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FOR: OUTOFCONTROL

Darlene could have waited around for Elliot to actually arrive back at his apartment, in the way that a normal sibling would have. She could have even shot off a text to the other to at least warn him that she was coming by, but that was another thing that a normal sister would have done and Darlene had long since proved that she was nothing that could have been considered a ‘normal sister’. But, when it all came down to it, were the Aldersons really a normal family to begin with? No, they hadn’t been for as long as Darlene could remember and they probably wouldn’t ever be again. Not with how much had gone on over the course of the years; the cold and uncaring attitude of their mother, the untimely and sudden death of their father, the slow deteriorating of Elliot’s sanity and eventual forgetting of… everything.

Normalcy was long gone, she’d come to terms with that.

So, what did Darlene the not-so-normal-sister decide to do instead of alerting her brother to her sudden arrival? Break in to his place, of course. Wasn’t that what any good sibling did when they wanted to order pizza, get high and watch cheap horror flicks? What she hadn’t been expecting when she’d finally managed to jimmy the lock open (a new one that Elliot had installed, probably in hopes that it would prevent her from doing exactly what she was doing at the moment.) was to see someone already sitting in her spot on the couch.

Was she in the wrong building?
Was she on the wrong floor?
Had she just broken into the entirely wrong apartment?

No. It couldn’t be. It looked just the right amount of shitty apartment to belong to none other than Elliot Alderson. But the guy that was on the couch… was not the wide-eyed, shifty figure of her brother.

“Uh. Okay... Who the hell are you?” She questioned, kicking the door closed with her foot, a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses pushed up onto the top of her head so that she could look at this mystery person without the dark tint of her lenses obscuring her vision.

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Okay. So, that didn’t answer her question, this kid on the couch was still as much a mystery to her as when she had walked inside, but now he was questioning her? If anyone had any right to be inside of Elliot’s apartment without his permission it was Darlene — by way of some kind of convoluted logic that she possessed, but refused to ever actually explain to anyone. — therefore, she was the one who should have been doing all the question asking around here.

“Yeah. I know.” Her tone was an odd mixture of flatly bored and nonchalant, shoulders shrugging as she waltzed on through the apartment, making a straight path to the kitchen and immediately rummaging through the fridge. “Kind of a piece of shit lock, a little harder than the last one he had on there, but… you’re not exactly gonna get Fort Knox quality coming out of the hardware store.” Pulling out a carton of milk, Darlene checked the expiration date, then took a quick whiff from where the cap had been missing off of it, her face immediately scrunching in disgust as she shoved it back to the depths from which it had came.

Likely to become a science experiment that’d still be there the next time she visited. Boys, really. What savages.

“The milk is bad. Tell him he needs to get some more.” Turning back to face the kid on the couch, she rested both of her elbows on the countertop, her palms cradling her chin, finally returning to his question. “Look, we could go back and forth all day with this ‘who are you?’, ‘no, I asked you first.’, ‘but you broke in, so who are you’ bullshit, but I’ll save you the time and just tell you that I’m not answering that,"

Hackers and their identities were a precious thing. She didn’t just go giving hers out to anyone who asked.

“Not at least until you tell me who the hell you are and why the hell you’re in here. I think you owe me that much.” More of the patented Darlene logic at work here.

If there was one thing John knew how to read like a book, it was attitude, and that seemed to be all the woman was throwing at him here. Huge amounts of it, enough to knock a lesser person back, but all attitude rather than anger or, worse, actual threat. She probably didn't tend to need much more than attitude to get her way; she was hot, really hot, and had that strident way of demanding what she wanted with complete confidence and entitlement that you (or at least he) didn't see much from women.

So far, he was very much annoyed, but also intrigued.

"I didn't need the big, over the top song and dance just to say you know Elliot," John sighed, slumping back into the couch from where he'd been perched right on the edge of his seat. "Drama queen. The guy's paranoid as shit, anyway, why would you break in like that if he's your friend? Really big help, that'll make him stop jumping at shadows."

He coaxed Flipper back into his lap and started to scratch her idly behind the ears, eyes still fixed on Darlene. This was his own sort of song and dance right back at her, of course, but he was king of the hypocrites: not a great actor either, since he still looked and sounded more like a peevish kid than anyone who'd even begun to approach above it all.

"I'm here 'cause Elliot invited me. I'm homeless and I guess he got sick of me crashing on his front step, I dunno, he gave me some food and said I could stay here for a bit." The answer was delivered in too baffled a tone to be a particularly good lie, and sure enough, his expression slowly shifted to the same deep confusion as he said it. "Maybe you get why he'd do it, I sure as hell don't."

Darlene rolled her eyes at the accusation that she was a drama queen. This kid had yet to even see the full extent of her dramatics, this was just the first act in The Darlene Alderson Show, he should have felt fucking honored to even be there witnessing it. He also should have been thanking his lucky stars that she hadn’t sprang into full ass-kicking mode — not that Darlene had ever actually kicked anyones ass, but there was no better time to give it a shot, right? She was pretty sure that she could hold her own against this kid, but that could have all been her constantly overinflated ego talking shit.

“Okay.” She pushed herself into a standing position, leaning back against the refrigerator, arms crossed over her chest as she continued to eye the other with a scrutinizing sort of gaze. Sizing him up, as though he was just another device that she could exploit and uncover all the hidden secrets about. For the most part, people were easy to decipher, most of them wore their emotions as plainly as the clothes on their backs (Darlene included, when they became even the slightest bit overwhelming.) and she was always surprised by just how much she could tell from a person based on reactions from the simplest of questions.

This guy, though. She couldn’t get a read on. A worthy adversary if there had ever been one.

“I know Elliot. Let’s say that he and I are close. And I wouldn’t have to break in if that dickhead would just give me a key, but for some reason he’s just really against this whole idea of me coming and going whenever I please.” Again her eyes rolled, harder than they had before and with and added scoff and shake of her head. Elliot was fucking unbelievable sometimes, if she had her own apartment he could have free reign to it, didn’t she deserve the same courtesy?

“Because he’s a fucking idiot, that’s why.” Darlene pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, typing away a message on it before tucking it away again and returning her arms to their tightly crossed position over her chest. "Great, first he gets a dog that he can hardly take care of and now he’s got some fucking kid that he can’t even take care of. Real nice going Elliot. Wonder where you learned this kinda parenting from? You still didn’t answer me. Who the hell are you? You’re homeless, but I’m sure you got a name or something, right?"

To be fair to Darlene, John brought a lot of unexpected wildcards to any face-off, not the least of which was his being a mutant. He hadn't been lying when he told Elliot that he didn't have the desire to kill anyone (at least not any strangers), and he wouldn't go that far with her if she made any kind of physical move, but she'd get a very close up look at pyrokinesis for trying.

In fact, as soon as she changed her position, he grabbed his lighter from the pocket of his pants and started to play with it in a way that could've have been nervous habit or subtle threat just as easily. Maybe some blend of both. He'd flip the lid open, strike it lit, then flick it closed again, over and over, all with one dexterous hand: the clink-whoosh-clank on loop tended to drive people out of their minds, which could often give him another layer of power (and, well, it was in large part nervous habit.)

