peytonvaldonna

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

mocha hues flutter opened to a hospital room. something the blonde had become all too familiar with recent history. it takes all but a moment for everything from the previous night to come flooding back. the stress, the panic, the anger. despite the iv in her arm providing fluids, there was a throbbing headache that was still very much present within. ugh, she feels so gross. stupid men. stupid, stupid men, scum of the earth. it’s not like she hadn’t dealt with creeps before, in fact, she hadn’t met a woman who also hadn’t. but out of all places to almost die: a dirty club floor? oh, the absolute horror of it all. she definitely needed a shower as soon as possible. her eyes moved to her boyfriend, who probably looked worse than she did. the bruise on his hand instantly catching her eye. claire expected nothing less. “hey, slugger,” the blonde managed a small smile at the brunette, “how’s the hand?”

it was a rarity that the lawyer found himself at an odd ended situation where he was terrified. no more than he was in the very moment the petite frame of his girlfriend was whisked away into the backend of an ambulance. as he crouched onto the pale metallic floor, his loafers creased harshly as his toes bevied the weight of himself up as a rotund, pristine ring cladded hand — the opposite of his other, that lay motionless to his waist side. it was a dull blur that bled into an oblivion of waiting. waiting and questioning. fury and regret. his chest infected with guilt that riddled through his bones. tuffs of dark hair were cupped into his hands as he sat on the plastic of the waiting room chair. finally, he was given reprieve to visit her. in the stillness of the eerie silence, peyton fell quiet as his almond eyes glistened over the seemingly relaxed face of claire’s that he scorned himself to not smother her with the wetness of his lips. the only notion that roamed his mind was him wanting to kiss her. to sense her presence in the consciousness. tired irises a crimson red due to the bloodshot. his countenance pale and solemn, purple brachiales settled beneath his eyelid, the bags ever loudly aware on his face so heavy. chapped, swollen cherry red lips brushed along the knuckle of each of her fingers nestled in between both hands, migrating the digits to his forehead, before their permanence trailed down to his cheek. her perfectly manicured fingers cold to the touch. a callused palm gripped onto her for dear life, with dark irises never failing from memorizing her every feature. claire was nauseatingly perfect. even sitting in a ribbed hospital gown, laying with her eyes closed off from him. she slept without a single flaw. it was after his plethora of distracting thoughts were sliced through by words uttered from the blonde in question. his expression immediately lit up with a hopeful gaze, relief blanketing him, the tension barely — but still even a little bit — releasing from every muscle contorted in his body. with his hand that was now showing hues of dark purple and blood red, he smoothed the silky strands of blonde hair off her forehead. a slip of a chuckle emitted into the air, followed by a shrug of his shoulders as if nonchalantly. “you really scared me, scott. i thought i was going to lose you,” in that same breath, lose his life. claire audrey scott was indeed the most dramatic, shallow, conceited woman he’d ever met. and yet, there was a tug deep down in his stomach that confirmed he would have rather died than to live without her. tears began to flush from the inner corners of chestnut eyes, silently streaming a thin line from his cheek to his jawline, splattering onto the tiled hospital floor. surrendering to his emotions, his head fell to the now awoken patient’s lap, a weakened arm cooling around her middle to abridge the distance between them. the wetness from his cheeks transferred to the flimsy hospital gown, cheek finally resting atop of her stomach.

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

it had been the weirdest, happiest, sadness six months of her life. claire scott wasn’t a stranger to grief. no, it had been her life since she was sixteen. losing her dad would never not hurt, she accepted that a long time ago. he was just floating around in space somewhere, just like he had her entire childhood. in the cosmos, one with the universe. so claire would sit. sit in his office, sometimes for hours at a time, not touch anything, but just to sit there: a room frozen in time with his presence. but how was she supposed to know in just eight years she’d be burying her mother? another giant crack in an already very fragile heart. truthfully, the blonde was surprised her heart didn’t completely collapse on her. the heart that been so beaten and bruised, experienced the worst pain in world twice over was somehow still…. beating. yet, peyton valdonna made her heart feel a little less heavy. if someone would’ve told her they’d be back in each other’s lives, she would’ve laughed right in their face. call it fate, destiny, or a little cece scott meddling. whatever it was, he was her person. wholeheartedly. someone she felt safe and secure with. maybe after all these years, they finally got something right.

claire wasn’t much of a hardcore partier. no, that was all of college in attempt to not feel anything at all. it no longer sounded appealing to stay out all night long with someone whose name she wouldn’t remember in a few hours. that part of her life felt like a fever dream. she still had fun with her friends, but at a certain point, the blonde just wanted to go home to her boyfriend at the end of the night. the best of both worlds.

for as long as she could remember, her mother drilled the importance of safety into her. how to keep herself safe, how to keep others around her safe. “god dude, i’m not interested, fuck off,” the words came out in annoyance. this wasn’t the first creep she had to deal with and it wouldn’t be the last, she was sure of it. just entitled assholes who thought women owed them something. as if she was going to let a couple of pricks ruin her night. bringing her drink up to her lips, it only took a few moments to realize something wasn’t right. her heart rate sped up, vision blurred, a pounding headache soon followed. the room was spinning. jesus fucking christ. jesus fucking christ. did she just get fucking drugged? okay, it’s fine, you’re fine. just tell your friends, get outside and call peyton. “hey, you okay, scott?” a voice cut through her train of thought. “he put something in my fucking dr–” her words became slurred as her phone shook in her hand, peyton’s contact open. great, she’s gonna die. not only that, but she’s gonna die on a dirty floor. this is the beginning of a criminal minds episode, she’s literally in a fucking criminal minds episode right now. wow, everytime she thinks her life cannot get any worse, surprise! it does. every. single. time.

it was in that moment of sheer panic, and utter regret that left peyton flummoxed. his face turned a glossy shade of white, all blood completely drained from the surface of his skin. immediately he wished that if by something short of a miracle it wasn’t claire laying supine on the dirty, matted hardwoods of the bar floor. claire scott was the type a perfectionist for as long as peyton had known her. she would’ve completely dropped dead before any other body part besides her she-cladded feet touched the ground. “claire, claire! baby! it’s me,” peyton finally choked out, chocolate eyes turning darker by the second as he kneeled beside a passed out blonde, matching every description of his girlfriend. a broad hand swooped over the apple of her cheek, his thumb stroking the lift of her jaw. the presentation of his guilt soon morphed into the onset of anger. a direct line of glossy tears trailed down a rib of his cheek, plummeting onto claire’s shirt before lifting his head up, burly palm swiping at the wetness of his cheekbones. “if none of you motherfuckers are calling 911 right now..who the fuck did this to her?!” peyton exclaimed, voice breaking with an insurmountable amount of vocal strain that broke into what could be described as a wall-shattering yell. the flood of dominating emotions overwhelmed him all at once, fists clammered into tight rounds, ready to shoot at any possible mislooking individual. a boy who couldn’t keep himself from laughing at the scene flared up peyton’s fight or flight response, without warning clocking him in the face. zero hesitation. it was true, peyton had a reputation for using his hands when he should’ve left well enough alone. immediately once the pain of the contact radiated through his fist, peyton shook it off. if anyone could hear anything, it was a pin dropping. “if you ever even do much as look at a woman again, i’m sure there’s more in store for you. that was for my girlfriend,” an unfamiliar voice cut through the silence as an ambulance was called. exiting out of the trance of utter rage that consumed him, peyton returned to claire’s side. his free hand clutched her limp body into his chest, burying his face into tuffs of blonde hair. “you’re gonna be okay, princess. okay? please wake up,” the twenty-five year old urged, attempting to soothe himself into a calmer disposition. how could he have let this happen to her? if only he had dropped her off, given a reasonable check of the seen before leaving her with her friends. now, he would never know all the what-ifs that plagued his every thought.

