ofxcxdemics

[ofxcxdemics]

THE TRUTH OF DAISEY RUTHERFORD.

trigger warnings: mentions of death, murder, blood, assault.

it was the night of the bonfire; the crackle of a fire, the snapping of twigs underfoot, the crunch of leaves, the whisper of fall breezing through the trees, the moonlight pouring in through askew branches.

the lingering breath of a killer.

he regretted it. his hubris had made the academic insatiable, standing by an illicit bonfire on the edges of the st etienne campus. he had no desire to socialise with his fellow classmates, nor entertain the idea that he was ‘one of them’. in light of the scandal that had rocked his life, he had been a recluse. his superiors no longer talked to him, his peers combed over his frail physique with questions. underclassmen laughed when he walked by. although the transformative blog that once belonged to daisey was a well kept secret between the twenty nine other students chained to a fate as caustic as his own, it didn’t stop the blaze of gossip to burn rampantly through private circles and consume attention throughout the school.

texts. emails. word of mouth. even the fucking school therapist approached nate not two days later, their sanguine vocals tinged with sympathy as they drawled, ‘do you need someone to talk to ?’ no, he did not. he wanted to be left in his self appointed isolation, hidden from the world until the torment of his truth had long since ceased. however, it was like... his pain was necessary. his humiliation a means to an end. it had to happen. 

that friday night however, the corrosive feelings of pity had malformed into something far more insidious  — a rage was building inside of him. even as a child, the foundations were set to his inherent anger. every time his parents dismissed him and praised his brother, every time he spoke of joy in academic pursuits that only went on to be ignored, every time his character was made out to be something it wasn’t. brick upon brick upon brick. the wall of his rages now resembled a jenga tower, and that night at the art gallery was enough to send the entire wall crumbling down into a pile of debris.

nathaniel had no interest in attending the bonfire, at least, not for puritan reasons. he did not want to revel in the jollies of his fellow youth, nor acclimiatise to the life he could have had, if things… were different. if his childhood hadn’t been marred by something supernatural that tainted his ability to form connections with those around him. that made him unable to pursue anything other than the truth, and to do things... that no other people understood. no, nate had found himself on the outskirts of the bonfire, the woods surrounding him as the flicker of flames licked at the sky. he heard laughter, shouting. the occasional clang of a bottle against wood for those too inebriated to keep their drinks in their hands. concealed in a curtain of darkness, his eyes traced over the people before him. in particular, the infamous thirty: of which one was a killer, a sentiment that only made nathaniel think of daisey, of the fights they’d had, the truths she’d stolen, and the fate she met. 

and the guilt that would forever swirl in his stomach from what he did, and what... he has to do. 

—

“trust me, nathaniel. playing people is what i do best.”

i stared at her. she sat on the sofa as though anything that wasn’t a throne caused her tremendous discomfort. her legs were crossed, her eyes steely, her eyebrows knotted. her lips full. the look of disinterest was shared in my own, and we stared at each other for an unnatural progression of time. 

“his misery has no applicable utility to my everyday life that vigorous study and academic pursuits could not achieve. your proposal is inane.”

we were as still as marble, or as though we’d been ripped from a painting and left to dry. the infallible daisey rutherford had just become engaged to my brother, through familial connections. neither the future bride nor groom were happy about the arrangement, but money had a way of guaranteeing silence on the matter. upon one of her visits to the ballantyne manor, she sought me out; trouble in her eyes. 

“maybe it’s not about what is useful,” she purred, her lips slowly twisting as she uncurled from her spot on the love seat, strutting over to me. she closed the space that once permeated the room. “maybe it’s about what you want.” her hands on my chest, her head cocked proactively to the side, her tongue tracing her lips - i stared at her in morbid fascination. i swiped her hand away before rising to my feet, towering over her. 

“i have no use for your ulterior motives. your touch will not promise a transaction, nor will an expression elicit the response you are trying to coach from me. be forthcoming with your true intent, and i will hear you. if your desire is to play games, then tear to shreds the manual you’ve used before me. you cannot anticipate my next move.”

the smile on daisey’s face was something i’d never forget. a spark of recognition, awash with something akin to... pride. comfort. taking a cautious step back, she presented her hand in an offering of solidarity. “marrying your brother is my own personal hell, and i want him to pay for it. i need your assistance in making sure that happens.”

despite my better judgement, the clause in my own personal contract that prevented anyone else from joining ranks in my life... i took her hand. and we shook on it. 

that was the day i let daisey rutherford into my life. 

