Toad in the Hole, for frozen_delight
Title: Toad in the Hole
Recipient: frozen_delight
Rating: pg
Warnings: blood, nightmares
Word Count: ~1,700
Author's Notes: (optional)
Summary: Prompt: After "Alex Annie Alexis Ann" Alex and Jody help each other move on with their lives. Domesticity and female awesomeness involving Alex and Jody.
Nightmares are nothing new to Alex. She’s had them nearly every night since Cecily took her from her home. Blood, fangs, screaming, pleas. And Alex is helpless to stop the slaughter. She stands there, trembling but otherwise frozen, as the melee continues around her. Sometimes she joins in and takes sick pleasure in the warmth of blood in her fingers and dripping from her lips.
Tonight is one of the latter nights.
Mama holds her by the shoulders while she watches around Alex’s head. The young boy in front of Alex is pale, probably dead, oddly familiar. His blood is a thin film on her teeth and a heavy taste in the back of her throat. Metallic, salty.
“Good girl,” Mama murmurs in her ear. She plants a kiss to the side of Alex’s neck. She feels the scrape of her teeth against her skin and feels like crying out. She feels like dying.
The dream breaks, and Alex startles back into reality.
Sunlight filters through her window, a greenish tint to it thanks to the spring trees. In her sleep, Alex kicked all of her blankets off to the foot of the bed, and now she’s freezing in only her tank top and underwear. She crawls only far enough to retrieve her thick comforter, then returns to her previous state, curled up with her head against the pillow. The pillowcase is already damp from the night’s tears and spittle.
Birds chirp their merry songs. Alex throws her blanket over her head and shuts everything out.
“Alex! You in the mood for breakfast?”
Alex buries her forehead deeper into her pillow.
Several moments pass before the sound of Jody’s footsteps are perceivable. They’re followed shortly by knocks to the door. “Alex, are you awake?”
Hoping her silence gives Jody an answer, Alex says nothing.
The door swings open on well-oiled hinges. Alex knows her cover is blown but she doesn’t care. She feels Jody’s presence moving around the bed before stopping beside the nightstand.
“Another nightmare?” Jody guesses. Alex nods, then wonders if Jody can even see it when her head is hidden by the comforter. “Would you like some breakfast? I can make anything you want.”
The thought of food is simultaneously appealing and sickening. Her stomach growls from lack of nourishment, but she can still taste the boy’s blood on her tongue. She licks her lips and tastes it there as well.
Lifting the comforter from her head, Alex looks up at Jody, bathed in the sunlight. Jody hasn’t pressed her about her trauma, and for that Alex is grateful. But she - she needs to let something out now. She wants to tell Jody what she’s going through, the nightmares she lives with every night.
“There was -” Alex begins, but her throat is too hoarse to continue. She coughs into her armpit. Jody rubs her shoulder. “My nightmares. In them, sometimes there’s - sometimes I’m -” She can’t bring herself to say it. She swallows thickly.
Jody lowers herself onto the bed. She continues to rub Alex’s arm comfortingly. She’s still not pressuring her. Alex takes a deep breath.
“Sometimes I’m one of them,” Alex admits. “And I drink. I drink blood.”
Jody makes a pained sound. Alex looks up to see her expression matching that noise, empathetic to Alex’s trauma.
“Last night was one of those nights?” Jody surmises. Alex’s face heats up with shame.
“Yeah.” She swallows. “He was just a little boy. And he was so pale….”
Jody doesn’t say anything for a while. “Do you think having breakfast would help? Or would that just make it worse?”
Alex grimaces. “I don’t know.” She hates not knowing.
“That’s fine,” Jody says. “You need to at least drink some water. I’ll make enough breakfast for two, but it’s okay if you don’t want any.” She squeezes Alex’s upper arm. “I’ll be right back with that water.”
“Thanks.”
Jody makes right on her promise and is back within a minute, holding a glass of water. Now sitting upright in bed, Alex takes the cup from her and drinks greedily. The metallic tang on her tongue weakens but still doesn’t go away.
“Do you have eggs?” Alex asks before Jody can leave again. Jody turns around and smiles encouragingly.
“Yeah. Kilkenny in traffic has a coop of chickens and likes to pawn eggs off to me every once in a while. How do you like yours? Scrambled? Sunny-side up?”
