#I drew these in a furious stupor a few nights ago

[theflyingkipper]

self portraits

[lolainblue]

Phoenix -- Chapter 2

   “Well, well, well. Now look who's not over it.”

   I watched in disbelief as Shannon smirked and taunted Jane. He had been furious with me for sleeping with her but he had been heartbroken by her disappearance and utter refusal to speak to him or work anything out. I would have thought he would seize this opportunity to perhaps be able to reconnect with her and at least let some of the bad air between them clear. The only opportunity he seemed to be seizing, however, was some stupid attempt at getting the upper hand in this old battle.

   As I looked on Jane blanched in embarrassment and I could see Roger behind her, his jaw tight and his hand beginning to curl into a fist. I couldn't blame him. At the moment I wanted to punch that grin right off Shannon's face too. But something Jane had once said to me popped back into my head – how we were all stuck in some strange looping version of our lives, the same themes played out over and over, roles slightly adjusted as we repeated emotions and events in variation after variation of the same few themes. I remembered trying to keep Roger from punching Shannon the night Jane and Shannon had first hooked up. I remembered my own cocky attitude in the bookstore and Shannon's fury with me four years ago. I remembered Shannon being bewildered by how far Jane had left him behind, very much the way I was feeling about this entire situation now. What wasn't new was the pain in Jane's eyes, caused once again by Shannon. It was if no time had gone by at all. Maybe she was right to try to leave us all behind again. I had a feeling this reunion wasn't just unwelcome by Roger's standards.

   Jane took in Shannon's attitude, looked to Roger and then me, and then squared her shoulders and drew herself up. “Look's who still a disgusting piece of shit,” she spat back, the pain dissolving into fire.

   “Okay, so I guess this is a bad idea,” I interjected.

   “Dammit, I can't believe I ever let either one of you get to me. You couldn't just leave it alone, could you Jared?”

   “Hey, this isn't my fault! What the hell did I do?”

   “Don't yell at her,” Roger growled.

   “I wasn't yelling,” I replied through gritted teeth. “I am trying not to cause a scene where you are, as you pointed out, “working”. But if you want me to start yelling...”

   “Leave him alone,” Jane challenged, stepping in between Roger and myself like she was the one about to do the punching.

   “Why is everyone mad at me?” I demanded. “All I did was come to a party. What the fuck?”

   Shannon started laughing and the three of immediately turned on him. “Yeah, Jane's back all right. Everyone's yelling at each other while we try not to make a scene at a party. Tell me, Janey girl, what's on the agenda this time around? How are you going to fuck with my head now? If you're wanting to fuck the rest of the band you'd better get going, we seem to be running a little low on members at the moment.”

   Jane wheeled around so fast I could feel air rushing past me as her arm drew back. Just like that she had slapped Shannon across the face and seemed to be gearing up to do it again. Roger dove in and scooped her up, her fist beating against his chest as he lifted her into the air. She looked so tiny in his long arms. I often forgot how small she was, her presence was so big.

   I looked over at Shannon who was holding his hand to his face, his eyes wide. That smugness was gone as quickly as it had surfaced, confirming what I had thought to begin with – it was all bravado and bullshit. He was as shaken in seeing Jane here as she was by him. “Fucking apologize to her, Shannon. That was way out of line.”

   Shannon rubbed his jaw for a minute and watched Jane flailing as Roger tried to hold on. “Was it?" he asked, his mood shifting again. "Kind of like sleeping with my brother to get back at me?”

   Jane freed herself from Roger's grip and plopped back onto her feet with an unceremonious wobble. She dusted herself off and straightened her dress while she stared Shannon down. “I didn't sleep with Jared to get back at you. You've got a lot of nerve criticizing who I was sleeping with at all, after what you pulled.”

   “The fuck you didn't. I get you wanting to lie to me but at least be fucking honest with yourself.”

   Jane threw up her hands. “Why the hell do you keep turning up in my life? Why are you what fate keeps throwing at me every time things start going well?”

   “Yeah, things were going really well for you before. Just think, instead of standing  here in LA hating me you could be living in Australia with that gaslighting, abusive bag of dicks you were going to marry.”

   “Yes, I've really cornered the market on bad decisions. Tell me, oh wise guru, what should I do now?”

   Shannon grinned, his tongue planted firmly in his cheek as he gave Jane a dangerous look. “You could get on your knees and blow me. You were always good for that.”

   “Okay!” My voice was much louder than I wanted as I stepped between them before Jane gave Shannon another well-deserved slap. “This is getting us nowhere.”

   Jane was undeterred. “Yeah, that's me, the stupid slut that led you astray. It's all my fault,” she said sarcastically. “Jesus Christ, Shannon, when are you going to grow up and take some responsibility for your own fuck-ups?”

