a year in the life

"you drink about it, smoke about it, don't talk about it."

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

I missed me too, he thinks. That’s the truth. It wasn’t just the people in his life that he disappeared from, reclining into a new colder lifestyle… it was so much deeper than that. He wasn’t sure he’d seen himself in years. Sometimes he wondered if he had seen himself correctly at all during his life. They were destined to miss those they had cared for and it seemed, so many times, they were destined to miss one another just the same. Even when they weren’t really far apart at all.

“Maybe, J,” it’s no passionate pledge, it’s no forever promise like the ones he used to make. There had been so many times that lessons had been learned from his extravagant idealisms and now he struggled to see even tomorrow. There were universes where it had never came and then there was this one where the likelihood was that tomorrow was a new day, a new part of forever… and for part of it they could be together. Today, tomorrow. 

He tries not to be sad or angry, releasing the things that have torn him apart inside with a slow breath. They are replaced with quiet affection in his eyes, the same kind that had always existed there when he looked at Justin. He couldn’t reassure him that things would be easy or that they would really make it, not like had once came so easily to him… he was the one on shaky ground… he was the one who found himself inclined to hide away and stuff himself full of all the things that pained him. He cut himself on history and it consumed him in return. 

He wants to live in this moment instead because maybe it will be one of the ones that won’t be ruined by everything they’ve been through. It will be spared in his mind from the trauma and the hatred. It will exist on its own and belong to just them alone. A certain jarring curiosity to his next words,  “Are you going to kiss me?”

.

Justin can remember a time when Tyson only spoke in monologues. Every conversation was a giant profession of his love, or a deep analysis of someone’s thoughts and feelings. It had never mattered if Justin responded or not. There were times when Justin was convinced Tyson was just fond of the sound of his own voice (which Justin would never complain about, because he too was fond of the sound of Tyson’s voice). But this was years later and much had happened that had dimmed the sunshine he once knew. Tyson’s words no longer rang through the air. They clung to particles instead. Only sticking around because Justin was willing to hear them this time.

A hope burned inside of Justin that never had before. A hope that this could work. He’d heard of epic love stories and always thought that Tyson and him were star-crossed. Epic lovers not meant to stay together. He wanted to believe differently. Most importantly, he wanted to make things work differently. If they were going to be any kind of stars, he wanted them to be two stars that burned so brightly next to each other that they fizzled out at the same time.

He places a single hand at the nape of Tyson’s neck. “No,” he whispers in a shaky breath. His lips quiver and if he weren’t forcing himself to be still the hand touching Tyson’s neck would be shaking. Tyson’s eyes are full of everything he’s ever loved and wanted. Justin can remember all of their kisses. He remembers the ones that came after Tyson’s love professions. He remembers ones after fights. He remembers sad ones. There has never been a name so written on his lips. 

“Yes,” he whispers after a moment. Before he can change his mind, before he can turn his back on all of the growth he has made, Justin closes the distance between the two of them. When their lips meet, Justin remembers what it feels like to be home. 

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

.

There’s the familiar pang of disappointment as the space between them increases, the other leaning against a banister and staring out into the darkness. It reminds him of that day out by the lake that had once been there place. There are so many scattered parts of them all around the hill that was once home and he wonders if it’s an imprint that will last a lifetime or be forgotten altogether; maybe there is a little love story hidden in all the tragedy that was worth remembering. He just hopes that love story is his.

I have never wanted or needed anyone more in my whole entire life. For a second he almost doesn’t even register the words that are leaving his lips, some distant thought that can’t connect up. For all the years and all the ways that he had tried to force or compromise with Justin to understand where he really stood, he had rarely got a straight answer at all. Sure, undeniably deep down he had always known Justin too well to believe that he didn’t love him back. He just didn’t know if it was the kind of love that was hard-wearing when it needed to be, it had felt like so many times in their lives Justin could blow in the wind… be knocked over by the swipe of a falling feather. He had never really known how durable their relationship would be once he stopped committing himself to it wholly every second of his day. 

“You didn’t have to become anyone,” he says gently, some brokenness hidden between those few words. Everyone always wanted to change, to become something other than what they already were. Tyson had never needed Justin to become something other than what he already was… he had just needed him to stay harder. He was asking the impossible considering the circumstances but how many times had he managed to achieve impossible before? Thoughts jumbled in his mind on a daily basis, a permanent confusion at times… “The future is so far away.”

