[FABIAN ALEXANDER GOLDING]

]The soft whispering of the oak trees did battle with the obnoxious rumbling of the road, various wheel sizes grinding distantly on the hot tarmac. Neither reached the ears of Fabian Golding, each barred by the head phones placed in his ears. The music that spilled from them seemed the only stimulant to his numbed senses on this early morning, the light breeze whipping about his face and causing his tee to hover around his mind drift. Each morning seemed the same to the senior, all bu this one. Why he had roused so early was beyond his fuzzy mind, but deep down, he knew it linked heavily to the commotion that had drifted through the wall by his bed. Noisy damn neighbors. The cause of his fuzzy brain stemmed back to the prior night. Alcohol. The Student Lounge. Yeah.

Late nights always hit him hard the next morning. But, as I noted, not this morning. In a way, it had, but not as it normally did. His head still chalked away as it always did when he drank to much, and his left arm ached where he presumed he'd knocked it, but he wasn't curled up in his bed as he usually was. Something had stirred him, and dragged him down to the dry green grass around him.

His knees bent to sit, as he dragged his jacket off, throwing it beneath his as he did. He wouldn't chance mucking up his jeans with lime markings. It would be just too easy, with the weight of them. What he had planned, he didn't know, but as he reclined backwards into the ground he felt plans were over rated. Simply lying there in the comfort of the lawn seemed to numb him further. Breathe escaped his lips deeply as he pulled back his fringe to allow the sun to do its work on his already tanned features. When you had a hang-over, and you refused to over complicate your thoughts, the world was simple.

[CLAIRE MARIE ASTON]

She wasn't really late to any class. Was she? No. It was just that her father had taken her and the younger Aston to the campus today, he had classes to impart, and it was about half an hour before they had their first course of the day. Her brother was gone as soon as he had stepped out of the vehicle, off to who knows where, or with whom. Claire wasn't actually worried that her brother would be doing bad stuff, like smoking pot or inhaling coke in some hidden outskirt of the college's campus. No, he was too good to be doing stuff like that. She knew that he would always come to her if any trouble surged up on his life, which was exactly what he had done when he told Claire he was bi. She still remembers that day, and the right decision her younger brother had made, it was better to tell Claire first before telling her parents. Maybe then, she'd soothen things up and make the issue a whole lot easier. Fabian, the guy her brother had a crush on, was her best friend. So she saw an advantage on the scenario, given she could find out if he felt the same or not. What she didn't want was her brother to get hurt. At least she knew that with Fabian, he was safe. When she came back down to reality, she had noticed she'd been silent, yet slowly walking towards nowhere, but nowhere was good. In fact, nowhere was way better than here. She noticed she had been walking on the grass for a long while, and that all the weight she had upon her hands was too much. Claire really needed to have a seat. She found a not-so-damp spot among the green lawn that surrounded the building, and took a seat there, feeling the softness of the grass against her denim. All her stuff was close to her, but that wasn't important. What in fact mattered was the similar figure she had spotted.

And in fact, it was all about figures.

The man that was sitting a few steps in front of her was easily recognizable, his personal clothing style and his clothes. She could also tell it was who she expected him to be due to the coloring on his hair. It was a dark caramel brown along with soft smooth strokes of light blonde, just beautiful. She levered herself back to standing on her own feet again, and fixed her blonde hair, while her light blue eyes glimmered against the shining sun that blocked her view for a few seconds, until she changed her looking spot. She grabbed all her stuff back, clinged it across her hands and her arms, hanging her pink tote across her left shoulder, while carrying her math book along in her arm, and approached the familiar being. Yes, it was him. Fabian Golding was looking at the landscape, sitting on the smooth grass that laid against his hands as he concentrated his weight upon them, his hair covering his forehead and close enough to block his sight, listening to music. For a split second, she caught a gaze of his sparking blue eyes. The next, she was waving at him, avoiding words which wouldn't be heard, the sounds were fighting against her voice, and there was no way she'd defeat them. In fact, all she needed was that. The silence to defeat everyone's talking. But she couldn't. She wanted life to be like a Lifetime black and white movie, with no sound, just subtitles. Claire wished she could interpret the lip movement of the movie's characters to her liking, so it at least sounded well. But she knew she couldn't, and reality wasn't like that.

After all, life isn't a fairytale or a movie. It's hell.

