aftєr thє stoяm // tipper

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semper
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aftєr thє stoяm // tipper Aug 12, 2013 13:21:34 GMT -5

Post by semper on Aug 12, 2013 13:21:34 GMT -5

I’d rather live with broken bones
than lay here all on my own
like a lovesick fool

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I wake to the sound of rain pouring down torrentially hard outside the cracked window. The rain has been horrible these past few days but the gloomy and miserably weather hasn’t put any sort of a damper on my mood at all. A soft roll of thunder sounds, crescendoing and fading until the pattering of the rain on the roof overpowers it. I don’t know how this much rain can continue to fall at the rate it’s going but it only ever seems to fall harder and heavier, the claps of thunder becoming more and more frequent. There’s a slight draft in the room from the cold air outside but under the blankets it’s perfectly warm. Ever so reluctantly my eyes open and I see the blurry room lit up in the dim grey light of morning. I blink a few times to clear my field of vision, watching droplets of rain trickle down the outside of the window.

I take a deep breathe, taking in the very familiar scent of soap and what reminds me of wood. My head rests on his chest and I can hear him breathing, feel his chest expand with each breath he takes. The warmth of his body against mine also compels me to circle my arm tighter around his torso, using him as a shield against the draft that’s ruffling the curtains. I shift slightly and carefully, trying to not wake him, moving my head up toward his shoulder and feeling his bare warm skin against my ear and neck.

All of the features on Tiberius’ face are softened and relaxed with sleep. His mouth hangs open a little and I guess having the weight of my head on his chest all night caused him to breathe a little deeper and have a light snore. I don’t mind the sound at all because it’s all these little things that make up who Tiberius is. The sleepy façade takes away that tough guy exterior and leaves him almost looking vulnerable; with all the tattoos on his neck and body it is quite a sight to see him asleep and not trying to intimidate anyone.

The large tattoo on his neck is the only one of his that gets to me. Shadow. That’s the only thing I know that’ll still get to Tiberius. The other boy cut him deep a long time ago and I’ve avoided talking to Tiberius about it for a very long time and, honestly, I don’t ever think that I will. It’s his equivalent of Jamarion and Klaus – Tiberius knows well enough to not bring up my brothers and I know better than to bring up Shadow, but I always find myself thinking: what would have happened if Shadow ended up with Tiberius? I don’t doubt that I’d be dead right now. Maybe Tiberius would’ve still been my drug dealer but instead of taking me in he would have just left me in the ally when I passed out. He would’ve let me just slip away quietly, an empty packet in my hand, just another customer with an incurable addiction. He would have left without even so much as a second thought.

I thank Ripred every day that Shadow did what he did.

Is it wrong to feel that way? The heart ache that Shadow caused Tiberius is the only reason I’m able to be here with him now. I never want Tiberius to hurt but that pain Shadow started – was it worth it? I raise my hand and lightly run my fingertips along the curve of his neck and across the S and H scrawled so lavishly on his skin. I don’t want him to hurt. I’m doing my best to fill in that void and tear that Shadow left in Tiberius’ heart and so far I think I’m doing alright.

It’s been a few weeks since I shot myself. When I went back to the doctor (the checkup was the trade I had to make in order for them to let me out early) to get the wound reexamined Tiberius went with me, sitting across the room as the doctor poked and probed at the tender healing area, looking at it as if it were some sort of undiscovered specimen. I’ll admit that I tuned out most of what the doctor was saying because I was looking at my best friend across from me. He had his arms crossed over his chest but there was the faintest of smiles on his face. The doctor stood up and blocked my view of Tiberius, all the while saying how incredibly lucky I was that the bullet missed my heart by mere centimeters. I really am lucky, you don’t have to remind me about that. I thought I would have been six feet under by then, dead by the first night in the hospital; after Jamarion and Tiberius got through with rebuking me harshly I wanted nothing more than to just take the oxygen mask off, rip out all the tubes, and just let myself fade. But sitting on that table – between the doctor’s praise for the healing progress and the presence of Tiberius – I realized that maybe I wasn’t supposed to die that night.

