lennon harlow

        “ WHAT’S THE PROBLEM, BABY ? “   delilah leans against the desk she’s working on, about two minutes away from taking a seat right on top of it.  she eyes the papers lennon’s shuffling around.   “ why are we grieving ?   nobody’s died for months. “   except maybe that brotherhood fellow, but it’s not like he didn’t ASK for it.

It was strange that professors weren’t being more lenient about schoolwork with their students. Many of them were freeing for their lives, why continue to give them work? She would never do that to her students, though, she wasn’t an actual teacher when back home. Just a simple instructor. “Hey hun,” Naomi said, once spotting a very troubled Lennon. “It’s alright. Do you want me to talk to your professors? I’m sure they’ll listen and be understanding.”

     raina sees the girl out of the corner of her eye, and her actual destination is long gone as she realizes the blonde is overwhelmed about something. “hey, hey,” she says, carefully approaching her with a calming smile. “it’s alright,” raina tells her, setting down her own things. “what are you working on? maybe i can help.”

♦♦♦♦—— DESPITE the chill outside, the sun seemed to make its presence known in the early morning hours regardless of its uselessness to create warmth. Casting a matte light over the library parquet, Heath’s concentration was caught by the specks of dust floating through the silent beams it created. The text on his lap had long passed his interest, but Heath was persistent to finish the dull passages before heading to his class. Something on percision shooting with diagrams of calculations one was supposed to visualize at the moment a trigger was pulled. ‘Nonsense’ he thought. The Scotsman had been shooting pheasant since he was a lad and neither his late father, nor the gameskeeper had ever wasted the vluvable moments before taking a shot to draw out a diagram in their head. A eerie chill ran down the blonde’s spine. He hated the flashes of memeory that sometimes came unwelcomed. They distracted him…made him feel, and he knew how dangerous that was. But he read on, his concentrations slowly returning to the pale pages of block print. Yet, a distraction came  once more–a shadowed figure leaning through the stacks with a smile of familiarity. Heath had little time to engage with the person but he would sacrifice a moment to know what they were doing in HIS corner of the library in the early hours of the morning. He raised his eyes as a painter’s brush from a finished masterpiece. “It figures I would see you out, I was just thinking about you…” he said softly. A smile as if the shadowed presence was one he was waiting for all morning. 

“I DIDN’T MEAN IT THAT WAY, IT JUST came out wrong. that happens a lot, shit.” he tries to backtrack, he doesn’t want trouble but it’s like he can’t control his mouth at all.

@gallagherstart​

         WEARING WHITE TO BEAT UP CECIL WAS A POOR IDEA.  caden only realizes that now, as he’s furiously scrubbing the blood stains out of his crisp white uniform shirt in the sink of the common room. he’d originally tried getting it out in his own bathroom, but he didn’t own any actual cleaning products – go figure.  leaving the shirt in the sink to soak, caden goes into the cabinet beneath the sink to grab some bleach ;   when he stands upright once more, someone’s standing beside him.   “ is cleaning with bleach SAFE ?   i thought it burns skin, “   he ponders aloud, though he’s already pouring it all over his top.   “ i can’t lose this shirt, man.  i’m already down to a dangerously low number of acceptable shirts to wear, and we’re NEVER getting out of this place to go shopping at this point. “   //   @gallagherstart​

       lennon’s not so easy to scoff away, as much as she’d like to convince herself she is. first glances turn into a poring stare, voraciously reading her to see whether she means it, and if she does, whether she’d act on it. her breath hitches, and it’s a bit like having the hiccups, the pinpricked shocks to the system that she can never get used to. defunct, that must be it, and she chews at her lips as though it will curb her appetite. defunct like a toy robot that doesn’t know when to quit it, greedy for love that doesn’t last. her eyes flutter shut, though her arms hang by her side, limp as if kept in line by a metaphorical strait jacket. closer, and closer still, the tip of her nose touches hers. if she doesn’t see what she’s doing, it doesn’t count. ‘   are you sure ?   ’ she asks, the corner of her lips tugs ever so slightly. maybe it’s not so much the idea of being watched, but one of looking, to be sought out is far more romantic than being stumbled upon. ‘   they say you get attached to the person who takes your virginity. i might just fall in love with you.   ’ she likes to entertain the notion, that she could be that person, for her - though as if being punished for hoping, her stomach flips at the thought that maybe she doesn’t want to be full of love, maybe she just needs to be full.

