' IS THIS THE REAL LIFE ?

[Nathan Oliver Weston]

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE

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OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY? CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY[/center]

SAND. Tiny rocks, ground down from years and years of erosion, tossed about haplessly amongst countless currents. A head of curly brown hair had taken it’s rest here, sand spreading and jumping away from the pressure of human weight. It created a perfect imprint, a memorium of a human who had nowhere else to go. Green eyes hidden behind lids, the sunlight already irritating to the male as he began to slowly come down, awakening from his substance-induced slumber. It was a beautiful day, a Tuesday maybe, and somehow Nathan Weston’s endless zest for all things unusual had landed him in this very place. Hands reached for the sand, closing around it, its warmth soothing in a way. He used it as leverage to raise himself to a seated position, his stomach immediately screaming in response. He could feel it churn, like a thousand fists punching him from the inside. Beating through his large intestine, toxic in his liver. He grunted and burped, shrugging his shoulders as he allowed his voids to adjust to the too-bright lighting. Everything about the boy that morning told a familiar tale. Beer stained corduroy jeans clung to skinny legs, a dirty white shirt torn at the collar. A large bottle of Old English lay dormant beside him, empty and retired. Abandoned. It only took moments for the boy to come to, his mind finally catching up with physical sensations. Instead of reacting to his situation however, he opted for a more suave approach and lit a cigarette instead. Nathan was all about poison. Gray clouds of smoke obscured his vision of the ocean as they curled around his messy head, climbing endlessly towards the sky. The heavens. Nathan averted his eyes from the view only for a moment to glance upwards, biting down on the filter of his smoke before shrugging. “i reckon this is how it feels to be on top of the world.” The saddest thing about the few words that spewed lazily from the lips of the male; he really believed them to be true.

CHILDREN played nearby, their screams ringing through the serene air like sirens on police cars. Nathan had never been one for kids, with their snotty-nosed chubby faced cherub grins. When people asked him if he’d ever wanted one, his most common reply was that, well, he just couldn’t be assed. All that time, the work, the money... and what for? Another hopeless half-american wanker? Another bastard child? Nathan laughed in the face of commitment. He’d never been made to commit to something in his life, and somewhere along the line that had affected him greatly in his ability to relate to people. Most saw him as a bum, someone that was far too big of a prick to ever be worth knowing. Their sole interactions with him often consisted of insults, curse words, and the half-ass offer for a fag which he’d hoped would be declined every time. To them, he was selfish. To them, he was in his own world. So what if he was? Nobody knew him well enough to understand why he was there, what he’d seen, and who he was. In the true fashion of a commitment-phobe, however, this didn’t necessarily bother Nathan. He’d convinced himself somewhere along the line that he was above the rest. Someone who was personally entitled to say or do exactly as he pleased. In turn however, he had the incredible ability to tune out, laugh at, or play off the returned insults of others. Nathan lived to piss people off, like the chicken box or that scratch in the back of your throat that just won’t go away. He was the human herpes. As long as he kept others at arms length, nobody had to know the full story. Nobody needed to figure out the secret behind the smelly hair and dirty face. He could remain completely anonymous.

