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 Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:33 pm
Tish Jenkins was not normally an irritable woman. She could take paint spills on her floors, crayon drawings on her walls, and broken cookie jars with the best of them. But there were times when her redheaded roots decided to show themselves, and during those times the false brunette could be downright frightening. This was one of those times.
She had dropped the kids off with their preferred sitters before heading here - Luvvie and Miri had gone to stay with Jadyn at the bookstore, Lissy was with Luna, and Faiya and Axel were visiting Thali. Suffice it to say, Patricia Marie Jenkins was on a mission. And the target of her ire had better be able to put Demyx down for a nap, because she wasn't going to let him hide behind the baby for even a second! Taking a deep breath, she rang the doorbell and waited for Niko to answer. As soo nas she met his wide blue eyes with her own, she caught the door so that he couldn't close it, and frowned.
"Niko, we need to talk."
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:00 pm
Niko stared as he opened the door completely, to let her inside. "Let's keep it down, though, alright? I just put Demyx down for a nap, and he's been feverish and cranky all afternoo--" he hesitated, and studied her. "Are you feeling alright?" he asked. This wasn't the person he'd fallen in love with, he knew that. This was someone--someone frightening.
"Do you want some tea or something?" he asked hesitantly. "I could make a pot--or maybe some cider or something, hm?" Anything to calm her down. He hesitated again, sitting onto the couch.
"What did you want to talk about?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:07 pm
Tish scowled, going over to the couch by Niko, but not sitting down - instead she remained standing, taking advantage of the intimidation such a position gave her over the seated form of her fiance. Taking a deep breath, she pushed her hair out of her face, folded her arms and prepared herself for the pain that was coming - to Niko.
"No tea, no cider," she said simply, her voice taught with unreleased anger. "Not until you explain to me why you always look like you're either upset by my daughters' presences or constipated every time you see them!" Despite the venom in her tone, her volume was low, as she didn't want to bother the sleeping baby in the other room. "You do realize that my kids and I are a package deal, right Niko? You get all of us... or none of us. I have a family to think of, Niko, and I'm not going to make my children suffer just because you get spontaneous indigestion from being near them!"
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:47 pm
Niko flinched, and backed into the back of the couch. If she wanted to frighten him, well, she was succeeding. "What do you mean?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I've always been genuine with them! I've always been what I think a good father should be..." He was confused. He'd always tried to hide his emotions--he had always thought he'd done well. He even got along with Miri and Lissy, he didn't know Luvvie or Faiya that well, he was never in close contact with them.
All at once, he stood. Dark blue eyes hardened like chips of ice. Was he protecting something? Was he truly angry? One couldn't tell. "If I'm making your children suffer," he said, in a tone void of emotion, "maybe you should do what's best for them." He didn't know what to do. Tish sounded like she was about to leave him any moment, and--well... He didn't want to tell her why he acted like he did. She might think it was an excuse. Or worse. She might laugh at him.
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:56 pm
If Niko was ice, Tish was fire, and her stare bored into his, threatening to melt his icy gaze with the pure inferno of her hurt and anger. "You don't get it at all, do you?" she hissed, her words and tone laced with the poison of the deadliest of serpents. Jabbing a finger into his chest, she scowled at him, daring him to push her away, to lose his icy facade of bravery that the pointy-eared idiot was shoving at her.
"Hiding it isn't dealing with it, and you're not hiding it well enough anyway! Why do you think Faiya avoids you? Why do you think Luvvie's afraid to get near you? Faiya doesn't trust you, and Luvvie's absolutely convinced that you're going to leave her - like the only other father she's ever known! But you don't care about that, do you," she hissed, her words biting and burning and all too deadly. "Us breaking up isn't what's best for them - what's best for them is you actually facing whatever is causing you to have a stick up your butt so far I can see it out your NOSE! They want a father, Niko, they need a father, all of them. What they don't need is a halfway father who pretends to like being around them but is jealous of them!"
There was a subtle gleam in her eyes, almost a glow as she spoke, and Tish knew that was the truth without a shadow of a doubt - Niko was jealous of her children. Jealous, and something else.
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:25 pm
Niko's eyes softened, and for a moment, he looked like the teenager he was. Scared, lost, and confused as he was, he stared at his fiancee, shaking his head. Faiya was avoided him? Luvvie was afraid of him? A glimmer of hurt flashed in his otherwise empty eyes. Why hadn't he noticed?
