valleyxrose

[valleyxrose]

There was a time (an entire four and a half years of time) when Valley and Murph were always touching. His hand on her thigh, hers in his hair; there was rarely a thirty-second span in which they weren't trying to find out how close two people could possibly get to each other. As though they were constantly checking to see if the other was real.

But that, like everything else, had been extinguished quickly and thoroughly. He could barely look at her after he found out she'd lied to him, and she strongly remembered each of the three times he'd touched her since. A shrug away, an accidental graze, an awkward handshake, and then cold endless nothing for months.

Until now. It was just a hand on her shoulder, barely more than the accidental graze, but it was him, and it was her, and it was them.

And it electrified her.

And, she thought as she turned back around, it stopped her from leaving. Which wasn't exactly a difficult task - if he'd so much as breathed the right way, she would have turned around. But for him, from him, it was a monumental move. He hadn't stopped her from leaving before.

So despite her better judgment (blame the alcohol or the love or both for the impairment there), there was hope in her eyes when she turned around. He ran a hand that she wished was hers through his hair, and said they could be adults about this. She nodded, still staring at him as though transfixed, still feeling a sting on her shoulder as though she'd been burnt.

Eventually, she snapped herself out of it and looked down, pursing her lips and gathering her thoughts. "Yes. Adults," she repeated. "We can both be in the same place together. The same... rave, together. Forgive me for not expecting you to be here," she said, smirking slightly up at him.

He said she looked nice, and she wanted to respond in an equally coy manner. Unfortunately, the agreement she'd made with herself to never lie to him again got in the way of that. The alcohol could probably be blamed too, because what she said was, "You look incredible."

Maybe it was the way she was looking at him, or the fact that they had to be almost uncomfortably close to each other in order to hear over the music, or the fact that he was in the wrong colour suspenders, but at that moment, a group of drunk girls dancing past stopped and looked at the pair of them and said "Oh my god, are you guys Jack and Rose from Titanic?! That's so cute!"

They squealed and danced away, and Valley's cheeks were as red as her dress. She decided to take a sip of her cocktail instead of speaking (or laughing) in response.

Surely, he had to have seen this coming. After their run-in at the park, Valley had been circling his mind like a clogged drain, refusing to sink. Instead, she'd sailed into every face he passed, every hint of perfume he smelled, every voice he heard. Moving on had felt an insurmountable task back in San Francisco, surrounded by their life and all of the traditions and habits and love they'd created together. It had been the reason he'd even agreed to this relocation at all. But any progress he had made had been undone the moment he'd seen her again, his heart still yearning for an illusion while it took corporeal form right in front of him. Forbidden even as she was close enough to touch.

And here she was again, looking stunning in a gown that didn't belong in a place like this while somehow looking like she was exactly where she belonged. His breath caught and seized in his chest as their eyes locked, both seemingly paralyzed to it. He tried to read her, the way he used to— or the way he thought he used to?— but between the loss of the confidence in that truth of them and the flashing lights of a dark club, he didn't know what she was thinking.

All those thousands of unanswered questions rushed back, roaring between his ears and drowning out everything that wasn't him and her and the space that separated them. Maybe if he just stood there, the moment would last forever. This in-between where he could still pretend that this was a look across the room at a party back in California, the kind of silent conversation that could only exist between people that really knew each other.

Those were the kinds of memories that fucked him up the most. Because how could both things be true? How could he have known her down to the very essence of her soul when he didn't truly know her at all?

But the moment, like all the moments before it, didn't suspend them in the in-between where everything was as true as it wasn't. Valley turned to leave and he knew he should let her go. But the sudden sinking in his stomach had him reaching out, hand on her shoulder which he dropped almost immediately back to his side. Don't leave, his heart pounded out like Morse code in his chest. Don't leave, don't leave, don't leave. He'd reacted without thought, without a plan, and now he wasn't sure what to do. "Sorry, I don't... uh." He scored a hand through his hair. "You don't have to do that, you know. We both live here, we can be adults about this." He swallowed, his throat feeling tight. "You, uh. You look," lethally beautiful, "nice."

