These are all AU, all human drabbles about our OC characters. I'm not gonna list 'em all here because I'm too lazy. :D

I did this all on my phone so there's probably auto correct mistakes. It's really short by the way.

~~ooo~~

There's a simple dream on her fingertips that floats away as soon as she tries to catch it. At first, it wobbles in the air and then pops with a small burst of light and it looks like a bubble. She blinks again and it disappears completely. Clarisse sees her dreams in a strange clairvoyant bat of her eyelashes and suddenly, they become tangible objects. When she closes her eyes long enough, she can picture each of them landing on her shoulders and her feet and arms. She dreams of picking one of them up and letting it run wild in her imagination.

But dreams don't come, she remembers. That's what everyone else tells her too.

And with each pirouette, she dances closer to her dreams and now she remembers just how good the limelight tastes. It tastes like accomplishments and dreams and perseverance and sweat and tears. With each delicate extention of her arm, she reaches out to stroke one of her dreams midair, and they catch the light with wondrous gleams. And then she remembers that she really doesn't care what anyone else tells her.

But when she reaches to grab grab grab her dreams from the air, they pop in her fingertips and she's falling back to Earth. And her dress lifts to resemble a white cotton cloud as she plummets back into a little dance room in a little town of no where.

Someday, she tells herself.

All dreams could be reached and she can see them clearly above the clouds. All she has to do is reach. And even though people tell her she isn't looking the right way, she tells them that they are wrong.

Because her dreams are a little higher and that's all. They're achievable. She just needs to jump a little higher.

~~ooo~~

The first question people ask him is always, "Why are you a chemistry major?"

The next is always, "Do you like it?"

And the last is always, "How did you do it?"

And Percy tells them that passion isn't created; it's just awoken. He's always been the science nerd: the smart guy, the dependable guy, the one-who-knows-all-the-answers-guy. The question they never ask him, though, is, "How are you?" but part of him is glad because he wouldn't have an answer. No matter how many formulas and sheets of lined, college ruled paper he has carefully planned out the formula of 'Percy' on, he still remains a mystery to himself. And he wishes he were like reactive elements, always adapting and reacting to everything but he finds himself awkwardly between radioactive and a noble gas.

It's a funny analogy, but then again, he's a chemistry major. And when people look at him, they picture him with books and calculators and a beaker in one and they forget to think that he's not just a student. He's not just a formula.

He hasn't figured it out yet either.

But he's more complicated than a compilation of numbers in scrawled out handwriting that he'll end up teaching to the world. Because he doesn't know, that in the future, he'll be defined by more than a wad of notebook paper crudely torn out from it's metal rings to be pushed up against the side of a desk until it's forgotten and it might be far fetched but-...

He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be more than just a formula.

~~ooo~~

His fingers are tapping lightly against the steering wheel and her head is leaning up against the glass.

Picture perfect, Cole calls it, even though he's never been one for that kind of artistic mush. Steff has always been the opposite: a book lover, a student of romanticism, a dreamer. And she lets her eyes close and all she can hear is the faint music playing from a stereo and a heartbeat in their ears. And he's nodding his head slightly, his eyes carefully on the road. He's always been cautious that way.

And even though they look normal

at night, he's popping pills to keep sane and there's bloodied rags in the corner of the bathroom when the blood won't clot. and she's counting stars until the day the fire burns out and sometimes she needs to press a pillow over her ears and squeeze her eyes shut until tears suffocate in the back of her mind. sometimes they yell at each other and it's about the medicine and the voices or the fantasies and false expectations but threads are starting to twist. twist. twist. twist apart and everything starts to fall apart and then

there's distrust mistrust, frustration agitation, and it ends in blood or tears or mixes of both but they convince themselves that somehow they'll be okay. they'll be okay as long as they ignore the medicine and the false expectations.

In the morning everything's perfect and bright and Cole's driving them to the library because he wants something real and Steff wants something to escape.

And he'll drive drive drive because, "Don't worry, everything's fine."

~~ooo~~

Sometimes it feels like everything is falling apart when he's alone. He'll close his eyes and set a hand to his own cheek and rest into it, as if it were someone else comforting him. And he'll wrap his other arm around his body, hugging his sides like he has a cramp in them and he'll roll over on his bed, pressing his face into the covers. They smell like other people. And sometimes he finds himself too relaxed and he sits up straight, his hands darting to seek purchase on the covers like a magician's flourish. Look here! Nothing!

Aspen never likes getting too comfortable. It dulls the senses just in the way that light was blinding. He prefers the dark.

He prefers the way it feels when he stands in the middle of the room, silence and darkness surrounding him until hot breath breaks the barrier and skirts down his neck. And he runs his nails lightly down their neck and kisses them until they are dizzy, both treating it as if it is more than just a one night stand. And the pain- it is all part of it anyway. And sometimes he wakes up the next day with a scratch on his cheek or blood on the bed sheets from where someone scratched too sharp or bit too hard and he smiles and runs his hand over it.

He's a little off that way.

A little off in that masochistic kind of way.

Or sadistic.

Aspen does what he pleases. He's never been fond of labels. Besides, he's too alone for anyone to ever call him them anyway.

And his fingers become a thief to his mind and they rest on his cheek and he pretends that they belong to someone else. He imagines that there's someone beside him- someone he loves- and that they are resting their hand against his cheek and curling a hand around his waist.

Sometimes it's nice to dream.

~~ooo~~

There had never been anything worse to Aria than two-faced people.

At one moment, they were kind. They were all nice inside and they wanted to be your friend. And they would seem trusting and trustworthy and she fell right into their grasp, just knowing that they would catch her before she hit the ground.

The next moment, they were demons. They would snigger behind her back and lean their heads back as they laughed. Claws would curl around her arm and she'd run until she was sure that she had lost them. But they kept coming back to taunt her and taunt her until she found that she needed to stop letting herself get cut by them. So she slipped on a jacket and put on a mask that had a smiling face forever etched into it.

And she picked up on the term "Fight fire with fire," and then something in her changed.

Her words became

cruel and

ugly and

hurtful and

she cringed the next time she looked into the mirror because she had become the very thing she had tried to fight.

~~ooo~~

"Please, no," Caspian wants to say except he only manages to think it.

He doesn't live in any good part of town.

And it's ending with another kick to his side and his hands are pinned down beside him and one of the people near him pulls his shirt up. Caspian refuses to scream but his eyes are wide and bloodshot and a knife gleams in the corner of his eyes. Suddenly they're laughing like they're drunk at some frat party at high school and it feels like a brand of fire is being laid across his back.

They carve the words "misfit" into his back in sloppy handwriting.

Everything's dark in his mind anyway, though, so he chooses to not see it.

He just sits in his room, on his bed and blocks out the pain. The acute pain in his back is caused by six letters of weakness where he couldn't fight off some guys he didn't mean to piss off. He can't help that he's a naturally irritable person.

But if he thinks real hard, then maybe the bad thoughts

will go and then

all the scars

will start

to

fade

aw-...