"I don't need the soap opera either," he sighed, "but it's really clingy breaking into his apartment 'cause he doesn't want to move in together yet. Like, stalker-creepy. I can't believe he didn't dump your ass already if you've been doing this for awhile." It was a natural assumption, yes, but also a hilarious one.

When she continued, something in her words finally planted a sharp enough burr under his ass to make him leap to his feet, lighter flipped open and held in the lit position as his earlier dismissive tone turned into an outright snarl. "Elliot's not taking care of me, 'cause no one needs to take care of me. I'm seventeen, I'm not a kid, and I've been on my own since I was twelve. This is a place to stay, not a foster home."

Then he shoved his tongue into the lower corner of his cheek and glanced away, glaring at the far wall with absurd intensity: from dismissive to furious to sullen. This one had moods.

"John. John Allerdyce."

The sound of the lighter opening, sparking to life and then closing again was…. Well, fucking annoying in the way that constant sounds playing on a repeated loop tended to be grating on Darlene’s nerves, and she wanted to storm across the room and snatch the stupid thing right out of his hands and throw it out the window — she wouldn’t have minded throwing him out the window too, but he hadn’t reached that level of annoying to her… yet. But that would have also meant that he’d gotten under her skin and of all the emotions that she may have showed on the outside, that was certainly not one of them. It was her job to get under peoples skin, not the other way around and in this battle of wits that they were locked in, she was going to come out the winner.

Even if that meant enduring the stupid constant clicking for just a little longer.

“Eugh! Gross!!” She actually cringed at the accusation. Why was this just a constant theme in her life as of late? If it wasn’t Elliot forgetting who she was to him and trying to jump into a Coney Island make out session (of which she still had nightmares about, even if she had somewhat understood what exactly had been going on with him at that time.), then it was some new houseguest implying that she was his crazy, clingy exgirlfriend. And Darlene was anything but clingy, she’d broken things off with a guy because he started getting too serious, if that wasn’t the definition of unclingy, then she didn’t know what was. “I’m not his fucking girlfriend, you dickwad. I’m his sister. Geesh, are you this fucking charming with every girl you come across, I dunno how anyone could have passed up taking them home with you sooner."

Turning on her heels, she opened up the fridge again, finding a can of Coke that wasn’t years expired — did soda even expire? She didn’t want to actually think about it, she’d take the risk — and popping open the top, taking a sip from it, still eyeing John from over the rim of the aluminum can. As though if she took her eyes off of him, he might just do something insane, like try and kill her.

“Alright, alright, calm down there, Ponyboy. Let me get this straight; you were sleeping on the stoop out there, so my brother just comes up to you and says ‘hey, looks like it might rain today, wanna come inside and crash on my couch?’? And he wasn’t like really high with a bag of Doritos in his hand when he asked this, was he?” It didn’t sound like Elliot, but he had definitely done crazier things in his life than offering someone a place to stay — like steal a man’s dog, break a convict out of prison, talk to a hallucination. This was probably one of the more normal things that he’d ever done before.

“John Allerdyce?” Out came her phone again, her thumbs working rapidly over the screen and her features knitting together in a mixture of concentration and frustration. What little of a footprint this kid actually left, then again, not everyone posted everything online and there was only so much she could find with what she had installed on her smartphone. He was some homeless kid, after all, maybe he’d never actually had the technology to create a Twitter, FaceBook or even — dare she say it? — MySpace. “Darlene. So, is this like a permanent sort of thing, are you gonna be hanging around here forever, or something? You two aren't like fucking are you?"

Darlene Alderson, the Queen of Tact.

Oops. Apparently, this was Elliot's sister.

This was his sister.

John's first thought wasn't that it was strange not to have heard about her, or seen her yet, or seen any pictures of her around the apartment, or anything of the sort - no, he immediately burst into whoops of laughter at how hilarious her reaction had been, and how glad he was to have (innocently enough) made that mistake. "Holy shit, your face! That was priceless, dude. But come on, there's no way I ever woulda known that, you got about 300% of the looks in the family."

No, he wasn't hitting on her - yet. And he knew that was pretty unfair to Elliot, who was more highly unique looking than outright ugly, but Darlene was really just so hot. Her legs looked like they literally went on forever in those shorts and boots. John could -

- probably stand to pay attention to her again, he realized, tuning back in just in time for her to ask if they were fucking. He and Elliot? He should have taken enough time to realize that she was most likely trying to get him back for his own misunderstanding, but the reaction came on too swift and powerful, making him recoil much as she had.

"No, we're not - I'm seventeen!! What the fuck? And he's not adopting me either, for god's sake, it's just for awhile."

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Real fucking funny, you dick.” Darlene downed the can of soda in record time, half tempted to toss the empty can across the room in hopes that it would end up pegging John right in the head — but she hadn’t really done much physical activity since she’d gotten out of high school and it was likely to be more of an embarrassment than a success. And Darlene didn’t need to give him any more ammo than he already had, her freaking out about the entire girlfriend thing was more than enough for her. “He usually looks better, he’s had a rough couple of months.” Darlene had always felt this need to protect Elliot — whether it be in the physical sense, which she hadn’t had to do any time recently, or from some little shit who the other had oh-so-graciously let freeload on his couch for who knew how long.

Call it some kind of sibling instinct, probably in the same way that twins claim they could feel when something happened to one another, regular siblings had to have something close to that to, right?

And even if the statement was supposed to be taken as a compliment in some convoluted way, Darlene didn’t have any current interest in seventeen year old boys sleeping on her brother’s couch. Especially not when they were smartass bastards.

“I know, you said that already. I’m not deaf, I’m just covering all my bases here. If Elliot has got some barely legal boytoy living in his house, I’d at least start knocking before I come in.” She moved through the kitchen, rifling though cabinets in search of something to snack on and only coming up with more expired food. “God, how the hell is he feeding you? Tell me that you aren’t eating anything that’s in this place. I swear, one of these days I'm gonna find him as a rotting skeleton and I’ll be an only child. Eugh. Whatever.” Giving up, Darlene crossed the room to sit in the only other chair that occupied the living room — if it could even be called that. More of a living space, than anything else. — legs crossed at the knee, her foot swinging idly back and forth.

“So, what’s your story? Why the whole living on the street deal? And why here? This neighborhood is shit, there wasn’t a place somewhere on the Upper East Side that you could’ve claimed?” If she couldn’t find out about him through her usual means, she’d have to try the old fashioned way. Actually asking.

"He said that, too," John mused once she'd echoed it; he didn't exactly look concerned, but something a bit more solemn did settle over his features. "Rough couple of months. Makes it sound like code for something." He didn't press further, though, finally settling back down on the couch as it became apparent that this was going to be a Conversation. She could sure fucking talk, enough for the both of them and a whole crowd besides.

Boy-toy. That was enough to make him wince again, letting out a noise of complaint, but it wasn't enough to cut her off so he endured through the rest. When she was finally sat down and focused on him, he arched his eyebrows, pointedly letting the silence extend out between them for a few seconds.

"Oh, you're done? Okay, lemme remember all the other shit you asked me in the same breath." If she'd been under the impression that he was going to get any more likable, hopefully she was dropping that fantasy quickly. "First off, he said he'd freak out if I touched him at all, so the whole boy-toy thing is extra weird coming from you. Not that I wanted to - I was trying to figure out if he was that kinda sick fuck, 'cause usually that's the kinda price you end up paying when someone's too generous."

