What these eyes don't see...

[rumour]

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Slipping the sunglasses over her eyes, Rumour twisted her hair up atop of her head and pulled a beanie over the top. There. Done. Pacing the familiar route from her bedroom to the front door, she stepped quietly past the living room where her sleeping father lay, pausing a half step to make sure he was still breathing deeply enough to indicate he was passed out, and left the house. She paused outside for a second, her hand still on the door handle as she readjusted herself to the side world, the glare of wintery sunlight coming through her sunglasses. Reaching into her pocket, Rumour closed her hand around the stout pen like contraption within the denim and turned around, stepping out onto the pavement.

She wandered the route she knew for a while, walking slowly and enjoying the feel of the cool breeze coming through her cardigan. Turning into what she knew to be the park, she blinked as the world of colour she knew changed from the dull grey and white of buildings around her to the bright green of the grass. It was a school day, and mostly the ark was void of the riot she might normally encounter at the weekend. Though she liked noise, hate the solitude of silence, at the same time too much was disorientating for the girl who depended on her hearing for guidance.

Rumour walked for a while, her eyes tracking various sounds as she walked – a large dog playing fetch, a jogger, and eventually she left the track altogether, wandering towards the darker greens that indicated trees, away from the slight noise of the more populated areas, and towards the trees she had once used to climb as a child, under whose branches she had lain in the summer and watched the skies, making shapes from the clouds. Sometimes, Rumour missed those days.

On a whim, as a loose curl tickled her cheek, rumour grinned, and ran the rest of the way towards such a tree, slowing only to reach out her hand and catch the rough bark on her fingertips. Training them, she circled the truck, lifting her hand higher until they caught on a branch. It was dangerous, and stupid, but she ached. She ached and she hurt and her sunglasses covered what felt like a black eye. She didn’t care about dangerous and stupid.

Pulling herself up, Rumour climbed.

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*Wearing

[Ever Goodman]

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Ever had been up for a few hours, at least. Long enough to hear his neighbors in the hotel room next door pack up and leave, long enough to hear the maid roll her cart by and flick the DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door before moving on, long enough to hear her come by a little later, cursing when the sign was -still- there.
He didn’t have any reason to get up today, anyway. Work was canceled due to some zoning issue, he didn’t have a ton of money in his pocket to play with and…yeah. He didn’t have much going on in his life. For the amnesiac sometimes it was just easier to sleep through a day here or a week there. No one would miss him. He wouldn’t miss anything. He was just killing time.

Rolling onto his back Ever squinted his obsidian eyes at the thin beam of sunlight streaming in from the window where the blinds had been folded over and torn, and then reached a hand out, catching in his palm the dust particles playing in the ray like tiny insects at the disco. Moving his hand around he watched them scatter and dance, laughing quietly in easy amusement until he felt that burning pressure in his belly that decided it was time to get up now. Stretching his limbs out before throwing them over the side of the bed, Ever smacked his lips and ran a hand through the hair sticking up on his head and then finally pulled himself up to stand.
His body was all kinds of sore from construction work the day before, so after making use of the plumbing he started the shower and climbed in, rubbing away all the dirt, sweat and sore until it washed down the drain in a foamy twister.

By the time he stepped out of the shower the room was nice and steamy, so he didn’t rush; taking his time toweling off and then wrapping it round his waist before putting a toothbrush to his gums.
Using the side of one hand Ever wiped the fog off the mirror as he brushed, staring into two dark brown eyes he recognized about as much as the scar across the bridge of his nose. He almost felt a tinge of sorrow. Almost. Before the useless emotion could take up root in the garden of his chest, he plucked the weed out, chewing it up and spitting it out along with the blue foamy toothpaste in his mouth.

He wandered back out into the main room of the space he’d been renting for the past two weeks and pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt that had been hanging from the chair beside the door, making sure to sniff it first so that he was satisfied they didn’t reek.
Deciding his time was better wasted making pictures to put in his ‘book’ the young man pulled some sunglasses and a black sweatshirt on, and threw his camera around his neck before heading out into the day.

Ever didn’t have a car, so anywhere he went he got there on foot. Walking no where in particular and taking pictures of everything that inspired him, the man saw the green through the lens before he noticed the air on his face and hands had grown cooler due to the blanket of towering trees and tall bushes keeping the sunlight from his frame.
Through his lens…everything was beautiful. It was safe. It was a thing he knew something about even though the image was something he’d never seen before. It would become his life. Tucked away in his book it would be a memory that he would never be able to lose.
A sound from above directed his attention upwards, and Ever aimed the camera just in time to see a mocha haired female climbing rather awkwardly up a perfectly good climbing tree.

