038 - Buttercup

[deadly_ned]

When I was nine, my father brought me home from my mother's funeral, took me to a boarding school, and left me there. Forever.

He left my half-brothers at a magic show when they were nine years old, too.

General consensus currently is that he was a Grade-A jackass.

But I know that I have - and had - people in my life that did more good and made more difference than he did.


So I would...like to know who those people are in your life. Who make up the difference when your relatives fail. Who pick up the pieces and put you back together again.

Comments

[routemistress]

Panda. More recently, you and Dean and ...more people 'ere than I can list without getting tedious. You know who you are.

Even the Doctor. Who's also often a jackass, but that's 'ow these things go, eh? 'E's not been one more often than 'e 'as.

[deadly_ned]

Dean and me? Really?

You always seem so...put together.

[routemistress]

It's been like 'aving brothers. I always wanted brothers. I've managed to acquire a few now, over the centuries. One I even built meself, bless 'im.

I've 'ad a lot of years to put meself together, that's all.

[videocamera]

What if you haven't got anyone like that? [HYPOTHETICALLY.]

[deadly_ned]

Do you not have anyone like that?

[videocamera]

Not really. Not now that my mom's... gone.

[codename_duchess]

Oh my God, I bet your dad would love my mom.

And uh... I guess Rogue does.

[deadly_ned]

I don't think my dad loves anyone except himself.

Rogue? Here?

[codename_duchess]

That's something they have in common.

Yeah, idiot, here. You know another Rogue?

[myresponsibility]

My aunt and uncle pretty much raised me when my parents left.

[Normally he might not say anything, but. Well. People apparently can't shut up about what today is, so.]

[deadly_ned]

That was very kind of them. Not everyone is that lucky.

Chuck's aunts raised her after her father died.

{After the Piemaker killed her father, but semantics]

[myresponsibility]

Who's Chuck?

[imfollowinghim]

Steve Rogers. [It's the easiest question to answer in the world, even if he doesn't really feel like his relatives failed him much in the time that they'd been around. But Steve's always been the one who's had his back, no matter what shape they'd both been in.]

Your old man was an asshole.

[deadly_ned]

...Isn't he here? One of the new wardens?

I know. I never saw him again after he dumped me.

[imfollowinghim]

Good. Sounds like you're better off.

And yeah, he is. We grew up together.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[Elena can't say that her blood relatives have ever let her down. She feels she's let them down more than anything both in little and big ways. But she tries to make up for it. Then again, that could be something she tells herself so she doesn't feel quite so guilty about disappointing them.]

[But on the rare occasions she can't count on them, she turns to her friends. She's still felt somewhat out of sorts without Dean, so this strikes a chord with her.]

People I consider family even if we're not actually related, usually.

[deadly_ned]

People here? Or people at home?

[forgetyourusedtobe]

There are some people here and some people at home.

[fridgetothefire]

Batman.

[She gets a bit a kick out of that. It was him first. He just - took her in, somehow, and she let him. Getting slaughtered by Castiel together wasn't fun, but cemented them together.]

Lua and Ben, always. Hannibal. The first one, I mean. Erik - he counts, even though were sort of related, I think. He definitely picked up some pieces. Alex and Charles, too. Riddick. Dean. Jesse. I really didn't expect it from him, but then suddenly he was just - do you remember that time we became our Halloween costumes, and he was a superhero? He flew with me, picked me up and soared.

I'd wanted to ask my father for that since I was five, since I first saw him take off. And I never dared. But Jesse asked me.

[deadly_ned]

Batman.

[bit of a grin at that, okay]

Jesse was a good person. All of them, the ones I knew.

These are good choices.

[fridgetothefire]

He taught me to make nunchucks out of a chair my first day. And how to use them.

Arthas, a little bit.

[fuckton]

Your father's a fucking shitheel.

They were nine? Does he have like some sort of fucked up Peter Pan complex?

I had a brother who did it, but he was a shitheel too.

[deadly_ned]

More or less in those general terms.

I don't know. I don't know what he has. All I have is what he left, who are two half-brothers who expect me to have all the answers by virtue of being born several years earlier.

I'm sorry about your brother.

[bodilesswarrior]

[...Well, that's horrifying and infuriating. (Horrifying for a daughter; infuriating for a mother.) And she lets it show, just for a moment.]

My first dad - when he was gone, my aunt and uncle took me in. [She doesn't think she's ever talked about this, not publicly.] I wouldn't let myself be terrified, but I was - I didn't think I'd ever trust or love or rely on anyone ever again. [Her tone is matter of fact, with the distance of decades.

And then she smiles.]

After a year, I was calling them my parents.

[deadly_ned]

It's funny. How things like that work out sometimes.