The Twilight Couch
Acepilot

AN - No.27 in the Road series. This story has been interesting to write - there's elements of three different abandoned stories in here, plus a core plot that I've been trying to write for ages. And just so we're clear - I've got nothing against Mediterranean's (I'm part-Italian) or Greeks. But the characters of Sophie's family are based on some people I know (not the family of my muse, who Sophie is based on, just so we're clear). And the cartoon thing in the middle is more about soap operas than cartoons. But I did watch this ridiculously confusing cartoon at about three a.m. one night. It didn't have horses in it, though. The main inspiration behind Cassandra's bit is actually the fact that Disney Channel Australia used to only broadcast The Weekenders, one of my fave cartoons, at 3 in the morning, so I'd get up and watch it.

Disclaimer - the characters of AGU are property of KlaskyCsupo.

Most people, it occurs to me, have it better than me.

You see, when most people get their wife narked off at them for any number of useless little reasons, most of which aren't really their fault, if looked at from their perspective, in fact, really, their wives are just being irrational, but women often are...

You see, when most people get their wife narked off at them, they just get turfed onto their couch, where they spend a fitful and miserable night of longing for the company of their significant other, of remorseful thoughts, of regret, but mostly of trying to avoid all those dreadfully placed springs.

The problem being that it's a widely acknowledged fact that our couch is the most comfortable place to lay down in our house - even moreso than our bed.

So, when I get my wife narked off at me for any number of useless little reasons, most of which aren't really my fault, if looked at from my perspective, in fact, really, she's just being irrational, though that's kind of a female trait...

So when I get my wife narked off at me, she just turfs me out of the house instead.

She would be very happy to know that I turned down the offer from Tommy and Lil to sleep on their guest bed, submitting to my punishment, if unhappily. I did, however, accept their offer of a doona, as it's been getting pretty cold lately.

She would also be happy to know that the couch I'm now lying on has several very badly placed springs, and is far, far too short. And these cushions are kind of lumpy.

And I'm wide awake, thinking regretful, remorseful thoughts, and knowing that I'll be having even more of them if I can't remember in the morning what it was I got chucked out of my house for.

I'm lying with my face to the back of the couch so I don't initially notice when I'm joined in the living room. But I do notice when whoever it is joining me, evidently not quite thinking clearly, lands with a heavy "thud" right on top of me.

My ribs creak in protest and I feel very old but after a moment I get my breath back in time to be assailed with very, very quiet cries of "Oh god! I'm so sorry!".

I roll over, rubbing sleepily at my eyes, and see...a blur, standing over me.

Glasses. Glasses would probably help.

I fumble on the coffee table and manage to knock the damn things onto the ground. I finally manage to not crush them and pull them onto my face.

I have to blink to make sure that I actually have put them on and actually am seeing what I'm seeing.

"Sophie?" I ask, disbelievingly.

In the pathetic half-light of the middle of the night, she has the most mortified look I've ever seen in my life plastered all over her face. "Oh, wow, Mr. DeVille, I'm so, so sorry - "

"It's too late in the night to get called Mr. DeVille," I tell her. Or at least I think I tell her. My mouth is so thickened with sleep that it could have sounded like anything. "Forgive my surprise, I didn't know you were here."

"Neither did I. Know you were here, that is. I knew I was here, evidently -"

"Breathe, Sophie."

She nods and gulps a few breaths before staggering woozily over to a nearby chair and collapsing in it.

"What are you doing up?" I ask. "Sneaking out?"

She shakes her head. "No. I'm just..." she hangs her head in her hands. "I don't know what it is I'm doing, in all honesty."

I raise an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

She doesn't raise her eyes to look at me. "I'm...I don't know..."

I sit up and run a hand sleepily through my hair. "Does anyone other than James and I know you're here?" I ask, thinking back to rocking up last night and seeing no sign of Sophie throughout my memories.

She shakes her head.

"Do your parents know you're here?"

One of the most magnificent things about being a teacher, I learnt very quickly, is that there is an element of it that allows you to understand why your students are...as they are, sort of. Why they have their little nuances, their fears, their strengths and weaknesses, the whole bit. It's called "Parent/Teacher Interviews", and they give you a fascinating insight into the lives of your students in the space of about five or ten minutes.

As predicted, she shakes her head.

