callas devry (devry) wrote in mcdermott_game, @ 2009-08-17 14:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | bex, bex/callas, callas |
WHO: Callas Devry and Bex O'Shaughnessy
WHAT: Callas makes the decision to head back to the Hamptons after the disaster with Eric.
WHERE: The Hamptons, NY
WHEN: August 16th
RATING: PG (language)
Callas had not intended on doing this. She'd intended on calling first, for one, and showing up in a rational, timely manner. But she was also still very upset from what had nearly happened with Eric - what some twisted, fucked up non-logic had almost led her to doing - and so she had chosen to leave Albany early Sunday morning and travel the six hours back to the Hamptons. She knew Bex would probably want to stab her for showing back up randomly, but she definitely, definitely couldn't go home. Not now, not like this.
It was early afternoon when she arrived, and she sincerely hoped that Bex was still around when she pressed the O'Shaughnessys' doorbell. Still around, and willing to help her out without questioning it. Well, she'd ask questions. Callas just hoped she knew the right way to answer.
Bex barely heard the doorbell; the volume on the tv was turned up more loudly than it should have been, but it filled the house with noise, and she liked that. So did Hayden, who was watching Kung Fu Panda for the third time that day; he was standing on the couch, occasionally jumping, and saying all of the lines along with the characters. It was cute, and Bex was amusing herself by taking a lot of pictures, both of Hayden, and of herself, sticking her tongue out at the camera and making faces.
Okay, so she was kind of bored.
At the sound of the doorbell, Bex tilted her head slightly, as if to make sure she wasn't hearing things, and then she tossed her camera aside, getting to her feet and making her way through the rooms toward the front door. When she pulled it open and saw Callas standing there, she lifted her eyebrows, surprise going through her, though she didn't exactly show it. She just said, "Well, look what the cat dragged back."
Callas did not burst into tears. She very, very carefully did not burst into tears. Instead, she dumped her bags on the porch and looked at Bex. "Remember how I said I was overstaying my welcome? I lied. I totally, totally lied. I had the worst weekend ever and I really could use pancakes and a place to not have to think about the fact that in two weeks I have to face Michael. If you want to, you can completely say no. But I thought you should know I make really good pancakes before you do."
Bex shrugged, opening the door wider so that Callas could come in. She hadn't really understood the whole overstaying thing in the first place, but she wasn't exactly going to tell Callas to turn around and get back on a bus, or anything. "Do I even want to ask what happened?" she inquired, picking up one of Callas's bags for her.
Callas picked up the other bag, and her purse, and slid past Bex. "No, you probably don't, but you can when we're alone, and I'll even let you hit me." She left the stuff in the hall and went into the living room. "Hey, squirt," she said with a smile for Hayden.
"Callas!" Hayden looked happy enough to see her; he hopped off of the couch and scrambled over, giving her a hug - only it was around her legs, since he didn't wait for Callas to reach down enough to give him a proper greeting. Bex shook her head, a little amused; she reached for the tv remote, on one of the end tables, and turned the volume down a little.
She could only grin, reaching down to hug him back. Hayden had been an awesome little playmate and he was a genuinely good kid, something which Callas needed at that moment. She ruffled his hair. "You look like you've gotten more sun since I left. I hope you built some amazing sand castles, buddy."
"I did." Hayden hopped back a little, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he looked excitedly up at Callas. "Bexy and I built one again yesterday, it was wicked. We made a moat."
"We did," Bex agreed, dryly. "We have many talents."
This was what she should have been doing. Not fucking herself up about Eric and Michael. She should have been here building sand castles and running through the water and possibly making Bex sit on her again. Callas grinned down at Hayden before looking up at Bex. "Well, at least you're not a lobster anymore," she almost sang out. "Hey, Hayden. Have you two eaten yet? Cause I think I'm so in the mood for breakfast-for-lunch. What would you say to pancakes, little man?"
