most times, they're a wish

Up on his feet as Freyja slipped out into the kitchen for the C A K E, Theo began to gather up the mess from the table. Napkins on emptied plates, cutlery, set aside for the moment before he started to refill drinks, each offer made with the familiar wiggle of bottles of wine and soda, one in each hand. It wouldn’t be long before Hazel started trying to talk just a sip out of them, and about a decade more before they circled back around to giving her just a taste again. It was easier when she’d been smaller and a sip of what her parents had been drinking was enough to bring on the sort of spluttering and gagging that guaranteed she wouldn’t want any again for a long while to come.

Cory had put his hand over his glass the last time, asking for soda instead and Theo was glad to pour what was left of the bottle of that into his glass. It was hard to see the guy who’d pulled his ass back from the other side as a kid, but despite the fact that they were pretty close to the same age that was the energy that had rolled off of Cory they’d met. A sort of innocent nervousness that his sister didn’t seem to share.

They were close though, Theo saw it as he snagged a fresh bottle of soda out of the nearly cleared centre of the table and held the bottles up to Dani in question. ”Can I pour you another glass of something?” As twins it was almost inevitable. They didn’t share a face the same way he and Frank did – the similarities feeling stronger than even with their makeshift ‘family’ gathered around them – but it didn’t make that bond any weaker, didn’t stop him from seeing how the two of them cared about one another. One who’d spent years somewhere else and one who’d ached to get him back.

Swallowing hard at the thought of how close they’d come to none of this happening – him getting to see his daughter grow up into this incredible, smart, too smart for her own good, kid, having Bo, the wedding, the house, the expansion of all those picket fences around their life to include everybody who’d drifted into it over the last sixteen years – Theo filled his own glass with white wine and settled back in his seat. Cory had given it all to them with that unbelievable act.

How could they not have made room around the dinner table for him after that? Especially for his birthday, theirs. Theo was pretty sure there was supposed to be some bullshit about celebrating them less when you got older, but when you really had something to celebrate for it you couldn’t do it often enough. Sixteen years creeping up on them with these gatherings growing more frequent, ping-ponging back and forth between Frank’s place and theirs, landing up on the Wednesday night to go all out for managing another year here.

Theo’s brows furrowed as he glanced over at Freyja and saw the candles lighting. There were days when it felt like just months since he’d been watching Hazel smear child-friendly, pretty damn crappy yellow buttercream all over her face with chubby fists, others were he could’ve rolled off every memory they’d built as a family and it would’ve still felt like there hadn’t been enough time to fit it in. Somehow they had, those days rushing by until now. Each year counted off in the candles that flared into life one by one behind the screen of Freyja’s growing bulk. His eyes narrowed further, his lips quirking up in that knowing smile as she turned back around.

Cheat.

Light glowed around his wife as she brought the cake out, the singing rolling out. Theo winced at the sound of his own voice. At least he had a hearing impairment to blame for the bum note at the end of that crooned ”Happy Birthday, dear Danielle and Coooorrry”, Frank didn’t have squat to cover it, but was still just as bad. He set his glass down, starting to clap as that last line burst out. ”Happy Birthday to you!”Freyja was setting the cake down, her lips finding the top of Cory’s head in that almost absent motherly gesture, her hand on Dani’s shoulder, squeezing. One of those moments he’d had every year with his mom and Frank, at least, in Okinawa. Candle lit and seeming to hover on the brink of somehow changing the course of your future with one wish.

As Freyja came close his arm slid around her hips. Theo turned his head to nuzzle that growing curve of her bump, hazel eyes rolling up as she whispered her order to him. ”Your mom’s so bossy,” Theo mock whispered to that curve. He clucked his tongue, slowly rising to his feet. ”Hazelnut, you wanna grab the plates?” Sorry kiddo, the orders always rolled downhill. Fishing in his pocket, Theo retrieved his camera, blowing a kiss to his wife as he snapped a shot of her first. He thumbed it onto video, alright, a little late, he should’ve done when the cake came out, but held it on long enough for the two of them to blow those candles out, before he continued to circle the table, tapping away at the screen to snap some decent – alright, some were pretty good – photos.

