kaidenhwthrne

[kaidenhwthrne]

@dianahawthorne​

Diana loved her family, no one could say otherwise. But liking someone and loving someone were too separate things. For example, she loved Kaiden because he was her brother, but she had a lot of difficulty liking him given his obvious disdain for her. She wasn’t sure what she did to him to deserve this type of malice. Honestly, she was almost positive it had less to do with her and more to do with her proximity to their mother. Regardless, she was on the verge of snapping and no one- no one- made her snap. Still the words slid from her lips- “So do you, Kaiden. It’s not like you try to contact us either.” She sucked a breath in, tongue pressing against her teeth as she closed her eyes. She exhaled, meeting his gaze once more. “I’m sorry, that was rude. But, Kaiden, it’s not like you ever try to reach out. We didn’t think, well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I didn’t think a call was welcome. I thought this would be easier; make it harder for you to say no,” She laughed, an attempt at a joke- though the words were true. She pursed her lips. “Fine, that’s fine. What about just a dinner with Miles and me? She wouldn’t even be there. It would just be me and Miles. I promise.”

“That’s probably for good reason.” People usually had plenty of good reasons for not calling; for never sending something as simple as a text message. Kaiden kept in touch with Miles and his father, but even then he didn’t make it all that known that he did in the first place. While half of his family often made a normal day in his life feel the most difficult, it remained that the others offered some sense of calm and comfort that he’d needed time and time again. It wouldn’t matter how upset Diana seemed to become over it, or how sorry she might have been for any rude comment, it certainly didn’t change anything. “Not calling.. not reaching out..-- I never did any of that for a reason, D.” He could barely handle every day life without being thrown into the chaos of losing one of their own, adding to that their distraught mother sounded like a terrible idea. “Didn’t feel any harder to me.” Her attempt at a joke was completely lost on him, her laugh met with little else other than a deadpanned expression on his part. “Just us?” Did he believe it? Not particularly, but it was one lesser evil that he could handle. “I don’t even want her knowing about it, okay?”

[kaidenhwthrne]

@amber-abernathy​

She hated yelling. Hated the cursing, the angry look in the other’s eyes, the way the fingers of her left hand never ceased in their trembling - a tick that hadn’t disappeared since the days of her father’s growls and her mother’s tears. Amber stood up alongside him as he moved, not entirely caring for the attention that wavered in their direction, but intent on making some sort of leeway with the Hawthorne. It’d been good once - before Alexis had turned up cold and dead and gone. “Could you open your eyes for just one second, Kaiden?” Amber retaliated, her arms waving, her blue eyes insistent. “Your pain is your own. You get to feel whatever the hell you want - but guess what?! You aren’t the only one that lost her. A lot of people are trying to deal with it too.” Taking a step closer, the blonde lowered her voice. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I was trying to belittle what you’re feeling, Kaid. I’m just - letting you know that you’re not alone. You don’t have to like me for it, or even acknowledge it but just… I want you to hear me.”

Was it almost completely ironic that she was asking someone who found it nearly impossible to see things from anything other than a logical -- or personal point of view to do just that? Amber had simply joined the long list of people who simply didn’t understand how he worked, and for a brief moment, he almost wished Maverick had been here with him. “It’s not my fucking job to hold yours or anyone else’s hand through grieving for my sister, Amber.” It sounded ridiculous, even to him. Despite however she might have claimed to want to help, Kaiden couldn’t help but pinpoint the selfishness in everything she said. She didn’t get it, none of them did. He’d always felt everything on a different level to most; either not at all, or too much; and while the loss of Alexis hadn’t hit him for a long time, it was beginning to sink beneath his skin and draw him into dark places that he fought too hard to fall to again. “Loud and clear, I’m not alone.” But he was -- he always had been; being on the spectrum had almost ensured that. “you made your point.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

“cute old friend”

