THE COSMOS IS WITHIN US

“We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” Thomas Blue. Twenty Five. Leap Of Death.

[thomasxblue-blog]

coeurdeliion:

Milly recognized the voice and she could practically feel her eyes roll so hard that the stuck in the back of her head, giving her an immediate headache. “And give you the perfect opportunity to kill me and make it look like an accident? I would never.” She scoffed, looking at the hopeless romantic with squinted eyes. If she could slice his vocal chords, ridding him of all of that boyish charm she would in a heartbeat, but she knew that would just be the cherry on top of the childish sundae that was her and Thomas’ relationship. It was hard to act like an adult around a kid, after all. Funny coming from the woman who many times temporarily dyed his eyebrows and hair random colors to make him look a fool during his act.

“I know the view like the back of my hand. Remember, little one, I helped create it.” Her tone was so sickly condescending that even Bella would say something if she heard her. Not only was he in the way of Bella’s happiness, but he was also in the way of Milly’s. It was hard enough being in love with your best friend without her ex boyfriend getting in the way every time she tried to breathe. At least, that was how Milly saw it. She crossed her arms, suddenly a smirk washed over her features. “I would be careful, though. Heard someone was having trouble fixing the springs of your trampoline this morning. Wouldn’t want them to snap beneath you, now would we?”

Milly O’Malley. Part of him hates the way he feels when he’s around her: something vicious and ugly and distinctly non-princely. Mostly, however, he just hates her. “You’re projecting,” he says, sing-song, like that might disguise the disdain in his face when he looks at her. The jealousy that he feels for anyone who is permitted to get closer to Bella than he is currently allowed. “That’s not my game.”

Every story needs a villain, a dragon that Thomas will slay on the way to win and woo his princess, but he looks at Milly and can’t bring himself to see a worthy opponent—not for Bella’s heart, at least, though her methods of combat are certainly formidable, more deadly than Thomas’ own. But for Bella to end up with Milly would be absurd—that’s not how the stories go. It would be as absurd as Thomas riding off into the sunset with Rolf. It isn’t going to happen. She threatens him, blatantly, and then his lip does curl, revealing his teeth. He wishes that he had thought to pull his phone out of his pocket, record her, show it to Bella and make her see: Milly is more terrifying in her so-called love than Thomas was in his much truer kind. And, in the end, Bella will see that, he’s sure—Thomas is a lover, but he is determined not to be a tragic one, for his story to go the right way, and that means that the villains are punished and the heroes are rewarded and, well, Thomas knows which one he is. “You’re sick,” he says, finally, with all the weight of his judgement, covering up the frisson of real fear he feels at her words. “You really think you can hide that? You really think that she’ll never see it?”

[thomasxblue-blog]

brooklynstorm:

The only thing more fantastic than the parties is how quickly they’re cleaned up, and where there had one been blood and vomit, there was silver pouring from the ceiling and white snow lining the floors. People were scurrying about, hurrying to get ready for tonight, and he really only succeeded in getting in their way. He wasn’t even prepping for his show, he just had nowhere else to go. Cirque was the one thing Brooklyn showed anything that resembled passion for, and maybe there was an aspect of him that  was certainly tied to it but he wasn’t his father, and he wasn’t his brother either. Try as he may, the circus had never been home for Brooklyn, he didn’t have one of those but the closest thing he did have would be here, at Cirque. Doesn’t appear to be looking for anyone, doesn’t stop to ask passersby if they’ve seen him, just wanders aimlessly through this underground.

Unsure of where the voice came from, he looks around a little half-heartedly as though he wouldn’t be bothered to not find the owner. His eyes are drawn upwards, though, and they land on golden boy Blue. He can’t help but wonder if Thomas knows who he’s calling to. “Nah, thanks some of us like to keep our heads outta the sky.”

Once, Thomas reached for the stars because he was born with the world already at his feet, already conquered for him, and they were another kingdom. Now, the foundation underneath him has been shaken, his grip on his silver ladder more unsteady, and he looks to them for something different: escape. The Circus is much the same, grasping onto a sense of childlike wonder that he’d once had for his life, chasing after an elusive something more. He’d once thought his more ordinary world had been full of magic, and his impending adulthood had taken that from him: with a post-it note, with a citation.