[valleyxrose]

Emilia Clarke

[valleyxrose]

“Nearly all of our faults are more forgivable than the means we use to hide them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld, Moral Reflections

[valleyxrose]

birthday gift for @rorysanderson

beautifully wrapped coffee maker with a card that says:

For Rory

you deserve the best of everything. we'll start with coffee. love you,

-Valley

[valleyxrose]

I don't - he said.

I'm not - he said.

He didn't have to finish the sentences; she heard them clearly:

I don't want you to think that I came here to find you.

I'm not in Blue Harbor for you.

He lives here. Independently of her, completely separately from her, he’d come to this tiny Midwestern town to start a new life. The hopeful romantic part of Valley's heart leapt at the thought of the red strings of fate leading them together again like this. But the painfully realistic part reminded her (loudly, cruelly) that he wanted a new life without her. That he was looking at her now as though he'd seen a ghost, and not a woman he still loved.

What was left of her smile faded entirely, then, and she nodded. Understanding.

“I…” she trailed off as her mind habitually began to spin lies, but she shook them away, forcing the truth to the surface. “I threw a dart at a map. Back in January, actually. It landed just south of Deer Park, so… I live here, too, I guess.”

She made herself look at him, even though it was painful. His hair was longer. His beard slightly scruffier. The jacket was new. She wondered what else in his life was new. Did he have a new job? A new home? A new girlfriend? She couldn't bear to ask.

“I… I didn't plan to be here as long as I have been,” she said, feeling the need to apologize for her presence. After spending so many years as Murph's partner, offering him only security and comfort and love, seeing him look at her like she was a gun that had shot him was excruciating. ��Are you… did you know Rory's here?”

The sound of her voice was a blade and Murph was sure if he looked down, he'd see the handle sticking right out of his chest. His memory had preserved her so perfectly, the late nights when he'd run out of ways to busy himself and it was just him and her ghost running through conversations he knew he'd never get to have. But she was corporeal here, real enough to touch if he just reached out.

He didn't, though. Instead, he watched as the scene played out before him, his dog— their dog— whining in a way he was pretty sure he understood on a visceral level. Fig had taken the loss of Valley almost as hard as he had, so what was he supposed to do now? Drag her away because he was overcome with a desperate need to flee this situation before his brain could make sense of it? Before the knee-buckling loss of her could return to feast upon him again? He was only just beginning to parse together the shreds of his life, to weave them back into a semblance of something.

Her attention was on him now, a question bridging the chasm between them. But he could only look at her. A stranger. His wife. A liar. His lover. She was everything and she was nothing and Murph couldn't reconcile what was true with everything he'd once thought he knew. Could she hear the way his heart pounded?

And why did she have to smile at him? He'd always been weak for her smile, so animated and full of life. Once upon a time, he'd been able to read the meaning behind every single one. Once upon a time, he thought he'd known her better than he'd known himself.

It was almost laughable now.

"I live here," he said, voice sounding stiff and foreign. "I don't— I'm not—" Stutter and stop, like turning over an engine with a dead battery. He was useless. Every word he'd saved up for her in her absence was suddenly gone. So he just used hers instead. "What are you doing here?"

[valleyxrose]

The more she heard about the project, the more Valley wondered why she hadn't done things like this more often. On some level, she knew why - the selfishness that she'd kept close to her chest like a security blanket her whole life was a survival skill. When a person was as entirely alone in the world as she'd been, they become a bit selfish just from lack of other people to care about. It was scary to be without that, now... but freeing, too.

"Well, if funding is the issue, I can absolutely help with that. Not only monetarily, but I actually have a lot of experience planning fundraisers. Mostly snooty charity galas, but it's fundamentally the same thing," she smiled. "Any of that sounds great, though. I'd love to help however I can. Maybe I can, um... come with you, next time you go?"

