Building Bridges

[brody]

TAG: closed to Elannia and Ten... and maybe Tony, Drew, Anna, Kristin, etc etc if they really want to at some point. ^.^
There's no preference on who posts next, btw.

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It was amazing how quickly time flew past when your world seemed to be pretty close to perfect. Ten had been in Brody’s company for the first time in four years for the past two and a half weeks. She was staying with him, obviously, in the gigantic mansion the Hathaway’s called ‘home’ and everything was going well on that front. Primarily because Glynn, Brody’s father, was out of town for the entire time and was set to be out of their lives for the next few weeks too. The past two and a half weeks had flown past at record speed, the sixteen days feeling more like three at most. He owed this to Ten, obviously, and of course Elannia. And that was where the perfection doubled.

When Brody wasn’t hanging out with Ten, showing her around Marseille (they had yet to do San), helping her get used to the complete change of lifestyle the French countryside afforded a middle class Welsh girl, and just generally catching up with his best friend, he was with Ellie, between lectures, before lectures, for lunch or the occasional on-campus party. What had he to complain about? But despite his days being mostly split between these two girls they had yet to meet. And that was where things got interesting. Judging on the fact that his best friend of 19 years (and a handful of months) had never – not even once – approved of any girls he ever dated, he wasn’t holding much hope. Ten always found something she didn’t like about whatever girl Brody was with, whether they were in the same country or not, and she protested openly as much as she grumbled in the background. And then on the other hand, Elannia was… different. When Brody and Jessica’s relationship went down the drain with a wake of sulking, tears and vengeful promises on Jessica’s end, Ellie decided to pick a side. She chose Brody’s. At first he thought it just made sense; Jessica was her friend, sure, but Jess had her own band of friends a lot closer to her than Brody and his friends ever were, and Ellie always seemed to just fit in better with Brody, Tony, Anna, Drew, Kristin and the others. But then Ellie showed a lot more interest in him than she had before when he was dating Jessica, and with a smugness that came only to natural too him, it made perfect sense.

It was only six days ago that he ‘gently’ dumped Jessica, and five days ago that he started dating Ellie. Maybe it was moving fast, but he could see no wrong in it, especially when it was Elannia that approached him first and things just slipped into place. He had always like the lively blonde girl for her friendship and all his imagination lingered on, so when one thing lead to another he really had little to complain about. Jessica did, of course, but as Brody looked at it she wasn’t his problem any more and Ellie deserved his attention and affection. He found his gaze wandering a lot less than it had ever done before these last few days. Naturally. Now, while the rest of his friends seemed to prefer him and Ellie dating than him dating someone like Jessica he knew without a doubt that Ten wouldn’t be as supportive. It just wasn’t possible.

His decision to take Ten to the party that the Elannia Worthington was throwing was something that he hadn’t really planned, and he didn’t really think too much about it if he could help it. Ten had to meet his friends and his girlfriend sooner or later anyway. And why not get it over and done with in one night… especially since it was out in the open and no one would hear the screams…

It didn’t take him as long as he thought to convince Ten that the party would be fun, even for her, and an hour after he suggested it they were in his car and half way there. It was one thing he never took for granted with Ten; her ability to get ready in a fraction of the time it did most girls he knew. The stereo belted out some song from Avenged Sevenfold that he couldn’t remember the name of, and beside him in the passenger seat Ten belted out the lyrics she knew in a voice that definitely hadn’t improved with age. Brody on the other hand stayed silent and ignored her exasperated glances. She had always hated the fact that he wouldn’t jam with her in the car, even when they were too young to be in the front seats, blaming his ego and his pride for ruining their fun. If she only knew.

As they neared the road that Ellie had told him about earlier that day he turned the volume down to just-below-deafening so he could concentrate on winding the rather expensive vehicle – a rare and expensive gift from dear old daddy – down the road (if you could call it that). Soon enough the overhanging trees parted and spread out to unveil a moderately size clearing; a natural car park, at least for this evening. Brody pulled up and killed the engine. The music cut off as he pulled the keys from the ignition and not for the first time he cast a wary glance at his not so trusty companion.

“Behave,” he muttered, as much a warning as a plea as his icy blue eyes left the steely grey of Ten’s and he got out of the car. The second thud of a door slamming told him his friend wasn’t too far behind him, and he really wasn’t expecting her to hang about for him to open the door for her. He wasn’t aware of the crease that ran the width of his forehead as he forced a stiff smile in her direction and set off towards the path that would lead them down to the sea front, knowing Ten would follow. Whether she could sense his tension or not was the least of his concerns as they descended. At one point though the path opened to a rather slick and slippery rock, and when he almost lost his footing on it he stopped and grabbed hold of Ten’s hand without much of an offer to. Well he didn’t want her to fall over the cliff edge… that wasn’t a story he wanted to explain to her mother. He kept hold of her a large part of the way down, partly to make sure she didn’t slip on something he may have missed, and partly because he actually forgot to let go. When the sound of voices and the din of music met his ears near the bottom though he released his grip on her fingers to scratch the back of his head. It was natural to get nervous when you were walking to your own execution after all.

