Vol.7, Chapter XIV — On Brand

Sleeping in during weekends was a holy thing, but today, because we had promised to go help Mathilda start packing before her daylong stream, we couldn’t. Instead, I was dragging myself out of bed, getting dressed, and walking into Abby’s living room despite my whole being protesting it.

My Dad and William were sat at the table, finishing their breakfast to go fishing, Sophie sat by my Dad, looking blissfully innocent.

I hadn’t even mumbled a greeting before Sophie’s eyes flashed at me.

“Violet Evergreen!?” she cried out, her voice sharp and cutting through my morning haze. “What is the meaning of that!?”

I was stunned, not knowing what I did wrong until she came close to me and lifted the rest of my shirt, revealing what she had spotted. On the top of my left hip, just above my sweatpants waistband, was a small drawing that I couldn’t quite make out through my hazy vision.

“H-huh!? When did I get a tattoo!?” I gasped.

“Damn it sis!” Abby cried from behind me, hugging my waist. “You ruined the prank! I wanted to see how long it took Violet to notice it!”

I sighed so completely that my spirit almost left my body. The thought of getting tattooed without recalling it was scary, and now that I was fully awake, completely unreasonable.

Sophie was still quite cross, scolding Abby for her prank as she went to grab cotton and rubbing alcohol, although Abby clearly couldn’t care less about what her sister was saying as she kept poking at my belly and the doodle. The person most affected by it was in fact their father, who sighed and shook his head, quietly lamenting the loss of peace for his breakfast. My Dad on the other hand was very amused by it all.

“You really are hopeless when waking up,” I heard Sophie say once she started rubbing my skin clean.

I looked down, not getting why she said that but soon came to understand. Even though I was still quite foggy-eyed and without glasses, I could tell that I had accidentally put on Abby’s underwear, most likely the strawberry-themed one. Super embarrassing, but I told myself that at least it was an honest mistake instead of her finding out that I had been wearing them all day in one of our exchanges. I’d potentially jump out of the window if she saw these with me wearing my school uniform after getting home, for example.

“Hmm, have you been working out with Abby?” Sophie asked next, holding my hips to rotate them so light would hit my skin differently.

I told her that I really wasn’t, aside from my walks and runs with her siter.

“And giving me lots of uppies,” Abby added, tapping those lines I now have on the sides of my waist and heading down on a V-shape. “This faint Adonis belt looks so good on Violet, don’t you think so… ‘Mum’?”

“W-who are you calling ‘Mum’, you absolute gremlin!?” Sophie barked.

“Could you two—”

“Could you three pipe down?” William asked. His voice was slightly raised, but it was enough for me to almost feel a rumble on my chest. “Almost every day, you bicker like little kids first thing in the morning!”

The sisters finally quiet down, just as I was hoping I’d get them to by asking when I was interrupted. I still was annoyed that I was bundled together as I barely even got a word out today.

Sophie finished what she was doing throwing glares at Abby who was mostly unaffected by it and kept playing with my exposed belly until Sophie was done scrubbing me clean of the doodle. We then sat with our Dads, mine not missing the opportunity to joke that, for a moment there, it felt like Sophie was playing the role of mother to us two.

Sophie, blood red, told him she wasn’t, she was just acting as an older sister. Dad joked that he wouldn’t know since he was an only child and never really spent time with anyone’s older sister.

“It can be a really fine line separating the two,” my wife chirped before giving her toast a greedy bite. “At least in my experience with sis and Violet.”

I wanted to retort to the implied “mother” she was calling me, but for one, that would just be playing into her little games, and secondly, her Dad had told us not to bicker.

“And weren’t you too relaxed about Violet potentially getting a tattoo?” Sophie asked, switching gears.

“Me? Nah,” Dad laughed dismissively. “She’d never do that, so I figured it was some sort of prank done by Abby. And even if she did get a tattoo, she’s almost eighteen anyway.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t eighteen yet,” Sophie argued. “I know that tattoo removal is a thing, but that’s expensive and it might leave a scar or something, I don’t know. Regardless, it should be better to see it as a permanent thing, unlike a piercing, which likely might leave a scar afterwards.”