His shoulders inched up defensively when it came time to answer more personal questions; Elliot had earned his trust by not giving a fuck about literally anything, but Darlene wasn't like that. She wouldn't get his story so easily. "I move all over the city. You have to. Places like this, you just disappear or people shove you outta the way, no one calls the cops. And apparently weirdos with hot, home invading sisters ask if you need something to eat and then end up letting you crash at their apartment, so why would I go anywhere else?"

“Yeah, it is a code.” Darlene’s expression dropped to one of utmost seriousness, as though John had stumbled upon something that he had no purpose in knowing about. And, in a way, he sort of did. Not in the way where he’d completely uncovered their entire operation and plan to bring down the largest conglomerate in the states, but more along the lines of toeing on the edge of Elliot’s personal life that only a select few people actually got to know about. Obviously, her brother hadn’t wanted his new houseguest to know, so it wasn’t her place to go spilling the beans either. “It’s code for you’re a fucking idiot. This isn’t James Bond, nobody is speaking in code here.” She shook her head, leaning back in the chair she was seated in enough so that she could take a peek at the front door, as though by sheer force of will she could make Elliot appear and explain that this was all just a big joke. That the guy who was lounging on his couch was just some young techie kid that he worked with and not some random homeless teenage that he’d taken in ‘out of the kindness of his heart.’. Unfortunately, the door remained closed, half listening to the words that John was saying.

If he was going to play cocky smartass, then she could play right back. That might as well have been the subtitle to Darlene’s game. She had dealt with her fair share of men who could have easily been a thousand times more gratingly annoying than John was, this was practically fucking child’s play to her at this point. “Yeeeaahh,” She turned her attention back to the other, giving up on conjuring the ability to make her brother appear out of thin air for the moment and instead, settling on talking to the kid on the couch. At least he wasn’t half bad on the eyes… for a seventeen year old. “He’s not really big on touching, or being touched, or any real human interaction. You get used to it. That’s just Elliot."

The story that he gave her was … less than satisfying. It hardly answered any of her questions and only made more crop up in her head. John was puzzling, and the hacker in her always enjoyed a good puzzle, fitting the jumbled pieces together until they formed just picture that she wanted, or unlocked just the door that she had been hoping for. “Thanks for that.” The sincerity in her voice was lacking, but how flattered was she supposed to be by the half compliment? She didn’t go falling all over herself just because some homeless guy told her that she was hot, she never would have survived New York if that was the case.

“Yeah, that’s not really what I asked. Like, how’d you get to the city, were you born here? What happened to your parents, they kick you out? Are you some kind of delinquent or something? Burn down your middle school? Did you kill a man and throw his body in the Hudson?” It was a well thought out tactic disguised as chaos -- an overloaded server would crash and reboot when too many commands were executed all at the same time, Darlene had figured that out in the early stages of learning to code, and humans tended to work in the same manner. Overload them with too many absurd questions and most of them defaulted to setting the story straight. Crash and reboot.

John's reaction to Darlene's snide insult was instantaneous and genuine: he burst into laughter again, only this time he was appreciative rather than mocking. He didn't have to play cocky smartass - it ran through his blood as surely as the X-gene, nature and nurture in perfect harmony to create the perfect asshole - but he also didn't often get to think of it as such a fun game, because very few people proved up to the task. They either got angry and turned things physical, or they got hurt and retreated in one way or another. Darlene was every bit the bitch he'd written her off as when he first saw her, and it was fucking great.

Or it would've been great if he didn't keep pressing in on his past. The moment she started launching all those questions at him, he forgot everything he was going to say about Elliot (more veiled insults to hide the fact that he actually liked Elliot a lot, because he didn't quite think he should, given what a weirdo the guy was), and he looked utterly infuriated by the time she finished. Moods, endlessly shifting moods, all of which she was drawing out with so little effort that it really did make him furious. They made a strange pair, Elliot either floating placidly on the smooth waves of morphine or repressing everything in a dense cloud of jittery quiet and John reacting so fiercely all over the place.

"That's none of your fucking business," he snarled. "None of it is. This isn't actually your place, it's Elliot's, and he trusts me. He's still alive, right? So I'm obviously not some serial killer. My parents fucked off on me before my balls had dropped and I've been keeping myself alive since then, that's my goddamn story."

Not the whole story, of course, but more than he'd ever meant to share. Her plan worked.

Edited 2016-08-23 06:51 (UTC)

If Elliot had known what he would be walking into when he came home he probably just wouldn't have gone home. As it was, he had no idea. He was tired and honestly just wanted to get through his evening routine with minimal energy expended. He should've known something was up when his door was cracked open still.

A frown tugged at his mouth and he felt a brief flash of something akin to worry for John. What if someone had found out he was harboring a mutant and had come to do whatever to him? Or maybe just someone he'd pissed off had broken in and John had been in the way. The possibilities seemed minute so he didn't dwell and just opened his door.

Greeted with Darlene, he did assess what had happened. She'd broken in. No one was dead. That was good. Flipper and Qwerty were accounted for too.

"You broke in... again," Elliot said, closing the door firmly behind him and moving further into his apartment which was clearly not a sacred place to say the least. By the tension that even he could tell was in the room this little interaction hadn't been so great. Again, at least no one was dead and nothing was burned down yet.

"This is my sister, Darlene. She likes to break in," Elliot informed John. "Guess she figured out the new lock already."

Darlene was ready to get into an all out question war with John, quite a few still ready on the tip of her tongue to assault him with, and hopefully pull just a little more of the real story that he was hiding underneath all that earlier cocky sureness and now flaring temper. There was something there, and Darlene was a curious girl to a fault sometimes — but weren’t all hackers in some sense? Wasn’t that the fatal flaw of them all? The fact that they lived to dig deeper and uncover more. Darlene just hadn’t hit a point of no return, a trove of secrets that she could come back from.

She’d come dangerously close before, though. Even if she'd actually reached that point, would it have really put a change to her ways? Likely not.

Just as the words started to leave her lips, the front door of the apartment opened completely and Elliot walked in, decked out in his usual garb of all black, with his hood up to shut out the rest of the world that existed and often became too overwhelming for him. Darlene’s head whipped around and she offered her brother what could only be considered a shit-eating grin by every meaning of the phrase — more than proud of herself that she’d once again figured out a way to break through the lock on Elliot’s door. No simple lock mechanism was going to outwit her, not today, at least. Hardware store: 0, Darlene Alderson: 2. “I keep telling you to give me a key. The guy at the hardware store is gonna start asking questions with how many locks you keep buying from them.” Darlene laughed, sounding positively pleased as punch the more that she continued to talk, motioning with her head to John, talking about him as though he wasn’t both actually in the room and only a short distance away from them both.

"And I found your new pet here, by the way. You know you have to feed, water and clothe this one, right? I thought once you got Flipper you were gonna stop picking up random things that you liked off the street?”

Then she remembered what she considered to be the most important detail. “And your milk is bad. Did you buy some more?”

Letting out a loud groan as soon as Darlene called him a pet, John pinched the bridge of his nose and waited irritably for a pause in the conversation where he could clarify.

