Who: Ethan & Sophie. What: Half sibling rivalry of adorable death. Ghost Recon, fire extinguishers, and Adventure Time. When: Backdated SO FAR back. Where: Turnberry, Ethan's apartment. Warnings: Language.
The late hour didn’t bother Sophie as she hailed a cab and let it drive her across town to the address Ethan had so readily provided to her. An invitation was an invitation, and there was no taking those sort of things back, especially when it came to family. She didn’t like the guy, but she didn’t hate him, and the two combined together meant she needed to at least pay her stalker of a brother a visit. A handful of visits over the years had cemented him in her mind as the brother she never particularly wanted, and she had been reminded time and time again that he was the heir to everything. Like that mattered to her in the end. Her mother would make sure she was taken care of, Sophie had every ounce of confidence in that.
She was in skinny jeans and a loose fitting grey top when she started knocking on his door, an incessant tap tap tap against the wooden door. “Ethan. Let me in,” she called out, loud enough for the entire building to hear. She had said she was going to visit, and she didn’t go back on her promises.
Stalker would be taking things a bit too far. The only time he even looked up his dear sister's Twitter account was for a good round of laughs when he was high as a kite and sitting around the fire with his fucked up circle of friends. Not that drug abusers usually have friends, but they have useful people with like minded interests and yes, they all got a kick out of her drunken typos and sloppy party pic links. Probably because Ethan was a guy of dusty sneakers and vintage guitar picks strung onto necklaces, nobody believed that he was related to the queen bee of London's sociopath socialites. While amusing, it was always a little bittersweet after a while and he'd turn his phone off to stop the comedy. Just stopped being funny when he got to thinking too hard about it. Why did she get the normal life?
He'd told her not to come over, he'd shouted it at the pages of the journal and then shouted it at his paused video game while he kicked pieces of clothing around his living room. The furniture hadn't even been delivered yet because who had the patience to thumb through the catalogs? His father offered an interior designer, but that seemed disgustingly easy for Ethan, the boy who wanted nothing. So he stuck with the flat screen on the wall and the black leather couch he'd bought from his neighbor because it seemed easier than going to a thrift store, even if the price was ridiculously over extended. Then there was the pillowtop queen mattress with the Turkish sheets that his father sent in the mail, they were the only thing residing so far in the master bedroom. The suite's layout was extreme and the emptiness made the whole place feel like he was still squatting in abandoned warehouses, so maybe he liked it a little.. even if it brought back some unfortunate urges now and then. After a while, Ethan resumed Ghost Recon and got comfortable with the idea that Sophie was bluffing. She wouldn't show up here, she'd get lost or distracted along the way by something shiny. Like a toddler or a barracuda.
Which is why the knock to his door was more unappreciated than unexpected. "Little bitch.." he huffed while trying to tune her out and continue his game, but then he died due to distraction and there was a frustrated shout from his side of the door that definitely signaled he was home. The cool hazel of his eyes slid slowly for the front door, eyeing it in wait of whether or not she'd go away. She didn't. He could hear her on the outside, yowling like a cat. Ethan. Eeeeeeeeethan. Ethie! Fuck it, he'd warned her. Getting up from the plush couch, he moved for the kitchen first in order to detach the standard apartment issue fire extinguisher from the wall. After a brief glimpse through the peephole, and noting that she seemed to be the only person on the other side from his angle, Ethan tugged the door opened and let the fire extinguisher spray down the front of her legs and onto her expensive shoes. A solid, freezing blast of chemicals that coated her skinny jeans and then her feet in white-ish gray.
The tapping turned to kneeing the door with one leg, and then to pounding her fists against it, alternating a rhythm that was equal parts loud and annoying. Variations of his name rang out down the hallway, some singsong, others shrill, some simply shouted, and the scene went on for many minutes, long enough that most people would have given up and taken the lack of answer as a sign that they were not wanted. Sophie, unfortunately, was not most people and she never claimed to be. When the shout came from the other side of the door, she did a little dance in her Louboutins, the success written all over her face. Of course Ethan would give in. She could hold out a hell of a lot longer than her half-brother could, after all. The stubbornness came from her mother’s side, and there was no lack of it within Sophie. She was an actress through and through, more than willing and able to play whatever part she could to get what it was she wanted. And right then, it was Ethan’s attention that she desired.
