Chapter Text
“Perry we have a situation” Danny hissed at the smaller red head as she grabbed her arm and pulled her into a nearby empty classroom.
“Danny what-”
Her protest was cut short as the other girl simply thrust a piece of paper at her and then began pacing up and down running her fingers through her long hair. Perry gave her an incredulous look before reading the letter her eyes widening as she reached its conclusion. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down.
“What are we going to do?” Danny groaned sinking to the floor.
“I guess we have no choice but to come clean to everyone”. Perry gulped at the thought. “I’m assuming that there is no way we can discourage this little reunion?”
She handed the letter back to its owner who pocketed it with a sigh.
“Trust me if there was, I’d already be on it”.
“Okay well I guess we’d better get this over with sooner rather than later can you grab Kirsch and Mel and I’ll find Laf and we’ll meet at Laura and Carmilla’s in a half hour?”
Danny agreed and stalked off grumbling under her breath leaving Perry alone to collect her thoughts. Today had started off as such a good nice normal day as well, she should have known something was coming. Maybe it wasn’t too late to leave the country? She chuckled to herself at the thought of fleeing across the mountains but quickly ruled it out for practical reasons. She took one last deep breath as a final attempt to calm herself down before leaving the classroom in search of her best friend.
*
“Knocking still not a thing!” Carmilla snarled at the uninvited guests who had barged into the dorm room.
“Ah sorry guys.” Laf offered a smile of apology blushing slightly as they realised exactly what they had interrupted.
Carmilla simply glared in response before giving her girlfriend a quick kiss on the cheek and then getting up and heading to the fridge muttering about evil gingers as she did so. Laura for her part either didn’t notice or chose not to comment on the vampire’s hostility. Instead she focused her attention on her friends, Laf still seemed a little embarrassed whereas Perry had already begun to make Laura’s bed for her, a clear sign that she was in some form of distress. She was about to comment on this when Danny, Kirsch and Mel appeared closing the door behind them.
“Oh great it’s a party”. Carmilla groaned before once again joining Laura on her bed.
Mel, Kirsch and Laf took up seats opposite them on Laura’s freshly made bed while Perry sank into the chair in front of Laura’s computer. Danny had chosen to remain standing and so resumed her earlier habit of frantically pacing back and forth. After nearly a minute in which no one decided to speak Laura was weirded out enough to break the silence herself.
“Erm guys not that its not good to see you all but what’s going on?”
Danny and Perry exchanged a look seemingly each willing the other to bite the proverbial bullet and explain the reason for the impromptu meeting. After a few seconds it appeared that Danny had lost that particular mental battle. Running her fingers through her hair she stopped pacing and turned to address her assembled group of friends.
“Okay so I guess it’s better to just come out with it. Mine and Perry’s family are coming to visit”.
Laura blinked. From the tense atmosphere she had been expecting something far more dire than that. This was Silas after all. Carmilla however had focussed in on a particular word in that explanation.
“Hold up you said family not families”. The vampire looked incredulously between the two girls.
It was Lafontaine who answered her question. “Yeah Danny and Perry are cousins I thought everyone knew that?”
Mel nodded in agreement with Laf’s statement whereas Kirsch looked as lost as Carmilla.
“Whoa I did not see that one coming how about you lil nerd hottie?”
Laura chuckled having long given up on trying to get Kirsch to just call her by her name. “No although now you say it, I guess I can kind of see the family resemblance?”
Given that this revelation was only actually news to less than half the party the aspiring journalist was willing to bet her last cookie that something else was troubling her friends. She wondered what it could be as yeah okay family members could be embarrassing and whatever, but they surely weren’t enough to warrant this level of concern? Well unless you counted Carmilla’s family… Yeah, her mom was terrifying to be fair. Noticing that Danny looked as though she were about to speak again Laura forced herself out of her thoughts to once again pay attention.
“The thing is that well…” she trailed off seemingly unable to find the words. With a small sigh Perry took over for her.
“Our family although wonderful people aren’t exactly normal”.
