Location: Mount Justice
Date: Aug 23rd
Time: 18:32
Seven words. Not six, not eight, but seven. That was all it took to set off a civil war in the East household. Emerald ran a frustrated hand down her face, scrubbing at it with the stream of scalding water in her shower. The grace period of contentment and agreeableness after the East trio reunited had officially dissipated. It only lasted seven weeks. Seven weeks of enjoying each other's company, and it had all imploded three hours ago with seven words.
She had been in the kitchen unpacking their lunchboxes while Hunter and Sage ate strawberries at the table and signed about the homework they had to do that night. Emmy noticed that Sage had eaten everything out of her Korean beef stir-fry except the broccoli. There were seven little trees bouncing around the lunch container. Seven was Emmy's unlucky number of the day.
"Sage, you need to eat your broccoli," Emmy had called to her sister nonchalantly. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal, but it became one. Sage finished the strawberry she was working on, stared at Emmy washing their lunch containers, and then, without warning, exploded.
"Stop telling me what to do, Emmy!" Sage screamed. "You're not my fucking mom!"
Hunter's eyes went wide, and Emmy gaped at her sister. Emmy swore sometimes, it was hard not to after spending so much time with violent grown men, but she was very careful not to do it around the kids.
"Language! Hunter doesn't need to hear that." She snapped. "And trust me, I am very aware of the fact that I'm not your mother. But you're 11, and you need to eat vegetables, so don't be so immature about it."
Sage had grasped at her hair in frustration. "This isn't about broccoli! It's about the fact that you're ruining my fucking life!"
"Stop saying the f-word!" Emmy frowned. "How am I ruining your life?"
"This whole…this whole thing!" Sage gestured to the mountain. "First, I wake up five years ago with no memories to you saying that there was a fire and our parents died. But whenever I ask about them and our life before, you just clam up and don't tell me anything. It was my life too, and you won't even talk about it!"
"I have done nothing but protect you!" Emmy slammed Hunter's lunchbox into the bottom of the sink a little too aggressively. "I would be more than happy to have a conversation about the first six years of your life if you could calm down-"
"I wasn't done talking!" Sage pointed at her older sister. "Shut up and let me finish."
Emmy narrowed her eyes but bit her tongue.
"First, you don't tell me about my past. Second, you send me off to school to try to 'keep my life normal'?" Sage laughed harshly. "How was I supposed to be normal when my sister made us choose new identities and hide all the time? I couldn't have any friends come over after school because you didn't want anyone to know where we lived! And nothing has changed!"
"Everything has changed-" Emmy took a step toward her sister, but Sage's glare kept her in spot next to the sink.
"No, it hasn't. I still can't have any friends come to my house because my house is a secret mountain full of teenagers who go on secret missions. The other kids have real parents and real lives and real homes! It's not fair," Sage crossed her arms and pouted. "Our lives have only gotten worse this year. Which makes sense since you abandoned Hunter and me to go to another fucking planet."
"I-" Emmy faltered. "I did not abandon you two. I had to be trained to use my ring, and I thought you would be safer without me around-"
"Right," Sage glared. "Because you had just cheated Bobby Sparks. Your evil boss who you knew not to double cross but did anyway because you wanted a payday. Where's that money that would 'change our life for the better' now, Emmy? Oh, that's right. It's gone because you left it with the same psychopath you left us with!"
"At the time, I thought that money was our only option at having a safer life, Sage," Emmy hit the counter with the edge of her towel. "What was I supposed to do? Keep getting my bones broken for a few dollars each weekend until you two were old enough to support yourselves?"
"How is that any different from what you're doing now?" Sage gestured to the ring on Emmy's hand. "All you do with that thing is beat people up. Nothing has changed except that Batman is the one who pays you now and you get a free pass on everything because an alien ring likes you!"
"Sage. The most important difference is that we don't have to spend every night worried that cops are going to slam down our door and arrest me. I am doing good for once," Emmy frowned.
"Yeah. You're doing good for you! You like flouncing around pretending to be a hero, but I want a real family!"
"We are a real family," Emmy waved at the three of them. "We have been each other's only family for over five years. I'm sorry you don't have a four-bedroom house with a white picket fence and a pool and a dog," she scoffed at the image. "But you're alive, and you have what you need to stay alive."
