#sweetbittr

[withbeastsarc]

@sweetbittr​ liked x. 

            there are very few people that andrew will show a broken side to;  of course,  his mother and father had seen it more often when he was younger,  but nowadays he didn’t like to worry them.  ellie,  of course,  but then she would worry herself far too much too.  isabel never let him get away with anything  --  she was too quick with her words,  too smart for him to just smile and pretend like it was all fine. 

           “  --  how do you manage everything so easy?  “  

[wristful]

“ you’re still coming over for dinner tonight, right? “ / stevie and ellie

BEFORE.

the original plan is to get andrew, head to the skatepark and see what this fine saturday morning has in store for two sixteen year old boys; technically, he's still grounded for getting caught skipping biology, but mom had a last minute emergency at the base and dad is away on a trip so. who's to know if stevie takes a little sideways tour? and this would all go to plan except for the follow: andrew isn't home and ellie is and lately, things between them have been... interesting. different.

it had started about three months ago at movie night at his house. andrew had fallen asleep and they'd just been making fun of some totally stupid b-list horror movie, messing around, and then out of nowhere. they'd kissed. suddenly. quickly. a peck really, completely chaste. but it hadn't stayed that way: two weeks later, they'd ended up kissing in the garage while looking for soda while their respective families had dinner inside. and then again at school, under the bleachers.

it's new and exciting and when stevie shows up to an empty house and ellie invites him in -- well. well.

and the kissing is incredible, it's mind blowing, it's enough to completely turn his brain smooth with zero thought to when anyone might be due home or if he should be getting home (he's sixteen, for god's sake, he's only human). but then the stairs creek and. oh.

oh fuck.

ellie practically launches herself halfway across her room and stevie scrambles over himself to grab his tshirt from the floor and his shoes from under the bed and beelines to the window -- falling out of it and landing with all the grace of a bowling ball. from the window, ellie leans out (flushed red and so unbelievably pretty) and says you're still coming over for dinner tonight, right?

PRESENT.

you're still coming over for dinner tonight, right? she says it without really looking at him; she's looking at a spot over his shoulder and doesn't really seem to be expecting an answer, mouth downturned, frown in place. he's late. very late. too late to see the show or comment on the great job the gallery did or ask about any of the paintings or even see any of them. they're stood on the street with her back to the darkened gallery where the cleaners are starting to put the place back to rights. he can see people milling around and shifting things, taking some of the artwork down for packaging. it must have gone well.

his flowers are battered from the wind and rain - he'd run halfway across midtown to the last flower shop that was open in the area. the suit he's wearing doesn't fit. he reeks of cigarette smoke and beer.

he's really late. "-- i'm so sorry i missed it."

AFTER.

there are a few stragglers from the game who are thinning out and he can hear a few familiar voices; he's been cornered by one of the teachers who want to know about using the community centre for a fundraiser - for the kids who can't go to the camp, pastor steve, you know it's such an important cause and we really could use your support - and almost misses ridley on his way out. stevie ducks the conversation with a sure, thing and darts out to the floor.

willow is talking excitedly on the way out the door with andrew and izzy, dolling out offered high fives, and will is meandering in the background nearby.

stevie misses the conversation except the tail end of you're still coming over for dinner tonight, right? and though ridley nods, he wonders if there won't be a last minute emergency. stevie shakes his hand anyway and gives his brother a quick hug and when their backs are turned, far enough away, stevie kisses her. "don't worry, i can put laxatives in his sauce."

[feralego]

@ruinaa / @sweetbittr sent: five times luz and theo almost fought, and one time they did

1.

It’s easier to leave than to fight. Experience has taught her this lesson time and time again. And by the time their first real fight primes itself to erupt after a long, tension filled day, Luz does just that. 

It is not subtle. She sees him open his mouth to speak, senses they’ve passed the tipping point, and she vanishes: fading out of view, throwing open the front door, and bolting out into the night with no plan and no shoes.

