Title: It's About Life. And yes, it's named after the Lillix song, It's about life. Which I recommend that you listen to while reading this fic. It seems to fit it very well. Actually most of the songs on their album fits this fic. Listen to them all.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Sydney has never believed in love. It was a figment of the imagination. Can he change all that or will Sydney believe it forever? AU.
Ship: Syd/Vaughn. It's me. Just read my other fic, A Charming Alias and you will never doubt in my faith in Syd and Vaughn.
Setting: Syd's sixteen, as is Francie and Vaughn. Syd has two older sisters(like I said, AU), Aimee(22) and Kady(19). Francie is a teen mother. Vaughn's the kinda offbeat kid who can fit into any crowd. Jack and Irina were married, and well, it's explained in the story. I'm not sure if there's gonna be anyone else from Alias in this. Suggestions are welcome, anytime. Modern times, so that means 2004, not 1980 something.
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or Vaughn. No, I take it back, I do own him. I do! Okay, it's back to the twelve step program for me. Again. Maybe the tenth time is the charm.
A/N: This is kind of based off the movie/book, How to Deal. So, I should probably disclaim any ownership over that too. I don't own it. Wow, that was easy. No twelve step program for that. Anyway, just to clarify, I took the basic idea from the book but I don't think I'm going to follow the plot. I just thought it would be a good AU fic for Sydney and Vaughn.
Rated PG-13 just to be safe. Okay? Better safe than sorry.
Happy reading and Merry reviewing.
Just when I thought that life couldn't possibly get any more complicated, it did. There seemed to be no end to it all. The universe was against me. I knew it.
I guess it all started when my dad had an affair with some woman. Darla, yeah, that was it, Darla. Darla something-or-other ruined my parents' marriage and started the violent spinning out of control that became my life. Darla and Dad broke up one month after he moved out. Instead of coming back to his wife and three daughters, he fell in love with Jennifer Reiley. I despised Jennifer with her perkiness and very obvious boob job. One year later, one month after the divorce became final, was when Dad planned to marry Miss New Boobs. Of course I got roped into being a bridesmaid. The wedding was tomorrow.
Tomorrow. I had come to despise the word and the day. Tomorrow the day meant that one more thing in me life could crumble beneath me. All that came to mind with tomorrow the word was a pop spelling quiz that I always bombed. Like I don't have better things to worry about then whether tomorrow had two m's or two r's. How could little orphan Annie love tomorrow? Tomorrow sucked. Why couldn't time go backwards instead of forwards?
The alarm clock went off blaring its beep...beep...beep right next to my head. I reached over and hit the snooze button harder than I should've. Sleep was about to claim me once again when my oldest sister, Aimee flung the door open yelling. "Sydney, Mom says get up or we'll all be late to Daddy's wedding today." And like magic she was gone.
I stumbled out of bed realizing that I had mixed up today and tomorrow. A rare occurrence, believe me. I pulled on the damned bridesmaid dress from hell with its puffy skirt and weird neckline made me look like a piece of Bubble-Yum. I hated the thing. I spent all the fitting time for it thinking of ways to destroy the thing. The best one so far was burning it. But because it was important to Jennifer I had to wear it along with Aimee and Kady.
Although the evil dress actually looked good on my sisters, like always. They were blonde, and beautiful. Nothing could or would dare look bad on them. They looked more like twins than sisters three years apart. Me, on the other hand, had brown hair with streaks of an auburn-like color sprinkled throughout it. And I was defiantly not beautiful. Pretty at best in my opinion. The gene system had screwed me over royally.
I paid little attention to my makeup and hair that day, not really caring if I looked awful. I felt awful so who cares, right? Yesterday I had had a really long day at my job at my schools daycare center for all the teen mothers. That's what we were famous for instead of having a good football team or the smartest kid in the state. We had teen mothers.
My best friend in the whole world, Francie joined this group of girls a year and a half ago when she got pregnant. The father, Charlie, ironically got hit by a bus, dying instantly, one week after Francie got pregnant. Of course she didn't find out until two months after the accident. His parents had moved after the accident and Annie, Francie's mother and only caretaker, didn't help that much which left Francie to fend for herself at raising baby Allison. I helped her as much as I could though. Babies came easy to me. Not that I was looking forward to having a baby anytime soon. Like ever.
"Sydney!"I rolled my eyes at the sound of my name. It wasn't that I hated it; it was just so wierd in comparison to my sisters' names. I mean I'm named after a Goddamn city for Christ's sake. A city in Australia, no less. Yay, Australia. Can't you just sense all the dry sarcasm in that statement? "I'm coming!" I yelled back trying to pull of the 6-inch heel I had to wear.
Mom had declined going to Dad's wedding mostly because she was the ex- wife. "People would gossip about it" was her spoken excuse not to go but I knew she thought she would be uncomfortable watching her ex-husband remarry. Not that I was any more comfortable going to the stupid wedding. I hated the idea of Dad remarrying, especially to Jennifer.