—

the plan was simple. daisey had planned to use me as a weapon to carve out my brother’s heart. the brother who has been used to getting everything he ever desired, being the best compared to his strange and odd brother. in front of him and him alone, she endeavoured to make my brother jealous. daisey was free to have any dalliance she liked, for if anyone were to speak out about it, no one could possibly conceive the estranged match that she and i were. this meant that my brother was sentenced to watching what he assumed was a flourishing relationship as it slowly chipped away at his self worth. 

it had been months now. the charade was no closer to ending.

after one of the many parties the rutherfords’ hosted, i had found myself lingering in a drawing room towards the rear of the house, away from the calamity of the event. daisey got what she wanted, the pained look in my brother’s eyes as we were to pretend not to latch onto each other’s hands as though he couldn’t see. the mask i had been forced to wear had become suffocating, and began to itch. a dissonance struck me whenever i met with daisey. what she and i wanted no longer aligned, and the purpose of our act seemed fruitless. 

it wasn’t long until daisey sought me out. there were only so many places i was known to hide in, and the look on her face suggested that this was the first place she had ventured to. closing the door behind her as she entered the drawing room, clad in a dress made only from the most expensive of fabric, she raised an eyebrow at me. 

“you look miserable.”

“incorrect. this is my natural predisposition.” i deadpanned.

daisey paused for a moment, a sliver of discomfort painting her features. 

“ your natural disposition is your nose upturned, your lips thin. right now, you’re acting like someone you care about fucking died.”

nothing more was said, as the silence simmered around us. turning around, i walked to the window and turned my back to her. as inaccessible as my inner thoughts were, it was true that i had grown tiresome of the predicament we faced. i no longer wanted to be attached to a fictional daisey as i played a fictional nathaniel. but she was a leech; sucking out your blood and extracting your inner most secrets like she had a right to them. she was impossible to quit.

gnawing on her bottom lip, daisey sauntered over to where i stood by a windowsill, resting her head to the highest point she could reach of my arm, wrapping her arms around them. the act was... domestic in nature. i turned to her in confusion.

“but… there’s no crowd. no benefit. no purpose. who are we trying to fool?”

if there was one thing you had to know about daisey rutherford, it was that she took what she wanted. she didn’t know the word no. she got everything she could ever dream of, simply by aligning her attentions to attaining it at any possible cost. to this day, i still do not know if her succeeding actions were motivated from desire... or utility.

“ourselves,” she whispered, turning my head to face hers.

she closed the gap between us, and she pressed her lips against mine.

i didn’t stop her. i don’ think i ever had a choice.

—

“stay. don’t leave me,” daisey whined, her lips pursed as she sat on the corner of my bed.

i stared at myself in my full body mirror, slowly buttoning up a white shirt. my expression was stoic as always, painted almost as pale as the fabric that covered my body. “i promised oz we’d go, dais. categorically speaking, you enjoy all social events.”

daisey rolled her eyes at me, before slipping out of bed in her everyday attire, which always somehow managed to eclipse the best formal wear of others she was in acquaintance with. her lipstick however, was smudged. 

“i enjoy you. i tolerate social events. they’re useful  to me.”

i paused. it was not... in the plan for daisey to not attend the homecoming party that night. with the 2019/20 st etienne year beginning, nate could agree that the last place he’d desire to be is an event in which intoxication and duly conversation was its’ goal. but despite his reticence, they had to go. they... they had to go. 

“your peers will find your absence suspicious.” i commented gingerly, knotting my tie around my neck. my breath hitched for a moment. daisey evaporated by my side as her face rested on my shoulder. she put herself on her toes, and she did not look impressed.

“why do you want me to go so bad, nathaniel ?”

i didn’t know how to answer that. and so i didn’t, and instead, stared at her blankly. 

“ugh.” with her signature groan, daisey tossed her hair out of her face before heading to my closet, where a generous stash of her clothing had been deposited over time. 

the feeling sank in my stomach as i watched her go. i couldn’t look anywhere else. i knew that this was a sight to be savoured. 

