— CRICKET’S MODERN AU: HS DROPOUT & STREET MAGICIAN/ACROBAT
the flicker and crackle of beach bonfires. threadbare sheets tangled around her knees. thunderstorms after a day of burning sand. card games and contortion acts held at the end of the pier. dizzying heights, beautiful views, cheesy love songs on the radio.
— SUMMARY
cricket comes from a semi-rich household in new york with severely strict parents; she’s always been full of vitality, but they hoped for a well-behaved girl who stands straight and tall and smiled when she needs to, not when she wants to. they try to fix her - replace her selfishness with altruism, replace her vulgarity with tenderness - but she has sin-laced smiles and a rebellious ember in her heart, coughing up ashes in her eyes, and she refused.
she drops out of high school before she finishes it because of stress (or “just because”) and runs off to florida. she starts performing on street corners as a joke - the first time she does, she’s not performing so much as practicing a few magic tricks with random street goers, but they pay her for the entertainment, so she thinks, why the hell not. a couple months after she starts, she hops on board with a passing carnival troupe and travels across state lines to do cute little carnie things.
the next time the troupe come through miami, however - about a year later - she decides to stay because she wants to work on her own thing (and carnival life isn’t independent enough for her). nowadays, she usually performs on the beach or on the piers, and occasionally freelances for anyone wanting to hire her for their kid’s birthday party and the like, but she doesn’t make much; just enough to make rent on an apartment shared with two friends.
— CONNECTIONS
scarlet lennon. roommate and best friend. she first met scar when she returned from her carnival-going life, looking for books to help her figure out living on her own. she returned often enough that she and scarlet got to talking, and eventually she moved in with the girl to the apartment above the store. scar tries to get her into reading a lot, but cricket only agrees whenever the books have pictures in them.
artemis miller. roommate and best friend. cricket was introduced to artemis through scar, when cricket came to pick up a book from the store and artemis was hanging around. the two of them aren’t very similar, but somehow, they still get along excellently. cricket adores artemis, and she often makes art help her practice her acrobatic routines around the apartment - mostly by encouraging her to do silly dances and just loosening up.
thaddeus fitzroy. friend and confidant. she met him one weekend on the beach at early dawn; oddly enough, they got along and agreed to meet again the next saturday. to this day, however, they don’t actually know each other’s names - she’s peaches, he’s baby blue, and that’s it. they don’t get too involved in the ‘details’; they confide in each other often, but with changes to their personal story that make it essentially anonymous.
— APOLLO’S MODERN AU: PHARM-SCI STUDENT & PART-TIME JOB HOPPER
sharing ice cream on street corners. dog-eared paperback books, cracked at the spine. undone shoelaces tied in infinity loops around his fingers; secret memoirs and poetry scribbled on the back of starbucks receipts. lecture halls and cramped-full notebooks.
— SUMMARY
apollo is florida born and bred, and hasn’t ever left. he comes from a family smack dab in the area for “average middle class” - his mother dies after his younger sister’s childbirth, and their father is hardly ever home from his job. he grows up being more of a big brother than an individual - isobel, his sister, is born prematurely and has weak lungs; he spends most of his childhood looking after her, but he doesn’t ever mind.
out of high school, the first thing he goes into is pharmaceutical sciences, because he’s convinced it’s a good investment; both financially and for isobel’s health. he’s on a partial scholarship and currently in his last year, but he still has to work part-time jobs to pay for fees and other things - he’s a tutor whenever he’s hired for it, an assistant librarian during academic hours, and a barista in the evening/on the weekends.
personality-wise, he’s much of the same, save for the fact that he’s probably more social and a little less gruff. he’s still got a sort of socially clumsy way about him, and he’s not the most polite sort, but he’s more open to meeting new people. he’s still wary about letting people in - because it’s always been just him and his sister, as far as he’s concerned - but once he does, he’s loving and still very fiercely loyal.
— CONNECTIONS
cora hale. girlfriend. they’ve been dating for a month or so, now. she likes to take pictures of poe and draw stuff on him; he likes to scrawl little limericks and haikus on her wrist or on the back of her palm. instead of bedtime stories, when they cuddle, he reads aloud from his pharmaceutical textbooks to lull her to sleep. their one month anniversary comes up around the day of the beach party.
eli hale. close friend. poe has what is possibly the shittiest car in all of florida, a cheap rundown thing, and he’s at eli’s garage practically three times a week to get something or other fixed. he’s been there so regularly that the two of them eventually became increasingly familiar, to the point where apollo can easily call eli one of his closest friends, if not the closest, despite the age difference between them.
remi wilson. good friend. due to running in the same circles, poe and remi are fairly close - and remi teaches at the same university where poe studies, so they see each other often. when their schedules coincide to allow it, they tend to have lunch together; and when apollo, once more lost in the vast maze that is their campus, wanders into remi’s class by accident, he usually stays just for the hell of it.
astrid clarke. a friend. she comes in for coffee pretty often, and apollo’s taken to writing notes on her takeaway cups and leaving acrostic poems on them with her name. sometimes, when the hours are slow or his shift is over, they sit and chat for a while - about their day, about their week, about anything. conversation with her has always been easy.
