Note: Last update before Christmas. Thanks so much to everyone who's read and commented on this fic so far … your lovely comments are what spur Muse and I on to write more for this crazy universe. Hope you all like this chapter and that the teasing everyone's expecting doesn't disappoint!

...

+++/+++/+++/+++/+++/+++

...

Chapter 13

Bryan looked up from his plate full of French toast, eggs and sausage with to watch his sister who was ignoring the breakfast spread and instead standing at the island with reams of tinfoil spread out in front of her. "What are you going to do with that Bryn?" he asked as she began methodically folding the first piece in on itself.

"A performance like that one," she waived a hand at the ceiling to indicate the undeniably intimate moment they'd overheard, "deserves some sort of award, don't you think? I'm making a trophy. She needs a trophy."

Jill laughed and set her coffee cup down on the table as she draped her arm over the back of Lindsay's chair so she could turn to watch the craftiness happening behind her. "Who is getting the trophy though – Alex for the vocal performance, or Liv for inspiring it?"

"Good question," Bryn nodded as she dropped the piece she'd been working on. "I was thinking Olivia – you know, like a 'welcome to the family we're going to absolutely humiliate you now' kind of a thing … do you think it'd be better for Alex?"

Jill shrugged. "I was thinking it'd be funnier to give it to Olivia since she did such a bang up job … okay that sounded way dirtier than I'd meant it to … but I dunno. Adam, you're the rule keeper – what do you think?"

"Wait, he wasn't kidding when he said something about rule nineteen G?" Lindsay asked.

Adam laughed. "Actually, what you just witnessed was the implementation of rule fourteen B. That any sexual activities overheard by a cousin of the Clan Cabot is fair game for humiliation and relentless torture. Section A restricts the use of video and/or still camera photography if a cousin is caught 'in the act'," he explained using little air finger quotes, "and C outlines what constitutes appropriate retaliation to any teasing received due to said sexual performances."

Lindsay arched a brow, not believing that the family actually had agreed upon rules, and asked, "What's rule three?"

"No putting worms into beds," Bryan replied, smiling at Lindsay's complete confusion as to how the cousins' 'rules' could fluctuate from something so adult to so completely childish. "We started the rules when we were kids and just kept adding to them."

"Do I want to know why that rule was invented?"

Jill shuddered. "Jake and John thought they were being funny one year – but they weren't. I got them back by putting hair dye into their shampoo and they both ended up with bright pink hair."

"Yeah," Jake grinned. "Which led to rule number four – no tampering with hair products. We couldn't get the dye to wash out so we were pink for a month!"

"Your mom didn't take you and have your hair dyed back to its regular color?"

Jill laughed. "Nope. She said they deserved it for filling my bed with worms and wouldn't let them near a salon. Best part was that they each got a week's worth of detention at school for breaking the dress code."

"I see," Lindsay drawled. "So what's rule number one?"

The entire group of cousins responded, "That while it is permissible as cousins of Clan Cabot to tease and torture one another mercilessly, we will stand up as a group if any outsider tries to torment one of us."

"We're a loyal bunch," Adam winked. "A little rough with each other, but we take care of our own."

"Yeah, like when Alex had that creepy stalker chick harassing her at Yale," Andy groaned.

"She backed off when Adam and Bryan went and talked to her though," Bryn reminisced.

"Alex should have never given that crazy redhead her phone number," Adam shook his head. "She was cert-i-fiable," he made a circular motion around his ear to indicate that the girl was completely nutso.

"Rule number twelve?" Lindsay asked, growing more and more curious as to what she was getting herself in to.

"No drinking games involving knives or other similarly sharp objects," Jake laughed.

"Do I want to know?" Lindsay whispered to Jill.

"Well, the knives part of the rule comes from … you know that game where you put your feet shoulder width apart and then fling a knife down into the ground between them – moving your feet incrementally closer together after each throw?"

Lindsay's jaw dropped as she shook her head no.

"Really?" Adam asked.

"Wow, you need to hang out with your cousin more," Jake grinned. "Abbie's the one who taught us that one! Well, she taught Adam when he was visiting Alex and then he taught us," he clarified.

"Okay," Jill scowled at her brother. "Back to the explanation. We were playing the knife flinging game and doing shots of tequila …."

