5-26-08 Written & Copyrighted by... Short ending~

[starlucid]

Yeah found this again loving the new characters!

[AxelVal]

“Hey, Linn.”  Another boy I knew from town was waiting just outside the studio for us when we finally left for home.  We’d fallen into the habit of walking home together somewhere along the line.

“Krist!” Linn basically abandoned me a few feet behind her and ran up to the other boy.  Then, this is where it pounced and bit me…they kissed.  Right there in the middle of the lawn!

I wasn’t steamed or anything, but my insides did do a bit of a flip-flop.  When Linn stopped hugging him she turned to introduce us.  “Tobe, this is Kristoffer, my boyfriend.  Krist, this is Tobias, my work partner.”

He stuck his hand out and I shook it like I was supposed.  “I’ve heard some things about you,” the pale boy told me.

“Hopefully some made up,” I replied, smirking though my heart wasn’t in it.  My heart was off sobbing somewhere holding a picture of Linn to itself.

We stood there in the lawn chatting for a while, but eventually ‘Krist’ and Linn took off, presumably to the new restaurant downtown.  So I was on my own to walk home.  Town’s normally pretty nice, but there are some ruffians once night falls.  It’s not even people from town though is the strange thing.  Groups and gangs come into town from downtown and the college campus a few miles away, just to bug the country folk out here.

It was getting dark out…I was walking past the store, right across the street from where I live more or less when I was grabbed from behind.  I was pulled behind the store and thrown into a wall in the back, in a corner where no one living nearby could see.
My head hit the wall pretty hard.  All I know is waking up, the moon was up by then, and I distantly remember a dark red/brown spot on the wall over where I was laying.

My head throbbed so much that if any other body part was hurt I didn’t notice.  I walked home in a daze, thankfully maybe half a block down the road and across an empty street.  I did not want any more surprises that night.
I locked the door behind me and went straight to bed.  No one else was up, so no one could question my late return.

Until the next morning that is.  Mom was on my case all day, trying to pry it out of me.  I finally told her at dinner.  The third meal of the day was quite quiet after that.  There were two details: I was thrown into a brick wall, and I woke up and was alone with dried blood on the wall and my head (which I had forgotten to wash out until that morning by the way, great…).

“Baby, I’m sorry,” is all she could say after that.  Grandpa said nothing however, just sighed and shook his head.  I’m sure his thoughts were along the lines of ‘This never happened when I was his age,’ or something, you catch my drift?

Anyway, work was the next day, though nothing was scheduled.  So Linn and I sat around and played cards to ease the boredom.
The conversation somehow turned to Kristoffer, though I forget who brought him up.  Turned out she and Krist had been seeing each other since maybe seventh or eighth grade and had no plans of splitting up.  Whoopee.  Fantastic for you two.  Let me go get my little ‘congratulations’ flag and hat.

Yeah, I was happy for them.  Honestly though, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stand a person for that long.
Sure, I put up with family, but you’d think after a while of that you’d find something big to argue about and say ‘Sayonara’.

Enough of me being angsty then.  There was another month that passed before we were allowed to be on the runway again.  This wasn’t a talent search or anything.  This was an actual fashion show.

Our hair and make-up were done very dramatically and we were ceremoniously half-pushed onto the catwalk to strut ourselves and the clothes they put us in.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the get dressed-up, get made-up part, and the strutting wasn’t too bad in itself, it was how we were treated.  During the before process our hair was yanked so hard I thought I’d go bald, sometimes the eyeliner got into our eyes.  All in all, they were a bit careless with us.
I’m sure the higher-ups didn’t get treated like this.  But then again they could sue…




Anyway, those lights must have done something to me finally.  I got really queasy and almost fell over a few times.  Coming back off the runway after I did a few poses I immediately sat down in one of the comfy chairs back there.  Linn came up and tried to figure out what was wrong, but since I didn’t even know it was pretty hard to guess.

