go, go, champion (open)

[sideromelane]

Who: sideromelane and YOU
What: Being around so he can meet Heine, but I've got no problems if other people want to swing by too.
Where: Bowen's place of solace: the basketball court.
When: Probably in the eveningish, he doesn't like playing basketball with his stupid mask on but I am too lazy for teneka brain spew.
Warnings: Bowen's bad language. He's a bit

Comments

effy~ brosephina~

[sideromelane]

He doesn't even really know Effy's there, spends a long moment in silence, trying to stretch the tension out of his shoulders, but he can feel it, anger strung all up and down his back. He's had a shining example of anger to watch all his life, a woman who wouldn't let anyone help or comfort her and just curled in around her wounds until they festered. She didn't let anyone near her, not even the children she'd helped to raise, and she hurt anyone who got too close. Bowen knew all about it, she'd said things to him that he was never going to forgive, and he remembered them every time he had to come out and say good morning to her.

He'd watched, his entire damn life, his mother waste her time building that woman up again after every collapse. But he and Asha never wanted to be like that, and they kept each other from it.

But Asha's not here. And if he reminds himself of that one more time he's going to lose it. So anger it is, an ugly disguise for pain, but he'll wear it. He turns to collect his ball when he sees her, stopping with a frown.

All she gets is a curt, "Hey." Before he keeps going in the direction he'd chucked the stupid thing.

c:

[effier]

Effy isn't insulted. She hasn't been around him when he was angry, ever, so she has to say that this is an improvement compared to his laid-back and cocky attitude that she's gotten used to. She doesn't move towards or away from him, letting him have his space, but then again ... that's what people had done to her. She'd always walk off hoping for someone to follow, or someone to care. May as well try a new approach.

Slowly, she walks closer to him, testing the waters. She stops a few feet away, looking him over, watching his body language for any kind of clue for what was wrong besides ... raw emotion.

"You're upset." Stating the obvious, but it's one of the ways she knows how to get into a conversation. If it didn't work, she'd try one more time before leaving the issue alone.

[sideromelane]

"Nope." He doesn't care how obvious it is, if he keeps pushing, the feeling will eventually fuck off into the tiny little box he wants to shove it in and he'll kick it into the back of his mind and be done with it. "I'm just dandy."

He bends down to retrieve his ball from the bushes, dribbling it idly. The rhythmic pace of it is too easy to get used to though, it's not much of a distraction.

She's gotten closer since he'd last glanced at her and he pauses awkwardly to skirt around her. He's at least not walking off, although going right back to his basketball hoop isn't exactly friendly.

It's not like he's going to make any of the shots he puts up.

[effier]

"Bowen," Her voice is more serious now, but it's the last attempt she's going to make at trying to get him to talk to her about what's bothering him. If he doesn't want to talk about it, she's going to respect that. If he starts giving her attitude because of what's bothering him, though, she'll give it right back.

She's not offended by the way he moves around her, distance is different when people are upset, her of all people would understand.

[sideromelane]

He glances at her with a dark expression. He isn't as bad as step-mother, he doesn't want to run her off so hard she'll never come back, but he also doesn't think it would be difficult. That's the problem, really, with taking the easy way out. It only feels good at the time.

"What, Effy?" He stops dribbling, brings the ball to rest at his hip. "I'm pretty sure heart to hearts with wankers aren't on the top of your daily priority list, so just accept the happy as a clam answer and spare me."

[effier]

And so it starts. Anger channeling from him to her, like a virus on a rampage. It wasn't that easy to get rid of Effy, let alone have the last word in an argument with her. As long as she wasn't the one with the problem, she could handle his hostility towards emotions.

"If I didn't care, I wouldn't have asked." Space wasn't something she was worried about now, so she steps closer to him, hoping that he would step forward as well to intimidate her instead of stepping back to recoil away from her. She'd rather move forwards than backwards, so she'll test him, just this once, because seeing this side to him was new.

[sideromelane]

"So get on with not caring." No one had asked her to, it was definitely a waste of her time considering how very aware he was of the exact cause of his upset, and how there was nothing to be done to fix it.

