(no subject)

[sweetsalome]

Just because school is off for Christmas break doesn't mean all of her other activities are.  There is still swim practice and ballet, everything in between.  Yeah, they have some days off, especially ballet, since their performance there is some down time before the next big thing comes along and they need to start working on that.  Salome still leaves the house early in the morning, this time for her run with the dog, or attempted run, the puppy doesn't have that whole 'lets run in a straight line with the mistress, yay! isn't this fun?' thing down yet.  So when she starts off on the run, she does only half of what she plans and then ends up carrying the ball of fur back.

It's alright, he's getting better.

After the run, there is swimming and time out of the house doing random errands and seeing random friends.  By the time that she gets back Salome is exhausted and falls asleep sprawled out on the rug with the puppy, cell phone in hand, pretty much a standard practice with any teenager born.

Usually she is more on point, but she is exhausted and didn't even think about where her father and Delilah might be.  Sometimes, it's like ships passing in the night with them.

Comments

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"I worry about that, about disappointing you, of doing something wrong and making a mess of things because I can't get it right." It keeps her up at night, and thankfully if she wasn't a good student and fairly diligent with her studies she would be a mess. A few poor grades and she would be thinking horrible, desperate thoughts, between cheating and doing something to herself to somehow make her better. Whatever that would entail. The point is, making him proud and pleased is something she has done well at, or so it seems, maybe he has just lowered his expectations for her to make her pass his tests with flying ease. It's not something she tries to think about, but she does because her brain never turns off. Even when she wakes in the morning her brain is flying and turning over thoughts that never stop.

"I think I am getting too big," though she likes it when he caries her, when he holds her and smooths down her hair and just touches her easily. Opening her eyes she looks at the dog getting ready to pounce and that makes her grin. She twists her hand and slides it back and forth over the carpet to get him to chase it. He seems to get a big kick out of it and so she continues on. When he catches her fingers she grips his muzzle lightly and gives him a little shake before letting go.

"He's good for my leg muscles and heart rate I have to stop and start all the damn time." Which is actually great exercise but it wears her out especially since she is used to just tearing off and going until she can't go any more.

Speaking of can't go any more. . .

Her hand stops and she sort of just lays there, not smiling, not moving, just sort of staring off into the space in front of her. She should have known, known that something bad was going to happen. When she has something nice, when things are good and easy, that's when he drops something like this, a bombshell. And she feels cold all over and numb all over, and her brain is screaming and kicking and demanding that life isn't fair that she should be married to him. The only reason she agreed to have that bitch move in is because it would make things easier, and she gives, and gives and there is nothing for her. She takes everything. Takes a place in her father's bed, gets to be with him in public, gets to kiss and love him openly. Gets to take his fucking name and a ring. Salome will never have that, no matter how much she wants it.

"No." She has nothing going on tomorrow afternoon, she wishes that she did it would be so much easier. She doesn't want to go. Fuck them. She slips down from his lap and pulls the dog up against her chest, holding it as it wiggles and tries to fight his way out of her grip.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Oh please, as if Richard could even dream of lowering his expectations. They are very high for her, indeed, but he knows that she'll live up the them in spades, particularly once she's an adult. For now, he doesn't want to make her feel as if she's under pressure. If he knew she got as wound up as she did he'd have a talk with her, and might even look at his own behavior to make sure he wasn't doing anything wrong to make her feel so pressured.

Because teenagers have enough pressures, particularly when you add their moodswings on top of it--though this one is at least semi-excusable.

Still, though, it stings him a little when Salome sits up, and grates on his nerves when she gives her tepid little one-word answer. Teeth tightening behind his lips, Richard drains the rest of his glass and watches the dog whine and squirm in her arms, then make himself comfortable against her heart for just a few seconds before fidgeting again. Richard reaches out to touch his daughter, his hand intending to slide into the small of her back, his tone and expression both gentle as could possibly be.

"Now, princess, you're not upset, are you? Delilah's already Mommy, baby, it's hardly as if anything is changing. Perhaps once we get married we could see about having her legally adopt you." He grins a little, his thumb running up and down the length of her spine before he leans to see the expression on her face. "Wouldn't that be perfect."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

She wants to tear the dog in half. This is what he was planning the whole time. The sweet, wonderful Christmas and the puppy, all distractions before dropping this thing on her. Everything was fine, everything was good and fine and no one needed to go marrying anyone. It's so fucking pointless the whole goddamn thing is fucking pointless, lots of people don't need to get married but live together and have wonderful relationship. This is just Delilah getting one step closer and being the dominate female.

The dog yelps when she squeezes it too tight and she quickly lets go before climbing to her feet and grabbing up her phone. "No. It wouldn't be fucking perfect. But fine do whatever you want, nothing I can say will make a goddamn bit of difference. She can have everything and you can have everything as well. You don't need to marry her, there's no fucking need to. You should marry her, she isn't right for you, she isn't what I am and you know it. Why do you always choose her over me, why am I not good enough?" It all comes out in a furious hiss of words and wet of the eyes and rage. Oh she is so angry right now all she can see is red and it makes her shake, and it makes her back teeth grind together.

