BABY I AM JUST A PAINTER

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

this is all i've got baby am i all you want
BECAUSE I'LL BE YOUR FAVORITE MISTAKE.

She couldn’t stop and it made her sick, absolutely sick to her stomach. Three days she had starved herself; she was doing so well. And Denny hadn’t even noticed! She felt successful – or, well, she had… until this started. Just one bite she had told herself. That’s all, that was absolutely it. Enough to stop the growling from waking him up. It turned out to be so much more and Annie wanted to tear off her skin. She wanted to grind up her bones. She was eating everything in his kitchen and she felt like her stomach was going to swell and get distended. Her body felt flushed and she knew there was probably a blush all over her shoulders, or something. She wanted to cry. Emotion struck raw and fast, and all she could think was how horrific she felt, and Denny’s words pounded on the walls of her head. Everything about how she was beyond pretty and gorgeous and everything and Annie felt like she was going to cry. That pushed her though, and everything she could get her hands on, she was finding a way to eat.


She stayed in the kitchen for an hour or two like that. The sky turned the color of a swelled bruise in the expanse of her absence from Denver’s bed. The dark navy of it – bleached bone-white by the moon – looked like it had been injected with pus, just a bruise that swelled to this purple with some red-orange under the bottom, like blood seeping from a cut. She didn’t see it though. Annie’s mind felt frenzied and she couldn’t control anything she was doing and it hung over her head. Every move her body made was mocking her. Every shattered breath made her close her eyes because she simply couldn’t believe it. Her body felt cold, and not her own, and she would have given anything to just go back to Denny’s arms and sleep there. He must have been exhausted – he passed out deep enough for her to slip away. Her fingertips felt numb and she missed his lips against her’s, even if they were just soft and measured, like punctuation. Annie didn’t even know what she was feeling at this point, but she just wanted anything but this hectic feeling. It all smashed together, like waves coming from too many directions. She just wanted to go back, she wished she could put down whatever she was eating and just step back to his bed and press her head against him and see if she could slip into his skin. She needed his comfort, she needed to be closer to him than she ever had been before. Annie didn’t really know if that was possible, but she needed to find out. So many time had she gone through him holding her as she cried, but she needed it again; she needed it more so.


Annie knew what was coming next. She hated the feeling, but it felt so simple and rehearsed. Lines she had practiced tens of thousands of times and here she was again, same scene but a different setting. And everything got very measured from that point on, and Annie felt flat. There went the emotion that had been spilling so easily, there went every thought of Denny. She brushed herself off and moved past his sleeping shadow. She didn’t close the door because she had never thought of it before. Everything just felt so…. familiar. It was a way out. She felt weak and scrawny, everything but the brave and listening and entertaining and pretty person Denny had told her she was. Pretty was so far from her. Suddenly that wormed into her head. She just wanted to be so much more than she was. She wanted to be everything for Denny and suddenly every foundation in her life was broken and shifted and she didn’t feel enough. How much was she missing? She was missing everything. She needed so much more to be the for him. She needed to be pretty and thinner, she needed to fix her head, she needed to straighten out. She couldn’t shake the feelings that he would get tired. She would change to make him keep interest, Annie would become better and she would fight everything that hurt. She would stop being half the things she was because she didn’t want her insanity to wear on him. She would fall back on her vices, but be more secretive about them.

Everything was so unhealthy, but it made her look okay. What was better: to have the problems and appear composed, or to threaten fall apart every other second? She used to think it was the former but Denny said the latter. And now… she didn’t know anymore. Things were so confusing and Annie’s fingers were shaking.

But that didn’t stop her from doing it and she didn’t break down during that. She had anchors that made forcible retching easier, as impossible as it sounded. The cool porcelain, brushing her hair behind her ears, brushing her teeth after. It was like math, it was all measured and very very logical. There wasn’t room for error, there wasn’t room for questioning. It just was. And only after she washed her mouth out did Annie get a good look at herself in the mirror. Her arms and legs were shaking and her face was flushed red like she had been out drinking for a while. And then she turned around and just sunk to her knees and then her legs and she just pulled her legs to her chest with her back pressed against the counter. She closed her eyes and then started crying again. She knew vices were bad, she knew it too well. But she always fell back. She tried so hard but she fell apart so easily. It wasn’t even fair for her… it just happened. She heard footsteps and she covered her face with her hands. Her stomach tossed again and she thought she would be sick just with Denny seeing her like this; this was her lowest low. He had never seen her lower. Bruises from pride and burns from hurt, but …. this from habits? Annie couldn’t think the word. She was supposed to be stronger than this. She was supposed to be so much more than she was.