He smirked, and moved closer, tilting his head as he tilted the camera to get a better shot. And other, and other. A quiet chuckle of amusement echoed through the wind as he moved again, this time to get the picture from a better angle.

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[rumour]

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This,was a lot harder than Rumour had anticipated. With nothing short of memory to work on, of climbing similar trees when she had been younger, why the hell had she thought that this might be a good idea? Not that she’d stop now. Not that she’d give up. Not until she reached the thick branch she could blurrily make out as darker shape. Of course, it could also be a denser patch in the leaves making the lights she could see darker – or it could be a phantom, a trick of her own eyes. She’d fallen for those before. She stood on the branch, shakily, and paused for a moment as her hands braced around the trunk, skimming the surface with her fingers, seeking out the next branch.

They found it, just to her left and above her head, her fingers tips brushing it. To reach it... she’d have to jump. Which meant a long fall. And a pain in the ass on the way down. She paused for a moment, the wind whistling in her ears as she thought about. Eventually, after a long moment, she shrugged. She’d come this far, and the solid mass she was beginning to believe was a branch was only a little higher. Wiping her palms along her jeans, Rumour shifted her position slightly, and jumped.

She heard laughter as she grabbed the branch, and very nearly let go. Dangling for a minute, she looked around, but the breeze tore away the soft clicks of a camera away from even her enhanced ears. Frowning, she worked on pulling herself up, but winced when the strain caused a flashing pain down her side. Shit. She’d forgotten about that one, the bruised ribs she had obtained a week or two earlier. Rumour thought those at least would be ok by now, but apparently not. Swearing under her breath, she shifted again and tried to walk along the trunk and up, her trainers gripping the rough bark beneath them.

It worked, and Rumour managed to get her leg up over the branch, rolling herself onto its length and laying her head against the cool wood. There, she’d done it... now no one was about to tell her she couldn’t. She grinned to herself – these last seven years had all been about doing what others told her she could not, even if it wasn’t in her best interest. She couldn’t go out without her tick, she couldn’t continue living with her father, she had to press charges.... no. She’d do what she liked.

Sitting up, she leaned back against the trunk and lifted a hand to her head, only to find her beanie had fallen off. Fabulous. That was going to take forever to find. Sighing, she leant her head back and removed her sunglasses, blinking at the wave of new light. Perhaps this high enough for today after all. She glanced around, her eyes tracking a bird as it flew past, head turning to follow it when she thought she saw... something moving out the corner of her eye. Frowning, she called out. ”Hello? Is there someone down there?”

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*Wearing

[Ever Goodman]

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So this was was -way- better than watching ‘who da’ baby daddy’ on Jerry Springer or horribly directed soft core porn back at the motel room. Ever watched the young woman through the lens of his camera, climbing up the tree a bit awkwardly, but with a confidence that was apparent in the way she would only pause for the briefest moment before jumping to the next branch.
It looked like a lot of fun, actually, and Ever wondered if he’d ever climbed a tree like that, or if he had, had he been any good at it?

He lowered the camera to watch her tentatively feel the rough bark under her finger pads as if observing it through her touch, and he cocked his head when she became still to listen to some secret on the breeze or to watch something which was carried by it, though he saw or heard nothing save the creak of the bough under her sneakers.
Maybe he ought to make his presence known before she suddenly noticed he was standing there and took him as some sort of perverted stalker. Ever really didn’t want to scare her and make her fall. He imagined that would make for a very bad day. Possibly one grumpy lady.
Hearing her light wince and noticing that she seemed to strain to pull herself up, Ever wrinkled his brow and rubbed absently at the back of his neck. She was gonna’ fall anyway. He just knew it.

But the agile little woman didn’t fall, instead, shimmying the rest of the way up the tree. A crooked grin appeared on his face and he snorted softly, nodding his head in quiet reverence as she lie lengthways over the branch for a moment before pulling herself up to sit back against the trunk. He was distracted for a moment by something floating down from her perch, and bent to retrieve the little grey knit skullcap from a nest of dried leaves by his feet.
Glancing back up at the woman Ever lifted his hand to show her he had found it, but narrowed his eyes in confusion when it seemed he was the invisible man. He rubbed his brow and watched her lift her gaze to the sky, taking in the vision with a slight, absent smile on her face.

While she was distracted, (or ignoring him-- he wasn’t sure) Ever lifted his camera with one hand and snapped another picture of her. This time he was zoomed into that smile. For some reason he felt like that was something you didn’t see very often on that face.
It even drew a little one across his. A fleeting one anyway, that is until she called out to him as if she couldn’t see him standing right there below her.

