Pairings Beyond Grimmons:

~Sucker

~Carwash

~Locnut

~Kimball x Grey

~Bitthews

~Jensen x Palomo

Other Notes for This Story:

~Transgender Character

~Misgendering of said character by a definite jerk.

~Exploitation of children out of pettiness by another definite jerk.

Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs. Blue or any of the show's characters. They are the rightful properties of Rooster Teeth.

Chapter One: First Wave

The distant, altogether loud clang of roughly handled chinaware downstairs often punctuated his nights.

Fourteen-year-old Richard "Dick" Simmons closed the book he had been reading ever since excusing himself from the tense, suffocating silence of the dining room. It had been hours earlier when he had forced himself to eat a few meagre bits of the meal his mother had so unlovingly prepared in order to counter the obvious fact that she was currently freezing her spouse out.

Simmons tensed, green eyes glued to his bedroom's door. If he strained his ears, he imagined he could just make out the dam of furious words that were finally being unleashed. However, his parents' steadfast stubbornness to avoid verbally admitting that anything was bothering them seemed to remain intact tonight.

The redhead let out a tired sigh, anxiety rising as he gripped the sides of his desk so tightly that his freckled knuckles turned a sheer white. He wondered just how long he could hold out under this type of constant pressure, and how long his parents could keep their cold war hostility towards one another.

Fortunately, the move to Blood Gulch meant that Simmons had a believable escape route. He could quickly retreat to his room's relative safety since it would most likely be weeks before either of his immediate family members deigned to peer into their son's bedroom to discover that his still "moving in" was a charade.

After all, Simmons had finished unpacking and organizing his things the day after they had come to live in the new house. He wouldn't have been able to comfortably rest in the foreign environment otherwise.

The move from Iris had been a sudden one, brought on by his father with little fanfare, concern, or time to prepare. Richard Simmons the Senior had always been adept at making quick, informed decisions, a skill he would always woefully point out Simmons clearly lacked. Evidently, his old man thought the move would be advantageous.

Naturally, the two other members of the Simmons' family were simply expected to go along with the abrupt change. Without complaint.

Simmons tried to, he really did. Even though leaving Iris at the last minute totally sucked because he was about seventy percent sure that he potentially had two official sort-of friends at his high school, and he had nearly convinced the girls on his sports team to have pity and cover for him when he went to try out for the Mathletes later on in secret instead of going to the games and practices that they all knew he wasn't cut out for. Besides, they had all long since accepted that his being the only boy on the team was far more of a joke than a novelty.

Starting over in the middle of freshman year in a new town was definitely not something Simmons was looking forward to.

But the redhead had long since learned that it was easier to simply go with the flow rather than to disappoint his father with immature, childish arguments he wouldn't listen to anyways. Simmons' attempt at subterfuge by still going out for the Mathletes in complete secret was just about the only act of defiance he had ever managed to work himself up towards and, even then, it had ended up in failure due to an unexpected source.

However, his mother, normally always willing to go along with whatever his father decided so long as he kept paying for her comfortable-yet-might-as-well-be-completely-separate lifestyle from his own, seemed much more against this new direction in her life than usual.

Simmons knew that had to do with how meticulously she had worked to prove herself and make the image of the perfect family always stick in people's minds when they thought of them. Even though they all knew it was total bullshit, he was impressed by how adept she had become at doing so. She wasn't too keen on all of that painstaking effort going to waste and having to start from scratch in a completely new environment thanks to yet another of her distant husband's "whims."

She was making her displeasure with the move well-known even without so much as moving her lips to say a word against it. Her body language and frigid temperament spoke volumes, and she had somehow managed to even up the passive-aggressiveness that always laced her interactions with her older spouse. The hostility radiating off of his mother was enough to make anyone other than his intimidating father want to get the hell out of any room when they were together.

A prime example? The family meals that they were both always astoundingly insistent about having together to appear well-adjusted. To who, exactly? Simmons had never been able to figure that fucking part out since barely anyone ever came over to their house.

He knew that both of his parents could be phenomenally stubborn when it came to situations like this, though the freckled teen couldn't help but try to convince himself that maybe things would settle down soon. Hopefully.

At this rate though, even the inherent stress that came with starting school while classes were already underway in a week or so was going to be a huge reprieve of sorts, and that thought alone was nearly enough to make him want to puke up what little bit of food he had eaten before.

He liked learning, but hated the social interaction element of going to school. So, this whole thing royally sucked if he was actually semi-looking forward to it for once.

