Colt Byron // Colin Craven (cravened) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-11-21 17:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | colin craven, miss piggy |
Who: Colt and Penny
What: A consultation
Where: Penny’s pink nightmare apartment
When: Before the memories plot
Warnings: These two are insane. Seriously.
Miss Penny knew there was something a bit off with her, she just didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t mind having a bad temper, or being known as a diva, or being a bit of a problem. But she did have a problem with actually harming people. A smack to the arm was one thing, but with a little force behind it she could obliterate someone. She needed that to end. Now.
Worse than all of that were her fits of rage. Over the stupidest nonsense. Things that would mildly set her off on a normal day, now seemed to set her off into an uncontrollable fit. She was constantly replacing her belongings, it was only a matter of time before she broke something irreplaceable and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had no real friends, save for Jimmy who she was never quite sure how to read. He was cute and all, and she batted her eyelashes for him any chance she got, but he wouldn’t understand this. So she went with Colt, he was the man to talk to it seemed, and he already thought she was some kind of freak.
She had sent the repair crews away, changed into jeans and a brown sweater, and sat down on her couch with her dogs on either side of her to wait for Colt. The chair she’d thrown across the room earlier was in a neat pile by the door and the drywall was drying on a big white spot on her otherwise pink wall. She was trying very hard to make it on her own in this new place, and unless she could fix this she would be in more trouble than she’d ever been in her life. And she’d seen plenty of trouble. She heard the knock and the dogs perked up and leaped off the couch. Tails were wagging, barks were happy and Penny told them to hush up, before she opened the door.
She’d never actually met Colt face to face, he’d only mocked her virtually thus far, so she didn’t know what to expect or what he was expecting. For her part, 4’10, blond hair, blue eyes and a smile (even though she wasn’t sure about him at all) was what greeted him. “Well come in before they drag ya in,” she said nodding back toward the dogs who loved company were spinning around in circles quite happily.
Colt knew what to expect from Penny Markowicz. He wasn’t exactly up-to-date on the latest happening in the music world, but he’d looked her up after her fool post about Taylor, curiosity getting the best of him. He’d thought, at the time, that she looked like a harmless sort of thing, and that looks sure as hell could be deceiving. He’d suspected, at the time, that Erin would like the woman, and that had made him groan at the time. He hadn’t mentioned her, Penny, to Erin, because hell if he needed another woman ganging up with her against him.
So, when he knocked on her door, he knew what he was going to be getting. A smallish, blondish, loudish spoiled brat of a woman who thought she was still a girl. What she got, was a man in his 40s, graying around the temple, in jeans and a gray t-shirt that had seen better days a decade ago. He was wearing his cowboy hat, and he was leaning heavily on his cane. He had a new brace he was testing, one that made walking more awkward, but less painful, so his mood was better than it could have been when the door opened.
All the pink over her shoulder changed that, though. “What in the hell is with all this damn pink?” he asked, ignoring the dogs altogether in favor of derogatory comments about the apartment itself. “Looks like you took a damn Pepto bottle to the store and asked them to match the color,” he told her, looking down at the top of her head from his almost 6-foot height.
Then, the destroyed chair caught his attention, and then the smell of drywall reached his nose. “You did that?” he asked, pointing.
She sighed and looked around her apartment and then back to Colt, “I like pink, last I checked I paid the rent here not you,” she said folding her arms obviously not in the mood to listen to any of this tonight. She was about to finish that if he didn’t like it he could leave, but then she remembered she’d invited him. For a reason.
She followed, with her eyes, to where he was pointing and she nodded. “That’s not the half of it, but yes. Can you make it go away?” she asked waving her hands a bit in a shooing motion, “I need it gone.”
“I can’t do a damn thing to make anything go away,” Colt said, lumbering into the space and leaning heavily on his cane as he moved. “I can tell you what it is, but controlling it, that’s for you,” he told her, his accent thick and Atlanta as he looked around all the pink. His expression was one of mild horror as he looked back at her. “You realize you’re rich? Rich people, they got to maintain some level of taste.” He didn’t mention that his own apartment had barely been livable a few months before. That wasn’t important, not when he was surrounded by all this garish shit.
She felt defeated almost immediately and nodded at him, “Well what is it?” she asked genuinely curious like she was about to get some kind of terminal diagnosis. “Come sit down,” she said flopping down on her big white couch and absently scratching Cooper’s belly when he joined her on the couch. All 80 pounds of him.
She sighed loudly. “I realize I’m rich, I’ve spent my entire life trying to impress other people, I’m over it. I’ve earned this pink apartment and if I want it I can have it. If you want to go in the kitchen you can laugh to your hearts content at whatever you like in there as well. The bedroom is over there,” she pointed, “It’s pink too. The bathroom has a pink tub, knock yourself out,” She looked over to a blank spot in the room where her piano used to sit. The new one would arrive soon, but it still pained her.