   “Look, we're going back out on tour In a couple weeks. We won't even be in LA much longer. It shouldn't be hard to keep the two of them apart,” I said to Roger. “Why don't I give you my number...”

   “Why, so you can blow him off when he calls too?” Jane demanded, her anger turning on me.

   “Jane, I'm not even sure why you're mad at me. I tried to be there for you as a friend, and when you asked me to back off I did. I don't understand why you two are so pissed at me.”

   “I said I needed some time, not … whatever in the fuck that phone call was.”

   I thought back on the last few interactions I'd had with Jane. Had I misunderstood something? Had she? I looked at Roger but he was no help, jaw still set in that hard line as he fought to contain his temper. I had hoped when I dragged everyone back here that if Shannon and Jane couldn't at least come to some sort of understanding perhaps the other three of us could resume our friendship. Even though we hadn't really spent much time together it had felt like we had all known each other for years. We'd packed a lot of history into those few months. I thought we really had connected. Now I didn't know. Something had definitely happened, however, because emotions didn't run this high over people you didn't give a shit about.

   “Jane...” I didn't know what to say or how to bridge this gap. ”I really don't understand. I guess I always thought that once you had worked through things we would talk again someday.” I turned to Roger. “Or you would call or …. something. Not this.”

   Jane knitted her brow and looked at me like she had never seen me before. “If you still wanted to be friends then why the hell did you tell me not to bother calling you again?”

   “I didn't...”I started to insist I had never said such a thing but then I remembered the last time Jane had called me. It had been a late night and I had had... company. The last email I had gotten from her had been strange, dismissive and nasty, so much so that I was taken by surprise when she had called. I was distracted then but now that I thought about it it probably came off as really rude. Still, I wasn't the one that had started that kiss off. “I don't..I didn't mean it like that. But come on, Jane. You're the one that said you weren't interested in a “man-whore like me” if I remember your phrasing correctly. That you knew I was only after one thing and that I needed to stop trying to "get with you". You know that email cut pretty deep.”

   “What? I never said anything like that!”

   “Yeah, you damn well did, Jane. I don't know if you got drunk and let your true feelings out or what the hell happened, but you said that and a few more things and honestly, it fucking hurt. I was just trying to be your friend.”

   “No, I didn't say anything like that. I would remember. And I was completely sober, I quit drinking. Quit everything. There's no way I did it in a stupor of any kind.” Jane's voice had started out angry but it softened and turned to puzzlement as she finished. We stood looking at each other for a few minutes while we tried to sort out why we had such differing memories of the events. She was sure what she had done. I was sure what I had read. It didn't make any sense at all until Shannon began to laugh.

   I think we all three turned our heads to him in unison. That cruel smirk was back, one I had never seen on him before. It was like I was witnessing some secret Shannon. I didn't like him. “What the fuck did you do?” I asked as realization started to set in. He didn't answer, just kept cackling like some sort of cut-rate movie villain. “Shannon, what the fuck did you do?”

   “Gave you both what  you deserve, that's what.” He shook his head as he looked back and forth between us. “You two getting all cozy the minute I was out of the picture. It made me fucking sick.”

   Shannon walked back up to Jane and got in her face again, venom dripping from his voice. “I'm the one that was an idiot. I'm the one that was tricked into believing you were something you weren't.  All I ever was was the consolation prize. You never stopped wanting Jared and the minute you thought you finally had his attention you couldn't get into his bed fast enough. You never gave a shit about me and you need to stop pretending like you did. It's obscene. It's sickening.”

   “You hacked my email,” I supplied as the pieces fell into place. “Well, probably not you, but you got someone to do it for you didn't you?”

   Shannon grinned, his face a mask of twisted pride. Roger had resumed his pre-fight stance and I would have thought things were going to come to blows for real this time but Jane spoke up next, her eyes full of tears and her lips trembling.

   “I loved you, Shannon. You were never a consolation prize. You were the one for me, the one I could never forget, the one that stole my heart when I wasn't even looking.”

   I remembered that night at the diner, after the incident in the treehouse, sitting across from Jane while she sobbed and spilled her guts. She had told me those very same things, and a lot more, things that had deeply bruised my ego at the time. I hadn't realized then how much I had fallen for her. It wasn't until I saw her again, until I stood by while she handed her heart over to Shannon and he disregarded it completely that I realized how deep my feelings for her went. It had hurt the first time to know that she had looked right past me and chosen Shannon. It was worse to watch her chose him again when he was treating her so badly. I wondered, if Shannon had shared with me what he had done, or what he had thought was truly going on between me and Jane,  if I would have told him about those confessions she had made all those years ago, or if I would have kept it to myself. I guess it didn't matter now. He had been wrong and he had hurt people because of it and this was going to be a long time blowing over.  “It wasn't like that, Shannon. She never lied to you. Not even a little.”

