So. Yeah. Um. That was my fault. on At Home

Bel Pierce

February 22, 2021 7:57 PM

So. Yeah. Um. That was my fault. by Bel Pierce

They got out of Sonora without further incident. Mab did not attack again - which was very good, because fighting your own daughter in public was probably against some law somewhere. There were an annoyingly large collection of laws about where and under what circumstances it was unlawful to fight. If Mab had come at her again, she probably would have tried evading a few more times, to buy time to calm her down, but backing down from a fight was not in Bel's nature and they probably would have eventually ended up in Headmistress Skies' office - or possibly Headmaster Brockert's - at minimum, so she was glad Alexander and Deidre had been able to talk Mab down as quickly as they had.

She'd put off all further discussion about the relationship between herself and Deidre until they were back in Boston, and told them to go say good-bye to anyone else they wanted to check in with before they all left. And by the time they got back to Boston, thanks to the time difference, it was late enough that she was able to table further discussion about their future until the morning.

So with Alexander and Mab in their bedrooms, and Reilly set up in a temporary toddler bed in the training room (Bel had transfigured a yoga mat to make the bed and also put down an enchantment that would prevent him from getting into the sporting equipment - and moved the most dangerous looking of the wall-hanging weapons into her own room), she and Deidre were finally alone to work out a plan - and a backstory.

The door to the training room closed as Deidre slipped out quietly after getting the toddler to sleep. Bel waited for her in the living room. She'd already put up sound-proofing and anti-eavesdropping charms so the teens (and the neighbors) wouldn't hear any of the inevitable shouting. She stood in the middle of the room, light on her feet, ready to dodge in case Deidre wanted to deck her. Bel would have absolutely wanted to deck her if their positions were reversed.

This was Bel's fault. This was absolutely and without question all Bel's fault. She knew that.

Deidre walked into the room and gave Bel a very sour looking look of baleful accusation, but did not take a swing at her. Not physically, and not verbally, either.

Bel swallowed hard. She should probably apologize. That was probably what Deidre was waiting for.

She'd never been good at apologizing. Rarely felt like she needed to. This was one of maybe three times in her life where she agreed it was warranted. But when her mouth opened, nothing came out.

Deidre crossed her arms and frowned expectantly.

"That got out of hand," Bel admitted.

A raised eyebrow.

Sorry. I'm sorry. How hard was it to just say that? Impossible, apparently. She lowered her eyes, twisted her hands in front of her. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Well, you did," Deidre stated pointedly. "Now what?"

Bel's eyes snapped back up to hers. She bit her lip. That was an opening. Maybe not the best one, but if she was going to do this, she wanted to get it over with, so they could stop dancing around the point.

Bel dropped down to one knee and pulled out a box she'd just bought while Deidre was reading to Reilly. She opened the box, revealing the silver ring with the diamond inside. "Will you marry me?"

"Oh my God," Deidre blasphemed, turning on her heel and covering her face. After a moment, she turned around again to find Bel hadn't moved. "You're serious."

"Deadly serious."

"You don't even like me!"

Bel shrugged, finding the one knee position growing uncomfortable, but she hadn't been given an answer yet so she held it. "I come from a culture that isn't terribly particular about that."

Deidre frowned. "Mallory -"

"No, Mab's fine. She's not a pureblood. Only purebloods still have arranged marriages."

Deidre looked more confused than reassured but thankfully seemed to decide that now was not the time to discuss the different magical sects. "Mallory's not . . . but you are?"

"Was," Bel corrected. "I got disowned."

Deidre blinked, but it seemed more like Bel was finally starting to make sense to her rather than that she was surprised by that admission. "For being a lesbian?" she guessed.

"Mm, no," she denied, deciding this was not the ideal time to mention Derwent the Original's murder. "But if they'd known I was a lesbian back then, that would have done it, too."

"So you are one?"

They were going to be married. Probably best to be honest. "It's what I tell people. I'm actually more asexual and homoromantic. Which is to say, I like dating girls but not sleeping with them."

Deidre looked pointedly at the engagement ring in Bel's hand.

"I can probably get used to platonic sleeping," she admitted uncomfortably. "For appearances. If that's something you'd be comfortable with. I won't take liberties."

"I can't believe we're even talking about this."

"It would break Alexander's heart if we don't. Mab's too, I think. She wants all of us to be her family. It's why this custody battle has lasted this long. She can't chose. This way, she doesn't have to."

Deidre frowned down at her. "You can't want this."

"I want what is best for my family. Right now, that looks like accepting you and Reilly into it. I'd do anything for Alexander and Mab. Once we're married, that extends to you and Reilly as well."

Deidre looked startled. "Oh." She seemed to think about it very hard for a moment. Then she stepped closer and took the ring. "I'm a sleep cuddler. I can't promise I won't take liberties."

Bel blinked. "Aren't you straight?"

"Apparently not anymore." She put on the ring.

1 Bel Pierce So. Yeah. Um. That was my fault. 0 Bel Pierce 1 7

Deidre Beales

February 24, 2021 7:15 PM

It really was by Deidre Beales

When she finished getting Reilly down - a process that involved reading at least three books, and then sitting in the dark until he passed out, and ran rather longer than it normally did because this wasn't his normal room - Deidre headed out to the main room in the apartment. There she found Bel looking as guilty as she had ever seen anyone look, and she had a daughter with a propensity toward theft.

She waited for Bel to speak first, and when she finally did they were not exactly an apology, though the tone almost - almost - dipped in that direction. She waited some more. She still didn't get one, though this time Bel at least acknowledged that she'd done something wrong.

