Re: Dinner: Cris/Lou/Sam
Sam grinned at her success in getting Cris to take a few days off. She smiled smug and proud, and like she FINALLY managed to do something good for him. It would do him good, yeah? Not being eaten by his job, and his knee would be thankful for it too, and she'd accomplished it, yeah? And she had plans for his OTHER discomfort too, huh? But stupid young, the plans involved him walking on his fucking leg, because her thinking only went so far. But that was for later, and he was still laughing from her hand to his shoulder. It felt like all that yelling from the afternoon had just cleared toxins from the air, and she was happy. Plain and simple, HAPPY, and maybe she should be worrying about so many other fucking things. But the door opened, and she wasn't worried about anything at all. Swaying toward Cris, and the music making her hips move, and then kissing her brother cheery. Yeah, for a few brief seconds the clouds parted clear, and the sky was bright, and everything felt good in the sticky-sweet heat of the apartment.
"He looked worse the last time I saw him," Sam said honest of Lou's tiredness. She wasn't bullshitting, yeah? During Lou's last visit to inpatient, he'd been dark circles and no sleep, and Sam had started worrying then. Not that he looked fantastic now, but he looked better, if too thin. And she talked without thinking as she settled on her seat good, one leg up indecent and mustard-covered knee to her chest and hugged. "Not as bad as Iris. She's lost like fifty pounds in the two months since the baby was born. I think she lit weighs under a hundred pounds, yeah? Someone needs to tell Manning she's a fucking anorexic, because she's rails and looks like she's gonna die any fucking day, yeah? When she takes her clothes off or whatever." Which, yeah, was hella unthinking. And moving on, like her musings were nothing, "of course it tastes like shit, papi. It's not Bacardi, yeah? I'll have some wine." Grin.
And, ok, so Lou brought trouble, sure. But everyone did, yeah? Life was messy, and Sam would rather have mess from people she loved. The alternative was not having people, and she loved her family. She knew Cris loved Lou, too, and Lou needed help, and that was the long and fucking short of it. And she was scared, yeah? Of course she was, because she wasn't THAT stupid, but she was feeling good in that moment. Happy, and hopeful, and riding the adrenaline and denied release of the afternoon, and that made her think shit could work out. Sitting in that chair, at the end of the table, her knuckles bruised from hitting the punching bag, she felt ok.
And she missed Lou's flicker about the bruises. Cris didn't seem worried about them, yeah? So, Sam took that to mean it was no big thing, her forgetting, and it was easier as the days went by and by.
"The serving tray's in the oven," Sam said helpfully. She could at least give Lou a HINT of where to begin, yeah? And she laughed at Lou insisting he wasn't gonna call Cris SIR. "IDK Cris looks like a SIR," she said cheeky, gappy teeth and leaning forward with elbows on the wood and sniffing the air when Lou put the food down. "I hope you both realize this is the only fucking meal I'm cooking all week." She plucked a plantain off her plate with her fingers, and she tucked it juicy between her lips. "Tastes like home," she said, and it did. Like Elizabeth, and she could almost hear the kids playing outside the dirty tenement windows. "We should go sometime," she said, without any segue or explanation of her thoughts, and only realizing it with a happy laugh a moment later, as she sucked mojo off her fingers after picking up a piece of pork with fingertips. "We should visit home sometime. Lou can meet moms and pops and be hella affronted." Lou, she suspected, would HATE their parents.
She cleared her throat. "So, since Oliver's got a hardon for the shop, I was thinking I could help you out, Lou, with all your dusty old shit." She didn't look at Cris when she said it, because she had a feeling he was gonna say no. "And Hunter can stay with Oliver, yeah? Since they have a system or whatever."