Chapter Text
Sept 4th, 2016
It's a late Sunday night in the Diaz household, and Sean is watching an old favorite: The Day The Aliens Came, a weird classic horror flick from the 80s that he'd always strangely loved.
He had originally planned to go over to Lyla's and hang, but it was canceled since her mom didn't want any "shenanigans" on the day before school started in session.
So, since he had nothing else to do, he decided he might as well re-watch some old stuff.
Right as the "don't copy this movie or BAD THINGS will happen, VERY BAD THINGS will happen to YOU" warnings flashed on to the screen, Sean heard a door open, and considering the sound of the footsteps were quite soft and fast, he realized it must be his little brother.
"Sean!" He hears Daniel exclaim as he runs up to him. "What are you watching?" He asks.
"Dude, I thought your bedtime was 9. It's past 10:30," Sean says, matter of factly.
"Yeah, but…" Daniel says, trying to come up with a good reason. Well, he does come up with a reason.
"I, uh...wanted to get some food," Daniel says unconvincingly.
"In the middle of the night?" Sean questions.
"Um…"
"You know Dad doesn't want you to stay up this late, school starts tomorrow, dude," Sean says.
"Then why does he let you stay up this late?" Daniel asks, trying to conceal a pout.
"I'm older," Sean explains. "It's kinda...different."
"I don't get it," Daniel says. "Your school is a bigger deal, right? So why does it matter less if you sleep enough than me?"
"It's kind of hard to explain. But you should get to bed. You don't want to be known as the tired kid on the first day, trust me, I know, dude," Sean says jokingly.
"Well, I...I remembered how you said that you were gonna watch a movie tonight, and I just- I'm kinda worried about having to go to school again, so I thought, maybe we could watch it together--I mean, I think it would be nice," Daniel says shyly.
"Daniel, this is kind of, like, a scary movie and I don't know--do you remember the last time we watched a scary movie?" Sean reminded him.
"Well, yeah," Daniel says sadly. "But that was a long time ago! I've grown up since then!"
"Dude, that was 3 months ago."
"Please, Sean? I just wanna do something fun before having to go to school again. Please?" Daniel says, looking at him with big doe eyes.
Sean isn't sure. On one hand, it would be pretty fun to watch this with Daniel, he's never seen it before. But also, it might scare him, Sean remembers the first time he ever saw it when he was a kid and having nightmares about being abducted by aliens for weeks.
"Ok, you can watch," Sean says, patting a spot on the sofa, signaling Daniel to sit with him. "But if you get scared, remember you can look away. And if it's really bad, just tell me to turn it off and I will," he mentions as he pulls his blanket over Daniel.
Sean gets up and heads to the kitchen. "I'm gonna get a bowl of ice cream, do you want some?" He asks.
"Yeah," Daniel responds.
Sean comes back with 2 bowls of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on and gives one to Daniel before grabbing the remote and pressing play.
"Thanks, Sean," Daniel says.
"No problem, dude."
# # #
After the brothers are finished watching the movie, Sean walks Daniel to his bedroom.
"Hey, Sean?" Daniel starts as Sean tucks him in bed. "I get it if you don't want to, but Dad always reads me bedtime stories right before bed, and I want to ask, uh…"
"Didn't he read you one earlier? When you were meant to go to bed?" Sean asks neutrally.
"Yeah, but I didn't fall asleep, so...I get it if you don't want to, but it helps me fall asleep, and, uh...sorry."
"No, it's fine, dude. I'll read you something. What do you want me to read?" Sean asks, looking at the shelf of stories kept on the far side of Daniel's room.
"Well, I was kinda thinking," he says. "Could you--make up a story?"
"I'm not a writer, dude," Sean declares. "But I can try. Get comfy."
"So, uh...once upon a time, there was a, a-a knight, who, he, this knight was the knight to a really strong king who had control of all the lands, and uh, this knight was very, very loyal to the king. He would fight, and uh, do, uh, knightly things for the king. But one day, a woman showed up, and she, uh, she was from the outer lands. No one knew where this lady came from. Some people thought she was a witch."
Daniel looks at him with big eyes.
"So the knight, he met the lady one day, and they got along pretty well, and she told him that the rumors were true. She was a witch. And she needed the knight's help."
"With what?" Daniel asks.
"I uh, I was getting to that, okay?" Sean replies.
"So, the witch, uh, she, um, so, she told the knight that she was actually the king's daughter. She was the princess. And she said that-"
"Wait! How did the knight know if she was actually the princess? What if she was lying?" Daniel questioned.
"Uh, she, uh, she looked a lot like the king."
"That's not a good explanation!" Daniel comments.
"Well, do you have a better one?" Sean asks.
"Uh, well, what if," Daniel furrows his brow to come up with something. "Ooh, what if the king had a special tattoo and so did the princess?"
"Uh, sure," Sean supposes. "Not sure how they got tattoos in medieval times, but," he mumbles. "That's not important," he softly laughs.
"So, anyway, uh, now the knight knew that she was the princess. And, uh, the princess told the knight that the reason she was in the outer lands was because her father kicked her out of the kingdom a long time ago. It turns out that the king was actually evil and the reason he had so much power was because he stole kids from their families and made them be knights for him."
"What?!"
"Yeah, so, the king was really bad. But when the princess told the knight about this, he, uh, had a flashback. And he realized the king took him when he was young to be a knight. So now the knight and the princess had teamed up, and they went to face the king. The knight and the princess broke into the castle and the knight, uh, struck the king with his sword, and the princess used her magic on the king, and together, they managed to defeat him. And the princess became the queen of the kingdom, and the knight was the, uh, top, uh, knight, to the queen, and they told the whole kingdom what happened years ago and they all worked hard to make the kingdom good again. It wasn't as powerful as it used to be, but they weren't hurting people for no reason anymore, so it was worth it. Uh, the end."
"Wait! But what happened to the king? Did he die?" Daniel speculates.
"Uh, the, no, the king, he, the old king was defeated and they sent him to jail, but when he served his time, he realized that the new kingdom was much nicer and he realized what he did was bad. He, uh, was just a normal guy then. Not the king. But he was good now. Now that's the end, cause I gotta get to bed, dude," Sean says, ruffling Daniel's hair and getting up to leave.
"Good night," Sean bids farewell.
"Good night. Thanks, Sean. Love you!" Daniel proclaims.
"Love you too, Daniel," Sean replies, starting to close the door to Daniel's room. "Sleep tight, little bro."