Work Text:
There’s something funny about the LeFey family. Not sinister, not off-putting, not even particularly strange. Just the sort of thing that might cause you to do a double-take at first glance, but if you tilt your head and squint a bit, you can sort of start rationalizing what you’re seeing.
Artoria is nothing like the man who comes to pick her up when school ends, who shows up to parent-teacher conferences, who you’ll occasionally see in the audience during the drama club’s performances and even a few of their rehearsals (although he’ll die before admitting to that last part). Beyond the lack of physical resemblance, she’s cheerful and hardworking, a bit shy at times, but always, always eager- the epitome of an energetic young girl. Her supposed uncle possesses a temperament darker than his hair, everything about him seems to have been washed in a palette of monochrome, and he tends to get a wide berth because of his tendency to glare at people like an undomesticated feline.
“That’s my uncle, Oberon,” she’ll say, proudly, happily, adoringly. A sharp contrast to the unmoved expression he’ll likely be directing towards you, although if you’re lucky, you might get a grunt of acknowledgement.
There’s nothing that overtly points to them being family- in fact, everything about them clearly points to Artoria’s being adopted. But voice that assumption, and you’ll bear witness to a truly rare occasion: Artoria scowling.
This is where it gets funny: you’d be right, of course. Artoria was adopted by her uncle when she was seven years old, after her father’s death in a sudden and tragic car accident. “Yeah, I’m adopted,” she’ll affirm, a defensive edge to her voice. “But he’s my dad’s brother, by blood.”
It’s hard to imagine the two of them living together, really. Harder still to imagine that what seems to be the human equivalent of the mildew you scrape off your shower curtains could be anything resembling a loving guardian. But maybe that’s why she riles up so easily. Maybe that’s the source of the fire in her eyes. Because her uncle’s not sinister, he’s not (that) strange, he’s not even particularly unkind (to her, mostly). He’s just a little funny, that’s all. Just a little funny.
***
The nature of Oberon’s work has forced him into a semi-nocturnal sleep schedule. Artoria has friends to carpool with in the morning, so he sleeps until it’s time to pick her up in the afternoon and stays up until he’s gotten breakfast ready for her. Sometimes there are still stars out, watching him climb into bed; sometimes, he watches the sunrise paint the morning sky.
They don’t always get to share breakfast together. (Dinner, from his perspective.) But they at least always get dinner with each other (breakfast, from his perspective).
“Can you come get me at six-thirty tomorrow?” Artoria asks, around a mouthful of rice.
Oberon gestures to the left side of his face. Artoria takes the clue, reaches her tongue out and wipes up a few stray grains. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks, trying to sound as uninterested as possible.
“Remember how I said last week that since our performance is next month, we’re probably gonna have extended rehearsal times?”
He deliberately waits a moment before responding, because that’s the sort of thing you do when you don’t really care. “Seems excessive,” he comments, pushing his food around his plate with a fork.
“It’s just an hour.”
“That sort of time adds up.”
“Which is why it’ll be super helpful!”
“What about your homework?”
“I’ll get it all done.”
“Your grades?”
“Won’t get affected at all.”
“Free time?”
“It’s just a month, I’ll be fine having a bit less than usual.”
He narrows his eyes. “That better not be the attitude you take with your sleep.”
Artoria pulls a face. “As if something this minor would do anything to my sleep schedule,” she huffs, and crosses her legs.
“I just don’t see the point of wasting everyone’s time,” Oberon mutters, “when you’ll be the only one giving a performance worth watching.”
“Hey, don’t say that about my…” A pause. “Costars…? Coworkers? Fellow actors,” she finally decides on, and gives deliberate emphasis to every syllable. “We’ve all worked really hard for this, you know.”
“I’m sure everyone’s put their best efforts into bringing your theater teacher’s self-fellatio to life. What’s the play about, anyways? A neurotic prince who gets everyone he loves killed?”
“Well, there’s some people that he definitely doesn’t love that he gets killed, too,” Artoria says. “I’m the one who gets to kill him at the end, though.”
