She's a bird
Who: Finn, Kieran, Maggie What: Introductions When: 12.13 - Thursday Evening Where: Finn’s home Warnings: Language
Finn had been pleasantly surprised that shopping actually hadn’t gone that fucking badly. There had been the potential, of course, but nothing had been set on fire and no one had started yelling at anyone although he did have to have a couple of words with a rather pushy salesman at one juncture. All in all, things had been great. Which meant that something was gonna go terrible, goddamn wrong soon cause things just never went that smooth. Not with his luck. Still Kier now had a suit for that formal and a small collection of other new things. All that was left was to take him home and get him settled. That meant introducing him to Maggie, of course.
He had no idea how he was going to go about doing that. In retrospect shopping had been so much easier.
Parking the car in the driveway and turning off the engine, he sighed and pushed a hand through his hair while he deliberated. After a moment, he picked a start point and just went for it. “Can you wait here for about five minutes while I go tell Maggie that you’re here? I know that sounds like a real shit move.” But he also didn’t want to upset her too much if it could be avoided, and while a real quick by the way statement might not fix everything it would at least show that he was fucking trying. What more could anyone really expect from him? “Five minutes. Tops. Promise.” Unless Kier really wasn’t okay with it in which case they’d wing it.
Kieran had unbuckled and was about to reach for the door when his father asked if he could wait in the truck. He was torn between being annoyed that this chick had to be prepared for his arrival when he was in Finn's life first because he was his son, damn it, but at the same time he supposed that the woman hadn't been expecting him either and it would be weird. "Okay," he decided to reply instead. There was no point in getting bent out of shape about it. "I'll wait here."
It wasn't his life if he wasn't inadvertently screwing up one thing or another. This seemed like it might be the easiest way to keep everyone involved from freaking out, but, well, it was probably just going to blow up in his goddamn face. He'd keep his fingers crossed, though. And hopefully his temper in check as well. Easier said than done as always.
Opening the door, he slid out, holding up a hand. "Five minutes. Or less." Then he undid his watch and tossed it at his son. "Time me. Ten dollars for every minute I go over." Bribery? Maybe. But he would use anything he could.
Shutting the car door, he jogged up the porch stairs and let himself into the house. "Maggie May?" he called as he shut the door behind him, looking around for her. He doubted that she would have gone anywhere while he was out, though it was possible.
Maggie had started looking for something to do, trying desperately to keep herself busy. Trying not to think about Louise, the fire. She hadn’t slept well, waking up with nightmares every time she closed her eyes, it felt like. When the door opened, Maggie was scrubbing the bathroom floor. With, yes, a slightly disgusted expression on her face. She was wearing the henley that Finn had given her, though his mother had brought over a pair of jeans and some shirts that had belonged to Finn’s sister, as well some underwear she’d picked up, after checking Maggie’s size. The sleeves were rolled up, hair tied back loosely from her face with a rubber band she’d found in the kitchen.
Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she got to her feet, poking her head out of the bathroom. “In here,” she murmured, tugging off her rubber gloves - old and perished, left abandoned under the kitchen sink for God only knew how long. She smiled, padding down the hall towards him. “Hi.”
He turned toward the sound of her voice, and shook his head. The gesture was more at himself than her, though. It came as no surprised to him that she needed something to do, especially after all the shit she'd been through, but he couldn't stop himself from feeling really fucking guilty whenever he caught her cleaning. It wasn't as though he were helping her just so he had a goddamn maid around.
"Hey," he said, returning the smile for about a split second before he frowned and then gestured toward the gloves she was carrying. "You really don't have to do that, you know. I don't want you to think you need to be goddamn Cinderella or something." Not what he needed to talk to her about at the moment, but he felt like he needed to get that out there.
Kieran looked at his watch and at the door. Five minutes always felt like fifteen years to a fifteen year old and Kieran certainly wasn't an exception to that rule. He sighed and leaned his head against the window, looking out it like a helpless puppy or something. It wasn't like sitting still was that hard, right? Wrong. After the first two or three minutes, he started tapping his foot against the floorboard impatiently. He wouldn't go in, not just yet, but still. "Come on, Dad," he muttered, as if that would telepathically send some sort of message to his father.
