calliope-attaway - Tumblr blog

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods‌:

Silas worked methodically and with more patience than either one of them were known for, making sure that as much of the color dye was washed out in the tub with as minimal amounts on the two of them. It was practically impossible though, considering she couldn’t keep still for too long and neither was he going to be able to keep her still for much longer. But he’d try his best. It was all that he could ever hope to do around Callie, making sure that he saw after her happiness and did his best to make sure that she did what she wanted rather than lose herself in pleasing others. “You could never look dumb,” he told her sternly with a look that softened as he realized that her worry was for real as well as realizing that neither of them had a towel that wasn’t the most expensive thing in the bathroom. He opted for his shirt instead, wrapping her hair in it to try and dry it out as much as possible before she saw it when she straightened and he was fluffing it dry with a smirk. “You might look like you have a rainbow on your head, but never dumb. It looks like you.” This time he meant it with a press of his lips against her forehead as he grabbed her by the shoulders to help her turn around and see her reflection in the mirror.

Callie was getting antsy and anxious to see but she tried to sit as still as possible until Silas finished washing all of the color out. She smiled up at him, her eyes still closed, as he reassured her and then proceeded to use his own shirt to dry her hair. She kept her eyes closed until Silas turned her around to face the mirror. With a steadying breath Callie opened her eyes. The girl staring back at her didn’t look like her at all. The long blonde hair that had once defined her now had a jagged cut right at the shoulders and was streaked 3 different colors, it looked like more with all of the colors blending together. She looked ridiculous... and she loved it. Her mother was going to simply die. But Callie didn’t care. All she felt was freedom. “I love it.” She declared, giving her head a shake. She turned back around to face Silas and jumped up so that her arms were his neck and her legs around his waist. “I’ve never felt more like myself than I do right now.” And she meant it. Callie kissed him, because she wouldn’t have done this without his encouragement, and then said “The teasing is over. Take me to the bed.” And that’s where they would spend the next few hours before they had to get back on the road to meet the others. 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods‌:

“You don’t have to go home. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he told her, pressing his lips against her forehead as his eyes squeezed shut and held her tight. What happened to her, what happened to her here without him keeping an eye out for her – SIlas was going to have to live with that but he refused to see her get hurt anymore by the people who were supposed to protect her. They were the ones that failed, not the other way around but he could see the way she carried the guilt and the hurt as if she were the one to blame and Silas wanted to wipe that away completely.

He smoothed down her hair, hands on either side of her face as he met her eyes with his own steady ones with a slight nod that was more than enough to let her know that he was there, with her and for her. “I’m not going anywhere, Galloway. It’ll take some fucking wild horses to pull me away from you now.” Not to mention that her sisters would be there if she wanted them, same with his brother who was in Paris with Daniel as well – the private jet being the only way he could get to her this quickly. He grinned down at her, eating up the small moment of being able to see her shine through what was trying to keep her down. It wouldn’t. No one would. Not when she fucking shined like the sun. “Only for you.”

It was only around her that he felt like smiling all the time, but having to temper it with his brother being the only thing that stood in his way as well as knowing she was too young by anyone else’s standards but they didn’t see the girl before him the way that he saw her. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to kiss you,” he admitted with another wolfish grin before he cradled her cheek in the palm of his hands and leaned down to meet her request with a desire all his own to do it again as well. Silas took his time to kiss her, deepening it as he held her tight against him before his fingers wrapped around the back of her neck and tangled up in her hair lightly.

The voices in her head started to quiet themselves. The echoes of everything she was doing wrong and what she needed to do to be better went from screams to whispers. Callie took a deep breath for the first time since she’d become a teenager and felt a weight lift off of her shoulders. She’d been in this world for so long. She’d been doing everything she was told for so long. She’d been listening to people who only wanted her for her looks and would exploit her and treat her terribly and then kick her to the curb when she didn’t fit into the image they wanted her to anymore. It was all going away now that Silas was here. She wanted to tell him everything, she’d been wanting to tell him everything ever since she moved into his apartment building, but she didn’t. Callie didn’t want to upset him with all of the drama.

