Lorcan - POV E3 (tea)

3...2...1

He slowly moves the door an inch closer to the threshold. He winces when it creaks. He forgot he was going to crease the damn thing with oil.

He counts down in his head again.

3...2...1

He doesn't let the knob slip from his fingers. He manually turns the knob to the left, his impatience fighting with the nerves that are making sweat form on his forehead. Or maybe it's the heat. His grandma likes to keep the house unbearably hot.

He breathes out a sigh of relief when the knob rights itself. His slim fingers climb up to the latch and he starts sliding it.

"You're much louder than you think, my boy."

Lorcan's heart jumps and he curses. "Stupid fucking door."

"What was that?" his grandmother asks.

Lorcan latches the door and faces her. She stands at the threshold across the small living room that leads to the rest of the house. Her frizzy red hair is tied up in a ludicrous knot that's higher than her head and she wears her bright pink fuzzy night robe.

"Nothin' grams, I didn't want to wake you," he responds and sits down on the lumpy old couch.

She walks over to him as he takes off his heavy boots. He can barely feel her sit, her body is notoriously thin, that's why she's always so cold. He used to be that way before dealing, he got used to waiting outside people's houses in all kinds of weather, sometimes up to half an hour.

She watches him throw his boots on the floor with loud thumps.

He shrugs off his leather jacket and leans back into the couch, sighing. He knows her all too well. If he starts talking it'll just end in a fight so he bites his tongue — and extremely hard thing for him to do — and waits.

His grandma takes off her green sea-shell glasses and starts wiping them with her robe. "Where did you go?"

"Went to see a movie," he answers succinctly.

She raises her eyebrow, "really? What movie?"

Lorcan starts searching in his pockets. "It was-"

He furrows his eyebrows. What the fuck? He doesn't remember shit. That's what he gets for going to see a movie he doesn't want to see cause Imre asked him.

"It was about a guy," he replies and fishes out his packet of cigarettes.

"A guy," she echoes.

"Uh huh, a guy who did a thing," he continues and puts a cigarette in his mouth.

He reaches over to the coffee table for the ashtray. "You didn't have time to come up with a better lie, honey?" she asks and puts her glasses back on.

Lorcan peers at her and she has a small smile on her face. He doesn't like what that means. He flicks on his lighter and brings it to the tip, "ok, where do you think I was grams?"

She lets out a small laugh that makes him give her a suspicious look as he blows out smoke.

"Well you did say that you kept running into that crown-" she begins.

"Oh my goddddddd," Lorcan interrupts with an eye roll.

"Hey I'm innocent," she raises up her hands, "you're the one who can't stop talking about them. At first I thought it was the same thing you always do because you've never had anything nice to say about them but now you talk about them differently."

Lorcan answers her with a puzzled look. "What does that mean?"

"Ah, the kettle must still be hot, do you want tea?" she inquiries and gets up.

Lorcan sits up, "grams what does that mean?"

She waves him off, "just let me get our tea."

Lorcan grumbles and leans back down.

When grandma Stark does come back he's stewing and after she sets down the tea on knitted placemats she lightly pinches his cheek.

She takes her time adding her sugar cubes and sipping all while he watches her with exceeding annoyance.

She slurps loudly and it makes his eye twitch. She tries to hide her smile. She always found him adorable when he got angry.

She swallows and sets the tea down. "You used to talk about other things apart from your hate but now you only talk about them and you do it with so much passion anyone would say that you're- OH LORCAN REALLY?"

She shakes her head as her grandson covers his ears, blowing cigarette smoke out his nose. "Are you 12?"

She tries to one of his hands off but he holds steadfast so she takes out his cigarette. "HEY!" he exclaims and tries to reach for it but she throws it in his piping hot tea.

Lorcan stares at it for a second before reaching for his cup, fishing out the blackened stub, throwing it somewhere on the floor and sipping his tea.

"You're a strange grandson," she observes.

He slurps and looks at nothing. She can tell that he's not inclined to talk to her, he'll probably keep this up at least till breakfast.

"I just don't know why you think they were responsible-" she tries again.

"I don't want to talk about that shit, grams," he interjects.

"Until when, my boy? it's been years. It's not good for the soul to keep things bottled up inside," she stresses.

He gives the tea a withering look, his mouth sloshing the tea around.

She sighs and lays a gentle hand on his knee. "Sometimes things happen and we have to accept them. You can't take out your grief on someone else."

"I'm not doing that," he protests stubbornly.

Grandma Stark stares at him. In this light, he looks so much like her it makes her chest ache. She should've been smarter, got him in to see a therapist but she thought she could love him enough to make it all a distant memory.

He's harming himself, she thinks. While it's nice to hear him get animated even though it's due to his hate towards a child that seems to have gotten the short-end of the stick like he has, it is also making him relive the pain of Orla's death. What better way to self-harm than spending time with his dead girlfriend's sibling?

She wishes she could say more but the words die in her throat. He could fall in love again, but she doesn't know if that's more good than bad.