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       Lucullus lounged back on the faded yellow couch, one foot on the floor and one kicked up over the couch’s arm. He pressed a hand over his eyes, sliding it up to grab the couch-back with a heavy sigh.

       Standing under the full force of the Mojave sun all day waiting for soldiers to finally wander down to the docks, just so that he could ferry them all the way up to the Fort, wasn’t exactly his ideal job, but the breeze off the water and the sound of the crashing waves made up for it. He’d been raised on the shores of Lake Pleasant in Arizona, and his childhood had been filled with swimming and boating trips.

       Then it has been wonderful then, now it was just a job. A burden.

       “Daddy!” shouted a young boy, running over to him.

       Lucullus groaned, but the boy’s flop of curly dark hair was already in sight when he put his arm down over his eyes.

       “Come on, daddy!” the boy shouted in his ear.

       Something small and heavy clunked down against his ribcage. Lucullus didn’t even have to look to know what it was.

       “Charon, Daddy needs to get some sleep so he can push the boats tomorrow,” he said, not moving. “Go play with your brother.”

       “He’s dumb! He said boats are stupid!” little Charon whined, grabbing onto his father’s arm and squeezing his tiny fingers into the skin. “Come on!”

       “Marcus!” Lucullus shouted, letting Charon tug on his arm but refusing to get up. “Boats aren’t stupid. Play with your brother.”

       “It’s cold out there!” the older boy’s voice drifted in from another room. “And I’m sick of boats! All he ever wants is to play with his boats!”

       “I know how you feel,” Lucullus muttered, rubbing his eyes with a groan. “Tell you what,” he said, turning his head to look at his younger son. “You go play by yourself in the sink or something tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll let you come out on the boat with me. How’s that sound?”

       “Really?” the boy shouted. His grin went from ear to ear.

       Lucullus couldn’t help but grin back. He nodded, watching Charon’s smile grow even more.

       “Yaaaayyyyyy!” The little boy ran off through the house, his boat flying through the air in his hand above him.

       “Quietly!” Lucullus added as an afterthought, settling back into the couch. He’d have to find a suitable outfit that could pass as a uniform for the boy, but the younger Charon knew how to man a ferry, the sooner Lucullus might be able to retire.

       If only, he thought with a quiet laugh. It wasn’t long before the splashing noises of the little toy boat in the sink had lulled him to sleep.

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       “What would you have done if he was a girl?” Arcade asked, leaning back with his hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles. “What would you have picked for a name?”

       Cass snorted a laugh. “Easy. I still would have named him Jameson. And it’d still be Jamie for short.”

       “Seriously?” Arcade raised an eyebrow.

       “It’s a national treasure!” She chugged amber from a sippy-cup, glancing over to the toddler on the floor. He was tugging at the corner of the “Lucky 38” doormat with curious giggles.

       “It’s not even from this country,” Arcade countered, rolling his eyes. “It’s imported.”

       “And that’s what makes it special,” Cass said in a gentle way, walking over to her son and sitting down on the floor with him. She pulled the corner of the mat out of his mouth and distracted him with tickles, making the boy shriek in delight.

       “I can’t believe you actually named your son after a whiskey,” Arcade said, shaking his head as he stood up. He headed past them towards the kitchen.

       “Hey!” she called after him, watching as he retreated through the doorway. “They’re my two favorite things in the whole wasteland!” She frowned when he didn’t respond, but turned back to see Jameson reaching with both hands towards her drink.

       “Oh no, Jamie baby, that’s mommy’s sippy-cup,” she said, hastily moving it out of reach. “Come on,” she hoisted him onto her hip, “let’s go find yours.”

Chapter Text

       The summer days were hot at the Old Mormon Fort, even in the shade provided inside the tents. It had never been ideal, in Veronica’s mind, as a place to raise children, but if Julie was there then that was enough.

       The girls, Lizzie and Chrissie, were gurgling and cooing back and forth on their floor mat. Beside them was an upturned cardboard box spewing their toys out beside them; teddy bears, cars, rattles, dinosaurs, and more. Normally the box itself was their favorite toy, but today they had each chosen something different to tackle. While Chrissie was smacking away at a small toy Sentry Bot that Veronica had fixed up, Lizzie was having a grand time digging the rim of a plastic cup into the ground.