Sage groaned and scrubbed her face. "You're my sister, but you tell me what to do, and you tell me what I'm allowed to do, and what I'm allowed to wear, and what I'm allowed to say, and-"
"Hey," Emmy cut off her sister's rant. "Do you think I enjoy mothering you? Because I don't. I would love nothing more than for us to just be sisters, but we can't just be sisters because you are a child, and you need someone to take care of you."
"Oh, and you're the one to take care of me? You're only 16! You're still legally a child too."
"I stopped being a child when I was 11 and started taking care of six-year-old you and 11-month-old Hunter," Emmy glowered at her sister. "Do you think that was easy? I was terrified and your age, but I had two people depending on me, so I had to grow up and figure something out."
"Sure, it took you so long to figure out becoming a criminal," Sage scoffed, unimpressed. Emmy's left eye twitched.
"What was my other option, Sage? Would you have preferred I become a child prostitute and let pedophiles kick me up and down the street?" Emmy's anger was starting to get the better of her. "You're 11 now. How would you support yourself, huh? What skills do you even have? I don't think there's a large market for pre-pubescent whining nowadays."
Sage blanched. "I have skills! I could sell my art on Etsy."
"How would you get the materials? How would you get internet access? How would you get shipping materials? Where would you live?" Emmy took a step with each question. "What would you do when no one wanted to pay $10 for a poorly drawn picture from an ungrateful brat?"
Sage gasped, offended. "At least I have a skillset that's not just punching people! And I am not an ungrateful brat. You're just a domineering bitch!"
Emmy huffed. "I'm a domineering bitch because I take care of you!? Because I wait on you hand and foot but won't let you get an eyebrow piercing? Are you fucking kidding me, Sage? I make all my decisions based on what will be best for the two of you."
"Right, right, that's what you always say," Sage glared up at her. "But then you left us to be kidnapped and sold, so you could play with green magic. You didn't need to stay on Oa for four months. You just wanted to!"
"Of course, I wanted to stay on Oa!" Emmy threw her hands in the air. "It was beautiful, and for once people were cooking for me and teaching me things instead of me having to take care of everyone around me."
"I never asked you to take care of me!" Sage shoved her pointer finger in Emmy's sternum. "And neither did Hunter."
Emmy pushed her sister's finger away. "You couldn't ask for help because you were recovering froma traumatic brain injury, and Hunter couldn't ask for help because he was a deaf baby! What was I supposed to do? Get you out of the fire and then let you do whatever the hell you wanted?"
"I wish you had died instead of our parents!"
Emmy inhaled sharply. That one hurt. She swallowed slowly. Sage started to look guilty.
"You," Emmy exhaled shakily. "You have no idea what you're talking about. If I had died in that fire, you and Hunter would have too because I was the one who went back inside and dragged you both out."
Sage shifted on her feet, having the decency to look a little contrite.
"And did you ever think that there might be a reason that I don't talk about our lives before the fire?" Emmy glared. "People don't usually have a hard time talking about happy memories do they, Sage?"
"I have a right to know about my parents," Sage put her hands on her hips. "Regardless of whether or not they liked you! In case you haven't noticed, most people don't like you, and that's your fault."
Emmy scoffed. "I have the stress of keeping two children alive making me unlikable. What's your excuse? Your pineapple lip gloss too sticky?"
Sage moved her hand. Emmy watched the hand come toward her face but was still shocked when the palm hit her left cheek hard enough to make her eye water. Sage had never hit her before.
The room stilled. Megan and Superboy had entered the living room a couple minutes ago to see why there was yelling in the kitchen and were now looking at each other uncomfortably. Hunter's mouth was agape, half-chewed strawberry on display. Sage herself look astonished by her actions. Emmy schooled her face into a blank mask.
"Go to your room."
Sage huffed. "This…you're not…" she stomped toward the door. "I wish you hadn't pulled me out of the fire! At least then I wouldn't be living under Nazi rule!"
Emmy bristled. "Trust me, if I had known how horrible you would turn out, I would have left you to burn!" Sage was gone down the hallway, and Emmy ran her hands down her face with a groan. She turned to Hunter.
