ive taken to unironically saying "aw, beans..." when something goes wrong in the past few weeks and im honestly just surprised I haven't been saying it for longer
ciri & her messed up parents modern au ft. yenralt
For the first time in years and with great trepidation, Ciri returns home for a holiday family gathering.
aka I'm pushing my ciri as jenny from thebes agena
Ciri dropped the kickstand of her bike and worked her stiff fingers in and out of fists, regretting her smart-looking fingerless gloves after miles of chilled highway. The driveway and street out front of the little house was full, and somebody had slung lights up on the eaves and chucked a crooked wreath on the door.
Half the cars she didn't recognize, but then, she hadn't been back for years.
A little tabby hurried up the walk to meet her, tail raised high, and Ciri swung off her bike to drop to meet her. Scratching behind her ears, she tipped up an oversized tag on her collar to read– of course.
Roach nudged at the laces of her boots and purred.
For all the things that did, some things never changed.
When Mama had called to tell her they were doing family Yuletide dinner, Ciri had laughed out loud. Couldn't help it. She couldn't imagine her Mama home-cooking anything without some disaster happening. When she was little, Mama used to peel the label off store-bought jam to give as gifts to her teachers. They’d always gotten takeout on the important holidays. Eaten quiet together washed by the glow of the TV.
Those were the good holidays. The bad ones were loud.
Daddy home late from a shift he claimed he wouldn't take this year. Mama red-eyed and yelling. She looked like she could call down lightning sometimes when she was real mad, black hair frizzed out and wild, and Daddy usually got that stubborn gleam in his eye and put his foot in his mouth and then–
There were great holidays too, of course. Her years spent with Pops and her uncles in the mountains, bundled up like a marshmallow for hunting trips and coming in out of the cold to a feast laid out by the roaring fire. There'd been times with her cousins from the islands, learning to ice skate and rev a snowmobile.
And there'd been great times with her parents too. Just never together under the same roof. That's when it soured.
There'd been that year that she and her dad went camping in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. Just them and their bikes and the fog and shitty freeze-dried army rations cooked out of bags. That'd been nice.
And the year Mama took her to the city, bought tickets to a show and let her dress up fancy, a little slutty, and ate takeout in their opulent hotel room after, gossiping and giggling like little girls at a sleepover. That'd been a night she remembered so fondly it ached.
But there'd never been great times in this house. Mama had lived here in Vengerberg forever, and Daddy had lived here in a rotation of years on and off and Ciri had lived here when she wasn't off at school but always done her best to find other places to go.
The first chance she could, she was gone. That escape came with its own measure of fucked up nights and bad times, but that was another story. Ciri had clawed her way out of several dark places and had figured she'd keep doing that forever.
She'd never seen her Mama's place with Yule lights on the eaves. Couldn't quite remember why no one had ever decorated. Maybe just to be stubborn and miserable. Any time they'd tried, it became a fight. The same as anything.
Ciri made herself go up the front walk, climbing the stoop and just standing there looking at the crooked greenery on the door. She reached out and straightened it rather than knocking.
She wished she'd brought somebody with her. Someone to stand here with a hand at the small of her back and make the decision to go in for her. She'd been told on the phone she could bring a guest, her Mama's voice dipping in question like she wanted to ask who she was with now but had thought better of it.
Ciri didn't have anybody. Maybe never had anyone.
She knocked on the door and didn't wait for the answer, just pushed in. Roach leapt past her legs, and the gathering in the front room that rambled out into the dining room all exclaimed with joy when they saw her. Some of the people who clapped her on the back or called a greeting were unfamiliar, but maybe she'd just forgotten or they'd shaved their beard or dyed their hair.
The rooms were hung with garland around the doorways, and music swelled from somewhere. The light was warm, and the space was full.
After being released from the umpteenth bear hug, somebody told her that her parents were in the kitchen finishing up dinner. They laughed over the mock-scared face she pulled, but the way her heartbeat kicked up, it was barely a joke.
The kitchen was too small for much of anything. Daddy always said he'd take out that half wall and give it some breathing room, but there'd been hemming and hawing over details and then a bitterness that it never got done and then a grudge and a stubborn insistence it wasn't necessary anyway to expand a kitchen no one stepped foot in.
Now, every bit of counter space was swathed with foil covered dishes. Enough to feed an army. Ciri felt a little pang of guilt that maybe they'd been waiting for her.
Mama and Daddy were standing at the stove together. Daddy with his white hair tied back, wearing a kiss the cook apron, and Mama looking short as hell in her stocking feet stirring a pot of something on the stove.
They spoke quiet together, heads bent close. Daddy's hand rested at her waist and when she cut the burner and turned to him, he dropped a kiss into her hair. They swayed together, a vision of opposites. Rising up out of Ciri's muck-stained memories like a mirage.
Mama short and fat and happy. Daddy stooping a little to rest his chin against her cloud of dark hair.
It didn't seem wholly fair. That after everything, after all those ruined holidays, everything she fled from, her parents should claw their way to something as peaceful and real as this. Something that felt different.
Ciri hadn't believed it when Mama told her. That something was different this time. But she believed it now, as much as she could believe anything at all.
The tabby weaved between her legs and meowed after a piece of ham, and her parents looked up and turned her way, faces brimming with wet smiles, and when they opened their arms together, she fell into them and held tight to both, hoping someday she'd look back on this year as one of the great ones. Fighting back the bitterness like a cold and solid wave.