—

holding onto the bark, jutting into his skin until it drew blood, nathaniel stared at the students, completely oblivious to his looming on the edge of the woods. his mind swirled with thoughts of his secret, out there, floating on the tips of the fire. his mind was affixed to the fact that one of the students in that very woods knew what happened to daisey. his daisey. his mind was also caught on the blog, a killer, a mural, the never ending threats. the role they were all made to play. 

after everything that had happened, nate wasn’t the same person that he once was. and no amount of therapy, of people in his life, or even academic pursuit could change that. 

vengeance in his blood, the brunette stepped away from the trees. he fell into the shadows of the night, as the naive innocence of his fellow students chimed around him. they were happy. they didn’t know. they didn’t know what he did. and as nate slowly fell into the night and the landscape of trees, one thing was true: 

that was the last anyone would see this nathaniel ballantyne. 

[ofxcxdemics]

the night was clear and the stars were out; that was the only thing that nathaniel ballantyne claimed to care about in that moment. in the wake of his secret being exposed to the student body, ridicule filling his every fibre, the already suspicious academic had become twice as paranoid about his surroundings. what sleep he attained in trying to forget about the threats been administered to him and twenty nine others soon became his vision flashing with questions and hypotheses. he wanted to find the person who did this to him. and more quietly, he also wanted to find out who did this to daisey. and with every waking moment, he couldn’t help but feel the perpetual chill of knowing that a killer walked among them. 

disconnected from anything resembling a social scene, the brunette had planned to spend another night in isolation. he had left his phone in his room and the few people that would endevour to text him would go unanswered, and nathaniel made sure to only move when he knew his roommate and best friend wasn’t home, as he couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye at this point in time. he didn’t know of course the plans of a prosperous and illicit bonfire under the noses of the security detail, nor the anticipation that had built up on campus of those intending to go. the brisk chill of an october evening seemed all that nathaniel had yearned for, so as he wandered out at 7:30pm ( before the night’s curfew is to be implemented ), he couldn’t help but find he wasn’t alone in wanting to be away from their living arrangements. 

nate watched tediously as more students giggled and guffawed about tonight’s festivities. nate did not want to be caught in the woods when he knew nearly every other insufferable student he was avoiding was going to be there. he also didn’t want to sacrifice his own wants for the sake of his peers. he decided to walk the long way around campus, avoiding those he could by travelling meandering and winding paths before eventually finding himself in close proximity to the rutherford library. just before nate could slip away through a side exit of the building, he made eye contact with another student who descended the front steps. he felt akin to a rat who’d just been caught in a trap, as he stared at them incredulously for a moment. “if you have any questions about your ridiculous bonfire, i am not the person to ask. clearly.” his recent exposing clear on his mind, it was a rare moment where nate was more placid than aggressive. he swallowed hard. “let’s hope your tenure in the library provided the scholarly thought you desired.”

[ofxcxdemics]

🦄

🦄- how do you perceive yourself?

“through a mirror. on odd occasions i will catch a glimpse of myself on a computer screen, or a window i pass by.”

(ooc: big OOF. nate seems quite arrogant for the most part that is true - he does recognise his intelligence and believes it to be his best asset (which it undoubtedly is). however, he has no self worth outside of that - thanks to the less than stellar home life he had growing up. he only perceives himself as a brain, with no other wants or needs that need satisfying at any point in his life. he feels as though that if he’s not achieving academically, his purpose on earth is unfulfilled, and his existence is merely pointless. he may be unkind to others, but he’s just as unkind on himself. never to the aliens, though.)

[ofxcxdemics]

# 👀

what your muse’s name is in mine’s phone

Sherlock (Nathaniel Ballantyne, Roommate, Emergency Contact)

what your muse’s picture is in mine’s phone

 //I like to think that this was taken the same day Oz took the picture of Libby at the pumpkin patch.

or

//I couldn’t decide.

what your muse’s ringtone is in mine’s phone

x

my muse’s last text to your muse

[text >> Sherlock (Nathaniel Ballantyne, Roommate, Emergency Contact)]: What do you need from the supermarket? I see you’ve written Uranium but I don’t think they carry that.

[text >> Sherlock (Nathaniel Ballantyne, Roommate, Emergency Contact)]: [image of silicone astronaut egg mold]

[text >> Sherlock (Nathaniel Ballantyne, Roommate, Emergency Contact)]: There’s a sale on hand sanitizer. Are we low?

