Neil Donovan is (incharge) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-30 13:21:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | gwen stacy, norman osborn |
Who: Neil and Sam
What: A visit. (2/2)
Where: Future Hope.
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: Uh angst?
She shook her head when he began saying he didn't know about Chloe, and she kept it up throughout his denials. Yeah, no, that hadn't been what she was going for. "No, Neil. I don't need you to explain or apologize. I was just telling you what happened. That's all," she said, because it was true. She wasn't going to be able to justify anything, and she didn't want to. Shit had happened, and talking it in circles wasn't going to change it. She had a disgustingly strong loyalty streak, and she had trouble understanding anyone who didn't share that trait. It didn't make her any fucking better than him, and he was probably healthier than her when it came to that. "You weren't fucking useless. You just weren't there, and it wasn't your fault, unless you could control that fucker and aren't saying so. Which I don't think you could. So stop taking on shit that isn't yours. It pisses me off when other people try to put that on you, and I'm not going to let you put it on yourself." By the end of the sentences, her voice was stronger, and she felt a little stronger too. Fuck that. Life had handed him a bad fucking deal, but wallowing in it wasn't going to make anything better. She didn't hold any of the crap he'd done as Goblin against him, and she wasn't going to let him get away with holding it against himself, not where she could hear.
"You don't understand why you not being around would be hard," she echoed, disbelief in the words. "Neil, fucked up crap happened, but did that completely erase everything for the past year?" she asked, because what the fuck had happened to finally being open about caring for each other? "Seriously, you're sitting there like you're here because someone fucking made you come, or like it's a job, or something. If that's what I am, then go," she said, hand pointing toward the door, and a wince accompanying the movement. "Because we either pick ourselves up and get back to living, or we let Goblin, and the hotel, and that fucking door win, and I'm tired as shit of letting that place control my life. It's been doing it for a year now, and I'm done being a fucking victim to its bullshit."
Sitting still stopped being an option, and she got to her feet and started pacing in front of the bed, end to end, still well away from him. And, yeah, she wanted him to want to be there, but she was starting to get that maybe he didn't want to. It almost made her fucking laugh, because seriously? She'd fought this shit for over a year, and it lasted what? All of two fucking weeks or something? She stopped moving when he echoed her words, and she turned to face him by the time he was done with his admission. She stared, inky blue eyes angry, and sad, and loving, and fuck this.
She was across the room in three strides, and she winced when her fist connected with his shoulder. She was taller than him like this, with him sitting, which helped her not freak the fuck out immediately. And, yeah, her fist was weak, and she hissed and gasped, eyes watering at the impact, but it felt good too, dammit. "So, fucking change. If you're guilty about all that shit before, do something about it. Don't roll over and fucking die, Neil." Fuck. She shook her hand out, cheeks unexpectedly tear-damp from the pain. "And bullshit. You were there after Micah. You helped me get through that. You gave me a place to stay when I couldn't work, and I'd be dead if it wasn't for you. So, fuck you. You don't get to say you didn't help me."
His unsteady stream of half-constructed excuses and apologies stopped abruptly when she told him she didn’t need either. Of course she didn’t. What an idiot he was; how could he think anything could fix what he’d done? Neil went quiet then, subdued, merely listening while she spoke. He was so used to people holding his actions against him that he had a hard time understanding why she didn’t, and as for putting it on himself, well, that just made sense. Absolving himself of guilt was something he didn’t think himself capable of. “I couldn’t control him,” he admitted, but it was hushed, barely much of an interruption at all. The one reprieve he could cling to proved he was a coward, incapable of fighting for control in order to save someone he cared about. There were better men, he knew, who would have prevailed if put in identical circumstances. He wished he could be one of them, but he simply wasn’t, and no amount of wishing or lamenting would make him one.
Her words made him frown, and he sat up a little in the chair, his slouch straightening ever so slightly. “No, it didn’t erase anything, but I thought-- it changed things, didn’t it?” He didn’t understand how it could not. He winced when she accused him of having been forced to come, and he wished he had the same fire that she did. “You’re not a job,” he said, and yeah, maybe there could have been a little more conviction in his voice, but he wasn’t lying. It was true; she wasn’t an obligation, or a responsibility, even if Louis had made her feel like one. “I don’t want to let the hotel win, I just... I don’t know how to fight it. Not impossible, but... hard.” And yeah, that was lame. But she wasn’t the one with someone like Norman in her head; no, she had a teenager. He was no match for power-hungry jerk with an iron will, and as his actions escalated through the door--because they would, all that bullshit about needing help aside--things would only get worse for him as a result. How was he supposed to fight that, and really, what was the point?
