half agony, half hope

“with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, i will turn myself into a gun because it's all i have, because i'm hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own” ENTER THE VILLAIN ◇ jonah pryce ◇ twenty-one ◇ ◇ alderidge fourth year ◇

[teddynewell]

𝙵 𝙻 𝙰 𝚂 𝙷 𝙱 𝙰 𝙲 𝙺   𝚃 𝙷 𝚁 𝙴 𝙰 𝙳 . 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗: sometime at the end of their 2nd semester, i think. 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎: some afterparty, probably the dorms in alderidge hall or in someone’s house. 𝚠𝚑𝚘: @bxstvrd​.

teddy was way past the state of being drunk. he was somewhere further, calmly floating in time and space. life was perfect: he had amazing friends, he was doing theatre, he had orson’s favor. those were the moments he’d look back on one day and remember as the moments in which he was truly happy. or maybe they won’t and the weed and the vodka were making him sappy.

as he looked around, teddy realized almost everyone was gone, and those still around were lazily lounging around, in the verge of falling asleep or hooking up right there for everyone to see. the scene was a mess, the quintessential college after party. but teddy wasn’t ready to call it a night just yet.

at his right, jonah was drinking who knows what. and as teddy turned to look at his friend, he smiled. his eyes gleamed as he watched the other happily talk to some other students and a fluttering feeling in his stomach demanded to be felt. as he leaned down to join in, wrapping his arms around jonah’s shoulders, teddy relished in the domesticity of the moment. he could almost feel they were something more.

“darling,” he whispered, close to jonah’s ear. “let’s get out of here, yeah? i wanna smoke a joint and i don’t feel like sharing.” that much was true. but drunk teddy was also getting greedy, he wanted jonah all to himself. if only for a little bit. “please?” he repeated, blue orbs gazing at the other.

[bxstvrd]

Jonah didn’t go out very much, not because he didn’t want to, but rather because he so rarely felt comfortable in his own skin, because it was one thing to be bold and brave on the stage, another one entirely to be that without hiding behind the facade of a character. He was terribly awkward, overwhelmingly anxious, and the thought of anyone, anyone, looking at him made him want to dig himself a little hole and never come out.

And yet, with Teddy, it was easy, effortless even. Like he’d swallowed some of the sunshine in his friend’s veins, and he too could be just as luminescent, just as good, just as golden as Orson’s crowned prince himself. Jonah curved towards that ease like a plant deprived of light. Teddy was the first breath of fresh air he’d breathed in his time at Alderidge so far, and he was wholly enraptured in the other’s spell.

Little did he know – fly too close to the sun, and you will fall.

Darling, Teddy had called him. Jonah felt his stomach swoop, his skin tingling where he felt the pressure of Teddy’s hand. “You don’t have to beg. I never wanted to be here in the first place,” Jonah teased with a grin, because this is what Teddy did, brought a lightness out in him that he never thought possible. “I’m here because you are.” It didn’t feel like anything particularly charged to admit, and yet, Jonah felt like he was confessing something dangerous, something he wasn’t quite ready to say out loud. His tone level, but weighted, he continued, “You asked, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no, so I came.” 

Whisky emboldened him to slip an arm around Teddy’s waist, ignoring the way that felt somehow significant in favor of guiding them out of the slowly dying, dwindling party and into the cool night air, the smell of rain still surrounding them despite the ground being perfectly dry. Or maybe that was just the smell of Teddy’s skin. He didn’t want to think about it.

Once they were outside of the dorm, Jonah dislodged himself from Teddy’s side, pressing his back against the wall of the building as he took a deep breath. “I’ve never smoked a joint before,” he commented lightly. It may be a surprising fact, but Jonah was a bit of a prude, especially before he’d come to Alderidge.

Then, looking at Teddy, gaze unwavering, he added: “You’re going to have to teach me.”

[theguardgifs]

[harryzhangs]

( FLASHBACK! )

DATE & TIME: november 26, 2019 :) a lil after 3am :) LOCATION: u know where :) AVAILABILITY: taken @bxstvrd​

there was no getting around it, harry zhang was drunk.

to be honest, it was shocking she wasn’t even more drunk, with the fact that closing night had been followed by what were probably the strangest vibes she’d ever felt at a show afterparty. first there was that weird fight between chandler and grace back at the castle– harry had only glimpsed it from a distance and didn’t overhear much, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen her roommate look that upset. then orson and mads seemed to have fought, but harry had no clue why, as she was making it a point to avoid mads as much as possible these days. then, her peers kept disappearing throughout the night. she hadn’t seen grace since the official party, mathias and josie snuck off earlier only for harry to catch them acting weird as fuck later on, then hudson and teddy left too, and jesus, where the hell was orson? this was his house, after all, and he’d been m.i.a. for an hour now.

these were all oddities harry would’ve been far more concerned with if she’d been sober, but instead she stretched out across the white carpet of orson’s living room, waving up at jonah. “get down here with me, the room looks dope from this angle,” harry called at him over the music that played on despite the lack of any remaining party. the last people to leave had been jason and saffi a few minutes ago, and harry knew she and jonah should’ve followed them, but she wanted to delay getting back to the castle just a bit longer. harry was still riding that post-performance high, and she was going to get full mileage out of it. after all, they didn’t have many of these left until they’d be graduating from alderidge.

