HAWAII, IMMIGRATION OFFICE, KAUA'I ISLAND
Rage was a feeling Gilgamesh was accustomed to, having had the opportunity to well and truly stew in it for the past ten years. But this?
"Sir, for the last time. How did you get through customs."
This was a new level of humiliation. The mongrels truly thought to leave none of his dignity intact.
After he had been transported to the hospital and given fluids, he was asked about his identification. And while the nurses and doctors had originally been understanding of his condition, when it became clear that he wouldn't cooperate, they had called the police. And through the police, he had somehow ended up hastily discharged, accompanied by two officers, in the immigration office.
As an illegal alien.
So yes. Rage was an incredibly funny thing.
What was just as funny, however, was that he had to sit here and suffer this degradation in the first place. He could no longer access the Gate of Babylon. And he was sure of it, because he had more than once willed his treasures to slaughter everyone in sight before he erased this entire shit-hole off the face of the planet. And instead of doing that with but a wave of his hand, he has to sit here. In customs. Like a mere plebeian.
He had been taken into a small room, with peeling yellow walls, a single office and small windows, slightly open to allow the breeze to ease the harsh heat of the summer. It wasn't doing much, for even in a hospital gown, a thin layer of sweat had already formed on his body, while the pudgy man opposite him was every so often wiping his forehead with a tissue.
He wants to wrap his hands around the barely-there neck and choke the life out of him.
He is broken off his train of thought by a loud exhale from the mongrel opposite him. The officer switches from Hawaiian to English, before repeating his question, slowly and louder.
"Sir. Where. Is. Your. Visa."
He chuckles at the absurdity. "The fact that you have been graced with my presence is a gift unto itself." he explains, slowly, lazily leaning back on the uncomfortable chair. His anger is burning him from the inside out and he wants to crush the insolent wretch with his bare hands. The officer's eyes widen and the instinctual fear he sees in them is the best thing that has happened to him from the moment he awakened on this forsaken island. "But really, mongrel, answer me. How far do you plan to humiliate me? How long do you think I shall tolerate this?"
He can feel the switch of the atmosphere in the office as he turns the full force of his wrath on the pitiful man. It's almost sad how easy he can bring these worms to their knees. Even as his head begins to throb again, he doesn't stop talking. "Does your pathetic mind not comprehend who stands before you? You dare look upon me as if you are worth more than the dirt beneath my feet."
He reaches towards the glass of lukewarm water on the table and frowns at it in disgust, as if he could change it to wine by sheer will alone.
But of course, this is not how things work anymore, apparently.
Downing it in one go, he drops the glass to the floor, where it shatters with a satisfying crack. The man jumps out of his seat, putting as much distance as the small room allows him to between himself and the blonde, fumbling for the baton at his belt, but it falls from his trembling hands and Gilgamesh chuckles again. And, for the first time since he awoke in that infernal beach, naked as the day he was born and feeling like he had been forced to eat an entire portion of Kirei's mapou tofu, Gilgamesh grins from the bottom of his heart as he swings the chair he was sitting on seconds ago at the officer's head.
Another satisfying crack.
He is gone before another person comes through the door.
GALACTIC COMMAND MOTHERSHIP, BRIDGE
"Where is he?!"
"He's still in hyperspace!"
"Where will he exit?"
"Calculating now- quadrant section- area 51. A planet called… Ee-arth."
The Grand Councilwoman wracked her neurons, but came up blank. "I want an expert on this planet in here now!" As the simulation of 626's path pinpointed its location with increasing accuracy, the sapphire blue covering the backwater planet gave her a smidgen of hope. "What is that?"
"Water. Most of the planet is covered in it."
She has to force herself to maintain the dignity of her position and not cheer. "He won't survive in water. His molecular density is too great!" The relief that washes over the room is palpable… if short-lived. Because on the radar, as the calculations reach even more accurate readings, a small dot appears on the path of the stolen police cruiser. A whispered, desperate "no" is all that has enough time to leave her lips before the final results come in- 626 will not land on water. Of course. "How much time do we have?"
"We have projected his landing at three hours, 42 minutes."
