Gods Would Outlive Us • •

[gaige octavius prince]

Considering how organised Gaige usually was, he probably ought to pick up material and other supplies a little more often than he did. It might save him the back and forth trips to his car as he raided each shop in turn. By the end of the day his car usually had little room for anything else and then he had to take it all back to his own workshop above Bibbidi Bootique. That had stairs. Narrow stairs, and when he was carrying bolts of fabric he often hit his elbows off the walls or the handrail. All in all, when he was finally done and everything was stored in the racks where he kept them, Gaige was ready to go home and collapse on his couch with a fashion magazine and an old movie on the TV. He always said he would change his ways; go more often, send someone out to pick up supplies when he knew he was running low, or going to need them for a design. He never did though. Gaige liked picking things out, touching the fabric and seeing what else was there. Sometimes something caught his eye that changed a design he already had in mind by adding a dash of sparkle, or a touch of silk. No, no, he needed to be the one to do the fetching, and he would likely still be doing it this way in ten years’ time.

His store was not a grand operation. There was only him there, along with another two assistants who he had hired to man the front when he was working one on one with a customer in the fitting rooms, or upstairs putting together something new. They weren’t bustling with crowds, but steady enough to ensure the place would stay open. Gaige still had a long list of dreams for his business, and he had the drive to make them happen when the timing was right. He knew success didn’t come over night, and he knew he couldn’t push for them all to happen at once. He had a few other designers selling pieces from Bibbidi’s now, which had been his first ambition. Some were people he had gone to fashion school with, others he had found through other avenues. Some only did it short term and then moved on, but others had been there for a few years, selling their shoes or accessories while Gaige kept the rails stocked with his designs. His only rule was that everything had to be affordable. He didn’t want to own one of those boutiques where people came in, looked at a price tag and sighed in dismay. He wanted to make dreams come true with the right dress, or suit, or hell, let them find a pair of shoes that one of his college buddies had designed! So long as they were happy, he was happy.

Right now he’d be happier if his arms didn’t feel like he’d been lifting weights at the gym. Closing the door to his Crosstek, he sighed and rolled his shoulders. Once again he considered that he probably shouldn’t try to buy everything at once, but he knew he had some custom orders to work on in the next few weeks, plus his sketchpads were flooded with next season’s designs to fit in, too. His trunk was crammed with fabric, and he’d picked up another – probably unnecessary – dress form. He still had a few more places to stop by in the warehouse district, places where he found embellishments, and picked up replacement supplies for those ‘just in case’ moments. Right now though, he needed a sit down and a coffee. He readjusted his sunglasses where they were slipping down his nose and pushed off from his car, being sure to lock it first.

• • •

TAGGED! Aspen Wendy Warren
WORDS! 535!
OUTFIT! Designer Dude!
LYRICS! Distant Sky - - - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
NOTES! <3

[Aspen Wendy Warren]

New York was an entirely different place from where Aspen grew up and she loved it. She was able to express herself in New York, be someone who could wake up at noon and spend the day in her shorts and tank top, work in that all day and not worry about impressing anyone. Back home, she had to be up, awake and impressing everyone. Of course, she was also in school still and in an extremely abusive relationship. It had been unhealthy to say the least. At least now, on the other side of the world, the only bumps and bruises she got were from sheer stupidity and not someone's forceful attack on her. It was also much easier to think about the reasons she was in an entirely different country and come to terms with them all. She wasn't to blame for the abuse. He had been an angry person who had needed to use his fists. She just happened to be the girl who fell for the fake but so charming exterior.

It took a lot for Aspen to get to that point but at least she'd known to take that first step and tell her sister what was going on. From there, it all happened so fast and it was like before she knew it, she was in New York and starting to make new friends who didn't know a single thing about the darker aspects of her life before the big apple. Aspen wanted to keep it that way. She spoke to the therapist about it until even she suggested Aspen see how she coped without the twice weekly visits. She'd always been a resilient and stubborn girl so she wanted to prove she could live comfortably. Creating jewelry helped her with that and it gave her something to calm herself down when she was feeling overwhelmed. She had never thought it would lead to anything quite like what it had. She'd done so much in the time she'd moved that it was all a bit surreal.

