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[julianxrhodes]

lccxnda ;

“You’re not working this weekend.” Noted with such certainty as the warmth of the coffee mug she held bled into the palm of her hand, Luce gently cooling down the surface as if she wasn’t completely aware she’d drink it scalding hot anyway. “I already spoke to your captain, he’s switched some things around and you’re completely free. — Do not ask me what I had to tell him to make this happen. Your mom has Lucas too so you can throw that excuse out the window too.” Crystalline hues pinning Julian with a look that damn near begged him to argue with her, the lithe curve of her smile as she took a searing sip of coffee. “You and me, one normal weekend.” There was no real telling whether it would work, but after everything, trying –for him, didn’t seem like a terrible idea. “Two years ago, what would we be doing? Right now?”

               Head bowed as if in mock disbelief at such brazen credence that flowed from rosebud lips, shaking his head in tandem with a flourished grin. “It’s sad that you’re assuming I’d be coming up with excuses not to spend time with you.” Though Julian understood far too well said impression of an excuse relied more on his own over dedication to his job and the city that seemed struck under perpetual tumult. All the same, he had to have a chuckle at the proposition of a normal weekend, brows raised as if proposing any sense of challenge, “I don’t think we know the definition of normal. Even two years ago you’d probably be forcing me into day drinking some crappy mimosas at your favorite in the moment brunch spot.” There was no denying how misconstrued and rotten time had been to them, and yet in the very same breath there had been some good, littered among years that offered nothing but bittersweet melancholy that no longer served them; nostalgia a near noxious nostrum. “So now I’m really curious as to what you could have possibly planned this weekend.” 

[julianxrhodes]

kennedytxllis ;

“No, no. I want to make sure this baby has proper clothes for this New York weather. We’re going to open them together. Now come on. Open,” she waved her hand at Julian, leaning forward to press a quick kiss against his cheek in greeting before she sat down again. Kennedy  clasped her hands together, trying to hide her smile before she scooted forward to sit on the end of the couch, “So I got him all these really cute long sleeve outfits. Also, there were these tiny, cute little converse I just had to get him. And he has a jean jacket that I know is going to make him look fabulous. And I – ugh, I can’t believe he’s not here.”

                    “Thanks for trusting in my own abilities to get him proper clothes,” he deadpanned under the support of a half smirk, shaking his head in tandem finality. “Fine, fine, you win Kenn’,” Julian offered a shooing set of hands as if to cease any means of further protest, hands coming to gently tear into a gift to unearth whatever set of an outfit was inside, “I really shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve taken sole responsibility to be my infants fashion designer,” he scoffed, though there was that sliver of appreciation for the friends he had to help hi through Lucas’ infancy, holding up one of the many long sleeved attires that Kennedy had purchased. 

[julianxrhodes]

lccxnda ;