"You don't need to keep making this weirder, Darlene," he informed her archly. "Not a pet, either, considering I could never be domesticated. I'm a pet walker now, probably a shit cleaner upper if I don't get her out enough, but pet is way off."

Then he turned his attention to Elliot, not quite so baleful but a bit inconvenienced. "Yeah, I got that much now. The heads up is a bit late, but great introduction."

"Don't want to give you a key... have enough trouble keeping you out already... Do I look like I got milk? You're the only one that drinks it anyway..." Elliot frowned at Darlene. He was also going to go back and mention that John wasn't his pet but luckily the other took care of that little clarification for him. "He has clothes on," Elliot did point out though, because clearly it was important to Darlene that John wasn't being neglected though Elliot never really did all that much for him.

"You're antagonizing her," Elliot informed John. "You don't want to do that. She'll never stop." It was simple and honestly it was all more words than he'd probably said in the entire time John had been living with him but he was a bit shocked to see them both there at the same time. He fidgeted with his hood before moving even further into his own apartment though he wasn't particularly comfortable with this situation.

"What do you want Darlene?" he turned his attention back to her because god knows she'd never show up for no reason. She must want something.

I just wanted to come home. It wasn't a great day at work. Now there's this. Maybe I should just leave.

This was all a mistake.

He looked more twitchy than he had when he first walked in and he moved past them both to get to his computer, lighting up a smoke in the process.

“And I can’t exactly drink any more of it when it expired last week.” Darlene stated matter-of-factly, thumbing through an app on her phone boredly — likely one that involved food, or grocery delivery, or whatever the hottest new dating-used-as-a-booty-call app was. At least those guys had fresh milk at their apartments. “Yeah, thank God. It was already weird enough coming in here and seeing him, think about how much weirder if would’ve been if he’d been naked sitting there.” She lingered on the thought for a moment, unsure if it was one that she should have enjoyed or not, she didn’t exactly know John well enough to go picturing him in the nude — because not knowing a person had certainly stopped her from doing so before, hadn’t it?

Darlene looked up to watch as Elliot moved across the apartment, eventually taking a seat at his computer, something that intrigued her enough for her to sit up just a little straighter in her seat, as though trying to peer over the top of his head and read what was happening on the screen, even from such a far distance away. Unfortunately her eyes weren’t nearly that good, and the glasses she’d come in wearing were strictly a fashion statement, proving to also be of no help to the situation. Not to mention they were on top of her head, an inconvenient place even if they had actually been of some use to her. “Geesh, you don’t gotta be such a dick about it. Hard day at the office?” There was a teasing tone in her voice, the implication of something else hidden in the otherwise normal and mundane sentence.

And she'd said they didn’t speak in code.

“Well, I was in the neighborhood. Taking a walk through the classiest part of Chinatown and I thought I’d drop in, hang around and wait for you to get off and then maybe order a little food, because judging by the state of your fridge if I didn’t you and barely legal over here would starve to death.” Darlene jerked her head in the direction of John, as though it wasn’t completely obvious who she had been talking about, though her attention had long since returned to the screen of her phone. "I got a copy of this absolute shit movie called Prophecy. How do you feel about Thai food?"

There were other things she needed to discuss with Elliot, but they’d have to be put on hold until they could afford some actual privacy.

"Could you guys not talk about me like I'm not here?" John snapped, finally pushed over the line by the weird clothes-or-no-clothes discussion, but not actually angry to speak up until he found out that Barely Legal could become a nickname. He was trying not to let the situation get to him so much since Elliot had gotten back, because he didn't need to drive the guy into a full nervous collapse just by bickering with his sister, and Elliot always looked like he could be driven into nervous collapse in a heartbeat. Part of him wished he knew any way to calm Elliot down, while the rest balked at the idea of giving anywhere near that much of a shit.

He'd just calm down himself. That'd do it. If one person here wasn't being a dick - even if choosing himself meant the plan hinged on the least qualified party - that'd make things better.

"Alright, truce. No more antagonizing." He even made himself put his lighter away for the time being, ceasing the incessant clink-clank of its open and closing at last. "If you can manage John instead of whatever cute joke comes into your head about me, no more antagonizing."

Elliot ignored the further comments about the milk because honestly. He didn't care. "Yeah, it was or whatever," he answered her question about hard day. More so it was just he had had a difficult day than anything specific had gone wrong or been particularly difficult. His nerve endings had already felt fried after the extra stress he'd experienced there that walking into a landmine of the other two had him sitting on a hair trigger.

"John's not starving. I'm not hungry but order food if you want. I know you'll make me pay for it anyway," Elliot said, glancing toward John after he'd gotten tired of Elliot and darlene's bickering. Which honestly could go on forever until Elliot just shut down on her. In that case, she just went on all on her own anyway. He was relieved though at John offering the olive branch and hopefully easing the tension that had him uncomfortable even in front of his computer and now starting at the screens he was pulling up.

"Last time you got Thai you threw up all over my bathroom. I'm not dealing with that again," Elliot knocked the Thai choice rather quickly though. He didn't question her bringing up a movie. He knew her well enough that that was probably part of some elaborate plan to talk to him without looking suspicious. Or maybe she just really wanted to watch a shitty movie.

She had made him sit through all three Matrix movies once and that was with disease ridden tacos he was certain. They'd both ended up sick that time.

“Fine.” Darlene sighed heavily, as though it was the biggest burden in her entire life to not think up some snarky little nickname to call him, but for the sake of Elliot’s sanity, keeping the peace and not being yelled at by the other to leave, she agreed. She didn’t exactly have anywhere else to stay that evening, and hanging around with Elliot was far better than sitting in an empty arcade all night, or trudging it back to Cisco’s after she’d triumphantly told him to go fuck himself and that she never wanted to speak with him again — going back to his apartment wouldn’t have really given off the right message there. “John. Whatever."

Her expression dropped into a frown at the mention of the Thai food experience from before, it wasn’t her fault that the food was bad and had ended up making her sick … except for the fact that it had also been half price mimosas at brunch that morning and she’d ended up pretty lit off of champagne only slightly diluted with orange juice. Besides she’d had it plenty of times since then without it causing any bodily harm — but it was New York, wasn’t every form of food delivery a bit of a game of Russian Roulette? “It was one fucking time, Elliot. And it’s not coming out of your account this time, this guy I was sleeping with is some big shot ad exec, but a total idiot when it comes to actually keeping his accounts secure. Who really still uses their initials and their birthdate as a password anymore? It was a new personal record for me,"

Again, Darlene had completely forgotten that John was in the room, and that most normal individuals didn’t go around talking about how they illegal acquired access to someone’s bank account, or implied that it was one of their more frequent hobbies. And much less in the sing-songy manner that she had been.

Or maybe she just didn’t care. What was this guy gonna do? Call the cops on her? Getting someone’s sister arrested wasn’t exactly the best way to build a budding relationship with their brother who was housing them currently.

“So, we’re dining on his tab tonight. Care of our gracious corporate overlords. What about Greek?” Now, she turned her attention to John, both of her brows raised curiously. “You hungry?"

Whoa, whoa whoa whoa. What did Darlene just say?! Before John even had time to wonder if he'd misheard that entire statement, he glanced from Darlene to Elliot and saw him giving his sister the most devastating stink eye John had ever witnessed in his life. He didn't even know Elliot had that kind of expression in him. Or was it just magnified by the size of his eyes?

