Snowed In Twins (Eloise)

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

"No, Mom, it's fine, I understand," Monroe said, phone pressed to his ear. He felt like he'd been calling his mom so much lately, trying to get something out of her, to have an actual conversation, but it was so hard when they weren't face to face. When he found out in August, he'd nearly bought a plane ticket to Maine and then threatened to drive there when his mom said not to spend his money on that, she knew he was working on saving up. Of course, that brought up more of a conversation with Monroe telling her the amount of money his father had left him. She was so busy with her job, often having to call him back and then not returning his calls at all.

Meanwhile, he was working a lot of nights at his job and still only making enough to barely pay the utility bill which he was responsible for. It certainly didn't fuel his coffee habit, so he had to rely on mostly drinking it at home from the coffee maker in the kitchen. And he felt like he couldn't treat Adaryn like he wanted to. Not like it mattered much to her. But still. Then there was Eloise running something she called an Etsy, which Monroe wasn't so sure was an actual job, but he wasn't going to ask her about it.

"I'll talk to you later." He hung up, pushing aside the curtains in the living room, to see it continuing to snow outside. The TV was blaring warnings about a blizzard, which he'd left on carelessly. Annoyed, he sunk into the couch cushions, waiting for his coffee to brew. He'd started intense powers training lately as well, which in turn, made him have to work less hours.

[Eloise Eaton]

Eloise had actually been working pretty hard lately, in her opinion. She had gotten many more orders of her Etsy than she had anticipated, and while Monroe and her father claimed that selling her designs wasn't a "real job" she was certainly doing a lot of work for it. Sure, the money she was making was nothing compared to the money that was behind bars in the account linked to her dad's, but she felt like she was doing alright. It was the reason she was up super late this snow night. El had 6 orders for beaded purses that she promised to get out by the next day. And while Eloise had been working hard, she was still quite the procrastinator.

The purses had been constructed as per each customer's request, but the beading and packaging still had to be finished. So she sat herself in the living room, supplies covering the coffee table, facing the sliding glass door that lead to the small balcony. Eloise had spent about 6 hours now sewing beads on to purses, packing them in boxes, and watching the snow fall. She was getting tired, but was determined to finish the last two items. So she was heating up milk in the microwave so she could make hot chocolate and power through the last of the orders.

When Monroe shuffled out of his bedroom, the blonde gave him a weak smile. "Hey," she said, carefully sewing on another bead. She pushed a strand of hair out of her face and put the project down momentarily to go into the kitchen and get her warmed milk. "What's up?" she asked, as Monroe flopped into the couch that wasn't occupied by Eloise's craft supplies. She could tell he was a bit frustrated, even without the social cues, or reading his mind.

It was strange... how they two had found out they were siblings, and pretty much went on living like that was always how it had been. They didn't talk about it much. In fact, it really only ever came up if they were introducing each other to someone. The statement 'this is my... uh.... brother' was still somewhat awkward to express, but was something it seemed the twins had at least accepted. Even so, it seemed to Eloise like she understood Monroe on weird level... like perhaps twin telepathy was a real thing. And perhaps it had always been there, but they were both afraid to admit it. All Eloise knew is the situation was still a bit weird, and it never seemed like a good enough time to talk about it. Even nearly 6 months later.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

Monroe shrugged when Eloise asked him what was up. There wasn't really anything going on afterall. "You're still making those purses?" he raised an eyebrow as she shuffled into the kitchen. He could smell his coffee brewing, the coffee he probably shouldn't be drinking this late, but he craved it. He relied on it, even if he was supposed to be trying to sleep more often. He had been sleeping sometimes, with his trainer making him do so to work on his power as that was the only way to do so. He wasn't going to bother Eloise about the drama with his mom, even though his mom was her mom. He was still getting used to that, and it wasn't even as if Eloise really knew his mom and so he didn't feel the need to really talk about it. Instead, he sat on the couch and stared at the television, watching a weatherman speculate the amount of snow they would receive.

"I'm surprised you're still awake, honestly. Didn't know those purses took so long to make. Seems like a lot of effort for little profit." That was just his opinion, of course. Something told Monroe she was very sensitive about her Etsy store. "Why don't you get a normal job? You know, like everyone else who has to pay rent?"