“Do you promise?” Callie asked, her eyes searching his. “Not to go anywhere… do you promise?” Even if he couldn’t keep the promise, she needed to hear it from him in this moment. She didn’t know what would happen once they left this staircase or once they got back home but she knew there were important people in their lives that weren’t going to be happy about this. People who would probably try and end this before it even started. The first smile Callie had smiled since being in Paris began to make its way onto her lips. “I’d be selfish to keep a smile like that all to myself…” But she would… oh, she would die to be the only person Silas ever smiled like that at again.

Callie let herself be kissed again and when his hands went into her hair hers went to his hips. She didn’t stop herself from sliding her hands under his t-shirt and she let her grip sink into his skin. “If I knew you were going to kiss me like this I would have been begging for it…” She breathed out against his lips.  Callie was feeling things that she hadn’t ever felt with another guy before. Before this moment she’d actually hated kissing… she dreaded it every time it was about to happen and always tried to find something else to do so that whatever guy would just stop kissing her. But Silas was bringing something brand new to the table. “I don’t think I ever want you to stop…”

Finally Happening

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods‌:

“I knew you only brought me here to get me out of my shirt,” he told her with a rough chuckle as she teased the hem of his shirt but was more glad to see the look on her face more than anything else. So much had been weighing her down, bringing in the darkness and the shadows in her eyes rather than the light let in that he knew was already there. Everyone else took that light for themselves, but he wanted to make a point to ensure that it stayed and only got brighter as he tugged off his shirt before glancing over to see that she was already out of her own shirt. “Fucking tease,” he growled out playfully before he head over to the tub before he turned the water on and ran his fingers beneath it until it was warm enough to use on her hair.

Callie only giggled. She knew that, if they let it, this situation could turn into something very different. But she didn’t want to get colorful dye everywhere and ruin this room they were paying for or any of the clothes they were wearing. Plus, they were kind of on a time crunch and she really just wanted to see her colorful hair already. Maybe, actually probably, once the hair dye was washed down the drain and she could see the new her for herself, they’d celebrate. Callie leaned her head back and closed her eyes as Silas washed the color out. “How does it look?” She asked nervously, that familiar feeling of regret and shame creeping its way back into her head. “Do I look really dumb?”

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods‌:

Silas was glad to hear the truth from her, something that was a bit of a rarity when she had a habit of telling people what they wanted to hear rather than what she actually felt. Not with him, never with him, was all that he asked that they never hid anything from each other ever again. “Good,” he told her softly, pressing his lips against the crook of her neck before peering up at the mirror that they both stood in front of as he met her eyes through the glass. He would do anything for her, anything at all, and hoped that she knew it when he nodded and let them turn around so that her hands were on his shoulders while his own rested, gently, on her hips. “You want me to get my hands dirty?” He teased graciously before he was letting his hands crawl up her sides before dropping them back down again and eyeballed her hair with a raised eyebrow. “I think I can handle that, for you.”

The whole truth was that Callie didn’t know what was going to happen once they left this room. She didn’t know how her family or his would react to the news that they were together and she didn’t know how she’d handle it if they reacted badly. But right now, in Silas’ company alone, she was the happiest she’d been for as long as she could remember. “Dirty?” She grinned. “You know I love to get dirty.” The flirting that used to be so harmless between them now held so much more meaning. It was thrilling and instead of feeling emptiness when Silas eventually had to leave, she felt nothing but fire knowing that their flirtations could be something more now. “This looks like a very nice t-shirt,” She picked at the hems of his shirt. “You will probably wanna take it off.” Callie nodded and then headed towards the shower, she discarded her own shirt and sat down in the tub in her shorts and bra, her back to the water faucet. “Ready when you are.”

