Once Upon a Time

Posted on Mon Aug 19th, 2019 @ 4:43am by Lieutenant Commander Jacob "Jack" Devine & Lieutenant Elara Evander

Mission: Preludes
Location: SB 211
Timeline: 2366

Philip Devine stood in the corridor in front of the Evanders' quarters with his wife, Elania, at his side and their son, Jacob. The Evanders and Devines had a dinner date on the promenade and the Evanders' twelve year old son, Leo, was going to babysit.

"Make sure you behave," Philip said, one hand gently squeezing his son's shoulder.

"I will," Jacob answered, hugging his dragon figure against his chest. He was dressed in pajamas, having already been fed and bathed and made ready for bed in case he fell asleep while his parents were out.

Elania rang the chime, smiling at the interaction of her boys as they all waited for the door to be answered.

When the Evanders' doors opened, it was Elara who popped out clearly excited and immediately reached for Jacob. She'd sensed that he was there before the chime had even sounded. "Have fun at dinner," she said quickly towards his parents before pulling him in the direction of her room. She was dressed in pajamas because her parents had insisted that she was ready for bed in case Leo felt like he needed to tell them it was bedtime before their parents got back, Elara thought that was silly though.

"Elara, give him a minute to settle before you drag him off," Tucker Evander told his daughter with a slight shake of his head. "I don't know how you know he's there before the door's even open."

Gwendolyn had been talking to Leo about how he needed to not solely focus on his project, that he needed to make sure that Elara and Jacob weren't getting into any trouble. She really didn't see either Elara nor Jacob causing issues, but one never knew...she also just wanted Leo to actually take his eyes and mind off of the project he was working on every now and then. She didn't think it was good for him to be so obsessed over such a thing at a young age, there would be plenty of time for that later on.

"But Jake is my friend and we have things we have to go do," Elara complained to her father as she bounced with each word, her red curls bouncing with her. She however did release Jacob and move at a much slowly pace.

"It's okay," Jacob said to Elara's father, his eyes watching her hair bounce around her head with a silly grin. "I'm settled enough." He curled his dragon in one arm and offered Elara his other hand. "We has things to do. Right?"

"Have," Elania corrected with a grin at the two, elbowing Philip in the side before he could outright laugh about it and potentially embarrass their son.

"Have," Jacob repeated. "Can we go now?"

"Yes, go on," Elania agreed, watching the pair run off.

Elara grinned at him, her hand in his, and headed towards her room. "You brought the dragon? Do you want to do art? Or do we want to do pretend to be creatures?"

Gwendolyn just shook her head at the children before sternly looking in Leo's direction. "Actually check on them."

"I will. I will. They're too annoying to not check on," the preteen complained.

"Hopefully not too annoying," Elania responded with a smile only to be steered out into the corridor by Philip and followed shortly after by Gwendolyn and Tucker.

Soon after the doors closed and the kids were on their own.

Back in Elara's bedroom Jacob thought about the choice he'd been given. "Creatures now and art later?" He lifted the dragon in the air between his hands. "Smaug can fly." He ran around in a small circle holding the dragon up in one hand. "See?"

"No, we should call him Pippin," Elara told him, fine with the idea of playing creatures now and doing art later. "Pippin can fly," she said, putting emphasis on the name she was sure fit the dragon better.

"He's not a hobbit, Ela. He's a dragon. Pippin was a hobbit like Merry. Smaug was a dragon. IS a dragon. Smaug can fly." Jacob handed the dragon to Elara. "See?" He didn't understand why she wanted the name change, especially to something that didn't make sense.

"But Pippin sounds like such a nice sounding name," Elara told him sing-songly. She made a face. "Smaug sounds so ugly." She looked at the dragon. "And he is so cute...why would we name him something ugly?"

"Dragon's breathe fire, hog treasure, and eat knights. Pippin is not a good name for a dragon. It's kiddish. You can ask Leo." Jacob watched her with the dragon. Part of him knew she'd never agree and he really did not want to fight. "I s'pose his middle name could be Pippin." He shrugged then stuck out his arms at his sides like they were wings. "I wanna be a space dragon when I grow up. Then I can fly with daddy."

