apothecses

[apothecses]

sanamuse·:

»»————-♡————-««

it’s the way his voice cracks and shakes that makes her willing to concede without a fight, it’s why she doesn’t argue when he carries her into the bathroom and places her down gently on the base of the bathtub even though it goes against her nature to allow herself to be put first when there was someone else (especially this someone else) in pain.

she gives him a solid nod, the smile on her face wobbly but full of assurance when he warns her before turning the water on, fingers digging into the porcelain below her, as she chews on her bottom lip and wills herself not to cry out for logans sake mostly.

she knows how he thinks, knows that somewhere inside he’s probably blaming himself right now and the last thing she wants is to be a reason for his self-recrimination - she refuses to be something he beats himself up over.

logan lifts her leg to place it on his lap, and she finds herself leaning into him, head resting on his unblemished shoulder as her eyes stray from the mess on her leg - she’s not entirely sure how she’s going to be able to hide it, how exactly she’s going to be able to explain it away when her parents notice. the only reason she’s allowed as much freedom as she has, the reason why her parents let her make most of her own decisions is because she’s careful and she’s trustworthy - now there’s irreputable proof that sometimes she’s anything but.

there’s a slight tremor in logan’s hand as he starts applying the antiseptic and she buries her face against the skin of his neck and hisses when she feels the sting of it against her mangled flesh, tears she fights to keep under control welling in the corner of her eyes.

holly consoles herself with the fact at least its just the two of them, that at least its logan and logan alone that’s seeing her weak and afraid, she doesn’t have to pretend she’s not terrified and vulnerable and questioning her own sanity.

(there has to be an explanation for what she thought she saw, something other than the one that sits right on the tip of her tongue threatening to spill out. something logical, that makes sense and isn’t the product of nightmares and lore)

“do you think we should report…what - i mean whoever that was out there?” she sniffles delicately, tries to keep the tone of her voice even and tremor free, eyes never straying from the three tiny spots on logan’s neck shaped like a triangle, his beauty mark he’d called it once and then he’d laughed when she’d hit him in the face with a pillow for having such a inflated sense of ego.

(she doesn’t need to glance down again, she trusts that logan knows what he’s doing, he’d witnessed her go through similar motions herself in the past, cleaning bloody knuckles, patching up mottled skin besides there’s a small ridiculously vain part of herself that doesn’t want to see just how messed up her calf looks any longer a part that wants to forget it - it’ll scar eventually, another glaring imperfection she’ll add to her secret list)

“i know it’d probably be the right thing to do but i’m….not sure what happened exactly.” she remembers fangs, gleaming white and sharp in the moonlight, and claws digging in to her upper arms holding her in place - but that can’t be real, it can’t be possible ”maybe it’d be better if we kept it to ourselves? we’ll just rest and try to enjoy our last few days here and then go home and forget this ever happened.”

it takes a second to register that holly’s speaking. all other thoughts had faded into nothing the moment he’d started dressing her wound, the motions so familiar and yet so wrong, because all their life he had always been the one who got her, and it’d be her steady hands to put him back together, not the other way around. there’s a first time for everything, he supposes, but this is a ‘first’ that he could have done without, the stinging from his own wound a mere echo of the pain of seeing holly hurt like this.

he doesn’t dare to speak until he’s done wrapping the roller bandage around her calf to keep the gauze in place. “all done,” he announces softly, pressing a kiss against her temple. truth be told, he would very much like to carry her to bed before proceeding to lick his own wounds in private, but he knows that holly would probably chase him down even with a bad leg if he’d tried that. 

the thought almost makes him smile. almost.

logan removes his shirt so holly can have a better look at his wounds, wincing slightly as the action of lifting his arms over his head tugs at the wound on his shoulder. “matching injuries,” he comments dryly, tilting his head towards the clear teeth marks on his skin. “how romantic.” he grabs a hand towel and wets it at the sink before climbing into the tub with her, pulling her onto his lap so that she can stretch her leg out behind him. 

it might almost be a tender moment, if not for all the blood. this is definitely not the right time to be thinking of kissing holly, but he’s always had tunnel vision when it comes to her, and it’s hard for him to think about much else when she’s this close to him. the initial panic from the attack— the... incident has passed, but he wraps his arms around holly’s waist anyway, wanting the reminder and the reassurance that she’s okay. he doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows draw together as she wipes the dried blood and dirt from his shoulder, and he smiles at the small noise of displeasure she makes when he breaks her concentration by kissing that crease between her brows.

“i’m okay,” he reassures, then presses his face against the side of her neck the way she had done to him earlier, feeling the comforting beat of her pulse against his own skin. “looks worse than it is, i swear.” —not that his reassurance means all that much when he says it every single time he gets hurt, but he feels some of the tension leave her body at that, because even if he’s not exactly okay, he’s at least okay enough to be reusing the same old lines.

