Ok, I told myself that I wouldn't work at all on anything to do with my story for my 5 day weekend but when you're up till 5am cause your friend and his girlfriend work at night and thusly stay up till then ya kinda get bored. While no, I didn't start a new chapter I did work on the chapter list and kinda give myself a summary that way. I still know how the story is going and I had an internal fight for the last chapter and epilogue. I now have that worked out. So thank you to all who wished me a wonderful weekend. The next chapter will be Christmas day, so I've already gotten to the short story.
Here is chapter 9. Enjoy!
Megan stared at the pink, squishy, lumpy, giant mass of flesh in front of her. She couldn't touch it. She could barely bring herself to cut open the plastic that had covered it. The guys had decided a 30 pound fowl would be excellent for Thanksgiving. Why they needed that much dead bird, she didn't know. Not to mention, they had her awake far earlier than she wanted to be. Her eyes shift from the turkey to the stuffing that sat beside it.
"I can't do this…" She says as she backs away from the bird. Des, Ezzy, and Leo look at her confused.
"You can't tell me that you've never stuffed a bird." Des questions her. Ezio and Leo look between the two, Ezio still mashing the potatoes and Leo shelling boiled eggs.
"I haven't…" She answers as she tears her eyes away from the dead bird. She had such a problem with touching raw bird. It was just to gross. Des' eyes widen slightly before he bursts into laughter causing her face to gain a pink tint. She glares at him in embarrassment. Ezio and Leo grab a chip from the pile that sat between them on the bar. This was interesting. Once Megan and Desmond had mentioned this rather interesting holiday, all of the Assassins were in. How can you pass up a day meant for eating yourself into a coma? "Shut up Desmond." She scowls at him. She wanted to toss something at him but after the antiquing snafu, she wasn't going to do such a thing again. Instead she takes the hand towel she had on her shoulder and snaps it at his waist. The resulting crack made all three men jump, Desmond most. He rubs the spot on his stomach as he eyes the towels in her hands. She gives a grin and snaps the towel again. It gives another loud crack drawing the attention of Shaun, Alty, and Mal to the kitchen. Alex was asleep on the couch.
"How did you-"
"SH!" Ezio hushes Altair and pulls him down into the chair beside him. Leo motions to Mal and Shaun the seats beside him without looking. She twists the towel, a grin on her face. Des was eyeing the towel, anticipating the next crack. She goes to snap it and when he goes to grab it she fakes and snaps it at his arm. He yelps when it makes contact, grabbing his arm and turning around leaving his backside open. Her grin widens into a full scale maniacal glee as the rest realize what she planned on doing and continued to eat the chips being passed around. She winds up and lets the towel fly; giving the loudest crack so far, sounding almost like a gunshot. Desmond yells loudly, ignoring his arm for his now abused rear end. Alex jumps up, eyes blurry, and looks around to find 5 of the 6 Assassins howling with laughter and nearly falling out of their chairs and the other Assassin hopping around holding his rear. He could hear Megan laughing but couldn't see her.
Suddenly her hand pops up from the floor to the bar counter, clutching it as she pulls herself off the ground. She was bent over the bar still laughing while Des glared at her, rubbing the offended part of his person.
Obviously Alex missed something.
Desmond grabs the hand towel from off the oven door and spins it, a small grin in place. He snaps it at her hip and she gives a small cry of surprise and pain as it cracks on her person, falling to the ground with a thud and moan.
"Why does anything hitting you hip feel like you've been shot?" She bemoans from the floor.
"Come on, it doesn't hurt that much." Desmond says while rolling his eyes, helping her up. She rubs her hip and notices Alex awake. She smiles widely at him.
"Morning!" She calls to him and he shakes his head from her antics. She was sometimes just to awake for her own good. He relaxes back onto the couch, closing his eyes to go back to sleep. Ezio watches the two rather closely, as he had been since he and Megan had their small conversation. None of the others still had a clue as to what was going on which both were ok with. She and Alex had yet to define what they were.
"What exactly happened to prompt this?" Malik questions after several moments.
