winterxdove | Open RP

You are my new favorite person.

Because I bring you a bottle of Jack?

Even to tops of water towers, yes. Most people'd just yell at me to get down.

I'm always up for a new view of a city. And most people are stupid.

Yes. Yes they are.

There isn't an answer to the text, partially because she had to stop and pick up the bottle, and then drive, and then climb up the ladder. He'll probably hear her before she ends up slipping onto that narrow walkway that circles the water tower. It's easy to find him up here, and she settles next to him easily before pulling the bottle out of a small shoulder bag she's got with her. "One bottle of jack." There's a beat before she adds, "I also have like six tacos in my bag because I figure if we get hungry drinking, we won't want to leave to get food."

For all his talk about the view of the town, he's laying back, gaze focused on the stars with a naked sense of longing he shutters away when he hears her make the walkway. By the time she settles, he's pushed back up to sitting, greeting her with a half smile.

"That's some good planning. Thanks..."

He's not wrong about the town though, it's a lovely view. Though as she glances up at the stars she wouldn't blame anyone for choosing that view either, because they're so much more vibrant up here, above the city's lights interfering with the view. She sets the bottle down between them, letting him decide when he wants it and leans back against the metal of the water tower as she offering him a soft smile.

"I've had a decent amount of practice, to anticipate needs while drinking." She stretches her legs out in front of her a little as she tilts her head up to watch the stars instead of the town, giving him both an ear but hopefully not making him feel like he's being watched or that there's anything expected. "So, rules from the right place but still hurting you, I think is where you left off."

He reaches for the bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a long drink before saying anything. He needs it, though more for Dutch courage, as it were, than trying to drown out anything. Not opening up is how he's lived his whole life. Of course, his life is not much of one. Could be the two are related. Granted, there's good reason for some of it, but not all.

It's a fine line he's thinking of walking. Thus the way he falls silent again after taking a long drink, staring out over the town.

"Everything important, everything real in my life is a secret from someone I love. Or a lie. And I'm really tired of lying to people I love. But...everyone's got rules. And they aren't all my secrets to tell, so, lying feels like a betrayal, but the truth would be, too."

Sansa is quiet as he works through getting to talking, not fidgeting or pushing to get him to answer her. Truthfully, if he had changed his mind and didn't want to talk, she'd respect that too. But she was being truthful about, at least in her case, having it feel better to talk to someone that's not related to the issues bugging her. To get them off her chest, so to speak.

Green eyes finally shift to watch him as he opens up at least a little.

She doesn't reach a handout, but her jean clad knee bumps his gently in an offer of support. It's not easy to talk, and his problems sound extremely tangled. It's no wonder just venting to his siblings wasn't working, really. They're too tangled in it all with him. "Sounds like a painful knot," she offers gently. "Is there any way to untangle your secrets from the others, so you can find some kind of middle ground of being honest with the one you love?"

Michael bumps her knee back gently with his own in turn, has had just enough alcohol to let it rest there. It's a tiny piece of human--for a certain value of "human"--contact, but he lets it ground him in the here and now, even as he tilts his head back to look up at the stars.

"Very." He didn't like to think about the pain that often, but everything's been coming to a head now. "I don't know. Maybe, though I got a feeling it's too late on one side, which makes it not matter as much on the other." He knows he's talking in circles, but he's trying to find his way through it all, and it is his first time, after all. "So if it's too late, and, thus, doesn't matter, then I shouldn't keep letting it bother me. I mean...he didn't leave because he knows I lied."

There's something about having that silent support. She's found that it tends to go a long way, and Sansa's glad to offer it. Also gives him the best of both because he can continue to watch the stars above them.

The circles are making her head spin a little, everything definitely sounds like it'd be nearly impossible to separate out. There's a quiet moment as her mind words over everything before she finally asks, "If it's too late for what? And when did he leave?"

Michael frowns a little, trying to think how to explain without giving away secrets and without lying. The stars certainly didn't have any more answers than they ever had before.

