#metaphxsic

my muse kisses yours to shut them up

Angel wasn’t quite sure how long Tom had been rambling at this point, pouring over his latest lesson plans for his students at NYU. As horrible as it sounded, she had kind of tuned him out at this point.

It wasn’t that she didn’t find Tom Collins interesting; because she did. Angel could spend hours listening to him talk, and on more than one occasion, had slipped into the back of one of his lectures, just to watch him teach.

But this was stuff she had no clue about. A whole bunch of computer mumbo jumbo, talking about coding and software, and it went right over her head. She glanced half-heartedly over to her run down type writer, taking a deep breath.

"Baby, baby," she tried, but it was like he had tuned her out, too. Lost in his own head, just talking out loud. She watched with an amused look for a few minutes, before deciding that she’d have to try something different to get him to snap out of it. 

She stood up, carefully moving the papers from his lap, and sitting in it instead. Before he could really snap out of his daze, she leaned and kissed him firmly, cutting him off mid word. She kept her lips against his for a long moment, before pulling away. “I love you, Tom, but I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” she murmured, kissing him again, and this time feeling him respond underneath it.

for a situation that got both our muses arrested

Angel sank down against the cell, wig slightly crooked, and what looked like a nasty bruise on her cheek. “This is ridiculous,” she shouted, glancing over as Collins slipped beside her.

"Yelling isn’t gonna help, baby," he murmured. He looked a little bit worse off than her. Bleeding lip, black eye. Not much different than how he looked when she had first found him in the alley way. 

"It wasn’t even our fault, Tom," she declared, closing her eyes and tipping her head back. It had all gone downhill at one of Maureen’s protests. A fight had broken out, and the two of them had been caught in the middle of it. It was only self defense, but the cops didn’t see it that way. 

She leaned against the man, sighing softly. “Spending the night in Jail,” she said dryly, rubbing the other’s knee. “Not exactly a luxury suite, is it.” She didn’t see any of their other friends get taken in, so maybe they managed to escape. Angel slipped the wig off, setting it to the side, stifling a hard cough. A smile came over her face as Collins opened up his big jacket, and he curled inside of it. 

"This is so stupid," he murmured against the warmth of Tom’s shirt, and he felt him not in agreement. 

drabble about our muses inspired by the next song that comes on shuffle

ONE - ED SHEERAN

Take my [ h a n d ] and my[ H e a r t ] and soul, I willOnly have these  [ e y e s ]for [ y o u ]And you know, everything [ c h a n g e s ] butWe’ll be [ s t r a n g e r s ] if we see this throughYou could stay within these walls and [ b l e e d ]Or just [ s t a y ] with meOh lord,[ n o w ].

 [Takes place after I’ll Cover You in the movie, RENT]

          Angel smiled softly against Collins’ lips, hands covering his. Her stomach was twisted up in knots, but in one of those weird, good ways. Like butterflies were trapped up inside of her, threatening to escape. She had always been too afraid to get attached to someone, especially after her diagnosis. It was hard enough telling her mother and siblings back in California; she didn’t want to add anyone else to the list. 

          But Tom Collins was sweet, and funny, and caring, and as cliche as it sounded, just altogether got Angel. After she had brought him home from that night in the alley, and patched him up, he didn’t react in the slightest when she dressed up in one of her costumes. He took it in stride, told her she looked fantastic, and off they had gone to the support meeting.

          Angel also felt a little more comfortable with this sort of relationship thing they had going on with the fact that Tom was in the same boat as she was. Terminal illness. It was just a matter of who was going to go first, as morbid as that sounded. It was an equal boat.

          Pressing another soft kiss to his lips, Angel pulled away,unable to stop the grin on her face. She took his hand again, twining their fingers together, and walked.

——-

          Angel is a pretty patient person, she thinks. And half the time, she has Tom groaning quietly, “Come on, baby.” And the nickname is one of her new favorites. She smiles as she kisses each and every one of his fingers, slowly, making sure he knew how much she loved each and every part of him. 

          When she finally kisses his mouth, he tugs off her black wig with a mischievous grin, and Angel gasps against his lips, about to lecture him about the importance of not messing up a lady’s hair, but his fingers dug into his side, and they both collapse in a heap of laughter.

——-

          He loves him. So incredibly dearly that it almost frightens him. It was just like they had said; that he had been searching his entire life for a love like this one. And it’s only been a week, but Angel found himself unable to remember what it was like without the professor Tom Collins. That might’ve been a lie; but his past had certainly been dark and not-so-nice, and Collins was this ray of sunshine that made everything start to finally seem okay. 

          Angel doesn’t care about the different colds and flus and other infections that he gets, because he’ll be damned if he lets them interrupt on their time together. He’s keenly aware that their days have a number. To them however, it was more of a dice throw in which neither of them knew how many days they really have left, or when one day would be the “last good day”. 

          And now he wonders why he didn’t get tested sooner, why he didn’t figure it out, and prioritize his medicine higher than his heating and electricity cost. Because if it meant a little while longer with Collins, it would’ve been worth it, and he knows it. He could have been cold for three months, if it meant three more days. 

[text] Oh my god

[text] Check the number. This is Mark

metaphxsic

"Little bit yeah-

His mother had always told him to be careful when he rode his bike, to wear pads, a helmet. She'd always told him to look both ways, to always stop before he entered the street. For a long time, he'd done exactly that, even after moving to New York City. Then shit began happening and he began to care less and less about his own well being, became more careless. Walking around Alphabet City by himself after dark, riding his bike around the city without paying attention to what he was doing, where he was going, not wearing a helmet.

Mark began regretting becoming so careless the moment that he rode his bike into the street and a car collided with him. He hit the hood, rolled over the roof, hit the back of the car, and then hit the mangled remains of his bike before rolling onto the hard pavement below. He wasn't aware of the way that his body hit the street or of the awkward way that his body was laying. Unconciousness had already rolled over him, blissfully saving him the awareness of the pain that his body was enduring.

The filmmaker woke up days later in the hospital, one arm in a cast, hooked up to machines, unable to feel or move his legs. The doctors told him that there was a good chance that he wouldn't walk again, that his spinal injury looked severe. That his chances may either decrease or increase as his spine heals.

The thought of having his independence pretty much taken from him was enough to crush Mark's spirits. He'd never thought much about his ability to go where he wanted, when he wanted, to walk, to run, to dance, until he was unable to do so. He was a man who thrived on his independence, who had been so relieved to move out of his parents' house because it meant a decrease of having someone throw up things that they'd done for him in his face.

Mark lay there in the hospital bad, staring up at the tv. Some soap or something was playing, something that his mother and sister would have delighted in watching and something that he found to overly dramatic and boring. He sighed, running a hand over his face. Someone had brought him his back up glasses until replacements could be found. They were big and chunky and he hated them, but it was better than straining his eyes.

The sound of his room door opening didn't even bother to cause him to perk up. He was going home sometime that day, a fact that he both looked forward to and dreaded. Mark knew that it would be exactly the same as the day that he and Roger had had that fight and he'd stormed out without everything, including his camera. He knew that the couch would still be too lumpy, that his bed would still be too high for him to pull himself into with ease from his chair, that he wouldn't be able to cook any longer [when they had something to cook], that he would no longer be able to go up and down the seven flights of stairs without being carried, that he would no longer have the independence that he once had.