Neil Donovan is (incharge) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-04-14 21:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | gwen stacy, holly robinson, loki, norman osborn |
Who: Neil, Louis, Sam + Ash
What: Realizations and awkward.
Where: Aria suite.
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: None.
Sam was torn. Part of her really wanted to go home, regardless of what the fuck was going on with her and Neil. Part of her knew she should find someplace else to crash until Neil figured his shit out. She knew, too, that going home wouldn't the same as really going home. Sure, she would be going home to the same place, but she'd be back in the guest room, and Louis' and Neil's sister would be there. She'd gotten used to Neil's bed, and now she was going back to being something like a visitor. Because, yeah, it wasn't really her fucking place, was it? And someone she didn't know was living there now. She worried about booze, too. She figured the place was clean with Lou there, but she didn't feel like she had the right to ask for it to stay that way once he left. There were a whole lot of fucking reasons not to head back to Aria, and that didn't even take into consideration the fact that she knew it was too soon to go somewhere with any support system. She knew Neil had his own shit to fix, and he wasn't up to helping her fix hers. He shouldn't need to be, either. She'd thrown plenty of tantrums about not being anyone's responsibility, and now it was time to live up to the claims. But, yeah, she knew it wasn't the smart choice.
But it was where she wanted to be, and Sam sucked at smart. For all her tendencies to hide her feelings behind tall walls and a bad attitude, she was still willing to go where she wanted to fucking go. She just wouldn't admit that was why she was going back. And if she lost her shit once she got there? She'd keep that to herself too.
Sam left Future Hope with a heavy heart, though. The place had been good to her, had been good for her. She had insurance at the garage, but it was typical HMO shit. Her therapist wasn't covered, and neither was her shrink. She was back in the public system, court mandated for another sixty days, and wouldn't that shit be fun? But that was a problem for tomorrow. Right then, she was trying to get her fucking key card in the suite's door. Her hands were better, but still not even close to one hundred percent. The stitches were gone from her wrists, and she wore too-long sleeves to hide the still-angry scars. Her hair was pulled back, and her overalls were too loose on her body, but she'd looked worse. She managed to kick the door open eventually, avoiding the doorknob entirely, and she leaned back against it once it closed. Home sweet fucking home.
Louis was in the apartment. He'd been doing much of his work from home, of late, taking on only a few cases and making phone calls from his guest room. It had been surprising news to him that Ash had moved in with Neil, and he still wasn't clear what she knew and what she didn't. He did know that things would be complicated if Sam decided to move back into Aria as well, but he didn't expect her to, not after how terribly it seemed things had gone with Neil.
To find her at the door when he walked into the hall was a genuine surprise. "Sam.” It was the first time they'd been face to face since that horrible encounter through the door, and a bolt of embarrassment struck just after the surprise, shame close on its heels.Then it was gone again. Nothing had gone right through the door, but Louis had come out of it, at least, with a harder nature, less willingness to bend. It didn't help his embarrassment, or the lingering regret and guilt that he'd exposed her weaknesses and so terribly failed her when he went looking for her after they all came back, but their conversation over the journals had at least helped that a little. It wasn't as strong now as it had been when he spoke to Neil. She'd gotten the help she needed. Even if he'd failed her, that was what mattered.
"I didn't expect you to come round," he said, since there was no point in dressing that up. Make no mistake, though - he was happy she was there, even if he did worry a little how she would do with Neil when he arrived. After that long moment where he mulled over all his own guilty worries, all was briefly wiped away as he approached her and looked her over. She looked better than she had through the door, like the time she'd spent away had actually done her the good he often hoped for her. "I was just going to brew tea. Would you like some?” He paused, adding, “I can put on coffee instead."
There was certainly a marked contrast between the godly version of Louis and the one who stood before her then. The same willowy height and gold curls, yes, but he looked as he had before his sojourn through the door again - tired, a little sad around the eyes, but with a small smile that said he was glad to see her.
Sam had the advantage. She knew to expect Lou, some Donovan chick she would probably like (she had a good track record with those Donovan bitches), and some serious awkward from Neil. She almost wished Casey was there. He was probably the only one in the joint that would hug her against her will and put her in a headlock. But it was cool. She was cool. Everything here would be fucking cool. She tugged the sleeves of her shirt down past her fingers, and she slid her thumbs into the holes she'd cut for them, to ensure the sleeves stayed down. She could already tell Neil hadn't narked on her to Lou; she would be able to tell if he had. He was looking at her like she was fragile, but not as fucking fragile as he would think her if he knew.