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods‌ :

SIlas knew there was going to be some confrontation between himself and his brother when the truth came out, but he wasn’t willing to waste more than enough time on it. And less when he was alone with Callie when his focus shifted entirely onto her and them, wanting to see her smile more than anything as his fingers ran along the hem of her shirt and brushed against the skin of her stomach before he pulled away. “If you’re happy, then that’s all that matters.” It was all that mattered to him, because if his brother wanted him to be happy and meant it, then he would see them for what they were rather than what Silas used to be before falling in love with the woman before him. “Together,” he agreed with a press of his lips against her own, not so gentle that she didn’t think that he saw her as anything but the epitome of strength before he pulled back enough to smile. “That sounds like you won’t be able to escape me if you make this promise. You’ll have to keep an eye on your shoulder to see me always there.”

“I am happy,” Callie told him, her smile returning. It mattered to her that he was happy too but she didn’t want to argue about that - even though their arguments were nothing more than playful most of the time. Her smile widened even more when he kissed her and agreed to her promise and she felt a little dizzy when he pulled back. Being around Silas made her head fuzzy in the absolute best possible way and when he kissed her? Fireworks exploded. “Oh, consider it made...” Silas being with her with every step she made sounded like the perfect plan. “Now I have something very important to ask you.” Callie feigned a serious expression and put her hands on Silas’ shoulders. “Will you... help me wash this junk out of my hair?” She nodded towards the tub and grinned. Could she do it herself? Absolutely. But in the movies when the guy washed the girls hair it was so romantic and special and she wanted it to happen to her. Silas had the prefect hands and she wanted them tangled in her hair... even if they were protected by latex gloves. 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods ‌:

“I promised him that I wouldn’t sleep with you but I never promised that I wouldn’t fall in love with you,” he told her confidently. That argument felt like a lifetime ago with his brother, watching how close Callie and he had gotten and Hayden didn’t want Silas to do with her what he did with most every other woman he’d ever been with before – sleep with them and move on. But there was no moving on from Callie, something he’d realized long before they ever got together and how long he had been harboring the love in his chest that only wanted her close and never let her go as he watched her smile. “You scared the shit out of me that day.” He told her truthfully, remembering it less amusing as it looked on her face when she dove off the cliffs and he didn’t know if he would ever see her again but didn’t hesitate to join her. Like now, the only place he ever wanted to be was by her side. “I thought I was never going to see you again and if you were going somewhere, then I was going to go with you. Always.” His own grin a bit wolfish when she tightened her hold on him.

Callie nodded, her lips pursed in thought. She didn’t want to dwell on whatever Silas and Hayden had agreed upon. So many years had passed and all of them had been through so much. She had been through so much... and Silas had really been the only one to see it all. She knew she was more than just a hookup to him, she knew this was real and if Hayden and the rest of them couldn’t see it then it was on them. “Well, hopefully he’ll just be happy for us.” She said with a nod of her head. Callie’s smile faltered slightly as her story settled in over him. It hadn’t really been a fun time, at least not when they were living it, but now it was really special to her. “I only picked that city because of those cliffs... all I wanted was to actually feel something for my birthday and, god, that was such a rush... I hadn’t felt so alive in so long...” And so close to death, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “I didn’t mean to scare you or Nyx.” She shrugged a little. “But it’s nice to know you’re going to jump in after me, wherever I go... Hey! Lets promise to jump in together from now on, okay?” 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

Silas shook his head, a smile in place that felt right when it was around Callie rather than forced upon to fit into some mold that someone wanted him to fit like his brother or even his father. Callie didn’t want him to be anyone but himself, a sentiment that he could wish on her but knew it wasn’t the same for them with the way they’d both been brought up. “Never mind,” he told her with a chuckle before he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “This is what you do to me sometimes, make it hard to think of anything other than you.” And the feeling he felt whenever he was around her as he caught sight of her smile and traced his thumb along her bottom lip as if memorizing it and keeping it like his own. “If he gets angry, then that’s on him. And it will only be at me, for breaking my promise to him but ― I never stood a chance at keeping that after I met you.” His grip didn’t tighten as she turned around, but stayed there, a constant reminder that he was always going to be there with her. “Was it the first time that you saw me naked? You can be honest.” He grinned down at her.