“Fantastic.”
“But I also die.”
He raises an eyebrow.
Artoria hesitates before her next sentence. “I’m actually not in a lot of the play,” she admits, without sounding particularly devastated by the confession. “I mean, I’m a pretty major character, but the person I’m playing is studying abroad for most of the plot. He really only shows up in the beginning and the ending.”
Both eyebrows, now.
“My scenes are super, super cool, though! Um, there’s a swordfight in one of them…”
“I’m sure the action choreography of a middle school’s drama club is absolutely riveting. In fact, my blood boils at the very idea.”
Artoria very visibly perks up. Oberon pretends to pay more attention to his lima beans.
“Glad to hear you’ll be attending,” she says, cheerfully. “I’ll be looking for you in the audience.”
“As if I’d bother,” he grouses, but Artoria just grins.
**
It’s about a ten-minute drive, give or take how the traffic is. He’s careful to close the front door quietly, but there’s nothing he can do about the garage door’s cacophony when it opens and shuts. Still, it’s the thought that counts. Maybe. It’s not like anyone gives a shit about intentions in this day and age.
He gets there and gets out of the car and gets out a lighter and a cigarette. What Artoria doesn’t know won’t kill her. There’s a part of him that actually wants to abide by her wishes, but either he takes a hit or his sanity takes it, and besides, the burning feels good when it moves down his throat and into his lungs, so. It’s quite a pleasant feeling, really.
**
“Places, everyone!” rings through the auditorium, and there’s suddenly dozens of limbs scrambling backstage, offstage, onstage, and where onstage they’re supposed to be.
She’ll be a high school freshman next year, so this is her last hurrah, so to speak- even so, she’s perfectly fine with the character she has. The theater teacher knows her very well, knows Artoria’s never been one to crave attention, and she has about as major of a role she can get without being forced into the spotlight more often than she’s comfortable with.
She watches from the side while the prince, their star, kneels and tilts his head upwards, like a monk supplicating in the light of providence.
“To be, or not to be- that is the question.”
**
Here’s a conversation that never happens:
“Supposedly, when the prince gives that speech, it’s about whether or not he wants to keep living,” explains Artoria.
“Mm.” Uncle keeps his eyes on the road, but he’s listening, she can tell by the way he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
“And I guess if you’re listening to it in the context of the play, yeah, that’s the only possible interpretation. But I don’t think that’s the only way you could read it.”
“Oh?” Disagreeing with her theater teacher is a topic Uncle takes great interest in.
“The state of being implies a lot more than just… being alive.” Artoria looks straight at Uncle; he doesn’t meet her gaze. “It’s existence in general, for one thing. It also refers to the way we choose to present ourselves.”
“…I see,” Uncle says, lowly.
Artoria beams. “So there’s a sort of ontological way you could look at it,” she continues. “If you’re, like, looking at it through the lens of authenticity, I mean. Because if you’re pretending to be someone else, then do ‘you’, as a concept, really exist?”
“Hrrmgh.”
“I think it’s a cool thought experiment. Or something like that,” she adds, self-consciously. “‘course, I’ve got an answer already, but I’d just be interested to hear other people’s takes, is all.”
They get through a few intersections before Uncle breaks the silence.
“So, what’s your answer, then?”
**
Here’s one that does:
“Here,” Uncle says, handing her a twenty-dollar bill. They’re both sitting down and buckled up, and they’ve done this enough that she could deliver his next words in chorus, beat for beat, inflection for inflection. “Yesterday was a pretty good night.”
“Good night” means “I made a lot of money”, at least from what she can tell, because Uncle’s never let her come with him to work even once, not even after that time she stayed up all night just to prove a point. “Bad” nights don’t seem to exist- in that he never seems to return home with less cash than he left with- but good nights happen at least once a week. Artoria’s almost certain that, at this point, she has more saved up than any other middle schooler in the entire county. At the very least, she has more saved up than Uncle. What he could possibly do with all that money is beyond her.