"Of course I care," he said, for a moment raising his gaze to hers. "I've always cared. Do you honestly think I don't, Tish? I love Luvvie, and Faiya, Miri and Lissy, and our boys. If you can't see that--if they can't see that, I don't know what to tell you." Maybe it was best if he bowed out now; avoid more hurt. He winced visibly. "I don't pretend to enjoy being around them," he muttered. "I do enjoy it. I enjoy their company, especially Lissy and Miri's... I haven't had a chance to spend much time with Luvvie and Faiya yet, but I know I'd enjoy theirs just as much."
If they'd give him a chance.
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:54 pm
Tish sighed, her expression softening as she looked at him - truly looked at him, her eyes still alight with an eerie tint. He looked like a kicked puppy, the silly elf. "Then what, Niko, is upsetting you so much when you're around them?" she asked, her voice much softer than before, if not entirely free of anger. "This is a major problem, and I want both of us to get past it - it's not something that can be avoided and ignored forever, Niko."
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 11:39 pm
"I--I-" Niko was so surprised by Tish's change in mood that he stammered. "It's nothing. Nothing important." He had grown up alone, and could deal with his own issues alone. He didn't need help. It needn't trouble her. "Tish, look. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a father. I never got to know mine... I'm not sure how to be one. What Thali said at the party wasn't an exact lie, you know. And I'm not very good at anything... I wasn't taught. Most of what I know, I learned on my own. The books I've read? I stole them. I've been on my own as long as I can remember. And the children..." He hesitated, and sighed.
"I suppose I'm envious. The only memories I have of my parents are of them being murdered. And they have you."
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:20 pm
Sighing a grumbling something under her breath about stupid elves who don't deal with their problems, Tish grabbed Niko by the arm, and decided to address what he'd just told her one thing at a time. "Alright, Niko, pardon me while I derail your train of thought!" she said, blue eyes intense yet gentle as she stared into Niko's own, keeping his gaze tied to hers and not allowing the teenage - and oh how he was definitely still an adolescent - elf to look away."First of all, you're definitely cut out to be a father, because you have been an amazing father to Demy - that's what I'm referring too when the girls see you. They see how you treat them versus how you treat Demy, and they want that kind of treatment too." Holding up a finger fro mher free hand to shush Niko before he could say anything in response, she contined,
"And don't deny how good you are with Demy, I've seen it. Now. . . Niko, I'm going to tell you a little secret about Luvvie. She wasn't originally mine - her father died, Zee, in an accident; it wasn't murder or anything of that sort, but it was still a heavy blow to a very little girl; a little girl who is wanting to find that bond again in whomever she can - and you're the one she's chosen for that. Then there's Miriam, who was dropped into life at the age of a toddler, not even knowing what the word "mother" meant unti lI'd taken her in. Lisette was daying when I found her, Niko, she was inches away from death and it's only thanks to a miracle that she got a second chance at life. Faiya was abandoned in an alleyway, deserted and forgotten by whomever was meant to be her true parent. And you know Axel and Demy's story, what all they suffered before they came here."
"Now, Niko, you have a choice. You can either continue to be envious of the children, these children who have either lost everything or never had it in the first place, or you can help them; keep them from having to go through what you did. If you could keep even one child from growing up alone, from suffering whatever the things were that you had to - would you do it? Or would you leave them, simply because you had to suffer alone and so too should they?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:51 pm
"Demyx is easier to handle," Niko protested. "He came as an infant, and he rarely misbehaves. I'm with him more, so I've gotten to know him better. Axel too..." he paused, and sighed. "Out of your girls, I've found Lissy and Miri the easiest to get along with. I've spent time with them, and I love them. The other two... they haven't given me a chance to, Tish. It's not that I haven't tried. Really, I have. I was upset when you had me babysit all of them at once, yes; but six children is overwelming for anyone. I didn't know how to handle it. Of course I was a little upset."
He hesitated. Could he do it? Could he treat all six children like he treated Demyx and Axel? With the same love, protection, and genuine affection? Somehow he doubted it. He didn't know the answer to her questions. He felt pressured, pushed. He didn't know if he could do it--he wasn't even sure what she expected. "I'm sorry, Tish... I don't know the answer. I know I should say that I'd help them, that I'd help any one child--but I don't know."
