[Samuel x Roman]

h u g o​

Hugo gave Letha a soft smile. She was always so sweet, that's why he got on with her so well. She knew how to not take things to far and was just naturally a very kind person, she would never do anything mean or purposefully hurt him, and even knew how to be sensitive towards him not always being able to join in on things even if she didn't know why.

"Yeah but still check with your mum and make sure, because it'd be really fun if you could come," Kristen added to Letha's statement. Hugo knew she didn't mean anything bad by saying so at all. If anything she was trying to make sure he knew they wanted him there. But it just made him guilty for lying and for never being able to do fun things with them.

"Yeah I'll try," Hugo said with a small shrug and then proceeded to go back to picking at his food while Kristen went on talking about what food she was planning on having at her sleepover, unknowingly just making Hugo more sad about not being able to go. He wouldn't say it though, she didn't know and it wasn't her fault.
 
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Letha was a bit of a slow eater, so everyone else had finished their lunch far before she and Hugo did. Someone suggested a game of tag so they got up to play and told the two still eating that they were more than welcome to join in when they finished if they liked. Letha thanked them, then shifted over to sit next to Hugo while they finished off their lunches.

"I think it'd be super awesome if you could come on the weekend," Letha said as she opened her teddy biscuits and plucked one out of the package. "But if you really can't come then it's fine. We understand. Please don't feel bad about missing out on things like this, we all still love you a whole lot."

Letha turned to give Hugo a big smile, but that smile faltered as she saw the bruises developing on his neck. A feeling of worry pierced through Letha, though at her age she couldn't help but assume it was just the result of a slip or a tumble. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Letha asked him, very concerned, as she lifted her fingers to the afflicted skin.
 
h u g o​

Hugo felt like his blood turned to ice the moment Letha mentioned his bruises. When she reached out to touch them. He quickly pushed her hand away and readjusted his collar to hopefully cover the bruise more while saying, "It's nothing!" a little too harshly.

It almost felt like he had gotten caught doing something really, really bad. But he hadn't, he hadn't done anything so hed to calm down or Letha would find out and then he would have actually have done something wrong and--

He took a deep breath and made sure to talk as normally as possible, "...I fell when going down the porch stairs yesterday when me and my mum were gonna go shopping, it's just bruise though, no biggie."
 
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Letha listened to Hugo's explanation of his bruise, and while his version of the events was entirely possible and she had no reason to believe that what he was saying was not true. Except, of course, for his entire demeanour and the way he freaked out when she mentioned the markings.

It all just made Letha feel quite apprehensive and nervous. People didn't act like that when someone noticed their injuries. People didn't freak out as though they were afraid of the consequences of someone finding out that they were hurt. It just didn't make sense and it made Letha sick with worry.

"Hugo," she said in a small voice, "you can tell me if something's going on. I don't want you to be hurting or suffering ... is everything okay?"
 
h u g o​

"I..." Hugo bit his lip and his heart was beating almost painfully hard in his chest. What if he just told her? Maybe he could convince her to just not tell anyone else, and then he'd at least be able to tell someone, have someone who knew exactly why he couldn't come to Kristen's sleepover or anything else for the matter...

But no. He couldn't. Because if he did tell her she probably would tell someone and Hugo didn't want that. As much as he hated being home and wished his mum wouldn't get so angry, he didn't want to be taken from her. Or for nothing except her finding out he told someone to happen. That'd be terrible.

"I'm fine, Letha, thank you," he said, voice less defensive but also a little quieter, "I'm sorry for overreacting, I just know it looks kinda bad but I don't want people to think something weird happened when I just fell, you know? So I was already kind of nervous about that?" that didn't sound too far-fetched in Hugo's opinion. Letha knew he got nervous petty easily, hopefully, she wouldn't question it.
 
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Letha knew she had no reason to feel guilty, but she did, because she knew that Hugo was keeping something from her. What exactly she did not know, but she could just feel in her very bones that there was more to the story than what he was letting on. And that was incredibly distressing to the young girl.

