AU: Am I Too Much Like You?

[Calliope Gallo]

Calliope never kept things from her oldest brother Eric. She had never been good at keeping secrets. People always told her her face was like an open book. Her eyes were practically a window into her heart and more often than not, people like Eric took advantage of that when trying to get her to be honest. It wasn't bad though, when he questioned her. It was probably a good thing.

But this secret, was not.

She sat across from him in an armchair while he had previously been sprawled out on the adjacent couch with his feet on the coffee table. That was until things got serious, and she looked at him with watered eyes.

"I..." Callie tried again, once she had dropped the news on him and let him sit silently with it on his shoulders, "It was an accident. At least, the first time it happened it was an accident." She admitted, glancing away from her entwined hands in her lap over towards him again. "I can't believe this." Her hands moved, running up along her face and through her hair. "I uhh... I don't know. I don't even know what to say."

Her parents and brothers loved Lucah like family; he was the only person he and Niko had ever really been okay with. She felt like she wasn't on the verge of breaking one heart, or even two. But that the collective admiration of her family was spiralling out of her hands.

"Can you... Ask me something. Can you say something?" She asked, "Even if it's bad. Do you... Uhh, do you want me to explain something? Anything? It's not just about..." No, she highly doubted her brother wanted the details on her sex life, so she wasn't even going to finish the sentence and humiliate the two of them with the words. "It's a feeling. No, it's a mess of feelings."

[Eric Jones]

Eric's first thought had been one that was, on the whole, rather unfamiliar to him.

Is this my fault?

This was Callie, his Callie-Cat, who was good and honest and trusting and his baby sister. As she talked, he just watched carefully, expression grave, trying to give her the time to untangle her words.

It could have been worse, the oldest Jones-Gallo thought to himself. She could have been pregnant. Or on meth. Or, she could have been seeing Jez again. It could have been so much worse. Then Eric blinked. Ask her something? Like what? He wasn't exactly a rolemodel of chastity, was he? He'd always taken dating about as seriously as he took drunken promises; not very. Who was he to give her advice on things like infidelity?

And it wasn't just about...

His hands twitched, as if he wanted to clap them over his ears. It had taken Eric a bit of time to get used to the idea of Lucah doing, well, that to his baby sister and he liked Lucah. Now there were twice as many people as he would EVER be comfortable with.

"How long has it been going on?" he asked instead, running a hand over his face. "And what are you going to do, Callie?"

[Calliope Gallo]

Well, at least he didn't hate her. When she had asked him to say something, even if it was bad, she almost expected that kind of reaction. She wasn't even sure why. Cheating was bad. People who did it were bad people by proxy. People who did it with long term partners were, well, worse. Add to that the fact that she had met Lucah and formed a romantic bond with him right after he found out his then girlfriend had cheated on him?

She was among the worst of the bad people.

Callie pressed the ends of her fingers together, staring down at them. Maybe it was better not to have told him he could ask questions. Maybe she should have picked someone different to talk to it about. But when she thought about it, the only other person she was close to was the very person she was so desperately passionate about.

"Does it matter?" She asked, pursing her lips together at her own question. It probably did matter. "More than once. Months. Off and on."

Because every time she said goodbye, and hoped it would be the last time, she knew it wouldn't be.

"And I don't know." Calliope admitted. "There's way too much going on." It was worse when the person in question was a co-worker. She knew that too. Callie glanced over at him, wanting to gauge his reaction without breaking his heart as her eyes filled with an unknown desperation. "Be honest. What are you thinking?"

[Eric Jones]

It was like looking into the eyes of a kicked puppy. But Eric could take care of that later, now, Callie needed a strategy. That was something he was decent at.

Again, he felt that twinge, because he knew how to juggle this sort of thing, but that was different, and while he would have had no trouble in telling Niko just how to keep these two people separate, Niko wouldn't have been looking at him with such an pleading expression either. Eric could fix it. That was his job.

"Ok," he said slowly. "Ok, Callie, I know you care about both these people a lot, but have you thought about what you want to happen?" He steepled his fingers and frowned, trying to detach enough to give her advice that could be helpful. "Do you want to end up with this person? Or do you want to stay with Lucah? Because this," he gestured to her, wide eyed and miserable, "This can't keep happening. It's hurting them, and more important to me, it's hurting you, Callie-cat."

[Calliope Gallo]

What she wanted to happen felt like a distant dream. The very concept of it was something Callie knew she was undeserving of. Wasn't all this her fault? Wasn't she entangling herself in two people's lives in a completely selfish way? Regardless of whether that was the truth or not, it was just how it happened. But when the question about her wants was asked of her, she felt her mind go blank. Like white noise.

At least he was thinking of how to try and help her. But he was asking her to resolve something that she struggled to piece together.

But an answer... "I don't know." She replied finally, because it was all she could offer at that time. "It's like..." Callie held her hands out before her in a half shrug. Instead, she drew her legs up and curled her arms around her knees.

"I don't think it's even my choice to make. It's not like I get to completely decide what happens." She explained. She didn't feel like she had the right to make that choice. "When I tell Lucah, if he doesn't forgive me and leaves, that doesn't mean I automatically default to... Yeah." She shook her head, "And if he's forgiving, that doesn't mean I default to him either." It was this endless loop that she had wrapped herself in, and she was beginning to realise that no one could possibly grasp at an end and unravel her.

