#I'd wake up to ''good morning!'' followed by a dog emoji just because she knows how much I love dogs JDFHKDJHFKJDKDJ

[fallen-gravity]

Kaikunāne

Brother.

Hey, @distractibledingo, remember the other night when I joked about turning this thread with @peri-plumz into a full length story, because “LOOK AT THIS, LOOK AT ALL THIS FLUFF, IT CALLS ME?”

...Whoops.

A short summary: 

Maui considers Moana as part of the family. She knows he does. He’s been calling her little sister almost every day since they were 15.

She also knows that his family holds a lot of cookouts, because she’s been to a bunch of them.

Which is why it really puts Maui off that she starts getting uncomfortable when he starts describing the next one she’s going to as the family cookout.

@peri-plumz @distractibledingo @sliceoflove @crab-child @leradny @renee-niels

Almost every time there’s a long weekend coming up, Maui’s dad makes plans to have a cookout at some point during that weekend.

The first time, Maui’s family had a cookout, it was for the end of the school year. Summer was starting, and Dad made a big deal about getting all this food together and making sure the grill worked and borrowing everyone’s phones to check the weather app for the week over and over again to make sure it wasn’t going to be raining the day he insisted on having it. The entire house, as a matter of fact, was filled to the brim with ingredients and scattered cookbooks two weeks before the school year even ended.

The second time, he held one when Te Fiti came home for spring break. She was busy with school, and didn’t have a lot of time to come home during the schoolyear, so Dad put together a smaller barbecue. He still planned it weeks ahead of time, and he still kept begging Maui to check the weather app because are you sure it’s just going to be cloudy are you sure those little cloud pictures aren’t supposed to represent rain, and every time the phone rang or someone’s phone buzzed when they got a text he’d rush over and ask them who it was from just to make sure it wasn’t Te Fiti contacting him to say that she couldn’t make it after all.

Once Maui got into high school, and Punga and Tinirau went off to college, he’d host one every time they both decided to come home on the same weekend. Whether they always planned to come home together or they both just happened to start feeling homesick at the same time, Maui’s not sure, but he always used to joke and blame it on their “twin telepathy” that forced one to always feel the exact same way as the other. Because they came home relatively often, Dad had less and less time to panic over things like the weather or planning out just exactly what food he’d have to prepare and how many portions of it he’d have to make.

And once Maui entered college, Dad joked about holding one every time there was a three day weekend just to get everyone to come home and spend time with him. Later in the schoolyear, when he decided to host one for a long weekend just because there happened to be a holiday on Monday, he’d apparently completely forgotten that he made that joke at all until Maui pointed it out to him.

And just like that, it became a small tradition for the Tangaroa family. Every time there’d be a long weekend, whether for a holiday or not, Dad would host a cookout. No longer would he fuss over making sure everyone was sure they were able to come home, because the cookouts soon became the thing to look forward to on a long weekend. The weather stopped becoming a problem, too, and each time it would rain or become too cold in the winter to hold a barbecue outside he’d just shrug his shoulders and prepare everything inside instead.

Once Maui became good friends with Moana, he started inviting her to tag along. Each time he knew she’d be going home that weekend, he’d ask her just to come home with him, because they lived in the same hometown anyway, and stay at his place until the barbecue was over. Sometimes she’d stay for entire weekend, if the barbecue was on a Monday, and other times she’d just stay the night and go home the next if Dad was holding it on a Saturday. But every time Maui offered Moana to come along, she’d always accept it and tag along, and seeing her at the barbecue became such a regular occurrence to everyone else that sometimes if Punga ran into her on campus he’d tell her about the one coming up before Maui even had a chance to see her.

She got along with everyone in the family well, so everyone loved having her around. She’d mess with Maui or get messed with by Punga or sometimes she’d even help Dad on the grill if he needed the extra hand. It was a family cookout, and eventually Moana stopped being “Maui’s best friend” who showed up to the cookouts whenever she could to the “little sister” of the family who they’d all miss if something in her schedule prevented her from showing up.

