Hometown (Dad)

[Aiden Mumble]

It wasn't often that Aiden wanted to go home. Her parents were very loving and she didn't mind spending time with them. However, they were also a lot of work. Aiden often worried how they were functioning at home without her. Sure she received many panicked texted from one or both of them when they'd forgotten something, but she used to run things for a while. Perhaps she let it happen, after all her parents somehow survived to adulthood without her help, it wasn't outrageous to think they could continue on without her living there. Still, Aiden worried and that worry turned into resentment and that resentment meant a lack of desire for visiting. Still, things had been unusually rough at school. She had a performance coming up that she was going to try her best to avoid without failing. She hoped her parents didn't remember and ask her about it. Then there was the giant Hinrik issue that gnawed at her every day. Oh, and, Mordred. All she could think about was that night over and over again and imagine what dangerous thing he could be doing now that she may need to stop. It was agony. No matter what odd embarrassment could come from the trip, home felt like a welcome reprieve from her house at school.

With a backpack in tow, she entered through the school's portal and exited near the Mumble's residence. It was hard to miss. Shaped like a giant seashell with several add-ons and stained windows, it was both beautiful and odd. Just like her parents. She couldn't help but smirk a bit at the sight of it. It had been a little while since she'd been home. She'd moved right from her dorm into the house with Mordred, so she'd avoided sleeping here for a least a couple of years. Suddenly she felt nostalgic for the familiar chaos of her parent's house. Sure it was never dull, but at least she'd grown used to their brand of drama. Her life had been on a new level recently.

She marched up the pathway, opened the door and slipped inside. Normally Aiden warned her parents about these things, but she had changed her mind a million times about stopping by so she hadn't called. As soon as she got inside she knew she could regret this. She stood in the doorway and figured she'd better announce herself or run the risk of running into things she didn't want to see.

"Mom, Dad?" She called "If you're doing something weird, wrap it up." She figured that covered most of her bases. There was a lot of weird things her parents could be doing.

[Mumble]

Doing something weird was pretty broad, but no one on earth could really blame Aiden for the request as she entered the house. Fortunately for her, Andy was out for the day, so that ruled out a lot of the really weird things that could have been going on in the home. Nonetheless, Mumble had been in the dance studio, choreographing a routine for a competition his dance class had coming up. He was taking a quick water break, and left the music blaring loud enough that the stained glass windowpanes rattled a little. He didn't even hear Aiden when she came in, just burst out into the hall, facing away from her, executing a few enthusiastic steps before spinning and dropping down onto his knees in a slide that, with his track pants on the hardwood floor, took him halfway down the hallway towards her, where he stopped short and let out an undignified shriek.

"Oh my guin, Aiden," he said, out of breath, "you scared the sh...whoopsies out of me, I didn't even hear you come in. Sorry, I know that's loud, I'm working on...hang on." He dug his phone out of his pocket and paused the music. "There. Sorry, I'm working on this thing for the NWDC competition, it's in three weeks and half the class is suddenly on my ass to give them something more challenging because they're worried about...you do not care about this, sorry. I'm getting a gatorade, do you want anything to drink?" He gestured for her to follow him, moving off into the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge.

"I would have already hugged you twenty times by now," he told her, "but I've been in the studio basically since I woke up, and trust me, you do not want a hug from me right now. What brings you home, kiddo? I thought you weren't coming until next weekend."

He pulled a gigantic bottle of gatorade out of the refrigerator and took a long sip of it, turning around to lean on the counter and face her. "Tell me all the wonderful things that have been happening at school, hm? Are you the most popular kid in school yet? It's only a matter of time, you know, with parents like your mother and me, you're destined to be right in the action one way or another."

---
this is the song

[Aiden Mumble]

It was hard to tell if they had heard her over the music. Her parents played music for a lot of reasons so she didn't want to make any assumptions. She also didn't wan to move further into the house til she at least gave them time to put clothes on if they needed too. After a bit she sigh and braved a few steps down the hall. Her right hand clung to her black backpack nervously. She'd blame it on the fact that she wasn't sure when her parents might show themselves or where she might find them, but it was more than that. She feared the questions her parents might ask and the excuses she would have to come up with. She feared what she might say. She wasn't in her normal state. She still hadn't been sleeping much. She was vulnerable to pointed questions. She knew this and she still came home. Maybe a small part of her wanted to be pressed so she'd have to get some of this off her chest.

