joobean

[joobean]

freddiewhy:

There was a part of Freddie - a part that lay deep in shadows and fog - that had expected this. It wasn’t something that he was proud of, but then it wasn’t something that he wouldn’t be prepared to defend should the need arise either. Brandon was reckless on a good day but lately something had shifted in him and now that the wheels were turning Freddie felt hopeless to stop them. There was only so much that he could do to intervene when his friend was on a warpath and so he had resigned himself to following behind and picking up the pieces as they fell. Eventually, Brandon would tire of this. Eventually, he would pause - if only to catch his breath - and then Freddie would be there, gently pressing the bits of himself back into place as if whatever had gone wrong could be fixed with a steady hand and a bit of glue.

Patience. Patience would fix this. Freddie had weathered his fair share of storms and he knew that if he waited long enough the clouds would eventually part and he would be free to tend to the wreckage. It had become something of a routine by that point; the destruction and the desperate, gentle attempts at salvaging whatever was left by two boys that nineteen had not been kind to.

If Freddie was the moon - calm and cool and dependably absent - then Brandon was surely the sun. He held a certain unattainable attraction that was dangerous to linger in. There was no pursuing him ( not safely ) and it was slowly becoming more clear that Freddie, too, had fallen prey to something bright that tended to leave burns. He had forgotten that even the moon made its slow orbit around something it seemed able to converge with for brief pockets of brilliant colour only twice a day. And, worse yet, Freddie was thoroughly unprepared for what was coming: a day when the sun would disappear from the sky altogether.

Ben’s voice cut through the haze, a quiet reminder that there were galaxies with other stars and orbits that were, perhaps, kinder. It took a moment before Freddie fully processed what he had said, and even then his delayed reply was lacking in a way that made it clear he still hadn’t quite gotten the message. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon development. “Yeah.” His vision was as foggy as his mind and as Freddie leaned back in his chair he plucked his glasses from his nose and set to work wiping at the lenses with a small handful of his shirt. It was a distraction - something to concentrate his energy on that wasn’t exclusive to the hospital and the ugly situation that he and his friends found themselves in. It would have been simpler if he could have said that he had no idea how they had gotten there; if he could have sat in bewilderment and passed the slow hours trying to suss out who would take the blame. But it was there, tucked in that dark, shadowy place: a truth that he was unprepared to acknowledge.

And so, sat in a row of unforgiving chairs in an unfamiliar hospital where Brandon lay a few doors down battered and quite literally broken, Ben’s lesson was welcome. Freddie’s posture shifted and he turned slightly in his seat and it was likely that if his new friend had been an old friend he might recognise, in that moment, glimpses of a boy from over a decade ago that was eager to learn and sat in his school desk upright and attentive. Too soon, the flow of information stopped and Freddie could see it in Ben’s eyes and desperately wished that they knew each other better - that he could communicate with merely a look that he wanted nothing less than for the conversation to circle back around to the very reason they were under the hospital’s harsh lights instead of settled in the warm glow of the hotel lounge’s. “Bone’s not really - y’know - accessible though, is it?“ Freddie brushed past Ben’s last comment as if it had never tumbled from his tongue at all, his own voice still dragging far more than the urgency to which he felt the subject need be diverted required. Throat cleared. A minor improvement. Hardly an improvement at all. “No one would want to live in a building made of bone, anyway. Sure, it’d keep the wolves away - y’know, the Three Little Pigs and that - but it’d keep everyone else away too.”

Freddie’s diversion was as subtle as roadworks, a large illuminated sign on a highway saying reduce speed, construction ahead. His voice came out like gravel, the sound cemented with worry, and tiredness, and everything else Freddie carried with him. His words were weighted, and they sat in the pit of Ben’s stomach next to Caution. Ben had been raised in a cautious home, his mother stressing the urgency of ‘the green man’ and road sensibility on every venture outside their screen-door temple. When a fine strand of silver appeared in her hair, she had laughed and pulled Ben beside her in front of the vanity table, pressing a kiss into the tip and saying she would name it Love. Worry was a subtraction of love, the price of it, but love looked different in Kings County Hospital. It looked different sitting in the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, different in the light.  It looked different on Freddie.

Somehow, it looked older.

‘I’d take walls of bone over these ones, any day’ was Ben’s initial response to Freddie’s swerve, but whilst his mother had raised him with caution, his father had taught him how to handle a gearshift and reverse. Expression shifting from solace to searching, Ben adjusted to the conversation’s new course of direction. “The Three Little Pigs?” he repeated, weary amusement seeping into the space between his words and what he meant to say. Freddie was something of marvel, skin wide open like a map soaked in ink. He was a corner Ben kept tripping over, the bruises on his knees blooming into blue hydrangeas. A light without a switch. He didn’t make sense. "I dunno’, it’s not as if you’d see it or anything.” Ben continued, humoring Freddie in this. “You’d cover it in plaster, wouldn’t you? Make it look nice for the retailers or, erm, three little pigs.”