Elara rolled her eyes. "Leo doesn't know anything about dragons...only making gadgets...and a dragon is not a gadget." She sighed and she flew the dragon back towards Jacob. "Does this mean I can be a space pegasus?"

Jacob grinned. "Of course you can be a space pegasu-sus. And a dragon can be a gadget if you make it shaped like a ship." He picked up the Pegasus on Elara's bed while holding Smaug in one hand and made the winged horse fly to Elara. "We should have a race," he proclaimed. "Space dragon versus space pegasu-sus!"

"What if we want to be a team and not each other?" Elara questioned. She ran over to pull out a bin with a few items in it. Pulling out a figure she held it out for Jacob. "We could race the kay-mera. It has wings and is sort of scary."

"Do you have another?" Jacob asked as he leaned over the bin. "If we're gonna be a team, the kay-mera needs a team person too." He reached in the bin and pulled out a mermaid. "How 'bout her?" The fish tail was a little dubious but maybe space could be like water too.

"Oooohhhh..." Elara replied excitedly and bounced. "Do you think the mermaid is going to be strong enough?"

"She's a space mermaid," Jacob declared, "that should be strong enough. Now, where do we start our race? In here?" He looked around at the bed and the closet then toward the hall.

"If we disturb Leo, he might take them all away, so we have to be careful," Elara warned quite seriously.

"Then maybe we should race them in the bath tub. That way we won't disturb him." Jacob held the dragon and mermaid up. "We can pretend the water is space."

"Best. Plan. Ever." Elara was bouncing once again, toys in hand. "Okay, we going to race to the tub first?"

"Yeh!" Jacob agreed. "Ready? Set. Go!" He held the dragon in one hand and the mermaid in the other and started running toward the door. He and Elara headed for the bathroom. "The mermaid is ahead, now the dragon, now the kay-mera, and.... now the pegasu-sus.... and the dragon wins by a nose." He looked at Elara.

Elara frowned slightly. "I can't be mad at Pippin...but we should REALLY have a good race with them in the tub," she said with a grin. "We just have to be really quiet...or else Leo will yell at us."

The water was turned on and they watched the tub fill. Jacob leaned over the side to reach. With the dragon and mermaid in the water he turned to look at Elara. "This might be easier in the tub."

"Will the creatures be okay, though?" she asked, without a thought she climbed into the filling tub in full pajamas but held the chimera and pegasus up above safely from the water.

Jacob watched her climb in then after a second's pause he climbed in behind her and sat at the opposite end of the tub. "'member, the water's all space like. If they're space creatures they'll be fine." He lowered the dragon into the water and pretended it was soaring but the water wasn't quite deep enough just yet. He looked up at Elara with a broad grin. "I think kay-mera is the tallest. We should let the water get to the top of his head so we can race them."

As the water rose in the tub, Elara didn't care about it soaking through her pajama bottoms. "It has to be at least half the way full because they have to have plenty of room because what if some like to fly higher and some like to fly lower?"

"Mermaids can go lower," Jacob agreed. He let go of the dragon and watched the figurine float on the water. He grinned and looked up at Elara. "Catch," he told her as he pushed the dragon in her direction. Maybe some of them could even float on top of 'space'.

Catching the dragon resulted in a bit of a splash and she laughed in response before pushing the dragon back at Jacob, but this time with more water behind him resulting in her friend getting quite wet in the process. She giggled for a moment, the thought of their creatures racing lost in that very moment. "Meteor shower!" she screamed before splashing Jacob like crazy.

He was wide eyed with surprise for a moment but it was lost in the need to get even. Jacob splashed Elara back with the mermaid and pretty soon the two forgot about the bath tub filling and were having far too much fun seeing who could get whom wetter. "Take that, space peg!"

"No! You take that!" she shouted at him and splashed him, the pegasus in her hand making the water splash everywhere...including outside of the tub area. She was absolutely soaking wet. Her hair was sticking to the sides of her face and neck, but she didn't care. She giggled like crazy as she continued. "You--"

"WHAT THE HECK?!" came Leo's loud and mortified combined with pissed sounding voice.