"She is going to want to have your fucking children and then where will I be? You'll forget all about me all for some other worthless, disgusting brat but it will mean more because it won't be some child of a whore, right?"

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is why he braced himself. Because, sadly, he didn't plan any of this--if he had, it would have gone much more smoothly. He'd always planned on staying a bachelor for his entire life. But, sadly, Man makes plans and God laughs.

His brow arches as the dog yelps, and he watches it hop away and shake itself off before making its merry way to its food bowl, no doubt aware of the tension and seeking to evade it. He listens to every word Salome says, his eyes never leaving the girl as she speaks from where she stands above him.

"It's not about choosing one or the other, Salome," he says, his words calm and entirely cool even if on the inside he's beginning to rage just a little bit, himself. "No, my darling, Delilah isn't what you are, nor are you what Delilah is. The two of you have completely different places in my heart, and I would never choose her over you. It has nothing to do with choosing, nothing to do with not being good enough or her being better or anything like that. You must understand that it isn't a competition."

But oh, the hysterical irony! He gives Salome a long, even look and says, "No matter what I tell Delilah, I will never, ever give her a child of her own. I do not want another child, Salome; I will never want another child. Ever." And he gives her a long, long look, one that communicates all the thoughts behind it, that thought being that if she only knew what he's spent the past five hours doing, she would know just how truly he means that statement.

He takes a deep breath, making no move to rise, simply remaining where he is at her feet. "I know you're upset, but you must understand, Salome, things-- tonight, Delilah proved herself more than good enough to marry. A fine, official addition to our family. She moved me, and the idea struck me, and it felt right so I followed through with it. It has nothing to do with you, princess. You're first in my heart, my Salome, my beautiful little soul. It kills me that you could ever think the truth were otherwise."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

GOD TROLOLOLOLOLOL.

He is choosing, he is choosing some other woman over her. Why does he need her? Why? Salome doesn't understand, there is no need for some other woman, she is good to him, she loves him and fucks him and everything in between, she could even learn how to cook for him! She digs her fingers in her hair and tugs hard, screaming behind shut lips. It's not fair, it's not! Turning her back to him she hunches over a little and tugs again letting the sharp pain bring her back around and focus. There is nothing for her to hurt, nothing to take her anger out on except herself. Tomorrow she'll feel horribly bad for even making the dog yelp like it did, poor beast it was just in the way.

"Bullshit, bullshit, you'll give in, you will. You moved her in here and next you're giving her a ring, it's only a matter of fucking time." She doesn't trust him when it comes to this, she doesn't trust that woman not to talk him into giving her what she wants, again. Her soul aches. She just wanted it to be them, she wanted them to spend the rest of their lives together. It wasn't so bad when Delilah moved in but it wasn't how Salome had planned. Why couldn't it be just the two of them? She deserves that, she deserves that.

"What did she do, tell me and I'll do it too, I'll prove to you that I'm good enough too! Please, tell me, I'll do it." And she is pleading and hating herself for pleading and hating him for doing this to her, tossing her away for this woman and this stupid fucking marriage. There's no need for it. "You're being rash and impulsive, you wait and you'll see what a mistake you're making."

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Ah, now that's a sight that displeases him nice and deeply. He stands, moving toward her, reaching for her wrists to untangle her hands from her hair. "Don't pull out all those pretty golden locks, baby, come now, don't be so upset."

He lets her say whatever she needs to say, but that doesn't mean he appreciates hearing it; the displeasure her words bring him are clear in the tense look on his face, saying, "You should reconsider how you speak to me, Salome. I'm not going to let her have a child with me. Marriage, a ring, a piece of paper, that's one thing. It's a symbol she likes, something that would mean a lot to her, so I did it. I don't care if we get married, but she does, and grand gestures demand grand gestures in kind. But there is no gesture so grand that I would ever even dream of having another child, Salome, oh, if only I could make you understand."

"I'm so glad to know my teenaged daughter knows enough about impulsivity to lecture her father on the matter," he says, somewhat testily. His lips, though, still twist into a poorly-suppressed smile at the memory of the evening. "This is anything but a mistake. She is stunning, and I never would have asked her to do what she did, let alone ask such a thing of you. She made a gesture, and it was a gesture of impossible magnitude and meaning which demonstrated to me how far she's come since I met her." Not to mention the gesture's benefit for Salome, though for now, he leaves that portion unspoken--but oh, it's on the tip of his tongue. She wants to know what Delilah did? She'll do it, too? Oh, if only she would! But instead, he simply stares down into her face, saying, "It's not about being good enough or not good enough. You are perfect, my Salome, my one and only little girl."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"Gesture, all of this is over some stupid gesture?! That is insane, really, that you would throw away your life on someone over a gesture. If some stupid boy came to the house and sang a song under my window and I married him simply because of a gesture you'd lock me away!" Or kill the boy who came over to the house and tried to serenade Salome into coming down. Romeo would get a few lines out before he would have his kneecaps cut out from under him, and then he would disappear screaming into the darkness of the back yard.

"What's better then a symbol of a marriage then a lovely new child for you to take care of and to raise, and make sure it's better then me and fucking looks like the two of you. Not some blond from a mistake you had all those years ago. It's only a matter of time, and when I'm at school she'll take all of you away from me and I won't mean anything to you any more." With Salome's view of the world it's hard to believe a man running out of ink for his pen in New Jersey doesn't trigger world war three.

