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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

we could’ve made worse mistakes ( you might imagine we did )

Series: leigh crain has powers au

Summary: Steven has ideas about the future. Children factor into it. They do. Truly.

He just didn't think it'd be this early on in his life.

Warnings: mental health issues, suicide, implied child abuse/neglect, death, one ( 1 ) use of the C slur, ableism, menstruation mention, mention of skipped meals & weight talk in the beginning

Other notes: for the discord chat (especially charlie bc ur ocs are Canon Now to me) and also myself because i have headcanons for Leigh; might rewrite the reveal-to-Shirley scene because she does seem wildly... not into it, idk

Two months have passed since they’d first slept together, two months since and she’s not seen blood. It might not mean anything, just stress over this semester’s workload, and cranky from skipping meals from time to time (not often! maybe she should snack more, at least, because she and Steve and Shirley have a little rota system of sorts so that could work out, right?), and... it doesn/t mean she’s pregnant, necessarily. They’d been careful -- birth control, protection, the works. Maybe it’s just her body being a little wonky even though she’s not underweight (not severely enough, or at all, not really), and she doesn’t feel stressed. Better than being at home. “Home”. An aunt and uncle and cousin do not make a home.

Leigh checks the test again. Checks the box to make sure she’s reading it correctly. Beside her, Steve looks them over as well, and her stomach clenches when he hisses through his teeth; she pulls her knees up to her chest when his brow wrinkles into a frown. A small noise (fear) climbs out of her mouth when Steve stays silent.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” No judgement in his voice; an arm wraps around her shoulders, pressing them both together even tighter than thigh-to-thigh on the bathroom floor of their shared apartment. “It’s not your fault. It’s not...” She hears the smack of his lips as he struggles to find something comforting to say, something that sounds natural and not just scrambling to keep Leigh as calm as possible. It doesn’t seem possible right now, or even in the future; still too young for children, still too Markey for this new life, still too tied to Victor and lightning and ghosts for a real life. “We’re both in this, together, no matter what happens. If we keep it, or if we do something about it, or if... we give it up.” Pressing a kiss against her temple, stroking her hair, he says, “I don’t think I’d want to give it up if... if we don’t do something about it.”

It, it, it. So sure “it” is not a “them”. Funny how one’s genetics can mess with stuff like that. Twins, nature control, ghosts. She’s surprised there isn’t a spot of necromancy in there, either.

She has to squash it all down and pray her children (more than one, she can feel it like the night when Victor left, the traitorous shitstain) will not be infected.

Leigh doesn’t dare ask Steve. She knows what he’s told her.

It’s been a month since the test proved positive. They haven’t made any more to do something about it (them); they’ve talked about it (them), and safety nets.

“So.”

“... Yeah.”

“We’re keeping it?” He sounds excited about it. Barely, but the undercurrent is there in his voice, the shine in his eyes, the hopeful clasp of his hands around hers. The way his eyes keep flickering to her barely-there bump. He fucking should be, too -- she is.

“Yeah.” She laughs, exhaling long-held breath. “Yeah.”

Shirley is less than impressed when Leigh breaks the news over a later dinner. It starts off as a joke, “Oh I’m eating for two,” when Leigh really means three as she scarfs down a bigger helping of food. Shirley, looking between her now wide-eyed brother, looking as though he’d been caught out and wasn’t really trying to keep it a secret, and Leigh, looking like the cat with the canary and the cream.

“What the fuck?”

Leigh’s cheeky mood dips, sours. “Don’t be like that.”

“No, are you seriously--?”

Steve tries to placate his sister, reaching for her hand. “Shirl--”

“No!” Shirl whips away, hands to herself. It’s a miracle she doesn’t leave the table, calling them both careless idiots. “What’re you thinking? You can’t be having kids now!”

“Shirl.” He tries again, standing his ground; he knows where Shirl’s coming from, he does, because he’d react the same if she was in the same position. “Me and Leigh have talked about it, and we’ve decided to keep it.”

“Have you?” The question's a sharp wheeze. “Have you considered--”

“Yes, Shirl! We’ve talked about how we’re gonna be able to support our kid, with or without our family’s help.”

Leigh’s thankful there’s no mention of her own family, although she’s not sure if Shirl’s caught on yet. She hopes not.

“Oh Jesus, Stevie--” She's pressing the ball of her palms into her eyes, like the picture in front of her might change and this conversation will cease to be real, as though a the thing (the baby-to-be) in Leigh’s belly will simply disappear. “You’re actually serious about this?”

“Yes.” Joint answer. Shirley just shakes her head, but says no more about it.

