Realistic or Modern hollywood arts: main (open!!)

[Winona]

Zephyr Evermore
"Cheer up! 'Cause nothing really matters."

@zeph.evermore has set their status to:
hypeee

@zeph.evermore has interacted with:
Lin

@zeph.evermore has mentioned:
N/A

@zeph.evermore has tagged:
ohdittoh ​

As was customary of one Zeph Evermore, he politely listened as Lin weaved his own tale of his backstory. Single mom, from the sounds of it, moved around Canada quite a bit. Absolutely horrible dad (even though Zeph knew that his parents were a fan of the guy, but he decided not to mention this fact -- although his dad would flip in excitement when he found out that Zeph had befriended the Ricky Westborne's son).

As they walked and talked, Zeph felt like he kind of understood Lin better. Maybe. Well... not really. He at the very least understood where Lin was from and what his upbringing had been, but it still left so many unanswered questions. Such as, how had he turned into such an exuberant teenager? Why feather boas? Why did he find enjoyment in eating old, expired food? (Something that despite how it may have come across on Twitter, Zeph had never done and never planned on doing -- unless maybe if it was on a bet, and as long as there was no mold, and not something from under a bed. He had standards.)

A lady passed them and Zeph naturally offered her an uncomfortable smile, but his smile fell away when he saw the look of disgust on her face.

He knew they would get bad looks.

At least no one had taken pictures (that he knew of).

"You can have one of my sisters," Zeph joked when Lin mentioned not having siblings. Look, he had two, sure he could probably spare one -- or they could just adopt Lin and then Lin could have a dad. You know, a dad that didn't suck balls.

He continued to listen, a grin on his face as Lin kept going, now discussing what he did and what had landed him here in the school, and his various collections -- including... some kid's... tooth?

"You collect... teeth?" HIs eyebrows knitted together for a moment in concern because, well, that was strange. And hadn't that Chas kid not found his tooth? Was it because Lin had picked it up as a souvenir and then totally forgotten that it had come from his girlfriend knocking the daylights out of a certain pompous screenwriter? (Not that Zeph actually had any ill feelings regarding Chas, mind you.)

The entire conversation was cut off partway through as the dollar store came into view.

Lin grabbed his wrist and tugged him forward, and Zeph let out a small laugh as he stumbled after his friend -- until his wrist was dropped and for a moment, there was a look of confusion that passed over Zeph's features.

And then it clicked just before Lin spoke.

"I'll race you!"

And with that, Lin was gone, yelling back at Zeph; "You get there last, you're a fucking boiled egg!"

But boiled eggs were good.

He decided not to question it.

"Oh I'm fucking winning." He yelled after Lin and took off after his friend who already had a clear head start but hey, part of being tall and athletically inclined meant that Zeph could move if he wanted to and, soon, he was right on Lin's heels...

But Lin still slid his way through the front doors first with Zeph right behind him.

"Where're we going first?" He asked, slightly breathless, but less from the running and more just from the adrenaline of the moment. His dark eyes were glimmering with eager excitement as he tried to remember what they wanted -- and clearly, all he could think about were toys. "Bubble wands first? Bubble wands first. I'll race ya."

Oh yeah, he was getting into it now.

And he darted off before Lin could say anything, feather boas flapping after him and discarding a trail of green and pink feathers after him as he weaved his way through the store but one sharp turn caused the hat to falter from his head. Zeph let out a small cuss, skidding to a stop and nearly falling over from trying to come to such a quick stop. He stumbled back to the hat, one hand grabbing hold of a shelf and rattling it to keep himself upright, which just served to knock over the cans of peanuts, which just caused the cans of peanuts to roll off and fall to the floor, and--

He had a race to win, but...

With a huff, Zeph pulled the hat back on his head and quickly grabbed up the cans of peanuts, shoving them back on the shelf before he stomped his way to the toy aisle -- this time being careful not to spill anything as he stepped into the aisle after Lin.

There was a dejected, disappointed smile on his face as he looked at his friend.

"Alright, alright, so I'm not the fastest," he admitted, holding his hands up in mock defeat. "But, I'll have you know that I am a hell of a good bubble blower. I put Spongebob's cool animal shapes to shame," -- look it was the first bubble blowing champion that he could think of -- "I'll make the biggest bubble to ever exist. So big you could hop right into it and ride off into the sunset like some kind of... uhh... isn't there a Greek god that does that? But it's a chariot and not a bubble? You'll be like him but ten times cooler, because bubbles are ten times cooler than chariots."

Wow.

He was doing, uhh...

Great?

Yeah.

He turned to look at the shelves, picking up one of the small containers of bubbles. "How many we buying?"

º º code by ditto º º

 

[jasmyn]

M O O D : "Happy birthday to me."

O U T F I T : Ex's shirt and some black jeans.

L O C A T I O N : Saint's apartment.

I N T E R A C T I O N S : Saint.

T A G S : ohdittoh

"Very."

It was a fitting answer to her question. Josie had been very drunk and she knew that before she even arrived at the party. She knew it when she was drinking in the Uber with Lucky, when she had promptly waltzed up and told Saint he looked like shit, when she drunk texted him in the first place which had somehow resulted in her getting a ride and whatever followed after that was lost on her but it wasn't surprising given how much alcohol she'd consumed.

This was a routine for Josie. Drink, smoke, drugs, hangover. Even Saint had been a constant in that. He'd been at plenty of parties with her, he'd smoked with her a million times, he'd taken care of her the next day. People sometimes wondered how they ever worked when they dated or how they ever even became a thing and sure they were different in so many ways but at the same time, they meshed well.

Okay, so maybe not that well given their history or the fact that their fights could get pretty heated. Yeah, they were somewhat of a disaster together like a hurricane but a beautiful disaster sometimes. When it was good, it was so good but the moments were few and far between so you had to soak them up when they came. That's why times like this made her reminisce.

Waking up in his apartment wasn't what she was expecting but it wasn't all bad either. There weren't any petty remarks being tossed out, no arguing or screaming, and despite everything, it actually wasn't even that awkward. In fact, it was surprisingly pleasant. Maybe it wasn't ideal but it was better than waking up hungover and alone on her birthday.

Josie took a few bites of the second piece of toast on her plate as Saint shuffled around the apartment again, returning with something small in his hands. At first, she didn't realize what the object was but then it hit her. It was a present. For her? From Saint? In all honesty, she didn't even know that he knew when her birthday was. Not that she didn't talk about it but she just didn't know he'd paid enough attention to remember it.

Jo's face lit up as he placed the box in front of her, like a kid in the candy store. It was wrapped in smooth brown paper that had flowers scattered all over it in colorful paints, each one looked as if it had been perfectly placed just for her. Across the top, her name was sketched out, not Jo or Josie but Josephine in full. Very few people ever used her full name, in person or on paper, so it struck her as sweet that he had done so. Not that he'd meant it to be but she appreciated the beauty in it regardless.

“It’s your birthday. -- Unless I’m mistaken.”

"It is," she said, her eyes shifting from the gift to Saint for a brief moment before she turned back to open the gift. Jo was careful, not wanting to just rip into the hand-painted wrapping paper. Eventually, she pulled the paper off enough to reveal a small white box which and when she opened it her eyes caught sight of the sparkly emerald gemstone. Emerald was, of course, her favorite stone and she'd mentioned once that she'd read something about the greeks associating the stone with love.

The gem was placed carefully atop a silver poison ring, one she remembered faintly having pointed out to him before when they were together. Josie had always raved about wanting to own a poison ring one day. It sounded crazy but she'd just always been fascinated by them, she didn't actually want to use it on anyone.

Jo gasped softly, plucking the ring from the box and slipping it onto her right hand. "I've wanted one of these forever. I can't believe you remembered. You didn't have to-" she paused, just as he walked back to the table. "Thank you. I love this," she said, glancing down at her the ring in awe.

“If you were wondering what happened, I drove you home because you asked me to, and that’s all of it. Not much of a story…at all. You took a shower, and I lent you my shirt…which you can have, as far as I’m concerned…since my washer ate your costume.”

Jo felt a sense of relief at the fact that nothing had happened between then but it was less than she expected. It wasn't like some weight was lifted off her shoulders though maybe that was because of his gift and the small things she'd noticed since she'd been here. "Oh, good. I mean, I appreciate you taking care of me and making sure I got somewhere safe or whatever. I'm sorry if I pulled you away from the party early though. I'm sure there are a million other people you'd have rather gone home with," she said, a semi-forced laugh escaping her lips.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to go home and get ready to go out to a rave later with some friends. You know, celebrate and all? You don't have to drive me, you've already done a lot," she said. Jo had ridden in plenty of Uber's so there was no reason she couldn't take one home now. Except that as she looked around she remembered that she never took her wallet to the party so she had no money.

Just her luck.

"On second thought, if you have the time..."

JOSEPHINE BENNETT

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

MOOD: sororicide

OUTFIT: clothes

LOCATION: marino mansion (living room)

basics

MENTIONS:
Cami, Chanel, Gen, Charlie

INT:
Winona (Casey)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Chas Marino

Chas had to stop himself from performing a double-take at Casey's refusal of food, which completely betrayed his memory of the hyperactive blonde. Sure, it had been a decent amount of time since they'd last visited, but Chas had to at least expect a few things not to change. Perhaps he really was taking this business meeting seriously, but even in the most dire circumstances that would still appear largely off base.

He nodded to the maid to fetch Casey a cup of tea, which felt like a waste on a boy that would drink tap water and call it a delicacy. "Good choice," Chas replied, before downing the rest of his coffee. He had to remember why he never brewed his own coffee, as this batch had turned out putrid—or at least not to Chas' high standards. However, he could never afford to show disgust given how poorly it would reflect on his burgeoning, varied skillset.

The Italian set his mug down and folded his hands within each other, unsure how to react to Casey treating the room's antique furnishings like glorified cardboard boxes. That minute scuff made by Casey's worn Converse would easily knock down the selling value of the mahogany coffee table by a hundred flat, but for the sake of cordiality, Chas refrained from ripping his old friend a new one.

"Straight to business with ya, huh? Never change, Chas."

"Don't plan on it," the aforementioned boy remarked, gratefully accepting his third cup of coffee and watching as Casey's aromatic Oolong tea was placed in a saucer beside his feet. The housekeeper had shown hesitation before placing the cup, to which Chas gave an understanding wave in an attempt to excuse his friend's lack of respect for the furniture.

Chas nodded politely as Casey regaled his experiences on the road, stifling a chuckle in his drink at the sound of roaring crowds. Yeah, Chas of all people was plenty familiar with that. No need to explain the euphoric sensation of being the target of countless pairs of eager eyes. "Glad to hear that, Case. I know we're still teenagers, but I think a lot of people could learn from your youthful enthusiasm. It's uplifting."

He sent the guitarist a warm smile, doing his best to maintain a mellow, subdued aura. "I'm a screenwriter, in case you've forgotten. I've been toying with some concepts all October, but nothing concrete... it's been getting a bit frustrating, I have to say." His grip on his cup turned to iron to release his vexation, causing his hand to shake a bit in tandem with the effects of his rapid coffee consumption.

"That and actually being around people my age, having responsibilities... it gets exhausting. You'll get acquainted with the colorful personalities of Hollywood Arts, then you'll see what I mean." His eyes drifted down to a magazine on the table, causing him to curl his lip at the sight of a particular model with a penchant for petty and an eye for egocentrism. Ugh, Gen. The snappily-dressed boy turned the magazine stack over with a roll of the eyes.

He heaved a sigh, then looked back up to face a slouched Casey. "At any rate, your family's invited to the live recording of our interview. If you need, I'd be glad to hand Chanel and Cami cue cards for your use. In fact, there are a few key points I'd like to—"

Chas immediately shut down when his older sister, the ice queen Priscilla Marino herself made her way down the staircase clad in nothing but a maroon, silk robe and what Chas dearly hoped to be a sufficient set of undergarments. He figured it was at least on the likely side, as her male company had left not long after he'd arrived at the mansion the previous night. Smirking venomously at Chas, she approached the two boys and folded her arms.

"Good afternoon, Chassy," the willowy brunette cooed, patting him gently on the shoulder, making sure to jab just at a pressure point for a millisecond. He flinched, immediately smacking her hand away. She giggled, then looked onward to Casey. "It's been ages, Casey, and you look fantastic!" She stalked over to the blonde, then queried, "You have a girlfriend yet?"

Before waiting for an answer, she pecked him on the cheek, holding her robe with a hand to preserve her dignity. Chas scowled at the woman, shooting molten darts between her eyeballs at every moment she bore that smug, holier-than-thou expression. "You're excused, Prissy P," he sneered, before meeting eyes with Casey, "Forget about her. She won't be at the recording in December, so she's got nothing worthwhile to—"

"Did you know Chas lost a tooth a few weeks ago? This midget girl went up and—"

"ENOUGH, PRISCILLA!" Chas snarled, slamming down his coffee on the table. His sister's taunting smile grew wider, and she shook her head with faux pity for the red-faced boy.

code by valen t.

 

[Winona]

Ashton West
"I heard that you've been having some trouble finding your place in the world."

@Fire&Ash has set their status to:
.....

@Fire&Ash has interacted with:
Trevor

@Fire&Ash has mentioned:
N/A

@Fire&Ash has tagged:
ohdittoh ​

She was tense. She was trying really hard not to be tense, but the air in the room felt thick with the unspoken tension that they were both trying to avoid -- or, at least, that she was trying to avoid, but that was easier said than done. Maybe if she didn't feel like she was tiptoeing around broken glass to avoid this devolving into another fight, she would've had an easier time avoiding it.

Maybe if she had, like, a manual or a list of what not to say -- you know, like a list of things that would for sure start a fight with Trevor, or things were likely, or... whatever. Because whatever had happened last night? She didn't want a repeat of -- and it hadn't been the fighting necessarily, but it had been how quickly the fight had escalated, and how it had started from -- in her eyes -- virtually nothing that had thrown her off.

Ash was used to fighting with her boyfriends -- that was, like, a totally normal part of relationships, and she understood that. But at least in those fights, she'd always been sure of what the topic of argument was. And, well, she'd always dated guys that she actually knew fairly well so that she wasn't blindsided by anything after getting together with them. But she'd thrown all of those cautionary prerequisites out of the window when she'd started dating Trevor, who was virtually a stranger to her.

“The hell are ya apologizin' for?” he asked and pulled his arm away from her shoulders, and she tensed up. “Where’d all’a that biting’ go, darlin’?”

Biting? She looked towards him as he turned down the volume on the movie, her eyebrows knitting together in a look of pure confusion. When had Ash ever been known for having any bite? Hadn't Trevor literally been one of the people that had argued with her on Twitter about not having any bite and being like... too nice or whatever the topic had been? What was he--

“What happened to yer unapologetic if you an’ I were tha last two people on Earth, then I would still rather just jump off of a cliff than have sex wit’ yous?” he asked with a slight chuckle. “Am I talkin’ ta Ash two-point-oh?”

She paused as it clicked. Oh. He was referencing all of those nights when they'd both been too drunk, when he'd harmlessly flirt with her and she'd play along only to shut him down and walk away until the next party. The times when she was so drunk that the exact details of their encounters were loss to the fogginess that alcohol caused so that, when the morning rolled around, she could only remember bits and pieces, but not enough to remember much aside from "Trevor flirted, I said no," or, you know... more or less, something along those very vague lines.

"Trevor, I was drunk," she murmured.

His attention shifted back to the television screen, and she let her gaze follow after his. “Another synced line,” he commented, and she wasn't sure if she was thankful that his attention had snapped away from wherever their conversation had been heading, or if she was disappointed that he was too high to coherently stick to one train of thought.

"Yeah..." she mumbled.

His eyes turned back on her, and she reluctantly turned her face to look at him. He didn't say anything at first, instead just holding his hand out. She hesitated, first glancing down at his hand and then back to his face before she let one of her hands fall from its secure spot around her legs and placed her hand in his. A smile tugged at the edges of her lips and she relaxed slightly, leaning back against the couch again.

“Hey, I, uh…” he started, and she tensed up again, her teeth digging into her bottom lip again.

Ash didn't know why she was waiting for this to devolve into a fight, but that she was. It was... what she was used to, or something along those lines. She was used to the fighting and the picking at one another. The fighting that would end unresolved with, like, usually makeup sex and then would be forgotten and pushed aside to be dealt with another day, but would be forgotten by the next morning.

That's what she was used to, and that's what she was waiting for to happen here.

“Are ya…”

He tried again, this time moving closer to her, and Ash's heart thudded a little heavier in her chest. She froze up a bit, until his other hand came to cover her hand in his. Her heart slowed down to a steadier rhythm, but the tension didn't completely leave her body yet.

He grinned, and she offered a confused smile back.

“Can I kiss you…?”

What--

What?

Her eyebrows knit together, an amused but puzzled expression on her face as she tilted her head slightly to the side.

"Yes?" She said, although it came off as more of a question than she intended. Ash gave a minute shake of her head before she spoke again. "I mean... yeah. Sorry, you just... yeah, you're really high, aren't you?" Ash asked, although the question was more rhetorical than anything else, because she knew what the answer to that was. It was the same answer to that question at any other time on any other day.

A big resounding hell yes.

Or, probably in Trevor speech, feck yes.

"Sorry," again, yeah, she was worried about offending him over basically nothing, "it's just... you've never asked before. You don't... you don't have to ask."

It was strange to her that he even was asking.

Literally, they were dating now. That kind of thing would've been important, like, maybe before -- like, you know, Homecoming when they'd made out on this very couch. But even then, like...

Oh, she didn't know. She was just confused and tense.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Soap]

Alejandra Cortez
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

@Realex has set their status to:
Jacket or no jacket?

@Realex has set their outfit to:
Business Casual Brunchial

@Realex has interacted with:
Ava

@Realex has mentioned:
Naomi

@Realex has tagged:
Winona Kitsune2202 ​

Alex never thought she’d had to clarify to her demon-obsessed roommate that evil spirits weren’t exactly your friends, but she decided she wouldn’t waste her breath on Ava’s weird antics. Little did Ava know that Alejandra was only protecting her from the wrath of her mother.

