cinnamonfm

[cinnamonfm]

"It's just -" Heni lets her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she considers how to phrase herself. Honesty was difficult at the best of time, and honesty in the company of Cara? There was an Olympic sport waiting to be coined somewhere, she was sure. "I guess, before she ... when she was still around, I always thought she'd tell me things. The big-ticket stuff, at the very least. And I heard nothing about a car. But then, it just seems like she's ... kept all of these things to herself."

The comment about her own parents earns a sigh. "It's all 'law and order', but if it were me I wouldn't think my mum would consider herself above calling in some favours. People aren't rational when it comes to their kids."

"She was a fucking terrible driver." As far as statements went, this did not shed much light on anything. If Heni was to suddenly develop a penchant for being honest, the natural follow-up would probably be this: none of the people she had gone to school with were. It was a bipartite thing, half socioeconomic (being chauffeured around tended not to instil a child with many opportunities to learn the laws of the road), and half geographic (manhattan wasn't exactly the easiest place to learn to drive, even if the first part had not been true). Heni, for one, had barely scraped her driving test. The first test where she hadn't come out on top. The first test where she had been nothing above mediocre. "Do you think it could have been her? I always got the sense that your parents would - you know." She shrugs herself, then, hands lifted in a way that seemed to convey the words she cannot formulate: sweep it under the rug. Cover it up. Preserve the family image.

[cinnamonfm]

Would she come to regret this? Maybe. "That, and I presume you understand I would make your life a living hell." Socially, academically, legally. In any way she could conceavably think of. The botched inkwork could be corrected, that much was true, but it was worth having an insurance policy nonetheless. Wasn't that the core argument of the first half of Discipline and Punish? That people were less likely to commit transgressions, if they were under the belief that they were being watched? So what if the second half went on to contradict that narrative.

"Fuck it. Let's do it. If there was ever a time to get a tattoo on impulse, it's now, right?"

link huffs a quiet laugh, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as he looks her over. "if i wanted to draw a dick on you," he says, pulling the smoke away to speak properly, "i'd at least have the decency to warn you first. also, i'm not 16 anymore." his grin is crooked, lazy, but there's a glint in his eye that says he's more amused by her hesitation than offended.

he gestures toward the shop with a slight tilt of his head. "c'mon. i don't get many willing victims who aren't crying about their ex or trying to be profound with a feather and some latin they can't translate." another flick of ash, another step closer, voice softening just enough. "and if you say yes, i'll make it something good. something you won't regret when you're sixty and boring and think back on tonight." a pause. "better yet, i'll let you pick what you want. plus.... 50% off. how's that for a good deal?"

[cinnamonfm]

"Aren't you nosy?" She half-chides, in lieu of actually answering the question. Slipping up was one thing, but to volunteer information? That she would rather go without getting into the habit of. Rationally, she knew it didn't matter. People having access to minuscule bits of your overall sense of self did not a threat make. Emotionally, however, it triggered some primal sense of fear. Evoked a sense of danger. You could not, should not, let people make sense of you. Even if it was just through the medium of gossip - spoken once, never to be thought of again.

Perhaps it's paradoxical, to feel relief at the mention of G, but that did not make it any less true. G was a safe haven, in a sense. Something to inevitably steering the conversation back away from her. "Isn't that obvious? It reeks of teenage girl, to be that obsessed with Greer. Don't you think?"

The silence, as brief as it was, was enough to make Monty's brows arch a touch, smile curving into something goading and curious. "Anyone?" he echoed in a dubious tone that telegraphed how closely he was willing to read between the lines. He'd always had an ear for gossip, even when it was only crumbs of the most superficial information. "Does this anyone have a name?"

But, just as quickly, Heni was caving into a sigh and confessing to Nate being her fated match at the New Year's Eve bash. "Ah," he exhaled, nose scrunching, "he's a tough nut to crack." And not someone Monty felt particularly keen on getting nosey about, surprisingly. The list of people he wanted dirt on didn't include Nate -- or Heni, for that matter, so he didn't ask what either of them had been texted about each other. "- You think G is a girl?" Monty asked instead, head tilting as the pronoun use tickled his ear, wondering if they were of similar minds in that regard.