Still, Aspen didn't want it to change; at least, not any time soon. Well, maybe her custom orders could come in a bit more frequently but other than that, she was quite fine with how everything was going. She still lived with her sister and brother-in-law but that was more so she would have social interaction, and she suspected her sister was still just as scared that the crazy ex-boyfriend would show up on Aspen's doorstep to kill her or something than anything else. Plus, they had a live-in babysitter and she absolutely did not mind babysitting her niece and nephew at all. Emily was home with some summer cold but she didn't mind curling up on the couch with the babies so Aspen took the time to pick up more supplies, though she was hardly near running out and drop off the pieces she had just felt like creating to the boutique she'd stumbled across one day shopping with Emily. "Gaige! Just the man I was looking for!" she called, stepping out of her car that she'd pulled up behind his. Her Mini might have been small but it served her well and she didn't need nearly as much space for her supply runs as Gaige definitely would.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || gaige octavius prince
Words || 551
Clothes || Delicate Designer
Music || Autograph --Dallas Smith
Notes || <3

[gaige octavius prince]

Gaige couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. He was trying something incredibly ambitious, opening his own small boutique in central New York and hoping it thrived, but he believed in himself, and in his tiny little shop where dreams could come true. Yeah, he could be a little bit cheesy sometimes when he had prom girls in or brides, but that was part of the fun. They were getting to dress up for a special moment in their lives, and it may never happen again. Gaige was going to make every second of it memorable from picking out the designs, the dresses, the fittings all the way up until the day itself when he stepped out of the picture and his role as the fairy godmother was done. There was a reason he went with Bibbidi Bootique for his store. It was more than suitable for what he did there. Sometimes, though, he had to admit, he did wish that it was as easy as waving a magic wand. There were nights when the eye strain just wasn’t worth it, or the spilt beads all over his workshop floor made him want to curl up in a ream of expensive silk and just cry until the sun came back up again. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened yet, but Gaige wasn’t about to dismiss the idea entirely. One day he might just crack and his assistants would find him having a breakdown between the silk and lace, shouting at the dark velvets and cursing the chiffon.

He admired those who were committed to their crafts, but he knew only too well how stressful it could become. Gaige had to leave notes and memos around on his phone and on neon sticky pads to remind him to take a break every now and then. Learning to say no had been one of the hardest things for him. He wanted to help everybody, to accept every client who came through the door looking for a perfect garment, but it wasn’t feasibly possible. It would kill him if he took on every challenge that came his way. He needed to sleep, to veg, to chill out. If he didn’t then it would only hurt him. He would lose his reputation, his contracts, and his health would suffer. Gaige had worked to hard to achieve his dream to lose it all because he was a stubborn oaf.

The thought crept into his mind as his arms ached after they were free of the heavy fabrics. Who knew something so light on a frame could weigh so much in bulk? Maybe he should take tomorrow off, or use it to simply sketch out designs and potter around. His body would probably thank him for the rest, and his mind often enjoyed the reset that came with a day of lazy activities. It did far too much for him when he was working on several projects at once, or trying to juggle memos and notes in his head when he could have used his phone or diary instead. His hands were always full or he didn’t have a pen or the nice leather book to hand when he needed it though. Hearing someone shout his name didn’t seem strange to Gaige. It often felt like he knew most of the city. Still, he smiled when he saw who it was, and it was a genuine smile, and not just a fake one people were forced to wear when they bumped into a neighbour down at the store. “Oh, what have I done this time?” He teased playfully, peeking down at Aspen over the top of his sunglasses.

• • •

TAGGED! Aspen Wendy Warren
WORDS! 610!
OUTFIT! Designer Dude!
LYRICS! Distant Sky - - - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
NOTES! <3

[Aspen Wendy Warren]

Aspen had turned to creating pieces of jewellery to deal with all the emotions swirling through her when she'd moved to New York. She'd been fond of designing before that but hadn't really been able to see where it could go thanks to her situation. There had been a time when she'd felt like she could do nothing, get nowhere and it was tiresome and humiliating, though she didn't want to admit that. She didn't exactly love feeling like she was powerless, knowing there had been a time in her life when she'd felt like she was. Aspen had found her strength and found someone to confide in when she'd needed it the most and she wanted to repay that strength by supporting other women who had been in her situation. She'd taken her time getting to that point and chose to create and design her pieces to deal with the aftermath of freeing herself from an abusive boyfriend. It had stopped being love a long time beforehand, she'd just not realised it until it was too late and she'd felt like it was hopeless. Aspen had learnt, however, that there was no such thing as hopelessness in situations like hers. She had, she knew, been extremely lucky. And even luckier still when she'd stumbled across Gaige and his little shop of treats. She loved shopping there almost as much as she loved knowing her pieces were being sold beyond the doors of the building.

