HER BEAUTY AND THE MOONLIGHT OVERTHREW YOU

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie hated this feeling. She hated the feeling that she couldn’t help herself. There was literally nothing she could do, because if she tried she would just end up hurting herself because that was the only way she knew how to fix things. Well, not really fix, but cope. When Annie realized this, it made her feel retarded and disabled. It made her feel like she couldn’t help herself, like she was just blindly clawing at her skin. Like she was diseased, or needed to be locked up and checked out and medicated. That was scary to her. It was scary to think that she couldn’t control herself, it was scary to think that she was just crazy. Because sometimes, when she was feeling like this, that seemed really probable. It seemed like her mind didn’t even exist and she was just some animalistic, possessed girl who had just ended up in the wrong body in the wrong lifetime. It just felt like she had to stay still like someone was coming to get her, like she was in danger from more than herself. That sounded like a poor plotline for some mixed up movie, she sounded schizophrenic. But she wasn’t… was she? No, she was just worried. Worried about everything. Worried that she would have to leave or something terrible would happen because she had so little control.

But Denny wouldn’t let that happen. God, she sounded so sick, so mentally ill. It was killing her but she didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want him to leave. Loving her and her problems was one thing, but Annie was starting to think that she had more wrong. But she didn’t want to let on. Somehow the invincible girl had gotten scared. Somewhere along the line everything stopped making sense. She just wanted to be stable. No vices, no scary, mentally-ill feeling, no burning or binging or sideways glances. She just wanted to be able to be normal… maybe normal wasn’t the right word, but, honestly, Annie just wanted to stop feeling like she needed a straight jacket. She needed to stop feeling so desperately, desperately insane.

Annie was curled up on his bed with her eyes closed, and she was not aware of anything. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and the sleeves of a shirt that she had borrowed from Denny rolled up past her elbows, exposing all the marks on her arms. But she didn’t notice. She wished that she could just peel the scars off like glue that had dried on her skin. She wished that she could wash them away because she had put them there without thinking, they were a part of her life that had happened too quickly and gone too late. They weren’t meant to be there. Who knew, maybe those scabs were what was driving her crazy. She dragged a finger over the top of her knee, and felt the scab from the first one, and her lips twisted a little. The first one. Annie didn’t know why she did half the things she did. She didn’t have an addictive personality – otherwise she would be a compulsive alcoholic and still be smoking – but for some reason that first one stuck. It stuck and convinced her to do it again and again and it got better, like a snowball effect. God, Annie wished she had never done any of it. She wished that she had just gone to Denny’s and told him that she had stopped the habits and she just wanted him to help her, that she was having trouble. But her pride got in the way and wouldn’t let her. Nothing let her get rid of all the sickness in her life, nothing but Denny. She just wished she had stayed with him from the start.

She tilted her finger so that her nail was against the scab, and she picked it off. But there wasn’t going to be pink, new skin there. No, it didn’t work that way. It was still gross and a burn and a scar. Annie just picked at her skin until she got past it and then she picked more and it turned into this cut that she had made that even the air stung. “Fuck,” she mumbled, and just shook her head. She turned over, straightening out her legs and opening her eyes and just looking at the ceiling. In all honesty, she didn’t know where Denver was. He could have been in bed next to her, or in the other room, or not even in the apartment. She had woken up maybe an hour ago, but made no indication of it. She felt like she was dead, if you were to ask her. Or maybe there was just this wretched, weird thing in her place, walking on her legs and tearing on skin that wasn’t it’s with Annie’s own hands. She didn’t know what was happening.

Maybe she just was going crazy.




835 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - ugh bb i'm sorry this is such a fail

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Every night Denny had a different dream, and every morning he woke up knowing none of them were real. Unlike his prophetic dreams where the sky crumbled or he met Annie in a meadow or he realized he had children with Annie, these dreams were all twisted into shapes he couldn’t make. The clouds were purple and the sky was green and it all scared him more than anything. It sounded a lot like Across The Universe, but from the way Denny had felt everything with such a raw intensity in the dreams, he just started to fear sleep. He wasn’t so sure what was causing all of this, and really he just needed to start ignoring the dreams. They were just dreams, and if they held no meaning, then they held no meaning. Denny didn’t need to get hung up on dreams that held no educational value for his life. Plus, he couldn’t let them get in the way of helping. He couldn’t sit there and let his fear of his dreams interfere with getting better, both for himself and Annie’s sake. So he pushed the rainbow of colors as far back as they’d go, making them untouchable for a certain amount of time until they scooted and pushed their way back.

Mornings were the hardest. Waking up was easy when all Denny wanted to do was escape the dreams, the need to get away from the unrealistic tendencies of them in the forefront of his thoughts. It was after that which was the hardest part. He had to find ways to preoccupy himself between the time he woke up and the time Annie rolled over and woke up too. It didn’t matter if they were in the same bed, the same room, the same apartment; Denny just had to sit up at the crack of dawn and figure out what he should do with himself before Annie needed him. But without Annie occupying his attention in some way, since they really didn’t have much interaction with many people outside of each other these days, Denny was left to sit and sift through his own mind. That scared him. Honestly, it did; there were so many things he’d pushed to the back of his mind that he felt like he’d become a mental closet. Once something was unnecessary or unwanted, he pushed it into the back of the closet until he couldn’t find it anymore. He was afraid that after a while, the thoughts and feelings would pile up on one another and eventually he’d come back looking for one particular thought or feeling and just by opening the door to the old thoughts, everything would come crumbling down. All of the thoughts and feelings would crush Denny, but at the same time he knew he’d have to venture into that part of his mind and clean out everything. Suddenly he was less of a closet and more of a hard drive. Either way, he was scared to death by the thought of what he’d find back there. What if something hit him so hard across the face that suddenly his determination to keep Annie and make her better was shot and he ran?

Could he even do that? Was that physically possible for Denny to do? He didn’t honestly think it was. There was no evidence to support the possibility of running. There were only bits and pieces of his promise in different parts of his mind, like it was time to run a defragment program on his brain to bring it all together. Denny was able to remember his promise though, keep some memory of the words he’d said and the ring and just everything about him staying in the front of his attention at all times, like it had super glued itself to his mind. That was good. That was something he was going to have to hold onto in case of an emergency, like it would save his life if it had to. Maybe it would, what did Denny really know about that though? He’d never really promised anything so heavily weighted to anyone before that, and he didn’t think he ever would again. It was just something he’d live with, something that would get him along because just living with it seemed like he didn’t care. Knowing Denny, he cared too much.

All of that was reason enough for him to sit on the roof of his apartment, legs tucked under one another, hands clasping each other so tight that his skin had gone from his rather tan complexion to a white, almost red-tinted color. Why was he so anxious? His body felt fine. Annie was, supposedly, still asleep, and he was so close to the sky. He could feel the air brush around him. His ears were warm because of this ridiculous hat he’d found in his actual closet, which was probably part of the issue actually. The hat covered his head with little bear ears on top, which really made him feel quite silly sitting on his roof like that as the sun came up. But moreover, the hat covered his head, which was where he needed the cease of calamity. The wind could get just under the hat but then it was trapped and all to fast it became hot air which made Denny feel uneasy almost. Still, he felt he was looking too far into all of this business over a hat. He sighed and just looked out at the sun, seeing it climb he sky slowly. Denny shoved his sunglasses back on his face after they’d fallen a bit down his nose and sighed, taking in a deep breath to absorb some of the sky’s healing powers. Instantly he felt the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind reorganize themselves, and he felt a bit more at ease than he had just seconds ago. A glance at his hands gave him the recognition that he wasn’t as anxious – the color was returning to his fingers slowly.

The sky calmed him finally. He felt a twitch in his back that wasn’t all too unfamiliar; it happened nearly every time his body wanted, needed him to shift. His mind was perfectly okay (well, sort of) with being a human, but his body wanted to fly, to be close to the sun and among the thin atmosphere so the sun’s rays felt hotter and more intense. He liked beating his body that way, mostly because he had feathers then. The feathers kept his body from burning, which would have happened like he was Icarus with his wax feathers. If he wasn’t half vulture, Denny would burn up, and he liked to show off the fact that he could get that close to the sun and the sky and outer space without deteriorating. Sometimes, when he really felt like being a huge show off, he’d fly higher than any plane he’d ever seen, and he’d actually feel free. He hadn’t noticed his eyes had closed at the thought of flying, like he was in some state of euphoria that no one and nothing could put him in except for flying. Actually, that was just it. Being a vulture gave him this sense of something unnamable because there was nothing else like it, not even Annie. Even still, there were things that Annie could do to Denny that flying couldn’t. Like commitment. While flying was amazing and made Denny do things he couldn’t do in his human body, he didn’t really commit to anything as a bird. He never stayed in one place while flying, never worried about promises or any such thing because birds knew nothing of the sort.

Annie….she just gave him things flying couldn’t. She gave him love. Denny loved flying, but not this way. She gave him sanity. Flying calmed him, but not always to the point of being stable. She gave him chances. Flying wasn’t exactly unmerciful, but the sky wasn’t exactly known for taking needs and wants into consideration before pouring down on everything below it. She gave him a sense of home. The sky was his home sometimes, but other times it shut him out and made him feel as if he belonged nowhere. There were just feelings and emotions that Annie provided and pulled out of Denny that the sky hid and pushed into him. Two worlds, so different from each other, but just as important as the other to Denver. And again, he hadn’t noticed his eyes closing until then. He wasn’t tired anymore, but the thoughts took over his head, closed his eyes for him so he could concentrate on the comparisons and contrasts he was making. That had changed only when he’d heard Annie’s word from inside his room. His hearing picked up her mumble, and suddenly he was on his feet, jumping lightly from the roof to his small balcony. The thin metal caught his tall frame gracefully, stabbing a few points in his feet and causing him to move quickly into the bedroom.

He sat cross legged by his pillows, looking right at And the way his shirt didn’t even begin to cover her legs. He figured he was still allowed to think these things about Annie since a) he couldn’t really control the way he felt about her and b) he wasn’t making too many advances to further anything to a point they weren’t ready for right now. He’d talked himself into taking chances and doing rash, nearly impractical things on the beach, but that didn’t mean moving at paces too fast for either of them to see through. Still at the sight of her legs, Denny bit his lip. He wanted to reach out and run his hand along her skin, but he kept himself still with his hands in his lap again. He did reach up to pull his sunglasses off, but left the hat on mostly because he’d forgotten all about it. The only reason he’d remembered the glasses was because they’d obstructed his view of her legs. He didn’t even notice the burns on her knee at first, didn’t even give them a thought, but just stared at what was just below and whatever he could see just above them. But once he saw her ankles, his lip went unbitten, and suddenly he remembered everything. Denny just sighed and moved to sit closer to her, needing a distraction for the moment. “Morning.” His tone wasn’t exactly flat, because flat meant he was irritated or scared, but he wasn’t either of those things right now. He just didn’t really have a tone, considering he was anticipating what Annie would respond to. “Need anything?” he asked quietly, just trying to find some sense of mind in this suddenly crowded room.

Denny forced a smile, though it didn’t really take too much effort. One look at Annie and that was it. He didn’t remember the beach, didn’t remember the three weeks prior to it. He remembered what he’d said and what he’d told himself, but in that moment, Denny only saw Annie, and that was reason enough for him to smile. “I could hear you on the roof.” Why he was giving her a play-by-play he didn’t know; Denver just felt like Annie would need an explanation as to why or how he’d known she was awake or something. Plus, speaking actually felt good. It gave him something to focus on instead of wondering what would happen after things piled up in the back reaches of his mind. “Scavenger hearing – gotta love it.” Well, this was just lame. All Denny could talk about was how great his hearing was? What was he even doing? Ugh, whatever – his mind had enough of analyzing and over analyzing his actions and reactions. He just wanted to be impulsive and content at the same time, just to be able to sit there and hold a conversation without having to filter anything out. As if; that was quite a far stretch.

