02-21-2018, 06:07 PM
When the invitation came in the mail, Brennen jotted the date down in his phone calendar, set a reminder for a week out so he could pick up an appropriate hostess gift (he’s not a barbarian), hung the invite on the fridge, and promptly forgot about it. When the reminder came up he added some wine and chocolates to the weekly grocery list and checked the calendar to see which kids he’d have that day. A manageable number, thank God; with only Bethanie, Sorenson, Dagny, Olivier, Cagney, and granddaughter Kellyn staying with him for the weekend. It could have been worse. If he’d needed to rent a bus to get them there, he probably would have passed on the party, but he could fit the seven of them in his SUV. That’s why he has the thing, after all; his day-to-day car is much faster and more stylish.
But concessions have to be made when you are surrounded by a swarm of children; sometimes he thinks he should install a rotating door on the front of the sprawling house instead of the standard, so he doesn’t have to listen to it open and close as his kids come and go at all hours of any day – whenever they want, really. Most of them live with their moms full time and visit, but some split their time more equally and some like Sorenson, Cagney and Kellyn have always live with him full-time. If any more of them lived with him at any time, he’d need a compound instead of a mansion. But – it’s time to go. He strides to the foyer, to the base of the huge marble staircase, and yells up the stairs. “Kids! Time to go!”
By the time he walks out the front door and slides into the driver’s seat, they are clamoring into the dark navy SUV. Dagny and Ollie get shoved to the back, the hazards of being the smallest. Well, really Kellyn is the smallest but she’s so small for her size that she still has to use the booster seat installed in the second row, so she gets a pass. Cagney is the last one in after locking the front door and checking his daughter’s seat belt, and they get on the road. It’s not a far drive, but it seems to be speeding past quite quickly – Brennen lifts his eyes to the rearview mirror and pins his granddaughter with a disapproving gaze; “Kellyn, what have we said about temporal changes on people who haven’t asked for them?” The red-headed girl scowls back at him and slumps in her seat, and the car goes back to its regular speed. Brennen glances at his son in the passenger seat and Cagney looks sheepish, but they say nothing. He makes a mental note as they pull into the driveway to talk to his son (again) about letting Kellyn get away with things she shouldn’t. Losing his wife shouldn’t make him a pushover as a parent.
But hopefully there’s not much mischief she can get up to here, under the watchful eyes of like a gazillion adults. He hands the keys off to the valet and climbs to the door behind his gaggle of children, chocolates and wine in one hand and snagging Kellyn in his other arm, not sure he’s ready to let the six year old loose by herself yet. “Behave!” he calls after the others as they slip into the group of adolescents already inside the house. He’s not particularly worried about Beth and Sorenson, who are quite mature for their ages even at 17 and 16, but the 12-year-old twins can be known to get up to mischief just like Kellyn.
He waits for the crowd to clear a bit, and then offers his gift (the wine & chocolates, not the kid, he wouldn’t wish this one on his worst enemy, much less a friend) to Scorch. “For the lovely hostess,” he says with a half-grin. Flirting with Scorch is a harmless endeavor because she’s happily paired off with Hestoni and in no danger of falling in love with him or falling in bed with him. “Kellyn, say hello,” he prompts the tiny girl in his arms, and she gives a deceivingly innocent smile and utters a small “Hi,” the girl says. “Who are you?”. “This is Scorch, it’s her house. Scorch, this is my granddaughter.” Not that he doesn’t have children as young as Kellyn, but not many. Her father has already disappeared, of course, probably to get happily drunk and temporarily forget his wife’s in a coma. He has the grace not to do so at the house when there are kids in residence under a certain age or maturity level, but surrounded by other drunk adults this party will be fair game. “The rest of my hooligans are…somewhere, but this one is the biggest troublemaker.” Kellyn shakes her head ‘no’, and turns to Scorch. “Are there are ghosts in your house? Grandpa got rid of ours.”
Yes, Brennen thinks, yes he had. He was tired of his five-year-old granddaughter talking to people he couldn’t see, occasionally about things she had no business knowing at her age, so he’d had several different ghost experts and exorcists and such over to de-spirit his mansion.
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As his father predicted, Cagney headed straight into the kitchen where the drinks are set out, grabbing the sharpie to scrawl his name on a solo cup in bold, dark letters. Then he surveys the options before decided the generic punch will do (the one labeled “adults” not the one labeled “kids”). He starts to ladle himself a whole cupful, but a shout from another room ruins his concentration and he spills it down his light gray shirt. “Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, and glances furtively around. No Brennen – good. He reaches for the threads of time and slides it back just enough to have not spilled on himself, and tries again with a steadier hand. Success – good.
