Wherein family bonding ensues between an idiotic aunt and her violent niece who is bound on the idea that she's going to throw herself off a cliff from embarrassment.
Who could blame her?
Giving one smug smirk she scrutinized her now sparkling apartment, Lia crossed her arms over her chest. This was good. No, scratch that; this was great. Everything looked cleaner than clean. She dusted everything, washed each dish three times in a row, and she even swept under her refrigerator. The last one didn't seem necessary, but it was for good measure.
Apparently, Lia's father wasn't going to arrive on Christmas Eve, which was today. He was pulled back to finish some work, so he promised to come over Christmas morning. Lia wasn't really complaining, actually. Aunt Meredith decided to come today instead, ironically. Not a bad thing, but Lia didn't know if she could survive a day chasing after her fully-grown aunt that seemed to be interested in every single thing she saw.
And Auntie also made it clear (she repeated it six times in a sentence) that she would step foot into Lia's home at five o'clock sharp, which was now in two hours. All Lia had to do was wait.
For some reason, waiting wasn't as easy as Lia thought it'd be. About ten minutes into it, she got bored. Expectable, especially since she was seventeen and she had an active brain.
Sitting up from where she was seated on the floor, a reminder popped into Lia's slightly weary brain: food. Did she have enough food to feed an always hungry twenty-six year old woman who could swallow her niece up whole if her needs weren't given? It wouldn't really matter if it was just Lia and her dad. But Auntie would go through drastic things to get a mouthful of something.
Lia immediately ran toward the kitchen, which wasn't really far from where she was previously laying down since it was connected to the living room, opened the cupboards where she hid snacks. She bought three bags of chips for Auntie to nibble on and a jug of vanilla ice cream for her to eat if she craved something sweet. Really, Lia had this all under control right now.
So, since there wasn't anything productive she could do, Lia decided merely that she'd go have a hot shower to relax her tense muscles and make herself look presentable. Seriously, right now, Lia looked like crap.
Shutting the cupboards, Lia stretched, humming a random song under her breath as she made her way to the bathroom. There was a ton of things to do until Auntie arrived.
Again, all she had to do was kill time.
Lia shuddered when a single drop of cold water slid down her neck. No matter how many times she dried her hair, it still ended up soaking the neck of her shirt.
Her fingers dialled her aunt's phone number rapidly. It was eleven minutes into five o'clock and Aunt Meredith was nowhere in sight. So, Lia assumed that her mother's sister, who seemed to have a soggy brain, was either lost or she had forgotten. The former sounded much more realistic, but the latter sounded like something Auntie would definitely do.
Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, Lia waited for the ecstatic voice of her aunt to blow up her eardrum. But it took a while before Lia heard anything.
Finally, a high-pitched noise, who was obviously Auntie, scared the shit out of her. "Hello," Auntie said, her voice sounding quite rehearsed. Lia smiled widely, her heartbeat quickening faster than the fucking speed of light. Because Lia expected Auntie to be a douchebag and completely swerve her call. Because Lia expected her quirky-as-fuck aunt to be at the other side of town because she mistook Lia's address as something else.
"Hi, Aunt Meredith! I didn't see you here yet, so I was just checking to see if you were okay, you know? Like, I thought you forgot where I lived or something," Lia practically babbled, a child-like grin on her face. "And since you answered, I guess you're okay—"
And then she got interrupted.
"It's Meredith! I'm sorry, but I couldn't answer you're call mainly because I'm always busy, busy, busy! I'll call you back as quick as I can, though! Bye now!" And Auntie's voice was gone.
Lia smacked her hand on to her face. Voicemail. Really, either her aunt got swallowed by a toy robot at her company or she was just plain gone. Lia could kiss the wish of not being alone for Christmas Eve good-fucking-bye.
Groaning, Lia shamefully walked back to her couch with a dipped head and an upset frown that could stretch miles. Well, it was worth a try, wasn't it? Auntie probably didn't give a shit. It's cool.
Coincidentally, a rhythmic knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Groggily, Lia stood, walking towards the door and readying herself so she could give the lunatic at the other end of the door a piece of her fucking mind.
Swinging the wooden door open while murmuring curses, Lia stepped back once she saw who was creating such a cacophony. Of course, Lia felt a wave of happiness wash over her and jumped at the pink haired woman. "Auntie!"
