Helloooo! So I suck at not writing things I shouldn't be writing, so here is a little fic idea I worked up with some help from AngstyAlice and goodgirlz333. Quite a few of you had asked about seeing Kasey and Brandon get their punishment from the last fic and I was hesitant to really drag that story on but I thought as a compromise I would do another one set immediately after which refers back to what happened to them. This is the result! Brandon and Kasey are heavily grounded (it's about 1.5 weeks later) and the first chapter is pretty much a substitute for an epilogue but the rest of the story is more about Callie being the one up to no good along with Stef and Kasey reacting. I have had many requests over time for some normal Callie rebellion and this is somewhere in that middle ground. This will only be 3 chapters but I still intend to do a longer fic on that but I thought this may be a nice taste in the meantime. Anyway - thanks for all the super reviews from the last story and for coming back for this one! Thanks to TheTBone and thesameguest for reading over and Allia for providing me with inane Kasey mind wander topics!
Oh and just a quick note to say I haven't planned the events of 1B in this timeline but I'm sort of thinking along lines of GU having been more of a therapy thing that Callie went to with Rita as more of a therapist/mentor. It doesn't matter too much but just know things were a little different from TV in this AU.
Anyhow - Enjoy!
Kasey slumped into Brandon's room and collapsed on his bed.
"Are you bored? I'm bored. Can I come and make fun of your Gandalf poster or something?" She rattled off, popping herself up on her elbows and staring at his wall. "Dork."
"You are in my room. Why are you in my room?" He turned from his keyboard.
"Were you listening at all? I'm bored." She replied bluntly. "Callie kicked me out of our room."
"Uh-huh." He replied without any intention of listening to any follow up as he turned back to his keys and beginning to tap out a tune.
"I was annoying her while she was doing her work or something. Apparently she doesn't care about where eraser shavings go. I mean how can you not be curious about that?" Her eyes shot to life, reigniting the cabin fever induced debate she had been subjecting Callie to in her mind. "Like, we go through how many erasers a year and it's not like they gather into eraser size clumps - I know what you're thinking, they get vacuumed up, but-" She looked over the sound of Brandon's method of drowning her out giving her two reasons to challenge him on it.
"Hey, can you at least play that quieter? It's super repetitive." She asked, rolling onto her front as he banged to a halt turning with an irritated look.
"Jeez, Kasey - is being grounded not punishment enough? Do I have to be subjected to you not leaving me alone too?"
"Do not say that anywhere near Mom." She warned him gravely. "If she gets a hint of weakness she will use it! She will make us share a room for the rest of our time." Her eyes twitched in paranoia.
"You're right. That would be horrible. Can you take it as a hint to get out of mine?" He replied blankly as he swivelled to and fro on his chair.
"You got off lightly you know." She replied, ignoring the comment and hopping off his bed to begin flicking furiously through is sheet music.
"You're just grounded. Do you know what it's like to be as grounded as I am right now?" Her eyes bulged with manic desperation. "Do you know how frequently I had to check in with her last week? Every fifteen minutes. Fifteen. Freakin'. Minutes. That is four times an hour or just give in an stay in the room with her. We barely had to spend that much time with her for the nine months we were literally attached to her."
"Yeah...kinda sure we did. And anyway, it'll be done soon. Hopefully like this conversation." Brandon added, under his breath as he turned back to his keys before Kasey began to play with the beads that draped next to him. He bit his lip with frustration, removing his hands from the keys and clenching a fist.
"I don't even know why what I did was so much worse than you, really. It's not like I was doing a beer run and then smuggled my sister to a concert the next day. I just went to a concert while I was grounded and really it was only because I had done you a favour in the first place. In fact, I probably deserved to be punished less than you. I wouldn't have even gone if you hadn't have given me the opportunity." She reasoned poorly as Brandon squinted at her, amazed at how skewed her memory of the event had become, but he knew her recent environment had affected her perceptions almost as much as it had her respect of boundaries. Likewise, he also knew it was best not to even attempt to argue if he ever wanted her out of there.
"Am I not like way down the food chain of who you should be bitching to right now? Isn't being punished the kind of thing you and Jesus can bond over, or an irrational grievance that Mariana could sympathise with?"
"Grievance? Did you swallow a lawyer's briefcase?"
