Flash Thompson | Agent Venom (thevenomchoseme) wrote in the100, @ 2016-04-12 20:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, !storybrooke, !trigger, flash thompson / agent venom (trn123), phil coulson |
storybrooke
WHO: Edith Holmes (Flash Thompson), Marshall Cole (Phil Coulson), and a special guest
WHEN: April 12th-13th, late late night/early morning
WHERE: Edie's room at the Holmes house
WHAT: Marshall can't sleep and sneaks over and gets a bit more than he bargained for.
WARNING: Vague mentions of PTSD, sort of breaking and entering, and confused thoughts about surprise kid.
It was becoming an unfortunate habit. Waking up in a cold sweat at 3am, reaching for the gun that wasn't there, and then climbing out the window to sit on the roof of the garage. He remembered sitting up here with Edie four years ago. They'd spent a fair number of nights sitting up here talking, looking out over the town.
He'd left the TV on like Coach Thompson had told him, and it helped with the noise, but he still woke up often. Grabbing a sweatshirt, he climbed down off the roof and headed over to the Holmes house. It was a short enough jog to her house and before long he was knocking on her bedroom window before pushing it open.
"Swift?" He whispered, hoping to God he wasn't accidentally climbing into the wrong bedroom.
Edie groaned as she rolled over and pulled the covers tighter up around her head. “Ugh, five more minutes,” she grumbled. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. Dark o’ clock was good enough for her, especially when she was pretty sure she’d only managed to fall into bed and asleep a few hours ago. A hand untangled from the bedding to wave vaguely in the air. “Just go watch tv or somethin’ an’ I’ll be there in five.”
Right bedroom, that was a good start at least. And judging from the sound of it, there wasn't any one else in bed with her. He probably should have texted first. He slid into the room and closed the window behind him, unzipping his sweatshirt and crawling into bed beside her.
"Go back to sleep. It's just me."
Edie’s eyes snapped open at the bed shifting. That was a whole lot more weight than a three year old. Sitting up straight, she stared at the person beside her a long time before her eyes narrowed. “Cole?” she hissed before she scowled and thwapped his arm hard. “Goddammit Cole, what do you think you’re doing just…” She groaned as she rubbed her hands over her face, trying to get her brain awake. “You can’t be here, you ass.”
Well, that certainly ruined the mood. Not that he was looking for action right now, more he just needed something to ground him - or someone, rather. He sat up and pulled back.
"Oh come on, we did this enough times in high school. And I doubt Mary will care half as much now. I mean, for one, we can buy our own booze." He paused. "Unless you have someone else here…?"
“Yeah, in high school,” Edie pointed out with an aggravated sigh. “This so ain’t high school.” She really had no idea what Mary would do if she caught a guy sneaking into her bedroom, let alone Cole. Ditto to Faye. Luckily they were both out who knew where for the night, even if they weren’t the ones she was worried about anyways. She rolled her eyes. “If I had someone else here, you’d be getting a fist in the face,” she pointed out. “Shit, what are you doing here at- what time is it even?”
"Hey, Swift, easy.." Marshall wasn't quite sure what was wrong. It had been so easy to fall back into things with Edie and it seemed like things, well, things were good. Very good. He sighed and leaned his head back against against the wall. "Zero dark thirty?" He quipped, giving her a tired smile. "Couldn't sleep." There was a hint of something in his tone, different from the usual lightness.
Edie stared a long moment. She could piece things together well enough. She remembered the last time he was back on leave. There’d been a night of getting woken up in the not fun at all way and, well, that’s what happened with normal soldiers, right? Who knew what happened when you were one of those soldiers that couldn’t say anything about what they were doing. She blew out a heavy sigh as she budged up beside Marshall, pressing her shoulder against his. “The military stuff again?” she asked softly.
He rested his head against hers, hand finding hers and letting his knuckles brush against hers. "Yeah.. I mean.. Just quiet here and.." There wasn't much more he could say. He wasn't used to sleeping more than four hours at a time and waking up without his gun was disorienting. Let alone thinking about things in the dark pre dawn hours. "It's fine. Just didn't want to be alone. And sort of forgot about the text first rule."