[FABIAN ALEXANDER GOLDING]

As he lay there, hair now flopping backwards, the warm air around Fabian Golding grew thicker and heavier against his features. The sun was doing it's work. One eye crinkled as it opened, it's pupil fighting against the blazing light that shone through the sky, untouched by a single dirty white cloud. Such a feeling, he knew, was uncomfortable to some, but he truly enjoyed it. It was the same when he went to the beach, the heat making the skin on his back ache with its power. He knew he was tanning, so, he knew he was happy. But the pink light that shone through his eyelids, filtering in through the thin layer of skin? That, he did not enjoy. And so, with a small groan, he raised himself up into a sitting position, hair falling once more over his eyes, the green blades of the grass tickling his hands, arranged palms down to stabilize him. You should be in class..., a small voice uttered as the music that played in his ears died, the short playlist complete. Fuck class.

Fabian didn't know that he was being watched. The usual feeling his got when another's eyes were trained on him had not settled within him. He was to tired to feel anything but the hazy grasp the sun had on him. Not to mention, he was concentrating on the swaying of the landscape as the light breeze that had followed him from home started up again. Of course, he did notice the shadow that began to glide along the grass toward him, slanted and strangely angled in the morning sun, but dark, heavy and stable in the strength of it. Gazing up, one eye clenched shut, the other squinting into the light, he caught sight of the shadows owner. A smile appeared on his lips, just large enough to let a little of his teeth to show, bright no doubt, in the sunshine. Claire Aston. His room mate, in fact, along with Xandra. And why exactly, hadn't they walked together, being room mates and close friends? She'd stayed over at her family home, and according to the text that she'd sent him early that morning, was driving her and her brother to college. He'd been late, Fabian noted, raising a hand to greet hers, having to shift his weight onto the opposite hand for a moment. She didn't speak, that Fabian noted too.

He didn't verbally greet her as he usually would have. Something stopped him from doing that. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly, but he mulled it over as he pulled down his tee, which had risen a little up his abdomen in the hopes of grasping some sun too. Instead, he leant sideways and pulled the jacket out from under him a fraction, making enough room for her to sit beside him on it. He patted the space beside him, his lips curling once more as a short sigh of breathe escaped him. It was going to be a long day.

[CLAIRE MARIE ASTON]

She didn't know what she had just done. Fab had an expression on his face that seemed to say 'go the fuck away', but she wasn't so sure it was the right one. She wanted to run away, that gaze of his, it looked so frightening, so serious...

..but she didn't actually care, she was used to people doing that.

In fact, it was already a routinary thing for people to glare at her like she's worth nothing and like they hate her. She had already lost enough friends like to gain the recognition of such feelings, and they didn't matter that much, since in vague occasions they were meaningful. Like the case presented in the following scenario, for example. She knew Fab was having a hard day, and she was having one too, but he let it through more. She was just hiding her intentions, she wanted to hit her dad with her math book so bad, she needed to let that anger out, she needed to scream.

No, not really. She had to scream.

He had approached his hand as to salute, and she waved at him. Then, he had moved his jacket so she could sit on it. He was such a good friend. She wished she had more like those, but they looked like they were on a freaking extinction process or something of the sorts. She had wondered why neither of them had muttered a word, and it indeed was freaky. They were best friends, and they acted like they barely knew each other. However, it was about time someone actually said something, and she decided it was being her. "You're...kind of early for being here, aren't you?" She sure knew a topic which would interest him, of course.

Her brother.

She understood how Fabian felt about him, and she knew her brother felt the same for him, but she spent her time wondering what in the world was stopping them from being together. Sure, Jeremy hadn't told his parents that he liked guys too, and she understood how hard it'd be for him. But couldn't they just like, date in secret? It's something people do, in fact, she'd done it a couple of times. And she wasn't afraid of it. Of all things, what Claire wanted the most was for those two to be together. Sure, she wouldn't like the idea of seeing them making out and practically fucking each other in front of her, but it wasn't like it mattered so much. She grabbed courage from an unknown source to her, wasted courage, perhaps, just to try and mutter, "So. I'll be straightforward to you, Fab. I really think you should be with Jeremy. I mean, you like him, he likes you, it's all set up! Listen, if you want me to, I can try and get him to go to the ball with you. There, it's just a matter of you asking him how he feels! Please? I really want to see you two happy, you're the two people closest to me, not counting Xandra, of course. Think about it."

Was it worth it? Not to her, she was sure.