[adair ludivine ashcroft]

ADAIR ASHCROFT .
I CAN'T CONTROL YOU, I DON'T KNOW YOU WELL.

-----------------------------

Adair could feel her heartbeat in her throat.

The early hours of morning had transformed the sky into a sheet of dark azure. The blue drifted through the French doors leading to the girl's balcony, making dark shadows dance on the ceiling. A cold sweat dripped from her forehead, mixing with the silent tears that slid from her hazel eyes before permeating her pillow. She'd been lying like this for what felt like hours, watching the shifting, fractured light morph on her walls. Sleep had become a rarity as of late; something of a treasure if it managed to find her at all in the dark hours of night. She let a raspy breath escape her lips, hitting the humid air of her bedroom in a conscious effort to stop the growing silence from enveloping her completely. She'd seen it again, the entire scene laid out in front of her as if it were real life and not her destructive imagination. Adair sat up in bed, fatigue wearing her limbs down. She hated this newfound restlessness. The only thing it'd succeeded in doing was leaving her asleep in the middle of afternoon classes, which had not left such an amazing first impression on her new professors. Swinging her long legs over the side of her bed, Adair leaned her head forward, her hair falling in a sheet over her face. She closed her eyes, resting her hands on the sides of her thighs, breathing through her nose as she tried futilely to block the images out of her mind. But they came in relentlessly quick succession of each other: emerald eyes, blood leaking in a thick stream through the lake, Evan's hand in her own. She opened her eyes again. She needed to get out.

She glanced quickly at the domineering grandfather clock her mother had put in as an extra adornment while Adair had been at Cambridge. Adair hated the thing. Not only was it excruciatingly loud, but it sullied the entire appearance of her bedroom. But, in times of need, she could only appreciate its helpfulness. 4:17 AM. Certainly too early to go to the university early. But not too early to leave the house. Slipping on a pair of jeans, she combed a hand through her hair carelessly before picking up the iPhone from her vanity table. Cycling through her phonebook aimlessly, she stopped on Adrien's name. Adrien Cole. The two had become sort-of friends over their time at the University of Essex. Though Adair would never admit to it, she found his personality beyond addictive. There was something so alluring about him... something familiar. She let her eyes flicker up to the time on her phone again. 4:20 AM. So it was early. But Adrien had never seemed to mind hanging out with her before. And, if there was anything she wanted right now, it was to not be alone. To not see everything flash in front of her whenever she closed her eyes and let herself think. She didn't want to think of Adrien as a vice, honest. She just wanted someone to talk to. It didn't have to be about the past. Just conversation. She wrote out a quick text, hoping it didn't sound too desperate but would be enough to drag him out of bed (if he was even there yet): hey. i know it's weird and random but could you meet me at the castle in a little while? i know i probably just woke you up and you probably don't even want to see me this early but... i'd really like to see you. She looked the message over, and although she'd always hated the way she sounded over texts, she knew it wouldn't get any better than that. So, sending the text away quickly, she slipped the phone into her pocket, threw a long cardigan over her wifebeater, stepped into her shoes, and left through the backdoor.

The early morning air was colder than she'd expected. It was still something close to summer, wasn't it? She walked with her arms crossed, passing large houses with their lights turned off. By the time she made it out of the gated neighborhood, she'd counted thirteen foreign sports cars and only two lights turned on. She stepped carefully down a familiar, trodden path down the street toward Colchester Castle and its surrounding parks, a place she'd been way too often than she would've liked on 'educational visits', as her primary school had called them. Avoiding the worn castle, she stepped toward a perfectly still landscape, dew fresh on the grass and benches. Not even the trees swayed, everything was so still. She moved forward, the silence deafening and reassuring at the same time. She moved toward a bench, sitting on it with her legs crossed beneath her. She combed a hand through her hair again, hoping she didn't look as drained as she felt.

[ADRIEN LUCAS COLE]

ADRIEN COLE
A HEART THAT'S FULL UP LIKE A LANDFILL
A JOB THAT SLOWLY KILLS YOU
BRUISES THAT WONT HEAL.
- - - - -

The sting of vodka slid down his throat with an acidic burn. And it felt wonderful.

Placing the lip of the glass bottle against the curve of his own yearning lips, he poured the clear liquid into his mouth, allowing it to blur and dull his senses with total rapture. He passed the bottle to his right, to a waif-like blonde leaning expectantly against the concrete wall. Graffiti had been sprayed across the inside walls of the Pillbox, where Adrien and the other four strangers he had stumbled along with, were enjoying themselves. As Adrien passed the bottle to the girl, their warm fingertips briefly touched for a fleeting moment against the cool glass. Both of them looked up sharply, the girl with a hint of surprise and excitement in her dark brown eyes, and Adrien tucking a hint of a smirk back in the smooth expanse of his curved lips. She tore her gaze away and slung back two gulps of vodka, tears springing to her eyes as a result. She handed the bottle along and slumped back against the wall as she stared out to an indiscriminate corner of the room, but her eyes were completely on him.

Adrien lifted his hand and bumped his fingers against the streaks of graffiti that were splayed across the wall. Lingering across, he followed their paths until his reach was next to the soft curve of the girl's shoulder. Someone awhile ago had brought a mismatched set of candles and placed it at the center of the room. They had melted to an unrecognizable form, a mixing of colors against the gray concrete. The stubby wicks that were left had been lit, the short flames sending shadows dancing across the face of the girl now gazing playfully at him.