Her chest tightens, but this is no time for hesitation. "We have to gas the planet."
"Hoooold it! Hold everything! Earth is a protected wildlife preserve!" The screech that completely breaks the bleak atmosphere of the bridge belongs to a Plorgonarian carrying a few rolled papers under his arm. "Yeah. We've been using it to rebuild the mosquito population which, need I remind you, is an endangered species!"
She takes a deep breath, because otherwise, she may just smack the audacious youngster that dares poke her with one of his rolls. "Am I to assume you are the expert?"
"Oh my, I don't know about expert." he pulls at his collar shyly and she hopes her glare conveys her displeasure at his lax attitude adequately. Seemingly getting the message, he clears his throat. "Agent Pleakley, at your service."
"Can we not simply destroy the island?" she cuts to the chase, slightly pleased that she will not have to sacrifice an entire wildlife preserve.
"No! Crazyhead! The mosquito's food of choice, primitive humanoid life forms, have colonies all over that planet!"
C-crazyhead… "Are they intelligent?" Stay on target, Trudy. Stay on target.
"No, but they're very delicate. In fact, every time an asteroid strikes their planet they have to begin life all over. It's fascinating, isn't it? With this, I've been able to study-"
"What if our military forces just… landed there?" she cuts in, trying to keep him focused.
"Well, that'd be a bad idea! These are extremely simple creatures, there would create mass mayhem and planet-wide panic!"
She is one step away from grabbing the beige little noodleman from the collar and shaking it to comprehension of just how bad things are about to become for his precious mosquitoes. "A quiet capture would require an understanding of 626 that we. Do not. Possess!" she half-yells, before taking a deep breath to regain her composure. "Who then, Mr. Pleakley, would you send for his extraction?"
She regrets not taking the chance to smack him to the Perseus Veil with the next words that leave his mouth.
"Does he have a brother? Close grandmother, perhaps?"
FIORINA-161, DEPARTMENT OF CONTAINMENT, SPACESHIP
He looks at the title in astonishment for a few minutes. The smug guard that threw it in his cell in lieu of his lunch was staring at him over the glass door, but Jumba was entirely unconcerned with the gnat.
IDIOT SCIENTIST JAILED!
Jumba Jukiba, evil genius scientist extraordinaire (in that order) had never, ever felt so insulted in his entire life as he had been forced to read through an article written by someone who most likely couldn't even comprehend something as basic as the tensor metrics well enough to compute the size of the ergosphere in terms of black hole mass and rotation rate, calling him, Jumba Jukiba, an idiot.
His rage exploded, ripping the paper to tiny pieces and shoving them in his mouth as they fell, because angry he might be, but he was also hungry, and his evil genius really just wasn't the same when he was hungry.
He would get out of here (in 13.846 lunar years or so), create a new experiment, with the exact specifications needed to find the wretch who dared, dared to call Jumba Jukiba an idiot, tear them to tiny, cubical pieces, and then feed them their own-
He is interrupted of his very dignified paper munching by the sound of the cell door opening. It's a particularly annoying sound and Jumba has already developed seven different ways to improve upon it- the one where the door just makes the strangely named Wilhelm Scream being his first choice. Nothing quite like the agonized screams of the innocent, as he used to say as a child, while his mother looked upon him with utter disappointment (which did not affect his choice of profession. It's important to remind everyone that this is not what happened).
The Grand Councilwoman enters his cell accompanied by a beige green Plorgonarian that somehow, by his mere presence, made him want to bully the creature as if he was still in high school- and yes, he was the one doing the bullying and no, he has never been hanged on the flagpole by his underwear, there is no trauma relating to this specific experience that never took place, thank you very much!
He takes in the sombre expression on the face of the most powerful woman in the galaxy and he cannot help the grin that spreads across his face.
"He got away?" he purrs, even as he already knows the answer, but the tightened jaw of the one who put him away for life just hits the perfect evil spot within him.
"I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you."
It doesn't, and he can't help the satisfaction in his expression- nor does he try. "I designed this creature for it to be... unstoppable."
"Which is precisely why you must now bring him back."
Jumba may not have the concept of what a record scratch is, but that is precisely what happens, as his brain comes to a halt. What?