Either way, John let out a slightly tense laugh as he glanced from one of them to the other a few more times, then zeroed in on Darlene again. If this was a joke at his expense, she wasn't cracking, and he couldn't see Elliot being such a good actor. It seemed like she was dead serious.

"Damn," he murmured, looking her over like she'd just walked into the room for the first time and he definitely liked what he saw. "You've got hidden depths. But you never need to ask if I'm hungry, it's my default, and I'll eat anything."

Edited 2016-08-23 22:06 (UTC)

Honestly, strangling Darlene had just become very tempting. He'd done his best to make sure that John had no idea what unsavory things he actually was both to protect himself but also the kid just in case, you know. But there Darlene just completely fucking blew it.

He didn't even bother to say anything, rubbing his hands over his head and trying to keep his thoughts from spiraling completely out of control. How the fuck could she'd been so careless to just say some shit like that in front of someone she didn't know. It's not like the shit they were in was child's play.

If Darlene weren't my sister, I probably would lose it right now.

Luckily, the family bond means something to me.

Elliot finally turned away from the two, his hands still on his head as he stared at the desk and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. But that anxiety that was always thrumming under the edge was pushing forward a bit.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head. It's not like he was worried John would rat them out. That was the least of his worries. He felt responsible for the kid and the more he knew the more Elliot was responsible and the more danger he was putting him into just by knowing him.

"Order something. And then Flipper probably needs to go out."

If John got the hint, Elliot could comfortably get his morphine fix, calm down and not kill Darlene when they talked. If not, Elliot wasn't sure what he was going to do. After the first time he really didn't particularly like doing morphine when John was around. The same way half the time he wouldn't smoke around him either.

Edited 2016-08-23 22:24 (UTC)

Darlene wiggled her brows at John and his observation that she had hidden depths to her. “Like you don’t even know.” The words were followed by a playful sort of wink, something that the polar opposite of the uncaring bitchy attitude that she had been giving him only a short time before — Darlene was an ever changing woman, once someone thought they understood any part of her, she threw an entirely new angle at them. It kept people on their toes around her, and kept anyone from actually getting through to what was the real her. Most things were all an elaborate act of pageantry and drama with her, Elliot being one of the few people that she dropped her walls around, and even that felt difficult at times when she would remember that at one point he had completely forgotten there was any familial connection between them.

“Sweet, so I’ll order us some Greek. I’m craving some Baklava right now, I could probably eat the entire place out of it. This guy has got some serious cash, so I might as well just had them deliver the entire menu, right?” She laughed, scrolling through the list of entrees on her phone, trying to decide what to have delivered. The scariest part about the statement that left Darlene’s lips was that she was just crazy enough to do it —this guy in question may not have wronged her in any way, but that wouldn’t have been a thought that stopped her from milking every last cent from his checking and savings. In the grand scheme of it all, he worked for the corporation that they were in the middle of bringing down, so he was a part of the problem. A little pawn in the chess match and the only way to win was to collect all of them before attacking the Queen herself.

She’d checked him out, too. Dug deeper and discovered that he was the kind of scummy guy with a wife and kids, who was faking his identity on thousands of dating sites just for the chance to get laid. She was doing a public service by clearing out his bank account, guys like him deserved it as far as Darlene was concerned.

“And I brought you a present, too." She grinned deviously at the screen of her phone as Elliot occupied himself with his computer. “So, stop staring at me like you hate me or something, because I promise that you’ll like it. All these rich fucks have a lot nicer things than giant account balances, you know."

Elliot was losing it, and fast, which Darlene didn't seem to care about much at all. John's amused look disappeared and didn't return while Darlene reveled in the power she'd given herself with her cyber-thievery, even though it was just the kind of thing that would normally have gone on delighting him forever as a petty thief. He couldn't seem to stop frowning at Elliot in concern.

He sure got that hint, though, loud and clear. If Elliot needed to be left alone with Darlene... well, John could see why, and he didn't think it would be any major threat to him now. By the looks of things, Darlene had adjusted to the idea of his being here (and maybe even liked him a bit, if that last look she'd given him was any indication, and he was absolutely arrogant enough to believe it was), so she wasn't likely to convince Elliot this was all fucking insane while John was out.

"Yeah, it's been awhile. C'mon, Flipper, get off your ass." He slid into his shoes, got the leash hooked onto Flipper's collar, and ducked out the door. They'd go for an actual walk, he thought, not just to let Flipper do her business.

Edited 2016-08-23 22:57 (UTC)

Elliot waited silently for John to leave. It wasn't so much anything directed at him which was mainly why he waited until the door was shut before he looked at Darlene again still angry but more in control.

"What the fuck were you thinking? I haven't told him shit about what we do," Elliot said, the words coming out fast. He was worried and he was definitely jonesing a bit. Still that didn't mean he was a junkie. He pushed away from the computer table and moved to sit in front of the coffee table where he started his routine. The familiarity of it was relaxing in and of itself and it kept him from strangling his sister.

"Do you know how long it took to make him think I was like sorta normal?"

Darlene wasn't going to give a shit about any of that he was sure. Especially since she clearly had something she had to get off her chest to him.

Darlene wiggled her fingers in a wave as John left, finally finishing up the massive food order on her phone, and it chimed loudly with a confirmation that the order should arrive as soon as the absurd amounts of food she had ordered were cooked and driven across the city. It was a shame they didn’t have some kind of 30 minutes or less policy, she could have really made out on it with how long it was going to take just to make everything. Not that she cared about getting the money back, it wasn’t hers to begin with.

“Oh, what are you like Elliot Alderson by day and The Amazing Hacker-Man by night?” She snorted in laughter, her eyes rolling as she shifted in her seat to start digging through the contents of her book bag. “Well, for one, you picked up some rando from off the streets, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think you’re exactly normal, and the fact that you’ve got some kid here now doesn’t mean we still don’t have work to do. Are you still gonna go with the whole ‘I’ve got some mysterious night job’ spiel? For a dude working two jobs, you certainly are living large in here."

Retrieving a small sandwich baggie from somewhere in the depths of her bag, she held it up triumphantly for Elliot to see — and, of course, wasn’t the least bit fazed by his entire morphine routine, he was a grown ass man and was free to do as many recreational drugs as he saw fit. Besides, she knew how much his sanity teetered on actually taking them, and if Elliot was a sane and functioning individual while being doped up, then who was she to stop him? “Anyway, I told you I had a present for you. This guy could have opened up a pharmacy with the kind of shit he had."

The bag contained a plethora of drugs, both illegal and legal, the most important of which to Darlene were two tightly rolled joints and a small vial of Elliot’s crushed white powder of choice. “And, yours truly also managed to get a copy of all his contacts from his business phone, which I’m currently tracking on my own as we speak; every number he dials is now ours, every email he gets is now ours and every network key he types in is also ours. So, I think a ‘Thank you, Darlene, oh gracious and dearest sister of mine.’ is now in order here."

Elliot tried not to let her get a rise out of him but he was frustrated. "He didn't know about the hacking, Darlene. And this shit is dangerous and you just made it so he actually knows something instead of being kept out of it completely." Really, he just wanted to protect John. He'd taken him in against all logic and reason -- again he was crazy but still.