He glared at her in response to the shoe-horned attack as Kasey held her hand up.
"Sorry. Reflex. When I'm bored I immediately want to insult you." She defended her reactionary comment as he picked up his headphones. "Jesus is on that wrestling trip thing with Mama and they're not back till tomorrow and Mariana's I dunno, somewhere. Jude was downstairs with Mom last time I checked and I am so not going down there until absolutely have to."
"I'm drowning you out now." He informed her as he began to play.
"What does that button do?" she pressed a particularly big, oval button as Brandon slammed his hands down once again before supporting his head with them.
"Please tell me you have a Mom check-in coming up?" He begged as Kasey's eyes narrowed, bitterly. Her mind wandering as soon as the name was mentioned.
"Have you ever noticed how sadist she is? Do you know it's been over a week and she is still waking me up when she gets up at 6?" She twitched as Brandon rubbed his temple. "I swear, she gets some sick pleasure out of seeing me suffer."
"Don't you get some sick pleasure out of figuring out ways to sneak around her?" He scoffed back, finally losing patience for his technique of not taking Kasey's bait to argue. "And as I remember it you pretty much talked yourself into the extreme surveillance."
"So not the point. Mom knows I make a lot of ill-timed comments when she's punishing me. She doesn't have to follow through with her threats." She replied before she looked at the clock.
"She's going to call any minute now you know. Tell me it's check in time, like I don't know. Well maybe I do know, mother. Maybe I have better things to do than run up and down the stairs every half hour."
"Why couldn't you have one of those better things to do now...?" Brandon's eyes closed before a "Kasey." was shouted up the stairs and she pointed to the door.
"See! Bang on!" Her eyes enlarged, crazed and obsessive. She strode towards the door before pacing back towards Brandon who bit his lips together, taking a deep breath through his nose.
"I'm not going. I'm just going to ignore her."
"Yeah. That'll end well." He muttered, alternating a pattern of keys, his back hunched as he twirled the refrain round and round.
"Kasey..." Stef's voice carried up again with more of a warning tone as she paced another circle before heading to the door with a huff.
"I am in the freakin' house, Mom. If I wasn't you couldn't hear me." She shouted down in futile compromise, closing her eyes.
"Yelling down the stairs is not the deal, young lady."
"Deal?" She bitched to Brandon, spinning round. "What deal? And when did she become such a good time-keeper? She used to be late all the time but, no! Now she's a frickin' alarm system. I'm not going." She insisted as Brandon looked at her unimpressed, waiting for the inevitable.
It took her three foot taps before a loud scoff and she finally strode out of the room and down to where Stef sat in the living room.
"Good choice." Stef mused without lifting her eyes off her magazine.
"You must be getting as sick of this as me? I mean come on!" She groaned.
"You're right. I am." Stef replied before ripping her glasses off and jumping off the sofa, striding up to Kasey and clipping her on the arm with the magazine. "But it won't get you off the hook. One more week of the half hour and I may even let you drop to a full hour. Play your cards right, you may even get back to regular grounding by the end of it all." She offered, patronisingly as she headed past he and up the stairs.
"You were actually about to go upstairs?" Kasey observed, outraged, running after her.
"You made me come all the way downstairs when you were about to go upstairs?"
"Yep." Stef replied proudly.
"I hate you. I actually hate you." Kasey followed her up.
"So I've heard every day for the last week." Stef replied before shrugging her off and bounding into Brandon's room.
"Hey, Beer Run..." She chimed, as he stopped his playing, interrupted once again.
"I don't mind the nickname but please don't bring her back in." He begged, rolling his head back.
"He is such a drama queen." Kasey whispered with an eye-roll, walking away before Stef grabbed her shirt and pulled her into the room.
"No, she stays because this is for both of you. Picking you both up straight after school for your dentist's appointment. Don't dawdle coming out of class."
"See - she's fricken' Big Ben now." Kasey rolled he eyes to Brandon as Stef gave her an unimpressed glare as Kasey shrugged in her defence.
"Sorry. We were just bitching about you and I felt I had to prove my point."
"Good to know." Stef replied with an indifferent look before Kasey's eyes popped wider, processing what she'd actually said.
"Wait - I don't have my old person volunteery thing till 5 tomorrow..." Kasey commented.
"Which I will take you to after Brandon is done getting his filling."