And therein lay the root of Lucinda’s problem, she would always want more for Julian than the notion of being stuck. Torturous as it was to linger in a place that might have caused little more than stress in the concave of ones chest, it was another thing entirely to find your feet rooted to the ground when the very walls of the city skylines crumbled around them. The pleading sense of wonder she’d once spoken with in the dimly lit expanse of this very room had been offered with little intent beyond that which lived to drive herself forward, only a sliver of hope had ever truly lived for the possibility that Julian would have ever agree to leaving. “I uh..–” Teeth drew over her lesser lip, “Maine.” Not a place many would truly ever believe Lucinda would concern herself with, but the fact that both her mom and brother had last taken up a brand new home there had given her a place to land, even if it bloomed something beyond the worries she already carried, especially with her father in tow. Her parent’s loveless marriage had never kept itself the secret it should have been from their children, but it’d been like tearing a limb off trying to convince her dad that there would be somewhere much easier for them to fall. The man convinced that Cinda would really only need the kind of love and support a mother could offer in the wake of her lives turn point destruction. “My dad thought being with my mom and brother would help,” and perhaps it had a little; nothing truly capable of mending the scars both physically and mental in losing her best friend so violently and looking death in it’s fiery eyes; all she knew was that it was a little easier to get through the day without breaking a little more. A short scoff, softened and standing on the precipice of amusement mottled in the disbelief that he truly believed after everything, she would never have picked up the phone. “I would have answered.’” Not that it mattered now. “Every time.” The repertoire of argumentative retorts falling short for the plea driven confession. An unyielding necessity that would likely gleam impossible to shy away from and that had yet again given her reason to steal away without a word in the first place. Irony at it’s best, she supposed. Sense and intention fell short when it came to the him, however silently it seemed to happen. Such lost sense of thought extended far beyond his own meaning and reached out to further tighten the constriction within her chest. The same feeling of which she’d not missed. A crippling vice like grip that burnt in the way steam might have seared flesh; no marking, no immediate visible sign that told of the reason for such pain. But it was there, hot and uncomfortable as congratulatory breath forced it’s way to paint certain calm collection on porcelain features as hues fought to further linger on the belongings of an infant. Living breathing proof of the world that continued spinning without her there, the bruising that seemed to fixate itself upon a nonsensical ego only shirked by the gentle touch of fingertips that entwined themselves only long enough to pull her nearer. It’d been so much more than she’d expected; both the brash choice he’d made to even give over to such impulses of having her near — or even perhaps that it lived as an option after a year long silence in the first place. Thoughts of anything else near obliterated in stoic parallel memory of how his hands had once lingered in much the same way, the cross haven of hitched breath, uncertainty and the pure unadulterated feeling that jammed itself between her ribs while the organ within her chest lept to her throat.  Barely a shock to the system when the aptitude of her fear left her almost entirely, bled from unopened veins and cast to the wind as the prospect of simply feeling safe crept between the discs of her spine. “I know.” She breathed out, perched on his lap the weight of the broken world she’d known gone from her shoulders as his all too familiar natural musk drowned out everything except for him. “I trust you.” A concept that had become undeniably foreign to her; an entire world just out of reach; pieces of the people she loved hidden in secret for some skewed idea of keeping her safe; perhaps they’d had their reasons, but clearly — nothing of the sort had kept her out of harms way. The safety net of a world unknown only returning to her in the near euphoric feeling that washed over her like a warming summer wave. “—- Jules.” Where once the contemplation of a line crossed perplexed a mind unwavering, there was no questioning what settled on the heated breath that mingled anticipation like a live wire. Dancing the line with lingering fingertips pressed gently below the artistry dip of his collarbone, a woman of lesser collected value might have openly pushed more than the near hesitancy he offered in the most innocent brush of lips against hers. She could have lived there — right there within the confines of her own perpetual ache for his warmth and the jagged edge of possibility. The visceral burning in her fingertips more than enough to guide her hand beyond it’s lingering over beating heart to the unruly mess of darkened locks she loved so much, a sharp inhale drawn in with his new fervor and like he’d been made purely to entwine with her, she found the glowering safe haven she’d been in such dire need for a year prior, right here on his couch. His couch..– his apartment.  “Wait..” The blinding reminder enough for her to near pry her lips from his, the pad of her forefinger dancing the line of her own lesser lip as she stopped him. The lingering taste of him on her tongue not nearly enough to stave away what she knew, but he’d yet to speak of it. “You’re..—” Oceanic hues searched his, a certain plea to the glimmer within them that she couldn’t be made another piece in a story she knew nothing about. “You have a kid, what about..–” Lips pursed tightly as she cast hues downward to a hand still pressed to his chest, soon dropped out of mild embarrassment. “Is she…–” Cinda swallowed thickly, “What about the mother?”

