Chapter Text
“Abirt.”
“Malkiel.”
The two eldest siblings stared at each other blankly. The air around them was tense as they both prolonged their eye contact, never breaking it off in an attempt to outlast the other. Their little competition was interrupted, however, when the third Kravitz sibling walked into the living room with their daughter in tow.
“Jeez, aren’t you guys having a fun time,” they sarcastically sneered at the two. Terach Kravitz practically threw some emergency medkit he was holding onto the coffee table in between the couches and slumped down onto a seat with a tired heave as his daughter greeted her uncles before silently resigned herself to a corner to take a look at the telescopes and maps cluttered on the wall. She’s new here, unfamiliar with anyone yet and would rather try to see what they were like before she joined them.
Abirt was the first to break away from the staring competition, acknowledging Sera Argent with a nod before sliding into one of the seats furthest from Malkiel. His custom made pink cane was gently placed on the floor slid underneath the chair. ‘Floorboards better be clean. It’d be a pain in the arse if I grab it and it’s covered in fucking dust on one side,’ they grimaced internally before she turned to look at his younger sibling with a sympathetic look.
“I take it Oregon was hard?”
“You have no fucking idea,” Terach sighed in exasperation. “I swear the MTFs just love throwing themselves right into the direct line of sight of the fuckin’ bullets!” He mocked a salute and spat, “I’m a soldier! A hero to the common folks! I will die in the dark so you can live in the light!”
From his seat, Malkiel let out a howl of laughter much to Terach’s chargrin. “Ah, they assigned ya to some rookies,” he noted. “They’ll mellow out with time an’ experience. Rookies like ‘em got some hero complex and all. Think they’re savin’ the whole universe with their self-sacrificial bullshit.”
“Mellow out faster. Restoring an amputated arm is a pain in the fucking arse.”
The conversation between all three of them halted when the door to the house opened and another person walked into the room. She was tall, taller than even Malkiel when he stood at his full height. Her hair was wrapped in a centipede-patterned tichel. A closer glance at the centipedes and one would question if they had just seen it move its legs.
Evelyn Pollach, former wife of Adam Kravitz, lost her initial stone face and smiled warmly upon seeing her children- grandchild in Sera’s case. “Hello, kids. How have you’ve been?” She gave Malkiel and Abirt a sterner look. “Good to each other, I hope.”
“All’s well, ma,” Malkiel responded with a tip of his cowboy hat. Meanwhile, Abirt gave her older brother an uncertain glance before greeting Evelyn with a nod, deciding to follow along with The Cowboy’s lies.
The former matriarch of the family sighed in relief before she took her seat in the armchair closest to the fireplace. With the help of the mirror hung from the fireplace, she started to adjust her tichel. Strong gusts of winds have blown it out of place in the path she took to the Tamir House earlier.
Pausing the antique display inspection, Sera turned and watched in fascination as the centipedes on Evelyn’s tichel seemingly came to life and crawled around the fabric. She kept staring in a trance until Evelyn noticed and smiled in her direction, much to Sera’s horror. With warm cheeks, she nervously smiled back and turned back at what she was previously inspecting,
Once more, the window to the front door shifted its view and the bell jingled when the door was opened.
This time, a young, lanky man with long hair tied into a ponytail walked in. Following closely behind was another young man with sunglasses, coily hair and a camo-patterned blind cane. The two of them looked exhausted with the former having a few trees and branches sticking out from his hair.
“It was quite a hike to get here.” the young man with coily hair, David, chuckled as he sat down. He clapsed his hands together and leaned back on the sofa. On David’s left, Abirt winced when he heard the bones cracking on his nephew’s back.
After scanning the room, Terach frowned upon realising that a certain Black Dog was missing from sight.
“No Mister Cupcake this time?” they asked with a frown. They loved the gigantic Black Dog a lot totally because he likes dogs and NOT because his nephew had trained her to bite the rear end of a certain cowboy upon sight.
In response, David shook his head. “Not today, unfortunately.”
“Aww.”