The Grand Councilwoman sees the shock on his face and continues, not allowing him time to process. "And to reward you, we are willing to trade your freedom for his capture."
Under normal circumstances, he would relish the underlying desperation, use it to bargain for hair care products, because his hair is delicate dammit, but the weight of the offer is something he needs a few seconds to roll in his mind, truly think it over.
626 may be his creation, but Jumba wasn't lying when he called him "unstoppable". He had been kept under extreme conditions to stay in check as he put the finishing touches on him. None of the methods used would be applicable in this situation without some serious damage to the surrounding area, which didn't really matter to him, but he didn't want his promised freedom to be revoked on technicalities.
Everyone knew about Space Al Capone and how he got got by the Federation, after all.
He passes his hand through his hair with a sigh, even as potential solutions begin running through his head at great speed. "626 will not come easily. Maybe direct hit from plasma cannon might stun him long enough to-"
"Plasma cannon granted. Do we have a bargain, Dr. Jumba?"
He grunts his affirmation with a grin. After so many hours confined in this stupid prison, he can feel his excitement finally reawaken. This day cannot possibly get any better.
"B-B-But it's a delicate planet!" the Plorgonarian yells, snapping him out of his reverie. And then in a sing-song whisper he assumes he isn't meant to hear, "Who's going to control him?"
"You will."
"Very good, Your Highness." he nods immediately, with the speed of a true brown-nosing bureaucrat, before her words really dawn on him. "I… I didn't quite… Uh, you're not joking!"
Jumba can see the small man tremble in fear and he licks his lips. It just. Got. Better!
There really is no way to hide his glee at the situation, even if he planned to try. Which he doesn't. Because he is evil.
"So, tell me, my little one-eyed one, on what poor, pitiful, defenceless planet has my monstrosity been... unleashed?"
HAWAII, KAUA'I ISLAND, RANDOM STREET
Gilgamesh and his new best friend, an impossible headache that keeps biting at the edges of his brain, wander the streets of Kauai, wearing a hospital gown that feels so cheap he would rather have been covered in mud. But, for the first time in any of his lives, the King of Uruk is faced with an impossible problem.
He is penniless.
It had been one of the hardest things to accept about this new existence of his, the fact that he had been forcefully denied his wealth and right as a King. It was almost impossible to accept at first, but after several attempts to murder everyone who touched him and being rewarded with more head examinations for it, he had been forced to confront this new reality. And while he didn't really need money to exert his will over mortals, it sure made things considerably easier for him. If there was one thing he had learned over his ten year stay at the mongrel society after the Fuyuki War, it was that human greed was limitless and thus, for those who possessed the means to satisfy it, there were no limits either.
His anger that had been momentarily subdued flared back to life. For the first time ever, he had no choice but to care about where he would sleep, what he would eat, how he would pay his way.
The mere thought was preposterous. He only needed to find a gambling house and he could trust his luck to do the rest for him, but the way he was right now, he might not even be allowed entrance. No, he wouldn't allow himself to be seen like this by anyone, not even if it was for the sake of reversing this situation. First things first, he needed something that resembled base quality to wear, and the rest would naturally follow.
With a purpose finally taking shape in his head, no matter how insignificant, he felt reinvigorated. He could no doubt charm a pair of pants and a shirt off of some hapless mongrel and he set out to do just that, something almost like cheer surfacing slowly beneath all the pain and the rage.
And it might be that whatever remnants of the gods remained watched this little trace of a good mood arise in his black heart and promptly crashed said mood through a young woman literally crashing into him as he was about to cross the street. (Of course, he might have avoided this nuisance altogether had he not ignored the traffic light, which was an affront to his rights as King...apparently.)
"Are you completely stupid?!" she screams in his face when she takes a step back, ready to take off into another sprint.
"Insolent wench, you dare-". The King sees red immediately, good mood shattered. He snatches her wrist into his strong grip and pulls her back toward him, but his effort is wasted the instant her foot connects with his shin, sending a sharp pain through his bones that forces him to the ground. She curses at him without even deigning to look in his direction, then twists on her heel in a mad dash down the street and around the first corner.
