Chapter Text
Sara was losing her mind.
Lori was pounding on the bathroom door screaming her head off while cursing every fibre of Rip’s being.
There were 2 other bathrooms in the house she could use but apparently what she wanted was in that particular bathroom.
“Lori give it a rest please, he’ll be out when he’s out.” Sara knew teenagers would be hard, she was hell when she was their age, but she could do without her 17 and 15-year-olds fighting.
“He’s always in there. Just jack off in your room like a normal person if you are going to be tugging it 50 times a day!” Lori screamed kicking the door hard.
“Lori! Stop accusing your brother of jacking off! Fuck. Rip if you can pause what you are doing, please pause, or finish up as soon as possible. If you are doing that finish up and either do lock your bedroom door and do it, or go to a different bathroom. And use a safe lotion, you don’t want to rip off the skin.”
“Gross Mama.” Lori groaned.
"I'm not doing that. This is the bathroom with the best mirror! Lori can put on her trash make up somewhere else!"
"It's not trash make up! You're the one who might as well be using a sharpie for your eyeliner!"
"You have a thank top that says come here daddy that you wear to clubs you sneak into!"
“You what?" Sara stared bewildered at her daughter.
"You are so lucky you can heal because if you couldn't I'd fucking kill you!" Lori screamed at the door.
"And you're lucky for the gems because otherwise you'd had like 50 kids with the whole football team as fathers and five of the teachers!"
"You are dead!" Lori screamed before being pulled away by Sara.
"You're making out with teachers? Who are these teachers? How long has its been going on? Why didn't you tell us? Have they tried to touch you?"
"God Mama, it's not always sexual assault. We have student teachers who are about to finish their degrees and getting classroom time. They're like 22."
"Still illegal."
"I came on to them."
"Still illegal you're a child."
"See this is why I didn't tell you." Lori huffed. "God you never understand anything!" She slammed her bedroom door and Sara figured it was best to touch that giant can of worms when she had Ava with her. They needed to get through a stubborn 17-year-old that even if she literally cornered the teachers, while naked it still wasn't okay.
Sara sighed heading back downstairs where Mick was watching the game. She made a quick stop to grab some more beers for them.
When she fell back on the couch, beers in hand next to Mick he grunted his thanks and looked over at her.
“They do that a lot?”
“Non-stop. We stopped grounding them because it was punishing us more than them. Now we send them somewhere for hard labor. Usually Dad’s or Mom’s place to do yard work.”
“Have you tried beatin’ em?”
“Nope. We decided before we had Lori that we weren’t going to beat our kids. Why is that what you do with your 41?”
“It wouldn’t work on Junior. Violence is their whole thing.”
“Good point. But yeah we’re not beating our kids.”
“Fuck with their heads. Tell one of them who your favorite kid is.”
“We don’t have favorite kids Mick.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Someone is gonna kill all but one kid and you have to pick which one lives, who you pick?”
“No. I make them kill me instead.”
“Not an option.”
“I can’t pick just one kid to live.”
“Then they all die.”
Sara just sighed. She had been involved in a pick who lives and who dies choice before, she wasn’t the picker but still, once was enough for a lifetime. If someone tried it she was sure that she and Ava would figure out a way to prevent it.
Thankfully the conversation had moved to comments on the game when Rip joined them.
He reached for a beer only for Sara to smack his hand away.
“Not until you’re 18 in this house.” Sara knew expecting their kids to wait til 21 to drink was pointless so they compromised with them and agreed that when they are 18 they can drink when at home.
“Here have mine.” Mick passed his beer over.
“Did you spit in it?” Rip asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m good thanks Uncle Mick.” Rip sat down in the over stuffed chair, his shaggy dyed black hair half in his eyes.
“You have fun jacking it?” Mick asked out of the blue.
“I wasn’t jacking it. I was straightening my hair and fixing my eyeliner.”
Mick just eyed him. “I’ll kill anyone who gives you shit for having a girlfriend that’s a boy.”
Sara just looked at Mick with complete bewilderment. “Wait, you think he’s gay because he straightens his hair?”
“Yeah, plus the make up.”
“I’m not gay Uncle Mick.” Rip clarified. “But I appreciate your threat.”
“You’re hair cut junior.”
“Oh he spends way more time on his hair than Nate does…well did. Can’t believe he made us all have a funeral for his hair when he started losing it.”
“Can’t believe he made a wish with the demon chick to get it back.”
“Pretty sure that was Uncle Ray’s idea.” Rip pointed out.
Soon Lori was storming down the stairs, straightener in hand.
“I can’t believe you! Look what you did to my straightener!” Lori threw the still-hot straightener at Rip in the chair.
“What the hell that burnt my shirt!” He yelled jumping up out of the chair.
“It has your cheap-ass boxed hair dye burnt onto it. It stained my hair!”
“I can fix this.” Mick stood up and pulled out two knives which he held out to the teens. “First one to land a death blow wins.”
“No! No death blows and no knives!” Sara snatched them from Mick. “Lori, go use the straightener in my bathroom, wash your hair and it should be fine. If it isn’t I’ll take you to get it fixed. Rip, from now on when you go to straighten your hair, use the same one and I’ll bring you to the salon to get it dyed okay? Lori, give me your phone. You lost it for the next three days for throwing a hot straightener at your brother.”
“This is bullshit. He ruined my hair and he’s not in trouble?”
“He didn’t mean to. You did mean to throw it at him.”
