#pennedhelvetica

[thesubtlegatsby]

My Tumblr Crushes:

glencocos

redhoods

adirtylittlefreak

anobscureaspirant

pennedhelvetica

silas-botwin

danielsharmoan

buckeebarnes

jennyccalendar

[howtheravenislikeawritingdesk]

Since we're all game, shall I start the "sloppy drunken mess" thread?

[metaphoricalzebra]

omg no but can brooke and adeline PLEASE get left on the ship this is literally all I've ever wanted.

[flashbarryallen]

Merry Christmas, Clare!

When the last note from the band faded away, a round of polite applause sounded from the audience.  Fee blinked slowly and looked out through the smoky air, a shy smile perfectly placed on her face.  “Thank you.  I’m going to be taking a short break, so by the time you top off your drink, I’ll be right back.”  She ended things with a coy wink before disappearing backstage and walking into the small dressing room the speakeasy afforded her.  As the door clicked shut the band began playing something a bit more upbeat.  The audience seemed to be good tonight.  That could have been because of the alcohol, but Fee was going to try to remain positive.  She sighed and sat down in the lone chair to begin fixing her make-up.

She turned at the sound of a knock on the door as it opened and one of the other girls walked in, carrying a drink.  Fee smiled and took the beverage, taking a small sip before setting it down on the table.  “Thanks.  Really hit the spot.”  She went back to applying mascara when she noticed that the other girl was still standing there.  “Is there something else?”

The girl glanced nervously around the room, fidgeting with her dress.  “Um, yeah.  I just got the word from the baby grand up front.    A breezer just pulled up.  The big guy’s son is here.”  The girl darted out of the room.  Fee sighed and downed the rest of her drink.  She met the owner of the speakeasy a few times.  He seemed like a nice guy.  He held quite some influence around town, since the place hadn’t been shut down since it opened almost a year ago.  The police knew about the establishment but always seemed to look away when the trucks came rolling in with all the illegal alcohol.  The only other member of the boss’s family that Fee ever met was his wife.  The woman came every so often to listen to the music and engage in the conversation.  Fee knew that they had several kids, but none of them every stepped foot in the bar.  Nothing like raising the stakes.

After a few more minutes of a break, Fee returned back to the stage to more applause.  She gave them another smile before starting the last set of the night.  Throughout the performance her eyes scanned the crowd.  It was all pointless since she didn’t actually know what the boss’s son looked like.  Even if she did, it would be nearly impossible to spy him through the mass of people milling about and the haze of cigarette smoke lingering in the air.  The faces had a tendency to blend together, except for the cute ones.  Perhaps he was only briefly stopping in to collect something for his father before heading back home.  No reason to get all worked up over someone who might not even be there.  The other girl must have done something to insult the family to get so nervous about a boy arriving.  So Fee did the only thing she could.  She sang.

When the performance was over, she gave a dramatic bow to the audience, making sure to flirt with as many guys as she could.  It was all in good fun, and who knows?  Maybe it would help them face their wives at home.  Fee gave a coy wave over her shoulder before she once again disappeared to the backstage portion.  As she neared her dressing room, she noticed that the door was cracked open.  She could have sworn that she shut the door when she left.  Thinking nothing more of it, Fee walked into the room and gave a start.  An impeccably well-dressed man was in the room, glancing at the various things strewn across.  His back was to her, having not heard her come in, but Fee could see part of him in the reflection of the mirror.  “Hey, fella, you make a habit of being places you shouldn’t?”

The man turned around and raised an eyebrow.  “Sorry.  Didn’t want to miss you.”

Fee opened the door wider and crossed her arms.  “Public ain’t allowed back here.  You gotta get out of here now before I get the muscle.”

He smirked and mirrored her posture.  “I’ve got news for you, bearcat.  I ain’t the public.  So I think I’ll stay right here.  Besides, the muscle won’t do anything even if you call’em.”

Fee narrowed her eyes in slight disgust.  “And just who the hell do you think you are?”

He laughed and took a deliberate step closer.  “My, such language for such a lady.  Might want to mind your tongue around men.  They aren’t all going to be as forgiving as I am.  Name’s Melchior Newport.”

“Newport.  That means you’re the boss’s son.  I heard you were going to be here tonight.  Somehow I figured you’d be more…intimidating.”

Melchior chuckled and leaned back on the chair.  “Don’t worry.  I can be intimidating if I want to.  I don’t really make a habit of trying to scare off girls like you.  Not really my style.  I prefer to charm them with my wit and class.”

Fee scoffed and rolled her eyes.  “Somehow I doubt that.”

“I guess I’ll just have to show you then.”

