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Tweak says, "You give me pale shelter..."

Colin Hammond (cloudedwaters) wrote in darkdividerpg,
@ 2014-08-30 14:46:00

Entry tags:

character: eli lasko, character: max lasko, date: 08.14.14, type: group scene

Look at Little Sister
Who: Colin, Eli, and Emma, later Max
What: Visiting family
When: August 14th, Thursday Evening
Where: The Stumble Inn
Warning: Language

Emma had been ridiculously busy for her lack of commitments. Which had Colin even more interested in what was going on his youngest sister's life. While he was the most understanding in the family of Emma's need to make her own way in the world, she could get carried away. Often.

He'd given up on trying to get a call back to schedule time to meet with her and just decided to choose a slower weeknight evening to show up at her place of work. Dressed casually in jeans and a button down shirt, he headed straight for the bar when he spotted his sister's black dyed head. Sitting down at an empty stool, he waited until she came over. "You are a hard woman to pin down, Emma," he teased her. "Did I make inadvertantly make you mad enough not to return my calls or were you just trying to make me play hide and seek?" His littlest sister loved to play games. She swore she hated politics, but there was a set of politics that had to be played with her to keep her from shutting him out the way she had the rest of the family.

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followthevision
2014-08-31 07:30 am UTC (link)

He shook his head. "What did you want me to do? Just turn tail and run and act like I'm a huge dick and that I'm too good to have a conversation with your brother? He's a nice guy. He didn't press me for details, scrutinize me, or do anything that you were afraid he might do. I can understand that you wanted some say, but you've got to understand that there isn't shit I can do about it now. I can't take it back. I talked to him because he asked me to. For fifteen minutes. About how awesome I think you are, what I like to do for fun, and how I'm picking up the tab next time we have drinks. If you want to keep bitching at me about something I can't change, then we might as well call this conversation done."

He shook his head. "You're right, I don't want to listen. You think you're right, I think we're both wrong. I'm done fighting with you. You want to be in control, which is fine for you, but not with me, Emma. You're more like your family than you know. I bet they're all a bunch of people who want to be in control too. You can't control me, though, Emma. That's not what this is about. If you love me, you'll suck it up and agree to disagree. If not, well, I'm going to go home. I don't really need this right now."

He sighed and took a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. He barely smoked at all, only when he was stressed, but he sure as fuck needed one now. He put one between his lips and lit it, tucking the lighter away and taking a drag before speaking again. "What you say about Max jokingly isn't supposed to be something I can control, but you're supposed to control everything I say to your brother past "hello"? That's a double standard. You need to fix it and you need to do it pretty damn quick."

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middlem
2014-08-31 07:45 am UTC (link)

"I wanted you to take my side and understand what I'm trying to say. You keep thinking I want to monitor everything you say all the time,and that's not it. I don't know what else to say. Don't put an ultimatum on my feelings for you, don't ever do that. My feelings for you aren't going to be put on that sort of line. You won't listen, you won't understand, and you took something that should have been our decision and made it Colin's. I asked you to stay, you walked away. Twice you refused to listen to me when it came to my family and introducing you, and you didn't. If you weren't that fucking important to me, I wouldn't give a shit how your introduction to my family. I wouldn't give a shit about how you came off to them, and I wouldn't give a fuck about making sure you did things the right way, so they wouldn't flay you over a tiny misstep, but fuck it, you want me to love you on an ultimatum that I'm not willing to make, so I'm gone. Now move so I can go back to work. I have things to do."

Emma felt like she was in a million pieces, completely shattered and broken. Her heart seemed to refuse to beat, and she felt like she was walking through a fog. Everything hurt yet felt numb. Her eyes stung from a combination of smoke and tears, and she climbed the stairs to go back into the building. All she wanted was to ease herself into the idea of introducing something important to her family, who judged everything she did and every move she made. The introduction was the only thing she wanted to run, she didn't care what he did after that. But she panicked, she exploded, and now things were fractured to what she thought was beyond fixing. She was too much of a self centered bitch for that.