After sitting there for a few minutes I could finally stand to walk again and went to go get the power and stuff off my face so I could change into something more comfortable.

I walked home once I had changed, the fresh air helping calm my stomach.  ‘It had to have been nerves,’ I kept telling myself.
Once inside Mom immediately walked up to me.  She held something out in her hand and forced it into mine.  Without a word she walked away from me, I think she may have been crying a bit.

Looking down I saw the little box she had handed me.  Surprising that just the letters ‘E’, ‘P’ and ‘T’ can cause someone’s face to go to flames.  I did as I was silently told and after sat on the opposite end of the couch as mom, waiting.

You probably already know about the ‘things in the water’ here in Corrin, but something you may not know is that anyone born of parentage from here is born with the ‘ability’.  Your grandparents may have been born and raised here, and your parents and yourself born twelve-hundred miles away.  You’ll still have the ‘ability’

Anyway, not that the explanation has anything to do with me or the situation at that point, but still.  Waiting on the couch was the worst part of it.  And it wasn’t even the waiting that made it that way.  What was the most horrible was the way mom kept casting glances over at me and how every once in a while she’d close her eyes real tight.
I think she kept telling herself it wouldn’t happen, but the thoughts wouldn’t go away.  I know that’s what I was doing.  When the timer went off and we could check the results I flew off the couch.

I think I started to cry a little when I saw the results.

[babyblueheart]

Woah. That was a great update. Can't wait for the next one to figure out what happens to Tobe.

[Elven_Song]

-le gaspeh- Tobias!! >< Noo!

[AxelVal]

A single, little line.
Tears fell out of mom’s eyes like water from a crack in a dam.  She hugged me and kissed my cheek and smiled and murmured happy nonsense to me.

I did the exact same thing.  Turns out it was just nerves on the catwalk after all.  I grasped my mom in a hug for a few seconds before asking, “Did Grandpa know you were going to do this to me?”  She shook her head, too busy crying and kissing my cheeks more to answer with words.

Well, that saved me the awkwardness of a conversation about how he could’ve become a great-grandparent in a few months.
I thanked everyone and everything I could think of.  I think I even thanked the school bus once or twice.

Time to move on.  School had started a few months earlier I forgot to mention.  So not only did I have work-work, but homework as well!  I was sophomore by then, but still not used to the workload.  I occasionally even brought papers to work so I could keep up.
After the pregnancy scare though Mom suggested maybe online schooling would be good, like Uncle Jahre did when he was my age.  It was hard to believe he was only a couple months older than I was at the time when he had Rayen.

I took her up on the offer and was more than pleased with the results.  Sure I missed my classmates but I got over it pretty quick.
It was much easier to balance school and work when I didn’t have a set schedule for the first.

‘Nine months left,’ I kept telling myself everyday.  Then I could choose to study seriously or move up in the ranks and take a yearlong contract if I was deemed a worthy candidate.  Otherwise it was just option one for me.  Linn had only three months left, but she was already talking about getting back to school.

“They’re so rough with us,” she would complain almost on a daily basis.  I couldn’t help agree with her.  Our most recent photo-shoot had ended when the combination of light flashes and mascara in my eyes had become too much.

I was finally getting over my heartbreak at meeting Kris. And we even got along pretty well after we began to talk when he started dropping Linn off after school.  I didn’t get to meet her parents until the next three months were over.  Thankfully nothing exciting happened so I can skip straight to that.

Robt and Lotze Kiev.  Yep, another couple only somewhere like Corrin County can have.  I would explain Lotze’s colouration, but that’s a long story and he’s promised me he’s writing an autobiography about himself.  That’ll be fun to read one of these days.
Lotze:
Robt:
Anyway, Linn invited me over to her house for a combination celebration party at Lotze finding out he’s preggers again and for the completion of her internship.
Nothing really happened.  I mean, sure I found her family is stinkin’ rich and we played the latest games and stuff, but nothing else happened.

