Max: the little Jedi that could (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} toschestation) wrote,@ 2010-11-09 23:58:00 |
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parental warning for TL;DR
Who: Hiram and Evie. Tiny bit of Connley. Quite a bit of talk about Shaundra.
What: Where there's a Smith in trouble, there's a MacMillan to lean on.
When: 2028, making Evie twenty-three and Hiram twenty-four. Overlap of Connley/Hiram marriage-verse and Eve/Shaundra panty-verse. The universe in which Eve and Shaundra are a pairing will henceforth be known as panty-verse. So it has been written, so it shall be done.
Prompt: Evie and Hiram being Hiramy and Evie-y.
Prompted by:indigo_n_orange. Who I hate (not that I was given a choice in the matter).
It should be noted that I'm splitting this prompt in two. One takes place seven years in the future, one will take place in the past. Basically, I'm just greedy and want more of the SmicMillans.
Evelyn refused to classify the relationship between herself and Hiram. He wasn’t her friend. He was closer to her than her friends. He wasn’t her brother either, but maybe that was closer to the truth. When people asked, sometimes she said he was her cousin. But that was merely because it was fewer syllables and easier to understand than “my dad’s best friend’s son.”
He was just Hiram, and he was hers.
She wasn’t really supposed to have the key to his flat, but these things had a way of coming into her possession. She let herself in. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t have opened the door to her, but going in on her own felt right. Hiram and Connley were huddled on the sofa reading. It seemed like the two of them were always reading. It made her feel a little better that other people spent their free time this way... though they were reading novels, and she usually favoured dry (but very informative!) texts. It was still the same basic principle.
She knocked on the already open door to assert her presence. They looked up in one motion. Connley raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Hiram looked completely unsurprised. Then again, there were few things to be surprised by at this point. As far as Hiram was concerned, there wasn’t much he didn’t know. He sighed, but didn’t show any signs that he was going to make her leave.
“Even Carolyn knows how to knock now. I kind of hoped you’d follow her example.”
She shrugged, “I knocked. After I opened the door.” She pulled a bottle of something amber out of her messenger bag and held it out in Connley’s general direction. “I’ll trade you this for Hiram.” It was easier to bribe Connley with alcohol than to look Hiram in the face and say ‘I need you.’ She was more comfortable with him than she was with anyone else, but that still wasn’t saying a lot.
Connley looked at Hiram to gauge his reaction and they did a thing. That thing couples do where they talk without talking. It usually drove Evelyn well mad (can’t you just converse like normal people?), but she could tell that she was about to get her way, so she didn’t mind. Not so much, anyway. “Seriously. Take it. I need time with your husband.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, fine. I needed a fag anyway. Have a nice chat.” Eve passed him the bottle as he left. “Ah. Cheers.” He always seemed vaguely confused by Hiram and Evelyn’s dynamic, but knew better than to say anything.
She didn’t sit. She just hovered awkwardly in the space between the sofa and the door. “I think I need your advice.”
He sighed. Once again, he found himself unsurprised. “Okay. Sit down though. And next time maybe call first? Or ring the bell?”
“Yeah, okay.” She agreed in a way that made it clear that she wasn’t going to change her method of coming and going. Him asking and her agreeing was just a formality, but neither ever took it very seriously. But at least she sat. She didn’t disregard all of his request.
“So let me guess. Is it work?” She made it clear it wasn’t. “It’s Shaundra, then.”
He was right. Of course. It was always her. “Kind of. Shaundra and I aren’t really anything. You can’t have a problem with nothing.” This was a lie. Nothing was a huge problem. “But. Still. I guess it is her I need advice on.” She rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands. “I want to know how you do it.”
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Evie.” It wasn’t totally clear whether the petname was tacked on as a sign of affection or of exasperation. Maybe both.
“You. You and him.” She nodded at the door Connley had just exited through. “Everything. You liked girls, but you love him. I liked boys, but now there’s her. I want to know how you’re still sane.” If he had wanted to answer this, he was out of luck. She continued onto her next point with just a tinge of desperation in her voice. “I just don’t know what my life is anymore. And apart from being a bird, she drives me completely fucking crazy. I just can’t think at all when she’s around.”
“You don’t mean that. You can think. And you do it too much. So what if she’s a girl. It seems like the real problem you have with her is that she’s never around for long. But you’re happy when she’s there, right?” Evelyn agreed noncommittally. “Maybe if you just ask her to stick around things will get better.”