Aunt Meredith grinned. "Hey, sugarplum! Sorry for coming late, I didn't know you lived beside KFC," she said, stepping inside and slipping off her jacket. "I was going to bring you some, but I got hungry and ate the rest. Again, I apologise." Auntie rubbed her chin thoughtfully as she peered around the vast living room. "Wow, you really cleaned up! Nice place you got here."
Lia bit the inside of her cheek. "Yeah," she muttered. That wasn't her plan. Auntie was supposed to feel sorry for her and invite her to live back in her posh little purple house and be in harmony, but then Lia got carried away and washed this dump up until it looked 'pretty'. Fuck her and her cleanliness.
Anyway, Lia still wondered how she got away with living on her own. As far as she knew, Auntie didn't let the government know that she was legally independent when Lia moved out, and she wasn't even eighteen yet. As Lia said before, Auntie got away with everything.
Taking Aunt Meredith's coat, Lia turned her head to see that the woman was already helping herself to a bag of chips and was pressing the remote's buttons wildly. Lia worried her lip between her teeth, frowning. She had a feeling this was going to be a long day.
"How's school?" Auntie mumbled as she chewed on the last chip. When she thought Lia wasn't looking, and Lia certainly was, she wiped her fingers on the carpet that Lia previously scrubbed so hard her fingers were still red.
Lia shrugged, scooping ice cream into a bowl. "It's alright. Nothing too exciting," she replied. Passing the bowl to her aunt, Lia settled down next to her. "How's the job?"
"Eh." Auntie pushed away some flying hairs away from her face, trapping them behind her ears. "Nice. Fun. Sometimes it's hard." Auntie slurped the last bits of ice cream in her bowl, sliding it toward the green-eyed girl. "You know, being the manager and all." She winked and Lia rolled her eyes, snorting.
They sat in silence, listening to the humming refrigerator and the TV's barely audible commercial break before Auntie sighed loudly. "I'm bored," the woman whined, sighing again for good measure. "Let's go do something fun!"
Lia could hardly answer, watching Auntie jump and swing her coat around her shoulders. "Please, Lianne! We'll come back as soon as possible. I want to walk around town and eat something exotic, like Italian pizza!" Auntie cried out.
Whatever. Lia's mom always said she needed to do something active and be social. Why not do it with Auntie?
To make a long story short, Auntie was officially the craziest, most embarrassing person ever.
Auntie decided and persisted that she didn't want to take her car because it used too much gas, which didn't make any sense since she drove to Lia's apartment with it, and then said she wanted to 'explore the wide, secret areas of Sweet Amoris that she hasn't discovered yet'. Lia couldn't understand what the hell she meant by that, but didn't bother to ask and continued to try and keep up with the woman.
About fifteen minutes later, Auntie got hungry. Which meant that Lia had to feed the lady something or she wouldn't be able to see her father the next day, and that was the only thing she was looking forward to this Christmas.
Luckily, they were close to a little fast food joint that Lia and Castiel went to sometime before. Of course, Lia didn't have the brains to step back and wonder if going into there would be a good idea, and literally shoved her twenty-six year old aunt inside.
"Okay," Lia breathed, her chest heaving. "Go order something, please, Auntie. Eat whatever you want." It didn't really occur to Lia at that moment that her aunt was relying on her seventeen year old niece to buy food for her, so Lia let it slide. Until she heard Aunt Meredith saying, "Lia, honey, are these chicken nuggets to expensive and out of your budget?"
So then Lia thought, fuck it, whatever. Let Auntie spend all her money until she was a broke bitch again. Anyway, Lia received her check yesterday, which was good, although it wasn't a lot of money. She'll just have to make up for it then, work some extra shifts.
Sighing, Lia set her jacket down on one of the seats. Auntie wanted a burger, fries, a drink, and five-piece chicken nuggets, and all that totaled up to a big whopping 10.95 alone. Which meant that if Lia wanted to buy groceries next week, she'll have to keep her chill and not get anything herself. Except Lia was super hungry.
And that was how Lia spent another eleven dollars, buying herself some lunch, too. With a broken sigh, she handed her money to the cashier woman and shakily (and carefully, don't forget that) picked up her and Auntie's food toward the table. She's done this before. She can do this.
But then, Lia, who was concentrating on counting each sesame seed on her burger, crashed into something, her food flying over and spilling across dirty, snow-stained linoleum.