"I'm not perfect, if I was perfect I would be enough for you." A shuddering breath in and she runs her fingers through her hair, pushing it hard away from her face as she tries to keep it together. She is torn between exhausted, sad and furious. It's driving her mad and she doesn't understand it at all.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Shortest Shakespeare production ever. Juliet would have lived a much longer, happier life if her father had been Richard, that's for damned sure.

"You're oversimplifying it," he tells her with a sigh of patience. "It was an impossibly large gesture, and this was after almost a year of growth toward said gesture. I wasn't even sure it would happen, but it did. It was more than just a gesture, Salome--she did something marvelous." Fixed a problem he didn't even know he had.

Rolling his eyes, he sighs. Ah, yes, sometimes the wild animal sex does make him forget that she's a teenager, but the melodrama brings him right back to reality. "Well, Delilah will have to live with marriage as the point where the symbols cap out. I anticipate there will be no end to the begging, especially in later years, but I'll deal with it. You know, Salome, I wonder, would you be this upset if she and I had simply lived together the rest of our lives and never married?" He sighs and shakes his head, saying, "You're being absurd, Salome. No one could ever take your place, and nothing that produced you could have possibly been considered a mistake."

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Richard breathes, "You need to listen to me, Salome. You are more than enough for me. You are all I need, there is no competition for you in my heart. But you are my daughter, a teenager; Delilah is my partner. The two relationships are simply different."

Fingertips hooking beneath her chin, Richard forces her to look into his face, saying, "Let Delilah have a piece of paper and a shiny ring. You have something she'll never have--this flesh is my flesh," his thumb strokes down her jaw, "and this blood, my blood. You will always have more than she could possibly hope to."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"Oh Jesus fucking Christ, fine she is fucking marvelous, keep saying it that makes this so much better. Have her I don't give a shit, I'm done." She is done. He'll give in and give in, and that will be that. You don't marry a person and then just stop giving in to their demands, it's a slippery slope and as much as he protests now she is positive that the day will eventually come when he just succumbs to everything she asks for no matter what that is. His promises mean very little to her at this point. It's sort of like seeing everyone get promoted above her at work while the boss is quietly insisting at employee reviews that she is doing fantastic and is completely irreplaceable. It doesn't help that he is calling her absurd when she feels that her anger and disappointment is more then valid.

"If this gesture is so meaningless then you could have bestowed it on who ever you wanted to and clearly you've made your choice." She jerks her chin away from his touch. "Don't touch me, you can just get everything you need from her from now on since she's the one that you want. I'm going to bed."

She doesn't want to have this conversation any more, there is nothing for her to say, nothing for her to do it's just sort of like yelling at the sky for no apparent reason and it doesn't even make her feel good. Rage and exhaustion are too much to handle and it makes her shake and cuts out periods of time in her head like the moment from in front of him to the stairs. There's no need for things to change, no need, everyone would have been fine just the way it is.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

"You're being melodramatic," he tells her with a heavy sigh. "You're making this into something huge, world-bending change. Nothing is going to change! Everything is going to stay the same, tell me what I have to do to prove it to you and I will. That's clearly the only way we'll get anything accomplished, since talking sense to you doesn't seem to be doing anything."

So, maybe he's getting a little frustrated about the issue. So sue him. She may be just a teenager, but he's more than allowed to get frustrated with her. He drags his hand over his face and breathes, rephrasing his words carefully as he says, "I'm glad you're expressing your feelings with me, darling, but you must understand my perspective. I don't mean to be short with you."

Well. Until she jerks her chin away with that nasty little attitude. He gives her a black little look, scoffing at her words. "That's nonsense. Are you saying you want to marry me? Princess, you're still just a child, you haven't lived yet. Why would I even dream of tying you down that way? And, moreover, why would you want a gesture you know to be hollow from me? The gesture has so little to do with my feelings, Salome."

Being told not to touch her, that stings him. It's made worse by how pretty she seems when one or both of them is angry, and it turns into entitled fury when she has the audacity to tell him that he can't touch a girl who's clearly his. Rather than banging on about the subject, though, he simply follows her, making his way up the stairs behind her, ready to stick his arm or foot in the bedroom door to keep her from locking it if that's what he has to do.

"You're not going to bed angry, princess. I'm tired too, but we need to talk. Tell me what I can do to make it better, Salome."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"It’s the principle of the thing!”  They are both frustrated and it isn’t doing them any good at all because you can hardly be clear headed and calm when you’re frustrated and tired.  “I don’t want this and you’re not going to change and it just makes me look like a horrible, spoiled bitch.”  Yeah this is a vampire game, there is no way for her to win, there was never any way for her to win but she liked to think that perhaps there was someway and now she sees how the future is going to play out.  These moments where everything seems perfect and easy before they are shattered by another announcement that she can do nothing about except react to.

“Never tying me down?  Oh God what kind of crap is that, you already have you just didn’t put a ring on it.  Like I could ever get away from you, have any other relationship outside of you, you’ve got to be kidding me.  If you believe that then you have bigger problems then just throwing your life away on a pointless institution.”  She stops midway on the stairs to turn and look at him, on the upper stair she can actually meet his gaze or see above him.

