Who: Nat Crane and Spencer Drake What: Long lost sisters meet, finally Where: Nat's apartment in South Boston, MA When: ..recently. (Saturday.)
Spencer looked at the messily scrawled address written across her entire right forearm and then looked back up at the house number, then back at her arm again and once more at the house number just for good measure. The sun was starting to set, but it was November, so that just meant it was around five in the evening. Readjusting the strap of her duffel on her shoulder, she took a deep breath and made her way up the porch. Pulling off her mitten, she knocked sharply on the door three times and waited for an answer. She hadn’t made any decisions past that point but she was about 90% sure that her father knew of her existence and that was good enough for her. He didn’t even have to like her, she told herself. He just had to stick with her until she was officially legal.
--
Nat heard the sharp rap at the door and honestly had to have a good long think before deciding whether or not to open up. The way she saw it, there were three options of who was on the other side of the door: a drunk who had followed her home, slept on her porch, and only now wanted to introduce himself; one of her her neighbors who had actually learned to be social; or someone she actually knew and possibly liked enough to invite inside. She peered through the tiny peephole to determine which of the three options she was looking at but was met with a fourth—someone she’d never seen before and who probably wasn’t a drunk or one of her stoner neighbors.
More on a whim than anything else, she pulled open the door. The girl standing on the other side was just as small and just as blonde as she’d looked through the distortion of the peephole, and for a brief second Nat wondered what the hell kind of first impression she was giving off. Nothing like the one she was getting, that’s for sure. She’d just woken up an hour before, scrounged up a poptart, and was thinking about maybe getting dressed for work—but having not reached that step, she was still in a pair of pyjama shorts and an oversized t-shirt, her hair still a little frizzy from sleep.
She turned her attention back to the girl on her doorstep. “Uh, hi. Caan I help you?” she asked, trying her best not to look at least quasi-friendly. At the very least, a little bit normal.
--
The door swung open and Spencer’s eyes widened in shock. A hundred and two possibilities ran through her head as she accidentally scrutinized the older girl who had opened the door. Clearly she hadn’t been expecting company, not that her father would have been expecting company either, Finn reminded her as she gave herself a mental smack on the forehead.
“Ummmmmm,” Spencer stalled, trying to shrug off the half-disappointment half-confusion that clouded her mind, the person who’d answer the door was absolutely not the person she’d been expecting. Not that she’d imagined what her dad would look like much, but she’d at least thought that he’d be well you know, a man.
Suddenly aware of the very awkward silence that had befallen them, she paused and tried again, “Um yeah actually, does an N. Crane live here?” There was a beat of uncertainty before she spoke again to clarify, “N for Nathan, I’m looking for a Nathan Crane.”
--
The widened eyes made Nat’s visitor look like a deer in the headlights, an expression that a normal person would associate with sympathy—but someone with a pirate living in their head associated innocence with a play. Oldest trick, make them think you weren’t after anything and then soon as you know it you were ambling out the door with gold hidden under your coat. “If you’re looking for Nathan you’re in the wrong city. Last I saw him he was in Virginia, but who knows where he is now.” Nat shifted her stance, leaning against the doorframe and propping the door open against her foot. “The N stands for Nat. I’m his daughter. And I can tell you firsthand whatever you want with him you’re probably not going to find it. I can give you an address if you really want to find him, but I wouldn’t waste the bus fare.”
--
“Shit...” The word slipped out before she could stop herself, and Finn scolded her in her mind, “Um yeah actually.... I have about three dollars and twenty-five cents to my name so I couldn’t even really, if i wanted to.”
She shrugged, laughing nervously, obviously avoiding the next part. She’d heard that her father had a kid, but she didn’t think that she’d ever have to meet them her. She didn’t even know how old she was. Staring at her feet for a second, she rubbed the soles of her worn down sneakers into the wooden porch.
“Actually, here’s a funny story,” She took one deep breath and forced out the rest in that single breath, “I’mactuallyhiskidtooandiwaslookingforhimcausemymomdisappearedandi’mkindofunderagesoidon’thaveanywhereelsetogothiswastheonlyaddresssheleftme.” Taking another deep breath, she looked up at the girl in the doorway again and gave her the brightest shiniest smile she could manage.
--
Nat just stared at the girl for a second, trying to parse out everything that had been compacted into that one-breath sentence. When she thought she had the gist—god, it’d been so long since she’d thought about the Family 2.0, they hadn’t been so much as mentioned in years—she shifted again, weighing over the options in her head. She couldn’t just toss the girl out, could she? She could, but there would be no sense of charity or family or any of those goodly things involved in such a cruel act. But it wasn’t like she had any real obligation—
“I need a drink,” she muttered, backing up from the door and heading for the kitchen. The route took her through the living room and opportunity struck sooner in the form of a bottle beside the couch; Nat snatched it up, but to her and her pirate passenger’s great disappointment found it empty. She took two steps back to toss it into the bin by the door; as she made to head back she gave the girl on her doorstep one of her Looks. “Well, you coming in or not?”
