M'kay, so... I'm sorry! Really! It's just that I've been stuck on page two of THREE different things I've been meaning to complete, and I finally got fed up with staring at the computer screen and wrote this down. It finished itself, so I'm going to give it liberty and put it on here. If will be updated once I get past evil page numero dos. *glares*

Anyhoo, this is an idea that randomly presented itself... sometime. Okay, so I don't remember when. I'm terrible at that. No, actually, that's a lie. I remember now. It happened just this Saturday, the 27th of June, when my friend and I went to the Highland Games thingie down at the Lion's Club, and I thought how funny it would be if Envy wore a kilt. One thing led to another, and... voila.

Basically, the premise of this entire, pointless, fanfic is that Envy has to go live with his dad, who has Scottish ancestry, who also happens to live in Eagle River, Alaska. Yes, it will be Edvy. No, I'm not entirely sure when. Seeing as I plan to set them loose in my school, I need to know a bit about Junior year before I do, so... we'll see.

You know the drill: don't own. Never will.

WARNING: Yaoi (though not just yet, so... you're safe for now) and a bit of language. And that nothing happens. I'm sorry!

One

Greetings from a Polar Bear

This certainly had to be the longest flight in the history of airplanes and international travel. It was so long that Envy felt like he'd been on this stupid plane for days, possibly years, and not almost seven hours. God, he was so bored!

It wouldn't have been quite so bad if his iPod, which had been charged last night, hadn't mysteriously depleted three-quarters of its battery all by itself and consequently died two hours back (1). It now sat at the bottom of his backpack, where he would shun it for all of three more hours until he remembered how much he needed it. The earphones were plugged into the little armrest thing, and he watched the tiny TV with hooded eyes. His neck was getting a crick from the weird angle.

The movie wasn't even that great. It was some stupid musical that involved lots of singing and dancing with a bizarre techno background. Not that Envy objected to techno—he had a sizeable collection of it on his dead (here he sent waves of hate towards his poor bag) iPod—but it looked weird with a bunch of middle-aged women writhing around to it. Just to amuse himself, he kept switching between the English and German tracks, where he managed to miss important parts of the story line and end up even more spectacularly confused than at the start.

The worst part was that the movie wasn't even a half hour through, and it was basically a nine-and-a-half hour flight. First, he'd have to suffer through this, and then when it was over, he'd have to stare at that fucking map with the little airplane symbol secreting a red line. Envy knew from previous experience that if that stupid thing wasn't there, the time went by faster.

And that wasn't even the worst bit. The worst part was that he was stuck in the middle of three seats, squashed between two overweight women who kept leaning around him to jabber in German. He didn't know any German, and they didn't know any English. And that was why he couldn't even read the in-flight magazines—every one of them was in Deutsch.

Envy sighed and nudged his bag off his foot, which was starting to fall asleep. This was awful. Damn Dante for being a stupid bitch and getting them into this mess in the first place.

Dante Peccato was infamous for both being very beautiful and very stupid. Every one of her seven children had a different father, and five of those fathers were married men at the time. The entire world knew this, as Dante had a penchant for getting on the covers of gossip magazines, and so after seven repeat offenses men finally learned, and so Envy only had one little brother rather than ten.

Dante had been using plastic surgery to stay young-looking, but during his lifetime the effects stopped working. His oldest brother, Pride, was in his early forties, which put Dante at nearly sixty years of age, and it was finally showing. She'd stopped being able to draw in the paparazzi three years ago, when Envy was thirteen, and when some American movie star had refused her advances, she'd finally snapped.

Of course the children had watched with as much interest as anyone else when the man disappeared, but it had come as a great shock when Envy had opened the door one day to discover the police on their doorstep.

The only reason the investigation was wrapped up in two years and not two days was because Dante finally did something semi-useful with her money and bought a good lawyer. There were all sorts of contortions within the legal system, most of which went miles over Envy's head, but they all finally concluded in a murder conviction three weeks back, and most of the rest of Dante's money was spent tracking down four of those seven fathers, to inform them that they had children to (if only temporarily) support before they could take care of themselves.

For Lust and Greed, it wasn't so horrible, a fact that had Envy constantly fuming. They were old enough to be in University, and so they didn't have to move anywhere. All their fathers had to do—Greed's was even still mostly single—was provide a tiny bit of financial support before they graduated.

Wrath and Envy, at twelve and sixteen respectively, didn't have that luxury. They both were told to pack their bags, stuck on airplanes, and shipped off. Wrath was going to Italy—he was the other one with the single father, but the huge Italian family would probably be good for him—while Envy was headed off to somewhere he had only recently found out was actually part of the United States, rather than another province of Canada, as he had originally assumed (2). Sure, now that he thought about it, the little dividing line was a tad suspicious, but how was he supposed to know?