“Little ol’ me?” Callie teased, batting her eyelashes up at him. Flirting with him felt so natural to her now. She had, after all, been doing it for years now. But now she could actually do more than just flirt, she could kiss him and hold onto him, and let him do things to her… it was so much better. “You promised him you wouldn’t be with me?” She asked, a small frown forming. She hadn’t had to directly make that promise to her sisters but they had shown some concern. Callie was glad she hadn’t had to promise them anything, though, she didn’t think she’d be able to break a promise made to her sisters. Callie hopped up onto the counter of the bathroom and wrapped her legs around Silas’ waist. “Close,” She grinned, remembering the day she’d started to fall – both physically and emotionally, it turns out. “My sixteen birthday trip to Mexico… I managed to sneak out and scale that cliff without anyone catching me. I was going to jump in like all those locals were doing but you climbed up after me… started yelling at me to get down and saying how dangerous it was…” She laughed at the memory now. She hadn’t backed down that time and she’d yelled right back that she had to do it. “Anyway, I flung myself off like I knew exactly what I was doing and just hoped like hell I wouldn’t hit the rocks.” Callie had landed in the exact right spot, thank you very much. “And when I came up I saw that you were already in the water right next to me. You jumped in after me, without even thinking about it. I fell in love with you right then and there.” And the yelling at each other they’d done all the way back to her friends and sister had just made her love him more. Someone was openly caring about her for the first time in a long time and it had made her heart so happy. “You were pissed but I loved you.” Callie laughed, tightening her grip on him just in case he tried to get away.  

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods: 

Where else would he be? Silas wanted to point out but kept quiet while she worked through everything that was only happening to her right then while he’d spent hours trapped on a plane knowing exactly what he wanted and where he wanted to be – with her. Maybe he should have known better still and keep himself to himself, reminding him that Hayden didn’t anything that he’d felt for years now. It had been bottled and living inside of him, pushing him to his breaking point now at the mere thought of Callie being hurt and alone and halfway across the world away from him.

He hadn’t been able to protect her there, believing that this show would be her final but didn’t mean it in such a way that she was going to be scarred for life by it. “There’s no where else I would rather be,” he told her quietly, as not to spook or scare her away from him when it had taken everything to be patient to get here. With all his running and the distance crossed, Silas hadn’t been able to think of anything other than finding her and making sure that nothing else happened to her without him around, regardless of his brother’s belief in SIlas’ true nature. What he felt towards Callie, that was more than a fling or a casual hook up when she was the only one that he wanted to be with, now and for years.

“You didn’t ruin anything. You could never ruin anything at all. Whatever you decide, then that’s what happens next. If you want to be done, then we’re out of here first flight in the morning,” he told her reassuringly as he kept her wrapped up tight in his arms, only loosening his grip to cradle her face in the palms of his hands. “Wherever you go, I go.” And whatever she decided about her life, Silas was going to stand by it but make sure that no one else got a chance to hurt her again. Never again. Not as long as she allowed him in her life.

His smile was a bit wider when she changed the subject back towards them and one moment that he hoped was better than the past week or so without him around. “Yeah… I did,” he nodded, eyes holding onto her own and wanting nothing more than to see that light in her eyes shine bright, rather than be hidden behind the shadows of Paris. “And I should have done it a long time ago but I didn’t know…” He hadn’t known if she would even want to kiss him.

The noise in her head had already started to quiet itself. Just being near Silas made Callie calm, even when a storm was raging around her. Now that her heartrate was coming down to normal she realized where they were. How had she sprinted up six flights of stairs? She hadn’t slept in days, she hadn’t eaten anything substantial, had her terror really been enough to drive her up so many flights? Callie never even realized how much something terrified her until after it had.

“I can’t go home…” Callie murmured, her eyes heavy with tiredness and tears. She couldn’t face her mother, not yet. She couldn’t see the disappointment in her mothers eyes. Callie knew herself well enough to know that if she returned home now then she’d let her mother talk her into anything. She still had a few days in Paris and now that Silas was here she didn’t feel the need to leave quite yet, especially when any other place would be worse probably. Anyway, she’d never really explored this city. “Can you just stay here with me? At least for a few more days… maybe I can sleep a little and… figure things out.” She didn’t know how easy either of those things would be but it was worth a try.