                    Maine — as frivolous a place as any for the Rhodes who had come from an island marred by cataclysmic milieu only to be thrust into an age old supernatural war. Maine — he had to offer a saccharine chuckle at that, one weighed down by even a slight sliver of envy for where she had retreated to for the past year of her life, a wanton of grief exceedingly prevalent under freckled countenance. His own chagrin could only covet the means of regret; spanning over his itinerary of the past year, under the well understood impression that many could have been spared, much akin to Lucinda, had they all just left. Perhaps such pattern of loss by their mere absence rather than a score of immutable quietus should be transcribed as more of a blessing than a curse as he had once believed; obsidian hues near latching onto her gaze for even the briefest span of insight to her peregrinations of the last year. “And did it?” Familial connections were his lifeline of survival in a city that had since transmogrified into a necropolis of mass proportions, understanding full well that perhaps such interdependence was never quite the same for everyone. All the same, Julian could clutch to any sense of will that Lucinda had grasped even an ounce of peace in her absence, head bowing in tandem to the scoff elicited from rosebud lips.  

                    They both clutched to a repository of nugatory rejoinders, the near inconsequential quips preventing any stave to such flood of emotions both were implicitly keen on avoiding. “Next time I’ll be sure to call before you board a flight or hop on a train then,” a grim chuckle bubbled past his lips, eyes peeking back up to Lucinda, clutching to any spec of insouciant ebullience; the fumes of his typical sangfroid fleeting as the walls of their own visceral quandaries crumbled.  

                    Hands spanned over covered limbs that held a blueprint to her scarred past if denuded, hoping to provide any sense of comfort and credence in succor to his own lexicon. To say scads of his own life had changed within the past year since Lucinda left was an understatement which was dreadfully apparent as Julian dared pulled her closer. The faint opprobrium of Julian senselessly surmising that this was a line he could cross once more as if either of them hadn’t been reoriented by all that their set of circumstances allowed; near flinching at the irresolute breath Lucinda could old, the action tacitly spanning out every inquiry she could ever conjure to fruition. A sanction of minuscule resistance was prompted in spite of ribald mirth which bristled on freckled mien, a near involuntary reflex as such haptic wanton overcame his own unstable vulnerability. “I —” A loss for words was not common place for Julian, near shamefully averting his gaze from cerulean hues that searched so helplessly for a response to what had happened in the past year that had unearthed his own sense of parental means. Sheepishness clouded his gaze now, the brewing fondness he once had for said mother and for Lucinda at a nauseating cross roads now, shaking his head in mellowed finality.  “She’s not.... dead, if that’s what you’re getting at,” sharp jaw clenched; a perfect inscription to his own amalgamation of culpable regret. Ever since Lola had made her own means to leave their haphazard sense of family behind, Julian may as well have felt horribly duped, a small plume of ire scorching every fiber of his being now. 

                    Any extempore was ceased despite his own nerves coercing any prospect of word vomit that dared be excavated, gnawing on his bottom lip under the most minute inkling of restraint. A penitent grin eclipsed any sense of prospective bliss, gaze flitting back up to hers after the briefest stretch of recovery; a more farouche demeanor settling into Julian, “She didn’t want to be a mother. I think deep down she never wanted to be one, but— what can you do about that,” his last stretch of syllables were flooded with a flippantly brackish covet of humor, offering a shrug in tandem finality. Calloused palms soon seized their own means of redemption, one in which his own carapace could not claim, possessing a subtle retreat up to the baseline of her neck, a titillatingly mellow spur of sportive inclination. Julian’s own hamartia was his vying desideratum to drown out any trepidatious lament of blunders in his life, “She’s been.. gone for a couple of months now,” Julian mildly confirmed, sparking any hubristic retreat to the somatic ardor shared moments prior as digits sunk into plush skin.  The impulse to touch her in every way he dared crave was innately profound, though he allowed such pause lest she absorb such information and reject any sake of rekindling, gnawing on his bottom lip. 

[julianxrhodes]

Bellamy Blake in every season

[julianxrhodes]

remiduval ;

Remi laughed. “America was self absorbed before the supernatural terrorist showed up.”