In a memory, Alex’s grandmother stands in front of the stove, her back to her as she cooks. Grandma was always a chatterbox, even in the early morning while Alex was still trying to wake up. She talked about everything from baseball to the weather to whether or not Heaven exists. Alex never had to say much - Grandma never needed another active participant to carry a conversation - but she enjoyed her grandma’s voice. She had a voice that was raspy with age, sweet when she was in a good mood, and biting when she was not. She cooked Alex breakfast every morning, always an egg-in-the-hole. Alex hasn’t had one in years.
“Do you know how to make an egg-in-the-hole?” Alex asks.
Jody’s eyebrows come together confusedly. “Egg-in-the-hole?”
Alex nods. “Basically, you cut a circle out of a piece of bread, melt butter in a skillet, fry the bread with an egg in the center. It’s pretty simple.”
“Oh! I used to make those for Owen all the time,” Jody says. “We called them toad-in-the-hole’s, though.”
“That’s a weird name,” Alex remarks. Jody shrugs.
“How many you think you can eat?”
“Make me two?” Alex asks, though isn’t sure she’ll be able to finish it all.
“Sure thing.” Jody smiles at her on her way out and closes the door. Alex lets out a huge breath of air now that she’s alone.
Behind her, the birds haven’t stopped chirping.
+
Alex dresses in a pair of sweats and an old university shirt of Jody’s. They have yet to go into town together to buy Alex new clothes, mostly because Alex isn’t ready to go into civilization yet. At least Jody’s clothes fit her. She can probably get away with wearing them forever, so long as she doesn’t gain or lose too much weight.
Opening the bedroom door, the smell of fried eggs and bread wafts passed Alex’s nose, and she inhales deeply. The smell triggers memories of Grandma, her back to Alex as she cooks, her voice a constant sound. Alex is almost surprised that Grandma isn’t actually standing at the stove when she rounds the corner to the kitchen. Instead of Grandma’s wide back, Alex sees Jody’s side. Her left hand rests on her hip while the other holds a spatula over the skillet. Alex keeps her tread light as she enters the kitchen, but Jody still manages to hear her. She turns her head just enough to take note that her ears aren’t playing tricks on her before turning to the stove again.
“I might’ve made more than two for the both of us,” she says. “There was only a couple more slices of bread in the bag, and the bread’s nearing it’s expiration date, so.” She shrugs. “It’s alright if it doesn’t all get eaten.”
Alex nods. She pads through the kitchen to the dining table and sits down. “It smells good.”
Jody throws her a smile over her shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll bring you a plate in a moment.”
Jody moves differently in the kitchen than Grandma did, Alex notices. Grandma had arthritis and a bad knee, though she tried not to let any of that get the better of her and she tried not to let Alex see how much it slowed her down. She walked with a cane on her worst days. Jody, on the other hand, is still youthful. She moves with efficiency and familiarity as she collects plates, forks, knives. Alex wonders if her grandma ever moved like this. She wonders if Jody will ever come to move like Grandma did.
“There we go,” Jody announces, setting a plate in front of Alex. “Two toad-in-the-holes. Eat up.” She places a fork and knife beside the plate before turning around. She returns moments later with her own serving and utensils, and she sits catty-corner to Alex.
Alex cuts through the corner of one slice with the side of her fork. The outside is crispy, neither overdone nor underdone. She stabs the piece and eats it.
Jody looks down at her place with nostalgia. While Alex goes on to take her second bite, Jody still hasn’t begun to eat. Alex is just about to ask her what’s wrong when Jody volunteers the information on her own.
She picks up a circle of bread with her fingers and stares at it. Her elbow rests on the tabletop; Grandma would have reprimanded Alex if she behaved so rudely. “Owen loved the circles the best,” Jody says, a sad smile in her eyes. “Every time I made these for breakfast, he’d only eat the circles. He’d steal Sean’s and mine if we didn’t give them to him.”
Softly setting her fork down, Alex takes that in. She doesn’t know much about Jody’s husband and son other than how they died. Sometimes Jody offers Alex these gems of information, and Alex feels like she understand Jody more after hearing them.
“My grandma made egg-in-the-holes for me every morning,” Alex says. Jody looks at Alex sharply, but Alex doesn’t meet her gaze. Right now, it’s easier not to. Maybe one day she’ll be able to share this kind of information with Jody and be comfortable looking her in the eye. But that day is not today.
Alex clasps her hands in her lap and stares at her clean fingernails. “You’d probably like my Grandma. Everybody did. She could talk your ear off, but you wouldn’t even mind.”
Jody reaches a hand out to cover Alex’s. Alex looks up and meets Jody’s smile with her own.
