Tumgik
sevlawless · 10 days
Text
Tumblr media
Barana Hanabneiho Organisation (BHO)
Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG)
Hadhreen (7adhreen)
Nas Al Sudan
Sadagaat Charity Organisation
Sudanese American Medical Association (SAMA)
Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA)
Sudanese Diaspora Network (SDN)
Sudan Tarada Initiative and Save Al Geneina Initiative by Sadiea
Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS)
Sudan Solidarity Collective (SSC)
Takaful Organisation
24K notes · View notes
sevlawless · 29 days
Text
Tumblr media
hello hello! we've hit another milestone!!
thank you to you all who are following this creative journey -- i appreciate it beyond words and it's amazing to watch this project grow with so much overwhelming support!
in celebration i would like to offer 1 piece of artwork and 2 short stories about the crew members of your choice! this will only be available to my current followers, any new goers after this post is up will not be counted.
the prizes!
1st: a portrait of your PC (examples) and choose which crew member will have a short story written about them.
2nd: choose which crew member will have a short story written about them.
how + when?
reblog this post for entry! you only need to reblog once for entry, multiple reblogs are not multiple entries. if you are reblogging to a sideblog, please #tag your main url. likes do not count as an entry.
the chance to enter this giveaway ends on the 5th of April at midnight (12pm) GMT.
the winner will be contacted in the following days - if you do not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.
again thank you to everyone that has followed me and played the game so far - your support and enthusiasm means so much to me and i am so excited to see where we are at our next milestone! good luck!! 🏁
166 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 29 days
Text
@ fic authors what do you personally consider a successful fic? What’s the bar?
80K notes · View notes
sevlawless · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
O Quinn's Valentine Short is up at 7.7k words. Something fun and not too serious. I just wanted to write something lighthearted. Available for both 3$ and 6$ tiers. Enjoy :) PLAY HERE
271 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
So sorry for the delay! ! My VS Code program wasn't calibrated with CSIDE and in the indentions basically messed up. The prologue coding is so wonky that honestly if I do anything I end up fucking up 2839393 lines of code. If you've been following a while, you're probably well aware of much hatred for the prologue's coding lmao but we live and we learn.
Storyline wise, not much has changed. Scenes are largely the same, since I'm pretty happy with what I wrote a year ago. For this rewrite, I focused mainly on the big things like choices that will impact the rest of the story and O's gender selection. Some new things include:
you can now play with Orion or Oriana Quinn
you can now express if the band went through a musical rebrand after seven and what the old genre was (which will come up later).
you can now choose whether mc "changed" after seven and what change that was (there's 4, technically 2, options and a "default" vague option, im open to more options since I wanted to do this but couldn't really think of any believable ones beyond the four).
new mc personality: attached vs detached. your mc can have an extra attachment to the band for obvious reasons, or can feel the opposite.
coordinating outfits can now be exclusive to the band members. your mc can be the unique unicorn of the group since they're the lead singer (this is definitely not gonna bite them in the ass later)
adding to that, your mc's reason for fame can be due to wanting to keep the band together.
a new flavor text feeling about seven is now added which is basically "idk how I feel" instead of hating or loving them, you can just make it that MC's feelings for them is just a big question mark. REALISM!
stat changes: stern/playful -- same thing as humorous/serious I just wanted words that encompassed a wider range of behavior Leader/follower - whether mc takes on the leader role or not camaraderie - a band stat that measures the trust/morale/closeness of the band
u can probably see where im going with the stats huh....
smaller changes include:
more choices and options
prose changes + dialogue additions and expanded/ added scenes
The beta testers have not touched this yet, as I wanted to bring it out to collect some last suggestions, ideas from Patrons. Of course, as always, if you do catch errors, please let me know.
My main concern for errors: O's pronouns. It was a long process but I may have missed a few pronouns here and there. Please let me know if you catch any <3
PROLOGUE: 93K WORDS (for context, the old prologue and chapter 1 were 92k together. The prologue is a tiny bit inflated but :))) 
I will make a post about beta testers soon. I've been quiet on that front because I've been just prioritizing getting this out first.
