Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! Apologies for not uploading last week when I said I would. I was feeling a little delicate and this is a bit of a heavy chapter to get edited and uploaded so I wanted to feel a little better in myself so I could make this a good one! I wasn't one hundred percent happy with it on my first editing session but now I'm much happier! This chapter formally introduces one of Daisy's boyfriend's, a new OC called Bear (he's appeared in Rocket Daze already and details of him are in my profile if you're interested) even though they are not together the time that this takes place. And though we see the dynamics of a few different characters, it mostly focuses on the relationship of Misty and Daisy. I headcanon that as Misty gets beyond anime age, their relationship becomes difficult for a number of reasons. And although it's better here because they are no longer estranged, you can see that it becomes quite resentful and volatile, especially on Misty's end! I hope you still enjoy this chapter :D
Ages:
Justin: 21
Misty: 34
Daisy: 40
Bear: 42
Eli: 34
From sipping by own drink, hind legs planted firmly on the windowsill and fur beaming back the sun's brightness, I glanced over at Justin enjoying what was in his own glass. But then in the very next moment that passed, I realized that he wasn't quite as one with the simplicity as I was. I suppose, like me in a way, his attention was on something else.
Somebody else.
Justin's kneecaps like a little bird pointed nearer to each other, one hand resting on his narrow thigh and the other holding a rosy tinted glass of lemonade just in front of his face, about the length of a ruler away from his chin.
It seemed that, unlike me, enjoying the refreshment at his family home was the last thing that captured his attention. His head pointing in the same direction, his eyes observed the trio of Daisy, Bear and Eli in a little huddle in the corner of the living room, clearly invested in each other's company from the way that conversation flowed like a steady stream.
When Eli burst with joy, his face growing screwed up with merriment at something that Bear said, he removed his hand from containing itself in his suit trouser pocket and he moved to pat the man of a similar stature on the back. Justin's kneecaps fell away from each other. His spine erected against the back of the sofa.
He wondered what Bear had said to make him laugh in such a way. He had tried to listen into the conversation between three people but as they got into a tighter huddle, all their words seemed to blur into one. But not Eli's. Not Eli's laughter.
I watched; my head tilted in naive curiosity as Justin's eyes were like a buyer that had settled on their dream home. Even after Eli's laughter died down and it was Bear and Daisy who was talking to each other with the other man listening, Justin's eyes didn't leave the sight of him.
I didn't know it – and he didn't exactly know why he was doing this either – but he hoped that Eli would look at him. Would tear away from his niece and Bear for just half a second and catch his eye. Would smile at him.
Justin's teeth sinking down into a bottom lip that tasted like pink lemonade from his drinking glass, he willed Eli to do this.
But he did not.
Justin just had to watch Eli's hand slowly slide away from being placed in the middle of Bear's shoulder blades, and he switched his own glass to being in that one and used his left hand to touch Daisy's shoulder instead.
As he watched the newly reunited family members interact, for some reason Justin wondered who Eli had waiting for him back at home. Perhaps someone that had distracted him from biting the bullet and reuniting with his nieces a lot sooner than he had.
Although Justin's mind tried to tell him that he was only thinking of this because he was happy to see that Daisy had someone back in her corner once more, unease filled his stomach like a virus that rapidly spread. In hindsight, I remember that I saw him reach and put his drink on the coffee table in front of him.
No way could he fill himself with bubbles with that sudden knot in his belly.
If somebody would peacefully feel the room shift when Eli returned to them, what did it matter to him? All that mattered was that he was back in Daisy's life and Misty's too. Violet was sure to be available for him when she returned from her trip. And besides, he had Sammy, didn't he?
Justin's stomach threatening to grow into slithering serpents, his eyes finally dropped down, giving up on wondering if Eli was going to look at him and bring him into the conversation. The last thing he wanted was for Jordan's cousin seeing his impenetrable expression that was a mask for his desperation.
I guess he didn't realize that, unlike Eli, my eyes were on him.
Justin, however, knew that somebody's eyes had been on him when they made it perfectly clear. Coming back from the kitchen with her own refreshment, Misty suddenly plopped down on the sofa next to him, leaving him glad that he had rid himself of his glass.
Somehow, she managed to contain her full drink from splashing as she bumped down against the sofa cushions.
"Whoops!" she acknowledged. Leaving my own drink discarded on the windowsill, my expression altered from contemplative to filled with sunshine as I saw Misty. I came to sit next to her legs. "Whatcha thinking about as you check those guys out so hard?"
Beginning to recover from her presence and the relief that she hadn't sent a drink flying, Justin's immediate reaction was to furrow his brow together in a knot like his guts had been before he purposefully moved his thoughts elsewhere and to deny her observation.
But that would have been pointless. His skin might as well have been as translucent as glass even if she hadn't acknowledged that he had been looking at one person rather than several.
