• •Breaking All The Rules

[Henrietta Annabella Holliday]

It wasn’t often Hettie found herself just wandering the streets. In fact, she was usually trying to get somewhere when she was out. There were always things that needed to be done and there were always places to be. Plus, Hettie was a busy girl and rarely found the time to eat in the day, nevermind anything aimless like a stroll through the neighbourhood! Of course Central Park wasn’t exactly her neighbourhood, even if she could see the trees from her apartment. But from the moment she’d first laid eyes on it, she’d fallen head over heels in love with the Central Park Carousel. There was just something so magical about it and coming from a place that had more myths and legends than it did people, it made perfect sense that she would be drawn to such a place. It didn’t hurt either that the place seemed so abandoned when it was closed. Hettie could admit she both liked and explored abandoned places. She was intrigued by what people left behind, deemed insignificant enough to let it rot away in an old building. For the most part, it was usual things, papers in buildings, chairs and tables, some clothes and toys but not usually and some old equipment that helped the employees make whatever the factory produced. But sometimes real treasures were found. When she’d been sixteen, the family had gone out to visit one of the little bed and breakfast’s they owned and she’d gone exploring the area. She’d only been out an hour or so when she stumbled upon an old abandoned house. Naturally, she went in, poked around, found the usual things but she’d also found a very old, very beautiful necklace. She took it back with her, intent on finding out all she could but that was how old the place was, no one remembered. Hettie had even had it appraised in the cute little antique shop down the road from the hotel but he’d only given her a large number, a lecture about keeping it cleaned and an apology after she explained it for not knowing anything about it.

The colourful Scot preferred the tales with happier endings but it was also fun imagine the original owner of her favourite necklace. Carousels were a different kind of magic. And Hettie loved magic and all things weird and wonderful. She’d grown up an inquisitive child. And though what she wanted to do with her life might have changed, her curious nature never would. Hettie had been to the carousel in the park a dozen times or more since she’d moved to New York at the beginning of the school year. But this was the first time she’d ever been there at night. Assignments, parties and friends usually got in the way of wandering at night. For Hettie, it wasn’t nearly as scary as people thought it was. It was just like any big city really, except the history of New York was as colourful as she was and that more than the actual place scared people. She had heard so many stories about the city she quickly fell in love with. She was going to be robbed, mugged or stabbed at every street corner, addicts and dealers littered the park and shady alleys, don’t walk under any bridges or she’d be picked up, someone thinking she was for hire for a couple minutes or hours. And the only one she’d ever taken seriously was the warning about drugs in the park. It had been a while before she would venture to the park in the evening but then she found out the areas to avoid and felt better about it all.

So far, so good on the trouble front since she hadn’t had any incidents to speak of. And even if she had, she was feisty and scrappy, she could handle herself, and she would not tell her parents about it unless she absolutely had no other options. Hettie looked around the seemingly abandoned children’s ride, looking for anyone around to see her before she hopped the gate and jumped up on the ride herself. The ride was obviously well kept and cared for. And it would continue to stay that way until the people stopped caring.

Tag || @open
Words || 752
Clothes || To follow shortly!
Music || How She Rolls --Chase Rice
Notes || <3

[silas malachi hook]

If Silas wasn’t working he spent a great deal of his nights on the streets of New York City. He was a restless man who needed to be doing something constantly, but there were times when his apartment was just too quiet, or hearing his neighbours on the floor above got to him. Plus, he was a terrible sleeper when he was in bed alone, which never helped matters. It was easier to just go out until he felt exhausted and then collapse into a heap on top of his duvet. At least then he was guaranteed a few hours of rest without needing to get too worked up about it all. Silas wasn’t fantastic at blending in, he never had been. He was an odd man, quirky in ways he didn’t even know how to explain. He would put it down to a lifetime of bullies wherever he turned, but he had a feeling that they barely had anything to do with it. They might have made him meeker than he would have liked to be, but the rest was all on him and how he kept his reality in a bubble around him. It was just easier to keep people at arm’s length when he didn’t empathise with them all that much.

