My Biggest Fears • •

[indigo leigh bennett]

Indi was only really a sort of part-time professor. Her main career, the one she had dreamt of and fought tooth and nail to earn an internship for, was as a video game artist. She was one of the people who sketched out the characters and then slowly took them from paper and through the process to bring them to life on the screen, working with a team and by herself to make it happen. She loved it and she loved seeing people respond to the heroes and the villains that were born from her imagination. However, the video game studio she worked for also worked with NYU to run a few workshops to try and open doors for budding minds keen to get into the business. That had led to a few courses being installed in the NYU teaching programme and Indi's bosses had selected her to spend a little bit of her time teaching. They felt her youth and quirky personality might help students relate more, though Indi had never quite understood why; they were a video game company after all and the youth of today were pretty obsessed with the latest consoles and platforms.

Still, that was how she found herself on the campus of her old college once again. She only taught one class out of the year, with the rest of the programme going to another one of the men who she worked with, but really only knew in passing. It was a big place with many different departments. Indi tended to keep to her own corner of the art department with her sketchpad and her computer system, venturing out to the rest of the artists only when they needed her for collaborations or something complex. Her side of the teaching wouldn't begin until after winter break, but her co-professor liked to have her come in just before the rush of exams to give the classes a quick taster of what was to come once January came around and they would have a new face standing at the front of the lecture halls; a new face, and quite a different personality. Indi acted more like a student than most of her students and her first year of teaching had shown her just that. This would be her second year, so she was somewhat familiar with the situation, although a little bit rusty once again.

She had already breezed through a presentation for the two freshman classes, amusing herself with how bewildered some of them looked when she had strode into the room and taken over the lecture. Indi was sure some of them had thought it a practical joke by a senior until no one had interrupted her or demanded she stepped down. After taking a dozen questions, it was time for lunch and Indi's sushi was almost calling to her when she fell into the dining room, taking a comfortable seat at one of the tables there. Indi didn't have an office of her own at the school; it seemed impractically given that she only taught for twelve weeks. She shared one with her colleague, but for the time being the office was still his space and she didn't mind bunking it with the students. It reminded her of her old college days, brought back some fond memories for the red head. A familiar face caught her pale eyes and Indi swallowed the seaweed wrapped delight before opening her mouth. “Noah! Hey, Noah! Over here” She stood up and waved in his direction, waiting until her fellow professor spotted her before lowering herself back into her seat. “I never had you pegged for a dining hall kind of guy.” She grinned as she reached for her bottle of strawberry water.

• • •

TAGGED! Noah Quinn O'Halloran
WORDS! 630!
OUTFIT! Video Game Vixen!
LYRICS! King of the World - - - First Aid Kit
NOTES! <3

[Noah Quinn O'Halloran]

Noah wasn’t the type to make many friends anymore, or let people past the well built walls that kept him guarded. He’d lost the ability about the same time he’d lost his brother and he hadn’t been able to find it again. He had made friends in Dublin, Ireland, but they had mostly forced themselves on him. He could have easily gone the entire time he was away at school without making a single friend and only knowing those people he lived with and the ones he had group projects with. Once upon a time, Noah had been one of the most sociable guys around. He could have made friends with just about anyone and they would have loved him. But then the accident happened and he couldn’t find it in him anymore to be happy; not while he was missing half of himself.

Nick wouldn’t have fallen in on himself if their roles had been reversed. He would have been out there, living the life Noah expected of him and honouring his little brother’s memory that way. But Nick had always been better at dealing with things than Noah. Noah hadn’t been that twin. Noah had been outgoing and a bit loud but he’d also been the more emotional one. The more romantic of the pair. He’d been the one that would hold back or question something before he dove in while Nick asked his questions after he jumped in. Essentially, they evened themselves out. So it was like losing himself when he lost Nick and Noah hadn’t recovered completely. He was getting there but he didn’t think he would ever be the same person he once was. The experience had definitely changed him but he was working on it.

The graphic design professor didn’t mean to appear cold or distant to people, but after the accident, he closed himself off and now only the people who knew him in Dublin really knew what he could be like. With that crowd, he’d let go and been a person again but back in the states, he became that cold and distant guy again. He stuck to running for take out or bringing in his lunch when he could, avoiding any places with tons of people; which included the cafeteria. He wasn’t keen on grabbing his meals there but that morning he’d been running late and hadn’t had time to fit in more than one cup of coffee, nevermind make his lunch and in his haste, he forgot his wallet with all his cash.

