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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 10, 2016 0:26:07 GMT
"I think after being tossed around like a rag doll by a crazy demon, I think I've earned a little sympathy from him," Weiss snapped. "Instead, I get nothing. I could probably die and he wouldn't bother to show up for my funeral!" The fact that she was hypocritical didn't matter to Weiss. In all reality, she probably would have been snide if Riku had checked up on her after the ball. But, in her eyes, she didn't see herself doing any wrong. She and Riku had once been very close. But ever since he had chosen to be a police officer, the rift between them had only grown bigger and bigger. From Weiss's point of view, she almost felt like the police force had taken away her big brother, leaving her all alone.
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 10, 2016 0:49:59 GMT
"I can't speak for him," Aqua said. "I don't know why he hasn't reached out to you."
Saying it aloud made her realize there was a lot she didn't know about her partner. Like why he hadn't gone to the party. Why he didn't talk to his family. Why he had decided becoming a police officer was his calling instead of voodoo king. She doubted that Riku wouldn't have shown up to Weiss' funeral, if it ever came to that, but he had been withdrawn. Perhaps he hadn't read the papers? Aqua just knew she had to get to know him better if they were truly to trust each other in the field. That and she wanted a partner and a friend in her corner. Riku made her realize how cut off she had become. She wanted to open up again and start over.
"And I want to help you both," she continued, "But I need you to help me understand this. Why does your family hate that he became a police officer?"
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 10, 2016 0:53:40 GMT
Weiss let out a breath through clenched teeth. Why did Aqua care about whether she and her brother got along? This was family business. Aqua didn't have to get involved. But, she wasn't about to walk away from this argument. Weiss was many things, and stubborn was one of them. "We're LaFayettes. We practice voodoo. It's how it's always been," she replied. "Us and voodoo is like a fish and swimming. One comes with the other. Anything else is...out of the ordinary."
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 10, 2016 1:07:11 GMT
"Why can't he do both?" Aqua asked.
Aqua didn't understand that bit. Riku could be a cop and still do voodoo. He might just not be a voodoo king. It was because of Riku's skills with voodoo that they knew that the La Llorona killer was using the same powders and knowledge Riku had to lure children out of bed and into the nights so she could drown them. Children from broken homes but no reason to leave unless under magical outside influence.
"He's helped so many people already," she reasoned.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 10, 2016 1:16:45 GMT
"It's not just that," Weiss argued. "He was part of our family, and he left us behind. He chose this path instead of us. I mean, what kind of person abandons their own flesh and blood like that?" Weiss knew that her parents weren't the best, and that anyone would want to leave them in a second. Sure, they cared about her, but they still put a lot of pressure on her, and more often than not, they liked having her around so they could brag about how great their child was. But it still hurt Weiss that Riku had left her behind. She hadn't been awful towards him like her parents. Why should she receive the same treatment they did?
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 10, 2016 1:36:42 GMT
"It doesn't sound like that to me at all." Aqua said. "It sounds like they made him choose between doing something he thought was important or doing something they wanted him to do. It's Riku's life. Shouldn't he make his own decisions? Don't you think he should be happy doing something he thinks is important?"
Riku probably wouldn't have been very happy being the voodoo king. Not when his police work seemed so important to him. He had been absolutely proud of himself when he got that badge. She thought he might have cried after he got home, but in pride. She knew Riku might get mad at her for meddling in his family affairs when she couldn't even trust him with hers, but she was going to come clean the next time they saw each other. About everything.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 10, 2016 17:41:04 GMT
"Oh sure, he's all happy-happy joy-joy now, but what about us? What about me?" Weiss's voice came out shrill. "He's my brother. We're supposed to be there for each other. And he left me behind. He replaced me with all his new cop buddies. He replaced me with you!" It was an irrational thought, but to Weiss, it wasn't. Riku had traded in his old family for a new one. Instead of his little sister, he now had Aqua. That was the simple reason why she was angry with him.
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 10, 2016 18:00:31 GMT
"W-What?" Aqua asked in absolute surprise. "No! It's not like that!"
Her? replacing Weiss? It just wasn't going to happen. Not as long as Aqua was trying to keep Riku as far from her as possible. Not as long as Aqua harbored the mistrust founded by her first partnership. Riku was nice but Aqua knew jack about the man. She wouldn't be able to talk about him like Weiss could. Aqua didn't know what his home life was like, he wouldn't talk about it. She couldn't say his favorite band or what he liked to do in his free time. All she knew was he liked his coffee, he occasionally listened to Omar LaRue play live venues and she had just gotten him to have his first milkshake the first time they went out for a 'celebration' dinner.
"Weiss, I'm an awful partner. He wanted to get assigned to someone else." Aqua said.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 11, 2016 1:29:15 GMT
"Don't patronize me!" Weiss yelled. "I know what's going on! I'm not an idiot!" Weiss knew that shouting wasn't going to make the situation better, but she couldn't help it. She just felt so angry and jealous and sad. "He doesn't care about us anymore. He decided to throw us away and get a new family. And now he's...and I'm...and you..." Weiss couldn't get the words out. Her emotions were boiling over, and to her horror, tears sprang into her eyes. She wiped them away as quickly as she could. She wasn't about to start crying now, especially not in front of Aqua.
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 11, 2016 15:08:11 GMT
"Weiss," Aqua said, taking the gentle tone again. "I'm not taking Riku from you. I could never replace you."