Callie, who had regained enough strength in her limbs to move on her own, lifted her hand and brushed her fingers across Silas’ smile. It was beautiful and she hadn’t ever been able to tell him. There had been so many times that’d she’d been around him and had wanted him to smile like this. So many times she’d watched him Hayden and wished that the brothers could smile at each other instead of argue. Callie had loved his smile from afar for so long and now she felt that she could finally tell him. “You should smile all the time…” Callie told him in a low voice, her fingers still tracing his mouth lightly.

She was listening to him closer than she’d listened to anyone in her life and when he didn’t finished his sentence she looked up into his eyes. “You didn’t know what?” She considered it for a moment and then decided the answer wasn’t important. What was important was what would happen between them going forward. “Do it again.” She breathed out, pushing herself even closer into him.

Finally Happening

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

“I care that you care about what you think.” He told her softly, too gentle to be taken seriously outside of the bathroom if he was with anyone other than Callie as she seemed to be the only one that could see right through him. Callie had seen him when he was new to this group, barely finding his footing among them all, and could see that he was struggling as much as she was though she seemed to be better at hiding it. “I’m not choosing, he would be if he can’t accept this.” Because he’d been trying to fight it and believe that there was nothing going on between them besides friendship despite Hayden’s warning to keep his distance. He tried. He tried to do everything to make everyone happy as he let out a sigh before his hands were twisting in the edges of her shirt and wrapping his arms around her waist without a care for the colored hair and if it got on him. “No one will be mad at you. He might be mad at me but I can take it.” Or so he believed. “And I’m not sure if I chose to fall in love with you Callie, but more like I knew that I always have.”

Callie looked up at Silas with her brows drawn in as she tried to decipher what he just said in her head. “What?” She laughed after a few seconds. She shrugged it off and poked at her multi-colored hair, she wasn’t sure when she needed to wash it out but she didn’t really care. Callie actually didn’t care if her hair got ruined...that was the first step in not caring about anything, right? “That’s a good point...” She agreed regarding Hayden. If his brother and her sisters couldn’t accept this then it would be on them, not her and Silas. “I think Nyx will be able to talk him down if he gets really angry... she’s got her way with him.” She smiled at the thought of her sweet and soft big sister. They’d gotten closer over the past few years and Callie really didn’t want to lose that. She really thought that Nyx would be on her side with this decision. She turned around in his arms and stared up at Silas with a small smile on her face. “You wanna know when I knew I loved you?”

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

Silas had tried. He had tried so damn hard to not give a shit about the girl in his arms as more than a kid sister like his brother before him. That’s what he’d been allowed to feel towards any of them, that they were like family to the only family that Silas had left as he knew long before this moment that his feelings had grown deeper for her than he wanted to let on to anyone. He tried. Every single time that he was around Callie, Silas had to fight against the feelings that stirred within his soul and even tried to pour them out in other women or at some gym or a 20 k on an early morning when he couldn’t get her out of his head.

But at the thought of her going through anything that put her in harm’s way without him by her side, Silas threw caution and every hesitation and wall that he put between them to the wind and took off as quick as he could over the ocean to be by her side. It was only a stroke of luck and all those days at the gym that he had been able to spot her before she disappeared as well as catch up after the flights of stairs that she’d all but flown up on her own.

Whatever had happened in the span of time between her call home and the sight of her now, all skin and bones with fear radiating outwards – Silas wanted to kick himself for letting her go on her own. One last shoot. One last thing before she could walk away with her happiness intact when she was now eighteen and her mother didn’t have any say in her life anymore, but looking at Callie now – he knew that her mother still did.

Callie would have done anything to make those around her happy, even at the sake of her own happiness as he smoothed his hands down on either side of her face so that she could focus on him rather than whatever had spooked her. He could only hope that it wasn’t him. “I’m saying that you’re what matters the most to me,” he spoke in a low and calm voice, but the emotion made him sound rougher than usual.