Tagged: DANIELLE COLLIER , CORY, HAZEL DAMASCA , FREYJA DAMASCA * Word Count: 912

The first time he’d sat at the table he’d been tied up in knots. Every time Freyja or Theo had bustled to and from the table with something, or attention had turned to him, he’d flinched, almost like he was waiting for the moment of perfect family life going on around him to crack like an egg shell. In those moments between he’d been as quiet as they’d allow, watching, drinking it in like he was today. There hadn’t been many days like those at home, not that he could remember anyway.

Birthday candles blown out on home-made cakes, a scant handful of candles on them, him and Dani crammed together at one side of the table to blow them out while their parents watched. If there’d been any proof of those times ever happening then they’d been lost in the wake of his dad’s death. All the happy moments suddenly tainted, drowned with the dregs of what remained in the bottle their mom clutched. The family torn apart, never to fit together in the same way again.

Cory watched Freyja get up from the table again, his gaze dragged back as Theo bobbed up, bottles in his hands. Their family had almost ended up the same way. A hunter cleaving his way through the middle of what they’d had, leaving Theo stuck on one side of the veil with Freyja was on the other, Hazel completely unaware of it, growing in her mom’s stomach – maybe still unaware, he hadn’t dared to ask about that, hadn’t wanted to disturb this. The shattered parts of their life had gone back together, any gaps that might’ve been left filled in with the birth of their daughter and the bloom of their married life. He’d kept an eye on them of course, never expecting that first invitation to be extended. Or for Dani to eventually be enfolded into it all.

This was more of a thank you than he’d ever expected for doing what he thought was right in a situation that was all wrong for two – three – people who hadn’t deserved it. He could’ve blamed the couple of glasses of wine he’d had for the glow that rose in his cheeks, but it was gratitude just as much as it was the wash of alcohol. As Theo held the two bottles there and then started pouring the soda for him, Cory grinned almost sheepishly. ”Thanks, don’t wanna be staggering home after,” he admitted, turning that grin on his sister before he swallowed hard. That issue didn’t affect his sister anymore, being turned had put an end to all of that and to so much of what he would’ve wanted for her life, her happiness. Someone to love her, a family for her to have like this one, some kids one day to make him the best uncle he could possibly be, getting to see her chasing grandkids around with the prop of a cane.

The thought cut off as Freyja started singing. Cake?

Theo sat up, setting the glass of soda aside, the grin that spread over his face bright as the red that stained his cheeks. They’d really gone too far out of their way, for both of them. Reaching for his sister’s hand as Danielle reached for his, he clutched it as he saw both their names scrawled on top, ringed by the candles, maybe enough for there to be one for each year… ”Oh man,” he chuckled. His other hand came up to press to one burning cheek as Freyja kissed the top of his head. ”You guys didn’t really have to do this, but, thank you.” He was beaming, his eyes seeking out his sister’s after they flicked almost anxiously to Theo and the camera. ”You ready?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if he was but …

Squeezing his eyes tight shut, like that would make a difference, Cory blew out the candles as Danielle did. Wishes had always been those things he’d whispered to himself, here, in Heaven, always hoping for something to give his sister back half the happiness and security she’d given him. Now it was the same. He wished for Oliver, for the thing inside of him to disappear, for his sister to have her husband, and that happiness she’d found after he’d died, back again. For Brooke to get her brother. And right at the end, as his heart squeezed in his chest – for Petyr to have this one day with his parents right there with him.

Opening his eyes again, he grinned sheepishly around at the table. You weren’t meant to share secrets were you? Even if they wanted to burst out of your throat because keeping them had never been your forte. ”When…” he cleared his throat, licked lips gone dry as he looked at Theo and Freyja, the baby to be, then settled on Hazel. ” … when do you guys do presents … I’m …” The blush burned hotter in his cheeks. ”I don’t mean I expect anything from you guys … this was way more than enough, it was incredible, t-thank you. I got … I got something for Dani though…” And he’d held it back that morning, knowing that dinner at least was coming tonight. He got out the narrow box, wrapped carefully in construction paper he’d scrawled a pattern on himself. The watch he’d had engraved for her – something to leave with her in case … something more than the apartment full of meaningless junk that had been all his sister had of him the last time.

Tagged: HAZEL DAMASCA, FREYJA DAMASCA, Theo & DANIELLE COLLIER * Word Count: 931