If Brooklyn Fowler is magic, it is a kind that Thomas wants no part of. It is too dark for his taste, too ugly. Thomas will keep his perch in the stars, will be a Prince in his winter palace to Brooklyn’s sharper edges, blood spilled red in white snow. Thomas laughs. It is, appropriate for his position and for Brooklyn’s words, an airy sound. Nonchalance is a trait inherited in Blue blood, and it’s easy to call upon when Brooklyn is so far from him, so below him—even as his words could be taken as a challenge, as bait. “You juggle swords, don’t tell me you’re scared of heights.”

[thomasxblue-blog]

patelkristof:

Why did he have to make everything so somber? He knew how to take a nothing day and turn it into a gloomy day. It was just part of who he was now. He was more than ready for the performance to begin, not wanting to wait much longer. His head looked up as he heard a voice, unsure of who it belonged to. Who would even be up? 

“That doesn’t seem like such a good idea.” Kristof replied, trying to bring attention to his cane, even though he hated to do so. “I’m pretty sure the view’s better down here. You should probably come down here.” He shrugged, not caring what Thomas did either way. 

It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened before: Thomas puts his foot in it. Ah well, he thinks to himself ruefully, can’t win them all. There’s a part of him, ever the showman, ever the adrenaline-hound, that thinks about leaping from his platform—but he thinks, a moment later, of all the times the Cirque’s various shadow workers have warned him against doing just that, how he can’t know for sure that his trampoline and his padding are in place. Part of him is just lazy—he climbs up his ladder often, but he hardly ever climbs down.

But he does so now, hand under hand and foot under foot, until he lands at the foot of the ladder and with his feet on the ground, facing Kristof. He must admit, at least to himself, that he finds him hard to look at, even as a more compassionate part of him understands why he might feel so drawn to the circus, the escape and the magic it promises. “You’re early,” he says, an easy smile curling his mouth. “Looking for a glimpse behind the curtain before the show starts?”

[thomasxblue-blog]

iceprincessisa:

She’d spent the morning moping about, glassy eyes hidden behind a pair of huge Prada sunglasses that don’t usually leave the case. No pot of coffee was enough to perk her up, and no bottle of water was enough to keep her pounding headache at bay. It had simply subsided slowly as she spent significant amounts of Christmas money along Fifth Ave. 

Isa meandered into Cirque earlier than usual; she’d had a rare day to herself following the party and didn’t have Rose and Lily around to coax her into splitting a bottle of Dom with them in her suite before they went down to get into costume. It always felt like home to Isa down here, familiar. A slight chill 

“Who’s the view, Thomas?” Isa called up with a smirk, her finger nail trailing up her coffee cup, “Me or you?” Months of teasing Lily about how “nervous” their brother made Rose and her had become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, and Isa actually found herself hyperaware whenever the other Blue sibling was around. 

But Isa abandoned her coffee cup and shoes at the bottom of the ladder anyway, and started climbing. Climbing down ladders was something she did on a near-nightly basis, skates thrown over her shoulder and the small strings that lifted her onto a high platform disappearing above her. As she approached Thomas, though, she realised that climbing up was a whole other story. Isa pulled herself onto the platform, legs shaking and hands more clammy than she would have expected, waiting a few moments before she had the strength to pull herself into a sitting position – legs straddling the platform so she couldn’t fall backwards – and exhaled. 

“Thought you might appreciate the view more if she came up here to join you.” 

Coming to New York an only child—(and, ostensibly, despite his continued boyish indiscretions, an adult)—he hadn’t expected his father’s remarriage to change him unduly, to encroach upon the independence his parents had granted him from a young age. He hadn’t expected to think much of Lily at all, something he’s unsure he’s ever quite told her, and he certainly hadn’t expected the two of them to become nearly-inseparable. 