FINALLY raising himself from his spot of rest, Nathan took a long drag on his cigarette before attempting his first step. Slightly shaky, he hobbled across several meters of ground like a newborn fawn before finally regaining his footing. Again, his stomach churned. “Oh shut up.” the sound was less of a warning sign to Nathan than it was a nuisance. A combination of heavy drinking and little to eat would do that to a person though, and he was feeling the affects. It didn’t matter, though. He didn’t need a home. Raising his eyes to be level with the horizon, the boy’s vision was suddenly obscured by a very large man sluggishly attempting what looked like a jog down the shore of the beach. A smirk suddenly appeared on nathan’s lips, a devilish grin that had come about far too may times to ignore. Unable to resist himself, in a thick liverpoolian accent that was pits to understand, he called out across the beach to the man, prompting several families to turn and stare at the source of the abuse. “He’s so fat he can be his own running mate!” The man stopped at that, clearly staring squarely at Nathan. Still good amount of space from the other, Nathan grinned in a self-satisfied way and began to saunter over to the man. He figured it’d be polite to introduce himself, right? Red-faced and sweating, the man’s eyes were attempting to stab Nathan dead right there on the beach. Nathan laughed aloud and slapped the man on a flabby shoulder. “Come on mate, can’t take a joke, can you?” The man shoved him hard, causing him to stagger backwards a few steps. Nathan laughed harder. In protest, the other claimed he’d lost a mass amount of weight and was under the obesity mark in America after over 20 years trapped in his own body. It was all Nathan could do to keep from breaking out in a fit of laughter, but before he turned and began walking back down the beach in the opposite direction, he allowed a final statement to leave his lips; “if you can’t tell the difference between a spoon and a ladle, then you’re fat.”

[Willow-Jae Dakota Holt]

The feel of the sand beneath her feet didn’t remind Willow of the place she once called home. It was too soft and the ocean was much too close. Sand, in her opinion, ought to be dry and tough with sprigs of cacti and dying plants. She hadn’t even seen a beach properly before her tenth birthday and the summer heat that New York boasted was mild for Will. The tiny brunette often found herself smirking at the sight of the businessmen who couldn’t handle the summer months in the city, dabbing persistently at their collars and foreheads to try and save their professional presence while in the company of others. To look at the young girl, you wouldn’t think that she spent twenty years in the middle of the Mojave Desert, in a town where everyone knew her name long before she could pronounce any of theirs. She was as pale as they came with porcelain skin that never seemed to hold a tan once she turned her back on the sunny state of California and made the trek to the opposite coast with the idea of never returning.

She never spoke about her past, the years before New York City nothing more than a mystery to everyone in her life now; even her housemates. The memories still swam around her head, bashing against her skull on occasion as they demanded to seep out in some form or another. Those were the days when she slipped from the house and found someplace where there was no one to bother her, no one to question why she was a little less sarcastic than usual and if she did have to work then she made sure to keep everyone at bay with snappy comments and a mood a little less than polite. Luckily, people seemed to understand when to back off and she hadn’t done anything so bizarre that people had prodded her for information or asked her repeatedly if she was okay. Everyone ran from problems at some point in their life and whether they spoke about it or not, she appreciated that she had people who understood when her green eyed glare said “back the hell away”.

The day was still early when Willow found herself wandering aimlessly down the shoreline. The sea breeze ruffled her choppy, currently blue tipped hair and she had to keep pushing the locks from her eyes as she kicked up the sand with the scuffed toes of her old Converse sneakers. There was motor oil stuck beneath the surface of her chipped nails from where she had been poking about the engine of her car, not too long after sun up. Usually, she enjoyed sleeping in late, but dreams had stirred her awake and left her unable to settle again, so she had set about doing the one thing she knew she was good at; playing with engines. Raised by her father, she had never been a dainty girl and not many people had ever assumed she was one. There was either some vulgar term rolling from her lips, some angry action ruining the calm, or a tomboy attitude that pretty much summed Willow up in a handful of moments. That was the young woman that they saw now, but the picture was a hell of a lot milder compared to what it had been just a few short years ago. Sometimes even Willow was left to wonder if it had been some terrible dream, but then she had more than enough memories and reminders to prove it was all real.