The darkness was already cloaking the city when Silas slipped from his apartment with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette between his lips. Oddly, he never smoked them. He’d never smoked in his life. He just liked having something in his mouth and though biting on the filter until it was soggy and practically non-existent did nothing productive for anyone, it was almost like a security blanket for the grown man. So it hung there as he walked through the streets, turning eventually into Central Park. Not many people would head into the park after hours. He had heard the stories of murders and criminals lurking in the shadows, but his fears didn’t extend to include them. He had been beaten up enough times in his life to shrug off those sorts of concerns and think about anything else. Consequently, Silas thought of nothing. Literally. He thought of the great void of space, the nothingness that existed between planets. He rarely shared these thoughts with others, instead putting on a persona much more seductive and mysterious; else how would he find company for his lonely nights? No one wanted a miserably deep thinker when they were in the clubs or bars. They wanted an enigma who would thrill them for a short while and let them go back to their normal life come sun up. Silas could do that for them.

He found himself by the carousel, and not feeling like walking much further for a while, he hopped onto the ride and slunk down around the back. He rested against the centre, drawing one leg up to his chest and letting the other one lay straight before him. His beanie hat acted as sort of a cushion when he tipped his head back against the support and Silas just sat there in silence, eyes closed. He didn’t go to the fairground much when he was a child, and the music associated with it left him feeling a strange mix of emotions if he heard it. All he could hear now though was the breeze in the trees as it rustled the leaves. At least that was the case until the metallic clang of the gate startled him out of his thoughts. Turning his head he sat still until he saw a figure approaching on his left, only then did he speak up after removing the unlit cigarette from his dry lips. “And here I was thinking I’d be the only one here tonight. Should I expect a party?”

• • •

TAGGED! Henrietta Annabella Holliday
WORDS! 621!
OUTFIT! Tattooed Trouble!
LYRICS! Yesterday - - - Marianas Trench
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Henrietta Annabella Holliday]

Hettie wanted to see the world, experience everything she could before she was too old to enjoy it all. Her parents had gotten their chances to do just that and were always encouraging their kids to do the same thing when they were old enough. Hettie had always loved exploring the areas the family visited. Though usually, she never found more than what she would have expected. Often enough, she never found anything at all and only had the pictures she took to remind her of the places she'd seen. Of course, like every other person who wanted to travel, she wanted to see the parts of the world that everyone saw, but she also wanted to see the ones that people were a little fearful of. The abandoned buildings, the creepy, dark woods, all of it. That last one was how she'd found that old house and the necklace she rarely took off. She didn't expect to find things like that but she was fond of finding little forgotten things and trying her hardest to bring them back to where they belonged.

It was a hobby of hers while playing around with hair and makeup was a passion. She loved that, wanted to make a proper go of it. Of course, nothing would stop her from checking out the forgotten places of the world. And though her exploration tonight wasn't forgotten nor abandoned, it was really creepy after dark when all the lights have been turned off and the place was left to rest before the children started rushing it again in the morning. She'd been to places far creepier and scarier than this carousel but there was just something about the colourful horses on poles that just added to the eerie factor. It was what kept drawing her to the park in the first place. Hettie figured she would be alone in her lurking. She never expected anyone to be sitting around on the children's ride but she was also used to getting a fright so she didn't jump at the noises like she used to.

"What makes you think you were alone in the first place?" She asked, tilting her head to the side just the slightest bit. She had heard all sorts of stories, of course; only most of which claiming the carousel was haunted, some just said it was where drug dealers and addicts spent their nights. She wasn't overly concerned about any of it. Hettie's parents had seen what sort of trouble she could get up to in her spare time and decided it would be best to get her into so sort of martial arts or self defense class. They saw what she was like and figured it could only get worse from there. She understood where they were coming from; after all, it was better to be safe than to have to identify the body in her opinion. "Or haven't you heard the stories?" She asked with a slow, mischievous grin as she climbed up the closest horse.

