Two years passed without much incident.
Harri was about five years old, according to Lea's best friend's mother – Trisha.
Trisha was a kind woman, a brilliant mother and probably the reason Lea had survived to double digits. Isa was lucky to have her. However, no matter how many times Trisha offered them a room in the already cramped Boulevard residence, Lea declined living in her house.
They'd come to a compromise after three months of conversations over hot chocolate, guilt tripping and Trisha sending her youngest to try and convince Harri to stay for tea. Lea couldn't force two more kids on the single, working mother – seven was more than enough. Isa stayed out of it all, sighing exasperatedly.
So Lea and Harri spent three nights a month there and came around for Sunday dinner with the rest of the Boulevard family.
A Sunday just like today.
When the latest generation of Boulevards wandered down back streets and alleys of Radiant Gardens, all locals pointed towards their youngest residents and troublemakers. They were thankful for a day where trading and shady markets could go undisturbed and with nothing surreptitiously stolen from wealthier men's pockets – their best clients were rich and starting to be scared off.
Leyland, the oldest at twenty years old, found Harri first. Instead of asking the folk where they were, she asked where the jewellery stands were. Lo and behold, not ten minutes later was she scowling down at the five year old, who had been decisively watching solid silver for a few minutes. Leyland knew the child ran by the policy of 'if it shined then it was hers' – just like a magpie.
She leaned down and hoisted the scruffy girl on her hip, while flipping sapphire strands out equally blue eyes and ignoring said child's protests. After fishing around in Harri's pockets for a second, Leyland plonked a silver ring with a ruby set in the stone that seemed as big as a quail's egg but was actually hollow on the purple cloth. Then Leyland secured her grip on the writhing, half wild child. She swore Harri was more of a beast than the middle Boulevard brother sometimes.
Turning on her heel, Leyland took her youngest brother – Kanny – by the hand and began on home.
One jeweller shouted his thanks to her retreating back.
Elsewhere, a red head was watching this happen. His hand came up and finger tips came to touch his temple in exasperation. His version of a face palm that was so much cooler than everybody else's.
Carefully rising to his feet, Lea turned, ran and launched himself towards a neighbouring roof. Just because he consented to having dinner with the Boulevard family doesn't mean he wanted what happened before the feast.
There would be no baths for this preteen.
He would always have the back of the girl he had come to see as a sister, but on Sundays she was on her own.
He fell against the steep roof, breath momentarily knocked from his lungs as he scrambled for a handhold amongst the worn tiles while sliding.
Legs dangling, arms wrapped around a chimney that was to his left, Lea took a moment to reorient himself. He hauled himself up so he was sat flush to the red brick – Almost straddling the chimney.
Pushing fiery locks out of his face with grubby, soot covered hands Lea scanned the world below for telltale blue hair. He didn't account for a Boulevard nearer to the clouds.
Isaac, fifteen and with an aversion to heights, kneeled on the flat roof he himself had just jumped off.
"Hey!" Lea jumped, wrapping his legs around the chimney to cling on. A sigh of relief contradicted the glare he directed at the second oldest child of Trisha.
"Mum wants you at ours now and I'm not jumping onto that roof to drag you back myself." A shuddering breath left him as he murmured about the likelihood of him throwing up.
Lea sighed again and although knowing that he could escape now another blue haired boy climbed onto the roof.
Isa sat next to Isaac, rubbing his back and glaring at Lea. Lea pouted back until the piercing amber eyes got too much and he looked away. Huffing a breath out of his nose, Lea watched as Isa sent Isaac back down the ladder and to steadier ground.
Standing shakily, gripping the chimney cap, Lea deliberated on his next move. Sliding off the roof and falling two stories would amount to a broken leg at the best. Jumping to Isa's roof from his current location was suicide. Getting on the crest of the roof and having a run up might work.
Working his shoes off, Lea let them slid off the roof. He then stripped his feet of socks which were crammed into the pockets of slightly tight jeans.
He jumped and hooked an arm over the peak of the triangular roof. Getting his hands braced against the smooth clay he pushed up as is getting out of a swimming pool.
Imitate the Little Mermaid with his skinny chest pushed out, then wriggle like a seal as he worked one leg over the peak. He winced and cupped himself, minimalizing the pain that straddling a roof top brought. Isa watched all this with a small smile and a despairing shake of his head.
A few seconds later had Lea standing on the middle of a roof. He walked forwards, arms out to the side like he was about to fly.
Sure he was not to slip and not thinking of the consequences if he did, Lea ran the last meters and jumped.
He landed shoulder first onto concrete, rolling along the roof he had started his failed escapade on. Isa looked down at him as he cursed and held out his non smarting arm to be helped up. Teeth gritted against the pain, he shoved his socks back on and was dragged behind Isa back to the Boulevard home.
