corneredbliss

|A National Anthem|

The doors slid up above the car frame and Marcy softly chuckled her approval. This thing was out of a freaking Bond movie. Nathaniel seemed completely unfazed by the thing, but she was smiling as she proceeded to lift her purse over her head and tuck it into the foot space before settling herself down into her seat. Getting Nate to agree to pick her up was one thing; the shiny car was just another plus.

She was reaching up to shut the door as he replied to her quip, namedropping whom she assumed was the Prince of England. Marlene rolled her eyes at the windshield, tucking strands that had gotten free of her bun back behind her ears. "You boys and your toys," she sighed, meant to be disapproval, although she herself wouldn't have minded having toys like this. Living in the city most of her life, she never really had cause to own one of these bad boys. Just another one of the luxuries she had to live without.

“Wait… is it the left…or right side of the road?”

Marcy's eyes widened and flew over to look at him just in time to catch that sideways glance that told her he was playing with her. And almost immediately a few bubbles of genuine laughter erupted from her as he pulled the car out of the space with ease. Her gaze also caught his flexed, open palm at the wheel; there was no reason for it, but she had always found his way of steering the car into turns like that very hot. Yeah, it was fucking weird to find it appealing, but the idea that he could control the machine with one strong hand was enough to make her want to beg him to pull over so she could jump his bones.

Now, she simply pursed her lips together and swallowed down the arousal, resulting in a moody, grumbled, "You're an asshole..." But the smile returned to her face soon after, and her stupid pride kept her head turned away from him to hide the damned thing.

It was strange how easily they were interacting. Like nothing had changed. Well, there was the number of repressed urges and the constant under current of awkwardly familiar sensations, but aside from that, everything seemed normal. Marcy had stormed down here with an intent to shred him to pieces with guilt and anger, but that plan didn't seem to be working out just yet. Not that she was going to complain - despite her denial, it was nice to be back in his presence. She would never admit it to his face now, but it soothed her somehow. The years that he'd been gone had been a total blur of fast-paced city living. He'd always been like a refreshing, drink of water.

At his question, though, Marlene felt a sudden, unexplainable surge of anger charge through her. The smile was instantly wiped off and she practically snorted at the ease with which he asked it. How long had she been in there? How long had she been waiting for him to come visit her? It probably wasn't his fault that the nurses didn't pass on her not-so-kindly worded messages to his office, or that Alan didn't call him sooner, but all of the frustration seemed to funnel in right then and there, at the man driving this pissy fucking car. The man that had pulled her down to the capital in the first place. "Oh, let me see..." She crinkled up her nose, pretending to think long and hard about it.

"Four months and twelve days. That's about one hundred and thirty-three days that I've been clean, by the way." That last bit was spat out like acid, and then she tacked on for extra measure, "Thanks for asking. Oh wait, you didn't."

It was probably obvious that she'd been clean, but she thought she'd rub it in a bit more, a subtle allusion to the previous time she'd gone sober. And like a child throwing a temper fit, she crossed her arms across her chest above the seat belt and sunk into the seat, face set in a hard expression.

|A National Anthem|

She still had that languid, strolling walk of hers, allowing Nate to pull a little ahead of her as they exited the room and maneuvered their way through the hospital. A few nurses that had treated her during the stay blinked in confusion at the hasty, hooded male leading her out of the building, and when they waved goodbye to her with question marks on their faces, Marcy flashed them an award winning smile, simply waved back, and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Men. What can ya do?"

When they arrived in the reception area, Marlene made to walk towards the check-in counter where the usual business happened. But Nathan didn't stop, and the question mark that had been on the nurses' faces made a guest appearance on hers. "Wait, what about the papers?" she murmured at his shoulder, jogging to catch up with him. When he didn't respond, she just rolled her eyes and sighed, deciding to trust him with whatever he had planned. He probably had his ways of taking care of things. It was just as well; she had never really liked the bitch at the desk, anyway.

Marcy followed after him all the way down to the parking garage, enjoying the sound of their footsteps echoing in the stairwell as they went. She glanced around at all of the dormant cars in their invisible cubbies, playing a game with herself to see whether or not she could guess which was his.

Though he didn't really seem to know which one it was, either. An eyebrow inched itself up on her forehead as she watched him clicking the button on a set of keys. But again, deciding to just let him do his thing, Marcy kept her witty attitude contained to a smirk. Finally a beeping sound came from somewhere further down the lot, and she followed him to a shiny new BMW, like a gem in a sea of rocks. And it's been a while since she'd been in a gem as nice as this one.

