holloweycs

[holloweycs]

[holloweycs]

ohsydney:

the taller man had undoubtedly piqued sydney’s interest. there was something about the way he spoke and the things he said that left her in absolute awe. though, she had yet to figure out if that was a good thing. he certainly had a way with words, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t slightly irritated by them. ❝ hm, what a shame. and here i was thinking i had it all figured out. oh well. can’t say i didn’t try. ❞  she replied with a simple shrug, sarcasm evident in her tone. with a roll of her eyes, she dismissed most of his statement, but a light laugh fell from her lips when he asked for her name. ❝ oh, you don’t know my name? you seemed to know my whole life story so well, though. why don’t you just…guess? or assume what my name is. you seem to do that a lot. ❞ arms crossed tightly over her chest, the girl shifted around her seat before finally deciding to answer his question. ❝ it’s sydney. and no, i don’t know any jason, or arthur, or todd. my mother isn’t neurotic and no one is better at cheerleading than me. ❞

            there’s something like a petulant child in her mannerisms, a stubbornness, a desperation to get her own way -- it’s something jack could find irritating, were he to be locked in a room with her for long enough. for now, at least, it’s amusing to him, the way she seemed to snap and chew at any ill conduct thrown her way. there’s a certain charm to her childishness. “sydney,” jack repeats, lips quirking into something of a smile -- though it never seems to reach his eyes. the iliad has long since forgotten in favour of spidery games, he drops his hands into his lap and considers his options. would she be a squealer? he supposed there were two possible scenarios in which he could find out. inching closer, jack’s face remained contemplative, voice dropping to a dulcet murmur as his fingers found themselves closing around a lock of her hair, twirling it between his thumb and forefinger. “d’you like steak? i cook a mean steak. could show you, if you like.” a pause, lips pursing and unpursing. “what are you doing tomorrow night, sydney? dinner at mine? shall we say eight o’clock?”

[holloweycs]

JACK FRANCIS’ ROOM ✼ TASK OO2.

doorways don’t represent opportunity to you, they represent privacy -- you’ve double locked it just to keep your secrets in, even taped the keyhole over lest a prying eye find insight there. should they know where to look, it’s a pan’s labyrnth of intrigue, teeth in a box in a bedside dresser, revolver beneath a floorboard, your memoirs stashed under lock and key. keys take your fancy only when attached to strings -- you’d rather write on the visceral skin of a typewriter than a laptop, still, there’s one in the back of the wardrobe, rarely used, half-forgotten.

oh, the places you will go -- maps with thumb tacks following the plot arc of your flee from fate and pershaps the iron bars, blood on your hands you can’t quite wash out, the deities in oxford plaster smirking down from pinewood bookshelves. chess games, half-complete, you play agaist your intoxicated selves, while lines snorted over holy bible skins, the sound of your late night violin stringing enough to keep the neighbours out of bed. let them howl. 

at a glance, it’s the room of an academic, piled high with novels and verse, canvases depicting hauntingly beatuiful women and in some cases, their demise, still dripping oil paint onto newspaper. colour’s never taken your fancy -- you work in shades of white and black, and linger in the grey area -- shades of the earth in browns and greens leak in, but it’s an industrial scene, wooden floorboards ( you ripped the garish carpets up yourself ) and white sheets. some nights you’ll bring a girl back from the floor below, hope she’s rough and claws your skin, find them speckled red in the morning -- yours or hers? it’s hard to tell.

[holloweycs]

most interesting people around here?

“Davie. The rest of you are sickeningly dull. Impress me, and perhaps I’ll form an opinion. Until then, nothing of note.”

[holloweycs]

are you a sadistic toothfairy?

“Ha. Without a doubt. Watch out, kiddiewinks -- the Brothers Grimm version is never as pleasant as the fairytale.”

[holloweycs]

what qualities intrigue you?

“AB blood type and a family history of pristine genealogy.”

[holloweycs]

what's your biggest fear?

“Old age, and mediocrity.”

[holloweycs]

weirdest thing you've ever done

“ On Halloween, in a riveting fit of impulse, I had sex with a stranger in the elevator. Never saw her face as we were both wearing masks -- she was Catwoman, I was the Scream. For the next month, every time I walked past someone of a similar build in the lobby, I’d think... is that her? Though if I found out, I’d be sorely disappointed. It’s the thrill of the unknown that makes it so enticing. ”

[holloweycs]

what's most attractive to you?

“In life? Post-war literature and classical architecture. In a person? Teeth.”

