Sample Thread - Celebrity
Hayden Christensen & Sienna Miller - for dietpop

Me (hhristen): Crisp and cold, but pristinely free of snow: just what should have been expected, Hayden thought. The words, the idea, superimposed over the crawling landscape of the New York City streets. It was strange to think the cross-country flight had seemed shorter than this drive from JFK, to Grand Street, and somewhere in the transition from plane to cab, the city's mood seemed to have changed. The aerial view showed a sparkling, glittering vista - something broad and open and hopeful. Down on the ground? Everything was gray and packed together. Buildings shuddering against each other, sludge piled against the curbs, people leaning into people, as they hastened through the dark and cold.

The interior of the cab was a bubble of quiet and manufactured heat. The driver was one of the merciful few who, if he recognized Hayden at all, was so immune to seeing familiar faces in a big city that it didn't register on the radar of his day. He had the radio on now, softly playing the news in the background of the music streaming over Hayden's headphones. If it weren't for the oppressive outside, the ride could have been a nice one; two people in their separate worlds of sound and substance, traveling together.

But as all rides do, it came to an end. The driver curled into a parallel park job, and the engine cut. The sound of the news and the music faded, and words and cash were exchanged. Presumably, this wouldn't be a long visit; the only luggage following Hayden out of the back seat and into the blistering cold of the street was an old backpack with one frayed strap. He shoved his headphones into the bag's outside pocket, a curl of cord hanging out, as he hurried into the building and away from the frigid air.

Although the moment between cab and apartment building was a short one, it took Hayden until he got to Sienna's door to feel as if he had thawed out again. He banged on her door without feeling quite like an icicle, but nevertheless, a little strange. Behind that door was a whole world of Sienna within her own context, a thing he had never experienced in their not-so-long-ago world of two.

Them (millierose): The flat on Grand street stands majestically against the cold. A beacon of warmth in its prime, the first time Sienna crunched its history-covered gravel beneath her feet, her life changed, and she often wonders if the ghosts of these walls are ready to haunt whoever steps inside. The world outside the multiple brick stories is winter-tainted; everything falls by in stark whites, in ice-cycle clears, in chalky street grays and the sparks of orange heat in the fireplace are her protection from the relentless monster that no jacket and no scarf and no pair of mittens can protect her from. The idea of stepping away from the self-created comfort doesn't appeal to her but she knows the venture, should they find themselves walking down corridors and hallways and conversing against neon buttons and deep elevator maroons, will be worth it because it's Hayden and somehow, he always is.

The flat smells like hot cocoa and cake, like baby powder and burning wood. The twins are asleep in the back of the house, probably dreaming in colourful but blurry images their one and a half month old minds don't quite understand, while Sienna's world is smeared with orange from her place on the couch. Gavin's not back yet and with any luck, Hayden won't mind hanging out for a few minutes in a world where shadows are thrown by the blinds and motes are hidden by the lack of light. She enjoys these moments of quiet, where she's the only one not sleeping, where the curtains are drawn and the fireplace crackle serves as the only music she needs.

She hears the knock and uncurls her legs, nerves thundering inside of her chest while the colourful flap of butterfly wings are pinned to her stomach with a forced swallow. The pressure builds as she walks, her skirt hanging around her knees while her bare feet welcome the warmth of carpet. She takes a deep breath, holds until it burns and exhales slowly. It's something a little more than meeting an old friend a little less than reacquainting with a life-long lover and she's trying to find her place between the two. When the door opens, her smile is easy, a dimple on each cheek and her gray eyes bright.

"I'm so, so glad you made it." Her voice is soft, her words sincere and she takes a step back, motioning for him to come in. She's doing the best she can not to jump on him, wrap her arms and legs around him and throw a kiss against his cheek for all the months that have passed and she twists one leg around the other as she smiles, her fingers curling down into her palms to press crescents there.

Me (hhristen): The sensations that spill from the opened doorway are innumerable. There are the smells that seem stronger for the warm air that carries them, scents Hayden knows, in the back of his mind, will always be imprinted with a memory of Sienna's smile, too long gone, flashing brightly in the hallway light. There are the sounds, or the lack thereof; a comfortable, private silence waiting behind the young woman, a silence that wants to ease him back into familiarity. There are the colours, the sometimes cornsilk, sometimes bright gold hues in her hair. White for her smile. The city colour for her eyes. The dark behind her, and the light behind her visitor.

Then there are the sensations that are less than physical, and somehow more. Relief at the sight of Sienna, relief that she's alone. Happiness, appreciation, because the room behind her isn't an hotel, it's a real place, and it's been too long since Hayden set foot in one of those. In his head, it takes a long time, but in reality, he returns the smile the second one lights on Sienna's face.