”I’m so sorry,” she said. She couldn’t look at him, and she wasn’t thinking; just spitting out words, rambling incessantly. ”This is horrible, especially after all your nice words and I don’t know, it just… it just happened and I’m so sorry.” she felt like this hadn’t hurt her, like instead she had slapped Denny again. This would be a beautiful addition to that black eye. ”I just couldn’t stop – I haven’t eaten in like three days – and then I started and I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t stop myself from this and I am so sorry.” Part of Annie was a little upset that she had gotten so far without eating, even though she had been celebrating that earlier. He just hadn’t noticed. She took in a deep breath. ”I’m supposed to be stronger than this…”





1200 exactly -- look i was lazy so i took yer template yup. lyrics from transmit now and the image is from tumblrrr. -- idk

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

I'M GONNA MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS
'cause no one's ever gonna steal you, no

Denver didn’t know how and when he’d fallen asleep again. He slept almost too much for one person – he’d gone into that dream realm before after coming home from shifting, and now again? That didn’t even make sense; but then again, Denny had been through too much mentally for one day. He wasn’t sure how he’d handled all of it, especially since he knew the boundaries of his own mental capacity. Sort of. In any case, he’d fallen asleep. Dead asleep. If you’d pulled out a gong and banged it as hard as you could right next to his ears, Denny wouldn’t have even flinched. But at the same time, he wasn’t dreaming. At least, not on a level of dreaming that he would remember later. Denny just felt dark and empty, the way all dreamless slumbers feel. And at the same time, he felt trapped. The emptiness made him feel like there was nothing to do; the darkness trapped him inside and made his mentality restless. How was he so soundly sleeping when his mind was just so out of order? And what was keeping his mind out of order in this manner?

Well, for one thing, Denny felt this horrible shell of self-hatred. It had settled over him just before he’d fallen asleep, and it hadn’t lifted yet. He just…..even if Annie had shown that she forgave him for what he’d said, Denny couldn’t. He’d been the first one to blame the monster for the words, but now he couldn’t rid himself of the fact that he was angry that he’d let them come out. He’d let the monster loose. He’d let it infiltrate his mind and body and suddenly Denny was only a tiny fraction of himself, stuck in whatever part the monster had left for him in the back of his head. That was his own fault. He’d let the monster say what it had said, had let it fall from his lips, and because of his weakness, his vulnerability, he couldn’t have stopped it. And because of that, this was his fault. He had to live with it. At the same time, he had to push past it. This self-hating Denny was old; the new Denny didn’t hate himself. He didn’t easily forgive himself, but if Annie forgave him he usually put away his feelings about himself and focused on Annie. She was all that meant anything to him, and hurting her was like sticking a knife into his liver and twisting until he didn’t have a liver anymore.

Another element owning to Denny’s mental disorder was the fact that he was still energized. Shifting did that too him – when he was low and running on whatever battery power he had left, shifting recharged him. The longer he stayed in his bird form, the more energy built up, even if he tried to dispense that energy through flight. Flying, after so many years of doing it, didn’t take much effort. It was second nature to him now. All he had to do was become a bird, spread his wings, and jump, and then he was soaring and soaking up the energy around him. That was why, usually after shifting Denny didn’t sleep right away like he had today. Today was different. His mind was so overworked and so hard to keep a grasp on that the only way he knew he could keep himself in control was if he was sleeping. The monster never got him in his sleep – not even when he lived so close to it without really knowing it was there. He was safe in his sleep, and it made him wish there was some way he and Annie could be safe together in dreams where the monster could never reach them and real world issues could never bother them. Even in his own ream he wished that, but it wouldn’t happen. Annie wasn’t a witch and she couldn’t seep into Denny’s dreams; all she could do was turn into an animal, but at least they were equal on that level.

