- - - HELP ME SHINE

[XAVIER DONOVAN CRANE]

I NEED A LITTLE MORE THUNDER
a little more lightning a little more you

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• • • • • • • • • • • ROSE HAWTHORNE ![/font][/color][/font][/size][/center]

People were always questioned whether or not Xavier knew he was truly in love with Kahlua. They questioned how serious he was about this relationship and how much he really knew about love. True, Xavier had absolutely no ex boyfriends to compare his relationship with Kahlua to, but he knew that what he felt for hisman he did not have words for. He couldn’t, no matter how many times he tried, put together words to properly express how he felt about Kooah. He just knew. That was all he could really tell someone. He felt so happy it made him sick. Kahlua was so handsome and adorable and attractive that it made him hurt. He couldn’t stand to be away from him, and he was all he could think about when he was. He was what Xavier fell asleep holding and thinking about, and who he woke up to every morning. Hearing people question his relationship with Kahlua hurt more than Xavier would ever let himself show. He kept that chubby cheeked grin on his face and pretended like he shrugged it off. Xavier wasn’t one to show when something bothered him, not unless it was something serious that needed to be said. Xavier knew people would always question him and Kahlua because of how young they were. There was no escaping it, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It was embarrassing to have people ask him about Kooah, though there were a few exceptions. He had recently met a rather awesome girl who had been innocent about her questions. No condescending or harsh tones at all with her. Xavier couldn’t imagine life without Kahlua. When everything was getting him down, being able to see his goofy smile made it all worth while to him.

So his family didn’t exactly treat him nice. That didn’t matter if he got to hold his boyfriend at the end of the day. Even a little bit of stress could set of Xavier’s epilepsy. He was sensitive too, which didn’t help. Xavier took his sister’s insults harder than he should, and the same applied to his step-mother yelling at him. He knew he should just shrug it off like he could so easily do with everything else, and he knew he shouldn’t take it to heart, but he couldn’t help it. It was hard hearing from the woman who raised you that you were useless, even if he knew she didn’t mean it. At least, he was sure she didn’t mean it. It was hard to think about Mel loving Izzy more than she loved him. It was hard thinking that all the good things she had done for him had been a lie. Thinking that the woman he had called mother his entire life wasn’t really his mother had been really hard on him. Kahlua, in his own special way, had always been there to help Xavier through it. Xavier loved knowing that Kooah would always be there for him, even if it wasn’t in a conventional way. He was definitely going to be there for Kooah too, which he had already proved several times. At his junior prom he had punched a man for making fun of Kahlua, and considering that Xavier would apologise to ants if he accidentally stepped on them that was a big deal.

Thoughts of Kahlua ran through his head as he edited a video for class, as they usually did. He sat in a chair in front of his laptop with his thoughts split between the video and his boyfriend. He looked like your average kid glued to his computer, except that the headphones he had on were giant and bright pink; they belonged to his sister, as did the pink iPod that they were plugged into. His shirt was blue plaid worn over top of a bright green tee shirt, his jeans skinny as usual and his wrists covered in home made bracelets. Yellow Converse were on his feet and his usual cross necklace was accompanied by two more chains. He looked pretty average except for the high fashion mullet he was currently sporting, afraid to cut it because Kahlua might flip out; he loved it almost as much as he loved Xavier’s lazy eye. He worked away at editing his video, though he was definitely open for a distraction right now. He wanted something to do and someone to talk to, since Kahlua was in class while Xavier had a free period. Someone save him from this editing nightmare!

words: 756
outfit: here
lyrics: the ready set, stays four the same
notes: ramble ramble

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[ROSEMARIE ARIEL HAWTHORN]

TAKE A BREATH TAKE IT DEEP CALM YOURSELF HE SAYS TO ME IF YOU
PLAY YOU PLAY FOR KEEPS TAKE THE GUN AND COUNT TO THREE • • •
& i'm sweating now moving slow no time to think my turn to go
AND YOU CAN SEE MY HEART BEATING
YOU CAN SEE IT THROUGH MY CHEST

Finally, a spare. Well not really a spare, Rose's timetable was so packed that she never got a spar,e but she had a free period today. Rose was supposed to be in chem, but her class had been informed that they were to be excused from it for the day for "undisclosed reasons" which meant that someone had caused something to explode. It wasn't unusual, probably the freshmen class. Why they let those classes handle anything even remotely explosive was a mystery to Rose, but she wasn't too upset about missing a day of chem. This gave her extra time to work on homework, something that she usually spent hours doing. Being in advanced bio, advanced chem, advanced calculus, trigonometry was hard work, and that was only her maths and sciences. There was also English Literature, Spanish, Drama and History. So in other words, Rose was always swamped in homework and assignments.

