AN: Alright. This is part of my Shattered Glass AU series, and the full lineup goes like Patchwork Hearts, Damaged Goods, Rum Romance, Bright Eyes, Six Months, Midnight Kisses, Beach Melodies, and then, finally, Blood Ties. (Damn, that's getting to be way too many stories to line up each time.) However, all of the aforementioned fics can be read as standalones. Even though Patchwork Hearts and Blood Ties have "cliffhangers" that won't be explained until I finish the series.
Warnings: Language, mentions of abuse, and references to sex.
Onwards and Enjoy!
~halestorm
"You can't just show up whenever the hell you want," Clarisse snaps, pouring a pot of coffee. "It's practically law. You're supposed to call your children before you show up at their houses."
Her father rolls his eyes, his leather chaps squeaking as he seats himself on her barstool, taking his sunglasses off and tucking them into the pocket of his leather jacket. "Ain't my fault you two were goin' at it in the middle of the day."
Clarisse scowls at him, wrapping Chris' robe tighter around her torso. "You didn't have to come over. A phone call would've sufficed."
"Maybe I'm not here just to talk about the baby," her father says cryptically, and Clarisse sighs. Folds her arms over her chest. Cocks an eyebrow. Waits. He laughs. "You get that look from me, you know that?"
Clarisse rolls her eyes, pouring herself a mug of coffee. "What the hell do you want, Dad?"
"Someone's snappy," he replies, and she slams her mug down onto the counter.
"I'm pregnant, Dad! I'm fucking horny. And you just show up, unannounced, and interrupt us in the middle of sex. Get on with it already, and then get out!"
Her father's eyes narrow warningly. "Don't raise your voice at me, Clarisse."
She stiffens, fingers curling tightly underneath the lip of the counter, her breath leaving her body more quickly than normal. Even after years of sobriety and making it up to her, she's still terrified that he'll hit her if he gets mad enough.
"What do you want, Dad?" she asks, lowering her voice, and debates on whether or not she should call Chris into the room—she feels safer around her father when Chris is there, even though she knows her father won't hit her now that he's sober, and definitely not while she's pregnant.
"Look, I've been thinkin'," he says, slowly, and Clarisse waits with her hips pressed against the counter. "You know I messed around on your mother a lot, back when I still drank."
Clarisse snorts. Until she moved out, she spent every night wondering if her father was out late because he was fucking another woman, or just caught up in a bar fight somewhere. "That's an understatement."
Her father rolls his eyes and waves his hand through the air, brushing her comment off as irrelevant with the gesture alone. "My point is, I slept around a lot when I shouldn't have been, and I wasn't always careful about protection."
Clarisse straightens, narrowing her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"Right after you graduated, I met your half-brother," he continues, ignoring her comment. "His grandma tracked me down, demanded child support—he was only sixteen at the time. I hadn't even known he existed before then, so I didn't think it right to tell you and your ma about him."
Clarisse is gripping the countertop so hard, the granite is digging into her skin, but she can't bring herself to let go. She thinks she might fall over if she does.
"I have a half-brother?" she asks uncertainly, and she feels sluggish, like her head isn't working properly. She's sharper than this, normally, but her wits collapsed somewhere around "I wasn't always careful about protection," and she can't seem to gather them back up.
"Kid's name is Frank Zhang," her father confirms, and pulls a scrap of notebook paper out of the pocket of his vest, sliding it across the island to her. Clarisse snatches it up, reading the name in her father's messy handwriting, a phone number, and an address. "He's a good kid. You'd like him. He's got a real sweet wife, too."
Clarisse wonders if she should be concerned about the fact that she can't breathe properly, but she's too focused on the news of her half-brother to really care. "It's been, what, ten years since you found out about him? And you're just now telling me?"
"Thought you'd be pissed," he says, arching an eyebrow. "Obviously I'm right."
Clarisse flips him off thoughtlessly, swigging her black coffee. "I hate you. So much. You knew I had a brother for ten years and you never fucking told me."
Her father shakes his head. "I ain't lookin' for a fight, Clarisse. Calm the hell down. You're lucky I decided to tell you at all—he doesn't know a damn thing about you. He won't unless you decide to get in touch with him."
Clarisse glares at him. "You should've told me when you found out."
"You hated me back then," her father counters. "You didn't want anything to do with me. You woulda hated him, too."