“But that’s the best thing about her. She’s great and she’s wonderful and I love her, but then she leaves. Real relationships never work out. Real love never works out. Everything always ends up fucked.”
“The happily married person in this conversation is going to let that one slide.” He sighed. There was always a lot of sighing when Evie was around. “Besides. I don’t know why you bother judging relationships when you won’t even let yourself have them. You aren’t your mum, you know. You aren’t your dad either, for that matter. It’s not set in stone that you have to mess things up.”
Yes it was. Evelyn knew this. Hiram probably knew this. But it didn’t matter. It was a nice enough thing to say, even if it was just words.
“I feel like you’re ignoring the fact that it’s already messed. Apart from the fact that our loving each other doesn’t translate to liking each other, there’s also the whole issue of whether or not we could actually cohabitate. We’re not like you and Connley. You guys are wired the same way. You were practically born living together.”
“Connley and I absolutely aren’t wired the same way.” This seemed obvious to him, but it wasn’t really how it looked to her. “You’re just going to have to go on instinct with this one. You know I like her, so my advice isn’t really objective. You like her too, even if you say you don’t. But I’m not going to dictate your life for you.”
Evelyn looked at her feet. It was clear that life-dictation was what she wanted. She didn’t want advice. She wanted the answer.
In spite of everything; the ambition, the seriousness, the few odd strands of grey in her hair... she was still just a kid. That was the thing about Evie. Hiram got older and more mature and moved up in the world, as people do. Evie had surely moved up in the world (it was already obvious that it was only a matter of time before she was put a position of power), but she never stopped being baby Evie. Sometimes she was responsible and commanding (formidable, even), but sometimes (like now) she was just a child in grown-up clothes.
“Call me crazy, but I don’t feel like this is helping. What do you want me to do?”
Evelyn was good at keeping up appearances. Faking came naturally. Lying was second nature. Secrets were everywhere. But something about this situation broke something inside of her. There was no point in pretending to be okay. None at all.
She leaned onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her throat began to hurt, but she didn’t cry.
“I want you to just be here.”
She had never said anything more true. They sat like that, saying nothing, for quite a while. Connley came back in to find Hiram back in his book, Evie asleep with her head in his lap. Hiram looked up from his book, "I'll be to bed in a while." He spoke softly, careful not to wake his slumbering charge. "I need to stay for a bit longer."
And so he stayed. She was just a kid, and she was his.
Who: Hiram and Evie. Tiny bit of Connley. Quite a bit of talk about Shaundra.
What: Where there's a Smith in trouble, there's a MacMillan to lean on.
When: 2028, making Evie twenty-three and Hiram twenty-four. Overlap of Connley/Hiram marriage-verse and Eve/Shaundra panty-verse. The universe in which Eve and Shaundra are a pairing will henceforth be known as panty-verse. So it has been written, so it shall be done.
Prompt: Evie and Hiram being Hiramy and Evie-y.
Prompted by:
indigo_n_orange. Who I hate (not that I was given a choice in the matter).It should be noted that I'm splitting this prompt in two. One takes place seven years in the future, one will take place in the past. Basically, I'm just greedy and want more of the SmicMillans.
Evelyn refused to classify the relationship between herself and Hiram. He wasn’t her friend. He was closer to her than her friends. He wasn’t her brother either, but maybe that was closer to the truth. When people asked, sometimes she said he was her cousin. But that was merely because it was fewer syllables and easier to understand than “my dad’s best friend’s son.”
He was just Hiram, and he was hers.
She wasn’t really supposed to have the key to his flat, but these things had a way of coming into her possession. She let herself in. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t have opened the door to her, but going in on her own felt right. Hiram and Connley were huddled on the sofa reading. It seemed like the two of them were always reading. It made her feel a little better that other people spent their free time this way... though they were reading novels, and she usually favoured dry (but very informative!) texts. It was still the same basic principle.
She knocked on the already open door to assert her presence. They looked up in one motion. Connley raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Hiram looked completely unsurprised. Then again, there were few things to be surprised by at this point. As far as Hiram was concerned, there wasn’t much he didn’t know. He sighed, but didn’t show any signs that he was going to make her leave.
“Even Carolyn knows how to knock now. I kind of hoped you’d follow her example.”
She shrugged, “I knocked. After I opened the door.” She pulled a bottle of something amber out of her messenger bag and held it out in Connley’s general direction. “I’ll trade you this for Hiram.” It was easier to bribe Connley with alcohol than to look Hiram in the face and say ‘I need you.’ She was more comfortable with him than she was with anyone else, but that still wasn’t saying a lot.
