Dream
• Fight
• Influence
• Fae
• Emerald
• Nobody
• Werewolf
• New Year's

[Miranda Quattrone]

 

N O B O D Y

It was an easy mistake to make, to think that the matriarch of the Quattrone household was just some nobody mombie who was super out-of-touch with the day to day life of her children and husband. It was the common assumption, even among friends, and the reason was because it was exactly what Mike and Andi wanted people to think. Mike was an Arun, Miranda a Vida. They were not known for weak bloodlines, and they were absolutely not known for being dialed out of their own lives. Mike, out front, was the protector of the family - and just about everything else, honestly. Cook, chauffeur, homework-helper, alarm clock, grocery shopper - whatever needed to be done in the name of domesticity, he did it. And he did it with a smile - because he wanted to. All his life, he'd never believed he could have things like a stable house, family, children (three!) and so he happily cared for them as the doting, attentive father and husband. Mike was the face of the family. But he was certainly not the powerhouse of the duo.

He sat, tied to a chair in his living room, reflecting on that fact. He'd taken a few blows from the man that had eventually stuck him to the chair, but it was only because the man was using blood magic, and as an Arun, Mike just didn't fuck with anything in that direction. It was fortunate that the man had said repeatedly that he wasn't trying to hurt anyone, he was just looking for something, and he'd made good on that by putting all three kids on the couch and tying them together across from Mike.

"I just need to know where you put it," he said, pacing back and forth through the room. He was growing increasingly more and more erratic, like he knew he had only a certain amount of time with which to accomplish his task, and time was not on his side.

"Put what!" River yelled, trying his best to shield his sisters as he shifted around beneath the ropes, putting himself at the forefront of the triangle they'd formed. Behind him, Stormy maneuvered to put Dreama at her back, stacking behind River in the event her brother decided to try and make a break for it.

The man turned, movements jerking and strange, and got right in River's face. At that, Mike jerked forward in the chair, yelling loudly for him to get away from the kids.

"THE LAMP!" he yelled back, hands flying to his face for emphasis. He jumped back, spinning on his heel and got in Mike's face next, ignoring the man as he screamed.

"Tell your kids they're BAD LIARS!" he shouted. He was going from zero to a hundred and back so quickly that Mike thought he might genuinely be mentally ill - or he was going through some sort of magical ordeal. He didn't know which, but he knew that blood magic made you fucking crazy, and this looked to be no exception. "Just - just tell them to tell me what I want to know, mate, and I'll go away," he said, hands still moving as he spoke.

A noise from the kitchen made everyone look up, and the man's eyes grew so wide the whites were noticeably visible. "I thought you said that there was nobody else in the house," he hissed. "I told you I don't want to hurt anyone - but that doesn't mean I won't."

"Mike?" Andi's voice came from the kitchen. She sounded drunk. "Baby, I lost my key again! Sorry, I think I broke the fence getting into the backyard. Girls night was great, though! Are you still up? Honey it's late, you didn't have to wait up..." her voice got closer as she could be heard stumbling through the kitchen and down the hall. She rounded the corner to the living room, green eyes going wide with shock. "Who the fuck are you?" she slurred, looking at the man, clearly confused.

"Look man, she's drunk, she's probably not even going to remember this tomorrow, just tell her to go back into the kitchen, I'm sure we can figure this out between us," Mike said quickly, turning his head to look at Andi. She looked at him for a moment, still wobbling, but then began to wind her hair up into a bun, and he glanced back at the man. "We don't have whatever it is you're looking for."

"Come here and sit down," he said, ignoring Mike, and missing the shift in his voice. He also missed that the blonde, whose hair was now up in a taught bun, had one of her high heels in her hand, and wasn't wobbling anymore. He reached out for Andi, who swayed back from him.

"No!" she said, holding the hand without the shoe up. "What're - what're you doing in my house?" she asked. She stumbled forward, still appearing drunk, and as the man put his hands up reflexively to stop her from hitting the ground, the act was dropped. He took the heel from the shoe directly in the face, and the kids winced as the sharp heel buried itself into the soft flesh of his cheek. He screamed, but he was too surprised to use magic in response to such a violent first attack.

Miranda, though - she could do both. She drove her elbow down as soon as he doubled over, contacting hard with his spine, and giving the added spike of her harsh magic with it, dropped him to the ground. She reached down with one hand and grabbed him by the collar, yanking hard enough to hit him in the windpipe with his shirt. It served the purpose of knocking the wind out of him and also strangled him enough that he was still off his guard, and she dragged him that way, roughly, across the carpet the few steps it took to get to her husband. She pulled the small fillet knife she'd stuffed in the hem of her stocking while she'd been in the kitchen, ignoring the massive run she'd given herself, and cut nimbly at the rope around the chair until he could get up, all the while her other hand still firmly on the man.