“Such fucking bullshit.” Lori glared before storming upstairs.
“Just wait til your Mom comes home! You’ll be up to your eyeballs in essays!” Sara yelled after her.
“Should beat ‘em.” Mick grunted.
“Mick we’re not beating our kids.”
“Thanks Mama.”
…
Keir needed to be picked up early from his dance class, there was a fire and so it was cancelled early. Sara had to leave to go get him leaving Mick in the house with Rip and Lori since Ava was driving around with Aoife and Áine.
As soon as Sara left Mick dragged Rip up with him upstairs and into Lori’s room.
“I’m gonna do something to help your moms.” Mick explained before taking off something from his wrist. “This is a time currier. It’s yours if you can stop fighting.”
“But who gets it, there are two of us?” Lori eyed the device in his hand.
“Share it.” When the teens just gave him a look he grunted. “Fight for it then. Get knives from the kitchen, or your Ma’s stash. First death blow wins.”
“I’m game.” Rip glared at his sister.
“Oh it’s on.” Lori glared back.
Soon they were in the backyard, in their usual sparring clothes.
Mick eyed Rip a bit.
“Thought you were a nerd. How do you have muscles?”
“I’ve run track since I was seven. Aunt Nys has been showing me moves since I was 10.” Rip shrugged.
“And I’ve been kicking ass since I was 5 so.” Lori spun her knife in her hand.
“Back up a bit, on the count of three.” Mick grunted. “One. Two. Fight!”
Rip moved a millisecond after Mick started to say the g in fight, he moved his non-knife hand towards her head and while she was focused on that hand, he used his non-dominant leg to kick one of her legs out from under her. Not to be outdone Lori tried to stab him as he pinned her to the ground.
Ava knew it wasn’t on purpose but she really felt like Aoife left her bag at home on purpose. So after they drove the two hours to the rowing tournament, Ava had to drive two hours back, grab the bag and then drive another two hours. All because Aoife had to be in different types of rowing the required different shoes and gloves.
She pulled into the driveway a bit puzzled as to why Sara wasn’t home but that wasn’t a big deal.
As soon as she opened the car door she heard the distinct sounds of sparing and shit-talking.
Why were her two oldest fighting in the backyard?
Rip smirked as he stabbed the knife into Lori’s chest. After fighting and seemingly benign at an equal skill level, Rip had her pinned. A perfect heart shot.
At the same time, Lori had her knife buried in his gut and was pulling it up.
This was the scene Ava walked into. Her son stabbed his sister in the heart and her daughter tried to gut her brother.
“I win. Kill shot.” He even batted away her hands leaving her knife in him as he stood up.
Mick grunted in approval.
“What the hell is going on?” Ava asked in a tone that Mick knew meant trouble.
“Solved your fighting issue.” He passed Rip the time currier.
“What are giving him? Where the hell is Sara? You are not on the approved list of babysitters.” Ava could feel her hair turning exponentially grayer.
“I won a time currier.” Rip grinned strapping the device on his wrist.
“Keir’s class was cancelled because of a fire. Sara went to get him.”
“Rip please give Mick back the time currier. You can’t have it.” Ava pulled the knife out of Rip and then out of Lori who was clearly sulking over the fact that her brother won.
“But I won it.”
“Give it back to him. Now please.”
“Fine.” Rip grumbled passing it back to Mick.
“Go get cleaned up. We’ll discuss this later.” Ava watched her teens enter the house and turned to Mick. “I understand you think you were helping but in the future, please do not give my children weapons and tell them to go for killing blows.”
“Sara said you wouldn’t beat ‘em so I thought have ‘em beat each other.”
“We don’t believe in any physical punishments okay? Thank you for trying to help. Also please don’t give any of my kids a time currier. We almost got stuck in time jail and I don’t want the same thing to happen to my kids.”
“I get it.” Mick grunted. “Got any cookies?”
“Yeah in the kitchen come on.”
…
After being lectured for hours by each mother and having to write an essay on the dangers of backyard fights Rip was getting ready for bed. He had just washed off his eyeliner and was grabbing a pair of sleep pants when he saw a box on top of his dresser.
To Rip
Keep being a fighter
Uncle Mick.
He opened the box and grinned at the time currier.
He knew where he wanted to visit first.
He set the date and time and opened the portal.
He was just about to step in when his door opened.
“I’m suppose to apologize to you for accusing you of jacking off.” Lori rolled her eyes before she even took in the scene before her. “Is that?”
“Yeah, Uncle Mick gave it to me. Don’t tell Moms about it.” He hissed.
“I won’t if I can come too.”
“Fine. But you don’t get a say in where we go or what we do.”
“Where are we going?” Lori asked stepping through the portal with him.
“We’re gonna save Aunt Laurel.” Rip grinned looking around Star City of the past.
“We can’t…”
“We can. I got a plan all figured out. We go to the hospital where she was taken, inject her with our blood-”
“That could kill her.”
“She’s already gonna die. Besides you can transfer blood between families it’s a known fact.”
“No, it isn’t! There are dozens of reasons you can’t just do that even without factoring in the alien. Plus if she’s alive all kinds of stuff get changed. We could never be born.”
“I’m not gonna leave her. We let everyone think she’s dead, and it’ll suck because you know Mama will be really sad but we bring her back here with us. See it’s failproof.”
“I mean I guess it’s possible…okay. Let’s go save Aunt Laurel.”