From craning my neck upwards as Misty's empty hand dropped down to pat me on the top of my head, I watched Justin's own expression brighten up at the company. He then looked back over at the group – far more fleetingly this time – waving a gesticulatory hand.
"I was just thinking." Justin began, giving Misty a smile that revealed his dimple like a ripe segment of fruit and his left eye squinting as if he was the one who had been in the sun. Before her expression could convey that that was a given, he added: "Nice to see some people before heading off on tour."
Though something niggled in Misty's own stomach as her fingertips bedded into my yellow fuzz that made her think that Justin had produced this answer on the spot, she couldn't help but smile in return. The nod of her head concealed her true feelings.
Yes. He would be going back away soon. She wasn't yet ready to walk into a room and not see his wiry frame taking up surprising space.
Rather than telling Justin any of this, she moved her and away from my fur for a brief second to sort her bangs out. Justin didn't notice if they even needed adjusting or not.
"Yeah." Misty agreed, buying herself time before saying what was on her own mind though she guessed what would be on the tip of her tongue straight away. Unbeknownst to Justin or me, she had been loitering in the doorway, watching the trio, before spotting Justin eyeing them up with a similar intensity. "They seem to get along pretty well, huh?"
Misty's words were punctuated by a particularly, breathy laugh. I couldn't think too much on it because her palm was back against the top of my head but in hindsight, I remember that Justin's head turned to focus on her rather than the trio, intrigued by the noise that came out of her.
But then his attention was stolen away from Misty on the sofa with him by the sound of Eli erupting into laughter all over again. As much as Justin spied the crinkles at the top of his nose, he noticed that since Misty had joined the room, Eli had put his own drinks glass down on the fireplace, so a hand was on each Daisy and Bear's shoulders.
Misty had spied when her Uncle Eli was touching her sister. But Justin noticed when he was holding onto Bear.
"Yeah." Justin inadvertently mirrored Misty and bought himself time. His hand roamed through his hair, pushing it back into its new, shorter style while his eyes flickered between who he was conversing with and the gang in the corner. "I mean..." Justin's lips sewed together, trying not to set free the truth but then it escaped from him in a similar laugh to Misty's. "I thought Eli only chatted like that to Jordan or you but...
The words or me might have only been an echo in his mind, but he hadn't been able to stop himself from spilling the rest out. And him saying all of this to Misty made her realize that what she had spied when she stopped looking so hard from the doorway at Daisy and Eli and looked at Justin instead was right on the mark.
She made no attempt whatsoever to conceal her reaction.
Her hand moving away from my head for good, Misty's head tilted profusely to the side, and she held her drinks glass against her lap. The corners of her own nose scrunching up, she giggled at Justin, enjoying the moment of lightheartedness over what was going on in her own head.
"I meant my sister and Uncle Eli." she informed him, feeling a wave of fondness mixed with a slight hint of regret from teasing him as she watched the color drain even further from his own complexion.
I for half a second considered handing him his glass of pink lemonade to add a bit of warmth back into his cheeks! But then I was distracted by a red hue filling his face all by itself.
Fondness rushed further into Misty's core, not that she would have dreamed about saying anything, her neck straightening, and her grin softening into a smile. Justin's eyes flapped together like wings of a butterfly, wondering how he was going to get out of that one.
In the end, he didn't even try. Perhaps because, like me, he didn't know why he was blushing so hard either.
"Oh." This single word was filled with a lot more substance despite its shortness. Justin's hands found themselves back in his own hair to encourage back his own collectedness. But Misty always thought he was as cool as a cucumber. "Right." a shy smile swiping over his face, Justin turned back to the trio, for the first time not focusing so hard on who was making who laugh. "Well... It is nice for them to catch up a bit after all these years. Like it was for you and Eli."
Misty tried to detect any sort of change in tone when Justin spoke her uncle's name, but she couldn't find much to sink her teeth into. This gave her the opportunity to answer with her own truthfulness, taking a sip of her ordinary lemonade before placing it on the coffee table next to Justin's which then went missing as he decided to reach for it.
Her eyes wandered back over to the trio in the corner of the room. Justin was too busy trying to focus on taking a few sips of drink now that his stomach had settled so only she watched both of Eli's hands on Daisy's shoulders as he faced her.
It was like every word that she was saying was a song just for him.
It was this sight that made her words tumble out in the way that they did. It can't have been me slinking back off to the windowsill for some more April sun!
"Yep." Misty agreed. Her tone, however, was laced with a quality conveying the opposite. Justin expected that she was going to finish her words with a sip of her drink because she had started them in that way. But as time passed and she reached for her drink but didn't say anything, he realized that that was that!
