Soft...
Riley tossed gently in her bed, rolling onto her side as the faintest strands of consciousness started to force themselves onto her mind.
Bad brain, bad.
Bet it isn't even that late and you're just trying to get me out of bed.
Have you no shame.
With a soft groan she cuddled tighter underneath the wonderfully plush covers, bundling up tightly against the cool wall to shield herself from the rest of the world.
World cold and hard.
Bed warm and soft.
It's only simple math.
As much as her tired brain wanted to stop itself from waking her, each fevered thought only served to drive the wrench of awareness deeper into the cogs of the machine of dreams.
Too much fancy wording, not enough mental silence to try and fall asleep for just a bit lon-
*BOOOOOOOOOOM*
Well fuck that.
The sudden roar of thunder made her abandon any hopes of getting some more sleep, Riley forcing the covers off her face to at least try to figure out what happened.
Followed by strangling whichever natural force that dared force her awake like that.
Her new room looked... weird. Riley could just barely make out the brighter dots on the ceiling, but only just. It was dark, weirdly dark, not like during sunrise, but closer to-
*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Of course.
Riley groaned at her slow brain, craning her head towards the window, unsurprised to spot the glowing gray clouds on the other side, along with the uncountable number of rivulets of rain on the outer pane. She only now realized she's been subconsciously muting out the pitter-patter of the ongoing thunderstorm, the serenely quiet bedroom suddenly becoming that much noisier.
After cursing her ears for refusing to mute out the noise for the second time, she figured out she'd rather be somewhere else, the waning comfort of her bed quickly growing much less enjoyable with how off-putting the outside scenery was.
With a grunt she slid off her bed, quickly putting on some homely clothes and grabbing her phone, taking one last look around to see whether she'd forgotten anything before walking out into the corridor, surprised to see the lights being on already.
To her glee, she realized she wasn't the only one who got pulled out of bed by the sudden thunder, the door to Timmy's room opening as he slowly walked out, smiling and dashing up to Riley once he saw her.
"Hi Riley!" He squeaked out in relief as he held her legs once more, more than likely spooked by the sudden noise and the shade in his room, judging by his tail.
"Good morning Timmy. Hope that thunder didn't scare you too hard." She leaned in and ruffled his hair, appreciating their little ritual more and more with each go.
"A, a bit..." The kit obviously didn't want to admit to almost peeing himself because of the rumbling combined with how dark it suddenly was, just happy his big sister was now here.
"Awwh. Don't worry, let's get downstairs and see if anybody else is awake, alright?" She responded softly, reaching down to grab his paw as they turned towards the stairs, her question answered as she saw the downstairs light spilling onto the staircase.
Timmy rushed ahead, gasping in happiness once he turned the corner as they descended, Riley too surprised to ask what happened, only leaning over the hand rail to make sure the kit hasn't hurt himself before going down further herself, soon realizing what made him so suddenly excited.
Sitting at the dinner table, along with Ella sipping on her coffee, were Rick's parents. Marvin had apparently shed his bandana at some point between the photo on her phone being taken and now, revealing a surprising amount of silver hair reaching all the way down to his shoulders, Riley slightly envious.
By the time Riley had scaled the rest of the stairs, the kit was already scrambling onto his grandparents' laps, Liz having helped him onto hers, holding him tightly with one hand as the other scritched Timmy behind the ears, the excitable four year old being reduced into a blob of smiling fluff as he relaxed under her touch.
"Who's the cute pea, who's the cute pea?" She couldn't help but smile at the adorable display in front of her, the gran's holding hand adding its own tickles to the mix, Timmy flailing a bit as he couldn't stop giggling, Liz and Ella sharing Riley's growing smile as the teasing went on.
She didn't really want to interrupt the show taking place in front of her, leaning against one of the pillars as she stared at them unseen.
At least for an entire four seconds until Marvin finally spotted her.
"Riley, hello there!" His warm voice bellowed out, the rest of the adults immediately catching her as she tried to hide in plain sight, the embarrassed teen forced to join them at the table, waving a bit uncertainly.
As she took her seat next to Ella, Marvin extended his hand towards her, Riley a bit surprised but returning the gesture nonetheless as he introduced himself-
"So nice to meet you Riley, we've been looking forward to it for so long- but don't let me get ahead of myself- Timmy what was my name again?" He barreled out in one continuous stream of words, the kit having managed to catch the verbal ball he'd been thrown despite the ongoing tickling and giggling-
"Grandpa Marvin!" He squeaked out, rewarded with the namedropped grandparent reaching in to stroke behind his other ear, the tyke in utter bliss.