And of course, as if school weren't hard enough already, there was Alex. The little guy made it hard for Rose to do her homework, because he loved attention, especially attention from mommy, and also more recently he had begun to half crawl, half walk (since he was still working on the whole walking thing) away while she wasn't paying full attention to him. So now Rose carried her backpack, plus a bag full of everything she might need for Alex, plus him, and he was pretty heavy. So that's what Rose was doing as she walked into the empty classroom used for spares. She had her backpack over her back, a heavy bag slung over one shoulder, and was holding Alex up. There was only one other person in the classroom, a guy listening to music and typing away at his laptop. The teen girl carefully put Alex down on the ground, "There you go Alex," She said gently before putting the two bags down as well. She pulled a few toys out of the bag, including his ever preset giraffe stuffed animal, and held them out to him.

Alex gave a little giggle and looked up Rose, "Mommy, jaff."

[/color] And Rose just smiled and nodded, ruffling the little bit of dark hair on his head. Alex had started speaking a few words around his first birthday, mommy being his first, and jaff, being his way of saying giraffe. Alex then proceeded to have Jaffy the giraffe destroy the little town of buildings made out of blocks he had stacked precariously on top of one another. Rose just smiled and sat down at her desk, pulling her biology notebook and textbook out of her bag. She flipped to the page they had been working on in class and began writing the questions in her notebook, the pen moving quickly over the paper, leaving neat little cursive letters. She hoped that Jaffy would keep Alex occupied long enough for her to at least get her biology homework done, because even a small dent in her pile of work was better than getting nothing done.
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words 504 tagged xavier notes she's wearing a gryffindoor shirt XP outfit click
template PANIC! ITS LAUZ @ CAUTION[/center]

[XAVIER DONOVAN CRANE]

I NEED A LITTLE MORE THUNDER
a little more lightning a little more you

[/font]
• • • • • • • • • • • ROSE HAWTHORNE ![/font][/color][/font][/size][/center]

Compared to some of his friends, Xavier’s classes were really easy. For the most part, he had art classes. He was taking music and film and drama, as well as Media Studies and Writer’s Craft, which was all about short stories and scripts rather than essays like a Literature class. While he had a lot of work to do in all of his classes, it was mostly hands on stuff that he could complete in class rather than having to take it home, which he definitely saw as beneficial. He had never really been all that great at school, never managing to get into the advanced classes and just barely getting decent marks in the regular classes he had. Xavier’s marks had always been rather low, not because he wasn’t smart but because he wasn’t your typical learner. He didn’t do well applying what he had learned in writing, he did much better applying what he had learned to every day life. He could show you, but he couldn’t tell you. In a way, Xavier’s rather slack schedule meant more time to help out Kahlua, who wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the batch. It also meant more time to help out his friends, which was always important to him.

Xavier’s need to help everyone that he met often became a problem. Xavier paid very little attention to his own health and wellbeing, often over stressing his body and having one of his more serious seizures. Most of the seizures Xavier had were small partial seizures, consisting of his eyes fluttering and rolling back for a split second before he continued with what he was doing, or is arm twitching or moving on its own. At times he was coherent during the seizures, but every now and then he would have one that was more serious, which consisted of Xavier walking around, unaware of what he was doing or where he was going. He often had to be carefully directed away from furniture, people or stairways. These ones left him feeling nauseous and light headed afterwards and were caused by large amounts of stress, so they weren’t as frequent as the others and the last time he had had one he had fallen down the stairs and broken an arm. For him, neglecting to take care of his body could be dangerous. He spent so much time caring for Kahlua, his grandmother, and anyone who appeared to need a hand that he didn’t have time for himself. It was as much of a flaw as it was a gift.