"Get the kids, and then call Papa," she instructed.

"NO!" the man yelled, suddenly able to breathe enough to both speak and struggle. He kicked violently at the ground, but found it was useless as the woman continued to drag him through the house, and out the front door into the lawn. He yelped as he felt himself go down the concrete front steps, and then was sent rolling as the hold on his neck broke in favor of a sharp kick to the ribs. He landed on top of a sprinkler head that sprang to life, drenching him as it did so. "Don't call him, I'll do whatever you want!" he protested, holding his hands up at the menacing approaching figure.

"I'm sorry, maybe I missed the part where you tied my family down in the living room and terrorized them?" she shouted. Lights in the neighborhood flicked on, and gradually, a front door or two opened.

"Hey, Andi... is everything good?" a male voice called from across the street. From his porch, Nick could see Miranda in evening wear, with no shoes, standing with her foot planed on someone's neck in the yard, yelling and getting soaked by the evening sprinkler cycle. It was... different, but not the most unusual thing he'd ever seen.

"Oh, we're great Nick, thanks for asking! Yeah, I got it under control, just go back inside!" she said, laughing and giving a wave. She turned back to the man on the lawn, then applied pressure to his neck with her heel. "My husband is calling your boss right now," she advised him. "Give me one good reason why you shouldn't be here when he gets here."

"Hey, Miranda, Bob wanted to know if you were okay!" came a female voice from the dark. She looked up at Nica, who stood at the edge of the property, still dressed from their night out and smelling heavily of gin. "Or - do you have this?" she asked, a cursory glance at the beaten man on the lawn suggesting her friend might've had control.

"Yeah, I got it," she said, waving her off. "Thanks, though. Love you!"

The rate at which her face changed when her smile instantly vanished back into the smoldering rage told Hamish that she hadn't forgotten what she'd asked him, and the sudden wallop he got when she decided to hit him to prompt him caused him to wince. At the moment, he couldn't figure out who he was more scared of - Papa, Ethan, or her.

"Your kids - they have a magic lamp. Or bottle. Or something," he said quickly, trying to dodge the next well-aimed slap she had for him. "Hey! I'm telling the truth!" he grunted. "Look, I had it, I lost it, they picked it up and they wouldn't give it back. It's got a jinn in it, like a real one, and I was supposed to be lining up a buyer for it. Aristide doesn't know, and has nothing to do with this. Your kids have it, and it's basically like a magical bomb, so I feel like - "

"Shut up," she commanded, but she took her foot off his neck. "I know what a djinn is." She was silent for a second as she stared at him, seeming to weigh her own options. "Alright," she said. "Get up, right now, and go. I'm going to tell Aristide you ran when he gets here, and however you meet with him again is between you and him. But if you ever come near my family again, gypsy? I will fucking burn you alive. Do you understand me?"

Something on her face said that she was dead serious, and Hamish nodded as he scrambled to his feet. "How do you know? Who the fuck are you people?" he asked, backing away from her.

"Us? We're nobody," she snapped. "Just a nice normal family on a nice normal street. Now get the fuck away from me."

Hamish obliged.

Andi went back inside, aware that Mike was in the process of comforting her children, and wasn't having any of it. "You two, right now, get your asses upstairs and bring me that fucking lamp." She pointed at them, snapping, then jerked her hand to the stairs. Mike opened his mouth to protest, but something on her face told him not to, and so he picked up his youngest while the two teens ran up the stairs, practically climbing over one another, to get the aforementioned lamp.

Once back downstairs, they handed it to their mother, who was radiating with anger.

"What are you going to do with it?" Stormy asked, willing herself not to cry.

"Getting the fuck rid of it," Andi said bluntly. She walked straight out the front door and flung it into the recycling bin that had been set out for the next day. "And you two are going to sit here until that gets picked up and make sure it's gone."

"Mom, we have school tomorrow!" River protested.

"Do what she says, River," Mike said, finally cutting in. The way he spoke was definitive that nothing else would be heard on the matter, and he nodded to Miranda. "I'm gonna take her up to bed," he said. He leaned in for a kiss, surprised when his wife held her arms out.

"I'll take her," she said, uncharacteristically maternal. "You go relax. I got it," she added.

"Yeah," he said, smiling a little. "I guess you do."