He helped ever since then with everything from cooking to reaching the high spots that I tried to dust. Now this isn’t to say that we didn’t have bumps along the way because we certainly did.

Tiberius came home one night with blood all over one of his arms. I was terrified, of course, that he had been hurt really badly but he assured me it was just nothing and that he had only gotten into a bar fight. It was an awful lot of blood to just be from a bar fight but I trusted him and bought into it until I saw the wound while he was redressing it one evening. I was mad, so very mad and felt betrayed, but he confessed his actions as if it would console me. In a sense it did but it only led me into feeling terribly anxious about his wellbeing. He assured me that he was fine and it only needed time to heal, just like mine, and continued to wrap the bandage around the wound to hide it.

That night I held onto him tighter as we lay beneath the quilts, refusing to let go so he made adjustments and began to try things. Maybe it was a sort of apology for lying to me, maybe it wasn’t – all I knew was that he knew I was scared but so very willing, submitting myself to him as he took his time, working through my anxiety with a sort of gentleness you’d never expect from him, reminding me that I was alright and that he’d take as long as needed until I was comfortable with moving on. It felt very good to be with him and I don’t think he realized it but he healed me mentally, breaking down the barriers I had put up from the grotesque things I did in the past. It took a while before I was completely comfortable and let him have his way, a smile coming to my face and only growing wider. The next morning was the only one where I did not get up earlier than him to start making breakfast.

I retract my hand from his neck, slipping my arm back across his torso in a sort of half hug. I’m as much familiar with his body as I am with that wonderful mind of his but he still continues to surprise me, all of them for the better. I never would have thought that my drug dealer would become so important to me, much less the one to save me. He swooped in so unexpectedly that sometimes it still startles me that he actually likes me despite every fault I’ve ever done. Tiberius is just so good and compassionate and thoughtful but sometimes I don’t think he realizes it and it saddens me, but at the same time isn’t that what he sees in me?

Everything he said to me when I returned to his house from the hospital still sticks in my head and I’ve thought very hard about it. Tiberius has done so much for me and there’s no one in all of Panem that I’d rather be with. ”Stay. Stay here. Stay with me, here, forever. Okay? That is how you can do it, let me protect you.” Tiberius is confident where I am not, strong where I am weak, and basically just fills all the spotty voids that have formed inside of me over all these years.

The anxiety starts prickling in my belly the more I think about the four words I want to ask him but my tongue always ties and my breath catches in my throat. I’m absolutely sure that I want to ask him because, not only do I owe him everything, but he’s the only one that makes me feel whole and confident. I love him – I love him so much that it just makes my heart race and this overwhelmingly joyous feeling start blooming, so why am I nervous? He asked me to stay and I agreed, and now I want to make it permanent. I’ve been trying to ask him for the past few days now but each time I froze up, playing it off as if I’d just forgotten my train of thought.

I don’t know if he’s awake at the moment. Maybe he’ll wake up once I start talking (if he doesn’t then I’ll just have to muster up the courage to find my voice again another time) and open up those grey eyes of his. Maybe he’ll smile. Maybe he’ll say yes.

I swallow hard against the lump forming in my throat that’s already beginning to strangle my voice. The palms of my hands are already getting clammy and even though I have socks on my feet they start feeling cold. The draft in the room, too, starts to make me feel colder despite the heat coming from his body. I take a deep breath and focus on that scent of soap and wood, reminding myself that even if he says no he’s still my best friend, but if he says yes then I won’t even know how to contain myself. All of a sudden I find him very unpredictable and capable of destroying me just as I had the power to destroy him a few weeks ago when he asked if I loved him. Only now the tables have turned.

I finally look up at him, forcing my voice out against the strains of anxiety. ”Tiberius, will you marry me?”