       Veronica herself had been happily enjoying a book on and off all afternoon on the floor beside them, with the girls largely content to amuse themselves and each other. Her power fist, a wedding present from Six called Greased Lightning, was lying on the desk behind her. It was hard to convince Veronica to take it off, even though the war had been over for nearly three years now, but she’d agreed not to wear it while playing with the girls.

       Nothing had been said though about not keeping it around.

       So it waited for her, patiently, every day until Julie’s schedule allowed her to take over for a while. Then the fist went back to its rightful place at the end of her arm.

       Freeside, unlike the rest of the Mojave, was largely unchanged after the war. Sure, there were more NCR citizens running around than there had been, but New Vegas was still New Vegas – whether it was Freeside or the Strip. The drunks and the junkies still crawled in back alleys and schlepped in to the Followers’ Clinic for free rounds of Fixer when they couldn’t stand up straight anymore without their fix.

       The idea of living in it was tolerable. But raising children?

       Still, the Old Mormon Fort was well managed and safe, and Julie liked living close to her work. Veronica had tried convincing her, on several occasions, that there was a difference between living close to work and outright living at work, but to no avail.

       At least it was relatively quiet, most of the time.

       A soft breeze fluttered the pages of Veronica’s book, a massive hardcover containing the collected works of Jules Verne. She closed her eyes, enjoying the cooler air blowing across her sweating neck. Growing up in the bunker had had its perks – like air conditioning.

       The wind rustled the papers on top of the desk, a mild and familiar sound that reminded her of days spent at the 188 with nothing to do but wait for something interesting to turn up. She’d been a bit lax about her duties, sure, but it meant being away from everyone.

       Memories of her friends and family ran through her mind in snapshots, a few remembered words here and there. But something felt unsettling, out of place.

       Veronica’s eyes snapped open.

       The rustling sound was still there, and the wind had died away.

       Lizzie and Chrissie were both still playing with their selected toys – though Veronica noticed that Chrissie had started to precisely dismantle her sentry bot into smaller pieces, each laid out on the ground beside her – and nothing looked out of place outside the tent.

       A tiny movement caught her eye, what looked like a wire sticking out from behind the toy box shifting ever-so-slightly. The rustling continued. Then the wire moved in earnest, turning into the antennae of a radroach.

       A radroach within feet of the babies.

       The book fell to the ground beside her, no longer important, as she scrambled towards the roach on all fours. A roar of rage tore from her throat as she raised her bare fist and slammed it down into the crunchy exoskeleton. She smashed it over and over, Chrissie and Lizzie screeching in the background behind her but the blood in her ears drowned it out until the blood on her fist told her it was done.

       The corpse of the roach twitched, neurons still firing off impulses with no acknowledgement of the creature’s death. Veronica stared down at the mess that had been its head, then grimaced at the sight of the gunk and cuts on her hand.

       “What’s going on?” Julie, eyes wide, stood at the entrance to the tent, taking in the scene.

       “Got a visit from a radroach,” Veronica said, sitting back on her heels. “I let him know he wasn’t welcome here.” She showed Julie the mutilated guts splayed across the back of her hand. “I think I might have broken a knuckle or something. Remind me again why I can’t wear my fist out here?”

       Julie cringed at the sight of Veronica’s hand and kneeled down to distract and comfort the girls. “Maybe we’ll have to amend that,” she admitted, waggling a teddy bear from the toy pile in front of Lizzie. Chrissie had already gone back to taking apart the miniature sentry bot. “Are you sure that thing’s safe for her to play with?” Julie pointed at the bot as Chrissie started pulling apart one of its arms.

       “Perfectly safe,” Veronica said, rolling her eyes. “It doesn’t have any working weapons in it. If it did I might not have needed to break my hand.”

       Julie relented, giving a kiss to each Lizzie, Chrissie, and Veronica in turn. “I’ll get Arcade to watch them. Then we can get you cleaned up. It’s a slow day, and nothing’s too good for the Vanquisher,” she said with a grin, her fingers resting under Veronica’s chin.

       Veronica smiled wide at the nickname. The first time Julie had called her that, she knew it was real love.

       “Let’s order take-out tonight,” she suggested with a mischievous grin. “I obviously can’t cook with my hand like this.”

       “We’ll see about that,” Julie said with a laugh. She gave Veronica another kiss, then stood up. “I think first I’ll have some of the King’s boys check around and find out if there are any more of those bugs around. We can’t have things like that happening, it’s bad for business.”