Neil wasn’t expecting her to get anywhere near him, and his mind processed the fact that she was coming towards him too slowly for him to react properly. The impact of her fist against his shoulder was practically nothing, and so his eyes widened in surprise rather than pain. “I know. I know. Louis told me the same thing. Get up, take responsibility, don’t drink myself to death. I know.” And there was a hint of something stronger; frustration, maybe. Everyone made it sound so damn easy. As for him helping her, he couldn’t really argue with any of that, and so he stared for a long, long moment before he realized she’d reacted with more pain than he had when she hit him. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
That not-interruption of his barely got any acknowledgement from her because, yeah, no shit. Obviously he hadn't been able to control Goblin. But it's not like he could be held responsible for that, could he? Loki did shit all the time that Louis couldn't control and, while she hadn't compared notes, she was sure being a norse god hadn't involved all good behavior from Lou. "I don't know, Neil. Did it? You're the one acting like everything's changed, not me. So you tell me, did it? We can erase the last month, if you want, but does that erase over a year of friendship? Because I thought we were fucking friends first. Was I wrong?" she asked. And, as soon as he said that she wasn't a job in that way, little conviction, she knew Lou had put him up to this. She didn't even have it in her to be angry at her judgmentally meddling older brother just then. She just stared a moment before she remembered how to talk. "I'm not a job, but I'm what? Too complicated right now?" she asked, the question spitting out before she could keep it back. As for the hotel being hard, that just made her shake her head. "You're not him right now, Neil. This is just like before. Why the fuck is this any different than before?" She didn't get it, and it was obvious enough in the plaintive demand. Sure, she'd expected him to be guilty and upset, but she hadn't been expecting this.
And, of course, his frustration carried through when he mimicked Lou's words, and she just wanted to hit him again, her own frustration making her not give a shit about the pain in her wrists. She didn't even bother answering his question. No, she just started wailing on him, anywhere she could hit. Not that any of the impacts were actually anything landed with enough force to do damage, and they actually lessened as she went, as the pain got worse. But she wasn't exactly thinking just then. She was flying fists and waving arms, and she was crowding his chair and just not giving a fuck. Tears streamed down her cheek, and she didn't have the mental wherewithal to worry about the seventy-plus stitches that hid beneath the grey gloves. "I don't give a fuck about Goblin. I don't give a fuck about what he did. I don't even give a fuck that you didn't find some way to warn me. I don't care about any of that shit," she said, and she didn't scream, surprisingly, though screaming would have made sense with the hitting. "I care about the fact that you didn't come looking for me after, and I care that you didn't even think about where the fuck I was, or what the fuck was I doing. I care that I reached out to you, and you didn't even fucking try to help. I care that you almost went to England with fucking Chloe, and needed to reschedule me to make your flight." She was a sobbing mess by then, the inside of her gloves sticky with red, and her words almost unintelligible. "That's what I care about, and none of that shit has anything to do with Goblin."
In assuming that she would want nothing to do with him, Neil had completely overlooked the fact that he was, in truth, the one who was making things awkward and stilted between them. He went on and on about not making things worse, yet that was exactly what he was doing. “No, I--” He shook his head, confused, and had the sudden urge for a really, really strong drink. “We were friends first. I don’t want to erase anything. Are you telling me nothing’s changed? That we can just go back to being the way we were before all of this?” He hadn’t let himself hope for such a thing, too fearful that it would be an utter failure if they tried. He attempted to remember why he’d been so sure that things would be ruined between them, but he couldn’t pinpoint where the belief had come from, only that it existed. Everything before a few days ago was a drunken haze anyway, so thinking that far back was pointless in itself. “I didn’t say you were too complicated,’ he said immediately. “This isn’t me getting cold feet because I don’t want to deal with your problems or some shit. I know I’m not him, I just--” He broke off, frustrated with his inability to explain himself. How could he, though, when he didn’t even fully understand why he felt the way he did?
