azanavarette

[azanavarette]

bastien-levasseur·:

Last night could’ve been a scene from any night of the week: their narrow street crowded with cars, a party hitting its stride just after midnight, bottles of Ciroc and Belvedere abandoned on the floor or standing half-full on the kitchen island. A playlist of foreign rap and old-school hip hop vibrating the foundations of their house. Then, the inevitable knock at the door; Aza standing on their doorstep with her arms crossed, mouth set firmly for an argument. To placate her, he’d promised a ride to school the next morning. 

Now Bas switched his car into park at the curb and fired off a quick text to her number (like with his spoken English, his texts confined themselves to a bare minimum of necessary syllables: here) without exiting the heated interior of the Tesla. The winter had been mild, but finally Lovell had been hit with a long overdue freeze that had the locals scrambling to stock up on canned goods and replace their winter tires. Ice glittered from tree branches and porch awnings like the whole world were glass, ready to shatter. He heard footsteps crunching through the fresh snow and didn’t look up when the door opened and slammed shut, stowing his phone only once the seatbelt audibly clicked. “All good?” That back-of-the-throat accent added a certain terseness to his tone, which contributed to the impression that he was always running low on patience, even when his mood was arguably good. Today, it was good enough. No trace of a sleepless night in his own face— the shadows under his eyes were permanent, and otherwise, he was his usual self in an expensive-looking cashmere sweater, expression unreadable above the fur-trimmed hood of his Canada Goose. The Tesla slide out of the driveway, whisper-quiet. The silence was quickly replaced by a heavy, thrumming beat, followed by words spat out in slick French. “Busy day today?” he asked her over the music conversationally, then, more as an afterthought, added, “Sorry about last night. Tommo invited some friends and they overstayed.” He inserted a shrug, failing to seem very apologetic. 

@azanavarette·

Aza had quickly discovered that not even the Lovell police could stop her neighbors from throwing a party. She had quickly given up calling reinforcement when it became apparent they were useless. Even when she showed up to their door in her pajamas, makeup-less and furious, they did not take pity on her. Their only form of concrete apology was in rideshares - something Aza loathed to take them up on though she soon bit the bullet because it halved the commute in two. 

She had been prepared to leave five minutes ago, and was stewing/trying not to fall asleep again on her couch when she received the curt message from Bas on her phone. Groaning and rubbing her eyes, Aza trudged down the three flights of stairs and flung the apartment door open, surly even in exhaustion. The door handles to the Tesla never made any sense no matter how many times she got into Bas’ car - she spent a couple seconds prodding it at all angles before finally it pushed up and she was allowed inside. She didn’t spare a look at Bas as she clipped herself into her seat and crossed her arms tightly, waiting for him to speak before she let it all out. “Oh yes, very good,” she replied, seething, her eyes narrowing though still trained away from him. “this pity ride completely wipes away the seven hours of sleep I should have gotten but did not.” 

Bas’ nonchalance was seeming especially rude to Aza. She huffed loudly at his excuses and finally trained her eyes on him. When she was a child her aunts had hung up many a cheshm nazar (or evil eye) to ward away the curse of the devil on their niece. Unfortunately it seemed not to have worked, because if a look could produce fire, hers would have. “I have an incredibly busy day. I had to prepare two lectures, my preliminary thesis defense and I’m pulling an overnight shift tonight. ‘Sorry’ is not an adequate response to having fucking Migos nearly shattering my apartment glass until four o’clock in the morning. You know what is an adequate response? Telling me about the fucking party beforehand so I can go sleep in the library and not want to rip all three of you new assholes.” 

[azanavarette]

lanajvmeson·:

At Aza’s response, Lana only grinned. She had a tendency to chatter at warp speeds, sometimes, a frequency probably only decipherable by bats. 

“Plain? Plain Jane. Jane Eyre,” she played word association for no apparent reason, wafting a hand to dismiss her own runaway train of thought. “Plain’s cool. I like pineapple, though, sometimes. Controversial onion, I guess.” It was a deliberate switch of words, probably for no-one’s amusement but her own, and Lana phased over it with a smile, hands outstretched. “You go to Radcliffe, right? I’ve seen you, I think.”

It was becoming even more apparent that this girl spoke words to let them out of her brain rather than make coherent sense. Aza had quite a firm grasp on the English language, but not quite so to keep up. “I’ve never had onion on my pizza - I guess I’ll trust you on that.” 