His eyelashes clapped together all over again, his own head beginning to tilt but a lot more subtly than Misty's gesture. His eyes flickering between uncle and niece and Eli's other niece sat next to him on the sofa, Justin considered pointing out what he spotted within her like she had done for him.
But that wasn't his style.
And besides, unlike how he felt in his unfathomable behavior that would take writing a song to unravel, Misty watching Eli interact with Daisy was a whole lot more sensitive. Perhaps his words had been insensitive.
Justin suddenly corrected his mistake in case one had existed. His glass still in hand, he settled more comfortably on the sofa with Misty. He nudged his hip against hers.
It got her attention, him making the sofa move like she had done before!
"It's nice to see Daisy and Bear getting along so well as well, isn't it?" Justin posed, a genuine smile swiping across his face that would soon be washed away by Misty's words. But his mouth didn't know what was coming.
And he looked most earnest as he looked over from Misty to Daisy and Bear, who somehow might have caught onto his words, from the way that the two of them were engaging in a playful back and forth.
Misty should have been glad to see her uncle's hands off her sister. But instead of focusing on this – this would mean she would have to face why she felt such a way– she couldn't help but tease Justin again after hearing the laughter of Bear and Daisy.
She turned to look at him in their proximity, her nose scrunching up on her face and her head twitching to the side in playfulness.
She didn't know what it was about Justin, but she just couldn't help but tease him!
"You mean nice as in you get to have a break from seeing Eli and Bear getting along a little too well?" she poked fun at him. And then, for a second time, she felt a bad when she saw a stained blush capture his cheeks and she could see the words flickering through his mind as the whites of his eyes did their best to stay their usual size.
Were they getting along a little too well? If Eli had a partner back home, this was an issue, right? But why did Justin even care?
He came out with his own words before he had to think about why he was thinking if Misty had a point.
"Behave." he told her in mock curtness that disappeared entirely along with, thankfully for him, the hotness of his cheeks when she touched him lightly on the arm to tell him that she would stop winding him up. "It is nice though, isn't it?" Justin insisted, one glance flicking back towards the trio before conversing with Misty properly. "To see a couple no longer together getting along like that."
A pause. One very brief hesitation. And then Misty showed that she wasn't quite ready to give up annoying Justin!
"Speaking of very happy couples..." Misty began. Justin noticed that she hadn't bothered answering his question, but he didn't have time to point this out either, finally showing some of her straight forwardness. "Where is Sammy this afternoon?" Justin's stomach twitched. "I miss him."
What twitched on the outside of Justin was his entire being. It drew backwards on the sofa. The thought that initially ran through his mind was that Misty was being cruel – and insinuating that something was wrong with their relationship since his long-term boyfriend wasn't spending time together at his family home with them all.
And then – oh, then – his chin couldn't help but drop down a few inches. Was she mocking him a second time? Did she think something was wrong with Sammy? He knew that, like she did with him, she teased him about his bad boy attitude and leather jacket and smolder.
But he didn't think that it was serious.
And the rest of it wasn't serious. I could at least tell from sitting on the windowsill and enjoying my orange juice as much as I could though everything else around me was increasingly becoming far more interesting.
That was the thing about Misty. She was a lot like her father, Jordan, in that way. For some reason, it was a struggle for her to ask why Sammy wasn't with Justin. She felt it natural to make a joke out of it. To act like she didn't care either way.
She didn't know why either. To tell you the truth, she didn't like that part of her that she couldn't shake like a generational thread from father to daughter.
Justin managed to show Misty the benefit of the doubt. Though he had never seriously had much to doubt.
"He might be along in a bit." he lied. After a swallow that couldn't help but take over his throat, his next words gave the reason for his little fib. "He had a crazy night. You know what Sammy's like. It'll take a while for him to be ready to face people again."
Although Misty couldn't help but chuckle understandingly, her eyes flickering from the trio still in the corner back to Justin again. But perhaps she shouldn't have.
She indeed knew what Sammy was like. While Justin was engulfed in his own world of using his parent's basement to craft album number two, his boyfriend showed his love for music in his own way – by playing an open mic night before joining the rest of the rowdy crowd, bleary as the sun rose.
After a little moment, Misty's chuckle turned into a fond smile. She knew that Justin became quite a little hermit when he was focusing on writing and recording. She was about to open her mouth, eager to join a conversation about a world that they both knew and loved, when it became clear that both she and Justin had taken their eyes off the ball.
A member of the trio had broken away. Possibly to Justin's disappointment, it was not Eli. It was, however, Misty's expression that suddenly stiffened when somebody was standing in front of them both on the sofa.
Curious, I noted, while not breaking away from the sunny windowsill.
"You two look deep in conversation." Daisy commented. She said so with a smile gracing her face that didn't give away her thoughts of perhaps she should not have disturbed them.
