Neil Donovan is (incharge) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-30 13:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | gwen stacy, norman osborn |
Who: Neil and Sam
What: A visit. (1/2)
Where: Future Hope.
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: Uh angst?
Sam was nervous. She hadn't talked to her shrink about Neil's visit, and maybe that was a bad thing, but she had no idea how to explain. Sure, the woman knew about things in their most basic form, but Sam had no way to explain the complicated mess that was their lives just then. And that inability to explain it meant that Sam was on her own, as far as getting through this visit. And she wasn't just worried she'd have a bad reaction to seeing Neil for the first time since the incident with Goblin (though she was worried about that), it was all the rest of it too. Chloe, and the fact that she'd gotten all sloppy fucking jealous when she and Neil had established clear boundaries barring that shit. Not to mention her completely stupid fucking declaration at the end of that terrible phone call. And, yeah, she didn't even know what had changed Neil's mind about that. Drunk, he'd seemed pretty fucking adamant never to see her again. She suspected Lou, and she didn't want Neil shackled to her because of her brother's guilt trips. And none of that even touched the suicide attempt, though she expected to be able to hide that well. After all, Neil hadn't been asking any questions about her wellbeing since they'd gotten back, and she was guessing he wouldn't pay much attention to anything that had to do with her. With any luck, he'd assume this was some fucking rehab.
But, unfortunately, Future Hope looked nothing like rehab. Sure, there was a breathalyzer and piss test at the door, but there was nothing beyond that which felt like a rehab facility. People came and went at will, and there were no medical personnel or nurses loitering around. From the outside, the pale white stones and pretty fence marked the place as expensive, definitely somewhere private, not publicly funded. Inside, it was all cool marble and locked doors - a privacy that didn't come with a rehabilitation facility. Sure, if you went far enough down the first floor, you would find therapy rooms and a group dining area, but those things were hidden away and out of sight.
Sam's room was on the top floor, a corner unit that was bigger than all the others in the place, and she'd put Neil on the visitor list that morning. No one else was on the thing, because she wasn't exactly ready to have people in her space. Going out, that was one thing. Being closed in with someone, that was another thing altogether. But she was willing to do it for Neil, even though she realized it could be fucking catastrophic.
She'd spent the afternoon scribbling in the new therapy diary that she was becoming slightly dependant on, and her hands hurt like a bitch. But at least the withdrawal-ache in the back of her teeth was gone. And, yeah, so the seventy-something stitches on her wrist were still sore and warm and red, but she had them covered up with one of her growing collection of fingerless gloves, ones that climbed up to her elbow. She had managed a few half-shifts at the garage, and the paycheck had gone to a pair of Walmart jeans and a white t-shirt which actually fit her. She hadn't lost any more weight, and all the bruising from Goblin's attack was gone. With the exception of some tired bruising beneath her eyes, she didn't look too bad, hair loose and damp at the quickly curling ends and face scrubbed free of any make-up.
And, yeah, ok, she could do this. Right? Yeah.
Neil had been sober for a couple of days now, but not by choice. The sad truth was that he’d still be drunk in his suite if Louis hadn’t shown up, and had he simply left after his lecture instead of sticking around, he would have gone out to replace all the booze his brother had gotten rid of while he’d been passed out. But Louis kept him in line, and with Ash in town and needing a place to stay, he wasn’t going back to the booze anytime soon. He couldn’t. His sister was the one person left who wasn’t disappointed in him, who didn’t think he was a complete screw-up, and he wanted to keep it that way. So, when he went to meet Sam, he was one hundred percent sober. He was exhausted, not having been able to sleep well since returning from the Marvel door, and he was miserable, still craving a drink more often than not, but at least he was sober. Norman had, thankfully, been quieter than usual, though he was wary of just how long that was going to last; probably until he got tired of playing nice and wanted to get back through the door. The damage done to his arm by Lizard Liam’s claws had all but healed, and all that was left was angry red lines and a dull ache if he moved it the wrong way, while the bruises left from Goblin’s meeting with a wall had disappeared entirely.
With sobriety, however, came guilt and self-loathing in full force, especially since he realized he really had no idea what the hell was going on with Sam. Louis had told him she’d been committed, but beyond that, he didn’t know where she was staying or what state she was in. He’d been so drunk during their phone conversation that he hadn’t been able to remember most of it; in fact, he couldn’t really remember any of their conversations since finding themselves back in Vegas. He had vague recollections at best, bits and pieces that came to him at random moments and others that just refused to be coaxed out. Looking up the address Sam had given him told him where he was going, at least, but it made sense, if she’d been committed and had only recently been released. He didn’t know about the suicide attempt, since Louis hadn’t known either; all he remembered was something about drugs.