I really am not normal am I?  Any other guy would have been screaming about those games for a month and I just say ‘No big deal’.  Huh, better ask the doctor about that next check-up.
Moving on…

So it the typical meet the folks, have some pizza, play some games kind of party.  Over before you knew it and then I walked home.  I started taking precautions had taken to keeping keys in my hands between my fingers when I walked after dark, just in case.

Thankfully, nothing else had happened since that night, but I wasn’t letting up.  I made it home without incident that night as well.  After an hour of math I went to bed, only to wake up the next morning and go to work again.

Surprisingly I was asked to do another show.  And not a month after that, another one!  I wasn’t sure what was going on until I was offered a contract five months early.
I took it home and had Mom and Grandpa look over it.  Grandpa called Dad and told him and Uncle Jahre what was going on and they immediately had doubts.

“No one hires someone that young under contract.”  I could hear my father’s voice over the phone.  “There’s something fishy about it.  If you want though I could ask people around work if there’s another agency close by.  Maybe we can tell them Tobe got an offer and see if they’d like to hire him instead.”

Mom took the phone off grandpa and, well let me explain first.
It took until I was at least one for my mom to bring me over to the house.  At first I could spend one night.  After I turned five was the first time I actually was allowed to spend more than that with my half-sister.  Things were a bit scratchy between my parents until I turned fourteen.  After that they actually started to get along with each other.

Anyway, Mom and Dad chatted for a bit about the possibilities and I half-listened.  I trusted my parents to come up with something.

And come up with something they did.  Just as Dad had offered, he asked around and some girl at his work knew a company who was looking for young blood and fresh faces to the business.  They were small, working from one building just outside the college town.
I was stoked to go in for my interview.  The people were amazing.  Actually asked how my day was going and how I got interested in the biz.  I was in utter shock.

After a few rounds of twenty-questions I was asked to change into an outfit of my own choosing and strut my stuff for them.  Just in the office of course, no fancy runway today.

So I picked something simple and pulled my best moves for the man.  He smiled and clapped with delight and handed me a contract.  Mom got to read it, and when she smiled and nodded it was all the encouragement I needed.  I signed my name, shook my new boss’s hand and couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.

[Elven_Song]

Aw. Cute! ^^ Glad to see Tobe isn't pregnant, there have been plenty of young pregnancies in that family already! And now this means he gets to really work on this modelling career! ^^

[babyblueheart]

Yay!! Great update!!!

[AxelVal]

((I still can't wait to see how his kids do come out when he finally has some though))

Nothing much exciting happened for the first month.  Regular old photo-shoots and one runway gig.  Then, the chance of a lifetime.  I was still only fifteen, mind you.
Viki Tainan, the world famous designer was doing a line of teen boys’ clothing and asked I be a model for her!  I think I actually fainted in my seat at that news.  But, if I did it wasn’t for very long.

I was given three plane tickets to go meet with her up in New York, two were for Mom and Grandpa.  It would be just me, her and a cameraman at the shoot though.  I was ecstatic.

Plane was just on time, for departure and touchdown, which should have been the first sign something odd would happen.
We walked into Ms. Tainan’s office and I was immediately greeted by a familiar sight.  Kristoffer.

“Hey, Tobias,” he greeted me casually.  I believe my response was “huh?”
“I bet you didn’t know my mom was the world-famous fashion designer.”

I shook my head and he laughed.  “Don’t worry, Linn has forbade me from using influencing a company into giving her a position.  And I’m certainly no competition.”  He was good-natured for the rest of the day, and I felt or saw nothing suggesting it was all an act.

Ms. Tainan and I did the shoot after she dressed me up and had someone do my hair and makeup.  It was a simple shoot.  Once more there were a few school lockers involved, but nothing beyond that.  The only messed with my hair once I pleased.