“I’m saying…” He couldn’t even put into words what he was trying to tell her, knowing that now wasn’t the time or the place to share everything that he’d been doing his best to keep to himself. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind. She wasn’t even alright after what had been blasted over the news as well as her call home about being fired, but Silas didn’t know how else to tell her how he felt other than to show her as he leaned in forward to press a gentle kiss against her lips.

Just like that everything inside of her calmed. The storm that had been raging inside of her for days settled down to a mild drizzle. Her heartrate slowed to a normal pace. Her quaking limbs simply fluttered. In that moment, for the first time in what seemed like years, Callie was completely okay. She put her hands on Silas just to make sure he was really, to make sure that she wasn’t going crazy and dreaming this up. He was definitely what she would hallucinate if that’s what was happening. But he was real; she could feel him under her finger tips and the beat of his heart against her chest. He was real and he was kissing her.

“You’re really here…” She breathed, pressing her forehead against his. Her body continued to relax, her muscles loosening now that they had someone strong and steady holding her up. It was taking everything in her not to just pass out right there in his arms and sleep for days. But she didn’t want to do that, Callie didn’t want to miss a second with Silas now that he was here. How could she not have realized until now how much she missed him? How much she needed him.

Callie wanted to kiss him again, in fact, she wanted to kiss him into the foreseeable future, but she didn’t know if she could. She’d seen something on TV about kissing someone when they were having a panic attack in order to calm them down or something… that’s probably what Silas was trying to do. But that didn’t explain why his arms were still wrapped tightly around her or why he was even here in the first place. In Paris… he’d followed her to Paris?

“It’s been awful,” Callie whispered, silent tears beginning to flow down her cheeks again. “I hate this, I want to be done but I don’t know how to stop.” She didn’t know how to be anything other than the obedient daughter she always had been. She didn’t know how to be anything other than pretty. She didn’t know where she would fit in without modeling being a part of her life. “I thought I was doing so well but I ruined everything.” And she was dreading facing her mother.

Callie slumped against Silas, he was supporting her weight completely now like she’d lost all ability to stand on her own. She was exhausted and drained and scared and over the moon happy that he was here all at once. “You kissed me...” She murmured, lifting her head to look at him. 

Finally Happening

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

“Because they don’t matter to me. They can say what they want and believe what they want, but do they know me?” He shrugged. There was little anyone could say about him that he hadn’t already been through and seen from the other side or hadn’t been faced with considering the fact that he was practically cast aside by his father. Silas grew thick skin a long time ago, not caring what people had to say despite the tendril of fear that crept through him at the thought of losing his brother and their flimsy relationship that he had given everything. It was even enough to keep distance from Callie for as long as he had at the thought of losing Hayden after everything they’d been through, but not enough to stop him when his heart couldn’t be contained. “Hayden is Hayden.” He told her after a moment, reading her reaction in the mirror as she messed with her hair and Silas moved in close enough to rest his hands on her hips as if to punctuate the point that he was in this for the long haul. “I don’t know how he’s going to react, how any of them are going to react but at the end of the day; the only thing that matters to me is you. If you aren’t ready, then we don’t have to be ready. But I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

“Do you care what I think?” Callie wondered allowed. No matter what, she was always going to care what Silas thought about her and the decisions she was making. Even if he didn’t want her to, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She also couldn’t help but care what being with her would do to him. She might not be as in the inner circle as she wanted to be but she could still see what went on. She could still see how much Hayden needed Silas, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Callie could still see how much Silas wanted to be there for Hayden, too. How could she not care about that? “Hayden is Hayden...” She laughed softly. He’d been so very much Hayden Hale for his entire life, Callie still couldn’t pin him down. She sighed and leaned against him, careful not to put her multicolored head on his shirt. “I don’t want to hide, that isn’t fair...” Not when there were plenty of girls he wouldn’t have to hide with. “I just don’t want anyone to be mad at me.” She gave a weak smile in the mirror. “And I don’t want you to feel like you’re choosing between a relationship with me and a relationship with your brother.” 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

“It’s easy when you don’t care.” Or at least it got easier to pretend that he didn’t care what anyone else thought or did more than his own thoughts and actions. Though even thinking that was easier to do than to say out loud when it took him months, even years to accept the way that he felt about Callie to anyone, including himself. The rest of the world didn’t know, not yet, because he wanted to give her time to be ready but there was also some small part of him that cared about his brother and what that would mean for them when he found out. His hands stilled only long enough to cross them over his chest when she met his gaze in the mirror, giving her a nod before he pressed his lips into a thin line. “You can ask me anything.”