"He left a couple of weeks ago," he said, after a moment. "And there's not been anyone I can talk to about him, at all, ever. I mean, my family doesn't know that I...I don't even have a word for it. They've only ever seen me with girls; didn't know about him, that he and I ever were a thing. And I...I thought maybe we could tell my sister. He...did not react well to the suggestions. He's been out for over ten years, so that wasn't it. It was just...me, I guess. And, then, he got pissed about one of my side hustles, where I'm just trying to get by, y'know. And ended it over that. So, the actual secret I was keeping from him, the thing about me I've never told him, wasn't even a factor, 'cause he doesn't know there's anything I haven't told him. And, technically, my brother doesn't know what my sister and I have kept from him, and my sister doesn't know what my brother and I have been keeping from her, and neither of them know that I've been in love with someone who doesn't think I'm good enough for him for ten years, who...used to think I was, but things went bad, then, too."

He rubs a hand over his face. "....that probably doesn't clear up that much, huh?"

There's a lot in what he says, but Sansa is paying attention. Which means it makes at least a little sense to her. Once she goes over it in her head a little more to tease it apart.

"Sounds like the why he didn't want to mention it is a conversation you need to have if you two decide to try to give it a go again." Her head tilted to look up at the sky herself as she takes a breath. "Though I guess the question is, do you want to try again should the possibility present itself. But getting pissed over side hustles doesn't sound great either."

The back and forth regarding the secrets between siblings is the part that gets a little harder to understand because it's still very unclear. "The keeping things from your siblings sounds like you all really need to sit down and have a long talk. Hard or not, family shouldn't keep secrets from each other. And if something happened, family should be the people you can trust to stand by you."

"And if you need an outside ear, I'm happy to lend mine." Because sometimes you need a third party to talk to too. But Sansa gets family, and secrets, and working through those secrets can be hard but they've always made it through.

"I think he felt bad about it, later," he said, grudgingly, taking another swig of the Jack, then setting it down. "But he's walked away twice, y'know? And I don't even understand why I can't do the same...whole thing screws me up."

That he was even admitting to her the ex who'd walked away was a guy was a step, honestly. He'd been ready to tell Isobel, ready to tell anyone, while Alex was there, but when Alex wasn't there, it was far easier to retreat back to the safety of flirting and more with pretty girls. He knew bisexuals existed, in theory, but he'd never met anyone who identified that way--at least not another guy, so his conceptual map of what this looked like was a bit skewed, too.

"I like to think I wouldn't let him pull me back in, and maybe I shouldn't, if I can't be totally honest with him, too."

He glanced over at her. "You're right. I'm tired of the secrets. I just...I'm afraid telling them wouldn't leach the poison so much as destroy us, and...they're all I've got." His gaze turned a bit skeptical. "You sure you really wanna hear all this?" Telling someone, anyone, even if he couldn't go into the details, was both a terrifying and liberating idea.

"I have a feeling I know why, but I'm not sure you're ready to hear it if you haven't gotten to the why yourself." She reaches to take a swig of the Jack herself. Love is a funny thing. It's also something that screws people up when they haven't admitted or haven't realized that's the cause of some of the problems.

Admitting it was a first step. Maybe he just needed the ability to say it to someone less involved. Though, hiding your heart was easier when you fell into past patterns that made people think you didn't care. That and alcohol. Both were easy. Sansa's happy to give him that ear though, to help him take that step.

"It comes down to what you'd want in the end. Do you want him back, to see if you two could work it out?"

She offered a soft smile. "Sometimes you have to trust that the family bond is stronger than the secrets. If they're all you've got, it means you're all they have too. And even if some time might be needed, family usually gravitates back together after it's healed from any wounds." She nodded in the face of that skeptical look. "I'm sure I really want to hear this."

"Oh, lay it on me," he returned with a wry smile. "I shouldn't want him back. I shouldn't want someone who's ready to believe the worst of me when I..." He looked down at his left hand scarred and little finger unable to fully straighten even ten years later. "We're both broken. I liked to think maybe we could help each other heal, but I think that's just some fairytale bullshit, now."

Because he wasn't the guy who got the happy ending. Nothing had ever worked out for him, and everything that gave a promise of hope was snatched away the second he reached for it. A safe home. College. Alex.

