Fic: Misery Loves Company (1/1)
Title: Misery Loves Company
Fandom: Brothers & Sisters
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Kevin, Rebecca, The Walkers
Word Count: ~2200
Spoilers: Series 1 & 2.
Disclaimer: I don't own Brothers & Sisters.
Authors Notes: Thanks to cindergirlgrimm for the beta. This has now been jossed as I originally wrote it while series 2 was still airing.
Summary: Rebecca & Kevin bond over their Christmas misery.
Misery Loves Company
Rebecca glanced around the room trying to work out her place in the scene playing out in front of her. The traditional family Christmas. Her first Christmas with the Walkers. Every Walker was there including Saul, Robert, Paige, Cooper, Julia and little Lizzie.
Holly had been invited but politely declined. Nora may have claimed to get over her hatred of Holly but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up wearing the Christmas pudding. Instead she had told Rebecca to go and enjoy herself; they were part of her family now.
Paige and Cooper had whirled their way through their presets, and were now examining some more closely and completely disregarding others.
All of her siblings, siblings - she was still struggling to comprehend that she had brothers and sisters- were now dishing out their presents to everybody.
She felt like a reflection of Paige and Cooper. She adored the jumper Sarah had picked out for her, and was pleasantly surprised by the retro - CD Justin had got her. She had casually mentioned that she had liked a song by a jazz group on the radio so Justin had gone out and tracked down one of their earlier albums.
However not all the presents were that pleasant.
Tommy had given her a crate of red wine from Walker Landings even though she only drank white, and Kevin had bought her some jewellery that she would never wear. She suspected that Kevin realised his mistake as his eyes clouded over despite her false reassurances of delight. The downside of having a lawyer in the family, they pick up on every little detail. She might ask him if he still has the receipt later, bringing out one of the traditional false excuses for not using a Christmas present…or there was always eBay.
Now the holiday anecdotes were coming out, none of which Rebecca could participate in. They usually remembered and therefore would put in added detail for her benefit.
Christmas’s holidays at Ojai when they were younger; Kevin and Sarah getting into a fight over who’s turn it was to play with the new Barbie car; Justin getting drunk on stolen bottles of wine at age 14; Sarah announcing that she was pregnant with Paige. Nora had been so excited it caused her to burn a meal for the first time in a decade.
They were funny stories, happy stories, but ones that she hadn’t played a part in. Ones that she may have had a part in if only her mother, and the father she never knew, had been honest with her and everyone else.
She did consider at one point that perhaps Robert felt the same way- but he had married into the Walker family, not been illegitimately born into it twenty years too late. And yet, he was completely at home.
He was joining in, recounting some of the McCallister family Christmases, recalling stupid things he and Jason had done.
The family were sitting around the Walker dining table at this point and Rebecca was directly across from Kevin.
He was wearing a sad smile as he listened to Robert talk and joke about his brother. For once Kevin had not talked freely about his break up.
All the family knew was that Kevin and Jason had broken up and Kevin had taken Scotty to Kitty’s wedding and that straight after the wedding Scotty had left and Kevin hadn’t seen him since.
Scotty had come back when Kevin was at work and took all his stuff, leaving a note saying that he was crashing on somebody’s couch.
Kevin was obviously still hurting and Robert seemed oblivious to the pain he was causing his brother in law. Or he was a lot more malicious than anybody believed.
Somehow or other the Christmas where Kitty outed Kevin came up. This was the most interesting of the anecdotes to Rebecca, not because of what was said, but because of what wasn’t. She was still learning all the different signs the Walkers used to silently communicate with each other but was confident that she could interpret most of them correctly.
It was Tommy who was telling the story to Robert.
Rebecca herself didn’t know all the details just that it had involved Kitty, the curse/blessing of not being able to keep a secret, and Kevin arguing with William.
Kevin never talked about it and was not happy at Tommy trying to extract some humour out of it, especially with his ex-boyfriend’s brother.
Tommy had to be ignoring Kevin’s ‘STOP TALKING NOW!’ glare as A) bar Nora, Kevin was unrivalled when it came to glaring and B) Tommy was deliberately trying not to look at him.