Looking up, she was met with a charming practised smile and too-blonde hair. "Lia! I'm so, sorry for bumping into you – do you need some help cleaning up?" Candy said, her beam faltering. "Let me pick—"
When Candy stopped talking, Lia furrowed her eyebrows, looking at what made the other girl pause. Sure enough, Auntie was kneeling on the floor, one fry in her mouth as she dusted off her burger.
"For God's sake, Auntie," Lia huffed under her breath, her cheeks burning. How embarrassing. The waiters were watching, one of them laughing so hard that they sounded like they were choking. Candy was giggling, too, a little. It almost sounded like a chirp. It was quite disgusting.
And there was also another laugh, one Lia's heard in her nightmares that had her falling on her face while she was having a meeting with the president (that dream didn't make a whole lot of sense, but sometimes Lia woke up dripping in sweat and swears slipping off the tip of her tongue).
Lia tilted her head, just enough so that she could see who the hell was making that sound and to ask them to stop immediately or else there would be consequences. Again, wow, great, it was Castiel. Could this day get any worse?
Castiel sauntered over, his smirk so wide it could split his face in half, then wrapped his arm around Candy's shoulders. It was most likely to get Lia to say something, but she knew better. Instead, she grinned. "So, Castiel, have you found yourself something to ruin?"
Weak as hell, but Lia didn't have anything other to say. And it was enough to make Castiel knit his eyebrows together in annoyance, so. "Jealous?"
Candy grinned, batting her eyelashes. What a fucking bitch.
"Anyway," Castiel interrupted. "There's a party at my place on New Years'. Don't bother to ask where it is, or something, since your friends are coming to and have the address. Ask them." And then he spun him and Candy the other way, whispering in her ear.
Parties were never Lia's thing. Really, they weren't, since she never got invited to any besides Armin's birthday parties which were much of a party, especially since all they do there were play video games and eat chips. And this was an actual party too – the ones with drinks and people and illegal substances that Lia is going try to stay away from. Still, she got invited, and she was going to drag her ass there no matter what the hell happened.
Turning around, Lia's eyes almost popped out of her head when she saw that all the food that fell was gone. And nobody came to clean it up, so—
"Auntie!" Lia shouted, causing all the food in the middle-aged woman's mouth to spill. "Don't – c'mon, we're going home. You've had enough."
It's funny, because Lia's dad ended up coming anyway.
Maybe it was some kind of trick so he could surprise her, but it failed when Lia saw him sitting in front of her apartment door, a box with a ribbon on top in his hands and a sheepish look on his face. Lia jump at him anyway, murmuring "Oh my god, Oh my God, Dad," over and over until Auntie pulled her hair a little bit. (Which was weird, but Lia took it as nothing. She suspected Auntie was either jealous or liked her hair very much.)
"Hey, honey!" her dad exclaimed, hugging her one last time before he got up. "Apparently, I got the day off!"
Lia snorted.
Auntie squirmed in the background. "Lia, open the door. Please. I don't feel comfortable in tight places," she mumbled. It was weird because the hallway was so spacious, it was as big as her living room.
Lia did as she was told anyway, shrugging. Auntie pushed pass them both, slipping off her slushy shoes and slinking into the kitchen. They followed, though, because they were both quite hungry. The only thing Lia had left after all the food dropped was her drink, which wasn't much of a food.
Lia's father stood in the middle of the room, eyebrow arched and his mouth in a straight line. "Lia. What a…nice place you've got here, ha." He didn't really mean that, Lia could tell. Which was very good.
"I found it for her and paid off half of the rent, water, and heating bill," Auntie chirped, stepping beside Lia's father to gesture around. "I know it looks good. Because I found it."
Lia's dad held a small smile, then made his face serious. "And I paid the other half of the bill."
Auntie stared at him once before she spun around, practically growling, her hair flying in his face sharply. Lia's was not sure on how she was going to survive a few more days with this shit.
The next day, while Lia's dad was asleep and she and Aunt Meredith were cruising on the sofa and channel surfing through the T.V, Auntie got an idea. Or at least Lia think she did, judging on how suddenly, while they were watching The Shopping Channel (which was quite interesting, and Lia wondered if she'll get one of those lavish purses or shirts. She probably won't), Auntie started laughing. It was the nastiest laugh Lia ever heard, making her twist from her spot on the left side of the sofa to lift a brow.
