Room 323 [Tuesday, Evening]

[comeoutwrong]

Looked like it was threatening rain outside, so Effy was staying in for once. Every girl needed a night off sometimes, even if they were few and far between for this one. She'd been out and got things done during the day, and to her, that should count for something.

So between the odd text to Tony (whose evening was going far more interestingly than hers), she was flopped back on the bed, holding the book she was reading up over her. She'd even got into it enough her hot chocolate had gone cold. That was actually kind of rare.

[[Door is cracked, but the post can be open!]]

Comments

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Not thrilling, just a comfortable thing to hide behind. One day, maybe she'd learn not to be so annoyingly cryptic in everything she did. One day.

Knowing that she'd managed to piss him off was one of the easiest things to read.

"That's something," Effy said, indicating his hands with a slight incline of her head. Both the touching and that instant retreat had their meanings. "Give it a minute you'll start tensing up your shoulders. Not trying to stress you out." Just did it a lot by accident.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I'm not stressed," he replied, shaking his head. He was just irritable, it seemed. Or, at least, moody but that was pretty much his default state.

"And my shoulders are fine," he felt compelled to add because now he was making a concerted effort not to let the stress gather there. "Is there a reason you like to put words in my mouth or am I just that lucky?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"You asked what you did that was telling," she pointed out. "Or was I not supposed to answer that?"

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex rubbed his temple with the heel of his hand, trying to keep the tension out of his neck and shoulders just because he knew she'd notice now.

"If I asked a question, I'm hopeful for an answer," he said after a moment. "It just seemed like you'd decided not to answer in favor of mucking up my words."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Had he really ever known her to answer a question straight off?

Effy resisted the urge to claim she'd done no word twisting at all and just shrugged as she watched him -- apparently Alex had dropped one tell and instantly picked up another one.

"Makes me fucking amazing at poker." Did it surprise at all that Effy loved poker? Probably not.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Of course not but he was ever hopeful that maybe one day, he'd get lucky.

"Good for you," Alex said sourly, trying not to let his halfway decent mood unravel like it wanted to. "It doesn't surprise me that you've got a good poker face. I could have guessed that the day I met you."

Alex shook his head though, still feeling the edges of irritation creeping in. "Probably just curiosity that drives you to pay attention me, isn't it? That's what it was before. Don't worry, I get it."

As flippantly said as that was, he still half believed that was the truth.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy shook her head briefly, pushing herself to sit up a little more. Again, there was that 'at first', but things changed, didn't they?

For once, prodding at his temper hadn't been intentional. Apparently her avoidance tactics did that all on their own. A very good reason right there for keeping her mouth shut.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Effy--" That was all Alex got out before his words dwindled and he found himself just looking at her. As fast as his temper could come on, sometimes it faded in the face of his own stupidity.

Alex stood up, pausing for a minute to stretch one shoulder, before moving to sit down next to her, shoulder barely brushing hers. It seemed easier than scooting and sliding around like a beached whale.

"Do you wanna know why I get tense in my shoulders and neck?" he eventually asked, offering to share of his own volition. Might not be a compliment but it was something that showed what he thought of her.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Actually, in it's way, better than a compliment. A bit of that trust showing through instead. Still meant something.

"Why?" she asked eventually.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex focused on some spot on her wall, letting his temper ebb away even more before he really started in on something that tended to raise his hackles.

"My dad liked to scream at my mom. And I don't mean the occasional fight that the majority of parents I have. These were...aggressive, scary, and loud fights that I used to have to listen to," he started, shaking his head at the memory. Good nights, it was just yelling. Bad nights, well, they were bad. "Before I knew any better, I used to hide from him. In closets, bathrooms, wherever and I'd hunch my shoulders up near my ears to try and drown all that out. And I'd stay like that until things quieted down. And I literally wouldn't move for fear of getting myself in trouble. So, I'd stay like that. Until my dad left or my mom--"

He stopped and shook his head. "It's a natural reaction now. It doesn't surprise me that you notice. It surprises me that you can almost predict it though."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy looked across at him, internally slotting a few more pieces away while he stared a hole into her wall. Couldn't say she was entirely surprised to hear it, just from everything he'd said to her before now, and the way he reacted, but-- It all made too much sense.