That sounded ridiculous, didn’t it?

But it wasn’t.

Elena Cortez was intent on being involved with almost everybody in Alex’s life. And once she’d heard word of Ava even thinking about bringing a ouija into the apartment, it’d result in a lecture that wasn’t for her own child.

Don’t get her wrong.

She meant well… in her own way.

“I’ll be your friend. We don’t need Beetlejuice as a new roommate.” Alex glanced behind her, putting a hand up as if she was giving direct orders to end that conversation there and forever.

She wasn’t sure what she expected her to say.

Maybe that she broke the AC. Y’know, maybe she let the dog out and lost him, they don’t even have a dog and somehow that would’ve made more sense than whatever was coming out of her mouth right now.

Her brows furrowed in confusion and turned around, placing her hands in the pockets of her jacket and Alex was left a bit speechless.

Ava had never shown an interest in her love life before.

Granted, Alex hadn’t had much of one for a while. But her words had gotten Alejandra’s head to spin more than it was last night. What kind of reputation? Naomi did tell her that she didn’t… even actually date someone. But the way that things were going… that would change. Right? Whatever else did Ava mean?

“Another heart? What? No, it’s not like that… she… we kissed. We even talked about planning a date or something. I mean…”

Alex wasn’t angry, per say.

It was just… confusing.

Besides, Ava was clearly just the messenger.

Maybe a messenger with the wrong message. But, still.

“What’s the reputation? I don’t get it. Does… does she sleep around? I can deal with that-- I mean, I can’t. But… look, she’s just never been in a relationship before. I… can change that.”

She sounded… so stupid.

“At least, it seems like she wants me to change that.” At least, about the relationship part. Alex wasn’t entirely sure about Naomi’s history other than the fact that she’s never been in something a little more real. But… the signs she was giving her was saying something entirely different and Alejandra couldn’t ignore that.

There just wasn’t a reason for Naomi to lie about wanting something more when she didn’t.

…

Right?

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

saint andrew taylor

live & let live...

Saint’s stoic expression flicked into something vaguely resembling a smile as he glanced to Jo’s face as he gathered her dishes (though not to catch a glimpse of her reaction or anything of the sort).

The smile on her face was one of unbridled happiness; it was contagious, in a way.

The expression quickly faded away when he caught himself, and he pressed his lips into a line, standing up from his slouched position to make his way over to the sink. Gently setting her dishes in the sink, Saint listened to Jo’s thanks and apology. To him, they were just words, and no words that he really wanted to hear. They felt like smoke up his ass, and her forced laugh after the backhanded comment confirmed his thoughts on the matter. He acknowledged her words in his slow way, the tattoos on his forearm looking back at Jo as he scrubbed out her glass: “Yeah…”

(It was the truth, after all. There was a full party of people that he could have taken to be his bed company last night, and she had pulled him away early, so he wasn’t going to dismiss her words as false.)

Wringing the towel out before throwing it over the side of the sink, Saint let out a soft sigh. Jo was dismissing his invitation to be her driver, but he made his way over to the hook beside the door and slipped his arms into his dark purple jacket. He knew Jo better than to think that she’d come to the party prepared for anything except partying, and she surely did need a ride…to her rave.

The fact that she was having a rave was unsurprising. He expected such a thing from her.

His left hand found his pocket, trying to make certain that the keys to his Buick were in the same place as he usually left them. He came up empty, and he recalled that he’d left his keys on…ah, there. The hook to the left of his jacket.

He grabbed the keys, right as Jo delivered her “on second thought…”.

She was nothing if not predictable.

“It’s no trouble…,” Saint said, glancing back at Jo. “I’ve only got my heifer to work on today…and I wouldn’t’ve offered if I didn’t want to.”

This was the truth. He did only have his heifer to work on today. He simply had a lot of work to do on his heifer.

He typically spent his entire weekend sculpting when he approached Fest time, only breaking to drink caffeinated beverages and smoke some of his bud. He reasoned that this would only take a maximum of half an hour to get done (if the destination was nearby), and he could go back to sculpting his cow’s large ears once more.

(It wasn’t because he cared of her; she was already here, and she had no other way to get around.)

He gave a nod toward the door while looking at Jo as an unspoken come along. He opened the door, then stepped aside to let Jo out. She passed by, and he flicked off the light and shut the door as he followed behind her.

His long, slow strides caused him to walk past her, and he made his way down the steps of his apartment and to the outside. As he turned the corner and began to walk toward his vehicle, he nearly ran into the same sign that he always nearly ran into, and he said the same, clear “pardon” to it as he always did.

He opened the passenger door of the shining car for Jo when she reached it, and he studied her as she settled inside, slamming the door when she was done. He made his way to the other side, dropping himself into the low driver’s seat and shutting the door.

He glanced at Jo’s reflection in his rearview mirror as he slowly pulled the buckle across his body to click it into its spot. “And I’m taking you…?” he asked, expecting her to complete the sentence with the destination.

He stuck the key into the ignition, and the lights overhead came on. The car let out a ding, and the lights clicked off as he twisted the key.

The radio suddenly kicked to life, last night’s bass-boosted music blaring over his speakers at a deafening volume. Casually and slowly, he reached up to turn it down to hardly above a whisper, and he looked over at Jo for a moment before moving his hand to the GPS mounted to the top of his control center, tapping the address to wherever Jo had told him into it.

Once that was done, he backed out of his parking spot and made his way out onto the main street, one hand holding the wheel while his other arm’s elbow rested on the center console.

Silently, he studied the road ahead of him. His face was neutral and unbothered, and he seemed not to care this way or that that his ex with whom he’d had a terrible blowout was sitting in his passenger seat.

After a few minutes, he surprisingly spoke up: 


“I’ve got a lighter in my glovebox...and something to smoke, if you’d like.”

mood
getting around

location
the road

outfit
let loose

playing...
hotline bling (cover)

by drake​

mentions
n/a

interactions
jo

tags
jasmyn

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

trevor callaghan

quite the catch

Trevor Callaghan, as admittedly oddly-strung as the boy was, was nothing if not consistent and unchanging, and there was one question that was pointless in his presence— the same question that his girlfriend now asked:

“…yeah, you’re really high, aren’t you?”

“No shite,” he blurted, and then he shook his head to answer in a more polite-ish way, letting out a chuckle. “Yeah.”

Ya see, there were a couple of question to ask yourself before you asked whether Trevor was high or not at this point in any given conversation:

1. Is he yelling?

If no, then it was still possible that he was under the influence, so you had to ask yourself another question:

2. Does he look like he’s going to blow a gasket at the drop of a pin?

If the answer was no, then you really increased your chances of him having savored the greener stuff, but you still had one question remaining:

3. Is the guy actually smiling?

Oh, that one was the kicker, and coupled with the other questions having been answered with a no? Oh, yeah, you didn’t even have to ask:

The guy was totally fucked up.

He chuckled softly, shaking his head at her apology and explanation of her reaction. “What, can I not ask to kiss ya?” His tone sounded mildly irritated, but his expression read the opposite. His brows were still knit, his hazel eyes still glowing with that same, warm, genuine concern.

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, moving closer to study her face for a moment before letting his eyes flutter close and pressing his lips to hers.

He didn’t kiss her in the way that he usually did— in the way that made it obvious that he wanted more. It was a kiss— probably the first kiss of the sort— that didn’t press or grab or pull but instead embraced. There was no intensity, no fire, no anything except for a vague warmth behind his teeth. His lips were more considerate, less needy; they tried to be comforting where he couldn’t be.

It was a kiss to ask what’s wrong? but expected no response back.

His smell wasn’t near pleasant-- his canned body spray was an assault on the senses. And his breath smelled of weed and of Listerine mouthrinse and of an orange soda that he’d guzzled as his lunch and discarded in the bathroom trashcan. And…well, Trevor wasn’t good with words of this sort. He always struggled, in his writing, with comfort, with difficult situations where every word could destroy everything—

So he tried to do it make up for it with his lips, tried to set everything right with his kisses without having to talk, trying to have a conversation with his motions and only getting the same, uneasy response from her signals—

Something’s wrong here.

He wasn’t helping. This wasn’t comforting.

Damn it.

He moved back slightly, studying her face through slitted-open eyes, studying the curve of upper lip. His chest tugged, and he pressed one last gentle kiss on her lips— just because he wanted to— before he shifted back and opened his eyes, folding his lower lip in and bringing his free hand up to feel of the curly hair at the nape of his neck.

He stared at her for a moment, brows knit. “I—“

He cut himself off when he realized that he—

Didn’t know why he was starting the sentence with he.

“Darlin’…,” he tried to start again, but he trailed off once more.

He gave a soft sigh through his nose, then looked at their hands.

He could practically feel the unspoken tension between the two— and not the good kind of tension. It wrapped itself around his hand, laced its fingers with his in place of Ash’s.

He closed his eyes, squeezing his eyes together and huffing a sigh. “I’m about ta talk wit’out thinkin’,” he said, so quickly that it sounded like it was all one word. He opened his eyes again, looking over at Ash. “So, uhm…well, this isn’t exactly goin’ ta be pretty, because I don’t think in pretty words at first. All I think is everythin’ jus’ super blunt, so…”

He trailed off looking down at their hands again, growing quiet for a moment and then huffing a sigh of determination. “Ya keep apologizin'," he started, “an’ I keep feelin’ like…” He trailed off again, and he muttered a “well, fuck” when he realized that he was thinking. Her ave his head a shake. “I’ll jus’ lay it out,” he concluded, giving her hand a squeeze to look up at her, though not into her eyes. “I’m worried about us—“ His eyes flicked to hers, a muddled look of confusion and worry written in the color of his own eyes, before flicking away to some place in the living room. “— because there’s— you’re scared or something’— an I’m there, too.” He let out a soft sigh. “An’ we can try an’ blame it on this or that, or not even try and jus’ actually blame it on this or that— an’ we both know who the blame should be on—“ (Though the correct answer was all him.) “— but blamin’ won’t help anythin’. ‘least, I don’t think so.”

He went quiet for a moment, listening to and replaying the words that had left his mouth and smiling vaguely as he caught up with himself. He let out a soft chuckle. “An’— an’ I always ignore my problems. Oh, ya know— ignore ‘em. Raise my middle finger to ‘em. Turn my back on ‘em. Try an’ act like that shite never happened. I try an’ act like I never heaaaafuck.” He realized that he was getting sidetracked, drawing one word out into another.

He shook his head again, and his eyes moved back to Ash again. Determinedly, he met her eyes. “Look,” he started, “this isn’t goin’ ta work if we keep this shite up— I guess that that’s tha point of it all.” His voice was suddenly firm, and perhaps a bit forceful, though the latter was mostly because he was making himself speak his mind, flat out. “An’ I want ta know what tha problem is, because I know that there is a problem. Despite what ya might have heard, I’m not a complete an’ utter dumbarse.” He paused another moment, studying her face and tucking in his lip again before shaking his head and continuing. “I know where that problem came from— an’ I’ll name it: it was that damn fight. It feckin' fucked everythin’ up— no one made…I don’t care whose fault it was, but it’s that fight, regardless.” He let out a sigh. “An’, yeah, tha more I think about it, an’ the more I…I’m jus’ like— I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed ta do, because I want to help, but I’m—“ He averted his eyes to state, in a strained, frustrated whisper: “Social aptitude!” He looked back into her eyes, the expression of mild self-anger on his face giving way to a slight grin, and he chuckled. “Is not my strong suit…?” he finished his abrupt, interjecting thought as if it were a question, chuckling slightly.

He looked away from her and to that same, random point in the living room. “An’ my solution is always—“ His face became suddenly unamused, expressing his disappointment in hisself’s typical response to things: “Let’s make out, let’s have sex, let’s—” He huffed, and he pulled his lip inside his mouth again, looking over at his girlfriend to eye her for a moment. “Which, I mean…I wouldn’t be opp— well, fuck, there I go again.” He sighed, shaking his head and chuckling slightly at his ridiculousness. “An’ it’s all fine an’ dandy, I guess, and then it gets to shite like what we have, an’ then suddenly, I’ve got no idea what tha hell ta do, because it’s not like I’ve even had a girlfriend since middle school, and an’ I’ve never had one nearly as— I’ve never—“ He chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “You…if ya get it.”

He shook his head slightly, pausing to comment, “You’d think a writer would be better wit’ words, wouldn’t ya?”

He continued again with a slight chuckle. “An’— an’ I don’t know if I can fix this, but I wanna, ‘cuz— damn it.” He shook his head, looking into her eyes, and he went silent for a long moment.

He seemed to lose his words, his face entirely relaxing, the warm look coming back to his eyes.

He looked away, settling back on the couch and giving her hand a squeeze. “Will ya jus’ talk ta me?” he said finally. “Guess that’s what I’m asking’.” He glanced over at her. “What…exactly…is makin’ ya uneasy? Or apprehensive or wh— what?” He gave a slight shrug, wobbling his head a bit. “Can ya…I mean, will ya let me know? Whether ya think tellin’ me can fix it or not. Whether ya think I can fix it, in general, or not.” His eyes flicked away. “Whether ya think it’s yer fault or not...or whatever,” he sighed.

(There was another fact that was relatively well-known amongst those who happened to spend longer than two minutes around Trevor in settings where any decisions were made to be had, or any opinions were made to be held: Trevor was overbearing and wanted to solve everything himself, and he became irrationally frustrated with himself when he couldn’t— and took that frustration out on others, more often than not.)

He let out a long sigh, his brows knitting together again. He went quiet for a long moment, thought written in his eyes. Obviously his “talking without thinking” was over; now, it was time to consider everything that he’d said— and what it meant.

“I jus’...don’t want ta walk on eggshells,” he concluded finally in a near mumble.

He sat up, scooting back towards the back of the cushion, looking down at the hand he had laced with Ash’s, rubbing his thumb along the back of her soft hand. “I want ta be able ta talk to my girlfriend without feelin’ like I’m gonna break somethin’,” he said. “I want ta be able ta…” He let out a soft sigh. “I want you ta…be yerself around me, and I jus’…” He looked back into her eyes again, his hazel eyes clouded with an odd, nearly-unreadable expression. “…want ta go back to us. Or…however far back we can go to the us that had hardly even been an us.” He shook his head slightly, letting out a quiet chuckle, studying the form of her face as he spoke. “Ta Trevor and Ash, the odd pair that would never work but works against tha odds…tha couple, no matter how secret, that’s…” He chuckled softly, shaking his head slightly. “I mean, that’s got some sort of resilience.” His eyes moved back to hers. “People fight…and I fight more than mos’ people. One of my…flaws, I guess, but it needs ta jus’…” He shook his head again. “I wanna move past it.” He gave her hand a squeeze, the look on his face growing more determined as his lip curled into a slight smile. “I want ta move past it,” he said determinedly.

Trevor slowly lifted his calloused left hand to place on the curve of Ash’s chin, placing his thumb just beneath her jaw and rubbing softly. He studied her expression, smiling slightly. He wore an expression that seemed entirely unlike him— one that looked…warm, and soft, and caring, and…not angry, and not aggressive, and not angry, and actually wanting to try. “I want you an’ me ta be you an’ me, not jus’ some…” His brows knit as he searched for the word. “…mismatched couple whose painful awkwardness would make anyone else squirm.” He rubbed her cheek. “‘cuz I’m a fuckhead— an arse with very few redeeming qualities— so…” He smiled slightly. “…let me fix this.”

With that, he slowly leaned in to plant another one of his oddly-soft kisses on Ash’s lips. This kiss was much slower, had a lot more to say than the last one. Its question this time wasn’t what’s wrong?—

Its question this time was will ya let me...solve us?.

He pulled back slightly, just enough to look into her face. “After fuckin’ everythin’ up, it’s the least I can do,” he said, and then he let his eyes shut again to kiss her once more.

mood
is this how you...fix things??

location
his apartment

outfit
t-shirt & sweatpants

playing...
eyesore

by glaive​

mentions
n/a

interactions
ash

tags
Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

LINDSAY MORGAN KAY

fuckin' hype

“Oh, I’m fucking winning!” the loser called, but Lindsay could hardly hear him over the whipping of the wind in his ears and the thudding of his heart in his chest—

But he heard him well enough to cackle loudly like a little witch as he continued running, hopping over pebbles as if they were hurdles, weaving between trucks and cars and SUVs as he rapidly made his own shortcut toward the grand X-marked spot of the dollar store’s entry way, and finally jumping over the parking block and sliding through the front door, nearly running into glass of the automatic door.

He came to an abrupt halt when he stepped in, suddenly resuming a calm, casual stance, and then he heard a voice behind him that caused him to jump slightly in surprise.

“Where’re we going first?”

Lin spun around on his heel, grin frozen on his face in confusion.

Zeph was that close behind him?

His grin broadened, and he let out a soft, winded chuckle.

Color him impressed, luhmao. Oh, fuck yeah, that was right— Lin was the best fucking teacher, and you saw it here first, luhmao.

Lin raised his hand to offer Zeph a high five— and when Zeph went for it, he quickly swiped it away, cackling a “too sloooow” and giving a wiggle of his butt.

“Bubble wands first?” Zeph asked. “Bubble wands first. I’ll race ya.”

Lin stopped his wiggling. “Hol’ u—“

And then that dude just fucking bolted!

Of course, Lin’s first instinct was to rush after him and call out “unfair!”, much to the confusion and perturbation of the green vested employee at the checkout counter.

Zeph dropped his feather boas behind him, and Lin jumped over them and snatched them up just as they were nearly out of reach, bundling them up in his arms before throwing them over his own shoulders, brows set with determination, a wide grin spread across his face.

And then off flew a hat, and Lin laughed deviously as Zeph came to a stop and walked back for it. “Suckeeeeer!” Lin sneered, poking out his tongue and putting a finger and a thumb to his forehead as he passed him, dropping it as soon as he got halfway down the aisle.

