Chapter Text

Part 1: Drear Lam

“Yeah?”

“Hi, uh… my name's Ana? Are you– Is this the right house? Are you John?”

“Oh. Yeah, c’mon in.”

“Oh, okay. Great. Thanks,” she said, stepping through the door.

“Sorry,” the man apologized gruffly. “We get a lotta door knockers. Roofers and windows and religion and shit.”

“Oh, no worries,” she replied sweetly. “I'm just glad I wasn't in the wrong place.”

“Yeah. So. Said you've nannied before?” Right to the point.

“Oh, yes,” she nodded. “Mostly just occasional babysitting, but I was a nanny for a few years for two boys back in Ohio.”

“Huh. References?”

“Oh well… I suppose you could call them, but they, uh… well, their marriage kind of fell apart when she became convinced he was cheating. You know, with me. So uh, I'm not sure either of them would be the best reference?” She grimaced, really selling the lie. She had been a part-time nanny, but that wasn't why she'd left Kansas in a hurry.

“Fine,” he shrugged, apparently not that interested. Like asking for references had merely been a formality anyway. “Need someone here when Will’s not at school. I work late. Afternoons, evenings. Sometimes weekends.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “That sounds fine.”

“Job don't pay, but there's a room in the basement. If you can cook, I’ll pay for groceries, too.”

“Oh. Alright,” she nodded again, less certainly this time. She'd been expecting at least a small stipend so she wouldn't have to get a second job, but free room and board wasn't nothing. And she could always persuade him to pay her more later, once he trusted her. Or, you know. Even just pay her at all for starters. “Yes, I can cook. I mean I'm not a great cook, but I'm okay. And I don't mind.” Well, she minded a little. But she'd rather cook than live off of freezer dinners and crappy bar food like she'd been doing for the past month while she searched for a new nanny gig.

“Fine,” he nodded. “You can meet Will.”

“Alright,” she smiled, and followed him through the house. Most people warmed up to her pretty quickly, but apparently this guy was going to take some time to come around to her charms.

“Will,” he said into an open bedroom door. Just as gruffly as when he addressed her, so that must just be his normal attitude. “This is Ana. Might be your new nanny we talked about. Show her ‘round, including the basement. Talk to her. Try not to scare her off.”

Was that… a joke? He delivered it in the same brusk tone he said everything else, so she really couldn't tell. She didn't hear any response from inside the room to give her any clues, either, but the man must have been satisfied that his son had heard him and would obey, because he stepped out of the doorway and motioned her in.

“Hi,” she said, poking her head into the room, not really sure what to expect. She found a rather average looking boy sitting cross-legged on his bed, putting a bookmark in his book.

“Hi,” he replied, looking… what? A little nervous? Shy?

“I'm Ana,” she said, stepping across the room to stand in front of his bed, holding out her hand.

“Oh, uh. I'm William,” he informed her, and shook her hand gently.

“Nice to meet you, William,” she smiled, not letting go. His hand was pleasantly soft, if a little limp. “Do you prefer William or Will?”

“Oh. Will, I guess. I dunno why I said William. That was weird.”

“Okay, Will,” she nodded, squeezing his hand again and encouraging him to relax before letting him go. “It's okay, I think it's nice to use your full name when introducing yourself.”

“Oh, okay,” he smiled, maybe looking a little less nervous now. Or maybe he just hated introductions, and was glad that part was over.

“So. I think you were gonna show me around?”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded, and gave a little bounce to gently launch himself off the bed, onto his feet. “So, um, this is my room, I guess.”

Ana smiled, and followed him around the house, paying more attention to the boy himself than the tour he was giving. He was soft spoken and clearly shy, but with a little prodding she learned that he was eleven years old, played soccer, and liked to read, but his favorite subject in school was math. He also liked art class, but he didn’t think he was very good at it.

“This is the TV and game room,” he told her, flipping the lights on at the bottom of the stairs. “Dad has a TV in his bedroom, too, but this is where we watch movies and cartoons and stuff. And on Saturdays I’m allowed to play video games after dinner.”

“Saturdays, huh?” It wasn't unusual for superstitious parents to limit how much time kids spent in front of the TV, but she'd never heard of a specific weekly schedule like that, and it seemed particularly weird for a family with a video game console.

“Yeah, that was Mom's rule,” he said, his voice briefly tinged with a little sadness before switching to a mildly frustrated tone instead. “And Dad won't change it.”

“Ah, I see,” she nodded. “So your mom's not around anymore?”

“No,” he shook his head, voice fully sad again. “She died, um, a year ago. It's just me ‘n Dad now.”

“I'm sorry, kiddo,” she told him, mirroring his sadness. She stepped closer and pulled him into a gentle hug. “That really sucks. I bet it's been hard without her, huh?”

“Yeah,” he nodded against her chest. Still sad, but not wet-sounding, so that was good. She rubbed his back soothingly for a moment before releasing him. He took half a step back, and then continued like nothing happened. “And that's the laundry room, and Dad's workout room, and over there's the storage area, and back here's the bathroom and the guest room. Or, well, your room, I guess. If you come live with us.”

