Of Kings and Queens

2/Trepidation/

•August, 3rd•

"Dad?!"

Perry stood and the base of the stairs, his left hand was resting on the banister and the other held a wooden spoon.

"What is it, Perry?" He answered agitatedly, his voice gruff and sharp at the same time.

The smell of burning wafted from the kitchen and he could hear his sister calling his name sounding worrisome.

"I need to know where the oven mitts are before she burns down the whole house!" Silently he cursed himself for letting her try to bake something at all, even though it was cookies.

The smell of burnt food became more prominent and he panicked. He looked around his surroundings desperately and Robin's mittens sitting beside the coat rack caught his eye.

Decidedly more relieved after finding suitable gear, he rushed to the kitchen where smoke hung in the air around the oven.

"Robin! Move would ya'?!" He brushed past her as she stood helplessly with a tea towel to her mouth covering her philtrim.

The mittens were scratchy against his wrists but, as he thought to himself, this was not a time for comfort over practicality. Perry removed the tray of black edged cookies from the source of smoke and dumped rather gracelessly onto the the cooling rack beside the sink.

The opened windows rid the room of smoke and soon they were able to see eachother clearly. Percy's lip witches in amusement when he saw the current state for his sister's dishevelled appearance.

Her apron that started off as white was now smeared with streaks of soemthing akin to mud. The chocolate cookie dough stained her clothes where her apron did not cover and as she lifted her hand to rub her face in relief, she found the sticky substance of raw dough on her left cheekbone aswell.

He chuckled lightly at her disgusted face.

She opened her mouth to speak "I —"

"—I know, I know. Go on, have a shower," he gestured to the door lazily, "Don't worry. I'll clean up, you've done enough damage here already."

He gave her a small shove towards the door at her sign of protest, but he wasn't letting up.

She headed towards the door.

"Movie later?" Robin added.

"Yeah. Turn on the laptop when you're done. Which one?" He asked over his shoulder as he began washing the dirty utensils in the sink.

"I'll let you pick when you come up. But be warned, only this time you can choose and if you pick a bad one, I swear to God. I will rip off your fingers and feed them to the Pomeranian next door."

He laughed at her melodramatics and called to her as skipped out of the room, "The scary thing is that I believe you, Robin!"

•••

Later that day after sundown, Robin sat down on the divan that doubled as Delia's bed when she used to sleep over when they were younger.

She pulled her feet under her as she got comfortable and rested against the decorative cushions behind her, the laptop propped up on a chair infront of her.

The movie had gone to the title screen and she was only waiting for her brother to get his ass out of the shower so she could press play. A few minutes later Perry came out of the en-suite in fresh pajamas.

She glanced up from the page of one of the books her mother left at their house and asked him, "Ready?"

He nodded, pulling some Monsters Inc. socks.

Near the end of the movie Robin turned down the volume, "Have you spoken to Delia?" It came out as something more than whisper, as if not talking about it loudly would make it all too surreal.

His head drooped defeatedly, "No."

"You think she's mad at us?" Her voice was very thin when she asked the question she had been dying to know the answer to for weeks.

"I don't know..." He put his hand in her palm loosely.

"Are you nervous? Y'know to leave this place?" Perry asked, turning his head to face her in question.

"Terrified." She replied, her voice strained as she laughed in the face vulnerability.