Across Fandom, Saturday Morning
Saturday Morning, on the beach
As far as Romeo was concerned, smoking on the beach in early morning was one of the more perfect pastimes known to man.
Or one of the more perfect that involved being clothed, anyhow.
Selfish in that moment, he enjoyed the slight burn of the smoke in his lungs as he waited for Yurika to return with breakfast.
"Daddy!" There was a little person hurling at him, wrapping around his leg to cling tightly. "Daddy, why are you down here? I looked everywhere for you! I'm hungry!"
There was a small person clinging to his leg.
And the small person was calling him Daddy.
This snapped Romeo out of his tranquil mood pretty damn fast.
"What oddness is this?" he murmured, mostly to himself, then looked at the boy. He was a well-formed child, but, really, more than old enough not to mistake utter strangers for his father.
"I'm not your father," he told him, then, to soften it, added,"Though I can try to help you find him, and some breakfast as well."
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaady," he whined, pouting up at him with big blue eyes. "I want waffles!"
The eyes were oddly familiar, as was something in the tone of the whine. But, no, this was utterly impossible, and too strange by half, and ... he needed not to scare the boy; his real parents would be grateful for at least that much.
"Let's play a game before the waffles," he suggested, thinking quickly. "Pretend you have never seen me before and introduce yourself." He held out a hand for the boy to shake.
"I'm Romeo, and I go to school here in Fandom."
The glare might also look familiar.
"Fiiiine," he pouted, detaching himself from Romeo's leg and looking sullen. "Hajimemashite, Romeo-san. My name is Kazuki Montague, douzo yoroshiku."
"Now can I have waffles?"
Romeo would have wanted to laugh if he hadn't been more than half-horrified. The glare was familiar, and the mixing of Japanese and English lessened the number of potential mothers to precisely one.
Yurika was going to either kill him, or laugh her ass off.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Kazuki," he said solemnly. "Your .... my friend Dojima-san will be back with breakfast in a minute." Because if this wasn't Yurika's child, he didn't want to make him wait for a mother who wouldn't arrive.
"Mommy cooked?" Kaz looked like he might cry. "Oh no. Daddy, she burns things!"
Romeo couldn't quite swallow his amused look at that one.
"She's buying it," he promised. "Nothing burnt, and if you don't like it we'll walk back to town and get something else."
Reassured for the moment, Kaz nodded and plopped down on the sand to start playing. "Hai! Mommy gets the bestest treats."
"She does," Romeo had to agree, thinking about the hotel room she had surprised him with.
He started running his fingers through the sand, shaping it into a mound. "Do you want to build a sandcastle?"
"Yeah!" he shouted, digging enthusiastically into the sand. "Big! Way way big! With a moat!"
Romeo, managing a grin, started helping the boy with his building. "And then you have to stomp through it when you're done," he reminded Kazuki.
That had always been how he played, anyhow.
Meanwhile, outside J,GoB
Yurika was practically skipping as she exited JGoB, somehow balancing her bag of treats with the two drinks she had handwavily picked up at the Perk. Breakfast was accomplished, and by now Romeo ought to have set up their picnic spot on the beach.
They needed to have Prom all the time.
If Seraphina knew what Dojima was thinking, she would have agreed. She liked parties and dressing up.
But as it was, she was lost and hungry and couldn't find Mother or Father. But this lady looked nice, at least. Pretty. And her bag smelled like cookies!
"Good morrow," she said shyly, looking up at Yurika.
Awwww...cute! Yurika actually loved kids, not that she'd ever admit it.
"Ohaiyo," she said, smiling down at the little girl. Huh. No adults around. Weird. "Are you a new student?"
Please let her be a new student, Yurika didn't want to suddenly turn little again right now.
Seraphina sucked on her first two fingers and shook her head. "I'm too little for school, Father says. Do you know where Father and Mother are?"
Something about the girl looked vaguely familiar, but Yurika couldn't recall which of her professors had children.
"Maybe," she said, kneeling down so she was on the child's level. "Are you lost, sweetie? Why don't you tell me who your Father and Mother are, and I'll call them for you."
Seraphina looked hopeful. "Father's name is Romeo and Mother's name is Juliet, and I'm Seraphina. Do you know them?"
She pronounced her own name carefully; it wasn't so long ago that it had come out Sewafeena.
It was a credit to her training that Dōjima didn't so much as flinch, despite the nauseous feeling settling in her gut. Oh. Oh shit.