Her jaw dropped. "Oh, my god." The thing was gorgeous. Marlene was never really into the mechanics, but you could never deny that the machines were beautiful. She'd been around nice cars her entire life because of where she'd grown up, but the damn car wasn't exactly going along with the inconspicuous vibe he was trying to keep up. Then again, it was D.C. Marcy realized this probably was being inconspicuous.

She let out a long whistle. Never really one to ask whether she could touch, Marcy lay her hand on the vehicle and almost caressing it, let it run along its length until she reached the passenger side. "Nice perks." Then, a funny thought occurred to her. It wasn't exactly like she was super concerned, or anything. But the President doesn't usually man his own transportation, did he? "You still remember how to drive?"

|A National Anthem|

Marcy snorted at the mention of her brother being worried about her. It was nice of him to cover like that, but it was unnecessary. They both knew that she was a big girl who didn't need anyone's sympathy, which was why it was always such a big deal to her that she always felt compelled to seek out Nathan's. Now, playing grown-up with his stuck-up wife, Alan has come to share the outlook of their parents', which was that Marlene was the blemish on the face of their family. Didn't bother her much, though. As long as they were there as a safety net, Marcy was perfectly fine being the bad seed. It suited her.

As he grabbed her duffel from the bed and swung it over his shoulder, she couldn't help herself: "Wow, special treatment from the celebrity himself." Laughing softly, she lifted the strap of the satchel over her head and let it rest across her body, finally allowing for some definition between where the sweater ended and where she began. Marcy hooked one thumb into the strap and came to attention at his side, chest puffing out while her hand flung itself up to her hairline in a lazy, mock solemn salute.

"Lead the way, Mr. Pres."

Sure, she might have been a bit too obvious with her jabs at his new lifestyle, but he had to have known this was coming. Maybe she was a sarcastic, vengeful bitch, but let it never be said that she ever wasted an opportunity. After they left the room, she'd probably have to hold back most of the smart remarks for the sake of his carefully constructed publicity. And for the sake of not getting arrested on account of accidentally calling Nathaniel a jackass, or something. That would just be a waste.

She strode past him to the door and pulled it open, holding it behind her with her hip while she gathered the strands of her long hair and tied it up in a messy bun. "How the hell did you get in here, anyway? Without any fuss, I mean? Don't you have a posse following you around like, 24/7 nowadays?" The back of her slender neck now exposed, he could see the little tattoo of the black and white outline of a lotus flower peeking out through wisps of loose strands when she turned her head to look out in the hallway. It was her first tattoo, the one she'd dragged him to get with her on her eighteenth birthday for a hand to squeeze.

|A National Anthem|

“Who wouldn’t try to get in your pants?”

That was the last thing she expected to come out of the President's mouth. But then again, he wasn't just the President to her. Sure, Marlene was more surprised than anything; her cocked eyebrows betrayed her cool-demeanor and her grin was amplified by his cheekiness. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, or perhaps he was simply trying to warm her up. Either way, Marcy couldn't deny the flickers within her stomach that always rose up when being flattered, especially by him.

Marcy pushed that aside. For a while, she thought he could be the only man with an all access pass to the aforementioned pants. Even now, while they stood together in the depressing clinical white of the room, the Scorpio in her was itching to try and get his ass in the bed. But no, she had to be good, for now. He'd finally obliged by coming to get her. She wasn't a complete asshole.

An involuntary grunt and a roll of her blue orbs punctuated his last statement. "Oh, fuck you."

Could she say that to the leader of the country? Eh. Freedom of speech and all that, right? He really could have been joking with her, but he of all people should know that she couldn't not remember him. If she was being honest with herself, he would always be the same Nate that could take several hits from the pipe and still have enough stamina to make the floor hear her moaning through the walls. The whole Presidency thing didn't phase her much. At least, that's what she was telling herself as she continued.

"You really think I could forget you? Come on, Nate. I'm a strictly high functioning addict. Who owns a goddamn phone. It's not like you've been off the grid all this time."

"Besides," she said, taking a few more brave steps forward so that they were only a few flimsy feet apart now, "I don't think even sleep-deprived college seniors have such bad stress lines on their foreheads." Marlene chuckled to indicate that it was a joke as she instinctively reached out with her hand, but paused the movement before it could get further than a few inches ahead of her. She glanced at it, laughed again under her breath, then let it drop back to her side. It's destination was meant to be his face, but she supposed that sort of contact was still packed away in the corner of a warehouse they called history.

