bad habits

The mission of the moment had been to find a spot not so crowded. Chey wanted a beer or two, felt as though she deserved it, and as she tried to make her way through the room someone slammed into her. At first the brunette gasped then beer splattered all over her, splashing up in her face and all over her shirt.

"Well, if I was looking for a sign—" The professor muttered and stopped min-sentence when the familiar voice rang through her ears. Hazel eyes found the oceanic blue of Boyd's and locked in on him for a moment.

Life literally just kicked her in the teeth.

"It's, uhh," she glanced down, really to avoid eye contact and pinched her shirt to peel it off of her, "fine, I guess." Then muttered, "par for the course."

"Uh, yeah," he said quickly, ignoring his own shirt in favor of her. "Bathroom. C'mon, follow me." The place was so crowded he didn't even think before grabbing her hand, continuing to snake through the room until they reached the door to the men's restroom. He walked in, oblivious to the fact she might not follow.

She never let her head get in the way but today, she decided that she wanted to play. A sinister smile crept upon her face, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. "A dispensary and shitty movies? Sounds perfect as long as we get a ton of junk food, too. And all the desserts." Moving off the bed, she let the orange robe fall down her bare shoulders onto the floor beneath her, her back facing Boyd. Her hands moved up to her hair, letting her fingers brush through it before let glanced behind her. "Can you get my favorite shirt of yours, please?"

Whatever it was he was about to say slipped right of his brain as Meredith's robe hit the floor, the backside of her body not leaving much to the imagination. He'd seen it all in the times they'd had to barge in on each other in the bathroom, but this time was clearly on purpose and he didn't have to rush to avert his eyes. "Uhhh," he started, nearly asking if she felt alright, before numbly reaching for his old Providence U shirt instead. "Here," he said dumbly, before his sense caught up to him. "I thought we decided against auditioning for Naked and Afraid."

A whirl of smoke wove seamlessly through the air above her head, pushed effortlessly past the cherry red Quinn had worn on her lips. Le Cirque might have been a good choice for the evening, had she not found protest in what became a string of the worst hangovers she'd ever experienced. Apparently, it was time to accept the fate of things: her age. Her fingers lightly tossed at the cylinder of tobacco, flicking off its smoking remnants into an ashtray. Quinn's eyes swept across the room, looking for something interesting among the crowd. And of course, as they say, if you kept looking for something wrong, you will eventually find it. Find it, Quinn did. Whether it was wrong or not, she wasn't entirely sure.

Quinn averted her eyes quickly, hoping to preserve her pride by not approaching the blonde. What she had done—or rather, failed to do—was embarrassing to admit. For once, she wasn't in pursuit of the attention. For once, she hesitated being the one to open the door. She felt conflicted within herself about it. In fact, she felt so conflicted that she battled herself about it with her sister. 'Am I losing my sh–t? Do I have, like, zero game?' she recounted herself saying, at a complete loss for how she didn't take up the opportunity to lay with the man in question. She was sure that if she had him under closer examination, she would only be in deeper regret. ʻNo offense, Sasa, but I have a personal policy of steering clear from people with kids. I'm not trying to be—'

Her inner thoughts trailed off. She may not have known if she wanted to be involved with someone with kids but she remembered what it felt like knowing she had life growing within her. Her choice to end her pregnancy did not come easily, and there were more times than not that she thought about what could have been. With Jackson. Chocolate hues cast downward, she stared blankly into the ash tray where her fingers rested.

He never made it a secret that he was a father. Not everyone assumed the little girl on his phone was his daughter, but he never lied when they asked him who she was. He always made it clear he wasn't looking for anything serious, so his identity outside the few short hours they spent together hardly mattered. To most women, that is, but apparently not Quinn.

He never got to the bottom of why she felt that way, never even got to assure her he wasn't looking for a stepmother before she was making her excuses and rushing out the door. It had to be pathological the way it drew him towards her now, like an annoying bruise he couldn't help but want to poke at. "I'm pretty sure you owe me a drink," he teased in a way he hoped was charming — a callback that was deprecating on both of their parts.

Hank woke up in his own house with no real memory of last night, not at first. Not for the glorious couple minutes he didn't move, just laid there and enjoyed the last comforts of sleep. Then he dared to open his eyes and find the time. The hands on clock bounced, refusing to answer the simple question. Hank's head pounded in a similar rhythm but it was giving answers to questions he didn't yet have.

