A.N.: Okay, because of my new obsession with Supernatural, I got the sudden lightening-strike to my brain and thought, huh, Jensen Ackles would make a really good Sean. He's kind of the inspiration behind Miller's and Finn's lips and the dimples he has whenever he pouts. Rose would look like a teenaged Diane Kruger, because she has the best, most effortlessly beautiful hairstyles and is really unassumingly pretty. Evan would be, I think, Rob Pattinson, but from his movie Remember Me, not from the Twilight series.
Another note: I am considering rewriting my 'Little Women' fanfiction about Megan Meade's older-sister: I have posted two polls onto my profile, and would really love it if you would choose a name from among the ones I've picked. After that poll closes (I might give you three or four days, depending on how quickly I anticipate this fanfiction finishing) I'll put up another poll about which of the brothers should be the romantic lead. Thank you!
Oh, and I've changed Rose's father's name to Jackson, so his nickname is Jax.
Rose Amongst Thorns
Chapter Twenty-Four
For Jax
Sunday was devoted to homework and baseball; Rose finished her essay for English, her History notes, Miller helped her with her Math homework, and she worked on her sketchbook for Art with Finn in the shed. In the afternoon, the whole family (minus Doug) congregated in the best-room to watch the game on the big-screen television; Rose sat with Caleb in her lap, hugging him to her, while she and Miller continued their fact-question game during the commercial breaks, and Finn watched the game as well as working frantically in his sketchbook. Sean had come out of the barn, and his arms and hands and face were actually clean of grease for once; he had even put his book away, and promised to teach Ian how to throw a curveball.
Evan didn't say a word to Rose, and Doug didn't say a word to anyone; he spent most of Sunday in his bedroom, annoyed with Miller for no reason and picking on the little ones without provocation.
After the game finished, Finn helped Rose vacuum the house and clean the bathroom and do laundry. Rose had to show him where the vacuum and the bathroom cleaning-supplies lived. Rose was ironing, listening to music from the stereo when Caleb sidled into the room, grinning sheepishly.
"Hey, kiddo," Rose smiled. Caleb walked up to her and swooned against her legs, gazing covetously up at her.
"Alone at last," he sighed, smiling up at her, hugging her knees. Rose burst out laughing; she didn't know where he got the things he said, but he was just too darned cute for his own good. Rose reached down and rumpled his white-blonde curls.
"Not quite, Caley-boy," Finn said, striding into the best-room, his hair standing on end, and stinking of cleaning products. "Bathroom's done—I am disgusted by our family."
"And that's after I spent two hours cleaning it last week," Rose said, raising her eyebrows pointedly.
"Yeah, we need to learn to clean up after ourselves," Finn grimaced. "Why're you trying to hump Rose's leg, Caleb?"
"I'm not!" Caleb squeaked indignantly. "I'm spending time with my lady."
"Your lady, huh?" Finn smirked, catching Rose's eye. "Well, your lady is busy folding your Spiderman underwear." Caleb blushed and peeked at the ironing-board, where Rose was indeed folding up little pairs of underwear; M&Ms, Smurfs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, X-Men.
"Hands off my lingerie, you pervert!" Caleb half-shouted, making Rose jump, and she burst out laughing again as he scooped the underwear from the ironing-board, tucked them against his chest, and scuttled out of the room to the stairs.
"You embarrassed him," Finn chuckled, watching his brother run upstairs, and glanced at her, grinning.
"Me? I was just doing laundry," Rose laughed, plucking more garments out of the basket at her feet full with freshly-laundered clothing that needed folding quickly or ironing.
"You know, I reckon he has a little crush on you," Finn chuckled softly, grinning at Rose. She laughed.
"Oh, now I know you're joking," she giggled softly.
"Aw, come on; don't you remember how we acted toward each other when we were the same age as Caleb?" Finn grinned, walking over and helping fold coloured t-shirts into piles belonging to each brother.
"No, not really," Rose admitted, smiling.
"Well, I do, mostly 'cause my parents still tease me about it," Finn said, handing over one of her pretty tops. "You don't remember, that one time you came for Christmas and New Year, we sat at the top of the stairs watching our parents dance to Tom Jones 'cause they were so drunk on New Year's Eve?"
"I only remember that because I've seen the photos," Rose said, blushing, as she grinned. "They caught us kissing on camera."
"We were six," Finn laughed. "I have copies of those photos, too. I think it's a sad state of affairs that I reached my romantic peak at the age of six."
"You didn't," Rose smiled slowly, flicking her eyes at Finn, taking in those gorgeous features, the rich, thick curl of his lashes, the dimples at the corners of his mouth when he pouted those gorgeous lips.
Caleb came back downstairs, and went rifling through the basket of laundry, turning most of it out onto the carpet. "Caleb, what're you doing?" Rose stooped to pick up all the laundry he'd thrown out onto the carpet and quickly folded it before it could cool off and crease.