[peytonvaldonna]

it was needless to say peyton valdonna was the guardian of his own heart. to protect it, he had to protect himself. because if he didn’t, who else would? after a quarter of a century’s experience in the real world, it was more than enough confirmation that there came a certain amount of independence he had accumulated more quickly than others would have. he was his own advocate, with all the accountability falling to his shoulders. often times it was his fatal flaw when it came to the subject of creating healthy and boundary-safe relationships as he hadn’t known one from his rigid, stick-up-his-ass father and a vanished mother from the moment he took his first breath. there was an imaginative state where he could only assume on his own of what constituted realistic expectations of reality. his only tried and true confidant was the fallen ex-wife of his vapid, sharp tongued dad whom he most times regretted the entire existence of the man. truthfully, it was a true begging question of how the newly appointed defense attorney had taken care of himself in a way that had projected him in the position that he was in all those years later. an anomaly. but, despite all odds stacked against him, he did. and with that came the taught lesson to always keep a callused and guarded heart, no matter who tried to peal back the layers of mistrust and vulnerability. crafting a relationship now that peyton simply can’t live without, it was in that very relationship that he could let his guard down. he could rest. claire scott was the only person, besides her mother, that knew of his childhood and past. who molded and formed him into the man he was today. there was a mutual testament of trust. after four long, futile years apart, it was a near prediction that when they crossed the line from enemies to lovers once again, that was it. that was the end goal.

green infiltrated demons of jealousy couldn’t coax the pair into doubting what had been there all along. although peyton had made a vow to protect claire in whatever public venue they planned to spend time in. there were a plethora of what ifs that could go wrong, but never ones that involved infidelity or the seemingly harmless jab of flirting. strangers made it clear to see that claire scott was a femme with a certain unique and intoxicating attraction. the lawyer dealt with it first hand. she was ethereal. so he really couldn’t be the judge of anyone else reiterating what he already knew. there were some slimy people that circulated the dusk of dawn, and with alcohol involved, it seemed as if all bets were off when it came to oblivion. so when one half of the pairing was absent from any outing in particular, the form of communication used to keep all waves of curiosity calm, was texting. it was a brink of new age technology — that despite being strapped at home with no evidence but to assume everything ran smoothly from beginning to end — that was calculated. in the boy’s own twisted manner, it gave him the confirmation that as long as claire was responding, there was no back-sided reason to worry. it was worse for wear.

so when the bombshell blonde had departed for what peyton could hypothesize as a girls night out, he went immediately to scroll out a simple and punctual text message. “have fun. but not too much fun ;) jk go wild. -p”

presumably it had been on going a full sixty minutes at this point in time. not a read response nor an action to prove that the honey blonde had indeed seen his messages. it was then that a waited curdle of worry crept into the confines of the forefront of peyton’s mind. she’s fine, she’s just having fun. had to have put her phone down and forgotten to reply. nothing serious. it took all the convincing the twenty-five year-old could do before his subconscious ate away at the guarded cord of confidence that started out a thick, immovable wall. there was a sudden ache in his chest that after quadruple messages was more than enough evidence to justify driving himself to the bar in question. if he could see with his own eyes that she was unharmed and protected, the innate concern that furrowed into his brow would melt away. it was only a precaution.

as he trampled through the scuffed floors of a dazzling, strobe-light infested building, alert hues flickered from one corner of the dimly lit room to the other. “claire scott. have you seen a claire scott anywhere? i need to see her, it’s kind of important,” his words flimsy with a bridge of broken vocals as the cortisol began pumping through every open vein in his body, legs swaying like jelly as he struggled to keep his conversed feet steady on the ground. “dude, she’s passed out! what did you give her?” the pompous injection of oblivion erupted in the airwaves of a bass-filled atmosphere. shit, it couldn’t be. those words caused the lawyer-to-be’s blood to run cold. no, that was impossible. it had to be.

[peytonvaldonna]

it would’ve been an understatement to say that the last words peyton valdonna expected to emit from his girlfriend’s pale pink lips were face mask. a what? “a face mask…” he trailed, the tone of his voice crinkling into a ball of perplexity while pearly white teeth gnawed onto the fleshy inside of his cheek. there was a day that he vowed to never leave this girl again. it was a promise he had kept, forgoing the future in come from whatever may be an obstacle that laid in front of them. it was the way his heart fluttered with the pulse of butterfly feet thumping against his chest. as her perfectly manicured fingers allowed the air in his lungs to immediately dissipate within the moment of realization that her fingertips fell upon his skin. she lit him on fire, and peyton was sorely desperate to burn. however, the agreement of face masks wasn’t in the metaphorical chore list of responsibilities that were attached to the label of a boyfriend. “i’m listening..” was added, hesitance laced between both words as his eyes stared placidly, awaiting what the blonde had in store for them.

peytonvaldonna·:”

there was a certain comfort that came along with the simple notion of never leaving the blonde’s sight. it had been four years of abounding distance that they obviously struggled to carry themselves through. and it was the small, inconspicuous moments like these when there was only one person he wanted to casually believe that they were the only two people left on this earth. a tattooed arm snaked around the small of the girl’s back, his robust chest clutching her body closer — within mere centimetres — toward himself. his pile of now unkept brown tuffs burrowed into the depths of her lap, each inhalation a gentle note of swirls of vanilla and amber. the same scent that transported him to the enclosed cubicle of the elevator they shared all those hours in the cedars hospital, and again with more permeance as it did that night they fought in the rain. still as intoxicating as ever, and a warm envelopment of where his home resided, and still does. goosebumps suddenly traveled through a once tensed back, before settling in the dip of his spine. her fingers toying with his locks was what finally bridged him into a somewhat calmness of sorts. a raspberry folds through his once closed lips, orbs of a muddy hazel finally peeking up at his girlfriend hovering above him.

she could do this forever. she wants to do this forever. she wants to take care of him. in every single way. contrary to popular belief, claire audrey scott is capable of thinking of others beside herself. a very surprising thing clearly. there’s no way her heart could handle another separation. he’s it.  they had ventured through hell and back and that couldn’t be for nothing. it would never be completely smooth sailing for the two, that was the understatement of the century, but…that love they had for each other? it was everything. that love that could push through any argument, any heartache. fire and ice. looking at him never failed to make claire feel absolutely faint. faint with nothing but adoration and love. the blonde couldn’t believe it was possible to be this in love with someone. pure insanity. “you know what you need?” she hummed and then didn’t wait for an answer.  obviously. “a face mask,” an excited smile broke out on her features, “you can pick it out and everything.” claire scott: very serious and very excited about skin care. 

[peytonvaldonna]

there was a certain comfort that came along with the simple notion of never leaving the blonde’s sight. it had been four years of abounding distance that they obviously struggled to carry themselves through. and it was the small, inconspicuous moments like these when there was only one person he wanted to casually believe that they were the only two people left on this earth. a tattooed arm snaked around the small of the girl’s back, his robust chest clutching her body closer — within mere centimetres — toward himself. his pile of now unkept brown tuffs burrowed into the depths of her lap, each inhalation a gentle note of swirls of vanilla and amber. the same scent that transported him to the enclosed cubicle of the elevator they shared all those hours in the cedars hospital, and again with more permeance as it did that night they fought in the rain. still as intoxicating as ever, and a warm envelopment of where his home resided, and still does. goosebumps suddenly traveled through a once tensed back, before settling in the dip of his spine. her fingers toying with his locks was what finally bridged him into a somewhat calmness of sorts. a raspberry folds through his once closed lips, orbs of a muddy hazel finally peeking up at his girlfriend hovering above him.

it had had been a whirlwind of disarray to say the least in the schwartz, phillips and winstead practice. eleven hours of staring at piles stacked high of contracts while words and letters began to blur into each other becoming nearly unrecognizable. most days the lawyer found himself unable to leave work without the satisfaction of closing a new case that same day. and if he were honest in the matter, there were days he left with a tightly wound knot pulled into the pit of his stomach. all the brunette could think about was finding his way home and collapsing onto the nearest piece of carpenter space that softened his immediate fall onto the floor. and that was exactly what he planned on doing as a pair of mouse brown oxfords clapped along the beaten path. with a suitcase lugging behind him, ring cladded fingers forcefully worked to twist the doorknob, clicking open to unveil the house from behind it. a safe haven. without a doubt, the relief that instantly evaporated from his every pore was a welcomed weight that melted off his shoulders. with each weak step venturing further into the living room, peyton’s gently tanned face met with the fabric of the throw pillow that adorned a rigid corner of the leather couch beneath him now. “i don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled, his entire weight impressing into the fluffy decorative piece as his warm breath spilled into it. even closing his eyes for a minuscule second was more than he had since departing from home that same morning.

[peytonvaldonna]

it had had been a whirlwind of disarray to say the least in the schwartz, phillips and winstead practice. eleven hours of staring at piles stacked high of contracts while words and letters began to blur into each other becoming nearly unrecognizable. most days the lawyer found himself unable to leave work without the satisfaction of closing a new case that same day. and if he were honest in the matter, there were days he left with a tightly wound knot pulled into the pit of his stomach. all the brunette could think about was finding his way home and collapsing onto the nearest piece of carpenter space that softened his immediate fall onto the floor. and that was exactly what he planned on doing as a pair of mouse brown oxfords clapped along the beaten path. with a suitcase lugging behind him, ring cladded fingers forcefully worked to twist the doorknob, clicking open to unveil the house from behind it. a safe haven. without a doubt, the relief that instantly evaporated from his every pore was a welcomed weight that melted off his shoulders. with each weak step venturing further into the living room, peyton’s gently tanned face met with the fabric of the throw pillow that adorned a rigid corner of the leather couch beneath him now. “i don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled, his entire weight impressing into the fluffy decorative piece as his warm breath spilled into it. even closing his eyes for a minuscule second was more than he had since departing from home that same morning.