[Eloise Eaton]

"The purses themselves only took an hour," Eloise noted as she took her hot milk from the microwave, taking the cup to the other end of the counter so she could spoon in some cocoa powder from a fancy red box by the fridge. "It's the beading that I'm doing that takes time," she explained, although she was pretty sure that Monroe didn't really care. Eloise placed the spoon she had used to stir up her drink and placed it in the sink, then walked back into the living room, and set the steaming mug down on a coaster on the end table near where she had been sitting.

She wasn't really upset with Monroe expressing his opinion, though she did feel the need to set him straight. Because she had delt with enough of the comments from her father. His father. Their father (still weird). "You know... yeah it's a lot of work but I wouldn't call it little profit," she said smartly, having done the math too many times now to even need a calculator. "I've been at this for like... six hours. And it'll probably be one more before I'm done," Eloise explained, looking at what she had left to do. "Each of these purses costs $30. It costs me $12 in shipping, but one shipment includes two purses. So I'm making $120 for seven hours of work. That's $17 an hour, and that's more than minimum wage in most states," Eloise said, picking up the purse, and continuing to sew beads onto its face.

"And sure, sometimes I don't have as many orders as I'd like, but I wouldn't say it's 'little' profit," she said, knowing that it was nowhere near the amount of money she's used to having or spending, but it was money. It was more money than some people were making, anyway.

She looked up at Monroe with a questioning expression when he asked why she doesn't get a 'normal job'. "Do I seem like the type of person who could function at a 'normal' job?" she asked, in all seriousness. Eloise may have always insisted that she wasn't a brat, wasn't entitled... but she knew her limits. And the nuggets of truth in those statements usually came when people she barely knew told her what to do. "Plus," she said, "This is what I want to do." Eloise's tone was insistent and firm, because there was not a doubt in her mind that she was doing what she loved. "Why should I settle for anything else?"

She picked up her hot chocolate, and took a tiny sip, setting the mug when the liquid burnt her tongue, leaving the girl with that weird tingling sensation you get in such instances. "After all, if dad doesn't open my account back up by May you can technically afford rent, now," Eloise half-joked, shooting Monroe a slightly sassy look, though most of her attention was still on the purse she was nearly finished beading.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

"I don't know how you have the patience for that," Monroe told her, raising his voice slightly so she could hear him from the kitchen. "It sounds like torture. It would actually be useful if you were the one who didn't sleep so you could spend all that time beading." He was half-joking, of course. He didn't wish that upon anybody.

While she spoke of numbers and tried to prove her point, Monroe scrunched up his face in response, not wanting to know the details of it all and how she'd actually spent time figuring this out. "Alright, I get it. Sorry for telling you your job isn't legit. It obviously is." He was mostly serious, even if he still didn't like the idea of beading purses for hours on end. He'd rather work a full shift at the diner.

She was right, anyway. That whole idea of doing something you liked to do, versus the amount of money it paid, but Eloise actually had that luxury. He didn't...until recently. God, his head was still spinning over the balance of his bank account. And yet he was still working his night shifts, instead of fully concentrating on honing his power. He just didn't like the idea of giving in to that money because it was giving in to his dad who had been absent all of his life. Besides, he wasn't going to forget the value of hard work, which Eloise was just learning.

It was like she'd read his mind with what she'd said next, and while it was a joke, Monroe didn't really know what to say. It wasn't "my dad" anymore. It was "dad." He was not used to that. He didn't really want to get into how he felt about the money or about his dad, he didn't want it to cause a fight, he didn't know if he had the energy for that, even if he was slowly getting rest here and there. "Yeah..." he trailed off.

[Eloise Eaton]

"I didn't mean to get sassy..." Eloise muttered when Mornoe seemed to apologize for questioning her 'job'. "I just... I've heard enough of it from my dad." IT was weird, still, when they talked about eachother parents. Sometimes it came out 'my dad' sometimes 'our dad' and sometimes just 'dad'. And it worked the other way around too. The twins didn't really talk about it. It was as if there was an unwritten rule that they weren't going to question anything, and Eloise wasn't entirely sure why (other than the blatant awkwardness that surrounded the topic).

Being somewhat tired, all of Eloise's mental blocks were down, and even though she wasn't trying to read Monroe's thoughts, they were trickling in like whispers. And she couldn't help but speak up on them. "I know he wasn't around for your life, but he's not a bad guy you know," Eloise said without looking up from her beading. "I mean... I'm in the same boat with your mom... our mom," Eloise continued, correcting herself when she noticed that she had once again associated just one parent to one child.