Face to face again, he reaches forwards, the material of Justin’s shirt* creasing beneath his fingertips as he closes the small amount of space between them. Tears not yet all fallen from blue eyes, his gaze is searching momentarily. A strangely cast silence as he comes to rest his hand at the side of Justin’s cheek, a steady gulp. “…Is this okay?”

.

Justin has spent his whole life searching for words he didn’t really have. Words were never a strong suit of his, which he had always chalked up to his parents, but the fault was always his. Justin always hated admitting that his negative traits were truly his own fault. The boy who’d grown up in shadows had hid all of his deepest thoughts and feelings there, and when the boy made of light brought him from the shadows they left behind one of the most important pieces. The piece that would cause their relationship to fail time and time again. 

Now, after these years, Justin has become someone else. He is still the boy in the shadows, but he comes out sometimes. He took a page from the book of the man he loved most and morphed himself into something that that boy could be proud of. Most importantly, he morphed himself into a man he felt he  could be proud of. His thoughts and feelings are no longer always covered. He knows when to protect them. He knows when to shine light on them. Now is one of those times.

Justin becomes hyper aware of Tyson’s touch. The pull of the fabric of his t-shirt on his back. A gentle hand on his cheek. This hand has touched him so many times before, and he remembers that not all of them were kind. Yet of all the touches he’s felt from the palm of Tyson King, he remembers none of them feeling quite like this one.

He reaches his hand up, palm resting on top of Tyson’s hand. Like nothing else matters in the world, he locks eyes with the other boy, nodding so slowly one might think his head hadn’t moved at all if they weren’t paying attention. “I missed you while you were gone.” The words fall from his lips like he’s been holding them longer than his tongue could stand. “I know the future is far away. But we can make it if we try, can’t we?”

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

-

Sometimes it’s hard to separate Whittemore as a whole from the individual aspects of people he loved. It was easier to forgive people when he simply connected it back to being a part of the mess and chaos the school had always brought to their lives… he had made excuse after excuse for all the negative things that had happened. His vision had always been clouded by love and in a way his and Justin’s relationship had only ever existed within those walls, a byproduct of all the terrible things they had done to one another in the end. Clear blue eyes stare into the darkness and he tries to bring himself to focus on more than just the back drop of sadness; them. Their lives together. The things they could have been.

“I just got tired,” he admits, although he’s sure that Justin will understand more than anyone what he means. It wasn’t the kind of feeling that sleeping got rid of, it wasn’t the kind of feeling that you ended up shrugging off after a certain amount of time, either. He had just been tired, emotionally and physically exhausted. The bar that severed nerves and wedged itself through his body had been the least pain he had felt in years upon years. That was what had made him sadder. “I’m still tired,” he half sighs.

Justin’s words don’t hurt him like they once did. There was a time not long passed where Justin’s pain was the worst thing he could imagine, he would of protected him at any cost from experiencing that type of suffering. In the end it turned out the cost had been his own feelings, it seemed. Now he barely reacts, the second sentencing causing him to turn once more, his hand slipping away, “You were pretty good at it…” he stumbles, realising how unclear that he might come across, he corrects, “Hurting me. You were pretty good at it…” the corners of his mouth twitch, almost as if a smile or a joke might come but the words are dry, “Fuck. Nobody ever did it quite like you.”

His body is retracted but he remains on his knees staring at his hands in the space in between, the space where a wedding ring had been not so long ago bare. Sometimes he felt naked. He had spent his whole like as some big enigma, a show that never had an end… an exhibitionist. Now he felt exposed in different ways; the ugly cracks all on display to everyone he met. They saw him and they saw through him in ways they never had before… he was no longer the joy that lit up a room… he was a darkness and a dread… an unpredictable force. He was no longer anything he had been before. Nobody was. He stares at the empty space for so long that his vision blurs and he realises his eyes are filled with tears. He is grieving for the man he used to be, the person he is now and the young boy that feels so distant to him now. He is grieving for a marriage that never got to be the way he wanted… for all the love that he had promised and committed to over and over which burned to ashes in the end.

He looks back up, eyes deep as the ocean, that unearthed longing that had existed inside his pumping heart for his entire life clear to him in that moment. He had always been passionate but he had never been as truly dedicated to anything as he had to his best friend, his husband. Yet, even now, in this moment of sobriety as he blinks away his tears, he is still thinking the same thing, “You’ve never been strong, J. You’ve never said the right things. You never arrive right on time when I need you…” it’s a whisper, a gentle resignation of sorts, “But I’ve arrived. I’m right on time. And I need you to need me… I need you to want me. I need you to be the strong one. Fuck doom. Just fight for me even if you know I’ll throw it back in your face every chance I get.”