He stays on the ground for a few seconds, unable to comprehend that a lowly mongrel dared to touch him, let alone hit him, and curse at him as if he were the mongrel.
Hot red rage explodes once again, his headache only worsening a mood that once would have sent an entire palace scurrying away to weather the storm, but rather than explode immediately, he stands up slowly with a mad glint in his eye that sends a few other tourists to the opposite lane. He grins and his hands twitch as a sudden, delicious desperation to wrap his hands around the neck of that wench overtakes him. He knows which way she went, and, if he were to follow, it would not be long until he could watch the life disappear from her eyes. Such was divine punishment for the insult she dared to visit upon him and his person.
He slowly begins to follow in her steps, his grin growing wider at the sight of a small dirt road near a stream, and the first hint of a bright red rooftop.
HAWAII, KAUA'I ISLAND, PELEKAI RESIDENCE
Nani pays the delivery boy and puts the box on the table. She grabs two slices for herself, leaves one for Lilo out to cool down and carefully puts the rest covers lunch and dinner for tomorrow.
She sinks on the couch and eats, carefully going through the events of the evening in her mind. She knows it's a disaster. She knows she can fix it.
She can fix it.
A deep breath. Then another.
It was a complete disaster, and Lilo's stubbornness certainly didn't help. Her temper flares once again and she forces herself to keep breathing and count to ten.
She genuinely hopes Mr. Bubbles -god, what has her life come to, that her entire family is at the hands of an ex-hitman, possibly mafia overlord, named Cobra Bubbles- will give her the full three days in good faith, not to look into foster options.
She hopes that he didn't take Lilo's little outburst too seriously. She was obviously making up stories. Nani had sat through the mandatory grief counseling. She knew children would sometimes tell stories as an expression of frustration and if she knew it, Bubbles did too.
She hopes that she doesn't lose another one so soon.
Ohana means no one is left behind, or forgotten, she tries to reassure herself with the words her dad used to say. And yet you left us behind anyway.
The thought is as unbidden as the rage that surges in her, completely unexpected. She doesn't know where the thought sprang from but it takes over her, colours everything inside her red and Nani is once again so angry she could scream. She puts her plate on the table fast, before it falls from her trembling hands and curls up on the sofa.
Her breath catches in her chest and her eyes sting with tears too stubborn to fall even as sobs threaten to wrack her body. She presses her face into the pillow next to her, tries to muffle the noise, tries to find comfort in the item's warmth.
Every day she tries to breathe through it. She fights to keep herself from making a fuss, but she is so angry, so incredibly angry at everything, because she has to clean up a mess she never asked for and deal with problems she shouldn't have to deal with, and all because of a stupid, stupid storm -
Nani counts to ten again.
Sometimes it feels that counting to ten and burying her face in a pillow is all she is good for.
It takes a few more minutes to fully regain control of her body and a few more to splash some water on her face.
More deep breaths.
She returns to her seat and picks her plate back up, forcing herself to finish her dinner even if she doesn't really taste it at this point. With her mind slightly clearer and the tightness in her chest a little bit relieved, she continues to pour over the visit.
Earlier
"Do you often leave your sister home alone?"
She supposes the question is legitimate since he probably heard her break into her own home instead of using the front door, like a normal person, and also because she leaves Lilo home alone on the regular, because that is how jobs work.
But he doesn't need to know any of that. "No, no, never. Except-"
But no, that would be far too easy for that line to work, and she almost faints as she looks at her cute sister's newest painting, which involves her alone, in a corner, crying. And in case that wasn't a clear enough picture, the brat actually added an arrow pointing to herself, explaining that it depicted her. Alone. ON THE DAY THE SOCIAL WORKER WAS SCHEDULED TO VISIT. Nani was going to murder her sister if the social worker didn't take her away first. She speeds ahead and manages to cover the offending picture with her body "-except for just now, I- I had to run to the store to grab some-"
The whistling from the stove cuts her short and she rushes to turn it down before the brown… thing that she suspects is probably gunpowder, explodes in their face.
Because at this point, why not.
