colintrumanarchive

[colintrumanarchive]

Colin puts the joint between his lips and takes the guitar though he has no intention of actually trying to play anything. Repositioning himself a little on the couch so his neck is propped further up, it's easy to position the instrument across his chest with his fingers wrapped around the neck in a way that feels almost natural, if ultimately it didn't feel so fucking foreign.

He remembers, from his days trying to learn guitar as a teenager, a single chord (C, he thinks), which he plays, thumb strumming gently across the strings, and its sounds just fine, but it's still not quite right.

It's not quite imposter syndrome, but it's something like it.

"You gonna go join a band?" he asks, one eye squinted against the smoke while he tries to pick out another chord he vaguely half-remembers. Plucking the joint out of his mouth again, he says, "Just don't make shitty pop music, I can't take it anymore."

Brendan proudly played the first few notes of the intro to Champagne Supernova. He had only been practicing it for the past few weeks, so by no means was it perfect. He stopped strumming and glared at Colin's suggestion of the new song. "Dude, can't you just be happy for me that I learned this one? I'd like to see you do it if you think it's so easy." Brendan pulled the guitar strap over his head and handed the instrument to Colin. "It can't be that hard, right?" he echoed.

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"You got a deal," Colin grins. "I gotta tell ya, I do miss doing IT sometimes like I did when I was in college, it was so fucking low-stakes, you know. People calling in ninety-nine percent of the time 'cause their computer won't turn on and it turns out their monitor was off." He sighs, shakes his head, and lifts a corner of the foil off the plate the cook had given to him, delighted to find pasta underneath.

Looking up again at her mention of the website, he folds the foil back down and says, "Nah, I love hearing that you're happy with it. You know I'm no fucking artist," he laughs, "but I always think simple is better anyhow for business websites. It was actually my buddy Victor back in San Fran who did those little food sketches that're at the bottom by the copyright, I wish I could do that kinda shit. I'm so fucking tragically left-brained it's stupid."

the perks of having hired help on an evening in the kitchens and on the floor of the sugar clove were more than just entrusting people she'd trained herself to follow her recipes to the last letter and bonding with them in a way only trusted chefs could. it was knowing she could tend to the other side of business that she didn't like, review the numbers for the month and make decisions based on the highs, and the lows. it also meant that when she'd first text aiden and got met with a blunt and very much near dismissal, she could hide away in her office and pretend it didn't matter, nor did it need to.

of course, it did, in an way that overwhelmed enough that by the time colin makes his usual appearance, she's bolting up right in her seat, closing her laptop with soft laughter and a considerate shrug of her shoulders. her attention could be fixed here now. on a friend that wanted to be, not the one that didn't.

"well, if you keep helping me with my small jobs, i'll definitely write you into mine," she murmurs, patting the top of her laptop. "the summer layout for the site looks really, really nice. thank you... i know i say it a lot, but i mean it."

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Rumour has it you have a mommy kink

"For some reason that doesn't surprise me."

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rumor has it you have a crush

"Crush is a weird word when you're in your late twenties," Colin says, half-laughing. "But no, I'm not really focused on anyone right now. Wouldn't mind getting a little mentally ill over someone, though. Been a while."

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rumour has it you use apple music

"That's such a fucked up thing to say about someone unprompted."

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FAIRFORD MEME #2 — RUMOR HAS IT...

Everyone loves to keep up to date on all the latest gossip and drama that goes on around this town...whether you want to admit it or not. Now is your chance to anonymously (or not) send everyone the juiciest rumors you've heard about their muses.

Rumor has it...

REBLOG THIS POST to participate. Like anything else, common courtesy applies — make sure you're sending asks out to others that are taking part! We all want to have notifications next to our inboxes. Have fun 🤍

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Colin lets out a soft laugh and runs his fingers through his hair, an automatic reaction rather than an attempt to straighten it, seeing as it had been messy anyway. She's not really like anybody else he's ever slept with, especially with this consistency, and he wonders for a second as he watches her go back to the bed what makes him keep coming back.

Hitting the joint one last time and then stubbing it out, he follows some fleeting whim to go back over with her to the bed, and on another whim tilts her chin up and kisses her before falling back onto the mattress and stretching out.

Not bothering to clue her in on his thought process, he says, "You ever read Oedipus Rex? Everyone knows, like, Oedipus complex, but have you ever read the play?"