“i know i swore off having anything to do with her anymore, but i’m pretty sure mads and i are gonna have sex soon,” harry sighed out of the blue. “probably a super bad idea, right?”

[bxstvrd]

While everyone celebrated and reveled around him, riding high on the euphoria of a successful opening night, Jonah felt like his whole reality was splintering, and his hands were too slow, too clumsy to pick up the pieces. He’d spent the whole day in a daze, as if a part of him was still stuck in Orson’s office after breakfast that morning while time continued to move past him. Without me, you’d still be that boy who wanted to drown himself in the lake. Do you remember him? Do you want to be him again? Because I can make that happen. The second I decide you’re done, you’re done. The words kept ringing in his ears, over and over, on some sort of hellish loop that cut deeper each time.

Because Jonah had never tried so hard in his life to be good. He did everything Orson had asked, followed his every request, so desperate to be perfect, and he thought he’d gotten there. But it was a knife in the heart and an even crueler twist of it to realize – oh. There’s nothing he could have done to be good enough, nothing he could have done to be golden in Orson’s eyes, because all of this, it hadn’t been an exercise to push him towards greatness. No, it had been an exercise in obedience. In knowing the hand that feeds you, in recognizing the chains that bind you, and in accepting that you will always be under someone’s thumb.

And so, in his daze, he drank. He drank because his heart was broken. He drank because he’d lost his purpose. He drank because the man he turned into a god was once again a man, an imperfect man, a cruel man, a man he’d poured all his love into and would never give it back, and now, all he was left with was his hands. He drank, and he drank, and he drank, and suddenly, Harry was speaking, pulling him out of his own mind, and he laughed, almost silly. She had a way of doing that. And, god, did he love her for it.

He struggled to focus on her, bleary, and despite not needing to drink any more, he took another large swing of whisky. Orson wasn’t here to tell him what to wear, what to think, what to eat, what to feel anymore. So, fuck it. “You can do better than Mads,” Jonah said, drunk and haughty.

And then he smiled, hollow, like the straw man he was. “You can do better than me too.” He could feel it, that pressure behind his eyes, that tightness in his throat, and he knew he was going to cry, knew he should just stop talking and leave, go to bed and pretend this whole night never happened, pretend his whole life never happened, but it was too late, because the second he opened his mouth, all of this was bound to spill forth, like water bursting from a dam. “There isn’t any good left in me, Harry. There probably wasn’t any there to begin with. And... I think Orson saw that from the moment he met me.”

He swallowed down another gulp of liquor, slumping down onto the floor next to Harry and staring up at the ceiling as tears welled in his eyes. “I wish he was wrong, but he’s not.” A deep, rattling breath. Then: “If I’m always going to feel this way, then what’s the fucking point?”

[bxstvrd]

DATE & TIME: early morning LOCATION: The Woods AVAILABILITY: Taken @teddynewell​

How anyone could sleep, outside, in a tent, was absolutely beyond him. Jonah woke with the first signs of daylight, and, unable to fall back asleep, had pulled on a hoodie and ventured out into the woods to waste some time until the rest of his classmates arose as well. But as he was making his way towards the trail, he saw a sleep rumpled Teddy doing the same thing, his blonde hair almost white in the wintery dawn light. There was an awkwardness to it that made Jonah want to run the other way, but he swallowed down the impulse, instead offering a surprisingly pleasant smile. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, his voice rough with disuse, the first words he was speaking that day. And then, strange flutter in his stomach before he said, “I was going to go on a walk. If you want to join me... I wouldn’t mind. But,” he added hastily, “only if you want to.”

[bxstvrd]

DATE & TIME: night LOCATION: Jonah & Harry’s tent AVAILABILITY: Taken @ofhelens​

Jonah had taken a page out of Harry’s book. Knowing she was going to be out for the night making grand overtures to her girlfriend, he thought there was nothing stopping him from doing the same. He’d scrounged up some candles, a rogue rose, and invited Helen over, and now, lying next to her on the cot, he tried to parse what she was thinking – did she like it? Did she hate it? Did she hate him? Was she bored? Was he boring her?

“I know it’s a fire hazard,” he said softly, shifting closer to her, fingers toying with the ends of her hair. “But I’m an incurable romantic. And candles are nothing, if not the pinnacle of romance.” He smiled, the smile he reserved only for her, still just as shy and awestruck by her as the day they met. Because while their circumstances may have changed, his feelings had not, and he was terrified, terrified, that they may be changing for her. “If you hate it, we can do something else. Go somewhere else.” I’ll be someone else, but he didn’t say that. Because he didn’t want to be anyone else, he just wanted them to be them again, but he couldn’t give voice to that for fear of shattering them entirely. 