She feels the eyes of the large man stare contemptuously at her as she struggles to turn the stove off and make the lid stay on the trembling pot. She can feel the next justified question speeding her way and she wants to grab the pot and hit Cobra Fucking Bubbles, the single most suspicious person she has ever encountered, on the face with it.
"You left the stove on while you were out?"
She finally forces the lid on and turns around with a bright smile. "Just a shimmer!" she reassures him, her frantic heart beating fast. She pretends to take a deep breath from the black smoke rising out of what might as well be a witch's cauldron at this point. "Mmm, it's coming along great!"
He looks as unconvinced as she feels and, in her anxiety, she lifts the lid a little, putting on her best Stepford expression.
The screech that leaves her mouth, coupled with her expression of utter horror is certainly not helping matters, and Cobra Bubble's disapproving aura intensifies around her and she can feel another perfectly justified question coming her way and she only wishes she could drown him in the perfect recreation of Cthulhu's asshole currently swirling in her kitchen pot.
Her temper is flaring because she is terrified with the weight of her fuck up and-
"I found that this morning."
"LILO!" -and her natural instinct is to yell at the little menace. Which of course doesn't look good and she tries to turn it around with as much success as she has had so far. "There you are! Honey...face." she mellows her tone out. And if Lilo doesn't wipe the kicked puppy expression out of her face, she is gonna give her something to look down about. "This is Mr. Bubbles." she introduces him with a pointed look, trying to signal to her sister not to mess around.
She'd be so lucky.
The social worker/mafia boss extends his hand. "Nice to meet you."
His hand is so big compared to the entirety of Lilo that she almost wants to pull the kid behind her.
"Your knuckles say 'cobra'."
Oh Lilo… He pulls back his hand and closes it to a fist, before lowering himself to be as close as possible to the six-year-old's height.
"You don't look like a social worker." Lilo continues and Nani has to force a "shut up" back down her throat as hard as she can.
"I'm a... special classification."
"Did you ever kill someone?" Lilo continues with her own interrogation and the way the man frowns does not comfort Nani in the least.
"We are getting off the subject." he replies (without denying or confirming anything, Nani notes) after a bit and her stomach drops. "Let's talk about you. Are you… happy?"
Lilo takes a deep breath and, as if on cue, Nani begins the well-practised pantomime. "I'm adjusted. I eat four food groups a day and look both ways before crossing the street and take long naps and I also get… disciplined?"
Nani freezes, her fist in the air and she looks at it in horror, trying to fix a mistake she knows is already well over the point of damage control.
"Disciplined?"
"Yeah… she disciplines me real good!" and bless her little heart, she sounds almost proud at what she says and her flailing only seems to make the situation worse. "Sometimes five times a day!"
Nani loses all hope at this point, but the destruction Lilo wrecks on everything is an unstoppable force.
"… with bricks!"
"Bricks?"
"Uh-huh, in a pillowcase-" she manages to spit out before Nani bolts behind her and cuts her off with a hand over her mouth.
"Okay, that's enough sugar for you!" she pats her head and pushes her to the other room. "Why don't you run along you little cutie."
She can fix this.
She puts on her best smile as she turns to him. "Haha, the other social workers just thought she was a scream." she says as she heads to the freezer. "Thirsty?"
She pretends not to notice as his large frame comes up behind her. "Let me illuminate you on the precarious situation you have found yourself."
She can fix this.
"I am the one they send when things go wrong. And things have indeed. Gone. Wrong."
She feels as if his words are choking her and follows him to the exit, numb. Lilo's voodoo practices, which she has never found offensive until this very moment, suddenly make her want to scream. She watches with rising rage as the six-year-old spawn gathers the decorated spoons, puts them in the half-empty pickle jar and shakes it furiously, before holding it upside down with her chubby hands, staring at it intensely. At the questioning stare that meets her, she responds in an almost robotic voice. "My friends need to be punished."
Silence is all there is for a few moments, before the social worker/hitman takes out his card and hands it to Lilo.
"Call me the next time you're left here alone."
She doesn't break eye contact with the jar as she takes the card. "Yep."
