giveittoyoursister | 29 Chimera Court, Saturday Morning

"Kinda?" Amber said, making a face. "Mostly. Maybe not quite as much 'cause they're old and tired."

Inside, Steph was scurrying around retrieving all of yesterday's clothes from the various places they'd ended up just in time to drop all of it when Amber barreled through the door to tacklehug her.

"HI MOM WE BROUGHT YOUR BREAKFAST."

"You don't work for the delivery people," Steph said immediately, because she hadn't had caffeine yet.

Cerise had her own, very firm, opinions on just how gross her own mothers were, but she kept that to herself in favour of hugging Vi, who'd come over to join Steph.

"How many people do we need to apologise to," Vi asked, ruffling Cerise's hair.

"Um, just the one?" Amber offered, wrapping one arm around Vi and the other around Steph before she remembered she was still holding the bag of baked goods and just shoved that into Steph's hands instead. "I told him we were just saving him the trip since we were going that way anyway!"

She knew perfectly well that Steph had put a good-sized tip on the card ahead of time.

"Okay, and maybe I knocked somebody else over on the way but we were excited."

Amber was just going to take the liberty of speaking for Cerise there, oops.

Vi kissed the top of Cerise's head to keep from laughing as she reached out to ruffle Amber's hair as well.

"I made sure they weren't hurt," Cerise volunteered. "It's why she beat me here." Just so they were all clear on that.

Steph had pulled her phone out to send a frantic apology text to the delivery person, although she looked more amused than mortified.

"More like she's got way longer legs than me now, that's why," Amber grumbled good-naturedly, making a token attempt to fend off the hair-ruffling. "Mom, stop, that's embarrassing."

"Who's going to see?" Steph asked. "Your weird family?"

"Exaaaaaaaaaaactly!"

Sorry, Amber but Cerise was always going to have longer legs than you, thanks to Caitlyn's ridiculous genes.

Keeping one arm slung around Cerise's shoulders, Vi turned her full attention on Amber. "I'm sorry, what's embarrassing exactly? This?"

Amber suspected as much. Didn't mean she had to like it though.

"Moooooooooom," Amber protested over Steph's snickers. "Don't be weird!"

"Too late, kiddo," Steph informed her. "Way too late for that."

"I mean, where do you think you got it from?" Cerise asked, laughing too hard to notice Vi sizing her up as well.

"Yeah, you come by it honestly, kid." Steph retreated to the kitchen to set the bag down before it had some kind of mishap, grinning at the sight of Vi with the girls. "Oh god, has older me turned into a normal person?"

"No!" Amber blurted out between snickers. "No way. It's just that I'm not a little kid any more."

"Tsk. Embrace the weird, my child," Steph said. "Or I'm gonna have to have a talk with other me."

By now, Vi had both girls in (loving) headlocks and was wrestling them over to the couch. "I only get to see you once a year," she told them. "I'm gonna take full advantage of it."

Cerise made a not-overly serious attempt to break free and wondered (not for the first time if she was being honest) if this was Mom had been like with their aunt before...everything.

The way Steph's stomach did flips at watching Vi with the girls was still a little bit uneasy. Nice, but not necessarily the most comfortable; she always loved seeing this side of Vi, but the parenthood thing never did sit entirely comfortably with her.

"Is this..." Amber had both hands wrapped around Vi's forearm, not that she was making any actual effort to escape. "Did you get a new couch?"

Steph cleared her throat. "Yeah, the old one broke," she said as if it had just spontaneously happened and was not a direct result of her and Vi's actions.

Vi would never actually say this to either girl, but no small part of the reason she wasn't freaking out was that she considered them very pleasant impossibilities.

"Yeah, it just gave up the ghost," she said as she pulled the girls down onto the couch with her. They certainly hadn't been doing anything on it at the time.

Cerise's very sceptical silence said volumes.

"But hey," Steph added, watching as Amber tried to sprawl out across Vi's lap, "this time we got one with a foldout bed, so that works out for you two."

"Uh huh," Amber retorted, aiming a poke at Vi's stomach. "It just did that all on its own, huh?"

Please, like her own versions of them at home didn't still regularly break the furniture.

Vi flopped just as dramatically as she did when Steph poked her like that, before pouncing on Amber to tickle her.

"Furniture seems to have a tendency to do that," Cerise said dryly, because apparently some things were universal.

"They don't make it like they used to," Steph said deadpan, piling baked goods onto a plate to bring over to the couch. She couldn't help snickering; it was nice to know that other version of Vi also seemed to have an excellent sex life.

"God, Mom, you're such a dork," Amber said in a perfect replica of Steph's tone when she said (mostly) the same thing.

Cerise muttered something under her breath that sounded remarkably like "priceless antique" as she snugged in against Vi's side in a way she'd be too full of teenaged dignity to do in public.

Vi shamelessly made eyes at Steph as she ruffled Amber's hair again. "She sound just like you."

Amber shoved her knuckles into her mouth to smother the snicker when she registered what Cerise had said and mouthed "four beds" with a wide-eyed look of horror.

"Mom," she said, looking at Steph, "she's being all sappy again, make her stop."

Steph raised an eyebrow. "And why would I do that, exactly?"

Amber sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

Cerise looked vaguely impressed by that. Horrified, but impressed.

"No one can stop her," she told Amber. "It just encourages her."

"Yeah, it does," Vi cheerfully agreed.

Look, they didn't have the Kiramman family budget to work with, Cerise. It was mid-range IKEA or, well, bust.

"And we love that about her, don't we?" Steph asked as she came over with the plate of fancy breads and three bottles of milk, figuring they could have one for each of the girls and the third one for her and Vi to share until she could run out to the store and get more. "Make room, partner and children, your breakfast and I have arrived."

Part of Cerise didn't want to let Steph on the couch, but a much bigger part was aware that was how people who didn't think Vi was good enough for Caitlyn treated her, so she shifted to make room for her.

Admittedly, she was shifting in closer to Vi.

"I for one, am starving," Vi said, wriggling her eyebrows at Steph.

See, Steph was actually doing you a favor here, Cerise.

"Oh my god Mom," Amber blurted out, horrified and burying her face into Vi's side as Steph handed the plate to Vi and the bottles of milk to the girls.

"You are also terrible," Steph informed her lovingly, though not without a brief grimace because there went those plans.

Cerise was definitely not sorry about putting paid to those plans. Just because she could see why her mom liked her (and suspected that her mum would too) didn't mean she had to tolerate any shenanigans.

"Who wants what?" Vi asked, making sure some of Steph's favourites were put to one side before offering the plate to the girls.

Amber immediately reached toward the plate, then hesitated and bit her lip.

"You should pick first," she said, managing to keep most of the reluctance out of her voice. "It was your breakfast to start with anyway."

Steph leaned over to kiss Vi's cheek in thanks, ruffled Amber's hair and got a brief token noise of protest for her trouble, and plucked something extremely chocolatey off the plate for herself.

Across the island, Saffron was mentally offering Cerise her paw for a shake of solidarity.

Vi ruffled Amber's hair again. "It's okay, you go first," she said, nudging her.

"You know we won't win with her on this," Cerise murmured with a meaningful glance in Vi's direction. Even though there'd never been a risk of Cerise missing a single meal in her entire life, ever, she was still weird about making sure she ate first.

Steph gave Amber a little nudge of encouragement too, even if it was Vi she was looking at with wide, adoring eyes. "Yeah, you two spent all that energy to get this stuff here faster than scheduled. You should get it back."

"I know," Amber muttered back, glancing at Vi with a fond expression of her own before she picked something alarmingly covered in frosting. "Have to try anyway."

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