#002 ( ⚠︎ ) ─── ( lulu van houten ). | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pizzatheif · 2 years ago

Text

eloise van houten was obsessed with a perfection that always seemed just out of reach. between the expectations of her parents, the bar she set for herself, and the undiagnosed inattentive adhd, she’s completely burnt out by thirteen. luck would have it, then, that a hugo van houten makes the news one night as she’s hastily finishing a project she had left to the last minute in the dining room while her parents watch tv in the next room over.

her project is abandoned in a second — she knows of all her cousins and aunts and uncles and not one of them are named hugo — and she sneaks up to the doorframe to listen in on the report. something about a b&e and a small fire, no casualties but if you’ve seen either of these men, please reach out to the NYPD by calling in to the hotline shown here. it piques her interest further when her mother begins making rude comments about the one guy and her dad looks almost... embarrassed? when she finally gets the courage to step into the room fully and her parents shuffle to turn off the tv, she knows she'll have to investigate by herself.

it takes... a while, to put it simply. not to find him, he got picked up within a week of that news report. but to meet him. months of planning go into it as she has a pulse on his status to ensure he keeps out of jail. she has to wait for a school trip with her art class into the city, wherein she dodges her chaperone once they get to grand central and hops a bus to the bronx.

she locates his apartment building based on the address she’d gotten online and, breathless, she rings the buzzer labelled “big mac & hoots” — it feels like an eternity as she waits to be let in. after climbing more stairs than she expected, she comes face-to-face with a younger version of her father.

❝ you’re not the pizza guy, ❞ is the first thing he says, looking confused at the little blonde teenager stood before him. hugo pops his head out of the door to look down the dingy hallway of his floor before looking back to the girl. ❝ unless they’ve started ignoring child labor laws, or you’re like secretly forty? ❞

eloise covers her mouth to stifle the giggles she’s suddenly overcome with as her nerves get the better of her. she has to hand it to him, his patience to wait as they subside was kinder than she’d expected. ❝ no, i’ll be fourteen in october, ❞ rounding up six months prior to her birthday is fine, right? ❝ are you hugo van houten? ❞

❝ it’s — ❞ he cuts himself off upon the realization that she pronounces his name right. most people, newscasters included, usually go for “hooten” which is how he got his nickname – okay, so she’s probably not a secret cop or anything either. ❝ — who’s askin’? ❞

eloise clears her throat, rubbing sweaty palms on her jeans before holding out her hand. ❝ my name is lu- eloise. i think you’re my brother? ❞

there’s a beat where he takes the time to actually look at her and then, ❝ you gotta be shittin’ me. ❞ looking down the hallway again, he takes her hand to pull her inside, apartment door slamming behind him. ❝ jesus christ, lulu, does dad know you’re here? fuck, does wendy? ❞ hands run roughly through the unkempt mop of hair on his head as he starts pacing in front of the door. ❝ that’s all i fuckin’ need is for them to think i kidnapped you or something stupid, ❞ he rounds on eloise who was somewhere between an embarrassed pink and an angry shade of red.

❝ so i’m right. you are my brother? ❞

❝ half-brother, ❞ he clarifies, taking the five steps it takes to get to his kitchen, rifling around for his flip phone.

❝ same thing, ❞ she snaps, only to regret it the second he pauses in his search to glare at her.

❝ considering wendy decided to take out whatever bullshit was going on between my mom and dad on a fifteen year old, i’d say we’re even less than that, eloise. i didn’t even meet you until you were like half-a-year old because she decided she hated me for missing her wedding and didn’t want my dad to care about anyone other than her. how’d you even get here? do they know you’re here? ❞

❝ they didn’t even tell me you existed, so – ❞

❝ they... wait, they didn’t...? ❞

❝ – i had to figure it out on my own. ❞ she stands taller, looking proud of herself now. ❝ i’m on a school trip to the guggenheim but decided to come meet you instead. ❞

he’s still stuck on the fact that his father apparently decided to completely forget about him, and it takes a minute of buffering before he catches up again, ❝ you...? fuck! shit, sorry, i probably shouldn’t fuckin’... ❞ he’s scrambling, now, foregoing the phone to snag his wallet and apartment keys. ❝ lu, they’re gonna kill me, do you – you get that, right? wendy’s gonna think this was my idea to... fuck knows. you gotta go, we gotta go. ❞

❝ stop talking about my mom like that, like she’s your evil stepmother or something. newsflash, you don’t look like a prince charming or whatever, you look poor. ❞

hugo pauses, then, looking eloise over as she crosses her arms, hip popped. ❝ and you look like a snobby rich girl who’s got a silver spoon up her ass. do you want my help getting back to class or should i leave you on the street to really get kidnapped? ❞

she postures for another minute before folding when she realizes he’s serious. ❝ fine. ❞

only it turns out he doesn’t have any spare cash to get them both back, and he isn’t about to let her figure her own way. that’s all he’d need is for her to get lost after being the last person to see her. hugo makes her turn her back as he picks the lock to the super’s apartment on the bottom floor so he can swipe half the rent he watched grumpy-ass mr. cooper slide under the door earlier.

by the time they get off the subway in manhattan, lulu has had an epiphany and the thoughts only solidify when they make it to the museum to see her art teacher frantically speaking with the police. she doesn’t need to be perfect. she only needs to be better than whatever hugo had been and honestly? his bar is practically on the ground, comparatively.

hugo is immediately slammed into a wall and cuffed while eloise tries to explain that he’s family ; lying – with an ease she’d never previously possessed – that she had gotten lost after accidentally getting separated from the group. that she had reached out to hugo for help, knowing that he lived nearby.

she confronts her parents at dinner that evening and her mom tries to shush her and then tries to bribe raf into leaving the table for what she calls a “grown up discussion,” upset when he doesn’t leave and increasingly furious when the truth unfolds. wendy rounds on bill, then, adamant that he press charges of child endangerment and kidnapping and anything else she can think of. he refuses, considering this might be the first time in his life his eldest had done something good, for once.

the argument is catastrophic and eloise is grounded for the remainder of the school year when she tries to side with her father — but the damage had been done. lulu skates through high school as a straight-C student, only putting effort into her art electives so she can get into the fine arts program at NYU. she doesn’t talk to hugo much, but she talks about him to piss off her mother periodically, furious at both parents for a good portion of her teenage years. ( because if they never told her she had an older brother, what else could they possibly be hiding? ).

#001 ( ⚠︎ ) ─── ( about ).#002 ( ⚠︎ ) ─── ( lulu van houten ).#this got … a lot longer than i expected it to lmao.

5 notes · View notes