“Oh, I see,” she nodded, stepping into the small room and looking around. It had a single bed, a regular sized closet, and a small dresser with a large mirror on top. “Anything I need to know about the room?” Everything was a little dusty, and the faded floral bedspread vaguely matched the curtains over the fire escape window. It felt like someone's grandmother had died in here three decades ago and nobody had bothered to redecorate.

“Uh… like what?”

“Like does the bed make a lot of noise, or is the closet haunted or anything?”

“Oh, uh. No, we don't have any ghosts,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I dunno about the bed, though. But, um, I guess there's a lot of spiders in the window sill. I found a black widow in there last year, and Dad made me kill it, but I think there's a lot more still.”

“The outside of the window?” she clarified.

“Oh, uh. Yeah. I don't think there's any inside. Or, like, not many. I heard that you're never more than three feet away from a spider though, so they're probably just hiding?”

“Right,” she sighed, trying not to think about that. It was probably better than the cheap motel she'd been staying in all week. And most spiders weren't really a big deal, they just reminded her of getting locked in her dad's dingy basement as a kid. “Cool, thanks.”

“You're welcome. So, uh… are you really gonna come live here with us?”

“Well,” she hesitated, caught off guard by the direct question. She hadn't really decided yet. He was cute enough, she supposed, if rather plain. His dad was going to be a tough nut to crack, but at least he clearly wasn't the overbearing type. And after a month of searching, this was really the best opportunity she'd found. Pretty much the only option, if she was being honest. There weren't many openings for nannies in small, backwater mountain towns, and nobody wanted to even interview her without checking her references first, which made it pretty difficult to persuade them to hire her. “... Maybe. I guess we'll see what your dad says.”

“Okay,” he shrugged, apparently not particularly bothered one way or the other. He might be almost as tough a nut to crack as his dad if he was going to be that apathetic about everything, even after their touching hug a minute ago.

“Have you had a nanny before?” she asked to fill the silence as she followed him back upstairs.

“No,” he shook his head without looking back at her. “I had a couple babysitters sometimes, but not a lot. I've never lived with anybody but my mom and dad, either.”

“Oh, I see,” she nodded. “Does that make you nervous? Having a stranger move in with you?”

“Kinda,” he admitted, climbing the stairs.

“That's okay,” she reassured his butt in front of her. Actually, he had a pretty cute butt under those boring sweatpants. “It's okay to be a little nervous. I'm not that scary, though, am I?”

“No,” he admitted again. “You seem fine.”

“Aww, thanks,” she said dryly. She really wasn't accustomed to such lukewarm receptions. She could usually win people over in just a few minutes. Less, even.

“How'd it go?” John asked his son as soon as they came around the corner at the top of the stairs into the kitchen. “Did you show her everything?”

“Yep,” Will nodded. It was obvious that these two weren't in the habit of having long conversations together.

“Good. When can you start?”

“Uh,” Anna paused, caught off guard by the abruptness of the question. She'd never had a job practically handed to her like this before, even if it only paid room and board. This guy must be really desperate. She'd have been jumping at the opportunity if she weren't getting mixed signals from Will, and practically nothing from his dad.

But she'd been searching for almost a month now, and even if she was getting a steep discount on the motel room, and got lots of her meals for free at the local bars, her bank account was still empty and the debt was starting to pile up.

“Well, I’ve been staying up in Fairview, so it'll take a while to go collect my stuff. I don't have a whole lot, so it shouldn't take too long,” she glanced at the clock on the stove, “but it'll still be well past dark. Let's say tomorrow? Around noon?”

“Fine,” he grunted. “Will has school, and I'll be at work, but I'll leave the back door unlocked.”

“Oh, alright,” she nodded. She didn't relish the idea of lugging suitcases and trash bags of stuff inside and down the stairs alone, but she could do it. One of the silver linings of leaving Kansas in a hurry was that she didn't really have a whole lot.

“We're a clean house,” the man informed her as he led the way back to the front door, in open defiance of the dusty shelves and carpet that clearly hadn't been vacuumed in a few months. “Honest living. I ‘spect you to both follow and enforce. No loud music. No late night trysts. No video games, ‘cept on Saturdays, and limited TV. None of those live shows from the coasts. And no magic. Period. I won't have that trash corruptin’ us. If it ain't honest, it ain't for us, no matter how cheap it is. Got it?”

“Of course,” Anna replied, nodding as earnestly as she could. “I understand, and I completely agree.” It caught her a little off guard to hear him speak his mind so plainly – even in small rural towns, most people couched their anti-magic sentiments in softer terms, declaring a preference for “healthier, durable products” or “traditional values”. But John was clearly the kind of man who said what he meant – when he chose to speak. She could respect the honesty in that.

“Good,” he nodded in what might have been approval. “See ya tomorrow.”

“Great, thank you,” she smiled, already being ushered out the door. “See you tomorrow. Nice to meet you… guys.”

The door was closed before she even finished. This… was not going to be an easy family to live with.

She sighed, and climbed in her beat up old sedan to start the long drive back to her motel to pack up her meager belongings. By force of habit, she waited until the engine successfully spluttered to life and she was a full block away before relaxing her hold on the magic and letting her trusted friend aura drop.