Stranger, too, is how that seemed to multiply, because his sister, when she isn’t with him, is part of the three-headed creature of Isa, Lily, and Rose. And Thomas had seen that for the opportunity it was, expanding the teasing of his sister onto her two friends, unerring showing up whenever he could while they were together, inserting himself into their conversations—and, it couldn’t be denied, flirting. It’s his default setting.   

(But Isa, of course, is more than just Lily’s best friend. Thomas is not unaware of the petty rivalry between Bella and Isa, and every time he talks to Isa he has to resist the urge to crane his head around to see if Bella is there, if she notices, if she’s as jealous as Isa had been when Bella put on her skates. He can only hope that she would be.)

“We can both be the view,” he says, magnanimously, leaning back on his hands as he watches Isa ascend the ladder up to his small portion of this Empire. It’s slow going, and when she settles she seems to do so very carefully. “Scared?” Thomas asks, teasing. And then adds, with the ease of a line used many times before—“Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”

[thomasxblue-blog]

There’s something about the circus in its in-between stages—after last night’s party, before tonight’s performance—that feels forbidden. More than that, it feels lush with potential, like some great sleeping creature waiting to take a big, deep breath, the kind that will shake the entire world. And Thomas, of course, is giddy in a boyish way at the feeling of peering behind the curtain, unraveling the magic, being a part of it all.  And there’s a particular romance to the Winter Circus, like living inside of a snowglobe, Thomas tumbling and falling when it’s shaken and shaken again. Down here, the snow is fake and all the better because of it. It stays pristine, unlike the slush that lines the streets above. 

The best place to survey it all? Atop the platform that he will fall from later tonight, seats full and crowd rapt, Thomas defying death and stealing breath, doing it again and again, a trick that has yet to get old. It has gotten more comfortable, he gravitates towards ledges without fear now, dangling his feet over the edge a serenity he can find nowhere else. He isn’t selfish, though. A feeling so grant must be shared, and so when he sees a figure down below, he calls down to them. “Care to join me? The view’s great, I promise.”

[czernys]

We toss love around like confetti; We drizzle ourselves in stardust.

cosmic children / star notes #4 / c.o (via heartenders)

[thomasxblue-blog]

bella aka the girl thomas loved/loves, rose and isa aka the girls who keep thomas' ego stroked ahem, lily aka the girl that cringes the ENTIRE time

BELLA: If you could bring any one of your dreams to life, which would it be?

It’s appropriate, because the dream that Thomas would most like to bring to life is Bella herself, the kind of fairytale love that Thomas has been so prolific in imagining but so unable to bring fully to life. (The kind of love that he thought his parents had had.) Where he is a prince, perfect in all the ways he wishes to be; and she is a princess, his princess, and does not run from him.

ROSE: How far would you go to get whatever your heart desires?

A lover is a knight, willing to fight for love; he who is not does not deserve love at all. Thomas, so sure of his righteousness, so sure that he is the hero in his own story, his quest noble and his purpose just, will go to great lengths to achieve his heart’s desire—maybe, as time will tell, too far. 

ISABELLA: What do you think makes you great? Were you born this way?

Thomas’ greatness is something he was born with, because his greatness is in his name. Blue. Born with a silver spoon and blue blood, though Thomas has always had his head in the clouds—(or in the stars)—his feet have remainedfirmly earthbound, anchored to the steps of the Blues before him, a path leading inexorably on to renown, prestige, and greatness. Whatever pieces of himself that do not fit into that mold he ruthlessly quashes, or indulges only in secret.

LILY: If you could be anyone else for a whole week, who would you be and why?

There are not many that Thomas envies, and so if he were to be someone else it would not be for the purposes of being them, but instead for understanding them. His father, so he might know all the more deeply the shoes he is supposed to fill, the man he is supposed to be; Bella, so he might understand her fear, and better soothe it; Lily herself, beloved but strange, possessed of a love of the darkness that Thomas has never had nor known.

[pestilcnts]

– ** CIRQUE ASK MEME

THEO: If you could change one thing about your past, what would it be?

ORLA: Do you believe in life after death?

FIERA: What does family mean to you?

LILY: If you could be anyone else for a whole week, who would you be and why?