“See? Now I think you’re sounding more like a mother than a sister.”

Sophie glared at my Dad as she flushed carmine again while he kept smiling at her. Peeking at Will, I think I saw him trying to hide a smile with a swig of his coffee.

“Come to think of it,” Abby said, now sounding serious. “Have you ever thought about getting your ears pierced, babe?”

Nope, never had, and I don’t think I ever will. It could be nice to have that extra bit of “decoration”, but since I wear my hair long and lose most of the time, I don’t think it’d be worth it since my ears are mostly hidden. Maybe a nice little detail to have, like me combing a strand of hair behind my ear and Abby going “oh! She’s wearing X earrings today!” but I didn’t see it as necessary. Then again, people don’t wear earrings out of necessity.

“Well, Mathy uses clip-ons, so there’s that alternative,” Abby shrugged before going back to being a little glutton. Seeing that Abby didn’t seem to care either way, I felt even less inclined about getting my ears pierced. Still… maybe I’ll keep the clip-ons in mind because I could still see some “utility” in them despite all that I said, as there wasn’t the commitment of having two extra holes done to my body.

“Well, we are off to fishing,” William said as he put his mug down with a clink. “You are going to help Mathilda move some stuff to Claire’s today, wasn’t it?”

Abby confirmed that being the plan as she hopped off the chair to give our Dads a hug and a kiss, my dad lifting her up as if Abby was made of feathers, before telling them to have fun. I got a pat on the shoulder by William and a half-hug and wishes of good luck for today from mine, me being the only one of the three he said that. I think the reason why is pretty obvious at this point.

As for Sophie, he did the same pat William did to me, but he also leaned down and apologised for the teasing he did and thanked her for looking after us when they couldn’t. Sophie mumbled that she’s only doing her duty and for him to come back with a big catch. As they left, she kept staring at them, looking like Abby did whenever she sees me go out for an errand.

Reminding me of, as Sophie put it, my “gremlin” wife, I placed a hand over her mouth before she could say anything, and told her we were going to get changed, Abby getting the message: for now at least, I wanted her to behave.

Still, Abby will be Abby. Once she was up on her feet, she helped me get up, turned around and, holding my hands over her shoulders, guided me back into our bedroom.

She was behaving well during changing, but I still had a bit of a bad feeling when I felt her tugging at the waistband of the garter belt I had just put on for today. Turning around, I saw her still in her underwear and socks, a pair of soft yellow ones with cat faces on thigh band.

“Could you lend me one these?” she asked me, moving her hands to the band of her socks. “I think the elastic band is giving in.”

And those were one of her favourites too, which was a shame. She did wear them a lot, so she did get a lot from them, but…

I gave her ones that had adjustable straps so she could better adjust to the length she needed and offered my help to putting them on, but she told me that she had seem me more than enough times to know how to put them by herself. True to her words, she did, and I must say, it was equal parts funny and cute how she looked with such a “mature” thing paired with those silly socks of her. It was also my first time seeing her wearing garter belts. It was a bit odd, but not for the reason one might think. You’d expect that my wife would have asked to try some earlier, but she didn’t, for one reason or another.

“I did have some curiosity about it, but since I didn’t have a use for them, I never asked,” she told me as she held a leg straight up in the air and gave it a twirl. “Hmm, I might start wearing this from now on though. Even when the elastic was holding, they’d slip a bit with me moving around.”

“And you don’t have to wear strong elastics too, so it doesn’t pinch as much and is way more comfortable at the end of the day” I added as I shifted my focus to my reflexion to figure out what to wear. “Hmm? A-Abby!? What is this!?”

Turning myself around so my back was visible I could see another doodle, this time on one of my butt cheeks. “Property of Abbigail Evergreen” it said in some of Abby’s neatest handwriting ever and a few little hearts around it.

