winifrvd

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  KIT.

“i have been….” it seems like a loaded question. one that he’s not entirely sure he has the answer to, so instead, he finds himself nodding vacantly. “as well as one can be given the circumstances.” although if the odour of cigarettes hadn’t revealed the truth, the heavy bags under his eyes do more to hint that the statement is a lie. kit fumbles in his coat pocket momentarily - more out of distraction than need - fingers brushing off his phone in the hunt for his keys. “and you?” he asks in return, moving a few steps forward to unlock the front door. “do you… think valentine’s capable of it?” 

     she purses her lips, following kit inside his apartment after he unlocks the door. freda hasn’t given it much thought; she’s afraid to — afraid that the conclusion she will arrive at will not be one of innocence. “yes,” she finally admits. “but. i think i would say the same for any one of us.” she steals a glance at him, recalling his own arrest. “i think i thought you had been capable as well.” a pause. “but that’s different from culpability, no? that one i’m still wrestling with.”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  TALBOT.

“ because you did it. ” such a sentence makes it’s way out of his mouth before he has the time to truly think over her question. and despite the collected conviction in his words, his temper doesn’t rise. in fact, he finds himself stumbling backwards through his words. “ i mean, you know christian. ” and by the way he smacks his lips, even that doesn’t cut it for him. it is an explanation that eludes him in words, or at least words that he does not want to express to her should she  either scream at him or hold him. both are terrifying possibilities, though as he stands there he wishes to express so much of the last few days that he sinks his hands into his pockets to somehow push them down. “ not that i’d – i wouldn’t want you to go to jail. ”

     again, she’s surprised by how blunt he is. though she shouldn’t have been, recalling their last conversation. something in her expression changes at the mention of christian. their last conversation sharpens in her memory when this detail comes to surface. she wants to laugh, but doesn’t. instead: “and you know me.” it should’ve been as simple as that. “when did christian even make it into the conversation? it’s christian.” even with the arrest of valentine she can’t fathom a possibility in which christian is guilty of something. she thinks of their conversation; wonders if something about him was acting out of guilt rather than grief. she still can’t imagine it. “i’d hope so.” freda pauses, impressed with the civility in both of their tones. “considering i took no part in it.”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  XANDRE.

“This is why we always listen to me, darling.” He muses dryly, watching as she swigs the liquor. The buzz was something he often craved in his bones, a rush, a hit, whatever he could grab. The need was absent now, adrenaline enough just from the sight of the cuffs and the back of a cop car. Who knew vindication was as deadly a drug? He fills the silence, terrible humor surfacing. “ – think they’ll cancel classes?”

     something between a sigh and a chuckle escapes her lips. “at least i got some fun out of it. at first.” it feels inappropriate to joke, as it always does, but for winifred especially; the stakes for her have always been low regarding the case. sometimes she has this worry that her concern for talbot is merely performative, or an effort to inflate her role so that she was allowed to be stricken. truthfully, she’s never known how much she’s allowed to grieve octavia either. she tilts the bottle up for another swig before holding it to xandre. “now who’s being naive?”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  TALBOT.

phone tucked away safely in his back pocket, t is as equally hesitant, though not apologetic. besides, apologies do not come easily for him. all the same, he cannot be hard on winifred for long. not when she asks a question that warms his heart no matter how despondent she sounds. it hurts to think she���s playing a long-winded trick on him and a question that might’ve brought a smile not long ago constitutes a furrow of his brow when skepticism takes its place. “ okay. ” he blinks at her, tossing the butt of his cigarette into the trashcan nearby. with a pinch of his lips does he play along, “ you’ve been . . busy? ” 

     looking for something to be angry about isn’t characteristic of her. she forgives and forgets without even an apology. this time is different. maybe she’s imagining it but there’s something accusatory in his tone again. “no,” she answers, defensiveness snaking its way into her tone. “not aside from all my normal work, at least.” freda looks down. she’d give anything not to fight, but it isn’t up to her. she toes at some pebbles by her feet, lets more silence fill up their time. “why.... why do you think it was me?” after a few days, this is all she has to ask. when she runs through their conversation again, the beginning is always so convoluted, so many details lost in the heat of their tempers.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  XANDRE.

“Until they carted her off.” Is his reply, staring down at the bottle and trying to decipher how he feels of it all, how he can allow himself to feel in front of her, others. He offers her the bottle, neck of it held aloft between fingers. “I figured now if any point was enough to indulge. Don’t try to get me too sloppy though, no having your wild way with me. i’ve got to check on Wolf in a bit.” A few sips would do jack shit considering his high tolerance, but it was the rather the sentiment of it. He’d drink to her demise, any day.

     winifred nods wordlessly. there wasn’t anything to say, not when she was still struggling with the possibility of valentine’s involvement, still deciding her opinion of it. she looks down, wraps her fingers around the neck of it and regards it for a moment before bringing it to her lips. “please.” she suppresses a laugh, but it still comes out in her breath. “i suppose it had been slightly naive of me to think we could make it through just one event without anything occurring.”

