Guava 16
Author: Casey
Story: Shifts: Post-Shifts (See also Marina’s prompts for more from this ‘verse)
Challenge: Guava 16 (if you’re happy and you know it)
Toppings & Extras: Caramel, Sprinkles, Cherry (present tense, little dialogue), Pocky Chain, Fresh Peaches (This is your day to shine in all your glory, Leo. There's no need to hold anything back. Make sure that this energy that's so true to your core is appreciated and reciprocated by the people with whom you share it.)
Word Count: 1500 (15 part pocky chain)
Rating: G
Summary: Finn is Finn.
Notes: Finn is Drew and Ellen’s younger brother. He is over 16 years younger than Drew and around 11 years younger than Ellen. He’s born about four months after the end of Shifts.
Finn Kopen decides to come on what is the hottest June day in local history. The labor is short and then there he is, a dusty haired baby boy, screaming his head off. The doctors hand him to Joy, who tells Melissa, Drew’s adoptive mother, that he looks just like Drew did when he was born. For the most part, the similarities end there. Whereas Drew was an easy baby, Finn is anything but. He has Joy on the run from the minute they get out of the hospital. Finn is never anything less than a whirling force of nature.
**
He gets his powers when he’s only two, which, as Eleazar tells Joy when she calls in a panic, is early but not exceptionally so. Then he and Oriana sit down to explain it to Finn. Finn, despite his age, never forgets it. “You’re special, Finn, because you can do things other people can’t, but you have to be very, very careful with those powers, because if not, you could hurt someone.”
“Like Mommy?”
“Yes, or Ellen, or anyone.”
Despite the warning, it ends up being a good thing that he never attends preschool. Finn’s a disaster waiting to happen.
**
Plant go crazy around Finn. The moment he steps into a room, they reach out to him. It never fails to amaze Joy when she goes into his room and finds him, sitting cross legged, head tilted slightly to one side, staring intently at the small fern sitting on his bedside table. The first time, she thinks something is wrong with him, until she realizes she can actually see the plant growing. The next day, after the panic subsides, she goes out and buys half of the plants at the supermarket for him.
“Thanks, Mommy!” he says and positively beams.
**
It’s another two years until they figure out his second power. He falls one day at the park with Mariah and Josh and skins both knees, an elbow and a palm. He’s still crying and bleeding when he is brought home and Joy carefully patches him up, kissing him on the forehead and letting him watch Monsters, Inc. not just once but twice.
The next morning, he rips his bandaids off, fully healed and proceeds to build a fortress out of the couch cushions. That’s when Joy knows that he has inherited at least a little of his father, Rupert.
**
Kindergarten is not easy for Finn. He has spent his life around people older than he is, so kids his own age throw him through a loop. Why do five-year-olds have to be so noisy? Finn had been sure that he was by far the loudest in the world, so the fact he isn’t causes him to sulk for days. How can he be special when no one can hear him? It doesn’t help that Ellen taught him to read when he was only three or that he knows his numbers through 100. Fitting in is not easy for him.
**
He makes up for his boredom by finding more interesting things to do. It’s not his fault that the more interesting things are against the rules. Rules are for sissies anyway. He lives by his own rules, except for those that his mom makes. Those rules need to be followed or else he lives in eternal terror that she will give him away, like she had to give Drew away, and although he likes Drew’s other parents, he likes his mom more. So he obeys those rules and sits through those at the principal’s office with the appropriate sorry face.
**
By the time he’s eight, he starts to understand. He sees Rupert a handful of times each year and doesn’t particularly look forward to them. Mom makes him put on a shirt with a collar, which is not at all conducive to playing, and nice pants. He gets to keep his sneakers and he gathers from the way Rupert eyes them that Mom does it on purpose, although he can’t for the life of him figure out what could be wrong with sneakers. Then they eat a fancy dinner and just talk and it’s so boring, but he never complains.
**
Finn knows that Mom never tells Rupert about his blatant disregard for the rules and he knows she would, in an instant, tell him to bugger off if his grades, at some point, weren’t up to snuff, but if it’s one thing that Finn’s good at, it’s getting his homework done and in on time. It’s almost always totally correct too, but he tries not to rub it in to the kids at school and Ellen always does just as well as he does.
He knows he doesn’t always understand how his world works and he’s really okay with that.
**
He exists in that awkward place of being the youngest by a lengthy gap. The twins are five years older and he’s almost eight when his nephew is born. That’s okay with him, though, because he doesn’t let himself be ignored. And if they’re really talking about grown-up stuff, then he finds himself a plant to talk to, although he’s careful after the first time to not encourage them to grow. Luckily the aloe had been at Drew’s apartment and it was easy enough to plant the rather larger plant outside by the parking lot where it couldn’t attack anyone.
**
His full name is Finnegan John Kopen, but he will fight anyone who actually calls him Finnegan, with the exception of Drew, because Drew can do no wrong ever and Mom, because she is the best person in the world and he never argues when she is mad with him, which is when the full name comes out.