He heard several clut-click-clack-tut-tut-shht noises when he got to the end of the aisle. He looked back as he rounded the corner to see Zeph trying to shove a ton of peanut cans back on the shelf. “Suck my ass!” he laughed, and he rounded the corner, rushing straight to the toy aisle.

Lin leapt into the air excitedly, pumping his fists and giving a “woo!” as he planted his feet. He gave a pelvic thrust and a “nnt!” before patting his palms on his chest in two quick beats. Trying to catch his breath behind a grin, the boy watched out the aisle for his friend to come.

When Zeph rounded the corner, the taller boy wore a dejected smile, and Lin laughed gloatingly.

“Looooser,” he teased, walking up to Zeph to give him a playful shove in the side.

"Alright, alright, so I'm not the fastest,” said Zeph, holding his hands up in total defeat.

“Zloth,” Lin agreed with a sure nod and a bubble of laughter, giving Zeph another shove.

“But,” the looooser continued, “I’ll have you know that I am a hell of a good bubble blower. I put Spongebob's cool animal shapes to shame. I’ll make the biggest bubble to ever exist. So big you could hop right into it and ride off into the sunset like some kind of...uhh...isn't there a Greek god that does that? But it's a chariot and not a bubble? You'll be like him but ten times cooler, because bubbles are ten times cooler than chariots."

Lin cackled happily, grinning widely. “I call bullshit— I’m the best bubble blower that there is, and I’m gonna blow the biggest bubble, and then you’re gonna ride off into the sunset like that Apollo guy— and I’m gonna blow a chariot and horses, luhmao!” Lin put his hands on his hips, giving a sure nod, and then his eyes began to search the shelves.

Zeph plucked a thing of bubbles off of the shelf. "How many we buying?"

Lin stared at Zeph with wide, blue eyes, a look of utter confusion on his face as he grabbed the bubbles from him. His brows lowered on his face, his eyes narrowing, and he cocked his head.

Was he serious?

“Buying?” Lin asked in utter disbelief. A grin slowly spread across his face, and Lin glanced down at the bubbles, sizing them up—

And he removed his hat, casually placing the bubbles inside of it and replacing his hat. Due to the high nose of the shark, you couldn’t even tell that there was a bubble thing in there.

Lin gave his head a rock from side to side, and then he grinned over at Zeph with a happy cackle. “Who said anything about buying? I told you what we were gonna do before we came here, didn’t I, luhmao?” He picked up two more thing of bubbles. “Now, here. These are your job,” Lin said, shoving them at him before grabbing another two containers of bubbles of his own. “And theeese are mine, luhmao,” he said casually.

He did it like he was an expert— because he was an expert.

Lin Kay was a criminal without a record, luhmao—

Oh, wait, shit…well, he had a traffic record.

But, pfft, who was counting?

Cool, right?

mood
5 finger couponing

location
tha dolla storeeeeeee

outfit
spot the drip lmao

playing...
tongue tied

by grouplove​

mentions
n/a

interactions
zephy

tags
Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Casey Clairmont
"Don't stop doin' what you're doin'."

@basketcase has set their status to:
buzz

@basketcase has interacted with:
Chas

@basketcase has mentioned:
N/A

@baseketcase has tagged:
hery ​

Resting on the table, he started shaking his foot a bit back and forth as he listened to Chas talk. Casey pretended to be interested, nodding his head vigorously, his eyebrows drawn together in deep, interested thought as he listened to his friend. But as he listened -- "listened" -- he kind of started to drift off into his own little world. Casey Land. Where he imagined everything was orange and fire-themed.

He flashed a polite grin at the housekeeper that brought his tea in with a little dip of his head and a quiet "thank you" before he sat up from his slouched position. Instead of resting his feet comfortably crossed on top of the table, he took to resting them on the edge as he reached forward, picking up the cup of tea and bringing it closer to him. Steam billowed up from the top as he listened to Chas.

"Glad to hear that, Case. I know we're still teenagers, but I think a lot of people could learn from your youthful enthusiasm. It's uplifting."

Youthful enthusiasm.

He repeated the little phrase in his head, letting out a small exhale of laughter through his nose as he brought the cup up towards his lips, taking a careful of the hot liquid, but quickly pulled it away as it burned the top of his tongue and the roof of his mouth. You'd think that a guy who had countless scars from accidentally burning himself -- who literally lived to send a middle finger to anyone that said "don't play with fire" -- would've had a higher pain tolerance for hot water, but alas, it would seem that only his skin had grown any kind of fire resistance.

... And by that, he'd probably just managed to burn off enough of the nerve endings that getting burned was no biggie anymore.

Even right now, his right pointer finger had a healing first degree burn on it from... he couldn't remember at this point. It was hard to keep track of which burns came from which dumbass fire-related idea.

He liked fire. Did you get that yet?

"Youthful enthusiasm," he echoed back to Chas, a lopsided grin sliding onto his face as he chuckled. "That makes you sound like an old man or something, Chas." Casey said with another laugh. "I mean, don't we all have 'youthful enthusiasm'?" He asked, lifting his hands up in a sort of shrug like position as he spoke. "Kind of rolls with the whole still being in high school thing, yeah?"

Of course, he had an inkling of what Chas meant by that term, but he still thought it was stupid.

"I'm a screenwriter, in case you've forgotten. I've been toying with some concepts all October, but nothing concrete... it's been getting a bit frustrating, I have to say."

Booooring.

Plus as a screenwriter, did you even get any credit for your work? The answer was a no. See, the only people that got credit for anything when it came to screenwriting was like... the actual actors. The faces. The Chanels of the world.

Chas would be forgotten by time he was thirty if he didn't struggle to try and stay relevant. Staying relevant was harder when your face wasn't consistently being blasted back into everyone's face -- Casey knew this. But hey, who was he to give advice to a Marino? The Marinos were obviously amazing at staying in the spotlight, Exhibit A being the time that Chas' brother had ended up on Celebrity Rehab, which happened to be one of Casey's favorite television shows to binge watch. He remembered smacking Cami to get her to look at his laptop screen when he'd first recognized the older Marino brother.

"That and actually being around people my age, having responsibilities... it gets exhausting. You'll get acquainted with the colorful personalities of Hollywood Arts, then you'll see what I mean." Chas continued, before rudely flipping over a magazine on the table.

Casey quirked up an eyebrow but didn't ask any questions as he set the tea cup back down onto the coffee table and then leaned back in his chair once more. His hands crossed over his chest, fingers lacing together as he kept a bright, easygoing smile on his face while Chas continued to talk. Again, Casey's mind started to get distracted and go elsewhere in thought. Right now? He was trying to remember what a buzzing fly sounded like.

"At any rate, your family's invited to the live recording of our interview. If you need, I'd be glad to hand Chanel and Cami cue cards for your use. In fact, there are a few key points I'd like to—"

And then, before Chas could drone on any more, down the staircase and straight into the room came the one, the only...

Priscilla Marino.

You know those old cartoons where their eyes start beating with hearts and their heart starts literally beating right out of their chest as they float across the room to the whatever that captured their attention?

Yeah, that was Casey any time he was in the presence of Priscilla.

Look, growing up on the road hadn't exactly opened their family up to a lot of new people for Casey to meet and potentially start crushing on which... yeah, you guessed it... meant that little seven-year-old Casey had met fourteen-year-old Priscilla and the rest was, as they say, history. As in, little second grade Casey fell head over heels for the much older Marino girl and that crush had just... never really faded.

Although now it was less of an actual crush and more of just a general infatuation.

... Yeah because that made it sound so much better.

And yes, his eyes did first go to her face. His pale eyes lit up and he sat straight up in his seat, dropping his feet to the floor with his back straightened, his hands clasped in his lap like a model teenage boy, with a beaming smile on his face.

And then his eyes moved down to focus on her chest and--

She was wearing basically nothing.

His cheeks heated up a bit, his gaze glued to her boobs, until she folded her arms and he was able to drag his eyes away long enough to look back at her face.

She greeted Chas but who really cared about that? Not Casey, because then she was walking towards him, and Casey suddenly wished that he had showered before coming and had found something that didn't reek of campfire smoke, and he really should've done something more with his hair, and what if she'd seen him with his feet on the table like a hooligan, and--

"It's been ages, Casey, and you look fantastic! You have a girlfriend yet?"

Every step towards him caused his mouth to feel drier as she spoke to him in her silky sweet voice. Casey could've listened to Priscilla talk forever and about anything. He wouldn't even fall asleep or go all UGH if she chose to talk about chemistry or something boring. She probably made The Period Table seem really freaking hot. Errr... hot as in cool, not hot as in sexy hot or--

Before he could answer, she kissed him on the cheek and Casey thought he might just stop breathing right there.

All he could manage was a giggling, stupid laugh in response, his smile widening into a goofy grin.

Chas spoke again, but instead of hearing his actual words, all that Casey heard was "blah, blah, blah."

And then... Priscilla spoke, and he let out a dreamy sigh as he looked up at her. She was so pretty. So effortlessly perfect. And hot.

His eyes darted back down to her boobs for a split second.

"Did you know Chas lost a tooth a few weeks ago? This midget girl went up and—"

"ENOUGH, PRISCILLA!" Chas snarled, slamming down his coffee on the table.

Well that didn't turn into a boring noise in his mind. If Casey hadn't been so drunk on his infatuation for Priscilla, he probably would've jumped or something from the forceful way that Chas had slammed his coffee down, but he was too stupid drunk right now to be unsettled.

"Oh, I did!" Casey said with a laugh. "That Charlie girl, right? Yeah she was all 'omg I've heard of your family, you're Clairmonts' and then someone was like 'omg Charlie knocked out Chas' tooth' and I was all," he dropped his jaw, eyes widening, in his best super surprised expression before he picked his jaw back up and his smile returned to the dumb, goofy grin, "oh, and Cami showed me the video when it was trending."

"So Priscilla, I'm going to be on your mom's talk show. Without my sisters. Pretty cool, right? I'm making something of myself now. Pretty impressive, yeah? I even released a song. Well, a couple songs, but yeah. So I, ya know..." he leaned onto the armrest of his chair, one eyebrow cocking up in what Casey was definitely convinced was a super attractive way, "I'm basically an adult now, too. The big 1-7."

"You should come on with me and Chassy! The show would be so much better with you there. Right, Chas?" And although he was asking Chas a question, Casey's gaze was still focused on boo-- Priscilla. Yeah, Priscilla's face.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

MOOD: eeeeeek

OUTFIT: work clothes

LOCATION: dollar store

basics

MENTIONS:
Javi

INT:
Winona (Zeph)
ohdittoh (Lin)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Angel Cervantes

Gee, who'd have thought lifting hand soap was an easy way to pull a muscle? Well, not Angel, because he didn't, but it sure felt like it. A few hours on the job and he was already staring to feel like an old man, which he feared was out of laziness rather than the much more realistic "lifting with your back" issue he had. Even for someone who worked out pretty regularly, he was far too clumsy for his own good.

Now, it wasn't Angel's first day on the job at the dollar store, but it might as well have been considering it had been two weeks and he had yet to work up the courage to ask for a key to the employee restroom. It didn't matter all that much to the short boy anyway, as the general public's restrooms worked just fine. After all, he was typically the one tasked with cleaning them. It wasn't a terrible job, but people really seemed to have a knack for missing the toilet in the most bizarre of ways. Angel began to wonder if it was some kind of sport or game at his expense.

Again, he didn't dare complain, as he was grateful just to have a job at all. He didn't spend all that much money regardless, but it felt better working in his spare time. There were people literally paying his school tuition out of their pockets; he had to look at least a little motivated.

Even so, it was hard to stay focused when so much seemed to be going on in and out of school. There was Javi, his very estranged brother, who had only recently arrived to Hollywood Arts, an array of embarrassingly awkward social encounters (although that was the norm for Angel), and—most horrifying of all—the news of Ricky Westborne and... oh God, Angel could hardly stomach it.

Ricky Westborne and Isabella Cervantes-Westborne were having a baby.

Yes, that's right. Earlier that morning, Angel had gotten the news himself that Ricky, Lin's dad, and Isabella, Angel's aunt, were having a child. As in, a baby that would biologically tie his and Lin's family forever. Not that they hadn't already been married for some time, which was a whole separate can of worms, but this baby thing was a whole new ball park now. "So weird..." he mumbled to himself upon the realization that he hadn't discussed this with anyone but himself in his head.

He was a little hurt not to have heard the news from his own family first, but he had to expect that from the diligence of L.A.'s resident tabloids. Angel had never known anything close to the world of celebrities before this union of his and Lin's families had taken place, even while he was deeply entrenched in the glamorous gossip and prestige of Hollywood Arts from his freshman year and beyond.

It was a shame to lose Lin, a guy he once called his best friend, over this unexpected collision of their family affairs. It wasn't as if Angel had willed it in any capacity, but that didn't mean he couldn't be supportive of it either. Love is love, right? No, apparently it's not, because every time he tried to explain that to his brother and step-cousin, he was met with the cold shoulder or a fist to the face. There really wasn't much in between.

Angel had his head buried in a box of hygienic products when what sounded like two pairs of footsteps came crashing into the store. He jumped, then turned instinctively to face the door from the aisle he was crouched in. The pair of boys had moved far too rapidly for him to even catch a glimpse of them, leaving Angel to wonder just how they had the courage to come charging into a dead silent dollar store like that. Didn't they know they could get kicked out for causing a disturbance?

The bewildered worker discarded his worry for the (for lack of a better term) ruffians invading the serenity of this spectacularly-priced marketplace, returning to his mundane activity of placing scented soaps on the shelves. His thoughts returned back to the news he'd received earlier, reminding him just how difficult it was to process that this whole baby thing was... real. Like, Lin was getting a whole new half-brother type of real. Angel had yet another cousin type of real.

The situation was beyond an anomaly, but the gentle boy couldn't help but feel jealous that he wasn't the one getting a little brother. Angel had always felt he'd been robbed in the lottery of life being cast as a younger brother, as he was already susceptible to Javier's forceful bullying as is. Being a pushover sucked. And, if he knew any better, maybe he could have salvaged his relationship with Lin by talking things out rather than sheepishly denying everyone's concerns for their family drama. It was easier to be kinda quiet and pathetic rather than to address the real issues head-on.

After finishing his work stocking soap, Angel picked up the now-empty cardboard box and headed further down the aisle, picking up the low voices of two boys. It had to have been the two who entered not long ago, as he could pick up a trace of carefree liveliness in their distant voices. Distant, of course, as in a few aisles over. Maybe Angel could have heard them better, but if he focused any more on their voices he would have really been eavesdropping and that just felt dirty.

Subtle as can be, Angel turned on his heel and headed toward the voices. It would probably be the only human interaction he'd get for the day besides his manager, Trish the cashier, and his parents, so he chalked it up as the week's therapy.

Much to his chagrin, he passed a shelf with a disconcertingly large amount of sloppily-arranged peanut cans, almost as though the organizer had been in a rush when working. He frowned, then muttered sullenly, "I just rearranged those..."

Stifling a sigh, Angel bent down on the ground and picked up a few stray cans, returning them to their identically-packaged brethren. He took a little bit to tidy up the display once more, listening every so often to the faint voices of the boys in the next aisle. Were they whispering now? Perhaps that was why their voices sounded so funny—almost as though Angel had heard them before.

After finally finishing his work, he headed off in his original direction, cardboard box still in his grasp. Once he turned into the aisle, he was met with a most unexpected sight. Behold, two unsuspecting, feather boa-clad teenagers caught in the act of... what exactly? Angel couldn't say for sure, but his attention was more focused on the fact that he most definitely recognized both boys' faces. Even then, it was hard not to watch as one of the boys was shoving bubbles in some... head shark?

"Lin? Zeph?" he gasped, freezing in his tracks at the other end of the aisle. The sight of the two boys dressed and acting so strangely left the boy dumbstruck, unable to say anything whilst the three stared back at one another. "What are you guys doing?" He could hardly say anything else with a million questions and twice as many unorganized thoughts floating about in his head. Did either of them know about the baby? Knowing Lin, he'd probably still go do something stupid and forget about the weird news anyway after hearing it, but it was still a shock to see him playing around so jovially that day.

Or, of course, he hadn't heard from anyone yet.

He pointed at the bubbles in Lin's hat, which peeked out ever so slightly, then stuttered incoherently before he could figure out what he wanted to say. "Your bubbles are sticking out of your hat. You weren't gonna, like... walk off with them, right?" He laughed nervously, refusing to believe such an idiotic plan. "They're only fifty cents a pop."

He scratched at the back of his neck, unsure how to take all this. Zeph was such a mellow guy. What was he doing wrapped up in Lin's shenanigans? If the accessories weren't enough, he already looked out of place based on his anxious outward appearance. "Also, um, my manager's probably gonna tell me to kick you out if you keep running around, so..." He forced a weak smile, a bit afraid to be making demands with Lin, who made no effort to hide his disdain for Angel. "Could you guys maybe dial it back a little? Sorry to, uh... intrude..."

code by valen t.

 

[Winona]

Ava Sanders
"Life is for keeping score."

@queenofhell has set their status to:
ugh

@queenofhell has interacted with:
Alex

@queenofhell has mentioned:
Naomi

@queenofhell has tagged:
Soap ​

Well, having Beetlejuice as a roommate probably wouldn't be half bad -- just imagine that. He probably had plenty of cash, so he'd be able to help out with rent, which would mean more money in Ava's pocket, which would mean that she could finally buy a better gaming setup than she already had. Better computer with top notch graphics, perhaps? Oh fuck yeah, let him move right in.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

Well, no signs of demons. Fuck. Maybe you had to say it aloud.

... Ava would mess with that later. There were more important things at hand than attempting to summon demons.

The more Alex talked, the dumber she sounded. Ava's heart would've broken if she had a heart, but it was common knowledge that instead of a beating organ that produced blood in her chest, Ava's heart had been replaced by a bitter black hole that sucked in the life force from those around her. At least, that's what she'd started telling children to get them to leave her the fuck alone.