Simmons had managed to stay in his room for most of the following day without any comments from his parents, though he suspected that was mainly because they had been so busy with still freezing one another out that they hadn't had the time or drive to be mutually disapproving of their son's choices.

He quickly picked up his headphones the second he had retreated to his room after breakfast once the needless and pointed slamming had started up again, barely making out the subsequent noises of the garage and car engines that occurred sometime after.

It wouldn't be the first time that one or both of his parents had left without bothering to tell him about it. He still painstakingly remembered that tearstained museum trip when his father had told a terrified five-year-old Simmons about how, if he ever managed to just learn to keep up or somehow stand out more, he wouldn't be forgotten.

He was certain that it wouldn't be the last. Simmons was always an afterthought when it came to his parents.

The redhead ventured out of his room sometime in the evening, figuring that neither parent was in much of a mood today to even pretend to have a civil family meal together if they had even gotten back to the house yet. Admittedly, he had become rather engrossed in reading so he wasn't sure if they had or hadn't returned earlier.

It wasn't like it mattered. He was perfectly capable of cooking something relatively decent for himself, and he knew he would probably enjoy eating it more in solitude than being too tensely nervous to even taste anything.

"Oh, look! They actually do have a kid here!"

The excited exclamation from a stranger's voice that came just as his bare feet hit the plush carpeting at the bottom of the main stairs caused the downcast Simmons to pause and give a start. His head jerked around in the direction that the unfamiliar feminine voice had come from just as a low, disbelieving whistle slid easily through the space between them.

"Huh. I wouldn't have figured they could get along well enough for that."

The other new voice he heard just then came from a rather chubby teenager who appeared to be only a few years older than himself. The teenager had unruly black hair and a stained, faded orange shirt.

Standing next to Messy Guy was a little girl with the same long hair and tan skin. She was most likely the one who he had heard the first outburst from.

The two strangers had similar facial features, automatically having Simmons think that they were somehow related, though the round-faced girl was quite obviously several years younger than the heavier-set teen. Siblings, probably?

Simmons' "stranger danger" sense tingled. Did they break in to the house? Were they murderers? They didn't look like murderers, but they also didn't look like people who gave a fuck.

They were probably the type of rebels and mavericks who would get a cold drink and not use a coaster. That realization made Simmons wonder if they knew how badly that could damage the wood surface of a table.

…They probably did. They probably just didn't care. That obviously meant they were, quite possibly, the worst. He froze, hoping that if he didn't move they'd think he had blended into the background and disappeared.

Dark eyes assessed the still dumbfounded redhead as the older teen raised his hand half-heartedly in way of a nonchalant greeting, "What's up?" He said with a lazy tone that indicated he clearly didn't care about the answer.

Simmons blinked green eyes, "Uh…" He muttered out eloquently, thrown back by the supposed-non-coaster-user actually addressing him. There goes his "standing in place makes me invisible" line of reasoning.

"Hiya!" The small girl, dressed in a yellow sundress that seemed about two sizes too big for her and was noticeably threadbare in some places, raced over to Simmons with a beaming smile on her face, "My name's Kai and I am eight-years-old starting next month!"

Simmons blinked again. When was the last time he had even fucking seen a smile in his house?

Kai looked upset at his shocked, freckled face and blinked herself in response before turning to the older boy in an urgent whisper, "Uh-oh, Dex! I think he's broken!" She said loud enough for Simmons to hear.

The teenager she called Dex lazily stepped forward and leaned over to peer at Simmons indifferently, even going so far as to wave a hand in front of Simmons' bewildered face, "Huh." He turned back to the little girl, "You might be right, Kai." He teased, almost totally ignoring that the person they were talking about was right there.

"What do we do?" The girl called Kai wailed, looking absolutely terrified at the prospect and not at all getting that this Dex person was messing with her just to get an overreaction, "I don't want to get in more trouble!"

At the horrified tone of her voice and her suddenly stricken body language, the male's indifferent expression melted into a genuine and surprisingly soft one, "You haven't done a damn thing wrong in the first place, kiddo." Dex reassured her gently, almost insistently, placing a hand briefly on her shoulder as he did so. His teasing game appeared to have been totally forgotten in an instant.

Kai sniffled, looking extremely doubtful all the same and on the verge of panic now, "But…!" She trailed off, scared eyes staring at Simmons as if he truly was broken.

