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

[hery]

MOOD: bidnis

OUTFIT: clothes

LOCATION: BILLY BOB'S BIG BOPPER EMPORIUM

basics

MENTIONS:
Seb, Casey

INT:
Soap (Alex)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Chas Marino

Chas's eyes remained fixed onto his iced coffee without a care for the jingling of the bell near the door. Every shrill ring mere feet away from him signifying a new arrival could hardly pierce the despondent bubble covering his figure like a miasma. His straw spun circles in the half-full (or, to Chas, half-empty) glass, weaving ribbons of separated creamer. The ribbons were thin and sparse, as he'd only made use of a single ounce of cream. The dispirited boy's straw began to pick up in speed as he hurried to conceal any obvious evidence of cream in his coffee, save for the fact that the entire drink was noticeably lighter in appearance.

Chas Marino, a drinker of coffee anything but black? Preposterous. What a low level to stoop to.

He didn't immediately lift his head once Alex sat down, but he did move his elbow off the table to somewhat indicate that he was aware of her much-awaited presence. He resisted the urge to mutter "You're late." considering his stream of DMs saying the same thing seemed to have already gotten the job done. Alex knew what she did, and if she knew what was best for her she'd refrain from making that mistake again. Chas' time was valuable, fruitful, and hard to come by. It was a mystery why Seb couldn't realize that the previous night while he leaned against the wall, his eyes judging every tacky facet of his peers' costumes.

Chas was not a waiter in any capacity; he was unabashedly impatient and far above a minimum wage job. Yet somehow, he'd ended up doing just that two days in a row for people who he personally deemed worthy of it. Maybe they didn't really realize how important it was to Chas, at least in Casey's case, but the factor of common decency he'd expected at least from a select few was still a shock to find absent.

Finally, his exasperated gaze met Alex's, just in time to be deprived of the ability to make a sarcastic remark. What had he done to make the universe punish him so?

Don't answer that.

"I'm sure it was something very important if you risked missing out on this," he drawled without missing a beat, "Spare me the details. Let's just say you owe me one now." A small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he inspected his nails for any dirt. Of course, they were as clean as can be, but they could always be better. Chas lived by that ideal.

Chas took note of the waitress' apparent nonchalance for Chas' previous attitude, garnering a sliver of respect from the boy. It took extreme willpower not to lose one's cool at the demanding boy as he barked his order once more, only to waste his food twice now. "Chicken salad with no chicken and a side of fruit salad. There's a fiver in it for you and the entire kitchen staff if the blueberries are on the bottom of the dish."

He took a sip of his coffee, intentionally avoiding the straw to sip out of the rim of the glass. "And a water, please. No crescent-shaped ice cubes. They remind me of those ice machines poor people have." He looked over to Alex innocently. "No offense."

He could have done worse considering the abhorrent meal Alejandra had ordered. Not only was it gigantic, but it went against every guideline of Chas' current diet. Was she trying to cross-contaminate his digestive system? She shouldn't have either ordered the same as Chas or nothing at all. Not that he was jealous of her fried, buttery food, of course...

"My day's been fine, I slayed a witch and crashed on caffeine. You?" he swiftly responded, rolling his eyes over Alex's lame attempt at small talk. She was better than that. Why prolong the details of your own meeting?

Offering very little time to reply, Chas ordered, "Now, tell me what we're here for. I know you didn't go through all this arranging just for me to tell you to invest in an iron for that top you're currently ruining."

code by valen t.

 

[ohdittoh]

trevor callaghan

quite the catch

“I’m not going to Wikipedia the plot of a movie. Like…who does that?” asked Ash, shaking her head.

Trevor shook his head, too, letting out a soft scoff. “Psh, exactly. Who does that?” he said dismissively, and he gave a chuckle that made it obvious that, no, he was serious about that request. “That would be…pretty borin’. What’s tha point when ya could jus’ watch tha movie? That was what I was gettin’ at, ya know.” He cleared his throat, giving a nod. “Wikipedia, psh. That’s an invention for tha uninterestin’ people of tha world. Couldn’t be me. I get all’a my information straight from tha source.”

(Yeah, if it hadn’t been obvious by now, Trevor got weirdly defensive over random things. If you could stand to be around him for a time, legend said that you gained the miraculous ability to get used to it. Some experts still doubt the validity of this claim.)

Trevor’s eyes followed Ash’s form as she gave him an answer as to whether they were going to head out or not, and she leaned back to plant a kiss on his lips that made his face break out in a smile before she straightened up and said something else.

He could’ve sworn that she mentioned something about, uh, drunk Javi staying the night or something, but…well, he misheard things sometimes.

Yeah. Right.

No need to be uneasy in the slightest. There was just a…big chance that his girlfriend’d had a drunk guy spend the night over and…

Oh, no, he’d definitely misheard. Okay, yeah, that was…the only answer.

He stood upon her nod to his outfit, feigning deep offense with a curled lip and knit brows. “What’s wrong wit’ this? It’s functional an’ fashionable. Shabby chic. Casual wear,” he huffed. “Idn’t this what ya imagine my first ouffa-tha-couch date outfit would be in yer dreams?” he teased lightly, his brows unknitting.

He stooped to peck her cheek before he heaved a roll of his eyes and a sigh. He gave a melodramatic sigh and headed toward his lair, granting her another smile as he walked past her, and then dropping the smile as soon as he was halfway down the hall and heaving another sigh. He flopped himself against the wall dramatically, and he just…stood there, with his shoulder and his head leaned heavily against the wall and his feet planted firmly on the ground, sighing a little bit, staring toward and blinking at the end of the hall. He didn’t move, just stared in his dramatic posture. After a few more seconds, he seemed to tire of his display and stood up straight to walk a few more steps and turn into his bedroom.

Being a miserably overbearing neat freak had its benefits. One of the many benefits to this was the fact that his room was constantly and obsessively organized. He knew where everything was, nearly down to the centimeter, and, if anything was even slightly offset, he tended to, ahem, “flip his shite”, but, hey, at least everything was organized.

You learned to take what you could get.

He tromped his way to his closet doors, tugging them open in an extremely dramatic way, sighing and letting out a soft whine and muttering something under his breath that even he couldn’t discern. He grabbed the first couple of things that he found that weren’t sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “Shmahsfun…,” his mumbles sounded like they said. “Feckin’ sweatpants…”

He threw off his clothing and started to tug on the new clothing. One arm in the hole, one leg in the hole, one arm in the hole, one leg in the hole, neck, zip, boom. Done and done.

He slid his closet shut with one hand as he bent to gather his dirty clothes, and then he took a step back to look at himself in the mirror—

And, hey. He actually didn’t look half bad. Sure, the cyan t-shirt had pineapples on it and the print would’ve been more in place on a button-up on a dad on vacation in Hawaii, and the jeans looked more like capris because he hadn’t worn them in a solid bit, but he didn’t look too bad.

“Lookin’ feckin’ hot, Callaghan,” he told himself.

(Well, beauty was in the eye of the beholder.)

He tugged on some socks before tossing his dirty clothes into the hamper, clicking off the light in his room and stepping into the hallway in a manner just as dramatic as how he’d entered it: he walked into the middle of the hallway and just…stood. Slowly, he raised his arms, and a frown fixed on his face for a moment. “This,” he said, in the most unamused voice, and then a smile crept onto his face and he dropped the stiff posture, making his way back up to the living room.

“This’s jus’ about what yer gettin’,” Trevor said, smiling in the way that he did that make him look like he was holding back either laughter or a cry of pain. He made his way to the counter to grab his keys off of them, and he looked back at Ash. “You’re ready, I’m ready— let’s head out,” he said, pointing to her, and then to himself, and then to the door as he spoke.

He made his way to the door, waiting for her before he opened the door for her, and he clicked off the lights and followed behind her, remembering to lock the door even in his…well, even in his whatever his current headstate was.

“Ya know,” he said, starting to make his way down the stairs, “it’s been a good bit since I’ve gone anywhere besides tha gas station an’ tha grocery store an’ parties an’ football games an’ my roommates’ performances. I mean, if ya wanna take me ta one of those, I wouldn’t complain, though.” He cracked a smile. “I mean, I’ve had tha urge ta have a crispito this mornin’, anyway, so I wouldn’t complain even if we went to tha gas station.” (Look, when he was high, visions of crispitos danced in his head.) “I was checkin’ tha Walmart coupons, too, so I wouldn’t complain about tha grocery store. No one’s havin’ a party that I know of, or a football game, an’ none of my roommates’re havin' performances, so I guess that those are out. But, ya know, those are tha same ol’ same ol’. Somethin’ different would be cool, too.”

He opened the van door for her when they made their way down, and then he made his way to his own side, dropping himself in and inserting the key into the ignition.

Rachel was as clean as ever, though it still had the same lingering smell that all of Trevor’s possessions did: weed and Axe. The air was still slightly tinged with cherries from the vast amount of cherry air fresheners that he had hanging from the rearview mirror.

He looked over at her as he started up his van, continuing his conversation from before. “I’m assumin’ different, but it’s totally up ta you. I’m jus’ here ta be yer company.”

mood
headed out

location
rachel

outfit
jeans and a gaudy t-shirt

playing...

2009​

by glaive​

mentions
the roommates

interactions
ash

tags
Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[geminiy]

Isabella Dupont

@bellaissima has set their status to:
try not to be embarrassed, simply be thankful

@bellaissima has set their outfit to:
travel chique

@bellaissima has set their location to:
her dorm room

@bellaissima has mentioned:
n/a

@bellaissima has interacted with:
Kelli & Avery

@bellaissima has tagged:
ohdittoh Xed

Bella scrambled in a failed attempt to collect her scattered things, items clambering to the floor from the top of each new stack in her arms. Embarrassment flushed red on the apples of Bella’s cheeks, clumsiness coming out in spades with the feeling of stupidity. It wasn’t even technically her first day at the school yet and she already looked like a damn fool.

“Oh my gosh!”

At first, Bella couldn’t tell if the other girl’s exclamation was a positive or negative one. Would she become another person walking by her, passing their silent judgement oh whether or not she would make a good fit for the school. If they were simply judging on the sheer fact that Bella had overpacked one stupidly thin cardboard box, perhaps their assessment was correct. Nose wrinkling with the anticipation of hearing the girl’s hushed whispers, Bella simply continued to gather her items.

What she did not expect was the girl to drop towards the ground and begin to pick up the books that had fallen all over the floor. With arms full, the girl went to stand causing Bella to also rise to her feet, her hand shooting out to grab the girl’s elbow.

“S'il vous plaît soyez prudente, those books are heavier than they look!” Bella spoke quickly, helping the girl steady herself with a gentle guiding hand. Once Bella was certain the girl was balanced, she carefully dropped her hand from her elbow and back to her side.

“Oh…hi! Where do these need to go? The Kelli-train is bound for whichever station is yours!”

Bella’s head tilted in mild confusion as she bent down to pick up the armful of objects she had been collecting when the girl, presumably the ‘Kelli-train’, had rushed out. She really hadn’t expected anyone to actually help her, much less someone so willing and seemingly non-judgmental.

“Oh. I, um, my room is just up ahead. I may be wrong, this building is far larger than I had expected and it is easy to get lost.” Bella let out a breathy giggle, balancing her things on her hip as she reached into her pocket to fish out her key card out of the pocket of her sweatpants.

A rustling noise behind them caused Bella to peer over her shoulder, the faintest hints of a smile on her lips. Bella had been so nervous with trying to figure out where she was going and that she hadn’t even noticed another person had popped out of his room to pick up the remainder of Bella’s things that she had planned to make a return trip to collect.

"Are you both alright?"

The boy’s soft voice was comforting and did well to stop Bella from mindlessly rambling her thanks. Instead, she simply offered a swift nod and gentle smile to the pair.

“Oui, I believe we are. The bottom fell right out of the bottom of this box.” Bella laughed with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “She was just helping me pick everything up. It is a touch embarrassing that this is how I am starting out but I really do appreciate the help.”

The leather-bound journal on top of the pile in Bella’s arms toppled off, plummeting towards the ground. Immediately sticking her foot out, the journal fell into the top of Bella’s shoe as she carefully balanced it. Bending over, Bella grabbed the journal and lodged it back on top, her thin fingers twisting the metal clasp on the front closed again.

“This is my room just up here.” Bella explained, walking a few paces to the room with the matching number on her key. Breathing deeply Bella twisted the key in the lock, letting out a sigh of relief when the door swung open. “Oh merci mon Dieu.”

Gracefully entering the room, Bella lodged her armful of things on an empty spot on her bed. Quickly scrambling to grab the stack of books from Kelli, she carefully flipped them over and laid them out on her desk before grabbing the final few things from the boy and placing them on top of a stack of two boxes at the foot of her bed. Blowing a piece of dirty blonde hair from her eyes, Bella turned to the pair and grinned.

“Thank you for all of your help.” Bella said sweetly, extending her hand. “I am Bella Dupont, I start my program in the literature department this upcoming week.”

Bella’s eyes fell on the boy and she tilted her head in an attempt to place where she knew his face from. Realizing she had been staring for a moment, Bella laughed softly as she snapped her fingers.

“Would you happen to be Avery?” Bella asked as her head returned to a normal position. “I believe that we spoke very briefly online. You are another new student, oui? It will be grand not to be the only new student in the department.” Turning then to the other girl, Bella looked her over. “I am afraid I do not think we have been acquainted yet, ‘Kelli-train’, but I am glad to have met you and your kind heart. Thank you for your help for bringing everything in, both of you. Now it is to unpack it all.”

With greetings out of the way, Bella turned to the objects on her bed and began to sort them out onto her dresser and desk, swiftly sorting them into their new homes. Most of the items scattered around the room were books and writing utensils, the slots in her desk already filled with delicate parchment and thick notebooks. Smaller knick-knacks lined the shelves, delicate glass flowers and detailed candles. A thin tapestry already hung from the wall that her bed sat against, hastily hand drawn and water-coloured flowers elegantly twisting into a mandala shape.

“Do not feel like you have to stay and help out,” Bella spoke sweetly as she pulled open a box, a gentle smell of roses and vanilla wafting into the room as she began to pull items of clothing free, “I do believe I have it from here. You two have already helped out more than I could ever ask.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[jasmyn]

M O O D : "Good vibes only."

L O C A T I O N : Breakfast place.

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

T A G S : @gh0stwriter

Dorian had already paid for their orders and was standing off to the side with Lucky when his cousin finally decided to answer his question. Something about Josie leaving him and how he didn't win the costume contest which now that Dorian thought about it had to be rigged because come on...Dori looked damn good in that pirate costume so how did he not win?