“You don’t even get it, you get everything, you always do and you demand this unyielding, unquestioning loyalty while you get the freedom to do whatever you want.  Tell me what you’d fucking do if I got married, tell me, because I’m pretty sure you’d freak out.  In fact you’d freak out if anyone even touched me let alone proposed marriage,” and she wants to shove him, hard down the stairs, she wants to kick him down the stairs and then stomp on him over and over till he can’t get up any more.

She doesn’t but she does slam her knuckles into the wall next to her.  Which, well, that could very well have been a mistake.  Ow.  Oh, yeah she is seeing odd sort of visual distortions as the pain sort of explodes all over her brain like fireworks on the fourth of July.  This is one of those situations that she immediately regrets.

“There’s nothing you can do, just forget about it.  Do what ever you want.”  She tucks her hand up against her stomach, cradling it gingerly as she thinks that maybe she should at least put ice on her latest fuck up.  Or cry, she can actually do both, she can multitask while losing her mind.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Oh, how he struggles against another eye roll when she gets huffy about his poor word choice. "I mean tying you down in terms of putting some kind of obligation on your shoulders, real or implied, to be my emotional and psychological partner. You're too young for anything like that, princess."

With a dark look, he says, "Yes, if you got married, I'd freak out, because I am your father. And moreover, whomever you married would create a wedge between the two of us. Delilah, however, is not creating a wedge. If anything, she's bringing us closer. How much more time have we spent together since she's come into our lives? How has our relationship changed? How, in the past few months, have we grown so deeply intimate? That's why this is different, Salome, because nothing is coming between us in this."

He's sort of expecting her to hit him, actually, but when she hits the wall instead he growls, saying, "You're going to break your knuckles don't do that." With another sigh, he reaches out to try and take her hand, to see the mark and kiss it. "There must be something I can do, princess. I've already told you that this isn't going to change anything between us, and I've sworn to you that we'll never have children, but there most be something more I have to say or do to make you believe me. Come now," he gives her the puppydog look, and a genuine one, to boot.

"What I want is for all of us to be a happy family together, but I can hardly do that without its most important member wanting a part."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"You don’t call this a wedge?!”  Because she sure does, this is a pretty big wedge because this is him taking his relationship with Delilah to another level while she remains the same and is expected not to freak out.

“You’re so full of crap, you tell me you don’t want to put all this burden on me and not have me be your partner but you won’t let me have anything else.  I am your girlfriend practically it’s just that you get to set the rules and get to tell me what I get to have and what I have to pay with no reward.  You have no idea what would actually happen if I was to find someone outside of you, to fall in love with that person and I don’t even get that chance to find out because you get what YOU want no matter what.”  She takes a deep and shaky breath in.

“We were growing fine before she moved in, we were intimate fine before she moved in.  What you think we’ll reach some fucking transcendental state because you sign a piece of fucking paper?”  Now it’s her turn to sneer and roll her eyes.

She should have hit him.  His face is a lot more giving and squishy then the wall.  Looking down at the quickly swelling knuckles and fingers she sniffles pathetically.  “I think I already did.  That I regret,” because she does regret that, that’s not a good thing, and it hurts a lot and her eyes are watering from the attempt to move her hand.  She isn’t paying attention to his stupid puppy dog eyes, she’ll punch him in the puppy dog eye even with her fucked up hand.  That would probably hurt her more then him.

“I don’t give a shit; I am beyond caring over this any more.  There’s nothing I can do, I give up."

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

"No, Salome, I don't call it a wedge. Nothing is changing save for Delilah's surname."

This is pretty much his last conscious word before papa wolf snaps just a little. It's hard to say when exactly it happens, which word, which subject, is really the one that pushes him furthest. Maybe it's this nonsense about wanting the same privileges he has, once again failing to understand that she is still a child and he is still the adult. Maybe it's the tone she uses. Possibly the mocking. The way she punched the wall and got herself hurt certainly isn't helping it, at any rate. But either way, with each word, a shadow falls across Daddy's face, and the puppydog eyes melt into unreadable blackness. Anger clutches at his chest. The entitlement is astonishing. Oh, teenagers, teenagers, it's a phase, it's a phase, phase phase phase. He has to remember that. It's not her fault, it's because she's seventeen.

And fucking her Daddy.

Finally, with a dark look after regarding her for a long, icicle minute, he tells her, "If you want to go run around and let some noxious little animal your own age stick his hand in your pants, then fine. You do that." He steps up next to her, towering over her. "You are a child, Salome, and I maintain the rules that I do to protect you. You are seventeen. I am the adult, I am your father, and I make the rules in this fucking house."

With a glance of frustration at the hand she nurses, he takes her by the elbow of her unharmed arm and proceeds to frog-march her back down the stairs before him, saying, "I won't care when you're not living at home, when you're an adult capable of making your own decisions." Mostly, generally. Once he accepts the idea of her being away at college a don't ask, don't tell sort of policy will probably be maintained. But oh, that first year there will be plenty of stalking, just to make sure she doesn't go too crazy the first time on her own. "But for now, you are seventeen. You are still my little girl. And for a multitude of reasons, I would like to keep you unmolested," by the hands of strangers, "for at least as long as you a minor."