“I know,” she murmured, shrugging. “It keeps me busy.” She laid the gloves down on the counter, padding barefoot into the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?” She hadn’t known when he was coming home, but the coffee pot was still half full from the last cup she’d had. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, looking questioningly at him. She felt a little wierd, making herself at home in Finn’s house, but he’d pretty much told her to. She got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, pressing her hand against the side of the pot to check how warm it was.
He watched her busy herself with the coffee and the mugs. He really was glad that she was making herself at home, though he'd be lying if he didn't also admit to that fact that he was sort of fucking concerned that she might just start crying uncontrollably and then he would have no idea what to do other than let her finish. Finn was hoping they would get to skip that step, but he sort of doubted it. "No, no, I'm fine," he said, holding up a hand and then brushing it through his hair.
"My oldest son is moving in. He's in the car currently. I sort of wanted to warn you about it, though, because I didn't want to scare you. I would have done it sooner, but his mother didn't exactly tell me what the fuck was going on until I got there so. Yeah. He's here now." That had been one terrible conversation segue, but there wasn't shit he could about it now.
Maggie blinked, staring at him with those wide blue eyes. That...was not what she’d been expecting. “Um.” The mugs rattled a little as she set them down, hands trembling a little. “Do-do you want me to go?” She asked, her heart fluttering, pulse going a mile a minute. Her head darted around a little, looking for a high place, for an escape route. She was fighting the urge to shift, her bird form an escape, an easy way to hide. She didn’t know where she’d go, what she’d do.
And there it was. The first cock up of this particular conversation. The whole reason he had wanted to go in and talk to her first had been in order to avoid panicking her, but that had apparently been the exact opposite of what he actually fucking managed to do. Finn held his hands up, palms spread. "No, no. Fuck. Sorry. That's not what I meant at all. Sorry, honey. That was my bad. I don't want you to go. No one is leaving. You are staying, I am staying and Kieran is moving in. Simple as that." Really? Was it goddamn simple? Probably not but he'd pretend for the fucking moment that it might be.
He was tempted to go over and settle a hand on her arm to try and calm her, but he didn't know if that would make things better or worse so he just stood there, trying to reassure her with the words.
Maggie nodded jerkily, trying to calm herself. She was still moving a little jerkily, clearly moments away from shifting, from hopping up on the counter. “He’s outside?” She asked, flitting over to the window, far lighter than any human should have been able to. She peeked through the curtains, out at the car. She could see Finn’s son sitting in the passenger seat, grinning as he looked at...a watch? “Does he know about me?” She asked quietly. She ducked behind the curtain as the boy looked up, turning to face Finn.
Finn rubbed the back of his neck. He'd mostly gotten used to the flitting here and there. Hell, it wasn't all that much different from living with air elementals except for the fact that they didn't turn into birds. Also Maggie was capable of carrying on an actual goddamn conversation without getting sidetracked every few moments.
"He knows you're staying here, and he knows that I'm helping you out. The rest of the shit, though. Your parents, your siblings," fuck, he was probably going to hate himself for bringing that up, "the fact that you're a were. He doesn't know all of that. Not my place to tell him, but if you want to, you can. Or I can tell him as much as you're comfortable with me saying. If he asks any inappropriate questions, just ask him to stop or tell me." Though he didn't really anticipate anything like that, it was hard to say exactly what the fuck Kier was going to ask her. He figured that his son would at least want to make sure that Maggie wasn't much like Sena, and that might result in some interesting situations.
Maggie flinched a little, ducking her head, her bangs falling in front of her eyes. “You can tell him,” she murmured, rubbing her bicep with her other hand, curling in on herself a little. She looked down, flushing a little when she realised she was still wearing his henley. She’d meant to change before he came home. “Should I get changed?” She asked. She doubted Finn’s son would take very kindly to her walking around in his dad’s clothes. But she felt comfortable in it, safe. It smelled of him, and it had been the first thing he’d given her to wear when she’d woken up on his couch. She tugged the rubber band out of her hair, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders.
Well, fuck. Finn wasn't sure exactly how much of the situation he wanted to tell Kier, and he also didn't want to make Maggie feel weird or not in control of her own information. He'd probably just go with a very general run down, and let his son ask questions from there being careful to avoid certain details of how awful the whole goddamn situation had been. "Alright," he said simply with a nod.