.

Justin never thought he’d be seeing a reflection of himself in the one he loved so much. They had been polar opposites all their lives, like yin and yang and the sun and the moon and the most beautiful part of it was how well it worked. Now he looks at Tyson and he understands. He knows what it is like to feel so tired. He can see it in the other boy’s features. A boy that once radiated sunlight and all of the things that made the world beautiful and live worth living had crumpled before his very eyes. It was all Justin could do to not tear up over it.

He nods. “You deserved a moment of rest. I wanted you to get that.” He means his words. Tyson had always deserved more than he got in life. He gave everyone else every drop of him until his reservoir had run dry, and now what was he left with? It was so unfair that he still was in love with Justin. Could he not have loved someone who would have put the light back in him? Who filled him up with all of the things he’d lost in other people?

Tyson’s words sting but he knows they are true. Justin was good at hurting the people he loved. It was a learned behavior passed down from his creators. His parents had shown love by screaming and slamming doors. By manipulating and playing mind games. He became a product of his environment. Yet here he stands, a couple of years under his belt of unlearning. Becoming someone he can be proud of and just being better. Hurting Tyson was the last straw for him.

He sets the glass down on the banister next to him. Watches as Tyson’s eyes well with tears and soon his own eyes mimic the reaction. Tyson is a different man, but he is still never wrong, that has not changed. He knows Justin better than anyone ever has. 

Fighting back his own tears, swallowing hard, Justin stands and crosses the porch. His back is to Tyson now. Justin has spent a lifetime walking away when things get hard. He remembers the first time Tyson confessed his feelings. Justin could not confront his own and simply followed where his feet took him on that day. Walking away had caused him more regret than he ever could have imagined. 

This time, Justin does not walk away. He places his hands on the banister in front of him, leaning forward. He stares out at the sky in front of him and pictures a lake they spent their childhood at. Pictures what could have happened if he’d just stayed that day. Imagines what their lives could have been if only he had been the man Tyson needed. Isn’t that what he’d strived to do now? Recreate himself into a man Tyson could really, truly love? He clenches and unclenches his jaw. “Tyson King, I have never wanted or needed anyone more in my whole entire life.” A pause. He lowers his head. “I’ve spent years living in regret. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t do it anymore. Somewhere in the universe is a beautiful life that we could have built together and I want that.” He turns around, facing the other boy. “I have been trying to become someone that can be what you need.” 

For the first time possibly ever in their relationship, Justin has the words to say and does not trip or falter. “Damn it, Ty, I’d fight doom over and over again if it meant this could work.”

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

-

Despite it all, the hardest part had always been letting go. He was the type of person who never quite let go of their grip on the things they loved the most. For all the painstaking years, he had managed to retain enough grasp on it all to say that he would never give up. That was why when he finally did then he spiralled and fell until his bones shattered at the bottom of a long spiral staircase that he had spent his life climbing. He hadn’t just lost his hope, his spirit… he had lost himself altogether. He’d only ever been what was needed or wanted… maybe he had started to wonder if he had ever existed outside of that at all.

He looks at the man that he has spent his entire adult life loving and the question sinks in. There are no words, no speeches, no silver linings left in the playbook. He stares off into the distance and his jaw visibly tenses, clenches and unclenches. He wants to laugh that bitter laugh that comes from deep in his chest but nothing comes, just a gentle breath from hollow lungs, “I don’t know anymore,” is all he has to offer.

There were so many times when he wanted more from Justin… more for him too. He had always seen him as some perfect angel, wasn’t that how he had seen everyone? They all had a halo, they were all to be loved, cared for… protected. Yet Justin had been the one he had chosen before the beginning of time… the only one who he could belong to entirely. Even now.

He wishes things were different too. He might not admit it. It was a daily struggle to get through the life that belonged to him now. Nobody really knew him, nobody really cared about him the way that he had always needed them to. For the first time he was stumbling blindly through the world without his rose coloured glasses and seeing the ugliness that was all around. Most of the time he was too drunk or numb to know how bad things had gotten, the other small proportion of time he was simply trying his best to block it all out. 

Sitting there now, it’s the most real moment he’s had in over a year and he isn’t quite sure how to deal with it, how to cope at all. He’s filled with disappointment that even his final plan has failed and yet maybe some small flicker of a candle is lit inside him; a vigil for well intentioned hope. Just sitting there by Justin’s side, maybe that makes his soul ache a little less for that night alone… maybe it makes things a little better. “I never really wanted that divorce…” he admits, “I just wanted to hurt you. I just wanted everyone else to hurt as bad as I do… you know that?”

