#maxis descendants

[lavender-noire]

Tina is rocked by waves of panic, relief, curiosity, and fear as she confronts the child who bears her face. Panic swells with the realization that the last she’d seen the girl was with her cheeks molded to the windowpane of the ground floor of the townhouse she’d once shared with the Gavigans. her legs bowed and broadly splayed as she’d only recently taken her first steps. She couldn’t have spoken even if she wanted to, then. She couldn’t have possibly known she wouldn’t see her mother for another -- shit, eight years?

“When’s dinner?” Marlowe calls drably from the activity table.

“So you and Dad met...?” Emma prods a little shyly.

Tina chuckles. “When we were about your age. We were next door neighbors.”

“And you like, loved him, right?”

She nods. “For a long time, yeah. Or at least, it felt like a long time, then.”

“....Was he like, funny, or something? Because he’s not really good at a lot of things. And he doesn’t talk super well. And I’ve seen pictures from when he was a kid and he looked like a total dork.”

Tina grins wide. “Hah! Yeah, thank goodness for his sense of humor.”

“Tina, when’re you ordering food?” Marlowe persists.

Tina bites the inside of her lip. She tilts her head and casts her gaze across the room to fall upon a curtain of smooth blonde hair. The girl doesn’t look at her. She isn’t sure she’s justified to ask more of her. “Well, I guess now’s as good a time as any. You guys like Zhang’s?”

It’s the warmest response Tina’s gotten all night.

[lavender-noire]

The sound of small sneakers on the porch floorboards summon Tina to the door. Her heart raps as she encircles the doorknob in her hand and pushes it open. Two heads of cascading blonde hair lay in wait for her on the other side. She smooths her dress across her thighs and wishes she’d brought something more casual.

“Hey Dad, is that lady here or --” she hears one of them ask before she’s stepped over the threshold.

“Oh.”

A cold bead of sweat bleeds down the side of her face. Tina wills a smile from the pit of her stomach and nods to the two girls. “Welcome home, girls. I’ll be watching you while your Dad’s away at work. Hope that’s all right.”

The twins’ eyes meet and a laden silence is shared between them. Simultaneously, one says, “Hi, Mom.”

“Who the hell are you?” says the other.

[lavender-noire]

“Why am I being treated like a stranger, here?” Nathan demands. He feels his ears burn as the blood rises to the surface of his skin.

Jesse shrugs. “Why’ve you been one?”

He raps the man on the shoulder as he moves past him, toward the bus stop. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Where have you got to go that’s more important than your family? I came all the way out here from --”

“Placement testing at Sim State.”

“Oh.” Nathan says curtly. His cheeks flush under the lamplight of his own frustration. “Well. Congratulations.”

Jesse rolls his eyes. “Whatever, man.”

[lavender-noire]

Nathan Gavigan is, at first, overjoyed to see his youngest son. The pungent odor of baked beans serves a nauseating underscore for what, otherwise, might’ve been an exceedingly pleasant reunion. He approaches the boy, arms outstretched.

“Jesse, look at you!”

The boy retreats a pace out of his father’s embrace. He watches the man’s face fall. Something like betrayal and confusion plays upon his face, though he tries to mask it. Jesse bites the inside of his cheek. The man never could act worth a damn.

“Hey,” he says tersely. “What’re you doing here?”

Nathan wrinkles his nose. “Well, I thought I’d visit my family.”

“You should’ve called, then. The girls have school. I’m heading out now.”

The elder man makes a move to sidestep the boy. “I’ll see Isaiah then.”

Jesse impedes him, leaning heavily on his side with his arms crossed and shoulders squared. He can hear his father scoff.

“I wouldn’t,” he advises. “He’s got a girl in there.”

[lavender-noire]

“And I think this whole ‘My family’s less working class than yours’ bull has overstayed its welcome,” he says with a puckish look in his eyes.

The girl quirks a brow, a smirk curled upon her lips. “You said it, not me.”

She shrieks as he gathers her into his arms. Her legs kick and sweep through the air. She wads her fingers into fists and raps playfully at Isaiah’s chest. She feels his fingers splay across her back as he tilts her to look him in the eye. His chest rises to meet hers, breath belabored by the struggle to get her off her feet.

“Amber,” he says, “Play nice.”

[lavender-noire]

The cabinet doors close with a small but satisfying click. They kick up the smell of her hair -- a potent burst of artificial passion fruit. It comingles miserably with the smell of brown mustard and salted meat. Isaiah turns his head.

“Jesus, Zay. Why do I even come here?” she dryly says. “You never have any fucking food.”

He forces air from his nose in amusement, shaking his head. “Well, you’re welcome to take the bus back to your Mom’s place and eat all the artery-clogging Mom food you want. I’ll eat your sandwich and mine. Chronic bachelor fridge has gotten me this far.”

“’Chronic’, huh? Public school teach you that?”

“Oh, fuck off. Public school’s the reason you have three brothers and sisters and not fourteen.”

[lavender-noire]

It wasn’t long ago that Isaiah toed at the wreckage of his parents’  20 year marriage. He salvaged from it a few good memories and a panic disorder, all of which he’d go on to share with his daughters. Under-equipped but determined, he took on both the girls and his younger brother, and moved from the family’s posh townhouse in the financial district to a tin-roofed manufactured home next to the cannery. The smog is thick and the Summers reek of black eyed peas, but he deals with it in good humor.

Marlowe and Emma hardly remember anything else. They cry sometimes for Mom, Grandma, or Grandpa, but Isaiah does well enough to stock the place with distractions. They’re getting really good at video games, that way.

[lavender-noire]

Minor spoiler but you guYS Summer is sooooo beautiful, I cannot believe.