Hey Little Sister (Knives Out x BtVS)

[grundyscribbling]

Title: Hey Little Sister
Fandom:: Knives Out x BtVS
Words:: 1140
Rating: T
Summary:Marta & Alice are settling into their new home and new circumstances.
Note: A belated birthday present for jedibuttercup. (Hope you got your trip in before the corona craziness really took off!)

“This is unreal.”

“Unreal says the girl who goes out to kill vampires at night,” Marta laughed, watching as her sister spun in place, trying to look at everything in the library at once. It had been a month since Ransom’s arrest, and her mother and sister were finally moving in. They had an actual moving company carrying the boxes and everything, not just whoever of their friends could get the day off and was bribable with pizza and beer.

“It’s like something out of a movie!”

“Alice,” their mother said warningly. “Cálmate.”

“What?” Alice replied defensively. “It is! I mean, the guy has a whole display of fake knives in the middle of the room! Who does that?”

 “You know easily a dozen people who would love to have a display like that, but with real knives,” Marta pointed out. “Harlan did write murder mysteries for a living.”

“A living?” Alice scoffed. “Please. It stopped being ‘a living’ a long time ago, probably before either of us were even born. He wrote because he liked writing. You can’t tell me he needed the money. Not when he could afford to buy…”

She trailed off, looking at the statues flanking the door.

“…whatever those are. They’re ugly as sin and twice as ridiculous. Whose idea was it to put light bulbs in their mouths? But I bet they cost thousands of dollars apiece. That’s a couple months’ rent on our apartment sitting there. Maybe a whole year!”

“I never asked,” Marta shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out – anything we decide to get rid of will be auctioned off. I told Alan I want to donate the proceeds to charity.”

It was still a novelty to have a lawyer, let alone one she was on a first name basis with. But the terms of Harlan’s will made probate quick and painless despite the rest of the family – at least, from a lawyer’s point of view, it still seemed pretty complicated and drawn out to Marta – and Alan not only knew the full dimensions of the estate, he had shrewd advice to offer once he saw it would actually be listened to. Marta suspected he was used to dealing with Linda, who listened only to a certain point, or Walt who didn’t listen unless it was what he wanted to hear.

She hadn’t told him yet that the charity she had in mind was the Joyce Summers Academy. The Slayer training program and the stipend that went with it had been the difference between them eating or not at the end of the month more than once before Marta finished her nursing program. Now that they didn’t need it anymore, she wanted to pay it forward. There were other girls out there like Alice, and not all of them had an older sister who could help pay the bills.

“We should keep the dollhouse,” Alice suggested. “I like it. But a lot of this stuff – I mean, why? Rich white people buy the craziest shit.”

It was a cross between sarcasm and wonder that Marta understood only too well.

“Who cares? He had money to burn. If it made him happy, why not?”

Both girls looked at their mother. Given that absolutely nothing in the room was to her taste, her defending it was a surprise.

“But, Mama-”

“No but, Alice. Mr. Thrombey was very kind to your sister – to all of us! He didn’t hurt anybody, and his family wasn’t going hungry. If he liked these strange things, what does it matter?”

Alice sighed.

“I didn’t mean anything bad by it, honest. So should we keep the fake knives that look like a halo for Our Lady of Murder?”

Their mother gave Alice another quelling look.

“I am going to sit with Wanetta while the movers are here,” she told them. “The noise bothers her. Such a nice lady. Such a shame she has such grandchildren. Behave, both of you.”

Marta and Alice watched her out of the room. Their mother’s friendship with Greatnana was one of the most unexpected developments in a season that had been full of them. The unlikely pair had more or less taken over the kitchen. Marta had never heard the old woman talk so much before. (She also hadn’t known Greatnana was such a good cook.)

“They’re not all fake,” Marta said, giving her younger sister a challenging look. “I can’t believe you didn’t spot it sooner.”

Alice stepped closer, looking more intently at the display. It only took a second before she reached unerringly for the one real blade hidden among the props. Marta wasn’t sure what Alice saw – or maybe it wasn’t even seeing, for all she knew it was instinct – but she’d noticed that the handle was real wood and the blade wasn’t as silvery as the others. She was just lucky Ransom hadn’t been observant enough to notice. If he had, she would probably be dead.

Then again, so would he. Alice wasn’t nearly as nice as her older sister. And while they both liked helping people, Alice’s brand of helping involved regularly killing things that were stronger and meaner than Hugh Ransom Drysdale.

“This is nice,” she exclaimed. “I mean, it doesn’t compare to the custom blades Faith has, but it’s almost as nice as the knife Rona won’t let anybody borrow. I wonder where he got it?”

“Where did Harlan get half this stuff?” Marta asked wryly.  “I could have been here ten years and still not known the story of everything.”

It had only been two and a half. She wasn’t sure if it had been too short or too long.

“Can I keep it?” Alice asked, sounding all for the world like a kid asking for a toy.

“Sure, if you want,” Marta replied.

“Heck yeah I want!” Alice grinned. “You can get rid of all the weird crap in my room, it looks like a hippie got in a decorating fight with her Victorian grandma, but this I’m keeping.”

She carefully put it back in the display, exactly where it had been.

“You’re putting it back?”

“Yeah, you never know when having a weapon handy could be useful. That trust fund asshole could break out of jail or something.”

“That sounds pretty strenuous for Ransom,” Martha snorted. “If he can buy his way out, maybe.”

“Whatever. Main point, Buffy Summers is not the only one of us who looks out for her sister.”

Alice gave her older sister an impish grin.

“And I’m not saying that just because you inherited a kickass house and more money than Scrooge McDuck.”

Marta laughed.

“Go explore the rest of the house. Figure out where you’re going to stash the rest of your weapons. Just don’t freak out the movers, ok?”

Alice grinned, and headed off to do exactly that.