[winifrvd]

CLOSED STARTER FOR @cwbosch     /     winifred   &   christian.

     the convenient thing about christian was that, unlike talbot, he let her be there for him. or, at the very least, made her feel like she could be there him, which was more than enough for her. valentine. she feels blinded again which is maybe only half of what christian feels, so she goes over to his apartment, knocking once, then twice hesitantly. “hey,” she forces the smallest smile when the door opens. “i just wanted to check up on you.”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  KIT.

in the day that had passed since valentine’s arrest, kit’s become a ghost of sorts himself. setting out early in the morning and spending the least amount of time in the house as possible. he should be working on his dissertation but instead, he finds himself holed up in the library pouring over the details he must have missed in the case. something he should have really done months ago. only stopping in the early evening to buy another packet of cigarettes and a bottle of shiraz before returning to escalus… suddenly very aware that he reeks of both when he bumps into the person on the path leading up to the house. 

“i don’t suppose i can tempt you to a nightcap?” kit asks meekly, using what little energy he has left to tilt the bottle from side to side — more desperate for the company than he’ll admit aloud. 

     her apartment feels like something to be avoided at this time. first lysander, now valentine. it’s difficult to discern what to believe, what to think of it all. so she tries not to. she’s running so much more than she ever has, but it’s only because all her usual forms of distraction trap her in the place she’s trying to stay away from. she’s walking back towards escalus, only because she can’t run forever, when she runs into kit. she looks down at the bottle in his hands, then up towards the path to escalus. 

     winifred nods, wrapping her earphones around her phone before sticking it in the pocket of her hoodie. “sure,” she answers. “how’ve you been holding up?”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  XANDRE.

He’d snatched the bottle from a faculty area, almost smirking to himself that the professors had been hoarding the good stuff. The pop is muted even to his own ears, and he finds himself sitting just outside of escalus house, turning it over in his hands. It is only when he hears steps does he glance up, smile as phony as the laugh. “It took a few hours, but I took you up on the offer to join you in a drink. Am I too late?”

     when she finally makes her way back to escalus, her head is no longer so heavy with intoxication, sobered by the events of the picnic. at xandre’s voice, freda pauses just before she steps inside. she mirrors his smile, sighing slightly and tilting her head. “no, no.” she shakes her head, ambling over to take a seat next to him. “how long did you stick around for?” freda is impossibly tired, but she can’t bear to be alone either and she finds herself lacking friends.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  TALBOT.

the trip outside that tal is taking is only supposed to allow him a minute to catch a breath of fresh air and to smoke a cigarette, but he ends up answering the phone on his way out. he is fumbling with his lighter when he turns to notice wini exiting the building with his phone pressed against his ear. and he is still doing so when he immediately turns back around. a futile effort, he knows. they’d already met each other’s eyes. t leans to put out the cigarette he’s only just lit. though not eager on starting a conversation, he expects she’ll steal at least a word or two.

“ ma, i’m gonna call you back. love you. ”

     catching tal’s gaze had been a mistake, but now that she had, it would be foolish to walk away and pretend otherwise. it must mean something, still, that he takes care not to smoke in her presence. she stops in front of him, books pressed to her chest. a beat passes as she searches for what to say. “how’ve you been?” it’s painful to hear the apathy in her voice, though it’s only because she doesn’t know where she stands with him any longer — if valentine’s arrest has only enforced his suspicion of her.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  WOLFIE.

“no,” he shakes his head, arms crossing over his chest as he lifts his chin as if to gesture to go on, “if we stopped arguing for five seconds we’d what ?” he presses — and perhaps his attempt to let things to had been futile, perhaps he was always grasping onto the anger in his chest so tightly because it was the only thing he had to grab onto. still, being angry with winifred didn’t make him feel any better. in fact, the look on her face only made him feel worse. “we’d realize we have more in common than we thought ?” he asks mockingly, “spare me the lecture, winifred.”

     winifred scoffs quietly, more out of frustration than anything else. “yes, william,” she mimics, turning to face him completely. she doesn’t avert her gaze and that takes all her willpower. “or something along those lines, at least.” her fear of being incorrect is making it more difficult for her to feign any semblance of determination, but she doesn’t want to anger him more than she thinks she already has. “it’s just, why does it have to be lysander?” she’s turned this question over herself so many times and she’s reached her own conclusions, but she doubts he’ll give her the truth. “that’s all. no lecture. i should go,” she finishes, pressing her lips together before walking away.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  WOLFIE.