                    “Not much faith in us, Duval,” he chuckled briefly, raising a brow, “You can’t group all of us into that category, I find my family rather selfless,” Julian teased, the statement counterproductive in the sense that somebody so selfless surely wouldn’t quite announce it. 

[julianxrhodes]

elizabethxvance ;

Elizabeth was momentarily surprised by the comment but she just shrugged it off with a smile, shaking her head as she got everything for him. She didn’t have kids, and in fact was the youngest sibling in her family, but Liz always found herself to be more of a nurturer, always one who wanted to help others and take care of things. She was the very definition of mom friend and it was a title she wore proudly. She liked being the one that people went to, liked being the one who could be counted on.

As he repeated the sentiment Liz laughed, shaking her head, “I don’t have kids–unless you count my older brother.” She teased, moving to pull out the spare chair at his table so she could sit down for a moment. “But I did babysit a lot in high school, and even as recently as last year as well. Mostly it was for toddlers and kids, but there were some infants sometimes too. I don’t think it’s all that insane to want to help though. And, well….I can only imagine how frazzling it must be to have a fussy baby when you’re alone in public. So it’s the least I could do. Really.” Her eyes flickered down to the baby in the man’s arms, watching as he seemed to realize what the bottle in close proximity meant and she smiled. “Especially when the help is for such an adorable baby.”

                     Julian could grin at her commentary in the fact that he could relate as being one of said older brothers. Half of the time he got into trouble, Calypso or Annabelle would always dare attempt to get him out of it, nodding along near intently, “Yeah, I’ve got plenty of younger siblings of my own and they definitely bail me out of trouble a lot.” It was never worth mentioning that said trouble always revolved around hunting and his dire need to do it all alone, in sake of his siblings. “I’m more of a middle child, however, if that counts for anything,” Julian teased softly as if the ranking of siblings could somehow shift the scenario. 

                    “Well, I’m sure you know that the narrative of New York is that we’re all selfish jack asses,” he snickered in good spirits, the expletive near elementary to utter in front of Lucas, considering Hudson was his overtly foul mouthed best friend in any case. “I try to do things on my own, I think that’s my problem in life,” a sliver of a soft smile crept it’s way across freckled countenance, a meager shrug being produced in tandem, “Don’t really like to rely on the help of anyone else, but I really do appreciate it,” Julian reiterated in case any extempore may have resonated in an offensive light. 

[julianxrhodes]

emiliofurtado ;

Milho laughed at the skepticism in the younger man’s voice. “Everyone learns on the fly their first time around. It doesn’t matter how many books you read or advice you get. In the end it’s honesty just what works best for you and this little anjo,” the man grinned, kissing the top of the baby’s head. “You’re doing good, okay? Your father would be proud and I know your mother is.”

                    A suppressed grin crept it’s way across the mien, mostly given at any mention of his parents and how proud they could be. “Yeah, well, I know she’s actually happy to be a grandmother,” a brief chuckle tumbled from his lips, shaking his head in tandem, “I don’t think she ever imagined any of us getting the opportunity.” Words were thrown out in jest, yet there remained a sliver of verity behind them.

[julianxrhodes]

sloanrivera ;

“I could be inclined to use the pet name for you instead. After all, it’s accurate.” At the inquiry as to how she came to loathe the other hunter, Sloan side-stepped it almost effortlessly. “We were together. Now we’re not. And I’m of the opinion that anyone who’s met my parents and seen me naked shouldn’t be walking the streets.”

                    “Yeah, but see when you say it I feel as if I’m being hexed or cursed or whatever.” Flippant syllables offered a smirk of his own, their near childish sparring seemingly inexorable. “I pity any guy that screws you and apparently lives to tell the tale. Who knew I could ever feel bad for Hendrix Blake,” Julian snorted as if in candid disbelief, crossing his arms over his chest in tandem. 

[julianxrhodes]

remiduval ;

“Yes, I’m well aware of you Americans’ general lack of concern for anything actually outside of America,” she countered, blithely.

