Comments | dead_hooker_2: Echolls Family Christmas 2006, Part II

dead_hooker_2

Echolls Family Christmas 2006, Part II

Jan 03, 2007 23:08

OK, so it wasn't exactly a Christmas out of the movies. But it went surprisingly well, given that most Christmases for the Echolls siblings have been one step removed from hellish ( Read more... )

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dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 04:26:58 UTC

"You don't have to do that on Christmas," Chad says, seriously (and in a loud whisper - you don't wake up Grangran, after all.)

"Leave it for the morning after."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 04:35:49 UTC

"I don't mind," she says, but she settles in next to him rather than getting back up.

"And why are we whispering? It sounds like she'd sleep through a earthquake, Chad."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 04:46:47 UTC

Satisfied, he settles his arm around her comfortably.

"Well - it's only polite," he says. Still whispering, though he sounds a little embarrassed about it.

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 04:50:03 UTC

"Maybe," she says.

Beat.

"Did you have a good Christmas?"

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:02:37 UTC

"Better now I'm here with you."

. . . come on, what other answer could he give?

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:07:45 UTC

She swats at his shoulder.

"Be serious for a minute. This is important. My family doesn't have a great record where Christmas is concerned, and . . . I don't know, I guess I thought that might change this year. And then I incinerated a turkey and fought with Logan and it still went better than I had any right to expect. But please tell me someone here had a good Christmas."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:12:58 UTC

Chad listens, brow furrowed in an expression of serious concern . . . and, when she's done, presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"I was being serious."

Pause.

"You want to talk about it?"

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:18:27 UTC

"No one almost died, so actually it's a pretty good Christmas by our standards. I don't know what there is to say. Give me 24 hours, and I'll find the humor in it, Chinese food and all.

"I'm sorry Logan's such a brat when you're around. I think he was trying tonight, even if it was hard to tell.

"Anyway," she says, managing a smile for him, "Merry Christmas."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:26:46 UTC

"Logan's going through a difficult time," Chad says, somberly. "I don't take any of it personally, you know that."

Which is a shame, because Logan certainly means at least a little of it personally.

"Guess the only thing to do is make sure next Christmas is better - right?"

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:31:30 UTC

"It would help," says Trina, gently, "if you didn't take that attitude. Logan's been psychoanalyzed by a lot of people better trained in the job than you or me, and he doesn't take it well. And he's been going through a difficult time for the last 18 years."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:43:07 UTC

"I'm not trying to psychoanalyze him," Chad protests - a little injured by this accusation.

"I just don't think that reacting back with anger is going to help."

It's not so much psychoanalyzation as touchy-feely Dr. Spockian sensibilities, if that helps.

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:48:27 UTC

"Okay," says Trina, "Okay. I'm really not trying to fight with you, Chad, I'm just trying to have something that even vaguely resembles a normal relationship with my brother. And part of that is that my brother and my . . . you getting along. So, for my sake, would you try not to patronize him? And I know that's not what you're meaning to do, but that's how he takes it."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:52:41 UTC

Chad shifts, a little, on the couch.

"What would you rather I did - shouted at him? I mean, I'm sorry he takes trying to be nice as patronization, but . . . what is the other option we're discussing here?"

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 05:55:45 UTC

"God, I don't know," she says. "Look, I know he's impossible, but he's the only brother I've--well, no, he's not, is he?

"Just forget I said anything, okay? I'm sorry. Just forget it."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 06:14:08 UTC

"No - no, it's okay," Chad says, soothingly.

"I mean, if there's an issue here, we should talk it through - God knows I don't want to piss the kid off more."

dead_hooker_2 January 4 2007, 06:20:31 UTC

"The issue," she says, forgetting to keep her voice down, "is that when he was ten, and I was eighteen, I left him alone with those people. And the person I was dating when I did that was you. And you've always come at him like he's some misunderstood kid and you know what he's going through, and you don't, Chad. You couldn't, because we don't tell people about it."

She stops, lowers her voice back to just above a whisper. "The short version is, you cannot understand what our childhoods were like. I don't understand them, and I lived though them."

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