The woman's keenness on the project mentioned seemed to pique Safiye's interest, as she set a few clipboards down on a nearby counter and folded her arms to listen more intently if given the chance. She wasn't exactly sure what the other was after—whether it was to see if it was a cause worthy of her donation, or if she was after Safiye's personal opinion; she thought to give a taste of both. "I really love it. It's incredible what we try to do for the community. It's hard to just fund projects like that, so we don't get to go out as often as we want to." Her heart started to weigh heavy in her chest with the topic at hand but she knew that since the stranger's intentions were in the right place, and there was potential her contributions could provide great relief for their work. "We just started a monthly vaccine clinic, we partner with this group that has shower trailers and we try to source personal care items for them.. I think it might be a good idea for you to shadow one of the events, see for yourself– We could always use more help on the administrative front, too, if volunteering yourself is in your repertoire."

𝐅𝐎𝐑: @valleyxrose

[valleyxrose]

who: @murphbloom where: phantom manor halloween rave what: rose & accidental jack

This music was loud enough to drown out her thoughts. Valley hadn't planned on staying long, (mostly using the night as an excuse to wear this gown) but that fact alone made her want to never leave. She could feel the bass like a second heart, thumping in her chest alongside her own. People were dressed wildly, neon colors and inhuman shapes blurring and morphing, making her feel like she was on something more than just fruity cocktails.  She weaved through the crowd, no destination in mind, just allowing herself to enjoy the intensity of this assault on her senses. Together, it all became white noise and static and she felt almost calm in the center of it.  Until she saw him.  What was he doing at a rave? That should've been her first thought. This kind of party was as far from Murph's comfort zone as it was possible to get; he must be so uneasy, so lost and anxious… But that hadn't been Valley’s first thought. Her first thought was, predictably, that he was gorgeous.  She'd only had three (or four?) of these spooky-looking novelty drinks, but they’d given her enough courage to walk up to him. It was only after his eyes met hers and her heart started melting that she realized he might be here with someone. Someone must have dragged him out tonight, right? He wouldn’t come here on his own, and she couldn’t imagine his cousin in a place like this either, so the only reasonable solution was that he had… a date. The thought was somehow scarier than the entire manor above them, and without a word, she immediately turned to leave.

[valleyxrose]

"Don't be sorry! It's a fair assumption, it very much sounded like I just asked you out," Valley laughed, as they walked across the street to the restaurant. "I do think you're gorgeous, and funny, and sweet, and I would like to buy you lunch, but I promise your wife has nothing to worry about. ...I do hear myself. I will stop flirting now."

She shook her head, still laughing at herself, and held the restaurant door open for Jia. "So what's your wife's name?" she asked, resisting the urge to pull Jia's chair out for her as they sat down. "How long have you been married?"

JIA WORKED WITH KIDS. she was used to hearing the most outlandish things. she had, however, not felt mortified in this moment. "oh my god, i'm so sorry," she apologised, wishing the ground would just swallow her up. "i'm so embarrassed, but it really did sound like – oh.. oh god." if sylvia ever heard of this she would laugh for hours. which obviously meant that jia would tell her as soon as she got home. "i don't know how i can salvage any pride after this, but okay, yes, let's have lunch."

[valleyxrose]

"Opal," Valley repeated, loving the hard-candy feel of the name in her mouth. "Opals are one of my favourite gemstones. I love that they can change completely depending on how you look at them." She wondered if the name matched the woman. She was projecting a lot of herself onto this woman so immediately, and she couldn't quite place why, but something was... familiar. Too familiar. She'd have to keep an eye on this one.

She beamed, though, when Opal knew where Valletta was, or even that it was a city. "They were, yes! They went to Malta on their honeymoon, and named me after the capital. Not a lot of people recognize the name. Have you been there?"

Opal knew the woman would have taste, it was why she'd approached in the first place. The dress she wore was a testament to that, Opal taking a moment to openly appreciate the figure she cut in it. And add to that her extensive knowledge of the finer things in life and Opal found herself instantly intrigued.

