The City Beat • •

[emmett reuben winchester]

There had been plenty of times when Emmett wondered if coming back to college had been the right decision in his life. He had already been here before, only in England where he had graduated from Oxford University. NYU was kind of a leap down in many a book, but Emmett had wanted to get on a course quickly and this had appealed to him with good professors and without the hassle of jumping through hoops just to get through the admissions process. He was too old and too annoyed back when he had been applying to weave together some fancy application that would make people gasp in awe. He just wanted to get studying archaeology and put his past behind him. New York had been about a fresh start as much as it had been about anything else. He had needed to get away from everything and just start again, even if it meant closing the door on some of the good parts of his life; like his own teaching career.

Emmett had loved teaching history. It had been his passion since he had first stepped through the doors of the classroom and found himself standing in front of those teenagers. It didn’t matter to him that half would rather be anywhere else. Emmett just wished he hadn’t had to give it all up to sort his own life out and figure out what his own dreams were after finding out that everything he thought to be true was in fact the biggest lie about his life. It was still the one thing that could make him see red in under a second, which was why he did his best not to let it creep into his thoughts. He just pressed on with life like everything was as it should be, though most of the time he felt like it was far from it.

Putting in his order at the counter, Emmett checked his phone and adjusted the books and binder in his other arm. He had sent a couple of messages to friends he knew on campus to see if any were free to meet him for lunch but none seemed to have replied to him, which was kind of a shame. He had hoped to have company while he ate his sub and filled in the time between lunch and his next lecture at three. Realising it was his turn at the counter, Emmett gave in his usual order, and waited, once again shifting his belongings about to he could pick up his lunch, the drink that came with it and still manage to balance the books in his grasp. Taking a seat at a table in the corner near to the windows, Emmett dumped his things on the chair beside him and stretched his arms out a few times to get the feeling back in them. He hated lugging so much about, but he supposed it was the price to pay for having a three day week this semester. Stabbing his straw into the cup, he gulped back a few mouthfuls of Pepsi first before even looking at his sandwich. Emmett checked his phone again and sighed at the lack of replies from his friends, guessing they must all be in class or working today.

• • •

TAGGED! @winnie
WORDS! 549!
OUTFIT! Dorky Dear!
LYRICS! Thief - - - Imagine Dragons
NOTES! <3

[Deleted]

Winnie watched herself in the full-length mirror. She was wrapped in a plain towel. Her hair was soaked and sprawled across her shoulders and back. She was taller for a female, standing around five feet, ten inches tall. She wasn't pale, but she also wasn't tan. She had an olive tone to her skin, which made her think she was Mediteranean. Her hair was dark, chocolate brown, and her eyes were dark, too. Her fingers, arms, and legs were all long and lanky. She had barely any shape to her body, and she was a beanpole. She thought that was mostly due to her being purely a vegetarian, and that she had been one since she was younger. Her shoulders were lined with freckles, but the rest of her skin was clear. When Winnie studied herself like this, she was almost always thinking about what her birth parents looked like. She wondered if she looked more like her mother or her father. What were they doing now? Were they successful and happy? Did they move on from each other? Were they alive? Did they ever think about Winnie? She had so many questions for them, and she knew that she would never get the chance to ask them. She would also never get the chance to meet them. 

In all honesty, Winnie wasn't sure she wanted to meet them. She wasn't sure if she wanted to put herself through the emotional turmoil it would cause her to see them. After all, they had cared so little about her that they dumped her in a dumpster. They didn't even have the decency to drop her off at a hospital or firehouse. But at the same time, she wanted to sit down and interrogate them on why they had been so heartless. She wanted to know where she was from, too. She wanted to know about health problems her family faced, if anyone had died at a young age. Did cancer run in their family or was her cancer a freak mutation? Her doctors never knew because they didn't have a family history to go along with. Not knowing certain things about her past made her a little scared for her future. She wasn't sure if she wanted children due to the fact that she wouldn't know if she would be passing her genes on to them or not. She didn't want them to have to deal with childhood cancer. Sometimes, when she thought about it, she thought she didn't know herself as well as she thought she did. 