Something about the sudden, extremely serious change in atmosphere caused the previously ignored Simmons' heart to lurch. He didn't know who these two were, but seeing the girl so distraught was making him feel like he needed to do something just then too. He jerked forward awkwardly, instantly gaining both of their attentions again, his mind now going a mile a minute as he thought of what he could say.

"That's…that's right!" Simmons shakily tried reassuring Kai as well, "I—I just wasn't expecting company, so—"

He cut himself off, going beet red and squirming when Kai's chubby features suddenly became suffused with understanding, "Oh, so you're just really shy then?" She asked him, grinning and suddenly very sympathetic to his perceived plight, "No wonder your mom said she wanted it to be a surprise!"

"Sur—surprise?" Simmons blinked again, definitely not understanding what was going on at this point. At all.

The other teen, Dex, shot him an appreciative look for attempting to cheer up young Kai before he apparently decided to show Simmons a small amount of pity for his unintended ignorance, "Yeah, about us being here—"

He was cut off by what definitely sounded like something crashing and shattering, this time in the nearby dining room. Kai yelped instinctively in surprise, clutching Dex's hand tightly as he pulled her tinier frame rather protectively behind him.

"You're being childish, Richard." Simmons' mother's voice was surprisingly loud even through the still closed dining room door, a note of smug condescension lacing her words.

"I'm being childish!?" His father's tone was just as loud, filled with anger and haughtiness and extreme disparagement, "What about you? Bringing those two brats in here from who-knows-what-hellhole-they-came-from like we're the goddamned pound!"

Simmons watched as Dex's shoulders tensed, his expression schooled into a studied blank one. Kai whimpered and gripped his side tightly.

"The older one already looks like a slovenly deadbeat, so maybe we might as well be a prison too!" The older Simmons carried on, "Or, given the boy standing out there in the fucking dress, maybe a mental asylum is what you're going for?"

Dex's face darkened as he pulled Kai protectively closer, the younger girl sniffling slightly and shaking, absolutely and understandably terrified at this turn of events. Simmons held back, confused and utterly horrified at what his father was saying.

"Well, you did say that you could care less about what I do so long as I go along with your move, didn't you?" His mother countered in a falsely sweet voice.

Heavy footsteps proceeded the door being violently pushed open and then Simmons' father, uncharacteristically red-faced and enraged, was looming in the hallway like the monster Simmons used to have nightmares of following him from room to room as a little kid. Well, before he was promptly told to "just grow up already" about such things.

His father's green eyes, so like Simmons' own when he was in better moods and certainly not when they were filled with unrestrained contempt, landed on the three youths. Simmons' body froze in absolute fear right alongside Kai while Dex glared with so much conviction at the adult who had so insulted both himself and his sibling that Simmons felt a small spark of awe despite having to struggle just to breathe in his sheer panic.

The look of disgust on his father's face as he dismissively sneered down at the two newcomers to their house before storming off made Simmons feel guilt-stricken, as though he had done something wrong just by being related to the man. He wanted to profusely apologize then and there, but was struggling to even form words.

Simmons felt his own face heating up in shame at his continued failure to offer up something, anything, to say, "Um…" He tried, flinching when Dex's dark eyes glared at him.

"Oh, Richard, there you are." His mother's voice cut whatever awkward phrase he was trying to say just then off. She was standing in the hallway herself, demeanor perfectly composed and at ease, as if she hadn't heard her husband saying such awful things in front of their young company. His mother smiled thinly, but the gesture was even more hollow than usual, "It looks like you've met our temporary guests. Good."

"G—guests?" Simmons blurted out in surprise, glancing between all three of the other people in the space for confirmation.

"Kaikaina and Dexter here have been having some difficulties at home and needed a place to stay for a while," his mother's slight smile had become quite large and oddly prideful as she continued, "And, as I told your father a few minutes ago, this new house is just so spacious that it won't be any trouble for us at all to accommodate them."

Simmons glanced over at the two youths in question, but they were now both looking down at the floor with very guarded and careful expressions, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

He felt something uncomfortable forming in his gut as the real meaning behind what was happening here started to gel in his head. Simmons shivered at the sudden chill that came with the realization that he was witnessing his mother's most calculating ploy to get back at his father yet.

"This place is totally weird and not in the good way, you know?" Kai loudly declared from behind as Simmons closed the bathroom door.

He startled at her unexpected presence, having not seen either Grif sibling since his mother had herded them off for their tour right after "Dex" had informed them that he went by Grif to pretty much everyone but Kai.