[bxstvrd]

DATE & TIME: night LOCATION: The Campsite AVAILABILITY: Taken @pvlmer​d

Jonah sat by the fire, taking a swig straight from a bottle of red wine someone else had left behind. He was pretty sure there were a bunch of people doing drugs in someone’s tent, and if he wanted to, he could go join them, but he was surprisingly content, lightly tipsy, the blaze warming him from the outside, the alcohol warming him from within. And he was so at peace that, when Jason took a seat next to him, he glanced over at his classmate, eyebrow quirking, before, unprompted, holding out the bottle. They weren’t friends, never had been, and Jonah had no interest in them becoming all chummy, but, well, he was feeling uncharacteristically charitable. “Why aren’t you in the orgy tent?” he asked, cheeks pink, tongue loose. “I mean, I know my reasons, I’ve got a girlfriend, and, well, how are you supposed to keep track of so many limbs? And if it’s an odd number, what are you supposed to do if everyone else is partnered off?” He grimaced. “There’s nothing more tasteless than being a third wheel.”

[kirkewrites]

“Let me say it plain: I loved someone and I failed at it. Let me say it another way: I like to call myself wound but I will answer to knife.”

— Nicole Homer, “Underbelly,” via poets.org (via bostonpoetryslam)

[bxstvrd]

DATE & TIME: i cant tell time im gay LOCATION: The Woods AVAILABILITY: Taken @harryzhangs​

“Okay, that one definitely looks like a dolphin.” Jonah pointed at a cloud above their heads, thick and grey, probably a sign of an encroaching storm, but for now, it was just a fun game. “See,” he said, indicating the slight curve that could be a fin. “And there’s the tail.”

He rested his head back on his hands, arms spread eagled, letting himself enjoy this crisp winter day before it turned into a frigid winter night. After a moment, he glanced over at Harry, elbowing her in playful annoyance. “Stop sexting your girlfriend, Harold. This is deeply important and requires your immediate attention.”

[bxstvrd]

scenestlr·:

“Yeah, he really is the cause of all of this.” Grace winced slightly at the bitter tone in his voice, but couldn’t find herself disagreeing. She hated seeing him get upset about all of this - about Orson. Jonah was talented, one of her favorite people in their class, and seeing him bring up Orson brought up a side of him she hated. She looked up at him abruptly at his comment. “Fuck.” she muttered, not expecting such an honest admission from him. “…Thanks.” she added, not knowing what else to say. She hated being caught off guard, and maybe she could admit that Jonah didn’t know what was happening. He’s close to Helen and Grace knows that Helen knows. There’s no way Chandler wouldn’t have told her, but that doesn’t mean Jonah knew everything.

But the next statement had her stumble a bit, tripping over her own feet. She felt her heartbeat pick up at the comment, running it through her mind. Grace stopped where she was, crossed her arms, and frowned at him. “I-” she stopped, her brows knitting together. She remembers the anger running through her veins that night, scary in how she never felt that upset before. She remembers times where Chandler pulled away, and now her hindsight fills in those missing spots with scenes of her and Orson together. They taunt her, the made-up images in her mind.

“I know it wasn’t my fault,” she assured him, the lie flowing smoothly. There’s no way she wasn’t at fault here, she wasn’t there for Chandler. She wasn’t as good as Orson, in probably many aspects. Grace just had to be better, be more, for Chandler this time around. “Look, we… we don’t have to get into it but did you know? About them?” she asked, knowing that she may be pushing him to have an Emotion but there were so many lies surrounding the past semester and she needed to know.

.

Jonah didn’t believe her when she spoke. Grace’s words had that familiar texture he knew all too well, of lies that you to keep people from worrying, to keep the pain in because you felt you deserved it. But before he could try and find a way to tell her, I know, I understand, we’re alike, she blindsided him with another question. A frown curved at his lips, and he flickered his gaze away from hers.

“No,” he said, quiet. Uncharacteristically affected by someone who, from the outsider’s perspective, had no place in this love triangle. “No, I had no idea.” And then, he was back to his characteristic sardonic smile with coldness in his voice and no feeling behind his eyes – as though he’d severed himself from his emotions entirely. “But then again, Orson played us all like fools, didn’t he? He doled out information as he saw fit, pitted us against each other, wormed his way into our minds, corroded our relationship with the truth, so if he didn’t want any of us to know, none of us would know. Least of all me.”

Jonah stepped forward, hesitant, waiting for Grace to allow him into her space. “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re going through, Grace, but I just... I’ll say this, and then I’ll shut up, and we never have to talk about it again.” He fixed her with a sharp, unwavering gaze and spoke with surprising conviction: “You didn’t do anything wrong. You aren’t responsible for the mistakes of other people. And you are worthy of the kind of love that doesn’t hurt.”