Tag || silas malachi hook
Words || 506
Clothes || Feisty Fellon!
Music || How She Rolls --Chase Rice
Notes || <3

[silas malachi hook]

Silas didn’t go around with a mile long bucket list. Hopes and dreams were just targets for bullies to rip up and throw away. He made it through the day to day by living in the day to day. He kept his head down and just tried to fade away; a difficult task when he was inked from the neck down. The comments whispered in line at the grocery store, or the tuts from older ladies whenever he was doing his laundry in the basement of his building did not go unnoticed. Silas just wasn’t the type to show that he had heard. He didn’t want the drama of a confrontation. He just wanted to get on with his own life and wished that others would do the same. In the twenty-two years he had been alive he had never once hurt another living soul and yet he seemed to be a prime target for so many out there to pick on and laugh at.

The world could be a cruel place at times. Silas had been dealt a bad hand in life and fate hadn’t offered him up much luck either. The harsh childhood had left him a cold adult who wanted things he was too afraid to reach out for. He deliberately fucked things up or avoiding having them in the first place to keep himself from suffering anymore. People could end up hating him for it, but Silas knew they had people who would help them through, who would make it all better. They had the support and the love he wished he had. His sister was really the only person left in the world who he felt like he could turn to, but Monica had her plate full supporting the father who had never been much of a dad to them. Silas hoped he’d rot; something Monica often scolded him for even though he was a grown man entitled to his own opinion.

Silas didn’t move, but he followed the girl with his eyes. His plans for a peaceful night had apparently been dashed unless he chose to move, but he was rather comfortable where he was. There was no harm in seeing how this played out, at least for a few minutes. “You mean the Urban Legends?” Silas had an open mind to a lot of things, but some of the urban legends he heard around the campus were just rehashed from things he had heard as a teenager, remoulded to fit a different location. He wasn’t about to believe something like that just because a name and a park had been changed. He believed his conspiracy theories, the possibility of life on Mars, and a haunted house more than he could believe in a homicidal hook man. “I much prefer to hear kids talk about how they tried to do the horizontal bop out here and got scared away by a squirrel in a tree.” He scoffed at the thought, amused by the college freshman who got drunk and made reckless decisions into hilarious stories for him to overhear in the queue at Sub Station.

• • •

TAGGED! Henrietta Annabella Holliday
WORDS! 525!
OUTFIT! Tattooed Trouble!
LYRICS! Yesterday - - - Marianas Trench
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Henrietta Annabella Holliday]

Hettie had never put much faith into the hype she heard from people about places and how haunted they were. Most of the time, it was just nerves getting the better of them, only good for a laugh after they’ve chased themselves away. Hettie wasn’t that scared of things. She willing walked back straight, head high into a notoriously haunted building just on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She had heard the stories of course, all the tales and the haunting’s but she’d never believed it. The best part about it all was how it got her heart racing, how around any corner she could be confronted with a spirit or a secret that no one knew about. She loved the secrets. She wanted to know all the ins and outs of the creepy, decrepit and rundown buildings, even if she wasn't ever going to get a degree with the knowledge she gained. It was a happy little hobby for the pink haired Scot. And she would continue to do this particular hobby until she either gets collared for it or she finally runs out of places to peek around.

There weren't many places in New York that she could actually explore. There were certain places that boasted a haunted past but were used as museums and things or had security installed to watch over them. It was a little harder to explore those places when there was a camera round every corner! She made it work with some of them, feigning ignorance or claiming she got turned around if she were ever caught. Add in some water works and the accent didn't hurt and she was usually consoled and shown the proper way out; twice with dates for the following Friday night. She was a good actress if she did say so herself! It was a shame she couldn't find a career in exploring these haunted places. Then again, it wasn't half as much fun when permission was given to be somewhere. That was part of the thrill and adventure. At any moment the big could be up and she could be in serious trouble. It was one of the two "bad" things she did; the other one being drinking underage. Bur she didn't count that; she was Scottish. As far as she was concerned, she wasn't underage.