Eloise put down the purse in exchange for her hot chocolate which now seemed to cool down to a temperature that wouldn't sear her taste buds. She tucked her feet beneath her and sighed, looking over at her brother. "Are we ever going to actually talk about all this?" she asked, more serious than perhaps any question she had asked Monroe in the past few months. Sarcasm was her coping mechanism, and she'd been using it copiously. She knew Monroe thought he didn't have the energy for such a conversation, but in reality would he ever? "I mean... I don't even know my mom's middle name... and I've known her son... my brother for six months. Are we ever going to even try and get answers out of them? Or are we just going to ignore it and hesitantly introduce each other as siblings at social events for the rest of our lives?" Eloise asked, becoming slightly less serious as she continued, though her intentions still remained sincere.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

"I get it," Monroe told her, putting up a hand to keep her from explaining further. It was just so confusing and awkward to keep hearing variations of the phrase. My dad. Our dad. Dad. And Monroe just really wasn't up for calling him anything but "your dad" to Eloise.

"I know that I don't really know him." He could address that much, but he also knew that he was very hesitant about wanting to know him at all. He was trying not to be mad at Eloise for reading his thoughts. It was late at night and they were both tired, but he was still slightly irked. "Yeah, well, the boat you're in with my mom doesn't have piles of money in it as well." That was really the problem. He didn't feel comfortable. He felt like the money was a way of saying "Wow I missed your entire childhood and most of your adolescence too...here, have some cash." And he didn't know how to shake the feelings and thoughts that told him that his dad didn't actually want anything to do with him, but also didn't want the guilty conscience. "I'm sure you know exactly what I'm thinking right now." So why did he even need to use the energy to say it?

He shrugged when she asked what they were going to do. "I don't know. I mean, we have the right to get answers. But are they really going to give them, El? Won't it just complicate things more?" He remembered asking his mom years ago and she always brushed it off, said she didn't want to talk about it, changed the subject. "I mean all I ever got out of my mom was his name and it was only because of a dream, so I don't think that counts." He did wonder what went wrong between them though and why they felt they couldn't talk about it or let their children know that they actually had a sibling, a twin actually. "What do you want to do?" Eloise certainly always had an opinion.

[Eloise Eaton]

Eloise couldn't even respond to Monroe, especially after this subsequent thoughts - not because she didn't want to, but she wasn't entirely sure how. She understood where he was coming from, even if she'd never experience exactly how he felt. There was no way she could possibly express what she thought were her father's true intentions that Monroe would likely believe. Or maybe he'd believe it, but there would still be that nagging part of him that his father was trying to buy him over with money. The only thing she could think to say, was her opinion about her mother....

"I thought my mom was dead," Eloise admitted, staring into her hot chocolate. "Dad never told me one way or another, and I guess I just came to my own conclusions. Everyone else in my family was dead. I figured that if she were alive she would have reached out to me. She would have been around, somehow," Eloise explained with a slightly dry laugh. "You know... especially when dad had to take me to buy my first bra; had to explain to me what a period was four days after my first started and I was literally convinced I was dying." The blonde sighed, not even slightly phased by the personal information she was spewing. She wondered if Monroe had any idea just how much she was hurting too. And while Monore wasn't comfortable with their dad's attempts to reach out, Eloise was still feeling incredibly empty over the fact that she still had virtually no idea who her mother was. It made it seem like the woman likely didn't care at all. This probably wasn't the case, either, but it sure as hell felt that way.

Eloise looked over to Monroe when he asked what she wanted to do. She looked away again, and shrugged, folding inward a bit. The blonde had never been so unsure about the things she said. "I'm so used to knowing what to do... this is uncharted territory for me... in more ways than one," the blonde admitted, tracing the rim of her mug with her finger, wiping away some of the chocolate residue.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

Monroe supposed that at least he'd known his father left them, rather than thinking he was dead, but at least when you thought someone was dead, they were really gone and you didn't have to wonder. "She probably wanted to reach out," he mused. "I think she just didn't know how." He remembered his mother seemingly really torn up after his father left, like he'd done something to her personally. He understood where she was coming from, but his mother always acted like their father was someone she didn't want to talk about. He could have gone without the female specific details, but he supposed that Eloise was trying to make a point and that was that she was hurting too.