2010 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- okay. denny. i'm always mean to him in the occ part of this but ugh i dunno what he was saying at the end. not at all.

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie was naturally a worrier. No one really guessed it when they saw her, because she came off as confident, and chill. It seemed like she never really gave a fuck about much, like not a lot got to her. But that was just, of course, the outside. Not too many people knew about her insides, where she worried for hours about everything, her mind twisted up and tangled beyond anything she could compare. She would worry something until it was dead, until it was buried, until it was decayed. She would worry all day long, string a subject out eleven different ways with eleven different outcomes and eleven different ways to worry. And each of those ways had eleven ways to string out, with eleven different outcomes and eleven different ways to worry. She would literally worry until she couldn’t think straight anymore. She would worry about the littlest things, like the weather, to the biggest things, like her relationship. She had built up a new world around her broken one. The new one stuck out like a sore thumb, poorly crafted from the inside out, but it seemed to fool everyone. Annie remained on the inside, stuck in this small garden surrounded with a fence. She couldn’t climb out or crawl out or walk out. She was merely stuck, worrying herself to death with every petal that fell off of every flower. She could worry about the seasons and the new scars on her arms and legs and ankles and ears and hands and collarbones, she could worry about what she ate and what she didn’t eat, she could worry about Denny staying with her, she could worry about him leaving. She killed herself with her own mind.

Sometimes she was messy with her thoughts and emotions and actions. Her mind would bounce back from one spot to another and never really stay still long enough for Annie to watch it whiz by. It was kind of like she had given up, and just stared straight ahead instead of watching her brain rebound against the walls inside her head. Her heart was much the same way, but it was kind of like a teacher and Annie was stuck in a class room, slowly falling asleep as her heart rambled on about things Annie should want, but didn’t. It told her about the dangers of love, and giving yourself up to someone. But Annie was doodling on her desk, little hearts with arrows through them and Denny on them. She couldn’t pay attention long enough for when her heart instructed her on the danger of that habit. It was impossible for Annie to care when she was too preoccupied. Everything logical was there and working, and instructing her just fine. But Annie, Annie was blatantly ignoring it all, letting her head twist like it was inside and hour glass, and she kind of felt like Alice from Alice in Wonderland, as everyone else in the world rambled on to her about the way things were and the way they weren’t, while she just walked this odd path that twisted nowhere fast, flowers saying things they shouldn’t, Annie spilling out sour retorts that put a price on her neck. But she really didn’t care about what everyone told her. That just wasn’t Annie’s thing, to care about people.

Except Denver. Always the exception, Denver.

Annie laid flat on her back, staring at his ceiling, starting to see patterns swirling in the popcorn-like scaffolding. She could count the seconds on each one, occupy herself. Or she could just count the minutes, count slowly with the click of her tongue against the roof of her mouth, or maybe she could write out time on her arms, scribbling it in between the burns in weird cascading patterns. The markings would start to fall in on themselves, though, because there was too much time and not enough Annie. Wasn’t that always the problem? She heard Denny come down from the roof, but didn’t look at him. Her eyes didn’t tear, and she started to count in her head. One, two, three she said slowly, softly, taking time to shape the words like clay in her brain, to enunciate them even though they needed no sounds. Four, five, six, seven Denny started talking, saying good morning and asking her if she needed anything. Eight, nine, ten she mentally clicked the n’s against the tip of her teeth, and she imagined that the motion would make her sound like she had a lisp. “No,” she said curtly. Her tone was pointed, no nonsense. There were no questions, and her answer was short and to the point, and it reminded her of the little cartoon Alice again. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, teen’s made weird noises in her head, and she clicked the t against her bottom teeth like she was some kind of cat. Alice always said things in either a questioning voice, or an indignant one. She had a lot of pride of an eight year old, or however old she was.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and Denny scooted closer to her. Annie made no movements, but it wasn’t like she was ignoring him. It came off more like she was just completely engrossed in his ceiling and what was going on up there. She licked her lips, and pulled her knees up, her back still flat against the bed. Nineteen, twenty now she was at Annie-age, and she averted her eyes to her knee, looking at the burn that she had picked on, and she picked up her hands and held the skin of her knee with her left hand while the thumb on her right hand dug into it, digging her nail painfully into the skin, and pulling back slowly, calculating. Annie’s face showed nothing, no pain, no estacy, no happiness, no sadness, no contentness, nothing. She just watched her hands move, and suddenly realized she had forgot her mental-counting. But she didn’t show that either. Twenty-one, twenty-two… that was Denny-age.

Finally, she looked up at him, and her hands were still. She slid them down to her stomach, slipping on one top of the other. She raised an eyebrow. “Nice hat,” she said, and there was a little bit of bitterness on her tongue, but it was kind of like bittersweet chocolate; nonetheless it was good because it was chocolate, but it had this unexpected kind of bite to it that you ignored when you ate it, but later thought of and felt a little sick with the after-taste. Twenty-three, twenty-four Annie still watched him, and opened her mouth for a second before speaking, like she had to think of the words. And she did, she had to drive into her mind to try to be social. She wasn’t in a bad mood, but she wasn’t in a good mood. She was just… everything was feeling not like it was. More Alice in wonderland. She just felt like things weren’t what they were supposed to be. “It makes you look,” Annie dove into her mind like she had been standing on the tip of a diving board, swimming through the sarcasm for words that wouldn’t hurt. Twenty-five, stupid, twenty-six, ridiculous her words were mixing with her numbers, and she was getting slower to count them. “…silly.” she through into the air, watching it flow down like a feather. She sighed, and started to pick at her leg again.




1,249 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - ugh bb i'm sorry this is such a fail

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Your disposition seems a bit sunnier than you’d meant, Denver. Maybe that was just because Annie was seemingly so indifferent. Or rather, maybe it was the sun. The sky. Something outside. He’d spent so much time just this morning waiting for Annie to move on the roof that maybe his mood was because of how long he’d been up there. However, maybe he really just was in a good mood. He didn’t really understand how he could be since it didn’t seem like Annie was, and considering how he felt about those dreams. Oh, and the fact that he was almost deathly afraid of what would happen if he opened doors into the back of his head. Maybe you should get that checked out, he thought knowing the thought was actually referring to all of his brain, not the latter of the list that Denny was avoiding. Well, either way her answer to his question just whipped the mood out of his train station. It was like all of the trains inside had been on the right track, the day was sunny, and everything as ready to go, but as soon as Annie let out that little ‘no’, the day was rainy and the trains had to wait a while. It was odd to feel such a transformation so quickly, especially since Denny hadn’t really felt much in a while. A few bits of crazy here, a whole bunch of love there, but that was kind of it. Indifference and laziness had filled in the rest of his time awake since everything had just started to tumble downwards.

But that train of logic was cut short. Due to inclement weather and a conductor that was suddenly knocked out with a bloody lip, his train that thought back to just after Christmas was stopped and robbed of all its goods. He had to rethink and rethink again, try to find a good composure and a way to just sit there and not really do anything to help or hurt. Only, that was contradictory considering he’d promised to help. But what could he do when she was so insanely indifferent, sitting there picking at her scabs? He could ask her why she was doing that, but he didn’t really want her to go off on him. He wanted to know the reason, but he didn’t want to be yelled at again. Denny had had enough yelling at in his expanse of life. The kids at the party, the officer that had escorted him to prison, his father when he’d gotten out, his mother when she’d gotten a call about something he hadn’t done but was blamed and framed for, then a lot of yelling from himself. His wallowing period had consisted of a lot of self loathing, leaving Denny in a state that would either force him to yell at himself or find someone else to do the job. But that point, he only left the apartment when it was necessary, like when he needed to find a quick job for rent or some food because everything else was stale or growing mold. Finding someone else to yell at him was too out of the way for Denny, so he’d settled for himself.

And then there had been no yelling. Not for a long time. If Annie had yelled, he didn’t feel like she was/ He hadn’t treated the situation like she’d yelled at him. But then all of the sudden there was too muchy yelling again. There was that guy the day Denny had bought the ring. Denny had yelled at him, he’d yelled back, and suddenly Denny felt little again. But the monster had been there, coursing through his body with a pulse all its’ own. The monster had saved him then, really, had made him ten times tougher than he could have been on his own. Even his own anger couldn’t have been his saving grace because his anger only fueled and beckoned the monster, which filled him with more anger and adrenaline than Denny knew he could handle. And then the beach – there’d been yelling there. Annie had stood there and yelled at him, making him feel little and wrong, even if he knew he was right. He knew it from the very core of his being, like the rightness of the entire situation was the sun and all Denny could do was be the Earth – or maybe Mercury – and revolve around its’ heat. Although, that wasn’t exactly right to put it that way. If anything, Denny revolved around Annie, which meant more that he was the moon and the truth, the rightness of his knowledge and feelings were the Earth. That solar system really made sense to him, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d felt yelled at. And because of that, he felt weak, which then lead to the fact that he just didn’t want to start that again. He had to be the stable one, even if he felt sort of unstable compared to his norm. Yelling, either from himself or Annie, would change all of that, which would seriously cause damage to what they were trying to do.

Everything was cut short when she mentioned the hat. Denny tried to look up at it, but realized all he could see was the little furry edges sticking out over the reaches of his hair. His smile returned a bit, more of a smirk than a smile, followed by a short ‘hmph’ sound. Denny shrugged and closed his eyes, trying to find some sort of anything to say about it. “Just found it in my closet. I don’t even know where it came from.” His eyes opened and he found himself looking directly at the closet, seeing the way his clothes were all hanging from cheap, plastic hangers. For the most part, the closet was empty, and the top row where he’d found the hat had a huge vacant spot. “I figured it was the most ridiculous thing I owned, so I put it on and went outside.” Another shrug, more of a light, happy almost expression just to show how careless he’d been this morning. Denny really felt odd in this hat, and honestly now that he was inside it felt really hot on his head. Great, he thought, I probably have hat head. Mentally rolling his eyes, he reached up and took the hat off, taking his other hand to shake out his hair. As usual, it fell back into place instantly but with a bit of fuzziness too it, all thanks to the humidity that had formed under the hat.

Setting the hat on the blanket, not realizing that he hadn’t changed it since he’d left the holes in it from his talons, Denny sighed. He didn’t know what to do now. He felt useless again because of it, but really what could he do? Annie didn’t seem in a very pleasurable mood, and when that happened it would take more than just effort for him to get through to her. If he was too happy, he ran the risk of just annoying her. If he wasn’t happy enough, he ran the risk of just losing her and the entire day all together and having start over again. Useless and stuck, Denny just looked at the ceiling too, trying to figure out what it was that she’d been looking at before she’d looked at the hat. He didn’t see exactly what she had, but he saw some things he’d been trying not to. He saw the way they’d held hands and kissed in public and didn’t care; he saw the way they’d been together and the whole world hadn’t been real around them. He saw the dreams, the nights in a shared bed, the steamy make out session on her couch after he’d yelled at her and lost control. And he missed it all. Denny, usually so patient he could watch a flower grow and he’d be content with doing just that, was suddenly so impatient for this whole healing process to be over, he would have traded even his guitar to speed up time and just be like that again. This morning just made him feel so nostalgic already, and he really hadn’t been up for that long. He wanted all the things he couldn’t rush right now, and he had to center himself and erase everything in his mind to realize that.