Letha had always tried to make sure that her friends and family knew they could talk to her if they had a problem. Yes she was very young, but her daddies had taught her to be kind and she knew that the first step to being kind was making sure that people knew she was open to help others.

But for whatever reason, Hugo didn't feel comfortable telling her what was wrong, and of course, Letha began to assume that that was her fault. That she had not made herself open enough for her friend. That she had failed at being kind.

But regardless, she gave him a small smile and rubbed his arm. "Okay," she said. "Just know that if you ever need to talk, I'm here, okay?"
 
s t e l l a​

High school was really kind of great in Stella's opinion. Maybe not always the school part because those were boring, but the people were a lot more fun. As shitty as it might sound to some people Stella had been glad to start high school and make a bunch of new friends. It wasn't like her primary friends were bad people, she was still friends with some of them, but in high school, it felt like she had found her people. People who really got her. People who got that fashion didn't need to be what was on the shelves on h&m and knew that just because music was played regularly on the radio meant it was good.

"Juuune, shut up," Stella complained loudly as they were making their way to music class, her, Edie and June. June was the person who got her the most, she had met him at the beginning of the school year and now they were best friends. His name wasn't actually June, it was Jeremy, June was his last name, but one of the older kids they talked to found out his last name was Jn and they had thought it was cool so he had gone from JJ to June and he had not complained.

"What? I'm just saying your daddy's probably gonna be on hell of a teacher," it wasn't all that long since June found out Stella called her daddies Daddy and Papa at home, and he seemed to think it was very funny, but in a goodnatured way. Like he didn't think she or her siblings were dumb for calling their dads that, more the fact that she had kept it a secret. She wasn't ashamed of her dads or anything, she had just not really known what to call them, she had called Papa Samuel her first day and he had been really upset and she had been upset because he didn't get why she did it. Now she just called them both dad in school, but she still called them Daddy and Papa at home.

"Eden, tell him to stop," Stella insisted. Eden did not seem to like high school as much as her and that saddened her a lot. Earlier in the school year, they had found out Eden was actually getting picked on and she had felt terrible for not knowing. She wished she could keep an eye on him always, but she just couldn't. The least she could do was let him hang out with her and her friends, which was fine because Eden was great anyways.

"Stop teasing, June, Stella's gonna cry," Eden said with a small grin on his face.

"aww I can't argue with Eden, he's a sweetie," June laughed as they got to their classroom and entered, a couple of students were there already, but they were early, they always came to music class early and stayed late because it was their favourite. It seemed like Daddy, who would be filling in for their regular teacher, since they had fallen sick very suddenly and they had not had the time to find another sub that could come in on such short notice.

"Wow, you're stopping because of Eden? Not because I'll cry, you're the worst," June just grinned in response.
 
r o m a n
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Roman absolutely loved owning his tattoo parlour and he wouldn't trade it for the world. But, he also loved subbing at Samuel's school if they were ever in need of a music teacher. It didn't happen often, as most of the time when a substitute was needed they would just get one of the other teachers to cover. But sometimes they didn't have enough staff, and hence, Roman would get a call.

Today was one of those days. Roman had already taught a couple of classes that morning, and now he was writing on the board as he prepared for his next one. Luckily they were in between units, therefore Roman wouldn't be teaching anything new or anything, and hence he would likely just get to teach the kids how to play some random song as a large band.

He knew that his younger son and older daughter were both in this class. Roman hadn't subbed at all when Harper had started school, so he didn't really have the best idea of how to act around his children in a high school environment. But he had decided that he wouldn't treat them any differently than he would another student. He wouldn't ignore his parentage to them either, but he simply wouldn't just make a big deal out of it.

He turned when he heard some students enter and luckily, it was his two kids and their friend first. "Hey, guys," he said to Stella and Eden with a smile. "Have you had a nice day?"
 
