Familia (Ethan x f!MC)
Book: Open Heart, beyond
Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey and MC (Lilac Allende)
Word Count: 2.7K
Rating/Warning: T/ Some Language
Summary: Ethan meets her family over a traditional meal of tamales.
Note: In which Lilac's Mexican mother teaches him how to make tamales. Translations at the end :)
The usually cold, pristine kitchen of his apartment appeared like a different place entirely that afternoon. For one, it was crowded as Lilac's family bustled about, the sounds of music, laughter, and lighthearted conversation filling the space. Every inch of the counters was covered in a colorful mosaic of ingredients, each meant for a different dish and each tended to by a different Allende. Tendrils of steam swirled into the air as Mrs. Allende stirred the contents of a sizzling pan, the aroma nothing short of mouthwatering.
It had never felt so inviting or close to a real home and Ethan felt momentarily stunned.
He paused at the threshold to admire it, his attention finally resting resolutely on Lilac. She, too, appeared entirely transformed as she cooked and joked with her siblings in both of her languages. Sparkling green eyes creased at the edges, more alive than ever, as she dodged a dusting of flour sent her way by her younger brother.
“You'll pay for that,” she told him mid laugh, followed by more vows of retaliation in Spanish.
Ethan basked in the sound of her voice and how her native language made it sound different— like a soft melody that swelled pleasantly with every word. Something soared within him as he watched this version of her, taking root in his chest and blooming very much like the first time he saw her at Edenbrook.
“Ya basta, muchachos,” Mrs. Allende chided over the hiss of the frying chilis. “Jaime, look at the mess you made all over Dr. Ramsey's kitchen. Clean up all this flour and go keep your dad some company in the living room.”
“Sí, señora,” Jaime Allende said with a mock salute that made his mother roll her eyes lovingly. Once her back was turned, he smirked at his sisters. “See you later, feas. I'll be in the living room enjoying the game.”
Laurel, the eldest, shoved him with her shoulder as he passed. It looked almost comical to Ethan since she was significantly shorter than him.
“Hey, you better clean this shit up,” she called out after him. When the warning fell on deaf ears, Laurel shook her head and murmured to Lilac, “Twenty four and he still knows how to trick his way out of doing any real work.”
“Typical,” Lilac returned cautiously, eyes on her mother's back.
Ethan took that opportunity to rejoin his girlfriend at the kitchen, his arms banding around her waist as he quickly kissed her temple.
Lilac let out a pleased little laugh, her body relaxing against him.
“How's my dad?”
“Quiet,” he replied, trying his best not to take it personally. Still, the nerves he felt about meeting her father had tapered into a fine point when the man had spoken less than five words to Ethan.
“That checks out,” Laurel commented knowingly from beside them.
Lilac threw her sister an unappreciative look which did nothing to help with his anxiety. She swiveled in Ethan's embrace, her scowl softening when their eyes met. “My dad's just a quiet person at first. Once he gets to know you, he's the goofiest marshmallow imaginable.”
Ethan remained unconvinced, afraid that her father was less than thrilled about their relationship. Then again, if Ethan had a daughter, he would absolutely take issue with the bastard who was both her boss and boyfriend.
“We found a football game on TV that he likes,” he commented, unsure of what else to say.
“As long as it's real fútbol, he'll love you already.”
“Yes, he can excuse sleeping with his daughter but he draws the line at American football,” Laurel mused with a wicked laugh, already dodging the slap Lilac sent her way.
Their mother caught the end of that exchange and sent them a single, silencing look that made both sisters cease at once. Then her eyes swiveled to Ethan and at once, her expression softened. Mrs. Allende straightened her spine and cleaned her hands against her apron.
“Doctor,” she said cheerfully in Spanish. “Thank you again for inviting us into your lovely home.”
“Es un placer,” he returned as he studiously avoided Laurel's gaze. It would no doubt silently communicate “Kiss ass.”
“Thank you for making dinner,” Ethan said to Mrs. Allende, who waved this away dismissively, though she looked thoroughly pleased.
“No thanks necessary. I hope you like tamales, Doctor. It's my mother's recipe.”
“I'm honored to try them. How can I help?”
This was evidently the right thing to ask because Mrs. Allende lit up with pure admiration and approval. If he didn't have her blessing before, he was convinced he did now.
Waving her daughters aside with fluttering hands and instructions in both languages, Mrs. Allende led Ethan to the part of the counter Jamie formerly occupied. She spent the next few minutes teaching Ethan how to prepare the masa.
“Muy bien,” she praised minutes later when Ethan had caught on to the technique quickly. “Ya está listo para casarse, Doctor.”
You're ready to get married now.
Three reactions occurred at once: Lilac coughed, Ethan felt his ears flare with heat, and Laurel all but cackled.