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

“We’ve gone over this already, Kaiden. And yeah – blame me for not getting any fucking validation from you and you never telling her to leave us alone.” Maverick didn’t want to hash out the same conversation they’d managed to put behind them before, but when Kaiden had brought it up, the Callahan couldn’t stop himself. He also watched the paper fall to the ground as well, the action bringing him a little bit of satisfaction. He didn’t have to hold onto it for any longer. “Yep. Because that’s me. Us town bicycles stick together. Must be nice because he’s my tenth choice this week. I must be moving up on his fucking list.” Maverick was gutted at this point, the words that left his mouth had little heat behind them and a waver he couldn’t hide. They sounded far more pathetic than cutting, like he’d intended them to be. “Good thing I ended it when I did. You could’ve been stuck with a guy that screwed his life up.” He bent down, picking up the aviators he’d gotten Kaiden a few weeks prior. Maverick met his gaze, and even though he was dying to snap them in half, he set them down on the counter instead, moving to leave the apartment.

It was always going to be more complicated than that, unlike most, Kaiden wasn’t inclined to validate anyone’s feelings, not for any reason. Often hardwired quite the opposite, it was enough of a feat that he’d allowed Maverick so close in the first place; the only validation he could have offered without being pushed and unfortunately, without knowing that what Alexis was doing had bothered his ex, he wasn’t pushed to do anything. Was that his fault? Probably. The feeling of unease sat in his chest like a wildfire, his sister’s name along with his own put through the ringer simply because of his own affiliation with the man now occupying his living room; fault of his own, once again. “--- Now that’s sorted.” He said rather stoically, the momentary anger that had become almost explosive held within the palms of his hands as they curled to fists at his sides. Johannesburg, Milan, London, Nadi...the list went on in his head, quelling what he could before Maverick went to leave. “Good thing?” Had he been anyone else, he might have laughed out of bitterness, but all it did was leave a flush of red across the base of his throat as he struggled to hide the pain such a simple notion inflicted, “Yeah right, thanks so much for saving me from that.” From being with someone he loved -- someone that understood him, or better yet someone that made the effort in the first place.

[kaidenhwthrne]

dianahawthorne:

Diana knew that her mother was.. difficult to put it mildly. She was always pushing for more, for better- even if you’d already overextended yourself more than once. She doesn’t blame anyone for being on rocky terms with her. It was just different for her. Her entire existence hinged on her mother’s approval. She was supposed to be better than Alexis. And how was she supposed to compete with a dead girl, a martyr? She shook her head, sighing as Kaiden spoke. “I’m serious, Kaiden. She misses you, we all miss you.” She spoke for herself and her father. She swallowed down her biting comments about how she was the one who had to deal with their mother, how Kaiden and Miles had the luxury of not having to perform as the perfect Hawthorne every single day. She didn’t have a choice, despite others thinking otherwise. Instead she smiled at her brother, just like Anneliese always taught her to. “I get it, I really do. She’s difficult, Kaiden. I know that better than most, but she loves you. And she said she’d work around your schedule, so you being busy might not satisfy her.”

“What makes you think I’m not being completely serious too, Diana?” Her nickname had falllen short from him a long time ago, and for the most part, he’d barely say he’d seen her as something of a sister for just as long. Cruel perhaps, but unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to hold onto pieces of his life that inevitably made things more difficult for him; his mother and sister? Without doubt, though perhaps that wasn’t Diana’s fault. Exceptions could hardly be made. “You all know how to pick up a phone.” Given, he very rarely answered if the call came from family, it was still something. “You get it.” He nodded slowly, though it fell against a sharp edge and cut like a knife. There was a big difference between striving to be better, shaped by their mothers delight; perhaps failure was a hard facet for Diana to comprehend; but that was all Kaiden had ever been to their mother. Failure and something that needed to be fixed; not understood. Their mothers wants had warped and created habits neither healthy nor safe for someone like him and once he’d distanced himself enough to realize that, he’d hated her for it. “She can love me from afar, I don’t need to have dinner with her. Maybe she is willing to work around my schedule, but I’m not willing to schedule her in, see the problem here?”