Instead, she smiled brightly and reached out to tweak Seraphina's nose. "Hai, I know your Poppa," in more ways than one, "and I know where he is. Do you want to come with me?" she asked, mind flashing back to a photo held in Romeo's wallet. Now that she was looking properly, the resemblance was uncanny.
Yurika's training must have been good indeed, because she convinced Seraphina to smile back and reach for her hand. She knew she wasn't supposed to go with strangers, but the lady seemed nice and knew Papa, so it had to be all right.
"I do," she said, adding, "thank you very much."
Dōjima grinned and shook her head. "I'm forgetting my manners. My name is Dōjima, Seraphina, and I'm a school-friend of your Poppa's."
"Here, you carry the bag with breakfast treats, and I'll carry my drink, and that way we can hold hands when we cross the street, okay?" she said, holding out the paper bag. "Now, why don't you tell me a story while we walk? I haven't met your Momma or Friar Laurence, and I bet you have lots of good stories about them." No matter how upsetting strange this was, Yurika was not going to pass up a non-Romeo source of information.
"All right, Miss Dojima," Seraphina said as she solemnly took the heavy bag and began walking.
She considered the question. "Friar Laurence just talks about plants all the time. He's booooring."
"Momma always plays dollies with me, and one time she threw a vase at Nana Gloria 'cause she was making Momma cry, and it went smash all over the floor and now we don't see Nana Gloria no more. And she and Papa are gonna take me to Paris this summer."
Later, on the beach
Romeo and Kazuki were happily building and planning to destroy their sandcastle. (Well, Kaz was happy; Romeo was trying to keep from freaking out entirely.) A few minutes later, Romeo spotted what looked like Yurika in the distance. He was on his feet to help her with her bags and try to explain their new son, when his smile turned to an even more confused look as he noticed the girl.
"Ohaiyo," he managed, but his voice was distinctly thin.
"Ohaiyo." Dōjima smiled slightly and gestured to the little girl beside her. "I think I found something that belongs to you, Romeo."
"See, Seraphina? I told you I'd find your daddy." She watched carefully as the modded little girl went over to him. "Don't tell me that one is yours, too?" she asked, gesturing at the boy. "How'd you end up with children?"
Yes, it was a loaded question.
"Papapapapapa!" Seraphina said, reaching both arms up in the universal small child sign for "pick me up, now."
Which Romeo did, balancing the girl against his shoulder as if he had the faintest clue what he was doing or who she was.
"I would assume the usual way," he said, dazed. "Though how they got here and now, I could not say. That one" - he jabbed the hand not supporting Seraphina in the general direction of Kazuki - "seems to be yours, too."
"Mine?" Dōjima blinked, confused, and looked over at Kaz. "What do you mean, 'mine too', I don't even have one!"
Romeo almost smirked at that. "His name is Kazuki Montague. He seems to be ours, so, mine and yours. Somehow."
He had a question, but he wasn't sure he wanted to ask it while he was still holding the squirming little girl, so he put her down and knelt to her level. "Can you go help Kazuki with his sandcastle?"
Seraphina nodded and ran off, leaving Romeo free to ask, bluntly if under his breath, "Who is her mother?"
"Mine? Seriously?" Yurika's head snapped around to watch the children playing. "But...what...I don't..."
Sighing, she returned her attention to Romeo. "Who do you think?" she replied just as bluntly. "I just got to hear about how her mother tossed a vase at Nana Gloria once. Sounds like your Juliet had a bit of a temper."
Romeo went pale at that. "That's not possible," he said shortly. "We weren't married long enough and ... she's dead."
"Gloria," he added, as he turned to scrutinize the girl, "was her mother's name. There were stories about her; if Juliet threw a vase she deserved it."
"Yes, because obviously I am going to make something like that up!" she snapped, glaring at him. "Ask her yourself, then."
"I didn't say you made it up." He glared right back at her. "Oh, yes, 'Little girl, how is your mother? I thought she was dead.' That wouldn't traumatize her at all."
"You don't have to say it like that!" she hissed, glancing over to make sure Seraphina hadn't heard them.
Deep breath. Making sure the children weren't watching, she moved close enough to subtly reach for his hand, wanting the contact. "I found her outside of JGoB in town, I don't think she realizes that this isn't home. Where did you find, ah, Kazuki? Are you sure he's mine?" And not Juliet's too was the unspoke part of her thought.
"I won't!" he assured her, taking her hand gratefully. "It's just upsetting, and ... so her mother is alive, then." And that mix of feelings in his stomach included hope and fear and amazement and some things even he couldn't try to put names to.
