( no hope no love no glory no happy ending )

[rues]

Who: Clarisse La Rue Clare Roads | Becky Rosen Rebecca Bloom & you!
Where: All around Storybrooke!
When: October 24 thru October 28
Rating: PG13
Summary: Just when it doesn't seem like things can get worse, they do.
The Story:

clarisse la rue | clare roads

[ clare wouldn't say she hates her life — she has a few good things going for her that don't make things completely awful, but even the good things she manages to screw up. that's all she feels like: a screw up. she won't ever be what her dad wants her to be, and at this point, she doesn't even feel like trying anymore. what's the point, when he has so many other sons to make him proud? why should she try when her whole life has been trying and failing? she's just trying to make the most out of what life has dealt her, and she's got a pretty shitty hand. ]

[ once the clock strikes 8:16, it's not a complete turnaround, her life doesn't magically get better in the blink of an eye. her dad is still a neglectful, alcoholic dick; she's still cheating on her girlfriend; but at least she doesn't feel as stuck as she had before. she feels like she can prove something, to herself if no one else. she starts to spend more time at the park, at the gym, training for a goal she'd never wanted to entertain before. going for gold has always sort of been a dream of hers, but it's not the military, like dad wants. she doesn't really give a fuck what dad wants anymore, though. (had she ever, really?) this is her life, not his, and if she wants to train to become an olympic boxer, by god, she's going to do it. ]

[ spending time at the gym is more productive than picking pointless fights on the streets, anyway, and it still gives her the rush and the distraction she needs when she just needs to forget about everything else going on in her life. but the gym isn't open 24 hours, so when she can't sleep, she runs through the empty streets of storybrooke at two in the morning, gets up early before school for another round at the gym. her love life may not see much of an improvement — it's not that she's avoiding either of them, exactly, she's just much more focused on herself than anyone else — but her attitude does, and her grades stop dropping; she shows up to class more often. it used to be the only things she'd show up for were football and boxing, but now she's motivated toward something, even if it does still seem like a pipe dream. ]

[ of course, it all goes to shit when the curse breaks and everything about wonderland and who she is comes crashing in around her, leaving her emotionally compromised and floundering in a sea of uncertainty and anger. her family, her friends, her more than friends — what is she supposed to make of all that? she remembers who she is, who her real friends and family and boyfriend is, but everything else feels just as real. thanks, wonderland, for completely fucking her up again. she won't want to talk to anyone, preferring to lock herself in her room ignoring everyone's texts and mindlessly playing call of duty; or, later in the evening, when her dad is passed out, she'll steal a bottle of whiskey and sulk out by the docks or at the park. she thought she knew what she wanted, but now it really is a pipe dream. she's not even sure she knows who she is anymore, let alone what she wants to do with her life now that her life was just something fabricated by magic. ]

becky rosen | rebecca bloom

[ ever since the clock tower struck 8:16, rebecca has been in much better spirits, feeling like she can accomplish anything if she sets her mind to it, namely getting all those books out of her storage room and doing something with them. for years, they've just been packaged up in boxes collecting dust, her failed attempt at being a successfully published author. but nothing rebecca has ever done in her life has been successful. her relationship with charlie? nope, that's over. her relationship with sam? hah, that's nonexistent, no matter how hard she tries to get him to really notice her. the best relationship she has is with herself, and even then she's never had the best self-esteem. the books were no different. they went out of print just as fast as they were published. she can hardly even remember how or when she got them all printed in the first place; they've been in her storage room ever since she can remember. but now? she feels like things can finally change. why hadn't she ever thought of doing a book signing before? it seems like such an obvious idea; her readers are here in storybrooke, aren't they? ]

[ over the course of the day, when she isn't working at the bookstore, of course, rebecca spends her time decorating storybrooke with flyers, putting them up at local businesses, tacking them on telephone poles, sides of buildings, and even hands them out to people on the street, telling them at great length and with much excitement that they should stop by the bookstore tomorrow at 12:30 for the first ever storybrooke book signing! each flyer has the book cover as well as when/where the signing will be, and on the day of the signing itself, there is a large sign outside the bookstore telling people that inside there will be a 1 HOUR SIGNING EVENT TODAY. ]



[ she'll be around for chatting later as well, though this signing may or may not have been strictly sanctioned by her boss... ]

ooc | closed starters will be below! feel free to choose your own adventure as well and/or hit me with audio calls/text messages. c:

Comments

closed to baby bro.