Riley chuckled at the cute interaction, shaking his hand-
"Nice to meet you Marvin. And you must be Liz?" She turned to the other grandparent, who briefly stopped her teasing of her youngest grandson as she looked up at Riley with a large, warm smile, extending a hand herself.
"Indeed sweetie. We're so happy to finally be able to pay you a visit Riley, how are you feeling?" She spoke so much slower than her husband, her tone relaxed despite the adorable chaos taking place on her lap, Riley quickly fixing up a response-
"I'm alright Liz, thankfully got some actual decent sleep despite this mess going on outside- and speaking of, how did you two get here so early?"
She chuckled at her granddaughter's question, continuing her teasing as Marvin cut in once more-
"When you get close to the third digit you start falling asleep earlier and earlier, while also waking up earlier and earlier. You become the anti-teen."
Riley and Ella chuckled at the joke, Timmy just tilting his head in confusion before another tickling motion brought him back into quiet giggles as Marvin went on-
"Most days we're both awake by five, and just decided today to not delay the ride, 'specially with that ugly storm outside. And good on us, the sky crashed down not even ten minutes after we got into the car, the nasty thing."
Riley nodded in response, another rumble crashing from outside cutting her off as she thought of a follow up, Ella taking a sigh and excusing herself as she got up towards the kitchen.
"Doubt the rest of the snoozing butts are gonna stay asleep for much longer with this going on outside, gonna fix us up some hot toast. Anyone want something to drink?"
"Milk!" Timmy managed to squeak out in between giggles, his mom nodding in acknowledgment as she headed off, taking several things out of the fridge. Riley's attention was dragged back into the discussion as Marvin asked her a question, his voice having softened a bit-
"So, how's getting used to your new place going Riley?"
"It's been going well, at the beginning there were some... kinks to work out, but I'm quite sure I'm past them now." She spoke slowly as she recalled the initial tension between her and Lily, and how it had since thankfully dispersed.
"That's great to hear!" He smiled widely at that, the presence of all his teeth surprising her a bit as he went on-
"Sure much faster than it took Ricky, haha." He chuckled warmly as he reminisced, Riley unwilling to let that mention go without digging into it further-
"Whattcha mean? Was Rick worse in this regard than me?"
Both grandparents laughed softly at her oblivious question, a flood of hilarious memories surging onto their minds as they quickly calmed down, Liz answering with barely held back giggle-
"Like you wouldn't believe. Spent the first three days or so locked up in his room, didn't even trust us with making food initially."
Riley noticed that Timmy has since slid off his grandma's lap, dashing off to help his mom out with toast, the girl's attention snapping back as Marvin couldn't waste such a wonderful chance for a quip-
"Neither do I with you at the pots, Ricky was more than right to fear your quiches!"
"Ex-cu-se me, at least *I've* been getting better at it while your meals get blander and blander every year!"
"Because your metric for blandness is how much salt and sugar the thing has! There are other flavors you know?"
"The wrong ones maybe!"
"Rick didn't trust you with food?" Riley finally brought up the elephant in the room, confused as to how her easy-going parent might have pulled something like that.
The grandparents stopped their quipping at the serious questions, turning back towards her as Liz answered-
"Aye. We didn't exactly have the benefit of the doubt Rick did with you, all he knew was that we were just a couple of strange humans taking in an anthro for god knows what reason. Understandable he was less than completely trusting of us, in amusing and... less-so ways."
Riley mulled over the answer, remembering how hostile she was towards Rick before he told her of his own past, wondering how did the Ashers deal with that, especially since he used to carry a knife as well.
"Can't imagine how much longer it would've taken me to open up if he hadn't told me his own story, yeah... wait, in the amusing ways?" She caught the unusual choice of words, Marvin chuckling and speaking up for his wife-
"Well, certainly amusing in hindsight at least. Since Ricky didn't trust us to not poison him, he snuck into the kitchen at night to actually eat something, after all can't feed on paranoia. That is, until Liz got woken up by the noise one night and found him panicking as he tried to put the pots back into the drawer, both just staring at each other for a while." He was clearly only barely holding back a giggle at the absurdity of the situation, Liz taking the torch as she continued-
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"Indeed, and then I just asked him- 'Richard, what are you doing in the kitchen at two AM?'. And that was the precise moment I learned that anthros blush too, it took him a solid minute or so just to fumble together some excuse that he was hungry. So, I went and made him a bowl of cereal as he just stared in embarrassment, and thankfully the situation put some pressure on him to actually start eating what Marvin cooked."