Kevin eventually rose and headed for the kitchen, mumbling something about getting more wine.
Sarah’s eyes had narrowed slightly showing that she was concerned but torn, should she follow Kevin or punch Tommy on his behalf? Nora look as if she was about to rise out of her chair but sat back down again at a barely there shake of the head from Saul.
Rebecca followed him, frankly she had heard enough stories for one day and misery loves company.
It occurred to her as she entered the kitchen that Kevin might be the one Walker who was more miserable than she was. He was hunched over the kitchen bench with a glass of wine in his hand and staring at some unknown picture in front of him.
He glanced up as she entered and poured her a glass of wine, white this time, and held it out to her.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
She studied Kevin as she sipped her wine, watching him drain the rest of his and then top it back up again. His shoulders were slumped in defeat, his brow creased in slight frown as he stared at the wall, deepening as people started to laugh in the next room.
“Thanks for the jewellery it’s very…” She trailed off, unable to utter an excuse as Kevin raised an eyebrow at her. He did know she didn’t like it.
“How about a compromise? I’ll give you the receipt for the jewellery and to spare my hurt feelings you can give me that crate of red wine you’re not going to drink anyway.”
He was grinning now, one of the first times she had seen him grinning all day. She doubted that his feelings were really that hurt but agreed to it anyway. At least the wine would get drunk now- but if the way Kevin was going through that bottle of white wine was anything to go by, perhaps she should give it to him a bottle at a time.
However the grin didn’t last long as the laughter increased again and he sporting that now all too familiar frown.
“Look Kevin, I know I’m not Kitty or Sarah or one of your brothers but do you want to…you know…talk?”
“Talk about what?”
“Jason, or Scotty, or whatever it is that’s making you so miserable.”
He hesitated slightly but seemed spurned on by the laughter that erupted yet again in the next room.
“Do you know what I have at home waiting for me? A mountain of paper work, more wine, and a carton of ice cream in the freezer. Justin was right: I’m still just a kid. The only two people I really care about outside of this family are both refusing to answer my calls or call me back. One left me for God and the other one left because I was to pre-occupied with how I was being treated that I didn’t realise I was treating him the exact same way. And so to avoid having to spend Christmas all on my own I’m here listening to my ex-boyfriend’s brother talk about him and my brother talk about one Christmas I never want to remember.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to tell me, but what happened that Christmas?”
“You mean Kitty hasn’t already told you?”
“No. Just that you told your mom and dad you were gay and it didn’t go too well.”
Kevin snorted into his wine.
“That’s an understatement.”
He sighed and took another drink.
“My first boyfriend was a guy named Danny McCullough. When we first started going out neither of us were out to our families but one Halloween he went to a party as a French maid. Well, his sister found out and confronted him and he told her everything. His sister was best friends with Kitty at the time and so relayed the entire conversation to her.
“By Christmas she had told Sarah and Tommy; even Justin knew! Dad said something about Danny during dinner; he was just trying to make conversation. He used to go golfing with Danny’s dad and he said something along the lines of it, “being an embarrassment having a queer for a son.”
Rebecca could tell that Kevin was being deliberately vague. The pain was etched across his face- he could still remember every single word uttered that Christmas.
“Well obviously everybody stopped eating and looked at me and Dad knew straight away that something was up. So I told them that I gay, and that Danny was actually my boyfriend. I never saw him so speechless before or after. It didn’t last, he went mental. Mom tried to be the good parent for both of them. Trying to make up for my dad’s disappointment. It got better after a couple of years but it was always a bit of taboo subject to talk about in front of Dad.”
He sighed and drained his glass again. At this rate he would keep Tommy and Holly in business for a good few years on his own.
“Right, your turn.”
Rebecca turned startled, “My turn for what?”
He topped both of their glasses up again.
“Your turn to tell me what’s got you so depressed - apart from the crappy jewellery.”
“It’s just…you know…a bit weird. You guys have all this Christmas history and I feel like I’ve gate crashed. Most of my Christmas’s were just me, my mom, and Christmas reruns. You guys grew up together and I always wanted a brother or sister. I know I have you guys now but when I grew up it was just me and I feel like I’ve missed out on so much stuff.”