He sighed again, really just trying to take in whatever the window would let in. He looked down at his hands, then at Annie, then at her knee and he remembered why he was doing this. He looked back at her face, trying to hide everything he’d just felt because he didn’t want to guilt her into anything or upset her today. It just wasn’t one of those days – and besides, Denny had told himself this was the kind of stuff he’d have to get used to and over. He couldn’t just react to it like he would on any usual basis. He had to try and break through everything, get it all out of the way and then start over again, in a sense. “What’s so fascinating about the ceiling?” he inquired, really more wondering than anything else. He wanted to know because obviously what he’d seen was different from what Annie had seen, if she’d seen anything at all. Plus, he needed a distraction. He couldn’t keep looking back on what had happened between them that had made him so extremely happy that it had all come back around and crumbled. If he did, he’d be so tempted to go back to that, and then everything would just crumble again, and Denny didn’t know how many times a heart could be fixed before it would never be repairable again.

1643 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- this was a weird post for me to write. i don't even know. but i felt like that was the best place to stop, you know? ugh i just hope you have enough to work with.

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie really couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face when he talked about the hat being the most ridiculous thing he owned. She really couldn’t; something about Denny made her so unbelievably happy. Like she always noticed, she couldn’t deny him anything. If he wanted her to be happy she would be. He was the contagious one, and Annie always forgot how great it was to be in love until Denny pointed it out to her. She forgot how amazing it was that he wanted her until he smiled at her. It changed her entire demeanor. One light hearted comment and one light shrug and smile… it changed her mood around, just because it came from Denny. Annie couldn’t help that she just opened up with that smile. Begrudgingly she did so, but she did it either way. Her hands itched to reach out and grab him, but she kept them on her stomach. She loved him too much but somehow not enough and somehow everything got tangled and his voice just tore a hole through her. But it was good, it tore out the bad, like removing scar tissue. It was something that Annie appreciated, something that only Denny could give her.

Annie was forgetting what fixing meant. Fixing went both ways, she had to give Denny everything she could because he wanted help, too. She was tired of feeling like they were battling against each other for the title of the most fucked. She didn’t want to think about that anymore, she didn’t want to think about how she was worse than him and how he claimed to be worse than her. She didn’t want to argue on whether or not she was insane. She didn’t want anything other than what Denny was giving her. But she needed to give back, too. At the least she needed to hold down her walls. How was Denny supposed to get in and help if she left him stranded at the front door? She felt like she was just waiting for him to do something magical, like now that he’d taken off his hat he would just put her hands on her body and open her up and look at everything and twist her body certain ways and suddenly she would work. It was like she was a clock and her gears were all messed up and she was waiting for Denny to make it fix so that she could tell time again. Twenty seven, twenty eight. What was the use of counting? Annie didn’t really know nor did she care. She just licked her lips again.

Words weren’t always at the girl’s disposal. They weren’t always there for her to understand and give and say and return. They weren’t her things to throw around. Words were difficult for her sometimes. “The thing about the ceiling…” she started, trying to think about what to say. It wasn’t really that the ceiling held anything for her, but it did kind of have a distraction and just somewhere to look. “Well, honestly I don’t really know.” She looked at him and smiled just a little. “If I had to give you an answer… I would say that it’s kind of a blank canvas.” That was what Annie had kind of been using it as, like a wall to project her thoughts on because they were too big to just see inside her own head. She leaned forward and sat up, moving closer to Denny in the action so that their shoulders were touching. “You can just put anything up there, you can do it with your mind.” She smiled, looking at the ceiling instead of him now. “It’s like your eyes are the brush, and you can do whatever you want with it. No one will judge it.” Annie started to paint her own picture as she spoke, and it was… sad.

Nostalgic was a better word maybe. Her painting wasn’t so much pictures as feelings, like Denny’s hands on her waist and tangled limbs and sheets and just feeling so good. It was her listening to his voice as he said that if she wanted kids, they could do that. It was him kissing her again and touching her back and trying to help her. She looked away from the ceiling, and down at the top of her knees where the burn had been turned into a gnotty, gross-looking mess that would probably scar worse than the original mark. As soon as Annie looked away, her whole painting collapsed. Denny was smirking at her and saying things that he couldn’t take back, and Annie was burning herself with cigarettes, yelling at him on a beach. If was funny how things happened like that, how this beautiful picture had melted away like the painting with the clocks and turned into this twisted mess that was never supposed to happen again.

As much as Annie tried, as much as she seemed distracted by the bad part of what she had made, she couldn’t shake the first part of what she had seen, and she really just missed the feel of him. She picked her head back up and looked right at Denny, and she didn’t even know what she was doing. She felt like her body was burning, but not in the good way, in the very, very bad way like her burns were twisting roots into her skin. “And if you want…. you can make it real.”

And then she was kissing him.

Annie didn’t know what compelled her, but one of her hands slid on his shoulder to his neck and she just kissed him. She missed kissing him and it was as good as she remembered, and she couldn’t deny that some part of her wanted more. She always wanted more, and she had never really minded that, but for right now it scared her. It scared her a lot, but she couldn’t pull back. She kissed him like the beach, those three weeks had never happened. She could feel the ghost of the fire between their teeth, and it really scared her. Annie wasn’t easily intimidated. Sure, she was brash and a little secretive, but not a lot would scare her into submission. But this, this was scaring her more than anything she could remember, except for the fear of Denny leaving her. It struck fear through her body and made her hand shake on his neck, but she couldn’t pull back. Her body wouldn’t let her. Her heart was frozen and her mind was scared, but her body wasn’t listening to any of that. It was just kissing Denny more than Annie had said she would for a while. She said that she would hold back because that would be better, it would be safer.

But her body just wasn’t listening.

Denny’s hands found her hips and something about that dragged Annie’s mind out of the stupor. It felt so good, and kind of promising, having his hands there. Her body screamed; it had missed that so much. And Annie wanted to tear herself apart. She felt like she was in her own horror movie, because her body was trying to make promises that she couldn’t keep, but she couldn’t deny. Something about his hands woke her up, and she pulled back from the kiss (more like a string of kisses, because that had turned into quite the little make out session), very out of breath, and shaking. Her hands, her legs, her whole body was shivering. She kept her eyes closed, and leaned back, ripping herself from his grip and then pulling back more so that she broke all contact with him, got as far as she could, and just covered her hands with her face and pulled her knees back to her chest again and rested her forehead against them.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. She couldn’t even comprehend what had just happened, honestly. Her mind couldn’t formulate an answer. But her body hated her. She thought that being disconnected from your body was just something in books, but right now it felt like her muscles had their own mind. They ached to be back where they were a second ago, his body was begging for him to hold her that way again. And Annie did want him to hold her, but not like that. Not with the promise of something that was scaring her right now. The idea that they would go further just… scared her shitless, to be truthful. Because she was completely convinced that it would lead to them falling apart all over again.




1,450 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - so idk what just happened.

[/quote]

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

One minute Denny had it all (the world, the sky, the universe, Annie), and the next it was all gone.

That was what he missed most about being that close to Annie, and that was really what had driven him that close to complete madness. When they kissed, he had everything. That entailed all that he needed and so many excess details that he could throw around and be as free as he wanted. It hurt him more than just emotionally to have Annie just rip herself out of his grasp like that. Partly because he’d start to blame himself for even touching her the way he had, and partly because when she was that close to him he just felt so amazing, and then it was all gone. He’d grabbed onto her hips, letting her words run around in his mind, not really paying much attention to what he’d been doing. He had no intentions of really moving anywhere for once, because that little voice that almost everyone had that reminded them of their goals and aspirations was nearly screaming to be heard over Annie’s words. He was actually able to keep himself from moving forward from that kiss, able to control himself enough to do that because the reminder of what he was trying to do was right in the front of his mind. He just loved kissing Annie, and the fact that her mood had changed enough for her to advance on him that way put him in the mindset briefly that things would be okay for the day.

He’d either been wrong, or something he wasn’t catching onto was happening. But he’d felt her hand shake on his neck and he could see her shaking now, even has hands were left hanging in the air where her hips had been. His entire demeanor was just static, frozen in shock. His muscles had clasped in place, leaving his hands in an oval shape above his sheets and his face in this odd fixture. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs wouldn’t work and his mind had shut off and everything was just on ice, contrasting the fire that had sparked behind his lips. There was actually still a hint of the fire there, something that was familiar and comfortable, but it was starting to freeze over with the rest of his body. And then, in the midst of the freeze, there was pain. It started in his hands since that those were what was closest to Annie. It was like someone had taken the fire and lit it right on Denny’s fingers, and suddenly the flames weren’t so familiar, they weren’t so comfortable. They’d betrayed him, and now they were burning his skin and peeling off his finger nails. The flames moved to his arms, reminding him of the ‘danger in starting a fire’ ramble he’d had weeks ago, forcing his limbs to move and retract, bringing themselves in like Denny was made of water instead of skin and bones.

The pain shot into his mind, forcing all of the good thoughts out and into the back where they didn’t belong. He fought, and he fought hard; eventually the pain ceased and Denny let everything just fall against the bed. His arms felt overused and lifeless, his mind felt just as equally exercised and almost vacant. But the thoughts were there, and his mood wasn’t completely diminished. But now he was more worried than overwhelmed with happiness. “Annie,” he said, moving just a bit closer to her. He didn’t want to scare her even more than she was, so he took baby scoots (because steps would include Denny standing) towards her, showing he wasn’t going to hurt her – he really couldn’t if he wanted to. “Annie, what’s wrong?” He needed to know in order to fix it, to begin somewhere small and work his way up. If this was setting her on edge, or whatever was doing this, he had to stop it and make sure it didn’t happen again. He felt a hint of that pain from before in the back of his throat, like if he’d let it take over he would have cried, but he ignored it for now. He pushed the hat out of his way and moved a little closer again, still keeping a good bit of space between them. Really what he wanted, what he felt was necessary was to rush over to her, wrap her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. That was what he’d have done before the beach. That’s what he had thought first to do, but that voice came back and told his instinct that it wasn’t what he could do. He had to take things slowly, keep them calm and fix things in time. He had to remind himself to be patient again. He sighed and held in the next breath that he took, looking right at Annie with worried eyes.

“Please tell me.” He was begging. Down on his knees (almost), Denny was begging, as if he’d screwed up and needed another chance. His voice was so little, and the only reason he could think of as to why was because he didn’t want to startle Annie. “I didn’t-” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. He couldn’t even ask her if he’d hurt her, partly because he didn’t think he had but mostly because he knew it wasn’t possible. His hands didn’t hurt from squeezing her hips; his hands hurt because she’d torn herself from them. Denny had to force himself to sigh and breathe again just so he’d be able to get it out. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” His words were so hesitant it had taken him longer than he’d thought to say them, and suddenly he regretted ever having thought that. Denny couldn’t hurt Annie ever, not even if she’d slapped him right across the face for being stupid. He couldn’t hurt her physically if she’d yelled at him again. He couldn’t hurt her physically if she’d left him; it just could not happen. Not intentionally – but that thought scared Denny more than the thought that maybe he had hurt her and he hadn’t noticed. All at once he was angry at himself and scared of himself and scared of Annie’s reaction and it all weighed so much on his mind he just felt like he’d collapse without a response from Annie.

Or cry, whichever came first.

