![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
*private*
So much for the idea that life would get simpler as soon as I stop being Connor Riley. Right now, everything just gets more complicated, and that's putting it mildly. Because I soon won't be talking to my Mom and Dad and to Mere again, and because yelling on the cell phone about not being a rent boy and/or teenager-napping gangster is a sucky way to end a life, even though they might not remember that (I'm not sure how the removal of the fake memories will affect the real ones), I went over and tried, yet again. They tried, too. I mean, they did ask about Justine, and when they were finally going to meet her. Which at least showed they've accepted she's my girlfriend, not a lie or someone posing as my girlfriend while really being my handler, or whatever they were imagining. So that would have been the ideal time to produce Justine, yes?
Except that Justine and I are walking on thin ice these days, and that's putting it mildly. I'm starting to wonder whether maybe it's Los Angeles. Because when we were on the road, these things didn't happen. I mean, sure, there was the one time where I nearly smashed her skull and smashed the window of her car instead because I realized at the last minute, and then I ran away and she was drunk when I came back, but that was different. We still trusted each other completley. Which is pretty weird, because if someone nearly kills you with a punch, dumping that guy is maybe the smartest option, but - well, it was different. I don't think she ever thought I would hurt her, not seriously anyway. And I never thought she would hurt me.
This is even different from the whole thing with Angel and Darla, although it's related, because if it hadn't been Angel who asked me to go after Kara, I would have told Justine and Father who it was from the start. The entire press fiasco could still have happened, I guess. I don't know whether she would have believed that stuff anyway, with no connection to them. Believed it enough to - it shouldn't matter so much. That guy didn't mean anything to her. I know that. And she did it because she thought I had hurt her, to punish me back the same way. Okay, strike the "thought". She was hurt, no matter whether it was true or not. So.
So now I know you can use sex to punish. You'd think given two sets of memories and the biological parents I have, I'd have figured that out sooner, but no. Not in practice anyway. And I want things with Justine to be good again and be there for her, and I want to hurt her for hurting me, and that's just the kind of thing to drive you crazy.
Anyway, I told Mom and Dad - will I stop thinking about them that way once they don't see me as their son anymore, I wonder? - I told them some lie about Justine needing to visit her parents. Figures. Yet more lies. Next thing you know, Mom, still in her "let's be understanding" mode, asks whether she can meet "the gentleman you live with" or Harry Osborn instead. Now I could theoretically introduce her to Father. Not. I never forgot what it was like, finding him dead, and I just know that if he meets Mom and Dad, he'll arrive at the "they're good for you" conclusion and will either go away or die again.
(Or maybe I'm afraid he won't. That he wouldn't do what Angel did. Either way, it's a big no.)
Then Mere started with the Harry Osborn thing as well. (You know, at least I won't have the chance to miss Mere too much post-spell removal. Because Kara is totally her twin. Same complete lack of logic, same irritation factor, and same unfair way to score some actual points now and then, as Kara did when she reminded me that if the restoration of true memories all around removes those of the last two years as well, I'm taking away choices, too, same as Angel and the Wolfram & Hart weirdos originally did. But back to Mere: I asked her whether she hadn't read the article about Wolfram and Hart suing the papers who had printed the original story for slandering their client, and she said she never bothered reading denials, and that she had kept the video footage that was linked on the internet. Downloaded and burned for all eternity.
(So that's what's going to stay with my family - the Rileys - once the fake memories are gone. A few minutes of me and Kara duking it out in front of a shirtless Harry Osborn in a hotel room. How is that for irony?)
At this point, I thought that if any member of the Riley clan was safe to introduce to either Father or Justine, it was Mere. Because no way they could see her and think I'd be better off with her, and she might actually be shocked into drawing something like correct conclusions for a change. So I offered to take her along to my place of work, the detective agency none of them really believes exists.
Mere said yes, and we took Angel's convertible (unfortunately yet further proof to her I'm not earning my living by helping a P.I, instead of being a cool car I could show off, which admittedly I had wanted to). Now. Guess whom we met back at the apartment. Father? No, patrolling. A client, maybe one whom we had actually helped? Fat chance. Justine? No, off to, get this, visit her parents, according to the note she left.