His fingers trailed across her lightly tanned and freckled shoulder as he grazed the length of her bare arm with the back of his fingers, his hand finally reaching her slender waist. Holding his gaze with hers, he slid his arm fully around her and pulled her in tight. He heard some stifled giggles as others knew what was going to happen next as much as Adrien and the girl whose body was pressed against him. He ignored them and curved his hand around the nape of her neck. Her downy hair was soft against the arc of his palm. Her lips parted open as her eyes fluttered closed in response to Adrien's own lips nearing close. His mouth brushed against the open camber of her lips with a tender delicacy. Their shallow breaths met with incitement in the air between them. Adrien looked up one last time to her eager brown eyes. And felt nothing as he closed the short space between them.

Before they could go much farther, the pocket of his jeans started buzzing. Pulling himself away he reached inside his pocket to retrieve his battered cell phone. Emblazoned on the blue screen was an incoming text from Adair Ashcroft. After briefly reading it, he untangled himself from the embrace of the girl and announced to the slightly intoxicated group that he had to get going. He caught the severely pissed off look from the blonde girl just before he turned to leave. Definitely wouldn't be hanging out with them again.

Shoving his hands deep within his pockets, he ambled across Colchester's silent and empty streets. The vodka had settled a warmth within him despite the chill of the early morning air. Streetlamps cast a dim yellow glow onto the pavement as he strolled through their light, kicking loose pebbles, sending them skittering across the ground. The velvet dusk of sky was turning to a stale gray when he finally reached Colchester Castle. He looked up at the looming building before him, its form cast in shadow and darkness. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure shift slightly under the moonlight. Turning towards the garden he walked tentatively towards the young girl sitting, waiting for someone or perhaps, something.

Before saying anything, he watched Adair safely hidden from the darkness that blanketed him. She stared solemnly out before her, glancing every now and then down to the ground beneath her. She looked tired, even for being nearly five in the morning - she looked tired beyond just the time of day. Adair and he had a sort of growing friendship, more confused than anything. He adored Adair, especially at moments when she would let herself go a little and Adrien could see someone who had been constantly hidden by a fear for something he didn't know or understand. Speaking truthfully, Adrien had stayed friends with Adair for so long because of his insatiable curiosity for everything she didn't say. Also, the knowledge that she might break if he ever tried to go farther than their friendship kept them just as they were. Besides, he liked Adair far too much to treat her like that.

"Hey." He said, revealing himself as he stepped towards the bench she was sitting upon. "I had to leave liters of alcohol and a fit girl just for you. Seems like I'm leaving all my addictions for you these days." He said with a laugh. Little did he realize that the truth was only playing delicately along the edges of his playful banter.

[adair ludivine ashcroft]

ADAIR ASHCROFT .
I CAN'T CONTROL YOU, I DON'T KNOW YOU WELL.

-----------------------------

"I had to leave liters of alcohol and a fit girl just for you. Seems like I'm leaving all my addictions for you these days."

Adrien's voice took her by surprise. Her eyes glanced upward, a slow smile pulling at her lips. Adrien. She felt that familiar, gravitational pull that attracted her to him from taking a simple glance. She knew she wasn't the only girl that felt this way; hell, there had to be millions more that had fallen for the flawless bone structure, tantalizing eyes, and voice like velvet. But Adair's feelings for Adrien, if you could call them that, ran so much deeper than that, even if she wouldn't admit it even to herself. There was something so effortless about their friendship, as if it were something that would have happened whether they'd even spoken to each other in the first place or not. It was just so easy to talk to him. As if, in those blue eyes of his, you could lose yourself forever. And although that thought alone enticed her more than anything she'd been able to feel in the past few months, it also frightened her to the point of tears. "Hey," she said, scooting from her place on the bench to make room for him. Her voice fell, dense, against the early morning air, sounding as though she hadn't spoken for hours. She hoped he wouldn't notice that that had been true.

"Sorry about that. Just... didn't want to be alone," she explained, trying not to stare as she had so often before. Putting her phone back in her pocket, she strayed her eyes from his jawline to the cobblestone path in front of them, allowing her stare to trace each little stone instead. She wasn't even sure why she'd asked Adrien to join her. Misery loves company? No, she wasn't miserable. But she did want company, if only for a little while. She leaned on the back of the bench, tilting her head up to look into the dark leaves that swayed with a passing wind. The tree behind them looked ominous under the faint glow of the sky, its trunk twisting into the ground like a knife piercing skin. She didn't want to think of inviting Adrien as a mistake. She really didn't. But, as she let her eyes flicker between him and the tree anxiously, she couldn't help it. She'd acted on instinct, and whenever she did that she always regretted it later. But Adrien was nothing more than a good friend. A good friend that she could tell anything to; a friend she knew she could fall onto when she needed to. But there were things about Adrien that Adair was afraid of. Things that were too familiar for her to deal with. The last time she'd met someone so reckless, yet totally in control, it'd ended in arrests and tears. And she didn't want anything remotely close to that to ever happen again.

Adair let her eyes fall back on Adrien. For some reason, despite her fears, there was still that conflicting voice in the back of her head telling her to move on. To see Adrien for what he was, and accept it. To stop overanalyzing every single thing she came in contact with. To let things happen for once. And, watching Adrien's eyes as she waited for a response, she actually felt like she could do that. Because there were promises swirling in the familiar blue of his eyes, and she was eager to find out what they were.