“I do, actually,” she said, slightly surprised that a girl like her would recognize a girl like Aza. Not that there was a specific social hierarchy at Radcliffe, but most undergraduates only knew of/saw graduate students if the graduates were friendly or their TAs. “I’m guessing you do as well. Undergraduate, yes?”

[azanavarette]

tommaso-gatti·:

“Nice of you,” he noted, “A lot of the time people just like to guess until they get it right.” It was a habit that most thought to be a fun game and at parties when the players were blonde and lean and empty-headed, he indulged them– awarding a final correct guess with a kiss and invitation back to his. “When it’s cold like this,” Tommo said, glancing back at Azadeh, “I miss it very much. But it’s different than here, I liked New York better than Connecticut, it’s more, alive.” His hand gestured while he selected the last word, nodding in satisfaction that he had found the best one to describe the city.

“As long as you’re having fun,” he said, choosing not to voice his opinions on her version of having a good time– his definitely involved binge drinking and promiscuity. The box in Tommo’s hands shifted and the pizza inside did as well as he continued two more steps before pausing. “No shit?” He gestured up to the house beside the apartment with its parking lot full of vehicles, “We’re neighbours.”

?“I hate when they do that,” Aza shook her head with a frown. She would rather someone asked her plainly than guessed around aimlessly, making wrong assumptions. The children at elementary school had teased her that way, pointing randomly on a map and asking her if that was where she came from, ignoring her when she tried to explain. “ethnicity and race are only party games to the white people who like to play them.” Connecticut was certainly less alive than New York, Aza could agree. “I’ve never been to New York,” she admitted. “Only to the airport before coming here. I guess I should because it’s so close, but there’s been no time.”

Her face morphed very quickly from calm to disgust after Tommaso’s realization that yes, indeed, they were neighbors. “You...” she began, a laundry list of complaints unboxing themselves in her head. “you live here?! Donde la vista... Do you know how fucking loud you are? How inconsiderate it is to everyone around you how you behave like you own this block? La madre que te parió!” 

[azanavarette]

barots·:

Stoned, maybe, too far out of his mind, and staring down at his phone in silent contempt, at the Uber app loading - the car 20 minutes away despite Lovell being such a small town, on just a regular night - he looks up, slowly but surely startled, hopeful at first that maybe he hadn’t been ultimately abandoned by the group of friend’s he’d been with originally, and turns ‘round to face Aza. “By fucking saints -,” Amos begins, almost seeming angry at first (though, far too out of it to really be, even if he were), hands already drawing near the first pizza box, “You are nothing short of an angel, my dear companion. I am absolutely fucking ravenous. If I were on that little island, with all those aggressive boys, and I happened to also be a rich, aggressive middle schooler, they’d be goners. I’d be mad with cannibalism. So - truly, thank you, for this delightful fucking meal.”

Aza let the stranger snap the pizza box out of her hands, giving him a slightly wary look. “You are...welcome?” she said, slightly nonplussed. From the ravenous appetite to the mind-boggling introduction, it was obvious to Aza that this man was high off his rocker. She wasn’t unsurprised; most young people at this time of the night were off having their fun, enjoying freedom from whatever restraints (work, school, family) usually held them down. Except for Azadeh. She felt most comfortable in the belly of the beast, hunkered down by herself - not lonely (most times), but alone. “I’m glad the pizza is not going to waste. It probably would have gone in the trash had I not found someone.” 

[azanavarette]

charlee-scott·:

She shrugged, the answer for herself was easy. Coming to Radcliffe hadn’t of been about academics, or getting a degree– rather, it had been a place to be able to cheer and to hone her craft. “I’m a student athlete,” Charlee explained, “I’m just here to get good grades and compete for the school.” She wondered if Azadeh had questions beyond this; or if she would try to work out what it was that she did. The brunette stood with only four inches teetering about five feet, and her build was slender– not ideal for most sports. 

Charlee watched her walk away, tugging the band of her sweatpants down just enough to see the spiderwebbed bruise on her hip. It was a weird patchwork of healing and fresh injuries, a result of the intensities of practice. Her finger prodded, wincing as she found the newest spot that she’d hit. It too, would darken over time. She snapped it back up when the other woman handed her the icepack, muttering her thanks before pressing it on. Behind them, the shriek of the car alarm had finally come to a stop and she let out a breath of laughter. “That was short lived, huh?”