"Megan has never "stuffed a turkey" before and Desmond found this to be amusing." Ezio answers, even throwing in the finger gestures for quotations. Megan, Des, and Shaun stop to look at him.
'How is it he makes everything sound dirty?' Megan thinks glancing at the two modern Assassins. Desmond had a huge grin on his face while Shaun was shaking his head. No one else seemed to realize how wrong it had sounded. Alty and Mal look at her in surprise.
"Have you never done this before?" Shaun questions, pushing his glasses up his nose. She shakes her head in the negative.
"Never really had much of a reason. I was always alone when Thanksgiving came around." She shrugs, dropping the subject to return to the problem at hand; which meant the ginormous bird they would be cooking in her oven for the rest of the day. She turns to Desmond who raises an eyebrow at her.
"You're doing it."
She huffs, crossing her arms under her chest. She was still wearing her pajamas; consisting of a large black long sleeve with the sleeves rolled up and her favorite red and black flannel pants. "I just don't understand why I was volunteered for this without my knowing."
"You have the smallest hands." Malik responds eating a chip. Megan's head drops in dismay.
"That is so not fair." She mumbles as she goes to wash her hands once more. Once her hands are cleaned off she grabs a handful of stuffing and, taking a deep breath, sticks it inside the bird. Her eyes widen and she removes the appendage, bouncing around and exclaiming how gross it was with, "EW, EW, EW, EEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!"
All of the Assassins laugh at her obvious disgust.
"I-I think that's enough stuffing in there." She says turning to Desmond with doe-like eyes.
"Nope, keep going."
"But its SLIMEY!" Her face scrunches up.
"Keep going." Was his response.
"You suck." She retorts, once more grabbing a handful of stuffing to put in the bird. She keeps up with the 'ew's as she puts more stuffing inside. She was only happy that she didn't have to pull out the insides, all thanks to Desmond. She would have barfed all over him if she had had to do so. With each ew she uttered she was rewarded, well she really couldn't think of it as a reward but oh well, with chuckles from the men around her. Finally her job was done and all she had to do was sew the bird up… if she could. The damn thing looked ready to explode all over them as it was. "Shaaaauuuun…" She whines turning to the counter. Said red head sighs and gets up, washes his hands and takes the needle and thread from the counter to sew it up as she scrubs like a mad woman on her hands and arms. She felt so gross.
Once Shaun was distracted she makes her break for the couch only to be grabbed by the back of her shirt by Alty. "Nooooo, no more please!"
"To bad." Was the retort she received as he plunks her down on the chair beside him. Her head meets the bar in response. A bowl is placed infront of her and when she looks at it, with trepidation mind you, finds it was just the bowl of chips they had been passing around. Cool Ranch Doritos, her favorite. She sits straight and watches as Des and Shaun lift the massive fowl, now covered over with tin foil in the dish, into her oven. They nearly didn't make it.
"You know how to make deviled eggs?" Des questions as he looks at her before returning to the giblet gravy.
"I think I remember how." She answers as Leo passes the now shelled eggs to her and a knife. She cuts the eggs in half, putting the yolk into a new bowl provided by the Brit before he went back around the bar to his seat. They continue on this way, every once in a while Alex would wake up and help. The weather had yet to give the first snow of the year again, once more odd. It was still frosty and cold but no snow in the forecast. She didn't much mind it, it had allowed them to go get the things for a Thanksgiving feast. The only thing was that the actual holiday was tomorrow.
"Oh meh gosh, that smells so good!" Megan says as she, Mal, Alty, Ezzy, and Leo were gathered around the oven several hours later. They all take a deep breath of the smell of the turkey cooking and exhale, practically drooling as the do. Des rolls his eyes at them and Alex chuckles low. Megan's eyes shift over to the man and her happy mood demands she act goofy. She takes off to the couch Alex was still occupying by laying down on but her ability to become clumsy at inopportune times decides to pop up. Instead of stopping at the edge of the couch, she instead falls over the edge of it and straight into Alex's stomach face first.
Everyone freezes.