Now available for Band tier! (6$)
665 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
prologue done!
finally! <3 today will be spent play testing and by tomorrow or Friday it should hopefully be up for band tier. then I can go back to regular Patreon posts/holiday special + working on the rest. CH1 and CH2 should go by much faster because ive been working on them when I needed breaks from the prologue. CH3 has been outlined. The beta testers haven't all been chosen yet, so that will be announced when they do.
I've taken a lot of suggestions from everyone since the first demo came out, many of which you'll only see after the prologue. but in the prologue I've
expanded and added scenes
expanded choices (more personality choices for variation)(one example: you can now have an MC who is more reliant on drinking from the start aka more choices where MC expresses needing a drink lolol/more of a partier MC and on the other hand, there are more professional, reserved choices)(among others)
fixed prose, added more details, added more conversations
just added a lot more context
and more :)
the biggest would be the scene changes/additions. but yeah. I think this prologue is a lot stronger than it was. I hope it continues that way for the rest until CH3!
Obviously this is still alpha until the beta testers get their hands on it + give feedbacks and suggestions + the rest of the chapters may push me to add more context and additions but I really like it.
That's all! More info on the prologue's changes will be out when I post it on Patreon. Have a good day!!
563 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Note
(hi me again) seven for the playlist ask game <3
s - shampoo by carr
e - end of beginning by djo
v - vow by garbage
e - eventually by tame impala
n - nothing's gonna hurt you baby by cigarettes after sex
send me a name and i'll make a mini playlist with the letters in the name <3
2 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Note
arabella for the playlist ask game <3
a - arabella by arctic monkeys (what else was gonna be the first a . LMFAO)
r - red string by sweet pill
a - are you the one by basement
b - best of it by jackie hayes
e - easier than lying by halsey
l - limp by fiona apple
l - a loving feeling by mitski
a - all over you by live
send me a name and i'll make a mini playlist with the letters in the name <3
2 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
Send me your name and i'll make a mini playlist with the letters in your name
75K notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media
rewrite means all new scenes and branching, this being one example in the new prologue. thanks to my friend who read it and said "you let us help a stranger but we can't even do the normal thing of watching the performance?" ....yeah
but be careful...you may bump into a character or two hehe
515 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media
Chop Shop is strictly 18+ for language, themes, and potential explicit content. 
🔗 - Game Intro | Bug Report | Ko-Fi
Episode Three is now available! (+ 86,000) - PLAY HERE
Get your first taste of the underground car scene.
Meet some other players in the game.
Be made an offer.
5 achievements up for grabs!
And more!
AN: thank you so much for the patience - i've been dying to put this update out. lots of new characters and lots of variation!! there are 3 major paths to choose between in this ep, i recommend trying them all out! and thank you to my betas for keeping me sane lmao
This update comes with a patch and UI refresh (Version 1.1.2) Notes are under the cut. If preferred, you can access them in game in the start menu.
STORY
EPISODE 01:
MC should now be able to smoke! Buying cigarettes at the shop was not triggering correctly. If playing with an old save, you DO NOT have to restart as code at the beginning of EP 03 has resolved the error. Player will need to restart if they wish to read smoking related scenes in previous episodes.
Updated MC Name selection. Player can now choose from a list of names instead of having to input one to proceed.
Player can now give Taha their chocolate bar if it's in their inventory.
When asking Maz about their scars, the second choice 'You want to ask about it but you're going to keep your mouth shut.' should now take you to the correct response.
Extended and updated 'End Game' scenes.
EPISODE 02:
If MC is faint after exiting the car, but also drunk, they should now get the fainting scene, followed by Dilani helping the MC in the bathroom.
UI + TECHNICAL
SETTINGS:
Autoname Save is now defaulted to ON. This is to add ease and flow to gameplay, especially for mobile, tablet, and app users, instead of calling for an inputted saved name. If player wants to input save names, toggle Autoname Saves to OFF.
Autoname Save previously only used the forename of the MC but now includes the surname as well.
