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Post by The Exodus on Oct 30, 2011 22:50:21 GMT -6
Residents' names: William MaCarthy, Damien Blackwood-Michaud Character age: 27, 24 Desired apartment: Bill knows better than anyone that you don't need much to be happy. Which is why his apartment is modest, 75 square meters. With constantly visiting relatives and friends, the apartment has two bedrooms and sleeps four. There's a roof over his head, and food on the table; which is why, like in most homes, permanent or temporary, the kitchen is the heart of the apartment. Damien also lives here 90 percent of the time. The guest bedroom might as well just be his. www.parisattitude.com/rent-apartment/alesia,Apartment,2-Bedroom,3375.aspx |
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Post by The Exodus on Oct 30, 2011 22:51:00 GMT -6
OOC: Spooktacular Bill/Damien! BIC:
Damien Michaud
Halloween was a bust in Paris. Aside from his dad and Ashton’s party, there was nothing much for Damien to do this holiday season except sit sulking in a Hannibal Lecter mask and watch Hitchcock DVDs on Bill’s television. Damien was sprawled out on the couch, leg dangling over the back. He was still trying to fit the neck of his beer bottle through the slits in his mask.
“Christ!” Damien shouted for probably the seventh or eighth time. “I haven’t even had one yet!”
He looked over at Bill sadly, but Bill regarded him with the half-amused, half-exasperated look universal to all best mates the world over. Damien sighed, changed positions on the couch and tried again as the birds terrorized Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor. He put the bottle on the coffee table.
“I miss Salisbury,” he announced, as if Bill would care. “You know yesterday, I saw some blood orange and chocolate eclairs at the bakery on the corner. I wept and bought the lot just because they’re the only vaguely Halloween-themed thing in all of Paris.”
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Oct 31, 2011 0:20:46 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
Alfred Hitchcock never got dull, and tonight, ‘Rear Window’ seemed perfect. Bill sat lazily in his astronaut costume, his body tired from walking in the bulky white suit. He took another swig of his beer and laughed as Damien tried to figure out a way to drink his with a Hannibal mask on.
“Christ!” Damien shouted for probably the seventh or eighth time. “I haven’t even had one yet!”
“Here’s an idea,” Bill offered sarcastically. “Why don’t you try taking the mask off to drink the beer?”
But both he and Damien knew that wasn’t an option. Halloween spirit was so abysmally low throughout Paris, that the only place with even a hint of Halloween morale was the catacombs. And those hardly counted. They were always there and for reasons other than 31 October.
“I miss Salisbury. You know yesterday, I saw some blood orange and chocolate eclairs at the bakery on the corner. I wept and bought the lot just because they’re the only vaguely Halloween-themed thing in all of Paris.”
“You wept over eclaires?” Bill asked, half amused, half understandingly.
“But, no, I get it. I took the Arctic Monkeys out of my player and put in one of those cheap ‘spooky Halloween songs’ discs Freddy gave me last Christmas as a gag gift.”
Bill hoisted himself up within the bulky material. “This is bad, Damien. We need some spirit of Hallow’s Eve in here…”
Bill rose and crossed to the kitchen. He lifted two pumpkins out of the cupboard. “I was planning on making pies and cookies out of them, but it’s Halloween and there isn’t a single lantern. What say you? Carve with me?”
Bill was a pitiful pumpkin carver, but it was the fun that Bill was in it for, not an artistic release. Already, with the gourds out, he felt more at home.
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Post by The Exodus on Nov 4, 2011 7:33:11 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-Michaud
“You wept over eclaires?” Bill asked incredulously.
“Figuratively speaking,” Damien muttered, unheard from behind his mask.
“But, no, I get it. I took the Arctic Monkeys out of my player and put in one of those cheap ‘spooky Halloween songs’ discs Freddy gave me last Christmas as a gag gift.” Bill hoisted himself up within the bulky material. “This is bad, Damien. We need some spirit of Hallow’s Eve in here…”
Damien nodded enthusiastically and propped himself onto his elbows. Bill was his leader (although Damien would probably never admit it) and if he had an idea—however insane it might be—he could count Damien in. But Bill said nothing further. Instead, he got up and walked into the kitchen. Damien tried to watch him from the couch, but he couldn’t really tell what Bill was doing. Sighing, Damien laid back down on the couch.