Rebecca was not normally an emotional person, she never cried at the T.V. or movies and never, never, cried in front of other people.
But this time she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t full blown sobs or hysterics, just a couple of tears at the injustice and unfairness of everything.
Even years later she never could quite decide what brought them on: all the stupid stories (possibly), the large quantities of wine (probably), or if it was just all her frustrations over the past year at finding herself in the middle of this huge clan that was the Walker family and trying to work out where she goes: like a jigsaw piece where the edges don’t fit (almost definitely).
Almost at the same time she realised she was crying she realised that Kevin was removing the glass of wine from her hands and wrapping his arms around her. He stroked her hair and lightly kissed her head, exactly the same way he would Kitty or Sarah.
“I know you’re still getting your head round all of this. We are too. We’ve got twenty years to make up for and that’s going to take time. But it will get easier. You’re still getting used to us and we’re still learning what makes you tick. It will get better though. This is just a transition period, soon you’ll be forever engraved in our stupid embarrassing stories whether you want to be or not. And trust me, there’ll be some you want to forget.”
She nodded her head, “Thanks Kevin.”
He kissed the top of her head again.
“Don’t mention it.”
Nora walked through to the kitchen at this point, “Are you two finished hiding out here? Cooper and Paige want to play one of their new DVD game things and your sisters are fighting over who gets to be in charge of the remote.”
“Yeah, Mom, we’ll be through in a minute.”
Rebecca started to laugh as Nora returned to the living room where screams could clearly be heard over the game opening credits.
“They still fight over who gets to have the remote?”
“Yep, still better than letting Tommy be in charge. Last time he was quiz master at Trivial Pursuit Kitty was so convinced that he was cheating she ripped half the cards because she was adamant she was right. I’m starting to wonder if she should still be allowed to play these games.”
Rebecca laughed again as Kevin picked up his glass of wine and offered her his other hand.
“Come on, you can be on my team, and if you ask politely I’ll show you how you can tell when our family is cheating.”
Like it? Love it? Loathe it? Let me know :c)
My B&S Master-List can be found here.
Fandom: Brothers & Sisters
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Kevin, Rebecca, The Walkers
Word Count: ~2200
Spoilers: Series 1 & 2.
Disclaimer: I don't own Brothers & Sisters.
Authors Notes: Thanks to cindergirlgrimm for the beta. This has now been jossed as I originally wrote it while series 2 was still airing.
Summary: Rebecca & Kevin bond over their Christmas misery.
Misery Loves Company
Rebecca glanced around the room trying to work out her place in the scene playing out in front of her. The traditional family Christmas. Her first Christmas with the Walkers. Every Walker was there including Saul, Robert, Paige, Cooper, Julia and little Lizzie.
Holly had been invited but politely declined. Nora may have claimed to get over her hatred of Holly but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up wearing the Christmas pudding. Instead she had told Rebecca to go and enjoy herself; they were part of her family now.
Paige and Cooper had whirled their way through their presets, and were now examining some more closely and completely disregarding others.
All of her siblings, siblings - she was still struggling to comprehend that she had brothers and sisters- were now dishing out their presents to everybody.
She felt like a reflection of Paige and Cooper. She adored the jumper Sarah had picked out for her, and was pleasantly surprised by the retro - CD Justin had got her. She had casually mentioned that she had liked a song by a jazz group on the radio so Justin had gone out and tracked down one of their earlier albums.
However not all the presents were that pleasant.
Tommy had given her a crate of red wine from Walker Landings even though she only drank white, and Kevin had bought her some jewellery that she would never wear. She suspected that Kevin realised his mistake as his eyes clouded over despite her false reassurances of delight. The downside of having a lawyer in the family, they pick up on every little detail. She might ask him if he still has the receipt later, bringing out one of the traditional false excuses for not using a Christmas present…or there was always eBay.
Now the holiday anecdotes were coming out, none of which Rebecca could participate in. They usually remembered and therefore would put in added detail for her benefit.
