multimuse by Naomi

MEET THE CHARACTERS

[BABY BEAUMONT]-[JOY GREENAWAY]-[LOUISE THOMAS BASS]-[RAQUEL HERNANDEZ] -[KELLY XU-KING]-[PETER VANDERBILT]-[ADRIAN VANDERBILT]-[ELEANOR ROSE]-[FRANCIS COATES]-[VICTORIA SPARKS]-[VALENTINA MIEUX]

COMING SOON: [TASKS] - [MUSING] - [MOODBOARD] - [PLAYLIST] -[GOSSIP GIRL]

coming soon: [BIO PAGE] - [GIF PAGE] - [THREAD PAGE]

For the first time in months, Peter Vanderbilt had managed to leave the house without having to convince himself that the world outside was worth facing.

It had started with the trip.

His parents had called it a vacation, though Peter knew better. There had been too much tension between them for it to be anything so simple. Their marriage had been strained for months, perhaps longer, and neither seemed particularly interested in admitting just how close they were to falling apart. So they had packed their bags and dragged Peter along, insisting that getting away from home would do them all some good.

Perhaps, annoyingly, they had been right.

For months, Peter had barely been able to leave the house. His depression had swallowed him whole, leaving him staring at the same four walls day after day, unable to find the energy to answer messages, go to work, or even convince himself that getting out of bed was worth the effort.

The museum had continued without him.

That had been one of the hardest parts.

Peter loved his work. As an art director, he had spent years turning empty museum rooms into something breathtaking, taking paintings and sculptures and carefully arranging them until they told a story. Art had always made sense to him in ways people rarely did. There was meaning in every brushstroke, intention behind every composition. He could look at a painting and understand exactly what someone was trying to say without them ever having to speak.

People were considerably more complicated.

The trip hadn't magically fixed him. Peter knew that.

But somewhere between unfamiliar streets, long dinners with his parents, and mornings spent somewhere that wasn't his bedroom, something inside him had loosened.

He had laughed again.

Actually laughed.

And for a little while, he hadn't felt like he was drowning.

Of course, there were still things he hadn't figured out.

There was one truth in particular that Peter kept carefully locked away, even from himself.

He was gay.

He knew it.

At least, some part of him did.

But knowing something and being ready to say it aloud were two very different things. He wasn't ready for the word to exist outside the quiet confines of his own thoughts. He wasn't ready to wonder what it meant for his parents, his career, his life.

As far as Peter knew, his parents had no idea.

He didn't know that his father, perceptive as ever, had already figured it out.

His father hadn't said a word.

Not because he was disappointed. Not because he was ashamed.

He simply knew that some truths couldn't be forced out of someone before they were ready to speak them.

So when they returned home, his father said nothing.

His mother fussed over the luggage. His father complained about the journey. And Peter stood there with his suitcase in hand, staring at the familiar house that had once felt like a prison.

It didn't feel quite so suffocating anymore.

He exhaled slowly, adjusting the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

Tomorrow, he would return to the museum.

Tomorrow, he would step back into the life he'd temporarily abandoned and pretend that two weeks away had been enough to put everything back into place.

But tonight?

Tonight, Peter could simply enjoy being home.

Maybe he didn't have to understand everything yet.

Maybe he didn't have to put a name to every feeling.

Maybe, for once, it was enough to know that he had made it out of the house.

And that, for the first time in a very long time, he actually wanted to go back outside.

So he did, and when he did his path crossed someone.

"Hi, nice weather we are having aren't we?"

A year.

That was how long Valentina Mieux had managed to stay away from the courtroom, the endless stacks of paperwork, the suffocating perfume of expensive offices, and the kind of clients who insisted they were absolutely innocent while providing her with enough evidence to prove the exact opposite.

Two years of vacation.

Two years without waking up to a desk buried beneath case files. Two years without highlighting legal documents until the words began to blur together. Two years without opposing counsel trying to twist her words, judges reminding everyone to behave, and clients calling her at ungodly hours because apparently the concept of office hours was foreign to them.

It had been glorious.

Well... mostly.

Because there was one thing Valentina had never managed to escape.

Gossip.

She could leave the courtroom. She could leave the city. She could disappear somewhere warm, drink something expensive, and pretend she had forgotten what a deposition looked like.

But gossip?

Gossip followed you everywhere.

And Valentina would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it.

She had always found it fascinating, really. The way one little rumor could turn into a scandal by lunchtime. The way people whispered behind closed doors while desperately pretending they weren't listening. The way everyone claimed they hated drama while somehow knowing every single detail of it.

She never participated, of course.

At least, that was what she told herself.

But there was something deeply entertaining about watching other people's lives unravel from a safe distance.

Unfortunately, her two-year vacation had come to an end.

Valentina stood outside the familiar building, sunglasses perched on her nose and a coffee in hand, staring at the place she had once sworn she would never miss.

