Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 93: Dark Avenue

*Violet's POV*

"Six days..."

"What are we gonna do without eachother for six whole days?" Duncan joked, making me giggle.

"I know it's stupid, but I'll miss you!" I grinned despite feeling a little upset. I still tried to convince myself this would be better because it will be better and in the future it'd be worth it.

"I'll miss you too," Duncan smiled, "Next time we see eachother, I'll be super clingy though, I promise."

I giggled. "Why do you have to be so cute?" I pecked his cheek. "You make it so hard to go..."

"That's on purpose," he snickered, and kissed me back.

"Ahem..." Klaus cleared his throat awkwardly from a few feet down the hallway. "I hate walking in on shit like this, but... We gotta go, Vi..."

"Love you, Duncan." I pulled my boyfriend in for a hug.

"Love you too, Vi." I heard him mumble.

I walked towards Klaus and we smiled sadly at Duncan. "See you soon, D."

"See you on your birthday," Duncan said to him, giving us a little wave.

Izzie, Quigley, and Olivia received similar goodbyes, and we even hugged Jacques goodbye, telling him it was nice to meet him and we looked forward to getting to see him again. He seemed very happy that we were so welcoming towards him. Charles had led us to a nice car outside that Jerome was in the front seat of.

"Are we ready to go?" He asked us.

"Yes we are!" Charles piped cheerily, opening the backseat door for us. There was a carseat in the middle for Sunny, which made me smile widely.

"It's very thoughtful of you to get Sunny a baby seat," I said after I climbed inside. "We probably haven't had one for her in a long time, and she's mostly had to sit in someone's lap during car rides."

"Well that won't be happening anymore," Jerome said with a small smile. "If you need anything at all, blink and it's yours- uh, within reason."

"Thank you, Mr. Squalor."

"Please, it's Jerome. Or Uncle Jerome. I'm happy with whatever. Just please don't be so formal. It makes me feel distant!" He giggled.

"I apologize," Klaus said, buckling Sunny into her seat. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

"It's perfectly fine, Klaus!" Jerome smiled, turning to us with two thumbs-up. "Just keep it in mind for future reference. Now, let's go. The sooner we can show you to your new home-"

"The sooner we can take you to get stuff like toiletries, and new clothes, and..."

"Some books?" Jerome and Charles continued to bounce off eachother as we drove, talking our ears off about all the things they looked forward to doing with us, and the three of us were extra excited as they went on.

"There it is, 667 Dark Avenue!" Charles grinned. "Home!"

Jerome pulled up to the front and handed the keys to a uniformed person out front. "Could you please take this to the back while Charlie and I take the kids upstairs?"

"Yes, Mr. Squalor." The man nodded, opening the door for us five. "I expect I'll be needed soon?"

"Yes, thank you, Darryl," Charles grinned at him, and began ushering us towards the elevator. "That's our chauffeur, Darryl. Very sweet guy."

"We'll remember that," I said with a polite smile. Our parents had rarely gotten chauffeurs because they liked driving themself unless it was like an extra formal event.

The elevator ride felt extremely long, and that was because their penthouse was on the very top floor of the giant building. At least we didn't have to take those stairs I saw off to the side, huh? We eventually reached the top, but it totally felt like the number in the address "667 Dark Avenue" referred to the number of goddamn floors on the building!!

"Now, follow closely behind," Jerome instructed. "This is an awfully large penthouse, and it's a little easy to get lost. We try to stay in the front rooms and not anything past the second or third hallway."

"You practically need a map past that!" Charles joked, and the two adults had grinned at eachother widely.

Along the tour, Jerome asked us about ourselves as he pointed out different rooms including his own, Charles' room, the main kitchen, main living room, television room, the library (we were thrilled to see how many books they owned), and also our own bedrooms (we were also super happy to see we got our own rooms). There were a few rooms that were filled with boxes of stuff, and also rooms that were straight up empty.

"Perhaps we could use one of these empty rooms as your inventing studio, Violet," Jerome suggested. "This one is quite large and it's a decent distance away from your room."

"That sounds great!" I grinned.

"Can I ask why they're empty?" Klaus asked.

Jerome frowned, but answered honestly anyway. "They were rooms my ex-wife used for miscellaneous things. She's in jail for, let's say, causing a scene in public... She'll be gone for quite a while... I do hope she gets the help she needs, but I think I'm happier without her, especially as of lately."

I watched as he had glanced at Charles when he said 'as of lately', and I had to bite back a grin. Jerome seemed nice, so I liked that he appreciated Charles (even if it was platonically and not the way I was very very sure of). They both had rough marriages it seemed so if that was how this was going to go, I supported it!!

I felt like I'd be safe and comfortable in the penthouse of 667 Dark Avenue. Maybe this could be a home, even if not all of our family was there.