Sybil Crawley does have feelings (lady_sybil) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-04-19 06:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, mary crawley, sybil crawley |
Who: Sybil, Mary, and a few NPCs
What: Sybil gets caught in a scandal
When: Last night
Where: Their aunt's home
Warnings: TW for stolen kisses and homophobic aunts
Sybil had become pretty active in the political world since coming to California. She’d been passionate about human rights for a few years, but now she actually had more opportunity to be involved. Being away from the controlled environment back home, and in a more liberal community, Sybil was thriving.
Earlier in the afternoon, she’d had a few activist friends over making signs for the next protest. One girl, Kelly, had offered to stay and finish up a banner and help clean up. Sybil had tucked most of the signs in her closet so that her aunt wouldn’t stumble across them. Now she was kneeling on the floor, helping Kelly put the finishing touches on the day’s last project.
“I think we make a good te--” Sybil’s words were cut off when Kelly leaned in and kissed her, full on the mouth.
Mary had very different feelings about the political issues that seemed to drive her sister. Namely, she had no feelings at all. If prodded, she was not doubt more conservatively-minded that Sybil, but really she was borderline apolitical, which went hand-in-hand with being borderline selfish. It might have been more to Mary’s credit that she feel strongly right-wing, than to feel nothing.
But it was still a shock of the most sudden and chilling kind to walk in on her sister with her lips pressed to another woman’s. She gasped loudly, dropping her bag as her arms went numb for a moment. What timing! What a thing to see!
“Oh! Sybil!” But this hadn’t come from Mary, but from their Aunt Cici. Mary hadn’t even been aware that she was following. She turned to see her aunt’s face white as a sheet.
Sybil's eyes were wide, too. Was this really happening? Her sister and aunt were reacting before Sybil had really been able to.
"Oops," Kelly said, pulling away, looking a bit like the cat that ate the canary. "Guess we're caught." From the look on the older woman's face, Kelly was guessing Sybil wasn't out to her family, despite all the political involvement. Kelly wrinkled her nose. Closet cases were kind of a turn off for her. "I should probably go. Let you guys talk."
Sybil's face was bright red, and her mouth had fallen open. She was utterly speechless as Kelly walked out. Cici looked like she was about ready to fall over in shock, but she practically jumped back when Kelly moved toward the door, like she was afraid the lesbian might touch her.
Mary looked back and forth between the three of them: her aunt, Sybil, and whoever the other girl was. Her mouth hung slightly open. Downstairs, the front door clicked shut and the sound echoed throughout the house.
"Well, Sybil," she said, swallowing hard to steady herself. "Do you... have any sort of explanation...?" She didn't know how else to begin. She didn't know what to think.
Sybil's eyebrows furrowed. "Explanation?" she repeated. Why should she have to explain anything? Even if she had been doing something, she wouldn't owe anyone an explanation, anymore than she would if it had been a boy she'd been kissing.
Before she could begin to say any of that, though, her aunt interrupted. "There is no explanation! Your parents are going to hear about this. You will not bring this into my house."
Mary rolled her eyes at her aunt, but stopped short of shooting her a glare. She knew Sybil best and there was no way she'd get anywhere with a frantic tone.
Sybil crossed her arms over her chest. That sort of reaction just made Sybil dig her heels in deeper. She wanted to be respectful of her aunt, but hearing that kind of rhetoric just made Sybil upset. "Fine. Tell them."
Aunt Cici huffed, turning away and storming off.
Mary would worry about her aunt later. She stepped further in to the room and closed the door. After a sigh, she took a seat on Sybil's desk chair. She knew her sister well enough to know there probably was a reasonable explanation. Somewhere.
"Would you be willing to tell me what happened?" Mary asked.
Sybil ran a hand through her hair, still feeling worked up. She felt as though she had to defend herself, even though there wasn't anything wrong with being gay! The fact that she wasn't seemed to be a secondary concern.
"I met Kelly at one of the rallies. We're in a group together and we were making signs." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I mean, I'm assuming you were wanting an explanation for the glitter I spilled there, since there's nothing wrong with kissing a girl."
Mary sighed again. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head in a way that was reminiscent of their mother. "There is if it's not something you intended to do, which I suspect it wasn't." Her tone was patient. "I'm sure you're not a lesbian, Sybil, but that girl was. Now, if you were... curious, that's one thing. But if she kissed you without your consent, that's something very different."
Sybil's eyebrows danced as she tried to process what Mary was saying, and decide if she was offended or not. Maybe she did like girls, Mary couldn't decide that one way out another! She was right, though.
"It was sort of a surprise.." Sybil admitted, finally.
"So she just stole a kiss?" Mary asked. Admittedly, if it had been a boy, Mary would have had a different reaction than the one she was having right now. This was the first time something like this was hitting so close to home. It had never really mattered to her before.
"I suppose so," Sybil answered, feeding uncomfortable now. "She must have thought... I'm not sure." Maybe she'd thought Sybil had sent the other girls away so they could be alone. Maybe she'd thought Sybil liked her. It was hard to say.
"It's fine, I don't care." Sybil shrugged, not sure what that meant. It hadn't been horrible. "I think I would have been more embarrassed if it was a boy." Okay, she was thinking of a specific boy.
Mary nodded and looked out the window for a moment. A frown played upon her face. She didn't like the idea of someone possibly taking advantage of her sister, who for all her intelligence and maturity, was still a child in her eyes.
"It's okay," she said. "If we didn't learn how to survive embarrassing moments, we couldn't say we knew how to be alive, could we?"
Sybil shrugged, not really sure what to say. "I guess you're right." Mary had her own share of worries. Sybil hadn't pried, and she didn't plan to start.
Mary stood. Once she was told she was right, she tended to feel whatever was at stake had been resolved. She felt comfortable leaving Sybil with finish what she'd been doing, since she wasn't about to announce any kind of life-changing news to the family. She also trusted her sister could handle settling everything the other girl in her own time. Mary didn't intend to get involved with that, not even a little bit.
"I'll go calm Aunt Cici down, but I'm sure she'll badger you with questions tonight."
Sybil sat down on the edge of the bed. The banner didn't really seem important anymore. She shrugged. "I'm not going to go begging Aunt Cici and promising to only like boys." It shouldn't matter, and she felt like it would be compromising her principles.
Mary's jaw tensed. "Don't... Sybil, try not to look at your aunt like she's something broken you need to fix. So she has a different opinion on the matter. So what? She's still the same person you've been so patient and loving toward these past weeks, for all her quirks."
Sybil furrowed her eyebrows. She could hardly believe what Mary was saying. "Me? She's the one that's not being accepting. You should be telling her that! She'll probably have me enrolled in a 'Straight is Great' camp by the end of the day."
Mary's eyelids fluttered, but she wouldn't roll them right in front of her sister. She loved Sybil, but sometimes she out-ran her own stubbornness. "Then do whatever is most important to you," she said with a sigh.