ArchivedLogs:Vignette - It Wouldn't Kill You

Vignette - It Wouldn't Kill You
Although, it might.
Dramatis Personae Dan, Kathleen, Colleen
In Absentia	2013-02-05 After meeting Shane, Dan pays a visit to his sister.
Location Kathleen's Townhouse, Queens
Dan stood on the stoop, shoulders hunkered against the chill wind that bit into the flesh of his neck and tried to slip down under his sweatshirt. At his waist, the air seemed to find the cracks and render the cold metal against his hip bone absolutely freezing. He shouldn't be here, he thought. Kathleen wouldn't be happy to see him this late, and he really had no right to come by, anyway. But, like the drinking he'd do later, this had become something of a ritual for him; one he couldn't seem to break himself of. He knocked, before his resolve could break and he fled into the night. Two, three times, heavy banging knocks that brought a light on upstairs. A few minutes later, the curtains in the frosted window of the door twitched, and then the door opened. “Daniel.” Oh, yes. Kathleen was good and pissed. Even through her sleepy gaze and the haystack of red-gold that was her hair, he could see the cold anger that lurked in his oldest sibling's stare. “It's late.” The clipped tone implied that it was too late, but he didn't care. “I need to see her,” he said, pushing past his sister and ignoring her protest and the dig of nails in his bicep as she tried to stop him. “You can't.” Something in his sister's tone both confused and annoyed him. Can't? Can't? Anger at being denied flared in his chest, and he ground his teeth silently, waiting for it. Kathleen didn't disappoint. “You can't keep doing this to her, Daniel. You come in here, and confuse her, and then spin out of here to go and do...whatever it is you do, and I'm left to hold her and explain why you can barely stand to look at her.” Her sigh was weary, and hollow-sounding. “It's not fair, Daniel. You can't do this to her, or to me.” “I need to see her.” Dan couldn't give in – wouldn't give in on it, even though he could already begin to feel the heated knife of guilt press into his chest. It was early, this time. “Why?” There was the knife, plunging deep into his heart and spinning slowly. The question he couldn't answer, and his sister knew it. She knew it because she asked the goddamned thing every fucking time he came over. “I just do.” It sounded weak in his own ears, but earnest. He /did/ need to see her. Maybe it was punishment, or atonement. She was his creation, after all. His sister must have heard the need in his voice, because the sigh she offered this time was sympathetic. Soft. “Five minutes,” she said, coming up behind him to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. She had to reach up to do it; she had inherited Ma's short roundness while he carried the sinewy tall muscles of the Rourke men. “Please don't wake her, this time.” She moved past him, then, into the kitchen. “If you do, I'll shoot you in the knee.” Dan grunted a semi-laugh as he headed up the stairs quietly. Of all his siblings, Kathleen was the one who he most believed would make good on that threat. Well, outside of himself. She was very protective of her home and those within, and had no patience for those who broke whatever rules she laid down. She'd been that way his whole life. Hell, he'd been practically raised under Kathleen's rules. Maybe that's why he'd brought her here. He'd known that Kathleen would take care of her like one of her own children. That made him smile, because it was something Ellen would have smiled about. He paused in front of the door to her room, looking at the cartoon giraffe height marker that was attached there. The latest entry read Colleen, Age 3 – 1/30/13. He put his finger to the mark, and measured it against his leg. Colleen came to just about mid-thigh, now. She'd been walking for ages, but now she was big enough to hold his hand when they walked. If he ever let her. If they ever went walking. Maybe he'd take her out to the country, some time. Taking a deep breath, he put his hand on the knob and pushed it open quietly. The room was decorated in a jungle motif; The Jungle Book being one of Collie's favorite animated movies. Dan had worked like a dog to make the extra money to decorate it. He'd searched at Kathleen's request for a painter who could duplicate the animals from that movie, and the guy he'd found had been very good. He had to confess that. In the corner, Baloo and Mowgli guarded Colleen's dresser, which came to Dan's knee, and was sitting behind a tiny tea table where some members of Colleen's stuffed animal menagerie still sat in silent congress. Dan grinned as he looked down on Nemo and the big stuffed lion that had been dressed in a big, floppy hat. On the opposite wall, where Colleen's big-girl bed now sat in place of her crib, Kaa and Baghera watched over the little girl as she slept, while King Louie swung from the cartoon tree branches painted on the ceiling. Dan offered a tight smile at his now-old friend, and lowered himself into the arm chair next to Collie's bed, on which Shere Khan was curled along the back panel. God, it was all so precious he could vomit. Why had he given in so easily? Fucking Disney jungles around his little monster? God had a sick sense of irony. Dan watched the girl sleep, his eyes locked to the rise and fall of her chest instead of her lax face. He knew what her face looked like. She was her mother from forehead to chin, with his dark brown eyes. Which looked strange in Ellen's face. Stranger still, when the face looked... Anger rose, briefly, in his chest, and Collie whimpered in her sleep. He cursed, and