"You've run out of my jewellery, that's what you've done. And shame on you, too." She teased back with a grin. Aspen had been ridiculously lucky when she'd finally come clean and moved away from home with her sister. Life hadn't seemed all that bad at first, back home. But things changed and masks fell and Aspen had gotten herself into trouble. She had always known the difference between right and wrong and had known what was going on hadn't been good. She'd been scared to tell someone but had also known it was inevitable. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice what was going on, she'd just decided to beat the masses to the realisation. Abusive relationships often stifled the one being abused, made them feel like no one was on their side and that they deserved what was happening to them. Aspen was different in the sense that she'd known what was happening wasn't deserved. She'd done nothing wrong, but she had still felt defeated.

Thankfully, the blonde had found security in her sister, found a safe haven in New York and in designing pretty pieces for people to wear. She secretly donated some of the money she earned from her jewellery pieces to organisations that dedicated their efforts in saving women in children in dire straits. She'd been there and had found help getting herself out so she wanted to help other women who saw they were in trouble and reached out to save themselves. She didn't want people to know her story because she didn't want the sympathy votes or money. She wanted people to buy her pieces because they spoke to them because they saw them and found them stunning and just had to have them. She didn't want them to know that she'd been in a very abusive relationship when she'd been just a little bit younger and had found the strength in the people around her to set herself free. They paid the money for the story and not the rings, bracelets, and everything else she could think up to create.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || gaige octavius prince
Words || 594
Music || Autograph --Dallas Smith
Notes || <3

[gaige octavius prince]

Gaige had been determined that his store would be one of those places where people had to re-mortgage their home just to wear one of his pieces for their big day. If he had that rule for himself then he had it for those designers who wanted to sell their wares from Bibbidi too. He didn’t force their prices on them, but he made it clear from the off that if they wanted to charge ludicrous prices then he wouldn’t clear the shelf space for them. It was no secret that Gaige did his best to be affordable. He had been told countless times by those who considered themselves his peers that he could be raking in more profits if he upped his prices, but it was never about the money for Gaige. He liked helping people feel good in their clothes, and since most people came into his boutique looking for something special, they were usually shopping for a big day, or a one-off event that they may not get a chance to repeat again. He didn’t want to bleed them dry for that. He wanted to see them excited, to take the image in their head and turn it into reality. Gaige had shunned the big fashion houses and the catwalks of Milan and Paris because they didn’t care for that. They lacked that personal touch. They saw dollar signs and high fashion as a competition. It wasn’t a world Gaige wanted to be a part of.

Gaige chuckled, leaning back against his car. He was actually thankful of the break in the errands, even if it was only going to last for five minutes. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to stop making your pieces go so well with mine.” He said with a sigh and a huge grin. Gaige did try his best to promote other designers in his store, and sometimes it was like the stars aligned when a pair of shoes or a necklace came together with a dress or a blouse he had created. With Aspen’s jewellery, it always seemed to be a popular seller, and he did find himself often trying to add a piece or two into a sale, convincing people that it would pull an ensemble together. “I did send you an email with the last bank transfer confirmation to say the store was running low...and to ask if you needed a swimming pool yet for your gold.” He added teasingly. Bibbidi’s was probably never going to make a designer rich – not unless they were selling in several other places where they had a higher price label too. If Gaige ever found out someone was doing that he might be mildly disappointed, and he might consider cutting ties with them, too. He wasn’t entirely sure; it was a weird situation that had only come up hypothetically at 3am after a night of heavy drinking with friends one Christmas.

His business was still in its infancy. Gaige had plenty of dreams and a lifetime of chances to take with Bibbidi Boutique, and there were some people he hoped would be there when he took some of those chances and made those dreams a reality. He wanted to expand the business eventually, maybe buy some of the space next door if it was ever for sale so that they could do more with what they had. He’d like more of a team, perhaps be able to reach out to the university and have one of the fashion students working under him. These were all wild ideas that were some way off, but Gaige didn’t believe in coasting along and sitting idly by. He may not want to take over the world on the big runways with supermodels and celebrities, but he still wanted to keep moving, keep challenging himself in his own way. Meeting people like Aspen, other designers in their own right, was the only way he could discover who he might invite to join him on his adventure. “Hey, fancy a coffee? I’m not going to lie, I just want the excuse to put off the rest of the errands I have to run, but you can tell me all about your day and we can go over what you have ready for sale and I can tell you how it’s not enough and how I probably need more anyway and then we can call it a business lunch and it’ll make me feel like it was work all along.”

• • •

TAGGED! Aspen Wendy Warren
WORDS! 747!
LYRICS! Distant Sky - - - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
NOTES! <3