Marcy shook her head and turned instead to her bag, which was waiting for her on the bed, and pretended to busy herself with organizing the few, random things inside.

"So I guess Alan already talked to you about my situation? I uh, need a place to stay. Bet you got lots of empty space in that big house of yours now, huh?" She kept her tone nonchalant in order to smooth over the almost-accident, but kept her eyes off of him as she spoke.

|A National Anthem|

Marcy watched his smile widen slightly, watched the familiar look on his face that always came when he was remembering something. She couldn't count on a thousand hands how many times she'd seen this expression, or seen those slivers of dimples carved into his cheeks. She remembered how her fingertips felt when the traced over them, every morning, laying in the mess they'd made the night before. Without knowing it, her fingers had begun fiddling with the loose string hiding in the crook of her left arm, trying to distract herself from getting pulled into memory-land herself; otherwise she knew she'd be standing there with the same strange, reminiscent smile on her face.

But that wasn't why they were here. No, she was here to get even. Or, at the very least, get some place to stay.

Nathaniel had taken a few steps closer to her, and Marcy for some reason straightened up a little bit, her chin gravitating upwards slightly in an attempt seem taller than she was. He probably would recognize the stance, the habit that she couldn't shake, always employed when she felt she needed to try and regain control or power over the situation. The room wasn't very big - at least, it didn't seem very big at the moment. Maybe she was imagining it, but it seemed to be shrinking around the two. Forcing them to get closer. His proximity was already freaking her out, making her toes buzz with electricity and the area between her legs come alive like they hadn't in so long.

No, stop it. That's not why you made him come get you.

Wasn't it?

She could smell him, too. She'd smelled him as soon as he'd walked through the door. It was hard to miss: A strong cologne, a sophisticated scent. Leagues away from the musk he naturally wore on his skin, the aroma that had enveloped her for so many years. The difference snapped Marcy out of her reverie, and she reached up with a slender hand to flick the back of her pointer finger against the tip of her nose. A change in subject.

"Ah, well, I've been just... Fantastic." The undertone of sarcasm in her jazzy-alto voice came trickling back out. "You know, after the withdrawal, they were pretty nice to me here. Free meals, passable bed. Therapist only tried to get in my pants a handful of times. Not so bad..."

"What about you? TV tells me you're doing pretty well."

Understatement of the decade. Marcy's head had fallen to the side, observing his highness, trying to see if she could still get a rise out of him. After all this time, she could still nail the role of his best friend's impish little sister.

"Although, I would have guessed that the President would have nicer threads than those?" She gestured her chin towards his attire, grinning at the idea that she might be the only person to have seen him out and about in sweats.

|A National Anthem|

M A R C Y B U R K E

Four months and twelve days.

Four months, and twelve days.

Second longest amount of time Marlene Burke had been clean.

The first had been a successful, solid half year; but at least that time had been her choice. In retrospect, it was a stupid attempt. She had been set on chasing a fantasy that everyone knew would never come true. Everyone except for her. Marcy really thought she could change. For him. For herself. Dark lips for a prim pink pout. Short skirts for an A-line. Crystal that she would actually wear on her ears and not around her nostrils.

She was young and in love and most dangerously of all, she wanted to prove a point. Why was it so hard to understand that she could quit any time she wanted? This - the drugs, the partying - this wasn't going to be her entire life. It was just a phase, and she would outgrow it.

And she did, for a time. She proved her point. For herself. For him.

And then he fucking left.

Fast forward thirteen years: he was now the President of the United States, and there she was, leaning against the windowpane of her discharge room on the fifteenth floor of St. Elizabeth's hospital.

Since the dawning of the realization that Nate wasn't going to come back for her, that he really was serious about the campaign bullshit, Marcy had thrown herself back onto the familiar cushion of that lifestyle. It welcomed her like a warm blanket, filling her up the way only he used to be able to, once upon a time. With her parents' money she dove headfirst into a blur of needles and men and blissful ignorance.

It didn't help that his face was everywhere. His face, and the face of his wife. Somewhere deep down, she knew it wasn't meant so, but it felt like a harsh Fuck you, Marcy! every time the TV plastered the two across its screen. The anger (or whatever the hell it was that she felt towards him) would flare up, and she would sink right back under the influence. But then the high would waver to an end, and the cycle would begin all over again.