He could have easily fought her off, but he didn’t. He made a few feeble attempts to block her blows, to get her to stop, but there was no real effort in it. The blows didn’t hurt, but her words did. All his failings, his shortcomings, were being thrown at him, and she was right. Of course she was right. The first thing he’d done upon crossing was to drown himself in booze. He hadn’t checked on her, hadn’t tried to make sure she was okay. No, he’d just let his guilt and self-loathing consume him instead. Had she reached out to him? Was that what the phone call had been? Neil tried to remember, but it was all jumbled together. “Louis,” he said, in the midst of fists and tears. “I-- I told Louis, you hung up...” Like that redeemed him, somehow. Pathetic. By the end of her tirade, he wanted nothing more than to leave, to get out, because he’d just gone and made things worse without meaning to. This had been such a bad idea; what could he give her? Apologies? Poor excuses for his behavior? “I’m sorry,” he said, and he tried to get up, tried to put distance between them. He was shaking, and he wanted a drink, and god, he’d never hated himself more than he did just then. Why, why had he come? Why had he listened to Louis and his self-righteous advice? “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and then it hit him, why it was different. Goblin had showed him his true self, like a warped mirror; a weak, snivelling coward. And faced with that, some part of him had just given up, had stopped trying. “I know-- I know I hurt you, but I can’t fix it, I don’t know how, and I-- I shouldn’t be here. I knew I’d make things worse. I knew I would. I’m sorry,” he said again, managing to maneuver himself out of the chair. “I’ll go. I’m sorry.”
Could they go back to how things had been? Yeah, she was pretty sure they could have. Or, she had been until he'd changed. Because whether he saw it or not, he had fucking changed. She didn't understand it, couldn't comprehend it. She was the one who was supposed to be calling everything off, and she was the one who was supposed to be acting all fucking distant and weird, wasn't she? But it wasn't her; it was him, and she couldn't understand what he couldn't explain. The man he'd been in February would have told her he gave a shit, one way or another, and he wouldn't be doing- What? She wasn't even sure how to describe what was happening just then. She didn't get it. All she knew was that the one person she fucking needed was looking back at her like he was just going through the motions. She didn't see anything like caring on his features, and that fucking hurt. She should have known better that to get so attached to someone. She should have fucking known. She had no idea what he was trying to say when he mentioned Lou. The last person she wanted to talk about just then was Lou. Lou, who had pressured him to come here against his will somehow. When he started apologizing, she shook her head. No, no, fuck, no. She knew that was bad. Even without him saying anything else, she knew it was the beginning of him walking out. She grabbed for his sleeve, even if she knew she would hate herself for the weakness after. Her fingers fumbled with the fabric, and she didn't manage to close them around anything at first, which just made her try more frantically. God, when the fuck had she become so fucking pathetic? "Neil," she managed, and it took a few deep gulps of shallow air to even manage that. "I don't want you to go." And, fuck, but this hurt, and she didn't know how to make him understand. Maybe he just didn't want to. "Do you want to?" It was a small question. A last ditch fucking effort. "You don't have to be with me," she added sadly. No pressure, right? They could just go back to before. She could do that. She could fucking pretend. No big deal. "But that doesn't mean you have to go." She could already feel the walls closing in, and she laughed a bitter-sad laugh. She'd really believed he would look at her and realize he'd missed her or some shit. Jesus fucking Christ. She was such a fucking idiot. She let go of his sleeve with cold fingers, leaving red stains on the fabric, and she dropped into the chair he'd vacated, bare feet on the seat and blood-sticky gloves hugged around her knees. She'd already pleaded with him on the phone, hadn't she? If he still wanted anything with her, he would have done something then. She was such a fucking idiot. "I'm such a moron," she whispered. She looked up at him, eyes inky blue and raw.