   Shannon shook his head in disbelief. “Bullshit,” was all he said but I could hear the doubt that had crept into his voice.

   “I loved you Shannon but you didn't care. I loved you Shannon, but you didn't believe me. I loved you, Shannon, but it wasn't enough for you. I loved you, Shannon, but you threw it all away.  You broke my heart. You broke me. After all that, I'm the one who got to decide how to glue myself back together. If you didn't like what I chose then maybe you shouldn't have put me in that position.”

   “How could you have loved me and slept with him?” Shannon demanded.

   Jane's tears turned into sobs, but if Shannon thought they were tears of guilt he was about to be corrected. Her voice was barely audible as she turned her face back up to his, and the heartbreak evident in it left no room for doubt about her feelings. “How could  you have loved me and slept with all of them?”

   Well, here it was. The confrontation that had been four years in coming. I don't think either of them felt any better for it. I looked at Roger who shrugged and then nodded. It was time to separate them. I handed Roger my phone. “I'm going to take him to the car and then go find Chloe. Would you leave me your info so I can call tomorrow and we can talk through the rest of this? I think we've all had enough for one night.”

@thepromiseofanend@msroxyblog@nikkitasevoli@llfd1977@mustlove6277@fyeahproudglambert @little-poptart@snewsome756@guccilowell @monicasanoli @lady-grinning-soul-k

[oblivionlotus]

drabble #3

They kept a few mementos in a shoebox - just little things taken from people whom had sparked a feeling of warmth in them, things like cufflinks and hairpins - but with travelling so much, they hadn’t a place to keep them. One might argue that they oughtn’t have kept such a box if that were the case, but Leto was sentimental and a slave to these things.

So, they had left the shoebox in a safe place. There was a loose floorboard in an old textile factory not far from the docks; they had stayed there once or twice and discovered the loose floorboard when they had tripped over it. It was the perfect place to enshrine such a small but important thing. No one would ever find it, for they had replaced the board so no one could trip over it.

A few months later and one of the people they had taken something from had passed away. Leto had watched with an ever-growing feeling of helplessness as this gentleman had finally succumbed to his long sickness, slipping away in the night while his nearest and dearest slumbered uneasily. Leto had sat by his bed all that night, starving, but unwilling to leave him. They had watched with haunted eyes every laboured breath as he slept fitfully; when he was gone, only then did they dare embrace him.

They wanted the box now, wanted to stroke the silken tie they had taken from him ages ago when he had been healthy and happy. They wanted to hold it against their damp cheek and feel whatever remained of him in the soft material.

They sensed the humans within before they saw them. Getting closer, they could smell them - sickness, filth, desperation - and then, closer still, they saw them. Three men, two of them middle-aged and one elderly, all homeless and huddling in blankets while a fire burned in the centre of the dusty room, fueled by forgotten business ledgers. There were a few others elsewhere in the building but they didn’t concern Leto.

Perhaps because they were desperate themselves or because they thought they would ignore them, they simply walked into the room, letting their steps be heard, and kept their eyes down as one hand played with a strand of hair. They had to try harder than usual to keep their auras out, but still they felt them brushing against their skin stubbornly.

One looked at Leto briefly and then returned his attention to the newspaper he was reading with squinting eyes. One ignored Leto completely, gazing at the fire in a drunken stupor. The last kept his eyes glued on Leto's sleek form, watching suspiciously.

With a sniffle, they crouched low and moved aside the loose floorboard near the window. They hadn’t forgotten its location at all. Silently, they went about brushing away the dust and webs and reaching down. Then they lifted the box out and stood, hugging it against their chest. They didn’t bother to replace the floorboard; the safe place was now compromised.

They turned and began to leave when the suspicious man called out, “Oi, what you got there?”

“Mine,” they answered flatly, stopping and looking at him over their shoulder.

The man was on his feet and stomping over, chuckling bitterly. “I don’t think so. WE were here first so it belongs to US. Now, you jus’ giz it over here, mate, c’mon.” He shoved his hand towards them with a piggish menace in his eyes.

He thought it was something valuable, something worth money if hocked at a pawnshop, so he became furious when Leto turned away blankly and ignored him.

“OI!” he shouted, reaching now to snatch their shoulder and force them to look at him. If he got them to face him, maybe he might frighten them into giving up the goods. He never got that far before Leto spun on their heels to him and an arm drew back with a merciless speed, the palm of their hand slamming into his throat in the blink of an eye.

A wet-sounding CRACK rang out as his head flopped backwards uselessly on the split neck, like a wilting flower. His body dropped heavily then and the other two men scattered with disbelieving exclamations into the shadows, like insects.

Leto gazed down at the corpse, its fingers twitching, and they felt her upper lip curling as saliva rose up in their mouth. They quickly turned away, shutting the door on the greediness that inspired them, and left peacefully with their treasure.