It was the hat! It had to be. He'd handed over his contest-winning pirate hat to Jace. Dumb move but hey, maybe it had boosted Jace's confidence or something for the night. If so then it would be kinda worth it because even he knew that his best friend needed it.

Anyway, through Lucky's vague description of what he'd done last night the thing that stood out was that he was working with Ashton fucking West for the Arts Festival. Great.

Of all people in Hollywood Arts that his cousin could befriend he had somehow managed to choose Dorian's ex-girlfriend. The girl who he had dated for nearly a year and who he had honestly had a not-so-great breakup with. Granted, Lucky was unaware of all this because Dorian hadn't told him, and really, would it make a difference?

Dorian had never been the type to tell someone who they could and couldn't be friends with. Not only was it not his place but this wasn't middle school where you were like "you can't be friends with people I don't like because it's against the friend rules" or something.

Plus, he would honestly be a hypocrite because he was friends with a lot of people who didn't get along. Hell, he was now dating JJ and close friends with Gen who were notorious for not getting along most days. Who was he to ask Lucky not to be cool with Ash.

"You and Ash, huh? Sounds interesting. I mean, she's not super reliable but I guess you'll be fine as long as she decides to keep her word and perform with you," he said with a shrug.

After the lady handed them their food and drinks, Dorian motioned for Lucky to follow him out of the building. "Speaking of JJ, I said I'd meet her and bring her breakfast. It's not far," he said as they made their way down the sidewalk and in the direction of the dance studio.

After a few steps, he spoke up again, leaving the conversation about Ash in the dust (so he hoped) for the better topic of Juliette Jameson. Yes, he was proud to be dating her and even more so that she was proud to be dating him. That he didn't have to hide their relationship like it was something to be ashamed of or whatever.

"Yeah, man. I really like her. She's insanely talented, not afraid to say what she wants, and come on, she's easily one of the hottest girls at HA," he said, the goofy grin plastered on his face just as they approached their destination. He probably looked like one of those kids who hit the jackpot when they found the toy in a cereal box or something. Muffin in a bag in one hand for JJ, a coffee for each of them in tow.

He looked like your typical simp of a boyfriend. That's for sure.

DORIAN HARLOW

º º code by ditto º º

 

[natsukashii]

Corey Preston
18 || Senior || Literature

@coreyinthehouse has set their status to:
I'm Spongebob Ready

@coreyinthehouse has set their outfit to:
Coco is Pier Ready!

@coreyinthehouse has set their location to:
Apartment → Kitchen

@coreyinthehouse has mentioned:
Adri, Maddie

@coreyinthehouse has interacted with:
Maddie

@coreyinthehousehas tagged:
jasmyn Winona

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Corey couldn't tell if Maddie had caught on to how tense he was during the entire time Adriane and Gus were at their place. He had no way of telling without flat out asking her "hey do I seem tense to you?"

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. So Corey did his best to be on his best behavior. It was such a compromise for him that he went as far as to directly talk to both Gus and Adriane, with the latter being especially difficult for him because of the history and how he couldn't let it go.

Fine, Corey could probably forgive her but he just..no, he couldn't. Or wouldn't? Hell, he didn't know. The only thing he knew was that when Adriane and Gus left, he was able to relax. Not only was he able to be himself with the one person in the entire apartment who never made him feel weird or like he didn't belong, regardless if he was fully clothed or rocking a comfortable pair of sweatpants.

In the thirty minutes after their unexpected guests had left, Corey had showered and gotten dressed. It didn't take him forever to shower like it did a certain best friend of his. He only needed ten minutes to scrub everything and a tenth of that to properly dry every inch of his frame. As for outfits, Corey had simple tastes but still very much him. Aside from a pair of blue jeans that would be held tight around his waist with a brown, leather belt, Corey's choice of shirts was a black shirt with Tony Stark's arc reactor. He paired that with a Domo hat and white sneakers and Corey had his outfit squared away.

As grabbed his phone and wallet from the counter in the living room, he saw Maddie on the couch at the minute she called out to him, declaring she was ready to leave. Her comment afterward fell on deaf ears as he saw the look on her face when he saw that she saw his shirt. Corey, out of anyone in the world, knew what that look on her face meant.

Specifically, he knew what it meant for him.

"Don't give me that look, Maddie!" Corey flashed his usual dorky smile at her, the sort of carefree smile that he gave her when he tried to win her over with his adorkable cuteness. "We're going to the pier? How can I not wear one of my favorite shirts?" And by favorite, he meant one he only wore a few times out of the year and only when he knew he wasn't going to a place where he'd encounter anyone he knew — A.K.A. the pier or a beach a few towns over.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

kellian phelan

boogie on down

“S'il vous plaît soyez prudente, those books are heavier than they look!”

Kelli smiled at the girl as she helped Kelli balance herself, giving her a nod. “I got it, I got it,” she assured with a polite smile. “I’ve got those buff dancer muscles. I’m pretty much a little, uh…” She scrunched up her nose as she tried to think of a good example, and, with a laugh, she concluded, “Ox girl, so you can count on me!” She gave the best jazz hands that she could with full arms, which was just her raising her forefinger and middle finger and tapping them a couple of times on the stack.

“Oh, yeah, this place is totally huge, right?” Kelli asked, looking around. “When I moved in at the start of the year, I always kept getting lost, so my roommate had to come and find me all of the time. That was a really big help, and I think I have the handle on this place kinda now, so…” She gave her a bright smile. “I can be your sherpa, if you’ll just tell me what room you’re in.”

“Are you both alright?” came another voice, and Kelli turned her head toward the sound, a curious look on her face. The voice belonged to a boy who looked totally unfamiliar to Kelli. When she made eye contact with the stranger, she gave him a polite smile, a nod, and a quick “yep!”.

“Oui, I believe we are. The bottom fell right out of the bottom of this box,” the other girl laughed with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “She was just helping me pick everything up. It is a touch embarrassing that this is how I am starting out, but I really do appreciate the help.”

The girl’s accent made Kelli smile. It was so frickin’ dope. Even being at this school, Kelli didn’t get to hear too many different accents, and she always found them so interesting. She didn’t really think that she had one, and she definitely didn’t have one to other Californians, so it was always dope to hear something that wasn’t the same old same old. From the words that the girl was saying, Kelli gathered that she had to be French or something along those lines— dope!

“Oh, no need to be embarrassed,” Kelli giggled lightly. “The latch to one of my suitcases broke first day, too,” she said sympathetically, “so I feel your pain. And my diary was in there. I was so lucky that no one was around, oh my gosh.” She shook her head, giving a dramatic “phew”. “So there’s no need to be embarrassed. It happens to everyone at one point to another.”

A journal dropped onto the other girl’s shoe, and Kelli watched as the girl picked the book back up and then made her way toward her room, which just so happened to be just across the hall and a couple doors down from Kelli.

“This is my room just up here,” the girl explained, taking her key out and unlocking her door, and she let out a sigh and an “oh merci mon Dieu” when the door opened.

“Dope!” Kelli said, following after the girl and the boy and walking into the room.

The girl quickly rushed up to Kelli after setting her own stack on the bed, and Kelli let out a soft “oop, here” as she took them.

“Thank you for all of your help,” said the girl after she’d grabbed the things from the boy and sat those on the bed, too. She extended her hand to Kelli and the boy. “I am Bella Dupont, I start my program in the literature department this upcoming week.”

“Nice to meet you!” chirped Kelli, raising her hand to give a wave as she shook Bella’s hand.

She noticed that Bella had fixed her eyes on the boy, and now, Bella snapped her fingers, laughing softly, like she’d had a realization. “Would you happen to be Avery? I believe that we spoke very briefly online. You are another new student, oui? It will be grand not to be the only new student in the department.”

Kelli smiled over at Avery. “Oh, you’re new, too?” she asked him. “Dope, dope!”

Bella now turned to Kelli, and Kelli turned her head toward Bella to give her her attention. “I am afraid I do not think we have been acquainted yet, ‘Kelli-train’, but I am glad to have met you and your kind heart.”

Kelli felt herself blushing, and she let out a giggle, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, don’t thank me! It’s the least that I could do. You just looked like you needed help.” She gave her a smile. “It’s Kelli! I’m in dance, so if you ever need any help with that, I can help you!” Her soft voice was pumped with excitement, and she held up her hands and wiggled her fingers in something akin to jazz hands. “You never know when you might need to break out into dance, and I can help you with your choreography.” She smiled at Avery. “It’s dope to meet you both! Super dope!”

“Thank you for your help for bringing everything in, both of you,” Bella said. “Now it is time to unpack it all.”

“Unpacking!” cheered Kelli in her soft voice, and she giggled lightly.

Bella turned to her bed and started moving and adjusting the things on it. “Do not feel like you have to stay and help out,” she said as she opened one of the boxes on her bed. “I do believe I have it from here. You two have already helped out more than I could ever ask.”

“Oh, but you look like you kinda have a lot,” Kelli said, walking over to Bella to see what she was doing. “I’m not really always the most helpful person or anything, but I live just across the hall, and I’ve got some free time.” She gave her a smile. “Plus, organizing things and making them look all dope and stuff is fun to me. Would you like for me to help? It would really not be any trouble or anything.”

Kelli looked around, and the tapestry hanging beside Bella’s bed caught her attention. “Oh my gosh, I love that!” Kelli complimented. “That’s so frickin’ dope! Duuuude…that’s so dope.” Kelli’s eyes were wide with wonder. “That’s frickin' dope,” she repeated, and then she realized that she was...talking too much, and rambling too much about that.

She shook her head dismissively, looking at Bella. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized. “I just thought that was dope…uh, yeah, do you need some help? Or, like…can I help you?”

mood
helping out

location
the dorms

outfit
cute!

playing...
apple pie

by the scary jokes​

mentions
n/a

interactions
bella & avery

tags
geminiy Xed

º º code by ditto º º

 

[geminiy]

Kian Phelan

@lockandkian has set their status to:
stupid fucking picnic

@lockandkian has set their outfit to:
stupid fucking clothes

@lockandkian has set their location to:
the stupid fucking pond

@lockandkian has mentioned:
stupid fucking callum

@lockandkian has interacted with:
Oates

@lockandkian has tagged:
mogy

He shouldn’t have asked. He really, really should not have asked. Forcing the smile and feigning the interest was too hard. Everything that had transpired that day had simply snowballed into one big incredibly painful landslide. Every ounce of hope for Kian’s future with Oates, any possibility of rekindling a relationship he had longed for for years, was ripped away in an instant.

It was selfish to want Oates after all that time, selfish to think that anything good could come from a heartbreak that Kian had caused. Every relationship he had ever been in had fallen apart at Kian’s fingertips, why should he expect this one to be any different? Oates had clearly found someone that made him happy, found someone who wouldn’t distance themselves because they were afraid of losing him, someone who wouldn’t feel like they had some claim to him after over 730 days apart, someone who wouldn’t show up out of the blue and turn everything on its head. Someone infinitely better than Kian.

From the moment Callum’s name dropped from Oates’s lips, Kian felt hollow. He was hearing the words that, at one point in time were used to describe no one but him, used to describe someone that was a complete stranger to Kian. Hearing the praise, hearing how much of Oates’s heart and mind this Callum person took up, it all caused him physical pain. So, instead of listening, Kian tuned out. The noise of the world around him, everything from Oates’s smooth voice to the gentle quacking of ducks floating on the pond to a crying child on the playset, became nothing but a buzzing silence as his mind went blank, his entire thought process shutting down to protect him from the pain.

"And I kissed you yesterday because I thought he would be fine on his own and I could do something for me, but then when you left, things just went in a different direction and now I hurt you.”

A glisten on Kian’s cheek caught his own eye, a sleeve covered hand reaching up quickly to wipe the dampness away. He shouldn’t be crying, he didn’t have any reason to be hurt. Oates wasn’t exactly breaking up anything that wasn’t already there, it wasn’t like he had agreed to get back together. But then Kian was reminded of the kiss, how Oates felt against him, how synchronized they were in their movements.

"It was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I'm really really sorry Kian."

Oates was clearly done talking but Kian had nothing to say. Instead, he just turned his head away quickly to hide the thin layer of tears on his eyes, each passing blink threatening to spill down his cheeks. Kian was a crier, that much nearly everyone knew, but he didn’t want to cry in front of Oates. This wasn’t his fault, he was only doing what was best for him.

“Tell me you aren’t just getting with him to protect him.” Kian spoke suddenly, his mouth moving before his brain could catch up. “Tell me you aren’t just getting with him so you can use him as some stupid crutch because he can’t cope with his own issues by himself. Tell me you aren’t going to let him use that perfect heart of yours and then break it for no reason.”

Kian was talking nonsense, partially to fill the silence but partially to lay his feelings out on the line. Mustering up the courage to actually look at Oates, Kian peered at him over his shoulder, eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

“I know you, Oates, and I know that you’ll do anything for anyone. But that gets you hurt nearly every time. This probably won’t be any different.” Kian snapped, the harshness in his voice coming with a surprising bite. “I’m not saying this to try and get you to change your mind because you’ve made your decision. But only staying with someone because you have some fucked up desire to fix them isn’t right. It’ll only get you hurt in the end and you know it.”

Kian stood up abruptly from his prior position, feeling antsy from sitting around and listening to the conversation. He wanted to leave, to be anywhere but there with Oates. Silence fell upon the pair again as Kian shoved his hands in the front pockets of his pants, eyes watching the birds dance on the rippling surface of the pond.

“Last night,” Kian forced himself to speak, his teeth gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he paused. “Last night, was that real? Or was I just some sort of fill in the blank until Callum decided the time was right to use you?”

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:
Toast.

@Realex has set their outfit to:
Business Casual Brunchial

@Realex has interacted with:
Chas

@Realex has mentioned:
N/A

@Realex has tagged:
hery ​

“Owe you? Fine, I’ll call my great uncle in Kentucky and get you a chicken for your boring salad.”

Chas’s order and backhanded insults were taken with a roll of her eyes. “None taken. Our ice machine is completely shot, been broken since I could walk.” Granted, her father wasn’t exactly around to finally fix it and her mother was too stubborn to spend money on a refrigerator that they definitely did not need. It worked, ice bags and molds were incredibly cheaper than a whole new refrigerator.