This, Neil thought, was what Louis had failed to understand. He thought that Sam was the one who’d changed, who was having difficulty coming back from the change, when in truth the exact opposite was true. Neil was the one who no longer felt like himself, who viewed sober reality as something he couldn’t quite get a grasp on. And that wasn’t Sam’s fault, not in the least, but he couldn’t explain it to her, couldn’t make her understand that his feelings hadn’t changed even if he no longer felt capable of expressing it. So much progress, and he feared most, if not all, of it might have been lost. Someone stronger would have been able to bounce back, maybe, which fed right back into his belief that she deserved better. Neil did stop moving backwards, at least, when she grabbed for his sleeve, though he still wanted nothing more than to leave and get away. “You’re upset,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I upset you. I’m not helping you by being here. I don’t-- I don’t understand. All I’ve done is make you upset, every time we’ve talked since-- since everything went back to normal, but you want me to stay.” Yes, he wanted to go, but not because he didn’t want to be around her; he just wanted to stop feeling like he was hurting her more and more with each interaction they shared. “I don’t want to go. I want to stop hurting you,” he admitted. If he said nothing, he would make things worse. If he said something, it would be the wrong thing, because he didn’t think anything he said could make this right, and so that too would make things worse. He tipped his head to the side, watching as she sat in the now-empty chair. “I know I don’t have to be with you. I’m just... I don’t want to make things worse,” he sighed. And then he looked down, purely by chance, and saw the red stains on his sleeves, and looked back at her. He stared for a few moments, silent, before the pieces began to fall into place. “You’re bleeding. I-- Why? What happened?”
She gave him a long, long, curious look. "Yeah, baby, I'm upset," she said sadly. And it was just like him to want to run from that; she knew that about him. He had serious issues with thinking himself a failure, and she had no clue how to assert herself, how to explain what he'd done wrong, while keeping him from feeling that way. And maybe she shouldn't have to. Maybe saying that she'd felt abandoned by him should have been ok and, yeah, maybe it would have been ok with someone else. But with Neil it was different, and normally she knew how to bridge that gap with him, between what he really felt, and what he put out there. But she was having trouble seeing past her own hurt right then, and she was having trouble not panicking at the prospect of him walking out the door. "No matter how many other people are walking around my life," she said, her voice direct, the sentiment candid, "none of them are like having you around." Simple. It wasn't blaming or gnashing her teeth, and it was true. "You don't think much of yourself. I get that. You never have. But I don't see you how you do, baby. After Micah, you just being in a room made me feel safer. I know that's weak, and I shouldn't depend on anyone that way. I know better than to do that," she said apologetically because, yeah, he so didn't need her problems on top of his own. Her arms were still wound painfully tight around her knees, because that was the only way she could keep herself from reaching for him. "Sit your ass down on the bed. Don't go. Just sit." It wasn't an answer to his question, but she wasn't actually shying away from it either, even if it wasn't obvious. "Against the wall," she added, so he wouldn't sit right on the edge, and then she gave him a look that was just plain honest. "If you don't want to, it's fine, baby. I won't fall apart. I won't scream, or hit you, or whatever. But I want you to walk out of here better than you walked in, yeah?" Because, yeah, she knew he was fucked up. She knew that. And, too, she knew he was more alone than she was in so many fucking ways. She could push the hurt aside to deal with that.
Beyond apologizing, Neil didn’t know how to make up for his shortcomings. He had abandoned her, in a sense, and he knew that. She should have been his first priority once everything went back to normal, but instead drowning his guilt and shame was instead. Maybe what he should have done was acknowledge his mistakes and prove that he intended to do better in the future, rather than obsessing about how to fix what had already been done. He tipped his head to the side and regarded her uncertainly when she agreed that she was upset. “You really want me around?” He sounded doubtful, but he wasn’t outright arguing with her again. He thought about it for a couple of moments, about how she’d been after Micah and the overdose and how badly he’d wanted to help her then. “I tried,” he admitted. “I tried to help you. I’m not very good at it, but I wanted to be enough.” And maybe he had been, but if he had, would she be here? Would he have her blood on his sleeves? Part of him didn’t want to know the answer, didn’t want to know what happened, but a larger part of him did, and he knew he wasn’t going to leave until--at the very least--he found out the truth. He moved slowly towards the bed, but at least he wasn’t bolting for the door. “I’m not worried about me,” he said with a shrug, because he hadn’t come here with the intent or the expectation of somehow bettering himself. He sat at the edge of the bed and slid back, until his back met the wall, and then he waited.
She laughed a laugh that probably would have gotten her moved to some psych wing somewhere. “Yeah, I really want you around.” Because, fuck, hadn’t she made a complete fucking ass of herself getting that across? At least he hadn’t brought up that fucked up admission that he hadn’t echoed, and she figured they could just pretend it had never happened, yeah? Yeah. “Shut up. Being my friend doesn’t mean fixing everything in my fucking life. I have to take some responsibility for myself,” she admitted, and that was absolutely true. “I just want you around, Neil. I don’t want you to fix me, and I don’t expect you to be with me anymore, or to let me crash, or whatever. I can pick my own ass off the ground.” Because she’d pushed him for more, hadn’t she? Well, she could fix that.