Edie couldn’t help the little snort of amusement. Yeah, she knew what he meant with the quiet, but still calling this place quiet got a laugh. Turning her hand over, she laced her fingers with Marshall’s and gave his hand a squeeze. “C’mon…” she puffed out. “I’ve seen how it is, remember? Thinking ‘hey, I should text’ ain’t high on the list of thought processes.”
Marshall sighed, squeezing her hand back. "Sat on the roof of the garage for awhile. Remembering how we used to lie up there in high school. But then people get weird about folks sitting on roofs in the middle of the night or going for runs."
“They don’t got ‘nough stuff to do if they’re focusing on you on rooftops and running,” Edie pointed out, trying to ease his mind a bit and take it off whatever nightmares had him restless and running to her room. “‘Cause, c’mon. Pirate ship? That’s a lot more to talk ‘bout than roof crashers.”
That got a laugh out of Marshall. "Still hard to believe the shit that happens in this town sometimes."
His thumb made circles against her palm, thinking back to the earlier night when he'd snuck into Edie's room. "I had a half a mind to-"
He was interrupted by the door creaking open. Knowing Mary would probably skin him alive out of habit, he flattened himself down, pulling the blanket over him.
Edie sat up straighter and froze at the door opening. Her muscles went tense, anticipating Mary having bad timing with coming home and ready for whatever fight might follow. The head that poked around the door wasn’t at adult height though and she had to swallow back a ‘shit’ at the quiet, plaintive ‘mommy’ that came with it. Mary would’ve been a much better interruption. Hadn’t it only been a few hours ago that she’d finally managed to get him to sleep… She sighed heavily as she slipped off the bed to meet the small child in the middle of the room.
“What?” She cringed and closed her eyes a moment, the question not meaning to come out that terse or aggravated. She was just really tired and sleeping would be so great right now, instead of… well… playing please don’t notice someone is in mommy’s bed. She blew out another sigh as she crouched down. “Sorry, just, c’mon, y’know you’re supposed to be in bed. What’s up?”
“Can’t sleep.”
Well, duh. Time to narrow down the why. She raised her eyebrows. “Did you wet the bed?”
She couldn’t help the smirk at what the three year old managed for an indignant look before he shook his head, his blond hair fluffing all over. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to deal with dirty sheets.
“Nightmare?”
At the nod, she looked up at the ceiling a moment before flopping back to sit on the floor. Parker crawled into her lap and curled up as soon as she was seated and she wrapped his arms around him. “Ok, ok. Which one was it this time?”
Whatever he had been expecting it wasn't a small child calling Swift mommy. He stopped himself from bolting upright. Swift? A mother? He moved as quietly as he could to peek out from beneath the covers, catching sight of Edie on the floor with a blond toddler in her lap. Well, fuck. This was… And the kid.. Had this happened in the two years? The kid looked… older. But that was impossible. I mean, Edie would have told him if she had a kid, right? She never mentioned a guy. What douchebag had knocked her up and left?
Edie nodded along as Parker tried to describe the nightmare. Maybe a quarter of it made sense, although whether that was because of the toddler speak or because of how dreams just went, she wasn’t sure. She was never sure. But getting him to talk about these sorts of things seemed to work. At least she could then come up with some way they’d beat the monster.
She tried to stop from making a face as the small child was getting to a very ‘important’ part of the dream. So important he needed to stand up on her lap, half climbing over her shoulder. She was ready to drag him back down when he stopped midsentence and ducked down, just his eyes peeking over her shoulder. She was about to turn her head to try and figure out what the hell he was doing, when Parker leaned his head towards her.
“The bed has eyes,” he ‘whispered’.
What? She actually turned this time and… oh… right… Cole… Her stomach flopped uncomfortable as she just sat and stared. Ok… an excuse… an excuse… some excuse…
“Um…” was all she could come up with, her mind drawing a blank even as Parker raised his hand to wiggle his fingers at the ‘eyes’.
And… spotted. His XO would have his ass for that. Spotted by a toddler. Well, no point in pretending anymore. He pulled the covers back and held his hands up in surrender. "Uh-oh! You found me! Don't hurt me, I promise I'm not a monster!"
Edie held back a groan. Oh her life hated her. It just did. Here, have some stress relief roll back into town and now here deal with this. But at least Parker was enjoying it. Sure, there was a scared duck, but at Cole’s words, he poked his head around her shoulder and laughed.