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 3:47 pm
Tish sighed, and nodded, as if she'd expected this. "I understand, Niko," she said quietly, although she really didn't. "I think - we should stop going out for a while. Give both of us time to think some things through." She kissed his cheek gently, and then went in to Demy's room and kissed the sleeping baby, stroking his hair for a minute before leaving the nursery behind her. Looking at Niko with a sad and frustrated expression, she pulled the ring off of her finger and placed it on a table by the couch.
"I love you, Niko," she said quietly. "But. . . we need more than that for this to work. Let's just give it some time, okay?" she asked, knowing how much this was hurting Niko - because it was hurting her just as badly. And in that case, she knew that what she was doing was heartlessly cruel - and yet it was really the best thing she could figure out to do.
"I'll still bring Axel to you now and then. Good-bye, Niko," she said quietly, and walked out the door. She didn't dare to glance behind her - it would make her turn back and change her mind, and she couldn't do that.
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:20 pm
Niko couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. His throat felt like a dozen frogs had jumped in, and gotten stuck. Like he couldn't breathe, only he could. With a shaking hand, he took the ring from the coffee table, and stared. Blue eyes were slits of distress. Half of him wanted to go after her, and half of him knew that even if he did, she probably wasn't going to come back.
No one ever came back, after they left him.
~~~~
"Aunt Thali?" A voice came from the living room. Thali had been making cookies for a picnic she planned for later that afternoon. "Aunt Thali, something's really wrong with your elven friend."
"Zee?" Thali asked with a frown. She recognized the voice now. Miles. Silly oracle was always sticking his nose where it didn't belong.
"Uncle Zee's fine. Niko's not. Tish isn't either--but..." Miles hesitated, and entered the kitchen. "He's planning on taking Demyx to Tish's, and letting her have him. I can't see him leaving the house for several weeks if someone doesn't interfere."
Thali sighed. "Probably about the age thing again," she muttered with a roll of the eyes. "I'll go talk to Tish." And so, she left the half done cookies on the counter, and headed towards the woman's house. She couldn't believe Tish would leave Niko for something so trivial as age. Didn't she know? Didn't she know that this would ruin everything? Didn't she know the heartbreak this would cause?
She knocked on the door, and put her best neutral face on.
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:43 pm
Tish was curled up on the couch devouring chocolate ice cream by the gallon, watching mindless soap operas on T.V. and crying into her favorite moping clothes - a green sweatsuit she wouldn't dare ever leave the house in. She stuck her ice-cream scoop in the dish again and didn't move to answer the door when she heard someone knock. "Go 'way," she mumbled around a mouthful of triple chocolate brownie chunk ice cream, not wanting anyone to disrupt her emotional funk - especially if it was someone coming to chew her out for being stupid or some such thing. She was doing what was best for her and the kids! Really, she was!
. . . So why did she feel like she was lying to herself?
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:11 pm
If Thali had been in the mood, she would have smirked. She turned the doorknob and entered. "Hullo, Tish," she greeted the woman as she entered. "I heard what happened between you and Niko," she said, as neutrally as possibly. "Care to explain?" She sat down next to her friend, and attempted a reassuring smile. "You and Nikki'll get back together," she promised. "It's destined. I've never met an elf who loves anyone more than he loves you."
She studied Tish for a moment, before frowning. "What are you doing, trying to gain weight?" she asked, growing irritated. "From what I heard, you dumped Niko, not the other way around. Why are you sulking? In your redheaded rage, you attacked him. I assume, for his age. I never thought you'd be one to be so trivial, Tish. In a few minutes, maybe thirty, he'll bring Demyx here, in a basket, stating that he isn't fit to care for him. When he does, I want you two to talk. In case you haven't noticed, he loves you, Tish. You and your children are all that boy talks about. How wonderful, how beautiful, how perfect your family will be. You're all he's ever had."
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Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:40 pm
"Then why did he never say anything like that to me?!?" Tish cried, stabbing her ice cream viciously. "Whenever he was here he was always either tired, or uninterested, or avoided the girls!" Tears ran down her face in a messy cascade, and Tish looked like an absolutely miserable pile of human. "I didn't want to break up with him! I didn't think there was any other CHOICE!" And she wailed, breaking down into a blubbering mess like she'd only done once before in her entire life. That was a time she liked to pretend had never existed, had never happened, and she almost always succeeded. Unfortunately, bawling like this now wasn't help her to forget about it, or about the fresh pain that, this time, she'd inflicted upon herself.
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