never lose your flames

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Flynn didn’t think he could ever actually handle Jordan if he were to come around Roxie again. He wasn’t the type of guy who could just go and beat him up to get him to leave Roxie alone, but he did want to at least try to protect her from him. Whether it was calling the cops, or just keeping her at his place for a while so Jordan wouldn’t be able to find out where she lives, he just wanted to do something so he could made sure this wouldn’t happen again. “Of course I am! I obviously need to do a better job with it, so this will make it a little easier on me. I can keep an eye on you.” He grinned and hugged her back tightly, turning bright red when he felt her kiss the corner of his mouth. “Well I can’t blame him for being completely attached to you, but there’s no reason to do anything like what he’s done..” Flynn sighed a bit. “I hope you’re okay with that! I’ll try to keep it a little bit cleaner now that there’s a lady in the house. But I don’t mind if you make a mess. Obviously.” He grinned, and pulled away from her, lacing their fingers together. “Yeah? We can go get some of your things and move them over to my place if you want. Or we can just relax for the rest of the night. Whatever you want to do, lovely.”

Roxie didn’t ever want Flynn and Jordan to meet. It wasn’t that she saw Flynn as weak or anything of the sort, but she saw Jordan as someone who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted--ruthless, even. She didn’t want him to ever find out about Flynn, because she was certain he’d be looking for him along with her, and that wasn’t at all what she wanted for her newfound interest. “Keep an eye on me, hm? That’s borderline flirtatious, Flynnard. I didn’t know you had it in you.” She gave him a wink before laughing yet again, a grin coming to her face at the sight of the familiar blush on his cheeks. She shrugged a bit, “I just should’ve gotten away sooner than I did.” She smirked, “It’s no problem to me if it’s not to you. I’m not the most tidy person in the world, you know that. A little mess shouldn’t be bad as long we as make sure we don’t have any other roommates living with us.” She smiled and looked down at their hands, “Let’s go get my pajamas, yeah? We can have a little slumber party.” She smirked at him almost deviously like she had something plan, though it was only to bug him. She pulled him out of the room and back to the bar. She told the other bartender she was leaving for the night before grabbing her keys. “Want to meet me at my place?”

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Flynn had never really had any great friendship growing up. Between his strict parents, and just the fact he wasn’t exactly popular through out school, the people he had always been closest to were his siblings. But now, he was thousands of miles away from his family, and somehow, he had managed to meet a few people he actually got along well with, Roxie being the main one. He loved being around her, he loved talking to her and hanging out with her. They could literally just sit in his flat for hours on end and be completely happy just talking and watching movies. He cared about her a lot already, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. He held her tightly, running his hand down his back before he pulled away a bit so he could look down at her. “Well you do now, so it’s not going to happen again if I have anything to do with it.” He nodded, and kissed the top of her head softly. “Of course, Roxie. You’re there with me a lot of the time anyways. I could clear out a room for you and you can just stay with me for as long as you want. Till Jordan finds something else to do with his free time, or goes away for good.”

Roxie had never imagined that telling him about her ongoing issue would mean him offering a new place for her to stay. The only reason she even kept living on her own in the first place was on account of the fact she knew Jordan would just look her up all over again. But if she were to live with someone else, it might not be so easy. The thought made her grin, and the idea of just getting to live with her newfound best friend and get even closer made her smile even wider. “You mean that? Really? I mean- If you’re willing to be my knight in shining armor a little more permanently, I’m all for it.” She smiled at the kiss, hugging him once more tightly before looking up at him again and kissing the corner of his mouth. “That really means a lot, Flynnie. It’s scary knowing he’s still doing this shit even a couple of months later.” She shook her head, only to smile at him again. “It’s a good thing your apartment’s already a mess. Adding me to it’s only going to make it worse, though, I hope you know that.” She looked to the door, then back at him. “I think I might call off for the rest of the night. I really don’t feel good.”

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Flynn knew that Roxie wore make up regularly, but he had been around her enough to get used to and actually take notice of how she usually looked. She was beautiful naturally, or in make up, but tonight he could tell something was off. There was so much more make up than usual, but it still wasn’t covering up exactly what Roxie wanted to hide, and that was what worried Flynn the most. He looked down at her, and listened as she told him the story of what exactly happened. Flynn wasn’t the type to get angry, but hearing that someone could actually do something like that to a girl they claimed to love, infuriated him. Jordan didn’t deserve Roxie, and Flynn had known that before, but this just made it even more clear to him that he needed to get her out of the terrible situation she was stuck in. “I’m so sorry..” He said softly, wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug. “That’s absolute bullshit. You don’t deserve anything like that.” He spoke quietly, not wanting to get her more worked up than she already was. “You can stay with me, you know. If he knows where you live it’s not very safe for you to be going home alone every night. I’ll figure out how to keep you safe from that, okay?”

Roxie knew that if anyone was going to notice her change in makeup or change in mood, it was going to be Flynn. Of course, there were others that knew of how Jordan was--one living in New Haven, as well--but she knew if anyone was actually going to say something, it would be Flynn. They’d spent so much time together the past couple of weeks that she just knew that he’d notice; she already knew him so well, and she felt that was a good reason she’d found herself with such a strong attraction to him. She’d never gotten to know someone so quickly. She shook her head at him, “Don’t be.” She hugged him back nonchalantly at first, only to bring him tighter when he spoke again. “I wish I realized that sooner.” Her voice was quiet again and her eyes started to water once more, but yet again, she bit it back. At his suggestion, she pulled away and looked up at him with an inquisitive look, “Seriously? Are you being serious?” She’d be lying if she said she felt safe at her own condo anymore; knowing that Jordan did that once, she knew he could very well do it again. “That...would really help, actually.”