Maia glanced at the other, raising an eyebrow at her curiously. “You don’t know about the hookup hallway?” she asked, laughing softly under her breath. It wasn’t like it was a secret. “Where the heck are you bringing your dates to get some peace and quiet?” she teased. Placing a hand on her palm, she paused, but then jokingly continued. “You trying to get me to take you there?” 

he adores her. that much will never change. the shame is one he wears poorly. it comes in the form of a cold and uninviting gaze, deigning to turn around and acknowledge her. he cannot forgive and he will not. 

at her question, nico scoffs harshly as if the ice that escapes him could freeze her words from echoing inside his brain, burning inside his skill. how delusional of her to call him by a name that used to make him melt. it only incites anger. she represents every weakness a casiraghi should never have and only he was the fool for thinking it would make him stronger. it did, but the price was too grand for him to ever accept it.

“ good question, amore mio. ” the bitterness seeps into his voice like poison. 

georgina had left due to many reasons, one of them being his dedication to his family. these were lessons learned leading up to the moment he met lennon. so, when a second chance presented it self, he gave everything up for her, which only ended in the same way, except this time he was left with nothing. 

being sent to gallagher is a punishment he believes is well deserved. he’d done it all for love, but it hadn’t been enough. so when she asks him what he’s doing here, he hopes that the realisation of his business trips all having been a lie hurts as much as it did as when he came back to an empty house. 

“ the reason i’m here is standing right in front of me. ” nico leaves enough room for a dangerous assumption, that he’s here to get her back when in truth the only thing he wants to get back is his pride. he’s here because he chose her over family. he won’t be making the same mistake again. 

“ this..? ” he makes a circular motion with his finger. “ you left italy for… this. ”

      when the only person lennon’s ever been in love with is standing before her, she can’t help but notice the distance between them. leaving the way she did meant that she never had to face the reality of being apart. the two never had a proper break up, just stopped living together, seeing one another, talking to each other and existing on the same plane altogether. for all intent and purposes, weren’t they TECHNICALLY still together? but it’s all a rouse she makes up in her mind, one she wishes to be true because the sight of him makes her heart drop and rethink the decision more than she’s ever allowed herself to. it’s an ideation made up of hope and of butterflies reinbahiting her stomach like she’s relearning nico casiraghi from scratch --- except that’s not how he looked at her when she did. she hates that he’s not looking at her like the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen, one he has to have, one he’d court consistently until she finally agreed to try out the whole love thing and leave the guy who had escorted her to italy. it was a good look. it was a look that did exactly that. a look that made her risk everything for an italian man that hated everything american --- until her. 

       she sucks in a deep breath of air because he uses words of adoration like a weapon and she’s taken the blow to her chest. furrowed brows break up the softened look on her face and she’s confused about what on earth he could possibly mean when he says that SHE is the reason he is at gallagher. "what?” she asks in reaction, but the question is cut short, the millions of other questions popping into her mind being short circuited to have to defend herself and seemingly bad decision making.

“You were trying to be cute? With using my kindness against me?” he asked and laughed out loud, shaking his head. “That’s the thing. You think everyone will fall to their knees the second you say their name or give them a single glance. And that couldn’t be the furthest from the truth” he added and shrugged. “Why not just talk to that guy of yours as a normal, mature adult instead of running around hurting him? Because shocker! People have emotions. Even though some refuse to show it” walking away from the door, making it accessible for the blonde, he moved to sit down on his bed. Because truth be told, this entire conversation was draining him. He would get such a bad headache, he just knew it. 

Rubbing his hands together, he calmed himself down. Because at the end of the day she’s not worth getting angry over. She was a great friend, he couldn’t deny that. But he knew that everyone had sides of themselves that weren’t pretty. He did, oh lord did he have nasty personality traits. But the thing was that he tried to hide them. “Are you really complaining about me not falling for your so called charm?” he asked, eyes growing wide as he looked at her again. “Are you fucking serious right now, Lennon? Oh boo fucking hoo. I didn’t fall for superficial charm that you put on to get what you wanted” he once again rolled his eyes. Some of the words that left her mouth truly amused him. 

“Ask. Have you ever tried to ask for something and not be all shady about it? Have you ever once tried to take into account that the answer no could be on the table?” he wanted this conversation to just end. He wanted to be left alone, to be honest. Everything about this encounter ticked him off. And he knew that he would either need to go to the gym or talk to Raina to come down from the anger he felt.

      the more angry clem got, the more he scared her, the more he put her down, the more she became RESILIENT, prepared to fight for herself the way gallagher had prepared her to do. it isn’t until the end of his little rant, past all the fuck’s and the are you serious and onto the ASK. because ask is exactly what she did. she asked what she asked and she asked for what she wanted without walking her way around it. she didn’t beat around the bush. she flat out asked. SURE, she asked it LIGHTHEARTEDLY, but shouldn’t that make it even easier for clem to say “no” and move on with it? and does she really need a friend that yells at her? or makes her feel bad about herself? or that knows who she is, but suddenly has a problem with it? the truth, she decides, is that she does not.