"How much of that did you hear?" She signed. They hadn't been making eye contact with him, and he needed that for the cochlear to pick up most sounds.
"Maybe half?" he signed back.
She groaned and threw the towel in the general direction of the counter.
"Do you, uhm," Megan floated over hesitantly. "Do you need something?"
"No," Emmy left the kitchen without looking back. She went to the gym and attacked the punching bag until she noticed blood smearing on the vinyl. She looked down at her skinned knuckles and realized she hadn't wrapped them beforehand. She hit and kicked the bag for another ten minutes after that. Then she wiped the blood off with alcohol wipes and went to shower in her room.
Emmy groaned at the memory of the fight and scrubbed off the last of her bodywash. After her conversation with Jada, the little girl who lost her parents to Mr. Twister, she had decided that next time either kid asked about their parents, she would just answer a few questions and be done with it. But then Sage went off on her, and she had not responded well. All her talk of being the mature one, and she still screamed back at Sage. Emmy pinched her bridge of her nose, knuckle scabs splitting open slightly at the abrupt motion. I can't believe I told her I should have left her to burn. That's such a horrible thing to say. Emmy glared at the shower tiles. It was the kind of thing her father would have said. Then again, Sage did say she wished I died before that. Emmy sighed heavily. Children made excuses, parents didn't. Well, they shouldn't at least. Sage had acted out, and Emmy should have responded calmly and deescalated the situation instead of letting her feelings get hurt and lashing out.
She rested her hot forehead on the cold tile for a minute before turning off the water. A few minutes later, she was dressed and heard a knock at the door. She opened it and found her favorite green girl.
"I made dinner," Megs smiled awkwardly. Emmy raised her eyebrows and leaned against her doorway with crossed arms.
"By yourself? Without lighting anything on fire?" She smirked at the Martian.
"Yep!" Megan smiled. "We're having chicken Caesar salad with homemade dressing and croutons. I know you like to eat healthy, so I left the croutons out so you can choose if you want them or not."
Emmy grinned. "Great job, Megs. I'm proud of you."
The Martian beamed at the praise, but then leaned forward with a serious face and a low voice. "I thought you might want to be the one to tell Sage that dinner is ready."
Emmy exhaled and ran a hand down her face. Megan chuckled slightly.
"Having sisters is hard. When we fight, the fights are horrible," she put a hand on Emmy's shoulder, "But the love is always stronger than the arguments."
Emmy quirked her lips at the slightly older girl. "We hope so anyway."
Megan huffed a laugh out of her nose and nodded with understanding. "I'll gather up Superboy and Hunter while you two talk."
The Martian floated down the hallway without looking back. Emmy took a deep breath and moved the short distance to Sage's door. She knocked three times. No reply. She knocked three times again. Emmy glared at the door. If she didn't go to her room after I told her to, I am going to track her down and-
Sage opened the door a crack, and Emmy immediately chastised herself for her train of thought. The sisters stared at each other for a moment. Sage's grey eyes were puffy and red, and there were squiggling pathways of tears still drying on her cheeks. Emmy's left cheek still had a light pink handprint on it, and her knuckles were scabbed over and raw from her assault on the punching bag.
"I'm sorry I made you cry," Emmy apologized first.
Sage sniffled. "I'm sorry I slapped you so hard."
Emmy smirked and rubbed her cheek lightly. "Don't be. I'm glad the self-defense training I make you two do is working. I would suggest going for a hook or an uppercut instead of a slap, though."
Sage laughed a bit. "Always giving me orders."
"I said 'suggest'," Emmy rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Megs made dinner."
The raven-haired girl grimaced. "Alone?"
Emmy snorted before replying under her breath. "She made it sound edible, but we'll have to see."
Sage nodded, and they started walking to the kitchen slowly. Emmy bit her lip before admitting something.
"You were right. I could have come home after the third month, but they wanted me to do extra training since I was Earth's youngest Lantern," Emmy hesitated slightly. "But I was ultimately the one who chose to stay. I should have come home in May."
They walked in silence for a few more moments.
"I would have stayed too," Sage shrugged. Emmy looked at her in shock, but Sage scoffed at her. "That surprises you? If someone offered me a vacation on an alien planet, I would milk it for all it was worth. I would have gotten them to let me stay a whole year."