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Flynn could see, even under all the make up, that something had happened. And from the look on her face, he knew it wasn’t just some random accident. He knew about Jordan, and he had heard her complain about him multiple times, whether it was about his temper of the fact that he just wouldn’t leave her alone. Seeing her bruised features automatically sent the worst possibilities to his mind, and he knew he needed to get to the bottom of it. He didn’t know exactly what he could do to protect her her, but he was going to figure something out. He didn’t want anything like this to ever happen again. When she agreed to the break, Flynn followed her back to one of the rooms in the bar and bit down on his lip, as he stepped closer to her, brushing her hair behind her ear so he could get a better look. “I want you to tell me what happened because I want it to be better than what I’m thinking happened..” He said softly.

Roxie knew she should’ve known better than to think she could’ve hidden the damage done to her face. It was only a black eye that was really the most visible, but in all reality, most of her face was swollen, just not all of it had actually bruised. Her bottom lip was cut and fat, but she was able to hide that a lot easier with dark lipstick. The amount of swelling around her eye was the hardest to hide, and no matter how much she tried to hide it with foundation and different contouring tricks, it didn’t work. No one at work questioned her, but none of them really knew her, either. Flynn had seen her enough over the last couple of weeks that he’d notice, and that was why he was the one person she didn’t want to see today. She frowned at his words, her eyes staring at the floor once again. “I, uh.. I got home from work last night around midnight..” She sighed, trying to figure out why she was even telling him, but knowing very well she couldn’t lie. “Jordan was standing by the door waiting for me. He tried telling me I couldn’t leave him and we got into an argument, of course. He didn’t like the fact that I dumped him. Things ended badly...like usual.” Her eyes got a bit glossy, but she took a breath and held it back, soon regaining her composure like she hadn’t said a word. “It’s just a, uh.. A couple of bruises. I didn’t want you finding out.”

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Flynn never would have thought in a million years that Roxie would actually want to give him the time of day and hang out with him. She was so completely gorgeous, he assumed she would just hang out with guys that weren’t Flynn. He had always been a bit dorky, and shy, and quite awkward with girls, but Roxie made him feel comfortable, even if she was constantly making him blush. It was weird how things had worked out between them, and he questioned it quite a bit, but he hoped things would never change. He loved their friendship, so he wasn’t going to let it go so easily. He looked at her seriously, before she finally looked up to him. He could see her face was a bit swollen, even beneath all the make up she had on. He didn’t even want to think of what happened underneath all the foundation she had on covering her. “Roxie…we should–can you take a break? I just–I want to talk. We should talk privately.” He nodded, hoping she would actually take a second to come with him.

Roxie wanted hide underneath the counter from him; this was something she didn’t want him finding out. She wasn’t looking for pity, and she sure wasn’t looking to get Jordan into any trouble. She just wanted to move on from what happened, and hopefully completely move on from him. She didn’t want anything to do with him, and getting him into trouble for the things he did to her wasn’t the way to go about it. She just wanted to act like nothing happened. But she also couldn’t get herself to lie to Flynn, either. So when he asked if they could talk she sighed and bit her lip in debate before finally nodding to him in response. She turned to the other bartender on shift and told her she was going on a break before leading Flynn to a back room. She avoided the subject completely, “What did you wanna talk about?” Her voice was still quiet and even a bit sheepish; very unlike her usual self.

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie

Roxie was different from anyone Flynn had ever met. Usually, the girls he was attracted to, didn’t give him the time of day. And honestly, he was expecting the same treatment when he had first started talking to Roxie. But if anything, she had been one of the most kind, friendly people he had ever met, and over the last few weeks, they had formed probably the best friendship he had ever had. Of course, he didn’t want it to just end up as a friendship forever, but for now, he was perfectly content with them just hanging out and talking. So he wasn’t going to let Roxie get off that easily and just assume they weren’t friends anymore. Their relationship meant way too much to him to just let it go. He sat down on the barstool, and watched her as she cleaned the glasses, and refused to look at him. He frowned a bit that she was still telling him the exact same thing he had said over text, but tried his best to just continue to make an effort. “Roxie. Please? I just want to know what’s wrong. I don’t want you upset with me. Or anything else. Whatever happened. You don’t have just a minute?”

Roxie was certain that Flynn felt the same way about her as she did with him--she’d always been good at reading people, and he just so happened to be pretty bad at hiding what he was feeling when it was written all over his face, yet she continued to toy with him. She liked the friendship they had. She liked that he was always so willing to hang out with her and that he allowed to her push him out of his comfort zone--most of the time. She just enjoyed being around someone that seemed so innocent, and she just enjoyed him in general. Flynn was easily her best friend already, and part of her was hoping for some thing more--but she couldn’t let that happen if she still had Jordan looming over her like a rain cloud. She sighed, freezing for a few seconds before finally looking up at him and meeting his eyes. She spoke seriously, “Flynn.. You didn’t do anything, okay? I promise. I just...didn’t want you to see me. I don’t want you to know what happened.” She said the last part rather quietly, but loud enough for him to hear.

Bruised || Flynn&Roxie