Recipient: frozen_delight
Rating: pg
Warnings: blood, nightmares
Word Count: ~1,700
Author's Notes: (optional)
Summary: Prompt: After "Alex Annie Alexis Ann" Alex and Jody help each other move on with their lives. Domesticity and female awesomeness involving Alex and Jody.
Nightmares are nothing new to Alex. She’s had them nearly every night since Cecily took her from her home. Blood, fangs, screaming, pleas. And Alex is helpless to stop the slaughter. She stands there, trembling but otherwise frozen, as the melee continues around her. Sometimes she joins in and takes sick pleasure in the warmth of blood in her fingers and dripping from her lips.
Tonight is one of the latter nights.
Mama holds her by the shoulders while she watches around Alex’s head. The young boy in front of Alex is pale, probably dead, oddly familiar. His blood is a thin film on her teeth and a heavy taste in the back of her throat. Metallic, salty.
“Good girl,” Mama murmurs in her ear. She plants a kiss to the side of Alex’s neck. She feels the scrape of her teeth against her skin and feels like crying out. She feels like dying.
The dream breaks, and Alex startles back into reality.
Sunlight filters through her window, a greenish tint to it thanks to the spring trees. In her sleep, Alex kicked all of her blankets off to the foot of the bed, and now she’s freezing in only her tank top and underwear. She crawls only far enough to retrieve her thick comforter, then returns to her previous state, curled up with her head against the pillow. The pillowcase is already damp from the night’s tears and spittle.
Birds chirp their merry songs. Alex throws her blanket over her head and shuts everything out.
“Alex! You in the mood for breakfast?”
Alex buries her forehead deeper into her pillow.
Several moments pass before the sound of Jody’s footsteps are perceivable. They’re followed shortly by knocks to the door. “Alex, are you awake?”
Hoping her silence gives Jody an answer, Alex says nothing.
The door swings open on well-oiled hinges. Alex knows her cover is blown but she doesn’t care. She feels Jody’s presence moving around the bed before stopping beside the nightstand.
“Another nightmare?” Jody guesses. Alex nods, then wonders if Jody can even see it when her head is hidden by the comforter. “Would you like some breakfast? I can make anything you want.”
The thought of food is simultaneously appealing and sickening. Her stomach growls from lack of nourishment, but she can still taste the boy’s blood on her tongue. She licks her lips and tastes it there as well.
Lifting the comforter from her head, Alex looks up at Jody, bathed in the sunlight. Jody hasn’t pressed her about her trauma, and for that Alex is grateful. But she - she needs to let something out now. She wants to tell Jody what she’s going through, the nightmares she lives with every night.
“There was -” Alex begins, but her throat is too hoarse to continue. She coughs into her armpit. Jody rubs her shoulder. “My nightmares. In them, sometimes there’s - sometimes I’m -” She can’t bring herself to say it. She swallows thickly.
Jody lowers herself onto the bed. She continues to rub Alex’s arm comfortingly. She’s still not pressuring her. Alex takes a deep breath.
“Sometimes I’m one of them,” Alex admits. “And I drink. I drink blood.”
Jody makes a pained sound. Alex looks up to see her expression matching that noise, empathetic to Alex’s trauma.
“Last night was one of those nights?” Jody surmises. Alex’s face heats up with shame.
“Yeah.” She swallows. “He was just a little boy. And he was so pale….”
Jody doesn’t say anything for a while. “Do you think having breakfast would help? Or would that just make it worse?”
Alex grimaces. “I don’t know.” She hates not knowing.
“That’s fine,” Jody says. “You need to at least drink some water. I’ll make enough breakfast for two, but it’s okay if you don’t want any.” She squeezes Alex’s upper arm. “I’ll be right back with that water.”
“Thanks.”
Jody makes right on her promise and is back within a minute, holding a glass of water. Now sitting upright in bed, Alex takes the cup from her and drinks greedily. The metallic tang on her tongue weakens but still doesn’t go away.
“Do you have eggs?” Alex asks before Jody can leave again. Jody turns around and smiles encouragingly.
“Yeah. Kilkenny in traffic has a coop of chickens and likes to pawn eggs off to me every once in a while. How do you like yours? Scrambled? Sunny-side up?”
