You’ll be writing drabbles for your character/s when it comes to this. They are required to be 750 words minimum. It’s mainly to help for headcanons and for people to understand each other’s characters better through them - explore their backgrounds. These will be completed and listed on your para page with the title of the prompt and the month it was written in. It’s not mandatory - but if the inspiration strikes, then run with it. Find the full list & prompts here [ x ]
You’ll be writing drabbles for your character/s when it comes to this. They are required to be 750 words minimum. It’s mainly to help for headcanons and for people to understand each other’s characters better through them - explore their backgrounds. These will be completed and listed on your para page with the title of the prompt and the month it was written in. It’s not mandatory - but if the inspiration strikes, then run with it. Find the full list & prompts here [ x ]
Merry Christmas ! - for the month of December/Christmas Holidays period
The Apartments have been closed for nearly a year now. What has your character been doing? Have they found love, sorrow, stayed in London? Are they the same person?
She had moved into the tiny flatlet on Seven Sisters Road the third day that she was in London, wanting to leave the packed hostel that she was staying in as soon as possible. With its sad looking windows the size shoeboxes and the uncomfortable shade of yellowy tan that the shutters were painted, the plain brick condominium was not exactly in high demand, and she had signed a lease the day that she viewed the property. A little over three years later, when she was moving back after her rushed, semi-frantic departure from the Apartments, the transition was just as easy. She ended up in the exact same place as before-- the same musty, cramped, one-room studio flat with a closet-sized bathroom attached-- and as she signed the lease again and collapsed onto the bare mattress that lay directly on the plastic-tiled floor, she got a vague sense of unpleasant déjà vu.
After breaking a month long streak of sobriety, Lili arrived at Justin's door entirely shitfaced the first night that she was back in the neighborhood, and when he asked what the hell she was doing back in the borough, she just kept repeating, "This is better. S'okay. This is better."
Better than what, exactly, she declined to say.
When she woke up on his couch the next morning with the worst hangover she'd had in months, he asked her again as she was becoming violently ill in his bathroom.
"What the fuck are you doing, Lils?"
She groaned, wiping her mouth. "I texted you yesterday. Ciara's in remission. So I don't need to be in that place anymore."
Justin shook his head, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom to watch with an unimpressed expression as Lili's stomach heaved and emptied itself once more. "Maybe you don't need to be there, but you certainly don't need to be here, either. It's not good for you-- clearly. Besides, I thought you sorta liked that place, Pretty Woman."
Lili leaned back against the wall, and her knees pressed against the toilet bowl-- Justin's bathroom was just as tiny as hers, and there wasn't a lot of room for hangover activities. Several sharp retorts came to mind as the nickname poked at some raw part of her, but she just closed her eyes, shaking her head. "No. Trust me, I don't... the Apartments is the last place I wanna be right now. I'm tired of whoring myself out and feeling... expendable." She sighed, opening her eyes and looking up at her best friend. "Besides, maybe I belong here. Maybe this is what I'm good at."
Walking into the kitchen to grab a glass and fill it with water, Justin snorted. "What, pickling your liver?"
Lili huffed out something close to a laugh, taking the glass as he returned and handed it down to her. "No, just... this place in general. I've adjusted to it. It's not so bad, y'know?"
Justin's eyebrows were nearing his hairline as he looked down at her, shaking his head. "You're fuckin' mental, Lili. This place blows."
She shrugged, taking a cautious sip of water. "Whatever. D'you work today? I'm gonna see if Monster Monica'll give me my job back."
"Fuckin'. Mental."
He opened the medicine cabinet and tossed her a bottle of ibuprofen, and Lili smiled. "I'm taking that as a yes. Tell me when you're leaving!"
---
Too soon, it was as if she had never gone to the Apartments at all. She worked irregular hours every day at the bar, took full advantage of her employee discount on the alcohol, and reestablished contact with her old dealer. She stayed drunk or stoned or high or some mixture thereof during the weekends, and worked late enough on the weekdays that all she had time for was the occasional nightcap shot of vodka before passing out. She called Ciara once a week to talk about her return to school and make sure that their father was still being decent to her, smiling wide and genuine as she listened to her sister tell her all about the boy who sat behind her in maths and how much she loved her creative writing assignments. Months passed, and Lili remained in a determined state of denial. She told herself that she didn't miss any aspect of the Apartments and its way of living, that she was content to be back to the grind of her life in Tottenham, that she wasn't depressed or bipolar or anything nearing it. She was just living her life, free of attachments. That was it.
Justin got a boyfriend-- a real one, the first since the ex, the one who had beaten him and ruined his trust for years after-- and he was happier than she had ever seen him. He stayed with the other man a lot-- Jeremy, his name was-- and he began to talk about moving closer to him. Lili was happy that Justin was finally piecing his life together. He had been young, only sixteen when his parents had discovered his sexuality and kicked him out, and he had been scraping by in Tottenham ever since. He deserved to make himself a better life. And yet Lili was also dreading the day that he would leave, because he was her bright spot in the rougher life that she had chosen, the one person who had always been there and never let her down. She knew that the relatively short bus ride between them would seem longer once they were separated, that neither of them would have the time or energy to take it, and she ached when she thought of loosing her best friend. She never said anything, though-- she wasn't about to be the reason that he stayed in this shithole, no matter how much she was still trying to convince herself that it wasn't so bad, once you got past the muggings-- and Justin decided that he was going to do it. He was going to leave.
He got a bank job in Havering, something that paid better than the bar (which, really, almost anything did) and Lili was helping him pack his things when her mother called.
As horrible and unexpected as it was, a part of her had already known when she answered the phone that it was happening again, that sick sense of déjà vu creeping in once more as her mother broke the news with a shaky voice: Ciara had cancer. Again.
Lili dealt with it a little better the second time around. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and told her mother that she would send money for the aggressive treatments that the doctors were starting as soon as possible, and after assuring Justin that she was fine, she headed back to her own flat and dialed a number that she never thought she would use again, opening a fresh bottle of whiskey as the phone rang. To her relief, Madam answered. Once it had been decided that Lili would be allowed to come back after the renovations that were nearly done with, she started packing the few things that she cared enough to take with her-- books, photographs, her small wardrobe of clothes-- and texted her landlord that she was leaving the next week. All of it felt like a reenactment, as if she was reliving last year, with her going mechanically through the motions, knowing exactly what was going to happen.
Maybe it wasn't the neighborhood that never changed. Maybe it was Lili.
She and Justin got massively drunk the night before they both left the neighborhood-- him to his bettered life in Havering, and her to the Apartments. He was celebrating, and she was saying goodbye to the dodgy/rough/comforting/familiar place that she had somehow come to fund endearing, despite its difficulties. They both left the next afternoon, catching different buses and hugging each other goodbye, and before she really knew what was happening, Lili was walking into the Apartments once again, determined not to make the same mistakes this time around, feeling hungover and nervous and maybe even a little glad to be there, despite everything-- although she never would have wished for the circumstances.
The doorman actually recognized her when she passed, and she laughed-- hysterically, her head falling back as she shook her head, while he watched with slight concern. There we are, then, she thought, picking up her keys from the desk and heading back to the same apartment that she had been in before. It was déjà vu, again-- but she thought that maybe she could live with this one.
