Where do I even start with this man 🙈 I've been reading a lot of Tennessee Williams and this one line in the glass menagerie really inspired Calloway, 'Go on-go to the moon you selfish dreamer!' and I'd love to twist that into a young Appalachian boy trying desperately to make something of himself, shunning those in his life to become anything but what he is!! Pre war he becomes a successful model, he's got the look down but when he tries to go into acting his accent is so thick no one will take him. After everything he's sacrificed all the people who had cared about him that he shunned and isolated it's still not enough, he just can't reach that dream. They tell him you can't sing, but you've got excellent stage presence, the talent is there if not for the country bumpkin coming through every line is whispered but perhaps a non speaking role would suit you far better is spoken to his face and it drives him up a wall! The bitterness and resentment become him ala the portrait of Dorian gray and what ever happened to baby Jane, by the time the bombs fall he's just another washed up schmuck at the end of the world 😭
local fish wife escorts former pretty boy through the Acadian wilderness, more at eleven
I think Sunshine and Calloway would be friends in the sense that she is the cookie monster pj pants girl to his only out gay boy at school walking the mile
❤️— How do they most often express their love? Verbally or through actions?
Calloway would 100% express his love through actions rather than words. A hold over from his days as a prewar playboy/thespian, talk is talk but actions? Actions are tangible and that means a hell of a lot more to him then words every could.
💛— How do they say good morning?
A Hollywood classique of a kiss to the temple and a hand on his partners shoulder, followed by a rich accented Mornin' in that Appalachian drawl :- )
💚— How do they make their partner feel better?
So Calloway is awful when it comes to making others feel better, its not that he lacks empathy he just hasn't had a lot of practice in being genuinely empathetic with others. He's awkward, fumbling around trying to comfort his partner through touch. His go to is a side hug and gently back pats!
💙— How do they say/show that they miss their partner?
Much like a typical house cat, Calloway yearns immensely for companionship and connection but would rather die than admit it. When he's missing his partner, he is morose and taken over by malaise. Anyone with working eyes can tell that this lads hurting/yearning, expect love-bombing once his partner is within reach!
Thinking about ghoulification with my four blorbos that have some level of ghoulification/radiation burns
Luz from the destruction of the enclave oil rig, burns along her face and chest that left permanent scars
Beatriz who began to ghoulify from the purify, her ghoul patches are coming in symmetrical as if it were vitiligo and not really spreading to the cartilage of head/face
Sunshine who has one massive radiation burn along her jaw and intricate scarifications that have a sickly greenish glow to them
And Calloway my sweet baby boy, I'm hesitant to even call it ghoulification it's much more similar to the burned men of new Vegas or I suppose the scorched in 76, it's sorta radiation based his skin getting fucked by the irradiated wind and is slowly growing from one side of his face outward. It also attacked the seam of his clef lip scar, killing the skin there and reopening
“ you kissed me first. “ “ i definitely didn’t. “ “ you were literally all over me. “
(with whoever you're feeling 👀💕)
I've been sitting with this in my inbox for forever but I finally sat down and cracked out a little Calloway introspective <3 The man screams angst!
He was a man starved.
The remnants of his West Virginian home offered little comfort. Nothing but a bleak reminder of his own mutilation, the wealth he once possessed nothing but moth-eaten rot and rust amongst the hickory trees. Reduced to ash and charred beyond belief the closer North one travelled. The Eclectic Era façade decaying deep within wood rot, an anachronism in this brave new world, much like him.
The dust danced across the foyer, the broken slates of the second-floor leaking sunlight courtesy of the destroyed roof. Yellowed posters of his prime grimaced between broken glass and black mold. The once grand mirror that graced the stairwell landing had been shattered beyond belief, shards of glass littering the steps amongst the crystalline remnants of the chandelier.
It was suffocating, flanked on all fronts by the destruction. Everything he had worked so hard for, snuffed out like a match in its prime. He was so close to showing the world that he had risen from the wood rot of Appalachia a better man. That he wouldn’t be suffocated in the bosom of the mountains, coal dust his powder and sweat his cologne. He was better than that, he deserved much more than the life he'd been born into.
