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Yeah. No comment.
Yesterday's wallpaper. http://www.deviantart.com/view/23435957/ It kind of made me think of Sophia. Which is what I was going for, since this is from Sophia's perspective.
For the record, Sophia looks nothing like that, though. If anything, this might be a better concept for a young Altessa.
Today's wallpaper is http://digitalblasphemy.com/dbgallery/1/whitemagic.shtml Mostly just because.
Family isn't about whose blood you have. It's about who you care about.
~ Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Ike's Wee Wee, 1998
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part Eight
Rating: PG-13 for Sophia swearing. (Sophia! Of all people. Greg will probably be appalled. Or at least mildly surprised.)
Word count: 1534
Total word count so far: 19416
Author's notes that most likely no one will probably read: I like Van and Greg a little better now, but I'm working on liking Sophia. She seems way too passive. Too sheltered. Bleh.
Sophia had been working on being jealous of Greg. Before he’d arrived, Uncle Van had just been hers (brief interludes with Altessa aside). And, like any only child, she’d resented the sudden monopolization of his time by someone else. Particularly someone who had put them both through three months of hell for saving his life. (Not that she really blamed him for that one. If she’d woken up enslaved by the Nephilim-born, her reaction probably would have been similar.)
The annoying thing was that Greg made it really hard for her to resent him for anything. Yes, he spent a lot of time with Uncle Van, but he also faithfully reported back to Sophia about whatever dumb-ass stunt her stupid uncle was going to pull this time. And if she got the story after they’d both gone out and done something stupid, at least she knew that Uncle Van had had someone watching his back. Plus, Greg always gave her more of the story than Uncle Van ever did. Uncle Van tended to try to shelter her from things. Greg seemed to think that she had a right to know. He didn’t sugar coat things. Which may have been due to his complete and utter lack of tact more than anything else, but the point that he didn’t sugar coat things remained.
But as hard as Greg made it to resent him, he made it just as easy to be absolutely furious with him.
Uncle Van had been in the hospice for the past three days, and Greg had been AWOL for the same amount of time. Sophia figured she’d transcended furious and was working on the God-raining-fireballs-on-stupid-idiots kind of mad.
So she wasn’t notably pleased when Greg showed up outside Uncle Van’s hospital room, just as she was leaving because visiting hours were over.
Her uncle’s ward was covered in grime. He reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat, and it didn’t look like he’d washed much more than his hands in the past three days.
Greg stopped short. “Uh…” he said. He smiled sheepishly, and lifted a hand to scratch his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise, Soph. But I think I fixed it.” He looked so very earnest that she wanted to hit him. “I’ll do better next time.”
Oh, that did it. “You idiot!” she yelled. Sophia grabbed a handful of Greg’s grimy clothing and threw him over her hip in one fluid motion.
“Ow,” said Greg, currently sprawled on the cold hospice floor. “I think I deserved that.”
“You stupid asshole! Of course you deserved it!” she yelled. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?”
The stupid asshole blinked, dark lashes dipping downwards to cover his eerie gold eyes. “You were worried?”
“OF COURSE I WAS WORRIED! YOU DISAPPEARED FOR THREE WHOLE DAYS AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE!”
He was so fucking stupid sometimes. If she’d had something to throw at him, Sophia would have pegged him in his big stupid head already.
Sophia took a deep breath and forced her voice down to a more appropriate volume. “You were just gone, Greg. I had to hear about what happened from Altessa. I didn’t know if you’d shot him or if someone else had. Do you have any idea what it was like to sit and wait for Uncle Van to wake up after the surgery?”
“I-”
“He asked for you, too,” she continued. “He wanted to know where you were, and if you were alright. Only I couldn’t tell him, because you weren’t there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said desperately. “I just - it was my fault, and I had to fix it.”
*If you’re both going to indulge in teenage angst moments, could you at least do it in here where fewer people can hear you?*
Sophia started. She’d been so caught up in yelling at Greg that she’d forgotten Uncle Van was supposed to be resting. “You are such a moron sometimes,” she informed Greg crisply, ignoring his look of surprise.
Uncle Van looked annoyingly amused as both of them walked into his room. He looked unsurprised to see his ward all covered in dirt, too, which made Sophia wonder what he’d known that she hadn’t.
“You’re alright,” Greg said, sounding so relieved that Sophia did a double-take. This was the angry young man who’d screamed himself hoarse threatening to kill her uncle? The same person who’d professed hatred for his keeper every chance he got?