Riley couldn't help but giggle, for all her silly paranoia at least she didn't expect the people who went through all the trouble of adopting her to just go and poison her like that.
Wait...
"Richard?" She flat out asked, the name sounding so off despite it just being a natural long version of 'Rick'.
Both of Rick's parents chuckled at her realization, bursting into louder laughter as they looked towards the stairway, the devil himself having just stepped downstairs, quite disheveled.
"Hi mom, hi dad." He greeted them quietly, voice still noticeably groggy.
"Hello there, Richard." Liz answered, Riley barely holding back a laugh herself at Rick's reaction to that name, his face scrunching up behind his palms as he let out an embarrassed groan.
"Mooooooom, that was almost three decades ago!" He tried to defend himself, slowly waddling over and taking another seat at the table.
"Yes Richard. And?" His parents only had a bit more luck hiding their giggles than Riley, Rick himself looking towards Riley with an expression of 'help me out of this'.
Fortunately, she was a merciful daughter, at least taking their attention off teasing their son, at least directly.
"Why Richard? Never heard him use that."
"We sure did! As chill as he is now, you wouldn't believe how stuck up he was at the beginning, outright asking us to use 'Richard' instead of 'Rick', ain't I right Richard?" Marvin chimed in, looking Rick down with sparks of glee in his eyes.
Well that backfired.
The victim only groaned again, face buried in his paws as he reluctantly nodded, sliding them down enough to show his exasperated expression.
"Now, tell Riley what the first piece of clothing you bought was!" His dad kept piling on the embarrassment, Rick almost looking like he was willing to smash his head onto the table just to not have to listen any more, before taking a breath and uttering out-
"A shitty two-piece suit that didn't fit me in the slightest and which I just looked like a dumbass in." Fortunately, at least some of the tension left him as he admitted it to Riley, Liz quickly delving into her bag and laying out a thick photo album on the table, paging over to the relevant photo. It showed a much younger Rick standing straight with an absolute mess of a dress suit weirdly tapered over him, almost looking like it was deliberately arranged just to make him look dumb.
"Oh Jesus. That looks..." Riley could only start muttering out, unable to find a word that adequately expressed just how wrong of an idea that suit was.
"Awful?" Rick suggested, reaching over to the photo album and shifting pages ahead.
"Yeah, about that if not stronger." She responded offhandedly, leaning in as she tried to figure out what Rick was navigating towards in the photo album, before he elucidated her-
"Thankfully, the next suit I bought was much, much better-" He chuckled as he slid it in front of Riley, who couldn't resist a smile as she looked at his and Ella's wedding photo, both quite a bit younger and quite a bit leaner, and definitely that much cuter as a result. Plus, he actually had a well fitted suit this time.
"Aww. Have any more cute photos?" She asked sheepishly, deep inside preferring the sweet stuff over the schadenfreude, even if just to not have to wonder what kind of embarrassing things would Rick bring up with her kids in her time.
Assuming she'd have them, of course.
"This entire thing's just the sweet ones, go wild." Rick slid it over towards her, his parents chuckling as they saw her dig into the padded album, quietly shifting their chairs over to get a good look.
She flipped the photos backwards closer to the beginning of the aged album, smiling at the black and white photos of much, MUCH younger Marvin and Liz enjoying each other, be it just on the couch, out at the beach, or having dinner at a nice place.
Afterwards the photos gained some color and both lovers some years, the next few photos being still just them two, occasionally with some people that must've been friends, before one in particular caught her eye, of Marvin holding a canine anthro woman tightly, Riley raising her eyebrow before Rick chimed in-
"That's dad's sister, sweet aunt Mary. Has he told you about her yet?"
"Nah, I haven't..." Marvin answered, tone of his voice suddenly much less enthused about it.
"Did... did something happen to her?" Riley asked cautiously, realizing that the subject was suddenly much more serious.
"Oh no no, she's still around and kicking, it's not that..." Her grandfather quickly quelled her most obvious fear before explaining it in some more detail-
"It's just... while she was adopted, it wasn't like with you or Ricky, it wasn't an act of love, and it showed with how the rest of my family treated her afterwards."
The explanation only made Riley more curious, but she was still unsure whether she wasn't prying into too private of a subject.
"Sorry to keep that on but, not like me and Rick in what way?"
"Oh sweetie don't be sorry, you more than deserve to know, it's just... some rough memories with that." Marvin responded earnestly, Liz laying a hand on his shoulder as he gathered strength to continue-
"We found Mary sleeping on the doorstep of our synanogue one night, her parents kicked her out for... agh, doesn't matter, and she needed some cover from rain. Nobody was sure what to do with her afterwards, obviously everyone knew that just throwing her out would be certain death for her, but neither did anyone really want to care for her that or god forbid take her in."
