"Bit of a low blow," Casimir snickered at Hutch, taking a swig of his beer. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have met her in the first place. So there."
"Fine. It's your fault that I met the love of my life, and it's also your fault that I'm here now," Hutch agreed, grabbing the beer Casimir had left for him on the end table. "So can we get to the part where you start explaining, how this all got started?"
"Promise not to guzzle this," Celina jumped in, grabbing the top of Hutch's bottle.
"Promise," he replied, smiling a devilishly sweet smile to her, knowing that it would get under Casimir skin. "I was intending to savor every last sip as it was."
Casimir sulked with an audible groan, his eyes narrowing more than usual. "Do you want to hear about this or not?"
Hutch took a sip of his beer. "You may begin."
"Oh, thank you for your permission, Taju," Casimir smirked as Hutch covered his eyes with his hands.
"So embarrassing," he mumbled.
"It turns out our story starts more than a year before we met. I had already made several attempts to bring Celina to me, and they all failed for one reason or another. I adjusted each attempt as necessary and would try again. Yours was the sixth attempt by that point, and despite it appearing as if it had gone to plan, when Celina didn't appear I assumed it failed as well. For the entirety of the next year, I went over every detail of that ritual trying to find where it went wrong, but I couldn't figure it out. Then the King's tour had to start, and I considered the possibility that perhaps she'd arrived somewhere else, and the tour was the best way to determine that. Instead of her, however, I found you. It didn't make any sense to me as to why you were there, but Celina has since possibly figured that out."
"It's a bit of a long shot, but does the name Percy Barstow mean anything to you?" she asked, as he took another sip of his beer.
"That's my grandfather," Hutch replied, giving her a side-eyed glance. "How do you know him?"
Celina reached over and picked up the book she had been reading, passing it to Hutch. "This is Evelyn's, my grandmother's personal journal. One of many she kept," she explained opening to a page that had been marked for him. "Here she writes that she discovered Edward, her son, has been having an affair with a married woman named Persimmon Barstow, and that she just had a baby boy, they named Percy. There are other children mentioned but Persimmon was the only one of his mistress' that lived in this area. I thought I would take the chance to figure out if you and I are related. Seeing as how Percy is your grandfather, I believe that he was in fact, Edward's son, making us distance cousins."
Hutch remained silent as he read down the page. Closing the journal, he set it onto Celina's lap and took a hefty chug from his beer.
"Right. So, instead of her, you got me, because we are somehow related?" Hutch questioned, wanting to verify what he had just been told.
"That is correct," Casimir replied as he stared down into his bottle. "It's not the outcome I was expecting, but it would explain why you ended up on Illimev instead of her. The spell I attempted to use; I couldn't configure it with precision. It was like grasping through sludge in a vague direction. My heart's desire was little more than a guideline, and calculated for the youngest member of the family, assuming Celina was it. I had no way of knowing that there was such an extreme time variant or that the net was so broad as to catch someone so far removed. Hutchinson isn't a name I considered relative to the Stanton."
"It's because Percy is from my father's side. I took my mother's surname because Brett barely acknowledges my existence, and his parent's, Percy, and Heather, insist I'm not his. Guess me ending up on Illimev proves them wrong," Hutch explained, dawning a broad grin. "Doesn't this day just keep getting better?"
"It has for me," Celina said, taking a hold of his hand. "We might be distance cousins, but we are still cousins. You're family, Hutch. This is exciting!"
"Overwhelming, more like it," Hutch replied as he set his beer onto the end table, before shifting to face her. "It's a bit hard for me to wrap my head around all of this."
"It's perfectly understandable," she replied, tapping at his hand. "It's not every day you find out you have an extended family. But this is a good thing, Hutch. If nothing else, it should remind you that you're welcome here."
"I appreciate that," Hutch remarked, looking down at their hands, before turning his attention to Casimir. "And thank you, for explaining all of this. But right now, we have other things we need to focus on."
"Of course," Casimir responded, closing his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. "Right now, there are several things that need to happen; some of which can coincide. However, we need to keep our priorities straight. Having you here would be the more ideal situation, but unless you're willing to consider the idea of moving in, commuting is the next best option."
"Hold up," Hutch remarked, as Casimir sat up and set his beer on the end table beside him. "Did you say moving in?"
"I did. Considering the distance between here and your home, our time together is going to be limited by the commute. For now, I can arrange a car to pick you up and drop you off at night, but getting your driver's license is going to have to be your top priority. I can provide you with whatever you need to make that happen, but it starts with you getting a learner's permit," Casimir remarked as he dug his wallet out of his back pocket. Opening the wallet, he pulled out several bills and handed them towards Hutch. "Here's two hundred. That should be enough to cover the cost of the manual and the permit. When Clara went for hers, I don't remember it being all that much."
"I don't want your money," Hutch responded, refusing to take it. "I already have my learner's permit. I just haven't learned how to drive yet."
"Then I'll teach you."
"You going to buy me a car as well?"
"Don't be absurd," Casimir scoffed and rolled his eyes, tossing the money down onto the coffee table. "I'll put you on our insurance and give you the use of one of the employee cars for as long as you're a co-op student with us. After that, I might just buy you one to piss you off."
"In that case make it one of those expensive sports cars in a flashy red. Something that will really scream that I'm working for you."
Celina giggled as she got up from the couch. "I think I'm going to leave you boys to talk. Do try to stay civil, won't you?"
"Considering that we haven't tried to kill each other yet, I don't think we're going to have any problems," Casimir replied as she made her way towards him.
"That's what I like to hear," she said before leaning down and setting a kiss to his brow. "And as for you," she continued, turning to face Hutch, "a flashy sports car is out of the question. I wouldn't let our own children drive one, I'm certainly not going to hand one over to someone else's. I'll be upstairs in my office, call me down before you leave, okay?"
"Will do," Hutch replied as she tapped him on the shoulder and proceeded to leave them alone in the living room. "You're lucky, to have found someone like her, who's willing to put up with you and all this shit. I doubt there are many out there that would be able to wrap their head around it, let alone accept that it happened."
"We did have our struggles," Casimir admitted, picking up his beer and settling back into his chair. "Both before and after. The thing you don't understand though, is that I'm not lucky, I'm blessed. Because I didn't find her, she found me. It was only once I found myself trapped on Illimev that I truly understood how important she was. It was only once she was gone that I realized what I had lost. I had spent the early years of our marriage consumed with work, assuming that she would always be there when I got home. I mistook her tolerance as devotion, and her silence for acceptance and understanding. She was always there for me, and I failed to do that for her. I had convinced myself that all I had to do was work harder, make more money, get the promotions, really make something of myself, and she would still be there for me once I had accomplished what I felt made me worthy of her. I had no idea she was about to give up on me. Every day I went to work, her heart was breaking, and the day I didn't come home, she thought I had run off with someone else. I've spent every day since I've returned making sure that she knows that I understand how important she is. If you love Kahlala, even half as much as I love Celina, you'll understand why I did everything I could to get back here to her."