“Madre!”
“It's just a saying, mi vida,” her mother returned innocently, finding her way back to the stove. “Why don't you start on the filling?” To Ethan she added, “My Lilita makes the best green salsa, did she tell you?”
Ethan paused his movements, the sticky dough beneath his palm melting against his skin.
“She didn't.”
Lilac was studiously avoiding his gaze now, cheeks as red as the tomatoes she rinsed. For as long as he had known her, Lilac had made a show of professing her lack of culinary skills.
“You're missing out, Doctor,” her mother proclaimed proudly. “Her chilaquiles are the best too.”
Ethan quietly assessed his girlfriend, who gave him a fleeting, embarrassed look.
“You didn't tell me you could cook.”
Cheeks brighter still, she refused to look at him for longer than a moment.
“Nothing anyone I know would like.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mostly obscure Mexican food my grandma taught me how to make.”
The words were an embarrassed mumble.
“Your friends and I would love it.”
“Yeah, well…”
Something about the shame in her expression and the tension in her shoulders opened little fissures along the surface of his heart. With a pang, he began to comprehend that every time his Lilac said, “I can't cook!” it was the simpler alternative. Feigning incompetence was easier than explaining the dishes she loved so much to people who often looked down on them. Not that Ethan or her friends ever would, but all it took was one asshole to look down on her customs with disgust for a protective barrier to emerge.
When Mrs. Allende busied herself with the oven, Ethan moved to encircle his arms around his girlfriend, careful not to get any of the dough still coating his hands on her.
“Make it for me someday?”
She blinked at him in surprise and when he smiled, she relaxed against him, nodding quietly. The grateful smile she gave him made his heart skip.
“Dad's team is losing,” Jamie announced a
minute later as he reentered the kitchen, closely followed by his father. “He's mad. So he'd rather come in here and help wrap the tamales.”
Mr. Allende rolled his eyes at his son. “They have the ref bought, mijo. It's a waste of time to even watch.”
Unbeknownst to him, Laurel and Jamie silently mouthed their father's words in perfect sync behind his back. Ethan almost allowed a smile, unable to resist the infectious laughter that proved to be an Allende family trait. Before he could join in the myrth, however, Mr. Allende's eyes met Ethan's. The older man's expression was an impenetrable mask and it made Ethan's nerves buzz with a start.
It was only when Mr. Allende's eyes fell down to Ethan's hands, clasped securely around his daughter's waist, that he realized he still held Lilac in a rather close embrace.
Without thought, Ethan released her, almost shoving her away instinctively.
Lilac, slightly affronted, shot him a funny look. She was no doubt incredulous that a man Ethan's age was still afraid of his girlfriend's father like some kind of hormonal teenager. A cheeky part of his mind mused that when it came to Lilac, he was much like a juvenile version of himself.
“You're almost forty,” she teased in a whisper when her family was too preoccupied with an argument over what music to play.
Ethan threw her a dry, unappreciative glare. He couldn't add anything more because at that moment, the notes of an upbeat and unmistakably eighties song drafted from the small Bluetooth speaker.
All three Allende siblings groaned in unison, the sound dropping lower still when Mrs. Allende began to dance unabashedly to the beat.
“Not Luis Miguel,” Laurel sighed. “Our mother's crush.”
“Luis Mi Rey,” their mother corrected with a lovestruck sigh.
“I'm standing right here,” their father returned, arms crossed.
Ethan could see, however, that the faux stern expression threatened to break as he watched Margo singing happily. His wife pulled him close, singing lyrics about falling in love under the sun on a beach.
“I really lucked out,” Mrs. Allende said, voice sing-song and eyes fixed adoringly on her husband. “I ended up with someone better than El Sol de México himself.”
The sun of Mexico belted a high note from the speaker.
“Yeah, you ended up with the entire solar system with Dad,” Jaime teased, a wicked gaze falling on their father's generous belly.
“Don't body shame my dad,” Laurel returned sternly, though she looked on the verge of laughter.
The family dissolved into a good-natured argument.
Ethan watched them in silence, admiring the small pocket of chaos they occupied as they each spoke over one another. Even in doing so, they laughed and joked until all that could be heard was a chorus of mirth that made his heart ache.
“The sun is a solitary star,” Ethan found himself saying through the cheerful chatter.
Everyone fell silent, casting him glances that ranged from curious to downright confused. Only Lilac glanced up at him with a brilliant, knowing smile.
“Many astronomers believe it once had a companion. As it stands now, it's an anomaly because it's alone in the universe.”
Still, no one said anything.
Ethan was beginning to wonder if he overstepped and interrupted a family moment with his nonsense. Before panic could settle over his insides like a sheet of ice, his girlfriend wrapped an arm around his waist, settling into his side.