I sit back for a moment and ponder what I know of Sophie, her family, and her unconventional (to say the least) courtship with James over the recent summer. Her family are Greek - I think so, anyway, I know they're Mediterranean, I'm assuming they're Greek - and very, very traditional. Had her when they were fairly old, had her extremely irritating little brother when they were even older. One of the reasons James was so effective at riling her at school was that she was quite insular and didn't know all that much about life, which is why I'm glad to get this confirmation they've hooked up - I think James could do her a lot of good. And she could probably do the same to him.

That said, her family would not have let her out of their house to go to a boy's house in a million years. I'm surprised she got out of the house at all.

"So, where are you?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"At a friend's. She goes to another school, you don't know her. She covers for me overnight, and I tear out of here in the wee-small hours before anyone's up." She rolls her eyes. "Except you, of course."

I grin. "I was wondering why I didn't see James last night," I tell her. "You can't be sneaking off already."

She shakes her head. "I wasn't. I just needed...to think. I couldn't sleep, I didn't think anyone would be up."

I nod. "What's keeping you up?" She seems to flinch, physically, away from the question, and I decide to change my line of questioning. "Sorry," I cover quickly. "I just wanted to know if there was anything I could help you with."

She slumps back in her chair and sighs. "You wouldn't understand."

Ah. I think I'm onto something. "When I proposed to my wife, her family hated me with a fiery passion, for various reasons that were never completely explored. I was thoroughly disapproved of." I spread my palms in front of me. "Try me."

She looks me up and down for a second as if to gauge my honesty, and then turns to face me fully.

Now what? Do I treat her as an ex-student? Or as my nephew's girlfriend? Or just someone who I'm swapping stories and advice with?

We'll roll with it as we go and see what happens.

"I can't tell my family about going out with James. Which is why I've tried to make sure he doesn't tell his."

I nod. My suspicions confirmed. "Because he's not Greek?"

"Because he's not Greek," she agrees. "That, and because I haven't exactly given him a glowing review in the past. It would just be too...complicated, for them."

I sink back into the couch. "Maybe you're not giving them enough credit."

"You've met my parents, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I know, not likely." I sigh. "Well, it comes down to it, really, doesn't it? What do you care more about? James, or what they think of him?"

"I don't know," she tells me. "And that scares me."

"Why?"

"Because...well, because they're all I've ever known." She clasps her hands together and bows her forehead to meet their point, and I feel eerily out of place. "I mean, I guess I never really got out as much as most kids my age. And whatever they've said, I've taken without questioning it." She looks up again, and this time I can feel more than see her piercing gaze in the half-light of the living room. "And now I am questioning it, all for a guy who I only just started dating."

I guess I really hadn't thought about it from that kind of perspective. Most of my life the only person I ever took completely seriously was Lil, even if I didn't show it as often as I should. Then when I became determined to work it out with Kimi, I guess I really had to do some growing up then, whether I wanted to or not. But growing up, I guess I never had anyone who I was so completely dedicated to as Sophie is to her family.

I wonder if I could have betrayed Lil's disapproval, her opinions, for a girl. For Kimi.

Maybe I could have. I mean, I don't think Lil would be so close-minded as to disapprove of Kimi because of ethnicity or anything. And she didn't. But if she had, maybe I could have. But that said, I've known Kimi all my life and knew I was in love with her before our relationship, rocky as it was, even began. If I'd battled with her most of my life and only recently started dating her, could I?

I don't know if I can answer that.

"I'll get along with the sentiment," I assure her.

"I don't know if I love him or not," she tells me. "But...what if I fall in love with him, and they don't like him? Or what if I tell them I'm with him, then we break up, and I'll have lost everyone?"

I sigh, and lean my head over the arm of the couch. "Sophie, can I speak to you in a completely unprofessional manner?"

She nods. "Sure. Hardly professional circumstances."

"Sometimes you have to take a risk," I tell her. "And I don't have your perspective on it, and maybe I'm biased, but I think James is a pretty good guy. I think he cares about you - no, I know he cares about you. I think he always has, on some level, he just didn't quite know how to show it. The parents thing...well, maybe you should hold off. With yours. But take my word for it and be here in the morning."

"His parents will kill us!" she hisses.

"Have you met his parents?" I ask.

She nods. "Of course. Just not as his girlfriend, and certainly not as his girlfriend who just spent the night without them knowing about it."

I grin. "I'll deal with them. You've got stuff to think about, but take my word for it and think about it with him around to remind you why you're having this crisis of faith in the first place."

She nods. "Okay." She sounds unsure, but nevertheless rises from her seat and heads towards the stairs. She turns back just as she is about to ascend. "Oh, and..."

"Phil," I tell her. "Just Phil."

"Thanks, Phil."

And then she's gone.