Some days she thought Greg was on to something when he muttered about Stockholm Syndrome. The complete behavioral 180 was just weird, some days.
“Of course I am,” Uncle Van said. “Dr. Richards is perfectly capable of removing a few bullets in non-lethal places.”
Greg seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say. He fidgeted, and finally lapsed into what Sophia privately labeled lame but masculine responses. “…That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Uncle Van seemed like he was okay with leaving it at that.
God, they were both hopeless. “That’s it?” Sophia demanded. “That’s all you’re going to say?’
They exchanged insufferably male glances and then looked back at her.
“Um..” said Greg.
“Yes?” said Uncle Van, although it sounded more like a question to Sophia.
“No ‘where were you’?”
“Not right now,” her stupid jackass of an uncle said mildly. “Grigori looks kind of tired. And he really needs a shower.”
“Eh heh…” said Greg. “Yeah, I should probably do that. The nurses were giving me death-ray looks when I came in earlier. I don’t think I’m clean enough for a hospital.”
“You’re barely clean enough to come back to the apartment,” Sophia said tartly. “I’ve half a mind to make you wash off in the garage with a hose.”
“Hey,” Greg protested. “The hose?”
“Come on, you. Visiting hours are over, anyway.” Sophia manhandled her smelly, stupid asshole of a roommate over to the doorway.
*Go easy on him, Soph,* Uncle Van said quietly. *He’s had a rough couple of days.*
“I’m not going to yell,” Sophia assured him. “I’m just going to make him clean, so the apartment looks nice when you get home tomorrow.”
“Easy, Sophia.”
“He can do the dishes?”
“Just try not to throw them at his head.”
“I make no promises.” She’d throw things at his head if he deserved it. Sophia leaned over to kiss Uncle Van’s cheek. “We’ll see you when you tomorrow.”
“Be good,” her uncle said. “Both of you.”
Sophia gave him a distinctively unamused look. “We’ll see,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, buster,” she informed Greg. “After you shower.”
“If I drown myself in the shower, will you leave me alone?” Greg asked as they headed out the door.
Sophia considered that. There was no way in hell that he was getting off that easily. “No, probably not.”
“Great,” said Greg. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched as they walked, which made him seem shorter and less threatening than he was. “Can I plea bargain?” He removed a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and shook one out.
“What have you got to plea bargain? And since when do you smoke?”
“I’ll pick you flowers?” Greg suggested, lighting up. “It’s an old habit. Just couldn’t get any cigarettes with you people around.”
“That’s because it’s disgusting.” Sophia reached for the cigarette and Greg swatted her hand away.
“I like my disgusting habits.”
“Second-hand smoke kills, you know.”
“So I won’t smoke in the apartment. I’ll lean out a window, or something. Jeez, Soph. Cut a guy some slack. It’s not like I’m going out killing things, or anything like that.”
“No, you’re just committing passive suicide.”
Greg laughed. “Are you going to tell me there are cooler ways to die, next?”
She smacked him. “Idiot. I’m not going to tell you anything if you’re not going to listen.”
“Ow,” whined Greg. “Mean Sophia.”
“Right,” Sophia grumbled. “Mean, terrible Sophia who won’t let you kill yourself stupidly.”
“Aw, don’t worry about that,” Greg said. “I’m not going to die stupidly.”
“Hah!”
“No, really. I’m Nephilim-born, Soph. We always come to bad ends.”
Sophia stopped and stared at him. It took Greg a moment to realize she had. He stopped a few feet away and stared at her quizzically. “What?”
It was weird, hearing Greg talk about himself as being Nephilim-born. Sophia hadn’t ever thought of him like that, despite the marks he bore. Greg may have looked Nephilim-born, with his frighteningly exotic eyes and scarred hands, but he acted Natsar. He wouldn’t have saved her otherwise. Nor would he have refused her offer of sex, or felt bad about Unclve Van getting hurt in the Combat Challenges, much less been so relieved to discover Uncle Van would be fine after getting shot. Those weren’t Nephilim-born actions.
Greg, idiot and junior-martyr-in-training that he was (honestly, he had to have learned that from Uncle Van. Maybe it was a guy thing) wouldn’t see things that way, though. He’d only see how people treated him because of how he looked and adjust his self-image accordingly.
“You are such a fucking moron sometimes,” she said crossly. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Yesterday's wallpaper. http://www.deviantart.com/view/23435957/ It kind of made me think of Sophia. Which is what I was going for, since this is from Sophia's perspective.
For the record, Sophia looks nothing like that, though. If anything, this might be a better concept for a young Altessa.
Today's wallpaper is http://digitalblasphemy.com/dbgallery/1/whitemagic.shtml Mostly just because.
Family isn't about whose blood you have. It's about who you care about.
~ Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Ike's Wee Wee, 1998
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part Eight
Rating: PG-13 for Sophia swearing. (Sophia! Of all people. Greg will probably be appalled. Or at least mildly surprised.)
Word count: 1534
Total word count so far: 19416
Author's notes that most likely no one will probably read: I like Van and Greg a little better now, but I'm working on liking Sophia. She seems way too passive. Too sheltered. Bleh.
Sophia had been working on being jealous of Greg. Before he’d arrived, Uncle Van had just been hers (brief interludes with Altessa aside). And, like any only child, she’d resented the sudden monopolization of his time by someone else. Particularly someone who had put them both through three months of hell for saving his life. (Not that she really blamed him for that one. If she’d woken up enslaved by the Nephilim-born, her reaction probably would have been similar.)
The annoying thing was that Greg made it really hard for her to resent him for anything. Yes, he spent a lot of time with Uncle Van, but he also faithfully reported back to Sophia about whatever dumb-ass stunt her stupid uncle was going to pull this time. And if she got the story after they’d both gone out and done something stupid, at least she knew that Uncle Van had had someone watching his back. Plus, Greg always gave her more of the story than Uncle Van ever did. Uncle Van tended to try to shelter her from things. Greg seemed to think that she had a right to know. He didn’t sugar coat things. Which may have been due to his complete and utter lack of tact more than anything else, but the point that he didn’t sugar coat things remained.
But as hard as Greg made it to resent him, he made it just as easy to be absolutely furious with him.
Uncle Van had been in the hospice for the past three days, and Greg had been AWOL for the same amount of time. Sophia figured she’d transcended furious and was working on the God-raining-fireballs-on-stupid-idiots kind of mad.
So she wasn’t notably pleased when Greg showed up outside Uncle Van’s hospital room, just as she was leaving because visiting hours were over.
Her uncle’s ward was covered in grime. He reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat, and it didn’t look like he’d washed much more than his hands in the past three days.
Greg stopped short. “Uh…” he said. He smiled sheepishly, and lifted a hand to scratch his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise, Soph. But I think I fixed it.” He looked so very earnest that she wanted to hit him. “I’ll do better next time.”
Oh, that did it. “You idiot!” she yelled. Sophia grabbed a handful of Greg’s grimy clothing and threw him over her hip in one fluid motion.
“Ow,” said Greg, currently sprawled on the cold hospice floor. “I think I deserved that.”
“You stupid asshole! Of course you deserved it!” she yelled. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?”
The stupid asshole blinked, dark lashes dipping downwards to cover his eerie gold eyes. “You were worried?”
“OF COURSE I WAS WORRIED! YOU DISAPPEARED FOR THREE WHOLE DAYS AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE!”
He was so fucking stupid sometimes. If she’d had something to throw at him, Sophia would have pegged him in his big stupid head already.
Sophia took a deep breath and forced her voice down to a more appropriate volume. “You were just gone, Greg. I had to hear about what happened from Altessa. I didn’t know if you’d shot him or if someone else had. Do you have any idea what it was like to sit and wait for Uncle Van to wake up after the surgery?”
“I-”
“He asked for you, too,” she continued. “He wanted to know where you were, and if you were alright. Only I couldn’t tell him, because you weren’t there.”
“I’m sorry,” he said desperately. “I just - it was my fault, and I had to fix it.”
*If you’re both going to indulge in teenage angst moments, could you at least do it in here where fewer people can hear you?*
Sophia started. She’d been so caught up in yelling at Greg that she’d forgotten Uncle Van was supposed to be resting. “You are such a moron sometimes,” she informed Greg crisply, ignoring his look of surprise.
Uncle Van looked annoyingly amused as both of them walked into his room. He looked unsurprised to see his ward all covered in dirt, too, which made Sophia wonder what he’d known that she hadn’t.
“You’re alright,” Greg said, sounding so relieved that Sophia did a double-take. This was the angry young man who’d screamed himself hoarse threatening to kill her uncle? The same person who’d professed hatred for his keeper every chance he got?