"I don't doubt that," Emmy smirked.
"Besides, you were right too," Sage sighed in defeat at the admission. "Bobby had people looking for you 24/7 for the first three months. Businesses were complaining because his lackeys were breaking in wherever they could, trying to find you. Six of them actually got arrested because they thought you were camping out in a bank and broke into the vaults right next to the only two clean cops in Bludhaven. If you had come home in May, we would have been in even more danger than we were with Mr. Ramirez."
Emmy's shoulders drooped at her sister's comment. They shouldn't have had to take care of themselves for four months. That was way too long. She should have convinced the Corps to let her bring the two of them to Oa during her training. Emmy frowned to herself. Dammit. That's a good idea why didn't I think of that at the time? Sage nudged her sister out of her thoughts.
"I don't wish you were dead," Sage said, determined.
Emmy smiled a little. "I am thankful every single day that I got you out of the building in time."
Sage rolled her eyes like she already knew that. "Duh. I'm fantastic." Emmy shoved her sister's shoulder.
"So, I'm fine answering a few questions about our parents," Emmy ignored Sage's gawk. "Just so you know."
They rounded the corner. The table was already set with five plates and five water glasses. Hunter was sitting at the head of the table, and Megs and Superboy were across from each other. Emmy smirked mentally; they totally did that so they could subtly stare at each other. The Martian definitely had a crush on the clone, even if she clamped up and denied it whenever Emmy teased her. But Supey was a little harder to crack. She thought she had seen him gazing at the Martian a few times, but it was hard to tell.
"Are you going to have a catfight again?" Hunter signed. His sisters glared at each other playfully.
"Nah," Emmy replied. "I'd destroy her if we had an actual fight. I let her get that slap in."
"You did not!" Sage scowled even though part of her knew Emmy could have blocked it if she really wanted to.
Superboy let out a rare laugh, and the dinner went smoothly from there. Hunter was struggling to relate the sounds words make to the signs he was used to. The doctor informed them that that was a completely normal part of getting a cochlear. Hunter only knew English as a visual language, and now he could hear the verbal version of it, and it was difficult to rectify the two sides together. The doctor told her she needed to sign everything as she spoke so he could relate the signs he knew to the sounds he didn't. It hadn't seemed that difficult an instruction at the time. After all, she had taught him to sign in the first place while also teaching Sage and herself, so she figured that if she taught him one language, she could easily teach him another. It had turned out to be a bit more of an enterprise than she expected though. She was used to only signing around Hunter unless they were in a group, which happened very rarely until two months ago. But now she had to sign and talk to him constantly. It really was like teaching him to communicate the first time. The day after his implant was activated, she had moved through the kitchen, signing, and talking at the same time. The only problem was that Hunter had picked up signs quickly. She signed apple once at him when he was two, and he knew it forever. But it took ten minutes of saying 'apple' and helping him get the pronunciation right before she could move on to the banana. Speaking was a total pain. Hunter was so excited though, so she was happy to go through the redundant kitchen words as often as he needed her to. Emmy was also delighted when she saw Superboy mimicking the signs she was making from his spot on the couch. She had tricked herself into viewing it as teaching Hunter what symbols went with what sounds instead of vice versa and that had helped slightly.
Megan scooped salad onto Emmy's plate, and it snapped the lantern out of her musing.
"This looks great, Megs," Emmy smiled approvingly.
The Martian smiled and starting prattling through all the steps she had taken to make the dinner. The other four started eating as their chef talked. The first few bites were delicious, and then Emmy got her first mouthful of the actual chicken. She chewed slowly as she realized that the meat was both undercooked and under seasoned. It was bad. Real bad. The face Sage was pulling next to the happy Martian let Emmy know that she had made it to the chicken too. They subtly spit their chicken into their napkins.
"Megs," Emmy interrupted. "This sauce is fantastic. Would you mind getting me a little more?"
"Oh, of course!" Megan beamed and floated from the table to the fridge, explaining that the secret ingredient in the sauce was minced and cooked baked garlic.
"I thought I got a hint of garlic," Emmy called over her shoulder with a smile. She whirled back to the table and signed behind Supey so Meg couldn't see her hands moving. "Don't eat the chicken. It's undercooked."
