#fevergrow

        maybe that’s not fair to think, when he doesn’t even know she’s here, but it’s still true. ella lays on her back on his bed, curls spread out onto his pillow as she gazes up at the ceiling. max had told her kace would be back soon as he let her in, a gentle smile on his face as he watched ella clamber over the windowsill, dropping her bag unceremoniously onto the floor before she tumbled down onto it. the window is closed now, again, and she tilts her head to the side to look through it at the trees swaying gentle in the breeze. she’s still watching it when she hears the click of the doorknob turning, and a small smile pulls at her lips as she flops onto her side to face the door as it opens. her laugh is barely concealed, slipping into her voice as she grins at kace and lifts a hand lazily in a wave. 

       ❛ surprise. hi. ❜

chilling adventures. / accepting. / @fevergrow​

         ❛ you know, you’ve never been a coward, dem. ❜ she’s unsure what name to call her, now ( is she mordema or demitria? idly, blue wonders when those became two different people in her head ), and she consider herself lucky that the nickname applies to them both. they’ve all changed since the explosions, and not just in the obvious sense, but it seems to blue like something must be targeting her, considering the two biggest changes she’s noticed have been in her two best friends. obviously what’s happening to ledoux isn’t his fault in the slightest, but — it still happened, as awful as she feels thinking it.

         and then there’s demi — or dema, now. as subtle the change, it’s still there. she seems almost happier, now, and blue can understand that. she’s away from her mom, finally, and she knows first hand how liberating it can feel to finally feel like, for the first time, you’re in charge of your life. but there’s more changes than that happening in her best friend, and she’s worried about just how far she’s planning to go. the two of them together have always been impulsive, always tried to be as fearless as possible, but there’s something … wild in her friend’s eyes now, and she’s not quite sure what to make of it. and now blue finds herself worried that she’s done it on purpose. dema isn’t trying to erase demi from her personality, is she? 

He’s not sure ‘a mess’ adequately describes the current state of affairs. If you want to look at the positives, then the biggest one to be found is arguably that they have something that at least resembles a home, now. But their group is still knitting itself together; there are still old grudges and prejudices to overcome, and while they’re broadly united by what they’ve been through, some things are a little harder to move past. All of that, coupled with the fact that they’re all still trying to process the near incomprehensible things they’ve been through, makes the atmosphere surrounding the newly-christened Lost more than a little tense.

With that in mind, Strat recognises that no one can really be blamed for wanting a little space; truthfully, that’s something that he wishes he could find a little more of right now. But that doesn’t stop him from worrying, when he realises that he’s not seen Tink for hours.

He’s grown more protective of the younger boy than he was before, particularly since realising the aspects of being frozen that he alone has to deal with. He’s always been a step behind them all, and now he always will be - and there’s nothing that he, nor anyone else, can do about it. He almost feels responsible for him, especially knowing that he was one of the few who had been the least averse to a fifteen year old hanging around with them in the first place. 

James had known what it felt like to feel out of place, particularly once he’d moved schools, and in some ways that had made him kinder - especially when it had come to treating Thomas exactly like he’d treated the rest of his new friends. He’d seen the yearning for recognition in him - understood it on a level he’s never really been able to explain - and that had been it, really. Even before all of this, he’d been searching for the same thing, for people to accept him for who he was; who was he to deny that very same thing to someone else?

He’s not the only one who looks for him once they realise he’s gone, but he is the one who finds him in the end.

lovely little losers. / accepting. / @fevergrow

         ❛ noooooooo, alkaaaaaaaa — ❜ her whining is cut off by alka wrapping her up in the aforementioned hug, and despite her front of insisting against it, she absolutely needs this, and her friend does usually know what’s best — especially when it comes to science. she lets herself melt against the taller girl, resting her cheek against her chest with a sigh. 

kiss meme. / accepting. / @fevergrow

05. a desperate kiss .

         it’s too loud.

         her heartbeat is pounding too loud, too loud, too loudly in her ears and the sounds of the fight, of skin hitting skin, and bone cracking against bone, and of people in pain ( of ledoux in pain ) swirling around her are twisting into each other and blending together, a wall of noise crushing her down onto her place on the ground.

         her eyes are shut tight — it’s too dark out to really see what’s happening anyway, and she’s not sure she’d really want to. the last thing she’d seen before her eyes had shut of their own volition was the silver glint of sharp metal clutched tight in the hand of the man in front of ledoux, and just thinking about it now makes her stomach turn and desperately want to check if he’s okay, but still she can’t open her eyes. 