       “It’s bad for my fists,” Veronica muttered, gently shaking a chunk of radroach off her hand. It stung a bit, but she’d had far worse out in the wasteland. All in all, Veronica thought as she watched Lizzie drifting off to sleep with the teddy bear and Chrissie giggling at her progress in taking the bot apart, it wasn’t so bad anymore.

       Veronica smiled, shaking her head in amusement at Chrissie. “Not so bad at all.”

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       “Jimmy, you can’t have any cookies until you finish your dinner!”

       Alexander “Jimmy” Six, now a full seven years old, was pretty sure that Grama Lily was crazy. But she was always nice to him, even though her cooking was pretty terrible. Half the time he couldn’t eat it because it was too hard to chew or burned to a crisp. And if he gave her hugs she would usually give him desert anyway.

       Emily Six, shaking her head, knew exactly what was going through her son’s head. She tried to make her grimace look more like a smile and gestured for him to eat up, or there’d be hell to pay when they got home.

       “This is really lovely, Lily,” she said, trying to saw off a piece of bighorner steak with her knife. The blade clanked onto the plate and a chunk of the meat went flying across the room.

       Jimmy started to laugh, but covered it with a cough after seeing the look on his mother’s face.

       “Thanks for cooking,” Emily added with a smile in Lily’s direction, as though nothing had happened.

       “Oh pumpkin, it’s so nice to have you here. You know your Grama loves it when you visit her.” Lily put another tray of food on the table, this time something that looked somewhat like burned maize. “Now you just dig in, dears. Grama can’t let you go home hungry!”

       Jimmy snickered again, but dutifully took one of the ears of maize and set it on his plate.

       Emily, holding back her misgivings, did the same.

       Before they left, Lily made sure that both of them had more food packed away than they knew what to do with.

       “Lily, you should come visit us back at the Lucky 38 sometime. Everyone misses you,” Emily said, remembering what Arcade had last said about how everyone should have a schizophrenic Nightkin in their lives. It makes the unexpected happen every single day.

       “Oh Becky, that’s so sweet of you. But it’s a long way for Grama to walk all by herself. Maybe you can come get me for Christmas. I do love Christmas. All the lights and the decorations. Oh Becky, it’ll be so wonderful!”

       Emily smiled, wondering if Lily would drag a whole pine tree – roots and all – down to the Strip like she had the year before. That one had been so large they’d had to leave it on the casino floor.

       “Will you bring cookies?” Jimmy shouted, his enthusiasm winning out. Lily wasn’t the world’s greatest cook, but she could bake just about anything perfectly.

       “Of course, Jimmy,” Lily said. Her mouth contorted into what they had learned was her best approximation of a smile. Only when Emily had turned around did Lily give him a big hug, then held a finger up to her lips and silently handed him an extra cookie.

Chapter Text

       The Praetorian rolled his eyes. “If you cannot control them, perhaps someone else should do so for you.”

       “Aw, they’re just babies anyway,” Antony said, ignoring the guard as he waited outside the entrance to Caesar’s tent. “Lupa’s a tough old bitch, but even she can’t keep track of twelve without some help.” Lupa lay pressed to the ground beside him, intently staring into the tent through a tiny tear in the fabric. At the sound of approaching footsteps she sprang back to her feet.

       The tent flap fluttered to the side revealing a rather unamused looking Vulpes. He raised an eyebrow, glancing from the wide-eyed dog to the Master of Hounds. Attempting to ignore Lupa, he held out the pup in one hand to Antony. “Missing something?”

       “There’s our little Petra!” Antony took the pup and cuddled it up against him, then held it out for Lupa to sniff. “You went on an adventure today, didn’t you!” Lupa licked the pup all over, tail thwapping enthusiastically against Antony’s leg in apparent relief.

       “Caesar, though amused by this unexpected interruption, requests that you keep a tighter leash on the mongrels,” Vulpes said, his lips pursed. He seemed to try for a smile, but didn’t quite succeed. “They may prove distracting, and could lead to unfortunate accidents. And, of course, no one wishes to see something like that happen.”

       “Aw.” Antony nuzzled his face into the pup’s fur. “They just need something to kill, that’s all!” It licked the side of his face over and over as he spoke, making happy little sounds of excitement.

