WHO: Laura Proudfoot and Thorne Proudfoot WHAT: Laura drops some truthbombs on Thorne. WHEN: July 3rd WHERE: Ethan and Laura's house WARNINGS: Thorne and his language
There seemed to be so much to do, and only six months to do it in. Twins. Laura was still, even now, having a hard time wrapping her head around it. It meant double everything, which was why Laura was currently scribbling out a rough list of things they were going to need to buy, and things they needed to do to get ready, while she waited for Thorne.
Thorne. While Laura loved Ethan's brother, she loved her sister more. He needed to understand exactly what kind of damage his actions - intentional or not - had caused. Thinking about her sister the night of the masquerade, completely shattered, Laura could feel her own anger starting to rise.
She needed to remember to stay calm. She had the little ones to think about now, and the last thing she needed to do was let her emotions get the better of her and set off some crazy veela power she wasn't aware of. Laura was not about to impose any kind of risk on her children if it could be avoided. She only hoped that her temper wasn't going to get the better of her.
Thorne could only guess at the reason why Laura had texted him to invite him over. It had taken him awhile to answer, debated ignoring it totally before realizing that made him out to be an even bigger asshole than he already was. So eventually he did respond and that's exactly how he found himself standing on their front porch debating if he should just let himself in or knock.
Deciding to go with the safer option--for now--Thorne knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer. He didn't even know if Ethan was home or not and wasn't even sure which option he preferred. He didn't know a lot of things right now, if he wanted to be perfectly honest with himself. If it wasn't for the fact that he was mandated to stay in town he'd resign almost immediately and move. It was hard feeling useless.
She heard the knock, followed by Titan's bark. Even from the backyard, he knew someone was at the house. Good boy. As much as she loved that dog, she just didn't have the energy to deal with both him, and the conversation she was about to have with her brother-in-law. Setting the small notepad and pen on the coffee table, Laura dragged herself off the couch to see who it was at the door, on the off chance it wasn't the one person she was expecting.
A small peek through the window as she approached told her all she needed to know before got there. She somehow managed to put a small smile on her face before she opened the door to find herself face to face with Thorne. "Hello, Thorne. Please, come in. Can I get you anything?" She stepped out of the way so that he could enter, and closed the door behind him once he had.
"No, I'm fine." Thorne stood in the front hall, hands jammed into his pockets. He could hear Titan in the back behind the house and couldn't be sure if he was relieved that he didn't have to face the intimidating animal or if he wished he had the distraction from whatever was about to occur. Laura had never replied to his text in the aftermath of the Masquerade attack but then had texted him out of the blue outside of the family chat to invite him over.
He could be pretty dense sometimes, but even Thorne could read between those lines.
"How are you doing?" He let himself study her, trying to find any signs of pregnancy. Not that he really knew what to look for. She certainly didn't look pregnant and even when he concentrated, he could only really pick up her heartbeat. "Should you be up and about? Maybe I should be getting you something?"
“Oh, I’m fine. Tired pretty much constantly, but at least the puking has let up.” She was definitely enjoying the less frequent trips to throw up. “Until the doctors tell me otherwise, there’s nothing from stopping me going about life as normal.” She hoped that she wasn’t put on bed rest or anything due to any kind of complications, though she had no real idea what to expect being a cross breed.
Motioning for him to join her, Laura headed back into the living room, settling herself back in her spot on the couch. “I’m not going to beat around the bush here, Thorne. I want to talk to you about my sister.” There was no real use in delaying the conversation any, was there?
Choosing a seat opposite Laura, Thorne kept his face carefully blank as Laura got right to the point. This was the second person getting into the middle of what should have been an issue between exactly two people: Rory and himself. And unless he was mistaken, he was pretty sure Rory was nowhere to be found. "I'm not sure how it's any of your business, but alright."
He sat back in the chair, slumping slightly, his hands back in his pockets. He didn't want to lose his temper at Laura. As she was pregnant and he figured getting upset probably wasn't good for pregnant women. But he couldn't be sure as he'd never really been around a pregnant woman.
She could understand his reasoning there, and under any kind of normal circumstances, she would agree with him. Laura wasn’t entirely sure if these qualified as normal circumstances, however. “Most days, I would probably agree with you, and I would let my sister deal with things on her own. Rory, however, seems to have a blind spot when it comes to you, and would never be able to bring herself to tell you just how much you've actually hurt her."
Closing her eyes, Laura let out a slow breath before continuing. "She's had feelings for you since she was a teenager, Thorne. Did you know that?"
Thorne blinked and then blinked again. Because no, he did not know that, but it was also a generally accepted fact that while he could easily solve difficult arithmancy problems and untangle complex wards, emotions were not his forte. In fact, he was pretty sure a childhood therapist had diagnosed him with all sorts of emotional attachment issues. "I think we can both safely say that is a firm no."
Because that was a fucking giant piece fitting into a puzzle he didn't want to put together. This was going to make his life massively more complicated, which was the last thing he needed. This, he could tell, was about to massively backfire on him.
That had pretty much been the answer that Laura had expected. She wanted to hope that her brother-in-law wasn't dickish enough to take advantage of a girl's feelings so that he could sleep with her. "I had a feeling you didn't, which is probably why you failed to notice that you sleeping with her - taking her virginity, actually- and then immediately getting back with Quen had a pretty negative impact on her."