And I slump back down onto the couch, casting a quick eye at the clock on the video player.

It's still only just past 1 in the morning.

Back when Tommy, Chuckie, Dil and I would stay over at each others place and try to stay up all night, we had this theory that the time that killed you in pulling an all-nighter was that space of time from about 3a.m. to 6a.m. That period when there's nothing justifiably good on TV, no matter how many channels you have, when you can't do anything you haven't already done without waking people up, when the temptation to get just a little bit of a nap finally gets the better of you and you doze off against your will.

Of course, I now find myself in something of the opposite situation. I'd love to go to sleep. But it's just not happening. Maybe if I hold out until three I'll have more luck.

I put the glasses back on the coffee table, lie down on the couch, and breath in and out quietly, closing my eyes and listening to the absolute silence of the house.

And then the TV flicks on.

I jolt out of my haziness right quick and look straight at the TV, flinching away in less than a second as the surprisingly bright light hits my face. I finally just bodily flop back down onto the couch.

"Sorry Uncle Phil. I didn't mean to wake you."

I rub my eyes and balance my head precariously on the arm of the couch. "You didn't wake me, Cassandra. Don't worry about it." I look up at the blurry room around me and shake my head to clear it. "What time is it?"

"Two-thirty," she tells me. Gee, I was out for longer than I thought.

"What are you doing up?" I vocalise, pinning the blur that I hope is Cassandra with a questioning look, before pulling on my glasses again and realising I was interrogating a pot plant.

But that doesn't matter, because Cassandra wasn't looking at me anyway. "My cartoon is coming on," she tells me, indicating the TV.

"At two-thirty in the morning?" I ask. "They don't show it later in the day?"

"I'm starting a petition at school," she tells me.

"Remind me to sign it," I tell her.

"Do you want to watch with me?" she asks, and as she gazes at me with a pleading and very cute look I'm reminded eerily of my twin sister at Cassie's age.

"All right," I concede, pulling myself up but keeping my doona wrapped tight around me.

It takes ten minutes before I'm completely lost in this cartoon. I have no idea of anything that's going on in it. Back in my day, cartoons were easy to follow. They were short, quick and to the point. But now, if whatever it is we're watching is anything to go by, that's not how they do it any more.

"So what's that guy doing?" I ask.

"He's trying to find the plans for Janie's robotic hand."

"I thought Janie was the good guy."

"She is."

"Then what's he want the plans for?"

"Because he thinks Janie's a bad guy because the horses told him to look in the teapot and he found a piece of paper with all of Janie's friends names on it."

"I thought the horses were just a dream sequence."

"They were. But then he went and saw them and they told him the dream was right."

I lie down and decide that the writers of this must be some pretty good people to party with. I decide not to share this opinion with Cassie.

When the cartoon is over and Cassie is gone, I don't have to try and stay awake any longer and decide dozing off sounds like a stand-up idea.

And just as I'm drifting off again, the kitchen light flickers to life and penetrates the tiniest crack in my eyelid. I groan and awake again, disturbed to notice that I've forgotten to take my glasses off this time.

Physically hauling myself up despite my body urging me to lay down and die in the hope it might get some rest if I did so, I stagger into the kitchen. Tommy is standing over the kitchen bench in his dressing gown making a cup of coffee.

"I'll have one white with two," I tell him, and he jumps three feet in the air. I don't have the energy to really laugh, so I settle for a stifled giggle as he glares at me, but he pulls down an extra mug anyway. "What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same," he points out.

"You woke me," I tell him. "Your turn."

"Editing," he informs me.

"Bit of an odd time to be editing, isn't it?" I ask. "Three in the morning?"

"Only time I've got, really," he tells me, clicking the kettle off and pouring the boiling water. "I've been trying not to bring my work home anymore. But sometimes it's unavoidable. Still, I refuse to let it get in the way of my family any more, so - "

"You do it in the middle of the night," I finish for him, accepting a cup of coffee. "Ingenious."

"Haven't you ever marked essays or anything in the wee small hours?" Tommy asks.

I shake my head. "Not really. I guess...you don't have a chess board, do you?" He gives me an odd look and I shake my head at him. "Never mind, bit of an in-joke."

He shakes his head at me. "This wouldn't have something to do with the baby vomit jokes you and Chuckie share that no-one else can work out?"

I nod. "It does indeed," I tell him, "but that's a story for another time. Want a hand?"

"Editing?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, it can't be that different from marking essays," I defend myself. "Come on, hit us with one."