The church was packed with people who knew my dad from god-knows- where. I was sure that most of Jennifer's side of the church was Dad's friends but I didn't voice the thought. All the bridesmaids had to be in Jennifer's dressing room so that when she appeared for the first time with her hair all done and the dress on we could tell her just how pretty she looked. A very stupid tradition in my mind. Of course you have to say the bride looked pretty on her wedding day. It was like a law with five years in prison as the minimum punishment; ten years if you criticized the bride, the death penalty if you called her fat. You could gossip about and criticize other bridesmaids and ushers and people not in the wedding just not the bride.
Aimee started the wedding march, followed by Kady. I could hear the "oohs" and "awws" and "oh isn't she beautiful" from the lobby. I was the fifth and final bridesmaid. I wasn't sure why. When my turn came I was reluctant to walk down that aisle. It meant there was no turning back. Someone gave me a little push and I stumbled lightly into the church. Regaining my poseur I headed down that long aisle to where the rest of the wedding party waited. There were no "oohs" and "awws" for me. No, everyone strained to get the first glimpse of Jennifer. Who cared about the third daughter. The whole church was silent while Jennifer walked down the aisle. She did look beautiful, though I was reluctant to admit that even to myself. I saw the smile on Dad's face as he watched her. If I ever doubted that he loved her, now was not one of those times.
During the ceremony I let my mind wonder, made it wonder was more accurate. Memories floated to my head, like the summer two years ago. It was before the divorce, before Francie got pregnant, back when life made a little bit of sense. Dad took us all on a trip to some resort in Florida. We each got to bring one friend. Of course I brought Francie, Kady brought her now ex-best friend(for reasons unknown to us all), and Aimee brought along her boyfriend, and now fiancé Jeremy West. Jeremy isn't the kind of guy you'd expect to propose to, much less marry, my sister. He's quiet and refuses to fight with her, something she hates. Yet somehow they fell in "love".That summer was the best one of my life. All we did was laugh. Not one of my memories from that summer doesn't include us not laughing. I remember wishing that the summer could last forever. That fall didn't have to come, followed closely by winter. I remember the nights spent out on the beach watching the stars and just talking. I don't remember exactly what our conversations were about, just that they existed.
The bridesmaid behind me nudged me and forced my thoughts to the present. It was just after the 'I do's. I had skipped the entire ceremony just thinking about one summer. But I knew that summer would never be repeated as long as I lived as I watched Dad lift Jennifer's veil and kiss his new bride. I had a step mom. It was official.
Everyone fussed over Aimee at the reception. They just had to see her 4 ½ carat diamond engagement ring. Of course Jeremy was by her side, smiling at the comments of him being able to snag such a beautiful fiancé. The scene looked all wrong to me. Jeremy and my sister just were not a good looking couple. I tried to tell her this several times but each time she would just give one her nasty looks and flounce off.
Kady never had time to listen to my thoughts. She juggled three part-time jobs and a full-time party life. I often wondered if she ever slept or ate anymore. She pissed of Mom greatly by sneaking in at all hours of the night. Usually with her guy of the moment who often never lasted more than a week. It was "setting a bad example for Sydney" as Mom put it. Kady would just roll her eyes and mumble and apology. And for some crazed reason, Mom would buy it. I wish I could pull that kind of stuff.
But no, with me, it's always, "Sydney, don't roll your eyes at me." "Sydney, don't snap at me." "Sydney, be back before eleven." "Sydney, don't mumble, it's bad for your speech. If you're ever going to get into Princeton or Yale- It didn't matter that I didn't want to go to Princeton or Yale-, you have to speak loudly and clearly." It was enough to drive anyone crazy. And I was about two centimeters away from needing a straight jacket.
I pushed my way through the crowd of people at the reception hall, trying to find Dad. A loud burst of laughter came from the "Aimee" corner where her "highness" was holding court. The high pitched, completely fake laughter grated my already raw nerves. I resisted the urge to go over there and smack some sense into those half-wit brain dead bimbos. I mean, come on, it was just a ring. It wasn't that fascinating and in my opinion looked very, very fake. There was just no way Jeremy could afford a 4 ½ carat ring. J.Lo's 6 carat ring cost more than a million dollars and Jeremy didn't make anymore than 50K a year. At least, I didn't think he did. The happy couple doesn't really like to discuss finances around the younger sister.
Dad spotted me in the mass of people before I did him. He stopped the conversation with his entourage of people I had never met and didn't have the over powering desire to do so, and yelled, "Sydney, pumpkin, over here."
Pumpkin? I wanted to smack him. I honestly wanted to smack my dad. Or smack myself to see if this was all a dream or not. Did he not know that I wasn't six anymore and no one called a sixteen-year-old girl pumpkin? Apparently not. Dad, you and me have got to have a talk and decide what names you are allowed to call me and which ones you aren't. First on the list: Pumpkin. That one is gone without question. I waved back at him and started to make my way towards him.
It was my own personal D-Day. I had to talk to my dad and the new wife and pretend like I was happy for them. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to it.
Yay? Nay? Continue? Review please!