BRETT: Do you think it’s better to be feared or loved?

KRISTOF: If you could instantly learn one skill, without needing any practice, what would it be?

ZARA: What would you like to be most well known for?

ELLA: Are you happy with where you are in life right at this moment?

ARIES: Would you rather stand alone in an immovable spotlight, or share the spotlight with people you could call family?

ADINA: If life were a fairy tale, would you be the damsel or the monster?

GEMMA: How do you feel about your family?

CRYSTAL: If you could start over in a new city, with a new identity, and a completely clean slate, would you?

BELLA: If you could bring any one of your dreams to life, which would it be?

CALEB: How would you, if given the chance, satiate your appetite for adventure?

THOMAS: How easy is it for you to say ‘I love you’? Have you ever said it without meaning it?

LILING: What would you consider to be your worst memory?

SOLEDAD: Do you believe in the idea that behind every great man is an even greater woman?

BROOKLYN: How do you normally deal with confrontation?

THANE: What are your vices?

ROLF: Do you believe that pleasure and pain go hand in hand?

PRIYA: What does ‘beauty’ mean to you?

CLARA: What would you say to your parents, should they appear before you now? Would you speak to them at all?

ROSE: How far would you go to get whatever your heart desires?

PRISCILLA: Do you think that love is worth dying for?

ARIA: What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told?

MILLY: Do you consider yourself an idealist, or a cynic?

LUCIEN: Do you believe in predestination? Or do you believe we create our own fates?

AANYA: What would you consider to be the most pivotal moment in your life?

BRIE: If you could relive any period of your life, forever or only once, which date would you return to?

AMBER: How d you think you are regarded by your peers?

GORDON: What is your proudest memory?

HADES: Do you believe, in theory, that you belong in Heaven or Hell? Why?

ALICE: If you could become a character in any piece of literature, who would you choose, and why?

CASSIUS: If you were made to wear a mask every day, what would it look like? Or, who would it look like?

BRADLEY: What’s the worst, or best, secret you’ve ever kept?

ISABELLA: What do you think makes you great? Were you born this way?

[thomasxblue-blog]

☺♣☼↕

Send me ☺ for a loving/affectionate textYou know you’re my favorite thing about New York, right?Send me  ♣ for a drunk text

Don’t wait up ;)

Send me ☼ for a morning text

You think I could ask Parker to write me a Doctor’s note so I can get out of my lecture? “Sorry, Thomas could not attend today, was up too late last night performing death-dying feats under /your/ feet”

Send me ↕ for a scared/worried text

So you’re either dead in a ditch or out having fun but PLEASE TELL ME WHICH

[roleplayermemes]

Texting Meme:

Send me ☺ for a loving/affectionate text

Send me  ♣ for a drunk text

Send me ♥ for a sexual/naughty text

Send me !! for a threatening text

Send me ☼ for a morning text

Send me ?? for a strange/vague text

Send me ► for a text not meant for you

Send me ↕ for a scared/worried text

[thomasxblue-blog]

invisiblebluelily:

If she hadn’t been in such a bad mood, Lily knew she wouldn’t have said it. It was a low blow to comment on his drinking when the night was full of overflowing glasses and giggling drunks. Their little game had rules which they both sought to follow and she had, in essence, broken the biggest one. She never said anything about the flask that he kept in his pocket and only removed at night when the stars were bouncing off of it, and when she excused herself from the table night after night to go smoke a cigarette or three, he kept his mouth shut. There were other rules too, ones that had manifested over time, but that was the only one that she really thought mattered. Just when she thought he was going to leave her to walk off on her own after her comment, she felt his arm slip through hers. 

Lily braced herself for any number of comments that she imagined could be thrown her way, but instead she was let off easy. She scoffed her laughter and rolled her eyes. “I’m not being a brat,” she protested, voice raising in pitch much in the way that a child’s might, betraying her words. She almost called him unfair for saying so, but decided quickly that her hypocrisy would be better left tucked away into the deep recesses of her mind for the rest of the night. “I know it’s a party, but walking is good for the mind, for the soul,” she said, over dramatizing her tone with a large gesture of her free hand before smirking at him in an attempt to lighten the air between them, which felt rather tense.

