********Years in the Future, But Not Many****
"Daddyyyyyy! Daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy! Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up!" A little girl named Jackie is shouting at her fathers, sleeping in their bed.
"Dirk. Today wouldn't happen to be September the 12th, would it?" Jake English asks his husband, Dirk Strider.
"By god it must be. Jackie, get off my face, I'm up." He says, orange eyes looking into green ones.
"Daddy. Why don't you wear your shades around us, but you do in public?" She asks.
Dirk pulls her into her lap.
"How many times have you asked me that?" He asks.
"7, I think!" She blunders.
"I meant throughout your whole life." He says, smirking.
"Oh... a hundred?" She guesses.
Dirk looks up at the ceiling and puts a finger on his chin, contemplating it.
"Sounds about right." He says. Jackie giggles.
"And you always said they'd be too dazzling for normal people!" She giggles again.
"That's right. Now get yourself dressed. First grade is too fancy to wear pajamas to school to." Dirk says, ruffling Jackie's hair.
"Okay daddy!"
Dirk got up and went into the children's room. There she was. Daisy was sitting at her little desk, fiddling with pipe-cleaners, rubber-bands, a little motor, and batteries.
She had dark circles under her eyes.
Dirk tutted, causing her to jump.
"I told you to stop waking up so early to work on things." He said.
Daisy blushed, showing her father the thing she was working on.
"But daddy... it even flies..." she mumbled.
She was so much like her father: all action, no words.
He twisted the rubber band, and sure enough, it flew. However, even after the rubber band was straight again, it kept flying.
The ends of the pipe-cleaners were connecting the motor to the battery, giving it enough power to keep spinning.
'Damn.' Dirk thinks to himself.
When Dirk was a child, he couldn't build anything functioning until he was 11.
His little girl was 6 and she was building flying machines.
"I'll put it on the shelf and we can admire it later. But right now you need to get dressed, eat, and head off to the first day of first grade." Dirk says, calmly.
She looks at him with golden-orange eyes that look like fire, however they are glazed with fatigue.
"O-okay daddy..." She says, sleepily.
Dirk picked her up and pulled her onto his shoulders.
He got her dressed and got her to eat breakfast (toast, because if he gave her a fork or spoon she'd bend it into parts) and gave her her lunch.
"Jake's gonna take you two to school today, okay? Make sure he makes a good impression for me." Dirk says, smiling and ruffling his kids' hair.
"Okay daddy! I promise!" Jackie said, kissing his cheek, cargo shorts and jacket stuffed with snacks.
"And Daisy. You need to wear these sunglasses. You know why your name is Daisy? It means 'Day's Eyes', and it fits pretty well. Your eyes are the color of the sun. This means that your friends might be freaked out, aaaaand your eyes are pretty sensitive to the sun as well. I have a note that says you can wear your shades all day," He paused, handing her the note. He then pointed to Jackie. "Make sure your sister doesn't get into too much trouble with her adventurous mayhem, okay?"
Daisy nodded, hugging her dad's hand.
She ran off to the car, where Jake drove them to school.
Dirk's phone rings, the familiar old pop tune screaming 'SHOTS' at him.
"Hey Rox-" he starts, before he is cut off by a bubbly semi-sober friend.
"Hyeeeeeeeeee! Dirky, has my chirldren left fo school yet?" She says, shouting.
"Well, they're Jake's and my kids too, but yeah, they have." Dirk responded calmly.
Roxy had been the birth mother for Dirk and Jake. It was pretty spectacular, how fast. Jackie was almost seven, while Daisy had just turned six.
"It's sorprisin' hwow much they look like the two a yous. Good on my womb! Give the men what they WANT!"
'Oh brother' Dirk thinks.
"Listen, anything important you want to ask them? For the record, John and Rosy look a lot like you and Jane." Dirk adds.
Roxy had been the birthmother for them... under the condition that they find sperm doners for Jane to have kids of their own.
The reason she had you find a doner: she wanted your kids to date, and she really didn't want incest, cause ew.
"I KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! Aaaaaaaaanyway. John and Rosy won't be goin' off ta frist grade fro another two yers, bein' all young an' all. Anyway we should totes hang out soon!" Roxy says.
"Sure. We can have the kids have a sleep over and we'll hang out downstairs. John won't mind being the only boy there, will he?"
"Naaaaaah he lives with three other girls all da time, dis won't be any diffrnet."
"Great. Bye. I have to go find my kid's design for a flying do-hick. See you." He said, before hanging up.
Somewhere farther down a two mile road, Jake English is driving his kids to first grade.
"Alright, kids! We all promised to have a jolly good first day to things, right?" Jake says, cheerily.
