InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "careful, don't drop him"

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.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

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."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

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."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

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.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

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.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -