Authentic pub food experience or no, Loki's not taking a sixteen-year-old girl whose brother he communicates with regularly to a London pub. Instead, they've arrived at one of his favorite coffee shops, full of convenient nooks that provide an illusion of privacy and surly baristas who provide an entirely authentic caffeine experience. If there's a more serious hazard than that of drunkenness in providing large quantities of caffeine and sugar to Maddie, he hasn't realized it yet.
     Four shots of espresso and a token dab of foam in a chipped cup later, Loki's settled down in one of the many corners of the place. The table is located at an uneasy midpoint between the cleanest spot available and the quietest. Nothing sticky on the floor, which is more than can be said of some places he frequents. He holds his cup in both hands, watching Maddie with one of those looks that could veer into disapproving at any moment. It's not showing any signs of going there yet. It's hard to be too disapproving with his hands full of coffee just waiting to be consumed.

     Maddie is dressed comfortably but conveniently in a pair of designer jeans and a long-sleeved black and green and white multi-striped sweater. She has a fuzzy black hat with pink kitty ears on her head, her hair in braided pigtails under it. She also has on a daub of lipgloss, and the sweater is just as snug as the jeans. She's opted for an oversized latte that's been over-sugared with raw sugar crystals and vanilla syrup as well.
     Right now she's dragging the spoon through the top layer of foam and cinnamon powder, coaxing the powder into artistic whorls and dream-like shapes. She hasn't taken a sip yet; instead, she's scrutinizing Loki covertly while he watches her. "Pres isn't doing so good, you know."
     She leads with her left. She watches you for another moment, then adds, "He misses you a lot. He was happy to see you. I could tell."

     Loki's in shades of gray and black, to match the weather and his mood. Not very spring-like, but it's not precisely spring yet, is it? The thin gray scarf goes over the back of his chair, folded-not-flung, so that it doesn't trail into his drink when he leans forward.
     He hides his first reaction, nearly a flinch, behind a sip of espresso. He's not especially good at the concealment, not least of which because it's more a teacup than a coffee mug. "I wasn't entirely sure. It used to be easier to tell, but I can't always figure out now if I'm annoying him, or if it's just...everything else. There's a lot of everything else for it to be, isn't there?" He aims a thin smile in Maddie's direction, there and gone again. "We didn't exactly sit down together to have deep conversations about our feelings while I was there."

     "He really likes you a lot," Maddie answers. She isn't accusing about it; she regards Loki meditatively, frowning down at her coffee and then back up at Loki. "...I'm glad Gillian's not coming, partly because of that. Pres and Gillian don't always realize it, you know, but ... Gilly's so much like mumsie, she gets his back up. She tries to protect his feelings about his leg, and he gets more and more tense and uptight until he's had enough, and he goes stalking off because he wants to hit something. Or someone."
     She picks up her cup in both hands, taking a tiny sip. "I'm mad at Gilly right now. I won't always be mad at her, of course, but right now, I really am. And that means she'd spend the entire time ignoring my being mad and acting as if nothing was wrong and trying to casually rearrange everybody's lives to fit her idea of what we should all be doing. And that'd get Pres mad, it'd make me madder, it'd make you wish you'd never come along... it'd be a mess. And a waste of money," Maddie adds with a sigh. She lolls back, tipping her chair back with a frustrated little wiggle. "Do you like Pres, Loki?"

     Do I like Pres? For one, he hasn't tried to rearrange my life lately. Unlike some people I could think of. Whose last names also end in West.
     "I don't think it would be such a bad idea for Gillian to come," he says, with a jerky shrug for her analysis of what it would mean. "Obviously if there were any chance left of that before you asked Balthazar, there wouldn't be now." It's not really an accusation from him, either, but he's not about to pretend that's just a coincidence.
     He's hammering back the caffeine tonight, drinking espresso like it's plain coffee. It does nothing to deaden the emotional overload, maybe even the opposite, but somehow it's a little easier to deal with the constant background churn of emotional noise when he's not tired on top of everything else. "Of course I like Pres. If I knew how to help him, I'd be doing something about it."

