Who: Jasper and Amelia (NPC) When: Monday, Sept 18, early evening Where: his mom’s house Status: Complete
It was a gross, rainy day, and Jasper kind of wished he was going to work, but it was a day off. He’d actually gone to school, though he’d been reluctant to. He had to start showing up most of the time, or he really wasn’t going to graduate. That usually didn’t bother him, but it had been weighing more on his mind lately. He’d kept his head down and hadn’t really seen Jules, and that was maybe a good thing. So after school let out, he had no work, no desire to go to his dad’s, none of his friends were hanging out anywhere, and he really did need to do some laundry ...
That meant going to his mom’s house. It was still technically his house, he guessed, since that was where his room was, but it didn’t feel like home. Nowhere did. Jasper procrastinated a bit, going to a store to buy cigarettes and walk around for a while, but he eventually got back in his car and drove ‘home.’ He parked and flipped his hood up over his head, standing in the rain for a minute as he gathered all the dirty laundry in the back and stuffed it into the canvas bag he used for it, then shouldered that and his backpack and went up the porch steps. Jasper fished his keys out again and unlocked the front door, already bracing himself for whatever fuckery his mom might throw at him.
The house was eerily quiet as it usually was when Olivia was either asleep or out and as soon as Jasper opened the door Amelia poked her head out from the kitchen, going a little wide eyed when she saw her brother. "Jasper!" she exclaimed, her expression going from worried to relieved in a split second. "You still live here?" she asked brattily before grinning at him, clutching the doorframe as she leaned into the hallway to look him up and down. He looked like he probably smelled bad and she was so not hugging him until he took a shower or something.
Relieved that his mother wasn’t in the living room and the TV wasn’t blaring, Jasper looked up at his little sister and gave her a tired grin. “Hey twerp,” he greeted as he locked up behind himself. He approached her and reached out to ruffle her hair. “Don’t lie, you miss me every second of every day. Is Mom here?” Jasper kind of hoped not. He could take a shower and do his laundry in peace, then snuggle up with Amelia and watch some TV or something. Maybe after smoking a quick joint in his room and checking the freezer, that was.
"Ew," Amelia grumbled, fixing her hair as she headed back into the kitchen. "You smell like cigarettes," she added and she definitely didn't want that in her hair! "And no, mom's out. Probably with her new boyfriend." The last word was said with appropriate amount of disdain because that guy was way more gross than the smell of Jasper right now. She was willing to bet Jasper didn't know about the guy and she could totally dish out some gossip if he just asked so she gave him a knowing look as she waited for him to do just that.
Jasper paid the complaint no mind, as usual. He probably smelled like worse things than cigarettes, but whatever. The rest of what Amelia said was much more interesting. “New boyfriend?” he asked as he followed her into the kitchen, his brow furrowing. “When did that happen?” He dropped his backpack for right then and shed his coat, then carried his duffel bag to the laundry area off the kitchen. He peeked around the corner to show Amelia he was still listening, then opened the washer and started stuffing clothes into it.
Amelia trailed after him. "I don't know," she sighed. "I just saw her kissing him in the Kmart parking lot. He's a total loser. It was so embarrassing." Her best friend had been there and her best friend's dad. She just hoped they hadn't recognized her mom. "Are you staying tonight?" Her tone changed at that question, a little hope sneaking into it. She was very independent and she'd turn ten in just a couple of months but it still sucked to be home alone and she had no idea when Olivia was coming home. At least when it happened on weekends she could crash at her friend's house and have a fun sleepover but on a school night her friends' parents tended to be weird about it.
He frowned at that particular mental image, and internally called his mother a stupid fucking bitch. People were going to see that, and word would get around to his father, and that would just be trouble. They’d been separated for years, but they were still married, for fuck’s sake. She could at least be discreet about it. He glanced up at Amelia again, doing his best to wipe the consternation off his face. “Yeah,” he answered. Jasper dumped some detergent into the washer -- his dumb tiff with Jules about laundry crossed his mind -- and closed the lid to start it up. “What about you? You stayin’ tonight, or got some crazy party to go to? It’s a school night, Amelia, you really should be studying.” He flashed her a little grin, reaching out to pinch at her side playfully as he passed by her again.