Either way, the anticipation of her answer was literally eating away at him. Sort of like the way the silence in his apartment had eaten away at him just before the beach encounter. Only this time, there wasn’t silence. There was so much noise in his mind and so much to think about that the silence was no longer eating at him, just the worry of what her answer would be. He felt sorry, but not for anyone or anything in particular. Denny just wanted to shut it all out, hurry over to Annie and hold her, talk to her and be there for her. He wanted her shoulder against his again, her hands in his, her face as close to his as they could get and then some. But what he wanted was not possible, not yet anyway. What he wanted had to wait because he knew what he needed to do was to coax Annie out of worrying all the time, like Denny would take things too far or she’d betray herself. He wouldn’t let her, and he wouldn’t break his promise to fix her. “Annie,” he said, though his voice was in more of a question-like tone rather than just stating her name. But he turned the desperation in his voice into a comfortable feeling in his head and suddenly he was happy with having her name on his tongue. “Don’t shut me out.” He wasn’t particularly happy even if having her name there made him feel the emotion; his mind was still reeling and worrying, knowing it would only calm down once she spoke to him. “Please.” And he was back to begging.

Take a chance. It ran through his head and suddenly he found himself moving even closer to her, just sitting there next to her, trying to find a way to get her attention so she would talk to him. They had so much to say and neither of them were really saying anything, and knowing that killed him. If they really loved each other, why would they do this to one another? But that wasn’t what his mind wanted him to think when it had sent him that ping. It just wanted him to sit there and get Annie to calm down, not coax her back into what they’d had before. Denny was forced by his own intentions to look at his hands, and once he did all he saw was this grossness he couldn’t describe. It was like something out of Goosebumps movies or something; he didn’t even know those were his hands anymore. They were ugly and horrendous and they’d sent Annie into this state of reclusion. Suddenly he was mad at himself again, and at once he realized why he was doing this. These mood swings of his own, these things he’d never had before were just too much to handle, and so out of character for him. Denny closed his eyes, found a center of some sort of attention within his inner reaches, took a deep breath and let it out. He looked away from Annie for a second, just trying to bring himself to this center he’d found. Take a chance ran through his mind again, and he knew what he was going to do.

He reached over gently, slowly, taking Annie’s fingers of one hand from her face, hoping his fingers could pry them out from between her head and her knees. He just wanted to hold her, and if that was all he could do for now, he’d take what he could get. “It’s okay to trust me, really.” He wasn’t out to hurt her or even move things in a direction that would frighten her. So he continued his attempt at prying her fingers towards him, and when he finally had one hand free he just wrapped his hand around it. “I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to.” And he meant that in every way possible. He wouldn’t go too far here, on his bed if she was too scared to go that far that fast, and he wouldn’t leave the room if she didn’t want him to. He was determined to set all of this completely and utterly straight.

1788 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- okay this was so much better. denny you actually get it!

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie, what’s wrong? She didn't have an answer for him. Annie wished she knew what was wrong, but the truth of the matter was that she didnt. She didn't know how to fix it, either. Fixing meant a lot of work that Annie didn't know how to do. She wasn't skilled at fixing, she was skilled at running. That's all it was to Annie, running. Constantly battling for freedom, not for completion. If it was than Annie would be better at this. But she wasn't better, she was just shaking. She wasnt fixing anything, she was just tearing it apart. She wasn't working towards the better goal, she was just undoing work that Denny had put into her life. She still wasn't trying, she was still hiding. Holing up from the world inside Denny's bed, hiding from Denny with her silence. She knew that she didn't have to do that, but she was afraid to fix it. All of her just wanted to crawl over to him and see if there really was a refuge in his arms. She wanted to rest her head against his chest and she wanted to draw invisible words on his arm and feel his hands brush across her legs again. She wanted to lay down with him and feel whole for once in her life. 

So what was stopping her? Annie didn't have an answer for that either, just this unwillingness to do anything at all. She wished she had something to fall back to, and she put her hand on her wrist, twisting her hand like a talon. She stared doubtfully at her hand, looking like she was about to shove her nails into her arm and pull them back to her elbow. Maybe her skin was just some sort of cage, because she always felt wrong in it, like it was crawling across her body or suffocating her. But when Denny touched her those feelings went away and her skin calmed suddenly, feeling right on her. She didn't know how he did that. He wasn't touching her right now though, and her body ached. She wondered if she could just peel her skin back and see if she looked differently past it. But she didn't know. Annie never knew. She was seriously considering dragging her nails when Denny's voice startled her. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Annie looked up, confused, relaxing the tense set of her hand against her knee. "What? No, of course not..." She was still shaking. 

He had seriously thought that? She put her head back on her knees, feeling disgusted with herself. No, that wasn't it at all. She was hurting herself through what she took in her body, how she put it out of her body, what she did to her body. No wonder it hurt to be in it, her body was just rebelling against her. Annie thought back to his first question? Yea, Annie, what's wrong? She closed her eyes and her lips trembled, but he couldn't see that. The only thing wrong was her head. The only thing wrong was that she was crazy. But she had to stop blaming herself for it, or at least ignore it. Denny liked her that way, right? He didn't want her to change because he wanted Annie, the damaged, original version, not the new and struggling-for-normalcy kind that she was killing herself to create. Annie, don't shut me out. Is that what she was doing? Please… She honestly hadn't noticed. She was just struggling to understand her head and try to spare Denny the problems inside. But if he really wanted to know, she could stop trying to hold this painful composure. 

She wasn't aware of what was going on outside of the shelter she had created in her mind when Denny's fingers clutched at her's. It’s okay to trust me, really. Annie already knew that. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have told him her first secret, she would have walked out of town instead of telling him the second. She wouldn't have let thanksgiving or Christmas happen, and she wouldn't have stolen that little peck on the beach. When Annie thought of all of this, she was honestly astounded by how much faith she really had in Denny, how much trust she had given him. Secretive, untrusting Annie had given herself over to Denny in every sense that she could, and she hadn't even realized the immensity of that until now. But she still was hiding things, things that just didn't have words. She also knew that there was more to trust other than just telling Denny her secrets. It was about trusting him to not cross the physical boundaries she had drawn, trusting him to hold her and not expecting more than that, kissing her and not expecting more than that. And she had to work on that, because he deserved her trust, she was just scared to give it. 

She was intensely aware of his fingers on her's, pulling her hand from her face. How could she not be? She was so aware of everything he did, simply because she cared that much about him. Annie didn't fight his movements, and she let him pull her hand away from her face. His hand wrapped around her's, warm, soft, and comforting. She lifted her head slightly, but still looked down at the top of her knees. Even if she looked up she would be unable to meet his gaze. I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to. His voice was earnest, convincing but not falsely. Honest. There was a lot of evidence for his words, which only added to the honesty. He had always let Annie make the first move or had waited until her body language told him it was okay to make one. Denny was so afraid of making the wrong move and chasing her away, which was happening in the smallest ways now. He had never left her, it had always been Annie to flee the scene and always Annie to scream and always Annie to throw a fit. "I don't want you to go anywhere, though. Just here, just with me." His hand wrapped around her's and Annie lifted her head to look at him. 

Her mood swings would make a lot more sense if people could look into her head, but she didnt know if they would be able to understand the processes as they happened. She had so much inner conflict that was battled on and decided on how she would look on the outside, so much thought went behind even the smallest action, like a blink. One movement from the outside would be taken in through Annie's senses and over analyzed, over thought, criticized. She would spend seconds that seemed like hours to dictate the perfect way to react. Once she got an inkling of how to react, her brain would send the idea down a conveyer belt, analyzing every action she would take and adding emotion and twisting ideas until her final reaction left her in an opposite mood of the original action. It left the person on the other side of the conversation confused, and doubtful of Annie's social skills (which was why she was always short, sarcastic, and to the point with most people). And there wasn't any wall or check system that could question the validity of her action. She just did it, no questions asked. 

The whole thoughts about her moods were irrelevant right now, though. Annie was more worried about the ways she could handle this situation. As far as she was concerned, there were two. Her body wanted to crawl over to Denny, she wanted to rest her head against his chest and listen to him comfort her and let him kiss her and touch her. But that would only invite a temporary relief and set some sort of false foundation. But today, Annie was considering the consequences. Her other option was to stop thinking and worrying internally, and open her mouth instead, letting it all spill out. It might hurt, it might make the situation worse, but eventually it would help. It would leave them on the same page instead of letting their bodies speak for them, using words that could only be translated for the moment but were soon forgotten. 

She chose the latter, obviously. She didn't move her hand, and her fingers still shook inside his. She was in a state of shock, somewhat. The shaking of her body had stopped mostly, but their were still little tremors. "Denver," she said, using his full name and pronouncing it slowly because she was trying to think of words. Her mind jumped to the pain that had been evident in his voice, the hurt in his eyes mixed with wanting to make it better. "You would never hurt me. But somehow I always end up hurting you. You've never left me, even though I break your consistently, but you don't care." She knew it was the truth, she knew he couldn't deny it. Denny was so much in love with her and about her that one look, one slight rejection from her would give him this look like you had kicked a puppy. Annie was tired of hurting him like that.

[/b]"You always come back and treat me perfect, better than what I deserve. But it's the way I need, and you somehow know that, and I love it."[/b] Annie deserved to be jailed for what she had put him through time and time again. But somehow Denver never held it against her, and he always gave her what she needed, and sometimes it was hard to decide what she needed because her body said it wanted different things. She smiled, but it was shaky like she couldn't decide her exact emotions. "I love you." she whispered.

 Her emotions changed again though, and she sighed looking down. She just wanted to get every thought that passed through her mind out and on the table in front of him, leave nothing unsaid and leave nothing in her mind that would leave to a conflict later. "I feel like I belong in rehab, or the psych ward." She felt like she should be in a straight jacket. "I'm a danger to myself and others. But they would try to give me stuff that I don't need. 'Cause you're my pills, Denny. You make me better." He was working his ass off to do that, and she wanted to let him now that she wasn't taking it for granted. She wasn't taking him for granted anymore, she wanted him to know that she was so thankful that he was even looking at her. "But I still feel crazy all the time, I always feel like I'm losing my mind. Honestly, you made me this way." She laughed lightly, good naturedly. "But you know what? I wouldn't change that for the world. I had such a great composure before you told me you loved me". It was true; even as her best friend he had never suspected the hurricane that was Annie, the fury that was hidden just past her pretty skin. "Inside, I was so messed up. You tore down the walls and it was like a flood with all of my insecurity and mood swings."

She sighed lightly, and picked up her hand that wasn't with Denny's. For a second she thought about digging it into her knee again, but she didn't. She just traced her finger tip lightly around the bloody mess on her knee, moving her legs down a little. One of her toes got stuck in a hole in the comforter. She looked at it, surprised. She wanted to ask how that got there, and almost did. But she didn't because she had to finish her words before she forgot them. She pursed her lips lightly. "Denny, be honest… do you ever think I'm not worth all the trouble?" She didn't know how his answer would effect her, but she somehow wasn't fearful. She was just honestly curious and wanted to know. 



2,026- OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - I fucking killed his post bro. From my iPod. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify][/size]

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Denver could breathe. He hadn’t hurt her, which was something he could sleep on knowing. His hands were not the cause of destruction, and knowing that set him at ease. Just knowing that whatever had happened wasn’t solely because of him made Denny mentally smile a smile the size of Alaska. On the physicality side of things, Denny stayed pretty static. He held Annie’s hand and sighed, but other than that his posture, his face, the rest of his entire being just stayed still. He just listened, wondering what half of what she was saying actually meant. It had been that long since she’d said to him, so Denny just guessed the anticipation had dragged out moments to a length that he’d lost track of. He didn’t really reply to what she’d said about him leaving, but he squeezed her hand a bit to show he was right there and he had no direct plans to leave without her. Denny honestly could just sit there all day if that was what Annie wanted, and he would if that was the case – and it sounded like it was. Was he actually content with knowing that? Sort of; while he wanted to fly like he always wanted to fly, he’d found it easier than usual to push that want away from his focus point so that staying there in bed with Annie wasn’t so much of a stretch.