       Vulpes didn’t bother to hide his distaste. “I’ll see to it that something’s delivered for them. Just keep them out of Caesar’s tent,” he said, turning back into the tent. “And preferably away from mine as well,” he added as a quiet afterthought.

       Antony rolled his eyes, but said nothing as he headed back down the hill, Lupa padding along happily at his side. He held the pup close against him, scratching behind it’s ears as they walked. “They don’t understand, do they, Lupa?” he asked her.

       She whined, jumping up on her hind legs. With a smile, Antony held out the pup for her again. Lupa carefully took it between her jaws, getting her grip just right before carrying the pup away into her den.

       Antony swung the gate shut and clicked the latch so there would be no more ‘adventures’ to worry about. It wasn’t the first time one of her brood had wandered off, but there was no way to know if an thrill-seeking pup would make it back home or not.

       “Sleep well, Lupa,” Antony said, keeping his voice quiet as he watched her disappear into the shelter he’d built for her. “They grow up fast. Cuddle while you can.”

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       “Hey buddy!” Benny said through a wide smile, dropping down to one knee. “How’s the little Ben-man doing?” Benny hugged the boy to him and glanced up to his mother. “Hi Rosalie.”

       Rosalie shot him a scathing glance, looking even more menacing than usual in a summer dress and wide-brimmed hat, but otherwise ignored him. “Benjamin,” she called, putting on a sarcastic smile, “Mommy’s leaving now. I love you. Have fun with Daddy.”

       “No!” Benjamin shouted excitedly.

       Benny looked down at the boy in alarm, but he looked happy as ever.

       “What’s a-matter bud?” Benny asked, smoothing the boy’s hair with one hand. “Don’t you want to stay with me?”

       “No!” Benjamin’s grin widened.

       Rosalie turned and headed for the door, waving lazily over her shoulder with one hand. “Try not to tear the place apart, Benjamin.”

       Benjamin scrunched in on himself, still grinning happily. “No!”

       “Bye Benjamin.”

       “No!”

       She paused at the door and looked back over her shoulder, nodding her goodbye from under her hat. “Benny.”

       “Rosalie, wait.”

       But she was already gone.

       Benny stood, picking up the boy and sitting him on his shoulders. “Oh boy. I can see this is going to be a fun week.”

       “No!” Benjamin beat his fists playfully on his father’s head like a drum. “No, no, no!” He bounced up and down so hard Benny was sure they’d both fall over.

       “Mhm,” Benny said, trying not to laugh. “Sounds pretty bad.” He reached out to press the button to call the elevator to take them to the 13^th floor.

       “Don’t touch!” Benjamin warned in a scolding tone. “Drop!”

       “Oh for—”

       “No!”

       “Can I—”

       “No!”

       “But—”

       “Hot!”

       “…Swank!”

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       Janet remembers playing with clay when she was little. Real, squishy, red-brown clay that hardened in the sun into little shapes that were supposed to be brahmin and hearts and cups and who ever knew what else. Her father found it for her in a cave along one of his trade routes. Mother said he’d given it to her so she wouldn’t notice how long he was always gone.

       It was a tricky thing to use. Your hands had to be just wet enough to keep the clay from sticking, but dry enough that they wouldn’t let it slip and splat on the ground. If that happened, you’d spend forever trying to get the sand back off, and that wasn’t very fun at all.

       So when Jack had presented baby Juliet with a chunk of beautiful white-grey clay to play with, Janet was more than happy to see their child playing with the same things as she had in her own childhood.

       Until Mother Pearl told her what it really was.

       Juliet screamed in the corner, banging her fists on the floor while tears and snot smeared across her splotchy red face.

       “Why would you even give something like that to a child?” Janet shouted over the child. “There is no logical reason to be doing that!”

       “It’s fine!” Jack’s voice was high and defensive, creeping up his throat as he backed slowly into the corner. “I played with it when I was little too!”

       “Yeah, and you also played bowling with sticks of dynamite and grenades!”

       Jack raised his hands in surrender, pressing as close into the wall as he could manage. “It only explodes when you trigger it! It needs heat and a shockwave to—”

       “What happens if she throws it?” Janet threw her hands into the air, unable to fully express her exasperation and the absolute terror she felt for the child. “What happens if something goes wrong? If she eats it! She’s a baby, they put things in their mouths and it’s toxic and—”

       “I was watching her! I wouldn’t have let her eat it, you know that.” Jack hesitantly step forward, reaching out to hug Janet, but she backed away.