.

There is a part of Justin’s brain that consistently tries to pull him backwards. A part that yearns for the 17 year old boy who didn’t quite realize just how in love with his best friend he was. To be a dumb teenage boy with nothing figured out because nothing needed to be figured out. Yet to understand all of the things that the world was going to throw at him. This part of his brain that yearns for that childhood must not understand that while it yearns for simplicity, it also yearns for sadness.

While Justin can remember a sadness, he can also remember the times of great joy that Tyson brought to his life. He remembers the parties, the kegs, the pranks. He remembers happiness with the pain, all associated with one boy, and maybe that is what makes it so tempting.

Even years later as he sits well put together, a high paying job and the money to buy everything he wants, a certain piece is still missing. He did spend some time sulking in his own suffering. Taking steps backward so far that maybe he came close to the point of no return. But along the way, one thing or another clicked and he remade himself like a phoenix from ashes. He sighs once more. He wonders if Tyson sees this empty piece. The boy did always have a way of seeing right through him.

The truth is, Justin doesn’t know if they’re truly doomed either. He feels like they might be. Maybe they were never meant to test the waters of their friendship. Star crossed lovers felt like a good title. He even considers what it would have been like to love other people. Tyson could have had anyone he wanted at that school. Justin could have made a life with someone. Carlie, Leslie, maybe even Ruby. He’s not sure he would have been happy there either, but perhaps it would have spared them both some heartache.

In this odd moment, Justin finds himself wishing for a friend to hear advice from. His mind flickers to rustling chip bags and conversations with Millie about life, then to the harsh but caring words of Faye. He sometimes can’t believe he spent so much time trying to convince himself he didn’t need that affection from others. Whittemore had proved him wrong. He sometimes missed it.

“It worked.” He nods. It did cause him pain. “But you were hurting. I can’t blame you for wanting me to feel it too.” Perhaps he’d have done the same in Tyson’s position. He can’t be sure. But they would have never been in that predicament had the roles reversed, because Tyson was a much better person than him back then and likely even now. “I’m sorry for hurting you like that. I know I was an asshole, but I never wanted to hurt you of all people.”

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

.

Somewhere between heartbreak and relief, this answer sat. He stared outwards into the night of the town and the city lights and thought of a school on a hill that had given him all of his best and worst memories. A gift and yet a curse, the only life he had ever known where his formative years had been filled with chaos and eventually sadness. When the school had closed down that first time and Tj had told Justin his feelings and been rejected, he had flown across the world to forget the gaping hole that was left in his chest. It had never healed. Not until the reunion.

“I don’t want you to,” he admits thinking of the long and winding road they had been on. He has asked Justin for a divorce a hundred times, served him with a thousand papers to test him over the past year. He has been improbable, impossible and irrational. He has been all the things that the people in his life were to him since the day that he was born. He has done everything he can to hurt the other but really, he is just punishing himself. He doesn’t know how to put into words, the actions and yet the feelings don’t ever match these days, “I only want you to love me.”

The thoughts are self-indulgent, it’s all about what he wants. He desires an impossible scenario… for someone to continue loving him no matter how hard he makes it. He isn’t asking but his actions demand it… all the grief inside his body is impossible to combat and he projects it onto the people he used to love the most. He doesn’t want Justin to give up… not really. Despite everything, he still wants more than anything to be loved beyond the binds of being a hero. He is just a man made of flesh and bones and nobody ever seemed to see that; he was no Angel. He was just the front man of a bunch of terrible scenarios until he couldn’t carry on anymore. The pins in his spine, all the scars that litter a once perfect body… they all tell the story of Tyson Kings life as a hero.  

He moves his hand until it slides into Justin’s and he sits in silence for a few seconds thinking about all the lives that never really came through – all the dreams. They washed away with the rain falls. Those clumsy idiot boys who just wanted to take a keg to the party or get smacked by Stephanie are long gone and there have been many variations since. It hurts a heart that he could of sworn was no longer beating until that moment.

“I still love you, you know,” he says gently, his voice wavering, “Even though there were so many times I swore I wouldn’t, even when I shouldn’t, even now when I thought I couldn’t… It’s still you for me, J. It’s always going to be you. Even if I’m not me. I still love you more than I’ve ever loved fucking anything in this entire world. More than I loved Whittemore. I just need you to know that…” 

.