Avoiding the more crowded areas, Willow navigated the sand with simple ease. She kept out of the way of children’s games and circled around the college kids playing with the Frisbee that was bound to cause someone some annoyance before the end of the day. She had seen her housemates do it often enough whenever they ventured out as a group to the water’s edge. Willow much preferred the quieter beaches that she found to escape to whenever work commitments allowed it. Swinging her arms out, stretching her abnormally flexible limbs, Willow cast her gaze along the sand, squinting as the sun distorted her vision with a bright and unwelcomed glare. She couldn’t quite make out what was coming up ahead, but she could hear the voices and see the silhouettes of the two. Once upon a time she’d have made similar remarks to the troublesome younger man, but those times were a long time ago. At least, that’s what Willow kept telling herself whenever she saw these things. There was still a lot of anger inside the petite frame and just because she had it a little more controlled now didn’t mean that she didn’t erupt like Mount Vesuvius once or twice. The only difference now was that there was usually someone around to pull her back whereas in the past there hadn’t been, and by the time Willow had calmed down the damage was already done and there was no way to run away from it all like the scared little girl had wanted to do. She watched as the jogger continued on his way after a moment and then shook her head, lips twitching upwards into a slight smirk as she tried to bite back the remark fighting to burst from her dry throat. “Nothing says ‘good morning New York’ like a royal asshole.”

[/color] She called, though her amused tone was far from anything malicious. In her books, there were few things worthy of intervening for and most of them only happened when she was stood behind the bar, serving drinks and threatening the unruly customers before her boss came out from his office.
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• • •

TAGGED! Nathan!
WORDS! 990!
OUTFIT! Casual Mess
LYRICS! Out On My Own - - - Gabrielle Aplin
NOTES! <3

[Nathan Oliver Weston]

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE

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OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY? CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY[/center]

THERE were a lot of things in the world that people didn’t want to accept. Ignorance seemed to be a default to most, passing up the clues and reasons for being in their lives and instead, just living in a sort of confused and jumbled way. Nathan was not one of those people. His denial was often mistaken for ignorance, his pain masked by a smirk and an awful word. It was so much easier for him to tear apart the walls of those around him than to allow them to come in close, to break through his own walls. They could get to his core, devour him piece by piece. No one could see him cry, no one could know what had happened to him. In many ways he’d allowed himself to forget the abuse from his childhood. The countless hours spent alone, nights in the dark with nothing and nobody to play with. Ribs jutting painfully from pale skin, so thin it was transparent. And those eyes, streaming tears as rough hands took him and tried to make him stand. He hadn’t been able to back then, but now he didn’t need anyone. If he was going to fuck up, he would do it beautifully and with style. He would be whoever he chose to be. There was no remorse in his soul as he watched the fat blob of a man putter away, his posture slightly more slouched due to the harsh comments Nathan had attacked him with. Cockiness was not the source of nathan’s inappropriate, degrading attacks. It was a complete and utter hatred of himself. He would do anything, anything, to make the pain stop.

AS he grew, Nathan found out the hard way that the foster care system was faulty and would inevitably fail him. Each new family came with promises of happiness, a new life with them. They would give him what he needed, love him, teach him to read. The first few times the boy would believe them, skipping happily into their clutches only to find more neglect, more blatant abuse in his path. Often times it was simply a fondness for their own children that took over their desire to love Nathan. As a reaction to this rejection, he turned to others to help him. His schoolmates were never the “right” kind of kids. He’d find himself the ring leader, standing over a terrified ginger haired ‘pile of spunk’, dangling a stream of spit dangerously close to his face before demanding he open his mouth to have a taste. He would victimize so he’d never have to be the victim. If everyone was scared of him, they wouldn’t touch him. He took a deep breath and clenched his jaw, lighting another cigarette and shaking his head from side to side a few times. It was amazing what a hangover would do to his thoughts. Everything came back to him, as if they’d simply been in hiding while under the influence then decided to come on a million times stronger the following morning. The alcohol, the drugs, these were what numbed him now. He’d reduced himself to a bit of a glamorous junkie, someone that could somehow visibly hold it all together even though he was tearing apart at the seams. Nobody needed to know, he had no job, no money. Not even somewhere to go. For all they knew, he was king.