The turn out was already quite impressive. They hadn’t arrived much past the time he was told and yet there were a few dozen people already swarming the sands. A few faces he recognised, most he didn’t, and none were Ellie or anyone significant. Not that he could see anyway. It didn’t make him uneasy – it just meant that they were running later than he and Ten were, or were too far away to see – so he slowed to a gentle stroll next to Ten and headed along the beach close by the cliff and further into the core of the party. “So, we have two options tonight,” he said casually with a slight glint in his eye. “We can both get hammered and crawl back to someone's dorm and crash there for the night, or you can get hammered, I’ll play big brother, and drive us both home when you pass out…”

[ten]

The fact that Ten was nervous made tonight an exception to just about every rule in her book. She could count on one hand the number of times in the past 10 years that she’d allowed her nerves and insecurities to well up inside her as they currently were; strike that, one finger. Meeting Brody in the airport had definitely been worse than this... but then, that was Brody, and it was a little more expected. But the fact that she’d spent the past 15 minutes of their car ride fighting the urge to twist her fingers together and gnaw her bottom lip straight though only fueled the nerves and made her even more frustrated with herself.

When Brody’d suggested a party, she’d been more than willing to tag along. An evening with her best friend, where drink would no doubt be more than prolific and where there were bound to be decent distractions in the form of cute, hopefully not-completely-hopeless Uni boys? Sure, she was game. Not that he’d given her all that much choice... or time to get ready, for that matter. Scowling at that thought, Ten fought the urge to find her reflection in a bit of mirror, sure that that little motion would grab Brody’s attention and have him mocking her for all eternity.

The Ten Everard, concerned about her appearance? Well, she was only human, wasn’t she? And considering the way these French girls did themselves up just to walk down the street, she had to make SOME small effort if she didn’t want to seem like the country bumpkin she always seemed to feel like around them. Brody hadn’t helped the feeling by giving her all of 10 minutes to get ready... more than enough for her, under normal circumstances but the blasted boy had managed to sneak into the conversation that not only was she going to meet his new ‘best friends’, but it was ELANNIA that was throwing the party in the first place. So she’d used the 10 minutes to throw on the first shirt she came across, tug on her jeans and slather on a bit of the makeup Charlotte had insisted she bring along with her.

It wasn’t unheard of that she’d wear it, after all... she just usually couldn’t be bothered taking the extra time to mess with it, but she figured this particular situation probably called for it. The odd part of the whole situation was that she actually cared. Cared what these random strangers thought of her... cared about how she might fit in with this new life Brody had created for himself. For as much as he was still ‘her’ Brody when they were alone, it was painfully obvious that the impulsive, quick tempered brat of a boy she’d known back in Wales had been busy polishing most of those rough edges in the time he’d spent in Marseilles. She couldn’t have cared less about these people for her own ends... but they were important to Brody, and that made the meeting (if not the people) important to her as well. She knew he didn’t think she could behave normally... in the couple of weeks since she’d been there, Brody had expressed his exasperation with her behavior, habits and sarcasm more times than she could count. At first it had irritated her... and then it had begun to hurt, that quiet kind of censure she saw in his eyes as he drove her home from the pub or got her out of one mess or another. She knew he thought she’d make a mess of things... which only made her more determined to pull the entire evening off flawlessly. She was sure she could do it... and, at the very least, there was bound to be a keg or two to ease the pain if she couldn’t.

But now that they were in the car and well on the way to the ‘party’ that Ten was thinking of more and more like an execution, she was having second thoughts. She shouldn’t have even bothered with the makeup... it was only making her feel foolish. And the time she’d spent at the mirror had meant she hadn’t even put on a swimsuit. ’A swimsuit, you idiot’ she chided herself silently, staring at the quickly passing countryside. ’To a beach party.’ Oh well. There wasn’t any hope for it... she’d just have to figure something else out if she wanted to get into the water. It wouldn’t be the first time...

They’d driven most of the way in slightly awkward, tense silence, the quiet only broken by the ridiculously loud stereo in Brody’s car belting out whatever the French station happened to classify as ‘rock’. Half the songs were in French, which she studiously ignored until an Avenged Sevenfold song came on that she actually knew the lyrics to. Sending Brody a mischievous sidelong glance, she promptly turned the volume knob from ‘loud’ to ‘deafening’ and sang along with the lyrics at the top of her lungs. ‘Sang’, of course, being a bit of an exaggeration, for the noise she was making was anything but melodic. Ten had never been blessed with a particularly nice singing voice... her voice in and of itself was far too husky to do much of anything involving higher notes. Added to that, she was more than a little tone deaf... and never seemed to care.