The fact that the words had slipped Justin’s lips made him feel unfamiliar with himself. Here he sits, with his hand around a glass that’s growing warmer by the moment without even a sip taken from the rim. Expensive whiskey going to waste. He can remember a time where his drinking was the source of an argument between the two. He can remember only saying things like this whilst intoxicated. He remembers almost all of it, and alcohol lingers on many of the pages.

Although he isn’t sure what to expect from Tyson’s mouth, it isn’t what comes out. He has to give himself a quick reminder that they are no longer intertwined. They have lived lives that the other knows nearly nothing about. Except Justin does know too much about Tyson, and he’s not willing to admit how he knows. What would Tyson say if he knew the truth about what he’d been doing with his life? Justin is a seemingly new man, but some of his old habits still remain.

“I don’t want you to,” the words repeat but from his own lips. Maybe it’s because he needs to hear them again. Maybe it’s from his own point of view this time. He also doesn’t want Tyson to love anyone else again. This is the most solemn he’s felt in months.

His silence following is deafening, he’s sure. He wants to flinch away, pull his hand from Tyson’s. Maybe if the other boy is paying enough attention, he can feel the small muscle twitches before he ultimately decides to leave his hand where it is. For all of the love he remembers feeling for the other boy, his touch is sometimes still jolting. Justin cannot remember a time he didn’t feel a fire inside burn at the touch from Tyson King. There was so much love built up between them... He was sure he’d never feel anything like it again. And now, they sit as estranged as they’ve ever been, and Justin is still sure he will never feel anything quite like it. 

He draws a shaky breath. Finally takes a sip from warm, watered down whiskey. “Do you think we’re doomed, Ty?” He means the words. Their track record is not good. They’ve been in this cycle before, and it has ended in flames, quite literally.

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking​:

THREE WEEKS AFTER THE DARES START AGAIN AND THE PACT IS BROKEN.

All the years of silence culminated in an aching ugly scar to join the many others on his body, flesh that never healed the way that the doctors had all promised. Maybe they thought they were serving him a small kindness when they told him that all would be as it was before but they couldn’t possibly have known the truth; nothing ever had been. Not only had he finally been defeated but he wanted so desperately to swallow down the years that had passed with the end of each bottle, trying to find some rhyme or reason for the events of their shared lives. In the end the sad reality had been that things were not fair and they did not work out in the end… all that sadness and disappointment had turned to an all consuming empty rage.

The strike of a closed palm, the alcohol or even pills… none of that even touched the sides because there was a gaping hole in his chest that was more than just the markings of an excavated metal bar. It was the space where all his love and compassion had rested nesting between his heart and his longs. He had breathed empathy once but now even that was more painful than he could consider.

A few days or perhaps weeks had passed in the drunken blur of blue eyes staring at the ceiling fan, the sweat beaded on his forehead as the pressure crushed down on him again to get up… to try. The horrible label of being some kind of saviour that he had never asked for long gone and replaced with being some shadow man who lived in a big cold house that nobody dared to enter. A cripple with a haunting story of the rise and fall, mysterious injuries and a cloud of darkness that followed everywhere he went overhead.

When he arrives on the other side of town he’s not sure how he got there, the waking nightmare that is his life with feet taking him wherever they want to go. An assistant who is his only friend and confidant and an empty space that always seemed to form on the other side of the bed. Hadn’t that been the same for years before too? He looks up at the home that he’s never entered before and tries to swallow the strange thought of a world where he died and the other lived in his shoes. Sometimes this life felt the same. Sometimes he wished and longed for that life where he was apart from the universe he lived in so at last he could have some peace. He was tired long before now, it was now that he was finally broken right down the middle and unable to figure out whether he wanted to try and put the pieces back together.

The light that flickered on should have surprised him but it didn’t, like a beacon that might guide him to some better place, it invited his approach in some distant way. Blue eyes fixated but lifeless, empty of all of the endearing substance they had once held. He wasn’t angry tonight, he was just lost. Metaphorically and literally.

He sees the other man and he thinks of their last conversation but he can’t remember it because he was drunk or perhaps he was angry… or perhaps it never happened at all. The things that happen in his head are life like and confusing, sometimes he awakes with no true knowledge of what might have been real and what not and yet he knows that this image ahead of him is such. The figure sits and there is some silence, the bustling of summer wind and empty promises maybe resounding in his ears. A husband or a best friend? Either way, someone left far behind.