Removed the Fullscreen toggle as it is only intended for desktop use. Player can still toggle fullscreen function via the UI bar on the desktop interface.
Added a choice indicator toggle. (This probably won't come into effect until EP 04 or 05)
Changed serif font from Vollkron to EB Garamond.
OTHER:
Changing the MC's pronouns via the Dashboard has been updated. Additionally, after confirmation will take player back to the Dashboard and not close the dialog boxes entirely.
Hovering over 'Personality', 'Motives', and 'Skills' titles in the Dashboard will now display an information box with a definition. Mobile and tablet users will need to tap on the title.
'Resume Game' now only appears on the main menu when there is an autosave in the saves log.
Choices styling changes.
General UI and button style changes.
Fixed errors with the text message styling.
Added styling for reading text off of a page in game.
Darkened blue in light theme 'Skyline' to reduce eye strain.
CREATE A SAVE
Introducing Create a Save! This feature allows players to quickly manufacture a save file and start at a later point in the game.
Set your identity, appearance, history, and statistics; including personality, motives, and skills. Continue to set key decisions made in previous episodes.
Randomise options available for creating a PC and key decisions.
OTHER
Fixed gaps and spacing issues.
Minor phrasing and sentence structure changes.
Grammar and typo fixes.
whew -- that's a lot of patch notes! apologies for so much that needed to be fixed.
this update shouldn't break/ mess with saves but as a disclaimer i will say, if you spot anything funky, broken, or you don't think things are triggering correctly, try starting a new save. the new create a save feature is incredibly code heavy, and it's been tested relentlessly, but i wouldn't be surprised if something crops up.
if starting a new save doesn't resolve your issue - please submit to bug report or just send me an ask/message.
some things have been meaning to get fixed for Some Time - thank you to everyone that is using the bug report form!
apologies if there are typos and/or bugs - this was a long one to edit and my lovely betas did an OUTSTANDING job reading so much for ep 3 - thank you so much again!!! this time i am going to give it a bit more time before i put together a patch so i can grab more error responses haha.
create a save has also added a wee chunk to the word count, somewhere around 6k, but i'm not including it in the episode 03 word count as it's purely code. so, if you think the total wc is off, that's why!
if you've read this far, happy reading and thank you so much for the continued support!! :) - becky <3
667 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
writing a whole ass fic right now. what has the world come to
guys i don't think griffinbella is a joke anymore...
4 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
guys i don't think griffinbella is a joke anymore...
4 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
writer in the dark
pairing: m!seven lawless x f!mc (arabella aveiro)
word count: 2.2k
warnings: swearing, two arguments, and arabella being a big fat meanie!
tags: @masonscig @farahhauville @agentdumortain @getyourselfaunicorn
notes: so i’ve had this idea of “rewriting” the late night bus scene with seven in @infamous-if for a while now and actually had most of it written down and just… stopped for whatever reason! but i dusted her off and she's here in all her glory <3 for a mc like arabella specifically, i just wanted her to be a tad bit meaner and madder than what was allowed and i love venting my frustrations with seven in fic form! this fic wasn't inspired by the lorde song i just thought the title was literally perfect for it <3 without further ado…
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
arabella flips through the pages of her songwriting notebook, procrastinating on what she set out to do before bed. any other time lyrics would be pouring out of her but… well, she doesn’t exactly know where to start.
the past month has been overwhelming, to say the least. winning the last spot for battle of the bands, getting accused of cheating for said spot, finding a new drummer, practicing for hours on end everyday, figuring out what to pack, orion telling her she can’t bring her entire wardrobe on tour.
she finally has time to herself, which she’s begun to realize is going to be a luxury moving forward, but she can’t get her thoughts to come out onto the page.
she sighs, clicking her pen incessantly, as if doing that is going to give her the breakthrough she needs. maybe she just needs a change of scenery. who knew her incredibly small bed wouldn’t offer up any inspiration besides a joke song she wrote with devyn earlier about how badly the tour bus smells.