"Yeah, Neil and I talked. I'm crashing." Which was general, but it was the best Sam had, because fuck if she knew where anything stood. Getting Neil to actually answer anything was a challenge on a good day. Now? With all his confusion? Yeah, so not happening. "In the guest room," she added for clarity, not wanting Lou to think Neil had to be faithful or anything weird like that. She had no idea if Neil had seen Chloe recently, and she wasn't going to open that can of fucking worms by asking. She grinned then, all gap-tooth youth. "Tea. Yeah, sure. I don't think I've ever had tea." She tried for a Scottish accent with that last word, and her own Jersey accent seriously fucked it up. But yeah, ok, tea. She walked past him, assuming no one else was home and feeling more confident for it. This fucking place did feel like home; she couldn't help that. "So, how's it feel to be a mere fucking mortal again?" she asked, tossing her bag onto the couch and looking around. No point ignoring the whole "GOD" thing, yeah? "Want me to call you Lord from now on or something?" Another grin, wider, and she began to braid her hair, a new nervous habit and good, unthinking practice for her fingers.
Louis didn't know what to make of the fact that Sam was back, but in the guest room. It was understandable that she might want to keep her distance, however. Whatever Neil had said about not really breaking up with her, clearly she felt he had. And there were some aspects of their relationship he really couldn't step between and mediate on. Hopefully it would be for the good, not the ill, that she had moved back in.
The badly feigned Scottish accent elicited a small smile. "You'd think you would have gotten that one down by now," Louis said, moving toward the kitchen again. "Is black alright?" He didn't bother pitching the blend at her - he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. He filled the kettle, listening to her question, glancing behind to see her smiling and braiding her hair. The thumbs in the sleeves registered, but not suspiciously, not for the moment. He'd never seen her wear a shirt like that before, but she might just want the physical safety and comfort of it, even as things got warmer, after what had happened through the door. "Much less fun," he quipped, pulling down a pair of mugs. "But being human has its perks too. Chief among them is a marked drop in cruelty." No sense dodging that one. "And I missed having a normal body temperature, and the comforting mundanity of needing to make my own tea."
"Black's cool." Sam bypassed the stools in the kitchen and jumped up on the counter, avoiding too much use of her hands by putting a knee on one of the abandoned stools to manage it. Once there, she slid back until she was comfortable, and she swung her legs and leaned her head back, looking at the steep ceiling. It was strange how much a fucking place could matter. She'd never had that growing up. There was never a sense of comfort or safety in going back to the one-room apartment she'd been raised in, and there wasn't anything like that in the apartment she'd shared with her husband either. She looked back down when the kettle started to chirp, and she grinned at him. "I'm still calling your ass Lord now. It even starts with an L. Piece of fucking cake," she said, opening a drawer and tugging out a twist tie, which she used to tie off her messy braid. "Is there any booze in the place?" she asked oh, so casually. Asking Lou wouldn't be as bad as telling Neil she couldn't be around the stuff. It felt like something she didn't have a right to ask with Neil but, yeah, not with Lou. And Neil shouldn't be around the stuff anyway, yeah? Not if he was trying to stay dry. She looked over her shoulder, gaze slipping up the spiral stair and to the master bedroom on the corner. She wondered, idly, if Neil had moved her stuff yet, and then she looked back at Louis. She propped her knees on the counter in front of her, and she hugged her arms around them. "How long until Neil kicks your ass out?"
The bag of Ash's gear was slung over her shoulder as she stepped off the elevator, juggling everything in her hands for a brief moment as she tugged her key card out. Sticking it between her lips, she dragged her sorry, tired self towards the door, managed to keep hold of everything long enough to get the damned door open, and then she was crossing the threshold into Neil’s Sky Suite. Several weeks calling it home, and she still wasn’t wholly used to its opulence, but it no longer startled her into silence like it had at first. The bag was dropped just inside the door, sneakers kicked off, and it was only then that the sound of voices from the kitchen drifted to her ears. Louis’ would be recognized nearly anywhere, but the other voice, the other female voice was just as familiar, and it was that voice that had her stomach running cold. When Sam had told her that she was moving back in with someone at the Aria, and that someone had family staying with him, she had hoped that maybe there was someone else in a similar situation. That hope died quickly, though, at the sound of Sam’s voice.
Drawing herself up, Ash took a chance at nonchalance as she padded towards the kitchen, busying her hands with fixing her sweaty hair into a neater ponytail, and she skirted along the side of the kitchen towards the refrigerator, hoping against hope she could snag a bottle of water out before things got awkward. At least Neil wasn’t here - yet.
