Re: Shadowcrest: Sam & Louis
Louis didn't mind being dumped on. He didn't mind hearing his sister's troubles, or what she thought about Neil and Cris. It was the kind of support normal siblings offered each other when the stakes were less life and death, and it was a reminder that maybe things could coast toward normality again, somehow.
He didn't know the story about Cris's girlfriend, and he wasn't sure if it was common knowledge to people who knew him or something Sam had been told in confidence. Either way, he would never tip him off that Sam had passed it on. Still, it did alter his perception of Cris minutely. He seemed like such an aggressive and hard-edged person, while still being vulnerable, as he had been when they all stood around Micah. Maybe the roots of that lay in watching someone he cared about jump to her death in front of him. "I think he wants to protect people," Louis said. "Maybe it started with that woman, but if he sees some of her in you, no doubt he sees some of her in everyone. He's the same way with everyone he cares seriously about, if the way he reacted to me going to his apartment to get his daughter is any indication. He's protective, not broken." He tipped his head against the sofa. "You haven't broken anyone. I know that's what you think, but you haven't known Neil as long as I have. Take my word for it, the things he faces now are almost exactly the same as the things he was facing when we were kids." And, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good, "You wouldn't tell me that I broke someone by asking them for help. Or that I should stick things out on my own when bad things happen to me."
When the news came of the proposal, Louis arched a sharp brow. "She tried to force him to propose?" Utter disbelief and disgust. He wrinkled his nose. "What an odious woman. I wouldn't trust a bloody thing she says. If she was so sure he loved her, she wouldn't even consider forcing him into marriage."
Louis knew it was a lot to try to understand, and even his own understanding of it was raw and mostly felt out. Perhaps it was too much to try to explain. "I think so. I hope so. She says that she can." He gestured to the sigils at the edge of the room, still shimmering faintly on the ground. "We are this far already."
Louis shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know why they would have. I wasn't sure why it mattered, in the moment, but it mattered to Cris." He understood it better now, of course, but that didn't change the empty sensation that he'd failed to do anything to make this better. That road might be a dead end all the same, but he would have preferred to carry that memory over Neil. "I felt like a coward," he said, wiping briefly at the corner of his eye.
When Sam asked why Micah killed Joey, he looked up at her again. His eyes were a little red, now, and a little wet. He reached across and took her by the hand, squeezing it hard.
"Because he was a psychopath, darling. I wish everything in life had a reason. But Micah was just a psychopath."