She was a hit at family reunions.

One eyebrow quirked up, but otherwise, her expression remained stoic and unmoving. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she leaned against the side of the wall. She listened as Alex spoke, Ava really did, but Ava also didn't give a fuck about what she was saying. The point remained that she didn't know anything about this girl, and who the fuck caught feelings for someone they hardly knew?

It was like that scene in Frozen (yeah, shut the fuck up, she watched Disney princess movies -- get the fuck over it) where Anna was like "I'm engaged" and her sister blatantly said "you can't marry a guy you just met."

Well you couldn't fucking date a girl you just met, either, at least in Ava's opinion.

"Do you even know anything about her?" She asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as she spoke, her tone harsh and to the point -- Ava wasn't known for beating around the bush. "Do you even know how stupid you sound? Alex, your life isn't a romantic comedy movie, as much as you might want it to be. People don't change, as much as you might want them to, and you can't change her like you think."

Yeah... she was being harsher than she had originally intended to be, but fuck it.

"Look, date her, kiss her, marry her, do whatever the hell you want -- I can't stop you." She continued. Her stoic expression softened slightly as she spoke. "But you don't exactly have the greatest taste when it comes to dating people, and neither does she. Look, I just... I was talking with this guy last night, and he said that she broke up him and his girlfriend. I don't know all the details because it's really not my business, but I just..."

Ava hesitated. She ran her tongue along her teeth before she continued to speak. "And she has... a reputation, you know? Of like... sleeping around, and I mean, do whatever you want," she continued, "I'm not hating on her for that, but if she straight up told you that she doesn't date, and she's known for sleeping around, and she broke up another couple because she wouldn't stop flirting with the boyfriend. I mean, I guess I'm just not understanding how you're seeing all that and saying 'boy oh boy, I bet I can change her, and we'll be happy and date and be all in love.'" She made her voice sounded higher as she spoke the last part, a fake smile on her face, but the smile dropped away as she finished speaking and she crossed her arms over her chest.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Ashton West
"I heard that you've been having some trouble finding your place in the world."

@Fire&Ash has set their status to:
.....

@Fire&Ash has interacted with:
Trevor

@Fire&Ash has mentioned:
N/A

@Fire&Ash has tagged:
ohdittoh ​

The thing was that, with Trevor's lips pressed against her own, it was easier for her to forget and ignore the suffocating tension. It was easier for her to swallow the fears that Ash, in her endless way of ignoring the obvious, didn't piece together as fears -- because there wasn't anything for her to be afraid of, right? There was no reason for her to feel needlessly on the edge of her seat, and there was no reason for her to be choking on her words as they tried to leave her mouth because she was worried about what Trevor's reaction might be, and there was no reason...

There was no reason that she could come up with to rationalize how she felt, so she simply considered her own feelings to be invalid, and tried to shove the ghosts of them deep down until they would be replaced by more rationalized feelings.

You know, happiness, warmth, those kinds of feelings.

Right now, though?

She just felt guilt as Trevor gently pressed his lips against hers. She tentatively lowered one of her legs and then reached forward, her hand going to rest gently on his shoulder. He pulled away for a moment, and she offered him a faint, wavering smile as he studied her face. Her eyes flicked down away from his face, until he leaned back in to press one last quick kiss against her lips, and then pulled away again.

Ash kept her gaze on him now, her lips slightly parted, eyebrows drawn together in a faint expression of worry.

Worry and guilt, because yeah, she still felt bad about bringing this all back up. Today was his birthday -- this wasn't how today was supposed to be going, and she knew it was her fault for not faking like there was nothing wrong better.

Well, there wasn't anything wrong, except for her overreacting.

“I’m about ta talk wit’out thinkin’,” he said, “so, uhm…well, this isn’t exactly goin’ ta be pretty, because I don’t think in pretty words at first. All I think is everythin’ jus’ super blunt, so…”

Her teeth bit into her bottom lip again. She dropped her hand away from his shoulder as he moved away from her, her arm going to rest against her stomach that was churning as her heart practically threatened to beat straight out of her chest as she watched him, her eyes unmoving from him.

He started speaking and he was right -- it wasn't pretty, and it just made the feelings of guilt inside of her twist up even more until it was threatening to suffocate or... or... choke her, or something.

“I’m worried about us—“ His eyes flicked to hers, and her gaze snapped down to look at their hands. “— because there’s— you’re scared or something’— an I’m there, too.”

Trevor was wrong -- she didn't say that aloud, but he was wrong. She wasn't... Ash wasn't scared of anything. Well, like, she was scared of things, of course, but there wasn't anything with him that she was scared of. She was just... she was... apprehensive, yeah. Yeah, she was apprehensive and she was apologizing so much because she was wrong, and she felt guilty, and she was hoping that it would fix whatever had gone so wrong so fast between the two of them, and she was hoping that it would help to quell the feelings of guilt that were swallowing her whole.

The rest of his talking without thinking caused a roaring in her ears. Her gaze kept shifting between their hands and his face when he would feel his eyes on her, but she was never able to focus on him for more than a handful of seconds before her bottom lip would start to quiver with a mixture of overwhelming, conflicting emotions -- but the one that still stood out more than anything else was just guilt and she wasn't even entirely sure why the guilt was there, holding as strong as it was, just that... that she felt guilty about everything that had gone wrong so far.

He finished his outpouring of thoughts, his hand coming to rest on her face, and her heart skipped a couple beats. Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her gaze back up from their hands to look at his face. She searched his expression, studying the genuine look of concern and warmth that was so uncharacteristic of him, but her eyes soon faltered and her gaze flicked away from him as she recalled his expression from last night on the balcony -- the angry one that had made her want to sink into the balcony floor, or just cease to exist right then and there, and her heart stilled for a moment, and her stomach churned again, and her bottom lip quivered, her eyebrows drawing together for a brief moment before her expression relaxed again.

“I want you an’ me ta be you an’ me, not jus’ some…” His brows knit as he searched for the word. “…mismatched couple whose painful awkwardness would make anyone else squirm.” He rubbed her cheek. “‘cuz I’m a fuckhead— an arse with very few redeeming qualities— so…” He smiled slightly. “…let me fix this.”

They were mismatched, though. Terribly so. But she wanted the same thing -- she wanted to be able to be with him, as little as that made sense to her, or anyone that they would've told -- hence the whole secret thing.

Her eyes fell shut again as he leaned in, pressing another soft kiss against her lips, and then he leaned back again and her eyes fluttered back open.

“After fuckin’ everythin’ up, it’s the least I can do,” he said.

Before she could respond, his lips were against hers again. Ash kept her lips against his, kissing him and trying to prolong them inevitably breaking apart, because she knew that it would her turn to talk.

She could avoid speaking, actually. Ash could deepen the kisses, she could suggest they go to his bedroom right now, and then this whole thing could just be swept under the rug for a little longer. That would be the easiest way to go and to still salvage today, but she knew that it wasn't something that could be avoided -- as much as she might want it to, and Trevor was actually trying...

Ash broke away from him, her breath catching in her throat as her lips parted to speak, but she didn't say anything at first. Her eyes searched his face, searched his expression for any hint of last night, before she finally started to speak.

"I don't know you," she said quietly and her eyes closed for a moment, her eyebrows drawing together, as she gave a slight shake of her head when she realized how little sense that actually made. "I mean, like... I know drunk you. I don't know..." her words faltered again, her eyes still squeezed shut, as she heaved a sigh, her teeth biting into her bottom lip for a moment as she tried to make sense of thoughts that had no right to exist.

"Trevor, I'm sorry about last night," she reiterated with her eyes still squeezed shut, because she couldn't stand to look at him and risk seeing the same anger that had been there the night before. "I don't... know... what happened, though, and I just... I like... I don't know you. I don't... I don't know what's going to piss you off, so I don't know what to avoid so that... that doesn't happen. Whatever that... was."

She tightened her hold on his hand, squeezing as she chewed at her lip, her head tilting down slightly so her hair fell down and helped shield her face from view.

"If it was just... if it was just because you, like, think Lucky wants to sleep with me or whatever, then I don't... I don't know what to do, because I can't just... I mean, I can't..." her words were getting jumbled on her tongue, and she'd spoken his name, which she was sure would cause something, so she let go of Trevor's hand, folding both of her arms across her stomach, and turning her head further down. "I can't just give up all of my friends that you feel threatened -- and it's not like he's even done anything. I mean, he hasn't even flirted with me. And I mean... are you going to get mad because Eli and I kissed once, or because Hunter and I went on a couple dates, or because Cap..." she trailed off there, shaking her head, her voice wavering the more she spoke.

"Trevor I'm not giving all of them up because you don't trust me," her voice cracked and she paused, swallowing the lump in her throat again as she tried to keep herself from, well, probably crying as was Ash fashion when she was feeling overwhelmed.

"Even if you're right, who cares? I'm with you, I want you, and I'm not going to touch him. You know that -- I never... I never did anything with you when I was dating Nico, or..." right there, she was thinking of Dorian, but she cut herself off before she could say his name, allowing her voice to trail off instead.

She didn't know what else to say, so she just reiterated the same phrase that she was hoping would somehow act like duct tape on whatever this mess of a date; "I'm sorry."

She chewed at her lip, silent, waiting for Trevor to blow up.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

trevor callaghan

quite the catch

Trevor Callaghan was kissing Ash West, but, for once, he wasn’t thinking about deepening the kiss or suggesting that they go to his bedroom right now or simply sweeping everything under the rug. The uneasiness in Ash’s body— the apprehension, the nervousness— was seeping into his own body, dissolving into his pores and making his heart grip within his chest. It was knowing that something was wrong and not getting an answer— it was feeling her tension, seeing the footwork that she did to keep from falling off of the tightly-pulled rope— that made Trevor’s own body grow tense (which wasn’t supposed to happen when he was high, because he smoked to relieve his tension).

When she broke away from him, Trevor took a second to study her face, his brows knit, the warmth in his eyes a bit sharper with the edge of concern and curiosity. His gaze held steadily on her eyes as he watched them search his face. His brows pressed closer together. He folded his lower lip inward, pressing his upper lip firmly against the skin that still peeked out.

Here was where she spoke; here was where she answered his question.

"I don't know you.”

Hah?

He blinked in confusion, his smile faltering.

What, now?

He moved back in his seat, sitting up a bit straighter as she closed her eyes and shook her head. His brows were pulled tightly together, asking several thousand questions that were all laced with one sentiment: huh?

"I mean, like...I know drunk you. I don't know..."

His brows relaxed slightly.

Oh…well, yeah. Now he got it.

It felt odd to hear said aloud: I don’t know you.

But it was true.

Ash was his girlfriend, but she was basically a stranger— a really hot stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. A stranger who he’d somehow developed a crush on for some reason that he was yet to determine beyond she’s cute, she’s hot, and she can hold her liquor that had made him willing to be "tied down" in a relationship— and she probably knew even less of him, and her reasons for liking him were probably even more confusing and unknown. Trevor and Ash hadn’t been around each other totally sober for longer than…well, than how long they'd spent with one another the night they got together. The fair night was probably quadruple the amount of time that they’d ever spent talking to one another in total while not-drunk, and it had been so painfully awkward at first— tense, but in the good way, then, even if it was humiliating to have to confess to her and admit that he’d been lying about the whole no feelings thing. That’d only really been resolved when they kissed and had gotten together.

That would have been okay, maybe— that was, her knowing him only when they were drunk, but…well, drunk Trevor was…different than Trevor. Drunk Trevor had more ease, less composure, more of a mouth, and less of a sense of self-control— not that he couldn’t handle himself or handle his alcohol well, mind you, but…well, it was just different. More often than not, drunk nights with Trevor were series of lapses in judgement for either the girl he took home or himself.

Last night…well, it was a case of the latter.

She let out a heavy sigh and she gave another few words: ”Trevor, I'm sorry about last night,"

She was apologizing again. Again.

If he was keeping count on his digits, he would have used up his hands and his toes by now, and he wasn’t the best at counting and keeping count past what he could on his phelanges, so he couldn’t’ve told you how many times she’d said sorry. It was a frustrating amount, regardless of the precise number of sorrys, and they would have angered him more if he’d had more energy and hadn’t had the humiliating experience that was rereading his phone messages from last night this morning.

"I don't...know...what happened, though,” Ash continued, “and I just…I, like...I don't know you. I don’t…I don't know what's going to piss you off, so I don't know what to avoid so that…that doesn't happen. Whatever that...was."

Beneath her words were affirmations that what he knew to be correct was correct, and last night was all his fault.

It was his fault that she didn’t know him, and it was also his fault that he’d gotten pissed off, and looking back now, he had no idea what—

Well, he knew exactly what had pissed him off, actually: it was his lack of weed first, and then seeing Lucky had just turned it up to ten, and then Ash’s coming to check on him and not backing off had caused it to boil over. But now, looking back through his 20/20 hindsight, everything looked…

Dumb…?

Stupid…?

Irrational…?

Pointless…?

No— dumb and stupid and irrational and pointless.

Yeah. That.

He studied her expression, watching her gnaw her lip (which he knew was a sign of, yeah, nothing good), and he felt her grip constrict on his hand. "If it was just..." Ash's voice was unsure. "If it was just because you, like, think Lucky wants to sleep with me or whatever, then I don't...I don't know what to do, because I can't just...I mean, I can't..."

Trevor’s expression fell, his lower lip freeing itself from the inside of his mouth and his brows drawing tighter.

She dropped his hand, and he watched her shrink into herself as he moved his hand to sit beside him. He looked away from her, setting his eyes on the images flashing on the television screen. He could hardly hear the noise coming from the set, and, even if he could, he wouldn’t’ve been able to listen.

That dark part in him was waiting for it now. That still, small voice...

That little person inside of him that was waiting for her to finally rip off the bandaid and call off this sorry excuse for a relationship.

“I can't just give up all of my friends that you feel threatened— and it's not like he's even done anything,” she continued, defending him in a way that made the acid in his head sizzle. “I mean, he hasn't even flirted with me. And I mean...are you going to get mad because Eli and I kissed once, or because Hunter and I went on a couple dates, or because Cap..."

That felt accusatory.

Eli? Hunter? Cap? No, Trevor couldn’t be upset about them. He wasn’t so caught up in himself that he thought that people who were to Ash what Jo and Charlie and Amy were to him would ever be anyone who she considered fuckable material. He couldn’t ever see his friends that way, and he knew that the same was true for Ash and those friends...

But Lucky? Was she really claiming that Lucky hadn’t flirted with her, had no interest in her in that way?

Anytime that Trevor saw them talking online, it was just Lucky flirting. It was obvious, from the weird, egotistical emphasis that the cocksucker put on the “tutoring” and the “dateable”-ness and “hot”-ness of himself that Ash had supposedly agreed to that Lucky wanted to sleep with Ash, too. His concerns weren’t unfounded— she was just ignoring them because she didn’t want to see them, if anything.

She thought Trevor was irrational— hell, Trevor'd concluded this himself, so he couldn’t really get too mad at her for it. He realized that now, with a defeated relaxing of the shoulders, and he continued to listen to Ash's words.

Lucky’s problems were Lucky’s problems. Him wanting to get with Ash was his problem, because he wouldn’t be able to get with Ash. As much as it pissed him off and stirred his vitriol that Ash defended the prick, Trevor reminded himself that the cause of that particular personal problem for Lucky was the prick himself, and not Ash.

Water off of a duck’s back. He needed to let it roll off like water off of a duck’s back, because, in the end, Ash couldn’t help that she was hot...he guessed.

"Trevor,” Ash said, voice wavering, “I’m not giving all of them up because you don't trust me.” Her voice cracked at the end of it, and he flinched slightly.

He didn’t expect her to give up on all of them. He wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t controlling. He wasn’t one of those toxic boyfriends who demanded phones to search through, or messages to read, or photos to delete, or tried to say that she couldn’t talk to this person or that…

But did she seriously not see the problem with Lucky?

"Even if you're right, who cares?” she asked, and he glanced over at her for a moment, quickly studying her small figure before looking away to the screen again, where two characters chattered in murmurs about something that he’d heard several times but couldn’t quite remember now. “I’m with you, I want you, and I'm not going to touch him. You know that— I never...I never did anything with you when I was dating Nico, or..."

All of this hurt, more than anything. Hearing it just…just hurt. Hurt his head, hurt his chest…

But he figured that he should ignore it. It was better if he ignored it.

She was right…it was up to her if she wanted to get with Lucky or not, regardless of how much the grubby gobshite wanted to get his hands on her, and she…well, he hoped she wouldn’t. She said she wouldn’t, and he could give her the benefit of the doubt— and should give her the benefit of the doubt, because there…any boy in his right mind would want to get with Ash, and…

Her next words came as no surprise:

“I’m sorry."

Another apology. Add that to the tally that Trevor wasn’t keeping.

The room went silent again, and Trevor sat, watching the figures on the screen move in their multi-colored, uninteresting ways, talk in their bland, unimportant conversations that some surely uninteresting guy probably wrote in his basement at six in the morning, and it became clear:

There was no moving past this. Either they dropped everything now and called it quits, or they solved their problem.

Trevor looked to the door, briefly considering it. He could just stand up, walk away, act like nothing happened. Go off for a few hours, get himself a crispito at the gas station down the street, eat it down in his van. Return at night. She’d be gone by then, or she’d still be sitting there, and he could just walk past her, go about his life and act like she didn’t exist, like none of this ever existed.

Problem solved.

He closed his eyes, squeezing his them shut and wishing that he had some kind of time machine, and then he let out a long sigh and said in an oddly clear, rather loud voice that sounded tinged with irritation:

“That’s me, actually.”

The words startled him, and he opened his eyes, letting out a soft breath of air.

He didn’t really know what they meant, but he continued speaking, in his mildly irritated tone.

“I’m sorry.”

He understood that, at least.