[kaidenhwthrne]

@amber-abernathy

Her blue hues widened, the cup of coffee in her hands trembling amongst shaky fingers before managing to set it down on the tabletop between them, her eyes burning with unshed tears for only an instant because she knew all too well where his rage came from. It came from the dead girl who never disappeared from their heads, from their tongues, from the air of this place. Whom she’d loved and cared for and looked up to and tried to better for years at a time. A girl she’d kept dear to her heart and her broken brother left behind in the aftermath with wounds maybe no one would be able to heal. Amber cleared her throat, crossed one leg over the other again before opening her mouth to respond, keeping her voice low. “That’s not how this works, Kaiden. You don’t get to slither down into a dark hole and let us watch. You know how much I cared for her, alright? There’s nothing any of us can do right now except pick up the pieces and try to hold it together. Not ring each other’s necks for trying to help.”

Before she even finished speaking, he’d fished his keys and phone from the bartop and shoved them into the depths of his back pocket, two feet lifting him from his seat. “Do you think I care how much you cared for her? I’m not an idiot, all you ever wanted to do was change Alexis.” Given, a lot of people had, Kaiden had never bothered. Despite the rocky relationship he’d had with her; his sister had her moments with him and he held onto those even now. “What pieces? What fucking pieces are we supposed to pick up? We haven’t even buried her yet, so don’t sit there and tell me I can’t do this, because it’s none of your damn business what the I do. She was my baby sister, Amber. Not my friend or my neighbor...- my fucking sister, so fuck you for trying to belittle my pain just to compare it to yours.” The harsh sound of his chair sliding back across the floor stilled those closest to them, “I didn’t ask for your help.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

@dianahawthorne

Diana knew that she was a difficult person to love, even by her family’s standards. She was the second best, the do over- her entire purpose was to be what Alexis couldn’t be. But she always felt inadequate- like she wasn’t enough to outshine the shadow that her eldest sister cast. She was never enough, so she always acted like she was perfect. She always felt like she was the worst so she always acted like she was the best. That made her relationship with her siblings, particularly Kaiden difficult, to say the least. He was always a frustration to their mother, and she made a point to be her mother’s golden child. But she loved her brother, he was her blood. Which is why his sigh cut her like a knife. “Everything’s fine. And I was looking for you, actually. Mom wanted to have a family dinner this week and was hoping that would come. I was in the neighborhood and thought I would ask you myself.”

Even now, Annaliese still had her heart set on fixing Kaiden. As if he’d been broken from birth, as if his inability to act or simply be like everyone else was something that she could iron out with a firm adjustment. Watching as the years passed and Diana was pushed into the limelight of their mothers approval; something he’d yet to find, he wasn’t certain how he was meant to find anything but resentment in his chest for her. “You’re kidding, right?” Kaiden had only been back to the family home a small few times since coming back to town. He’d figured out a way around certain habits that his mother instilled in him; all those that didn’t help, and risking those by giving her more time to pick at him wasn’t his idea of a good night. “No.” Straight forward and to the point, he didn’t make excuses. “Tell her I’m busy.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

@maverickxcallahan

Maverick could feel a small flare of defiance, before it fizzled out back into shame. “You don’t know what it’s like to have no one choose you. So before you say I screwed my life up, think about how you didn’t fucking choose us over your fucking sister’s lie. Or yeah, I fucking slept with a married man, but he said he’d choose me too. Everyone is a fucking liar, and I don’t have to explain myself to you – another person who let me down.” His heartbreak made him bitter, and he stepped away from the Hawthorne, moving back towards the door, “I am going to keep screwing him because I fucking want to. And you know what? Even if I did know something, why the hell would I tell you? Sei un bastardo egoista,” he snapped, crumbling up the sheet of paper he had in his hands and throwing it at Kaiden’s chest. It was petty, but it made him feel better.