                    “Oh, come on — you’ve seen the state of this city, you can’t blame us entirely.” 

[julianxrhodes]

Bellamy Blake in The 100 Season 6 Trailer

[julianxrhodes]

lccxnda ;

“That’s…–” Perhaps the idea had been fleeting, a spur of transcendence where thought of all things that tethered him to this city felt as transparent as everything that held her there too. Everything she’d ever known had been built up between the brick and mortar of the city itself, every hairline crack in the pavement could slip whispers of the nights she’d spent tracing the very foundations of New York as if it alone filled her lungs with air. “You know I never expected you to just.. drop everything.” However unexpectedly she’d allowed the possibility to find life in the gripe of her own voice a year prior, Lucinda knew him better than to have truly believed he’d ever just.. leave with her. Just as surely as she’d thought something might have slipped, caved within the harbor of his chest and fallen wayside to something beyond his anger, he paved the way to her own. “My whole life was here too, Jules. Everything I’ve ever..” The rigid curve of her brow sharpened as if perplexed by the idea she’d even have to say it. “I’m sure I must have made it look easy from where you’re standing but leaving everyone, leaving you was..–” Beyond excruciating. “It was stay here and know that everything I knew was quite literally being ripped out from under me or do something to stop me from losing my fucking mind. Do you really think if you’d called and I’d answered that I wouldn’t have been right back here without second thought?” Even now, stood right in front of him, she’d die, in a thousand fires, before she willingly put everything she knew behind her again, even if it gave her the slightest possibility to smooth out the pieces of her that resembled the burnt rubble of the once stable ground she knew. “So don’t look at me like that, say whatever you want, think whatever it is you need to but don’t.— don’t look at me like it meant nothing for me to leave.”

There was no real knowing how and what he’d planned to throw at her feet to simply prove that things could always get worse, but the very idea of it stilled her to the point that she wasn’t even sure if her heart beat in her chest. Was someone else dead? Did they lose someone else? What could possibly have been worse — for either of them, than the horrors that’s besieged their lives before she’d left the concrete city behind. Whatever her mind could have conjured up, it certainly didn’t prepare her for this. “What?” Crystalline hues filled almost entirely with speculation and a haunting glimmer of something well beyond it. To simultaneously feel the inside of her stomach tear open and fall through an abyss she barely knew was there, while the guilt that followed her immediate thought clawed it’s way up her throat like stomach bile; all of which she swallowed back with rough conviction, was something she’d never quite felt before. It was then, the tandem moment of confusion that hung limply in the air between them, burnt and scorched by heated argument, that Cinda even took notice of his home. Nothing quite out of place, but with each haphazardly discarded item that might have belonged to little more than an infant; a pacifier, a baby bouncer, an empty bottle; she was sure she’d been thrown back into the fire, smoke so thick in her lungs it was impossible to breathe. “You have a …–” Hollowed eyes bloomed disbelief as it slowly but surely sunk beyond recognition. Shit. Something akin to a laugh; beneath the surface it felt more like an internal crack; a heaving release of air that lacked every ounce of humor fell beyond the realms of her self control as the underlying truth of why she so desperately needed to see if he was okay; alive, shattered against her ribcage in the most melancholic surge of heartache. “— Congratulations.”