Still with ink black darkness swimming in his pale face, Richard hauls her into the kitchen and flips on the light, gruffly taking her wounded hand. He gives it a gentle, instinctive kiss and then examines it in the light for bruising, all the while still saying, "You really want to know what Mommy did to make Daddy want to marry her? You want to try to replicate it, as if it's some sort of contest? Then fine. I have an idea that suits both our interests. How about you seduce some," he chuckles humorlessly, opening the freezer to grab the ice tray, then turning to get a little plastic baggie, "hapless, hormone-driven prick of any age, then bring him home," he drops the ice in to seal him up, "and introduce him to Daddy right before you murder him in front of me."

With a dark shadow of his usual paternal smile, Richard gently places the bag of ice upon her hand. "So ask yourself, princess, if that's what I would suggest to you for your little one-sided competition, do you really want to know what Mommy did for Daddy to get him to marry her? I'll tell you, if you like, and I'll tell you honestly, but you will not enjoy hearing about it. But you deserve to know the truth, if you'd like to hear it, so I'll tell you every detail you want to hear." He gives her a long, significant look, the frustration finally fading from his expression as he turns to close the freezer door.

"I love you, Salome. You are my only child, and you must believe me when I tell you that you mean more to me than Delilah ever could. I know I get frustrated, but it only happens because I simply wish I knew how to show you that. I try, I would give you everything you asked for so long as it were reasonable, do anything. I cannot solve a problem when I cannot possibly divine the solution, and the only way I'm going to do that is through communication. Perhaps telling you the whole truth if you are willing and able to hear its ugliness will open the door to that--but I leave it in your hands."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"Those will never change," he can get all dark and as black as he wants. She is tired of being pushed around she is tired of him not understanding, of making demands but no allowances. "It doesn't matter if I am seventeen or twenty-seven, you'll never change. You'll always be a controlling tyrant," those mismatched eyes don't have the same darkness as his do. They are wet and full of hurt and sadness and such a loss that she can't even understand, just knows and feels with every inch of her. It battles between the fierce anger that surges through her, all impotent and throbbing with the pain of her hand. There is nothing she can do, nothing she can say and suddenly she hates this house. Every fucking inch of fabric, every scrap of wood. This is an evil house, a disgusting, terrifying house and she should burn it down. She should burn it down with everyone in it and wipe the sickness that is them from the face of the earth. She would be doing the whole world a favor if they were to all die and leave no remains.

How easy it would all be. So easy. It wouldn't take very much to knock them out, they'll probably be drunk and Christ knows what after the wedding and they would just go to sleep, such a deep sleep that they might not even wake up with all the smoke and the flames. Oh that would be nice. It wouldn't be bad, it wouldn't be painful, not if they were asleep, the smoke would probably get to them first. Her body shudders with a sort of laugh that isn't even a laugh but more of a wet noise from pain and the tears in her eyes. No, she is too weak, too scared, she is such a little baby, she couldn't do anything right let alone destroying them.

When did they get in the kitchen? What the fuck is he talking about? She sort of comes around for the part of the story where she has to do something horrible. He's mocking her. Even he knows she is weak and stupid and pathetic for pining over him and not knowing her fucking place. Her molars have to be gone by now, all the clenching in her jaw, grinding, wishing there was something other then teeth between them.

A grand gesture. It's the only thing he understands is a grand gesture.

She shakes in the chair and says nothing, thinking, thinking, that delirious, mad thinking that drives people to do horrible, impulsive things. Is Delilah still asleep? She could kill him, this is the kitchen, what other place in the house has enough implements to hurt someone with? Her eyes move around the kitchen slowly and she presses her wet and snotty lips together before cleaning them with the back of her hand. "I should go to the doctor because of my hand." Get out of the house, get away, get away from everyone, the darkness and the sickness.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

Ah, if he could read his daughter's thoughts, he would be grudgingly proud of her. It would be charming to think of her burning down the house, even if he and Delilah are the targets. It would almost touch him a little to know she had the urge to kill him, although he didn't mean to be mocking, really. It was a genuine suggestion, almost hopeful.

He gives her a long look at her suggestion that she go to the doctor, his hand running over his hair. Because what he really does not want to do is take the seventeen-year-old daughter he is fucking to the emergency room because her hand is broken as the result of a verbal domestic dispute, on the night before he's supposed to be getting married, while he has the dismembered bodies of his illegitimate child and the mother thereof in the attic.

But if he has to, he will. It will be a moment of trust, though, because he knows she hates him right now, and if she wanted to put him on the cross, all she'd have to do is ask the doctor for a cop and spill the beans about the murders she knows her Daddy to be committing.

"If you really think it's that bad," he says, moving quickly, "let's get you to the ER. Come on, sweetheart." He goes to the closet where his coat is hanging up and yanks it on, then grabs hers and moves to help her put it on. "We'll drive fast."

Hand on the garage door, in a frigid voice, he says, "If it means that much to you, I'll find a way out of marrying her." He steps as and holds the door for her while he opens the giant metal door, the light flickering on. He looks at the car while he speaks, saying, "But she's not going to be happy, Salome."