[ofxcxdemics]

💗🦋🌧️

💗- who do you miss?

“stephen hawking.”

daisey rutherford.

🦋- how do you think others perceive you?

“with a narrowed scope of what matters day-to-day. in any regard, other’s perceptions have not and will never bother me. they are free to villainise and judge at their leisure.”

the narrator: he does not want to be judged at other’s leisure lmfaooo

🌧️- favorite thing to do on rainy days?

( answered ! )

[ofxcxdemics]

☕🎶💍

☕- coffee or tea?

“coffee. black. no sugar. no milk. no other spices or additives. wait, you didn’t ask for… i’ve said too much.”

🎶- favorite song right now?

“anything by igor stravinsky.”

old town road… IM KIDDING DKJFGDF. no, i can’t even make a Meme here he doesn’t listen to anything post 1940 lmfao.

💍- your current relationship status?

“completely private and irrevocable.” 

sad trombone

[ofxcxdemics]

🍂🍼🍭🎄🍦

🍂- what’s your middle name?

“confidential.”

it’s lawrence dkjf

🍼- what is your favorite memory?

“anything above 64 gigs is appropriate.”

(ooc: who’s ready to board the sPiCe train ?? ? nate, admittedly, doesn’t have many favourite memories. however, there are two in deep contention. the first, when he was a child. the first time he discovered the stars one night he was sent outside for ‘talking back’ to his parents. it was an exceptionally clear night, and in that moment there was a sinking in his chest where he knew he absolutely had to know everything he could. even though he was only a young child at the time, he felt like he found a sense of purpose. and as we all know, that’s what he has been doing since. and the second memory ? well. save for oz, the unofficial love of nate’s life, there aren’t many people who have gotten to know him or understand him [albeit some of that is by nate’s design]. but when his brother [aka the figurehead, aka someone please apply for him pleASE ILL PAY YOU] brought home daisey, his fiance, something in nate clicked. althoguh the two were polar opposites, and could be seen as academic rivals - both with competing intelligence - hearing daisey talk and just studying her mannerisms over a certain amount of time was somewhat comforting. here was someone, who in essence was a lot like him. his favourite moment however was one before she was taken, and the pair openly talked about the figurehead and how dkjgf incompatible they are. there was the start of something there, between daisey and nate. and in that moment he felt more valid, more accepted than he had his entire life. but as fate would have it, daisey was taken away before he knew if their interactions really were laced with a budding friendship… or his mind had fooled him again.)

🍭- how tall are you?

( answered ! )

🎄- what is your favorite holiday?

“columbus day.”

🍦- what scented candle is your favorite?

“the purpose of candles are to provide light. added scents are illogical, and a waste of resources.”

sandalwood. 

[ofxcxdemics]

💕🌈

💕- are you crushing on someone?

“no, but i would crush someone were the need to arise.”

ants and other bugs, beware.

🌈- things I find attractive in girls/guys

“i… do not know how to answer this question. in addition, it makes me immensely uncomfortable. ask your inane questions elsewhere.”

( ooc: nate is demisexual (although he doesn’t realise it), so attraction isn’t something he is really aware of. however, he loves people that are intelligent (obviously), but they don’t have to be as smart as him. they need to hunger for knowledge beyond what they know. they also do better with someone who is a little more independent and not clingy, and dkgfjdf obviously understanding that he isn’t affectionate like most people. but most importantly, and the thing he’ll never say - he wants someone to support him. not to boost his ego or compliment him or anything, but to stand by his side and have full faith in him - something he has never had before. as far as physical attributes go, again, nate is so clueless in romance he truly has no idea. perhaps the only thing would be that they too are not a morning person, otherwise they’d never hang out lmao. )

[ofxcxdemics]

✨🌧️🕊️⛅💘

✨- which fictional character (book, show, or movie) do you relate to most?

( answered ! )

🌧️- favorite thing to do on rainy days?

( answered ! )

🕊️- 3 habits you have?

i often count numbers in my head when i’m idle, or feeling stressed in any capacity. i start and stop as i please, but continue cumulatively. i am currently on 93,502.

i have to eat everything with a knife and fork, regardless of what it is ( save for soups and other liquid based meals ).

my wardrobe, albeit small in content, has to be ordered by spectral colour. 

⛅- what is your morning routine?