He must've glanced at Riley's confused expression, answering her before she could even ask-
"Because she was anthro, pure and simple. They were... worse times. Fortunately my mother, bless her heart, managed to convince my father to take her in at least temporarily. But it wasn't for love, it was just to appease their consciences, and show just how good of people they were, ugh. Hypocrites, the lot of them." He snarled into the ether, Riley only having more questions.
"Was she treated badly?"
"Slept under the stairs, mostly just fed with leftovers, not allowed to go out or make friends or pretty much anything else. Probably would've been treated better at an actual homeless shelter had they taken in anthros at the time. And then when I left that family, I took Mary with me, we lived together for a while until she got on her legs and could start, you know, living."
Riley nodded as she chewed on the statement, feeling Rick's arm wrap on her shoulders as she went on, voice quiet and focused-
"Why'd you leave?"
He chuckled at that, but it definitely wasn't a chuckle of amusement, as much as her having finally noticed the most important bit of the puzzle.
"Well, because Liz, more than anything." He smiled a bit as he pulled her in closer, his wife holding him gently as he clarified-
"Suffice to say that my family wasn't any more keen on black people than it was on anthros, and when they found out I was with Liz, they as- no, ordered me to stop. Of course I didn't, just grabbed my car, grabbed Liz, grabbed Mary, and just left that horrid place, haven't even thought of looking back at it since, and swore to myself that I would be better than my father, in every way there can be."
Riley's face lit up a bit as she realized the relevant implication, asking-
"Including even with adoption?"
Both of the grandparents chuckled this time, thankfully happily and not anxiously.
"Aye! Mary suggested that all the way back as a joke, but the idea just refused to leave my mind, and once me and Liz had some money saved up I brought it up and, well, she agreed! And three months later, Ricky was already under our roof, and two months later still we took this!" He pulled the album closer to himself and went forwards by a handful of pages, the photo of both grandparents hugging the clearly embarrassed Rick from the sides making Riley's heart melt.
"He was still quite stuck up by that time, but finishing high school and meeting Ella helped with that plenty." Liz chimed in, Riley reaching an arm around Rick in return as she saw him crack a smile at that, the other grandparent shifting over to the next page.
"Awwwwww..." She cooed at the image of Rick being kissed on his cheek by Ella, his expression making it clear he hadn't been expecting it one bit, but was nonetheless one very happy skunk.
"Our first kiss, haha..." The skunk mom herself added, not wasting the opportunity to repeat the scene there and then, piling on one more smooch onto Rick's tally as she slid a large plate full of toast onto the table together with a glass of milk, Timmy having since rematerialized right next to Riley's chair, his sister pulling him onto her lap as they went through the photos.
There was the wedding photo again, and then one with Ella looking happier than Riley had ever seen her before in her wedding gown, four other skunkies hugging her from the sides, presumably her sisters, with the two youngest, apparently Wilma and Izzy, looking to be only around Riley's and Lily's age respectively.
To her surprise Timmy didn't start barreling out questions, presumably having seen these photos at some point earlier, just smiling widely as he grabbed a piece of toast and stared at the sweet photos.
The next few photos were more of the wedding, one particularly adorable one was of Izzy on Ella's lap, being held just like Riley was holding Timmy right now, only with much more blushing.
"Aww, Izzy, always a snugglebug. Hopefully I can get her to visit with her baby sometime soon, lil' snowflake definitely got the snuggling from her." Ella chimed in, sliding her chair as close as she could, Riley's side of the table hopelessly cramped by now.
Riley was briefly confused as to how could you possibly refer to a skunk as a snowflake before the last two missing voices called out from the stairs, the two sleepy siblings running up to hug their grandparents, Andrew in particular quietly moaning as Liz teased his ear, the sweet giant almost melting.
"Well good morning to you two too!" Marvin chuckled happily, pulling them both into a gentle hug as he got out of the chair, ruffling the two sleepyheads' hair.
"Hey Gran, hey Marv!" Lily called out happily as she enjoyed the group hug, gasping in excitement as she saw the photo album already busted out onto the table, scrambling over to grab a chair for herself and join in on the reminiscing, reminding Riley to grab one of the toasts as she took one herself.
"Sorry it's been a while sweeties since the last time, so many things popped up between then and now, but that's all been dealt with, and now..." Liz spoke softly as she kept teasing Andrew, other hand reaching into her sizable handbag and pulling out a handful of the smaller bags of the peanut butter candy, passing one to each sibling, the skunk ones having accepted the gift much more enthusiastically.
