just_another | Entries tagged with open

Every book, online article and forum he's read has a different opinion.

One month, says the book they keep beside their bed. Two months, says the mom repeating what her doctor has said in an online forum for new parents. Six weeks is best, according to an article he'd found. Twelve weeks is better, says another book, just to be absolutely certain.

For Joel, a man who places a lot of value on research and knowledge and learning, this is an absolute nightmare. All he wants is some definitive answer as to when it's safe to take Dane out of the house and nothing he's read so far seems to agree on it. If doctors can't even agree, he has no idea how he's supposed to reach any kind of decision regarding the matter and he's about one more conflicting piece of information away from deciding to just keep Dane inside for the rest of his life. At least until he's eighteen.

Then they can be absolutely certain he won't end up sick.

The only problem is that Joel is starting to go a little stir crazy and he's sure the same can be said for Spencer and Charlotte both. They're not used to having to be home all day without the store to work on and Charlotte isn't used to running a store full time. She's been an incredible help, but there are things she doesn't know how to do, things she's becoming increasingly frustrated with, and Joel knows they have to rescue her at some point, but he also doesn't want to leave Spencer and Dane.

Sleepless nights, being woken up by the baby when he cries, fussing and spit up and diapers, he's taken all that in stride. It's the uncertainty Joel doesn't know what to do with. He should be at home, he thinks, he shouldn't ask Spencer to take care of Dane just because Charlotte is having trouble with the store. But it's healthy to get out, too, he's sure of that. But he also doesn't want to be away from them for longer than a minute or two, which all results in mostly just feeling overwhelmed and confused as to what he's supposed to do.

It's a completely normal Thursday afternoon when Charlotte texts Joel a bunch of knife emojis and he makes a decision. Clipping Huxley's collar to his leash, he kisses Dane, then kisses Spencer and promises to be back as soon as he can. The baby isn't ready to come to work with them yet, he has to deal with that. He also has to deal with the idea of being away from his family for longer than ten minutes and he's going to do it if it kills him. Which it very well might.

He makes it ten minutes before he stops on the sidewalk and turns back toward home. Huxley looks up at him, clearly confused, then starts to follow before Joel abruptly turns back in the direction of the store. It's silly, he can leave them for an afternoon, he can.

But he stands on the sidewalk anyway, frozen and undecided, trying to figure out if he should go help his sister at the store or just head back home.

[Find Joel anywhere along his walk, acting weird and indecisive. XD]

Dane has been home for exactly thirty-seven hours and a few minutes, give or take, when Joel looks at the clock on the wall as he paces the length of the library, the baby in his arms. He's been fussing today, more than he has yet, and he and Spencer have been taking turns walking with him around the house once they've established that he doesn't need to be changed and he isn't hungry. They've been given their space after the initial invasion, his parents choosing to stay at a hotel for the duration of their time here rather than taking over the house. As much as he loves having his parents here, as much as he's loved seeing them with their grandson, he's also extremely grateful for it.

Ellie, though, had called that afternoon and suggested Joel try flipping Dane over onto his stomach. She'd said something about colic, told him that holding the baby on his stomach might help, and since then Joel has been carrying a peaceful Dane around the house, his little cheek resting against Joel's wrist. He's fast asleep for the time being and Joel can't imagine putting him down. He's a warm, comforting weight on Joel's arm and although he's tired, although he knows there's still a lot of adjusting to be done, he's also never been this happy.

Spencer is napping. At least he hopes he is. Joel had all but forced him to go upstairs and lie down. They sleep when Dane sleeps, that's the way their lives are meant to go now, and now that Dane actually is sleeping, Joel is debating heading upstairs and joining Spencer. The thought of crawling into bed with his husband, settling Dane comfortably on his chest and just lying there for a little while is somehow even more appealing than actually getting to sleep.

If he sleeps, he's bound to miss something, and Joel doesn't want to miss a moment of this.

That's exactly what Spencer is thinking as he lies wide awake in their bedroom. He'd tried more than once to close his eyes and keep them shut, force himself into a sleep that just won't come, but for once he's not being kept awake because of the nightmares he fears might plague him; it's because he knows that just downstairs are the two people he loves more than anything else in this world.