     Maddie doesn't look hurt - or guilty. "I suppose that was a little mean of me," she agrees, "but Gillian already said when I talked to her that she was planning on staying in Oxford for the break." That said 'talk' was carried out in agitated and shrill voices doesn't need to be mentioned, right? Right. "Anyway, I wanted Balthazar to see that not all of the West family's crazy."
     Now her face does change. She looks into her latte, expression shifting to become morose. "I know he doesn't ... like me like that, Loki. And I know it's - it's obvious to a blind guy ten miles away how I feel. I can't help that. I can't help how I feel, either." She takes another sip, swinging a foot until it smacks into the table leg and bounces back. "...Ow."
     She shrugs, discarding the topic as fruitless. "Anyway, if you really want to help him, and you do like him, you could seduce him. That'd distract him." She takes another sip of her latte with a worldly shrug, giving Loki a knowing look. "But you won't. Will you?"

     The slightly sympathetic, understanding nodding that goes along with Maddie's explanations hits an abrupt snag as what she just said sinks in. He freezes solid, staring at her over his cup, while comprehension goes through a reboot cycle to get past that particular blue screen of a suggestion.
     It takes a moment to re-engage the ability to speak in something other than indignant, strangled noises. "No, I wasn't exactly planning on seducing your brother, Maddie," he says, voice lowered, because there's only so much privacy to be had in a coffee shop. "What gives you the idea that would help? Or that I would if--" That's hit a loss for words again, so he settles for a relatively mild glower over his coffee cup. "It's not like sex fixes anything. It usually just makes existing problems worse, when it's not bringing up fun new problems all its own."

     "Well, why not?" Maddie looks a trifle indignant. "Of course it would help! Doesn't it always help to know someone you like a lot likes you back? And it isn't as if he trusts just anyone. He hasn't had a girlfriend since the shark bit him," she adds a bit sadly. "You'd think it'd bitten him somewhere quite different from his leg."
     She picks up her coffee, taking a drink again and tucking one leg elaborately over the other. "He needs somebody," Maddie answers stubbornly. "And so do you. So it just makes sense, especially if you like each other, doesn't it?"

     "No. It doesn't always help. Not--" Loki sighs, slouching down in his chair. "It's just not that simple. Being friends with someone is one thing. Having sex with someone is something completely different, and it usually means that if you stop having sex, you stop being friends. Or maybe before. About the best way to lose a friend is to get into bed with them, believe me on this one."
     He looks away from Maddie, not too picky about the direction. Towards a corner of the coffee shop with a table that needs wiping, as it turns out. Bad direction. Oh, hey, an angle to watch the counter from, and think longingly of more caffeine. Better. "He could use more friends. I'm not so sure what he needs is a sudden complication in an existing friendship. The type of complication that has a track record of making things worse between people. For extra bonus bad idea points, how about the part where he lives in Los Angeles, and I live in London? I have a job here. I'm not planning on moving back to California any time soon. So at best, it'd be a one-time kind of thing followed by everything going long distance, which is an entirely different kind of bad idea. I just--don't think it's a useful approach."

     "How about the point where he's absolutely miserable in California?" Maddie argues. West girls are so difficult to argue with, aren't they? "Where he is doesn't matter as long as he's happy. But even if it's a one-time thing, I don't believe for a moment that it's always automatically a bad thing. Maybe it'd be what he needs to get on with things."
     She looks a bit miffed as she takes another, defiant sip of her coffee. "Anyway, you don't have to if you don't want to. But if you like him and he likes you, I don't see what you two are getting so stroppy about."

     Change the subject, change the subject, you know better than to keep up this topic of conversation...
     "How do you know he likes me anyway?"
     That was so not changing the subject.
     Loki knocks back most of his espresso in hopes of the caffeine jolting some sense back into him before he digs himself into a further hole conversationally. "Sure, we're friends, but it's entirely possible to have friends you don't want to have sex with. I'm not being stroppy, I'm being practical."

     "I'm his sister," Maddie answers pointedly. "I've known he's attracted to boys for years now. Longer than he has, I think." She sighs, leaning her chair back with a bit of a wiggle and resting her feet on the chair opposite. "I think he's still trying to deny it, though. Our family's really rather rotten, isn't it? It's really too bad."
     She drinks some more, slurping contentedly, her pigtails vibrating with her mood. "You're friends, and you're afraid of letting anybody that close, which is also too bad," Maddie answers robustly. "But it's up to you, really. I can't tell you how to live your life, I just want you and Pres to be happy! And I can see further than Gilly can. And definitely much further than mumsie."