[peytonvaldonna]

there was a mallet crushing his heart into millions of pieces. no matter what he said, the lawyer was sure it wouldn’t matter. i need you to hate me, it felt as though his body had shut down. his every organ relenting from working to keep himself alive. as the rain continued to fall, there was a certain numbness that evaded through the thick skin he had built for those four years. though at the same time, the perceivable crack in his armour was noticeable in that very moment. the letters. the pack of the envelopes that were still filling the vacancy under his bed in his loft in jersey. the words he knew could either be truth or embellishments of what he wanted to hear from her. “maybe..i don’t know. i don’t know if they’re hurting me or helping me because i can’t tell if what they say are true. i’m in love with you, i have been since day one. i never burned them because a small part of me had hope that those words wouldn’t change,” there was defeat in his tone, a vocal tiredness that strung within every word that spilled from an open mouth. his head fiercely shook at her words, disagreeing at every angle it seemed. “ no,” the man uttered, his taut hand smoothing over the tan skin of his opposite, migrating from her chest to her neck, traveling up to her cheek. “those letters made me realize that what i want is really simple. and i don’t care if you believe me or not. i don’t need a family. i don’t need a marriage. i don’t need anything else in this world that will keep me away from what i really want. all i want is you, claire. you’re what i want. and whatever that includes is just a bonus…but you’re all i want in this life. you’re my family. no matter how hard i try not to believe it, my future will always lie with you,” honey tresses falter over the bend of her shoulder like a waterfall, delicate and free. misshapen and scarred fingers — from years of cigarette damage — gather up a fistful of her hair. the pad of his thumb gently caressing circles into the dives of her tanned skin. peyton swallowed her up, in the physical sense. his body in stature was six feet, five inches tall. it was rare for him to find anyone much taller than him. but, it still managed to thrust his heartbeat into constant overdrive when the smallest of persons was attached to him. skin to skin, heart to heart, toe to toe. claire set his entire body on fire, and peyton was desperate to burn. even in this bevy of rain, she was the gasoline. “please don’t ask me to do something you know i can never do. no matter how many times you piss me off, or when we fight or feel like we hate each other, i can’t. because you are worth it. every little bit. you’re worth the sleepless night and the overwhelming days because if i even have the pleasure of coming home to you at the end of the day, i know i’m the luckiest guy alive. i can’t hate you,” he sucked in what felt like the longest breath of his life, exhaling it slowly as fingertips caressed the wet cheek of claires. pressing his forehead close to hers, his impulsive control soon overtook his every movement, eyes squeezed shut before pale blue lips slipped onto her light pink ones. electricity folded inside of his body, for the first time in a long time, peyton finally felt at home. where there was fire, it was met with ice — or in this case, a welcomed storm of a flooding rain. within that moment, every noise ceased to fall into his own ears, his heart abruptly stopped from beating as all that seemed to be on his mind was urging claire to believe him that it was all or nothing. that they were worth the trouble.

peytonvaldonna·:

the blonde’s words sliced through his core like a knife, with an ease and a swiftness that only claire scott could do. words swirl around is head like a hurricane in the middle of this rarity of a storm that plagued beverly hills at just the right time. thunder crackled and rocked beneath the boundary of what peyton considered a coincidence. it was almost fluid how his emotions fluctuated from confused to hurt to desperate to now — in all honesty — vexation. there was a sensation of pure rage that he couldn’t seem to quell even in the midst of being told he was loved. because within a second, those words were erased by a label. a stranger. that was what initially set him off. “how can you just turn it all off like this? claire..do you even know what you want? because the last thing i’ll ever do is give you pity. you’ve made that extremely clear that you’d rather die than accept it,” there was a sharpness that edged within his words, the visceral anger that spilled from soaking wet lips that were becoming a soft shade of blue. “but i’ve never been confused about you,” he added, the onset of heated tears meshing with the coolness of the rain droplets that catapulted over every inch of his body. “loving you makes every possible thing in my life more intense. every emotion is multiplied by a thousand. it’s like i’m hyper aware of everything that’s around me. my heart beats faster to where i can feel it all in my fingers and toes. you take my breath away just by me thinking of you. you don’t even have to exist,” it was as if she had taken his heart out of him beating chest, leaving him breathless and barren to his very core. where she was, that was where his heart began beating. “you don’t even have to be here and your scent is everywhere. your hair, your perfume, your skin. when i’m so close to you i can feel every breath you exhale and i…just imagine it to be the music that i would want nothing more than to hear for the rest of my life. and i hate it…and i want to hate you,” he paused, voice cracked at every corner as the last words were choked out of cigarette coated lungs. “i want to hate you..but i can’t. i love you. i meant it. i never stopped. for four years. and every word and every moment for the rest of my life, i love you. it’s not like i just suddenly came to the transcendent notion that i couldn’t live without you out of thin air. i’ve known for a long time. and i’ve had to bury it because i thought i could never be worthy enough to be loved back by the one person i was searching for. loving you is suffocating me, i can’t breathe, but it’s like second nature and all i can do about it is just deal with the aching pain it leaves inside of me when i have to convince myself that it’s the last time i’ll ever see you. and when you left this morning, it hurt. because maybe we made a mistake, but you never were one to me. so for you, cece probably is the last thing to tie you to me. but i’ll be entangled in you forever, claire audrey scott. because you’re the love of my life, and you can never be a stranger to me. and i’m sorry if i am to you,” lips quivered, unable to settle as the words flummoxed out of every orifice of his body. peyton was so tired, and yet not exhausted enough to utter one last sentence, as his feet drug closer to the blonde, reaching his hand out to press upon the left side of her chest. his palm palpated against the region of where her icy heart laid. “why can’t you just let me all the way in? why does everything have to be so hard, all the time? i feel like i keep giving you all of me until there’s nothing left. please, claire. why won’t you let me in?” every word fell like daggers, inserting themselves into his own skin, exposing all of the old wounds that he tentatively attempted to mend on his own for those four years of utter hell to be broken at the seams with the eruption of all that peyton had kept inside.

everything stops. her heart. time. claire doesn’t even think she’s breathing anymore. everything stops but the rain around them. if anything, it just feels like it’s only coming down harder. every word that falls from his mouth hurts worse than the last. great, her attempt to distance herself just blew up in her face. he’s pouring his heart out to her and she’s feeling like the biggest bitch in beverly hills. probably in the entire state of california, the jury’s still out on that one. but i’ll be entangled in you forever, claire audrey scott. because you’re the love of my life, and you can never be a stranger to me. and i’m sorry if i am to you. she’s paralyzed, stuck into place. not a single clue what to say. what is she supposed to say? no words feel as they would suffice. very few moments left claire audrey scott absolutely speechless. usually you can’t get her to shut up. always a talker, especially a nervous talker. but… she’s just stuck. there’s no doubt in her mind that she loves him. no one else could ever compare to him. tears can no longer be contained. she just needs let it all out.   “your words in the elevator, peyton. not mine. is that why you kept the letters?“ the blonde breathes out, a hand pushing back the soaking locks out of her face. letters. the ones he swore he burned. she counted on that. she wanted them burned. why can’t you just let me all in the way? why won’t you let me in? oh, wasn’t that just the question of the century. truthfully, she can’t answer that. can’t or won’t? probably won’t. for as long as she could remember she was a social butterfly. someone who could be the life of a party in a matter of seconds. yet, very few people ever saw through the curtains. that’s how she preferred it. just another mystery people can’t figure out. but, oh does it get lonely sometimes. he deserves to know why. why it can’t be so easy to just let him in. ”i’m sorry. i just — .” words fail once again. her much smaller hands travel up to cradle his face. almost as if it’s a second nature to want to comfort him. “i don’t deserve you. and i know that just sounds like a cop out and totally pathetic, but… i just never felt good enough. i couldn’t give you what you needed, what you deserved. when you left, i just hurt so bad, for so long. and i didn’t want to ever feel like that again. just completely powerless and — i’m so sorry.” her voice just laced with anguish. claire scott: raw and exposed. so uncomfortable. mocha hues closed for a moment, to bat away any and all tears that eventually slid down her cheeks anyway. a breath inhaled and exhaled, hoping to regulate her heart rate again. “and i just really need you to hate me, okay?”