Time stood still; almost entirely, save for the man who looked more like a boy without direction, and one she’d known much better than the man he’d been opening his front door almost six minutes before hand. The taunting discomfort she suddenly felt held her still, uncertain whether she’d just now encroached on a space she was no longer welcomed; crowded ever possibly by a woman that’d stolen the warmth barely cold in her own departure, the mere implication that the same calloused hands that’d traced her every curve had found someone else’s and in turn, memory would serve to give him another to map out the stars across freckled skin in the waning hours that cracked dawn drew the unyielding pit in her stomach wider.. But it wasn’t about her — it was never about her. Not her recovery, not her departure and not even the intentional return. It was never about her; her every choice served as a consequence for others, or so she’d come to understand. A selfish woman had come to forget how to continue self serving while those around her begged otherwise. “You thought.. No. Julian..” Timbre much softer than it’d been already as she crossed the room to once more, as nostalgic a translucent memory that placed them right here, almost a year ago to date, perched the edge of his couch, offering something of a smile that might have permeated convincing territory. “You think I’d go out without everyone in this damn city knowing about it?” If only for the fact that she knew her father would never allow the people she cared for so deeply to remain in the dark. “Don’t worry about the coffee, and… I’ll definitely skip the tequila.” This certainly didn’t paint such effervescent pictures of the simplicity of merely dropping by. It held the weight of everything she’d missed; everything she’d walked out on for the skewed sense of self preservation Cinda had convinced herself was necessary.  “I know I told you I’d be here, whenever you needed me,” but she hadn’t been, and only now was she truly seeing what such a choice cost her. Despite being almost entirely unsure of where she stood with Julian, she reached out, lithe fingers curling around his own in a gentle squeeze of comfort. “and I wasn’t, but I don’t care if I’m going to die here,” the slight arch of her brow the only allusion to any mocking sense of truth, “which it’s becoming almost alarmingly obvious with everything happening that I might, then..–  that’s okay..” She swallowed thickly, “but until then, I’m not going anywhere, not again.”

                    Hands were clasped together, obsidian hues bearing into calloused fingertips as her extempore flooded the room. The ire that flowed off him in droves and waves was a perpetual tryst, the flames of his own scorn daring to swallow him whole on a daily basis, hues doomed to present a lachrymose hint to how her sudden appearance had effected him. It was a tacit flourish, marred only by his stoic carapace waning under the gaze of Lucinda’s own cerulean’s, nodding near woefully as if in pure understanding of why she so desperately needed to claw her way out of the confines of a city that had since become so suffocating. There was nothing poetic about the travesty that their home city had become, mutilated by terrorist values and an augury of death — Lucinda almost effortlessly claiming a spot as one of the many in the slew of victims. She had survived by any stretch of such hopeless elucidation of the word, yet the russet haired Breckenridge was hardly spared, her sanity a hairline curve of recognition after the traumatic events of a blood ridden Halloween past. “I know,” he quietly murmured, a nauseatingly saccharine smile conjuring on his countenance, the fragments of a wistful impression prevalent, “But I wanted to.” Obsidian hues held a panorama of regret, gnawing his bottom lip in tandem contrition. 

                    “Where did you even go?” Syllables bubbled over far before he could ever stop them, plagued with a temerarious disposition that lent itself to plights of archetypal word vomit. The pause after his inquiry was evident, the means of soaking in her own sorrow riddled lexicon aiding itself to their own mental reprieve; the entire room soaked in a bout of suppressed melancholy which was on the threat of bubbling over. “You know I’ve never been one to have a proper train of thought.” A dry chuckle, the excuse horridly palpable in regards to his hot headed and brash regard — the impression that he was ever once snubbed hard to shake once bloomed in his viscera. “The problem in that being that I would have never figured you’d answer.” A meager shrug summed up the finality of his words, the dance that continued to ensue between them exhausting. 

