Rumor Has It

@lincoln | Zoë's Outfit

When the changes had come that had let them out, Zoë had been suspicious of them at first. There was no reason to think that the Minister was just going to up and let them out, so long as they followed her silly rules. And they weren't the worst rules in the world. They were 'Show up to work', and 'Check in', they weren't hard. They were annoying, that was for certain, but they weren't hard rules to follow, and if that was the price of her freedom again, then she was going to be willing to pay it. She had wanted out of those apartments so badly. She had wanted to be anywhere that wasn't there. Anywhere where she wasn't trapped with people that she didn't know, having to live a life that she was not cut out for. Zoë had escaped hell once. She had escaped the straight jackets, and the people calling her crazy, and everything else. 

Going back to being less than good enough was not okay. She would not be less than good enough anymore. She couldn't allow that. But keeping her head high hadn't been the easiest thing in the world. It hadn't been something that she was going to stick too. Or so she had thought. Things had changed all over again though. Things that she couldn't unchange. And maybe things would be for the better now. That was the hope anyway. That things were going to get better. It was the reason she had let Sarai stay. The reason that she had taken a chance, and actually put some effort in, and really looked like her again for the first time in a long time. It was the reason that she had decided that she was going out tonight. 

No one had seen her face in a club, or a bar, or even just out and about after dark, in almost a year. She hadn't done a show, she hadn't done an interview. She had dropped off the face of the earth. And really, she knew that she was a face that people in both worlds, all over the globe, knew. She was a pop star, and tonight she looked the part. She was acting the part. "Zoë!!!" Her name had come from all around as she had made her way through the club and back out into the street. Ducking from one to the other, it was easy to flash a smile at the bouncers, and find herself inside. This was the life that she had known. This was the life that she had been torn away from. And it was good to feel like her again. 

Even if it wasn't real. Even if none of it was real. She thought that it was nice to be out, to be around people again. Part of her felt a little bad for not inviting Sarai with her. For not thinking about where it was that Cami was... Those were things that she was still going to worry about. Things that she would feel bad about tomorrow. But that was tomorrow, and tomorrow was not a sure thing. "Zoë!!!" Letting herself be pulled into the crowd, letting people take pictures of her going into the club, she turned around and she waved to them all as she slipped inside. 

Ducking around people, and heading for the bar, she ordered a drink and then turned around to watch all of the people on the dance floor. This was the type of night life that she remembered. The type of life that she never should have had to give up. A group of girls that she had never seen before in her life came swarming up to her and she laughed and asked them all their names as she signed a napkin, and a beer token, and what she thought was a cellphone case, with her signature Z before they too were swept away in the crowd. She had missed this, the noise, the crowds, the people that knew her name... Taking her drink from the bartender with a smile, she thanked him when he waved away her money and said that it was on the house. Turning around she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye and Zoë smirked at him across the crowd between them. She was making a comeback... And look who was standing across the room... 

You and I have history
Or don't you remember

OUTFIT

There used to be crowds lined up to watch him play Quidditch. Nowadays, people were more interested in interviewing Link about his players than they were in talking to the man who almost won Most Valuable Quidditch Player of the Year a few years back. It wasn’t like he was anonymous. Every so often, a snapshot of him would appear in Witch Weekly with a caption about how he was back to his old ways with a new girl every week. Sometimes it would be a picture of him behind a player (Pictured: With Coach Lincoln Orville, it would say). He just wasn’t who he was before.

Things had changed. He had changed. Or at least, he had been trying to.

It seemed like ever since he ran into Izzy Cavanaugh a few months back, his world had been flipped on his head. He didn’t go out as much… didn’t have a reason to. And sometimes, he was more content to sit on her couch and talk about all the places she had been rather than drinking at a bar. She was changing him…and maybe it was for the better.

But tonight was a celebration. One of the last big parties before the season officially kicked off in June. The Bats were all out at the bar, drinking to their heart’s content. Izzy hadn’t wanted to tag along…her work schedule was so insane, he didn’t blame her. So he was playing it safe with his boys tonight and making sure that no one went over the top. Unfortunately, for him, that meant that no one was chaperoning him.

He couldn’t deny that he liked his drinks, and a few whiskeys into the night, he liked them even more. Link kept to the background of the party, laughing with a few of his mates when he saw her from across the room — honestly, how could he have missed her at all? Zoë Armstrong was and always had been like a beacon to him, calling him back to the most dangerous parts of himself. It was part of what he liked about her…but also part of the reason that they couldn’t ever get back together. Izzy had shown him that. Then again, he was drunk and he was feeling a little like his old self. With a grin, he raised his drink towards her. Maybe he could forget about her for the rest of the night.

He had thought about her a lot after they had run into one another a few months ago. And when the muggleborn stipulations had been loosened, he had thought about her more. But Link didn't want to get in her way. Not after everything that had happened between them.

But of course, Old Link was trying to resurface and he had ideas all of his own. After a few minutes of trying to actively ignore her, he found himself wandering over that way. He wove in-between the dancing bodies and the giggling girls in on the floor until he found himself at the bar. “Look who it is. Back in our old stomping ground, looking like she owns the place.” Link said when he finally managed to get through the throngs of people that were between them. “I’ll have another whiskey on the rocks and…” He looked back at his ex-girlfriend. “An amaretto sour for Zo. Looks like yours is getting a little low.” Link leaned against the bar as he waited for their drinks, trying not to act overly smug. “That’s still your favorite, right?”