Neil arrived last, though he had no way of knowing everyone was already congregated in his kitchen. Living with his siblings didn’t require much getting used to, since they’d grown up under the same roof, and admittedly it was a lot easier to stay dry and on track knowing that there were people who would notice if he slipped up. And, really, he didn’t want to disappoint either of them, not again. He thought that Sam joining the fray might be a little awkward, if only because he still didn’t know where they stood, but he figured Louis wouldn’t have much reason to stick around once she officially moved back in; not that he would ever actually kick his brother out. When he was drunk and in a bad mood, maybe, but not sober. As for Ash, she was welcome to stay as long as she liked, and the same went for Sam, so everyone getting along would make things a hell of a lot easier.
He had no idea that Sam and Ash already knew one another, which meant he was entirely oblivious to the mass of awkward just waiting to be unleashed. After days upon days of staying cooped up in the suite, he tried to get out a little more nowadays, even though he didn’t have very many places to go. He heard voices coming from the kitchen as soon as he opened the front door, and took the time to register that one of them belonged to Sam before moving forward. The last time they’d seen one another, and the near disaster it had been, was still crisp and clear in his memory, but he tried not to dwell on it. “Hey,” he greeted, that single word being used for all three. He spotted the kettle and raised his eyebrows. “You’re making tea?” That was so Louis, which was, in a strange way, reassuring.
"You can call me whatever you like," Louis said, wry, putting the kettle on. "No. None." He glanced over at her for an explanation of why she'd asked. "Why? And I don't know. I intended to stay until I felt sure that he would stay true to being sober. I suppose I'll leave when I feel sure. Now that you're back, though, perhaps I'll move back in the next week or so."
Suddenly the gang was all there, so to speak, and four people were crowded into the kitchen. Louis turned to watch first as Ash came in. They hadn't had a chance to talk in person since she'd arrived in Vegas. "Sam," he said, "this is Ashleigh, my sister." It seemed right to introduce them, since Ash had made no effort to introduce herself. "Ash, this is Sam. She's also my sister. Biological." That Louis had been adopted was now common knowledge, but really mostly since it had driven such a large wedge between himself and their parents. Ash was adopted as well, so he supposed she could understand the unique strangeness of having two very disparate and different families. As he thought on it, though, he had no idea if she'd ever gotten in contact with her own biological family.
Then Neil arrived and Louis raised a brow. This was all so serendipitous that it was beginning to seem choreographed. "Of course I'm making tea," Louis said crisply, with a small smile. "Would you like any?" He glanced behind, but Ash had already grabbed her water.
At first, Sam didn't notice Ash sneaking around the edge of the kitchen. Unlike the other woman, Sam had no fucking clue that Ash was related to anyone here. Why should she? Ash looked nothing like Neil or Casey and, yeah, she assumed Ash would have mentioned something the last time they'd talked. After all, Sam had mentioned Aria, and she'd mentioned crashing with someone who had a bunch of family staying. And Sam just fucking stared, and maybe that was obvious, but why the fuck hadn't Ash said something? Something along the lines of Hey, yeah, weird. I'm crashing there too! It took Sam a second to recover, a second longer to look over at Lou. Oh, fuck. She tugged on the ends of those overlong sleeves. "Yeah, we know each other," she said blatantly, because she wasn't going to fucking dance around this. Yeah, ok, deep breath. "But I didn't know she was related to you." Well, not related, but, yeah.
The ends of Sam's shirt were getting tortured to hell and fucking back, and that was before Neil even showed up. She watched the exchange with inky blue eyes, and she realized that Neil must not have said anything to Ash about seeing someone, about living with someone, any of it, especially given that casual greeting to everyone. Oh, fucking perfect. She gave Lou a look, then she glanced at the tea kettle, wishing it held something stronger than water. And then she glanced back at Ash. "Hey. Neil didn't mention me, huh?" She managed to sound pretty fucking casual, too. She should get a drink for that.
There went any chance at getting in and out without being noticed, but honestly, Ash had known the chances of that happening were nearly zero. As Louis ‘introduced’ her to Sam, she stilled where she was and turned slowly on one sneakered-foot, giving a small nod in the other girl’s direction. “Yeah, we’ve met,” Ash said slowly, and then she was easing forward towards the counter, pressing in against it with her stomach, elbows balanced atop it. “I ran into Sam at the rink right after I moved here. Had no idea we had any shared connections though.” She very carefully left out the meal at the curry place, what had happened after, because really, that wasn’t something that needed to come out here among family. Biting her bottom lip, she met Sam’s gaze for a moment, a lift of her brows, an unasked question lurking there. Are we okay? Because honestly, the last thing that Ash wanted was to cause strife. She genuinely liked Sam, and it wasn’t as though she was on the lookout for a girlfriend, because until Vegas, that had been something she had never considered. “And no, I don’t recall Neil mentioning you, but half the time, things go in one ear and out the other, so it’s quite possible that I’ve forgotten.” Ash flashed her a smile, trying to ease back into something comfortable and not so awkward. “So, you and Neil are...?” Good friends? Something more? She was positive there was a way to make this even more awkward than it already was.