She waited until he settled back against the wall, shifting from one foot to the next, and then she slid up beside him nervously. She couldn’t put weight on her hands to crawl, and sliding back was a challenge, but she managed it. At first, she let some reassuring space remain between her shoulder and his. And then, after a few seconds, she scooted over and let her head rest against his shoulder. “Yeah, well, you’re going to start worrying about you,” she said. “I’m off your responsibility list. I want you to get yourself better,” she said honestly. She pulled her knees up against her chest, and she looked over at him without lifting her head from his shoulder. “If you want to do something for me, do that.” She didn’t want to need to ask for the rest, and something in her gaze said she wouldn’t ask for it again. He was off the hook, as far as she was concerned. She had to avert her gaze not to get weepy about that, and fuck loving someone; it sucked, just like she’d known it would.
She sighed then, a deep, deep sigh, because she knew she was dragging this shit out, and she knew she was doing it because she liked how he felt against her side. He wasn’t going to touch her; she knew that now, and there wasn’t any of the fear she expected. She just held one arm out, and she rolled one grey glove from her elbow to her wrist, where a few stitches had pulled open and caused the trickle of blood to her fingertips and through the wool. The cut was long, vertical, and the three dozen stitches were clearly visible beneath the new blood. “I’ll get it cleaned up in a minute. Don’t fucking tell Lou.” She rolled the glove up just as quickly. “And for what it’s worth, baby. You were always enough.”
Being my friend. Neil knew he’d given her every reason to think he wasn’t interested in her, and he wasn’t exactly acting like he cared all that much, but those words still stung. Maybe, though, stepping back a little wasn’t such a bad thing. He was in a bad place, she was in a bad place, and maybe getting themselves worked out should be the first priority, and then they could think about picking up where they’d left off. She might find someone else before then, but he wanted her to be happy. More than anything, he wanted that, more so than his own happiness; it was unselfish, but he didn’t dwell on that. “I want you around too,” he said. “My-- my sister is crashing at my place for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come back. Unless you want to stay here.” Because she might, he realized. “I want to be there for you, in any way I can. I just-- I don’t know how much good I’ll be until I fix myself,” he admitted.
He remained very, very still as she slid up beside him, and while there was no hiding the tenseness in his posture, some of it did ebb away when she leaned her head against his shoulder. There was a very real fear of touching her, even though Neil knew that Norman wasn’t strong enough to take control here like Goblin had through the door. He wouldn’t dare, regardless. “I’ll try,” he said. “I told Louis I’d try for you. I haven’t had a drink since.” He thought maybe that would count for something. Not everything from their phone conversation had stuck, but he remembered some things, though he had no idea how to even begin to address them. In this, he was still very much a coward. Even if he’d wanted to say something, though, her rolling up her sleeve was an effective distraction. Whatever Neil had been expecting, it wasn’t this, and he stared for a long, long moment before it clicked. He shook his head, as though that would somehow change the truth, but it didn’t. Of course it didn’t. “Jesus, Sam,” he breathed, taking in a deep, shaky breath in an attempt to compose himself. “Why?” He forgot about promising not to tell Louis, even though he had no intention of doing so. No, just then he wanted to know why; because of him, or because he hadn’t been there.
She was surprised to hear he had a sister here, much less that one was staying, but she was too nervous at the prospect of showing him her wrists to realize that maybe the tan-skinned girl from the rink, the one with the dinner invitation, might be related to him. Instead, she focused on other stuff like, yeah, that he didn't argue the friend thing. Ok, so it hurt, but she had been expecting it. Pride, right? She just needed to save her fucking pride, which meant she had to act like it was no big thing. "I'm paid through here for another two weeks," she said, which was the truth. "I have this thirty-day court mandated thing, and it lasts that long, so I'll hang out here until then, or I'd spend most of my time catching the bus back to rehab and group. Your place is huge. I don't mind if there's another Donovan around; the other two aren't so bad," she admitted with a hint of a gap-toothed grin, one that turned unsure a second later. "But, yeah, if you don't want your folks to find out about me or something, or whatever, I can find someplace else. And I can take one of the guest rooms back. See, baby, I'm easy to dump," she teased, forcing a wider grin. Yeah, see? She could do this.