[peytonvaldonna]

the blonde’s words sliced through his core like a knife, with an ease and a swiftness that only claire scott could do. words swirl around is head like a hurricane in the middle of this rarity of a storm that plagued beverly hills at just the right time. thunder crackled and rocked beneath the boundary of what peyton considered a coincidence. it was almost fluid how his emotions fluctuated from confused to hurt to desperate to now — in all honesty — vexation. there was a sensation of pure rage that he couldn’t seem to quell even in the midst of being told he was loved. because within a second, those words were erased by a label. a stranger. that was what initially set him off. “how can you just turn it all off like this? claire..do you even know what you want? because the last thing i’ll ever do is give you pity. you’ve made that extremely clear that you’d rather die than accept it,” there was a sharpness that edged within his words, the visceral anger that spilled from soaking wet lips that were becoming a soft shade of blue. “but i’ve never been confused about you,” he added, the onset of heated tears meshing with the coolness of the rain droplets that catapulted over every inch of his body. “loving you makes every possible thing in my life more intense. every emotion is multiplied by a thousand. it’s like i’m hyper aware of everything that’s around me. my heart beats faster to where i can feel it all in my fingers and toes. you take my breath away just by me thinking of you. you don’t even have to exist,” it was as if she had taken his heart out of him beating chest, leaving him breathless and barren to his very core. where she was, that was where his heart began beating. “you don’t even have to be here and your scent is everywhere. your hair, your perfume, your skin. when i’m so close to you i can feel every breath you exhale and i…just imagine it to be the music that i would want nothing more than to hear for the rest of my life. and i hate it…and i want to hate you,” he paused, voice cracked at every corner as the last words were choked out of cigarette coated lungs. “i want to hate you..but i can’t. i love you. i meant it. i never stopped. for four years. and every word and every moment for the rest of my life, i love you. it’s not like i just suddenly came to the transcendent notion that i couldn’t live without you out of thin air. i’ve known for a long time. and i’ve had to bury it because i thought i could never be worthy enough to be loved back by the one person i was searching for. loving you is suffocating me, i can’t breathe, but it’s like second nature and all i can do about it is just deal with the aching pain it leaves inside of me when i have to convince myself that it’s the last time i’ll ever see you. and when you left this morning, it hurt. because maybe we made a mistake, but you never were one to me. so for you, cece probably is the last thing to tie you to me. but i’ll be entangled in you forever, claire audrey scott. because you’re the love of my life, and you can never be a stranger to me. and i’m sorry if i am to you,” lips quivered, unable to settle as the words flummoxed out of every orifice of his body. peyton was so tired, and yet not exhausted enough to utter one last sentence, as his feet drug closer to the blonde, reaching his hand out to press upon the left side of her chest. his palm palpated against the region of where her icy heart laid. “why can’t you just let me all the way in? why does everything have to be so hard, all the time? i feel like i keep giving you all of me until there’s nothing left. please, claire. why won’t you let me in?” every word fell like daggers, inserting themselves into his own skin, exposing all of the old wounds that he tentatively attempted to mend on his own for those four years of utter hell to be broken at the seams with the eruption of all that peyton had kept inside.

peytonvaldonna·:

the passing of distant feet falling from earshot was peyton’s confirmation that finally, he was alone. eyebrows ebbed and flowed into a thin line as a single thread of tears soon melted off the twenty five year-olds cheek. there was misery. there was defeat. there was guilt. what did the man possibly have guilt for if he had indeed followed what his heart had swayed him to do? the ignorance that he was swimming in that very morning was a subtly that the two simply couldn’t work in real world consequences. and yet, the moments following claire’s departure from the other side of the door caused a familiar yearning to balance impatiently in the bottom of his heart. the same ignited flame that seemed to stay alit after the simple thought of the blonde that crossed his mind. maybe, he had just turned away the love of his life. maybe, he had mistaken this deceit for the postponement of the ache that would soon return when things were ultimately broken. it could be that possibly it was all figurative in his head. as he sat, wet-cheeked and sullen, it was those few beats after that he thought that in the very least whatever withheld anger that broiled in his blood could be extinguished. “claire,” he hushed to himself, one hand over the door knob, the other forcefully tunneling through the mop of brown hair atop of his head. the click of the door happened next and within a moments notice, he brought himself back to his feet, stumbling through to the elevator. a million thoughts within the second began filtering through his consciousness like a filing cabinet, overflowing with the capacity of the words he held close to himself. the rain hadn’t seemed to let up if at all, which mattered little to none as he thrusted himself into the coolness that was now soaking the pale hoodie that covered every inch of him. “claire, come back. i’m sorry, i — ” he paused, the thread of rain that pelted the asphalt like ice cubes, brown locks now completely soaked. “don’t get in the car,” sure was he undoubtedly fickle for her to even believe a single word that fell from his mouth, but he continued. “if you go i’ll never forgive myself,”

the sudden appearance of the lawyer startles her. ugh, what… what is happening? all she can do is listen. listen and somehow become even more confused. were they not just in this very hotel having this exact conversation not even ten minutes ago? roles reversed, whatever. and she’s the confusing one. this is doing nothing to help her broken heart. it’s just making it hurt worse. she feels the heartache through out her entire body, it won’t let up. it just…. hurts to look at him. “peyton, don’t…” a sigh spills from pink lips as she shakes her head. yet another ride of their rollercoaster relationship that is throwing them upside down. it feels impossible to get off this one, but she must. “i don’t need you to pity me okay? i shouldn’t have sprung that on you. you just got out of a relationship and — .” great, she’s rambling again. the word ‘relationship’ left a vile taste in her mouth. every time she thinks of him being someone else’s for long it makes her sick to her stomach. someone else who loved him for those four years, someone who wasn’t afraid to tell him what she wanted. why is it that she’s thinking of isabelle right now? of course ever since the raven haired woman showed up at her door it was impossible not to. comparing herself to her felt toxic. claire just needed to push the thought of peyton and isabelle out of her mind indefinitely. “strangers, remember?” the blonde clears her throat, trying to prevent the inevitable crack that will soon follow. oh,  she couldn’t stop it if she tried. “i don’t know you, you don’t know me. cece was the last thing.” tying us together. now if claire only believed that as easily as she said it. right now would be a good time for some infamous cecilia scott advice, just to go home and see her there again. but that wasn’t possible and it wouldn’t be ever again.

[peytonvaldonna]

the passing of distant feet falling from earshot was peyton’s confirmation that finally, he was alone. eyebrows ebbed and flowed into a thin line as a single thread of tears soon melted off the twenty five year-olds cheek. there was misery. there was defeat. there was guilt. what did the man possibly have guilt for if he had indeed followed what his heart had swayed him to do? the ignorance that he was swimming in that very morning was a subtly that the two simply couldn’t work in real world consequences. and yet, the moments following claire’s departure from the other side of the door caused a familiar yearning to balance impatiently in the bottom of his heart. the same ignited flame that seemed to stay alit after the simple thought of the blonde that crossed his mind. maybe, he had just turned away the love of his life. maybe, he had mistaken this deceit for the postponement of the ache that would soon return when things were ultimately broken. it could be that possibly it was all figurative in his head. as he sat, wet-cheeked and sullen, it was those few beats after that he thought that in the very least whatever withheld anger that broiled in his blood could be extinguished. “claire,” he hushed to himself, one hand over the door knob, the other forcefully tunneling through the mop of brown hair atop of his head. the click of the door happened next and within a moments notice, he brought himself back to his feet, stumbling through to the elevator. a million thoughts within the second began filtering through his consciousness like a filing cabinet, overflowing with the capacity of the words he held close to himself. the rain hadn’t seemed to let up if at all, which mattered little to none as he thrusted himself into the coolness that was now soaking the pale hoodie that covered every inch of him. “claire, come back. i’m sorry, i — ” he paused, the thread of rain that pelted the asphalt like ice cubes, brown locks now completely soaked. “don’t get in the car,” sure was he undoubtedly fickle for her to even believe a single word that fell from his mouth, but he continued. “if you go i’ll never forgive myself,”

peytonvaldonna·:

it felt foreign, that for once he wasn’t the one to speak his truth. and yet, there was that same tug of what some would call post traumatic stress that weighed heavily in the sinkholes of his heart. he had heard similar tokens before, much to the contentment of all who had soon left him until he was the only person that was truly in the right circumstances to stand beside. there was a heaving throttle in his throat, when the word home passed the same pink lips he had crashed into some odd hours prior to that time. peyton can’t absolve himself to believe that there is any truth. that he won’t be thought of as a fool when the inevitability of their demise comes blazing for them. so, as he raised himself from his position on the bed, he prepared himself to grip onto the door knob. all he had to do was twist it, pull, and welcome claire into his arms as if the pain and heartache were null and void. much like their quick-paced marriage that sunk deep in the sand of regret. his own volition is clouded by the idea of becoming a fool to tie up loose ends on a relationship that he was sure would never flourish beyond the depths of what transpired the night before. his body slid down the column of the hotel room wall, knees buried up to his chest while his chin sat comfortably in the nook of his kneecaps. with a sunken, and despairing breath, he finally spoke up through hoarse words. “please go, claire. go home,” his tone was forced, laced with the urge of possibility. maybe he didn’t exactly want the blonde to leave, but what came from his mouth demonstrated the complete opposite. and with the silence, paired with the patter of the rain that continued to sow the california grounds for once in what felt like a thousand years. lightning in a bottle, a far off chance of a lifetime. this was torture. total and absolute torture.