In a memory, Alex’s grandmother stands in front of the stove, her back to her as she cooks. Grandma was always a chatterbox, even in the early morning while Alex was still trying to wake up. She talked about everything from baseball to the weather to whether or not Heaven exists. Alex never had to say much - Grandma never needed another active participant to carry a conversation - but she enjoyed her grandma’s voice. She had a voice that was raspy with age, sweet when she was in a good mood, and biting when she was not. She cooked Alex breakfast every morning, always an egg-in-the-hole. Alex hasn’t had one in years.
“Do you know how to make an egg-in-the-hole?” Alex asks.
Jody’s eyebrows come together confusedly. “Egg-in-the-hole?”
Alex nods. “Basically, you cut a circle out of a piece of bread, melt butter in a skillet, fry the bread with an egg in the center. It’s pretty simple.”
“Oh! I used to make those for Owen all the time,” Jody says. “We called them toad-in-the-hole’s, though.”
“That’s a weird name,” Alex remarks. Jody shrugs.
“How many you think you can eat?”
“Make me two?” Alex asks, though isn’t sure she’ll be able to finish it all.
“Sure thing.” Jody smiles at her on her way out and closes the door. Alex lets out a huge breath of air now that she’s alone.
Behind her, the birds haven’t stopped chirping.
+
Alex dresses in a pair of sweats and an old university shirt of Jody’s. They have yet to go into town together to buy Alex new clothes, mostly because Alex isn’t ready to go into civilization yet. At least Jody’s clothes fit her. She can probably get away with wearing them forever, so long as she doesn’t gain or lose too much weight.
Opening the bedroom door, the smell of fried eggs and bread wafts passed Alex’s nose, and she inhales deeply. The smell triggers memories of Grandma, her back to Alex as she cooks, her voice a constant sound. Alex is almost surprised that Grandma isn’t actually standing at the stove when she rounds the corner to the kitchen. Instead of Grandma’s wide back, Alex sees Jody’s side. Her left hand rests on her hip while the other holds a spatula over the skillet. Alex keeps her tread light as she enters the kitchen, but Jody still manages to hear her. She turns her head just enough to take note that her ears aren’t playing tricks on her before turning to the stove again.
“I might’ve made more than two for the both of us,” she says. “There was only a couple more slices of bread in the bag, and the bread’s nearing it’s expiration date, so.” She shrugs. “It’s alright if it doesn’t all get eaten.”
Alex nods. She pads through the kitchen to the dining table and sits down. “It smells good.”
Jody throws her a smile over her shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll bring you a plate in a moment.”
Jody moves differently in the kitchen than Grandma did, Alex notices. Grandma had arthritis and a bad knee, though she tried not to let any of that get the better of her and she tried not to let Alex see how much it slowed her down. She walked with a cane on her worst days. Jody, on the other hand, is still youthful. She moves with efficiency and familiarity as she collects plates, forks, knives. Alex wonders if her grandma ever moved like this. She wonders if Jody will ever come to move like Grandma did.
“There we go,” Jody announces, setting a plate in front of Alex. “Two toad-in-the-holes. Eat up.” She places a fork and knife beside the plate before turning around. She returns moments later with her own serving and utensils, and she sits catty-corner to Alex.
Alex cuts through the corner of one slice with the side of her fork. The outside is crispy, neither overdone nor underdone. She stabs the piece and eats it.
Jody looks down at her place with nostalgia. While Alex goes on to take her second bite, Jody still hasn’t begun to eat. Alex is just about to ask her what’s wrong when Jody volunteers the information on her own.
She picks up a circle of bread with her fingers and stares at it. Her elbow rests on the tabletop; Grandma would have reprimanded Alex if she behaved so rudely. “Owen loved the circles the best,” Jody says, a sad smile in her eyes. “Every time I made these for breakfast, he’d only eat the circles. He’d steal Sean’s and mine if we didn’t give them to him.”
Softly setting her fork down, Alex takes that in. She doesn’t know much about Jody’s husband and son other than how they died. Sometimes Jody offers Alex these gems of information, and Alex feels like she understand Jody more after hearing them.
“My grandma made egg-in-the-holes for me every morning,” Alex says. Jody looks at Alex sharply, but Alex doesn’t meet her gaze. Right now, it’s easier not to. Maybe one day she’ll be able to share this kind of information with Jody and be comfortable looking her in the eye. But that day is not today.
Alex clasps her hands in her lap and stares at her clean fingernails. “You’d probably like my Grandma. Everybody did. She could talk your ear off, but you wouldn’t even mind.”
Jody reaches a hand out to cover Alex’s. Alex looks up and meets Jody’s smile with her own.