Chapter 80: Snapshot

This is what a Superstar Actor looks like.

Here's what a superstar's driveway looks like.

Here's what a superstar's cat looks like.

Here's what his girlfriend would look like, in a reality that wasn't so sad.

Here's what the two kids with his hair color look like.

 What his best friend looks like.

What it looks like when his best friend collects even more tattoos.

What the laundry looks like.

Here's what his oldest daughter trying to learn his moves looks like.

(Percy does all his own stunts. Hero.)

Swim.

Mittens does not sculpt so much anymore. But it occurs to her one day that there's a sculpture of everyone in her household on the lawn, except for Tiberius. So she fixes that.

A striking likeness.

Parsley glares her hardest, but death abducts Kay the cat anyway.

Cayenne wouldn't have expected anyone could cry so hard over a cat.

She wishes Grim would leave.

Instead, he steps through the wall and visits her grandmother.

Mittens had just finished setting up a new computer for the boys.

His job here complete, Grim appreciates these top-notch graphics.

Percy is inconsolable.

Tiberius doesn't know what to say.

He wishes he knew what to say. He wishes he could have been a kinder friend, all these years. He's been defensive and negative and critical, from the very beginning, and his best friend has cared about him anyway. 

He doesn't know what Percy needs now, but he wants to be that.

Loki takes Mittens's death very hard. She was always there for him, she was the first person who believed him about the psychic powers thing. Now she's just gone.





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Etc.: Good show Grim.

The deaths were so close together, I had to check and make sure two Grims hadn't spawned... but I guess that can't actually happen. There is only one Grim, and if I check his age with MasterController, he's as old as this save file is.

Chapter 79: Missing the Point

Cayenne finds a medical doctor to play chess with. She wants to talk to him about his profession, but the only thing the doctor seems interested in talking about with little children is their schooling. He has a son Cayenne's age. The son is very artistic.

Cayenne sighs. Adults just won't take her seriously.

Chervil tenses as Loki approaches. There was a time Loki was less insufferable, a time these two would play together, but that time is gone, because Loki has become antagonistic.

"The squirrel looks like it's eating human fingers," he says.

"That's gross and crazy."

"Alright, Chervil. But when the squirrel comes out of the painting at night and steals your fingers, don't cry..."

Talking about conspiracies.

"Dad?" Cayenne begins.

"Yuh?" Percy responds around his toothbrush.

"Loki said-"

"N' ag'n."

She stomps her left foot on the floor. "Tell me about supernatural stuff."

"G' dr'ss'd f' sk'l."

"What?"

Percy takes the toothbrush out of his mouth and stares at it. "Get dressed for school."

"Stop hiding things from me!" she shouts. "I'm a genius! I can handle it! I can handle anything!"

"We'll talk this afternoon. After school."

Cayenne pauses. Then asks, "You promise?"

"Yes. I promise."

The universe didn't implode when he explained things to Cayenne, but Percy is fairly certain he can't come clean with everyone. So he doesn't mention any of Loki's issues to Abbie. He meets her here sometimes—the same place they met before—and helps her walk around the little park before returning her to her hospital room. She seems stronger every day.

But emotionally, she is broken. While she was out, her parents died. Her brother and his wife are elders. She doesn't have to worry about money as long as she's got Myra to hand her a job, but she doesn't know if she cares about it anymore. She doesn't think she can leave for France. She wants to stay and reconnect—and Percy wonders, reconnect with whom? Because when Percy brings up the twins, Abbie always declines to meet them. She isn't ready.

 Tiberius has a jellyfish tattoo now.

Basil thinks his "uncle" looks like a girl's binder, covered in stickers. If only the tattoos were Lisa Frank instead of Seaside Souvenir Shop flavor.

Chervil gets excited about upcoming birthdays.

Loki doesn't. Every one of these is one step closer to death.

Parsley Archer is the first to celebrate a teen birthday.

The other four have to wait a day.

The second kid in the house to reach teen status is Chervil Morgan.

He doesn't know he should have any other surname.

(Tiberius doesn't comment on his son's hairdo. Maybe if he doesn't acknowledge it, it will go away.)

Then Basil becomes a teen.

And Cayenne.

And Loki.

One sister despises anything to do with the school curriculum.

The other seems to actually enjoy memorizing facts and spitting them back up. Or at least, enjoy the positive attention gained from being able to do so.

Cayenne corrects Parsley's homework mistakes.

"You seriously don't know where Sunset Valley is?"

Chervil is a teen without direction. He experiments with different styles, joins different clubs, tries different hobbies.

Shop club and the handiness skill isn't working out.

He finds some zen with sim fu. Percival was happy to show him some techniques.

Tiberius has started pushing Chervil on his grades. Chervil wasn't ready for that at all.

Teenage Loki is getting better at bottling up his thoughts and emotions, so he can appear more normal. His siblings can take him out in public without as much risk.

Basil is dating this girl, Olive Wright.

