My father was not a small man. With a height about 6'1" (185 cm) and weight between 187 to 198 lbs (85-90 kg), he was simply a towering giant above my 12 old self. Only his brother's were bigger than him in the family. Damn, they were even bigger than me in my prime. The smallest of the family was the little sister, my aunt Gabrielle, and even she was almost 5"11' (180 cm). My uncles were big, burly men, almost too big for standard doorframes.
My grandparents obviously went after the set bonus with their children, naming them Daniel, Michael, Raphael and Gabriel. Considering my half uncles, the children from grandmother's first wedding, were named Solomon and Matthew, the set idea was probably a product of my grandfather's brilliant mind.
According to my father, my grandmother always wanted a daughter and tried untill having aunt Gabrielle. Alas, so that having her too late, she did everything to marry her off as soon the poor girl was legal, before she eventually died from complications related to diabetes. Aunt Gabriel was married to a the son of a well off family, half a decade older than herself, and was not only a teen bride but also a teen mother. Considering everyone else in the family married in their early twenties and she saw each one of them off, her's was simply obsession at the expanse of the poor girl. God bless, it was a happy marriage for the little flower of the family. I still can't imagine what would have happened to her husband otherwise with six in-laws each with the physique of a super heavy weight.
My father, Daniel Stevenson, was a man with a charming smile who loved his stories but those were for the times he was either exceptionally happy or a little bit tipsy. Right now he was wearing his trademark no-nonsense frown, and walking after my mother. That frown became a legend amongst my middle and high school friends over the time, and made more than a few unruly teenagers and arrogant adults hide behind my back, literally. Alas I knew better. The dangerous one in the family has always been my mother, walking in front of her husband with a pretentious smile on her face. It was her who brought a knife to a brawl to save her husband, and it was again her that they run away from and report to the police, not my father. Thanks to the small blessings we were living in a state that requires gun permit and she didn't have one.
It was an ugly thing that is yet to happen but it was going to happen this year or the year after if nothing changes this time around. One of the new part timers of the salon, a lovely high school girl that is a little bit too busty for her own good, suddenly disappeared at midday after going out to buy something for one of the clients. By he time she was found at the end of her shift, not only the staff of the salon and her own family, but also the state police was searching for her untill she suddenly came out of a small business in the same street, adjusting her clothes. The place was some high end new bookstore belong to three brothers, all married, and she was willing in whatever she was doing inside but it didn't prevent her parents to blame my parents and put some charges. It was a reputation thing at that point and my father was already hitting as much as he took untill my mother went nuclear. According to the eye witnesses she didn't feel the need to defend herself at the police station and even politely warned the officers saying "either they would clean this shit or she will".
Well, to say I know who should I be afraid of in this relationship in an understatement. Thus, I did what my 12 years old self wouldn't even dream of doing to throw my mother off while still testing the walking and frowning image of my late father. I called him with his pet name.
You see, my grandfather was not he first son of great grands, thus was not given the same name with the suffix of Jr. Thus, he didn't give his name to his first son too, aiming for a set of names for reasons unknown to anyone but him. Regardless of my grandfather still being alive and no lack of any other Stevensons around, my father was the de facto Mr. Stevenson Sr. in the neighborhood despite his young age. So, mocking this hard earned respect, closest of my father's friends and even his brothers called him "Steve" as an abbreviation of The Stevenson for a greeting. Stevenson was a little bit mouthfull of a surname anyway.
Thus, I nodded with a smug smile on my face and greeted the person in front of me with the most innocent "what's up Steve" that I can muster. Not so surprisingly, the permenant frown on his face suddenly changed to a dumfounded look. 'That really looked like my late father.'
"Where did you hear that? He answered my greeting with his own question. "Was it Jonah?" Continued digging his own grave. I didn't miss the nervous look he threw at my mother's direction.
Jonah, was the maternal cousin of my father. He was all but raised like another half brother after her mother, the sister of my grandmother died. More importantly, he was considered a the bad influence on my father and forbidden to visit for almost a decade for reasons unknown.
As far as the experiment goes, I couldn't find any problems with this father of mine. So either I really was regressed to my 12 years old body, a though that could cause a much appreciated mental breakdown, or this was my own version of Vanilla Sky with me as the source of memories.
The latter was pretty much easy to check by quick running things, people and places that I have no memory or even an idea of. It should have been easy to destabilize this dream or hallucination or virtual reality, whatever it is. Science fiction aside, despite virtual immortality was just being a concept last time I remember, brain chip experiments like Neuralink for different pupposes were decades old with various degrees of success in the future. Despite trusting my future self enough not to suspect accepting any kind of shady exeriment on myself, if it was offered as a legimate treatment with decent chances of success, even my future self would have been tempted. Damn, it could even be my own son allowing it to access the password of my IronKey. Reality was almost too often more probable than fiction itself anyway.
The former on the other hand was pretty much impossible to prove and would have taken decades to rule out completely. Assuming I won't encounter any other other supernatural phenomenon of course. Assuming I encounter anything supernatural though? The answer in that situation would have been a simple "please define supernatural". What was the difference between having a rare mental disorder and being exposed to a real SCP incident anyway? 'Yeah!' I was not going down in that rabbit hole even in a million years.