"Helping," he declared, dredging out a few more pairs of underwear, matching Spiderman and X-Men and Silver Surfer socks, and a pair of Spiderman pyjamas. "Rosie, I'm bored."
"Well, go clean your room," Rose suggested with a shrug.
"It is clean," Caleb said, wrinkling his nose.
"Then go and clean my room," Finn said. Caleb gave him a derisive look.
"Sean and Ian are in the backyard; why don't you go play with them?" Rose asked. Caleb pouted, dropped his laundry, and ran off. Rose stopped and picked up the clothing and folded it onto Caleb's pile. When the laundry was done, John's pristine white shirts ironed meticulously, Regina's skirts and blouses and career pants hung up in their closet, the boys' sheets changed and their clothes set out neatly on the end of their beds, Regina returned from a huge Costco binge with a few enormous Costco pizzas, hot parmesan pretzels and hot-dogs for dinner.
After dinner, Ian and Caleb had started having another water-fight when Rose and Finn left the house to go down to the shed; Sean had grabbed the hose and, foolishly, given it to Caleb. Rose jumped and her back snapped straight and shivers went through her as icy water splashed hard against her back. Finn yelled as water doused him, too. They exchanged a look, and glanced over their shoulders; Caleb was trying to hide the hose nozzle behind his back, looking superbly guilty; Ian had filled a bucket with water and was refilling a water-gun. Half an hour later, Rose was screaming at the top of her lungs as Finn ran through the yard, his arm locked around her waist, using her as a shield against the hosepipe now in Ian's hands; Caleb was running around like a lunatic in a soaking-wet basketball jersey and jeans, having the time of his life, and Sean and the twins had joined them, using plastic cups and buckets and water-guns to attack each other; Doug sat in the climbing-tree with a huge water-gun and a supply of water-balloons he dropped right on their heads whenever they foolishly stepped under the circumference of the tree's branches.
They were all soaked to the skin, and the hair Rose had so carefully arranged in curlers last night was now slick and clinging to her scalp and neck and most of her face, unable to see anything as Ian attacked her with the hose and Finn used her to dodge the spray; Sean was laughing deeply, and she had seen Doug grinning with delight a few times, which was rare; Miller was having a whale of a time dousing Sean and his little brothers with water-balloons, and all the time, Rose could hear Regina laughing in the kitchen, watching them.
Considering how the weekend had begun, Rose was glad of the water-fight, even if her top did go see-through and her legs were covered in goose-bumps because she'd worn shorts, because Doug's bad mood lifted, Sean actually interacted with the family, Rose became Sergeant General of her team, which included Ian, Caleb and Miller, after the older boys ganged up on them, leading them to ambushing the other team to victory behind the shed.
John had made his special chocolate-brownie-and-Reese's-peanut-butter milkshakes when they got in, draped in beach-towels, for a Sunday-night treat, and despite their grounding, Rose and Finn were allowed to join the family down in the den to watch Back to the Future. Caleb curled up in Rose's lap, Miller sat beside her, resting his head on her shoulder, and Finn curled up on her other side, and Rose couldn't think of anywhere else she would rather be at that moment.
Her eyes burned with tears as she thought about Lucia, with Caleb squirming the same way Lucia used to as he watched the movie.
After Rose had showered, she was putting her hair into rollers again, dressed in her pyjamas, when there was a soft knock on the door, and John entered the room, smiling.
"Hey," he said, bringing with him a medium-sized cardboard box.
"Hi," Rose smiled, tucking a lock of hair into a roller and pressing in place. She glanced at the box. "What's that?" John glanced at the box before setting it down on the bench at the end of her bed.
"This box contains all the stuff I could dig up from college when I looked up in the attic today," John said, grinning. "I'm still looking through most of it." Rose sat up, pausing; she eyed the box as John carefully opened the cardboard flaps. She went up on her knees and crawled to the end of the bed, peering curiously into the box; she saw a stack of vinyl records pushed against the side of the box, folded up posters and packets fat with photographs, cassette mix-tapes, concert memorabilia including vintage concert t-shirts, books, letters, cards, pins and badges, drawings and scrapbook albums that had her mother's influence all over them.
"And this," John said, pulling something out of the very bottom of the box, "was your dad's." John unfolded the buttery black leather, which was sewn with patches and studs and even rhinestones. It was a leather jacket. It wasn't just any leather jacket; it was a real rock-star's jacket, lined with red Harley motorcycle-patterned silk, the most fabulous leather biker jacket Rose had ever seen outside of an 80s rock music-video, with awesome lapels and zips and a buckle at the hem, an almost asymmetric zip, and a swirling fiery phoenix design that looked like it had almost been embossed on the back, with dull, almost completely faded gold that glowed subtly in the lamplight.
"Wow," Rose gaped, taking the jacket from John when he offered it, feeling how soft the buttery leather was, and how small the jacket seemed. "Daddy was skinny in college."
