All's Fair - Part 7
#7 of All's Fair
The story's main character is bi, so don't read if you don't want to. As ever, your thoughts and criticism are welcome so that I can get better. Are things moving too slow? Do I have enough detail? Are the characters fun and/or believable? (or too preditctable?) Good parts/bad parts?
Thanks for reading!
- Xi
All's Fair - Part 7
We pulled into a paved half-circle driveway in front of a nice two-story house on a one-acre lot. Looking at it, I judged that Jake's family made maybe one hundred grand per year or more.
Jake tried to get my bag for me, but I gave him a dirty look and took it myself. It was awkward, but manageable. I hopped out of the van - Dan had pulled it up to the fornt door for me before taking it into the garage - and let Halo lead me inside. I had to give Jake another dirty look when he held the door open for me, but there wasn't much I could do and he smirked to show he knew it. On the inside the house showed a streak of modernist design that, combined with the classic suburban features, should have looked awful but didn't. The windows were huge, making the spacious rooms very light despite the bold, clean-edged matte black and iridescent burgundy furnishings. Halo took me through the atrium to the stairs in the living room, pointed out the kitchen, then told me where my room was - the last door on the balcony that overlooked the living room - and let me get settled in.
"Just let me know if you need anything, Nick," she said kindly. I tore my eyes off the twin fifteen-by-thirty glass walls on the living room's north side, nodded, and started up the stairs.
The bedroom was large for me, maybe fourteen feet square, with another enormous set of windows on two walls. I stared at the space, equipped at the moment with a built in queen size bed with shelves, a slouch chair, and desk. Turning to shut the door behind me, I noticed the bolt on the handle.
The rooms at the correction center don't have locks - not on the inside, anyway.
Jake came into view on the balcony and I quickly dried my eyes. He noticed anyway. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "You can have another room if you don't like this one."
"No, it's just - the door locks," I said stupidly. Then I shook myself. "I don't need a maid to help unpacking," I said in my normal voice.
He looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, then nodded. "My room's the next one here," he said. "My brother and sister - they're at school still - are in the ones closer to the stairs. Them and the master suite downstairs are off limits, but you can help yourself to food in the kitchen or whatever. My parents usually work all day, so they won't be around much before seven. You break anything, mutt, you pay for it."
I snorted. "How clumsy do you think I am?"
He didn't answer, just looked pointedly at my casts. I rolled my eyes and shut the door gently in his face. Then I sagged against it. God, what had I gotten myself into? Trapped in a fantastic house with an incredible room - and a gorgeous wolf I couldn't stand. Slim to no odds he'd quit shadowing me everywhere - probably he'd decided I should be closer so he could do it more effectively. Then again, I could always sneak out a window or something once my casts were off.
Unpacking took all of ten minuts and barely made any impression at all on the room's clean emptiness. I wanted it that way. Returning downstairs, I saw Dan and Halo doing a decent job of pretending they weren't waiting for me.
"Hi, Nick," Dan said, smiling at me. "Come sit down, please." I gingerly planted myself on a couch across from them. "I just wanted to lay out the ground rules for you," he continued. "Jake probably already told you that bedrooms are off-limits unless you have permission - and that means we won't come into yours, either. Other than that, we expect you every day for dinner at seven thirty -" he gave me a stern look that said plainly he'd heard at least something about my wandering habits "- and we want to know how long you plan to stay out other than that. You can leave a note on the table if we're not here. Also, I understand that you're quite good in school, so we expect your grades to reflect that." I barely restrained from rolling my eyes at that; my grades were almost always good, despite myself. "Finally, we expect a certain degree of politeness and responsibility: please and thank you, no broken property, and so forth." He softened it with a smile. "Can you do that?"
I nodded mutely, then cleared my throat at his raised eyebrow. "Ah, yes, Sir." I grinned shyly. "I think, anyway." At that moment I did, too, even though I knew the fixed dinner would be an issue. I didn't like being bound like that. Still.