she sits up and pulls the curtain back before slipping out and trudging to the main area, notebook and pen in hand. she stifles a yawn before she opens the divider that separates the beds from the living room.
one look around and she instantly wishes she had stayed in her bunk.
she sees seven sitting at the table. because, of course, who else would be up at this time of night? his back is to her, but it looks like he’s… writing. or, writing something and then immediately crossing it out.
she almost laughs but stops herself.
he lets out a sigh before running his hands through his hair, and she’s hit with a wave of… deja vu? nostalgia? nausea?
her hands clench at her sides, fingers twitching as she resists the urge to walk over to him and push the strands of hair away from his face, something she used to do so often when they were together. she wonders if he ever thinks about it, when she would tease him for wearing a bandana but was seemingly never able to contain his hair within it.
the overwhelming feeling subsides and she has control over her body again. she walks over to the other end of the table, avoiding seven's intense gaze as she feels him staring at her, doing what feels like trying to burn a hole right through her.
she doesn't say anything as she sits on the couch, getting comfortable as she reopens her notebook. she still feels him staring at her.
she came here to write. seven being here shouldn't be a hindrance, but as she tries and fails for the millionth time to put words on the page, she wonders why it feels this way. she used to be so comfortable in his presence, almost always being joined at the hip. they would always be up at odd hours, trying to figure out lyrics to the new songs they were working on.
together. always together.
she can't succumb to that type of thinking right now. not when he's the closest he's been to her in nearly three years and yet so far away. he put that distance between them, and she understands why, but sometimes she wishes the never ending ocean of separation where he ends and she begins wasn't so wide. she just wishes this wasn't the way things were.
but they are. and for the past three years she's tried coming to terms with that, failing miserably at every turn because as much as she wants to hate him, and a part of her really, really, does, she can't bring herself to commit to it fully. how ironic, she realizes, when giving all of herself to him came as easy to her as breathing.
she shakes her head and puts her focus back to her notebook. she's barely written two lines when she hears his voice.
"aveiro."
she grimaces at the way he says her last name. is that really all she is to him now? he can't even call her arabella? there was once a point in time when all she loved hearing was the sound of her name coming from his lips because she knew it was safe there. safe from the people in her life and on the internet who told her she was too arrogant, too rude, too bitchy to survive in the industry they’re in. but she never cared about that, and neither did seven.
she knows, and she's known for a while now, that she won't ever have that sense of safety again. and maybe that’s why he won't call her that.
"what made you choose me?"
she wants to laugh. three years apart, a dozen songs between them clearly about one another, and that's the question that's eating away at him? she knows it's been bothering him because she can feel the uneasiness coming off him in waves. no matter how hard she tries, she'll never be able to just see him. she'll always see the emotions underneath everything he says and does.
"choose you?" she asks.
"when it came down to it, you chose my band. why?"
she decides it's best to be logical in this situation. he can't get mad about that, can he?
"i just thought it made the most sense. underground wastebasket are unpredictable and volatile, if you haven't noticed."
he makes a face and she realizes that was probably the wrong thing to say. but what does he want her to do? admit that she's still so pathetically in love with him? admit that given the choice, of fucking course she's picking him? she would pick seven over anything and anyone, and despite everything, that'll never change.
"what?" she asks, but it comes out as more of a demand. he’s the one asking stupid questions in the middle of the night. he should be grateful she was coherent enough to give him the response she did, the exhaustion and their close proximity taking a toll on her brain.
"nothing about you makes sense to me, but alright."
it used to, she wants to say. i used to make more sense to you than i did to myself.
she scoffs instead, which makes him grimace. good. "does it really matter who i chose?"
"yes."
he says it so quickly it makes her want to laugh, but the sound dies in her throat. she’d rather die than let him hear a genuine laugh from her.
"i'm just trying to figure out what you’re planning."
it takes her a second to realize he’s being dead serious. "what… i'm planning?"