he crinkles his nose, shaking his head in response to her apology. “you didn’t do this to my eye,” he says, shrugging his shoulders in response, “don’t be sorry. it’s not your fault.” he wants to say — why the hell are you friends with him ? why the hell do you believe anything he says ? he wants to shake her by the shoulders, but he doesn’t. he doesn’t need to put her in the middle of it, when she’d done nothing wrong. except for befriend the wrong sort, he supposed. but could she be blamed for that ? he snorts at the justification — the thought of talbot having a rough go at things, after all of this, seems ironic. and though he doesn’t mean to be short or snarky with her, he can’t help it. “oh, is he ?” he asks, raising a brow, and he hates the sound of his mocking tone in his own ears, yet that doesn’t seem to stop him. “that poor boy.” 

     he’s right, but she’s compelled to apologize anyhow because tal isn’t right. he isn’t wrong either, though. “yeah, but. still.” it’s all she’s got. the only way she can think to mediate something she still refuses to take part in. freda lets out a sigh at his tone. as much as she deserves it, he’s never been like this with her. “yes.” she can see the end of this conversation already. “he’s allowed to have a hard time too, you know,” she adds quietly, heart still racing but for a different reason. “honestly, if the two of you would just stop arguing for five seconds...” she mutters, half under her breath, leaving her sentence unfinished. he won’t want to hear the end of it anyway. “never mind,” she says, shaking her head, cutting the conversation short. she lost her nerve. of course.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  WOLFIE.

“it was his lucky day,” he smiles, a little awkwardly — he didn’t want to put winifred in the middle of something she didn’t need to be involved with, although he had been forcing people to take sides since the beginning of all of this, “i let him off the hook.” although he hadn’t returned a punch that day — he certainly hadn’t kept his cool, either. but there was something so sacrilegious about fighting like that in oberon’s office, knowing, or at least thinking he knew, what a peaceful person oberon ashcroft was. those, these days, he saw so little of the man, he wasn’t sure how much he really knew of him at all. “hey,” he says, his voice soft this time as he reaches up to tuck away a loose strand of her hair. the action feels more intimate than he’d meant for it to, and he quickly returns his hand to his side. “i’m sorry. i know he’s your best friend,” he frowns at the word — he’d been friends with talbot once, too, but now the thought of it made his skin crawl — “it wasn’t his fault. i incited it.” 

     “huh,” she says, surprised. there’s not a part of her that believes he simply ‘let him off the hook,’ but she won’t press for any detaiils. she still doesn’t know what she’ll do if they continue to talk about him, if she’ll defend him with the same intensity she does with other people. freda raises her brows, looking up at him. “mhm?” her breath hitches as he pushes her hair behind her ear — everything pauses for just a second. wolfie drops his hand, and she drops her gaze, finally exhaling, her heart’s beating wildly in her chest, and she’s taking so much care to tamp down all the hope that’s sprouted because she knows it means nothing. and yet. she swallows, shaking her head. the motion is almost erratic now that she’s so flustered. “it’s, i’m sorry. about your eye.” she gestures to it vaguely. “he’s... having a difficult time.” she doesn’t realize how awful of a response it is until the words already hang in the air. “i mean,” she rushes, covering her face with her hand, now feeling that she’ll be unhappy with however she conducts herself.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  TALBOT.

t’s gaze lands on his own bracelet, arms leaning into the table. it’s better than looking down at her. that is something he does not wish to do from the height he stands. it’s funny she thinks herself unable to hide this from him when there’s a locket of secrets in his chest that he hides from her. among them doubts of ever finishing his schooling, or at least as a philosophy major, and visits with his father. wini knows he has a propensity for dramatization. he reckons especially so when he cannot tear his eyes from his jewelry. it is a relief for himself when he doesn’t claw the bracelet off.

“ i-i don’t need sleep! ” his voice rises again, offended by the statement. if he needed sleep more than justice, then that’s what he’d be doing. “ yes, yes, yes, of course i think you could do . . that. ” he confirms, licking his chapped lips when he sends a desperate glance backwards, searching for others who seem they might be holding daggers. nonetheless, he knows he could never have the wherewithal to hold her accountable for her actions — just past ignoring her completely. “ what i need, is, is the truth. and if i’m not going to get it from you, i’ll get it from someone else. ” he sounds like he’s throwing a hissy fit, which he is, but he lingers one, two seconds more than he should until he steals away with the look of a young boy who’s been told to share his toys.

     winifred squeezes her eyes shut as he yells again. it wasn’t the right thing to say, she’d known that before she said it, but she was frustrated and she wanted him to feel the same. if she could she’d wish away the last week, to start again, redo it in a way that doesn’t end up with this. she opens her mouth to protest. she still can’t understand where all of this is coming from. “the truth? i have nothing to do with octavia’s death,” she says, and her tone is cold. how she finds herself in a position where she has to justify herself to talbot is a wonder to her. “you can choose not to believe me, but that's all i have to say.” winifred shakes her head, looking down at her palms. she thinks she could cry.