Except Auntie wouldn't stop. Lia decided to put her foot down when Auntie fell off the chair and started spitting out her milk.
"Are you alright, Auntie? Everything okay?" Lia asked. Nothing was okay, actually, seeing that her aunt was now literally rolling on the floor with giggles that were getting worse by the minute. Lia was getting mad, seriously, because Auntie was laughing (?) so hard she couldn't hear over the lady talking on the T.V. Apart of her wanted to throw a pillow at her and another part wanted to suffocate her with it.
But everyone knows that suffocating your Aunt isn't nice, so Lia won't do it.
"Auntie, what's going on?" Lia snapped. "Stop laughing or I'll spill your cereal out the window."
Aunt Meredith did stop, actually. Not before she laughed once more. She sat up and sighed, stretching like nothing even happened and it made Lia so confused she had to do a double take.
"Lia," Auntie yawned, blinking. "I'm laughing 'cos I think you forgot its Christmas!"
"How could I forget its Christmas?" Lia wondered dumbly. Lia's wasn't that stupid, actually; sure, she's forgotten many important things, but it's not like she's going to forget something that was all around her. The Shopping Channel lady was repeating the words "It's Christmas!" every twenty five seconds, too, so maybe Auntie should get her head out of her ass. "I'm just waiting for dad to wake up."
(Why was Lia so rude?)
Auntie blinked again, a deep crease forming between her carefully crafted eyebrows. "Okay. Well, he's already awake. He's behind you, by the way." And she huffed and stormed off into the bathroom, the lock clicking loudly.
Silence followed and then the bathroom sink water turned on. Almost instantly, everything began to flow smoothly again; the tense air shattered and Lia began to smile, completely forgetting that her aunt was probably having a fit.
"Anyway," she hummed, grabbing her dad's hand quickly and tugging him toward the little Christmas tree in the middle of the room. "I got you a present!"
Sticking her tongue out, she carefully unwrapped the gift she and Auntie spent hours decorating last night. And she also spent more money than necessary on this item, too, so she was crossing his fingers and toes that he'd like the gift.
"Hey, it's my present, Lia," her dad scolded playfully when she was struggling on ripping the paper apart. "Let me do it." He pulled the paper once and it was off, making them both snicker. He then carefully took out the little box and opened it.
Lia stared. She couldn't help it. It would be utter shit if something went wrong. "So? Y'like it?"
Lia's father slowly took out the wrist-watch, his eyes glistening like they were smiling. It made Lia's heart jump, like she was on a rollercoaster, because she hasn't seen someone happy like that in a long time.
He thumbed over the black leather around the clock with rhythm that she followed with her eyes. "Lia. This is wonderful, sweetheart. Thank you."
His voice was so small, like if raised it to a higher octave everything would have collapsed. Lia smiled back, just as big, just as wide, hugging him tightly.
Because she had never felt so proud of.
Christmas nights were black - coffee without milk black, eight-ball black. It caught her attention right before bed, when her mouth tasted like mint toothpaste and leftover ice tea. The only light source were the scattered stars that looked like spilled salt over a dark surface and she wanted to touch them, one by one until she lost count.
Lia hesitated, wondering if she should ask Auntie if she wanted to check it out too. She was being quite distant today, so distant that Lia was missing her even when Auntie was right beside her. All she did was hand over Lia's gift – peanut brittle cookies – and sit on the couch, out of reach.
Lia's father had already drifted into one of his deep dream-filled sleeps. He was staying until December 29th, just like Auntie. Apparently, he still had jetlag.
So she just sat there - hair tied in a sloppy bun - feeling more alive than she ever did. Like she wasn't alone, even if it was only her in her room. Like that if she could reach out, she could trace everything and everyone all at once. Like the whole world was in the palm of her hands.
Her eyes have gotten brighter, too, the eye bags she used to have slapped off her face and her cheeks with more color than before.
She sighed, dropping on her back on her bed and curling into her pillow. What a fucking magnificent day. She hasn't even stepped out her apartment, but Lia felt like she has walked around the world by foot – tired but still up to continue.
Maybe this is what the lucky ones feel.
A/N: it took me three months to write a single chapter...how disgusting.
anyway, I hope you enjoy this tiny thing. i'll update much more sooner, promise. love y'all.