He didn't stop his whole routine even when he saw Darlene holding up a mini pharmacy. "What the shit is even in there?" Elliot asked her, though he was less bothered -- and by that, not bothered at all -- than the confession to hacking. Well, it's not like he could complain about the goodie bag at all but he was still frustrated with her.

He also couldn't complain about the source she'd created. "Good job," Elliot said, finishing the routine of getting the morphine ready which was ridiculously OCD and a strict regimen that he gave to it. That was part of the not being a junkie part. "Anything else I should know before he comes back? Because fuck if you're letting anything else slip to him."

He meant it.

"And do you really want to watch another shitty movie here?"

The morphine was already doing it's job, the tension and anxiety starting to ease, the exposed nerve that was his existence protected for the moment.

“A little bit of high quality chronic — the medicinal kind of stuff, he’s got some kind of connect straight out of California — a couple pills of Molly, but I’d kinda like to avoid taking those with you, no offense or anything. Some coke, if you’re feeling crazy some night. A little bit of that Morphine stuff that you like so much, a couple of Ambien, a few Xanax, handful of Adderall, you know… The usual stuff. I figured with the kind of money that he had coming in, it’s gotta be some pretty good stuff, right?"

‘Good job’. Good. Job. So, it wasn’t the gracious praise that she had been searching for, but in the language that was Elliot Alderson a ‘good job’ might as well have been the most sincerest thing that he could have told her — he was on edge, and it was somewhat the majority of her fault, so she really couldn’t expect him to go laying on all the praise and compliments for her undercover work disguised as a sleazy one night stand at the moment. “Aren’t you just Mr. Pleasant today? Yeah, there’s something else. Have you gotten a chance to look into you little houseguest, yet?"

She paused, but hardly long enough to allow Elliot to answer, once Darlene started on a tangent, it was usually difficult for anyone to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m gonna assume that you haven’t, since you’re trying to be Elliot the normal or whatever. So I’ll fill you in, he doesn’t really have much online — no Twitter, no FaceBook, no Tumblr, not even a fucking MySpace. I know the kid was homeless, but usually there’s at least some kind of footprint somewhere. It’s weird.” Popping the bag open, she dug out one of the joints from inside of it, placing it between her lips and then rummaging through the pocket of her jacket for a lighter. “Allerdyce. I didn’t try too many spellings; A-L-L-E-R-D-I-C-E didn’t bring up much, a bunch of random guys who don’t look anything like him or even related to him, so… maybe try out a few different ones if you’re gonna go looking.” She shrugged, she’d done all the digging that she felt like doing at the moment — maybe when she was back somewhere private with her laptop she would do a little more, if only for the sake of looking out for Elliot.

And, okay, for the sake of being a nosy bitch.

“Why not? You got something better to do tonight? You and Kid Icarus got reservations somewhere?” She laughed, lighting up the end of the joint and taking a long hit from it.

"I don't..." Elliot didn't really have the chance to say anything. To be honest, he hadn't tried to hack him yet. He still hadn't actually asked him for his last name but he wasn't about to tell Darlene that. She'd really think something was wrong with him then. So he stayed quiet and let her ramble on. She loved the sound of her own voice.

Everyone loved the sound of their own voice, except him. And that hallucination's voice that was also his voice in a way. He hated those voices and wished they'd both go the fuck away.

"No." Literally nothing on the agenda.

"He should be back soon... How long on the food?" Not that he was hungry but if John was and Darlene was then obviously the food needed to get there faster. "give me the coke. You should offer some of the lighter shit to him. He ain't like us though."

“I dunno. I ordered a whole lot, but it shouldn’t take too much longer, that place is usually pretty quick, fastest bike delivery in the whole city, the kid delivering probably does speed or something. That guy is gonna go fucking insane when he starts checking his bank account. ‘I remember all the hookers, but when did I order 300 dollars worth of Greek delivery?’ I wish I could see his face, it’d be fucking priceless.” Darlene laughed, once again sounding far too pleased with the havoc she was going to end up causing on some man’s life. It was all for the greater good though, wasn’t it? Just another one of the many steps in the larger plan — at least that was how Darlene rationalized all the petty crimes that she committed along the way. After all, the company that they were taking down had done far worse things than she could have been doing, she wasn’t murdering people by the thousands and then covering it up like it had never even happened.

That was real crime. Stealing a couple thousands from someone might as well have been child’s play in comparison.

“Atta boy. That’s what I like hearing. Just don’t take it all, okay? I actually want to try some of that later.” Deft fingers dug through the bag, retrieving a small vial of finely ground cocaine and gently tossing over to Elliot. “And, look at you. Taking in some kid off the streets, and letting me fill him up with illegal substances, we’re really just a shining example of responsible adults, aren’t we? This is probably why we never had any kids… that and I can’t stand those noisy little fuckers.” Another laugh echoed out of her, examining the substances inside of the bag once more, as though trying to decide which one would be the best to give to John once he finally arrived back with Flipper.

“I’ll let him have his pick, and make sure that he stays away from the hard stuff. I don’t wanna be held accountable if he ends up trying to eat your face off or something later."

As if he'd been called by their discussion, John came back in mere seconds later, throwing the door open and strolling into the apartment like he'd hadn't just left it in a thick overcast of tension. Peering around the doorframe wasn't his style, even if he was having to smother a bit of apprehension.

Things looked fine, though. Elliot and Darlene seemed to be getting along again. Siblings were weird, he'd always known that in a distant way, even if he had no real life experience to know what that weirdness looked like. Knowing his family, he would've gotten a fucked up picture of it if he'd had a sibling anyway.

"No shit on your pillow tonight, man. You're welcome. So what did we - whoa." The bag in Darlene's hand stunned him to silence, jaw dropping as he squinted at the contents. That was a very, very large assortment of drugs. Cocking his head to one side, he glanced at Elliot, then lifted a hand to point at Darlene. "Just checking, don't wanna cause any more offense: she's not a junkie either?"

Elliot was staring at the coke intently, weighing the pros and cons in his head about whether to do it or not. If it was just once in a while it was okay.

"She's totally a junkie and a deviant and other things that a brother can't say about his sister," there was a hint of a smile though because she wasn't any more a junkie than he was so clearly not a junkie. They were both completely functional human beings who just had shit for pasts.

"There's some light shit in there if you want any. You'll need it with the god awful movie she's going to make us watch."

Darlene nodded earnestly at Elliot’s explanation, playing along with him for no other reason that she truly enjoyed fucking with people sometimes, and John had made himself the newest addition on that long list — there was only so much that she could shock Elliot with anymore, and even then it was territory that she had to tread lightly in. The guy was a little high-strung on most days (doing too much morphine on top of a variety of mental issues could do that to a person.) and could fly off the handle at even the slightest joke. “Don’t worry, he’ll say all of them once I’m gone, though. But, I’m a changed girl now, found Jesus and seen the light and all that bullshit. Today is just my cheat day.” At that she laughed and took another hit from the joint poised between her fingers, tilting her head back to blow out a few rings of smoke, watching them dissipate into the air above her head a shot moment after.