He rubbed his hand against the couch cushion, feeling the fabric that he’d sat on only a week ago— only a fecking week ago— and told himself that he’d make it last as long as possible on, and he breathed out a long breath, beginning to speak without thinking once more.

“You’re right, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you,” he started, stating what Ash had said. He gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head slightly and making eye contact with one of the dull eyes on the screen. As he continued to speak, the irritation faded from his voice, his volume softening a bit but his tone remaining sure and steady. “We’re…strangers, wit’ the title of boyfriend and girlfriend, who came tagether fer some indiscernible, indescribable reason despite the latter party’s better interest.” He sighed softly, moving his hands to rub the knee of his pants, a habit that he had when he was thinking aloud, a habit that he had to keep himself busy so that he didn’t lose focus. “Why tha hell are we tagether?” he asked, and then he immediately answered himself in a lighter voice, as if he were impersonating someone but not putting his heart into it: “Feelin’s.” He shook his head slightly. “An’ why do we have those feelin’s?” he asked another question, but this one, he just gave a slight puff of air and a light chuckle to. “Tune in next week ta find out— that is, if we’re still tagether by then.”

He shook his head at his sarcasm. He pressed his calloused fingertip into the center of his knee, then curled it to the pad, then began to rub a circle on it. His brows worked slightly, knitting tighter, then loosening, knitting tighter, then loosening. “I don’t know what’s keepin' you ta me, or what’s keepin' me ta you, either,” he continued, his tone firm yet his volume low. “Part of that is because…well, I don’t even know you well enough to name thin’s, an’ you don’t even know me well enough ta name ‘em.” He let out a chuckle, but it wasn’t really funny— it was more…sad than funny— and more pathetic than sad. “You’re right,” he said again. “That’s a problem.”

Problem, he realized almost immediately, was an understatement— it was a gaping wound in the side of their relationship.

“That’s a big problem,” he corrected in an attempt to make his words more accurate, “an’ I guess that’s our main one…you’re right.” He shook his head slightly. “An’ I want you ta know me, an’ I want ta know you, an’ I don’t know how to…go about that.” A soft sigh left his lips, and his eyes flickered down to the bottom of the television set in thought. His hands stopped working at his knees for a moment, his brows’ tightness loosening as he thought.

The actions of his hands and his brows resumed again in after a moment. “I guess I can start with...” He set his brows, stilling his hands and setting his palms on his knees, lifting his eyes to the television set again. He drew in a deep breath, as if he were about to dive underwater, and then he began:

“I get pissed off a lot. I’m…pretty much constantly stressed out when I’m sober, so I smoke to keep myself looser. It works sometimes, but other times it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t, I’m still better off than I am when I’m not high at all. Tha whole school is full’a people who like ta try my patience, but it’s more than jus’ them. I can’t tie my shoes half the time wit’out gettin’ at least mildly irritated…so it really doesn’t take much. At tha party, I…only drank.” He glanced over at her. “I only drank.” His eyes flickered away and to the tv screen again. “My weed was all taken by Jo as retaliation for me crushin' a bug with tha top of her shoe. An’ then…seein’ Lucky after that, I jus’…I dunno.” He paused, folding in his lower lip.

Even thinking about him made him angry, so he stopped thinking and continued talking.

“He gets on my nerves,” Trevor said, “an’ I know it doesn’t take much, but it’s just— anytime I’m doin’ anythin' online, he jus’ jumps down my throat. He likes ta press at me because he— I mean, I guess that he thinks it’s funny ta see me up in arms. A lot of people do that, but Lucky and Chas are tha worst of ‘em, an’…yeah. Seein’ him jus’…after tha events of Tha Case of tha Missin’ Cannabis…yeah, well, it pissed me off more than anythin’.” He let out a soft chuckle, though there was no smile that came along with it. “An’ I was drunk an’ not thinkin’ straight, and I drank more, and then I went out to tha balcony ta cool down an’ wasn’t even seein’ straight, an’…I made ya feel like shite, made ya cry, told you ta fuck off because the cryin’ was makin’ me pissed for whatever reason, an’…it…is all so dumb now, I jus’…” He chuckled again, shaking his head. “It’s one’a those cases where ya have ta laugh ta keep from cryin’.”

His eyes fell to the coffee table on which the remote rested. He studied the buttons but took in no information as his lips began to move again. “An’ I sat here all mornin’ after I woke up from my nap, jus’ wonderin': what did I accomplish from that? An’ when I got ta thinkin’, I realized that I accomplished nothin’ except makin’ you more estranged, ruinin’ tha night that I jus’ wanted us to have fun in, ruinin' all of yer fun, an’…you can downplay it, but at tha end of tha day, I did nothin’— nothin’— except for fuck us up more, an’ it was jus’…it was jus’ selfish. I did it because I…don’t know, but I did it, for some…proud reason.” His last words were labored as he wrestled with himself to let them out. It was embarrassing to admit, but he kept going. “An’ I said that I fucked us up more, because, like you said, we don’t know each other, or why we’re in this relationship in the first place, or what should keep us in this relationship.”

It was all coming out now; the gates were opened.

He glanced back up at the television, but the people onscreen suddenly looked unfamiliar.

There was no way that he could go back to watching that now.

“I jus’…goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath, and he finally looked over at Ash again.

His hazel eyes had written in them some odd form of defeated intensity— a look that reiterated the thoughts that he’d already spoken aloud and revealed all of the thoughts that even he didn’t know yet. “I know we can be fixed…but it’s jus’…it’s gonna mean that you an’ I’re gonna have ta make tha foundation again— we’re gonna have ta scrap our week’s worth of malformed romance, start again, an’…make it better...than tha nothin’ that we had before,” he concluded. “Because I want ta date you. I want ta be wit’ you. I want ta have us be a comfortable secret, one that we can take comfort in, one that…I don’t know.” He gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “I write romance an’ drama, an’ so maybe it’s cheesy of me, but…I want ta love ya or whatever, eventually…an’…I want us ta get there. An’ that has ta start wit’ me knowin’ you, an’ you knowin’ me, an’…” He trailed off, his expression falling. “I jus’ realized that I have no idea of how ta do that, or of how ta make us not strangers…” He picked his face back up, giving a slight smile. “But…I want ta try— wit’ us.”

He stared at her for a moment with the slight smile on his face, and it fell slightly as he blinked and realized what he just said.

But it was too late to let anything else get in the way now, and it was too late to try and undo the honest words that he’d said.

So he offered his hand to her again, and he asked her a question:

“What say you, darlin’?”

mood
...honesty...kinda hurts.

location
his apartment

outfit
t-shirt & sweatpants

playing...
2009

by glaive​

mentions
charlie, jo, amy, lucky, cap, eli, hunter

interactions
ash

tags
Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Zephyr Evermore
"Cheer up! 'Cause nothing really matters."

@zeph.evermore has set their status to:
preparing for a life of crime

@zeph.evermore has interacted with:
Lin, Angel

@zeph.evermore has mentioned:
N/A

@zeph.evermore has tagged:
ohdittoh hery ​

Was it possible to die from hyperventilating too much?

Well, Zeph figured he would find out soon enough as he watched, his face paling considerably, as Lin grabbed his hat off his head and started shoving it full of cheap bubble bottles. His jaw dropped open in disbelief, and suddenly, he remembered all of their conversations preceding this -- all of the times that Lin had reiterated that they would be committing a crime today. And one of the worst crimes.

Stealing from million dollar corporations that surely couldn't handle the loss of a few dollars.

He could see it now -- this dollar store chain would end their years-long relationship with... what was the bubble brand? He peered at the bubble containers to see the names, only to see that it just simply said--

Bubbles.

Alright, back to his narrative.

He could see it now -- the dollar store chain would stop selling Bubbles' bubbles and would instead start selling their competitor's bubbles... uh... Bub's Bubbles. Yeah, yeah, that was clever. Anyway, they would start selling those, but the bubble formula for Bub's Bubbles would be nothing but glorified dish soap mixed with water (the poor man's bubbles) and they would end up losing bubble sales across the country. Eventually, the entire chain would go under due to the loss of their bubble-related sales. As they were going under, they would desperately reach out for Bubbles' bubbles again but, without the sales from the dollar store chain, Bubbles' bubbles would've already been bankrupt and gone under. The Bubbles' bubbles' employees having turned on one another, the perfect bubble recipe lost to the winds of bankruptcy.

Alright, so he was probably overreacting. Maybe. A little bit.

“Who said anything about buying? I told you what we were gonna do before we came here, didn’t I, luhmao? Who said anything about buying? I told you what we were gonna do before we came here, didn’t I, luhmao?”

"Huh?" Well he'd been busy narrating what most definitely were going to be the consequences of this robbery, Lin had started talking again. Well, he was right about that -- he had made it clear what they'd be doing before they arrived, but Zeph had truly thought Lin just had a really odd sense of humor. He never thought that he was galivanting around town with a petty criminal.

Lin shoved a couple bottles into his hands, but all Zeph could think about was how he was undoubtedly going to rot in jail following this. There was no other option. There was no other way out of this -- even if Zeph wasn't doing the actual stealing, he was now an accomplice to theft. He was the Little John to Lin's Robin Hood, except they weren't doing this for the good of anyone. And Charlie would make a horrible Maid Marian.

Oh good grief, now he was referencing old Disney movies in his panic--

"Lin? Zeph?"

His blood turned to ice as he looked up from the bubble bottles clutched to his chest to look at one Angel Cervantes who was standing at the other end of the aisle, donning the age old uniform for this particular dollar store chain.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

They'd been caught.

Caught red-handed and now this... this was the end.

"What are you guys doing?"

Not stealing anything, that's for sure. Hahahaha. Nopeee.

Was it suddenly just... really, really hot in here, or was that all just in Zeph's imagination? He passed off all of the bubble bottles into one hand so he could reach up with his other hand to grab the front of his shirt and shake it a bit to, ya know, get some airflow going since he was pretty sure he was about to sweat his way through the t-shirt out of nerves and pure nerves alone. Because, you know, they were...

Uhh...

Not stealing, actually. Forget that.

Hahaha.

"Your bubbles are sticking out of your hat. You weren't gonna, like... walk off with them, right?" Angel continued. "They're only fifty cents a pop."

Oh god, he was onto them. He was onto them.

This right here was where if they were in a really cool movie, Zeph would say into the little microphone attached to his shirt just "ABORT MISSION, I REPEAT, ABORT. OVER AND OUT, EAGLE ONE." You know, something along those lines.

(Nervous Zeph didn't make a lot of sense.)

Lin would probably be Luhmao One.

"Also, um, my manager's probably gonna tell me to kick you out if you keep running around, so..." The poor, awkward employee continued. "Could you guys maybe dial it back a little? Sorry to, uh... intrude..."

Angel was too nice. Stealing bubbles right in front of this guy, or coming up with some lie regarding why they were shoving bubbles into Lin's hat, well... that didn't exactly make Zeph feel any better. It was the equivalent to snatching candy from a baby, which was something that Zeph would never do, but Lin probably "joked" about -- Zeph started to wonder just how many of Lin's jokes weren't actually jokes.

"N-no, us... wa-walking off with these...?" Zeph shoved the bottles in his hand back onto the shelf and then leaned against it, trying to appear as cool as a cucumber. He let out a snort, rolling his eyes, a little shrug of his shoulders. "Please. We just uhh... we forgot a uhh... a basket, yeah, so we're using Lin's hat to umm... shop with. Yeah, shark hats that double as shopping baskets are all the rage these days."

Oh god, he was lying. He was sweating more he was pretty sure. He could feel his mother's ghost rising up to smack him in the back of the head and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, to which he'd probably just start crying.

"No problem, we can tune it down." His voice cracked halfway through that sentence, and Zeph brought a fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat. "Sorry, uh... puberty, ya know.. voice cracks." Yep, that was definitely it. His voice was definitely not cracking because he was lying straight through his teeth and contemplating how he was going to continue living life now that he was a certified criminal.

Did this make Zeph a certified bad boy?

He didn't like it.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[jasmyn]

M O O D : "This is gonna be weird."

L O C A T I O N : Buger Place.

I N T E R A C T I O N S : Nate.

T A G S : Winona

"What's this about?"

The question was simple enough and one with an obvious answer that they both already knew but still, Evie was struggling with her wording. Instead of being halfway through this conversation like they might be if they were normal human beings who could just discuss this emotional shit in a healthy way, they were still sitting across from one another with the awkward tension just lingering.

Honestly, it was frustrating that they couldn't just pretend things were still normal between them. Business as usual or whatever. Just hook up, no strings or friendship, no weirdness. Push this stupid complication down and be on their merry way. Or maybe even just move on and act as if the other didn't exist. Wouldn't that be way easier than whatever this was? No. Probably not. Not when their friendship clearly held value to them both.

Despite them starting off as two strangers who slept together a few times, they had created a bond over the past few months. One that was strong enough for them to have both broken their normal "no talking about feelings" rules hence why they were even here. It was one of the reasons they defended each other anytime someone came for the other and why last night had been such a big deal.

They cared too much to just stop being friends...at least, Evie did. She couldn't see herself without Nate as a friend anymore and honestly, it worried her a little.

"Last night was a mess and I know that's partly my fault too. But still, it's not like we can just keep doing what we've been doing as if that never happened, right?" she told him honestly. Her green hazel eyes finally moved back to him as she spoke but maybe that wasn't a great idea. "I just don't want it to be weird so I think that maybe we shouldn't, uh, ya know, we should stop-" she paused when she realized what finishing her sentence would mean.

We shouldn't hook up anymore.

I don't wanna lead you on.

It's for the best.

SAY IT EVELYN.

Was it was smarter if they stopped sleeping together so that things wouldn't be awkward? Yes. She couldn't say it though because she didn't want to stop being with him that way. She didn't want that feeling to go away. The one she had been getting when they were together, when they were all intertwined in her bed.

At some point, she didn't know when, the feeling she got from being with him had shifted from just simple pleasures to something different. It wasn't until this moment that she even noticed she cared about their rendezvous. Not until she was in front of him about to say they needed to end to it.

Yeah, yeah. Evie liked to act as if she was immune to all these emotions sometimes and she put on this act. Whatever. She knew that she had them just like she was fully aware of the feelings she'd developed for the one and only Nathan Woods. As they sat in front of each other it was only becoming more and more obvious to her that she couldn't just ignore it until it went away because it wasn't fucking going away.

Shit. This was about to go left and the scary thing was that she knew she couldn't even stop it from happening. Not really.

A deep breath in and out.

"Nate, you told me that you had feelings for me and I just didn't know how to react so I freaked out and walked away but-" she stopped for a second trying to get herself together. "I lied...when I said I didn't feel the same way about you. Last night, I would've rather taken that fact to my grave but I can't, not when you had the guts to tell me what you did," she finally got it out.

So much for Landon being wrong. Or everyone else.

"It's just that neither of us has had the best luck with relationships and personally, I've been hoping to avoid them until high school was over with. Then you and me, I have no idea what happened with us but it just feels different somehow...." she trailed off as her eyes searched his for a reaction to her words.

Was she losing her mind? Possibly.

EVELYN SINCLAIRE

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Nathan Woods
"Here I am, living a dream that I can't hold on my own."

@NathanielWithoutTheIel has set their status to:
fuck

@NathanielWithoutTheIel has interacted with:
Evie

@NathanielWithoutTheIel has mentioned:
N/A

@NathanielWithoutTheIel has tagged:
jasmyn ​

Girls, Nate quickly decided, were incredibly confusing and difficult to understand. Now, this was something he'd already come to the conclusion of years before, but when Evie started to speak, he was reminded of this well-known fact once again.

Everything in her words and her body language the night before had pointed towards her not having feelings for him. And Nate, even if he'd been pissed (at himself more than anything) the night before had come to terms with that. He couldn't force her to have feelings for him, and maybe his whole popping a couple pills and going home with Liv had kind of assisted in his whole... getting over the debacle.

Maybe he should've felt a touch of remorse for what he'd done, but to be quite honest, he didn't.

Every word out of her mouth was painful to hear and painful to listen to. Inwardly, he was wincing and cringing and questioning why he'd been dumb enough to speak up and put them into this kind of situation. Outwardly, his expression remained stoic and untouched by his inner turmoil. Nate's ability to keep his expression unchanged no matter what he might have been feeling inside was almost remarkable.

His fingers drummed against the table. The only sign that he might've felt any kind of discomfort.

"Nate, you told me that you had feelings for me and I just didn't know how to react so I freaked out and walked away but-" she paused, he wanted to dive under the table and hide his head. "I lied...when I said I didn't feel the same way about you. Last night, I would've rather taken that fact to my grave but I can't, not when you had the guts to tell me what you did," she finally managed to say.

Yeah, why--

Wait...

He blinked.

His eyebrows drew together in conflicting emotion, a look of confusion now coloring his typically blank expression.

Until now, Nate's dark gaze had been frozen on the table -- seeing but not seeing it. Now, hearing... hearing her say... say... that... his gaze snapped up so he could focus on her, his gaze searching hers for any sign that she was lying, or that she was going to walk away, or that she would laugh and take those words back just as quickly as they had tumbled out of her mouth.

"It's just that neither of us has had the best luck with relationships and personally, I've been hoping to avoid them until high school was over with. Then you and me, I have no idea what happened with us but it just feels different somehow...."

"Same," he blurted out, the word tumbling out of his mouth before he had a chance to really think it over. He let out a small chuckle to try and ease the tension, his gaze falling back from her face to focus but not focus on that spot in the center of the table again. "I uhh... I didn't... want to date... high school relationships kind of... they're dumb, you know...?" Maybe not the greatest way to be approaching this.

But it was what he felt and as noted before, Nate plus words didn't exactly mix all that well.

High school relationships were a blasted waste of time. They didn't last -- there was too much individual growth to be had, and even with that aside, there were too many unanswered questions following graduation. So his plan, particularly following the debacle that had been his mess of a relationship with Amy, had been to just... not. Not date, just hookup, until graduation and maybe sometime in the future, if he decided to date, he could.