"this is a competition and i'm not clueless, aveiro."
she’s changing her last name by the end of this tour. she rolls her eyes as far back into her head as they can go before laughing pitifully. "you caught me. i'm currently on a mission to ruin your life.” she reopens her notebook and clicks her pen. ”any big allergies since we last spoke? i have to make sure what to spike your food with."
he glares at her. "you're not funny."
which is seven speak for ‘that was funny, but i hate you so it's not.’ she's getting pretty good at this. at this rate, they'll be back together again in no time.
ha.
“you used to laugh at every fucking thing i said.” she blurts out, sudden anger surging through her.
“and look where that got us,” he replies, not even sparing her a glance as he doodles in his notebook. seriously?
“yeah, my humor definitely explains the stick up your ass and why you left-”
he looks up at her now, barking out a dark laugh, his face full of nothing but contempt for her. “we are not discussing that shit tonight.”
she shrugs. he wants to treat her like a villain, she’ll gladly accept the role. “seems as good a time as any. i can tell chuck to park and we can hash this shit out tonight. because i, for one, am tired-”
“oh, you’re tired? how do you-”
“think you feel?” she scoffs. even now, he's minimizing how she feels because how could she possibly understand. “you’re forgetting that i know you. and don’t fucking interrupt me.”
“i’m not doing this with you. you’re acting like a child-”
“oh, that’s fucking rich-”
they stop talking over each other once they hear the sound of someone clearing their throat. they both turn to look and see avina standing in the doorway looking extremely uncomfortable, rubbing the back of their neck.
arabella realizes that seven wasn’t writing alone after all. he was writing with avina. she doesn’t understand why it hurts the way it does, but it makes her stomach drop and makes her feel stupid all at once.
“um,” avina starts, attempting to break the tension still in the air, “maybe we should-”
“don’t worry, i was just leaving.” arabella interjects, quickly grabbing her things from the table. she wants to look at seven before she leaves, but decides better on it. she doesn’t think she could stomach seeing the all too familiar look of hurt on his face. the look he always wears in her dreams before she snaps awake, sweating and shaking.
she knows she shouldn’t, but her body moves against her wishes and her head swivels to look back at the table. seven’s back is to her and avina has their arm wrapped around his shoulders, comforting him in the aftermath. claiming a job that was once hers.
a rage bubbles up inside of her and before she can think better of it, her mouth starts moving, calling out, “have fun writing another song about me. good luck!”
she quickly climbs into bed so she doesn’t have to hear any kind of response, pulling the curtain closed with as much force as she can muster.
her head is throbbing now, and she groans softly as her face hits the pillow. she feels hollow. arguing with seven when they were friends always made her feel uneasy, and that feeling only amplified when they started dating.
three years later and that same anxiety creeps its way back into her heart and leaves her utterly exhausted, hands shaking, with tears pricking the corners of her eyes. god, she feels pathetic. they're not even through the first night on this bus and she's breaking down over an interaction that she escalated.
she wants to blame this all on seven, but she knows deep down she brought this on herself. when they were together, arabella thought that seven only brought out the best in her. three years later, and she knows he’s capable of bringing out the worst in her too.
her phone buzzes beside her in bed and she checks the notification. it's from rowan.
open up.
she rolls her eyes, wanting to text back that he could just open the curtain on her bunk if he really wanted to talk. but she knows he's doing it so she can hide the fact she's been crying before she faces him.
and she hates that. she fucking hates that he knows how she gets dealing with seven, and yet ignored her feelings so blatantly earlier.
she quickly wipes her eyes before sitting up and pulling back the thin curtain to reveal rowan standing there, if a little awkwardly. he's in his pajamas, hands in his pockets.
“hey,” he starts, not exactly sure what to say. “you... okay?”
he grimaces as soon as the words leave his mouth, and if looks could kill, arabella would have just struck him down.
“right,” he chuckles nervously. “stupid question.”
she feels that rage from before, quietly simmering and now back to boiling, face growing hot. “yeah, a stupid ass question, rowan.”
his eyes widen. “i’m sorry, i-”
“can you just leave me alone?” she interrupts, voice cracking at the end of her question. “i know you're trying to be helpful, but i really don't want to talk to you right now.”
