"Finn, we didn't think we'd see you so soon! The way Annabelle was talkin' it was bout to be a week or so." My momma says to him. We were sitting at the kitchen table, eating shrimp gumbo. I was trying to not be as concerned as I was. We hadn't really had a moment to talk about what had all happened while I was gone, and the fact that I know he was hurt was hurting my heart right now. Thankfully though, he didn't look too horribly beat up with his clothes on so my parents shouldn't notice.
"I thought my work would take longer than it did, but fortunately it only took a couple days." He smiles at her. She smiles wide at him, and nods, happy with his answer.
"Well, we were gonna go out frog giggin' tonight with WIllie and Randy... I suppose you could come too if that's somethin' you'd be interested in." My daddy grumbles. Hey, I was just glad that he was voluntarily offering to include Finn in whatever plans we had.
"That sounds very interesting, I'd be delighted." He replies, "What, uhm, is frog gig-gigging?" He questions and I couldn't help but grin. My momma lets out a little chuckle at how unsure he sounded about the whole thing.
"We take out the boat around midnight with a cage and we troll around the shallows for bull frogs. You snatch'em up and throw them in the cage." I explain to him, "Then later we skin them and eat them. Frog legs are the best." I smile. His jaw twitches, which almost makes me burst out laughing, and I can tell he's absolutely disgusted, mostly by the skinning part but he smiles and nods anyway.
"Theresa could I help you with anything?" Finn asks, walking up to her with both my plate and his in his hand. He sets both down next to the sink, looking at the soapy water.
"No, no. You go on and sit with Annabelle." She protests, shooing him off with both hands.
"Lets take a walk." I murmur, pulling on his hand towards the front door. "We're goin' walkin' momma!" I call to her.
"Ok baby." I hear her answer and my daddy grumbles something inaudible from his spot in his recliner. I pull the door shut behind us and we walk in silence for a few minutes, putting some space between us and the house. He slides his fingers between my own and lets out a soft, content sigh. We stop at the old dock just off the dirt road and I pull him around so I can get a good look at him.
"Why is there a foot long bandage across you collar bone?" I ask wide eyed, pulling his shirt up and off his body. He cringes, pain obvious in his features and once I've got the shirt off to survey the damage I can see why. "Finn... Oh my god." I murmur. My fingers run lightly over the various spots that had been patched up, and the visible black and blue spots that littered his body. "What did they do to you?" I ask softly.
"I told you my love, it's the result of my father's magic." He sighs. He didn't want to talk about this. "I will heal, it will just take longer than usual since I lost very much blood." He tells me. It makes me bite down hard on my lip and look up at him from under my lashes. Tears had pricked my eyes. Seeing him in this kind of condition, I'd never had to see him beat up before and honestly it was more than I can handle. "My love, don't cry." He runs his thumb just under my eye, pushing away the wetness that sat there.
"Tell me what you saw." I ask him. He immediately shakes his head 'no'. His face twists in pain, like he's seen horrible things and/or been in some kind of tragic accident... Which I suppose he had. "Finn please tell me what you saw." I plead with him. If I didn't know, I couldn't understand… And I just wanted to understand what had happened to him, what was going on.
"It will only upset you." He argues. "Father and Alec are both dead, it's no longer a threat. You don't need to know details. It's not a stress that you or our baby needs." He smiles thoughtfully. "Ok?" I glower at him for a moment before finally nodding my agreement. "Good. Now, tell me about the last few days. Have you had an enjoyable time?" He questions. He was desperate for a subject change, I suppose for now while we were at my parents I'd let it go.
"We've gone fishing almost every day." I beam at him, with a small jump. I did miss fishing. "And every day I've outdone my daddy in size." I chuckle, remembering how annoyed (even if he wouldn't admit it) he'd been when we'd get back every day.
"Are you cheating?" He narrows his eyes playfully at me.
"You jerk!" I laugh, throwing my head back. "Why can't you just say, 'wow! good job babe!'" I say to him.
"Wow! Great job babe!" He teases me. His hand had slid up to the small of my back and we were walking along the dirt road. "Where is Gannicus?" He asks curiously, glancing around our surroundings confused.
"He's inside my shirt." I smirk. I pull my tank top out a little bit and you can see his head and his tail sticking out from the inside of my bra. He looks up happily at Finn, nuzzling himself in further if that was even at all possible. "He happy here." I smile.
"Sneaky." He chuckles, "I'm sure he loves it in there." He raises his eyebrows at me. "I would." He shrugs, looking down at me.