When she asked if he should change, he just looked at her questioningly. "You look fine, sweetheart, but you can change if you want to." There was nothing wrong with the henley as far as he could tell. It was his so it was a little big on her, but it didn't look terrible. Of course he had never pretended to understand women and their concerns with their looks. If that's what it was about. "Why are you worried?" He was learning that with Maggie it was sometimes better to just ask instead of attempting to figure things out on his goddamn own. Just assuming he knew what was going on hadn't worked out very well in the past, after all. Hey, maybe you could teach an old dog some new goddamn tricks.
Kieran had planned to just sit out there until his father came to retrieve him but his dad was really losing money on this deal and he didn't want to be a total bastard and suck it all up in the first night. So he collected his suit and his bag from the truck and headed for the door, knocking before he opened it and stepped inside. He sat the suitcase down first, shifting the suit over his arm in the plastic garment bag it was in he then headed through the house towards the sound of his dad's voice. "Dad?" he said, slightly cautiously. "Everything okay?"
Maggie jumped, flinching at the unfamiliar voice, shifting almost on reflex. Where there had been a girl, now there was a pile of clothes with a little lump in the middle. A lump that was squirming towards the neck of the top, a slightly ruffled-looking warbler hopping out of the folds of the shirt. She flew up to the curtain rail, embarrassed and scared in equal measure, tail bobbing as she shifted, looking down at the boy.
He'd just arrived in the room his father and the woman were in when all of a sudden the woman was gone and there was a bird in her place. "Holy fuck, she's a bird," he said, looking at his father with wide eyes. That was unexpected to say the least. He just sort of blinked and stared, eyes flicking between his father and Maggie's bird form. "Okay... any other surprises?"
Finn didn't even get a chance to get a word in edgewise. One moment he was talking to Maggie, and the next Kier had come in, which was fine because it had been a bit of an asshole move to make him wait in the car anyway, and then Maggie was a bird and his son looked shocked. And Finn really wanted a fucking drink and a cigarette because this was precisely the sort of thing that he had been hoping to avoid. He covered his face with his hands and sighed, counting to ten slowly under his breath.
Then he pushed his hair back and spun to where his son was, sliding an arm over his shoulders. "Yes. She is a bird. We are fire elementals, and Maggie is a were who shifts into a bird." He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "Maggie, this is my son Kieran. Kieran, this is Maggie," he gestured toward the blue colored bird on the curtain rail. "No one's going to hurt anyone. Everything's fine. Kier, why don't we go check out the basement and let Maggie get back to her human form, huh?"
There. That wasn't too goddamn hard, was it?
Maggie hopped along the rail, chirruping softly. Her feathers were ruffled, making her tiny body look ever so slightly bigger. But still, tiny. She felt a little foolish, for being so surprised. For shifting. But she felt far safer like this than she did on the ground. Feeling a little more daring, she fluttered down off the rail, perching on the back of a chair instead, head cocked as she looked at the two of them. She nodded at Finn’s suggestion, chirping agreement. She’d be nude when she shifted back, of course. Slightly awkward even if it was just Finn that was around, let alone if his teenage son was standing there.
"Well at least she's a pretty bird," Kieran said. "I mean I think she's a pretty human too but I didn't get to see much of that to be sure. She could have been a vulture instead of a teeny little blue bird," he mused allowed. "I think this is more fitting." He shrugged a little and turned his head up towards his father. "Yeah, basement. Lemme grab my stuff and we'll go down til she gets her clothes back on."
Finn raked his free hand through his hair several times. A quick and hasty retreat was certainly looking to be the best option here. "Be back shortly, Maggie." Then to Kier, he confirmed, "Yeah, she's a pretty human, too," as they moved back toward where Kier had left his stuff. Finn picked up the main bag and gestured for Kieran to get the suit. "She just startles a little easy is all." He wasn't even going to touch the comment about Maggie getting her clothes on because then that would have both of them thinking about her naked, which was completely goddamn inappropriate.
"So. What do you want for dinner?" he asked as he opened the basement door and flicked on the light.
Maggie was glad that she couldn’t blush when she was a bird. Otherwise there would have been a very, very red little warbler perched on the back of the chair. They both thought she was pretty? She fluttered her wings, a little twitterpated by the compliments. And amused that they were talking about her as if she couldn’t understand or hear them. Not unusual, but still funny. She waited until they’d both left the room before shifting back, tugging on Finn’s sister’s jeans, the henley top. She left her hair down for now, padding through to the kitchen and brewing up more coffee, trying not to listen to Finn and Kieran talking downstairs.