It's only been a day and a half since they've been allowed to bring Dane home, since they'd been overly careful in placing their baby, their tiny, beautiful baby, into his car seat for the drive home while Erin and her husband tried to hide their laughter behind their hands as they'd watched.

"Definitely brand new parents," her husband had commented, and it hadn't been with any ill intent. Spencer had only smiled and shrugged, as if there was nothing that could be done about it and really, there can't be. He's a father now, he's partly responsible for someone's life for the rest of his own, and as daunting as that may be, Spencer has never been happier. The only comparison he could possibly make would be to the day he and Joel had gotten married, and it's with that thought that he finally gives up and rolls out of bed to join his family.

They'd texted friends earlier in the day to mention when a good time would be to drop by to meet the baby. It's getting to be just after noon now, and he's absolutely exhausted, but the promise of getting to see Dane again gives him a burst of happy adrenaline. He'd be happy to stay this way for the rest of his life, at home with just his husband and their child; but he supposes having company over wouldn't be so bad.

After all, there's something appealing about being able to say that today, he and Joel are going to be introducing their son.

[Time to meet the baby. Tag Joel or Spencer or BOTH, but just indicate in your tag what you'd prefer. If both, the order will be your pup, Joel, Spencer.]

They're actually having a baby shower.

Joel is fairly certain his mother wouldn't have let them get away without something, even if he had insisted it be small and consist only of family, but for some reason he and Spencer have allowed themselves to be talked into a real shower. With invitations and food and little baby themed games to play. It's sort of strange, looking at it from his position, given that Erin is the one who's going to be giving birth and therefore is the one in the glowing pregnant woman position at this entire gathering.

She'd sweetly agreed to attend and had even whispered to Joel that she would take the brunt of the attention if she could manage it. He had whispered back that he knew they had picked her for a good reason.

But here they are. Several weeks have passed, the invitations have gone out and the decorations have been put up all over Joel and Spencer's living room. He had agreed to lift the enchantments on the house for the extent of the party, which means that anyone can open the door to their guests, they don't all have to be invited in by either Joel or Spencer, and it makes him a little nervous, but he understands the usefulness of others being able to answer the door. At least for today.

It's the decorations that keep getting to him. Sweet little ducks and zebras and monkeys, little jungle animals all over the walls. The bottle and rattle shaped cookies are pretty cute, but those aren't going to be left when the baby gets here. The animal theme, though, is fairly close to the nearly finished nursery Joel has been working on upstairs and he can't help but grin at the decorations.

Spencer, on the other hand, can't stop coming back round to the center of the living room to stare at the enormous sign that's been strung up above a table already stacked with gifts when a majority of their guests haven't even arrived yet. He'd been worried this morning that the day would overwhelm him, that knowing so many people would be coming into their home would be daunting when just a year ago, he'd never even once invited company over before meeting Joel; but so far, he feels calm, in spite of having had to watch Joel remove the enchantments that act as their security on the house. If someone wishes to crash a baby shower--which he doesn't imagine will happen anyway--then they'll have to face not only the wrath of a room that will be filled with witches and sirens, but the wrath of his mother- and sister-in-law, as well. That's not a sight Spencer thinks would be very pretty to witness.

Still, he feels light, perhaps a lingering effect of the having the chance to fall in love with Joel a second time during the spell that had taken over the town. Certainly, a great deal of his contentment has to do with the fact that he won't have to worry about losing his husband in a crowd but even beyond that, he's excited.

So much has changed in the course of the past year and weeks from now, they'll be holding their newborn in their arms for the very first time without another care in the world but for who they've been looking forward to meeting since they'd decided to take this journey together. There's something a bit strange about realizing that it's all coming to a head, that the waiting will soon be over and they'll be fathers at last, but when the first knock on the door comes, Spencer can't help but smile.

[Baby shower for Joel and Spencer's wee one. Erin, their surrogate, is present and is currently 31 weeks pregnant. If you're even a little friendly with either of them, Joel's mother sent an invitation, but the enchantments have been taken off the house for the event and so it's not an impossible party to crash. If anyone wants to crash a baby shower...]

Despite his mother's warnings, Joel has found himself on the beach once again, not far from where he sailed straight into a storm not three days earlier. She would be furious if she found him here, but this is where he feels most calm, where he's always felt most able to think clearly and lately it seems he's in desperate need of thinking clearly.