“But how do you do that? How do you just not care what a single person thinks of you?” Callie was genuinely curious. Silas was probably tired of the back and forth with this same conversation but she still hadn’t found the answer. How did she just not care? Did everyone who acted like they didn’t care just pretend that they didn’t? That’s what she thought. That’s how it would be for her if she ever started acting like she didn’t care about a single thing. Callie tended to her hair for a few quiet minutes, thinking over the question she wanted to ask him. She didn’t know if she wanted the answer but they needed to address this before it actually happened. Finally, when her hair was wrapped up colorful knots she turned towards him. “If Hayden is really upset about this... about us... what’s going to happen? He needs you more than I do, what if this really, like, ruins him?” She thought about her sisters and how close they’d gotten. “What if my sisters are really upset... I don’t know if I can just be friends with you anymore... I think it would hurt too much...” 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

“That’s ‘cause you’re not doing anything wrong and anyone who thinks they can come into your life and tell you otherwise, fuck them. It isn’t your job to make them happy anymore, only to make yourself happy,” he told her, eyes capturing her own so that she could see that he meant every word. Not to mention that if anyone came along to threaten that happiness that it would be the last thing they did when her smile was the most fragile and treasured thing in his life. It had been for far longer than he was willing to admit to himself, but seeing it grow the past few days only proved his point that he hadn’t been wrong in what he felt for her. But that didn’t mean he was going to take a splash of the dye into his hair as he chuckled when he stepped back, letting her squirt the side of her head. “Fucking gorgeous.”

Callie continued to paint her hair in shade after colorful shade and she didn’t even care if the colors blended together. That was the whole thing about feeling free... she just didn’t care. She wasn’t striving for perfect like she had been for so many years. Callie didn’t know how long this would last. The other shoe, after all, had to drop eventually. But she just didn’t give a damn in this moment. “You make it sound is easy...” Callie laughed. “Like saying fuck you to someone and going on your merry way is as easy as breathing.” She liked the idea of doing it but she didn’t know if she could do. She looked at Silas in the mirror. “Can I ask you a question? A personal one.” 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

His fingers ran through her hair, feeling the ends and twisting them between his fingers before he let his hand fall by his side. “If you like it, then I love it.” If anything made her happy, then Silas would support it unless he thought that it was detrimental to her health and recovery after everything that happened. “You always have it and everything else,” he told her with a press of his lips against the spot right below her ear before he stepped back away and watched her select a color to dye her hair and mix it. “Because you’re doing what you want to do for once. It’s exhilarating when you start to realize that you can do anything you want.” This time he pressed a kiss against her cheek.

The warmth she felt in her heart had Callie almost blurting out I love you in response to him saying he loved her hair. She kind of had the feeling that the two of them loved each other but she wasn’t sure it was time to say it yet. They had, after all, only gotten together a few days before. Instead of word vomiting, she busied herself with shaking up hair dye. “My heart used to race every time someone took a picture of me... but it was always out of fear, like, I was just waiting for someone to tell me I was doing something wrong... but this time is different.” She smiled when he kissed her. “There’s no one to tell me I’m doing something wrong.” It felt nice knowing that he was on her side. Callie squirted the newly shaken dye into her gloved hand and smeared it down the side of her head with a wild grin. 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

Silas nodded. Without fear or hesitation, he took the shears to her hair and did the best that he could do with cutting her hair off as straight as possible. He was no hairdresser but he did have a steady, hand, running his fingers through her soft locks with every cut until he stepped away and set the shears back down again. He smiled when she smiled first, knowing that it would take more than cutting her hair and coloring it to make her completely happy. But it was a start, a worthwhile one. “I’d ask you how you feel but I think I can tell. At least a little bit,” he told her softly, only moving away to grab the rest of the things that she’d bought earlier that day as he held them out for her to choose from. “You tell me what color and I’ll help make it happen.”