He slides me over an A4 ring-bound book. "New script I'm looking over to film this winter."

I read the title and nod. "So, how does it feel being a part of a big film business instead of the indy director you always wanted to be?"

He shrugs. "Unsatisfying. I want to get back to basics."

"Thus the script?" I ask, reading over it with the same eye I use on essays, feeling a touch more awake as I down more coffee. It's got will-be-rejected-by-Hollywood-studios written all over it.

"Thus the script," he confirms. "You know, I made it big with an indy film, so all the studios chase me. But now they're expecting me to do it their way, and they're wondering why I can't make anything like The Concept again."

I nod. "Does strike me as a bit odd."

"How's life been treating you, Phil?"

I'm so surprised by the sudden change in the line of questions that I have to run over the conversation to this point in my head to make sure there wasn't actually a big break in our talking. I contemplate answers, and then finally, gamely, offer a brief, "Fine. How's yours?"

He shakes his head. "That's not what I meant." He gets a far-off look in his eyes and I can just imagine him going through a typically cliched bit of harp-driven flashback music in his head. "Sometimes, when I'm doing this, or anything really, I just think back to the days when we were all at college, or even back at high school, when we were full of dreams and ambitions. And I wonder what happened. I mean, you wanted to be - a musician?"

I nod. "I was young and foolish then."

"And I wanted to be a big-time director, only to discover that big-time directing wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And Cuckie wanted to write, but now he's having to be a journalist to pay the bills, and I know he hates it, no matter how much he denies it." He shakes his head. "And of course, Dil - "

"We all know what happened with Dil," I cut him off. I don't know why, but I still don't like talking about what happened between Dil and Amanda that caused the younger Pickles to suddenly make a right-angled turn in his life. I know it's not really either of their faults, so it's not like I'm taking sides, and I know that it probably did him a world of good. But it was just such a dark and horrible experience through which I was completely unable to help him. I don't like thinking about how I let him down during that time. "So we all settled?"

"You think differently?" he asks.

I lean back and finish my coffee, staring at the ceiling, but more through it than actually at the tiles above me. "I think that we take the good with the bad. I think you're loving the chance to direct, even if you're not getting to do as much as you want with it. I think Chuckie will take the journalism because it means he can write without worrying about how he's going to support his family."

"And you?"

I grin. "I was a young and foolish kid." I shake my head, but not with negation, but rather with happiness. "I think teaching is the only thing I was ever meant to do. I might not be doing what I thought I'd do, but I'm doing what I love doing." I raise my head again and meet him eye-for-eye. "That said, if anyone offer me a recording contract, I'll take it."

He lets out one, slightly-too-loud laugh and claps his hand quickly over his mouth. Stage whispering, he says, "I'll let Suzie know you're in the market."

It's close to four-thirty in the morning as I settle back into the couch. Tommy is gone, back to bed for a few more hours sleep by his wife's side. The coffee has kicked me well and truly into gear, though, and I'm now unable to go to sleep if I wanted to. I decide to while away the time trying to remember why it was, specifically, that Kim chucked me out of the house last night. It might have had something to do with the dishes.

"You awake?"

I wonder if this house is always so active in the middle of the night. Mine might be and I just sleep through it all.

I roll over and face James. "Yeah," I admit. "What are you doing up?"

"Sophie told me you guys talked," he tells me.

I grin. "I wanted to talk to you about that, by the way," he tells me.

He rolls his eyes. I'm becoming quite well adjusted to this lower light level. "About what?" he asks, fear creeping into his voice.

"Nothing too tragic," I assure him. "I just wanted to make some kind of cocky 'It's about time' statement."

He shoots me a nasty glare. "You were not right."

"Ah, but I was," I insist, almost cackling nastily. "I told you that the two of you would sort out all your problems if you just finally hooked up. I saw it before with Chuckie and Angelica. You should have taken my word for it."

"Anyway," he cuts me off, "she seemed to suggest that you had helped her through something or other. I was wondering if I could ask what."

I nod. "I thought you might." I sigh, propping myself up on my elbow. "She was worried about what her family would think of you."

"Because I'm such a jerk or because I'm not Greek?"

"Bit of both, actually," I tell him. "The stories they've heard of you have, of course, not been flattering."

"Yes, well, I regret that."

"I thought you might," I agree. I then offer a sly grin. "That said, teaching you guys wouldn't have been the same without your legendry sniping matches."

"Thanks for the support, old man," James mutters through gritted teeth. "How do you think I should deal with her parents?"

I shrug, though as I'm still wrapped in a doona it comes off as a bit muted. "Roll with it."