“i do not have a morning routine, i usually awaken in the afternoon most days, in lieu of morning plans that inhibit me from doing so.”

vampire… confirmed??

💘- 3 ways to win your heart?

( answered ! )

[ofxcxdemics]

🌧️,🍭,💒

🌧️- favorite thing to do on rainy days?

“the same thing i do on sunny days; read and study.”

🍭- how tall are you?

“there is absolutely no empirical application of this knowledge that i consent to.”

6″2, he’s a long boi 

💒- which show would you want to live in?

“none, fiction is a waste of time.”

star wars dkjgfdkfjgdf

[ofxcxdemics]

🐰✨💘

🐰- do you believe in soul mates?

“only someone foolish could believe that fate beyond economical and financial restraints could inform how your future is destined to be. absolutely not.”

he did, a long time.

✨- which fictional character (book, show, or movie) do you relate to most?

“there are a plethora of great and admirable minds here in our reality, it is nothing but childish to seek comfort in those who don’t exist. our world is impressive enough. 

sherlock holmes is a guilty pleasure one probably lmao

💘- 3 ways to win your heart?

“firstly, be intelligent. thankfully, no one here at st etienne comes close to crossing that threshold. secondly, hold independence in the highest of reverence; i don’t desire to spend any amount of time with more than a handful of people. and thirdly, most importantly, the easiest way to win my heart is to be the one that kills me, and pry it from my chest. in that cause, the prize is yours for the taking.”

[ofxcxdemics]

🔪

🔪- scariest/creepiest experience?

“use what few brain-cells you have and figure it out.”

[ofxcxdemics]

# (i, lilac, am curious lmfao)

what your muse’s name is in mine’s phone

nathanie b. jones

what your muse’s picture is in mine’s phone

what your muse’s ringtone is in mine’s phone

( x )

my muse’s last text to your muse

( 2:49 pm ) okay, no problem! 👍🏻( 2:50 pm ) oh. wait, i forgot you have a flip phone that’s just a nonsensical box to you, lol. ( 2:50 pm ) it’s a thumbs up. you definitely don’t care but yeah. big mystery reveal! ( 2:51 pm ) giving arthur conan doyle a run of his money in the digital age.

[ofxcxdemics]

Langston Oscar Lamar, Jr. Moodboard 004 - Apartment Sweet Robo Apartment ( @ofxcxdemics)

I’m your person. I’m on your side.

(Note: It is highly unlikely “sad puppy eyes” will work on Nate. Regardless, Oz still tries)

[ofxcxdemics]

for eleven long years, nathaniel was able to hide the truth. it wasn’t easy at times. sometimes voices spoke to him when no one was listening. sometimes he could see things that weren’t there. sometimes, he’d feel his heart begin to palpitate as he remembered. he remembered that night when he disappeared at the age of thirteen, a whole weekend of his life - gone. the question of whether his memories of said weekend were.... true. the reticent, the stoic, the closed off man now had his entire history laid out bare to all of st etienne. nathaniel was forcing himself to swallow the pill of anxiety swirling in his mouth. no one cares enough about him, nathaniel thought. it doesn’t matter. but only, it did. work colleagues would laugh him out of the lab. future employers, whenever a background check come up - no doubt the sadistic killer would ensure a trace of his past would catch up with him. entwine with him, forever entrenched in every step nathaniel took forevermore. people wondered sometimes why nate, with his capacity and intelligence, landed upon astrophysics. well, now they knew. 

nathaniel had been attending the opening of the art gallery for his best friend, who’d insisted their presence was ‘mandatory’. nate had absolutely no interest in art beyond classical musical, and perhaps brush strokes from the renaissance. he had no interest in the modernism placed before him that very night. but before he could spend even a moment devouring each piece in cynicism, the deafening wave of beeps sounded throughout the exhibition hall. it was lucky that nathaniel was a speed reader - he was able to make his escape before any eyes were able to connect with his. 

