What Tomorrow Brings (Eric)

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie had a problem.

What was worse? She didn't know who she could really talk to.

Valerie was too invested in her disdain for Lucah to be of any real help. Rowan too. Chester didn't have the capacity to understand the issue. Neither did the twins. Penny was, within herself, a whole different problem.

And Sammy was just... Not an option.

So she went to the only person she knew she could talk to. Not that she ever wanted to talk to him about relationship stuff, but she didn't know what else to do.

Sitting on the couch in his apartment, Callie made friends with his wonderful housecat, Aristoboulos. He was curled up in her lap comfortably, enjoying the way her fingers roamed through his fur. She'd been staring down at him for a few minutes now; so far the only words she'd been able to offer was; "I need to talk to you." But after that, this was what she'd been doing.

She knew she had to talk, eventually.

"Can you, for a second..." Callie started, finally glancing as his bright blue eyes with a pair of her own, "Not see me as your baby sister?"

[Eric Jones]

His chin on his fist, Eric was leaning over his knees as he waited for Callie to find her tounge. He was worried, a state he was used to as the older brother of a serial backpacker and a teenage girl, and watched with misplaced concentration as Balls purred under Calli's attention.

When her question finally came, Eric knew to dismiss the impulse to deny her request. Unblinking, he met her gaze and made sure she could see he was taking her seriously. "I don't know," he said honestly, "But I'll try."

It was impossible to suppress the way he still braced himself for whatever it was though. The heaviness of the possibilities was difficult to smile through, but Eric managed.

"Can you talk about it now?" He asked after a moment, leaning back a little in his chair. "It's alright, Callie. I'm sure it's going to be alright."

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie sighed at his response. She expected him to outrightly say no as soon as the question left her mouth, and it surprised her to hear something different. That he’d try. That was a lot better than nothing, and she decided to take it anyway. “Okay.” She replied, closing that concept off.

When she caught his eyes, she immediately saw that he was smile. Soft and gentle. Encouraging. But it didn’t make this a whole lot easier.

The words felt caught in her throat.

But Calliope nodded her head towards him. She could talk to him. And she shook her head. It wouldn’t be alight.

“You know Lucah.” Callie said definitively. How could he forget? Callie had forced the meeting on them over that incredibly awkward dinner. Not her brightest plan. Easily one of her worst. But at least it meant Eric and Niko could put a face to a name. “And how we’re like, a couple.” It was clear in her voice; hesitation. She was stalling.

Glancing down, she ran her delicate hands over the black and white fur of the cat in her lap. “I think I messed that up.”

[Note: Eric's 100th post! Yay!]

[Eric Jones]

Callie was one hell of a dancer, and her talent seemed to extend to skillfully dancing around a direct answer. Yes, he did know that Callie and Lucah were a couple; why else would he make the poor kid run the Jones/Gallo gauntlet at dinner?

It was the next bit that was the first clue. He didn't know exactly how Callie could mess it up, she was just bursting with affection. For a guy who liked her that could only be a good thing.

Eric flexed his jaw and raised his eyebrows. "What happened?" he asked as gently as possible. "I'm sure it's something we can figure out an answer to."

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie was never really good at reading people. Even the people she'd known her whole life. The people who exhausted every resource to know she was okay. Sheltered. Protected. So when she told him she messed it up, she hoped he'd understand. But the statement was broad; she'd done that for a reason.

She didn't want to say the words. She didn't know if she could.

"I was... Uh-" She dropped her voice, glancing across at him with something of a pleading expression. It was ironic that Callie had asked him to see her as someone other than his sister; now she was acutely aware that she was talking to her brother. That was unforgettable. "I was... With someone else." She admitted, immediately dropping her gaze to the fur her fingers trailed through.

At this point, Eric's pet cat was easier to look at than he was. "Please don't-" She started again, closing her eyes. She wanted to ask him not to look at her. Or at least, not to look at her differently. She was already holding herself up for her mistakes - she couldn't take it from him too.

[Eric Jones]

It was rare to see Eric's little sister looking anything but energetic and glowing. The change was enough to be startling. "Callie?" he asked, his voice low with worry as he rubbed at his temple as he waited for her to talk.

"Callie," Erc mumbled as she finally got the words out. For a moment, he wasn't sure what else to say. He'd never been one for couples, that is, people wanting him to be half of one. And because he didn't really follow the rules, he couldn't break those rules. He didn't care about those rules.

Rubbing at his nose with two fingers, the teleporter sighed and absently reached to pat the cat that would have been on his lap, if it hadn't been on his sisters. "Should I ask what happened?" he asked, "and no, I don't want any gory details."

[Calliope Gallo]

The way he dropped her name didn't sound any different. Quiet, yes. But not different. Though, her brother was so rarely quiet. She wondered why he wasn't speaking. Why he wasn't telling her it was going to be okay.

Why wasn't he already explaining how to fix it?

His hand made its way into her sight line, and she reeled her own back slightly. Enough to give him the room.

"Does it matter?" Callie asked, glancing towards him through the breaks in her fallen hair. She honestly wondered - were the details even important enough to warrant talking about? "It just... Happened."

Okay, that was a bit of a lie. "I mean. She-" Callie paused to take a breath. Somehow it was more nerve racking to tell him without telling him directly that it'd been with a girl. "Tried to remind me. I tried to leave, but in the end I couldn't. Then it just... Happened."

[Eric Jones]

Eric liked to thing he'd come a long way in being openly judgmental about Callie's life decisions, most of the time. His face only twitched a little when the unexpected pronoun was dropped, around his mouth.

These things didn't just happen, that was what he was supposed to say. He'd seen this scene before. But the problem was, with Callie, if she said it had just happened that was exactly what she meant.

Or what she thought had happened.

But there was something he could seize on; everyone made a mistake, right? "Did this just happen? People slip up sometimes, Callie-cat," he raised his hands helplessly. "Everyone slips up, and no-one could stay angry at you for long."

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie offered a thoughtful nod. As far as she was concerned, it did just happen. The details of her friend's feelings for her weren't as important, were they? The information came along later. After. The thought that she really, genuinely might return it all hadn't yet fallen onto her shoulders.

Or perhaps it had, and she just didn't want to admit it.

Reaching out, Calliope breached the distance between them by wrapping her delicate fingers around his hand. And she held on; with intention, not force.

"When you're with someone, you're supposed to be all about them." She explained to him, her fingers delicately tracing along his palm. She still didn't look at him. At least, not his face. Her gaze stuck to his hand. "You're not supposed to want anything from anyone else. That's why you get into it, right?"

Her lips twisted into a frown, but the expression didn't suit her. She felt her eyes sting. "I told him I couldn't." She added, more desperately than she'd like to admit. Her eyebrows furrowed, eyes closing as she breathed out a sigh. But her breath was shaken; "But I figured, once I finally said yes... Things would be different." Bright blue eyes finally glanced up to catch the equally blue eyes of her brother.