Characters: Ciaran and his family
Setting: His aunt Bree's house in Ireland
Rating: PG/TL;DR
Summary: Ciaran plays with barbie dolls and gets nagged by women. Gotta love Christmas.


"...and Barbie doesn't like her because she likes Ken and Ken likes her too but he's going out with Barbie so they can't go to the dance together but she's prettier than Barbie and I think they're gonna kiss at the dance because Barbie's gonna have a fight with Ken because she's only going out with him to make this one jealous."

"Right."

Ciaran sat cross-legged on the floor, combing a doll's hair with a pink brush whilst his sister tested out her new Crayola felt tipped pens on the front of his hair. The Polar Express was playing on his aunt's television, but nobody was paying attention to it. "So...why doesn't Ken just go out with her if he likes her?"

Una huffed, one hand on her hip. "Because she's Barbie," the little girl replied, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. "And Barbie and Ken have to date."

He shrugged his shoulder. "They don't have to. Besides, aren't they all Barbie?"

Well, now he was just being silly. Did Ciaran now nothing about Barbie?! Why was he going to big school if he wasn't learning anything!

"No! She can't be Barbie because she has brown hair, and she can't be Barbie because she wears boots like yours. This one is Barbie," she said, holding up a doll in a pink dress.

The doll dubbed Barbie looked like one of the whores from the cheer squad.

"I don't like Barbie. She looks like a sl-like she's mean."

Their mother nipped in from the kitchen, doing a quick sweep of her sister's lounge before anyone arrived. Not that anyone was due yet, but who knew what mess her children could make in the space of half an hour. "Una, don't do that," she said, catching sight of the marker pen pressed against Ciaran's hair. The little girl glanced at her mother and snapped the lid back onto the blue pen. She set it down, waiting until her mother had turned around to sort out a pile of unopened gifts before uncapping a forest green marker and continuing with her work.

Their mother took the pen from Una's hand and put the lid back on. "What did I tell you? Stop colouring in your brother's hair!"

"But he said I could! It washes out!"

Roisin fixed her son with a glare. "Don't encourage her, Ciaran. It's bad enough that you decided to dye it yellow for Christmas. Yellow! I don't know what goes through young people's minds these days, I really don't."

Ciaran rolled his eyes and pulled a face, making Una laugh. "It's blond, mom."

"It's yellow, Ciaran. I think I'd know blond if I saw it."

"Are you picking on that boy again?" Aunt Bree stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms folded over her chest. "You ignore her, Ciaran. When your mother was fifteen she used to go out with Bobby Gallagher from down the street. Oh, you should've seen the state of him. He thought he was Nick Rhodes."

Roisin flushed a little, mirroring her sister's pose. "I liked Nick Rhodes...and Duran Duran were very big back then. Besides, Bobby Gallagher never dyed his hair yellow...and he never had a ring through his nose, either. Honestly Ciaran, I don't think it's going to heal up if you take it out for one day."

"He looks like a bull!" Una added. "Mooooooooo!"

He glanced sidelong at his sister. "Bulls don't moo, Unes."

The little girl started to butt his shoulder with her head. Ciaran laughed a bit, pushing her away with his hand and ignoring his mother's chidings.

Roisin shook her head and fluffed the chair cushions in frustration. "Well it doesn't look very nice in photographs. I don't know how you expect to get a proper girlfriend with that thing in."

Bree, who had been casting a supervisory eye over Christmas dinner, renewed her interest in the conversation. "I thought he was seeing that girl with the long black hair. Ciaran, what happened to that girl you were seeing last year? Paige, was it?"

"She broke up with him over summer," Roisin said, replying before her son could open his mouth. "We think it was because of what happened at the school."

Ciaran shot her a warning glare. "Mom."

"Now she's going with that McLoughlin boy, you know the one Ciaran was in that band with? That one. I never liked her anyway, she was always a bit to flirty, I thought. And her skirts were far too short. I don't know why her mother would let her go out of the house like that."

"Mom."

"Sounds like you were better off then, Ciaran" Aunt Bree replied. "Haven't you met anyone at your new school?"

"He wouldn't tell us if he had, Bree. It was six months before we even heard of Paige. Lord knows how long we'll have to wait to hear about the next one."

"I liked Paige," Una chipped in. "She had pretty hair, like Barbie."

Ciaran sighed through his nose and got to his feet. "I'm gonna find dad."

"And what about your sister?" his mother asked. "I can't watch her; I'm in the kitchen with Bree."

He gave her a look. Since when did parking your arse on the sofa arm count so that you could bitch about your son's hair, piercings and ex-fucking-girlfriends count as being 'in the kitchen'? Even aunt Bree wasn't in the kitchen anymore; standing in the doorway and having a quick look at the hob every now and again hardly counted as slaving away over a hot stove.

Ciaran could have said something, but bitching out a pair of Irish women to shut them up was about as effective as kicking a bee's nest to stop them stinging you.

"I'll take her with me then." He put Una's Crayola pens back into their box and picked up his little sister, taking one of her dolls with them. "You can show dad what you did to Barbie's hair, Unes."

"Do you really think Barbie looks mean, Ciaran?" she asked as they headed into the hall and up the stairs, to the study where their father had wisely retreated.

"Yeah. You should give her a mean girl name instead. Barbie's too nice."

"But I don't know any mean girl names," the little girl pouted.

"What about...Amber? That's a mean girl name. Ambers lie to everyone."

"Okay. I'll call her Amber. My other Barbie can be called Barbie."

"Good idea," Ciaran replied. "I like your other Barbie more."

Now all mini-Amber needed was a piece of the real Amber's hair and a trip into the Rue Ge Rouge for a bit of light blessing/cursing. After a week, Una wouldn't notice the doll was missing anyway.

Tags: !complete