THE high-pitched trill of a woman rang out from behind the tall, slender male. He turned his head to have a look, green eyes making contact with the other’s voids. He noticed they were also emerald in colour. A light smirk caught his lips at her words, and he crossed his arms over his skinny chest defiantly. “it’s nice to meet someone else that accepts my role as King.” He burped then, blowing it in the general direction of the lady standing before him. “Sorry miss, not doing autographs today.” His cigarette had burned too short and was now radiating heat close to his mouth, slowly burning his lips. He ignored it. His eyes were too busy studying the lovely specimen before him. Legs for days, that devilish grin. She looked like a girl with a secret, and he matched her level stare and signature smirk to a tee. “What say i make you my queen, little filly?” he lifted his hand and smacked the air as if it were the round bottom of a girl, then bucked his hips once or twice for emphasis. His effort was always this.. er, sexy. Presumably the main reason why he could never get women to sleep with him unless they were sufficiently drunk first. Remembering this, he sort of pursed his lips and looked away for a moment. He couldn’t decide if this one would be worth that kind of effort. Not once did he consider weather she’d even give him the courtesy of another word. In nathan’s little mind, everyone wanted to hear everything he had to say. It was easier than accepting that nobody gave a piss about him.

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[Willow-Jae Dakota Holt]

Most people looked at Will and saw just another rough and tumble tomboy girl who spent far too much time underdressed for the New York weather. She had grown accustomed to shorts and vests, still keeping a slight hint of the California roots to her everyday appearance. Behind all of that though, lied a troubled and hurt girl who was still scared of so much, even if she would never admit it to anyone. She had lost control in a bad way, hurt people, crossed the line of the law and eventually it had all come back to bite her in the ass and teach her a lesson she didn’t want to retake. She had tried shifting her pain onto other people, tried hurting everyone for the hurt she had suffered at the cruel hand of a malicious fate, but none of it had helped her. It had taken extremes to help her see sense again, but she could never get rid of what she had already done. It wasn’t exactly something she could drop at the side of the road with the rest of the trash and expect it to be gone by morning. No, Willow had forced herself to turn her life around and picked herself up when no one else would, slowly rebuilding trust and respect where she had foolishly and stupidly shattered it. She had once been blessed with a decent life and a loving home that didn’t need the conventional family to make it perfect, but ripping that away from her had been too much and in the darkness the helping hands just didn’t stretch far enough for the tough little mechanic, who tossed her dreams into the desert and let the wild devour them and turn her into something she hated.

At sixteen, she had blamed everyone else. Even now, a dark part of her soul would twist things to shift the blame and she had to reel herself in before she did or said something she’d regret. Growing up was a tough gig that she hadn’t been ready for. Rebelling had seemed like the best thing to do at the time and when she started out, the only people getting hurt were the foster families who didn’t get the money to house her since they couldn’t control her. Drinking, partying and sneaking out were just harmless teenage things to do, even if she did do all of those with a bad crowd and come home with ink permanently etched into her skin or metal in her nose. It was only later, when the high wasn’t enough that things got worse. The pain couldn’t be numbed and the rush had faded, so sneaking out turned into breaking in and partying became more like terrorising. Thinking back, Willow barely recognised the girl she had been. A lot of work had gone into making amends and now that her life was back on track, she wanted nothing more than to close the lid on that Pandora’s Box and seal it shut for the rest of time. No one here knew of her past, especially not her later teenage years and Willow wanted to keep it that way. They already got their fair share of her wild child ways when she was out on the town and not playing barkeeper with her co-workers at Gotham. Just because she had tamed some of her old habits didn’t mean that she was anywhere close to being an angel!

It took a lot to make Willow wrinkle her nose or turn away in disgust; she had been raised by a man and lived with three guys who made their house look like Skid row. She spent days under the bonnets of cars and then shared her evenings with guys who often couldn’t find the laundry hamper if their lives depended on it. None of that bothered her and this random stranger on a beach certainly wasn’t about to have her running for the hills either. He wasn’t hard on the eyes, but he was so far from Prince Charming. She had gathered that much just by listening, before she even opened her mouth. Rolling her light eyes, Will folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight from one leg to the other in a lazy fashion. “Good, ‘cause I forgot my autograph pen.”