Not about to try and offer sympathy, as such, but he was sitting right there and she could move to lightly rest that near hand on his leg. Support of a kind.

"I pay attention," she said quietly. "Not because I'm just curious."

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I kind of-- I know," he said, not able to go as far as apologizing for that jibe but he did make the move to cover that hand of hers with one of his own even if he was still staring at her wall.

"I don't do compliments that often," he explained, shrugging one shoulder briefly, "but I trust you with things like that. So there's that."

Whatever that meant. He was just muddling through all this emotional tangle for the most part. Trying his best.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"There's that," she agreed, still watching him even if he wasn't going to look at her.

"You want a straight answer?" Alex had shared, now for her to prove she wasn't afraid of offering up something in return. "Ask."

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Several questions sprang to mind immediately, all vying to come out and get answered but he held back. Alex finally did stop looking at her wall, turning back to look at her now.

"I'm not going to force you to share something, Effy," he finally said, shaking his head. "If there's something you want to tell me, go ahead. Your choice, though, not mine."

He didn't want to hit a potential minefield if he asked the wrong question, hit a nerve or something else.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy paused a moment as she considered, and realised there was no way she was backing down from that offer now. So, sharing. Right.

"You know what happened to my brother." One of those things she'd shared before, that one. "I... was there." One thing she'd left out. "Called him a wanker for how he'd treated his girlfriend, watched him get out of the car, cross the road and get hit by a bus."

"If there was one place I could go back, do something different. You know, with my super future knowledge and all... That's it." Yeah, unsurprisingly, a certain amount of guilt in there, and there probably always would be.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Jesus, they were doing pretty well in the screwed up department, weren't they? Alex dropped his eyes down to their hands for a minute, taking that new bit of information in.

It wasn't that hard to imagine how fucking awful seeing something like that could be especially for someone who regarded her brother as highly as she did. He was pretty sure that was something you never stopped seeing on repeat in your mind.

"You can't go back and it fucking sucks to live with," Alex agreed quietly, squeezing her hand briefly. "Shitty lives all around."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Year and a half down the line and a lot of repression and the repeat showings of that particular scene in her mind were comparatively few and far between.

"Not being there kind of helps, doesn't it?" Did for her, anyway. Distance made it all nice and easy to forget about all that sort of shit for periods of time.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, it's kind of better not to have reminders of all that every single day," he said, unable to deny that his time on the island hadn't been that terrible. "Doesn't mean the reminders don't come find me."

Those, he could ignore for a time though. If he'd been home, that wouldn't be the case.

"You've got the edge in distance over me," he said lightly, going for a joke. "You've got the whole ocean."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Worth all the jetlag--" she said, smirking a little and nudging against his shoulder, "and putting up with you lot." Because obviously she found spending time with him such a hardship in the long term. Really.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Of course she did. Which just made her as masochistic as him.

"Jetlag doesn't look bad on you. I saw you jetlagged, you saw me asleep on my feet," he teased, smiling a little easier now. That was kind of a compliment. In a way. It was the truth, at least. "And you know..."

He stopped for a minute, trailed off and took his hand off hers so he could brush a thumb over her eye and to her temple lightly, just a touch to touch.

"I pay attention too," he said, wanting her to hear it even if she suspected. "And it's not just because I'm curious."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Didn't even know you got curious," she said, throwing in a little joke of her own, lips curling more of a smile. Well, supposedly that was her downfall rather than his.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I get curious," he insisted, letting his fingers trail back toward her ear and into her hair gently.

"I pay attention too," he amended, snickering and keeping his eyes on his fingers while they brushed through her hair. "And not just because I'm...whatever I am that isn't curious."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Can't quite put your finger on what you are," she said, tapping her own finger on his leg a couple times. 'Not curious' was a very wide description, and she assumed that was the reason.

"Maybe just actually do give a shit." Or maybe he cared.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex grinned a little, dropping his eyes down but letting his fingers wander to the back of her neck, brushing back and forth slowly.

"So what if I do give a shit?" he asked, looking back at her. "Doesn't seem like a bad thing to give a shit about."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Effy shrugged, smiling a touch more herself. "Not going to complain." She may go into denial about certain things, but she wasn't dumb enough to object to that one.

"I give a shit about you too." Because she was taking that as some admission, yeah.