Yeah, that cleared that up. Sam slid off the counter, cheap sneakers smacking the expensive tile floor of the suite's kitchen. She was surprised Ash didn't add anything to that explanation, because even blind bastards (like Louis and Neil) had to see something was weird here. She glanced at Neil, wondering how much she should read into the fact that she obviously didn't exist, and then she threw a look in Lou's direction. She really wanted a fucking drink, but the only thing there was that fucking tea kettle, threatening to whistle at any moment. "You didn't forget, baby," she finally said to Ash, and she almost rolled her eyes, because come the fuck on. "And you probably put shit together when I told you I was moving back here, huh?" Ash was smart, and Sam didn't see any point in pretending. In the end, she looked at Neil. "I'm just crashing, I guess," she said.
In hindsight, Neil should have realized this was headed for disaster. He’d told Sam about Ash, and of course Louis knew both parties, but somehow he’d overlooked the simple fact that he hadn’t told Ash about Sam, not beyond the vague references when explaining what happened through the Marvel door. When she’d first moved in, he’d had no idea if Sam was even coming back, and then, after visiting her, he’d sort of... neglected to mention it. And, until Louis gave introductions, it hadn’t clicked, because it was then that he realized Sam and Ash didn’t know one another-- at least, they weren’t mean to. “Yeah,” he said, an absent reply to Louis’ offer of tea, but his attention was on explaining, on clearing up what he’d so stupidly forgotten to clarify. But then Sam said that they knew each other, which he definitely had not known, and he knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as handwaving an introduction here or there. He looked between the two, leaning against the hard edge of the countertop and wishing the floor would just swallow him right there and then. He was tired of himself most of the time, like now, and it wasn’t a very pleasant feeling.
“I didn’t know,” he said, of the two having met up previously. Oblivious as he was, even on a good day, Neil sensed an undercurrent of something else, and he met Louis’ gaze guiltily for a moment before looking away. Of course he’d fucked up again. No one should be surprised at this point. “I didn’t-- I wasn’t sure if you were coming back, and then you were, and I...” He trailed off, aware that he was likely making things worse, but unable to come up with a way to fix this. “No, you’re not just crashing. She’s not just crashing,” he added to Ash. “Sam is... She and I are...” Oh, god, he had no idea what they were. Together? Complicated? In a relationship? “We’re working things out,” was what he settled on, pathetic as it was.
One moment, everyone was being introduced. The next, real awkwardness was being exchanged, and Louis began to get a sneaking, sickly thought at the back of his head. They knew each other. And hadn't Sam said something about meeting up with a woman...?
He glanced to Neil, who seemed unaware of that potential wrinkle. It was just a guess, though, not based in fact, and there seemed no reason to introduce that into this sudden explosion of awkwardness and bad feeling. Neil's response to Sam made him feel particularly uncomfortable - as if, somehow, he'd found himself in the middle of a lover's spat that he had nothing whatsoever to do with. The kettle began to whistle, and he pulled it off the stove, pouring water into the mugs he'd already set out. He picked up the mug meant for Sam and held it out to her, expression faintly apologetic. If Neil hadn't chosen to bring her up to Ash for whatever reason, that was on him. She was only freshly in town, however, and things had been a mess. He himself hadn't expected her to come back to the apartment. Maybe it was more an oversight to avoid awkwardness if they really had broken things off. "You may have noticed by now that we're not a family with an excess of skill in communication," he said, feeling guilty somehow even though he hadn't done anything.