                    Her blithe sense of congratulations could offer a staggering punch to the gut, Julian near wincing as the simple sentiment tumbled gauchely from rosebud lips. A reticent expression swathed freckled visage, the means to pluck and pull all his secrets back from her a vertiginous dalliance all in itself; baring his own heart so flagrantly shoving the male into a regressed state in the next breath. Julian was a master at such guilt ridden deflection, each syllable of the word akin to gnawing on pieces of broken glass, inhaling every spec of blood as if it was all he could offer in retort. Despite the inherent virulence that loomed close, the male could wane under her quiet surrender that perhaps this was no longer her place to voice any spec of creed; the confines of his home having been shared with another for far too long after Lucinda’s blatant departure. Another, whom was only there to originally lance the sense of absence the sable haired woman had left; the news of a child another blow to an already viscerally damaged Rhodes — another life he could not bare to lose once it came to fruition. The deluded consideration that a baby on the way could have been the cessation to the blooming tryst he shared with Lola was vertiginously apparent; the sentiment that she was a mere form filling the cavernously barren side of his bed shared by many. Perhaps there had been far too many occurrences when he clutched to such belief, too, the example of why such sentiment was conjured staring him stark in the face now; the idea that Lucinda should have been and would have been there had she not run from everything she had once clutched upon so fondly evident in the fact that the trace impression of Lucinda’s fingertips upon freckled flesh still fresh when the mother of his child had initially stepped foot into his life. 

                    “I didn’t know what to think,” he offered in pitied retort, the impression of Lucinda meeting a plausible demise a terror mired in quotidian detail. Such visceral perturbation manifested within him, the inner struggle to come clean or to let such ache for her perish at the forefront of his own cognitive dragging him down in face of the squeeze of consolation she offered him. Lucinda’s covenant will to be there for him this time around offered a cavernous pit to bloom in his stomach, tugged at digits that had since wrapped around his, pulling her atop his lap. Perhaps it was a decision which was drenched in replicated solecisms, Julian’s own proclivity to drown out sense of lament with senselessly lascivious contact a repeat complication in his life. It had been the tequila the first night that offered such staunch sense of bravery to cross such blurred line with Lucinda, brazen now as hands mapped a path to her sides, obsidian hues grazing over winsome countenance, elocution tender as if magnetically coaxed to her now, “I told you I won’t let anything happen to you.” A hand pried itself from the curve of her waist, trailing up to find home in the lunar curve of her jaw, allowing their foreheads to touch as if caught in a prime confession, “I promise I won’t.” Sentiment was drenched in candid finality, tipping her jaw to allow their lips to meet, strangely hesitant as if testing such assurance that she was there for him this time around, or rather, that this was a line he could cross once more; alcohol hardly marring any sense of ambiguous confidence he could clutch to — deepening the kiss under the guise of such deep rooted familiarity. 

[julianxrhodes]

elizabethxvance ;

Elizabeth’s expression was soft, sympathetic as she watched the frazzled man nearly spill his cup of coffee before abandoning the idea altogether in favor of trying to soothe the baby, and at his words, really, she just wanted to help more. “You’re not asking, I’m offering.” She replied back, the same soft little smile on her lips even as she shook her head, “It’s fine if I do, I’m not the only barista here today. Besides, my break’s about to start soon anyways.” Before she could say much else either way, the baby started crying louder and once the man caved and agreed she jumped into action. “Of course.” Liz went ahead and took the bottle out of the diaper bag then, holding up a finger, “Just give me a minute, I’ll be right back.” She promised before dashing off to the back.

As promised, she returned back quickly, the milk now warmed up in one hand, and a plate with a toasted bagel in the other, “Here you go. I figured once he eats maybe you can eat something too?”

                    “Either you have kids of your own or you’re insane,” Julian shot out in pure jest, though the expression that adorned his countenance said plenty when it came to his own sense of thanks, words never able to sum it up efficiently. Despite his own extempore the flaxen woman dared jump into action, carefully jostling Lucas atop his knee as a means to sooth him, offering empty syllables of comfort for his son until the other returned with the warmed bottle.

                    It was as simple a gesture as any, yet it may as well have been a recherche sentiment considering the violence and archetypal quintessence that embellished their city as of late, Julian offering an appreciative smile as he held his free hand out for the bottle, “You’re definitely insane,” he chuckled in regards to his former statement, Lucas quelling just a bit in sight of the bottle. Without Lola, dealing with his son was far tougher than he could have originally imagined, yet it seemed he had all the help in the world; even that of strangers.  