While Terach sulked over Mister Cupcake’s absence, Yoric made quick, long steps towards Abirt after getting out all the leaves in his hair. He stood next to Abirt, not only allowing the older family members to have a seat but also to get a headstart if he needs to run away.
Abirt side-eyed xer grandson and noticed he missed a leaf in his hair. He raised her hand and plucked it out from Yoric’s hair. “You forgot one.” she explained when Yoric jumped. The older Kravitz handed the piece of leaf to Yoric to throw into the bin. “Did you two came together?” she asked xer grandson.
Before Yoric could reply though, David cut him off with a reply. “We met on the way here,” he explained. “He was about to stray off the path.”
Terach snickered, raising his head and turning to Yoric. “Somehow I’m not surprised,” He raised his hands to his face to make a scary face. “If you’ve strayed off path, you’ll nneeeverrrrr find your way out ever againnnn,” he groaned in a deeper voice before bursting out in laughter.
Yoric could feel his heartbeat pause for a split second as Abirt suddenly found the ceiling interesting.
Before the conversation could continue, the door swung open with a slam. All 7 Kravitzes instinctively turned towards the door to see their latest guest. Much to everyone’s surprise, the doorway was empty with only a cold breeze snaking in. Nobody was standing there.
The empty sight caused concern within the family. Malkiel shifted in his seat, casting uncertain glance towards the door. Always on his toes in case of danger, that one. Terach, meanwhile, looked towards his mother who stared at the door motionlessly.
Yoric and Sera shared an uneasy glance. They were both equally confused.
“Doesn’t the Tamier door only open to people Tamir personally allowed?” Yoric whispered to his cousin who only shrugged in response. “Maybe a mistake?”
It was only Abirt who saw Nobody standing there with a what they would describe a ‘Fincore’ outfit. “Really?” He clicked his tongue at his niece’s distasteful fashion. “With that wide top and that bejeweled belt? You’re trying too hard with the boho goth. You look like a Fin instead.”
“I’m not a thot, thank you very much,” Nobody growled sourly as she slammed the door behind her. “But hello to you, uncle.”
“Tzofiya,” Abirt greeted back, eyes trailing Nobody who moved across the room to stand near the wall opposite of Sera. The others looked at Abirt before following his gaze towards the other side of the room.
Terach leaned closed to Abirt. “What’s Tzofiya’s wearing?”
Abirt whispered back. “Thot clothing.”
The two snickered like children before being disrupted by Yoric who leaned down towards them and join their conversation.
“Tzofiya? Who’s that?” Yoric asked his grandfather. He glanced towards where Abirt was looking previously. “And where? I don’t see them.”
He would never know that Nobody stared back right at him.
With a shake of his head, Abirt responded to Yoric’s question. “It’s Nobody.”
“You talked to someone?”
“And that someone is Nobody”
A blaring silence was shared between the two as Yoric’s braincells tried to figure out Abirt’s explanation. Yet he couldn’t seem to understand and only scrunched his nose in confusion.
Abirt let out a sigh as he waved dismissively at Yoric to back off and move out of his personal space. “I’ll explain later.”
The rest of the family seemingly relaxed once more before drifting into an uncomfortable silence. A silence that Yoric, once again, tried to break.
“So…” he began awkwardly, “how long are we going to wait?”
“Not very long,” someone interjected. This time, the host of the house walked in from the kitchen with a tray of snacks and drinks enough for the family. Egg sandwiches were placed neatly on cute little antique plates next to a large jug of iced lemonade.
Tamir set the tray down by the coffee table in the middle of the room and poured lemonade into each cup. She handed it out to the present family members who all have varying degrees of excitement upon receiving it.
Terach was one of ones that were grateful for the fresh beverage. He threw his head back and chugged it within seconds. The glass quickly emptied after each loud gulp. When he was done, he wiped the remaining juice from his mouth in satisfaction. "Ahhhh, that was exactly what I needed…"
Both Abirt and Malkiel nodded in unison. "Yer said it," the oldest said. In contrast to Terach’s quick gulps, he decided to sip his slowly.