“Yeah. I’m here.” He answered and held up the beanie, waving it around like a flag and he was surrendering. “You dropped this.”


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[rumour]

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Fabulous. She had a spectator – that was exactly what she wanted. Not. Rumour was fine with making a fool of herself in the comfort of her own solitude, but when it came to others? Not so much. Peering down through the trees, she lifted a hand to wave back. She thought maybe she could see him, a blurry shape below her, all dark and such, but if she was being entirely honest, it could just as easily be the shadow of the damn tree she was sitting on. With only his few words to go on, and the breeze ripping even them away from their original place, she was hoping she was far enough that he (presuming it was a he that is. The voice definitely sounded masculine) couldn’t see if she was looking directly at him or not. She contemplated putting her glasses back on, but wasn’t about to lose them to the inevitability of gravity as well.

Rumour lay back down across the branch, wrapping an arm around the branch and resting her head on her hand. ”Hi, I’m, i’m your. You got my hat? Thanks”Well, that was going to make life a little easier when she got down, but seeing as she was yet to decide just how she was doing that, she pondered for a moment just what to do. It’d be alright if he just hung around there wouldn’t it.... n’aaaw. It would be crazy ass stalkerish. ”Hey, just leave it in on branch or something? I’ll get it when i come back down. Waiting for some fit fireman to come rescue me... or superman. Whoever show up first.” Sitting back up, Rumour winced when the branch creaked, and she heard a cracking sound. Fabulous. She knew having that extra pancake the other day was a bad idea. Now she was going to plummet to her death before a complete stranger.

Well, wasn’t her day getting better and better?

Sitting perfectly still, Rumour tried not to shift her weight any further, her thoughts gone from the possible man below her and concentrating instead solely on the branch around which her legs were tightly wrapped. Should she try and go down? No. That was a silly idea, and she dismissed the fleeting notion with a curl of her fingers. She had to jump to get up here... and she couldn’t judge depth very well, never mind see the bloody branch she would be dropping too. Swearing under her breath , Rumour glanced around in the vain hope her eyes might make out something fuzzy she hadn’t seen before as the branch continued to creak beneath her.””

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*Wearing

[Ever Goodman]

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So she -wasn’t- ignoring him. Ever furrowed his brows and narrowed his eyes, focusing on the way her gaze was…less than focused. Still, it was pretty odd that she hadn’t noticed him before. The tree wasn’t that tall and the wind not as loud as it could be while it whipped through the winter stripped trees. He figured she was high or maybe drunk, but either way her perch seemed awfully precarious and intoxicated or not it was gonna’ be hell getting down from up there.
This very fact was reiterated by the creaking of the bough that she sat upon, and Ever tilted his head and arched a dark russet eyebrow when she dismissed him so easily on account she was waiting on superman to rescue her. He was pretty amused by the fact that she knew she needed rescuing and wouldn’t ask him for help, and even more so that she didn’t even realize Superman was probably off saving Lois Lane. What a trouble magnet that broad was. He’d really liked that Jimmy character though…that guy was cool. (Yes, he had just recently seen the movie for the fortieth time though to the guy with extreme amnesia it was his first.)

He snorted. “Fit firemen, huh?” Ever repeated and twirled the little grey beret on his index finger. “Don’t you think they’ve got better things to do than getting cats out of trees?” The ex-hunter amnesiac smirked and twirled the hat again, pretty pleased with his come back since a woman who’d so easily dismiss help must have some kind of feline attitude issues. He shook his head and hung the beanie from a skinny tree limb reaching out towards him like a pointing finger and then stuffed his hands into his pockets on account he really didn’t know what to do with them.

“Anyway…” Ever shrugged, kicking lightly at the base of the tree since now that his hands were in his pockets he needed something else to do. “I’ll leave you to Superman then…” And he turned to leave, but paused, something holding him back from doing the very thing she had requested. No, he was no stalker and no pervert, he was just a man, and she was a woman, and one that would find herself impaled on a limb or laid on the ground with a broken leg or worse if she wasn’t careful.

Ever twisted around just slightly at another loud groan from the tree and winced, lifting a hand from his pocket to rub the top of his head absently. “But…in case Superman is taking too long putting his tights on…just ask. I’ll help you get down.”



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[rumour]

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”PSH”She called down to him, whilst desperately trying to ignore the way the branch was moving beneath her. ”When the cats look as good as me, they make the exceptions.”Of course, Rumour had no idea what she was saying was anything close to the truth, given that she had not seen her reflection in seven years, but it had sounded good in her head when she had said it anyway, and at the end of the day that was all that mattered to the mousy brown haired girl currently stuck in a tree. Mrow.