"Yay! You're a much better cook than Bexy," Hayden exclaimed, jumping up and down even more excitedly. "I love pancakes! My mommy says they have too much sugar, so I never get to have them. Sometimes I get waffles, though; Daddy makes them and they are mmmm." Practically skipping into the kitchen, the movie in the living room forgotten, he added, "Can I help?"
"Easy there, goober," Bex called, hurrying after him before he hurt himself in his excitement. She'd chosen to ignore Callas's lobster comment, even though she had bristled a little, though with irritation or embarrassment, she wasn't quite sure. She was mostly embarrassed about the vague memory of her phone call with Jeremy the other night, though; she didn't like to remember having been so weak in front of him.
Callas allowed herself to bounce right in after Hayden and Bex. "Oh, I'm a better cook, am I? That's awesome." She began pulling things out of cabinets, having familiarized herself with at least that much of the house while she'd stayed there the week before. If nothing else, she'd at least been able to offer her skills at a few simple dishes in thanks for hosting her. Pancakes, for one.
"Pancakes always take two," she assured him. " 'Course I'm gonna need your help, silly. Who else would I trust to stir up the perfect pancakes? Bexy, you see, simply doesn't have the knack for it. She's good with other things."
"Like supervising," Bex agreed, while Hayden giggled. As much as she hated to admit it, Bex was already starting to feel less lonely, and Callas had barely been there for five minutes. It was a little irritating, to recognize that, but, well, whatever. Bex opened another cabinet, pulling out a mixing bowl, which was pretty much all she knew how to do.
She always made pancakes from scratch, not a mix, but here at the O'Shaughnessys it was easier to do it with a mix, especially since Hayden was eager to help. Callas accepted the bowl from Bex, and another, and slid it to Hayden before she retrieved the mix and the milk. "Supervising is the best job," she informed them both, giving Hayden a wink. "It means Bex gets to taste-test the first round of cookies we are so baking tonight."
"Cookies!" Hayden said happily, giving Bex an almost wide-eyed look of joy. It wasn't that he didn't get to have cookies and candy, same as any other kid, but pancakes and cookies in the same day wasn't exactly routine, either, and for an eight-year-old, that was practically heaven.
"I'm beginning to think you're a bad influence," Bex commented to Callas.
"Who, me?" Callas smirked. "I am no such thing. I am good, sweet, perfect. I am an angel sent from the heavens to cook for you." She circled around Hayden, poured the milk into the batter, and handed him a spoon. "Have at it, little man." She pushed back her sleeves.
"Besides, this house needs to smell like cookies," she added to Bex, studying the other girl. "What have you been doing while I was gone?"
Bex shrugged, hoisting herself up onto one of the counter tops. "Well, you heard about the sandcastles," she said, a little wryly. "The beach, the pool. I think there were Disney movies involved at one point, too."
"Sounds like fun." Callas lowered her voice, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "And how is dear Jeremy? Called him back yet?"
Hayden's ears seemed to perk up a little. "Bexy and Jeremy, sitting in a tree," he sang out, and then dissolved into giggles.
Bex shot Callas a look that clearly said, Thanks. "Jeremy's fine," she responded, shifting a little uncomfortably as she remembered their last phone call. "I talked to him a couple of days ago. He's living it up at Disney, apparently."
"That's right," Callas confirmed, giggling just as much as Hayden did. "Don't you forget it, buddy. Kissing in treetops sounds exactly like what Jeremy would do."
At the look she was given, Callas only smiled angelically and added, "That's a boy after my own heart, right there. And Jeremy's at Disney? Aw, with his family?"
"No, with Chloe," Bex said, ignoring that Hayden was now singing, "K-i-s-s-i-n-g."
Callas blinked. "Oh." She hadn't quite gotten used to how that worked, Jeremy and Chloe, but she figured if Bex was okay with it, it had to be okay. "All right then. Sounds like an awesome vacay if you ask me!" She nudged Bex on her way around the island. "Hey, you. If you promise not to burn anything and help, I will exempt you from the taste test."