Dammit, he actually felt bad after all that. He cursed women, all of them, for being so damn complicated, and then he sat down beside her on the ridiculous white couch with a groan of pain. He settled his cane between his spread knees, left it leaning against one thigh, and he reached out for her hand. “You got to let me touch you,” he told her. He wasn’t fool enough to reach for this woman without encouragement; Hell, he could tell that piano was missing, and he weighed a lot less than that thing had.
She furrowed her brow when he groaned in pain, it was clear he wasn’t feeling well, so she tried to assume that maybe he was just cranky because of that. But she wasn’t quite ready to let her guard down yet. She nodded and held her hand out for him. “Go ahead.”
Colt didn’t hesitate before reaching out and closing his fingers around her wrist, even though he damn well hated the feeling of shock that coursed through him whenever he did this. He winced, but only once, knowing she wouldn’t feel a damn thing on her end. It only took 30 seconds, possibly less, and he let her hand go and rubbed his fingers against his jeans automatically, as if to rub away the sensation.
“You got to get that temper under control, woman,” he told her, sitting back against the cushions and giving the dog a look. Said dog looked back at him, and Colt glared, because the dog needed to know who was boss. “Seems you got yourself a bit of super-strength. You should be able to control it, if you work at it, but right now, it’s breaking free when you’re angry.”
She didn’t know what was going to happen, but no one would ever accuse her of being a chicken. Especially when she needed help, and she needed some help. When he spoke she sighed and nodded. Get the temper under control. She may as well never leave the house or talk to anyone again. Which was completely out of the question.
“What about the crazy?” she asked curiously. “I mean...How do I stop that? The temper I can work on but sometimes I...” she shrugged. “Sometimes it gets out of control before I can do anything about it.”
“There’s a chance it’ll stop once you learn to control what you can do,” he told her, and it was all guessing at this point, admittedly. “See, that strength you got, you keep it all locked in, since you don’t know how to work it. It means it’s going to build up and bust the hell out somehow,” he said, and then he gave her a tip of his hat and a charming smile. “Least I think that’s the case.”
Learn to control what she could do. Learn to control her super strength and her bad temper. That was it? HA. Easier said than done, but she supposed she had her answer now. And she nodded trying to look as sure of herself as possible and when he smiled she returned his smile brightly, if there was one thing she knew how to do it was smile for the masses no matter how badly she felt. “Well it’s worth a shot. Thank you for helping.” She said as she absently scratched her dog behind his ear.
He tried not to ask. He really did. He could get off his ass, and he could make his way over to the door, and he could leave her there with her pink nightmare of an apartment and her damn dog getting hair all over the damn place. He could just walk the hell away.
He didn’t. “Alright, woman, what the hell is causing you to get all worked up in the first place?” he asked, cursing himself for a fool, even as he asked the question. Damn women.
She shook her head, “Everything, and nothing. I don’t know, I mean” she looked past him for a minute and shrugged, “I’ve always been testy. But for some reason everything sets me off, I mean most of the time it’s just me a-hollerin’ and going all crazy,” she said making a face, “But then I flip a piano over.” And frankly, she hated it. “I don’t mind screaming and yelling and carrying on, that’s par for the course with me I guess, I am old-ish and set in my ways, but I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Ever consider some Prozac?” he asked, because that was the most logical solution he could think of for a woman throwing a piano around when a man hadn’t done anything to get her panties in a bunch.
“I’ve been on Prozac since 1999,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Because really if that got out it would be terrible. Well maybe not so much here, but she didn’t need everyone to know. “I don’t know what to do, I’m going to be fine, I’m always fine.” She said nodding firmly. “I just get this under control, try some meditating and some yoga, eat more veggies and find productive ways to vent my frustrations. Eat right and exercise.”
“Woman, you need a stronger dose and something better than yoga. You come on down to the Academy on Monday, and we’ll see if we can’t find a way to get your anger out that doesn’t include punching holes in your drywall,” he told her, even as he stood. “And no more Taylors, not until we get this figured, you hear me?”
“Thank you Doctor,” she snapped a bit and looked down at her dog because honestly who was this guy? He didn’t know EVERYTHING. But he was pretty much her only hope not to rip someone’s head off. “Don’t tell anyone,” she implored as he stood up. She moved her dog’s head a bit and stood up to walk him out. “You’re so bossy,” she said and that was as close to an agreement as he’d get. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
He nodded at her, and he leaned heavily on his cane. “Anything you say, ma’am,” he told her, grin firmly in place, and then he walked out of the apartment with heavy, lumbering steps.