Elara froze, her eyes going from Jacob to her older brother. She could tell that they were definitely in trouble. "We were just playing...nicely, Leo."

"You're both absolutely drenched!" Leo complained. "You're supposed to be ready for bed...not having to go through the process all over again." He moved to drain the water from the tub. "And you've managed to get water ALL over."

"We're sorry, Leo."

Jacob leaned over the tub and looked at the floor, his hair dripping on the tiles. "Guess we better strip in here." He looked up at Leo as he started to pull off his shirt. "We can help clean up once we're dry." The words were lost a bit as he pulled the shirt off over his head and reached for his pajama bottoms. "Got a towel?"

Without a thought, she started to follow suit with Jacob's lead of stripping out of the wet clothes.

"Stop! What is wrong with you two? This isn't some traditional Betazoid wedding," he told them. Leo was clearly having a hard time. "Just...don't take anything else off." He left the bathroom for a couple of minutes.

Elara just stared at Jacob. "He's weird."

Jacob frowned. "I know. How else are we not going to get more water on the floor?" He shook his head and looked at Elara. "What's a wedding gotta do with it anyways?" The older boy wasn't making much sense. "He must be getting close to adulting."

"It's like he wants to make mom and dad upset with him," she said with a shake of her head, stripping out of her pj bottoms, not really caring what Leo had said.

"Okay, so I have some clothes...that should work," Leo said coming in with a pile of clothes he'd pulled from Elara's drawers. He also had two towels. "Okay, this is where listening comes in," he said.

"We're not four," Elara said as she rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"You're acting like four," he countered and then set a towel on the floor on one side of the bathroom and set dry clothes by it. "Okay Elara, you over here and face the wall."

She just gave him a weird face but stepped out towards the towel anyways.

He moved to the other side of the bathroom and did the same for Jacob. "Okay, Jacob, over here...you'll just have to borrow some clothes. It should fit." He sighed. "I'm never babysitting. Ever. Again."

"We're not babies," Jacob protested. "You're over acting. Isn't he, Ela?" He'd gone where he was directed and had started the process of peeling off his wet bottoms and underwear. He wasn't keen on wearing Elara's stuff but he was a little smaller than she was so fit wasn't the issue. It was those pink unicorns. "You don't have anything with dragons on it?" He looked up at Leo and the older boy's face told him not to argue. "Fine. I'll put it on... though I could just wear a towel?"

"He's ALWAYS over acting," Elara informed Jacob as she changed. Even in dry clothing, her red hair was still wet from the splashing. "And they're not that bad, Jake...they're unicorns...they're almost better than dragons."

Leo just sighed. There was no way that their parents wouldn't know that something had happened because both kids would be in different clothes and Elara's hair would be crazy...and he wasn't about to even attempt it with her hair. "You know, being an only child is sounding really good right now."

"Good luck with that since I'm eight years old and you can't exactly give me away," Elara told her brother with another roll of her eyes.

"If it were only THAT easy."

"I'd take you home with me if he did that Ela," Jacob promised. "You can be my sister instead." He pulled on the unicorn PJ bottoms and looked down at the length. They were just a wee bit too long but then Jacob was used to that. "Then we could space race all the time," he added in as he picked up the shirt and pulled it over his head.

"You say that now," Leo told Jacob. "She gets more annoying the longer you have to spend with her."

Elara made a face at Leo before going to retrieve her creatures from the bath in her dry pajamas.

"Don't go getting wet all over again!"

"Here Ela, I'll hold the towel for you so we can dry them off," Jacob offered, somewhat glaring at Leo for not being a good big brother. "That way we don't get wet and Leo can stop actin' like his hair's gonna go whites." He moved to the side of the bath tub and held the towel stretched out over both arms. When she looked at him he grinned. "Maybe we should art now?"

"Paints!" Elara enthused at the idea of doing art.

"No! Nothing where you could get messy or wet again," Leo said firmly. "We're not changing clothes again."

"But it's part of our plan!"

"Not anymore," he argued as he went to pick up all the wet clothes and towels. "You two need to do something not messy, not wet, and preferably quiet."