[rues]

[ tradition. it's the one word that's been crammed into her head that wasn't military her whole life. that's what the roads family is. it's military tradition, pride, ambition. at least, that's what it's supposed to be, what every member of their family should aspire to be. but for what? to end up just like dad? she's seen what he's become, what being discharged has done to him, what it's done to all of them — and what it's done to her and ben, especially. they're the only two siblings left in storybrooke, stuck in storybrooke, just like their dad is still stuck in whatever fantasy he has of his former glory days when he's not drinking himself into oblivion. the most they ever get out of him are grunts these days, unless he's really mad, and that's when clare knows it's not safe here, for her or her brother, and it probably never will be. she has bruises and cuts she blames on football, on getting into fights at school — and it's mostly true, but she might only get into those fights in the first place to cover up the bruises she knows are already there. it's better than walking to school with a black eye and having to admit she got it at home. ]

[ things aren't always bad, though. most days, dad leaves them alone — if he's home at all. he cares more about himself than anyone else, cares more about watching old war movies than spending time with his kids, and it's no secret he's fucking one of the housewives down the street. clare isn't stupid; he's always in a better mood after he's been out and smells more heavily of perfume than liquor. some days, it's almost good, but those are the days clare has come to hate more than any other days. she hates deluding herself into thinking life at home could be anything other than bad, because nothing good ever lasts with their dad. she gave up on believing he could change a long time ago, and now all she can do is pretend things aren't as bad as they actually are. being in denial is better than facing the reality that she'll never be what her dad wants her to be, that she was destined to be a failure in his eyes from the moment she was born; if she acts like she doesn't care, it hurts a little less. ]

[ ben is really the only brother she considers family. probably because he's the youngest brother, the one she doesn't have to aspire to be just like, despite the fact that she'll never attain that goal, she'll never pass go and collect two hundred dollars. she'll be stuck in jail with no get out free card for the rest of her life. even if she did make it out of storybrooke, what then? what would she do with her life? the military is what her dad wants, but is it really what she wants? she's only eighteen; how is she supposed to know what she wants? school is hard enough, and relationships are even worse. things are great with kathryn, they really are, but there are still times clare looks at herself and doesn't feel right. dad can never know, wouldn't ever allow them to be together, would take it out on her for even thinking of entertaining such an idea. she'd lose everything; more than she'd lose if anyone ever found out about how she tries to cope with the idea that what she has with kathryn is wrong. it's not kathryn's fault and it never will be, but that doesn't excuse clare from anything. sleeping with luke is easier than talking to kathryn about her dad and everything, even though kathryn is the one person she's supposed to tell everything. ]

[ she's usually known for her punctuality — at least one of the things her dad managed to drill into her that she never could let go of — but she's late picking him up from school today. thank god for seniority and early release, but she'd lost track of time and her phone had been off while she'd been at luke's — in her rush to leave once she'd seen the time, she grabbed the first shirt she could find, which happened to be one of luke's, not that she realizes ben will notice and probably wonder where she got it from, considering she definitely hadn't been wearing a red plaid button up earlier today, nor does she even own a red plaid button up. it's too late to swing by the house on her way to the school, anyway. she's just going to hope ben won't say anything about it. the last thing she needs is a confrontation about what she does in her spare time that isn't with kathryn, and she definitely doesn't need it coming from her younger brother. ]

[ she rolls up to the front of the school in her beat up black pickup truck nearly half an hour after she was supposed to be there, still on edge from having to speed from luke's to the school. normally, she speeds anyway, but this was the "oh shit, i forgot about my little brother" kind of speeding that's generally a little more nervewracking than the "taking my little brother drag racing" kind of speeding. at least she hadn't driven all the way back home before she realized she needed to pick him up. ]

i am the worst. forgive me for how late this is.

[unharnessed]

[ he thinks about it. he thinks about breaking tradition a lot. at this point, it has turned into a twisted fantasy he gets to cram down their father's throat after kneeing him in the stomach and watching him double over in pain. he wants it so badly. he wakes up some mornings when the house is quiet, earlier than his alarm, and listens to the silence. climbs out his window onto the roof and hangs out up there, staring at the clocktower, and planning what he's going to do once he finally has the chance to take a leap of faith and begin a life free of constant paranoia. Ben tries to place what it feels like - not tensing up when the floorboards squeak, when a door slams, when a glass breaks - to be normal enough not to expect the worst from any given situation. not because each situation is terrible but because it happens often enough that he would only be fooling himself to think breaking the cycle was plausible. it's usually bad, sometimes incredibly awful, and other times his life is better than okay- it's fantastic!