“In other words,” he continued, eyes moving to a quiet Mr. Allende. “You don't want to be like the sun. You and your wife are more like binary stars, who are gravitational bound forever.”
More silence followed his words and Ethan had half a mind to retreat from the room.
Finally, when the pause was almost unbearable, Mr. Allende chuckled.
“You hear that, viejita? I'm better than Luis Miguel. I'm a star.”
“Made of gas,” Jaime supplied.
In the chaotic symphony of their laughter, Lilac reclaimed Ethan's attention with a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Ethan Ramsey,” she murmured, impressed. “You are a bit of a poet after all.”
It's how I feel about you.
“I could've come up with that.” Jaime said loudly.
“No way,” Laurel returned at once. “You literally said Dad was as vast and old as the solar system.”
“Old?” her father asked in mock offense. “No one said anything about old before.”
After that brief glimmer of Mr. Allende's approval in the kitchen, the awkward edge in the air lifted. By the time Mrs. Allende promptly sat all of the men at the kitchen table to wrap the tamales, Ethan had proudly earned himself a smile from Lilac’s stoic father. His eyes crinkled at the edges as he watched Ethan studiously wrap the corn husks.
“My wife is going to favor your tamales, Doctor. You’ll make us look bad,” Mr. Allende commented.
“We do that all on our own, pops,” Jaime returned without missing a beat. As though to prove this point, a glop of dough fell from the corn husk he haphazardly wrapped.
Ethan paused, concerned. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“Not at all. They’re nearly damn perfect,” Mr. Allende chuckled.
“Ethan does everything with mathematical precision,” Lilac commented as she approached, placing a kiss on Ethan’s forehead.
Laurel muttered something from behind Lilac. Whatever it was scandalized her sister.
Luckily, Mr. Allende missed this because he grinned at Jaime. “See, mijo? You should put your degree to use, too.”
“I was too hungover the day they covered tamal wrapping in my engineering classes,” Jamie returned.
“Cabrón,” Mr. Allende laughed.
As it turned out, Mr. Allende was correct. His wife adored the neat work Ethan made of the task she assigned. Bursting with pride and delight, she squeezed Ethan’s shoulder. “Excellent work, mijo!”
Ethan’s heart felt weightless at the term of endearment.
“Ma, don’t go replacing me as the favorite son,” Jaime joked.
“About time,” Lilac muttered.
Jaime and Laurel rolled their eyes, exchanging a look.
“Middle child,” they chanted in unison.
They dissolved into a melody of voices and laughter once more. As the tamales steamed, they found themselves locked in a boisterous and heated game of Lotería. Ethan proved to be exceedingly good at it, much to everyone's delighted surprise (except Lilac's). After winning a particularly dramatic and fast-paced round, everyone flashed him an impressed smile.
Everyone except Laurel.
“Looks like you met your match, Lau,” Mr. Allende laughed.
“I only lost because I was calling them,” Laurel responded, red in the face. “It slowed me down.”
“Then let me call them,” Ethan returned, matching the challenge in her voice.
Lilac smacked an excited hand against the table. “This I have to see!”
Mrs. Allende, looking just as delighted, proclaimed, “Have him call out the personalized cards too, mija.”
“Personalized?”
“La Doctora,” Laurel said pointing at Lilac. “Mine is La Maestra and Jaime's is El Ingeniero.”
“Your parents don't have one?”
“Dad's is already in the original deck,” Jaime began with a devilish grin. “El Borracho.”
Mr. Allende responded with a string of curse words and hearty laughter.
“Ethan needs one, too,” Mrs. Allende said, kind eyes surveying Ethan. “We need to think of what his will say and I'll ask your cousin Natalia to make it.”
The group erupted into suggestions of what to name Ethan's card but he remained silent. His throat felt inexplicably tight as he watched them, thinking of ways to include him.
“How about El Anciano?” Lilac whispered close to his ear, her warm hand atop his under the table.
Ethan smiled at her jab but it was half-hearted.
“They love you already,” she said reassuringly, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.
For once, Ethan was speechless.
“Alright, alright,” Lilac called out through the jovial clamor of voices. “We can decide on Ethan's card over the tamales and the bottle of tequila he bought for tonight.”
Jaime let out a loud cheer, his hands rubbing together in exaggeration. Lilac rose from her seat to retreat the bottle. When she returned, she raised it over her head like a trophy to the cheers of her siblings.
“Good choice, Doctor,” Mr. Allende commended as he caught sight of the label. “How did you know that was my favorite?”
Lilac telling him that morning is how Ethan knew.
“I just knew you had good taste and went with that.”