She pushed her way past him and sat down on the chair.  Fee began to remove her make-up, every so often looking in the mirror to meet his gaze.  “Is there any particular reason you’re back here, or is it just to annoy me?  I kind of have obligations that need to be fulfilled, so the quicker I’m out of here, the better.”  It was a lie, but Melchior didn’t have to know about that.  For all he knew she was a hot commodity who had to rush off to go perform at another venue.  If he didn’t find out she was simply going back to her place and calling it an early night, then it was all the better.

Suddenly Melchior was right behind her, his arms reaching around to rest on the table and his face way too close to her own.  Fee gave an involuntary shudder at the sudden proximity.  “There is a reason, sweetheart.  I’m throwing a little party tomorrow night.  All the bigwigs are going to be there.  Sure to be a great event.  Parties by Melchior Newport never fall short.”  He leaned his head a little bit closer, to which Fee responded by inching further away.  “And I’d like you to be there.”

“Well, hate to break it to you, but just by being the boss’s son don’t mean I’m going to just perform wherever the hell you want.  I’ll give you my agent’s card, but I doubt you’ll be able to work something out before your party.”

Melchior rolled his eyes.  “I wasn’t asking you to perform.”

Fee raised an eyebrow and moved slightly further away from him.  “So you’re just inviting me then?  I’ll have to check my schedule.  I’m a busy woman, you know.”

Melchior finally stepped away from Fee, giving her a bit of room to breathe.  He pushed some of the make-up over and sat down on the counter.  He leaned back and crossed his arms again.  “I’m not just inviting you to the party.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m asking you to be my date.”

She fixed him with an expression like he started to grow an extra head out of his shoulders.  “You have to be kidding.  We literally just met.  I know nothing about you.”

“What better way to get to know me a bit better than to be my date for the night?”  Melchior smiled in a way that made Fee want to spit acid in his face.  How presumptuous could one guy be?

“I’m going to have to pass.  I don’t make a habit of being seen out in public with creeps.  It ruins my style.”  She reached out to grab some of her belongings.  As soon as her hand touched it, Melchior’s hand rested on top of hers.  He gripped it a bit tightly, causing Fee to sneer at him.

“I think you may want to reconsider that.  It might get a little…difficult to keep singing here in the future.  Or anywhere for that matter.”

Fee glared at him and snatched her hand out from his.  “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You seem like a smart girl.  Why don’t you figure it out?”

She smiled and leaned closer to his face, batting her eyelashes in a playful manner.  “Let me tell you something.  If you think you’re little manipulation is going to work, you’ve got another thing coming to you, Melchior.”

He chuckled and smiled.  “Oh?  And is that supposed to intimidate me?”

“Definitely.”

“Why is that?”

“Because then I’ll tell your father about our little encounter here.  I’m sure he’ll really like hearing that.  Who knows, maybe he’ll cut you off.”

Melchior’s hand closed around Fee’s wrist.  He gave it a slight tug, causing her to stumble forward a little bit.  She glared at the hand and then back at him.  “Aw, come on baby.  Why you gotta be like that?  I’m offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity to be seen on my arm in front of some highly influential people.  If you’re lucky, I may mention that you sing and you can book some more gigs.”

Fee’s hand smacked into the side of Melchior’s face, causing him to topple off the counter and release his grasp on her.  She pushed the rest of her make-up into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.  “And if you’re lucky, next time I see you I won’t kick you in your apple sack.”  She walked to the door and turned back to watch him rub the side of his face, which had a very nice beet red handprint on the side.  “Don’t forget to turn off the lights when you leave.  I’d hate for daddy’s electric bill to be high because his daft little boy forgot to slip the switch.”  She snapped the door off and headed down the short hallway leading to the back door of the speakeasy.  She sincerely doubted that he’d actually say anything to his father.  After all, Fee could easily just tell him that Melchior was being a creep.  That would solve any dispute.  Not to mention get him in more trouble.  Plus there was the added threat of a swift foot to his crotch.  Fee smiled to herself as she stepped outside.  Now she was actually hoping that he’d do something.  It’d be fun to kick him.  She’d make sure to wear her biggest heels that day.

[gonnaneedacandle-blog]

Guilt

In the training academy, there was a small train. He guessed it was a little generous to call it that, it was just to get from one end of it to the other. The actual training center on one end, the school on the other. Bobby had never spent much time in the school. It was for the ones who proved young that they had no business volunteering to be a Tribute. He'd always thought they were weak, although he knew that was harsh. Not everyone could be a Tribute, anyway. Others were needed to keep the District going. They were never the kids anyone talked about, though, or at least it had never seemed like it to him.

Compared to the train to the Capitol, the academy train was wort of a joke. This might have intimidated him, maybe that he wasn't as impressive as he thought he was, either, if he was the sort of person it was possible to intimidate. Instead he just looked out the window, eyes shining with excitement. He was the model Tribute. Healthy and strong, and good to look at, too. Their stylists would have no trouble with trying to sell him and their mentor- his older brother (and the reason he had so wanted to compete, after seeing him win; Jack had punched him in the face after he had told him that)'s only advise had been to not be an idiot.