But back to business— and pleasantries of course. “You know, prevented a few demons from infiltrating my apartment.” Given the little time she had to reply, Alejandra was shocked she even got that much out before Chas wanted to jump to what she wanted. It was probably killing him to know what her proposition was, and that’s what made it all the more worthwhile to continue to ask unnecessary questions. Plus, she wasn’t exactly sure how he’d react, it’d be a great idea for the festival for him too, so it wasn’t like this was a one way street in any way, if anything— Alex was helping Chas. She was just getting a thing or two out of it.

At least, hopefully she was.

But, she decided there wasn’t a reason to make this longer than it should. Alejandra had learned how to face acceptance— and rejection more than a few times, given her history applying for the lit department. She just… didn’t know what she was lacking.

People like Chas had gotten into Lit— that’s not to say his work was incredibly terrible, it was just…

He said it himself— he caters to what the people want, not what inspires him, he didn’t have the motivation to actually make something of himself out of the work that he created, instead he merely listens with a stethoscope to the ground and scribbles every word that comes through.

Life isn’t fair.

But that doesn’t mean fair doesn’t come up from time to time.

Alex just wanted her time to shine.

Why is that so hard to ask?

“I need the literature department to notice me this year, and… the only way I can do that and qualify for the festival, is to collaborate with someone from the department, design the sets, outfits, but all that with my writing.”

She let her words sit for a few moments, gauging his reaction barely allowing him to speak before she launched into yet another string of words.

“I’ve given this some thought. Okay? Hear me out. We could convert my play into a film. You’d get the exposure you need, don’t give me the bullshit where you don’t need it. I’m not hearing it today, just work with me here— and I’ll get the department’s attention.” It wasn’t a 100% yes, she’d get out of Chas, Alex knew that.

He was as stubborn as… her mother, she guesses anyway. It was an opportunity for them both. And it wasn’t as if Alex was just throwing his name onto the movie and directing it herself, they had similar ideas, different executions, yes, but that only made for a good pair.

Chemistry didn’t just revolve around actors.

“So? C’mon, Dickens. It’s… a win win situation.”

Well, Alex wasn’t entirely wrong.

They have nothing to lose.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[mogy]

Oates Oates
" podcasts, amirite? "

@bigO has set their status to:
i'm so sorry

@bigO has set their outfit to:
jeans, shirt, jacket


@bigO has set their location to:
park

@bigO has interacted with:
kian

mogy has mentioned:
geminiy

"Please don't cry." Oates pleaded, adding another light squeeze to Kian's hand which was rested in his own. Tears on anyone's face were always a sore sight, but those on Kian's cheek were only so much worse, not because it was somebody Oates loved, but because he couldn't do anything to make them stop. He himself would've cried hadn't tears made their way down his face not even half an hour prior. Besides, someone needed to be the emotionally stronger half of the two, and in the state he was in, the boy before Oates wasn't fit for the job.

So, instead, Oates' eyes remained comparably dry, his glare falling on the boy in front of him, eye contact not established, each careful blink nothing but a little more hope whisked away into the comfortingly cold autumn breeze: things were never going to be the same, no matter how much he fought for them to be, and that ached.

"Please don't cry, Kian," he repeated, more feeling in his voice this time, hopelessly trying to fill the chasm that was the silence that surrounded them. Previously beautiful had now been soul gripping, and it seemed as though the same could be said for their relationship, no matter how neither of them really changed throughout the two years.

If Oates realized this, though unlikely, there was a chance he would come to the understanding that it wasn't him who was hurting Kian right now, but the unfortunate turn of events, yet it wasn't a secret that he always was the one to blame himself first for anything which might have gone wrong. But then again, Kian wasn't crying in front of the turn of events; he was crying in front of Oates, who, despite his best efforts, was rendered utterly helpless in stopping the boy's tears—all being offered to Kian a mere squeeze of hands. Compared to all the kisses and embraces they once shared, it assuredly paled in comparison, but what else could Oates do?

A hug would've just been salt on a freshly made wound, becoming ultimately the same as the one he gave Callum when they decided to just remain friends; a hand on the knee was far too unknown and would've only brought both to the night before.

Only when silence settled once again was that Kian finally spoke, his tone sharp and the words that left his mouth bringing Oates' thoughts to a sudden stop.

How could he argue something which not even he knew was wrong? How could he deny the accusations if their trustworthiness had yet to be decided? Yeah, he couldn't. All he could do was just stay sitting in the same exact position, eyes almost guiltily staring into Kian's own, lips shut, twitching ever so slightly. Maybe it was because somewhere deep inside of him hid a small part of understanding that knew what Kian spoke of was exactly the reason he got back with Callum—to fix him?

Disbelief washed over Oates, but no matter how much truth some of the things Kian said contained, the almost dogmatic hope for the best that resided inside the curly-haired boy's core prompted him to just deny.

"No, I wouldn't, I–" Interrupted. No. Saved. The ending of the sentence was a mystery to both boys, and it probably was the key to understanding what it was that was fundamentally wrong with Oates and his consistent choice to get hurt by Callum over and over again. Instead, Oates' mouth shut as he looked up at the now-standing Kian.

"Please don't say that. It's not like that. I'm going to be happy with him, Kian." Some twisted feeling that reminded of hope lived in the boy's voice as he begged for Kian's accusations to stop their almost literal crushing of his soul. Had he been pleading to himself or to Kian was something left to question. "And you'll find somebody who will love you like I used to. I know it."

Distraction relevant but defeated, and the question asked next wasn't one Oates needed time to answer. "Of course it was real." He stood up, once again reaching for Kian's hand, disbelief in his voice. "I wouldn't have kissed you if I knew this would've happened. I don't want to see you in pain. I don't want you to be in pain. I'm still me, and I still care about you so so much."

º º code by dildo º [URL='https://www.rpnation.com/me

 

[geminiy]

Genevieve Johannes

@genjohanne has set their status to:
why is mike being nice to me?

@genjohanne has set their outfit to:
casual vibes

@genjohanne has set their location to:
the studio

@genjohanne has mentioned:
n/a

@genjohanne has interacted with:
Mike

@genjohanne has tagged:
ohdittoh

Gen was well aware that Mike, although a chronic asshole and an incredibly cocky son of a bitch, was a sincere professional. It was rare that Gen chose to work with people on her own accord, even rarer to choose someone that she did not 100% get along with. Normally, she would have chosen someone that she got along with, someone who would shut up and follow orders. It seemed to be that Michael Reid was an exception to both of her non-negotiable rules.

“Pretty cool? That’s a damn understatement. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Gen looked up from her laptop keyboard, her face reading pure confusion. Did he just compliment her work?

Look, Gen knew that Mike was a professional, that much was obvious, but his blatant enthusiasm came as an incredible surprise. She had expected some sort of ‘rich bitch’ joke or a jab at her creative ability or a slam to her intelligence. No blow ever came. Instead, Gen was met with an almost giddy looking partner that had seemed to have no complaints on her idea.

“Yeah, I know.” Gen cockily responded, not entirely sure how to react to such praise coming from someone who, as far as she knew, had only ever complimented the fact that she was hot. “I’ve put a decent amount of time into this, I would certainly hope that it doesn’t flop.”

“It does sound like a lot of work, but… We’re at the top for a reason. If it was easy to get here, then there would be no point in being here in the first place, would there?”

Gen was once again caught off guard. What the hell was he doing? ‘We are at the top’? Did that insinuate that he viewed her as an equal rather than an opponent? Now that, in Gen’s years of being friends with Mike, would be a complete first.

“I’m not one to back down, just because there’s some kind of difficulty. So, a small mistake onstage could fuck everything up— we just don’t fuck up. Problem solved, yeah?”

A soft laugh escaped Gen’s lips as Mike went to pull out his things from his backpack.

“If only it were that easy. The idea is amazing in theory but in practice, it may be a completely different story.” Gen mused as she moved to the rack to pull off some of the male pieces, gently splaying them out on the table. “If we can pull this off, which I have no doubt we can once we get Jared on board, there won’t even be anyone to compete with us. This is a great way to make connections, plus you’re working with a well known name in the industry. Double win for you.”

Gen fell silent as she got to work, her mind immediately taking off with the vision. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she began transferring over the costumes into the design program on the computer, her left hand typing as her right hand manipulated the fabrics so that she could get a better view of the form of the clothing.

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Gen began, flipping the digital pen around gracefully between her fingers as the tablet fired up. “We need to come up with a list of the types of power we want to represent. I’ve got a few very rough ideas but I’m happy to hear yours too. Then, we have to tailor the pieces we’re wearing, do the photo shoot with the pieces that will be projected, and then upload them so that we can figure out where we’ll need to be standing on the stage for projection.” Pausing for a moment, Gen gently laughed as she flipped to another tab on the laptop. “Not that much work, eh?”

Placing a few of the pieces back on the rack, Gen turned to Mike and placed her hands on her hips.

“What do you want to start with? We’ve got most of the projection costumes already made so it would just be to tailor them. Or we can come up with ideas. Your choice.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

MOOD: pallin' around!!!!

OUTFIT: clothes

LOCATION: park

basics

MENTIONS:
Adriane

INT:
Winona (Damien)
ohdittoh (Felix)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Javier Cervantes

He watched as Slater and Felix walked away and a single tear rolled down his cheek because he was so sad. Because he was lonely. Because no one wanted to hangout with him because he was kind of stupid and people were like "omg you're so dumb" and then Javi would be like "omg I'm not fuck you do you want pistachio ice cream" and then he'd cry alone because they would be like "I don't want your pistachio ice cream."

Javi would've cried like the little bitch baby he was, but he had business to attend to.

More drug selling, you ask?

Nay, his drug business was during morning hours only.

He had his... early afternoon business because as you might be surprised to know, drugs didn't necessarily make the cut to pay all of the bills. So Javi had had to take on a couple extra jobs to really make ends meet. And no, he didn't mean stripping.

(That was his late evening job.)

And no, he didn't mean as an escort.

(That was his nighttime job.)

No, his afternoon job was dealing.

But not drugs. Not raw maple sugar from Canada. Not switchblades or other sharp objects (Javi was notorious for cutting himself with pointy things because they were shiny and he liked to poke them). And no, not penguin dealing. Also pangolins because Gem's all "woo pangolins" or some shit.

No, his afternoon job was...

Candy dealing.

Yeah, that's right. Javi dealt that fancy fucking candy. The shit that was illegal in the United States. Them candy cigarettes. Those Kinder eggs with the fancy surprises. Some gummy worms just because those were delicious as fuck.

Also, gummy worms reminded him of his amazing cousin, Lin, and another tear rolled down his cheek as he thought about his cousin and how much he missed him and loved him and wished that they could get along and be the big happy family that they deserved to be.

Javi headed towards the playground. He looked around real quick like, but none of the suburban moms and nannies were watching, so Javi headed to the slide and climbed up into it. That's right, boys. Javi didn't even go around and go down the slide like a normal person. No, he climbed up it from the bottom, like a bad boy.

And he waited.

code by valen t.

 

[ohdittoh]

felix rian emmerson

it's all my pleasure

Felix shot Javi a quick grin, givin' him another nod. “Catch ya later, my new padre,” he said, and then he chuckled, because that was kinda a weird way to end a conversation, wasn’t it? Ya know, with the sudden assertion that they were padres.

Also— and he realized this a few hours later— compadre was what he’d meant there, anyway.

“You can probably find me on the good ol’ interwebs, if ya need me,” Felix decided to add. “You know my name…” He gave a pause, and he raised his eyebrows as he delivered the punchline: “Felix.” He gave a soft chuckle.

That was supposed to be a joke or somethin'.

With that, Felix turned to follow Damien, strollin' along at a leisurely pace behind the other boy, his charmin' grin layin’ in the same place as it always did, because it was much easier to keep on than just whip out over and over again, ya know? Sure, it kinda made him look like he had a few screws loose— the lights were on, no one was home kinda thing— but he didn’t really mind people thinkin' that all that much.

It was better that they underestimate him than overestimate him, ya know?

“So what’d you think?” came Slater’s voice, and Felix glanced over his shoulder to check if Javi was out of earshot or not. (Thankfully, he was.) “He’s kind of a fucking dumbass, am I right?”

Felix chuckled. One thing that he had to give Damien credit for every time was his bluntness.

“Uh,” Felix started, and then he chuckled again, givin' a shake of his head. “Well, ya know, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I’ve met a good amount of fuckin’ dumbasses in my day or whatever, an’ he only meets, like…three outta five of those criteria.” (Which three criteria? That was classified information.) “Dude seems to probably have some kinda somethin’ goin’ on up there, at least, ya know.” He gave a tap to his forehead at up there, which was probably kinda rich from a guy who a lot of people thought had nothin’ goin’ on up there, either. “He’s definitely a bit weird, a bit out there…but, ya know, I can surmise a few things from his general demeanor, an’…out there is a bit of a given.”

‘roids had an effect on the brain, ya know.

“I mean, I do kinda get the idea that he’s, ya know, at least a bit of a square up, let’s go-type guy to anythin’ that he interprets as havin’ crossed him,” Felix continued, “an’ I hope that he doesn’t try to fight me, because…well, I mean, I think that I could hold my own well enough, but he’s got some…well, advantages in that category.” (If you caught his drift.) “I mean, I was just tryin’ to grant him a little bit of a warnin’.” He chuckled, shakin’ his head and looking at Slater. “I mean, you know me. I’m not really threatenin’, don’t really cause no harm to nobody, ain’t really got no reason to do that…but you know, there are people like that, who appreciate people comin’ in even less than I do.” He shook his head again, frownin’ slightly, his eyebrows knittin' in pity. “I guess that he don’t really get that.”

He ran a hand through his neat hair. “Yeah, sorry for up an’ leavin' you with options like that left to pick from,” he chuckled. “I could’ve given you a better sub-in plug than one who overcharges you like that, ya know.”

mood
leavin'

location
the park

outfit
somethin’ casual (you could call if business casual. get it? ‘cuz— ...i’ll see myself out)

playing...
title track

by machine gun kelly​

mentions
n/a

interactions
javi and slater

tags
hery Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

MICHAEL K. REID

asshole supreme

“Double fuckin’ win,” Mike agreed, grinning widely.

He was fucking excited. Oh, shit, let’s all ridicule and much Michael Reid for showing any emotion besides rage and for being anything outside of a total jackass— yeah, you're fucking hilarious. But look at this from his perspective. This was a big opportunity. This idea? It could actually get him to be somewhere after graduation. Hell, he might not even have to go to college— or, if he did have to go to college, who knew? It might pay his way through it.