Christmas’s holidays at Ojai when they were younger; Kevin and Sarah getting into a fight over who’s turn it was to play with the new Barbie car; Justin getting drunk on stolen bottles of wine at age 14; Sarah announcing that she was pregnant with Paige. Nora had been so excited it caused her to burn a meal for the first time in a decade.
They were funny stories, happy stories, but ones that she hadn’t played a part in. Ones that she may have had a part in if only her mother, and the father she never knew, had been honest with her and everyone else.
She did consider at one point that perhaps Robert felt the same way- but he had married into the Walker family, not been illegitimately born into it twenty years too late. And yet, he was completely at home.
He was joining in, recounting some of the McCallister family Christmases, recalling stupid things he and Jason had done.
The family were sitting around the Walker dining table at this point and Rebecca was directly across from Kevin.
He was wearing a sad smile as he listened to Robert talk and joke about his brother. For once Kevin had not talked freely about his break up.
All the family knew was that Kevin and Jason had broken up and Kevin had taken Scotty to Kitty’s wedding and that straight after the wedding Scotty had left and Kevin hadn’t seen him since.
Scotty had come back when Kevin was at work and took all his stuff, leaving a note saying that he was crashing on somebody’s couch.
Kevin was obviously still hurting and Robert seemed oblivious to the pain he was causing his brother in law. Or he was a lot more malicious than anybody believed.
Somehow or other the Christmas where Kitty outed Kevin came up. This was the most interesting of the anecdotes to Rebecca, not because of what was said, but because of what wasn’t. She was still learning all the different signs the Walkers used to silently communicate with each other but was confident that she could interpret most of them correctly.
It was Tommy who was telling the story to Robert.
Rebecca herself didn’t know all the details just that it had involved Kitty, the curse/blessing of not being able to keep a secret, and Kevin arguing with William.
Kevin never talked about it and was not happy at Tommy trying to extract some humour out of it, especially with his ex-boyfriend’s brother.
Tommy had to be ignoring Kevin’s ‘STOP TALKING NOW!’ glare as A) bar Nora, Kevin was unrivalled when it came to glaring and B) Tommy was deliberately trying not to look at him.
Kevin eventually rose and headed for the kitchen, mumbling something about getting more wine.
Sarah’s eyes had narrowed slightly showing that she was concerned but torn, should she follow Kevin or punch Tommy on his behalf? Nora look as if she was about to rise out of her chair but sat back down again at a barely there shake of the head from Saul.
Rebecca followed him, frankly she had heard enough stories for one day and misery loves company.
It occurred to her as she entered the kitchen that Kevin might be the one Walker who was more miserable than she was. He was hunched over the kitchen bench with a glass of wine in his hand and staring at some unknown picture in front of him.
He glanced up as she entered and poured her a glass of wine, white this time, and held it out to her.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
She studied Kevin as she sipped her wine, watching him drain the rest of his and then top it back up again. His shoulders were slumped in defeat, his brow creased in slight frown as he stared at the wall, deepening as people started to laugh in the next room.
“Thanks for the jewellery it’s very…” She trailed off, unable to utter an excuse as Kevin raised an eyebrow at her. He did know she didn’t like it.
“How about a compromise? I’ll give you the receipt for the jewellery and to spare my hurt feelings you can give me that crate of red wine you’re not going to drink anyway.”
He was grinning now, one of the first times she had seen him grinning all day. She doubted that his feelings were really that hurt but agreed to it anyway. At least the wine would get drunk now- but if the way Kevin was going through that bottle of white wine was anything to go by, perhaps she should give it to him a bottle at a time.
However the grin didn’t last long as the laughter increased again and he sporting that now all too familiar frown.
“Look Kevin, I know I’m not Kitty or Sarah or one of your brothers but do you want to…you know…talk?”
“Talk about what?”
“Jason, or Scotty, or whatever it is that’s making you so miserable.”
He hesitated slightly but seemed spurned on by the laughter that erupted yet again in the next room.
“Do you know what I have at home waiting for me? A mountain of paper work, more wine, and a carton of ice cream in the freezer. Justin was right: I’m still just a kid. The only two people I really care about outside of this family are both refusing to answer my calls or call me back. One left me for God and the other one left because I was to pre-occupied with how I was being treated that I didn’t realise I was treating him the exact same way. And so to avoid having to spend Christmas all on my own I’m here listening to my ex-boyfriend’s brother talk about him and my brother talk about one Christmas I never want to remember.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to tell me, but what happened that Christmas?”