[/color] She replied, the sarcasm dripping from her words as she glanced along the beach with mild disinterest. Willow had no immediate place to be, but the beach was only entertaining for so long when she was clearing her head. The fact that she had noticed the altercation moments before only told her that the thoughts she wanted banished were long gone. A harsh laugh escaped her throat and she tilted her head before studying the self-assured guy standing before her. Will was used to dealing with this during her working hours, but it was a little less common to hear it when she was just out and about; her attitude usually made sure of that. “Really? Tell me, how many times has that actually worked for you?”[/color] Her hands came to rest on her lips as she took on a challenging stance and met his eyes once more, this time arching her eyebrow as she awaited his answer this time.
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• • •

TAGGED! Nathan!
WORDS! 887!
OUTFIT! Casual Mess
LYRICS! Out On My Own - - - Gabrielle Aplin
NOTES! <3

[Nathan Oliver Weston]

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE

[/font][/b]
OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY? CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY[/center]

WOMEN had always been mysterious creatures to Nathan. From the memories he had of his mother coupled with the horrendous excuses for respectable girls in his life had made him less than gentlemanly. He could remember his mother, a skinny dark haired lady. She’d had his emerald eyes, the same shape and size. He could remember staring into them once when she came inside, when his father wasn’t home and the fun had run out on the other side of his door. Those four walls and that door were all he knew to be real, and his small underdeveloped mind had become electric when he watched this small, skeletal being approach him and take him in her arms. He didn’t really know what she was saying, but it was the first time he’d ever felt a kind touch. He had been five years old then. His mum would do this same thing on occasion, making his life increasingly confusing at that time. He didn’t know where she came from or why she came, why she didn’t do anything when his father was around. Couldnt she save him? Couldn’t she take him away from the harsh blows and long hours in solitude? It never happened. He was spending his life waiting for her to come back, even to that day on the beach. He wanted someone, anyone to save him. The self destructive behaviour got worse as he aged, showing in the slightest of ways through marks on his arms or hollowed out cheeks. With all the angry thoughts he had towards every person he came in contact with came a tiny voice, muffled by years of tough skin and glaring eyes. It pleaded with each other person to please help. Please take him anywhere but here. Please love me.

THE sun beat down on nathan’s back and he finally dismissed the burning filter of his smoke, his lips on fire from letting it go too long without putting it out. He lit himself another, more smoke curling and circling his messy head. The scene around him was so cheerful, and as he gazed upon the lady before him his mind wandered, wavering and stopping on the subject of his evening. How in gods name had he ended up on the island? Scratching the back of his head with his free hand and smoking with the other, he looked down and kicked the sand as he tried to remember. This was always the worst part. Nathan was famous for his binges, often drinking all day and all through the night. He would stagger, slur his words, fight with anyone and everyone who would listen. The drugs would come late, after he’d wasted the fun of the liquor, he would pass out somewhere incredibly strange, and go on to do the same thing the next evening. He never learned, because he didn’t care. He had nothing better to do with himself. Who would want to hire someone that could barely read? The worst of it all was that the days mashed together, He couldn’t remember what happened to him or what he did. It all seemed very dreamlike, but nothing that happened was pleasant enough to be considered as such. Deep down, he knew he was a monster. He knew this was going to be the end of him, but for as long as he could clench his jaw and carry on, he would. Nathan was nothing if not stubborn, and he was a fighter. What he didn’t have strength-wise was made up for in strength.