I had a blast though.  Ms. Tainan had a real sense of humour, and I was in good spirits all day.  Smiling for the camera was no problem.

That night we stayed at a hotel, Mom and Grandpa in their own rooms and me in my own, all paid for by a combo of Ms. Tainan and my agency.
I couldn’t wait to get home and see the family again though.  I have this really bad homesickness where if I’m away for two days I might end up crying because I miss them so much.  I don’t know where I get it from, but I have it.

Speaking of family, Rayen is fifteen like me, and Dylan just turned six, while Shayn is three.  I know Dad and Uncle Jahre are planning on more because they just moved into this huge house.



Anyway, back to me.  Sound so selfish, don’t I?  Oh well.
We got a few hours the next day to explore, but I ended up spending most of it sleeping.  I do that a lot.

So I woke up with two hours until the flight and by that time I was being rushed to pack up my stuff and we crammed a few suitcases into the back of a taxi and headed to the airport.  Our tickets in hand, we made it just in time and flew back home.

Well, nothing important happened for the next year or so except the occasional big-name wanting my face in their ad and then that ad showing up everywhere, so I feel comfortable skipping ahead a bit.

Up ‘til I met someone else who I liked.  Her name is Olivier Zaviay (I always laughed a bit because they rhyme) and she was only a year older than me.  She was just trying to start a band with her two friends, Tristan and Raven.  She was nineteen and I was eighteen and we were both budding stars.

By then I’d moved and was living on college campus though I rarely actually went to classes.  I passed my high school senior year with mostly Bs and both an A and a C.
Their group wasn’t bad.  Tristan was the best though.  That boy played, and still plays, drums like nobody’s business!
(Tristan and me:
Raven and Olivier: )
Anyway, we actually got further than Linn and I had.  Meaning we went on a date.  Once.  We went to dance club and I made a fool of myself actually.
Then Raven asked her out and she said ‘yes’ without thinking.  I began to guess I was destined for a life of lonely.

Don’t get me wrong, the whole group still hung out, but increasingly it was just Tristan and myself.  Until a new kid came to college and caught his eye.  The kid’s name was Yvain Janori, and he stole Tristan away in a flash.  Maybe it was those red eyes…
 (I was real comfortable whenever that happened, let me tell you...)
Well, never mind that.  By the time sophomore year at college rolled around I was alone save for a few of the models I had managed to befriend.  And even that wasn’t much.  E-mails, that’s how we kept in touch.  Because they were usually on the other side of the globe.

Everything was normal from then on until a few weeks from sophomore graduation.  Apparently word had spread to the surrounding small towns that someone on campus was famous because I was bombarded with mail, both regular and the electronic kind.
Most of it was the usual fan banter, but one kind of creeped me out.  I barely read it so I don’t remember the exact words, but I do remember it saying something along the lines of being just like me or at least wanting to.

It wasn’t until a week after that I saw my new fanatic.  His hair reached just below his shoulders, and I could tell it was a dyed red because his eyebrows were pure black.  I dismissed it at first, having seen other people try to copy my hair style before at various fashion shows, but when I began to see this kid everywhere I went it got serious.

I swear, he was at the library, waiting outside the building I had class in, even the gym!  But he never once said a word.  Just waited for me to show up, then he’d follow me about a block away, then go away.  So I didn’t pay much attention.  Until the letters started showing up again.  With pictures…

Freaky pictures too.  Like magazine cutouts of just my head with little hearts everywhere or pictures of me in the library.  I got a bit scared after a few of those packages showed up.
But I didn’t show it.  I wrote home and said what was happening, but I didn’t panic personally.  I’m sure Mom did though.

((Anyone recognizes Raven and Olivier from somewhere else in this story they get bonus points! ))

[babyblueheart]

I know I'm wrong, but wasn't Tristan the boy who was talking to Andrea about his parents, Cain and Alex McLean. And I spotted Olivier as a model. Oh, and at Helene's graduation party, I saw Linn and Kris. By the way, great update!