“I was planning on making pies and cookies out of them, Bill said. Damien sat up to see these two, massive pumpkins in Bill’s arms. “But it’s Halloween and there isn’t a single lantern. What say you? Carve with me?”
“Is that even a question?” Damien asked, practically bouncing off the couch and rushing to Bill’s side. He snatched one of the pumpkins and inspected it for quality. The left one would suffice. “Do you have carving knives?”
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Nov 4, 2011 16:29:53 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
" is that eve a question?" Damien exclaimed. He was at Bill's side in milliseconds, seizing one of the pumpkins. "Do you have carving knives?"
Bill laughed. "Do I have carving knives? My dearest Damien, do you remember when I lived in Bath and I went full out for Halloween?" Surely Damien remembered. How could he not? Bill transformed his empty apartment into a foggy haunted house. Penny cried, the neighbours wrote up a complaint, and Damien met Victorine. Her very name put a bitter after taste burning into his tongue. He downed another beer to wash it away. "If I can have robotic spiders, I have carving knives."
Bill dug through his drawer and procurred a pair of carving kits. Despite Damien's skilled hands, Bill didn't feel inadequate in the least. This was no competition. This was a desperate act to create some semblance of holiday.
Bill dug his knife into the hard flesh and pulled at the hard brown stem, sawing it loose. He gutted and rubbed away the sinewy orange, picking pieces from his elbows and knuckles. "I forgot how fun this could be." The true stood for life. It was moments like this, that he and Damien shared that reminded him of his worth.
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Dec 31, 2011 16:49:51 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
Bill was done. Each time he flushed a little pale pill down the gulping floods of the porcelain king, a little spark of pride flared up in him, a miniature celebration erupting in his chest and veins. His doctor was a moron. A bloody, expensive moron. Bill did his research and compared his prescription to what he found. He was prescribed twice the safe limit of Valium for back pain than needed, 15 milligrams being the dosage ceiling.
“You can sue,” said the sweet woman on the other end of the Bill’s mobile. Though she was faceless, Bill imagined her to be very pretty. “I’m very sorry this has happened to you. Will you be needing any more assistance?’
“No, no,” was Bill’s response. “I was just curious. This is all hypothetical.”
“And confidential.” The woman assured him gently. She knew. She had to of known from the feign casualty in Bill’s voice, from the specifics of his question. If a doctor prescribed the wrong dosage of highly addictive medication, could the son of a b*tch be sued? If Bill weren’t so nice, he would. If Bill had the energy, he would. If Bill had the money, he would.
He took a deep breath and checked his watch. Forty-five minutes he’d been in there, taking his time to flush away the shameful pills, to feel the pride that swelled in him as he permanently rid the pills from his life. He’d be needing that clinic after all for any damage left behind by the round, white devils.
He flushed away more than the medication. He flushed away the days he’d walk around the apartment alone and confused like a senile invalid, or hold tightly to his head from a throbbing headache, or throw angry vases and other nearby projectiles at things that weren’t really there. And Damien would come home to the mess with Bill asleep on the couch. Damien would ask about it and Bill would shrug and blame “that mischievous cat, the bloody terror”. But that excuse could only hold up for so long. Damien knew. Bill knew Damien knew. But now, with each swirl of the toilet, there’d be no more hiding and lying, and Bill could come clean, get clean, and start his life over, living it the way he wanted. He’d rid his life of the two V’s—Valium and Victorine, and he’d be happy and healthy once more.
If only he could fight through the withdrawal symptoms. The reward was going to be great, but the battle? That was going to be a f*cking b*tch. Bill slid down the door, his hands shaking violently , grasping a hold on that little brown prescription bottle. He could feel his entire body convulse, his head spinning as he shook with a lack of rhythm. Twenty more minutes he sat there, losing control of his own body. Why, he asked himself, did he let other things, other people control him? There was Victorine who tied a noose around his heart and hung it out to dry if ever he got too independent. There was Valium which caused an accidental addiction he couldn’t kick on his own. He needed help.