[cinnamonfm]

The whispers of future regret lap at the edges of her consciousness like waves against a secluded beach - more ripple than tsunami. Quiet enough for her to squash their dissent down, down, down, until all there is left is the moment. It needn't matter that there existed a world beyond the confines of the closet. That Heni of ten-minutes-into-the-future would have to live with the actions of Heni-right-now. She allows herself be pulled, one hand finding steadying purchase at the nape of his neck. The other is positioned at the crown of his head, fingers splayed through tresses of hair. Before she has the good sense to reconsider, pull apart from him, wander out of the closet and into the cold, dark night, their lips lock again.

A twitch of his lips as they tread once again on familiar ground - speaking wasn't what he was wanted for. No, what the upper class wanted Nathaniel Shaw for was far simpler. Physical and nothing beyond. He let out a huff of a laugh as she closed the distance between them, before angling his head to kiss her, hand sliding to her waist as he leaned over her, pulling her into him just ever so slightly. It's not like they had much longer in here - may as well enjoy the time they did.

[cinnamonfm]

He was right. On both accounts. Not that she would want to admit that out loud. She'd sooner wear odd socks than contribute to his sense of accomplishment of satisfaction.

But beneath the pride of it all, she recognises the truth of it. Heni had always lived her life in motion. Moving from one place to the next, from one activity to another, always something to do, somewhere to be. Anything to prevent herself from having to be alone long enough for anything resembling introspection to take place.

Part of her wants to walk off, roll her eyes at him and disappear between the tattoo parlour and the building next door. But is it not time she learns to live a little? "And if I say yes?" She asks, brow arched. "How am I meant to trust you won't just draw a dick on my ankle for laughs?"

CLOSED STARTER

who: @cinnamonfm where: outside of the tattoo parlour

the buzz of the tattoo gun still hums faintly through link's head as he steps outside, lighting a cigarette with one hand and tugging his hoodie over his neck with the other. it's a little late, everything quieter than usual, and the sky's doing that weird pinkish grey thing it does when it can't decide whether to rain or not.

he spots her before she spots him — heni, cutting across the sidewalk like she's got somewhere to be. he exhales a curl of smoke, watching it dissipate into the heavy evening air, then shifts his weight just enough to catch her eye. "thought that was you," he says, "you always walk like you're on a deadline, or just trying to outrun someone?" there's a faint curve to his mouth, less smirk and more curiosity. he flicks ash off the edge of his cigarette, nodding for her to join him for a bit. "you care to keep me company while i milk my break? or better yet, quickie tattoo?" he questions, half joking... mostly serious.

[cinnamonfm]

If there was one aspect of pre-G existence that Heni missed, it was the ability to have a conversation without having to expend so much brainpower trying to understand why others reacted the way they did. Sure, it had been a facet of conversation back then, too - was someone short with her on account of having a bad day, or was there genuine ill-will at play? But G's entrance into their lives had brought with it its own form of investigation. No longer was it a question of whether someone was hiding something, but rather one of what they were hiding. And why. It always came back to that one-syllable, three letter word. Maybe if she'd been a psychology major, all of this pseudo-intellectualising she had been forced to partake in could count for something.

"Of course we did," Heni says, her own tone level. It wasn't exactly news that the two of them had travelled in a pack. "I guess I should probably give you context." Slowly, slowly, inching towards the actual question. "I got this message. About Greer. And her car. Do you know anything about that?"

Her question, innocent sounding enough, alluded to a night Rhia tried everything to forget. Her left eye twitched, though her smile eerily remained etched on her face. It seemed Rhia found herself in yet another precarious situation, and this one not so easily escapable as the last. “What?” she asked stunned. What exactly had G told Heni, and was it enough to incriminate her? Every nerve ending stood at attention, and she was ready to flee at the first sign of distraction. “Sometimes, yeah. Didn’t you go off campus with her too?” Rhia asked, ending the question with a high note. She cleared her throat and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not often though. We mostly hung out here. Well, not here, but like on campus and stuff,” she explained, wondering if this was another situation she could talk herself out of.