"You can always tell the difference." Opal returned the smirk, feeling as though they were sharing a secret. It was the first time Opal herself felt like she landed just a little outside the joke. "I'm Opal," she said, her smirk unwinding itself to reveal a friendly, open sort of smile. One more befitting of who Opal was supposed to be. "Valletta is a lovely name." The name of someone born from money. "Were your parents big travelers?"

[valleyxrose]

phantom manor rave costume contest

valletta cambridge as rose from titanic

[valleyxrose]

[valleyxrose]

"I'm gonna name him Chance. Get it? 'Cause you're the GOAT?" she laughed at her own stupid joke. "Ooh, why do you think they were abandoned? Do you think they're haunted?" Valley didn't really believe in ghosts - at least, she didn't think she did. They'd certainly left her alone her entire life if they were real. There were a few she'd be happy to see, actually... but she tended to be more haunted by people still alive.

"I did see a TikTok about how much plastic gets into your food from plastic cutting boards. But I also saw one about how much harder it is to disinfect wooden ones. ...I watch a lot of cooking videos for someone who can't cook, huh?" she smiled. "You know what they don't tell you though, is how to cook in your shitty little hotel kitchenette. I've got a microwave and a kettle and that's it. Is there anything good I can make with just that?"

"a goat? oh, god. you gonna name him billy?" chance considered himself to be many things, but a livestock owner was not one of them. though some might be like: if you're a chef, shouldn't you get to know your own food? well, that was part of the reason he picked seafood. sure, surf 'n' turf existed, but that didn't mean he had to get a cow named sally. that would be hilarious, though; billy and sally. brought his finger up to his temple and tapped twice, like an alert to the good ideas ( most of them were terrible ) brewing in his head. "see? just needed a kickstart. i can't wait to see what farmhouse you get. i'm pretty sure there about ... five abandoned ones just because people up and left. don't take my word for it, though, i ain't a local."

what would life be like if he was? what kind of family would he have? he never prided himself on thinking about the what-ifs and the has-beens, but there were some kind of regrets bubbling in the back of his head. even though he never gave voice to them, that didn't mean they weren't proverbially present. would he still be here, if we lived here instead of all the way out there? eh, no use wasting time. "i mean it though!" a gesture at the wooden utensils. "wood is overlooked! newfangled utensils have their place for sure, like a good blender. but whew, when it comes to cutting boards and spoons and all that kinda shit? classic. reliable."

though someone was bound to complain that wooden utensils would splinter. "plus, between you and me, handcrafted goods from here last way longer than the whole buy one, get three free they do at the store." and look, he was never one to pass up a good deal. not on being liked, and not on his personal purchases either.

[valleyxrose]

Valley's hotel suite had a kitchenette. She'd lived there since January and had never even used it for anything but storing drinks in the fridge and using the microwave to heat up leftover room service. She didn't think there was much more she could do with it, but as she strolled around this ridiculously expensive grocery store, she did start to daydream a little. How good would a home cooked meal be right about now?

She sipped the ridiculously expensive smoothie she'd come here for and browsed the spices, seeing things she'd truly never heard of in her life. She was making a mental note to ask Chance what the hell mahlab was next time she saw him, when a vaguely familiar-looking man came and asked her about saffron. That one, she'd heard of.

"Saffron? They've probably got that shit locked up in a safe in the back," she said, only half joking. "I think you can buy a small country with a pound of saffron." She turned her eyes back to the spices, scanning the prices for anything exorbitant. "You must be a really good cook, then. Or you just have expensive taste. Or you're trying to buy a small country. Which is it?"

WHERE / Earthwave.

WHEN / Pick a time, any time!

WITH / Valley Cambridge — @valleyxrose.