BLINKING suddenly, Nathan snapped back to reality long enough to hear the massively sarcastic remark of the other being in his presence. He stared at her for a moment, raising his eyebrows playfully and almost offering a smile. She was feisty. Too often the reaction he received would be a slap, a scream, some obscenity. This girl had some substance. A natural-born button pusher however, Nathan couldn’t settle on getting to know someone so obviously more interesting than the rest. Instead he had the immediate urge to insult her. make her go away. his brain was screaming at him, but he pushed back the thoughts and copied her “girl power” stance. Hands on either hip, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, he never allowed his gaze to leave the other’s. He didn’t even blink. It was a stand-off, a matching of wits. Her next crack was at his awful line, and he just shrugged his shoulders. “please miss, you don’t look like the type that i’d need to try very hard to have a kick at the can with.” he took a step closer, leaning in and putting a hand next to his mouth as though he wanted to tell the girl a secret. He spoke loudly though, provoking stares, that signature grin still present, green eyes dead behind the hungover gloss. He wondered if she could see. “what i’m trying to say is, you look like a proper slut. A trollop. A slag, yeah?” Of course this wasn’t the actual case. Nathan’s insults were almost never clever. He really just wanted to hurt people. The shock factor was often more powerful than wit. He leaned back quickly to avoid the slap he predicted, and waited. His eyes were still transfixed on hers. They’d never left.

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[Willow-Jae Dakota Holt]

Willow didn’t exactly have prized memories of romance or affection. The only person who had shown her anything of the like had died almost five years before and left Willow with absolutely nothing beside a box of photos and the cheap necklace she had worn around her neck since she was twelve. She had never experienced a mother figure since hers had walked out when she was just a baby and her dad had never found anyone else to replace her. It was how Willow had wound up preferring toy cars over Barbie dolls and shorts over dresses. The early years might have been full of happier memories, but most of them had faded or been tainted by the later years and the mother she was supposed to have, had walked out before Willow was old enough to even recognise her. It was one thing to lose a parent to the cold hands of the Grim Reaper, but to have one that never even wanted you? Willow hoped that her mom never came knocking to make amends because it would probably be the one thing that would tip the tiny brunette right back over into the abyss and this time she was old enough to face the consequences without someone holding her hand and telling her it would be alright soon. She doubted anyone would want to hold her hand if they knew what she had been capable of before her arrival in the city that never sleeps.

Willow recognised the hangover within a few seconds of standing near this guy. She could just about detect the smell of stale liquor and it wasn’t as though she was unfamiliar with the state herself. Most weekends she only made it home because of friends either letting her crash over at their apartments or because her housemates were out with her and even then she often didn’t make it up to the attic pit of a bedroom she called her own. And she was a lot tamer now than she was a handful of years ago. At least now she could say she partied like most other college kids, rather than being the high school flunk who would rather drink cheap booze on the hood of someone’s car in the middle of the Mojave. Even the college education she was getting now wasn’t going to make her a businesswoman or a surgeon. She fixed cars. She was putting herself in debt to make sure she could do it for the rest of her employable life. Her high school education hadn’t been completed inside a high school or even a classroom and it had taken persuasion and a whole load of waiting before she had been accepted at NYU. Willow, despite her confidence around her friends and most strangers, was in fact incredibly afraid that she would never quite be good enough. The only thing she really knew how to do was poke around under the hood of any car anyone placed in front of her and not many people found it an admirable skill for a young girl to have. She never spoke about it, rarely even thought about it and just kept living in a slightly selfish “well it makes me happy” bubble that no one had been able to break through just yet. She managed to hide most of it pretty well behind a wall of sarcastic wit and threats that people didn’t know whether or not to take seriously until she added in the icy glare that was as close to a glimmer of her past as she came.