Hunter picked the chicken piece off his fork and ate the remaining lettuce. Supey frowned and started moving his hands.
"Don't let her know. She worked really hard and is really proud of her first meal cooking without Emmy."
"Keep some lettuce covering all the chicken pieces on your plate when you finish," Sage advised.
Megan flew back with the rest of the homemade sauce and paused when she saw Emmy gaping at Superboy. Her stomach flipped slightly. Superboy did look really good today. Emmy wasn't falling for him, was she?
"Is something wrong, Emmy?" She asked in an attempt to be casual as she sat down next to Sage.
"You know sign language now?" Emmy screamed at the clone. He winced at the loud noise in his right ear but nodded with a smirk.
"Yes."
Hunter and Sage looked at Emmy like she was crazy.
"Have you not noticed him signing before?" Sage asked aloud while signing around her fork.
Emmy's mouth moved a bit like a fish. "I…I mean I saw him copying the signs I made when I showed Hunter around the kitchen a couple weeks ago but…"
"We taught him to sign so he could understand what Sage and I were saying when we play Mario Kart," Hunter shrugged like it was old news.
"That," Emmy almost stuttered. "But that started in July!" She turned to Megan. "Has Superboy been able to sign since July?"
The Martian smiled at her friend innocently before moving her own hands while speaking. "I thought you knew. We've been watching you and Sage sign while you talked for so long that we were able to pick up some things."
Emmy's eyes were blank, and her mouth fell open at the girl who was arguably her best friend. "I…I don't…. How did," she gave up talking and put her chin in her hands. She stared at the table and tried to think of any instances where she had seen Megs or Supey signing. Just how much time did the two aliens spend with her kids anyway?
"Superboy is a lot better at it than I am though," Megan went back to only speaking and brushed her hair behind her ears while smiling at Superboy sweetly. The clone looked away and got the slightest tint of pink on his cheeks.
"She's being modest. She does alright."
The other four moved onto eating while Emmy finished her identity crisis. How had she not noticed the four people she lived with communicating with their hands? Wasn't she supposed to be super vigilant and catch subtle details?
"You okay?" Hunter signed with a smirk.
"It's like I don't know any of you anymore," Emmy finally joked before eating her lettuce again. It warmed her heart that two of her teammates were learning her brother's language. He had only had Sage and Emmy to speak to before. There were five other deaf kids in his class at Keystone, those were the first people his age he had ever met who were signers, and he only met them when they started school a week ago.
"Speaking of not knowing people," Sage started while nibbling at an olive. "Can I ask those questions about our parents now?"
Emmy quirked an eyebrow. "You want to ask now? Here?"
Sage nodded. "Yes. And… don't lie to me."
Emmy swallowed. There was no way she could answer Sage's questions all honestly. She would have to lie at some point. Maybe she could limit the questions? Yeah, that's a good idea. "How about we do six questions tonight. One for each year of your life that you don't remember."
Emmy held her breath while Sage considered the offer. "That's perfect," Sage smiled. "I thought I would only get one or two at first."
Emmy scowled. Dammit. I should have gone lower.
"So," Sage leaned forward. "What did they look like?"
Megan and Superboy sent each other looks across the table. Had Emmy really not even mentioned what their parents looked like before? Supey was no family expert, but he was pretty sure that wasn't normal.
"Well," Emmy shifted so Hunter could see her signing better. "You both look like our mother color-wise. She was 6'3 with long black hair, grey eyes, and pale skin. Our father was 6'2 with light blonde hair, blue eyes, and tan skin."
Sage looked at her tan arms. "This doesn't count as one of the questions: why aren't we all taller?"
Emmy snorted. "You and Hunter still have plenty time to grow. I just got the shorter end of the gene pool, I suppose."
"What did our mom's face look like? Was she really pretty, I mean?" Sage asked excitedly.
Emmy thought for a moment. She spent most of her time not thinking about their parents and not talking about them. This was uncomfortable and unknown territory. What did their mother look like? I was hard to remember. Emmy could only picture her with sunken, grey skin, dull from malnourishment and drug use. "Well, I guess her face looked a lot like mine, but her nose was smaller width wise and her lips were bigger. She was a model when she was younger."