Point was, it was Mike’s key to a future. Sure, this was a team effort. It seemed stupid, probably, to be “relying on other people” to open up his opportunities. He fucking hated having to rely on anyone for anything, but here? He wasn’t going to be relying on anyone. Gen was cutthroat, and it was one thing that he admired from her. If he made a wrong move? If he tried to freeload? Yeah, no, he was off of this team. This was going to be a team where everything was equal. Sure, it was Gen’s idea, but Mike was going to have as big of a part in the production of this idea— not a smaller part, not a bigger part, but a part that was completely equal— as Gen herself. He wouldn’t accept anything less from himself, and he knew that Gen wouldn’t either.

So how could he help being giddy? How the fuck could he not be? This was probably one of the biggest risks of his career, but it was going to have probably the greatest reward, if he succeeded. Giddiness made him seem boyish, probably, but, fuck it, he was a boy, so let him fucking live.

Besides, Mike was a businessman at heart, and an opportunity for some career growth? It got him excited, okay? Shit like that— shit like hearing an idea that you know can get you places that you couldn’t get alone? Yeah, that was the good shit. That was the shit worth getting excited about.

This? Yeah, this was shit worth getting excited about.

Watching Gen’s motions, he set his weight on his left leg, hooking his right ankle beneath a chair to tug it out. He sat his knee in the chair, biting the cap of the pen and pressing the end of the pen into the cap, and then he positioned his hand to be ready to take some notes.

He scrawled a few things on his paper as Gen spoke, not looking at his hand. Power, tailor, shoot, upload, stage… The words, with their sporadic lettering, were written on lines and in-between them, in the hardly-legible writing of a preoccupied Mike.

Gen placed a few pieces back on the rack and turned to him, putting her hands on her hips. “What do you want to start with? We’ve got most of the projection costumes already made so it would just be to tailor them. Or we can come up with ideas. Your choice.”

“Hey, I’m game for anything,” Mike said, straightening up. Once again, he took a gander at the room, and his brows twinged together for an instant when his eyes fell on the rack.

He sat his pen down on the notebook and walked toward the rack. Silently, he pulled one outfit off— a suit with a slight collar. He held it up, running one hand along the front while his eyes studied the form of it.

“Idea,” he started. He turned to Gen with a grin. “Henry the Eighth,” he kidded lightly, and then he chuckled.

He brought the suit to the table, and he laid it out in front of him, once again putting his knee in the chair and picking up the pen. He set his face, and he grinned at Gen. “That there is just for personal inspiration,” he said. “But, yeah. I say ideas first, tailoring second, if we get to it.” He gave her a nod. His demeanor was slightly more serious than before, though still fairly casual. “You said you had ideas? Let’s hear ‘em. Once I get your vision, I can, y’know…” He held his hands up, as if he were adjusting a camera, and he gave her another one of his signature smirky grins. “…start envisioning, too.”

mood
work time

location
?? someplace bougie

outfit
polo and pants

playing...
drunk face

by machine gun kelly​

mentions
n/a

interactions
gen

tags
geminiy

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Damien Slater
"When you see my face, hope it gives you hell."

@SluttierThanThou has set their status to:
hello there

@SluttierThanThou has interacted with:
Felix, Oates, Kian

@SluttierThanThou has mentioned:
N/A

@SluttierThanThou has tagged:
ohdittoh geminiy mogy ​

Three out of five criteria was still putting Javi over the halfway mark which, in Slater's opinion, clearly labeled Javi as a certified dumbass. But hey, Slater wasn't really the argumentative type, and trying to impress his own (correct) opinions on Felix wouldn't get them anywhere. As in, Felix would just... remain as his boring, unyielding self more than likely, and any kind of discussions with the guy usually felt like the equivalent to chatting up a piece of cardboard with a lopsided smiley face drawn on it.

... Alright obviously Slater was lying because if Felix was that boring, then he wouldn't still be hanging around him. And even if it was just for the drugs, well, he could easily find a more interesting dealer without having to do much. Yes, that's right, folks, Damien... would relent... that he... kind of... almost... maybe... enjoyed hanging around with Felix and didn't find the fucker all that boring.

Maybe a bit dull sometimes.

"If he tries to fight ya," Slater interjected mid Felix giving his rundown of his opinion on Javi, "I'll take him for you. Don't you worry, buddy. I've fought guys twice the size of that fucker," he jutted a thumb back over his shoulder in Javi's direction, "so I could take him, too."

And yeah, Damien wasn't lying about that -- he had gotten into fights with guys bigger than Javi, but he left out the fact that he lost nearly all of them. And yeah, the poor guy really did think that he could take on Javi and come out victorious.

“Yeah, sorry for up an’ leavin' you with options like that left to pick from,” he chuckled. “I could’ve given you a better sub-in plug than one who overcharges you like that, ya know.”

"Ah, don't worry about it," Damien replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I got money to burn -- plus he's funny as fuck. And--"

Slater's words came to an abrupt halt as he saw, with blanket laid out and food strewn about, his ol' buddy, Kian with uhh... some other dude. Now, Damien didn't recognize the other fucker, but he was-- .... well, to be perfectly fucking honest, he was kinda cute. Not hot, but cute in like a... Carebear type of way or some shit. You know, something fucking soft that just has the uwu teddy bear energy and shit.

"Yo, it's Kian," Slater said with a lopsided grin. His hand reached out, smacking Felix in the chest, and he didn't wait before he started to approach the little picnic -- because yeah, it didn't occur to Damien that maybe he shouldn't approach. It didn't occur to Slater that this could be a date or some shit, and Damien didn't notice the tension that held strong in the air as they approached, either.

"Kiki, what's up?" Damien asked. He didn't wait a split second for a reply from either of the boys attending the picnic that was certainly nothing but a good friendly hangout. "Mind if we sit? Really? You don't care? Thanks, Kian. You're the best." Yeah, that's right, Slater spoke in such rapid fire succession that his questions -- which he found rhetorical but were certainly anything but rhetorical -- didn't get a chance to be answered.

That's how you slid your way into being people's friends. Just don't give them a chance to tell you to fuck off.

He dropped to his knees at the edge of the blanket, his dark eyes scanning the food. "Dude, you really went all out, huh?" Damien asked before he reached out, picking up a few cubes of cheese that Kian really had laid out beautifully. He popped one in his mouth, chewing and swallowing before he looked at the other guy, eyebrows furrowing together. "Who're you? I'm Slater," he dumped all of the cheese into one hand and held out his free hand to shake Oates'. "You're hot. You single?"

After shaking Oates' hand and introducing himself, Slater peered across the blanket once more, and then pointed a finger at the lemonade. "Yo, Kian, pour glasses for me and Felix, would ya?" He asked.

At his whole asking for lemonade thing, Slater seemed to remember that Felix was still with him, so he held out his handful of cubed cheese. "Want one?" He asked Felix, before again, the boy was off on a different tangent.

"Kian, I thought you had a date today. How'd that go?"

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

MOOD: ouchie necc

OUTFIT: work clothes

LOCATION: dollar store

basics

MENTIONS:
Javi

INT:
ohdittoh (Lin)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Angel Cervantes

An incredulous look swept over Angel's face as Lin insinuated the news was some big lie to reel him back in. "What!? Why would do that? You've made yourself plenty clear, a-and you know, this isn't exactly easy for me too," he reasoned, feeling small when faced with his cousin's gradually increasing frustration. Well, that and the other boy had more than a couple inches on him.

Lin's painfully apparent realization felt like a punch in the gut; Angel didn't want any of this to be true. Playing the messenger wasn't his ideal role in this scenario, especially given the recipient's proclivity for shooting him. His mouth opened ever so slightly at the early formation of a sentence, but he swiftly shut it as the wheels turned in Lin's head. At least the hard part was over. All that remained was the fallout Angel had no other choice but to bear the brunt of.

The anxiety-ridden boy gasped when Lin's hand lunged for his collar, and he would have laughed that he was being threatened by someone wearing a goofy shark hat if that someone wasn't a very furious Lin. The strained neck of his company-issued top tugged at his throat, and he could feel the fabric making red imprints into him. It was a dull, stinging pain, but Angel never did have much of a pain tolerance. He opted not to speak up, as his comfort was likely the last thing on his step-cousin's mind.

He nodded rapidly immediately as Lin asked if he was serious, as if there was much doubt in either of their minds. He didn't move a muscle, his body frozen in an eternal wait for the words that would soon follow.

For what was probably the billionth time, Angel flinched as Lin raised his voice, backing his head away once the taller boy got into his face. He held his breath, stifling the gasp trapped in his throat. "Jackass!? That's not even clever...!" he whined, the second part hardly audible under his breath.

"I-I don't know what you want me to say!" he protested as the familiar sting of tears began to stab his eyes. His face muscles tensed, unwilling to shed a single drop. "I just found out this morning. It's everywhere! Haven't you seen it?" With what little range of motion he had in his neck, Angel turned his head and pointed to a nearby magazine rack. He seemed to recall restocking it just that morning, his innocent, groggy eyes widening to plates as he saw the cover.

"I figured Javi doesn't know, 'cause he doesn't read that type of stuff, but you..." he trailed off, letting out an uneasy uhh, "You're the kid's brother, so I thought..."

At this point, Angel really wasn't sure what the right thing to say was, but it didn't seem to matter if all Lin wanted was to vent his rage onto someone. He was never the martyr type, but a part of him thought it was for the best that his cousin got this out now before speaking with Ricky. There was no way that conversation would go well, if they would have it at all. He felt for his poor uncle, who always seemed to make an effort in Lin's life when it counted... right? After all, Angel was sure Ricky was the reason Lin was there in the first place. And if Lin hadn't come at all...

Well, Angel wouldn't have had any friends early on in his high school career. Lin may have wanted to forget it, but he never let go of their times as close friends. He'd never been the social type, after all, so maybe it was just a bigger deal to Angel than it was to Lin. Or, perhaps, Lin's extreme emotional response was an indicator of his deep passion for their former friendship.

Or... none of it mattered and Lin was blinded by paternal rage. Really, he couldn't make the call and his brother wasn't exactly available for that conversation.

"If my boss finds us like this, she'll kill us both!" he pleaded, a shaky hand reaching for Lin's grasp on his shirt collar, "Besides, none of this was my idea; I'm not pregnant!"

code by valen t.

 

[ohdittoh]

LINDSAY MORGAN KAY

do it, no balls

(not really a trigger warning, but just a general warning: lin pretty much talks like a twelve-year-old bully who just learned curse words throughout, so...take that as you will)

“She’s gonna kill you?” Lindsay hissed, his grip tightening on Angel’s shirt. His voice was low but intense, his words spat through gritted teeth. His deep blue eyes were laden with fury, deep confusion, and disgust. When he spoke now, some spit sprayed from his mouth and onto Angel’s face. “That’s what’s important to you now? That’s what’s so fucking— she’s gonna kill you?” His brows knit tighter.

Angel looked fucking terrified. Like a fucking kitten. He was going to piss his fucking pants. He needed to piss his fucking pants.

Lin would fucking laugh if he did.

The little fucking titty bitch.

What kind of fucking audacity did it take for some little fucking bitch to come right up to him and say some bullshit like this and to fucking try and justify it? What the fuck kind of—

“She can’t fucking kill you,” Lin growled darkly, “if I fucking kill you first, you fucking bitch!”

With that, Lin tightened his grip further on Angel’s collar, his knuckles whitening, and he gave him a solid slam! into the shelf behind them. There was a rattle as the metal of the shelf hit the back of his knee, and several of the hanging contents on the shelf behind them clattered and fell off, either onto the floor, onto Angel, or onto the shelf. A bottle of bubbles fell at Lin’s feet, but Lin’s eyes didn’t flinch away from Angel’s for a moment. The lines beside Lin’s nose were deep with disgust.

“Listen here, you fuck.” Lin’s voice was unlike him and had a tone that only a select few ever got to hear. His voice contained a barely-contained rage, a vitriol that was hardly able to be kept from overflowing. He was serious. Something had really struck a fucking nerve with him— no fucking duh. His gaze was that of someone out for blood. His clenched white teeth seemed to glint with a nearly predatory light. He gave a sharp laugh.

Lin could see himself reflected in Angel’s glassy, terrified eyes. “Oh, you’re gonna cry?” he hissed. “You’re gonna fucking cry— you’re gonna cry? Cry then, bitch!” Lin gave Angel another jolt. “Cry your fucking eyeballs out! Do it, no balls, you fucking shit!” He gave him another shove backward, and the things behind them rattled again. A package of clearance Barbie clothes fell off this time. “No fucking balls. Cry, you fucking— pussy!” Lin gave Angel one last shake, and then he shoved him backward as he released his grip.

Lin’s eyes trailed from Angel to the magazine rack that the boy had gestured to, and he balled his fist around his thumb to pop his knuckle as he stared at the covers for a moment, taking a step away from Angel. Lin’s cheeks were a dark red. His brows unknit slightly, downturning.

There, on nearly every cover of the magazines on the top row, was his father’s face. How he’d missed it to fucking start with, Lin didn’t fucking know. He was the fucking worst at fucking being aware of where the fuck he was. Fucking spacial awareness was fucking dumb and took too much fucking effort, so he didn’t pay any fucking attention.

His dad looked just as much like his fucking dad as ever, which meant like just as much of a fucking bastard as ever. Ricky’s striking blue eyes smiled into the camera lens, and the anger that boiled in Lin’s chest burned at his throat.

Lin reached up to adjust his shark hat, and he walked closer to the rack. His steps were almost hesitant, for whatever fucking reason. He wasn’t fucking scared— Lindsay Kay didn’t get fucking scared. There was just something that felt so fucking…so fucking gross and so fucking wrong about this. This kind of shit wasn’t supposed to happen. This kind of shit wasn’t supposed to happen.

Who the fuck found out from fucking gossip magazines that they were going to be having a fucking sibling?

Lin reached out to grab a magazine, but his hand stopped short of grasping the spine.

Had he not come to this fucking store where his fucking ex-best-friend-turned-cousin conveniently fucking started working for some fucking reason on this fucking day at this convenient fucking time, who knew how Lin would’ve found out about this pregnancy. Probably from targeted Twitter ad or some shit. Maybe from someone at school or something.

But there was something about seeing it in print on a magazine that just made Lin feel like tossing himself on the floor and throwing a fucking tantrum.

It felt gross. It felt wrong.

Lin didn’t even want to fucking touch this shit.