please go, claire. go home. and there it was. the knife that completely ruptured the heart claire had spent so much time putting back together. in all aspects, that very heart was bleeding on the floor of beverly hills hotel. it’s not like she expected the lawyer to answer any different, but it just… hurt. stung.  god, was this embarrassing. more than anything she felt like a fool. just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should automatically be together. you can still love someone and know you’re not right for each other. at least one of them was thinking logically. clearly it was not her. pressing the first floor on the elevator, the blonde soon ventured into the lobby, quickly wiping any and all tears that dared to form in her eyes. the storm still very much in full effect as she stepped right back into it. she couldn’t remember a time where it rained so much in a place where it was supposed to be 75 and sunny all year round. but for some reason, claire found comfort in it. if anything, it was an accurate depictionof her heart at this very moment in time. some people found the rain cathartic. maybe that’s exactly what it was. car keys in hand, the woman reached her car and unlocked it. god, claire couldn’t wait to get home and forget any of this ever happened. ice cream was needed stat. 

[peytonvaldonna]

it felt foreign, that for once he wasn’t the one to speak his truth. and yet, there was that same tug of what some would call post traumatic stress that weighed heavily in the sinkholes of his heart. he had heard similar tokens before, much to the contentment of all who had soon left him until he was the only person that was truly in the right circumstances to stand beside. there was a heaving throttle in his throat, when the word home passed the same pink lips he had crashed into some odd hours prior to that time. peyton can’t absolve himself to believe that there is any truth. that he won’t be thought of as a fool when the inevitability of their demise comes blazing for them. so, as he raised himself from his position on the bed, he prepared himself to grip onto the door knob. all he had to do was twist it, pull, and welcome claire into his arms as if the pain and heartache were null and void. much like their quick-paced marriage that sunk deep in the sand of regret. his own volition is clouded by the idea of becoming a fool to tie up loose ends on a relationship that he was sure would never flourish beyond the depths of what transpired the night before. his body slid down the column of the hotel room wall, knees buried up to his chest while his chin sat comfortably in the nook of his kneecaps. with a sunken, and despairing breath, he finally spoke up through hoarse words. “please go, claire. go home,” his tone was forced, laced with the urge of possibility. maybe he didn’t exactly want the blonde to leave, but what came from his mouth demonstrated the complete opposite. and with the silence, paired with the patter of the rain that continued to sow the california grounds for once in what felt like a thousand years. lightning in a bottle, a far off chance of a lifetime. this was torture. total and absolute torture.

peytonvaldonna·:

collapsing onto the unmade, rigid hotel room bed, there was a sudden surge of apathy that riddled into his bones. the couple had been down this very road before, the yo-yo metaphor of will they or won’t they that became to entirely exhausted that the mere idea of reciprocation felt like a last resort. maybe he shouldn’t have ben so curt when she appeared at the door, but it took all of his strength to muster to not express any outward emotion to evoke the same vulnerability that had gotten him in trouble so many times before. that very morning being enough evidence for peyton to back up his actions and not give the benefit of the doubt when it but him in the ass time and time again. eyes squinted shut, to hopefully drown out the white noise of mistaking this moment for an alternate reality. silence was his only line of defense. and then, the words he had never gotten tired of hearing her say slipped out, but the tug on his heart told him that maybe he shouldn’t jump the gun like he did every single time she spoke a single word that was music to his ears. stand your ground, peyton. you’re in charge of your own destiny. what rang in his ears were the words filled of empty promises. she wasnt going anywhere. maybe she wasn’t, but eventually the brunette knew as much that the statement had a viable expiration date. they always did. and so all he could think about was staying still, unable to authenticate a response to words he was sure meant near to nothing in the end. he was so tired of fighting, that although he was at war with himself at the urge of falling into the old habit of belief. peyton valdonna was not a gullible teenager anymore, but even so, the idea of resolution felt all too good to be true. sometimes when it was quiet, it spoke louder than any assortment of words could convey.

to say claire hated being vulnerable was the understatement of the damn century. some things never changed. the idea of giving someone possibly the power to hurt you never got easier. the only person she could ever truly depend on was herself. and yet, love was full of risks. sometimes you just had to take the plunge. no parachute, no safety net, no soft landing guaranteed. “i do love you. and i know, you have no reason to believe that. because everything you said in that elevator was true,” the blonde started as she leaned against the hallway wall. anything to keep her up right when her knees like they might buckle under her at any second. sometimes, actually most of the time, she’ll just start a sentence and hope she finds out where it’s going in the process. the elevator event still lingered in the back of her mind, no matter how hard she tried to forget about it. it her hurt so much more than she originally let on. well, it wasn’t like claire was going to let him see her cry. “maybe i never completely stopped in the first place and i don’t get it. i don’t get it because we were always fire and gasoline. none of it makes any sense and maybe i need to stop trying to figure out the impossible. because nothing is fixed and i know that. it’s just….” there’s a pause. everything stops except her heart which is going to pop out of her chest at any given moment.  it aches.  “mostly,  i don’t get how after all these years, you’re still the only place that feels like home,” the words fall from her lips so effortlessly, but in so much agony. home. home was never a place. or a city.  it was the person on the other side of the door. it always was peyton blake valdonna. even if she wasn’t his. ever since that day so many decembers ago when their relationship ended so abruptly. she goes back to december all the time.  “just say the word, peyton, and i’ll be gone out of your life forever, okay? i promise. just tell me that.” few times in her life claire scott wouldn’t be making an empty promise. all he had to do was say the word. also very few times where her heart was completely exposed. preparing for another heartbreak, of course. great.  

[peytonvaldonna]

collapsing onto the unmade, rigid hotel room bed, there was a sudden surge of apathy that riddled into his bones. the couple had been down this very road before, the yo-yo metaphor of will they or won’t they that became to entirely exhausted that the mere idea of reciprocation felt like a last resort. maybe he shouldn’t have ben so curt when she appeared at the door, but it took all of his strength to muster to not express any outward emotion to evoke the same vulnerability that had gotten him in trouble so many times before. that very morning being enough evidence for peyton to back up his actions and not give the benefit of the doubt when it but him in the ass time and time again. eyes squinted shut, to hopefully drown out the white noise of mistaking this moment for an alternate reality. silence was his only line of defense. and then, the words he had never gotten tired of hearing her say slipped out, but the tug on his heart told him that maybe he shouldn’t jump the gun like he did every single time she spoke a single word that was music to his ears. stand your ground, peyton. you’re in charge of your own destiny. what rang in his ears were the words filled of empty promises. she wasnt going anywhere. maybe she wasn’t, but eventually the brunette knew as much that the statement had a viable expiration date. they always did. and so all he could think about was staying still, unable to authenticate a response to words he was sure meant near to nothing in the end. he was so tired of fighting, that although he was at war with himself at the urge of falling into the old habit of belief. peyton valdonna was not a gullible teenager anymore, but even so, the idea of resolution felt all too good to be true. sometimes when it was quiet, it spoke louder than any assortment of words could convey.