Although, at ten, he no longer worries that she will send him away, she is still his mom and usually he deserves the lecture and he knows it makes them both feel better, even though he will absolutely go do it again.
**
Finn attends the same school that Drew and Ellen did and makes it no secret that he’s their sibling. He’s proud of this fact and although he and Ellen sometimes clash - he’s in her stuff too often, but being older is just more interesting - she’s still his sister. They share a mother and father, just like most people do, even if her last name is Gardiner and he’s a Kopen, like Elie and Oriana. Drew’s a Henson, for that matter, but he doesn’t care.
Anyone who disagrees or says something not nice, well, Finn’s smart and revenge is painfully easy.
**
Eventually, he makes friends at school and they’re not exactly the wrong crowd, although he’s sure Ellen, who knows best, would like it better if he ran with a cleaner crowd. Finn likes a little excitement in his life, not to say that his extended family can’t be exciting in their own way, but Family Feud Gardiner and Wellingstone style is not really his thing.
Instead, he does what his two older siblings never did and experiments with, well, pretty much everything under the sun. He generally avoids the illegal stuff, but won’t exactly say no if supplied for free.
**
Finn’s favorite further than immediate family person is Oriana. Technically they’re related to, but, well, in his family, he’s got so many relatives that anything less than immediate are both distant and close at the same time, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Either way, Oriana’s awesome. She’s the one he calls when he really gets in trouble, because he knows whatever he does, she did as bad at his age. She helps talk Mom down, the few times she gets truly angry at him. But Finn has no fear, he can regenerate and his mom will always love him.
**
He doesn’t ask his mom why his last name isn’t Gardiner until he’s fourteen. When he does, she looks at him with those shadows in her eyes and he’s immediately sorry he brought it up. Until then, he has gotten hints and small ideas of why his parents aren’t together - just meeting Rupert once is all someone really needs to know - but he’s never known the whole story.
That day, she sits him down at their kitchen table. “The short story is that I didn’t want to give your father the satisfaction. The long story is...much more complicated than that.”
**
Finn enjoys his visits with his father even less after that conversation, if that’s possible. He will never admit it, but he is his mommy’s little boy through and through, and as much as he has her wrapped around his finger, the same is true.
He never fears that he will be like Rupert. He’s his own person, Mom’s always said that, and he will stay that way forever. He will also protect Joy, even when she swears she doesn’t need it - that Eleazar, Oriana, even Abraham do that every day - because she’s his mother and he loves her.
Story: Shifts: Post-Shifts (See also Marina’s prompts for more from this ‘verse)
Challenge: Guava 16 (if you’re happy and you know it)
Toppings & Extras: Caramel, Sprinkles, Cherry (present tense, little dialogue), Pocky Chain, Fresh Peaches (This is your day to shine in all your glory, Leo. There's no need to hold anything back. Make sure that this energy that's so true to your core is appreciated and reciprocated by the people with whom you share it.)
Word Count: 1500 (15 part pocky chain)
Rating: G
Summary: Finn is Finn.
Notes: Finn is Drew and Ellen’s younger brother. He is over 16 years younger than Drew and around 11 years younger than Ellen. He’s born about four months after the end of Shifts.
Finn Kopen decides to come on what is the hottest June day in local history. The labor is short and then there he is, a dusty haired baby boy, screaming his head off. The doctors hand him to Joy, who tells Melissa, Drew’s adoptive mother, that he looks just like Drew did when he was born. For the most part, the similarities end there. Whereas Drew was an easy baby, Finn is anything but. He has Joy on the run from the minute they get out of the hospital. Finn is never anything less than a whirling force of nature.
**
He gets his powers when he’s only two, which, as Eleazar tells Joy when she calls in a panic, is early but not exceptionally so. Then he and Oriana sit down to explain it to Finn. Finn, despite his age, never forgets it. “You’re special, Finn, because you can do things other people can’t, but you have to be very, very careful with those powers, because if not, you could hurt someone.”
“Like Mommy?”
“Yes, or Ellen, or anyone.”
Despite the warning, it ends up being a good thing that he never attends preschool. Finn’s a disaster waiting to happen.
**
Plant go crazy around Finn. The moment he steps into a room, they reach out to him. It never fails to amaze Joy when she goes into his room and finds him, sitting cross legged, head tilted slightly to one side, staring intently at the small fern sitting on his bedside table. The first time, she thinks something is wrong with him, until she realizes she can actually see the plant growing. The next day, after the panic subsides, she goes out and buys half of the plants at the supermarket for him.
“Thanks, Mommy!” he says and positively beams.
**
It’s another two years until they figure out his second power. He falls one day at the park with Mariah and Josh and skins both knees, an elbow and a palm. He’s still crying and bleeding when he is brought home and Joy carefully patches him up, kissing him on the forehead and letting him watch Monsters, Inc. not just once but twice.
