he laughs dryly, just a hint of actually amusement coming through. “no worries, nothing ever get to my head, i thought you knew that?” he looked at him waiting for him to get up and pick his things. “let’s take your car.”
“that’s not what that---” he spoke, a brow raised slightly, unsure of whether this was a genuine misunderstanding or just ollie playing up his own stupidity. gathering the papers and clipping them back into their respective folders, making sure he had gotten everything before getting to his feet. “now that right there is something we can agree on. not sure i’d trust you behind the wheel.”
he was never going to let on, that was never alistair’s style, but surely he knew he wasn’t fooling her. “too much energy, figured i’d squeeze in a quick workout.” bridget settled onto the seat beside him, giving his thigh a reassuring squeeze but saying no more than that. “you good? sab said alexander was in town.” it was well known that neither of the balfour’s were particularly fond of their father, though sabrina was certainly more upfront about it, it would make sense for that to be the reason.
he hated this - being asked questions that served as nothing but a thinly veiled excuse for him to ‘open up’ (whatever that meant), the concern, the non-verbal reassurance. what good would talking about any of the things that were weighing him down do? whoever said that ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ clearly had never spoken to his father - if anything, a problem shared was a problem doubled, he reckoned. still, it was in bad taste to just get up and leave (as much as he may have wanted to), and so, he remained. at the mention of his father’s name, his nose scrunched up a little - a subconscious response, almost. “yes. yes he was - left just now,” he replied, purposely ignoring her question. was he good? he didn’t know.
her heart couldn’t stop racing, she could hear it’s beating echoing throughout the room. she wouldn’t even be surprised if alistair heard it as well. she scrambled, thinking of ideas, anything to hide her face from him, but it was too late and he was already in front of her. so she settled for the first thing that came to her mind: cloaking her face with her hair & god did she look like a crazy person right now. she kept her head down as she replied to him “mhm, yep. i’m all good, mate. nothing to see here.” she fanned a hand, moving to grab her book. a wrong move on her part, as she brushed her hair over her ear, admittedly a nervous habit of hers. if she could curse, she would.
it’s been years since the two last spoke (if you don’t count the voicemail he left a year after her perceived death, which he’d honestly rather just forget), but he didn’t doubt it for a second: it really was her. part of was overcome with the urge to reach into the inner pocket of his coat and pull out the folded-up photograph he had had on his person since sabrina broke the news to him , just to make sure. but he doesn’t need to - it’s her. the facial features, the body language, the voice. it’s all her. “all good? well, you certainly look better than i’d expect from someone who is supposedly, you know, dead,” he spoke, tone surprisingly distant - a bitter by-product of years worth of emotional repression and denial.
u said u wanted this so don’t blame me bich :(((((((
who talks the other into skipping class?
hope. she knows her days are numbered, and so, it’s vital to get as much alone time as humanly possible, balancing the fine line of getting him to skip but not tell him how sick she really is.
who complains about their teacher’s handwriting?
alistair. let’s be real, he doesn’t have the time (or the patience) to spend half an hour trying to decipher something you clearly need some sort of handwriting rosetta stone to unearth, and hope would cross out the feedback with a permanent marker, telling him not to stress himself out so much (he’d still stress about it).
who rambles? and who kisses them to shut them up?
hope rambles. she’d talk, and talk, and then talk some more - and alistair would only intervene when she’s made the switch from speaking english to speaking full-on spanish.
who drags the other to A Little Disorganised’s new gig?
hope would want to go, and depending on how she’s feeling that day, they might stay for like an hour before she’s too exhausted, or they might not go at all. either way, they’ve never made it all the way through a gig.
who fan girls over the royals? and who thinks they’re all stuck up?
neither. hope would be more enthralled by the idea of royalty rather than the actual royals - the dresses, the tiaras, fancy dinners attended by hundreds of different people.
who suggests sleeping in the same bed first?
hope. but not through verbal communication (because why make life easy for yourself????) - she’d pretend to fall asleep in his bed so he’d have to let her spend the night, and when that results in him sleeping in the guest room, she ups her antics by pretending to fall asleep with her head on his chest, so that he’d be unable to move without ‘waking her up’.
who hates the other’s roommate?
alistair. does this even need an explanation? there’s always going to be something wrong with them - they’re too messy, they’re too loud, they eat with the fork facing the wrong way. you name it.
who tries to start a fight with dethroned? and who tells them off?
neither. but hope would definitely care a lot more about what is posted on the blog. so much so that eventually, alistair blacklists the page on their network.
when someone is flirting with their SO, who punches the flirter in the face? and who interrupts the flirter so they can make out?
don’t think either of them are the type for physical confrontation, but there would definitely be some snide remarks™️.
who drags them off for fun in empty classrooms?
i still cannot get over the fact that they haven’t slept together, but they haven’t, so i guess i’m going to have to go with neither?? hope will definitely drag him around to ‘explore’ campus at some point (he hates it, but it’s clear how excited it makes her, so why spoil the fun for her?).
who steals the other’s clothes?
when alistair is gone for longer periods of time ( for work or school or any combination of the two), hope sleeps one of his button-ups.
who smuggles a stray animal onto campus? and who tries to convince them to Put That Thing Back Where It Came From™️?
vicious cycle. hope finds a stray dog/cat/whatever, brings it home, alistair complains about it because he knows exactly what’s going to happen next - and not twenty-four hours later, there it is: a sneeze. she’s allergic (not surprising when you’ve been sheltered from anything and everything that isn’t sterilized). they end up having to take the poor thing to a shelter, and all is well for a couple of months. until the same thing happens again ( god, again? you never know, i might not be allergic to rabbits — you are. you so are. just wait )
who tries to study? and who tries to distract them?