[bxstvrd]

hudscnwilliams·:

this…might be the weirdest interaction the two of them had had to date. hudson wasn’t sure what jonah was hoping to gain from this. it’s not like what he said was an apology, just a general comment on the weather and swimming conditions. in truth, he was acting strange, even for jonah. but, he was acting more like the old jonah, the jonah that had existed before hudson had been cast as macbeth and jonah was made his understudy. and that was odd. what was jonah even playing at?

hudson turned to leave, glad the strange interaction was over. but then jonah started talking again, and he had the actual nerve to ask why hudson hated him. was it not obvious? the general obnoxious behavior? the rude comments? the fact that he’d sort of gotten physical with him at a rehearsal? the complete lack of apology for any of it? there were a million reasons why hudson was upset with jonah. 

the most pressing was the fact that he couldn’t shake the feeling that it might have been jonah who had told the police about him in his interview. yes, it could have been any of his classmates who snitched, but jonah had been even more messy than usual lately. who knew what he had told them?

when jonah asked hudson why he’d hated him before, hudson froze. it wasn’t fair to turn this around on him. he had never been outright rude to jonah in the four years that they’d been classmates. maybe he’d always been a bit standoffish, but it was nothing compared to the way jonah had treated him in the last week. it wasn’t fair to make hudson feel bad about that when jonah had been such a dick since the cast list went up. 

“what went wrong to begin with?” hudson repeated, his shoulders tense from frustration. “you really want to have this conversation now?” because once they got started, hudson wasn’t sure things between them would be any better. there was a solid chance they would be worse, especially if jonah laughed at him or made him feel even less talented than he already felt. 

.

It struck him, suddenly, how much taller than him Hudson was. Had Jonah been a different man, he may have hated Hudson for that and that alone. Really, it was growth that he wasn’t holding grudges for such a petty reason. People (read: Mads) should be proud of him for that, at the very least.

“Yes. I do,” Jonah said, emphatic, standing his ground. Because it had been years, years, of this building up, and he could point out the places where he’d made it worse because that’s what he did, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out where it had started. Was it the gloating grin he wore every time Orson complemented him at Hudson’s expense? Was it the arrogance he carried himself with when he’d been cast as Achilles last semester? Was it something more, something deeper, something he hadn’t even considered? He couldn’t know how to fix this until he knew how he broke it, and he was surprised by the intensity of his desire to piece this back together.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Here he was, chasing sunlight, crawling towards anything and anyone who was golden, and he’d thought it was Mathias, he’d thought it was Teddy, hell, he even thought it was Julian, but no. It seemed obvious now: Hudson was the best of them. At least, his heart was anyways. And what did it say about Jonah if Hudson hated him?

“You’re not like me,” he said, as if it bore reminding, as if anyone could ever confuse the two of them. “You don’t just... hate people. You have reasons, real reasons, and I know I’ve treated you miserably since you got Macbeth, I know I’ve been a dick, I’m not so dense that I’m not aware of what I’ve been doing, but before that... you would look at me, and there was so much hate there, and I always just thought– why?”

A deep breath, and then a thought occurred to him, a thought he’d never had before, and he cocked his head, considering it.

“Were you jealous?” he blurted, and perhaps that was the wrong thing to say, but there was no malice in his voice, just curiosity. That would explain a lot of it, even though Jonah couldn’t understand why anyone, least of all Hudson, would be jealous of him. Maybe envious of his talent, but really, what was talent? Orson would shudder to hear him say it, but there were vastly more important things. Heart, that was one. And Hudson had it in spades, far more than Jonah ever did or ever would.

“If you were... if you are, I promise, there’s nothing to be jealous of.” He gave a wry, humorless grin. “After all, you won, didn’t you? You got the role, you got the girl,” and the guy, Jonah thought to himself, although he’d rather jump in the lake than admit it, “and what do I have to show for any of it? I know that’s not an excuse, but... it has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

[bxstvrd]

hudscnwilliams·:

a few days ago, hudson’s life had finally seemed to be on track. he had landed the lead role in their final show at alderidge, which meant his future after graduation was looking a little bit brighter. things with zahra and teddy were fine, good even. he had to deal with jonah’s bitterness and resentment, which sucked, but he could handle it. things were beginning to look up for hudson, and for the first time in awhile, he’d begun to let his guard down a bit. and then, the police report had come out.

the fact that he was now a person of interest was taking a heavy toll on him right now, if he were being honest. for so long, he’d assumed that he and teddy were just going to get away with it. after all, why were the police looking into the fourth years as suspects now? and why just them? had they ruled out others, or were they just targeting the students because of the orson cult incident at winter masque? either way, it was difficult to swallow – especially because he had no idea who had ratted him out.

it could have been any of them. that was what upset him the most.

one of the more likely suspects was jonah, considering how awful he’d been about hudson getting macbeth over him. after jonah had acted in rehearsals the other day, it seemed like a fair guess. so as he got ready to go on his daily run, he felt like screaming when jonah was just there, waiting by the lake. couldn’t hudson have just one day without this? turning to him, hudson waited, allowing him to…what? apologize? say something to piss hudson off? he wasn’t sure what jonah wanted now.

hudson sighed deeply, narrowing his eyes at jonah. “it’s february in washington. i’d say it is.” he waited for jonah to add anything else, and when nothing came, hudson rolled his eyes.

.

It seemed Hudson wasn’t going to give him an inch, and honestly, Jonah couldn’t even blame him. He’d hoped, naively, that Hudson would have been more receptive, that he’d see this for what it was: a half-baked, poorly executed, but nonetheless sincere apology. But it didn’t look like he would be getting off that easy.