“we are definitely not going to enjoy our last couple of days here... not before we go to an actual hospital to get your leg looked at by an actual doctor.” truth be told, logan had considered bundling holly up and driving all the way back to riverside that very night, but he’d quickly squashed that instinct to put as much space between them and whatever attacked them in the woods. running home in this state would only raise questions neither of them had the answer to, so logan’s pretty on board with holly’s plan to pretend this entire night never happened. “and then after that we can lounge by the poolside for however long you want.”

“as for reporting what happened...” he pauses, then sighs. he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t the least bit curious about whatever attacked them, and he’s already got several theories on its identity, but he’s not about to put holly in danger—not even the possibility of it—just to satisfy his own curiosity. “it was dark, neither of us really saw anything, so it’s not like we can provide any useful information. besides, it’s florida.”

he lifts his head from her neck at that, lips twisting with the beginnings of a grin. “for all we know, this is a common occurrence here and we might get laughed at for being so unprepared.” neither of them truly believe what he’s saying, but it’s easier to pretend they do, and holly offers him a small smile as he brushes her hair out of her face before pressing a kiss against her forehead. 

“it’s been a long night, why don’t we just clean up a little and then head to bed? and when we wake up, it’ll be a new day, and this will all feel like a bad dream. nothing to be afraid of.”

[apothecses]

sanamuse:

@apothecses with patch (reverse) for logan norris & holly wood

there’s a chunk out of her lower calf and it burns as much as it aches, torn flesh covered in blood and dirt and she tries not to think about the plethora of infections she could possibly come down with as a result of her injury. 

holly has never really felt pain quite like it before, she’d always been careful, never injured herself more than a few sprains when she’d landed wrong during cheer routines or messed up a step in dance class, but this felt nothing like those had, she hadn’t even been able to manage the relatively short walk from the car back up to their second level hotel room without leaning heavily on logan (he’d offered to carry her, but the wound on his shoulder -the one he’d gotten by tackling whatever it had been that had attacked her- was angrier looking than her own and she was adamant he wasn’t going to get hurt any more than he already was for her) and when they’re finally inside the room, the door bolted shut and the curtains drawn tight she can’t stop the hiss of pain that escapes her mouth or the few stray tears that drip from her eyes as logan places her down on the edge of the bed before he digs through her suitcase for the first aid case she never leaves home without.

a week away in florida - disney world, the beach, a relaxing vacation that’s all it was supposed to be but they’d overheard a few college students talk about odd things happening in a wooded area close to where they were staying and logan had gotten that excited look in his eyes that holly had never been able to say no to.

logan turns back to her, arms full of med supplies he’d teased her mercilessly for bringing when he watched her pack them, and her eyes drift over his neck and shoulder, biting her lip as she swallows back an apology, she’d been the one who’d lost her footing as they ran, she’d been the one that had been pounced on first and she’d been the one not strong enough to fight the…thing off on her own.

“you should let me take care of you first.” she’s surprised he can hear her, voice soft with fatigue and pain, the worry flickering in her eyes as she takes in the rest of him, notices scrapes and bruises she hadn’t in the immediate aftermath “you…you got messed up worse than me…you shouldn’t have…you could have been killed lo.”

it’s tempting to fall into his usual cycle of self-blame—it had been his idea to explore the woods, holly might’ve been the one that had slipped but he should have reacted faster, should have tackled that... thing off of her before it’d managed to take a chunk out of holly’s leg—but there’s no time for that now. not when he can feel the way holly trembles with pain even though she’s no longer putting any weight on her injured leg, her face getting paler as blood continues to seep out of the wound.

he’s never been angry at holly before, but there’s a white hot flash of anger that sputters in his chest when she offers to patch him up first, and he has to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from lashing out. on his worst days, he feels like he is more anger than himself, but even though this probably qualifies as one of the most godawful days in his entire life, the anger is there and it’s gone, unable to find any dark spaces in his mind to crawl into when the only thing he’s capable of focusing on right now is holly, holly, holly.

“hols, please,” he pleads, hardly caring about the way his voice breaks, or the way it shakes even after he pauses to clear his throat, thumb catching onto the stray tears that escape her eyes. “if anything happens to you, i’ll—” it’s a sentence he cannot finish, the thought of losing holly infinitely more painful than the flesh wounds that litter his body. “we’re getting you patched up first,” he says in a tone that bids no argument, and he tries to soften the edges with a reassuring smile that's more grimace than actual smile, and lasts for barely half a second.

he steps away for just a moment to place the first aid supplies in the bathroom, never taking his gaze off holly the entire time despite the space between them never exceeding five feet, terrified that something might happen if he looks away from her for even the briefest of seconds. once his arms are free again, he returns for holly, lifting her into his arms despite her protests and carrying her into the bathroom as well, placing her down gently in the bath tub. he takes a seat on the side of the tub after grabbing the shower head from its mount on the wall, hesitating with his other hand on the tap. “this is going to hurt like a bitch,” he warns, and he waits until holly gives him a small nod to turn the water on.

as the blood and mud is washed down the drain, logan finally gets a proper look at holly’s injury for the first time, and holy shit—are those teeth marks? he’d thought he’d saw the creature bite her, but it had been dark, and that thing had been running on two legs. on the way back, he’d tried to convince himself that the glint of what look like fangs in the moonlight had been a trick of his adrenaline-fuelled mind, that whatever had attacked them was a man who was high out of his mind on lsd or some shit, but now...

nothing human could’ve done that. nothing completely human, at least.