She was a bird who was going to turn back into a human and her clothes were on the floor. Kieran was a teenage boy. He was already thinking about her naked whether he meant to or not. But he kept those thoughts to himself and collected some of his things, following his father down to the basement. Once there, he hung his suit up and turned his attention to Finn. "Um...," he shrugged. "Pizza?" He was a teenager, again, and every meal could have been pizza and he would have been plenty happy.
He really should have been able to predict that. Kids and pizza. Was that ever going to go out of style? Probably not. On the plus side, it was probably the easiest dinner option in the entire fucking world so he couldn't really complain too much. And even if they couldn't find a topping to agree on, they could also get multiple pizzas and stock the fridge.
"About Maggie," Finn started and then sat down on the edge of a chair, looking at Kier. "I rescued her from a fire. She was in her bird form and stuck in a cage." Stuck was not the most accurate fucking word, but it would work well enough for this explanation. He pushed a hand through his hair, focusing on not letting himself get too goddamn mad while he explained the situation. "Her brother and sister died in the fire. Her parents," his jaw clenched instinctively, "got out in time. They weren't the nicest people." Understatement of the fucking century. "There's a bit of an investigation going on, especially because people died in the fire. She'll probably be going to church with your grandparents."
There. That was enough of a quick and dirty explanation, wasn't it? "Questions?"
Kieran frowned at his father's explanation of Maggie. He felt bad for her. Her sister and brother had died and her parents were assholes. "Why was she in a cage?" he asked, not even sure that he wanted to know why, but the question escaping before he could do much about it. "Is she going to be okay?" he questioned. No wonder she was so damn skittish. Jeez.
The question started the slow tongue of fire through his body, and Finn very purposefully shoved it down as far as he could. There was no one here he could get upset with about that. The people who had done all that shit were somewhere else, and he didn't need to let himself get riled up to the point where he went out there and shut them the fuck down in his own way. No, he'd let Jimmy do things his way. If that didn't pass muster, well, then Finn could consider alternatives.
"People cage things so they can't fucking leave," he answered as simply as he could. Strangely the next question was the harder one. Finn shrugged. "I wish I had an answer for that. There wasn't much physical damage from the fire, but other shit's not as easy, you know. Still. But, yeah, I think she will. In time." She had survived that house for that fucking long so she had to be a survivor.
He didn't know how many more heart to hearts he could fucking take in one day, but they were apparently going for a record. Standing, he brushed his hands off on his pants and then clapped them together, trying to shift the gears back to something more normal. "Ready to head back upstairs? Get pizza ordered? Or something?" Although considering that fucking bombshell, Finn wouldn't be surprised if his son wanted to just chill in the basement for awhile and process. "It's been a bit of a clusterfuckery day, hasn't it?"
Kieran didn't like the sound of that not complete explanation. He might not have heard the whole story from his father's mouth but he put the pieces together and it made his stomach churn. "Bastards," he muttered under his breath. Who the fuck did that to someone, especially someone related to them. Their own flesh and blood. He liked his mom a hell of a lot more now. At least she didn't try and cage him up so he wouldn't leave. Jesus.
"Yeah," he said, nodding a little. He could do without any more heart to hearts. "I'm starved," he admitted. "And maybe Maggie is too. I wonder if she eats like a bird." Hey, it was a legitimate question.
Bastards was definitely a good word for those people. One of many, many words that Finn himself would have used in regards to them until he ran out of words and just had to fucking well hit something. As it was, though, he just nodded once, a sharp movement that puncutated and hopefully ended the conversation for the moment.
"Alright," he said as he pushed a hand through his hair and crossed back across the room to the stairs though the comment did make him chuckle a little. "I guess you'll have to wait and see."
When he reached the top, he called out, "Maggie, hon, how about we try that again?" If she wasn't ready hopefully she would chirp or something else to let him know.
Maggie smiled softly, walking towards the door. “Okay,” she murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, I just...I panicked.” She bit her lip, blushing a little. Worrying at the hem of her sleeve, she wound it round her finger, twisting the soft cotton first one way, then the other. “I made coffee,” she gestured to the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure if Kieran would want some? Or juice, I think you have some orange juice, if he wants that instead.”
