it is COLD outside, windy; a snaking tuft of chestnut hair disappears below narrow hips, abrading soft pads on damaged stone as her fingers roam about the ledge aimlessly to occupy time. new york had its fair bit of rain recently & it’s left her a dull shade of BLUE ( at least, she’d rather blame it on the rain ). she’s grown to the facade of normalcy, but the weight of past decisions still hangs onto slim shoulders like a ANCHOR, pulling her further into a stormy sea of sharks. conflict waging beneath heavy lashes, her muscles tighten & chest rises and falls with each soft breath.
[delivered in a card by a messenger with two vip new york skyline tour tickets]
I was gonna start this off with some cheesy message about how every birthday is special & each day you grow wiser, but to be honest we both that it’s all complete bullshit so I’m just gonna say happy birthday ! 26 & still going strong — honestly, well done. I hope in four years I look as great & as lively as you. But seriously, man, you deserve the best of everything, so in this envelope ( unless they ripped me off in which case I’ll give you the tour myself ) you’ll find two tickets for some sort of flying experience in a helicopter. They’ll take you & whoever you choose to go with you around the city so you can sit back, enjoy the views, as well as the bottle of champagne included. Honestly, I don’t know anyone who’s more deserving of this & I really hope you have a great birthday & enjoy the experience.
After some careful detective work ( also known as: bribing the girl at the front desk ), Isla had found out which cabin belonged to Finn. And after some even more strategic planning ( texting Finn and asking if he was in his cabin ), she was ready. She squatted outside, a defensive snow wall built in front of her and a dozen snowballs at her side, ready to go. She peered over her white wall, waiting. As soon as Finn emerged, Isla popped up. “Heads up, asshole!” She pelted him in the chest with a snowball, immediately poised to toss another one at him. “La tua città è sotto attacco. Consider this a declaration of war!”
🐸 - One muse is under a spell and asks the other for help, but the attempt to help only lands both of them cursed!
“ the prostitute is not magic storm. ” he’s staring at storm trying not to laugh. because the boy is either high or at least thinks that the prostitute is magic and put a curse on him and jo can’t think of which would be funnier. that being ( false ) or that being true. the idea that there is some sort of force that standing in the way of storm getting anything done was super funny to him but. “ i’m not joking i can’t think of anything that’s more ridiculous than that... she didn’t cure you just because you insulted her career that doesn't make any sense --- ” but of course storm isn’t having any of it and before jo can say one more word he’s being dragged over to the whore house one of which he had to admit --- he didn’t think existed anymore.
thing was, he hasn’t even stared at the house for five minutes before he can start to feel what storm's talking about --- it’s weird... the feeling that’s coming over him, “ how the fuck did you find this place...” the words come out of hs mouth slowly and he turns to look at storm that just has a look on his face that screams ‘ I TOLD YOU SO ’
🐚 - One muse saves the other from drowning (or another dangerous scenario) and pulls them to safety.
it takes about four seconds for seth to realize that the car finn’s in probably shouldn’t have made that noise when it started up. --- he should have seen it faster, but frankly he was probably just excited that the man had been leaving. of course --- it’s not like he can just let the boy “ turn off the car... turn off the fucking car finn ! ” no surprise. the brats ignoring him. yeah well seth isn’t about to let him kill them both so he just grabs the driver seat door and opens in, basically dragging finn’s ass out of the car, pulling him on the ground and reaching over him to turn the car off. all of while having to deal with a verbal assault that he didn’t quite care for. all seth does is pocket the keys so that finn doesn't decide to go on a suicide mission and makes sure to fucking step out of the way of the cooper boy as he steps back from the car taking a look at it. someone dosen’t want the cooper boy to live. can’t blame them really. but seth’s never been one to believe that ( killing ) someone is the way to solve any problems ( sure as hell would fucking help in this case though ). not that he’d ever condone it.
“ how many enemies you got man --- ” besides like the entire population of the ‘lower class’ he’s pretty sure mr. cooper has managed to piss off some rather important people up top for his car to be rigged like this. “ you’re not driving that thing. ” and that’s seth’s end of conversation. as if those few sets of course should be implication enough that there’s something wrong with the car and that seth just saved his life ( though he doubts the cooper boy will be decent enough to care ). so to make sure he gets the memo; --- mostly because he’s not sure rich kids understand basic logic “ --- no driving the fucking car unless you want to end up six feet under. ” and jingles the keys in his pockets before tossing them to the valet and walking off into the parking garage himself.
Alaska: hey finn, it’s me...unless you deleted my #. it’s alaska. i found a t-shirt you left at my condo. don’t know how id get it back to you, thought you’d like to know.
Text: Sent to Finn at 1:30am on August 14th, 2014:
Alaska: im so fckign drkn rght nwo. i miss uoy :( why did u leaVE me??@#$ i jst wsh u cldve said goodbde
Text: Sent to Finn at 12:00am on Janurary 14th, 2017:
Alaska: welp, guess we can start with a brand new slate. just dont leave again without explaining yourself, alright? here 4 u xx
tw: illusions to death & gunshots, grief, general angst
Everything is still. The kiss of salt water is tinged on her lips, the morning’s moisture clinging to her face and hair the way the boats cling to the harbor below. Sunrise has colored the water a brilliant shade of turquoise as the warmth of the sun spread across the Italian Riviera. Even as she stood at the top of the cliffs, arms spread out to welcome the dawn, she knew that it was a dream. Knows that it’s just her mind playing with the landscapes of Cinque Terre while her body slept soundly in New York City. But she hasn’t dreamed of Italy since her mother died and the scenery is a welcome sight. She took a step forward, to descend the rocks, to walk the path to her favorite reading spot, when fingers lace with hers.