Whether the cookouts were directly responsible for his entire family beginning to view Moana as one of their own, or just because she’s known them since her and Maui’s freshman year in high school, Maui’s not sure, but he’d been calling her “little sister” ever since sophomore year. It started off as a nickname he’d use to mock her, because even if she does like to rub in his face that she’s a few days older than him, she’s still eleven inches shorter than him so it doesn’t count. But eventually the name just stuck, because he eventually found himself seeing her as his second sister. And by midway through junior year in high school, he caught Punga slipping up and calling her little sister when she wasn’t even in the room to hear him say it

Either way, it’s clear to Maui that he’s not the sole member in his family who views Moana as one of their own.

He and Moana are sitting in her living room joking and laughing when his phone buzzes with a text notification. They’d decided that this weekend that he would spend the night at her place, just to make up for all of those times she claimed he “kept her from seeing her parents”.  And if Maui’s going to be completely honest with himself, the change is nice, because as much as he likes going home for the weekend, dragging Moana back to his place every weekend when he hasn’t been to hers in months was starting to get old very quickly.

Not to mention that, just as his siblings seemed to change around Moana their senior year in high school, Maui noticed a similar kind of change in Tui and Sina’s change in behavior towards him.

A few weeks before graduation, when he and Moana were studying for finals, Sina came by and offered the two of them something to eat while they worked. But when Sina had approached the two of them and had asked “Is there anything you want, sweetie?” Maui had been surprised when he glanced up from his book and saw that Sina was directing her question at him.

At the time Maui had just brushed off the incident as something that happens to everyone, and maybe Sina just called all of Moana’s friends sweetie, and it didn’t really hit him until he got home that night just why she probably called him that at all. Moana’s an only child, the only child Sina and Tui ever had, so it wouldn’t surprise Maui to find out that because he spent so much time around Moana that they started viewing him as an honorary son. And that thought makes him laugh, because if his dad’s nickname for Moana is anything to go by then he clearly views her as his honorary daughter, so it would really only be fair for Moana’s parents to see him the same way.

Maui’s phone buzzes again, pulling him from his thoughts, and he opens the phone just to prevent the notification sound from going off again in another minute, but then before he can close the messaging app he sees that the text is coming in from “Professor Whale” and he stops. If he tried to ignore the notifications and open the message just to get his phone to stop buzzing, Dad would just start messaging him even more.

The text reads “I’ll see you tomorrow!!!!” surrounded on both sides by two separate whale emojis, and Maui’s about to just respond with a quick “ok” and go back to talking to Moana when another text comes in. It reads, “Is Junior still coming?” with a big grinning emoji attached to the end.

Rolling his eyes, Maui sends a quick “i’ll ask her” back before clicking his phone off and turning to face Moana beside him.

“Hey, Mo?”

“Hm?”

“I know I’ve probably asked you this a hundred times already this week, but now Dad’s insisting on hearing your confirmation himself. You’re coming to the family cookout tomorrow afternoon, right?” he asks jokingly, and Maui’s all about ready to open his phone back up and respond with a quick yes to his Dad’s text when the smile suddenly drops from Moana’s face.

But just as quickly, she catches herself, and she’s smiling again like it never slipped off of her face at all.

“Aw, is that tomorrow?” she asks, like she didn’t already know that from the constant reminders he’s been giving her all week, and her voice sounds stiff, like she’s trying to convince him she sounds shocked by the information even though he knows she’s really not. “I just realized I can’t come this time. I’m...busy with something else.”

Maui frowns. “You sure?” he asks, and snorts, gesturing vaguely around the living room that’s completely empty save for the two of them. “You don’t look very busy to me” he jokes, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to wipe the uncomfortable frown off of Moana’s face.

“Yeah”, she deadpans, and the cheer in her voice from earlier is gone. “It’s kind of last minute. There’s just a few things I need to catch up on, you know?”

Maui blinks. “I mean, sure, if you’ve actually got stuff going on, but…” he trails off, and shakes his head. “Are you okay?”

Moana snorts, and shifts in her seat so she’s not facing him anymore. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a lot of last minute homework I gotta catch up on, is all.” and then, quieter, and in a more sheepish tone, “...besides, I wouldn’t want to ruin any of your family’s fun or anything”.