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s t e l l a​

"Yeah," Stella said, grinning at her dad. She was a little nervous about having him teaching them, because he hadn't done that before and as much as she loved her dads both of them had a tendency to be a little overbearing and affectionate. Papa knew how to act in school though, he was their teacher and their dad in equal parts but knew how to act to not single them out, while also always being a good parent and making sure they were alright. Stella hoped Daddy would be the some or that he had talked to Papa or something, so it would be fine but it was still cause for being nervous.

Despite being a little unsure of the situation though she was also excited, her Daddy was the best musician she knew, and she knew Emmie's dad who was an actual Rock-star and made really cool music. It would be cool to see what he had them do.

The tree tweens sat down to wait for class to start while still talking to their substitute teacher slash dad slash friend's dad.

"Stella has totally not been able to shut about you teaching all day," June called his friend out happily. June had obviously met Papa, but not Daddy as much. They tended to hang out in public places after school because they were allowed to now. But June definitely seemed to think Roman was cool, with his piercings and whatnot. June was pretty alternative and cool too,currently he had a black streak in his bangs and when he wasn't in uniform he mostly wore black like Daddy did.

"No I have not," Stella said, cheeks a little flushed because her dad didn't know she had been half bragging about him all morning, it'd just feed his already huge ego.

"They both have," Eden laughed, calling them both out on their bullshit.
 
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Roman chuckled -- the kids were so adorable. "Well, just know that no matter how much you two brag about me, you'll never be able to brag more than I will about myself," he told them sweetly. He would have elaborated, but suddenly the door opened and more students began to file in, and thus, Roman quieted down.

Once he was pretty sure all the students had arrived, he marked the roll and then clapped his hands together as he addressed his class. "Alright, hi, guys," he said cheerfully. "So, my name is Mr Hemlock-Ortega, as you can see on the board, but I know it's a bit of a mouthful so you can call me Roman if you like."

"Wait, isn't there already a teacher called Mr Hemlock-Ortega?" some bright young spark asked, clearly quite dumbfounded.

"Well, yes, but that's Samuel, and I'm Roman," Roman explained. "We're married. He's my husband."

The kid, a skinny blonde dude Roman was pretty sure was named Walker, turned his dumbfounded expression to the twins. "And it's your name, too ..."

"Yes, Stella and Eden are my kids," Roman said. But he did not linger on the topic at all, because he knew that the twins did not want that. "Alright, guys, so as you know, you just finished a unit. I thought we could just have a chill lesson and we could learn a new song as a band, rather than start the next topic without your teacher here to introduce it properly."
 
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Stella wasn't sure what to say or do when the topic of the shared surnames came up. She didn't mind attention, she was like her Daddy in that way a lot of the time, but it was always different when the attention was about something you felt unsure of. She imagined Eden would feel worse, but then again, he seemed more okay with being babied by their dads still. Stella liked to think that she was more independent. And thus she would have maybe preferred if no one had mentioned it and people would have drawn their own conclusions after the fact.

But it was as it was and she couldn't really do anything. The subject was left, or rather derailed from, by Daddy anyways and he described what they'd do in class. It sounded really fun and judging by the positive sounding whispers around the classroom, or at least around the seats closest to Roman where most of the people who were interested were seated.

June's hand shot up into the air and he decided for himself that he was allowed the word, he did that a lot, especially in music class, because he knew his shit in there, but also in other classes, whether he knew the answer or just did it to say some dumb joke. Some teachers tolerated it others hated it, Stella thought it was pretty funny, "What are we playing?? And can we decide what instrument we wanna play?"
 
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"Well, before we decide on what song we should play, I think we should assign people to instruments," Roman said to June. "Okay, who in here can play the drums?"

Just as he had in that lesson he had subbed for all those years ago, Roman proceeded to assign instruments to the kids who volunteered, could play, or otherwise expressed an interest. He put Stella and June both on guitar, but since he didn't want to look like he was playing favourites, he let some other guitar players have the first turn on the electrics, meaning Stella and her friend were on acoustic. He did, however, let Eden have piano, though he assigned another girl to play beside him. After that, he assigned random students to the other acoustics and basses, and then took a seat at the front of the room.

