Aside One: The Family

I am so sorry! I know you guys want to kill me and I probably deserve it but please don't… I plan to go back to my normal every other week updates! So this is the first Aside. I also am creating a whole Universe for you! This is the first installment in the Perception Universe! This chapter is brought to you by Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy- Big and Rich.

"Dudes, you guys shouldn't talk like that to Mattie!" Alfred's face was slightly pink, or it looked that way to Rafaille. He and Alfred were not the closest but being cousins gave him a slightly better knowledge than normal. Though Rae had never seen his headstrong, annoyance of a cousin blush… ever. It was weird.

Yao looked between the three of them and snorted a laugh. Matthew blinked at Alfred, trying to figure out what Rae had said that might have made Alfred defend him. Rae knew but that was simply from knowing that Alfred would have no clue that what Rae had just said was a compliment.

"I said nothing bad. I was stating that for someone who can flatten someone twice his size and weight he is hardly scary." Pausing he turned slightly to the blonde sitting directly behind him. Kujo, his… 'his' was sitting behind him talking with Vash; a close friend. Kujo ran a hand down Rae's spine, sending shudders through him as he nodded to signify Rae hadn't missed some inconsequential verb or noun in his English. Rae nodded turning back to the other three as the blonde male behind him refused to stop running his fingers over the notches in his back.

"Who says he's not scary?" Alfred defended. Alfred's cheeks puffing slightly in annoyance. Matthew cringed, the light in Rae's eyes making him nervous. Rae had a habit of loving to run in circles around people… especially with words.

"So, right this second you are scared Matt will hurt you?" Rae asked, leaning into the male behind him.

"Well, no. Why would I be?"

"I thought he was scary?"

"He can be."

"But he's not."

"Right!" There was a pause as Alfred almost visibly worked through what Rae had said, "I mean no!"

"So he is scary to you."

"Not to me. To others."

"So then he is scary."

"Right."

"But not to you?"

"…Yes."

"Then, by what you just said, you are the one to say he is not scary, yes?"

Alfred opened his mouth and then closed it again, repeating the step a few times before he turned to Matthew. "My head hurts."

Matthew for his part didn't laugh. Yao did and let loose a bubble of laughter that ended with his head in Rae's lap. Kujo leaned forward slightly. "That wasn't very nice of you."

"I wasn't made to be nice. Kirkland's are never 'nice'."

Kujo gave Rae a peck on the cheek and a muttered 'uhuh' accompanied by an eye roll before returning to his previous conversation.

"So what does that make me?" Alfred asked.

"A Jones…" Rae deadpanned. Matthew choked on his laughter.

"Oh…"

Rae blinked at him for a moment before turning to Matthew. "Yeah… sure…" He rolled his eyes. "Il est brillant."

"C'est juste toi!"

"Non… je suis désole, mais, non." Rae shook his head, a small smirk forming on his face. "Pauvre toi."

"I can't understand!" Alfred pounced at Matthew, hugging him and dragging him onto his lap, the smaller male blushing more than slightly. "Not fair!"

"That was the point." Rae mumbled, watching as Matthew tried to scramble away… with little success.

Yao taking the break in conversation to start his own he turned to Rae. "So how are your English lessons coming along?"

Emil, who had been quiet conversing with Vash and Kujo before spoke up for Rae. "He doesn't understand American culture."

"Well duh!" Rae paused, turning to Alfred. "What is a Cee Lo Green?"

Alfred stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing. "He's a singer."

"Wait… it is a person?"

"Yeah… a pop singer."

"I thought pop was a carbonated drink?"

"That too."

Kujo turned fully to Rae wrapped him in a hug, "Pop music is a genre or type of music-"

"I know what genre means." Rae huffed.

"And pop can be substituted with soda."

There was a beet of silence before Rae nodded. "Oh, okay. I understand."

"Is that the same as 'rock' to be used in different way? As in to rock in a chair… and the music rock?"

"Yes." Yao broke in, smiling as Rae nodded.

"And rock out!" Alfred threw in.