As if that wasn't bad enough, actually getting to Alaska proved to involve more contortions than Dante's legal issues did. First, he had to get up at an ungodly three o'clock in the morning for a six-thirty take-off from London Heathrow, just so he could get to Frankfurt to catch a nine-and-a-half hour flight into Anchorage. Why they even had a continuous flight going there was another question he couldn't answer. He couldn't figure out why all of these German people wanted to get to Alaska of all places. Maybe if he asked a conspiracy theorist he'd get an answer.

But no. Everything that had happened thus far he could handle. He could deal with Dante killing someone. He could deal with being separated from his family. He could deal with being shipped off into the wilderness to live in an igloo and drive around on a dogsled. But what he could not deal with was his father. His father and his father's fucking family.

Envy thought that the drama of his life would make a good soap opera. His father, Leath MacDougal (how Scottish could you get?) came to visit his family in Edinburgh, where he met Dante and proceeded to have a three-week-fling with her while his wife, Rachel, stayed at home with their baby son.

But wait! It gets worse! No sooner does Leath MacDougal get home but his wife is telling him that she's pregnant. And then two weeks later Dante is calling him up, saying the exact same thing. This leads to the rather awkward result that Envy was born early and only a week after his half-sister, Moibeal, who was born late. Obviously, Rachel wasn't too pleased when Scotland Yard called her house to tell her that her husband's bastard son was on his way to their house. Envy wasn't looking forward to meeting any of them. He'd rather live to see his twenties, thanks.

He'd said this to the detectives, but they'd only laughed and told him that he was funny before locking him in a metal bird and sending him off to his doom. Envy swore vengeance that would be hard to accomplish on the opposite side of the globe, as well as incredibly futile, seeing as he'd already be dead.

Envy finally stopped his mind from rewinding through his life by coming to the conclusion that the movie, with its increasingly annoying songs and quickly dissolving plot, was driving him mad. He unplugged the headphones and leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes.

He didn't feel tired at all. Sure, he'd passed out on the flight to Frankfurt, but that was as much sleep as his body was allowing him. Envy hoped that he wasn't becoming an insomniac like Dante.

There really wasn't any way to express the sheer sluggishness of the minutes. He refused to open his eyes, but it felt like days before the flight attendants were coming around, passing out customs claims sheets. That took a bit to fill out, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been, he supposed. The thing that took the longest was tracking down his passport number.

After that, Envy tucked the sheets into his passport and stuck that in his carryon bag. Then he tilted his head back once more and tried to sleep.

It didn't work. But, finally, the next time he looked up, they only had thirty minutes until touchdown in Anchorage. His heart leapt slightly. He'd survived this interminable plane ride! Soon, the only things to fight would be jet lag of epic proportions and his father's family. Even that last one seemed surmountable compared to his sheer boredom.

Still, that thirty minutes had to be the longest thirty minutes of Envy's life. Five minutes before they landed, he decided that flights from Germany to Alaska were not to be recommended, and he was never going on one again.

The actual landing wasn't bad—he was barely jostled at all, though that might have had less to do with the pilot's skill and more with the two chunky women pinning him in place—and Envy leaned over as far as he could to see out the nearest window. He couldn't see much, but it looked grey. Great. Sure, from living in the UK one got used to grey skies, but he'd been hoping for some blue. Evidently, the weather couldn't give a damn what he wanted.

Getting off took forever, but at least he could stand and stretch out his limbs. The only bad thing that happened was that he whacked one of the women in the head with his bag while swinging it over his shoulder, and then didn't know how to apologize. She walked off in a huff, muttering to her friend in German.

Once he had actually gotten off the plane, he got stuck in the customs line. At this point, Envy was beginning to suspect a worldwide conspiracy to make a traveler's life hell. He checked his watch. It was nearly twelve noon here, and he did feel a tad hungry. Maybe this jet lag wouldn't be so bad as he'd thought.

This part of customs wasn't too terrible, once he actually got to a booth. The agent didn't do much more than ask him a few routine questions and check over the sheets he'd filled out. Apparently, his answers didn't make him sound insane or anything, and the agent handed him back his passport and sent him on his way. Goodie.

At least when he arrived in the baggage collection area (down a set of escalators, and into a dusty room with possibly the most derelict conveyer belt he'd ever seen) the bags had been moving for some time already, and it didn't take much time to find his pair of suitcases. The one was fairly ordinary, with only one red stripe down each side to make it stand out, but the second he had borrowed from Lust. It was magenta, with putrid orange polka dots all over it. He wouldn't look at anyone when tugging it from the belt.