He was curled in the middle of his bed, blankets surrounding him, like a baby or a new puppy. Takeaway containers kept him company which looked sad and explained some of his feelings right now. Not in pajamas but not in the outfit he left in, Hank reached down to find he wasn't wearing his leg either. Swell. It was too hard to look for anything. The last time Hank remembered being THIS hungover his friends were throwing him a going away part of sorts before he left for the air force.

"Hey Siri," Hank called out as loud as he could, hoping his phone was nearby. Somewhere he heard the chime to say she'd caught it. "Call Julia and David please?"

"Mattie?" he asked groggily, the first idea that came him being that maybe his daughter needed a cuddle and then kicked him out of his bed in her sleep. Could have hit his head, and that explained the headache? But no... Mattie was at a sleepover last night, and Boyd had gone out for a guy's night with—

Hank. A vague memory occurred to him, something about enough alcohol to drown his self-pity and a really dumb idea. He groaned. "Who the fuck are Julia and David?"

"If you think that I didn't love you..." she trailed off, her voice dropping low. She'd left him like she hadn't given a shit, but she'd never known heartbreak until she'd passed the city limits sign and knew that she wasn't coming back. "I loved you more than I ever loved myself, Boyd. I thought I was saving the both of you. I thought that you'd be better off without me moping around because I was. You had to of seen it. I lost myself and I didn't know how to get it back. I would have made a terrible mother back then. Okay, I know it. It's no excuse for leaving. Leaving was the worst thing I could've done, but I did it and I can't take that back now, but it was never about not loving you."

Truth was, the only future she'd ever saw had been with him. After leaving, she'd barely been able to look forward to the end of the day, let alone months ahead. She'd made it through the day on sheer luck and nothing more. Even eight years later, it was hard to think about what the next week held, but her biggest hope was that one day, her daughter would be in those plans.

He kept waiting for the day when it would hurt less. Between his father, his sister, and Nadia, he really ought to be more used to it. But the sting never left, and the wound never really healed; all he was left with was doubts about what he had done wrong. He was surprised it wasn't obvious, or that Nadia had the subtly to avoid exploiting that weakness — the way he lashed out like a wounded animal, the way he was so clearly cornered with no means of escape.

He sighed, exhausted as the fight leached out of him. He hated the way it felt like defeat, but he'd put it off as long as he could. "I'll tell her about you. Tell her you're here. Whether she chooses to see you, that's up to her... But Nadia, I swear, no funny business. This isn't a negotiation. If she wants to talk to you, you don't get to see her without me present."

status: closed for @boyd-connors

Although her sugar consumption had gotten slightly better since being employed by Asli, there were still moments when her stress craving for something sweet just couldn't be ignored. It wasn't due to her new job or anything - Aslihan had been extremely nice from the very beginning - but a cryptic text from her mom saying she'd simply 'call soon' and struggling to get the cash together for the money pit of the house had her frantically searching the shelves for the usual Nerd's Ropes, only to find none in their usual little tub, the owner of the store nowhere to be found to see if they were in the back. "Ugh, could this day get any worse?!" Phoebe lamented, her anger getting the better of her for once and kicking the shelf on impulse, cursing when a couple of candies began to rain down, using the hem of her T-Shirt to scoop them back up, turning frantically to see if there were any witnesses, spotting one. "If anyone asks, this was a definite accident, please? I think going down for destruction of public property would be the straw on the camel's back right now."

Apparently he wasn't the only one facing some sort of anxiety, and the sound of a dull thud and some exasperated words drew his attention. "All I saw was a woman rightly defending herself against a rogue candy shelf," Boyd replied innocently. "I read there's been an uptick in attacks in the new recently, so it only makes sense..."

"What job, Boyd? I quit. Two years ago. I quit." She'd fallen from her high and mighty throne and had humbled herself with a career change. "I don't give a shit about any job offer. I don't care about anything except for her. Just because i haven't been knocking down your door doesn't mean I haven't been trying to figure things out. I've got things set up at True Colors to learn sign. I'm... I'm talking to a friend of mine who went through something similar," she trailed off, her heart now thundering wildly against her chest as she paced the small space of the garage.

Her chest was tightening and breathing was unsteady, but she wouldn't back down. If he wanted her to show that she cared, she couldn't afford it. "Every time we've met, by random chance or not, you never give me a chance to speak and even when you do, you're so quick to call bullshit that it doesn't matter what I say." She could drop to her knees and plead for forgiveness, but he'd rattle something off in spite. At least, it seemed that way from her point of view.

"I want to be a part of my daughter's life. I'm not leaving and I don't know what it's going to take to prove that, but I'm not. I'm here because she's here." She'd spent too much time running from herself and now, all she wanted was to get back a little bit of time she'd lost in between, or at least not miss anything more than she already had. If he couldn't get behind that, she wasn't sure where they'd go from there.