[apothecses]

 sanamuse:

@apothecses· with abrupt (kiss my muse out of the blue) for mateo & colette

she has no idea why he’s stayed with her, followed her really on what he claims is nothing but a suicide mission (but it’s yale and anything she has to go through in her quest to find her will be worth it as long as she reaches her in the end) all she knows is that she thinks she might be getting too used to having mateo around, she might be letting him too close and it terrifies her worse than any monster ever could.

(he’ll leave her eventually or send her away just like they all do and she doesn’t think, on top of everything else, she has any strength left to build herself back up yet again when the inevitable happens)

she’d messed up this time, the fact they’ve been forced to barricade themselves inside a storeroom in some abandoned old office building to avoid the dangers waiting for them outside was definitely her fault. don’t draw attention to herself, be as quiet as possible, it’s the only rule mateo’s insisted on the entire time they’ve been travelling together (she thinks maybe they’ve been on the road for a few months now but without a calendar or a diary to mark the days with she can’t be sure) and usually she’s pretty good at following it despite the fact she’s built for attention.

but there’d been two men and a fight mateo looked like he was almost on the losing end of and she’d pulled her gun and shot before thinking the consequences through.

“you know i’m sorry right?” she’s not, at least not about the two dead assholes they’d left to rot outside - the walkers the gunshot had attracted, the fact they’d been forced to retreat when the sheer number of them had become too much to handle with just the two of them, she felt bad about that - but it seems like the right thing to say as he moves towards her, strides quick and purposeful and she’s sure he’s ready to wring her neck or bitch at her for fucking things up “but i didn’t…”

he cuts her off midsentence, one arm wrapping around her waist crushing their bodies together and a hand burying itself in her hair as his lips slant over hers, kissing away the excuses she had yet to make.

adrenaline maybe or a delayed reaction to the events they’d just escaped - she doesn’t know, but he’s never made a move before, never even indicated he’d wanted to even though she’s fairly sure he has to know she’s wanted him to despite how bad of an idea it is, but she allows herself a second to enjoy it, gripping his shoulders to pull him closer even as she pulls back “that’s definitely not what i was expecting.”

mateo has never been the type of person who pick fights, all his anger and his violence turned inwards, leaving an unblemished exterior even when he’s tearing himself apart on the inside. this does not make him a good person, not when the only reason he holds back is because he fears that he will turn into his father if he doesn’t. monstrosity is hereditary, after all, and the blood of the most monstrous man he knows flows in his very veins.

the point is, it’s not like him to have thrown that first punch. mateo is a man of words, all charm and hardly any sincerity, and he’s never been in a situation that he hasn’t been able to talk his way out of yet—until now. it turns out that colette is his bottom line—he tries not to think about how she’s wormed her way into his life in the short few months since they’d met, when the last person he’d ever let get close to him had taken years—and even his biggest rule (never throw the first punch) can be broken for her.

so really, colette has nothing to be sorry for. not when he’d started the fight in the first place, not when she would never had needed to use the gun to save his ass if he hadn’t jumped those two men for talking about colette like that in the first place. 

her apology, insincere as he knows it is, makes something dangerously close to affection bloom in his chest. he’s pretty sure that he’s just made it onto the very, very, very short list of people that colette has ever uttered the word ‘sorry’ to, and he’s honoured, sure, but mostly he thinks he’s relieved to know that he means enough to her to say something she doesn’t mean just because she thinks it’s what he wants to hear.

silly girl, he thinks as he crushes his lips against hers, as if i could ever be mad at you.

it’s funny, his inability to get angry at her, because it’s not as if she’s hard to get mad at—the complete opposite, actually, he’s pretty certain her special talent is pissing people off—and yet. if she is the hurricane, then maybe he is the eye of the storm, two polar opposites that co-exist in the same space, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

“thank you,” he says when she pulls back from the kiss. “for saving my life back there.” we’re even, he thinks to add, but he swallows the words, buries them deep enough that they won’t slip out by accident. mateo’s always believed that acts of kindness are nothing more than debts that should be repaid, but suddenly he’s not quite sure he wants to be repaid for saving her life all the months back, because once the debt is gone, then they’ll be back to being strangers, but he doesn’t want that. he wants to stay with her, even if that meant following her to the ends of the earth.

he tucks a strand of her hair behind her ears, leans in to press another kiss against her mouth, less frenzied this time, softer than he ever thought he was capable of. “no mames,” he mutters against her lips, followed by a breathy laugh. “i’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he admits, “wasn’t sure i wouldn’t get a fist to the face in response though.”

[apothecses]

text ✉️ logan norris.

Merrick: Drunk me just used alcohol as an excuse to seduce you. To say it was okay to miss you. Because I’ve spent a lot of time lying to myself telling me that I didn’t.