While Misty needed to will herself to push her bangs from her eyes and to feel okay with drawing her eldest sister into the conversation, Justin didn't seem to feel any qualms about talking to her. A smile spread across his face and dimples sliced his cheeks.
As he looked up at her, I noticed his kneecaps drawing closer to each other again. Shyly.
"Just catching up." he said. Unlike Misty, he was preparing to add even more words but was stopped by Daisy playfully resting her hands on her hips where her leather black belt cinched in her jeans that she had borrowed from her mother's old wardrobe.
She leaned forward playfully, jokingly getting in between their space.
"Anything that I should know about?" Daisy hummed, just one of her eyes squinting as her nose scrunched up on her face.
I was impressed that she had even been aware of Justin and Misty's glances towards the trio in the corner given how absorbed in conversation she was with Eli and Bear! But Daisy was the kind of person that always caught onto her surroundings, no matter how subtle.
From an early age she had learned to be attuned with the smallest fluxes in situation or mood. Evidently, she had kept that skill with her like a limpet that wouldn't leave her even though she was then into her forties.
While Daisy drew backwards, her earlier invasion of space only being a joke like her words were, Justin and Misty turned to look at her. Justin had only just been secretly worrying that Misty had been serious with some of her words, but it became clear that his loyalty towards her never faltered.
He found himself to be the one speaking again, a breathy chuckle escaping him and his dimples still slicing craters in his cheeks as Misty would need to fight a little longer to find her own voice.
I wondered if her lemonade wasn't cutting it, and I should pass her my orange juice.
"We weren't gossiping." Justin reassured her though he didn't need to. Immediately, Daisy's hands faltered on her belt, and they twiddled together, her shoulders softening as she didn't mean for Justin to think she thought that about him. She was, however, used to her sister finding the worst in her! "We were just saying how nice it is for you and Eli to catch up."
As she had one last fiddle with her bangs, Misty took a long, intentional albeit silent breath to stop her expression from looking like she was sucking on a lemon. As her sister's eyes fell on her too, she found her own voice only a second or two after Justin had amiably explained.
"Yes." Misty agreed. She reached forward towards the coffee table for something to do and held her glass of lemonade back in her hand. "And that it's so nice that you and Bear can still be friends."
We all turned around to the remaining duo and watched Bear put his hand between Eli's shoulder blades and lean in closer to him to say something. Misty was only just detailing that it was nice for her sister and Bear to still be amiable though they had split up recently, but it was clear that he and Eli got on like a house on fire as well.
I turned my attention away sooner than everybody else and happened to glance at Justin. I saw that he was the next person to look away. His head craned towards Daisy, a close-mouthed smile gracing his lips though his mouth was in a bit of a line.
In not much time, Misty turned back. They hadn't needed to say the words aloud, but they would go down together if they had been caught gossiping.
"Yes. Well, Bear is worth being friends with." Daisy said, her own hand rising to her bangs to fiddle with them as she resisted taking another glance back behind her.
My back tingling with the warmth of the sun, I was reaffirmed that it was interesting how different Misty swore that she was to Daisy but they both rummaged a hand through their hair in times of quiet. It was as though they felt that they would find there whatever they needed.
Bravery. Answers. Comfort.
It was fortunate that Daisy hadn't turned around to look at the duo. Just like before, one person had left the little group, and it was now just down to one. Bear came to join the new trio instead, making sure to smile at Misty and Justin first then turned to Daisy, pulling something out of his pocket.
I tried to feel sweetness in my mouth from orange juice rather than bitterness that he had forgotten to say hello to me!
"Do you mind if I take a phone call somewhere, Daisy?" Bear asked. One hand of his was filled with his mobile phone and the other briefly reached to pluck a discarded hair off her shoulder. "I promised I'd phone my girls to hear about their little friend's party as soon as it was over."
Justin turned to look at Misty, wanting to affirm to her that they both were right, and it was lovely how well they still got on. How admirable it was.
Misty, however, was quietly tapping her fingernails on her glass rather than drinking from it and she was watching the bubbles rising to the surface before they burst.
Daisy watched Bear's hand fall away from her though his blue eyes that reminded her of the color that gave her home city its name were fixed on her. Her voice was taken from her for just a moment. But then she flashed him a genuine smile. Her nod showed her acceptance before her words even came.
"Yes, of course. You don't need to ask." she told him, her own hand moving out of habit and squeezing below the sleeve of his white t-shirt where his arm was covered in multiple tattoos. She had to force herself not to let it linger there too long, adding: "Go use James' office, it's just next door. I know he won't mind."
I knew I wasn't mistaken that I saw Misty's lip curl after she finally had taken a sip of lemonade. But I lied to myself and told myself that the bubbles had fizzed against her lip or something!