Two days later, she returns. They don’t speak of the argument that hadn’t happened, and Theo pretends not to watch as she rebandages a wound on the ball of her foot. He restocks their medkit the next day, and leaves a pair of slip on shoes by the door for her.

2.

Days come and go in which she thinks it would be better for the both of them if they went their own separate ways. The reasoning is not always sound, but when it is, sometimes she finds herself waiting and watching. Looking for something to pick at; to pull up a tab and expose it all.

It is one of those days, and she is fixated on the fact that he’d absently left the coffee pot on for too long and the liquid had scorched itself dry into the bottom of the carafe. A saboteur in her head tells her this malicious carelessness; that it’s a sign of a bad partner or friend or housemate or whatever the hell they even are to each other; that he is thoughtless about her belongings and their shared space, and thus must be thoughtless about her.

She bites her tongue, waiting for him to bring it up. To apologize for something she’s not even brought to his attention. And every time she looks at him, she gets a little angrier about it.

But eventually, he gets up to go to the kitchen for a refill, and the desire to fight about it crumbles when she hears him curse in his grumbly tone as he pulls the carafe from the warming plate and begins the task of scrubbing it out himself before he starts a new batch.

Her face is as red as her hair when he returns with a freshly brewed cup for the both of them, ashamed at what she’d almost started–and perhaps ended, if she’d listened to that little voice–so needlessly.

3.

The bar they’re in is a little seedy, a little dark, a little grimy, but so is the entirety of the small town they’ve stopped in for the night. And Theo doesn’t particularly want to be there, but doesn’t want Luz to be there alone. So he is seated in a torn up booth seat, narrowly avoiding accidentally snagging his best pair of jeans on a protruding spring, and his empty beer bottles are taking up more and more space on the table as he watches her dance.

She makes eye contact with him through the smoky haze every now and again, gesturing for him to join her on the dance floor, but he holds firm in his refusal. On her fifth attempt to get him up, she tries something else without fully thinking it through.

Still moving with the music, she makes her way across the floor to another lone man sitting off to the side, and holds out her hand in invitation. And when he takes it, she shoots a pointed look over to Theo.

This could have been you, it says. This should have been you.

But he is already on his feet, shrugging into his jacket, and laying cash down on the table. He’s leaving. And Luz has a choice to make: have her fun now and face the music later, or leave with the man she’d really wanted to dance with.

She makes the right call, abandoning the stranger on the scuffed dance floor to grab Theo’s sleeve on his way out to the car and to apologize for dragging him there in the first place.

They don’t speak on the drive back to the rundown highway motel. Or as they pack up their things to continue their journey in the morning. She’d almost rather they fight about it, but she’s too afraid of what it might uncover.

4.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and Luz is a little wine drunk by the time Theo gets back to their double queen suite with bags of takeout, shaking the snow off his winter coat in the little kitchenette. Which is awfully close to the bathroom, where the door is cracked open and Luz is sitting in the whirlpool bath with her wine.

She smiles at him and pulls a hand from the water to blow a palm full of bubbles at him.

“It's about time you got back,” she teases him, laughing to herself about the expression on his face. “When I said I was hungry, that’s not what I meant.”

The food goes uneaten, thrown haphazardly onto the counter.

Hours later, she thinks about arguing that it hadn’t happened after he acknowledges the forgotten dinners when they’ve both dried off and dozed off for a bit. But they are still tangled up together on one bed, under the same covers, and what would be the point? They’ve done this too many times now to keep denying it as vehemently as she has in the past.

Instead, she just gets up and reheats the meals in the microwave and returns to Theo’s bed, where they refuel after their earlier exploits, and then drift off to sleep again.

5.

Luz has done many a stupid thing that’s gone and gotten her hurt, and Theo has had saintlike patience with her through most of it. But the tables have turned, and Luz is unsteady as Theo lumbers in through the door with blood soaking through his shirt.

Panic tightens her chest, her throat; it races in her mind as she works with shaky hands to patch him up and tries to get the story of what had happened out of him.