Ben offered Freddie a teasing smile after that, even though his heart thumped worriedly, unsure of where his friend was headed. Surgeons say a wound gives off its own light, and if that were true, Ben supposed Freddie would be a sky mottled with purple, yellows and greens, the remnants of a bad memory. Looking away, he reached down for a bottle of water that sat forgotten beside him, his ankle a pillar. He turned the plastic over as he settled back into the hard edge of the chair, and for a terrible, insufficient second, Ben thought he saw thick, black lines spelling Oliver on the cap. It was a trick of the light, sleep finding a way to tap his shoulder in consciousness like an old friend. He wavered, a mirage of a person, before offering the bottle to Freddie. 

To him, the plastic was only plastic. Still, Ben’s hands felt as though they were touching a crime scene, his fingerprints coated in blame. He had learned how to read the barometer of Oliver’s unhappiness, every familiarity a handful of clay, building a full person out of him. He had seen him in all his entirety, and that had been dangerous. It was a dangerous to know someone too well, to get used to them, to learn where to touch them, where to stab them, how to love them. Dangerous because it was easy to mistake that familiarity for responsibility. No one ever blamed the forecast for a storm, but the body Ben had built still followed him with accusatory eyes. He was almost grateful for the unkind hour, or at least the promise that came after 2 am. Patients were sleeping. They were hidden inside their curtained rooms, drained in hospital grey, and if any of them had Oliver’s face, at least he didn’t have to see them.

Brandon was a patient now and he’d put Freddie in a position that Ben had often feared. It was a scenario that had played out enough times in his mind to keep him awake at night, heart beating like a bruise, and made him wonder if fear was just another subtraction of love that his mother had forgotten. It wasn’t, he didn’t think, looking at Freddie now. All he thought was gracious, and how that was a word he’d have a lot to say about, someday. “You sound like death,” Ben prodded, the bottle already feeling lighter in his hands, less like a mistake. “Here.”

i’ll be right beside you, dear.

[joobean]

okacardi:

sienna’s eyes were covered by the think material of her sun glasses as she glanced around the beaching, eyeing all of the people who were spending their free time doing something that she had done nearly every other day when she was growing up. a bit of nostalgia coming back, but followed by a taste of bitter when she realized just who she had made all those memories with and how that person was no longer around. she pushed the thought aside as her hand gripped around the neck of her water bottle taking down the last four ounces that were inside of it. the heat in LA had been no joke within’ the week and today was not any different. with the high being well over ninety, she was dressed in almost little to nothing in order to allow herself to survive to such temperatures. even though she was used to them they still came around every summer feeling as if it had a personal vengeance against her.

 she had just gotten finished with a pop up show that her and jesse had planned, and while she wasn’t shocked at how nicely they managed to pull it off, she was definitely surprised by how many of the house mates had shown up. for jesse and sienna they had done it for the fans, for the exposure, and she hadn’t expected anyone from the house to show up to actually watch their show, but here they were all scattered around and showing their support by posting multiple tweets online. her blonde locks were thrown high into a bun, keeping them from sticking against her skin due to the sweat as she wondered around, her feet digging into the sand. it had been a while since she’d been to the beach last. never making it a habit to come as when she did, all she thought back was to her childhood. the hundreds of sand castles, her mother chasing her around throughout the shallow end of the water, and even just the joys of being young and without a care, but here she was        all grown up with pressure on her shoulders that even watching the waves couldn’t swipe away.

the blonde continued walking along venice beach as she people watched, wondering what else she could get herself into. she wasn’t quite ready to get back to the house and she definitely wasn’t about to get herself in the ocean, not after the amount of sea documentaries she had seen. she let her feet take her to wherever they wanted, no plans in mind, and after a moment she recognized a familiar face. one that made her expression light up almost instantly, taking her mind away from the thoughts that she’d had earlier. “JOO!” she shouted in a high-toned voice, hoping that she wouldn’t startle him too much. running up and without warning, her arms quickly found their way around his neck. sienna would’ve never in a million years imagined that she’d feel like he was one of the greatest people in the house, but there was just something about the way that he carried himself that she admired. “dude, are you finally back for good?!” she questioned, “you were on that damn tour for ages. i swear.”  

joobean

the sunlight in chicago had been softer. it had shined through the hotel windows, a dull sort of illumination, gray and filtered by a damp cloud cover. california’s rays were harsher— —more of a pressing burn in comparison, a heat that left his shoulders raw. the weather had ben feeling sticky; sweat and nerves all coiled into one. coming back into the house had been a series of adjustments. he’d left his bags inside his paling room, keys on the dresser, and his heart somewhere between boston and utah. forgotten at the airport, doing it’s rounds on the conveyor belt, or in the back of a taxi cab heading someplace south. the closing of freddie’s tour had been similar to the closing of a book, events sealed in pages, blue eyes and stage lights saved and preserved on the camera reel of ben’s phone. he was already nostalgic for the places, and the people, and the sight of his friend fumbling over key-cards and falling into hotel rooms at the end of each show.