So of course when he saw Rose enter the room out of the corner of his eye he wanted to stop everything that he was doing to spend some time with her and her adorable baby boy. He had always loved kids and had always wanted some of his own, despite his sexuality and inability to imagine a naked girl without feeling like he was going to vomit. Adoption had always been something he had wanted to do, being adopted himself. He had a lot of love to give, and he wanted to give it to a child that needed it most. For now he would stick to kidnapping Alex whenever Rose permitted him. He went to take off his bright pink headphones but his hands froze once they reached them, his right fingers twitching as his eyes rolled back and fluttered. It lasted about a second before everything was back to normal, Xavier unaware that anything had even happened. He proceeded to remove the headphones and put them in his bag, saving what he had done of his editing and closing the program. He didn’t close his laptop though and just left it on the desktop. By the time he had spun his chair around little Alex was having a giraffe destroy a little block town and Rose was working on presumably homework. “You’re not going to say hi?”

[/color] he whined in mock offence. He stepped out of his chair and sat down on the floor beside Alex, though he didn’t dare disturb the child from his fun. “You break my heart Rose,”[/color] he continued to tease with a that usual wide grin of his.[/blockquote]words: 705
outfit: here
lyrics: the ready set, stays four the same
notes: hope you don't mind them already knowing each other. i can change it if you want =3[/blockquote][/size]

[ROSEMARIE ARIEL HAWTHORN]

TAKE A BREATH TAKE IT DEEP CALM YOURSELF HE SAYS TO ME IF YOU
PLAY YOU PLAY FOR KEEPS TAKE THE GUN AND COUNT TO THREE • • •
& i'm sweating now moving slow no time to think my turn to go
AND YOU CAN SEE MY HEART BEATING
YOU CAN SEE IT THROUGH MY CHEST

Rose hadn't thought that Xavier would let her get very far in her homework, he loved Alex too much. It didn't really bother her though, because as much as she liked getting her homework done, she liked seeing people who loved Alex more. So when he joked about her breaking his heart she gave him a mocking, motherly look. "Oh I'm sorry Xavier," She said, using a baby voice with him, "Did big, mean ol' Rose hurt little Xavy?' She laughed and rested her cheek on the inside of her palm, smiling as he sat down on the floor next to Alex.

Alex was preoccupied putting the blocks back on top of one another, or doing his best to, so he could knock them over again, though every so often one of them would tumble. He giggled when they did, little dimples showing on his cheeks. "Hey Alex," Rose said and her son barely glanced up at her, too intent on his block towers. "Look who it is buddy, Xavier." Rose hardly ever actually used baby talk on Alex, he was already a late speaker and baby talk was not going to help him learn any faster, instead she spoke to him like he was a normal person, but just kinder and sweeter than she was with anyone else.

Alex finally seemed to notice Xavier, for he looked up at the guy from his blocks, his brown eyes wide and curious. "Jaff."

[/color] He said, sticking his thumb in his mouth and holding his giraffe out to show Xavier with his other hand. One dark curl went down his forehead, black as a raven's wing against his cafe au lait skin. Rose sighed and slid down off her chair onto the ground next to Xavier and Alex. She gently removed Alex's thumb from his mouth, he pulled away from her and stuck his thumb right back in his mouth, watching her with his brown eyes.

Rose knew that once he was distracted by something else Alex would forget about his thumb so she began stacking the blocks properly, creating nice, tall towers with them once again. "Alex look," She said with a smile, "More towers for Jaffy to knock down." The little boy looked at Rose, then at the towers, then up at Xavier, as it trying to figure out which of them deserved his attention at this moment in time, he then moved forward to knock the towers over with Jaffy, giggling madly, a wide grin on his face.

Rose smiled and laughed along with him, there was nothing she loved more than seeing her little boy smile and laugh. And when he did her entire world lit up, because Alex was her world. Most people thought Rose was crazy for keeping Alex, she had only been 16, and barely, when he was born, but if they saw how the little boy's hair soft hair curled, the way his dimples showed, and if they could hear him laugh, then they would understand. Yes it was hard, but in the end it was all worth it and she knew it. As Rose stacked the blocks for Alex she looked up at Xavier "So what brings you here to the wonderful room of nerdiness, where some of those who actually decide to do homework during free time come?"
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words 552 tagged xavier notes yeah that's fine, makes things easier outfit click
template PANIC! ITS LAUZ @ CAUTION[/center]

