Re: [declan and clementine, marvel]
[He frowned a little when she said that she couldn't imagine him like that, in love. It shouldn't have bothered him, but it did, and he'd never been full-Murphy enough to be able to hide what he was thinking. Others could feign perfect smiles when it suited them, but he just grimaced most of the time as his desire to be left alone superseded his desire to resemble the perfect child. After all, perfect children weren't born out of wedlock. What bothered him about the whole thing was that he envied Clementine's outlook. Wouldn't it be nice if he too could envision himself in that way? He'd never had designs on love having grown up in the house that he did, and he'd certainly never set off looking for it in anyway. It'd seemed like a quixotic and foolish endeavor best reserved for foolish people, of which he thought that he was not. But now he knew better, he was not immune. He just as reckless and ridiculous as the rest. He'd tasted that life and now he knew it's bittersweet intimately. He still craved it, but it was a craving that he stomped out in favor of more reasonable things, like pills.
Better to have loved and lost? He thought not.
The frown deepened when she carried on about the Chloe debacle. None of it was surprising, but he found the messiness of the situation very unbecoming. He couldn't ever put any of his siblings entirely in the wrong, he'd grown up in that same homeschool of thinking that they were different, and as such were held to different standards. It was strange, and maybe part of him knew that it was wrong, but he'd never been given much of a reason to think any other way. Outsiders were never very impressive. He'd fallen in love with Jo, sure, but look at how that ended.
He didn't much like hearing about how Jude had treated Clementine either. Jealousy lurked easy in his blood just like the others, and he squared his jaw while he turned the music back on, keeping it soft and low.]
Is all of this settled up now? [If there was some kind of feud going on, it'd be nice to know. Although it sounded like most of the trouble started with Chloe, and as she wasn't here, it may have dissipated.]