#flashback: 002

[innocentbutough]

Text ⇄ My love ❣

Quinn: Rachel.

Quinn: Help me

Quinn: Help me right now.

Quinn: Would a floral dress too formal or would it fit?

Quinn: Or should I just go with a plain one?

Quinn: For the love of God, please I have to leave soon and I don't know what to wear.

[chaos--crossing]

“Go fuck yourself Warren.” he’s already out of bed and pulling on his boxers as he mouths off. She’s still catching her breath and wiping a sheen of sweat that had claimed temporary residence on her forehead as she smirks to herself. “Believe you just did that, pal.” she treads thin ice with him rather often now. It all depends on the day and how much they’ve pissed one another off. Usually there’s silence. Clothes are pulled off, kisses are biting and angry… but there’s silence that takes over through all of it until he lifts a pointed finger on his way out of the room. This time, he’s chosen to vocalize his anger and she’s almost happy about it. It’s been so long since she’s really heard his voice and even a crass remark is one that she’ll take without complaint. “Going to change your sheets before your girlfriend gets ...home?” she’s not stupid, she noticed the boxes by the door. She knows that Brook’s living there now. He doesn’t even look back at her as he pulls on his jeans and fishes around for a tee shirt. “Why do you care?” clearly she doesn’t… and neither does he, not judging by the way he wipes his mouth on his sleeve. It elicits a smirk from her, she knows where his mouth’s been exactly. Brook on the other hand… “get out of my house.” he passively walks to the door and opens it, gesturing to it with his free hand. Getting out of the bed she takes her time, reaching for the lace. There’s something wrong with this, they both know it. Yet, it doesn’t mean that either one of them are willing to quit it. She’d never seen him as the type to cheat before. He’d always been so devoted and soft. She’s the one that’s done this to him, made him harder and more difficult. This is her fault. It’s something she’ll agonize over later on when she’s home alone in her own bed. It’s been a year that they’ve been playing this game, nearly a year and a half since their lives utterly blew up. A part of her can’t remember what it was like before this anymore. What happy had been. How the doting big brother from a two parent family had come home to her and cuddled with their dog on the couch. The way he’d smiled every time he saw her unlike the grimace she got now as though she was nothing but a wine smear on a white carpet. Had he known the truth it only would have been worse. These are the facts that she knows, even with him being in the dark she knows it. “Right, well, if you could not take him to the dog park near Montag i’d appreciate it. There’s some woman who’s always there with her ankle bitter and I don’t trust it not to bite him.” Grey was their child in this arrangement, the one thing that kept the two of them from cutting off all contact. At least, that was the way that Warren saw it. Speaking of the devil, she was buttoning her jeans when the soft brown nose made his way down the hall and peered into the room with his big sad eyes. It cut her to the core to leave him every other week with Jules. Made the house that much more empty. Getting down on her knees she called him to her, his soft whine in protest as if a child saying no mom, stop. Yet he walked over anyway, leaning his wet nose against the side of her face. If anyone tried to say that dogs weren’t the most intuitive creatures she would have argued otherwise. It wasn’t as if this hadn’t been an every other week deal from the both of them. They both knew the drill by now, “I know” she cooed, scratching the spot behind the ears that she knew he loved, “you think i’m abandoning you, don’t you baby.” he talked back to her and the sound of his vocalizations would never get old. Even when he was a puppy and they crated him to sleep he’d whine the way he did now. “But hey, Brookie will be home soon to give you lots of pets. And Evie. you have to give Evie big kisses.” as if on cue she felt his wet tongue against her cheek. Evie. Brook’s five year old daughter. It had taken some time to swallow down the fact that Brook had a kid and Jules was starting his own little family with the two of them. Him with a kid wasn’t something she ever expected to be on the outside of. But here they were. “Come on Grey, go get your leash so we can walk her out.” the voice in back of them broke the moment as Jules called an end to their goodbyes. He had every right to, and Warren knew she was stalling without reason. It was a habit they both pulled without owning up to. But right on command Grey listened to him, racing out of the room to find the grey leash he toted around whenever he wanted a walk and thought no one was paying him enough attention. It left her once again alone with Jules. There was something on his mind. If there was anything that Warren knew how to recognize it was when Jules was holding his tongue, “Spit it.” she spoke as she started to walk past him out of the bedroom. He hesitated for a moment, she could see that too in the blue of his eye. “This could have all been different you know.” great, maybe she didn’t want him to open his mouth. “I’m just saying. If you had just owned up to it, told me you were cheating on me… maybe things could have been different.” Except, that was the thing ...she hadn’t cheated on him. What she’d done had been far worse. She would have gladly cheated on him as an alternative. “You’re right” the worse were simple, she’d lied them so many times that maybe there was even a part of herself that was beginning to believe the facade she’d thrown out to him in a panic the evening of the shooting, after he’d already been reflective on the death of his mother. The resounding silence that filled the dead air between them made it harder for her to breathe as she walked towards the door, leaving Jules alone to clip Grey’s leash and follow her out. She should have been used to this, their same old fight. Because none of this was ever going to be solved. She sure as hell wasn’t about to tell him what she’d done that day. She’d rather of watched him with Brook and Evie then watch that level of hatred and betrayal fill his eyes. It was really just that simple.