He watched Seraphina take her shoes off and head toward the ocean. The way she squinted in the light was so precisely Juliet he had to remember to breathe. "What is she called?" He knew Yurika had said the name, but he wasn't retaining it.
"And Kazuki is absolutely yours. He knew your name and called you Mommy, and he mixes up Japanese and English even more than you do."
"Seraphina. Seraphina Laurence," she replied quietly. "It sounds like she lives in Verona, but I didn't want to grill her on it."
Yurika squeezed his hand and watched Kaz gleefully build his towers of sand. "So that one's mine, huh? Or, um, ours, you said?" Wow. Okay. "Hey, now, I'm not that bad at keeping the two straight, am I?"
Seraphina. It meant angel, didn't it? Juliet would have chosen that.
"Laurence, so she's not a Capulet or a Montague, she's her own," he nodded. "I'll ask her more later." Assuming he could talk around her.
"He's yours, mine, ours. It makes no sense, but there it is. I didn't ask where home was; he was mostly interested in asking for breakfast." Romeo half-grinned at her question, running a thumb over their joined hands. "And most of the time you're fine."
"Odd, I wonder what causes my mix-ups," she teased, shooting him an amused glance. "I'll have to investigate this later."
He swallowed a rather improper laugh. "Let me know if I can help in your investigations," he told her, then aimed a wary eye at the children.
"But at the moment, I just hope you got enough breakfast to share."
"I bought a bunch of scones and muffins, since I thought we were going to need snacks today," she sighed, dropping his hand least Seraphina get the wrong (or right) idea. "I wasn't planning on two random children showing up and claiming to be ours, but it should hold us for now."
Romeo started to answer, but they were interrupted by a very hungry Kazuki who had gotten bored with building his sandcastle.
"MOMMY! Daaaaaad! You said I could eat as soon as Mommy got here and now she's here and did you get waffles, Mommy? Because waffles are oishii." He was already investigating the bag of breakfast treats, and shoving about half a chocolate-chip muffin in his mouth. "These are okay too."
Romeo gave Yurika a look over their son's head. "For now," he echoed, as he went to get Seraphina.
[OOC: Preplayed with the astounding dojima_hime]
As far as Romeo was concerned, smoking on the beach in early morning was one of the more perfect pastimes known to man.
Or one of the more perfect that involved being clothed, anyhow.
Selfish in that moment, he enjoyed the slight burn of the smoke in his lungs as he waited for Yurika to return with breakfast.
"Daddy!" There was a little person hurling at him, wrapping around his leg to cling tightly. "Daddy, why are you down here? I looked everywhere for you! I'm hungry!"
There was a small person clinging to his leg.
And the small person was calling him Daddy.
This snapped Romeo out of his tranquil mood pretty damn fast.
"What oddness is this?" he murmured, mostly to himself, then looked at the boy. He was a well-formed child, but, really, more than old enough not to mistake utter strangers for his father.
"I'm not your father," he told him, then, to soften it, added,"Though I can try to help you find him, and some breakfast as well."
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaady," he whined, pouting up at him with big blue eyes. "I want waffles!"
The eyes were oddly familiar, as was something in the tone of the whine. But, no, this was utterly impossible, and too strange by half, and ... he needed not to scare the boy; his real parents would be grateful for at least that much.
"Let's play a game before the waffles," he suggested, thinking quickly. "Pretend you have never seen me before and introduce yourself." He held out a hand for the boy to shake.
"I'm Romeo, and I go to school here in Fandom."
The glare might also look familiar.
"Fiiiine," he pouted, detaching himself from Romeo's leg and looking sullen. "Hajimemashite, Romeo-san. My name is Kazuki Montague, douzo yoroshiku."
"Now can I have waffles?"
Romeo would have wanted to laugh if he hadn't been more than half-horrified. The glare was familiar, and the mixing of Japanese and English lessened the number of potential mothers to precisely one.
Yurika was going to either kill him, or laugh her ass off.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Kazuki," he said solemnly. "Your .... my friend Dojima-san will be back with breakfast in a minute." Because if this wasn't Yurika's child, he didn't want to make him wait for a mother who wouldn't arrive.
"Mommy cooked?" Kaz looked like he might cry. "Oh no. Daddy, she burns things!"
Romeo couldn't quite swallow his amused look at that one.
"She's buying it," he promised. "Nothing burnt, and if you don't like it we'll walk back to town and get something else."