Dan grinned back. "Good enough, Nick. If you have anything you want to talk about, don't hesitate to bring it up - we try to do that at dinner, but any time you're comfortable with is okay." He and Halo stood up. "Well, we're going to pick up Michael and Aislyn from school. It's good to have you, Nick."
"Thank you," I said quietly to their retreating backs. I don't know if they heard.
After a few minutes I got up and went outside to the back yard. There was a semi-enclosed garden around the northeast corner of the house, giving the master suite some lush privacy. Curiosity made me peek into it, but aside from some benches and a fountain or two, there wasn't much there except dormant plants. The room behind it was hidden behind half-closed vertical blinds, but I caught a glimpse of a spacious room set up mush like mine but larger. Turning back to the rest of the yard, I saw a pool, empty for the winter, in a white flagstone patio with a gazebo and a shed on the far side and trees all around. Low rock walls made grassy terraces in the gentle slope behind it. It was a very well-kept place.
I wandered back into the trees until I couldn't be seen from the house, but not so far that I ran into the fence. I explored slowly until I heard the van pulling back into the garage, then made my way back to the house.
I made it in just as they were coming in from the garage and starting to look for me.
"Oh, good, I was wondering where you'd gone," Halo said. "I'd like you to meed Michael, and Aislyn. Kids, this is Nick."
I looked at the pair curiously. Aislyn looked a lot like Jake, but slimmer and female. Definitely hot, and she knew it, but she carried herself more like a multibillion dollar business executive than a middle schooler. She nodded coolly to me. Michael was a deer like Halo, maybe fifth or sixth grade - I'm bad at guessing ages - who smiled cheerfully at me. "Hi!" he said in a high-pitched voice, and I groaned to myself. He was only a head shorter than me, and he hadn't even hit his growth spurts yet. Aislyn was already an inch or two taller.
"Hey," I replied.
"He goggled at my casts. "Wow. What'd you do to yourself?"
I shrugged. "I ran into a gang a few weeks ago. It doesn't hurt anymore." Mostly true. It occurred to me to wonder what had happened to the panther I'd attacked, and his companions.
Michael looked disappointed that I wasn't launching into a full, gory account, but his parents smiled gratefully at me from behind his back as the potential episode passed. He got over it quickly, anyway. "Come on," he uged, grabbing my paw and pulling me towards the stairs. "I'll show you my room." I had to retrieve my paw so that I could work the crutch, and then I followed his bounding progress back up the stairs. I was definitely looking forward to losing the casts; stairs were a chore.
"Are you really in high school? You're not very tall," Michael asked from the balcony. "I'm in fourth grade, but I know some furs in fifth grade. Are you as old as Jake?"
"No," I said as I got to the last step. "I'm a year behind him. We took mathematics together though."
"Oh. I don't like math; it's boring. But Aislyn's really good at it. She's good at everything." He ran into his room, but I stopped at the door, remembering what Dan had said. I'd probably have done so anyway, though. He glanced behind him and saw me there. "Oh, you can come in. Jake's good at math too, but I don't think he's as good as Aislyn. He's better than me, though. They have to help me, sometimes." He grinned sheepishly. "I like it better when we do English and crafts."
His bed was covered in a dark green, unlike the furniture in the rest of the house, so I assumed he'd picked it. The walls were covered in posters, mostly of cars and trucks, but a few were drawings of young furs, probably his friends or something, or landscapes. If he'd done them, he was very good. When he saw me looking at them, he immediately launched into introductions of the furs, then started telling me about the cars. I sat on the green chair in the corner by the door and let him go for a while. Hey, don't laugh just because I have a soft spot for kids. Besides, I was feeling mellow at the moment.
I left after twenty minutes or so, since he was supposed to be studying. Aislyn's door was shut. Jake's was open, but I obviously didn't look in to see if he was there. I'm not that desparate.
