A/N: since I loved writing Eliza and Ken and Dev so much, Future Meets Past! Enjoy! This will be fun!
Disclaimer: Own nothing except for Eliza and Sky. And maybe Devlin's car.
The girl wrapped the red strands of hair into a tightly woven braid. "Dev!" she called, hoping her brother was somewhere nearby. "I need you! Like, now please!"
He came into the bathroom where his sister was, silent as a shadow. Her gaze flicked back up to the mirror to find him standing right behind her, dark demeanor reflected in his chocolate eyes. Her heart skipped a beat for a second and she turned around to lightly punch him.
Devlin's only response was a weak and delayed, "Ow."
Eliza looked in the mirror to find her braid had come out. "I swear, if you keep sneaking up on me, I may have to take your head off."
This got the boy to do a mock death take, running one finger across his neck and then sticking his tongue out and letting his eyes roll into the back of his head.
His sister smiled through her anger. "Okay, so can you go get my bag and stuff out of my room? I need it. My cell is in there and I gotta text Cam to tell him I can't hit the library today."
"You? The library?" Devlin snickered. He pulled the black hood of his sweatshirt over his head, and sank back against the wall behind him. "I never would've guessed in a million years. Or did you set a date then now you're ditching him for 'soccer practice'?" The older of the two made sure his air quotes were perfectly timed.
"Ditching," she breathed. It made her sound so much more criminal, but it didn't bother her one bit. "And I have never been into a library unless Ken dragged me there." The ebony haired girl pulled the red highlights into a braid and actually got around to tying it off this time. "So where are you off to today?"
He grinned. "'Soccer practice'."
"Yeah, right!" Eliza snorted. She reached back and flipped the hood off his head. "You haven't played a sport in your life. I should know."
"Does kicking alien butt with you and Kenji count?" Devlin retorted.
She rolled her eyes and wrapped up her things. "No." Eliza whipped around and deliberately hit Devlin with the red braid. "Now can we chill today?"
"Hola mi amigos!" Ken yelled coming around a corner to scare the crap out of Eliza and win a slap from her. His friend only smiled and gave a short laugh. He rubbed his chest where the girl's fist had made contact. "Okay, so guess what!"
"Dare we guess?" Devlin snickered.
Eliza shook her head. "Just spill. I gotta get my phone." She headed further into the ranch style house and reached her room to find her bag sitting on the desk where she left it.
"He's going to tell us that Dad was tricking out my poor pickup truck."
"I hate how you do that," Ken snorted, falling back on the girl's bed as she turned, flipping open her phone. "I mean, you just choose not to most of the time, but whenever you want to it's just like 'BOOM! Did you forget I can read your mind?' Come on, Dev, you gotta cut it out, you stupid mind reader!"
"Not a mind reader," the oldest snorted in disgust. "I can probe minds, not read them. Reading is just hearing every thought from everywhere. Probing is looking for specifics." He pulled the hood up over his face once again, his eyes disappearing in the darkness.
The girl shut her phone. "So what'd Dad do? New engine? Warp drive? New chained tires? More horsepower?" She looked out her window for a moment before turning her glinting green eyes to Ken. "Or maybe he just fixed the windshield."
All three laughed at that. "Okay, so seriously," Eliza started. "What are we going to do today? No aliens because Ben and Dad got that covered and then no soccer and no school and no library and no parties and no guys and nothing to do at all!" She had paced all the way across the room and grabbed Devlin's shoulders. "FIND SOMETHING TO DO!"
"HUG A TREE!"
Two pairs of green and brown eyes flitted to Ken who had bolted up right and hit his head on the top bunk. "Why?" the Levin siblings asked at the same time.
"I have no idea…" He sank back into the mass of pillows and blankets, disappearing into them.
Eliza shrugged before a demonic gleam entered her eyes. "Let's go see what Dad did to the car."
Devlin finally found the heart to defend the only ride that carried the three of them around town without exploding every few minutes. "Okay, no. The poor car gets enough torture as it is, and who knows what Dad did to it. It could be rigged with a bomb."
He got strange looks from them.
"Fine," he snorted, being the first one out of Eliza's pale red and brown room. Weird colors, but she liked it.
Devlin dove into his own gray and white room to grab his worn leather wallet and a titanium cell phone off the pile of trashed phones before heading out to meet up with Eliza and Ken in the garage.
"Be careful!" came a soft call from the kitchen. The voice could be identified as Gwendolyn Levin. She was always so busy with the other two kids of the house. And Kevin, of course. Keeping him out of trouble was a full time job.
"'Kay!" Eliza and Ken called at the same time.
The two rounded a corner to find Devlin already there. The girl rolled her eyes, saying, "I really don't care how you do that or why you insist on doing it to bother us, but I really, really don't care."
"You already said that," the younger boy pointed out only to get an elbow in his ribcage and probably a light brown bruise later. "I'll shut up now."
"Good idea." Eliza pushed the red braid from her eyes and headed past her brother who was leaning against a wall and snickering evilly. He was never mean or anything, but bothering them both was his version of twisted fun.