Aza nodded in understanding when Charlee mentioned she was a student athlete. In Aza’s private opinion, she thought the concept was dumb. Athleticism and academics, in higher education, shouldn’t mix - if an athlete was purely devoted to their sport they wouldn’t have the time to concentrate on their sport, and vice versa. She believed professional athletics within colleges was a ploy by American universities to acrue wealth, as they were not as heavily subsidized as European universities (who for the most part did not have student athletes). But she didn’t mention any of this to Charlee - the girl hadn’t asked for her opinion. “What sport do you play for,” she asked politely, unsure of which sports the athletics departments had.

She caught the slightest hint of a look at Charlee’s bruised hip before the younger girl hid it from sight. Insanity, what a sport could require of a human body. At the car’s silence she shared the laugh, shaking her head. “It was, but at least we got our just desserts.”

[azanavarette]

“I enjoy controlled loneliness. I like wandering around the city alone. I’m not afraid of coming back to an empty flat and lying down in an empty bed. I’m afraid of having no one to miss, of having no one to love.”

— Kuba Wojewódzki  (via mczarts)

[azanavarette]

lencovello·:

Len’s lower lip protruded further at the steady stream of Spanish. No, she didn’t understand it, but she could gather enough from tone and inflection that the woman wasn’t exactly giving her compliments. Shrinking away from the pointed finger like a scolded child, she fumbled with the device, flipping through the pictures and deleting them as she was told, haughtily turning the screen of the camera up and towards her as proof, making sure it was just out of her grasp– just in case. “Honestly? Your vibe is fucking r-o-t-t-e-n.” Len replied, drawing out the last word. “I’m trying to make something good in this world and your,” she chucked her chin up to accentuate her point, flicking back some of her hair, “Negativity is seriously what’s killing the art community here. Meditate on it, I could be the next fucking Annie Leibowitz and you’re first degree murdering my dream.”

Aza scanned the camera with a discerning eye before finally putting her finger down and scoffing at Len’s insinuation. As she had said before, and would think again: this girl was a child. The world would not be ruined if she didn’t have a couple pictures of Aza tripping in the middle of campus. Her privilege was near nauseating; all she wanted to do was pick up her groceries and walk away, but that would mean passing through Len. 

“Conchetumadre! Whoever Annie Leibowitz is, I feel sorry to her for the comparison. If you want to do true good in this world you would donate your time to helping someone. But I expect that you never will, as you seem to be up so far up your own ass that you cannot see anything other than your self-pity. I hope you figure that out. Now let me pass.” Aza gathered her many grocery bags in her arms and made a ‘move along’ gesture with her hand. 

[azanavarette]

ezramercvr‌:

It was almost impossible for Mercy to keep the amused grin off his face. Gun to his head, he’d never openly admit to having a soft spot for anyone, but if he absolutely had to, maybe one day he’d be able to confess that he did in fact have one for Aza. It probably had to do with the amount of times they’d been in this exact situation, and instead of passing judgment towards him, she merely humoured his antics - frankly, it was refreshing, “Prostate exam!” he crowed after the sound of her glove snapping against her skin. Mercy liked Aza just fine, but that didn’t mean he never made things more than a little difficult for her, “Hit my head on the floor? I stood fucking standing Aza, obviously,” Mercy insisted, raising his wrist to his face and narrowing his eyes so he could check the time, “It was around thirty minutes ago, I guess. I was drunker then, the punch really knocked some fuckin’ sobriety into my ass,” Flinching as his sinuses protested against the movement of the tampon exiting his nose, Mercy gestured towards his entire face while Aza pressed against his features carefully - the first time she’d done this, treated him with genuine caution and care, like it mattered if she’d accidentally hurt him or not, Mercy had gotten admittedly, flustered by the entire ordeal. People generally treated him as gently as they would a rattlesnake ready to strike, “Whole fucking face kinda hurts right now, y’know. I’m gonna look like a makeup look gone wrong -,” Once she was pressing just to the right of the bridge of Mercy’s nose, a particularly sharp jolt of pain shot through his face. Automatically, his eyes watered from the jostle and throb, and before he was thinking the action through, Mercy was quickly grabbing Aza’s wrist to tug it from his face, “Hey!” Coming to mere seconds after he finally pulled himself together, Mercy realized his mistake. As quickly as he’d snatched it, he dropped his hold on Aza’s wrist, taking a step back so that he could avoid her gaze right in front of him - apparently, the pain had triggered a usually characteristically volatile out of him, but he’d never properly shown Aza his aggressive side. Usually, she was only there to fix him up afterwards, “You good?” he asked, too ashamed in that moment to actually admit he’d overreacted and give Aza a real apology.