He's barely inside the door, before he kisses her cheek in greeting, his palm briefly skirting her waist. He thinks nothing of it; if she had never been more than a friend, he might have done the same. In his head, he knows its rational, but in his heart, he's delighted to touch her again, even so briefly. "The traffic's bad," he says when he straightens up. But he's still smiling, like it might be some kind of a joke. "I almost got out and walked."

Them (millierose): The heavy panel closes behind them, rich mahogany slipping a lock back into place with a click that's grown familiar to her. Most of the apartment speaks of Gavin; the colours, the placement, the angular display, even the way some of the shadows spill across the floor from music related knick-knacks written across the shelves like words and poetry. The Sienna touch is here and there, in the throw across the couch, the decorative pillows, the candles and the bohemian-slash-rock and roll feel that dances silently in the corners.

"I was starting to wonder if you'd changed your mind." Her words are soft but she won't admit the reasoning. The tabloids have made their history more than clear and sometimes when she's standing outside with a fag and smoke tendrils that curl through the air like would-be forgotten memories if she wasn't one to dwell, she wonders if his absence is because of her. But he's here now and that speaks volumes, more than typography, more than the crisp fold of a newspaper stuffed tearily into the trash.

She notes the way his hand moves and she allows her fingers to graze her shoulder before the touch is dropped; she doesn't want to burn them with the could-be indecencies of an intimate touch, doesn't want to create an awkward air between them before they've even started. "Do you mind if we stay here for a bit? I can get you a cup of hot chocolate, I just can't leave the twins yet. Though if need be, uncle Joey is on call downstairs."

Me (hhristen): "It's fine." He means what he says, as he sets the tired backpack down, to slump against the wall. It looks alien there, its suggestion of wandering foreign to this concise, put-together living space. Something painfully indicative of a singular human being, in the midst of this cocoon of a family. Hayden feels about the same way; should the firelight spring up and take over the lamps, he would feel that sensation of visiting the home of a rarely seen relative. Related, but not entirely relevant.

He amends his thought. "Actually, coffee would be amazing. I'm kind of caffeine starved." It may have been three hours earlier on the west coast, but after a week of early starts to long days, piled on top of a brief layover in Chicago, it felt three hours later.

Them (millierose): "I'll make you coffee on one condition." Her fingertips ghost across his arm, ending at the parallel bones of his wrist were the skin is tightly pulled and the pulse is reflecting his heart beat against the lines of her fingerprints. If her touch lingers she might be able to feel it, a thump like the rhythm of a song she hasn't heard in so long but still rings familiar, a comfortable sense of deja vu. She could trace the lyrics on his arm, find the notes against his flesh, smell ink burned to parchment through his skin and discover the rests along his throat-column. "You have to come keep me company while I do."

In spite of the distance and the fact that months have fallen by on the calendar, the numbers spinning and weaving through their unspoken history, unannounced and without consequence, she's comfortable. She's comfortable with the way he smells, the way he's close enough that she doesn't have to reach through distance to grab hold, comfortable with the way he fits in with foreign hues and earthy tones, not alien at all. She begins to walk into the kitchen, a direct attachment to the living room, Hayden trailing behind her.

Me (hhristen): And it's a glad sort of following. As lady of these turrets, the house has to bow before her, doesn't it? If he follows in her wake, it has to bend, to accept him, and maybe to break. In turn, he might accept it, too, but only after quite a few laps. Perhaps it was a crutch, meeting Sienna on sound stages, in hotels, among fabricated scenes and play dreams. Hayden realizes, ultimately, he knows nothing about her life. He knows nothing about what it is to be with her, and it makes him feel like a fictitious footnote at the end of a chapter in her story. Something a student might miss, if they don't read carefully.

To hang by Sienna's side might look intrusive, presumptuous, expecting. Hayden pulls a chair out from her kitchen table, and turns it around to sit backwards, facing her movements at the counter, his arms folded across the chair's back. "So for hot chocolate, I could ignore you, but for coffee, I can't?" he asks, jovially.

Them (millierose): There's nothing sound stage-esque about the flat as it splays out before them, flayed beneath the scorch of realism, life-prongs that probe and ponder the walls and how to shatter identities to form new ones, the edges of the floor, the off-white tile. It's far from perfect, this little box, with a diaper genie misplaced, bibs strewn about in haphazard fashion, baby powder dusting surfaces and a baby monitor stuck on the edge of the counter, ready to teeter off and fall on the floor with a crash. That's a bit how Sienna's life has been, teetering on the edge, her batteries tucked beneath muscle like tattered wings ready to sprout. She's mum and she's fiancee and still she's that girl on set, the one that laughs too loudly, the one that doesn't think before she speaks, the one that finds comfort in strong arms and new smells. So much has changed and so much is still waiting for a turn.