"How did you deal with Chaz and Kira?" he asks.

I think back. "Very, very delicately. I'll tell you, rocking up at your ex-girlfriend's house to announce your engagement to people who think you're a scumbag who broke their daughter's heart is something that is to be done with great, great care." I shrug. "Your biggest problem is going to be that you didn't get permission. But they've more or less got to deal with you sooner or later, I guess." I swap myself end for end on the couch so my head's nearer to James. "You want my advice about what you really need to do?"

He nods. "Sure, why not?"

"Focus on her. Do you love her?"

He shakes his head, but utters, "I think I'm starting to."

"Then show her. Don't let her think you're wavering. Let her know that you'll be there for her and that she means as much to you as she does. If she's got confidence in your relationship, then she's going to stand by you. No matter what."

"Are you playing both ends against the middle?"

"Something similar, possibly."

My eldest nephew grins. "Thanks, Uncle Phil."

"You're welcome."

"Game of cards?" James asks, producing his trademark deck from a pocket in his dressing gown.

"Go back to bed, James," I order.

Kids. They're impossible...

With that thought, I find myself finally, at long last, drifting off, lulling into a deep, deep -

"Ooph."

"Serves you right for sleeping on our couch," Andrew brightly declares while clambering off me, and I find myself blinking rapidly, trying to bring myself back to consciousness. There's now daylight streaming in the windows and Andy has turned on the TV. It's still down to a fairly low volume, so I'm guessing it's early enough that no-one else is up, but I'm also aware that I just ran out of time to sleep.

"What time is it?" I ask, my back regretting the weight of a fourteen year old male.

"Six a.m."

"What are you watching?"

"Road Runner and Coyote. You want to watch too?"

I grin. "Now there's something I can deal with."

"What?"

I shake my head. "Never mind. Sure, I'll watch."

By the time Road Runner ends and Andy flicks the channel over to Garfield and Friends, James has joined us and is on the chair. When Orson's Farm comes on Sophie descends the stairs, wrapped in James' gown, her hair damp from a shower (and so, I notice worriedly, is James'). She shoves James over far enough to give her room on the chair, and he lets her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. If Andy notices, he doesn't say anything. By the time we're back with Garfield, Cassie has arrived and is sitting on the top of the couch in a position that would land her smack on my head if she fell. I'm trying not to think about the potential for concussion.

When James commandeers the remote and changes over to The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, my sister breezes into the room, showered, dressed, and looking ready for a day of...whatever she does on weekends. I guess I never really thought about it.

"You look comfortable," she tells me, pulling up a seat while drinking a cup of coffee.

I look up at the delicately perched girl over my head and down at the heavily perched male presently making himself at home on my legs.

"You want some breakfast, guys?" she asks after a few minutes.

There's a rousing round of yes's, and she grins and rises to move into the kitchen.

And it's then that she notices her son is curled up with a girl on her husband's favorite chair.

I'm watching her more closely than the cartoon, sheerly because, no matter how awesome Charles Schulz is, the expressions my sister is conjuring are funnier.

"Uh...hi...Sophie, wasn't it?"

The younger girl nods nervously, and her eyes dart between James' comforting, loving gaze, Lil's nervously unpredictable one, and my own hopefully cool, calm and collected one. Lil goes to say something to the pair but I catch her eye and shake my head quickly and decisively, hoping she gets the message. She does, but it doesn't help much. I'm waiting for the tension to snap, and, predictably enough, it's Cassie who breaks it, perhaps not fully comprehending what's going on, but definitely knowing that something was out of place. "What are you making for breakfast, Mom?"

Lil shakes herself out of it. "Whatever everyone would like, I guess. Except Phil. He gets gruel and black coffee."

"It's alright, Uncle Phil," James tells me, "you can have my pancakes."

I grin. Lil glowers. "Come on, little brother. You can help me make breakfast."

I rub at my eyes in the kitchen, filling the kettle and feeling the lack of a good night's sleep starting to settle in on me. Lil shoots me a quick glance. "What's the matter with you?"

"I didn't sleep enough," I tell her.

"Why?" she asks sarcastically. "Our romping around the house keep you up all night?"

it occurred to me during the editing process that this is the 40th fanfiction i've written for the AGU fandom in the last eight-and-a-half months. wow. that's...well, that's more than double my work in other fandoms combined. and i'm prouder of my AGU work than i am of any of my other stuff. so, thanks to all who gave me feedback and in general just read my fics. you keep me going. hope you enjoyed this fic, please review!