He heads to the front door and Nani feels insignificant before this man who holds her entire life in his hands and just doesn't care. "In case you were wondering, this did not go well." Like Damocles's sword hanging above her head, his final words feel like a condemnation. He pulls the nailed door open effortlessly and gives her one last look. "You have three days to change my mind."
And she is not proud of the way she turns to glare at Lilo the second he is out the door either, but she can't stop herself.
Lilo, of course, takes off immediately, which makes Nani even more livid. Because, in Nani's incredibly angry head, it means she knows exactly what she did. That she deliberately sabotaged the meeting with the social worker, because she couldn't grasp the consequences. Or because she didn't care and either way, Lilo was about to get it.
Because someone should.
The six year old might be fast, but Nani has 6 years of dealing with the slippery kid and the house only has so many hiding places. It's child's play for her to wrap her in the blanket and deposit her back into the living room, kneeling down next to her.
Lilo tries to make a run for it a second time, but she grabs her arm with as much strength as she can.
"Why didn't you wait at the school?" she yells at the struggling child. "You were supposed. To wait. There." she punctuates each word with a punch at the floor. She doesn't care that Lilo flinches a little with every punch. Instead, her sister keeps struggling and Nani can feel the last shreds of composure fade away. "LILO! Do you not understand?! Do you want to be taken away?" The fight leaves Lilo at those words and Nani feels almost satisfied at how her eyes fill with tears, because, for once, the brat needs to understand that she needs to behave. So she pushes on. "ANSWER ME!"
"NO!"
"No you don't understand?"she pushes more. She can see that she is crossing the line, but she just can't bring herself to care.
"NO!" Lilo screams back and starts struggling again, but Nani won't let her go.
"No WHAT?!"
"NOOOOOOOO!"
And finally the fight leaves her for good and Nani lets go of her hand as her sister drops face first to the floor and starts mumbling incomprehensible nonsense. She sits back, and rubs her face. "You're such a pain."
She regrets it the moment it comes out of her mouth. But it's too late and so this is another thing she can't fix.
She watches Lilo's eyes flash with hurt and then anger as she climbs back to her feet and yells back at her. "So why don't you just sell me and buy a rabbit instead?!"
She wants to gather her baby sister in her arms and apologize.
"AT LEAST A RABBIT WILL BEHAVE BETTER THAN YOU!" she yells back instead, as her sister starts climbing the stairs to her room.
"GO AHEAD, THEN YOU WILL BE HAPPY, BECAUSE IT WILL BE SMARTER THAN ME TOO!"
Since when did Lilo harbour such thoughts? Was it because of her?
"And QUIETER!" she screams from the bottom of the stairs instead.
"Then you'll like it, cause it's stinky like YOU!" Lilo retorts and shuts the door as loudly as she can.
"GO TO YOUR ROOM!"
"I AM ALREADY IN MY ROOM!"
And that is how she finds herself screaming in a pillow for the second time today.
It's far from the last.
It wasn't Lilo's fault, not really. She knows their parents are gone. She accepts it. She just doesn't like it and there are only so many ways a 6-year-old can say "you are not my Mom". She has never begrudged her that- she doesn't want to be her mother. She just has no other choice but to play at being one. Her claim of guardianship over her baby sister is hilariously shaky, having just barely reached an age where she wouldn't need guardianship herself. A barely paying job, cheap food on the table, an inability to so much as provide her little sister with a doll.
She shakes her head and swallows her last bite.
She buries her anger at her own helplessness and throws her dish in the sink, before picking up Lilo's plate.
The only thing that has come out of her room since the social worker left was a muffled scream, a few muffled sobs and then silence.
Nani has always been terrified of Lilo's silence. At first it was because it might mean the little she-beast has managed to get her hands on something she wasn't supposed to.
Nowadays it means, more often than not, that Lilo is alone, in her room, trying to understand why she is only left with a screaming sister and a photo of happier times.
She gathers her courage and makes her way to Lilo's room with slow, deliberate steps. She feels ashamed, but for once in this endless fucking day, she wants to do the right thing. To be what her baby sister needs her to be.
She takes a deep breath and slowly opens the door, only peaking her head in. "Hey."