The smile Mr. Allende gave him left little doubt that he had effectively won him over too.
Laurel scoffed quietly, flicking a finger to the tip of her nose and spearing Ethan with a look that basically shouted “brown-noser.” On a whim, he flashed her a swift middle finger, careful to keep it hidden from her parents.
Jamie howled with laughter, Laurel looked impressed, and Lilac grinned, looking far more in love than he'd ever seen her.
It was then that Ethan realized that the foreign warmth coursing through him, welcoming and comforting as a morning sun, was a sense of belonging.
Translations:
Masa: Dough
Tamales: A Latin American dish made of dough and filling. It is steamed in corn husks or banana leaves.
Chilaquiles: a traditional Mexican dish consisting of corn tortillas cut into quarters and lightly fried. Usually topped with cheese, cream, and other ingredients.
Mijo/Mija: Term of endearment meaning "son" or "daughter"
El Sol de Mexico: The Sun of Mexico. A nickname dubbed to singer Luis Miguel.
Viejita: Affectionate way of saying older lady
Loteria: a traditional game of chance, similar to bingo, and is played on a deck of cards instead of numbered ping pong balls.
Maestra: Teacher
Ingeniero: Engineer
Borracho: Drunk
Anciano: Old Man
Note: Hi. Lots of apologies to give out. First off, sorry it's been literal months! I'm back. Sorry this is long. Sorry this is long overdue (I wrote it two years ago and held it close to my chest.) Sorry I still have other fics to finish!
And thank you so much if you're still here and read this!
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It was a bright, sunny, unusually hot summer day. There was a terrible heatwave sweeping the country. People were finding small relief in the shade as well as swamping the beach. You were one of the beach goers, hoping to cool off in the ocean. As you set up a towel on the beach you looked around you. Children were digging in the sand, parents reading nearby and seagulls stealing food when the opportunity arose. You pulled off your blue-pink flower sundress, exposing a teal bathing suit. Before heading down to the water, you put some sunscreen on. Work took up most of your life, not allowing you to be outside often. As you walked down to the water, gently putting a toe in to test the temperature, you heard a laugh. A girl with shiny blonde hair and piercing blue eyes in a red bathing suit was in the water, almost up to her knees. She was splashing three other people who were replying in what you believed to be Italian.
“Basta, Basta, Vic” A young man with black hair down to his waist said jokingly mad, splashing the water back at her.
Another lanky young man with blonde hair and one with shorter dark hair covered in tattoos were splashing each other. All appeared to be having a great time.
You walked out a little further, feeling the sun beating relentlessly down on you. You stumbled over something which felt sharp and slimy causing you to completely fall in the water at once. Embarrassed, you dragged yourself up, completely soaking wet. Your hair was sticking to your face. The blonde girl appeared by your shoulder
“Are you ok” she asked touching your shoulder
“Yes, yes I am. Just pretty embarrassed” you admitted smiling a little, feeling a little nervous.
“Good” replied the blonde, blue eyed girl.
She held out her hand, to shake yours.
“I’m Vic”
“I’m Y/N. You are the talented, amazing bassist for Maneskin right?”
Vic blushed looking away.
“If you think so” she laughed a little.
“Do you want to go swimming?” She suggested.
“You can help me get back at the boys. They hid my book and won’t tell me where it is. I am pretty sure it was Damiano but Thomas and Ethan aren’t saying anything.”
You followed her out to where Damiano, Ethan and Thomas still were, following Vic’s lead. After a few minutes of bothering the boys, Damaino admitted he hid Vic’s book under a bundle of towels.
“I’m getting kinda tired, Y/N. How about we head back to shore? I saw a smoothie bar close by we could head to if you want”
“That sounds great!” you replied thinking to yourself how could someone not agree to go get smoothies with Victoria De Angelis?
You ordered a raspberry banana smoothie while Vic got a coconut pineapple one. As you drank your respective smoothies Vic smiled at you, blue eyes twinkling. There was a little bit of smoothie above her red lips.
“What?” She said, giggling.
You grabbed a napkin and leaned forward. She let you wipe her lips, grinning at you. You asked her questions about her music, when she started playing instruments and her love for playing live. Vic talked excitedly, her eyes lit up from excitement. The next hour flew by, as the two of you talked. As the sun began to set over the ocean causing a red and pink glow to appear, Vic looked at her watch.
“I better head back to the hotel” She commented
You felt a little sad, having loved the time you spent with her and didn’t want it to end so soon. She noticed your changed expression.
“How about we meet up for dinner? The boys already have other plans.”
You instantly smiled.
“I would really like that”
As you parted ways Vic gave you a hug, pulling you close. You could smell the ocean on her hair. Somehow a spontaneous trip to the beach turned out to change your life forever.
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