Endless • Benny Weir (EDITING)

xv. cuban animals

 Once the sun rose over the sky line, scaring away any lurk creatures of the night, Vela started her normal morning routine. 

Each older sibling of the Chester household have their own duties of the family ever since the passing of their Father. 

If their mom takes the night shift at the Cafe, which normally happens, Jaxon gets everyone settled in for the night by cooking dinner, tucking in the younger siblings, and shutting down the house. On top of night duties, he also works part-time at Danielle's Dine & Dash down the street.

Belle escorts her younger siblings to all of their activities and takes care of their family dog, a golden retriever named Lucy, and she works along with Jaxon at Danielle's. 

That leaves Vela for the morning duties, mainly because she's the only one who can wake up early enough. She fixes breakfast and coffee for her Mother, makes bagged lunches for the crew, and wakes up anyone who does get up when their alarm rings, which is mainly Jaxon.

Of course, there's also the mandatory schedule chart of chores that rotates between each family member every week. 

The daily family functions were not normally structure like a military operation. When their Father's heart still had it's beat, he brought home the money with his steady job as a (supposedly) salesman at a computer company while their Mother took care of the role as a stay-at-home housewife.  

. . .

After a long, boring day at school, the trio walked side-by-side out of the school, oddly feeling lost without Rory's annoying presence. 

"Wazzzuuuup?"

They can still hear his nasally voice shrieking at them. 

However, the voice proves it's existence when Rory struts towards them in a cocky manner with thick sunglasses covering most of his pale face and a smug of sunscreen on his nose.

Vela wastes no time leaping up to embrace him in a tight hug, her voice muffled in his jacket, "I'm so glad you're okay."   

Taken back from the abrupt hug, Rory struggles to let out a breathe as the small girl has a surprisingly strong hold, "You're-you're crushing my spleen."

Ignoring his pleads, she continues to hold her arms around his waist, "You don't even know where you're spleen is." She finally releases her grip, allowing for Rory to feel his lungs filling with oxygen again.

Ethan and Benny stand back, shocked that Rory has all of his organs, "Rory, you're..." Ethan pauses as the sight of Rory made him flabbergasted, "We thought you were dead."

"All I know is: I woke up the next morning after the party feeling awesome." Rory explains, using his hands as he talks, "No asthma, I don't need my glasses, and I barely have to sleep anymore. The only problem is the sun- kind of annoying."

"You're a fledgling too?" Benny questions as the three take in the information.

Rory scoffs at the label, "Heck, no! I'm rocking on the full-on vampire action, dude." He then lifts both of his fingers up to form the letter, 'V', before shouting, "The Big V!" He raises his hand for a high five, "Can I get a what-what?"

"What?" Ethan exclaims, "You drank human blood?"

Rory felt guilty as soon as his plan to finally join their club backfired, and he tried to explain himself, "They said if I didn't, I'd die." Looking at their disappointed reactions, Rory became desperate, "All the other kids were doing it!"