Strangely, she didn't expect him to reach out and strangle her, not just then. Maybe with more intimate contact, yeah, but he wasn't going to touch her, wasn't interested in it; she could tell. "Lou isn't supposed to use me as a twelve-step program," she teased, but she was glad he was dry, even if it wasn't the way she would have liked it to happen. But, fuck it; she would take anything she could get at this point, anything that made him better instead of worse. She didn't respond to him until the fingerless gloves were tugged back into place, until the blood on her fingers was wiped away on her jeans, and until her cheek was back against his shoulder. She didn't get what he was after with that why, didn't really grasp while he was asking; she would have thought the answer through longer, if she had. "Because I was a weak fucking idiot, Neil. That's why." Because it wasn't his fault. Yeah, so she'd wanted him to talk her out of it, maybe. But it was her choice, not his. "I couldn't see a way out." She shrugged. "But it's in the past. It won't happen again," she assured him. And there was shadow of fear in her voice, because that was easy to say here, but being alone out there? That scared the fuck out of her.
Personally, Neil thought staying here for a little while longer might be good for her, especially after this visit; he still thought he’d gone and made things worse, even if she seemed okay now. “You’ll like her,” he said of Ash. “And she’ll like you, because she likes everyone.” Which was true. Of them all, except maybe Casey, Ash was the most personable despite her own hardships. He frowned when she mentioned his parents, though. “I don’t give a damn about them,” he said. “I don’t want them coming here, because I don’t want to deal with their bullshit, but I don’t care otherwise. I’m not... hiding you,” he said, uncertain and puzzled. Despite everything that had happened and fallen apart between them, he had thought she’d known that. As for her being easy to dump, he let that linger between them, unsure of how to approach it-- or whether he should at all. “I’m not...” he began, and then he stopped. “This isn’t me dumping you,” he said, making another tentative attempt at explaining.
He shrugged, shoulder lifting ever so slightly. “I think Louis knew nothing else would work,” he said honestly. “I didn’t care enough to get sober for myself, and pulling the parent card wouldn’t be much help. Not even he and Casey would,” he admitted, slightly ashamed that his own family wasn’t enough to pull him out of a booze-soaked hole of misery and self-loathing. But her answer to his question was what he really cared about, though Neil realized quickly that she hadn’t fully grasped what he was asking with that single word. “You couldn’t see a way out,” he repeated, and shook his head. “I--I didn’t think... it’s all blurry, what you said, but I didn’t think you’d... I didn’t know what...” He trailed off with a sigh. Excuses wouldn’t help anything; he really had to stop with that. “You’re not weak,” he said, a moment later. “I’m weak. You’re stronger than anyone else I know.” He paused, and turned his head to look down at her. “Promise it won’t happen again?” Maybe it was unfair of him to make her promise something like that, but maybe she would try harder if she did.
"So do you," she said of liking everyone. Really, Lou was the only Donovan she'd met so far that was prickly, and she was pretty he'd inherited that from her dad. Iris was prickly in her own fucking way, too. "So does Casey. He bought me a hot dog and fries a few days ago, after keeping me from beating up a wall." She wasn't expecting his frown, not when she knew how much he worried about his parents showing up. "Baby, I wouldn't blame you for hiding me," she said truthfully. If there was one thing she was absolutely fucking sure of, it was that his parents would be a fucking problem if they ever met her. And hers would try to blackmail him within an inch of his life. She had no illusions about either of their families. She looked over at him when he assured her that this wasn't him dumping her. She had two options, yeah? She could ask what the fuck he meant, or she could supply an answer that helped her save face. She'd always been more comfortable with the latter, even if she preferred the former just then. "Neil, it's cool. It's fine," she just said. "Take time or whatever. Roommates. You can come knock on the guest room door if you want to hook back up," she said, going for teasing and almost making it there. But, yeah, they'd fought way too much about Chloe in recent months, and she'd always promised she wasn't going to be that possessive bitch. Somehow, along the line, she'd turned into exactly what she hated; she needed to work on that, go back to being ok with sharing and not holding on like her fucking life depended on it.