Despite what Louis had said, Neil didn’t fully believe that he could help Sam. He held out no real hope that they could fix things, or that he was what she needed, but he’d agreed to try, and so try he would. What he wanted was a stark contrast with reality. He wanted things to get better. He wanted her to be okay, and he wanted her to come back, but he wasn’t enough of an optimist to believe that what he wanted would actually happen.
Even once Neil got past the door and inside, he didn’t think to be suspicious. This was a clean living place or whatever, right? Somewhere free of drugs and booze. Made sense, since she’d probably be tempted. Maybe he should have thought a little more about it, but he didn’t. He made himself expect the worst because if he didn’t, if he let himself hope, and it all went to hell, staying sober was going to be really fucking hard. But it wasn’t about him, was it? It was about Sam. Getting Sam better. As long as Sam was okay, what happened to him didn’t matter. He’d been screwed from the moment Norman Osborn had shown up in his head anyway. Sooner or later, he was going to meet his downfall, and Neil was just along for the ride until then. And, just then, he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to try to stop it.
He was led to Sam’s room, once it was confirmed that he was actually on the visitor’s list or whatever. For once, Neil looked average, ordinary, not wealthy at all. Jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and sneakers. Sobriety hadn’t made him care about his appearance, and he had about a day or so worth of stubble along his chin and jaw. When he reached the door, he knocked, and then he waited.
Sam was leaning over her desk when the knock came, shaky fingers having trouble holding onto the pen as she wrote in her therapy diary.
I will not lose my shit. I will not lose my shit. I will not lose my shit.
There was a telling drag of ink along the paper that would tell the story of her nervousness when she heard that knock, and she cursed as the pen clattered to the wooden floor and slid beneath the bed. She didn't bother chasing it, though. Instead, she just tugged the thin, grey wool of her fingerless gloves up to her bare elbows, and she moved forward and unlocked the door.
She took a few steps back before calling out a, "yeah, come in," that was much less badass than she'd wanted to be. But at least her voice hadn't cracked or broken, and that counted for something, yeah? Another few steps, and she was in the middle of the large room, inky gaze fixed on the doorknob.
Inside, the room was comfortable. The bed was small, but plush, and the colors were muted neutrals and soft woods. There was a plush chair, and a wooden desk with a view of the courtyard through the huge window. There was a door that led to the bathroom, and there was one that led to the closet. There wasn't anything personal in the place, because she hadn't been back to Aria to get anything personal. She fleetingly wondered if he'd been worried about her at all, about where the fuck she'd managed to go without identification or money, but she shook the thought off as quickly as it came. That shit was only going to lead to bad places, and she'd meant what she'd told Daniel; she wasn't Neil's job. That was on the list of shit she wanted to talk to him about, assuming she could get through the first five minutes of this without losing her shit.
And, yeah, she had no fucking clue where they stood either. She knew she'd made things awkward with her stupid fucking declaration, but she wasn't sure how awkward yet. But if there was something she had always been good at, it was pretending she didn't feel shit. Ok, so the last few months with Neil had left her out of practice, but it couldn't be that hard to slip back into how shit had been, right? Sure, it would all be a fucking lie, but she'd lied to keep him in her life for a year already; she could do it again if she needed to.
It didn't actually occur to her that he didn't remember their conversations; it would have been reassuring to realize he didn't know just how fucked up she was- had been- whatever. Yeah, no, she was going on the theory that he remembered, and that she was going to have to talk herself out of it, but she was prepared to do that. Fuck, it had worked with everyone, hadn't it? Even Daniel hadn't figured shit out without her filling in the blanks for him, and she had a feeling Neil wouldn't want to look at anything too closely.
Neil heard the door unlock, but he didn’t move to open it right away. He thought it was telling that she didn’t open it herself, instead calling out as though giving him permission. Or maybe she’d had to prepare herself first. The last time she’d seen him, he hadn’t been himself, but he’d still looked the same, and seeing him again was bound to bring back bad memories for her. In his mind, it was more a matter of how long she could hold out before making him leave. Real life wasn’t like a movie, where everything worked out in the end and even the most insurmountable of problems were able to be fixed. Love couldn’t conquer all, like fairy tales claimed. Sometimes nothing was enough, and that was the unavoidable truth. He wasn’t some knight in shining armor, but it seemed like everyone expected him to be, so it was little wonder they’d all ended up either disappointed or disgusted with him. But he didn’t disagree with them, necessarily; Sam needed someone better, because he couldn’t be better. Hell, he’d started drinking the second he found himself back in Vegas solely to avoid what he’d done and the consequences stemming from his failure. He hadn’t been sober until Louis showed up and took away all his booze, which meant that he’d been hopelessly, pathetically drunk throughout Sam’s downward spiral, and drunks didn’t usually have a lot of concern for other people when they were too busy drowning their sorrows in numbness and oblivion.
