Little deaths in musical beds: (open)

[STETSON TONY GILLIAM]

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Tony loves soccer more than anything in the world, with the exception of his little sisters.In fact, Tony loves soccer so much, that he's been known to have pissed off many an ex by trying to get them to help him practice for a game instead of going out on a date. So he had always tried not to date during soccer season. It never really worked out.

Anyway, it takes a lot of work to play soccer. In order to be a good player, you have to be fast, strong, agile, and quick-minded. Tony had achieved all of these things through a lot of practice and a lot of working out.

He'd been tied down with school work for a while, and he was starting to get out of shape. He desperately needed to go for a run. However, Tony had been eyeing the shiny, sparkly gym for a while now and was very eager to take advantage of it. So, today, he woke up early, dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, and headed for the gym with a water bottle in hand. It was really early. In fact, the gym had only been 'open' for about five minutes now. Tony didn't mind; it meant less distraction from the task at hand.

The first thing he did was hop up on a treadmill. He cranked the incline up to the highest setting and put the speed about halfway. He loved the feel of the muscles in his legs straining to keep up. He loved knowing that he was changing his body, working it up, tearing his muscles apart only to have them build up even stronger while he slept that night. It was almost like an addiction to Tony, and he found himself putting the speed up another point. His legs had grown weak and he was already sweating, but he pushed forward anyway.

"You're too out of shape. Don't quit now. You used to be able to do this for an hour without stopping," Tony encouraged himself in a murmur. He was too out of breath to speak much louder Of course, that wasn't true exactly, but it was something a coach would have told him. And Tony knew he worked better when there was someone breathing up his neck, telling him he wasn't good enough and he could do better. He should be doing better. He should be the best.

That was the driving force behind everything Tony did; he wanted to be the best, but there was always someone better. He'd been trying to teach that to his little sisters, actually, but they weren't at all competitive. Besides, they were more into dolls than sports right now. He hoped that they would be; Stella had been. Stella had played volleyball, softball, basketball, and soccer, but her true passion was softball. She was the one that had taught him how to play and how to work hard. Truth be told, Tony missed Stella, even after everything she'd done to him and his family. She had been a good older sister for a while. Strange and distant, but she had taught him a great deal and he was grateful.

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[CLAUDIA ODETTE VALKYRIE]

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i'm a wind up toy in an up-down world

Claudia wasn’t in the best of moods today. She felt lonely. Home sick. She missed Lafayette and the funeral home and her oldest brother. She’d been missing it all for a while. Over tendency to overthink had her assuming that everything must be array because she was absent. That the spirits she was used to talking to so frequently were lonely without her. That was nonsense though. The more she thought the more she realized that she wasn’t someone that would really be missed. It was comforting and a let down at the same time. She needed a distraction. She needed something to do. Keep her mind busy so she wouldn’t worry herself. She really needed to work on her over thinking; it was always her biggest downfall whenever she failed at something. She had a habit of freaking herself out over the smallest things.

A walk was in order to clear her mind. Perhaps a walk to the castles. A girl in the chat last night had suggested going to the mall with her, perhaps she would wander over there to get used to it before going with someone else. Or perhaps she would just wander aimlessly. Go wherever her feet took her. Those were usually the most serene of walks. Claudia didn’t get very far into her walk before being distracted, getting that tugging feeling at the edge of her mind. It was like someone wanted her attention, whispering to her in an octave that she couldn’t hear but could feel. In the middle of the hallway she stopped and listened, brushing hair off of her face and to her back as her big blue eyes looked for the culprit.

Turning around the corner. Like a gust of wind in a rush to get home. She followed, quick little steps what were really more like scurrying. As much as she wanted to call out to the one of the few spirits she had seen in a while instinct told her not to. Students weren’t really supposed to use their powers, and even though she really couldn’t help it she felt guilty bringing attention to it. She would get in trouble. So instead she followed it, trying her best to keep up despite the spirit’s ability to pass through objects. It wasn’t truly there, just an after image of what it used to be. Like when you looked at a light and had that little spot in your vision from it afterwards.