Merrick: Logan, when did I even want college and a career? All I ever wanted was to have a family. I mean, ideally in very different circumstances but I know that we can make this work.

Merrick: Besides, I’m accustomed to a very lavish lifestyle. You’ll need to go pro if you intend to keep me happy.

Logan: well. we clearly fucked up that night, but i don't regret it. i'm gonna take care of you, okay? you and our baby.

Logan: provided billy and whitney don't kill me first for getting their baby knocked up, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it i guess.

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: That was pretty much exactly what you were supposed to do. You're lucky your mom convinced me hog tying you to the bed was borderline abusive because believe me I considered it.

Holly: Good thing I don't care about other sports...I mean technically I don't care about football either but...you know what I mean.

Holly: Better than "There's no way that'll fit there."

Logan: aw, hols. if you wanted to tie me up in bed, you could've just asked ;-)

Logan: have i ever told you how much i appreciate you being there at my games? especially knowing how boring you find it all. although i'm like... 85% sure you're mostly there so that i can't lie about getting hurt.

Logan: wait hold on, i stopped at the gas station to grab some chocolate for you but i see mason's car here too.

Logan: you wanna tell me what y'all argued about so i know why i'm punching him in the face?

[apothecses]

COLETTE.

Pleasant-ish small talk, generous offerings, unaffected body language, exuding an air of nonchalance that’s too practised and perfect to be real, this guy is definitely putting on a show, Colette can see it, recognizes the behaviour in herself and decides to play along, never the type of person to call someone out on the ways they chose to armour themselves…at least not anyone she’s only just met.

She ventures closer, perches herself on the desk he’s leaning against, one leg folding underneath her automatically as the other swings aimlessly backward and forward. And it feels too reminiscent of those hours she’d spent perched on Noel’s desk and part of her wants to cry, or throw shit -throwing shit would work just as well- because she misses him almost as much as she misses Yale, he was…he is…not her father figure, no matter how much delight she’d found freaking her sister out by calling him Daddy, but her friend, fitting the mold of big brother in a way she’d never been able to make Dexter fit for all the messed up, mixed feelings she’d always displayed for him.

She tilts her head to the side as she reaches into the bag of proffered crisps, tries not bristle at the stalker remark because honestly he’s not half wrong, she’d definitely been channelling her inner Nightstalker for the past few days, even if she hadn’t meant to be quite so dedicated to it.

There’s no reason to lie, even if she does contemplate it for a second, afterall she’d left Braedan originally to become someone else, left Braedan because as Dexter had said, she needed to fly, become who she was meant to be, because Dorothy Gale wasn’t a real girl and the Scarecrow hadn’t wanted her the way she was.

She doesn’t though. She’s struck by the rare impulse to actually tell the truth.

“Jacobson, Colette Jacobson" she grins a little, playacting as she holds out her hand with a flourish and waits for him to shake it, his hand is as clammy as hers is, but it’s solid and blessedly real, so at least she has some irrefutable proof that she actually isn’t imagining this entire scenario, because honestly she’d worried for a second that she was. All those endless hours of nothing but her own company finally driving her completely around the bend. 

If Yale were here she’d roll her eyes and laugh at her, make some snappy remark about how being raised by the television had fried her brain and that thoughts enough to turn the half-hearted grin on her face into something a little more real as she pulls back her hand and glances down at the ground, almost embarrassed to have someone witness her moment of actual feeling.

He doesn’t say anything, just watches her, perhaps a fraction more relaxed than he had been previously, another person might fidget under that stare, might grow nervous or uncomfortable, but Colette was used to it, used to being stared at, the girl everybody in Braedan loved to watch, the girl they all stared at and speculated about because their own lives were all so spectacularly dull and pointless and a Jacobson girl…well a Jacobson girl was always guaranteed entertainment.

“You know it’s legit bad manners to not introduce yourself back right? What kind of a midwestern boy are you?” She raises her own eyebrow mockingly,her sisters voice in her head chuckling out brat as she throws him a carbon copy of the look he’d previously given her and uses his own words against him “Really any name will do.”

He can’t help it—he laughs. Or, well. It’s more of a sharp bark than sustained laughter, but it’s the closest sound to amusement he’s made in a long time, and he’s not quite sure whether he’s relieved or disappointed that he still has the capacity to feel something other than disdain at the world. It had taken Anthony months to draw so much as a smile out of him, and some stranger he’s just met—Colette Jacobson, he notes—actually managed to make him laugh. It’s baffling, but then again, weirder things have happened.

The dead coming back to life, for starter’s.

“Forgive my manners,” he says, although the lingering upturn of his lips dampens the sincerity somewhat. “My poor dead mother would be rolling in her grave.” It should be concerning, really, the ease with which he talks about his parents, as if he’s not the reason they’re both six feet under. The girl—Colette continues to watch him, waiting for a response, and he means to tell her that he’s Matthew, except he opens his mouth and—

“Mateo,” he answers. “Mateo Álvarez.” It’s funny, really. He’s spent most of his life as Matthew, but he still can’t seem to shake Mateo off. Sometimes it feels like he’s always going to be ten years old, bat in hand and his father’s lifeless body at his feet. Sometimes, he wonders if something within him had died too, that day. 

