Who: Neil & Ash What: Siblings! Yay. Where: Aria suite. When: Backdated to when Ash first arrived in Vegas. Warnings/Rating: Nooone.
Needless to say, Neil’s life had been borderline hellish ever since the Door madness had messed with their lives.
After days spent drunk out of his mind, quitting cold turkey was no walk in the park, but Louis’ presence in his suite ensured that he didn’t fall off the wagon again. There wasn’t a drop of booze in the place, and he couldn’t go and buy some more, not without Louis catching him, and where he went was being monitored as well. The first day was tough, but on the plus side he ended up drinking a hell of a lot more water in an attempt to satisfy his thirst. It didn’t work, not really, as he still craved the alcohol, but it was better than nothing. Every minute was a struggle, and giving up was very, very tempting. But he kept going forward, and he stayed sober, even talking to Sam and arranging to meet the next day. He still had practically no faith in himself, but he was living, and that had to count for something.
Ash’s phone call was the first good thing that had happened in months. She wasn’t like Louis, who could be too much like good ol’ dad for his own good, and Neil was probably the closest to her out of all his siblings. He’d always had a soft spot for his little sister, that much was true, so of course he’d offer up his place if she needed a place to stay. She might change her mind about that, of course, once she heard his story, and her presence might complicate matters if Sam wanted to come back, but that was a really big if and he wasn’t thinking that far ahead just then.
He wished, more than anything, that Ash would have been left out of this whole Alter business. It had all but destroyed his life, after all, and messed up just about everyone that he knew, but he tried to tell himself that maybe she’d have a nice, safe fictional character living upstairs. Maybe it’d be a Disney princess or something. A guy could hope. Regardless, Neil was looking forward to seeing his sister, and for the first time since he’d stopped he was glad he was sober.
It was late in the day by the time Ash made her way to Neil’s suite at the Aria, a far cry from her own, modest room at the Venetian. But money had never meant much to Ash, and while she had enough of it to spare, she didn’t live as though she did. Neil, it seemed, still enjoyed the comforts that money could offer a person, and she didn’t begrudge him that. It wasn’t a bad thing, and he would never be a bad person in her book, no matter the sort of things he alluded to during their short conversation on the phone.
She was dressed casually for the day, comfort her number one concern no matter where she was, and when she knocked on Neil’s door, it was with three short raps of her knuckles before she stood back and looked up towards the ceiling, waiting for him to answer.
Neil hadn’t gone anywhere during the past few days, which meant he’d spent most of his time in sweatpants and t-shirts with no consideration whatsoever for his bedraggled appearance. He made a bit of an effort for Ash, however, despite the fact that she was family, not wanting to answer the door looking like some kind of sullen drunk still wallowing knee-deep in his own despair. So, he’d pulled on a hoodie and jeans, more casual than usual, and tried to make himself look a little less like a walking trainwreck. He was drinking his third cup of coffee of the day when the knock at his door came, and he didn’t hesitate before making his way to the door and pulling it open. He practically never had visitors, and Louis wouldn’t knock, so he knew without a doubt who was on the other side. It felt like far too long since he’d seen his younger sister, and the sight of her on his doorstep was enough to bring a genuine smile to his face for the first time in a while.
“Hey, you,” he said, stepping forward and pulling her into an impulsive hug.
Neil had always been the brother she was closest too. While Louis was closer to her age, there were simple personality conflicts that kept them from forming the closest of bonds. Casey was just too much older than her, leaving them in different places in their lives no matter the age, but Neil was in that perfect gap. Close enough to be a friend, old enough to be someone she looked up to, and she didn’t hesitate in doing either. Seeing him there, that familiar smile and looking nearly as she had recalled, Ash was quick to break into a grin of her own. Two quick steps forward to meet him and her arms were around him tightly, up on her tiptoes to help close some of the distance between them. “Hey yourself,” she murmured, and the tone of her voice belied the smile that was hidden against his shoulder. Holding on for as long as she dared, it was some time before she released him, stepping back with her face angled up towards his, brows lifted in expectation. “So. Are we going to have our reunion in the hallway, or are you going to invite me in?” Her smile was teasing, playful, just as it had always been, and without waiting for his answer, she reached out and gave him a little shove with one hand. “Come on. Have you lost your manners since you moved to the States among all these primitive folk?”