"Are you going to talk?" the girl, Hannah, finally said. "Because otherwise this is going to be a very long ride."

"Something to talk about?"

"Strategy?"

He rolled his eyes. "I've been thinking about strategy since I was a kid."

Her voice, completely deadpan. "Oh. I must be so behind, then. I've never put any thought into strategy until this I got into this train car. I suppose I should have before now, considering I volunteered before you did."

He grinned. "What did you have in mind, then?"

"Well, obviously we aren't both winning, however I can't help but think our chances would be improved if we at least waited on actively attempting to kill each other."

His eyes flicked over to her. Cocky smile. "You are a worthy adversary." The words sounded so stiff it sounded like a joke as it passed from his lips. "I'm not into the whole team work thing- seems a stupid way to go about it, but how about this? Until the final four or so, we don't kill each other?"

She looks at him- he guessed to determine if he was lying. "All right. We can work together until the final four. Then we split up, give it a few hours, then we're fair game to each other."

"Sounds fair. Better that someone from our District won than anyone else, right?" he said as if he wasn't talking about one of their deaths. Like he was discussing some sports strategy. He sort of was, for him the game was sort of some massive sporting event.

"Right."

--

First night, after the Bloodbath. The only ones confident enough to sleep were the volunteer tributes. Himself, Hannah, the others, arranged in a little circle guarding their supplies, daring anyone to come near. It would be suicide. He laid down, flat out lounging on the grassy ground, a hatchet resting on the ground by his feet, his pack filled with knives and a canteen beside his head. He rolled over to glance at Hannah, wondering if she was actually going to sleep or not. "You're going to impale yourself if you try to sleep with that knife in your hand."

"Better than someone else trying to impale me."

He rolled over so he was facing her. "No one is going to hurt you while you sleep. Relax." A bright smile, he knows the cameras are on them. He pictured Capitol girls swooning at the line. He wonders how they were selling them on television. He'd flirted with just about every girl he'd come across since the reaping, Hannah included (actually, that wasn't a whole truth, he'd flirted with just about every girl he'd come across since his twelfth birthday). Did the camera catch that? "No one is going to try and kill you while you're right next to me."

She puts the blade down by her feet where she doesn't risk stabbing herself in the stomach with it, should she roll over in her sleep, but he's not sure she ever actually shuts her eyes. He does, and wakes up, sure enough, the next morning to the bright sun.

--

It's done on an impulse while her back is turned. "What happened to final four?" she asks with the gasping breath.

"You're actually competition. I couldn't let you get that far." The words aren't rough or taunting, he's actually just explaining his own actions. He pulls the hatchet out of her back and helps her roll over onto her back into as comfortable position as she could be in, when he's basically positive he punctured one of her lungs.

"Finish it," she says, almost as if she's not referring to her own life. He grabs one of the knives from his pack and slits her throat, blood spurting at him. She spazmed and then lay still. It was the only kill he felt guilty for, of all eleven of them. Just under half of the other tributes died at his hand. Her death was the one that made him realize he had to win, because he wouldn't let her blood be on his hands for nothing.

[mywaxenwings-blog]

Tumblr Crushes:

leavingmebreathless

sunriserooftops

lannisterslie

pennedhelvetica

anorangegentleman

anobscureaspirant

gideonvandeusen

its-snixbitches

gingerbowties

[flashbarryallen]

Tumblr Crushes:

making-beautiful

pennedhelvetica

caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas

thisisaplaguehouse

shutupblainers

tveitjolras

sunriserooftops

florencevassy

moviekidobrien

[gonnaneedacandle-blog]

Mistakes

She knew it was utterly stupid. That didn't change what she was doing. Things hadn't been that bad. She had a girlfriend, she'd been cast in a good, main stage show in her school's prestigious, damn hard to get into music program. However all of that did nothing to make her think that the whole college thing was right for her. At that point she was really wondering why she didn't just join the rest of her friends and stayed in Vocal Adrenaline, at least for another year or two. However she also knew that hadn't been right for her, either. Sure, it was while she'd been in high school, but she wasn't the sort of girl who could make a life out of that choir. She didn't have it in her. If she did, she never would have left in the first place. So that was out, school was out. She didn't know what she had left after that, though. Well, besides run off.

Her original intention had been to run to New York, but she realized she didn't have enough money for bus fair and enough left over to try and find an apartment or at least a hotel for the time being. She knew, from the few trips she had taken that it was incredibly expensive. She guessed California was a viable option, but she wasn't quite a California sort of girl. Dark hair, pale skin... no. So, when trying to come up with major American cities that had a strong arts background where she could just wander around and maybe hopefully nail an audition somewhere, or at least find a job in the meantime, her brain had come up with Chicago. Quite possibly because that was where she knew someone who was most definitely no longer her girlfriend lived.