[cinnamonfm]

“If I know one thing –” Heni begins, fighting the urge to finish the sentence by saying the first thing that had sprung to mind: that people who worked in television were pricks. Because, while true, it was besides the point. "It's that people do not fork over that amount of money without an ulterior motive." Altruism was dead, and the likes of Donovan Hart had buried it. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it may not amount to a true dent in his finances, but the point still remained. Rich people were rich because they clutched their resources close to their chest.

"Fucked up in the normal sense of things, I guess. Like, how Heni of three years ago would have thought it plenty fucked up if I told her I'd kissed-" a brief moment of silence, as it dawns on her what path she is going down. "-anyone."

Much to her relief (and Heni cannot believe she is saying this), the topic careens back onto the road to G. "That she did." It's equal parts statement and sigh. "Nate, of all people. It's like they were out to get me, or something." Well - technically....

"Good point," he murmured with a relenting tip of his head, putting in genuine effort to not snort as he considered the version of Donovan Hart that he'd come to know; intimidating yet only charismatic on a schedule. It took no leap of logic to imagine that he always had an ulterior motive, whether it was fishing for a tax write-off or an early scoop on the tragedies that'd befallen Ogden. It'd never fail to surprise Monty when rich people were predictably self-serving.

He did snort when Heni spoke again, though, shaking his head a little as he blinked back to her. "The leap from 'uncool' to 'fucked up' is a pretty big one to me," he pointed out before continuing, "but… yeah, I get it. I'd say that the Hamptons thing was nice, just to get away from everybody's parents, but then… y'know." G happened. Monty sighed, caving to the fact that no matter how secretive they tried to be about holiday plans or last minute parties, G would always invite themself along. He hesitated for a second, but then they'd already talked about the winter break before and the polaroids, so why not… "G made you interrogate someone last New Year's Eve, too, huh?"

[cinnamonfm]

"A fever?" Heni lasers in on the word like a dog spotting a squirrel in a crowded park. Something was up. She could sense it. It nagged at her like the tag on a new t-shirt. What was up, that remained a mystery. It could be something insignificant. It could be something earth-shattering. It could, in all likelihood, be this fever that Rhia had come down with, seemingly out of nowhere. It was nothing, Heni told herself. Two years of misery had simply taught her that everything the other shoe was always waiting to drop."You sure you don't want to go back?" Her own gaze flickers out of the window again, on the blurry shapes of the passing landscape. "Where did you say we were going, exactly?"

Her brows pulled together, and she put a lace-gloved hand over a warm cheek. “Oh,” she said flatly, aiming to smile but feeling as though the action took too much strain. She turned back toward the window, content to return to her distant wonderland if it meant she didn’t have to divulge her current train of thought. Heni spoke up again, interrupting her descent back into solitude. “Oh, well,” Rhia repeated again, the words glossy and dazed like the look in her eyes. She barely had enough energy to let out a light chuckle at Heni’s reprimand of her anti-rockstar behavior. “I think I’m feeling a bit feverish is all. It just hit me all of a sudden,” she explained, smiling to show it was nothing to worry about. “I think I’ll be fine once we’re mingling,” she reassured Heni. The least she could do was make sure the girl had a good time until the inevitable struck…

[cinnamonfm]

"She was a fucking terrible driver." As far as statements went, this did not shed much light on anything. If Heni was to suddenly develop a penchant for being honest, the natural follow-up would probably be this: none of the people she had gone to school with were. It was a bipartite thing, half socioeconomic (being chauffeured around tended not to instil a child with many opportunities to learn the laws of the road), and half geographic (manhattan wasn't exactly the easiest place to learn to drive, even if the first part had not been true). Heni, for one, had barely scraped her driving test. The first test where she hadn't come out on top. The first test where she had been nothing above mediocre. "Do you think it could have been her? I always got the sense that your parents would - you know." She shrugs herself, then, hands lifted in a way that seemed to convey the words she cannot formulate: sweep it under the rug. Cover it up. Preserve the family image.