Aiden opened her mouth to call out again when her father finally danced into view. She didn't even flinch as he came sliding to a stop before her. He did, though. This was typical. She couldn't resist a smirk at the sight of her father trying to recover from the scare. She rolled her eyes when he censored himself like she didn't swear everyday of her damn life. He began to ramble and she waited patiently for him to finish. Both of her parents had a tendency to go on and on. Aiden didn't mind. The more they talked, the less she had too.

"No thanks..." she said, awkwardly formal when he asked if she wanted something to drink. She slid her bag off her shoulder and wandered into the kitchen after him. She threw her bag on the counter and leaned against it herself. He wasn't near finished rambling. Still she waited. She tried to think what she might say if he asked about performances or why she even come home. Nothing came to mind. As soon as she had worried he might mention it, he did and her thoughts began to race. Why did she come home? To get away from school? Gee that didn't sound suspiciously like she was having a shitty time. A hug would have been nice, but Aiden wouldn't have initiated it even if he hadn't been sweating all day. Thankfully, her dad still wasn't quite done with the ramble. Perhaps she could get by without answering why she was home.

"I am definitely in the middle of of the action" she agreed vaguely. "Where's mom?" she added, she figured her mom would have shown up by now if she was home. She was probably at work, but Aiden liked the idea of turning the conversation off her.

[Mumble]

"Mom's out...doing...mom stuff," Mumble answered, because he wasn't actually sure where Andy was at the moment. "I think she had a doctor's appointment this morning, and now she's probably working." If he needed to know where she was, he was sure Andy would have told him; they didn't keep tabs on each other at every moment. That would have been impossible anyway, with how impulsive Mumble was; he changed his plans probably every two hours on a good day.

As his heart rate slowed down to a normal pace, he gave his daughter another once-over. Now that he had a good chance to look at her, he wasn't sure she looked particularly thrilled to be at home, which brought him back to wondering why she was at home right now at all. Not that he wouldn't have loved to have her at home all the time; sending Aiden off to school had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. But at least he thought she was happy there.

"Tell me about the action," he said, motioning for her to follow him. "C'mon, we haven't danced in a while. Let me show you what I'm working on and you can tell me all about what's going on at school, hm?"

[Aiden Mumble]

Mom stuff. That sounded about right. Aiden knew what he was really saying was that he had no idea. The fact that he even thought she might be at the doctor's office was a small miracle. Aiden wondered for a moment what her mom might be doing there, but it literally could have been anything. She probably ran into that poll again at the studio in town. Her parent's brains ran so fast and so sporadically that she had been the one for a long time to keep track of where they were. She had so constantly overloaded herself with information at all times, that Aiden was glad to have freedom and substances to chill her out now that she lived at school. Unfortunately, both those reliefs only went so far and they hadn't been doing a very good job lately.

"Right." Aiden agreed softly. She was probably at work. Aiden felt a little sad despite her fear of her parent's questions. She would have liked to see both of them.

Aiden felt her father's eyes on her and she tried to keep a gentle smile on her face, despite her tired eyes. She hoped he wouldn't read too far into her grungy look. However, her attempts at keeping the conversation off her failed rapidly when she had nothing else to say about her mom. Her father went right back to that comment she'd made about 'the action.'

Well. Dad. I made a friend at school and then he tried to kill himself and the only person beyond him that I care about is a million miles away and could be dead at any moment. I feel like I'm losing my mind, I barely sleep. My diet consists of hard liquor, various drugs, and the occasional sip of coffee. I want to crawl in a hole and stay there for the rest of my life, but I have to keep going to class so I don't let you and mom down. Still, I can't tell you any of this because I don't want to be a burden.