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followthevision
2014-08-31 07:59 am UTC (link)

"You jammed a knife into the counter and ordered me around like a toddler. So yes, maybe I didn't listen to you, but you were being unreasonable. You were making demands and wanting to have the last say in something when it wasn't that big a deal. It was just an introduction. A conversation. Fifteen minutes of my life. That's it. Colin's not getting any say over anything. He was probably just trying to get on your nerves because you were being dramatic. Which you were." Now she was ready to run inside and get away from the conversation and maybe he wanted to get away from it too, but he was tired of the bullshit. Tired of the arguing. Tired of the both of them being stubborn. He let out the smoke, grabbed her arm with the hand not holding his cigarette and shoved her against the door.

"Shut up for a second," he told her. "Listen to me." He used his free hand to move to her chin, holding her in place while forcing her to look at him at the same time. "You didn't ask me to stay, you demanded it. I don't work well under demands, alright? Apparently neither do you. This isn't about an ultimatum. This is about you and I figuring something out and moving forward. A half hour ago, you still wanted to marry me. If we crack under this kind of bullshit pressure, we're doomed before we even get started."

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middlem
2014-08-31 08:15 am UTC (link)

"I told you, greedy, needy, and selfish. I've never claimed to be otherwise. I've told you about the knife, and I've told you about my temper. I have never tried to present myself as anything but what I am. Colin showing up out of the blue caught me off guard and I went into panic mode because he was onto you within minutes. It may have just been an introduction, but I wanted it to be something we did together, hand in hand, not something Colin orchestrated because he felt like being nosy because he was mad that I hadn't been texting him. Why couldn't you have just stayed at the bar so I could have been part of it?" She felt sick. "My family will con and manipulate anyone and anything they can, and I don't want that for you. So maybe I did it wrong, but you could have stayed and talked to me about it later, instead of walking away from me when I told you not to. It's not about a conversation, it's about the fact that you both removed me from the conversation because Colin said you, and you went with it."

She gasped in surprise when he grabbed her arm and swung her around, taking complete control over the situation with ease. Emma stared at him with her brows knit together in concern, unsure of where this was going. She swallowed the tears that were rising like a lump in her throat, and she wrapped her hands around the wrist of the hand holding her chin. "I haven't stopped wanting to marry you," she said thickly, taking in a heavy, stuttering breath.

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followthevision
2014-08-31 08:23 am UTC (link)

Yes, she had told him that. Greedy, needy, and selfish. She'd told him about her temper, about her knife, about a lot of things. "We removed you from the conversation because you were making demands like a temper tantrum throwing little girl," he told her. "Not because I wanted to shut you out, but because I wanted to keep you from exploding for no reason. You did do it wrong. Maybe I should have stayed, but you were acting out for no reason. You were making demands that we stay and knifing the counter. I wanted to make it quick and painless and I did. I can't change that now. He didn't con or manipulate me. Next to Max, I'm the biggest conman around. You can con a con, baby."

He shook his head and let his eyes fix on hers. "I don't want to fight with you," he told her. "I don't want to toss the good things away because you threw a temper tantrum. I also don't want to keep repeating this. I'm here to give you a reality check when you're being too temperamental and you were. I didn't walk away to side with Colin. I did it to avoid there being a huge scene and to give you some air and some time to get yourself together." He took another drag from the cigarette, then flicked it and let the smoke flume out through his nose before speaking again. "I don't want this to go sour. We gotta trust each other. You gotta suck it up a little. Maybe it's because I'm an old motherfucker, but you were acting a little childish in there, okay? Does that mean that I stopped caring about you? No. It just means I'm going to call you on your bullshit, okay? Now can we put this behind us?"

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middlem
2014-08-31 08:43 am UTC (link)

"Maybe you could have tried talking to me about this before talking to Eli? We hadn't even discussed meeting my family before now. Instead of assuming what I'm going to do, talk to me. Talk to me and make it something we choose together. This is why I wanted to do things my way, regarding introductions. I need it for myself. I've talked about this, but we've never gone into it in detail. When have I not listened to you when you talk to me, even if I'm being unreasonable? The knife and the snapping happen, you know that. I've never tried to be something different to you. You have to understand how I handle things with my family, and I don't know how else to make that point. I wanted you to trust me enough to speak to me, since neither of us had talked about this. I need you to talk to me on things that obviously have me upset. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? I didn't need air until you turned your back on me."