**
Spend it, obviously. What else are you supposed to do? Throw it all down the drain, throw it down the gutter, whatever. He partitions exactly enough to pay the mortgage, the heating, electricity, the rest of their bills, and whatever’s left can burn in hell for all he cares. That’s how it’s always been.
(There’s one exception, exactly one, and it began seven years ago. Artoria’s probably got college in her future plans, and since the education system is a collapsing Jenga tower of bureaucratic nightmares, she’s likely not getting in anywhere for free.)
**
“Good night” also usually means Uncle stays home the night after. They eat dinner together, like always, but then he joins her on the couch, collapsing into the cushions without a word, and they scroll through a few channels before settling on some cheaply made foreign horror film.
She’s not quite tall enough yet to be able to lean her head on his shoulder, so she settles for his upper arm instead. It’s a little disappointing when he tenses up yet again; she stifles a sigh and sits up. Oh well. Maybe next time.
**
Things is, Artoria’s seen enough acting to know what it looks like. Uncle’s good, she’ll give him that- but there’s a point when every syllable becomes a little too controlled, every gesture a little too careless. On the other hand, Uncle has no idea that she’s not asleep when he comes to her room a few hours later (and thank god; she doesn’t wanna get grounded again), definitely doesn’t see anything off about how still she’s lying in her bed or how her breathing stops for just a second when she feels his fingers just barely rest on the top of her head, like her hair is dandelion fluff and his hand is an uncontrolled gust of wind.
He pulls it back at some point, almost self-consciously. She hears his footsteps, and then the sound of her door closing. And, yeah, maybe it’s a good thing he left, because there’s no way he wouldn’t find something strange about the way she’s grinning right now.
**
It’s one-thirty in the morning on a Thursday, and the man sitting across the table from him is crying.
“Please,” he sobs, “That was all I had. That was all I had left. I don’t- what am I supposed to do…”
Oberon says nothing. Merely reaches over and scoops a pile of multicolored poker chips towards him. That’s gas, groceries, next month’s car insurance, maybe he’ll even have a bit left over for some snacks for Artoria…
“That’s not my problem.” Deliberately waiting a moment before responding. Because that’s the sort of thing you do when you don’t really care.
**
This is the third production in as many years which ends with everyone either dead or depressed enough to join them. The props are shit, the acting’s shit, overall it’s just pretty shit, but hey, he really shouldn’t have expected any better from a script whose writer was so high off his own fumes his ego could float him into the stratosphere.
Artoria finds him quickly after the show ends. Almost suspiciously so. He decides against asking whether or not she was looking for him in the audience, though.
“How’d you like it?” she asks him, while they’re still in the school parking lot. Oberon grunts. “That doesn’t tell me anything, Uncle.”
He can’t help but glance down at his niece- God, that talented, intelligent, compassionate niece of his- and he looks away in the same moment, crushing the tidal wave of something that threatens to swell in his chest.
“Swordfight wasn’t bad,” comes out eventually.
By the way she reacts, he might as well have just told her that he’s converting the house into an all-you-can-eat buffet café.
“Thanks, Uncle,” she says, sounding way too goddamn genuine. God. The hell’s she thanking him for?
Still, there’s an impulse telling him to do something stupid- which is, by definition, what impulses are for- and, what the hell, he’ll listen to it. He ruffles her hair, and can’t help but smile just a little at the undignified squawk it elicits.
**
Uncle is a hard person to read, but Artoria’s gotten better at it through the years. His lips curl a certain way when he’s amused but pretending to be annoyed; he crosses his arms a certain way when he’s curious but pretending to be bored.
There’s a certain way he holds himself when he’s not happy.
“Swordfight wasn’t bad,” he says, and even though his thoughts look like they’re a million miles away, she sees his shoulders relax.
“Thanks, Uncle,” she replies, doing her best to keep her exuberance contained. She’ll allow herself a grin, though. Uncle won’t see strange about that, will he?
I love you too.