"Babe?" Chris pokes his head into the kitchen, and Clarisse's eyes are drawn to his bare chest against her will. "You okay? I can hear you yelling from the bedroom."
"I'm fine," Clarisse snaps, closing her eyes briefly. "Go back to the bedroom, okay? I'll be right there. I'm just showing Dad out."
Chris looks hesitant, but he nods, and she kisses his cheek as she makes her way into the hallway, her father following her to the front door.
"You gonna call him?" he asks, stepping out onto her front porch, sliding his sunglasses back on to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun.
"I don't know yet," Clarisse mutters, shaking her head. "I'll talk to you later, Dad. Give Mom my best, alright?"
"You have a brother?" Ethan says, wrinkling his brow, and Clarisse rolls her eyes, knocking back her water.
"That's what I just said, dumbass."
"Touchy, touchy," Connor says, shaking his head.
"So grouchy," Travis agrees.
Clarisse flips them off.
"Honey, you've got a half-brother?" Silena asks, and Clarisse deflates, dropping her head onto her best friend's shoulder with a groan of confirmation.
Lou Ellen shakes her head. "That's insane. Just out of the blue, your dad showed up to tell you about a half-brother that he's known of for ten years?"
"Yep," Chris says, rubbing Clarisse's shoulders. She wiggles slightly beneath his hands, but ultimately succumbs to his touch as he massages the tension out of her back.
"It's unreal," Ethan says, watching Clarisse carefully. "How do you feel about it?"
"What is this, Dr. Phil?" Clarisse mutters into Silena's shoulder. That earns her a snicker from Beckendorf and the Stolls, but they fall silent beneath her withering glare as she lifts her head.
"I'm overreacting," Clarisse says, shaking her head. "Right? So I've got a brother. No big deal."
"It's kind of a big deal," Luke disagrees, dropping onto the couch beside Ethan and handing his boyfriend a beer bottle. "Why do you have a brother?"
Clarisse sighs, and relates her previous announcement of her father's visit. "I hate repeating myself," she complains when she's finished.
Luke rolls his eyes. "You shouldn't have started in on this half-brother business until I got back from the kitchen, then," he retorts. He pauses, considering, and then asks, "Did you call him? Your half-brother?"
Clarisse blushes, shaking her head. "I've been looking at his number all day. I can't seem to bring myself to do it."
"Maybe you're overreacting because you're pregnant," Connor cuts in. "You've been doing all sorts of crazy pregnant-woman shit lately. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just another part of it."
"I'm six weeks pregnant," Clarisse snaps. "I'm horny, I'm craving fucking weird food, I'm having severe mood swings, and I'm throwing up every morning. I'm overreacting because that's what people do, not because I'm pregnant."
Connor and Travis exchange amused glances, and Clarisse considers throwing her half-empty water bottle at them before Ethan starts talking again.
"I think you should call him," he says, shrugging. "I mean, I know you're pissed off at your dad, but right now, your half-brother doesn't even know you exist. You're angry because you feel like you should have been told about your brother sooner, and I'm sure he'll feel the same way."
Clarisse squints at Ethan. "Seriously, I'm going to start calling you Dr. Phil."
Ethan blushes and rolls his eyes, even though only one is visible beneath his eye patch, and Luke laughs. "I call him Patch, so that might be an improvement."
Silena lets out a horrified gasp. "Lucas Walter Castellan, I swear. You're not serious."
Ethan and Luke exchange looks, Luke snorting and Ethan shaking his head.
"It's not like he doesn't get some pleasure out of it," Luke says, shrugging innocently. "It's kind of a bedroom thing."
"Kinky," Connor and Travis murmur in unison. Lou Ellen shakes her head at their antics, but looks at Luke and Ethan with a sort of detached interest.
"I know you mean Patch in reference to his eye patch," she says, shaking her head slowly, "but all I can think about is his obsession with Sour Patch Kids, and how Ethan can go from being sour to sweet in seconds."
Ethan laughs, and Luke grins. "Yeah, but he's like the yellow Sour Patch Kids. No one actually likes him, but they all tolerate him because he comes in the bag with the rest of the Sour Patch Kids."
Ethan punches Luke's arm. "I take offense to that," he says, but there are hints of a smile dancing along his mouth.
"Good," Luke retorts teasingly. "It was meant to be offensive."
"Watch it, Conman," Ethan says, his tone light and good-natured despite the cutting insult. "I'm in complete control of when you get laid."