The last sibling standing didn't waste any time in looking around for a chair, Marvin giving him his own, everyone else too excited by the photo album and the sweet gifts to notice him quietly vanishing as he walked upstairs.
Except for Riley that is, interest mixed with growing concern being dashed as her attention was dragged back towards the photos, the adorable sight of exhausted Ella on the hospital bed, tightly holding a wrapped bundle that could've only been Andrew melting her resolve to find out what her grandparent was doing.
The sweet photo was followed by a couple other of the same scene, this time the bonding pair being embraced by a wonderfully happy looking Rick, both parents smooching the tiny Andrew on the forehead, and then each other in the next photo.
"You used to be so adorable before you became a twerp." Lily remarked towards Andrew, the rest of the table giggling as he responded-
"So were you, and then you learned how to speak..."
"Cmon kits, let's ease with bickering just this one time." Ella added, already hearing plenty of these types of exchanges day in, day out.
"Fiiiiiine..." They both said nearly simultaneously, making Riley giggle as Liz went through the pages, now a bit older Andrew trying his best to learn to walk, looking wobbly but determined. The addition of the grandparents made it even sweeter, each holding one hand as they provided support.
Riley was almost too busy smiling to notice the slight buzzing in her pocket, grabbing her phone and quietly unlocking it, a message immediately visible:
'''
_________
Marvin Asher: hey Riley, can you come upstairs into the large bedroom for a moment?
'''
That only added fuel to the fire of her doubts as she excused herself and followed him upstairs into what used to be her temporary bedroom, the grandparent already waiting as he sat on the bed, having apparently moved a chair over so that he could face from his position.
"Ah, there you are Riley, how are you feeling?" He asked happily as she stepped in and looked around confused, a bit unsure as she responded-
"I'm- I'm alright I suppose, but what's all this for?"
"Straight to the point, aincha?" He chuckled, taking a deep breath as he seemed to recall something before shaking it off, his warm smile spreading a bit wider as he answered, his voice reassuring-
"Well, mostly because we wanted to talk with you in private. Liz will be making her way here soon as well."
"But... what for? You were comfortable talking about serious things downstairs with your family and such."
"Oh it's not for our sake, it's for yours and the other kids'."
"That sounds... intimidating." She admitted, nevertheless deciding to take a seat, after all, should things go south she had, well, her skunk family to fall back on.
"Oh I'm sorry for that, it really wasn't my intent even if it came off that way." He sounded genuinely apologetic, extending an arm towards her which Riley then took, thankful that at least he was willing to admit to that.
"We really just want to talk with you about something we talked with Rick as well not long after we adopted him all these years ago, and which ended up helping him out so, so much in the end."
She nodded, figuring that if there was someone to go over something so important it with would be the people who already had to do it once.
"I see. Well, what is it then?"
Marvin took a deep breath, sliding a hand into his pocket and pulling something small out, Riley's brief confusion being quickly replaced with shock that made her freeze as she saw what the thing was.
An old bronze coin.
"Where did you find that!?" She forced out, eyes going wide as she saw the token of so much misery in his hand, her grandfather quickly clasping his hand shut after seeing Riley's reaction to the coin.
Which only strengthened his resolve to get this talk started with.
"Spotted it under the bed as I was plugging the hole, just for privacy you know." He explained, Riley's eyes darting to where the hole was, seeing it filled up with a large, old cork.
She was definitely less comfortable now, the weird old man having cut off the only surefire way for her to cry for help in case.
"Wh-what the fuck is this all about!?" She raised her voice in slight panic, readying herself to spring up from her chair at any moment, hand already fiddling with her switchblade in her pocket.
He took a moment to think his words through, not wanting to piss off his already annoyed granddaughter even further.
"I'm sorry for starting this off on the wrong foot. If you'd prefer I can take the cork out and even leave the door open so that you feel safer."
Riley's anxiety faded quite a bit at the honest sounding words, the girl taking a moment as she answered with a noticeable nod of her head. Marvin smiled as he reached down to pull the plug out, the sound of warm laughter from the living floor calming the girl down further still.
"Alright, thank you for that and sorry for being a bit jumpy, just... what's the point of all this? Can you just tell me why you dragged me in here, wanted all this privacy, and brought out that coin?" Her voice was calmer now but just as firm as she observed her grandfather's reaction.
He nodded at that, closing his eyes as he collected his thoughts before airing them out, his voice calmest she heard him be.
Despite its contents definitely not making Riley any calmer.
"Riley, we want to talk about your biological mom."