Graphic credit to Cass <3

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Last Edit: Aug 14, 2013 9:56:12 GMT -5 by semper

i hear the mountains calling me home

cass
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4,822 POSTS

last seen Oct 24, 2021 18:11:43 GMT -5

aftєr thє stoяm // tipper Sept 9, 2013 8:11:33 GMT -5

Post by cass on Sept 9, 2013 8:11:33 GMT -5

tiberius haze.

Had the idea ever occurred to him that one day he might by lying beside Hopper and the two would not be just friends, but lovers? Did it ever occur to him that one day one of them would lean over and ask them to take the other, to vow, to promise the other to spend the rest of their life with them, through sickness and health, until death do they part? The very idea of marriage had always left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had watched it happen to other people, he had watched people fall into the dangerous grasp of love where they had fallen over one another. In their hasted they had asked the stinging words and in kind their partner had replied. It was only rare did he ever get a glimpse of honest true love, not the kind of love that befell to young children that new nothing better, to grasping kids that only craved sex and kissing and all the good things. He could sit back and almost laugh at the way they would react when a real fight happened, one of them would slam the door shut and that that would be it.

The end of a flower that had barely begun to blossom. Tiberius never once found it sad or depressing, it never left him with anything left then a snort of wonder and a sigh if disbelief. The things people would do just for the satisfaction of knowing there was someone there beside them. He had seen idiots align themselves with abusive people just so they wouldn’t die alone. Those had left him feeling more enraged then he should have felt. Sometimes the stupidity of people was unbelievable.

Never before had the thought that he might actually settle played across his mind. He had always believed himself to be above that little romance game. Yeah, sure, he was only nineteen; yeah sure he had been in maybe one serious relationship, one that had ended in heartbreak. And maybe he had once been so madly in love that he had walked out on everything that had been his life. So maybe then he didn’t have an excuse for the way he rebuked others actions. He could hardly say he was clean when it came to the sting of the cold knife of love. He’d visited it more than he had ever dreamed possible. Hell he had always grown up believing he’d never fall in love, that he would stay as cold hearted and dead on the inside as his mother’s abandonment had been. Was it that he had never believed he deserved love? Or maybe it was just because he had never met anyone that had shared the same feelings that he had. Some part of him had fooled itself into believing that he would be the sole giver of his own heart and each time he did it he would find it being ripped in two no matter who it was.

At first Hopper had been different. At first Hopper Goravich had opened u his eyes to the notion that maybe all love wasn’t that bad and that maybe there was a love out there that wouldn’t destroy him on the inside. Tiberius hadn’t even understood the kind of feelings that had begun to stir within him after the first few months. It had all been so incredibly different, so strange and it had always left him smiling. It was the kind of stomach churning, heart racing, and blood rushing love that he had never felt before. Foolishly he had fallen into it, he had let it swallow him, he had stepped off the edge of the cliff an into the dragons mouth without hesitating. That had been a mistake he had truly believed he would never ever make again. But he had. He had made the same mistake and he had paid. But this time when he paid he had paid with his entire heart. It hadn’t been just ripped in two, this time it was torn from his chest and thrown in his face. And yet this time he hadn’t gotten up and just walked away. This time he had taken it back and he had kept going with it and he had become someone he had never believed possible. He had fallen in love and he had taken it with every ache, agony and pain it wanted to give him.

In the end he could believe it had been worth it.

And in all honesty up until a month ago it had never occurred to him that he might get married. Tiberius Haze had never actually leaned back and taken a look at the life he had slowly created for himself; he had never once stopped and thought what the hell was he doing. He’ll there had been moments when he’d been ready to walk out and leave it all behind, but never once had he actually questioned the decisions he had made. There had been moments of doubt, cobbing and unbelievable pain. There had been lying, cheating and a desperate gamble of a man that seemed to have no reason to live. There had been screaming, terror and agony and in the end Tiberius had grabbed Hopper in his arms, he had tugged the broken battered boy into his arms, he had wrapped his arms around him and told him he had loved him. There was maybe one other person that would say they had ever heard the same. Those three words did not simply slip past his lips and fall into the open air. They had to be earned; they had to become a part of him and his soul and his life. And Hopper had done just that. The boy had forced himself into his life and Tiberius hadn’t been able to let him go and that was a decision he knew he wouldn’t regret, not anymore.