--
Spencer watched as Nat left the doorway and re-entered the house searching wildly for something to drink. She continued to stand outside awkwardly, shifting anxiously from foot to foot as she watched through the open door, until she was addressed. Nodding frantically, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Well, that could have gone worse, Finn really didn’t know when the best time to speak was, did he? But she agreed with him mentally. It definitely could have gone worse. At least she was inside the house now, that was good, right?
She continued to follow Nat into the house, backpack and duffel bag still on her person. There seemed to be a lot of empty cans and bottles littered around the house, which worried Spencer, but she didn’t dare say anything until Nat had found herself a bottle of amber liquid.
“So um,” She smiled hopefully, “Does this mean I can stay?”
--
She nodded vaguely before continuing her quest; thankfully the cabinet above the stove was more well stocked that Nat pulled a half-full bottle of rum from. She snatched a glass from the side of the sink and poured in a more-than-reasonable measure, earning a mental approval from Jack. “Yeah, I guess you can. Not like you really have anywhere else to go, you know?” She took a sip and as the alcohol hit her blood, the decision seemed a little less…well. Mental. “You got a name? Daddy dear probably mentioned it once, but. You know. Been a hell of a long time.” Another sip and she’d started to slip into her comfort zone. “D’you want anything, by the way? You’re probably too young for—“ she gestured with the glass in her hand, “you know, but I think there might still be Coke in the fridge.”
--
“Yeah! It’s Spencer!” She grinned too-enthusiatically, then paused, genuinely surprised that he’d mentioned her at all, “He talked about me?” She probably shouldn’t have been, she knew about Nat (ish, Finn added) after all, didn’t she?
Still holding onto her bags, she nodded and headed towards the fridge, “Sure thanks!” Cracking open a can of Sprite she finally set down the duffel bag and leaned against the counter. There were a million things she wanted to ask about her, about their dad, about her mom even. But instead, she just watched as Nat continued to take sips from her glass.
She found herself mentally shooshing Finn in her head as he wondered if her drinking was a regular thing.
--
“Spencer. Charmed, I’m sure.” Nat took another long drink from the glass and wondered for a moment how she could have gone through the whole thing so quickly. “He mentioned you, more like. Thought it was appropriate I know I had a sister, figured he could throw you out in passing and not feel the scorn. Naturally it wasn’t super effective.” She settled down at the kitchen table in her usual chair, looking at the bottle and wondering if it would set a bad example for her to pour another glass.
She saw Spencer—her sister—standing by the counter, with the air of someone who didn’t know exactly what they were supposed to do next. She wondered for a split second if it was the environment that was making her uncomfortable, the fact that here she was in a shitty excuse for a home drinking poor-girl’s liquor just to get through an impromptu family reunion. “What were you planning to do once you found the man who spawned us? Don’t tell me you were expecting him to look after you, he’s hardly the paternal type.”
--
“Oh... I just yeah....” Spencer looked disheartened for a second but let it slide, the smile back on her face in no time, “I didn’t really know where else to you i didn’t really want to go into foster care, horror stories, yknow?” There was a shrug and she tried to play it off lightly, but the stories were pretty bad and she didn’t have any trouble believing them.
She shrugged again at the second question, she hadn’t really thought that far. If she were honest with herself, she kind of thought that maybe her mother had been right all along and he didn’t want her. But she didn’t dwell on that too much, “I dunno, I mean I don’t think my mom ever raised me in the traditional sense either. And I’m pretty much done growing up, right? I just needed a place to be since yknow, I’m not eighteen yet.”
--
“I hear you.” She took another drink, swilling the last of the rum around in the bottom of the glass. Always gone. “If you’re looking for a place to stay, I can offer you a couch. Not much more than a couch. But you can consider it yours. Might even be able to swing a blanket and a pillow, if you’re lucky.” Jack piped up to say that Nat was hardly about to be a better parent than either of the biological had been; she shushed him. “I bartend, so I keep weird hours. And I have vices that can’t be deterred. If you’re okay with those terms you can crash here as long as you need but I won’t be covering if anyone comes to find you—your mum, our dad, anyone. Fair?”
--
Spencer nodded eagerly, beggars couldn’t be choosers after all, and frankly she’d lived years in worse conditions. “Yeah cool! A couch is perfect, I promise I’ll stay out of your hair. And I really doubt anyone’s coming for me so i think we’re safe on that one.” A huge weight lifted off her chest and she smiled easily, her sister seemed pretty cool. Maybe they’d even get along, she found herself thinking to Finn.