And he can only begin to imagine what he might be forced to do as a result.

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"I don't want you to come with," she'll take the help in getting her coat on but she doesn't want him to come with. She doesn't want to talk to him any more, she doesn't want to look at him any more, there is nothing more to say and he isn't going to change her mind and he isn't going to pass off this marriage thing on to her. He can do what he wants in fact she already knows that's just what he is going to do and it doesn't matter what she says. Whatever, it hardly even matters, when she is out of the house it will take Delilah a couple of months, but sooner rather then later he'll forget all about her.

She is a little shaky when she stands, but she slips on a pair of flats and keeps the ice wrapped tight around her hand before freeing up an arm so she can at least put half the coat on. Her phone in her pocket, and she'll get her keys on the little table right next to the front door.

"I don't want you to come with, I can take care of this myself. Take care of the dog." Leaving this house is the first thing on her mind, getting away from him is the second and third is to hopefully stop this hand from hurting like a motherfucker. She doesn't want to be near him, and she especially doesn't want to have to sit in a horribly lit room while he sits next to her and fakes giving a shit.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

"Too bad," he snaps, turning his blazing black eyes on her. "You went and broke your hand on the wall in the middle of a temper tantrum, I'm not letting you drive yourself to urgent care at midnight. Yet again you seem to forget your age." And her beauty, he's not letting her sit around an ER at midnight with the kinds of creeps who roll through. And because he doesn't trust her to actually go, more like he expects her to drive around and then have the car slip down the road, and he'd be down a Salome, and that would utterly crush him. Or she could go to some boyfriend, or maybe see if her mother's back in town, or do any number of things they would both regret with clearer heads.

Of course, he's not exactly in the state to take her to the doctor, either, considering: pajama pants, shirtlessness beneath his jacket, his wallet is on the end table and he didn't even grab his keys en route to his jacket. This is really all a result of the last five hours, though, a delirium of amazement, beauty, relentless work and now this. Unnecessary, insane. Infuriating. He feels hot and cold, all he wants to do is grab Salome and she her to make her understand. Oh, if only she understood, how can he make her understand!

"Don't you tell me what to do, Salome." He strides to her and makes an attempt to prise her keys from her hands before pointing at the kitchen table. "Sit down and do not move until I come back. I need to at least put on a shirt and get some money."

With another look to her on his way up the stairs, he says, "You're doing a very bad job responding to what I'm saying tonight. We need to look toward improving that," because it's more productive an activity than throttling her.

Oh, he loves her so. But the greatest loves are always tempered by an equally passionate flipside, and that's fine. He knows they'll come out of it, after all, it's simply that it's late, he's tired, and he's not looking forward to either the interim between this and her eventually warming up to him again, or the interim between now and Delilah's death because she didn't take 'I kind of jumped the gun, turns out we're not getting married after all but I still really appreciate that whole romantic double-homicide thing' as a positive thing to hear.

But, one thing at a time. First he wants to make sure his daughter's hand isn't broken, and even mad as he is, it narrows his attention down to the precision of a laser point. He moves swiftly, silently, Delilah not even stirring as he pulls on his shirt. For a few long heartbeats he stares down at her, sleeping in the dark, and he thinks about maybe just doing it now, while she sleeps, looking so beautiful. It would be peaceful for her.

Ah, but then she wouldn't be able to look him in the eyes.

Exhausted, Richard tugs his coat back on and makes his way down the stairs, practically praying for the impossible--that Salome hasn't left. Because if she has, he's probably going to have an aneurism.

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"They are going to think that you did this to me,” and she doesn’t appear to be in a mood to dissuade them of that thinking.  He’s a horrible person why should they think that he is a good, concerned, caring father?  It doesn’t matter if he didn’t do it; he has done horrible things, him and that horrible woman upstairs.  They are both monsters and she can’t trust what he says or does any more just like she can’t trust what Delilah now does either.  It’s only a matter of time before a grand gesture involves her being dead somewhere.  He can tell her that she is irrational and that she is behaving poorly but he has to think that he raised a fool if she didn’t see the danger in living in this house with them.

Because he tells her that she is precious and that he can’t live without her but she has to think that he’ll say just about anything to her at this point and at some point she becomes just too much of a liability.

There is nowhere to go.  No one to turn to.  No friend, not her “mother” because, yeah, that’s the warm understanding that she needs right now.

She wants to hit him in the face, especially when he sits her down and once again tells her that she is behaving irrationally.  That it’s her fault that she reacted badly to this news, because she has a feeling that isn’t officially approved by him.  She keeps her mouth shut because every response to him from here on out into the foreseeable future is a two word response that he’ll get tired of really, really quickly.

Who, outside of Delilah uses the stove?  She is staring it stupidly, watching it like it’s going to move while he is upstairs.  And she stands and walks to it, thinking.  Goddamn big, rambling house, so full of cracks and leaks it wouldn’t even be worth it.  If this was a tiny little two room place, maybe.

She remains standing till he gets back and then she moves to the door.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure they will. Frankly, I don't care, I want you healthy and safe. If I get thrown in jail because you punched a wall, it's you who'd end up losing most, even considering how broken-hearted I would be."