Finn smiled at her, though it was a bit tight because of what he'd just been talking to Kieran about. That fire was still a little unsettled and curling right through him like the goddamn unpredictable beast that it was. "Hey. No harm done, right? That's what matters. Everyone's alright so we just give it another shot," he said glancing from Maggie to his son. If everyone actually relied on only first impressions, after all, Finn probably wouldn't know a goddamn person past that initial meeting.
"You really don't have to do stuff like that." He didn't want her getting the idea that she was some sorta slave in this house, either. Plus he'd lived on his own for years without being swallowed by filth so it had to be somewhat fucking passable. "Thanks, though," he said, moving to pour himself a cup of coffee. "We can start a list of shit we need on the fridge because I can't remember whether pudding packs or in anymore or not."
So what was he supposed to say to break the ice between his teenage son and the woman he had rescued from a fire? Finn decided to bow out and took a big gulp of steaming hot coffee instead. Coward's fucking way out maybe, but he didn't have the slightest goddamn idea what protocol should be here.
He didn't really need to break the ice. "Not much of a coffee drinker," he told the woman. "I can get myself some juice or something. Do you like pizza?" he asked her. "Dad's gonna get some for dinner. I figured you were probably hungry." He wondered if he should ask her if she ate like a bird but he decided against it for now. "Dad's right, you really don't have to make coffee for him. He figured out how to use the maker a long time ago." Before the divorce. Mostly because his mother always left the coffee til it was damn near frozen in the container. "What toppings do you want on your pizza?"
Maggie shrugged, blushing. “I’m here all day, it gives me something to do,” she murmured quietly. Her boss had been great - she’d never taken a sick day or a holiday in all the time that she’d worked for him, so he’d been more than happy to give her a week or two off, paid. There weren’t many people that would do that. She poured herself a cup too, hopping up to sit on the counter, as she always did. It put her closer to Finn and Kieran’s heights, and she felt far more secure when they weren’t towering over her. She nodded at Kieran’s suggestion of dinner, smiling a little nervously. “Pizza’s good,” she said. “I don’t mind what toppings. You two choose.” She didn’t want to choose, didn’t want to pick something that neither of them liked. She wasn’t a fussy eater, so she’d be happy whatever they got.
"I only ended up melting two of the fuckers out of frustration. I've gone through way more vacuum cleaners, though." What the hell was with those machines anyway? Not only did they have to make the loudest, most annoying goddamn noise on the planet, but they were also always performing at about a third of their advertised effeciency. Finn had lost count of the number of the fuckers that he had broken in one way or another.
He waved a hand in the air as he settled in at one of the stools at the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. Girls normally liked vegetables, didn't they? Or was that just some shit they put on television to confuse guys and get them in trouble? Birds ate bugs, though, so maybe meant. Finn frowned into his coffee. "Kier, what are you normally getting on pizza these days? As long as I don't have to endure pineapple, I'm fine with anything. But fruit doesn't belong on a goddamn pizza unless it's one of those desert things. Even then it's not really food."
Kieran shook his head. "I like meatlovers," he told him honestly. "It's like sausage, pepperoni and canadian bacon and stuff like that. So if that works for everyone, we should get that. Pineapples on pizza is disgusting, by the way," he muttered. Gross. Pineapple pizza? Blegh. Heading over to the cabinet, he collected a glass and went to the fridge for some of that juice.
Maggie just nodded. Yeah, that sounded good to her. Twisting, she grabbed the neat pile of takeaway menus that she’d stacked by the microwave - after throwing out all the doubles, the expired coupons, and junk mail that had migrated to that corner - and handed them to Finn. She didn’t know where he liked to get pizza from, so she just gave him all of them. Sipping at her coffee, she watched Kieran move around the kitchen, noting the similarities to his father, and the differences too.
Junk mail had a tendency to just pile the hell up. Finn sorted bills out and dealt with them in a very timely manner but all the rest of that shit just ended up creating little paper mountains. Considering his job and his nature, he shoulda fucking known better but eh. Maggie had pretty much unearthed and dismantled them, though, which was another thing that had made him a little uncomfortable. He knew she was probably just keeping busy, but it was strange and out of place for him to have someone doing so much for him. Especially when he was the one who was supposed to be helping her.