"We gotta get Alex drunk on tequila this weekend to watch her try and get into Olivia's pants," Bryn interrupted with an evil laugh and the rest of the cousins grinned and nodded.

"Alex gets a little horny when she drinks tequila," Jill explained. "It's actually rather amusing. Anywho, as I was saying, we were playing the knife game and drinking shots of Petron when genius here," she motioned with her hand at Bryan who blushed and waved, "screwed up his shot and totally stabbed himself in the foot."

Lindsay's fork full of eggs stopped halfway to her mouth and her brow furrowed as she appraised the well dressed, obviously successful man at the other end of the table. "Ouch."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Worse was that when Dad stitched me up he refused to numb my foot because he thought I'd been a dumbass chucking a knife at my feet."

"Nah – you were just the dumbass who hit his foot," Adam grinned.

"That too," Bryan nodded in agreement as he took a sip of his coffee.

Lindsay finally took the bite of her eggs that had been hovering in midair, nodding slowly as she chewed and processed the information. "Okay, so what's the 'similarly sharp objects' part of the rule refer to?"

"Swords," Jill replied seriously. "Bad things happen when you sword fight drunk."

"Oh. My. God. Who?" Lindsay couldn't help asking.

"Alex got Adam across the shoulder with an uncapped foil," Andy laughed.

"Not funny," Adam pouted playfully. "That sonofabitch hurt!"

"You knew she won all those fencing tournaments – why the hell would you agree to fight her without protection?"

"Because I was freaking drunk!" Adam replied exasperatedly and the rest of the cousins nodded in understanding – Adam had a tendancy to do really stupid shit when he was drunk.

"Okay, two things," Lindsay held her hands up as she tried to understand. "First – why wasn't the sword capped? And two, what prompted the duel?"

"The foils weren't capped because the rocket surgeon here," Bryn threw a wadded up piece of foil at her cousin. "Decided that having them tipped wasn't manly enough."

"Hey! We can't all be aeronautical engineers," Adam shot back playfully. "Just because you went to MIT you think you're soooooo smaht," he stressed the 'ah' sound in true Bostonian fashion. "Anyways, we dueled because Alex thought I was making fun of her at-the-time girlfriend."

"Why would she think that?"

Adam smirked and tugged on the sleeves of his shirt. "I may have referred to her as a dumb blonde whose only redeeming qualities could be measured as a double D."

"She really was an idiot," Jill chuckled. "But, the girl had some knockers."

"Eh," Bryn laughed. "We all had our purely physical flings in college."

"Yeah," John nodded. "But that chick was by far the most intellectually challenged of all of them," he noted and the rest of the cousins nodded their agreement.

"Not that this isn't a fun conversation," Bryn interrupted the group's trip down their own memory lane. "But back to the original topic at hand. Who gets the award? Alex or Olivia?"

"Let's vote on it," Adam offered. "All in favor of giving the award to Olivia, raise your hand," he counted the hands in the air and nodded. "And Alex?" he counted again. "Lindsay – you didn't vote. You don't want in on this?"

Lindsay shook her head no and held her hand up, palms out to indicate that she really wanted nothing to do with the whole thing.

"Alright," Adam nodded. "Then, there you go," he tilted his head at Bryn. "Alex, seven to five."

+++/+++/+++

Olivia grinned as she tugged at Alex's hand, forcing the reluctant blonde down the last handful of steps to the kitchen. "Alexandra Cabot," she chided. "Let's go. I'm hungry, and I'm not going in there without you."

Alex took a deep breath and sighed, silently nodding as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. She immediately spied Bryn at the island fiddling with something she couldn't see because her cousin's back was to the door, and the rest of the group lounging around the table with half-finished plates of food in front of them.

"Hey!" Jake called out with a malevolent grin on his face when he spotted the pair. "Look who's here!"

Alex blushed, her grip on Olivia's hand tightening as every cousin turned to look at them. She smiled tightly and squared her shoulders, slipping into her prosecutor mode before addressing the group. "Good morning," she replied, purposefully keeping her pace controlled as she crossed the kitchen to fix herself a plate.

