My Selfless Love - Julian Casablancas, The Strokes

2# you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink

hiiiii
wlecome to chapter 2. i write my intros so differently from how i write my actual fics. this is the first fic i've ever written apart from when i wrote a drarry fanfic when i was 14 it was really funny. that too was enemies to lovers. are we sensing a pattern? how are all my people who don't think they're loveable unless someone sees them as terribly and as awfully as they see themselves and choose to love them anyway?

anywayys. im procrastinating starting this, i procrastinate everything. i kind f hate myself right now. it will get better. i love u if you're reading this. i love u i love u i love u. thank you for seeing me.

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Gwen woke up with a splitting headache, and the innate knowledge that her career was over.

The stubborn part of her said it was good. It said Julian had deserved it, that he was an ass. The sober part of her disagreed. She had worked so incredibly hard, and for what? For her uncontrollable anger to shatter her dreams in the fling of that wine. If Julian deserved it, so did she. He was right, too. She was deluded to think that the current interest in her was anything other than a passing fancy, a fad. She groaned and rubbed her hand across her face, and when she blinked enough to see, her hand was smudged all over with black mascara.

She stood and immediately regretted it; this was why she didn't drink. Every time, she would vow to never drink again, and then a week later the same occurrence played out, like some sort of sardonic Groundhog Day. Gwen dropped to her knees and crawled slowly to the en suite off her bedroom. She managed to wriggle out of her dress from the day before and gargled Listerine. In the shower, she turned it on, and regretted that too when the water sputtered over her upturned face, boiling hot. Gwen yelped out loud and scrabbled to turn down the temperature.

She turned her face again upwards, towards the showerhead, and tried not to think. This pursuit was always fruitless. At the risk of being reductive, it was much of the reason she smoked, drunk, did anything idiotic that might empty her head for a moment. And now, all she could think of was Julian. His excuses were bullshit, she could remember that much, and sure, she was more annoying than necessary, but she couldn't help it. He made her feel so pathetic, and then to tell her she was essentially replaceable? She could see how it would play out now, him professing no idea of how Gwen's anger outburst had occurred, and of course, his credibility reigned over hers.

Due to her great intelligence and foresight, the public nature of their interaction affirmed that the likelihood of any other self respecting label wanting to sign her after her contract with Julian was doubtlessly terminated was next to zero. How could she be so stupid? Sure, Julian was an ass, but she had sucked up to men before to get what she wanted, and it had worked like a charm. Both parties came out winning. This time, however, Gwen couldn't picture Julian enjoying that saccharine sort of fraudulent flattery. He was so infuriatingly difficult to understand. He seemed to think it was a no brainer he would be familiar with her and her work, yet she could see in his body, in his eyes, that he was guarded around her.

Gwen turned the shower to the coldest setting.

It did her no good to ruminate over it. It was out of her hands, truly. She had no way of contacting Julian, to try and mitigate the damage. Ford did most of the communication, and if he ever got wind of this fiasco she'd never hear the end of it.

All she could do was wait.

The feeling of imminent doom could be calmed slightly, though. She turned off the shower, feeling marginally better, and slung her robe over her body. Her hair was getting too long, and it soaked through the cotton. Gwen stalked into her bedroom, leaving wet footprints, and found her white jacket, discarded next to her bed. In her pocket she found two joints, her cell, and Julian's lighter. She stared at it for a moment.