It starts with Ezio giving a guffaw and then everyone joins in, Megan jumping up and off of Alex with one of the rare moments of grace and runs over to the stairs to go up them when she pauses.
"I fucking hate you Ezio." She says with a dark glare directed towards him. Said Italian falls out of his confiscated chair onto the floor, laughing even harder. Desmond even joins him on the floor, which just causes her already dark look to become the glare that drops the temperature several degrees.
It doesn't affect the two, unfortunately.
Shaun, on the other hand, felt the need to warn them about it; if only for posterity's sake. "I would stop if-"
Megan grabs two books and, with an accuracy she can never seem to call upon other than when upset, chunks them at the two. The one aimed at Ezio hits him in the stomach but the one aimed at Desmond hits him between the legs. His voice ends in a squeak, his eyes cross, grabs hold of himself, and rolls over onto his stomach groaning. Everyone stops laughing but Megan, who begins to howl with laughter.
"That's not right…" Malik says, cringing. Megan stops laughing suddenly.
"It's only fair. They were laughing at me, I get to laugh at them." And very childishly, she sticks her tongue out at the ones who could see her. Desmond continues to groan on the ground and Megan walks over to him, Ezio having gotten over his own shock and gotten up, stands beside the pained man. He turns his head enough to look up at her.
"It… hurts…" Megan could only describe his voice as sounding tight. The amount of pain that was laced in his voice showed her that he truly was in pain. She looks at him for a few seconds before scoffing and going over to get a hand towel and ice. She bundles up the cubes and returns back to Des. She sits on the floor beside him and hands over the ice which he takes, wedging it between himself and the floor.
"All men are babies…" Megan sighs out, once more rolling her eyes. Ezzy, Mal, Shaun, Alty, and Leo all give her a flat look at her comment. She gives a shrug. "If you went through half the things girls did, none of you would survive. Let alone, be sane." She says once more shrugging.
"We are not." Malik huffs back to her.
"That was possibly the best fight verbal fight Mal and I have had so far." Megan says from the bathroom, the door cracked open as she was getting ready, giggling. Alex rolls his eyes at her from the bed. On TV was Ridiculousness, something she had gotten into watching and near passing out laughing even if she had seen the episode before. She opens the door and Alex does a double take. Either he was losing his mind or she was wearing less to bed here lately. Right now she had on possibly the smallest pair of gray female sleeping boxers he had seen and one of her red tank tops. Alex swallows the lump that had formed in his throat. She stops and looks at the TV, her face blanked as she watches the people get past sketchy situations. She starts laughing as the cop jumps over a car to avoid being hit and then the commentary provided by Rob, Justin, Steelo, and Chanel. "I love this show." She says, looking back at him with a smile. He nods stiffly in agreement.
"Uh, when do you have to go back to writing?"
Her face becomes blank once more in thought. She shrugs after a few moments and walks over to the bed to get in. "Whenever." She answers as she gets in and snuggles up to him. He gives a little chuckle and pulls her closer to him. He guess he really could complain, he hardly wore anything other than boxers so she would be entitled to wear whatever she wanted to; especially seeing as it was her room and he was a guest. The only thing was that he couldn't seem to calm his heart's beating or the blood singing in his veins. He could only hope she didn't seem to notice it.
"You're publicist is upset with this isn't?" She gives a pealing laugh that reminded him of crystalline bells.
"Oh, he's livid. Keeps threatening to come down here and kick my butt into writing again." Her face darkens a fraction. "I'm not a fucking machine." Alex pulls her closer, hiding his laughter as best he could. She could feel him laughing though. She pushes away minutely to look at him. "You still gunna check on the turkey?"
He sighs. "Yeah." Her smile returns and she lays down, giggling as Alex's arms wrap around her waist.
"Good Morning!" Megan says when she sees the rest of the guys downstairs. Ezio's head was on the bar, Altair had his flopped over the back of his chair, Mal was leaned against Altair's shoulder still asleep, and Leonardo was asleep on the couch. Her eyebrows raise as they all jump awake, blearily looking at her in surprise. They make half-hearted attempts at greetings to her. Desmond's head pops out from behind the wall that separated the kitchen and the underside of the stairs. "Lemme guess, no coffee yet?"