That attention, however, was not bestowed upon her in the way that she wanted. She yelped as the chemical foam bathed her legs and her shoes, freezing her to the bones and causing her to hop back a step, the expression on her face one of absolutely betrayal. It was frozen on her face for several moments, and then, without warning, the lower lip wobbled. The sniffle came next, right on cue, and then the waterworks as she started to cry. Sophie was an excellent cryer, just the right amount of tears and no overload of snot, to the point where she simply looked pathetic and in need of protection other than annoying and ugly. The tears streamed down her face and she made a point to look at Ethan, misery etched over her expression. “Ethan...” she whimpered as she pulled her purse around in front of her, reaching into it with a shaking hand. “I just - I just wanted to give you these.” There was a sniff as she pulled out a piece of paper with a few numbers scrawled on it. “No one could come tonight. But. I promised. Didn’t I?” Wibble, wobble, she milked it for all she was worth, even if the numbers lead to the few hapless people she had chosen out of the campus directory.
It was like he could see it all beginning in slow motion, and triumph turned to annoyance very quickly. Oh fuck, she was going to cry. The yelp alone had one of his neighbors further down the hall peeking their head out to see what all the fuss was about. The fire extinguisher probably didn't help clarify anything, judging by the confusion on their expression just before they shut their door again. Probably to call the cops. Help, somebody just attacked a helpless girl's shoes with flame retardant foam! "Ugh, get in here," he said with a little less bite to his bark by the time he stepped away from the door he'd been guarding so furiously. He was never really sure what to do when the girls at the house he'd grown up in would cry - which seemed fairly regular. Sophie was no exception to his complete lack of comfort on the matter. He was the one who cut out his own heart and left it on some back porch in a wooded dream, what the fuck was he supposed to do with a crying sister? Sometimes he forgot to think of her as a half-sister at all, despite the few number of times they'd actually crossed paths in their short lives. "Come on," he offered again. Gently and pulling the scrap of paper from her hand for a tuck into his back pocket. The paper was forgotten a moment later, it suddenly seemed unimportant, and he caught the back of her shoulderblade with a palm to nudge her into his domain. "If the cops come, I'm going to pin you as a burglar," he informed her with another cautionary glance down the hallway, which now laid quiet except for her tragic weeping.
The sniffling and crying continued well into Ethan’s apartment, though she gave him a sharp look at his threat about what he would tell the cops, and didn’t truly cease until the door was closed and locked behind them. Only then did Sophie wipe at her eyes, thumbing the tears away from beneath mascara’d lashes, leaving her face just as neat as it had been before, except with a few more splotches due to the crying fiasco. “And I’ll tell them you were threatening me,” she said with a glance in his direction, edging away from the hand against her shoulder as she pulled off the chemical-coated pumps and tossed them on the floor, the skinny jeans soon following which left her standing in the loose grey top and tiny underthings that might have been made from sheer lace if one got close enough to tell. Hands balanced on her hips and she gave Ethan a long look, thoroughly unimpressed with him. “Is that really any way to treat your sister, Ethan?” Sophie asked, her voice full of chastisement for the man.
"It's my fucking apartment," he countered with a fierce baring of picture perfect teeth, which was easier to show when she finally ceased in the crocodile tears. Sophie was in his apartment in a hop, a skip, and a flash, so the door was closed and locked behind her, despite never really having locks in his childhood. It was a new thing, a grown into thing, his mother had always operated twenty-four/seven. Ethan turned and wrinkled his nose with distrust when Sophie began to shuck the chemical-soaked denim and shoes, suspecting that the police would probably believe her over him despite everything. She was the chick, after all. All they'd really have to do was look at his record, which aside from some minor technicalities over drug possession and questionable property, was pretty damn clean. Thanks Dad. Crossing over toward the couch with a scowl, Ethan kicked a pair of gray boxers over to her with a bare foot. Just a trinket of cotton cast amongst the lost soldiers of a dozen other fallen. Look, they matched her top and everything. "Put some fucking pants on, Jesus." Then he plopped onto the cushions and resumed a new game with his controller as if she wasn't even there.
If she was at all embarrassed by her state of dress, it didn’t show on her face as she picked up the pair of boxers he had kicked at her, pulling them up narrow hips for his sake, if anything. “It might be your place, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a fucking dick about it.” Sophie gave a roll of her eyes as she dropped down onto the couch beside him, pulling her legs up against her chest, chin resting against her bent knees. She didn’t care if he ignored her in favour of his game; he had let her in, and that was victory enough. It was like when you invited a vampire into your domicile. The invitation was worth its weight in gold, and for Sophie, she considered it to be an open thing that she could and would take advantage of when she pleased. Of course she loved her wee little apartment she shared with Sadie, but this was family, and there was something special about pissing the hell out of her brother. Half or not, it was the only blood relation she had other than the grandparents she saw once every few years. “Admit it,” she murmured after some time watching him play his game. “You’re glad I’m here. Or you wouldn’t have approached me on those pesky journals. You would have ignored me if you hated me.”