[XAVIER DONOVAN CRANE]

I NEED A LITTLE MORE THUNDER
a little more lightning a little more you

[/font]
• • • • • • • • • • • ROSE HAWTHORNE ![/font][/color][/font][/size][/center]

The whole having children aspect of Xavier’s future plans was complicated, and not just because he was gay. Even before he had figured out he liked men he had known that he was going to adopt at least one child no matter what it took, but now it was way more complicated. After doing some digging he figured out that a lot of agencies were very strict about same sex couple adoptions, especially if one of the parents was disabled in any way, which both he and Kahlua were. He worried that they wouldn’t be allowed. And then were was Brandyn back in British Columbia. Right before Xavier had started dating Kahlua, but when they were close friends, Brandyn had been born from one of Kahlua’s crazy past flings. There was always the chance that one day Brandyn would be put into their care, which he actually really wanted, but again Xavier would want to adopt Brandyn so she was officially his as well as Kahlua’s. Parenting was such complex business, but he shouldn’t be getting ahead of himself considering he was barely eighteen yet. For now he would stick to being the self designated “god uncle” of Alex. “My heart is in a million little pieces, and I’m afraid I don’t have enough glue to put it back together. I hope you’re happy,”

[/color] he continued to tease as he watched Alex, who he found absolutely adorable.

Xavier didn’t remember much about being a baby; his earliest memory was when he was five and it had been one of his first seizures. For the most part, Xavier’s memories of being small revolved around seizures and hospital visits and fighting with his sister for, well, everything. There were a few good ones, like fishing with his late grandfather and baking with the grandmother that lived with him, as well as getting to help out at church, but a majority of his memories were flooded with Izzy’s nasty attitude and habit of ruining everything. Whenever Xavier vented to his friends about what his sister was like outside of how they knew her they said he was exaggerating, but he really wasn’t. He had gotten seriously hurt on several occasions because she chose to “not notice” a seizure that had caused him to trip over the coffee table or fall down the stairs. He hoped and future children he ended up raising didn’t have the same nasty sibling rivalry he had grown up with. “Future architect,”[/color] Xavier chuckled as he watched Alex build and destroy towers. “Or a future monster film actor; Honey I Blew Up the Kid meets Godzilla,”[/color] he suggested, his cinematographer mind spinning with ideas.

His presence was finally noticed by the tiny boy, who grinned his giant and crooked grin. “Very cool, I used to have an elephant,”[/color] he told the boy, using the same sort of voice he used with anyone else. Baby talk was just humiliating, he had no alternative reasons for using a regular voice with Alex. “Have you tried a little lemon on his thumb?”[/color] he suggested as he watched Rose take a seat on the floor with them and attempt to keep Alex’s thumb out of his mouth. “It worked for my cousin,”[/color] he shrugged, knowing full well what worked for one child wouldn’t necessarily work for another. His mouth opened to say something else but stopped where it was, lips slightly parted and his eyes rolling back. His eyelids fluttered rapidly in a series of half blinks while his hand trembled and his fingers curled and uncurled. It lasted not even a second before he was back to normal, barely even aware that anything had even happened.

When his seizure was over he came back to reality to see a tower of neatly stacked blocks that had to have been Rose with Alex knocking it over with the giraffe. Honestly, Xavier couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for Rose to have to take care of a baby at such a young age, especially knowing that that was exactly why his mother had given him over to his father. Xavier’s own mom had been sixteen when he was born and had so easily dumped her son on someone else, so he had a lot of respect for Rose for keeping Alex. Xavier knew his life had been pretty good compared to what it could be, but finding out that Mel wasn’t actually his mother had been hard on him. Finding out his birth mother had been a kid had hurt, and he didn’t want anyone to feel that way especially someone as adorable as Alex. Ripping himself from his thoughts, he started helping to stack the blocks. “I have a spare so I came to work on my film,”[/color] he answered easily. “This one’s about a kidnapping. It was so much fun to film, ‘cause Kooah and I had to drive around with my Gran and yell out the car windows ‘What’s in your bag!’ and stuff like that,”[/color] he explained, saying “What’s in your bag” in the creepiest voice he could, which wasn’t all that creepy.[/blockquote]words: 854
outfit: here
lyrics: the ready set, stays four the same
notes: - - - [/blockquote][/size]