the blistering autumn was nothing to the storm that was tearing nathaniel’s insides asunder. sneaking out an emergency exit to a dark alleyway, the academic (perhaps... former academic) began to pace fervently, his hands knotted in the short wisps of his hair. his breath was heavy, and he found himself crouching and holding his head - preventing the spinning any further. the rage burning up inside, despising the true coward sitting behind a computer screen. implying he could... he could ever kill daisey. it was too much. it was too much. in a fit of rage, nathaniel screamed as he grabbed a stray garbage can and threw it with all his might at the door, trash hailing down before him. kicking the can again for good measure, it was then he noticed that the door was open ajar, and that a set of eyes were peaking through. nathaniel couldn’t see them, but he stared right into the gap in the door - defeated. “sorry, the sideshow’s fucking over.” despite the way his chest heaved as he rapidly exhaled breath,  nathaniel shook ever so slightly as he looked down to the ground, pained. “if you excuse me, i must... i must go. go enjoy the pathetic excuse of an artshow instead.” the academic, known for not having emotions, was doing his best to hold back tears. but instead, he kicked the garbage can one more time - for good measure. 

[ofxcxdemics]

you hear a knock at your door late at night, at a time that only you were home ( your roommate suspiciously out for the evening. ) in your bedroom for an extended period of time, you eventually move to your kitchen when your eyes see something on the kitchen counter… a glass vase filled with blood, a bouquet of daises beam up at you. you notice a note attached to the flowers, typed via type-writer. the following message reads: “regretting it yet? if not yet… you soon will. xoxo, the killer.”

tw: blood, themes of murder & death.

there was once a boy. perhaps not a boy like you or me, but a boy nonetheless. a boy whose smile grew dormant with time. a boy who’s insatiable thirst to know of the beyond excluded him from the sanctuary known as the now. a boy that looked up to the stars in times of desperation. a boy that had a heart, pulsating in his chest any time that he felt the promise of brushing fingers dance across his skin. that’s all the boy had ever wanted - not the wealth ordained to him, the knowledge he squirreled away as though on the precipice of an academic hibernation. no, that’s all he wanted; a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

his heart faltered as that reminder came in form of a vase, its crimson sheen adorned with the most innocent of flowers - and a pooled essence of someone else’s life. 

nathaniel did not know where oz had found himself that night. the serendipitous unknown had been the integral hearth to the relationship the pair had fostered over the many years of their acquaintance, easily slipping together into one another’s lives without hovering precipitations of what could be considered the ‘norm’ in a friendship. predisposed to listening always to what the other had to say, the stoic man couldn’t help but be awash in a flood of malignant anxiety as his fingers grasped the end of the kitchen bend, his knuckles whitening as his eyes absorbed the horrific sight before him. 

he’d been home all evening. 

  all alone. 

    in solitude, in isolation. 

      not a peep, not a sound. 

        the killer of daisey rutherford had breathed the same oxygen as nathaniel.

          and he didn’t know. 

what was that day known as the gossip blog wasn’t always of the same domain, nor branded with as malignant an intent. the blog once belonged to the girl, to daisey rutherford. privy to its existence in html alone, nate had never bothered to see what the page had contained. in fact, the academic hadn’t even seen the first message the killer sent shortly after the party where daisey was last witnessed. he lived in ignorance, and for once, not a willing ignorance, as the very foundation of that which he held dear began to crumble all around him. his knowledge of the poll in which people were to vote was something he hadn’t even fathomed the existence of, and it wasn’t until inquiries from some people who knew him reacted to his name being referenced in the most recent post to the blog. oh, he spent the entire afternoon drowning himself in the dialogue presented in that blog. combing each syllable, messing with flimsy assets that even the genius that was nathaniel struggled to understand, in the hopes of finding the hamartia that would underpin the killer who taunted not only nathaniel, but twenty nine others. twenty eight, when you consider the killer had admitted to being one of the recipients of said communication. 

it didn’t feel real to nate. not the promise of death, nor the reaper with his name already inscribed in his touch. the academic couldn’t believe the audacity of a person to undermine nate’s intelligence, the only thing the man had ever had confidence in, and it had him rattled. shaken. nate couldn’t even bring himself to hold the note tied to one of the flowers for fear of amalgam with a killer’s touch. as his vision was drifting into a haze and his palms grew ever more coated in perspiration, nate struggled to intake breath as his eyes poured over the sight before him. it wasn’t even the threat that had him on the brink of collapsing to the floor, his body in a malaise state. no, it was the connotation. the meaning. the reality that he did not want to face. 

this wasn’t about fear. this was about daisey rutherford. 