Still, her cool exterior was quickly crumbling as the branch protested more under her weight, and Rumour swore under her breath, cursing the day she had decided that pound cake was a healthy breakfast alternative. Nervously almost, as her hands braced herself on the trunk of the tree, as if trying to lift her weight from the branch, rumour caught the dark blue coloured bar that stuck through her tongue in her teeth and drew it across the outside. The clacking sound was loud enough that it distracted her from the prickly situation in which she was finding herself but succeeded in only a practical manner so much as it stripped off yet more enamel form her teeth.

Her dentist was going to be furious.

”No. I’m good. I’m just going to wait for superman if the firemen are a bit caught up.” She waved him off with her hand, returning to clacking her bar across her teeth as she continued to glance around. She was trying to listen for the creak of another bough, an indication that there was one nearby that she could find, but her searching hands found nothing of the sort, and her ears could make out no such form of sanctuary.

Rumour jumped slightly when the limb creaked again, which only resulted in the damn thing beginning to break with a stomach turning lurch. Swallowing, she did what even she believed to be a bad idea, and called out again. ”You know what? They must have some terribly important fire to work on... or there’s another, prettier girls tuck up in a tree on the other side of the park, and they got distracted. Seeing as i’d rather not add to my bruises today... mind pulling on some tights and helping me down from here?” The rbanch gave again, and Rumour elt out a rather indignified squeak, which, under any other circumstance would have given the slight girl reason to turn a deep shade of scarlet. ”Quickly?”

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Header by the luffly Drake

*Wearing

[Ever Goodman]

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Ever snorted quietly, shaking his head and wearing a smirk of absolute incredulity. Was she serious? Surely she could hear the creaking underneath her; the crackling protest from the branch where she was perched ironically enough like a cat stuck in a tree.
He wasn’t blind. The look of cool that had graced her face was fading, replaced by a wide empty stare and the nervous clacking of something in her mouth. The woman was intolerable. Shrugging, the young man decided that if she didn’t want his help, that was fine by him. He wasn’t certain he’d ever climbed a tree and really, what if he’d ended up looking like an ass or something?
In unison with a groan from the bough, a little bear growl came from his stomach, and he decided that was a sign. He had better things to do. There -was- that new Thai restaurant down the block from work he’d wanted to try. Yep. That was a plan.

“Fine, okay…yeah, I’m hungry anyway.” Ever held his hands up in surrender, and turned to leave, this time for real. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the pack of smokes that was burning a hole in his pocket, tapping one out and shoving it between his lips.
He had to pause as he fished around for the lighter. It wasn’t in his jacket so he started patting around his jeans. That was when he heard the sound of wood splitting behind him, and his lips slanted up at the corners just a bit.

When the cracking sound was followed by a vulnerable, albeit completely snarky plea for help from the girl, Ever turned back around, watching with an amused lift of his brows and a smirk written across his mouth. The cigarette was still hung from his lips unlit and for the moment he was satisfied to just watch the girl squeak and struggle to stay on the breaking branch.

“I don’t wear tights. Boxers are bad enough.” Ever replied dryly, absently resuming the patting around his jean pockets for the lighter. “Not that I wear those either, much.” He added, indifferent to whether the statement was bad-mannered or too informative. Who was she to judge? He wasn’t the one stuck in a tree.
Taking his time, he shoved the pack of smokes back into his jacket pocket and made his way directly underneath the girl. This was too good to pass up. It was a scene out of a movie. A comedy, actually. His smirk widened and he decided to play with her for a little while.

“Just jump down. I’ll catch you.” He told her, holding his arms out and laughing around the unlit smoke still between his lips.
Of course the man didn’t gauge just how precarious Rumour’s perch really was, and the laugh turned into a grunt when it broke and the female tumbled down, catching him off guard and knocking him to the ground.

Winded, Ever coughed, struggling underneath the slight woman as he tried to catch his breath. Not that she was heavy, quite the reverse as she was slender and petite, but her position across his chest was …well, honestly it wasn’t bad, but he knew in just about five seconds if he didn’t say something she would probably have something snappy to say about not catching her properly.
He turned his head sideways and something metallic caught his dark chocolate eye. The pack of cigs that had been in his pocket must have gotten knocked out and there, coming out of the little cardboard rectangle, was his blue lighter.
Wriggling, he stretched an arm up and palmed the lighter, bringing it down to the cig still perched on his mouth. “You mind?” Ever asked her quite rhetorically, for he already had the flame headed towards the cancer stick while he drew a breath in.