He thinks about asking her why she’s been following him, but the thought is fleeting. The end of the world can be a lonely place, and even though he’s not quite ready to admit it, having her here is almost... nice. It’s not a small town by any means, but he has some sort of history with almost all of the survivors in the city—those he went to school with, or parents of kids he went to school with, or people Anthony had known—only they’ve only ever known him as Matthew, and he’s tired of pretending to be someone he’s not.

But he is not someone who deserves nice things. Boys who murder their fathers don’t deserve nice things; he thinks of Anthony, of Mariella, of Santi—nothing good ever comes to the people he lets in. This solitude is his penance, and he knows he can’t allow himself to give into the desire for companionship.

“There are some camps in town,” he says, making a show of shaking the bag of chips and delicately selecting one just to have an excuse not to look at her while he speaks.  “I can bring you to whichever you like tomorrow,” he offers, still unable to look at her. Despite the years spent with Anthony, he never quite learned how to be kind without feeling like a fraud. So he does what he does best when he’s faced with a good thing: he tries to ruin it. 

The smile that stretches across his lips when he finally turns to face Colette is a little too wide, with too much teeth—more snarl than grin, a peek at the monster he is. “You’ll never make it on your own.”

[apothecses]

CARLY.

Carly was rarely the center of attention, but no one would call her an introvert - she preferred to be in the middle of the action, looking through her camera lenses at the world around her, but always included. But Isolde’s ‘yes’ had her reeling - of course she would marry Kevin, even considering that she wouldn’t was absurd. She had the option for a full future - a husband, a house, 2.5 kids in the suburbs - the American Dream, right there at her footsteps. 

Things Carly could never guarantee for her. 

Still, she bit the inside of her cheek as she felt soft fingers against her back, the unspoken request to follow her ingrained so deeply in the marrow of her bones that she did so instinctively, grabbing her purse as if she would help Isolde repair her make up or something. 

( As if she wasn’t considering making a not-so-graceful exit immediately after, as if she wasn’t the group photographer, the one who’d have to take the engagement photos, the wedding photos, watching the woman she loved in the arms of another. ) 

But the worry on her best friends face was the last thing Carly wanted to see; she squeezed Isolde’s hands, tugging her in for a tight hug and forcing a smile she barely felt as she squealed. “Of course I’m alright! My best friend is engaged!” 

Carly pulled back, just enough to look at the ring, ignoring how her eyes lost focus as tears welled up that she blinked away as quickly as possible. “I think it’s just the salsa, probably used old tomatoes or something this week - are you excited? Do you need me to fix your liner before we head out? If I had known - I would have brought the good camera so I could have taken photos all night. Kevin,” she scoffed, her laughter a little strangled but hopefully the other wouldn’t notice, “you would think he’d tell your best friend so she could be prepared.”

Isolde knew Carly well enough to know when she was lying, but it was hard to call her out on it when she, too, wasn’t being entirely truthful. She took comfort in the familiar feeling of Carly’s arms around her though, pressing closer for the briefest of moments and trying not to think about the way her heart stuttered in her chest at the closeness.

“Yeah, well. Kevin does what he wants.” It was supposed to be a joke—they’d shared laughter and eye rolls about Kevin’s difficulty being considerate countless times—but this time it fell flat. Was this really the kind of guy she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?

“I’m engaged,” she murmured, at first to herself, and then again louder when she caught Carly’s eye. “Fuckin’ hell, I’m engaged.” Her grip on Carly’s hips tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough that the grin on her best friend’s face flickered into concern. She was overcome by an urge to run suddenly, Carly’s hands on her shoulders the only thing still keeping her in place. She knew that if she asked, Carly would whisk her away immediately—which was why she couldn’t ask.

Despite the countless group outings, things between her boyfriend-turned-fiancé and best friend were cordial at best. If she disappeared now, she knew Kevin would blame Carly for it, even if he didn’t say it outright. So instead, Isolde plastered a grin on her face, dabbing at the corner of her eye with her finger—realising too late that she’d used her left ring finger only when she noticed Carly’s gaze flicker towards the engagement ring. 

“I’d look good in the photos no matter which camera you used,” she joked, affection blooming in her chest at the way Carly’s expression softened, even as she rolled her eyes. But she wasn’t quite ready to leave the bathroom yet, wanted to remain in this bubble with the other woman for as long as she could. “I’ll take your offer to fix my liner though.”

[apothecses]

CARLY.

open to f/preferred  - connections in ‘what’ ! who carly abrams, 25 year old photographer  what based on THIS plot, carly abrams and [ YOUR MUSE ] have been best friends for the past few years since climbing the ranks at a high profile magazine in downtown chicago. little does [ YOUR MUSE ] know, carly’s been in love with her since day one - and now, [ YOUR MUSE] ‘s [ NPC ] boyfriend/girlfriend just proposed - during a group night out. 