In all things, they are a study in opposites. His light, her dark. His excess, her scarcity. She, who has been hurt the most by her mother’s presence—and him, who has been hurt most by his own mother’s absence.But his mother had never been like Lily’s. He had thought he was the apple of her eye up until the moment she left. He had thought his life was perfect, until that moment. It has not reached such perfection since—and, since he can no longer look at his own life through a child’s rose-tinted glasses, he will fashion his own. Everything looks better through the soft-focus of his own intoxication. There are times when he thinks that, were they not made step-siblings and forced together, he never would have stopped to look at Lily—and he never would have known what a wonderful thing he was missing.

Somehow, he seems to think of it most when she’s being especially annoying. “You’re always being a brat,” he retorts, but there’s no real heat behind it, anymore, like he’s reading from a script he’d picked up somewhere along the way: long-suffering older brother. He plays roles often: scholar, son, lover, prince—but he’d never expected, when he’d picked up his life in England to move to New York, how much fun this particular role would be. “I can feel my soul lightening now,” he says, happy to play along now that the subject is not himself and his habits. “Is there anything in particular you’re walking off?”

[anakkin]

Q: what is love? A: madness in the form of roses.

withered love letters | a.w. (via katewisnlet)

[thomasxblue-blog]

invisiblebluelily:

Lily rolled her eyes at his comment. He would bring up bad habits to her. She plucked the unlit cigarette from her mouth and tucked it back into its specified pack out of the two that she had on her. “I suppose you’re right. I’d ask you to have a drink with me instead, but I don’t want to try and ask you how many you’ve already had tonight,” she shot back with a similarly sweet smile, though hers was far more tensed than she originally intended. It had already been long enough since she had smoked that it was beginning to irritate her. She knew her step brother meant well enough, but that wasn’t what she needed from him tonight. She had little time for his good intentions when it came to her health tonight. Any other night it might not have bothered her as much, but she was already on edge from the arrival of the Venetian troupe and her inability to smoke wasn’t helping. 

“Perhaps you’d be so kind as to join me on a walk then?” she asked, not even waiting for an answer before she swept along the wall, glancing over her shoulder only once to see that he was following her. Despite being the younger of the two, Lily enjoyed trying to pull him along as if he was not four years her senior.

It takes him by surprise, even though it shouldn’t, his step sister has always been more thorn than rose, and despite Thomas’ penchant for beauty above all things, it’s one of the things he likes about her most. Maybe it’s that he feels they have an unspoken agreement: there are so many times that Thomas has bitten his tongue, so many things that he’s wanted to say and not said, so much concern that has gone unvoiced. So many times he’s seen her smoking on their balcony, silhouetted and looking, to Thomas’ eye at least, so sad and so alone. There’s so much they see about each other that no one else sees—but that doesn’t mean that they talk about it.

And, pricked by her words despite the sweet smiling veneer, he conjures up and discards half a dozen kneejerk responses, settling instead on a throaty laugh, head tossed back as if to disguise the fact that it’s hollow at its core—he’s hardly amused at all. “It’s a party, Lils,” he whines, taking long strides to catch up to her as she walks off without him, winding his arm gallantly through hers once he’s there. “I’d be honored,” he says, as if he hasn’t already joined her. A beat, and then: “even if you are a complete brat.”

[wardrobemalfunctioned]

[priyaduchovny-blog]

It always happens this way — - Priya arrives all grass-stained freedom and star-light height, and they want to tie her down. It’s a condition of her countenance, a side-effect of her self. She comes in on the arm of the devil with champagne fizzle in her voice and money under her tongue (snatched from Daisy Buchanan, who can be spotted watching with envy from the corner).

So, here she is. In diamonds and pearls and feathers, and a knot of three gentleman’s ties binding her wrists behind her back. The men around her watch on with some kind of lascivious love, the pretty thing tied up by their honour in their shadow, but Priya only smiles – a ghost of a thing, but it’s there nonetheless. Her gaze rebounds to the one watching her hands curiously.