She could tell that he wasn't expecting her affection, though it was the kind of thing that came natural to her. It was one of her love languages and paired well with her overall flirtatious demeanor. Phoebe's eyes flash to the computer screen, following the joint as the pointer. "So it's a space game with a porn feature, got it," she says with a nod. She hung onto his every word as he spoke. Mainly because it was clear to see that he had a passion for this kind of thing, especially with this being something done in his spare time. As closely as she tried to follow along with what he was saying, it mostly goes right over her head. So instead, she smiles and nods and pretends to understand exactly what he's talking about.

Phoebe grabs for the joint in the ashtray before inhaling a long hit. She exhales a cloud of smoke around the both of them, grinning right back at Colin as she passes the joint back to him. "Don't be sorry. I don't mind watching you work." Even though she has no idea what he's typing away at on his keyboard half the time, there was a relaxing feeling that washed over her when she observed him. "You're kinda cute when you're super focused," she teases as she tousles his hair before she returns to her spot on the edge of the bed.

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"Oh, you're kidding," Colin says, taking her phone from her and pinching the screen to zoom in on Tyson's face. He has to take the joint out of his mouth when he bursts into laughter. "Fuck, yeah, obviously this is a winner. AirDrop it to the laptop and I'll play Whitney for you all night."

When she does and he makes it the desktop background, he tilts his head, admiring his work, and then pulls up Spotify and makes the obvious choice. As the iconic intro to I Wanna Dance with Somebody starts playing, the party responds with a favorable swelling of noise.

"Good taste, man," he says. "I never get sick of Whitney. Can you imagine the shit she'd be doing these days? Fucking waste."

"Oh, hold on, hold on, I have something perfect," Deanie answers, holding up one hand to pause him while the other rifles down in the little satchel of her costume for her phone.

"Having his fourth grade class picture surely gets me more than just one song, doesn't it?" she questions as she extracts the device, tapping through the files of pictures that she has before she displays the photo of almost middle school Tyson to Colin.

"This at least has to earn me two of Whitney Houston's greatest hits."

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Colin stares at her, genuinely flabbergasted. Ignoring what she says about avoiding messes and measuring love in bouquet sizes, he says, "Dude," with a small, shocked laugh. "I was completely joking, and the Beatles song is about how money can't buy you love. You've never...?" He presses his lips together and shakes his head, deciding not to question it any further. "I've always thought flowers was kind of an annoying gift anyway, you gotta trim em and put em in a vase and everything."

Ava rolls her eyes and scoffs, "Oh please, Colin. Money doesn't buy love, and Beatles songs don't dictate our floral choices. And Maya prefers smaller bouquets at our house to avoid the mess. It's about personal preference, not the size of the price tag. Besides, our love doesn't need to be measured in the dimensions of a bouquet."

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Colin lifts his eyebrows and hands the joint over, waiting for a response he doesn't get.

"Alright," he says after she hits it, "what's the verdict, what're we doin?"

Somehow, Asha had ended up next to the speakers and the DJ set up and it wasn't at all where she wanted to be. She already knew, it was going to be way too loud and she didn't want to leave the party with ringing in her ears and a massive headache. However, the proposition, gave her pause and she smirked. "Bet," she leaned in now, looking at the laptop as her mind ran a mile a minute with ideas. "Let me hit that," she said, holding her hand out for the joint.

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"Dude, you're so fucked in the head," Colin laughs, but he nevertheless changes the background and decides, after tilting his head and looking at it for a second, that it's actually perfect.

To say the moment is ruined by the suggestion would be hyperbolic but also not strictly untrue, and it's not that he doesn't think it's fucking cool as hell that they're actually doing something with their band, because he does and he thinks they deserve it, too. But does he typically choose to listen to their music on his own? Not so much.

"Yeah, alright, alright," he says, muffled around the joint, queuing up several of their songs to play for the next half hour only because it's Thadd's birthday and Mack had organized the thing. "Hey, when you guys gonna change that stupid fucking band name?"

"Turn airdrop on." Mack instructed, indicating to Tyson's MacBook Air that was currently being commandeered by Colin. That was the risk one took leaving their devices out at a party -- even if he had specifically requested that he did so.

He airdropped him his suggestion, pointing to the Spotify app logo on the screen with his costume sword.

"Asteroid Cows next."

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"Cleary I'm not in the right subreddits," Colin muses, taking the joint back and grinning. "No shit, you don't like costumes? Huge shocker." Not that he himself is necessarily the first person in the world to get hyped up about a costume party, but he's also been known to get creative with actual Halloween costumes when he's got somewhere good enough to wear it, so.

"I'm a magic eight ball, dumbass," Colin rolls his eyes. "Shake me and I'll tell you your future."