Connley looked at Hiram to gauge his reaction and they did a thing. That thing couples do where they talk without talking. It usually drove Evelyn well mad (can’t you just converse like normal people?), but she could tell that she was about to get her way, so she didn’t mind. Not so much, anyway. “Seriously. Take it. I need time with your husband.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, fine. I needed a fag anyway. Have a nice chat.” Eve passed him the bottle as he left. “Ah. Cheers.” He always seemed vaguely confused by Hiram and Evelyn’s dynamic, but knew better than to say anything.
She didn’t sit. She just hovered awkwardly in the space between the sofa and the door. “I think I need your advice.”
He sighed. Once again, he found himself unsurprised. “Okay. Sit down though. And next time maybe call first? Or ring the bell?”
“Yeah, okay.” She agreed in a way that made it clear that she wasn’t going to change her method of coming and going. Him asking and her agreeing was just a formality, but neither ever took it very seriously. But at least she sat. She didn’t disregard all of his request.
“So let me guess. Is it work?” She made it clear it wasn’t. “It’s Shaundra, then.”
He was right. Of course. It was always her. “Kind of. Shaundra and I aren’t really anything. You can’t have a problem with nothing.” This was a lie. Nothing was a huge problem. “But. Still. I guess it is her I need advice on.” She rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands. “I want to know how you do it.”
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Evie.” It wasn’t totally clear whether the petname was tacked on as a sign of affection or of exasperation. Maybe both.
“You. You and him.” She nodded at the door Connley had just exited through. “Everything. You liked girls, but you love him. I liked boys, but now there’s her. I want to know how you’re still sane.” If he had wanted to answer this, he was out of luck. She continued onto her next point with just a tinge of desperation in her voice. “I just don’t know what my life is anymore. And apart from being a bird, she drives me completely fucking crazy. I just can’t think at all when she’s around.”
“You don’t mean that. You can think. And you do it too much. So what if she’s a girl. It seems like the real problem you have with her is that she’s never around for long. But you’re happy when she’s there, right?” Evelyn agreed noncommittally. “Maybe if you just ask her to stick around things will get better.”
“But that’s the best thing about her. She’s great and she’s wonderful and I love her, but then she leaves. Real relationships never work out. Real love never works out. Everything always ends up fucked.”
“The happily married person in this conversation is going to let that one slide.” He sighed. There was always a lot of sighing when Evie was around. “Besides. I don’t know why you bother judging relationships when you won’t even let yourself have them. You aren’t your mum, you know. You aren’t your dad either, for that matter. It’s not set in stone that you have to mess things up.”
Yes it was. Evelyn knew this. Hiram probably knew this. But it didn’t matter. It was a nice enough thing to say, even if it was just words.
“I feel like you’re ignoring the fact that it’s already messed. Apart from the fact that our loving each other doesn’t translate to liking each other, there’s also the whole issue of whether or not we could actually cohabitate. We’re not like you and Connley. You guys are wired the same way. You were practically born living together.”
“Connley and I absolutely aren’t wired the same way.” This seemed obvious to him, but it wasn’t really how it looked to her. “You’re just going to have to go on instinct with this one. You know I like her, so my advice isn’t really objective. You like her too, even if you say you don’t. But I’m not going to dictate your life for you.”
Evelyn looked at her feet. It was clear that life-dictation was what she wanted. She didn’t want advice. She wanted the answer.
In spite of everything; the ambition, the seriousness, the few odd strands of grey in her hair... she was still just a kid. That was the thing about Evie. Hiram got older and more mature and moved up in the world, as people do. Evie had surely moved up in the world (it was already obvious that it was only a matter of time before she was put a position of power), but she never stopped being baby Evie. Sometimes she was responsible and commanding (formidable, even), but sometimes (like now) she was just a child in grown-up clothes.
“Call me crazy, but I don’t feel like this is helping. What do you want me to do?”
Evelyn was good at keeping up appearances. Faking came naturally. Lying was second nature. Secrets were everywhere. But something about this situation broke something inside of her. There was no point in pretending to be okay. None at all.
She leaned onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her throat began to hurt, but she didn’t cry.
“I want you to just be here.”
She had never said anything more true. They sat like that, saying nothing, for quite a while. Connley came back in to find Hiram back in his book, Evie asleep with her head in his lap. Hiram looked up from his book, "I'll be to bed in a while." He spoke softly, careful not to wake his slumbering charge. "I need to stay for a bit longer."
And so he stayed. She was just a kid, and she was his.