Sam took the cup, and she listened to Lou's explanation of family dynamics. Yeah, whatever, she got it. She took a sip, and she was busy trying to figure out if Neil's explanation made shit better or worse, but she wasn't sure. She'd needed to push him into it, to begin with, and she immediately felt guilty for that. Fuck. Maybe she shouldn't care about guilt. Ash had been in town for weeks now, and she knew it. It was a long time not to mention someone. She took another sip of her tea; she fucking hated tea. She set the cup on the counter a second later, and she jerked a thumb back to the living room, where she'd dropped her bags when she saw Lou. "I better go get my stuff settled," she said, because she didn't like how standing there was making her feel, like there was some joke she wasn't part of. It just wasn't how shit was in her family, and she felt like an outsider in some circle of something she didn't get. "Thanks for the tea, baby," she told Lou, because her own fucked up feelings weren't his fault. Fuck, they weren't anyone's fault, really. Ash got a grin. "I don't make a lot of noise," she promised. Not these days, anyway. She couldn't close her fingers around a torch, so there wouldn't be any of that going on in the place. She was already moving by the time she touched a hand to Neil's hip. "It's ok, baby," she said, because guilt. She looked over her shoulder at Ash. "It's fine. I'm just being a bitch, which isn't cool," she clarified, keeping her smile intentionally light; the last thing she needed was people worrying at her fucking door or something. Neil didn't need to tell anyone anything. No labels, yeah? And, for the first time, this place didn't feel so much like home. "I have work early, so I'll be out before anyone wakes up," she told them. It was, effectively, a goodnight.
There was something about the awkward clinging around, the way that Sam had reacted, and it was all that Ash could do to simply stay where she was and resist the urge to go back to the rink. Smooth wood and wheels under her feet, things wouldn’t feel so off-kilter that way. Part of her had been hoping that maybe, just maybe, Sam had been referring to someone else in the building, and that was the only reason she hadn’t brought up who her own brothers were, but what had happened couldn’t be changed, and Ash could only look after Sam as she moved towards the living room. “Listen,” Ash started, rolling the bottle of water she had fetched from fridge over the back of her neck, still heated from her workout earlier. “A girl from the rink invited me out for a drink tonight, so I think I’m just going to head back out myself.” Because there was something about the air in here that was making it almost hard to breathe. “So you know that I hate to cut and run, but I hate being late even more, aye?” A nervous smile pulled at the corners of her lips, and Ash made enough time to run over to give Louis a quick squeeze, followed by Neil, and then she was skirting out and back to the living room, her heart pounding a furious little rhythm. Awkward was putting it mildly, she thought, as she picked up her gear, wondering if she had a change of clothes in there for the following day. She had never intended on making her stay with Neil anything more than temporary, but with Sam in the picture, Sam, who was likely dating her brother, Sam, whom she had done that with in the alley, things were more complicated than she cared to thrust herself into. “Don’t wait up, obviously,” Ash called out before she opened the door and disappeared into the hallway, and it was in practically a run that she made her way to the elevator. It was one thing to say that what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas, it was another to live with those things.
Ash made her escape before Sam managed to get a foot away. Sam stopped, listened and, yeah, she had totally fucking complicated this shit. She sighed to herself, and she rubbed a hand to her forehead, the hem of one sleeve clutched pull-tight between her fingers, hiding the skin at her wrist. She couldn't do this. She couldn't stay here and fuck things up. She glanced back at Neil and she gave him an apologetic look. "I'll just crash for the night or something," she said, glancing after Ash, knowing family came first. If there was something she got, it was that. She wanted to go back to the halfway house, just then. Or, better yet, she wanted to be somewhere with a fucking beer. Yeah, so she was butthurt, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to go back to the days where she could shut that shit off, where Neil not mentioning her wouldn't have been a thing. But this was the real world, and she'd hidden in some safe fucking hospital for a month. Time to move on, yeah? She pushed past Neil, and she left Lou behind, and she went to grab her shit. Her feet on the stairs were heavy and loud, and she turned for the master bedroom at the landing, cursed, and then locked herself in the guest room she'd called home a year before.
Neil knew he should have been faster to react, but everything registered so, so slowly; Louis’ explanation that they weren’t very good at communication, Sam’s assertion that it was fine, and Ash’s hasty excuse to get out of the suite. He realized he’d messed things up, but things had progressed to the point where he was almost certain he’d have done something wrong no matter what he did. If it wasn’t failing to tell Ash about Sam, it would have been something else. In the end, he just shook his head. “You can stay if you want,” he said, but he doubted she would after this. No, Sam would probably be out the door first chance she got, and he couldn’t really blame her. With Ash gone, and Sam in her room, he looked at Louis and shrugged. “I have some... work to take care of,” he said, and it was a pathetic excuse, but he wasn’t staying here. He couldn’t. “I’ll be back later. Sorry,” he added, though it was meaningless at this point. “Sorry.” The apology was repeated once more before he turned and exited the suite, no specific destination in mind; he just wanted to get away, to drown himself in self-deprecation alone.