self_composed: (a ~ grin)
[personal profile] self_composed
Alice eventually goes home for the evening.

Bella goes up and sits in her room.

She has five hexes.

Five.

That's rather a lot of hexes.

She gets out her notebook, with the lists, and she makes some wishes.

And then she goes to bed, grinning.

In the morning it will be time to make plans.

Date: 2012-09-24 12:27 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Sarcastic or disbelieving. (⑺ back into your place)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"Hilary knows squat," he says, rubbing his face. "No fucking idea which way Mom would swing, but I wouldn't bet on her coming down in my corner. I could always piss Dad off some more and go to the hospital again." (There's no particular positivity or negativity attached to that idea; it's just an option.) "Harder to pull off now that I heal, but not totally impossible."

Other ideas, other ideas... "I could show off all my old scars, I guess." Wryly, "Didja know Dad used to smoke?"

When he remarked on the difference between liquid nitrogen and cigarette burns, he was speaking from experience. Experience that left permanent marks on his back.

"Some of 'em ain't from him, though." A knife in a New York alley, twice, once under his jaw and the other biting deep into his hip—he's still proud of calling that bluff, of knowing that a knife to his throat means nothing to him, even if it helped shit-all in the end.

Date: 2012-09-24 12:37 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Smiling, affectionate or amused. (⑶ your wish is my command)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
Alice smiles. "I like my scars," he says, closing his eyes for a moment and experiencing the truth of that statement. Even the ones where he doesn't like what they remind him of—and that is most of them—are his, part of him, a physical record of the experience of his life. He likes himself, and he likes the totality of that experience even when he doesn't like the individual pieces that make it up.

The scars can stay.

"Anyway, Theo," he says, and considers what he knows of Theo. Damn little, really. "If he can possibly get away with keeping quiet, he'll do it, but if they drag him in there and sit him down and put him under oath, he'll probably admit he picked me up at home. Pretty sure he knows more than that, but he pretends he doesn't."

Date: 2012-09-24 12:46 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Explaining or agreeing. (⑼ gotta be cool)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"We could use magic to catch him bribing somebody, if he does," Alice suggests. "And then figure out a way to nail him for it. If we can. Okay, but what are the" (he likes her phrase, it's cute) "extralegal options?"

Besides wishing the fucker off a cliff. Which is the thing they're trying to avoid here. It would be kind of viscerally satisfying, but it wouldn't really be that much better than any other option that took Alice out of his dad's power for good.

Date: 2012-09-24 12:56 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Hand to back of head, uncertain. (⑾ whatcha doin' tonight)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"...I wanna be where you are," he says. Was that not obvious? He thought it was pretty fucking obvious. "I mean, if I didn't, I'd just... go." He makes an expansive gesture with both hands, thinks about hitchhiking and open roads with big cities at the ends and whether he'd rather try hooking again or maybe strip or maybe just wish himself diamonds and sell them. "But I do. So I kind of wanna keep the stupidly huge house at least until you go somewhere else."

Date: 2012-09-24 01:08 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Thoughtful. Possibly shirtless. (⑽ I kinda like it)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"I don't," he says slowly, working it out for himself as he goes, "want to be—here, and him also here. I want him to be where I'm not. And I do kinda wanna keep going to Art," and maybe gym and Home Ec, "and if I skipped out on him he'd already throw a pretty big shitfit, and if I skipped out on him and kept going to class he'd throw a way bigger one and it'd probably get all over everything and you don't like collateral damage and I don't like it when it happens to people I like." (Bella, Ms. Finch, Hilary.) "I mean, if we try something else and it doesn't work, underground lair all the way. Or whatever."

Date: 2012-09-24 01:14 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Lurking. (⑻ out of the doorway)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"Got a teacher fired once because I had a crush on him," Alice recalls: he doesn't know details, but he knows he was about fifteen and his father was very happy that Junior was actually going to class for once until he found out why. And then that teacher was no longer employed at that school. Broke his fifteen-year-old heart, and also cured him of his nascent interest in algebra.

Date: 2012-09-24 01:19 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Hand to back of head, uncertain. (⑾ whatcha doin' tonight)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"...Psychically allergic?" he asks warily; no meaning he can think up for the phrase leads anywhere good in his head. It's not like his father currently likes him or gains any enjoyment from his existence. Making his father like him even less just doesn't seem like a good plan.

Date: 2012-09-24 01:23 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Confused, distasteful. (⒀ it's been no bed of roses)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"No," Alice says firmly. "No. No."

Because in his experience, the more his father hates being around him at any given time, the more likely his father is to take it out on the most convenient of targets. And no amount of hating being around him reached thus far has made him actually stop.

Date: 2012-09-24 01:35 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Confused or hurt. (⑿ never been born at all)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"He's not gonna let go of me," says Alice. "Like, fuck, I am literally the worst son he could possibly have had, I could not get any less like his ideal offspring unless I openly wore dresses" (which he's into) "and did drugs" (which he isn't particularly), "and he hangs onto me tooth and claw because I'm his flesh and blood" (the phrase echoes in his head in his father's voice) "and it's his responsibility" (that word does the same) "to deal with me. Even though he obviously can't. Unless we do some serious brainwishing, in which case fuck it, might as well drop him off a cliff, he is gonna keep being a pain in my ass until he is in jail or thinks I'm dead."

Date: 2012-09-24 01:47 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Hand to back of head, uncertain. (⑾ whatcha doin' tonight)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"Okay," says Alice. "I don't actually—wait, yeah, I do know why he keeps fucking off. He's just visiting his old buddies in New York. Probably not something we can wish up more urgency for. I don't know what he'd do," he says, shrugging. "I know he only breaks the law when he thinks he can get away with it. He's been pretty good so far about knowing when that is. But I don't, like, have a list of all the subtly vicious things a really rich guy can do when he's pissed off."

Date: 2012-09-24 01:57 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Grinning, friendly. (⑵ extraordinarily nice)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
"...I love you," says Alice, hugging himself and beaming. "You're good at plans."

(Which he isn't. He's not even sure what he is good at in that area, although once in a while he thinks of something she doesn't, which is nice.)

This might actually work. They might actually get Delaney Hammond Sr. to go the fuck away.

Yeah, he loves her really a lot.

Date: 2012-09-24 09:54 am (UTC)
edgeofyourseat: Hand to back of head, uncertain. (⑾ whatcha doin' tonight)
From: [personal profile] edgeofyourseat
He thinks about it.

"...Hilary doesn't know enough about him to notice the difference," he concludes, "but Mom..."

His mother knows his dad better than he does - well, obviously. His mother knows that his dad wouldn't do that, that whatever combination of possessiveness and duty drives him to lay such a claim on his son is not something he would ever, ever willingly give up.

"And I have no idea what he'd do. I mean, I take up a pretty big space in the guy's life. Who the fuck knows what he'd put there instead. Maybe it'd be totally fine. Maybe he'd wanna have another kid."

Actually, the more he thinks about it, the more likely that is—he only exists in the first place because of his father's desire for an heir. And it is not a prospect that fills him with joy. A vague sympathy for the hypothetical second try, more like.
Edited Date: 2012-09-24 10:19 am (UTC)

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Isabella Marie Swan ✴ "Stella"

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