It was only then that Kaiden noted that they’d seen their own relationship completely differently in the end, the very idea that he hadn’t chosen Maverick over and over seemed completely absurd to him, and the look on his face made that clear. “Really? I don’t know what that’s like?” He scoffed harshly. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one that left, You’re the one that let a lie get to you in the first place, You believed her. You’re the one that let her drive a wedge between us. So really, how often did you choose me too? Every single time I refused to listen to anything she said, that was me choosing you, and before I even knew what the fuck was going on you decided that wasn’t enough.” The fact that it had bothered Mav more than he’d ever let on could hardly be his fault too, could it? He couldn’t fix what he didn’t know was breaking. He’d loved Maverick enough to stay in the first place, even now, but perhaps that hadn’t been what he’d needed. Air, he needed air, and the more Maverick spoke,  the hotter the prickle at the back of his neck became. The crumpled paper hit him in the chest, Kaiden watched it fall to the ground, “Yeah, you and half the fucking town. What’re you, his eighth choice this week?” It hurt more than it should; the hypothetical his ex threw at him enough to break through resolve as it flashed brightly on features that broke with it as he swallowed thickly. “You should go.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

Maverick shriveled underneath Kaiden’s gaze, feeling his resolve fade away as quickly as his dignity had that morning when the article had posted. He had nothing to fight for at this point, having already gotten rid of David as well. If he didn’t have a career to save, he’d go drown himself in alcohol before lunchtime hit. “Fine. You win, Kaiden. You fucking win. I hope it just makes you so damn happy that you get to….I don’t know, do this.” Maverick was losing most of what he wanted to articulate, unable to be as quick witted as he’d hoped to be. He could’ve gone after the fact that the ups and downs in their relationships weren’t always the Callahan’s fault. Mav had done enough to try and keep together the odds and ends of Kaiden’s personality, and for once, he just wanted the other to see that. Instead, he stayed silent. “Maybe you’re right. But so far, I’m not the one being looked at. Family and exes are – so fuck you.”

Even now, he knew that in an hours time, everything he said would be a regret, but venom tasted better than regret and feeling like this twisted his insides for reasons beyond his own current comprehension. “Are you kidding me? You don’t get to be bitter, Mav. Your life was already screwed up before this. You made the choice to screw your own shit up, I didn’t do anything and I’m still making headlines because of you. Alexis is.--” Dead and they were still dragging her through the mud, as if being murdered hadn’t been terrible enough in the first place. Attention had always been his least capable thing of dealing with, the mere idea that his own lawyers planned to take the media outlet for all it could without the added pressure of personal aspects of his life taking a hit too. Nothing had ever been easy between them, Maverick had his own moments of vulnerability that Kaiden hadn’t been able to deal with and he knew it’d been no different from the other side, but they’d both cared enough to try, that should have meant something, right? The familiar prickle at the back of his neck and the heat that he felt spread across his chest forced anger from his lungs in a hefty sigh. Now was not the time to lose it. “You don’t think they will? Fuck whoever you want, screw the whole town for all I care..-- They find out what happened with us and they’ll stop looking at everyone else.” It was already damning enough, “Mav, if you know anything.. if..-- please tell me if you know something.” As if he hadn’t processed it before, he turned to level hues with the other, the deft reminder of what all of this was about enough to make him curse his sister and miss her all in the same breathe

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

Maybe he’d dropped by too soon, but he knew better than to run out the door again. He’d done that to Kaiden once, but for right now, he’d take it. ”Kaiden–” He met the other’s gaze, shrinking beneath what left the other’s mouth. “I already – I said I was sorry they mentioned you, but I didn’t write the fucking paper,” he repeated, ready to beg Kaiden to stop talking. Mav chose to ignore the rest of it, though the last question stung, like he knew it was supposed to. The Callahan looked everywhere but at Kaiden, clearing his throat as he held back the meltdown he wanted to have, “You can’t make me hate myself more than I already do,” he finally got out, though his words didn’t come out as strong as he’d hoped. He wasn’t capable of that kind of violence, but he humored the other anyway, “How could I? She was a lying, selfish bitch. But not even I would want her dead.”