And the only reason he had the meal card handy was because he only ever used it for emergencies like this one, so it was always in his desk. Other than that, Noah preferred to eat in his office. And he would have continued that pattern, taking his meal back to the solitary of his office if he fellow design professor hadn’t flagged him down. He could do a lot but he couldn’t ignore a call out like that so he took a deep breath and made his way over to her. “I’m not. Bad start today.” He said by way of explanation. He really shouldn’t have become a teacher, he was too impersonal but as his students found out, the second he got into the good bits, he lit right up and almost became the teenager from before. Deciding there was no point in walking away now, Noah pulled out the chair across from Indigo and sat down to dig into the chicken Caesar salad he’s settled on.

Tag || indigo leigh bennett
Words || 638
Clothes || Distressed Gent!
Music || The Fault In Our Stars --Troye Sivan
Notes || <3!

[indigo leigh bennett]

Indi-Leigh had her own walls surrounding the remaining pieces of her heart, but to look at her it might not seem like the bottle red head had been through anything bad at all. She forced herself to look on the bright side of life when she wanted to hide away, and she honestly thought it was the best medicine for a girl like her. All of her bitterness and anger was thrown into her work, creating characters that were strong, tormented, but heroes in their own right. It wasn’t exactly how she saw herself, but Indi had lied every single time she had said there was nothing of herself in her creations. She also never spoke about the hardest memory she had; her failed marriage. It left her thoughts of love jaded, and it had ruined her relationship with her mother, keeping her in New York when her family wanted her to make more trips back to Polson.

However, Indi still appeared today like a woman with very few problems in her life. She was quirky and bright, who could go from brutal sarcasm to rambling nonsensically about things that weren’t even relevant. It all masked a broken heart though. It was something Indi had ignored, as though it would just fix itself over time, and that she could act like she wasn’t a divorcee if she just declined dates and acted like she was just honestly too busy to date anyone. Doing that was a hell of a lot easier than talking about the truth and admitting that she was scared of being hurt again, afraid of opening her heart once more in case it ended up in a million little pieces this time around. As it was she expected it was being held together with sticky tape and a few spare pins after the mess that was supposed to be the everlasting commitment of marriage.

It was Indi’s heavy secret, and one that she hid beneath all that she taught and worked with. Being at the university brought some of the pain back though, since she had been a student herself when she had exchanged vows with Zachary, and she was still there when he had broken her heart and ran off with some blonde who wore fake eyelashes every day of the week. However, she wasn’t about to say no when her bosses would ask for reasons and she didn’t want to tell them the truth. Indi was stubborn and proud and she didn’t ever want to have to admit to people that she had been foolish enough to make that mistake in the first place. It was like her mother’s ‘I told you so’ when she had phoned home in tears to tell them what had happened, that Zachary was a dirty cheat who had apparently found love elsewhere while she was trying to make her dreams something real. It was too much, and cut too deep. “Oof. Well, we all have them and they’re not worth dwelling on.” Though Indi would often do the same on her bad days. She could give out advice fairly well, but taking her own was not a skill Indi had mastered. “It feels like forever since I was here last. I can’t believe it was only six months ago.” A part time position it might have been, but it really did feel like so much had happened since Indi’s last class. She supposed it was all down to how much she had been working on, and how much she had achieved in that short time that made it feel longer.

• • •

TAGGED! Noah Quinn O'Halloran
WORDS! 605!
OUTFIT! Video Game Vixen!
LYRICS! King of the World - - - First Aid Kit
NOTES! <3

[Noah Quinn O'Halloran]

Noah was probably the last person anyone would willing run into anywhere. He was a friendly enough guy in the classroom, his students could approach him with their questions but that was professional. That wasn’t him, that was totally Professor O’Halloran and not Noah, the broken, busted and desperately lonely man who was too stubborn to ever admit that he was lonely. He could play the part well enough, get his students engaged in what he was teaching them but outside the classroom, Noah was content to wallow in the gloomier moods he seemed to love so much. It was always bad to lose a family member, a brother, a friend but it was somehow infinitely worse losing a twin. Noah had been so completely unable to cope with the loss, while everyone else had been able to rise above it.