"He was, he was a skinny guy. Until sophomore year and he was damn scary," John said, chuckling. "I think your mom bought him that jacket and took it apart and lined it with that Harley material, and sewed all the other stuff onto it."
"That sounds like something she'd do," Rose said softly, smiling as she looked over the different patches and the faded, worn badges scratched up and dented. Her mother had been the one who was absolutely addicted to artwork; she would come home almost daily with a package tucked under her arm, looking very guilty; Rose's daddy used to look over the top of his book and ask 'What have you bought now?' Her mother loved anything creative; painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, fashion, music. The entire house had been dripping with culture, photographs and paintings and sculptures and statues and books had been everywhere. Up until last year, every dress Rose had worn to a special event had been made by her mother, and Rose had been heavily influenced by her mother's love of the Arts. This jacket had her mother written all over it. "How come you had it?"
"I…I don't know, exactly," John frowned. "I was just digging through my old dormer trunk and I found it with a bunch of sheet-music and lyrics your dad wrote."
"Dad wrote songs?" Rose asked, laughing. She got her addiction to written word from her dad.
"Yeah," John grinned. "Back when we were in a band. A semi-successful band, at that; we had two dedicated groupies!"
"Urgh!" Rose cringed, clenching her eyes shut, as John laughed. "Don't tell me that. I don't need that in my mind!"
"Well, I'm gonna head to bed, so I'll leave you to look through all this stuff," John smiled. "It's all yours, by the way, if you want it."
"Thanks," Rose said quietly, glancing down and pausing as she opened the first page of a scrapbook album, which featured one single Polaroid candid, of her parents and John and Regina. It had definitely been taken in the 80s, because Regina's hair had been permed and teased and was huge, and Rose's mother had pulled off the young-Brooke Shields gorgeous look with long, thick wavy hair, dark smoky eyes, dark lipstick and big earrings; Regina wore a black leather dress and red leather jacket, black lace fingerless mitts and stacked bracelets, and Rose's mother wore a teeny-tiny mini-skirt, fishnets, leather boots, stacked necklaces and a denim jacket; their earrings were as bold as their eye-makeup, and their eyebrows were unruly a la Brooke Shields and Madonna. Her dad…her dad looked like Rick Savage; he had a permed mop of out-of-control, crazy curly dirty-blonde hair that obscured everything but his grin, and he wore the jacket Rose held in her lap, greasy, ripped jeans, heavy silver rings and bracelets; John had a mullet, and wore a leather vest covered with patches, a frayed t-shirt and tight cigarette-leg jeans. They were all grinning hugely and laughing; Rose felt an ache in her chest, wishing she had been there to know what they had been laughing at, who had taken the picture, where they had been.
"Oh," John said, catching himself at the door; Rose glanced up. "Be sure and tease Regina about her hairdo."
"I will," Rose laughed softly, glancing back at the photo. Regina really had been the poster-girl for 80s alternative-punk fashion.
Rose finished putting her hair in curlers, and spent the rest of the night going through the cardboard box. There were hundreds of photographs, and even better, John had kept the negatives in pristine condition, mostly because they hadn't been looked at after the photographs were initially printed. There was a collection of all Rose's favourite albums on vinyl records, and cassette mix-tapes her dad had made for her mom, paintings her mom had done, scrapbooks she had made filled with concert and college memorabilia, and the t-shirts were both her mother's and her father's. Rose tried on her father's leather jacket, and it fit so snug and perfect that she didn't want to take it off. There was a dilapidated journal filled with lyrics in her father's handwriting, which chronicled his high-school and college years, the later works being dedicated to Lil, and it was fascinating to read into her parents' early relationship through the lyrics her dad wrote. There was even an old camera that would be worth a lot of money if she were to auction it on eBay and there was a small tobacco tin in which was kept a collection of concert ticket stubs, wristbands and fliers for bands playing live. There was an original movie poster of Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon, signed "To Jax" by the actors, and which instantly went up on Rose's bedroom wall. There were books so packed with notes in the margins and between the lines that she could barely read the text, a tiny bottle filled with sand from a Cape Cod beach, dated August 30th, 1982, and a tin containing those heavy silver rings and necklaces her dad wore in the photograph.
Rose picked out a select few photographs to put in frames and put the t-shirts in her laundry basket to wash so she could wear them, and made a mental note to turn the hundreds of photographs into albums, and to ask John and Regina for comments on them so that, in twenty years, Rose could tell her children about their grandparents' crazy ways at college.
PLEASE VOTE IN MY POLL!
A.N.: I kind of liked the idea of John turning up with a box overflowing with old vintage concert t-shirts and a ton of photographs and stuff her parents would have kept from their time at college; the jacket of Jax Meade's is inspired by the jackets worn by Def Leppard in their 'Rocket' video.