That's the problem with two very intense people in a very intense relationship. Motherfuckers get crazy. Although, no, despite her worst fears, a grand gesture could never mean her death, no, no, no. From the time she was tiny until even in this very moment and forward, he craves to have her by his side at all times.

The problem is that she makes the mistake of expecting her daddy to be able to communicate and see things from the emotional perspective of a normal human being. It's a great handicap to him in arguments with people he loves, because even in situations where there are certain objective truths which do cut him a little slack--for instance, the fact that a hormone riddled teenaged girl who is fucking her daddy might act a little insane when daddy says he's going to marry someone else--but there are certain other objective truths which demonstrate the fact that he is an empathetically-challenged individual, indeed. The idea that Salome might feel as if she couldn't trust him after his grim honesty, for example--he couldn't wrap his head around that, he'd be crushed by it, or as crushed as he could be. So would Delilah, but it would make sense to her.

It's like being tone-deaf, a situation like this. He gets angry and panics because he doesn't understand and can't find a way out.

When he gets back to the bottom of the stairs to find her still standing there, he gives her a pleased look and puts his hand on her shoulder. "If I had known how much this was going to hurt you," he says, "I wouldn't have done it." He clears his throat and grabs his keys, hand on the base of her neck as he steers her to the garage and gets the car door for her. In mere seconds he's in the driver's side, throwing the machine into reverse, trying to map out the city in his head to decide which clinic to take her to.

"How's it feeling," he asks her, gently. "Is it sore, or do you really think something might be broken? You should have just hit me instead," he says with a humorless chuckle.

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

What is even crazier is that despite the fact that she has lived with him for years and that he has confessed to horrible acts in front of her, she doesn’t understand that he’s not normal.  She expects him to understand where she is coming from and why she is hurt and feeling left behind and her fears for the future.  He doesn’t get it because outside a few extreme examples he doesn’t really feel that sort of fear or that feeling of being left behind.  In his view those things are impossible, that she’ll be left behind, forgotten, and since he sees them as impossible then why doesn’t she?

It’s because she is an overanxious, uncertain teenager with very little confidence in herself in this situation.  This isn’t exactly old hat to her; she is new to the world of these feelings and these types of relationships.  It’s not normal or traditional and, for better or worse what she has grown to learn is that when you enter into a physical relationship an emotional relationship is to follow.  Like some sort of boyfriend, girlfriend relationship.  It’s not always easy for her to keep in mind that it doesn’t apply in this situation.  Which is its own heartbreak.

She isn’t going to turn him in, she’ll be honest about what happened, but she’ll probably start locking her door at night.  It’s not that she is completely rejecting him it’s just that she is waiting for them to try and kill her.

Shivering in the front seat of the car she sniffles some and wipes her face off with the sleeve of her coat.  With her free hand she reaches into her pocket to find a tissue and she uses that instead of her sleeve which a proper girl does.

“I wanted to hit you in the face.  Your face has more give.  I might still.”  She could punch him in the head and make them swerve into oncoming traffic which would solve their problem once and for all, hopefully quickly.  Looking down at her hand she tries to move her fingers among the bag of ice and it hurts and they barely move, maybe that’s just the swelling.  “I don’t know if it’s broken.”  Hopefully at this time of night things will be relatively calm and they won’t have to wait forever a might be break is kind of low on the priority list.

A moment of silence.  “You made a promise to her and I can’t ask you to break that.

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

A locked door would be like a stab right through his chest. The very idea of his little girl not trusting him after all these years, seventeen of them. All the times he's protected her, the times he stayed up and cradled her when she had bad dreams, the times she snuggled into bed with him to seek his protection, all the problems she came to him with, all the games, the toys--and then he goes and is honest with her about killing a few people, and suddenly she can't trust him to leave her door unlocked at night?

Oh, he'll be sicker over that than he is over the girl nearly breaking her hand, or the idea that he might have to kill Delilah prematurely.

"I think I'd rather you not," he says, smirking mirthlessly out the windshield, driving through the poorly-lit, snow-covered streets to one of two possible urgent care clinics in the area. Luckily there's not much oncoming traffic, though that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of black ice and a occasional trees on the sides of the snowy roads. He watches her fingers move from the corner of his eye, saying, "If it was broken, you'd probably be screaming just a little more." Free hand reaching out, he gingerly takes the wrist of her injured hand and examines her knuckles as best he can, humming and bending his head to purse his lips in a kiss against it. "I think you probably just bruised it, baby. But better safe than sorry."

Her moment of silence is met by a long one of Richard's, and he glances out the driver's side window before digging through the inner pocket of his jacket for his cigarettes. He stares down at the tip of the one he lights, saying, "I'd might as well. If that's what it takes to make you understand, I'll do it. I don't think Mommy is going to want to continue being a part of our family after I do something like that to her," he says, clearing his throat as he rolls down the window just the barest crack to let his smoke out, "but after tonight I'm sure you don't care."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

What exactly did he expect?  Especially after he admits that Delilah just killed someone and that in order to make an impression on him she should go and do the same.  That’s not the same father that stayed up and cuddled her and took care of her with all of her bad dreams and all of her illnesses.  That’s a psychopath and while he might have always been one he did a damn good job covering it up in front of her.  Plus, it isn’t implied that he is the one that would do the killing, Delilah is clearly more then capable of doing it apparently and what is keeping her from doing so?  They don’t have any bond like she and her father do.