He heard the front door close and the phone ring.
“Will you get that?” Bill called out with a dry throat. He needed water.
He heard the line pick up. Bill’s head pounded as he kicked at the cabinet. He needed to lie down.
He needed to tell Damien
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Post by The Exodus on Dec 31, 2011 20:45:25 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-Michaud
Besides an experimental bout at Oxford, Damien had never been seriously hungover. However, spending the holidays with his family had quickly remedied this fact and Damien now had the mother of all headaches. It started Christmas Eve. He’d spent the evening at Natalie’s rental flat in the heart of Paris. Outside, carolers and drunk carolers offered up their renditions of “Noel Nouvelet” and the only difference between the two versions was the number of times Natalie asked, “What are they saying, love?” and Damien said, “It’s “Sing We Noel, Mum”. After the fifth time that happened, Damien turned it into a drinking game. The sheer amount of alcohol in his system let him put up with his weepy mother when she complained about “that pregnant b*tch” and “your moronic sperm donor” without getting offended. They ate goose, potatoes, and cranberry sauce that didn’t come from a tin. There was even a chocolate yule log. If Natalie wasn’t so sullen and Damien wasn’t so soused in eggnog cocktail, it would have seemed like a well-adjusted Christmas dinner. He eventually meandered to the door, planted a sloppy kiss on his mum’s cheek, and walked home. Once there, he realized he didn’t have his key. He had the good sense to go back to Natalie’s, where he promptly passed out on her couch. The next day—Christmas Day—was spent at his dad’s. There, he drank to nurse a hang-over headache and to avoid talking to Henry Greene and so that Ashton’s five year old nephew seemed cute and not annoying as hell. His key still lost, he crashed at Natalie’s and remained there, polishing off the rest of the eggnog cocktail when she wasn’t paying attention in order to survive her litany of other complaints. How much she hated Paris. That Damien didn’t have any useful information about the Greene-Michaud household. Why nobody here spoke English even though they all could since it was taught in schools. He only stopped drinking long enough to figure out that Bill would be home today and to be sober enough to get back to their apartment. There really was no place like home for the holidays. Damien hadn’t appreciated that song much until he was stuck at his mum’s home for a week.
He sat outside the apartment in the hallway, burying his head into his kneecaps and taking deep breaths. First thing he’d do when he was inside was vomit in his own toilet. Then he’d drink a ton of water, pop some aspirin and swear off alcohol. Then he’d hug Bill and tell him how much he missed him. And then he’d sleep for a week.
Now, though, the goal was not to get sick all over himself while he waited for Bill. He held as still as he could, made himself as small as he could, covered his ears and shut his eyes. So absorbed in this make-shift remedy was Damien, that he scarcely noticed Bill walking into the apartment. And when the door snapped shut, his first response was to shout out, “Oh, God, make it stop!”
And then he realized which door had been slammed. He staggered up and went inside.
Damien was greeted by the ringing phone and Bill yelling, “Will you get that?”
“You get it!” Damien shouted back. The sound of his own voice made him wince. “Please. Just make it stop ringing.”
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Jan 1, 2012 12:12:41 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
“You get it! Please. Just make it stop ringing.”
A yelling Damien was the last thing he needed. It did nothing to help heal the violent shakes the withdrawal symptoms cast upon him. It only made his head pound and stomach cramp up. But Bill had spent enough years with Ben to know what a hangover sounded like. He had known Damien long enough to know what miserable sounded like on those little rich-kid lips on his.
The phone was still ringing and Bill moaned, yanking himself up with a shaky, precarious difficulty. He stood a moment, still hearing the blasted ring of the telephone. He took in careful breaths, his hair soaked with sweat, his shirt damp and clinging to him like an ill-fitting winter coat.
He made his careful way out of the bathroom, groaning, reaching for the phone.
“Hello…?” He asked hoarsely, seeing Damien recumbent body on the couch. It seemed to be swaying, but Bill knew his friend was sitting still.
“Bill! Hi. It’s your mother.”
Bill felt a sudden shame of his condition and prayed to a tricky God that his all-knowing mother wouldn’t know what ill plagued him this time.