Bex shrugged a little; she didn't actually want to think of Chloe and Jeremy spending all that time alone together, and so she didn't. "Well, I can try to help," she said, "but I can't promise not to burn anything. The last time I tried to cook, I set off the fire alarm." She blamed her mother; her mother never cooked anything herself, and of course had never taught Bex how to maneuver her way around the kitchen. That was what the hired help was for.
Callas' own mother hadn't taught her how to cook. In fact, that was something she and her father had shared, a love of cooking. She went to Hayden, checking that the batter was finally smooth. "Okay, we're ready for the first round. Give me the butter, kiddo," she directed him. Looking back at Bex, she hesitated, and then added, "You know ... he's really nice. Jeremy, I mean."
As Hayden followed Callas' instructions, Bex nodded, a small smile crossing her face. "He is," she agreed. More than Callas knew, really.
Callas took care of the actual cooking, though she did let take the pan off the stove when it was hot enough and let Hayden step up on a step stool to pour the first perfect shape, careful to keep his body away from the hot pan. "Score, my friend. Score," she announced three minutes later when the first batch was done. She let out her breath in an upwards whuff, blowing her bangs off her face before looking at Bex.
"That look, you know," she added, while Hayden was distracted, "means I should be proud of you, doesn't it."
Bex shook her head, the smile disappearing quickly from her face. "I don't know what you're talking about," she responded.
Callas grinned. "Yes, you do. You called him. Or he called you. And you actually emoted."
She'd emoted a little too much, but she didn't want to tell Callas that. There was something incredibly embarrassing about having woken up the morning after her phone call with Jeremy, with the aftertaste of vodka on her tongue and her phone laying open on the pillow beside her. Worse was remembering how she'd actually asked him not to leave her; it had been a moment of weakness that she didn't intend on repeating any time soon. "He called me," was all she said, hopping down from the counter so that she could go over and keep a closer eye on Hayden. "So really, there's nothing to be proud of."
"But still. You let him call you and you didn't hang up or get grouchy," Callas stated matter-of-factly. "You let him be sweet."
"Well, I wouldn't pick out the wedding cake yet," Bex said, and then she paused. "Besides, I'm not grouchy."
"Honey, I wouldn't pick you out a wedding cake. I'd bake it myself," Callas said with a snicker. "If you let him be anything more than sweet, that is, without getting grouchy about it." She paused, too, as she realized something. "Hey, all those Star Trek metaphors are starting to rub off on me, because you're totally the Bones to his Kirk. You're all grouchy and he's all tactile and flirty and you like it but you can't admit it because that would let him win."
"Okay, I don't know what you're talking about," Bex said, shaking her head, "but he and I aren't, like, that sweet. It's not like we're calling each other every day." Not that she hadn't thought about it.
"I in no way said that it was sweet." Callas smirked. "In fact there was a lot of a certain kind of tension between those two, if you take my meaning, which had nothing to do with sweetness." She leaned forward, whispering, "Do you want me to call him tonight?"
"Absolutely not," said Bex, shaking her head.
Callas studied her, and then nodded. "Okay, I'll call him." She then turned her back and helped herself to some pancakes, dripping the plate with syrup in a sticky star pattern.
"Don't make me sit on you again," Bex said, helping Hayden fix his plate of pancakes and ignoring the fact that he was giggling again; he'd been watching the conversation with interest, his little eight-year-old brain understanding more than they gave him credit for, if the look he gave Bex was anything to go by. "And don't you start, either, goober-head," she added pointedly.
"Start, kiddo," Callas encouraged, because that was exactly the kind of influence she would be on a kid. She knew Hayden meant no harm. "You can sit on me all you want to, Bex, the fact is, you need someone to be sweet to you, and since I'm not exactly cuddly, Jeremy is my built-in best bet."
"I need someone to be sweet to me like I need diabetes," Bex said, "which is what I'll get if I have to put up with cuddling and mushiness and anything else." She set Hayden's plate on the island and then hoisted him up into one of the chairs, and then sat down beside him. The pancakes looked good; Bex hesitated for a moment, and then picked a corner piece off of one of Hayden's pancakes, making sure it didn't have any syrup on it.