Willow might not look like much, coming in at just over five foot, but she was tough. She had been through a hell of a lot, seen things she didn’t want to ever see again and mixed with people she ought never to have mixed with in the first place. If a girl couldn’t harden up through all of that then there was no hope of surviving and Will had come through fighting strong. It took a lot to knock her down and even more to keep her down. She could push back twice as hard and had to keep herself in check a lot more than she let on. Her eyebrow arched a little higher as he mimicked her, but he was so far from setting her to self-destruct that she barely flinched at his next barrage of words. In fact, she laughed, flashing her pearly whites before shaking her head and looking back at him with an unwavering smirk. “And you think you’re the first guy to say something like that?”

[/color] She reached out to snatch the cigarette from him and took a long drag, exhaling the smoke slowly and casually. Will wouldn’t call herself a smoker, but every now and then she would sample one. It was usually after several drinks too many when she craved something more, but right now she was doing it just because it was there and she could. “Look, if it makes you feel better you can call me what you like, but I really don’t care. You’re not going to get a rise out of me so easily.”[/color] She was more amused by this exchange than offended. Working in the bar, she heard worse on a Tuesday night and right now, she was more entertained by what this guy might do next. Keeping her jade eyes fixed on his, she brought the cigarette back to her lips and then let out another slow exhale.
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• • •

TAGGED! Nathan!
WORDS! 904!
OUTFIT! Casual Mess
LYRICS! Out On My Own - - - Gabrielle Aplin
NOTES! <3

[Nathan Oliver Weston]

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE

[/font][/b]
OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY? CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY[/center]

AMERICA had never been nathan’s favourite place in the world. He missed the dirty streets of England, the familiar faces and underground places that gave his true home character. He’d always remember the wanderings he’d had in his prime, the graffiti art and the staying up too late. He missed the freedom he’d had there. The street kids were relatable and fun to be around, not the gun-slinging scary type that typically littered the streets of New York. His heavy accent drew stares, the slang with which he communicated often misunderstood by the tiny brains of the Americans. Everyone seemed bigger, more self-indulgent, and those who weren’t that way were often few and far between. Even if he did come across someone relatable in this place, it usually wasn’t long before they were scared off or too annoyed by his antics to want to stick around. British kids were more curious. They’d made him their king, quite contrary to the quiet solitude he was subjected to here. The parties were crazier, drugs more plentiful and less expensive. It almost hurt to reminisce over the past, the “good old days” so to speak. They were the times when nothing seemed to touch the boy as he was too high, too drunk, too powerful to give a shit. He hoped to one day return and regain his place amongst the beautiful historic buildings and cobblestone streets, turning his back on ugly office buildings and ignorant taxi drivers forever. Nobody understood him here, and he simply hated them. In his eyes, they would always be scum.

SOME would say the judgement Nathan typically passed on Americans was no better than the way he claimed they treated him, but he’d never really been one for fairness. Nobody had taken the time to teach him what that concept even was, let alone the difference between right or wrong. Some psychiatrists, the doctors that poked and prodded into his most personal thoughts with such riveting questions as “what do you remember about your mother?”, would card him as a sociopath. Manically depressed. Clinically insane. None of these labels either defined Nathan or tickled his fancy. He would never blame himself on a disease, some made up fiction that people used to explain why they couldn’t adapt to society. Nathan simply didn’t want to. He had his own way of doing things, his own freedoms, and he lived every day how he wanted to. This all sounds so inspiring, but the truth of the matter was really anything but. Nathan was self destructing quickly, and even if that was the inspiration that drove him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to die. There was something so common about a mortuary reading ‘death by overdose’ or ‘stupid Englishman exploded liver’. He wanted to die doing something epic, something no one would ever forget. He felt he had some kind of purpose before him, but was unsure how to approach it or reach it. And so he lived out his days, doing all he knew how, waiting for his moment to change the world.