“Oh, I’m not here for a swim,” he clarified, awkward. “I thought– you might be? But. I guess I was wrong. So. I’ll just.”

Was he really about to leave? Without saying a single thing he’d come here to say? Was he that much of a coward, incapable of admitting wrongdoing, incapable of accepting fault? No. That wasn’t right – he could swallow down his own guilt like poison, but it was admitting to how cruel and corrosive his heart could be, that’s what always took it out of him.

But instead of an apology, instead of something heartfelt and sincere, something else bubbled out of his chest, spilling from his lips: “Why do you hate me?” Even he could feel how desperate and cloying the words were, unable to stop himself from being so needy for approval from everyone around him, even though he acted as though it didn’t matter. “I mean. Before the cast list.” After Hudson had gotten Macbeth, Jonah understood why he was public enemy number one in Hudson’s life. But before... “I know I’ve been shitty, and I know you don’t deserve it, but before this semester, I thought. I don’t know. You always just seem so. Tense.”

He ruffled a hand through his hair, ducking his head. “I can’t apologize if I don’t know what I did to upset you. I mean, besides the texts. And rehearsal. And all of the mean, shitty things I’ve said behind your back since you got Macbeth. But I’m not talking about any of that,” he said quickly. “I’m just trying to figure out where it all went wrong to begin with.”

[bxstvrd]

text // jonah & mads

mads: i got u

mads: i am joking, and it's mostly me riffing on julian if anything, but i'm glad you let me know so ik what we can joke about then

mads: if it helps, we all know how crazy you are about helen, it's nauseatingly cute

mads: but you did! it's fine! dw i'd tell you otherwise

mads: i also just wanna say if i acknowledge someone else is good looking that's not me being like i have feelings for someone other than harry in case that comes up

mads: idk what you guys talk about all the time but i just wanted to put that out there too

jonah: ❤️❤️❤️

jonah: mads legit i would never think you're capable of cheating on harry

jonah: do i pretend to understand your break ups and reunifications? not in the slightest

jonah: but jsyk our conversations range from inarticulate screeching to me refusing to text her back unless she sends me new olly content so

jonah: ur not missing much

jonah: also wtf does that mean "riffing on julian"

jonah: does he talk about me that often?????

jonah: should i be flattered or worried that hes going to wear me like a skin suit

[bxstvrd]

saffijackson·:

She nodded in agreement. Saffi appreciated Jonah saying that. Honesty, to her, was so much more important than being pleasant. If she’d concerned herself with being pleasant and palatable all the time to everyone, she’d never have survived. Her honesty, though? Saved her more times than she could count.

She freezes up a bit at the question. One of them is her. Everyone they didn’t mention includes her. What she did wasn’t murder but it wasn’t excusable in the eyes of the law either. It wasn’t guilt that she felt, but there was a pang of fear. She took another long drag of her cigarette and shrugged, grateful that he changed the subject before she had to start thinking up a good answer that didn’t come across strange.

“See?” She noted, hoping that any trace of fear was out of her voice. “You’re acknowledging it right now, so you’re not invalidating it. I know that I deserve this, and no matter how many times you or Mathias or anyone bitches and moans about their spots, I’m never going to forget it.” She gave him a small smile “But thanks, for acknowledging it at least. And besides,” she put out her own cigarette. “We’re both kind of dicks. I wouldn’t like you if you weren’t kind of a dick.”

.

Jonah grinned, knocking his knee against Saffi’s affectionately. Because it was easy to be friends with someone when you knew you could show them the ugly pieces of you and they wouldn’t run. Saffi had, time and time again, proved that Jonah didn’t scare her, the way he seemed to scare off everyone else. By being too loud, too cruel, too mean, too honest. At least, he had her.

“C’mon,” he said, hoisting himself to his feet, offering out a hand, and dragging Saffi up with him. “We’re going to celebrate you. Drinks on me at the Anchor, we’ll find you someone hotter than Mathias, if that’s even possible, and by the end of the night, Saffi Jackson will be the name on everyone’s lips. Capeesh?”

He threw an easy arm around their shoulders before guiding the pair of them off campus towards the familiar winding path that would lead them into town. It was a relief to be around Saffi, to be friends with someone and not have it be so damn complicated. Because maybe people could accuse both of them, him and Saffi alike, of being hard and caustic and mean, but with the two of them, it was surprisingly simple. And he didn’t think anything, not even Orson, could change that.

[bxstvrd]

scenestlr·:

Grace shook her head at his bitter tone, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable or weird for oversharing a bit. She was getting much more used to Jonah’s pessimism, and she honestly found herself agreeing with him more than usual these days. “You’re not being a dick, I’ll let you know if you are one.” she assured him.