He took the bottle back, taking a much longer swallow. "When we were kids, a lot of...traumatic shit went down. One particular piece of it left Isobel scarred." Not just Isobel, but. "She sometimes gets these blackouts, where she loses time, wakes up in places she doesn't remember going, does stuff she doesn't remember doing. It went away for a while, but flared up near graduation. During one blackout, she did something...really bad. And when she woke up, she was horrified and terrified, and falling apart, and so...I told her I did it." He took another drink. "I told her I messed up, and she stepped right in to 'help' me. Max and I swore we'd never tell her, because she's already so...fragile. I don't know what knowing would do to her. Better she thinks it was me."

Another drink. "But it wrecked all of us, and Max was ready to do something that could have gotten us all hurt even worse. There was this girl...and he was going to tell her stuff we'd promised never to tell anyone. So...Isobel and I decided she needed to go, and Iz made her leave. Convinced her to head off to college early. We thought Max just had a crush, but, now it turns out he's always been crazy in love with her, so...it's possible in trying to help, we ruined his life." And a fourth long drink. "We tell him that, and he'll never forgive us."

He snorted softly. "Gotta tell you - makes me wonder what secret the two of them are keeping from me."

Her eyes follow his to his hand and her smile softens because the way he talks she can tell that there's definitely a story behind how that happened and she has a serious feeling that it involves the mystery man that this conversation is about. Or at least this part of the conversation is about. "The way you talk about him, and the way you sound like you don't want to let it go, it sounds like you love him." Her shoulder brushes his gently with a soft sound. "Relationships aren't easy, and it sounds like there may be some things that he has to work on with or without your help though. But it's not terrible to hope or want to be able to have that person to lean on while you heal, and to help heal in return either."

Sometimes life threw curveballs, took away what it had granted. But he was still here, still moving forward. And while some options might have passed, it isn't like there wouldn't be new possibilities in the future. And when there were, hopefully, he could take them.

Sansa nods a little as she takes the information about Isobel, letting her eyes lift to the sky. "That's a hard secret to keep. It shows how strong you are, to take the burden from her to keep her safe for all these years. And I can understand the worry if she's not strong enough what it might do to her if she found out that it was really her, what it might make her think about herself." She looks back at him, understanding in her green depths. "But at some point, the truth usually comes out, whether you mean it to or not. If you tell her, at least you can control how she finds out about it." Because that's important too.

Giving a slow breath, Sansa let the silence fall for a moment because that was heavier. Scarying or shoving away someone in the hopes it's for the best for the person you care about is tricky. "If he's still healthy, still landed on his feet, I wouldn't go so far to say ruined his life. And you and your sister were doing it out of your love for him, after some time to process it, I'd hope he would realize you weren't intending to hurt him, but protect him. Heart being in the right place kind of a deal." At least, she'd hope that his brother would eventually see it that way.

"That kind of sounds like enough secrets just in those two that hopefully there isn't anything else." She offers a wry smile for that last part to him.

He doesn't protest her assessment of the state of his heart, lips quirking in a self-deprecating smile as he leans back against that shoulder brush a bit. He isolates himself so much from everyone except Isobel, no ties except them, after Alex went to war. Hooking up with tourists took care of some needs, sure, but didn't do much for aching loneliness. "Not gonna deny it. Been hung up on him for a decade, and, yeah. Maybe I do wish it would work, but. He's walked away twice now. I don't think he wants the same thing."

Which meant, maybe, he needs to move on. But kinda hard to do when he's stuck here and has nowhere else to go. Isobel and Max's lives are here, and striking out on his own...doesn't hold a lot of appeal anymore.

"I think we should tell her," he says after a moment. "I told Max, but. He's not having it. And I feel too bad about what we did to defy him like that. I mean, you're not wrong. I just don't know if I can make that call on my own."

He hopes Max will forgive them, if he ever finds out, but he doesn't have a whole lot of faith in that right now, sad as it is. His smile flashes at her again, just as wry. "It does, doesn't it? But if there aren't others, that ends up making me the guy holding all the secrets and that's not all that comfortable, either. I'm just...so tired, y'know?"

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