Closer 2

142.

Eddy froze in shock for a moment after Elise hit Ray. She had never hit anyone like that before, and Eddy didn't reanimate until a stream of red slowly ran down from Ray's nose and over his mouth before dripping from his chin down to the stone tiled floor.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry Ray," Eddy said quickly, not really knowing what to do for a moment. Ray looked like he was trying to decide how to react to the unexpected assaulted by the little girl who usually was the sweetest in the world around him. It took a few more drips before he finally decided.

"Don't worry about it, she's getting into that age I suppose," Ray said with a small smile. "Mind grabbing me some tissues? I don't think this will stop anytime soon."

As he said it, he decided to try and catch some of the blood in his hand to keep it from dripping down on the floor. Eddy was quick to spin around and run off to get sone tissues, almost knocking Brett over as he came around the corner with Aiden in his arms to see what was going on.

"Holy shit, what happened?" Brett asked Ray, who was still kneeling on the floor, slowly getting more and more bloody.

"Your daughter has a good punch," Ray said with a chuckle despite clearly being in pain. "And good aim."

"She hit you? Shit, I'm so sorry. We have tried to get it into her head that hitting is bad and all, especially after she hit her brother, but..."

"Don't worry about it. Kids are kids," Ray said as Eddy came back with tissue paper for him, which he used to carefully dry off his hand first and them very gently holding it up against his nose. He winced when touching his nose, and while it looked to be in one bit, it was very obviously swelling up. "I suppose it's normal to be jealous when getting younger siblings, and I did push that a bit."

"She has to learn how to deal with it eventually, though, it's just... It's been difficult," Brett explained softly, looking to Eddy who nodded.

Ray stood up slowly, taking a step over the little pool of blood he had made on the tiled floor with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry about that, I'll come back and clean it. I'll just borrow the bathroom until this stops, if that's alright with you," he said, but didn't wait for a reply before going anyway. He could feel the tissue he held to his nose slowly reaching its capacity.

"I can't believe she hit him," Eddy said quietly, grabbing a few more tissues and getting on his knees to start to clean the blood on the floor. There was no way he'd make Ray do it, despite it being kind of gross to clean someone else's blood.

"Me neither. I'll go out Aiden in his chair and go talk to her," Brett said softly, looking down at his son. He felt like he wasn't able to give him the attention he deserved sometimes, like right then when it was the first time had been able to hold him without having to simultaneously soothe his brother. Of course Elise had to make a mess of an otherwise simple situation so he couldn't have this either.

"Okay," Eddy said quietly, forcing himself to breathe through the sobs threatening to escape from his lips. Why was she like this? What was he doing wrong?

A tiny, evil thought he thought he had buried a long time ago hit him in the gut a moment later, making it impossible to fight the crying completely.

Was it because Eddy had taken having a mom from her? Maybe he simply didn't understand her needs because he simply didn't have the same motherly intuitions as Leonora maybe would've had if Eddy hadn't selfishly whined himself back into Brett's life?

"Stop that. You know that's not true," he whispered shakily to himself, pinching his arm to ground himself again and pull himself out of his own head. He knew this wasn't the time to let that train of thought pass through.