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  XANDRE.

Her comments are enough to give him pause, never quite agreeable enough to be truly chastised by the words but he did understand them. “You’re right. I am in a rather privileged scenario academia wise. Though I suppose the whole murdered baby cousin thing evens out some of the emotional toll in the grand scheme of things.” He does a small circle, taking in the sights with a rather keen eye. “Money makes the world go round, Winnie. I guess I never realized how much that could apply to higher education too. Much easier to stand these things when smashed.”

     “oh. yeah. in the grand scheme of things. we’ve all got something. and if it’s not money, it might be... that.” the mention of octavia sobers her slightly. she didn’t mean to compare tragedies. “don’t i know it,” she mutters slightly, tilting her head. it was the whole reason of her attending, of her choosing to study computer science. “definitely. does that mean you’ll join me then?” she’s not usually so insistent, but she wants to have fun, to lean into what ashcroft is trying to sell her. they’ve put in the all this effort anyhow.

[winifrvd]

You have the sun in you, and the softness, and the clarity.

Anaïs Nin, from “The Four-Chambered Heart,” originally published c. 1950 (via violentwavesofemotion)

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  GEORGINA.

– GEORGINA FEELS LIGHT AND FREDA IS SMILING AT HER, so the energy is contagious, moving to the beat as she gently drapes her arms over the other girl’s shoulders. she’s glad to be in relaxed company. “ so, let’s give them a show, then ! ” georgina beams, “ let’s just HAVE FUN, i don’t want any of this stupid bullshit to ruin our night, okay ? ” she leans in close, bopping freda on the nose with her fingertip, “ and YOU look absolutely gorgeous ! they can’t set out champagne and expect us not to drink it, after all. ” 

     “deal,” she agrees, scrunching her nose in response to georgina’s touch. “no stupid bullshit,” freda repeats, and she hopes it is just that easy. tal’s accusation has been playing over and over in her head, but she pushes the thought so far out of her mind that it looks like pinprick in the distance. today was meant to be fun. “not nearly as gorgeous as you, but how can you manage anything in those shoes?” she laughs, looking down. winifred herself had opted for her white sneakers, though it’s not as if she had much of a choice. “how many glasses have you had now?”

[winifrvd]

WINIFRED  &  TALBOT.

if he could be relieved of all feelings, then he’d count himself lucky. the lot of them made his head ache and his conscience stir with confusion. wasn’t much different a feeling than how wini playing dumb or how meeting with his father biweekly made him feel. he should be better at reading her emotions right now; it wasn’t like he didn’t know when she was lying. but once paranoia stole his mind, he could hardly focus on her, much less read her — even when he’d pushed his sunglasses into his hair.

“ you killed her. ” he had the decency to lower his voice, but the conviction weaved throughout his words packed as much a punch as it would have had he declared it to the world around them. the crazed glaze in his eyes explained how he could believe such a thing when she had been with him that night: baking, laughing, watching movies. the last time events were ever normal, life ever simple. the stare fixated on her is brief and certain, before he reaches to cradle his head again. “ you helped christian do it, and — and his girlfriend! do you think i’m an idiot? ” talbot hasn’t patience, never has. he reads into silence as admittance, even as he takes a moment for himself, to rise to his feet and shake his head. all the while blissfully unaware of how quickly his mind’s eye could turn what he’d known as the truth to something entirely separate; perhaps because he’s eager to push his best friend further away.

     his accusation feels like a slap in the face, and for a moment, she sits, stunned. she doesn’t know if she should be relieved at how wrong he was; part of her could laugh at the absurdity of the idea. but she can see in his face how much he believes it, how he’s likely spun a version of the story where she is an accomplice. it’s a crushing realization. to know that the person you thought knew you doesn’t. “are you kidding?” her tone is low, almost unable to utter the words. she knows he isn’t, but she’ll allow him one opportunity to take it back. she can’t even meet his gaze when he stands.

     when she finishes sorting through her emotions, she’s left with profound sadness. after a long pause, she raises her chin. “i think you really need to get some rest, t, i—” she doesn’t know how to make him believe in her innocence, unable to even imagine how he convinced himself of her guilt. “you really think i could do something like that? and hide it from you?”