Unlike Misty, the rest of us were joined in brief union as we looked around the room, wondering where James had gotten to since he and his wife had been hosting this little get together. But then we all shrugged it off.
Unbeknownst to me, I was the one who had seen him last before he had sneaked off with Jordan, probably to encourage the other man to have a bit of quiet time away from all the conversation.
Bear decided not to give James a second thought. Not that this was rare for him. His narrow lips smiled, reaching to squeeze her hand gratefully, exiting the living room to go and take that call. As he nodded a temporary goodbye to Justin and Misty, he included me in that gesture this time, so all was forgiven!
While Misty went back to looking into her drinks glass, Justin and Daisy made conversation. He had an excuse to talk about Eli since he was leaning against the wall, having pulled out his own phone.
Justin spoke over the reoccurring thoughts in his head of if Eli was texting somebody who was hurrying him along back to Unova.
"So, you're enjoying catching up with your uncle, are you?" he smiled up at Daisy, like Misty, reaching for his glass for something to do but his knuckles weren't as white as hers were. But that could have been because he was paler than even her and all his porcelain skin seemed to blend.
Daisy, considerately glanced behind her to invite Eli into the conversation if he wanted to. She knew how he felt about the possibility of people talking about him. But he was miles away.
So, when she smiled, she smiled fully for Justin, turning her attention back to him and nodding while she rummaged in her bangs for something new.
This time it was gratitude, I noted.
"Yes. It's been far too long." she breathed out. Then something else had lent itself to her from her fine, blonde hairs. Suddenly, Daisy was filled with a whole new quality. She reached for Justin's hand with far more enthusiasm than Bear had done with her. "You must come and chat to him. I've been telling him all about that new guitar of yours from the shop in Unova and how you've been playing it on your new record." Daisy tested the waters again, seeing if Eli wanted to form a new conversational trio. "You know of it, don't you, Eli?"
This time, Misty was pulled away from her glass full of thoughts and she watched as her uncle had been glancing towards the scene from the second that he heard Justin's voice. Not that he hadn't given it a few seconds before he had revealed where his attention was drawn towards.
As Daisy addressed him properly this time, he heard, and he didn't hesitate to lock his phone, shoving it back in his suit pocket. Justin's face was aglow with curious hope from the second that they had something new to talk about.
Eli edged away from the wall, running a hand over the shaved part of his hair. He nodded to disguise the fact that he had thought his movements had been clumsy.
"I more than know of it, Daisy." he began, moving further away from the corner of the room but not having enough brazenness to join the group fully. A smile naturally worked its way over his lips when he focused on Justin, explaining. "I walk past it every day when I go to work." he saw the younger male twitch with enthusiasm. "Which one did you end up buying?"
This time, it was Misty who had to protect her drink as Justin shot up off the sofa! Eli might have been coy, deciding to not impose too much but Justin couldn't stop himself from meeting him more than halfway. He crossed the room to join Eli nearer the wall.
"No way!" Justin enthused initially. And then he and Eli were engaged in their own conversation that any one of us would have been welcome to join or even listen into but there wasn't really much point.
The two of them might as well have been in their own bubble, out of reach to us all!
Giggling to herself over the fact that she had set their conversation up quite nicely, Daisy decided to take Justin's seat and planted herself next to her sister, the sofa hardly moving from the way that she gracefully sat down.
Misty tensed, putting her drink down on the table as if she were the one who had nearly sent her lemonade flying towards the ceiling. Daisy ignored this in the same way she tried to ignore her tantrums as a toddler.
She wanted to invite her sister into her amusement.
"They're away, aren't they?" Daisy nodded her sister over to Justin and Eli though she didn't need to. Amusement tickling my own throat as I noticed Justin hardly drawing breath, his arms spreading wide as he told the other man all about his new guitar, I jumped down from my sunny spot to sit with the two sisters to hear them converse.
I was left plonking down listlessly on the carpet below them both when Misty didn't really give Daisy anything to work with. Her empty hands didn't fall to touch me on the top of the head either!
Justin was using up all the words in the room.
"Yep." she said. Her laugh said more as it puffed out of her lips and she looked at her uncle listening to every word that Justin was saying, his arms folded over his chest and his head tilting closer to the younger male as he absorbed it all.
We all looked towards the two of them though it was a bit of a haze as to what was being said. We could hear every word, but they were jumbling together as if they were speaking their own language.
Daisy wished she had her own glass to hold onto as she watched her sister silently though she tried to focus on what was going on with Justin and Eli. It had genuinely filled her with warmth. Justin soon tried to make Daisy more aglow as he invited the rest of us into their world.
Or rather, he clued us into the fact that, like Bear, he was leaving the living room as well!
"My new guitar is downstairs so I'm going to show it to Eli." he smiled. His dimples slicing through his cheeks so vehemently that they might become permanent features. And that was before Eli's hand absentmindedly moved to rest on his shoulder. "Not sure how long we'll be! I might end up recording something on it. Eli always has wicked ideas."
