the first few days felt crucial to stay with grant. no matter what had happened between the two of them recently, she would never wish him dead. she couldn't. hunter had shown her which wounds were important to watch, and how to help change the dressing because at the time...grant had barely been conscious. but once it felt safe to leave grant alone in his apartment, octavia retreated back to hers in desperate need of new clothes and some essentials. she waited until the middle of the day, hoping bellamy was anywhere but their apartment however, as she walked the lengthy hallway...she forgot to account for nick. bellamy too loud in her mind as he continued to blow up her phone.
emerald hues locked with nick's as he came out of the apartment just down from hers, teeth tugging at her bottom lip, waiting for his reaction. he looked like hell. like he's spent the past few days wallowing in all the dark emotions that gloss his gaze.
after sunday night, octavia's one of the last people nicklas wants to see. not the last...but she's pretty fuckin' close. so when he notices her just by her apartment, no doubt trying to sneak in while blake is not there, half of him screams to turn right around. go back inside. let her do her thing and not engage because despite what she's done, she's still the little kid he's taken care of. but he's been listening less and less to that side lately. instead, nicklas shakes his head, heading down the hallway, but paying octavia no attention.
as nicklas comes near her, all octavia can smell is whiskey. whiskey and stale cigarettes that make her head swim. he doesn't look at her. doesn't speak to her. he doesn't even acknowledge that she's there, sparking annoyance in her gaze. how dare he be mad at her. she is not the one who did anything wrong. if anything, she's the only one, save hunter, out of those men that did anything right. but when he goes to walk past her, octavia's hand darts out to stop him. " what? you're just going to pretend i don't exist? "
every muscle in nick's body tenses as octavia wraps her hand around his arm, but he makes no attempt to pull from her. his head shakes, eyes still forward. " yeah, i'm tryin', wanna help me out with that? " he asked dryly, his free hand plucking her fingers off his jacket before he readjusted himself.
" so it's like that? " she asked, head tilting with an exasperated look on her face. blue eyes snapped toward her, glaring down at her. " yeah, it's like that, octavia. " nick said harshly.
" let me get this straight, you abandon your brother, no, sorry you beat the living hell out of him, let my brother nearly kill him, your supposed friend....i save him from dying so that you don't spend the rest of your life with his blood on your hands and what? that hurt your feelings? pissed you off a bit, made you feel bad about yourself and so you're done with me? " octavia scoffed, shoving her key in the lock before throwing open the door. " screw you, nick. " she tossed over her shoulder.
each response sits on the tip of his tongue, waiting to strike as she tries to cut him with every word she spits. it's only the comment about grant being his brother that he sinks his teeth into. unwilling now to leave the conversation be as he followed into the blake apartment right on her heels. " that's your problem right there! you just say shit without having a fucking clue what you're talking about. just act when no one asks you to. how about you stop tryin' to fix everybody else's shit and you start fixing yours? the trainwreck is going to sit here and judge me? you don't know shit about me and him. " nicklas ranted, following her every step of the way while she refused to stop moving, and packing, irritating him further.
" oh please, " octavia laughed stiffly, " don't, don't try and tell me i don't see what i see. " octavia said, shoving more clothes into a bag of hers. nick could lie to a lot of people. he did as far as she was aware, and much like grant, he didn't talk about his life before this place. but while nick might have constantly been watching them all while he served drinks behind the comfort of his bar, octavia was watching him. had been since he swooped in like some hero out of one of bell's books. he might've got on her nerves and pushed all the worst trigger points but...it was only because she had missed her own brother so deeply. she's been watching him with hopeful eyes since he became her brother.
green eyes watched nicklas try to deny it, could see the anger and hurt that warred with each other in his eyes before octavia bent down, looking for something beneath her bed. " what're you doing? " nick asked, head shaking as he watched her.
as octavia stood up and turned towards nicklas, she held up a sketchbook from the dollar store, " lie to me all you want, lie to yourself, but i know you care about him. you care about all of us. " she said, opening the book wide as she set it on her bed. inside were dozens of photos in different media. some printed photos, some polaroids. octavia had meant to get a proper album for them all. to sort through them properly instead of having a few sketchbooks beneath her bed but, it worked. she flipped through a few pages until finally she came across the one she was searching for. her finger pointed to the photo of grant and nicklas' side profiles. grant sitting at the bar top while nicklas was in mid-pour of a drink. it's simple. ordinary. but they both have genuine smiles and when octavia looks at the photo, she can hear nick's laugh.
nicklas reached forward to take the book from her but instead she laid it out on her bed, his mouth snapping shut. eyes widened as octavia flipped through the book, feet slowly taking steps forward as he peered over her shoulder. her life was inside this book. everyone. sure, he knew that she was always snapping photos but this...he squinted to look at them as they passed quickly. although, his mouth instantly ran dry as she pointed out the photo of him and grant. instead of arguments, and rebuttals, nicklas fell quiet, studying the photo.
" you may hate him right now...but, " octavia shrugged as she pulled her backpack on, leaving the sketchbook exposed on the bed. " you know what they say about that, such a thin line between love and hate, " she said, staring at the way nicklas moved towards the album, finger reaching out to trace the image. if anyone understood that, especially with grant, it was her. nicklas couldn't lie to her, because she knew what that look in his eye meant. he loved grant, so much that the love itself and all the choices grant makes hurt. " you all are wrong. now fix it. " with that, octavia left nicklas alone in her room.
/ @thewholecrew
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the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.
capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.
now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.
and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.
and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.
and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".
it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"
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