Sisters Grimm Oneshots

Uncle Basil

It had taken first Daphne's, then Daphne and Sabrina's help to convince Henry and Veronica to let Basil go overseas for college. Nobody had liked the idea, not even his sisters, at first, but they at least had understood what it was like to be smothered by overprotective parents who were terrified of losing another child, and with their help, he'd talked his parents into letting him go somewhere he could make his own mistakes, though Henry still hated the idea ('Russia?! Why Russia?'), and Basil had left, even though his parents had known he wouldn't be back over the summer.

Now he was home, four years later, and visiting Sabrina for the first time in just as long. She'd married Puck and had a kid before he'd left, but the last time he'd seen Allison, she was tiny and ugly and screaming, and since then they'd had another kid, who was now almost a year old. Basil wasn't particularly fond of small children.

He didn't even have a chance to knock on the door before Sabrina was outside and strangling him in a hug. "Hey!" she said, and he could hear the grin in her voice, "I missed you, baby brother! How was college?"

Basil coughed a few times until Sabrina got the hint and loosened her grip, but he hugged her back anyway. He'd always taken pride in the fact that he was one of the few people in the world who could make Sabrina act like Daphne. Not even Puck would ever get greetings like that, no matter how long he was gone.

"College was... fantastic," he told her. "I womanized every girl I met, got drunk on the weekends, and still kept up a B average. Also Russia's amazing. You should go sometime."

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Maybe when the kids are older. By the time they'll be grown up enough to remember it, your mark should be worn off, and they'll let me in without a police escort."

"Oh, come on, I wasn't that bad!" Basil protested, looking over Sabrina's shoulder at Puck, who was coming out of the house with a small girl in each arm. "Those are the brats?"

"Basil!" Sabrina snapped. "They're not brats, they're just... okay, they're brats, but don't call them that where they can hear you! You haven't even met them!"

"Hey," Puck said, nodding at Basil. "I'd give you a bro-hug or something, but my arms are full. How about I give you a baby?"

Basil started to protest, but found that he suddenly had a one-year-old girl in his arms. "What-do-I-do-what-do-I-do?" he asked, panicking and trying to adjust the baby.

The other girl giggled at him.

Basil looked at the girl curiously, but he could only spare her a second before he went back to baby-juggling.

"Here," Sabrina said, adjusting the baby in his arms. "If she starts to cry, just bounce her a bit. It's not rocket science."

The girl was still giggling. Now that Basil's mind wasn't totally occupied by 'don't drop the baby!' thoughts, he glared at her and said, "Oh, like you could do any better."

"I can," she answered. "'cause I'm five." She announced this as if it was the most important information in the world.

"Be fair, Allison," Sabrina intervened. "Your dad and I still help you hold Emma."

Allison gave her mother an incredulous look and protested, "But he's a grown-up! Grown-ups're supposed t'already know how t'hold babies!"

"Your Uncle Basil hasn't really ever had a chance to hold any babies," Puck pointed out, hoisting his elder daughter higher up on his hip so he could look her in the face. "He was the youngest kid, and none of the people he spent time with had any babies. He didn't even get to hold you because he left for school right after you were born, and just came back now."