She let out a melodramatic sigh as Brody remained stonily silent beside her. That, at least, hadn’t changed over the years. He’d always refused to sing along with her, despite her constant reassurances that however bad he was, he couldn’t possibly be any worse than she was. But the argument had never changed his mind... and despite her plentiful failed attempts over the years, she never really quit trying.

She didn’t have long to sulk about it. A few minutes later, they were pulling into a winding little ‘road’ that seemed more a path than anything else, and Brody had turned down the volume as they approached their destination. Nerves that had calmed as she found distractions from the upcoming event fluttered back to life within her stomach, and the pair of them remained uncharacteristically quiet even as the trees opened up into a clearing and Brody cut the engine. Silence roared deafeningly through her ears as she avoided the wary glance he sent her way, scowling as his quietly muttered “behave” breached the silence.

’Honestly, what did he think she was going to do?’ Ten wondered as he opened his door and got out and she hastily did the same, slamming the door behind her. ’Behave...’ Stormy gray eyes glared daggers at the rocky ground as she caught up to him, eventually looking up to see the stiff little smile he gave that he obviously thought was reassuring.

“Oh, get off it Hathaway,” she said bitingly, starting down the rocky path towards the sea she could just hear beating against the sand through the trees. “What do you think I’m going to do? Curse them into oblivion and toss them off a cliff? Besides, you’ll be there to protect them from the ‘bitchy old best friend’. Why did you even bring me here if you’re so sure this is going to be such a catastrophe?”

An abrupt tightness clamped her throat shut at the end of her words and she fought against the overwhelming need to vent her frustrations. That lump in her throat was anger... rage. Justifiable anger and rage at the way he was so afraid of how she would treat them, rather than the other way around. It wasn’t possible that it could be anything else, least of all possibilities being the tears she felt prickling behind her eyes. This entire trip had been utterly different from what she expected... and while she was infinitely happier being here with her best friend rather than back home with her awful mother, she couldn’t help feeling that Brody didn’t share the sentiment.

She was saved the need to say anything else at any rate, as the path steepened and they both turned their concentration on their footing. After one particularly gut-clenching slide, he reached back and gripped her hand, and for one shining moment everything seemed right in the world. But as they grew nearer to the din of noise that was surely the center of the party, her thoughts intruded once again and she shoved her hands uncomfortably into the back pockets of her jeans as Brody let go of her fingers.

As he slowed to walk beside her, she looked over and gave him a distracted half smile, hardly hearing his words until the pounding beat of her heart quit echoing in her ears. “I don’t need a babysitter, Brody,” she said, her voice tense and hard as she moved her gaze from his eyes to the churching surf. Suddenly the last part of her words clicked in her brain and she whirled around to face him, a strange combination of anger and mortification flooding cold through her body. “You make it sound like I’m some pathetic loser who can’t function without you nearby to save me. I have actually managed to get home after parties without you by my side before, Hathaway. So go on, have your fun. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

Turning in a huff, she started to stride fiercely towards the small bonfire that a couple of partygoers were already getting started. If this was how the evening was going to start, she couldn’t wait to see how it would end. “Oh, besides,” she called out over her shoulder, her voice forcibly cheerful as her eyes glared daggers at him across the distance. “I invited Tristan along. At least he won’t be worried about me embarrassing him in front of his friends.”

[ellie]

The entire thing was just perfect, as she had expected. Nothing horrible had happened so far, and people just kept arriving by the minute. There were only a couple of people she actually knew among the couple dozen that had already showed up, but that wasn't bad either. She was being the good host mingling with everyone, her blue eyes scanning every single person to find the one person that really mattered to her. Yet as the minutes passed, she didn't notice a tall, blonde, impossibly handsome Brody Hathaway anywhere. She knew he was coming, and it had been less than seven hours since she had last seen him, but it still sort of made her anxious if he was away from her for longer. Never had a guy made her feel that way, that was for sure AND they had only been dating for a week. It made her happy and slightly scared all in one. Ok, so it had been mean and bitchy of her to start dating him the day after he broke up with her friend. That had definitely ruined her friendship with Jessica, and people sort of gave her the evil eye if they had any idea that happened, but in the end, it was most definitely worth it. She regretted many things she had done in her life, and this wasn't one of them.

The weather was working with her too. It was just warm enough, a perfect spring night. Growing up with guys had also taught her that most guys cared about what a girl looked like, but not to overdo anything. She had spent thirty minutes getting ready, and that was more than enough. The cramped space in her tent made it sort of hard for her to put on a bathing suit, but that was the easy part. After stepping into a pair of dark jeans and pulling a red tank top over her bikini, she was ready. She just left her hair down, letting it wave naturally. She didn't wear any shoes, because she loved the feeling of sand between her toes. Then as soon as she went outside and realized the wind, she slipped on her zip up sweatshirt, left open. Her make-up was minimal, mascara, eyeliner, lip gloss. She liked the natural look better.