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[rumour]

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IFRumour could see this silly, stupid, arrogant man, she would have looked down at him as if he were crazy. Jump? What the hell? ”What? You mean you haven’t got a hand dandy ladder to pull out your ass?” She called down to him, sounding a lot more feisty and confident about her current predicament than what she actually felt. But then, that was Rumour all over. Feisty and sarcastic on the outside, scared half out of her wits on the inside, and yet nobody ever guessed. ”S’alright. I can wait till you find one. S’not like it’s Dawn French sat up-”Her comment was cut off as the branch finally gave way however. Apparently, the Branch didn’t agree with her dawn French comment – that or it had been so scared that an large comedian had been about to add her weight to its limb, and it had simply given up on the struggle.

Too surprised to even let out a squeak this time, Rumour fell, and landed on something that was pretty hard and felt like cement to her bruised ribs. She let out a choking breath, closing her eyes against the searing hot pain that shot up through her ribs and across her chest, constricting her lungs further than a little winding could be held accountable for. Well. It appeared she’d landed on top of him after all, and she had to admit, she’d rather him to the ground beneath the two of them. Still. Didn’t mean she was happy about the whole thing, but right then, for a few moments at least, she was a little too busy trying to force her breath back down into her lungs and fight of the nausea inducing pain in her side to come out with the snide comment she really wanted too, or do anything but half sit and half lay across his chest.

Finally collecting her wits, and with a little prompting from his words, Rumour crawled from him and groped around for the sunglasses that had fallen from her head at some point during her rapid descent to the earth. Her fingers eventually found the frames in the soft grass, and she groaned when she realised that one of the lenses had fallen out. Grumbling, she picked them up anyway and stood, shoving them deep in into the pocket of her cardigan. Dammit. She’d worn them out today to cover the damn bruise over her eye, never mind to stop the glare that affected her blind eyes, that caused many of the blurs she could normally make out to disappear in the white of the sun.

Turning, she could just about make out the dark blue of her ‘saviour’ still laid out on the grass, and the smell of cigarette smoke. Scrunching her nose, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and, she hoped, glared at him. ”My Saviour. You Jinxed the damn tree! I hope I crushed your ribs or something if you can’t even catch me properly. ”

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Header by the luffly Drake

*Wearing

[Ever Goodman]

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Ever couldn’t help the quiet chuckle of amusement that escaped his parted lips as the girl rolled off him with a grunt and then proceeded to pat around the ground like one of the Three Blind Mice instead of the cat that had been stuck up the tree. He sat up a little to watch her, resting his weight on his elbow and bringing the cigarette back up to his lips with the other hand before taking a long drag.
Blowing the wispy smoke out through his nostrils Ever furrowed his brow when his russet stare fell on Rumour’s profile and the angry black eye glared back at him. It was too apparent to have happened in the fall, and by the looks of it had been made with a clenched fist rather than a tree limb. The thought of the frail girl in a brawl, regardless of her snarky mouth, stirred in his chest as a prickle to deep to scratch, so he used the two fingers holding his smoke to rub at it until he was distracted from the pang.

When she found what she was searching for, which happened to be the dark glasses that had been hiding the black eye, the young woman hopped up and turned a heated glare on him…well, in his general direction. The creases in Ever’s forehead deepened, and the corners of his lips fell further. It appeared she was closer to the small unseeing rodent than the tree-climbing feline that he’d assumed. She was blind. Or at least partially so.

Sitting up straighter, Ever almost felt horrible for the manner which he’d responded to her sarcasm before, but that changed almost instantly when Rumour opened her mouth again.

Scowling, the amnesiac took a long pull of his cigarette and then tossed it away, Smokey the Bear be damned. He tugged himself up to stand and wiped at the moss and leaves clinging to his clothing before shoving his hands into his pockets again.
“I think I’ll live…” He retorted dryly, narrowing his onyx eyes at her. “You -are- heavier than you look though. Should probably cut back on the Twinkies and Ho-Hos.” It was a lie, of course, as the girl was nothing more than skin and bones, but Ever wasn’t the type of guy to let her brand of attitude concern him none. He wasn’t practiced in the art of taking on bratty women, or at least that he could remember, but he knew the very thing that pissed them off most was acting as if he didn’t give a shit about her bitchiness.
“It was those Twinkie hips that jinxed the limb, sweetheart not me. I’m just the guy that stood around waiting to help you out…which… I failed, sorry…so…I guess I’ll leave you to your tree climbing or contemplating or…whatever you were doing before.”

He turned his back on her and began walking away, casting a glance over his shoulder at her after a few steps. “Don’t forget your hat.”

Ever didn’t really want to leave her there, but seeing as how she was so unappreciative of his tryin to help he didn’t think she’d want him seeing her out of the woods.





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