“Go on, tighten it. Add more, if you like.” She encourages, turning to make a gift of her back. “Approche-toi - make sure it’s knotted.”

“Then raise your glass - I’ve made a bet that I can escape before your lips take the last drop.”

[thomasxblue-blog]

So often he’s the boy with his head in the clouds—or, more accurately, in the stars. Standing on his platform above the crowd, waiting to make his swan dive down to earth. It’s up there that he’s special—down here he’s nothing so celestial, just one among the rest of the mere mortals, marveling at everyone else’s magic. He had been meant to be a spectator: seated in the audience next to his father, just one of many wealthy men escaping into the world of the circus for a night. But Thomas had been too hungry for that—he’d wanted something more in his life, and he hadn’t known what that something more was until he had set foot in the circus. And now, he’ll never be content to be a spectator again. And nor will he pass up the opportunity to make himself a participant in Priya’s trick.

He steps up, tugging one-by-one at the ties knotted around her slender wrists. His own tie stays snugly at his throat: it’s a bow tie, and it’s meager length would not do much to bind her more tightly. “They are,” he confirms, voice raised to carry at the crowd that gathering around Priya, waiting for the conclusion of the show. He feels buoyant, lifted effortlessly up on champagne effervescence. Feels like there’s no way for him to lose—and though he would not necessarily bet against her, quickly draining glasses is one of Thomas’ special talents, and one that he’s practiced several times over already tonight. When he speaks, his lips brush against the glass rim, held at the ready just shy of his mouth. “On three, then?”

[invisiblebluelily-blog]

Winter— when the days get shorter and the snow reflects light in every direction it can, sparkling light a diamond necklace, black ice causing danger wherever it has decided to take up its residence. And Le Cirque has always done winter so beautifully. Lily watched with ice blue eyes from the wall of the Champagne Room, watching as couples danced with one another to the loud and bouncing swing, giggling and throwing their heads back. She lifted her cigarette to her mouth and reached into the pocket of her dress for her little black zippo, cupping a hand over the end and trying to light the damn thing. When it wouldn’t go, she turned to the person beside her, “Considering it’s the 1920′s tonight, I don’t suppose you’ve got a lighter that works?” and slipped hers back into her pocket, pulling her long red hair back over her shoulder, smoothing the curls slightly as she raised an eyebrow in question.

[thomasxblue-blog]

“Sorry, Lils, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” his smile starts off wide and become smaller, something more private and more fond. “Besides, it’s a terrible habit.” It’s a strange thing, still, to have a sister: Lily is more acquainted with Thomas’ many hypocrisies than anyone else has ever been. Because Thomas, himself, is a social smoker: sharing cigarettes with other graduate students outside the Columbia library as they complain about their workloads, puffing on cigars with his father at the country club, those too-rare and becoming rarer times when they actually feel like they’re on the same plane. But it is true that he never has a lighter, or a carton of cigarettes or cigar of his own—those he relies on others to provide for him.

Or perhaps, more than hypocrisy, there’s a very simple explanation for Thomas’ teasing displeasure: whenever Lily has a cigarette in Thomas’ presence, 90% of the smoke seems to end up in his face—just yet another unexpected joy that came with having a step sister, and one he actually liked enough to put up with it.

[thefoxwrites]

THOMAS BLUE ♠ THE ROMEO

By day he is a gentleman and a scholar, gallant smiles and held-open doors and a handshake his father taught him, passed down from Blue to Blue. He is bent low over textbooks in a dusty corner of Columbia’s imposing library, glasses perched on his nose as he fills up a Moleskine with painstaking handwritten notes, a Hemingway of the stars.

He is that: scholar, gentleman, heir. But he is this, too: lover, dreamer, a boy with constellations in his eyes and stars in his heart. From London to New York, he straddles continents. From the hallowed halls of Columbia to the equally sacred old train tunnels of the Cirque Empire, he straddles worlds. The Circus hums in his blood: once he saw it, he had to be a part of it. He wants beauty like terror, love like a kiss with teeth—he wants them both to be heart-stopping, life-changing, devastating.