As she mingled on, talking to some people that went to a different university than her, some just kids from San or Marseille that had heard about it from their friends, she was slightly surprised by how many people had heard about it. Her insisting that they tell everyone they knew really was paying off. She loved big crowds at parties, and especially loved being in the center of them. She wasn't even going to start drinking until later, and that was saying something. She was usually the first one to get drunk at these parties. She knew her limit, only drank that much. She still needed to be able to think by the end of this. Since she had hosted it, she needed to make sure the bonfire was out by the end of the night and that people got home safely, well, at least to their cars safely. From then on, it was their own fault if they were stupid enough to drink and drive. And seeing where they were, they had a better chance of hitting a tree than another car. But still, after that, it wasn't her fault what happened to them.

She skimmed the crowd again, her head craning over the taller people to where people were still trickling in. That was when she saw him, walking down slowly. A happy feeling in her stomach seem to bubble over, and a bright smile filled her face. That is, until her eyes stopped just staring at his handsome profile, and landed over at the brunette walking beside him.

Everything started out in small, tiny steps. At least that was how her brothers and father had always tried to explain to her. Actually, a lot of hilarious conversations had sprung from those seven little words. Growing up in a family of five men, wasn't that difficult to her. As a child, she would run up and down the streets with them, climbed trees, and did whatever else they were doing. She had a lack of female friends, she found guys much easier to befriend. After all, she didn't have a mother that would dress her up in pink dresses, and put her hair in little pigtails. Didn't have a mother that taught her to put on make-up, or other.... feminine things. That responsibility landed on the shoulders of her father, and a couple of her older brothers. The first time they had to talk to her about some 'girl things' as they had called them, Ellie had been utterly confused and a bit.... creeped out. But they must of done something right, because Ellie turned out to be an OK girl, if she had to say so herself.

These were the infamous words were what she was going back to as she thought about the night ahead of her. As least, as soon as she skimmed the crowd and her eyes landed on the girl beside Brody.

He had talked about her - a lot. About how Ten Everard was his best friend and how she was coming down for a visit. Ellie couldn't help but feel slightly nervous at the thought of meeting her. She had a suspicion that Ten wouldn't like her. She NEVER liked her brother's girlfriends, and from the way that Brody talked about her, Ten was like a sister to him. Would she think that Ellie was tying to take her best friend away from her? God she hoped not. She hated people not liking her, since she tried to be nice to everyone. She was still trying to mend Jessica and her friendship! Though, that wasn't going along as she hoped. The one and only time she had talked to Ten was while she was talking to Brody online, and Ten came on it after Brody left to get her advil or something. That hadn't gone well either. She had a feeling they weren't going to inseparable friends by the way she had kindly said that she was "fucking her best friend." She just hoped that they would at least be ok....

Ellie smiled at the people she was talking to - some people from her art class, quickly telling them to have a good time, before almost skipping to where Brody was standing, his back toward her advancing figure. She arrived at the scene directly after Ten walked off toward the bonfire. There went her chance to meet his best friend. She didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. She just wanted to get their first actual meeting good and over with. Well, at least she had Brody to herself for a bit. Before he knew it, she jumped on his back. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him at five feet nine, that sort of helped her in this way of greeting him. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cheek before sliding off of his back and standing in front of him. Her happiness couldn't be mistaken for anything. Whenever she was around him, her feelings were contagious. She positively glow whenever she was around him. Her smile was a hundred times brighter and her eyes twinkled. Brody just brought out the best in her. She couldn't even remember her life two weeks ago without him in her life this much. Even just a week in, she knew this was going to be different from any other relationship she had ever been in.

"Brody!" she said, even her voice in a happier tone. She wasn't even going to ask what happened to Ten. It might be better for her this way.

She looked behind her to see that more people had come and now the roaring bonfire resembled the setting sun behind them. She had to admit, the scenery was perfect. Maybe she should of just brought Brody here, instead of deciding to throw an all out party. That would of been so much nicer. After she cleaned this place up in the morning, she was going to bring him back here. Just the two of them. She was always the romantic type of girl. She adored reading about handsome guys and perfect sunsets. NONE of the guys she had ever dated were even close to that type of guy. She usually met them at parties, and they liked drinking a bit more than their girlfriend. She probably had to have the worse relationship history ever. God she hoped Brody would change that.

Brody DID make everything better. Wrapping one hand around his, she pulled him toward where the party was. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your best friend? Or... maybe not?" If only she knew.