“arabella-”
“no,” she says, tone sharp and laced with venom, “you got what you wanted earlier, and now i’m cashing in my favor. we’ll talk later.”
he looks like he wants to protest, but he sighs instead. “okay.” he gives her one last look before walking back to his own bunk.
she groans in frustration before pulling the curtain back closed again. she's going to have it ripped off and they haven't even been on this bus a full day.
tears prick her eyes again and it takes everything in her to not succumb to how awful she feels.
this is all she's ever wanted. she should be happy to be on tour with her best friends, competing in battle of the bands. making a name for herself. finally achieving her dreams.
so why does she feel so bad? why does the past, it seems like, always come back to haunt her?
she glances at her songwriting notebook again and picks it up, along with her pen. she opens it to the first blank page she can find and quickly starts writing down lyrics, her brain going a million miles a minute.
this tour better be fucking worth it, she thinks to herself as she keeps writing.
it has to be.
for everything she's been through, something has to finally work out in her favor. something to make up for everything she's lost and overcome.
and this tour is just the beginning.
31 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
playing the flashback while also listening to my griffin x mc playlist was insane wouldn't recommend
1 note · View note
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media
The concert flashback is here! And it's 24.2k words. It's available for both band and fan tiers. PLAY HERE
If there are any errors, please let me know!
231 notes · View notes
sevlawless · 2 months
Text
writer in the dark
pairing: m!seven lawless x f!mc (arabella aveiro)
word count: 2.2k
warnings: swearing, two arguments, and arabella being a big fat meanie!
tags: @masonscig @farahhauville @agentdumortain @getyourselfaunicorn
notes: so i’ve had this idea of “rewriting” the late night bus scene with seven in @infamous-if for a while now and actually had most of it written down and just… stopped for whatever reason! but i dusted her off and she's here in all her glory <3 for a mc like arabella specifically, i just wanted her to be a tad bit meaner and madder than what was allowed and i love venting my frustrations with seven in fic form! this fic wasn't inspired by the lorde song i just thought the title was literally perfect for it <3 without further ado…
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
arabella flips through the pages of her songwriting notebook, procrastinating on what she set out to do before bed. any other time lyrics would be pouring out of her but… well, she doesn’t exactly know where to start.
the past month has been overwhelming, to say the least. winning the last spot for battle of the bands, getting accused of cheating for said spot, finding a new drummer, practicing for hours on end everyday, figuring out what to pack, orion telling her she can’t bring her entire wardrobe on tour.
she finally has time to herself, which she’s begun to realize is going to be a luxury moving forward, but she can’t get her thoughts to come out onto the page.
she sighs, clicking her pen incessantly, as if doing that is going to give her the breakthrough she needs. maybe she just needs a change of scenery. who knew her incredibly small bed wouldn’t offer up any inspiration besides a joke song she wrote with devyn earlier about how badly the tour bus smells.
she sits up and pulls the curtain back before slipping out and trudging to the main area, notebook and pen in hand. she stifles a yawn before she opens the divider that separates the beds from the living room.
one look around and she instantly wishes she had stayed in her bunk.
she sees seven sitting at the table. because, of course, who else would be up at this time of night? his back is to her, but it looks like he’s… writing. or, writing something and then immediately crossing it out.
she almost laughs but stops herself.
he lets out a sigh before running his hands through his hair, and she’s hit with a wave of… deja vu? nostalgia? nausea?
her hands clench at her sides, fingers twitching as she resists the urge to walk over to him and push the strands of hair away from his face, something she used to do so often when they were together. she wonders if he ever thinks about it, when she would tease him for wearing a bandana but was seemingly never able to contain his hair within it.
the overwhelming feeling subsides and she has control over her body again. she walks over to the other end of the table, avoiding seven's intense gaze as she feels him staring at her, doing what feels like trying to burn a hole right through her.
she doesn't say anything as she sits on the couch, getting comfortable as she reopens her notebook. she still feels him staring at her.