He wouldn’t apologize, not now. He simply wouldn’t mean it in passing moments, all he meant was his anger, the frustration that had built up coming to a head simply because Maverick had brought it to him. Showing up has simply been the final hand the damning universe had for him before he snapped. Whether he wrote it or not, as far as Kaiden was concerned, the blame still lay on his shoulders. “Like it matters, Mav. You handed them what they wanted on a fucking platter.” Perhaps it was unbecoming to mesh the current problem with one they’d already seemingly moved past, though the more he thought about it, the more Kaiden could see that he clearly wasn’t beyond saying things he knew would hurt. Pinching at the bridge of his nose, he inhaled deeply in some hope it’d slow the emotion that welled in his chest. He didn’t want Mav to hate himself, to blame himself, but he would -- and until Kaiden could think straight, he would too. “I can damn well fucking try.” His sister was dead, the rest of his family all but out of their mind, and his ex openly screwing one of their only leads in her case. Turning away, he pressed the palms of his hands against the counter and dropped his head down beneath his shoulders, fingers gripping for some kind of stability. “Nobody is going to believe that.” And this wasn’t going to stop here.

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

Maverick opened his mouth to argue, but it snapped shut the minute Kaiden went off. Every word hurt, but what was he supposed to do? “I didn’t think they’d involve you,” he admitted, though he swallowed back the rest of his argument. Maybe he could’ve thought things through, but sleeping around had never been an issue before. “That’s not…” He cared more than he should most of the time, and Kaiden’s words rang true in his head, “Yeah, it did. And I’m not sorry that it happened. I’m allowed to…I can sleep with whoever I want. The media doesn’t deserve a fucking say and neither do you.”

“You know better than to think they’d have left me out of this.” One of two men suspected for his little sisters murder, add that to Mav’s history might have made it almost obvious, but none of them had thought of it, and now his reputation -- what was left of his sisters and his were torn apart just as surely as the Callahans. It made him feel physically sick, his breath shallowing out, better he’d been left along to stew than speak to Mav so soon. “Of course you’re not, why would you be sorry? You left me, remember?” He wasn’t left to question everything in the way Kaiden had been. “Then why are you here? I’m sure your murder pal is a hell of a lot more accepting of how much you ruin his chances of getting out of this than I am.” When the fire burnt out, he’d regret it all, just like he always did but for now it burnt brightly, “----- Did you have something to do with it too?”

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

“You’re mad at me,” Maverick knew he didn’t write the article, but it felt like he basically had at this point. He was used to feeling guilt for most things, but he was allowed to kiss people, right? “What can I do, Kaiden? I’m allowed to have fun at things like this and he’s not – he didn’t kill your sister, they’re lying. I didn’t go out for this to happen.” While he knew Alexis was a lying whore, he wasn’t going to voice that. 

“Of course I’m mad.” He snapped harshly. Logic and what he already knew to be the truth might as well never have existed while all he could think about were the lies spun like webs in the article. “Did you think I wouldn’t be mad? You’re my..-- and David is.. You just don’t think do you? Everything just slips right through you and all that matters is what you want, right?” It wasn’t fair, and he knew that as soon as the words slipped past his lips. It wasn’t Maverick’s job to tiptoe around what he could and couldn’t do; he had every right to kiss or sleep with whoever he wanted, it might have hurt to accept, but he did. “But it did happen.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

milocxllum:

“I am Mr Solo. I wrote the song, didn’t I? I just think it’d be fun to have you guys do it with me.” Milo pushed his hands into his pockets, looking at the sheet as well, “I’m pretty sure I wrote it after a bottle of tequila. Not bad, right? I should do LSD like the Beatles did,” he smiled, moving to sit down instead, “If you have changes, write them on there. We can practice it out. Saw your set on Saturday, too. Not bad.”