...She what?

“Nahh,” Maui waves a dismissive hand, trying to make himself sound as neutral and joking as he possibly can. “It really wouldn’t be the same without you there” he says, and can’t help but grin because it’s technically true. It really wouldn’t be the same without her. There had been a few cookouts in the past where she hadn’t been able to attend for one reason or another, and the cookout just wasn’t as lively or bursting with activity without her presence there.

But instead of stopping to consider his words like he expected, Moana just snorts and waves a dismissive hand of her own. “Pfft, sure. It wouldn’t be the same without me” she mocks his voice, and shakes her head. “I appreciate that, but this is your family we’re talking about”

Moana’s hard emphasis on your family hurts more than Maui’s willing to admit, and barely catches himself on time to prevent a frown spreading to his face. “Huh?” he asks instead, pretending to sound confused by her statement. “It’s true. We’d miss you if you couldn’t show”. He snorts. “I mean, it’s not like Dad’ll cancel just because you can’t come this one time, but we’d definitely notice if you were gone. We’ve had a few without you, like when you were vacationing with your parents for spring break, and it was….incredibly boring without you there. Even Dad made a comment on it, and he was the one hosting the cookout”.

Maui grins, but when he turns to look at Moana she’s still frowning like she doesn’t believe him. Maui sighs quietly, and after waiting a short pause for her to respond to no avail he begins to speak again.

‘You’re...like an additional member of the family to us, Moana. All of us.” He says, and sparing a quick glance over at the phone sitting on the table beside the couch, he huffs in amusement. “Here, I can prove it. I ever tell you what Dad calls you behind your back?”

Moana sighs. “I...I know. I love you guys, I really do, but sometimes I feel like…” she trails off, waving a hand in the air to drop the subject, but then blinks in confusion once his last sentence registers and she seems to realize who he’s talking about.

“Professor T?” she asks, clearly eager to change the subject. “No, I don’t think so. What does he call me?”

But instead of answering her question immediately, Maui’s too caught up on the sentence she never finished. He shuffles closer to her on the couch, and rests his arm against the headrest so he can fully face her comfortably.

“Aw, no, backtrack a little bit. You know you can tell me anything if you think something’s up with my family, right? They love you to pieces, Moana. I know Punga likes to mess with you a lot when you visit, but I doubt he’s trying to pull anything when he’s calling you little sister to your face or to me when you’re not around to hear him say it. He calls you that because that’s how he sees you. That’s how all of us see you”

Maui pauses. “Well, almost all of us. You wanna know what Dad calls you when he thinks you’re not around to hear him say it? He calls you Moana Jr. Pretty sure I even overheard him say it to a colleague when I passed his office on the way to class once. I asked him about it later, and he tried to cover himself up by claiming it was so people wouldn’t think he was talking about himself in the third person or something”.

Maui laughs, and he picks up his phone and waves it around in demonstration. “But I never call him by his first name, and he just texted me asking about you using that nickname, so I have...other theories as to why he actually does it”.

Moana finally smiles, and she’s shaking her head and laughing, and Maui really can’t help but to smile in response.

“Really? Moana Jr.? That’s sweet of him” Moana says, but then she shifts again, and her bright, amused smile fades into one that’s small and almost closed off. “And...I know. You don’t need to lecture me. Punga…” she trails off shortly, and that amused smile returns to her face as she elbows him the ribs, “and you, obviously…” she continues, and Maui can’t help but to roll his eyes in amusement and chuckle softly at her gesture. “Have really always been the older brothers I never got to have”. And she smiles, and she looks like she’s going to say something else, but then she pauses, and backtracks, like she’s just now realizing what she just said.

...Come to think of it, isn’t the phrase supposed to be “the brothers she never had?” Where’s “never got to” coming from?

“What?” Maui asks, blinking at her in confusion. What do you mean you never got to have older brothers? You’re an only child, right? I thought Tui and Sina were only looking to have one kid”.

