dumb brothers

[wild_magic]

who: these assholes again
where: a phone to leave the matrix
when: after susan's failed attempt at matchmaking
what: susan finally heads back to the carnival, but his brother is waiting for him

Susan didn't really have anywhere to storm off to here, like he does back home or even at the Carnival, but that didn't stop him from running off when he was angry at Lauren. He would go back, but it would be so much easier for Lauren to find him at the Carnival than it is here, and he doesn't want to talk to him yet. Not until he stopped being mad. Not until Lauren was done being mad, too, and wouldn't yell about how Susan did something wrong when he was only trying to help.

Without anywhere specific to go, Susan ends up wandering for quite a while before finally giving in and deciding to head back.

...But before he can even get there, he sees his stupid brother, and he stops for a moment before continuing to walk forward, not saying anything to him. He knows Lauren's going to still be mad, and he doesn't want to hear it right now.

Comments

[wild_magic]

"To treat people like what, all I did was try and get her to eat dinner with you! She wouldn't go if I said it 'cause I'm just a kid and no one ever does what I say, so I had to do it!"

[mylastchance]

"How do you know she wouldn't have done it? You didn't even give her a chance to do otherwise, you just assumed she would dismiss you when all she's ever done is helped us in the past."

[wild_magic]

"It doesn't matter, it was just a stupid letter! That's all I did was write a letter!"

[mylastchance]

"It was a lie. You wrote a lie to trick someone into doing something for you. You made a good honest person feel like a fool."

If Susan can't understand why that's bad, Lauren has no idea how else to explain it.

[wild_magic]

"It wasn't for me."

[mylastchance]

"It doesn't matter!"

He didn't ask you to do this. You can't blame this on him!

[wild_magic]

"It does matter! I'm just trying to help you 'cause you never help yourself!" He pushes Fluff aside as he stands, glaring at Lauren as he yells.

"But fine I won't help you any more if you don't want me to, I'll just go somewhere else!!"

[mylastchance]

He rolls his eyes, smacking his head into the door.

"I know you're trying to help me. But that doesn't make it right!! Why are you convinced I'm so unhappy anyway!?"

[wild_magic]

He wants to leave, but Lauren's in the doorway, and so he can't. But that doesn't stop him from heading for the door anyway, not even answering him.

[mylastchance]

"Answer me!"

What the hell was he doing? Was he going to phase through him somehow?!!

[wild_magic]

"I don't have to if I don't want to! Let me through!"

Even angry like this, he can't bring himself to try and hurt Lauren, even if it would let him get through. He's mad at him, for him not understanding, for him saying Susan is in the wrong, and even though Susan doesn't want to admit any fault for it that still doesn't mean he's going to take it out on his brother. He just needs to get out of here.

[mylastchance]

"No! You can't just run away just because you don't want to listen."

He hates that Susan always does that. He absolutely hates it.

"I'm your brother, can you at least care enough about that to listen to what I say!"

He doesn't even make the conscious decision to flip languages, he's just so emotional from everything that's happened today and so upset that he falls back into it without thinking. This was the language he first learned to speak.

[wild_magic]

He turns away, glaring at the wall. He doesn't want to just sit here and have Lauren yell at him, but he can't get out, either, not with Lauren blocking the door.

"I don't want to." Susan doesn't even match him, his stubbornness not letting him even follow his brother's lead there. He's done with this conversation.

[mylastchance]

It feels like a slap to the face. It stuns him, and then it hurts. He turns away, but not only that, he doesn't even talk back to him in their own language. He's always always always matched him whenever he's switched. It's not a big deal, it's even ridiculously small, but it hurts.

"Fine." Lauren slides down the door sitting in front of it. There's no point in talking if Susan isn't even going to listen. But like hell is he going to let Susan through this door.

[wild_magic]

He doesn't move at first, not responding either, but finally he goes back to the bed, picking at the blanket there as he sits. He knows Lauren isn't going to give in, he's almost as stubborn as he is, and that's just more frustrating. He only wanted to help, and he didn't do anything that hurt anyone, so even if Lauren didn't like it, he still doesn't see why he'd be so mad.

But he hurt Lauren's feelings, by doing it, and he'd hurt Carly's feelings too, and he knew that wasn't good. He knew he should apologize. He hates apologizing, because it means he did something wrong, and he doesn't like admitting maybe he did something wrong... Especially when he didn't think it was a big deal.

He just wished Lauren could understand better. Maybe if Lauren wasn't so shy then he wouldn't have had to do it and they wouldn't be mad at each other.

He doesn't like Lauren being mad at him. It hurts, it's like Lauren saying there's something wrong with him, and he knows there's nothing wrong with him... But when Lauren's mad he feels like maybe there is.