[AxelVal]

Tristan is wrong, but the others are right.  Raven was model too, I just changed his hair for those shots.
The one talking about his 'parents' was Jareth from Consequences of Consequences over on S2C.

[Elven_Song]

wow. I would never know. >< I have a terrible memory for faces.. people and sims alike.

[AxelVal]

Umm, OK? :oops:
Thanks, Thoppenfeld!

[Nathanialroyale]

Cute little stalker...

Bad stalker!

Back boy Back!

[AxelVal]

((I apologize in advance, the end has no pictures.  I hope the last shot in this chapter will help make up for it.  And if not, I'll take suggestions for what kind of clothes you want to Tobe wear and I'll forcce him into it and show him off!))

My junior graduation went smoothly though.  No sign of the stalker until the champagne bottles were uncorked.  I was just getting over being beside one when it was popped open when I saw him walk up to me.  Just a little kid, maybe sixteen compared to me being twenty-one at the time.
He didn’t stick around for long, just asked for my autograph and left.

I still get the occasional strange picture-package from him, but it doesn’t bother me as much anymore.
I kind of blew it all out of proportion when I was younger I guess.  Mountain out of a molehill kind of thing, you know?  Anyway, at least there were no professions of love and then ‘if I can’t have you no one can’, right?  That’s what I thought too.

Random intermission for a few family updates I forgot: Mom was in her early thirties by then and had been dating this guy named Winston for a few years.  Once I graduated college completely she broke the news that they were moving to France.  I was allowed to come with them, but work was still in Corrin County I told them.  Grandpa and I moved slightly outside the city limits after they took off.
By this time Corbin had been born and we knew instantly he was mute.  Poor kid.


Back to the main story…work was a bit of a hassle once my schedule was clear for it.  I only really went to college so I could have something to fall back on.  And even then it had to do, somewhat, with modeling. I had gone to college for some course in 3-D arts, which I quickly learned could be used to create clothing models and designs.
So once I get too wrinkled to continue you’ll be seeing my name on the labels instead of my face on the pages.

Well anyway, the semi-stalker?  He had a ‘friend’.  I never got to know his name, but hers was Shelly.  And she was total whacko.
I met her at one of the fancy parties the other models like to have.  How she got in I have no idea, but I wish she hadn’t.

She immediately walked up to me and shook my hand and I thought ‘Oh cool, a new rising starlet.’  No.  Not even close.
She smiled at me and said, “I love you.”

‘Wait, back up!  Did she say what I think she did?’  I panicked suddenly.  This was nothing like semi-stalker; this was full-blown crazy.
She didn’t leave my side the whole party.  I went to the bathroom, she would be waiting outside.  I got a glass of punch, she’d get a glass of punch.  It was amazing in a bad way.  A very bad way.

I left after just barely an hour…or at least tried to.
I had never had paparazzi problems until that night.  I don’t know if it’s because of whose house I was at or what, but cameras flashed once I had a foot out the door.  Of course Shelly was right beside me, so the next week what do I see in the store checkout line?

Yep.  A picture of Shelly and myself stepping out the door and into the flashing lights.  The headline wasn’t even important.  I picked it up, paid for it and everything else and ran to my car and sped all the way back home.  I threw the magazine on the table and then threw myself into a chair to read it.
The usual gossip, I guess you could call it.  Said something about my meeting a normal girl and falling for her and the article claimed we had actually secretly been seeing each other for a few weeks to a month.

I was happy to read that, let me tell you.  Grandpa just smiled and shook his head when I showed him.  Gotta hand it to the guy, he knows what to do when under pressure.

Back to the story then.  I was real careful anytime I left the house after that.  Not only was I lookout for semi-stalker, I was worried about crazy-girl and cameras.  Thankfully, the third rarely ever showed again.