“Yeah, go ahead, take you pick.” She held the bag up for John to have a closer look, shaking the contents around inside of it in an attempt to spread them out a little within their confined plastic space. “Word of caution, if you don’t know what is it, then you probably shouldn’t go asking for it. I’m not being blamed if you start tripping out and thinking the floor is lava or something."

Darlene paused, looking over at Elliot with an all too amused expression. “Listen to me, I almost sound responsible. And Prophecy isn’t that bad… It’s a classic 80’s Frakenheimer cyborg bear horror. You gotta give it a chance."

Yeah, she was really selling it with that description.

Okay, so Elliot was positively goddamn jovial compared to what John had seen of him thus far. Darlene taking the piss already didn't surprise him because they were the same breed of smartass (other than John being decidedly more mean-spirited) but Elliot... siblings were really, really weird. They'd gone from what felt dangerously like the makings of a future murder scene to cheerful and chummy in the time it took a dog to take a dump.

"Right," he muttered to himself as he sat cross-legged on the floor, snatching up the bag on his way down. "Now this is happening. I dunno what any of this is, the people where I sleep smoke shit or shoot it right into their veins, not this." Wait - he shook it all to one side, then arched an eyebrow. "Except weed. Obviously I know weed."

He glanced from one of them to the other like he kept finding himself doing since Elliot had gotten home, like he was constantly watching a tennis match. "So? Recommendations?"

"I'll let Darlene handle that," Elliot said and he was relaxed, almost normal even though setting out a line of coke wasn't exactly your typical definition of normal. He was calmer the loud voices in his head subdued and he wasn't constantly thinking of what he needed to be doing and why he needed to be doing it.

The switch very temporarily switched. It'd probably hit him ten times as hard soon enough. He probably wouldn't sleep much tonight. The price you pay for moments like this.

He kept his eyes on the other two except when he leaned to snort the line he'd set out carefully. He cleared his throat slightly before leaning back again. "And that movie still sounds even more awful now, Darlene."

“Well, we don’t shoot shit into our veins anymore, we save that for Thursdays.” Darlene’s face remained completely serious, leaning over in her chair so that she could tap a few ashes off of the end of the joint into the ashtray on the table before taking another hit — and being careful not to accidentally let any of them float their way into Elliot’s line of fresh white powder, snorting ashes probably wasn’t something that he wanted to be doing that evening.

“Okay, listen and listen good, because this is the kind of shit they don’t teach you but they really should. Those colorful little pills are Molly, they’ll make you feel pretty good, but it’ll probably get kinda weird and you’ll keep asking us to touch you and that’s not really a road I wanna go down today — we just met. There’s a couple prescription meds in there; they’ve all pretty much got the names on them; Xanax and Ambien will knock you out, unless you can stay awake and then you’ll feel pretty good. Adderall will keep you up, kinda like speed. The white powder stuff is for Elliot. He’s got some coke there if you wanna try that. And… there might be a tab of acid in there, if you’re feeling like really tripping balls."

Darlene rattled off the drugs without a moment of hesitation — proving that this was in no way her first foray into the world of illicit substances, which could both be seen as a good and bad thing. But better to have someone well versed in the world of recreational drug use than someone who knew absolutely nothing, right? “Well, too fuckin’ bad. I brought it and unless you got anything better lying around here, then Prophecy it is."

Since Darlene was apparently giving the lesson, John shifted his attention from Elliot to her, listening just as carefully as she'd ordered because he didn't want to completely freak out and make an idiot of himself. He was sure he'd never live it down in this company. Molly, definite no if he was taking it alone; Xanax and Ambien, possible; Adderall, sounded fun for the future but probably not great for a movie night, where he'd just be antsy and bouncing off the walls; and then there was coke, which he just wasn't that sure about. It reminded him of crazy dudes in suits thanks to American Psycho.

"I'm not dropping acid," he snickered, imagining how he could react if he hallucinated the wrong thing - the apartment building would go up in seconds, and that'd be a promise to Elliot broken and him back out on the streets. Or in jail, since they'd probably collar him for arson at long last with so many potential witnesses. "Trust me, it's a bad idea, at least indoors."

Even if he was starting to loosen up with Darlene, he wasn't quite ready to tell her he was a mutant yet. He was still quite surprised by how quickly he'd revealed it to Elliot; something about Elliot's blasé reactions to everything made him seem very trustworthy, or at least like he wouldn't even remember for longer than a few minutes.

Finally, he fished out the tablets of Xanax, eyeballing them curiously. Well, he fell asleep without warning his first night here, it wouldn't be that embarrassing if he did it again. Probably the least embarrassing of all the options. He just really didn't want to make an ass of himself in front of what were obviously experienced drug users, make himself look like even more of a child.

"You could just get him a joint," Elliot muttered, knowing from one of their first conversations that was the only drug John seemed perfectly comfortable with. Elliot'd settled against the corner of his couch, smoking a cigarette by the time the drug lesson was done and he could kind of see the gears in John's head working.

Even without hacking him he'd slowly started to figure him out. Not as thoroughly as he could with a hack but enough.

"I still have the Matrix movies," yes, it'd taken him that long to think of something better than the Prophecy but honestly were those movies that much better? Maybe not.

“Yeah, if you wanna be some boring asshat and take the normal road,” She said while simultaneously waving her joint around in the air, not bothered by the hypocrisy of it all because Darlene found herself to be anything but a boring asshat, “then go ahead. The joint in there is yours. I was just giving the kid some options, Jesus Christ, Elliot. I’m trying to be a good host.”

Yes. Darlene was attempting to be a good host in a house that wasn’t hers. But that was just Darlene, wasn’t it? She tended to take ownership over whatever place that her body currently occupied and in that moment it was Elliot’s apartment.

Once more she leaned over in her chair to reach the table a short distance away, tossing what little was left of the end of her joint into the ashtray before scooping up a generous amount of the cocaine onto her index finger, and then immediately rubbing it along her top gum line — her entire mouth beginning to tingle in a way that sent a shiver through her body. Her movements already feeling lazy and slowed thanks to the weed that she’d burned through in what could have been considered record time, and she knew that the newly added stimulant would make for a kind of concoction that she was craving at the moment. A paradox that would have her heart and body racing at top speed, but her mind steps behind trying to catch up.

“Whatever, they’re all shit movies. Where are they?” In one fluid motion, she pushed herself up out of the chair, hands poised on her hips as her head turned on a swivel to glance around the apartment — as though the movies would have had some kind of neon sign above them that indicated their location.

"Didn't I just tell you not to talk about me like I'm not here?" He snapped irritably, with that imperious tone he could take on with no warning and absolutely no justification for it. Jesus, he felt like they were babysitting him, like a little brother they'd been forced to drag along to a party who might as well be turned into entertainment so the night wasn't a total loss. "And don't call me The Kid either, Darlene, my name's fucking John."

As much as the flash of temper probably looked ridiculous, there was also very real, very irrational and dangerous fury behind it. Elliot knew a bit of what he could do. Darlene didn't, but she was used to a certain kind of madness with him as a brother, so maybe she could sniff out John's madness as well. He was mollified by the kindness that had already been shown to him here, but only so much; he could still turn on a dime, and in that moment it definitely showed, like a tamed stray dog suddenly showing too much teeth when someone got close.