So much has happened over the past several days and while Joel is completely certain what he feels for Spencer is real and genuine, he's also truly conflicted for the first time in his life. He has duties. There are expectations that have been placed upon him and in less than two weeks time, he is expected to have picked a bride.

That's something Joel knows he simply cannot do.

Walking along the sand, he looks out into the water for a moment, then begins to shed his clothes. He doesn't care how it might look, if there's anyone nearby to see. His fingers fly over the buttons of his shirt and he drops it to the sand. A moment later his pants follow and he wades into the water in only his breeches, pushing through the waves and then diving under, cutting through with strong strokes. The cold water clears his head and he turns over, floating on his back for what feels like forever before he finally makes his way back to shore.

It's as he's dressing again, his pants once more fastened and his shirt half done up that his vision suddenly goes dark. It's like he's under water, he realizes. Shafts of sun cut through the gently rolling waves, but the deeper he sinks, the darker it gets. There's a flash of a shimmering tail, too big to be a fish, too small to be a shark. Dark laughter. A brief glimpse of a beautiful woman with long, black hair. She's smiling, but Joel doesn't much like what he sees in that smile.

She's saying something, her lips moving, but the voice that comes out isn't hers. It's Spencer's. It's the voice he remembers from that day on the beach and Joel stumbles in the sand, only realizing then that he's still standing on the beach. All of this, everything he's seeing, it isn't really happening.

He directs his attention back to the woman with the tail just in time to hear Spencer's voice whisper two words. A promise.

He doesn't know what any of it means, but as soon as it's begun, it's gone. Joel is left standing on the beach, his hands still on the buttons of his shirt, staring off into the waves as if they can give him some kind of answer.

[Joel's an adopted prince who doesn't know he's also a witch and has no idea he's just had a premonition while on the beach anywhere you want to find him. Enjoy? :D]

He's grateful the demon is gone, he truly is, but there have been consequences to the banishment of the dark thing that's been living inside him for the better part of a decade. Most of them have been the good sort. He's had an easier time controlling most of his magic, his potions come easier, his protective spells are much stronger, and his eyes no longer go black whenever something begins to build in him.

But better than all that, when he gets angry -- which he still does, quite regularly -- that overwhelming need to just hurt someone doesn't come on. It's just regular anger, the kind Joel is sure most people have.

It hasn't been all good, though. The demon had been blocking Joel's premonitions, keeping them from him during a time when he should have been learning to read and control them, and now that they're back, he's often at a loss as to what to do with them. For the most part he still doesn't understand them. And they're painful, coming on without warning and bombarding him with confusing and frightening images.

At the moment he's nearly doubled over, his head awash with pain. His eyes are squeezed shut tight and he has the heel of his palm pressed against his temple as if he can somehow ward it off, but nothing he does makes them any easier.

There's a car, sleek and black, a figure he can't quite make out. Someone screams and the sound that follows is a hollow, sickening thud. The kind that bodies make. Joel feels his stomach turn over and he prays he won't throw up just as the premonition begins to fade, but not before it shows him one last image. A street sign. A name he recognizes.

Two blocks from here.

He's still in pain, but he turns in that direction and begins to run, his hand still pressed against the curve of his eye. Rounding a corner, he sees the car. He sees the person about to step off the curb. He sees the speed of the vehicle and knows there's no way the driver is going to stop in time, so he lunges forward, wincing at the pain in his head and reaches out, grabbing the arm of the person just about to step into the path of the oncoming car.

[Find Joel anywhere around town. Be the character he just saved or witness it or come across him while he's having his super painful premonition, whatever works~ :D]

All Joel wants is to go home and sleep in his own bed, but so far the doctor has forbidden it. Even with Spencer's promises to take care of him and make sure he doesn't exert himself, Joel is still stuck in the hospital for at least one more day, but probably two. Besides Spencer, he hasn't been allowed visitors either and Joel knows it's only been a day, but he feels like he's slowly starting to go crazy with boredom.

He understands why he has to stay. Sort of. He's still in a fair bit of pain despite the medication they've been giving him, so he understands why his doctor wants him to stay, but Joel knows he can do better. Especially now that the demon is gone. If they would just let him go home, he'd be able to brew something that would almost entirely do away with the pain in his hand and his chest, but he can't tell them that.