Eli's touch had curiously lent a whole new level of giddiness to Justin's person. Eli offering everybody a close mouthed, enthusiastic smile but mostly Justin, the two of them prepared to head off.
Before they left, however, Misty twitched her bottom up off the sofa. She tried to go with them, leaving me and Daisy – the two blondes (!) - together.
"If you're going to end up working then maybe I should come and join you?" Misty suggested. Her eyes were not full of hope because she did not feel the need for them to be.
Justin always liked having her in the studio. She had already been a big part of album number two, even if it was something simple like hearing her chat while he plucked new melodies on his guitar.
Daisy watched her sister, a gently protective smile washing over her face as she saw neutrality replaced by embarrassment at the first part of Justin's words.
"I'm just going to hang out with Eli for now." His lips pressed together in a gentle line, his dimples still winking from his cheeks. He wasn't rejecting her. "I really should see through this idea I had from Daisy earlier before I commit to anything new."
Justin punctuated his words with a nod. Then he bobbed his head while looking at Eli, confirming that they were heading off just the two of them. Eli smiled at his nieces – then smiled bigger for Justin – before they headed down to the basement studio together.
Mortified, Misty felt her cheeks stinging as bright as her hair as she dropped that inch back towards the sofa, but it felt like a million miles. I didn't want to embarrass her further, so I didn't hop onto the cushions to join her.
Sharing the same tact, Daisy didn't bother to comfort her sister. She knew that it would make her feel worse rather than better. Her emotions had always felt far too big to hold inside of her – that was why she too wrote music. And though she had come so far in adulthood, she still had the habit of taking it out on the people closest to her.
Even on the people with the same threads of DNA that she didn't feel close to.
"Are you going to see where James headed off to?" Daisy asked, changing the subject without needing to think too hard about what she should say to distract her sister. Unlike Misty, Daisy's hand had fallen closer to me and began to massage the thinning fur nearest to my ears.
I had to fight every single urge not to coo loudly in pleasure. It would have made Misty grit her teeth to see somebody having such a wonderful time!
In the end, Misty's jaw seemed very austere anyway. She turned towards her sister, not bothering to go along with what was in her mind an extremely poor effort to brush the diabolical interaction under the carpet.
A new quality materialized in her gaze this time. She shot an accusatory look towards Daisy.
"I didn't know that you helped Justin in the studio." her words were simple enough. But it was the expression and the essence behind them that gave them their edge.
Frustratingly, Daisy's hand faltered on my head as she listened to her sister and her words. Without hesitation, she decided not to fight fire with fire. That was always the worst thing you could do.
It was a shame to dismiss Misty when any sort of potential rejection made her want to burn from the inside out. That was clear from Justin wanting to be alone with Eli and his guitar. But Daisy couldn't nurture this attitude from her.
She had to do what she believed to be the best option for them all rather than what was comfortable for Misty.
"I don't think I've helped very much at all seeing as he still hasn't finished the idea that we came up with." Daisy began calmly. But her words then tickled herself and she couldn't help but titter to herself and that made Misty's expression have a mind of its own. Daisy couldn't stop a more impatient attitude taking over her too when she saw her little sister's curled lip. "Oh, what?"
Misty's lips evened out. But her collarbones were still jutting out of the tank top that she was wearing tucked into a skirt. If I followed my nose upwards and stared at the sisters hard rather than in flickering gazes, I would have seen the base of her neck beginning to match my natural cheeks.
Shaking her head, Misty tried to remain silent. But words spluttered out.
"Nothing." It was her turn to lie like it had been Justin's. But hers seemed to be fueled by something else entirely. Her adding more words promptly showed exactly this. "I just thought you would be too busy catching up with Eli to poke your nose in while Justin is working."
Biting the inside of my cheeks to stop the awkwardness of the interaction from wiping me out like earlier embarrassment had nearly done to Misty, I gathered that Daisy was beginning to see right through her little sister.
To tell you the truth, she had done for most of the day but had tried to rise above it for both of their sake.
But now it was getting silly.
Daisy breathed out so loudly that she moved her bangs from falling close to her nose. Her words escaped promptly, not having the energy to hold them back.
"Well, evidently where one goes the other follows so it's not that difficult to kill two birds with one stone." Daisy quipped. But then she took another breath, this time to compose herself and to remind herself that she didn't wish to stoop to her sister's level. "Justin is a joy to watch."
Daisy's last sentence was filled with composure. And within these words, she meant it in a way to dissipate what was going on and for them to be able to bond over something.
Someone.