Mercy was most definitely one of her funnier regulars. Aza prided herself on her professionalism, her cool (if sometimes frosty) bedside manner, but Mercy had a way with the English language that often made her break character. She tried to hold it in, of course - she couldn’t let him know that he was as funny as he thought he was. “Obviously,” she repeated, shaking her head and hiding her slight smile. “Next time remind me not to doubt you. Or, you could not get yourself into situations like these that give me reason to doubt you. I like the second option better.” Aza flashed him a raised eyebrow, a challenge she knew he would refuse. But she would still ask, because there was no harm in asking for pacifism. 

EMTs were trained to be prepared in situations where their patients lashed out; they met people at perhaps their worst moment, with a range of emotion and not a lot of time to become intimately acquainted. So Aza should have been prepared for when Mercy grabbed her wrist. She wasn’t, and a shocked gasp left her lips as he ripped her hand away from him. Her body ran a hot current into a shiver as it reacted to what it believed to be a dangerous circumstance. Aza stood still as Mercy shrank away from her, a little at loss for words.

At his, she nodded with a swallow, straightening her spine and stepping back into his vicinity. “Sorry about that,” she intoned, slightly wary to touch him though she knew better than to let a reflex reaction taint her judgement. “it’s definitely broken. You’ll have to go to the hospital to have it straightened, but I can give you an icepack to calm the swelling.” She grabbed a pack and hit it to start the cooling process, handing it to Mercy for him to put it on his nose himself.

[azanavarette]

lee-elander·:

“Well lucky you and lucky me then.” Lee flashed her a smile in return. She couldn’t place the girl, but she looked vaguely familiar, most likely a fellow prisoner of Radcliff. There were far too many people to meet when you transfer in your senior year, and Lee had not done a great job at mustering the energy to fully acclimate into the social scene at school. It was just far too exhausting to care. “I’m Lee by the way.” 

Munching happily on the still steaming pizza, Lee knocked the bench on the opposite side of the table with her foot. “Feel free to join me, that is if you don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Azadeh,” She replied with a small nod and an even smaller smile. A quick glance over Lee’s textbooks confirmed her suspicion that she was also a student at Radcliffe. The science textbooks were thick, volumes full of numbers and calculations Aza had great respect but no talent for. 

At the offer to sit down, Aza hesitated slightly. Perhaps because she was so used to eating alone (family didn’t count, she knew that), the offer to sit with a complete stranger and have a meal was a rather foreign concept. The fact that this also happened to remind her that she hadn’t been on a proper date in two years was also a hindrance. “As long as I’m not bothering your studying,” she finally said, sliding onto the bench seat and placing her pizza box on the table. “I find it very difficult to study with people around.” 

[azanavarette]

maks-lawrence·:

It was always like this— the sagging quiet of his chest or the anger. Make oscillated between the two with violence, and when he came back to the quiet he was worn out, ragged and heavy limbed, pieces stitched together. This was how he had come to be, trying to be good, trying to be careful, and then release— he wasn’t good, he wasn’t careful. It felt good to slam the throttle, to land a punch, to hear that vicious smack of knuckles against someone’s flesh, the heavy pant of brawler’s catching their breath, the copper stink of blood as it began to flow from a fresh wound. Now, spent, it felt like a waste, just aching muscles and the sick taste of self-loathing slick to the back of his throat. He kept his expression static as she inspected the injury, accepting the twinges of pain where she pressed down. “Next time I’ll say that. Ribs off limits,” he retorted after her retreating form as she left the living room. He knew the consequences, he just never thought about them until after.

Laying out on the couch, he wiped at his hands obediently, ignoring the sting of the anti-septic fluid on them. They were torn in places, ugly pieces of split skin weeping where they’d half healed— he never really gave them a chance to fully recover. Sitting up he let her take his hand,  his gaze cast back towards the floor, lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks. She reminded him of his mother— Mrs. Lawrence, patiently placing bandaid on his cuts, wiping blood from an opened lip in first of his school yard fights. You have to control your anger, Maksim. He didn’t know how to tell her that he didn’t know where to put it.

