Chapter 3.1 -- The Fight
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Things weren't always like this. Not always.
Back in the old days Vincent lived at home until they were old enough to go to college. When Vincent went to college, he rented a house near school and eventually his twin-sister Nicole moved in with him because rent turned out to be a little too much for his wallet. The house was big enough -- too big for him alone anyway.
The initial thought was that he'd rent the house together with a good friend of his, Mark, but Mark backed out at the last moment, which meant he either took on the house all by himself or shared it with someone else. Seeing how he didn't want to share a house with anyone else but someone he actually knew and liked, there weren't many other choices but to let Nicole in and share it with her. She was looking for a place anyway and since they both attended the same college, it was perfect for her as well.
He had planned to shelter the bill for rent by his own, splitting it with his sister, but their parents stepped in at the last moment and said they would cover the rent for them. It had surprised him, seeing as how they had never even bothered to mention that to them. But it would allow them to focus on their studies and his father had explained that they had saved money for this occasion so they wouldn't have to feel guilty for not paying their own rent. He only wanted them to do one thing in return: look after each other.
They had a set of rules which they had to abide in order to get along. They knew each other and therefore they also knew what their weak points were. Vincent wasn't the type of person who did much in the house unless nobody was home and Nicole tended to leave things alone until the very last minute, so they divided the house chores between them in order to give both of them some responsibility. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't, so every now and then they had a big fight about how they each didn't follow up on their responsibilities.
Today was one of those days.
Once again she had failed to put the dishes in the dishwasher and it had made him angry. The sink was full of dirty dishes, mugs and all sort of stuff. He could hardly wash his hands if he had wanted to. Of course he could clean it up -- just a few minutes of his time -- but it became a matter of principle by now. It was her responsibility, so she should take the responsibility for it.
He tried to do something to make that anger subside and found himself next to the pile of laundry; one of the tasks he was supposed to do, but with everything going on he hadn't been able to make time to get it done. The mindlink with Jenny had torn a pretty large hole in everything he had wanted to do and because of that he was way behind with most of the things he had planned to do, in both his studies and the house chores.
Nicole wasn't the type to clean up the messes until they got out of hand. Apparently the dishes weren't bad enough to warrant her to take action, so she let it sit there until it got bad enough to get started.
His inability to deal with the mindlink for the past few days didn't make him feel much better now that Jenny had accepted his new gift. He was still scared shitless for what it was and how fast it had progressed to the point where he and Jenny were almost permanently connected. He was sick with fear for how it would turn out when he went along with Jenny's suggestion, to actually
train
it, and it scared him even more that a few days ago he had managed to capture some of Alice's thoughts. Or at least he thought he did. The whole mindreading thing was the one thing on his mind now most of the day and it sapped most of his energy. He realized he was much more grouchy and small things emerged in his mind as large issues, despite them being pretty trivial.
The dishes were such a trivial issue, but due to his state of mind it was a major incident for him. He got annoyed so much that he had shouted at her for not doing the dishes, despite only having to put them into the dishwasher and putting them away afterwards.
"Why don't you
ever
do your job and wash the dishes?" he yelled at her, when she came home late without letting him know.
"If you can't get me clean clothes, I can't do the dishes!" she shot back while pointing at a particular shirt he had in his hands. "Imagine what would happen if these clothes would get dirty; I wouldn't have anything else to wear since you never wash my clothes!"
"Perhaps you shouldn't throw your clothes on the floor then instead of in the laundry box, because there is the laundry I
do
wash!"
"If it wasn't
full
all the time, I might actually
consider
it. But until then, I need my clothes to be
somewhere
."
She held up her hands in an exaggerated gesture when he tried to reply to her accusation.
"Screw you, I'm gonna head over to Nathalie to borrow some clothes. Make sure you have some laundry done by the time I get back."
She slammed the door behind her, leaving Vincent with only a half-finished sentence on his lips. He threw the shirt at the door as if that would get the message across, but it didn't even get to the door before it fluttered down on the floor. He let out an irritated roar.
He hated that part of his sister. She always left while they were arguing and while he admitted that it was better to calm down instead of throwing some more insults -- or shirts in this instance -- she always made him feel like he was on the losing end of the argument.
He grabbed the shirt from the floor, put it on the stairs so he could carry it upstairs later and returned to the kitchen to put away the dishes. He would do the laundry later.
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Chapter 3.2 -- Nathalie
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Nathalie was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling. She wasn't quite seeing the ceiling though, as her attention was somewhere else. Between her legs in particular, actually.
Slurping sounds were coming from there and they were produced by a human male which listened to the name Jim. Jim was a guy Nathalie knew and while they weren't dating, they did hang out often and they also had the occasional casual sex. Today was one of these days and Nathalie was currently enjoying cunnilingus from Jim.
"That's really good, Jim," she groaned and placed her hands on his head to make him use more force.
