Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "THIS IS CAAAAAAKETOWN!"

Username: 
Password:    
Remember Me
  • Create Account
  • IJ Login
  • OpenID Login
Search by : 
  • View
    • Create Account
    • IJ Login
    • OpenID Login
  • Journal
    • Post
    • Edit Entries
    • Customize Journal
    • Comment Settings
    • Recent Comments
    • Manage Tags
  • Account
    • Manage Account
    • Viewing Options
    • Manage Profile
    • Manage Notifications
    • Manage Pictures
    • Manage Schools
    • Account Status
  • Friends
    • Edit Friends
    • Edit Custom Groups
    • Friends Filter
    • Nudge Friends
    • Invite
    • Create RSS Feed
  • Asylums
    • Post
    • Asylum Invitations
    • Manage Asylums
    • Create Asylum
  • Site
    • Support
    • Upgrade Account
    • FAQs
    • Search By Location
    • Search By Interest
    • Search Randomly

Gabrielle Lennox ([info]thatsjustright) wrote in [info]bellumlogs,
@ 2010-01-03 02:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:willful child

Who: Gabrielle and Aaron
What: yay development of character/making Aaron's day XD
Where: Apt. 104
When: Evening, while Shiloh is working and Aaron is out watching a movie
Warnings: None (:



It was pretty late, and Gabrielle was just getting in from her job as a ballet instructor for little kids. She went (relatively) sober to her lessons, and it was always an intense effort to maintain herself for that long. She had a headache. She felt lightheaded, dizzy, nauseous. The second she got out of the studio and back into the complex, she was fumbling for her bag, pulling out a sleek silver etched flask that was filled with whiskey and taking a long swig, swallowing hard. She sucked a gulp of air in through gritted teeth before taking another, and then a third, successfully halving the liquid content of the flask.

She stood there, in the lobby, for a moment, taking a deep breath before capping the flask and slipping it into her purse again. Her shoulders slumped a little, in relaxation, and she closed her eyes. It was warm, in the lobby, making her muscles feel melty and thawed out. She slid out of her jacket, throwing it over her arm and walking again.

Only, she didn't walk to the elevator, or to the stairs. She walked slowly to apartment 101, as if discovering that there were rooms on the first floor for the first time. Running her fingers across the door, she continued to slowly walk, fingers trailing behind her, tips pressed against wall, then door, then wall again, until she reached 104. Her fingers hit the doorknob, which was locked, but not closed tightly enough: the door swung open an inch or two, and she peeked in.

Absentmindedly, she stepped inside, shutting the door behind her with a click. She gazed around, up at the walls and across the room, as if it were fascinating. Her fingertips ran across the furniture softly, and she pulled out a stool, sitting on it for a moment before her nose wrinkled slightly. There was no back, she thought to herself. That was no good. She slid off the chair, jacket tumbling from her arm, forgotten, and moved to the living room, sitting on a couch. She slid down, until her shoulders were halfway down the couch back and her butt was almost hanging off of it, and then sat forward again, shifting on it. Something about it felt odd. The cushions seemed to give too much, she sank too far into it, like a child swathed by too many blankets. She stood up, feeling claustrophobic.

Her fingers caressed the video game controller for a moment, gazing at it thoughtfully, before she moved on, walking through the living room, still looking around her as if a small child discovering a new hiding place. She turned to the right--a door--and pushed at it. It opened again, and she stepped into the room. Duffel bag, more electronics, and a laptop on a mattress. It was decidedly different from her own room, but something about it felt proper. It settled in her mind like a comfortable jacket, fitting in all the right places. She walked over to the mattress, falling back to sit on it, and then leaned towards the laptop. It was on, but no windows were open. She flipped onto her stomach on top of the sleeping bag, opening up a game of solitaire and starting to play. Somehow, strangely, it didn't strike her as odd at all at that moment, to be doing this in a stranger's home. Lying on her side, she continued to play until she fell asleep (which was surprisingly quickly), curled around the laptop, blonde hair splayed out starkly against the plaid material of the sleeping bag.



(Post a new comment)


[info]backoff
2010-01-04 01:05 am UTC (link)
The air inside Bellum Letale Apartment #104 had become tense lately. Aaron and Shiloh were avoiding each other in almost every way conceivable when you lived in the same space, and when they were in the same room, Aaron very carefully looked elsewhere whenever Shiloh glanced in his direction. The question of Shiloh's dubious occupation and the abortive argument in the lobby still hung in the air over both of them, and since yelling it out hadn't worked, Aaron was at a loss. After his lesson with Cole, in which they argued a lot about the kind of man Frankenstein was (arguments during which Aaron couldn't help but think that the teacher was playing devil's advocate, just for the sake of it), Aaron went outside, and after wandering around in the cold for awhile, he spent five dollars on a matinee movie and watched a movie that came out three months ago about some guy that goes on a rampage and kills a whole bunch of people in creative ways.