Cara's eyebrows arched up, an unimpressed expression on her face as she sucked on her teeth. The derisive noise didn't clarify much, it seemingly equally possible that Cara disapproved of the actual concept as she did of the sarcasm. Even though one of those was more than deserved, considering how she had answered first. "I did," she answered a moment later, not offering anything else. It hadn't been that long ago she had thrown around Henrietta's name with Monty in discussing hers, not that she had much considered it. "I don't know anything about that. I don't even know if her car was still here when she left or if she had brought it back home. Maybe it wasn't working because she fucking ran someone over. All I know is it wasn't at the Hamptons yet when she..." Cara's voice trailed off, the younger Morrison shrugging up a shoulder. Ran away. Disappeared. Vanished. Whatever word she would've chosen, saying it outright still didn't feel right somehow.

[cinnamonfm]

As the question is posed, Heni's immediate reaction is to give Beck a thorough once-over. It was habitual, the sort of behaviour that had been ingrained into her as a teenager, wielding judgement as a blanket to cover her own insecurities with. "You're certainly acting like one." There's something akin to mirth in her tone, not quite a joke, but not quite a biting remark, either.

She can almost chalk Beck's comment up as vulnerability – if Heni actually could find it in herself to believe that any of her peers had retained the capacity for such things, in the wake of everything that had happened. "That may be so," she says, incapable as ever of framing things through a lens of empathy. "But I think you're up to something all the same."

well, that was an option. technically, there was really nothing stopping them from being straightforward with each other - if she trusted heni, she might have just shown her the text and asked her if she knew who it could be referring to. but she didn’t trust heni, not even close, so instead she lied. “i don’t know what you’re talking about. do i look like a cop?” actually, she hoped heni didn’t answer that, because looking like an undercover cop was one of her greatest fears. “i’m just not very good at small talk. sue me.”

[cinnamonfm]

"I always try to view a fight as a training ground for the next one." Sharpen your swords, sharpen your wits. Revisit the exchanges of words over and over again, until each syllable had been picked apart. Think about what had worked, what hadn't, and prepare for the next one. Whatever mistakes you'd made, make sure never to commit again.

"You're saying that because you're living in limbo." She reaches out, placing a hand on the other's elbow. A small show of solidarity, if nothing else. "If you never find out, you're going to tie yourself in knots. It may not be reciprocal, but if you don't know that, you're doomed to stare wistfully out of the window forever, wondering what could have been. You don't deserve that kind of anxiety."

She laughed with hearty delight, certain that Heni was right. Anything trendy from years ago likely wouldn’t hold up to the scrutiny of the public eye now. “No, I don’t think we do. I’m not even sure I learn from my fights now, honestly,” Rhia admitted. Not that she had many fights to go off of, besides her frequent ones with both Cara and Nate. She wasn’t even sure if Cara could be considered a friend at this point.

She smiled sadly, knowing she decided long ago it was safer not to know. “Maybe,” she said unconvincingly, picking at her tights. “That’s the thing, Heni,” she started, feeling a lump form in her throat. She shrugged, eyes trained far away from the other’s face. “I don’t want to move on. I’d happily spend the rest of my life in love with him,” she said wistfully. Maybe not happily if it weren’t returned, but content to live her life that way as she already was.

[cinnamonfm]

"I get that." Heni wishes she could say the same, but as time had passed, she had been made increasingly aware of where several of her peers had spent their time. Namely: hers and Thea's bedroom. It had come up so often (read: twice) that it damn near bordered on comical – that when someone dragged her to the side to admit they'd snooped around in her things (or, like, at least the space in which here things were present, and that was basically the same thing), she could hardly act surprised. Even so, there was a large part of the student body whose whereabouts that fateful evening had not yet been revealed to her, and it would be downright paranoid (though maybe not unprecedented), to assume they too had been rummaging around in her holdall for secrets. "I can't even remember where I was for most of it. And for the parts I can remember, the lights were off so it's not like that made people watching any easier."