Olive's parents work in the film industry; she never tires of asking Basil why he wants to follow his father into that mess. Olive may be young, but she's got it all together, she'll have you know. When she's an adult, she wants to move inland somewhere and take up her great-great-grandparents' orchards. There's a lot of money to be made in agriculture.

Basil is completely captivated by this girl, who seems to think she's got it all figured out.

Basil wants to be serious with Olive. Red is the color of seriousness, right?

"I don't know what he sees in that dork," Parsley complains.

Loki knows. He knows pretty much everything everyone's up to and why, but he keeps his mouth shut. 

Loki prefers hanging out with his twin. Every time she's judged him, it's only been out of concern for him, not for how bad he makes her look. Since she was told about his supernatural abilities, she's become the person he can really talk to about it.

Chervil and Basil bring hamburgers back from the local diner... which is a pretty rebellious move, considering how Tiberius has the fridge stocked with tofu burgers.

"I feel more like a man now," Basil bullshits. He's already destroyed his burger and is working on making about a pound of flame fruit cake disappear. It's been a great day.

"This is nothing like tofu," Chervil agrees. He's too embarrassed to admit he doesn't like it.




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Etc.: Lisa Frank was an early 90's phenomena. It was the theme of my cousin's seventh birthday party.

I WAS SO JEALOUS.

Morgan is a sea-related name. A natural choice. Tiberius changed his surname way back when, and I never mentioned what he changed it to until now. Oops.

Chapter 78: The Red Rabbit

"The coast is clear!" he lets them know.

There's not a single kid who isn't Chervil or one of his three siblings at the park.

Percy has suggested his children should try to make friends with schoolmates. It would do them some good to socialize outside the household. But they just keep insisting they are "treated differently" because of his fame, and make no effort.

Loki makes snide remarks to people who aren't there, and knows about things no one has told him.

Cayenne does not know what to do about her strange twin.

 Idea.

 "You talk to things that aren't real," Cayenne begins.

 They speak in hushed tones. They're supposed to be getting ready to go.

Wow, Cayenne's questions are weird.

When Chervil talks to Gabrielle, he's just playing, he explains.

And when Loki talks to himself, it's very different, because Loki isn't having any fun.

"Basil is really protective, but I've been trying to stay away from Loki when we're in school, so the others don't think I'm also unhinged."
 
"Others?" Cayenne questions. "Unhinged?"

"That's what our classmates say," Chervil admits. "Behind your back, I guess."

Chervil is the only child in the household with outside friends, so Cayenne values his opinion.

"My conclusion was also insanity," she agrees unhappily. "But I haven't ruled out the possibility of non-human genetics in my family, since I've read about studies on vampires. Some of them have abnormal mental abilities. But the theory is, for these powers to manifest the subject must actually be a vampire."

"So, you think your mom might have been a vampire?"
 
"No. My Daddy says she wasn't."

"He's an actor," Chervil points out. "That means he can lie really well."

Cayenne tears up. "Please don't say that."

"I'm sorry," Chervil is quick to apologize, though he's not certain what he did wrong.

Percy receives an unexpected phone call.

Abbie La Mer meets him in the small park in front of the hospital she's spent so much of her adult life unconscious in. She's using an unattractive walker to get around; her steps are shaky and even as she perches herself on the bench, she's staring, bewildered, at her uncooperative legs.

"It was a shock to wake up and not be pregnant," she lets Percy know.

"I'm just glad you're recovering well. We didn't know if you'd ever wake up."

"Thank you for not abandoning our children."

"Abbie... I could never have done that..."

"My brother speaks very highly of your parenting." Abbie has been in contact with her siblings for weeks. She is undergoing a difficult recovery, and didn't want to complicate that right away by trying to involve the Archers.

Percy will tell her anything she wants to know about the twins, of course.

"Wil showed me pictures... praised my daughter's good grades... told me my son is shy. But I guess I wanted to hear it from you."

Percy is glad to have some confirmation Loki behaves in Wilbert's presence. "Do you want to meet them?"

"Eventually. Not now. Not while I'm... like this." 

"I think they could handle it."

"But I can't handle it. They're supposed to be my children, but I don't know them."

Percy frowns, worrying the twins will feel rejected if they ever come to know they were not the first people Abbie wanted to see, but he empathizes with Abbie's perspective. She is mourning a life she did not get to have with her babies, and uncertain on how to approach them now.

"Just focus on getting better," he says kindly.

The conversation starts off innocently enough, but Chervil can tell Loki is angry.

And... there it is.

"Don't tell my sister I'm unhinged! It's not true!" and "I know you painted over the red rabbit!"

Only Gabrielle was supposed to know about that one.

"It was horrible!" Chervil defends himself. Though he did feel bad when Mittens started looking for it.

"You have no idea how much blackmail material I have, mister!" Loki shouts.

"Chill!" Chervil begs. 

"NO! You think you're better than me just because you aren't cursed!"

"Cursed?" Chervil is lost now.

"Metaphorically!"

"Stop. Yelling."

"I have to yell, or I can't hear myself over all these VOICES!"

Chervil starts to think 'unhinged' might be too soft a word for whatever is going on with Loki.