He couldn’t sit there and honestly deny the nearly-need to move closer to Annie, to hold his arms out for her to lean against, to kiss whatever she’d let him. He could, however, deny the actions. Again he felt like a computer; a program went to run and suddenly the access was denied, and honestly it was for his own good. Saying that maybe there was a virus involved only made Annie sound like that disease she’d asked him about on the beach, so he avoided using that example. Maybe it was for the best because the computer was old and slow, even if Denny wasn’t exactly that way. But, even better for an example, maybe the program wouldn’t run because there were too many things running around his hard drive, so for now the action would be denied until the memory on the computer was wiped clean of things that were no longer relevant, no longer necessary. It made more sense that way to Denny, which was good in this situation. It made him prioritize so that right behind taking care of Annie, in spot number two on his list of important things, was reorganizing his mind. He’d have to get through that when he wasn’t talking to Annie, when he wasn’t trying to fix her first. While he knew she wasn’t programmed to do that, he had a feeling he might be if he could just figure out how to run that program without the access being denied. The sooner he could get a few minutes to start clearing out his memory for things that he didn’t need, didn’t want anymore, the sooner he could actually start to help, instead of just sitting there and asking questions.

So he didn’t need as much fixing as Annie did. Denny had known that. He hadn’t brought it up, but he’d known. All he’d really needed as a good self examination of his mind, while Annie needed something more that Denny was almost scared to put a name too. He loved her for who she was, he always would, even if she wasn’t crazy. Honestly, he knew loving her would be easier if she wasn’t so mental, but he’d never really judged her for it like he would have anyone else. Either that was because he’d just known she’d make some sort of impact on his life or just the fact that he’d been impressed with how well she’d hidden it from everyone, including himself. But after a while, all of that hiding would pile up on itself, just the way Denny’s storage space of thoughts did. After a while, things would need to be sorted out, sanded down, smoothed out, and fixed. In Annie’s case, anyway. And it seemed she had about ten times as much baggage as he had, seeing as Denny’s mental issues seemed to really only weigh on himself. Annie’s, after that night in her bedroom then on her back porch, had started to weigh on Denny. And at first he’d been able to carry the weight. Actually, he could have sworn the weight of it all wasn’t half as bad as Annie made it out to be, but honestly that was in his perspective. Annie was Annie; she had her own boundaries and her own labyrinth in her mind. While Denny knew the way around and could easily adapt to any traps or moving walls, Annie seemed to have a harder time coping, and suddenly there they were, talking about what was really wrong, even if it would all bring up raw, horrible feelings and thoughts.

But Denny would get through it, and he’d try his hardest to pull Annie through it because of how much he loved her, how much he believed she loved him. He had to, for his sake and hers’.

He listened to her more, trying to slowly take in and digest everything Annie said without overloading his mind. He had to do that run through soon, otherwise he’d be so full of information and whatever else would run through his mind that the older things would start just dumping themselves into some sort of waste basket until the basket was full and deleted everything inside. Denny didn’t want to lose his memories or feelings of what they’d shared before – and that was what he was most scared of losing. Still, he just listened, knowing he still had at least a little bit of room. He could fit this in, chew it up, spit it out, and retain whatever he’d been mentally fed. Plus, all of her words held a certain truth. He’d never ever say anything like that; Denny could never admit that he sort of knew he gave Annie more than she deserved, especially since he was the kid that believed he deserved nothing. But he didn’t have anything else to do, no one else to give anything to. Although that sounded like he only said these things and did these things with Annie for the flat matter of just being able to do it, that wasn’t Denny. He did it because he loved her, and the fact that he loved her just led to the fact that there was no one else he had like Annie, no one else to treat this way. He understood that maybe not all of the time he’d get what he deserved back, but somehow he was okay with that. In the end, Denny wasn’t alone, which was enough for him to keep doing what he was doing even if he didn’t love Annie. The fact that he didn’t nearly have to fight for her to even hint that she felt the same way about him was enough of a pay off.

When she told him he loved her, Denny could not stop the smile on his face from forming if even if he wanted to. It grew and grew, as if he were the Cheshire cat instead of Denver Hurley. Despite the raw truth of her words, Denny was smiling, and his hand felt extremely warm around hers. But he’d wait until she was done speaking to tell her he loved her, mostly out of courtesy. He’d asked her what was wrong, and she was telling him, so he wouldn’t interrupt for something she knew anyway. Not now anyway. He as glad he did, because his words would be better appreciated later, rather than now. He could tell from the words that were pouring from Annie, bringing understanding and a sick sense of something Denny wasn’t so sure of to his mind. He just listened, not really liking what he was hearing or the fact that she was right, and it was his fault, but she reassured him that she didn’t mind that part so much. Denny had to admit that he didn’t regret telling Annie he loved her, not now and not ever. Even if he’d done this to her, at least he was willing to try and undo it all – at least to the point of having Annie not feel like she needed to be in a squishy white room constantly. He would never undo his feelings, never undo the way they’d been or how they loved each other. Denny just had to try and undo this crazy, not normal at all being that constantly controlled Annie’s mind, the being she was trying to tell him about now. And it was a comfort to know that he made her better, that he was finally the type of person to have that affect on someone, even one person and one person alone. He’d waited twenty-two years to be that someone, and to have someone like Annie tell him all of this…… To be honest, Denny appreciated it more than words could say.

Her last question puzzled him. He’d never really had an immediate moment, a pause in time where he’d sat and thought that Annie wasn’t worth what he was doing. It was like asking if pennies really went far anymore. One wouldn’t, but millions of them would get you to the bank and back with a huge smile on your face. If you asked Denny, he’d find a reason to count Annie as the millions of pennies, not just the one single would that you said the little rhyme about good luck when you fount it. To him, Annie was worth everything. Maybe it was because he’d never had anyone like this in his life, so he didn’t know what she was and wasn’t worth – but honestly Denny doubted that. He just felt it in the pit of his gut; one day this would all be worth it, and until that day Denny would just have to work. His attention wasn’t on anything or anyone else but Annie, even when they were playing at the little club down the road. Sure, he was mostly occupied by the music, but Annie was a part of that music, and so even there she was a part of his complete world. So was she worth it all? To Denver, of course she was. Other guys would just try to get into her pants and walk away when they heard either that she had a boyfriend or she had a horrible temper, especially when it came to people getting close to her and touching her. Denny just wasn’t one of those guys, and after the accident he’d been trying to find some reason to prove that. Annie had been that reason.

“Why in this world would I think that?” He shoved the sleeve of his shirt she was wearing up to just below her elbow, but instead of looking at her burns he just looked around them. They didn’t bother him as much now, probably because this whole process was about breaking the chain vices, getting rid of them all together. His hand that wasn’t hold her hand moved and started to run along her arm the way it had along her leg on Christmas morning. At the thought, Denny couldn’t hide his smile, and so he probably looked a bit deranged. “You drive me crazy, yes,” he started, looking up from her arm so that Annie would know he wasn’t lying. “But not in a completely bad way. It’s the kind of crazy that makes people go the distance for other people. It’s why I don’t think that you’re not worth any of this.” His fingers ran along her skin, even the coarse, unruly skin that was dotted with burns, but he didn’t care. Denny really wanted to reach forward for her face, bring her closer to him and kiss her, but he just couldn’t. He had more to say, first, and second of all, kissing is what had led to her curling into a ball. “I love you, and because of that all of this – all of you is worth the trouble.”

1788 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- i'm starting to think denny might have a psychological disorder. like what if he's bipolar? there's almost too much evidence for that between my posts.

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

His touch had this habig of always making Annie feel different than she had been before. When she was kissing him, it had caused her to shy away. Now that she was a little closed off from him, his hand on her arm kind of made her catch her breath and want t get closer. She couldn’t help it. If she didn’t know Denver, she’d rather have never known, because then she’d be missing her entire life. If he for some reason left her, or she could never have him again, than she would rather be alone. No one would ever have her like he did, no one would care enough. Everyone up until this point had either just wanted to sleep with her or just didn’t have what Denny had. She didn’t even know what it was. Probably that he cared long enough to stay around, that he was still here even after everything that had happened and everything Annie had said. Maybe it was just love. Maybe it was truly just one of those emotions that you could never let go and it ruled your whole life, like a disease. It started with one beat of your heart, just one thump and then it was slowly pumping through your system. First it affected your senses, giving you eyes for only the person you loved, then in your ears, only hearing their voice, and when you did it was more beautiful than any song that anyone could play. And then it was your taste, how just nothing would ever match up to those kisses, and you would always be wanting them. Then it was your nose. Annie couldn’t really describe that except that, to her, Denny smelled like things that Annie didn’t have words for, and she was always aware when he came into the room and he just had this scent that Annie couldn’t shake. She wanted to roll around in his sheets and feel it scatter in her hair so that later in the day it would waft by her face. That sounded so obsessive, but that was the only way she could even think of describing it, though,

And of course, touch. That… Annie just… she needed years t convey this properly. She knew it was a slow process, but a sure one, like an addiction. It started with the lightest brush of his hands against her, and it caught her attention for that moment. It made her slow down and consider that she liked that. Made her want to say just do that again. And then it got worse, with hugs that she wouldn’t want to let go. It was like a domino effect and you just couldn’t stop her. And then his touch did more. Not only was she craving his hands on her all the time, but when he did touch her it was so much more potent. He lit her on fire and made her want to scream, and not even in a sexual way. It was just that it was like she was a junkie and his fingertips on her arm was a shot of heroin to her blood. It was something that she couldn’t live without and there was nothing she could compare it to. It would be impossible for her to quite, not that she ever would. Some little part of her knew that it might end up being the death of her. She could acknowledge that his touch made her crazy that when he held her close and kissed her head she couldn’t think of anything that was as amazing. Denny’s favorite thing may have been kissing her, but Annie just liked him touching her. The brush of his fingertips on her bare back could wake her from the dead, make her shake any sort of depression that had been set upon her. And then there was the complete opposite, when they got so close and tangled up that they were almost the same person. Annie would stay in a set of euphoria for hours after that, but she had this fear of somehow getting acclimated for it, or getting a tolerance. And she didn’t just want to be physical all the time, which is why the absolute highest they could get was only three times. Annie wanted to pace herself, because if one day sex became as numb as when he just touched her then she didn’t know what she would do with herself.

The love like cancer would spread after that, to your mind and your limbs and your actions. You worried, or at least Annie did, worried incessantly over that person. She constantly wondered what Denny was thinking, constantly wondered what he thought of her, constantly worried over what was happening between them, always worrying over things that she couldn’t fix and things that didn’t need fixing. She tried to say what she wanted, but it either came out butchered and incoherent or just terrible. Sometimes it was better to keep her mouth shut and just let that emotion do they talking. There was nothing as powerful or attention-catching as love. There was nothing as demanding of your life as love. There was nothing Annie had ever wanted more than love. Specifically Denny’s.

His hands rubbed her arms, and she was surprised that he could do that with the burns there. When he had first seen them he held her like she was diseased, he was repulsed to the point of nausea. Why was he suddenly so fine with it? Annie didn’t know, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to question it. His hands were comforting, like she was sure he meant them to be. It made her take deep breaths and digest what he said more thoroughly. Why in the world would I think that? Annie got this strange feeling of déjà vu, and she realized that she had asked that question before, and he had given the same answer. The cynical part of her, the pessimist that believed everyone was out to get her, piped up then, saying that it was a rehearsed line. Annie mentally shushed it quickly; what motive could he possibly have by this point? He had gotten into bed with her enough times and had gotten enough secrets from her to have given up after Christmas. But he didn’t – on the contrary, he had chased her down, he had forced her to breathe out all her secrets to him, had taken her home with him to fix her, to make her quit hurting himself.