Nate had never really pictured himself being tied down to anyone ever again.

And yet here he was.

"But you're..." he trailed off again, but his lips remained parted as he churned over what he wanted to say. Different? Special? It all sounded so cheesy, and it all sounded not quite right, but Nate knew he needed to say something.

Slowly, he let out another small, uncomfortable chuckle.

Slowly, he forced his gaze to lift back up from the table to look at Evie's face. It was more familiar than he'd like to admit.

She'd said it right.

It did feel different.

"Well, you're right," he said slowly -- his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, "it feels different."

The next question he wanted to ask was harder, and Nate hadn't asked it in what felt like forever, and Nate hadn't thought he'd ever ask it again.

"Do you... want to... try... this?" He asked, lifting one hand to gesture between himself and Evie. "Like a... a real... date?"

He was lucky that he was hot because he was about as smooth as sandpaper.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

LINDSAY MORGAN KAY

fuckin' hype

Zephyr looked so concerned, luhmao. He looked like he was thinking over every life choice that he’d made to get him to this point, and where he went from here now that he’d started a life of crime.

What a loooooooser. What a tiiiiiight ass.

It was fucking hilarious.

“It was your idea,” Lin said, cackling as he adjusted his hat and prodded Zeph. “Shove those down you—“

"Lin? Zeph?"

The grin on Lin’s face froze, and he blinked, confused. Zeph looked at some figure behind Lin’s head, and he turned his head to look, too, lips downturned in a frown.

He immediately recognized the other boy, and a cocky grin replaced his frown.

Well, well, weeeell, if it wasn’t Angy Cervix, the broke-jaw boobie baby, dressed in what Lin recognized as a uniform.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked, and Lin scoffed, rolling his eyes and giving a chuckle.

He raised an eyebrow at Zeph and muttered beneath his breath, “Get a load of that lameass, luhmao.”

He now turned his body around, crossing his arms loosely and grinning widely at his new company.

Zeph moved beside him to flap his shirt or something, and Angel’s eyes studied the thing on his head.

Oh, he was so jealous of his look, luhmao.

“Your bubbles ares ticking out of your hat,” said the lamest lameass. “You weren’t gonna, like…walk off with them, right? They’re only fifty cents a pop.”

Lin scoffed, shifting his weight onto his hip, rolling his tongue around the inside of his cheek. Again he muttered, “Laaaameass.” He reached up to adjust his hat with two extended middle fingers, chuckling to himself.

"N-no, us...wa-walking off with these...?" Lin looked over as Zeph spoke, and he caught him shoving the bottles that he was holding back on the shelf. Lin chuckled, scoffing slightly again. Zeph snorted and rolled his eyes, giving a shrug. "Please. We just, uhh...we forgot a, uhh... a basket, yeah, so we're using Lin's hat to umm...shop with. Yeah, shark hats that double as shopping baskets are all the rage these days."

When Angel went to respond, the green-vested boy looked as meek and as uncool as ever.

Y’know, he’d gotten a lot less cool after Lin dropped him after freshman year, and Lin noticed his lameness every time he saw him now.

He was as lame as a limbless geezer— yeah, that lame, luhmao.

“Also, um,” the lameass continued, “my manager’s probably gonna tell me to kick you out if you keep running around, so…could you guys maybe dial it back a little bit? Sorry to, uh…intrude…”

"No problem, we can tune it down." Zeph’s voice cracked, and Lin let out a loud laugh, giving Zeph a gentle, teasing shove. The taller boy cleared his throat and continued. “Sorry, uh...puberty, ya know.. voice cracks."

Lin grinned at Zeph for a moment, then let out a sharp “ha!”.

Psht, Zephy was a bad liar, and he also didn’t know the first thing about being someone cool.

Lin shook his head dismissively, faking a cough and inserting a “lameass!” as a whisper between his fake hacks.

Laaaaaameaaaaass.

Lin turned his bright, excited blue eyes to the newest arrival to the group, and he uncrossed his arms, grabbing the two bottles of bubbles that Zeph had just put down and holding one in his hand while shoving the other bottle at Zeph again.

Confidently, Lin waltzed up to Angel, and he prodded him on his name badge. He stooped to be eye level with the badge and squinted at it, as if he couldn’t read, and he put his free hand’s palm to his chin, dramatically stroking his chin with all of his fingers. “Ay...nn…gee…uh…ull…,” he pretended to sound out, and then he looked up at Angel, face wrought with concern and confusion. “That’s weird…,” he said, and he straightened himself up, putting his hands on his hips and cocking his head, as if trying different angles would change the letters of the word. “Ay…nn…gee…lay? Hm…I’ve never…hm…”

He looked up at Angel again. “You see that?” He poked at the badge on Angel’s chest again, and a smile peeked through his concern, though he quickly squashed it. “Look at it…” He shook his head, dropping his hand and letting out a soft scoff. “Isn’t that a weird way…” A grin cracked across Lin’s face. “…to spell total fucking lame ass loser face?”

And then Lin laughed, cackled like it was the funnies thin that he’d ever heard, and he clutched his chest with one hand while the other shoved the bubbles beneath his hat to accompany the rest of his haul. He was bouncing a lot, so the bubbles that were already there threatened to spill out. He brought his other hand up to help him adjust, letting his laughing trail off.

“What are you doing here, Angy?” Lin said, grinning at the other boy. He backed up a couple of steps to throw his arm around Zeph’s shoulders. “And do you really think that telling us off could keep us from doing what we’re doing? Shoplifting’s against the law, duhhhh.” Lin shrugged, cocking and dropping his arm from Zeph. “I’m not scared of youuuu, and you can’t stop me. You’re not my mom or my dad, and neither is your manager.” Lin gave a sure nod.

Playground logic still checked out, and playground comebacks still pulled a lot of punches.

“Since when do you work, luhmao?” Lin continued. “You’re such a socially inept lameass that I figured that no one would hire you, luhmao. Why are you even talking to me right now? You look like one of those…shelf-stockers, luhmao, not a fuckin’ narc.”

mood
bitch???? lmao

location
tha dolla storeeeeeee

outfit
spot the drip lmao

playing...
tongue tied

by grouplove​

mentions
n/a

interactions
zephy and angy

tags
Winona hery

º º code by ditto º º

 

[geminiy]

Charlie Howell

@howedoyoudo has set their status to:
feeling sucks

@howedoyoudo has set their outfit to:
who even cares

@howedoyoudo has set their location to:
the library

@howedoyoudo has mentioned:
...

@howedoyoudo has interacted with:
Amy

@howedoyoudo has tagged:
Kitsune2202

By the time Charlie arrived at the library she was thoroughly regretting not sleeping. All-nighters were a common thing in Charlie’s life; how else was one supposed to write multiple songs, prep performances, work odd jobs, and maintain a 4.0GPA with incredible volunteer hours and extracurriculars all in one high school lifetime? Everything would have been so much simpler if the crippling perfectionism took a chill pill, maybe then she’d have time to think, to breathe.

Finding a quiet spot towards the back of the library, Charlie collapsed into a chair and threw her bag onto the tabletop with a hefty sigh. Mental and physical exhaustion seemed to be the only thing Charlie could feel which, in a weird turn of events, was a nice change. Yet, even despite the fact that her eyelids felt heavier than cinder blocks in water, there was a new sort of motivation about her. There was school work to be done, paperwork to be filled out, songs to write. It would be a complete waste of time to simply throw away a good day being sad and gloomy.

Pulling out her physics textbook and notebook, Charlie flipped open the pages and got right to work. Was her mind actually absorbing the information she was reading? Absolutely not, but at least she felt somewhat productive. Her thoughts travelled far away from the task at hand, wandering aimlessly as her pen tapped out a rhythm on the paper margins of the notebook. Before she knew it, she was softly bobbing her head to a song that did not yet exist outside of her head, drawing her back down to reality.

The mindless beat was actually pretty good, just complex to write words around it but simple enough to make the task easy. Reaching her hand into her bag, Charlie pulled out the beaten up journal that held her songs and began to write furiously, scratching out words and phrases as she went.

"Hey there Char! Found you. What are you reading about?"

Charlie slammed the book in her hands shut on her fingers, a soft yelp of pain escaping her lips as she shoved the journal back in her bag.

“Amy!” Charlie exclaimed, heart thumping around in her chest with the shock of her friend randomly appearing. “I, uh, I was just reading about, uh…” Charlie desperately looked for any sort of highlighted word on the page to change the subject. “Thermodynamics! Yup, the wonderful concept of thermodynamics. Fascinating subject, really, totally not boring or mind numbing at all.”

Sinking further into her chair, Charlie looked over to Amy with a forced smile. She appreciated Amy showing up, she really did, but she had been looking forward to taking the day to stew in her emotions so that she wouldn’t kill Trevor on sight. Charlie needed the time to work through every stupid thought running through her brain. But, at least if Amy was there, she wouldn’t have to face that task alone.

“I’m not going to ask you what you’re doing here because I’m, like, a solid 99% sure why you came.” Charlie sighed, the smile dropping from her lips. “You know, I wasn’t lying when I said I was fine. You really didn’t have to come play therapist bestie.”

Silence fell between the two, spurring Charlie to become fascinated with the sapphire ring on her middle finger. Was that groove always there or was it damaged? The metal needed to be cleaned, of course, the lustre was beginning to fade with time.

“Amy, I know what you’re going to say and I’ll save you your breath. I love you and appreciate the fact that you’re going to go full ‘Mama Amy’ mode, but I just need to work through this one on my own.” Charlie honestly explained, still unable to look Amy in the eye as she remained fixated on the ring which she began to twist back and forth with her thumb. “Talking just isn’t gonna make this one go away. But if you want to help, I could really use some sort of distraction.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[geminiy]

Kian Phelan

@lockandkian has set their status to:
stay calm, man, it's just oates

@lockandkian has set their outfit to:
"I couldn't find the pink button-down"

@lockandkian has set their location to:
the park

@lockandkian has mentioned:
n/a

@lockandkian has interacted with:
oates

@lockandkian has tagged:
mogy

Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. There he was. Mr Oates Oates, looking cute as always. Oh boy, this was really happening. Kian subtly wiped his palms on the side of his black pants, curling his fingers into his palm to stop them from visibly trembling. He totally should’ve cancelled, everything would have just been easier if he had cancelled because, at that exact moment, Kian had a strong desire to hurl his non-existent breakfast into the pond.

Breathe, Kian, you got this.

Yes, he definitely had it. There wasn’t an ounce of panic in his eyes, none at all. Kian Phelan was very clearly a confident boy totally not second-guessing his choice in shirt. Who the hell wears black and white stripes anyways? Who was he, freaking Al Capone?

Stumbling to his feet, nearly falling and breaking his neck in the process (thank goodness for strong arms and fast reflexes), Kian waved at Oates and forced a rather goofy looking smile to his lips. What was that one line from Madagascar? Oh right! Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave!

“Hi.”

Oh boy.

Oh no.

Was Oates CALM?

Oh lovely, Kian the Overreactor makes a comeback for the seventeenth year in a row. Buy your tickets to the shit show now!

“H-hey! You look, uh…” Kian’s voice trailed off, his tongue paralyzed in his mouth. Real smooth, Stammerson McGee, you’re so incredibly smooth. “GREAT! You look great. Well, you always look great, but you look like extra great right now. Solid 11/10 moment even though you’re always… And I’m rambling again.”

Kian reached out and took one of Oates’ hand in his, gently kissing the smooth skin of the back of his hand before gently releasing it and motioning to the picnic setup behind them.

“So, uh, I may have gone a bit overboard, with the spread but I couldn’t decide which of your favourite foods to bring so I kinda sorta brought them all.” Kian nervously laughed, crossing his legs beneath him and lowering himself to the ground. Raising finger, Kian reached behind him and pulled out a bouquet of multicoloured wildflowers. “And for you as well.” Kian offered, grinning widely. “I’m just super glad you came, man, it’s been a long ass time and last night was not the way you deserved to be greeted after all these years.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Ashton West
"I heard that you've been having some trouble finding your place in the world."

@Fire&Ash has set their status to:
.....

@Fire&Ash has interacted with:
Trevor

@Fire&Ash has mentioned:
Lucky

@Fire&Ash has tagged:
ohdittoh ​

He didn't snap.

That was basically what she had been preparing herself for -- to have him snap at her with harsh words and tell her to fuck off again like he had the night before. Except that if he did that now, she liked to think that she would stand up and do as he asked. Maybe flip him off before she headed out, and then this relationship would've gone down in Ash's ever growing list of fatal mistakes.

Well, that's what she liked to think would happen but Ash knew herself (well, she didn't really -- but she liked to think that she did) and there was no way that she would ever walk out, no matter what he might say. She'd just sit here and take whatever harsh words he might throw at her. And she'd try to drown it all out, and she'd tried to ignore it, and she'd come up with a million reasons for how it was her fault, and then she wouldn't be able to hold it in anymore and she would snap. She would snap, and then he would snap, and then they would go back and forth until they were too exhausted to keep going.

At least, that was how she saw it going.

That was pretty much how it always went in relationships -- she knew this after having experienced it a couple times before. They were built on a steady foundation of biting words tossed back and forth.

“That’s me, actually.”

What?

She hesitantly opened one eye and peered over at Trevor through the strands of blonde hair that had fallen down to cover her face. His voice had been anything but soft -- yeah, she'd definitely picked up on the irritation -- but his words at least were accusatory towards her. And she couldn't blame him for being irritated at this point. She was irritated, too, although more so at herself than at Trevor.

“I’m sorry.”

What was he even apologizing for? He didn't owe her an apology -- it was the other way around. It was always the other way around. Ash was... well, she was a fuck up. Like, a really big fuck up. She didn't do anything well, except for fucking things up -- she had a habit of doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and causing arguments over absolutely nothing worthwhile.

His apology was like a knife through her heart, or a punch straight to her gut. Her breath rushed out in a small, shuddering gasp. Ash tucked her hair back behind her ear, turning her head so that she was watching him, her eyes focused on his face.

Ash wished she could take everything back -- everything bad that had happened. She wished that they could go back to the night of the fair, or heck, even Homecoming night. Just... one of those nights where everything had felt alright for once. Where she hadn't felt... totally... at a loss for why she was sitting here on this couch with someone that was basically a stranger. With someone that she was attracted to but that if she was asked why... well, Ash wouldn't of been able to give one reason as to why she had feelings for Trevor. She just knew that, for some reason, she did.

“You’re right, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you,” he started. “We’re…strangers, wit’ the title of boyfriend and girlfriend, who came tagether fer some indiscernible, indescribably reason despite the latter party’s better interest.” He sighed. “Why tha hell are we tagether?” he asked, and before she could try to answer a question that she had no answer to, he did instead: “Feelin’s.” He shook his head slightly. “An’ why do we have those feelin’s? Tune in next week ta find out— that is, if we’re still tagether by then.”

She... didn't like that.

The pessimistic attitude towards their relationship.

Even if it was true -- even if every day it felt like they were trying to put duct tape over the holes in their relationship, only for another leak to start somewhere else. It was... inevitable... that this would eventually sink and the two of them would either jump off before the ship go under, or they'd drown with it. At least, that's how she imagined Trevor saw it, and that's how she saw it -- even if she tried her best to not.

It was just hard not to see that when they were seven days in and already having one of these talks.

Still, he wasn't yelling yet, so that was an improvement.

“I don’t know what’s keepin' you ta me, or what’s keepin' me ta you, either,” he continued. “Part of that is because…well, I don’t even know you well enough to name thin’s, an’ you don’t even know me well enough ta name ‘em.” He let out a chuckle. “You’re right,” he said again. “That’s a problem.”

It was. So far, she didn't think they even had anything in common. Nothing to keep them together except, what, they both liked to drink at parties? Yeah, that wasn't exactly the strongest foundation for a relationship.

“That’s a big problem,” he spoke her own thoughts, “an’ I guess that’s our main one…you’re right. An’ I want you ta know me, an’ I want ta know you, an’ I don’t know how to…go about that.”

Neither did she, because she didn't typically date people that were equivalent to strangers. Ash liked to stay within her comfort zone, within her bubble. She dated people that she knew -- she dated people that she had figured out, people whose actions she could predict, people whose interests she knew, so she could avoid saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and starting a fight.

Again, Ash had a habit of ruining anything she touched. However, if she knew the guy and had a general idea of how to go about... not... ruining it, well... then she could at least like... she could stretch out the inevitable.

The inevitable being when they would eventually hate her.

“I guess I can start with...”

“I get pissed off a lot. I’m…pretty much constantly stressed out when I’m sober, so I smoke to keep myself looser. It works sometimes, but other times it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t, I’m still better off than I am when I’m not high at all. Tha whole school is full’a people who like ta try my patience, but it’s more than jus’ them. I can’t tie my shoes half the time wit’out gettin’ at least mildly irritated…so it really doesn’t take much. At tha party, I…only drank.” He glanced over at her. “I only drank.” His eyes flickered away and to the tv screen again. “My weed was all taken by Jo as retaliation for me crushin' a bug with tha top of her shoe. An’ then…seein’ Lucky after that, I jus’…I dunno.”

She made a mental note to, like, carry weed on her at all times or something -- even if she wasn't a fan of the green stuff for her own personal reasons, she was willing to put that aside if it would mean avoiding whatever the hell had happened last night.

And he was high right now -- and he was being nice.

Still...

She glanced away from him, her eyes moving down to look at her arms crossed over her stomach.

Ash had preferred him the night of the fair. When he'd been totally sober.