peytonvaldonna​:

the walk of shame that followed behind in peyton’s wake of the morning after felt more backhanded than previously. of course he was of the sound mind that neither of them planned to spend the waking hours in the same bed, however it was the familiar dirty sensation that settled into his bones that was an echoing relation in the back of his mind. he felt indisposed. a damp towel, used to its full capabilities only to be tossed in the laundry basket to never be thought of again. in the very least, the brunette considered bringing up casual conversation to break the awkward ice that folded around them like a castle moat, surrounding the pair on all sides. when he left the premises, what was first an emotion of what felt like betrayal, soon morphed into a blazing discord. he had found himself in the same position after four years of assuming he never would, that moving on from the blonde was child’s play. and yet he left that mansion with a deep thrust of an ache in his chest than any other day spent with claire scott beforehand. how he could be so foolish to patch up a leaking hole that was bound to breakthrough the barrier of his heart. he had given the girl his heart a long time ago, but never did he realize how much it would be stomped on and then tossed to the floor as if it didn’t matter. with nowhere else to find an abode in, he checked himself into a nearby hotel. all memories associated with the blonde had to be erased. maybe it was a wake up call for him to go back to jersey. if he couldn’t handle the local brush with his ex girlfriend, the moderate distance between beverly hills and princeton felt at the very least doable. gruffly, the tall man shoved the hoodie over his head, the comfort of the piece of fabric — no matter how tattered and worn it was to the naked eye — feeling more like home than anything else in his possession. the knock on his hotel room door caused an eyebrow to raise on his forehead, unaware of his company. though he assumed it was the room service, peyton called out, “i’ll be there in a second,” and within the next beat never did he predict the same blonde from that morning to be at the foot of his door. an unknown suppression of his temper flourished from the pit of his stomach to his mouth, head shaken at the woman in front of him. “no…i don’t think we do,” he retorted, immediately closing the door from behind him, the action needing more convincing to do so than he would’ve liked. the uncontrollable rage that fueled within him took center stage in cutting off the one person he wanted to let in. but maybe there was a slight ping of regret in doing so that sunk in only moments after closing the door on her.

did he just… shut the damn door on her? “oh you’ve got to be fucking…” the blonde mumbled with a roll of her eyes. usually most people would just take the hint and leave. keyword: most people. but not her. unfortunately, claire audrey scott had been a stubborn pain in the ass ever since the day she graced the earth. it was both a blessing and a curse. another effect of being raised by a lawyer: skilled at arguing, too stubborn for her own good. but she was also raised by an astronaut who was logical and cool headed under pressure in every sense of the word. yeah, claire was definitely more her mother’s daughter than her father’s. none of this was logical. the logical thing to do would be leave the past in the past. after all, they call it the past for a reason. protect her heart from getting hurt again. but no, she did not drive in the middle of a storm to leave without telling him she loved him. to spill everything that had weighed so heavy on her heart. it was all or nothing and right now nothing wasn’t an option.  “fine, fine. you know what? maybe i deserved that,” she expressed with a sigh. of course the woman couldn’t blame him for whatever he was feeling at this moment. their relationship had always been a rollercoaster. the one that tosses you upside down on every single loop and makes you puke as soon as you step off it. never not intense. “i can tell you i love you right through this door, i don’t care. because i’m not going anywhere, so sue me.” the words fell from her pink lips so matter of factly. no longer soft… just there. the blonde was unsure of so many things in her life, but not this. now that was all out in the open. oh and how terrifying that realization was.

[peytonvaldonna]

the walk of shame that followed behind in peyton’s wake of the morning after felt more backhanded than previously. of course he was of the sound mind that neither of them planned to spend the waking hours in the same bed, however it was the familiar dirty sensation that settled into his bones that was an echoing relation in the back of his mind. he felt indisposed. a damp towel, used to its full capabilities only to be tossed in the laundry basket to never be thought of again. in the very least, the brunette considered bringing up casual conversation to break the awkward ice that folded around them like a castle moat, surrounding the pair on all sides. when he left the premises, what was first an emotion of what felt like betrayal, soon morphed into a blazing discord. he had found himself in the same position after four years of assuming he never would, that moving on from the blonde was child’s play. and yet he left that mansion with a deep thrust of an ache in his chest than any other day spent with claire scott beforehand. how he could be so foolish to patch up a leaking hole that was bound to breakthrough the barrier of his heart. he had given the girl his heart a long time ago, but never did he realize how much it would be stomped on and then tossed to the floor as if it didn’t matter. with nowhere else to find an abode in, he checked himself into a nearby hotel. all memories associated with the blonde had to be erased. maybe it was a wake up call for him to go back to jersey. if he couldn’t handle the local brush with his ex girlfriend, the moderate distance between beverly hills and princeton felt at the very least doable. gruffly, the tall man shoved the hoodie over his head, the comfort of the piece of fabric — no matter how tattered and worn it was to the naked eye — feeling more like home than anything else in his possession. the knock on his hotel room door caused an eyebrow to raise on his forehead, unaware of his company. though he assumed it was the room service, peyton called out, “i’ll be there in a second,” and within the next beat never did he predict the same blonde from that morning to be at the foot of his door. an unknown suppression of his temper flourished from the pit of his stomach to his mouth, head shaken at the woman in front of him. “no…i don’t think we do,” he retorted, immediately closing the door from behind him, the action needing more convincing to do so than he would’ve liked. the uncontrollable rage that fueled within him took center stage in cutting off the one person he wanted to let in. but maybe there was a slight ping of regret in doing so that sunk in only moments after closing the door on her.

peytonvaldonna​:

hazel hues grew wide at the words that expelled from the blonde, nearly choking the breath out of his lungs in the process. there wasn’t a case that he could deny it, but simply hearing the sentence aloud into open air was more than he’d excepted. some people never changed. and that rang true with claire scott. it was almost comical how with every passing second, peyton’s heart was becoming more evaded and encroached with claire’s claim. despite not wanting to admit the fatal flaw to himself, the brunette couldn’t defy himself and express that he was wishing the moments drew to a close. this was his normalcy, what he had yearned for back home in new jersey. to just be in all accounts with the girl he had been in love with for more than four years time. the uneven shift in weight of the bed when the woman departed from her place caused a slight tear in the wound of his pre-mended heart. it hadn’t fully recovered from the day their marriage ended. in fact, then as he thought, that night before felt more like an egregious separation in a form of goodbye. she couldn’t stay, of course she couldn’t. it wasn’t as if that statement surprised the lawyer. there was a repetitive record spinning constantly in the confines of his mind, those words being most often replicated. “no, no…i get it. you’re a busy person. you’ve got better things to do. i’ll uh —…i’ll leave,” peyton responded, reaching over to grasp at the crisp white undershirt that laid idle on the bedroom floor from the night prior. pulling the fabric over his head, a gentle sigh escaped parted lips. it was what he expected, but not what he anticipated.

someone wise once said there was little spin class, brunch, and retail therapy couldn’t fix. okay, maybe that person was her, but still. no, it wouldn’t fix the massive hole in her heart per se, but it would take her mind off things for awhile.  and right now, that’s exactly what she needed. her brain needed a break. anything to get him out of her mind.  not that she could tell any of her friends that. she couldn’t tell them that she asked him to stay the previous night and that he actually did, then they woke up in the same bed this morning. no because she knows exactly the lecture she’d get: we don’t sleep with our exes, claire!  and they’d be right. there was a reason certain why you don’t sleep with your exes because it just makes everything so much more complicated.  messy. ugh.  whatever, claire’s over it. all of it. all the lovey dovey couples she’s passing by? they don’t even affect her, let alone make her want to puke because they’re so cute!  besides, peyton valdonna annoys the hell out of her. he’s annoying and constantly gets on her nerves. they are always arguing about something, they don’t work. they would never work, they’re complete opposites that would end up probably killing each other. all things that the blonde woman accepted a long time ago. some things are just best left in the past. but was there a sense of comfort last night? sure. did she feel safe with him like no time had passed?  mayhaps. was she unbelievably happy when she woke up next to him to see his smiling face? fine, maybe those were all factual statements. but there was no way… huh, cute outfit, maybe she needed to check if they had that in her size? anyway,  maybe his simple touch was enough to set her on fire. maybe he was the only person who ever truly got her, who saw both good and the bad sides of her and still loved her anyway. maybe she hated the idea of anyone else ever touching him, anyone ever loving him, him ever loving anyone who wasn’t her. and maybe…. oh jesus fucking christ. she’s still in love with him. of-fucking-course. claire scott was unconditionally, irrevocably in love with peyton valdonna. and that? was the most terrifying revelation of her life. ugh, stupid six foot five, dreamy brunette lawyer. stupid, stupid, stupid. really, there’s a lot of ways claire could deal with this news. either tell him or ignore it all together and avoid him for the rest of time. the latter seemed like a pretty good option. and yet….. she simply can’t. what was that saying? the truth will set you free? even if she completely embarrasses herself, even if he rejects her, claire needs to get this off her chest. it would be so easy to text or call him, but she isn’t sure if he even wants to see her. no, she has to go to him. and of course it just so happens to be storming. if there’s one thing she hates it’s driving in the rain, but the things you do for love. oh, she really hopes she doesn’t end up killing herself. finding herself at the hotel he was staying at, more specifically his room number, the blonde knocks at the door. when the door opens a moment later, she takes note of the princeton hoodie he was sporting and how good he looks in it. great, he probably thinks she’s pathetic showing up to his door. “can we talk? please?” claire asks softly, fully expecting a no. it’s not like she could blame him.

