Connor, dahlin', here's our thread. on Cascade Hall

Gwen Carey

January 12, 2006 9:13 PM

Connor, dahlin', here's our thread. by Gwen Carey

OOC: Since I think it's safe to say we may be having a bit of, um, wet weather soon, the timing of this is before the Labyrinth Gardens Melting thread. BIC:

Grow up. You knew this was going to happen eventually.

So? That doesn't make me like it any better.

Since when has what you liked mattered? You do what you have to, or have you gone and decided that you can change the rules again, nonwithstanding the trouble it caused us the last time you did that?

There is no us. There's me. I'm one person, and I haven't changed the rules. What I like doesn't matter, I'll do what I have to, but I hate it.

Don't think about things, just do them. It's the only way you're going to keep what ground you've got.

Gwen shook her head hard, as if trying to physically drive the circling thoughts from her head. These little internal sparring matches between her and herself had been growing more and more common since Christmas, but she hadn't grown any fonder of them. It didn't feel natural. It didn't feel entirely sane. It didn't feel as if there was anything she could do to stop it, and that was the most frightening thought of all.

The hidden room she now knew as Avalon had come through the mudstorm unscathed because of its underground location, and it was on a now much less dusty sofa that she was sitting as the opposing facets of her personality duked it out for perhaps the millionth time. Strangely enough, she would have felt more balanced than she had in long time if not for the faint disturbance of realizing she was now talking to herself on a regular basis. Everything was more or less out in the open, now, and what wasn't probably would be soon enough. She no longer had to pretend to be something she wasn't for either side's benefit, because both believed she had been on the other side the whole time. She could do or say whatever she wanted, now, because she was no longer allied to anyone. Even the worst situations had at least one perk, even if that one perk was that it had to end eventually. This was nowhere near that bad.

Encouraging as the thought was, though, it didn't make the thought of what she was here to do any more pleasant. Explaining to someone who had been a friend why she had, without explanation, dropped him by the wayside was far down on her list of enjoyable things to do. It had been nice pretending she had one friend - Anne couldn't really be counted, there were too many layers involved - left at this school, but Careys gave up playing makebelieve around the time they started eating solid food. She was a Carey. It was what she had wanted, and she had gotten it. It was time to face the music...again.

Curse it all. \n\n

0 Gwen Carey Connor, dahlin', here's our thread. 63 Gwen Carey 1 5

Connor Pierce

January 13, 2006 10:25 PM

Probably to be a bit shorter than our last thread... by Connor Pierce

The change in weather conditions had made the chances of being able to successfully sneak out of and then back into the Pecari commons virtually nonexistant. It might be possible to get through Connell's office once without her noticing, but Connor had a feeling that twice would be pushing it, and her office was the only way into the commons for as long as the normal entrance remained frozen shut or whatever was wrong with it. It forced all detention-free comings and going to become strictly legit, which made meeting up with people under the school impossible to manage before the weekend.

He wasn't surprised to find that Gwen had beaten him to their hideout. He didn't know where the Crotalus commons were or what sort of entrance they had, but the odds were against it being outside like Pecari. Crotali just didn't strike him as the outdoor type. Besides, she was one of those punctual, always-put-together sorts. It was actually kind of scary, but he'd gotten used to it. Well, at least able to get along with it. The blonde girl was sitting on the sofa, looking as if she was pretty deep in thought. It didn't seem as if she noticed his entrance.

"Hey," he said, more to get her attention than anything. His conversation-starters lacked many things, and variety was definitely one of them. Feeling strangely awkward, he stayed where he was instead of sitting down. Connor didn't know the words to call it by, but there was something all...backwards about the entire situation, and it was doing a fine job of messing things up. He thought he knew Gwen Carey as well as anyone at Sonora did, probably better than some. Heck, he actually liked her, even if she was a little on the weird side sometimes. She was one of a very small group of people, Muggle and magical, who he could have what Bev would refer to as a normal conversation with - an ability that seemed to have abandoned him. He had no idea how the playing field was leveled, now.

Maybe I should have just left well enough alone, he thought. This was mostly my idea, after all. He tried not to think it. This was important. He wasn't sure how or why, but he had a feeling that it was, or would be if either of them ever managed to say anything. \n\n

0 Connor Pierce Probably to be a bit shorter than our last thread... 68 Connor Pierce 0 5

Gwen

January 13, 2006 11:09 PM

<i>Sans aucun doute</i>. by Gwen

For the second time in days, Connor managed to make her flinch with one word. It was even the same word. If she could have somehow wished herself back in the common room, preferably in the darkest corner of said common room, she would have done it, even though it was a little warmer here than it was there. She did not want to do this. That didn't matter. She had to. Get it over with. Clean breaks were the easiest, which was probably why Alasdair - it had taken an effort to teach herself to refer to him by his name instead of 'Father', but she had done it - was making the break between his nuclear family and her as messy as possible.