"I take offense to that," Luke says, raising his eyebrows. "Don't pretend like you're still pissy because I conned you out of a couple of bucks three years ago."
"A couple of bucks?" Ethan gasps, a half-laugh escaping his lips. "That's what you consider ten thousand dollars? Just a couple of bucks, no big deal?"
Luke glances away, his lips pursing slightly. Clarisse knows he doesn't like talking about it—she's been around him long enough to notice how much he loathes himself for what he did to Ethan. He hides it well enough, but Clarisse is a soldier. She knows what it looks like to hide something you hate about yourself. God knows she's seen it in enough of her fellow soldiers, as well as herself.
"I guess I'll call him," she says, before Ethan can further Luke's discomfort. For as much as she hated Luke when he first came back into Ethan's life, she's grown as close to him as she is to Ethan, and she doesn't like to see him uncomfortable. And sometimes she thinks Ethan says things about the con just to see how far he can take it before Luke snaps and leaves. "My brother. I'll call him. But tomorrow, at a decent time."
Silena and Beckendorf praise her for her decision, Connor and Travis reassure her that having a brother is the best decision she can make, Chris slides his fingers down her back and around her waist until they're resting over her stomach and the baby, and Ethan and Luke encourage her decision while she ignores the tension between them.
"Well, we have to be going," Silena says, climbing to her feet. "The babysitter won't hang around all night, and Harley is probably making things tough enough on her already."
Clarisse kisses her goodbye, and then sits back as Silena and Beckendorf leave Ethan and Luke's apartment, and waits in half-dread, half-elation for the morning.
"Err, hello?" Clarisse tries to regulate her breathing, reminding herself of the tricks she was taught in the army.
"Yes?" The girl's voice on the other end of the phone is sweet and sugary, but not like she's trying hard to sound nice—more like it comes naturally to her.
"Is Frank there?" Clarisse asks, stretching her legs into Chris' lap. She clears her throat. "Frank Zhang?"
"He's attempting to man the grill right now," the woman says, sounding amused. "Can I ask who's calling?"
"Oh," Clarisse says, sinking a little into the couch. "He doesn't know me, I—Ares La Rue told me to call. I didn't know you were busy. I'll call back later, I—"
"Nonsense," the woman says warmly. "Ares told you to call, huh? Hang on, here's Frank now."
And then Clarisse is on with her half-brother, and she doesn't know what the hell she's supposed to say.
"Hello?" says the voice on the other line—Frank, Clarisse thinks dazedly.
"This is Frank?" Clarisse manages, and reaches for Chris' hand, clasping on tightly. He squeezes her hand once in reassurance, sending her a warm smile.
"This is," Frank confirms. "Who is this?"
"I'm," Clarisse begins, and then stops. Why the hell did I decide to do this over the phone? she asks herself silently, before returning her attention to the phone call. "I'm Clarisse La Rue," she finally says. "I'm Ares' daughter."
It's Hazel who arranges it and convinces Clarisse and Chris to fly down to New Orleans to see them over the weekend.
"My brother is going to be in town with his boyfriend," she tells Clarisse over the phone, "but we're dying to meet you. We can't wait a second longer to have you down."
So that's how they end up in New Orleans, tired from the flight but excited nonetheless. Frank pulls Clarisse into a hug the moment he sees her, and then she's in Hazel's arms, the small, slender black woman hugging her tightly and whispering in Clarisse's ear, "You've got no idea how excited he is to meet you. It's all he's been able to talk about all week."
Clarisse can count on one hand the amount of times she's cried in front of someone. Meeting Frank Zhang is third on that list, but only because getting married and announcing her pregnancy were first and second.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" Hazel asks after Clarisse balks at the idea of eating gumbo and has to explain her pregnancy.
"I'm only seven weeks pregnant," Clarisse says, shaking her head. "I won't find out for a while."
"What are you hoping for?" Frank asks, smiling widely at her, and Clarisse has never thought she could feel this comfortable around someone she's just met.
"You know," Clarisse says, smiling down at her flat stomach, "I don't really care. As long as he or she is healthy, I don't have a preference."
"Well, I want a girl," Chris interjects, grinning at Clarisse. "And we're naming her Julia."
"If we get a girl," Clarisse says, arching an eyebrow in amusement. "What if we get a boy?"
"We won't," Chris says, shaking his head. "It's going to be a girl."