Whom we met was a guy from UPS. Delivering a package from Harry Osborn . Cue several squees and "I knew its" from Mere who took the parcel from Tiffany as if she had superpowers herself and opened it in no time flat. What it turned out to be was this:
Mere had time enough to read the inscription before I finally the flask from her, suddenly got serious and told me: "That is a mean poem, Connor. Nasty. You know that's not true."
Thereby pulling the worst little sister trick of all times, also called the vulnerable eye batting. (Kara does things long distance, which is something of an art form.) So I had to lie again and promise I didn't believe it. At least she didn't beg me to introduce her anymore by the time she left.
So, Harry Osborn. You know, presents are strange. In one version of my life, clear water could be one, or finding my father in less than three days and having him smile at me in relief and pride that I was good enough a tracker for that. And then, later, when I got here, there was a room full of things for a child which I didn't know what to do with, and later Fred and Gunn who meant well but kept giving me things for that image they had formed in their heads, "Angel's son". In the other version, I got the usual share, and I wonder what will become of stuff like the bike I got for my twelfth birthday which is still in Dad's garage, because that never existed once the spell is removed, right?
But I don't think there were gifts from people you met, exchanged insults with, got drunk with and somehow got into the habit of corresponding with in that version, either. I hadn't expected to like him, or exchange confidences, or to have that much fun kidding around. But I do. It's strange, having the chance of a friend your own age whom you don't have to pretend with all the time.
"I'll be hiking with a friend on Saturday," I told Father and Justine - both at the same time, and I don't know whether I was feeling cowardly or reckless. " In Griffith Park." Father, who knows about walking for days and not for fun, either, just nodded, and Justine gave me a look. But she didn't say anything.
"I'll have my cell phone with me. You can reach me all the time."
If she asked to come with me, I'd have said yes. If she had asked me which friend I meant, I'd have told and explained. But somehow I couldn't make myself ask her to come, or to tell her on my own. I wanted to, and I didn't. We just kept looking at each other, silently. I've no idea what Father made of it. And then I decided that most of all, I wanted to go hiking alone with a friend, and got out one of the books Professor Stern said we need to read this term. And that was that.
So much for the idea that life would get simpler as soon as I stop being Connor Riley. Right now, everything just gets more complicated, and that's putting it mildly. Because I soon won't be talking to my Mom and Dad and to Mere again, and because yelling on the cell phone about not being a rent boy and/or teenager-napping gangster is a sucky way to end a life, even though they might not remember that (I'm not sure how the removal of the fake memories will affect the real ones), I went over and tried, yet again. They tried, too. I mean, they did ask about Justine, and when they were finally going to meet her. Which at least showed they've accepted she's my girlfriend, not a lie or someone posing as my girlfriend while really being my handler, or whatever they were imagining. So that would have been the ideal time to produce Justine, yes?
Except that Justine and I are walking on thin ice these days, and that's putting it mildly. I'm starting to wonder whether maybe it's Los Angeles. Because when we were on the road, these things didn't happen. I mean, sure, there was the one time where I nearly smashed her skull and smashed the window of her car instead because I realized at the last minute, and then I ran away and she was drunk when I came back, but that was different. We still trusted each other completley. Which is pretty weird, because if someone nearly kills you with a punch, dumping that guy is maybe the smartest option, but - well, it was different. I don't think she ever thought I would hurt her, not seriously anyway. And I never thought she would hurt me.
This is even different from the whole thing with Angel and Darla, although it's related, because if it hadn't been Angel who asked me to go after Kara, I would have told Justine and Father who it was from the start. The entire press fiasco could still have happened, I guess. I don't know whether she would have believed that stuff anyway, with no connection to them. Believed it enough to - it shouldn't matter so much. That guy didn't mean anything to her. I know that. And she did it because she thought I had hurt her, to punish me back the same way. Okay, strike the "thought". She was hurt, no matter whether it was true or not. So.
So now I know you can use sex to punish. You'd think given two sets of memories and the biological parents I have, I'd have figured that out sooner, but no. Not in practice anyway. And I want things with Justine to be good again and be there for her, and I want to hurt her for hurting me, and that's just the kind of thing to drive you crazy.