Despite her vicious thoughts, she said nothing, but a mumbled "It's nothing very exciting." However, she did follow him when he gestured for her too. He said we, but Aiden sincerely hoped he simply meant to show her his latest project. Aiden wasn't much in the mood to try and impress her father with her dance. She knew she'd fall short anyway, even if he didn't say so. There was a slow and odd transition in her life as she turned to this thought process. For years she grew up dancing beside her father, or on his toes. Somewhere in her teen something began to sour. Her parents were so amazing and she suddenly felt like there was no way she could match their talents. They obviously wanted her too so despicably and she loved them so much. She still does. She still doesn't think she could ever be as good as them. In fact, she had lately started to feel that she was rather bad.

Still, she followed him. Perhaps she could just watch. He was an incredible dancer. He better be to make up for his terrible voice. Just thinking about the times he had tried made her smile.

[Mumble]

As far as Mumble was concerned, there was no problem that couldn't be at least helped a little by dancing. Sure, there were really big things, like death and threats of restraining orders from mermaid museums, but even those things, if you were really down about them, you could make yourself feel a little better by dancing. As long as you weren't actually the one who died, anyway. You couldn't really dance yourself back to life.

And maybe you couldn't dance away all of your daughter's problems, but...well, it was all he knew how to do sometimes, and it was something he and Aiden had been able to bond over when she was younger. Even if she wasn't here as much anymore, and was all grown up and too responsible to bother with some of the lame stuff he and Andy got up to (that wasn't even self-pity, Mumble was well aware that he and his wife could be painfully uncool sometimes).

He moved back into the studio and turned the music back on, much lower now so they could hear each other talk over the music. "Okay," he said, motioning for her to join him. "C'mon, you gotta stretch first. No shortcuts, remember." He was definitely already stretched and warmed up, having been in here dancing most of the day, but he wasn't going to make Aiden do it alone so he dropped down into a near-split.

"And now you have to tell me what's going on with you, because your mother could be home any minute, and you know that interrogation is going to be much more intense than anything I can dish out."

He stayed there, sipping his gatorade, as he waited for Aiden to join him.

"Plus, if you tell me what's bothering you, I might have some incredibly wise advice to give you. Dad advice. Dadvice, if you will."

[Aiden Mumble]

Aiden felt odd and vulnerable even entering the studio. Which was silly, she'd danced in the studio countless times. A lot of the time with her father, sometimes with her mother tripping along until Aiden kicked her out for touching dad's butt too many times. Her mother was terribly clumsy, but she made an effort every now and again and managed to stay on rhythm. Still, Aiden knew music was her strong suit. She recalled dancing to a few of her mother's songs as she played them out beautifully on the piano or guitar...or several other instruments. Aiden only knew two and, while she had natural talent, she hadn't been keeping up with training her voice. Just another way she fell sort of her parent's awesome abilities. This thought didn't instill any confidence in her when her father called her over to join.

She hesitated. She didn't want to dance in front of her father, but she didn't want to give him an excuse to ask her why. They weren't dancing yet, anyway, just stretching. There was still time to back out without raising suspicions. Besides, she had to roll her eyes when he reminded her that stretching was important. Mumble was a wonderful teacher, but she'd been hearing this out of his mouth for twenty one years now. She knew stretching was important. She moved further into the room and sat down beside him. Luckily, she was wearing leggings. Luckily, she wore leggings most days. She folded forward into a butterfly stretch, her head practically resting on the ground. Then her father rounded the conversation back on her. Ugh.

She sigh heavily and folded her arms so she could rest her head on them. She turned to look at him without abandoning the stretch. He was right. If her mother caught the tiniest whiff that she wasn't feeling well she would never let it go. Certainly she'd try to play it cool, but Andy was relentless in fixing things. Once she set her mind to it, her mother was certain to follow through in some way, shape, or form. Her father could be a little less intense in that field. He also said things like "dadvice."