i mean - alistair is always working (if it isn’t coursework, it’s almost certainly the ridiculous workload his father has delegated to him - there’s always stuff that needs to be done. always), and if she wants him to pay attention, she has to distract him. it starts out with her talking to him until he forgets he has work to do (half-forgets, mind you, but still), but when that starts proving ineffective, she just moves whatever he’s working on out of reach.
who gets way too heated in debates? and who has to drag them away to calm down?
neither. but alistair always oversteps, so hope has to intervene either way, just to make sure that no one decides it fit to punch him.
who spams the other’s phone with memes?
hope still lives in a world where it’s socially acceptable to pass on facebook chain mail and to send photos that have been edited using glitterfy.com (hint: it really isn’t, 2007 was 11 years ago).
who uses cheesy pick up lines?
hope. all of them in french, and most of them found on duolingo.
who said ’ i love you’ first?
hope. quickly followed by her mumbling incoherently about how he doesn’t have to say it back just yet, it’s okay, she knows how difficult all of this is for him. he’d say it back later that evening, right before she’s about to fall asleep.
who gets covered in hickeys?
neither. alistair is way too scared she’d break if he got rough with her, and hope really doesn’t see the appeal of hickeys in the first place.
who kisses the other during arguments?
hope. there’s no point in fighting when you have barely any time left, is there?
who always oversleeps in the mornings? and who has to wake them up for class?
alistair is always up before six - there’s always something on his agenda that needs to be taken care of stat, and he really can’t afford the luxury of a lie-in. hope’s sleeping pattern depends on the day - sometimes she’s up earlier than he is, other times (if her illness is acting up), she doesn’t get up at all. he doesn’t wake her up (there’s no point - he doubts she’d be in shape to leave the house anyway), just folds the duvet over her before e-mailing her lecturers, letting her sleep all the while.
“look, i still don’t fancy you, mate. i really don’t.” he shook his head. “i’m just saying that you look like you could do good with a small drink—nothing fancy, just something cheap y’know?— probably throw in a good rest there,” he advised. “can’t make my life miserable if you’re tired as fuck & have zero to no energy to do it.”
“and thank god for that.” this week had been weird enough without ollie trying to strike up a friendship. “hm, you know what? you’re right. i could use the break. don’t let it get to your head, though.”
she started to hum a broken song as she wandered aimlessly. her feet started to move like they had a mind of their own, breaking into a pique turn & then horribly stumbling, falling on the floor, a squeak escaping her throat. as much as she would like to blame her practice deficiency from all these years of laying off from ballet, it wasn’t the reason. she saw alistair—heard him speak his mother tongue that she’d never understand— & it felt like her heart stopped for a solid second, she wasn’t expecting to see him so soon—or ever. then her whole body just stopped function all together. all she could think of was, this must be what dying feels like. she stayed on the floor, hiding from him, seeing if he’d just let her be, let him think it was all his imagination at play, because if he came any closer she swore she’d melt from embarrassment or from his anger. both sounded like prospects she’d rather not venture on. she didn’t know what to expect from him, her mind was buzzing from the flood of thoughts & her heart was thumping like crazy. ay, dios mío, she prayed internally, don’t let him see me.
he was on the verge of brushing the sighting off as a figment of his imagination when the thud of girl against carpeted floors echoed in the empty room. ok, deep breath. so he wasn’t hallucinating. still, there were plenty of other reasonable explanations, he told himself, quietly closing his laptop shut as he rose from his seat, moving closer to inspect the source of the noise. most likely, it was just someone who looked like her. dead girls didn’t just reappear amongst the living. though as he made his way across the room, closing the scape between them, it became all the more apparent. that if this was someone else, it had to be a doppelgänger. it was too uncanny. another deep breath, followed by an extended hand. then, a pause, making a mental note to press his little sister for answers. “are you alright?”
he didn’t mind the hostility at all, if anything he found it amusing. ❛ jesus, what posh etiquette school did you go to ? clearly you weren’t listening to whatever your instructor saying. you’re exactly like your fiancée. ❜ now that he thought of it ev & al, were a strategically good match. ❛ i’ll be honest with you balfour, i worry about you sometimes. ❜
he tapped the end of his pen against the wooden table, raising a brow at the other as he spoke. feeding into whatever this was would only serve to keep the boy there for longer. knowing full well that the best port of call would be to shrug and return to his work, he couldn’t help but scoff. “worry? what is this, the twilight zone?”
she flinched when he recited her whole name, she was about to do just as he says but his authoritarian voice was replaced with the calm composure that pissed the hell out of her. she knew how much it would affect his brother & she would still mention her, because she wanted him to break. to wipe that silly outer face he always shows & she was so close to it. ❛ it’s what she would’ve wanted ?!? ❜ she rolled her eyes, scoffing. ❛ how would you know what she would’ve wanted, huh ? you’ve never once visited her grave when ev came strutting along, batting her eyelashes at you. she’s dead & you killed her even more when you decided that forgetting about her was a good decision. ❜ her tone was surprisingly calm, yet that sounded much worse.
he could feel something well up in him - an unholy mix of anger, guilt and sadness crashing over him like a wave against a rocky shore. jesus christ. not now. part of him wanted nothing more than to lay into his sister, raise his voice even - but him losing his cool was exactly what sabrina wanted. “i’m sorry, sis, i don’t have time for this right now,” he replied, calm as ever, getting to his feet. if there was one surefire way to win any argument with sabrina, it was to do exactly what he was doing right now: leaving her on her own. “you’ve got the spare keys, so i trust you’re able to lock the front door when you leave?” he spoke, making his way across the room, picking his coat down from a nearby hook before turning to face her again. “oh, and don’t smash anything too expensive.”