"He's gone with me everywhere. Just in case." I shrug, ignoring that last statement. "And I've got to hide him! If my daddy saw him I'd have to figure out how to explain a dragon in my bra. In the house!" I tell Finn, who was looking at me like I was full of shit. "Stop lookin' at me like that." I glower at him.
"I'm glad you've taken him everywhere, it's safer like that." He replies.
"Yeah, until something happens then I've got to explain why I have a fire breathing dragon tucked away in my clothes." I shrug back making him laugh. "Should you go back home, to let them know you're ok?" I question. "Your mother may be having a fit." I add, thinking of Ellena.
"Not right now." He shakes his head. "I wish to stay with you." He says, lacing his fingers into my own. We'd turned around and started heading back to the house. "How often do people actually come in contact with Alligators here?" He wonders and I chuckle.
"Every day." I reply honestly.
"Really?" He questions.
"There's way more of them in the swamp than us." I tell him. "We see at least two or three pass the end of the dock every day, and if you go out at night with a flashlight you can see the reflection of their eyes in the water. They think you can't see them."
"You see them pass the dock daily yet you still choose to get in the water? That sounds foolish." He narrows his eyes at me. "What if you're attacked?"
"Then it happens." I respond simply.
"Your water is much unsafer than ours at home." He comments. That was true, there was nothing in the lake by the castle that was threatening. It was beautiful, you could go all the way out to the middle and still see the bottom. Truly untouched.
"It is. Why the sudden interest in gators?" I ask. It was a weird subject for him to be talking about.
"I'm only curious about your home." He tells me, squeezing my hand.
"In 50 years it won't matter where I came from." I sigh. He notices the change in mood immediately.
"Focus on the here and now, my love." He smiles. He stopped us in front of the house and leans down, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. "We can conquer that when the time comes. Together."
"You're right." I agree. It'd gotten dark by now, and we walked into my parents in front of the TV watching the TV Land channel.
"Y'all are back." Momma smiles. "You're phone was ringin', It's Chase." She tells me, handing me my IPhone. I swipe it over, honestly I stay with Finn so much that I wasn't even sure why I had a cell phone anymore. Family I suppose, what few friends I had left.
"Thanks momma." I say, retreated down the hall way into my bedroom. Finn wasn't far behind me, shutting the door quietly behind us. "Oh, Chase." I sigh, staring down at his missed call.
"Who is Chase?" Finn questions, tilting his head slightly and looking down at my phone. I pull Gannicus out of my shirt and set him on the bed, putting a finger to my lips that he needs to be quiet. He sighs up at me, but walks up to the pillows and crawls inside one of the pillow cases, snuggling under the weight of the actual pillow.
"For someone who's been watching me since I was 16, you sure have no idea who anyone I used to run with is." I tease him, raising my eyebrows.
"Unless that's the boy you lost your virginity to in the back of a pick-up, then no, I didn't really pay attention to your friends." He says back, a little more serious than I had been about everything. My eyes got a little wider, apparently he'd paid more attention than I gave him credit for.
"That's the boy…" I mumble softly, not meeting his eyes. He lets out a heavy sigh, "I'm not apologizing for that." I chuckle, "It's a little creepy that you watched that though."
"I did not watch." He gasps, he sounded offended that I'd even just said that. "While I may have watched many things you've done throughout the years, you having sex was definitely not one of them." He clarifies.
"I'll call him back later." I shrug, tossing my phone onto the bed. "He's probably down at rainbow, and wants me to come out for wings… And we've already had dinner."
"You should see your friends before you leave. The time with them is short." He states, "Even if I may or may not approve of them." He adds, picking my phone up and setting it on the nightstand. He palms my face and leans down, pressing his lips to my own. "I missed you, my love." He murmurs when we break apart.
"I missed you." I reply. I glance at the clock that read 8:14pm, and press my forehead against his chin. "We could take a 3 hour nap before we go out frogging." I suggest hopefully, making him chuckle. He doesn't reply, but he kicks off his shoes and pulls the blankets back, holding them up so I could snuggle up against him. I watch him shut off the lights with a flick of his hand. "I don't want to hurt you." I mutter, setting my hands down gently on his chest.
"Your touch is welcomed, and needed." He almost whispered. He encases me in his arms, and I couldn't move even if I wanted to. All I can say is I hope that this is the last of our drama for now. My only focus now was having this baby without any more incident….
A/N: Yes… I still exist. I haven't been in the writing mood lately and honestly work hasn't allowed me time to write over the summer, but I got a little bit of inspiration lately so hopefully I'm back into things.