Hettie was usually surprised by some things when she was out like this but it was usually a little treasure or a mouse running across the space in front of it. It had never been a person until now. She would stick around for a little while, see how things turned out. If it was a fail, she would leave and just come back to the carousel another time. She made a face at his question. "No. Are any of those even originally connected to New York City?" She countered. The only one in the area she could even think of was the Headless Horseman and that was out in Sleepy Hollow, a two hour train ride she'd had to go through twice. "I especially loved the story I'd heard about a raccoon." She'd been at work, arranging a bouquet for a young kid, couldn't have been much older than her, if he even was and because he'd looked embarrassed, she'd asked if the flowers were for a special occasion. And then he explained the entire story, in unfortunately graphic detail. It was a story she could never unhear.

Tag || silas malachi hook
Words || 577
Clothes || Feisty Fellon!
Music || How She Rolls --Chase Rice
Notes || <3

[silas malachi hook]

Silas had spent a lot of his childhood in fear. He had been scared of his dad, his brother, the bullies who made each school day a living hell…eventually it became boring – but that wasn’t something Silas discovered until he was grown and ready to move out. He had been an unusual child. He was a mama’s boy, very inclined to hide behind her apron and stay inside to help her out than climb trees with the neighbourhood kids. He had developed a rather eclectic hobby range as an adult because of it, and his fears were not of things that went bump in the night. The night fascinated him, as did ghosts and spirits. Silas was open to stories and ideas about the afterlife or haunted places, just like he was fascinated by conspiracy theories and the mysteries about alien life. There was little left in the world of the ordinary that could impress him; he had been so let down by reality that all he had left was the possibility of the unknown.

Silas wanted to make a future for himself, but he was stuck in a rut of defensive bad habits. His life indulging in the strange and unhealthy was just a small part of that really. The last time he had dared go home, his dad had managed to communicate enough to say that no one was going to want to be with a weedy inked up man who stuffed dead animals and knitted his own scarfs and hats. It was enough to have Silas leaving a few days early. He didn’t have to put up with that any longer, and he wasn’t going to. He was already ruined enough by the life he had come from in Red Lodge. New York was a slow start at an attempt to repair the fucked up life that he had been spiralling into; the emphasis remained on slow. Silas wasn’t about to make any grand changes, or be a completely different man. He was still a mess, his head was full of doubts and troubles, but this was a step at building a future and moving away from the past.

He shrugged lazily and slid further down towards the floor to get comfier. “Probably not. They never are. Usually some small town no one has heard of.” Like Red Lodge, Montana, where violent sons kill their mothers and no one does a thing about it. Silas was stuck waiting for the day when Zac did something else unforgivable to another person and then he would have to live with the guilt of knowing exactly what kind of monster his brother was and being unable to do anything about it. “I’d rather get laid and leave the wild animals for my workbench.” He said with a smirk, his blue eyes cheeky and daring as he spoke slow and lazy. Silas was a reckless man sometimes, but it was a streak he couldn’t seem to get rid of.

• • •

TAGGED! Henrietta Annabella Holliday
WORDS! 502!
OUTFIT! Tattooed Trouble!
LYRICS! Yesterday - - - Marianas Trench
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Henrietta Annabella Holliday]

Hettie hadn't been too sure if she would like New York when she'd decided to go to school in the big apple, so far away from the home she knew so well. She'd been understandably worried that being alone in the city would make her depressed and homesick. And she was partially right. She had been homesick. Hettie hadn't been able to find a decent restaurant for months after her arrival. She was as cultured as the next person but after a tough day where nothing wanted to go right, when everything seemed to be against you, all you wanted was something familiar like home cooking. But then she stumbled across a place and it felt like she was home again. Hettie had felt after that, that she could handle being in New York for as long as she needed to be there. She didn’t need to make it big in Hollywood, she would be perfectly happy to stick around New York or even better, find a gig back home. Hettie just didn’t want to find herself doing wedding makeup her entire life. Sure, she was learning how to do that but she absolutely loved the stage makeup. The bigger, the gaudier, the better in her eyes. The few friends she had in her courses that actually knew her outside of the classroom all said the same thing; if she weren’t already a woman with a wild taste, she would probably be a Drag Queen. And they were most definitely right.