She list the figure only to find that she had walked right into the school’s gym, not somewhere she had ever found herself before. It was a completely foreign place to her. Claudia had no need to exercise so she had never seen a point in coming here. It was…overwhelming. The girl found herself simply standing there grasping the cameo that always hung around her neck and staring at everything with her giant azure eyes. And then she realized that someone else was here. Someone who wasn’t dead. She spun in her heals and peeked around a weight machine to see who it was, smiling ever so slightly when she saw who it was. Just Stetson. Not someone she had spoken to very frequently, but someone she knew was an alright guy. A few fleeting conversations left Claudia feeling like there was a potential friendship.

Would it be rude to go over? She hoped not. The distance between them came to a close and her arms crossed on the edge of the machine he was running on, looking up at him with that modest smile. “Hiya,”

[/color] she greeted.

[/div]

tag: stetson. words: 601 wearing: this. notes: none.

[/center]

[STETSON TONY GILLIAM]

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Tony could no longer see the gym. In front of his stormy, glazed-over eyes was the field he used to play on when he was five. The grass was greener, the trees were taller, and the sky was ever wider. He could smell dirt and sweat and oranges and open air. Phantoms of his past called his name, kicked him the ball, cheered for him. Even then, Tony had had a talent for the game.

But it wasn't the memory of playing that drew him into this daydream. It was the stringy, tall preteen in the bleachers, sitting all the way at the top on the right corner. The girl's brown hair and blue eyes matched Tony's almost exactly. When he grew older and his face thinned out, he would be able to pass for her twin. The resemblance was almost eerie.

Stella leaned back, her arms in the air, her voice louder than all the other fans when Tony made a goal. It wasn't until he had turned around to see her that his chest swelled up with pride. The goal didn't mean anything to him. It was just his sister . . . Stella . . . The game . . .

But it was all gone in a flash when the sound of someone else entering the gym brought him right back to it. He stumbled once, twice, before regaining his balancing and pulling back into focus. He was glad for the distraction, though he didn't pay the other person any mind. They were probably only here for an early morning work out like he was.

Instead he reflected on his daydream. When was the last time he had seen Stella? Surely more than two years ago. He wondered if he would recognize her; if her hair was still brown, if she was still stick thin, if she was still free of piercings and tattoos. People could change a lot in two years, he knew, but he would always know his sister as that girl in the bleachers who believed in him more than anyone else.

Stella was a whole different thing entirely. Tony supposed it was a little odd, the way he separated the two in his head. But he couldn't see his sister and Stella as the same person when she had so suddenly revealed another side of herself; dropped out of college, stole three thousand dollars from their mother, ran away to find their dad. No. They could not comprehensibly be the same person.

Tony's head was spinning, and he wondered why he had chosen this time to let his most melancholy thoughts creep in. The gym was once a place of refuge for him, and so far at AMG he had been doing a brilliant job at keeping them at bay. He needed to focus, and he was struggling to come back down to earth, when Claudia appeared in front of him seemingly out of thin air and did it for him. It was sort of cool, how she walked around, almost floating. Or at least, that's what it seemed like to Tony. Maybe it was just her strange demeanor that was making him imagine her that way.

He slowed the speed of the treadmill down, walked until it stopped completely, then hopped off with a shaky smile. "Hey, Claudia," he greeted her. The thoughts were gone, but the uneasy feelings remained. He gulped down some water, then returned his attention to the newcomer with a sheepish grin. "What are you doing here? I mean, it would be cool if you were working out but . . . those boots don't look like comfortable work out shoes." He also noted that Claudia didn't seem the type to be working out in the gym, in any case. She looked really out of place in the gym dressed the way she was, and it almost made him forget about how bad he'd been feeling just before she arrived. Ah, well. The gym was open to everyone. Who was he to judge?

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[CLAUDIA ODETTE VALKYRIE]

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i'm a wind up toy in an up-down world

Claudia had always known that she was different. She had always known that she wasn’t like other girls her age. Boys and shopping weren’t her priority by any means. She just wanted to read or doodle or sit in a cemetery and just think to herself. Claudia wasn’t like other people. She wasn’t like her peers. But that was okay. She was comfortable with that. Lately she had been realizing that here, on this island, being different was okay. It was celebrated. For the first time in a long time Claudia was making friends who weren’t bullying her behind her back. Friends who actually cared. Middle school had been awful for that. Teasing and taunting. Hair pulling, shoved into things. All sorts of cruel acts that had her feeling incredibly insecure and down on herself. Hence the butterflies always drawn on her wrist, to stop herself from hurting herself any further than she already had. Claudia didn’t want to be that girl any more. She was better than that.