It was probably the best she was going to get, so she made a snippy comment.

Deidre did not expect Bel's response to that to be a thrice cursed marriage proposal, but here they were, with Bel down on one knee and Deidre torn between screaming and hysterical laughter, because this was not how her life was supposed to go.

Once upon a time, she'd dreamed that she'd get to walk down an aisle wearing a ridiculously long white dress, but that had been fourteen years ago, and the person waiting in front of the pulpit was young and tall and blond and muscular (Bel had one of those traits, though her muscles were shaped very differently than Tony's had been). Tony had failed to deliver on that dream.

More recently, there had been . . . crap. She didn't even remember his name. Hadn't stuck around long enough after recovering sobriety to ask whether marriage and a family were something whoever-he-was wanted. Given the state of his place and how far gone she'd been, she doubted it, was pretty well sure she didn't want him even if he did. There'd been no dream there.

More recently still, she'd thrown in her lot with David, and David was fine. Didn't ask for much more than cooking and cleaning in return for a place to stay and some spending money. He was by no means a husband though. He'd been a husband twice before, though. Best as she could tell, he'd sucked at it. To Deidre, he was a weird cross between an employer and a great-uncle she barely knew who needed someone to take care of him and but had pissed off all of his own descendants bad enough that none of them wanted to do it.

... Actually if she understood all of the relations between the Prices and Pierces correctly, if she did marry Bel, that would be exactly what he was, except one generation closer because Bel was effing old enough to be Deidre's mom. (Though to be fair to both her mom and Bel, her mom had not been as irresponsible as Deidre herself had been, and her mother probably had a good six or seven years on Bel.)

She spun back around (she'd turned away to try to pretend this wasn't happening, to calm down enough that she didn't give into the screaming or the hysterics) and Bel hadn't bloody moved.

"You're serious," Deidre blurted out, even though she'd already know Bel was serious. Bel was always serious. She'd already all but promised a summer wedding to Mallory and Alexander. This was a formality, one she probably should have anticipated but hadn't. She'd figured 'Here, put this on,' would be as close to a proposal as she'd ever get, and . . .

. . . and she was kind of almost touched Bel had bothered.

But she was also furious because this wasn't how her life was supposed to go. She'd once believed Tony had loved her and he'd walked away without even so much as a child support check, and here was Bel who didn't even like her, who thought she was an irresponsible addict who was barely holding her life together and couldn't be trusted to care for a teenaged daughter, down on one knee, holding out a ring.

There was some back and forth, some questions she needed answered, and for once in her life, Bel seemed to be in an answering mood, and two things stood out.

The first was that Bel had been disowned. She'd sort of kind of picked that up from some snide comments David had dropped and the weird inconsistency Bel had about the relationship she shared with the woman Amelia who was sometimes her cousin and sometimes her mother and the older Derry who was sometimes her cousin and sometimes her brother. Deidre had previously chalked that up to a changing narrative in the lies she was telling about who the Pierce/Prices really were, but it was finally starting to crystalize into a form where both versions could be true.

It was actually really easy to believe Bel had gotten herself disowned. It made so many things about her make sense.

The second important thing was what really ended the impasse.

*I'd do anything for Alexander and Mab. Once we're married, that extends to you and Reilly as well.*

The fierceness, the determination, the absoluteness of it . . . Deidre was sure now Bel had to be a crime boss. Nobody else could make statements like that and mean them. And Bel meant it. She meant it for all four of them.

It was the closest think Deidre had felt to being loved by someone who wasn't Reilly or Mallory since she'd dropped out of high school.

She took the ring.

She might be marrying into the mob but she didn't care. The mob was gonna take care of her and her kids. She might be marrying a woman but she didn't care about that either. Bel would do anything for her, for Mallory, for Reilly, for Alexander. She'd have a family, a real one, not just a fragment that gets by.

Bel had been kind enough to offer reassurances that she wouldn't do anything Deidre was uncomfortable with, so it was only fair to warn her about Deidre's own sleeping habits.

It probably made her a bad person, but the look of uncertain nervousness on Bel's face was kind of satisfying. It was kind of relieving to know she wasn't completely fearless.

"Aren't you straight?" Bel asked, like she suddenly doubted something she had been completely certain of until now.

Deidre had always thought she'd been straight. She'd never had any reason to doubt that. She undoubtedly found men attractive. But what had men ever done for her other than screw her, in both senses of the word? She was done with men. She was marrying Bel.

"Apparently not anymore." She put the bloody ring on her finger. And kind of enjoyed the worried look Bel gave her.

She held out a hand to help Bel up off her knee. She'd kept the woman down there longer than was customary, and felt a little bad about that. It didn't look like a comfortable position. For a moment, Bel looked like she'd be stubborn and just get up on her own, but after a slight hesitation, she gripped the offered hand and Deidre heaved her up, which was not nearly as hard as she'd been expecting, and she pulled a little too hard, and Bel collided into her.

They both gripped each other for a moment to catch their respective balances, and that was of course when - given the luck of today - Mallory poked her head out of her room, and exclaimed, "Merlin! Mom! Oh my God!" and then slammed her door shut again.

Bel was still in her arms, and started shaking. Mildly concerned, Deidre looked down, and it took her a moment to realize she was witnessing something she had never seen before.

Bel was laughing. Side splitting, can't even hold herself upright, laughing.

And, after another moment, the absurdity of it all struck her and so was Deidre.

1 Deidre Beales It really was 0 Deidre Beales 0 7