in the summer.

         are you sure you’re okay ?  she wasn’t  .  she wasn’t even close  .  she was scared  ,  she was confused  ,  she was  lonely  .  she absolutely was  not  okay  .  she wanted to nod  ,  advert her attention towards the ground  ,  brush it off as she always did  .  not  thinking about their current situation or the fact that the future was  unknown  was her way of coping with it  .  she began to do just that  ,  one simple nod  ,  her eyes connecting with his  .  she needed someone  .  someone to know that she  wasn’t  okay  .  her nod stops halfway and her head shakes softly  ,  the fears that had burned themselves into her brain were now  rolling  down her cheeks  .  “  no ,  i’m -  i’m not okay .  ”  she admitted  .  “  i’m  terrified  and i’m …  alone .  i don’t -  i don’t fit in anywhere  .  i -  i spent my entire life trying to make people proud .  that’s all i did ,  that’s all i was .  and now that they’re gone ?  i’m nothing .  ”  this was the first time she’d verbally expressed her thoughts  ,  the first time she’d  cried  since the trip  .  “  i should have disappeared with the rest of them .  ”  @svntiagos

♭ : a song that my muse absolutely can’t stand.

summer by CALVIN HARRIS.

“ when i met you in the summerto my heartbeat soundwe fell in loveas the leaves turned brown. ”

𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 : @svntiagos

𝐎𝐍𝐄  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓  𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒  care  for  others.  This  was  something  that  his  father  had  advised  him  to  do  from  the  age  of  five.  Perhaps  this  was  what  shaped  his  character.  Leo  felt  as  though  he  had  let  down  his  father  for  allowing  George’s  accident  to  occur.  If  he  weren’t  drunk,  he  could  have  prevented  it.  Leo  still  stank  as  though  he  didn’t  have  access  to  a  nice  jacuzzi  bathtub  back  at  the  frat  house.  His  hair  was  a  rats  nest,  something  that  would  have  given  his  mother  a  fright  if  she  were  HERE.  The  accident  was  why  he  refused  to  drink  at  parties.  Leo  couldn’t  comprehend  what  overcame  him  that  night  to  do  so.  He  recalled  being  with  Emmeline  and  the  next  standing  next  to  his  BROTHERS  with  bloodied  fists.  

And  speaking  of  brothers…

He  spotted  a  familiar  figure  sitting  not  too  far  away  from  where  he  stood.  Leo  slid  his  hands  in  his  front  pockets  before  joining  Santi.  “Penny  for  your  thoughts?”  Leo  asked  and  seat  himself  next  to  him.  Maybe  checking  in  on  the  younger  one  could  somehow  make  amends  for  what  had  happened.

he doesn’t know how long it’s been anymore. at least a week, maybe two by now -- but all he knows is that things are beginning to unravel. this is the third time he’s left his house since it happened, he knows that, too; and it’s oddly nice out, the blue sky casting a warm light over everything, sunbeams illuminating the sidewalks and streets through the leaves of the neighbourhood trees. he’s just SITTING -- out on the edge of a flowerbed like he had when he first got off the bus, except this time, he’s not handing out water; he’s just SITTING. thinking, existing, trying to enjoy the cool breeze and warm sunlight, and it’s difficult, but he reminds himself that the effort is worth something. it may not be MUCH, but it’s worth SOMETHING.

          SHE’S  ISOLATED  HERSELF  JUST  THE  way  she  likes  it.  with  her  back  to  a  wall  ,  she  leans  against  one  of  the  local  businesses  and  watches  her  peers  mill  around  the  town  square  –  some  in  groups  ,  some  in  pairs  and  some  alone.  if  she  can  space  out  and  forget  about  george  ,  it’s  almost  like  a  repeat  of  the  night  they  got  off  the  busses.  she  can  see  the  fear  in  people’s  walks  and  the  stiffness  of  grief  as  they  link  arms  with  their  friends.  she  can’t  relate.  she  turns  his  head  the  instant  santi  approaches  her  ,  trying  to  register  a  kind  smile  on  her  lips.  she  knows  from  school  that  he  was  close  to  george  ,  closer  than  she  could’ve  ever  been.  but    ,    she  knows  from  herself  that  he  doesn’t  want  kindness  and  coddling.  she’d  never  want  people  always  careful  around  her  like  the  way  people  have  been  around  him  –  maybe  all  he  needs  is  someone  who  treats  him  indifferently.            “  i’m  never  busy  ,  santi,  ”  she  says  with  a  shake  of  her  head  ,  standing  up  from  the  wall.              “  what’s  up  ?  ”

send a symbol for my muse to … ♞ physically pick your muse up and carry them.

if anyone knows anything about santiago flores, it’s that he shows love, affection, compassion physically – he communicates through TOUCH. a hug to tell whoever it is that he loves them, a gentle hand on a shoulder to remind them he’s listening, or just a brush of his fingers over their wrist to say he’s there – something like ninety percent of what he means to say comes without a single word. 

so what is he trying to say when he creeps up behind beatrice in the courtyard of west ham high during their lunch break where she’s standing in a small group of her friends with the intent of grabbing her around the waist and carrying her off, knowing full well that she’s going to flip her shit? 

nothing, really. he’s just being a shithead.