It wasn't until four months and twelve days ago, when the campaigns were starting up again, that Marlene decided she'd had enough. Anger, real anger this time, told her it would be a great idea to make the five hour train ride down to her ex's big fancy house, knock on his door, and give him a thousand pieces of her mind. It would be years and definitely a lifetime too late, but at least she'd win.

However, aggressively screaming and clawing at the police officer who'd asked her to open her purse for inspection upon arrival landed her a room in the hospital's mental ward, postponing her winning blow until the bastard agreed to come down to see her himself.

Withdrawal this time around seemed much, much worse. Her temper and tear ducts had gone haywire without warning, resulting in countless nights handcuffed to her bed with a dirty mouth and sore throat. Of course, the irony wasn't lost on her; handcuffs, a dirty mouth, and a sore throat, attributes that once had been a nightly routine between she and him, twisted into a weird recovery story, all for the sake of seeing him face to face.

Finally, the day of judgement had arrived. She could only wait and see whether or not Alan had delivered on her demands.

They had given her back her belongings, minus the drugs from her satchel purse. She was wearing the clothes she had arrived in: an oversized, plain grey knit sweater, tight jeans that had old paint stains all over, and some worn out black Keds. Her arms were folded across her chest as her piercing blue eyes absentmindedly drifted around the landscape of the side of the hospital. Strawberry blonde hair fell to the middle of her back, tucked behind her ears to keep it out of her face, which, aside from looking tired and thinner than normal, looked pretty much the same as it did when she was clean.

There was the knock...

"Marcy?"

The woman bit down on her lower lip. Media wouldn't let her forget his voice, which had changed over the years, but somehow, in those two syllables, it sounded exactly the same as it did in his dorm room.

She didn't turn around. Not yet, anyway. Truth be told, she half expected his strong hands to slide around her midsection and pull her body into his. She was 5'7", almost a whole head shorter than him, but it was hard to forget how they had fit together like puzzle pieces.

There were a few more beats of silence, during which Marcy was telling her inner monologues to shut the hell up and let her concentrate on keeping her cool. She'd had months to prepare this encounter, but she wasn't expecting how weak the mere sound of her name in his voice was going to make her. Even after all this time, and her grudges...

She turned around to face him. Her gaze immediately found his face, the one she'd seen so much in the past four years. Marcy knew it would probably be strange to see hers after all this time, and she waited for a flicker in his expression to say so. Eventually a small ghost of a smirk would creep across her mouth.

"Hey, Nate." Then she caught herself, shaking her head slightly before she spoke again, although there was a definite hint of sarcasm in her tone. "Or, uh, is it Mr. President now, I guess?"

"Congratulations, by the way."

|A National Anthem|

M A R C Y B U R K E

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A L I N A B E N N E T T

|A National Anthem|

Totally fine with me! I'll probably post some staple info in here just so my scatterbrain can reference it later.

Off to read and reply!

Greetings

Welcome to our humble abode, @neogreggory! Wishing you a happy stay, and an abundance of fire to get your jollies from.

Hope to see you around,
A Capricorn (aka, Bliss)

Ahem...

Hi hello and greetings, lovely people of the Guild! The name's Bliss, and as you probably have already gathered, I am in search of a writing partner.

I'm not up for leaving a long winded check as I assume you've read most of what I'll say on some other thread, so here's my blurb:

I'm currently on winter break from college and am looking to find a no-pressure type partner to write a character-driven story with. General interests that color my writing include The Last of Us, Fight Club, Sense8, and Atonement. I prefer playing with original characters, although worlds can be taken and/or tweaked from canons. In a couple of days I will be able to drink in public (so, 21), and would like my partner to be 18+ should mature language and themes shimmy their way into our story - fair warning, they most likely will. I consider myself an advanced writer and am in need of a partner in the same range that likes to collaborate and throw curveballs at the story with me. Female leads are my default, but sweet talk may persuade me to play a male. I've got no preferences for "pairings" (MxF/FxF), but I don't really do MxM games. I do have a life outside of the Guild, so I ask that you be patient with my reply times. I like to write in threads on site, and am only looking to take on one, maybe two stories at the moment so as not to exhaust my already fussy muse. This means that I'll probably be picky with whom I choose, but partner compatibility is most important to me, I think.

And there's a general gist. Quick and painless! Right? Right.

Curious to know more? Want to exchange writing samples? Got any ideas to dump on me? Feel free to assault my PM box gently with your typed words.

Thanks a bunch for your time.
- Bliss