Reassured for the moment, Kaz nodded and plopped down on the sand to start playing. "Hai! Mommy gets the bestest treats."
"She does," Romeo had to agree, thinking about the hotel room she had surprised him with.
He started running his fingers through the sand, shaping it into a mound. "Do you want to build a sandcastle?"
"Yeah!" he shouted, digging enthusiastically into the sand. "Big! Way way big! With a moat!"
Romeo, managing a grin, started helping the boy with his building. "And then you have to stomp through it when you're done," he reminded Kazuki.
That had always been how he played, anyhow.
Meanwhile, outside J,GoB
Yurika was practically skipping as she exited JGoB, somehow balancing her bag of treats with the two drinks she had handwavily picked up at the Perk. Breakfast was accomplished, and by now Romeo ought to have set up their picnic spot on the beach.
They needed to have Prom all the time.
If Seraphina knew what Dojima was thinking, she would have agreed. She liked parties and dressing up.
But as it was, she was lost and hungry and couldn't find Mother or Father. But this lady looked nice, at least. Pretty. And her bag smelled like cookies!
"Good morrow," she said shyly, looking up at Yurika.
Awwww...cute! Yurika actually loved kids, not that she'd ever admit it.
"Ohaiyo," she said, smiling down at the little girl. Huh. No adults around. Weird. "Are you a new student?"
Please let her be a new student, Yurika didn't want to suddenly turn little again right now.
Seraphina sucked on her first two fingers and shook her head. "I'm too little for school, Father says. Do you know where Father and Mother are?"
Something about the girl looked vaguely familiar, but Yurika couldn't recall which of her professors had children.
"Maybe," she said, kneeling down so she was on the child's level. "Are you lost, sweetie? Why don't you tell me who your Father and Mother are, and I'll call them for you."
Seraphina looked hopeful. "Father's name is Romeo and Mother's name is Juliet, and I'm Seraphina. Do you know them?"
She pronounced her own name carefully; it wasn't so long ago that it had come out Sewafeena.
It was a credit to her training that Dōjima didn't so much as flinch, despite the nauseous feeling settling in her gut. Oh. Oh shit.
Instead, she smiled brightly and reached out to tweak Seraphina's nose. "Hai, I know your Poppa," in more ways than one, "and I know where he is. Do you want to come with me?" she asked, mind flashing back to a photo held in Romeo's wallet. Now that she was looking properly, the resemblance was uncanny.
Yurika's training must have been good indeed, because she convinced Seraphina to smile back and reach for her hand. She knew she wasn't supposed to go with strangers, but the lady seemed nice and knew Papa, so it had to be all right.
"I do," she said, adding, "thank you very much."
Dōjima grinned and shook her head. "I'm forgetting my manners. My name is Dōjima, Seraphina, and I'm a school-friend of your Poppa's."
"Here, you carry the bag with breakfast treats, and I'll carry my drink, and that way we can hold hands when we cross the street, okay?" she said, holding out the paper bag. "Now, why don't you tell me a story while we walk? I haven't met your Momma or Friar Laurence, and I bet you have lots of good stories about them." No matter how upsetting strange this was, Yurika was not going to pass up a non-Romeo source of information.
"All right, Miss Dojima," Seraphina said as she solemnly took the heavy bag and began walking.
She considered the question. "Friar Laurence just talks about plants all the time. He's booooring."
"Momma always plays dollies with me, and one time she threw a vase at Nana Gloria 'cause she was making Momma cry, and it went smash all over the floor and now we don't see Nana Gloria no more. And she and Papa are gonna take me to Paris this summer."
Later, on the beach
Romeo and Kazuki were happily building and planning to destroy their sandcastle. (Well, Kaz was happy; Romeo was trying to keep from freaking out entirely.) A few minutes later, Romeo spotted what looked like Yurika in the distance. He was on his feet to help her with her bags and try to explain their new son, when his smile turned to an even more confused look as he noticed the girl.
"Ohaiyo," he managed, but his voice was distinctly thin.
"Ohaiyo." Dōjima smiled slightly and gestured to the little girl beside her. "I think I found something that belongs to you, Romeo."
"See, Seraphina? I told you I'd find your daddy." She watched carefully as the modded little girl went over to him. "Don't tell me that one is yours, too?" she asked, gesturing at the boy. "How'd you end up with children?"
Yes, it was a loaded question.
"Papapapapapa!" Seraphina said, reaching both arms up in the universal small child sign for "pick me up, now."