And he knew Nick was probably wherever he was pissed off at him for falling to pieces the way he had and being unable to dug his way out of it yet. But Nick had always been the stronger of the two. Noah had been the more artistic one, while Nick had been the one with the brains and, he could admit, most of the brawn as well. Noah liked sports well enough, he’d played on a couple school teams but Nick was a part of everything. He threw himself into everything he did with everything he had and Noah had just never been able to live life with such inhibition. And Noah just tried to make it through the day without letting a few tears run free. It was such a tricky place to be so Noah tried to just focus on his work. If he could just keep his eyes on his work, it was easier to get through the days.

He hoped eventually, he would be able to come to terms with everything that happened and open up again. But that day had yet to come and Noah was not about to force it to happen either. He might not have loved becoming an introvert when before the accident he’d loved being anywhere but at home because it meant he was with friends, either old or new. But these days he kept to himself and only ever chuckled or laughed when he was on a Skype call with one of his buddies from Dublin. “No, they’re not.” He agreed. Of course, he wasn’t dwelling on his terrible day. It was so much more than that. And it was something he wasn’t willing to advertise to the world at large. “Time flies.” He said before shoving a forkful of salad into his mouth. He chewed his food thoughtfully before swallowing. “You were only a student six months ago? How old are you?” He asked, his eyes narrowed at her, re-evaluating his perception of her. He’d thought she was older than the average twenty-two year old that walked out of the doors once they were handed their diplomas but then there were more things to do after that as he well knew. Still, it was something that caught him off guard a little bit.

Tag || indigo leigh bennett
Words || 548
Clothes || Distressed Gent!
Music || The Fault In Our Stars --Troye Sivan
Notes || <3!

[indigo leigh bennett]

Indi was not a teacher. She had never considered the profession and she still didn’t think of herself as someone who could influence the minds of the future. She was just a redhead who created heroes and monsters and watched other people fall in love and kill them time and time again as they reloaded save files and bested their best. However, the company saw her as a young, apparently hip, video game artist and they wanted that to be their image when they sent someone out to teach their course at the college. She had protested, but they had insisted, and they had won the argument. Indi wasn’t brilliant at standing in the front of a room explaining the mechanisms of it all to a group of college kids, but she could talk passionately about her job and enchant them with behind the scenes tales of what she would be doing on the few days when she wasn’t in the classroom.

She didn’t fit in with pretty much everyone who attended the faculty meetings on a Monday morning, and no one knew her name in passing. Many probably thought her a student with the way she dressed, but Indi had never been one for business wear. Still, she knew Noah was in the office beside her temporary space, and she didn’t want to spend six months alone on the campus just because she was a fleeting woman holding the temporary title of professor, crinkling her nose every time a student addressed her as such. Someone to grab coffee with or share a morning grumble with would be great, because she was going to miss the little crew from the open space she worked in across the city. They practically lived in each other’s pockets when they were working on projects, split meal costs, and kept up a constant chatter about just about everything when they weren’t singing a jumbled karaoke to whatever they were personally listening to on their separate iPods or laptops. It was an entirely different world and Indi just wanted someone in this one to befriend.

New York hadn’t exactly been the kindest of places to her, but she wasn’t the type to run away from something. She persevered, and she would stick at something until she was satisfied. Just because she was nursing a broken heart and had a list of places she could never step foot in again because of the well of horrible memories they unleashed, that didn’t mean she was about to lock herself away forever. Her job was her current and only love, and Indi was damn good at it. She had once been nominated for an award for her art in a game, which at her age was stunning. She had also lived and breathed for that game, which might have also had something to do with it. It had come right after the divorce and she hadn’t wanted to think about that hellish time, so she had just worked until she passed out, ate and repeated. Indi let out a hearty laugh and shook her head. “No! I first taught this class this time last year. Wrapped it up six months ago.” She clarified, chuckling some more. “Don’t worry. Even the kids think I’m a kid. I guess that’s what I get for being an artist and only a professor in passing. It’s what the company wanted though; someone young who could relate to the students. Bring them to the games early or something like that.” She stabbed at her lunch with the fork, talking quickly and without pausing for breath. “I’m twenty-five though - since you asked.” She smirked, glancing across at him before lifting her fork to her lips.