"But I don't need to go to the dentist though..."
"Oh, but you do, because Lena isn't back from their tournament trip till late evening and I'm not leaving you to your own devices for that long." she said firmly as Kasey's mouth flopped up and down, no words good enough to make her protest.
"But Jude and Mariana will be home alone with no older supervision. What if they have a party or set up a drug ring or something?"
Stef laughed to herself and extended her arm around Kasey, drawing her in to her side with a squeeze.
"And the chances of those things happening will probably be reduced if you're with me so end of discussion - you are more than welcome to sit at the other end of the waiting room and do your homework, but no way I'm loosening the reins for almost two hours. I know you far too well, my love." she informed her plainly as Kasey squinted.
"I could totally rebel you know. Repression causes rebellion. That's exactly what happened in Nineteen Eighty Four." Stef stretched her eyes and nuzzled a little closer to Kasey's ear as Brandon returned to his playing.
"Are you planning on rebelling?" She asked as Kasey sheepishly looked around the room.
"Well not right now,no." She fluffed an answer knowing deep down that ultimately that both she and Stef knew it was an idle threat. Wanting to reassure her, just in case, Stef placed her other hand over Kasey's chest and began to talk slowly and clearly.
"Sweetheart, you know this punishment is for a finite period of time, yes?"
"Yeah..."
"And you know that we only punish you because we love you and want you to not do dumb things, yes?"
"Yes." Kasey replied looking up to the ceiling with a sigh.
"So considering that we have a pretty decent relationship compared to most and you know it's going to go back to that when this is over, is making this worse really something you want to consider?"
Kasey pulled a few begrudging faces as she tried to figure out a retort which could be equally defiant but still admit that she knew that Stef was indeed right.
"Nineteen Eighty-Four was called that because it was written in 1948 and he switched it round, you know. Though I guess you do know that though because you probably remember it being published." She replied smugly, the subject change and playful dig a secret act of acknowledgement and reassurance, a tribute of one of the staple elements of the safety of their relationship.
"I think it's bedtime for you before you end up in Room 101." Stef squinted, the threat being her acceptance of Kasey's offering. She had no intention of actually rebelling anytime soon, but she also had no intention of stopping her complaining.
"Well it's not like I have anything to do anyway." She whispered back, turning around before Stef pulled her in to give her a quick kiss on the head and swatted her butt as she walked towards her room.
"Brownies? Really?" Callie asked down the phone as she typed away on her laptop with the hand that wasn't holding the cell. "I don't know...that sounds like it could go wrong..." She half laughed.
"Maybe but it'd be somethin' a little different, right? How the other stuff coming? You think you can get what you needed?" Daphne spoke on the other end of the line. Daphne and Callie had a tumultuous past in their relationship, but after having grown closer through their group sessions shortly after Callie had run away she had now settled firmly as one of her closest friends.
"Yeah but I have to root around a bit. No guarantees but I'll try." She replied before she could hear Stef and Kasey approaching the door.
"Uhm, I'm not sure I really got that theme at all. I think I'll be taking the angle of betrayal for the paper." She re-routed.
"The what now?"
"The themes of the essay." She replied with a strong hint in her voice. "It doesn't matter, we can talk about it at school tomorrow."
"Girl, you trippin'?"
"OK - got to go. I think Kasey is heading to bed."
"Jeez, you need to warn me if you're gonna start talking in code. See you tomorrow night."
"Yep, bye!" Callie hung up as Stef seemed to be making some further comments to Kasey but they were falling on deaf ears as Kasey seemed to be focussing her energy on eyeing Callie suspiciously.
"What's up?" She asked nervously, seeing the scrutiny in her eyes.
"Nothing too exciting." Stef answered. "How're you sweets? You have your youth group thing tomorrow, yes?"
"Uhh...yeah. I was thinking about heading a little early too if that's OK? Was going to grab some food with one of the girls beforehand."
Stef gave the comment a lengthy nod while she folded her arms. "Uhm, sure - anywhere in particular?"
"Oh - just like the café at the community centre. Nothing fancy."
"Mmhmm." Stef nodded. She and Lena had always tried to push Callie more towards making friends at Anchor Beach since the adoption had gone through, but they had agreed to letting her join a youth group for former foster kids that was run at the community centre she had told them about.
"Working on a paper?" She asked, changing the subject back.
