A/N: I'm thinking of changing the title. "Different Circumstances"? That's so...vague. But if I make it more specific, I risk giving away the whole plot...
Oh, yeah. When Puck came crashing into the Grimm household, it is... November. Just to be clear. And no, that's maybe not a spoiler.
As usual, the New York streets were busy with buses, cabs, and people driving to work, even on an early November morning. All the people hurried along on the sidewalks, dressed in their usual professional work clothing, ducking their heads and staring down as their fingers went crazy on their electronic planners and cell phone keyboards. One thing was different on this morning, though.
There was a girl standing on the sidewalk, silent and unmoving, simply staring up at an apartment building and waiting.
All the passerby subconsciously skirted around her. Maybe it was her frosty blue tank top and white skinny jeans, remarkably thin for this time of year, or maybe it was her hair - long and white blonde, with rich, blue-black streaks, flowing freely in the wind. It might've even been her snow-white skin or her sharp, ice-blue eyes, set in a determined, if a bit cruel-looking, face. Either way, something about her spelled trouble, and all the humans, going about their normal lives, chose wisely to avoid her.
If they hadn't, lord knows what she would've done to them all.
-0-o-0-o-0-
"Oh, god," Sabrina groaned. She blinked blearily and stared at the scene in front of her.
Her mother was furiously baking pancakes and flipping them onto a plate next to her, where they vanished quicker than they appeared. The garbage can was already overflowing with boxes of pancake mix, and Sabrina could already begin to see black crusts of dripped batter forming on the waffle machine, which looked dangerously close to spontaneous combustion. Daphne stood in one corner of the kitchen, clutching her ragged teddy bear and mouth agape, staring at the boy at the table, who somehow managed to take up every single one of the seats all by himself. The table itself was covered with piles of dishes, artificial maple syrup bottles and butter wrappers.
Puck, oblivious to the scene he was causing, continued to shovel mouthful after mouthful of pancakes and waffles into his mouth with his filthy, sticky hands. He licked the syrup off his fingers and made a noise of satisfaction. That was the tipping point for Sabrina - she'd just spent the entire night sleeping with her sister, getting kicked awake every three minutes. She'd woken up, still feeling exhausted, and stumbled over to the washroom, which was unusable because of its thick coating of toothpaste everywhere. And now, this - this fairy boy was eating every single bit of breakfast. No way. This was her home, and she wasn't about to let some uppity, arrogant, idiotic fairy boy take over it.
"Hey, stinkpot," she growled, balling one hand into a fist. "What do you think you're doing?"
He swallowed, and out of the corner of her eye, Sabrina saw Daphne cringe. "What does it look like, ugly? I'm eating."
"Yeah, you're eating our food in our house. Why don't you go back to fairyland and eat there?"
"Don't wanna."
She punched him in the gut.
He groaned and doubled over. Sabrina used that as an opportunity to shove him onto the ground. "Come on," she said to her wide-eyed sister. "Take a seat. We're going to be late for school if we don't hurry up."
Her mother stared at her, mouth agape. "Sabrina! We don't treat guests like that in our household!"
"Yeah, well, he's not a guest," she grumbled as she sat down. "He's just a stinky, horribly spoiled brat."
"Sabrina! That's enough!"
Sabrina jerked back as though she'd been hit. Never before had she heard her mother use that angry voice. She could feel her anger begin to grow, burning hotter and hotter with every passing second. Why was her mother on his side? He wasn't even part of their family! For all they knew, he was a fairy conman, and he was trying to cheat them all out of their home.
Veronica sighed and said, with a much gentler voice, "Honey, he's the Prince of faerie. You have to treat him with some respect."
"He got banished from the kingdom that he's the prince of," Sabrina snapped. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
Veronica looked up in exasperation. "Where's your father?" she muttered. "Henry, I could use a little help here!"
Right on cue, he stumbled into the dining room, folding one end of his tie over the other. "School, girls," he muttered, fiddling and trying to make his tie look remotely triangle-shaped. "You're going to be late."
He pointedly avoided looking in Puck's direction. Sabrina felt a rush of satisfaction. At least she wasn't the only one who clearly disliked Puck.
"Henry!" Veronica glared at him. "You're not supposed to encourage her."
"Huh? Encourage her? Encourage who? I don't know what you're talking about."
Sabrina had to hand it to her dad - he was a pretty good actor. Even so, he wasn't immune to her mother's anger, so less than five minutes later, she was in the car with him and Daphne, on their way to school.
"Dad, please tell me you're going to kick him out," she begged. "If I spend one more minute with him, I'm going to strangle him."
"Aw, but he's so funny!" Daphne laughed, but when Sabrina turned and glared at her, her smile faded. "Well... He is!" Daphne crossed her arms and looked away.
"He's not funny! He broke into my room in the middle of the night! How is that funny?"
"He's so zamazingsome!" Daphne cried. "Come on, Sabrina! Sneaking into a bedroom? That's, like, so Robin Hood-esque!"
"Robin Hood!" Henry whirled around and glared at his daughters. "What's this about Robin Hood?"
"Dad, look out!" Sabrina and Daphne both yelled at the same time. Their father turned forward and stomped on the brakes right as he crossed the white line. The three of them jerked forward, coming to sudden, yanking halts when their seat belts locked, and the crossing pedestrians and nearby motorists all shot them the stink eye. Many of the drivers behind them angrily honked their horns.
"What happened to 'safety before all else'?" Sabrina grumbled as she massaged her neck and glared at her father. "I think you just gave me whiplash."
"Oh, trust me, I'm not the worst driver out there." Henry grimaced and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "I'm going to have a talk with your teachers when we get to school. They need to stop feeding you all these fairy tales."
Sabrina laughed. "Good luck with that!"
Daphne beamed. "That was zamazingsome! That was totally like a rollercoaster ride! Can we do it again?"
A/N: Ohhhh, jeez. How long's it been since I last updated this thing? A while, I think. Ah, whatever. As they say, no use crying over spilled milk.
So, that's the third chapter, and the beginning part is all mysterious-type - who's the random girl? I mean, she's clearly not human...or is she? Spoilers! XP