"Thanks," he said as he took the menus, smiling at her. "I was thinking a meat lovers and a veggie lovers. That way you can eat something that's fucking green, Kier," he directed at his son. If the boy really was his double as much as Margot said then he probably avoided vegetables as much as possible. "Those sound alright, Maggie May?" he asked, instinctively softening his voice like always when he spoke to her.
Kieran groaned. "Do I have to?" he said. Vegetables were the devil. At least they were involved in pizza though. "Fine," he muttered. That was better than not getting any pizza at all. "I'll eat my vegetables. But you should get breadsticks too." He flashed his best crooked grin at his father, teeth showing and everything. Hey, bribery was part of being a teenager's parent.
Maggie nodded, smiling back at Finn, still blushing a little. She looked over at Kieran sharply as he groaned, argued with his father, her eyes wide. She never would have dreamed of speaking to her father like that. She dropped her gaze to her coffee, flinching pre-emptively, just waiting for Finn to yell at him, hit him. That was what her father would have done, if she or Lou had ever spoken like that.
Finn had missed the hell out of that smile and even the wheedling. That's what kids did, after all. They talked their parents into one thing or another all the damn time. As long as it wasn't too extreme, he was fine with giving in, especially on Kier's first night back in the house. Still he had to at least act like it was some sort of imposition so he let out his best disgruntled grumble. "Fine fine. You're a growing boy, after all. Just please remember not to get too much taller than me, huh? I'm not sure my ego can take that. Breadsticks or cheesesticks? Or breadsticks with cheese dipping sauce? Or," he flipped the menu over. "Okay, what the hell is stuffed bread?" It was pizza. Why was it all so fucking complicated.
It had probably taken him too goddamn long to notice how quiet Maggie had gotten, but there was a lot of shit going on. Finn looked at her over the top of the menu, noting the way she was just staring at the coffee, huddled, like she was afraid that something was about to blow. "You okay, Maggie? Everything's fine, honey. You can talk to us. We won't bite." Finn had pretty much been on his best behavior since the night she had come to stay. Hell, he hadn't even cursed out the television while watching politics. Mostly because he had kept it off the goddamn channel because those fucktards always got him riled.
Maggie looked up sharply. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, pasting a smile onto her face. It wasn’t particularly convincing, but it was the best that she could manage. She curled her fingers round the mug, cradling it against her chest, feeling its warmth through her shirt. She’d curled up even tighter, knees up at her chin, socked toes curled under. Making herself small, unnoticeable was the only defence that she’d had, most of the time. And even then it didn’t work.
"Breadsticks with cheese dipping sauce," Kieran answered. He chuckled at his dad's confused look over stuffed bread. "That's for another time, dad," he said, shaking his head a little as he sat down at the table. He too had noticed how quiet that Maggie had gotten and how she said she was fine when asked. Then she put that smile on her face that was completely see through and he arched a brow. She curled in on herself and he wondered if he'd said or done something to freak her out. "Are you sure?" he asked her. "I really don't bite. Promise."
Finn nodded and took another sip of coffee. He was more than okay with not treading into the area of whatever the fuck stuffed bread was for the moment. Maybe another day. At least Kier was keeping things somewhat simple for him.
The way Maggie answered him, and the way she was behaving made him arch an eyebrow, however. No, he didn't believe that she was fine, either. Not with the way she was acting, the fake smile, the curling. That really wasn't the body language that he associated with someone who was fine, but he wasn't sure what to do or say to try and make it better or even figure out what the hell might have happened to cause the change. Maybe it was all just too much shit too fast.
Standing, menu in hand he stepped toward her. "Want to pick something? You're letting us run the show here. That can't be any fun. Anything you want," he said, holding out the paper. Bribery really was beginning to become something of a habit. Mostly because Finn didn't have any idea what the hell else he should do. "What's wrong, Maggie May? Please don't say you're alright. I'm a fucking goon most of the time, but I can tell you're not fine."
Maggie reached out hesitantly, taking the menu. She bit her lip, setting it down beside her, looking at Finn. “It’s just...different,” she murmured at last. Her gaze flicked between Finn and Kieran, cheeks flushed. “I keep-” she took a steadying breath, setting her cup of coffee down. “I keep thinking you’re going to do something. And then you don’t.” Because Finn wasn’t like her father. Not at all. And intellectually she knew that, but it was hard to rewrite instincts that had been in place all her life.