"That sounds like sleeping."

"That works too. Why don't you two do that?" Leo put out there, obviously hopeful.

"No, that's not fun. Jake and I are supposed to be having fun together. That's the plan," Elara told her brother. "Don't be a ruiner."

"I'm not sleepy," Jacob looked down at the last of the animals as he dried it with the towel. "And art isn't always messy, Lee-oh. We can use markers..." He smiled at Elara, thinking maybe he was offering an acceptable compromise.

"No, no markers...no crayons...no art," Leo said firmly. "Next thing I'll know is that the two of you are drawing on walls or something else...no, you're going to go and play quietly in Elara's room if you're not going to sleep."

"You're so mean and unfun," Elara complained, being quite dramatic about the whole thing. She almost didn't have hold of her pegasus as Leo started to push her out of the bathroom and towards her room. "Jacob is so lucky he doesn't have an annoying and mean brother or sister."

"I said I'd give you to him so he can experience my pain," Leo told her as he tried to direct Jacob out of the bathroom as well, whether he had hold of the toys or not.

Elara stomped her feet as she crossed to her doorway.

"I think Mom's right, you need more quiet time...so maybe you can focus and maybe learn to meditate because that's something QUIET and doesn't cause trouble," Leo told her.

Jacob frowned deeply. The only toy he'd managed to grab was his dragon. "Only babies write on walls and furnitures and themselves. I told you we're not babies. We color only on paper." He had followed Elara because he knew Leo was in charge even if he didn't particularly like the older boy at the moment.

"Yeah I don't believe that," Leo told him. "I'm in charge until our parents get back, so you just need to listen to what I say until then."

Elara stuck out her tongue at her older brother before grabbing Jacob's arm and pulling him back into the bedroom with her. "I'm sorry he's mean. He doesn't understand how to have fun. He only likes to pretend to make things and fix weird problems." She paused for a moment. "Maybe we could take our creatures and make a tent and read stories for now?"

"We could. Or we could go on a mission to get art stuffs and color in here." Jacob held his dragon as he looked at Elara. "Leo may be in charge but he /is/ wrong. Our parents let us color and you know they wouldn't care if we colored now. I say we sneak in and get what we need. What do you think?"

"Leo would have to be so distracted for that to work," Elara warned. "And then he'll be really angry if he catches us sneaking."

"He's only gonna get mad if he catches us doing it. If he comes back later and finds us coloring, he ain't gonna wanna bother. Then we can show him we aren't babies." Jacob crept to the edge of the door and peeked out into the hallway. "Maybe we can ask for somethin' to drink?"

"We can try?" she said. "I think no matter what he's going to think we're babies because he's mean." She moved to the doorway and peeked out to spy Leo sitting on the couch tinkering with his project. "He's busy," she said whispering back to Jacob. "Maybe he'll just say we can go get a drink and not bother us."

"The drinks is not the point. The drinks is to distract him so one of us can grab paper and colors," Jacob tipped his head to one side. "What's he doin' anyways?" He shook his head and went on, "You wanna distract 'im or grab the stuffs?"

"He's working on some project...I don't know, he thinks he's going to build things...he's weird," Elara said. "Okay I will go and ask him to get us drinks and a snack." She walked out and didn't miss the glare that she immediately was on her brother's radar. "Leo, Jacob and I are thirsty and want a snack. Please Leo? Please? We'll be so quiet and good."

Leo seemed to be pondering it for a long moment before getting up and moving to the replicator. "No sugar snacks. I'll pick something for you two."

"Oh-kaaaaaay," Elara said and then looked over her shoulder to see if Jacob was on the move with Leo now distracted.

Jacob had waited for Leo to go to the replicator with Elara. He'd purposely not shown himself so Leo would think he was still in the bedroom. While Leo's back was turned, Jacob made the short sprint to the drawers in the corner where he knew the art stuff was kept. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pad of paper and a box of crayons.

"Make sure it's not yucky, Leo," Elara said as she glanced back at Jacob and then to her brother to make sure he was paying attention to the replicator.