“ GOTCHA ! ” he lets out a manic cackle as he snatches her around the waist from behind, a bear hug in every sense of the phrase, lifting her off the ground and barreling forwards about ten feet before he sets her down again. he’s laughing, doubling over slightly once she’s standing on her own two feet. once she’s facing him, he straightens up again, still cackling in delight, hand lifted to cover his mouth.

“ —–you shoulda seen your face ! ” he squeezes out behind bouts of laughter. the whole situation is reminiscent of all the times he hid around corners as a kid and jumped out at her just to freak her out, or actively tried to trip her mid-stride just for the heck of it. ( you know that trope of ‘ boy being mean to the girl he has a crush on ? ’ alive and well in the form of thirteen-year-old santi and beatrice. )

once he’s done laughing, he just grins, boyish and mischievous with only a slightly sorry glint in his eyes. he pulls her into a hug then, a real one, not the kind he’d just used to manhandle her – a softer, sweeter one, the kind that would make his heart race if this were five years ago and he was six inches shorter with a face full of acne and an unfortunate haircut. nowadays, though, it’s commonplace; it’s comfortable. “ ——hey, bea. ” 

ii.    if sharing a bed ,  what side does he / she / they sleep on ? 

i.     what is your muse’s before - bed routine ?

santi doesn’t really have one ! he goes to bed at really strange hours, especially during the school year. he gets home at around nine o’clock from baseball practice, and then he has a whole slew of homework assignments to complete ( that he’s usually hellbent on completing, since his ability to play baseball is contingent on his grades ), so he goes to bed any time between one and four in the morning. and when he does, he just passes the fuck out.

x.   does your muse snore ?     sleepwalk ?     sleeptalk ?

jake.

he could have stopped it. that was the only thing coursing through jake’s mind thirty minutes after george had passed. jake could have stopped the fight. he had tried to, before george - perfect, sweet george - had stepped in. if jake had just been able to contain things, if he’d been able to get into the middle of it and convince everyone to just go home, george would still be here. his childhood friend would still be breathing and smiling, not getting colder and colder with each minute. washing the blood off of himself in the church kitchen, a sob finally racked his body. a product of being a son in a conservative family, jake never really cried. it was a sign of weakness, his father always said. “real men don’t cry.” so, jake didn’t. but right now, he couldn’t stop himself, as he thought back to how small and sad george had looked as he died. at the sound of approaching footsteps, jake forced himself to breathe. he attempted to hide his tears by wiping his face with the back of his hand, though it helped little. “how could this happen?” he asked, voice just as broken as he felt on the inside.

he hasn’t eaten. the one thing santiago can bring himself to focus on right now is the way his stomach is constricting itself, growling angrily every now and then to remind him of the fact that he hasn’t eaten. not since he left for the trip, anyways -- and he doesn’t know how long it’s been since then ( he hasn’t been keeping track of time, not since... ), but it’s been long enough that he can’t ignore it anymore. the thing is, he knows for a fact that if he tries to eat, he won’t be able to keep it down. so he just thinks about it -- thinks about how he hasn’t eaten, repeats the words over and over in his head, because if he lets his mind wander for even a fraction of a second, he’ll start thinking about georgie, and georgie’s eyes, and his smile, and his voice, and the weight of his body in his lap, the warmth of blood on his hands, and if he had just thought about helping others before he thought about protecting himself, if he hadn’t been so SELFISH, maybe he would have been there, maybe he would’ve been able to -------- 

            ‘how could this happen?’ 

jake’s voice pulls him out of the headspace he’s in, eases the vice grip he has on his own hair where his head is bowed to stare into his lap. he realizes that he’s crying again, tears wetting the fabric of his sweatpants ( the ones his friends had so graciously helped him to change into while he’d been in a semi-catatonic state for a while ). rather than gripping his hair hard enough to make his scalp hurt, he rests his hand on the back of his neck, inhaling slowly, shakily. ( keep breathing, he reminds himself. ) 

                                     his knees hit the floor hard enough to bruise,                            deep in his bones where it’ll hurt for weeks.

                                                          “ georgie ?! ”