Hours of prepping, cleaning, and a considerable amount of bickering finally ended in a nicely set table and a ham dinner that looked as if it had been ripped right out of some fancy cooking magazine. Beth briefly admired her handiwork before the doorbell finally rang.
"Oh that must be them."
Beth went to answer the door, briefly stopping in front of the mirror to straighten herself out.
"Hi." She chimed happily as she opened the door.
"Hey, I brought Chardonnay," Candy practically sang.
Beth's eyes went wide and she nearly began to drool at the sight of the bottle of fancy, shimmering liquid. She always drank from pretty cheap wine coolers and low-brand wines, so a classy, expensive bottle of Chardonnay shined brighter than a 14-karat diamond in her eyes.
"Welcome to the Smith home," she said just a little too eagerly. She hooked her arm around Candy's and escorted her in with the rest following. Her sister lingered in the doorway for just a moment more before mentally shoving herself inside. It wasn't until she entered the dining room and quite crassly took a seat that her presence was actually noticed. All eyes, at least all Smith eyes, were on her as they took in this new character, and quite the character she was. She wore a simple button-up shirt and black shorts, followed by thigh high socks and combat boots. A smooth white lab coat pieced it all together, tracing over the curves of her body that sat on an able-bodied frame. Her hair, eerily resembling the color of blood, was pulled back into a ponytail with a scrunchie and trailed down her back, and her bangs not-so-elegantly framed the permanent bitchface that graced her features. But that's not what really caught eyes, or eye. Her left eye was normal enough; grey just like her sister's, but her right eye was hidden behind a white medical eye patch, leaving you to only wonder what lay underneath: Scars? Freaky birthmark? Nothing at all?
"Oh, I uh… take it this must be your sister," Beth piped up, bringing her family out of their stupors.
"Yep," Candy answered proudly, walking over and grasping her shoulders, "I'd love for you all to meet my sister, Cassiopea."
"Call me Cassi," she quickly stated.
"It's very nice to meet you Cassi."
"Yeah always nice to have another potential threat in the neighborhood," Jerry grumbled, which earned him a sharp elbow from his wife.
"You remind me of that one chick from that zombie movie," Summer said without a second thought.
"Which zombie movie?" her brother questioned.
"Ya know the one with the virus and that corporation trying to contain it…"
"Resident Evil," Rick interjected, "And the woman you're thinking about is Michelle Rodriguez." He casually took his seat, and took a moment to give a once over of the woman in front of him. His eyes trailed over her form, taking in the details, and stopping on the "fine points". His eyes must've lingered a little too long, because it wasn't a second later that she was shifting her position to be leaning onto the table.
"Is there something you're seeing?" She asked, her pressuring tone making it sound more like a threat than a question.
"Nothing of interest," Rick scoffed back.
"Well then your eyesight must be worse than I thought. Makes sense with someone of your senility."
It was then that the two found themselves exchanging glares across the table.
"And this...this is my dad, who I told you about before. Rick Sanchez," Beth forced a smile trying to lessen the ever-growing tension that now hung over the room. "How's about we start digging in."
"Great idea, Beth. Dinner looks great," Johnathan said with just a enough excitement to irritate his wife.
Everyone eventually settled in their seats and began to enjoy the dinner Beth had so graciously slaved over. Conversation ensued not too long after, and helped to create the illusion that the tension had gone. It was only until a rather awkward topic came up to shatter that illusion.
"So Cassi, I've been wondering. How did you come to be living with your sister and her family?"
It would've take being blind for someone to have not seen the tenseness that took over Candy's features. Johnathan offered her a sympathetic smile, but it did little to help. The only ones who hadn't reacted to the question were the kids and Cassi herself.
"Why don't you ask my sister?" She passed a look to Candy.
"Oh well… I don't want to talk about a topic that might make anyone uncomfortable," Candy awkwardly choked out.
"It doesn't make me uncomfortable to talk about. I just feel someone who knows first hand as to why I'm living with you might be better at explaining it. So by all means, proceed in telling the neighbors how you blew up my house."
"You blew up her house!?" Morty said in disbelief.