Our bodies have memories. In the dim light of her living room, the yellow glow of a lamp washed  his skin clean of the scars. Looking close, the constellation was visible, silver and pink, some raised as they healed. The scars were a type of Braille, tracing fingertips down the skin of his chest and arms told dark stories and memories that he’d never utter out loud. He didn’t know how to be without the fights, but he nodded, biting down on his back molars because he knew it was what she needed. Sitting up, he pulled on his jacket again and gestured at the mess. “You should go back to bed. I can clean this up, if you want. I’ll let myself out.”

“You’re not leaving until I bandage your hands, Maksim,” Aza pressed, with a kind yet firm shake of the head. “I either do all of my job or none of it. And I wasn’t sleeping anyways, so don’t get it in your head that you disrupted me.” She pulled out another clean roll of gauze, took Maks’ right hand, and began winding the white fabric tightly around his knuckles. She understood his rage - was familiar with the need to punch and kick and bleed a way through understanding life. A cousin of hers, Alonso, was very similar; he had grown up with a chip on his shoulder, a middle finger to the society that had turned its back to him. Being different put a target on Aza’s family’s back, but none took it so hard as Alonso. She remembered the nights he would disappear and her grandmother would sit by the phone praying the police wouldn’t call, or worse. 

As a child Alonso’s behavior made her mad, pissed her off. She could control her anger - she could channel it into something else, like her schoolwork, or shove it down so far back within her mind it became unreachable. As she grew older, gained empathy and began to process trauma, she understood Alonso better. There were people in the world who could control the way they felt, and others who did not have the facilities to do so. All she could do was do what she knew how to do and hope that her words would sink in, slowly but surely. 

Thinking about Alonso had made her eyes water slightly - Aza couldn’t help it. She bit the inside of her lip to divert one emotion into the other and finished wrapping Maks’ hands. “I’m going to get a trash bag for all this and you can take it on your way out,” she said quietly, reduced. Grabbing a large trashbag and some Lysol wipes from the kitchen she opened it up and began collecting bloody bandages and paper towels. “If you could wipe down the coffee table that would be a help.”

[azanavarette]

tommaso-gatti·:

“Just a little way,” he said, his grin hitching crookedly. “I’m from Milan,” Tommo offered, his tone proud. He shook out dark curls, wondering if she’d have more questions– he didn’t look like he was from Italy, in fact, someone once had marvelled that he didn’t particularly look like he was from anywhere. It had made him feel special, unique in the namelessness of his appearance. They turned the corner to head up the street that Bas’ house was on and he was surprised that they were both still going in the same direction. He arched a dark brow, feigning shock. “So you don’t like to have even a little bit of fun?”

“I thought Italian but I didn’t want to presume,” Aza said. He didn’t look especially Italian, but she also didn’t look especially Swedish, so she didn’t question him. “I’ve always wanted to visit Italy but never found the right moment.” The moment had not come because of her aunt’s accident - the two were planning a trip around Europe in between Aza’s graduation and her matriculation to a master’s program. “Do you miss it?” 

They took another turn onto a sidestreet together, which made Aza a little suspicious. Was he...walking her home, or did they just live nearby to one another? She hoped the latter and not the former - there was nothing she liked less than male chivalry. “I go out and have a drink, sometimes,” she supplied, a little defensive. “I have fun - not everyone’s fun is binge-drinking and promiscuity.” At the end of the road was Aza’s apartment - she could see the color of her closed curtains in the distance. As they approached she gained a bit of distance from Tommo, awkwardly waving a hand and back-stepping towards her place. “This is me,” she stilted out, unsure why he too was slowing down. 

[azanavarette]

syd-belcourt·:

She felt comforted by the words, Aza’s intonation and expression was so genuine. Later, she’d wonder if this was what it felt like to have an older sister– or to have her mother who saw value in her chosen path. Maybe this was what it was like to have someone believe in you, to want you to succeed. Syd slipped the book back into her bag, working the zipper back around it to close it off. “I’m working on a paper maché piece right now, a submission for one of the college contests. They’ll be showing them off at the student gallery soon, I think. Maybe you’ll like that better?” It wasn’t her magnum opus, but it was a project of grand scale– a rattlesnake to match the campus mascot.