Anyway, I told Mom and Dad - will I stop thinking about them that way once they don't see me as their son anymore, I wonder? - I told them some lie about Justine needing to visit her parents. Figures. Yet more lies. Next thing you know, Mom, still in her "let's be understanding" mode, asks whether she can meet "the gentleman you live with" or Harry Osborn instead. Now I could theoretically introduce her to Father. Not. I never forgot what it was like, finding him dead, and I just know that if he meets Mom and Dad, he'll arrive at the "they're good for you" conclusion and will either go away or die again.
(Or maybe I'm afraid he won't. That he wouldn't do what Angel did. Either way, it's a big no.)
Then Mere started with the Harry Osborn thing as well. (You know, at least I won't have the chance to miss Mere too much post-spell removal. Because Kara is totally her twin. Same complete lack of logic, same irritation factor, and same unfair way to score some actual points now and then, as Kara did when she reminded me that if the restoration of true memories all around removes those of the last two years as well, I'm taking away choices, too, same as Angel and the Wolfram & Hart weirdos originally did. But back to Mere: I asked her whether she hadn't read the article about Wolfram and Hart suing the papers who had printed the original story for slandering their client, and she said she never bothered reading denials, and that she had kept the video footage that was linked on the internet. Downloaded and burned for all eternity.
(So that's what's going to stay with my family - the Rileys - once the fake memories are gone. A few minutes of me and Kara duking it out in front of a shirtless Harry Osborn in a hotel room. How is that for irony?)
At this point, I thought that if any member of the Riley clan was safe to introduce to either Father or Justine, it was Mere. Because no way they could see her and think I'd be better off with her, and she might actually be shocked into drawing something like correct conclusions for a change. So I offered to take her along to my place of work, the detective agency none of them really believes exists.
Mere said yes, and we took Angel's convertible (unfortunately yet further proof to her I'm not earning my living by helping a P.I, instead of being a cool car I could show off, which admittedly I had wanted to). Now. Guess whom we met back at the apartment. Father? No, patrolling. A client, maybe one whom we had actually helped? Fat chance. Justine? No, off to, get this, visit her parents, according to the note she left.
Whom we met was a guy from UPS. Delivering a package from Harry Osborn . Cue several squees and "I knew its" from Mere who took the parcel from Tiffany as if she had superpowers herself and opened it in no time flat. What it turned out to be was this:
Mere had time enough to read the inscription before I finally the flask from her, suddenly got serious and told me: "That is a mean poem, Connor. Nasty. You know that's not true."
Thereby pulling the worst little sister trick of all times, also called the vulnerable eye batting. (Kara does things long distance, which is something of an art form.) So I had to lie again and promise I didn't believe it. At least she didn't beg me to introduce her anymore by the time she left.
So, Harry Osborn. You know, presents are strange. In one version of my life, clear water could be one, or finding my father in less than three days and having him smile at me in relief and pride that I was good enough a tracker for that. And then, later, when I got here, there was a room full of things for a child which I didn't know what to do with, and later Fred and Gunn who meant well but kept giving me things for that image they had formed in their heads, "Angel's son". In the other version, I got the usual share, and I wonder what will become of stuff like the bike I got for my twelfth birthday which is still in Dad's garage, because that never existed once the spell is removed, right?
But I don't think there were gifts from people you met, exchanged insults with, got drunk with and somehow got into the habit of corresponding with in that version, either. I hadn't expected to like him, or exchange confidences, or to have that much fun kidding around. But I do. It's strange, having the chance of a friend your own age whom you don't have to pretend with all the time.
"I'll be hiking with a friend on Saturday," I told Father and Justine - both at the same time, and I don't know whether I was feeling cowardly or reckless. " In Griffith Park." Father, who knows about walking for days and not for fun, either, just nodded, and Justine gave me a look. But she didn't say anything.
"I'll have my cell phone with me. You can reach me all the time."
If she asked to come with me, I'd have said yes. If she had asked me which friend I meant, I'd have told and explained. But somehow I couldn't make myself ask her to come, or to tell her on my own. I wanted to, and I didn't. We just kept looking at each other, silently. I've no idea what Father made of it. And then I decided that most of all, I wanted to go hiking alone with a friend, and got out one of the books Professor Stern said we need to read this term. And that was that.