"Why offer, if not to earn himself some goodwill?" Heni refused to believe Donovan Hart's actions had been anything but born out of self-interest. Something about him - something about the way he carried himself, made her think that everything he did was with some larger goal in mind. "Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that we all keep spending the holidays together? And last year especially, for us to spend it surrounded by teachers? High school me would have thought I was the most uncool person on earth."

Monty's shoulders rose in the beginnings of a shrug before a thoughtful pause brought him to a swift headshake instead. "Honestly? I was pretty sidetracked that night." Having sex with Ollie. The memory alone was enough to warm him, a private sort of smile twisting at the corner of his mouth while continuing, "You could ask me about even just one person and I don't think I could accurately tell you everywhere they went or who they spoke to." Monty didn't doubt that plenty of others had been in a similar boat. New Year's Eve often had a special, hazy quality about it. Like a camera lens being smudged with Vaseline before documenting the night, filtering it into something more dreamy and hopeful, urgency lurking with the looming countdown.

"Jesse's dad, like, sponsored the whole trip or whatever, didn't he?" Glancing back to Heni, his eyebrows lifted, implying something heavier and more malicious than he was willing to say aloud. "And then he happily set up camp for his show at Ogden after the fact…" he trailed off, lingering in a silence that suggested some sort of cause and effect at play, personally orchestrated by Dr. Hart himself. But then Monty sighed and shook his head, amending, "but, I dunno, maybe Zuko just felt like he owed him one after hooking us up at the chalet."

[cinnamonfm]

"Everything is fine," Heni spits back, the adjective given so much weight it almost splits in two. The universal marker of someone who was, in fact, not fine. A word that seemed to signal everything but what it had been intended to convey. Not that it mattered. Heni wasn't fine. Heni could not, matter of fact, remember a time where she had been swimming, as opposed to merely trashing, threading water. But this? Everything that was happening - Greer, the fire, G's last message? Her nerves were raw and exposed.

"Everything is spectacular. We're all living on a knife's edge, waiting for something horrible to happen. Why wouldn't I be jumping for joy?"

Diego took a step back, when Heni snapped at him, his head tilting a little as a questioning smile crossed his face, as he held his hands up in a placating motion. "I'm sorry," he said. Of course it probably wasn't the first or last time that would happen, and he couldn't blame her with everything going on, but the amusement remained. "Is everything okay?" Diego asked. He ushered them out of the main flow of students and off to the side where someone wouldn't make the faux paux of bumping into her again. "I mean, is everything okay beyond that ridiculous garbage going on…" He corrected himself. Because he could imagine a few reasons why Heni might be stressed out enough to lash out.

[cinnamonfm]

Be the one to ask the questions, and you are less likely to find yourself being the one having to give the answers. Who cares? The answer sits right at the tip of her tongue, and yet she does not utter it: clearly, you do. What had been the ulterior motive in seeking her out? Behind all that calculated distance, what was it Beck wanted from her? Heni was not one of those people who believed any interaction was a friendship not yet blossomed (Coco and Lola came to mind), and even if she were, she certainly was not so dim as to believe Beck would seek her out for want of company.

"Tell me this," Heni says, not entirely sure why she is prolonging either of their misery. "Has someone told you something? Is that why you're here?"

"i guess," beck shrugged. "who cares?" she was irritated that's what heni seemed to pick up on, that it felt like she was giving things away instead of getting anything from her. some detective she was. “exactly.” she resisted the urge to say that had been her whole life. “and no one has anything to hide, right?" it was a warning and a gauntlet all in one. "big brother's watching anyways."

