finn. d6. fin.

tick 12a / calla RP Tutor 2,233 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Nov 14, 2024 23:28:36 GMT -5 just a litle creacher	finn. d6. fin. Aug 20, 2017 1:41:07 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by tick 12a / calla on Aug 20, 2017 1:41:07 GMT -5 finnian s. cadwell you're doing amazing sweetie sixteen / m ♡
	Last Edit: Sept 1, 2017 18:20:56 GMT -5 by tick 12a / calla ⇀ tracker ↼ ⇀ 2024 upat ↼

tick 12a / calla
RP Tutor

2,233 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 14, 2024 23:28:36 GMT -5

just a litle creacher

finn. d6. fin. Aug 30, 2017 21:58:42 GMT -5

Quote

Post by tick 12a / calla on Aug 30, 2017 21:58:42 GMT -5

f i n n .

As kids we'd drag crayons across the walls, red and blue and yellow streaks. Primary coloured because they were the only three stubs in the box. Peeling paper away from the wax, stripping it down and tossing it away just because it was a thing to do.

Six pairs of feet walking through puddles and tracking mud into the house, young and carefree because the messes that we made were the least of our worries.

Everything is simpler when you're a kid.

Growing up brings the smell of mom's cooking and the wildflowers that grow outside the bedroom window. Catching caterpillars and watching them cocoon inside of glasses, the changing seasons bringing dusted wings, curling and flying and then they're gone before we know it. Books stacked on shelves and tables and anywhere they can fit, green patterned wallpaper that peels away in the corner behind the sofa.

Three bedrooms and eight people,

mom,
dad,
walt,
dante,
liza,
finn,
cordelia,
ana,

tripping over each other and trying to fit in a house built for half of us.

Dad works in one of the production factories and always comes home smelling like heavy oil and smoke, staining the walls with the smell and making my head hurt. He isn't home much anymore anyways, working long hours to keep a steady income and food on the table. An old pencil drawing of him and mom on their wedding day hangs on the wall, young and happy, and none of us really want to admit it, but we see it more often than we see him.

Mom's an elementary teacher, started giving us lessons before we were even in school and helped us with homework over the rickety kitchen table. She taught Liza and I how to cook with what we had and helped Dante learn how to hold his tongue. Six kids and I'm still not sure how she does it, always giving up her personal whims for family and setting an example that the rest of us can only wish we could follow.

Walt's always been the smart one, book heavy and reserved and the only role model I had growing up. The first to call the rest of us out on trivial manners, but always willing to tutor his little brother. He's wanted to be a doctor ever since he started waddling around the house and mom swears that he was diagnosing the other kids in first grade even though we all know he was throwing crayons and crumpled paper like the rest of them.

Dante still thinks that he can conquer the world, a rebel with a cause and a startling amount of confidence in a startling small amount of boy. He has a rousing speech for every occasion and a new bottle to smash at the end of each one, estranged from everyone but Ana who has him practically wrapped around her little finger.

Dante and Liza are the twins, and he calls them the social justice twin team while she pretends to hate it.

Liza takes after mom the most. Quick as a whip and twice as sharp. She slips wildflowers into our books to mark pages and puts Ana to bed when mom falls asleep on the sofa. Jumping in when teasing goes too far, both between us and against us, she's more of a hero than anyone I know.

Cordelia can never seem to keep to herself. Walking into rooms without knocking, hand on the knob and one foot through the door, she's already off on a tangent. She read Liza's old diary when she was nine and marched across the street to give the neighbour torn out pages of his name written out cursive in hearts.

Ana's the youngest and knows how to use it to her advantage. Laying it on thick and then winking at the rest of us as she skips away with an extra piece of pie, mom never the wiser. Dante seems to be her hero nowadays, which is more than a little worrying for the rest of us.

Dad used to say that we all probably traumatized our teachers growing up, little Cadwell clones appearing in their classes, following one after the other like ants.

Red flyaway hair and shirts with patched up elbows, beat up sneakers and a suit that gets passed down from dad to Walt to Dante to me like some kind of heirloom. Rolling up cuffs and sewing new hems because I've always been the shortest. Awkward and lanky and counting the freckles that mom used to always say were angel kisses, passing the time in math classes that always seemed to easy.