"Yeah, yiff." Aiden tosses back half of his liquor-with-a-touch-of-soda and continues to look on to see Colin's choice. Hmm, mild, but he figures he much prefers seeing that versus something filthier over Colin's shoulder. "I have access to the internet. It's not hard to know these things." He waves he free hand up, with a twirl, up and away to nowhere in particular. "The world of Reddit — expands your horizons in ways you wish you never knew."

Aiden lights up visibly at the joint passed his way. All aboard the cross-fade train. Thank goodness he only just lives down the hall. "Well," Aiden takes a drag of the joint, speaking through it as he holds it in. "I don't do costumes. But I like Thadd. So…" he passes the joint back to Collin.

"Went in my closet and put my clothes on backwards, called myself backwards Dave. Didn't really aim for senile grandpa that can't dress himself - that would be mean." Which Aiden is mean, but he also has standards. "What even are you? Sound pretty judgy for being — this."

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He keeps going back and forth thinking it's literally insane that Max had come to this thing in a fucking inflatable dinosaur costume and finding the whole thing amusing in an existential horror kind of way. The kiss on his head lends itself to a surreal combination of both.

At her suggestion, he shakes his head in surprise and looks off like he's staring into a camera, then says, "I couldn't have thought of something better myself, let's do it." Standing, he gestures ahead of himself in the direction of Tyson's bedroom. "This'll be sort of an enter-at-your-own-risk adventure, we could find literally anything in there right now."

leaning over his shoulder, or, as best as she could in her chose costume for the evening, max watches the mastermind work his way into the laptop like it's nothing with a rather impressed grin on her face. "ah, genius," she says proudly, kissing colin on the temple, careful not to knock him too much with the dinosaur attire.

"hmm... let me pose on his bed wit' this an' set it as that. ass up, 'cause that's the best part of this thing," she grins.

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"Yeah, not that I don't fuck with Buckley but I wouldn't call it party music," Colin agrees, changing it to an LCD Soundsystem track that, paired with the costumes in the middle of June, makes it feel like the set of a surreal '90s movie. "They're not falling asleep though, believe me. There's enough coke in this apartment right now to kill Ozzy, don't know if you noticed."

Grey wasn't a real party animal, especially now when he was getting older. But he decided to show up here anyway. He smiled at the comment from the guy next to him.

"I would go for something more.. moving? happier? The choice is all yours, but according to this, people will start to fall asleep."

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Colin snorts. Nobody's got a more refreshing I-don't-give-a-fucking-shit attitude than fucking Aiden.

"Yiff, huh?" he laughs, shaking his head. "Don't wanna know why you know that but Furry porn it is." Typing it into Google, and doubly glad that that search'll be on his history now, Colin finds a highly disturbing drawing of a cartoon tiger with gigantic fake tits in a bikini and sets it as Tyson's new desktop background. "Very nice," he says, taking another hit of the joint and then handing it to Aiden and giving him a once-over. "So what are you supposed to be, guy who doesn't know how to dress himself? Kind of my grandpa core, he puts his shirts on backwards every other day." Not that he himself had put even that much effort into it with a black shirt and a large '8' hung around his neck.

Aiden hasn't paid attention to much beyond the liquor being passed around, and how much fun everyone had been having. Another successful Thaddeus and Tallulah costume-themed party. He is busy sipping at the Jack and coke mixed from earlier - more Jack than coke, courtesy of Milo… that fucker… - when Colin's voice next to him interrupts the pleasant lull.

"Don't give a fuck what song you play, but maybe…" chewing on his bottom lip in thought Aiden leans in to look at the screen with furrowed brows. "Furry porn. Or yiff. That's what they call it."

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Colin laughs, leaning back onto the counter with his elbows. "Me being the expert," he says, "I'm telling you size does matter. I mean, come on -- the bigger the bouquet, the bigger the money behind it, the bigger the love behind it. Simple math. Everyone knows money buys love, there's a whole Beatles song about it."

Ava smirked and replied, "Guess we'll never know the mysteries of the medium-sized bouquet, Colin. But hey, as long as Maya loves it, that's all that matters." Maybe the folks behind the counter have a secret vendetta against large bouquets. Or maybe they just didn't want to overpower the entire market with their flower power."

She leaned in, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "But fear not, my friend. My fiancé will still be thrilled with this medium-sized masterpiece. After all, it's not the size that matters, it's the thought and love behind it. But I'm sure you already knew that, being the expert on bouquet sizes and all."

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location: thadd and tallulah's birthday party for: @fairfordstarters

Buzzed from two shots and a joint hanging from his mouth, it'd taken Colin about five minutes to hack his way into the laptop hooked up to the sound system -- Tyson's, which makes it funnier -- and he says to the person next to him, "Help me decide what to change this motherfucker's background to and I'll put on whatever song you want."