Something Like Home

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anna Fernandez

"We have... just about everything, so just let me know what you'd like."

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"After spending the best part of a week inside a car, drinking from a lukewarm thermos and stinking of oranges, I can promise you any old teabag, in a cup, with hot water and milk is my idea of nirvana right now."

There was a natural ease about Anna which Julie found refreshing, it seemed that kind of matronly warmth was an abstract concept on the east coast, and it helped her find comfort in the midst of perfect strangers. While the tea was being prepared, Julie crossed the kitchen to where Jake was posturing, she smiled sweetly, like a shark.

"Pay no attention to Jake. He was nothing short of chivalrous, offering to carry my things like the perfect gentleman," when she gave Antonio her hand there was a conspiritorial sort of gleam in her eyes, "Nice to meet you, Tonio."

"Y es un placer conocerte, así, Julie," Antonio said, shaking her hand just firmly enough, catching the twinkle in her eye and raising an eyebrow just slightly. "Jake has always been a gentle man," he added, making the pause between words obvious. "He loves going to get manicures, too, not just helping pretty girls on the street."

He held her hand a second too long, just to annoy his brother, and then plopped into a stool at the island. "I'll take some tea too," he decided. "If you're making it," he added, grinning at Anna.

"Oh, of course," Anna said, rolling her eyes at Antonio's sudden earnestness, but getting him down a mug. She pulled a few different boxes of tea out of the cupboard, setting them on the island for Julie's perusal. The tea kettle was starting to hiss, and when it reached a full whistle she turned off the stove and poured the water into the cups.

"And yes, Jake, they left a little while ago." Anna helped herself to a caffeine free herbal tea and carefully tore the paper wrapping around the bag, dipping it gently into her mug. "Can you get the milk out of the fridge?"

Jake retrieved a carton of milk from the fridge and placed it on the island amongst the assortment of boxes. Anna was doing her best to make a good first impression, as usual, but how she had the foresight to acquire such an impressive quantity of tea was something of a mystery. He chalked it down to women's intuition and helped himself to a stool next to his brother.

"You're a douche, you know that, don't you?" Jake muttered, leaning in close as he righted his seat.

While he pottered about with cups and mulled over the incomprehensible varieties of tea, he shared his thoughts with Antonio:

It was some guy called John. She told me a couple of months back, after the supermarket thing, by which time they were no longer dating. She's obviously embarrassed and waiting for the right time to-

"So, Anna, how far along are you?" Julie asked conversationally, she dipped into one of the boxes and fished out a pyramid-shaped tea bag.

Anna paused, her mouth open slightly, and looked right at Antonio who was suddenly busy dipping a tea bag into his mug. "Ah, that is..." Her youngest brother looked up expectantly, and inexplicably winked. She started, and then turned to Julie.

"About four months, actually." Anna blushed, horrified to have been caught out in front of Antonio. Why hadn't she told her other brothers yet!? What sort of a sister was she?

Antonio grinned at Jake as his older brother sat down, and absorbed the information he was given about the real douchebag, this John fellow. Telepathy made his brain itch. He was messing about with a tea bag when lovely Julie popped The Question, and he didn't dare look up right away.

After winking, Antonio swept up to his feet, putting his arm around his sister. "That reminds me, I never told you congratulations!" He hugged her tightly, her body rigid with surprise before she hugged him back, and then he released her. "It's going to be a boy, of course," he declared, grinning at her and returning to his seat. "Named after his favorite Uncle Antonio?"

"Careful now, we don't want to jinx it," Jake warned, "The last thing we need is another degenerate in the family."

His eyes lit up with mischief as he gave Antonio a look, and a subtle nod of approval, for a degenerate he'd handled that well. Anna was flushed and looked rather shell-shocked by the ordeal, when her flailing gaze fell on him, he offered a reassuring smile.

"It's okay. Julie's a doctor, there was no way you she was going to miss that."

The natural ebb and flow of teatime conversation took on an undercurrent of seismic proportions. She watched the siblings quake with the tremors of familial secrecy and suddenly wished herself someplace else. It wasn't until Antonio was out of his seat, squeezing the tension from his sister with a hug and good humour, that the mood lifted. It lifted from all, except Julie, who turned narrowed eyes on Jake.

"I never told you that."

Anna, still flushed, settled down at last with a glass of water. "Jake is a bit... intuitive," she explained to Julie, absently gathering the boxes of tea and straightening them up. "It makes it difficult to keep a secret around him." She narrowed her eyes a bit at her brothers, who looked like innocent angels all of a sudden.

"I'm the kind of psychic you don't see on television," he confirmed, with a grin.

"And there was something about you that just screamed Doctor Julie Moon."

"Okay," she said at last, "I won't pretend that's not a little unsettling."