What they both knew, but were afraid to say, was that Annie would never stop without him.

But although that fact was slightly relevant right now, it wasn’t relevant enough for Annie to brood about it. So she just closed her eyes and listened as his fingers started a cycle on her arm, as damaged as it was, as she was. She had to appreciate that he did that, that he was still here and willing to tell her what she needed for the moment, willing to calm her down and let her listen to his words and let her understand what he was meaning. That was why she always needed the touch, even though right now she was afraid of it; it let her see the meaning, it stilled her mind enough to understand thoroughly. Annie took a breath, and listened to him the way he wanted her to listen. You drive me crazy, yes. The couple drove each other up the walls, but in the mist delightful way, if you asked Annie. It was like one time when they had been kissing and she slid her hand up his shirt to his chest, pressing it against his thumping heart. It had been so loud and fast that she had laughed out loud at the sounds of it and the feel of it against her fingertips. She kind of missed being able to get him going like that just with her lips. She wondered if she could make some kind of pact with herself about it. She realized how much she missed the feel of his heart, because when she kissed him and it beat so big and close to the skin it was like she could feel it in her hand, beating for her. She wasn’t being conceited or narcissistic by making that assumption; she just knew.

She listened to his words, and looked up at him, smiling. She loved hearing that he loved her. Annie needed to make a decision right then, she knew. She wanted to test herself a little. Her arm that he was touching reached over slightly, pushing her other sleeve up too. Her smile twisted a little bit then, hinting at her intentions. And then she just leaned over and kissed him. She let go of every bit of her worry because of something she wanted. She needed that feeling again, and now she decided how to get it, and she would get it. She would kiss him and feel his heart beat for her and then pull back and tell him she loved him. That’s all it took, and Annie could do it.




1,537 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - idk this crap.

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Being with Annie wasn’t even a choice anymore. It was a lifestyle. Denny could be with Annie and have a life in every sense, or he could – well, no. He couldn’t be without Annie. He’d be a hallow shell, just a body without a reason. He’d be that person he’d started to grow into without Annie for three weeks, only if she never came back to him, he’d turn into that psychotic, empty, dirty, unmotivated guy that no one wanted to see. His life just wasn’t possible without Annie. That being said, being with her wasn’t a choice he could make. It had been a choice before, when this whole thing was new and Denny didn’t have any experience in this department at all. It had been a choice even after he’d told her he loved her for the first time, but after he’d told her he would never leave her and he knew it had been true, his whole being and just known that being with her was no longer a choice. And to be honest, he was okay with that. Having the choice taken from him meant he was dedicated, that he had someone worth fighting for.

But just because being with her wasn’t a choice anymore didn’t mean what he did with her held the same truth. He had to chose to hold her, had to chose what to say to her and he had to chose carefully what reaction he would want out of her. There were still choices within the relationship, just not as a matter of whether it would last or not. It had to, and that was that. Touching her, looking away from the very thing that had sent a wave of absolute disgust through him just a few days ago, continuing to be in some small sort of physical contact to show her that it was okay, that Denny was okay without moving too far, all of those were choices he’d made. He had to make the choice to roll her sleeve up and run his fingers along her arm. He had to choose to want to be this close to her, regardless of the burns or whatever else she had done to herself. It still all boiled down to the fact that Annie was his and Annie was real, and Denny didn’t have a choice but to love her anymore. Giving up the choice to leave Annie was like giving up the few dollars you had to a robber on the street; you didn’t lose much and your life is spared. Most of the time. In this case, Denny’s life had been saved. Not only spared, but Annie had given him enough of a reason to get up and out of bed and live. Not only had he given up a fraction of what he’d gotten back, but he still had his reason to be alive. That reason was tangible, liked being touched, and so as far as Denny saw things, he didn’t care. He got everything he’d ever need and all he had to do was say he’d never leave her and mean it.

And you can bet your bottom dollar that he fucking meant it.

There was no where to go, no one to go to outside of Annie. Denny wouldn’t even know Boss or Abby without Annie. He wouldn’t have friends for forgiveness or fans or anything really. Why would he leave her? How could he? Even if she was crazy; Denny didn’t care. Even if she was hurting him more than helping some of the time; Denny didn’t care. She’d reached out to him, asking for help now, which gave him more of a reason than ever to pay attention and be there for someone. He’d never had the chance to properly be the hero in the story; though his sister, Chey, could have considered him a hero for taking the blame in the accident, no one else did. Everyone else saw him as the kid that had been drunk driving, and had possibly kicked his kid sister out of the car in order to run that girl over. No one until Annie had given him a chance to redeem himself. And that’s all he’d done since meeting her; he’d made himself more social than he’d been in years, he’d written songs he didn’t think he could formulate, he’d actually been a good person, and he’d had such an impact on Annie’s life that mirrored the impact she’d had on his. Why would he give that up over some slight psychological problems that could be fixed? So maybe that made him a bit mental too to think in such a manner, but Denny didn’t care. He didn’t care what anyone else thought about him and Annie. He didn’t care what people close to them thought about their relationship. He accepted Annie and loved her regardless of her personal issues, and that would never change. There would never be a substitute, never a supplement with great enough a power to completely rule out all others the way Annie did.

This kiss was different from the last one. Not nearly as urgent, even if urgent wasn’t exactly the right word to describe it. The last kiss had been instinctual, Denny knew, but this one wasn’t. This one wasn’t rushed, wasn’t going places the last one was. This one was more like the make out session they’d endured on her couch the morning after French toast (as Denny referred to it to keep his mind off of the monster and it’s dangerous effects on his mind), fueled just by being together, not a fire that led to things neither of them could control if they wanted too. He knew she trusted him, and he knew this time she trusted him to keep their clothes on. Denny had subliminally made it clear he wouldn’t go where Annie didn’t want to go – and he knew just where that was. He was confident for the first time in almost four weeks, a whole month, that he could control himself. His desires weren’t the same as they were when the fire sparked. Then he wanted to feel the fire, to feel Annie’s body as close to his as possible. Though the latter still stood, he could deal with wearing his hoodie and shorts with her against him. He wanted to feel Annie, not a fire they could start together. He wanted to just kiss her and be close to her without going places they were avoiding, and he actually believed he could keep himself in one place.

So he just kissed her back. His hand found that familiar place on her cheek, knowing he couldn’t do anything from there. He just wanted to be touching her, holding her as close as he could without meaning to go too far. This was all he really needed to be happy, and it took a whole blow up to figure it out. He’d known he didn’t really need the sex to be completely happy before, but once that was a part of their lives it was there and it was real, and it was constantly on their minds. Only, to a certain extent anyway. But then he didn’t eve have Annie near him for weeks, and it tore him apart. Having her back made him grateful. It made Denny really see that he didn’t need to be naked with her to be content; there didn’t need to be flames surrounding them for their to be a spark. The spark now was different than the spark that started a fire – this was more like watching fireworks in a park on the Fourth of July. This spark was so high up they couldn’t really reach it, but they felt it. Denny could feel his heart start to beat almost too fast at all of the things running through his head, finally content with the fact that nothing negative, nothing demonstrative was running across his thoughts. This really was like watching fireworks; he could feel the beat of the explosions in his chest, and he swore he could see colors behind his eye lids. He didn’t even realize Annie had pushed her hand up under his hoodie, moving it up and up until it was right over his heart. He didn’t feel nervous or anxious to get his hoodie off. He felt just so connected to her that nothing else really mattered. All that he knew were the fireworks and Annie and the fact that this was so much more……amazing than he remembered.

And then the thought occurred to him: this was part of the healing process. Knowing that they could do this to each other without needing to undress each other gave Denny the sense of ‘YES I CAN DO THIS!’ he’d needed since the beginning of this whole situation. Knowing that he could feel this in this manner let him know what he needed to have known on the beach. Because of that, he once again couldn’t help the smile that was forcing its way onto his features.


1520 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- that took me no time at all what the fuck this post is my bitch. took me like. 30 minutes to write. ugh i love this.

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie could feel the difference. It was hard for her to think and compare things when she was kissing him. It was hard to understand how she had woken up this morning just wanting to scream at him, for lack of anything else to do, and now she was kissing him, something she didn't think she would do for a while. But she couldn't help it, she couldn't help the emotions that he pumped into her body, the way everything just looked different from behind her eyelids. Everything was changing, but it was different than the first time. Now it was new, still familiar, but the consequences were understood, and the current situation wasn't taken for granted. Before the nearly month hiatus that Annie had seemed to shove into the relationship, they were always starving after 100% of what they could get, wanting more and needing more. It was always a battle against themselves, each other, everyone else. Now, somehow, more fight was needed to be calmer, more work towards being submissive. But that was okay because it was that they had needed. 

When Denny kissed her back Annie's mind went reeling. She couldn't have brought it back even if she wanted to. It was just kind of swooning and Annie's whole existence felt very small, but not belittled. It just kind of made her take a look on what was going on around her, but she didn't open her eyes. She just thought about how crazy she had been to walk away from him, even momentarily. Denny may have wished that Annie had come into his life before the accident, but, honestly he wouldnt have stayed. He might have been intrigued with her but he wouldnt have had reasons to stay, he wouldn't have wanted to be so tied down when he was still in high school. Maybe Annie was just underestimating him, but she knew that she had come into his life at the right time. She would never be able to pin point what made her stay in this town long enough to start that first attachment between them, but it had started. Who knew, maybe it was one of those cheesy meant-to-be kind of things but Annie couldn't put any romantic expectations to their relationship, no child-like fairy tale or love story. They were just Annie and Denny, and they had gotten mixed up together and tangled up and in love. Something had clicked in them that made Denny fall in love with her and Annie loved him back. She had to guess that this was a once in a life time thing because, first off, because Annie wanted to give herself enough credit to say that Denny would never feel this way about anyone else, that they would try until they were dead to make this all stay together. And second, no human being could give as much as he gave her, and be able to replenish it for later, for another person. He had given Annie his words, his body, his love, his promises, his sanity. Annie didn't really know what she was giving in return, but it was enough she supposed. She would didn't mind now knowing, but she just hoped he would tell her if she ever stopped. 

Having his lips against her's was like slipping on her favorite shirt, but like she had lost it somewhere and finally found it again. It was familiar and nice and a little sorrowful with the way she had missed it. His hand held her cheek and Annie subconsciously moved a little closer. She had almost forgot about why she had instigated this kiss, but she remembered when she started to feel her adrenaline pump and her own heart beat sporadically in her chest. She moved her hand closer to him, slipping it under his hoodie and first just resting it on his stomach because she had to take a second to unfuddle the lump of her mind before she remembered what came next. When she did she slipped her hand up further. It was a kind of awkward move to make, but she didn't even register that as her fingertips grazed his chest and she finally found his heart and laid her palm against the skin above it. 

Annie smiled against his lips when she found it, feeling it thump by her hand like it was trying to jump out of his ribcage, out of his skin and into her hand. Annie hadn't really thought much about it until now, but she knew that his heart was her's, just like she knew her heart was for him. It reminded her of the first morning after, the morning of the first fight. But she wasn't dwelling on that, she was thinking about before breakfast, when she had told him that he had all of her, and he had replied in much the same manner. Now she was reaping the benefits, touching his heartbeat and thinking about how it was her's. The euphoria of that made her dizzy, the sudden possessiveness that took over her body would have made her knees weak if she was standing. She knew that his heart was her favorite part of him, and if someone tried to feel what she was feeling that she would make it her official goal to make them regret it for the rest of their life. 