Or maybe he could, but he's fairly certain they wouldn't care.

Spencer has brought him several books, but even so, Joel is bored. He's currently lying in his bed with his head tipped back to look at the ceiling, counting the holes in the tile directly above him. He's gotten as high as six hundred before losing count and having to start over again, but it isn't as if he has anything else to do.

"Good news," one of the nurses says as he pops his head into Joel's room. "You're officially allowed visitors."

He has his phone out and is texting someone to come visit him before the nurse has even finished his sentence. As his vitals are checked, as his evening dose of medication is given, Joel sets his phone aside, picks up one of his books, and he waits.

[Joel is in the hospital post-demon battle. If your character is close to Joel or Spencer, feel free to assume they got a text letting them know what happened and that everyone is alive. Come visit a demon-free Joel for the first time EVER!]

It's not the first dream he's had, but it's the first one he remembers in such great detail.

( Cut for violent imagery )

He wakes up with his heart pounding and a scream in his throat, but it never quite manages to catch hold. It's four in the morning, but Joel lies in bed beside Spencer, staring up at the ceiling until the sun comes up and then he puts on a smile and goes about his day like any other. But the dream lingers. It hangs on and it leaves him feeling deeply unsettled, even as he kisses Spencer goodbye and tells him to take the morning off.

Joel desperately wants to be with him, he needs to be touching Spencer just to remind himself that it was only a dream, he'd never actually hurt anyone he loves, but he needs the time alone, too. He has to do some kind of research, he has to figure out what's happening because something is happening. He can't pretend anymore. Something is very wrong.

As he opens the store, he finds himself thinking of Nerium and wishing he had some way to contact her. She would know, he thinks, or she'd have an idea. She would be able to help him and he wonders if he thinks hard enough about her that she'll know he needs her. She always seems to know.

It's only once he's inside the store that he allows himself a moment. Standing against the door in the dark, Joel closes his eyes and he sees those awful things again. The people he loves most in the world hurt at his hands and he wonders who else he's dreamed off. There are strange, confusing memories of other dreams and he thinks he should be thankful he can't remember all the details.

But he opens his eyes and then he opens the store and he goes about his day, but between customers, he drags out a book on dark spirits and demons, reading every last bit of information he can.

This isn't happening to him. It isn't.

[Joel's demon is getting louder. >:D Come visit the bookstore!]

He's been avoiding his parents' calls and their requests to talk on Skype ever since he and Spencer got back and he can't do it anymore. It isn't that he doesn't want them to know that he got married, but that he's been trying to avoid the inevitable descent upon Siren Cove his mother will perform as soon as she discovers what has happened. She'll be furious with him at first, he knows that, but once she's done being angry, she'll insist on coming to spend some time with them and Joel has kind of been enjoying having this time alone with Spencer.

But he's in the store that afternoon when the phone rings and he scoops it up without looking at the number. "Crossroads," he says.

"Finally. I was beginning to think you were dead."

"Mom," Joel says, glancing around the store, glad to find it empty. He doesn't want to have this conversation with a bunch of other people in the store. "Hi."

"Where have you been?" she asks and he can hear his father's voice in the background, asking the exact same question.

"I'm sorry, I've just been busy. We... Spencer and I bought the store. We've been dealing with the paperwork," he says, holding the phone with his shoulder as he busies himself tidying the counter. He's only doing it because he's nervous and he's glad his mother can't see him, because she would know something was going on.

"For two weeks?" she asks, her skepticism clear in her voice. "I mean, I'm sorry. That's wonderful news, I know you've wanted to buy the property for years."

"Yeah," he says. "It is good news and..." He has to tell her. He just isn't prepared for the fact that his parents are going to be hurt that they weren't invited to be there.

"And?" she prompts gently.

"Spencer and I went away for a bit," he says, his voice suddenly dry. "We got married."

There's silence on the other end of the phone for a very long time and Joel winces after about ten seconds. At first he'd been happy to avoid Skype, but now all he has is the silence and he finds himself wishing he was able to see his mother right now so he can better gauge her reaction. But the silence stretches on and finally, he says, "Mom?"

"You..." Her voice sound faint. "You got married."

"Yes."

"Without us there."