Personalities picked from a hat and assigned at birth, everyone's full of unique potential, but we all just got compared to Walt anyways.

He set the bar high, making it through his junior schooling with impossibly high grades and getting accepted into a school so prestigious that it made mom cry when she read the letter. The Jefferson Institute of Science, exclusive to the ones smart enough, or just rich enough, to get in. He came home with stories of the rich kids and their shiny new books that morphed into stories of the things he had dissected that day.

Walt made it through his program and graduated before mom thought that another one of us could at least try to follow him. Liza said that the hierarchy it provided only brought us closer to enforcing toxic societal norms. None of us really got what she meant, but Dante had nodded thoughtfully, which left only me.

It's not like I grew up reading Walt's papers or pouring over his books from Jefferson, begging him for more stories.

That would just be sad.

Which is why I played it cool when my letter came and mom celebrated having two sons enrolled at Jefferson. My time from then on consisted of thinking of ways to deal with the pressure of following Walt's success.

I still haven't really figured that out yet.

It should feel like a win, going to the school of my metaphorical dreams, but it just brings shaky breaths and a staccato heartbeat and a dozen other unwanted things.

Good with numbers and bad with people, I figured it would probably be easier on everyone this time with the bank of knowledge and badly drawn map Walt gave me for my first day. He passed on his worn down dress shoes, because it's really not worth it to get new ones, but they're big and stuffing the toes with newspaper doesn't even stop me from tripping. His old rucksack and dog eared books, class notes scrawled into the margins and a love poem to Mila Carnegie printed out on page 104 of Panem: A Medicinal History.

Walt holds hands with Mila under the table when she's over for dinner, running a thumb over her knuckles and I can see it because his chair is always next to mine.

It's gross the first time and I almost kick him.

The second time is infinitely worse.

Liza explains love with her old dolls, the ones that mom made out of fabric scraps which now sit on Ana's bed. Cordelia kept asking question after question, things an eleven year old probably shouldn't know, but there was a swooping feeling in my chest when she made John and Susie marry each other in front of a wildflower alter over and over again. Bluebells and buttercups and she always made me play the part of happy groom.

And it's hard, when you share a room with two people, to convince them that your wet pillowcase and red eyes are from allergies and the crushing weight on your chest has to do with an upcoming examination. It's hard to resolutely tell your little sister that you can't play dolls with her anymore because you're busy studying and not trying to bury away every part of you.

And it's not supposed to be a big deal, right?

But that's my thing, take the little things that don't really matter and blow them out of proportion until your hands sweat and the world shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until the pressure makes you pop.

"Anxiety, anxiety." Cordelia says and she might be on to something.

Because holy words don't seem to stick and mom still prays for her children sometimes.

But then the blow up happens, break downs in the backyard, and everything goes sort of off and on okay again while I'm holding my breath and trying to live without air. Nerves and jitters and Cordelia's more perceptive then she gets credit for because I catch her digging through my stuff and listening through doors more frequently.

I'm suddenly grateful for never having a diary.

Liza used to be her favourite, understandably because they always sat together and talked about boys and their girl stuff and whatever else, but now she comes to me for problem solving and help with her math homework and I don't know if I should be flattered or not.

She didn't ruin Liza's life too bad, even after the old diary incident so maybe it's a good sibling bonding experience.

As long as she doesn't get any more matchmaker ideas.

No thank you.

Last Edit: Sept 1, 2017 18:15:38 GMT -5 by tick 12a / calla

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tick 12a / calla RP Tutor 2,233 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Nov 14, 2024 23:28:36 GMT -5 just a litle creacher	finn. d6. fin. Sept 1, 2017 18:23:33 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by tick 12a / calla on Sept 1, 2017 18:23:33 GMT -5 done so let's get cute
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lance Head Librarian 3,669 POSTS Pronouns: He/Him/His last seen Nov 14, 2024 8:50:32 GMT -5 gay and chaotic? call it gayos	finn. d6. fin. Sept 2, 2017 12:22:00 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by lance on Sept 2, 2017 12:22:00 GMT -5 i guess u could say that he's finn-ished. bad jokes aside this is lit i love him. ACCEPTED!
	credit to darsypoo uwu credit to fireflyz! credit to stare!