Callie let her eyes flutter closed as Silas cut her hair - partially because she couldn’t watch and partially because his hands in her hair felt nice. When it was done she could stop looking in the mirror. “I think I like it...do you?” She looked at him again. “And not because I wanted your approval,” She said with a teasing grin. “But because... I like hearing your opinion.” Callie closed her eyes and picked a color at random, smiling in triumph when she saw a blue dye in her hand. She pulled a pair of gloves out of the box and snapped them on and then began to mix the dye. “My heart is beating, like, fifty miles a minute right now.” She was excited though, not nervous. 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

Silas grinned at her comment when they hit the hotel room, shutting the door behind them as he dropped their bags on the bed while watched her head towards the bathroom. If anything, he sought the comfort in knowing that they didn’t lie to each other anymore – only everyone else. They didn’t know how close the two of had grown over the years or what had happened in Paris, keeping it to themselves when he knew how everyone would react the moment they found out about them. 

There was an inkling of fear that his brother wouldn’t understand how much he’d fallen for the youngest Attaway daughter, but that couldn’t hold him back anymore. “That’s what most people do here since we only had to pay for the hour,” he teased before he stepped into the bathroom behind where she’d already cut her hair. His smile wasn’t completely gone but he was reading her expression more than wanting to give her his own first. It was all about her comfort level and doing what she wanted without feeling pressured into it. “Do you want me to help?”

It was a weird feeling, seeing her hair fall to the floor. On one hand, she didn’t recognize herself but on the other... she was looking at the girl she felt like on the inside. Silas’ voice brought her back down to Earth and she looked at him in the mirror. “I don’t think I can do it.” One of them was going to have to, of course, because she couldn’t walk around with uneven hair like this. “Can you finish? I don’t care if it’s straight.” Callie passed him the shears and inhaled sharply. 

When there was more of her hair on the floor than there was on her head Callie looked up at Silas a smiled a little. “My head feels lighter.” Literally and figuratively, even. “Want to help me color it now?” 

Freedom

[calliope-attaway]

silasblackwoods:

“I remember,” he replied carefully. He remembered every time that she tried to lie to him, saying that she was happy in what she did or that she was alright in the ways that she was treated by others. But he rarely believed her. It was only her asking him to believe in her that he would listen to and hold fast but make sure that no one else had a chance to hurt her again. He might have messed up that enough for a lifetime, but now that she was there with him rather than fighting this world on her own ― they could fight it together. “I also remember you being a terrible liar then too.”

His tone was light enough even with the wind carrying it behind him to where she sat, feeling her pressed up against him as he wanted to take on the world with his fists swinging to keep her safe rather than let it come at her once more. As long as she was honest with him now, that was all that mattered. If she wasn’t happy, then he wanted to know so he could find a way to fix it. “Give yourself a few minutes before you say that ‘cause we’re almost there and I think at least an hour ahead of schedule. Plenty of time to get your rainbow on.”

Callie wished that she was a terrible liar. That way the other people in her life would have see how unhappy she’d been. For the longest time she’d been telling everyone the exact same things and using the exact same lies but only Silas could see through them. Callie was an excellent liar, but Silas knew her better. He paid more attention. So, to him, she was terrible. Callie leaned back and closed her eyes again, letting the wind rush over her for the rest of the ride.

The parked at some seedy hotel and went in to get a room. The clerk behind the counter grinned at them like he knew exactly what they were about to go do. Little did he know when Callie came out she’d look completely different. “He thinks we’re up here having sex,” She giggled when they got to the room. Which wasn’t an entirely far fetched idea but only if they had time. She wanted to get this done before her sisters started calling. Callie ran to the bathroom and opened the shears and before she could even think about what she was doing she snipped through her hair right below the shoulder. “Oh my god.” She said in shock, watching many many inches of her hair fall to the floor. 

Freedom