She reached up and touched a blood-stained finger to his temple, when he talked about getting sober, the touch awkward, as affection from her always was. "Hey. No. You're not responsible for what I did, ok? And no, baby, we're all weak about some things, and not weak about others. That includes you. You helped me plenty of times, when I couldn't help myself. Don't forget that shit, yeah? Because you like to focus on the times you fucked up, and not on the times you didn't fuck up at all." She was surprised when he actually looked down at her, not really expecting it. "Yeah, ok," she said, and it was a rote answer by now, but she sighed, and she forced a little more honesty. "Stay sober, so I can call if I consider it again, deal?" She paused uncertainly. "And friends? Swear? Even if you don't want to get back together or whatever, or if you just want to go back to friends with benefits. Whatever the fuck it is, friends first?"
Neil let out a gurgle of laughter, the sound surprising enough to his own ears; he’d never really thought of himself as the sort of person who liked everyone. Not like Casey, at least. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Casey, yeah, but not me. He’s definitely the hot dog and fries kind of guy.” Typical him, but it was said with no shortage of fondness. “I wouldn’t hide you,” he insisted, a touch more forcefully, but left it at that. His parents weren’t a topic of conversation he really relished, never mind chose to discuss willingly. As for her response, he was a little less certain about that, but he didn’t know how to push and insist that he really wasn’t dumping her; he just needed to sort himself out first. “You’re not a booty call, Sam. It’s not like that.” He sighed and left it there, unable to meet her teasing with some of his own.
The instinct was there, to blame himself as always, but he did his best to fight it for her sake. “It’s easier,” he said thoughtfully, “to focus on the times I’ve fucked up. Not so easy to remember when I haven’t been a complete failure.” Unfortunately, focusing on the negative was always easier. Her promise relieved him somewhat, but not entirely, and he nodded when she asked him to stay sober. “Deal.” And this time, he’d actually be there when and if she needed him. Somehow, in the midst of all this, Neil had forgotten that they’d started off as friends, and if nothing else he didn’t want to lose that. Even if he wanted more, better friends than nothing at all. “Friends,” he agreed. “No matter what. Swear.”
She hadn't been sure, until just that fucking moment, if he even had it in him to laugh. It made her worry less. Just that one fucking thing, and it made her worry less. "Please, you even get along with me, and I'm a huge pain in the ass," she admitted truthfully. No self-pity, just fact. She smiled a little wider when he said he wouldn't hide her, but the smile threatened to falter when he said she wasn't a booty call. Ok, yeah, so he didn't even want that anymore. She got it. Sure. Ok, except it wasn't, and it would take fucking time to get that good cry out of her system. But she did an admirable job of keeping the shadow of a smile, and when she scooted away, it was with a glance toward the door. "Yeah, well, you're assigned to focus on the good shit. They make me keep a diary. It's actually a good way to do that, to focus on shit you might be uncomfortable thinking about." Not that it was helping with her current feeling of wanting to fall the fuck apart, but first things first, yeah? "Ok," she said to his agreement to be her friend, the final nail in the proverbial coffin. "I better go get my wrists looked at. I'll be back at Aria in a few weeks, and I have a steady job now, so I'll be able to pay for my room, even if the wages are ass." My room, and that felt so fucking final, but she scooted off the edge of the bed. "Thanks for bringing things by, baby."
Neil tipped his head to the side with a frown. “You’re not hard to get along with,” he said, honestly bewildered. Maybe to the outside world she was, but he’d never seen her like that. He didn’t notice the way her smile faltered in relation to his assertion that she wasn’t a booty call, because he hadn’t thought it was a bad thing; being more than a booty call was good, wasn’t it? He’d thought she would have liked to hear that. So no, he didn’t click, and he found himself actually looking forward to her getting out and coming back to the suite. “You’re giving me an assignment?” He pulled a face, but the teasing ebbed away a moment later. He studied her for a long moment, as though making sure that he wasn’t leaving her in worse condition than before, but after a moment he nodded. “Okay. You don’t have to worry about paying, you know. Save your money for something else.” He still didn’t see it, that my room meant different things to the two of them. “Don’t thank me. I wanted to come.” He hesitated, sliding off the edge of the bed after her and resting a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment before he stood, and moved towards the door. “Bye, Sam.”