Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 32nd cycle. Now cycle 33!

Hear that little bird twitter! Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!

"For My Next Trick"
Sam & siblings

It had started before the house was taken from them. His younger siblings may not have seen the signs, but he knew things were going wrong, getting worse. Their parents would do their best to not let them see this but the closer they got to losing the house, the harder it got for them to hold up the charade. So Sam had taken it upon himself to keep them distracted. When he'd see the two of them start to do those hushed nervous faces, he directed Stevie and Stacey up to his room, closed the door, sat them down… and then the show began.

He only had the one impression first, a character from a cartoon they liked, but it gave him plenty of material to keep them entertained. But no matter how bad things were getting, he had no idea that losing their house was a possibility.

But it happened… and there was no protecting them from the truth anymore; they all had to live it.

He didn't like seeing his brother and sister sad. But this was so much bigger than them, they couldn't understand what was happening around them… shouldn't have to… Already moving to Ohio had been a big change for them, leaving home and friends behind… Now they had this new place taken away, just as they were getting used to things again. He felt it was his responsibility to take care of their moods, while their parents were off trying to get them out of motel life.

One day, as the three of them ate lunch together around the table, with the two boys quietly digging at their food, Stacey had asked her big brother Sam why he hadn't done his funny voice in a while. Sam looked at her, saw Stevie had looked up as well, waiting on the answer.

So he had brought him back to life, as he lived a new adventure of lunch. It got smiles out of his siblings, brought laughter… relief. It had potential to be something for them to have, keep them happy… remind them of better times… keep hope alive that they could have that again.

With that in mind, he knew he had to expand his 'catalogue.' There were trial and errors along the way, new voices tried – to various degrees of success. Sometimes Stevie or Stacey would challenge him one. He could see the amusement in their faces, as they waited to see if they had finally stumped him…

It was supposed to be a thing for them, for his brother and sister, but as weeks went on, it was becoming more and more that he liked it for himself as well… It was something good to carry with him from home, happy memories when they were growing harder to come by. He liked that it was something to let him stand out. Maybe some people thought it was corny… and it probably was, but it didn't matter to him… Okay, maybe a little, but he wasn't going to let that bother him.

He never knew if they really understood the reason why he did this for them… all these voices… if they knew he just wanted them to have happiness… And then one day he got to know that they did.

He could see his break-up with Quinn coming, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself. But then it was a whole other matter for it to actually happen, and when it did, it crashed on him hard. He returned to the room that afternoon, passed his siblings with barely a greeting and let himself fall back on the bed.

Hearing the voices at first, he thought the television was on, but as he absently turned his head the screen was blank. And then voices beckoned him. His eyes turned and found Stevie and Stacey at the foot of the bed, smiling at him. They carried on their 'show,' in what Sam realized were their impersonations of the turtles from Finding Nemo, with Stevie as Crush, and Stacey as Squirt. He smirked, and within an instant they'd hopped on the bed. Sam sat up and Stacey got up closer, putting her two tiny arms around his one big one, staring up.

"Are you okay, Sammy?"

"Yeah, I… Yeah, I will be," he promised. "You guys were pretty good."

"It was my idea," Stevie nodded, proud.

"I helped," Stacey added.

"You both did," Sam smiled.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!