       “How do I know that? You’re the one who let her play with it in the first place!” Now Janet’s eyes were starting to tear up too.

       “Janet…” Jack’s voice was quieter and soft as he moved towards her again, taking slow, deliberate movements like he was approaching a wounded animal. “You know I’d never let her get hurt.” Juliet, still red-faced and teary was still breathing hard from her tantrum, but had mostly stopped for the moment. Jack took the opportunity to speak at a normal volume.

       “Janet, C4 is very stable as a substance. Yes it’s toxic if ingested, but it won’t just explode when it feels like. It needs to be detonated in order to explode, giving it extreme heat and a shockwave at the same time. The stuff she was playing with didn’t have a detonator in it, no cord, nothing. Yes, it will have to be detonated at some point just for safety reasons, but right now it’s fine.” He reached out and hugged Janet to him. “It’s fine. She can’t get hurt and I won’t let her.”

       Janet bit her lip, not quite ready to give in yet. “You should have told me that before letting her play with it. You should have asked me.”

       “I’ll tell you everything you want to know about it,” Jack said with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

       Janet turned away and picked up Juliet from her spot on the floor, cuddling her on her hip. “Why don’t you show us how the stuff goes boom. She likes it when things go boom.”

       Jack smiled and nodded. “She gets that from her dad.”

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       Sam had always talked about wanting a brother. Someone he could play games with, chase the other boys with, could teach the ropes to. All the other boys have brothers! It wasn’t entirely true, or even mostly true. Only two of Sam’s friends had brothers – and they were each other’s brothers. Mick had tried to point that out to Sam before, but it had only made him angry and storm off in a huff.

       After that, Ralph had been the one to handle all the requests for a brother.

       It wasn’t that either Mick or Ralph were at all against the idea (though, truth be told, Mick didn’t seem to mind one way or the other), but that there were no Freeside children in need of parents.

       With the war over, the mysterious courier had worked to rehabilitate the Strip – but hadn’t forgotten Freeside. Clean-up projects had seen to the restoration of some of the buildings, leading to the addition of more housing, more jobs, a library and a school. The Kings had become an official police force, laying down laws and enforcing them.

       Freeside couldn’t be considered ‘fixed,’ by any means, but it was better than it had been. With the threat of the Legion eliminated and the NCR retreating back into California, the held breath of life finally let go in the city.

       But nothing is perfect.

       On a cool summer evening, a messenger from the Followers came to the shop in search of baby clothes. When asked, she told Ralph about the baby, a girl, who had been the daughter of an unfortunate prostitute working at Gomorrah. The mother had died overdosing on a slurry of chems, and none of the other girls there were willing to raise another woman’s child in a whorehouse.

       “I thought the guys at Gomorrah weren’t allowed to get their girls hooked on chems to keep them there anymore,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “That’s messed up.”

       “They’re not. They can’t sell to their employees anymore either. Looks like she wasn’t able to cope with the withdrawal and bought the stuff somewhere else on her own.” The woman sighed, her expression filled with sadness. “I knew her. She was a good woman in a bad situation.”

       “What’s going to happen to the girl?” Ralph asked as he rummaged through boxes under tables, looking for something that might fit her.

       “We don’t know. We don’t have the resources to raise her here, but it isn’t safe to bring her to another outpost. Too many raiders on the roads to risk it, for her or for our own.”

       She took the clothes, which he insisted she take as a donation, and headed back out into Freeside – leaving Ralph uneasy in her wake.

       He waited until after Sam had gone to bed to discuss it with Mick, but it was evidently obvious that Ralph was distracted all evening.

       “What’s gotten into you?” Mick asked. “You’ve been staring around this place like a lost dog all night.”

       Ralph finally looked down at the book he’d been ‘reading’ for over an hour, realizing he hadn’t actually looked at a single page. “One of the Followers stopped by while you were upstairs.”

       “And?”

       Ralph glanced at the ceiling, listing for any indication that Sam was awake, but heard nothing. He lowered his voice anyway. “It was about an orphan they just took in. Baby girl. Mother was a working girl over at Gomorrah, just died of an overdose.”

       Mick rolled his eyes with a groan. “Oh I know what this is about. You want to—”

       Ralph hushed him. “I just thought that it might be best for everyone if we were to, you know…”

       “Take care of her? We don’t know the first thing about—”

       “We’ve done fine with Sam,” Ralph interjected. “Nobody knows the first thing about parenting out here, at least we have some experience in it.”