Callie pressed her lips together thoughtfully, shaking off the desperation in her eyes and looking back at him again. "Is it wrong to believe that I don't deserve either? That I don't deserve to be the one to make that choice."

[Eric Jones]

"But, Callie-cat," Eric sighed and shook his head, staring up at the ceiling. "Does Lucah know? Because yeah, I get what you're saying. It's not certain who you might be with. But it's a pretty serious secret to keep."

His brows drew together slightly as Callie spoke of defaulting back, but that was the only sign of the confusion he felt.

Getting up, Eric walked over to stand behind his baby sister and put a hand on her shoulder. His fingers squeezed in comfort. It was wrong that she believed she didn't deserve either, but that wasn't what she needed to hear. "In the end, you probably won't be," he said honestly. "But the way things are right now, there's one person who's not really getting a choice. It's not really a matter of what you deserve, cat. It's what the people around you feel, you know?"

He sighed again and sat back down. Of course his Callie wouldn't be able to just choose. It turned out that you could have too much love in you. Maybe she'd gotten his share too. And Niko's. Would explain a lot.

[Calliope Gallo]

"He doesn't know." Callie replied. And to her knowledge he didn't suspect anything. Lucah thought too highly of her. At least, that was what she assumed he felt. He always said she was a major light in his life. It made it all the more shattering when she realised she'd ruined that image too. She closed her eyes slowly, feeling an onset headache wracking through her forehead.

Calliope could feel a weight on her shoulder, and it wasn't until she opened her eyes that she realised it was real, and it was his hand. That small shot of comfort was enough to seriously threaten her put together demeanour. Sufficed to say, she was surprised she hadn't cried to him yet. But she held it together and she listened. His honesty had its own comfort. She didn't need a person telling her she deserved anything substantial.

"Does anyone really get a choice?" Callie asked, watching as he walked away again. "I mean, when someone tells you something like this, you don't choose how to react. Isn't it your heart or something that makes it up for you? If you feel that broken that you can't forgive, your choice is made for you. And if you go against it..." Now it felt like she was making excuses for herself. She didn't mean it to sound that way.

So she shook her head. "He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't drive me away." Callie admitted, in case something to that effect was on her older brother's mind. Wasn't that the usual reason this happened? "It was- No. It is a feeling. An overwhelming, heart-stopping feeling. How do you say no to something like that?" It wasn't rhetorical, she was literally asking. How do people denounce that. Passion and desire were confusing, unrelenting forces. "Do you know? Does anyone?"

[Eric Jones]

For the first time since he was a teenager, Eric nearly had a teleporting accident. Callie was asking, actually asking, because she did that, what he would do.

Eric cleared his throat and stared down hard at his shoes for a moment. An overwhelming feeling? Heart stopping? It was the sort of think Niko would say as a joke, if they were talking about the people they had been seeing. But Callie didn't joke about things like this, Callie was always about feelings, which is why sometimes they seemed to get so hurt.

And that was why Eric avoided this sort of thing.

"Callie..." he sighed. "Despite what you may think, and my best efforts to prove otherwise, I don't-"

He paused and ran a hand through his hair, mussing a few strands out of their perfectly styled place. "I don't have the answer for that, kiddo." The teleporter shrugged, looking down at his feet. "But I do know that while you can't choose how you react, emotionally, you do make the choice to act on it."

To soften his words somewhat, Eric got up again and held out his arms. "You and your big heart, Calliope," he muttered. "Most people wouldn't beat themselves up like this, they'd make excuses, pretend not to realise someone could get hurt... You're special."

And I'm sorry I can't fix this for you.

[Calliope Gallo]

Calliope watched the difference in her half-brother's expression. He was actually looking away from her. In the time that she waited, she laced her fingers together and watched them spiral around each other, moving in unison in her lap. It was something to focus on in the silence. Sitting still never suited her, and this was a coping mechanism.

The corner of her mouth pulled sideways; not up into a smile or down into a frown. Sideways. A twitch of recognition that he, for once, might not have the answers she desperately needed.

When she looked up again, it was odd to see strands of his hair out of their usual immaculate place. It meant nothing to anyone else, but spoke volumes to her. It was like he was falling out of place. So when he finally admitted that he couldn't answer her, Callie projected onto her face everything she was feeling; it was like a physical hit to the chest that practically knocked the life right out of her.

Never had she been forced to face something without the wisdom of an older sibling.

She lifted her chin when she realised he was standing up, holding his arms out to her. If nothing else, he was offering her a reliable source of comfort. Tentatively, she pulled herself up from the chair and took slow steps to face him. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip as she extended a hand out, pressing it to his chest for a moment or two. She lifted it again, raising it up to the level of his hair. She was so focused on smoothing the out of order strands that she didn't realise her eyes were glossing over.

Calliope blinked it away as soon as it clouded her vision, because she just wanted her perfect, polished brother to feel like just that.

"Why would anyone lie like that to try and save themselves?" She finally asked, her voice wavering despite all attempts to control it. With his hair straightened, she lowered her hand again to find his forearm, and she clung to the fabric of his shirt. Catching his blue eyes in her own, Callie offered a smile; broken and dented by her inability to hide emotions. "Why would anyone do that?"