immediately tamped down his rage. Somehow, she could sense his emotions, and reacted strongly to them. Was that a mutant thing? It sounded like a mutant thing. Bad enough she looked like that, but to have freaky powers.... His brain ran back to the kid he'd encountered in the park earlier. He'd never seen a mutant quite that mutated, or one who was dumb enough to pick a fight with a human in public. That took guts, he had to admit. Fucking freak. He should have put a bullet in the kid's head, and done the world a favor. Who'll do you that favor? A dark part of his brain supplied the question, and he winced. Who will decide that Colleen is a freak and should be taken out of this world? How would he feel, knowing someone was going to take this last bit of Ellie from him? He might hate mutants, but Colleen was his. His and Ellen's, and no matter how freaky she looked, he'd keep her as safe as he could. Even from himself. “Daddy.” The tiny, sleepy voice rocked him out of his thoughts, and he realized that his daughter was awake and staring at him, her small amethyst face lit by the banana-shaped nightlight above her head. “Daddy, I love you.” Dan cringed. Of course she did. And he probably loved her, somewhere. “Daddy, give me a kiss so I dream good.” The tension in his chest was incredible. It felt like he would literally be torn in two any minute now. Between the man who wanted to go to his daughter and cover her face in kisses and the man who wanted to flee this house and crawl back into a bottle of Jim Beam until he could barely recall what had happened. “Daddy?” Colleen's voice wavered, a sign that tears would soon follow. And then Kathleen would shoot him. Quickly, he stood, and moved to the side of the bed, and lowered like one of those drinking bird toys he'd loved as a kid. A bend at the waist, and he was landing a hard peck on her tiny forehead. The smile she gave him for this miniscule token nearly ripped his heart out, but he forced himself to stay strong. “I love you, Daddy,” she half-sang in a sleepy voice, and Dan could only grunt in reply. And, in that way that only small children and teenagers can manage, she was sound asleep again almost immediately. Dan watched a few more minutes, until he was sure she was asleep, then moved from the bed and towards the door. One more glance assured that Colleen was sound asleep, and he let himself out as silently as he'd entered. He paused when the door shut, and fished out his phone to take a picture of the giraffe and his daughter's latest progress. It might not be anything he showed anyone, but it was good to have it. It was the most tangible thing he would ever let himself have of her existence. Other than nights like this. Dan decided that he wasn't interested in having tea or coffee and a big plate of guilt, which was undoubtedly what Kathleen had planned. And he would have gotten away clean, except that his sister was waiting at the door when he got to the bottom of the stairs. “Stay for coffee.” It didn't sound like a request. He shook his head, and shoved his phone into his pocket. “Can't. Have to be at work early, because of the storm.” “They need security guards to deal with weather?” His sister's tone was scathing, and he flinched under it. “Bobby called in sick, and Big Julie got stuck upstate. I'm the only one to cover.” It was almost the truth. Big Julie had been upstate, and Bobby did call in sick. He just wasn't the one tapped to cover them. His sister could smell the lie. He could see it in the way she narrowed her green eyes at him, as if x-raying him for the radioactive untruth. Dan did his best not to waver and show her the reality of things. She must have been satisfied with whatever she saw there, because she nodded, and stepped forward. Her hand, warm and loving as it had ever been, slipped along his cheek tenderly. “Oh, Danny,” she said, and Dan braced himself for the barrage of complaints about his lack of parenting, his lack of feeling, his inconsideration of others...but he was disappointed this time. Kathleen only sighed, and patted his cheek gently before she stepped back. “You should come by during the day,” she said, pulling the door open. “You might even get to see your nephews, if you did.” “I see them at Sunday dinners over at Ma's,” Dan said, and leaned to plant a kiss on his sister's cheek. It was gentler than the kiss he'd given his daughter, and another knife of guilt slid into his gut at that thought. Somewhere, he could hear Jim Beam calling him loudly. “Besides, you know I have to work most days.” Kathleen sighed. “Just once, I'd like to see you put her before everything else,” she said, leaning against the door and resting her head against the edge. “It wouldn't kill you, you know.” Dan bobbed his head in a non-committal way and pushed past his sister into the bitter cold of the night. He paused at the base of the steps, and turned back to face his sister. “I can probably come by on Monday for lunch,” he said, then, frowning into the distance. “I'll call you if I can't make it.” “Good,” Kathleen said, lifting her eyebrows pointedly from the warm safety of the house. “Colleen will be glad to see you.” She offered a bright smile as she backed into the house, pushing the door shut. “Good night, Danny. I love you.” Dan groaned as he walked towards his piece of shit car. He wasn't sure what Kathleen's game was here, but he wasn't sure he wanted to play it. He had a nice arrangement with his sister and his daughter, and it wasn't time to go kicking it all to hell now. His steering wheel got a couple of stout punches when he got in before he shook his head and started the car. Wouldn't kill him? Hah.