Semi-stalker was really professional the one time I finally confronted him.  I was bound to have a nervous breakdown after a while, keeping up a watch for three threats all the time.  I waited until one day when I could see him and just did what I would to anyone else.
I walked up to him.  I half expected him to go bug-eyed and run, but thankfully he just cocked his head to one side and stared at me.  His hair was still dyed red and you could still tell it wasn’t natural.  Same old, same old.

“Can we talk?” I asked, smiling a bit.  He nodded and kind of smiled back.  I looked around and saw a little café where I decided would be perfect.  We sat at a table in the shade out front and ordered, tea and a piece of strawberry cake for me, though my comrade had nothing.
I tried to make small talk, I really did.  But I’ve always been horrible at that stuff.

“Tobias,” he said suddenly.  “What do you want from…” we heard the sound of a flashbulb to the side of our able.  Lo and behold…
Paparazzi.  I hate those guys so much.

Thankfully it was only a few and after a couple pictures each they went off to bother someone else.  I explained the crazy-girl situation and semi-stalker laughed quietly for a few minutes.  “I’m sorry.  I think that’s my sister.”

Woah!  New development!  I sat there, I think my mouth was hanging open a bit and I may have swallowed a fly.
“You’re kidding,” I stammered.  When he shook his head I slumped in my seat.

“I can try to talk to her, but I doubt it will work.  She gets like this sometimes.”
We talked for a while, not touching the subject of me and my career, until semi-stalker suddenly stood.  “I think it’s time for me to be going.”

I nodded and bid him adieu and he took off, soon disappearing into the crowd.  I finished my snack and headed home.  Little did I know what would be waiting there…
No, not crazy-girl, something even scarier.

Grandpa and I had a nice quiet dinner, I took a shower, got into my Pjs, and fell asleep.  Nothing strange right?  Wrong.  Dead wrong.
And you’ll see why in a few seconds.

It was midnight by my bedside clock, but I didn’t see that until after I stopped trying to scream.  Semi-stalker was standing by my bed, but he didn’t look quite right.  I could see my wall behind him.  Or through him I guess.  He kind of smiled and said, “I tried talking to her, but it didn’t work, as usual.”

“Tha…that’s OK,” I stammered, sitting up and staring up at him, shock not quite gone.  “What are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”  He chuckled after her finished the sentence.  “I’m sorry for following you everywhere.  I always wanted to model.”

I nodded.  “You would have made a good one,” I said.
And I wasn’t lying.

“Well, there was an accident.  I had just gotten second place in a talent show.  Everyone thought I was on the way up.  Until I got hit by a car.
“Shelly was only a baby at the time, so I’m glad she doesn’t remember it.”

I blinked.  “No kidding…”
He shook his head.  “You’re an amazing ghost.  I didn’t think they could do stuff like those cutouts you kept sending me.”

He blushed, I could see a bit of colour on his cheeks.  “Well, that wasn’t completely me.  I kind of possessed my sister to do those.  I guess that’s the reason she likes you so much.  I had heard if person is taken over too many times by the same ghost that spirit’s emotions pour over into them.
“She’s just a passionate person, so that magnified it I guess.  I’m sorry, you should be going to sleep now, you have a photo shoot tomorrow.”

“I forgot!  Hey, not to be rude, but do you think you could not stand over me anymore?  You’re a nice kid and all, but don’t you think you should move on?”

He shrugged.  “I’ve tried.  Maybe I’ll go haunt one of your friends now,” he told me with a wicked smile.

I laughed and waved him off before settling under the covers again.  I had some strange dreams that night!

[Elven_Song]

ha! I burst out laughing at that last part. That reminds me so much of an anime. One episode there's this kid's ghost who follows one of the main characters around and wants to be his lover. xD -sigh- Good memories..

Anyways... back to you! ^^ That was a cute chapter! I really love how he has another stalker now, but I'm sad the kid is going... he's cute. ^^