She closed her eyes and shook her head, prying his hand off of her chin. "That's who I am, Eli. Wrong or right, that's me. It's not pretty, but it's there. If that's going to be a problem, is that something we can handle? If it's going to cause resentment, I don't know what else to do."

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followthevision
2014-08-31 08:51 am UTC (link)

"Maybe instead of assuming that I can read your every thought and know what I want, you could have just said 'hey, don't want to talk about us with my brother yet' and we wouldn't be having this conversation at all," he told her. "I'm a seer, not a mind reader," he told her. "I didn't realize that it was that upsetting," he told her. "So I'm sorry that I upset you, but I did not turn my back on you. Not at all. So you might as well just cut that shit out. I was trying to help. I wanted to get it over with. We were already introduced. I didn't want to just be an asshole to your brother. So I'm sorry I hurt you, but that's all I'm sorry for."

He let her move his hand off her chin. "My problem isn't with who you are, it's with how you're acting. You flipped out on not only me, but on your brother. Overreaction to the max. That's my problem. So if you're going to overreact like that every time I do something you don't like, yes, it's going to cause a problem that I won't be able to handle. I'm not asking you to change for me, you can't ask me to change for you."

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middlem
2014-08-31 09:15 am UTC (link)

The apology hurt, and she winced. It was like there was everything she wanted to say was jumbled into a mess and making things worse. Her heart hadn't hurt this badly since she lost a litter of bottle fed babies.

"That's what I mean about talking. I don't expect you to read my mind. I'm not assuming you are one, either. If I had known Colin was coming I would have told you that, but I didn't. He just showed up. And by turn your back I meant literally, not in the abandonment sense." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "We all have our things, and my family is mine. It will make me act irrational, it will make me lash out, and it will make me angry. This doesn't typically happen when I at least have some warning. My reaction was nothing about you, you should know that. It's not the first time you've annoyed me. I just can't seem to articulate what it is in a way other people understand."

She folded her arms and shifted uncomfortably, eyes gazing off to the side. "It's just in the past week, you've always talked to me for anything even resembling a frown. I missed that. I know, I know," she said holding up one hand. "You're not a mind reader, but I'm not either." She gave him a very hesitant look from beneath her lashes. "I can't promise they'll go away. I told you I had a lot of baggage. I've been trying as hard as I can to show you everything so you know. All I can suggest is that we pull each other aside and try talking if we notice the other is upset." She tightened her arms around her middle, forbidding to let her eyes tear up. "I've never asked you to change, Eli. I would never do that, so I'm not sure why you think that. I don't know what to do here." She glanced up at him not nearly as cocky as she usually was. "I can't make this better, and I can't put into words what happened in my head. I don't know what to do."

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followthevision
2014-08-31 09:26 am UTC (link)

"I don't like confrontations," he told her. "Especially ones between siblings. I don't like being in the middle. I just wanted it over." The last sibling confrontation he'd been in the middle of ended in Alex's death and a whole lot of emotions that he hadn't worked through with Max to this day. He knew it wasn't the same, but it was hard not to run away from any sort of disagreement the second it came up.

He was glad she was at least admitting to being irrational. "If your family is a problem that makes you act irrationally and lash out and angry, especially at me the guy who's in your corner, then you need to deal with your family issues," he told her. "I don't want you to feel like you have to lash out and get angry. I want you to be able to look at me and know that you don't have to be angry or hurt or any of that." He sighed. She was getting upset and he could see it in her eyes. He didn't want to make her upset, but he wanted her to understand his problem with her reaction.

"I want you to listen to me," he told her. "The way you reacted was uncalled for. You've got some serious family problems that are worse than I even realized or that you realize. If you're that afraid of your family, you need to take it up with them, not take it out on me. This fight isn't about what I did or didn't do, it's about you and how you feel about your family. I'm not your family, Emmy." He sighed and shook his head. "I just want you to admit that you acted ridiculously, take some blame where it's due, and then we can move on with our lives. When I do something shitty, I'm going to own up to it. You did something shitty and overreacted, you need to own up to that."

