the dare (the mighty ducks)

chapter thirty

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chapter thirty: the art show where everybody showed

a/n:

aaand we're back. completely rewritten. v different. all my people who like lou's relationship with dwayne, scott, and ali come get y'all's juice.

i hated the original version :)

tw(s) -- descriptions of being sick (including but not limited to nausea and vomiting), mentions of alcohol, descriptions of and hints to multiple kinds of abuse, and mentions of medication.

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"Lou - Lou - LuLu." Rick's voice is warm, honeyed with mirth and affection as he rubs at his little sister's shoulder to get her attention. It does little to pry her eyes away from the building in front of them.

In all of her life, Louise doesn't think anything else has left her this shaken. There'd been her great aunt's wake, during which an older cousin had lured the then six-year-old into a room full of bodies and then saw to it that she was locked in there, and then her sixteenth birthday party, an important milestone that neither her father nor her boyfriend at the time could've been bothered to celebrate with her, but it all feels like nothing, now. Inconsequential. Harmless. Anything that happened to her before this, this being a fanciful event held entirely in honor of her and all of her achievements, pales in comparison.

(Not to mention that she just hasn't been feeling well. It was like she woke up this morning at the start of a mild fever.)

"We have to go inside."

"My name is on it." Is all that the blonde can muster up, her brows creasing as she points up at the banner over the archway that reads Louise Riley: A Take On Love and Loss.

Before this art show, she never had something so entirely her own. Something that said, "hey, you've worked very hard and you deserve something for that." Rick was constantly spilling over with awards, spelling-bee blue ribbons graduating on to six-foot-long banners with his name on them, and James followed quickly in his footsteps, his name surely to follow their brother's into Eden Hall hockey infamy. Tom is always a very decorated man, and so was his father before him, and his father before him. Louise was never in the leagues of them, something that caused great discontentment within her father, and all she ever got to do was sit back to watch with envy - once her father had thrown her the frame that held her grandfather's various war medals and told her to make-believe before he went back to his work - but she's never going to have to mope again.

It's a strange sensation. It buzzes underneath her skin and tingles in her fingertips. She feels like a superhero, like any minute now lightning is going to burst from her hands and she's going to be able to save the world. (Well, the guy in the Star Wars movies that Averman made her watch who had lightning powers wasn't exactly a good person, but she's all about breaking cycles.)

Rick grins toothily and his amusement is evident in his sparkly eyes. "Yes. It does. It's so good that you can read at sixteen."

It takes Louise a moment to register what he said, but, when she finally gets it, she jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.

"That isn't what I meant and you know it!"

Her elder brother laughs genuinely for the first time in weeks and rubs at his side for a moment. "I'm sorry. Couldn't resist." He then wraps an arm around her and kisses the crown of her head like a father should. "I'm so proud of you."