“Westborne Pregnancy!” he started, in a voice loud enough for Angel to hear. “They thought that it was fucking good enough to put in the fucking big print, eh?” he said. His voice was still rife with that barely-contained rage. “Paps were shitting themselves and jizzing their fucking jeans at this.” He glanced up at Angel. “Bet you did, too.” He looked back at his dad’s and his dad’s wife’s faces on the cover of the magazine. Their shoulders were covered up with varying photos and fonts, and their chests were covered with the headline, in bold and yellow. “He’s some big name shit, eh? Popular fucking bastard. The slut has his big blue eyes printed all over the tabloids, standing right next to the fuck who married him.” He gave a shake of his head and a soft, scoff-ish laugh as his eyes found the title of the magazine. “This is what passes for fucking entertainment, eh? Entertainment Central Exclusive, eh? That’s— oh, yeah, it’s so fucking entertaining!”

Scowling, he snatched up the magazine.

“The fucking bastard doesn’t give a flying fuck about…,” Lin started, but he trailed off as he stared at the cover of the magazine.

The longer he stared at it, the fucking angrier he grew. This was fucking bullshit— this was fucking bullshit.

The fucking bastard doesn’t give a flying fucking about his son or the woman he fucking abandoned to take care of him while he was off living the fucking high life in the Bahamas and whoring it up with girls he didn’t know the fucking names of. Couldn’t even be bothered to pay child support or show up to fucking court, but tossed hundreds at the fucking strippers all night because he had fucking money to burn.

Lin’s scowl darkened with deeper disgust. “Won't do shit. Won't do fucking shit. But he’ll go and put a ring on some girl who sucks his dick for free on one off night at his forgotten son’s performance— or whatever-the-hell-he-thinks-I-am, because he doesn’t see me as a son, that’s for damn fucking sure— knock her up, and then parade the kid around before it’s even born and not have a fucking care in the whole fucking world,” he scoffed. He looked at Angel. “No fucking second thoughts. You think he fucking ever fucking thought of me? You fucking ever think that, you fucking kissass?" The flames behind Lin’s voice rose every second, and now, he walked up to Angel. “Look at this shit!” he laughed in disbelief. “Look at—“ He cut himself off to open the cover and start fanning the pages, looking between the shiny paper and his cousin. “Look at this shit!” He laughed, but not because the shit was funny— just because it was so fucking disgusting that he didn’t know what else to do. ”Do you think that he sold this shit to the tabloids for early access?” He laughed again, and then he paused. His face sunk into anger again. “Do you? Do you actually think he did that?”

The thought made his throat hot again. He felt fucking nauseated again. Spinny world, uneven feet, the whole fucking shebang.

“I fucking wonder what the fucking shiterview looks like,” he said, his voice furious as he looked to Angel. His words weren’t to Angel, and his anger was only at Angel because he was the one in front of him. “’Look at the kid I actually fucking wanted. We can forget about the other one now’? You think that’s the shit that he was saying? You think that that was what he told them? You think he even fucking thought about— or— fuck!” Lin wasn’t even looking at the pages, but he slammed the magazine shut, and he threw it at Angel’s face. “I bet the fucking bastard didn’t think of me a fucking second— a fucking millisecond. I never fucking crossed that fucking bastard’s mind.”

His eyes burned as they flicked away from Angel, and he grabbed the first thing that he saw— a large, purple bottle of bubble juice— and threw it at the floor.

As soon as it hit the floor, it gave a POP!, and the lid came off. A part of the seal came unattached, and the juice began to spill out of bottle and onto the floor.

Lin kicked it hard, scowling. “Fuck!” he hissed, and he looked at Angel. He pointed to the bottle. “Clean that shit up, bitch.” His lips curled into what might have seemed like a smile but what was more of a sneer of disgust. “It’s your fucking mess now— you’re the one who fucking came up to me in the first place, and that shit is on you.” He picked up the magazine at Angel’s feet, and, when he stood up, he smacked it against Angel’s cheek. “All that shit is on you. All this shit. All of this fucking shit. You fucking get it?” He brought his free hand up to tap the center of Angel’s forehead hard with each of his following words: “It’s. Your. Fucking. Fault.” He gripped his collar with his hand now, his grip tightening, his face closing in, and his teeth clenching tighter with each word. “You. Fucking. Waste. Of. Fucking. Everything. You. Fucking. Miserable. Nobody. You. Fucking…fucking—“ His voice cracked, and he stopped his grip’s tightening, his closing in, and his teeth’s clenching.

Angel looked fucking terrified. But it was fucking Angel.

It wasn’t his dad. It wasn’t Ricky.

Lin’s grip loosened, and his face softened. “God…,” he muttered. “Fuck…” He took a step back. “Shit…” He let go of Angel’s collar. “Fuck…” He put a hand to his forehead, seeming to have suddenly lost his interest in Angel and lost his energy altogether. The world around him was spinning again, and the ground beneath him was trying to make him trip or something. He leaned against the shelf behind himself to steady himself for a moment, closing his eyes and trying to breathe—

But Lin was never any fucking good at sitting still.

He opened his eyes after a moment, bending down to pick up the bubbles silently. The juice got all over his hands, and his brows flicked to furrow but seemed to decide against it. He stared at the bottle for a moment, not saying or doing anything.

Lin was never really good with taking sudden news. He usually stammered and stuttered and couldn’t think.

And now, he could talk and shit, but…he couldn’t fucking think.

None of this made sense. None of it was…none of it was really fucking registering.

He had a fucking sibling on the way?

Fuck.

“Fucking…waste,” he said at the bottle, and then he threw it down again. It bounced this time due to the fact that it was mostly devoid of its contents, and Lin watched it bound and echo halfway down the aisle.

He then turned his attention to the magazine, which he now bent to pick up. It had landed on some of the cover and on some of its pages and mostly face down, and now half of the cover and most of the pages at the start were wetted with bubble juice.

He opened it calmly to the table of contents, and he scanned for the title of the article that was probably the one that he was looking for: Westborne Announces Pregnancy. Page 49. He turned to the page slowly, and, when he reached it, he moved to hold the magazine in both hands and out from himself. He stared at it for a moment, studying the forms of the words and the colors and the picture and the people but not taking any information in. Then, finally, he started to read.

When he began, his voice was abruptly calm and casual, and there was no apparent anger behind it. “Frederic 'Ricky' Westborne, age 45, in an exclusive interview with ECE this morning—…” He cut himself off abruptly, and a slow grin spread across his face. He glanced up at Angel. “Heh, they really get the fucking tabloids out quick now, eh? It says this morning— you think that’s really the truth, or do you think he gave it to ‘em last night or som’n’?” He paused for a moment, and then he gave a shrug. “Guess it doesn’t fucking matter. Didn’t get to me in the first place, so.” He gave a sharp laugh that, for a moment, betrayed the contempt that he obviously still held. “But I never fucking realized how dedicated the little fucking gossiping life-ruining money-grubbing leg-humpers were to their fucking pitiful craft. You almost have to fucking admire it…” His grin faded slightly, and he stared at the page for a moment, blinking. “Fuck,” he muttered.

He searched for the place that he’d left off before, and he continued. “— ECE this morning proclaimed proudly that wife of nearly two years, Isabella Cervantes-Westborne, is pregnant with the couple’s first child. Westborne…” He trailed off, his expression growing blank for a moment. He grinned slowly, and he chuckled. He gave his head a shake. “Ha,” he laughed, and then he stared once again. “W-Westborne, well-known for his many awards including an Oscar for his performance as Joseph Ontario in "Jupiter, Home”…” He trailed off, and there were soft sounds of struggle. It seemed like it was taking more effort to read this article than his tone let on. “…addressed the public in an interview with Now Now! last week about rumors pertaining to his new role in…fuck, no one fucking cares.”

His started to scan the pages, nodding and babbling nonsense syllables. “…nnd-d-d-d…fucking blah…the…ab-da-d-d…” Finally, he seemed to find something worth reading, and he started making sense again. “…Westborne, who has one son, Lindsay Kay, from a previous relationship—…” He cut himself off, and, for a long moment, he said nothing.

Then, after what seemed like forever, in the tense silence, Lin gave:

“Luhmao.”

It was full of hurt and disbelief. It sounded labored, breathy— pained.

His eyes didn’t look up at Angel. Instead, they stared right at the picture of his father included in the article. “He fucking named— well, they...they fucking named me.” He gave a soft laugh of disbelief. His voice was soft, and his brows were low. “They fucking named me. I didn’t know shit about this, and my name’s in the fucking article.” He gave another soft laugh. “The fucking audacity. The fuck…” His voice sounded like it was close to breaking, but he didn’t lift his head to allow Angel to see his expression. He swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, and he tried to start talking again several times before he actually did.

“…relationship…,” Lin continued, trying to sound casual over all of the hurt, “h-has remarked his…elation for…the oncoming arrival of his first…of his first daughter. He says that he hopes everyone will…will support him and his wife in the journey of this pregnancy. When asked about the name of the baby, Westborne chuckled and remarked, ‘You’ll know in time. Good things come to those…who…wait.’”

For a long moment, he stared at the magazine in his hand. His eyes went from the picture of his dad, smiling for the cameras, to the quotes included.

His fucking elation for the baby that Lin had no fucking idea about, in the fucking slightest.

The fucking whore’s casual attitude. He fucking talked with all of the fucking confidence in the fucking world.

The fact that the fuck was having another fucking kid when he barely had anything to fucking do with his motherfucking son in the first place.

He didn’t fucking say a motherfucking word to Lin. Didn’t make a fucking peep.

Lin’s anger grew by the second. His throat felt like it was on fire. His grip tightened on the magazine, and the spine gave a soft crack as a firm bend was put into it. His teeth were clenched so tightly that they threatened to shatter. His face was growing red again.

His dad stared back at him, smiling—

Mocking him.

“Bullshit!” Lin hissed through his teeth, and he threw the magazine down.

When he looked up at Angel, his eyes were full of that primal anger again. His eyes were visibly teary and red with stress. He balled his fists up.

He stared at Angel, face full of anger. His gaze read only one thing:

Blind. Fucking. Rage.

In the next moment, Lin rushed Angel, grabbing his shirt again and slamming him against the shelf. It gave another rattle, but nothing feel off this time.

He started to say a million things— started to yell, started to scream, startled to throttle him— but none of them actually came out. He couldn’t say shit, couldn’t find his words.

He had the look of a vicious dog trapped in a cage—

Because that was pretty much him. He couldn’t do shit to help his situation. He was angry, and he was terrified, and he couldn’t get the fuck out of here.

His face began to sink, his wet eyes threatening to leak, and his posture sagged, his grip loosening. His lips downturned, and his brows downturned. He let go of Angel’s collar, and Lin turned away, rubbing a fist across his eyes.

He took a step away from Angel and adjusted his hat, sure that the bubbles were beneath there.

He cast his eyes to the floor, sinking his shoulders. There was the path of his destruction: a half-empty bottle of bubbles, a wet magazine, and a soggy box of Barbie clothes.

Lin kicked at the pink box of cheaply-produced clothes as he passed, not even looking back at Angel as he exited the aisle and found his way to Zeph.

He stopped and lifted his eyes to look up at his tall friend, and then he grimaced and looked away from him. The florescent lights in the ceiling had glared at Lin through his tears and made his eyes water even more.

Fuck. Lin wasn’t going to fucking cry over some fucking bullshit like that. Lin wasn’t going to fucking cry.

Lin was not going to fucking cry.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes while walking past Zeph, and he mumbled a barely-intelligible “c’mon, Zeph” as he made his way down the aisle and headed straight for the exit, several bottles of bubbles safely and discreetly secured beneath his bright blue shark hat.

mood
...fuck

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

 

[hery]

MOOD: #sad

OUTFIT: work clothes

LOCATION: dollar store

basics

MENTIONS:
Javi

INT:
ohdittoh (Lin)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Angel Cervantes

Angel grimaced as flecks of Lin's spit hit his face, and it served as enough of a distraction from his harsh words to avoid any bladder malfunctions. Now, Angel was a very sensitive, meek boy, but he was in no way a bedwetter. Or a work uniform-wetter. Yes, since he was little he was the worst at concealing his emotional reactions, wearing his piss baby heart on his sleeve. Thankfully, "piss baby" was one of the names Javi refrained from shouting at him over the years, but after being the smallest, most cowardly guy in most settings, he got used to being the baby. That was unfair in itself, as many people failed to recognize that Angel was a whole sixteen years old—just seven months younger than his much more imposing cousin, Lin, for example.

"W-well, yeah, I care about my job..." Angel remarked matter-of-factly, preemptively wincing if his words were too out of line for the pissed-off boy grabbing him by the collar. And that wasn't to say the shorter boy wasn't capable of putting up a fight; he was a loser and more anxiety-ridden than this situation called for, but he wasn't all that weak in terms of physical strength, stature aside. He had his early days of activity Javier to thank for that, granted he was probably like twelve and severely inattentive to actual fitness knowledge at the time.

Despite the discomfort around his neck and the horrifying premonition of a ripped collar, Angel made no moves. His arms went limp as he retracted his hand from Lin's wrist in fear of setting him off more. The sensation of being restrained began to lessen, until Angel could hardly feel anything at all. He could vaguely pick up various words like "fuck" and "kill" and "bitch", however none of it seemed to piece itself into a coherent thought.

In a discombobulated daze, he almost started forgetting the immediate altercation he was at the very epicenter of. Lin's hissing and scowling ebbed and flowed throughout Angel's consciousness, seizing his grip on reality as the volume of the boy's voice vacillated.

In one fell swoop, Lin slamming Angel into the shelf seemed to do the trick in returning the distant boy's spatial awareness. A throbbing pain shot up his upper back and the back of his left knee. Bottles of bubbles and various playthings rained atop his head, making raucous thuds as they hit the ground. His heart rate began to pick up yet again, sending a wave of panic over his face. He looked down, to the side, then back up at Lin, silently begging for a merciful conclusion to the eternal nightmare of no more than a few minutes occupying his consciousness.

He grunted pathetically, trembling ever so slightly in fear of the things Lin would say. The shoving and grabbing Angel could manage, but the contemptuous sneers his cousin bestowed upon him sent chills down his spine.

"I'm listening!" he yelped with a voice so strained one would wonder if a phantom had twisted an arm behind his back. He hesitantly met Lin's fierce gaze, his watery eyes locked on and captive by the harsh aura emanating off of him. Angel's terror permeated through the air, hanging like a dense fog in the area surrounding him.