The door opened once more and Tziviya walked in utterly drenched from head to toe. With every step into the house, she left wet footprints and water droplets behind. Her path to Tamir House must’ve had a massive storm. With a heavy sigh, her shoulders slump in relief. “Good riddance!”
Tziviya gave her mother a slight smile and removed her raincoat and boots. She folded them neatly and placed them into a bucket Tamir had previously placed by the door in case anyone took a path with extreme weather.
"We're still missing someone," Tamir told the mismatched group as he handed a glass and a towel to the newly arrived Tziviya. The family founder seemingly paused for a minute, as if realising something. They turned to the two eldest siblings of the family.
"Did any of you notify Adam?"
Both Abirt and Malkiel looked away with a guilty look. Just a few days before, they had a screaming match in Malkiel’s office when they both realised the other hadn’t contacted their father. By then, it was already too late to notify Adam as that man had been extremely hard to reach. That man practically disappeared off the face of the Earth a while back.
Noticing both her children's behaviour, Evelyn gave them a pointed look. She had already figured them out. "You kids did tell him, right?"
Abirt stared at the armrest of the sofa they were sitting on. They refused to answer that which was pretty telling of what his response was going to be. On the other hand, Malkiel sputtered a reply to appease his mother.
"Well, I was going to- ma, but I got busy with some reports down North and several other meetings following that so I was gonna tell'im later but realised I got busy so I told abirt to call pa-"
Abirt grumbled under his breath. "I told you I was busy."
Malkiel swung his head towards Abirt so fast to the point Yoric thought it was gonna detach from his neck.
"You!" Malkiel raised an accusatory finger at Abirt. "Ya damn well know that's a lie! I told ya when ya had yer weekend off three months ago!"
"No, you didn't. If you did, I would've had it done. You didn't tell me shit."
Malkiel jumped to his feet in anger. "BULLSHIT!" He yelled as he stared down at Abirt. His cheeks were turning red.
The rest of the room tense. Everyone started looking back and forth between Malkiel and Abirt who were 3 feet away and glaring into each others’ eyes with furious, contorted scowls.
All of that, however, was dispersed in a matter of seconds when Evelyn waved an arm towards Malkiel to tell him to settle down. The Cowboy, the eldest most obedient child, took a deep breath and slumped down onto his seat in defeat.
After Malkiel settled down, Evelyn turned her attention to her second child. "Why didn't you call him, Abirt?"
"I hadn't talked to him in over 15 years." Abirt grumbled under his breath, still refusing to pick her gaze. Evelyn only sighed in and rubbed her temples.
“You need to listen to your brother and do as he tells you."
"I'll jump off a cliff if he jumps off of one too then."
Malkiel scowled at him again. "Bitch."
Abirt snarled right back. "Asshole."
"It's fine, it's fine,” Tamir sighed, waving relectantly to get everyone’s attention once more. “Let's just… get started." He had hoped this wasn’t the path taken but what’s done is done. He would just have to cope with the current timeline.
As Tamir turned on the TV and booted up the VHS player, everyone looked at each other, all realising something at the same time: They were still missing someone, weren't they? Someone very important.
Despite everyone coming to that thought at the same time, it was Yoric who asked Tamir about the elephant in the room.
"Where's Great Aunt Tzipora?"
A solemn look was only given as a response for that question. It made Yoric felt like his stomach was turning from the inside out. "That's actually what we're gathered here for today,"
Now that got everyone's attention. They all turned towards Tamir in anticipation, eager for an explanation for why Tzipora was today's topic of discussion. Yet, Tamir only sighed and looked around the room. They cleared their throat and prepared to deliver the topic of today’s meeting. In her heart, he hoped the family would take it better compared to Adam’s retirement over half a decade back. He shut his eyes and hoped he can cover her ears in time when everyone bombards her with question- a Kravitz family he’s grown used to but hates.
His announcement, however, only tuned the family into pure silence.
"Tzipora was the one that has called this meeting," he had started. “Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it because she’s just passed away. Right now, we’re gathered here so I can hand out her personal belongings and gifts to everyone as the sole charge of her will.”