Besides all that, if she’d given up on her dreams and the city, she wouldn’t be able to explore all the hidden little treasures that were abandoned buildings. She was too good at slipping into those places and getting back out again unnoticed. It was a helpful little talent to have, especially on nights like these when she was breaking the law to check out a spooky area. Then again, all of Central Park could be considered spooky to anyone who had a noodle for a spine. Hettie was proudly that stereotypical Scottish lass. She had a fear of absolutely nothing and breaking a little law like breaking and entering meant nothing to her when she was obviously not from New York and could play clueless, lost tourist very well.

Hettie shrugged, agreeing but not agreeing with this stranger’s opinion. Sleepy Hollow was a place everyone seemed to know but it was so small, it was barely a blimp on the map. But then there were places across her homeland that no one had ever heard of but carried with them some of the best, bone chilling tales Hettie had ever heard. “I expect dinner first.” She said, straightening her spine. She was not a pushover, nor was she as easy as her clothing choice occasionally made her appear. There weren’t many, but Hettie did have some standards! Not that Hettie was going to hop off her carousel horse and grab a bite with this delightful stranger. "What do you mean workbench? Are you one of those taxidermists?"

Tag || silas malachi hook
Words || 508
Clothes || Feisty Fellon!
Music || How She Rolls --Chase Rice
Notes || <3

[silas malachi hook]

Silas didn’t worry too much about the finer points of New York life. A city was a city, was a city. He could have moved anywhere and there would be bright lights, bars, and girls to lose himself in when he felt the demons catching up. New York had merely been the first place to send him that much sought after acceptance letter. He hadn’t thought twice about things after that. He had simply packed up everything and made the decision to call New York his home. Silas didn’t know if it would be a temporary thing or the pace he stayed for the rest of his life, but he could say with certainty that he had absolutely no plans to move back to Montana. He visited only on the holidays because his sister was good to him. If it wasn’t for her then the place would be nothing but a bad dream he never wanted to remember.

Unfortunately, all the stuff Silas didn’t want to remember made him act erratic. At times he might close himself off from potential friendships simply because he didn’t like the idea that he might have to reveal something about himself. Other times he was prone to acting reckless with flings and one night stands. He broke less hearts in college, but that was because there were no high school girls looking for Prince Charming, and refusing to understand what ‘casual’ and ‘no strings attached’ meant. They thought something that started out meaningless would have an ending like something out of a rom-com. Silas was glad to have less slaps to the face in his life; it was a welcome absence. He wasn’t a mean man, or intentionally a jerk. However, if he had tried to explain his behaviour he would have to talk about himself, and his fears, and that was not something Silas ever did. His fears of opening up ran too deep.

Silas let out a laugh through his nose. He wasn’t a romantic. He was a freak. He would spend one night knitting, and the next making an animal come back to life. He could hit up a club still smelling like formaldehyde and optimalin. Most days it lingered on his clothes, or he smelt the latex on his fingers despite sleeping and showering since last wearing the gloves. He wasn’t the wining and dining type. “I know a guy who’ll have a pizza here in twenty.” Silas wore a lazy smile as he glanced over at her. He shrugged, feeling his skin prickle at the question delving towards his personal life. “I dabble a bit. Sometimes.” He admitted. His apartment looked like a shrine to death with the amount of animals and skulls he preserved and kept for himself, along with the oddities that he had decorated the place with. He had his interests, they just happened to be dark.

• • •

TAGGED! Henrietta Annabella Holliday
WORDS! 485!
OUTFIT! Tattooed Trouble!
LYRICS! Yesterday - - - Marianas Trench
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Henrietta Annabella Holliday]

Hettie had always been a curious sort growing up. She'd gotten into all sorts of trouble but it was usually only worth a laugh and maybe a fright here and there. Once no, twice, she'd been brought home by the police for trespassing but she'd been under twelve and alone so they thought she'd gotten herself a little turned around and lost. Both times she'd been with her family visiting one of the properties so it was a plausible enough tale to tell. And naturally she'd never corrected them. What was the point when it was working in her favour? As she got older, she got better at sneaking around, in and out of places she really shouldn't have been. And now, it was a hobby of hers; once she did through legal channels rarely, though there were a few properties she did have genuine permission to be in. The carousel in the park was not one of those.