Or maybe it was the odor of his cold sweats.

He desperately struggled to rein in the water pushing past his eyes, which he valiantly prevented from giving way into salty, shameful streams across his cheek. His cheeks were a scarlet red, but god damn it the tears never came. Lin could laugh in his face, and all he'd ever give the boy was that blank, dumbstruck "deer in the headlights" look devoid of any real tears. Angel was an emotional kid, but he had an ounce of sense to reserve the satisfaction of maintaining some form of dignity.

"I'm not gonna cry!" he protested perfervidly, thrown into action by another violent shake. His head was spinning, and he would have retreated into his mind if it wasn't for the rough treatment he was getting from Lin. With wet eyes, he gritted his teeth and shut his lips tight to mask his quivering lip.

He was scared shitless, at a loss for what the appropriate response was to Lin's unfettered, misdirected rage. He could offer no solution, instead bound by his fight or flight reflex. The entire time, Angel felt like he was in flight mode despite being physically trapped in place. Even if Lin hadn't cornered him in the aisle, his feet seemed to weigh two tons.

"Ah—stop!" the trembling boy cried as his entire body was rammed once more into the shelf behind him, knocking the dam he'd focused so hard to construct in his tear ducts. As it gave way, a minute amount of tears escaped his eyeballs, running down his cheeks like crystalline specks. He defensively raised a hand and turned his head to the side, mortified over what was happening. Where was Zeph? Where was the manager? How much time had even passed since Lin first grabbed his collar? Logically, Angel knew it couldn't have been that long, but he couldn't help wishing upon a star for it all to suddenly end. Even if his silence and inaction may have prolonged the ordeal, he felt truly helpless against Lin. Either way, the boy was going to release the anger he'd harbored so long.

Slowly, he lowered his hands and turned his head to peer at Lin, who had thankfully moved on to inspecting the magazine rack Angel had pointed out in the first place. It took a few moments to move at all, as the shock of what had just happened left him unwilling to move a muscle. As his shaky hands reached to the ground for the mess they'd made, Angel jerked upright. Lin had said something—he seemed to be reading off the cover of that magazine. The one featuring none other than Ricky and Isabella Cervantes-Westborne, as though it wasn't one of many publications reporting on the same interview.

For a second, Angel had forgotten he was allowed to speak at all. He was surprised to hear Lin addressing him so casually after what had just happened. He moved no more than an inch closer to the boy, then cleared his throat to speak. "They'll report on anything, I guess," he replied with a sigh, rubbing his arm, "And if you mean I was shitting and... that-ing myself over the news, I mean, of course I was surprised." He bit his lip. "Doesn't mean I'm over the moon about it. I still don't really know... what to think, honestly."

He knew what Lin was trying to say. From the beginning, he was painfully aware of the split between the members of their conjoined families. As in, Lin vs. Javi vs. everyone else, and Angel just so happened to be everyone else. He hadn't taken the union as poorly as his similarly-aged family members, but he hadn't taken it much at all in all honesty. Two years ago to this day he still wasn't sure what to make of it all. He supposed Lin resented him for not blowing up the same way he did.

Those famous blue eyes of Ricky's Lin mentioned... didn't he know they shared the same pair? In fact, it seemed the young son failed to realize his own superficiality. Minus the promiscuity, Lin didn't seem all that different to his father in Angel's eyes. Of course, he dared not divulge any of this thinking to the boy, as he valued his life to somewhat of a high degree. "That's... harsh," he commented between another one of Lin's vehement insults toward his father, Angel's uncle.

As if he couldn't be any more shaken, Angel's eyes widened to plates as Lin began to degrade his own aunt. He gasped for air, his voice sputtering with no indication of how in the hell he was supposed to respond to that. "She's not like that!" he squeaked, instinctively tensing and shrinking down as he dared defy his cousin's tirade, "A-and I'm not like that. It's not fair to call me a kissass..." All he could ever get out was a few words edgewise—not that he hadn't been given the opportunity. Every moment just felt like the worst time to interject, and he began to wonder if Lin was waiting for the right time to throw him into the shelf again. He was like a viper, patrolling around Angel until he lowered his guard, constricting his neck and squeezing the life and courage right out of him.

"I don't know if he did that—selling his story. Why does it matter? It's their business..." he reasoned, "...and their love life." He knew he'd get it for that one, but it was true. Angel had no interest in meddling in his family's affairs, especially if it was to question a feeling as strong as love. What did Lin know? What did anyone know about what was right? The more they discussed it, the less he realized he could comprehend about his own personal relationships, especially how quickly they fall apart. It hardly took any time at all for Lin to turn his back on him, even if he insisted everyone else had done the same to him. It wasn't ironic, it was just sad.

"You don't know that," he argued, his tone urging and desperate, "You don't know what any of this means! If you hate him so much, why do you care if he's thinking of you!? You're just going to hate him forever, right? So what is anyone supposed to do?" He trudged closer, his hands raising from slightly above his waist as a defensive reflex. "You can't know exactly what someone's thinking. You don't. Know." Immediately, the magazine ended up in his face, slapping him before plopping onto his feet. Even Lin's dramatic abuse of the bubble bottle didn't phase him, and Angel found himself disturbingly at ease when he didn't flinch over the sudden movement. All he saw was a sad puddle in front of him, which he'd inevitably have to clean up and explain to his co-workers. He frowned disappointedly at his emotional time bomb of a cousin.

The retail worker's head hung low, his eyes fixed onto the ground as Lin moved on to berate him again. He nodded bashfully at his command, knowing full well that he probably would end up mopping the area. His sullen eyes darted away from Lin's gaze just in time to be thwacked by the magazine again. He made no move to dodge it, burying himself in the shame being piled on top of him.

His teary cheeks burned bright red again, and he shut his eyes with Lin's hand around his collar and their faces close together. Nobody. Miserable. Waste of space. He nodded vigorously, his glued-shut eyes involuntarily leaking a second round of tears. He nodded over and over and over until he could barely trace what Lin was saying and his rampant emotions ran numb. He didn't know how else to describe his shame other than bad, but at the very least he wasn't disagreeing with Lin anymore.

Every insult he piled on, Angel accepted with another nod, even if he could hardly tell his words from garbled radio chatter. He didn't return for a good while, long after Lin had drawn away and fumbled with the spilled soap. He peeked his eyes open, finally returning to himself in time to witness the bottle being defeatedly dropped onto the ground. He looked up at his cousin, feeling sorry for him. Even after everything, all he could feel was pity for the broken boy who had nowhere to direct his unhappiness than Angel. "I'm sorry..." he murmured, as though that would do anything.

All he could do was watch the boy with a quizzical yet blank stare as he recited the infamous magazine pages, unsure whether to call someone over how much Lin seemed to be losing his grasp on reality.

...Luhmao?

Angel gasped as Lin tore his eyes from the magazine and lunged directly at him, and he was surprised to find his heart continued beating after the split second it stopped out of surprise. At the angle he was slammed, his head hit the rack and all he could do was groan with agony as that familiar shouting flooded back into his ears. Except, it was silent, and Angel hadn't even had the chance to check out of the real world. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes to view Lin breathing shallow breaths, staring right back at him. Nothing could pull him from his volcanic, volatile rampage.

And, as quickly as he'd shifted energies, Lin was gone, leaving Angel to sink onto the ground by himself. He held his head in his hands, waiting for an eon before he picked up that Zeph and Lin were gone. He finally got up, his face reddened and wet after a rather unpleasant ugly cry. He headed over to the front counter to explain things sheepishly to the cashier, insisting the two other boys had tripped and fallen and that Angel would clean up right away.

He denied knowing them, and to be quite frank, he didn't feel like he was really lying.

"I'm taking my ten minutes," he mumbled before sauntering off to the bathroom, sniffling and sulking like a child looking for their lost pet cat.

He really, really needed a break.

code by valen t.

 

[hery]

MOOD: lollll no

OUTFIT: clothes

LOCATION: BILLY BOB'S BIG BOPPER EMPORIUM

basics

MENTIONS:
n/a

INT:
Soap (Alex)

tags

TL;DR no

tl;dr

Chas Marino

"My salad is healthy! Not like whatever garbage you're shoveling into your mouth," Chas snapped, taking a generous sip of his coffee and making intense eye contact with the girl across from him. He was going to need the energy boost if he was going to battle the headaches this hard-headed princess was surely preparing to give him. Not only that, but it would also combat any potential headaches from caffeine withdrawal. It was a win-win, and Chas wondered just why people still weren't feeding their babies coffee. Chas had French roast all the time as a child and we all know how perfectly he grew up. Sophistication at its finest.

He let out a snort when Alex regaled him about her ice machine—or lack thereof—and immediately blushed following the realization that his mouth and nose just made an incredibly odd sound. He cleared his throat and listened to the rest of what she had to say, idly stirring his coffee and matching her intense gaze with ease. "Demons? Wouldn't be surprised considering how badly H.A. needs an exorcism," he quipped playfully, "I could have sworn I saw Evie convulsing just the other day while she was chatting up Nate. You think the demon travels through dysfunctional penises?" He smiled, satisfied with himself. "Or maybe it's intravenous," he added with a wink.

Chas narrowed his eyes suspiciously as Alex began her proposition, holding his chin between his thumb and index finger like a certain famous statue. "Didn't peg Miss Eats-Alone-At-Lunch as much of a collaborator," the snappily-dressed boy teased, thinking up a hundred scenarios just how he could play into this. He instantly knew the gist what she was getting at, and the prospect of combining his own writing with anyone else's shoddy amateurism was a practical nightmare. Feigning partial ignorance, he nodded so as to urge the model to continue.

"Slow down there, Barbie. You're a playwright, not a movie director," Chas countered, shaking his head, "You're in way over your head. And you're terrible at admitting to it." That being said, he did find a small sense of intrigue at the idea of pulling something like this. Chas himself hadn't heard of much precedent for it, so it honestly sounded like it could end horribly. On the flip side... its unprecedented nature would be great for exposure.

Even so, it was just impractical and poorly thought-out. Chas was expected to work with that trite stack of words on jumbled lines? Last time he edited it, his critiques practically totaled more than the play's actual word count. Alex clearly had no experience writing for real executives, and it just so happened that real executives would be looking at their work sometime in the future.

"And how, exactly, does this really benefit me? Feels like you're getting this much out of it..." Chas showed about four feet of space by raising his hand. "...and I'm getting this much. That's a poor return on my investment." He then showed about an inch of space with his fingers. "Besides, how do you know I don't already have something planned? You know my creative genius goes a mile a minute."

No, he didn't have anything in mind already, but Alex couldn't have known that. The past fruitless week spent brainstorming terrible ideas had left Chas painfully uninspired, but no matter what he promised not to resort to something lazy, especially for his senior year. No... another Star Wars ripoff wasn't going to cut it this year, not even satire. Spaceballs already did that.

"I'm sorry, Alex, you know I try to keep an open mind, but this is just ridiculous. What do you have that I don't?"

Chas had everything to lose.

code by valen t.

 

[Xed]

Dalton idly watched as Adriane propped herself on the couch and sorted through the makeup products, a lazy smile on his face as he soaked in the comfort of the coach. His Chasness was many things but that money certainly did come in handy for picking out comfortable furniture. Well his parents' money. He glanced through his phone messages, making sure to mute his parents as Adriane spoke beside him.

"Kind of you, JJ can throw as many fits as she wants -- she's not kicking you out, although I'm sure your presence will be enough for her to bitch about later given that Chas and I told her she wasn't allowed to have her boyfriend over. "

Kind, the word amused him and he couldn't help but wonder how many people in this school would scoff or gag to hear that word used on him. After all, he was scum of the earth, dickhead, asshole, jerk, everything wrong with the world. He might give everyone a heart attack or something if he ever started to be kind or nice, or any of those wonderful little virtues. As entertaining as it would be to see their reactions however, he had no plans to act out of character, ever. He was very comfortable as an asshole, yes, he was. It suited him like it was his own skin, just the way he was meant to be, just as that woman had said.

Dalton chased the unpleasant thought from his mind before it could fully form and turned his attention back to Adriane. He had caught bits of her sentence, something about dealing with Chas being like arguing with a child – which was spot on and made him smirk – and boyfriends. He could never understand the appeal of the whole relationship thing, it was no different from just hooking up except that with hook ups you didn't have all the stupid problems and headaches that came with being attached. No need to bend over backwards to please someone and try to keep them happy just so they might stick around and give you the time of day, when with hook ups you could enjoy the pleasure of their company just the same without doing all that? Of course that was provided you chose your hook up partner correctly of course, and so far, aside from one stupid mistake in his youth, he hadn't chosen wrongly.

He wasn't surprised that Chas was attached but hearing that JJ had a boyfriend was amusing to say the least. He did a mental rundown of the possible candidates in his head but stopped soon after. Too much effort. He'd find out soon enough anyways, unless they broke up in the next couple of hours, which wouldn't surprise him. Dalton listened as Adriane, shared bits of what happened while he was away and he filtered the information to see if there was anything important to take note.

"Evie is a bitch and slept with Amy's boyfriend like the whore she is," Typical Sinclaire.

"and then she punched me at the festival." Dalton cocked an eyebrow as he glanced at Adriane, doing a short scan for bruises. He supposed this was the part where he ought to get all heated and vow to get back at Evie for hurting Adriane, but that wasn't his style and he wasn't that kind of friend. He was close to Adriane, in more ways than one, but that was only as close as he would let people get, and honestly there wasn't anyone he would go and get back at someone for on his own initiative, except himself. In any case this was Adriane, if she wanted him to do something, she would have said it and she had probably already gotten back at her already if she wanted to.

"Nickie is also a conniving little simp and I hope she gets run over by a truck or whatever. " So nothing new on that front as well.

"Oh, and Chas got attacked by that uhh... a little blonde, and lost a tooth. The video was circulating for a while, maybe you saw it, but it was hilarious."
That wasn't important either, but it was definitely hilarious. 5 foot tall Howell – he couldn't be wrong there, there wasn't anyone else at this school that was little and blonde and would attack Chas Marino – attacking His Chasness and knocking out a tooth. He had to see that video if only to get a good laugh out of it.

"Not much," She finished. He concurred with her conclusion, definitely not much at all. In fact, if you asked him, it was just the usual. There was probably stuff she had missed out but then again, from what she had told him so far it was unlikely to be of any significance.