But his question only seems to have made things worse, because there Moana goes again, frowning, and she’s uncomfortably playing with her hair, and for a long moment Maui thinks she’s not going to respond until she sighs out a small puff of air.

“I...wasn’t the only kid my parents had, actually. I had an older brother, but he died when he was only a few weeks old. And...this next part is going to sound weird, but believe it or not...I was actually born a twin. My brother, he didn’t...make it. I was born 70 seconds after he was, and my parents were terrified I was going to turn out the same way as him, but…” she trails off, gesturing vaguely with her arm towards herself with a sad smile spreading to her face. “Here I am”

“Punga and Tinirau,” Moana continues. Sometimes when I’m watching them, even if they don’t seem very close, it makes me wonder, you know, what it would’ve been like if…” she trails off, and between one blink in the next Moana is staring past him with an expression of longing weighing heavily on her.

…Oh.

Oh.

Frowning, Maui winds an arm around her and places a hand on her shoulder as a means of wordless support. He wants to help her, he wants to say something to support her, but the words just aren’t coming to him right now so for the moment he hopes she’s okay with him just kind of leaning towards her and literally offering his shoulder to cry on if she needs it.

Then, a short pause, as the words do actually come to him.

“That’s...so awful, Moana, I’m so sorry your family had to go through that”.

He frowns.

“I kind of get where you’re coming from with Punga and Tinirau, though. For a few years when I was really little, I felt really isolated from my siblings. I knew they loved me, and it’s not like they didn’t actively show me they did, but…” he trails off, momentarily, and shakes his head at himself before he continues on.  “I felt different from all of them because I wasn’t born into their family. Mom and Dad brought me home after everyone else was already born, so some part of me figured that I’d never be able to get as close to them as they were each other, because they brought me in last.”

He pauses to glance over at Moana beside him, and then at her living room around them, and Maui laughs.

“But the part I’m not understanding is...you’re wondering what it would be like if you ever got to have a twin brother like you don’t already have one?” He grins, and it’s wide enough that his tooth gap is visible through his lips. Before she can ask what he means, he retrieves his arm back from around her shoulder and shifts again until his full body is turned to face her.

“I’m sitting right in front of you, aren’t I?” Maui asks, and his grin softens inadvertently as he continues on. “If you’re telling me you the way Punga and Tinirau behave around each other don’t remind you of anyone else, that would really shock me, because I can think of another pair like that off the top of my head and they’re sitting on this very couch as we speak.”

His grin grows wider still.

“You and I were born a week apart from each other to the day, Moana. I think that’s about the closest to actual biological twins you can get”.

Moana’s silent for a moment, like she’s really thinking about what he says, and her small smile up at him is the only and far-too quick warning he has before she launches herself toward him, wrapping her arms around him in a hug, yanking him towards her into a tight embrace in one swift, wordless movement.

“And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way” she murmurs into his shoulder, and Maui, finally blinking away the last of the shock from her gesture, winds her arms around her and holds her close to reciprocate her hug.

“Me too”. He says, but then pauses when he realizes how insensitive that could come across coming from him. “I-I mean, not the part about your brothers. It’s...I’m not saying I would’ve wanted things to turn out exactly the same if it could’ve been prevented, because I’m sure they would’ve been really cool if I ever got to meet them, and-”

He cuts himself off abruptly when he realizes he’s rambling.

“Nevermind. I wouldn’t have wanted things to turn out any differently either”

Moana laughs, and whacks him gently in the shoulder without pulling away. “Pfft, it’s fine, bro, I know what you mean” she says, and Maui snorts a laugh in response.

“Good”. Maui says, and then as an afterthought, “So, you are coming to the family cookout tomorrow, right? I think I overheard Dad on the phone with Te Fiti the other day who said she was coming home for this one, too” He grins down at her. “It’s really been a long time since we’ve had our entire family together”

Moana grins, and once they finally pull away from their hug she nudges him in the shoulder with her elbow. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m coming. It’s our family, isn’t it?” she says, and jumps up from the couch, gesturing with her head towards the front door.

“Speaking of which, actually, you think we can head over there now?” Moana grins. “It’s awfully quiet in here without my other brothers”.