Sure, Winnie knew she was a smart, kind girl, but what else was she? Was she Italian? Was she German? Part Middle-Eastern? She had no idea what her parents were like. She wanted to know if they were kind and smart like her, or if biology had nothing to do with her personality. Most of all, though, she wondered if they had anymore children, even if they would only be half siblings. Winnie had always wanted to belong to someone. She wanted someone to call her family. So far, she had a homeless man back in Washington who had died a few years after she met him. Once he died, his wife turned hostile towards Winnie, causing Winnie to move to New York to pursue her dreams of becoming an anthropologist. 

As she pinched her cheeks and admired her cheekbones, her stomach growled. She realized she hadn't eaten all day. She went over to her refrigerator, realizing she had no food. She let out a small sigh, realizing she had to go to the grocery store soon, most likely today. See, the way Winnie had scheduled her classes meant she had Tuesday's and Thursday's free to do whatever she needed or wanted to do. Today, she decided it would be grocery shopping and cleaning, but first, she needed to grab something to eat before she starved to death!

She made her way to the sub station on campus, which happened to be her favorite one in New York City. They made the best bread, plus they were vegetarian friendly, something that wasn't too easy to find. She dried her hair with a hairdryer, and she threw on some clothes, bundling up in a coat. She grabbed her bag, and off she went to get a sub. On her way there, she kicked at the snow, grinning to herself. It was so beautiful here in the winter. Everything was white and pure. Nothing seemed to be wrong with the world. Sadly, that was only when you were on campus. Once you got to the main roads and the town, the snow was gray and the people were rude. 

A bell indicated her arrival in the sub shop, and she took her coat off before going up to the counter to order. She got plain Italian bread with lettuce, tomato, spinach, cucumbers, and a few pickles for taste. They put Italian dressing on it, and they handed it to her. She made her way to a chair before seeing a guy from one of her classes. She smiled, and she stood in front of him. 

"You're Emmett, right? We have a 2:30 class together, I think."

She chimed, a big grin on her face. Winnie loved people. She wanted her happiness and joy for life to rub off on everyone. She wanted to make their lives better, and she felt the best way to do that was to become their friend. 

**************************************************************************

For:
emmett reuben winchester
Outfit:
 Clickkkk
Words:
917
Notes:
Uhm, I guess my Winnie muse decided to be present...

[emmett reuben winchester]

Finding out his father wasn’t really his father had turned Emmett’s life upside down. He still wasn’t over it now, and it infuriated him how back in Salem everyone was playing their roles accordingly. He might have been to blame for telling his mom and Carter to keep quiet for the sake of the man who had actually raised him, but that didn’t make him feel any better. A lie was still a lie, and his mother and Neil’s best friend had kept one for over twenty years. Emmett hated looking in the mirror now and catching glimpses of Carter in his reflection. There were few, but still enough to annoy him, make him hate what he saw. He loathed being a part of the lie, being a result of the affair, but he couldn’t give up on his entire life because of their cruel behaviour so many years ago.

Emmett tried not to think about it, but sometimes it was impossible. People spoke about family all the time it seemed. At college, students called home frequently, or shared stories about their relatives on a regular basis. Emmett made an effort to ignore it as much as he could, but he could hardly walk away from a conversation when it was with close friends in the city. When that happened he just had to force a smile and sit through it until he could find an opening to change the topic to something safer. Personally he never mentioned his family unless he was just casually saying that he was heading back to Salem. Emmett never shared his stories from his past, or laughed about things his sister had gotten up to. Since discovering the truth he had been too uncomfortable to talk about things and act like nothing was wrong and everything was perfectly fine back home. To everyone it might have seemed like it was, but for his mother, Carter and Emmett it was the furthest thing from the truth.

He tore off a cob of his sandwich and shoved it in his mouth, chewing slowly. Emmett didn’t particularly enjoy eating alone, but he couldn’t just pluck company out of thin air. He was reaching for his drink again when he heard someone saying his name. Looking up, he blinked a moment before he gathered his wits about him. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.” He wiped his hands on his napkin and then looked back at the girl standing before him. “I’m sorry, I’m bad with names. I barely remember the professors I have.” He apologised, feeling awful for being totally clueless as to what her name was. It took him months to learn the names of some of his now closest friends.

• • •

TAGGED! @winnie
WORDS! 457!
OUTFIT! Dorky Dear!
LYRICS! Thief - - - Imagine Dragons
NOTES! <3