"His Chasness losing a tooth and to dwarf sized Howell of all people. What I would have given to see that in person, unfortunately I haven't seen the video either" He shook his head slightly, smirking at the thought, "but other than that it seems I haven't missed much at all." Not that he would have really cared if he did. Yeah he had asked and wanted to know what happened but that was to see if there had been anything important, which there wasn't. Caring about such things wasn't his thing, usually he'd just sit on the sides and chip in verbally because he was bored.

"I'm surprised Sinclaire even knew how to throw a punch but looks like someone didn't pay enough attention during 'How to punch 101' or you did one hell of a job on makeup. Either way I see no signs, you still look good." What? He was an asshole. This was as close to showing concern as it would get from him, if you could even call it concern. Speaking of Sinclaire, that reminded him of Twitter and the ice cream talk. He wasn't a fan of sweet stuff but since he said all that on Twitter he might as well do it, besides if there was any ice cream in the house, it probably belonged to JJ or His Chasness and ticking either of them off would be a fun little bonus. That and it had been too long since he raided their fridge. He rose from the seat and headed over to the fridge, searching through the compartments he had familiarised himself with whenever he came over, which was definitely more often than either of Adriane's roommates liked.

Bingo. He plucked a tub of rocky road where it had been carefully hidden – but not well hidden enough – inside the freezer, and shut the door as he retrieved a spoon and returned to the couch. "Want some?" He offered Adriane as he snapped a quick photo to post on the gram so that JJ and Chas would know who it was that ate their ice cream – yes I know, weird thing to claim credit for but if he had his brain wired normally he probably wouldn't be such an asshole – then helped himself to a scoop. As expected it was sweet but thankfully not so sweet that it made him want to gag and spit it into the sink. Now the question was, how much of it he ought to eat to annoy whoever it belonged to. Perhaps he ought to just eat all of it or half. Whatever, he had time, he could decide later. After all Adriane had said no one was kicking him out of here, and even if she hadn't said that, he would love to see either of her roommates try, JJ definitely had a better shot than Chas but there was no doubt in his mind that they wouldn't succeed. He was a big guy and he had plenty of fights under his belt, even if the last one had been a while back with a stupid scrawny brat who let's face it, never actually stood a chance.

Dalton Kirby

mood:
Take me back to Hawaii

outfit:
blue t-shirt and jeans with sneakers

location:
Bitch Manor

mentions:
Adriane, Chas, JJ, Evie, Charlie

interactions:
Adriane

tags:
Winona Soap hery

º º code by ditto º º

 

[geminiy]

Kian Phelan

@lockandkian has set their status to:
fuck life, get me fucked up

@lockandkian has set their outfit to:
stupid fucking clothes

@lockandkian has set their location to:
outside the park

@lockandkian has mentioned:
callum

@lockandkian has interacted with:
oates, felix, damien

@lockandkian has tagged:
mogy ohdittoh Winona

“Please don’t cry, Kian.”

Oates’ words rang out inside Kian’s skull, reverberating off of each hollow corner of his mind. What the fuck else was he supposed to do? Be happy that he was entirely getting fucked over yet again? Would Oates be content if he stopped his emotions from flowing? Maybe he wanted a flavourful tap dance to some smooth jazz. Would that tickle his fancy?

Fuck his stupid fucking feelings.

Kian was angry and depressed and relieved all at the same time. He felt everything and nothing at all in perfect synchronicity, the world and voices surrounding him melting together. Kian had tried being nice, he had tried being understanding. If Oates had just let him pretend he wasn’t hurt, if he didn’t immediately pour salt in his fresh wounds, Kian would have been perfectly content to crawl his way home and deal with his feelings himself. But the park was so public, there was nowhere to hide, no way to lie.

"Please don't say that. It's not like that. I'm going to be happy with him, Kian."

That was a lie. That was a blatant, wholehearted lie that Oates had been manipulated into believing. How could someone so good be happy with some abusive prick like Callum? What was beneficial about that relationship? Not a goddamn thing.

"And you'll find somebody who will love you like I used to. I know it."

The taste of blood inside Kian’s mouth caught his attention in time with Oates’ words, his tongue gliding across the ripped up interior of his cheek. He had bitten clean through it.

“No, I don’t want this shit. I don’t want this shit from you or anyone else. This? This isn’t love.” Kian growled under his breath, hands curling into fists at his side.

He wasn’t sure if Oates had heard his remark, nor did he care enough to verify. Those words were for no one other than himself. If opening up to other people led him to nothing but pain, there was no point in trying. What was the point in growing close to people, in giving your heart away completely to someone, in the presence of every green light and go signal ever when it was nothing but a lie?

"Of course it was real. I wouldn't have kissed you if I knew this would've happened. I don't want to see you in pain. I don't want you to be in pain. I'm still me, and I still care about you so so much."

Oates had stood up and approached Kian, his hand reaching out for Kian’s. The feeling of his fingers against the calloused skin of Kian’s palm caused the taller boy to instantly recoil, his hand flipping around to harshly hit away Oates’ touch. For the first time since he had stood up, Kian turned to face Oates. He had stopped crying though his eyes remained bloodshot and tired, edges of his face tight with the clench of his jaw.

“Let me get one thing straight with you,” Kian snarled, pure anger dripping from his voice. “I don’t give a fuck what you’re saying right now. If what happened with us was real, you wouldn’t be so quick to hop on the dick of some emotionally mani-”

"Dude, you really went all out, huh?"

Kian looked over Oates shoulder to…

Oh fucking perfect. Fucking Damien and the other Stooge.

"Who're you? I'm Slater. You're hot. You single?"

It had never occurred to Kian that he had kept these two parts of his life completely separate. Oates was gone from his life before Damien had entered it, the warmth and comfort of his relationship with Oates fading away into the cold grasp of drugs and a dancefloor by the side of Damien. Seeing the two together in the same spot in such a heated moment made Kian’s head spin to the point that he hadn’t realized Damien had continued talking.

"Kian, I thought you had a date today. How'd that go?"

Kian pushed past Oates, his eyes remaining fixed on Damien as he made his way over to the picnic blanket.

“No, Oates is far more concerned with getting with manipulative pricks to be single. But hey, you’re probably just his fucking type.” Kian growled, reaching down and grabbing Damien’s shirt. Hands wrapped in the fabric of his shirt Kian harshly jerked upwards, lifting Damien off the ground into a standing position. “Turns out my date got cancelled. This,” Kian spoke as he looked back to Oates, “is absolutely nothing to me.” Lifting his hand, he smacked the cube of cheese right out of Damien's hand as it was lifting to his mouth. "Stop eating my fucking cheese."

Shoving Damien slightly, Kian looked down to the basket and back to Oates, shrugging aggressively as he reached his hand up to pull open the buttons at the top of his shirt to give him some room to breathe.

“Do whatever the fuck you want with this. I don’t care.” Kian finished, turning off and walking right past Felix and Damien, hoping that one of their collective brain cells would be smart enough to follow him.

Kian walked in silence for a few minutes, his mind reeling with the onslaught of thoughts that refused to leave him alone. Fuck his stupid fucking feelings and stupid fucking Oates and stupid fucking everything. Nothing ever fucking went according to plan, no reward ever came for everything he did for people. Why bother anymore? Clearly Kian was the fucking problem, he had to be. There was no other reason that he was given the shit end of every stick time and time and time again. He knew he fucked up this time with his stupidly high expectations of the world, he knew he fucked up the first time with Oates by letting him go. Hell, he had even fucked up with Alex by using…

Drugs.

The blood in Kian’s veins ran ice cold, fingertips twitching by his side. Kian had said that he didn’t want to feel and that everything just needed to shut up for a while. One night of having a few drinks with friends wouldn’t ruin a year of sobriety, one joint wouldn’t bring his efforts to a screeching halt. No, he wasn’t going to go crazy and one night wouldn’t kill him. He would be fine. And hell, he fucking deserved the break. Reaching into his pocket, Kian pulled out his wallet and checked inside, his index and middle finger pulling out a few bills before holding them up and out to Felix.

“I don’t give a fuck what you give me but give me something.” Kian spoke plainly, every ounce of emotion gone from his voice. “Give me something to shut this shit up. Give me something to get all of this shit to stop. One night means nothing.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Ava Sanders
"Life is for keeping score."

@queenofhell has set their status to:
ugh

@queenofhell has interacted with:
Naomi

@queenofhell has mentioned:
Alex

@queenofhell has tagged:
Kitsune2202 ​

Speaking to Alex was kind of like speaking to a brick wall, although Ava was pretty sure that she could talk more sense into a brick wall with half the work. Or if not, well, it was a brick wall, so... she could just take a sledge hammer to it if it didn't listen. Unfortunately, she was fairly certain that hitting people with sledgehammers was illegal, even if it was for the express purpose of knocking some sense into them.

She listened as Alex spouted some more of her nonsense, and then she was walking out the door. Ava was glad, because her eyes were starting to hurt from all of the rolling around in her skull they were doing.

"'You don't get it,'" she mocked now that Alex was out of the apartment, her upper lip curling up into disgust. Her tone for Alex was the same as it was for anyone when she was mocking them -- high-pitched, snotty, and with a pinch of snob. Ava let out a snort, shaking her head, and mumbling a "stupid" under her breath as she headed back into her room -- preferably to go back to her scheduled gaming session.

Except now, she was worked up from the argument with that jackass over her last game, and over the argument with Alex, and the lack of focus was reflected in her gameplay. After the third round of her getting her ass basically handed to her, and having to listen to the mocking over her headset that quite honestly just made Ava want to hunt down whoever the fuck was on the other end and shove their headset down their throat until they choked to death, she angrily shut her game down and tossed her controller onto the bed and leaned back in her chair with an angry huff.

After a moment of staring mindlessly at the wall, Ava pushed herself up from her chair, grabbed her own jacket from her bed (and gave it a quick sniff), before slipping it over her shoulders and heading out of the apartment.

Fresh air was... supposed to do wonders for humans or some dumb shit like that. Maybe it would... calm her or something. Ava didn't really know -- the only times she'd gone out in high school were when her mother would give her five bucks and send her to get something from the grocery store (and a couple of occasions -- locked her out of the house), or when Jules had something for them to do. But both weren't by choice (usually) and she would drag her feet and groan and cry the entire fucking time. Look, Ava wasn't good at much other than videogames, but she was stellar at bitching.

Total surprise.

Although her thoughts were vacant and what she was doing could be labeled as mindless wandering, apparently her feet hadn't gotten the memo, because muscle memory took over and pretty soon, she found herself outside of a small bookstore that Ava frequented every now and again.

Because you know... when the videogames got boring, she tended to spend her time reading or writing.

Books did calm her, too...

... And horror books were literally the best thing to ever fucking exist.

So she pulled the door open and the little bell jingled overhead. Ava let the door fall shut behind her as she walked into the bookstore, her gaze moving across the various books on her way back towards her favorite section.

But then, her gaze caught on something that wasn't a book, but was all too familiar and felt ill-placed amongst the shelves, until she took another moment to remember duh, fellow book nerd. Perhaps the feeling of ill-placement was simply because well... how often did someone run into the very person that they had just spent part of the morning bitching about just a few hours after said bitching?

"Naomi," she greeted, her voice quiet because... well... bookstores kind of held the same air that libraries did. You know, the feeling that speaking too loudly might cause some kind of disruption amongst the silent shelves.

Her tone was cold, guarded -- but for Ava? That wasn't anything abnormal. It was her normal voice, really, but perhaps a touch more guarded. Ava hesitated before she stepped into the aisle and approached Naomi.

"What are you looking at?" She asked, eyes darting down to the book in Naomi's hands, and then back up to her face.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

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

@zeph.evermore has set their status to:
worry. much worry

@zeph.evermore has interacted with:
Lin

@zeph.evermore has mentioned:
N/A

@zeph.evermore has tagged:
ohdittoh ​

He'd been quietly standing, staring at various cleaning chemicals, and trying not to eavesdrop on the conversation happening on the other side of the shelving unit. For the most part, Zeph was... decent at keeping himself out of things that didn't necessarily concern him. Uhh... other than the Ronnie and Mike thing, but that was simply because he'd viewed Mike as a potential danger to Ronnie, and Zeph wasn't good at keeping his nose out of business where he thought someone he... kind of... cared about might potentially be in danger.

Yeah, he could be a little overprotective, especially with people that clearly couldn't take care of themselves.

Zeph did consider going around the aisle and getting involved, however, when he heard someone being slammed into the wobbly shelves and a container of toilet bowl cleaner fell onto the tiles and rolled until it bumped into his shoe.

Well.

He picked the cleaner up and set it back on its shelf before walking down towards the end of the aisle. Zeph hesitated, though, hanging near the edge. The last thing that Zeph wanted to do was intrude, of course, but also if there was going to be a fight, someone probably needed to break it up, but also... his head hurt as it tried to piece together whether or not he should just head down the aisle and see what was up, or remain here.

Thankfully, he was saved from having to make that decision by Lin walking out of the aisle and past him, his palms pressed over his eyes. Lin mumbled something that was mostly unintelligible, but he was pretty sure it was something along the lines of telling Zeph to tag along, so he did, falling into step behind his friend. His eyebrows were creased together in worry, but he didn't say anything.

Once they exited the store, Zeph sped up so that he could fall into step beside Lin instead of trailing after him. He waited until they were a good distance away from the store before he finally decided to speak up -- because clearly, his friend was hurting. And sure, Zeph might not have known Lin super well yet, but it hurt him to see Lin in so much pain. Look, if Zeph could, he would take all of his friends' pain and carry the burden by himself if it meant they wouldn't have to feel anything besides happiness. And yeah, a lot of people probably felt or said the same kind of thing without an ounce of truth behind their words, but, well...

Yeah, Zeph's was true.

"Hey, what happened back there?" He asked, the look of worry still evident in his eyes as he glanced back over his shoulder at the store and jutted a thumb back in its direction. SAid hand then relaxed, and he placed a gentle hand on Lin's shoulder. "You don't have to say if you don't want to, but uhh... I'm here -- to talk, if you need to. Whenever. About anything." Was he rambling?

Maybe a bit.

But Zeph knew what it was like to feel burdened by something and be under the impression that you couldn't share that burden with others. And sure, he couldn't take the pain from Lin and hold it all on his own, but you know what he could do?

Listen, and try to help share it.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[jasmyn]

Josephine Bennett

"Happy birthday to me!"

Saint's car

???

Saint

ohdittoh

If you ever took Josie for the unprepared or chaotic type then you'd be right. The girl had a habit of acting before her brain had a chance to catch up. It wasn't that she was stupid, Jo just lived in the moment, and in her mind life shouldn't require a bunch of over-planning. It just seemed useless to her.