she came here to write. seven being here shouldn't be a hindrance, but as she tries and fails for the millionth time to put words on the page, she wonders why it feels this way. she used to be so comfortable in his presence, almost always being joined at the hip. they would always be up at odd hours, trying to figure out lyrics to the new songs they were working on.
together. always together.
she can't succumb to that type of thinking right now. not when he's the closest he's been to her in nearly three years and yet so far away. he put that distance between them, and she understands why, but sometimes she wishes the never ending ocean of separation where he ends and she begins wasn't so wide. she just wishes this wasn't the way things were.
but they are. and for the past three years she's tried coming to terms with that, failing miserably at every turn because as much as she wants to hate him, and a part of her really, really, does, she can't bring herself to commit to it fully. how ironic, she realizes, when giving all of herself to him came as easy to her as breathing.
she shakes her head and puts her focus back to her notebook. she's barely written two lines when she hears his voice.
"aveiro."
she grimaces at the way he says her last name. is that really all she is to him now? he can't even call her arabella? there was once a point in time when all she loved hearing was the sound of her name coming from his lips because she knew it was safe there. safe from the people in her life and on the internet who told her she was too arrogant, too rude, too bitchy to survive in the industry they’re in. but she never cared about that, and neither did seven.
she knows, and she's known for a while now, that she won't ever have that sense of safety again. and maybe that’s why he won't call her that.
"what made you choose me?"
she wants to laugh. three years apart, a dozen songs between them clearly about one another, and that's the question that's eating away at him? she knows it's been bothering him because she can feel the uneasiness coming off him in waves. no matter how hard she tries, she'll never be able to just see him. she'll always see the emotions underneath everything he says and does.
"choose you?" she asks.
"when it came down to it, you chose my band. why?"
she decides it's best to be logical in this situation. he can't get mad about that, can he?
"i just thought it made the most sense. underground wastebasket are unpredictable and volatile, if you haven't noticed."
he makes a face and she realizes that was probably the wrong thing to say. but what does he want her to do? admit that she's still so pathetically in love with him? admit that given the choice, of fucking course she's picking him? she would pick seven over anything and anyone, and despite everything, that'll never change.
"what?" she asks, but it comes out as more of a demand. he’s the one asking stupid questions in the middle of the night. he should be grateful she was coherent enough to give him the response she did, the exhaustion and their close proximity taking a toll on her brain.
"nothing about you makes sense to me, but alright."
it used to, she wants to say. i used to make more sense to you than i did to myself.
she scoffs instead, which makes him grimace. good. "does it really matter who i chose?"
"yes."
he says it so quickly it makes her want to laugh, but the sound dies in her throat. she’d rather die than let him hear a genuine laugh from her.
"i'm just trying to figure out what you’re planning."
it takes her a second to realize he’s being dead serious. "what… i'm planning?"
"this is a competition and i'm not clueless, aveiro."
she’s changing her last name by the end of this tour. she rolls her eyes as far back into her head as they can go before laughing pitifully. "you caught me. i'm currently on a mission to ruin your life.” she reopens her notebook and clicks her pen. ”any big allergies since we last spoke? i have to make sure what to spike your food with."
he glares at her. "you're not funny."
which is seven speak for ‘that was funny, but i hate you so it's not.’ she's getting pretty good at this. at this rate, they'll be back together again in no time.
ha.
“you used to laugh at every fucking thing i said.” she blurts out, sudden anger surging through her.
“and look where that got us,” he replies, not even sparing her a glance as he doodles in his notebook. seriously?
“yeah, my humor definitely explains the stick up your ass and why you left-”
he looks up at her now, barking out a dark laugh, his face full of nothing but contempt for her. “we are not discussing that shit tonight.”
she shrugs. he wants to treat her like a villain, she’ll gladly accept the role. “seems as good a time as any. i can tell chuck to park and we can hash this shit out tonight. because i, for one, am tired-”
“oh, you’re tired? how do you-”
“think you feel?” she scoffs. even now, he's minimizing how she feels because how could she possibly understand. “you’re forgetting that i know you. and don’t fucking interrupt me.”