Justin had been in both of their lives since he was a toddler. In Misty's life more closely it's true but Daisy had always admired him as well. She had stumbled across him playing his own open mic nights as a teenager and thought that he had been wildly talented. He had only gone onto blossom like a perennial flower, both in his career and his personal life.
Daisy was left feeling fascinated that somebody who was supposedly so close to Justin could behave so bitterly when it came to him.
His natural sunshine that spread to everything that he touched hadn't rubbed off on everybody, she told herself.
"I know he's a joy to watch. I've been watching him create since he was a little boy." Misty muttered. And it was that that caused the final string of Daisy's patience to snap.
She prided herself in being far sturdier. But she had seen her sister's eyes following her all day and now there wasn't anything to do other than sort it out.
A frown plaited her plucked eyebrows behind her bangs closer together.
"So, is that what has got you in such a bad mood today?" Daisy asked. Before she even had an answer, she knew that it wasn't that. Her sister's eyes had been following her long before the subject of Justin had arisen. "Is that why you haven't been able to keep your sour looks to yourself?"
Daisy tried to soften the seriousness of their brewing conversation with some lightness. Her hand forgot about me entirely and moved closer to her little sister instead. She tried to reach and poke a dimple that they both possessed before they knew what they wanted to say.
Daisy's playful touch made Misty realize exactly what she wanted to say! But for just a bit longer, she managed to resist exploding.
She, however, brushed her sister's claws away, purposely adding more distance between them on the sofa.
"You're so conceited, Daisy." Misty told her sister, the base of her neck continuing to burn as her voice wavered, it taking everything in her power not to completely lose her cool. "I haven't been looking at you. I was having a nice conversation with Justin before you butted in."
It was hard to believe that I was hearing a conversation between two adults rather than children! But that's exactly it, isn't it? Sometimes around your closest blood family, you become that child that you once were all over again.
Misty had become the runt of the family all over from the second that she walked into her best friend's house and saw her uncle getting along with her sister just as well as he did with her.
Daisy had seen right through all of that. She detailed this with her next words.
She managed not to let a laugh escape before she pointed out:
"Yeah. A conversation about me." she forwent setting free a scoff. She kept any sort of frustrated smirk hidden. She was determined to keep things as calm as possible even as they began to address the ugly. "Whether it's about me and Bear or me and Eli. And how dare I speak to Justin as well."
I was beginning to regret moving away from the windowsill and not because I had a better view of the action brewing.
Misty's bottom was twitching her back away from the sofa all over again. A dash of adrenaline filling her veins as she did her best to keep the rest at bay, she repeated some of her earlier words with more gusto.
"You're so conceited, Daisy!" she said again, this time with a disbelieved laugh decorating her tone and her eyebrows knotting together towards her own observation. But then they plaited together at her sister's response.
Daisy was the one to stand first. Somehow, she did it composedly and her words, though accusatory in return, were filled with this quality too.
"And you're such a child." Daisy began. Both sisters were left gulping even though one of them had previously been quenched by lemonade. Clearly it didn't matter. Nothing would solve the drought of them seeing eye to eye. Daisy's head shook. She meant it to be sympathetic. "Why does it bother you so much when you realize other people like the people you like?" Misty's eyebrow was beginning to twitch. "You're so determined to stay the outsider, aren't you?"
In Misty's mind, these words could only be taken the one way. As her eldest sister had stood up to sort the problem out and hopefully begin to see eye to eye, Misty had felt herself shrinking smaller and smaller.
She was suddenly that hot headed child she had once been. She was that hot headed child that still resided inside of her, determined to call the shots at times.
In her head, Daisy was telling her that everything was her fault. That her and the other sisters teased her for good reason. That she isolated herself rather than them making her feel like the black sheep.
Misty couldn't contain her emotions any longer. What had started as a simmering beneath the surface soon felt the heat being cranked up from the base of her neck to her throbbing forehead. Her pulse moved to the roots of her hair, her skin burning the same vibrance.
She snapped at Daisy.
"Maybe it just bothers me that you make it your life mission to take everything away from me!" Misty spat. Despite her intense emotions, she knew exactly where to look, and she looked Daisy dead in the eye as her voice rose along with the temperature of her skin.
As Daisy met her little sisters gaze, what was kept tucked inside her iris caused her to flinch far more than the rising level of her voice. In an instant, her shaky hand was resting over her chest but unlike her little sister whose gaze was filled with fire, Daisy's was filled with liquid.
Her eyes began to puddle. But that didn't stop her from croaking out. Just like Misty, Daisy's mind was telling her that these words meant one thing and one thing alone.
"A... Are you being serious right now?" Daisy gasped again, unable to believe that Misty had gone there. Not that I could be seen anyway, my turned backwards head flicked left and right like I was watching a tennis match. "I will not allow you to talk like that to me..."