He was right, though, she had always imagined what fourth year was like. Tragedy leads, gearing up towards graduation, getting ready for the real world or grad school. It all seemed so fucking useless now. She wouldn’t let that slip though. “I remember standing there during the masque and thinking that it was nothing like I thought it was going to be…” Grace finally replied. “Being here now? It feels like I’m lost. We’re all lost, maybe, I don’t know how we got here. This place used to feel like home, maybe I was caught up in something it wasn’t.” she frowned, thoughts of obvious red flags and Chandler briefly crossing her mind and then and she looked over to him. She didn’t know Jonah’s entire story, they were only getting closer within the last year and even more so these last few weeks. She had some inkling that things got even worse after Orson’s death, as it did with everyone else. “And it’s so shitty to say so I won’t even bother trying to placate you with that ‘move on’ and ‘one foot in front of the other’ bullshit.”

.

“I know why we’re here,” Jonah said, voice tinged with bitterness. “Orson. For better or for worse, none of this would be happening if none of us had ever met him.” He couldn’t tell what he was more upset about: the way Orson had treated him or the fact that he was dead. The edges of his anger warped into grief, and the pit of sorrow in his chest swallowed things whole and spat them out with a wrathful, cruel sort of rage. He glanced at Grace, eyes flickering over her face, and he felt that feeling die down within him, only to be replaced with guilt. “You didn’t deserve that,” he blurted, surprisingly sincere. “What happened, the night he died... you and Chandler... you didn’t deserve any of it.”

And maybe he was overstepping, but he felt compelled, felt moved to say something, because he knew, acutely, how it felt to be lied to, to think your reality was one thing and then to have it turned on its head. To have a moment where the world stops for you, but keeps going for everyone else. “It’s not my business, I know it’s not, so tell me to fuck off, I won’t be offended, but... just promise me you know it wasn’t your fault. That you didn’t do anything wrong.”

[bxstvrd]

juliansbennet·:

The adrenaline rush he felt in response to the renewed zeal in Jonah was a shock, but one he welcomed. In fact, he encouraged the intensity from him. Nothing like a good challenge to wake him up in the morning, especially when it involved his roommate. They slashed and parried, until Julian could only feel the heat of wrath coursing through his veins.

“Is it working?” he grinned full of sweetness, a dangerous glaze through the mask stared back at Jonah. The more infuriated he became, the wider Julian grinned. A voice that sounded like Sebastian scolded him for employing mind games, but exceptions could be made when it came to Jonah Pryce. He blocked each of his blows, knowing he couldn’t keep defending for long. Not when his opponent was determined to leave a burning path in his wake.

“Shouldn’t you be telling yourself that, Jonah?” he countered, jabbing his sword inward which was met by another duck. “How many people have you pissed off this week alone?” he added, a verbal acknowledgment he wasn’t as unbothered by Jonah as he pretended to be. “How often have you made your problems be everyone else’s problems too?”

Seeing the opening in the bind their swords entered, Julian raised his hilt to break off the bind before trapping Jonah’s sword underneath his shoulder and using his own sword to apply pressure onto Jonah’s wrist to disarm Jonah. As the sword dropped to the ground, he kicked at Jonah’s legs causing him to fall on his back.

““I told you, you need to defend your lower half.”

Pinning down Jonah’s arm with one hand and pressing his own sword to Jonah’s throat with the other, “Please tell me again how spineless I am, Jonah. I would love your feedback.”

Any confidence Jonah had felt curdled and rotted like ash in his mouth. Because he was quickly realizing that Julian had let him think he was getting a handle on this when, in reality, he was so out of his depth that he didn’t even realize just how badly he was going to lose.

But it wasn’t Julian’s skill that tripped him up, although that certainly had something to do with it. It was his words, so pointed, so calculated, hitting him squarely in the chest with each sentence, that left Jonah truly and legitimately defenseless. There was no hiding from the truth that Julian was spitting into his face, and he was surprised by how much it hurt. When had he given Julian any reason to think better of him? What reason did he have to believe that Jonah was better than the sum of his parts? And why did Jonah suddenly seem to care so much?

It was because he thought he could get away with treating Julian the way he did because it never seemed to wear on his roommate’s spirit. But now, he was realizing, plain as day, that Julian’s unflappable nature had been a show, and this was what lay underneath. And it was Jonah’s fault.

He was disarmed easily and swiftly, and he didn’t even have the chance to be surprised when Julian kicked his legs out from under him, the wind knocking out of him as he slammed into the ground, stars popping in his vision. He lay there, breathless, pinned under Julian and the weight of his own guilt, shame, and regret, and he tried to find the will in himself to spit something mean back at Julian, tried to force himself back into the comfortable shape of his cruelty, but he couldn’t.

Instead, what came out, with surprising honesty, was a breathless, “I’m sorry.”

A long weighted moment. Then, again, louder this time: “I’m sorry.” Jonah was grateful that Julian couldn’t see his face, because he could feel his heart, this loud, incurable broken heart of his, welling up with emotion like a cup overflowing with water. “It’s... so hard to be around you. You’re everything I’m not, everything I’ll never be, and I cannot fucking stand to look at you because all it does is hurt.”