[julianxrhodes]

dinah-davenport ;

Dinah’s face softened as she looked at him, knowing better than to perhaps taint anyone with the actions of other. “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to tar you with the same brush as others,” she told him. Despite how the first got along, she could honestly say she respected Julian… liked him either. “No… you’re right, we all have our flaws,” the werewolf murmured before adding, “But you’re a good man Julian”.

                    “Is that... a compliment from you?” A sliver of humor embellished the mien, it having been no secret that they clashed more times than not, brow risen in tandem curiosity with his own ribbing. 

[julianxrhodes]

nixonreynolds ;

“I’ll see Lucian later.” Putting another Tallis in his issues wasn’t really in his plans, and Corrina, from what he knew, had a hell of a hard time herself. “I don’t know what he wanted you to do, Julian. Or if you knew anyone that could deal with it. Either way, you can always deal with me. No fight, no questions asked.”

                    “Well remind me to thank him later,” Julian scowled in spite of the hairline crevice of humor that lined his lexicon, “The witch that did this; you’d be able to recognize in a heartbeat, right?” Brows rose, rummaging through the possible connections and why one would have wished to clearly harm a Tallis. None pointed to a viable sense of comfort, the Ouroboros a constant looming factor. While Nixon’s curse was another punch to an albeit near losing fight, it at least pointed to another piece of the puzzle that could lead to further recognition of other members of the terrorist group that was so keen on destroying them. 

[julianxrhodes]

kennedytxllis ;

“Are you kidding me?” Kennedy huffed out a breath as she closed the door to Julian’s apartment, looking clearly devastated as she heard absolutely nothing from the baby that was supposed to be sharing Julian’s apartment. “You didn’t even keep him here for me? Julian,” she tossed her purse onto the couch, holding the three boxes in her other hand as she held them out for the Rhodes to take, “Ugh. Fine. Here, these are all for him.”

                    “I’m not sure I trust you with him just yet,” he chided, obsidian hues coming to rake over flaxen countenance as if studying her for any sense of suspicion, “Next thing I’d know, you’d have kidnapped him into the Tallis mansion.” Grin remained cemented on the mien, brows risen in mock surprise at the slew of gifts that remained balanced between manicured fingertips, “Look — hold on to them and next time you guys can open them together,” Julian mocked as a sense of compromise, despite the fact Lucas was hardly at the age to garner any sense of wonder to the slew of gifts being tossed to him on a daily basis in his infancy. 

[julianxrhodes]

hcdtallxs ;

“Look,” He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and sat up a little straighter, “the sucker will be the most adaptable little kid anyone’s ever seen.” It was certainly a bonus that might come from being his best friends son, “He’ll be fine, a little bad influence never really hurt anyone. You turned out…. mostly okay.” His hand wavered in the air as if weighing up the truth of such statement. “Before I became your friend you were… a nerd. You were a total nerd, let’s be honest here. Nobody wants to bag themselves a model son and colleague anymore.” He swilled the bottle in his hand a little before taking a small swig and eyeing Julian over the edge of the bottle. “You heard from her at all?”

                      “Mostly okay,” he snickered as if viscerally picking apart said statement, lips pursed as if in slight agreement to the claim, “I mean, mentally, I’m a peach, but it seems my bones are that of a fuckin’ seventy year old. Clearly you guys need to go back to your roots and create some elixir to fix that shit otherwise I don’t know how I’m gonna make it much longer and no offense but I’m not putting you in charge of my son if I pass.” A joke, yet a grim reality for them all the same when it came to daily life, rolling his eyes in tandem with Hudson’s final ribbing, faltering only at the mere mention of a mother who liberated herself from the family picture all together, “Uh — no.. no,” Julian gnawed on his bottom lip, freckled countenance embellished in a strange caprice of near regret, “Guess it’s safe to say she did warn me about this type of future,” a dry chuckle fell from his lips, shaking his head with a meager shrug, “Shit happens,but at least I have my son.” 

[julianxrhodes]