…His father hadn't come back yet to the house either as far as he could tell, but given the awful things he had said that was probably for the best.

Like himself, Kai was dressed in clothes for bed already, only hers was a way too large t-shirt with a sunflower motif that reached down to her ankles and hung off her small shoulders almost comically.

Simmons frowned slightly in response to Kai's earlier remark, feeling like a part of him should try to deny her statement somehow but finding himself really not able to do so. Besides, something about her wording was a bit bizarre, and he furrowed his eyebrows together as he pondered over it, "The…good way of weird?" He asked her, not sure if he was interpreting what she said correctly.

"You heard me." She stated dismissively, before scrunching her nose up in his direction, "You actually wear pajamas?"

"What's…what's wrong with that?" Simmons demanded, suddenly feeling foolishly insecure about his fashion choices in front of an almost eight-year-old. She sounded like she knew more about fashion than he did and that was, sadly, probably very true.

"Dex says only uptight nerds wear pajamas."

He frowned at her matter-of-fact statement, "Lots of cool people do too though?" He tried suggesting hopefully.

Kai remained looking very much doubtful as to the truth of his words, "They're plaid." She told him, as if that made the entire situation all the more obvious as to his apparent uptight nerdiness, "That's a nerd pattern."

Simmons sighed, figuring out by this point that he was probably never going to beat her logic here. Evidently, he would forever be labeled as a nerd in plaid pajamas in her eyes, "Did you need to use the bathroom?" He asked her as his shoulders slumped in acknowledged defeat.

"Nah." Kai tilted her head to the side to peek at the closed wooden door blocking their view of the room in question around his lankier frame, "Did you close the door because if we don't see the mold we can pretend it doesn't exist?"

At his blank stare, she let out a long-suffering sigh at having found yet another clearly common knowledge thing that Simmons sorely lacked any real understanding of. Kai puffed up her chest proudly at getting the chance to inform him: "My big bro's the best when it comes to making cleaning super-quick!"

…By completely and utterly avoiding doing any actual cleaning, from the sound of things. Simmons tried not to shudder at the thought of what their bathroom might have actually looked like as a result. Completely monstrous.

Instead, Simmons smiled shakily, "I see." And bit down the sudden fear of germs and dirt that hit him full force.

"I was looking for Dex because he said he would read to me like he always does before bed." Kai told him, brown eyes gleaming mischievously, "But I can't find him, so you'll have to do instead!"

Simmons was caught off-guard yet again by her determined remark, "Wha…?" He said, not even forming the word properly out of surprise.

"Come on!" Kai said, grabbing his hand to drag him down the hall with all the strength her smaller statured body could muster, "I'll know if you skip any lines, so don't even try!"

Kai's story selection turned out to be the first two chapters of a rather well-worn, dog-eared preteen science fiction novel that actually wasn't too bad, all things considered. He had even skipped ahead to see what would happen next in it when she drifted off to sleep after telling him that she bet he liked the robot character best because he would definitely "dress in plaid if he wore clothes too."

Maybe, just maybe, this whole messed up scenario wouldn't be so bad after all he thought as he awkwardly stood up and stretched.

But then he remembered his mother's cruel, uncaring smugness when she spoke to his father earlier, and the horrible words his father had seemed to direct at Kai in particular as Simmons glanced down at her sleeping form. She had already tried faking having fallen asleep about five times prior.

Satisfied that she actually was asleep this time, Simmons carefully picked his way through the guest room that the two siblings were to be staying in, stopping at the door when he remembered who both his parents were.

He felt terrible knowing that his earlier hopes probably weren't going to happen.

"Not bad story-telling, but you do know that Kai was completely playing you so she could stay up longer and get out of brushing her teeth, right?" Grif's mocking voice spoke up the moment that Simmons was standing out in the hallway proper.

"R—really?" Simmons asked, his face red in embarrassment that he had totally been played by a little kid.

Simmons felt himself becoming more dejected at having been apparently duped so easily. Then again, in hindsight, that was probably pretty obvious. What with her mischievous anticipation at finding him by the bathroom when she had probably been sent there to get ready for the night, or how she had kept trying to interrupt the story or told him he needed to emote more at certain points so he had to read the whole section over again…and how she had learned pretty quickly he would keep talking if he caught her faking sleep instead of threatening to stop altogether.

