#*thread » celeste.

[ziggyhawthorne]

*closed to: @celestezhao​ *setting: gotham hall ballroom 🕺🏻

“You drinking tonight, Miss Zhao?” The question is delivered just as gingerly as the drink offered alongside it, one hand extending the glass tentatively towards her as the other holds his own. He wasn’t interested in avoiding her, per se — it was rare for Ziggy to hold a grudge, and rarer still to feel resentment over something entirely innocuous. And yet, here he was, hesitant to approach the person with whom he hoped to build something lasting — something far more positive, and certainly more effective than think-pieces on the state of the world without any realistic action backing the talk. 

The thought was one he’d largely kept to himself, though with enough liquor on his tongue and the buzz of a well-delivered speech ( and the ensuing relief ), Ziggy wondered how much longer he’d be able to keep it contained. “It’s a paloma,” he explains, reassuring smile bringing a certain brightness to his features. “I remembered we drafted that grant proposal over these, and that went over exceptionally well, so ... Here’s to repeating history tonight, huh?”

[sebastiansantana]

*closed to: @celestezhao​​ *setting: seb’s place, mid-January

“Tonight was no fun without you,” Seb starts, eyes focused not on his company for the evening but instead the heavy pour of bordeaux in his wine glass. It’s a truthful statement — possibly his first of the night — but with Celeste, the truth is something that’s become as commonplace as falsehoods he’d give to anyone else of lesser importance. It’s this importance that caused his hesitancy to take over, forcing himself to suffer another event under the scrutiny of the press he’d rather keep shut out, particularly when it came to the intricacies of his private life — a mess in and of itself, replete with more than enough secrets to fill the pages of every newspaper and prompt every headline across the country. 

The man grimaces at the thought as he pours Celeste a glass of her own. He’d always wanted his name in bright lights, but only ever for the right reasons — specifically, the socially acceptable, consequence-free reasons — which brought him to the matter at hand: them, or whatever it was they’d pretended to be on New Year’s. “You were a hot topic at the charity gala tonight. Actually, leave out the middle syllable of ‘charity’ and you’d have a more accurate description of the event.” The second glass is handed to her before he toasts sarcastically, “To Chatty Cathies.” There’s a clink, and then a hefty sip, the sound ringing in his head like a boxing bell — but the fighters in the ring are none other than the care he held for the woman vs. the persistence of his ambition. The hesitation sets in again, an unfamiliar sensation when in her presence, but undeniably there. “I wasn’t sure what I should’ve said, so I figured...” The statement is left open-ended precisely because it seemed only right to allow her to be the one to fill in the blanks when it came to the uncharted territory that was a relationship for prying eyes and camera flashes, built not by lovers but friends.