“Yeah, you’re not a monster,” he confirmed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t even got claws.”
"Nope, no claws.. But I do have fingers… and you know what? Fingers are good for tickling mommy. And I hear that tickling mommy makes all the nightmares go away.." He teased, crawling out of the bed towards Edie with a silly predatory look on his face.
Edie glared as she jabbed a finger at Cole. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “He needs to go back to bed, not- ah!” She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep the shriek quiet out of habit when Parker let out a wild giggle and went for her sides. Trying to wrangle the small child with one arm without making him get too loud, she shot Cole a ‘now look what you did’ glower.
He gave her an apologetic smile, ruined by the grin on his face as he tried not to laugh at the child's antics. "Sorry," he mouthed, though any apology was probably ruined by the look on his face. He covered the kid's hands with his own. "I think we've scared the monsters away now. Besides, your mommy's right. Can't be up all night.. Need your rest so you can get big and strong to fight the monsters."
Edie could see the start of a pout on Parker’s face. She shook her head, heading off that inevitable ‘I don’t wanna’ by jerking her thumb towards Cole. “Nope, you should listen to him. He knows what he’s talking ‘bout. His job is to go out and fight monsters.” Her stomach did a tiny flip flop as the small kid looked between her and Cole, a mix of awe and skepticism on his face. Ok, while he didn’t have his mind focused 100% on being difficult.
“So, how about this? You go to the bathroom, wash your hands after, and then I’ll meet you in your room for one story. Ok?”
There was a long, agonizing moment where it looked like he was going to counter, but then Parker smiled and nodded. “Ok! I pick book!” He started out of the room, but then paused to wave back. “Bye bye monster fighter!”
Once the child was out of the room and she could hear him moving around stuff in the bathroom, she blew out a long sigh and rubbed her hands over her face.
Cole couldn't help but watch the small blond leave. "Bye mini monster fighter!" He called softly to the boy before turning his attention to Edie. Part of him wondered what else she might be keeping from him. They'd been best friends and the look on his face was one of confusion. "I should probably go. Let you read to your kid…" God, that sounded weird to say. Before he could stop himself, the words tumbled out. "Why didn't you tell me you had a kid?"
Edie threw her hands up slightly and shrugged. “Guess it just slipped my mind,” she said with an eyeroll. A big old lie obviously, but she wasn’t sure if she could handle unpacking that whole mess on this little sleep at this hour of night. Especially when…
She shook her head as she stood up and absently pulled her hair back into a ponytail, even if she had no clue where a hairband was to keep it in place. “No… no. Look… Mary’s out. Probably crashing at the boyfriend’s or whatever. Stay as long as you need, yeah?” She smirked wryly as she gestured towards the door. “It’s anything but quiet here.”
There was a look that implied he wanted to talk more about it later. He ran a hand through his hair. "Want me to read to him?"
Edie crossed her arms over her chest, worrying her lower lip as she considered the offer. It was probably a bad idea. Cole getting out of there was probably the smarter idea, except, well, now she’d made the offer, hadn’t she? And… having something else to focus on was good, right? Something cute and mostly non-threatening. That kind of thing helped, right? Plus… After a moment, she nodded slowly.
“Yeah… yeah, ok.” She smiled tiredly. “He’ll like that I’m sure. Only so many voices we can go through, yeah? It’ll be a good change of pace.” She rolled his eyes slightly. “His room’s just down the hall, hard to miss. I’m going to make sure he hasn’t put the whole toilet paper roll in the toilet again. I’ll meet you there.”
"Sounds good," Marshall said, grateful for the distraction as he moved to her and rubbed his hands over his arms. "Hey, Swift. It's okay, you know. I understand secrets."
He pressed his lips against her forehead. "But it might help if I know his name if I'm going to read to him."
Edie closed her eyes a moment at the kiss, using the moment to pull herself together. She wasn’t sure how well he’d really understand all the secrets if he put two and two together, but it was a nice thought for now. A smirk quirked her lips. “That’s classified,” she teased softly before shrugging. “Parker. Y’know, like that kid on that FBI dead body show. I thought it was a nice name.”
He couldn't help but chuckle. "It's a good name," he said with a smile, wrapping her into a strong hug. "Alright, so I'll go see if I convince Parker for a short book."