“You mean Kitty hasn’t already told you?”
“No. Just that you told your mom and dad you were gay and it didn’t go too well.”
Kevin snorted into his wine.
“That’s an understatement.”
He sighed and took another drink.
“My first boyfriend was a guy named Danny McCullough. When we first started going out neither of us were out to our families but one Halloween he went to a party as a French maid. Well, his sister found out and confronted him and he told her everything. His sister was best friends with Kitty at the time and so relayed the entire conversation to her.
“By Christmas she had told Sarah and Tommy; even Justin knew! Dad said something about Danny during dinner; he was just trying to make conversation. He used to go golfing with Danny’s dad and he said something along the lines of it, “being an embarrassment having a queer for a son.”
Rebecca could tell that Kevin was being deliberately vague. The pain was etched across his face- he could still remember every single word uttered that Christmas.
“Well obviously everybody stopped eating and looked at me and Dad knew straight away that something was up. So I told them that I gay, and that Danny was actually my boyfriend. I never saw him so speechless before or after. It didn’t last, he went mental. Mom tried to be the good parent for both of them. Trying to make up for my dad’s disappointment. It got better after a couple of years but it was always a bit of taboo subject to talk about in front of Dad.”
He sighed and drained his glass again. At this rate he would keep Tommy and Holly in business for a good few years on his own.
“Right, your turn.”
Rebecca turned startled, “My turn for what?”
He topped both of their glasses up again.
“Your turn to tell me what’s got you so depressed - apart from the crappy jewellery.”
“It’s just…you know…a bit weird. You guys have all this Christmas history and I feel like I’ve gate crashed. Most of my Christmas’s were just me, my mom, and Christmas reruns. You guys grew up together and I always wanted a brother or sister. I know I have you guys now but when I grew up it was just me and I feel like I’ve missed out on so much stuff.”
Rebecca was not normally an emotional person, she never cried at the T.V. or movies and never, never, cried in front of other people.
But this time she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t full blown sobs or hysterics, just a couple of tears at the injustice and unfairness of everything.
Even years later she never could quite decide what brought them on: all the stupid stories (possibly), the large quantities of wine (probably), or if it was just all her frustrations over the past year at finding herself in the middle of this huge clan that was the Walker family and trying to work out where she goes: like a jigsaw piece where the edges don’t fit (almost definitely).
Almost at the same time she realised she was crying she realised that Kevin was removing the glass of wine from her hands and wrapping his arms around her. He stroked her hair and lightly kissed her head, exactly the same way he would Kitty or Sarah.
“I know you’re still getting your head round all of this. We are too. We’ve got twenty years to make up for and that’s going to take time. But it will get easier. You’re still getting used to us and we’re still learning what makes you tick. It will get better though. This is just a transition period, soon you’ll be forever engraved in our stupid embarrassing stories whether you want to be or not. And trust me, there’ll be some you want to forget.”
She nodded her head, “Thanks Kevin.”
He kissed the top of her head again.
“Don’t mention it.”
Nora walked through to the kitchen at this point, “Are you two finished hiding out here? Cooper and Paige want to play one of their new DVD game things and your sisters are fighting over who gets to be in charge of the remote.”
“Yeah, Mom, we’ll be through in a minute.”
Rebecca started to laugh as Nora returned to the living room where screams could clearly be heard over the game opening credits.
“They still fight over who gets to have the remote?”
“Yep, still better than letting Tommy be in charge. Last time he was quiz master at Trivial Pursuit Kitty was so convinced that he was cheating she ripped half the cards because she was adamant she was right. I’m starting to wonder if she should still be allowed to play these games.”
Rebecca laughed again as Kevin picked up his glass of wine and offered her his other hand.
“Come on, you can be on my team, and if you ask politely I’ll show you how you can tell when our family is cheating.”
Like it? Love it? Loathe it? Let me know :c)
My B&S Master-List can be found here.