Chapter 62: [16] A Rock & Family Vacation 16 [Mystery Rock Arc]

A Rock and Family Vacation

[16]

“I’m back!”

Even though Brooke knew so many steps along the way that her eldest was alright and updated her constantly, the cooling, healing relief and release of seeing her open the front door and return with several large bags was the greatest feeling she could imagine.

Blair hadn’t spent too long away, no more than she had when shopping with Clare, even though that was definitely a lengthy outlier in her shopping history. She and her eldest both subscribed to efficiency when it came to stores. It had to be something she picked up from dealing with catalogs and ordering. Her mother encouraged her to look through the glossy pages but would also snatch them up, without warning, and keep them captive for days on end.

Eliot hustled over and helped Blair put the stick away and spread out everything. Lacy venomously narrowed her eyes at the billowing, white plastic bags. When Blair texted her about providing more information at the store, Brooke attempted it from a few different angles.

She cozied up to Lacy and tried to lull her into a calm state before attempting that first photograph. As a mom, she was used to some degree of trickery. Like convincing little Lacy that the big scary shot next to her shoulder was gone and they were going to try something different, all while she cradled her son’s head and made him look her in the eye before the jab came. The problem was it usually only worked once against wounded his trust.

To get Lacy to agree this time required a full abundance of dinner bribery with promises they would order delivery of her favorite cut of ribeye from the nearest steakhouse, tiny fibs about not removing the robe, and blocking her exits of escape. It was frankly a miracle to her that she managed to get all that information. And Lacy actually said that she forgave her, so long as she got a big hunk of the special cheese to go with her steak, she got to pick the movie before bed, and she could use the big bed at least one night. Not Blair‘s bad, the master bed. Easy enough terms.

What Blair presented first were Lacy‘s outfit for tomorrow and a “decent diner” bra. For extra confusion, Blair audibly proclaimed her analogies without context. Lacy waved her hands and grumbled. She didn’t wanna see any of it till tomorrow when she put it on for the least time required and took it off as soon as the obligation was fulfilled.

“And I got you a gift, with my own money.” Lacy looked confused and announced, “If it’s anything to do with clothes and not like the best game ever, then you totally wasted your money, bro.”

Blair curled a finger around her chin and consider things a moment before announcing, “This contains a proud and vehement proclamation of everything related to boyishness with colorful chaos and my sensibilities. This is from my heart to you to express so much.”

Lacy clung to a wary expression as her lips wiggled like a passive fish, sounding out and replaying everything her sibling just said. For a split second, wide-eyed curiosity and demure appreciation seemed to flash through Lacy.

Once it passed, she narrowed her eyes, sighed, and questioned, “Is it some sort of boob holder with like coconut fur that makes them look like a hairy nutsack?” Brooke flashed Lacy a glare but didn’t press her on her language with Clare at the other end of the couch, though wrapped up in the climactic third act of the animated film.

Blair smiled with her hands under her chin and informed her sister, “Even better than that.” Lacy tried to appear thoroughly disinterested, but her eyes kept wandering to the nondescript box. Blair avoided drawing attention to her swimsuit and instead focused on the various support measures she found. Brooke raised her eyebrows when listening to her daughter’s account.

She settled into a certain style of outfits since her brutal junior high years. Her father wanted a certain decorum around the office but also relished pushing her towards certain looks. No pantsuits, skirts required. But she was able to amass multitudes of mock skirts with fancy ornamentation. Rebellion in small, deniable measures. With regard to bras, she knew about what Blair discovered.

She just tended towards sports bras and standard padded because they were the types her father liked seeing on women the least, especially her mother. Brooke delighted in the fact that her eldest embraced her own style with what to wear. The problem was this all felt too fast.

Yes, the girls needed essential clothing for the country club, and she lamented her bias towards Clare with a full fashion deep dive. Blair had to do it alone and with her own funds, which Brooke assured her they would reimburse as soon as possible. Blair shrugged and expressed that it wasn’t that bad and, “The most expensive thing is my heartfelt gift to Lacy. I wanted to make sure it was good.”

Brooke glimpsed a fleeting blush tint Lacy’s cheeks before she turned and started rubbing it like someone flicked paint on her. She also noticed that Blair had the sort of reserved smirk when he was pulling something on his younger brother and didn’t want everyone to figure it out right away. However, Blair‘s face still appeared kindly. Maybe she was just reading too much into everything, but she desperately hoped that there wouldn’t be another crisis between her kids that she would have to resolve before it came to blows.

Blair once again showcased the country club outfits. Lacy cast a dismissive and disinterested glance while flashing her tongue. “Tomorrow, and only as stupidly necessary.” Brooke held and checked the clothes while noting that they had no idea if they would fit. Eliot offered that they looked nice. He watched Clare during the nutsack incident to make sure their youngest didn’t realize something inappropriate. Before a full load of this, combined with Clare’s new clothes, found its way into the fancy pants washing machine underneath the stairs, Blair gladly slipped into one of the bathrooms on the first floor and came out proudly wearing her discovery.

Swapped into one of the common, standard comfort bras, Blair said that she actually felt much more at ease with it than having to borrow clothes meant for someone else. Clare took this opportunity to ask when she would need to start wearing bras like her sisters.

More like a plea than a reassurance, Brooke pronounced, “Years. Several years from now. Assuming a lot of things about what we just don’t know and how things are going to go. So far off, you don’t have to worry about it.” Clare just accepted this as her legs wiggled on the couch and returned to the climactic scene of the movie.

Lacy suddenly bent forward like she was a punctured balloon mortally leaking air. Brooke had a sense of why. It had still been less than one day with things like this. Several years seemed impossible to contemplate when the next couple of hours felt in flux. But they still loomed.