He's already taller than her, isn't intimidated by her certainly, but he doesn't try to intimidate anyone. It certainly makes him uncomfortable considering doing it to women, but he would discover, if the situation arose, that he would not enjoy trying to belittle another man either. He's more likely to back down, it's Asha who will claw her way to the end of a fight. He's there to pull her back when it's not worth it. She's there to push him forward when it is.

[effier]

She wasn't going to just leave him like this -- even if he didn't want to talk about it she couldn't, and she wouldn't give into his hostility and just leave him to be upset about whatever it was he was upset about. The thing is, she didn't have a clue as to what was bothering him and that made it worse for her. Usually she knew at least a few things about her friends, but what did she know about Bowen? Almost nothing, he barely opened up about his home-life, if at all.

"No," Besides, she was stubborn, almost as stubborn as her brother. It would take a lot to get her to back off completely.

[sideromelane]

"Hey, now there's a fuckin' sterling argument right there."

Goddamn he doesn't want to be doing this right now. He hates letting it under his skin, and he hates that the back of his neck gets more and more tense the more she reacts. He doesn't want her angry, doesn't want her hurt, just wants... Yeah, well, he's been over that part.

[effier]

Effy doesn't respond. She's silent, looking up at the sky for a few small moments before shrugging and muttering a small 'whatever'. She's not going to let this get to her because it's not her fault at all, it's him with the problem and she wants to at least try to help him understand that no, she's not going anywhere and yes, she does care, so he'd better learn to deal with it.

Slowly, she moves closer to him so she's less than a foot away, looking up at him and into his eyes, searching for something, she just doesn't know what yet.

[sideromelane]

That shuts him up at least, and while he doesn't exactly wince, he is the first to back down looking away with a frown. He isn't as bad as his mother, who turned her head to hide an old injury when people looked at her too close, but it's also too goddamn obvious that he's got glitter under his skin when you looked into his bright green eyes. Back home, he's been asked about it too many times and his brother Christopher spent all of his school years known as 'the spooky kid,' generally feared and avoided because Chris could see right through you, knew your every thought.

Bowen just knows she's being stubborn and that she cares and that it makes him a dick to tell her she shouldn't. But she shouldn't.

"I don't want to talk about it, Effy."

[effier]

"I'm not asking you to talk about it."

And she wasn't; that was his choice, not hers. It was the fact that he was avoiding eye contact that was bothering her. Was he nervous? She could only assume, which was the last thing she had wanted to do. If this was someone she knew better, she would offer to go and have a drink, to completely lose whatever it was that was bothering them, but she didn't think that was what he needed. He didn't fool her.

If he really, really wanted her to go, she'd leave.

[sideromelane]

They'd been there done that with the drinking. What he wants is his sister, to at least play basketball with until he was too tired to be angry anymore and then they'd go home and fall asleep on the couch holding hands like five year olds.

He drops his ball with a shrug, going to sit on the battered old picnic table at the edge of the court.

He doesn't want to talk. Doesn't want to tell her to fuck off, so he just sits down and shuts up and leaves it at that.

[effier]

Effy sighs. She honestly wished she knew what he missed, who he wanted, so she could offer more sympathy than she already had. She walks over to the picnic table, sitting across from him and keeping quiet momentarily before she finally speaks up.

"Want me to go?" It took her longer than expected to actually say the four words; the tension was almost unbearable.

[sideromelane]

His sister's name is carved into the surface of the picnic table, his is somewhere too amongst all the childish graffiti. He curls an arm over the surface of it and rests his head there quietly.

"No."

She's not Asha. He can finish Asha's sentences, he knows what she's thinking he can tell what she's feeling. She's his other half and it's almost like being by himself except less lonely when she's around. But Effy's at least a presence, even if she's just a smudge of sensation with the way his glitter is. Better than nothing.

[effier]

Effy swallows, but it's not out of nerves or fear, it's because of the emotions she's feeling. Slowly, she reaches out her hand and runs her fingers through Bowen's hair in a gesture that's meant to be comforting. She'd never really gotten the hang of comforting someone, but she did try her best when she had to. The last time she'd done something like this is when Katie was tricking her into thinking she was actually upset about her and Freddie and Effy had taken her into her arms to try and reassure her that she'd never do anything like that, only to have been pushed away and almost strangled to death.

"It'll be okay, somehow." She believed it. Someday, somehow, everything would be back to normal, just not today.