to many, nathaniel maintained minimal contact. and although it was true, daisey was engaged to be wed with nate’s own brother. and as much as he despised his family, he couldn’t avoid the girl who sauntered around the manor with premonition of her future stake on the estate. and the truth was, daisey wasn’t like anyone else nathaniel had ever met. although insidious in her application, she was… intelligent. fiercely intelligent. a fire resided behind her eyes as she burned through any bridge that she did not want to travel on. the recognition that sparked in the caramel of her iris evoked a feeling in the academic that had never been placed before. despite being a villain to many, she gave nate so many things he’d never thought he had been without. but most importantly ? she saw his worth. she knew the price of the spindle that turned inside his head. and… she saw him. the boy that just wanted to not be so alone - he’d been seen. her spotlight had fallen onto him and then… her light. it had flickered out. flickered out. extinguished. gone. she was gone. 

“take me !!” the academic roared, his entire being vibrating with the white hot amalgam of fear and loathing aching in his every syllable. “you have started a game you can never win, so take me while you have the fucking chance.”

he stopped. and with all his might, nathaniel screamed as his arms latched onto that godamn vase, his shaking fingers twisting knots across the glass as he threw it to the other end of the room. 

the glass shattered as it was embraced what was once a plain white wall, a chandelier of glass temporarily lighting up the room as the prismatic shards of what was in essence an urn fell in tune with the erratic thrum of nathaniel’s heart. the blood smeared the walls and floor, the most primitive of paints spilling into scarlet apparitions, forever soaked into the walls. the ghost that would remain with him forever.

the academic struggled to breathe. his archaic phone buried underneath a pile of books in his bedroom, his entire constitution shaking within him as his feeble limbs tried to get their bearings his mind ordered of them. his mind hadn’t even contemplated thorough forensic testing, nor the cloth he would soon cradle in his hands as he endeavoured to clean the mess before his roommate got home. but… nate was afraid. not of the killer, not of the promise of death. no, nathaniel ballantyne feared the unknown. never getting an answer to his questions in knowing whether the boy would ever find what he’d spent his entire life looking for in the stars. 

or… if the very thing his soul screamed for was already gone.

[ofxcxdemics]

CLOSED STARTER: @jcnkrats

although nathaniel didn’t go out to drink coffee often, he found his home life suffocating to say the least. ever since.... daisey’s discovery, his entire family had almost been set alight with both the grief, and failed promise given to them by the rutherfords in a lasting passage of time. daisey was engaged to his brother, but now for obvious reasons the meticulous empire that his parents had intransigently tried to sculpt in every capacity possible was left to fall like a house of cards. as the academic sat there with his darkened brew, steam polluting the air before him as he brooded to himself in the corner of the coffee house, his entire body tensed as he watched a figure enter space. the man known as zayn stood as an obelisk of nathanie’s regrets, a constant reminder of a decision he’d made and duly wished he could take back. once he masted astrophysics he joked about wanting to conquer quantum physics... and their premise of their relationship was exactly why.

sitting along the walls of the coffee house with specific intent to watch his surroundings, nathaniel gently closed the cover of his book as he stared incredulously to the man waiting in line. he had no intention to make himself known to the other, and remain plain faced as he sipped on the scalding brew in his cup. the very heat began to leech onto his skin and nathaniel found himself almost throwing the cup back down into it’s saucer as the heat reverberated over him. the spillage was minimal, but the commotion was heard by a dutiful waitress who immediately dispensed a handful of napkins to him. “i understand this is your vocation but i can collect my own napkins. in any case, thank you,” nathaniel murmured to the worker quietly, his features scrunching up as he observed the slight mess before him. however, that is when his eyes arose and saw those of zayn had fallen onto him. his concealment was no longer.

although the coffee house certainly was at capacity and nathaniel had no desire to speak across a room, he gave the other a gingerly wave to at least make receipt of their acknowledgement. although the two weren’t traditional ‘friends’, there was an honesty to their relationship which was quietly terrifying to nathaniel. he enjoyed being an enigma - zayn was one of few to which he wasn’t one anymore. as nathaniel rose to his feet to head to a small station by the counter in which to pertain more napkins ( and n excuse to speak to the other ), nathaniel looked to zayn as he walked past. “should you need... accompaniment in downing your beverage, you know where i’m seated. however, there is no expectation.” with that, nathaniel moved silently back to his table and his nook of the coffee house, trying to silence the thoughts that trundled in his mind.