If this was how things would remain, then the adjustment for her kids was going to be monumental compared to what she was struggling to handle. Years filled with days upon days of an entirely different life and way of living. She had imagined what it might be like to suddenly be transfigured into a man just to give her father the ultimate middle finger. But shouldering such a different place in society along with the altered headspace and all the other things she had no idea that she would need to know as a freshly minted man was truly terrifying.

Blair resisted this somber melancholy and dashed over to grab Lacy‘s arm. “Come on, bro. I spent so much time and plenty of money and you yourself went through the wringer to basically be there so we could find stuff for you. I gotta know if there’s anything I need to return.”

It took about the usual amount of persistent grabbing and dragging for Lacy to finally bother standing on her feet. She listlessly but obediently followed her big sister up the stairs and over to their shared bedroom.

Lacy eyed both beds and tiredly yawned. “So, what stupid trinket did you get me? A beating, fake heart? That’s all I can think of that fits your dumb explanation.”

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Instead of giving time for hints, allusions, and amusement, Blair got back into the all-business, let’s-get-moving-and-done clothing store mode. She tried to motivate with humming, but Lacy was a master at stubbornness. So, Blair gave up trying to push. She left it in Lacy’s hands and started sifting through the clothes she brought for the trip. It was a struggle that ultimately concluded in Lacy ambling over to her bed and grumbling, “Shut the friggin door and put something in front of it.”

Nonchalantly, Blair obliged but continued what she had been doing before. Lacy managed to stretch out every step of fiddling with the waistband of her robe to an excruciating degree. It was like an archaeologist gingerly unearthing some delicate fabric scrap left behind by an ancient human. By the time she appeared ready to touch the first new piece of clothing, Blair was done sorting everything.

Walking over to the closet, Blair hung everything she couldn’t use out of the way. At her feet, she checked the bag stuffed with all the insulating material and the rock responsible for all of this. To her confusion, she could see that the bag was open with the rock showing its rainbow shimmer. It should’ve been completely covered with the way she wrapped everything around it. Logically, she deduced that the bag must’ve shifted with the weight and the looser sections flopped down. However, the problem with that theory was that the bag was still positioned rigidly, it was just spread open to reveal the rock.

Having no clear answer to this quandary aside from the terrifying prospect that the rock might be able to move on its own, Blair cautiously plucked the rock out of the bag and turned it over a few times to see if there were any differences. None she could clearly distinguish. The little attached section seemed to have more wiggle to it, as if placed with an adhesive that was losing its stickiness. With the light in the room, the rock had a natural shimmer but nothing inexplicable.

Following up on her earlier thought, Blair touched the rock against her clothes in the closet. Nothing happened. Well, that exhausted her ideas. At the same time, she had another notion. It was a bit out there but no more than anything that had happened to them over the last day.

“Hello. I’m sorry for putting you inside that bag. We need to take you with us tomorrow and need to protect you. If you would rather not be in that bag, you’re free to leave it and I’ll carry you myself tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Naturally, Lacy voiced her immediate confusion and concern that Blair was talking to the closet and eventually put together what it meant. “You’re talking to the friggin rock! You’ve finally lost it.”

Blair could’ve explained her theory, but she was almost done with testing it. “I’m going to place you down in a minute but first, could you please change my clothing into something that fits me and feels comfortable?”

“Hey! I’m just gonna go talk to the wall for a bit… sup, Wally? Not much? I could’ve guessed that.” Blair resisted the urge to give Lacy a sigh of frustration. Instead, she touched the rock to her clothes again and watched for a moment as still, nothing changed. Following all that up with, “Thank you”, she set the rock back inside the bag but tipped it to the side so that it was free to leave if it wanted to go that way.

Although the prospect of letting such a precious item go made her heart race. Rationally, however, she knew that all this was just as ridiculous as Lacy was pointing out. But they were dealing with a rock that had radically changed their lives. No matter what might’ve seemed impossible, however unlikely, had to be examined as a possibility. She also left the closet slightly ajar before turning her attention to her sister.

“Done with your new friend yet? Mine is totally talking my head off.“

“The clothes aren’t going to bite you, but I might.”

Lacy motioned like she wanted to run off and go tell their parents about that possible threat. Ultimately, she just glared. “I see zero reasons to put them on now when they’re only needed tomorrow.”

“Returns and mistakes in sizing.“ For an instant, a small part of Blair visualized slamming Lacy against the bed, then hog-tying her to a post to make her put the clothes on.

“It’s barely past lunchtime. How about you just tell everyone that it fits perfectly and then I’ll just figure it out before bed and if it’s wrong the store will probably still be open or whatever.

“I wanna make a wager. If you win, you can ask for anything, within reason, to last the rest of vacation. Me being your slave. Loan of anything of mine. Or any requests you make of me.”

Lacy immediately perked up. The faintest hint of drool slid toward her full lips, but she swallowed and rubbed her face. “So, what do I have to do?”

“Put on a specific item I bought you, without hesitation or complaint, and then wear it for at least a few minutes. If you don’t think it’s at all comfortable, then I lose. If you lose, then you have to try on the rest of the country club outfit and display it for mom and dad. And no further complaints about the clothes for the country club.”

Lacy had a vast array of questions to put forth ranging from which item to how long she had to wear the outfit outside of the event. Blair agreed to let her just switch to whatever clothes she wanted after fulfilling the basics.

“…Hmm. Seems like a lot. However, I don’t think there’s any way you can win. Therefore, … Deal, dear brother.”

With a snide smile, Lacy stuck out her delicate hand and Blair shook on it.

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