It was easier with a group of people - Carly could bump into her, stroke her hand casually as they passed around the basket of chips that everyone was inhaling, ‘accidentally’ interweave their ankles together under the table. She could laugh and watch as her best friend laughed, feel the bubbling sensation in her throat whenever she looked at Carly, and no one had to know. 

But some nights, it was damn near impossible to keep it to herself. How badly she wanted to use the ‘come to the bathroom with me’ as an excuse to kiss her until they were both breathless and head over heels, how much it hurt to see her fingers wrapped around anothers wrist. 

Carly had never really liked them. The Other, she called them in her head. But as long as her best friend was happy - who was she to stop it? 

“Everyone, quiet!” they demanded, laughing as they did, beer bottles clinking down on the hardwood table top of the sports bar they’d all frequent on Thursday nights for trivia night. “I have an important question to ask.” 

Carly’s eyes were laser focused then, the apprehension grabbing at her from nowhere - sinking to their knees, she knew what was coming. She could hear the blood rushing through her ears, the world flipping upside down as the words were uttered - will you marry me? - a ring appearing, and Carly was positive she was going to throw up. 

It was her worst nightmare, and it was playing out right in front of her - and a hundred others, all cheering for the engaged couple while Carly tried to disappear into the background.

The night had taken a sharp turn towards disaster, as far as Isolde was concerned. Most girls would be ecstatic to have a man go down on one knee, but as Kevin held the ring box up to her, the only emotion she could pick out in the maelstrom that his question had conjured within her was dread. 

Naturally, her gaze turned to Carly. The sight of her best friend always settled Isolde, made her feel like everything would be okay, that she could do anything as long as Carly was by her side. Usually, Carly would already be looking at her, but this time the redhead’s gaze was trained at the table, long red hair obscuring her face from Isolde’s view.

Now she was more torn than ever, but she didn’t exactly have the luxury of time to sort her feelings out—not when there was a bar full of people chanting for her to say yes, say yes, say yes. Isolde turned towards Kevin once more, could see the edge of impatience creeping into his smile, and knew that she had run out of time.

“Yes,” she answered finally, feeling as if she was having an out-of-body experience at the way the entire bar erupted into cheers and Kevin stood up to sweep her into his arms.

He let go of her to slide the ring onto her finger, and she wondered what kind of an awful person she was to be wishing she was anywhere else but there—preferably back at Carly’s apartment, watching cheesy made-for-TV romcoms with her best friend.

“Hey, uh,” she tilted her head away as Kevin leaned in to kiss her, smoothing the rejection away with a soft smile. “I going to go freshen up. Everyone’s going to want to take photos of us, gotta make sure I look my best.”

Isolde made sure to brush her hand against Carly’s shoulder as she left, hoping that she would get the message—please come with me. The weight of the ring on her finger was unsettling, but even more unsettling was the way Carly had withdrawn into herself. It was easier to worry about Carly than to think about what she’d just agreed to, in any case.

“Are you okay?” Her hand reached for Carly’s the moment the other woman stepped into the bathroom, fingers tangling together automatically. “You got really quiet all of a sudden.”

[apothecses]

HOLLY.

Its a small mercy he asks who and not what since she’s not sure she really has an answer to the last one -a mirage, an echo, some kind of restless spirit - Merrick had been fond of ghost stories when they were children, she’d devoured every piece of literature on the subject she could get her hands on, curling up in Holly’s bed gleefully recounting everything she’d learned as night fell around them. 

Holly’s sure none of those stories had ever rightfully explained her situation though, but if Merrick were here with her now maybe she’d have theories to share, knowledge to impart, no matter how far fetched, and it aches, still after all this time, that she’s not.

“Holly. My name is Holly and I live here… in a manner of speaking.” The smile she gives him is shy and unsure and she feels awkward in a way only someone with very little social experience can.

She’d never been great around other people when she’d been alive, her sister had been the butterfly, the one who could hold the attention of a room, the natural born storyteller. Holly had preferred curling up in a large chair in her fathers library to dinner parties and soirees, the company of his many books better than small talk with people she had little interest in.

And the opposite sex, boys, they were always a little more difficult to find common ground with, even her betrothed had held little to no appeal for her - a perfectly acceptable match, a way to turn attention away from the scandal her sisters elopement had caused - her mother had tried to convince her, but Holly likes to think that if one good thing came out of her sickness it was the fact she’d never been forced to go through with the wedding.

But this boy is looking at her like he’s still not entirely convinced she’s real and shes tempted to reach out and take his hand maybe to assure both of them that she is. 

In theory it should work, at least it does on inanimate objects, items she needs to move when she cleans as a way to pass the time, humming as she works at a steady pace,  books she wants to read, the pages crisp between her fingertips as she turns them. She’s never actually tried to touch anything living though and shes not sure now would be the ideal time to start not with Logan - she’s sure that’s what his mother called him - looking like a tightly wound spring fit to take off.