Hence why she'd gone to the Halloween party with no money and now had to rely on her ex to drive her back home or why this whole rave thing had been a last-minute idea that came up on Twitter this morning that she now had to find glow in the dark paint for.

Walking up to the car, Josie reached out to grab the door handle only to be beaten to it by Saint. For a guy who could sometimes be an absolute asshole, he did have some gentlemanly tendencies. She climbed into the car and adjusting the seat, pulling her seat belt on and going through some of the messages, and replying to Lucky and Javi's separate texts.

“And I’m taking you…?”

His voice pulled her from her own little world that's she seemed to get lost in quite often. "My place is fine but uh, do you think we could stop somewhere first? I promised Liv I'd find some glow-in-the-dark body paint..." she asked, her eyes flickering over to him as she did. "It's for the rave," she added.

"So, this heifer? Is that what you're doing for the Arts Fest? What was the inspiration? Assuming you have a reason behind it," she said as she reached into the glove box. Just as he said there was a lighter and a blunt which she pulled out and wasted no time lighting. Taking a few hits, she held it out to Saint, ignoring the buzzing from her cellphone.

It wasn't that Jo was trying to give him her undivided attention because he deserved it or anything but she was actually just interested in his project. Saint was a lot of things and one of them was an amazing artist. She'd always been mesmerized by his work and hiding that fact was no use because she'd mentioned it time and time again in their brief months of dating.

In fact, the pair's first interaction had been about just that. Josie had taken an interest in one of his pieces that were being displayed at HA for something and it sparked a conversation that just happened to spiral into more with time.

Now, here they were months later and a bad break up in between and she was still just as intrigued by him. It was frustrating sometimes. One thing Jo wasn't good at was pretending not to care and being around her ex only made that more obvious.

Sure, she was still angry and hurt and she could express those feelings when she was on Twitter or impaired by drugs or alcohol. She could even manage to fake it as if none of it really mattered but not now. Something about being in this moment, in his presence and completely sober made it all go right out the window.

Josie had been cursed with an addictive personality so once she was hooked on something, it was hard to pull away no matter how toxic or damaging it was. Example one? Saint Taylor.

cake by the ocean

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 ​

When Trevor came back out of his room looking... about ten times worse than he had before, all she could really do was cover her mouth when one hand to try and muffle the giggling, but doing a terrible job of that. Mental note, she decided: do not ask Trevor to change when he already looked okay, because it was just... it could just get so much worse somehow. She was half expecting this whole thing to be some kind of joke -- you know, maybe he'd turn around and go put on clothes that actually fit and didn't make him look like, well, a middle-aged dad on vacation.

Unfortunately, that was nothing but a hope as he grabbed up his keys and headed for the front door.

Well, it wasn't like she should've expected much from the guy that had willingly shown up to the Homecoming game in a suit that was an absolutely hideous shade of green.

She stepped ahead of him into the hall, lingering for a moment while he locked the door, and then she fell into step with him as they started down the stairs. Her gaze was mostly focused on each step that she took, but she glanced towards him when he started talking.

“Ya know,” he said, “it’s been a good bit since I’ve gone anywhere besides tha gas station an’ tha grocery store an’ parties an’ football games an’ my roommates’ performances. I mean, if ya wanna take me ta one of those, I wouldn’t complain, though.” He said with a smiel. “I mean, I’ve had tha urge ta have a crispito this mornin’, anyway, so I wouldn’t complain even if we went to tha gas station. I was checkin’ tha Walmart coupons, too, so I wouldn’t complain about tha grocery store. No one’s havin’ a party that I know of, or a football game, an’ none of my roommates’re havin' performances, so I guess that those are out. But, ya know, those are tha same ol’ same ol’. Somethin’ different would be cool, too.”

She laughed, until she realized that he was dead serious about Walmart or the gas station. Like, eww, did people actually trust food from gas stations?

Regardless, any kind of food places were out of the question because, well, obviously she just wasn't hungry.

As they headed towards the van, she offered a quick "thanks" when he opened the door for her. She climbed in, pulling the door closed, her nose wrinkling up subconsciously at the assaulting smells. Instinctively, she pulled one of her legs up onto the seat, her arm looping around it, while she waited until Trevor started up the car so she could crack the window. Her hand then grabbed her phone out of her pocket, unlocking it to check for messages.

And, well, as a distraction.

“I’m assumin’ different, but it’s totally up ta you. I’m jus’ here ta be yer company.” He said, continuing the conversation from before.

Right, okay, make a decision, suggest things, that was... that was... all she had to do, which was totally not that big of a deal.

It was a huge deal. Her lips pursed together and she rested her cheek against her knee as she thought, still partially focused on her phone that was laying on her other leg, her finger mindlessly scrolling through the different notifications.

The only one that really caught her attention was that Cap was back home, and a smile cracked across her face. So, later, she would have to pick up some drinks from the store -- no biggie, she'd just do that after this date with Trevor. Because yeah, even if he'd suggested Walmart, there was no way that she was going to let their second date also be at the freaking grocery store.

"There's really nowhere and nothing that you want to do for your birthday?" Ash asked as she tore her gaze away from her phone and lifted her head away from her knee to look over at Trevor. She let out a small, frustrated huff, her eyebrows furrowing and her lips pursing together. Of course, she already knew the answer to that question, but she felt the need to reiterate her astonishment at this whenever she could. Plus making decisions kind of made her stomach hurt. "Like seriously, we could go like anywhere or do anything, and you want to leave it up to me or go to Walmart?"

She laughed, shaking her head and replacing her chin against her knee, and she went back to mindlessly scrolling through her phone while she continued to speak.

"I hate choosing," Ash mumbled, voicing her own distaste. "But Walmart is just, like... no. We are not doing two dates shopping. And no to the gas station because your crispy whatever just sounds gross and also, like, eww, gas station food. And they sound, like, fattening and my mom would probably kill me if I tried them so like... no." So there went his two suggestions.

... Look if he'd been dead serious about going to either, she would've, but she was pretty sure that they were just... dumb suggestions. Right? Right.

"Okay, so there's like..." she sighed and leaned her head back against the seat, her eyes falling shut while she thought. "There's like, okay, like... what places are there that, like, there probably wouldn't be anyone we know? Because like, if someone saw us together and it, like, got back to Charlie or whatever, she'd just be like... more suspicious than she already is. Especially after whatever happened last night."

This was why she shouldn't have to make decisions.

"I don't know. There's, like, the aquarium, the... zoo, I guess, uhh..." god, had she ever actually picked a place for a date? Her mouth felt dry, her lips still parted as if she was going to continue to speak, but nothing came out.

Well, shoot.

"There's probably not a lot of people at, like... the park? Or the beach? Or... I don't know."

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[Xed]

Avery hoped the small smile on his face hid his nervousness and uncertainty as he stood there listening to the two girls talk.

"yep!" The taller one in the blue overalls said with a kind smile and nod. He instinctively nodded back, hoping he was doing the right thing with that, he didn't want to mess up his first interaction at this school.

“Oui, I believe we are. The bottom fell right out of the bottom of this box.” The laugh that followed the other girl's words sounded like dancing bells, their chimes sounding with every twirl and step. It was a beautiful little tune.

“She was just helping me pick everything up. It is a touch embarrassing that this is how I am starting out but I really do appreciate the help.” So the shorter girl with the lovely laugh was the one who owned the items he was holding, and she seemed to be new as well, and friendly. He hoped they could be friends, the other girl as well of course. The last thing he wanted to do was make anyone feel left out.

"Oh, no need to be embarrassed," The taller girl giggled, The sound made him think of soap bubbles popping brightly in the air, bubbles like the ones in Cinderella.

"The latch to one of my suitcases broke first day, too, so I feel your pain. And my diary was in there. I was so lucky that no one was around, oh my gosh."

Was he supposed to chime in as well? Add to the conversation? But then what should he say? His mind raced through whatever memories he could pull of movies, books he read, notes he had taken, but the opportunity to speak passed as the taller girl spoke again and then the shorter one led them towards her room. Avery followed quietly, hoping he hadn't just messed up by not chiming in with a similar story or a few words of his own. He wished talking would come to him as easily as it did to the taller girl. The way the words just flowed from her lips like a waterfall and fit into the conversation, hopefully he would one day be able to talk like that soon. He found himself watching in admiration yet again as the shorter girl caught a runaway book with her shoe before it could hit the floor, all the while keeping the pile in her arms from tipping over. How did she do that? It was incredible. If he had tried it, given his clumsiness, everything would probably have ended up back in a heap on the floor along with him.

The shorter girl's room wasn't too far from his own, just across the hallway in fact. They were neighbors! The discovery made his little heart pulse in excitement as he followed them inside and the shorter girl moved about the room quickly and deftly, removing the piles he and the other girl had been holding and setting them down in different places in the room.

"Like a gazelle." He whispered in admiration, not realising the words had left his mouth. He hoped no one had caught that and that if they did, it wasn't rude.

"Thank you for all of your help, I am Bella Dupont, I start my program in the literature department this upcoming week." She had started to stare at him, head tilted to one side and he stared back. Was this correct? He was supposed to hold her gaze right? Or should he be looking away? As he thought hard about it, Bella suddenly snapped her fingers and laughed. Bella...wait! Wasn't that the name of one of the students he had spoken to briefly on twitter? It was! The French girl who did poetry! But then again...there could be more than one person named Bella who just joined the lit department...he could be mistaken and he really didn't want to accidentally offend anyone by mixing them up.

"Would you happen to be Avery? I believe that we spoke very briefly online. You are another new student, oui? It will be grand not to be the only new student in the department."

His smile warmed and brightened, so it was her! He hadn't been mistaken! "Yes," he replied, voice retaining its gentle lilt with an added, slight chirp to it, "I'm Avery Ohtani, it's really nice to meet you Bella. I hope we get along!" So far so good, he'd stuck the landing on the introduction, now he just needed to make sure he continued to do well and hopefully they could become friends.

"Oh, you're new, too? Dope, dope!" The taller, as yet unnamed girl chimed in. She was really friendly and nice, they both were, but the taller one in particular reminded him of a kangaroo. She just seemed to have this bouncy and bright energy about her, especially when she spoke, it was like one of those music beats that just lured you in.

"It's nice to meet you too!" He watched as the two girls then proceeded to address each other, 'Kelli-train' was that her name? Nickname? It was cool, he hadn't heard such a name before, perhaps he could give one of his characters a name like that too, like Oscar-car or John-train.

"Oh, no, no, don't thank me! It's the least that I could do. You just looked like you needed help. It's Kelli, I'm in dance, so if you ever need any help with that, I can help you!"

Kelli. So that was her name, which meant Kelli-train was a nickname, probably. He had always wanted to learn how to dance, perhaps she could teach him along with that other guy Eli, he could learn all about the dick flick and other moves. The thought made him smile as Kelli continued.

"You never know when you might need to break out into dance, and I can help you with your choreography. It's dope to meet you both! Super dope!" She smiled at him and he returned it. She was using the word dope and her hands quite a lot when she spoke, kinda like how he pictured his imaginary friends, Jumper with his constant hand talking and Rocky with his avid use of the word cool, only she was real and he wasn't imagining her every response.

"I've never learned how to dance before, can you teach me?"

"Thank you for your help bringing everything in, both of you. Now it is to unpack it all." As Bella turned to sort through the objects on her bed, Avery moved forward to help her unpack, picking up the items on the boxes by the foot of her bed.

"Where should I put these?" He asked, noting that she had an impressive collection of books as Kelli cheered behind him. It reminded him of the collection he had at home in the family's mini library where he had spent most of his time. Avery looked around the room, studying where she had placed the various items then shifted his gaze back to the small pile of items, trying to figure out which item went where. It was a lovely room, with this artsy and soft feel. She seemed to have a love for flowers, seeing how many floral patterns and decorations she had all over the room, it was almost like a garden.

"Do not feel like you have to stay and help out," Bella said sweetly, "I do believe I have it from here. You two have already helped out more than I could ever ask." His heart sank a little, he wanted to help though, and he was hoping they could talk more and maybe become friends.

"Oh, but you look like you kinda have a lot," Kelli said as she made her way towards Bella, "I'm not really always the most helpful person or anything, but I live just across the hall, and I've got some free time. Plus, organizing things and making them look all dope and stuff is fun to me. Would you like for me to help? It would really not be any trouble or anything."

"Oh um, I'd like to help too...is that ok?" He chimed in quickly, swallowing back the slight nervousness that had been building. "I've got free time as well."

Nearby, Kelli suddenly burst into excitement. "Oh my gosh I love that! That's so frickin' dope! Duuuude...that's so dope. That's frickin' dope,"

She really did like the word dope a lot. At home, he had just imagined such avid use of a word as a distinguishing trait of Rocky's so he wouldn't mix him up with his other imaginary friends and characters, but was it normal? Did everyone have some kind of special word that they called on often? If that was the case what would his word be? He wished he had his notebook on him at the moment so he could just note it down.

Her apology that followed her little peal of excitement stole his attention from the thoughts that had started to consume him. "Oh, sorry, I just thought that was dope...uh, yeah, do you need some help? Or, like...can I help you?"

Hadn't she already asked that question? Did she forget or something? Or was that just another one of her quirks or something normal? One of the books said that repeating questions was a sign of nervousness but another one had said it was a sign of irritation or forgetfulness, a lot of possibilities. It seemed like it could be nervousness, but he might be wrong. He had so many questions and he was just itching to ask them. Should he? Would it be rude? Pushing back the nerves, Avery took a small step closer to Kelli, one hand slowly scratching the back of his head.

"Um...you already asked that earlier..." he said quietly, "Are you nervous? And also um why do you keep saying dope? Is that your catchphrase or something?" He rubbed the fingers of his free hand together ever so slightly as the hand behind his head stopped moving, he better bring up the tea first before he forgot about it asking his questions. "I read in a book that tea helps to calm the nerves," as he continued to speak, his voice started to gain momentum and confidence as he dropped the hand he held behind his head, "there's some in my room just across the hall. Would you like a cup? Ah you can have a cup if you would like too Bella." He added hastily, hoping he hadn't accidentally upset her with his momentary exclusion.

Avery Ohtani

mood:
Friends? I hope I'm doing this right...

outfit:
White sweater and trousers

location:
Hollywood arts dorms

mentions:
Eli

interactions:
Bella and Kellian

tags:
geminiy ohdittoh

º º code by ditto º º