#otp:shiolet

Remember Me: I’ll write a drabble about my character trying to get yours to remember them [be it from an accident, meeting them after years apart, feel free to specify.] - memory loss.

He wasn't supposed to remember a thing, but she had her suspicions. The recognition in his eyes was faint but it was there, she had to believe it was there, and she was going to cling on to it, desperately and as strongly as he had held on to her all of the past few years. Violet reached over and took his hand, running her thumb over his skin and forcing a pained smile onto her lips. "Hi Shane," she said softly.

He blinked at her, disoriented, confused, and blank. "Have we met before?" he asked, his tone conveying surprise and a tinge of regret for not remembering her. But he did. He had to.

"Yeah," Violet forced out, wanting to cry. "I'm... I'm your girlfriend," she said. It was a lie. They weren't a couple, but she wanted to be his girlfriend and she hadn't found the courage to reveal her feelings for him yet and she figured this was a good time as any - even if it started out this way.

Shane's eyebrows knit together and so did Violet's guilt. "Well," she rushed to say, trying to take back her words, "I mean... I... Kind of... Not really. I'm not... really your girlfriend."

His expression changed to that of sympathy. "I'm sorry, but I have no idea who you are."

"Yes you do," Violet insisted, squeezing his hand. He winced, and realizing she was holding on too tightly, panicked and took her hands away from his, darting and quick. "I mean... I wish you did," she confessed, looking down at her lap and folding her fingers together demurely. "We were... friends. And.. you kissed me, in an empty auditorium after I danced for you." She smiled down at her hands, still too nervous to look up at him. The words were spilling and falling like rain and they were coming more easily than she could have imagined; how easy it was, remembering, remembering with him, remembering for him. How quickly everything had happened.

"You, um, you kind of got mad at me." She laughed shortly and looked up at him, the tiny burst of giggling giving her courage. "I got mad at you for being mad at me, though. I didn't know why you were mad. I still don't know." Violet shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter anymore, though, because we made up. And we went on a date. Even though we said it wasn't a date," she recalled, laughing again. How silly the two of them had been. "And then we... you told me... you told me some serious stuff, and things haven't been the same since. Not in a bad way," she rushed to say, "but just... I don't know. I felt closer to you."

Violet smiled shyly at him and hesitated for a long moment before taking his hand once more, gently this time, intentionally. "Do you remember any of that?"

Shane shook his head slowly, regretfully. "No."

Her shoulders fell but her expression only showed a flicker of disappointment before brightening to a hopeful smile. "It's okay. I have lots of stories to tell. Have you ever heard of a Pidgeon Jesus?"

Tell Me: I’ll write a drabble about my character confessing something to yours [be it a love confession, a secret, feel free to specify.]

It was a quiet moment. A rare one. Conversation between the two of them usually flowed smoothly, banter that was easy and fun and effortless. It was rare, to have that in her life, and she thought she would only have it with Ryan or Annabeth, but having that with someone she hadn't grown up with, someone she hadn't been connected to for so long was reassuring. But right now they sat on the beach, silent, thoughtful, watching the waves lap against the shore.

It should have been easy. They had gotten so comfortable with each other in such a short amount of time; so much had happened in such a short amount of time. Violet wanted to reach over and lace her fingers through his, but she couldn't do that. Not until she was as open with him as he had been with her. She took a deep breath and turned her body so she was no longer facing the ocean, facing Shane instead. He seemed to notice and mirrored her actions, raising his eyebrows mildly in a gentle probing question.

Violet took a deep breath. "Shane," she said quietly.

"Violet," he imitated her, half-jokingly, his lips smiling but his eyes full of somber awareness that she was about to say something important. And it was important - to her, anyways.

"Remember when... when you told me about Ruby Grant and Tainted Secrets?" she asked hesitantly. He nodded, and she couldn't quite read the expression on his face. She was trying to block it out, all of it. She didn't want to know what he'd think of her. He wouldn't like her anymore after. How could he like someone as heartless as she was? The queen of dance with the heart of ice. She was cold and dead and glittering and pretty but so lacking inside.

"I'm... I'm in the book too." Violet looked away from Shane and looked out into the sea. "The Dance Queen. Do you remember, the dance queen with the heart of ice? That line has really... just... I haven't been able to escape it. But that's... that's me. I dated the guys I had a duet with and," the words tasted so wrong in her mouth as she confessed it, saying such callous, heartless deeds when she knew her intention, that she had been doing it with a good heart, but it was what it was, and he had to know, "and I always... dropped them after. I needed the chemistry in the routine and that was how I got it."

She could have said so many things. She could have told him her mother had started it and after that, Violet hadn't seen any other way to go on. She hadn't seen any other way to keep improving as a dancer, to keep making her way up, to make her mother happy. She didn't know how to have the spark in her dancing without the kissing, the dating, the leading on of hearts. She could have said that it had been entirely professional, that it was akin to acting in that sense, but she didn't want to excuse herself. She didn't want him to think she was grappling for reasons to make it okay. 

It wasn't.

