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 Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:04 pm
His flight from France touched down at JFK around five in the morning, and Carson stumbled bleary-eyed down the jetway. He found his way down to the USO office, where he passed out on a couch while he waited for his connecting flight and everyone said very nice things about his knee brace, though all Carson had to say about the matter were at least he was done with the cast and the crutches. Later, as he was boarding his flight to Destiny City, he texted Elke something sarcastic about having not been lost at sea (it was a real concern), and made sure that all his new comic books had finished downloading to his tablet and-
Honestly, it was super weird to be traveling as a civilian, but hey, here he was.
Destiny City looked basically the same as he remembered it, despite the six years of constant gang violence that it had allegedly endured. He leaned against the window in the cab, trying to shake off his jet lag and messing with his phone. No reply from Elke, but that wasn’t unusual. Her recovery process was very dependent on being in contact with only the right people, and she didn’t usually have her phone on her. Maybe he’d get a call through later, but…
They weren’t a couple. He’d known her since January, when she showed up in group therapy, an ambassador’s daughter with PTSD so bad she needed to be treated with combat vets, and that… that was a mystery. He’d kissed her all of twice, and he’d held off on trying to negotiate anything official on the grounds of being headed back to the States… but that didn’t mean he wanted to cut things off entirely.
Anyway, it was weird, and complicated, and he’d been married to his job since he was eighteen so it wasn’t like he had any precedence for grown-up relationships but he kind of wanted to be in one?
He got to the apartment complex a bit before five, picked the keys up from the manager, and found his way up to the little efficiency unit he was renting. Two hundred dollars a month got him an en suite, a full sized bed with sheets and a comforter, a desk and a chair, and a mini-fridge with an ice box and a microwave/hot plate combination the likes of which he’d never seen before and was kind of concerned would start a fire.
But hey, it was two hundred dollars a month for an apartment.
He set Elke’s picture on the nightstand, sat down, and started to take off his knee brace.
(He texted her: Home sweet home.)
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:05 pm
Nell flew in a few days later, with no warning beyond texting him to say Landing at Destiny City International it 3pm, plzzzzz pick me up. Carson, being a good big brother and generally responsible human being, did as he was told and rolled up to the arrivals waiting area in the 2003 Civic that he’d bought for chump change. He got out and leaned on the hood - a conspicuously different shade of beige than the rest of the car - and a moment later, Nell emerged from the terminal, dragging her suitcase behind her.
“Wow,” she said, before greeting him, before hugging him, before doing any of the things that one was supposed to do upon being reunited with your brother who had had a cliff face dropped on him in Iraq. “That is the ugliest ******** car I’ve ever seen.”
“Hi,” said Carson flatly. “How was your flight?”
“Better now that I’m looking at your dumb face,” said Nell, and he finally got his hug. They piled into the car.
“So,” she said, picking at the seat, “Is this like genuine fake leather? Where did you find this thing? Dad would have a coronary if he knew how much you were slumming it.”
Which was kind of the point, but he wasn’t going to say so, because he and Marcus were in agreement that Nell was pure and innocent and could not have her precious worldview ruined by knowing the truth about how their family worked. “Yeah, well, tell him I’m doing fine,” said Carson, because he was. He was going to school and he had a job and he had done a spectacular job of not dying. Besides, he’d dropped his adopted last name when he turned eighteen - nothing he did could possibly “bring shame on the family” now, not unless he did it around people who ran in a very specific social circle.
“Anyway,” he asked, “Where are you planning to stay? Not with me. I have a studio apartment.”
“Relaaaaaaaax,” said Nell, kicking her legs up onto the dashboard. “I got a hotel room.” Because, right, his little sister was independently wealthy. That was just what happened when you booked your first acting job on Barney the Dinosaur at age three: it was all uphill from there.
Anyway, he got them both home without her taking his car apart and it was a small miracle that he managed it. Nell breezed into the apartment ahead of him, taking it all in. Carson waited, and waited, and finally she said, “Wow, this place is a shithole.”
“It’s a shithole that I pay two hundred dollars a month for,” said Carson. Nell whistled lowly, as if she was impressed.
“I retract my previous statement,” she said. “For two hundred a month this is palatial.” And she went ahead and flopped onto the bed like it was hers to claim, because that was how Nell moved through most spaces: as if they were hers and only hers. She fell silent - clearly having noticed the photograph on the nightstand. “Who’s the chick?”
“A friend,” said Carson, because it was true.
“A friend whose picture you have next to where you sleep? Okay. Yeah. Sure, Romeo,” replied Nell. Carson gave her a long look, and she looked suddenly horrified. “s**t. Crap. She’s not one of your squadmates, is she? Carson, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
Carson could not even begin to picture Elke in a set of BDUs, and decided to take mercy on Nell from the terrible hole she’d walked herself into. “No, uh, she’s someone I met in recovery.”
Nell nodded. “Kicking knee brace, by the way.”
Carson snorted. “Glad you think so,” he said, sitting down beside her. He glanced at the photograph - it was recent, a reminder of how far Elke had come since he’d met her.
“So she must be some friend,” Nell needled, rolling on the bed until she bumped against his side, “That you’ve got her picture here.” She was obviously digging for something, but Carson had played this silly game of twenty questions enough that they both knew the rules. “Are you sure you’re not dating her.”
He decided to bite - otherwise this conversation was going to go on forever. “I would like to be dating her,” said Carson.
Nell’s response was an understated, “Oh. Huh. I was starting to think you were gay,” followed by an even more understated, “I’m starting to think that Dad is gay.”
Carson tried to sound unphased. “Yeah?” he asked. “What makes you think that?” Nell wrinkled her nose.
“I think he had sex with one of my friends,” she said. Carson’s heart lurched oddly - Luke Rodham, back to his old tricks. Or had he ever really stopped? He’d tried not to think about it once he was no longer involved - and he never wanted Nell to know about what had gone on. She didn’t need that kind of negativity in her life.
“How old is your friend?” he asked.
“Eighteen,” replied Nell, and then backtracked. “I mean, he’s eighteen now, but this was a few months ago? And when I say I think he had sex with one of my friends, I mean I’m almost totally certain he had sex with one of my friends. And at my birthday party, too! He’s such a skeeze. He’s like the dad in American Beauty but without any redeeming factors.”
She paused.
Then she nudged his leg. “Hey,” said Nell, “Are you gonna tell me why you don’t talk to him anymore?”
“No,” said Carson, firmly enough to make her change the subject.
“Do you think Marcus and Annie will want to get dinner?” she asked. “I’ve got a present in my bag for Lou.” A present that she promptly began digging for, it turned out. Carson sighed.
Nothing was different, he thought. Everything had stayed the same.
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