"Idiot," she quipped back at him, squirming a little at the pinch. "I am studying. Was studying. You interrupted me." Okay so she had been watching videos on youtube but she'd had her book in front of her, open and everything, so that counted. "I already ate but there's frozen pizza if you're hungry. Mom left some money too so you can order something, I'll tell her I spent it if you want." She might call him smelly and an idiot and roll her eyes at him a lot but she loved Jasper. He just wasn't home often enough and she missed him, even if he could be a total jerk.
“Pizza works,” Jasper said as he snagged up his backpack and jacket again. “I’m gonna grab a shower now, I’ll stick it in when I’m out.” These times, when it was just the two of them, was when Jasper felt the most comfortable in that house. Since he’d turned eighteen, he’d thought a bit about looking into adopting Amelia. Or at least getting his own place and seeing if she could live with him. They would do all right together, he thought. She was already really independent and smart, and Jasper thought she really needed to get away from their mother before she got permanently screwed up. But then reality would always settle in and remind him that he would probably fuck her up worse. He didn’t even know anything about periods or whatever. He headed down the short hall to his bedroom to dump his stuff and grab a change of clothes.
Microwaved pizza was okay but oven baked was way better so Amelia started the oven up even if he'd said he was gonna take care of it. It'd be nice to have food ready when he came back and she lived to make people happy. People just tended to be nicer company when things were going well and Jasper especially deserved good things and needed someone to look after him. He was kind of a mess and while Amelia was supposed to be too young to know that, well, she wasn't. While the oven heated up she went back to her homework, determined to finish it this time around since she wasn't home alone anymore. She set a timer to put the pizza in at the right time and then buried herself in her book, grimacing at the numbers she was supposed to make sense of.
Jasper took his time in the shower, slow-washing himself and letting the hot water relax him. It felt good to get clean, he just wished it could be this peaceful here all the time. Olivia kind of made that impossible, but if she was spending more and more time with a boyfriend ... maybe he would come home more. Check on Amelia, quasi-live-there again. He would see, he guessed. Jasper started to rub one out, but then the water turned cold, so he didn’t finish and just got out. He put on clean comfy clothes, brushed his teeth, and felt about a million times better. He could smell the pizza cooking when he emerged from the bathroom, and Jasper smiled a little as he padded barefoot back to the kitchen. He walked up behind Amelia to peer over her shoulder, then smooched the top of her head before he headed to the fridge for a drink.
"You smell way nicer," Amelia informed him and she felt a little guilty for thinking things would be kinda nicer if her mom was just never home. Maybe if they lived with their dad or something, he was awkward but he never yelled. Olivia yelled all the time. Even when she was in a good mood there was this underlying tension where anything might change her mood for the worse. Amelia had gotten really good at tip-toeing both literally and figuratively when her mother was home. "Pizza's ready in five minutes," she told Jasper after glancing at the timer, snapping her book closed since she was done with it, even if she might not be done with her homework.
He poured himself some soda from a bottle that had been in there who knew how long, then went to see if there were any clean plates for when the pizza was done. “You’re the best twerp to ever twerp,” he informed her affectionately, as a form of thanks. “You gonna be hungry again?” Jasper glanced over his shoulder at her, noting that she’d closed her book. Maybe she would want to have a little movie night since he was home.
"Nah," Amelia said and rested her head on her hands as she watched him. "I had pizza. But there's always room for ice cream, right?" That's what her dad said when he was in a good mood and felt like spoiling her. Of course he didn't have to worry about getting fat but how often was Jasper home? Not often! She could worry about food when she was alone.
“Always that,” Jasper agreed as he pulled only one plate down for himself. He turned to lean against the counter and look at her, sipping on his drink. “So Mom’s got a boyfriend, huh? What’s he look like, did you know him?” Amelia was only nine, but Point Pleasant was a ridiculously small town, so there was a chance she could ID the guy. Jasper wondered if it would be the best idea to give his dad a head’s up before he found out from someone else, or if that was the worst idea. It was hard to know.
"I didn't really see his face," Amelia told him before pressing her hands against her face and making kissy noises against her palm. She laughed then and shuddered dramatically. "I think he works there, he had a really ugly blue shirt on and his hair was kind of lame." She rolled her eyes at the memory and shook her head. "He better not move here. If he moves here I'm moving to dad's."
He made a face at the idea of some guy moving in with Olivia. With them. That wasn’t going to fucking happen. “He’s not moving in here,” Jasper told his sister flatly. “I’ll kick his ass first.” He didn’t want some random dumbass living there with his baby sister, hell no. He could be a pedo for all Jasper knew. “This is still Dad’s house, anyway, and he wouldn’t stand for that shit.” If anything would finally make Gavin divorce Olivia, it would be her moving some shithead boyfriend in.