Daisy tried to not seize the upper hand because she didn't want that at all. But she tried to grab a level hand so her and her sister really could see eye to eye. But she began to understand that that could not be the case. Would never be the case.
Misty still held it against her, didn't she? It wasn't as obvious because they were no longer estranged and, despite what today had shown, they could get along tremendously sometimes.
But Misty felt the same way that their father did, didn't she? Jordan hadn't wanted to see Daisy for this reason. She had been the one to take their childhoods away. To ruin their innocence.
The truth is that had been Jordan. But it was easier to blame someone who had always been around rather than someone who was intermittently there – either mentally or physically.
Misty didn't catch on to her sister's emotions. Or if she did, her tears fueled her to show more anger. Nothing could dispel the rampage that she was then on.
"I'm not a child anymore, no matter how much you see me that way!" Misty bellowed. By this point, three faces had appeared at the two different doorways of the living room. But Misty was too busy spewing her next words and Daisy trying to tolerate them for either of them to notice. "And I will not allow you to try and parent me all over again!"
Daisy didn't like to fight fire with fire. But by this point, the tears had stopped puddling her eyes because they had trickled down her cheeks and the emptiness of her gaze allowed room for something else.
She couldn't help but do something rare and yell back, more tears spurting from her eyes after the first sentence came. The two sisters were joined in their throats burning red as much as they were separated by so many things.
"What makes you think that I want to parent you?!" Daisy looked at her sister in the eye as much as her stinging gaze would allow. She broke the distance with her one last time. "I didn't want to back then; I was a child as well! Why the hell would I want to now?!"
And that was all. Apart from a gulp that clamped her mouth shut as she knew she had said everything. The same silence possessed Misty while her tight jaw hollowed out further, eyes stinging as she came face to face with the kind of thing that her sister usually liked to meditate away.
Daisy didn't like to fight fire with fire. She had succumbed. But she was determined to stop quicker than her little sister. That meant leaving. So that's exactly what she did, hardly noticing that she barged through Justin and Eli on the way out.
Misty followed suit with eyes that could hardly see anymore, not to mention a throat that had been rendered speechless. I tried to make up for the fact that I hadn't done anything before by calling her name, but it was no use. Her clenched fists stormed her past Bear who was having to mute his microphone as he was still on the phone to his daughters.
He knew better than to reach for Misty. Though his hand absentmindedly rose like he could have considered it, he knew that he was best suited to continue what he had been doing.
He had struggled to hold space for Daisy. That was one of the reasons that they had broken up. But he was determined to see that she got the best care anyway.
Holding his still muted phone closer to his ear to make sure that his daughters were there on the other side, he caught sight of Justin and Eli poking their heads into the room from the other side.
He got enough of their attention to say some words before mostly gesturing.
"Can you...?" he trailed off. It became obvious that he wanted them to split up and check on either one of the sisters. And then he disappeared to take the call.
I was left plonking my bottom on the living room carpet. Though I had at once tried to console Misty and called her name, I was then unsure which sister that I should follow. It was the same for Justin and Eli when I left my own thoughts enough to look at them.
And when I saw their heads turned towards each other in the doorway, I saw something intriguing taking over Justin that I could not ignore.
Guilt filled his face as his lower lip slipped into the rest of his mouth and he continued looking at Eli, unable to look away until he decided to first.
Justin had so desperately wanted him to look at him. But not like that. He hadn't wanted all of this to happen for him to look at him. For him to touch him.
Eli's fingers wordlessly brushed the side of Justin's face to get his attention before with a silent gesture, he told him that he would go and check on Daisy. Justin was left standing there for what felt like forever for him but was just seconds as he composed himself, his limp arms hanging by his sides.
But then he knew what he needed to do. And I did too. We both went to find Misty. We did not know what state we would find her in, but we had to find her. And we had to see her.
It was amazing, really. As amazing as it was heartbreaking.
In that moment I couldn't help but wonder if what had long ago been broken would for always remain that way.
Childhoods had been stolen from two little girls. And now they couldn't see eye to eye without seeing the abandoned children that they had once been.
The End.
There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) I found this chapter quite a tough one, which is why I started it off with some lighthearted drama of the beginning spark of Justin and Eli :P I really liked the dynamic between Justin and Misty too. They are definitely one of those underrated bonds in my stories and I would like to develop them more! I've been thinking a lot about Misty lately, conjuring up all sorts of ideas and writing chapters focusing on her. I feel sad for her here, and Daisy too. They really do revert back to children when they argue, thanks (or no thanks!) to their unfortunate childhood. I hope this moment prompts them to sort things out. Though I imagine Eli and Bear would be saddened to see this, I think sweet Justin will be the most rattled by it. Probably to the point that he will think twice about going to Daisy to collaborate again :D Thanks again for reading and I'll be back on another Wednesday so see you then perhaps!
Amy signing out :3