Olivia smiled as she finally realized what Alex had meant when the blonde had said that they 'raise lawyers in this family' – staring down Petrovsky was nothing compared to facing this group – and followed Alex to the spread, filling her own plate with heaps of eggs, French toast, bacon and sausage before making her way to the table and sitting down in the empty chair across from Lindsay. "Hiya," she smirked at the group as she reached for the carafe of coffee in the middle of the table and filled her coffee cup.

Bryan chuckled and stood up to lean across the table and chuck Olivia in the shoulder. "You stud you!"

Olivia blushed and looked down at her plate, deciding that in order to protect her girlfriend's modesty it'd be best to no respond. If this is what they had in mind for teasing, then she would be just fine.

Alex kept her eyes on her plate as she lowered herself into the chair next to Olivia and caught her brother's eye as she reached for the coffee carafe. "What?" she asked him, her voice more than a little defensive.

Adam just shook his head and laughed, looking up to Bryn who nodded and turned to address the group.

"Well, as that was perhaps the single greatest vocal performance in the history of Casa Cabot," Bryn chuckled as she made her way to stand next to the table with her hands firmly behind her back. "Greater than then night of 'Oh Bryan'," she winked at her brother, "and the afternoon of 'who's your daddy?'," she smirked at Adam who grinned and pointed his thumbs at his chest as he mouthed I'm the daddy. "We, the cousins of Clan Cabot, have decided that you deserve some special recognition. So, on behalf of the cousins – I'd like to present to you," she moved her hands out from behind her back to reveal a gigantic foil 'O'. "The Big O."

"WOOHOO!" the table erupted in raucous cheers and even Olivia blushed at the idea of Alex being given 'an award' for having a particularly loud orgasm. "YEAH!"

"OLIVIA, YOU'RE MY HERO!" Bryan laughed.

"Olivia," Kim, John's wife, smiled at the blushing detective. "Do you think you can give my husband some pointers … it's been a while since he's made me scream like that."

"OOOOOOOH!" the group erupted into another wave of laughter as John glared at his wife and Olivia's blush deepened.

"SPEECH! SPEECH!" Jake and Adam chanted, banging their hands on the table and rattling the china as Alex stood to receive her tinfoil award.

Alex scowled at her cousins, but the rest of the group joined in with the chant and she knew that she was going to have to step up and deal with it. "Alright," she laughed as she held the 'award' up for inspection. "I do have to say that this is the first award I've ever gotten for having sex," she chuckled and was rewarded with peals of laughter and clapping from her family. "And, while I do appreciate the recognition," she straightened her posture and squared her shoulders, "none of this would be possible without my loving, adoring girlfriend Olivia … who not only apparently gave me an amazing enough orgasm to warrant such a priceless award," she held the tinfoil O aloft.

Adam grinned and yelled, "OLIVIA'S A STUD!"

"She also earned the full approval of Carolyn Cabot," the group erupted into more cheers and the spouses all stood to high five Olivia. "So, um, yeah. I guess that's it," Alex finished as she sat back down in her chair. "Thank you all for your somewhat frightening appreciation of our sex life."

"You knew we were up there," Bryan laughed as he pulled out his phone and Alex's cries of pleasure echoed through the kitchen, causing the ADA to blush furiously and the rest of the cousins to laugh hysterically. Olivia, for her part, was torn between wanting to laugh and complete and utter embarrassment, so she just kept her eyes on her plate and focused on her breakfast.

Alex looked at her brother. "Rule fourteen B?"

"Rule fourteen B," Adam nodded with a grin before he raised his voice to carry over the clamor. "Now – for as fun as this is," he held his hands up to quiet the group. "There is yet another award that needs to be handed out this morning."

The room grew quiet as everybody turned their attention to Adam who was grinning and holding up a 'I'll be right back' finger as he backed out of the kitchen.

"Where's he going?" Jill asked, suddenly wary of the situation.

"Dunno," Bryan shrugged, shoveling another forkful of French toast into his mouth.

"Okay," Adam announced as he strode back into the kitchen with a box wrapped in bright rainbow striped wrapping paper in his hands. "So, Lindsay Boxer, this is for you – courtesy of the gay and lesbian community," he handed the package over to Jill's stunned girlfriend.