"Hey," she returned after a moment. "I'm just going to get to the point, if that's all right. There's no reason why we should sit here exchanging pleasantries all afternoon as if this was a tea party." She tried to remove some of the edge from her voice. It wasn't Connor's fault all of this was happening. It was her fault. She had brought it on herself by trying to be two people that belonged to two different worlds, and she was simply reaping what she had sown. There was no reason to make things more difficult for everyone else when they hadn't really done anything.

"I've told you - " she stopped, noticing that he was still standing. "You can sit, you know," she said, working hard not to sound impatient. "I don't bite, regardless of public opinion to the contrary." She attempted the grimace she passed off as a smile these days to show she was going for a vaguely humorous end and reluctantly started over with what she had been planning to say.

"I've told you a little about my family. The Carey public image projection, with a little truth tossed in for variety. I've told you some stuff about pureblood customs, too, but there's one I don't think I've ever gone in to. I don't know if Muggles have anything like it, because you've never mentioned it, but there's a practice in pureblood families we call disownment. The patriarch or matriarch of a family cuts someone off from the family and takes them off of the family tree. Whoever gets thrown out suddenly ceases to exist, or maybe, if they're lucky, the family just pretends that they're dead. Sometimes they'll even lose their surnames; I think the details vary case by case.

"They had some of the alumni come 'round for some kind of banquet just before Christmas, and three of the Crotali there were men who have daughters in our year...all Crotali. The men were Charles Raines, Roger Tallow, and Alasdair Carey. The daughters are Catherine Raines, Asher Tallow, and me. With me so far?" One thing she had found out fairly quickly about Connor was that he wasn't the best at keeping up with large numbers of names.

"Well, Nicoletta Dupree comes over and starts hinting to Father that I'm disgracing the family by consorting with, well, people like you - Muggleborns, half-bloods, you know." She shrugged uncomfortably. It had always been a slightly awkward topic, and the situation at hand was hardly one that aided in bluffing through awkward topics. "He caught on to it, and then Asher and her father and brother came along and got mixed up in things, and it got worse when the Raines' showed up. Father and Mr. Raines were old school friends, and Raines somehow got it in his head that Catherine and I were friends - I don't know. Long story short, Asher and Father both ended up believing that I betrayed them, I had some kind of nervous interlude, became the Crotalus pariah overnight, and Father topped it all off by trying to have me disowned. Didn't work, but I'm on probation." Another forced smile, this one weaker and closer to grimacing than the other.

"So that's why I've been avoiding you," she finished, deciding to study her friend or ex-friend or whatever-he-was' shoes rather than his face for the time being. "There's been sufficient grapevine coverage for my anti-sociality cousin to hear about it, so I figured you had, too, and would think the same way everyone else does, that I've been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes this whole time." She chanced a quick look upward. "I never meant to if I did." \n\n

0 Gwen <i>Sans aucun doute</i>. 63 Gwen 0 5

Connor

January 16, 2006 11:13 AM

Revert to English? by Connor

Not what I was expecting, Connor thought a little dryly when Gwen announced her intention to just get to the point and get it over with. He didn't know if it was a Gwen thing or a girl thing in general, but she never lost the ability to surprise him. The odd feeling around his ears told him he had probably just turned an interesting shade of red when she informed him that she didn't bite. "Didn't think you did," he managed to mutter, finally sitting. That had come out all wrong...but she had started talking again. One thing Gwen was really good at was saving what would have been really awkward situations, at least for him, by starting to talk a blue streak without seeming to notice anything off.

He took a minute to process what she'd said when she paused. Three Crotali alumni walk into the Cascade Hall...it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. From the impressions he'd had of the daughters paired with the things Gwen had said about the pureblood patriarch system and the few, confusingly vague things she had let slip about her own father, he didn't think it was going to end well for anyone. He ran over the points aloud. "So your dad and the astronomy crasher's dads turn up at the big adult thing and you three all sort of know each other. Got it." He had purposefully omitted the whole disowning thing. He knew Muggles could, technically, do that sort of thing, and it sounded like the wizard version was more like cutting someone out of a will, but it still struck him as kind of sick that people could just go around blithely throwing members of their families out and then pretending that they were dead or didn't exist.

There was a slightly awkward pause when Gwen mentioned that Nicole or whatever her name was in regular English had started shooting off her mouth about who Gwen was friends with. That was one thing she had explained to him, but not in very great detail, as she seemed to dislike talking about it. He didn't really get why some of the purebloods thought centuries of inbreeding made them better than everyone else - it seemed to him like magic was magic, apart from the fact that inbreeding was known to produce more bad things than superior qualities - but it figured that even people who could wave a wand and fix things Muggles never could would have equal rights issues just like everyone else. She hurried through the rest of her story, leaving him to catch up as best he could.