Aiden smiled at him. "Dadvice." she repeated. "Oh boy." she cheered sarcastically. She knew this wouldn't be enough. She'd have to keep talking or else he'd keep bringing it up and they'd have to do more dancing. She leaned back out of the stretch and supported herself on the palms of her hands. "Just a lot of drama, I guess." she said, focusing on her lap. "I have a friend" Mordred "Who is...going through a tough time" hes depressed "And I'm not sure I can help him." I'm depressed too. She concluded with a shrug, trying to keep the tone lighter than she felt.

[Mumble]

Once upon a time, Mumble thought, Aiden had laughed at his jokes. He supposed that was just part of growing up, realizing that your parents were pretty lame. He certainly didn't think his dad was all that funny, and most of the time, he was just embarrassing. But Mumble still loved him, and he knew Aiden still loved him. She even smiled there a little at his regrettable pun.

He was glad to hear that she had a friend. Not that he'd doubted she would; she was so smart and talented and beautiful, he was sure she was the most popular kid at school, or else the other kids must just be blind or stupid or something. But it was good to hear that she had a friend she was close enough to that she worried about him like this. Assuming he was just a friend...hmm, maybe Mumble needed to have a talk with this guy.

"I think one of the hardest things about caring about people is not knowing when you need to help them, and when you have to let them have the room to help themselves," he said carefully, thoughtfully. "Sometimes you have to just...make sure that people know you love them and you're there for them, and support them as they sort things out themselves." He leaned forward and slid his legs together before pushing up slowly into a handstand. "What's going on with him? Girl trouble? Family trouble? Failing singing class?"

[Aiden Mumble]

That was pretty decent dadvice. Aiden bit her lip as he spoke, trying to picture how she might apply what he said to her situation. She liked the idea of giving Mordred space, but maybe that was just her selfishly not wanting to deal with it. Mordred definitely needed help and he needed to want to get better before he could, but Aiden was just mostly worried he'd try to end it all again and she wouldn't be there to stop it. She hadn't told anyone else yet what had happened. It didn't feel like her secret to reveal. Not to mention some people deserved to be angry at Mordred and if she told them they wouldn't be able to resolve that well because they'd be too worried about him. However, if she didn't tell people then she felt it was solely her responsibility to look after him and she couldn't sand next to him every moment of every day. What was he doing right now?

Aiden fought the urge to check her phone. She'd left it in her bad in the kitchen anyhow. This was for the best. She'd come here to try and take a quick break from all that. Still, that felt terribly selfish too. Aiden didn't like the words like 'caring' and 'love' her father was using, these were things Aiden usually avoided outside family, but she felt like she'd made it clear to Mordred that she didn't want him to be gone. Was that enough? She couldn't begin to fathom how to word a caring speech to the man.

She watched Mumble easily transition into a handstand and felt a spike of jealousy. He made everything look so easy. She let the feeling pass. She let herself lay all the way down and began half heartily stretching her arms. She stared at the ceiling. "A lot of things are going on with him. Girl trouble is definitely a part of the problem." she said. She thought about it for a second then added. "I am not the girl trouble, by the way." She eye'd her father suspiciously, wondering if that was what he was thinking.

[Mumble]

It was good to hear that she wasn't the girl this person was having trouble with. That would have involved Mumble inevitably having to ask Aiden if she was pregnant, which...given current events, might have been catastrophically awkward for both of them. "Well, hey, there's that," he said, giving her a reassuring smile, tipping over slowly to let his feet back down onto the floor. "Alrighty. Think you're all limbered up? I want to try something, but it involves some alternating steps and I need two people to get it right."

He tapped his phone to start the song over (it was on repeat, but he didn't feel like waiting for it to circle back around to the beginning). "Okay, so this bit is just like...the intro, group one is doing a thing with these real floaty scarves." He held a hand out to help Aiden up off the floor. "C'mon, get up here, kiddo."

He was trying his hardest not to pressure her too much on this; he had learned over the years that being too invasive with questions and too pushy with his curiosity into Aiden's life never worked out well. "You know," he added, already moving to the music a little, like he was physically unable to keep from doing so when there was a beat to be felt, "Sometimes, people also need help, but it's not help you can give them. That's one of the hard lessons, too, is when you need to push somebody towards a solution that you might not even be involved in."