I didn't shut my door, just lay down on the bed, testing it. It felt fantastic, and I grinned as I wondered what the odds were that I'd get fostered to a house decorated in my favorite color. It certainly said good things about Dan and Halo.
After ten minutes I realized I didn't really know what to do with myself. Usually the center had planned activities or made me do homework. I didn't have any books of my own; I borrowed from the center or a library on the rare occasions I wanted to read something. I supposed I could see what movies and games were here, but I didn't feel like it. After a minute I I stood and set up my government-issue laptop on the desk. With a pleasant shock I saw that the Alteras had wireless, but that didn't help much since I didn't care for false-life social sites. Besides, my firewall would probably block them. Once I had things working I killed the laptop and left.
I poked my head into the kitchen on my way out. Michael had migrated down to the kitchen table with his parents. "I'll be back in a couple hours," I said.
"Thanks, Nick," Halo said, looking up. "Do you need directions anywhere?"
"Um, I'm actually looking for a library," I admitted. Part of me was appalled; I was fully capable of looking, so what was I doing asking for directions? But Halo described the location fairly quickly, and I fled.
Dinner was a decidedly foreign experience. I'd almost never eaten in a family setting instead of a cafeteria; certainly I'd never done so as 'part' of the family, at least since I'd run away when I was six. Everyone had changed into more casual clothes except for Aislyn, Michael, and me. Aislyn had changed, but I wasn't going to call her clinging, severe black dress casual.
Michael brought up the subject with all his usual tact. "Hey, Nick, why haven't you changed? I was doing homework, but you weren't. Don't you have any other clothes?"
I blushed slightly, but I'm pretty sure that my fur hid it. White isn't the best color for that, but such is life. "Um, actually I don't. I have a couple other sets, but mostly I wear the uniforms."
"Well, we can't have that," Halo said firmly, clicking her hoof against the hardwood floor. She thought about it. "I suppose we can take you shopping this weekend. I don't really want to take more time off work to go before that, but..."
"Don't worry about it, Mum," Jake said. "If you leave some money I can take him tomorrow after my chemistry final." He smiled innocently under my glare.
"Thanks, Jake," Halo said gratefully.
I squirmed in embarrassment. "You really don't have to," I mumbled. At this point my face probably glowed.
"Nonsense," Halo said in that firm voice. "You're ours now, at least for a while; we can afford to get you some clothes." She stared at me until I gave in. Dan and Jake both smiled in amusement; even Aislyn's lips twitched. Michael just looked at us in confusion.
After dinner Aislyn vanished again; this must have been usual because no one commented. Jake helped clean up, then he and his parents joined Michael in the living room for a game of scrabble while I watched. Around nine they chased the yawning deer upstairs to bed. I curled up on a living room couch with a library book, but didn't make much headway since I looked up every time anyone made a noise or passed where I could see them. Silently turned Halo's words over in my mind. I wasn't sure I liked being 'theirs'; while better than being 'the state's', I would have preferred to be 'mine'. I shrugged it off; I didn't feel like following a figure of speech. Quietly I slid off the couch and wandered outside for a while, then came back, thanked Dan and Halo again, and went to bed.
The new room made my nightmares worse, and I woke up twice that I remember. The second time it was near enough to morning - four a.m. by my glowing alarm - that I shook off my remaining weariness and padded down to the bathroom for a shower. Standing under the hot water, my muzzle turned into the spray while it rinsed the soapsuds down my body into the drain, I wondered how long I could actually stay there. The furs at the center would bug you if you took too long about it. But rather than make the attempt I quickly turned the water to cold and enjoyed the contrast for a moment, then got out and dried myself with a towel from the cabinet.
Several hours and several miles later, I reflected bitterly that at least I got half a day off. Sighing, I wondered what would happen if I didn't meet Jake like I'd told Halo I would. It would be easy. All I had to do was sit here. It's not like I had to decide to break my word; all I had to do was not keep it.
My face crumpled for a second, because a moment later I stood and pointed my nose for school. Mine, indeed.
***
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