It isn’t terribly often that Elijah’s sent on the mission to food shop by himself, nor is it terribly often that Earthwave in particular is the grocery store of choice. It’s a chore that he and Nilay tend to share, most weeks, during the shred of free time that presents itself come the weekends — and more affordable businesses closer to home just make sense, rather than the lavish Oak Gardens one he was currently standing in. However, every once in a while, he’s accompanied by nothing other than the extensive list in his hands, dredging the aisles of expensive ingredients in search of something too particular for your regular chain establishment. Like saffron. He sighs as he feels as if he’s gone down every aisle thus far and can’t seem to find it, knowing that he can't exactly leave without it. Well, he could — they'd just have to choose a different dish for dinner tonight. He doesn’t know how he feels about the prospect of that, either. He sets the list down as his eyes trail back to the various spices ahead of him, even the labels of the empty spaces in case the one in question is just missing from its place. As someone else rears the corner into the same aisle, he looks up, and finds himself laughing as he asks, “You wouldn’t happen to know if they have another spot for spices, would you? Or if saffron's right in front of me and I just need to open my eyes? Scout’s honor, I won’t be offended.”

[valleyxrose]

Despite how little she usually cared for the anecdotes of strangers, the love in this man's voice when he spoke about his kid warmed even Valley's broken heart. Her eyebrows raised at the mention of a dislocated shoulder - she couldn't imagine how much that hurt - but by the tone of the stranger's voice, she could tell everything had turned out okay.

"I was just like that as a kid," she said, shocking herself a little by telling the truth for once. "Always getting into something, always falling off of something, always coming home with sticks and leaves in my hair." Usually, she told the story about being a spoiled little wealthy child, who played piano and learned French and would never even look at a leaf. But she was shedding that persona like a skin lately, slowly but surely.

They were almost at the correct floor, when the elevator made a rather horrific screeching sound. She couldn't tell whether it was above or below them, but metal clashed with metal and screamed about it, before the elevator came to a violent stop, knocking Valley into the stranger, who knocked into the wall.

The lights flickered, and came on dimmer, and they were stuck.

"Oh, shit," Valley said.

“Not too shabby.” he said, nodding along with his words. “At least nothing a good cup of joe can’t fix.” Leandro chuckled, pressing the button for the cafeteria on the panel. The elevator was one of those double door ones where you didn’t seem to ever predict which direction it would open from so instead of facing the doors he turned towards the reflective surface of the walls around them. The music in the space around them was nothing short of the iconic jingle you’d hear inside of most elevators with the occasional code call over the speaker.  Not being someone who could stand too much silence in an enclosed space, Leandro offered up more small talk as they began to move. “Kid dislocated his shoulder on the monkey bars at school.” he shares, “Every year it’s something new. You’d think they’d learn to be more careful.” But his son was anything but careful. Filled with so much energy whenever he had a good night sleep and with their back to school nightly routines giving him exactly the rest he needed, each morning his little man was up and at ‘em. There wasn’t a single sleepy head in his household.

[valleyxrose]

— Franz Kafka, from Letters to Milena (via lumamonchtuna)

[valleyxrose]

EMILIA CLARKE by Christian Oita, 2019.

[valleyxrose]

The silence was so full. Every memory she had of Eliza came to her at once; a blizzard of them, and she couldn't see any of them clearly enough to catch. So she just stood in the cold, letting them fall, waiting for it to end. She could feel Rory's presence beside her, warm despite the whiteout she knew he was experiencing, too.

She shook her head, and took his hand, staying silent a moment longer.

"There's so much of her everywhere," Valley said gently. "But we can do this, together. Small steps. Maybe we just... open the door, and take it from there. We can stand here as long as you need, just with an open door. Okay?"

STATUS: closed for @valleyxrose LOCATION: a storage facility

Rory thinks it says more about Valley than him, the fact that she’s been content to stand in front of this closed storage unit for approximately ten minutes without an end in sight. He’d meant to open it, ten minutes ago — had even leaned down for a second to push the rusty key inside the lock — but then the urge to run the other way had overwhelmed him, and he’d had to stand up again, arms crossing over his chest in an attempt to calm himself down.

“I’m sorry,” Rory finally breaks the silence between them. He rubs at his face tiredly and shakes his head apologetically. “I thought — I haven’t been here since—” he exhales deeply, turning his gaze to meet Valley’s with a small, bitter smile. “I thought it’d be easier,” he admits. “There’s just — so much of her in there, y’know?”