Folding her hands in her lap, she continued. "And then there's what happened at the masquerade. Of course, I don't have all the details of that - I wasn't there to see it - but I know what Rory was trying to do. She was trying to take your pain, Thorne. Transfer your hurt into her own body, and then you attacked her - both you and Njall, though I've been made to understand the two of you weren't exactly in your right minds when that happened. It's the way you treated her after that bothers me."
She adjusted on the couch, pulling one of the pillows into her lap to give her hands something to do. "She's talking about leaving the reserve now - leaving behind the job she loves because she believes, in part because of you and everything that has happened, that she's some kind of terrible person, undeserving of any kind of love, doomed to be a temporary passerby in everyone's life."
Thorne ran a hand over his face. Fuck all of this noise. He hadn’t known about the whole virginity thing, which was just a social construct anyway, but this is probably why he shouldn’t make exceptions to his own personal rule of sleeping with friends. It only fucked him over in the end. “I made decisions and acted based on the information I had at hand,” he began, “if I knew it was her first time….” Thorne trailed off and shrugged. “I’m not Prince Charming happily ever after material. I’m barely boyfriend material, but for some reason Quen overlooks that.” Possibly for the blowjobs, but Thorne was aware enough to not say that aloud.
When Laura brought up the Masquerade and the events surrounding it, Thorne’s shoulder gave a sympathetic throb, though only a faded bruise remained from his injury. His face went dark. Despite appearances, he didn't have very many clear memories of the events. It was mostly a blur of before and after, with Thorne filling in the gaps based on what others told him. “Your sister did an untested bit of magic on what could very well be a rabid animal in a less than ideal situation with very little back up.” A shiver ran up his back, a phantom memory of his wrongness and being terrified. “I am not going to be bullied into apologizing for acting to protect myself. Or for your sister’s actions. She didn’t know what she was doing and got bit, literally, for it.”
Clenching his teeth, Thorne tried not to remember the one clear thought from that night: how Rory’s blood tasted in his mouth. How he didn’t crave it, not exactly, but he wanted it and fuck if that didn’t just fuck him over more than apparently taking the virginity of someone who had a crush on him for years without so much a promise of a follow up or mutual feelings. The latter made him a dick. The former a monster. “Rory needs to stop being so fucking worried about what other people think of her. There are going to be people who don’t like her. Some people who will. Fact of like. She shouldn’t leave a job she loves because I’m here, because as soon as the Aurors tell me I can leave, I’m probably going to be gone.”
"And you're a lucky person tah have found someone that seems to be able tah see past yer flaws." The conversation was wearing on her, as evidenced by the fact that her native accent was beginning to slip through in her speech.
Sighing, she picked at a loose thread on the pillow. "I'm not tryin' tah bully you into apoligizin', Thorne. You defended yerself, like anyone else woulda done," her voice was beginning to take on a tone of annoyance, now. "But tell me somethin', would you not have done whatevah you could tah help Quen, if you'd been in Rory's place, or would you have just sat back, watchin' the person you care about suffah, even though you knew you could do somethin' tah help?"
Eyes narrowing, her fingers dug into the pillow now. "My sistah is still young, and naive - she gives everything tah the people around her, without evah asking anythin' in return, and she's finally seeing that the world ain't as kind hearted as she is. All she has evah wanted tah do is help, and everyone - not just you - has shit all ovah her for it, every time."
Tossing the pillow aside, Laura slowly pushed herself to her feet. "Maybe it would be best if yah do leave. Maybe then my sister will actually be able tah see what kind of person yah actually are, and my husband can stop frettin' so damn much about someone who really only seems tah worry about himself."
Thorne physically flinched, Laura's words cutting in places he tried to hide from everyone, including himself. It was one thing to say that he should leave, that he didn't belong. It was another thing entirely to hear it from another person. Someone he had accepted as being part of his family.
Well fuck that noise.
He stook as well, drawing himself up to his full height. He might not be the tallest person around, but he wasn't tiny either. Shitty health aside. "Well, wasn't this a productive meeting." Everything in his voice dripped in sarcasm. He didn't risk saying any more, not wanting to put something out there that he would never be able to take back. Thorne wasn't very good at planning ahead or imagining consequences for his actions, so he just skipped that step and saved himself the trouble by avoiding the entire matter all together.
"I guess I'll be seeing you. Or not." He shrugged, trying to put on the air of someone who only cared about himself. "Wouldn't want anyone to fret." Or maybe he thought too soon and just couldn't keep his damn mouth shut. Well, he was only conforming to expectations.
Without waiting for another word, Thorne darted around his sister-in-law to the nearest means of escape. He needed to take a very long walk before he was fit for any sort of company, human or otherwise.
Laura closed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on from the entire situation. There was a part of her that knew she was a terrible person for what she had just said to her brother-in-law. He was family, but so was Rory. She knew she should apologize, but she couldn't seem to get the words out.
Not that Thorne had waited, even if there was anything else to say. Pinching the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses, she felt him skirt past her, heard the door close as he left. She practically fell back onto the couch, wondering how the hell she was going to explain this to Ethan.