[tcddycellario]

closed starter for emerson tulach ( flashback ). ( @ragingemerson​ )

It had taken Teddy months to plan their trip— bouncing back and forth between destinations, activities, ways in which they could make their trip a relatively quiet one even when he was determined to make his girlfriend’s birthday something she would be able to remember for the foreseeable future with nothing but the utmost fondness. Traveling, in his experience, wasn’t difficult so much as it had the potential for him to be mobbed by reporters of all kinds and that winter he’d taken to dyeing his hair a dark brown as though that would somehow change the fact that he had fairly recognizable features and no shortage of coverage on any given day where the tabloids were concerned. Still, actually traveling to Samos had been far easier than he’d planned and Teddy found himself equal parts elated and relieved by how easily they’d gotten to the little beach house he’d rented for two weeks for the pair of them.

“What do you think, my love? I haven’t done too bad, eh?” He asked, glancing over his shoulder with a broad, easy smile as the bag on his shoulder slipped away to settle at his feet with a soft noise. He turned on his heel to study Emerson with bright eyes-- the smile on his face still broad and warm as he reached up to hold Emerson’s face in his hands and press their foreheads together, adoration seeming to bleed from his every movement. “Happy birthday, my darling. I love you.”

[moments-of--disarray]

“Where they spin lies into fairy dust” 

          Indiana stood with his hands on his hips looking around the room with pride. She knew he was a nerd in that moment, an idealistic nerd at that one. But this was another level all together. Looking around the dingy basement room she tracked her eyes back to him and offered him a pained smile.

“Well this is …something”    

          She commented to the chocolate-eyed man who looked more like a kid in a candy factory rather than a twenty-one year old standing in a broken down building. The room around her looked dilapidated, like it was falling apart at the seams. She didn’t know how he was going to pull this one off. But by the looks of it Indie had a plan in mind for it.

          Walking a circle around the open room she shook her head, this was a mess that he’d gotten himself into, she was relatively sure of that. But she knew that regardless of his plans or how badly it would probably burn and blow up in his face, she’d support him just as he’d always supported her.

“Come here”

          Indi said as he grabbed her risk and dragged her closer to him, careful to watch the bruises on her hands. She was a mess of bruises.

“Right there? The bar, all gold and red”

          He pointed to a wall of peeling paper and she nodded pretending to go along with his vision, she couldn’t quite see it but if he said so than she had to believe that he had an intention for it.

“Poles and a runway in that corner. The stage that makes the girls feel like stars”

          Running a hand through her long dark hair she nodded again, still not quite seeing his dream for the space but knowing that the strip joint was a dream that he’d had for years now. Why he couldn’t pick anything other than a strip joint she wasn’t really sure. But his heart was set and she couldn’t do a damn thing to change that.

          She wasn’t entirely sure how stripping would make anyone feel like a star and not like they were being exploited for money. But leave it to Indi to find passion in the strange. One of these days they were going to have to have a serious conversation about what was acceptable and what he should have left in his brain. But that wasn’t today.

“You’re still pretty sore aren’t you?”

          That much wasn’t hard to deduce by looking at her face. Her eye still had a ring of black and blue around it that went all the way down to her chin. The damage sustained left her with bruises all over her arms as well. They’d really had it out for one another this last time, when the cops had shown up she hadn’t known what to expect or what to say.

          She gave him a look that said he shouldn’t have asked her stupid questions.

          How could she have not been sore, between the physical pain that could outright be seen, the mental pain of not being able to go home and of knowing how badly they’d destroyed one another. All she wanted to do was to go home to Eliot and apologize. But she knew better than that between Indi watching her every move and his father’s hired bodyguard… that just wasn’t something that was possible.

“Is it stupid that all I want to do is go home?”

          He gave her a look that said it was the stupid thing he’d heard in fact. She shut her mouth then, walking over to the wall and wincing as she sat against it and clattered to the floor with pain throbbing to her.

          A second later Indi had joined her, carefully slipping his arm over her shoulders and pulling her closer to him like the ever protective big brother he’d been since she was thirteen. Sighing she closed her eyes and let herself relax some against him.

“He’s not good enough for you Atlee. I don’t know what it’s going to take to make you see that. After everything the two of you have gone through…”

          Peering out of one eye she found him staring at her obnoxiously. Like she could have cared what he thought about who she should have been with or how she should have been treated. She wanted what she wanted, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done the same things to him as he’d done to her. Indi just seemed to forget all of that.

“Need I remind you what I’ve done…”

          She trailed off and he shook his head at her, knowing exactly what she was talking about. He’d been told every detail of that February afternoon in the dead of winter. He’d been horrified and shocked but he’d stood by her completely understanding her reasoning just worried about her mental health.

“I’m just saying At…”

          He could say all he wanted. It wasn’t as if it mattered.

          Changing the subject was all she wanted. To not discuss Eliot anymore or the hurt that was still blazing from it.

“So does this place mean that you’re going to give me a job on your stage?”

          His abrupt coughing starting suddenly as if she’d asked a question that was funny rather than one that was dead serious. Of course she’d known how he was going to react but she also had felt as if it had been worth a shot too. Of course there was no way that he was going to allow her to strip even if he did by some miracle get the place up and running for the public.

“Not in your wildest dreams kid”

          She wasn’t a kid, hadn’t she proved that to him enough? Obviously she had not. He wanted her to get some type of respectable job, maybe then she could stop taking up residence on his couch and actually find herself a decent place to live now that she couldn’t quite go home to Eliot.