He takes his cup and starts to head out towards the voices he can hear on the patio, thinking about how he just looked around for his dad when he used his powers like some kind of nervous teenager. He wasn’t being irresponsible like Kellyn in the car, there was no reason for him not to fix his mistake. But, ok, he can see dad’s point; his casual use of magic in front of the kids might be encouraging some of them to be a little too cavalier about the whole thing, including his six year old daughter.
But honestly, he’s still mostly a teenager himself at 23. After all he was married at 16, had a kid at 17, and was a single dad living with his own father again because his wife was in a coma at 18. But thank all that is good for Brennen, because Cagney certainly wouldn’t be managing half as well as he is if he was living alone with the girl who reminds him so damn much of Elite. Not looking where he is going he trips on the door threshold and almost falls face-first into the pool but another grab at the threads of time saves him, and so it’s just his string of startled expletives that hang in the air over the chlorinated water. He blushes, running his free hand through his red-going-early-gray hair. “Sorry,” he mutters out loud without even raising his eyes to see if anyone heard or saw him.
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“Stick together,” Bethanie calls to the twins as they sprint away at the entrance of the house, headed straight for the pool. She doubts they’ll get into that much trouble – Dagny is a wild child, as her currently blue-and-yellow dyed hair attests as it sticks up from her head in short spiky waves, but her twin is a settling influence on her. His sandy blond head is the last thing she sees of them as the disappear around the corner with their backpacks full of swimsuits, towels, and pool toys. They live in a huge mansion year-round with dad, but he refuses to install a pool. Something about insurance skyrocketing and living within 15 minutes of the ocean anyway. Sensible parenting, really, but she can’t blame the twins either for complaining that dad won’t spend a little bit of his gobs of money on something they really want.
Personally, Beth likes visiting dad because as much as she loves her other two sets of younger twin siblings (her mom and step-dad’s kids), she likes that Brennen rarely expects them to help care for the littler kids when they visit. He has plenty of time for that, and hires nannies when he doesn’t. Edmond and Neraza both work full-time, and they don’t believe in hired help, so Bethanie is expected to help a lot with 12-year-old Nylee and Alysanne, 10-year-old Conner and Riagan, and 5-year-old Osvya. Sometimes she is jealous of Sorenson for living with dad full-time, but she knows it’s partially because the better school for him is here. She could live here, too, if she wanted to break her mother’s heart more than Sorenson already has. “So, what do you want to do, Sorenson? Go swimming?” He gives her a look and a small shove. “Yeah, not a chance. How about we try and get tipsy? Dad will be too busy with Kellyn to notice.”
But concessions have to be made when you are surrounded by a swarm of children; sometimes he thinks he should install a rotating door on the front of the sprawling house instead of the standard, so he doesn’t have to listen to it open and close as his kids come and go at all hours of any day – whenever they want, really. Most of them live with their moms full time and visit, but some split their time more equally and some like Sorenson, Cagney and Kellyn have always live with him full-time. If any more of them lived with him at any time, he’d need a compound instead of a mansion. But – it’s time to go. He strides to the foyer, to the base of the huge marble staircase, and yells up the stairs. “Kids! Time to go!”
By the time he walks out the front door and slides into the driver’s seat, they are clamoring into the dark navy SUV. Dagny and Ollie get shoved to the back, the hazards of being the smallest. Well, really Kellyn is the smallest but she’s so small for her size that she still has to use the booster seat installed in the second row, so she gets a pass. Cagney is the last one in after locking the front door and checking his daughter’s seat belt, and they get on the road. It’s not a far drive, but it seems to be speeding past quite quickly – Brennen lifts his eyes to the rearview mirror and pins his granddaughter with a disapproving gaze; “Kellyn, what have we said about temporal changes on people who haven’t asked for them?” The red-headed girl scowls back at him and slumps in her seat, and the car goes back to its regular speed. Brennen glances at his son in the passenger seat and Cagney looks sheepish, but they say nothing. He makes a mental note as they pull into the driveway to talk to his son (again) about letting Kellyn get away with things she shouldn’t. Losing his wife shouldn’t make him a pushover as a parent.
But hopefully there’s not much mischief she can get up to here, under the watchful eyes of like a gazillion adults. He hands the keys off to the valet and climbs to the door behind his gaggle of children, chocolates and wine in one hand and snagging Kellyn in his other arm, not sure he’s ready to let the six year old loose by herself yet. “Behave!” he calls after the others as they slip into the group of adolescents already inside the house. He’s not particularly worried about Beth and Sorenson, who are quite mature for their ages even at 17 and 16, but the 12-year-old twins can be known to get up to mischief just like Kellyn.