He knows he will regret it but the moments are confusing, they pass in blurs and then a new week is born and nothing ever really changes. He flickers the lights in his home and sits in the dark and wishes that everything would just stop. He’s not drunk and yet he’s still unsteady as he breathes, the steps not creaking as they may have in some old rotten place he had felt they were all destined for. Everything was new and shiny and yet it felt superficial, it felt like pretty paint on an awful world. His whole life had been pretty pictures that hid horrible and destructive secrets.

He is in front of Justin when he halts and his mouth is dry. There were times when he was a well of beautiful words or speeches, where he wanted so badly to give others the best parts of himself. Now they were all gone and he looks at a person who he thought he would be with forever, who he was sure that he would love until the very end of days and he is winded like nothing before. The white wash of pain that he tries to absolve with alcohol and negativity, he almost feels he can’t breathe as the world tumbles down around him again. He shifts until he’s practically on his knees and he reaches out with a rather jagged breath, his hand resting on Justin’s knee. Sobriety… he couldn’t drown this out. There is a certain weakness in his expression, a faltering in his sea of misplaced (or appropriate) day to day anger. Tears well in his eyes, “Will you fall in love with someone else?”

.

Justin had spent a lot of his life hiding in his own darkness. The moments that built the man he now was were no lighter than midnight colored in his memories. There was a constant umbrella over his head, one that only he had made visible to other people. A shadow of the man he could have become haunted him, and he spent much of his life trying to run from it. The only true light he’d ever encountered came in the form of another man; one shorter than him, broader too, with blue eyes he could have swam (or drowned) in. 

Most of his good memories did not feel like his own. They came to him like he was watching in third person, imagining what they looked like from Tyson’s eyes. Wondering how he himself appeared to the man he loved. Wondering if Tyson held these memories in the same way he did. If they played out like a movie every time. And what a disappointing film it was. One with nearly no real ending. Cyclic at times without real progression. Two tragic main characters.

The porch light flickers on at the command of his finger on the switch and he watches as a moth landed on the bulb. He steps outside, a cool glass gripped in his hand. When he sits down, he takes on the appearance of a grown man, but there would always be the traces of a goofy, curly-headed boy. One that could have been so much more than he is now.

He does not stir as he watches the other man approach his porch. The figure does not scare him, as he recognizes the outline of a body he once held in his arms. He once knew every shape. A breath hitches in his throat at the touch. It has been a long time since Justin has felt such a way. It should be shameful to feel such electricity for a lost love. He swallows a lump in his throat. If he were to squeeze his glass any tighter, it would shatter. For a moment, he considers it. It would be a diversion from a difficult question. A question he’d been running from for years now.

A sigh. “No. I don’t think I ever will.”

[blue--ruin]

In a sense, I’m the one who ruined me: I did it myself.

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 3 (via haunted–by-humans)

[jxstinmoore]

tjfuckingking:

The door of Dudley hung open and as if he had been waiting for a ghost, he paused, not at all surprised by the person that was facing him although in many ways he should perhaps have been. Dark brown eyes and a mop of curly blonde hair that he hadn’t seen in a very long time, the laziness of his expression. It almost made it impossible for him to catch onto the words the boy in front of him was speaking, his mind consumed by the realisation that the person in front of him was a boy still, “Well, I never thought we’d get to do this again,” he told Justin as if this was the most normal reconnection they had been through so far. Maybe it was. Maybe there would be no tension over reunion speech chairs, maybe there would be no alcoholism and bitter words, maybe there would be nothing at all besides this moment. He looked at Justin and he wondered if things were easier already knowing how he had hurt him and that one day, some day far from now, he had gotten over it even if he had never found it in his heart to erase the betrayal completely. Even if Justin changed everything, the damage would already be done and for the first time Tyson (in this world at least) wasn’t sure if he felt pained for his ex-best friend or if he did not care much at all, “Have you seen Bea and Rose?”

A sigh was the first thing to escape Justin’s lips. A familiar pair of blue eyes was all he needed to know who exactly was standing in front of him when he appeared in the doorway. He wasn’t at all sure what to say or do, so for a few moments he simply took in the fact that he got to see Tyson in this way once more before all the turmoil would take over. If there would be anything he would remember, he hoped it would be this moment. One so fresh and new that Whittemore had not yet darkened the edges of. “Well if there’s one thing Whittemore is good for, it’s surprising us,” Justin nodded as he spoke back to his estranged best friend, and oddly enough, still husband. He couldn’t tell how the other was feeling, or if the other was feeling anything at all, but there was surely a rush of emotions within Justin’s mind. He didn’t expect much, but maybe something more. Maybe it would have been better had Tyson reacted angrily to seeing him for the first time. He couldn’t really be sure. “Uh, yeah, I ran into each of them a few minutes ago actually.” Justin nodded, unable to break his eyes away from the blue of Tyson’s.