Amelia relaxed a little at that because Jasper was right. Gavin would never let that happen in the first place and her mom had to be even crazier than she normally was if she brought a guy home, right? Right. "You would kick his ass and then dad would kick his ass and then uncle Caden would kick his ass," she said with some amusement as she hopped down off her chair again and headed for the fridge to get something to drink. "He wouldn't have more ass to kick!"
Jasper laughed a bit at that. She had a way with words, his baby sister. “Exactly,” he said, still grinning. “Completely assless. So don’t worry about him.” The timer for the oven buzzed, and Jasper busied himself with pulling out the pizza and cutting it into slices. He loaded a plate up with food, sucked a little sauce off his thumb, then turned toward Amelia again. “All right, squirt. You get to pick what we watch,” he declared.
That made her smile grow big and beaming and she immediately started over thinking what they had and what she wanted to show him. She had a lot of 'favorite' movies but a lot of them were movies he'd think were lame. She wanted to show him something cool and fun, something that wouldn't cause him to get bored and decide never to watch stuff with her again. The trick was deciphering just what her very cool brother might think was cool since Amelia herself wasn't very cool at all. She hummed in thought, pressing her lips together and going a little wide-eyed as she bounced on the soles of her feet then turned on her heel and darted off to the living room to start browsing. So many of the things she watched were PG-13 but nobody was really watching and nobody really cared. Most of those things didn't really deserve the label anyway, all there was to shield her from was some kissing and people getting shot and she saw that all the time on TV anyway.
Little did she know, Jasper was perfectly willing to watch some lame kid’s movie with her. He could take a break after he’d stuffed his face and smoke a joint and enjoy anything at all that she picked out. Jasper just wanted to chill somewhere comfortable where he could stretch his legs out and spend some time with his little sister in peace. He followed her out into the living room, smirking a bit, and settled on the couch while she hemmed and hawed over what to put on. Jasper picked up his first piece of pizza and started to munch on it.
Amelia finally settled on the Lego movie because it was fun and she knew for sure some teenagers even liked it because her best friend's sister had laughed a lot when she watched it with them. It hadn't even been the kind of fake polite laughter so that was promising. Of course she was a little younger than Jasper and a girl so... Amelia decided not to overthink it as she joined her brother on the couch and started the movie. "It's funny," she promised. "It has Batman and Gandalf and one of the bad guys is a cop." She knew for sure Jasper would like that. She didn't know why exactly but her whole family seemed to hate cops, even the nice ones, and while she didn't understand it she was happy to indulge them in badmouthing them.
“Batman and Gandalf, huh?” Jasper echoed, amused. He didn’t mind the selection in the slightest -- a lot of modern kids’ movies had some adult humor peppered in here and there to keep their parents interested anyway, so they ended up being pretty funny. He didn’t always get all the references, but that didn’t matter. He focused on the screen as the movie got started, munching away at pizza and sipping on his soda. This was what family time was supposed to be like, not rage and screaming. Or painful awkwardness and resentment.
Amelia had seen the movie five times already and she couldn't help but glance at her brother throughout to see his reaction. "This scene is funny," she'd tell him before her favorite scenes came on and there was really nothing like sharing something she liked with someone else. She didn't often get a chance to do that as her friends tended to be the ones introducing her to cool stuff so she enjoyed the hell out of the few times she did. "She's my favorite," she also told him - a few times.
Jasper watched and listened attentively, only asking Amelia to pause it once for about ten minutes while he used the bathroom and stepped into his room for a few to smoke half a joint in his room. He tried not to take too long, then settled back in next to Amelia when he returned and pulled her in against his side. She wasn’t too old to still cuddle with yet, and part of him knew he should take advantage of that before she got to where she thought it was gross. He laughed a bit more at the movie with a slight buzz going on, and felt comfortable and boneless and content.
While he was gone Amelia played with her phone and sent her mom a message. -Jasper's home, you can stay a while :)
Was it weird that she didn't want her mom to come home? If she came home, Jasper might leave again and while she sometimes had a lot of fun with her mom, she preferred her brother's company. Maybe it was in part because it was so rare that he was home but mostly it was the fact that he was always so nice when it was just the two of them. If her mom came home they'd probably fight and everything would suck again.