(It’d be poor manners to scare off the first potential real friend she’d ever made in her considerably long lifetime…and he can see her and hear her and that is really just the most amazing thing)

His face is slightly ashen and he looks exhausted or possibly shell shocked and her natural instinct is to help if she can - and while that same natural instinct had ultimately been the reason for her current state of existence (her father had told her not to go visiting, had told her there were other people to bring food and take care of Mrs. Peters and her sick children but Holly, stubborn and headstrong once she made up her mind, had chosen to ignore him) she’d never seen any reason to go against it.

“Do you need…” she tilts her head to the side and gestures to the window seat, face soft with concern,  her posture as nonthreatening as possible even though shes sure her very existence is probably at the very least slightly threatening to someone who isn’t suffering from a living impairment “Would you like to sit down? I’m sure you must have some questions.”

He’s gone crazy. Maybe all those years of football-induced concussions have finally taken their toll and he’s lost it. There’s no other reason for there to be a girl in his room that his mother isn’t able to see. To be honest, he feels like he’s taking this pretty well, especially for someone who tends to favour an ‘act first, think later’ policy; it’s probably a small miracle that he hasn’t tried to grab her to see if she’s real, even if it’s not so much self-restraint that’s keeping him frozen but shock.

The obvious concern in her expression makes something like laughter tickle in the back of his throat, although he swallows the sound before it can bubble up—hysterical laughter would probably only lend credence to the ‘crazy’ theory, and he’s trying to hold onto his sanity for as long as he possibly can.

“Holly,” he repeats. “I’m Logan,” he offers in return, even though he’s pretty sure she already knows. Still, it’s good manners to introduce himself, even as a part of him snickers at the fact that he’s trying to be polite amidst the absurdity of the situation. But Holly’s smile is shy and unsure, and although he’s still half-convinced that he’s lost it, Logan supposes there are worse things his subconscious could have conjured up than a pretty girl.

“Yeah, I should—” He loses his train of thought for a moment, caught on the way Holly’s brows draw together in concern, the crease only deepening the longer the silence stretches between them. “I should sit down,” he finishes, forcibly redirecting his gaze elsewhere, brushing past her to get to the window seat. She’s cold, and they’d barely made contact, but he shivers anyway. It’s not entirely unpleasant though, and he finds himself lifting a hand towards her, awkwardly holding it in the space between them before she tentatively reaches back.

It’s like placing his hand up against a block of ice, and he hisses slightly at the sensation of all the warmth in his palm being drawn out at once. Holly startles at the sound, but he holds onto her hand before she can pull away. “It’s okay,” he tells her, “I was just surprised.” In his defence, she looks almost as surprised at he does, and he keeps their palms pressed together, pulling away only when his fingers start to go numb with the cold.

He stuffs his hand into the pocket of his hoodie, keeping it out of sight as he flexes his fingers to try and regain feeling in them. He has about ten different theories on what’s going on here, each one crazier than the last, but eventually it always circles back to one possibility: ghost.

Logan’s never really believed in ghosts. So many of the houses they’ve moved into have had reputations of being haunted, and yet he’d never encountered anything scarier than rats in his bedroom walls. Holly’s not exactly how he imagined a ghost would look like either; sure, she’s a little pale, and now that he’s looking closely, her white nightgown does seem to be a little more luminescent than it should be, but other than that she looks perfectly normal. It’s almost slightly anticlimactic, to be honest.

“Are you a...” he starts to ask, then stops, wondering if it would be rude. He drops onto the window seat, lifting an arm to gesture vaguely at the rest of the room. “So this is your bedroom then? It’s nice. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: I've given you /some/ reason...I think plenty is an overstatement though and it's not like you're any better.

Holly: It sounds much catchier than plain old sporty.

Holly: What's the worst that can happen? They throw my picture up at the ticket stand in Powers Field and send security after me when I turn up for one of your home games?

Holly: Throw a ball, win some points - the basic concepts the same.

Holly: I'm really not sure if I can handle more than two at a time.

Logan: it was just a cracked rib. what was i supposed to do, lay in bed for two months until it healed?

Logan: nah, you're our good luck charm, remember? there's no way you'd be barred from entry into our games. the other sports, though...

Logan: i should probably be more offended by that, but... you're not technically wrong.

Logan: title of your sex tape.

[apothecses]

text ✉️ logan norris.

Merrick: It’s not pathetic. Why do you think I wanted to spend the night with you in the first place? I never exactly won awards for moving on.

Merrick: Let’s just...slow down. Make sure it’s real before we make any plans. And if it is...if I am, then we’ll figure out a way to do this so that you can still have your school and football and start a family.

Merrick: It would make more sense for me to move to you. It’s not like college was ever important to me.

Logan: i don't know. people do stupid things all the time when they're drunk, and i'm pretty sure both of us were at least a little bit tipsy.

Logan: slow down, i can do that. i just... i need you to know that you'll always have me.

Logan: would you resent me if you did that? it doesn't seem fair that i get to keep school and football, while you have to give it up to have my kid.