But violence and revenge weren't the ambiance for right now. Annie just focused on the pure, overwhelming happiness she was getting from that moment. She pulled her lips back but stayed close, leaning her forehead against his. She was still close enough that, in addition to his heart ( which sounded like it was so fast that it was almost one simultaneous beat), she felt his heavy breathing on her lips. It was safe to say that they were a little out of breath. Annie laughed a little, light and airy because she was still trying to catch her breath. She closed her eyes and just rested her head against his until she could find her lungs. "Listen to your heart," she said, smiling because these words had been spoken before. "You're going crazy!" and then she laughed again, because being with Denver and being so happy.... there was just nothing in the world like it. 



1,056 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - even if it was shortish, I liked this one.

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Well, Annie was right. Denny couldn’t sit there and deny that his heart wasn’t racing like it was first place at the Indy 500. He couldn’t even get himself to blush – but honestly he didn’t feel flustered in that flattery kind of way. The most dominant emotion he could detect was absolute happiness. This went beyond euphoria to the point of not having a word for the feeling at all. It was there, taking a complete hold on his entire mind, body, soul, or whatever else it could get to. It turned the fireworks into huge, colorful bombs in the sky that was the space behind his eye lids. It held his breath for him, making his heart move that fast and his lungs scream but not in a bad way. This was more like one of those cheesy songs people wrote than even the most romantic movie or story you could ever find. This, to Denny, was better than what he’d expected since the beach, and in fact it wiped the thought of anything that had happened since Christmas clear out of the front of his mind. Everything that had brought him into a slight depression or even bothered him in the last few weeks was gone, replaced with this feeling he couldn’t put a face claim to. So of course his heart was moving that fast, and of course it would only do that for Annie. It was her fault he even felt this way.

The smile on his face just kept moving outward. It was a slow progression, mostly because of how much energy it took for Denny to just focus, but a progression nonetheless. His breathing showed just how much he’d been engulfed in the fireworks, as his heart did, and she was right; Denny could hear the beating like there was a huge drum in his chest instead. Being that close to Annie, having her body for the sound to just jump right off of, amplified and intensified the beating. Denver couldn’t help but chuckle a bit though, even if he wasn’t completely sure why. He just did, and the only logical reason he could come up with was because he was too out of breath to speak but too happy to not make a sound. Happy wasn’t a quiet emotion. Morbid loneliness was, and Denny knew that almost all too well, but he wasn’t even able to think about that. His mind was just trying to wrap itself around everything he was feeling, one little element at a time. It was taking too long, and Denny felt just like turning it all off so he didn’t have to think, but for once he wanted to. He wanted to think, to remember this forever as a reminder for when things got tense or just straight up difficult and stressful to deal with. He had to. Besides Christmas, this was one of the best days he’d ever had ever in his entire life, so holding onto it would do wonders for him later, if only a fraction of what it was doing to him now.

“I told you,” he said, trying still to get a grip on his breathing. Usually around this time his vulture lungs would kick in and he’d be breathing just fine, after having adapted to the breath that flight required. But now….now his mind was almost completely human. There was no monster looming over him for the moment, and he didn’t even think of flying. He felt light and out of breath, as he appeared to be, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to someone that didn’t fly. He’d heard about it, seen it in movies obviously, but there were just some things Denny had to experience for himself. Like, for instance, flying without wings. He had to feel it to believe it, and now that he was wholly feeling it Denny actually understood what it meant for someone that wasn’t a shifter. And now that he did, now that his mind could understand what was happening to some extent, Denny could think a bit clearer. “You make me crazy.”

In fact, there wasn’t much that Denny said to Annie that he didn’t mean. He’d meant that his hat he’d found had been the most ridiculous thing he owned. He’d meant that he loved her every time he said it. He meant he’d never leave, he meant that he had nowhere to go and no reason to find her repulsing or diseased. He meant it when he said that she drove him crazy, and now she could see why. He really hadn’t meant it in the way that connoted an asylum; he meant it in the way where people would imagine Ryan Goslin and Rachel McAdams or whoever they thought of when they were made to think of love to an extremity. Annie drove Denny to the point where he’d do anything, say anything, be anything for her; all she had to do was say the word. He’d get up, go out, stomp on someone’s head until they were a bloody milkshake on the sidewalk if she wanted. He’d become a horrid psychopath for the day if she wanted to be entertained by that. Denny would literally do anything for Annie, and so to most, even Denny himself, he was crazy. But he’d rather be crazy in love and have Annie than be alone, secretly losing his wits to the darkness that surrounded him. He’d rather be here, wasting his days away with Annie in heated make out sessions that didn’t really have to go anywhere, her hand under his hoodie and against the skin of his chest, calming him to the point where he was so amazingly happy but exciting him to the point where his heart became a huge piece of an instrument – he’d rather have all of that rather than nothing and no one and nothing.

All of that was just his complicated way of saying he wouldn’t trade this, even the mental tirades, for anything in the world.

The funny thing about this kiss was that, even after he could breathe and think, he didn’t necessarily need more. Unlike before where more had been calling his mind in a way that he couldn’t deny, Denny could push it away and just sit and enjoy what he had. Denny wasn’t so sure why it meant so much to him that he didn’t need to be taking his clothes off, but he knew that whatever the actual reason was, it had to do with the fact that this was a good sign. This was a move in the right direction. So his smile just grew some more, continuing its progression from before. “This is good,” he found himself saying, his mental filter obviously taking a break through the extreme euphoric thoughts moving through his mind. The filter just realized there was nothing he could say to ruin this right now. Denny was in such a good mood, such a satisfied mindset that everything he said had been planned already without him really knowing. It was like Annie had thrown a surprise party for his birthday, and even if the only guests included Annie herself, Abby, and Boss, Denny was so much more than just happy. He was ecstatic to a point that was off the charts. This is what he’d really missed without even knowing it those three weeks. He hadn’t known this level of happiness, not ever, and feeling it and living in it now just added to everything.

His hand that wasn’t still on her cheek moved to her arm, then to her hand as his fingers laced through hers and Denny let his eyes look right at Annie. She’d gotten closer, but even that didn’t prompt him to move forward from there. He was content just being there with Annie’s forehead against his, his heart still pounding a bit too loud and fast for it to be a normal heartbeat. Even if he didn’t have to proceed, even if his body wasn’t screaming at him to feel the fire, he wanted to keep kissing Annie. But as said before, this want was easily deniable. With his newfound confidence though, Denny felt he could do anything and not scare Annie away into that ball again. So he leaned forward just enough to kiss her again, letting that familiar feeling settle around him. He was starting to get used to this overwhelming sense of something too happy to name, but not in the sense that he’d be numb to it after he was completely accustomed to it. The opposite actually; Denny felt like it would always find ways to surprise him in the best way possible. With that, his heart started up again with it’s inevitable, unorthodox pacing and frantic racing.



1476 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- eh this was a bit weird, but not in a bad way i don't think.

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie couldnt think of how her life could get better. It was like the nice mix of hot and cool that was easy for her to admire. It was hot enough to leave her dizzy and breathless. His kisses and even just his hand on her cheek made her heart beat so fast that her fingertips felt like they were on fire with all the blood rushing in and out. It was cool enough to wear it was kind of like slow motion, like things were happening but at the same time they weren't. It was this comfortable, luke-warm feeling that took away the urgency of the heat, leaving Annie able to bask in that warmth for as long as she wanted to. There was no need to push it urgently or to twist away or to pull at her shirt so her skin could breath. It wasn't like that, it was like Denny was the moon; still bright and exhilarating but not with that heat that made her go crazy, like heatstroke. It was something better than she could name. It was them, and there didn't need to be anything else. She needed to stop over thinking this all because it was so simple. It wasn't rocket science or physics or even algebra; it was simpler than addition, even. It was just Annie and Denny. They didn't even have to add up: they just existed. They existed together with nothing and no one else. One touch, one phrase, one Denny and Annie. They didn't need anything else, so she didn't know why she was constantly shoving ideas into this.

His kisses were teaching her to accept that it was just easy.

He was showing her that even this healing was easy. They expected it to be some sort of uphill battle, but it wasn't. They expected it to drive them insane with things they couldn't control and make Annie want to scream and Denny rip his hair out in silent frustration. But it wasn't. It was easy. Annie didn't want to jinx it, so she would just say it was easier than they had expected. It would still take time and dedication to patch together all of Annie's broken pieces, but it would be smooth. If she swallowed up her frustration and let Denny guide her and show her how smooth it could be, then it would be easy. She would need to disbeleive herself and believe him, believe in his patience and his dedication. She could invade his thoughts quietly to take up the time, she could watch them stand the test of time in her mind's eye. That's all it took, trust, trust in Denny to make it all better, faith that he would stay long enough to fix it; and after, too. It was like she was some little kid with a cut and she just wanted him to kiss it better.

And in a sense, that's what he was doing. He said the words that he had spoken before and Annie giggled a little because of it. And then they were back to breathing as Annie's mind fluttered and twisted with her breath. Annie couldn't think of things to spill the space, but their breathing did. It was weird, because it was like her ears were ringing underneath their lungs. But to her it didnt sound like ringing; it was more of a roaring silence, like tv fuzz but less irritating, more acceptable. It overflowed out her ears and into the space around them, trying to find space in-between Annie's frantic search for breath. She barely heard Denny's words because of it. And yes, this was good. But Annie didn't know what he meant by saying this out loud. Her mind was reeling to fast. It was like between Christmas and the weeks after, Annie was burned beyond belief, metaphorically and literally. It was like those burns still scorched from time to time, burning through her muscles in a bad way and the only way Annie knew how to push it aside was to have Denny's touch put it out. It was weird because the fingers that made the fire could also soothe it to a warm blaze.

But that was just the intoxication of Denny, and she was over questioning it.

She felt his hand clasp her's and she opened her eyes and watched him staring into her's. Annie felt odd then, because her breath got caught in her throat. She could see Denny, she felt like she could see past his eyes and into his soul, and he was so beautiful. It was breathtaking really, but also scary for her. Was she that beautiful inside? She honestly didn't think so; there was too much blood on her hands. Did that mean that Denver deserved better? Did that mean she should quit while she was-

His lips against her's silenced her worrying, and she closed her eyes, feeling his heart under her hand. It beat so fast and it just reminded Annie of how alive he was. His skin was moving under her hand, rippling with the muscles in his chest when he moved with her, when his lips moved against her's. His heart thumped rapidly under her hand and Annie didn't think this could get better. The fact that she didn't feel obligated to increase this made her feel better, too. Denny and life remained beautiful for her. It was like what she saw in him let her see things in everything else. He was the sun that burned the shadows out, made everything she was afraid of sulk to where it wouldn't hurt her. He made her whole.

Annie pulled back a little prematurely, and she didn't have a reason for why. She supposed she needed to drag this all out, like her treatment for the day was done. She sighed lightly, but it was cut short by her trying to get air into her lungs. She moved closer still, her legs awkwardly tangling with his as she moved so she could lean her forehead on the crook of his neck. Her breath was cold against his skin and she wondered if he would shiver because of it. Annie felt like she should say something, but she didn't have the means. She didn't have air, and she didn't have words to describe this feeling.



1,062 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - even if it was shortish, I liked this one.