Matthew, who had managed to escape, smiled as well. "That goes with the music rock. To rock out is to party or let loose to the music."

"Let loose?" Rae grumbled, now annoyed with the sudden onslaught of English sayings.

"To relax and enjoy yourself." Yao finished. Rae huffed and crossed his arms.

"Are we even allowed to be here?" Rae asked as an attempt to pull the focus to something else.

"Yeah, sure!" Alfred grinned, phone suddenly in his hand. "Told dad."

"You might want to introduce the people he doesn't know." Matthew muttered, looking anywhere but Alfred.

"Of course." Alfred did blush this time and Rae could see it plain as day. Cute. But Rae was the youngest. Should he finnd something his seniors did cute? He supposed there was nothing against it.

Rae was struck with how weird it was to truly have this group together in one place. Vash and Kujo had been friends for a few years now and Emil was Rae's brother so nothing was weird with that… only that the two pairs were together. As well as the other three with them. Alfred had bombarded the trio of friends; Rae, Yao and Matt just after he had stopped the boy who had been bullying Matt. Kujo was a sure bet to come but it had surprised him when Vash and Emil wanted to join them as well, considering that Vash could have spent his night with his stick-up-the-ass boyfriend and little sister or that Emil could be reading somewhere or with his boyfriend in their mutual silence…

It was weird.

Turning his head he came face to face with Alfred. With a yelp he fell backwards. Alfred continued anyway. "So we were talking about musicals and really I haven't seen many so we were talking about Avenue Q-"

"Avenue Q? Why?"

"'Cause it's funny!" Alfred grinned. "Anyway we thought that you might be Lucy." Yao and Matthew both bit down on their lips to keep from laughing, knowing the explosive reaction to come. Rae was a Kirkland after all and none of the family they had met ever had a fair temper.

Lunging forward he started in on Alfred, fingers digging into the carpet as he glared. His burgundy eyes flashing with annoyance. He flipped his silver hair back over his shoulder, his ponytail long enough to touch the middle of his back. "What was that you fucktard? I would not be Lucy! I would be…" a glance back to Kujo behind him. "A-am… monogamous!" He flushed but continued. "I would sure as hell not be some dirty sl-" He glanced over Alfred's shoulder for a moment and the words froze in his throat.

Oh shit! His uncle stood in the doorway; suit pressed and clean, green eyes glowing with what looked like amusement and mused hair the same light blonde as always. Scrambling backwards he sat down at Kujo's feet to try to hide his foul language. He cringed; worried that he would be scolded for knowing curses more completely than correct grammar. "I-I am so sorry! I know it's probably not enough and I didn't mean to offend you-"

He could have killed Alfred when he cut in, a dismissive way to Rae and a carefree laugh. "It's okay Rae; he says a lot worse than that on an hourly basis." Arthur rolled his eyes but nodded.

"I don't know…" Yao pulled his attention, taunting Rae about telling his brother. Well… other brother. Emil was his older brother but not his oldest brother. They were weird, both so quiet and reserved… not much transferred to Rae, even if he spent several years being raise by just them… and his brothers annoying partner. Maybe that was where he picked it up. Mathias was never quiet. Either way Yao pulled him into a heated discussion about how Lukas was to be left out of this.

At his name he glanced up and smiled out of habit and was back to fighting with Yao as Arthur took his leave.

"Okay you two." Matthew smiled, tapping both Yao and Rae on the forehead. "Enough bickering."

"Let's talk about music!" Alfred chirped.

The rest of the group shrugged and nodded.

"I learned that I like country music." Rae mused and Kujo gave a chuckle. "It makes more sense than 'pop' music."

"At least you know what country music is." Yao sneered.

"I could only imagine you with alternative." Matthew snickered.

Rae glared at them, looking more than a bit confused. "I think I will stick to country." He muttered.

"Save a horse, ride a cowboy." Alfred blurted as he grinned at the three males that had taken time out of their argument to look over at the American male.

"I… don't see the connection." Rae looked to Matthew whose face was a rather pretty shade of red. "How do the two interconnect?" Yao swallowed a giggle with the help of an elbow from Matthew. "I don't see how you could transport yourself using a… what was it called? Cowboy?"