Kieran watched how gentle his father was with the woman. He also took in how terrified she seemed. She acted as though she were afraid to move the wrong way and it made his temper flare up a little to think that it had been her family's fault that she felt that way. That she was so scared. "You're safe here," he told her, eyes flicking to the woman, then to his father. "I'm gonna go get settled so you guys can have a minute," he offered. "Call me when the pizza's here?"
It would be a lie if he said that the comment didn't spark a little anger inside of him as well towards her family. Those fucking bastards. Finn pushed a hand through his hair, and then he turned to give his son an appreciative smile. "Thanks, Kier. I'll let you know once it's here. Make me a list of anything that you need that you don't have here, okay? We can go shopping for more shit this weekend."
Then he turned back to Maggie, rubbing his hands together, taking a deep breath and trying to figure out what the hell to say. "He's right. You're safe here. He's safe here. I know your," jaw clench, "family worked a little bit differently. I'm not going to do anything." Then he shrugged. "Well. I am probably gonna yell at some point. I can't fucking help that. I'm going to yell at Kier, and he's gonna yell at me, which is probably gonna be goddamn scary, especially for you, but we both run really hot what with the tempers and being fire elementals."
Finn rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not gonna hurt him, though. I would die before I hurt my son. I'm not gonna hurt you, either. I'm not gonna let any other fuckers hurt you, either. But I also can't expect you to just forget and get over all the shit that happened to you, around you before so. It's alright. Just keep that in mind for me, okay, sweetheart?" he asked, reaching a hand out to touch her temple gently.
Maggie’s breath caught when he reached out, his rough fingers brushing against her temple. She nodded gingerly, tilting her head towards his touches, blushing just a little. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” she murmured softly, looking up at him, wide eyes innocent and trusting. “You’ve been so kind. It’s just...hard to forget.” Hard to change the habits and expectations of a lifetime. All she’d ever known was cruelty, abuse. It was so hard to expect anything else from anyone.
Finn let his fingers linger for just a moment before pulling the hand back and crossing his arms over his chest as he took a step back. "I can't say that I know, but I can imagine." Cause he did know about things that were hard as hell to forget that was sure. Hell, he had a whole life story of things like that. Although he knew hers had been worse. Far fucking worse, which made that snake of fire curl a bit.
"If you need to talk, I, well, I'll be really shitty at it, but I can listen." And then he could go set fire to something afterwards. "Or, like I said, I can help you find someone else." Someone less likely to beat the shit out of something.
Maggie’s eyelashes fluttered a little as he pulled away, not quite a blink. Her cheeks red, she successfully fought the urge to curl up, hide her face. She nodded, smiling gently. “I know,” she murmured. “I...I think I might call your friend tomorrow. The detective.” She wasn’t sure if she was ready, but she knew that the quicker she talked to Jimmy, the quicker it would be over. And God, that was tempting. To never have to worry about her parents, ever again. To not be looking over her shoulder, waiting for them to find her and drag her home. Lock her in a cage again.
He was trying not to notice the blush, how goddamn cute it made her. Cause that wasn't what this was. Not at all. This was him helping her out and not, well, Finn wasn't really sure what else it could be. Not really. So he looked past the blush and the wide eyes and the hair and all of that.
"Jimmy," he added, nodding. "I think that's a damn good idea, and I'm proud of you for deciding you can do that. I'm off tomorrow. Want me to come with? If Kier will let me, I'll probably drop him off at school, but I don't have any other fucking thing going on."
Then he tapped at the menu. "You decide if you want anything special?"
Maggie nodded. “Yes, please,” she murmured quietly. Having him there would make it easier to talk, even if what she said was likely to make him angry. She glanced down at the menu, having completely forgotten about it. Looking at it, she spotted something she’d always wanted to try, but never been allowed. “Can we get a s’mores pizza for dessert?” She asked, shyly. “I’ve never...” she bit her lip. “I saw a coupon for it once, but I’ve never tried it.” She handed the menu back to him, picking up her coffee cup again, more for something to do with her hands than anything else. Pizza, and getting to know Kieran tonight. Tomorrow, the police. She could deal with that.