Tears. Aqua's heart clenched painfully. Under normal circumstances, she might have reached out to hug Weiss, but she doubted that would go over well at all. Weiss was more likely to hit her if she even tried. It was just upsetting that Weiss could even think something like that. It was hard to believe that she had so much doubt in Riku’s attachment to her so much that she thought she could be so easily forgotten. You didn’t forget your loved ones. Aqua knew that much from personal experience. She couldn't forget her parents. She certainly could not forget Terra no matter how hard she tried.
"I know because there was someone I loved very much," she continued, "He's gone now and the hurt is still there. I can't forget him. He was my partner before your brother."
Aqua didn’t see how she could possibly replace Weiss in Riku's life. She was a faery – inhuman and abnormal. No one ever wanted the faery in the end. It's how all the stories went anyways. She didn't know what she had been thinking by being with Terra when in every story, the faery made someone happy and that person went off to live 'happily ever after' with someone else. Maybe that's what Terra ended up doing. But Weiss was at least the same species as her brother and knew him better than Aqua could ever get to know him. She had to make Riku talk to his sister about this. It wasn’t healthy. Not for either of them. He couldn't ignore the situation any more than Weiss should ignore her feelings.
"Have you told Riku you felt like this?"
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 11, 2016 16:06:24 GMT
Aqua's tone was gentle, and it made Weiss's heart clench. Why was she being so nice to her? Why was she attempting to fix her and Riku's problems? Weiss didn't want her help. She would deal with this on her own, just like she always had. Being alone was practically her state of being now. Her brother was gone, her parents were busy doing rich people things, and making real friends wasn't her specialty. All she could say was that she had a couple of acquaintances. That was it. In a way though, it sounded like Aqua had lost a loved one of her own. Unlike Riku though, he was gone forever. "You think he cares?" she asked. "What you said pretty much sums up his opinion on the matter. He wanted to get away from us and be a police officer 'cause that's what made him happier, blah blah blah." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm sick of hearing that," she said, her voice not as loud as before, but still angry.
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 12, 2016 0:57:20 GMT
"He was just trying to do what he thought was right." Aqua said. "I really don't think he meant to hurt you."
Aqua saw a lonely little girl standing in front of her. The same loneliness that she herself had experienced after her parents died and she was at the orphanage. She smiled, a little sadly, before reaching out and placing hands on either of Weiss' shoulders. She didn't want Weiss to be alone like she was. Not when Weiss had an actual chance to make amends with her brother. Riku was not out of her reach just yet.
"He wasn't trying to leave you." she reaffirmed. "He wanted to help others. He's done so much good already and stopped some very bad people."
Riku had found out how the La Llorona killer stole children. Riku stopped a few drunken disorderlies. Riku stopped thieves and other criminals. He was doing good. Aqua perhaps needed to give him a little more credit than she had been, because he had come a long way from when he first started. Gun-shy, overly eager and naive. He was becoming a better cop.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 12, 2016 1:05:36 GMT
Weiss could feel herself losing steam, her anger ebbing away. But that didn't mean she still wasn't feeling bad. She just felt hurt, and tired. She was tired at being mad at Riku all the time, but she felt like she couldn't help it. She sometimes came close to breaking down and seeking him out herself, but her pride always got in the way. Not to mention, if she started hanging out with him again, her parents would freak out. As far as they were concerned, Riku wasn't part of the family anymore. What could Weiss do but go along with what they said? Aqua's hands were gentle on her shoulders, but Weiss was feeling too mixed up to try and make a kind gesture in return. "I know. It was practically all over the news," she muttered. She remembered seeing the headlines about the La Lloronoa killer getting caught, and how Riku had been part of the squad that had arrested her. It had churned her stomach. She knew that he was helping people, but why couldn't he help her? Weren't they supposed to be there for each other, through thick and thin, no matter what?
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Post by skyeknight on Oct 12, 2016 1:25:49 GMT
"He's doing a really good job." Aqua said. "We don't have anyone in the office with Riku's talents. He saved a lot of people already."
Weiss was losing the fight in her, so Aqua moved an arm around her shoulder into a side hug. It was awful that Weiss was hurting this much over it. It was hard to keep the two siblings apart. If she could, she'd have gone back and given his parents a what for when she was at their party, but they say hindsight is twenty-twenty. Weiss had to talk to someone about this. It wasn't good for her to be this angry and this resentful of her brother all the time. Or rather with everyone!
"Tell you what," she decided. "You ask me about what he and I have been up to and then you can tell me all the embarrassing stories about him. Sound fair?"
She offered a smile to Weiss, hoping it would cheer the girl up a bit to hear her brother was in fact doing well. Even if he was up to his eyes in paperwork which was a lot considering he was a tall man. Because honestly, what did the Lafayettes feed that man when he lived with them? Growth hormones? Aqua barely came to his shoulder, if that. He was like a giant to her.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Oct 12, 2016 1:32:21 GMT
Aqua did make Weiss a tempting offer in saying she could ask her what Riku was up to. She remembered doing the same thing when she had met Anna, albeit a bit more tactfully. But with Aqua, she wouldn't have to hide anything. Weiss still felt hesitant though. It required some trust on her part, and Weiss wasn't the type of person that gave that out easily. She had gotten hurt too many times in her life. Yet, for some reason, Aqua was still trying to cheer her up. Weiss didn't understand it. "Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked. "People only act this way with me if they want money or something." Heck, the same could be said for her parents too. Most people were nice to her parents because they wanted cash or to be recognized in some way. If you had the LaFayette's on your side, you had a successful life ahead of you.
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