Life would have been insanely boring if she stuck to the rules all the time. And boring wasn't a word normally associated with the firecracker. Wild, imaginative, creative, a little weird, she could easily all agree to because she was. She was outrageous and wild and she spoke her mind and almost never wished she could take back her words. She was stubborn and headstrong, she fought for thoughts and so everyone else could have an opinion, too. She was a bit loud, and little eccentric and she absolutely loved it all. Boring and dull and worse, normal were not words she even liked using. She would save those words for when she was describing half the work she was asked to do when she became a full fledged makeup artist and needed to do those bland as fuck makeups.

The Scottish lass raised an eyebrow, looking over at the equally quirky man. "Twenty minutes? That's a long time and I get bored easily." She confessed with a disappointed shake of her colourful head. She didn't know much about taxidermy, only that her father had commissioned a few pieces for the walls of a handful of their properties. They were curious pieces and Hettie had always enjoyed dreaming up how they'd lived before they'd become decorations. "Dabble. Hmm." Hettie repeated thoughtfully. He didn't look like a man who dabbled in anything. He looked like a man who had his hobbies. She couldn't actually say much considering her particular hobby of choice was basically breaking and entering. "Dabble doesn't seem like the right word but who am I to judge. I'm hopping fences in the middle of the night to see if I get a fright."[/color\ She added with a slight shrug. She was a fan of ghostly encounters.

Tag || silas malachi hook
Words || 457
Clothes || Feisty Fellon!
Music || How She Rolls --Chase Rice
Notes || <3

[silas malachi hook]

Silas knew he was different to the average kid. He had grown up being told that, being kicked around for that very reason. He was this skinny kid who dressed in strange clothes and developed this dark fascination with the beauty of death. Other boys his age were out getting drunk and flirting with girls in nightclubs, but Silas was at home, taking the steps to stop a corpse from decomposing and instead preserving it and making sure it’d last forevermore. Other people had sports, but Silas had live autopsy shows and embalming techniques. After a lifetime of bullying Silas kept his unique hobbies and likes to himself. He didn’t want to attract that negative attention. Heads already turned when he walked down the street because of how he dressed and because of the ink that decorated his skin. He wasn’t going to add to that or give people a reason to target him. New York had been his escape and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life running away from city to city until he miraculously find somewhere to fit in and belong. Silas accepted that he was odd, he accepted that he was never going to be the polo shirt and khaki wearing type.

While Silas didn’t want to attract that unwanted attention he also wasn’t willing to change who he was. He was happy in his broken, messed up self. There was a lot of stuff wrong in his life, and plenty of trauma in his past, but Silas couldn’t change that. Times came when he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about days that had gone by, but ultimately the whole point in coming to New York was for a fresh start. The promise of a future was all he had, and he clung to it like it was a precious jewel that might just change his life and solve all of his problems.

A precious life changing jewel probably wouldn’t have led him to the carousel in Central Park during the dead of night, but Silas wasn’t clutching diamonds after all. He managed a slight devilish smirk, peering up at the bright haired girl through his own unruly mop. “I’m sure I can stop you from getting bored.” He said, a slight mirth in his mumble. For all his good intentions in life there was still a side of Silas that was dark and troublesome. Silas didn’t say anything when she called him out on his dabbling. He didn’t feel like sitting there and talking about the taxidermy process. His hands probably smelt of formaldehyde and a hint of latex from wearing gloves to protect his work. Instead, he just smirked to himself before lifting his gaze back to his current companion. “I could offer you so much more than a fright.” He teased, deciding that her company was turning out to be more fun than he first thought. Any plans he had to go home were put on hold for the time being.

• • •

TAGGED! Henrietta Annabella Holliday
WORDS! 505!
OUTFIT! Tattooed Trouble!
LYRICS! Yesterday - - - Marianas Trench
NOTES! <3 <3 <3