She paused her pacing and lifted a hand to her chest. It ached as if her lungs were collapsing from the impact of the grief and regret that had settled there. "I'm sorry," she exhaled between unsteady breaths, head shaking as she did her best to focus on the fact that there would be no comfort in the coldness of the garage. "I'm sorry."

It surprised him to hear her say she quit her job, the fancy lawyer position he knew she loved more than she could ever love him. It was a sacrifice, sure, but it felt like an empty one. She gave up her dream job, but he'd never had the chance to pursue his. "Fucking waste," he muttered under his breath, but that was far from the most important matter here.

"I call bullshit because you've never given me any reason to believe you!" he shouted in frustration. "You get that, right? I mean, I know you're smart — you have to understand why I don't trust you. Everything you ever told me — about loving me, about wanting to build a life together — all of it was lies. And if you think I'm gonna put the most precious thing I have at risk for more broken promises, you're seriously fucking deluded." Mattie wouldn't understand it, and Boyd wouldn't survive explaining it to her. It would be harder to explain an absence once she knew what she was missing.

"I think we should go raid a dispensary and then watch shitty, terrible movies," he said after thinking about it, pulling a shirt over his hand and messing up his hair in the process. It wasn't anything special or celebratory, but it was also so quintessentially them: the kind of thing they used to do back in high school before the responsibilities of life took over.

"Okay, look. Just don't let me go to jail. That's all. We'll be okay and we'll have fun but I don't want to go to jail. My mum will never forgive me." Nodding his head, Hank picked up the shot glass, heaved a sigh, and waited for Boyd so they could drink. Here goes nothing

"So... cheers!" he hollered before taking the shot and dropping it into his beer, chugging the concoction as quickly as possible.

Nadia's tone wavered with every word that rolled off her tongue and it sounded as if her voice was going to break at any given moment. It was her own anger, her own heartfelt disappointment and the sheer fact that she no longer felt as if she were the only problem. "I've been here. I've been here for almost a year now and you've spent that entire year being so mad at me. I ran. I screwed up. I... I didn't have a hold on my emotions and I should have tried harder. I should have... I should have figured out how to be a person again, and I'm sorry that I didn't. I am really sorry for that."

Shaky hands drummed against her bouncing knees as her heart thundered against her ribcage. She hadn't noticed the hot tears that now stained her cheeks or the fact that between every word, she was sucking in a harsh breath that made her lungs ache. "I came back for her. I quit my job because I couldn't stand to do it knowing how much it had cost me. You think I'm so cold and unfeeling? I'm not. I never have been and I never will be."

But it looked like he'd finally cracked her enough to show an ounce of vulnerability...

The only reason I'm back is because of her. The tears certainly went a long way towards selling the statement, but her previous words and his shattered trust meant he viewed it all with suspicion. He wanted to believe it, for Mattie's sake, but the stakes were too high if he got it wrong.

Her defensiveness once again put him on edge — that she tried to turn it all back onto him, insinuating he was cold and unfeeling when, if anything, he'd always been too hot and felt too much. Wasn't he allowed to be angry? Wasn't a part of making amends accepting whatever reaction it caused in the other person? He still didn't feel like she'd ever truly acknowledged the damage she'd inflicted. She talked about guilt and how awful it had been for her, and yet, his anger was irrational.

It frustrated him that she came armed with these new excuses, these things he should've known before now, and hurled them at him like he was some dickhead who just didn't listen. "How am I supposed to know any of that?!" he exclaimed, raising his voice for the first time this conversation, grateful he'd planned this for after everyone else had gone home. "You told me you came back here for a job! I'm not making that up — that's what you said. You can't get mad at me for being angry, telling me like I should know things when you've never shown me dick." Nadia talking ASL classes, talking to people in the community — it all felt a little useless when she'd never pushed harder to try to meet her daughter.

"And yeah, you're right — it's been a year. I've gotta be honest and say I didn't expect you to stick around that long — but there's giving us space and then there's avoidance. Before now, I've only ever run into you by chance. I know you Nadia. If you really wanted something, nothing could fucking stop you." He remembered the single-minded way she used to study to exams; if motherhood was truly the goal, she wasn't trying nearly hard enough. "And don't say it's me. I'm allowed to be angry — don't tell me that I'm not. Don't act like I'm some fucking monster you have to be afraid of." He had never done anything to be deserving of that — his only crimes had been loving her and trusting her too much.