So in his deep sleep, levels started to peel back. First there was the level of energy. Sleeping made him groggy, at least when he first opened his eyes. The level of energy wore off, finally moving from his mind to the rest of his body so he wasn’t just focused on being asleep but still being awake underneath the sleep. The second level, the more apprehensive to move, finally lifted, but just enough to make Denny hear what was going on. He still hated himself, but not as much as he had just moments ago. His eyes opened and he felt like a weight had been lifted from his body, but the weight had only weighed a few pounds. It hadn’t been heavy, but just big enough to annoy and lug around on his shoulders. The weight had been bigger than a hawk, but smaller than an ostrich, which was good in some ways but in all cases it still took a toll on Denny. And the fact that his eyes were open and he was looking at an empty bed didn’t help that. A sudden panic rose over everything else, and instantly Denny was sitting upright. He searched the entire bed, but found no traces of Annie. His ears rung, cancelling out all natural sound, which caused Denny to freak out even more. He grabbed pillows and flung them off the bed, as if Annie would be under them, hiding as if in some kind of sick, twisted joke. Or maybe revenge.

When he found no trace of her there either, he felt his ears give in and noise returned to him. His breathing was erratic, completely from having freaked out. But he heard the toilet flush behind him and turned instantaneously. What he saw was something he didn’t like, but he couldn’t help but instantly blame himself. Annie was leaning, trying to stand up to get to the sink from her spot in front of the toilet. It made him nuts to see her in such a position, but Denny said nothing and refused to do absolutely anything. He was stoic. His muscles clenched and he was stuck in the same place, just trying to figure out what to do now. Annie fell against the counter and Denny hurried to stand up. He pushed through the feeling of being stuck and moved towards Annie slowly, trying to hold composure of himself. He couldn’t afford to lose control of reactions. He couldn’t afford to loose control of himself at all, not after today. So he stood for a moment, listening to Annie cry out to him. It broke his heart that she’d broken down in this manner. She didn’t deserve any of this. Annie hadn’t asked for anything that had happened today; it had all come down to being Denny’s fault.

He leaned down and sat next to her, putting one arm out to reach around to her other shoulder and pull her close. It was all he could think to do at first. Denny stayed silent for a moment, just taking in the fact that Annie had just done something he’d thought she was done with. But he couldn’t blame her. Even if he did know that she’d thrown up whatever it had been she’d eaten, and he knew it had been his fault. He hadn’t been keeping track of how much or how little she’d been eating, and if he had, this could have been avoided. But he still said nothing, and even what he was thinking was not to blame anyone, but to let Annie know in his usual fashion that he didn’t care that she’d done it – he only cared that she was alright, and to assure her that everything was going to be alright. “Stop it.” His voice was soft and it showed how groggy he was. Denny was still tired, but not in the same manner as before. Now he was just tired because it was late, and the sleep he’d been getting wasn’t at all easy to get through. “Stop apologizing, Annie.” He turned his face and kissed whatever was beneath his lips, just trying to stay calm and calm down Annie at the same time. “I said some really degrading things today, and although I won’t repeat them, I know they’re not easy to deal with.” Denny himself was having issues trying to forgive himself for having said those things. He just kept himself close to Annie, because she had forgiven him. He didn’t want to tell her that this was okay, that doing this was okay because she was allowed to not be strong for the day due to what he’d said, but that contradicted all that he’d believed in up to this point. He couldn’t tell her to be weak when all he wanted was for her to be strong enough to be happy with him and without the vices, without the self destruction.

All he could think to say was this: “I love you, and I’m in no position to forgive you because of what I did today. But don’t apologize like you did something wrong – this is just how you react. For now.” He felt like there was more to say, but Denny couldn’t think of words. They wouldn’t materialize in front of him. He felt a bit incomplete on the verbal part, but with nothing left to say, Denny just stayed quiet and kissed her head again. It was all that he could think to do.


1600 -- seren/annie only <3 -- okay i was too lazy to make an image so it goes to caution. words go to me. lyrics go to pierce the veil. -- finally fucking replied :D