"You got that right. Shaun's near dead on his feet over here. You mind making the coffee, he's to busy with making his tea first." Desmond questions her, motioning his head to inside the kitchen. She nods her head in agreement as the other men return to the positions she had found them in when she came down. She heads around and looks at Shaun, who she had to agree looked ready to fall asleep on his feet, and gets to the coffee maker that just needed to be turned on. She leans against the counter beside the coffee maker and turkey, Alex had stayed up near all night and had removed it early in the morning. Said man was asleep upstairs and she had no plans of waking him up, he was tired. When the machine beeps to signal its completion minutes later, she carefully pours each a cup and sets it infront of each man. Leo had joined them at the bar at some point, she just didn't know when. She pours two more cups and makes hers the way she likes before taking them upstairs to her room.
When she pushes the door open with her foot and finds Alex just waking up, reaching over to where she had been sleeping. She sets the cup she made for him on his side of the bed on the table and calmly, quietly, walks back over to her side and sets hers on the table there. She gets back under the blankets and is immediately pulled up against Alex. Her body warms up from his body heat; she knew the others had made the joke of him being a space heater to her but he was more than that. She still wasn't sure what he meant other than she couldn't stop the idiotic grin that came to her face whenever she noticed him coming into the room or when she catches him looking at her or just him in general. She knew that her feelings were getting stronger for him. She just didn't know how he felt about her.
That was what had her so conflicted. She didn't want to admit it to him and be rejected. So to her it was just safer for her to not do or say anything.
"Where did you go?" He questions after a few minutes. She giggles.
"Coffee. Got you some too." She says nodding her head to her cup of coffee that was now to far away for her to reach. Oh well, she needed it to cool off. She liked her coffee cold, for some reason. He pulls her deeper into the bed, farther away from her drink and into the warmth he provided. She giggles again.
"Those two really have no idea what the other feels, do they?" Desmond questions the others after Megan goes up the stairs. They were still dead on their feet, so to speak, and didn't give much of a response. Des shakes his head and returns to cooking, ignoring the asleep people. It was kind of funny, to see them with their guards so down.
"This holiday is so tiring. And it hasn't even started yet…" Ezio whines from his prone position on the bar. The rest give grunts of agreement, taking drinks of the dark liquid she had put before them before returning to the position most comfortable to them.
Hours later, Megan finally makes it back downstairs with Alex in tow. He still seemed dead on his feet. Megan pulls him over to the couch and grabs her blanket to wrap around the two of them as they got comfortable once more. She didn't much care what the others thought and they had been doing things like that since a few months after they had arrived. They had gotten used to it and found it normal. But after Ezio had blabbed his mouth about the fact that the girl had feelings for the man, they could really only think of keeping her safe, both physically and emotionally. She seemed to be doing a good job of keeping herself sane without them though.
"Hey Megan, everything is done." She sits up and looks over to the feast laid out on the bar. She grins and carefully gets off the couch only to run over to the bar and grab a plate to put food on. She surprises everyone by piling a ton of food on her plate. They all stare at her.
Her grins widens as their eyes bulge. She had what equaled to a small mountain on her plate. And they had never seen her eat more than what was the recommended serving for one person.
"I think we have figured out why she eats so little during the year. She saves the space for Thanksgiving." Ezio mumbles as she walks over to the couch once more and they get their food. She curls up in her designated spot, Alex's eyebrows raised as he spots the food on her plate.
"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you on that. Or she eats so much that she doesn't have room for food for the rest of the year." Altair retorts.
"She's going to put herself into a food coma." Shaun remarks to them and they all laugh in agreement.
"How are you going to fit all of that into your tiny body?" Questions Alex as he watches her eat from the corner of his eye. She sticks her tongue out at him and continues to eat as the rest join them about the living room.
"…. I ate to muuuuch…" Altair moans from his spread eagle position on the floor. Malik, Desmond, Ezio, Leo, and Shaun were in much the same position on the floor as the Arab. They were making gurgling noises, moaning, groaning or snoring outright. Megan was flopped over the arm of the couch making much the same noise.