[DENVER CARLOS HURLEY]

what a match ,
I'M HALF DOOMED AND YOU'RE SEMI-SWEET

Something about the way that every time they were together, alone anyway, they always ended up solving something or just extremely happy gave Denny a sense of hope like nothing else. Somewhere in his mind he knew he couldn’t possibly be this happy all the time – no matter how surprising or new these feelings felt, eventually he’d run out of new and surprising and just get bored. Not of Annie, but of constantly being happy, of never having a bad day so he could hope for a better day tomorrow. He knew eventually he’d wake up and he’d be able to do nothing, and so he’d sulk and possibly just fly away for a little while. He wouldn’t leave forever, as he’d promised he wouldn’t, but he knew there’d be days, even maybe tomorrow, where he’d need to be outside, flying without a thought or care in the world. But he couldn’t really concentrate on that. He knew it, and it was in the back of his mind for him to know, but he couldn’t pull the thought any farther forward than it already was. Sure, he’d gained some control of himself, but that didn’t mean he had control of everything. Plus, not being able to think on the subject kept him happy, content, kept Annie in his arms and a smile on his face. Not being able to understand the fact that there would be days unlike this one made him somehow more grateful for the days like this.

That smile that had slowly been growing just continued. Denny couldn’t stop it anymore, not that he’d been able to before. When things were better than perfect – better than the standard set on Christmas – Denny just had no excuse to not be smiling. He was a grateful sort of person, and while he hadn’t exactly been so before, he was definitely going to now. He wasn’t going to just pass this off as another day with Annie, where he could have before the New Year. He was going to milk the day for what it was worth, even if that was just a few kisses and some cuddling. He’d be okay with that – more than okay, actually. More than content. More than happy. More than a lot of things he couldn’t think of at the moment. He felt more passionate about this relationship, more wholly a part of it than he ever had before, which was odd because no matter what point in time you chose, in the last two years or so Denny had been wholly dedicated to whatever Annie put him through – good or bad. But now Denny felt like more of him was a part of this love, more of who he was not what he could do with his body or his words. More of his mind, more of his emotions and feelings were a part of whatever they were doing. It made him feel more wanted than he’d ever felt in his entire life. That was why he was so grateful for Annie; she gave him these senses and feelings that no one ever had, and she didn’t even know it. Without much thought, but plenty of truth and emotion he sighed a small, “I love you so much.”

What else was there to say though? So much, and at the same time nothing he hadn’t said to Annie or shown her already. He’d told her he loved her more than once this morning, he told her he didn’t want her shutting him out, he told her about that stupid hat – so what else was there? Well, this was one of the times where Denny just had to remind himself that a silence between them wasn’t completely horrible. They could say so much in silence, which was extremely contradictory. Still, they found ways. The thing about Annie and Denny was that they didn’t always need words to express feelings to each other. They didn’t always need to show that through touch or kisses either, though those were two substitutions to speaking. They had other ways; just being together and being close, or just being together and looking at one another. Denny loved Annie’s eyes; he loved looking into them and seeing a whole world he’d never imagined. He loved the color of them, even if she was totally angry or enraged, ready to stomp heads into the ground the way he’d thought he’d do for her before.

To be fair though, there wasn’t much about Annie that Denny didn’t love. Anything about her that he didn’t absolutely adore was just on a lower level, and it was all things that could be fixed. He didn’t think that way, but that was just how it was. He didn’t really know it; it was just a simple fact, there in his mind without him really knowing, something he’d overlook when he went to clean everything out. Eventually the fact would disintegrate, along with the things that they’d fix together. Denny would help Annie, she’d start to feel better and the list of things in that little part of his mind he didn’t even know was there would get smaller and smaller. So really, there wasn’t enough room, or rather the thought wasn’t taking up enough room for him to think about it. He over looked it; his attention was more on having Annie that close to him, being so intertwined with her body without having to be stuffed under his sheets that anything else was just thrown into his mental garbage can on impact. The sheer innocence compared to nights like Christmas or Thanksgiving just made him know that this was easier than he’d thought, that this whole process was going to take work, but not nearly as much as he’d anticipated. Especially if he was going to fix himself along the way – he thought he’d have to work just as hard at that as he was going to have to work with Annie, but just by knowing the differences between now and four weeks ago, Denny felt confident that everything was going to be a breeze compared to what he’d thought before.

“You know,” he said softly, trying to make even the littlest conversation. He didn’t care if all he could get out of Annie was a few noises, because just communicating would be enough for him. “I think we’re going to find this whole thing kind of…fun.” Denny meant that even if they had to look back on this process years from now, they’d look back and know how much fun they’d had together. Growing was fun, if not growing older just growing as a person, even if Denny wouldn’t really say that. He felt it, and that was enough. He felt like growing with Annie would be an adventure, letting all of this happen between them would just be the journey – and who knew where they ended up? The whole thing wasn’t about the destination. It was about what they’d go through together, and if they ended up where they’d wanted to together at the end, then it would all be worth it and one day they’d look back and realize how much they appreciated each other for doing all of this.



1208 -- seren/annie <3 -- I MADE IT ALL. 'cept the lyrics go to fall out boy. -- OUTFIT WITH THE SILLY HAT! -- a bit short but i'm not totally hating it. :D

[ANNABELLE MARIE HURLEY]

AND LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH IT'S A COLD
and it's a broken hallelujah

Annie just needed to be with him. She didn’t need a lot of talking or a lot of touching or a lot of anything. Sometimes the sweetest words could have the most bitter taste, and sometimes the most innocent touches could burn. Annie had always liked to think of herself as a very sure person with a very well-built self esteem and walls that people wouldn’t break though, she always felt so sure. But Denny had proved her wrong and she didn’t even have a moment to be angry. He had shattered her whole world in a second. And now she had to trust him to rebuild it all back. And it was hard. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t, but just putting that much faith into someone could have staggering consequences and made her feel vulnerable. And then she felt guilty, because she should trust Denny, and she did, but something just ended up always coming back and attacking her about it and it just wasn’t what it was supposed to be. She wished that she could stop all this worrying and give him what he deserved but she couldn’t.

Maybe once upon a time Annie used to be something great. But she fell from wherever she was, and she hit trees on the way down. She hit bad things and she hit good things. She fell from grace and she fell from people’s minds, and she fell from common conversation. Annie was slinking out of everything, she was falling down the rabbit hole. She was watching herself reach this bottom like pit that she didn’t want to go to, but she had to because you just couldn’t stop yourself from falling. She was twisting into something scary, and she didn’t know where the bottom was, but it was like suddenly Denny’s hands had grabbed out and she had fallen into his arms instead. The bottom still lurked and maybe that’s why she worried so much, but this one part of her wondered if ignorance was bliss; if she just believed him, it wouldn’t be that bad if he just suddenly dropped her, and she was falling again, compared to if she knew that he would drop her from the beginning. And slowly, somehow not even noticing, Annie had fallen in love. But really, what was one more fall into something? What was one more drop, whether it was from a building or a drug or a knife or a cigarette or her self conscious. She had more or less stopped caring about it, but then it had caught up with her and was slowly killing her.

Part of Annie was aware that she was making almost no sense. Part of her was aware that she shouldn’t be worrying. And in the present, she wasn’t though. She was just sitting against Denny, trying to ignore her mind and the rest of the word. She heard him speak, and through someone else’s ears she heard herself say “Mm, if you say so.” but Annie was suddenly not feeling much like herself. She sat like that for some time, taking solace in his fingers laced with her’s. But Annie’s mind wasn’t listening to her, it wasn’t fitting inside her head. She couldn’t fit her personality together. It was like trying to shove together two magnets, and it was honestly exhausting. The mere force she exerted from it made her drowsy, but she wasn’t really ready to sleep. Annie didn’t know what she was doing besides silently begging Denny to hold her. She just needed a little more solace than his hand. Parts of her were okay and other parts weren’t. She didn’t know what she wanted to say, but there were some kind of words stuck to her tongue. They wouldn’t come out of her mouth, though

But something did want to come out, and before Annie knew it she was ripping away from him again and in the bathroom before she could blink, leaning over the toilet. Puking didn’t bother her, she was used to it by now, to be morbidly honest. But she wasn’t instigating this, her body was just doing it and it kind of scared her. Was she sick, did she get some kind of flu? And did that mean Denny would get it to? That would be terrible for them to just be sitting there puking all the time. Kind of like a weird version of Romeo and Juliet, or something like that. Was it just muscle memory, would her body not let her keep anything down? Annie didn’t think so, she hadn’t eaten anything recently and it was probably already digested by now. She didn’t know what it could be, except for one thing, and that option was, frankly, the scariest of all.

Being pregnant.

No, it was impossible, she wouldn’t let herself think it.

But, stuff like this did happen, realistically. Mistakes, accidents… it could happen without people noticing. And Annie didn’t have regular things to judge that all by, like a period or mood swings; bulimia altered that whole cycle more than anyone could fathom, and Annie was already crazy. But she didn’t know why she was jumping to that immediately. It could be anything, it could be something just freak and out f no where. She was doing her normal over-thinking. And her mind ignored her trying to talk sense into herself, and thought of options. It was a little sad and sobering for her, because it wasn’t like she could go take a pill and fix it. There was abortion, or something. But Annie couldn’t do that with a clean conscience. She thought about what she had said to Denny on Christmas and she just didn’t have the heart to do that. His description of the dream still lingered in her mind.

Annie felt like it had been her own dream, like she could see the colors and shapes herself. And she got this ache in her chest because she suddenly wanted that so bad. Suddenly it was all she could think about, how Annie kind of wanted to be a mom, how she could handle it with Denny’s help. Who knew, maybe it could be part of fixing her. Annie knew that was a huge lie though, that it might break her more than ever, but for the sake of that moment and trying not to beat herself up over how much she already hated herself, she chose to believe the lie. She chose to believe that she was already better, that finding out she could kiss Denny and not want to go further had already done some sort of healing for her. Maybe it had and maybe it hadn’t, but it hadn’t fixed everything.

Annie’s mind was reeling because she didn’t know what to do now. She didn’t know what to do except flush the toilet and stare at the water as it cleared, her elbows braced on the ceramic. What was there to do? Not much. Not much but think. Her mind was going too fast, and now that she was taking the time to think about it all, it was… weird. She remembered when his sister had asked if she was pregnant and Annie had laughed. She had never thought about it being true. She thought about having a family, but she didn’t think of the in-between. This moment right now was really surreal. Her body felt hot and she felt this blush creeping all up her back and she kind of wanted to puke again, but more from the queasy feeling in her stomach. This was shaping into the real-deal.

And she was scared of what, exactly, that entailed for her and Denver.

Maybe she was overthinking it though, maybe she was just being wishful by adding his name at the end. Maybe he didn’t care despite what he said. Maybe he would overreact and just jump ship, because a kid was a bit of a commitment, although most people treated children less so than marriage. But she thought of Christmas, when this had probably happened, and how he said that when she was ready they could do that, how he wouldn’t let her do anything alone. That gave her momentary relief, but of course her mind kept going and making her worry more; what if this was her choice, not his? What if he wouldn’t want to go through with it all, like she was thinking about. What if she wasn’t ready at all? What if this broke everything, and made her whole life just disintegrate? Annie worried, he worried too much for one person and she really just wanted to cry, and she felt her lips tremble and then she just wanted to scream because that was so belittling.

But panic was setting in and she didn’t know what to do, so, ever so slowly, on tear slipped from her right eye and her lips trembled some more, and she just stared at her hand, stared at the ring. Stop worrying, she told herself. He cares.



1,514 - OUTFIT - lyrics to that song i'm obsessed with and this thread is obviously for denver - THIS IS THE MOST REAL THAT SHIT HAS EVER GOTTEN, OKAY