She curled up against him when he pulled her in close and tried not to talk too much for the rest of the movie. Jasper never seemed to mind but her mom had told her it was kind of annoying and she should try to stop. Laughing at one of the scenes she turned her head to look up at her brother. He smelled nice now, a familiar soap and something-else that made her want to squeeze him really, really hard. "Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked as a direct follow-up of the movie scene. Jasper was a good looking guy and she knew girls had crushes on him so it was kind of weird if he didn't. It wasn't weird if he did and never brought her around though, Amelia could understand that.
Everybody had a soft spot for Amelia -- she seemed like the only truly lovable person in the family, in Jasper’s biased opinion -- but Jasper especially so. So she could talk through the movie all she wanted. It wasn’t like it was some deep and complicated dramatic mystery or something that he had to pay close attention to to understand, and he liked to see her enjoy things. One would think that meant he should hang around with her more often, but part of Jasper didn’t want to, like he might taint her somehow if she was with him too much.
He turned his head to peer down at her, smirking faintly. “Nah, no girlfriend,” he said, one hand coming up to mess with her hair some more. She was so soft, and Jasper didn’t really get to touch any other females in a non-sexual way. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her about Jules. Jules wasn’t his girlfriend and never would be, and trying to explain what they did have to a nine year old when he didn’t always understand it himself would be impossible. “What about you, any boyfriends at school?” He grinned lazily and tickled her side a bit.
She didn't really protest the tickling though she squirmed away some as he did, swatting at his hand with a laugh. "No boyfriends," she sighed then. "I kinda liked Eric but he's mean and you can't be cute when you're mean." She sighed. "All the boys like Annie anyway, 'cause she's small and skinny." So it was probably a good thing she hadn't had ice cream yet, she thought, curling back up against her brother. "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" she asked since it honestly puzzled her. "Aren't you lonely? Like dad?"
Jasper had the thought that Amelia better not have any boyfriends at nine, but teasing her about it was still fun. She would grow up and have boys salivating over her soon enough. Too soon. She needed to stay a kid for a little while longer. He wrinkled his nose a little. “They won’t always all like that,” Jasper told her. “Small and skinny. But good, stay away from the mean boys. And if any of ‘em are really mean to you, tell me and I’ll take care of it.” Jasper gave Amelia a little squeeze, then hummed and shrugged a shoulder. She was too damn smart for her age, honestly. “Nah, I’m okay. Girlfriends take a lot of time, and I’m busy with work and school and everything. I’ll get one later.”
There was certain security in being a Lucas that Amelia both liked and hated. The boys were kind of scared of her so if they dared be mean at all then it was always in really dumb ways that she couldn't quite articulate. Maybe some of them were mean because they were afraid of her but that's what you got when your whole family was a little crazy. She sighed softly as she reached her arms around Jasper's torso to give him a little squeeze. "Why are you always so busy?" she lamented, more for her own sake than any girlfriend. Maybe it was a good thing he didn't have one or Amelia would never see him. Unless he got a really nice girlfriend who'd come and watch movies with them sometimes - but it wouldn't really be the same.
He gave her a gentle hug back, smiling a bit. Leave it to his baby sister to make him feel honestly wanted when pretty much nobody else did. “‘Cause growing up sucks,” Jasper told her with a sigh. It was true. “You should avoid it as long as possible.” He had to go to school, even though he hated it, and Jasper felt like he had to work even though his dad would probably give him all the money he wanted. Jasper didn’t want that, so working it was. Sure, he didn’t have to spend most of his nights elsewhere ... but he did at the same time. Thanks to their mother. He turned his head to kiss Amelia’s hair, a wave of guilt passing over him. “I miss you though ... sorry I’m not around more.”
"I miss you too," Amelia said, her mind racing to find ways for them to hang out more somehow. She wasn't stupid, like she'd told him before, she might be a kid but she wasn't a baby so she knew and understood a lot of the problems their family had. What she knew best was that Jasper didn't like being around when their mom was home. That was okay, Amelia liked both of them better one on one but that meant Jasper hardly ever came home. She watched the movie for a bit, though her mind was elsewhere, then looked up at Jasper again. "I asked dad to have a cookout before it starts snowing and he said maybe... Will you come?"