         there’s a crash of what sounds like glass, and suddenly someone’s screaming, a high piercing sound that feels like it could burst her eardrums, and it’s only when she feels the burning in her throat that realizes it’s her. 

         and then everything’s quiet. 

         she decides that maybe she prefers the roars to this. 

         hands gently brush over her arms at the same time as a soft ❛ it’s me, miss, it’s ledoux, ❜ is murmured into her ear, and suddenly she’s burrowing herself into her boyfriend’s arms, sobs practically bursting out of her throat as she whimpers his name. 

         she’s not sure how long they stay there for, but after what feels like hours, she glances up at him through her tears, and presses her lips against his, frantically trying to tug him closer. she kisses him, hard and feverish, as though if she kissed him hard enough it could erase the last half hour from existence. she starts to murmur an apology against his mouth when she starts to taste the salt of her tears between their lips, but he kisses her harder before she can finish the word. 

tragic aesthetic. / accepting. / @fevergrow

        he curls his hands against his chest like he’s afraid to touch her with them. 

        her hands aren’t clean either ( none of theirs are, not anymore — falco’s made it impossible for any of them to stay innocent ) but she doesn’t think he sees it the same way. those same forever bloodstained fingers card through his hair, her touch gentle and kind and soft and everything she knows he doesn’t think he deserves. silla’s heart aches for the boy resting in her lap, his expression tight in a pain she knows runs deeper than the scars that rest atop his skin. 

        there is so much she still doesn’t know about him. it feels like every part she learns has to be chipped off of him, painfully carved out of the walls surrounding his heart, and while she tries to fill the gap with as much of herself as she can manage, he still bleeds. the best she can do is try to bandage up the wound. she ghosts her fingers across the curve of his cheek, her thumb brushing against his cheekbone. on a normal day, that would steal a smile from his lips, maybe even bring a sweet warm flush to his cheek under the pads of her fingers. but the vacant expression on his face only barely shifts, and she feels the gaping chasm in her own chest grow wider. she can’t fix him — she knows she can’t, and she wouldn’t want to — but she wishes there was an easier way to ease his pain. 

        at least he’s letting her touch him. she supposes that’s a win on it’s own, when she remembers how he’d flinched away from her when he’d first choked the words out, eyes wild and body tense like a spooked animal. though it’s hard for her to consider the trembling boy in her lap an improvement from that. 

archie and sabrina. / accepting. / @fevergrow​​

        she’s beautiful. she’s beautiful, and he doesn’t deserve her.

        ❛ oh, ❜ he says, dumbly, because no one’s ever said that to him before and that was all his stupid brain could think of as a response. he follows it with an equally stupid nod, slow but not hesitant, and she catches his mouth on his way up. demi’s fingers are intertwined with his, and even though they have been for the last hour or so, he’s suddenly very, very aware of it, and half consciously, he tightens his grip. he’s not sure when his other hand landed on her waist but he wraps it tighter around her to rest against the small of her back, pulling her closer as she winds one slender arm around his shoulders. her other hand stays put on his cheek, her touch so feather-soft and full of tenderness that he can’t believe that it’s touching him, of all people. he’s not sure how long they stand there like that, but it feels like hours.

        she’s beautiful, and he’s never deserved her.

        he’ll realize later, when she’s gone and he’s alone with himself like always except this time he’s inside in a room on a bed and he feels like an actual person for the first time in weeks ( months? ), that this was his first kiss. it’s something so impossibly gentle and so like something out of one of those romantic movies she loves watching so much — something he learned during that dreamlike week from so long ago — that he almost convinces himself he’d made it all up. 

        almost, because even hours later he can still feel the echo of her lips against his as he lays in his hotel bed ( his hotel bed that she paid for, even though she didn’t have to and he told her so multiple times ). the ghost of her mouth against his, warm and sweet and wanting him, the tickle of her soft hair against his cheek, sending a shiver down his spine that makes him pull her even impossibly closer, their fingers still clasped tight together, like she never intends to let go again — her, her, her.

        she’s beautiful, and he’s never going to deserve her. 

shit my coworkers have said. / accepting. / @fevergrow

          she blinks slowly, once, twice, three times. amusement curls at her lips, a stifled laugh threatening to burst out as she stares at kace from her spot on his lap.