When summer break rolls around, Leigh’s stomach is rounder (four months into it now) and she’s debating on whether to beg to go with Steve and Shirl (might as well meet her kids’ other aunts and uncle and great-aunt, right?), or whether to suffer under the eyes of her uncle and cousin and the fretting hands of her aunt. At least Cathleen means well. It’s not enough.

The night before leaving, before her ultimate decision, Victor slips into her dreams again. She’s tried so hard to keep him out while wishing he’d stayed and it’s only worked to make them both upset.

“This wouldn't have happened if you hadn’t killed yourself,” she says, more sulky than all the other times she’s told him this same thing. Her beloved brother, her idol, her hero, her sun-in-the-sky, her do-no-wrong posterboy, her motherfucking protector from all things wrong and evil in this world -- made her watch as he killed himself with that triangle of lightning.

Don’t look away, Leigh. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Eyes on me. Eyes on me. Eyes on me, Leigh.

“I know,” he says, ever-regretful as all the times before. As much as she wants to hurt him (but God, no, not really, no no no), she knows how sorry he is, how much he regrets it. How he regretted it at the time, at the terrifying need to make something stop but having no other option he could see--

He lays beside her in the dewy nighttime grass as the eternal nighttime sky of their shared world rolls overhead, stars speeding past their eyes; the trees circle them widely, like nature’s earthly crown. Victor rolls over to his side, grasping her forearm in his hand. “You can’t go back there. You know that; if you want these kids to see the world, you won't go back to those assholes.” She shouldn’t be surprised that he knows about them since he’s never wholly left since that night, but it still makes her skin crawl. (Why didn’t he do something about it, as she knew he did with so many other things? With the playground bullies? With the teachers? Did he fear her falling into the foster system? What’s to fear now?)

Leigh's throat clogs; everything is thick with tears. “I know.”

“It’ll kill them. It’ll kill you.”

She’s not sure whether if it’ll merely hurt her, or if she’ll join him here. She doesn’t ask for clarification.

Steven, the oldest brother, the most responsible of the Crain siblings, returns home with Shirley and his pregnant girlfriend. His girlfriend of a year and a half, who came home for a couple of weekends over that time, who chimed in on calls home, who is known by name and middle name and surname and age and hobbies and prospective career. Theo doesn’t shake her hand, instead going in for a hug (and if Theo were to be asked, and if she were to answer honestly, she’d confess that she felt that beat of preternatural in Leigh's blood), and Leigh is relieved that she’s got at least three out of six on her side. The twins hug her, too, before they pay attention to their own siblings. Janet is much the same. A home run; six outta six. Not bad, kiddo, not bad.

Later, during a quiet game after dinner, Leigh offers to clean up with Janet, insisting on it despite everyone saying she should rest. C’mon, she's only four months along, give over.

“Have you told your parents you're not going home?” Janet asks. It’s an innocent presumption, but the weight of everything -- of her brother’s death, of her father’s death, of her mother’s unravelled mind, of her remaining family’s pewter-cold regard -- is suddenly crushing her shoulders. She takes a chair out from under the table and slumps down, leaning against the back of it. Her hands are clammy.

“Sweetheart?” Janet's hand curls around her shoulder, and this tenderness, this genuine care that’s freely given to her, shatters that last wall of preservation: she weeps. Collected into Janet’s arms, she weeps harder, howling into her shoulder, snot dribbling freely as she cries aloud how her father is dead and her mother let herself lose her mind because why stay sane for her only daughter and only surviving family? And it was all Victor’s fault that she was stuck with her stupid frail aunt and boar of an uncle and cunting bitch of a cousin and she hated them all and that's why she’s here instead because the babies would die and she would die and it’d be the end of her because all the love she’d had had been swept away when she was only eight years old.

Janet tells her she can stay. She’s home.

The twins, Diane and Michael, are born on a Monday. Twenty-third of October. Janet has promised to look after them along with Theo, Luke, and Nellie. It’s almost too good to be true, but it’s perhaps the one thing that’s worked out for Leigh and Steven so far.

When winter break swings around, Steven proposes to Leigh, down on one knee in their shitty green-carpeted living space, short fibres rough on his knee and shin. They’re both still sleepy from the late night and late rising, and they’ve only talked about this since August, but of course Leigh says yes.

It’s all too good to be a fairy tale.

Two years later, they’re on their honeymoon, and Leigh is positively pregnant again. Nine months later, Robin and Eleanor, “Nora”, are born, and it’s still too good.

Fifteen years later, Nellie’s dead. Steven sees her in his hotel room.

At home, his children see her too.

#mine #my writing #mw: the haunting of hill house #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: leigh crain has powers au #ch: leigh crain #ch: steve crain #sft #/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao #/ also only tagging leigh & steve bc it's About Them

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