The truck was black with mud around the undercarriage and very old. It's hood was dented in more than one place and the back was covered in dirt from carrying around aliens whenever Devlin decided to carry them back home. The tires were old, probably shouldn't have even been driving with them on. But the boy did anyways. It was caked in orange and gold rust, the paint peeling in many places. The leather inside was practically shredded, with fluff and springs coming out. None of the passengers ever minded.
Ken fell into the backseat next to Eliza only to be pushed right back out because her paranoia. She would never sit in the passenger seat. The brunette boy's head was braced from hitting the concrete garage floor by Devlin's foot. "Dude, you just got hit by a girl."
He grinned. "Dude, you just got your best friend pushed out of a car by a girl."
The older shrugged, not really caring. He reached down to help Kenny up. Then the dark one held his hand over the hood of the car, charging the engine to life with his powers. "Dad can do anything to this car, but he can't even get me a running engine that I don't have to start up manually."
Eliza rolled her eyes and sank into the backseat more. "Well, we can both start up the car and keys aren't even needed. Why bother getting an engine?"
"It'd be nice," Devlin hissed. "He loves his car more than he loves us and he doesn't have the decency to give me a nice engine just so I can get to school everyday."
"But you get to school everyday," Ken pointed out.
With a shrug, Devlin turned to his friend in the passenger seat. "Yeah, but more than once I've had to take my bike and nearly got hit by a car a few times. More than once, Dad's nearly hit me with his car."
"On accident or on purpose?" was Ken's compelled question.
"Both."
Kenny just shook his head. "I feel for you guys."
"Don't," the Levin siblings said. Both hated sympathy and responded to everything with apathy.
Silently, the engine kept purring as the three looked everywhere for something new that Kevin had added in.
"Nothing," came the report from Eliza in the back.
"Nothin'," Devlin sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes to feel the air conditioning on his skin.
"Diddly-squat!" Ken huffed, reaching over to play with the window, rolling it up and down and up and down and up and down.
Devlin was easily irritated with this, but his control was good whereas Eliza-
"CUT IT OUT OR I SWEAR I WILL SLIT YOUR THROAT INTO A MILLION PIECES AND POUND YOUR FACE BACK TO THE STONEAGE AND FEED YOU TO A DINOSAUR WITH HUGE TEETH!" The girl's anger was a bit explosive.
Both boys only turned to look back at her, green eyes filled with uninterrupted rage and fury. Then she found the heart to smooth her hair back and hope she didn't look like a maniac after that. "Sorry guys."
"No problem," Devlin laughed, waving it off. He had been fired off at more than once by not just Eli, but almost his entire family. The anger issues had grown on his mother, but it was his father who almost always got fierce. Devlin was the one who just hid out in his room until it all blew over, which could take…a while. It wasn't uncommon.
Ken was just staring back at her. "Um… what if it's a vegetarian dinosaur?"
Devlin found a reason to snicker again.
"Never mind," Eliza sighed, leaning back again. She closed her eyes, venting out the anger, knowing she could calm down easily enough.
"So what'd he do to the car?" Ken whined, growing impatient. "I saw him messing with it."
That got Devlin to raise an eyebrow. "Messing with it as in how?"
Kenny shrugged. "Under the hood."
"That explains a lot," Eliza groaned, jumping out of the backseat and going forward to lift the hood with Devlin right behind her. Her brother was looking over her shoulder at the rusty engine with its low horsepower. "I mean, if it's under the hood, it's not inside."
"But I could've electrocuted myself," Devlin pointed out. His dark eyes scanned across the machines and wires inside. "Like, if it was something dangerous, it could've died or blew up the house."
Eliza grinned and added, "Again."
He sighed. "Not my fault."
The girl reached further into the engine to find something that wasn't rusted and blackened with leaking oil. "Got it." Her finger crossed a button and it went off. "Oh crap," she murmured, wondering whether she should run or tell Devlin or both. "Um… Dev, maybe-"
"YOU BROKE THE CAR THIS TIME! NOT ME!" Devlin said, backing away slightly to find himself running into one of the other family members of the house.
"Devlin, what'd you do?" a sleepy-eyed brunette girl asked, her blue eyes flicking open when she saw her older brother's face. Her hair came down in thick waves down to her shoulders and her face innocent. "What's going on?"
He picked her up and put her back inside the doorframe to the house. "Sky, don't tell Mom and Dad. Promise?"
The tiny eight-year-old nodded enthusiastically. "Okay, Devie. Pinky promise!" She held out her pinky and the teen locked his with hers for a mere second.
"Be good." He kissed his little sister's forehead lightly before closing the door to keep her inside and heading back to Eliza who was in full panic mode and screaming for Devlin to get his scrawny gothic butt back over to her to fix it. He cleared his way back across the room in a few strides.
Just in time too. The entire place was warped in a funnel of blue and gray, taking all three teens and the beat up truck with it.
A/N: just the beginning. Give it some time. Their personalities will become more defined soon. Devlin, the responsible one and probably the obvious leader. Eli, takes the place of the rebel. Kenny… comic relief. Enjoy! R&R please!
~Sky