And now he was waking up to the soft touch of the hands of Hopper Goravich. He was waking up to the gentle brush of warm hands against his tattooed skin. He groaned softly, a small smile playing across his lips as his eyes flicker open.

”Tiberius, will you marry me?”

The words almost don’t reach him, but they slip through the momentary grogginess that accompanies you when you wake up. For a moment he freezes, before he turns his eyes to the still figure pressed up against him.”I… I-what?” He stutters.

In the middle of summer
When the moon found the sun
He looked like he was barely hanging on
But her eyes saved his life
In the middle of summer (summer)

[ I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT BOAT. omfg i am so sorry this post is rambling and it is nowhere as near as perfect as your and ily and sorry ]

Last Edit: Sept 9, 2013 8:14:38 GMT -5 by cass

semper
Retired Staff

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last seen Jan 1, 2014 0:57:11 GMT -5

aftєr thє stoяm // tipper Sept 10, 2013 14:39:49 GMT -5

Post by semper on Sept 10, 2013 14:39:49 GMT -5

I’d rather live with broken bones
than lay here all on my own
like a lovesick fool

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My heart is pounding relentlessly and the anxiety twists tight knots in my belly. As if the room wasn’t cold enough to begin with I start to feel little pricks of goose bumps sticking up on my arms – all the tell-tale signs that I was steadily down-spiraling into a panic. Not the one where you end up in a fight-or-flight response but the kind that gets you so terribly worked up that your palms get clammy and your breath catches in your throat. It’s only been roughly a month ever since they discharged me from the hospital and my chest has been slowly but surely healing, but having my heart race this fast is almost painful.

I love Tiberius Haze, I really do. He’s become such a central part of my life that I know if one of us ever leaves then I’ll be off kilter; he’s become my rock and allowed me to hold onto him in order to weather the storm that was my life. Tiberius gave me the harsh reality of my situation but it came with a hearty dose of assistance, becoming my silver lining and breaking the chains that held me down. He did what no one else could do and that was save my life. The man could have left me in the alley when I first swallowed all of those pills in order to kill myself – I had been so ready to end it, so alright with the idea of leaving this physical world behind, but he didn’t let me. I owe him everything.

I could go on for hours to strangers about how wonderful Tiberius Haze is, but as I realize he’s awake and turning his head to look at me, I find myself at a loss for words.

Every apology and every promise I’ve ever made to him has been broken or somehow very unfit. Tiberius has every reason to doubt it when I try to promise him something or say that I’m sorry, so how can I convince him I really mean what I say? I promise I won’t kiss my brother – broken. I promise I won’t try to kill myself again – broken. I’m sorry. I want to make everything up to him and prove to him that I meant it when I said I was here for good. I don’t ever plan on returning to the house of horrors in the victor’s village and facing disastrous dinner gatherings and such, victimizing myself to the scornful gazes of Jamarion and Sephera. I’m so much better off here in this old little house with the man that saw me through the most trying time of my life.

I hold his gaze for a few split moments before I look away, retracting my arm from his torso to rub at the back of my neck in an anxious fashion. I need to say something – dammit, Hopper, think!

”Do you remember what you told me the day we met?” I begin quietly, sheepishly glancing up at him every so often. ”’Love doesn’t come unbidden to one person where the other feels nothing.’ That’s how I know all this is real.” Now as to whether or not I think I deserve his end of the reciprocated love is another story – I feel so undeserving of his love because of all the goose chases I put him through but at the same time I wouldn’t give any of this up for the world. Everything about him – his grin, his grey eyes, his ability to see the positives even when all I can see is doom-and-gloom – just draws me in with a force like no other. I love him and I don’t know what I’d do without him. ”I really meant it when I said I was here for good.”