"YEAH! I'm gonna make a TON of friends and we'll climb around, make forts! It'll be AWESOOOOOOOME!" Jackie yells from her chair.
"Maybe I'll find someone who could help me build things... or keep others away while being interested in what I do...at least..." Daisy mumbled to herself, fiddling with the rubber band on her wrist.
'Poor thing, always wanting to spend time all cooped up and building... was this how Dirk felt?' Jake thought to himself.
"Weeeeeeeell. We'll find out, won't we? Cause we're here!"
This earned an excited cheer out of Jackie and a quiet groan from Daisy.
Jake let them out of the car, Jackie running inside with her jacket flowing everywhere, Daisy walking, finding a spare nail on the ground and smiling.
"Hello. My name is Mary Dolorosa, but you can call me Ms. Mary." The teacher says to the kids who are there.
"Hello, Mary. These are my kids, Jackie and Daisy. Say hi kids!" Jake says, pushing his kids towards her.
"MY NAME IS JACKIE AND I'M GONNA BE AN ADVENTURER JUST LIKE MY DADDY!" She says, fist in the air.
"Very nice to meet you, Jackie! And who are you, sweetie?" Mary asks, turning to Daisy.
"My name is Daisy English-Strider and it's nice to meet you..." Daisy mumbles, stairing at her feet, extending her hand that doesn't have the nail in it out to the teacher.
"Wow. Nice to meet you. So polite, but so quiet! You and your sister must be so different! What's in your other hand, dear?"
"A-a nail..." She replied, worried.
"What were you planning to do with it, Daisy?" Mary asks, confused.
"I-I was gonna use it to build something... or improve something else..." She says, looking around, paranoid.
"Build something? Would you show me quickly?" Mary asks.
Daisy's eyes light up immediately, and you can almost tell their eye color through her sunglasses.
She goes over to a little table, and after taking apart some scissors for the screws in the middle, using a few rulers, the inner-ring from a globe, and the batteries from a talking toy, she made a little flying disk.
Once thrown it could go for minutes, flying on its own.
"Amazing! Well done! I do hope you'll show the class later!"
Daisy's eyes were, again, sparkling, and she was jumping up and down.
She accidentally knocked off her sunglasses, sending them across the floor.
Her pupils retracted immediately, and she covered her eyes.
"DAISY!" Jackie ran over to her.
Jackie grabbed Daisy's sunglasses and put them on her face.
"Better? Better? Are you alright Daisy?" Jackie is shouting. Daisy takes her hands off her face and nods.
Jake is looking at them, seeing how they take care of eachother and that they help eachother.
"It seems your kids have themselves all set, and you seem really nice. Is your wife going to come later?" Mary asks.
Jake looks at her a little awkwardly.
"Well... he's not my wife, but he will come later this week." He says, tentatively.
Mary just sat there and smiled.
"No need to be shy. We don't discriminate here. Oreo?" she says, offering Jake a plate of Oreos.
Jake denied (politely) and left, hugging his children.
Jake looked over and saw Daisy playing with a child who was wearing a baseball cap (backwards) and a red hoodie. The two of them were playing and building a little structure, but knowing Daisy, Jake knew she'd make it fucking spectacular.
Jake and Dirk sat on the couch, in their apartment that they had not left in 10 years. They sat and read, waiting for their children to come home.
Daisy ran in, just then, from the bus, backpack jingling with parts and trinkets ('Oh no' Jake thought. 'That's my girl' Dirk thought.)
"Daddy! I met a boy today named Squarewave! We built things and rapped and it was AWESOME!" Daisy said, hugging Dirk and Jake.
Jackie ran in, a little slower.
"Something wrong, Jackie?" Jake asked.
"This boy I met didn't think I was up for an adventure like him, and I tried to prove it, but he said girls didn't do adventures." She sniffled.
Jake picked her up into his arms.
"Oh, sweetie. The world is full of idiots, but they're learning. You can have adventures ten times more fun without him. He can have his own lame adventures while you're off having spectacular ones." Jake said, smiling.
Jackie giggled and said 'thanks daddy' before going to her room to read some more adventure books.
Daisy assembled some things right quick and set them flying through the apartment, pulling the plans out for them and putting them in her binder of designs, while Dirk went around, catching the machines and turning them off, setting them on the shelf of inventions.
'Hmm. She really likes making things that fly.' Dirk thought.
They had a nice dinner (Texan style, cause it was Wednesday) and the kids went to bed.
A while later, in the night, Dirk leaned against Jake's chest, smiling.
"Hmm?" Jake asked.
Dirk sighed, happily.
"We're doing a pretty damn good job as parents." Dirk said.
Jake smiled and lay there with him.
"Yeah. We are."