Twos: On Leo Vargas

Leo believed that good things came in twos.

(Or however the saying goes. A friend had corrected him once; Leo chose to remain ignorant.)

I.

When he was in his teens, it only took two rolls of film for him to believe that photography was something he was genuinely interested in. He had stolen his father’s camera during a family gathering and took pictures as he went. Relatives were caught by surprise, friends smiled goofily at the camera--all until his father had asked for it back, at least.

The results after developing said rolls weren’t exactly the best for a kid. Shots were blurry, people were caught in unflattering moments, certain things were out of frame, and a bunch of other mistakes that were forgivable at his age. Regardless, the sight of the pictures and the sentiment behind them was enough to convince Leo that it would be a passion he would invest in for the entirety of his life.

The pictures remain in a dusty, yellowing album until this very day.

Venomous: On Ezra Tully

META Offices

London, United Kingdom

January 2011

11:53 AM

Ezra finds himself at his workstation, hands covering his face. The lights are too bright and the room is spinning a little too quickly for his taste.

He tries to calm his breathing, tries to remember what his boyfriend had told him. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Over and over until the world felt stable enough, over and over until things felt some kind of okay. But since returning to London and receiving the news, “okay” became an unfamiliar, foreign term.

The investigation was called off a little over two months back. Investigators from Seattle deemed Iris Hu’s case as unsolvable and hopeless at that point. There was nothing that could lead them to a centimeter or inch closer to her; nothing that could give them some kind of peace of mind. He and Leo simply had to live with the possibilities. Multiple thoughts of how Iris could have met her end left multiple puncture bites all over his conscience and mind, filling them with gruesome images that kept him up for weeks on end.

The possibilities are venomous.

They kept Ezra up at night. Closing his eyes for more than an hour, maybe two if he was lucky, would almost always lead to seeing Iris dead. The previous night, he saw her with bullet wounds in her chest. The night before that, her body appeared mangled and bruised. The previous week had a bloated, greyed out image of her chasing him down, water pouring out of her mouth. Iris’ voice, soft and eager and sweet, had screamed and cursed and accused him of her death. It sounded garbled.

Girls/Girls/Boys: A Coalesce Graphic

"and love is not a choice."

Risk: A Coalesce Graphic

Three: A Coalesce Graphic

[x]

Pyrrhic: A Coalesce Graphic

Doorway: A Coalesce Short (3/3)

(+1)

Tadashi doesn't know how to react upon seeing Aether for the first time in weeks.

Aether's bedroom is eerily dark. The curtains are drawn shut, lights switched off. Squinting his eyes in the dark, it takes him a moment to adjust until he manages to make out a figure lying on the bed. There's a quiet body under the blankets that remains unmoving despite his entrance. Provided that it was only Mathieu in the living room alongside a man whose name he remembers as Anthony, Tadashi finds that his worst fears are confirmed.

The scenario is too similar, as is the lighting and the mood. It nearly makes his chest constrict but he pushes the feeling down and swallows away the lump forming in his throat. The last thing Tadashi wanted to see was his worst assumptions, but there was nothing more he could do now that he was inside as well. He opens his mouth, tests the waters.

"...Aether?"

There's almost no response aside from the twitching of what he guesses is her leg. Pressing his lips together, he takes step after step forward, approaching the right side of the bed. It takes him a moment longer; the lack of light in the room makes it near impossible to properly navigate. The thought makes him wonder about Mathieu, and the feeling in his chest is only made even heavier.