Scream: My character has caused yours to scream out for some reason

Violet strolled through the halls of Harwich with a practiced grace, a poised raise of the chin as she had been raised to carry with her perpetually. She was on her way to her next class, and although she had plenty of time to spare, she always liked to be a few minutes early. In fact, she preferred to be the first one to class so she could-

"Hey cutie." Hands grabbed at her waist and squeezed gently, eliciting a shrill scream from the girl Shane had taken hold of in a moment of impulsive, impish mischief. The sound surprised him as well as the other students in the hall with him, and the color fell from Shane's complexion as it did Violet's. He stepped back involuntarily and removed his hands from her skin, his entire expression a regretful flinch. "Sorry, Violet."

Everyone was staring. Violet ducked her head and shook her head, blushing furiously. No wonder she had been trained rigorously to keep level headed at all times; this was mortifying. She stepped closer and reached for Shane's hands, eyes still glued to the floor as she spoke softly. "You scared me."

He squeezed her fingers and leaned in, kissing her forehead, their peers forgotten as soon as their skin met. "Sorry," he murmured into her hair. Violet smiled and let her head rest against his lips for a moment. Maybe just one more second of their own little world before they had to separate.

Graveyard: My character will visit your characters grave

Shane Anthony Harborfield. Beloved son, friend, and husband-

Violet threw the flowers at the grave. She couldn't see a thing past that. She didn't care for the rest. She didn't care about any of it. Shane was dead, gone, and vanished. A stupid car accident. Random, arbitrary. He had been wasted to a number, a news story, a statistic. She had read the article a million times. 'Motorcycle Accident Kills Civilian.' And it had given his name: Shane Harborfield, 29, on his way to his loving wife, the well-known Violet Farris when a motorcycle hit the car and resulted in a serious injury and the death of a well-respected man in the community. Successful, handsome, and brimming with potential, they had written.

The paper had been burned. She didn't touch a single newspaper anymore. How twisted. Not one word of his deep dimples, his fondness for all sweets, his passions and his soft heart and his consistent offer of unconditional love to everyone he met, even the worst of people, the lowly ones, the rejected ones, the abandoned ones, the hopeless ones, the heartless ones. Not one word of how he had so relentlessly pursued her and fought for her and fought for himself, too, and how he had won, how he had been victorious, how he had become open and wonderful and understanding about all of it, helping others, becoming the rock that she had always made him out to be.

Not a single word of what he was coming home to that day: a positive pregnancy test, an expectant wife, and a baby. A tiny, 3 week old baby. Beloved son, friend, and husband. And father. Violet put a hand to her swelling stomach and the anger sunk out of her, fading out like the air from a balloon after you make the smallest hole. She would not cry. She had cried for too long already.

"It's a girl," she whispered, eyes squeezed shut, refusing to open even as she turned and walked the worn and all too familiar path from her first love's grave to the exit.

Letters: Our characters will write letters to one another.

They had a secret box underneath her window, deep into the backyard her room's window overlooked, that they put the letters in. There was one underneath his window too, albeit not nearly as carefully hidden. He would sneak in and drop off a letter in the middle of the night, and the next morning, Violet would wake up an hour early to retrieve it, read it over and over again, memorizing her favorite parts. She always took her time with her reply, as did he. They had all the time in the world. Shane and Violet, Violet and Shane. They had gone through it all, and surely, the world could wait for them to send a letter, words explaining everything that they had already come to know: love, being in love, wanting love, making love, finding love, learning love, growing love. She would pen her reply later on and drop it off on her way to or from dance practice.

She took the letters to the dance studio in her backyard and told her mother that she was waking up early to practice more, to improve, to hone her skills as a dancer, and her mother would later comment on how much Violet had improved, how the extra practice was truly helping, and Violet would smile. She had never told Shane this; this was her secret, this little gem of knowledge she kept to herself: that he was the reason for the first beauty she had ever come to know, that he made her better, that he had set her free while letting her stay herself. 

She loved him, she knew. And she hadn't told him yet, but she would. Or perhaps she'd let him see her dance, for the first time ever. He would know then. But still, if the letters had taught her anything, it had taught her the importance of words. And Violet would tell him as soon as possible: that she was in love in him, and she knew he felt the same way but she wouldn't have cared if he didn't, it wouldn't have changed a thing.

Busted: Your character will catch mine doing something they shouldn’t.

trigger warning: hints of exercise bulimia

"Hello, Violet! Nice to see you again." Mrs. Harborfield smiled at Violet and waved from the kitchen after wiping her hands on her apron.

"Nice to see you too, Mrs. Harborfield!" she said brightly. "Is Shane here? I brought him some food to eat while studying," she said, holding up a paper bag, the kind third grades bring to lunch with him.

Mrs. Harborfield cocked her head as her eyebrows knit together. "Sweetheart, he hasn't been home all day. He's been out God knows where." She laughed lightly towards the end of her sentence but it trailed off quickly, worry beginning to alarm in her eyes. "I assumed he was with you."