Now that he was sober, Neil simply assumed someone else had been taking care of Sam. Louis, maybe. He’d gone crazy trying to find her, after all, and she’d mentioned something about staying with a friend. The last thing he’d thought was that she needed him in any form, and it was indicative of the sort of person he was, that he didn’t think about money or identification or how she’d managed; he told himself what he needed to believe, and that was that.
Maybe the pause between when she called out and when he actually opened the door was too long; he wasn’t aware of time in that capacity. Neil lingered in the doorway, a bag full of Sam’s things in one hand, and he hesitated, tired eyes coming to rest on Sam first before he looked at the room she stood in. He’d imagined her looking far worse than she actually did; bruised and battered and staring at him in fear. It came as a relief, but only fleeting, because he thought a moment later that most of the damage wasn’t physical anyway. “Hi,” he said, belatedly, before taking two steps into the room and pausing again.
She wasn't really sure what she was expecting. To completely fall apart, like she had when she'd finally come face-to-face with Micah, maybe? Yeah, something like that. She took an extra step back, but she didn't scream, cry or cower in the corner. Yeah, that was good, right? Ok, deep fucking breath.
"You look younger." Which she hadn't actually meant to say aloud, but she had, and it wasn't like she could take it back. But he did look younger than the last time she'd seen him, slightly. She knew she looked older, so maybe she should have expected that, but she hadn't. Nerves hadn't really let her expect much of anything. "Which was fucking stupid of me to point out," she admitted a second later, nervous laugh and jesus fucking christ, she just need to slow herself down and be normal. She let herself really look at him, then. The stubble added age, and it made him look tired, but she could tell he was sober without coming close enough to smell his breath or his skin; that just came of living with him for a fucking year. He looked unhappy, but she couldn't tell how much of it was because he had been forced there (which she was seriously starting to believe was the case), or because he was sober, or because of what had happened. She figured it was all three, and she hated it for him.
She watched the door close behind him, gaze settled on the snick of the doorknob, and then she nodded at the completely empty closet. She hadn't gotten her shitty garage pay until a few days earlier, and all that money had gone to two shirts and a pair of jeans, so the closet was devoid of everything else save Seven's stolen pants and the sweatshirt she'd borrowed from the hospital. "Put the bag in there?" she asked, moving back to give him some room to cross. "Oh, and one of the CDs? The Rossini?" she asked, because opera still made everything better for her, as fucked up as that was. The loaner laptop a staff member had brought up a few days earlier was sitting on the desk, and she motioned at that a second later, figuring it would give her more time to look at him, and it would keep her from needing to use her hands in front of him.
"Sit down?" she asked a second mater, motioning to the computer chair and taking a quick moment to shove the journal that was sitting on the desk off into a drawer that she kicked forward underneath the wood, with her knee. She backed away again after, between the desk and the bed, and she laughed at her own stupid fucking nervousness. "It's not you. I fucking promise, it's not you. Just give me a second, yeah? Talk? Say something? Run your mouth and sound annoyingly charming with your accent?" she asked, because Goblin hadn't actually talked like him, yeah? Sure, the voice was the same, but the inflections and the things he said, they weren't Neil. Her voice went a little softer, more vulnerable. "Lou told you that you needed to do this, didn't he?" Because, yeah, she knew her brother. She knew when Neil was in a lather about doing something himself too, and this wasn't it.
“Oh.” Neil wasn’t sure how to respond to Sam’s observation that he looked older, because he hadn’t realized that his appearance had changed while he was in the Marvel Door. Most of the time he hadn’t even been in control of his own body, and during the brief period of time that he was, he’d been half-drunk and building pillow forts with a teenaged Elise; neither of which gave him much opportunity to look in a mirror. “No, not stupid. Norman--” He winced, not even wanting to speak the other man’s name. “He’s older than me. You were younger, so...” His sentence trailed off with a weak shrug, not that he’d had any real direction to begin with. He was aware, to a degree, that she was watching him, but he didn’t have the energy to pull up a decent enough facade. The most he’d been able to do was minimize, to appear tired at worst with no real indication of why; it might simply have been sobriety, and the weight of terrible things that he could no longer hide from. He hadn’t been forced to come; he could have thrown Lous’ advice, if it could be called that, back in his face and refused. He’d wanted to see her, but it was difficult to reconcile that with his belief that he was no good for her.