She wasn't sure whether she felt excited or horrified.

Probably both.

The city hadn't changed much in two years. The people certainly hadn't. If anything, there seemed to be more scandals, more whispers, more affairs, more divorces, and enough secrets to keep an entire law firm busy for years.

Valentina took a slow sip of her coffee.

Perhaps coming back wasn't such a terrible idea after all.

After all, she had missed the law.

She had just never admitted that she had missed the people.

And judging by the whispers already floating around her, she suspected her return was going to be far more interesting than she had anticipated.

"Hmm is there something you need to tell me?"

@tfrstarters

Joy had been sick.

Not the kind of sick she could hide behind a pair of sunglasses and a perfectly rehearsed smile. Not the kind of sick where she could show up to a premiere, wave at the cameras, and pretend everything was fine while someone quietly slipped her another glass of champagne. No, this time there had been no pretending.

She had been very, very sick.

For two years, she had been completely removed from the world she knew. No premieres. No interviews. No red carpets. No directors calling her name. No photographers waiting outside restaurants hoping to catch her looking fabulous and miserable at the same time. The movie industry had continued without her, as it always did, and Joy had been left behind in a hospital bed, fighting to keep her own body from betraying her.

If she was being completely honest with herself, she had nearly died.

Her organs were failing. There had been doctors speaking in low voices outside her room, nurses rushing in and out, machines keeping track of things she didn't even want to understand. She had always thought death would feel dramatic, something worthy of a final scene in one of her movies.

It didn't.

It was terrifyingly quiet.

And then they found the poison.

At first, Joy had almost laughed when they told her. Poison? It sounded ridiculous. The sort of thing that belonged in an old mystery film, not in her bloodstream. But there it was in the toxicology report, sitting in black and white, impossible to explain away.

Someone had poisoned her.

The thought should have frightened her more than it did.

Instead, it made something inside her go cold.

Because suddenly, being sick wasn't an accident. Someone had wanted this.

Someone had wanted Joy Greenaway gone.

And whoever they were had clearly underestimated her.

Because Joy survived.

She wasn't sure whether that was luck, stubbornness, or simply the fact that she had spent her entire life refusing to let anyone else decide when her story ended. Whatever the reason, she was still here.

And apparently, surviving near-death wasn't enough to make her take things slowly.

The moment she was well enough to leave the hospital, Joy found herself thinking about work again. Maybe that was unhealthy. Maybe she should have been resting, recovering, learning how to breathe without wondering who had tried to kill her.

But she had never been particularly good at doing what she was supposed to.

So, before she knew it, she was reading scripts again.

One project became three. Three became meetings. Suddenly there were producers calling, directors asking if she was available, and people who had barely spoken to her during her illness suddenly remembering exactly how much they had always adored her.

Funny how quickly Hollywood remembers you when you're useful again.

Joy knew she wasn't the same woman who had walked into that hospital.

Something had changed.

She had looked death in the face and somehow walked away from it.

So why should she be afraid of a little scandal?

Why should she be afraid of whispers?

Why should she be afraid of whoever had poisoned her?

If they thought they had taken Joy Greenaway out of the game, they had made one very expensive mistake.

Because Joy wasn't just coming back.

She was coming back for everything she had lost. And maybe, just maybe, she was going to find out exactly who had tried to make sure she never got the chance.

"yes darling, its really me."

A year.

It had been one long year since she had returned home with a heart that had been shattered beyond recognition. Two years since she had walked away from everything she had known, leaving behind the parties, the secrets, the betrayals, and, most importantly, the people who had once meant everything to her. For two years, there had been no whispered rumors following her through the halls, no scandalous photographs appearing at the worst possible moment, no late-night notifications from Gossip Girl exposing secrets that were supposed to stay buried.

For two years, she had been free.

Or at least, she had convinced herself she was.

But now she was back.

Back in the city that had watched her grow up, fall in love, fall apart, and disappear when everything became too much. The streets looked almost exactly as she remembered them, yet somehow everything felt different. Maybe it was the city that had changed. Maybe it was her.

She had spent two years rebuilding herself, learning how to live without constantly looking over her shoulder, learning that not every whispered conversation was about her and that not every secret needed to be uncovered. She had learned to live with the scars left behind by the people she had loved—and the ones who had hurt her.

But she wasn't the same girl who had left.

Whatever awaited her this time, she wasn't running.

The old friendships, the unfinished feuds, the secrets that had never truly died... she was ready for all of it. Let them talk. Let them speculate. Let them wonder why she had come back and what she wanted.

Because this time, she wasn't returning with a broken heart and nowhere else to go.

She was returning on her own terms.

Baby Beaumont was back.

And if the city thought it had finally gotten rid of her, well...

It was about to learn that some stories never really end.

"Oh Hi Darling, yes, its good to be home!"