“Figured even that would cross some kind of line.” Kaiden joked, already knowing more than enough about Milo’s split from his previous collaborates. Mindlessly, he continued on over the sheet music, his finger already tapping out some semblance of a beat out against the edge of the table. “Maybe lay off the LSD, the tequila works well enough without you trippin’ balls. I don’t think we’ll have to change much, enough that the boys can work with it, I’ll see what they think. Thanks, uh..-- I didn’t catch yours but I’ve heard good things.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

amber-abernathy:

starter for @kaidenhwthrne

“Listen - I’ll march all the way up there and buy you the best cup of coffee this city has to offer and maybe I’ll even throw in a blueberry muffin- ” She paused, her blue hues wide, her hands spread for dramatic effect at the man sitting across from her, her lips trying really hard not to turn up into a smirk. “But I need a laugh. A genuine, from the belly - laugh. I’m worried you’re turning into Scrooge and it’s nowhere near Christmas time.”

“I’ve already had two cups, and I don’t like blueberries.” He said, his voice strained against Amber’s incessant desire to garner something from him that he didn’t have the capacity for. His sister was dead -- murdered, his name and reputation entwined with hers ripped apart by the media in the aftermath of the festival as if either of them had a damn thing to do with who Maverick chose to screw. The pieces he knew to be false, and what the media had painted colliding like a fucking train wreck he couldn’t pick apart anymore. “Could you just give it a fucking rest, Amber?”

[kaidenhwthrne]

dianahawthorne:

@kaidenhwthrne

Diana and Kaiden’s relationship had always been.. strained, to say the least. She was always trying appeal to their mother, always looking for something to make her happy and proud and make herself feel worthy- make herself feel like she wasn’t just the second chance at a decent daughter. And Anneliese was always frustrated with Kaiden, making the relationship between the eldest Hawthorne and the golden child rather difficult. Nevertheless, Diana loved her brother and she would be damned if she didn’t at least try to have a relationship with him in their adult years. She knocked on his door, hoping that her little surprise visit wouldn’t be too shocking for him. She might have had a bit of an ulterior motive. “Hey!” She greeted when the door opened. She felt guilty about her reason for coming here, to get him to come to a family dinner, but she figured it would be harder for him to say no to her face. But, then again, maybe she didn’t know him so well at all. 

The knock at the door had been more than enough to tear Kaiden away from the bright screen of his laptop, the words etched in black and white, photographs of his former flame -- even his sister painted across the screen as if they belonged there together. Whatever relief he was given, from slander and lies however, left him just as surely as he found himself looking down at his little sister. Nostrils flared as he ducked his head to let out the near inevitable sigh that left him. Kaiden understood that now would be a time where his family would band together; losing their sister in such a brutal way --- but he wasn’t all that comfortable with his space being invaded by any of them at this point in time. “Hey, Diana.” Like strangers, he met her with as much love as he ever had, “Everything okay? I haven’t seen Miles, if that’s what you’re here for.”

[kaidenhwthrne]

[kaidenhwthrne]

maverickxcallahan:

“Hi...” Maverick started lamely, looking at Kaiden for a few moments. He studied the Hawthorne’s features, trying to read his emotions. He’d been good at that once before, but now he felt like a stranger. Instead of waiting to be let in, Maverick slipped between the door and Kaiden, making his way into the living room. “I don’t know I just uhm…I’m sorry they dragged you into this. It doesn’t….David and I aren’t even dating.”

Logic didn’t always paint the easiest of pictures to decipher, it was point blank and bold but always surrounded by things he knew, but couldn’t see through, like a haze. He knew, no matter what was said that Maverick might have been the least likely person involved, but looking past what was right in front of his face at this point in time was next to impossible for him. “You’re sorry?” He let out a laugh, barely there and bitter, crossing arms across his broad chest. They’d ripped him and his sister apart in an article that hadn’t even been about them. “Doesn’t look like it matters what’s going on, does it?”