Stetson seemed uneasy. Daydreaming, most likely, about something uncomfortable. Throughout her youth she hadn’t had many companions so she had taken to observing the body language of others. How the ones who acted so confident and cocky most often had very guarded and tiny body language that showed how little they truly felt. She had found comfort in reading other people, attempting to get a better understanding of them in hopes of being on their good side. She watched Tony carefully, her eyes as round and bright as ever as they looked up at him. Always expressing her inner dialogue, never able to hide how she felt. “Hi,”

[/color] she repeated happily, adjusting a few stray strands of hair that had escaped their holding under her red fedora. “Well I…was following someone here,”[/color] she admitted with a bit of a blush to her doll-like cheeks. “But they’re gone now. I don’t know where they went, so I figured I’d say hello while I was here,”[/color] she continued on in an almost wispy voice.

She watched while he got off of the treadmill, taking a moment to inspect it a bit. Did Edgar and Ezekiel ever exercise on these things? They looked dreadful. Why not just go for a jog outside if they wanted to run? The fresh air would do them some good. Her eyes strayed down to her boots, suddenly feeling horribly out of place and insecure. “I…no, I don’t work out. Just followed someone.” Her gaze remained on her boots and inspected the floral detail, reminding herself not to wear them again for a while. Yes, Claudia’s self consciousness wasn’t as bad as it once used to but she was still fearful of people thinking badly of her.

[/div]

tag: stetson. words: idk wearing: this. notes: none.

[/center]

[STETSON TONY GILLIAM]

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Tony couldn't help comparing Claudia to his sister. They were exact opposites in appearance as well as personality. It amazed him, how perfectly they contrasted with one another. Except for the eye color, of course. Even if Claudia's eyes were a much lighter shade of it, Stella still had blue eyes. It's odd, the things that connect people.

Tony knew that Claudia had two other brothers and he wondered if either of them would ever do to Claudia what Stella did to him. Having met Edgar, he thought it was safe to bet that they wouldn't. Claudia and Edgar seemed really close. Like Stella and I used to be.

It took a great bought of effort to push the thoughts of his sister away. As much as he had loved her, Tony didn't like to think about her a lot because once he'd started it was near impossible to stop. So instead he focused on the enigmatic girl before him. Her clothes, her hair, her expression, her eyes that were trained on him. Tony felt a little bit like she could have read his thoughts if she wanted to, the way she was staring at him like they were printed there for her to read.

"Following someone? But I only heard you come in. There isn't anyone else in here," Tony said, raising a confused eyebrow. Then, he remembered that some students had very strange powers indeed. Some could even see ghosts. Communicate with them. Tony's eyes got wide. He was terrified of ghosts. He refused to go anywhere near funeral homes, even. He avoided cemeteries as well. If there was a ghost in the gym now, he was never coming back. "Who were you following?" It took a second for Tony to make sure that he remained composed. If that did happen to be Claudia's power, he didn't want to offend her by being afraid of ghosts. That, and, it seemed a little silly.

It occurred to him that he should probably already know what Claudia's power was, but he put it down to simply being unobservant.

He saw her gaze fall and bit his lip. He hadn't meant to upset her. He was only joking. Tony truly hated to offend anyone because he, himself, was so easily offended. There had been days when his self-esteem was virtually non-existent, and bullies tended to get the better of him.

He reached forward and placed a hand on Claudia's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. I was just kidding. I'm really sorry. I like your boots. I just think you'd either ruin them or yourself if you got on a tread mill with them, you know?" He flashed a smile, hoping that he had said the right thing. If he hadn't, he didn't know what he would do to make her feel better. He wanted to be friends with Claudia. He reminded himself not to make anymore stupid jokes at her expense.

