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He had the entire house to himself, which was a rare occurrence. His mother had given him the day off from the studio since it was a slow day, Ignacio had gone somewhere without too much description--something that happened from time to time, but Richard trusted him--, and his father had gone off somewhere with some work friends. His brothers were supposed to come by later on in the day to get some things from the house, things that his mother wanted them to finally get out of her house so they could have some space cleared, but they wouldn't be by for some hours. So he supposed that left him to find the things his brothers would be by to get. Garber wanted some heirlooms he had, so he could start figuring out which of Mikki and Aaron he wanted to pass them on to. Constantine had something for Lee he'd left behind, and Tammer was just about finished moving into his new place with Dominique and the girls. A one-bedroom apartment hadn't been big enough, and--now that the girls were a year old--they really needed a bigger room.

He pulled the first box out of the closet in Tammer's old bedroom, figuring he'd get the largest job done first. Plus, all he needed ot do with it was stack it in the living room. That one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next...

There were, on retrospect, more boxes than he had initially remembered.

By the sixth box, Richard was puffing a bit and decided to take a break. It wasn't that he was out of shape--he wasn't--but he wanted to have a long conversation with his brother with how to pack a box. There were at least two boxes where he could feel something shifting in them, unbalanced even as he carried them down the stairs to the living room. Leaning on one of the stacks and looking around the room, he caught that one of the boxes was open a little bit, and a familiar stripe of ribbon was peeking out of it. Somehow, he'd managed to grab one of his own boxes of old things had gotten shoved into the room for storage at some point.

Bending over, he tugged experimentally at the ribbon. It came out easy, and Richard rubbed his thumb over the satiny material. It was a deep red colour and covered in velvet on one side. At the end, a thin piece of metal, with the number "2" on it. Richard was amazed he even still had it. Sitting down on the floor after pulling the box aside, he popped open the old yellowed tape and began to rummage through the contents. There were photographs of his first dancing competition, when he was thirteen years old and all legs and gangly arms. There were other medals, costumes--oh god, the costumes--, paperwork from competition liability wavers... He put the paperwork to the side, honestly not sure why his mother had ever had him save it in the first place. There were addresses and phone numbers of old competition partners and coaches he hadn't seen in a dozen years, that he had no idea what had happened to. Wuffing air through his nose in amused wonder, he put those in the "discard" pile as well.

The photographs went in a "keep" pile, obviously, and so did the costumes, if only because he knew what his mother's reaction would be if he threw them away. As he combed through the rest of the items, props, recordings of his performances, he couldn't help the bit of nostalgic smile on his face. It was nice, honestly, to relive some of the childish joy of early competition. He loved what he did at his mother's studio, sure, but there was still that element of obligation and responsibility now, that he hadn't had when he was a kid.

Before he knew it, the box was empty, and he was left blinking at it for a moment before he realized he'd finished. Getting up after a moment, he threw away the "trash" pile and carried the rest, put back in the box, to his own bedroom. He'd have to show the items off later. He knew at least one or two people would get a kick out of them.

--FIN

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