Carmilla couldn’t help but snort at that. “Because Silas is a paradigm of normality sweetheart.”
Mel and Laf chuckled while Laura struggled not to crack a smile at her paramour’s response as she tried to reprimand her. Danny and Perry were less amused even if they did agree with the sentiment while Kirsch lovable idiot that he was just looked confused.
“Okay let me try to put this a different way.” Danny sighed growing slightly annoyed with her friends. “While it is true that Silas has its fair share of the supernatural our family and everyone in the town that we grew up in are slightly more complicated. As in they kind of inspired a lot of the folk lore and fairy tales of this world.”
“Although admittedly a lot of the stories are simplified and incredibly one sided.” Perry added defensively.
Silence once again descended on the group as they each tried to make sense of what Danny and Perry had just told them. An entire town of fairy tale and folk lore characters? It sounded ridiculous but after everything that they had so far seen at Silas it wasn’t exactly outside of the realms of possibility. After all, Carmilla was a vampire and one of the lecturers was a reanimated journalist who had died decades ago so who were they to judge really?
“So, are we talking Snow White and the seven dwarves or Rumpelstiltskin levels here?” Mel asked apparently already trying to make sense of levels of folk law and attempting to assess any potential danger to them.
Danny and Perry exchanged another look. This time it was Perry who drew the short straw. “Well I mean technically they are both family but I doubt that they’ll be dropping in.”
“Oh naturally and I’m Robin Hood.” Carmilla couldn’t help herself this was totally not what she had expected when the scoobies had invaded.
“Erm actually she’s Perry’s sister.” Laf interjected flinching at the withering look they got from the vampire in response.
This was apparently the line for Laura who was now looking between Danny, Perry and Laf as if they were all high. This was crazy and yet that didn’t necessarily make it untrue. None of them showed any signs of dishonesty and as far as pranks went this seemed a bit too elaborate of a set up. Which only really left the possibility that they were telling the truth. Laura couldn’t help herself her inner journalist needed to hear the rest of this.
“Okay so I have like a zillion questions but erm maybe we should start with which family members are visiting and who they are slash what should we be expecting?”
Danny gave her a look of gratitude that they were seemingly getting back on track. Honestly, she had been wondering if calling this meeting had been a colossal mistake, but it was necessary. The last thing she needed was her friends freaking out if they saw her parents or aunt using magic and some kind of all out war starting. It wasn’t like Silas students needed much of an excuse to launch into campus wide warfare after all. She smiled encouragingly at Perry figuring she may as well go first as Robin had already been mentioned. The smaller red head smiled back at her and acquiesced.
“Well my sister Robin and her partner Alice, who is a massive sweetie, and my mother.” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath before continuing. “As Lafontaine has already stated Robin is indeed that Robin, she kind of took over the title from her father, and her girlfriend I guess you would know as Alice from Alice in wonderland. Although as she would be quick to tell you she has been to other places too.” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of that conversation. “And my mother is a powerful sorceress named Zelena”. She decided that was enough for now not wanting to colour her friends first impression of her mom by telling them she had literally been the Wicked Witch. Danny thankfully made no comment.
Mel, Kirsch, Laura and even Carmilla all looked stunned. Huh leaving the vampire speechless was certainly a new one she would certainly have to savour that. Not really wanting to answer any more questions about her family Perry gave her cousin a pointed look that she should carry on before getting up to go and make cocoa for everyone. Thankfully she took the hint.
“So yeah also coming up is my mother Regina who is also an incredibly powerful sorceress, aunt Zelena is her sister, and my mom Ruby who you would know as Red Riding Hood I guess although the story does leave out the fact that she’s a werewolf.”
Danny looked genuinely thoughtful about the last part and so missed the comical looks on her friends faces. Well all of them except Laf of course who already knew all of this and the parts that she had left out, namely that her mother was formerly known as The Evil Queen, but hey if Perry got to leave parts out then she totally did too! Speak of the devil the smaller woman was back and busy passing out mugs of hot chocolate to everyone. Mel was the one to break the silence.