       “Sam wasn’t a baby when we took him in.” Mick scratched the back of his head, stretching. “I don’t know that I’m ready to be waking up all night to deal with a screaming baby.”

       “There’s three of us, we could take turns.”

       “The three of us?” Mick laughed. “You want to turn Sam into this girl’s third father?”

       “He always talks about having a brother to show the ropes, why not a sister?” Ralph stepped closer, glancing to the ceiling again, and took Mick’s shoulders in his hands. “They don’t have the resources to take care of her, and the roads aren’t safe anymore to send her somewhere else. Let’s at least think about it, all right?”

       Mick frowned, crossing his arms, but nodded. “We’ll think about it.”

       Thinking about it turned into finding the right time to discuss it, which in turn became deciding whether or not to discuss it with Sam first.

       “He’s the one who wants a sibling,” Mick argued.

       “He wants a brother that he can play with. That’s not the same as a baby sister to have to protect.” Ralph wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea or not, but he was sure he wanted to try it. Even if it was only because the idea of this baby girl getting blown away by some raider looking for caps or drugs made his stomach turn.

       It didn’t take too long for Mick to realize that, one way or another, their family was about to expand by one.

       “You know,” he said quietly, rolling over in bed to face Ralph, “you don’t even know what she looks like yet.” His voice was just barely above a whisper.

       Ralph smiled. “I know.”

       He stayed up all night, wondering what she would look like, though in actuality it didn’t really matter. They weren’t even sure how old she was. He pictured all shapes and sizes of them, secretly hoping they would all be wrong and he’d still be surprised in the morning. Maybe a plump little girl with tan skin and soft dark hair, a beautiful princess with rich dark skin and eyes, a pale redhead with cute little freckles. Did babies even have freckles?

       In the morning, Mick and Ralph sent Sam off to do some work with the King for the day, then headed off to the Follower’s fort.

       Though it took some convincing that they were the right ones to raise her, Julie agreed that the girl needed to be given a real home. If Mick and Ralph were willing and able to do it, she didn’t have much to argue.

       “She’s a bit of a princess,” Julie warned them, leading the pair towards one of the tents. “She’s absolutely adorable, and she knows it.”

       “I think we can handle her,” Mick said confidently. Ralph knew he was terrified, but didn’t say anything.

       “See for yourself,” Julie said, gesturing for them to go in to the tent.

       Hidden in amongst a sea of pillows and teddybears was a sleeping baby girl, with fluffy blonde hair and the palest skin Ralph had seen in the Mojave. She was bigger than he’d imagined, older, by perhaps a year or more, but she was beautiful. The Followers had dressed her in a little pink onesie with the faded words “daddy’s little girl” written across the front.

       He leaned over to whisper to Mick, not taking his eyes off the girl. “We’re in trouble.”

       The donated clothes went back to the shop, and little Sarah went with them.

       At first, Sam was not outwardly impressed – he wanted a brother, not a ‘stupid girly sister.’ He largely stayed away from her, complaining about the noise whenever she shrieked (which didn’t help at all) only grudgingly helping to feed or bathe her when asked. He flat out refused to play with her, meaning that he still spent most of his time working as a crier for the shop instead, which wasn’t exactly a problem.

       “Give him time,” Mick told Ralph. “I wasn’t convinced at first either.”

       Two weeks later Sam brought home his friends to play upstairs after dark, the boys all got to meet the mysterious sister he’d tried not to talk about. The boys told each other gross stories they’d overheard about the war, some made up others not, while sharing a bag of chips they’d bought with pocket money. They sat on Sam’s bed, all leaning against the wall and staring out into the room where Ralph was rolling a ball back and forth with baby Sarah.

       “She looks dumb,” one of the boys said, his nose wrinkled up. “All she does is sit there and drool.”

       Ralph was about to retaliate – but Sam beat him to it.

       “Hey!” He smacked the boy on the arm. “Don’t talk about my sister that way, you butt.”

       “Sam,” Ralph said warningly, but his heart was only half in it. “Don’t hit people.”

       Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re still a butt,” he muttered, crossing his arms. The two began throwing insults back and forth at each other.

       Ralph, rolling the ball gently towards the giggling girl, pretended not to hear it.