The next morning, he rips his bandaids off, fully healed and proceeds to build a fortress out of the couch cushions. That’s when Joy knows that he has inherited at least a little of his father, Rupert.
**
Kindergarten is not easy for Finn. He has spent his life around people older than he is, so kids his own age throw him through a loop. Why do five-year-olds have to be so noisy? Finn had been sure that he was by far the loudest in the world, so the fact he isn’t causes him to sulk for days. How can he be special when no one can hear him? It doesn’t help that Ellen taught him to read when he was only three or that he knows his numbers through 100. Fitting in is not easy for him.
**
He makes up for his boredom by finding more interesting things to do. It’s not his fault that the more interesting things are against the rules. Rules are for sissies anyway. He lives by his own rules, except for those that his mom makes. Those rules need to be followed or else he lives in eternal terror that she will give him away, like she had to give Drew away, and although he likes Drew’s other parents, he likes his mom more. So he obeys those rules and sits through those at the principal’s office with the appropriate sorry face.
**
By the time he’s eight, he starts to understand. He sees Rupert a handful of times each year and doesn’t particularly look forward to them. Mom makes him put on a shirt with a collar, which is not at all conducive to playing, and nice pants. He gets to keep his sneakers and he gathers from the way Rupert eyes them that Mom does it on purpose, although he can’t for the life of him figure out what could be wrong with sneakers. Then they eat a fancy dinner and just talk and it’s so boring, but he never complains.
**
Finn knows that Mom never tells Rupert about his blatant disregard for the rules and he knows she would, in an instant, tell him to bugger off if his grades, at some point, weren’t up to snuff, but if it’s one thing that Finn’s good at, it’s getting his homework done and in on time. It’s almost always totally correct too, but he tries not to rub it in to the kids at school and Ellen always does just as well as he does.
He knows he doesn’t always understand how his world works and he’s really okay with that.
**
He exists in that awkward place of being the youngest by a lengthy gap. The twins are five years older and he’s almost eight when his nephew is born. That’s okay with him, though, because he doesn’t let himself be ignored. And if they’re really talking about grown-up stuff, then he finds himself a plant to talk to, although he’s careful after the first time to not encourage them to grow. Luckily the aloe had been at Drew’s apartment and it was easy enough to plant the rather larger plant outside by the parking lot where it couldn’t attack anyone.
**
His full name is Finnegan John Kopen, but he will fight anyone who actually calls him Finnegan, with the exception of Drew, because Drew can do no wrong ever and Mom, because she is the best person in the world and he never argues when she is mad with him, which is when the full name comes out.
Although, at ten, he no longer worries that she will send him away, she is still his mom and usually he deserves the lecture and he knows it makes them both feel better, even though he will absolutely go do it again.
**
Finn attends the same school that Drew and Ellen did and makes it no secret that he’s their sibling. He’s proud of this fact and although he and Ellen sometimes clash - he’s in her stuff too often, but being older is just more interesting - she’s still his sister. They share a mother and father, just like most people do, even if her last name is Gardiner and he’s a Kopen, like Elie and Oriana. Drew’s a Henson, for that matter, but he doesn’t care.
Anyone who disagrees or says something not nice, well, Finn’s smart and revenge is painfully easy.
**
Eventually, he makes friends at school and they’re not exactly the wrong crowd, although he’s sure Ellen, who knows best, would like it better if he ran with a cleaner crowd. Finn likes a little excitement in his life, not to say that his extended family can’t be exciting in their own way, but Family Feud Gardiner and Wellingstone style is not really his thing.
Instead, he does what his two older siblings never did and experiments with, well, pretty much everything under the sun. He generally avoids the illegal stuff, but won’t exactly say no if supplied for free.
**
Finn’s favorite further than immediate family person is Oriana. Technically they’re related to, but, well, in his family, he’s got so many relatives that anything less than immediate are both distant and close at the same time, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Either way, Oriana’s awesome. She’s the one he calls when he really gets in trouble, because he knows whatever he does, she did as bad at his age. She helps talk Mom down, the few times she gets truly angry at him. But Finn has no fear, he can regenerate and his mom will always love him.
**
He doesn’t ask his mom why his last name isn’t Gardiner until he’s fourteen. When he does, she looks at him with those shadows in her eyes and he’s immediately sorry he brought it up. Until then, he has gotten hints and small ideas of why his parents aren’t together - just meeting Rupert once is all someone really needs to know - but he’s never known the whole story.
That day, she sits him down at their kitchen table. “The short story is that I didn’t want to give your father the satisfaction. The long story is...much more complicated than that.”
**
Finn enjoys his visits with his father even less after that conversation, if that’s possible. He will never admit it, but he is his mommy’s little boy through and through, and as much as he has her wrapped around his finger, the same is true.
He never fears that he will be like Rupert. He’s his own person, Mom’s always said that, and he will stay that way forever. He will also protect Joy, even when she swears she doesn’t need it - that Eleazar, Oriana, even Abraham do that every day - because she’s his mother and he loves her.