At least, he thought, she wasn’t screaming or crying or backed up into a corner in sheer terror. He was, strangely enough, afraid of seeing fear caused by his presence. That would be like the final nail being driven into his coffin. He nodded when she told him to put the bag into the closet, because being given direction, things he could do, was good; otherwise he was likely to stand there and do nothing at all. Caution was taken to avoid getting too close when he passed her, and he rifled through the bag for the CD in question before pulling it out and setting the rest down. Then, when she told him to sit, he sat, observing her movements and nervousness without saying a word. His own uncertainty was quieter, more subdued, but no less present. Goblin may have taken over his body, may have used his voice, but the two were absolutely nothing alike; that much was clear now that he was himself again.
He didn’t believe her when she said it wasn’t him. He couldn’t, even though he wanted to, but he did manage a brief flicker of a smile before it died. “Yeah,” he echoed. “It’s okay, Sam. I knew this wouldn’t be easy for you.” He shook his head. “Was I ever annoyingly charming? Might just be wishful thinking.” He wasn’t sure he remembered how to tease, or to laugh; the time when he hadn’t a care in the world was so very far in the past now. When she asked if Louis told him to do this, he shook his head, because he hadn’t. “No. Louis means well, but this isn’t about him.”
"Everyone seems older when you're a teenager," she replied to his explanation of their age differences and, yeah, that sounded so fucking stupid. "I'm glad not to be young and stupid again." Not that she wasn't stupid now, which she realized, but she wasn't as fucking trusting, which counted for something. She went quiet in favor of watching him, which might have made things more awkward, but she couldn't help it. She needed to look for differences, for things that weren't what she feared, or else she'd spend his entire visit sandwiched between the desk and the bed. She wanted to actually get down to the heart of whatever the fuck was going on, and instinct told her that wasn't going to happen until she could fucking relax a little. She would have given anything for a hit right then, a pill, a drink, anything. But that shit would only make it all seem more hopeless, and she knew it. So she stared, blatantly and without apology, until he sat down at the computer chair.
She pointed at the laptop. "Start up the aria from La Cenerentola." It had always been one of Christine's favorites. She sat down on the edge of the bed after making the request, close to the edge and a quick unfolding of her hands on her lap, once she realized it fucking hurt to grip them. There was still half a room between them, but he was closer, and she wasn't hyperventilating. She considered that a win. She tugged at the woolen glove's hem at her elbow nervously.
That brief flickering smile of his did more to calm her down than anything he'd done since walking into the room. "It's not just you," she reminded him. "Not what you did," she added, because fuck dancing around things, right? "You not being around has been fucking hard, though. For me, anyway." She knew that wasn't the case for him, or he would have been the one reaching out, yeah? As for his charm, that just made her laugh, a duck of her head and a tangle of blonde against her shoulders. "Fuck, you. The accent is charming, and you know it. So is the fact that you're not a motherfucker, Neil, no matter what you think right now. A lot of guys are. You aren't." Indifferent, yeah. And maybe he didn't care about her anymore, but he still wasn't an asshole. That was the long and fucking short of it. She went quiet when he said this wasn't about Louis. "What's it about, then?"
Words were definitely not his strong suit just then, and Neil found himself struggling to come up with ways to respond that consisted of more than just silent nods. “Yeah, being a teenager sucks,” he said, a weak attempt at something like humor, or at least something that stayed away from mentions of what Goblin-him had done to teenage-her. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, never mind discuss, and he was relieved that Louis hadn’t pushed that particular issue. He figured she was probably looking for differences, probably trying to convince herself that who he was now wasn’t who he’d been then, but he didn’t know how to help, didn’t know how to show her that he wasn’t that monster. Instead he sat, slouching in the computer chair, and distracted himself by inserting the CD and starting the aria as per her instruction. When he was finished and looked up again, he saw she’d taken a seat at the edge of the bed, which was progress, maybe, even though it still felt like there were miles and miles separating them.
He frowned when she said him not being around had been hard for her. That was the gist of what Louis had said, but he still didn’t get it. He didn’t understand how she could have missed him. “I don’t understand,” he admitted. He shook his head when she said he wasn’t a motherfucker, because she was wrong, she was, and he couldn’t even bring himself to tease her about the accent. “Yeah, no, I am. Ask anyone.” And maybe that sounded like self-pity, but he didn’t mean it that way. As for what it was about, Neil thought that was a pretty simple question with a similarly simple answer. “You,” he said. “It’s about you. About you... being okay again. About you getting better.”