Recalling their first encounter, her head dipped with an amused smirk, and after giving her cup a theraputic quarter turn, she drank from it. The sigh that followed was heavy with satisfaction and she practically melted where she sat. A deeply grateful smile was sent Anna's way.

"God, I've missed that. And, for your information, where I'm going I won't be playing doctor. For my sins, UCLA have seen fit to appoint me their new professor of molecular biology. Personally, I would've been happy with a public flogging."

Antonio perked up, leaning forward a bit to catch Doctor Julie's eye. "UCLA? I just finished my sophomore year there. Chem major." He grinned, "You'll probably see a lot of me this coming year, in the science buildings."

Anna laughed, "If you go to class, Mr. Procrastinator!"

He looked wounded. "I go to my lectures! The lab work is more fun, though." Antonio sipped his tea, blowing on the liquid as it nearly burnt his tongue.

Anna shook her head fondly at Antonio, and said to Julie, "He's very smart, but suffers from a supreme lack of motivation when it cones to studying."

"And yet," Antonio interjected, "I get straight A's! It's amazing! It's like it's a strange ability of mine!"

"You're a student?" she asked, surfacing from her cup, "Then let's forget that comment about the public flogging, shall we?"

The badgering he recieved courtesy of Anna was typical of an older sister-younger brother relationship, their interplay was amusing and sweet, and Julie was content to watch them fence words uninterrupted, until a thought occured to her:

"Would that be your mutant ability, Tonio?" she hesitated with a smile, "Not that I'd dare doubt your undisputable genius but, well in this place, and- well, given Anna and Jake are both- or are you an average Joe?"

"Oh, there's nothing average about Toñito."

Clapping an arm around his brother, he beamed, and before he could object the resurrection of a childhood-haunting nickname, Tonio found himself the victim of a vicious noogie. Jake carried on regardless.

"You see, he has the brains and the freak gene, which is why God was a little frugal when it came to the looks."

Releasing Tonio at last, Jake wisely distanced himself, and relocated between the women so he could keep a weather eye out for a potenitial noogie counter-offensive. He regarded Julie warmly, it had been the first time he'd seen her fumble her words, and given the implications of an entirely mutant family, it wasn't surprising.

"Everyone in the family is a mutant except mama - well, so she says - but I don't see how she's remained sane all these years without at least some genetic advantage."

"That famous Spanish/Italian constitution she is always talking about," Antonio said, eying Jake across the island from him where he was cowering amongst the womenfolk. He carefully ran his hands over his short hair, trying to right whatever wrongs Jake had done to it.

He turned in his seat and caught Julie's eye. "Yes, its true, I am a mutant as well. But unlike Jacob here," Antonio smirked a bit, "I have a useful ability."

He flexed his hands, holding his arms out in front of him, and then he touched his ceramic mug, waggling his eyebrows a bit as though he was going to do a magic trick. And honestly, it sort of was. A moment passed and nothing happened, and then his skin took on a glassy white sheen to match the cup in his hands, creeping up quickly once it started.

"Now on a molecular level, I can't imagine what my biology does, but..." Antonio stretched out a hand so she could touch his ceramic arm if she wanted. "Just don't hit me with a hammer, that would suck."

Julie was dumbstruck. She reached out slowly, and ran her fingers over his glossy arm, it was smooth, and so cold it made her rigid. It took a moment for words to form in her mouth.

"On a molecular level," she began, marvelling at the implications of the biological change, she grinned, "It's remarkable. There aren't any theories in place to so much as consider such a dramatic cellular shift."

She wrapped her knuckles against the ceramic flesh, it produced a faint ringing sound which at first made her snort with laughter, and then she shuddered.

"You know, I lose it when I wake up with a dead arm in the morning, but that... in the medical profession, Tonio, you're what is known as a total freak."

"You got that right," Jake chimed in, wearing a sly grin, "We've been saying that since we were kids."

There was something about the way his brother was indulging Julie's scientific curiousity that didn't sit right with him and he shifted impatiently throughout his little show-and-tell-and-feel-me-up presentation. Fortunately, the topic of conversation provided him with a perfect distraction.

"Admittedly, Tonio's ability is very useful, especially when we're short on dinnerware," he said, catching his brother's eye, "But if he's the china cabinet of the family, then Anna here is most definately the human refrigerator. Isn't that right, sis?"

Anna shot Jake a Look while Julie was watching Antonio shift his skin back to flesh. Being neighborly was one thing, but trotting all their abilities out on display... It was making her uncomfortable. However, Julie seemed delighted, and now she was turning towards her, and Anna smiled demurely.

"I am not a refrigerator," she said, shaking her head gently. "I create and manipulate ice," Anna explained, catching Julie's eye on the other side of Jake. "I am a little tired for a demonstration, however."

Jake looked a little disappointed, and of course if he trusted Julie then she did as well. But... she felt like there was something she was forgetting, something important... but she couldn't figure what it was, so Anna just smiled and sipped her water.