[holloweycs]

♚ ☆ ☎ ( 4 ur boi jack )

☎: for a voicemail not meant for you

❝ hey, so about the thing we talked about earlier…should i put out on the first date or no? i don’t want to seem desperate, but i also don’t want him to think i’m, i don’t know, a prude or something? screw it, i’m gonna play hard to get. why does it matter so much anyw - wait, did i dial the wrong number? who is this? oh i’m so sorry! ignore this, delete this, don’t listen to it! ❞

☆ : for a drunken voicemail

❝ is - is this thing on? -clears throat- well hello there, jack. if that’s even your real name, you kind of look like a george or a henry…but anyway, why am i calling you? i’m drunk just in case you didn’t know and i saw your name on my phone and i thought hey why not give him a call, i mean, you’re not bad to look at -she laughs- i was thinking that maybe…maybe you were right all along, you know? maybe i will end up pregnant and loveless in a crammy motel room while arthur slash jason slash todd is banging some other girl who’s better -her voice cracks- better than me at everything and i’m gonna die alone..oh my god i hate my life. and i hate you too. i think we should go out for a drink sometime? or not, whatever, i don’t even care. this was a fun conversation. i’m gonna go throw up now. -hangs up-

♚ : for a confessing voicemail

❝ i don’t think i’m going to stay here much longer. part of me just wants to run away again, start over in a place where no one knows my name. you know, i wanted to lead an extroardinary life, live every moment like it was my last, but life has denied me that. i hate the room i stay in, i hate my job, i hate not being good enough for what i think i deserve. this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. i don’t even know why i’m telling you this. i guess i just needed to get it out of my chest. sorry for bothering you.

[holloweycs]

phocbe:

      SOME SENSIBLE GIRLS might take concern when strange men encircle their throats when explaining the stars, but phoebe’s accustomed to men in business suits doing the same for much less, so she doesn’t blink twice  -  only shifting the slightest. “  are you afraid of anything ?  ”  she asks, the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of syrupy lips. “  hm, you try to terrify others by reciting odd passages from novels, and now you’re telling me about bears in the stars.  ”  she points her sucker in a zig-zag path, dotting out three glowing orbs.  “  i’ve always been fond of cassiopeia. i used to think i could live in that constellation and watch earth from afar.  ”

                his laugh’s a cold one, a guttural one ; somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, wrenched out, not waiting in arms at the back of his throat. fear has always been a loose, intangible concept to a boy who once burned his own fingertip off to see if his fingerprint grew back. but even a wolf of a boy has his pitfalls, doorways that remain locked, your mother’s face bloodied and bawling. “ of course. everyone’s afraid of something, flower. ” perhaps he’ll keep her in the dark, pander instead to her musings on cassiopeia, a softness to his voice as he notes “ it’d be a boring life, up there, in the stars. though peaceful, I suppose. ” jack considers silence. remaining elusive is a tactic he executes well, conserving his thoughts and concealing his fancies. some would call him strange, should they tug his psyche out with corded wires and lay out his cognitive matter on the table—but phoebe is a safe bet with his hand around her throat and a smile on her lips tempting claws to pay her heed. 

                “ --old age and disease. ghosts and ghoulies and creatures of the night don’t bother me. but the very real probability that one day I will lose control of this visceral body? now that is a harrowing thought. I think, perhaps, my greatest fear is finding myself trapped inside my own corpse – not comatose; more in a vegetative or crippled state. amnesia, too, frequents my darkest dreams. I should hope that I am dead long before disease or decrepitude can take me. ”

[holloweycs]

♚ ☆ ☽ ( 4 ur boi jack )

♚ : for a confessing voicemail

          “  I KNOW THERE’S SOMETHING AWFULLY DARK IN ME, and maybe i have people who ignore it. nurture it. they think that’s the right thing to do, y’know ? but every time i recall the things you say, i wonder if you’re the only one who actually understands it. what do you suppose that means ?  ”

☆ : for a drunken voicemail

        “  SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL END IN FIRE, some say in ice - from what i’ve tasted of desire, i hold with those who favor fire  –  i’m drunk, reading frost, and i can’t help but wonder which one you are: fire or ice ? i think i’ve always been a flicker of trouble, and i - hiccup ! - i’m growing into a flame. i don’t… know what to do about it. maybe the world needs both to be destroyed.  maybe that’s how i met you. ”

☽: for the final voicemail ever received

     “  A PSYCHIC ONCE TOLD ME that i’d never live past thirty. that seems a bit generous for someone like me, don’t you think ? i’m leaning towards twenty - five, but even that feels like eternity. i miss the ocean. if i just walked into it and kept going, do you think it’d be blissful ?  ”