Aaron returned to the apartment in a far better mood. He still had his gloves on when he pushed the door open, but the first time he noticed something amiss was when he sat down on his couch, maybe to play a video game or something. There was something off about the couch. It wasn't like it was really wrong, it was just that someone besides him had sat in it, and that same someone had found it wanting. The couch didn't have feelings to hurt, of course, but its soothing, comfortable aura was slightly off kilter by this new layer of disapproval, and Aaron stood back up and gave the gingham fabric a funny look.

Looking around, he reached a hand out for the controller, his fingers stopping abruptly short centimeters from the plastic. Curiosity. Someone had ... what, played a game? Aaron pulled his arm back, and moved around the room, running his fingers in the air over everything within reach. Nothing else had been touched. Shiloh had promised not to bring any of his customers here, and Aaron could feel nothing except a funny sort of distanced curiosity, not any of the typical emotions of the people Shiloh encountered. Flummoxed, he stripped off his jacket and sweatshirts, of which there were several, down to a worn-in close fitting blue shirt with a moose silhouette on it, before wandering down the hall toward his room, soda in hand.

He stopped short in the doorway. Blinked several times. Looked behind him for a crew with a video camera. Looked back in the room. Put the soda down on the dresser, careful, careful. Looked back at the bed. Pinched himself in the arm. Nope. Still awake.

Gabrielle Gift-from-God Lennox was lying on his bed. HIS BED. Aaron raised his eye to the ceiling and mouthed, Thank you God. He had her CD, and everything. She was cute, in that amazingly real but out-of-reach kind of cute, and he'd watched her rise to stardom on television in the happy months right before dad died. He hadn't been watching much tv after that, but distantly he gathered that she'd broken up with that guy and there was some kind of scandal. The funeral and surrounding shadows had consumed most of his thoughts at that point.

Anyway. That didn't matter now. Because Oh-my-friggin'-God she was here. She was here. She was... here? Why was she here? Curious himself, Aaron edged up to the bed and looked at his computer screen. Solitaire? Edging even closer, he hesitated, then touched her arm, very gently, with the edge of his fingertips. People who were sleeping tended to have softer surface emotions if they had any at all; but as always, skin-to-skin touch provided Aaron with an intimate view of the other person's personality. His expression clouded. Guess Gabrielle Lennox wasn't as happy as she looked on television. Sighing, he gave her another little nudge. "Hey... uhm...? Hey?"

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]thatsjustright
2010-01-04 01:56 am UTC (link)
Gabrielle was usually a pretty heavy sleeper, but in this case, it only took a few nudges to wake her up. She woke up in the same dazed way she'd fallen asleep: languidly, with an almost exaggerated catlike stretch and a small yawn. Her lashes flickered up and down, still weighed down by the calm and relaxed sleep she'd fallen into, before she started noticing. Noticing how she was not, in fact, in her pajamas, nor was she even in her own bed. A memory, far distant in the past but never too buried in her mind, suddenly sprang into the forefront of her thoughts, filling her with a sharp, panicked sort of fear as she sat up suddenly, sucking in a breath and scrambling back from him.

Her heart was still pounding as she realized it was a stranger, that he hardly seemed the type to be capable of doing anything similar to what she'd been thinking, and it took her a few more seconds to allow herself to relax her tensed shoulders, take a deep breath. "Wh-where am I?" Confusion trickled in, taking the place of the fear that was slowly ebbing. The question, though, she realized, was wrong. She knew where she was, remembered the gold 104 on the door, the stool, the couch, the game of solitaire. So the better question was..."What am I doing here?"

She glanced back at the stranger in the room. He seemed young: not too young, but he was probably still in high school. She nervously licked her lips and bit down on her lower one. How was she supposed to explain waking up in a high schooler's bed? "Um, I--" For lack of anything else, she fell back on the socially acceptable responses that were all she knew, and extended a hand in introduction. "I'm, ah, Gabrielle." She seemed to be doing a lot of stammering these days. It unnerved her. She could feel a certain sort of embarrassment rising in her--what was wrong with her, why did she just walk into someone's apartment like it was okay?--and a flush rose in her cheeks. "I'm so terribly sorry about all of this, I don't know what possessed me to walk into your house. I'm so sorry." She offered him a sheepish smile, shoulders lifting into a small shrug of sorts.