Callas smiled when Bex did so; she liked seeing her food appreciated. Call it a vanity. "Bexy, my girl. You are a super-heroine of anti-mush. I doubt it would affect you much." Except it might help her loosen up a little, which Callas so felt she needed. Not that she was one to talk, but she had her reasons. Bex could be happy with Jeremy, if she'd let herself, and she wanted that. Someone had to get a happy ending.
"Yeah, well." Bex shook her head, getting up and going over to the refrigerator, where she rummaged around for a moment before unearthing a bottle of mineral water. "Let's talk about something else," she suggested when she turned back to Callas.
"Okay." Callas exhaled. She knew when to stop pushing; at least she could hope to have read the signs right. She ate in silence for a while; they finished their meal and Hayden wandered back into the living room to watch his cartoons, wired now from the sugar. She had to smile, because it was such a little kid thing to do. "He's such a good kid," she told Bex before she started to clean up.
"He is," Bex agreed, starting to clear some of the cooking dishes from the stovetop. If Callas hadn't started to clean, Bex probably would have just left the entire thing for someone else to magically take care of, she hated to realize. But whatever. She set the dishes in the sink, and then turned on the faucet. "I kind of hope he never changes," she admitted.
"Well. He could grow up like Jeremy," Callas pointed out. "And what I mean, before you get all defensive on me, is that he could grow up with that kind of ... happy-go-lucky temperament. He seems inclined toward it regardless."
Bex kind of thought so, too. "Yeah," she responded, letting the water from the faucet run over the dishes for a moment before she turned it off again. That was good enough. "He's nothing like me," she added. That was a good thing, she thought. "He and Jeremy would get along."
"Well, maybe that's not a bad thing, either." Callas thought Bex could use a few more Jeremys and a few less people that let her give in to her bitchier traits. She, like Jeremy, simply brushed them off. She could give as good as she got - her encounters with Eric had more than proved that fact - but she was much more inclined to joke around, and much happier doing so. "So are you going to tell me about what happened with your phone call or am I going to be in detail limbo for the rest of my life?"
Bex shrugged. "Are you going to tell me what happened over your weekend?" she countered, lifting one eyebrow at Callas.
"I will if you go first," Callas retorted.
"It was a phone call," Bex said noncommittally. "He called, we talked, we hung up." Actually, she couldn't remember hanging up with him, because she'd fallen asleep, but she didn't want to tell Callas those things. She didn't want to admit to the loneliness that had driven her to vodka at two a.m., or the depression that seemed to claw at her as soon as she was left to her own devices for one day. It was too ... she just wanted to forget the whole thing. She hoped Jeremy had forgotten by now, too. "Your turn."
Callas looked down at the dishes in her hands, rinsing them off before shutting off the water. She kept her voice low. "Okay, you want the short version? Met Eric at a party, said yes to Eric, said no to Eric, left. The end of Eric. Now dealing with Michael, because Michael is coming to Westmont in two weeks and was possibly the cause of the Eric episode to begin with."
Bex looked at her for a moment before she asked, "Why, exactly, is Michael coming to Westmont? Did you invite him?"
She would have liked to say that she didn't have a choice, but she did. "I have spent enough time running away from him," Callas told her, and bit her lip. "I don't want to run away anymore. And ... Bex, you don't understand what it was like. At least I think you don't." She shook her head, brown waves falling in front of her eyes, making her look younger. "Jeremy isn't like that, and maybe I'm judging you based on what I think rather than what you've told me, but you would never ... get yourself into that situation. You'd have known how to say no."
It had hurt, in a lot of ways; she hadn't been prepared to deal with him, and he'd been ... excited. There had been no options because it had all happened so fast that her brain couldn't process it through the fuzz of alcohol. "I didn't. I still feel him," she said, her breath hitching. "I can't stop feeling it. And I need to ... to tell him that I am not what he thinks. I am not the person he loves, because he loves my submission. Not me."