"I did not blow up your house," Candy argued; obviously trying to make better of the conversation, "I just caused the fire that caused your house to blow up."
Although shocking, it was true. It happened around the time Cassi had just began to try and reconnect with her sister. She had business to attend to in some of the deeper regions of space and was to be gone for a couple of days, so she asked her sister if she could come over and feed her carnivorous alien plant, Mortimer. Things had been going smoothly until Candy found a pack of Cassi's cigarettes and decided to have a smoke. Unbeknownst to the younger sibling, Cassi didn't buy cigarettes from Earth. 'Not strong enough' she would say, and the foreign ingredients in her cigarettes took a lot of time to develop a tolerance to. An inhale here and an exhale there and fate was already set. By the time Candy had come down from her high, more than half the house was engulfed in flames.
-Flashback-
"What the hell happened!?" Cassi screamed looking on at the flames consuming her home.
Candy tried to answer, but any attempt at words stumbled out in a fumbling mess.
Cassi rubbed her temples; a habit she'd developed through her years. "Ok. Ok. Calm down, Cassi. As long as the fire doesn't reach the-"
She was instantly cut off from her own words when her house erupted with a violently intense explosion that fed into the already raging fire. The flames were now twice as big and there seemed to be more fire than house at this point. Cassi could only shoot daggers at her sister as her home was eaten by the dominant inferno.
Candy offered a struggling smile. " I saved your plant."
-Flashback-
After Candy finished the room was silent, other than the sounds of those who casually continued eating as if nothing had been said at all. No one was completely sure how to respond to that, but what harm could come from trying to perk up the situation?
"Hey uh… don't feel too down about it. I'm sure it could've happened to anyone," Jerry tried to lighten, but it only seemed to make it worse as Candy proceeded to bury her face in her hands.
"I'm so stupid," she sniffed.
"Great people skills, Jerry," Rick sarcastically quipped.
"They're better than yours," Cassi quipped back.
"Yeah well you don't shine too bright yourself. At least when I have something to say I'm upfront about it."
"You also seem to be upfront with being boorish, gross, and just overall distasteful. Tell me, do you actually try to be this rudimentary or is it just spewing out randomly from that piece of shit you call a brain?"
Yet again glares were being thrown across the table, this time accompanied by a stream of insults and profanity.
"Hey! Hey! That's enough out of both of you."
"Shut up, Jerry," both scientists snapped.
Slander continued to go about. Somehow through all the abusive language, the insults had turned into a full on debate about ice cream flavors to the relevance of school to eventually some advance scientific gibberish that none of the other family members could understand. None of the kids seemed too terribly rattled at their behavior. They'd seen enough of their relative's anger and outburst to barely be reactive to it anymore. It wasn't until guns were drawn that they acknowledged the severity of the situation. Everyone was in their own state of panic as Rick and Cassi locked their guns on one another, neither seemed willing to comply with the pleas of their loved ones to lower their weapons.
"Riiick! Th-this isn't necessary. Just put the gun away," Morty stuttered out.
"Aunt Cassi calm the hell down!" Drew grabbed her arm with Ash on her other one.
"I told you I had a bad feeling about this dinner," she said in her usual monotone voice, not really helping the situation.
Each scientist still had their weapon fixed on the other; triggers being traced over with a finger, ready to be set off at any given moment. The tension and hostility was so thick you could choke on it. Beth and Candy both went over to their kin trying to bring down the tension that had already seemed to be out of control. The last thing Beth wanted or needed was for her father to get shot; the same for Candy with her sister.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
"Oh! W-would you look at that. The cobbler's done," Beth strained to say as she made her way to the kitchen. She returned to the table as fast as she could with the freshly baked dessert. "How's about we all just settle down and put our guns away and enjoy this nice peach cobbler I made for us."
Neither of them really wanted to stand down, still simmering in their frustrations, but damn that cobbler smelled good; the sweet smell lingering in the air, melting away some of the tension. Though hesitantly, Rick and Cassi put away their guns and retook their seats. Their angry stares never faltering from each other. Dinner was silent from then on, though it felt more like a minefield. Everyone too scared to make the wrong move and be caught in the explosive consequence. Having these two across the street from each other was going to be quite...interesting.