He waits for the crowd to clear a bit, and then offers his gift (the wine & chocolates, not the kid, he wouldn’t wish this one on his worst enemy, much less a friend) to Scorch. “For the lovely hostess,” he says with a half-grin. Flirting with Scorch is a harmless endeavor because she’s happily paired off with Hestoni and in no danger of falling in love with him or falling in bed with him. “Kellyn, say hello,” he prompts the tiny girl in his arms, and she gives a deceivingly innocent smile and utters a small “Hi,” the girl says. “Who are you?”. “This is Scorch, it’s her house. Scorch, this is my granddaughter.” Not that he doesn’t have children as young as Kellyn, but not many. Her father has already disappeared, of course, probably to get happily drunk and temporarily forget his wife’s in a coma. He has the grace not to do so at the house when there are kids in residence under a certain age or maturity level, but surrounded by other drunk adults this party will be fair game. “The rest of my hooligans are…somewhere, but this one is the biggest troublemaker.” Kellyn shakes her head ‘no’, and turns to Scorch. “Are there are ghosts in your house? Grandpa got rid of ours.”
Yes, Brennen thinks, yes he had. He was tired of his five-year-old granddaughter talking to people he couldn’t see, occasionally about things she had no business knowing at her age, so he’d had several different ghost experts and exorcists and such over to de-spirit his mansion.
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As his father predicted, Cagney headed straight into the kitchen where the drinks are set out, grabbing the sharpie to scrawl his name on a solo cup in bold, dark letters. Then he surveys the options before decided the generic punch will do (the one labeled “adults” not the one labeled “kids”). He starts to ladle himself a whole cupful, but a shout from another room ruins his concentration and he spills it down his light gray shirt. “Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, and glances furtively around. No Brennen – good. He reaches for the threads of time and slides it back just enough to have not spilled on himself, and tries again with a steadier hand. Success – good.
He takes his cup and starts to head out towards the voices he can hear on the patio, thinking about how he just looked around for his dad when he used his powers like some kind of nervous teenager. He wasn’t being irresponsible like Kellyn in the car, there was no reason for him not to fix his mistake. But, ok, he can see dad’s point; his casual use of magic in front of the kids might be encouraging some of them to be a little too cavalier about the whole thing, including his six year old daughter.
But honestly, he’s still mostly a teenager himself at 23. After all he was married at 16, had a kid at 17, and was a single dad living with his own father again because his wife was in a coma at 18. But thank all that is good for Brennen, because Cagney certainly wouldn’t be managing half as well as he is if he was living alone with the girl who reminds him so damn much of Elite. Not looking where he is going he trips on the door threshold and almost falls face-first into the pool but another grab at the threads of time saves him, and so it’s just his string of startled expletives that hang in the air over the chlorinated water. He blushes, running his free hand through his red-going-early-gray hair. “Sorry,” he mutters out loud without even raising his eyes to see if anyone heard or saw him.
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“Stick together,” Bethanie calls to the twins as they sprint away at the entrance of the house, headed straight for the pool. She doubts they’ll get into that much trouble – Dagny is a wild child, as her currently blue-and-yellow dyed hair attests as it sticks up from her head in short spiky waves, but her twin is a settling influence on her. His sandy blond head is the last thing she sees of them as the disappear around the corner with their backpacks full of swimsuits, towels, and pool toys. They live in a huge mansion year-round with dad, but he refuses to install a pool. Something about insurance skyrocketing and living within 15 minutes of the ocean anyway. Sensible parenting, really, but she can’t blame the twins either for complaining that dad won’t spend a little bit of his gobs of money on something they really want.
Personally, Beth likes visiting dad because as much as she loves her other two sets of younger twin siblings (her mom and step-dad’s kids), she likes that Brennen rarely expects them to help care for the littler kids when they visit. He has plenty of time for that, and hires nannies when he doesn’t. Edmond and Neraza both work full-time, and they don’t believe in hired help, so Bethanie is expected to help a lot with 12-year-old Nylee and Alysanne, 10-year-old Conner and Riagan, and 5-year-old Osvya. Sometimes she is jealous of Sorenson for living with dad full-time, but she knows it’s partially because the better school for him is here. She could live here, too, if she wanted to break her mother’s heart more than Sorenson already has. “So, what do you want to do, Sorenson? Go swimming?” He gives her a look and a small shove. “Yeah, not a chance. How about we try and get tipsy? Dad will be too busy with Kellyn to notice.”