• • •

TAGGED! Noah Quinn O'Halloran
WORDS! 628!
OUTFIT! Video Game Vixen!
LYRICS! King of the World - - - First Aid Kit
NOTES! <3

[Noah Quinn O'Halloran]

Noah might have been a shell of the person he’d once been but he was slowly returning to that man properly. It was taking a lot to get him there but it was happening. Nick would have been so annoyed with him and he knew it but it didn’t matter how many times he told himself were the roles reversed Nick would have bounced back a hell of a lot better than Noah has been so far. But he was not his brother and without Nick, Noah was still a lost boy, searching to find himself in this whole new world without the one person who knew him better than he knew himself. It had been more than just losing his brother, he’d lost a part of him and that was the hardest thing to get over. The brother’s had done everything together, even the sports which Noah hadn’t been overly fond of if he ever decided to be honest about it, but Nick had loved them and so Noah went along with it.

He could admit though that he did enjoy rugby and track a fair bit and chose to do those because he liked them and not just because Nick had wanted in on the action and celebrity status that came with being a high school jock. Noah was far better skilled with the electronics and the more artistic school classes and activities. He’d liked his time on the school’s yearbook club, and being the photographer for the school paper and website. He and Nick had been polar opposites but they’d been the absolute best of friends. Without his brother there for him, Noah had fallen into a sort of rut that became smaller with his time in Dublin. But it had also started digging itself again when he’d returned stateside to develop the business he and his roommate had started back in Ireland.

Parts of Noah still thought he should have stayed back in Dublin. He was coming out of his shell in Dublin. He had been more of his old self in that foreign land than he’d ever been back in South Carolina or in New York City. He was making an effort, sort of but it really wasn’t the same. He had no real friends in New York to force him out of the funks he got himself into when he would just sit at his desk and work into the long hours of the night, only to wake up with his head on his keyboard and the indentation of some of the keys on his cheek. “That makes sense.” He acknowledged with a nod before biting into another forkful of salad. “I get where they’re coming from. Get someone around their age in to show them the inner workings. Liven it up and prove that getting into a good place with a great rep is almost immediate. Smart move, wise move.” He agreed. Wasn’t he really doing the same thing? Well, in a way he was. He was there working at the school as a professor until he could get the American side of the company he co-founded up and running as smoothly as the Irish side was.

Tag || indigo leigh bennett
Words || 564
Clothes || Distressed Gent!
Music || The Fault In Our Stars --Troye Sivan
Notes || <3!

[indigo leigh bennett]

Indi was the type of person who dove head first into something. She had always been that way in her approach to life. She’d ignore warnings about dangerous currents and just jump right on in with no thought of the consequences or what might be lurking beneath the murky depths. That was probably one of the contributing factors to why she had been married and divorced all by the age of twenty. It might have been five years later but Indigo had never quite put the pieces of her heart back together after that whole nightmare. It was scotch tape and safety pins keeping it whole right now, but there were still a few holes waiting for missing pieces to be returned. She was too jaded after everything that had happened with the supposed love of her life to go looking for them. Guys could buy her drinks, even take her on a first date, but Indi had never found herself ready for anything more than that. She would never admit it, but she was terrified of making the same mistake twice. It wasn’t like she could erase it and start again, or press undo like on her computer and have it be like it never happened.

So she focused on her games; both playing and making them. It was a busy career, and she could easily lose herself in it without people becoming too concerned that she was hiding from something on the outside. Plus, what helped even more was that Indigo never really lost her sparkle. She was still that bubbly girl who brought in the doughnuts for a Friday morning meeting, or who danced around singing badly with her headphones on when she was having a good run in the studio. She’d dress up in crazy outfits for the game’s promotion, hit up the conventions with an undying passion, and still have enough energy left at the end of that for a big party to celebrate the company’s annual success. Indi was guarded, even a little untrusting, but only when people tried to get close to her heart. In every other aspect of her life she was still as enthusiastic and as imaginative as ever before.

Indi smiled and shrugged lightly. She didn’t mind being at the college every other semester. It was a change of scenery, she supposed, but she still had to turn in a reasonable amount of work at the studio too, and squeeze in any appearances they wanted from her. It was a change of scenery, but not a break. She worked harder for these few months than she did at any other time of the year. “Yeah, but it’s kids and video games. They’re usually hooked in the beginning and then get turned off when they realise that it’s constant hard work and not ‘here’s a monster I drew – put it in a game, bro’.” She deepened her voice for the impression and then shook her head. More kids had dropped off her class last year when she started marking them down for only doing one angle of their creature or person, ignoring how many times she had emphasised they needed a full 3D model to pass with flying colours.

• • •

TAGGED! Noah Quinn O'Halloran
WORDS! 540!
OUTFIT! Video Game Vixen!
LYRICS! King of the World - - - First Aid Kit
NOTES! <3