“So to clarify we are soon getting a visit from two sorceresses, a werewolf, Robin Hood and Alice of many places including Wonderland?” The warrior asked with a small shake of her head.
“Yeah that about sums it up.” Perry replied sweetly before taking a large sip of her drink.
“Huh and I thought my family was weird enough” Carmilla muttered.
Laura couldn’t help but agree with her girlfriend. It was certainly a lot to take in at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. A thought suddenly occurred to her that she knew she would have to ask aloud.
“Laf you’ve known Perry since you guys were kids, right? Does that mean you’re from the same place?”
“Yeah I grew up in Story Brooke” Lafontaine admitted figuring that there was no point in denying it, after all their friends family all knew them.
“So are your folks…” Laura trailed off not quite knowing how to finish her question. Thankfully Laf understood her and didn’t seem at all offended by the question.
“Well I don’t think my mom is anyone you’d have heard of, but my dad is pretty famous I guess.” Laf couldn’t help but chuckle knowing that his name was bound to cause a reaction. “His name is Victor Frankenstein.”
“What!?” Laura hadn’t been able to stop herself from shouting out and was now comically sat with both hands clasped tightly over her mouth. Kirsch and Mel both sat with their mouths open in shock whereas the normally brooding vampire had comically choked on the hot chocolate she had been drinking. Perry and Danny who already knew this gave their friend a sympathetic smile.
When Carmilla had finally recovered she had burst into hysterical laughter. “Of course, the Bio major is the child of Frankenstein.”
*
Perry had never been so relieved to be back in her dorm room. Her friends had seemed to take everything remarkably well considering they had just been told that fairy tales were real as were some notable characters of popular fiction. Then again if anything was going to prepare them for that it was Silas. The day had been so mentally exhausting, but she was glad that they had decided to tell everyone a bit about their heritage, at least now she could just look forward to seeing her family. It had been far too long since she had seen her mom and sister! Hell, it had been even longer since she had seen Alice or her aunts.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Laf asked with a smile sitting next to her on the bed.
“Honestly I’m just glad that conversation seemed to go well” Perry replied as she cuddled into Laf’s side. “Although I’m sorry that you had to tell everyone about your dad before you were ready to.”
“It’s okay it’s not like I’m ashamed of him or anything its just one of those things that never seems to be the right moment to say you know?” Perry nodded she could certainly understand that feeling. “Although speaking of fathers I notice that you decided not to mention yours and that you and Danny left out certain details about your moms.”
Ah okay they kind of had her there. She would be lying if she said that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind to just mention him as well, after all she had already told them about Robin and sort of told them about her mother, but somehow that seemed like it should be its own conversation. Maybe if everything went well with the visit this weekend she would think about approaching the subject but until then it was a definite no.
“Could you imagine? So yeah also just to clear up some minor points my mom is everything I said but she also kind of used to be the Wicked Witch of the West and my aunt Regina, Danny’s mother, spent decades as the Evil Queen but hey that’s all in the past now.” Perry couldn’t help the harsh tone of her voice as she continued, “Oh but don’t worry it gets better my father is Hades, yes that Hades, but its okay I mean hey who doesn’t have a literal God as a parent?”
Lafontaine couldn’t help but wince at that. “I see your point.”
“Your dad’s a god!?” Laura shrieked in disbelief.
Apparently, she had come to check on them and neither of the red heads had heard her open the door through their semi heated discussion. Perry was pretty sure she could feel the beginning of a stress migraine coming on. Laf seemed to be frozen in place unsure of what to say or do now that the cat was out of the bag. Laura however seemed to find her words again.
“And your mom is the Wicked Witch as in hating on the munchkins, terrified of water, throws fireballs witch?” A new thought seemed to dawn on the girl. “Holy Hufflepuff Danny’s mom is the Evil Queen. I have so many questions!”
Perry couldn’t help but sigh at the shorter girl’s enthusiasm. Well so much for a quiet date night with Laf…