[Aiden Mumble]

She should have let him think she was the girl trouble. At least then the conversation should have been lengthened and there was a chance of postponing this moment. Mumble wanted to dance. Of course he did. Aiden want to dance too, but not with company. There was no avoiding it forever, but she began to feel sick to her stomach as the reality set in that she was either going to have to participate or disappoint her father further. She tried to think of a million excuses, but most of them only caused more issues. If she said she was injured her might freak out. Plus she hadn't been showing any signs of an injury up until now so it would probably be hard to pull off. She sat up and pulled her knees into her chest, maybe if she just never stood up he wouldn't notice.

She couldn't help but picture the scarves moving to the beginning of the music as her father mentioned it. She could see it working beautifully and her body itched to be a part of it, but her anxiety kept her seated until Mumble went to pull her up. "Dad I really don't..." she lost her breath mid complaint and stood anyhow. What was she going to say? I don't feel like dancing? Yeah that was sure to go over just swell with her father. fighting it was harder than just going with it for now.

She grabbed her elbows, looking uncomfortable despite her best efforts. "Yeah...yeah I guess so" She agreed softly, her mind taken once again away from the studio and back to Mordred. Where was she supposed to push him, though? Rehab? Therapy? Maybe she just needed to push him toward someone that could help him better. Maybe Tristian. Somehow that still felt like she was just pawning him off on someone else.

[Mumble]

Mumble might not have been the best parent in the world, but he wasn't stupid. He could tell that she probably wasn't in the mood for dancing, but he was of the opinion that the times you didn't want to dance were the times you needed to dance the most. Nothing could purge bad feelings and emotions out of your system like dancing adrenaline. He gave her a little pat on the back as he helped her to her feet.

"I know," he said. "Sometimes you don't dance because you want to, you dance because there's nothing else you can do." He tapped one foot, keeping time with the beat as it came in. "I'm gonna do like so..." He shuffled out, then back in, finishing with something of a lunge that ended with one hand on the floor, the other arm extended behind him in the air, almost as if he was poised to take off running. "And then I'm thinking you do that at the same time, but instead of the arm down, you're going to put a foot there, and I'll push you into a back handspring."

He considered that for a minute. "Or...maybe you do the first bit, and I'll do that, I'm not trying to get you to jump right back into all the tumbling right away. I don't know how much you do this stuff off at school. Maybe that's what your friend needs, he needs to go to the gym and spend some time on a trampoline. That always makes me feel worlds better." He was only half joking.

[Aiden Mumble]

Though he wasn't unusually harsh, Aiden crumpled a tiny bit against his hand on her back. Everything about the idea of what was to follow made her feel defensive and afraid of human contact. Despite the fact that she knew it could be comforting if she gave into it, her instinct was to pull back. She made a face at his words, but it wasn't her normal eye roll or sarcastic glance. She was shewing on her lower lip. She felt like she was seven and he was trying to teach her something she'd tried to learn twenty times already. She'd felt disappointing then. Surely her amazing father had learned that move in under a minute. He was just being kind, he was hiding the aching in his heart. He was hiding the fact that he loved her less each time she failed. She was older now, she knew for certain her father loved her. Yet, she never shook the idea that he might love her more if she was just a little better.

Even though his words were a little dance obsessive, Aiden understood them. He made it sound like there was never a time to not dance, which she was pretty certain her truly believed, but the rest of the world had mostly different ideas. Aiden thought she might be able to name a few situation in which dancing couldn't be the answer, but it wasn't worth trying to explain that to Mumble. Aiden was rapidly approaching a breaking point in her life. She felt desperation like a haggard claw ripping at her chest, trying to climbs its way out of the darkest part of her heart. She didn't want to dance, but it was starting to sound like it was the only thing she could do. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Nothing lasts forever. She could survive the next few minutes at least.