"Food, so much food…. Feel sleepy…" Alex shakes his head as she groans this out. The food needed to be put away before it spoiled and unfortunately for him, he was the only one still conscious. He gets up with a groan, walking over to all the food and hoping her fridge was large enough to hold all of it.
Megan wakes up in her bed sometime later. She was still dressed which meant Alex had just put her to bed. Her stomach hurt and she knew it was because she had eaten to much food. But it had been such good food she couldn't stop herself. Alex was behind her, holding onto her carefully around her waist. She removes his appendage from her person so she could relieve herself and get changed. Her jeans weren't comfortable to sleep in.
When she comes back out of the bathroom Alex was awake and waiting for her. Apparently he noticed her disappearance.
"You alright?" He questions. She could hear the need of sleep in his voice. She wasn't dense. She knew that each of them had taken to staying up on guard duty, Alex most of all. He didn't need as much sleep as the others but he still needed it. She smiles softly at him and walks over to the bed and gets in.
"Yeah, just had to get changed. Wasn't to comfy." She answers. If there was one thing she really liked about Alex, it was his eyes. While at first she had been scared of him and how his eyes glowed; now she enjoyed it. It let her know he had his focus on her instead of something else. And the color was beautiful as well. He gives her a sleepy smile and relaxes back into the bed.
"Alright…" He yawns out and she rolls her eyes. He was just to cute for his own good at this moment and she couldn't resist doing just one thing; she gives him a soft kiss on the forehead, right beside his hair line. His eyes snap open at the contact and he sits back up to look at her. The movement and contact had caught him off guard.
Sensing she did something wrong, she flushes and hides under the blankets; tucking them tightly around herself.
Carefully, as if he was dealing with a skittish animal, he pries the blankets out of her hands and away from her head. She covers her face with her arms so he wouldn't see just how embarrassed she was by what she did. He waits till she moves her arms from her face, which takes several minutes. He just didn't know why she did that or if she had really done so. He wanted to find out and figure out, did she feel the same way as he did?
"Sorry." She mumbles, not looking at him. He forces her to look at him and her blue-green eyes tell him the truth. He had heard somewhere, where he didn't know, that the eyes were the window to the soul. And then he found that he himself couldn't resist her. He finds himself kissing her with force, enough to show her his feelings but not enough to hurt her. She was so much more frail than him. He stops after several minutes, both of them gasping for breath. Her arms were wrapped around his neck and one of his cradling her head while the other supported his weight off of her body. Their foreheads rested against one another, her eyes closed while his were open.
"Wow…" She breathes out, and he falls down beside her; pulling her flush against him. He didn't want to take things farther than need be and seeing as neither knew what their feelings were for the other, this was far enough. But he had to agree with her assessment.
Alright chikadees, I'm back! I had a great 5 day weekend with my best friend and his girlfriend. But seeing as they work nights I had plenty of time to figure out this chapter and the next few of them. I even have a new idea for another story, one that I won't be working on till after this one is done hopefully. If I do, I wont post it until I have this one finished.
I wanna thank all of you who have read this story so far and special thanks to Pheonix-164, Raychaell Dionzeros, and to my Guest reviewer!And I wanna thank you for thinking my stories are epic. The paste scene came to mind once I thought of antiquing and how to make it just one giant mess, thusly it became paste. You're not the only one who tried not to laugh at the scene, I was writing it and had to bite my tongue.
Pheonix-164: Yes, I agree. They will never eat another hotdog once they find out what's in it. As for the Alty can't swim thing, don't worry. I have plans for that *evilly plotting*
Raychaell Dionzeros: I am so glad you find this story funny. I'm aiming for it to be mostly so. Just don't be drinking anything while you read, would hate for you to ruin you computer screen. Lol.
So I now leave you with with this new chapter and humbly request for any reviews, faves, likes, shares, pm's, e-mails (pheonix_goddess16 ), or anything! I love to hear feedback or ideas! If I use them I will give credit! Thank You!