[holloweycs]

ohsydney:

sydney was completely taken aback by what he was saying. who was he? and why was he telling her all this? she was bewildered, nonetheless, and a bit offended, too. but she wasn’t one to keep her mouth shut, even though sometimes she probably should. ❝ how close to the truth am i? let’s see. you grew up in an upper-class family. definitely had some daddy issues. lived under your brother or sister’s shadow and you resent them terribly because your parents loved them more. that’s probably why you’re so bitter and have little to no friends at all. fell in love with olivia, or layla, or veronica, but she fucked some other guy who is way more attractive and better in bed than you, now that made you even more petulant. so, you spend your nights alone. thinking about where it all went wrong when in reality you were the problem all along. you’ll wonder if life is still worth living. years will go by and you will still find yourself alone, working some shitty job, making everyone that has the displeasure of crossing your path feel uncomfortable and disturbed by your deranged assumptions. ❞  she mirrors his smug. ❝ am i close? ❞

          it wasn’t shock that held jack’s tongue throughout the course of her soliloquy, but merely amusement. his brief spark of misanthropic offloading had become a magnificent game for pawns to play their hands at kings and queens. there was so much aggression, so much passion in what she was saying, that the words themselves scarcely mattered, though he latched on all the same, constructing a list of that which she observantly noted and that which she failed to grasp completely, all the while his thumb running over the brim of his lips as he anchored himself in thought. “close, but not quite close enough. the sibling you speak of – a brother – is moderately deformed ; my upbringing was modest, not lavish ; and i’ve never felt love for anything other than the smell of a newly bound book.” 

          with a shrug, jack simply brushed over her insults, closing the novel and setting his reading glasses down beside it, quite content to converse with the stranger who now at least, he considered of interest. “my bedside manner is one of a selfless nature – so your tirade of straight-laced privately educated belladonna’s would struggle to find better.” a loose shrug lifts his shoulders, demeanour now more open than his usual hostility, spider-like, weaving his web and reeling her in perhaps – this tempestuous creature -- if she’ll have him. “that’s not narcissism, it’s a simple truth. besides, i’m not interested in olivia’s or veronica’s. one is much the same as another. i’m more drawn towards—hm, what was your name?”

[holloweycs]

one person here you'd be willing to spend three hours locked in a room with?

“ phoebe. she’s not a brown-nosing cunt like the rest of these goin’-nowhere-fast hippie types. she’s ambitious, and i’ve taken quite the interest in that mind of hers. though three hours is an age, considering her dead limb of a boyfriend can’t bear to not be sucking her face for more than seven or eight minutes. were she unavailable, then perhaps the squealer. stubborn little creature that she is, she’s quite the entertainer. sandy? no, sydney. ”

[holloweycs]

phocbe:

         CHERRY PUCKER STAINS ROSEBUD LIPS as she pulls the heart - shaped lollipop from her lips, holding the translucent treat up to the sky ;  the milky moon glows back, flushing her left cheek with a touch of stained-glass pink as she observes the inky black sky through her self-made rose colored lens.  “  full moon’s coming soon,  ” phoebe exhales, catching the company of the first poor soul that drifts by. “  are you ready  ?  ”

              something like a laugh rumbles low in his throat, but it lacks the humour. “always,” comes jack’s response, hands settling on each of her shoulders from behind as he tilts his gaze towards the skyline. they’d look like a christmas card, were it not for their jet-black stares and blood dripping into the snow. “i’m not afraid of things that go bump in the night -- they’re afraid of me.” there’s a childish pride to his words, lips tugging into a smile, his arm circling over her collarbone to tug her into his grasp, chin leaning down onto her head. “see that stretch across there, and how it cicles back on itself? ursa minor. the little bear.”

[holloweycs]

nikalovc:

❝ hello friend, ❞ the blonde’s voice was soft as silk and her approach towards the targeted person was sweet as sugar; a tender smile adorned her face — all in order to lull the person into a cocoon of trust. She was hoping to gain a new costumer and to obtain a couple of much-needed coins - a new set of tarot cards isn’t a cheap buy.

❝ have you ever gotten your palm read ? ❞

         at the crux of his spine, he’s a cynic. ask jack francis if he believed in love and he’d claim not a chance in hell, but magic? unequivocally. he’s always had an affinity for black cats and moonlit witches. “once. i was a child, though. i don’t remember too well.” a shrug of his shoulders renders him careless, rustling his bones and stubbing his cigarette out with his fingertip. a sting -- little more than an oven tray, though. “there was this one card which stuck with me --- the hanged man.” he speaks it’s name with almost vainglory, words liliting like spoken calligraphy. “perhaps i’m a martyr, or prone to offing myself. but i’ll let you be the judge of that.” a rare smile -- not one given to those of mundane value or narrow-minded shrewishness -- lifts his lips ; he offers her his hand.