"Yep." Callie nodded, sniffing out an innocent laugh as Stef walked over with a beaming smile, folding her arms.
"We have a paper due...?" Kasey's eyebrows crunched down. "No way I could have missed that..."
"It's not for English, it's for history." She insisted as Kasey continued to study her noticing the urgency in her voice.
"And even if we did you could have missed it while you were too busy debating the afterlife of eraser shavings." Callie added with a smirk as Stef looked between them confused.
"You can pretend you don't find that fascinating all you want, but there is some kind of crazy science shit going on there..."
"Uhm - language." Stef scolded, rocking round to her. "And everybody knows that is a mystery answered only by the eraser gods."
"Please don't encourage her - it's you're fault she's in this state of delirium in the first place." Callie replied as Stef scoffed.
"Actually, it's partly your fault. Remember that weekend you were grounded for? If you hadn't helped her she'd have stayed home and still be sane and I wouldn't have to be enemy number one." She explained kissing Callie's head before heading to Kasey.
"We're all responsible for our own choices, Mom." Kasey mimicked, wisely. "You could have chosen to let it slide, but did you? No. Now you have to cope with the responsibility that you gradually drove your first born insane."
"Oh honey, that's just karma for what you kids have done to me - and Brandon was the first born."
"Yeah well he was born without a personality so he doesn't count." Kasey acknowledged as Stef shook her her head and gripped her hands around the sides of Kasey's. "Enough! You were going to bed, remember? Now, please. Preferably silently." She planted a kiss on her forehead. "Goodnight, babies." She patted her side, shortly followed by a begrudging but inevitable "G'night...Big Brother!"
"You better decide on Big Brother or Big Ben." Stef winked, knowing that it was really an 'I love you' in a roundabout way, the half smile on Kasey's face proving it. She was frustrated and desperate but ultimately still good humoured and understanding of her plight.
"Love you!" Stef cut her off as she switched off the main light, leaving Callie's bedside one illuminating the room.
"You ask for it, you know." She commented, without looking up from her screen.
"Yeh, but it still surprises me that she doesn't bend at all. She was so much less resilient when we were little. It's like she's developed immunity." Kasey explained, grumpily, flopping back. "I may actually have to play things more carefully in future. She's evolving."
"Well maybe that acknowledgement is a sign you are too." Callie replied, quietly enjoying that Kasey really did seem to be suffering a little after roping her in once again, but glad she may also be growing from her latest defeat.
"You can't talk anyway, what are you hiding?" Kasey bound over to Callie's bed, leaping onto it, determined not to forget the suspicious behaviour as she walked in.
"Dunno what you're talking about." She replied, absorbing herself into her typing once again.
"You don't have themes of betrayal in history papers and you were definitely not talking about homework before we walked in." Kasey interrogated as Callie looked at her, impressed.
"How in the world can you bitch with Mom and still manage to eavesdrop?"
"I have a heightened sense." her eyes narrowed, refusing to give in to the diversion.
"I think you're just missing talking on the phone to Cooper so you're projecting on to mine. I know you can't stand the grainy sound of the doghouse one." She returned to her typing having planted the seed as Kasey happily ran up the beanstalk.
"Right? You know Mom could still punish us without having to subject us to a phone even Bindi would find outdated." Kasey folded her arms as Callie looked at her confused, the name not registering.
"Bindi...old lady...dance thingy..." She explained, understanding the confusion.
"Oh right, yours and Brandon's bonding experience." Callie mocked, laughing as Kasey rolled her eyes.
"We were not bonding. We were surviving, OK? There's a difference." She defended, not needing the reminder of the great delight Stef had experience making sure she relayed the MacMillan's story to the family without skimping on the details.
"Wait a minute!" Kasey interrupted Callie's glory. "You just totally curve-balled me! We're not talking about my sneaking around here...we're talking about yours!" Kasey called her out as Callie stuttered through an excuse which never came.
"What are you hiding? Come on! You can tell me. I can help you."
"Kasey!" Callie threw her hands up with a desperate laugh. "You just said you were going to try and cut down on getting into trouble!"
"So you are up to something!" She missed the point, bobbing lightly on her knees, the lure of excitement too great for her weaknesses.