[cinnamonfm]

"And have him lean forward in that chair, like he gives a shit about me? I can't think of anything worse." Well, she could think of one thing: for Dr.Hart to actually hit the nail on the head. That was worse than the thought of sitting down to talk. Maybe, if she thought long and hard enough about it all, that was why she had avoided appearing on the episode he'd aired, dedicated to them all. If they never spoke, there could be no finding out. No watershed. No unearthing of who Heni was, beneath the glossy facade.

When she draws back her hand, she tilts the angle slightly, perfectly manicured nails tracing the contours of Cara's clavicle with gentle precision before letting the hand drop back to her side. "Oh?" She asks, with the feigned surprise of someone who was entirely aware. "Tell me more."

Cara's chin tucked towards her chest, listening to Heni's conspiratorial whisper before her lips curled upwards in a bitter smirk, a small huff of laughter slipping from her. "Oh, I don't know," she said, drawling out the words. "Maybe you should call up Jesse's dad to ask him to psychoanalyze you," she suggested, arching up one eyebrow at the other girl as she brushed off her shoulder. "And what does it say about me that my best response to that is to point out that there have been more than a few moments I've hated you?" Cara asked, her head tipping ever so slightly towards the shoulder Henrietta's fingers had just lingered over.

[cinnamonfm]

If there are answers to be read from Monty's face, or eyes, or body language, Heni cannot get the book to open. It felt like she was in a dark room, fumbling blindly in the pitch black in the hopes that eventually, her fingertips would graze something that could be used to unlock a door. Only, if she were to comes as far as to find the key, she would then have to find the door. Something in her rings a warning bell, some inkling that something is missing. That she's stood over a puzzle piece where someone else was deliberately holding the remaining piece behind their back and looking the other way. A different part of her entirely says this: all this scepticism, all this mistrust, what had ever come of that? Maybe things were as they seemed on the face of it. Maybe, for once, the door was unlocked, and there was nothing waiting on the other side.

"Anything for a story, right?" On one hand, it felt like they out to rummage through the Dean's kitchen drawers in the hopes he'd left behind some tin foil for them to fashion hats out of just for speaking about it, but on the other? It was not like journalists had never planted something before. It wasn't without precedent. "Would we not have noticed, if multiple people snuck out to plot some elaborate scheme?" Heni certainly would like to think so, though the reality might still provide a different perspective. "Unless, you're right about the Dean being shifty. I don't think I laid eyes on him or Jesse's dad the entire trip."

Yes, it was your room. I'm positive, because I was there, too. I found the polaroids first.

Monty said none of that. His lips parted in silent surprise, eyes widening a touch, as if shocked to hear there even were more photos, but truthfully, it was the fact that Alethea had told Heni about them that threw him. Of course she had, though, why wouldn't she? It'd been their shared room, and as far as he was aware, they were friends. It was only sensible to gauge Heni's reaction, at least. But now, Monty was reluctant to speak up and confess to already knowing what she was confiding in him. That he had a bundle of those polaroids saved and he'd disseminated them to others already, just not Heni.

"Maybe our dear Dr. Hart is the freak who put them there," he suggested with an awkward chuckle. He was kidding, but now that he'd said it… Was it really all that far-fetched? They'd lost track of school staff and parents when it went dark at the chalet. Anyone could've creeped around their rooms. Maybe Dr. Hart had been waiting for some poor student to confess to having found more polaroids while on his show, creating a double whammy of a reveal, and start pointing fingers. "Ollie told me he got locked in a closet with Milo that night, too. After Penny bossed us all around." And then was murdered. His nose wrinkled, head shaking a little. "So much happened that night, I almost can't believe it was all done by just one person, y'know?"

[cinnamonfm]

with: @bigmandiego where: somewhere on campus

Heni had been pondering her task for the better part of a week. If she ignored it for long enough, maybe, it would simply dissolve, and nothing would come of it. Though, that would necessitate being able to ignore it. And it was there, whenever she opened her phone, like some bad omen.

So yes, maybe she's on edge. Maybe she's not paying attention. And maybe it is her that walks directly into him. But that does not stop her from scoffing out a response all the same: "Watch where you're going."