Callas was right; Bex didn't really understand it. She let out her breath as she leaned against the counter, focusing on the sparkling tiled floor beneath her feet - she hadn't worn shoes in at least a week, not unless flip-flops counted. "Hasn't he gotten the message of that on his own?" was what she said aloud, glancing back up at Callas. "I mean, you transferred schools. You've barely spoken to him since it happened. If you ask me, actions speak louder than words."
Or so she thought, but what the hell did Bex know? She would have never tolerated it; the closest she had come to a truly shitty experience with a boy was when she made out with Roger Sinclair junior year, and he'd told everyone that he'd actually slept with her. Bex had been pissed, yeah, but not, like, traumatized. If she'd been in Callas' position, maybe it would have been different. She didn't know.
Callas looked at her, and for a second the look was haunted, not at all the simple happiness she'd had. "Because he knows," she said, and then paused, tilting her head to listen for Hayden. No, the little guy was distracted by the tv. It was okay.
She exhaled, shifting away from Bex. "He knows that we didn't use protection and he knows that I thought -- I might have --" She didn't want to dwell on that thought. "It didn't, and I wasn't. But I didn't know what to do and I felt like he needed to know. It wasn't until after that scare was over that I transferred."
Bex bit her lip, glancing away again. "Well ... I don't know, Callas," she said, shaking her head. "Can't you, like, call him, then? It just ... it seems to me that having him come out is a lot of unnecessary trouble."
"I wasn't the one who bought himself the plane ticket," Callas pointed out. "He did that. All I had to do was agree to see him. Just once, and it'll be over. If I can find the right words to say."
"I'll do it for you, if you want," Bex said, and she wasn't exactly joking.
"I'd love that." Callas smiled wryly, the lopsided tilt to her mouth true nonetheless. "But this isn't your battle, you know? I have to grow a pair and face him or else he'll ruin my life forever."
"Only if you let him," Bex pointed out, as she shook her head. She still didn't really understand why Callas needed to see Michael in order to move past him; as far as she was concerned, the best way to move on was to make a clean break. Had it been her, she would have cut off all ties with the guy long ago, without leaving a single thread for Michael to grasp onto. She'd simply be gone.
She wondered, briefly, if she would do that to Jeremy, if things ever went wrong.
Callas couldn't be like Bex. She couldn't break the ties that easily, and maybe that made her weaker, or made Bex stronger, but ... that was how it was. Michael had been a friend once, and she had been his. This thing between them, however frightening it had become, meant too much to her to simply discard it. It had changed her life and she had no idea how to move on from it. What did Eric call her? A slow motion train wreck? Well, he wasn't wrong.
"You won't ever be forced to do anything you don't want to," she said simply. "I don't have as much willpower. Or I didn't back then."
"Back then," Bex repeated, and there was something like doubt tinging her tone, because she wanted to tell Callas that it sounded like she still didn't - she didn't have the willpower to cut Michael off without having to explain herself, even though doing anything else was only causing her more pain.
But Bex couldn't come out and say what she really thought, because she didn't want to fight.
It wouldn't have mattered anyway. In the end, it was too late to fight, because Michael was heading to Westmont, and Callas was going to deal with it. "Did I tell you that Chloe and I are going to be roommates this semester?" she said, changing the subject as she finished the dishes.
Bex watched Callas for a moment, eyes a little narrowed, before she gave in and allowed the subject change. There was nothing else she could do for Callas, nothing more to be said, and even though she had to wonder what kind of a friend that made her, she let it go, anyway. "No. That's cool," she said, pushing away from the counter and crossing back over to the island, although there wasn't much of anything to do. She simply needed to move. "Chloe's great."
Great enough for Jeremy to go to Disney with her. Still hadn't wrapped her brain around that one. Callas nodded in return. "She is. At first I got all weirded out because, you know, I've seen her stuff before, but she turned out to be really awesome in person." She grinned. "We talked about you."