He'd expected Eloise to have a very specific answer of what she wanted, but she didn't even have one at all. And so he sighed, trying to figure out what he wanted. "I guess I just want to know why they did what they did and then I'd figure out how to process it."

[Eloise Eaton]

"I'm not sure if we'll ever know at this rate," Eloise admitted. Her father evaded the topic as much as possible. He admitted to Eloise that he had his reasons and said she wouldn't understand. But Eloise wished he'd just say it so she could decide for herself if she'd understand. She traced the rim of her mug with her perfectly manicured forefinger. "And you know... she still hasn't..." Eloise pointed out. "I mean... we live together now... that's a pretty clear way of reaching out to someone." Eloise wasn't trying to badmouth Monroe's.... their mom. But she was trying to point out that she felt like her mother didn't even want to try and make an attempt to reach out like their father had. She just didn't get it.

Eloise looked over at Monroe and chuckled a bit. "I'm not even really sure how to be a sister if that makes sense..." Eloise said kind of sheepishly. She didn't understand what being a sibling was. She didn't know if that changed anything between her and Monroe. It was all so confusing. "Do we have other family?" Eloise asked, curiously. "I mean... I grew up thinking it was just me and my dad. He doesn't have siblings and his parents passed before I was born I think..." It had always just been Eloise and her dad... she had been so convinced he was all she had. Now suddenly there was potentially this whole other side to her family. She didn't even really know what family was, but here it was staring her in the face.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

Monroe shrugged. "Probably not. If they weren't willing to talk about it for over eighteen years, I don't think they will be now." He understood that Eloise's father had reached out and his mother hadn't to her, but really was reaching out with money much better? "Maybe you're dad did something." He didn't mean to get protective of his mom and it didn't come out angry, just as a suggestion, but he felt bad saying it. "I just mean...we have no idea why they didn't stay together or why they didn't tell us about it." He really hoped he wasn't pissing Eloise off. He'd just gained a sister. He didn't want to lose her over poor wording. He wanted to say something more about while how their father had reached out, it was about money. But he kept his mouth shut after the comment he'd already made.

"I totally get what you mean. I've always been used to being an only child." He really couldn't put the strangeness into words, of suddenly having a sibling. "I think we're supposed to get on each other's nerves though. So I think that we have that part covered." That should lighten things up. He didn't understand her question at first. And then she explained. "Yeah, I mean I have uncles and aunts and some cousins." How did she not have any extended family?

[Eloise Eaton]

"Maybe your mom did something," Eloise shot back defensively, regretting it immediately. "Sorry... sorry," she said after only a moment pause, realizing that they were biting each others heads off when in reality it should be their parents they were fighting - not each other. Eloise knew, of course, how Monroe felt about the money, and she had tried to explain that he wasn't trying to buy his love. Eloise had to remind herself that Monroe wasn't raised in any way like she was - that he didn't understand this was their dad's way of trying to make sure his son was taken care of. When Everett Eaton didn't know how to help someone, he did so monetarily. He just wanted to make sure Monroe was ok. That he could go to college if he so chose. That he could start his life the way their dad hoped Eloise would too.

Eloise smiled a bit when Monroe said they were supposed to get on each other's nerves. That was probably true - at least according to popular media. "More then covered," Eloise replied with a little sass in her voice, though the small smile on her face was meant to let Monroe know she didn't mind. Sure, they had disagreements - more so now than usual - but she was weirdly happy to have a brother... or at least the idea of having a brother was interesting and appealing.

Eloise was a little jealous that Monroe had gotten to know their extended family. It was definitely a part of growing up Eloise had missed out on. "Wow..." Eloise mused, thoughts swirling around the idea of actually having a family tree more than 4 people large. She wondered what all of them had thought when her and her dad went off to live separate from her mom and Monroe. She wondered how they managed to keep the secret - assuming they knew. She wondered if she'd ever get to meet them... what they would think about her. She wondered if she even wanted that. It was kinda scary to think about. She realized she had been quiet for quite a few moments before she snapped out of her thought. "Sorry... just sitting here slightly overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings and questions," she said with a sigh. This was definitely not a feeling Eloise was used to. "Do they all live in Maine?"