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[CLAUDIA ODETTE VALKYRIE]

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i'm a wind up toy in an up-down world

Claudia’s family would always be important to her. Her mother was her idol, so bold and brash and willing to do whatever it took. Her father meant the world to her, very much a daddy’s girl when it came to the gentle and caring Benjamin Valkyrie. She was even close to her eldest brother despite the age difference, though it was a very different sort of closeness. She didn’t need Ezekiel advice very often, nor did she really find this peculiar need to inform Ezekiel of any good thing she did that day. But she found comfort knowing that if she ever called him needing something he would most likely drop everything to come to her. Edgar was very much the same in that sense, though she was closer to Edgar overall because they were so much closer in age. It didn’t feel odd to sit down and watch a horror movie with him, but she couldn’t do stuff like that with Ezekiel.

It was difficult to be to home sick with Edgar here at school. Edgar and people like Lucia and Stetson, she refused to call him Tony, looking out for her. It was so foreign to have companions but she wasn’t about to protest to that. Finally, in her sophomore year, she was starting to feel like a normal kid. It was about time she started seeing herself in a new light. About time that she stopped being so insecure. What would Edgar say to her if he saw what the magic marker butterflies hid? Probably be very upset with her. It often felt like she couldn’t sneeze without the guy worrying about her well-being.

She noted Tony’s expression, catching a flicker of fear when he asked who she was following. Claudia took a moment to turn around and see if she could spot her deceased attention catcher but found nothing. “I was following…someone. I don’t know their name; I was going to ask when I caught up with them. I think I just got myself turned around is all,”

[/color] she tried to reassure him. Claudia had had far too many negative experiences to admit to seeing the dead right away. She nibbled on her bottom lip ever so slightly, unable to think of what she should say. She was so bad at this. Talking to people. Being social. It was too bad the butterflies she drew on her wrists couldn’t help her be more of a social butterfly.

Ripped from her thoughts at his hand on her shoulder, Claudia looked up with rosy cheeks. Embarrassed. “It’s alright,”[/color] she reassured him. It really wasn’t his fault she was over-sensitive. “Thank you.”[/color] Not only for the compliment but for the apology, giving him a small smile. “Did I interrupt your exercise?”[/color]

[/div]

tag: stetson. words: idk wearing: this. notes: none.

[/center]

[STETSON TONY GILLIAM]

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Stet, just like any other self-respecting country boy, is a family man. Or, anyway he is now. One of the biggest things he has to give up is a family if he wants to be a pro soccer player. He knows other people do it; play professionally and manage a family. But Stet couldn't bring himself to do that to any kids. He'd seen first hand what it was like to not have a father around, and he would never be able to live with himself if he was the reason someone else didn't see their father every day.

Besides, he had Hailey and Bailey. That was enough for him. God knows it was enough for anyone.

Speaking of which, Tony was really beginning to hope that they wouldn't be asked to go here. How would he be able to keep an eye on them while they were here? He wasn't dumb. He knew there was a lot going on around here; a lot of stupid kids doing stupid stuff and ruining the good people. I mean, just look at what Evan did to Massy! She curses and stuff now. It's horrible! She's standing up for herself! What a shame. Then again, Tony was the reason she knew about a lot of the things she didn't know about before, so he was partly to blame for her lack of innocence as well. Ah, well. He'd blame Evan anyway.

Tony nodded slowly, and decided that it was probably best not to dwell on it, anyway. He'd only end up scaring himself. Which was no good, because a Paranoid Tony is not a Happy Tony. "Ah, well. Better luck next time, then." He flashed a slightly anxious smile her way. "What were you following them for? Practicing to be a CIA agent?" God, that was a lame joke, Tonybro. Tony nervously ran his hand through his hair. He wasn't usually this terrible at making jokes, but the combination of his fear of ghosts and his social anxiety creeping up, things weren't looking good for him. He hoped Claudia didn't notice; he didn't want her to think that she was making him uncomfortable because it really wasn't here fault.

Tony smiled when she asked if she had interrupted him. He loved how courteous and polite she was all of the time. He knew quite a few people who would have just talked on forever, not even thinking about whether or not they had infringed upon poor Tony's Brotime. "Nah, it's cool. I was just about to get off anyway." That wasn't entirely true. Stet had wanted to lift weights and all that good stuff, but he would much rather talk to Claudia. He could do that later. Besides, his legs were more important, anyway. That was what counted.

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