[mylastchance]

Lauren watches Susan go. He doesn't even realize he's tense as he does it until Susan is out of sight and he slumps back against the door. He doesn't know what Susan is doing, or what his brother is even thinking. He didn't know why Susan couldn't understand this. He'd tried so hard to explain it rationally and calmly. He didn't want to get mad, he didn't want to yell at Susan. He didn't want Susan to get made and yell at him, and yet every time Lauren would make one point Susan would yell back with some barely related excuse. Maybe Susan's objections made sense to him, but they didn't to Lauren.

It didn't matter why Susan had done it, the fact of the matter was that doing it at all was wrong. He wondered if Susan couldn't see that. Maybe to Susan anything was fine if it got the right result, but Lauren doubted it. He knew how important helping people was to his brother. Lauren doesn't want to believe someone like Susan, who was willing to do so much for strangers, would be okay with anyone getting hurt. But then why else would he fight so hard against acknowledging his mistake.

Was he embarrassed? Lauren understood feeling embarrassed, but he'd never fought so hard against acknowledging it. If Susan had just told him he was embarrassed Lauren would be understanding and want to help! But Susan never talked to Lauren about his feelings. If Susan was angry or sad or any other kind of feeling he just felt it. He acted on his feelings immediately without worrying whether something was right or wrong. Susan never tried to talk about or understand his feeling, he almost never even acknowledged them.

Lauren didn't like talking about his feelings either, but he never just pretended they weren't there. If someone asked Lauren how he felt he answered honestly. Lauren was willing to talk with someone, to admit when he was wrong, but Susan only ever argued. It was hard sometimes, not to just give Susan what he wanted, to ignore the problems and pretend that everything was fine, but they weren't. It would be so easy to ignore this, to sweep it under the rug, but Lauren can't, not now that they are living with so many others. Susan could push Lauren around all he wanted, but Lauren couldn't let Susan treat others like this, he just couldn't. He'd already messed up so much, he couldn't mess this up too.

"Little Brother, please, will you just talk to me?"

He shouts it while still by the door, knowing Susan can hear him, but expecting to be ignored all the same.

[wild_magic]

He doesn't respond, at first, still just sitting there on the bed, picking at the blanket, Fluff curling up against him. He doesn't want to talk to Lauren, doesn't want to get yelled at or told how he's wrong, but he can't just sit here being mad at him and upset. He knows that, but that doesn't mean he wants to deal with it.

Finally, after a while of just sitting there, he finally responds.

"Okay." He doesn't have anything to say, and he doesn't want to go back out there, but he'll listen.

[mylastchance]

Lauren sinks back further as silence lingers in response to his question. He's close to giving up any hope of resolving this, but then Susan responds. It's just one word, maybe even a resentful agreement, but it is agreement at least. Lauren frowns, struggling to think of what to say.

"I don't understand why you're so angry."

If you don't know what to say, just be honest. It's what Lauren usually ended up doing, and it was usually a mistake, but at least with Susan he'd always been able to be blunt like this.

[wild_magic]

There's a long pause again. He's angry because Lauren's mad at him, because everything went wrong, because he thought he read the situation right and he didn't, he messed it up again. He doesn't want to think about it, and Lauren's making him, and that's making him angry too.

"I thought I was doing the right thing."

It's quiet, but Lauren can probably still hear him anyway (even when Susan's quiet, it's still not all that quiet).

[mylastchance]

"I know you did." It's not like he thought that Susan had hurt someone intentionally. "It was just a mistake."

Everyone makes them, it doesn't have to mean anything more or less than that. As long as you learned from it a mistake didn't mean anything bad.

"I've made them too..."

Lots of them, more than he'd like to admit.

[wild_magic]

He doesn't respond to that. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, and so it's hard when he has to admit that this really was one, even when he was trying to do the right thing. He doesn't know what to do, now that he has to face the fact he messed up, and so he just stays quiet, resting his head on his knees as he sits on the bed.

[mylastchance]

He listens, waiting for a response, but there's only silence.

"I love you."

[wild_magic]

It takes him a bit to respond, and when he does, his response is possibly too quiet and muffled for Lauren to hear as he's basically just talking into his lap at this point.

"I love you too..."

[mylastchance]

Lauren waits, then he stands. He comes into the bedroom area, where Susan sits with Fluff. He see's his brother curled in on himself, and he can't help but feel like he's really fucked up. He sits down next to Susan, putting an arm around his brother.

"Susan. What's wrong?"

[wild_magic]

"Nothing."

There really isn't much wrong, that he knows about. He just feels bad because he messed up, and he doesn't know how to handle it. Almost every other time he's messed up that he can remember hasn't really been his fault, so it's not the same as this.