REALIZING the girl before him was spewing words again, Nathan snapped out of his trance and flicked his kidnapped cigarette’s ashes onto the sand. He didn’t really remember what she’d said as he’d been only half listening, but from the way she stared at him in a completely indifferent way, he could only guess. Turning then to a woman and her man walking hand in hand down the beach next to where he stood, he laughed as he spoke to them. “She totally wants me, yeah?” He flashed a smile their way and the woman gave him a look that could only really be described as a mixture between disgusted and confused, which only made the male laugh more. He turned back to the girl and ran a hand through his curly locks, the wind tossing them upwards and confirming that he desperately needed a haircut. The big mystery of the situation though was the question of why he hadn’t left yet. There had been ample opportunity for the boy to part ways with this intriguing banshee, but something had held him there. Maybe it was the sadness behind her eyes that he couldn’t ignore, the real person he could see behind the mask she was wearing. How could he see these things? He knew what it was like to be hiding. He too wore that same mask.

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[Willow-Jae Dakota Holt]

Willow wouldn’t really say that she missed her home in the Mojave; the tiny town in the middle of the scorching desert with very little to attract the tourists or the famous faces. People automatically assumed that California meant beaches and glamour, but Will had been given an entirely different experience of that. Dry earth, hard ground and tiresome stories of aviation and spaceports had been the reality of her hometown. Sadly, the bad outweighed the good and in the end there were too many demons back there for Willow to face them all. She knew bridges had been burnt and relationships destroyed that she could never fix up like she could her car’s engine. It had been easier to uproot and go somewhere far, far away and that place had been New York and the place she had every intention of staying in for the foreseeable future. In New York, she was just another face in the crowd, a tiny girl on the sidewalk sipping at her coffee on the way from college to work. She wasn’t known by everyone and people rarely called out to her when she went about her business. If she spent the night partying with friends then there were no older, wizened faces left to judge her and ask her what her father might think if he was still alive. It was just her, alone, making a fresh start and moving on from the horrors she had wanted so badly to forget about.

Whenever the thoughts of Mojave circled around her head like predatory vultures looking to feat on her newfound happiness, Willow could practically hear old advice being screamed at her. Talk to someone, don’t bottle everything up, share and you’ll feel better…well she had never taken that advice and even during her stint in captivity she had been prosed opened with crowbars before she would confess to her feelings and admit to her problems. She wasn’t about to re-open old wounds just for someone on the opposite side of the country to say “it’ll be okay.” And then probably distance themselves from her since she couldn’t promise it would ever happen again. She had a handle on it, had everything under control, but that wasn’t exactly a guarantee against what she had every capability of reverting back into. To look at her, not many would think that a ticking time bomb rested beneath the porcelain surface of this tiny person who seemed to have stopped growing upwards by the time her fourteenth birthday hit town. Looks could be deceiving though, and Will was probably more like a rubber ball than a china doll for durability. And when she exploded…well, Mojave already had a clear recollection of that and she hoped that New York wouldn’t get a taste of it. Back in California that was the first thing people seemed to think of whenever they thought of Will and she wanted to be something more than that. The petite girl with the messy, shorter hair knew she wouldn’t be changing the world, but she didn’t think it was asking for too much just to have a good life now that all the bad stuff was behind her.

Another loud round of laughter escaped Willow’s lips and she allowed herself to deliberately fall to the sand, bringing her knees up to rest on them as she stared out at the water and then dealt with the remains of the cigarette burning quickly between her fingers. “I get it now. You walk around New York trying to alienate everyone, right?”

[/color] She didn’t think he’d give her a serious answer, but she had clocked that if she walked away then he would feel slightly victorious about something and Willow just wasn’t that kind of girl. Sitting down on she sand, she hoped, emphasised that point. Willow had done the same at one point in her life, pushing away at the people she had grown up around and it had done her very few favours in the end. The reckless behaviour still existed to an extent, but Willow was much less likely to go for the kill these days unless someone absolutely deserved it. In other words, she reserved that attitude for half of the arrogant assholes who came into her place of work and acted like they ran the place.
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TAGGED! Nathan!
WORDS! 759!
OUTFIT! Casual Mess
LYRICS! Out On My Own - - - Gabrielle Aplin
NOTES! <3