#journclist

[ MOUTH ]:  sender notices the receiver’s distress from across a crowded room, and silently mouths “are you okay?” to them. // @journclist​ / if you can find the meme, you can send it​

      he’s agitated. the last time he’d been to a funeral, all eyes burned on him. hatred and disappointment glaring back at him. while nothing like that happens here. he’s treated as some sort of hero because he’d known august completely. it almost seems worse this way. no, nick wants to get as far away from this place as he possibly can and it must show in the way his fingers twitch at his sides, back pressed against the wall as if he could disappear here. it must show because he catches august’s sister’s eye. watches the way she silently asks if he’s okay. 

     almost instantly, he straightens. the last person who needed to be concerned about him on any day, but especially today being august’s wake, was her. if anything, he should be asking her that. asking what it is that he could do for her around this place especially at a time like this. he should go to her. check in with her. but he’s never quite been good at doing what should be done.

“ tell  me  right  now ,  is  this  really  what  you  wanted? ”              @journclist​​

  my  own  death  does  not  frighten  me.

*    ⟢   APRIL  ANDERSON  of  @journclist​   :   💖  to  hold  my  muses  hand.

“it’s almost midnight,”   she muses as she checks her watch before she raises her glass to take another sip of her drink.   “and,  you know,  we ain’t got much, but we still got us,”  she adds as she raises her glass again but this time,  it’s to clink against april’s.    “we’re alive,  and that’s enough.”    there’s a small pause that comes from the blonde,  and her lips curl into a smile.    it’s an inkling of an idea,  one that’s mostly meant for play rather than to turn into a reality.   “maybe tonight we’ll start over, like it’s the first day of our lives,”  she muses.   “where would you want to go?”       // @journclist + sc!

“ i don’t... ”  his head shakes, voice low, denying needing anyone despite the fact he called her. he’d called april, brought her around to his apartment on the roof. & he knows he probably shouldn’t. definitely shouldn’t have but he did, selfishly. nothing makes sense in the world anymore and he feels too much like he’s floating adrift without anything tethering him. but april? god she makes sense in a way he can’t explain and she feels perfect. she feels like a lighthouse in all this darkness so he calls. he calls even when he’s the one who should be supporting her. she lost her brother, but... he lost him too.

nick’s back to work, has been a couple months and it’s another loss at an accident scene that they couldn’t have done anymore for that’s driving his broken skin to painfully tighten across his knuckles as he listens to april speak. he feels her next to him. feels her overwhelming presence and it takes everything in him to force his gaze forward, away from her because if he looks april’s way she’ll see the despair in his eyes ; and he won’t be able to keep resisting her. not tonight. not like this.

for  some  time  now  he’d  been  having  strange  dreams.  dreams  of  himself  and  a  life  he  was  leading  in  some  made  up  universe.  dreams  of  the  love  between  him  and  a  girl  who’s  name  his  mind  had  yet  to  fill.  they  came  in  flashes  of  blurred  moments,  her  face  just  out  of  focus  enough  that  he’d  be  unable  to  properly  describe  her  to  another  had  they  asked.  perhaps  it  was  the  stress  of  the  decision  looming  upon  the  horizon,  or  perhaps  it  was  his  attempt  at  some  sort  of  escapism  --  he  had  yet  to  figure  it  out.  (  or  perhaps  he  simply  did  not  want  to  figure  it  out,  because  then  he  might  never  dream  of  her  again.  )  scribbles  in  a  hidden  journal  the  only  thing  seemingly  keeping  him  sane  during  the  chaos  that  had  become  his  life.

that  was  until  he  decided  one  day  to  change  his  routine,  to  find  a  new  coffee  place  on  his  morning  walk.  it’d  been  chance  really,  that  he  bumped  into  a  brunette  woman  on  the  side  walk  quite  clearly  in  a  rush.  a  muttered  apology  and  a  steadying  hand  was  all  he  had  time  to  give  before  she  was  gone,  but  he  could  not  help  the  way  her  face  sparked  a  sense  of  familiarity  deep  within  him.  had  he  had  the  time,  he’d  have  asked  whether  they  knew  one  another,  but  she  was  gone  before  the  thought  had  crossed  his  mind,  leaving  him  frozen  there  on  the  sidewalk  whilst  his  mind  attempted  to  fill  in  the  blanks.

that  night  his  dreams  came  again  like  clockwork,  only  this  time  with  more  clarity.  (  smoke  parted  like  water  as  he  stepped  through,  catching  a  brunette  woman  as  she  threw  her  arms  around  him,  his  face  buried  within  the  curve  of  her  neck.  he  couldn’t  quite  hear  the  words  she  was  speaking,  but  he  could  see  the  way  her  lips  formed  his  name,  the  way  relief  and  love  shone  deep  in  her  dark  gaze.  walking  her  forward  as  the  remnants  of  a  futuristic  aircraft  burned  in  the  distance.  )  her  face  was  focused  this  time,  waking  with  a  start  as  he  finally  realised  why  the  stranger  on  the  street  had  felt  so  familiar  to  him:  she  was  the  girl  in  his  dreams.  

he’d  tried  to  track  her  down,  but  it  was  not  as  though  his  dreams  told  him  who  this  woman  was,  only  what  his  mind  had  conjured  in  some  fake  reality.  but  it  was  her,  and  he’d  find  her  again.  it  was  on  another  whim  that  he  returned  to  the  same  coffee  shop,  though  of  course  she  was  not  there  this  time.  ordering  himself  a  drink,  stepping  back  outside  with  a  soft  sigh,  coming  face  to  face  with  the  same  woman  once  more.  lips  part,  wide  eyes  blinking  in  an  attempt  to  discern  whether  he  was  hallucinating  her  there  on  the  path.  “  it’s  you.  ”  he  blurts  the  words  without  thinking,  a  light  flush  staining  his  cheek  immediately  after.