"Really?" Sage's eyes turned into giant grey saucers at the information. She got a dreamy smile. "I can't believe our mom was a model."
"That explains why you're all so pretty," Megan smiled. Sage and Hunter greedily absorbed the compliment, but Emmy just snorted.
"When did they get married and what was it like?" Sage smiled.
"They weren't married," Emmy snorted.
"What?" Sage's smile fell. "Why not?"
Shit. Emmy paused. She couldn't just say, 'Oh, because our father cheated on his wife with our mother, and you can't get married when you're already married.' Dammit, East. Just say something, Sage is staring. "It went against our mother's religion."
Emmy cursed herself mentally. Why the hell did she say that?
"What was her religion, and why would that stop her?" Sage furrowed her eyebrows.
"Because she was," Emmy hesitated, trying to think of something. "Jewish! Yep, she was Jewish, and our father didn't want to convert, so she chose not to marry him. She wanted to be a good example and show her daughters that they should never change their preferences for a man." Emmy nodded with fake sagacity, hoping that Sage bought the blatant lie.
"We're half-Jewish?" Sage asked in awe. "That is so cool! I should learn Hebrew. We should celebrate Hannukah this year!"
Double shit. This might come back to bite me in the ass. "Uhm," Emmy glanced at Hunter and the back to Sage. "Mother was very casual about her religion when it came to the holiday aspect. It was just…the uh, the marriage thing that she was very strict about."
"One more parent question," Emmy said before Sage could talk more about their 'Jewish heritage'.
"No, wait," Sage frowned. "Hunter should get six questions too."
"You have any questions Hunter?" Emmy asked the boy. She hoped he wouldn't. She had raised him since their mother first popped him out, and honestly, she would never admit it to Sage or anyone else, but she felt like he really was her child most of the time.
"What were their favorite ice cream flavors?" He signed back solemnly.
Emmy smirked. "Our father liked vanilla bean, and our mother liked Superman ice cream." The father one was a lie. She had no idea if he even ate ice cream. It seemed like something he would hate. She knew their mother's though. Every Sunday at four in the afternoon, their mother would take them to a small ice cream parlor in the worst part of Gotham. Emmy had just thought it was their fun, weekly tradition, but then she had turned five and noticed that when she was choosing her ice cream her mom disappeared behind a door and reappeared a moment later shoving a small bag in her pocket. Their mother took her kids with her to her drug pick up. What a responsible mom, Emmy sneered at the memory.
"What does Superman ice cream taste like?" Supey asked, suddenly intrigued.
The right corner of Emmy's lip twitched upwards, "No one knows, Supey. It's red, blue, and yellow swirled. It's supposed to be bubblegum-esque-marshmallow-with-maybe-some-banana. It's not a super common flavor, but I'll find an ice cream shop with it sometime, and we'll all take a field trip."
Everyone smiled at the idea of future ice cream, but then Sage frowned when Hunter didn't have any other questions.
"I want his other five questions if he's not going to use them," she whined.
"You can have one extra," Emmy allowed. She had promised not to lie and then almost immediately lied so she might as well give Sage an extra one.
"What were their jobs?" Sage smiled. "Like what were they really passionate about?"
Emmy bit her lip and looked off to the side. Child abuse, murder, and drugs didn't seem like a good answer. "Well, our father was a," what was a way to clean up what he did? "He was a personal trainer for people at gyms. He was very passionate about physical defense and personal fitness."
"That's why you were able to start in the fighting arena at 11," Sage beamed. "Because Dad taught you to fight and work out!"
Emmy's stomach lurched at Sage's use of the word 'Dad' and she hid her hands under the table so no one could see the way they clenched into fists. Sage had nothing but admiration in her voice for that fucking bastard and Emmy was five seconds away from ripping the table in half. Calm down, East. This is the whole point. You want them to stop asking questions and think things were fine.
"I can't believe you said your childhood was unhappy just because Dad made you work out," Sage snorted.
Breathe, Emmy. Emmy swallowed her rage and spit through gritted teeth. "Yep. That's why."
"You haven't talked about Mom yet," Sage pointed out.