"Dude, she made me stop reading to her when she turned six." Grif told him, making a face when he added, "She said my voice acting left a lot to be desired, which is just bullshit." The older teen sounded annoyed, but the look he shot the guest room door was a fond one all the same, "The joke's on her though," he assured Simmons with his own wicked grin, "She'll just have to brush double-time in the morning."

Ah. It figured that Grif wouldn't want to wake her up to finish the chores she was supposed to do earlier given all of the stress they had no doubt been under. Simmons was both surprised and rather touched by the display of consideration that Grif seemed reluctant to verbally admit to all the same.

At the same time, he still didn't know much beyond far too fractured pieces about the siblings' situation or just how his mother had come up with this whole revenge plan in the first place.

Dexter Grif was probably the only one he could even ask and get a straight answer out of about everything. But, even as he desperately wanted to do so, he wasn't sure what to say or how to not accidentally come across as offensive.

"Um," Simmons swallowed down on his nerves thickly, "About you two staying here…?"

Grif's expression became the forced blank one he had shown earlier, his guard clearly up once more at the reminder. Simmons ended up trailing off awkwardly, panicking inwardly at whether or not he had already done something stupid and regretful without meaning to do so.

After a moment, the older teen sighed and rubbed the back of his unruly black head of hair, "I'll level with you since clearly no one else ever has. The less you know about shit, the better off you'll be." Grif informed him, "So long as your dad keeps his fucking mouth shut about Kai, we sadly are probably better off here currently."

"O—oh." He couldn't help but feel rather remorseful at that comment. Simmons couldn't imagine anyone thinking staying at the Simmons' household was better for them.

"But you? You keep being decent and chill with Kai and we'll get along fine." Grif reassured him.

"R—right."

"No matter what any assholes say, she will always be my awesome sister." Grif added proudly, smiling to himself.

Simmons nodded silently, touched at the display of familial solidarity and secretly wondering just how amazing having someone so supportive in his own corner like that might be one day.

Grif smirked and moved around Simmons to get into the guestroom, with a careless wave and a "See ya later, nerd." over his shoulder.

It would take the still rather surprisingly awed Simmons a few minutes more than necessary before any sense of appropriate indignation hit him.

"H—hey!"

He couldn't be sure, but he thought he might have heard a low chuckle coming from just behind the door in response to his spluttering.

Simmons closed his textbook with a tired sigh, rubbing his hand over his eyes before glancing at his clock and noting that it was yet again nearly midnight.

Ever since he had started attending school in Blood Gulch, he had been finishing his homework a lot later, though that was largely because Kai had been struggling with her own math work and had begged him to help tutor her with his "awesome nerd magic." That had only gotten worse when he had foolishly confided to her once when she had screamed in frustration over a problem that doing equation-solving had so often helped calm him down when he was her age.

Not that he was really complaining about it. Truthfully, the six weeks that had passed since Grif and Kai had started staying with them were certainly more lively than most of the ones he had spent before in his lifetime (it wasn't sad or pathetic at all, honest!). They were certainly an odd, if not endearingly entertaining, duo.

Even the stress that had hung over his head like a cloud due to the move had abated quite a bit, even if his parents were still acting like vindictive jerks whenever they were around each other. Fortunately though, for everyone's sake, they had gone back to their passive-aggressive tendencies instead of outright shouting matches.

Simmons' father was spending less and less time at home, preoccupied with work and other things. His mother had started developing her own social circle again. It wasn't necessarily nice, but it was what passed for normal in the Simmons' household.

"I used to think our family was fucked up." Grif stated without preamble from his still open doorway, "But I think I just walked in on your mom telling your dad what gift he should get his girlfriend."

Simmons felt his face heat up at hearing that, "Y—yeah, she does that sometimes." He finally stated, figuring the cat was out of the bag.

Truthfully, his mother did such things because she wanted Simmons' dad to be preoccupied with his "secret" affair. She didn't care so long as it didn't interfere with her lifestyle in any way. In fact, she was glad for it, especially if it meant he was out of the house more. So his mother wanted him to give his mistress nice things to keep her interested, but not too nice of things that she would get any stupid ideas of wrecking the status quo.

Simmons had found out about it when he was around Kai's age. He was still at a complete loss as to how to process it, so he just filed it under the "Normal for the Simmons' Family" tab.

Grif had never come into Simmons' room before though, and for some reason he became hyper-aware of that fact at that particular moment. He didn't know why though, considering his room was impeccably clean compared to the pigsty Grif maintained.