[peytonvaldonna]

hazel hues grew wide at the words that expelled from the blonde, nearly choking the breath out of his lungs in the process. there wasn’t a case that he could deny it, but simply hearing the sentence aloud into open air was more than he’d excepted. some people never changed. and that rang true with claire scott. it was almost comical how with every passing second, peyton’s heart was becoming more evaded and encroached with claire’s claim. despite not wanting to admit the fatal flaw to himself, the brunette couldn’t defy himself and express that he was wishing the moments drew to a close. this was his normalcy, what he had yearned for back home in new jersey. to just be in all accounts with the girl he had been in love with for more than four years time. the uneven shift in weight of the bed when the woman departed from her place caused a slight tear in the wound of his pre-mended heart. it hadn’t fully recovered from the day their marriage ended. in fact, then as he thought, that night before felt more like an egregious separation in a form of goodbye. she couldn’t stay, of course she couldn’t. it wasn’t as if that statement surprised the lawyer. there was a repetitive record spinning constantly in the confines of his mind, those words being most often replicated. “no, no…i get it. you’re a busy person. you’ve got better things to do. i’ll uh —…i’ll leave,” peyton responded, reaching over to grasp at the crisp white undershirt that laid idle on the bedroom floor from the night prior. pulling the fabric over his head, a gentle sigh escaped parted lips. it was what he expected, but not what he anticipated.

peytonvaldonna​:

there’s a flutter in his chest, the temperament of absolute euphoria as he lays there in complete contentment. so much he nearly forgets that at one point, he completely despised the woman in the same bed as him. she looks just as beautiful — even more so, he confirms — in the dimming light of the gloomy morning casted with the pairing of rain that is a near rarity in beverly hills. peyton can only take it as a sign that just as it is scarce to be struck by lightning, so is the privilege of falling in love with claire scott. she held a leash onto his heart and with each tug, it leads closer to her no matter how much time has passed. the night before was a simple refraction of the intimate feeling of worthiness and claim he surprisingly felt in the agency of the blonde. though the brunette should feel some sort of impending embarrassment for the actions that follow from that night into the morning, all peyton can think of is the idea of never leaving the bed. her fingers traveling into his hair weaken him in the knees, like a guttural punch knocking the wind out of his lungs. “of course,” he breathes out, hazel hues staying glued to the caramel brown ones that belong to claire. a soft chuckle surpasses through his lips, teeth gnawing into the flesh of his bottom border. i’m any attempt to break the ice of tension, there’s little else that can crack through the surface like the words from his ex girlfriend. “you could say i did at one point,” he agrees quietly, a slight nod to follow. “most definitely the elementary kind where i make fun of you so much that it’s almost obvious that i like you. watch out before you catch me tugging on your pigtails at recess,”

“oh trust me, i can attest to the hair pulling,” she responds with a small smirk. and in that moment, claire feels it. she can physically herself getting attached to him again. the banter, the smirks, the feeling of nothing has changed. it’s like they stepped right back into the past. it’s a feeling she’s craved for god knows how long. someone who just knows her inside and out. but things did change. everything changed. the bliss of last night that carried into the morning was just… everything she needed. it’s easy to fall back into old habits, but nothing was fixed. not in the slightest. the argument in the elevator still lingered in the back of her mind. and right now, claire scott is falling for peyton valdonna. fast. maybe she never really stopped in the first place. the blonde can’t put herself through that again, the heartache that left her absolutely broken inside and out. when she was convinced that broken heart was enough to kill her. no, no. her head can’t let that happen again. every single defense and wall that came down last night was suddenly up again. “peyton…. i can’t–,” claire begins, the buzz of her phone interrupting her thoughts. her gaze moves to the ‘where are you?’ messages from her friends. oh thank god an out. “stay. i really should go, i’m sorry.” peeling the blankets off of her, the woman got up. it hurt too much to look at him right now. remember that bridge she said she’d cross when she got it to? well….

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

she. was. never. drinking. again. everything ached. god, did everything ache. drinking was always a good idea. scratch that, it was always a good idea the night before when you needed something to numb the pain. something to make you forget. then the next day, not only do you have a raging hangover, but that pain that you tried so hard left so hard get rid of? back in full force. claire would never learn. it feels nearly impossible to open her eyes with the pounding headache. but…. then she feels someone else’s touch. did she go home with someone? wait… mocha hues immediately flutter open to meet a pair of hazel ones. peyton. valdonna. in her bed. and like waves, the memories from the night before come crashing down. holy shit. oh claire you dumb bitch. was it possible to be completely freaking out but also somewhat calm at the same time? because with the rising anxiety that is currently coursing through her veins, there’s also this… peace from having him right here. “hi…  um, thanks for staying,” the blonde replies softly. baby. she wants to call him baby. the word is on the tip of her tongue. it’s the only word that comes to her mind when she looks at his smiling face. ugh, the way he looks at her sometimes. baby. baby. baby. great, she’s in trouble. it’s almost like she’s shy. claire scott shy? yeah, yeah, nobody would’ve believed it either.  she was embarrassed to ask him to stay yesterday, still very much embarrassed now. “what? you got a crush on me or something?” claire teased with a roll of her eyes, pushing the brunette’s hair back. 

there’s a flutter in his chest, the temperament of absolute euphoria as he lays there in complete contentment. so much he nearly forgets that at one point, he completely despised the woman in the same bed as him. she looks just as beautiful — even more so, he confirms — in the dimming light of the gloomy morning casted with the pairing of rain that is a near rarity in beverly hills. peyton can only take it as a sign that just as it is scarce to be struck by lightning, so is the privilege of falling in love with claire scott. she held a leash onto his heart and with each tug, it leads closer to her no matter how much time has passed. the night before was a simple refraction of the intimate feeling of worthiness and claim he surprisingly felt in the agency of the blonde. though the brunette should feel some sort of impending embarrassment for the actions that follow from that night into the morning, all peyton can think of is the idea of never leaving the bed. her fingers traveling into his hair weaken him in the knees, like a guttural punch knocking the wind out of his lungs. “of course,” he breathes out, hazel hues staying glued to the caramel brown ones that belong to claire. a soft chuckle surpasses through his lips, teeth gnawing into the flesh of his bottom border. i’m any attempt to break the ice of tension, there’s little else that can crack through the surface like the words from his ex girlfriend. “you could say i did at one point,” he agrees quietly, a slight nod to follow. “most definitely the elementary kind where i make fun of you so much that it’s almost obvious that i like you. watch out before you catch me tugging on your pigtails at recess,”

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

this is a terrible idea. a very, very terrible idea. logically, she knows it. logically, she knows nothing good can come from this. the heart that she spent so much time picking up the pieces and repairing is only going to get fractured again. claire knows that much. fire meet gasoline. except every logical thought that was once in her brain left the second their lips touched. typical.  her life had been in complete disarray the past eight months, her mind in constant overdrive. would it be so bad for her to get her mind off things for a little awhile? nothing could erase the grief that found a home in her body, but…. she just didn’t want to think about anything right now. whatever followed in the days following, whatever consequences came from this, the blonde would cross that bridge when she came to it. because right now temptation is looking her right in the eye and she can’t say no. possible scenarios of reconciliation used to run rampant in that mind of hers. what it would be like if the two of them could find their way back to each other, if somehow claire and peyton could a way to make things work again. this particular scenario wasn’t ever really a thought that ever crossed her mind. just relax, i’m going to take care of you. goosebumps, just goosebumps. it’s difficult to describe what she’s feeling in this moment. the fluttering in her stomach, just…. bliss because of course he can pick her up and carry her like it’s nothing. of course. “oh come on, when have you ever known me to relax?” claire inquired, a giggle falling from her lips. content. a dangerous feeling. if their story was to end, it was only right to end it right where it began. how poetic. “i thought lawyers were supposed to be responsible,” the blonde scoffed as she grabbed his tie, pulling him down to her lips. 

what should’ve been expectant sunlight to bleed through the blinds of the room, was instead milky fog and the onset of an incoming storm. a crackle of thunder boomed from the outside of the window, suddenly awakening peyton from the slumber that he couldn’t remember himself taking. his eyes drew heavy as they struggled to open, a scorched burning alighting his throat like wildfire. his arms — though not totally weighed down — cradled around the shoulders of his ex girlfriend. the hint of her perfume still permeating closely through the air he inhaled as hazel hues gave the blonde a glance over. there peyton lay, in a sea of covers and not even a pillow length’s distance between the once haughty pair. though everything from the top of head to the length of his toes throbbed, it would’ve been a lie to say this wasn’t where he had imagined being. maybe not so closely linked to the tragedy of cece’s death, but surprise all but became evident in his features as he attempted to pinpoint even a single moment of recollection from the late before. four years. four years of no drinking to him becoming so accustomed to the stage of drunkness around the scotts he might as well have anticipated being so with each encounter. all methods of sensibility were thrown out the window. but, if this were a last night of amends, he would enjoy them in the comfort of the girl who took hold of his heart. fingertips brushed delicately through blonde locks, attempting at being as quiet and motionless as possible as he swallowed up the picture that was in front of him. dry chapped lips pecked a soft kiss to the angle of her temple, admiration filling within him as if he were an empty cup, and he were desperate to drown in analyzing her every noticeable and unnoticeable idiosyncrasy he had yet to pin down. or, to remind him of what he had missed for those years in an effort to take a guided stroll down memory lane. “good morning,” he finally uttered, voice husked and low despite the ever growing grin that made its appearance on peyton’s face to greet claire face to face.