"Right, yeah," Emmy bit her tongue lightly. What was there to say? She was a model, she met Lawrence, became his getaway driver, and then her life devolved into being nothing more than his drug-addict mistress. "So, after she stopped modelling, she became a professional driver. You know, driving limos around for rich people and doing the occasional stunt driving for commercials and whatnot, and she was passionate about," Meth, cocaine, heroin… "cooking." Emmy settled on with a smile.
"Awe," Megan smiled and clasped her hands under her chin. "You learned to cook from your mother? That is so sweet."
At least Megan was buying her answers. "Yep," Emmy nodded. Nope. Had to teach myself from old books so we didn't starve. "She was really big into that."
Sage looked a little downcast. "But, actually, now that I think of it," Emmy snapped to reinforce her fake memory, "she was also a huge artist. Paints, pencils, charcoal, she did it all."
Sage beamed again, "I always felt like I got it from one of them."
"Mhmm." Emmy offered. Supey couldn't tell she was lying from her sporadic heartbeat, could he?
"Okay, last question," Sage thought carefully, staring at her plate intently. Her grey eyes looked up and pierced Emmy's core. "Did they love us?"
Oh. Oh no. She had already lied on most of the questions. Should she tell the truth on this one? What would the truth even be? 'I don't know?' Or 'You wouldn't have been able to tell by looking'? Or 'If they did, they hid it really well'? Or the most honest option, 'Probs not, Babe'. No, none of those would work. She only had one option. Lie through her teeth.
"Of course," Emmy smiled softly at Hunter and Sage. "They loved us more than anything else in the world. There were some problems in their relationship, like there are in all relationships, but they always made us feel loved."
Sage and Hunter smiled at each other. Emmy shoved a huge amount of lettuce in her mouth so she wouldn't have to talk again for a while. That wasn't as horrible as she had always thought talking about their parents would be, but it certainly wasn't great. She had tons of practice lying to people outside of her family, but she wasn't used to lying to her kids. She would, unfortunately, need some more practice with that if they were going to start discussing their parents every once in a while.
The rest of the dinner went smoothly. Megan seemed unable to tell that the chicken in her salad was undercooked, Emmy really hoped her Martian physiology would protect her from food poisoning, and the other four were careful to strategically hide chicken through the meal. Hunter practiced verbally saying words for a few minutes while the table cheered him on dramatically, Supey had even crushed his water glass on accident. Then Sage pointed out that the handprint on Emmy's face had finally faded, and they all laughed. Megan started telling them a story about the time one of her sisters and her got into a fight that was so bad they wrestled in their father's bioship. They caused so much damage that his bioship got offended and ejected them into a mud dune. Emmy couldn't imagine Megan angry enough to wrestle someone, and that made the story even funnier.
Emmy looked over at one point and saw a glob of salad dressing sliding down Supey's chin. She grimaced slightly and was wiping it off with her napkin before she thought about it. Once his face was clean, she pulled away and noticed everyone giving her a weird look. Megan's verged on jealousy, and Supey's was very confused.
"What?" Emmy asked. "I wipe food off Hunter's face all the time."
Sage started laughing obnoxiously. "I've heard of friend-zoned, but I've never seen a guy get brother-slash-son-zoned before."
Megan relaxed imperceptibly and giggled as Emmy gave her sister the side-eye. "I am not trying to mother, Supey." Was she? He was awfully young when it came to life experience.
Superboy just smiled softly, "I would be okay with having you as a sister."
Emmy smiled at him and nudged his shoulder.
"It is not as fun as you might think," Sage added conspiratorially.
Hunter frowned at Sage and signed, "Yes, it is!"
Emmy winked at her favorite brother. Now that she thought about it, Megan had been subtly referring to Emmy as one of her sisters since Artemis showed up…was her family beginning to expand? She looked at the four people around the table eating and teasing each other. She was okay with it if it was.
Have any of you had Superman ice cream before? It's a real thing I used to get as a kid when I visited lola ko (my grandmother) in St. Simons, Georgia. Could not tell you what flavor it is to save my life, but if you ever come across it you should definitely try it out. The next chapters will have our favorite red head in them, but I wanted one to show the family dynamic of the Easts and their alien roommates. Shoutout to GirlNextDoor01 for reviewing again.
-TheDarkAbyss
