Alexander Pierce-Beales
July 30, 2020 11:14 AM
Let's talk. [Mab] by Alexander Pierce-Beales
Alexander had mixed emotions about everything that was happening. Family was a lot more thematic of the break than he had anticipated, and it was bittersweet. It was also his first Christmas with his new family and he did not appreciate threats to tear it apart. After things had settled down some and Alexander had gone to his room, he'd folded his jersey from Claire and tucked it into the bottom drawer of his dresser. He wouldn't take it to school. He wouldn't look at it again except maybe someday a long time from now when it was an okay time to look back on these days as history. For now, he wanted nothing to do with anything that might take him away from the family he had here. He also didn't want Mab to be taken away, although he was feeling a little more confident that Bel's sense of protectiveness would at least keep him here if Mab did leave, even if he wasn't so sure he was Bel's favorite human. It meant that he wanted to get to know her better though, and he would . . . just as soon as things calmed down.For now, it was his foster sister, not his foster mother, that was on Alexander's mind, and brought him to the door across the hall. He knocked lightly, not sure whether Mab was awake or not. It was late into the night on Christmas eve, and they'd been in their own rooms for a bit now. He wasn't about to try to pound on the door and demand to be let in; if Mab didn't want to talk, Mab didn't have to talk. But soon it would be Christmas. It was Alexander's first Christmas ever spent with family. And he really hoped she would talk.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
Let's talk. [Mab]
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Mab
July 30, 2020 1:24 PM
Yes, please by Mab
Mab was lying in her bed, staring at her ceiling. She liked her bed. She'd picked out the bedspread herself, and the sheets were ones Amelia had given her for Christmas last year. The sheets were soft and smooth and her favorite shade of lavender. The bedspread was warm and heavy and had small pixies flying across it (most of those had settled down for the night, but a few were still zipping around with tiny lanterns). The sheets she should be able to keep if she went back to live with Mom, but the bedspread wouldn't be allowed in a vanilla human's apartment (David was fey, but Mom wasn't, so she didn't know what category that put the place where Mom was living).She moved her head to the side, looking at the posters hanging on her walls in the dim light cast by the streetlights outside. Some of those were plain and normal posters, but some were of fey origin and moved about the same way her bedspread did. She had a couple photographs, again some of them normal stills like the one of her Tae Kwon Do class last summer, and some moving, like the ones Bel took of her and Alexander roller blading, or the one Amelia took of all three of them posing as a family.
She even loved her ceiling, she thought, as her head settled back into its normal place on her pillow, and her gaze returned to the glow-in-the-dark stars that she'd stuck up there in rough approximations of the constellations. (As best she could when some of the stars were three inches across and the room was less than a dozen feet across in its longest dimension.)
She was startled by the light knock on her door, and for a moment wondered if she'd either imagined it, or it came from one of their neighbors, but it was Christmas Eve and she wondered if maybe it wasn't a knock but Bel pretending to be Santa and putting their gifts out, so she got up and cracked her door to see if she could spy on their Christmas Tree from here, but Alexander was in the way. She made a small sound of surprise, then opened her door wider as in invitation, and made a quick urgent wave to hurry him inside.
"You're not supposed to be out of your room on Christmas Eve!" she chided in a whisper as she closed the door behind him. "Santa won't come if you spot that he isn't real!"
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Mab
Yes, please
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
July 30, 2020 5:49 PM
I'm having mixed emotions. by Alexander Pierce-Beales
There was a long enough moment between Alexander knocking and Mab answering that he almost thought she wasn't going to. When she finally did, her face in the crevice of the door, they both jumped at the same time. He actually managed a grin - those were getting easier these days - and ducked into her room before she closed. He hesitated, not sure exactly what Mab meant. Did she believe in Santa? Or was she suggesting that Bel would take Christmas gifts away if she caught them out of bed?"Is Santa coming?" Alexander asked, puzzled. He blinked a few times in rapid succession. "Do we get gifts?" he asked, mouth agape. He'd never gotten Christmas gifts in any meaningful way before. Sure, Claire had sent him something, and there were always drives for kids in group homes, so there were a few gifts he'd get then, and Bel had certainly gifted him a lot of things upon his move-in, but actual Christmas gifts? Wrapped up in boxes and bags, ready to be opened? Things with his own personal name on them? And magical things, at that? He wasn't sure what to expect.
The topic of the holiday aside, Alexander took a seat on the edge of Mab's bed and searched her expression for a moment. "Do you want to talk about stuff? With your mom?" he looked down at his hands and then back up to her. "I don't want you to go away . . . but I want you to be happy. Would going away make you happy?" he asked, frowning a little.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
I'm having mixed emotions.
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