The weak attempt at humor hurt a little. She'd seen him down before, but never like this, and their relationship in the past had been so firmly based in hiding whatever the fuck they were feeling that it made this doubly hard. She didn't know how to just backtrack to that, and she didn't even know if she wanted to, not all the way. "I was actually a pretty happy fucking teenager until I got married and, yeah, even after I was kind of stupid. So, yeah, I would have realized some shit was up if it happened now. But not back then, not until it was too fucking late." They both knew what it was; there wasn't any point in bullshitting about that, and she didn't think she had to spell it out. "It might have been ok, if Chloe hadn't showed up, and I had no fucking clue Daniel was this bloodthirsty fucking beast, and he was fucking terrifying. And MK ODing was kind of the straw that broke the camel's fucking back. Well, no, jail was. All those fuckers in jail. But I still managed to hold it together better there than here." Which was just sad, wasn't it? She was older now, all grown up, and she should be able to take care of her own shit. But she'd done better with it as a teenager, and that needed to change.
She went quiet for a few minutes, listening to the soprano's soothing voice and missing the days when the only thing they had to worry about was Erik getting jealous. By the time she looked back at him, he was frowning. "What don't you understand?" she asked, and she obviously didn't get it. "You realize I don't tell people shit, right? It makes me uncomfortable. I don't do it with anyone but you. I got back here, and I didn't have anywhere to go, any job, any money, and I was fucked up and scared. And none of that was as fucking important as how much I wanted to be with someone who I didn't have to pretend to be ok with." It was all a rush of words, thick Jersey that was almost cracked around the edges. "And no, you aren't. You thought I didn't want to see you, and you felt guilty, and you have your own demons to deal with. That doesn't make you an asshole. Even shit with Chloe doesn't make you an asshole. It just means you thought she could help you or something. I'm not your responsibility, and there's no fucking law that says you have to want to see me." She paused there, a long pause, and she tugged at the fabric that covered half of her thumb, fingers failing to close around it a few times at first. "No, it's not about me getting better. I need to get me better. I don't want you here because you feel guilty, or because you think you have to be. That's not what I want from you. That's never been what I fucking wanted from you. I have half the fucking world trying to shove me in their own version of bubble wrap. You never did that. You let me be me, and we helped each other, didn't we?"
It wasn’t something Neil particularly felt like focusing on, not when he’d gone to such lengths to keep from thinking about it until Louis had thrown a wrench in his plans. So, he hastily searched for a different topic, something else, but considering the fact that all they really had to talk about was wrapped up in what he’d become in the Marvel door and the consequences, he had no success whatsoever. “I didn’t know about Chloe,” he said lamely, though really it wouldn’t have mattered even if he had. Whatever control he’d had was given to him, and Goblin was more than capable of snatching it away whenever he saw fit. Neil had been nothing more or less than a puppet on a string. “Or Daniel, or-- any of it.” He sighed, a heavy, weary sound. “I was useless. No good to anyone. All that happened, and I was...” He trailed off, because it didn’t need to be said, did it? He hadn’t really been anywhere, and even when he was, he’d been too drunk to care. Oblivion had been successfully achieved, while Sam suffered.
What he didn’t understand took him longer to articulate. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly, “why me not being around would be hard. I don’t understand why you want me here. No one wants to be around me, not even Louis. I don’t want to be around myself either.” Unfortunately, Neil couldn’t do much about that one. He was slow to absorb what she was saying, that she’d been left with no money and no job and no home upon her return, and the guilt rose up in his chest again, making it hard to breathe. He’d left her like that, and he’d been too busy drinking all the booze in sight to think about what her situation was. He swallowed once, then twice, but his throat was still dry and his voice still hoarse when he spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he had no idea what the hell else to tell her, no idea how to fix this. He shrugged when she said he wasn’t an asshole, lacking the energy to argue. He didn’t even try protesting that he hadn’t thought Chloe could help, and his drunken agreement had nothing to do with being helped. Maybe she didn’t think she was his responsibility, but everyone else did. Louis did. And he’d promised to try, to be there so she could get better. He knew, even before she said anything, that Sam wanted him to want to be there. But he wasn’t strong enough to support her and himself, so he had to choose. And of course he would choose her; that wasn’t in question. The problem was that Neil still believed he was bad for her, and that came into conflict with him trying to help in whatever way he could.
“I let you be you,” he echoed. “I let you spiral into drugs and booze. I let you overdose. I let you invite me over under the impression that I was me, and not Norman Osborn in psycho form. You helped me, Sam, but I just can’t... I don’t see how I’ve helped you,” he admitted. “All I see are the ways I’ve made you worse.”