Thanksgiving (Pt. 6): Family Gatherings

Thanksgiving (Pt. 3): Meeting The Family

--- Jon Whitaker ---

“Sorry we’re late, my thing ended up dragging on for longer than I thought it would.” He apologized as he stepped into his apartment.

“It’s fine, at the very least you’re not the last one here.” His Ma assured him as they made their way into the living room. “Your uncle was supposed to be here like an hour ago but got stuck in traffic.”

“Well… hopefully the food will still be warm by the time they get here.” He shrugged with a pained smile before letting it become more genuine as he turned towards a relatively short woman with red hair and glasses sitting next to her in a button up shirt. “Hey, Aunt Mags.”

“Hey Jon.” His adoptive aunt smiled, as she pulled him down into a hug over the back of his couch. “Gah, I can’t believe how big you’ve gotten! It’s like you become more of a giant every time I see you!”

“Or you’re just a half-pint.” Hia Ma suggested.

“Five six isn’t short for a woman, you’re just tall.” Mags glared as she let him go before her eyes caught sight of Miss Edna. “Uh, I don’t think we’ve met?”

His Ma coughed. “Oh, right. Mags this is Edna, pretty sure I’ve told you about her?”

“Uh, the woman who runs Jon’s camp thing?” Mags frowned.

“Think I’m a bit more than that, but yeah.” Miss Edna nodded, offering her hand. “Any friend of the Whitakers is a friend of mine.”

“Hope that includes me.” A rougher voice asked, as an arm threw itself around his shoulders. “Hey, kid. Oof, you are getting big.”

“Hey, Theo.” He smiled at the muscular darker skinned man, before frowning as he handed a beer to his Ma and Aunt. (Right, need to dump the rest of those when no one is looking.)

“Sorry, I didn’t grab you anything but if you want you can have this one.” Theo offered Jon’s second parent the bottle still in his hands.

“Thanks, but I’ve been trying to cut back.” Miss Edna winced with an awkward chuckle, even as his Ma gave her a questioning look.

“Suit yourself.” Theo shrugged, before popping the top off. “So where you two coming from exactly?”

“Jon has this cooking club thing.” His Ma answered for them. “They were having some kind of Thanksgiving contest or something.”

“Oh, how’d you do?” His Aunt Mags asked.

“Alright, though it turns out it wasn’t really a contest so much as everyone who doesn’t have families getting together for their own thing.” He tried to explain. “We had dessert with them, but they’re probably having their actual dinner right now.”

“Hey, it may not have been a contest like you thought but everyone agreed that you have the best, hmm… cream pies.” Miss Edna reminded him, even as his Aunt and Theo began choking on their drinks.

“Yeah… I don’t get why everyone kept laughing about my mile high chocolate cream pie so much.” He frowned, knowing he was missing something. Especially with the way his Ma was covering her face.

“Sounds, heh, sounds like my kind of party.” Theo wheezed out, causing another round of snickering from everyone but Jon.

“Right…” He drawled before pointing towards the kitchen. “I’m just… I’m just going to check on the-” Someone began knocking on the front door. “Door I guess…”

Walking away from everyone else he retreated towards the front door before opening and finding a somewhat hefty man with brown hair.

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“Big John!” He smiled before rushing forward and hugging his uncle hard enough to pick the man off the ground.

“Oof- Hey, little Jon.” His uncle laughed, patting his back. “It’s good to see you too.”

“Why don’t I get a greeting like that…?” He idly heard Theo grumbling.

He set the older Whitaker down as he noticed a pudgy brown haired eleven year old out of the corner of his eye before crouching a bit and opening his arms. “Little Jake!”

“Little Jon!” The younger of his cousins ran forward with a grin and grabbed the kid before tossing him into the air and catching him.

“And here I was thinking you were too big for that…” His uncle admitted with a wry grin, more to his cousin than to him.

“Just because you’re out of shape doesn’t mean my kid is!” His Ma called from in their apartment.

“That’s not my problem and you know it Minnie!” His uncle John argued as he stepped inside.

“I don’t know you’re looking a bit big for my little brother!” His Ma shot back.

“Go to the kitchen, I’ll sneak you a cookie in a minute.” He promised his fellow little with a finger to his lips.

Jake gave him a grin before running inside just as Jon was pulled into the hall, the sound of his back slamming into the wall being covered up by the door being pulled shut.

“Who are you and what the fuck have you done to my cousin!” A voice hissed as he found himself staring into a pair of burning hellfire eyes with a set of claws digging into his throat.

More on reflex than anything else, he drove his knee up into his assailant’s crotch, instinctively angling it in a way that would hurt his opponent as he registered them female.