“Mum… Hi…”
“How was your flight? Did you get in okay?”
“Yes, Mum.” Unable to stand, Bill sank to his knees and sat on the floor, rubbing away at his temples. Just make the pounding stop…
“Bill, you sound terrible. Are you alright?”
“Yes.” Bill lied. “I’m just… very tired.” He hated himself for lying to her, but he would of hated himself for being honest, too.
“Well you get some sleep, love. We love you!”
He heard the MaCarthy chorus of well-wishes and sentiments of love that Bill felt his lips tremble with something other than withdrawal. “Mum….” Bill offered weakly. “I love all of you, too.” He pressed the end button, letting the phone fall to the ground, lying down on the cold, cold floor.
“Damien….” Bill said groaned, his cheek plunged to the hardwood. “We need to talk.”
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Mar 17, 2012 20:59:48 GMT -6
OoC: Welcome home, Bill. BiC:
William MaCarthy
Bill had Damien bring his luggage home early. His arms were aching color pallets, covered in variations of yellow, purple, and black; bruises in different stages of healing. The stairs were mountains now, each one an enormous feat, standing as steep reminders that the elevator was still broken. Some things, even in ten weeks, didn’t change.
Bill trudged slowly up the stairs and could feel each step take a year or so off his life.
Finally, the ninth floor came into view and Bill’s heavy, exhausted heart leapt to life and felt light.
Home.
For a moment, he slumped into the door, feeling the wood with his hand, as if he was reintroducing himself to it, or it to him. He smiled with a huff of air. He needed a cigarette, a beer, and any other harmless vices he had to sacrifice for a ten-week, unholy Lent.
He blindly pushed the unlocked door open, expecting that comfortable smoky aroma of coffee and cigarette smoke to cushion his nostrils. But instead, they burned with the scent of ammonia and air freshener.
And Bill’s eyes grew wide. Nothing had prepared him for the sight that met his eyes, or rather, failed to do so.
His couch was gone.
“Damien?” He asked, slightly disoriented, majorly confused. But there was no answer. He sighed and made his way into the kitchen. He’d ask Damien about it later. For now, Bill pulled out a beer from his refrigerator. Chugging it long and slow, he was momentarily in some heavenly place. Ten weeks had passed without so much as a drop of alcohol. Punishing him for Valium was one thing and perfectly understandable, but to refuse him a crutch to alleviate the torture of rehab was borderline inhumane.
Bill pulled his attention away from his drink only at the sound of a soft, welcoming mew. Admittedly, he had missed his cat. He looked down with a smile, intending to scoop the feline up into his arms when he was greeted with yet another surprise. This was not his cat. In fact, it was not a full grown cat at all, but a kitten, no more than a few weeks old. Bill moved towards it and, scared, it ran into his pantry. With a soft, confused “Hey…” Bill followed after it, pushing the pantry door wider open to find his cat sitting amongst a clan of kittens. He plucked her up and held her tight to him. “Damien!” he called louder this time, staring at the hoard of baby cats that littered his pantry floor. “You told me everything was fine…!”
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Post by The Exodus on Mar 17, 2012 21:17:59 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-Michaud
Staticy Mozart filled Damien’s ears. He shut his eyes and leaned against the pillows on his bed. No one enjoyed being on hold and Damien couldn’t help but think the music was to blame. The sound quality was shoddy, but moreover, Mozart? Really? Like that was supposed to make him feel better about being shuttled around and around by the veterinarian’s office. Or the furniture donation place. Or the new furniture store. In fact, they all used Mozart. What was with hold music and Mozart?
Well, he supposed it must have been Mozart. There were no singers.
Damien decided to make up words to this one.
“I’m. On hold. I’m on hold right now. I’m on hold. I’m on hold right now. Da-da-duh-duh-duh-dum-dum...”
“Damien!” Bill’s voice cut through Damien’s song, shrill and angry. Damien sat up and hit his head against the bedpost. “You told me everything was fine…!”
