– THE PAST MONTH HAD BEEN A WHIRLWIND. after the winter formal, there had been an arrest and the reopening of a case that georgina had long hoped they could all put behind them. and now lysander would potentially be out of prison soon on the grounds that they were opening the case up to more suspects? so, she goes where she always does when she’s seeking out comfort – theo’s room.
georgina wanders the halls of escalus in her silk nightgown, eyemask pushed up on her forehead until she can knock on his door. there’s a half-empty bottle of wine in her left palm ( she’d quit drinking once, a few months ago, but now her habit is returning with a vengeance. ) she’s praying that he’ll answer the door and not one of his roommates, neither of which she gets on with very well lately.
“teddy ?” she rubs her eyes for a moment as he answers the door, but she decides she can’t wait any longer before she pulls him into a hug, wrapping her arms around him with a force that pushes them back out of the doorway. “sorry for springing a visit on you,” she says, voice soft. she doesn’t sound very sorry at all. “but i’m sort of freaking out.”
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 is like putting on an old, favorite sweater; theo instantly relaxes, feeling enveloped by the literal warmth of her hug and the internal warmth that resulted from the presence of his best friend. though recent months have been plagued by turmoil and darkness, he could always count on georgina to bring some light back. and for that, he’s forever grateful.
her sudden hug forces a soft laugh out of him, but he wraps his arms around her nonetheless. “ hey, you, ” he murmurs as he steadies them, the sound muffled against her hair. after a minute, he pulls back slightly, brushing some of her hair behind her ear with a gentle smile. “ come in. everyone else is out. ”
he brings her into the room, grateful that his roommates are gone for the time being. “ i am, too, ” he admits as he shuts the door, letting out a sigh. it’s for different reasons than she thinks, but what’s a misguided truth after all he’s done ? “ but... you first. come on, sit down, tell me all your troubles. ”
she wished she could say that theo’s text didn’t make her react in the way that she did, but yet the minute his name flashed across her screen, her traitorous heart skipped a beat or two. she read his request and pondered for a moment over whether or not she should comply, if maybe the infestation was a manifestation of all of her sins––lust, pride, wrath. however, her curiosity and love for theo got the best of her, and the two of them negotiated a time and place to meet. valentine was quick to delete the texts off of her phone after things had been set, she didn’t want to risk christian getting the wrong (or even, the right) idea.
as she arrived at the meeting point, ss her eyes landed on him, her lips curled up in a sad smile. the situation they were in now was one that she had never anticipated them ending up in when they started this torrid affair. and yet, despite her finally believing that this time things would be different, that this time the love would last, that was not the case. it was never the case. she was convinced she was cursed.
it took her a moment to decide on what to say, every greeting that came to the forefront of her mind seeming too unfamiliar or far too familiar. eventually, she settled, and a quiet “theodore,” escaped her mouth.
𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐇𝐄𝐑, then stopped himself, hand half-held out after the aborted movement. he still had yet to cure himself of that habit; theo didn’t think he ever would. even if it were possible, he didn’t think he’d ever want to make it a tangible reality. why would he ever want to be able to resist her ? he’d given her more than he ever could’ve expected to. it’d be foolish to turn his back on that now.
for all his inner turmoil, it only lasted a moment. he closed the last bit of distance, his hand landing on her cheek, a barely-there brush of his thumb over the soft skin underneath her eye. “ val, ” he murmured, a single syllable for a thousand emotions: love, regret, heartbreak, joy, all in the breadth of a second.
it felt impossible to pull away, but he dropped his hand, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. “ thank you for answering— for coming to see me, ” he said, a small, sad smile on his lips. “ i wanted to make sure you were doing alright. if you needed anyone to talk to, among... all this. ” between all of the happenings on campus these days, all this could be her pick of the chaos. he’d be here for her through any of it.
𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐇 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓, a number of plagues had descended upon campus: flies in the buildings, gossip among the student body, valentine on his mind. but unlike the first two aspects of the trio, this latter development was hardly newsworthy; theo had long since been infected with thoughts of valentine. even so, she wasn’t his to worry about anymore. she wasn’t his to comfort after something awful. that privilege belonged ( ironically, tragically ) to his roommate. as the saying goes: so close. so far.
theo had always been feeble hearted. with the news of kit’s arrest and subsequent return, what remained of his willpower shattered like glass. it started with a text: i need to see you. a plea, a prayer; theo laid careful offerings at valentine’s altar, forever waiting for the day she would return to him. with every day that passed, it felt harder to imagine. please, he added, the vulnerability tasting bitter in his mouth. he felt belly-up, exposed. offering her a please was like handing her a knife. still, he waited. he’d made his supplications. he’d texted her a time, a place, and there was nothing to do now beyond wait. so he did, quietly useless for anything other than wondering if she would show. he ached, and hoped she would. / @ofvegas
hello & welcome aboard the hot mess express ! am i talking about me or theo ? YES !
quick stats !
skeleton: m*cbeth.
name: theodore st. clair.
age: twenty-two.
faceclaim: gavin leatherwood.
gender: cismale.
pronouns: he / him.
degree: international relations.
background !