Bex made a face.
"Nothing bad, I can assure you. We just bonded over our love of teasing you to pieces. It's only cause we like you, Bexy," Callas assured her.
"Yeah, people always say it's because they like you, right before they make you miserable," Bex said dryly.
Callas rolled her eyes. "In this case, it's because we actually do. Chloe likes Jeremy, right? She wouldn't like you if she didn't think you were good enough to date her best friend. And I like you because I like you. Now suck that up and move along."
"Fine." Bex rolled her eyes in return, picking up a stray dishtowel from the surface of the island, and flinging it at Callas.
Callas caught it, shaking her head. "You are such a brat, my friend. It's a good thing I'm not near your phone."
"Is that supposed to be blackmail?" Bex inquired, lifting one eyebrow.
"Not at all. It's a warning." Callas headed into the living room ahead of her. "Hey, you know what, kiddo? I think we should go for a swim, what do you think?" She inquired it of Hayden, not Bex, hands on her hips. "C'mon, get your swimsuit." She had her bikini on underneath her clothes for just this moment, because talking about Michael had exhausted her. All she really wanted to do was not think about it.
"Yes!" Hayden jumped off of the couch, bouncing up and down a couple of times before he added, "Can we, Bexy?"
"Yeah, goober. I think I'm outnumbered," was all Bex said, shaking her head. At that, Hayden bounced up and down again before he scrambled toward the stairs, off to retrieve his swimsuit. Bex glanced over at Callas, a little curiously, but she didn't say anything; she didn't know what to say.
Callas stripped off her t-shirt, folding it neatly before dropping it on the coffee table; the polka-dotted bikini top she was wearing was in direct contrast to the Metallica t-shirt, but that was her. "I know," she said, and her voice was oddly quiet. "I'm avoiding the issue because I don't want to argue with you, and I also don't want to get into it about Jeremy. I'll behave this time, I promise. You won't have to sit on me unless you absolutely, really want to."
"Oh, baby," Bex said, her own voice a mixture of sarcasm, and worry, though there was a little relief there, too - relief that they were able to just pretend, or whatever, for awhile, like there was nothing more pressing going on than the need for an afternoon at the beach.
Callas grinned. "Somewhere in Disney World, your boyfriend just got really happy, because we accidentally just fulfilled a fantasy of his. Now are you going to get changed, or are you just going to stand there?"
"I never said I was swimming," Bex replied, just to be difficult.
"Do you want me to throw you over my shoulder and dump you in fully clothed?" Callas asked sweetly.
Bex snorted. "Yeah, okay."
Callas turned away for half a second, long enough to make it look like she wasn't going to do what she was - but the French doors leading out to the pool were open, and she was strong enough, considering Bex was several inches and probably at least ten to fifteen pounds lighter.
What the hell. Callas pivoted gracefully, lunged, and lifted the other girl over her shoulder, running because she knew she could not manage had she tried to walk. She took a flying leap when they got to the end of the concrete, and landed with Bex in the deeper end of the O'Shaughnessys' pool, coming up laughing so hard she almost snorted.
The scream that Bex let out, upon surfacing, probably could have been heard all the way in Manhattan. It was a loud, piercing, infuriated sound; Bex almost would have been proud, were she not completely and totally furious. "Callas!" she exclaimed, pushing drenched clumps of hair away from her face. She felt like a drowned rat. "God, this is my favorite shirt," she said, even though the old Ramones t-shirt was anything but. Still, she had to say something, otherwise Callas would think it was okay to do things like that.
Callas flipped onto her back, floating as easily as if she had been born to do it. Which, given her parents' stories, she probably had. "Oh, sweetie. Chlorine is so not going to kill your shirt."
"No, but I might kill you," Bex grumbled, making her way over to the side of the pool so that she could hoist herself out.
"You could try," Callas returned, lifting an eyebrow. "Because I'd really love to see it."
Bex just glared at her.
Callas flicked water at her. "Love you, too, Bexy."