"No. I'm not - and even if I was I wouldn't drag you into it. I'm the one who tried to convince you to keep your head down. You know, after that weekend I was grounded for covering for you." Callie replied with a blunt smile as Kasey cleared her throat with a humble shuffle.
"Well yeah...and you know I'm sorry about that and alright, fine. I will keep out of it."
"Uh-huh." Callie acknowledged as Kasey still thought it over, thinking less about the game and more about their relationship.
"I would though, you know." She finally added as Callie looked up from the keyboard, pushing her straining impatience aside, detecting the softened tone of Kasey's voice.
"Like, even if I would later be made to check in with Mom every ten minutes for the rest of time I would still help you if you needed me." She reassured her as Callie stared back blankly.
"I appreciate it." She placed her hands on her sister's shoulders. "
"I only want to sneak around when I'm grounded you know. Like even though it's when you least want to get in trouble it's when I most miss the excitement." A new topic popping into her head, firing off on another tangent. "Maybe if Moms didn't ground me I wouldn't ever sneak around. In fact that's kind of logical." She scratched her head. "Maybe I should put that argument to Mom. I think we should scrap grounded from their punishment repertoire completely - it's kinda like the erasers, right? Like -"
Callie burrowed her face in her keyboard as Kasey's explanation continued before there was a wrap on the door and it swung open with a "Bed! Or I'll get you up at 5!"from Stef, silencing her apparently louder-than-she-thought seminar on the subject of punishment vs. the mysteries of stationary.
"What?" Kasey replied, horrified. "You get meaner when Mom's not here you know." She accused, flipping back immediately to her defiance as Stef rolled her eyes, heading back out the door. "It's like she leaves her Meana here for you to play with. Or that you are just unsupervised so you get power mad. Or -"
"Bed, Kasey." She gave her a final warning, closing the door while Callie laughed to herself. Kasey grabbed her pyjamas and huffed towards the bathroom. She lingered as she got to the door before turning back one more time to Callie.
"You're not involved in anything serious though, are you?" A moment of responsibility appearing in her mind as her eyes echoed a genuine concern.
"Kasey. I'm not up to anything bad. I promise you." She assured her as Kasey nodded gently before disappearing.
Callie took a deep breath and sucked at her lip. It wasn't serious - of course it wasn't. It wasn't an issue at all...in fact, it would only be an issue if she got caught. Looking at the clock she eased off the bed and checked the hallway. She thought she could hear Stef in her room and Brandon's door was closed. Quietly heading down the stairs, she scanned the kitchen. She knew what she needed would be here somewhere. She began to root around the shelves, scanning each one carefully.
"You looking for something, sweets?" She jumped as Stef appeared behind her.
Callie's mouth flopped open as Stef stood smiling in front of her. She considered a response and weighed up her options. Could there be a way of getting around this by being liberal with the truth or should she just make up a harmless lie? Scanning for inspiration she looked back to the shelf, conscious of how long she had been silent.
"Just curious about a recipe." She gave her a wide smile.
"Oh yeah? Which one?"
"The uhm..." she looked at the nearby books again.
"Mama's chicken thing. With the...creamy sauce?" She added.
"Oooh. Family recipe I think - that'll be here..." She pulled one of the books out and handed it to Callie.
"You taking up cooking?" She smirked.
"No, no - just...another pointless Kasey debate. I figured it'd be faster just to find out if it is mushroom or not."
Stef laughed through her nose running an hand down Callie's arm. "Just tell her to go to bed or I will wake her up with that book on her behind." Stef joked, turning back to the door.
"Goodnight, babe." She added as she departed and Callie breathed out gently looking down to the book.
At least Kasey had been able to help her cover up after all - she just hoped she'd once again get away with not needing cover tomorrow night.
Soooo...what are we thinking? Any predictions? Any ideas of what Callie is up to or what may happen? The fic is 3 chapters! Would love a review - feels like it's been aaaaages. By the way - how good was Monday's ep?!
Next Chapter Preview: Kasey needs Stef to help her run an errand at the community centre but Kasey's bag isn't all they end up looking for.
Kasey produced her pearly white teeth as the car pulled up to the community centre.
"Right, I'll be back in a sec -" Kasey unbuckled her belt as Stef raised her eyebrows, fixing their eyes in another lock.
"-and of course you're coming with me..." She groaned in time with the click of Stef unbuckling her own with a smug smile.