Timeless Rekindling

Monday, August 5

"June! Dinner is ready, are you eating with us?" My mom's voice echoed up the stairs towards my closed bedroom door.

"Yeah mom I'll be down!" I hollered back and got off my bed to come downstairs, the smell of home cooked food blasting my senses the second I open the door. Tonight was chicken parmesan night, at least what we call it.

Both of my brothers were already at the table with plates. I messed up Killian's hair on the way by and nodded at Waylon.

"You two gonna play with me on stream later? It's Minecraft day." I asked on the way by the table towards the kitchen to make my own plate of food.

Mom was finishing her plate and grabbed me one from the cabinet, handing me it on her way to the table with my brothers. I made quick work of adding broccoli on the side then stacking up noodles, chicken, sauce, and cheese onto the middle of my plate; grabbing a fork and heading in to my place at the table. I always sit between mom and Waylon, Killian being the youngest loves taking the end of the oval dining table we have so he can be at the "head" even though we never take it seriously.

"Thanks mom." Killian and I say in sync as all of our little family digs into our plates. The room stays quiet aside from scraping plates while we all devour as much as we can.

"So...stream tonight boys?" I raise the question again as I finish up the last of my broccoli.

"I'm playing Fortnite with Alina during your stream time." Killian's only 12 but he always has some girl or boy another friend to play with and he's always yelling at Fortnite when he plays, so I'm not happy he's going to play while I stream.

"I can play some. What world?" Waylon asks me.

"One, Kills please for the love of hell shut your door and keep it down while you play. I'm sick of the yelling on my streams. Two," I turned to Waylon, "Same as last time. The world we just got a basic dirt hovel set up in last time that we said we'd build more."

"Okay yeah I'll play." Waylon nods and goes back to finishing his plate off.

Mom has been extra quiet tonight.

"Momma, you okay?" With my checking up on her, all three of us kids stop to look at her.

"I'm okay, Juni. Might take a nap while you guys play before Killian's bedtime. I've been slammed with this writing project and it's taking my brain out of me." She smiles and gets up, taking every empty plate off the table with her. I follow her to help clean the dishes and put away leftovers.

• • • •

After some time to check on mom and help clean up, as well as talking with Way on our ideas for the world tonight, I'm finally back in my room. The clutter always makes me feel wistful of what I once had and yet comforted at the same time.

I just moved back into Mom's house a few months ago. It seemed nearly impossible to fit all my belongings from a two bedroom apartment into one small bedroom, but here I am. My bed sits up on a handmade cubby bookshelf frame that I put together using a bunch of the "assemble yourself" cubby shelves, some brackets, and some extra wood for the middle base. It makes for plenty of space for my books and a nice book nook underneath my bed that I use to escape the world like a little kid.

Across the room is my TV setup, hooked up to both my PC and my PS4 for work, gaming, and streaming to be all in once place. I have some more shelves holding my TV up and my closet is so stuffed it stayed partially open the last time I was grabbing clothes. The walls are covered in posters and artwork, and my Christmas lights add a purple glow to the room from all the way around the top edge of this space. More bookshelves behind my door keep my crystals, witchy acquisitions, silly little trinkets, and more books fully on display.

I love it. It's a small space to get used to again, but it makes me feel like I did as a teen fully curating my own place that I truly loved.

I climb up into my bed after grabbing my headset and controller, turning on Minecraft. A thump signals Lucifer jumping down from underneath my bed and he swiftly jumps up to curl into a ball in my lap.

"Hey Lucy boy," I whisper as I pull my headset over my head and turn the microphone and stream on. "Hey hey hey and welcome back everyone. Tonight is Minecraft night, my little brother Waylon is going to join us again today to get this little hut figured out and make some progress. How are y'all today?"

As the stream starts sending notifications out, people start making the viewer count rise and plenty of comments slowly come in.

"Y'all? I thought you're a Northerner!"

"I'm great today Juniper!"

"Is Waylon on yet?"

"What are you guys building today?"

I smiled at the comments, glad my face camera was still off for today. The first one sent me down a spiraling memory lane, but I shook my head to dispel the thoughts and got back to focusing on adding Waylon into my party and loading the world.

"I had a friend from the south for a long time, some of his mannerisms rubbed off on me. I'm glad you're great! Waylon is getting on at the moment, we're going to try to build at least a base today rather than the dirt mess we have right now."

Time kept spinning by as I chatted with the people on stream and Waylon, getting more progress done on the Minecraft world until a whole two hours had come and gone and it was time to get off.

"Alright guys, we've actually reached the stream goal today and I'm sure Way wants to go play his own games so we're gonna say goodbye. Don't forget to take your meds, hydrate, eat something, and get some rest. Take care of yourselves out there y'all. June signing off."

I pulled my headset off and shut off my Playstation 4, switching it to my PC so I can watch some Netflix and relax. I was already halfway through my re watch of Supernatural and itching to see more.

• • • •

By the time I was getting tired, it was 11 pm. I grabbed my pajamas and night routine skin care and came out of my room to head to the bathroom, poking my head into Way's open door to thank him for playing on stream with me and then peeking in at Kills to make sure he was asleep already. He stared back at me with a troublemaker smile.

"You're supposed to be asleep, Kills. Mom is gonna flip. She's going to bed in like 30 minutes." I tried to half whisper to not rat him out, and he turned to face away from the door so he looked more asleep.

Oh well. I shrugged and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door so I could change and do my routine.

After a few minutes of torturous routine in taking care of my face and neck and brushing my teeth for the night, I'm headed back to my room at the end of the hall to shut myself in for the night and try to sleep. As soon as I shut my door, Lucifer is up on the bed waiting for me to lay down with him and I turn my lights off using only the TV background as light. In the dark, I grab my medicine organizer and take out Monday's pills taking them with a sip of my water. I climb under the covers and curl up with Lucifer, passing out almost immediately when my head hits the pillow.

• • • • • • • •

A/N: this is my first ever full fiction chapter. I think this is where I'll leave chapter one, feel free to add any input or comments you have throughout the chapter. Chapter 2 coming soon.