[bxstvrd]

joseqhine​:

WHEN: 3am on a day at some point WHERE: the common room in the castle WHO: @bxstvrd​

Josephine didn’t sleep much any more. Each night was the same. It was 1am, she was scrolling through her phone, her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep with her screen falling on her chest and two hours later she was awoken, panting and sweating, the image of Orson’s body writhing on the grassy ground still fresh in her mind. Most nights he was silent, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as the life drained slowly from his eyes. But some nights he spoke - some nights his bloody mouth opened and he seemed to whisper something that chilled Josie to her very core. She didn’t understand it. Before about a month ago, she could hardly decipher it. But it was the same every time, each time a little bit clearer - Orson looked at her and whispered ‘we’re dying, Josephine’. The words would echo through her until they were all she heard and then he died and she was awake. She hated how she felt when she woke up. Powerless. Out of control. Not quite alive yet. 

Every night Josie woke, she would toss her gaze through the darkness towards Saffi’s bed, assume she was asleep or in between someone else’s sheets and then get up. Pulling a sweater over her slim frame, sometimes she would go towards the window to smoke or vape, sometimes she would curl into a ball beside her bed frame and take slow sips from the bottle of whiskey stashed beneath her bed, sometimes (when she knew Saffi was in her own bed) she was message Mathias and ask for his company. But sometimes she just wanted to be alone, outside of the suffocating claustrophobia of her bedroom, and so she would slip some socks on her feet and tiptoe out into the common room where the fire was often still on its last dwindling sparks and she could find some warmth in the blanket draped over the couch. This night was a night for the latter. Orson’s words were still echoing in her mind when she silently opened her door and slipped out into the hallway, stepping quietly across the wooden floor into the common area. We’re dying, Josephine. What the hell did he mean? She wasn’t dying. She was living. Right? She was alive… right?

Josie was still mulling these questions over in her mind when she stepped into the common room and nearly died of fright - sitting by the fireplace, in the armchair he always occupied, was Jonah. It took everything in Josie not to scream. She almost never had company when she came here this early in the morning. Glancing at the clock, she confirmed the time (3:16am) and assumed that Jonah, too, couldn’t sleep - and maybe it wasn’t so bad to have some company when the nightmare was still playing on repeat in the back of her mind. Clearing her throat to make her presence known, Josie walked towards the armchair next to Jonah’s, snatching the wooden blanket from off the couch on her way over and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Morning,” she croaked, still half asleep in some parts. “Didn’t expect to find anyone here. Couldn’t sleep?”

.

Jonah slept surprisingly well... except for the nights that he didn’t. The nights where he couldn’t seem to get comfortable, the nights where his mind wandered, the nights where even the most soothing sleep meditation podcasts couldn’t send him drifting off. And maybe chain smoking moodily on the roof wasn’t exactly the way to find his way back to dreamless sleep, but it was too late now, his hands far too jittery, his thoughts ricochetting around in his skull.

Of course, it was easy to think about Orson on nights like this. Easy to think about all the times last semester when they’d met up at the crack of dawn, before the sun crested over the horizon, the world still cast in shadow. Orson’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing too tight for comfort, the sound of his voice still echoing in Jonah’s ears, telling him to go one more lap around the lake, that this is what was required of him, that this is what he needed to do to prove himself, that if he just listened to every word, every command that left Orson’s lips, one day he might be anointed the way Mathias was, the way Josie was.

And, it was like his mind materialized the closest thing it could to Orson. He glanced up at the sound of Josie’s entrance, watching her nestle herself into the blanket. “You look like shit,” Jonah said mildly, although he was one to be talking. When was the last time he brushed his hair? “Is this a Tell Tale Heart esque show of guilt? The police’d have a field day with that.” He yawned widely, stretching like a cat in his chair before rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “If you couldn’t tell,” he added dryly, “that was a joke.” Josie was the last person, last person, he ever thought capable of hurting Orson. Although, he never thought himself capable of that kind of rage towards their late professor, and he wondered if Josie too had come to the same realization as he had and couldn’t stop himself from loving Orson all the same. 

After a long pause, he glanced at her, surprising sincerity lacing its way into his voice as he spoke: “How are you? Given, well, everything.” It felt wrong, this burgeoning friendship he had with Josie, especially given her history with Harry, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “I'm sure it doesn’t mean much, but... I know you didn’t hurt him. I know you couldn’t, even if you wanted to.” He wished he could say the same for himself.

[bxstvrd]

harryzhangs·:

It was like walking through a haunted house, being in these halls where Orson used to live and breathe and exist every day, until he suddenly didn’t. The urgency in Jonah’s voice, the way he led them both through the space, began to jog the more rational side of Harry’s brain and make her realize that they really, really shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t just that it felt wrong– a strange film settled over every surface reminding her that she couldn’t disturb it, that there might be consequences– it was that it began to bring back all the memories she had in this house, and she suspected it might be doing the same for Jonah. Including the most recent memory in this house. The one they’d both sworn they would do their absolute best to forget.