[jxstinmoore]

millie-hastings:

An ironic grin tugged at her lips at Justin’s question, and she merely shook her her head in response. Whittemore was the latest tragic London headline waiting to happen, and yet they came back every time. Even when it appeared as if they had the choice to stay away. “He wouldn’t have done this. I  Why would anyone do this?” Charles’ name was enough to make her pause, a rush of emotions she couldn’t quite make sense of making themselves known. “Oh god, have you seen him yet? Is he really here?”

Justin pursed his lips in thought for a moment at the question she’d posed, well aware that he couldn’t answer it. “You don’t know that. We’ve seen Charles do some pretty sketchy shit, haven’t we?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. Justin’s hatred for Charles had always been prominent as a teenager, and though he couldn’t remember feeling it for a long time, it was definitely back now. “Oh I’m sure he is. He was last time. I haven’t seen him though.”

[jxstinmoore]

beatriceryder:

It was funny. It was kind of funny. Beatrice had been high and low and everywhere between since finding the reunion note, but now she just wanted to laugh about it. It was like her life was written and rewritten and edited by some drunk or perhaps sadistic novelist. These things didn’t happen in real life. They weren’t supposed to. This wasn’t normal. But it was so funny that they kept having to go through it, wasn’t it? It was downright hilarious. Spotting Justin, she laughed a little too hard at his question. Oh, the beheadings and torture that was to come. A real riot. “What,” she started, “you don’t think we’re capable of having a regular old school reunion this time?”

Seeing Beatrice was perhaps the first time he’d been relieved since he’d shown up. She looked like the first person he’d seen who didn’t quite hate him, or at least didn’t act like it. He let out a soft sigh, both of relief and all his anxieties. “We’ll never be capable of anything normal, that’s for sure.” He looked around them at the familiar place, one he’d spent far too many years wanting to get away from but only ever coming back. “So what do you think the reasoning behind all of this is this time?”

[jxstinmoore]

hammondsrose:

Rose had been walking around the grounds for a while now, trying to grasp onto anything that felt remotely real. Her mind was at a constant battle with herself. Flashbacks or, flashforwards rather, plagued her mind and she wasn’t sure why any of them were here. One question that hadn’t crossed her mind however, was if she would return at all. When Whittemore called, she answered. It had been that way her whole life. She turned a corner and come face to face with an old friend. “Nope, as usual Justin, you are right on time for the good stuff,” she said, pursing her lips.

Justin’s eyes met Rose’s and all at once he was hit with a wave of mixed feelings. There were too many things he felt as if he remembered about her, yet none of them added up. “Would they ever actually let any of us miss the so called good stuff?” Justin replied, scratching at the back of his neck nervously. It felt like everyone hated him, and honestly, he couldn’t blame them. Clearly whatever had happened during the time of the blue light didn’t make up for what he’d done right before it.

[jxstinmoore]

I SURVIVED THE STOMACH BUG and am finally here for the pain

[jxstinmoore]

faybiandavis:

That smirk. Something inside her cracked. Not just a little bit, some strange sensation like a crackling down the very seams of who she was. “Did you ever try?” It was a simple question ut her undertone was an accusation. She could not remember half of her lifetime besides looking at her own reflection with the determination she had had for most of her life and yet she recalled so clearly the time they had spent at Whittemore during this reunion and how terrible things had turned out, “Justin, it was never about being a good guy. It was about working together and we always fucking failed. I believed in you, you were the underdog, we were meant to root for you but,” one heel dug into the dirt beneath their feet, “what you did to TJ broke him and in turn that broke most of us because we thought he was some stupid hero. Nobody ever wanted to save themselves. Don’t be a good guy, be a guy who can finally admit to his mistakes because for some dumb shit reason we’ve got this bullshit second chance and it must mean something.”

Justin let out a breath of a chuckle and shook his head. Of course he tried. All he ever did was try. But he’d always come up with nothing, because everything he thought had been right was wrong. The only thing he’d ever done right was no longer speaking to him and probably wouldn’t for the rest of his lifetime. “Maybe you weren’t right to root for me. Maybe there’s a reason I was the underdog, don’t you think?” He questioned. “Some people just aren’t made to do the right thing. You were right to have faith in Ty. He knows how to work together, how to do the right thing.” The smirk on his lips twitched, threatening to fall. Why did it seem like no matter where Justin went, Faye was there to make him talk about all of the thing he didn’t want to talk about? “I can admit to my mistakes, Faye. But I can’t fix them. I can’t take them back. A second chance means nothing when you can’t redo what’s been done.”