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

everything just… stops. actually, that’s a lie, her heart is beating so loud it’s bound to pop right out of her chest at any moment. more than anything, confusion swirls around in her mind. when that hospital elevator opened by daybreak the next day two people that never wanted to see each other again exited. they didn’t work.  they would never work. claire had accepted that a long time ago. sometimes opposites attract and other times it just drives you farther apart.  claire and peyton were a prime example of that. but…. with his hands in her hair and on her body, it’s kind of hard to think straight. seven billion people on the planet, three point nine seven million in the city of angels, right now many of those people were enjoying the night life. the night life claire often found herself apart of. yet, there was no other place she’d rather be than right here. with him. a jolt of electricity is sent through her body as he kisses her. it’s everything.  everything she had been missing the past four years. everything she had been in search for in different cities,  trying to replace it with different people to no avail. and honestly? it scares the hell out of her. it scares her that she can melt into him so easily. like on instinct. like the way it always had been.  not many few people can say they turn claire audrey scott soft. very few people can melt that block of ice that is kept hidden away in her chest. but him?  even after all this time…. he’s right there doing just that. melting her. breaking through any and all the barriers. fuck. her arms find themselves wrapped around his neck, pulling him as close to her as humanly possible. at five foot and six inches, she thinks as herself as somewhat tall. even taller in heels, really. nevertheless, all of that gets thrown out the window when you take into account the height of the brunette she was kissing. almost a whole foot taller than her. the blonde just needs to feel him. it’s not a want, but a need. she needs to feel him to know that is actually happening. that he’s here, that this is real. the taste of cigarettes fills her mouth and claire must be going insane if she, an absolute health freak, seriously missed that.  “don’t start something you can’t finish,” the blonde teases, pulling away as a hand rests upon his chest,  “go to bed, valdonna.” they say to never make homes out of people, god claire wishes she really would’ve listened to that. 

there was an inconsequential thirst that the alcohol didn’t seem to quench. but when lips touched the other, the brunette’s cluster of emotion was seemingly settled at bay. for a moment, when the beat left him as she pulled away, all he wanted to do was repeat the action, doing it again. with no fear to bound him backward. it’s the kiss he had been waiting on to ignite the spark in him that was so dimmed for four years. yes, maybe this was built on a someday, but maybe that someday could be today. cece was a true ally for the boy, but it was certain that maybe, possibly his return to beverly hills was a mere excuse that fell to her demise as a cover up. it’s insurmountable how quickly his emotions fluctuate from boastfully happy to gravely sad to anxiously worried all in the matter of a few seconds while in claire scott’s presence. her hold on him has always been strong, that much peyton never liked to care to admit. the hate that boiled within his blood for her was an offset. and it was possible that he would always be tied to the blonde who granted him the only happiness he’d ever known to be fully and duly genuine to the core. a rough hand collapses over the one guarding over his heart, the one claire owns. as it beats, the man can only assume that the one it’s beating for is sitting right beside him. it’s found it’s home whether or not he cares to admit it, sober or otherwise. the disconnection leads to him attempting to catch his breath, his gaze not once deferring to anything else as she has his full and undivided attention. just like she always had before. almost as if those four years withstood nothing in difference. a clammy forehead presses against the opposite’s, bridges of his nose sweeping over her own as he inhales each breath she takes in mildly. she’s a poisonous flower that he’s insistent on indulging, even for one last time. “just relax, i’m going to take care of you,” he hushed, both arms cradling the petite frame of hers into his arms, the pad of his thumb lapping at the collar of her neck before lifting her by his waist side. he knows every path of the house as if it were his own, once he manages to carry her into the guest room, he lays her onto the made bed. but with his luck, they’ll destroy its content in the process. his irises stare lovingly into his ex girlfriends, his silent ask of permission for access and confirmation to finish what he started.

[peytonvaldonna]

clairescotts​:

but you can’t say it didn’t make you laugh, princess. princess. a shiver is immediately sent down her spine, cheeks flushed. a sudden wave of nauseous soon hits. god, she wants to throw up. a simple word to most carries the weight of the world to her. she hates that that specific moniker still has a hold on her. maybe, just maybe, she needs to trade in the bottle for some water to get ahead of the hangover that will definitely not be kind to her in the morning. apparently she can’t drink like she used to. get both of them water, tell him he can stay in a guest room, make sure he stays on his side. a solid plan because some things do never change. great, solid plan. no harm, no foul. claire watches as he struggles with his jacket, trying and failing, she might add, to bite back a laugh in the process. yes, the temperature in the room did seem like it was going up by the second. even in the usual freezing in the winter months mansion.  turn on the air conditioning as soon as possible, noted. he wants her help?  really? “yeah, yeah, come here,” her voice is soft as another laughs spills from pink lips, closing any and all distance between the two. hands going to the cuff links, one by one undoing them. setting them down, her hands moved up to his shoulders, peeling the black coat off of him. right now her mind remains completely blank. this is all she can focus on. helping him out of his jacket then eventually saying goodnight to him. the jacket slides off and just as quick as they were there, her hands retract from his body. “better?” the blonde questions delicately, her gaze locking with his. go to bed, claire. 

behind the bluster of his state of mind in that moment, there was a sudden awareness that he had been in this situation before. not just him, but the both of them. deja vu ran rampant in the back of his mind. the last time he found himself drunk and unable to care of his actions was with the same beguiling blonde who he was staring down at this very second. he could set up the scene, weakening in the bed, eyes barely fluttering shut, but the same scent he found himself enticed into. only this time, laced with the same alcohol he ingested. the flare of jasmine, vanilla and amber clashed up his nose in a flurry of memory of the time he’d first spilled his guts to her. although unwarranted. the perfect mix of the perfume she’d worn for as long as the man could remember. the time he’d confessed that he was in love with claire. and when he was out with the sentiment, it easily repeated from his lips until he fell into a sobering sleep. one he only lamented the morning after. it was his vulnerability that was casted out into the one audience he was sure would hold it over him. heavy breathing trapped out of his tensive lungs. her touch ignited a soul fire within his chest, hazel hues not once blinking as he became entranced of the girl in his aid. his skin rashing once her hands settled away, his hands traveling up the length of her arms like a map. a map he could read just by knowledge of his own understanding. like time had never passed him. callused fingertips made their way to the honey locks that cascaded down her back like a blonde waterfall, soft and intentional. “yes,” hummed from the opening of his lips while his orbs stayed trained on every square inch of claire’s face. from the small of her chin to the lack of colour in her cheeks found noticeable from as close up as he was. the breath he found caught in throat stayed mellowing in his chest, along with the quickening patter of his chest as time was melting away. the pad of his thumb caressed the bone of her cheek, fingertips combed through the fistful of hair between his knuckles. peyton found himself stumbling forward — from lack of balance — and in the process his lips hovering over similar pink ones while a chuckle reverberated through slightly opened borders. almost as quickly as the chuckle had passed, his countenance turned taut and serious. and within a second’s time, peyton inhaled the fusion of both perfume and drink before his lips feathered over claire’s own. a cocktail of what his princeton hoodie reminded him of, and in a simple word: home. allowing himself to bend from his own discipline, he deepened the connection between him and the girl, mind becoming suddenly obscured from right and wrong and simply just. connecting lips to her own, peyton drowned himself in four years of depriving. it may have been impulsive, but how was that ever veering far from the lawyer’s otherwise typical outbursts?