— TRIGGER WARNING for mentions of a car accident, murder ( rip octavia ig )
you know the st. clairs. everyone knows the st. clairs. acacia and montgomery, two of the most famous actors in the world uniting in holy matrimony before the eyes of god — and the cameras of paparazzi spying from helicopters, of course.
that’s part of being in the imperium society, after all; for one reason or another, they’re known. whether it be for the place they clawed out for themselves in this world, or one lovingly ( not so lovingly ? ) provided for them by their parents, everyone in this elite circle has eyes on them for some reason or another.
for theo, being watched is an undeniable fact of life. being the product of two academy-award winning actors will do that to you. his birth was covered in no less than six tabloid magazines; his parents framed them to use as decorations in his nursery.
as a child, he wanted for nothing. whenever theo was allowed to make an appearance at one of his parents’ parties full of the most powerful people in hollywood, he made a splash – it wasn’t hard to see that he would grow up to be as stunning as his parents, and something about him set him apart as the darling of it all. it was his dark, soulful eyes, wise beyond his years; his smile, charmingly adorable; his delightful mannerisms, even at a young age; his parents’ friends would raise an eyebrow, tilt their heads in his direction, and say that boy is going to be someone someday.
though his parents were long since accustomed to the spotlight, theo never gravitated to it as they did. he was a handsome child, well-spoken and mischievous, but he never understood the acting bug caught by his parents in the sprightly days of their youth. instead, he was a hardworking student, a clever, quick-thinking boy, someone who set goals and followed through on them.
at 15, theo conceived a new brainchild— ST. CARE, a philanthropic and awareness-based nonprofit to advocate on behalf of exploited and at-risk children all over the world. his efforts weren’t focused on a single issue; he proposed a multitude of beneficiaries for the charitable side of things, ranging from treatment for children with HIV / AIDS to funding for girls to attend school in underprivileged areas. within a year, the wild success of both his charitable and awareness promotion efforts had earned him the international children’s peace prize.
around the same time, the st. clairs’ marriage deteriorated, messily and violently, all in front of a whirlwind of paparazzi. teenage theo was caught in the middle of it all, the unfortunate epicenter of the split between two of hollywood’s brightest stars.
tabloids cited nearly everything as reasons for the impending divorce; drugs, affairs, secret babies, anything was fair game. the truth was much more innocuous: it was simply a marriage that was no longer working, succumbing to the pressures of fame and society. but the truth didn’t sell. paparazzi competed for the money shot, their attempts growing more and more wild every time they failed. one even ended up in a car crash with his mother, leading to her spending a short time in the hospital to recover. needless to say, this was all very stressful for theo’s family.
nevertheless, theo has always been a shining, bright example for young people across the world; it came as a surprise to absolutely no one that he was accepted to ashcroft— and, by extension, the imperium society. he thrived there, majoring in international relations and preparing himself to take his philanthropy to the next level once he graduated school.
theo has never been able to resist a person in need. so when valentine came to him, mascara smeared under her eyes, pleading for his help, he didn’t think twice.
what he hadn’t planned on was what came next.
before he knew what he was doing, theo found himself standing over octavia’s body, water bottle raised over his head and christian staring at him like he’d never seen him before. he doesn’t remember the act itself— not in the slightest. but he’d be a fool not to know what he’d done.
and he watched. he watched as valentine took the water bottle from his far-too-steady hand, he watched as she disappeared with the bottle first, then with christian next. he watched his cosmic punishment for what he’d done carried out in real time: the woman he loved, whisked away by a man who’d witnessed his undoing.
he never wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps, but maybe he should’ve. after all, pretending he didn’t kill octavia is the role of a lifetime.
before, he was able to push everything down, bury it beneath the layers of denial and misplaced justification. but with octavia’s ghost making appearances all over campus, it’s getting much more difficult to disguise his guilt as grief.