[jxstinmoore]

faybiandavis:

She reached down instinctively for a hip flask she had recruited the help of the first time around. Standing in this spot should of been more eerie but she didn’t find herself caring all that much at all, as if the time that had passed had done her no harm nor good. What had she gained? What had she lost? The blurs of friends who had came and gone and a little girl. Somehow she still remembered parts of an entire life that had been lived, “Tell me, Justin,” she popped the lid of the flask and brought it to her lips, taking a gulp as she leaned against an old broken piece of stone, staring vaguely in the direction of the fifth house, “If we didn’t all remember what’s already happened then would you lie this time? Would you still do things the same way? All the bullshit?”

Justin watched the girl move her flask from her side to her lips and found himself slightly jealous that she had that release in the moment. He felt all of his muscles stiffen at the memory of what he’d done. He’d nearly forgotten. Maybe the man he was before the blue light had forgotten all about it. Maybe that’s where the happiness came from, was forgetting. His breath hitched in his throat before he could get any words out. Could he be honest with Faye? Was he capable of being an honest man? A smirk crept onto his lips, though there was no humor in the situation at all. “I want to say no. I wish I could say no. But I’m not the good guy, Faye. I don’t remember much, but if there’s anything I remember, it’s that I never was, no matter how badly I tried to be.”

[jxstinmoore]

millie-hastings:

The memories were coming back in fragments, each one seemingly attached to a different area of this place. It was enough to make her head hurt, a migraine blooming in the back of her skull. For a fraction of a second she could almost feel a pinch in the crook of her arm and taste iron on her tongue. Closing her eyes for just a moment as she leaned against the closest building, the new library if she remembered correctly, a voice broke her out of her daze. “I don’t know if interesting is the right word, Justin,” Millie began, brown eyes shifting to look up at his face. He was younger than she remembered, softer. 

Justin observed Millie with a gentle eye. He could remember a time the two despised each other, but everything else was coming back in pieces. Now, standing in front of him was a girl he considered a friend, even if he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her. He nodded his head at her. “Has Whittemore ever been anything less than interesting?” He offered up a small smirk in her direction. The boy removed his hands from his pockets, crossing them over his chest. “You know, Charles has taken it to a whole other level. Burning the school down was one thing, but making us all relive the reunion is another level of crazy.”

[jxstinmoore]

faybiandavis:

Her thoughts danced, mind in a thousand places at once and not least worrying was her strange rage towards Julian although she was sure it was entirely misplaced. This was nothing like the version of herself that had been created by the sliding doors of time travel and filled her shoes, she felt more herself than she ever had and it was that thought which was most unsettling. Her gaze rose to meet Justin’s with the same intensity it had always held and within the same second her blue eyes flickered away from their darkness, reminded of events that were past and yet had not now happened, “Hope, a strange thing,” she mused eerily, her tongue running across her bottom lip, “Like I hope almost that what happens in the next few months isn’t what we really all did.”

Justin couldn’t get the feeling of a once happy man being taken away from him out of his mind. Why was it that when he was given a taste of what he’d wanted, it was taken away? And now he had to relive one of the worst times of his life, where he could only remember events that he’d rather have pushed away and forgotten about. “Well, I don’t think you and I have ever had this conversation before, so I think we might be on the right track.” He gave her a small smirk. There was that Justin. The one who made jokes of situations he didn’t understand instead of facing them. At least the last how many years missing from his life hadn’t changed that.

[jxstinmoore]

faybiandavis:

And as if time itself had turned upside down she remembered the face of a friend a night earlier who had been just as bemused as herself and turned away from the wall of which she had been burning holes in with her mere gaze almost. Where once a beautiful mural had been only faint lines remained but just as they had not been before, it seemed the scorch marks just didn’t feel quite right. Her turn was swift and once where Zach had stood, was Justin Moore, “Justin, haven’t you learned by now, we never miss the interesting parts.”

Much like previous times with the girl in front of him, he couldn’t seem to meet Faye’s eyes. He wondered if everyone was experiencing this strange time lapse as he was. He could only think of the blue light that had come and affected him for the past how many years. But this moment wasn’t the same as the one he’d lived so long ago, so he wasn’t doomed to relive the same past. “A guy can’t help but hope, can he?” Justin let out a humorless chuckle at the idea.