"Do I open it now?" Lindsay asked as she hefted the box to try and guess what was inside. There was a faintly metallic tingle, but nothing that really gave away what was inside.

Adam nodded. "Yup."

Lindsay looked to Jill for confirmation that she should open it, which Jill gave with a halfhearted shrug and a grin. "Go for it," she told her.

"Okeydokey," Lindsay muttered as she tore open the paper to reveal a Cuisinart toaster. "A toaster?"

The table blew up. Even Alex and Olivia laughed at Adam's little prank. "You converted Jilly," Adam explained through his laughter. "So you get a toaster."

"It's a joke," Alex explained as she watched the Inspector frown at the box in her hands. "Back in the day there were people who were worried that gays would 'convert' the rest of the population so the gay community took the idea and ran with it – making the whole thing into a game where for every straight person 'converted', the converter got a toaster."

"Where's my toaster then?" Jill demanded with a grin, playfully crossing her arms over her chest and staring her cousin down.

Adam grinned and held up his 'I'll be right back' finger as he once again disappeared into the hall before returning with another box wrapped in identical rainbow-themed paper. "I wasn't sure about Lindsay, so I didn't want to presume," he explained as he handed the box over to his laughing cousin.

Jill opened the package and looked up at Adam with confusion clearly evident on her face. "A blender?"

"I figured it was a small appliance," Adam shrugged. "Really, why in the world would you need two toasters?" he asked and Jill shrugged and nodded her understanding, thinking that it was actually quite inventive of him to change it up like that.

"Damn, that's a nice blender," Jake whistled as he looked at the box in his sister's hand. "If you don't want to try and take it back to San Francisco, I'll take it."

"Go get your own," Jill glared at her brother as she tucked the box away under the table. "This one's mine."

"The blender or the converted homo?" Bryan grinned as he once again cued up his recording and hit play, causing Alex's euphoric chants to once again echo through the room.

"Both," Jill smirked as she leaned over to rest her head on Lindsay's shoulder.

"Dear Lord," Alex muttered as a particularly loud 'oh fuck yes Liv' echoed through the room, shaking her head as she turned to her lover who was studiously focused on her breakfast. "This is all your fault."

Olivia looked over at Alex and winked. "Nuh-uh, you were the one who couldn't keep quiet."

"What's going on in here?" Maggie demanded as she walked into the room. "Why is Alex faking an orgasm in the …," she broke off as she spied Alex hiding her face in her hands and Bryan holding his phone up. "I see," she nodded, appraising the group. "Rule fourteen B?"

"Yup," Bryan grinned over his shoulder at his aunt. "And she got a trophy!" he pointed at the tinfoil O beside Alex's plate as the ADA rolled her eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer for God to just kill her now.

"That's a lovely trophy Alex dear," Maggie laughed and smiled at her niece.

"Don't forget the fact that Jilly got a blender!" Jake grinned.

"A blender?" Maggie frowned. "I thought the joke was a toaster?"

"Gave Lindsay the toaster," Adam explained as he watched Lindsay blush and look away from her girlfriend's mother. "So I figured I'd give Jilly something a little different."

"Mmm," Maggie nodded. "I see. Because who really needs two toasters."

"Exactly," Adam nodded, grinning proudly.

"Well, as the lone 'adult'," Maggie used little air finger quotes to emphasize her point that the adults around the table were acting like children, "I need to remind you," she pointed at Alex, "that rule fourteen C must be adhered to, should you decide to seek revenge upon your cousin for making and airing that recording."

Alex nodded her understanding and glared threateningly at Bryan who just smiled back at her and blew the ADA a kiss. "Bring it on Alex."

"Oh, and James is coming back from the barn with the little ones now," she informed the group. "So can we please behave ourselves while they are in residence? I don't want to have to explain why Auntie Alex is making sounds like that," she waved at the phone.

"Yes Maggie," the group mumbled, with the exception of Jill and her brothers who groaned, "Yes mom."

"I didn't say you can't still have your fun," Maggie laughed at the suddenly quiet group. "Just not when the little ones are around. Be good, don't make me go all parental on your asses," she warned as she left the room with a jaunty wave over her shoulder.

"God I love your mother," Adam smiled at Jake.