Aiden watched him with a careful expression, there was no telling weather she thought the move was good or not. She was too busy trying to muster up the courage to do a decent job when he asked her too. Then something odd happened. He told her what to do and then reconsidered. He offered her the easier part in her eyes. Aiden furrowed her brow. Was he doing this on purpose? Did he really think she couldn't do it or was he simply challenging her? Either way it was working. She felt a fire spark inside her. She could do a back handspring that was nothing, she could do a back handspring from the time she was five. He couldn't have known that she was keeping up with her dance vigorously on her own, despite whatever her teachers had her doing. She ignored his comment about what Mordred might need, obsessing over the fact that he was already assuming she may not be able to do things up to his standard.

"I can do the back handspring." she said, trying not to sound too offended. She did not do an amazing job. She moved parallel to him. Watching for his next instruction with a newfound determination.

[Mumble]

When Mumble was sad, he danced, when he was angry, overjoyed, lonely, frustrated...dancing was still the answer. It always had been, and he couldn't imagine a better way to cope with emotions. And Mumble, as his family had learned long ago, was a very emotional person. Aiden seemed upset, and it did not occur to him for even a second that the dancing might be the cause of that instead of the solution to it.

She seemed indignant that he'd tried to spare her the more difficult part of the choreography, and he winced. He hadn't been trying to offend her, he'd just wanted to make sure he hadn't been harboring unreasonable expectations about her practice routine at school. "Okay, okay," he agreed readily. "Just...don't want to assume, you know, I know you're busy at school and have a lot going on, you might not have time to be practicing handsprings." He gave her a little nudge. "Let's try it then, huh? You wanna go back right at...five, six, seven, eight, right there."

He moved back over to his original position and moved the song back. "This is gonna look so cool with the lights and everything. You know, we've taken second place in this competition three years in a row now, I think it's about time we took it all the way." He glanced back over at Aiden. "So, scarves, scarves, waving, etcetera, there's a fog machine, did I mention that? Anyway, yeah..." He swayed slightly through the slower intro portion of the music, then went into the first segment of the dance.

"There's this, which is everybody all at once, and then the scarves go away, and Bo and Atticus, that's you and me, come in right...now." He executed the steps he'd shown her, dropping down just as he'd demonstrated before, poised to launch her into the handspring.

[Aiden Mumble]

Aiden had nothing to say when he initially responded. He was backtracking and he was probably telling the truth. He just didn't want to assume anything. Yet Aiden didn't feel any comforted. Of course she was keeping up with her dance. It was because she was so busy with class and drama and her many bad habits that she had to keep up with her dancing. If she didn't do her daily routines either hidden away in her room or in some momentarily abandoned part of the school she would have lost her mind a long time ago. Not to mention her occasional covert performances at the club. Still all those bad habits worked against her both mentally and physically. Sometimes she simply couldn't do something because her muscles hadn't received anything but hard liquor that day. Today she'd at least managed to get some food in her. She should be fine. She was going to do this back handspring no matter what.

Her father launched into what the dance was going to look like. He was so excited. This was his element. This was why she had always wanted to be a dancer like him. He made it really hard to me stoic and irritated when he was ranting about scarves and fog machines. She had to purse her lips to hide a smirk. She was determined. She was focused. Besides, she could picture it perfectly. It would be an amazing dance, it was just that he got so excited about these things. Aiden didn't have that kind of energy anymore. She lost it somewhere between twelve and thirteen. The darkest days of every kids life.

Five. The song was reaching the point in which they were supposed to start and Aiden felt her heart race. Don't think about it, just do it, she said over and over in her head. Six. Her dad was doing his own thing, why should she assume he was going to give her a twelve point critique on a single eight count? Seven. He was dancing too, he wasn't standing at the front to see how she did. All she had to do was not fall on her face. She could do this. Eight.

She followed him in perfect unison. She placed her foot in his hand and gracefully landed the handspring.

She did it. She did it all right. She hadn't fallen or misstepped. It was ok. So why was her head swimming? Why was her heart still pounding for more than the energy she'd just exerted? She instinctively grabbed at her chest. She felt dizzy. Why was this happening? She'd done it right! Everything should have been fine. She dropped to her knees. She felt like she couldn't breathe. What was happening, why couldn't she stop it? The idea that her father would notice at any second made it worse. She raised a hand to her head in a lame attempt to hide her face as she gasped for air.