Ironic then that he now longed for the simple comforts of home. The community, the unity, so very different than this self-imposed solitude. Even before the War, he feared hangers on would destroy his chances to excel in the theatre, so he burned every bridge he came across as his popularity swelled. He only needed the arm candy his producers would throw to him, like a seal being rewarded a fish for a trick.
His scoff echoed in the empty mansion, the building groaning in response. The wind that whistled through the bare bones of his once grand home were the only company he received since the bombs fell. Since he emerged from the shelter tucked snug within the very mountain range his family toiled in.
Alone.
Always alone.
“They would only hold me back,” His voice a rasp against the silence, barely audible past the howling winds.
His skin ached, the scar left over from the clef in his lip seemed to tingle against the irradiated wind. He traced it absentmindedly, it seemed much thicker as of late, pulling at his lips and pulsating red hot against his fingers.
The action was soothing, it reminded him briefly of the time right before he had hit it big, just getting his foot in the door of theatre. He was just a boy then, barely a youth of nineteen. He had thought he was in love.
Johnny had been a model that ran around the same bars and clubs as the theater stars. The two had been introduced in passing and the young man he once was had been smitten. The two were inseparable then, witty banter quickly turned to sidelong glances between sets and behind the scenes. The modeling agency eventually brought the two together for a cross promotion shoot.
What a fool he’d been.
Johnny had kissed him within his dressing room after the shoot, and for a moment the two men were the only two in the world. Everything had led up to this moment, he finally felt like he belonged. Warm and safe in his lovers embrace, backlit by tacky vanity lights and smelling of linen and woodsmoke. This was bliss, and for one agonizingly sweet moment it all felt right.
A glimmer to the right caught his attention then, just as Johnny propped him against the wall of the dressing room. A gold wedding band fit snug against the ring finger of his left hand. His heart sank as Johnny broke the kiss, confused at what had captivated his partner.
When he had noticed his partners steely gaze on the offending wedding band, Johnny shushed him before cupping his face towards his once more.
Shame burned his face scarlet, creeping down his neck and burning under his collar. He was roughly the same size as Johnny, maybe a touch taller, lean muscles locking up as he shoved the older man off and away.
“You’re married.” It was a statement, monotone as the rage and shame mixed within his chest. How dare he toy with him like this?
“What’s the issue?” Johnny had scoffed, combing his disheveled hair with the palm of his hand, “You kissed me first.”
He felt his heart skip a beat. The heat radiating from his checks was palpable as he shook.
“I definitely did not.”
“You were literally all over me.”
Johnny said it with such a bored, practiced ease that it set his jaw on edge. How many young starlets had been spoon fed the same line after the realization? How many cared enough to stop?
Johnny leaned in closer, “Who’re they gonna believe? Some little mediocre Podunk actor no one can understand or-“
He never knew what Johnny was going to say next, at that very moment all the rage he’d felt for being shamed by someone he thought had loved him had taken control. He beat into him till his knuckles bled and then some more after that. At some point a producer had come to investigate the noise and it had taken several crew members to pull him off of Johnny.
It didn’t take long after for the scandal to reach the general public, printed out in bold letters and gossiped about on the local radio stations. Local Appalachian boxing some big-name New York model so bad he’d knocked the man unconscious in his own dressing room.
News of the rivalry was all the community could talk about for years after. He had taken solace in the whole affair once he learned from his fellow actors just how sleazy the man was.
Though, he supposes none of that matters now. For all he knows they’re all dead in the wastes somewhere. Remnants of the past, rotting beneath the stage they’d once commanded.
And, here he was, alone in the rot of his once grand manor. Irradiated wind chilling him to his core and whispering amongst the wood rot and decay. Reminiscing such a shameful experience from his youth just to taste the connection he had briefly shared with another. Sating the starvation, if only for a moment, with one memory at a time.