Aza’s suggestion made her brows draw in. “That could be interesting.” She nodded, considering. There was plenty of places in Lovell that could have been done, but instead she thought of faces, worn and characteristic that had stories beyond what she knew to capture with pigments. She wasn’t sure yet how to paint pain into someone’s eyes, or to show a life of happiness beyond a few creases around the mouth. Maybe she’d learn, it was worth a try. “I can do that.” She brightened, standing once more as the students for the next period began to filter into the room. “I think it would be good.”  

A part of Aza’s heart sort of shriveled up and died at the fact Sydney thought she didn’t like her art. That wasn’t at all how she had wanted to come off, though perhaps Syd was so critical of herself she wanted to believe that every criticism meant disdain. If it wasn’t inappropriate for a teacher to touch a student Aza would have laid a hand on Sydney’s to convey these words: “I’d love to come and see your next piece. And I want to say I have very much liked all of your art that I’ve seen, Sydney. Thank you for showing it to me. I feel honored to have been someone you consider for something like this.” 

Aza smiled, a little brighter than usual when Syd accepted the extra credit. “Excellent! I am excited to see what you come up with,” she replied, gathering her own belongings and stood with Syd as the next class filed into the room. “Let me know if you have any questions or are stuck on what to do - I may have a couple suggestions if you are lost. I'll see you next class.” With a smile and a wave Aza exited the room, off to the library to prepare for her next meeting. 

[azanavarette]

charlee-scott·:

“I’m glad,” she said breezily, “It’s not like there’s much I can do to change it.” She felt as though she had maybe outgrown her name, as a child Charlee was sweet, but a time had been reached when she should have transitioned into being a Charlotte, or something else more grown up.

The brunette lifted a shoulder, not feeling entirely inclined to correct the fact that she wasn’t American– it always lead into further conversation, a discourse that was always the same and Charlee felt too tired to explain her trajectory that lead to attending Radcliffe. “Most of us just want a good GPA and to slide through to the next year,” she admitted. “Couldn’t really give a damn about self improvement.”

Dark eyes flickered to the first aid kit and she nodded thankfully, “It’ll help the bruising, at least– I won’t make you late, will I?”

“Why come to university if not to self improve?” Aza questioned, her brow furrowing. American universities cost an exorbitant amount of money - it was near offensive, in Aza’s humble opinion, to spend that much money just for the partying and not for the education. “A good GPA only means you know how to test - it doesn’t mean you know how to work.” 

Aza checked the time on her phone. There was about two minutes left until the rest of her class would start trickling in, so she definitely had a couple more minutes so spare. “I’ve got time,” she said to Charlee before heading down to the first aid kit. She grabbed one of the smaller ice packs from the kit, and as she walked back to Charlee she popped the bag to start the cooling process. “It should start becoming cold soon,” she said, handing it over. 

[azanavarette]

She was like a sword. Her tongue was sharp, she was always ready to fight She never showed fear Her eyes only ever showed determination.

sunrises-and-nightlights (via wnq-writers)

[azanavarette]

maks-lawrence·:

“I don’t know,” Maks replied, blankly. There’d been a lot of drinking before, mouthfuls from a handle that was passed around between the gatherers, laughter and cigarette smoke escaping the huddled bunch, shoulder to shoulder to keep the winter wind away. “Wasn’t really counting. I don’t think I’ve got a concussion. He had a ring on, ripped the skin.” His eyes shut as she washed away the blood, retreating inwards as she gently dabbed it away, nodding obediently at her instructions. He might remember in the morning, he might not. He was certain she’d send a reminder text regardless.

Her question made his shoulders sag further. There was an inventory that must be done, the sooner he got it over with the better. His body was in a state of dull ache, numbed but thawing, and he peeled his dark eyes open to show her. Pulling off the left sleeve of his bomber, he hiked up the hem of his hoodie up to his ribs. “I think this looks worse than it is.” There was a spider’s web of a half healed bruised decorating his ribcage, blooming in the centre with something fresher. “My knuckles too,” he added sheepishly, dropping the fabric so it’d cover red and blue skin. “They opened again. I can wrap them myself, later.”