"If I was trying to be a dick about it," he countered with a tongue pinched between his teeth as he focused on the neon glow of the flat screen in the darkened living room, "I'd point out how much nicer my place is than yours." It had to be, his father only settled for the top tier of everything. It made Ethan naturally suspicious as to why his father hadn't put up an argument about some Ivy League school instead of anything in Nevada.. was it because his father knew that Sophie was hanging around? Was she some kind of spy? He watched her with caution in the blue-tinted darkness when she settled into the couch and seemed to focus in much-appreciated silence on the television. For some reason, he continued to die and restart the same mission, somehow having lost his focus despite her quiet. "I don't hate you," he clarified glumly while finally pausing the game and dropping the controller aside in favor of flopping back against the couch. Closing his eyes briefly, he tried a different approach. "You're my sister," it seemed to Ethan that hating her wasn't truly allowed. "But don't think," and he opened one eye to regard her in the shadows, "that you're staying over whenever the hell you feel like it."
Sophie pursed her lips at his words, letting out a laugh as he rambled on about how much better things had to be for him. “Your place might be nicer,” Sophie started, shifting over beside him and tucking one arm through his, latching onto his side like a child. Her head pillowed itself upon his shoulder, a calm presence at this side despite how she had been moments earlier. “But do you have an adorable Asian roommate that is addicted to snuggling?” She didn’t bother to hide her smile, eyes fixed on the glowing screen, detaching herself from his side as he flopped back against the couch, resuming her position in the corner, though legs were stretched out, feet plopped in his lap. “And I won’t stay over whenever I feel like it,” Sophie said, crossing her heart and sticking out her pinky towards him. “I swear.” But nothing in those bright eyes of hers, so large in the shadows, said that she meant what she said, pinky promise or not.
Ethan's smirk was just a drop in the well of his expression, a ripple that faded quickly as Sophie flopped and stretched beside him. "I really don't want to have to picture things like that," he said of the adorable roommate and the snuggling. Ethan eyed the crossing of her heart with a half-cocked eye of suspicion before he reached out to take her pinky finger in his own. A curl and a shake to swear on it, the action done with all the sincerity of somebody who took pinky swears very much to heart. Nudging Sophie's feet out of his lap, Ethan tucked his chin into his palm while curling against his own arm of the couch, bringing his legs up to tangle with her ankles so that they were forced to share the middle of the couch for room to spread out. More comfortable than either of them had any right to be, considering how infrequent their childhood visits had been. Despite that, however, Sophie was easily the person he'd known for the longest in his life, disregarding parental units. "What do you want to watch?" Dropping an arm, his fingers sought out the remote on the floor below so that he could switch over to cable. "Cartoons?"
“You’re just jealous you weren’t invited to watch,” Sophie shot back, settling in as Ethan switched their positions, finding a place to be comfortable with her back wedged against the corner of the couch, fingers curling around a strand of brown hair. Ethan was one of the few guys Sophie would really even go near. It wasn’t due to bad experiences or anything so complex, just that boys had cooties and fuck if she was going to catch that. Stretching, bare toes brushed against his leg before she slouched back down, settling in for a stay. “I don’t watch cartoons, Ethie,” Sophie said with a wrinkle of her nose, giving him a look that could have caught something on fire. “Just watch whatever. I just want to stay here for a while. I’ll even be quiet.”
"I'd rather not be scarred for life," he bantered back with a shake of his head and the beginnings of a yawn. It was only because she insisted that she didn't watch cartoons that he put them on. And yes, maybe he was looking for something simple to fall asleep to, or even something to push her out the door if it annoyed her enough. A little bit of Adevnture Time seemed like just the thing, and Ethan dropped the remote onto the carpet just as he dropped his cheek against the cool leather of the couch's arm. Absurdity and vivid colors shouldn't have been easy to fall asleep to, but he'd slept in cathouses and warehouses and truck beds throughout his life. Halfway through the episode, his eyes drifted closed, obvious by the way he'd brought the lights up a bit. His legs twitched and stretched, knees and calves tangling with her. His all flannel comfort and warmth that matched the octave of his sleepy murmur when he slipped off, forgetting she was still there entirely.
It wasn’t long into the episode that Sophie started to drift off herself into that warm fuzzy place where sleep was best. It was a testament to her relationship with Ethan that she could even think about falling asleep with him there, eyes drooping, her cheek pressed against the arm of the couch. The position she was tangled up in was hardly comfortable, but it didn’t seem to bother her with how she soon drifted off.