Jasper’s mind was elsewhere too, but it had wandered farther away than family stuff. Until Amelia spoke again, that was. His slightly bloodshot eyes came back to her when she spoke again, and guilt lanced through him. He’d already been plotting on how to get out of that, but now it was Amelia asking him, and how was he supposed to say no to her? “I’ll try,” he said, giving her an apologetic little smile. “I might have to work, depending on when it is. But if I do, I’ll make it up to you, okay twerp? Just me and you will go out and do something.” Jasper had no idea what, maybe he would take her to a movie, but something. Because seeing him and their dad separately was just as good, right?
That wasn't really good enough and Amelia made that point by pouting at him with just a little bit of exaggeration. "Rebecca's family has a lot of cookouts," she said. "And everyone shows up. Sometimes she invites me too and it's so fun. Her granddad knows all these funny tricks with cards and stuff." She hesitated and lowered her voice. "I don't want our granddad to come, he's no fun. But you and dad and Aaron and Roxy and Kat and Caden-" she trailed off, counting on her fingers. "I don't know if mom will come. Maybe grandma will."
Jasper remembered those days, being a kid and comparing his family to that of his friends’ and feeling like nothing measured up, nothing was normal. It hadn’t been and still wasn’t, but it still hurt to see his little sister going through the same thing. More guilt nagged at him, and he bit his tongue on saying that mom shouldn’t come, with everybody else there it would only end in disaster. She probably wouldn’t show anyway. “Let me look at my schedule for the next week, see if I can get a day off that dad has off too, okay?” he offered, rubbing his hand over her hair again. “We’ll get it figured out.”
Amelia felt a little dejected because the more she thought about it the less she believed it would work out. None of her friends had to be careful about who to invite to their parties, they just sent out invitations and everyone showed up. With Amelia's family it was trickier since certain family members always fought when they met and others wouldn't come unless someone else came and those two things more often than not coincided. "It doesn't have to be next week," she said. "If you can't. We can do it later."
“Okay,” Jasper murmured. “We’ll do it.” He smooched her forehead and hoped she wouldn’t keep bringing it up all night. He already felt bad enough that he thought he probably really would try to coordinate with their dad to get something set up. Even if most of the rest of the family didn’t show up, the three of them could have a good time. Aaron would probably show up if he wasn’t at the bar -- any excuse for food. Jasper turned his attention back to the movie, though it seemed to be headed toward a conclusion.
Lucky for him his answer seemed to satisfy her for now. She snuggled back against him and kept watching the movie though her eyes were starting to threaten to close on their own accord and it was getting harder to focus. She was usually in bed by now but Jasper was home and her mom wasn't and that was something she needed to savor. Going to bed seemed like such a waste when she could stay up and watch movies with her big brother instead.
By the time the credits were rolling, Jasper could tell Amelia was asleep. She was pressed nice and heavy against his side, her breathing even and soft. He knew he ought to put her into bed, but he wanted to linger anyway. Jasper got the remote up off the couch cushion without jostling Amelia too much, and spent a while just idly flipping through channels. He settled on something funny for a little while, then started to side eye the time. Jasper didn’t want to be awake and out in the living room when Olivia came back from her boyfriend’s. He had to throw his clothes in the dryer too. With a soft sigh, Jasper started to gently slip his arms under his sister and pull her in closer to stand up with her. It was time for bed.
Amelia woke up enough to sleepily walk with him, though she was groggy enough that she might not have made it to bed by herself. There was something so nice about falling asleep on the couch with the TV on, especially with Jasper there. It wasn't something she got to do often, with or without him. Her room was the tidiest part of the house and it took some tugging to get the blankets out of the way so she could get underneath them. Once she was there she grasped Jasper's hand, squinting up at him briefly before closing her eyes again. "Come back soon," she mumbled, her hand lingering on his.
Jasper let her walk herself, but he kept a hand on her shoulder as they went, a little smile on his face. He hadn’t gotten to put Amelia to bed in quite a while, and it was nice, especially with no motherly interference. It was easy to pretend she didn’t exist at times like these, and that felt nice too. Which was probably fucked up, but whatever. He pulled the blankets up over his little sister and squeezed her hand. Her fingers still felt so small to him, and it made his chest feel weird. “I will. Night, squirt.” Jasper bent over to kiss Amelia’s forehead, then straightened up and turned away.
She slept better, knowing he was there. It always sucked when her mom didn't get home before she fell asleep, the house was somehow scarier when she was alone. But now Jasper was there and the dryer was running as well as the TV. He knew better than to close her bedroom door, leaving ajar for the hallway light to serve as a night light. "Night Jasper," she whispered sluggishly, falling asleep faster than she would have had she been alone.