He had changed his mind about the story sounding like a bad joke. It sounded like a soap opera. He wasn't sure what Gwen meant by 'nervous interlude', but it didn't sound good, and the rest was pure daytime TV. His mother would have already been dissecting it for clues about what was going to happen on the next episode. The tyrannical tycoon comes to his daughter's upscale school for a charity event. He meets up with an old "friend" and cohort whose daughter is his own daughter's worst enemy. Other players enter the scene, all connected by some underlying secret not to be revealed until May sweeps, and everything blows up in everyone's face. He said the first thing that crossed his mind.

"How in the heck was I supposed to get stuff from the grapevine when you're my only connection to it?" \n\n

0 Connor Revert to English? 68 Connor 0 5

Gwen

January 16, 2006 11:41 AM

Sure, since that's about the extent of my French. by Gwen

A short, startled laugh escaped her when Connor asked about his connection to the grapevine. The momentary break in the tension felt...good. She sobered herself quickly, though, for fear of her laughter being taken the wrong way. "Sorry," she apologized. Apologizing was not as difficult as it had been only a month earlier. "I'm not laughing at you. I was just surprised." She tried desperately to push back the feeling that things were almost-normal between them. They weren't, and it would only be setting herself up for disappointment to think that they might be.

"You're right, though. I should've said something, I know..." Even if the atmosphere seemed to have lightened a little to her and she was getting more and more used to apologies, she still wasn't very good at saying these sorts of things. A Carey Never Apologizes. A Carey Never Admits Being In The Wrong. A Carey Never Shows Weakness. A Carey Nev - She shook her head again, forcing out the Careyisms as she had forced out the internal argument earlier, and put her elbows on her knees and face in her hands. "I'm pathetically bad at honest and open communication with pretty much everyone," she said into her fingers. "Actually, I'm pathetically bad at any level of interaction beyond that seen at a pureblood party with pretty much everyone. The point is that you don't have to feel obliged to keep putting up with me." She felt as if she were forgetting to say something, but Merlin only knew what it was. \n\n

0 Gwen Sure, since that's about the extent of my French. 63 Gwen 0 5

Connor

January 16, 2006 12:21 PM

Spanish is cooler, anyway. by Connor

The tension finally broke when Gwen laughed, but she stopped almost immediately and began apologizing. "Hey, it's cool," he said, deciding to trust the feeling he had that reassurance was the right road to take for the moment. "I get it. Well, I don't get why all these people are so weird, but I get why you're laughing." He wasn't going to say it, but he liked seeing her laugh. She seemed more real when she was laughing.

Connor couldn't help but think of Dr. Phil when Gwen confessed that she had issues with open communication. He wasn't a psychologist and had no desire to be one. Most of them were annoying, overpaid weirdos who needed therapy as much as the people who came to them. All he really wanted at the moment was for Gwen to start acting normally again and for this whole mess to work itself out. "I'm not in a position to be holding not being able to talk about stuff against anybody," he said, trying to insert a humorous edge to his voice. He thought it came off all right. "It's not putting up with you, though. I like you...I mean, like a friend...see what I mean about not being able to talk?" He managed to grin, hoping it would tip her off to stop acting all serious and out of his league. \n\n

0 Connor Spanish is cooler, anyway. 68 Connor 0 5

Gwen

January 18, 2006 9:13 PM

Probably more common in these parts, too. by Gwen

I like you...I mean, like a friend...see what I mean about not being able to talk?

It was a long way from the most eloquent speech Gwen had ever heard in her life and briefer than most, but it got the point across and had what, though she wasn't aware of it, was the intended effect. She finally managed a genuine, if very small, smile. Unfortunately, she also almost immediately felt the stinging at the corners of her eyes that meant she was about to break down into tears. She mustered up all the willpower she had available to her to push it back. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was start crying like an idiot. "Point taken," she said, only a little thickly, hopefully not enough for anyone besides herself to notice.

Absent-mindedly, Gwen reached up to smooth her hair. She had never reached the point of letting herself go - after all, it would never to give anyone the impression she was unhappy in her circumstances, even if she was - but she had noticed a certain lack of...immaculity. Part of her bangs had come loose from the half-hearted bun she had thrown her hair into and was falling into her eyes. She wound the stray hairs around her fingers, tugging slightly. It was hard to determine what she ought to be feeling. There was no denying that keeping up this particular friendship was risky at best, but there was an unmistakable and very seductive feeling of having a rock balanced on her upper back and lower neck lightened by about twenty pounds. She wasn't completely alone, not yet.

Of course it wouldn't last forever. She'd eventually do something or say something to royally tick Connor off, and then the whole thing would go straight down the well like it had with everyone else. It might be better in the long run to just cut her losses now...but she couldn't do it. She knew she wouldn't get more than three words out before she changed her mind. She would hardly be the first Carey to live for the moment and deal with the fallout when it came. It could work. For a little while, anyway.

"Thanks," she said, putting a real effort into producing another smile. It seemed that the easier apologizing got, the harder smiling got. "Thanks a lot." She didn't say what for. After all that had been said previously, it didn't really seem necessary anymore. \n\n

0 Gwen Probably more common in these parts, too. 63 Gwen 0 5