The Boulevard residence was no stranger to noise, seven children all collectively in one place who periodically had explosive arguments got loud. Although, Sunday's were always the loudest. Isa placed his head in his hands at the sight of the rest of his family helped to hose down a loudly protesting brunette. Harri kept shouting,
"Objection!" and melodramatic, drawn out screams of "No!"
Isaac and his twin Lara were in control of the hose – Lara shouting instructions to Isaac who manned the taps. Her hair (that was steadily getting longer and brushed the bottom of her shoulder blades) swung as she jumped up and down and aimed at Harri.
Leyland watched from sitting on the steps of the house, where she was moulding clay into small animals and carefully watching the triplets.
The triplets ran around Harri to keep her in one general place. Seven years old, Petra, Kane and Lex howled with laughter as they got soaked under the spray. Kane, the only Boulevard that took completely after their father with dark skin, hair and eyes, ducked out of the spray when he saw Isa and ran up to him. Petra physically perked up when she spied the red head, grinning and jumping with more exuberance.
Kanny grabbed Isa's free hand causing Lara to shout out to him deeply,
"Not Isa, henchman number three, get Lea!" Kane nodded, and grabbed Lea. He ran back to his siblings with both nine year olds in hand. Because of Lara's distraction, Harri took off forwards and, with a tackle to her legs, knocked the fifteen year old down.
Isaac dragged the hose to him and, as Lara pinned Harri to the floor, he sprayed all his younger siblings with freezing water.
The cacophony of screams and yells led to Trisha standing in the door way of the front door, chuckling. The laughter faded the crows eyes of the forty-something year old – Leyland claimed laughing made her mother look like she was coming up to thirty, not a year older than forty.
Almost two hours later had all of Trisha's children (reluctantly adopted or birthed) wrapped in mismatched towels and going off to find more clothes. Even Leyland had gotten wet after she placed a clay statue of a lion inside. She'd been expanding the pride of lions she made after seeing a small pride in a travelling zoo that had come to Radiant Gardens a few years ago.
All of their clothes had been thrown in the washing machine. Harri tagged along with the triplets to their room while Lea lead the way to Isa's.
Granny Boulevard greeted them all when she arrived, friendly smiles for most and piercing gold eyes for all. The old wolf nodded to Isa and glared at Lara (who glared back, purposely shifting the golden trident from where it rested against her leg to her opposite hand.) before going to help Leyland and Trisha in the kitchen.
The two women had shooed everyone else out when they had tried to help. Harri sat between Lea's thighs, in one of Lex's dresses that kept slipping off her slim shoulders and eyeing up Lara's trident. Her brother wrapped spindly arms around her ribs and pulled her to his chest, as if predicting what she was thinking. No matter what he did, there was no doubt that she'd try and have away with it and get caught trying to drag it through a window again.
The one time she had succeeded with that heist Lea had brought it straight back and forced her to apologise; Lara had thought this was amazing.
Dinner with Granny Boulevard was always tense.
Lara was glaring at the cankerous biddy opposite her, lips quivering from closed to bared teeth. She seemed to be regretting following her mother's rule of 'no weapons in the dining room' – this applied to everyone. Isaac kept kicking her under the table, directing the glare from the werewolf to him and back again. Trisha was sending exasperated looks to her mother, a look that startlingly reminded Lea of Isa, and calming glances to her daughter. Leyland was forcing the triplets to eat their vegetables whenever she looked up from her textbook and generally ignored the strife. The triplets were trying to sneak their broccoli on to each other's plates and giggling between them about something unknown to all. Isa and Lea flanked Harri, making sure she ate her food and keeping an eye on the silver ware, all the while sitting quietly. Their eyes flicked between Lara and Granny Boulevard as if watching a tennis match for a minute and then to each other before the cycle restarted.
This continued for a few minutes more before Lara exploded, scraping her chair against the floor as she stood up.
"You horrid bitch!" she screamed, the carefully maintained pitch of her voice lowering drastically, "Why can't you just accept me? I'm your granddaughter, for God's sake!"
The oldest Boulevard swallowed her mouthful of potato, "Stop being delusional. This is just your hormones." Lara spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, Isaac on her heels in a desperate attempt to pacify her and keep her away from her trident.
Leyland finally gave a nod to the triplets so they could leave the table and Trisha rounded on her mother. Lea grabbed his plate and pulled Isa with him as he absconded, Harri wasn't far behind.
A few hours later, Lea helped Harri in to her own clothes and they snuck out of the Boulevard home as the clock struck two am.
A few minutes after that, a stainless steel butter knife was dropped through the letter box built in Trisha Boulevard's wooden door.
THIS IS SO LONG! I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! YES LARA IS A TRANSGIRL! AHHHHHHHH, SO FUCKING LONG!