Kai had invited herself over numerous times already and not just for "nerd help" with her schoolwork, but to helpfully point out what things so sadly identified Simmons as a nerd in the first place. Or to tell him about the latest story developments she found out about in that sci-fi book series she knew he secretly enjoyed too, the one that Grif had apparently given to her from his own saved collection.

Usually, she stuck around whenever Grif was at work. Grif never talked much about what his job was, but he apparently had gone through a lot to get it. He definitely wanted to save up enough money to get a place somewhere for him and Kai eventually instead of stepping back into whatever crappy situation they had left or staying in this one.

Simmons suspected that the now definitely eight-year-old girl simply didn't want to be left alone anymore than necessary, and he just happened to be the friendliest face around here save for her big brother at any given time.

"And here I thought her revenge ploy was twisted as fuck." Grif mused, glancing around Simmons' room with casual interest.

"It…that is twisted." Simmons mumbled softly, finally okay with admitting it out loud. Grif hummed in confirmation, but he didn't seem too upset. Simmons looked over at him, nervous and curious all at once, "Wha…what about you and Kai, Grif?" He asked softly, tentatively, "Are you okay with this?"

Probably not, given how he was saving up so much for a place to call just their own. Simmons definitely didn't blame him.

He didn't want either of the Grif siblings to stay here if they were uncomfortable or unhappy, or if Kai didn't feel safe. He had grown quite fond of the outspoken girl and their unexpected friendship. He admired her strength given how often he so lacked his own.

…And Grif, even though he was more cautious and distant because he apparently had spent a long portion of his life looking after both himself and Kai from what Simmons had gathered from the yellow-wearing child's chatter, was rather similar to her in a lot of ways. Different in other ways too that caught Simmons off-guard unexpectedly when he tried to dwell on just what his mind meant by that description.

Grif seemed genuinely surprised by the question, and pondered over it carefully for a moment, "Your dad's been avoiding Kai since that first night," he muttered, "So it's easy enough to play this whole thing up as some bizarre vacation."

Simmons felt relieved at that, "I…I'm glad." He replied honestly, mostly to himself.

Grif threw him an unreadable, almost considering look at his barely voiced whisper, "Besides, even if you are a giant kiss-ass, you aren't nearly as weird or messed up as they are. You're trying to do all right by Kai at least, even when I'm not around." He told Simmons, as if feeling like they were in a safe enough space to speak openly.

"Oh…" Simmons felt himself blushing as he tried to think of what to say, not used to hearing any kind of praise.

Grif smirked and reached over to pat him on the shoulder briefly, "Simmons," he said, "Do yourself a huge fucking favor and not change too much, okay?"

With that, he left the room with more speed than Simmons had ever seen him use before. He wasn't even aware the chubby teen could move that quickly.

Simmons stared after Grif's retreating form, his face nearly unbearably warm as he tried figuring out just why he could feel his sped-up heartbeat through his practically burning ears.

Author's Notes: At first I was really debating on whether or not I should even post the first part of this story yet given my long list of WIPs, but I ultimately decided to do so in honor of this being RvB Trans Week given one of Kai's plot points in this story. It is actually one of my fave head-canons for her, so I hope I do it justice! Speaking of Kai here, it occurs to me that I don't write a ton of child characters in my works. I hope I wrote her as one convincingly so far! *crosses fingers*

This is a more Modern AU that will be shorter than my other stories but hopefully still fully fleshed out and realized. It is going to focus quite a lot on the developing relationship between Grif and Simmons, and will have a ton of Grif Sibling bonding moments along with quite a lot of sibling-esque friendship moments between Kai and Simmons over the course of the story. Oh, and Huggins too. Along with a whole lot of other characters and relationships as well!

…So, probably not all that short of a fic after all, knowing me and my penchant for rambling. However, it will still be shorter than some of my other stories. I think. XD

I'm going to be telling this story in two parts: the current timeline with Grif and Simmons as teens for the first part, and then we're going to do a timeskip for the second half in which Grif and Simmons (and many of the other characters) will be adults. A lot of the relationships will be more prominent in the second half/post-timeskip. :D

Also, the story's title and all chapter titles will be the names of songs from the RvB OSTs because I am just that much of a dork. XD

Hopefully this trope-fueled story won't be too horrible or anything (I was actually inspired by a lot of different manga/anime stories, so…). I hope that you will continue to be patient with me as I write this one out along with my other works! It seems I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to always wanting to write out story ideas. XD

Thank you for reading! :D