He winces again. "Yes. I'm sorry. It just... it needed to be just us."

The silence starts up again and then, finally, she says exactly what he expected. "I still have some vacation time. Your father and I will be there next week." There's a pause and then he thinks he can hear a muffled sniffle, which he feels terrible about. "I'm very happy for you. I love you, Joel."

They talk for a few more minutes and although he feels a little better when he hangs up the phone, he still needs to take a moment. Heading outside, Joel stands in the door of his store for a long moment, then sits down on the bench to the right of the door, burying his hands in his hair and dropping his head to look down at the ground between his feet.

It's his own fault, really, but that doesn't stop him from being pissed off.

Joel knows the basement of Crossroads is prone to flooding. He's been meaning to get all the boxes down there raised off the floor and onto pallets for months, but he's never gotten around to it and he could give a thousand excuses for why he's never done it, but the truth is he's been putting it off only because pallets aren't cheap and he hasn't had the extra money lying around to buy any. For the past year and a half he's been desperately saving every cent he can in hopes he'll be able to outright buy the property from his landlord and he's so close.

But now he's paying for it.

For a long moment he only stares at the ruined boxes and when he finally picks one up, the cardboard just disintegrates and the damaged books go tumbling onto the floor, all of them wrinkled and swollen with water. What makes it worse is that these aren't stock for the store. These are his mother's books.

"No, no, no," he chants are he gathers them up into his arms, as if somehow that will undo all the water damage. They're probably beyond saving and it's only two boxes, but that's not acceptable to Joel. He can't just give up without trying and so he grabs the second box, hauling all the damaged books upstairs and out the front door of his store. There has to be something he can do.

The day is bright and warm and he begins to spread the books out on the sidewalk, realizing with every passing moment that there's really no hope of salvaging them. Not just by drying them in the sun and he's trying desperately to come up with some kind of solution when someone walks toward the store. They're probably just passing by, but he turns toward them anyway.

"Do you have a hair dryer?" he asks, realizing just how desperate and stupid he sounds. "N-not on you, I know you probably don't have one on you, I just... my books. I don't have one."

This is ridiculous. The books are likely a lost cause.

[Be the person Joel is trying to beg a hair dryer from or find him later, totally defeated and sitting on the bench outside his store with the books drying in the sun.]

There's half a bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter in Crossroads and Joel is sitting just behind it, staring at it thoughtfully, wondering if he'll ever be able to drink it again or even just the smell of whiskey will remind him of Spencer for the rest of his life. He doesn't need to drink it, there had been enough beer in his fridge to get him sufficiently drunk, especially when combined with the painkillers the doctor had given him for his wrist, but he wants to drink it.

He wants to share it with Spencer. That was the plan. He likes whiskey, but he'd only bought it because Spencer likes it, too, and while they'd had some of it together already, the plan was to finish it with him. Because Joel had plans. He'd been stupid enough to make plans all the while knowing it could never last because he's done bad things and he's hurt people and there are reasons he's tried so hard to keep his distance. Good reasons. But he'd been stupid and he'd listened to the part of him that thought it was okay to move on. The part of him that felt weightless every time Spencer smiled in his direction. The part that thought asking him out on a date was going to end well.

And it hadn't. It hadn't ended well at all. Joel isn't prone to exaggeration, but he thinks calling last night a complete disaster isn't far off. Mark had come and he'd taken Spencer and he'd hurt him. Joel knows it could have been worse; he knows they both could have died in that lighthouse, but that doesn't make the things that had been done to Spencer any easier to stomach. Especially not when he knows it's his fault. If they hadn't gotten close, if he hadn't let himself get so... so carried away, then Spencer never would have become a target.

Now he doesn't even think it matters. He can't imagine that Spencer will want anything to do with him anymore and that's why he's sitting in his closed, dark store instead of somewhere with Spencer. He should have stayed at the hospital, he shouldn't have been such a coward, but he doesn't think he can face hearing Spencer tell him he doesn't want him around anymore. So he's here. And he's drunk. And he's swaying back and forth on his stool behind the counter, wondering if there's enough whiskey left in the bottle to get him so drunk that he blacks out for a week or two.

He doesn't want to be here. He wants to go back and erase Friday night and do it all over again. He wants to be wherever Spencer is. That's the only thing he wants and he wants it so badly that his chest aches with it, but he can't have it.