Which Romeo did, balancing the girl against his shoulder as if he had the faintest clue what he was doing or who she was.
"I would assume the usual way," he said, dazed. "Though how they got here and now, I could not say. That one" - he jabbed the hand not supporting Seraphina in the general direction of Kazuki - "seems to be yours, too."
"Mine?" Dōjima blinked, confused, and looked over at Kaz. "What do you mean, 'mine too', I don't even have one!"
Romeo almost smirked at that. "His name is Kazuki Montague. He seems to be ours, so, mine and yours. Somehow."
He had a question, but he wasn't sure he wanted to ask it while he was still holding the squirming little girl, so he put her down and knelt to her level. "Can you go help Kazuki with his sandcastle?"
Seraphina nodded and ran off, leaving Romeo free to ask, bluntly if under his breath, "Who is her mother?"
"Mine? Seriously?" Yurika's head snapped around to watch the children playing. "But...what...I don't..."
Sighing, she returned her attention to Romeo. "Who do you think?" she replied just as bluntly. "I just got to hear about how her mother tossed a vase at Nana Gloria once. Sounds like your Juliet had a bit of a temper."
Romeo went pale at that. "That's not possible," he said shortly. "We weren't married long enough and ... she's dead."
"Gloria," he added, as he turned to scrutinize the girl, "was her mother's name. There were stories about her; if Juliet threw a vase she deserved it."
"Yes, because obviously I am going to make something like that up!" she snapped, glaring at him. "Ask her yourself, then."
"I didn't say you made it up." He glared right back at her. "Oh, yes, 'Little girl, how is your mother? I thought she was dead.' That wouldn't traumatize her at all."
"You don't have to say it like that!" she hissed, glancing over to make sure Seraphina hadn't heard them.
Deep breath. Making sure the children weren't watching, she moved close enough to subtly reach for his hand, wanting the contact. "I found her outside of JGoB in town, I don't think she realizes that this isn't home. Where did you find, ah, Kazuki? Are you sure he's mine?" And not Juliet's too was the unspoke part of her thought.
"I won't!" he assured her, taking her hand gratefully. "It's just upsetting, and ... so her mother is alive, then." And that mix of feelings in his stomach included hope and fear and amazement and some things even he couldn't try to put names to.
He watched Seraphina take her shoes off and head toward the ocean. The way she squinted in the light was so precisely Juliet he had to remember to breathe. "What is she called?" He knew Yurika had said the name, but he wasn't retaining it.
"And Kazuki is absolutely yours. He knew your name and called you Mommy, and he mixes up Japanese and English even more than you do."
"Seraphina. Seraphina Laurence," she replied quietly. "It sounds like she lives in Verona, but I didn't want to grill her on it."
Yurika squeezed his hand and watched Kaz gleefully build his towers of sand. "So that one's mine, huh? Or, um, ours, you said?" Wow. Okay. "Hey, now, I'm not that bad at keeping the two straight, am I?"
Seraphina. It meant angel, didn't it? Juliet would have chosen that.
"Laurence, so she's not a Capulet or a Montague, she's her own," he nodded. "I'll ask her more later." Assuming he could talk around her.
"He's yours, mine, ours. It makes no sense, but there it is. I didn't ask where home was; he was mostly interested in asking for breakfast." Romeo half-grinned at her question, running a thumb over their joined hands. "And most of the time you're fine."
"Odd, I wonder what causes my mix-ups," she teased, shooting him an amused glance. "I'll have to investigate this later."
He swallowed a rather improper laugh. "Let me know if I can help in your investigations," he told her, then aimed a wary eye at the children.
"But at the moment, I just hope you got enough breakfast to share."
"I bought a bunch of scones and muffins, since I thought we were going to need snacks today," she sighed, dropping his hand least Seraphina get the wrong (or right) idea. "I wasn't planning on two random children showing up and claiming to be ours, but it should hold us for now."
Romeo started to answer, but they were interrupted by a very hungry Kazuki who had gotten bored with building his sandcastle.
"MOMMY! Daaaaaad! You said I could eat as soon as Mommy got here and now she's here and did you get waffles, Mommy? Because waffles are oishii." He was already investigating the bag of breakfast treats, and shoving about half a chocolate-chip muffin in his mouth. "These are okay too."
Romeo gave Yurika a look over their son's head. "For now," he echoed, as he went to get Seraphina.
[OOC: Preplayed with the astounding dojima_hime]