hell of a party

[middlingalong]

Ivan must be drunker than he thought he was. He could have sworn he knew his way around Vivienne's parents' house, since she wanted to introduce him last week and showed him the place, but maybe they have a... secret... upstairs... bar? where Vivienne's room is supposed to be? And most certainly was last time he checked? He's never going to find the sweater she sent him up looking for here, anyway. Why is there a secret upstairs bar in Vivienne's parents' house?

Comments

[isthisart]

"I didn't like it on Cetaganda so I left," elaborates Linya. "I don't really talk to them anymore. I have not been back to visit in years."

"But still," says Nika.

"Nika, all the things you've heard about happened long before I was born."

Nika scoots closer to Isabella instead. Isabella checks her ponytail half-consciously.

[thisvorlunatic]

Little Miles glares ferociously at Grownup Miles.

Grownup Miles sighs.

"'Bad' and 'Cetagandan' are not synonymous. On my word, she's fine," he says.

"Fine," grumbles Little Miles. "But you better not have more weird stuff you're not telling me."

...ulp.

"You do!" says Little Miles, pointing accusingly at his alt. "You do have more weird stuff! Tell me all the weird stuff right now!"

Grownup Miles winces.

[isthisart]

"What weird stuff?" agrees Nika indignantly.

"Can you be mature about the weird stuff?" Linya asks. "It's pretty weird."

"Stop keeping secrets!"

"Nika."

"...I'll try."

[thisvorlunatic]

"No shrieking," says Grownup Miles firmly.

"Try'n stop me," says Little Miles.

"No shrieking or I just won't tell you the rest of the things."

"...No shrieking," agrees Little Miles, very grudgingly.

"All right," says Grownup Miles. He glances over at the Linya-cluster to see if Nika's grownups verify her as ready to hear weird things.

[isthisart]

"Isabella, do you want to go first?"

[warpfairy]

Isabella returns Linya's hair tie and tucks her hair behind her ears.

[middlingalong]

"Elf!" says Tiny Ivan.

"...Alien," corrects Big Ivan. "Well, half-alien."

[thisvorlunatic]

"You could've just said," grumbles Little Miles.

"Probably not, no," says Grownup Miles. "You're just saying that because you don't get to yell about it."

[warpfairy]

"My father was a Vulcan. The species is native to the planet I was born on. My mother is human."

"...that's cool actually," says Nika. "That's why you can read minds?"

"Yes."

[isthisart]

"And, let's see, what else before the big one... there's another Miles upstairs. He's from a world with actual magic. He's a dwarf."

"The magic kind of dwarf," Nika clarifies.

"Yes."

"That's also pretty cool."

[thisvorlunatic]

"What's the big one?" demands Little Miles.

"We're getting there," Grownup Miles says wearily.

[isthisart]

"...Isabella, if you would..."

[warpfairy]

"Grownup Miles's little brother Mark is upstairs too. And Mark is a half-alt of my husband Lalita, even though they don't look anything alike. Half-alts is like there's - two people's worth of personality in Mark, and Lalita has one of the halves for himself."

[thisvorlunatic]

"That's not that weird really," says Little Miles.

"Lalita's the one with the magic blood," Grownup Miles adds helpfully.

"Good for him," says Little Miles, although he does appear to find this information genuinely mollifying. "What else?"

[middlingalong]

"Grownup Miles is married, too," says Big Ivan, when no one else jumps on the revelation.

"But you aren't, right?" asks Tiny Ivan. "It's weird enough that you kiss girls."

"I am not married."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So what if grownup Miles is married," says Little Miles. "Who's he married to? His brother or something?"

...Miles cracks up.

"No," he says between giggles. "Not Mark."

[isthisart]

"Me."

[thisvorlunatic]

...Little Miles makes a dramatically disgusted face.

"Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww. That's almost as bad."

"But not actually as bad," says grownup Miles.

"Well. I guess not. She's not your sister. She's Cetagandan."

[isthisart]

"But you're a me!" exclaims Nika.

"I'm a Cetagandan you. I can check just how not-related we are if you want to see. And we didn't know anything about alts or other worlds until today, so we couldn't really take it into account."

"But you're a me and he's a my brother."

"Nika, you're adopted anyway."

"But he's my BROTHER."

"Too bad."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah," says Little Miles, emboldened by his sister's agreement. "You still shouldn't be married to her."

"I'm married to her anyway," says Grownup Miles.

"Well... well stop!"

"Just like I should stop being twenty-five? I'll get right on that," he says, rolling his eyes.

"Get a divorce."

"I actually pretended to do that once, to save her from some people who wanted to kill me," says Miles. "They said they'd let her go if she got a divorce and promised not to rescue me. But it wasn't legally binding because Da wasn't there, and anyway we got rescued by other people before I could finish."

Little Miles is almost distracted by the impressiveness of this story.

[isthisart]

"And it wouldn't have worked anyway, because we are married twice."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Get two divorces," says Little Miles.

"Don't wanna," says Grownup Miles.

Little Miles is stumped by this unassailable argument.

[isthisart]

"Do you like it?" says Nika, morbidly fascinated.

"Yes. I do."

Nika seems to find that argument pretty unassailable.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Now, are we all done yelling about the weird things?"

"Are there any left?"

"Can't think of any," says Miles honestly. He feels that the exact occupation of Stalas, Mark, and Lalita upstairs is something his five-year-old self still wouldn't want to know even adjusting for his demand to be told all the things he won't like hearing. (And last Miles saw them, they appeared to be having a ticklefight anyway.)

"Then I guess I'm done yelling about them," says Little Miles. "Even though I didn't hardly."

"And now," says Grownup Miles, "you can go back to yelling at me about Strat-O." He makes a move.

Little Miles giggles. "Deal!"

[isthisart]

Nika puzzles something out. "This means both of you are married to my brothers."

"Well, yes, sort of," acknowledges Linya. "But -"

"I know, I know, I'm adopted. But who'm I going to marry?"

"You could skip it if you wanted, I imagine. Or find somebody else and then have to explain to a three-year-old you that it's okay."

Nika snorts.