"Fuck it," he mutters, his words already slurred, then uncaps the bottle of whiskey and takes a long swallow. Black out drunk sounds better than any of his other options right about now.

[Timed to Saturday late afternoon/evening. While the store is technically closed, he'll open the door for anyone who knocks or rings the bell. Given the violence of the attack on Spencer, the news has probably gotten around, so feel free to come bang on his door and assume your pup has heard. Joel himself has a black eye, a bruised jaw and a sprained wrist.]

It's been a strange, confusing, amazing and horrifying few days.

For someone who generally keeps to himself, Joel's not sure how so much has happened at once, but no matter how he looks at it, there's enough going on in his life right now to satisfy him for years to come. The ball had been both a disaster and one of the more gratifying nights of his life and while he hasn't yet spoken with Lou since sending her home in a cab, he knows he needs to find the courage to visit her at some point.

He needs to speak with Lara as well. The truth is, he's been avoiding her, still not entirely sure what he feels. He's angry, but more than that, he feels betrayed, and that's a feeling Joel has gone out of his way to avoid, it's why he's kept himself so closed off from most people in Siren Cove.

The threatening letters he's been receiving aren't helping matters and although he's handed them over to the police, he'd still spent most of the night in his work room, crafting witch bottles that he's hoping he can convince people to put in their homes or bury in their yards. Something is coming and he doesn't know yet if that something is coming for him or the people he cares about, but he's not taking any chances.

With the bottles in his bag, he locks the door to his store and heads into town. He needs to find a few specific people, he needs to run some errands and he wants to stop by the library to see Spencer, maybe bring him lunch. Even as he thinks about that, he finds himself smiling and he has to duck his head as he walks. The premonition he'd had the night of the ball had disrupted things a little, but even with that, he feels a lot more certain of where things may be headed.

[ooc: Joel can be just about anywhere in town. There are some specific people he needs to speak with, so find him wherever suits! He's also made witch bottles for people he cares about, so come collect your protective charms. And no matter what you read on google about making a witch bottle, he did NOT pee in them.]

He's angry at himself.

That's the reason Joel's sitting alone on a park bench with his eyes half-closed, focusing on lessons from his mother he's long since tried to forget. The feelings he has about things to come have always bothered him, upset him more than anything, but they've also never amounted to much before. And now twice in recent days he's had feelings that have either been too vague or come too late for him to do anything about them and people have been injured as a result.

Had he been able to see the Hydra instead of having only a strange sense of foreboding, maybe he could have done something more. Had he known about the creature sent after Cosette long before he'd found himself running into the water, maybe she and Spencer wouldn't have been injured. For so long he's avoided honing the ability, but he's beginning to wonder if perhaps that hasn't been such a good idea.

So he sits in the park with a novel held loosely in one hand -- The Hobbit, which he's never actually read and has fastidiously ignored any part of his brain that suggests there's a reason he's finally picked it up now -- but he isn't reading. He's concentrating. Waiting for something to come. His parents had always taught him that the only way to hone his ability to see things before they arrive is to practice. To use it, to allow himself to see things instead of just ignoring them.

He's never wanted to. He still doesn't want to. But if it keeps someone from getting hurt, then he has a responsibility to do what he can.

Though his store has escaped suffering any damage due to the protection spells laid upon it, the exterior street is another story entirely and Joel stands just outside the front door of Crossroads and stares at the debris littered across the sidewalk. He has a mug of coffee in one hand and he has every intention of beginning to assist with the cleanup just as soon as he finishes it, but for the time being he merely assesses what's to be done, his gaze drifting across garbage and what looks to be a large part of what used to be a wall and window in the middle of the street.

He knows he's lucky. That there are others who are injured, in the hospital, people whose homes and businesses have been destroyed. There isn't much for him to worry about and yet he can't keep his gaze from drifting toward the water every few seconds.

Something strange is happening. Something more strange than usual, but he has no real idea what it might be. The only premonitions he's been having lately have been especially vague, feelings more than visuals, sensations of danger that pass quickly and mean little to him, even after he dwells on them.

With a sigh, he sets his mug down on the small table near the door, then takes hold of a broom and begins to sweep the sidewalk in front of his store.