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middlem
2014-08-31 09:44 am UTC (link)

"I'm afraid, unfortunately, that you're with the wrong girl if you don't like sibling confrontation," she said sadly. "This is sort of how we function. With Mia it's worse. I told you I did it wrong, I know I did it wrong. I'm going to do a lot of things wrong. I was caught off guard, surprised, and I panicked, and I did it badly. I'm a hot mess, and I know it. I can't say I will fix it. I can't promise it won't happen again. All I can do is try, but I need your help if we're going to do this."

She didn't ask for help often, but she needed him to be a part of this if they were going to have a functional relationship, which she wanted. His description of her issues right now made her feel about a centimeter tall, and she just wanted to disappear into the floor. "I've already told you a few times I did this wrong, I don't know what else I'm supposed to say." She'd said she'd been wrong more than once, what else was he expecting from her?

"There's just one thing. I don't intend to have you turn to me every time you see one of them, but until we get this situated and are at a point where I don't feel like my family can ruin it, I would really like it if you'd talk to me about them before doing anything. It will help so I won't feel irrational and feel the need to lash out to keep them away. It's important to me. I meant it when I said it was bad. I can't promise they'll go away. I don't know what to do to make you happy, because everything in me is something you don't like and won't make you happy."

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followthevision
2014-08-31 09:56 am UTC (link)

He sighed. "I don't want you to promise that things are going to go away. I don't care that you have baggage. I have enough baggage to get me from here to the other side of the country, back, over to England, back, and down to Mexico, and back again. It's not your baggage that bothers me. It's your inability to say 'I'm sorry'." He wasn't trying to make her feel small. He wasn't trying to make her do anything but take a step back from herself, a deep breath, and a clarifying look.

He took her hands, laced his fingers through them and pushed them up against the door over her head. "Listen to me and really hear what I'm saying," he told her. "I just want you to apologize for blowing up. That's it. That's what I want. And I want you to work your shit out with your family. There's something going on there that I don't even understand. Trust me, you have no idea how bad family stuff can get until you end up being the reason one brother shoots the other," he sighed, shaking his head a little. "Your brother loves you. I'm sure that your sister does too. You need to sort that out. Family is all you got in the world. I know because mine is exceedingly small. Trust a guy who knows. You don't want to keep going through life like this."

He sighed and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "I love you. Fucking psychotically crazy as you are, I do. I want what's best for you. All of these problems are in your head. If you want me to talk to you before I talk to the rest of your family, okay, fine. Can we just put this all behind us, apologize to one another, and make up? I'm fuckin' exhausted." And stressed. To the max.

Then something was wrong. He felt it as soon as it started. He let go of her hands and stepped backwards down the steps, nearly stumbling on the last one as he backed up, trying to find something solid to lean against so he could get seated before it took over entirely. His breathing grew shallow, his voice strangled. "Get Max," he said, the words barely decipherable as his back found the building wall and he slumped down it.

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middlem
2014-08-31 10:10 am UTC (link)

She gave him a pained look. "Please don't ask me to do that with my family, Eli. Please, please don't ask that of me. I would give you the moon and stars if you wanted them, but I can't do that. You don't understand. You've only met one of them and for a few minutes. You don't understand the issues, and they aren't something that's going to work out. I can't do that for even you." That finally got a few tears. There were years of resentment and jealousy involved in that issue, and the expectations and requirements they'd expect of her would change her back to the girl she morphed out of.

She thought she had been apologizing, so she was confused. "Isn't that what admitting I've done it wrong and that I need to try to do better apologizing?" It was the closest thing she'd ever gotten around to saying as an apology. The words were hard, it had been hard enough to admit that on its own. She felt bruised and battered after this, and completely insecure. Emma wasn't sure she could fix this.

Then Eli let go and stumbled. Emma immediately lurched forward to grab a hold of him, screaming as he fell. She sank with him as he went to the ground. "Fuck no, I'm not leaving you out here like this! Forget it!" She sat and held him in her arms, rocking back and forth with him against her chest, reaching for her phone to try and call inside the bar.

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