For as long as their hug lasted, Neil felt like things were okay-- or at least that they would be. It was more optimism than he’d had in days, and while he loved his brothers, Ash was the one who was capable of cheering up just by being there. Their family hadn’t been big on affection, but then again there’d been a decided lack of closeness amongst most of them. Ash wasn’t like Louis, who meant well but had a tendency to come off as judgmental and disappointed more often than not, and she wasn’t like Casey, who was perpetually cheerful yet often missed the bigger picture. He was in no hurry to break the hug, and when she pulled back he looked down at her with no shortage of fondness. He began to answer, to invite her inside, but before he could she was shoving at him with one hand and he was laughing without realizing it, the sound foreign to his own ears. “I’d never lose my manners,” he said, with mock affront. “My time with the primitive folk hasn’t had that much of an effect. C’mon, get in here.” He stepped back, giving her space to enter.
“I’ll be the one to make the decision as to whether your time with the primitives has hurt you,” Ash was saying as she stepped into Neil’s suite, and moments through the door, she was giving a low whistle in response, turning a slow circle as she took the entryway in. “Aye,” she started, turning back towards his direction. “No matter what you say about what’s happened, I am most certainly crashing on your couch. This place is beautiful, Neil.” Ash wasn’t usually swayed by pretty things, but that was before she stepped foot in the Sky Suite. “So. Talk. And point me to the kitchen so I can make you something to eat, because you look like hell, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.” She could see some wear and tear about her brother’s face, lines that hadn’t been there last time she’d seen him, and it felt like not all of them could be attributed to their age difference. Things had happened; Ash wasn’t ignorant of that, and she was well-versed in how things could change a person. Matthew’s death had taken it’s toll on her, given her a darkness in her eyes that hadn’t been present before, and even now, some years later, she still hadn’t completely shaken it. Maybe it wasn’t death that had gotten to Neil, but it was just as bad.
Neil had been living in Aria long enough to have become accustomed to its opulence, and so he’d long since lost the awe that Ash currently had as she looked around at the suite. They’d grown up wealthy, but stately manor homes were different from swanky hotel suites. “Don’t be too hard on me,” he joked, finding that humor was less forced than it had been in a while when he was in her presence. For a few moments, at least, she was one of the only people who didn’t know about what had happened in the Marvel door, and so it was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. “You’re welcome to stay if you want, Ash, for as long as you want. You know that.” As for talking, however, there he hesitated. Everyone who knew the story simply knew because they’d been there or had heard from someone else; Neil hadn’t actually had to tell anyone. He didn’t know if he could talk about it, to be honest, but he did know that he’d rather Ash hear the ugly truth from him rather than someone else. “Gee, thanks,” he remarked dryly, focusing on her comment that he looked like hell first. “Kitchen’s straight ahead and to the right. It’s... pretty ugly, Ash. What happened. And a lot of it has to do with the phone you got, and the key to the hotel.”
“It’s said out of adoration for my brother, and you know it.” She headed in the direction of the kitchen, trusting that Neil would follow, the sound of her voice carrying on behind her as she dropped her bag on the closest counter and started going through the cabinets, looking for inspiration with which to anoint her brother’s kitchen with her cooking. “And you can either tell me what happened,” Ash started, rising up on her tiptoes as she peered into this cabinet and the next, and then the fridge. “Or I’ll hear it from someone else. Which would you rather? And honestly. Do you keep any food in this place? The cabinets and fridge are practically barren.” Closing the fridge door, she turned to look towards him, her brows arched high. “And I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be, Neil,” Ash said, her voice taking on a tone that was softer, with less edge than before. Moving closer, she look up towards him, head tilted slightly to the side. “You’re worrying me. You never worry me. But you’re worrying me now.”
Neil rolled his eyes good-naturedly, though he didn’t respond as he followed his little sister into the kitchen. Once, his cabinets had been well stocked, but that was when Sam was around and he wasn’t a walking disaster. Norman hadn’t stayed in the suite, and having been away for so long meant that groceries had definitely suffered. Food wasn’t exactly a priority these days. He leaned against the counter to watch her search, admittedly curious as to whether or not she’d actually find anything. “I know, I know. I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you. I just don’t want to.” He shrugged at her comment about the lack of food. “Haven’t really been around much. Sorry. There should be something left over, though.” Maybe. He thought so, at least. As for it not being as bad as he was making it sound, Neil almost wanted to laugh; it wouldn’t have been a nice sound, though. “No, Ash, it is. It’s worse. I don’t mean to worry you,” he added hastily, looking down at her. “It’s just... okay, look. Let’s start with the phone and the key. You got them because you have a fictional character in your head, Ash, and your key opens a door in Passages hotel. Once you go through that door, you end up in whoever’s world you have, and you’re stuck in their head.” It was, admittedly, a simple explanation, but making it long-winded and complicated wasn’t going to make it any easier to absorb or understand.
