DRIVEN AS HELL!

“serena! oh, thank god-- your timing couldn’t be better.” he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, both giddy and restless. the usually composed lawyer was clearly frazzled, if the bags under his eyes and generally unkempt appearance were any indication.

she’s dragged to the corner of the room with a hand on her forearm before she even gets a chance to respond, his usual sheepish nature forgotten in the excitement. “sorry, i just-- i really need your help with something. you’re... you’re only the second person i’ve told this to, so i’m trusting you to keeep it a secret, but i figured you would know what to do.” deep breath is taken into uncooperative lungs, a hand carding through hair only serving to make it messier than it already was. “okay, here goes: i’m planning to propose to elle. n-next month, after her graduation ceremony, i’m taking her out to dinner, and i figured it would be a good time to, y’know... pop the question. should i go for it?”

“i think the correct phrase you meant was ‘yeah, tom. you’re right. i’m sorry’. no? nothing?” something akin to a smile forms on composer’s lips and a scoff is exhaled under his breath. quite often did he find himself worrying about james, whether he’d make it home at night, if his past would finally catch up with him. 

“your best judgement wasn’t going to make me do it, and i dread the thought of you trying to go behind my back and do it.” tom sighs, giving his cousin a gentle poke with his elbow. “what he does is terrible, but he’s good at it, em. by some miracle, he’s managed to avoid being detained. i hardly know how he’s done it, but he has.”

“mmm, no, i think it’s more like ‘thank you, emmet, for putting your morals and your career aside to make me happy’.” he reciprocates with a nudge back, and the smile creeping across his face, though genuine, still betrays his worry. tom hasn’t changed his opinion, but he’s made a good enough point against acting on those feelings, at least for now.

“and you know all about good ideas, don’t you, emmett? you’ve been full of them our entire lives.” arms fold over his chest and foot taps angrily against the floor. he wishes the situation was simpler; he wishes he could just be a simple man that had a simple a simple love life, but things were never that simple. “i c— i can’t leave him, emmett. if you can look me in the eye and tell me you’d put your civic duty before elle in any situation, if you’d just throw her to the wolves if it meant you were doing the ‘right thing’ then f i n e. i’ll admit you’re right.”

“oh, no, no, no, don’t try to shove this off on me!” this wasn’t about emmett, or the fact that he wasn’t sure what he would do in such a situation. he liked to think that he would do the right thing, but now he realized that maybe it wasn’t quite so clear-cut. “it’s not just my civic duty, it’s also literally my job... but it’s not yours.”

for @faithwinged ( or his actual blog if hes still over there i don’t know lMAO )

“see? this is why i didn’t tell you anything. you want to be all legal and take the morally high ground; it’s annoying as hell, em.” composer scoffs, eyes rolling. “he’s done really bad things, i know. and i l-… i love him anyways, so don’t lecture me in your ‘holier than thou’ tone.”

emmett: *is bi*

“JARE...” words cut down any defense he had built up, anger immediately replaced by overwhelming guilt. emmett had always felt guilty about years spent working like a dog at the expense of neglecting his family ( he missed the kid’s bar mitzvah, for god’s sake ), but he didn’t think it had affected jared so much. hearing his regrets spat back at him was a realization of emmett’s worst fear ( or one of them, anyway ). hands hovered awkwardly, not daring to touch jared, but desperately seeking some way to comfort him, to begin to atone for all the times he’d let him down. if he weren’t so shaken, he would have retorted his other comments, or at least joke that the kid might make a good lawyer, but all the fight had drained out of him and he slumped in defeat. “jared, i... i’m sorry, kid. you know i am. i know that ‘sorry’ doesn’t make everything better, and i can’t promise you that i would do everything differently if i had the chance, but... i hope you can forgive me. i know that might sound SELFISH, but, hey-- i guess it runs in the family.”

so,,, no one in this family likes tom apparently, but they def still support his career. like, marv has lowkey seen every one of tom’s shows ( though you won’t hear it from him ), and ell and emmett always try to see one when they visit new york. he doesn’t like theatre, and he still doesn’t like tom, but even emmett has to admit that his music is really good.