She'd packed her backpack, and that was it. She wore jeans, a sweater, and her coat. She'd packed two other tops, a dress, tights, and a third of her underwear drawer. The ballet flats she wore were plain enough to go with any of them and she could sleep in her clothes. Not much else had fit, but she'd still rammed in a folder with a few pieces of sheet music and a couple of copies of her resume in it. Her theatre resume- she didn't actually have a practical work experience resume. Then she'd gotten on that bus and tried to hold it together. 

And then she'd turned her cell phone off without saying a thing to anyone about what she was doing. Not even Tal, who she was supposed to go out with the next day. She knew it was wrong- selfish, even cruel because it would scare everyone. She just didn't want Tal, or Harper, or Harper's parents, or Jack (oh God, Jack) to come find her, pick her up, and drag her back to either Akron or Cincinnati kicking and screaming the whole way. She'd already decided neither place fit- why was this a worse option?

Some might argue that the fact that she had shelter and friends and family in Ohio made those automatically better options, but she guessed she just wasn't up to being so rational that day. Hence the one way bus ticket and three hundred dollars in her backpack. It wasn't much- she'd get a really crappy hotel or something for a week or so out of it. But by then she'd have come up with something- found some place hiring a waitress or a store clerk, gotten a job lined up, and within a couple of paychecks she'd get an apartment of her own, or at least find someone who needed a roommate.

She hadn't really accounted for the fact that apparently not many hotels have vacancies at nine o'clock at night and even in a large city it was possible to walk around for a couple of hours without finding a room. So she'd sat down in the bus station and bought herself a hamburger, despite the fact that she much preferred to eat vegetarian and almost never ate red meat. Apparently that only lasted until she was hungry.

And that lasted about a week and a half- filling out job applications and reading newspapers to see if there were any references to upcoming auditions and eating as little as she could and keep from passing out. That was when she realized it was quite hard to get a job without an address and when you were afraid to turn on your cell phone because you knew it would be full of missed calls, texts, voicemails from terrified loved ones. Was she considered a runaway? They couldn't send the police after you after you were eighteen, right? No- but they could file a missing person's report. Ugh, they probably thought she'd been murdered or something.

Which she very well could be, because any time someone even bumped into her, she was sure she was about to be kidnapped and sold into white slavery or something. She promised herself that as soon as she had an apartment of her own, she would call Harper, Jack, and Tal. From there the information would all trickle out as needed. That had always been the plan, but she realized it might take longer than she'd originally planned. Especially considering she'd planned to more or less have the living situation worked out within two weeks, tops and was getting nowhere.

Some sad part of her kept wondering if her parents were looking for her or if they even knew she was missing. She had a feeling she didn't actually want to know the answer. 

Two weeks. Three... three and a half was where her money had run out. She was still cursing how expensive the bus ticket had been. She didn't panic- she just didn't eat for a couple of days, other than refilling a bottle of water to keep herself hydrated. Still, it was a bit scary to go into the public bathroom. All of her clothing hadn't been washed other than what she could do in the public sink. She'd not had a chance at a shower, just using those stupid paper towels that felt like grocery bags on her skin to wipe grime away. She'd lost weight- fifteen pounds or so, more noticeable on her, considering she'd only weighed about one hundred and ten pounds or so in the first place. Her hair was dirty. She looked scared. 

Some might say that was the time to just give up and go home. They'd all be angry, but probably much more glad to have her back. She was sure she could have called Jack right then and he'd get into his (well, her) car immediately and be there to take her home in just a couple of hours. She could picture it- she'd probably end up bawling against his shoulder and he'd feed her at some seedy place that was still open, as it was better than nothing and then take her back to his apartment and immediately shove soap and shampoo at her until she felt like herself again. It didn't sound bad, but it would still be giving up.

That was why she didn't do it- instead she'd dug into her folder and pulled out the sheet of paper where she'd written out a list of emergency contacts. If she ended up dead in an alley, she'd wanted whoever found her to know who to call. 

Her eyes settled on one address- one she could get to in just a few minutes' walk in the rain (oh God, of course it was raining). It was the person she'd been most scared to run into, simply because what could she say? Still, she found the address, found the buzzer on the callbox with the last name 'Alcott' written on it.

Pressed the button, heard her say “Hello” and wasn't surprised when her voice was shakey and teary, “Hey, it's Leigh... I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, I can just go, but I would really, really appreciate it if you let me in.” 

She didn't get an answer and after she just stood there for a few minutes, she thought she'd maybe gotten the wrong address somehow, or that she wasn't wanted there. Then the door had opened and the girl came out, hugged her, soaked to the skin, sobbing, dirty and all.