All thought about food flew out the window when Neil said it was worse, and suddenly, all of her attention was on her older brother. Neil didn’t throw terms like ‘worse’ around flippantly, and she knew that if he was the one classifying it as such, it was probably true. “So,” she started, trying to piece together this tale he was weaving around in front of her, “if I go through the door, I’ll be stuck in her head, like she is in mine, right now. So that new presence I’m feeling isn’t something I’m making up, is it?” She didn’t know much about Holly yet, didn’t read comics or really go to movies, so she knew nothing about the woman other than the fact that she was there. “Okay, it seems bad enough, but you said worse. And that doesn’t seem worse. Just seems,” she trailed off there, trying to find the words for her thoughts. “Complicated,” she finally finished. “So I know there’s something more or you wouldn’t be getting those wrinkles on your forehead.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, relieved that she was catching on quickly. “You’ll probably end up wishing you were making her up soon enough, but no, you’re not. It’s real.” Neil had spent a lot of time hoping that Norman might just disappear, either for good or to be replaced by someone nice and quiet, but it hadn’t happened yet, and he’d all but lost hope. He just hoped that Ash had gotten someone tolerable, who wouldn’t turn her life upside down. “It’s worse for me,” he sighed. “The guy in my head... he’s not very nice. We switched places a couple of weeks ago. He was here, in Vegas, and I was through his door. See, Norman is... kind of insane, and I inherited that when I crossed over.” He swallowed heavily and looked down at his shoes. “I hurt someone I care about because I wasn’t strong enough to fight the thing that makes him crazy,” he admitted.
Ash didn’t say anything for a long while, just letting Neil’s words sink in, the broader definition of ‘hurt’ that was lurking beneath what he had to say. Brown eyes flicked down towards the counter, unsure what to say in the wake of that revelation. Neil never hurt anyone, at least as far as Ash was concerned or knew, so she could only imagine how hard this was hitting him. Glancing back up, Ash steadied him with a long look before shaking her head and moving in, winding her arms around him in a fierce hug. “Then that someone you care about will understand and forgive you, eventually, because it wasn’t Neil that hurt them, but the crazy thing living in our heads that did so. You’re not to blame, Neil. So don’t beat yourself up about it. Concentrate on what you can do to make it better, but don’t... don’t let it eat you up inside.” Her cheek was pressed against his arm, eyes screwed up tight as she held onto him, and maybe the hug was also for her, just a little bit.
Ever since things had gone horribly wrong, no one had taken Neil’s side. Not that he expected them to, of course; he didn’t even want them to. But, save for Sam, the blame had been cast upon him, as though he and Norman were on equal footing and thus equally responsible. They didn’t understand what it was like, to have someone so much stronger sharing their mind, and they didn’t know what it was like to have insanity unleashed upon them with the one thing holding it back nowhere to be found. He wasn’t sure what to expect from Ash, but the last thing he wanted was for her to think badly of him. The hug came as a relief, and the words that followed were like a soothing balm. Finally, finally, there was someone who wouldn’t judge, wouldn’t berate him; instead, her first instinct was to provide comfort. “I’m trying,” he admitted, returning the hug after a moment, though not quite as fiercely. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, not beating myself up over it, but I’m trying. I’m trying to move on, to fix it somehow.” He let out a long, weary sigh. “I’m really, really glad you’re here, Ash.”
Ash drew back slowly, looking up towards Neil as he told her how glad he was that she was there, and there was nothing to hold back the smile that tugged at her lips in response. “Let’s see if you’re still saying that a month from now when you just want to kick me out onto the streets, aye?” She gave him another hard squeeze with her arms before dancing away, back to the cupboards and her search for food. “I’d like to stay,” she tossed over her shoulder before she turned back to the fridge and its meager contents. “If you don’t mind. I’ll pitch in. I can help cover whatever this place costs.” Ash wasn’t someone who anyone considered dependent, but there was something about Vegas, the alters, and everything else that seemed to come along with them that made Ash want something, someone familiar around in her life.
He couldn’t imagine himself ever wanting to kick her out, much less actually doing so, and he gave her a look that said as much. “Is a month all it’ll take for you to drive me crazy?” It was all tease and nothing serious, however, and he watched her return to the fridge with a grin. Neil had more than enough space, and at the very least it might reassure Louis, having Ash around, especially if Sam didn’t come back. But really, he liked having his sister around, and that was his motivating factor. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” he said. “But I don’t need your money. If you really want to contribute, you can help me with groceries. I’m not very good at it, as you can tell.”
“Not very good at it?” Ash echoed, giving a pointed look at the near-empty cupboards. “I think you’re being too kind to yourself, Neil.” It was said in a singsong tone, going along with the teasing in the way that came naturally to her and Neil. They had always been close, even with the miles between them. “I’ll go shopping, so long as you can point me in the direction of a store, and then we’ll start counting the days until I drive you up the wall.” Ash gave him a wink from where she stood, and then she was rummaging around for her phone, already making out a list of what she wanted to get.