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[attr="class","senseshovtab"]zoë's outfit

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rumor has it

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[attr="class","sensestextbox"]Being suspicious was second nature to her at this point. She didn’t really just take things at face value anymore, and she thought that there was something to be said for that. Zoë had tried to stay clean, and sober, and for a while that had lasted, but not tonight. Tonight, she was over it. There weren’t any drugs in her system. There weren’t even any drugs in her apartment. She thought that she was doing better, and really, Sarai was a part of that. She didn’t want to look that way in front of someone else. She didn’t want to come home from a crappy day of getting nearly killed, and then actually kill herself on accident with the drugs. That would never do. She wasn’t going to do that to the girl that she had said could stay. Because she had taken her in without really even thinking about it. She hadn’t had anywhere else to go. She hadn’t wanted to go back to her muggle family, and Zoë had understood that, so she had taken her back to her apartment with her. Luckily, everything was right where she had left it. Giving the Ministry a different address, and keeping this place in her sister-in-law’s name, worked out really well.

But she wasn’t going to worry about Sarai, or the apartment, or anything tonight. She was going to pretend that it was something that she worried about at all. Tonight, she was going to be her again. Zoë wasn’t going to let anything else bother her now. She was going to come in here, and have a good time, and not worry about the things that she couldn’t do anything about anyway. People were going to see her, she was going to let them know that she was here, and she was going to do it in a grand way. She was going to do it so that they had to notice her. Because she was tired of being looked past. She was tired of not mattering. Of being someone’s punching bag or testing dummy. She was sick of all of it, and the restrictions had been lifted. She was going to enjoy that. Just for tonight. And she would probably regret it come morning, but right now, she was going to be just fine. She was going to live her life exactly how she wanted to live it, and that was going to be all that there was to it. That was all that any of them could do, after all.

They had to live life in the moment, and tonight that meant being ZOË again. That was who she wanted to be tonight. She wanted to be worthy of the people that knew her name. Worthy of the people that wanted her to sign things and take pictures. Those were the people that she wanted to be worthy of. Tonight, she wanted to be a pop star again. She wanted to reappear from wherever it was that she had been. She wanted all of that. She wanted everything that it had felt like in the beginning. Everything that it had felt like when she had been on top of the world. And a solo act, like she was, she could come back from this. She could make a name for herself again. She wasn’t too old. She was only thirty, and there were solo acts, in both worlds, that were still touring long past that. That was the nice part of being who she was, and in the industry, she was in. She could make a comeback. It wasn’t like being an actress. She wasn’t going to lose her ability to sing the same way an actress could lose her beauty.

The world was an unfair thing, but it wasn’t that bad. She could come back from this. And tonight, that meant that she was just going to have a good time and be herself for once. At least until a familiar figure had caught her eye. Of course, he was here. Why wouldn’t he be here? The one night that she thought that she could just relax, and let herself be… But of course, there was Link Orville, just like he’d always been. Only he wasn’t hers anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time. And she knew that it was stupid to even pay attention to him. She knew that they needed to just stay away from one another, but she couldn’t help it. And this time, he came to her. Smiling up at him she shook her head, “I don’t just look the part Seeker. I act it.” Nodding to the bartender she confirmed his order of another round for her and she tipped her chin back up to look at him. “Some things don’t change. Whiskey on the rocks, and an amaretto sour. Pretty standard order once upon a time.”

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you and i have history
or don't you remember

❧

He couldn’t ignore her. Link was silly to have even thought it was a possibility. Seeing her here tonight was like a blast from the past. Suddenly, he didn’t feel like Lincoln Orville, the Coach of the Ballycastle Bats, he felt like Link, up and coming Seeker of the Appleby Arrows. And she wasn’t Zoë Armstrong, delicate little muggleborn just trying to survive day-to-day, she was his pop star. She was the girl of his dreams. Or at least, she had been. Old Link had made his way to the surface now, aided by all the alcohol that was coursing through his system. “Could be standard again, you know,” Christ, he was drunk. Was he even thinking? What was he saying?

Of course, Link knew that he and Zoë had a history. Undeniable history. There had been a point in time where Lincoln believed that she was the future Mrs. Orville. He’d had that ring in his pocket the night of the gala and then he’d let his emotions get the better of him. He’d lost the Award that night…and probably the woman he loved. He’d acted out after that and every chance that he’d ever stood with Zoë was pretty much out the window. Maybe a part of him had thought that she’d come back – that they could just patch things over. After all, they were still Seeker and the Pop Star, weren’t they? But so much had changed. So much was different now. With the Muggleborn regulations and Link’s career, there was more than enough to consider. Not to mention Izzy.

Link’s vision was a little fuzzy. He was, after all, a little drunker than he wanted to let on, but he still knew that he was sort of, kind of in a relationship with Izzy Cavanaugh. And she probably wouldn’t be pleased to know that he was hitting on his ex-girlfriend in the middle of a very crowded, very public bar. She wouldn’t be pleased if he was hitting on her anywhere, for that matter. He knew he should backpedal and steer the conversation in a different direction, but he was curious just how far Zoë would let him get. He was curious just how far into her past she was willing to go.

“Alright, alright, Pop Star, we get it. You still run the show,” Link said, holding up both of his palms as if to say that he surrendered. At that precise moment, the bartender handed over their two drinks and Link took the opportunity to turn to the man. “You can put it on my tab. All her drinks, if you want,” he wasn’t sure what had gotten into him. If Izzy could see him now, he knew that she would be furious. But, he reasoned with himself, he was just flirting with the past. It didn’t mean anything now. It didn’t mean anything now that they weren’t together. It was all just for fun and Zoë knew that.

He turned his attention back to Zoë now, clinking his glass against hers and grinning nearly from ear to ear. He was surprised to see her out and about, but things had gotten better for the muggleborns, he supposed. Link just hadn’t realized that meant that he would be running into her more from now on. “How are you, Zo? Things...okay?” He practically yelled, leaning in a little bit closer so he could be heard over the loud partying that was happening in the background.

@ zoë | 580

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