Alfred stared at the teen blankly for a moment before bursting out laughing, spurring laughter from the other five people in the room. "Cous, is your English really that bad?"

Kujo wrapped an arm around the silver haired male and pulled him onto his lap. "Not bad… just untaught." He snorted in amusement, burying his face in Rae's neck. "That… is just not average vocabulary." There was a pause before Kujo raised his head and Matthew took to laughing. Yao hesitated, unsure of what the look meant. "I could teach you the meaning." Kujo whispered into Rae's ear, his hands sliding under Rae's shirt, forcing a shriek and a sharp movement from the male. Rae was across the room and behind Yao and Matthew before Kujo could pull the shirt over his head.

"I fucking older than you! Leave alone!"

"Opera singer!" Alfred chimed as Rae's voice rose in pitch.

"Grammar." Matthew added to Alfred.

Rae spit curses in several tongues at them. It was something he was good at. Rae had made a reputation for himself with languages. He worked to keep his languages growing. He could speak several now and he was proud of them. If he could do nothing and be known for nothing else than at least he could be known for his people skills. His native language was Scottish Gaelic as that was where we was raised and where his father was from but he had soon learned French and German… German before French because… well because he had a reason. From there he had picked up Italian and Spanish. He was working on Norwegian currently… as well as his never ending battle with English. In a way he made the perfect foreigner for an English speaking country, which he happened to live in.

It was twenty minutes later when they finally got to move onto to something else; picking out movies.

"So… we truly are staying over?" Matthew asked slowly as Rae flipped through a binder filled with movies.

"Why do you have so many horror movies when they scare shitless?" Rae mumbled.

"You forgot the pronoun." Kujo's voice was muffled by Rae's shoulder.

"You…"

"Better."

"Yeah you guys are staying!" Alfred responded to Matthew before turning to his cousin, "Dad likes 'em." He stared, slightly worried. Knowing his cousin he would pick a horror movie. He just hoped he was in a good mood.

"Picked the movie." Rae stood, much to Kujo's annoyance. Kujo made a whine in the back of his throat and Rae kicked him, lightly but, hard enough to make him fall onto his back with another childish whimper.

"I'm leaving." Emil stood, followed by Vash.

"Me as well." Vash echoed. He was almost at the door before he turned back to Rae. "Your boyfriend is pathetic."

"Yeah, I know, I tend to do that to people."

Vash rolled his eyes with a smirk and a wave to Kujo.

"So what movie?" Yao asked, looking more than a little bored.

"PA4."

"What?"

"Paranormal Activity 4."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I like it."

"Rae likes the pretty lights… as he tries to memorize all the words he doesn't know… like X-Box." Kujo grinned.

"Well why the fuck would you label a game system X-box? It seems stupid. Just name it game system number… whatever." There was a silence. "And why the fuck is there an X-box and an x-Box 360? Why the fuck does a degree matter?"

None could really answer that. They were too busy laughing… or in Kujo's case, avoiding remotes than were thrown his way.

They were half way through the movie before anyone stirred. There was a slow beat before; "I am the mastermind, leaving you all behind, and that ain't no fucking lie…" Rae was up and out of the room with his cellphone before the next jump scare.

His voice was clipped, speaking quickly and quietly in Gaelic, "Why does this pertain to me?" He grumbled, rocking on his heels to look into the room where Kujo sat, clutching a pillow to his chest. A whisper was his answering reply. "Oh… I understand." He rubbed his thumb and forefinger against either side of his nose. "I refuse to go to them though…" Another quiet reply. "Whatever. I get it. Leave it to me."

Alrighty! That concludes our first Aside. I will be posting a new chapter in a day or so. I want this story done fairly quickly so I can start to piece together the universe.

This story is the first piece in the proverbial Universe puzzle.

Meggy loves you all and reviews are loved(especially about what you think of Rae and Kujo) and questions on clarity (not on plot! I don't want to share my plot right now...)are very welcome!