     Loki gives up on this episode of Life isn't as simple as it seems in high school. It's not like he ever listened when he got it from his dad back then either. "I'll spend time with Pres in Oahu, anyway. I like Balthazar just fine, but I have no idea what he prefers to do on vacation. Probably things involving sun." He drags a smudge of foam off the side of his mouth with one finger. "Your family's--I figure we're all best at seeing the problems in our own families. But even I can see that Pres has an especially rough time of it because of your mother."

     "Mumsie loves him to pieces," Maddie agrees. She frowns. "Dad loves Gilly to pieces. They've already got their sides lined up. It's - well, anyway." She tugs a pigtail away from her shoulder and shrugs. "Balthazar will have fun. If he doesn't, well, then, he never has to see any Wests again, does he?"
     She finishes her coffee, setting the cup down grouchily, lower lip puckering out. "So what do you think?" Maddie asks finally.

     Four shots of espresso just don't last as long as they used to. It must have something to do with the company. Loki looks up from his own empty cup, unreadable for a moment. "About what part? There's a lot going on."

     "Any of it. None of it." Maddie smiles painedly, looking resigned and a bit vulnerable. "I guess it doesn't matter..."

     "I think that you'll be a lot happier once you're old enough to get further away from that part of your life where your family defines so much of your world," Loki says quietly. He shrugs jerkily, brushing crumbs off the table into his palm to dump into his empty coffee cup. "Family's different when spending time with them is something you choose to do, instead of the default setting. As for the rest, I don't know. I think Gillian's going to be fine. I don't know how to fix Pres, or even if it's my right to screw around with his life, but it's not like the space he's got seems to be actually making him any happier."
     He looks up at Maddie. "But what do I know? I don't have any siblings. Different family setup, different issues."

     "Gillian's always fine," Maddie mutters. She balls her hands in her lap, letting her feet drop to the floor. "I think you should screw around with Pres' life, though. Do you know why? Because he's used to it. Mumsie, Gillian, even me, a little. So if there's anybody who'd be tolerant of it without snapping, it's Pres. And really."
     She looks Loki up and down critically. "Don't you ever want to take a chance?"

     Loki cracks a thin smile. "The last time I took a chance--okay, the last time I took a real chance that meant something, I dropped out of college. It worked out okay. But I'd rather stick to taking chances that aren't going to fuck with someone else's life. If you really think Pres wouldn't end up worse off..." And I must really be going slowly insane if I'm taking sex advice from a girl five years younger than me. About her brother. "You know him better than I do."

     "You'd get laid, he'd get laid, he'd be sure once and for all how he feels about sex with boys, and it'd be with someone he trusts." Maddie gives Loki a look. She sits up primly. "And you'd also figure out how you feel about actually being close to other people. Instead of being all worried about how it might turn out."
     One foot swings vigorously. She sets her cup down on the saucer with a tink. If only it were that easy to sort out Balthazar.

     The smile vanishes. They usually do. "What, you think I'm talking about all the ways sex can ruin relationships based on hypothesis?" Loki shakes that off. Moving on, before anyone has a chance to think too long about that. "We'll see. I'm not promising anything, but I'll keep an open mind, okay?"

     "I think that you're being unfair to Pres by comparing him to other people!" Maddie retorts. She nods, looking mollified. "As long as you're keeping an open mind." She nudges her chair back with a little sigh. "I'd better get to the hotel, though, and pack for my flight. Promise me you won't change your mind about Oahu?" She scuffs her toe against the floor, looking downcast. "I want to help Pres. I - I really wish I could. But I can't."

     "I'll be there," Loki says, losing some of his acquired tension. "Pres is expecting me, and I'm a cynic, not a jerk. Maybe a change of scenery will do something for him." He pulls his scarf from the back of the chair. "Let me walk you to the tube station. Or far enough to get a cab, if you're heading that way."

     "Sure." Maddie grins, flinging herself at Loki once she's on her feet, hugging him tightly. "Thanks, Loki. If you and Pres end up having a civil commitment ceremony, I'll totally help design the invitations." She winks, letting go and turning to bounce for the door. She's powered by the full strength of a thousand coffee beans! "Come on! Don't fall behind, now!"

Posted by rowan at March 25, 2009 09:02 PM