She giggled and told me that she got bored while waiting for me to wake up, and since there’s not much for her to count since a certain someone, me, plucked what she had been using to keep herself entertained, she had to get creative. More so, she told me that she held back on the doodling.

I argued that she already had something to count, and would prefer if she did, and asked how writing that on me counted as “holding back.”

“First of all,” she began, crossing her arms and looking at me as if I was the one being unreasonable. “You only grew seven after almost a whole month. And second of all, I thought about writing ‘Abby’s Pacifiers’ on your chest but thought that that was going way too far.”

“Well, thanks I guess!” I said as I pondered if I had time to go to the bathroom to grab the rubbing alcohol to scrub that doodle clean or if I’d have to go around like branded cattle all day, but then, the first part of what she told me hit me and I began stressing over it instead. “Erm, A-Abby? Is it true that I only have… that many, after all this time?”

She smiled sympathetically at me as she told me not to worry, I must just be a slow grower. I mumbled that I hoped so, otherwise plucking might be something I’d start doing. She giggled and hugged me, swaying us side to side as she told me not to be silly and wait a bit longer before resorting to drastic measures since she is keeping inventory. She giggled a second time as she saw me pouting at her, gave me a peck, and got back to getting dressed.

“Still, you have to admit, it looks cute, doesn’t it?” she asked as she tossed me a dress, simple, practical, and just the kind of thing I was planning to wear. For herself, she was grabbing shorts and a turtleneck before looking at the garter belts she had on and deciding to borrow one of my knee-length skirts instead so they wouldn’t be showing.

“Yeah, it really does,” I told her as I admired my little wife.

She laughed at me, thanking my words before clarifying that she meant the doodle, not herself.

Looking at it again as I lifted the hem of the dress now that I had just put on, I had to admit, it was kinda cute thanks to her handwriting and the hearts. I also noticed now that she had replaced the dot in the Is of “Abigail” with an even tinier heart each. She asked about the other doodle, the one I had on my hip. When I apologised to her that I couldn’t make out what it was at the time, she laughed that it wasn’t a problem before grabbing her phone. She had, to my great annoyance and demand for her to delete it, taken a picture.

It was a small heart again, this one having a violet flower and a sunflower inside it, clearly representing me and her respectively.

“Honestly…” I began as I looked and thought about it. “If I was held at gun point and forced to get a tattoo… I wouldn’t be that bothered afterwards having this permanently on my body.”

“Gee, couldn’t you have put it in a nicer way!” she asked with puffed up cheeks. “I was really careful drawing it, you know?”

“Haah, ok, ok. Let’s see… If we ever get blind drunk and matching tattoos as a result, then I hope that at least it’s this one.”

“That’s not much better! You’re just trying to pick a fight with me, aren’t you?”

I laughed and kissed her as I said that it was a small payback for her prank and the fact that we were taking so long getting changed that I’d have to go around all day with a brand on me.

Abby, not being one to back down, demanded that I gave her a similar brand. This gave me a great idea.

I pulled her tightly against me by the waist, lifting her a bit off her feet and leaned down so my lips were almost touching hers again, giving her a look that always made Abby flush and stiffen a bit.

“If you behave well the rest of the day, then I’ll do that tomorrow,” I purred, Abby’s sparkling eyes widening and her face turning a bit redder as she clutched the chest of her turtleneck. “I’ll even let you draw it on me again, so we match.”

“…Ok,” she whimpered, her voice coming as little more than a quiet squeak. “I’ll behave.”

I gave her a quick kiss to seal the deal and eased her down, Abby shifting in place as she mumbled that I really don’t play fair sometimes and calling me a wolf in sheep’s clothes.

Yes, I just accepted something outrageous, but if it meant that Abby would behave for the rest of the day, then it was worth it. Besides, it’s always super fun reversing the roles like that, and she does look super cute when I get her all flustered.