Ben has good things going for himself. he has his education, his health, and exactly one sibling he can rely on. he trusts Clare to look after him in the same way that he's inclined to push his chair back from his desk when he hears her keys drop in the basket by the door and indiscernible shouting above the television's blare. he can't always save her and he has the scars to attest to that, but sometimes it isn't the rescue that matters. it's the fact that they aren't alone in a house full of isolation, in a family that Ben thinks couldn't be more distant. each of them digging their own moats to escape reality and eventually climb a ladder into a territory of their choosing. he doesn't know what makes him feel so close to her in particular. it's more than being so close in age, more than currently being trapped in Storybrooke. probably because she's a girl in a military family and she has to fight to be seen. she understands being an underdog.

the worst part of all of this - his life - is carrying around the shame of feeling as though he's betraying her ( the one person he trusts enough to surrender his will to ) by harboring feelings for her girlfriend. they can read each other well when they try to, when they're looking for threads to unravel and mysteries to solve. it comes from years of growing up together and learning each other's tells. he tries his damndest to avoid giving her any clue and prays like hell that Clare stays as busy as she has been, which is much too busy to notice whatever's going on in his mind. it's a blessing in disguise, really, that she has somewhere she slips off to. someone else, he suspects, to spend her time with. ( he's old enough to walk home, knows how to take care of himself, figures nothing can happen to him outside the school gates that hasn't already but none of that matters when someone tells you they're going to be there and they never show up, and it's been happening more and more frequently. )

and yes, okay, yes. maybe his frustration only simmers to a boil as the minutes tick by because he's jealous. he's jealous that he puts in one-hundred and ten percent into every paper, every project, and he goes the extra mile and he has nothing and no one to share it with. Clare doesn't work half as hard as he does ( in the school department ) and she has the girl of his dreams. the girl he can't and will never have, and she's wasting it. she's ruining something perfect, something he would kill for, for someone else. he knows their dad is fucked up and it means that they are, will probably always be, but that's still no excuse to walk on others. to carry that tradition around. to march around like that's the family banner, caked with mud.

Ben's practiced in keeping his mouth shut for a multitude of reasons. he tells himself he isn't going to say anything when he sees her truck roll up and he packs up from the lunch table. shuts his binder with his pencils and everything inside of it and drops it in his backpack without a thought for organization. uncharacteristic for him. but then, so is being this irritated with his sister over something bigger than you drank the last soda again??? or some of us would like some hot water to shower with this century too! he slings the bag over his shoulder and makes quick work of the walk across the yard and slips through the open gate. keeping his mouth shut becomes an unanticipated struggle when he hops into the passenger's seat and notices a shirt he's never seen her wear before. it doesn't look that expensive but neither one of them has money to spend frivolously and if they did, they wouldn't waste it on clothes.

he hurls his bag to floor, buckles up, and looks straight ahead. ]

You're late.

[driven]

[ it was one thing to have these memories come at her out of nowhere, a sort of feeling in her gut that is really pushing her more towards all of this is wrong and less so just deal with it. sure, kathryn has felt that things were a little off for what feels like forever, but she's been happy enough. her girlfriend makes her happy enough, her friends make her happy enough, her life is good enough and she figured, as time passed, so would this feeling. that's what she'd convinced herself, and maybe if she could make someone else happy, someone she really did care about, well at least she was doing something.

but clare's distance had started even before these feelings had. kathryn had been mostly ignoring it, because when they were together it at least made her feel something, and she didn't really mind the alone time. she was flighty enough as it was, and she worried that if clare did require any more of her time, it would freak her out. but the longer the clocktower ticks, the more unsettled kathryn feels. the interaction with ben at clare's house was simply a push-off point, and after being struck with the idea and unable to sleep through it - mind racing over and over in ways it never did before, it never had to - kathryn finds herself out in front of the gym a good half hour before school starts,

because she's noticed how clare is working out, now. how motivated she is. part of her feels happy, that clare at least has found something to be passionate about, but the other part is still curling around that feeling that something is off. so why not surprise her girlfriend and walk to school together? there's nothing wrong with that, right?

that's what kathryn believes, at least, leaning against the wall outside the doors to the gym, staring at her phone. why does she have the weirdest urge to text people she's never really spoken to before? where is that need to check up on everyone coming from? she huffs, sliding her phone into her pocket, her hands following soon after.

this will pass. it has to. it has to. ]