She wanted to help him look through the cabinets, wanted to occupy herself with something, but Harry had to keep applying pressure on her arm so she wouldn’t keep bloodying the floors of this dead man’s house (jesus fucking christ, this was bad). Not to mention that something– perhaps the alcohol, perhaps her own guilt and memory and frayed conscience, kept her dazed, weighed down, far from her usual state of always being ready on her feet. Harry barely registered Jonah settling beside her, hardly registered his words; although, he sounded far more rational than she was capable of being right now.

And everyone thought she was the responsible one between the two of them. Ha.

Brows furrowed over her dazed brown eyes as she looked over at Jonah, the guilt she’d been feeling in her chest blooming and opening at his words. Hearing him voice his regret loosens something in Harry, this feeling she’s kept locked up tight since November, refusing to give it voice along with every other raw and imperfect thing about herself. Finally, she thinks maybe this is the time to say it– not because she wants to open herself in this way, but because it kills her to see Jonah hurting over something she caused. Orson had laid the foundation of what happened that night, this much she knew; but Harry had been the one to light the spark. She’d been the catalyst, and if Jonah went up in flames, it would be her fault.

“I regret it every fucking day,” she admitted, gaze wandering from Jonah to a spot on the wall behind his head. It was easier to say if she could pretend she was alone. “It’s my fault, after all. You needed someone to lean on that night, and instead I just… imploded. I do that, sometimes. When things are too much. I just can’t think straight and I do the stupidest shit and– I drag people down with me.” Harry felt nauseous, every instinct she possessed screaming that she shouldn’t be saying any of this.

“So, maybe you should regret me a little bit. I mean, I’m. I’m a fucking mess, Jonah. And I’m sorry.”

.

Jonah stilled, listening to Harry, her injured hand resting, palm up, in his. How could she believe it was her fault? He didn’t understand, couldn’t make sense of it. Because without him, that whole night wouldn’t have happened. Without him, Harry would be safe, insulated from whatever hell was sure to rain down on them when the detectives started looking, really looking, into who had vandalized Orson’s house. All the more reason why they shouldn’t be here, never mind the ghosts that lived in these walls. Never mind that Jonah half hoped, half dreamed, in his drunken delirium, that Orson would come bursting through the door and lecture him and Harry for getting blood on his most expensive carpet.

“It’s not your fault,” he insisted, emphatic, holding her hand in his like something small, delicate, a bird with clipped wings. He was caught in an unsolvable paradox: here he was, filled to the brim with the overwhelming urge to explain to Harry how wrong she was, how much he needed her, how none of this was her fault because it was all his. But the second he told her that, the second he forced her to reconcile how much of this had gone wrong because of him, the second he gave her a real, palpable reason to leave him and never look back. Jonah couldn’t afford to lose any of the people he’d allowed to get close to him and his tiny, fluttering, terrified heart, but Harry... she would be the worst of them all. Something he would never recover from.

He focused his attention to her wounded hand, to cleaning the cut and bandaging it up. That was something he could do, something he’d been rather good at, back on William’s farm, tending to the injured animals. Maybe, if he kept his hands busy, he wouldn’t fucking cry again. “I regret letting Orson mean so much to me. I regret letting him get inside my head and change my reality to fit his purposes. I regret putting so much stock in his praise, and I regret every stupid, miserable, fucked up thing I did to try and get him to love me, the way he loved Mathias, the way he loved Chandler.” That one slipped through his lips, and even he paused, caught off guard, puzzled (to say the least) by what that meant, but he pressed on. “I regret everything I did up until the curtain fell on Troilus and Cressida, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing I can do to change any of it. If I’d known it would land us here, I’d change it all in a heartbeat. But I didn’t know. And we’re still here.”

He took a deep breath, winding gauze around her hand, applying pressure to the wound. He felt surprisingly sober, even though his hands were shaking as he tended to Harry, even though his cheeks were blotchy, and his eyes were red. “What I’m trying to say is... you can’t blame yourself for what happened that night because you’re not the one that got us there. I got did that all on my own, and you, you were just doing the best you could with what you had. With the mess I dumped in your lap and begged you to fix. And you did, Harry, you fixed it. For that one night, everything made sense. It was me and you, imploding together. And that’s what I needed,” he said, glancing up at her.

That’s what was so horrible about it. Harry thought it was her fault for pushing them to that place, but that was exactly what Jonah had needed, that freedom, that release, that frustration expelling from him like toxins leavinIg his body. If all that had happened that night had been petty vandalism and Orson had lived, Jonah would have woken up the next morning feeling more rested than he had in months, despite the hangover, and that was the worst part. “It’s not your fault because you gave me what I needed, and I’m– I’m wrong for even needing it in the first place.” He thought of how angry he'd been that night. He told everyone, even Harry, that he barely remembered what happened, but he did. Every detail, the texture of his rage, the weight of it in his chest, he remembered.

Jonah swallowed thickly, looking away from Harry because he couldn’t cry, he refused to cry, and thankfully, he had the excuse of putting all the medical supplies away, leaving them exactly where they’d found them. He’d wrapped her hand, to the best of his ability. They could deal with anything more back at the Castle. “C’mon, Haz,” he said, taking her uninjured hand in his and squeezing hard. “Let’s get out of here.”