Clarisse rolls her eyes, but Hazel laughs. "You're a gem," she tells Chris, and Clarisse catches the goofy, fool-in-love look Frank sends Hazel, and wonders if that's how she herself looks at Chris.
Hazel's brother and his boyfriend reach the Zhang household just in time for dinner, and they tumble in through the front door arguing about how long it took them to get there as they manage to shatter one of Hazel's jewel-encrusted vases.
"You took the wrong route," one of them is scolding—the ghostly pale one with shaggy black hair, giant combat boots, and an old aviator jacket. "If you'd just taken the road I told you to take—"
"Yeah, yeah, if I'd done what you told me to, we would have gotten here on time," the other interrupts, shaking out his dark curls and shrugging out of his thick coat. "See, if you hadn't decided to give me head while I was driving, I might not have taken the wrong road."
"Nico!" Hazel gasps, her cheeks flushing a dark red as she lays a hand over her chest, reaching for the broom and dustpan.
The boy in the aviator jacket blushes, too, and shrugs helplessly. "It's not really my fault," he—Nico—mutters. "Leo was teasing me all morning."
"That was payback for when you decided to rub me almost to orgasm and then just stopped at the restaurant last night!" the other boy—Leo, Clarisse deduces—exclaims.
"I was just getting you back for Percy and Annabeth's wedding!" Nico retorts. "Remember when you passed out drunk with your lips wrapped around my dick?"
"That's enough!" Hazel squeaks out, blushing furiously and fanning her face with her hands. "Not only do I not need to know that much about your sex lives, we have guests."
Nico and Leo abruptly turn to look at Clarisse and Chris, who are slouched on the couch, him sipping wine and Clarisse drinking water as she bemoans the alcohol pregnancy forbids her to intake.
"You're Frank's sister, right?" Nico says, sobering instantly. He offers Clarisse an awkward wave. "I'm Nico di Angelo, Hazel's half-brother. And this is my moron of a boyfriend, Leo Valdez."
The name Nico sounds familiar to Clarisse, but she can't remember where she would have heard it before, so she assumes she must have heard Hazel say it.
"It's nice to meet you," Clarisse says, climbing to her feet to shake his hand. She shakes Leo's, too, and then the lot of them sit down to dinner.
They spend the weekend with Frank and Hazel, getting to know the brother Clarisse never knew she had and his family.
Sunday rolls around too quickly, and then Chris and Clarisse are back in Boston, having promised to keep in touch with Frank and Hazel and visit again soon.
"So how was it?" Silena asks, smirking as she wipes down the counter at Kronos' Café.
"He's not my father's kid," Clarisse says, snorting. "He's too sweet. And his wife… Jesus. They're great, Silena."
Silena smiles softly at her. "I'm glad. Now, tell me all about it."
Clarisse is halfway through telling Silena about Leo accidentally setting Nico's pants on fire the first night they were in town when Luke comes out of the back room, lips so swollen and red that there's no doubt about what he was getting up to back there with Ethan.
"Did you say Nico?" Luke asks, stopping in his tracks, the blood draining from his face. Clarisse nods, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah, Nico di Angelo. Why?"
A funny look twists Luke's face, like he can't remember how to breathe and isn't even sure that he wants to.
"That's…weird," Luke says, the words bitter on his tongue. "I used to know a Nico di Angelo."
"Really?" Clarisse asks, perking up in her seat. "How do you know him?"
But Luke just shakes his head. "It's probably a different Nico," he mutters, but he doesn't look convinced. He resumes his trek towards the door, faster now than before, and almost crashes into the lithe, redheaded woman who is walking in as he's walking out.
She jumps aside nimbly, watching as he brushes past her without a word of acknowledgement, and she shakes her head, adjusts the green scarf around her neck and removes her sunglasses, and turns to face Clarisse and Silena.
"Hi," she says, shaking out her mane of red hair, the freckles on her cheeks still visible despite the fact that her skin is flushed pink from the cold. "He seemed to be in a rush."
"I don't know what's gotten into him," Clarisse grumbles, shaking her head and turning back to Silena. The redhead keeps talking.
"You just mentioned his ex-boyfriend without even knowing it," she says nonchalantly. "He's upset, understandably."
Clarisse turns sharply, wrinkling her brow at the redhead.
"How do you know that?" Clarisse demands, and Silena echoes the sentiment in a softer tone.
"Silena, Clarisse," the redhead says, grinning at the two girls as she shrugs out of her pea coat. "Don't you remember me?"