Some days she thought Greg was on to something when he muttered about Stockholm Syndrome. The complete behavioral 180 was just weird, some days.
“Of course I am,” Uncle Van said. “Dr. Richards is perfectly capable of removing a few bullets in non-lethal places.”
Greg seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say. He fidgeted, and finally lapsed into what Sophia privately labeled lame but masculine responses. “…That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Uncle Van seemed like he was okay with leaving it at that.
God, they were both hopeless. “That’s it?” Sophia demanded. “That’s all you’re going to say?’
They exchanged insufferably male glances and then looked back at her.
“Um..” said Greg.
“Yes?” said Uncle Van, although it sounded more like a question to Sophia.
“No ‘where were you’?”
“Not right now,” her stupid jackass of an uncle said mildly. “Grigori looks kind of tired. And he really needs a shower.”
“Eh heh…” said Greg. “Yeah, I should probably do that. The nurses were giving me death-ray looks when I came in earlier. I don’t think I’m clean enough for a hospital.”
“You’re barely clean enough to come back to the apartment,” Sophia said tartly. “I’ve half a mind to make you wash off in the garage with a hose.”
“Hey,” Greg protested. “The hose?”
“Come on, you. Visiting hours are over, anyway.” Sophia manhandled her smelly, stupid asshole of a roommate over to the doorway.
*Go easy on him, Soph,* Uncle Van said quietly. *He’s had a rough couple of days.*
“I’m not going to yell,” Sophia assured him. “I’m just going to make him clean, so the apartment looks nice when you get home tomorrow.”
“Easy, Sophia.”
“He can do the dishes?”
“Just try not to throw them at his head.”
“I make no promises.” She’d throw things at his head if he deserved it. Sophia leaned over to kiss Uncle Van’s cheek. “We’ll see you when you tomorrow.”
“Be good,” her uncle said. “Both of you.”
Sophia gave him a distinctively unamused look. “We’ll see,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, buster,” she informed Greg. “After you shower.”
“If I drown myself in the shower, will you leave me alone?” Greg asked as they headed out the door.
Sophia considered that. There was no way in hell that he was getting off that easily. “No, probably not.”
“Great,” said Greg. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched as they walked, which made him seem shorter and less threatening than he was. “Can I plea bargain?” He removed a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and shook one out.
“What have you got to plea bargain? And since when do you smoke?”
“I’ll pick you flowers?” Greg suggested, lighting up. “It’s an old habit. Just couldn’t get any cigarettes with you people around.”
“That’s because it’s disgusting.” Sophia reached for the cigarette and Greg swatted her hand away.
“I like my disgusting habits.”
“Second-hand smoke kills, you know.”
“So I won’t smoke in the apartment. I’ll lean out a window, or something. Jeez, Soph. Cut a guy some slack. It’s not like I’m going out killing things, or anything like that.”
“No, you’re just committing passive suicide.”
Greg laughed. “Are you going to tell me there are cooler ways to die, next?”
She smacked him. “Idiot. I’m not going to tell you anything if you’re not going to listen.”
“Ow,” whined Greg. “Mean Sophia.”
“Right,” Sophia grumbled. “Mean, terrible Sophia who won’t let you kill yourself stupidly.”
“Aw, don’t worry about that,” Greg said. “I’m not going to die stupidly.”
“Hah!”
“No, really. I’m Nephilim-born, Soph. We always come to bad ends.”
Sophia stopped and stared at him. It took Greg a moment to realize she had. He stopped a few feet away and stared at her quizzically. “What?”
It was weird, hearing Greg talk about himself as being Nephilim-born. Sophia hadn’t ever thought of him like that, despite the marks he bore. Greg may have looked Nephilim-born, with his frighteningly exotic eyes and scarred hands, but he acted Natsar. He wouldn’t have saved her otherwise. Nor would he have refused her offer of sex, or felt bad about Unclve Van getting hurt in the Combat Challenges, much less been so relieved to discover Uncle Van would be fine after getting shot. Those weren’t Nephilim-born actions.
Greg, idiot and junior-martyr-in-training that he was (honestly, he had to have learned that from Uncle Van. Maybe it was a guy thing) wouldn’t see things that way, though. He’d only see how people treated him because of how he looked and adjust his self-image accordingly.
“You are such a fucking moron sometimes,” she said crossly. “Come on. Let’s go home.”