I muster up the courage again, swallowing against the lump in my throat and fighting to keep an even tone, looking back up at him with hopeful eyes. ”Will you marry me?”

Graphic credit to Cass <3

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i hear the mountains calling me home

cass
Retired Staff

4,822 POSTS

last seen Oct 24, 2021 18:11:43 GMT -5

aftєr thє stoяm // tipper Oct 7, 2013 4:48:03 GMT -5

Post by cass on Oct 7, 2013 4:48:03 GMT -5

tiberius haze.

He can say with a hundred precent certainty that he loves Hopper Goravich. There is no hesitance in the admission, no stalling, no nothing. It is just the clear, simple plain truth. He could say it every day to him and he wouldn’t ever stop believing it. It took a long time to let it sink into his body, to let it fill him and to let it be known. But when it spilled through his veins, when it appeared in his mind and took hold of him? He never once doubted it. Not even when Hopped hurt him and betrayed him, yes he was certain he didn’t mean it, but it never stopped being there, It never left him and it was the love he felt that granted him the ability to forgive Hopper. It had never, however, occurred to Tiberius that he would be in a situation where he would be fumbling over his own words, where Hopper would turn to him a question so astounding and surprising springing to his lips that Tiberius would not even be sure he had said it. Tiberius was rarely caught by surprise, and it was crazy and amazing to know that Hopper could do this to him. No one could and yet the man he was certain he loved with all his heat had the skill to catch him by surprise time and time again. It was delightful to know that you still had the capacity to feel surprise, Tiberius had once reached a point in his life where he was certain that nothing could surprise, he was sure he had seen everything, h had done everything – from murder to stealing, what more was there that could surprise him?

Apparently he had been so incredibly wrong. This surprise was shocking.

The words, as expected, were a surprise. Tiberius Haze had not felt such shock running down his spin for a very long time. The last time he had felt this way he had had a gun pressed to his back. Well, it wasn’t the same, this wasn’t really a life or death experience, but he felt like the same emotions were coursing through his veins. Hell he had been in enough life and death situations to know and expect what it was like. But then those had been scary situations and it appeared that this was turning into a similar thing. It was downright scary to be asked such a question, but it was also reliving and exciting. In all honesty the question proposed (the irony in that, Hopper had just proposed to him, he had asked him to marry Tiberius, something Tiberius couldn’t even fathom) to him was something he had not expected and it was barely slipping through into his sleep filled mind. It was rebounding back and forth, his brain still mentally trying to assess if he had heard it correctly. Surely he hadn’t? But then if he hadn’t it left open the question that he had imagined it and imagining something as grand and big as marriage was not something he would do.

It was crazy how his eyes instantly snapped open, widening with every single passing second until he was sure they could not grown any wider. His lips parted into a slight ‘o’ shape and he stared, gasping at the figure that lay beside him. He had stuttered a few words out and past his lips, snapping them shut once more, instantly regretting that he had been unable to give Hopper a clear answer. But his mind was spinning like crazy. How on earth could he answer such a question? And by not answering was he scaring Hopper into never asking him again? Tiberius could guess the amount of courage it must have taken his partner to even think about asking, let alone spill the words past those thing lips of his. Hell Hopper must have almost pissed his pants asking, the amount of courage anyone needed to do that was crazy, and Hopper was by far hardly a brave person. And to top it all off Tiberius had sputtered out a few useless words, to which he really didn’t expect hopper to ask again. Hell he didn’t even know if some part of him would be relieved to hear Hopper blow it all off, and not ask. Did he want that? Did he want to marry Hopper?