She thought back to the silver flask in her bag. It couldn't have been that, could it? After all, she wasn't blacked out, and she had barely even drank half the flask. That certainly wasn't enough. Confusion reigned again, making cozy bed partners with the embarrassment and nervousness already buzzing in her head.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]backoff
2010-01-04 06:47 am UTC (link)
The moment she went from calm sleepiness to sharp fear, Aaron immediately backed away, and kept on going until his back was pressed up against the door frame, eyes slightly rounded in reflection of her own. He relaxed only--exactly--as she did, but didn't move from the doorway, and he shifted awkwardly under her frankly assessing gaze. He both wanted and didn't want to take her hand, a conflict was clear in his expression; ultimately, he didn't step forward to take it, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. "Yeah--I know. I mean. I've heard of you." His eyes shifted awkwardly around the room. It was very spare, he realized. He hadn't even really unpacked, because he hadn't wanted to think about why he was here, and not at home, where he belonged. His thoughts seemed to align with hers, and he swallowed before proffering a gentle possibility: "Are you... sick or something? Sleepwalking?" On something? He didn't say that last part, but it was pretty obvious.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]thatsjustright
2010-01-05 12:48 am UTC (link)
She suddenly realized that he had backed away, too, and was all the way at the door. It made her outstretched hand feel a little silly, and she dropped it. He seemed to feel just as nervous as she was, and she stood up, dusting her hands off on the front of her leggings, and ran a hand through her hair. As he mentioned that he'd heard of her, she winced a little. "I shudder to think of your impression of me from all those tabloid stories," she mumbled a little, giving him an apologetic look. If she'd known that he had just been silently thanking God for her falling asleep on his bed, she would have been much, much more pleased, high school student or no.

She bit on her lip again at the unasked 'or something'. She wondered if she ought to bring it up--she hesitated for a moment, then decided she might as well. He was taking this rather well, not yelling or telling her to get out or calling her crazy, so he was probably a pretty well-adjusted kid. He might have a good insight, right? Or at least, that's what she thought to herself, to justify telling him.

The real reason had something more to do with not having anyone else to tell, and being too scared to deal with it herself. "Well..I..." she didn't know how to explain it. "I did drink a little. But not enough to get drunk, so..." She shrugged her shoulders helplessly, reaching down to pick up her purse and guiltily pulling out the flask. She cleared her throat a little. "You don't have to stand across to room," she said quietly. "I promise I don't bite."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]backoff
2010-01-05 07:45 am UTC (link)
He smiled abruptly into her apologetic look concerning her fame. It was an ill-practiced, spontaneous grin, and it suited him. No judgment there, it seemed. (It was probably almost impossible for Aaron to judge people so quickly, considering what he could do. His prejudices were usually a little deeper under the skin, and took more reaching.) He waited her explanation out, appearing to be in no great hurry, moving neither forward nor back, picking up his soda again, putting it back down, looking everywhere but at her, rocking back and forth on his heels.

When she began to speak, he looked thankfully into her face; he was having a hard time trying to find somewhere else to look. The flask got a bit of a frown. "I dunno how to tell if there's anything bad in there," he said, not moving from his doorway stance. When she mentioned it, he flushed up his neck and into his ears. "Nothing personal," he said, hurriedly. "Just a--uh. Bad habit." To prove it, he took one tiny, tiny step toward her. Check me out and how well-adjusted I am.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]thatsjustright
2010-01-07 11:37 am UTC (link)
She couldn't help but grin back at him--it did indeed suit him, and it was infectious. Something about him seemed much different than the average high schooler. He was definitely, at the very least, more level headed, she decided, again thinking to the fact that he was not at all kicking her out for, oh, randomly trespassing in his apartment. She did, however, note that he didn't seem to ever glance at her, and struggled to decide if it was because he was wierded out by her being there or if it was because she'd had some kind of wardrobe malfunction and he was just too polite to tell her.

Her brows furrowed when he made a comment about not knowing what was in the flask. She'd been corrupted at such a young age that his relative innocence in the matter surprised her. "It's alcohol," she said, uncapping it and glancing in, as if she could see the whiskey through the dark, small opening at the top. "Whiskey, to be exact. I'd offer you some, but..." she made a face, part apologetic, part sheepish. "Well, you're probably not of age, and I don't want to do to you what was done to me at your age." Phrased a bit oddly, she realized, and she quickly corrected, "--that is, being introduced to this sort of thing too early. Bad stuff." He probably wouldn't know why she disliked the phrasing, but in her mind, it reminded her too much of other things from her past that she wouldn't wish on anyone.

She smiled as he took a small step in her direction. "That's fine," she said, herself crossing the space until she was no farther than two or three feet from him. "I'm full of bad habits." She extended her hand to shake again. "I don't think I ever got your name?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]backoff
2010-01-11 08:11 pm UTC (link)
Her bewilderment and conflict was tangible to Aaron, like an unforgiving sun on unprotected skin. "No... I mean. Other things that aren't liquor." He said the word likker, casually northern about it, and with the statement, gave the flask a curious look. "Drugs and stuff you didn't put in there, I mean. Do you feel okay?" His ingenuous features immediately cast in concern, he tipped his head the other way, like a puzzled robin.

Then, when she reminded him of introductions, he blinked, embarrassed. "Oh... I'm Aaron. You're in 104." Shifting still further in discomfort, he continued to shy back from her hand, his expression unmistakeably apologetic, even regretful. He took damp palms out of his pockets and scraped them against the seams of his jeans.

(Reply to this) (Parent)



Home | Site Map | Manage Account | TOS | Privacy | Support | FAQs