The moment the grip on his throat loosened he pulled it away from him, uncaring for the faint cuts it left on his neck as he proceeded to wrap it into a weak lock and get a better look at his attacker.

Held at arm’s length from him was a teenager in a black shirt with the sleeves torn off to reveal her pale freckled skin, her face a snarling visage full of fangs as a pair of horns began to pierce through her dirty blonde hair.

“Felicia?” He frowned, feeling his grip loosening just as he felt something wrap around his knee before ripping his leg out from under him and sending him crashing to the ground.

Faster than he could react, Felicia had climbed on top of him, pinning him to the ground with a boot on one elbow, her knee on the other, her claws to his throat and her other hand raised to be raked across his face. “I’ll repeat myself only once, where is Jon?!”

He stared up into the warped face of his cousin as he nails dug into his neck, his mind rapidly processing the fact that (Felicia is a Deviant!?) and quickly moved on to (Why is she attacking me?!)

“Fe?” He gasped, more to buy time to think than anything. “You’re… you’re a Deviant?”

“Yeah, I’m a Malcontent, and you are wearing my cousin’s face.” His own cousin told him as her claws dug deep enough to break skin.

“Okay… Clearly there’s… some kind of… misunderstanding…” He told her, even as he drew his boot knife just in case she was the possessed one in this situation. “I am Jon.”

“Bullshit. You're all wrong!” Felicia growled, before driving her claw towards his eye socket. Or rather that’s what would’ve happened if he hadn’t thrown his legs up and used his knees to yank on her tail, (which she apparently has) thus throwing her off just enough that when he twisted his head out of the way her claws just barely scratched his shoulder instead.

With his cousin off balance he threw his knees up again to buck her off of him.

An act that failed to fully free him as Felicia caught herself by punching the ground but bought him enough room to get her leg off of his arm. Allowing him to properly grip her tail from behind her and give it another yank as he threw his shoulder forward in a second attempt to throw her off.

One that was a lot more successful, if only because Felicia did a handstand backflip before disappearing behind a wall of fire. (Fire that isn’t spreading?)

(Behind you.) He’d only just begun to spin out of his crouch when, from a second wall of flame, a pair of sneakers dropkicked him into the first.

Only instead of bei her eyes. “Any-anyway, I know Mags is an M.A.D. and Theo is a practitioner, so now that I… sort of know what I’ve got going on there’s uh, there’s no reason not to tell you guys that I’m a… Deviant.”

“Hey, hey, this doesn’t change anything kiddo.” His ma promised, leaving an arm around Fe’s shoulder as she gave the younger woman a soft smile. “You’re still my little Fe-Fe, and I’m still your Aunty M? Okay?”

“I know.” Felicia nodded. “But part of why I was telling you this is… I kind of want to come around more often?”

“Of course! I mean… Me and John will have to work something out to get you here, but you’re always welcome in our home Fe.” His Ma smiled, before something in her expression cracked. “But… I’ve got to ask… Is everything alright, back home? With your mom’s family?”

“Yeah, no, no they’re… great, it’s just… they’re not you guys.” Fe told her, glancing his way. “And um, one of my Deviant things is that I can sort of… teleport places I’ve been and so… it’s not as hard for me to just… pop up here. And I know Jake would love to spend more time with both of you guys too.”

His Ma blinked. “That… that would be great!”

“Uh, everything alright in here?” A cautious voice called.

The three of them turned towards Big John standing in the doorway to the kitchen, I couldn’t really hear but… things were looking emotional in here and… is everything alright?” His uncle fretted.

“Uh, yeah.” Fe wiped at her eyes. “Yeah, I was… I was just telling Aunty M that I uh, that I’m a Deviant.”

Big John’s eyes went wide. “Oh! R-really?!”

“Uh, yeah, just… come with me.” Felicia told her adoptive father as she dragged him out of the kitchen leaving him and his ma alone in the kitchen, each of them processing what just happened.

Eventually, he found himself saying, “You know she’s doing this because of you getting hospitalized, right?” It was the only thing that really made sense to him.

“I know…” His Ma sighed, running a hand down her face. “Theo and Mags are acting pretty much the same way. Both of them want to start physically checking instead of just phone calls all the time… It’s annoying, but I get it. The only part that gets me is Felicia’s portal thing…”

“What do you mean?” He frowned.

“Going off experience, portals are tricky and Fe ‘s had her Deviancy for maybe two years now, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with her using them to visit us all the time.” His Ma admitted with a concerned look towards the hall. “I might have to talk with John about driving her out for weekends or something.”

“Well… it can’t hurt to see everyone more often?” He shrugged, knowing how much he’d missed everyone when he and his Ma first went their own way.

“Yeah, it can’t.” His Ma agreed with a soft grin, before blinking. “Are those burn marks on your shirt?”

“Uh…”