“I can’t feel anything,” her whole brain feels detached from her head running a million miles per hour above her head, turning over ramped up thoughts, calculating, figuring, ignoring the pain, for now.  The more she comes down the more it will hurt and when he leans in to kiss her fingers she flinches waiting for that stab of pain it makes her stomach roll over.  She is going to be sick.

“I don’t care about her; she isn’t the one that I want.”  Delilah never was, she made allowances because there is no other choice.  Just like there is no other choice in this situation.  She is going to punch him in the damn head because he keeps pulling shit like this.  “Fine, do whatever you want then but don’t blame it on me because I said that I am not asking you to break your promise to her.  You know you can’t have it all, right?  That you can’t marry her and expect me to be over the moon.   I’ll get over it but if you’re asking me to be nothing but smiles and fake then that’s just not going to happen.  So do what you want.”

[soursanguine.livejournal.com]

He didn't really expect anything, which is the problem; or perhaps he expected her to appreciate the truth, or admire him more. Really it's that last one. It ties into that little psychopathy problem he has. He shared a part of himself with her, told her the truth because that's what people do when they're intimate. He will forever regret it, but she deserves honesty.

This is why he needs Delilah. Without her, he has no one he can share his real face to without consequence.

Plenty of things are keeping Delilah from killing Salome--her fondness of the girl, for one, but most notably, it's that Richard would annihilate her if she ever even dreamed of it. Richard is what's keeping Delilah from killing Salome, as if the fact that the girl is a person weren't enough.

"We'll be there soon, baby," he says quietly, patting her wrist and placing her hand in her lap. He pushes the pedal of the gas down just a little bit more and decides fuck it, no point in trying the urgent cares that might not even be open. ER it is, even if it's not a break, because he hates to see her hurting and he can't get a good gauge on how bad it is if she's numb.

Do whatever he wants, she says! He doesn't know what he wants, he has no idea what he wants! He wants Salome and Delilah both, that's what he wants! But if Salome's adoration is his price? If she'll resent him quietly for years, and Delilah, too? What if she never grows out of this competitive phase and it's like this forever? What then, what then? What could he possibly want?

Oh, his beautiful Delilah, his heart, his heart, oh why? He tears onto the highway, saying, "Here I thought you were fond of her. You should just view her as an extension of Daddy, baby, a feminine reflection. I just don't see--" He exhales and glowers out the windshield, saying, "I didn't think it would be a big deal to you, Salome. I'm sorry. And I said some--nasty things in there that I shouldn't have said. I'm sorry for that, too, whatever my remorse is worth.

"I love Delilah," he says, his throat dry, "but if it means this much to you, I'll get rid of her. I didn't know, baby. I didn't think you wanted to marry me. I figured, you seemed fine with our family, so it would be fine with you, since nothing would be changing. But if it scares you that much, and if you trust me so little that you can't believe me when I tell you that nothing else will change, then I'll remove Delilah from the picture."

Just saying the words makes him look miserable, so he turns his face away to look out the driver's window. "I don't know what I can do, Salome. I want to do whatever will make you understand how deeply devoted to you I am. Whatever will make you trust me, make you see that you are never at risk of falling out of favor."

[sweetsalome.livejournal.com]

"She isn’t you and she won’t ever be you.  I don’t want a female form of you, I don’t need another form of you.  She is fine as she is but she won’t stay that way, you’ll do whatever you want to make her into you.”  Which is actually a shame because Delilah is sweet and innocent and a lovely woman who Salome was starting to like because she is kind and sort of innocent, a different view from what she has been given.  But now she isn’t sweet is she?  She is just as warped and twisted as Richard and that’s fine for Richard, that’s what he wants, what he apparently aches for and needs and what Salome won’t ever be.

It will change things.

He doesn’t see it, but it will, and maybe they’ll be subtle, or huge, but they’ll change.  Nothing ever stays the same, that’s not how things work but that doesn’t mean Salome has to like it or adjust to it right away.  She flipped out when he told her about Delilah, flipped out when he brought her over for dinner and he didn’t expect her to flip out when he told her they were getting married?

What just blows her away is that he didn’t think she wanted to marry him.  She shoves the bag of ice back on to her knuckles and everything sort of goes white around the edges and her eyes go all watery.

“So this is clearly all my decision now, yeah, I can’t take myself to the ER but sure you can ask me to ruin two peoples lives, you’re an asshole.”  She looks at him as if he just ran over her dog. 

“You refuse to let me be an adult; I can’t date, oh hell no, but expect me to make adult decision on if you should get married or not so you get away scott free.  You realize that’s what you’re doing right?”  Another shake of her head and she just stares at him before continuing on. 

“You know, I could have resented this marriage thing and gotten over it, but now you’re putting me in this position and I don’t appreciate it and that’s what really kills me.  So get married and know full well that action wasn’t want made me resent the ever living shit out of you but you asking me to make a decision on your life, passing the buck because you can’t live to take responsibility over upsetting one of us.  Grow a pair.”