Lilo doesn't look at her and her heart tightens a second time. She doesn't say anything as Nani walks into her room, simply looks at her handmade doll with a heartbroken expression that makes a lump form in her throat.
Because she knows she is the one who did this, and it becomes another thing she wants to fix but doesn't know how.
"I brought you some pizza." she says lamely. "In case you were hungry."
"We are a broken family. Aren't we?"
Her heart shatters at that, but she can put it aside for now.
"No." she responds immediately, but hiding the truth from Lilo has never been an easy thing to do. So she decides to choose honesty. "Maybe… a little."
No. She has decided on honesty. She owes Lilo that.
"Maybe a lot. I shouldn't have yelled at you."
"We are sisters. It's our job."
"Yeah well, from now on-"
"I liked you better as a sister than a Mom."
It's like the air in her lungs goes out. "Yeah?"
"And you like me better as a sister than a rabbit, right?" Lilo chokes out as she starts crying, burying her head in her doll.
Since when was Lilo afraid to let herself cry in front of her? Nani doesn't want to know.
She gathers the small child on her arms and holds her tightly close to her heart as she moves to sit cross-legged on the bed. "Yes. I do."
"I hit Mertle Edmonds today."
"You.. hit her?"
"Before I bit her."
"You bit her." she repeats. She doesn't even know why this surprises her at this point. "Lilo, you shouldn't-"
"People treat me different."
She knows that one too well. "They just don't know what to say." she tries to comfort but she understands. She remembers very well the looks of pity, of sympathy, the soupy tears of two young girls, alone in the world, maybe you should consider- "Tell you what." she sits back a little, giving her space to look Lilo in the eyes. "If you promise not to fight anymore… I promise not to yell at you. Except on special occasions."
"Tuesdays and bank holidays would be good."
"Yeah, would that be good?" she laughs, tickling her a little. Her heart feels a little lighter when Lilo chuckles at her teasing.
"Oh! My camera's full again!"
Aaaaaand the moment's gone. She really can't help the grimace that forms on her face as she looks at Lilo's wall.
"Aren't they beautiful?"
Lilo whispers the last word with genuine awe and Nani needs to put forth her best acting to not let her exact feelings show themselves on her face.
Thankfully she escapes having to answer that one as the lights begin flickering and a green light bathes the room from the outside. Lilo crawls away from her lap excitedly and Nani follows her, only to find herself staring at something green, very clearly burning, very clearly crash landing.
"A falling star!"
Her doubts increase exponentially as the "falling star" literally explodes on impact, in what she guesses is only a couple kilometres out of the city.
"I call it! Get out, get out, I need to make a wish!" The six-year-old begins pushing her out of the room and the big sister in her won't take that lying down. "Can't you go any faster?"
She can only smirk at that. "Oh no! Gravity's increasing on me!" she says dramatically, halting at the entrance.
"No it's not!"
She deliberately allows Lilo some room to move out as she slowly lets herself begin to "fall" backwards. "It is too Lilo, the same thing happened yesterday."
And she lets herself fall.
"YOU ROTTEN SISTER, YOUR BODY'S CRUSHING ME!" Lilo yells, climbing over her and back into her room. "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ACT SO WEIRD!"
Nani would appreciate a little gentleness in how Lilo immediately shuts the door on her head, forcing her into an upright position. She rubs the back of her neck to alleviate the sting a little and the door clicks open from the weight.
If she was a better person, she might have respected her sister's request for privacy, but she supposes this is the extent of her decency for today.
She peaks inside, careful not to let Lilo notice her.
"It's me again." the little girl says softly, her voice revealing more vulnerability than she has allowed Nani to see in a long time. "I need someone to be my friend. Someone who won't run away."
Her heart breaks again. It has been doing that a lot today.
"Maybe send me an angel! The nicest angel you have!"
She takes a moment to gather herself, before slowly rising to her feet and heading to her own bedroom, a new plan hesitantly forming.
Maybe, just maybe, she can fix this.
A/N: Special thanks to TTY7 for proof reading this entire mess and always encouraging me to keep going. As well as SuperNova23 for helping me iron out a few details for the overall plot. You guys are both amazing!