Shrugging off the initial shock, my father closed his gaping mouth and fixed his gaze on me again with a deeper frown.
"Why are you here?" He asked the main question shifting o his legs.
Despite the bravado, he was more than just nervous. I guess my experiment with his pet name throw him off more than I could have guessed. While everything this version of my late father said and did was normal, same thing couldn't be said for the image of my mother. Despite the curve on her lips, her eyes were not smiling. She was obviously aware of the sudden confidence and maturity that befall on his little son.
You see, you can't simply fool a loving mother or a wife about something she doesn't want to be fooled. Women intuition is a fucking scary thing. They would catch the smell of the things so small that it would put experienced FBI agents to shame. Damn, my future wife even dreamed the things she shouldn't have known on several occasions, not that I would admit as a man of science.
And here I was, testing the living image of my late father for it's genuity while the image of my mother doing the same thing for me. Remember this fucking transmigrator wannabes, if you gaze into the abyss long enough, the abyss will also gaze into you. Better come clean fast, or never at all. In this case, never it is. In the end, it doesn't matter if you are living or you think you are living. Life is, as long as you are, and I have already decided that I am just not long ago.
"I did some stupid shit at school." I started explaining in poor French to throw my mother off.
The sudden frown appeared ony mother's face was the tell tale of my success. However, the sudden smile on my father's face was unexpected. I think he was at his element at last.
"Pray tell me, what did you do?" He said, amused.
"The homeroom teacher left the classroom after the meet and greet." I continued my explanation. "The guys on my each side tried to get under my skin to test my reaction. I stupidly played at their hands when they said some shit about my mother." I eyed my mother st this point. I was using profanity as a tool to prevent the image of her from focusing on things that she shouldn't, and boy, it really looked like it was working. "Seeing that it was effective, they continued untill I lost it and started a fight I can't win inside the classroom. The fucking teac-"
"Language young man!" My mother interrupted my summary. I smiled internally, remembering her own French when she met with her sisters and thought there were no minors around, or when she was a little bit tipsy and didn't care. 'Anyway, mission accomplished.'
"The homeroom teacher-" I corrected myself looking her eyes and getting an approving nod to continue, "-didn't care why but only what, and thus I was sent to the principal's office on the first hour of the first day of the middle school." I finished my recount, right in the middle of it obviously.
"And?" My father urged me to finish. 'Dont get frustrated old man, I learned doing this from you. ' I thought but continued the delivery.
"... and, I came home instead going to try e principal's office to inform you and let adults talk it amongst themselves. The principal would have definitely called you as soon as he saw my attitude anyway. All I did was skipping the intermediate to save us some time and to save me some good scolding." I finished without any sarcasm and remorse.
My lack of fear must have tipped my father off and the frown on his face has deepened just like the one on my my mother's. She looked at me, and then my father for almost a minute I untill suddenly he asked the question he shouldn't have as a late father.
"Is there anything you want to say to save yourself, son?"
Adolescence could have explained many things even with this much but I still wasn't convinced whether if this was my version of Vanilla Sky or not. Thus, I decided to see if there are any consequences of my actions or if this was a wet dream of some stupid and naive young author.
"Dad, mom, I apologize for starting a fight I can't win inside the classroom during school hours." I started with a serious face and deadpan voice. Then the end of my lips curved slightly and my voice started to get animated. "I should have endured untill the end of the day and beaten them up individualy outside of the school grounds."
"Damn, Daniel!" My mother interrupted the apology. "I told you to stop giving your son stupid ideas. I won't be the one suffering from this stupidity." She said and left the home through mirrored door.
'I feel for you old man.' I thought internally but said nothing. It was always same thing with my parents. You were her children when you did something good and his children when you did something bad. I too am blamed for the things my children did by my future wife and can honestly say that my old man took it like a champion. 'Between one father and another, I am proud of you as a son."
My father took a few moments looking my mother's back and then shook his head and sighed. This time there was no frown on his face but a dejected surrender. I am pretty sure that he was proud of me too, not for the fight, but for the apology after that.
Obviously, this was not the first time I did something stupid like this. My young self was like a little Marty McFly. Only instead of "chicken", my trigger word was "your mother". I did plenty of stupid things during elementary and middle shool, often ending up getting into fights that I can't win. But even when it was against two boys each of them older than me at least two years, it didn't worth the detention because the reason of the fight was often something stupid.
My late father hated children bringing adults to a what must be child's fight and refused to interfere when I got beaten up and cried wolf after. He often indicated his preference by saying "They beat you and it's your problem, you best them and their parents are my problem". Obviously not a responsible parent according to modern sensibilities and a nightmare for teachers of any age but that was the way he was raised it was all he knew at that time.
Finally, he returned to me and schooled his face before talking. "You are going to your room and not leaving untill tomorrow morning as a punishment, son." He declared and left. I really wouldn't have wanted to be in his place right now but didn't care other that that. Despite the appearance, I was not a 12 year old boy and know how to appreciate some silent alone time.
Thus I went to my room, took one of my new notebooks and started writing, in English.
'Let me tell you this at once.
They lied to us...'
I needed to organize my thoughts and writing would have definitely helped with that. But I still was going to destroy any written evidence before the end of the day. My mother loves to read diaries of my sister and often discussed them with me to make a better sense of them after all.