There was no pride with the reveal of each injury, he wasn’t the schoolyard boy showing off his injuries or the silver of a brand new scar— they embarrassed him. He struggled with having to ask for help, asking Aza to put him back together. Make didn’t want to bother people, worried about getting accustomed to it, of relying too heavily on someone.

Aza ripped off her bloody gloves and pulled Maks’ shirt back up, acknowledging his embarrassment but pushing through it to do her job in the moment. She touched his ribs, palpating a few spots around the new bruise and checking his reactions to see if any more were bruised or broken. “It looks exactly like it does, which is not good, Maks,” she said, straightening up with an exasperated look at him. “If you don’t take proper time to heal in between, especially with a rib injury, they could shatter and perfore, surâkh-kardan  -- ah, puncture -- your organs. And then there is nothing I can do for you.” 

She handed him an antiseptic wipe for him to start cleaning up his knuckles as she left her living room to go to her bathroom. Grabbing a tin of herbal arnica remedy for bruises, she headed back to Maks and gestured for him to lay down on the couch so she could put the gel onto his ribs. When he lay prone, Aza lifted up his shirt and began spreading the substance onto the blue and purple bruises with a careful yet firm touch. 

“I’ll wrap your hand when you’re finished wiping it down,” she said, rolling his shirt up further to check for herself to see if he was telling the compete truth and there were no more injuries to be had. “You can’t wrap your own hands for shit.” With the insult she gave him a small, tired smile and finished her work on his chest, wiping her hands with a stray towel and then pulling out more gauze to get to work on his knuckles. She took his hand and began pulling the roller gauze tightly, wrapping it around each knuckle. “Your skin is not elastic forever,” she said, after a few moments of silence. “You cannot keep becoming hurt, expecting to bounce back every time. Our bodies have memories, which will come to bite you when you least expect it - and most need it to forget.” 

[azanavarette]

lencovello·:

She’d gotten a few more pictures of the mad scurry, the race against the wind as the woman raked the papers towards herself and bundled them all back up. There was something feral about it, and she could already see herself explaining it to a gallery onlooker— see that line in the shoulders? The tension? The hard line of her brows? It means— her train of thought was derailed by the angry stream of words, Len’s expression morphing into one of surprise. She gestured at her camera, as if that was enough explanation, she couldn’t possibly help, she’d been busy. “Okay well, I thought you might be a little more receptive. I think you got all your pages anyways. Aren’t you a patron of the arts?” She pouted, her head tilting a little to the side, she really preferred getting her own way. “Could I even use that? Like, my mundane life is not yours to capture? I’ll paraphrase it a little, maybe add some,” she twirled her hand, “Embellishment.” 

Aza steeled her jaw at Len’s comments. How obtuse could she be, to think that her ‘art’ mattered more than helping someone? The lack of empathy was outstanding, yet unsurprising. There was many a rich, unfettered art student wandering this campus just waiting for their perfect muse in distress. 

“Sos un niñata, una puta niñata, madre mia. Si pudieras ver cinco pulgadas delante de tu cara sabrías lo tonto que eres.” Aza shoved her loose papers into her tote bag and took a step closer to the photographer, putting a finger in her face. She decided to put the more... colorful phrases in another language in the hopes that this Len girl didn’t understand Spanish and would therefore not be able to take any more ‘quotes’. “Delete those photos off of your camera. You have no right to use my image, my words, without my permission. How little do you care about people other than when it is convenient to take their picture and feed off their struggle. Estás avergonzando, no lo puedo creer.” 

[azanavarette]

tommaso-gatti·:

“I’d say welcome to America,” he noted, pleased at the idea of meeting someone else who wasn’t from here, another ally to the strangeness that sometimes stumped him. “But I don’t think I’m allowed to, not yet.” Tommo hadn’t decided if he had plans to stay forever, to live out the rest of his life away from the comforts of home. “Nice to meet you,” he said agreeably. “Are you liking the program? Radcliffe?”

“I’ll take the welcome nonetheless,” Aza said. “You are also a little ways away from ‘home’, if I am reading your accent correctly.” She wasn’t sure if home was the correct word; she may have lived most of her life in Sweden, but she had never felt as if that were her true home. It was where her family had landed, and the place that provided them refuge, but it wasn’t warm like a home should be. She wasn’t sure where that was, yet. “It’s very small,” she noted. “and the undergraduates are... rowdy, but I came here for the education, not the extras.”