freddie had gone to visit his family back home after the tour had closed. they’d parted in the airport with ben’s hand on his shoulder—a light, assuring, casual thing—and a promise to check in via facetime at some point in the week. after that it had been check ins, baggage claim and a flight back to la, california. ben had been able to doze on the plane but anticipation had tapped away inside of him, anxious and persistent, and it had left him with an exhaustion sleep alone couldn’t fix. his shoulders had been dropping before he’d slipped into one of management’s cars, and now that he’d joined his housemates at sienna’s pop up event, ben decided heat exhaustion and sun burns certainly weren’t favoured over chicago's drearier forecast. soaking his skin in sunscreen, ben scanned the crowd as he smoothed the lotion in, messaging small circles into the sore skin peeking out from his vest. he was in the process of identifying his new housemates in the crowd, and avoiding his current ones, when his thoughts were interrupted by a loud, familiar and entirely welcomed “JOO!”

turning to catch the sound, a pair of tan arms wrapped around him, completely heedless of the other pedestrians having to step around the pair like a stream splitting over rocks. blonde tickled his vision and all ben could see was sienna. chin tucked tight against the girl’s shoulder, ben gave her slim frame a tight squeeze as his laugh was lost in it. “i am, yeah,” he grinned, pulling back to take in her expression. he could have gotten attached to having sienna in his arms, solid and something real to hold. it would have been easy as dreaming. “at least until it’s time for my own tour,” he added after a pause, the words still feeling odd in his mouth. his tour. a date that was now marked on a calendar. a date that was happening. a date that was happening soon. “how have you been? pixels on a screen will never do your face justice. i missed you. — — walk with me?”

( ░ & WENT TO SING ON THE STREET ;  — SIENNA AND BENJIMAN. )

[joobean]

text ✉️ joo bean

noemí: thank you for listening to them and liking them!

noemí: when i get back, we should book some studio time and work together :)

joo: that'd be great pal :)

joo: you excited to get back???

[joobean]

honest opinion should this be on ben's next set list

[joobean]

@scarlettrizzo: @itsjoo i aint even know what that is but it sounds important !!!

@itsjoo: it's an easy way for users to countdown to a v exciting date!!! #fivedays @scarlettrizzo

[joobean]

@scarlettrizzo: i can (legally) drink in five days!!! how exciting!!

@itsjoo: an event for everyone to put in their #dreamdays app! 🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈 @scarlettrizzo

[joobean]

ctrlxbella:

guys… was someone in my room? it looks like someone’s been in my munchies stash and you owe me like fifty dollars cause that was my food for like a month.

—— did you not think to lock it, arabella?  wait.. you had fifty dollars worth of snacks stored in there?

[joobean]

@adriansanches: @itsjoo wtf is a papi bagel

@itsjoo: @adriansanches wtf is w/ ur attitude towards papi bagels

[joobean]

text ✉️ joo bean

noemí: ahhh!!!

noemí: i am guessing you like the song???

joo: i like it v v much

joo: thank u for the music the songs i'm singing

[joobean]

@adriansanches: @itsjoo is that your new nickname for me, cinnamon apple?

@itsjoo: @adriansanches it's not v fruity is it

@itsjoo: @@adriansanches papi bagel

[joobean]

@acardi: @itsjoo im having war flashbacks to middle school when everyone got their first cell phone ...

@acardi: @itsjoo is that what u were going for ???

@itsjoo: that's exactly it u got it @acardi

@itsjoo: i had a rad (af) motorola flip wbu @acardi

[joobean]

text ✉️ all contacts

noemí: i should be back in la sunday night after my last show with lex and adrian :)

noemí: hope things are well!

joo: you can drive it how you want

joo: i ain't trying to count mileage

joo: 💯 💯 💯 !!!

[joobean]

@adriansanches: everyone should check out the collab @noemisantos and i just released. you're all gonna 'luh' it :)))

@itsjoo: @adriansanches i luh ya, luh ya, luh ya, luh ya papi

@itsjoo: @adriansanches i luh ya papi

[joobean]

RT @acardi: if you're not doing anything with your saturday night me and @jessexturnerx are gonna be on venice beach blessing people with our musical talents.

@acardi: and possibly sharing other things. i don't know. we'll see!

@itsjoo: alwys comin Thru 4 me on a s@RdA nyt @acardi

[joobean]

@justgrayt: i'd feel better about myself if i lied ... but all from the heart man all from the heart @itsjoo

@itsjoo: okay another question be honest ( again ) @justgrayt

@itsjoo: have u ever written a song for james micheal tyler @justgrayt #QNA

[joobean]

okay so lowkey i haven’t been feeling great recently and i’m v sorry for the spotty activity but i’m going to get to some starters now and say hello to everyone in a little bit ily ily u know the drill

[joobean]

@justgrayt: "i love rachel" @itsjoo

@justgrayt: "i thought /you/ were chandler" @itsjoo

@justgrayt: "what's my last name?" @itsjoo

@justgrayt: "put the mouse back in the house" @itsjoo

@justgrayt: ... do i watch friends too much?? @itsjoo

@itsjoo: be honest w/ me how many of those did you google and how many came from the heart @justgrayt