He swallowed the Xanax dry, then pulled his lighter out of his pocket again and started to play with it. Not the incessant clink-clank, because he didn't trust himself to open it, just turning it around and around in the fingers of one hand.

Elliot didn't like seeing John pull out the lighter after that altercation but he didn't really want to point it out and instead took a longer drag off his cigarette. "I don't fucking know. You're the one that had them last. What'd you do with them?"

He rolled his eyes, rubbing his forehead with his free hand and glancing at John again.

"can you two cut the shit out though. I'm having a good night for once," he might've been a bit petulant himself but good nights like this were few and had gotten fewer with how things had changed in recent times, before even John showed up on the doorstep.

For all their cursing between one another, Elliot and Darlene were actually a pair of loving siblings — they’d both do anything to protect one another, and that was something that had even been proven when Elliot was completely unaware of their relationship with one another. It was instinct, Darlene liked to think. “I left them lying around, just like everything else in this damn place.” Pursing her lips together in thought, she turned and began to search through Elliot’s things, privacy having been something that was tossed out the window long ago between the two. There couldn’t exactly be much for Elliot to keep hidden from Darlene when she had made a habit of breaking into his apartment on the regular.

“Look, John. It’s not meant to be an insult or something, calm your shit down a little bit. I get it, you’re a big boy and you tie your own shoes and everything. Don’t take it to heart, got me?” She raised her voice a little, but simply because her back was now to the both of them and she wanted to ensure that she was heard — because if there as anything that Darlene wouldn’t stand for it was talking and not being heard. As though every word that came out of her mouth was of the utmost importance and couldn’t be missed.

And, hello. It was.

“Geesh. You think you’d be a little nicer to somebody who so graciously let you have your pick of their drugs. You dunno the kinda shit I had to do for those.” Darlene tried to sound as ominous as possible, like she had risked life and limb for the little goodie bag that John had been searching through, when in reality she had actually done next to nothing for it. “A-ha! I think these are it.” She called from where she was ducked down and searching through a stack of DVD cases in one corner, most of which were unlabeled bootlegs they had downloaded and burned themselves.

Being doubly scolded like that just made John sink into sullen silence. If he'd been challenged, he probably would've snapped and turned Elliot's smoke into a Molotov cocktail by accident, but Darlene had kind of sort of acknowledged him and Elliot had just sounded exhausted. Neither was worth keeping up a fight. Instead, he flipped his lighter open and lit while Darlene was facing away and concentrated on shaping the flame into a smooth, shining coil that spiraled upward, the kind of precision work that always soothed him.

When she called out that she had found the movies, he slammed the lid of his lighter back down way too fast before she could turn around and pocketed it again.

"Never seen the Matrix movies before. Are they any good?" He sounded a bit more amicable now, at least.

Edited 2016-08-24 07:02 (UTC)

Elliot was still quietly smoking as the other two continued their exchanges though at least they had been less combative than before. He relaxed a bit more against the side of his couch. He could almost go for some food now. Hopefully darlene had actually ordered some good stuff within that ridiculous $300 order.

"Not all that great but Darlene completely loves them. She made me go to every pawn shop in the city until I found the second one."

"Are you really being serious right now?" Darlene had to use a quite a bit of skill to wiggle the DVD cases in question from out of the middle of the pile where they were lodged without knocking the entire thing open -- because then she would have felt obligated to actually clean them up, and that wasn't a road she wanted to travel down at that particular moment... or ever. It was Elliot's damn apartment, why should she go around cleaning up any of the messes that she made like she was some kind of polite houseguest? "You haven't seen any of the Matrix movies?" She turned to face John long after the lighter had been closed and the coil of flames had disappeared, only catching him suspiciously shoving it back into his pocket, but she couldn't really be bothered to delve any deeper into the weird actions of the other.

It wasn't by far the weirdest thing that she'd been presented with in her life. And, besides, Elliot was weird, maybe he just naturally attracted just as weird people. Like some kind of beacon or bat-signal.

"The first one is actually pretty good, but they turn to absolute shit by the end ." She smiled, her head tilted to the side as she batted her eyelashes at Elliot, as though it was some kind of form of appreciation for her brother. And, in Darlene's own special way, it was. "I didn't make you, you're just so sweet on your precious little sister that you couldn't help but want to make me happy by searching until you did."

Yeah. That was a complete lie. She'd forced him to 100%.

Watching the two of them interact wasn't so bad when they were doing something other than mocking John. It had a weird sort of charm to it, and Elliot got chatty enough around Darlene to share random stories like that, which was a pleasant change.

John had given up on the idea of family being worthwhile so long ago that he couldn't quite work his way up to jealousy or envy. Maybe there was something a bit wistful in his expression as he watched them banter, but - that also could've been the drugs slowing him down already. He didn't really know.

"How old are you two?" He asked suddenly, because Darlene calling herself little sister made him newly curious. The tiny details he didn't know about Elliot were kind of incredible, if not as incredible as how little Elliot knew about him compared to what he could've with a solid hacking session.

"What about you is precious?" Elliot asked Darlene, though he was near to cracking a smile again as he tapped the ash off his cigarette into the ash tray beside him.

"28."

It was a simple answer and he brought the cigarette to his lips again. "Darlene's actually 3 years old. Pretty tall for her age."

“Everything about me is precious, stop acting like it isn’t. I know when I’m not around that you refer to me as your precious baby sister.” Darlene laughed, a giggling sound that bubbled out of her thanks to the mixture of coke and weed whirling around in her system. She was starting to feel it now, and she couldn’t have felt better about deciding to steal the stash from someone who was far less in need of it than the three of them — and in Darlene’s mind there was no one more deserving of illegal feel-good drugs than herself, Elliot and John.

“It’s true. The doctors were all amazed at how fast I matured. I’m a real miracle case, they’re gonna do a Discovery Channel special on me soon.” She laughed, moving to where Elliot’s television and DVD player were, turning both of them on and plopping herself on the floor in front of them both, waiting for the DVD player to finish the process of actually turning on — for some reason, the more advanced that technology became the longer it took for things to be usable. — finding a stray piece of trash on the floor and tossing it blindly over her shoulder at Elliot.

Likely missing him. She wasn’t some kind of athlete, after all. Nor was she actually looking where she was throwing.

“25."

28 and 25. So 11 and 8 years his senior. When they were all goofing off like this, the idea seemed surreal; even if he'd never been to one, John imagined that high school house parties must've been a lot like this, albeit with more people and less privacy.

He liked it better this way. He'd never been one to let many people into his circle of esteem, to put it very mildly: more accurately put, he hated pretty much everyone. But the Aldersons were alright.

God, he was relaxed. The information that had scrolled constantly across his mind like a news ticker since he'd turned 12 years old - temperatures and potential combustion rates of everything in range, hot spots he could likely manipulate, actual points of ignition like Elliot's cigarette standing out as white-hot pinpoints in his awareness - all of that suddenly seemed to be moving through molasses. A distant smile twisting his lips, he turned around so that his back was facing the couch and leaned back against it, quite close to Elliot's legs but not actually touching them. He was unusually quiet, and had been for a little while aside from his odd questions.

"This is fucking awesome," he finally said in a low, sleepy monotone, not really clarifying just what was so awesome, but it was pretty obvious. Compared to his usual aggressive, probing energy, the air John gave off now was nearly comatose.

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