"Exactly. Hot chocolate is more of a lonely drink. Coffee, it's social. I never like to make coffee alone." She moves like a cat, fluid and graceful except for those all too often awkward moments where she knocks something over or sends something flying, her inner klutz never hibernating, not even for winter. "This blend is an excellent one." She's quick, like she's done this a hundred times before, perfected it into java bean art. She leans into the counters edge to face him, her arms hooking over her chest to wait for a brew. "How have you been, really? It's been a long time." Too long.

Me (hhristen): To watch Sienna buzz (or more accurately: to flit) around the kitchen counter, into cupboards, in the way of domestic items, is calming. She's animating the room, with every move she makes, she jogs a memory, and each one melts into the air, absorbs into the floor, and leaves Hayden feeling a little more grounded. This is just another place. It's the same girl, even amidst the baby things, which are the most striking and unforgivably different. He wonders what she looks like with her children, small, clinging forms, and then dismisses the thought.

"You know I can't tell the difference between most of them." His chin is resting on his folded arms for a moment, until the question falls. Then his posture changes, becomes simultaneously more alert and less sure of how to phrase, as he runs a hand over his short hair (too short, in this cold. He'll be glad when he can grow it back.), looks up at Sienna. "I'm off. It's the location hopping, I think. We're all over the place, we were in Japan, now we're back." He shrugs. "You know, how you get to be in so many places that it's not like you are anywhere, anymore."

Them (millierose): She's misunderstood at best, misplaced at worst, the first dying petal on a spring-blossomed flower. Parties don't draw her in like they used to, the blare of a drowning beat, the relentless rhythmic pulse traded in for an oven timer and a coffee pot while she's still considered the it girl she never asked to be. If only they could see her now, or even see her the way Hayden's seen her so many times; raw, real, and glowing florescent under the harsh kitchen lights. Now, she abandons the promise of the slick counters edge to hold her up and not let her fall, braving the dangers of sticky tiles to move across the floor, closer to him, testing out her wings.

She stops in front of him, peering at him as she kneels down and rests her arms on top of his own, her chin propped on her forearm. She likes being this close to people, personal space invaded so that she can read letters, broken by experience and hanging by fraying threads along the freckles in his eyes. "Settle down. Take a break. Do something for you." She leans in close, allowing her forehead to bump is own before she sinks back on her heels, her chin finding once more the gentle muscular pillow. "And if you can't do that, call me every day and I'll remind you of where you are."

Me (hhristen): Her invitation is warmer than the apartment's air, and he wishes, yearns, to be able to accept it at face value. But, like critical, glaring foes, the baby moniter, a grocery receipt, the packaging of new pacifiers peeking out of the edge of the garbage, they all warn against it. He isn't her boyfriend. He never was. Merely, the spell of her charm and affection was cast, and he stood in its way. It bowled him over, and he let it, to the point of losing a girlfriend in the fray. And now, did he have any room to think the things she said to him were more than friendly? No.

In spite of it, her close proximity, the faint shudder of her breath near him, and the touch of her forehead, made him smile. In spite of whatever melancholy he should have felt, it tugged at his lips, daring him to be inappropriate, to kiss her again. He suppressed the urge, though it may have flickered in his eyes, an uncertain little boy shadow. "Where am I?"

Them (millierose): She likes it here in that close proximity, in the shared inhale-exhale, in the way she smells a new part of him every time she breathes in as though she never has before; and in ways, she hasn't. As much as she'd like to pretend that nothing changed from their first meeting, their first on-screen kiss, their first off-screen goodbye, she knows there's a good chance that a morphing has taken place. Apes have become humans, built their ships and sailed into purple hues; if things are different for her, they certainly must be for him, too.

Still, she likes the way she can almost, almost see her own formation in his eyes. She'll have to move soon, walk back to the coffee like she's walking on air, but for now the apartment still smells more like burning wood than coffee beans. "I don't know, baby." Her head pops up, her eyes wide, as though something's just occurred to her. At the end of the day, when the ships have sailed, he still means more to her than he knows. Reaching for his hand, she smiles above her fingers as they draw his hand up, grazing his fingertips against the place her heart would be. "Here, of course. And here--" She allows her fingers to move from his hand, motioning around the apartment, her gaze cutting from the doorway to the living room back to his eyes. "For the moment, and if you ever need a place to get away."

Me (hhristen): But what does that mean? he wonders, as the etchings of his fingerprints brush soft against her shirt. He forgets his own age, because he's the fourteen-year-old victim of a crush again, felled by a girl who grows too many questions between the curves of her lips. What did Gavin mean, in all this? What did he mean, in terms of Gavin? Was she inviting him to be the boy her fiance hates? And if she was, why?

When she moves, a strand of hair falls towards her eyes, and like a robot, a record, a recollection, Hayden reaches over and brushes it back behind her ear. The hand withdraws, he folds his arms again, but the brief touch of her skin hums against the backs of his fingers. "Thanks," he says, earnestly. And then, with a hint of his worry about her family, "But don't let me step all over what you've got going on."

[ / excerpt ]