Theocottrell - Tumblr Posts
Hey, thanks for the tag! Let's do this! These are from my upcoming debut novel, The Tengu And The Angel, narrated from Kunio's POV:
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I wish I could say that there was a big fight on my eighteenth birthday, where I called her out for all her bullshit and slammed the door, but there wasn’t. My eighteenth birthday was four months ago, on the fifth of May, but I didn’t have enough money to leave yet, so I had to stay at home, and save some more. As soon as I had enough, I quit my job, packed a bag, and left home while she was in bed hungover. I shouldn’t have bothered with the note–It’s not like she would have cared where I was going, or why, but I thought she deserved an explanation. I didn’t want to vanish without a trace.
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“That’s what they say,” he sighs, “Theo is…Difficult, but he saved my life when we were kids. When I was fourteen, I tried to overdose on ibuprofen, because no one loved me, and no one wanted me. He was the one who called an ambulance for me, not our foster carers. They didn’t care whether I lived or died.”
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Tama rubs her temples. “So you should be. Theo’s a prick,” she sighs, “Layla and I only put up with him because we feel bad for him. He’s had a really rough life, and he doesn’t have any friends aside from Nathaniel, but I’ll be honest with you, he doesn’t have any friends because he’s a whiny fucking manchild.”
###
Layla’s face falls in silent horror, as she realises just how badly she’s fucked up. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Kunio, this was all my fault,” she says quietly, “I never should have touched you.”
###
Nathaniel shakes his head. “Theo, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? Because no matter how you say it, you’re abandoning me! You’re leaving me all alone!”
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He loses the courage to finish his sentence, turning away from me, and that’s when I realise that I want to finish it for him. I want to cup his rosy cheeks, and kiss his sweet face. God, I love him. How could I even try to deny it anymore? He’s my everything. He took my cold, dead, bitter heart, and he breathed life, and love into it. He showed me that the world isn’t such a shitty place after all.
###
He lets out a deep ‘mm’, before consulting his clipboard again. “How about I put this another way? If one person drowns in a swimming pool, and another person drowns in the sea, who’s more dead?”
Seven Snippets, Seven People
Tagged by @isabellebissonrouthier !! Thank you bestie <33
All of these are from my current wip FOD, narrated in Emily’s pov.
Tagging for funsies: @owilder @wildswrites @sparrow-orion-writes @macabremoons @wordwizards @pen-of-roses @alinacapellabooks and anyone else who sees this!!
•••
“And what about this?”
My tongue slips onto the open air. In the center of it rests a short gold barbell piercing with a top fashioned to resemble a rose. Without pause, his attention is stolen from my scars. Alarm fades into contemplative interest. He cups my head in his hands, posing me this way and that to savor all angles possible.
“You like?” I tease once he lets go. “It came free with the trauma.”
•••
Before I can think to stand, Cal chains herself to my wrist. The weight of her grip speaks miles for the heat of her gaze. But if I know anything about my sister, it’s that she never holds her anger for very long. It doesn’t quite fit in her hands.
Her voice is lower than a whisper. “You look…”
“Like hell,” Ilya finishes.
“Thank you.” I take out a cigarette from my back pocket. “Anyone got a light?”
•••
Some feet away and still in his chair, Pierre’s head is cradled between his arms. His notebook is open underneath, and his laptop has gone black.
“You’ve been mighty quiet over there, jester.”
He only sighs.
•••
I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to.
I bite my tongue at the sobs surging up my throat. This mask weighs heavy on my face. Tears and feathers make a mess of my vision. I glare through it all, jaded queen on her fucking throne, and face the man sitting next to Pierre.
He wears no costume. No mask. Only a gothic suit with a red carnation pinned to his lapel. His features are a blur as he turns to the other woman attached to his hip. She pokes his chest. He lends her his ear. She wants far more, stealing a kiss from his cheek. My heart falls silent.
She averts her gaze. He catches her chin. Eye contact. Eye contact.
Eyes.
•••
Ilya’s eyes haven’t left me all night. Every breath, every act is tied to his red eyes peering at me through the guise of his cards. I shut my eyes and he’s there across the table, domineering silhouette streaked by a neon sign to his back while the ongoing storm rattles the windowpanes.
Whiskey cries where I left it and hour ago: scantily held and straight from the bottle. I toss what remains over my shoulder with a sigh.
•••
Suppress something long enough and it becomes a religion.
“The act or the suppressant?” Arthur asks in my mind.
I can’t answer.
•••
“Finally got tired of wearing that mask haven’t you?”
My head snaps to the direction of the entrance. Upon seeing who it is, my face falls flat.
“I was wondering when it would slip,” he finishes when there’s only a foot separating us.
I spare him a glance. “What mask?”
He huffs in his side-mouthed grin. Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, he joins me in leaning against the wall.
“You know, little miss angel face. All bloody lips and kerosene doused in cherry and vanilla perfume. That whole getup. I was wonderin’ when you’d get tired.”
Been thinking a lot about Theo (Bad guy from The Tengu And The Angel) lately, and more specifically trying to pinpoint what happened to him after he got sectioned. I would like to think that after Nathaniel cut him off, and he got sectioned, he finally realised the error of his ways, and once he was released from the hospital, he started over and found a new group of friends. He misses Nathaniel, but he knows that he can’t go back to him because he’s destroyed any semblance of relationship that they once had. Still, he deeply regrets treating him the way he did, and years later, when he finds out that Nathaniel and Kunio are getting married, he’s happy for them, but he hates himself for knowing that he’ll always be the monster that haunts Nathaniel’s dreams, and he’s too afraid to reach out and apologise to him because he doesn’t want to hurt Nathaniel any more than he already has…