Chapter Thirty-Seven → I know that we can do it better than whoever said that dreams don't come true

The teens quickly found out that with their new teen life came new responsibilities, like harder school work. Andrew was not impressed and often pouted at his workbook, willing the work to be done on it's own.

But life was work, that was how it was. Tamara often pointed out to them that life was not fair and that no one every said it was.

Jarvis couldn't have agreed more. He swore he was going to ban Tamara from doing laundry, the woman could break the machine by just looking at it.

Alaura was less worried about homework, it was easy for her. Although there were other aspects of the teen life that her brother was better at than she was, such as romance. "Hey Lindsay." Alaura said one afternoon when she looked up from where she had been doing homework to see one of her friends from school standing near the table, surveying the house.

"Hey, your dad let me in." Lindsay said, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Jarvis who had gone back to work on his latest masterpiece.

"What's up?"

"Uh, could i talk to you for a minute?" Lindsay asked.

"Sure." Alaura nodded.

"Alone." The other girl specified.

"Oh! Oh, okay, yeah come one." Alaura said, getting up and leading the darker haired girl out into the back yard. For such a big house, there wasn't a lot of privacy.

"What's up?" Alaura asked once they were in the dimly lit backyard.

"Prom is up." Lindsay said with a nod, Alaura just making a little 'ah' face and nodding. "It's Sunday, and i know it's really late notice considering it's Friday. But i was wondering if you wanted to go with me? If no one else has asked."

"Uh.. Um...."

"Someone else has asked?"

"Well, no."

"I'm not barking up the wrong tree am I?" 

"Huh?" Alaura asked, truly confused for a minute.

"You're not gay." Lindsay clarified.

"Well, i'm not, not gay." Alaura wasn't sure what her sexuality was yet, she sometimes felt she was too young to know. But then she'd see her uncle Noah and he'd known he was gay since he was a kid, just like her mom knew she was straight. Why couldn't she just be normal like that? And just know, one way or the other.

"Then what is it?" Lindsay asked.

"Well, there's the ridicule, i mean i'm green. Being a lesbian wouldn't exactly help deter from that issue at all, and you're my friend and i don't wanna ruin that." She paused. "And you're kinda related to me." She finished, getting a chuckled out of Lindsay. It was true, they were 3rd cousins, possibly once removed, Alaura wasn't one hundred precent sure how the whole 'removed' thing worked.

"I'm not asking you to marry me." Lindsay said with a smirk. "Or even to fuck me." Alaura couldn't help but blush slightly at that. "I'm asking you to a dance, one crappy little dance. It's not even the proper prom, it's the junior prom."

"You know you wanna go with me." Lindsay said with a little flirty smirk, taking a step closer to the other girl. 

Alaura just smiled gently before relenting. "Okay, i'll go." She said with a nod.

Meanwhile, upstairs in their room, while getting ready for bed, Andrew got a call from one of the fay kids. Clifford, his uncle Nicholas' youngest brother who was still in school in them, asked him to prom. Now Andrew wasn't gay, he wasn't even really bi-curious. But it beat going alone, so he agreed to go with the boy.

Spock Arthur on the other hand, well, it's like the old saying. Queer as a three dollar bill, boy did he ever love being that pink dinosaur.

Weekends were lazy days, filled with reading and chatting and in Arthur's case, not getting dressed.

The weekend also brought with it Tamara and Jarvis's birthdays, and Cora once again is in her bathing suit, one day she will be dressed for a birthday.

She's still got it, damn right, Andrew, that's gotta hurt gran, don't karate chop her leg.

Up next is Jarvis.

Audra is not impressed with his cocky smile.

The next morning, Jarvis assured Tamara that he still finds her alluring as ever..... get out of Audra's room you too, suck face somewhere else!

Good choice.

As the children play, Tamara answers the door...

"Michael, what's wrong?" When her brother didn't answer her, she became worried.

"Michael, look at me, what's wrong?" She asked again, touching his arms.

"It's Aunt Suzanna, she died this morning."

"Oh god." Tamara breathed before hugging her brother, that was it, the last of the original Talliway's had died.

Death in the family or not, Andrew and Alaura still went to the prom. They won prom king and queen, which made for an awkward dance between them as it was traditional for prom king and queen to share one dance. Alaura kept stepping on his shoes on purpose, just to see how much she could scuff them in the span of a three minute song.

The next evening, after work, Tamara decided to stop off at the tattoo salaon before heading to her actual destination  which was the cemetery to pick up Suzanna's ashes so they could be placed in the family graveyard. Even though Tamara had amassed a large amount of tattoos already, she sometimes still got hit with a wave of fear.

Her newest tat was on her shoulder blade.

Eventually though, Suzanna was placed in the proper cemetery, along side her long departed husband Derrick.

(I've no idea why she got a standing grave while everyone else in the family that had died off my lot got a flat stone, i don't understand how the tombstones work in the game)

"Jarvis." The man in question turned to see his half brother Javon standing on his porch. Jarvis had never been close to his half siblings for obvious reasons. Once his father ran off and hooked up with one of the Landgrabbs, well, the Li's pretty much had zero contact with any of that family afterward.

"What are you doing here Javon?" He asked the younger man, who had just come from work, if his green scrubs were any indication.

"You're the next of kin." He said simply, which right there told Jarvis what it was about. "Lyla was brought into the ER this afternoon, she didn't make it."

"You came all the way here to tell me that?" Jarvis asked, not seeing why a phone wouldn't have worked just as well.

"Well, you are my brother."

"No." Jarvis said. "I'm really not."

Chapter Notes:

This chapter was going to be longer, but it felt right to end there, so i did. Suzanna and Lyla died within days of each other, and Michael really did show up at their door in mourning. But i find him hanging around their lot quite a bit actually, i dunno why, family bonding? Jevon, Jarvis's half brother showed up out of the blue as well, which i ended up using to my advantage.

Also, yes, Alaura is in fact dating her 3rd cousin, but i figure once the game's family tree stops reading them as related, which usually is at 2nd cousin, then they're free to do as they please. Besides, Lindsay is adorable. Andrew was in fact invited to the prom but one of the fairy boys, they went but i had him reject the proposal of going steady cause he's very much straight i find. Originally none of the kids were going to be gay, since i did that with Noah last gen. But Lindsay and Alaura were so cute together, so i made her bi-curious, only time will tell if she stays that way. Although, she's already getting wishes to marry her and she's still a teen, so i have a feeling it's gonna stay. As for Arthur, again he wasn't going to be gay or bi, but the kid autonomously puts on that damn pink dinosaur suit every chance he gets. I was like, okay, i get it, you're fabulous, duly noted lol.