"Oh... No, he must be studying at the library! I'll go find him there. Thanks, Mrs. Harborfield!" Violet waved again and left the house, hearing Shane's mother say farewell but not quite registering it, the world was closing in on her, pressing in, suffocating her, because she knew exactly what Shane was doing, and he wasn't studying at the library. She  willed the tears back, angry and frustrated and hurt and realizing for the fourth time that it was never going to be easy. It was going to keep happening, and as of right now, it seemed that nothing would ever change. She would always be finding herself caught off guard, her footing lost and slipped, always hit hard unexpectedly with a metal fist to the mouth.

She drove to the gym and made her way in as quickly as possible, searching for him, brown paper lunch still in hand. She found him on the treadmill, running, face shining with sweat. Violet stepped in front of the treadmill slowly and smiled hopefully at Shane as a greeting. He would know exactly how she was feeling. He would know she knew, that she had figured it out. Shane stopped running and said nothing, avoiding her gaze, still standing on the treadmill, his muscles twitching with aching.

Her smile faltered, but it sprang back into place: small and hopeful and sad all at once. She held up the paper bag. "I brought you something to eat," she tried. "I'll wait for you over there." And she did. She moved to the lobby of the gym and waited. She didn't know how long he would make her wait; she had no idea. But she would wait for him. She always would.

O Oberon: I’ll write about my character getting angry at yours over something they did.

A pirouette here, and then she would have to 'move like she's walking on knives' here as 'beautifully and gracefully as possibly but naturally and painfully too' to this spot, a grand battement here, a fouette, and another, and another, and -

"Boo!"

She lost her footing then, and she stumbled over her feet and attempted, in vain, clumsily, to find her balance before toppling over and ending up awkwardly splayed across the floor. Frustrated and more than a little annoyed, Violet whipped her neck back to glare at the perpetrator: Shane. In the back of her head, she knew she shouldn't be mad at him, that it had been a harmless gesture of fun, of teasing, of affection. But she had a competition in less than three months and she needed this practice time and he was making her trip and stumble and fall when she had been so tuned into the music and the motions and the world at that very moment.

"Shane," she said simply, the single word laced with threat. 

"Uh... yeah?" Shane said, caught off guard by a tone he had never heard before in Violet's voice.

"Do you know how long it took to master that? The exact motions, the posture, the blocking, the-"

"It looked great, Vi," Shane said gently, hurriedly, unwilling to dwell in this tense moment with his girlfriend. His girlfriend who he had never seen angry until now. And she looked scary.

She looked like her mother.

"It could have looked great, you mean," Violet said as she rose to her feet. "Shane, you cannot barge into the studio whenever you want."

"You gave me the key-"

"I know I did but that didn't mean you could use it whenever I practiced. I practice at the same time everyday; if you wanted to see me so badly, you could have reached me at any other time. But this time is my time, this time is for me and for me only. I can't afford to mess up."

"Oh... okay. I'm sorry," Shane stammered, rubbing the back of his neck and attempting a smile.

well DUH! I was waiting!

how often do they fight?: I actually don't think they fight very often. Maybe later on, when they're closer and more serious with each other, but I think Violet would never yell at Shane or get angry with him. He'd hurt her, of course he would, every time he relapsed she'd be hurt, but she supports him and likes him and really doesn't want him to hurt any more than he already is so she wouldn't try to make him feel any worse. I think she would definitely defend her mother with him if he ever did approach that sensitive topic, she'd fight to the death for her mother even though she knows her mother is a little crazy. I think they'd have lots of play fights though and it will be adorable.

what do they do when they’re away from each other? : They live their own lives. I don't know, it's weird because they kind of compartmentalize their lives. Violet has her dancing life, her school life, and then she has her life with Annabeth, with Bryce, with Shane, etc. So they really just go on with their lives, you know?

nicknames for each other?:  Shane calls Violet Vi. I don't think Violet will give Shane a nickname LOL

who is more likely to pay for dinner?: Definitely Shane. I don't think Violet would even offer to pay for dinner, she wouldn't even consider it, because she's like what, I've never had to pay for my own dinner before.

who steals the covers at night?: Oooh, this one's hard... I think... Violet, honestly, because she's used to being alone, used to thinking of just herself and not really considering whether people want the blankets or not (at least, romantically she's used to thinking of herself). So she's just going to grab for more covers for warmth!

what would they get each other for gifts?: I have no idea what Shane would get Violet. A Miley bobbly head (I forget what they're called) but with a bobbly butt instead? and Violet would get Shane something super weird like a book on what to do with a dead chicken or something HAHA

who remembers things?: Hmm... THIS IS HARD! I feel like Violet will, though, because she's so used to having to be on top of everything and on top of her game and she'll memorize those dates like it's the most important thing in her life, and she'll never forget and she's very used to having to absorb a ton of information very quickly, she's used to having to think on her feet. But at the same time, Shane remembers a lot about their past before she really knew him, but now that she does know him and now that they're friends and they do like each other, she'll definitely remember... everything.

who cusses more?: Definitely Shane. Violet doesn't curse at all.

i hate you