[apothecses]

                                          “what’s a soulmate?”

“A soulmate is someone who you carry with you forever.

                 It’s the one person who knew you,                                and accepted you,                                    and believed in you                                                        before anyone else did                                          or when no one else would.

                  And no matter what happens.. you’ll always love them. ❞

ship aesthetic  ♡ this time i’m ready to run (holly wood and logan norris) for @apothecses

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: You have a suspicious mind.

Holly: In my defence I'm not really trying to...but I mean...you're sportly so you may find the conversations slightly more interesting.

Holly: And people wont stare at you like you've kicked their puppy when you tell them you don't see what the difference is between a touchdown and a three pointer.

Holly: Like you ever really need to try for crazy :P

Holly: You know the only Roman I'm down with is Galen right?

Logan: you say that as if you haven't given me plenty of reason to be suspicious.

Logan: 'sportly'

Logan: if i hang around to chat with anyone, it'll only be to try and salvage your reputation. i may think your utter lack of sports knowledge is endearing, but you should keep that on the DL if you don't want to be blacklisted by all the student athletes.

Logan: holly... they're two entirely different sports...

Logan: i'm trying to broaden your horizons here, introduce you to more dead roman men.

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: Where's the trust?

Holly: Or maybe he's just friendly?

Holly: I lost track, they were just kinda handing them out like they were less tasty candy. And I didn't really see any other way to liven up the party other than to drink them.

Holly: If you wanna let off steam we don't have to grab tacos right away, you can do a lap of the party see if anything interests you...steal their craft beer in retribution for their subpar hosting skills.

Holly: Lo it's less hot when I have to try and figure out what it means.

Logan: i'll start trusting your word on the state of your physical health once you stop downplaying whenever you're sick.

Logan: so friendly he asked me two weeks into the semester if you were single? sure.

Logan: you're not really selling the party here. i probably shouldn't drink since i'm driving, but i might take up your offer to steal their beer, save it for when we have another movie night or something.

Logan: i was trying for crazy, not hot.

Logan: a true friend is the one who is, as it were, a second self. it's cicero.

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: My heart breaks for them.

Holly: I wasn't /that/ sick Lo, it was one little dizzy spell and you freaked, my vocal chords were still fine.

Holly: But what I'm taking from that is that I have now become the Tigers good luck charm and I can never miss another game again.

Holly: And also the next time you invite me drinking with your team, they've all gotta pay...for both of us.

Holly: I hope so because a Barbacoa with extra hot salsa sounds amazing right now...oh and horchata!

Holly: /I/ already think you're crazy so you can just save it for me if you like?

Logan: i stopped believing you whenever you say you're okay ever since 10th grade when you passed out during gym. i wasn't going to risk you sitting under the sun for hours and getting heat stroke.

Logan: hey, we still won that game! pretty sure ryan just asked me about you because he's nursing a massive crush. he'd probably pay for your drinks if you asked.

Logan: how many beers have you had? you never start craving spicy food unless you've had too much to drink.

Logan: you say the sweetest things. i think you're crazy too, hols. after all, verus amicus est is qui est tanquam alter idem.

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: You deserve more than drunk make out sessions [unsent]

Holly: And the women of Princeton weep.

Holly: What kind of a best friend would I be if I wasn't in the stands obnoxiously screaming your name and hurling insults I don't quite understand at the competition every time you played?

Holly: I'll buy you dinner then.

Holly: Someones buying someone dinner because honestly...I've gotta eat, there's a lotta hops in my stomach I'm gonna need to sponge up.

Holly: Stick to the Latin Lo, it's your strong suit.

Logan: the women of princeton will get over it. plenty of other athletes for them to try their luck with.

Logan: remember that one time i forced you not to come because you were sick? the guys actually asked me where you were because they couldn’t concentrate without your yelling in the background.

Logan: as long as it’s not that weird vegan place with the kombucha you like. think we’ll be able to find a taco truck?

Logan: if i started dropping latin in casual conversation people would either think i’m pretentious or crazy.

[apothecses]

text ✉ logan norris

Holly: No...kinda? I just...you haven't actually been on a date at all this year...I'm starting to think you've lost your game.

Holly: Okay maybe not mathletics....but fooseball?? Come on Lo, there's like movement and strategy. It takes skill.

Holly: Yeah well there's more where that came from but you're gonna have to buy me dinner first...what would Whitney say if she finds out I'm just givin' the milk away for free? I'm not just some bio-hussy you know Norris.

Logan: my game is perfectly fine, thank you very much. i'm just... not interested in dating right now. i'll just stick to drunken make out sessions.

Logan: okay, fine. i'll give that to you, but i'll amend my original statement – you hate all traditional sports. i'm touched that you still show up to football games despite your complete lack of interest, though.

Logan: holly, i buy you dinner like... all the time. if i buy you any more, mason's going to want my head on a spike. and we both know whitney loves me. she'd probably tell you that it's nice that i'm so invested in your learning.

Logan: i'd bio talk you in return, but i think that would only make me sound /less/ smart, not more.