She is terrified of what could have happened if the puncture had been any deeper, or come any closer to his heart, his lungs. She is terrified of losing him to the same violence they’ve sworn themselves into. And when she is done with the wound care, she opens her mouth to start in on him. To hypocritically ream him for his foolishness.

But he’s fallen asleep under her care, and he needs his rest.

6.

This is it.

Luz Carrey has a locked desk drawer full of treatment pamphlets and medical bills, a bleak prognosis, and she wants to make this easy on him. She wants to make this easy on him, because despite how he presents himself, she knows what is behind that gruff, rugged exterior. She knows that facade is there to protect something, just as her own outward self does.

And she loves him enough that she can’t stand the thought of him mourning her when the treatments stop delaying the inevitable. She’d rather end things now so that he can be well on his way to being over her when she’s truly gone.

Isn’t that a kindness? All things considered?

So she picks an asinine fight like that old voice in her head always wanted to. She picks a fight on their first afternoon alone together in over a week–after dodged texts and endlessly rescheduled plans–and it seems as though he’s in the mood to fight as well, because he jumps in with his own complaints and concerns about her absent and shadowy behavior in the past few weeks, months.

Full of fatigue and no small amount of regret, she has trouble keeping up her end of the spat. What had started with such ire peters out after just a few rebuttals, and it's not long before she’s shaking with the burden of it all. It’s not long before she begins to consider giving him the truth; explaining what’s been going on and where it’s headed.

But she is in too deep now, she assures herself, nearly swaying on her feet but unwilling to let him see, so she demands that he leave despite his points eventually winning their argument and nearly winning her confession.

She is gone when Theo comes back, her locked drawer emptied and her closet picked through.

And for years, she does not return; does not call.

[wthwolvesar]

@sweetbittr​ liked ( x ). 

          it isn’t ellie who finds him,  though he wishes that it was.  isabel had been firm from an early age in how she spoke things;  she didn’t want them sugar coated for anyone’s sake,  and andrew could always go to her when he needed a good reality check.  (  maybe if ridley had stuck around,  she could have got to him in time,  instead of whatever bullshit he kept trying to make up.  ) 

        but he didn’t want to hear reality right now.  the only saving grace is that it wasn’t mom. 

          she looks at him.  he looks like shit.  just fucking say it  --  “  i’m gonna kick you out if there’s a lecture.  “  he slurs his words,  just slight.  “  m’  not in the mood.  “ 

[fazyluny]

@sweetbittr. 

           he sneaks through the halls late at night.  mama and daddy are at the hospital overnight with ellie,  but they promised that she was fine,  that they just had to stay so she could keep sleeping.  but her bed was empty and elliot was on the couch and he wanted his older sister. 

           “  izzy?  “  he peeks through the door,  trying to see if she was fast asleep or still awake.  “  the shadows scared me.  “ 

[withbeastsarc]

@sweetbittr​.

          “  he’ll eat you whole.  “ 

[withbeastsarc]

@sweetbittr​.

          “  ‘course i’m fine.  “ 

[wristful]

@ruinaa​ / @sweetbittr​ said “don’t be fucking rude.” / for will from isabel

       if ridley were here, he would mouth who is that and gesture at the phone and stomp off in a huff when will mouths back isabel. but ridley isn’t here, because ridley needs time to think and will wants to scream into the abyss what is there to fucking think about! when izzy calls he almost doesn’t pick up. he’s got marika hackman on and chinese food (tofu because will has decided to wallow and carbs are phenomenal to wallow with) and some awful trash tv show charlee and dad are obsessed with. 

      “  if this is going to turn into a lecture, i’m not interested.  “    he says immediately into the phone. he texted her, told her what happened, that he’d asked ridley to move to washington and had the cold shoulder ever since and questioned his mistake, if this whole thing was a mistake, and then it got into a sad, rambling pity party speech about not being good enough. 

it wasn’t his finest moment. 

    don’t be fucking rude she says open your front door, jackass is what she says next. and when will does go to his front, she’s stood there and complaining about how d.c. is freezing.