IN WHICH the heiress to grunge is swooned by the king of garage rock in a lifelong affair over the span of three decades, always fervidly dancing on the edge of crashing and burning...
[2000s JULIAN CASABLANCAS x GROUPIE!OC]
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"Stell?" that tiny voice crept through the crack in her door. Sniffles reverberated through the room as salt spilled onto her pillow. Her entire body was set ablaze with infinite guilt. The moment kept replaying in her mind; the rage she had felt and how it had completely overtaken her by the time the drink was flying at Julian. Never in her seventeen years of life had she felt so isolated from the world around her. It was as if nothing existed but her immense grief. "Frances, let your sister be." Courtney croaked from the kitchen.
It had been over a month since Stella and Julian had spoken. Stella had gone back to some semblance of normalcy. Back at Notre Dame, she trudged lifelessly through the hallways. Whispers had already been swirling for some time but her former beau's liquor splashed face on every tabloid had only made things worse. She spent most of her time with Chloë, that was whenever she wasn't going straight to school and straight to home. Courtney had been pissed at her groupie venture and grounded her for a month. Regardless of her punishment, every corner she turned seemed to be full of prying eyes. The melancholia had set in deep into her bones. Many afternoons were spent waiting for a call or writing in the margin of some deserted book. She felt she had lost a part of herself with every moment in his absence.
Julian had not dialed her number in a month. His fingers twitched to type the pattern he knew so well in the early mornings after a gig when he reluctantly missed her warm body beneath the covers. Veiled in his well-known nonchalance, he made it a point to erase any memory of her whatsoever. As he laid in his bunk, he could see still curtain of her bunk. No tossing and turning, no fairy lights with their childish glow, no sign of life whatsoever. A strange mix of guilt and righteousness inhabited his chest in the days they spent apart. That solitary, all-consuming feeling that he may have just reached enlightenment or an erratic state. The bottles had only increased since their rift and so had the girls. To the naked eye, he was an everyday rockstar. To a keen eye, he'd just lost his twin.
As release date for their brand-new album crept closer, the band had begun to focus more on the fact that their lives were about to change for better or for worse. Either way they didn't fret. They knew they had each other to rely on through anything. If the album did flop, they'd have each other. If it became one of the most influential records of their decade, they'd be winning awards together onstage. Girl troubles were no different.
If he squinted hard enough, Julian could swear he saw her face in the crowd night after night. It was always some optical illusion made to cruelly laugh in his face. The other girls that came in were through before they even knew it. Many waited and were deserted while he made his Houdini-esque escape through a different stage door. In many ways Julian was a musician. When he had draped a mysterious cloth over his first encounter with stella just two years ago and disappeared. Just to make himself re-appear a year later and sweep her off her feet again. Stella felt the double edge of his magic tricks and it was impaling her straight through the head and the heart.
Her withdrawal while at home had been horrendous. Courtney sat beside her at every waking hour in a rare act of maternal instinct. Frances stood by the door as always. "What is it?" Stella murmured as Frances quietly tiptoed to her bedside. Four blue eyes met at the border between the bed, little hands tugging at the sheets. "Do you want to play?" she asked in that chirpy tone of hers. Stella's first instinct was to run her off like any good sibling but not this time. She could barely croak out her "Yes." Frances lit up and ran off to go grab her dolls while Stella wiped her weeping face. She knew that her younger sister had seen enough misery in her short lifetime, she wasn't going to let a stupid boy reignite those memories.
The little head of blonde fluff crashed into the bedroom springing up on the bed as Stella chuckled. "Are we playing Barbie?" the lines of her face softened replaced with something more tender as she took a doll from the young girl. "Yeah, but you have to be the big sis. Okay?" her little expression was serious as she scanned her sister's face for any clue as to what had happened. "Okay." Stella laughed softly.
As the sun set, they played together in Stella's bedroom in a way they hadn't in years. Frances directed her sister on how to play while she tried her hardest to make her laugh. Hearing the commotion, Courtney came peering from her bedroom through the crack her youngest had left open. She watched the display lovingly, seeing the two true loves of her life interact had made any other nonsense drama melt into nothingness. "Stell," quipped Frances. "Hm?" Stella combed through the Barbie's hair.
"Mommy said you were on a roadtrip."
She sighed quietly, Julian's face plagued her mind before she washed it away. "Yeah, I did."
"You were gone for a long time."
"Yeah, I was."
There's a pause as Fran readjusts the skirt on her doll. "Promise you won't go so far again? I missed you."
That sentence alone ached more than any of the guilt she'd experienced from being entangled with Julian. She sighed and scooped her up into her arms, nearly cradling her. "Promise I won't, I missed you too frilly Fran." In that moment, Julian had become but a faint wind in her hot air balloon of a life. She gently rocked her sister, realizing she was truly home at last.
A/N
happy new year!! thank you so much for 2k reads and 94 votes!!