“He gets on my nerves,” Trevor said, “an’ I know it doesn’t take much, but it’s just— anytime I’m doin’ anythin' online, he jus’ jumps down my throat. He likes ta press at me because he— I mean, I guess that he thinks it’s funny ta see me up in arms. A lot of people do that, but Lucky and Chas are tha worst of ‘em, an’…yeah. Seein’ him jus’…after tha events of Tha Case of tha Missin’ Cannabis…yeah, well, it pissed me off more than anythin’. An’ I was drunk an’ not thinkin’ straight, and I drank more, and then I went out to tha balcony ta cool down an’ wasn’t even seein’ straight, an’…I made ya feel like shite, made ya cry, told you ta fuck off because the cryin’ was makin’ me pissed for whatever reason, an’…it…is all so dumb now, I jus’…” He chuckled again, shaking his head. “It’s one’a those cases where ya have ta laugh ta keep from cryin’.”

She winced, her eyes squeezing shut as he brought up the events of last night -- the events that had been staring her in the face since the previous evening, despite how desperately she tried to ignore them.

Last night really had just been....

Been nothing but mistakes.

“An’ I sat here all mornin’ after I woke up from my nap, jus’ wonderin': what did I accomplish from that? An’ when I got ta thinkin’, I realized that I accomplished nothin’ except makin’ you more estranged, ruinin’ tha night that I jus’ wanted us to have fun in, ruinin' all of yer fun, an’…you can downplay it, but at tha end of tha day, I did nothin’— nothin’— except for fuck us up more, an’ it was jus’…it was jus’ selfish. I did it because I…don’t know, but I did it, for some…proud reason. An’ I said that I fucked us up more, because, like you said, we don’t know each other, or why we’re in this relationship in the first place, or what should keep us in this relationship.”

He hadn't...

He hadn't ruined all of her fun.

That had been her fault. It had been the mix up of everything else that had happened last night that had ruined it for her -- and hey, it hadn't even been half bad. She'd made up with Lucky, relaxed with him on the balcony, and then watched this same exact movie with Javi until he fell asleep. Literally, Ash had had way... way worse nights than that and really... half of it had been her fault. At least half.

If she had just...

Gone about what she had intended to do -- find Trevor right away -- then everything would've been avoided.

In the end, it all led back to her and what her decisions had been.

She wished she could get him to see that.

So he'd stop blaming himself.

“I jus’…goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath, and she could feel his eyes back on her. Hesitantly, she lifted her own gaze and met his.

“I know we can be fixed…but it’s jus’…it’s gonna mean that you an’ I’re gonna have ta make tha foundation again— we’re gonna have ta scrap our week’s worth of malformed romance, start again, an’…make it better...than tha nothin’ that we had before,” he concluded. “Because I want ta date you. I want ta be wit’ you. I want ta have us be a comfortable secret, one that we can take comfort in, one that…I don’t know.” He gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “I write romance an’ drama, an’ so maybe it’s cheesy of me, but…I want ta love ya or whatever, eventually…an’…I want us ta get there. An’ that has ta start wit’ me knowin’ you, an’ you knowin’ me, an’…” He trailed off, his expression falling. “I jus’ realized that I have no idea of how ta do that, or of how ta make us not strangers…” He picked his face back up, giving a slight smile. “But…I want ta try— wit’ us.”

Oh.

She didn't...

She didn't know how to respond.

What to think. What to do.

He held his hand out to her as his smile faltered.

“What say you, darlin’?”

She paused, her lips parting slightly as she went to speak... but found no words coming out. Her lips pressed closed once more into a tight smile and she glanced away from his face to down to his hand. Ash bit into her lip, which by this point was sore from the consistent gnawing, and then her gaze drifted back up to his face and she gave him a soft smile. She took his hand in hers, her fingers lacing through his and she felt some comfort in the familiarity of it.

"I say... you're right, that's very cheesy." She teased lightly, her voice still a hushed whisper as she shifted so she was closer to Trevor again, her legs tucked underneath her. "But... like, really sweet. Trevor, I'm..." the half-hearted smile on her face faltered and she dropped her gaze away from his for a moment, and then she leaned in, her free hand going out to gently touch his cheek as she pressed her lips gently against his.

As she pulled away, her eyes opening back up, she met his gaze, and gave a slight shake of her head. "I'm sorry -- and I, like, I know I say that a lot." Her eyebrows drew together, and she gave another shake of her head. "I probably apologize... too much because I can't handle, like, anyone being upset with me." Her hand dropped away from his face to rest on his chest. "Last night, like, really sucked because... everyone was mad at me. I got into it with you, and I snapped at Lucky, and then Dorian and Cal were being jerks, and I just... I'm sorry, okay? That last night went so badly."

She laid the side of her head against the couch, hesitating again before she started to speak more. "You're not... last night wasn't all your fault. I should've... I'm not good at this whole girlfriend thing. Probably not the best first girlfriend." She said in a joking tone, although Ash was doing anything but joking. "I should've like... or I should like... you know, sided with you every time he was a dick to you on Twitter or at Halloween."

Yeah, she still thought Trevor had basically started the Halloween debacle with Lucky, but that wasn't... she was still supposed to support her boyfriend no matter what, right? Even if she didn't necessarily agree with him?

"I want to try, though -- like to be... better," she continued, her words hesitant as she tried to piece together what she wanted to say inside of her head and have it come out in any kind of way that might possibly make even an inkling of sense. "For you and... whatever... this is. I do really like you," even if she couldn't piece together why, she knew that much to be true, at the very least, "and I just... Trevor, I'm sorry for making this so hard so far. Like with the Lucky stuff, and for asking for this to be secret, because I just..." she heaved a sigh, letting the sentence drop off and not bothering to pick it back up.

"And, like, sorry. This is probably the... like... worst birthday ever."

She glanced towards the TV, but she had no idea what was going on anymore -- the movie had shifted to the parts that she'd never seen. Maybe The Notebook was simply cursed -- she was cursed to never be able to see the ending.

Her dark eyes shifted back to Trevor, her lips shifting into a gentle, genuine smile. "I do... I do want to try, though, with you." She reiterated, and then leaned back in, pressing her lips softly against his.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

MOOD: snapped

OUTFIT: clothes

LOCATION: marino mansion (back patio)

basics

MENTIONS:
Charlie, Evie, JJ, Gen, Trevor, Cami, Chanel

INT:
Winona (Casey)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Chas Marino

Chas shot Casey a seething glare, his fists tightened so hard they were nearly purple. God, he was such an idiot. He was lucky they'd been friends so long, otherwise he'd have been reduced to a useless, miserable Charlie Howell apologist. Perhaps he could have retained more of his use if Priscilla wasn't always working against Chas with some half-assed, petty scheme. She had a similar way of getting under his skin as people like Evie, JJ, and Gen, however, as his sister, her words always carried more meaning. Chas hated that he cared what she thought, but he took solace in the idea that the coldhearted bimbo never did much thinking at all anyway. Harvard, Shmarvard.

When was she going back to New York anyway? Right then would have been the perfect time.

"Who cares? I have all my teeth now anyway." He opened his mouth wide, baring his near-perfect teeth for all to see. "Cami's just jealous her pearly whites will never be as straight as mine."

"Straight, you say?" Priscilla purred, using her hand to cover her small chuckle. Chas rolled his eyes. Oldest gay joke in the book—which he wasn't anyway. Gay, that is. Chas wasn't a book, unless it was something timeless and priceless like Shakespeare's First Folio or an original copy of A Christmas Carol. Of course, both of those works paled in comparison with the literary masterpieces Chas devised in class. Trevor had hell to pay if he called his dialogue trite one more goddamn time. No one but Chas knew what was best for him in the end, not even the family that had drilled success into his brain since he was a child.

A sigh escaped his lips, cursing his mother for insisting their reunion to be set at the Marinos' mansion. She wasn't even there to meet with them, so who cares? Chas was positive she was out in the back flirting with the gardener anyway, but if the rumors were true, he was gay and totally pining for Chas' dad, which baffled him even further. Sure, he had money and influence and was kinda funny in a deadpan way, but... sheesh. Just being in the presence of Alessandro Marino brought Chas to his knees, reminding him just how lucky he was to be micromanaged by his mother instead.

Priscilla had it rough that way, being the prime candidate to inherit the family business while simultaneously dipping her toes in the world of modeling, something of which their mother made doubly sure to relish in. Your hay day was years ago, lady, give it a rest already...

Chas couldn't bring himself to pity his older sister; she was spiteful and jealous and deserved nothing but gray hairs and hangnails. If subtly getting back at Chas brought her as much joy as it did, there was no doubt in his mind that she was a sad, worthless loser. If you're going to flirt for fun, why do it with Casey of all people? The kid was dumb as rocks and couldn't be trusted not to burn the house down if you turned your back on him.

He was a nice guy, though. That's why he and Chas remained friends.

"Really?" Priscilla replied, adding in a little gasp to feign interest. She looked down at her fingernails, which had been newly manicured and painted with a clear coat of nail polish. Her blue-green eyes returned to the blonde subject of her interest after a silent moment made uneasy by the death stare Chas was giving her. Even so, it wasn't hard to shake off the anger of her youngest brother. "You're making it big, aren't you? I always knew you were meant for great things, especially when you outperformed Chas the first time you came on Mother Dearest's show."

The model turned her attention to Chas, and she smirked devilishly. "You two were so similar then, especially when Chassy had his little bow tie and suspenders phase. Remember when he burned himself on that stage light? He was practically bawling and the entire camera crew had to-"

"Haha, did you hear that, Prissy? He's the big 1-7. Seventeen. Not quite an adult, but getting there! As in, not an adult!" Chas loudly interjected, revolted to witness any sort of amicable exchange between his sister and friend.

Priscilla shook her head with pity for Chas' desperate antics. She promptly turned completely around to face only Casey, laughing once more at his goofily-raised eyebrow. She made an effort to disguise it as another slight giggle, although it came out as more of a derisive snicker. Chas was growing redder in the face, and one look at him told a story of a murderous, screaming toddler. He sat on the edge of his seat, willing a painful death on his older sister.

"That means your sisters are seventeen too, right? No boy trouble with them, I hope. I know how it was when I was in high school." Priscilla leaned in to Casey again, her lips stopping just outside the boy's ear. She cupped a hand over the side of her mouth to prevent anyone from reading her lips. "I must confess, though, you were always my favorite. Thanks for keeping my little baby brother Chassy company."

At the sound of Casey's proposition, Chas nearly popped a blood vessel. Priscilla, having already leaned away from Casey, found herself not immediately sure of how to respond. Jaw partially open, she remained standing on the edge of forming words. "Well—"

"Oh my god, you guys, Stefano's lavender albino ball python just got out of his terrarium!" Chas blurted out, pretending to be reading a text, "That thing is worth tens of thousands and is super, super giant. We should go outside while the housekeepers go catch her!" Chas stood up from his seat and snatched Casey's hand, pulling him out of the chair. "To the backyard! Onward!"

With that, Chas tugged the mesmerized boy away from the front room, his iron grip lugging him out the back door. Priscilla didn't move an inch, half surprised and half satisfied to have pushed Chas over the edge. His face was still red and his eyes were wild, but it was worth looking like a maniac to get away from Priscilla. Any more passive-aggressive remarks and he would have crushed his coffee mug in his hand, given he had an ounce of the strength required to do so.

Rather dramatically, he swung open the door and stepped to the back of the property, which housed a massive, grassy yard. Beds of flowers surrounded a simplistically-decorated patio fit with one of the many minibars situated around the house. The door wasn't shut all the way and a bottle or two was missing, indicating that coked-up bum Stefano had come by recently. I hate this family. So much.

"So, Mr. Clairmont," he started frantically, still catching his breath. His smile was wide, and it was quite obvious he was trying to make up for his unprofessional behavior. "I-is your aunt in town too? I'm sure my mother would love to get dinner with her again." His smile quivered as he silently begged for Casey to throw him a bone. "She still... making music?"

code by valen t.

 

[hery]

MOOD: nerbis

OUTFIT: work clothes

LOCATION: dollar store

basics

MENTIONS:
n/a

INT:
Winona (Zeph)
ohdittoh (Lin)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Angel Cervantes

Angel's heart sank as soon as he observed Lin's condescending grimace, and it started to pound when he realized he couldn't hear what Lin was muttering under his breath. It couldn't have been anything good given the rather bold display of middle fingers presumably directed at him. All he could do was frown, unsure how to take Lin's derisiveness. "Um..." he began, trailing off at the realization that nowhere in the employee handbook mentioned how to deal with spiteful step-cousins and their lily-livered sidekicks.

Angel released his breath when Zeph explained their actions, easing his anxiety for potentially having to bust his peers for a misdemeanor. Zeph's choppy manner of speech struck him as a bit off, but he could sympathize with the uncertainty in his voice. As much as the tall Australian had no idea what to say, Angel didn't know either.

He laughed nervously, trudging closer and closer to the boys as his tension melted. "Oh, that's good," he remarked, his passive smile returning to his face, "I bet that makes for a fin-teresting shopping experience, huh?" He let out a more genuine laugh, but the light in his eyes dimmed every time he made eye contact with Lin. He'd been trying to avoid it, but the boy was adept in making him as uncomfortable as possible. It was almost as though the musician was sizing him up, judging whether to toss him in the garbage or green waste bin.

The short boy flinched when Lin laughed, his sharp cry like a dagger stabbing him straight through the heart. The awkward connection between Angel and Zeph was instantly severed, reminding him that he was on Angel's side and they were on Lin's side. Even if Zeph promised to heed Angel's request, Lin played by his own rules and at least two of them knew that.

He was hit with another "lameass" in the form of a cough, crushing his heart even further. I'm just doing my job... It felt, like, really, really bad. More than it should have. On one hand, Angel felt like the bad guy for trying to bust Zeph and Lin, yet on the other he felt as though he was in grade school again, verbally fighting for his life at the monkey bars.

Angel instinctively backed up an inch when his cousin jabbed his nametag. He looked down at the boy dubiously, rendered completely speechless by whatever odd gag that was being set up. He was positive that Lin was going to try and nick his chin with his index finger like elementary school bullies used to do. "Hey, Angel, there's a ketchup stain on your shirt!"

Yeah, right.

"Lin, I don't see how—"

“Isn’t that a weird way to spell total fucking lame ass loser face?”

"Oh." Ouch. Owwwww. That hurt. In a flash, all of Angel's nerves dropped to subzero temperatures as the realization of what was happening dawned upon him. His perplexed mien gradually faded into disappointment and he could do nothing but idly stand by as Lin howled like a hyena over ripping him to shreds. His first instinct was to ask, "Why would you say that?" but the both of them already knew that answer. It made Angel miserable knowing this was how things had to be, especially after how greatly they got along long ago. Why did someone else's affairs have to get in the way of their friendship? Now Angel just felt... bad. Not, like, guilty, but just bad.

"Well, I'm on the clock but I just wanted to come by to..." he started sheepishly, his voice barely audible compared to Lin's cackling, "... I don't know, I'm sorry." He could hardly get a word in edgewise, and he looked to Zeph for some sort of reassurance. "I just... you could get in a lot of trouble and I could get in a lot of trouble..." He cleared his throat, but didn't speak right away because he was positive Lin was going to interject again. "Zeph? I didn't think you were the type to... like... you know..."

The soft-spoken boy's gaze fell to the floor when Lin moved on to berate him more personally, and all he could do was take it. He felt powerless; he didn't believe any of it, but he couldn't bring himself to protest either. "It was my sixteenth birthday a couple weeks ago... Ricky said he was gonna tell you the day of, um, not that it matters, so... I've been working... not long." He tried to put it as frankly as possible, but he still ended up stammering and murmuring. Confronting Lin was not at all what Angel had bargained for clocking in that morning. More soap stocking, please?

"Uh, anyway, Lin, I wanted to ask you about something privately," he finally admitted before giving Zeph a sideways glance, "It's kind of... personal stuff, if you don't mind..." He cleared his throat as if to punctuate his trailings off. "You can, um, stand over there if you want." Angel looked around, then pointed further down the aisle as though Zeph didn't know how to walk out of earshot.

"I think you'd rather be, like, alone for this..." he advised to Lin, squeezing his palms apprehensively with his eyes fixed on a bottle of slime on the lower shelf, "Sorry, Zeph."

code by valen t.

 

[gh0stwriter]

[

I feel like I'm drowning

M O O D : hungry

O U T F I T : fit

L O C A T I O N : the breakfast spot

M E N T I O N S : n/a

I N T E R A C T I O N S : dorian

T A G S : jasmyn​

He sidled his way up to the head of the line to join Dorian and ignored the glares and passive aggressive objections because he gave no shits. Not this morning. (not any morning really). He needed food. He needed a distraction. A distraction from the distraction that was supposed to help distract him from everything else wrong in his life. The irony of it all just made Lucky’s head hurt even more. Seriously? How could things get any worse? Sure he probably was testing fate, but he was used to being fate’s personal plaything.

He glanced at Dorian and flashed a mock-jovial expression followed by a discreet flash of his middle finger as Dorian taunted him about his inability to handle his liquor. It was playful and on any normal day, he’d have a witty retort to go along with it.

Today was not a normal day.

For starters, he wasn’t normally hungover and holy shit was he hungover. His body felt like it was being held together by those stupid ties they put on the bags of bread and his head felt like their was a battle of the bands happening at the shittiest club in LA.

He took a deep breath as he waited for Dorian to finish his order. At least he had kept his cool. Okay, maybe he was a little harsh on Danny, but the guy was trying to make it all about him...and that was the last thing he needed. And he didn’t get violent. Or angry, like his dad liked to do. All things considered, he should count himself fortunate. He drank enough liquor to keep a jolly dick giant like Landon Sinclaire out for a few days and had next to no horrible side effects. That’s something...right? He didn’t even blackout.

God, he wished had blacked out.

“It’s on me or well, my mom,”

He hesitated. He hated when his cousin paid and Dorian knew that, but it was no use arguing. Not today. Usually, they’d go back and forth and Lucky would win...most of the time. But he didn’t have the energy and he really was trying to save his money. Every penny counted if he wanted out of Nic's place. He’d just have to suffer with the knowledge that the woman who ignored his very existence was buying breakfast. What was one more thing?