There was only one more hoop to jump—a huge x-ray machine in the next room. The guard at the door asked if Envy was a resident or not, and when he got a "no," sent him to the machine. Envy sighed and heaved both suitcases up. Neither of the other two guards saw anything suspicious, and sent him off without another word.

Envy was so relieved to be leaving this godforsaken airport that he almost sprinted out of that room and into the large hall thing. He slowed to a stop here, looking around curiously. A plane hung from the ceiling; gold letters saying WELCOME TO ALASKA curved over the door, with a metal representation of the state, colored blue, and a yellow star where Anchorage was set behind it. Some random native art was scattered around the place (3). Envy shrugged and, wondering how he would recognize whoever had been sent to pick him up, wandered toward the crowd of people gathered near the doors.

A nervous throat clearing behind him had him turning automatically, almost tripping himself by running his shin into the magenta suitcase. Damn thing. Oh, how he hated it.

"You're Envy, aren't you?" the man said, twisting his fingers awkwardly before him. Envy looked at him closely. The stranger towered over him by easily a head and a half. He had curly auburn hair, grey eyes, a bit of scruff, and just a trace of a Scottish accent. "Yes, you are. You—you look just like her."

"Who?" The word was out of Envy's mouth before he could stop it.

"Dante," the man explained with a small smile. He held out his hand. "I'm Leath MacDougal."

"My dad," Envy finished for him, setting one suitcase aside so he could take the guy's hand, gingerly. This had to be the weirdest meeting ever—even odder than some on television. Envy really didn't look anything like his dad, and that only made it more awkward.

Leath coughed nervously and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking around at everything except Envy. "So, how was your flight?"

"Long." Envy was no better, fiddling with the handle on the black-and-red suitcase. He didn't know what to say. He'd dressed normally enough for first impression's sake—jeans, a shirt from Topman, and a sweater—but it didn't make him any calmer.

A moment of awkward silence descended between them before Leath did the throat-clearing thing again and finally activated. "Well, there's no point in standing around. The car's out front—hang on, let me get that." He lurched forward and grabbed the evil magenta suitcase before Envy could get a firm grip on it. "It's this way." He waved one hand toward the doors under the sign and headed that way.

Envy followed reluctantly. The mass of people was still clustered in front of it, and so it was only luck that he glimpsed the glimmer of glass. He looked over automatically and almost jumped out of his skin.

A giant, stuffed polar bear had been set in a glass case. It reared up on its hind legs, mouth open in a snarl. It must've been half as tall again as Envy was at the very least. He could only gape at it and wonder distantly if the person to kill it had been a superhuman.

He saw Leath coming back through the doors, looking confused, but couldn't make the effort to do anything about it. Envy's newfound dad walked up to stand beside him, propping one hand on his hip. The position rung bells and Envy suddenly felt a lot better—evidently he'd inherited something from the guy after all.

"Yep, that's a polar bear," Leath sighed. "You don't have to worry about them around here—only black and grizzly. Oh, and don't forget the moose."

"The what?" Envy asked faintly.

"Moose," he repeated. "They wander through our backyard all the time, so you'll see some there. Come on." Once again he started towards the doors, tugging the suitcase behind him.

Envy tore his gaze from the polar bear and stumbled away from it. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he muttered under his breath, stepping out of the automatic doors and into a cool, autumn-like breeze. He automatically drew his sweater closer and looked around with some trepidation.

It looked almost normal, except for the weird pencil-shaped trees and the mountains he could see in the distance. That, and the huge white bear in the lobby of the terminal behind him (4).

(1) This happened to me once. It sucked.

(2) Some people actually think that. Ask me how I know. Either that, or they think Alaska belongs to Russia. Or it's just it's own country. Or that it lives down near Hawaii. Personally, I think people like that need to use their heads a little.

(3) Envy has landed in the North Terminal of the Ted Stevens International Airport. It sucks.

(4) That polar bear really is there, in case you're wondering. When I first moved here, I gaped at it. Now I laugh at people who take pictures in front of it. It's kind of hypocritical. A bit.

Yep, so... that's the start of my Alaska/Scottish/Kilts fic! Yes, lame, but I think I get some points for the setting. I'm going to have some fun with this.... *rubs hands together like a mad scientist*

For those of you who have read If, you know that I feed off reviews like a... I don't know... let's go with, like a polar bear feeds off fish. There. For those of you who haven't, I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me what you think! Flames are totally welcomed. And I'll love you forever. Pretty please review? Thanks!