“Cuore mio.” It’s her – her mother. Her dark brown eyes are even softer than she remembered, reflected in the hazy morning light. Isla felt herself take another step forward but, with just one blink, her mother was gone. Replaced with another familiar face – Finn’s. “Cugino.” His voice seemed disconnected, as if he wasn’t entirely there. Red colored his skin for only a moment, a flash of crimson, before it’s gone. There’s something terrified and urgent in his eyes. “Isla, wake up.”
A swift, ragged inhale and her consciousness is slammed full force back into her body, a speeding car slamming into a cement wall. The sound of angry, incessant buzzing greeted her ears immediately and, somehow, in her half-asleep, half-drunk state, she managed to realize that it was her phone. Clumsy fingers wrestled it from the nightstand to find “Aunt Juliette” flashing across the screen. She’s about to put it down, chalking it up to a mother worried about the likely missing birthday boy, but the look in Finn’s eyes is still gnawing at her. With a glance over her shoulder to ensure that Russell was still sleeping, Isla slipped from the bed, tugging one of his sweaters over her as she went. The buzzing has picked back up again, expressing its urgency, but Isla has to stop. A deep breath, in and out, to make sure her body won’t reject the contents of the night.
“Zietta?” Her thoughts are still coming to her in Italian, a part of her still standing on the cliffs by Portofino. But the sobbing on the other end of the phone drains what’s left of her dream from her body. And with each word that her Aunt speaks, another boat sinks to the bottom of the harbor. Finn, hospital, gunshot – thump, thump, thump. Her heart is beating so loudly that she can’t hear the words on the other end of the line anymore, can’t hear her aunt calling her name. ( “Isla, are you there? Isla?” ) She can feel it – her blood boiling to coat her skin in a thick sheen of sweat, the panic rising in her chest. No, not panic. Bare feet are rushing across the floor of Russell’s apartment, carrying her to the bathroom just in time for her to collapse against porcelain and expel heaven and hell from her body. Her whole frame is shaking with the violence of each purge, as if the devil himself was dragging his pitchfork from her lungs right up to the back of her throat.
The heaving is so vehement and forceful that it takes her a moment to realize that it’s become sobbing instead. But as soon as she does, she’s standing up again, needing to keep moving. Like a shark, she has to keep moving or she’ll die. The light is on in Russell’s room when she returns – no doubt awoken by the sounds of her exorcism – but she doesn’t have time to explain. “I have to go.” She’s talking as she moves, sliding on a pair of skinny jeans that she’d left at his place, pulling on socks and boots. “I don’t have time to explain, I can’t – I have to go.” She knows that he’s talking to her, knows he’s reaching out to her, but she can’t hear him. The world sounds like it’s underwater, lost in the Portofino harbor with the rest of the shipwrecks.
She’s sure that Russell put up a fight but she doesn’t remember it. She’s been drowning with the rest of the world and now she’s resurfaced and gasping for air, standing on the street, waving down taxis in the middle of the road. She didn’t grab enough warm clothes but the cold rolls off her skin, as lost to her as everything else. What will she do? If something happens to Finn, would the vibrancy ever come back to the world? Even the brilliant yellow of a taxi cab seemed duller, more gray. So dull that she didn’t realize it had stopped beside her until the cabbie’s head was hanging outside of the window, shouting curses she would have otherwise found amusing.
She doesn’t even know where she’s going until she’s speaking the words. But just the sound of them makes the world a little lighter, if only for a moment. ( How many moments did Finn have left? ) She knows she needs to get to the hospital but she’s already standing in front of the door, drowning and resurfacing once again. Isla’s fists pounded against the wall, shaking with the strength of the tsunami she carried with her. She’s screaming – she can’t hear it, but she can feel the rawness of her throat, the strain of her vocal chords. She’s railing against the door so hard that, when it opened, she toppled forward. Two arms reached out instinctively, grapping her forearms to balance her.
“Bash.” The moment her eyes land on his blue ones ( blue like the Ligurian Sea, she realized ), the world comes flooding back. She can hear the sound of her cries, the heaviness of her breathing, the ringing of her cellphone. ( Russell? Aunt Juliette? How long had that thing been going off? ) Suddenly, the world is bright and loud and she threw herself at him, purposefully this time, hiding her eyes and her ears against him. “Bash, I…” The sobs are ripping through her chest again, his skin muffling and distorting their sound. She tries to speak, but she only continues to repeat his name. “Bash…” His arms tighten around her, lending her some of his strength, and she exhales. A long, ragged inhale. “Fuck, it’s – It’s Finn, Bash. Finn. He’s...”
But she can’t finish. She can’t say it. And the undertow drags her back down again.