"Alrighty," he said, clapping his hands together. "Does anyone have an idea of what they might want to play? Any suggestions at all?"
 
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A silence spread across the room as none of the young teens seemed to really want to admit what they listened too, at least not enough to listen to it repeatedly for the upcoming hour. Even Stella felt a little iffy about that, and she normally wouldn't shut up about music. Finally, after a moment or two, June raised his hand and gave himself the word once again, "Does it have to be something everyone already knows, because I can't think of any of those, but like we could do like Two Birds by Regina Spektor, or something"

Eden perked up at the mention of it and went, "I know it, I could show Mariah the cords," his voice was a lot quieter than June's, he wasn't really one to speak out of turn but he really did love music and Stella was proud of him for speaking up when he knew something despite being shy.

June nodded and then turned back to Roman, "it's mostly piano and drums but the chords on guitar are pretty easy, and you could just do down strums and it'll still fit the song, same with the electric, you could maybe let it ring and it'll sound pretty atmospheric and fit the song,"
 
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Roman was quite surprised with June's proclivity towards music, but he was heavily impressed, and he gave the boy an approving look to say so. Clearly Stella had picked up some good friends in high school -- anyone who was good at music was pretty fucking rad, in Roman's humble opinion.

"That sounds like a good idea, June," Roman said. He was familiar with the song already, but he played it for the rest of the class on the speakers so they could get an idea of the song that they would be playing. "Does anyone have any complaints?" Roman asked. After all, it was good to get the feedback of the class before they committed to a decision.

No one said anything so Roman clapped his hands together once more. "Alrighty. Who wants to have a go at singing?"
 
s t e l l a​

Once again Roman was met by silence. It should be expected seeing as they were a group of young teens, all kind of fearing being judged by everyone else, no matter how confident you were tweens cold kind of be nasty, and messing up while singing was a lot different from messing up while playing an instrument.

Suddenly June spoke, Stella almost expected him to volunteer, he was a good singer after all, but instead, he spoke quietly and nudged Stella's arm, "you should do it,"

"What, no?" Stella whispered back, though the people close to them could definitely hear in the quiet room, and a girl named Anna who Stella wasn't friends with but with whom she was friendly, shot her an encouraging smile, "You've sung in class before, you're really good,"

Stella's cheek flushed a little, it wasn't like she thought she was bad, it was just embarrassing to stand in front of the class and sing when her dad also was there, plus she didn't like the idea of messing up either, "It's a hard song to sing at some parts,"

"You'll be fine," June encouraged her, and finally Stella sighed and raised her hand while speaking, faking a bored and maybe slight annoyed tone, to pretend as if she would have wanted someone else to sing even though it was to hide the fact that she felt kind of nervous about it, "I can do it," she said, "But only if no one else wanna do it, and I don't wanna play the guitar at the same time, if that's cool?"
 
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Roman looked over at Stella when she offered to sing. He could tell that his daughter was nervous, which was not good, because he wanted his little girl to be as happy as humanely possible at all times and therefore, nervousness was not good whatsoever.

But maybe singing in front of her class and showing off her skills would allow her to gain a little confidence, so he gave her a reassuring nod and handed her the microphone. Since there were no other students to take the guitar Stella forfeited, Roman carried it back to his desk and perched himself upon it so he could fill the role instead. Technically, they didn't really need this many acoustics, especially since they were all playing the same notes.

But really, he just wanted to play the guitar.

"June, do you want to lead us in?" Roman asked the boy from his place at the front. "Since you recommended the song?" And since he seemed to be quite confident and sure of himself.
 
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"sure," June said, clearly having no issue with it, Stella just felt more nervous because the singing was supposed to start right away and it was hard to time it and that made her nervous, but June, being the good person and friend he was seemed to be able to pick up on it, and spoke directly to her "I'll do the first chords as an intro, jump in when you're ready," and the to the other people playing, "same with you guys,"

Stella nodded and made herself prepared, June counted down, knocking gently on the wood of the guitar, and then begun strumming. Nothing impressive, just simple down strums, Stella knew he could do better but he was doing what fit the song, while also playing in a band.