His mind spun and slowly he pulled himself upwards, the blanket slipping off of his bare chest. Sitting up he looked at Hopper, the fumbling mess of the man he loved seemed to be unwilling to look him in the eye. That made him smile gently. He loved Hopper Goravich. Was that his answer? Wasn’t loving him and knowing he could openly say that enough to tell him that marrying him was what he needed – what he wanted? Hopper opens his mouth and speaks again, eyes evidently shifting up to Tiberius every now and then, as though checking to make sure he was still there. The words warmed his heart and his smile broadened, soft and delighted. ”Will you marry me?” He repeated, this time meeting Tiberius gaze, the hopeful light within them was enough to make even Tiberius stone cold heart melt.

”Of course I’ll marry you, you silly boy. I love you.” He responded, before bending over and giving Hopper a long kiss. This was where he wanted to be, this was what he wanted.

In the middle of summer
When the moon found the sun
He looked like he was barely hanging on
But her eyes saved his life
In the middle of summer (summer)

semper
Retired Staff

2,354 POSTS
last seen Jan 1, 2014 0:57:11 GMT -5

aftєr thє stoяm // tipper Oct 15, 2013 7:36:49 GMT -5

Post by semper on Oct 15, 2013 7:36:49 GMT -5

I’d rather live with broken bones
than lay here all on my own
like a lovesick fool

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[/center]

The silence drags on for seconds that feel more like years. My heart is pounding in my ears and it starts to put a pressure-like pain on my chest once again. I still haven’t fully recovered from it, I don’t think; I run out of breath quickly and coughing really hurts. My heart beating rapidly hurts after a while, too, so when I say that the wait is agonizing it really is. I try to not focus on that, however. This moment can literally make or break me and I trust Tiberius but all of a sudden I’m absolutely terrified. Part of me doesn’t want him to even answer while the other half so desperately just wants him to speak already. What if it’s no? I’ve already told myself I would try to not be upset if he said no (he doesn’t appear nor really act like the type to settle down so young anyway) but I’m just only fooling myself – undoubtedly I’ll be sad, and as much as I like to think I’ll be able to hide that from him I know I won’t. I want him and everything that is him and I don’t want it to ever end.

He sits up and my gaze follows him. I can’t, by any means, figure out what’s going on in that head of his. He hasn’t immediately spat out a ‘no’ so that’s a good sign, right? I clench my clammy hand and realize that it’s trembling – hiding it at this point would be futile so I just lay as still as I can and watch him, and as a smile starts to spread across his face I feel my heart begin to skip a few painful beats. It’s not that cocky grin he gets when he knows he’s cornered someone, but instead it’s the genuine kind that just makes me warm to my core and tells me that everything’s alright. Against my will a smile of my own starts to tug at the corners of my mouth and it quickly broadens as soon as I hear his answer: ”Of course I’ll marry you, you silly boy. I love you.”

Immediately a whirlwind sets in and I’m overwhelmed. The first emotion I recognize within myself is complete and utter relief that he’s answered me, and then it quickly morphs into elation. Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before – when Klaus returned to us I certainly was happy, but this right here properly overpowers that memory. Nothing has ever made me as happy as this moment because it’s only now that I truly realize I’m starting over. No more drugs, no more trying to hide, no more guns, no more starving, no more finding knives or shards of glass – all that is behind me now. I’m a much different person because now I have something to live for. I’ve been able to get out of bed each and every morning with a purpose instead of hiding away under the covers and just praying no one thought to come find me. Now I want to wake up and spend as much time as I can with Tiberius and make up for all the awful things he had to cope with. I want to overcome this depressive lull I find myself in and just live life. I’m done being bogged down by all these shameful memories; he knows every wrong thing I’ve done and yet he’s still here sitting beside me, agreeing to make a commitment to last a lifetime. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted and I couldn’t ask for more.

I meet him halfway for the kiss and put into it a great deal of my gratitude and obvious effervescent excitement. Everything really is going to be okay. My life is getting back on track and it’s all thanks to him. If you had told me a year ago that I’d be better in just twelve short months I would’ve said no, that I’d be dead, so honestly this sometimes feels quite like a dream.

But this is real.

He’s everything I’ve ever wanted and I can’t be happier.

I really did make it.