He stepped up to the counter. “Can I get a breakfast burrito with bacon and the largest iced coffee you have?” He gave a brief smile as he stepped aside and let Dorian pay while he scrolled through Twitter.

Never a good idea.

But it was so entertaining at times.

Gen Johannes | @genjohanne: “which one of you mother fuckers PUKED IN THE FUCKING STUDY”

His chest tightened and he could feel his face heat up. This wasn’t happening. He took a deep breath. It was fine. As long as Javi didn’t say anything. He had made it clear he didn’t want anyone to know. That it was just a drunken mistake and it shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t punch the guy. Or threaten him. He was even nice after he puked.

Javi wouldn’t out him.

Would he?

Gen Johannes | @genjohanne: “I’ll take a look at the cameras when I get home.”

His face went white. Any moisture in his mouth had dried up making it difficult to swallow. Cameras? FUCKING CAMERAS?! Who the fuck had cameras in their house? I mean...outside...sure. It made sense, but in every room? That was ridiculous. Did no one care about privacy anymore? He took another deep breath.

"What the hell did you do last night anyway?"

Lucky’s head shot up and he slipped his phone in his pocket. It was a fair question. One he should have been prepared for, but for some reason it hit him like a wrecking ball. That’s right. His life had become a Miley Cyrus song...it couldn’t get any worse.

What was the question again? ‘What the hell did he do last night?’ Yeah. That was it. He replayed the events of last night in his head:

• Hung out with Ash.
• Pissed off Trevor.
• Argued with Danny.
• Hooked up with Javi.
• Lost five bucks.

He scratched the back of his head. He had to say something. Any part of last night that didn’t make him want to jump out of a window would be an easy topic of discussion.

He shrugged. “Just hung out.” It wasn’t a lie. Not really. "Josie ditched me like immediately. Got wasted. Lost the costume contest. Oh, I...me and Ash are partnering up for the Arts Festival." He said forgetting that Ash was apparently a sore subject, but it was a subject that had nothing to do with the fact that he and Javi wrecked Gen's study and that meant it was fair game.

"What about you? Finally made things official with JJ?" He said with a small smirk. He was genuinely interested and happy for Dorian. He was slightly more happy that he could hopefully deflect the conversation off of him.

LUCKY DUBOIS

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

trevor callaghan

quite the catch

Trevor watched Ash's face, letting out a soft breath that he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding in as her fingers laced through his. That sounded cliche, but it was the truth. He’d been holding his breath, bracing himself for the worst, and he hadn’t even noticed it.

(Pessimism. It was another integral trait of the boy.)

“I say…you’re right, that’s very cheesy,” Ash teased, her voice low. She moved so that she was closer to him, tucking her legs beneath her, and Trevor’s pulse gave a solid thud in his neck to remind him that it was still there. The smile, pulled tightly across her lips, still showed her apprehension, but at least she wasn’t crying, he guessed. “But…like, really sweet.”

Which translated to “oh, fecking Christ, that was so cringey, but props for trying”— and he’d accept that at this point in time.

“Trevor, I’m…” The smile on her face faltered, and her eyes dropped.

Oh, no.

She was going to cry or so—…

Her hand reached to touch his cheek, and she brought her lips to his, and his thoughts quieted for that moment that her lips were against his.

And then she pulled away, and he met her eyes again, studying the hazel of hers and trying to read her words before she said them. (Unsurprisingly, he could— because she seemed to repeat one phrase over and over and over again.) “I’m sorry— and I, like, I know I say that a lot. I probably apologize…too much because I can’t handle, like, anyone being upset with me.”

Well, at least she was giving some sort of reasoning to it— which tipped him off to another key difference between the two:

Trevor never really apologized until everything was too far gone. He tried to put the water back into the pitcher after it’d already sunken into the sand. Ash, however, apologized for everything, as soon as she thought someone might be upset with her.

(He’d mark that down as another reason why they were so ill-matched, and another tick on the reasons why their relationship made no fecking sense. It was another thing that they would have to figure out.)

“Last night,” she continued, “like, really sucked because…everyone was mad at me. I got into it with you, and I snapped at Lucky, and then Dorian and Cal were being jerks, and I just…I’m sorry, okay? That last night went so badly.”

He sighed softly, but he gave her a smile that was fully of pity. It wasn’t your fault, but I get your sentiment.

She laid her head back against the side of the couch, and she paused a moment before she spoke. Trevor took the moment to study her face again, but he couldn’t read anything this time.

It was another at least she isn’t crying moment.

Finally, she drew in a breath and began: “You’re not…last wasn’t all your fault. I should’ve…I’m not good at this whole girlfriend thing. Probably not the best first girlfriend.” (Here, her tone had the inflection of a joke, but Trevor had the feeling that she wasn’t joking.) “I should’ve, like…or I should, like…you know, sided with you every time he was a dick to you on Twitter or at Halloween.”

He knit his eyebrows, cocking his head slightly. Huh? He let out a soft chuckle.

He didn’t expect that…but…he meant, if she was going to do it, he wouldn’t mind, but…

"I want to try, though— like, to be...better," she continued. Her words were slow, kind of jumbled, but…thoughtful, at least. "For you and...whatever...this is. I do really like you, and I just...Trevor, I'm sorry for making this so hard so far. Like with the Lucky stuff, and for asking for this to be secret, because I just..." She let out a long sigh, seeming to dismiss that sentence as too difficult to continue. "And, like, sorry. This is probably the...like...worst birthday ever."

Her eyes flicked to the television, and his followed suit.

He had no idea what the hell was going on on the television, despite the several times that he’d seen it. It looked…unfamiliar…and uninteresting.

She mentioned that she was sorry for asking to be a secret, but…well, to be honest, after last night…he was glad that they were secret. If they’d been public, he would have seen hell…

Yeah, it was better that they stay secret. He was going to fuck up again— he felt it— and…it wouldn’t end well if they were public.

He felt her eyes on him, and he turned his eyes once more to see her smiling in a way that was strikingly genuine. “I do…I do want to try, though, with you.”

He let out a soft chuckle, and the startings of a smile tried at the side of his lips, but, before he could say anything, her lips came to press on his again.

He chuckled against her lips, squeezing her hand softly as he returned her kiss.

The worst birthday...?

How bad could it be? If he called it anything less than sublime— to be his miserable, self-loathing self here with her lips pressed against his rather than alone and mindlessly watching television or writing until his wrist ached— then he would be understating it.

(He was also a bit melodramatic, and much of this was overstatement— let him live.)

He brought his free hand to rest on her side as he kissed her again and again. His hand slipped to the tail of her shirt before he realized that he— feck— was getting carried away, and he pulled back slightly, shaking his head and taking a moment to catch his breath.

“Ash…,” he began, but he lost his words, and he shook his head again, rubbing his hand on the tail of her shirt before he realized what he was doing and dropped his hand, slowly bringing it back to his knee. He let out a soft chuckle, studying her face. “If you…want ta try, maybe tha first thing ta test out is apologizing less,” he said, crackling a slight smile to show that it was (at least partly) a joke.

He ran his thumb along her knuckles before releasing her hand and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He kissed the side of her forehead. “Besides,” he started, “this isn’t the worst birthday that I’ve ever had. When ya live wit’ a…woman, if ya venture ta call ‘er such a thin’…” He trailed off, shaking his head again and giving a soft chuckle.. “When ya live wit’ such a banshee as my nan—“ (Yes, he concluded with a nod; banshee was the best way to describe his nana.) “— ya don’t really get such a thin’ as a pleasant birthday. Now, ya know, since I came here, they’ve been pretty good— and, hell, I consider this one pretty good, too— but let me assure ya that there is nothin’ that could be worse than the birthdays back home.”

He let out a long breath of air, looking at the television but not really watching what was happening on screen as he continued. “Picture this: I’m…feckin’ drenched in sweat because I was in a feckin’ salmon costume all day— against my will— an’ m’nan shoves me into the backseat of tha car. We’d driven up to Dublin in tha mornin’ an’ spent all day at tha Samhain celebrations, ya know how it goes. Now, usually, we go home afterward, an’ I strip myself of tha monstrosities that Nana forced me ta wear…but the salmon year? My ‘da started drivin’ in tha wrong direction. Here I am, unable ta move my arms, without a change of clothes, an’ I’m floppin' around tha backseat because I have no arm holes, tryin’ ta get out because Nana won’t let Granda tell me where they’re takin’ me, an’ I’m tired an’ jus’ wanna sleep.

“I start seein’ some familiar scenery. Some…trees over there, some hills over there, a big house that looks like a castle, an’ I think to myself, Oh, feck.” When he spoke, his eyebrows lifted, knit, unknit, turned upward, turned downward, and did a lot of the talking for him. “I told ya about tha communal birthdays that my younger cousins had for their birthdays, right? Tha ones where I dressed up as a clown and had ta be the entertainment for tha night? My oldest uncle on my mom side’s tha one who organized ‘em, an’…well, he’s a character, but not exactly in tha mos’ pleasant way. Uncle Derrick is…forty-somethin'? No, wait, thirty-somethin’…ya can’t tell either way. Man looks like he’s in his fifties. Long beard— long, an’ it’s red an’ white. Bald in the center of his head, hair combed over from one side over tha middle of tha parted Red Sea. Large stomach, tiny legs.” He made gestures with his hand to show the characteristics of his uncle. “He looks like a cartoon character, an’ he reminds me of…ya know that Pete guy from tha ol’ Disney cartoons? If that gives ya any clue of how unpleasant of a man he is.” He gave a soft chuckle. “An’ it looked like we were goin’ ta his place, which…no, no, it couldn’t be, right? Seein’ as it was damn near seven o’clock, there was no time for a party, unless…oh, no.” He mimicked his thoughts on the matter as if they were happening at present, letting his voice sink into despair at the end of that sentence.

“An’, lo an’ behold,” Trevor began, staring straight at the television, eyes sunken, face disappointed as if what was before his eyes were the sights that he was describing, “there, right in front of me, is what I dreaded seein’ wit’ every cell in my body, an’ I hoped that I would have a heart attack an’ die on that spot. It was Derrick’s place, which I only went to on birthday— on tha communal birthday parties. So, naturally, I tried ta lock tha doors in tha backseat before my grandparents could come an’ get me out, but I had no feckin’ arms, so I was just floppin’ again. Well, here comes Nana, smilin’ like she’s won tha Nobel Prize, an’ she pries me outta my seat and drags me inside…an’ we slooowly push open tha door ta reveal a dark room. My heart drops, an’ I look aroun’ me, an’ tha lights flick on an’ about scare me outta my skin— an’ ya know what I see in front of me?” He looked at Ash with the dismayed look on his face. “Exactly what I dreaded: Derrick, an’ all of tha other five of my mom’s siblin’s, an’ both of my dad’s siblin’s, an’ all of ‘em have their kids behind them who are all hyped up on candy an’ barely containin’ themselves. An’ as soon as those lights hit on, all hell breaks loose. Bethany punches Ethan in tha nose, John starts ta cry because he’s a toddler, Sam, my uncle’s border collie, pisses on tha ground, an’ Kira comes up ta me an’ starts accost me about my fish costume. Then here come my aunts an’ my uncles ta help in that insultin’, but they’re fawnin' over how cute it is.” He shook his head with a chuckle, though his face was frustrated at his story. “There wasn’t anythin’ cute about it— they were all lyin’ ta patronize me. There’s a reason why I hid all tha pictures from when I was a kid.” He shuddered.

“By tha time we get to tha table ta eat tha cake, I’m already exhausted an’ my ears are damn near bleedin’, an’ I’m sweatin’ in tha costume again, an’ I’m ushered to this seat that I keep slippin’ an’ slidin' in.” He sighed softly. “Apparently it was tha eldest of my other cousins who happened ta be put in charge of tha cake, an’…well, I don’t even trust Matilda wit’ a piece of paper, much less a whole feckin’ cake. She was ten, though, and she was determined at that point in her life ta be a chef or somethin’. Girl couldn’t cook for tha life of her. Of course, I didn’t know that she was in charge of tha cake, an’ they sat it down in tha table, an’…Happy Birthday…Seany.” He sighed. “That’s what she put. Obviously, my uncle put her up to it, because no one except for my nana called me Seany, an’ my uncle was always in cohorts wit’ her. Not only that, but it’s written in ducklin' yellow…an’ tha cake is feckin’ eye-bleedin’ neon purple. I blow out my candles anyway, wish for somethin’ generic or somethin’. An’ they cut into tha, an’ it looks fine on tha inside, an’ I take tha firs’ piece because it’s my birthday. I cut into my piece, take tha firs’ bite, an’— crunch.” He grimaced as he said the word crunch, and now he raised his free hand to his mouth and mimed that he was pulling something off of his tongue. He squinted at the invisible something. He dropped his hand with a disgusted scoff and a chuckle. “It was a feckin’ Barbie’s hand. Someone had feckin’ cut a Barbie’s hand off and put in the feckin’ cake— an’ that wasn’t even tha worst of it, because when I complained about it, Matilda feckin’ goes…” He put on a high-pitched voice. “‘I guess Sam dropped that in there while I was cooking.’” He widened his eyes. “He what?” he said in a slow, dumbfounded voice, and then he heightened his pitch again. “’He kept lickin’ tha bowl, an’ I guess that he was eatin’ one of my Barbie’s earlier.’”

He went silent for a moment, staring at Ash as if she were the one who had dropped the news, and then he burst out laughing. “An’ my family jus’…they jus’ bust out laughin’, because they didn’t eat any of tha cake, but I not only ate a piece that had a feckin’ Barbie hand in it, but that a feckin’ dog kept lickin’ tha bowl of while it was bein’ made! An’ then— ta pour salt on tha wound— they all got me presents as if I were a feckin’ seven-year-old. Picture books. Toy trucks…pretty much jus’ picture books an’ toy trucks.” He shook his head. “An’ they put a hat on top of my salmon outfit. They feckin’ taped a hat on top of my salmon hat— an’ sang ‘He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ an’ filmed it…so somewhere, there exists footage of that.” He shook his head. “After all’a that, I still wasn’t off tha hook, because I had ta— had ta— try on tha clown costume for one last time because I was goin’ ta be gone come time for tha communal party next year, an’…tha night ended off wit’ me slippin’ an fallin’ tryin’ ta get back in my fish costume an’ sprainin’ my ankle so that I had to be on crutches fer tha next three weeks, an’ when anyone asked for an explanation, I jus’ had ta say that I got it playin’ sports, because fish-related injury sounded…even…lamer.”

He finished his story with a shake of his head and a laugh. “Ya think this is worse than that? No…this is at least four or five times better." He gave her a small, confident smile. "At least.”

mood
story time

location
his apartment

outfit
t-shirt & sweatpants

playing...

2009​

by glaive​

mentions
n/a

interactions
ash

tags
Winona

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[jasmyn]

M O O D : "Officially dating? Weird."

L O C A T I O N : Buger Place.

I N T E R A C T I O N S : Nate.

T A G S : Winona

Evie sat across from the table watching Nate's reaction to her words carefully, trying to decipher his emotions. Had she decided to confess too late? Was it for nothing? Was he angry with her for not saying anything last night? Was this an utterly horrible idea?

All she could manage to gather was the confusion when he realized what she'd said and then...well, she wasn't sure. It wasn't until he started talking that she stopped searching for a sign of how he felt and just listened to what he was saying.

"I uhh... I didn't... want to date... high school relationships kind of... they're dumb, you know...?"

He wasn't wrong. High school relationships were typically a waste of time because they were doomed to fail. It was like you were basically asking to get your heart broken or something. What was even the point of starting something up that you already knew probably wouldn't last?

This was one of the many things that she and Nate agreed on. While anyone else might've taken the comment offensively or whatever, she didn't. Instead, she just nodded in agreement and gave a soft 'yeah' at his words. Yet, even with them both adamant on how stupid relationships could be, here they were confessing feelings for each other. It made no sense.

"Do you... want to... try... this?" he asked, motioning between them. "Like a... a real... date?"

Evie's eyes shifted from her phone still tightly in her grasp to Nate. He had already told her that he wanted more so she shouldn't have been surprised when he asked the question but hearing him say it again, sober and without the distraction of a party happening two feet away was different.

This was the part where Evie walked away. The part where her mind told her to get the hell out because despite how many times she told her brother she wasn't scared of anything...she was.

Evelyn Sinclaire was terrified of relationships. She'd been burned once and ever since she avoided feeling that again. She'd wasted nearly a year of her life on someone only to be replaced in a month as if she had meant nothing.

It's why she was such an overthinker and why she said so many times that love was a sham. Evie didn't want to ruin another good thing with the complications of a relationship. For some reason though, all of that didn't matter right now.

All she could think was that if she was going to give relationships another go, then why not do it with Nate? After their confessions, it wasn't like there was a 'go back' button so it was either continue with the awkward friendship or just give this a go.

"Wait. Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Woods?" she teased her signature smirk finally making an appearance. It felt like the tension suddenly faded away like a weight had been lifted off of her and she could just breathe. "I'm in if you are. Maybe it won't be so bad to see where this goes, yeah?" she added, her accent thickening just a tad with the comment.

Evie and Nate, a couple? Who the hell saw that one coming?

Everyone. Everyone on Twitter, all of their friends, even fucking Chas. Everyone saw it coming except them.

"You know everyone is gonna have something to say about us, right? I mean, we have basically been the anti-relationship spokespeople and now here we are," she laughed, playfully rolling her eyes at her own words.

With any luck, the two wouldn't hate each other by graduation.

After sitting at the burger place a while longer, Evie had the bright idea that they should go do something rather than just heading over to her place. Of course, they could've gone off and hooked up or smoked but that was pretty predictable of them. It's what they always did. While Evie was down to keep things similar there was no point in this if they didn't change somethings. Right?

"Have you ever been to this museum? I've heard good things about it but I've never gotten the chance to check it out," she said as she walked from her car to where he'd parked his in front of the building. Was this technically a date? Were they counting it as one? She wasn't gonna ask. That would be weird.

EVELYN SINCLAIRE

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