"You can't be picky," Leo argued.

"I'm just saying, don't be mean."

"I'm not the mean one who ruins evenings," he countered shaking his head as he first ordered two cups of juice and then was trying to decide what snack to go with them.

Jacob made a quick dash to Elara's bedroom and immediately put the pad under Elara's pillow along with the box of crayons. He then sat down and picked up his dinosaur, pretending to play while he waited for Elara to get back with Leo and their snack. He was super pleased with his own sneakiness and tried not to giggle as he heard the pair coming down the hall.

Leo escorted Elara back, holding the small cups of apple juice in hopes that in doing so that there would be no spilling. Face all smiles, Elara set a plate down on the bedside surface that had apple slices and a dab of peanut butter in the middle. Leo set down the cups near it, looked around the room quickly, and then left. "Try not to do anything more bad," he commented before disappearing.

Rolling her eyes as her brother left, she then immediately snapped her attention back to Jacob. "Did you get them?" she asked, even though she knew he had, she just didn't know where he'd put everything. She just hoped that Leo didn't ruin anymore of their evening. They had been so excited to do fun things and her brother was definitely a ruiner of such things.

"I got them. Put them under your pillow so he wouldn't see." Jacob picked up his glass of apple juice. "I don't think he was none the wiser." He took a sip then set it down and picked up a slice of apple. "Not nearly enough peanut butter but it's good." He swiped the apple slice across the peanut butter then shoved the slice into his mouth and wiped his hands on the unicorn pj's he was wearing. He couldn't talk because he was too busy trying to chew an entire slice of peanut butter coated apple without choking. He picked up her pillow and pulled out the pad of paper and crayons. It was a few minutes before he got his mouth empty enough to talk. "So, where do we do this?"

"On the floor?" she suggested. Elara figured if they were quiet, Leo would leave them alone for the rest of the night...or so she hoped.

"That works," Jacob agreed but he pulled two story tablets from the bookshelf and handed one to Elara. "Something to press against. The carpet's too squishy."

They settled on the floor head to head. Jacob stretched out on his belly with the hard surface of the tablet in front of him and a sheet of paper over the top. The crayons were in the middle. "I'm gonna draw a ship shaped like a dragon," he told her with a grin as he picked up the black crayon. "What are you gonna draw?"

"I don't know," Elara told him. She stretched out, but so she was facing him. "Maybe lots of flying creatures that can fly through space." She shrugged. "Maybe someplace where we can go where Leo won't ruin all the fun things."

"Ooooo, space fort," Jacob said delightedly. "I like the idea." He pulled another piece of paper from the pad and slid his half complete dragon ship aside. "Maybe we can make one each so that our two pages connect into a big space fort."

Elara giggled as they matched the papers to touch. "Or it could be anything that is for us. A space fort or a planet far away or a ship or a station like this one...anything we want best."

"Anything at all," Jacob agreed with a soft giggle of his own. "Maybe our very own secret lair." He reached for a blue crayon. "You're my best friend, Ela." He looked up at her. "You make me laugh."

"You're MY best friend," Elara told him. "You are better than Leo and we have all the fun together."

"We do. We really, really do." Jacob put the blue crayon back and grabbed a black one. He looked at it for a moment and then at Elara. "What's your favorite color, El?" He paused and held up the crayon in his fingers. "Mines is black."

"Blue," Elara told him. She was thinking about what she really waned to draw. Somewhere for her and Jacob to escape away from was an important thing to draw. She smiled at him, watching him for a long moment, her time with Jacob always was easy even if they disagreed...and she wished that when it was their time to be together that everyone would just leave them be like this. "Like the ocean on Earth...which I want to swim in one day."

Blue. Like the ocean. "The real Earth ocean?" There were holodeck programs with the beach and Jacob had been to one of those with his parents but it had been a long time. "That's really far away. We could make our own ocean." He leaned over the paper and drew a huge outline with the black crayon. "This big. You think?"

"Oooooo...."

"Are you two in bed--what? Why can't you listen?" Leo asked, clearly exasperated. He flailed his arms around for a moment and then just turned and left them without another word.

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