After he got to the fourth chord and was about to repeat the progression Stella took a deep breath, knowing that it would be worse to wait longer and began to sing at the same time as Eden, or Mariah started to play, "Two birds on a wire, one tries to fly away and the other-" her voice was matching that of Regina Spektor's quite well at the moment, a little lighter because she was younger maybe but it had the same kind of feel to it, in part because she was doing her best to emulate the song, and because that was how she usually sung.

It was maybe a little shaky at first though, due to nerves. She knew she was a good singer, and even if she wasn't genetically related to the good singers in her family they had been there to show her, and Eden too on occasion, how to better her singing voice. She and daddy would practice, and she'd sing with Allison when she was over. As the song progressed and she gained some confidence, in part because the rest of the band joined in so she felt less alone, the shakiness disappeared and she revealed how good she actually were, even nailing the longer more showy notes towards the end.

Soon enough the song came to a close, and Stella repeated the first words from the song softer, at this point completely wrapped up in the moment, no longer nervous, and just loving to express herself through music, it really was great. But as everyone stopped plying and there was a moment of silence before people started to clap for everyone's performances Stella felt her face flush a little and she got a tad self-conscious again. She was usually one of the confident siblings, but even she got nervous when she was put in situations she wasn't used to at all.
 
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Roman would have loved and adored his children regardless of any traits they had or hobbies they enjoyed. But he couldn't help but love that the twins both loved music, Stella especially, since she seemed to channel his adoration for singing as well. It made him feel like he had passed something down to his kids, even if he couldn't do so genetically, because they couldn't deny that Stella and Eden had obviously seen him engage in music and wanted to do the same.

When the song came to a close, Roman, along with everyone else, clapped for all of the performances. He was genuinely proud of all of the kids, but especially Stella, because he knew she didn't have the ingrained confidence he had and that it would have taken her a lot to perform like that in front of a group of her peers.

"Good job, everyone!" he said, just as the bell rang to signal the end of the class. He helped the kids put the instruments away, and when he got the chance he leaned in to Stella to murmur to her, "I am so proud of you, sweetie." Because he completely and truly was, and that would never change.
 
h u g o​

Hugo was really trying to make sure his friends couldn't tell he had been feeling a little down lately, but he felt like he was failing. It was kind of since around that time Kristen had her sleepover that he had started to just kind of take a step back. His friends were great and they always tried to include him, so that wasn't why he was doing it. It was just hard for him to keep up with being happy and a part of every conversation when other things were on his mind.

Things had been pretty bad at home lately, he supposed it was maybe his own fault. He had really wanted to go to Kristen's sleepover and he had tried to get the point across that he was older and should be allowed more responsibility, but it hadn't really gone over well.

Today it was any normal weekday, Hugo was out with the others during recess, one of the final ones before the school year was up, but had decided not to join in as the other played foursquare. He had a limp he had been hiding pretty well, but that would definitely show when playing, and he was pretty achy in general, with a few bruises here and there, though he was pretty sure they weren't super visible. Letha noticing one of them a while back had really made him paranoid though, and knowing he had one or two on his arms he had decided to wear a hoodie on top of his uniform, which was a bad decision because it was very very warm out and he was dying, but at least he was just sitting on the sidelines in some shade, watching as Kristen and Letha and everyone was bouncing a ball between some squares on the asphalt.
 
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Letha was having a lot of fun playing four square with her friends, but something felt off, and that was the fact that Hugo was sitting off to the side, wearing a hoodie despite the suffocating heat of the world around them. It wasn't like him to sit out on such activities, nor was it like him to just wear a heavy garment despite the heat.

So, Letha, after playing for a while, decided she would go and check on her friend. She told the others what she was doing and then went to sit beside him. She first pulled a juice box out of her lunchbox, though, and handed it to her friend so he could have some form of hydration.

"Hey, have this, you look so thirsty," she said to Hugo with a sympathetic smile. "How come you're sitting out? And how come you're wearing that? Aren't you really hot?"
 
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