“It was! And then I hit my head,” Damien grumbled, covering the mouthpiece of the phone and shuffling from his room to find Bill. When he did, Damien noticed that Bill stood in the midst of all twelve kittens and Cat. They probably weren’t talking about the same things. Damien put the phone against his chest. He looked around at the tufts of fur rolling around on the linoleum. A smile tugged at Damien’s lips. He hadn’t been a cat person until now. Maybe he wasn’t. But he was definitely a kitten person.
“Welcome home,” he said, looking at Bill. “I forgot to tell you, but we’re grandparents.”
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Mar 17, 2012 22:30:58 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
“It was! And then I hit my head,” came Damien’s disembodied voice from somewhere in the apartment.
Bill had spent months unknowingly on the edge of death, spent ten weeks being pumped full of poison for detox, left looking sick and ghostly, to come home to no couch and a million and half cats. For some unfathomable reason, terrible as it sounded, he didn’t care about Damien’s aching head. What he cared about was establishing normalcy in his own home once more.
Bill listened, his nerves on edge, as Damien crossed the wood floors to the kitchen.
“Welcome home. I forgot to tell you, but we’re grandparents.”
“I see that, Damien, thank you.” Bill said, rubbing at his temples at to keep himself from getting angry. “Pray tell me why you neglected to tell me until now. And where the hell is my couch?”
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Post by The Exodus on Mar 25, 2012 12:47:10 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-Michaud
Somehow, Damien had expected Bill to be excited about the kittens. They were twelve tufts of fuzz, mewling and wriggling around, doing little more than eating, sleeping, and looking cute. Each was named for a famous artist or painting. The girls were Frida, Mona Lisa, Cassatt, and Georgia; the boys, Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt (Remy for short), Titian, Degas, Toulouse, Leonardo (as in Da Vinci), and Salvador (as in Dali). They were perfect.
Or, well, purr-fect.
And yet Bill rubbed his temples, as if resisting the urge to throttle Damien.
It wasn’t Damien’s fault that Bill’s cat was a wh*re.
“I see that, Damien, thank you,” said Bill. “Pray tell me why you neglected to tell me until now. And where the hell is my couch?”
“Sorry I thought kittens would be a nice surprise after everything you’ve been through this month,” Damien said, drawing himself up straighter. “And your couch was picked up for donation two days ago. I thought “placenta residue” clashed with the walls.”
Damien walked past Bill and crouched beside Cat. He scooped up the fattest kitten—Remy—so that Frida could get in to eat. Remy looked like a white and golden football. Round and covered in almost hexagonal splotches of color, he was possibly Damien’s favorite. Remy was the most vocal and the most pliable to being picked up. Damien stroked him and looked over the kitten at Bill a bit reproachfully.
“D’you want to hold one?” he asked. “I mean, since they are your cat’s offspring."
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Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Mar 25, 2012 13:53:44 GMT -6
William MaCarthy
Bill looked down at the kittens. He was exhausted, sore, and wanted nothing more than to find a way to simultaneously drink a beer and sleep. But these cats! They were so little, so cute as they pounced each other and snuggled their proud mum. He felt his heart turn to butter as he watched them. Suddenly, beer and couches were less important than litter box training and playing.
“Sorry I thought kittens would be a nice surprise after everything you’ve been through this month. And your couch was picked up for donation two days ago. I thought “placenta residue” clashed with the walls.”
Bill laughed outright. It was okay. It was a new year, a new Bill—a new couch couldn’t hurt. He would thank Damien later.
“D’you want to hold one? I mean, since theyareyourcat’s offspring."
Bill laughed again, crouching, careful not to step on a boisterous little kitten. “Did you just ask me if I wanted to hold one? That’s like me asking your dad if he wants to hold Gregory. Of course I want to hold one.” He scooped up the skittish little kitten who greeted him earlier. It mewed happily and rubbed up against Bill’s unshaven face. “What’s your name, you little fur ball?” As if the cat could answer him.