“i’m not doing this with you. you’re acting like a child-”
“oh, that’s fucking rich-”
they stop talking over each other once they hear the sound of someone clearing their throat. they both turn to look and see avina standing in the doorway looking extremely uncomfortable, rubbing the back of their neck.
arabella realizes that seven wasn’t writing alone after all. he was writing with avina. she doesn’t understand why it hurts the way it does, but it makes her stomach drop and makes her feel stupid all at once.
“um,” avina starts, attempting to break the tension still in the air, “maybe we should-”
“don’t worry, i was just leaving.” arabella interjects, quickly grabbing her things from the table. she wants to look at seven before she leaves, but decides better on it. she doesn’t think she could stomach seeing the all too familiar look of hurt on his face. the look he always wears in her dreams before she snaps awake, sweating and shaking.
she knows she shouldn’t, but her body moves against her wishes and her head swivels to look back at the table. seven’s back is to her and avina has their arm wrapped around his shoulders, comforting him in the aftermath. claiming a job that was once hers.
a rage bubbles up inside of her and before she can think better of it, her mouth starts moving, calling out, “have fun writing another song about me. good luck!”
she quickly climbs into bed so she doesn’t have to hear any kind of response, pulling the curtain closed with as much force as she can muster.
her head is throbbing now, and she groans softly as her face hits the pillow. she feels hollow. arguing with seven when they were friends always made her feel uneasy, and that feeling only amplified when they started dating.
three years later and that same anxiety creeps its way back into her heart and leaves her utterly exhausted, hands shaking, with tears pricking the corners of her eyes. god, she feels pathetic. they're not even through the first night on this bus and she's breaking down over an interaction that she escalated.
she wants to blame this all on seven, but she knows deep down she brought this on herself. when they were together, arabella thought that seven only brought out the best in her. three years later, and she knows he’s capable of bringing out the worst in her too.
her phone buzzes beside her in bed and she checks the notification. it's from rowan.
open up.
she rolls her eyes, wanting to text back that he could just open the curtain on her bunk if he really wanted to talk. but she knows he's doing it so she can hide the fact she's been crying before she faces him.
and she hates that. she fucking hates that he knows how she gets dealing with seven, and yet ignored her feelings so blatantly earlier.
she quickly wipes her eyes before sitting up and pulling back the thin curtain to reveal rowan standing there, if a little awkwardly. he's in his pajamas, hands in his pockets.
“hey,” he starts, not exactly sure what to say. “you... okay?”
he grimaces as soon as the words leave his mouth, and if looks could kill, arabella would have just struck him down.
“right,” he chuckles nervously. “stupid question.”
she feels that rage from before, quietly simmering and now back to boiling, face growing hot. “yeah, a stupid ass question, rowan.”
his eyes widen. “i’m sorry, i-”
“can you just leave me alone?” she interrupts, voice cracking at the end of her question. “i know you're trying to be helpful, but i really don't want to talk to you right now.”
“arabella-”
“no,” she says, tone sharp and laced with venom, “you got what you wanted earlier, and now i’m cashing in my favor. we’ll talk later.”
he looks like he wants to protest, but he sighs instead. “okay.” he gives her one last look before walking back to his own bunk.
she groans in frustration before pulling the curtain back closed again. she's going to have it ripped off and they haven't even been on this bus a full day.
tears prick her eyes again and it takes everything in her to not succumb to how awful she feels.
this is all she's ever wanted. she should be happy to be on tour with her best friends, competing in battle of the bands. making a name for herself. finally achieving her dreams.
so why does she feel so bad? why does the past, it seems like, always come back to haunt her?
she glances at her songwriting notebook again and picks it up, along with her pen. she opens it to the first blank page she can find and quickly starts writing down lyrics, her brain going a million miles a minute.
this tour better be fucking worth it, she thinks to herself as she keeps writing.
it has to be.
for everything she's been through, something has to finally work out in her favor. something to make up for everything she's lost and overcome.
and this tour is just the beginning.
31 notes · View notes