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Post by The Exodus on Apr 22, 2012 22:06:08 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-Michaud
Remy snuggled against Damien. If Damien had things his way, he’d keep all the cats. He’d never had a cat before. He had had a dog once, when he was a kid. Jack had been a mutt bestowed upon seven year old Damien by his Aunt Milly. He later learned Jack was an accident puppy; the only surviving pup in a litter of four conceived when Aunt Milly’s prize terrier got out and had a fling with her neighbor’s border collie. Jack was the bane of Natalie’s existence and Lucian scarcely seemed aware of the fact they had a dog. Damien, however, loved Jack dearly. And until he met Bill, Jack had been his sole partner in crime. Damien decided during those years that he was an animal person.
Of course, when Damien was thirteen, he came home from school to find out that Jack had run off. Only when Damien asked Natalie directly five years later did he learn that she’d taken Jack to a house out in the country—a friend of a friend’s—where the dog would have space to run and play and not muck up her white furniture.
In Damien’s book, that meant the universe owed him a pet. And now he had twelve. And not a one of them was mysteriously running off under his watch.
Of course, if they could find eleven loving homes, Damien would gladly just keep Remy. Remy was his buddy. And besides, he didn’t even know if Toddy was allergic to cats and he’d really hate it if his boyfriend couldn’t come over because dander was everywhere or if Toddy refused to kiss Damien because he had a tuft of fur stuck to his pant leg or if, someday, they decided to move in together and Damien was stuck with the choice of boyfriend versus cats.
“Did you just ask me if I wanted to hold one?” Bill asked. “That’s like me asking your dad if he wants to hold Gregory. Of course I want to hold one.”
Damien frowned and buried his face into Remy’s fur. It was like apples and oranges, he thought. Babies and kittens were different things. Besides, if Lucian said “no”, Ashton would probably throw him out on the streets to die. He looked up to see that Bill had taken Georgia, the tortoise-shell girl into his hands.
“What’s your name, you little fur ball?”
“That’s Georgia,” Damien announced looking up from Remy for a minute. “Georgia O’Keefe. I’ve got Rembrandt right now. D’you want to know all their names?”
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Post by The Exodus on Aug 21, 2012 20:10:43 GMT -6
Damien Blackwood-MichaudAs Damien ran up the stairs, half-breathless from happy laughter, it dawned on him he hadn’t told anyone—anyone at all—that he would be teaching at the Sorbonne in less than a month while working on his doctorate. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Damien was pursuing a higher degree, but he hadn’t found time to work it casually into conversation with friends and loved ones. Everyone was just so busy and self-absorbed and Damien didn’t blame them. He was too. Which was why it was odd he hadn’t found the time to bring up in a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou way that he was about to become the most educated person in his social circle. He had bragged for days when he had a boyfriend and Bill was still single. When he got his first commission after graduate school, he waved his paycheck in front of the faces of his starving artist friends in London. When he got a baby brother, he paraded Gregory around for all of Paris to see, much like the showing of Simba to the animal kingdom in “The Lion King”. But this was different. This was something Damien had worked for. He hadn’t really tried all that hard at the other things (especially at the last one. Who tries to get a baby brother?). But he’d had to write letters begging the dean to accept him, paint pictures worthy of a university gallery, and paint in the subway and in plazas to earn enough to pay the entrance fee. He should have been bragging proudly. But Damien was also a tiny bit ashamed. Those who could did, and those who couldn’t taught. And yet, holding his official acceptance letter in his hands made him want to climb to the roof of the building and shout out to the world that there was hope for him yet. Maybe he’d be a “successful” artist. Maybe he’d make something of himself. Maybe he’d be inspired again. He hoped he’d be inspired again. He was a talented cartoonist, but an even better painter. And his work may have gotten him entrance to the Sorbonne, but it lacked something. He didn’t know what. Everything was subdued and calm and boring. He wanted color and texture and excitement. Maybe this opportunity would give him just that. Or maybe he’d get angry about being used as—essentially—slave labor and paint protest pieces in angry reds and oranges. He didn’t know. He just knew that in two weeks, he’d be Professor Blackwood-Michaud to three “Painting 101 Classes” and Student 364 to three education professors. And when he opened the door it hit him that he didn’t know the first thing about teaching. He was still breathless from dancing up the stairs, but now he wasn’t laughing. He panted and looked at the manila envelope in his hands. Oh, dear. “BILL!!! I need you!!!”
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